Jesper didn't like people in his room. Kaz was the exception because Kaz made himself the exception. Luckily, his boss left him mostly to his own devices and the random intrusions were kept to a minimum. But Kaz also didn't knock; he came and went as he damn well pleased.
Someone was knocking at his door as he kicked off his boots from a night that could have easily gone much worse. He just wanted to sleep and whoever was knocking was being awfully persistent.
He rose to his feet, expecting stubborn Inej not Wylan with darkened eyes and pajamas on.
"Wylan--"
"I can't sleep," he admitted quickly. "Not since we've been back."
"It's been a week. You haven't slept for a week?" Jesper asked, looking out into the halls. They were mostly deserted.
"An hour here or there but they've just been nightmares." Wylan looked at his feet. "Can I sleep in here? It's stupid, I know, but I got used to sleeping around other people while we were away and--"
Jesper lowered his voice. Someone was always listening in the Dregs' building. "There's only one bed."
Wylan looked back over his shoulder, as if he was prepared to go but Jesper caught his wrist, pulling him inside.
Some kind-hearted soul must have assumed they'd be home hours ago because there was an echo of a fire in the fireplace, now just reduced to embers and coals. They were supposed to be home hours ago, but Kaz miscalculated how long it would take them to outrun the victims of their most recent heist. Wylan had stayed home, and Kaz had blamed it on a mild cold going around the city, but it was clear to Jesper that Wylan's real ailment was exhaustion.
"Does Kaz know?" Jesper asked, tugging his suspenders off his shoulders.
"Know what?" Wylan asked, looking around Jesper's room, which looked more like an arsenal than a home.
"That you haven't been sleeping," Jesper said as he pulled his shirt off over his head. It was splattered with blood but he'd get one of the resident orphans to scrub it off.
"He found out," Wylan muttered. "I think Inej heard me. . ." Wylan had turned around and couldn't be bothered to cover up his stares, ". . . uh, scream." Wylan turned back around but Jesper made no effort to put a clean shirt on. Flustered Wylan was entertaining to watch.
"What are the nightmares about?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Wylan sighed. Jesper tossed a few logs into the fire, so it'd burn until the morning, when Ketterdam seemed to be at it's coldest.
Jesper crossed in front of Wylan to get to his dresser, pulling out a pair of plain loose pants. Wylan continued watching Jesper's arsenal as he changed.
"Okay, you can stop admiring my knives now," Jesper said, sitting cross-legged on his bed. Wylan turned around, glaring at him.
"Are you going straight to sleep?"
"I'm still high on adrenaline. I'll be up for awhile." Jesper reached for the book on his nightstand, placed precariously near a candle at the end of it's wick.
"You read."
"I was going to school, remember?" Jesper said. Wylan sat at the foot of the bed, as far as he could get from Jesper.
"What are you reading?"
"The works of a Ravkan author on Grisha theory. It's interesting enough--"
"You're trying to learn aren't you?" Wylan asked. "Your Grisha powers. You're trying to harness them."
"There's no point in them being useless," Jesper said, sitting back against the headboard. "If I could help Kaz a little more, I--"
