Wylan had stopped listening to Jesper's rambling some time around his third attempt of explaining why he thinks he would be able to run the crow club better than Kaz himself. Throughout the past month or so, Wylan had begrudgingly learned that Jesper appeared to be the type of person who just needed to announce every single thought he had in his head.

Wylan questioned how he was able to voice so much all the time. If he attempted it himself, he'd throw up.

He had busied himself with his work, fiddling with a different chemical he thought might work better for the next flash bombs Kaz would inevitably ask for. Of course he wouldn't be able to test them until later, when he was out of the workshop, or at least not until after Jesper left.

Wylan didn't notice the silence immediately — well, the workshop was never truly silent. There was the faint ticking of the clock, the occasional hiss of the lantern, the scrape of metal beneath his fingers. It was only when he reached for the next piece that he realised Jesper hadn't said anything in a while. He glanced up. Jesper was sleeping.

What? Wylan forced himself to look away, back at his fingers loosely paused over the parts in front of him, and then back towards Jesper. Nope, not a trick or a hallucination from the chemicals catching up to him. Sleeping. Jesper. Workshop. Help.

Wylan didn't have a plan for this type of thing, and he sure didn't recall Kaz ever mentioning a protocol covering it either.

Staring at Jesper apparently wouldn't will him to wake up, but it didn't stop Wylan. Of all the places Jesper could have fallen asleep, he'd chosen the one place Wylan actually intended to use himself. The irritation arrived before anything else. Where was he supposed to sleep now? The bed was technically available, but only in the same sense that the harbour docks were technically available for swimming. Wylan hadn't seen the mattress properly in weeks. Boxes occupied one side, three half-disassembled mechanisms the other, and somewhere beneath a pile of notes he'd been meaning to sort through was a collection of tools he was fairly certain he'd need eventually. The couch, meanwhile, was his. Usually. Usually he didn't have nighttime company.

Ghezen, help him. For someone who had previously been so adamant about Wylan falling asleep at his workbench, Jesper had seemingly fallen asleep in the better option rather comfortably.

Wylan considered waking him, it would be beyond reasonable. Jesper had no business falling asleep in his workshop, on his couch, at whatever ridiculous hour it was. Not only was it selfish, it was foolish. Practically leaving himself under Wylan's supervision —who objectively wasn't the best at supporting himself in the first place— and in the least safe, comforting area of the Slat. Maybe he could test out his new flash bombs after all.

Wylan opened his mouth, Jesper shifted in his sleep, Wylan closed it again. What a prick. He hadn't moved since Wylan had started watching him. When had that been—

Thinking back, Wylan couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Jesper this still. Or even if he had at all. Even when Jesper wasn't talking, there was always something. Ring adorned fingers tapping against the table. A heel bouncing against the floor. A gun being spun lazily between his fingers. Some small movement that made it seem as though being completely still was physically impossible for him. Now there was nothing. In a way it was strange, but not exactly unpleasant. Just strange.

Wylan shivered slightly, maybe at the thought of not finding Jesper unpleasant. Maybe the chill in the poorly insulated room. He was rather cold.

Oh, wait. He was cold, Wylan frowned. Of course he was cold. The workshop wasn't exactly warm at night — Wylan wasn't foolish enough to have to owe Kaz for burning resources overnight — and Jesper, always favouring fashion over practicality, had apparently decided thin layers were adequate protection against Ketterdam weather. Idiot. Wylan glanced towards Jesper. Then to his couch. His problem, apparently.

Not good; maybe he should check with Kaz if there were any rules for this situation. Hopefully he wouldn't get the chance to, this should be a one-time thing.

Okay, right. Cold. Wylan could deal with this! He knew how temperatures worked. Let's just warm up the unfortunate company brought upon him. Cold, that was all. It had nothing to do with anything else! Jesper was simply going to wake up freezing otherwise, and Wylan wasn't going to spend the morning listening to him complain about it. This whole ordeal is entirely practical.

With a hardly stifled groan, which may have given away how happy he was over this turn of events, Wylan pushed away from his workbench. What was he mean to try and cover Jesper with? Jesper had used his coat on Wylan before, but Wylan had more self respect than that. Suppose normal people used blankets. He knew he had a few lying around. Perfect. Simple and easy.

Wylan spent at least five minutes looking around his space for a decent blanket. There were a handful littered around, but none of them were quite suitable. One had oil on it, another smelled terribly like smoke. One he had used to clean up chemicals he'd rather not imagine coming into contact with skin.

Eventually, after seeming lost in his own sparse belongings, he found one that might work. He held it up from outstretched hands, scanning over it to make sure he hadn't missed any surprises. He stared long enough that if Jesper woke up he'd have thought Wylan was trying to burn a hole through it. Not a bad idea, then it wouldn't be usable.

This was absurd, and unfortunately he was apparently absurd too.

Still, the blanket was clean and that was all that mattered in this.

Wylan crossed over the floor with the blanket held carefully between both hands, as though approaching a particularly unstable mechanism. Jesper didn't stir when he reached the couch. Up close, he looked even more unfamiliar like this. His head had fallen slightly to one side, stray dark curls pushed messily across his forehead, one hand resting loosely against his stomach.

Wylan hesitated.He could still turn around. He could simply leave him there. Jesper was grown himself, perfectly capable of realising he was cold and waking himself up. If he woke later in a chill — on top of the terrible ache in his neck — and complained about it, that was hardly Wylan's responsibility.

Wylan looked at him for another second before sighing quietly and shaking the blanket out again. Holding his breath, and telling himself that throwing it at him would do no good, Wylan draped it over Jesper cautiously. It covered him rather well, he supposed. Better than it simply landing in a useless heap across his lap. As Wylan shifted the blanket slightly up Jesper's shoulders more, his fingers brushed the edge of his coat before he immediately pulled his hand back.

There, problem solved. Wylan straightened, staring down at him as though he was waiting for some sort of evidence that he'd made the wrong decision. Fortunately — eh, maybe a bit too positive yet — nothing happened, Jesper continued sleeping peacefully. Wylan looked away again, eyes flicking around each corner of the room as if someone had watched him do that.

He had done nothing unusual. People covered other people when they were cold, it was basic decency. Probably. He had no idea. Perhaps normal people simply let their… companions freeze to death on workshop couches. He'd never really known people well enough to establish the appropriate response for this.

Wylan looked down at Jesper again, in response his stomach did something distinctly unpleasant. He turned away. Absolutely not. He returned to his workbench with considerably more purpose than necessary — especially given how little he had been tasked to do. He stared at it for several seconds before realising he couldn't remember what he'd been doing.

Wylan frowned. Right, flash bombs, fuses, bombs, chemicals. Everything he really wasn't in the mood to deal with right now. Weird. Sure he didn't find much pleasure doing this anyway, but usually he got himself sucked into the routine of it quick enough. Now? It's like someone threw a spanner in the works. Or at his works.

He picked up the screwdriver eventually. Not that it really mattered right now, but at least he could hold something and pretend his ability to function wasn't completely thrown askew right now. It felt unfamiliar in his hand. Worryingly enough, it took Wylan several seconds at staring at a screwdriver before he realised he was holding it upside down.

"Brilliant," he muttered, correcting it and looking back at the mess in front of him again.

Across the room, Jesper remained quiet. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but that was Wylan's problem. He had become accustomed to the noise: the endless commentary, the terrible jokes, the objectively bad one-liners because Jesper could never not get the last word, the questions that somehow multiplied every time Wylan answered one. Jesper filled the workshop so completely that Wylan had stopped noticing how much space his voice took up.

Now there was only the faint ticking of the clock. A sound that had drilled itself deep into Wylan's head throughout past months of working with Kaz, but now felt unfamiliar.

Wylan tried to concentrate; he managed perhaps thirty seconds before his eyes drifted towards the cough again. Jesper hadn't moved.

There was something strangely peaceful about him like this. Without the grin, or the restless hands. Without the constant need to turn every thought into a joke before anyone could take it seriously.

Wylan wondered, very briefly, what Jesper looked like when nobody was around to watch him.

The thought made him uncomfortable and he forced himself to look around at his work again. That was a question which he had no business asking.

A few minutes passed. The familiar rhythm gradually returned to Wylan's hands, even though it felt less synchronised than he had grown accustomed to working with. Metal against metal. The soft scrape of the file. The occasional click as something fitted neatly into place.

Eventually, he stopped noticing the quiet. Or perhaps he simply stopped minding it.

The clock continued ticking above the shelves, each movement of the second hand precise and irritatingly loud in the stillness. Wylan worked beneath the lantern light, occasionally glancing towards the couch without meaning to. Each time, Jesper was exactly as he'd been before. Still asleep. Still wrapped in the blanket Wylan absolutely had not spent several minutes searching for.

It still felt strange. Jesper was never still.

Even when he was sitting, he moved. Fingers drummed against tables. Boots tapped against the floor. Rings clicked together when he folded his hands. He fidgeted with whatever happened to be closest, as though silence might catch him if he remained in one place for too long. Wylan had grown ashamedly used to it. The impatient tapping when Jesper was bored. The restless shifting when he had to leave but didn't want to admit it. The lazy spinning of a gun when he was thinking.

Now there was none of it. Jesper's hands lay completely still against the blanket, his fingers relaxed instead of curled around something. His face had lost that habitual expression of amusement that seemed almost permanently attached to him.

Wylan stared for a moment longer than he should have. He looked younger like this.

That thought arrived so unexpectedly that Wylan immediately rejected it. Ridiculous. Jesper was only asleep; people looked different when they were asleep, that was all.

Wylan turned back to his work, but the thought lingered anyway.

He'd spent enough time around Jesper by now to know that the grin wasn't simply a grin. It appeared whenever something became uncomfortable. Whenever someone asked a question Jesper didn't want to answer. Whenever a conversation came too close to something real.

Wylan knew because he did something similar. Not with a grin, obviously, isn't really his style. He tended to become quieter; smaller. He buried himself in whatever happened to be in front of him until nobody could ask him anything.

Jesper simply did the opposite, filling every available space. Whether it be physically taking up the workshop, or rambling on in conversations, even just timed noises in the silence.

Maybe that was why Wylan had noticed the difference so quickly. There was no performance now. Not a clever remark waiting behind his teeth, no exaggerated expression filled with careless charm. Just Jesper.

Wylan immediately decided he preferred the version that talked too much, at least that one was easier to understand and didn't leave him with questions that strayed past stranger level connection.

A few minutes passed before Jesper stirred slightly. Wylan froze on instant.

Jesper shifted beneath the blanket, brow furrowing slightly as he turned his head against the back of the couch, but his eyes remained closed. Wylan waited. Nothing, he slowly exhaled.

Then Jesper mumbled something incomprehensible.

Wylan huffed quietly in an undeniable annoyance. "What?", he frowned.

There was no answer, but Jesper's mouth moved again. The words seemingly too quiet for him to make out. Wylan squinted at him in confusion. "Jesper?"

A pause. "…pastries."

Wylan blinked. Of course; even unconscious, apparently, Jesper was thinking about food.

"You can't be serious."

No response, although Wylan hadn't really been expecting one from him. He shook his head, turning back towards the bench.

A few seconds later, he heard Jesper breathe out slowly and settle deeper beneath the blanket. Wylan looked over towards him and seen that the blanket had slipped slightly from one shoulder. He stared at it — no, absolutely not. He'd already done enough — and then he stood up abruptly.

He crossed the workshop with a little more certainty this time and tugged the blanket back into place with far more irritation than the situation warranted.

"There," he muttered. "Now you can stop being an issue."

Jesper remained asleep. Wylan stared at him.

"You're welcome."

Silence.

"…You're impossible."

Still nothing.

Wylan returned to his workbench, though the corner of his mouth had betrayed him before he could stop it. He immediately frowned at the scale in front of him as if it was the one weighing out his suffering.