“If you want attention, ask for it.”

His voice slid out like sweet venom, still not looking away from the book.

You crossed your arms, watching him turn the next page. But you hadn’t given up, discreetly peeking over his shoulder, studying the tangle of words, tiny letters surrounded by footnotes, complex Latin terms, and explanations about specific events and historical figures from the fifteenth century. Right. So he was reading a book about the final moments of the Middle Ages, judging by the hurried notations on the dense cultural and political transformations that paved the way to the Renaissance. At the top of the page, a scribbled French phrase, underlined: “Ceci tuera cela.” You didn’t understand what it meant; it reached your eyes as something hollow, empty. But to Jester, immersed in Parisian plots and landscapes, that phrase meant everything. A sad, frightened lament of a contemporary watching the ruin of all structures, all values that once sustained life. A transitional movement from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge, via schoolbooks, pamphlets scattered through the streets, travelers venturing into unknown routes across the globe, poems on paper: ideas that came to destroy everything. After all, it was known: the book would topple the cathedral. Paper would finally destroy stone.

Feeling your breath close to his neck, Jester raised one eyebrow, turning slowly toward you. His eyes shone like two purple sapphires staring into your face, heavy-lidded, lips almost smiling.

“You don’t know what it means, do you?” he asked, a slow line of laughter curling at his mouth as he tilted his head. “But you read it anyway. Curious, as always.”

Before you could retort, he continued, his tone proud and intrigued:

“It’s about an archdeacon. A man of faith,” he began, returning his gaze to the book. “A man who hates what he desires. And a poor monstrous bell-ringer, who loves what he can never touch, and desires what despises him.”

The lamp crackled. Your chest tightened as you moved to sit beside the armchair.

“Here.”

He beckoned you with an impatient gesture. Two dry, quick taps on the armrest.

You stood and sat on the arm of the chair, close enough to smell his characteristic scent that dominated your senses by now: smoke, ink, something citrusy and nearly indescribable. Jester turned the page carefully, as if savoring each fraction of a second in which your attention fell on him.

“This part here is quite interesting. It’s the scene where the little gypsy follows the captain of the guard to a brothel. A young, naive girl, wandering alone through those grey-skied streets.”

He gave you a sideways smile, one of his legs brushing against yours suggestively, dangling beyond the edge of the seat.

“Human foolishness. She actually thought she had some kind of effect on him.”

You nodded lightly. Jester seemed so inspired, so intent on understanding the themes of the stories he consumed, wanting to absorb all central and secondary aspects of the narratives he read. He seemed to delight in outlining the profiles of the characters, making critical remarks, jotting down brief reflections, sharpening his sensitivity to the most common human behavioral patterns expressed in words. Always the smartest, always meticulous.

There was something disturbingly beautiful about him when he did that. The way his eyes narrowed with calculation, how his fingers traced the page edges with reverent care, how his lips curved in quiet satisfaction whenever he caught some detail or metaphor that others would never notice. His focus had a brilliance of its own, like a sharp, predatory stillness that glimmered like light on polished metal.

A habit, yes — but in his body, his posture, his gaze, it felt like a ritual. A temptation in itself.

You leaned slightly, your head brushing his shoulder in a soft, fleeting touch.

“And what happened to the little gypsy?”

He marked a line on the page with a slow finger.

“The girl followed the captain, infatuated. She believed he returned her feelings. Poor thing. His motives were swollen with everything: lust, malice, but never love. Humans have a funny tendency to see love where there is none.”

Jester turned another page, his fingers gliding as if they knew every fiber of the paper. Beside him, you were slightly restless, your hands searching for somewhere to rest other than your own lap. You buried your face a little deeper in the curve of his neck, absorbing the splendid citrus scent, so maddeningly his. Your fingers settled on his shoulders in a subtle, ghostlike gesture, and you offered a timid smile. A try, a soft hint at closeness. A testimony of how all of that display, his quiet intelligence, his mastery, affected you in ways that shouldn’t be physical, but undeniably were.

Jester made a brief grimace; one of his hands fell onto your thigh in response. The other remained firm on the open book.

“She followed him across the whole city. They exchanged ardent vows of love, though his were more… perjuries, really. She almost gave herself to him, but the priest, who had been following and spying on them like a deranged boogeyman, drew a knife from his robes and stabbed the captain, gravely wounding him. The girl took the blame.”

“She took the blame?” you asked, outraged.

“She took the blame,” Jester repeated, an uneven smile tugging at his lips, almost amused, almost pitying. “Imagine… a crime she didn’t commit, for a love that never existed, for a man who didn’t love her, and for another who desired her in the most sickening way.”

The word fell between you like a warm weight.

You swallowed hard as his hand tightened slightly on your thigh. Nothing obscene, just enough to anchor you without a single syllable.

He turned the page slowly, his nail dragging along the edge with almost perverse tenderness. His careful, obsessive attention to detail always made him even more beautiful. Long lashes casting purple shadows on his cheeks, the focused mouth, the scent of ink and citrus intensifying when he read too deeply. Jester was a vision indeed. A painting tainted with cunning and control, resting gently beside a good book and his good little human partner.

“Do you know what’s most fascinating?” Jester continued. “The archdeacon cannot stand the girl. He hates her. Hates her fragility, her laughter, the way she breathes or dances, spinning under the hot sun. But…” His voice dropped a half-tone, almost scraping the air. “He becomes sick at the mere thought of someone else touching her.”

A shiver ran down your spine, slow and inevitable.

“Why do you think that is?"

He asked it with feigned innocence, but the smile hiding in the shadows of the dressing room revealed his true intent. He wanted to see how you would squirm through the answer. To watch you think, justify contradictions, build explanations. Amusing to him.

You inhaled deeply, trying to ignore how his face seemed now a fraction closer, how he seemed to savor your little microexpressions, your tension, your nerves. The way he looked at you stripped more than any hand could.

“Maybe… because some people confuse desire with entitlement. With ownership. Maybe the archdeacon believed he deserved her, for some reason known only to him.”

He hummed in agreement.

“Interesting. Do you really think that? Is desire a tyrant… or merely a plea dressed as a beast?”

The question fell like a thin blade between the two of you.

You didn’t answer immediately. Your fingers slipped from his shoulder to the collar of his circus attire, adjusting the fabric in a gesture so small it could’ve meant nothing, yet it meant everything. He noticed. He always noticed.

Jester turned another page with cruel slowness, his breath nearly brushing yours.

“The archdeacon thought his desire was a plea turned feral. He claimed to hate the girl, for she was a pagan, young, vulgar. But look…” He tilted the book toward you, pointing at a specific passage. “Here. This is where he visits her in prison. She’s chained, dirty, cold, and he begs…”

The words hit your eyes immediately, sharp as blades. Pathetic, raw, visceral — something only a mind poisoned by its own demons could conceive and speak. A degrading plea, born from bestialized love, from repressed, unfulfilled desire.

Caresse-moi d'une main, torture-moi de l'autre.

Caress me with one hand, torture me with your other one.

Jester leaned a little closer, and time seemed to stand still, as if the air between you both had grown too heavy to ignore.

“Curious, isn’t it? Who in their right mind would ask for such a thing? Two impulses so contradictory?” His voice dropped, ambiguous and dangerously vulnerable. “Would you ask for something like that, pet?”

The question slid under your skin like a slow-burning coal, warm enough to roll down your spine. You blinked, the world around you fading softly, leaving only his voice.

“Me?” you murmured. Your own voice sounded strange, too low. “It depends… on what exactly you’re asking.”

Jester laughed. Not the theatrical laugh, but a muffled, intimate one. A laugh that seemed to escape him by accident.

He brought the back of his hand to your jaw, lightly, checking if you were still there, warm and breathing.

“I’m asking…” His thumb traced your chin with no rush. “Whether you would let someone want you in ways so different it hurts.”

The half-light was so persistent he might not have noticed how your legs crossed subtly, involuntarily, still perched on the arm of his chair. His gaze dropped to your mouth, then climbed back up, lazy, deliberate, and more intimate than touch.

“If you would accept dominance and affection from the same hand. Desire and fear whispered in the same breath.”

That crooked, small, almost sad smile appeared.

“Would you call someone who doesn’t know whether he wants to protect you… or devour you, love?”

He murmured it in a teasing, coaxing whisper before burying his face against your neck, his sharp teeth grazing your heated skin. You could feel the impending bite, the anticipation crawling through you.

When he finally bit, it sank hot and deep, stealing a torn breath from your throat — half pleasure, half surrender. Jester let out a quiet groan at your reaction, muffled against your skin, tasting each tremor.

His hand tightened at your nape, fingers weaving into your hair, guiding, tilting, handling you, and you yielded without noticing, your body molding to his as if it had been crafted for this.

“Always so obedient…” he breathed against your skin, his mouth tracing the heated trail his teeth left behind. “So ready.”

His lips climbed your throat slowly. Too slowly. He alternated soft bites and warm kisses, his tongue drawing small, torturous circles that made your breaths stutter silently. Every touch was studied, calculated. He read you the same way he read his books, with devotion and wickedness.

You melted under him, your fingers threading through his long, soft hair, messy now as he pressed closer. When you found a specific lock, you tugged it, boldly, just to say: I want more.

Jester chuckled against your skin, a warm, contained sound of satisfaction at your lack of restraint.

You were far from done. Damn him for his refined words, his cultivated taste, his superiority, his brilliant mind, his amethyst eyes that could ignite, freeze, pierce, and hypnotize your soul, heart, and body in ways that made you feel sick just thinking about it.

He had no idea how difficult it was for you to control yourself around him. How complicated it was to contain the impulsive, deranged thoughts that placed him in countless scenarios, countless positions, countless tender and torturous embraces. Damn Jester for making you wait breathlessly while he read his dusty classics.

You turned slightly and dragged your lips along his jaw in a slow, investigative kiss.

He allowed it for one second. Then he held your chin with his thumb, guiding your mouth to his like someone dictating the rhythm of a game he had already won.

But you didn’t make it easy.

Your fingers slid down to his hand, slowly weaving between his long bones. Then you took one of his fingers between your lips. Slow, bold, asking without speaking: answer me.

Your tongue traced the tip, warm, soft, provoking.

Jester froze.

One second.

Two.

Then he let out a low, hoarse sound. Almost a filthy compliment.

“Such a little dare…” he murmured, his voice vibrating against your neck. “You want to play with me like that?”

He pulled your face back, and this time he took your finger between his teeth. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make your whole body pay attention. His tongue brushed the side equally torturous, wet, leonine.

You gasped. He loved that.

His hands traveled down your waist, pulling you onto his lap with cruel ease. Your body fit against his, heat blooming immediately between you. The friction was light, but present as a warm pressure that made your thoughts dissolve.

You moved your hips just a little. A test.

Jester sucked in a breath, answering by grinding softly against your center. A calculated rub that stole a faint sound from your throat. Too soft to be called a moan, yet he heard it. He always did.

Your eyelids fluttered shut as his hands explored you. Your hair, your shoulders, elbows, the curve behind your knee. Then those fingers slid under your clothes, finding your chest. His fingertips circled around your nipple: first as a study, then as a provocation. A light pull, a precise pinch, enough to arch your body into his.

You answered by grabbing his face, pulling him closer, and licking along his jawline.

Jester shivered visibly. Rare.

(Wow. Congratulations, my dearest one.)

He looked almost surprised for a moment, blinking, before a soft laugh broke from him. It was beautiful — unrestrained, yet dark in that way everything about him was. He seemed deeply entertained and pleased.

“Very fun, my dear. Continue,” he asked, brushing his fingers softly against your face. “Just remember that every button you unfasten pushes me to my limit, and every touch is an invitation. Think carefully before I…”

Before he could whisper something else or nibble your cheek, something startled you. A sudden, impatient sound near the closed dressing room doors caused you to bump into the book resting on the table, knocking it down.

Jester grimaced — clearly unhappy, after how inspired he’d been moments ago. Instinctively, he held you tighter while waiting for the voice outside.

“Jester?” the voice called. It was the Ticket Taker. “The show starts in half an hour. We already have a crowd gathering.”

Jester’s body tensed for just a moment. Then he leaned back against you with a manic, warm, frustrated sigh.

“I appreciate the warning, Ticket Taker, but I’m fully aware of my duties. There is nothing to worry about.”

His voice gradually slipped back into that precise, cold tone. That same heavy cadence you struggled so hard to melt earlier.

Damn the Ticket Taker. What awful timing!

Regardless, Jester cupped your face, a smile half-charm, half-sweet threat curling on his lips. A quick, rushed farewell.

He pulled away only enough to rise, keeping his hand clasped around yours a second longer than necessary. His gaze traveled your body as if memorizing every point left unresolved.

“Don’t wander off too far, little creature. I want to smell the longing when I return.”

You lifted your eyes to his, and you could swear yours glowed along with his purplish, tempting, commanding ones, in a dark amethyst shimmer. You nodded at his words, smiling faintly.

The door shut.

You were left in complete silence, alone with yourself and with the book sprawled on the floor. It was covered in his notes and comments in another specific section. You narrowed your eyes to read carefully, and the paragraphs no longer spoke of brothels, desire, obsession, madness, punishment, torture or death by hanging.

They spoke of something much more vulnerable and surprisingly sad.

The passage described the bell-ringer: twisted body, deformed face, timid kindness, purity contained in a giant the world called a beast.

Jester had filled the margins with notes. Many. And they were surprisingly calm.

“Just someone who existed wrong.”

“Deformed? Funny. The world only accepts monsters when they become spectacle.”

“The whole city is more deformed than he is.”

“The tower is just a metaphor. The real prison is the flesh-and-blood keeper."

"His cell sounds far too familiar.”

This last sentence, the most personal, had been scratched out many, many times. Nervous strokes from someone who wanted to erase it, to send the words to hell.

You swallowed hard at reading something so revealing, so clearly not meant for you.

The room was now silent without him sharing it with you, but you could still hear the lively music and muffled conversations of the visitors rushing outside.

Who would have thought that after such captivating moments sparked by a simple reading session, you’d be left with such personal, sympathetic notes from someone like Jester? Notes with no teeth, no sarcasm, no extravagance. Just the truth.

You closed the book gently, like someone tucking away a secret that shouldn’t have existed.

And, for the first time that night, you missed him. Not out of desire, but out of understanding.

small note: hi, it’s let! so, I had this idea after stumbling across a video with some cool facts about Jester, and to be honest, I already wanted to write something for him ever since his reveal. but I have to admit, he wasn’t exactly easy to write. it was a bit challenging, and I’m sorry if he feels a little OOC at any point.

furthermore, the book they're reading is my all-time favorite! so this was a lot of fun to do. I hope that, even if unusual, it fits with his love of literature and that it's creative in some way. thanks for reading, if you've reached this far. take care, xoxo <3

being the realest ever, jester's kinda my type. this whole idea of intellectual stimulation seems quite appealing to me. i'd fold easily, truly. plus, the semester ended! I can finally cook (write), yay!