IGNORANTIA (Dark Academia!Wesper AU)

zestien

No one bat an eye as Jesper dragged Bo's body down the streets of Ketterdam. They weren't the high end streets of course — that took more maneuvering from Jesper's part. I didn't even know why I was still following him, and yet I was. Maybe it was the shock of it all; maybe it was because I knew that losing him now meant losing him forever. So on I went following Jesper like a lost puppy towards Fifth Harbor.

It was well into the night by that point, and the streets were flooded with people. Men and women in nothing but feathers and lingerie roamed the streets with a sweet song in their throats. Much like the sirens that clung to the rocks of the Wandering Isle, there was a carnivorous and desperate gleam in all their eyes as they lured people inside. Jesper thought nothing of it, and they thought nothing of them. I wondered if Jesper ever visited places like this. At that point in time, he could have told me he was King of Ravka and I wouldn't bat an eye. It seemed like I barely knew my roommate anymore (I barely knew myself).

"I'm gonna need to stop doing brunches with Nina on the weekends," Jesper grunted. "I am so out of shape."

He said it like it was a jest — a joke amongst friends. I knew of dark humor, but nothing felt darker than his empty jokes on a night as black as that one. Even the moon was too nervous to show its face, and whatever guidance the stars usually gave was hidden beneath thick gray clouds. Who knew hell would be so poorly lit?

"Jespeeeeer!" A woman in peacock plume sung out. She was too old for him, though I think she knew this already. Her golden eyes graced his face, then mine. Her gaze felt like a cold hand on a bare back, and I tried not to look as afraid as I felt. "You brought a new friend for cards, did you?"

"Not tonight, Daisy," said Jesper rather harshly. "And not him."

She laughed, and it sounded the way crows cried at funerals. "We'll get him sooner or later. All who wander find their way down here eventually."

We traveled through plumes of cigarette smoke, past magicians with black rabbits and vendors that sold caramel apples so sweet it stung my nose to walk past them. I saw men and women from all sorts of countries; I saw Shu ambassadors, Ravkan performers, and Kaelish tourists in everything from silks to rags. I even watched as a bare-chested and panting Fjerdan was announced as the championship at a local boxing ring.

The worst part was that I didn't stand out. There was plenty of people like me who walked the streets with pockets full of Kruge at their hip. I even recognized a few couples from the dinner parties my father used to host. That wasn't even mentioning the tourists who walked around in their masks and hidden garb. These men had reputations to uphold that a masked figure didn't have to. I'm sure many of these red imps were just my father's clansmen in disguise.

"Wylan? Wylan, snap out of it."

Jesper seized me by the arms, startling me out of my wide-awake slumber. I blinked once, then twice, but the nightmare stayed the same. He had dropped the carpet-covered body by his feet to grab me, and how similar his touch felt to death. (All touch felt cold and clammy that night. In fact, even now I can barely handle it when physical contact comes unsolicited. Even a touch on my back by Dorian feels like the claws of a corpse. I can barely stand skin-on-skin contact anymore.)

I stared down at the makeshift body bag like Bo's corpse was going to stand up and attack me. The scariest part was how still the body was. Like a spring on a trap, I waited for it to uncoil and snap, and yet it never did. Jesper cupped my jaw in his hands, and I wanted to throw up.

"Wylan, love," he said, "I know you're scared, but you need to stay with me, alright? Everything's gonna be fine. Everything will be alright."

"No, everything's not alright!" I shouted, flinching away. "We just watched someone die, and your first reaction was to hide the fucking body! It's... it's like you've done this before, and that scares me."