Show Wesper meet

Part 14

Jesper's POV:

" This isn't right," Jesper said, surveying the eerie calm of the scene. The barrel was never this quiet- unless something was about to happen...

Bang!

The crack of a bullet split through the air, aimed right at the two of them in the carriage. Wylan jumped back at the shot, as the horse fled the scene. Saints.

Instinctually, Jesper grabbed Wylan's coat, dragging him behind the cover of the carriage. Jesper always felt better when someone was shooting him, but now was not the time. Especially when something about the new demo man had been nagging at the back of his mind all day.

Only now, ducking from people wanting to kill him, and finding himself unintentionally on top of the boy's small frame, was he able to place it.

He stared for a long moment at Wylan.

"Wait, we have met before, haven't we?" Wylan's eyes darted away from the action towards him, widening as he spoke, " and you brought me stroopwaffels!"

He grinned, memories of the night the two of them had met, falling into place in his mind. The flirting, the kissing; no wonder he'd been thinking about how good-looking to boy was all week.

Wylan seemed far less amused.

"Yes, but-" He flinched as another round of bullets pinged off the side of the carriage, 'You remember that now?" 

The exasperation was thickly laced into his tone, and to be fair, he did have a point. 

Jesper's mind was already in gear, he placed a finger to his lips but the young boy's panic only seemed to increase.

Swiftly, he flung his pistol out from under carriage, waiting for the confused guard to lean over and pick the object up. 

Then he was moving.

Jesper lived for moments like this- the adrenaline, the gamble of his life. The excitement of it all just about made the barrel life worth living. 

He flung the first guard the the ground, regaining his gun in an instant as he turned with a sharp crack towards the other one.

His senses tingled and he burned with a fierce adrenaline, not even turning as she took aim at  the man behind him; at a complete connection with the feeling of the metal ricocheting through the barrel of his revolver. The man fell to his knees as Jesper swivelled around, his coat flapping wildly behind him as he fired off one, two, three shots. 

They came from all sides, yelling some blurred mesh of orders that Jesper was too focysed in his guns to take notice too, He pulled out an identical gun and fired both directions with  what was probably an overly dramatic but equally impressive flair.

"Jesper!" A breathy voice called from nearby. Saints, he had near enough forgotten about the boy under the carriage. The voice alerted him, just as bullets started to rip through the air, straight at him at a ridiculously fast pace in large numbers.

Jesper ducked behind the carriage, giving the smoking guns a quick good-luck peck before diving through the air, his concentration melding with the hot metal bullets as they swung towards his intended targets, shredding through the darkness.

That was when the panicked sound of Wylan caught his attention. Jesper started towards the boy, who was being dragged from the cover of the carriage,nbut was caught by a guard, swinging wildly at him- just lucky enough to get a square fist to his gut. Jesper collapsed, dropping his pistol, as he caught sight of Wylan with the arms of a burly man around his neck. 

At the terror across the boy's face, he attempted a thumbs up, which definitely did not help reassure him as the other guard wrapped his own arms around Jesper's throat. He'd tried, but his panic rapidly increased as he squirmed for oxygen.

How to escape this one? Would this be the end for him? He'd imagined something much more dramatic than this, somehow.

But Wylan was quick. 

He managed fling a grey, smoky powder over his shoulder, disorienting the burly man, who released his grasp as he rushed towards Jesper.

The small boy latched himself on top of both Jesper and the guard and Jesper thought it was going to be it for him there and then until, suddenly, the grip broke and the man fell from him. 

Jesper fell to the floor, reaching for his discarded revolvers as the man turned his newfound rage  towards the cowering Wylan, baring a heavy metal bar. Fear danced across the boys features until- crack!

The man fell to the floor with a thud. Jesper heaved a deep sigh of relief, touching a hand to his bruised throat with a grimace as he adjusted himself.

Wylan remained on the floor, "H-How do we find out that the others aren't also in trouble?" 

Jesper said nothing a moment, surveying the boy with a strange intensity.

"We can't." 

The grim truth of the situation. 

What Jesper could do, however, was retrieve his hat from the carriage and finally drag Wylan up from the floor.

Wylan, who he had known all along. Why hadn't the boy said anything?

In some temporary, spur of madness, Jesper found himself caught in the urge to kiss the worried little divot from between the boy's brows, but fought the desire, desperately trying to rationalise the situation in his mind. Now was absolutely no time for this, he told himself.

He patted Wylan's shoulder haphazardly and made to leave.

His fingers found the rim of his hat to adjust.

"So it's Black Veil then."