a_better_man | Abraxas Inbox

alright that's fair

i guess i wasn't sure you'd hear me out

wait what?

[ It actually doesn't take long to guess. ]

oh. probably kaz. i am heartbroken, it upset him. he can be harsh, i know.

Give me some credit.

YOU'RE heartbroken? I'm the injured party here. And he certainly can be.

But he does care about you, I could tell as much.

he's forgiven me worse than anything i could do to you. and he's been harsher to me than he could be to you. we crows are a fucked up group, but we love each other.

if we're going into this with i'm the villain and you're the victim it's not going to go well.

We're neither of us a villain. I'm just still raw and not above getting a jab or two in at the chance.

oh that's fine then. jab all you like.

would you meet me somewhere in the horizon tomorrow night? i'll be sober i promise.

Yeah. I'll meet you tomorrow night.

Jesper has been in the Horizon for hours at this point trying to psych himself up. He's wandered into multiple different domains and changed his clothes a dozen times, and it's all because he's full of too many emotions. He hasn't left though or chickened out, that isn't likely. But he needs to get his excess energy and anxiety out so he's done a lot of walking. Some running. Shooting at his own domain for a little while.

At a point, he ends up on Mat's doorstep, literally. He remembers this little building from when he helped Mat come up with it, when they were both brand new to all of this. Jesper sits down in front of the door and he simply waits. For permission to enter, for Mat to show up, whatever it is. He's dressed down quite a lot at the moment, only in a button-up white shirt with a simple red vest over it. No guns, no jacket, no hat, none of his armor physically or metaphorically.

Jesper has also rehearsed at least two dozen ways of approaching this. Of what to say, what not to say. He has options. Normally he likes to go by instinct and say what comes to him in the moment, but obviously that has not worked out really well recently for them. He waits, unsure of what time it actually is on the outside as he's been here for awhile, but it's fine. Long stretches of silence don't kill him or anything. (Joking, they absolutely drive him mad, but he's doing it anyway.)

Mat shows up in the Horizon while Jesper is waiting. It's been a few months now since his domain has changed any, that alone a clue to his mood and mindset. Normally he's changing it in some fashion weekly.

The usual animals are around his little manor house. Hend, his horse-sized badger. The creatures in the lake. A fox made of living crystal trots by, giving Jesper a long side look as it goes past.

Shortly, Mat approaches. His beard is back, and his hair is growing out again into its usual untamed mop. He looks as he usually does, though tired. He's really not entirely sure how this is going to go. Jesper certainly seemed like he regrets it all, but he'd been drunk. Light knows all sorts of things come out when drunk that may not be meant when sober. Either way...

He'd said he'd be here, so he is. However this falls out, it has to be better than how things have been.

He climbs the little steps to the porch, eyes downcast and hands in the pockets of his familiar brocade coat.

"Hey."

Jesper was drunk when he messaged Mat and in truth, he remembers about 70% of it. It was the first part he doesn't fully remember because as the conversation went, he got soberer and soberer, so the important bits were closer to his right mind. But some of it did get lost. He assumes he was a bit of a prick, he's not been at his best for a long time. But Mat did say he'd meet him.

It would be justified if he simply never showed up though.

Jesper is not a stranger to shame. In fact, shame is an emotion he knows better than most. He felt ashamed of being a Grisha growing up because his father hated/feared it, he was ashamed when his addiction dropped him out of school into the gutter, he's drowned in shame about gambling for years, including up to only a few months ago. But he is used to that being the major source of his shame, as bad behavior isn't very common for him.

He stands when Mat comes into view and also looks away, to the side, embarrassed. There is also still some residual anger and hurt in him too, it's not as if he is entirely past the way it all made him feel. It just isn't the primary way he feels anymore.

"I'm sorry." It has to be the first thing he says, obviously. It has to be the first real words between them. He was the fuck up. He's not a prideful person in truth. He usually sees himself pretty clearly. "For what I said to you that day and how I acted."

"Yeah." Mat nods, though his eyes stay downwards. It's hard to look at Jesper right now, the chaos of emotions it brings. He's still hurt, he's still cautious, but he never wanted to end things in the first place. Whatever had happened, it isn't as though it had changed those feelings.

All of it amounts to a great and confusing mess of emotions.

"I'm sorry, too. It got out of hand."

Much as he'd needled Jesper about the things he'd done and said, Mat knows he's not an innocent party in all of this. He hadn't made anything better and he'd lost his temper. He'd played a part in the mess.

An apology is owed on both sides.

"We were both in a really fucked up place and we shouldn't have had that conversation right away."

With Mat having just been out of a horrific situation and still healing, and Jesper having gone off a several week killing spree, neither of them were anywhere in their right minds. They didn't have to make a decision in that moment, or even talk about it right away. It was days before Mat had to go anywhere. At the time, Jesper had been so determined to have something good, he couldn't wait.

"You know how people can get memories shoved into their head all of a sudden?" It's happened to a few people around here and he heard it was intense but. "It happened to me. I got an entire year." An entire year just like the year he has spent here. It wasn't a bad year, but it was a lot of information to an already on edge and scrambled mind.

"I just wanted to be happy." His voice breaks a little and he breathes in, lets it out. "And you make me the most happy ...."

"No, we shouldn't have."

It had been damned stupid. In hindsight, he should have just said as much. That they could talk about it later. But neither of them had, and here they were.

"But light...you do, too. Make me happy, I mean. And I meant what I said - even if I didn't leave last month, I do plan to leave someday. When it's safe."

Mat moves to sit on the steps, leaning forward to rest his chin on his knees. He hates all this, the having to talk about feelings and all of that. Always feels like he's going to trip over his own tongue. It's so easy when he's just pretending, but when it's real...

"I didn't change my mind, I'm just trying to be smart and safe about this. I swear it, Jesper."

Jesper watches him and reaches out tentatively to run his fingers through Mat's dark mop of hair. Gentle, uncertain. He stays standing for a moment which really makes him seem like he's hovering, so he goes down to his knees in front of him, still just touching his hair.

"I let all the worst voices in my head win. All my doubts and fears. The heralds all over again." Jesper pretends to have a much more upbeat and cheerful side, someone who doesn't get let down easily. He's not as obvious about his brooding and sadness, but it's always there under the surface. In some ways, they are a lot alike. Wheels without fortune.

The heralds ripped through him, caused him to give into his worst impulses and drown in his addiction, and he felt that darkness again looking for his loved ones. Or maybe it never left him, not really.

"I didn't want to end things. I didn't want to hurt you but I ... I don't know, Mat. I keep doing it anyway to the people I love."

"You and me both."

Mat sighs. He knows he's as guilty of that as Jesper is. They're very similar, the pair of them. Hurt just...happens, sometimes.

"Suppose that's something we'll have to steel ourselves against. And be careful of. S'like a...a treacherous mountain path. It's fine, long as you know what to look out for and recognize oncoming danger."

And perhaps they could both be a bit better at the whole sharing of what they're feeling thing. Try doing it calmly and rationally for a change. It's just so damned easy to get all worked up, and start yelling from the heart and not the mind.

But that's what got them in this mess in the first place.

"Look at me."

Jesper is kneeling in front of him, running fingers through his hair, but he doesn't tug his hair back, it needs Mat to make the decision to do so. Gray eyes try to catch his gaze and hold it. No darting looks away or trying to shamefully avoid it.

"Please give me another chance. I miss you so much. I love you. I'll be better, I'll work on my issues. I'll try to not react emotionally next time we have a fight."

The last time he was begging, it was begging Mat to leave with him, desperate and frantic, but he isn't desperate, he's just honest. His heart hurts and he feels like he's ripping open his chest and showing it, but at least he can tell himself he tried.

A little laugh slips out of Mat as he looks at Jesper. It's a soft sound, and there's fondness and relief in it more than anything else.

"Jesper...would I be sitting here talking about ways we ought to do things better from here on out if I wasn't?" He shakes his head, not sure entirely what he's feeling but mostly just feeling exhausted.

"I didn't want things to end, you didn't want things to end..." Then obviously things weren't ended. "But we do need to...work on some things. Because we're both volatile fellows in uncharted waters. We've never done this, a proper romance like this. We're going to fuck up. It's a simple fact, my dear man, we both fuck things up."

He's quiet a moment, thinking.

"But maybe that's why it'll work. We are both...as we are. All fucked up. Normal person wouldn't understand."

"That's not ...." He pauses, takes a deep breath, and lets it out. "That's not entirely true. About a proper romance. It's just new to my brain but the year I got in my head, I was living with Wylan." So Jesper has been in a proper romance with a live-in boyfriend. If only it would help him navigate how romances work in general, but that was only with one person.

"And in full disclosure, Wylan's here. In Cadens. He doesn't remember any of that, he's from earlier in the timeline. We're not currently together because he's, um, struggling. With me wanting to keep my life the way it is here." AKA meaning that he doesn't want to give up his other lovers. That includes Mat, it always includes Mat, because he did think they were probably going to get back together.

He thinks it is probably smart to let Mat know that his ex is around. Communication is something they're not as good at as they should be, so he's putting into action trying to be better.

"Him being here doesn't change anything about the way I feel about you, or wanting us to be together again. I just don't want to keep secrets about something like that." This isn't just anyone showing up. It's Wylan, and he confessed that in Jesper's memory, they've been together a year.

"Oh."

It's not like Jesper hasn't talked about Wylan. Mat knows the name, knew there was a history of sorts there. But he's never given it much thought. Why would he? What did it matter here?

Only now...

He doesn't doubt Jesper's words, the assurances that it hardly changes any feelings between them. But it makes him feel a way he can't quite pin down. Some petty, needy little part of him had reveled in the idea that he was special. That Jesper had a whole multitude of lovers but Mat was his love and there was no other. And it had felt good and comforting that were both stumbling through this new thing together, discovering it together.

Stupid, perhaps, but that was the way of the heart. It's a very stupid organ.

"I mean I'm glad for you and all, but I can't say it doesn't make me feel a bit funny. Like I'm stepping on some other fellow's toes, you know?"

Particularly after all that had transpired between himself and Jesper recently.

"I don't mean to say I am, just that's how it sort of feels. I'll get over it."

Now that things seem to be a little bit better, Jesper nestles in a little closer to Mat, still on his knees, running his fingers through that delightful mop of hair. He shakes his head and takes Mat's hand, putting it against his heart. "Mat, what we have, I've never had anything like it."

All of his relationships and loves, they all matter, yes, and he wouldn't say otherwise. But they also are all different. Mat's the kind of love that drives him crazy, spins him around, makes everything feel upside down and yet right at the same time.

"I need you. I don't want to live another day without you. No one will ever change that." And Jesper will keep saying that as many times as he needs to. It's not that Wylan being here doesn't change some things. In his life in Cadens it does, and figuring all of that out, it's going to be complicated. But Mat isn't complicated. He's just Mat.

"I know, Jes, I know. That's not what has me feeling funny. It's just sort of awkward, yeah? And it's got to be hard for him."

It's just a strange situation, and Mat's honestly too worn out to worry much about it right now. It's as though suddenly he's put down a great weight and now he just wants to rest.

"But I'm not jealous and I don't doubt you." Well, he's not jealous much. And that's not even the right word, but he doesn't know the right word. It doesn't matter. Not much really does, at the moment.

"Want to go upstairs and lie down? I'm very much feeling as though I'd like to lie down a bit."

"It is hard on him. We talked a lot of things out. He's a good person, I think you'll like him, under better circumstances." By that he means not when the two of them are potentially vying for the same man. But Jesper can hope that Wylan will come to terms with that. He's not pushing him. He has the time.

"Yes, sweetheart." Jesper leans forward to kiss Mat's forehead and then the top of his head lovingly, moving up into a stand. He takes Mat's hands and encourages him to stand with him. They've been in the bed here more than once so he knows the way blindfolded (literally), but he looks forward to being in Mat's arms again. This is the only way they can, for now.

Jesper gets on the bed first, blinking and his shoes and socks are off, nothing really needing to be on them in the Horizon unless they want it. He reaches out to Mat to encourage him to come, very needy but also still seeming a little shy and uncertain. It will take some time before both of them feel like they're not on shaky ground.

"I'm sorry I upset you and your powers were out of whack." He obviously knows how painful and terrifying that is for Mat. At least he remembers when he's in his right mind.

It really hadn't been that long since the fight. But before that Mat had been held prisoner in a hellish underground plane of misery. It had been a long time, as far as he's concerned, since he'd been with Jesper like this. He'd spent what time he'd had in Nocwich recovering and not up to many visitors...

And then they'd fought.

"And I'm sorry I yelled at you and kicked you out."

He shrugs out of his brocade coat and hangs it, as is his habit, before stretching out on his side in bed. This room doesn't change much, though there's now a long necked theorbo leaning against the wall, and a new bookshelf near to it.

"I took a lot out on you, I think, because you were there and an easy target for a whole lot of nasty things I was feeling."

Still is feeling, to an extent, but there's enough time between his experience and now that Mat has some distance and isn't feeling it all as fresh and clear.

Jesper moves onto his side to look at Mat, reaching out to very gently run fingers through his hair, along his chin. He'd been cleanshaven briefly, it had been very strange at the time. Not that anything was wrong with his beautiful face. He also has felt very adrift and exhausted, running on fumes of anger and sorrow. Watching the execution didn't help. Kell didn't help. Nothing was going to help him outside of making peace with Mat.

"You'd been through something horrific. I should have been there for you." In hindsight so many things are clear, obviously, that he should have kept his temper. After what Mat went through, he needed comfort. He needed to be loved. Jesper sighs.

"My friend Dean died. Saving the others, the people who were still in there." Jesper doesn't think that he was fully aware at the time how much Dean's death was haunting him at the moment. He'd been so focused on getting everyone back. Sam Winchester had to tell him on the magical network, and then he had to try and help the man by talking him through it, offering to tell people about Dean for him.

"I know it's crazy but I still thought we'd all make it. I've been wrong twice." Matthias died when they already were through the insanity, no one expected that. Dean died after getting everyone out of the cavern. It's always when people let their guard down. "His boyfriend seems to be in denial about it." Claiming to everyone that Dean is still alive. But. Jesper wants to believe. He doesn't know yet that Castiel was right.

"It's not an excuse for my state of mind or anything, it was just a really fucking terrible time. I promise when I went in there, all I wanted was to be there for you, and be the best boyfriend you could ever ask for."

"We were neither of us our best selves. I'm sorry about your friend."

Though inwardly Mat is somewhat amazed he's only heard of the one death among Summoned. Considering the conditions, the dangers, the enemy that they'd been up against... Multiple, if one counts the cruel whimsy of nature. That so many survived is frankly miraculous.

"And you're hardly the only one who left me to my misery." So many of the people Mat's close to are simply not the comforting or sympathetic sorts. He'd hardly been on his own, but certainly there had been those he considers himself close to that had been mostly absent in his dark time.

At least Jesper had a good excuse. They'd been in a fight.

"So am I. I told his brother to look on the Horizon, see if something that could only be his domain is still there. That's how sometimes people know if people have left." The domain just disappears, from what he's been told and what he's witnessed for himself when he's lost people here. Luckily he has yet to lose someone who was deeply close to his heart that way. Until Dean.

"It seems stupid to hope, he's only a human, it's not as if he has supernatural healing." Grisha can die just as easily as any other people; they may have powers, but they aren't immortal. Being eaten by a sea creature and dragged into the ocean would definitely kill him. Jesper can't do anything about it now.

Jesper frowns, moving in a little closer to Mat, putting an arm over his side. He looks at his handsome face, troubled by that admission. "People in Thorne aren't good at comfort? What about Wilhelm and Rhy?" Jesper doesn't name Kell because he really doesn't know how he is outside of the bedroom. He might not be the comforting type. Rhy and Wilhelm though, they seem like they could at least try.

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lmk if this is okay

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