kidgloved | INBOX

Want to help me with a project? [Because that's a perfectly normal way to start a conversation.

[Kaz waits for him to answer, Wylan barely able to get a greeting out of his mouth before Kaz is speaking.]

I want you to keep a close eye on Jesper. When I found him, he told me they gave him some sort of tattoo on his back. It might allow them to control him at some point.

The girl– oh, what's her name– Waverly. She told me about it. She has one of their marks, and it happened to her and several other people. I need to know anything out of the ordinary that you notice, immediately.

[Why is he telling Wylan this specifically? Well. He has a feeling he's the one Jesper just might be around the most for the next while.]

[Jesper barely waits for the feed to go live before he's grinning ear to ear. It's a good look, a positive change from the energy he's had since coming off the island.]

Hey Wy. Want to hear something hilarious?

Following a hospital stay that gave him his share of nightmares, as well as a taste of what haunts and keeps other people up at night, Jesper should be grateful for a fairly normal night and the chance at some fairly normal sleep. Instead, he's wide awake and staring at the ceiling of his room. The truth is, he's not so sure he can do well being alone--he never really had been all that good at it. Even with a room in the Slat there had always been noise, odd hours, and the chance of falling bodily into bed with someone else. And here, in Hell, there was someone he really should be seeing about a number of things anyway.

Eventually, these swirling thoughts and inability to sleep make up Jesper's mind for him. It's not a far walk down the hall of the hotel to the room in question--and Hell's security really needs to be updated with how easy it is to finess the lock and coax the door into opening into the suite itself. He knows Wylan takes to sleep about half as well as any of them on a good day, so he doesn't bother with being particularly graceful as he slips into the room and crawls into bed with little more than a soft "It's me."

If anything, the biggest surprise wouldn't so much be his arrival, but in the way he curls close to the other boy in the wake of all they've seen since first beginning to head back to this damned hotel.

[Look, it only makes sense that Jes is all over that post Wylan made--and that he's paying particularly close attention to the conversation with Noah being had. He's having a bit of a concern.]

You in your room or somewhere else?

[during this.]

You're a terrible liar.

[after this.]

[All of this is so much. The bloody hotel is running rampant with living corpses. His second was becoming one. He needs to check in with Wylan, and he has a suggestion that he hopes he'll take him up on.]

Jesper's talked to you, yes?

[Immediately after this disaster.]

If I'm dead tomorrow, know that I did so as I lived: with complete reckless abandon and far too much drink.

Edited 2021-10-01 12:34 (UTC)

Hell always brings people back when they die, or so Jesper had been led to believe in his time here. He knows that people come and go, but he has to believe that Wylan is a bit more of a permanent figure than that. He has to believe he'll come around like he himself had--that the last thing he'd remember of him here wouldn't be a dying scream and the wet sounds of blood behind a solid door.

Regardless, he hasn't seen him since. The fog was too thick, too littered with monsters and dangers. Too filled with chances to lose him again if he did manage to find him. So Jesper had focused on survival. And he had taken a few more risks to send some of the beasts on their way, a bit more reckless with shots and ammo, and a bit more forceful when he ripped spent bullets from corpses? Well, that was all payment for the debt they wracked up by handing him that loss. He wouldn't be telling Wylan any of that.

But the fog was dissipating now, and the horrors with it. He hasn't slept, refusing to rest even now that there was safety to do so. Instead, he was anxiously roaming the halls and lobby, wondering where Wylan might show his face. And that currently had him slinking up to their floor, heading to the other boy's room--maybe that would be a good place to wait.

It's an odd thing, having Wylan in this space and not having to run down the hall to his suite, or send him a message over the phone, whenever he had something to say or ask him. Odd, but pleasant. In a domestic and sentimental way.

"Wy?" He calls out to the better part of their suite. They had taken up one of the rooms, the one with the ensuite, while they had the space to the two of them. Any newcomers would have to gripe about that later. First-come, First-served.

[Following this encounter, Jesper comes into the suite, looking unnerved and a little shaken. Nothing had happened when those from the Order had touched him, but the feel of their hands on that tattoo--it was too much.

And yet they had let something slip. So he's here, because even the smallest bit of information was something to go on.]

I spoke to the Order members outside Hellburbia.

[Because that's the way to start this conversation.]

[Between trying to get ahold of Noah and the mess that was anything and everything to do with Kaz, Wylan's heard his fair share of interesting things. When Jesper slips back into their shared bedroom, not long after rushing to grab some scraps of metal not moments before, he's quiet.

Quiet and Jesper do not usually coexist in the same space.

He doesn't say a word, though, simply slinks close to Wylan and drapes over him. A warm, but sullen, human blanket.]

[In the days leading up to Valentines, Wylan's going to find a collection of cute litte Valentine's cards left for him. While the text may prove difficult, he isn't fool enough to write extended messages. On the day in question, though, there will be a small bouquet of hell flowers and a carefully presented selection of supplies--things that could be stripped for whatever Wylan needs for smaller projects.]

Edited 2022-02-13 23:26 (UTC)

Hey. Sorry to call everyone on short notice. Caleb gave me some news and I needed to share it.

[He sounds serious about it too.]

One month. One month, several hours, and some odd minutes. That's how long Jesper had been gone. How long he had--Best not to think of that. But the fact remained that it had been one long, agonizing month since he had last laid his hand on the door to their suite, had last thought of coming back to this place that had been made a temporary home. Had last seen anyone that could be called a kind face.

There was some anxiety as he turned the knob and slipped into the suite he shared with Wylan. Some terrible, sinking fear that he'd come back to an empty room. An empty bed. A broken heart. That somehow, in the time he was gone, Wylan had shed all these terrible influences lain at his feet, found redemption, and went home.

If anyone could manage it out of their lot, it had to be Wylan.

There is little comfort in the fact that the smell of gunpowder, coffee, and something a little chemical (and definitely flammable) hung in the air. Odd, how smells could bring a twinge of longing for home. "Wylan...?"

Saints above and below, let there be an answer.

[Essek wasn't certain that Caleb had reached out to Wylan; things had been...difficult and complicated as of late with the demon's punishments and their Lucien situation. But he was happy to take this on in the wizard's stead. Wylan had a tendency to make him smile, after all.]

Good evening. [The accent curled softly around his words, his voice hushed softly as if afraid he would rouse someone from sleep.] I have a question that I was hoping you could answer.

[Caleb normally uses video with both Molly and Wylan, knowing reading isn't a good method of communication, but he's feeling a little rattled and it's late, and he doesn't feel like visually composing himself. So, audio only.]

Wylan, have you had any strange dreams recently? Something about the nature of this place, or some of the older demons?

[He avoids the customary you can respond to this message because of course he can.]

Video;

cw: underage sex, semi-public sex

voice » post-survivor island

Video;

[Action] [Post Mares Event]

Voice;

text » @dirtyhands

Voice » @dirtyhands