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“Waffles or pancakes?” It was a warm summer evening in Ketterdam, one of the days when the heat and the humidity felt so oppressive that even in the dark of night, everything still felt hazy and damp. After a night of wandering through different parties and exploring whatever piqued their interest, Jesper and Kaz had somehow found themselves in the main academic quad: Kaz, lounging somehow both comfortably and intimidatingly in one of the many Adirondack chairs, Jesper, leaning against the stone wall that surrounded the quad while rolling a joint, as if the act of sitting down while he worked would make things too simple.
“I am not playing that stupid game with you,” Kaz muttered, taking another sip of the beer he had been nursing after stealing it from their last party. It had been a bit of a fight for Jesper to convince Kaz to go out tonight. It was only their fifth day on campus after a week of new student orientations; their first year interest classes having had their introductory classes already while the rest were due to start the following Monday. Kaz had been intent on spending the night in his dorm – a single that he had managed to snag through the Office of Disability Services. Jesper was incredibly jealous as he already wasn’t getting along with his own roommate, a football player who was nice enough, but did not know when to shut up about his workouts or whatever macros he had or had not hit for the day, whatever that meant.
Jesper had only managed to drag him away from his computer when he had told Kaz he would “owe him one”. Kaz had rotated his chair slowly to face Jesper, the twinkle in his eyes that indicated he was scheming and had started asking Jesper about the “conditions of the favor”. Jesper didn’t want to know what the hell Kaz had planned for his next crazy scheme, but he had already been a few drinks in by the time he went to collect Kaz, so he just kept agreeing until Kaz nodded, told him, “the deal’s the deal” and stood up as if that was enough of that. Jesper always felt Kaz was insufferably Kerch.
They had known each other from high school after Jesper had gotten a scholarship to study abroad in Ketterdam after his sophomore year. To say they had been fast friends would be a lie, more that Jesper latched onto Kaz one day and despite his metaphorical bucking and rolling and spinning in circles, Kaz hadn’t been able to dislodge him yet.
“Oh come on!” Jesper complained. He licked the edges of the paper for the joint he had just finished rolling and started to smooth them down. He had mostly sobered up by now but wanted to get to whatever level Kaz seemed to be on, “It’s a great game!” ‘Waffles or Pancakes’ had been the game his philosophy professor had had Jesper and his classmates start their first session with and Jesper had quickly become hooked. It was a simple game: decide whether you’d prefer to exist in a world where pancakes didn’t exist or one where waffles didn’t exist. Then continue to propose more things to debate until you’ve created the strangest of worlds.
“It is not a great game,” Kaz countered. He was a little more animated tonight after his self-imposed pub crawl. Jesper thinks it’s a nervous tick, a need for Kaz to have a drink with him at each of the parties he went to: not as a crutch like his cane or the way Jesper used alcohol, but to have something else to hold onto, to ground him, to not make him look too out of place if he just decided to stand and watch. It just happened to have a side effect that Kaz would absent mindedly take sips of his drink throughout their time, leading to him having drank more than he usually did. Jesper, valuing his life, would never tell Kaz his observations. “It takes multiple rounds before you get into any sort of philosophical debate worth having unless someone makes it weird right out of the gate!”
The whole point of the game was to get a world that was increasingly devoid of things: whether they be physical things, ideas or even just concepts. If you decided you could live without pancakes, you would then pose to the next person “waffles or” and pose another debate. Normal people played the game with normal concepts, but dropping the game in the hands of a bunch of philosophy majors had the class debating things like “the ability to perceive the sun, both visually and physically, or the existence of the sun at all”. They had had to modify the question after someone pointed out that a lack of a sun would mean the instant death of the earth. Jesper had just been stuck on the idea that he would never again be able to feel the warmth of the sun on his skin if he wanted the world to exist.
So he had brought the game back to anyone who had been willing to play with him. Seeing as it had only been a week at school, Jesper didn’t have very many friends yet, leaving Kaz to bear the brunt of his philosophical questions. “Fine,” Jesper conceded. He popped the end of the joint in his mouth, using his saliva to get the paper around the filter wet. “Let’s make it more interesting then.” Jesper took the joint out of his mouth, flicking his lighter and shaking the joint back and forth through the flame to get the paper to contract. Jesper got a really stupid idea. “Blowjobs or eating pussy?”
Kaz had just gone to take another sip of his beer when Jesper had spoken. Kaz would never allow himself big reactions, but he couldn’t stop himself from choking on his drink. He contained his coughs and sputters the best he could, leaning forward in his chair to not drip any beer in his lap, his eyes narrowed and glaring the entire time before he leveled his glare on Jesper. “Now you’re just being crude.”
“Am not!” Jesper yelled back. “Would you prefer I said cunnilingus?” Kaz just kept glaring at him and Jesper laughed. “You wanted it more interesting, so I made it more interesting!”
“I mentioned a “philosophical debate worth having’,” Kaz countered.
Jesper just grinned. “I would argue this is a philosophical debate worth having.”
Kaz rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, turning away from Jesper. “Seeing as we don’t have… the proper anatomy for the second one, I figure the answer is obvious,” he muttered.
Jesper had just put the joint between his lips, satisfied with his work and ready to light it, but he pulled it back out to dramatically point it at Kaz. “Now, now. I never specified it was receiving only. Those are two different kinds of questions.” He moved to sit on the arm of the chair next to Kaz, leaning in as close as he could while making sure he wasn’t touching his friend.
In the past three years as friends, Jesper had only touched him twice: once when they had gotten into an actual knock down drag out fight that Jesper couldn’t even remember what had started it, and once when Jesper had stood up too quickly after getting hit in the head with a ball during gym class and had accidentally fainted onto Kaz. Kaz had quickly pushed Jesper’s unconscious body off of him, letting him fall to the floor.
So he was careful now, even in all of his teasing, to make sure he gave his friend enough physical space. “No, see,” Jesper continued, bending one of his knees for his foot to join him on the armrest while placing the other foot on Kaz’s armrest as a counter balance so he didn’t fall. Kaz looked at Jesper’s muddy shoe so close to his perfectly tailored trenchcoat sleeve with a look of barely filtered disgust. “I’m talking about giving. So, would you rather exist in a world where you could never give a blowjob again, or one where you could never eat a woman out again?”
He had leaned in closer to Kaz when he had spoken so that Kaz had to lean to the side a little in his chair to keep the appropriate distance between him and Jesper. He flicked his wrist at Jesper, a bit of his beer sloshing out of his can and splashing on the armrest between them. Jesper just laughed, leaning back again and lighting his joint.
“You see,” he said after taking a hit and making sure to blow the smoke away from Kaz. He sat lazily with his arms draped over his knees, holding the joint like it was a cigar, both as a joke and to make himself feel fancy. “In this case, I still pick blowjobs. Not because we’re dealing with me receiving them, but just cause I like actually getting something in my mouth.”
Kaz groaned like Jesper’s words physically pained him. He leaned away from Jesper, resting his forehead in his hand. Jesper took another hit of the joint, blowing the smoke at Kaz purposefully this time until his friend turned to him with another glare. “I’m begging you to stop.” Kaz muttered.
“Oooo Kaz Brekker begging. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“It’s a figure of speech, Fahey.”
“Don’t worry baby, I like it when you beg for me,” Jesper teased.
Kaz threw his beer can at him, hitting him square in the forehead and splashing the remaining drops across his face. It didn’t hurt since it was practically empty, but Jesper got the feeling Kaz wished it had hurt. “Come on!” Jesper whined. “Just answer this one round and I’ll drop it.”
Kaz sighed and leaned back in his chair. He placed both of his hands on his chest, looking up at the night sky. Jesper tried to follow his gaze and see what he was looking at, but there was too much light in Ketterdam to make any of the stars worth looking at by Jesper’s standards. Finally, and probably only because he had had a good bit to drink by now, Kaz answered him. “The first.”
He had said it quietly, so Jesper wasn’t even sure he had heard him right. “What?”
“The first one,” Kaz said a bit louder, but didn’t elaborate.
“Live in a world without giving blowjobs?” Jesper asked. Kaz gave a stiff nod. “Why?” He glared back at Jesper who just held his hands out. “Thems the rules of the game, you’ve gotta explain yourself.”
Kaz sighed again, but the side of his mouth curled up in a small grin. He was definitely drunk, “Men can deal without blowjobs. I’m not going to be the man responsible for taking something else from women.”
A beat passed. And then Jesper started laughing. It was a fully body laugh, his chest and head tipping backwards with the force of it, catching him off balance and sending him tumbling onto the grass below where he just kept laughing despite the dew seeping into his clothes. He felt a kick at his back from Kaz, but that only spurred him on more.
“Oh Kaz,” Jesper laughed, trying to rein himself in. “Sweet summer boy.” Jesper was laughing so hard still that he didn’t see Kaz stiffen. He stood up, wiping his eyes and walking back over to his previous spot against the wall to retrieve his water. “I just meant what you wouldn’t be able to do again. I’m not taking away oral sex from everyone.”
It was dark, but Jesper could have sworn he saw a little bit of red at the tips of Kaz’s ears. It was probably just the alcohol. “Shut the fuck up, Fahey,” Kaz muttered. He turned his body away from Jesper then, a rare show of vulnerability that told Jesper he had pushed him a little bit too far.
It was probably the point where Jesper should have apologized, and maybe if he had been sober he would have, maybe if he was a better man he would have, but for now he felt more like a young boy, so he couldn’t get the words past his lips, the two of them just sitting in silence for a while. Sometimes Jesper wished he could be a better man.
Eventually, Kaz muttered something.
“What?” Jesper asked.
Kaz scoffed and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket to take out another beer can that Jesper didn’t even know he had. He opened it, taking a few desperate gulps until at least half of the can was empty before putting it down on the armrest, still not looking at Jesper. “I said, in that case it doesn’t matter what I pick.” He glared down at his hand. “I can’t do either of them anyway.”
Jesper tipped his head to the side. “You mean you don’t want to? You know that’s okay, right? You don’t ever need to do something like that if you don’t want to.”
“No, I,” Kaz cut himself off and the two of them lapsed into silence again. Jesper started playing with his lighter, flicking the top on and off and on and off, the clinking being just another sound amongst the cicadas. Kaz drained another gulp of his beer. “There’s this girl, works in the library with me.”
Jesper had no idea why Kaz had chosen to change the conversation to this topic, but his entire body perked up at the idea of Kaz talking about a girl. This had never happened before. Jesper felt like his entire body was buzzing as he tried to be as patient as possible for Kaz to continue. He took another hit of his joint, trying to blow rings with the smoke in an effort to not show Kaz just how much he wanted him to keep going.
And like pretending you weren’t interested in petting a cat, Kaz started to speak a bit more. “Fiercest woman I’ve ever met. Plays with a butterfly knife when she thinks no one’s looking.” Jesper saw Kaz’s face soften a little bit. “Has these eyes that just pierce right through you.” Another pause, his eyes were far off like he was picturing it. “She’s wicked smart, not just book smart, but clever too.” He smiled, ever so slightly, then shook his head when he realized what he was saying, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“She sounds pretty cool,” Jesper said quietly, attempting to keep the conversation going.
Kaz actually nodded at that. “I want to…” Kaz trailed off again. He dragged his finger around the top of his beer can, staring at it and paying special attention to the way he was pulling a bead of liquid along with him. “Never mind,” he finally said with a shake of his head. “It’s stupid.”
“No!” Jesper said. He tried to reel himself back in, not send Kaz running under the bed with his enthusiasm. “What, um, what do you want?”
Kaz glared at Jesper for a moment, like glaring was the only face his muscles knew how to make, then downed the rest of his beer. He tossed it on the ground as he stood up, his balance wavering slightly as he moved, but he righted himself and then went to sit on the armrest of the other chair so that he was close enough to snatch the joint from Jesper’s hand and take a hit.
Kaz didn’t drink a lot, and he certainly didn’t smoke a lot either, so his angry inhale caused him to start coughing, his back curving as he hacked and tried to catch his breath. It was the kind of coughing that Jesper would have started slapping him on the back if he didn’t already know that would just make everything worse.
When Kaz was done coughing, he took a deep breath, leaning back against the chair a bit unsteadily, his eyes now hazy. Jesper slyly took the joint from between his fingers. Kaz had probably had enough for the night. “She’s got this beautiful long hair,” Kaz started to say, looking up at the stars again, “As dark as the sky.” A small, intoxicated smile passed over his face. “I’d like to braid it,” he whispered. He held one of his glove covered hands up in front of his face. “I want to hold her hand.” He then glared at his hand again. “But I can’t do any of that without this stupid glove.” He ripped his glove off, angrily throwing it to the side and let his hand drop then, falling onto his chest with a thud. “So oral sex seems a bit of a stupid thing to jump to if I can’t even hold her hand first.”
They went back to the silence again, not doing or saying anything else, just existing, listening to the sounds of the campus around them, still managing to be alive despite the late hours. They listened to the sounds of the Crow Club, a bar just barely close enough to the quad that they could hear the noise from the patrons on the patio talking about their nights. They listened to the clicking of heels as a group of girls passed by on the other side of the wall, laughing and giggling with each other, their steps faltering every now and then either due to intoxication or simply the precarious height of their shoes, on their way back or possibly even going to a party. They listened to the music coming from a frat party that was probably twice as far as the Crow Club but still playing their music loud enough so that Jesper could feel the bass in his chest.
Or maybe that was just his heart.
“You know, you could work on it.” Jesper murmured.
Kaz turned to him with a furrowed brow. “What?”
Jesper shrugged. “I mean, you could work on it. Build up to it.” Kaz turned away from him with a huff. “I mean it!” Kaz grumbled something else, but Jesper didn’t hear him. “Try or live in fear forever?”
Kaz turned back to him again, this time giving him a look of complete incredulity. “What?” he sounded exasperated.
“It’s simple, Kaz. Would you rather live in a world where you tried, or where you live in fear for the rest of your life?”
Kaz sat up all the way at that. “It’s not that simple, Fahey.”
“Yes, it is.”
“The things I want,” Kaz seemed angry now, his hand curling into a fist, but Jesper truly couldn’t tell if he was mad at himself or Jesper. “They’ll swallow me whole,” he whispered. Then he turned back to Jesper and spat his next words out, “I can’t just try.”
“So Kaz Brekker’s chosen to live in fear, then?”
Now Kaz leaned over slightly to point an accusatory finger at Jesper. “Kaz Brekker isn’t afraid of anything.”
“Prove it then!” Jesper knew it was stupid, but Kaz had pointed his finger at him with the hand not covered in his glove. Jesper pushed the finger away from him, their bare skin touching so briefly you would miss it if you blinked.
Kaz Brekker didn’t blink.
Kaz Brekker didn’t miss it.
His breath hitched, his pupils going wide with fear for just that millisecond before he was able to pull back his involuntary responses. His breath started coming a little faster, but he once again narrowed his eyes at Jesper, unwilling to give up his angry façade. “Show me you’re not afraid.”
“I can’t,” Kaz spat at him.
“But do you want to?” Jesper pressed.
“I can’t, Jesper.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Jesper pushed himself off the wall, getting closer to Kaz with his own eyes now narrowed. “I asked if you wanted to. Cause I know you, Kaz. If you want to do something, then you can. So if you don’t, if you don’t even try, then you’ve just let fear stop you.”
“I’m not afraid!”
“Show me, then,” Jesper dared. He leaned over Kaz then and dropped his hand down to cover Kaz’s bare one. The only other times they had touched, it hadn’t been like this. When Jesper had fainted on Kaz, only clothed parts of their bodies had touched, or if they had made skin on skin contact, Jesper had been too unconscious to remember. There had been plenty of skin on skin contact when they had fought each other, but it had all been so fast: knuckles grazing against cheekbones or fists colliding with noses. The two of them had already been fighting, screaming at each other that any reactions Kaz had would have been indiscernible from his already heightened state.
It was pretty obvious now.
Kaz stood up from his seat in the chair, wrenching his hand out from under Jesper and grabbing him by the neck with his gloved hand. Jesper found his back slamming into the stone wall as Kaz threw him against it. Kaz’s chest was heaving, his eyes wild and an electricity about him that made Jesper go truly still for the first time in his life. His hand was still at his throat, pressing him against the wall, hard enough to be a threat, but not hard enough to hurt.
“I’m not,” Kaz started to say through deep, quick breaths as he tried to control himself. “I’m not afraid.”
“Okay,” Jesper whispered. Part of his body wanted to throw his hands up in surrender, the other part wanted to push Kaz off him and throw a punch. Somehow, the part of him that wanted to just freeze won out.
“I’m not afraid,” Kaz told him again, his voice coming out quieter, less angry, his breath starting to even out again. His gaze was still on Jesper, but it became a little farther off, unfocusing slightly as he stared at him.
“Okay,” Jesper said again. “You’re not afraid then.”
“I’m not afraid.” Kaz said one last time, but this time it sounded like he was trying to convince himself. And then his gaze became focused again, and Jesper must have missed something because it looked like he was staring at his lips, and then Jesper definitely missed something because the next thing he knew Kaz Brekker was kissing him.
It was hard and determined, taking and directing like everything Kaz Brekker did in his life. It was commanding, his gloved hand gripping Jesper’s chin harshly, angling him exactly where he wanted him, his other hand pressed against Jesper’s chest where they still had a layer of clothing to separate them. But his lips were still on Jesper’s lips and then suddenly Jesper could feel Kaz’s tongue and then Kaz was licking into his mouth, exploring and calculating like he was trying to map out Jesper’s topography, learn him from the inside out.
It didn’t last long.
Jesper, stupid Jesper, reacted like he usually did when he was being kissed, because that’s all that was happening, right? It’s not like Jesper had wished he might be able to do this one day, maybe if his friend had just been a little bit better with physical touch. It wasn’t as if Jesper had filed this away in a cabinet of things he could only dream about but would never actually happen, because Kaz Brekker was Kaz Brekker and why would he ever want to kiss Jesper Fahey?
So Jesper reacted how he always reacted, which was to bring his hand up and grasp at Kaz’s cheek to hold him in close. That was the last thing he should have done, evidently, because Kaz made some kind of choking noise in the back of his throat, pulling back and away from Jesper only to start projectile vomiting onto the grass beside them.
Jesper was left there to catch his breath, let his eyes reset and his brain catch up to what had just happened as Kaz continued to empty the contents of his stomach until he was just dry heaving, his whole body rolling with the force of it.
“Damn, Kaz,” Jesper murmured, touching his fingertips to his lips. “Just tell me you hate me.” Despite the fact that another batch of bile was making its way back up Kaz’s throat and onto the ground, Kaz still had the wherewithal to give Jesper the middle finger. “Yeah, yeah,” Jesper muttered. He gently patted the air above Kaz’s back, letting himself actually touch him just once. He pulled his hand back when Kaz dry heaved again. “I got ya, you bastard, you’re alright.”
“Fuck you,” Kaz gasped out.
“Let’s make sure you can kiss me without vomiting before we move on to fucking.”
Kaz hit him then, just a light slap to his stomach, only light simply because Kaz didn’t have to energy to do anything else. “Come on,” Jesper said, slapping the edge of the chair instead of clapping Kaz on the back like he wanted to. “Let’s get you back to your room.” Jesper left no room for debate as he walked over to where Kaz had thrown his glove before, retrieving it and shoving it into Kaz’s pocket as he was still coming back to himself.
It felt strange to Jesper, both to be the more sober one leading someone who was too intoxicated for their own good back to the safety of their bed, but also the fact that all he could really do was walk beside Kaz, couldn’t throw Kaz’s arm over his shoulder and help keep him upright like he wanted to, couldn’t have his arm around Kaz’s waist to keep them both steady. Instead, he just walked beside Kaz, shooting a glance at him out of the corner of his eyes whenever he could.
Kaz caught him staring at one point and seemed to put all of his energy into standing up a little straighter and walking a little faster. He didn’t even manage a glare. Jesper tried not to stare anymore on the rest of their walk back.
Jesper had been hoping to walk Kaz all the way back to his room, maybe even get him into bed, make sure he was warm and comfortable before he had to leave him alone, but when they stopped outside of the building, the one you had to scan into that Jesper didn’t have access to due to living on the other side of campus, Kaz didn’t immediately go to scan his card.
Instead, he took a deep breath while turned away from Jesper. “I’ve thought of what I want for my favor,” Kaz said.
Jesper just rolled his eyes. Of course that’s what Kaz was thinking about. Of course he already had some sort of scam going that he wanted Jesper’s help with. “Alright,” Jesper said, straightening up and putting his hands on his hips. “Out with it. What do you want.”
Kaz kept his body turned away from Jesper. When he turned his head to the side, he stopped just far enough that he really wasn’t looking at him. “Never mention this night again.”
Jesper took a deep breath. He waited, what exactly he was waiting for, he didn’t know, but he still waited before he spoke again. “Fine,” he muttered.
He imagined that to be the end of it, but Kaz still didn’t scan his card. Kaz wasn’t moving, so Jesper didn’t move either. “I do…” Kaz started to say, but then he stopped again. More time passed. Jesper forced himself to breathe. “I want…” he tried again. It took a little while longer for Kaz to try a third time, Jesper patiently, as patiently as he could manage, waiting for him the whole time. Kaz finally turned enough to look at Jesper over his shoulder. “I do want to try.” He said. He looked away from Jesper again, staring off into the distance. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”
More silence. Kaz looked forward again but still didn’t scan his key card. More time passed. “Okay,” Jesper murmured, unsure of what to do next. Whether he had something else he was going to say that he gave up on, whether Jesper’s acknowledgement was what Kaz had needed or if he just finally found the ability to move, Kaz nodded once, short and abrupt, then scanned his keycard, pushing the door open and stepping inside. “Shake on it then,” Jesper blurted out before Kaz could close the door.
Kaz stood there, not moving for a long time, but he turned to find Jesper staring at him with his arm held out.
“I won’t mention tonight again. The deal’s the deal,” Jesper nodded down to his hand. “But you’ve got to shake on it.”
It took a long time for Kaz to turn back to him, even longer for him to stare at Jesper’s outstretched hand before he actually did something. He moved his hand, slowly but surely, until it hovered close to Jesper’s where he froze again. His glove was still on, but Jesper didn’t want to push him any farther than he was willing to, so he didn’t say anything. Eventually, finally, Kaz gripped Jesper’s hand in his own, giving it a single, solitary shake.
He didn’t let go.
“The deal’s the deal,” Kaz repeated, quietly as he stared at their clasped hands. When Kaz still didn’t move, Jesper moved his hand up just that little bit farther until his fingertips were at the edge of Kaz’s gloves. Jesper froze there, also staring at their hands, not willing to look up at Kaz. Kaz gasped as he moved his hand forward too, enough for the pads of Jesper’s fingers to ghost over the pulse point on his wrist.
Then he pulled his hand back, shaking it like he had just received an electric shock. “Good night, Fahey,” Kaz said. Then he walked back into his dorm, closing the door behind him, leaving Jesper to stare after him.