genesis; joost klein
jester! joost x princess! reader
tags: dead dove do not eat, f! reader, medieval/royal(ish) au, best friends to lovers, except they’ve always been weird with each other, joost is a loveable perv but also a knight in shining armour, reader deserves so much better, possibly too much angst, even more hurt x comfort, all characters are dutch and speak in dutch but dialogue is written in english for obvious reasons.
warnings: mentions of a previous SA, physical violence, SA by a family member, mentions/descriptions of blood, death, rpf.
word count: 6,648.
notes: so so much love to my beta-readers @minuutvanverval , @blueessber , and @killerlookz <33 i honestly don’t think i could be any prouder of this fic — i hope that you all love it as much as i do!!
enjoy xx
you’ve never been one to revel in the luxuries that come along with being who you are, have you? to pridefully sit back and let everyone else ‘beneath you’ carry the weight of the silver spoon you were born with. no — by tooth and fucking nail you fight against it, against your family name and your title in any silly, stubborn way that you can.
you’ll forever be grateful for the security of it; you understand that it’s a privilege to be princess and how that means you’ll never have to go a day without a full meal or warm bed to sleep in. you just resent the more human cost of it, how so many others are supposed to live just to serve you, simply because you carry a bluer blood. as a kid it never sat quite right, how differently your only other friend in the palace was treated, looked down upon because he was different. now that you’re of age, it enrages you.
everything that you can do for yourself, you do with your own two hands; your father lost that war a very long time ago. and for the most part you’re proud of it, of your independence, even though it’s come at the cost of deeming you the ‘black sheep’ of the family. you wouldn’t have it any other way.
the only true downside to it is when you’re here, standing in front of your tri-panelled mirror and stretching so far behind yourself that you fear your shoulders might pop right out of their sockets. the tips of your fingers feel red-raw, almost numb, the strings of your corset slicing straight through them as you tug, wincing, unable to get the angle just right. it’s been forty five minutes of this, of struggling to lace up your own undergarments because you’ll never ask anyone else to do it for you. normally you just skip the corset part entirely, but you know you won’t be able to get away with that tonight.
all this effort was bound to be futile anyway — a banquet for one of your father’s old friends, another duke or an earl or someone, coming to visit from a neighbouring country. what that has to do with you, exactly, you have no idea, and yet your attendance was still being demanded. you were still being doomed to spend an entire evening staring blankly at a wall, reduced down to nothing more than another prize on a man’s arm. a mere barging chip. you’ve already heard the whispers of somebody’s son being in dire need of a new wife.
another curse slips past your lips; a quiet, muttered “fuck!” as you lose your grip on the strings for what feels like the millionth fucking time.
“better watch your mouth, duifje. that’s no way for a princess to talk.”
your mirror wobbles, its intricate, gold frame banging against your bedroom wall and leaving behind a faint, jagged scratch on the side of it. your elbow aches from where it had collided with the glass, and you struggle to regain your balance as you swivel on the spot, your heart pounding loud inside your ears and your lips curling into a pout. you see the dislodged panel of your wall before you see him standing there leaning against your chest of draws, his arms crossed and a wide grin plastered across his face as he giggles.
“i hate it when you do that.” but he already knows that you don’t. “how long have you been there?”
though he ignores your question only because you don’t really need to know the answer to it, do you? and he’ll never have the heart to lie. “need some help?”
he also knows that you won’t question it any further than that. you’re just not privy to the one little crack along the panelling of your bedroom, just to the side of the rather grand family portrait that hangs on the far wall. you’re clueless to just how much of his free time he spends lurking there, hiding inside the old tunnels of the palace that you’re certain only he still uses to get around, watching you, admiring you; his darling best friend. he won’t tell you because he does, he knows that it’s wrong, that it’s borderline perverted and such a horrible invasion of your privacy, but what you don’t know surely can’t hurt you.
“please.”
in the reflection of your mirror you watch him nod, sauntering over to you, the bells of his hood jingling with every step. seeing him clad head to toe in his full uniform, his dark lace blouse and the delicate, painted mask that dangles from a cord tied to his trousers, ready for a performance later, it makes you frown. he always looks so beautiful like this; such striking blue eyes cast in smudged rings of black, and soft, blond hair pulled into small bunches on either side of his head. it’s enough for your heart to skip a beat but you despise what it means, the humiliation that it’s going to entail for him.
“i didn’t think you’d be coming tonight; father promised he would give you the night off.”
joost klein, the palace jester; your best friend and the one that truly bears the brunt of everyone else's abuse.
“it’s alright, schat. it’s my job. i’ll be fine.”
“that’s not the point, joostie.” as soon as he’s within reach you’re pulling him into a tight hug, standing up on your tippy-toes and looping your arms around his neck. “we had a deal. if i promised to attend, you wouldn’t have to. he knows how i feel about it.”
and in turn he wraps his own around your middle, pulling you further into his chest as he buries his face into your hair, sighing. “hey — at least we’ll get to be with each other, yeah? you won’t have to suffer through tonight alone.”
“having to watch them be so cruel to you is suffering.”
gently, he pulls back from you, his hands falling down to clutch yours and squeezing them. it’s simply for your sake that he’s still smiling so brightly. “i don’t know, i quite enjoy watching you crush the hearts of those assholes that think they actually have a chance with you.”
you roll your eyes in faux-annoyance but a smile of your own betrays you. every single suitor that your father has ever invited to one of his events, princes from other allied nations that seem to believe they’re somehow owed your hand in marriage, joost always hates them. they’re often the targets of his routines; the ones to have the tomatoes thrown at their heads when he juggles just to eventually ‘lose control’ of it all. he insists that it’s just ‘revenge’ for how terribly they always take the rejection, never wanting to listen when you firmly tell them no, and getting handsy because they think that if they show you a good enough time, it’ll change your mind.
he’s just protective of you like that; he always will be.
“oh i know you do. sometimes you honestly bring it on yourself.”
joost merely shrugs, raising your hands up to place a light kiss along your knuckles. “and it’ll always be worth it for you, duifje.”
you have to avert your gaze to stop your eyes from tearing up; you don’t know how to handle it when he looks at you like that, as though you’re his only reason for still breathing. “you’re too good to me.”
so you don’t see it when a flash of something else falls across his face, changing his features, almost deepening them until he pulls himself together again. but even then he can’t really acknowledge what you’ve said, not when you don’t even know the half of it. the kind of love that hides behind why he’s just always been so unbelievably good to you.
“cmon, let’s get you dressed. don’t want you to be late.” he’s grateful that you don’t try to question this either, the way that his voice falls so low that it’s hardly above a whisper, despite the way that it’s made your eyebrows furrow together ever so slightly.
you turn around wordlessly, still a little too shy to meet his eyes again in the mirror. at the feeling of his fingertips on the back of your neck, brushing your hair over the curve of your shoulder, you shiver, absentmindedly leaning into the soft touch. even as joost starts to fiddle with the laces of your corset, pulling on them only once you had sucked in a sharp breath, your eyes almost flutter shut as a sudden tingle runs up your spine.
a quiet hum finally urges you to look back up and find him in the reflection, finding the stare that’s already on you. you’re not strong enough to fight the heat that rushes to your face, the rosy blush that tints your cheeks a pretty shade of pink. it just leaves you so breathless, doesn’t it? the intensity of him, the gentle deliberateness of his movements.
“tell me if it hurts.” he tugs on the strings again, harder, starting to knot them into a small bow. he assumes that’s what makes you whimper and not the heavy baritone of his voice in your ear. “almost got it.”
you just nod, rendered too brainless in the moment to try and use your words. this effect that he’s having on you, that he’s had on you for as long as you can remember, it always does this. it always leaves you dizzy; pliable to the touch. you’re so transfixed on him that you can’t imagine glancing away even if you wanted to — there’s a tender smile starting to curl at the corners of his lips as he stares back at you in the mirror, his hands falling to your hips now that your corset is all laced up.
“zo mooi.”
your wrist feels a little heavy as you raise a hand to swat him on the shoulder. “oh stop it.”
and it’s just enough to diffuse the tension because then joost is sticking his tongue out at you before licking a wet stripe up your cheek, making you squeal. “if any bachelor so much as lays a single hand on you, i’ll kill him.”
“sure you will.” you can’t stop your eyes from rolling; it’s what he says every time that he hears of your father trying to trade you off to someone new. your precious hand in marriage in exchange for cheaper imports, military aid, better natural resources. “just like how you ‘killed’ the last one, right?”
“trust me, i didn’t want to miss -”
“- you didn’t. your arrow caught him on the cheek — father almost had your head for it.”
you move to hit him again when he simply giggles at the memory, a little too proud of himself for making some future king bleed, running away from you and your assault as he does. “ow! ow! hey! that was the least he deserved for trying to stick his hand down your dress!”
but you’re not so fond of the memory, are you? of the reminder that some sneering, slimy, brute of a man had so easily overpowered you, backing you up against a wall as he palmed so grotesquely at your tits. you’ve had so long to get over it now, and yet you’re still not quite sure what the worst part of it all was, exactly. the fact that everyone, the whole congregation had beared witness to it, or the fact that joost had been the only one amongst them to try and stop it.
your darling best friend, your jester, who’d been right in the middle of a little archery act when he’d seen it all unfold from the corner of his eye. some nephew of one of your father’s dear friends; his hand pushing down into the front of your dress as he squeezed you. you’re not entirely convinced that joost had properly thought it through before letting his arrow fly just past the prince’s face, merely grazing it, swearing blind that it was all a part of the show. it was by the very thin skin of his teeth that he’d gotten away with it.
though now he’s watching you deflate before his very eyes as you’re suddenly confronted by every speck of fear, shame, disgust that you had felt in the moment. it has him reaching for your hands just to clutch onto them again; the only thing he could think of to try and keep you grounded for a little while longer. already he was starting to mourn your smile.
“i shouldn’t have brought it up; forgive me duifje.”
“no, it’s not that. it’s okay.” you pause just to breathe out a laugh that you don’t mean. “it’s fine, i just…i wish that you could actually be with me at these things. and i don’t just mean in some silly old costume half way across the room, dancing for all the same people that are laughing at you. i mean i wish you could sit right there next to me, holding my hand, keeping me safe from anyone with such ill intentions like that.”
and it truly wrecks him, doesn’t it? seeing you so small, so desperate, almost needy for his comfort. anything that you could ever possibly want from him, it’s yours, it always will be, but it hurts to see your light so dim now. he’s not sure if he’ll ever be strong enough to let go of your hands again. he already knows that he doesn’t want to.
“i promise, i’m not going to be far, okay? i’ll be right there; i won’t let anything happen to you.”
and for the most part, joost managed to keep his promise. throughout the night, his gaze hardly strayed from you, watching, guarding, a permanent smile stuck hidden underneath his mask. he watched you shine amongst the gold details of the palace ballroom, shaking hands and indulging in only those that you absolutely had to. he giggled every time that he saw you roll your eyes behind someone’s back, or pull a funny face at him each time that your gaze met from across the dance floor.
and it was during one of those fleeting moments where joost had no other choice but to look away, that he lost you. yet another nobleman and his wife, both holding a title that he didn’t quite understand, stopped him in his path, requesting another magic trick. telling them ‘no’ simply hadn’t been an option and somehow, in the two minutes that his attention had been turned, you had gone.
he didn’t catch sight of you again until you were already half way up the staircase, teetering on your heels as you took it two uneasy steps at a time. despite the heavy silk train of your dress dragging at your feet, threatening to trip you up, joost still wasn’t fast enough to catch up with you. he was too far behind to see the soft bouncing of your shoulders as you swallowed down hot, choking tears as you left.
it was him that your father planned on marrying you off to, the prince that joost had almost blinded in one eye for putting his hands on you. what was promised to be a quick, innocent introduction to some sweet old friends of his, was an ambush — a way for your future in-laws to decide whether or not you were good enough for their son. and nobody, not you father, your brother, your uncles, not one of them intended on letting you have a say in the matter.
though really, you had been an idiot to expect anything else, any better; this hadn’t exactly been the first time, after all. you knew that it was an expectation of a young lady in your position, and your father had made it clear to you before that you were certainly no exception to that rule. it had just never gone any further than a few not-so subtle hints thrown into conversations that you wouldn’t entertain, a few nudges in a particular direction when a respected suitor was in attendance at a ball, or another banquet.
but this had been different. together they all spoke as though it was already all set in stone, as though you hadn’t even been present to make a stand for yourself. talks of a next, far more private, more intimate dinner between the families, a grand engagement party to properly announce the union between your two nations, the wedding. none of them had taken any notice of the sullen look of horror that had fallen across on your face; they’d assumed your silence meant compliance until you had finally found your voice.
steady, firm, without any room left for doubt, you refused. at each word dared to be spoken over you, you only got louder, more abrasive, demanding to still be heard. under no circumstances would you be marrying anyone unless it was on your own terms, your own authority, and for nothing less than love. and when they all laughed and sharpened their tongues, growing tired at your constant defiance, you’d only held your head up higher and stood your ground, unmoving.
it wasn’t until your father had declared you as ‘your mother’s greatest disappointment’ that you left in a hurry to be anywhere else but there. you were just too proud to let any of them see you cry, too embarrassed under the watchful eyes of the guests that had eavesdropped to see if joost happened to be amongst them too.
you hadn’t seen that he was; you hadn’t seen that your brother had followed you, either.
at the gunshot-sound of your bedroom door slamming open into the wall, chipping its white paint, you jump. then it falls shut behind him with another bang, as he takes a moment or two just to watch you, his movements suddenly so much slower, almost calculated, and his lips curving down into a deep grimace. something about the look in his eyes opens up a small pit inside your stomach; when you fold your arms across your chest, it’s only to try and hide yourself away from him.
“what do you want, erik?”
you’ve never been particularly fond of him, and whether it comes down to your rather substantial age gap or just his cruel, vindictive nature, you’re still not sure. all you know is that you’ve tried — you’ve spent far too many years trying to bond with your big brother, and he’s never changed. he’s never liked you. in his eyes, you’ve always been the little sister that he never wanted; the new baby that killed his mother. a parasite.
“you just can’t help yourself, can you? always throwing your little tantrums whenever ‘princess’ can’t have her way.”
your eyebrows furrow at that, your nose scrunching up just a little bit. “what are you talking about?”
“how you keep disobeying father like that — believe me, he’s trying to do you a favour. you should have some fucking gratitude.”
for every step that erik takes towards you, you take another two back, until your legs hit the very edge of your bed. “gratitude? i’m not some fucking house-pet that you can just…that you can just give away to the first person that shows some interest!”
his voice darkens as he takes a last step, standing so close to you now that you can smell the bitter alcohol on his breath. “no, but you are a woman, so it’s your duty to just shut the fuck up and do as you’re told.”
something starts to burn underneath your skin, an almost brash, ambitious kind of anger that has you sneering up at him; spitting. it’s an accumulation of every other time that he, or anyone else has ever looked down upon you for such a groundless reason. when he used to campaign for you not to receive the same education as he did, insisting that it would merely be ‘a waste’, or that time when an old cousin once laughed at you for trying to argue that bearing children wasn’t the only thing you could be destined for.
you’re reminded of every time that a man has ever made you feel vapid, incompetent, small, and it only further ignites the outrage that courses through your veins.
a single dollop of your saliva hits his cheek. “fuck you.”
and the slap that follows knocks you clean off your feet, down onto the mattress behind you.
“fucking bitch.” you hardly hear the insult over the sound of a shrill ringing in your ears, accompanied by a soft throbbing in your cheek that’s hot to the touch. through the tears that have welled up in your eyes from the pain of it, you can see how your bedroom walls spin ever so slightly. “had it been up to me, i would have sold you off to the higher bidder years ago.”
“you’re…you’re vile.” your rebuttal comes out weak, your voice cracking after every syllable; it makes him laugh.
“you can call me whatever you like, sister. i’m still going to teach you some respect.”
rough hands grab at your legs, yanking you to the edge of your bed hard enough to leave behind future bruises on the supple flesh of your thighs. it’s solely by instinct that you react as fiercely as you do despite the haziness of your head, pushing against the chest that tries to weigh you down, the fingertips that slip underneath all the layers of your dress. you fight to bring your knees up high enough to then kick as you dig your nails into erik’s shoulders, through the padding of his jacket, scratching.
“nonononono, no, please, erik, please don’t do this.”
he strikes you again with the back of his hand, knuckles catching on your bottom lip, your vision threatening to fade around the edges. it subdues you long enough for him to slot a knee in between your legs as he tears through each layer of your gown, not stopping until you're almost bare besides your corset and what little remains of your underwear.
there’s a faint taste of blood in your mouth as you begin to cry, still desperate in the thrashing of your heavy limbs. “erik, please. please, i’m begging you.”
but your brother stays silent, only grunting as he quickly catches both your wrists in one hold and pins them down against your sternum. it makes you wince because it’s with enough force to cut a breath of yours short and your ribs ache; it feels like you can’t breathe anymore.
“father should have done this when he first had the chance, but we both know he’s too much of a coward for it, don’t we? he doesn’t have it in him to discipline you like this.”
then a sob chokes you at the sound of his belt buckle clinking, his free hand struggling to pull the leather back through the silver clasp. suddenly you find yourself screaming for joost’s help instead.
you’re not sure if there’s any logic behind it; for once you don’t even know where he is, but you don’t stop. you keep calling out his name until it leaves behind a taste of its own on your tongue, until your voice grows hoarse and your throat raw. you cry for him as though it’s an act of worship, a prayer, in the same way that someone might cry for god in their final moments. and you make peace with the fact that it might still all be for nothing, because you know in your heart that his name is the only one worthy of your last breath, anyway.
“really? you think that little freak of yours is gonna come save you?” simply saying it out loud is enough to make erik falter, for a moment. the very idea of it, of the jester having any chance at all of stopping him, it’s too ridiculous, too silly not to laugh at.
though before you can answer, he’s shifting his grip, bringing your arms up to pin your wrists just above your head as he cracks. he leans down, resting too much of his body weight on top of you as hot breath fans across your face with every chuckle. the one hand that he still has spare moves to cup your heat, and you squirm beneath the touch of it, another sharp scream ripping right through you.
“by all means, if thinking about him is what it takes to get yourself off…”
you wiggle a little harder when he sits up, leaning back on his knees slightly and easing his grip on you just enough to try and pull your hands free. it earns you another slap, leaving you rather limp and useless before he lets you go completely only to tug on his belt again. he knows that you’re not going to have it in you to fight anymore; maybe he’d hit you a little harder than he meant to.
so it means that it doesn’t really register at first when erik suddenly goes rigid, and the light spray of something warm hits your skin. you don’t see the dagger that’s poking out through the centre of his chest, or the blood that drips from the corner of his mouth until the fog behind your eyes starts to clear. but even then it still takes just a moment or two for it to properly click, and for the thick, iron-heavy scent of his blood to overwhelm your senses.
only then do you start screaming again.
you scream because it’s the expression on your brother’s face that you just can’t seem to bear; the look of terror in his eyes as he gasps out one last breath, before falling still. you scream because you know that it’s his blood splattered across the bare of your chest, even though you’re far too afraid to look. you’re screaming because it’s his dead weight that’s starting to crush you, and you can feel the very tip of the blade pressing down into your skin.
a force from behind him takes erik by the shoulders and drags him off of you, only to leave him discarded and alone on your bedroom floor. it feels right to assume that it has to be a hallucination when you then lock eyes with joost, who stands right there still clad in his costume, his mask pushed up to sit on the very top of his head. you’ve never been one to fawn over god and the very idea of religion, but for a second it makes sense that this could be your heaven.
you blink one, two, and then three times, but the sight of him doesn’t fade. joost remains standing there with shaking hands and a heaving chest, tears of his own welling up in the frightened blue of his eyes. and it’s only because you try to stand, making such a desperate reach for him that he finds it in himself to finally move, catching you half way.
gentle hands grasp your hips to keep you steady before strong arms wrap around your waist to keep you close, and in turn you loop your own around his neck. it’s not until you feel him bury his face into your hair, breathing out a quiet sigh of relief as he cries, that your shoulders come to drop and you slowly start to melt.
“i was so scared, duifje…i thought i was too late.” he pulls back to cradle your face in his palms, though he does so without straying so far that you aren’t still able to clutch onto him if you need to. the soft pad of his thumb strokes along the bruise of your cheekbone and he frowns at how you flinch, before dabbling away the blood of your split lip. “where else did he hurt you?”
and it’s whilst you stammer and trip over your worlds that joost finally takes notice of the marks on your arms. the red, aching handprints adorned with darker, half-crescent moons dug into the delicate skin of your wrists. it’s only then that he takes in the whole sight of you; how all the rips in your clothes leave so much of you out and on display for him.
you shake your head. “no where, really…but he just….he tried to… he wanted to teach me some respect.”
joost didn’t need you to say anything more, didn’t want you to say anything more. the way that your hands trembled as he held them, how you couldn’t quite look him in the eyes anymore, it all said enough. it tied a sharp tether around his heart, made him hurt as his lip wobbled and he wiped a few more tears away from your eyes.
“you don’t have to worry about him anymore, okay? he’s gone, and i’m gonna make this all better again, i promise.” with the most tender of movements he guided you back to sit on the chair of your vanity — pulled the old shawl that you had laid over the back of it and draped it across your shoulders to cover you up. “i’m gonna go find some new sheets for you, and then we’ll get you all cleaned up, and -”
“- no.” you shook your head again, sniffing.
right there, peeking out from the far side of your bed, you can see him, see the blood that’s still pooling out from your brother’s mouth and soaking into the fabric of your rug. the dagger plunged into his spine, you can see that it’s joost’s; the handcrafted, argent handle marked with his initials; a gift from his late father, you remember. one of his trademark props.
“no. no, you…you killed him, we have to…they can’t ever know this was you. they’ll hang you for it.” you rise back to your feet, knees wobbling just enough for joost to take your hand, just in case. “you have to take the dagger and go — i’ll lie for you, i’ll say it was an intruder or something.”
“schatje, -” he gulps, his voice cracking.
“- no!” and you grip onto his arms as a thick wave of nausea starts to rise up the very back of your throat, the room starting a spin a little faster than before. “my brother, he was the prince, and you killed him, joost. and they won’t care why even if they believe us, so you need to go, okay? because the longer that you’re here, the more that chance they have of realising you’re gone and they will, they’ll connect the dots and they’ll come for you and i can’t lose you. i can’t.”
watching you spiral like this, becoming hysterical at the very thought of his death or even just never seeing him again, it was far too much, too painful. all the tears still wetting your cheeks, bringing a flush to such a pretty face, and how your eyes are so wide and panicked, staring up at him as though you were afraid he would vanish on the spot. pulling you in by a soft hold on your jaw and kissing you — it was the only thing that joost could think of to do to help slow the rapid rise and fall of your chest.
a faint taste of salt met his tongue as your lips collided, and it was instantaneous how you both moulded to the shape of the other. he cradled you as though you were on the cusp of breaking, like porcelain; precious and so unbelievably worthy of his protection.
you hadn’t misspoken once; he knew exactly what was in store for him if he didn’t act and quickly. perhaps joost just didn’t have it in him to leave you like this, all shaken up and bleeding, possibly concussed and still crying. maybe you were worth the risk of torture — maybe he’d be able to handle the thought of oblivion if he could know for certain that you’d be falling asleep tonight with dry eyes and a fresh pillow.
at the sound of your small hum, he parted from you with an easy grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “and you won’t, princess. come find me when the coast is clear.”
it’s not without one last peck to your lips that he then turns, making a sure dash towards the hidden passageway in your bedroom wall and taking back his dagger as he goes. it’s to his own surprise that no one bats a single eye when he rejoins the banquet, his hands now clean of your brother’s blood and no longer shaking quite so hard. nobody ever noticed that he left. your father’s guests continue to approach him as he wanders almost aimlessly around the room, asking, or rather demanding their own little performances from him.
though only a few minutes of this normality passes before he starts to hear the whispers passed from one guard to another, their weapons suddenly raised as they each take off running in your direction. one of the more ‘higher up’ members of staff makes the announcement — no one is to leave the palace grounds until further notice, and all other employees must immediately gather in the east wing. your wing. and you’re already there putting on the show of a lifetime as he arrives.
in his heart, joost knows that you’re not really acting. the way that everyone hears you scream, watching from only the very corners of their eyes as you cry into the chest of your father, who’s too busy berating the heads of security to properly comfort you, he knows that it’s genuine. but the story that you spin of a faceless intruder, one kept anonymous by the dark cloak and obscure mask that they wore so you couldn’t possibly describe them, it’s all a small performance of your own. no one had climbed in through your bedroom window and attacked you, mercilessly killing your ‘beloved’ brother in the process, who’d only been there to try and ‘save you’, and yet no one doubted it.
of course everyone was still relentlessly interrogated, royal attendants and staff alike, but eventually, every palace guard and king’s knight were ordered to patrol the premises, and everyone else including joost were ordered to their bedrooms for the night. he just never expected you to already be there waiting for him when he slipped in quietly through the door, sat a little awkwardly on his bed with damp hair and dressed in nothing but a silk nightgown.
for the first time in years, you had allowed a few of the maids to attend to you. whilst hendrika washed your hair and beatrix bathed you, nurse aletta did what she could to help patch you up. you’ll never forget just how big they smiled at your use of their first names, addressing them more so as old friends than anything else. and despite how you’ve always typically felt about it, for once their attention actually helped you feel a little better, even though it wasn’t from who you truly desired some fussing from the most.
as soon as they left you to sleep, you were up again and climbing through the hole in your wall, tiptoeing down the old, servant tunnels that you haven’t stepped foot in since you were a child. finding joost’s room came almost naturally, as though it was still muscle memory, and it really wasn’t long before he was standing in front of you again, frowning.
somehow in only an hour or two, the bruise along your cheekbone had changed, appearing so much worse than he ever remembered it being.
and you know him well enough to read his mind, to know exactly what that look of anguish meant.
“i know what you’re going to say, and i’m fine; it’ll heal.” carefully, you rise to your feet, still feeling a little unsteady. “how did it…?”
“no one so much as glanced in my direction, schat. they’re all out searching for this ‘attacker’ of yours; i owe you my life.”
a weight that you hadn’t felt sitting on your chest before suddenly lifts, evaporating, and you pull him down into another soft kiss by the broad of his shoulders. it says more than any spoken words possibly could have. how his hands squeeze at your hips as your own find the nape of his neck, fingers knotting in the pale white of the hair that now falls loose around his ears; it’s both an admittance of your love and a silent plea for him to never let go of you again.
so you only part once you’ve grown too breathless to continue any longer, nearing a feeling of euphoria as you settle for merely panting into each other’s mouths for a moment.
“we’ll call it even if you let me spend the night with you here.”
it shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does. compared to yours, joost’s room is not much more than a shoebox; always dark from the lack of candlelight, the walls only home to a few pieces of his own hand-drawn art, and his bed hardly big enough for him, let alone for two. it’s so much less than what he knows you’re used to, to what he would normally insist that you deserve, but he’ll just never have the heart to say no to you, will he? to ever deny you of what you ask.
he simply nods, because he’s already so certain of your reasoning that he won’t make you say it out loud. just as well as you do, he knows that your bedroom must be spotless by now — the sheets changed and clean, the blood-stained rug taken away to be burned, your brother’s body gone. it’s not only spending the night alone that you’re so desperate to avoid but the actual room itself; the memory of what happened there before joost had got to you.
your eyes never leave him as you climb beneath his covers, laying your head down against his pillow and watching unashamedly as he undresses. in scattered heaps across the floor, joost starts to leave his uniform discarded, yanking off each layer of fabric and letting it all fall until he’s in nothing more than his own old undergarments. and you try to memorise every beauty mark that decorates his skin as though it’s the first time you’ve ever seen him so bare, every subtle flex of his muscles as he moves, every golden hair hair that covers him. from his chest trailing down to the soft of his tummy and further, you let your gaze wander.
“keep looking at me like that duifje, and i’ll faint.”
there’s a pink tint to joost’s cheeks as he joins you, hands rushing to find your waist again and gently tugging you as far up underneath his chin as you can possibly go. it’s only by his own doing that you end up more so on him than you do his mattress, legs all tangling together as you settle against his chest, the steady thumping of his heart daring to lull you to sleep so soon.
“thank you.” as light as the words leave your lips, they hit him heavily. you’re not just thanking him for sharing his bed. “if you hadn’t found me when you did…”
as soon as your voices wavers, you feel him press a single kiss to the roots of your hair. “it’s okay, just try to sleep.”
“you killed a man for me tonight, joost.”
he speaks without hesitation as his arms around you tense, holding you flush against him even tighter. “always told you i would.”
I NEED MOOOOOORE FEED ME HELP
