Chapter Text
Excerpt from the podcast “No Crows In Space”:
It’s a very common opinion that Wylan Hendricks was destined for fame. I mean, think about it. He’s the son of an eccentric painter and a nasty business man and, even as a kid, he’s got this ethereal kind of beauty to him. The huge blue eyes, the freckles, the red hair that takes up just a bit too much space? It’s difficult to not be a little taken with him. He had all the money in the world but never once took a voice lesson, you know. Wasn’t classically trained on piano beyond the lessons his mother gave him. You’d never be able to tell with him singing and playing like that’s what he was born to do. Angelic, y’know. He was destined for it. Stardom, that is.
Then there’s the matter of his childhood.
I think, more than anything, this kid craved some sort of connection. His father was a busy man, he’s got no siblings to speak of, and his mom dies early on in his life. I mean, it must be hard being that isolated. No one had heard of Wylan Hendricks until his days in Ketterdam as a teenager.
Excerpt from an interview with Wylan Hendricks:
Yes, I suppose it did get a little lonely as a kid [laughs].
I didn’t have many friends. I think I was still silently grieving my mother for a lot of that time. Didn’t leave the house much. Only played piano when I had one of her songs stuck in my head.
But, y’know, it wasn’t a huge walk from the Geldstraat to the heart of Ketterdam. So, one day, I wandered down to the Slat. It’s always my favorite story to tell people. The corruption of Wylan Van Eck [laughs]. I was done for as soon as someone outside offered me a cigarette and called me pretty.
It only took an hour and then I was in the alley outside, smoking weed for the first time with a very lovely girl I’d met ten minutes prior. She kept reaching out to pull on my curls– back then they were so long it’s honestly embarrassing –and of course I kept letting her because I was high out of my mind and knew she was gorgeous. The attention was nice, you know? No one paid attention to me like that back then.
I don’t know how many hits I’d taken at that point but someone came out to get the girl I was with. Turns out she was a roadie with the band playing that night. So she started leaving to go set up their gear and I was ready to head back into the Slat to see if anyone had another joint when she turned around and asked if I was coming. Just like that, I became a roadie.
And everyone knows what happened from there. How Joey Price got me into sound design and how I found the Crows. Tale as old as time [laughs].
The Slat circa 1979:
The first thing you notice about Wylan Hendricks is his eyes, then his hair, then his ever-flushed cheeks, then how they work together to create this mess of auburn and blue and pink that shouldn’t work, but does.
Then, he opens his mouth and the next thing you notice is that Wylan Hendricks is odd.
Jesper had walked into the Slat that evening looking for Joey or Kaz or someone who could help him set up the damn stage for a mic check. Instead, he’d found a scraggly boy so hunched over he looked maybe half a foot shorter than he was. He was wearing a wrinkled white shirt with a blue bandana holding back his long curls. The kid looked a little manic, probably doped up or cracked out, leaning down to fiddle with something on a low shelf.
“Hey uh… kid,” Jesper settled on referring to him. “You seen Joe? Or Kaz?”
The boy shot up and took in Jesper’s face.
“Holy lips,” the boy mumbled. Jesper’s brow furrowed and the boy flushed, shaking his head. “Um. I mean. Yeah, uh… Joey’s not in today. I’m sound. I mean– I’m Wylan, I’m doing sound… uh, tonight.”
Definitely on something.
“Great!” Jesper forced a smile. “Mind helping out on stage? We’re ready to set up.”
Jesper was out of there before he could get an answer, more than put off by the intensity the boy radiated. He tried to chalk it up to whatever substances the kid was on, but something else irked him. There was some magnetism to the kid, even if Jesper wasn’t sure how to place it.
Either way, Jesper had shit to do.
His band, Crows, was playing at the Slat that night. For free. Because Kaz Brekker was a bitch, but also Jesper’s closest friend who had really needed them to cover for another band that bailed at the last minute.
So they were soundchecking. Or trying to.
Nina Zenik, treasured drummer and roommate, was fucking with a bundle of chords, freeing one and shoving it into a mic with more aggression than strictly necessary.
“D’you find ‘im, love?”
“Nah,” Jesper said, taking the mic from her and unraveling the chord to walk it over to center stage. “Found Joey’s apprentice, so get ready for that.”
Nina opened her mouth to snipe something back when Wylan stumbled out of the back room and scrambled for the sound board.
“Sorry everyone!” He called out. Jesper couldn’t place his accent. He didn’t sound like every other rat in town, that was certain. He sounded well-read. Fancy. “We’ll give mics a go first.”
The boy fiddled with the board in front of him then locked eyes with Jesper, nodding at the mic in his hands.
“Alright alright,” Jesper said into the mic. The sound bounced out of the amps in front of him.
The boy grinned, eyes back on the sliders in front of him as he directed. “Get the mic on your left.”
Jesper did as told, speaking nonsense into it until the feedback subsided and the boy gave him a thumbs up.
“Are you good to run a song? S’about all we have time for.”
“‘Nej! Get in here we’re running ‘Cards’!” Nina called out from the drum set. She nodded for Jesper to get his guitar, Inej walked in a moment later with her bass already on her shoulder, and they were off.
Playing was always a dream state for Jesper. Even fleeting moments like this where it was just him and his two friends, playing their song a bit faster than they normally would while the volume adjusted around them. No one was listening to them besides the kid who was more focused on getting rid of the ringing feedback than the art. It was perfect. The music was perfect.
Jesper and Inej were jamming on a final solo when the kid rubbed his eyes and stepped away from the soundboard.
“Alright, thanks everyone. Show’s in—“ he looked down at his watch. “‘Bout three hours.”
Jesper let his guitar hang limply on his shoulder, fixing the kid with an incredulous look. He spoke and moved like he was a vague impersonation of the culture around him. Like he’d been around a while, but wasn’t quite integrated. Odd, Jesper observed again. And Jesper was nothing if not curious.
The boy was engrossed in the sound board, brow furrowed as he mashed a series of buttons. His hair was frizzing out of control, the bandana not doing much to keep it out of his face at that point.
Jesper turned to his band mates.
“D’you have any idea who that guy is?”
It was Inej who nodded. “Wylan’s been around a little while. He’s working for Kaz for next to nothing. Think he stays with Joey. Sweet boy, though.”
“A little clueless, don’t you think?” Jesper said incredulously.
“Lighten up, love. At least he’s nice to look at.” Nina commented.
Inej wrinkled her nose. “Joey isn’t that bad.”
“You don’t get an opinion, dear Inej–” Jesper butted in “-you defend Kaz’s hair too much for that.”
Inej rolled her eyes, tossing her braid over her shoulder primly before stalking off to the bar.
“‘Nej has the right idea.” Nina stood to follow. “D’you wanna drink?”
Jesper waved her off. “Maybe later.”
His eyes drifted to Wylan. The kid obviously knew what he was doing. He navigated the board with the same confidence their normal sound guy Joey did. Jesper was, admittedly, curious.
Fuck it, he thought, walking over to Wylan. They’d have to get to know each other sooner or later if the kid intended to stick around. And Jesper wanted to know why Kaz was letting a novice like him stick around. Jesper jogged over to the kid, now practically hiding under the desk, and opened his mouth to speak.
“Hey–”
The kid abruptly shot up, a glass in his hand and a guilty look on his face.
Jesper, too shocked to fully control his body, slammed directly into him.
The glass fell between them and shattered.
“Fuck!”
Excerpt from an interview with Wylan Hendricks:
Jesper Fahey? I don’t have anything to say about him.
[Interviewer speaks off camera, muffled.]
Forgive me, I don’t mean to sound standoffish but I really don’t want to talk–
[Interviewer interupts, insistent.]
Fine. [Wylan sighs]. You wanted to know about when we first met? That’s probably a good place to start. I met Jesper a month or two after I left home for good. I got the impression he didn’t like me. Which… isn’t like Jesper, you know? He’s charming. He likes everyone, or at least pretends to.
We met because I was soundchecking his band. They were just Crows back then. Inej, Nina, and Jesper. Even then, they sounded polished. Better than most of the bands the Slat hosted back then.
At that point I didn’t know how to be awake without being drunk or high, so I had a glass of straight vodka hidden under the sound desk. Joey and Kaz would’ve killed me if they knew I had that near the equipment, but I was young and stupid and thought I knew better.
Anyways, Jesper ran straight into me and the glass shattered. I cut my whole hand open trying to clean it up. But he never told anyone. Helped me clean up my hand. After that I felt less inclined to hate him. Only slightly though. We were still horrible to each other those first few months.
Wylan Hendricks circa 1979:
It was a miracle Wylan was still concious let alone running a concert by the time the sun set and people crowded themselves into the Slat to dance and drink and forget about the world.
They were in between songs when Wylan stumbled outside.
Fresh air (or as fresh as it could get in Ketterdam– it smelt of smoke and shit no matter where you went) hit his face, drying the sweat on his brow as he sought purchase against the alley wall.
He wriggled a joint out of his pocket and lit it with trembling fingers.
The door beside Wylan opened and he cursed, stumbling over soggy boxes to hide in the shadows. Kaz would have his head on a spike if he knew Wylan was smoking on the job. He suspected Kaz knew anyway, but he didn’t intend to confront the man about it.
Straining his eyes in the dark, Wylan watched as Jesper and girl he’d never seen before stumbled outside. They weren’t doing anything nefarious. The girl was giggling a lot and Wylan wished he were as intoxicated and carefree as she was in that moment.
He looked back to the blunt in his hands, slowly sizzling away and he hadn’t even taken a drag yet.
To remedy that, Wylan set it between his lips and inhaled deeply.
So deeply, in fact, that he choked on the smoke.
The girl giggled through it all, not noticing. But Jesper noticed. They locked eyes and Jesper grinned, shaking his head in disbelief.
He whispered something to the girl and she touched his shoulder, laughing loudly and scampering back inside.
Wylan stood, coughing again and remaining in the shadows to hide his embarrassed flush.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, offering the joint as an apology.
Jesper took it. “No need. Would’ve chosen a different alley if I knew this one was taken.”
“S’not taken.”
Jesper raised an eyebrow, looking him up and down. “Seems taken.”
“Well, it’s not.”
“You’re so stubborn.”
“I prefer dedicated.”
“Obstinate.”
“Faithful.”
“A pain in the ass.”
“Hmm, that one has a nice ring to it.”
Jesper laughed, taking another drag before handing it off to Wylan.
“You guys sound good,” Wylan commented idly, the smoke making his voice hoarse and weaker than he’d like. “Compared to some other stuff I hear.”
“You heard Rotty’s band?”
Wylan grimaced in lieu of an answer.
“Why’d Joey go for you?” Jesper asked.
Wylan shrugged. He knew why. It was because Wylan reminded Joey of who he was when he was younger. Wylan was like a little brother or maybe a son to him. Joey was the only reason Kaz took a chance on him. “I’m lucky.”
“I doubt that.”
“Does it matter? I’m here, now. Behind me is silence and ahead of me is silence. All I’ve got is right now.”
“That’s the weed talking.”
Wylan grinned. “Probably. But it’s still a nice thought, isn’t it?”
Jesper hummed in agreement, carefully watching Wylan.
“Sorry I ruined your chances with that girl,” Wylan spoke after a moment.
“Nah, don’t worry. She was too out of it anyway.”
“Still. You’re trading one junkie for another, and I’m not nearly as pretty as her.”
Wylan looked over and they both burst into laughter as soon as their eyes met. They were stoned. Nothing was funny enough to warrant doubling over in laughter, but they did anyway.
“You’re charming when you want to be, Hendricks.”
“Thank you.” Wylan gave a mock bow. “We should head back in. The show and all that.”
Wylan turned to the door. Jesper was still studying him, watching the way his hair stood up in the humidity.
Jesper cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”
That night after the concert, Jesper watched Wylan clean up the stage in a blur. He remembered asking Kaz if the kid needed walked home only for Wylan to be gone by the time he went looking. He remembered walking half way to Joey’s flat before realizing how stupid it all was and stumbling home. He remembered passing out on his couch with Wylan’s hair burned into the back of his eyelids.
Excerpt from an interview with Wylan Hendricks:
Jesper was… special. Even when all we did was get on each other’s nerves and fight and hurt each other. He was special.
I don’t think anyone will ever know me as well as he did.