Work Text:
What am I doing here?
Less than a year ago, he’d known only the misery of his house on the Geldcanal, cold and lonely but safe from the danger of the world outside. Now he was on a job commissioned by his father who had tried to kill him, marching among criminals into a Fjerdan prison, held only by the hope that Kaz Brekker’s plan was just crazy enough to work.
His life had taken a few sharp turns as of late.
Now, his main concern was keeping his chin up and preventing himself from vomiting all over the floor of the Ice Court. The last thing he needed right now was concrete proof to the others that he could not handle the demands of the heist. Not that this would come as a surprise to any of them; they spared no kindness in reminding him of the real reason he was here. Not for his skills. Certainly not for any sentimental attachment. His only use here was his name.
None of them knew that he was useless in that capacity too. In fact, if they threatened his life, his father would probably thank them.
He should have died in that canal. It certainly would have spared him months of anxiety. It would have spared him the risk of permanent imprisonment in a Fjerdan cell. Or a painful death on those spikes where they had propped the corpses of the Dime Lions up above them as a warning.
If he didn’t sit down soon, he was going to faint. Just ahead of them, Kaz was speaking to Matthias and Jesper, but the blood rushing in Wylan’s ears made it difficult to eavesdrop. Down below, the full power of the Fjerdan military was on display: walls of archaic weapons framing sleek black guns and neatly packed explosives all surrounding armored tanks that Wylan had only seen diagrams of before. His toe lodged in a seam on the metal walkway and he staggered, sure he was seconds from plunging into the shapes of death beneath him.
Finally, they arrived in a clean white room and fell out of their single file. At first, Wylan assumed this was the holding cell that Kaz supposedly had a plan to break out of, but then he recognized the hoses that the guards were unwinding from the walls, the drains spaced out across the tiled floor.
As some of the other prisoners began to undress, Wylan shuffled towards a far corner; for some reason, the thought of showering among strangers was far preferable to the judging eyes of his companions. He bit his tongue and tried not to think about how repulsed the Wylan from a year ago would be at the thought of this.
By the time he’d finished stripping, he was shivering. The flecks of icy water from the showers flung across the room to strike him, a stark indication of the worse cold that was to follow.
As he handed off his clothing, he glimpsed Kaz at the front of the crowd. The guard’s fingers probed his gums and Wylan had only just had time to fear the trigger of the baleen wedged between his molars before the guard shouted and yanked two small metal pins from Kaz’s mouth.
Oh, Ghezen. Oh, Ghezen, we’re so screwed. Wylan caught Kaz’s eye, but if the thief was panicked, he didn’t show it. Then he was guided roughly into the shower and Wylan was left alone, the last of the four of them, cowering in the crowd of criminals and trying not to cry.
What am I doing here? Walking straight to his death in the dead tundra of Fjerda. Playing with opponents twice as smart and thrice as strong as him.
The guard searched him with an amused comment to his fellow guard in Fjerdan. Were they mocking him? Still congratulating themselves on disarming Kaz? The only word that Wylan caught was boy. And then a hand on his back pushed him through to the shower and the ice went straight into his bones.
His fingers were blue when the fresh clothes were pressed into them. At the edge of the holding cell, he dressed himself again and ran his anxious hands through his wet curls. They were trapped. They had just successfully imprisoned themselves. This was the stupidest thing he had ever done, and it hadn’t even been his call. He’d put all his faith in Kaz Brekker, a boy barely older than himself and occasionally apparently unhinged. He really was an idiot.
When his shirt was on, he turned around and found Jesper’s eyes trained on him. He had claimed a spot on the bench along the wall with a hand on the space beside him, which was what Wylan hoped was a clear invitation, but Wylan could see the comments brewing just behind those stupidly beautiful lips. What was he holding in? Jabs at his obvious discomfort? Jokes about his pale merchling skin? Something crude, probably.
He took the seat beside Jesper with a racing heart and a churning gut. He felt like a child in comparison to the other men in the holding cell. He was half convinced that there were eyes on him already, picking him out as the weakest among them.
“So,” Jesper said with a friendly elbow nudge. “Fjerdan prison, huh? How would you say this compares to the Geldstraat?”
Wylan swallowed his nausea and performed his best impression of a humored shrug. “Too crowded. Stinks of piss.”
“Does it?” Jesper laughed. “Live in the Barrel long enough, you’ll be used to it.”
He was using the teasing inflections Wylan had grown used to, but there was an odd note in his tone. Strangely enough, Wylan was thankful for it; the anxiety of wondering what Jesper was thinking was a decent distraction from the bone cold panic of willingly locking himself in the most secure prison in Fjerda. Kaz’s lockpicks were gone. Nina and Inej were probably similarly screwed. But something was wrong with Jesper, and this Wylan could address.
Wylan gripped the edge of the bench and stared at the stained tiled floor. “Jesper.”
Eyes on him. “Merchling?”
“Whatever you’re thinking, just say it.”
“Your back.”
“I’m back?”
Jesper grabbed his shoulder roughly and twisted him around. “Your fucking back.”
It wasn’t until his fingers gripped the hem of Wylan’s shirt that he understood. His stomach dropped as he scrambled to his feet, face burning. “It’s nothing.” Not now. Not here. Not him. “It’s nothing.”
Jesper rose to meet him, nearly a whole head taller, and Wylan felt smaller than he had in months.
“What happened?” Jesper demanded.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It looks like a bear fucking mauled you—”
“Well, it didn’t.” He regretted ever prompting this conversation. How had he completely forgotten that those scars were visible? He didn’t see them in the mirror. They hadn’t hurt in years. His hands had grown accustomed to the cross-hatch of raised tracks that passed beneath them when he washed his back.
Ghezen help him, Jesper looked so confused. They’d given up their seats, leaving them stood opposing each other in the crowd of waiting prisoners, and yet Wylan was no longer focused at all on the danger that surrounded them. The potentials of this conversation spooled out before him, each more undesirable than the last. Wylan would refuse to answer Jesper’s questioning and Jesper would never speak to him again. Wylan would tell him the truth and everyone would know that he was useless as a hostage for a father that gave no care for his safety. Wylan would lie and spend the rest of his acquaintance with Jesper running from the consequences of a pointless fib.
How could he have been so stupid? Why did Jesper have to be so damn observant? Why was he even looking at Wylan? He’d been so sure all three of them were preoccupied and far away from him – Matthias on edge at the potential of recognition, Kaz twitching and stalking like a caged beast, Jesper watching Kaz’s gloves peel off – and the thought that Jesper had spared him even a glance turned his whole body crimson.
“Was it at the tannery?” Jesper asked. “I thought that boss was fond of you, but—”
“No, it – Jesper, it’s nothing. It was a long time ago.”
“Then who?”
His arms were wrapped around himself, squeezing hard as though he could shrink himself enough to escape into the cracks between the tiles. “Can we do this later?” he asked, hating how small his voice came out. “Like, preferably when we’re not trapped inside a Fjerdan prison?”
“It wasn’t at home, was it? It wasn’t, right?”
Something in his expression gave it away. He watched Jesper’s face plummet.
“Jesper—”
“What an asshole—”
“It’s not like that.”
“What was it, then?”
“It’s not – it was just a few times.”
“When?”
“I don’t know,” Wylan hissed. “Twelve or thirteen, maybe? It was just – it didn’t matter.”
“It didn’t—” Jesper cut himself off, shaking his head in disbelief. “Wylan, I’ve got bullet wounds that healed better than those.”
“It wasn’t worth a healer, it was – it wasn’t like it’d kill me.” And what if it had? For how many years had his father been waiting for an excuse to get rid of him? What if he had bled out in those hours curled on the smooth porcelain of the empty tub, waiting for the burning to recede? Would his father have mourned in earnest?
Jesper’s brow was furrowed. He was staring at Wylan like he was the answer to a question that had been bugging him, and Wylan’s skin crawled at the pervasive gaze. If he pieced together so much from this one inconsequential detail, how long until the real demons were revealed? And, more frightening – how would he react? Right now, he probably believed that Wylan had been punished with no sensible justification. There was no way to explain it to him without outing his own deficiencies. And if Jesper knew why he had those scars, Wylan doubted he’d be nearly as appalled.
Jesper opened his mouth, but Wylan was a quicker draw. “It’s none of your business. Forget it.”
He knew he looked pathetic. He was practically begging. Please. Please, Jesper. Please forget it.
And then the chiming of the Elderclock signaled the return of the guards and the next phase of their plan, and so he did. Or, at least, Wylan hoped that he did.
Their hideout at Black Veil was cramped and humid. After a life spent in the vast, endless halls of the Van Eck manor, working and living in such close quarters made Wylan antsy. Since Inej’s capture, Kaz had become every bit the monster he was painted as, and the rest of them could only do their best to stay out of his way.
It was hard to maintain modesty. There was a somewhat private alcove that was unofficially claimed by Nina and Matthias, and Wylan was starting to doubt that Kaz ever changed his clothes anymore, but Wylan – well, his face was Kuwei’s, but his body was his own. He hid. In the chaos of the Ice Court heist, Jesper had apparently forgotten their brief spat in the holding cell, but Wylan hadn’t. Even now that his father’s opinion of him had been put on full blast, he couldn’t summon the courage to show the evidence so plainly.
It wasn’t a thing of shame. Nor fear, really. It was an avoidance of the pure inconvenience it would cause him as whoever bore witness rambled through their morally obligated horrors at the damage that had been done to him.
He changed in the darkness. He could help but shiver at the uncanny seams where Nina’s tailoring work faded to his own pale, freckled skin. In the daytime, he could pretend that Wylan Van Eck no longer existed at all, but when undressed, there was no denying him.
And then Jesper’s father was in town and Wylan’s mouth burned with the acidity of his lies and he spent the last hours before sunset crouched in the far corner of the tomb, trying to gather his nerve. In a few short hours, they would embark on their plan to take Wylan’s stepmother pregnant, and he was trying very hard to not worry.
“Thank you,” Jesper said as he took a seat on the stone beside Wylan. “For my da, I mean.”
“It was nothing,” Wylan mumbled. Truthfully, it was probably going to cause Jesper more trouble in the long run, as he’d now have to dig himself out of the lie, but Wylan just couldn’t stand to see him stammer helplessly.
Jesper was pointedly avoiding eye contact. “It wasn’t nothing,” he said. “It was… I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t stepped in. And I know it’s my fault for getting into this mess, but—”
“No,” Wylan cut in. “It’s not. And it really wasn’t a big deal; you would’ve done the same for me.”
Jesper released a hollow laugh. “No offense, merchling, but if I ever find myself in the same room as your father, we won’t be doing a whole lot of speaking.”
Wylan shuddered at the thought. Sure, his upbringing had in certain ways been… harsh, but his father treated him no worse than the rest of Kerch would. Besides his frustration at Wylan’s deficiencies, he wasn’t some sort of evil man.
But he’d captured Inej. He’d lied to Kaz and backed out of a deal. He’d betrayed the very fundamentals of Kerch law. He was a hypocrite at best and at worst an utter conman.
It felt like a disease Wylan was hiding. His face and limbs appeared as Kuwei’s, but the core of his body was still his father’s flesh. With that look in Jesper’s eyes again, it was impossible to forget the lines of raised scar tissue patterning his back. Nina hadn’t seen them when she’d tailored him. Only Jesper knew.
The broken bones and bruises were nothing compared to the ache in his heart. According to Kaz’s metrics, they had won, but it certainly didn’t feel that way. Matthias was dead. Van Eck was imprisoned, but setting foot inside the house still felt guaranteed a punishment.
It wasn’t until after the panic at the potential plague had been dissuaded that at last a healer came to erase Wylan’s injuries. He sat pin-straight on the old armchair by the fireplace and carefully began to unbutton his shirt.
Jesper had asked if Wylan wanted him to leave. He’d told him to stay. Now he hovered anxiously at Wylan’s side while he peeled back the starched white fabric, revealing the mottling of purples and yellows underneath. Wylan’s eyes slid to the room around – the ornate furniture, the combed wool carpet, the twisted golden spires of the light fixtures – and handed his shirt off to Jesper without meeting his eye.
The medik was paid well for his discretion. He worked silently, gradually easing the stabbing in Wylan’s ribcage. Wylan fixed his gaze on the painting hung over the hearth. It depicted a landscape in the south of Kerch, one untouched by human hands: rolling fields, wild plants, crooked streams. It was beautiful.
The medik spoke, commanding Wylan’s attention. He was asking Wylan to stand and let him work on his back. Mechanically, Wylan stood.
Jesper drew in a breath. Wylan’s eyes stayed on the painting. Long grass and weeds. A clear sky. The conjured image of the farm where Jesper grew up, far away across the sea, where someday Wylan hoped to visit. A foolish thought. Why would Jesper want him there?
“These are… old,” the medik said after a pause.
“Yes,” Wylan confirmed.
“Would you like me to—”
“No.” He swallowed hard. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You could heal them?” Jesper asked quietly.
Out of the corner of his eye, Wylan glimpsed the medik’s nod. He stayed in the fields of southern Kerch, where the river twisted idly through mud and rock. Not a structure in sight. Open air. It was unfathomable.
“It would be no difficult task,” the medik offered.
Wylan pursed his lips, his voice tight. “Please just fix the ribs.”
The medik shrugged and returned to work.
When he was done and had departed, Jesper handed Wylan his shirt back. At last, Wylan tore his gaze from the painting and allowed it to fall upon Jesper’s anxious face.
“You didn’t want that down payment?” Wylan asked, only slightly shaky. His fingers twisted in the fabric of the shirt clutched in his hands.
Jesper grinned but gave a decisive shake of the head. “Not tonight, merchling. As tempting as that offer is, I think I’ve got a better idea.”
“Better?” Wylan repeated incredulously.
“Yeah. It’s this game I called ‘ask your lovely cook to bake us cakes’. What do you say?”
Wylan focused on keeping his fingers steady enough to redo the buttons. He was glad that Jesper said no. Not that he didn’t want to have sex with him, but – well, he didn’t want to do anything if Jesper was going to keep looking at him like that. They were back in the Ice Court, undressed for the first time, and Wylan needed to know what Jesper was thinking.
“Well?” Jesper asked when the buttons were done.
“Yes. Okay.”
They sat in the kitchen, on the little stools at the counter that were so rarely used. Wylan picked at his cuticles and Jesper drummed his fingers on the marble and his guns and his knees.
“Spit it out,” Wylan said at last.
Jesper huffed a breath and rose to his feet to lean back against the counter, hands still moving. “Why didn’t you let the medik fix your back?” he demanded.
“There were more important—”
“I know you can afford it. Don’t they bother you?”
“It seems like they bother you.”
“They don’t. Or – I mean, not like that.” Jesper sounded out of breath.
Wylan stared at the marble countertop. “So they do,” he said flatly.
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I meant it bothers me that it happened.”
“It’s just punishment, Jesper.”
“Would you do that to your own kid?”
Wylan froze. At some point in the exchange, Jesper had taken hold of Wylan’s hands. He stared at them – at the freckles on his knuckles, at the rings on Jesper’s fingers – and blinked dumbly. “Well, no, but—”
“Then—”
Wylan yanked his hands free. “I don’t have a kid, and I probably never will, so it’s not even a helpful thought experiment,” he snapped. “And I’m tired and I want to sleep.”
For a split second, Jesper’s face plummeted with hurt. Then he laughed. “Right you are, merchling. Shall I bring the cakes up?”
“Eat them all,” Wylan muttered, already heading for the door. Though he’d been the one to push it shut, his heart sank when the latch clicked. He wrapped his arms around himself and searched for an empty bedroom.
The fight didn’t last. Besides the fact that neither of them were actually too angry at the other, there was far too much to do. Jan Van Eck’s trial drew ever closer and Kaz was very invested in the outcome and Wylan was absolutely sure that his secret would be exposed in court for all of Ketterdam to hear and all their effort would be rendered useless in the undeniability of his deficiency.
“He’s already accused you of illiteracy,” Jesper pointed out over dinner one night. “You’ve already disproved him. If he brings it up again, that’s just more proof he’s lost it.”
“Unless they ask me to read something.”
“You can’t memorize everything they could possibly give you.”
“But the judge will have a standard issue law book. If I could get my hands on a copy of that, at least I’d have a decent shot—”
“No offense, merchling, but that book’s got to be like a thousand pages.”
“You think I can’t do it?”
“I think you shouldn’t have to.”
Wylan wrinkled his nose. “You just don’t want to be too busy reading law books to—”
“What, merchling?” Jesper was smirking widely now. “Too busy to what?”
Wylan’s cheeks burned. He gained a sudden interest in inspecting his dinner plate. “You know very well what,” he mumbled.
“I don’t actually. Please elaborate.”
“You’re impossible.”
Jesper beamed. “I think you mispronounced irresistible.”
It was still days before it happened. Wylan could practically hear the staff’s gossip about the two of them – the kisses that lasted longer and longer, the less than polite conversation to distract from the dreadful bore of paperwork, the way that they sat together in the music room that dispelled any excuse of plausible deniability. It was a string pulling taut, and Wylan knew that if he pushed it back any longer, the both of them would go mad.
And then, one otherwise unnotable night, Jesper pulled back from a kiss, his hand on the collar of Wylan’s shirt and his eyebrow raised in a silent question.
The small of Wylan’s back was prodded by the knob of the wardrobe he was pressed against. His heart stuttered and sprinted in his ribcage. The world was a symphony silenced to a duet of the heavy breaths that traded through the air between them. Jesper’s knee was wedged between Wylan’s thighs but he’d stilled to a statue, waiting for an answer.
Wylan nodded.
Lips against his own again and a hand cupping the back of his head. A rushed job at unbuttoning his shirt. A short rush of air as Jesper broke away to pull his tank over his head. Hands sliding down his back, barely hesitating at the ridges they encountered. The soft give of the mattress beneath him. His head against the comforter and his fingers at Jesper’s waistband.
A twist of Jesper’s hand shutting off the light from across the room made Wylan unreasonably giddy. At his giggles, Jesper retreated, propping himself up over Wylan, looking dizzyingly gorgeous in the faint light from the window.
“What’s so funny?” he teased.
“You Fabrikated,” Wylan said.
“Yes. I did.”
Jesper’s thumb drew across Wylan’s hipbones and all thoughts vacated his mind.
“Wish you could do that to me,” he mumbled.
Jesper snorted. “What? Flip you like a light switch?”
Wylan hummed in agreement and lifted his hips to allow Jesper to slide his trousers down. “Love to be a light switch,” he sighed.
“Wylan, your attempts at dirty talk are adorable,” Jesper laughed.
Wylan rolled his eyes. “Then shut me up already.”
The night got blurry after that. Snapshots of Jesper burned into his memory; sensations stuck out, white hot and breath-stealing, but the details were largely lost on Wylan. A swell of feeling in his chest and a twitch in his legs. An unshakeable flash of fear when his brain supplied him with the thoroughly unhelpful reminder that he was at Jesper’s mercy. A childish fluttering in his heart at the fact that he was safer than he’d ever been, even pinned beneath a Barrel criminal. The possibly ridiculous idea that he might like it if Jesper brought a bit of that Barrel danger to the bedroom. Those lips that he had dreamed about in shame now pressed hot and alive against his neck. Some humiliating confession to Jesper about his lack of experience – about how the experience he did have was at best questionable considering his tutor’s age and at worst – and either way, he hadn’t the faintest idea how to make Jesper feel good.
In return, Jesper carded his fingers through his hair and hushed Wylan long enough to sigh through his response: I feel perfect just like this.
Wylan bit his tongue and resisted the urge to ramble on about how new and fascinating all this was, as if sex was a new mathematical formula to wrap his brain around. He also resisted sharing just how long it had been since any other person had seen every stretch of skin upon his body. Even the hookups with his tutor had been mostly clothed, fast and confusing and thoroughly impersonal. In comparison, here on the bed, he felt as though he was being disassembled, piece by piece, examined, then slotted back together again. It was a pit of terror opening deep within his gut, but it was the key to the other side of a wall he’d lived behind.
Lying on his side, breathing slowly, Wylan tried to focus on allowing his heartrate to slow. Jesper’s hand brushed over his shoulder, and his voice was a steady baritone in his ear, but Wylan couldn’t distinguish the words above the droning hum his world had devolved into. He felt a bit like ice cream left out in the sun: heavy, melted, spoiled. It wasn’t exactly an entirely bad feeling, but it was wholly unfamiliar.
Then Jesper was shaking him more urgently. “Wylan? Love?”
Wylan rolled over and met Jesper’s eyes. “At the Ice Court,” he said softly. “When you saw my back. What did you think of me?”
Jesper’s gaze flitted over him, half-lidded but keenly focused. Ghezen, his lashes were so long. And there was a tiny mole just beneath his hairline. And another on his waist. And his ankle. And—
“You sure you want to do this now?” Jesper asked.
Wylan gave a small nod. If they didn’t get it out now, it would never show itself again. “I want to know,” he said.
“All right,” Jesper sighed. He cupped Wylan’s face, pushing his curls from his eyes. “I think the first thing I thought was that I hated your boss. And then that I hated your da. And that I don’t understand it at all because – I mean, no offense, Wylan, but you can’t have been that disobedient as a child—”
“You’d be surprised,” Wylan murmured.
“Did I hurt you?” Jesper blurted. “Was it – I thought it was good, but—”
“It was good,” Wylan confirmed. “It was just a lot.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I’d do it again, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It was good?”
“It was very good.”
“You know what else I thought?” Jesper said with a breathy laugh. “I – I thought you must have done something awful. Like you stole his money or married a brothel girl or—”
“Can’t read?” Wylan filled in.
“Yeah, that’s not really comparable.”
“It’s not that far off. What’s so bad about a brothel girl anyways?”
“I don’t know,” Jesper said. “I think I’m hung up on the girl part.”
“Was it good for you?” Wylan asked, completely unprompted and irrelevant to the current line of conversation because apparently he could not let things simply settle.
To his relief, Jesper smiled. “Yes, Wy. Very good.”
“At the Ice Court. Did you think about it?”
“Think about what?”
“Having sex with me.”
Jesper averted his gaze, and Wylan instantly hated himself for saying something so self-centered. Jesper certainly had better things to think about on that job that some doe-eyed merchling who kept pestering him with naïve questions because he’d latched onto Jesper as a point of safety off of nothing but the fact that Jesper was good-looking and nice enough not to kill him.
“Honestly?” Jesper sighed. “For the first half, I thought you were probably a prick.”
“And then?”
“I was trying not to think about it because if I did like you, that would make our inevitable death in the dead of Fjerda all the more disappointing.” He paused, then frowned. “Wait. Were you thinking about—”
Wylan clapped a hand over Jesper’s mouth to shut him up. “Don’t you dare finish that thought,” he hissed.
Jesper’s eyes were gleaming. It felt like staring straight into the sun.
Five years later, tipsy in the meld of late late night and early early morning, Jesper lounged on the sofa in their bedroom, blissfully nude, and asked Wylan to let him paint him.
Wylan laughed into his wine glass. “You mean you want me to paint you.” He himself was half-dressed: boxers and an open shirt, his chest blushed pink. He was still a little caught up in Jesper’s less-than-sober request for a child a few hours ago. He was certain he looked dazed and ridiculous, all giggles and stumbled steps.
“Nah, you’ve done that plenty,” Jesper said. “Who knows? Maybe I’ve got dormant skills.”
“If you start painting better than me, I’m calling off the wedding.”
Jesper’s face split into a dopey grin; though Wylan was certain he was bluffing, he’d spent all night rediscovering their engagement. “Wedding?” he gasped, a hand pressed dramatically over his heart. “All Saints, Wy, I thought you’d never ask!”
Wylan rolled his eyes. “Well, I did, didn’t I?” He leaned back against the bed. “These memory issues are very concerning, Jesper. Are you sure you’re not mad?”
“Oh!” Jesper exclaimed. “Yes, I remember now! You did ask me.” He snorted a laugh. “I mean, you asked me after I pretty much told you to.”
“If you wanted me to propose so badly, you should have dropped more hints.”
“Whatever,” Jesper sighed. “Can I paint you if I promise not to upstage you?”
“Only if you let me paint you first.”
Jesper scrambled to his feet, not quite dexterous enough to do so gracefully. And then he was leaning on Wylan, pressing a kiss into his hair. “You’ll do me well, right? All in good proportion. I have a – a reputation, right?”
Wylan pushed him off gently, letting Jesper collapse dramatically onto the bed. “I paint only what I see,” he teased. “But… hm, I guess you want a large canvas?”
“For accuracy,” Jesper’s voice came muffled, face buried in the pillows. It was the kind of vision Wylan could not think too deeply of when wine drunk, lest he start spouting terribly embarrassing poetry about the love that bubbled hot and sweetly in his chest. He darted out the door.
By the time Wylan had collected his supplies and set the easel, it was clear he would only get Jesper to sit still for long enough to sketch him, but that was all that he needed. He could have mixed the match to Jesper’s skin tone in his sleep.
Jesper was having a real treat posing for Wylan. It was far from the first time Wylan had used Jesper as a muse, but some combination of the wine and the nudity and the outrageous time of night had Jesper acting as a pretentious high art model bound to make a fuss about the thematic significance of the way he propped his leg.
“Sit still, will you?” Wylan scolded between giggles. “If you keep moving, I’m going to draw your calves backwards.”
“Oh, excellent idea,” Jesper said. “Can I be an eldritch monster? Please?”
“Shut up, I’m almost done.”
“Give me horns. Or a tail. Or – or wait, Wylan. Wylan listen. You can shape reality. Your brush is the hand of Ghezen. Draw me with a second—”
“Too late!” Wylan exclaimed. Jesper leapt up to see the sketch, but Wylan held it to his chest. “No sneak peeks!” And then Jesper was grabbing at it, and he clutched the canvas protectively, but – oh, he was just kissing him. Wylan could accept this.
When Jesper finally drew back, Wylan’s head was spinning. The linework was definitely smudged, pressed up against his sweaty skin, but he was certain he could recreate it just from memory.
“Your turn,” Jesper murmured.
A shiver ran down the back of his neck. He set his canvas against the bed and paced towards the sofa, slowly peeling off the few articles of clothing that remained while Jesper set the easel.
Instead of lounging on the sofa as Jesper had, he paused, entranced, to kneel with his arms propped on the windowsill behind. Through the warbled pane, he could see the first hints of dawn working their way over the quiet waters of First Harbor. In comparison to the bustle of the Barrel, the Geldin District was dead silent, a breathing corpse. In fact, Wylan suspected the two of them might have been the only ones up besides the servants.
His eyelids were heavy, but the giddiness was still thick in his veins. He didn’t dare give this night a premature conclusion.
With a small jolt, he remembered he was supposed to be posing for Jesper and quickly turned, trying to envision an artistic way to drape himself.
“Wait.” Jesper’s steel grey eyes were fixed on him, pupils wide and voice laced with that rare delicacy, as if the space between them was a fragile rope to walk.
Wylan’s silence asked the question in his stead.
“Stay as you were,” Jesper directed him.
“Facing the window?”
Jesper gave the slightest nod. “With your back to me,” he breathed. “The city’s glowing and the light’s catching in your hair and… Saints, Wylan, I hope I really am a secret prodigy.”
Wylan laughed as he complied. He could feel that Jesper wasn’t joking, but that seemed the easiest thing to do. “Even if I call off the wedding?” he teased.
“I’ll just make you propose again.”
The city was a haze of blue before him. The whole street held its breath. “After all that effort?” he asked softly.
Jesper made a quiet sound that could have been a hum of affirmation or a subconscious sigh. “It isn’t fair,” he whispered. “The most beautiful muse on this whole planet and you’ll never get to see.”
Wylan was glad he was facing away from Jesper now; how terribly embarrassing to cry over just one stupidly sappy line. How was he meant to make it through their vows without bursting into tears? He’d never cried so easily even as a young child, and yet Jesper drew it out as easily as his giggles. Now he was drowning in an unfathomable love, and his body could do nothing but crumble.
“Wylan?”
“Go on,” he managed. His subsequent sniffle must have given him away, but Jesper didn’t call him on it. Instead, he filled the room with the faint scratching of his graphite on the canvas. He’d draw poorly, Wylan was sure of it, but he hardly minded. His words were art enough.
More and more often lately, Wylan would imagine stepping through time and telling his past self just what became of the little boy who wanted to do nothing more than disappear. He was living in the house he’d used to suffocate in. He was going to be married. He was kneeling naked with the shame of his upbringing plainly on display, and he had never felt more adored.
Child Wylan would have never dared to dream it. Sixteen-year-old Wylan would have scoffed in disbelief. Twenty-two-year-old Wylan was having a hard enough time wrapping his head around it as it was. How could he conceive that just six years ago, he had been nothing but a loose end to discard? In a parallel life, that spur to live would not have seized him. He would have washed up on the docks of Ketterdam, a ghost of who he could have been.
His life had, in fairness, taken some rather drastic turns.