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“Sometimes, I’m grateful my father tried to kill me.”
The room’s silence, once comforting, became a suffocating weight in an instant. The sun was just barely peeking out of the window and illuminated the room just enough for Jesper to utilize to rumage through their chest of clothes, trying to find another shirt to wear. Wylan was watching, sitting up in their bed and leaning against the headboard with his own fingers curled into the stolen button-up he was wearing, just a bit too big but the gunpower-smelling fabric comforting all the same. This was supposed to be one of their quiet days; where they woke up before dawn instead of greeting an annoyed Kaz at their door, enjoying each other’s quiet company as he blinked the tiredness out of his eyes and Jesper got dressed enough to take them both down the street for some tea.
Instead, Wylan had to ruin it all by opening his mouth.
“...Why would you say that, sunshine?” Jesper asked, abandoning the messy stack of clothes to clamor back onto the bed Wylan was still on. It made something burn in Wylan’s chest. The way he dropped everything he was doing for Wylan. Jesper’s grey eyes so, so concerned that he wished he could teleport back in time twenty seconds just to not break the moment they were just having with his ridiculousness.
“No reason, I’m just… thinking out loud. Don’t worry about it.” Wylan tried to reassure. When his boyfriend didn’t budge, he could only bite his lower lip and rip his gaze away from the other.
Ticking from the clock adorned onto the far wall became the only sound that filled the void their voices suddenly couldn’t. He could feel Jesper’s hesitation next to him. Everything within him ached. Did he reach out to Jesper, ask him to hold him tightly as if the pressure would meld the broken pieces of glass that made up his heart back together? Tell him to leave, that he needed space to breathe and couldn’t with him in the room? That Jesper had it all wrong, had Wylan all wrong, that he should run too before it was too late?
Whispering in the back of his head cooed at him, terrifying and cruel and venomous and true, painfully true. The words didn’t matter. They never did, really. Why would the meaning of words matter to an illiterate boy who couldn’t tell a cat from a dog on a paper? No, it was easier to speak plainly, bluntly, to someone so incapable. Every moment he spent here, in Jesper’s room, in his vicinity, in his arms, he was eroding something in Jesper, he knew.
A flinch ripped out of Wylan when he felt a calloused hand on his cheeks. Despite it, he turned his face to the man in question, lungs crackling as he tried to force a breath into himself to little avail. Jesper’s fingertips brushed his cheekbones, rubbing small circles into the band of freckles under his eye that Jesper couldn’t help but always gush about. The familiar gesture made Wylan shiver, leaning into the touch.
“Wylan, why would you say such a thing? You can talk to me, y’know. Your father’s a prick, at best, and you didn’t ever deserve that. There’s a reason I’ve offered to shoot him a few times for you.”
Though he teased, his light-hearted tone didn’t do enough to hide the creeping worry Jesper was trying to hide for his sake. Wylan hummed, slightly hysteric as he let his trembling hands wrap around Jesper’s bare torso. He shuffled closer and pressed the bridge of his nose into Jesper’s neck, sinking into his side. The hand not on Wylan’s cheek moved around his own shoulders, pulling him closer. The warmth felt intoxicating, and Wylan felt the tension drop from his shoulders as he curled into the other man’s embrace. Jesper shuffled to be a bit closer, and as easy as breathing the two were tangled into an embrace, using the headboard of their bed to keep them upright.
“It’s- sometimes- when I think about that house-” Wylan stammered over himself, and Jesper whispered quiet reassurances into his hairline as he swallowed, trying to force the words in the right order. He felt like he could breathe when Jesper placed a soft kiss to his temple, still holding them gently.
“I thought my- my father was right, that something was broken in me. Before.” He rasped out, embarrased at the small crack in his voice. The whispers were worse now, a crushing weight of being not enough.
“I thought if I stayed, I would get better. That he would fix me. That my dad loved me and just couldn’t love the part that was defective, and that’s why he hated me so much. The tonics, the beat-beatings, the- the tutors, they were supposed to fix me, but it never worked, Jes. I wanted to leave but I thought I’d- I thought I’d never make it, without him. That he was trying to help me. He had to be helping me, right? Because if he wasn’t he was-” ‘hurting me.’ And accepting that fact was much too hard for Wylan to accept then, and it burned in his throat to even slightly admit now.
“You didn’t need to be fixed, Wylan. Saints, I know you know that, right?” He sounded desperate, and it took everything in Wylan not to dig his nails into Jesper’s shoulders as he took another shaky breath.
“I know. I know, Jesper. I do. But at the time? I really… I really thought he loved me.” When love was locked doors, and stale rooms, and tonics that tasted like rot and death that made him too delirious to see straight. Love was his father barely looking at him, empty walls from his mother’s old paintings that were slowly filled with a new wife, a new family. Being lovable was being able to read, to have the intelligence to do the job of a mercher, to not cry, to not beg, to not need anything from anyone else.
Being a good son was to be everything Wylan wasn’t, that he could never be.
“If he didn’t try to pretend to send me to Belendt, if he didn’t try to kill me and fail… if I didn’t almost drown in the canals and have to hide in the barrel to survive, I think he would’ve just killed me anyway.” He admitted, melting further when Jesper started combing his fingers through Wylan’s unruly curls.
“I think I would’ve still believed I deserved everything he did to me. I-I don’t think I would’ve ever had the courage to leave that mansion if he wasn’t the one who forced me out to begin with.”
It felt like a dirty secret to rip out of him. To admit the oppressive and intrusive thoughts he fought with every day were muttering things in his ears he used to believe. That his father trying to murder him was the only way he realized he needed to get out. That his mother dying wasn’t his fault for being a burden on her sick, frail body in her last days of life.
“Wylan, your father may be a rich mercher who has grossed millions being a piece of shit and built an empire on being a heartless bastard. I wouldn’t care if he created half the Saints himself. But you are the best thing he’s ever been involved with.”
Wylan sniffled, blinking away a few tears as Jesper pulled away just enough to press their foreheads together.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m being honest, actually.” Jesper corrected, kissing Wylan’s cheek and then right under his eye, brushing away a stray tear. “I wouldn’t lie to you about this, Wy. And my father taught me many things, one of them being to not lie to your partner when they’re fully capable of blowing you up with violent explosions if you’re proven to be untruthful.”
Wylan playfully punched Jesper’s shoulder, and he felt the heat of a blush radiate up his neck and to his cheeks at Jesper’s playful remark.
“I wouldn’t murder you.” Wylan paused, before snorting. “Maybe maim. Or seriously injure. But you’re too handsome to kill, and you still owe me stroopwafel since I bought last time.”
Jesper rolled his eyes, and Wylan felt a small smile force its way through the oppressive sadness he’d felt all morning when Jesper pressed their lips together in a soft kiss. They were known for rushing a bit, for always kissing too intensely and too fast, but this was gentle; as if there were no rush in the world, as if they were the only ones in Ketterdam to enjoy the morning.
Jesper pulled away from their embrace only to brush more tears from Wylan’s eyes away, and it took a moment for him to realize he was hiccuping from his own suppressed cries.
“I can’t force you to see yourself differently, but your father was wrong. And I know you know that, logically, but that doesn’t make the feelings go away. But Wylan, you’re- you’re a brilliant man who can throw together bombs based on- what, sounds and smells alone? You can scarily keep up with Kaz’s plans and even predict where he’s going with a train of thought which is terrifying, by the way, and… you’re kind. You care even when the barrel has shown you that caring gets you hurt. And I think even if your father didn’t try to kill you, which he shouldn’t have done because there was nothing wrong with you to be clear, I think you would’ve found the strength to leave on your own.” Jesper insisted. His tapping on Wylan’s shoulder was noticeable at this point, some type of buzzing energy that clearly had Jesper under its wraps. Wylan opened his mouth to mention it, to ask if he was okay, when the words burst out of Jesper like he couldn’t bring himself to hold it in anymore.
“I love you.”
Everything tilted. Jesper’s face peered down at him, eyes so wide, so honest. His shoulder sagged, as if holding back the words had been an insurmountable weight that he finally got off his chest. The light from their open window was brighter now, illuminating Jesper’s torso and face in a halo that Wylan became transfixed by. It made the way the room was spinning feel less intense, the hands still tangled around Wylan’s shoulder and on his face ground the way his stomach swooped underneath him. He was gorgeous, and soft, and so, so kind. Jesper was so gentle with him, offered him a home in the barrel when he had one, shot men to protect him, dropped everything to make sure he was okay when hurt even in the middle of a fight to Kaz’s dismay.
And he loved Wylan.
“I don’t deserve you.” Wylan blurted out. Jesper’s eyes flickered a bit in confusion, and Wylan pulled himself away from the soft touches that were suddenly too much to wrap his arms around himself.
“I lied to you about my father, for so long. I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t tell anyone I couldn’t read, that I’d be a liability. I almost got you all hurt because of that. The only thing I can ever do right is make bombs and explosives, and tell Kaz about mercher society, and stay out of your way. All I’ve ever been is someone to lay with and leave the next day, if that. This world- the barrel, was never my home. You’ve allowed me to stay here, with you, you’ve cared about me when you shouldn’t, and I- I’m so appreciative of that, but one day-”
“I’m going to get tired of you? Want you to leave? Get bored of what, sleeping together, and find someone else to replace you?” Jesper interjected, disbelief in his tone. Wylan blinked a few tears away, looking up at the man who then motioned to stand, pacing the side of their bed. He looked hurt. Wylan’s words hurt him. He wanted to fix it, to make it better, but he didn’t know what to say.
“Wylan, I love you.” He said resolutely, just as quickly moving to the other side of the bed next to Wylan and grabbing his hand. Wylan gasped, but curled his fingers into the hold without even thinking about it. “I love you so fucking much. Not because you make great bombs or the fact you’re useful to the Dregs, not because you’re good at- shit, keeping my bed warm, did you really think that’s the only reason I kept you around?”
“No!” Wylan blurted out, refusing to let Jesper go as he tried to move away. “I-I know it wasn’t. You aren’t like that, Jes.”
“Then why, Wylan? Help me understand what’s going on, because if this isn’t what you want, if I’m asking something of you that’s too serious…”
“I love you!” Wylan choked out, the first sob bursting out of him. He couldn’t look at Jesper’s pain on his face anymore, couldn’t listen to him comprehend all the ways Wylan was broken.
“I love you, Jesper. And I-I believe you when you say you love me. But I’m so, so scared you’re going to wake up and realize loving me was a mistake.” Wylan’s words trembled out of him, and he burst into violent sobs once those words tumbled from him, clinging tightly onto Jesper as he pulled the other back into him, Jesper’s soft words of encouragement barely enough to bring him back down.
“Wylan Hendriks, I think loving you was the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I think loving you is also the one thing I did right.” Jesper muttered, shifting a bit to sit on the bed and pull Wylan into his arms tightly.
Hearing his mother’s name instead of his fathers only made that ache deeper, and he wished he could run to her. She’d love Jesper, she’d love the ways he made sure Wylan was okay. They’d both make their ridiculous jokes together at Wylan’s expensive, and he’d sit in front of the morning sunrise with his mother, easels up, and would paint into the night, and they’d be so happy. Jesper would check in on them and ask if he could model and Wylan would shoo him away but his mother would find it an easy way to embarrass him and insist Jesper join them, he could see it clearly in his head. Another sob forced its way out of him as he thought of all the memories with his mother he lost, that he’d never be able to have because she got sick and died thinking her son could eventually read, that he was just a bit behind.
Would she love him now? Even though he still can’t read years later? Is still incompetent? Still isn’t fixed? Would she love him despite the fact he was broken, unlike his father?
But he felt Jesper’s lips on his own again, and the soft, almost inaudible whispers of ‘I love you’ and ‘It’s okay’ that littered their quiet room with all the softness Wylan had never had the privilege to feel in all his life. If Jesper could love him… maybe his mother still would too, if she were here.
Secretly though, he hoped she would be proud of him.
By the time Jesper pulled away, the crooning whispers in the back of his ears had fallen silent. Instead, he felt the jittery pounding of Jesper’s heart under his hands and the softness of the bed as they lied together.
“...I love you.” Jesper whispered, just a bit afraid, this time. His arms tightened around Wylan.
“I love you too, Jes.” Wylan’s voice crackled at the words, but the bright smile on Jesper’s face at the response was worth every momennt of fear that it took to force the truth out.
Soon Nina would knock on their door to demand them run off to some random errand, or Kaz would order they got up to take on a new mission, but Wylan let himself have this small piece of happiness before then.