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Jesper Fahey may have been a fool. He may have been a bad gambler and a worse son and a thrall of thrill, but he knew one part of his life was always set. His mark, tattooed upon his forearm to guide him in love. It was painted soft and sweet, in shades of grey until he found the lucky lady. Or… the lucky lad. That romantic revelation was a shock as well, but it didn't matter the gender of his soulmate. He'd love them all the same, if he could ever find such an odd person.
The mark had always puzzled him. A flute seemed innocent enough, but out of it poured a bubbling liquid, setting into a piece of paper written in gibberish as it streamed down his wrist and onto his palm. He didn't know much about any of those things, but he knew it would all work out. After all, it had for Jesper’s mother.
Aditi had met her husband at twenty-three, and they had fallen in love over a long time before she had even let him see her mark. A jurda flower blossomed from fertile ground, its petals tinged the same red as Colm’s hair. When he pulled back his sleeve to reveal the mark her impressive shooting and kind soul left on him, they got married.
His mother always used to tell him about his mark. “Jesper,” she would say, “My zowa, you will find the one person in the whole world meant for you. No matter what, always stay loyal to love.”
When he got to the city, that didn't stop his loyalties shifting straight to the tables. Each time, he dug himself into a deeper and deeper hole regretting every choice yet itching for his next fix. Nothing else made him feel alive like gambling did. Nothing, that is, until a boy with blood on his hands recruited Jesper into his gang.
The Bastard of the Barrel was cold and tough, but even being around him gave Jesper the illusion of importance. Kaz led him into scrums he couldn't dream of. His beloved pistols at his side, Jesper became what he'd like to consider a right hand man. In truth, reflecting back, he was hardly anything to Kaz Brekker. Not anything worth it, at least.
Sometimes, when the moon waned crescent-thin and Jesper had had too much to drink, he liked to pretend Kaz was his soulmate. Kaz might not have known the flute, but his gloved anonymity preserved the mystery that he could belong to anyone. Kaz claimed, whenever a foolish new Dreg asked, that he was beholden to none but Ketterdam herself. That was usually followed by at least one broken bone on the idiot's part. Jesper didn't ask. He hoped, foolishly, but he never asked. It was better not to know.
Jesper decided, after pining and pining without a hope, that he should not be tied to one person forever. Especially not when he didn't even know them yet. He went out and got drunk and hooked up to his heart’s content, but he was still missing something, some little piece of the puzzle.
When he saw Wylan for the first time, that changed. The merchling was cute, that's for sure, and talented too. Jesper prayed he'd be man enough to join the Dregs, if only to see him again. And he did, and Jesper saw him, and every time was as breathtaking as the first.
Jesper kept his mark beneath his sleeves. His hook-ups might have caught glimpses, but it wasn't for them to see. It was for his love to see, when he found them. Even as he flirted with Wylan, he found himself wondering if he was on the merchling’s wrist. He found himself wanting to show Wylan his mark, and that had definitely never happened before.
When Wylan mentioned his flute playing, Jesper almost jumped. The merchling was a flutist, and surely that counted for something. He kept it cool, though. Plenty of people played the flute. Wylan was just one of many. He didn't believe that, but he told himself anyways.
After the Ice Court, Jesper was distracted. When the ship blew, he was devastated. Wylan, his maybe-soulmate, was dead. He could have been faster, he could have been smarter, he could have been less risky. When Kuwei lifted his head and spoke in Wylan’s voice, Jesper was just confused. Nina. Of course. When she had taken parem, she could have done any tailoring work at all. He wondered if the mark was different.
Wylan wore one of Kuwei’s shirts with the short sleeves, and when Jesper saw his mark he couldn't recognize himself in it. He wondered if that was just because of the tailoring or if Wylan wasn't his after all. It was impossible to tell. Felt almost like… A gamble. Jesper bet on the soulmates side, and he hoped his luck wouldn't run out this round.
After all the nonsense had passed and their plan had been explained, Jesper noticed something else about his mark. A bubbling acid, almost like… Wylan’s weevils. Hm. That sure was something. He filed that away in the ‘stop thinking about this Jesper you idiot’ mental storage cabinet. And then he opened the storage cabinet and kept thinking about it.
When they made the connection between Van Eck’s letters and Wylan’s inability to read them, the whole thing fell into place. The acid burned up one of his father's letters, the symbols nonsense because he couldn't even read it. Jesper knew that Wylan was his soulmate now, but there was no way to prove it.
And here he is. He's seated with Wylan in the tailoring room of none other than Genya Safin herself. And he's more scared than he's ever been during one of the fights he's almost lost. Genya prepares to start on Wylan, and Jesper sits by his side. His legs are jittering, though he tries to pass it off as impatience. It doesn't work. The grisha looks at him with an odd glimmer in her eye.
“I'm going to begin now. The seams are difficult to find, even for an experienced tailor such as myself,” Genya explains. She seems more nervous than she lets on. Jesper and Genya have that in common. What if it isn't him after all? What if it is? Both options seem like risky scenarios. Jesper was great at those. He'd be more confident if it wasn't his potential fated lover at stake.
Genya begins on Wylan’s face, and her careful tailoring is almost too hard to see. Slowly but surely, Wylan’s features begin to come through Kuwei’s. His eyes were the first, coming back to their Kerch style and gaining that beautiful blue that Jesper was so lost in. Then his skin, his nose, his hair. Everything came back into place, until all that was left was his mark.
The great Genya Safin… paused. “This is difficult, you see. I'll have to tailor it bit by bit to what it was before. I notice it wasn't included in the references, so I need you to describe it for me.” She placed her hand on Wylan’s forearm, taking out a case of bright powders.
“It's grey, actually,” Wylan interrupts. Jesper is pleasantly surprised at this, for it means that he hasn't found his soulmate yet. He hopes it can be him to bring color to Wylan’s skin. And afterwards, bring other kinds of color to Wylan’s skin. His merchling is so pale, after all.
Genya nods, putting away her colorful powders and taking out a set all in greyscale. “This isn't so much giving you a new soulmark, because not even Grisha can do that. It's more like… Revealing what Nina hid behind a false mark and bringing that out. I need you to describe it piece by piece, because this will be a job of finesse.” Wylan gives her his wrist again, and closes his eyes. Jesper presumes he's imagining what his mark looked like.
“Well, in the center there's a jurda blossom,” he begins, and Jesper thinks immediately to his father's farm back in Novyi Zem. “It's got two petals that are what I guess is the normal shade for jurda though it's hard to tell, and two that are pure white.” From the time he bleached the blossoms in his father's field. Damn. Jesper sits back as Genya renders the four-petaled flower in exquisite detail. It looks like his father's mark.
“Next,” Wylan continues, “There are four symbols, rested on each petal respectively. There's a spade and a club on the white petals, and a heart and a diamond on the normal ones.” At that, Jesper’s mind leaps to his gambling, his skill(or lack of) at the card table. Genya creates them accordingly, and Jesper finds himself taking shape on Wylan’s arm.
“And last. Um, does Jesper have to be here for this?” Wylan says, squirming in his seat a bit while Genya keeps his arm steady. Jesper just smiles. Wylan must be nervous about the reveal of whatever else is on his arm. Therefore, it must be him there.
“I think I'll stay, merchling. As much as I like your stupid face, I like your stupid mark too. And no, we're not stealing from him today.” At this, Wylan sinks back into his seat with a resigned look upon his face. Jesper wasn't kidding when he said he liked it.
“Well… the last bit is two guns, crossed over each other above the flowers. Th-”
Jesper cuts him off. “I have a reference for those, Genya.” He takes his guns out and lays them on the table, winking at Wylan while he does so. Wy looks terribly flustered. It's a cute look on him. Every look is a cute look on him.
She works quickly with those, and Jesper is glad to see his guns just as they are in real life. A perfect copy. He waits, breath bated, body taught, and he knows that Wylan is doing the same. Waiting for what is to come.
Genya steps away from her work and nods. She walks them out of her space, and gives an exaggerated gesture to Jesper. “Take care of the romantic tension, boys” she says before walking right back inside the room from whence she came.
A few moments of silence.
“Well then, merchling, would you like to see mine? It's a bit unfair that I got a glimpse of yours, might as well repay the favor,” Jesper tries, leaning against the wall and trying to act cool.
“I-er-um…” Wylan begins, cutting himself off. “Yeah.” At this, Jesper pulls up his sleeve and shows Wylan something hardly anyone else had ever seen. He gasps.
“I've got your flute, your chemistry, and what I can only assume is letters from your father. Burn those right up, the bastard. But… you don't have to be my soulmate if you don't want to. I'll be okay.” He won't be okay, not even a little bit, and the thought makes his heart ache, but for Wylan he'd do anything.
Wylan looks at the mark for a minute, maybe two. He examines it in precise detail, without laying his hands on it. Jesper held his breath.
And then Wylan does the unexpected. He grabs Jesper by the tie and pulls him into a kiss. His marked hand tangles with Jesper’s, and a spark on his wrist tells Jesper all he needs to know. They had matched. He kisses Wylan with enthusiasm, and his hands seem to cradle perfectly his soulmate’s smaller form.
Jesper and Wylan come out afterward, both a little ruddy. The orange on Wylan’s wrist and the green on Jesper’s tells the rest of the crows all they need to know. The reddish-purple bruises on Wylan’s bare neck tell them more than they want to know. They're holding hands, and smiling, and that's really all that counts in the end. Wylan is happy, and Jesper gets the chance to be happy along with him. For now, they have a job to do.