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Wylan’s relationship with touch wasn't always complicated. It used to be quite simple.
When Wylan woke up crying from nightmares, his mother and father would wrap him in their arms. Running their hands up and down his small back, murmuring words of comfort in his ears. Sometimes they would fall asleep like that. Wylan in between his mother and father’s arms, protected from nightmares on all sides.
When the sun was out, his father would chase him around the yard as he laughed. When he caught Wylan, his father would pick him up and spin him in the air. And Wylan would laugh as the air hit his face, and his father laughed because he loved Wylan’s laugh.
Wylan’s mother used to teach him how to paint. They would sit in her room painting for hours at a time, and Wylan’s father would stand in the doorway, commenting on Wylan’s focus. They painted flowers, mountains, even people sometimes. Wylan’s mother would touch him carefully while they painted, directing his hand to a spot on his canvas or helping him mix colors.
Wylan often watched his mother and father touch each other too. The way his father would rest his arm around his mother’s shoulder like it was the easiest thing in the world. His mother reached for his father’s hand as he worked, a smile stretching across his face as she did. Wylan thought it looked like a secret language, how they could talk with just their hands, never saying a word.
Every touch was full of love, and comfort. Never abrupt or violent, but gentle and careful. He spent a lot of his life trying to remember this time.
When Wylan hugged his mother for the last time, he had no idea that he would never see her again.
They had been painting, his mother always liked to pick a theme for the day, today it was blue. Wylan had painted blue flowers, his mother had chosen the sky. They had taken a step back to look at their work and Wylan’s mother turned to him.
“Aren't you going to sign it?” she asked him gently.
Wylan felt his stomach drop, “I don't want to ruin it, can you sign it for me?”
Wylan said this every time. His mother would always laugh and oblige, shaking her head softly, but she knew the truth. Wylan still couldn’t read. It had been easy to ignore at first, but as he grew older it was becoming more noticeable. It wasn't for lack of trying, Wylan simply could not do it.
“You should try,” she said, almost desperately, “Please try.”
She looked almost sad, she was never sad when they were in the painting room.
Wylan felt his hand shaking, as he picked up a paintbrush, dipping it in the black paint. He raised his hand over the canvas desperate to make his mother happy. His mind went blank, he realized that he didn't even know where to start. He lowered his hand softly, turning towards his mother.
“I..I don't know how.”
“What about your lessons, do you remember those?” His mother said, smiling softly, although her eyes were sadder than Wylan had ever seen them
“I do..but I just can't.”
Wylan ‘s mother continued to smile sadly. Wylan couldn't help but feel like he had failed an important test.
She obliged him, taking the paintbrush from his hands and writing what Wylan assumed was his name on the canvas. There was art in her writing, like everything else she did. The letters slopped and looped like smoke, and Wylan desperately wanted to have art in his writing.
She turned around and knelt beside him. Getting down on his level and resting her hand on his shoulder. “I love you, Wylan, more than anything.”
“I love you too.” Wylan said, looking into his mothers sad brown eyes. He wished he could have gotten his mothers eyes.
She reached her arms around him, drawing him into an embrace. Wylan wrapped his arms around her waist, trying to hold her as tightly as she was holding him. She rocked him softly back and forth. This felt different then the embrace that he was used to. This wasn't casual or gentle. It felt heavy, and desperate.
When she pulled away he thought that she might have been crying, but it was probably just the blue paint.
The first time Wylan’s father hit him he leaned into the touch.
His father had slammed a paper on the desk, and Wylan didn't flinch. He never thought to flinch back then, he never had a reason to.
“What does it say?”
Wylan felt his through run dry. His hands began to shake as he picked up the paper. He stared at the jumble of words for what felt like hours, praying that if he looked at it long enough it would become clear to him. But there was nothing, there was always nothing.
“I don’t know,” Wylan whispered shamefully
Wylan’s father raised his hand to strike him, and the fool that Wylan was, he leaned his head into it. Desperate for his father to cup his face and tell him it would be okay. The last person to do that had been his mother, and now she was gone
There had been no comfort when his mother died. No mournful embrace from his father, no one to hold his hand when his father forced him to stay home during his mothers funeral, and no one to one to rub his back when he awoke crying from a nightmare. He craved it desperately.
But instead he received a sharp strike across his face. It took Wylan a painful amount of time to recover from the shock of it. He looked up to the disdainful face of his father, his eyes cold and distant. Wylan fought to keep his tears at bay as his cheek stung painfully.
This was the man who had let Wylan ride on his shoulders as he walked around the house. This was the man who used to tell Wylan jokes that made Wylan laugh so hard he cried. And then Wylans father would laugh too, like Wylan’s laugh was funnier than the actual joke. They would both be reduced to a laughing mess as they sat on the back porch.
“Go to your room, and don't come out until morning.”
Wylan cried all night. If he weren't so stupid his father would hold him like he used to. If he could only read a few stupid sentences then his father would laugh with him like they used to. But Wylan could never do it. He wanted to be held, he wanted to be comforted, and more than anything he wanted to be loved.
Over time Wylan stopped looking for physical comfort. Every touch could only bring pain. The last time he had been held was by his mother before she died, and Wylan wondered if he would ever be held again.
His father didn't even bother to hit him anymore. Somehow it was worse this way. Wylan only saw his father once every couple days, and it was always with the same look of disdain.
Instead, Wylan’s father hired tutors to teach and discipline him. The nicest of them would point to letters for months straight and then eventually quit when Wylan inevitably showed no progress. The worst of them would leave Wylans covered in bruises, or give him a tonic that left him nauseous for weeks.
Everytime Wylan allowed himself to hope, for love, for comfort, for safety, it always ended in painful disappointment. So he stopped hoping all together.
Wylan didn't know how long he had been swimming. It felt like hours, but the sun had hardly moved in the sky. He had to keep going, he wouldn't die in the Ketterdam waters.
His throat was still burning from the men that had choked him. Somehow the touch had hurt more this time, probably because he had not expected it. He walked into every session with his tutors expecting pain and usually getting it. But for some godforsaken reason he had hope this time. He was desperate to be free from that awful house, and the prospect of Belendt. Somewhere his father couldn't touch him.
His feet hit gravel making him stagger. He walked up the sand slowly until he had fully emerged from the Ketterdam waters. His shaking limbs gave out on him, and he fell to his hands and knees, taking ragged breaths. His body was tired of swimming, and tired of hurting.
Wylan felt himself start to cry, as he flipped to lay on his back. Why couldn't he read a goddamn book. If he could just do what most children could by the age of seven, his father wouldn't have sent him to die.
Wylan forced himself to his feet, praying that Ketterdam would show him kindness
Jesper Fahey was unlike anyone Wylan had ever met. He was loud and flirtatious, but also welcoming and warm. He had the worst sense of style that Wylan had ever seen, with his lime green coats and yellow pants, and yet somehow it worked on him. He said things that made Wylan laugh like he hadn't in a while. Wylan thought he had the most perfectly shaped lips he had ever seen, and Wylan couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to kiss them.
But the strangest thing about Jesper was the casual manner in which he touched people. He would throw an arm around Wylan’s shoulder like it was the easiest thing in the world. He would bump shoulders with Wylan as they leaned over the boat without a second thought.
It was embarrassing how emotional it made Wylan. He wanted to cry the first time Jesper had thrown an arm around his shoulders. He had been telling Wylan a joke, and when he got to the punchline he had thrown his hands into the air. As Wylan had rolled his eyes, Jesper had casually put an arm around his shoulder.
No one had touched Wylan like that for as long as he could remember. He couldn't think of the last time someone had touched him without intending to hurt him.
He felt warm against Jesper, the cold of the waters unable to penetrate. But most of all he felt safe.
“We are not our fathers,” Inej said before pulling Wylan into a hug
Wylan froze at first, trying to decide what he should do with his hands and how tight to hold her. He wrapped his arms around her narrow shoulders. She held him tighter and Wylan practically melted. He had never had any siblings, but this is always what he imagined a hug between siblings would feel.
Warm, strong, and unbreakable. He wrapped his arms tighter around her burying his head in her shoulder. All that she had endured at the hands of his father, and she still hugged him without a second thought.
Inej pulled back, smiling at Wylan as Kaz tried to get everyone's attention. Wylan felt the absence of her warmth, and the hands on his back.
He wondered how it came so easy to people. How Jesper and Inej were able to embrace others when they felt the need to, or wrap an arm around someone's shoulders like it meant nothing. How could touching someone else ever be so carefree?
Wylan’s mother was alive. Wylan’s mother was alive, but couldn't recognize him.
Wylan couldnt breath, his breath coming out in rapid gasps. His mother had been painting in that asylum. She had been painting him. Over and over again she painted her son. He remembered faintly when they used to paint together. When she used to teach him how to do flowers and trees in all sorts of colors. He might have stopped but she never had. All this time.
He felt himself start to cry as he sat down. He couldn't do this.
A hand on his arm startled him. He looked up to see Jesper’s gray eyes filled with concern. His hand on Wylan’s arm felt like a lifeline. Wylan felt like he would float away if Jesper let go.
But Jesper didn't let go. Instead he wrapped his other arm around Wylan pulling him into a hug.
Jesper’s hugs were different from Inej’s. Inej’s hugs felt forgiving and gentle, like he was understood and accepted. Jesper’s hugs were unyielding and warm, Wylan had never felt safer than he did in Jesper’s arms. He felt Jesper’s hand in his hair, running his fingers through it casually, and Wylan let himself melt into them.
“Thank you,” Wylan murmured, almost inaudibly. He would never be able to thank Jesper enough.
Jesper ran a hand along Wylan’s back, “Of course, merchling.”
Jesper pulled away slowly looking at Wylan with striking gray eyes and perfectly shaped lips. Wylan still felt cold without Jesper’s warm arms around him, but it wasn't as scary now. Because in Jesper’s eyes was the promise of more. The promise of warmth, and safety.
The first time that Wylan and Jesper had fought, Wylan could feel his hear hammering in his chest. It was about something stupid really, something insignificant. So why were his hands shaking so badly?
Jesper had raised his hand while gesturing, talking at a high volume, and Wylan had flinched. Not something small and undetectable, but a full body flinch. Wylan was instantly embarrassed. He knew he was safe with Jesper, why did his body betray him like this?
Jesper went very pale very suddenly. His eyes changed from frustration to concern and sadness. He reached a hand out to touch Wylan’s shoulder, and Wylan fought every urge he had to flinch away from his touch.
“Wylan,” Jesper said his name like it was something precious, and that alone made Wylan want to weep, “I would never hurt you.”
Wylan took a shaky breath, “I know.”
Jesper pulled Wylan into his chest, running a hand softly through his hair. They both apologized for whatever it was that they had done wrong, they hardly remembered at that point. As they drifted to sleep Wylan felt Jesper’s hand in his, and knew that they were okay.
After being with Jesper for a while Wylan had started to get used to Jespers casual touches. The way that Jesper would pull Wylan close in the morning and Wylan would bury his head in Jesper’s shoulder. The way that Jesper always had to be holding Wylan’s hand when they walked sometimes swinging there joined hands like a child.
It came naturally for him. It was how he showed love.
Wylan loved all of it. He loved when Jesper would grab his hand and pull him down to sit on the couch. He loved when Jesper would kiss his knuckles one by one as Wylan blushed furiously. He didn't know how Jesper did it.
Wylan wasn't as good at physical affection. He was scared to grab Jesper’s hand out of fear that Jesper would pull away even though rationally he knew Jesper would never. He overthought every opportunity until it was gone.
One day they were sitting on the porch, Wylan was sketching something on a notepad, and Jesper was reading a novel outloud. The first time Jesper had read to Wylan, Wylan had almost cried. He remembered long nights at his desk being hit or slapped when he messed up a word. He had begged someone to read it to him, to just tell him what it said. And here Jesper was, doing it without even being asked. It meant the world to Wylan.
Wylan lost himself in thought looking at Jesper. His piercing gray eyes, his golden brown skin, and his hand lying on the table, a ring on each of his fingers.
Wylan wanted to take it. He wanted Jesper to know how much Wylan appreciated everything he was doing. But maybe Jesper would need it to turn the page, or maybe he didn't want to right now.
Before Wylan could overthink things further he had reached across the small table and grabbed Jesper’s hand in his own, intertwining their fingers.
Jesper looked up from the book to their joined hands on the table. He then looked up at Wylan, his eyes fond and full of love. Wylan wished he had done something like this sooner. Jesper raised their hands to his lips and kissed the back of Wylan’s hand before placing them back on the table and continuing to read.