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The series of explosions, destroying everything on its way as one could see, followed by the sound of guns firing, and probably killing everyone who happened to be within its reach.
Wylan heard it all but at the same time, he didn't. He couldn't possibly stay focused on the chaos blasting around him when the person, he cherished the most in his life, was standing in front of him, protecting him from a lost bullet. A lost bullet which was fired at him and which probably would end his life easily, only if not... If not Jesper, who took a bullet for him, saving his life like it was nothing. Like it was just a simple walk through the streets or making a cup of coffee in the morning. Like it didn’t matter at all. But it did, it did matter.
It lasted for either like a second or years, Wylan couldn’t tell. He didn't see a thing, only Jesper standing in front of him, slowly turning around to face him with this beautiful smile on his lips. This beautiful smile, happened to be reserved only for Wylan when they were together, looking at each other, not saying a single word that could ruin the moment.
But actually, it didn't last long since a minute later he collapsed, a little later than a man who Jesper managed to shoot with the last remaining strength in his veins. He would do different, more evil, Dirtyhands-like things to the bastard who dared to send a bullet to his boyfriend. But for now, it had to be enough. At least, he paid for his crimes by dying like a rat on the Barrel's dirty, godforsaken streets. Yes, poor choice of words.
Wylan didn't know if it was his body or instinct that told him to react but before he could even realize it, he was next to Jesper, trying to catch his body into his arms, protecting him from this undignified way of meeting the ground. The weight of Jesper and the strength of his fall, made Wylan collapse on the ground with him, but he was able to protect Jesper's head from hitting itself. He quickly ran with his hands through Jesper's clothes, trying to untangle all the layers he was wearing and looking for a wound. He felt warm, sticky liquid, and immediately went paralyzed. The bullet hit Jesper very close to his heart. His blood started covering everything near it, spreading fast on his clothes and Wylan's hands like a disease.
“Jes... Jesper.”
Wylan didn't notice when he exactly started crying.
Probably the moment when he had seen Jesper smiling at him and then collapsing into his arms. Or maybe it was just now, when he felt blood under his fingers, seeing how a ruthless bullet was taking his boyfriend's life away.
“Wylan!”
Someone screamed at him, but to be honest, he didn't care. Nothing mattered to him when he had Jesper's body in his arms, crying and not wanting to believe what had just happened.
“Wylan!”, someone, probably Kaz, shouted again, running to him. Wylan took a quick glance around him right before another man's attempt to end his life. But he didn't succeed since Dirtyhands was quicker and got to him, crashing his hands and then his skull with his deadly cane.
He turned around in a second. He wanted to scream at Wylan for being so reckless and irresponsible, for not hiding and sitting there on the line of fire. Yet he didn't do any of these things when he noticed who was lying in Wylan's arms, covered in blood.
Jesper .
Not to say he was sad or frightened, he was shocked. Because if he had to make a bet of who will always somehow get away from death, he would bet it would be Jesper. For once in a while, his calculations were wrong. He bit his tongue at this thought. But they were still in a dangerous situation so he had to react.
Grief, revenge, it all could wait.
“We need to get to a safer place, come on, Wylan”, he tried to take him by force from there as far away as he could, at best. But Wylan didn't move even an inch. “Wylan”, he repeated with a sharp voice. There was no time for behaving like this.
“I won't go anywhere without him”, he said, looking at Kaz with all the strength he could possibly have, but also with the pain which crawled onto his face.
Kaz examined the situation in one brief second, whistling in his hands. Sign for Inej.
“Okay.”
Jesper signed, immediately feeling pain going through his body like a lightning strike.
They were safe now, one could say, but not so much away from the place where they got ambushed. On the back of the old warehouse, one of the Dregs’ hideouts, between its walls and the sea, next to the private harbor which was never actually used.
He tried to inhale the air but it hurt way too much. Yet nothing was more painful than looking at his boyfriend's brown eyes, full of tears, his pale skin covered by not only dust but also fear and sorrow because he, the most excellent sharpshooter in the Barrel, was dying.
Wylan.
Oh, Wylan.
“Hey, novice ”, he whispered, laughing a little, because it was a nickname he first gave him when they met. No, not the first nickname and not the first time they met. “Don't cry.”
Wylan sobbed, trying to swallow all the tears and guilt that held every word he wanted to say in his throat, tightly and deeply. He had Jesper in his arms, resting his head on his torso, trying to keep him away from pitiless fate. At least, for a moment longer.
“How am I supposed not to?”, he managed to speak but tears didn't stop falling down his dirty cheeks with ash and a single blood drop that fell from his eyebrow, tracing a long red path down his delicate face. “You are dying. And I can't help it. None of us can.”
He had Nina in mind who stood silently a few steps away, desperate to help but they all knew that after parem this, a life she could easily save, was beyond her skills. She cried silently because she knew what it was like. Losing the person you love the most, the person who makes you feel like there is happiness in this cruel world.
Not only she stood there. Kaz, who helped transport Jesper here in the first place, and Inej, who managed to clear the path while Nina was finishing the task. They were also there with them. Inej cried, praying to her Suli gods and Kaz, even if it seemed like he didn't care, had his jaw clawed so hard as he was trying not to tear up.
In fact, it was not only Wylan who was losing someone at this moment. They were also losing someone – a companion, a job partner, a best friend.
No mourners, no funerals, they said earlier that day. Oh, what an irony.
“Wy-wylan, hey. Look at me, merchling ”, Jesper said, although it was hard as he felt the pain slowly going away and the death with her cold but comfortable embrace coming to take its place. “It’s okay.”
Another nickname, another memory.
He smiled but somehow it wasn’t a sad smile. He smiled with actual joy, because how couldn't he? He lived his life recklessly and happily, at least he tried. He had amazing da and ma, even if she had left him way too early than she should have. But he found her, her comforting words, and the courage to become something more. He lived in Ketterdam to the fullest. He met incredible people, actually, lots of them but also these special ones, his true friends: Kaz, Inej, Nina, and Matthias, they were the closest to his heart even though Matthias couldn't longer be there. And him. Wylan Van Eck. Wylan. Son of a merchant turned criminal with a wonderful gift to music and explosions. The first person who was willing to accept all his flaws, his gambling addiction, the chaos around him, his risky way of life, and his lying, thieving, worthless heart.
Wylan, in truth, love of his life.
“I wanted to say something silly, like a joke, but I guess it's not the right time, is it?”, he chuckled a little, and Wylan couldn't help but do the same. The only right way of their chaotic and dangerous lives, smiling through tears. “There he is”, he added with a soft, quiet voice. Jesper was tired but he needed to say something, something more to be able to let go, to leave this place and leave Wylan, ready to do this even if he knew he wasn’t actually ready. “Wylan, please, hang in there, okay? You can do this, I know you can. You're the strongest person I know. Yes, even stronger than everybody gathered together in this forsaken city. So, please, don't cry. Don’t cry too much and try not to miss me too much. I'm gonna be okay, I promise. But you need to promise me too, okay? I need you to promise me.”
Wylan shook his head, taking Jesper's hand covered in blood into his own, putting it to his teary cheeks.
He didn't want to say it.
He won't be okay.
He knew it.
“Wylan...”
“No. No! Jesper”, he cried even more, not caring about his weak voice, his tears, and his futile fight with the inevitable. But in the face of loss, we hold onto every possible thing we can to prevent it. “Don't leave me.”
“I won't”, he answered, however, talking started to be way too much for him. He caught a breath harshly. His time was running out with every second passing. “I'm gonna be with you. The whole time. In your office, in your piano sheets, in your music, in your explosions, in your garden, in your flowers, in your house, and in your bed. Everywhere. Just come and look for me. I will come, I promise”, he said, feeling how death was slowly taking his life to her own hands, squeezing and holding it strongly but carefully.
“Jes...”
“But... you need to... promise me, Wylan.”
Wylan saw it too. How close he was to the end, to the door that would take him into the unknown, into the place where his lovely mother and Matthias were. Where he could meet them sooner than ever. Way too soon actually.
He swallowed and placed a kiss on Jesper’s hand.
“I promise, Jesper. I'm... I'm gonna be okay. I will try. For you.”
“No, do it for yourself.”
“You always have to have the last word, right?”, Wylan asked, rolling his eyes unconsciously but smiling when Jesper smiled at him too. He was angry, sad, and miserable but couldn't say goodbye to his better half without a small glimpse of happiness from their shared lives. They knew they had suffered enough already. The smile, the precious memories of their time together, was their newest weapon now. Even if painfully unnecessary. “I will do it for myself. Happy, now?”
“Yes. I'm the happiest now. My merchling, my man, my prince turned pauper .”
First nickname, the first time they met.
He looked at him with foggy eyes, tears showing up because at this moment, right now, he truly didn't want to die. “I love you, Wylan. I’ve loved you the most in my short, full of demolitions made by the most beautiful and incredible man I’ve ever known, life.”
Wylan was crying even louder than before. He put his forehead on Jesper's, trying to embrace his presence as long as he could.
“I love you too”, he responded, kissing his lips lightly. He couldn't let him leave, not yet.
“Do you... do you remember the...”, Jesper signed, looking for Wylan’s eyes to meet his. “The night we met?”
Wylan seemed surprised. Why now? Why get back to their first memories, to their meeting when they were about to take apart from each other? Forever and ever?
“Stupid question”, he answered, gently caressing Jesper’s cheek with his right hand. “Of course, I do. I remember every single second of it”, he confessed, trying to blink as much as he could to get rid of the tears that had been stopping him from looking at the love of his life.
“Then, please, tell me about it.”
“What... why?”
Jesper didn’t answer, just smiled softly. Wylan didn’t know, but Jesper loved listening to this story, he loved listening to Wylan’s voice, and at the end of his life, it was the best thing he could ever ask for.
He closed his eyes for a moment. It was hard for him to keep them open but he was trying. If not for himself, he was doing it for Wylan.
Everything for him, actually.
Wylan cleared his throat, signed, and set his eyes on the harbor’s horizon with the glorious sun slowly setting down.
What a beautiful place to recall old memories, he thought, even if they were in the lowest and dirtiest parts of Ketterdam, far away from the clean and neat street of Geldstraat. What a beautiful place to die, his heart prompted him a second later, but he didn’t want to listen to it. He didn’t want to admit it, although it was right.
“So, the night we first met”, Wylan said, giggling a little because, even if he wasn’t fond of talking about himself, he liked talking about this night. The night they met. “It was two weeks after I had gone to Barrel to escape from my father. I started apprenticing at the tannery since it was the easiest way for me to survive. By my time here, I’d heard about you, the greatest gunslinger in the Barrel, so it was more than easy to recognize you when you came to the tannery that night. But the stories I’d heard about you were nothing compared to the fact of who you were in real life, how you looked in real life”, Wylan paused for a moment, feeling like all of it was just yesterday. His cheeks flushed with the bliss of red since he recalled this particular moment in his head. The first time he looked at Jesper and their eyes met for the first time. Desire to kiss this boy with the most perfectly shaped lips, but also something more – like an explosion in his heart because of the way Jesper started into his eyes, into his soul, was beyond everything he could have imagined. It was stupid – to feel all of this at the moment when Jesper was leaving him, but he couldn’t help it. That was the time, the night when they first met and when he fell in love with him. “I was literally so amazed by the fact that you, Jesper Fahey, came to the tannery looking for... What were you looking for?”, he asked with a trembling voice, wanting Jesper to actually talk to him. To talk with him. He wanted to recall their best memories together with him.
“You should’ve said “Who were you looking for?”, merchling.”, Jesper managed to answer, smiling peacefully. As hard as it was, he felt it all the same as Wylan.
Single words still were better than nothing.
“Okay. Who, then?”
“You.”
Wylan smiled.
“You didn’t know me then. You couldn’t look for me specifically.”
“That’s true. Kaz sent me to the tannery to find a chemical expert, but when I got there I could no longer remember my task. I literally lost my head for a beautiful prince making chemicals, who was that nice to talk to me and actually flirt back, and with whom I took a really nice walk around the Barrel, who brought me stroopwafels because I was hungry, and who happened to have a really comfortable blanket in that shitty little corner in that tannery”, he laughed gently as scenes of these moments, of Wylan without his chemical-proof glasses, without a shirt and shoes on, lying amongst hundreds of candles and bottles with deadliest chemicals possible, smiling delicately with a blush across his cheeks, his brown messy hair, his dark eyes shining like a night sky with thousands of stars, appeared in front of his eyes and bloomed in his heart. Wylan, who was the most beautiful human he had ever seen in his whole life. Wylan, who was about to be his, even for this one night.
Actually, even way too much for a dirty criminal like him. But Wylan didn't care. He didn't care about who he was. He just embraced his body, his warmth, him – without questions, doubts, or saying unnecessary words. He was just there with him, and that’s what actually mattered to him. "Thank you, Wylan."
"For what?"
"For that night, love ", he answered, looking straight at Wylan's bright eyes, covered with tears and pain, but still being the most beautiful in this world.
New nickname, new (yet fragile) memory.
“You gave me your time, your heart, and the best memories of my life. You gave me even more than I deserved. You gave me everything. And I will be forever grateful for that night. For the night that we first met. Because it was the night when I not only found my purpose and my fate but also the love of my life.”
Wylan pursed his lips, unable to hold these emotions together. He only managed to shake his head in agreement, constantly brushing Jesper's cheek with his trembling hand. He tried but he wasn't okay. He was so not okay. He wanted to scream at whoever he could get a chance, he wanted to beat someone up, he wanted to get a punch that could knock him out. He wanted his boyfriend back at their house, safe and sound, being able to cuddle him tightly in their bed. He wanted to worry about some stupid council's stuff until Jesper couldn't stand his overthinking and shut him up with a long, overwhelming but gentle kiss. He wanted his life with Jesper back. He wanted Jesper back.
Unfortunately, death had different plans.
“You don't have to thank me because I know. I know it all, and I feel the same as you. You are the love of my life too, Jesper Fahey”, he said slowly, wiping his own tears, holding Jesper's body as close to him as he could.
Jesper didn't answer, and for a second Wylan thought that was it.
“Jesper”, he cried a little too desperately.
A gentle touch on his hand. He was still there with him.
“Wylan.”
“Jesper. Jes, please don’t go. I love you. I love you so much. Do you hear me? I love you!”, Wylan couldn't stand the panic in his voice. He was so afraid of this one second, the second death’s firm grip was gonna take the love of his life with her. He hated himself for actually saying all this – for saying goodbye.
Jesper was barely breathing. His skin was faint, without color and this characteristic glow that always covered his face. He almost couldn't hold his eyes open. He touched Wylan's right cheek but it was more like a frail stroke of his fingers as he was too tired to even move his hand.
“I love you too, Wylan. Wylan Van Eck. ”
Last nickname, last memory.
Wylan kissed him as it blew in his heart that was the only right thing to do. He felt Jesper's soft lips, kissing him back but... not any longer.
When Wylan pulled back to look at the boy who stole his heart, he knew.
Jesper wasn't breathing anymore.
He died in his hands.
He was gone.
The next minutes were abyss for Wylan. He couldn't remember how he screamed and cried, how he was shaking Jesper's body in agony, and how long he was begging him to come back to him. Even though he knew he was gone, he couldn’t stop. He was holding Jesper's body but couldn't feel him anymore. Wylan cried, yelled, and cursed at every possible god being he knew for taking his loved one away from him. He grieved for so long that he couldn’t recall the moment when the whole world went dark and helpless. Nothing has left, only him and a wretched substitute for a life he’d had even just this morning.
Tears. Pain. Grief.
That’s all he had.
Wylan didn’t know how much time passed by, but after a while, or maybe it was just a few seconds, Nina appeared next to him. She wiped her eyes, got on her knee next to Wylan, and reached a hand to Jesper’s body.
“I can hold him... for a moment longer. If you...”
“No”, Wylan said harshly, actually more than he intended to. “No, I don’t... I don’t want to do it. I want him... to leave in peace”, he added quietly, gently cupping Jesper’s face. Wylan looked at him with sorrow painted on his face. He cried silently, tears falling down without a single break.
Jesper was gone.
He knew that but still, he just couldn’t muster up the courage to do this. To use Nina’s power and call for Jesper. It could help, for a moment, but he knew that it wouldn’t actually be Jesper. Just a poor soul called from a different place, held against its will among the life it’d lost. Wylan couldn’t do that to Jesper.
Jesper was really gone, and Wylan decided to let him.
Even if it hurt, even if it was just pure pain and misery, even if he didn’t actually want to.
Wylan placed a kiss on Jesper’s forehead.
He let him go.
Later that night, after they’d taken care of everything, Wylan was back home. Inej and Nina both agreed to stay with him, even Kaz asked if he needed anything, but he firmly refused their company.
Wylan wanted to be alone.
After he changed his clothes, still covered in his and Jesper’s blood, he didn’t even look at their bed but walked straight to the window. He opened the curtains and looked out almost blindly. The rest of the night, the dark sky without any stars, was his company. As it all knew, this night couldn’t be beautiful because he’d lost someone.
Wylan fell to his knees and started to cry. He covered his face with his hands, shaking and sobbing endlessly.
He lost the love of his life. He lost his heart.
How was he supposed to live from now on?
Wylan exhaled deeply, wiped his tears, closed his eyes, and finally brought the thought of Jesper in front of him. Finally, he thought about him, about his voice, hair, body, guns, clothes, rings, lips, hands, and eyes. As for the last few hours, he couldn’t even think about him because every small thought hurt too much. It hurt so much but he missed him even more. He missed him so much and because of it, he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop recalling every possible memory of Jesper in his head right now.
He saw Jesper as he was right next to him, right at his fingertips. Seeing as Jesper was doing the same, he raised his hand into the air. Wylan wanted to touch, embrace, and feel him so badly that he felt like he might die for it.
“Jesper.”
“Wylan.”
He touched his hand, a delicate stroke but he felt it. A soft smile appeared on his face.
“Jesper”, he said again and opened his eyes.
No one answered.
Empty room.
There was only him and memories.
Memories he felt.
He felt them so thoroughly that he couldn’t tell the difference.
“Jesper”, he whispered again into the emptiness of the bedroom. Their bedroom. The sky remained dark. “I call for you.”
Seconds, minutes, and hours full of silence of the night. Lonely tears and a slow heartbeat.
No one answered.