Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Are you alright?" Jesper asked, gentle concern in his voice and worry in his eyes.

Wylan's cheeks lit up with a mixture of embarrassment and guilt, being caught off guard by the question. His eyes instinctually looked elsewhere, taking in the drunken chaos of the crowclub for a split second, before locking onto the table the couple where seated at.

"Yeah, back's just sore is all". Wylan hadn't had time to deal with his... issue since getting back to Ketterdam.

Jesper's brow quirked and his lips lifted into a playful smirk as he said,

"I can help with that..."

Wylan thought for a moment. There was always a risk to these scenarios, but the two had done things before and nothing had gone wrong. Why would now be any different?

"I think I'd like that." Wylan said, letting Jesper lead them to their room.

(Wylan failed to take into account that the prolonged irritation would dampen his focus, would make him inevitablely slip.)

*scene change*

Their room was calm, the slat being mostly empty and the lamp running low. It would need to be refilled soon.

Wylan laid flat on his stomach, body sinking into the bed slightly and face his buried in a pillow, top less. Jesper straddling him while rubbing lotion on his hands, both eager to get on with it and wanting to make this moment last.

Tenderly Jesper started to massage Wylan's back, hands carefully working away at the lower end. Wylan felt months worth of tension leave him, muscles easing and melting into the touch.

Jesper's hands continued their journey upwards, drifting across Wylan, until they reached the space around his shoulder blades. Jesper looked at the twin marks that decorated his lover's shoulder blades and the urge to pry hit him again, as it had everytime he saw them.

Realizing he had paused for second, he pushed down on both the urge and the space between his lover's shoulders. Dragging his hands down to Wylan's mid-back and then repeated the motion.

It almost undid Wylan completely, erasing the ache that had been plaguing him since halfway through their trip to Shu Han. As he was about to drift off into bliss, he felt it.

'Oh no' Wylan thought, stomach dropping and eyes shooting open as a tingling sensation over took his back.

"Wylan?" Jesper said, noticing Wylan's sudden panic. He was about to repeat himself when the marks on Wylan's back started to glow, choking out anything he would've said. Jesper fumbled off the bed, the light stretching and taking form.

Just as quickly as it had started, the light was gone. Jesper stared on in confusion for a second when he realized what he was seeing, wings. Wings that were attached to Wylan.

"What the fuck."

That seemed to snap Wylan out of his frozen state, the man quickly sitting up on the bed and turning to Jesper. Jesper watched as the wings moved accordingly.

"What the fuck, what the fuck!" Panic taking over Jesper's voice as he tried to process this. Wylan, also in a state of panic, scrambled off the bed and to his feet.

"Jesper, I swear I can explain" Wylan pleaded.

"How!? How do you explain this!!"

"I don't- I can- fuck!" Wylan yelled, a mixture of frustration and panic consuming his words.

"YOU GREW WINGS!!"

Wylan acted before he even thought, body slamming into jesper and hand clamping over his mouth. Pushing him into the corner of the room.

The two stood there for what left like an eternity, but in reality was only a few minutes. As that moment wore on, Jesper felt his panic and confusion fade. He also noticed that Wylan wasn't calming down like he had, terror radiating off him and tension once again taking a hold of his body as stared at the door.

Jesper shuffled a bit, causing Wylan's attention to snap back to him. They held eye contact, Wylan frantically scanning Jesper's features. He let go of him, stepping back cautiously.

Jesper remained in the corner for a moment, unsure what to do. This apparently did not help the situation because Wylan started to speak, stubbornness trying to cover up his fear.

"I-I understand if you're confused or, or upset and I'll leave if you... just give me a day to get out of town, then you'll never see me again, please"

It took Jesper a moment to answer, mind having gone blank. But once the words clicked with their meaning he was quick to respond.
"No!" Jesper felt guilt shoot through him when Wylan flinched slightly at the volume "no, I'm not angry just... confused. Very, very confused." He said, dropping into a gentle volume, but trailing off at the end as his eyes were drawn to Wylan's wings.

"Okay, okay." Wylan gave a shaking nod as he said the words. "I can explain"

Jesper sat on the bed, looking at Wylan with a gentle but expectant gaze. Wylan took a deep breath and started where he remembered.

Chapter Text

Jesper had a lot of questions that night and Wylan tried his best to answer all of them.

(He left out the majority of his old life out when answering Jesper. It wasn't something he thought he could stomach talking about, not yet. Not when he still could hear those sharp words and feel the hands around his throat, squeezing.)

The weeks after have been strange for Wylan, wonderful, but strange. Jesper having quickly developed a fascination with Wylan's wings, along with a concern for their well-being.

Which is what lead to now: the couple sitting on their bed, Wylan with his wings out and Jesper behind him, the door locked and the curtains drawn tight.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Wylan asked, nervous. It's not like he's done this before, atleast, not with another person.

"I'll be careful" Jesper teased in a light tone, ignoring the tiny sting the question caused. He knew Wylan trusted him, they wouldn't be sitting here if he didn't.

(That's what Jesper hoped anyway.)

"I thought careful was something that came with losing fingers"

"Then I'm just skilled" with that he cracked his knuckles in a, albeit unnecessary, show of confidence.

It was a slow process. Jesper at first just running his hands down the feathers of Wylan's right wings, trying to get acquainted with surface and remember Wylan's instructions. Wylan shuttered at the sensation.

He let his fingers meld with it, sliding between feathers and Wylan felt himself go boneless. Leaning against Jesper's chest. After a few minutes of that, Jesper had gained enough confidence to actually start preening. He gentle pulled out a loose, worn and considerably crooked feather, the thing giving way easily.

Wylan made a noise and immediately went stiff, hand clamped over his mouth.

Jesper stared at him for a moment, eyes wide and lips quirking up slightly.

"did you just chirp?"
Wylan removed his hand and opened his mouth,turning his head to face his lover, but whatever response he had was instead replace by another chirp.

"Sweet saints, you did!" Jesper exclaimed excitably, a near shit eating grin breaking out across his face.

Wylan felt his face go red and looked away.

"What, you embarras- Hey!?" How Jesper's taunt ended was quickly cut off, Wylan smacking him with his left wing.

Before Jesper could state any form of response, Wylan insistently shoved his right wing into the man's lap.

"Alright, alright I get it" Jesper huffed, starting thread his fingers through the wings once again. Wylan stayed stiff, trying not to slip up again.

Jesper noticed but held back his words. A minute, then two. Jesper opened his mouth, the silence quickly becoming too much for him.

"It's fine if you make them, the noises I mean" he said gently, hoping Wylan wouldn't retreat from the situation. "Besides, it's kinda cute"

Wylan didn't respond but as Jesper continued to sort through his feathers, removing any damaged ones along the way, he let himself relax once more. He didn't try to stop the pleased chirps that escaped, his mind going fuzzy as time wore on.

At some point, Jesper had done the other wing and, an hour and a bed covered in damaged feathers later, he was finished.

As Jesper started to get off the bed, intending to pick up the mess they had made, he was quickly yanked back down into a tight embrace.

"Wylan?" He got no response other the a loving coo.

Jesper tried to move forward again and Wylan's grip tightened, letting out a disgruntled chirp. Futility, Jesper tried once more and just dragged further into the embrace.

He sighed, half exasperated and half lovingly fond.

Chapter Text

"Kaz?.." Jesper called out from a couple of steps away and Kaz felt like he was going to have a fucking aneurysm, eye twitching as he slammed the antique jewelry box shut. "Kaz!"

'Did they never teach this dumbass the quiet game or some shit??' He thinks, grabbing his cane and limping across the (frankly ridiculously large) hallway; bad leg aching from his fall into the ice cold pond earlier in the night. 'Should've just paired with Inej..'

Jesper too seems preoccupied though to notice; standing in doorway, body hidden by the wool curtain leading down to the restored servants' quarters, gleam of his flashlight barely visible through the weave of fabric.

Jesper isn't tapping his foot.

"What is it?" Kaz asks, the hair on the back of his neck rising, hand clenching. "What-"

He can hear Jesper suck in the moldy air through the gap in his teeth, sees one foot shuffle back into the hall, and Kaz presses down on the call button strapped to his belt.

Jesper pulls the curtain back enough for Kaz to step into the abyss with him, and there's something wrong with his expression, terror and trepidation poorly shielded by the surgical mask strapped to his face.

The steps slant and shake as put his bares his weight down on them, Jesper's light acting like an arrow pointing to Hell, and he understands what's wrong the second he blinks.

Water pools on each rotting step, the chill of early winter wrapping like smoking around the banister, blood shining metallic centuries down.

Kaz can't breathe, rendered statue in mirror to his brother, because there's a dead body staring up at them.

It's chest is heaving with stolen breathe, nails digging into the water logged cotton mumifying it's body, copper tendrils obscuring features so notable that they're scattered in almost every True Crime and conspiracy thumbnail, eyes so alive they're blushed with confusion.

'It's not real ' Kaz reminds himself, because it can't.

It's not real, because no one, crazy or otherwise would be stupid enough to dress up as that body.
Not for mockery, not for clickbait, not even for mourning.

But it has to be.

Because the body blinks, it tilts its head and speaks, clear and quiet.
"..Hello?"

And Kaz knows, despite everything, that Wylan Van Eck is looking up at him.