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Jesper didn’t know what drew him out of sleep at first. It was still dark, Wylan a comforting weight in his arms. It was quiet in a way the Slat only rarely was, in the early hours of the morning just before dawn.
He almost sank back to sleep, before he felt the slight tremor of Wylan’s shoulders, and the unmistakable hitch of breath of someone trying to bite back sobs.
“Wy?” Jesper asked softly, shifting to hold Wylan tighter.
“Sorry,” Wylan’s voice was shaky and barely above a whisper. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just a dream,” Wylan said, gripping the back of Jesper’s shirt.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
The question hung in the air for a long moment, and Jesper thought maybe he wouldn’t answer at all. Then:
“My father tried to have me killed.”
Jesper froze. Whatever sleepiness was still clouding his mind fled in an instant, leaving him wide awake, stomach rapidly filling with dread. “What do you mean - Wylan, what do you mean he tried to have you killed?”
“I mean he paid them to kill me on that boat - he lied to me, said I was going to a school in Belendt, and I believed him, I was so stupid to believe him,” Wylan sobbed. “I dreamt of it - that night on the boat - their hands around my throat and I couldn’t breathe and then I had to jump overboard - I had to swim back to Ketterdam, I thought I was going to drown. I thought I was going to die.”
“Saints, Wylan-”
“I was always useless, worthless to him -”
“Then he’s a fucking idiot and he doesn’t deserve you,” Jesper said fiercely. “Say the word and he’s a dead man. Hendriks, is that his name? Can’t be too many Hendriks in Ketterdam. Kaz’ll find him, if I ask him to.”
“Hendriks is my mother’s name,” he said, sounding like he was confessing to a terrible crime. Jesper could feel that he had gone tense in his arms. He wished it wasn’t the middle of the night, that he could see Wylan’s face. “It’s not my real name. It’s not my father’s name.”
Jesper felt the weight of that statement settle over him. Wylan had lied about his name this whole time. Wylan was telling him the truth now, despite the pain it clearly brought him.
“Will you tell me? Your name?” Jesper asked as gently as he knew how.
“I will, I promise I will, but please - not tonight,” said Wylan. “Let me be Wylan Hendriks a while longer.”
Jesper knew, deep down, that if he pushed, Wylan would tell him. He could draw the whole sordid truth out of him right now, and finally, he wouldn’t be the one kept in the dark about everything.
The sordid truth was not worth the pain it would cause Wylan to talk about it tonight. Nothing was worth Wylan hurting, in Jesper’s opinion, and it seemed like Wylan had been hurt plenty by people he should have been able to trust.
“You can tell me when you’re ready,” said Jesper. “Or - or never, if that’s what you want. Your name is whatever you want it to be, really. Half the people in the Barrel have changed their name at least once. I don’t care who you used to be, I love you as you are now, whatever your name is.”
Wylan let out a shuddering breath against his chest, going limp in Jesper’s arms. “I love you too,” he said, and Jesper realized what he’d confessed in his rush to comfort Wylan. He couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
Wylan eventually drifted back off to sleep, and Jesper was close behind him.
*
It was weeks before everything came to a head.
Kaz had called a meeting, and the Crows had piled into his office. Jesper leaned by the window, his arm slung casually across Wylan’s shoulders, as Kaz began to outline the most batshit insane plan he’d ever concocted.
“Kaz,” Jesper felt compelled to interject. “You have to know that Van Eck is going to screw us over.”
Jesper felt Wylan tense up beneath his arm as Kaz’s eyes fell on him. “He’s going to try,” said Kaz coolly. “But we have insurance. Don’t we, Wylan?”
“What are you talking about?” Jesper snapped.
“Meet Wylan Van Eck, Jan Van Eck’s son and our insurance on thirty million kruge,” said Kaz.
“You’re a mercher’s kid?” Nina said, leaning forward.
“You knew,” Wylan said, shrugging off Jesper’s arm. Jesper let him, still reeling.
“Of course I knew,” said Kaz. “Why do you think I hired you? You're hardly the only demo man in the Barrel. You’re passable at it, I’ll give you that.”
“You didn’t have an issue with my work when my phosphorus bombs got you through the Fold,” said Wylan. “Or in Shu Han when -”
“Are you expecting praise for doing what I hired you to do?” Kaz cut him off, raising an eyebrow.
“Fuck you, Kaz,” Wylan stormed out of Kaz’s office, slamming the door behind him.
Jesper was still frozen in place, trying to make sense of everything.
Wylan was Jan Van Eck’s son.
Jan Van Eck had hired men to kill him.
Kaz was trying to use Wylan as leverage.
“What is a Van Eck doing in the Barrel?” Nina said, baffled.
“Rebelling,” said Kaz. “He a rich kid who wants to know what -”
“For Saints’ sake, Kaz, shut up,” Jesper said.
Kaz turned a look on him that made Jesper remember, abruptly, who he was talking to.
“Kill me for the disrespect later, I have to find Wylan,” said Jesper, as he pushed past Inej and Nina to get out of the office.
*
Jesper found Wylan sitting by the docks on the harbor, hours later.
The relief he felt was overwhelming.
“I thought you’d left for good, you know, but I knew you wouldn’t leave your flute behind if you did,” said Jesper, dropping down next to him.
Wylan’s gaze flicked over to Jesper then back to the water. “I wouldn’t leave. Not without telling you, at least. I just needed to clear my head. Before I said something to really set Kaz off.”
The silence stretched out between them until Jesper couldn’t bear it, and asked “Are you alright?”
The question seemed to take Wylan off guard. “Y-yes, I mean, I think so I just - are you angry?” he asked.
“At Kaz? Definitely. I might have told him to shut up.”
“I lied to you.”
“You said you’d tell me when you were ready,” said Jesper. He didn’t miss the slight flinch from Wylan when he reached out, only to take his hand. It broke his heart. “I’m sorry about Kaz, about all this.”
Wylan gripped his hand tight. “I am screwed.”
“Don’t say that -”
“What happens when Kaz tries to use me as leverage and my father finds out I’m in the Dregs? What happens when my father knows where to find me?” Wylan snapped.
Cold dread sunk heavy in Jesper’s stomach. “We’ll talk to Kaz, we won’t let anything happen to you. You’re a Crow, we look out for each other -”
Wylan laughed, a terrible, broken sound coming out of him. “I’m not a Crow, Jes - I thought I was, I really did. But he only hired me because he could use me as a hostage. If that isn’t the case anymore, what use am I to Kaz Brekker?”
“Okay, okay maybe - maybe you’re right. Maybe Kaz doesn’t see you as a Crow,” said Jesper, trying not to let his own fear get the best of him as he realized how precarious Wylan’s situation really was. “But he’s not going to get rid of a very good demolitions expert now that he’s got one, that’d just be stupid. Okay? You are brilliant, Wy. And even if I’m wrong, you know you always have me. Whatever happens, I’ve got your back.”
Wylan looked at him, blue eyes scanning Jesper’s face for something. He smiled, just a little. “Jesper Fahey, you’re a wonder, you know that?” he said quietly. “Let’s go. I need to talk to Kaz.”
*
Wylan knocked and waited for Kaz’s bored “come in” before he entered his office.
“Done throwing your tantrum, merchling?”
Wylan didn’t let himself flinch from that. “My father doesn’t care if I’m alive. I’m worthless as a hostage.” Really, just worthless in general, the voice that lived in Wylan’s head added unhelpfully.
Kaz reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a stack of letters. “These say differently,” he said, tossing them in front of Wylan.
Fate really seemed determined for Wylan to humiliate himself in front of Kaz today.
“I can’t - I can’t read,” Wylan forced himself to admit, looking down at the letters he nonetheless recognized. They were the ones his father had sent him while he was working at the tannery. He didn’t know what they said. He suspected they were just to taunt him - to show that he had not really escaped his father’s reach yet. He’d expected assassins to find him at any moment since the day he received the first one. He’d only started to feel safe once he’d moved in with Jesper in the Slat. No other letters had found him there. He’d stupidly thought perhaps he’d gotten away from Jan Van Eck after all.
“You expect me to believe a mercher’s kid never had lessons?” Kaz asked.
“I had lessons, they didn’t work. I can’t read a damn word those letters say and he knows it,” said Wylan. He could feel his face burning red with shame. He kept his eyes on the letters, on the wood of the desk. He couldn’t bear to look at Kaz. “His new wife is pregnant. He doesn’t need me anymore. He’d rather I disappear entirely than suffer the embarrassment of having an idiot for a son.”
Kaz took one of the letters off the desk and re-read it. He hummed thoughtfully. “Do you want to know what it says?”
Wylan cleared his throat. “Yes.”
“If you’re reading this, please know that I love you and you’re missed at home,” said Kaz.
Wylan felt like he’d been slapped. Being slapped would have hurt less. He felt tears burn behind his eyes but he refused to cry in front of the Bastard of the fucking Barrel. He had to keep some dignity considering how little he had left.
“I read these and I thought they were from a concerned parent,” said Kaz, his voice cool and business-like. “I see now that I was mistaken.”
“So what now?” Wylan asked, his voice tight but he managed to hold back tears. He was shaking, he knew it and couldn’t stop it. He hated that Kaz could probably tell.
“The plan will need to be adjusted,” said Kaz. “But I was already working on a contingency in the event we could not use you as leverage. Admittedly, that was more for in the event of your death, but it’ll work just the same.”
Of course Kaz had a backup plan. His backup plans had backup plans.
Wylan finally worked up the courage to look at Kaz properly. “Am I still on the job?”
“Obviously,” said Kaz, turning back to his paperwork in a clear dismissal.
Wylan let out a breath. “Alright. Have a good night, Kaz,” he said quietly, feeling completely drained. He turned to leave the office.
“Wylan.”
Wylan stopped on the threshold of the door.
“Valuable hostage or not, I would not have taken you to Shu Han with us if you were an idiot or incompetent. You’d do well not to let the likes of Jan Van Eck tell you who you are and what you can do,” said Kaz. “For better or for worse, you’re a Crow now. If your father tries anything against you, he goes against all of us. And I’ll make sure he regrets it if he does.”
Wylan nodded, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “Thanks, Kaz,” he said quietly, before slipping out of the room.
*
Wylan slept pressed against Jesper’s side that night, feeling the safest he’d felt since his mother’s death. Arms wrapped around the man he loved, the muffled sounds of the other Dregs drifting through the floorboards, Wylan slept soundly, and did not dream of drowning.