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When they first moved into the Van Eck mansion, Wylan wouldn’t let anyone near the library. They’d moved into the house with the library doors locked shut, and Wylan intended to keep it that way.
With eight million kruge, renovating the rest of the house had been something akin to healing. Erasing what his father left behind, and replacing them with things Wylan had wanted but was never allowed to have, felt unreal. Jesper peppered his neck with little kisses every time Wylan admitted there was something more he’d like to have, and rooms that had held a precarious balance between beauty and pain tipped to flush in warmth instead.
But the library doors remained shut. Jesper had held Wylan’s hands in between his own, warming them as he rubbed his thumb up and down and promised the doors would only be opened once he was ready. So, the library doors remained shut.
It seemed to Wylan that he would never be ready, and that the books inside would sink under dust. Jesper seemed content with that, but Wylan couldn’t help his thoughts from wandering back to the library. When he’d absent mindedly stroll through the halls, his feet would find their way back to those double doors. Every book Jesper left laying about felt like it deserved a slot amongst the shelves. They’d placed the key to the library in Jesper’s bedside drawers and Wylan found himself drawn to them more than he was drawn to his boyfriend in bed.
He would have nightmares sometimes, and tonight was one of those times.
He was back in the library and the air felt thick. Wylan hooked a finger under his sweater and pulled at the collar of his shirt, the white wings of his button-up popping out. Sweat had stuck the fabric to his chest and was slowly staining it through. His tutor wouldn’t let him change it until he learned to write his own name. He had spent hours the day before, tracing his finger along the letters, and he prayed to Ghezen he could replicate them.
“Again!” His tutor wore a thin button-up shirt and a pair of satin trousers. Her extra layers had been discarded long ago, but even the reading glasses perched up on her nose were starting to sweat in the heat. She looked down at Wylan from above, hands folded and the tip of a polished stick poking out from behind her back. “Again, boy.”
Wylan lifted his bruised hand out from under the table and placed the tip of his quill against paper. Just like he practiced. It was just like painting.
Down, then up, then down, then up. That was the first letter, he was sure of it. He managed the second letter too, but as soon as he started writing the third letter, the two figures started blurring into each other, and the switch came down on his hand again.
It hit his knuckle and the impact buzzed down his wrists. Wylan drew in a deep breath before he picked up the quill that she’d smacked out of his hand. He’d stopped crying a long time ago. The whistle and crack of the switch had always been louder than his sobs anyways.
“Again.” She folded her hands behind her back.
Wylan looked up to keep frustrated tears from trailing down his cheeks. His face was red as he came eye to eye with portraits of deceased Van Eck’s hung on the walls around the library. They all held papers riddled with lines and quills dripping with ink. They clutched them tight to their chest, and Wylan was here trying to push it all away. No wonder his father resented him. They probably did as well, looking down on a pathetic creature who’d been sitting here for the past hour, page growing darker and his mind growing no less empty.
It was as if his tutor had read his mind when she said, “You will never be hung up in this room unless you learn to read a book it holds, boy.”
Dozens of eyes glued onto him, judging, Wylan dropped his head and picked up the quill again. His next attempt went no different. He woke up shaking.
Slowly, Jesper became attuned to Wylan’s night terrors, it was like he developed a sixth sense for when they happened, shaking his boyfriend awake whenever he started to squirm and whimper. Unfortunately, sometimes this created an even thinner barrier between Wylan’s dreams and his current reality.
The boy shot up when Jesper shook him awake, his eyes glazed over.
“We need to go to the library!”
“Wylan, calm down–”
But Wylan slapped a hand onto Jesper’s mouth to silence the rest of his sentence. “Quiet. We need to go to the library,” he whispered.
Jesper furrowed his brow but nodded with Wylan’s hand still covering half his face. Wylan released him slowly, and got out of bed with steady mechanical steps, making his way out the door and down the stairs.
Jesper jogged to keep up and leaned over his shoulder, “Wylan, love, is there a reason we’re going to see a locked library in the middle of the night?”
“Locked?” Wylan stopped in his tracks and Jesper bumped into him, steadying him and pulling him up before he hit the ground. Wylan’s eyes cleared a little. “No, we need to make it back before he sees we’re gone.”
Jesper rubbed his hands up and down Wylan’s bare arms, “Before who sees, love?”
Maybe it was the touch, or maybe it was the question Jesper asked, but the fog lifted from in front of Wylan’s eyes and he squinted to see in the dark. “...I don’t know,” he admitted.
Jesper inhaled a deep breath. “Wy, this whole library thing is really bothering you, isn’t it?”
Wylan opened his mouth to reply but Jesper cut him off.
“And don’t lie and say it isn’t, because we both know it is. Look, I’m not going to force you to speak about it if that’s not what you want, but I’ll hold your hand and kick your father’s butt when you feel ready to go in there again.”
Wylan sighed and looked down, grabbing a hold of Jesper’s elbows and circling his finger around them. “It’s foolish, but part of me believes that if I open those doors, all the tutors and doctors my father hired will come pouring out.”
Jesper failed to stifle a scoff.
“Don’t laugh!” Wylan shot up, chin raised and brow knit tight.
Jesper shook his laughter away and cupped Wylan’s cheeks, “Then they’ll all see the brave person you’ve grown to become and they’ll run away with their tails in between their legs.”
It was Wylan’s turn to scoff, “That’s ridiculous.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll just shoot them then,” Jesper shrugged.
Wylan dropped into a chuckle before tilting his head up and cupping Jesper’s face to land a kiss on his lips. Soft and gentle, noses brushing together and lips parted. Jesper’s warmth trailed through their touch and into Wylan’s trembling form. All his quivering muscles fell still.
When they broke apart, Jesper whispered against Wylan’s mouth, breath tickling his lips, “They’re not really in there, love.”
Wylan breathed giggles against Jesper’s skin before pulling apart, “I know, Jesper. I just don’t want to open those doors and come to find myself wrong.”
“You’ve been having more nightmares recently.”
“I know.”
“They won’t stop until you prove to yourself they’re gone.”
Wylan tucked his head under Jesper’s chin. “I know.”
They stayed like that for a while, Wylan’s face pressed against Jesper’s chest, slowly dragging his nightshirt down, and Jesper’s erratic heartbeat calming under Wylan’s ear. They stayed like that until Jesper took ahold of Wylan’s hand and gave it a squeeze before guiding him back to their bedroom. He fished the key to the library out of his bedside drawer and led his boyfriend back to the hallway. Wylan took control halfway through and stepped in front of Jesper as they made their way to the library doors.
The double doors loomed over them as Wylan squeezed Jesper’s hand.
“We have all the time in the world, merchling. Tell me when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready,” Wylan nodded, and Jesper leaned over to open the door at his command.
He turned the key in the lock and Wylan twisted the doorknob. He took a deep breath before he pushed the door open and they were both hit with a cloud of dust.
“He barely even used it after he sent me away,” Wylan breathed.
Jesper cursed Van Eck under his breath.
They stood in the doorway until Wylan found the courage to step over the threshold and guided his boyfriend into the barren library. Their footsteps echoed off the walls and the portraits looked down on them as judgemental as ever.
“Now I know where your father gets his scowl from,” Jesper mumbled. It was the first thing to be said within these walls that brought a smile to Wylan’s face and he couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
“Merchling?” Jesper craned his neck to look, a smile of his own dancing across his lips.
“They’re not here!” was all Wylan could muster in between chuckles. “It’s completely empty!”
Jesper joined in, dragging the mercher in between the study tables and to the cushions at the back of the room. Moonlight filtered through stained glass and shone onto them as they dropped into the pillows. Jesper placed a kiss onto the top of Wylan’s head as the boy came down from his laughing fit.
“There’s no one here,” Jesper whispered into his curls, a smile audible in his voice.
“No one,” Wylan confirmed.
So, Jesper grabbed a book he thought Wylan would like and plopped back down. One hand holding onto the book, and his other arm across Wylan’s shoulders.
“No peeking!” Jesper angled the book away when Wylan repositioned his head to lay on Jesper’s chest.
“I wasn’t trying to,” he grinned, and they spent the night pretending Wylan could read; Jesper angling the book away as he read out loud, and Wylan pretending to grab glances at pages he couldn’t make sense of. In the tomorrows, Wylan would be able to admit it with his full chest, tell the library walls and the portraits hung along them that he couldn’t read. But tonight, he wasn’t ready, and he’d conquered more than enough, so the couple laid under the moonlight, limbs tangled, and giggles unwavering, as they read the night away.