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You’d think a mere Barrel gang would get into at least a few less world-saving battles, but the Dregs just couldn’t seem to keep their grubby hands out of things. In Kaz’s defense, this time wasn’t even caused by his greed. No, no, Inej was the one to blame this time. She had to go and “fight for the greater good” and “save Shu Han from being plunged into the sea by a Living Saint”. Jesper thought that that frankly wasn’t their business and that the Shu really should deal with their own problems, but Inej’s do-good nature could not be quelled and Jesper would follow her burning eyes into hell if she asked him.
So here Jesper was, after two weeks spent at sea and the month prior spent scouring Shu Han for some artifact or another, fighting a godly Tidemaker and her cult of followers instead of sitting in drawing room with Wylan, listening to him ramble about butterflies and shoving him against a wall and-
Well, suffice to say Jesper had plans for after this battle if he survived. In fact, he had had plans for this specific day for about half a year. Today was his and Wylan’s third anniversary, and five months ago Jesper had traveled to Noyvi Zem to ask his father for his mother’s wedding ring. Forgive him for being eager after only three years, but Jesper had known for years that he would spend his life with this man and damnit he was going to make sure Wylan knew for certain that he wasn’t ever leaving. He had everything prepared: his mother’s ring, Marya’s blessing, Jan’s un-blessing when Jesper came by his cell to gloat, a reservation at Wylan’s favorite restaurant that he planned to follow with a walk through the botanical gardens to listen to Wylan ramble about his favorite flowers, a dressing-down from Kaz who seemed to think that love and joy and whimsy were evil, a trip to the opera added between dinner and the gardens because Kaz actually made a really good point. Everything was ready. But instead of asking the love of his life to choose forever with him, Jesper was on a pirate ship in a whirlpool fighting off seemingly-endless cultists with a nautical aesthetic. Wonderful.
Jesper shot a spray of bullets into the crowd of enemies on the starboard deck. As one of them swung a sword at him, he ducked down and knudged it up and way with his power. Right on cue, Wylan came up behind him and fired his brilliant new invention, the flamethrower, at the sword-wielding mook. Despite the rain and the man’s obsession with his Tidemaker saint, he burned rather easily. Jesper saw Wylan’s nose cringe at the scent and quickly whipped around to dip the man into a distracting kiss.
“FOCUS, JESPER,” Kaz’s rasping voice called over the wind. “I’M NOT DYING TODAY BECAUSE YOU TWO CAN’T KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF EACH OTHER FOR TEN MINUTES.”
Wylan flushed with embarrassment and Jesper leveled a glare at his brother-in-arms, wordlessly firing a shot into the eye of an enemy behind the man. The two lovebirds regretfully turned from each other back to the fight. “Don’t act like you haven’t been distracted by Inej, Kazzie. I get it, swords are a good look on her!”
He felt three glares leveled at him, a half-hearted one from the aforementioned sword wielding pirate captain at the helm, one from the man he was speaking to, and one from the green-eyed monster he happily planned to bind himself to once this mess was all over. He also heard Nina laughing from the bow, and 25% was basically a passing grade if the degree he never did go back for was anything to go by. Yeah, that sounds right.
With an adrenaline fueled cackle, Jesper returned his focus to the battle. Inej and Specht were at the helm, trying to keep the ship from tipping into the brink while fighting of hordes with Inej’s dual swords and never ending knives. Kaz was weaving in and out of brutes, cracking open skulls like gruesome piñatas. Speaking of gruesome, Nina seemed to have decide that her earlier plan to up their numbers with enemy corpses took too much focus, and was instead ripping out bones to use as projectile shots. She had also made a horrifying whip out of what seemed to be muscles and tendons. Jesper often wondered at what point he became able to stomach sights like this.
And then there was Wylan. Beautiful, brilliant Wylan with his constant stream of concoctions that mystified Jesper. It seemed his flamethrower had finally run out of juice, because he had switched to throwing phosphorus bombs and firing of the gun Jesper had made for him that shot Wyvil (“chemical weevil, Jesper, we’re not seriously calling it the Wyvil”) at poor unsuspecting murderers. On the one hand, Jesper spent every waking moment wanting to wrap Wylan up in blankets and protect from every horror in the world. God knows he’s seen enough of them. On the other hand…if Wylan kicking ass while covered in blood and rain didn't make Jesper want to rip his clothes to shreds right there on the deck…
And then, for just a moment, the ship lurched into the vortex below them before righting itself.
“Oh, Ghezen…” Jesper muttered to himself in quiet alarm. For some reason, staring at Wylan’s heavily breathing form, framed by giant waves and crashes of lighting (likely Zoya’s doing as she fought the true bad guy somewhere in the sky), it only just now occurred to Jesper that they might not all make it home. That weeping, broken part of him that had emerged when his mother died (left him, abandoned him, yes Leoni needed her but didn’t she understand that he needed her too?), that part he had buried and only unearthed in that horrible moment when they found Matthias’ body, it crawled out from the part of his chest he had smothered it in. Frozen on the deck, Jesper stood staring at Wylan as that part of him whispered in his mind.
‘You’re going to lose him too,’ it said in a voice that tasted like shattered glass and salty tears. ‘He’ll die, just like Matthias did, and you’ll never get to hold him again. You’ll never get to hear him talk of butterflies and music theory. You’ll never get to call him your fiancé. Or maybe you’ll be the one to leave first this time. Maybe you’ll slip into the brink and you’ll leave him to face his demons alone. You’re selfish like that.’
He could see Wylan’s furrowed eyebrows and his lips moving, but couldn’t hear his questioning shouts over the roar of the wind and the ringing in his ears. This battle may very well be more dire straights than they’ve ever face, what if one of them didn’t make it? They lost one of their family last time they tried to save the world. No. No, fuck his plans, Jesper wasn’t dying before he got to call Wylan his fiancé.
His decision made, Jesper flourished his guns, firing into the hearts of the never-ending cultists surrounding him and leaped towards Wylan, sliding on his knees and landing on one. Reaching into his coat’s hidden pocket, he pulled out his mother’s ring. It was a battered old thing, passed through his father’s family for generations. Tarnished brass and a weathered gemstone that likely once was green before time and sunlight and burnt it out. It wasn’t perfect, but it was perfect for them. He hoped Wylan thought so too.
“Wylan Van Eck,” Jesper began, looking up into endless blue eyes that were welling up with realization. “Will you marry me?”
“WHAT?!” Was Wylan’s response. Jesper saw most of their team freeze as Jesper’s question reached their ears. “I don’t think now is the best time, Jesper!”
“Now might be the only time!” Jesper tried to reason. “I’m not sure if any of us, much less all of us, are making it out tonight. And I want to call you my fiancé before I die, if you’ll let me.” Jesper stood up, taking Wylan’s hand and looking into his eyes with hope.
Wylan stared back, with that calculating look he always got before making a wild decision. Scheming face, Ghezen he looked too much like Kaz sometimes. His lips parted, then closed as he looked down to the ring still in Jesper’s hand. Without another word, he slipped it onto his finger and opened his mouth to speak. He turned away and Jesper only just caught it, that prideful tilt he gets in his brow when he was about one up Jesper.
“INEJ,” Wylan shouted to helm. “MARRY US!”
“I’M A LITTLE BUSY AT THE MOMENT!!” Inej responded after a moment of shock. Jesper laughed with glee.
“Inej, please!” Jesper cried as Inej launched off of Specht with spinning swords, flying through the air like a dervish of lethal steel before landing on the rail, catching the wheel with her foot to straighten the ship’s path and tossing her sword in the air to throw a knife at a woman approaching Nina from behind.
Inej stared at him with exasperation, but put a hand over her heart and began her speech with a sigh. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the wedding of-SPECHT, DUCK!” She cut herself off, stabbing one sword into The Wraith’s wheel to stabilize it and one over Specht head to stab a man.
“Specht and a duck? Not quite the union I was expecting,” Nina said, voice already a little watery as she stared at Jesper and Wylan with deep love. Inej looked towards her with a flat look. Nearby, Kaz glared his eyes at the grooms. Jesper had a feeling that while he had been busy staring at Wylan, Kaz had rolled his eyes all the way to the back of his head with annoyance at their affectionate dramatics.
“Do you, Jesper Fahey, take this man as your husband?” Wylan tossed a flash bomb over to the side the cultists were crawling up from. “To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
The ship lurched and Wylan began to slip. Jesper leaped forward to catch him, stabilizing him by his hips. A few year ago, there wouldn’t have been anything there to grab, but years away from his father’s abuse and the Barrel’s poverty had given Wylan a plushness that Jesper adored. Ghezen, he loved Wylan’s pear shaped hips. With weeks spent at sea, he hadn’t had the chance to worship Wylan’s body in forever. If they both survived this somehow, he was going to ravish the strawberry-blond man. “I do. Ghezen above, I do.”
Wylan flushed a delightful shade as Jesper whispered the latter part into his ear, almost nibbling on it. “Hands off until after the I do’s, Fahey,” Kaz voiced from nearby. Rude…
“Do you, Wylan Van Eck, take this man as your husband? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health-” A rifle shot cut her off. Jesper redirected it with his blessing (Wylan always made him call it a blessing) but his reaction time was only so quick and it nicked his arm.
Wylan frowned at the small amount of blood oozing from the wound. He tossed a bomb towards the offending gunman and lightly traced the scratch with his finger. “With health being the less likely, I suppose,” he said with a quiet laugh.
“-in sickness or in health, till death do you part?” Inej finally finished. With a stony determination, Wylan responded, “I do!”
“Then by the power invested in me by the Saints above, and mainly by this boat, I now pronounce you husband and husband! You may kiss-,” an axe slammed into the wheel and broke it in half. Inej stabbed the offending brute in the neck, but the helm was lost. The ship started to spin out of control.
“You may kiss-” Lightening struck the mast and with a horrible creaking noise, it came crashing down. As it fell into the front of the ship, already hanging over the whirlpool’s edge, the entire ship tilted forwards. Inej was caught by Specht as he clung to the broken helm. Kaz slammed his cane’s beak into the deck, using it as a makeshift piton. Nina had leapt in the opposite of the ship’s fall, turning what had once been walls and stairs into a new floor to stand on. Cultists tumbled all around, desperately clawing for any purchase. And Wylan had caught the railing with one hand and Jesper with the other, straining to hold his groom aloft above the ocean’s maw.
“JUST KISS!!!” Inej screamed as they tilted further and further forwards. Jesper, finally finding footing against the railing, climbed it like the rungs of the later until he was eye level with his beloved. Jesper had never, for a second, thought that any moment of his life could fill him with as much simultaneous euphoria and calm as their first kiss had.
Jesper, as he often was, had been wrong.
As Jesper kissed his husband, his husband, he felt like…he wasn’t sure. Nothing he had ever felt could compare to this moment. He felt at peace, the kind of calm one gets when you sit by the window as it snows at night, safe and warm as the world falls into a quiet slumber. He felt like every cell of his body was fire, like he was a bullet being first from a gun made of lightening and sun fire. He felt everything all at once, what he must imagine a Durast on parem must feel, like he could sense every speck of metal in the world all at once and like he could feel the magnetic poles of the world like a compass, but instead of North they pointed to Wylan, Wylan, Wylan.
And then the world came back to him. He looked into Wylan’s eyes with a watery chuckle and quietly whispered to him. “We’re married,” he said.
“Jesper-,” Wylan began with a smile. The first thing he noticed was that Wylan’s smile evaporated into fear and anguish. The second thing he noticed was that he was falling. The third thing he noticed was that Wylan was letting go to try and catch him.
It wouldn’t have mattered if he held on, though. The ship and all of their family followed only seconds later.
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It was a day later, lying in bed together in a hotel that the Shu government had gratefully rented out of their crew, that Jesper finally got to find out what Wylan was trying to tell him.
They had been crying for hours, tears of anguish that they had almost lost everything, tears of joy and relief that they were safe and here, tears of anger that Jesper would dare to fall and leave Wylan alone, that Wylan would dare follow him into the abyss. Once the tears stopped, they quickly slipped into making out, followed by desperate sex to prove they were still alive, that they were still here in each others arms. But for the past half an hour, they had each been curled up together, Wylan resting his head in the crook between Jesper’s jaw and his shoulder, entirely silent. And finally, Jesper broke the quiet.
“You were going to tell me something,” he whispered into Wylan’s hair.
“Hm?” His husband responded, his tenor voice a quiet murmur against the skin of Jesper’s neck.
“On the ship, after we married. What were you going to tell me?”
“Only that you were the one that would have to explain to Mama and Da that they had missed our wedding.”
“...shit.”