Chapter Text
“Right! You are aware that this is going to suck? I know you asked for my help, but… there’s nothing wrong with you, you know.” Maeve glances down at Wylan as she leans over his shoulder, adjusting a few settings on her typewriter sat on the table in front of him.
Maeve had set it down so delicately he knew it must be one of her most prized possessions, and judging by the shine on the typewriters chrome, she took great care of it.
He nods, never taking his eyes off the keys. “I know, I just want to learn.”
Wylan knew it’d been a sacrifice for her to replace the key caps she’d made specially with her own small symbols with the ones he’d ordered, each a music note representing a letter. It wouldn’t be hard to put hers back on once he’d picked out his own typewriter, but he appreciated her sacrifice nonetheless.
“Let’s get started then.” Maeve murmurs, breathing out a soft breath against his cheek that has him sitting straighter in his chair.
A sly smile from Jesper across the table has a blush of his own blooming on his cheeks.
When he’d approached the University under the guise of finding an instructor for his “visiting Ravkan cousin” Wylan had been looking for a tutor for himself.
With his money and the influence he had from his position on the Merchant Council he’d had his pick of the top reading and writing tutors in Ketterdam. Wylan had hated all of them. Each one an older and more decrepit old man, Wylan thought it would be a nightmare to spend more than a minute being near them.
Then one day after a meeting he’d been walking past what appeared to be an empty classroom. Wylan paused at the door as he heard muttering from inside and poked his head around the doorframe to hear better.
A young woman was standing in front of a chalkboard with books spread out on the floor and the desks around her. Her ruddy brown hair was mussed, strands pulling free from her bun to form a halo around her head in the fading light from the windows. She couldn’t have been much shorter than Wylan himself, and he noticed with a small smile that her hands were stained with deep purple ink. It reminded him of how Jespers hands would become stained with gunpowder and polish.
But it wasn’t any of these details that drew his focus in the end. It was the rudimentary drawings on the chalkboard in front of her that caught his attention. She’d glance down at the book currently in her hand, mumble to herself with a little furrow in her brow before turning to the board and drawing a crude picture. Wylan could see a story forming in front of his eyes, being translated out to him from the pages she held.
It wasn’t until he stepped further into the room, and his foot pressed against a squeaky floorboard that he realized how intrigued he was by her. But alas, his quiet observation time was up, the creaking having alerted her to his presence.
The woman turned to him, with what Wylan could only assume was anxiety on her face as she looked at him. “Oh, hello? I thought you were Professor Kirill.”
“No,” Wylan was careful to tuck one hand into his waistcoat, the other he used to wave in greeting. He couldn’t scare her off; she might be able to help him… and he wanted to know her name. “Wylan. Sorry if I’m interrupting.”
“You’re not interrupting Wylan. I was just um,” she gestures vaguely with the book as if that would explain her actions, a pale blush working its way to her cheeks. “Sorry, I’m Maeve.”
Wylan glances at her again before he turns to face the chalkboard, hoping that without his direct attention she would relax a little bit. “You draw whatever’s happening in your books?” He’s phrased it more like a question, even though it’s obvious what she’s doing.
“Yes. It helps me make sense of what’s happening.” There’s a defensive tone creeping into her voice and Wylan turns back to face her fully. He knew exactly what that tone meant, he’d heard it most of his life in his own voice. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“No no– of course not,” he reassures her quickly. “I wish I could do it.”
“You wish you could draw?”
He lets out a quick bark of laughter, shaking his head. “No, I wish I could read. But the words all jumble together and they don’t make sense.”
Wylan watches as she relaxes visibly right in front of him. Her shoulders drop away from her ears, and she brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. “You’re dyslexic too.” She murmurs.
He’s quiet for a moment. He’d never been given a name for what he was, other than stupid. But here was another person, who seemed like she could understand what he was talking about, who seemed like she’d learned how to overcome it. This dyslexia.
“Dyslexia.” He repeats.
Maeve nods, a smile beginning to form on her face. “It’s so nice to finally meet someone else with it. Saints I thought I was the only one in the whole of Ketterdam who couldn’t do something as simple as reading.” When she notices him bristle, she quickly backtracks. “That came out wrong– I just meant, it’s nice to meet someone who gets it.”
Her sunny smile catches him off-guard for a moment, she’s pretty. Wylan wondered if Jesper would find her pretty too. He was willing to bet that Nina would love this girl.
“Can you teach me?” He blurts out, cutting right to the chase before he let his thoughts spiral too far and–Saints forbid–potentially said something stupid out loud.
“I’d love to! I’m not a very good teacher though, and it might suck for you, having to learn all my tricks instead of coming up with your own.” She warns, closing the book in her hand and glancing around the room for her satchel.
Wylan just shakes his head. “If you’re willing to try and teach, I’m willing to try and learn.”
With his fingers on the keys Wylan begins to type, each music note he presses down stamps a letter into the page, and at first all he does is press random keys, getting used to the feeling. Maeve had explained to him how she’d learned to write, training her brain to associate symbols that made sense to her, with letters that would make sense to everyone else. It also helped her mind connect to those letters, and she hoped the same would happen for Wylan.
“Okay good. We’ll start off easy, I know you sign your name using music notes. Could you press them to type your name on the page?” She asks curiously, still standing just behind him, even though she’d be much more comfortable sitting next to him. He didn’t mind though; he enjoyed the heat her own body provided to him.
Wylan nods, pressing down the keys and watching as a word is printed onto the page positioned in the typewriter. He blinks, watching the letters on the page, though they hadn’t become any clearer. “Does it look alright?”
Jesper stands up from where he’d been sitting at the opposite end of the table and comes to lean over Wylan’s other shoulder. “Well, I’ll be–Wylan you beautiful genius–“ Jesper wastes no time before he’s pressing an eager kiss to Wylan’s lips, one the man is happy to return until there’s a small cough from beside them. “Sorry Maeve.”
“You boys can get carried away when I’ve gone back to my dorm, for now can you sit your ass back down so lover boy can focus? I only let you stay for moral support.” She teases, and Jesper notes the way her gaze lingers on Wylan’s blushing cheeks.
“You get one too!” Jesper laughs, kissing Maeve’s cheek briefly on his way back to his seat. Really, he’d give her whatever she wanted if she could keep making Wylan feel stronger about his own intellect.
“Yeah yeah…” She brushes it off, but both men notice the way her fingers trace lightly over the spot Jesper kissed before she scoops her hair back and tucks it into a bun. “We’ll keep going for another quarter bell and then I’ll leave you two to it.” Maeve waves her hand at the typewriter. “Write out your name again, and then we’ll start building on from there.”
Wylan eagerly does as he’s told, happy to accept praise from both people in the room as they see the progress he starts to make. His happy smile never wavering once.