Chapter Text
Jesper Fahey was not a fuckup.
Or at least, that’s what he told himself as he wandered around some wealthy neighborhood at midnight, a couple shots settling in his system, and trying not to think. Which was quite the feat when his thoughts tended to embody a hundred bullets shooting off at once.
After leaving that night's house party, he’d considered going home, then immediately decided against it. His Da already had enough reasons to be disappointed. Showing up miserable and drunk didn’t need to be added to the list.
Plus, being grounded wasn’t a tempting fate.
Getting drunk was hardly even fun anymore. Half the time he ended up surrounded by people who didn’t matter, trying to avoid the buried feelings every conversation seemed to dig up, brain too muddled to avoid making stupid decisions.
Such as roaming aimlessly with a dead phone, vague nausea prodding his stomach every now and then, wanting nothing more than to curl up in one of his mother’s quilts and sleep for the next two weeks.
Saints, he was tired of this.
Veering off the sidewalk onto a well-kept gravel path, the trees began to thicken, metal play equipment glinting through the branches as he came closer. Mindlessly, he drifted deeper in, without any real goal other than to keep moving. It was eerily empty, with everything that shifted in the breeze looking like potential danger to his inebriated mind.
Scoffing, he pulled his jacket tighter against the nighttime chill. You’re not even that drunk. Calm down.
Something creaked, too close for comfort, and his gaze snapped to the playset.
Jesper nearly jumped out of his own skin. “Fucking Saints!” he hissed, finally making out a shadowy figure hunched into themself on a swing, hands clenched around the chains. Their head shot up at the sound of his voice, moonlight reflecting off the widest blue eyes he’d ever seen.
“Sorry, sorry!” the person stammered, hastily throwing their hands up in nonaggression. They sounded like a guy, maybe even around his age. Or at least—someone with the voice of a teenager. “I probably looked really creepy. I’m sorry.”
Wrapped in a gray hoodie that was probably two sizes too big, he had looked a lot more intimidating at first glance. Now, Jesper could see curls poking out from underneath the hood—though it was too dark to make out the color—and a darker blotch coloring a patch of his cheekbone.
“Don’t be,” Jesper reassured him, chains rattling as he dropped onto the other swing. “Well, unless you’re about to murder me.”
“I’m not!” the boy promised quickly, though if Jesper had any care for self-preservation, he might have thought it was suspiciously quick. Or maybe Kaz’s just rubbing off on me.
“Good. I’d hate to deprive the world of this face.”
The boy’s face relaxed in relief, though his incessant fidgeting with a pair of corded earbuds didn’t slow. Jesper reasoned that was enough to think he wouldn’t be bothered by the long legs lazily swinging next to him, forming a small divot in the mulch.
With a face barely illuminated by the half-moon, wisps of hair falling into the endless blue pools of his eyes, the stranger suddenly looked like a fairytale prince dropped into the wrong story. Jesper wanted to reach out and touch him, if only to prove this prince wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
“So,” he hummed, gaze not breaking from its perch. “What’s a pretty boy like you doing out here?”
The boy ducked his head, attempting to hide the blush that was no doubt blooming, before glancing back up with a smile playing on his lips. “I could say the same to you.”
“Maybe I was looking for a handsome stranger to talk with.” Grinning, Jesper shifted closer and cocked his head to the side. “And maybe I’ve found one.”
The boy laughed. It was a gentle, melodic sound that he wanted to play on repeat. “That sounds like code for ‘I want a distraction.’”
Jesper winced, smile faltering briefly. “That obvious?”
“Kind of.”
They slipped into quiet for a moment, metal creaking as the swings drifted on a listless rhythm. It may have been mid-august, but that didn’t stop the goosebumps prickling his skin. He was quickly becoming jealous of that comically oversized hoodie.
Yet another consequence of being an impulsive idiot.
Then, the boy spoke up again, more hesitant. “You’re not the only one.”
“Oh?” Renewed interest fluttered to life. “What do you need distractions from? All the people after your heart?” He winked. “I can certainly relate to that, darling.”
There was that laugh again, and all Jesper wanted was to make it keep happening. “Not exactly,” the boy huffed, a slightly sadder note to his voice. “Just...life, I guess.”
“Same here,” he admitted, surprising even himself with the honesty. “Professional bad decision maker, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
So much for that.
The boy snorted, eyeing Jesper’s outstretched hand oddly, then the lopsided grin accompanying it. A pause followed, before he took the hand and clasped their fingers, shaking with the firmness of someone who’d been taught Kerch manners.
As soon as their hands separated, his skin felt exponentially colder, already missing the warmth he’d had for only a few seconds. He wanted to chase it, and hear that laugh again, and lose himself to the feeling of bodies pressed together—
The boy’s eyes were slowly traveling the length of his face. “I think you make a good distraction.”
And then Jesper was leaning forward without even thinking, peering into piercing, icy eyes, then flicking to the shadowed outline of lips.
An invitation.
The boy inhaled sharply, but instead of retreating, he leaned closer, until Jesper could see the freckles dusting his nose. For what could have been ten seconds or an hour, neither of them breathed.
A muted buzz punctured the air, and before Jesper could blink, the moment was over. The boy stood suddenly, cursing under his breath, the pale blue glow of a phone screen highlighting his frantic expression for just a few seconds. “Ghezen,” he hissed, stuffing the earbuds and phone into his pocket. “I’m sorry—I have to go.”
That’s it?
“Wait!” He blurted, heart sinking at the idea of being left with his thoughts again. The boy glanced over his shoulder, and Jesper fumbled for words. “I don’t know your name.” It was embarrassing how close to pleading he felt.
There was a pause. Jesper would have given anything to know what went through the boy’s head in those five seconds, because a beat later, his lips closed into a rueful smile. “I’m not someone you want to know.”
He disappeared into the darkness, taking the shreds of warmth with him.
And Jesper was alone again.
*
Wylan Van Eck was a screwup.
That was the truth. The staff knew it, his tutors knew it, and his father certainly knew it. Ghezen, now some stranger knew it too. So why was he trying to pretend otherwise?
Already worn thin from a long day at the council, his father had come home to the—albeit unsurprising—news that his failure of a son hadn’t made any progress with his reading. So he’d thrust a leatherbound book into Wylan’s hands and given a simple order: Read it.
Exhausted from a lengthy session with his Kerch tutor, he hadn’t thought to predict what would happen when he answered, ‘I can’t.’
It was his fault for choosing to run off afterward, and now it would be his fault again when he came home to a much worse punishment than earlier. Maybe ten minutes of talking to a boy with perfectly shaped lips had been enough to avoid the thought of going home, but it wouldn’t erase the bruises that would come eventually.
His father didn’t take it well when Mama died. The news that his son—the only heir to the Van Eck name—would likely never learn to read was taken worse. So Wylan understood that he tried his best with the cards life dealt out.
But sometimes—most times—it still hurt.
Wylan was an idiot for running in the first place.
Handsome.
Pretty.
Darling.
Just the memory of the boy’s voice made his face burn. The way he talked, how he seemed to devour each feature of his face; it all made him feel so undeservingly special. Ghezen, they’d nearly kissed, yet somehow Wylan found a way to mess it up.
As a set of carved-laurel pillars came into view, the fuzzy feeling enveloping his body fell away. There were still a few lights glowing through a few of the windows. Father was waiting up for him.
Fantastic.
He slipped between two bars of the metal gate that were just slightly farther apart than the others, and steeled himself for the storm that was bound to break.
Somebody was waiting by the imposing wooden doors, but it wasn’t his father, thank Ghezen. This man was both too thick and tall, hands clasped behind his back instead of in front, and dressed in a gray uniform rather than Merchant black.
The name was fished out from the back of his mind—Mr. Bolliger. A recent hire, if he remembered correctly, to replace the one who foolishly tried to get between his father’s punishment and its mark.
Wylan approached the bodyguard, habitually pulling his shoulders into proper posture, and trying to ignore the fact that his hair was enough of a mess that it would probably gain a lecture later. “Your father is waiting in his office,” Bolliger informed curtly, eyeing him with mild annoyance. No doubt he was the reason the man was on shift so late.
Giving a quick, polite nod, Wylan stepped past the brawny man without bothering to speak. Part of him wanted to turn and run back through the gates, find that boy with deep-set eyes and friendly baritone voice, and pretend for just another minute that he was someone else. And then his bruised cheek twinged with the reminder that it wasn’t a fantasy meant for Wylan Van Eck.
So he kept walking. Up the stairway lined with paintings and framed political posters, down the spotless wood-floored hallway, and through an arched doorway he’d seen far too often since turning eight. And all too soon, the thick, custom-carved door was looming over him.
There was no use delaying the inevitable. Wylan raised a fist and knocked three times in firm, rhythmic succession.
“Enter.”
He noted that father’s voice was calm, which was not anywhere near as comforting as it should have been. Calm was the eye of a hurricane that could snap to something far more dangerous in an instant. At least shouting meant the anger would eventually fizzle out; like the light of a flame, it couldn’t burn forever. But Alys was asleep in the bedroom across the hall, and his father wouldn’t risk scaring off his new wife so soon.
The cold of the brass handle seeping into his skin, Wylan entered the room as quietly as he could. There was the faint scent of one of Aly’s cinnamon-vanilla candles lingering in the air, deceivingly warm in the cold atmosphere.
His father stood behind the massive chestnut desk occupying half the room, arms crossed in front of his chest, devoid of any emotion. “Close the door.”
Wylan shivered as if those irises really were chips of ice. The door thumped as it swung shut behind him, and he crossed his hands in front of his stomach, raising his gaze just below his father’s even though every instinct screamed to hide.
“You left the property without permission.” It wasn’t a furious accusation. Simply fact.
Wylan’s heart was pounding in his throat. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Surprisingly, the apology didn’t seem to make his father any more irritated than he was. “Today’s failure was not an invitation for further disobedience.”
Nodding hurriedly, he fought against the urge to fiddle with the ratty sleeve of the hoodie his father hated. Jaw setting with impatience, Father raised an eyebrow. “Well? Do you have an explanation for yourself?”
“I just—I wanted a moment to think, and—”
A sudden raised hand stopped him in his tracks, flinching pathetically at the movement. Nausea curled in his stomach. Idiot.
“Do you understand how fortunate you are, boy?”
“I do, sir.”
A sharp smack as his father’s hand struck the desk made Wylan jump so violently he nearly hit the door. “Then why are you making Ghezen-forsaken excuses?! Are you dull enough to believe you have that right?”
He swallowed and fixed his posture hurriedly, lower back aching from standing so pin-straight, but half terrified a second hit would land somewhere more alive if he moved. “I wasn’t thinking, sir. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, I’m very aware of your inability to think.” He laughed harshly, circling the desk with stony, measured steps until he landed in front of Wylan. “But apologizing is useless. You’re much too stupid to follow through.”
At least when Father was punishing him, the pain kept his mind distant, safe from the cruel words that stung like a swarm of bees. He could untether, and sooner be curled up on his bed, music filtering through headphones, life falling away for just a few hours of bliss.
Dizzy from the speed of his pulse and how shallowly he was breathing, the lack of oxygen must have made him heedless. On pure, animalistic instinct, Wylan lowered his gaze to the pristine carpet.
Fingers hooked underneath his jaw and jerked his head so roughly a jab of pain shot through his neck. “You look at me when I’m talking to you, child.”
The word was spat like a slur.
“Yes sir,” he rasped, vision fuzzing over for a few seconds. Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry.
His father’s hand fell from his chin. “I don’t want to hear of any further failures.”
It sounded kind enough on the surface, but the unsaid threat was clear as a bell: or else. Cold, hard dread settled in his stomach. Failure was the only thing he could count on accomplishing. Even with years of tutors, tonics, beatings, any fix money could buy, the letters would never translate the way they did so easily for everyone else.
Why can’t I be fixed? Ghezen, why can’t I just do it?
“I’ll try harder,” he pleaded, breath coming on short huffs. “I’ll—I’ll have the tutors work with me longer—”
“You won’t be back with tutors anytime soon,” his father cut in coldly, expression laced with something unreadable. “Maybe if these privileges are no longer yours, you’ll learn just how fortunate you are.”
His father paused—a weaponized silence. It left Wylan’s head pulsing as he tried frantically to figure out what was coming before it did. Father wouldn’t just take away his education, unless that also included pretending Wylan was dead; having an uneducated child would be far more looked down upon than just having a stupid one. Although that wouldn’t be the first threat of its kind, how in the name of Ghezen would it benefit either of them?
“I’ve enrolled you in the public high school.” Again, his father paused, though this time it was to search Wylan’s face for a reaction. He probably expected shock, or maybe even defiance—a reason to discipline me further—but he kept his expression carefully blank.
That was the big punishment? School? Not a stricter tutor, or day of being locked in his room, or flurry of fists and belt lashes. Wylan had been begging to go to school since he was young.
Mind reeling, he wondered if this was Father finally giving up.
“They will not make exceptions for your defect,” he continued, “which nobody can know about.” Eyes darkening like a thundercloud passing over a lake, his voice dropped lower. “Is that clear?”
Wylan nodded vigorously, tongue dry and heavy in his mouth. “Yes sir.”
“You will not poison the Van Eck name.”
The relief of somehow escaping far worse punishment was making his senses blurry, however hard he tried to remain present. His jaw clenched. Not yet. Not here.
“You will not tell your teachers, nor other students. And you absolutely will not invent tales to explain yourself.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Wylan promptly shrunk back under the withering glare shot his way, quickly replaced by one that dripped with pity. It made his skin crawl.
“Soon, you’ll discover that I am no crueler than life will be. The real world has no patience for stupidity.”
That was the one thing where Father was wrong; he’d become accustomed to the price of weakness long ago. Watching it burn any chance of connection, however, would be new.
But love wasn’t something Wylan Van Eck deserved anyway.