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It’s pouring rain in Ketterdam, the dark, heavy clouds that have been looming overhead all day finally giving way to a downpour of torrential proportions. The rain is a stark contrast to the recent weeks of oppressive heat, where the air was thick with an unshakeable mugginess that seeped into every pore.
Of course, thinks Jesper, soaked through and utterly miserable in his hiding place in the alley.
Of course it would start raining now, on the one night when he’s on watch duty, his eyes fixed on the gaudy building in front of him. All week he’s been itching for something to do, anything apart from sitting and marinating in his own sweat, but it had to be tonight. He wonders if perhaps Kaz summoned the rain himself.
With a sigh, he turns up the collar of his coat against the rain and watches as Nina enters the club. It’s a simple enough job, just information sourcing, but Kaz, Inej and Jesper are too well known in these parts, and Matthias sticks out like a sore thumb.
The doorman leers at Nina’s cleavage as she passes. Jesper can hardly blame him, she’s all but falling out of her scant, red dress. Matthias’ ears had turned pink when he’d seen her in it.
Jesper spots Wylan a few minutes later, entering with a stream of dock workers. He blends in well, but Jesper would recognise his face from a mile off. The doorman barely bothers to look at Wylan as he lets him in with a wave of his hand.
The rain gets heavier and Jesper sighs again, settling in against the dank alley wall. He’s only there as backup in case things go south. Matthias is also lurking somewhere nearby. He’s not really needed, but he’d insisted.
Probably just wants to keep looking at Nina in that dress.
Watching the steady stream of people enter and exit the club, Jesper feels a familiar itch creep up his spine. Surely just one or two games wouldn’t hurt. It’s been such a long time since he’s played a game of cards or Makker’s Wheel. Kaz doesn’t need to know.
Wylan would know though. He’d care.
Jesper runs his fingers over the pearl hilt of one of his revolvers, tracing the intricate design. A couple more hours and Wylan and Nina will be done and they can return to the Slat together. He pulls out the revolver to fiddle with it, mostly to drag his mind away from the idea of gambling.
A shot rings out. For a horrible second, Jesper wonders if he’s pulled the trigger of his revolver without realising, but then he hears the screams and shouts from inside the club.
Wylan.
His stomach gives a sickening lurch. The cold chill of dread trickles down his spine.
Let them be okay. Let him be okay.
Jesper is running before he’s even told his feet to move.
-
Wylan settles himself at an empty table with a pint of lager, trying to look inconspicuous. Glancing around the club, he quickly spots Nina flirting with a burly man at the bar, making it look as effortless as always. He has no idea how she does it.
Behind him, Wylan hears a group of men playing an enthusiastic game of cards and he thinks of Jesper, standing watch somewhere outside in the pouring rain.
It isn’t long before a man, a dockworker by the look of his clothes, approaches him.
“Mind if I sit here?” the other man asks, and Wylan glances up at him over the rim of his beer. He speaks Kerch with a bit of an accent, and his auburn hair and fair skin make Wylan wonder if he’s Kaelish.
“Sure,” Wylan replies, gesturing to the empty chair.
“Thanks. I’m Emmett, by the way,” he says by way of introduction.
Definitely Kaelish.
“Isaak,” says Wylan.
Emmett takes a swig of his beer. “You look familiar, have we met before?”
For a split second, Wylan wonders if maybe they have met before, back when he was still working at the tannery, but he snaps himself out of it.
“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” he says with a shy smile. “I came in at the same time as some dockworkers though, maybe you saw me then.”
“Ah that must be it. I wouldn’t forget a face like yours.”
Wylan offers him another coy smile and lifts his pint to his lips again. The way Emmett is looking at him isn’t unfamiliar. Plenty of men have flirted with him, complimented his pretty face and doe eyes. He’s even entertained some of them.
Distractedly, Wylan wonders if Emmett is the type of person that he might have given a chance before. He’s not unattractive, and he seems kind. Maybe in another life Wylan would have let Emmett buy him a drink and then taken him to bed, but when Wylan thinks of such things now, all he sees is brown Zemeni skin, warm eyes and a lopsided grin.
Giving himself a little mental shake, Wylan refocuses on the job he’s here to do, so he lets Emmett flirt with him and is soon introduced to a few of his friends. Feigning interest in the Kaelish man’s work, he manages to get him talking about the dock, about the ships and what they were carrying, gleaning every scrap of information he can. And if the price he pays for that information is an unfamiliar hand on his thigh then, well, he’s had far worse.
The club is getting busy now, the evening in full swing. The gambling table behind him has drawn in a few more pigeons and is starting to get rowdy, almost ramping up to a brawl.
Nina is still at the bar, flirting with a new victim now, several empty pint glasses beside her. Wylan watches her tracing the latest man’s arm tattoo with her fingers, looking up at him from under her lashes.
How long has he been here? Has he managed to get enough information to satisfy Kaz? He desperately wants to get out of here, to find Jesper and get back to the Slat. He’s already started to think of the dingy little club and the room he shares with Jesper as his home.
Wylan stands, acting like he’s going to get another drink instead of giving Emmett the slip. He’s taken only one step away from the table when the gunshot rings out.
Time seems to stand still for a moment and then-
A searing pain tears through his stomach, white hot and blazing. He glances down at the source of the pain and sees bright red blood blooming across his shirt.
Oh. That’s not good.
The thought is distant, fleeting. The world seems to tilt on its axis as he drops to his knees, clutching at his stomach.
Chaos surrounds him, bodies surging past towards the exit, people shouting, screaming. He thinks he hears someone shout for a medik. The room spins violently and he stares at his fingers, pressed against the excruciating pain in his stomach. They’re wet with blood.
The next thing he knows, Nina is beside him.
“Wylan, hey Wylan, look at me.”
He looks up at her, then his eyes slide down to the pool of blood between them. It’s impossible to tell where his blood ends and her violently red dress begins.
“Nina,” he breathes. Black spots are starting to cloud his vision. “Tell Jes-”
“Don’t you dare,” she scolds, unceremoniously ripping his shirt open and starting to work on his wound.
It hurts. It hurts so badly, more than the feeling of hands closing around his throat, squeezing the life out of him. More than the ice cold water of the canal, where he’d come so close to drowning, lured in by the darkness of the filthy water.
He feels that same darkness now, creeping nearer. Faces swim above him.
“Tell him…” It’s so much effort to speak. Every breath he draws is becoming more and more shallow as blood continues to pulse from his wound. His head feels foggy, his thoughts fleeting and distant.
The darkness edges closer, black tendrils reaching for him from the depths, curling around his body where he lies limp on the floor.
Jesper.
A rush of images flood into his mind. The first time they met, when Wylan was still working at the tannery. Jesper licking his nips nervously, staring at him from across his workbench as chemicals bubbled between them. Late nights falling into bed, early mornings waking up together.
“Tell him I love him.”
The darkness sinks its teeth into him and drags him down.
-
Jesper flings himself through the door of the club, elbowing his way through the crowds of people surging past him in the opposite direction. He has no idea what happened, only that there was a gunshot and that he is sure, with sickening certainty, where the bullet went.
There’s a cluster of people huddled around a body on the floor, and he spots Nina in the midst of it all, hands working frantically. Another man, pale with ginger hair, kneels on the other side of the body, helping to staunch the flow of blood staining a pale blue shirt. A shirt that Jesper had helped Wylan pick only a few hours ago.
“Wylan!” He pushes closer, dropping to his knees beside Nina. His heart feels like it’s about to tear itself in two.
“No, Wy, come on…”
Wylan’s face is so pale, his dark eyelashes a stark contrast against the sickly pallor of his skin. Jesper cradles his face with both hands, his skin cold and clammy under his fingers.
He strokes trembling fingers over Wylan’s cheekbones. “Don’t do this, wake up…”
He’s never really been one for believing in saints, but now he finds himself praying to any of them that might be listening.
Let him live let him live let him live.
He presses a kiss to Wylan’s forehead, choking back tears. “Please don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you.” His voice is scarcely above a whisper.
Nina curses and Jesper turns to her. Her hands are shaking with effort, sweat beading on her brow.
“Nina, help him!”
“What do you think I’m trying to do,” she says through gritted teeth. “I’m not a healer.”
Her hands are covered in blood.
“Hey,” says the man with ginger hair. “Why don’t you give her a bit of space to work?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Jesper spits, wiping at his eyes furiously. He reaches for Wylan’s face again but is lifted up and out of the way by a pair of strong hands. Jesper tries to struggle, to grab his revolvers, but stops once he realises who it is.
“Matthias!” Nina cries in relief as the Fjerdan crouches beside her. “Can you carry him? I need Inej.”
Matthias nods wordlessly, sliding his arms underneath Wylan’s limp body and gently scooping him up. The remaining crowd parts to make way for Matthias as he heads towards the door, Nina hurrying along beside him.
Jesper blinks at the pool of blood on the floor, his head spinning. This can’t be it, this can’t be how Wylan dies. They were meant to have so many more years together, decades even. A lifetime.
If Wylan doesn’t make it-
The thought makes his stomach lurch again, and he barely manages to make it out of the club before he’s emptying the contents of his stomach into a nearby plant pot.
“Jesper, come on!”
Nina and Matthias are already disappearing into the shadowy streets of the Barrel. Jesper scrubs a hand over his face, forces his body to obey him, and follows after them.
-
Pain. A throbbing, gnawing pain, beginning deep in his abdomen and fanning upwards. Layers of muscle and skin shredded and pinched back together again.
Saints it hurts.
Wylan blinks his eyes open and a dingy white ceiling, stained with damp and possibly worse, swims into view. He tries to move but the pain in his stomach only spikes to a near blinding intensity and he groans.
He hears movement beside him, the scrape of a chair against the floor. Managing to turn his head, his eyes land on-
“Jesper.” His throat feels like sandpaper, his mouth dry.
“There you are,” Jesper says with a weak smile. He looks far from his usual put-together self, with rumpled clothes and red-rimmed eyes. Wylan wonders if he’s slept at all.
Jesper takes his hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles.
“What happened?” Wylan asks, glancing around at the room he’s in. It looks like the Slat, but it’s definitely not their bedroom. It’s far too tidy for that.
Jesper draws his chair closer and rests his elbows on the bed, rubbing his thumb over the back of Wylan’s hand. “Game of cards got too rowdy and there was a bit of a brawl. Someone’s gun misfired. You were just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I got shot?” That explains the pain.
Jesper offers him another weak smile. The sunlight coming through the window behind him makes him glow like the Sun Summoner herself. “You did. Gave me a good scare too.”
“I’m sorry,” says Wylan. He swallows thickly, trying not to imagine how he might feel if their roles had been reversed.
“It’s not your fault. I’m just glad you’re alive.” Jesper stands to give Wylan a quick kiss, stroking a stray piece of hair out of his eyes. Sitting down once more, Jesper takes Wylan’s hand in his again. “Saints, Wylan, you almost didn’t make it.”
Wylan’s heart aches at the sight of Jesper, usually so full of life, looking back at him with exhaustion plain on his face, eyes glistening with tears.
“I’m okay,” he says softly, attempting to sound reassuring.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Jesper whispers, and Wylan watches as a tear slides down his cheek, leaving a damp trail in its wake. He reaches up, wincing as the movement pulls at his wound and brushes Jesper’s cheek with his thumb.
“Come here, get into bed with me.”
“I’m not sure there’s room,” says Jesper, but Wylan just pats the space beside him insistently.
Carefully, Jesper climbs into the bed and they manage to arrange themselves with Wylan tucked up against Jesper’s side, cradled in his arms. It’s a little cramped, but Wylan is grateful to have the comforting warmth of Jesper beside him.
“I love you,” Wylan murmurs, feeling his eyes grow heavy, lulled by the rhythm of Jesper’s breathing, of his chest rising and falling.
“I love you too.” Jesper presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Go to sleep, I’ll be right here.”
Wylan only hums noncommittally, already drifting.
-
It takes Wylan around a month to fully recover. Thanks to Nina and Inej’s work in removing the bullet and patching him up, he manages to escape the wound becoming infected. He’s left with a relatively neat scar, a raised pink pucker on his otherwise unmarred skin.
It takes Jesper far longer to stop going quiet whenever he catches a glimpse of it. When it happens, Wylan just holds him and kisses him and presses Jesper’s hands against his chest, against his heartbeat.
I’m right here. I’m alive.