Work Text:
Wylan is hard at work in his makeshift workspace in The Slat. As was typical of the feared Bastard of the Barrel, Kaz had offered the former closet but warned that it could easily be set aflame, “and you’ll pay if you burn down another one of my properties,” never mind that Wylan had been asked to destroy the previous Crow Club.
Wylan’s deadly adventure in Shu Han had set him on a path to discover exactly which poison Ohval had concocted in her deadly entre room. In spite of Jesper’s concerns, Wylan had set to work with a smuggled packet of dried datura meloxia wings in the hopes of reverse engineering the poison. The small flame of his burner had been crackling day and night, the clinking of glass vials a constant melody. He’d kept a running tally of his previous formulas in the form of music notes, first on paper and then carved onto the table’s surface when he ran out.
So far the experimentation has been intriguing but unsuccessful.
Wylan was puzzling it out as the sun began to rise on Jesper and his shared bedroom. Suddenly it hit him– Kerch ingredients for a Shu poison? He was a fool!
He set out just as The Dregs were heading to bed, sprinting to one of the few Shu shopkeepers in town, just adjacent to Little Ravka. The clouds were just beginning to let in the first rays of day and he was jostled as he headed against the tide of the gainfully employed. A few blocks later he turned into a too narrow alley and went down 3 steps into the dungeon-like shop. To the surprise and concern of the Shu shopkeeper, Wylan left his tiny store with a full bag of potential toxins to experiment with. The sun was at its peak by the time he re-entered The Slat.
Some hours later, likely the early morning hours of the next day, Wylan’s hands were trembling from low blood sugar but he was certain he was closer than ever. The dark gray powder, foreign to Wylan but he had a hunch about it, should be mixed with a dilation of datura meloxia powder. If he could then take the mixture and boil it until it condensed into a homogenous liquid, then dry it again… This might be it! He poured a portion of the unknown gray substance into one vial and set it to the side, then shakily tipped the corner of the bag of datura meloxia into another vial already filled with distilling alcohol. As carefully as possible, and 2 steps back from the dangerous flame, Wylan held up both vials and set to moving the portion of gray powder into the second vial. He poured just a quarter teaspoon full and placed the leftover powder aside, looking at his newest formula with curiosity as the ingredients fell into place.
The thunk of Kaz’s cane just outside his door (it must be the next morning if he was headed up the stairs) surprised a half-delirious Wylan and sent him stumbling towards his worktop and its small flame. Just enough to tip 2 drops of his concoction onto the flame below his unprotected nose.
The effect was incredibly speedy in this potency– he was falling backwards onto the floor and heard the crash of his glass tube– then he was out of The Slat all together and inside his mind.
Wylan instantly recognized the room– the cavernous library of the Van Eck Estate, intimidating and frightening in equal measure. He’s sitting at the desk where he was tutored. The scene is so familiar a small part of his mind begins to wonder if it’s a memory, but that conscious thought flies away before he can grab hold of it.
He looks down and there’s a book, just as there always was. Another mess of scribbles he can’t read… but somehow, suddenly, he can. The words appear in his mind and his tutor is suddenly standing in front of him (DerWint? There were so many. He can’t remember.) Wylan’s reciting something in Kerch, it sounds like it might be a poem, and the words come from the page without real thought. Is this what it was really like to read?
“Well done, my boy! I knew the ancient arts would prove a bit more interesting to you than those dry financial treatises. Everything in balance, of course, as Ghezen would say!” DerWint looks honestly thrilled, an expression he’d never shown to Wylan in real life.
Wylan breaks into a smile. He’s cured! He’s worthwhile again, a true heir to the Van Eck family. He never knew how easy this was to everyone else. Surely he was as stupid as his Father claimed if reading was beyond him before, but now… He could be the man his Father raised him to be and hold his head with pride. He wouldn’t be cast out; now his Father would take him to all the Council parties and into his offices to learn alongside his clerks. All the forbidden places would open their doors to Wylan, including the place in his Father’s heart that had once included his son.
A knock at the door. DerWint’s smile disappears and he gestures to the poetry book, “Best put that away.”
Time skips again. His Father is standing in front of him, DerWint has disappeared, and Wylan is still holding the book of poems.
“Father!” He says gleefully, longing to show off his newly acquired skill and receive his Father’s praise, just as he did DerWint’s.
But before he can speak further the senior Van Eck smacks the book from Wylan’s hand, sending it face down onto the ground, pages spread crunching onto the wood.
“Why do you waste your time on this rubbish? You’re my heir! This girlish need for poetry will not serve your ships, your trade, our company! Will you bring down the work of your great-great-grandfather with this insipid idiocy?”
Wylan is very used to this version of his Father– red faced, towering over him, fists clenched. Wylan longs to cower, to run, to hide but he knows that when he is caught, inevitably, the punishment will be much worse.
What had he done? Why wasn’t his Father proud? Wasn’t he fixed?
“Father–” he tried again.
His Father raised his hand swiftly and smacks him across the cheek, hard enough to twist his head to the side.
Why? Why was he not enough?
Time skips again. They are in his Father’s office. His Father sits at his expansive mahogany desk as Wylan strives to maintain proper posture in front of him. He has seen this play out a hundred times, sometimes in real life and sometimes in nightmares. Except this time he is holding a sheaf of papers, important looking ones with numbers and long words.
And again, he looks at them and the words appear in his head. He can read! Surely he can make this time go right. He has fixed his defect, become worthy in his Father’s eyes.
“These papers represent your portion of the company, as my heir,” his Father begins. A good start.
Then the rush of blood to his face, the slam of his fist into the desk. It’s happening again.
“And they’re worth nothing! Your slapdash work has led to yet another oversight and the ship is sunk!”
“But Father, the weather–”
“Can you not read, boy? Are you so lacking in wits that even the lowest Barrel rat can best you?”
“No, Father, but you insisted–”
“Are you suggesting that I am at fault for your foolishness?” His Father is standing from his chair and stalking towards Wylan who is now shaking on the carpet.
“No, of course not–”
The smack against his face is harsher this time and tears jump to Wylan’s eyes before he can stop them.
“Get out of my sight you worthless boy!”
He’s in the gardens of the Van Eck Estate now. There’s no longer any hope in him, he only wants whatever nightmare he has found himself looped in to end quickly. A growing voice in his mind is telling him that this isn’t real, that this is all temporary. He wants to return to what he knew, stupidity, illiteracy, and all. There’s something in reality, something he can’t remember, but he knows that it’s better than this fever dream.
His heart beats quickly like a frightened rabbit, and he wipes tears from his eyes.
A gentle hand grasps his shoulder (not his Father, then, perhaps there’s something good to be found here after all) and he turns to see a boy about his age. He’s vaguely familiar looking and dressed in mercher black. Likely another heir who real-life Wylan had only glimpsed when sneaking from his room during a party.
The boy, blonde hair, quite a bit taller than Wylan, cheekbones pink with the flush of wine, smiles at him.
“Erik–” He starts, this foreign Wylan who knows what’s going on in this other life.
“You don’t need to explain anything. I know your Father saw us the other day. He’s angry, I’m sure?”
Other Wylan wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, only for Erik to offer him a handkerchief. This Wylan is suffused with happiness, enchanted by this boy he’s never actually met, and deeply, deeply terrified.
“He says he’ll disown me if he finds me with you again. You’d better go.” His voice hitches, still tearful, but he feels so much warmer in Erik’s presence.
“One last kiss, then?”
Wylan blinks upwards, caught in Erik’s hypnotic gray eyes. He wants this man, this stranger, so much. He leans into the other boy, standing on tiptoes, and falls towards his lips like they determine gravity.
“Wylan!” A man shouts from across the green expanse of the lawn. His Father. His Father is going to catch them, he’ll be disowned, he’ll be cast away.
What kind of Van Eck kisses boys? He’ll have no heir, the family legacy will be lost, he is a terrible son, a stupid worthless boy. He’ll be like Dykers’ son– still the heir to his Father’s shipping business, but at a terrible cost. The Dykers spend every day of that man’s life bickering over who will inherit next. Every moment Wylan will be hounded by aunts and cousins and nephews who want to become the next Van Eck. If he could just settle down with a nice girl, even if it’s just for show, and make a real heir, a true heir…
“Wylan!” Another shout, but Wylan can’t tell where it’s coming from. Someone is shaking his shoulders. Erik?
He looks up into gray eyes, but he’s somewhere else again. The lawn has disappeared, the boy he’s looking at is not Erik at all. The Wylan that is real begins to remember again. He is in The Slat, his Father is far away, and he is loved. Yes, he’s loved…
“Jesper?” He croaks.
“Thank the Saints! I sent for Nina but she’s out who knows where and there’s no damn window in this place to air it out and I couldn’t figure out what you’d done and I was so worried, so worried–”
“Jes!” Wylan grasps his arm, “Jes, it’s all right! I’m all right!”
And just as soon as he says that he realizes he’s not all right at all. Tears cascade down his face and he weeps loudly, undignified and snotty and feeling utterly barren inside. Jesper lifts him into a sitting position and Wylan presses his face into his shoulder, wailing.
Jesper pats against his back rhythmically, holding Wylan tight as the tears are soaked up by his shirt.
“It doesn’t mat– dosen’t-matter,” Wylan stutters.
“What doesn’t matter, love?” Jesper asks quietly into his ear, his grip steadying.
“If I could– if I could read.”
“Of course it doesn’t matter–” Jesper begins but Wylan cuts him off by tucking his head further into Jesper’s side.
“It doesn’t matter to him ! It would never matter, there’s nothing I could do!”
Wylan sobs again and feels as though all of his hope has crumbled beneath him. He’s falling into an abyss that was always close but still far enough away that he thought he could avoid it. He is as stupid as his Father said.
“He’d never love me, Jes. I can’t make him happy. No matter what I did.” This time his voice fails altogether. What else is there to say?
Jesper rocks them slowly and Wylan hears his heart beat steadily. Jesper’s arms are tight around him and they are lit only by the flame on his worktop. Wylan stares into the shadows cast by it and lets his mind drift. Time passes, refusing to skip, and his newfound knowledge weighs heavy.