Trigger warning: emotional abuse (detailed recollection), physical abuse (implied)
Wylan stood frozen, looking at an echo. He had mostly avoided the dining room, only catching it in glimpses through the hole in the office floor. There was no reason to come here; the three of them were better suited to a casual place, anyway. But he was going to need to have the room fixed up eventually. If he was going to be the head of a company, if he was going to be a member of the Merchant Council, if he was truly going to take his place as Jan Van Eck's heir, he would at some point have a guest over, another merchant…
He couldn't not have a dining room.
He just hadn't anticipated that he would feel it so strongly being back in this room. It had caught him and he was stuck and he couldn't shake loose. His head was tilting, or the room was spinning…
"Wylan!"
Wylan jerked his head up. The room or his head went quiet suddenly still. He had a lurching feeling of nausea. Jesper and Inej stood in the doorway. How long had they been there?
How long had he been here?
He expected a joke. This would be a very good time to smile. A challenging time, too, he didn't feel like a smile just about now, but Jesper had a gift for making anyone smile at any time.
Except—Jesper had so many names for him. Names he would call anyone: gorgeous, beautiful. Names just for him: merchling, coppercurls, Wy, sunshine, starlight.
So many names, but Jesper had called him Wylan.
Inej stepped forward silently and asked, "What happened in this room, Wylan?"
Wylan swallowed a lump in his throat that didn't go away.
"The worst," he whispered. He took a tiny step toward the table. "He was remarried within a year. I was supposed to take a tonic, but I hated it. It tasted awful, made me feel sick. I refused. He insisted and I knocked it away, but I knocked the glass over—he was angry."
Wylan swallowed again. That hadn't been the first night he was expected to take the tonic. He knew he had been a brat about it, too, shoving the glass like that.
His fingertips played gently on the table. Tracing a path. Keeping his eyes focused here, away from his friends' faces. He thought if he answered he would seem okay. He couldn't just stand there silently like a podge.
"It's okay, Wylan."
She kept saying his name. He hadn't forgotten…
Didn't she understand? It wasn't okay, what he did. It wasn't okay that he lost control now. But the memories were coming and he couldn't stop them, like they were rolling downhill and he had nothing with which to divert them, no time to build a wedge and send them sailing overhead…
"It hadn't come cheap. I was wrong to spill it, but he—it was just too much for him. You are worse than worthless. You are a debt. Do you understand what I do for you? What would happen to you if anyone knew of your incompetence? You are a stain on my good name. Useless, simpering idiot!"
Jan had smacked the table, and it was Wylan this time, Jan's words in Wylan's mouth, Wylan's hand coming down—he didn't understand why. He wasn't certain what he even meant to do. He slammed the table the way his father had and managed not to hiss at the pain of it but Ghezen's good fortune that stung!
"He made me—clean it. He made me clean up."
There was a long, almost confused pause. Wylan heard it above the blood thumping in his ears. With a hot rush of shame he realized his eyes were dampening and blinked quickly, refusing to cry. There had been something—something in Inej's tone, in the room, in its oppressive quiet, that made Wylan forget consequences were coming. He remembered now—where he was, who he had just told.
"He made you clean the table?" Jesper asked, a hint of laughter creeping into his voice.
Wylan wouldn't look at him.
"Jesper," Inej said.
"Oh, come on. He might have said some miserable things, but that's hardly the worst punishment. For most kids, clearing the table is a regular chore."
"Do most kids use their tongues?" Wylan snapped, turning to look at him now. Challenging. It was enough to shut Jesper up. Wylan read the startle in his eyes, the surprise. That was Jesper: hot emotions, strong and sudden. Inej registered this with cool acceptance.
A part of Wylan regretted his tone, a part that would take over later, when the anger faded. But now he was angry. He was angry because of what had been done to him, he was angry because he had been so afraid, he was angry because he was tense near to shaking and because he didn't like being dismissed that way. He was angry because the words were on his tongue now and he didn't think he could stop them coming, and he was scared of what Jesper and Inej would think of him.
"The floor, too. The whole spill. All those specialists, tutors, medicines, they're expensive. They're useless. Resources wasted on a moron, Ghezen frowns on waste. I'll tell you when it's clean. Did I say you were through? Stop crying! You can clean that, too. Stop it. You brought this on yourself. Too stupid to write your own name. Too lazy to even try. You think this is difficult for you? I am the one who must live with this defective for a son, I am the one whose legacy will be squandered by an idiot mistake. You are useless to me. Shut up! Bad enough to have the mind of an infant, must you snivel like one, too? Stop that! Stop crying!"
His foot swept out, catching on a chair and sending it clattering. Wylan was shaking now. He didn't understand what was happening or why he had needed to say those words. Maybe they were just too loud inside his head. Maybe he could spew them out like poison and be finished with them.
He could remember an awful lot when he set his mind to it. Forgetting was a trick he had yet to master.
Something inside of him was broken.
Something gave way.
His legs went weak and Wylan sat hard on the floor, gripping his elbows. He clenched his jaw and fought not to cry, tried not to think about what he looked like now, but he couldn't bring himself to move, either. The thought of what his friends saw ghosted by. Would settle later. Not that he didn't already know.
Useless.
It wasn't like they hadn't known, after all. Back when they thought he was just some spoiled runaway—the former had been, well, not untrue—they knew Wylan didn't amount to much. He could tell himself all he wanted that he had grown, he was different, he had helped but—
"Wylan." The voice was gentle, accompanied by a cool hand pressed against his burning face. "It's over now. You're here with us. It's over. He's gone."
He focused: Inej crouched in front of him, her expression steady, unreadable. The urge to cry crashed over him.
"Breathe."
He hadn't realized he wasn't, but when he opened his mouth, he gasped in air like he had been drowning. He gulped ragged, uneven mouthfuls. He still felt like he was drowning, like something had closed over his head and he didn't know the way out, but Inej was there and she was calm. She looked so assured that they were safe, it gave him a shred of confidence in the same.
She kept her left hand against his cheek and shifted her right knuckles, pressing them to his forehead and the other side of his face until the burn of humiliation receded.
"Wylan?" Jesper asked. He had been uncharacteristically quiet for too long, and now he said it again. Wylan. Wylan was afraid to look at him, afraid of what he might see. He was aware of Jesper sitting nearby but not quite beside him.
"I'm sorry."
Inej glanced at Jesper.
"It's not your fault," Jesper said.
Of course it was his fault.
"He wasn't usually like that, it was the only time he lost control. He tried to teach me, but that night I went too far. I shouldn't have knocked over the glass. I was thirteen, I was too old for a tantrum, I…"
"You were being a brat," Jesper agreed, "and you were due punishment for it. Your father could've sent you to bed without supper or cancelled your science lessons or whatever a normal merch does to punish his son. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to say those things."
The words were barely audible: "I wouldn't learn."
"Horseshit. You learned everything you could. He was the miserable son of a bitch who refused to see that and couldn't treat his own son like a human being."
Wylan wasn't sure what to say to that. It didn't sound right, but it didn't sound illogical either. Shiver after shiver racked his body as he fought back the urge to cry. Everything just hurt so much.
"Jesper?"
"Right here."
Wylan didn't know if Jesper would understand what he meant, but he didn't know how else to say it, what words he could use. He couldn't say the truth outright. He feared too much to say it.
Instead, softly, he said, "I'm cold."
If you were cold, you only had to say.
Did he remember?
If he did, would he pretend otherwise?
Wylan wouldn't blame him. That was really the worst in all of this, not the weakness but Jesper seeing it. Seeing that Wylan wasn't who he thought.
Jesper remembered. He shifted closer and pulled Wylan against him. An arm around his back, holding his shoulders. An arm across his front, holding him together. He wished he could stop shaking.
Wylan hated lying. He tried so hard to pick his words carefully, to tell a half-truth if he couldn't be honest. But he had lied to one of the most important people in his life. He had lied to Jesper when he let on that he was… that he wasn't… like this.
A steady, reassuring presence settled against his left side: Inej, her hands over Wylan's, easing his too-tight grip on his elbows.
Wylan always thought it was hyperbole when people said they thought their hearts might burst, but his certainly felt full to bursting now. He didn't know the last time he felt this safe, this accepted, this not alone. He knew that, as a child, he hadn't felt unsafe. It was different now, knowing how cold and alone felt and being brought so far from them.
"Thank you, Jesper. Thank you, Inej."
"You owe us so many waffles."
"Shevrati," Inej muttered. "There is no debt."
"I'm sorry I can't be strong like you."
"I'm grateful you aren't," Inej said.
They sat together on the floor for a while. Thoughts drifted through Wylan's mind idly. The acceptance he felt now. The fear it wouldn't last. The sense around him that this was the same cold, empty place with the same frightening echoes but here the three of them were warm and bright and could stave off those echoes.
"Wylan? Sunshine?"
"Yes?"
"Let's go to bed. This will all look better in the morning, okay, gorgeous?"
Hearing Jesper's flirtatious nicknames in that sedated tone was almost worse than not hearing them at all. He always played, but it was so genuine. The spark was out of his voice.
Wylan had hated everything that made Jesper's smile crumple in on itself. With all that had happened, how could he have been the worst? Yet he didn't doubt that he was.
I'm sorry, Jes, I'm so sorry I hurt you. I'll never do it again. Please don't leave me.
Wylan nodded.
He didn't ask for it, but Jesper helped him to his feet. His brain struggled to control his body, too busy slogging through memories and words that landed harsh against him.
Jesper was upset. Dimmed.
Wylan always messed everything up.
His father said as much, even though Wylan—he tried. He didn't know how to make anything better! He remembered after dinner parties when he had been corrected for saying too little, keeping too much to himself. It was rude. And he remembered, too, other lessons after he allowed a conversation to stray too close to books and reading. He just wasn't very good. He was an awkward, inherently unpleasant boy, and despite his father's best efforts Wylan simply refused to learn how to control a conversation—
You learned everything you could.
He had tried.
He had tried but it wasn't good enough! He wasn't…
Wylan squeezed Inej's hand once before letting his fingers trail away. "Good night, Inej."
"Good night, Wylan. I'll pray for you."
"Thank you."
He didn't fully understand Inej's Saints, but had the sense they stood beside her while Ghezen preferred to watch and assess. Though it wasn't his religion, Wylan appreciated her prayers. He thought… Ghezen wouldn't care. Another time he would ask Inej about that, what her Saints could be prayed to about, what they did, what they were like.
He realized he had put little thought into other religions before. He had simply learned that they were false and wrong and their adherents were backwards, but his friends had shown him otherwise. Thoughtful, brave Matthias had followed what Jan called a "ridiculous, ignorant cult about a tree". Wise, strong, amazing Inej believed in "folktales spread by simpletons who cannot understand science". The only true god, the only god an intelligent man believed in, was Ghezen. Ghezen rewarded the works of men, not the ignorance of peasants.
Now Wylan found himself curious.
It was much easier to be curious about that.
Better than being curious about Jesper, who had never behaved this way before. He was quiet. He kept one arm around Wylan's shoulders, the other twitching at the buttons on his shirt or tapping whatever bits of woodwork they passed.
A part of Wylan was grateful. He didn't have to think about what to do next. Jesper guided him toward the stairs. When he spotted a maid, Jesper asked to have tea sent up for them. Things that used to be second nature to Wylan felt strange now, but Jesper had taken to them like a fish to water. Or like a Jesper to a fountain of champagne, equally fitting.
When they were alone, door closed between them and the rest of the house, Wylan said, softly, "I'll do better, Jesper."
"Don't say that!"
Wylan flinched.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to raise my voice. It's not you, Wy."
Wylan nodded, but… how could it not be him? After tonight, after he just lost control so badly he was sitting on the dining room floor shaking? How had his friends ever trusted him? If they had seen him here, like that, before the Ice Court job, they would have let him die in the Barrel. Maybe they should have. At least after that ridiculous display they understood why his father lost patience.
He toyed with a stray thread at his cuff. He knew he shouldn't pick at it, but it didn't hurt to just… move the thread a bit. Just to shift it around.
"I don't mean to be like that. It crept up on me. It—"
"Hey. Look at me," Jesper said, taking Wylan's face in his hands and tilting it, gently forcing Wylan to meet his eyes. Something trembling in Wylan cracked down the middle. Whatever he thought he would see in Jesper's eyes, it wasn't there. Fear. Concern. But not revulsion. "Stay with me. I'll stay with you but you have to stay with me."
"Yes," Wylan agreed.
A soft knock at the door told them the tea was here. Wylan wasn't entirely coherent, so Jesper took the tray, exchanged a few words with the same maid he had spoken to earlier—Wylan was fairly certain he knew her name, he just couldn't place it right now. He used those moments to pull a few deep, shuddering breaths into his chest. He was, he thought, starting to feel more like himself.
The problem with breaking down was that it was shameful. It's shame that eats men alive. Well, yes, it was, but this time Wylan was ashamed because he had been genuinely weak. How could he show Jesper that wasn't who he was?
And Inej.
But right now, Jesper.
Jesper's fingers tapped a rhythm on his revolvers, the way they did when he was bored or itching for another game. He picked up a cup of tea, then put it down, undrunk, and went back to that same tapping.
"Remember when we made that drill out of a stolen diamond and broken bits of a winch?" Wylan blurted.
The look Jesper gave him said that yes, he did. And that he was very confused to have it brought up just now.
Remember that time I was helpful in breaking out of the Ice Court, which is supposed to be impossible? Because I'm not useless?
Wylan gulped a mouthful of too much tea and swallowed quickly. It scalded down his throat, but didn't quite burn anything.
"I was useful. I helped. Just—try to remember that. Please. I'm not who you saw tonight."
Jesper had watched patiently while Wylan tried to put the words together. Now he said, "I know who you are. Tonight didn't change my opinion about you. Your father is a monster."
"He wasn't always so bad," Wylan insisted, suddenly wondering if he should have told them about what happened. "He wanted to help me. He just lost control of himself. The tonic—"
"No," Jesper interrupted, sounding so resolute Wylan startled. His tea sloshed in his cup, but managed not to spill. "No, Wylan. No more defending him. He hurt you because he's a mean son of a bitch. He went out of his way to do the worst things he could. Your mother. The letters. The way he kept you alone and afraid. He didn't deserve you for a son, and he doesn't deserve your loyalty or your defense. Keep your stupid waffles. Promise me you'll stop saying what he did was okay."
"Jesper…"
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"Good."
Wylan sipped his tea. It was cooler now, and he noticed it was sweetened with honey instead of sugar. It soothed his throat.
Softly, he said, "You called waffles stupid."
"Now you know what happens when I lose my temper."