#wylan angst

[thefishiswriting]

oooh let me tell you i am COOKING with the third chapter of i think i'm gonna die in this house. like. kicking my feet. this is gonna be horrible. but you'll get destructive wylan and a nice stomach drop. i can't wait to share it with you all!

[cricket-reader]

play me a melody of death and decay

Masterlist | A03 | Wattpad | Recommendations | Inbox | Taglist

Summary: Wylan doesn't know how much longer he can take it. With upcoming rent looming on the horizon, he can't afford to eat. And with the rate he's earning money, he'll be out on the street by the end of next week.

Warnings: starvation, mugging, grief, violence

word count: 1,391

A/N: prompt fill for day 2 of @juneofdoom | Dying Alone

{Read on A03}

Black dots danced across the sheet music.

Wylan blinked hard. The notes swam for a moment before settling back into place until the next whole note sent them blurring together again. Not that he truly needed them. He'd played this piece often enough that his fingers knew where to go before he even read the sheet. It was more of a comfort than anything. A soft place to land. He didn't have much of those these days.

Once, playing had been effortless. His arms could hold the lightweight of the wood for hours without protest. Once, he could lose himself in the music, forget the world beyond it. He couldn't afford that now.

The melody faltered.

Wylan drew a breath, trying to play off his silence as part of the piece. His chest ached. His stomach clenched so sharply, he nearly lost his grip on his flute. The next sound from his instrument wavered, a thin, unpleasant whine that made a few passersby wrinkle their noses.

A portly woman with a child on her hip dropped a coin in his case anyway.

There had been a time when he enjoyed playing the most difficult pieces. Loved the feeling when he finally got it right. He loved the feeling of playing until his lungs ran out of air.

Now, his lungs burned before he got even halfway through one song.

People continued to stream past him in steady waves. Merchants. Sailors. Wealthy tourists looking for entertainment before they disappeared into Ketterdam's clubs and gambling halls. Some slowed long enough to listen. Most didn't.

A few tossed coins.

Most didn't.

By the end of the song, there were only four people watching him. The air travelling from his lungs waned, a discordant whine echoing through the street as he fought to keep the high D note steady. The gathered crowd drifted away without a second glance.

Humiliation crawled up his neck.

He was better than that. His ma once had told him that he deserved to perform in front of royalty.

The pounding behind his eyes had become relentless. It felt as if someone had driven a wedge into his skull and was slowly forcing it deeper.

Carefully, he lowered his flute and scanned the day's earnings. He knew without counting that it wasn't enough.

His stomach sank.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten a proper meal. Two days? Three? Days blurred together out on the streets of the Barrel. Hunger had a way of warping time.

With numb fingers, Wylan packed away his music and slid the flute back into its case. Moisture still clung to the inside of the instrument, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He'd clean it later. If he made it home.

The thought nearly made him laugh.

Home.

Nothing more than a room with a leaking roof and a creaking bed with a mattress hard enough to be stone. With walls so thin he could hear every argument, every… other activity. It hardly deserved the title. But it was better than being out on the streets.

He was running out of the money his father had sent with him. And no matter how much he saved from skipping meals, it would never be enough to cover another week. He didn't want to think about that, though.

He pushed himself upright.

The world lurched.

For one terrifying moment, the street began to tilt beneath his feet. His vision narrowed into a tunnel of grey and black. He staggered sideways and slammed shoulder-first into a brick wall. It sent a shock through his shoulder well enough to keep him leaning against it even after his vision cleared.

The direct route home cut through several narrow alleyways. Stupid on a good day. Dangerous on a bad one.

Today, however, Wylan wasn't certain he'd be able to survive the longer walk.

He shoved himself off the wall, flute tight in hand. The Barrel blurred around him. Crumbling brick, overflowing gutters, sights he'd quickly grown used to.

Food, as always, occupied every corner of his thoughts. Fresh bread. Honey cakes. The sugared pastries his mother used to sneak him before dinner when his father wasn't looking. The memory was vivid enough to send a sharp ache through his heart.

Caught unawares, reminiscing on times he would never get back, Wylan lost the ground beneath him. He landed on his hands and knees, the stone eating into his flesh.

“What have we got here?” A loud voice disrupted the alleyway.

Wylan gritted his teeth. Keeping his head down, he muttered, “I don’t have anything. Leave me alone.”

“What’s in the case?”

A foot connected with his ribs. Wylan fell to his side, choking on his breath. His lithe fingers snatched the case from the ground, clutching it to his chest. He would not let them take it. “Nothing of value.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” the older boy sneered. “Whaddya think, Petyr?”

“Come on, kid, just give it up. It’s two against one, and you don’t stand no chance against us.”

Wylan’s eyes darted to the edges of the alleyway, but no one was there. Even if someone were, Wylan would doubt they’d bother to help him. That wasn't how things were done in Ketterdam. Every man and child for himself. “Take my money,” Wylan pleaded. “Just not this, don’t… you can have all my money.”

The two older boys shared a glance. The taller of the two spoke up, “How abouts we just take both of ‘em?”

“No!”

“You ain’t really in the position to be bargaining, now are you?”

The other boy, Petyr, lunged for him. Wylan curled around his flute. The last thing he had. The only material possession he owned that mattered. The one thing that reminded him of sunnier days. When he and his Ma would play: her on the piano, him on the flute.

He was just starting out. His grasp on the fingering was fragile, his notes never resonated in the way they should have, but she still applauded him—she still made a grand show of how he was meant to play for kings and queens. Sorry, Ma, I don’t think I’ll ever live long enough to see the dream through.

He blocked out most of the beating—went to that faraway place where his Ma is waiting on the piano stool for him to join her; the place he’d go whenever his father tried to beat literature into him. It wasn't really all that different. Except instead of gushing blood on the finest carpet imported from Shu Han, red painted the bleak cobblestone. And the fear that these boys wouldn’t stop before it had gone too far. For all the terrible things Jan Van Eck was, he was no murderer; he liked his hands clean. That didn’t, as he recently found out, mean he couldn’t get someone else to do it for him, though.

As his thoughts turned down that road, the vision of his mother faded until nothing was left but the dark streets of Ketterdam. The boys had left him at some point. Only the weight of his flute case was enough to dispel the panic of losing so much time.

As Wylan uncurled from his position, his entire body ignited with flames of agony. The spot where his head had rested on the pavement was damp, and not even he could convince himself it was something other than blood. Groaning, Wylan remained on the ground. He was going to die alone. No one to remember him; no one to care about him. He would be just another victim of the streets of the Barrel. Forgotten and unimportant as every other sorry sob who thought they could survive out here.

As he ran his fingers over the etchings in the wooden case, he hoped that it would go to someone who would appreciate it. He hoped that they could make good use of it, hoped that they, perhaps, could perform for royalty. That his mother’s dream would live on through someone else.

The last thing Wylan remembered before succumbing to the ever-present darkness was a voice. It was raspy; as if the man who spoke the words hadn’t had a glass of water in a decade.

“How pathetic,” the mysterious man said, and Wylan couldn’t help but agree.

divider credit: @/dividers-are-us

[multi-fandom-bi]

I can't edit to save my life but if any SoC editors read this:

PLEASE MAKE AN EDIT OF MARYA AND WYLAN WITH THAT ONE "MAMA'S BOY" SONG, I AM BEGGING

[jazzythursday]

Hallowed (915 words)

[cw for non-graphic mention of abuse]

The hallowed halls of the mansion were still as death, and Wylan walked through them as if already one of the ghosts. The pristine wallpaper made for a laurel leafed jungle of unknowable dangers, a cemetery of haunted memories. This home was a mausoleum, and yet Wylan could not rest.

It was as if, somewhere between Wylan turning sixteen and eighteen, his father had simply stopped bothering to even pretend to care. Meetings about even his tutoring became few, until none. Awful dinners with shareholders stopped being something he was even asked to go to. Where there had been cold hard slaps and harsh grips and vitriolic shouting and beatings followed by, I do this out of love—I treat you no more harshly than the world will, now there was just… nothing. Love had been factored out of the equation entirely, if ever it was there in the first place. His father went away on business—and recently, pleasure—more often and for longer and longer durations, and Wylan was left like so much disused furniture, like a forgotten and unswept grave.

He should be glad for being ignored, as it was certainly better than the alternative. But Wylan was, if nothing else, consistently foolish and reliably lonely.

They would be back today. Wylan had heard them come in sometime in the last hour, though he hadn’t come to greet them. Alys’ voice had a way of carrying through the air like a flock of birds in the breeze, and Wylan had not missed the barking of her terrier either. They’d been visiting Alys’ parents in the country, and Wylan had not been surprised to not have been invited.

This is important, Wylan, and I do not need you there to ruin such a delicate situation. I’m sure you understand.

Wylan had smiled, and said, of course, father. Had smiled and said, have a lovely trip. Had not been surprised when his father had sighed, and frowned, and smoothed back his hair before leaving without another word.

So, foolish and lonely and longing for more than he knew was fair to ask, he crept through the mansion, out of his room and down the stairs, until Alys’ voice grew louder and brighter in pitch as he reached the sitting room. He didn’t dare to go in yet, but he peeked around the corner to see Alys and his father sitting on one of the plush couches with a tray of tea and cakes made up on the table. Alys was petting her terrier in her lap and chirping happily as his father listened with a soft smile on his face.

It was that smile, and the hand he placed around her shoulders, the way he smoothed her hair back and let out an honest to Ghezen laugh, that perturbed Wylan the most. It was strange and it was ill-suited to the perpetually sour expression he was so used to, and Wylan still did not know what to make of it.

Suddenly, the terrier perked, lifted its head to stare straight at him, and Wylan did not have time enough to panic before the dog started to bark.

“Wylan!” Alys called, spotting him and waving him over. Wylan coughed awkwardly, smoothed his sweaty hands over his trousers, and resigned himself to whatever came of entering the room.

“Good to see you! We missed you at my parents. So sad to hear you were too busy to join us,” Alys cooed.

“You as well, um—yes, I’m—sorry to have missed it,” Wylan said tensely. He was as sorry as he was busy, which was to say not at all, but Alys was simple and silly and Wylan had resolved himself to accepting her guilelessness for her sake, if not his father’s. Finally, he turned. “Hello father, was—was it a nice trip?”

“It was profitable,” Jan replied coolly, and said nothing else to Wylan. Don’t stutter, it’s unbecoming of our name, he might’ve snapped, once, with a raised palm aimed at Wylan and enough force to bruise. But it seemed he’d accepted Wylan as being unbecoming of their name too long ago to bother.

It was an exceptionally Kerch answer, thought Wylan. Profitable, like a trip to the country with one's partner was a sales negotiation or a dividend report.

It was as he broke his father’s gaze and searched desperately for somewhere else to look, that Wylan realised exactly how profitable the trip was.

The diamond ring Alys wore was bright as a shining star, a veritable rock. It stared at Wylan as Alys continued petting her terrier like a siren of light. And perhaps the trip was more akin to a sales negotiation or a dividend report.

Wylan opened his mouth, unsure of what was about to come out of it. Congratulations, surely? Although he didn’t get the chance to find out. His father cleared his throat. “Don’t you have something to be getting on with, Wylan? That infernal music you like so much, or all those studies I keep paying so much for, hm?” He said it in a way that made it clear it was not a question so much as an order to leave.

Wylan nodded, feeling odd and empty but not surprised. “Yes, sir.”

It was spring in Ketterdam now, but his father’s glare was like ice. The harsh, biting cold of an unforgiving winter, and Wylan fought not to shiver. He left the room and wished, not for the first time, that he could disappear.

no I’m not thinking too much about the possibility of show!Wylan living in the mansion for years longer than in the books before meeting the crows. Why do you ask?

[wylan-van-moonlight]

Why can't I be enough for you?!

A wesper fanfic, angst, I was sad okay?

Tw: some language (like 3 swears altogether)

Everytime I'm sad I make other people sad, and everytime they are sad it makes me sad, it's a whole loop hole type thing. It makes me depressed.

Anyway, it's a great way to cry.

       Wylan woke up to an empty bed, which wasn't normal. But lately it had been normal, he got up and looked around the room for a bit, he's gone, Wylan thought. He sighed heavily and heard the door open. "Where were you?" Wylan said, once Jesper heard him Wylan saw he jumped. 

"I'm sorry," Jesper said to the shadows. "Wy, I am so sorry." 

"Why? All this stuff! You have everything you wanted!" Wylan yelled at him. "I feel like one day you're going to Crack, I'm not going to see you at night anymore." 

"Wy, that's not true," Jesper stumbled upon the words. "I- I'm sorry."

"Why gamble Jes?" Wylan whispered.He started to walk to the bedroom and Jesper followed him. "Why?"

"I don't know," Jesper said. They got into the bedroom and Jesper sat down on a chair. Wylan walked near the window and stood there. 

"There's always going to be tables, cards to play! One day I'm going to be here anymore and you're going to have to figure it out!" Wylan yelled. They'd fought before, but they've never gotten to yelling. "Cards are alive forever Jes! But I'm not going to be!"

Wylan felt the tears clustering in his eyes, his voice was breaking but he held his stance, Jesper had gone out to the Crow Club again, the third time in the past week. Wylan's left heartbroken every time he leaves in the middle of the night, everytime he could feel Jesper’s body leave the bed, and it was just him. Again.

"Can we talk about this I'm the morning please?" Jesper said, rubbing his head. 

"It's now or never! Jes, you have to stop, the cards, the games, toying with my heart. Everytime you leave that bed I can feel you leaving my heart more and more each day. So pick me or the game? What one?" Wylan yelled. He couldn't hold it in anymore, he let the tears escape his eyes. Jesper didn't respond, he's picking the game, Wylan thought. "Okay, yeah, leave." 

"Wy," Jesper begged.

"No, no you picked the game! Leave, for saints sake Jes, you broke my heart for the last time!" Wylan yelled at him. "Leave! Please." He let the emotion get the better of him, he didn't care. 

"Wylan, I can make it up to you," Jesper said, Wylan saw the tears forming in his eyes. "Just give me another chance."

"You've taken my heart, ripped it out of my chest! You do not get to come in here and beg that I stay with you. I am not giving you another chance, I've seen you the past few weeks, you've been going down this rabbit hole, it's like I don't even exist to you anymore!" Wylan laughed, "You lose at the game too much, well, you've lost me. How does that feel? Just leave, no need to make it worse like you do everything else." 

Wylan stood there, looking at Jesper, the tears falling out of his eyes. Jesper stood there contemplating whether he should leave, and he did. Jesper left, and Wylan sank to the floor. Wylan started crying, not holding in the tears. His emotions were getting the better of him, he thought about what just happened. Who was in the wrong here? Jesper. Jesper is, Wylan thought. He laid down on the floor until the sun rose, he heard a knock on the door and he got up. "Hello?" Wylan's voice cracked out. 

"It's me," Jesper said. "I just need to get some stuff." 

"Alright," Wylan said. He turned around and looked out the window, he heard the door creak open, maybe Jesper was faking leaving. Maybe Wylan was hallucinating this, maybe he was still lying in that dirty room in the Barrel. He felt more tears coming and he held them in, not letting them escape, he wouldn't let Jesper see him cry again. 

"I'm really sorry Wy," Jesper said. He walked up to Wylan and stood beside him. "I didn't mean to hurt you at all." 

"Well you did," Wylan cried. He wanted to hug Jesper, pull him close. Ever since he met Jesper somehow he thought that they were going to be soulmates, a match made in heaven. But clearly Wylan was wrong. The first thought he had about Jesper was his perfect lips, and Wylan took them for granted, he's had them on his lips before. The last time they kissed Wylan didn't know it would be their last. The last time they hugged, the last time they cuddled, Wylan smiled at that. "I'm sorry too."

Jesper hesitated, "He- what? Why? You have no reason to be. I should be the one who's apologizing."

"I know," Wylan turned toward him, he had a smile on his tear stained face. He looked at Jesper, who looked utterly confused. "I'm sorry for the shit that took me here, but I'm not sorry for what's happened, with us, with me and my father. And for some reason, I'm not sorry for all the fucking things you put me through, and you shouldn't be."

"Wylan, you sound insane," Jesper said. Wylan felt this longing to be with Jesper, this force of a pull that was pulling him toward him. "I need you." Jesper moved closer to him.

"Same," Wylan said. Jesper put his hand on Wylan's neck, and pulled him in for a kiss. Wylan pulled in closer. He hadn't felt like this since the first time that they kissed, his heart was racing, his mind was running. He had a list of things to do, but he didn't care. It was him and Jesper. And only them in all of Ketterdam, maybe the whole world. Jesper grabbed his waist and pushed it toward him, but Wylan didn't let go. After a while of it just being them Wylan heard a knock. They parted ways and Inej walked in.

"Hello," Inej said, with a smile. Wylan walked toward the bed and grabbed his sketchbook and left Jesper and Inej. He heard Inej call after him, but he couldn't go back. He just walked around the house and ended up in the music room, a grand piano in the middle.

He put his sketchbook down beside him and let his fingers dance on the keys. He played a slow song, putting his whole heart into it. He closed his eyes and let his fingers do their own thing. After a while he let the music fade, he slowed it down and opened his eyes. He looked around and saw Jesper standing in the door. "How much of that were you standing there for?" Wylan asked quietly.

"All of it," Jesper said. "Most of it." He corrected himself.

"I made it out to you," Wylan laughed, Jesper laughed as well.

"I can tell," Jesper chuckled. Jesper took Wylan's hands and looked him in the eyes. "I want us to work again, and I know that's not fair, and you have every right to be mad at me, but I love you Wylan Van Eck. I would kill everyone in this fucking city to be with you. But I don't know if you feel the same way, and I know I messed up, I'll try to fix it, I promise." Wylan hugged Jesper. Tighter than he ever would before. 

"If this is going to work, you're going to have to promise me something," Wylan said. 

"Of course," Jesper said, he let go of Wylan but still held his hands. "Anything."

"Promise me you won't gamble again," Wylan said. "I've been patient with all this, but one day if you go out to gamble I won't be so forgiving, and I will help you, everyday, every way possible, to help you Jes."

"I promise," Jesper said. "Just, promise me this as well, that if I go missing at night, you'll come looking for me."

Wylan didn't know how to respond, he choked on his words, "Yeah I promise."

Jesper sighed and Wylan kissed him. And again in the world, it was just them.