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Maybe it would have been more fitting to have this conversation right after a dangerous job. When the adrenaline high was still coursing through their veins and the reminder of their mortality still a taste on their tongue.
But as often as life is a cliché just as often it is not.
So when Wylan finally told Jesper it wasn’t gun smoke filling the air but the smell of tea. He had thought long and hard about the right timing about exactly what he would say. Played countless scenarios in his head how Jesper would react, how Wylan would console him. He sought the scenario with the least amount of damage possible.
But plans are always theoretical and often different from reality.
The way it happened was definitely not the way Wylan wanted it to go and looking back later he wouldn’t be able to tell why he chose that exact peaceful morning.
He was sitting at the kitchen table in the Van Eck mansion, a warm cup of tea in his hands and Jesper sitting across from him skimming the newspaper.
One of Jesper’s hands was tapping a simple rhythm on the wooden surface while he traced the line he was reading with the index of the other.
“I think about dying sometimes.”
Both hands stilled.
“Pardon?”
“I think about dying sometimes.”
Wylan’s heartbeat sped up as he said it the second time. He hadn’t really meant to say it. But somehow in this warm lulled in situation, safe at home with the love of his life the thought had decided to voice itself. Breathing suddenly felt weird. Was he breathing faster than normal? Or too slow? Jesper was looking at him frozen in place mid movement.
But time hadn’t stopped even if it felt like it. The birds outside the kitchen window kept chirping in the cold morning air. The steam from Wylan’s teacup still rose.
“I’m sorry my love you stumped me a bit there” Jesper folded the newspaper and pushed it away. His eyes focused intently on Wylan’s. “You think about… dying? Like you’re afraid you’re gonna die? I know the last job was very scary and Kaz got hurt and all, but all of us are safe you know…” He trailed off.
Wylan breathed in. He breathed out. It’s one thing to imagine a situation and then to live it. He put down his cup. “No it’s not that. Well, yes I’m afraid you or one of the others could get hurt, but that’s not quite it.” Jesper had reached across the table taking Wylan’s smaller hands into his. It kept Wylan from fidgeting.
“It’s more like… I’ve been thinking about my own death. But not with fear. Ghezen knows I’m afraid all the time it feels like I’ve been all my life.”
Jesper’s gray eyes never left Wylan’s while he tried to find his words. They radiated calmness for which Wylan couldn’t be more thankful in this moment.
“It’s hard to explain. I know everyone has a special relationship with death. It’s like… There have been times I wanted everything to be over with. Stuck in this house with my father. I thought I desperately wanted to die and then he tried to…”
He had to swallow back down a big lump that felt like it was forming in his throat. Jesper reassuringly squeezed his hands. His thumb began stroking the back of Wylan’s hand lightly. A grounding touch. An ‘I am here’.
“My father tried to kill me and I realized I desperately wanted to live. I just wanted the pain and the fear to end.”
“Well…” Jesper began, pausing briefly to see if it was okay for him to speak. Wylan nodded for him to go on. “You are here now. Your father got what he deserved and you’re not alone anymore. You’ve got a family now. One that loves you and protects you. I will protect you.”
And the last line he said so earnestly that Wylan felt it like a kick to the chest. “You’re so cheesy” Wylan said and let out a little chuckle. He felt that if he didn’t he would start crying.
“That’s why you love me” Jesper replied with a wink but his face got serious again.
Wylan took a deep breath in. “I know all that. For once my life is peaceful. At least more or less and I love you so so much sometimes it seems like too much. I finally have a home, but there is still this part in me that wishes for it all to be over.”
Now the tears actually started rolling. It wasn’t big dramatic sobs but like Wylan’s body was washing out the dark thoughts that he had kept quiet and hidden away for so long.
“It’ll be situations like this just sitting here watching you and a part of me will go ‘This is nice, but you know what would be nice as well? Being dead’.”
Jesper’s brows furrowed. “Do you think like that often?”
“Sometimes yeah.”
“When was the last time you thought about it?”
“When Nina and I went to the fall market last week”
Jesper leaned back, letting go of Wylan’s hands. He used the chance to wipe away the tears. “I’m sorry my love, this is just a lot to take in.” And there it was. The damage Wylan didn’t want to inflict. Where there was the hard but warm kick of love to his chest it now felt like a heartrender’s grip. Squeezing tight and tighter.
"No, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have sprung this on you so suddenly. It’s stupid and and unfair of me to go like ‘Hey, I love you and I have a great life but I think about dying every other week’.”
Wylan got up. He wanted to rip at his hair or scratch his arms. He didn’t want to hurt Jesper like this but he feared that the dark seed in his mind would grow. That when things got worse again, because surely they would get worse again, because he didn’t deserve anything good and he didn’t deserve Jesper and….
Jesper had stood as well and was rounding the table to take Wylan into his arms successfully stopping his thoughts from spiraling further.
It didn’t feel right to cling onto Jesper after having put all of this on him. But still Wylan clung.
“My love” Jesper whispered into Wylan’s hair “I might not understand everything you’re feeling but I am here and I am glad that you told me. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.” His voice cracked slightly at the end of the sentence.
“It’s not like I’m going anywhere” Wylan clung onto Jesper a bit tighter.
“I don’t want to kill myself. I think it might just be a reflex from the past. I got so used to thinking I wanted to die so that my mind keeps going back to it. Even when I’m much happier now. I am happy, Jesper.”
Jesper leaned down to kiss him. “And that is all that matters my love. You are here, you are safe and I love you. Your friends love you. If it takes your mind or your heart a bit longer to realize that that’s okay. I’ll keep telling you over and over again.”
“Thank you” Wylan whispered. Jesper let go. They sat back down at the table again, Wylan picked back up his cup. “Please tell me when you’re thinking something like this again, okay?” Jesper said looking pointedly at him “Even if it’s hard.” “I will” Wylan said with a small smile.
This might have not been how Wylan had planned on telling Jesper, but his heart felt lighter still.
Maybe everything would be okay after all.