#kaz calling nina 'tall' to me means tall for a person not just tall for a woman

[six-of-cringe]

I love all six of crows fanart and everyone should make it forever, but I will note that every time I see art where Nina is shorter than Wylan I feel like I've been lightly poked in the eye

[usmsgutterson]

It Won’t Feel Like a Loss- Kaz Brekker

Okay! This is part two for YOURS, a kaz fic that I wrote and published last week. In order to read this and have it make sense, you need to go back and read the first part.

Fic type- this one is heavy angst

Warnings- mentions of death threats, depictions of threats of violence, guns are mentioned once, and murder is mentioned once. 

You didn’t see Kaz until nearly five years after you’d left. 

You were at a pet shop in a small Ravkan town, picking up an order for a collar that you’d placed the day prior. Kaz had walked in to grab dog treats, and you didn’t think it was him, at first.

In fairness to you, Ravka was not a country in short stock of white brunettes who stood at six feet tall. His cane, which he held like it was new to him, was the first giveaway. 

Though, really, you supposed the cane was new to him. It wasn’t the crows head cane you could recall him having used, but a simple brown one with a handle that had the symbols of several different saints carved into it. 

You noticed that it looked familiar, snorting a bit as you registered that you had seen it before. A dozen canes just like it were in the standing basket of a shop run by people who were the type that Kaz would’ve hated. Whether they believed in the saints or not, they were still scam artists, people who conned those gullible enough to believe their false promises. 

“You’ve purchased that from a crew of fraudulent people from the Wandering Isle,” you noted as you watched Kaz grab a bag of dog treats. “They run cons, Kaz. Just like Pekka Rollins used to.” 

“You’re bluffing,” Kaz responded. “There’s no way you could’ve gotten that information.”

“Working as the communications liaison between Ravka and all other countries of relevance for nearly five years means that I’m in the good graces of every single royal that matters. I asked Zoya for a favor, for a bit of information on the two owners. She gave me everything that her spies could find, Kaz. Several people in the Wandering Isle are still homeless because of those blokes.” 

“Ah, communications liaison for a country that drowns in it’s own debt,” Kaz responded. “That’s where you’ve been the past five years. I’ve wondered about your whereabouts since you left under the cover of midnight. Everyone else knew your address, but for some reason, I never learned it. Inej refused to give it to me, and even knocking the idiot Fjerdan onto his ass didn’t do me any good.” 

“I should kill you right now for even so much as threatening him,” you cut. “What else did you do to my friends, Kaz? What? Did you melt down Wylans flute into the head of a new cane? Did you kill someone in front of Nina and revel in the fact that she hasn’t had the means to heal them since she was dosed with parem? Did you rip Jespers guns from their holsters and threaten him with his own weapons? Did you revel in the fact that you’d proven Inej wrong as you did one terrible thing after the next, proving yourself to be a cruel man incapable of changing, incapable of even wanting to change for any person who’d ever even mattered to you in the bloody slightest?” 

“You shouldn’t’ve left,” Kaz said. Someone at the til called your name, and you collected the collar you’d ordered the previous day while Kaz paid for the dog treats he’d grabbed. 

Kaz joined you in your walk back to the townhouse you’d procured the year before, even despite the fact that there was a part of you that wished he would leave well enough alone, go back to whatever heist he’d been planning, whatever he’d needed the dog treats for. 

“You tell me that I shouldn’t have left,” you said, breaking the silence that, somehow, remained as comfortable as it was five years before. “Why, Kaz? You were ripping my heart into pieces. Why shouldn’t I have left when I deserve more than what Ketterdam had to offer?” 

“You did deserve more,” Kaz agreed. “You did. You do. You shouldn’t’ve left because people miss you. Five bloody years and I still get asked by regulars when you’ll be returning.” 

“I had to settle for a crimeless life at some point,” you said. “I deserve a townhouse, Brekker. I deserve a cat that I name something like ‘Mittens’ because the only portions of brown across it’s coat are it’s paws. I deserve to be able to live off of my early retirement and supplementary income that I get due to my early retirement. I deserve to wake up at a time of my choice. I deserve good food. Damn it all, Kaz, I deserve to be able to drink tea while I watch the sunset from my backyard.” 

“I miss you, too,” Kaz said. “It’s not just the regulars. The crows and I are in town for a series of heists over the next six months, and then we’ll be gone. Went into that shop to get treats so that I could get the guard dogs at the place we’re raiding tonight to calm down, not alert their owners of our presences. The fact that I found you at all was a coincidence.” 

“I lived in apartment close to the the palaces at first,” you said. “It made it a lot more convenient to get to work that way. Zoya was entrusted a townhouse from one of my coworkers that she could do as she pleased with once the coworker moved to Shu Han. Zoya gave it to me, told me that I could retire early if I wanted to. I took the chance, got a cat, started crocheting and bought a piece of farmland where I currently grow wheat and turn it into flour and kvas. The flour and alcohol goes to Ketterdam, lands at a Dregs owned port. I wanted to oversee the shipments getting there at one point, but I realized I was just trying to get back to Ketterdam. I wasn’t ready at that point, but I wanted to see you.” 

“Why?”

“I have loved you since we were seventeen years old. I dealt with it for a while, realized that you would never love me back, decided I deserved more, and I left. I spent the first two years after leaving feeling the regret so deep that I was entirely sure it’d gone through my bloodstream and seeped into my bones. It made me want to return to the city but weighed me down so greatly that it kept me from leaving Ravka.” 

The two of you walked in silence for the remainder of the way to your place. Kaz grinned slightly as he watched you grab your keys, unlocking your door and opening it for him as you stepped inside.

You dropped your keys in a bowl to the right of the door, took off your coat as Kaz did. You took both of your coats and hung them on separate rungs of the coatrack, grinning as you heard a trill from the living room.

“A cat who you named Mittens because the only the portions of brown across it’s coat are it’s paws,” Kaz whispered. The cat that you’d heard moments before walked into the foyer. Kaz tried his grin, turning his head slightly and feigning indifference when he registered the colors of the cats fur--a dark beige, brown at it’s paws, patches of a lighter beige lingering on it’s ears.

“I have grown to love this life, Kaz Brekker. I will not sacrifice it without reason, without it being a thousand times as good as the one for which I boarded a boat at midnight, felt my heart shattering in two as I watched the view of the harbor fade into nothing.” 

Kaz Brekker had loved you since he’d been eighteen years old. You were the one person he’d never wanted to lose, and somehow, he’d lost you. There was a point at which he was sure that it would kill him from the inside out. 

“I am not asking you to leave,” Kaz said. “I do want a second chance, but if that is something that you cannot give me at this point time, I completely understand.” 

“I loved you and I left,” you whispered, bending down to give Mittens the cat the attention he’d been asking for as he stared at you with his head tilted. “I left. It’s been five years, and I love you still. I really bloody hate that.” 

Kaz felt his heart tear itself into pieces as he watched tears cascade down your cheeks like a dam had been removed. 

“I want to stop missing you, Y/N. Another minute of it and I’m sure I’ll break down until there is nothing left of me except for the plans for heists I keep in the Slat and my reputation of being prone to ruthlessness. I am afraid that, if I have to lose you again, I will simply go mad. The idea of my life without you in it is one that I can no longer bear to think of.” 

You turned to look at him, wishing that you could walk over and press your forehead against his and tell him that he was to be in Ravka for six months. Things were going to be okay. 

But, you couldn’t. Such was not the way of things with Kaz Brekker.

“I don’t want to lose you either,” you said. “You’re here six months. Let’s make the most of it, and in the end, whether we decide to stay together or go our separate ways, it won’t feel like a loss. It’ll feel like moving on.”

“The deal is the deal, Y/N.” 

“The deal is the deal, Kaz.” 

[fics-n-stuff]

Home - Pt 2

For @glowstick-lesbian, request here

Pairing: Kaz Brekker x Reader

Summary: After Y/N finally gets out hiding, it's time to sit down with Kaz and talk through whatever it is that's going on between them.

Word Count: 5.1k

Warnings: Brief talk of Jordie and Kaz's trauma and touch aversion

A/N: Wow this ended up being longer than I intended! I'm so sorry it's taken so long, I was focused on The Bastard's Shadow and Affluenza pts1 + 2, and then I started picking up more shifts at work and got writers block at the same time. I really hope you like how it turned out!! ❤❤

Pt1 here

After the very enlightening visit from Kaz, the days seemed to drag on even slower than before. The next two months went by in a crawl, and no matter how much you buried yourself in work you couldn’t distract from the longing you felt to get out of your apartment.

When your messenger came to deliver the news that your pursuers were willing to come to a truce you had been so happy that you’d gone straight to pour yourself a glass of whisky to celebrate. From then, you counted down the days until the meeting that you set up, the result of which should mean that you were free to roam the city again.

Inej had shown you how to get out of the window and onto the roof months ago. It was your escape route in case of an emergency, but you had used it every now and then just to sit on the roof and enjoy a taste of the outside world. That night, you had climbed out with intention and dressed in your finest coat.

You travelled over the rooftops towards the Government district, where your meeting had been arranged to take place near the Stadhall. The presence of the stadwatch would serve to protect you in case the deal went south.

You had been jittery with a mix of anxiety and excitement when you descended to street level and wended your way through the streets to find three men waiting for you at the Stadhall, all of them tall, broad and commanding. Barrel businessmen that you had crossed one too many times, and no doubt they had been angered that forcing you into hiding hadn’t put a stop to your business.

You were too smart to have not found a way around it; you had to be to run the business that you did. You owned three boarding houses and two bars in the Barrel and two ships that brought in imports from Ravka and Novyi Zem, a squaller as a permanent fixture on the crew of each to whom you paid a fair salary. You’d had Kaz put them under the protection of the Dregs to keep them safe from slavers. On top of all of that, you used your contacts in Ravka, Novyi Zem and other parts of Kerch to help get kids out of the Barrel and into honest work elsewhere. You might operate from the criminal underbelly of Ketterdam, but you made a mostly honest living.

The meeting took longer than you had anticipated. The three men were eager to negotiate territories that you couldn’t conduct business in and items that they didn’t want you to import because it was cutting into their own business. You held firm, you knew what was fair and you would be damned if you let anyone bully you into submission.

In the end, you essentially just agreed not to get in their way, which was easy enough to do. You wouldn’t actively compete with them in the sale of imported goods, and you wouldn’t try to convince any of the lads that they used as runners and grunts to get out of the Barrel. As long as you kept your distance from them you’d be fine, since they were clearly tired of chasing after you.

“Alright then, the deal is the deal.” You said, holding out your hand. All three shook hands with you in turn, echoing the phrase as was customary. When the man in the middle – clearly the leader and the last to shake with you – took your hand, you tightened your grip and leaned forward. “If you try to cheat me after this deal, you will have Dirtyhands to answer to.” You said lowly. He tried not to show his reaction but the fear in his eyes betrayed him, and you released his hand. It wasn’t often that you involved Kaz and his reputation in your affairs, but sometimes it paid to be friends with the most ruthless man in Ketterdam.

You left the meeting with your head held high and took a gondel back to the Barrel. You were approached by a few people who stayed in one of your boarding houses or drank in one of your bars on your walk to the Crow Club, telling you that they had been curious or worried about having not seen you around for so long. You didn’t engage in any conversation beyond polite acknowledgment, too eager to get to the Crow Club.

Inej was the only one that knew that you were getting out tonight. You had told her when she had come to deliver your food for the week and she had promised to try and keep everyone corralled at the Crow Club so that you could make a big entrance, but the later it got the less likely it was that she could keep them all there without raising suspicion.

You practically ran down the last street towards the Crow Club, bursting through the open door and searching the crowd for your friends. Jesper caught sight of you at the same moment that you spotted them all at the bar, and you saw his jaw drop in shock. A huge grin spread on your face as he set his drink down, his sudden change in demeanor getting the attention of the rest of the group and causing them to turn to follow his gaze.

“Y/N?” Jesper called, prompting you into as much of a sprint as you could manage across the crowded floor of the gambling hall. You vaulted yourself into him, wrapping your arms tightly around his lanky frame. “You’re back! How?” He exclaimed, and you laughed as you felt him hug you back and sweep you off of your feet.

“I had a meeting to call a truce. As of tonight I am a free person!”

“We missed you so much!” Nina grinned, prying Jesper’s arms off of you so that she could pull into a hug herself. “Why didn’t you tell us that you were finally coming out of hiding?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise.” You grinned, pulling away so that you could move to hug Wylan next. “I missed you guys so much too, you have no idea.” You caught sight of Kaz over Wylan’s shoulder, his eyes wide as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. You pointed your smile at him and his lips twitched upwards before he cooled his expression and gave you a simple nod.

Your reunion was spirited to say the least, even Matthias couldn’t help but smile at the fact that you were back. You made them tell you about all of the most significant things that you had missed in the year that you had been trapped inside and update you on any power shifts between the Barrel gangs. Jesper wouldn’t shut up, Wylan was excited to tell you about all of the new explosives and weapons that he had developed, and Nina was making a list of places that she wanted to get lunch together to make up for lost time. It felt amazing to be with them all again.

“Okay! I want to play a few hands of Three Man Bramble before I go.” You announced, pushing your glass away from you after downing the last of its contents.

“Don’t have to ask me twice.” Jesper grinned, slinging an arm around your shoulder and guiding you to a table.

It seemed apt that fortune seemed to be in your favour, winning so consistently that you continued to play even though you knew that you shouldn’t. It felt like every time that you looked up from the table you caught Kaz watching you, and his unashamed gaze made your heart flutter.

After a while you saw him give a slight nod towards the door, an action that meant that it was time to go, and you tucked you lip between you teeth as you gave a subtle nod back and turned your attention back to your cards.

“Unbelievable!” Jesper exclaimed upon seeing that you had won again. “I guess you’re catching up on a year’s worth of luck.”

“Perhaps, but I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.” You smiled, gathering up your winnings. “I need to go and breathe some more fresh air.” You pocketed half of your winnings and pushed the other half around the table to Jesper. “Not too much fun.”

“There’s no such thing as too much fun.” He beamed and pulled you to him so that he could plant a kiss on your cheek. “Good to have you back, Y/N.”

“Good to be back, Jes.” You winked before bounding back to the bar to say goodbye to the rest of your friends. Kaz had already disappeared, no doubt in an attempt to avoid drawing attention to the fact that you were leaving together.

“We’re going to get waffles tomorrow. I will break your door down if I have to.” Nina asserted, practically crushing your ribs in a hug. “Inej, you’re coming too.”

“What about me?” Wylan pouted, and you laughed.

“Everyone’s invited.” You replied, holding his face and turning it towards you so that you could press a soft kiss on his forehead before pulling him in for a hug. “I just got out, I want to spend time with you all!”

You kept your hug with Inej pretty short, considerate of the bad feelings that too much contact could stir up in her, and even managed to coax a hug from Matthias before you headed out. Kaz was waiting not far from the entrance and you smiled as you quickly made your way towards him

“Hey.” You chirped.

“You wanted it to be a surprise, huh?” He questioned, starting towards the Slat. You chuckled.

“I know you’re not a big fan of surprises, Kaz, but I thought this might be a fun one. Why? Were you offended that I told Inej and not you?”

“Did you have anyone go with you to your meeting?”

“No, I didn’t need any backup.”

“Things could have gone badly, and you didn’t tell anyone about it.”

“Well things didn’t go badly.” You rebutted. “I’m here, I’m fine, and I surprised you all.”

“You shouldn’t put yourself in danger like that.” Kaz said flatly, ignoring your point, and you groaned loudly at his stubbornness.

“If it makes you feel better, I made sure to drop your name in to intimidate them. But I can handle my own business.”

You hopped along the cobblestones playfully, irrationally happy to be back out on the filthy and foul smelling streets of the Barrel, but even the stink couldn’t dampen your joy at finally being free. You were sure that you and Kaz probably looked like a bizarre pair walking together now, him with his stoic exterior and identifying limp next to your childlike joy, though you had taken after him fashion wise with your smart attire and well-fitted, black coat.

Walking back to the Slat with Kaz took you in the opposite direction to your home – now that you were out of hiding you could finally return to where you actually lived in a house on the boundary of East Stave and the Zelver District – but you wanted to talk to Kaz, and he wouldn’t have asked you to leave with him if he didn’t want to talk to you too. Nevertheless, you continued the rest of the walk in silence.

When you got to the Slat, Kaz continued straight up to his room while you lingered on the ground floor to say hello to some of the Dregs that you were more friendly with. The noise of the Slat was unfamiliar to you after so long, but you had kind of missed the rowdiness of it.

You followed upstairs shortly after. Kaz had left his door ajar for you and you could see him sat at his desk through the opening.

“Shut the door behind you.” He said as you slipped inside, and you heard the door click as you push it shut after yourself.

“You wanna talk to me?” You questioned, walking over to lean on the side of the desk casually. “Or did you just want some time to look at my gorgeous face?” He did look up at you then, his eyes darting around to take in the entirety of your face, and you felt your heart flutter.

“How did your meeting go? What deals did you make?” He asked. You sighed. It wasn’t new that Kaz was asking about your business, he liked to know about what you were doing the same way that he liked to know about literally everything else, but you had hoped that this conversation would be a little less mundane than that. You had hoped that he might express an iota of joy that you were back.

“I can’t dock my ships in 3rd Harbour anymore.” You shrugged. “So I’ll stick to 2nd for imports going into the morning market, mostly 5th for everything else. There’s a few streets that I need to keep my business off of, and obviously I can’t try and undermine their operations anymore. That doesn’t mean that I won’t, it just means that I’ll be smarter about not getting caught.”

“And what do you get from them?”

“They leave me alone. I don’t need more than that. I mean, their terms are hardly going to impede my business anyway.”

“And your insurance?”

“You.” You smiled sweetly. “Very few people are bold enough to cross someone that has Kaz Brekker on side.”

“I thought you prided yourself on running an honest business.”

“I do. My association with you doesn’t make my business any less legit. I’m more honest than most of the Merchant Council anyway.”

“That’s fair.” He conceded with a slight nod.

Kaz had visited you a few times since the night that you had both let on about how much you cared about each other, but you hadn’t talked about it. It felt like the tension between you had been building and building like an elastic band ready to snap. It was driving you crazy.

“Anything else that you want to talk about?” You hinted. Kaz let out a long breath, his eyes sliding away from you for a moment. You could tell that he wanted to talk about it but he was struggling to get it out. “Because you haven’t told me that you’re glad I’m back yet.”

“I am glad that you’re back.” He affirmed, then he took a hard swallow. “We all missed you.” You smiled brightly at that.

You could hear the crows moving around on the half-roof outside of Kaz’s window and crossed the room to perch on the windowsill. There hadn’t been anywhere for the birds to land in the apartment that you had been cooped up in.

“Can I stay here for a while? I don’t want to be alone again just yet.” You said softly, tucking one knee up against your chest as you watched the birds through the glass.

“Sure.” Kaz answered.

You sat in silence for a while after that, which wasn’t unusual for you two. Before you had gone into hiding, you had spent many evenings with Kaz in his office just like this. Tonight felt different though. Something had opened between the two of you and now you couldn’t close it. The feeling permeated every corner of the room until you felt like you might explode if you didn’t break this silence, but, to your surprise, Kaz spoke first.

“I’ve been thinking about that day that I saw you outside the Crow Club.”

“Why?” You asked, blinking in surprise. Kaz was still facing forward at his desk, back turned to you, but his pen had stilled over the page.

“I watched you for a while, deciding whether to chase you off or recruit you for the Dregs.” He continued, ignoring your question. You were used to that too. “You were good at pickpocketing – you could spot a good mark, distracted them by pretending to beg for pennies – but you stayed in one place for too long.”

“I know, you told me at the time.�� You smiled amusedly.

“I was just planning on telling you exactly that, but after I got your attention and you looked at me I knew that I had seen you before. It was in your eyes.” He turned around to look at you then, his gaze finding yours immediately. “Your eyes never changed.”

Kaz’s eyes had. Maybe that was why you hadn’t recognised him. Kaz Rietveld had eyes full of wonder and warmth, that were curious about everything and shone when he was happy. Kaz Brekker's eyes were cold, they held secrets. The curiosity had become analytical, and the shine had turned into a devious glint. Kaz Rietveld didn’t exist anymore, the R tattoo on Kaz’s bicep was the only relic of him, and you were the only one left to remember him.

“Crows remember the faces of those that are kind.” He finished softly.

“And that’s why you took me in? Because I was kind?”

“Because we were friends. We are friends.”

“Just friends?” You murmured, a challenge in your eyes. It wasn’t a provoking challenge, more of an encouraging one. You wanted to know where he stood and you wanted him to be able to tell you. He was silent for a long stretch.

“Would we ever be able to be more?” He asked. You knew what he meant. Kaz had built up so many walls that he didn’t know how to let down, and he knew that about himself. It was how he had survived, but it was a way of being that wasn’t very conducive to relationships. He didn’t think that he could do it.

“That depends on you.” You answered with a soft smile. “Because I’m not looking anywhere else.” Kaz swallowed and looked away quickly, but you swore that you had seen a hint of a blush in his cheeks.

A knock came at the door, and you cursed whoever was on the other side in your head.

“What is it?” Kaz called.

“There’s a man downstairs says he has a job for you.” Specht’s voice came through the wood. “Won’t talk to no one else but you.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.” Kaz replied, then muttered something under his breath bitterly. You heard the creak of Specht's retreating footsteps and Kaz turned to you. “Will you wait until I get back?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

You watched Kaz leave the room and let out a long sigh once the door had closed behind him. You were finally talking about whatever it was that was between the two of you and you just had to get interrupted.

You shed your coat, dropping it lazily on the floor next to you, and rolled up your shirt sleeves. Despite the pressure put on you from some members of the Dregs, you had never gotten the crow and cup tattoo on your forearm. You had known from the start that you didn’t want to belong to the gang, no matter how thankful you were for the help that Kaz had given you.

When you had realised who it really was that had approached you that night outside the Crow Club, you had been shocked. He knew your name when he spoke to you, though he had seemed unsure of it, and you had furrowed your brow and asked if you knew him.

“It’s Kaz.” He had said, and you had blinked.

“Kaz Rietveld?” You had whispered in disbelief. His jaw had clenched, his shoulders stiffened.

“That’s not my name anymore.” He snapped. “It’s Kaz Brekker now.”

When you asked him why he had changed his name he had simply told you that it was easier that way. When you asked him about why he was in Ketterdam he had answered that his father had died and they had sold the farm. When you asked about Jodie he didn’t answer.

He had walked you to the Slat, told you not to talk to anyone, and brought you up to this very room. You had trusted him enough to follow. Despite his proud presence in the Barrel, despite the fact that he was walking you into the den of a gang, despite the fact that he was almost unrecognisable from the Kaz that you knew as a child, you had trusted him. And in the years that followed, he had never broken that trust.

He had helped you pay for the first boarding house that you purchased, come with you to the bank when you took out the loan to buy your first ship, had come to the harbour to see you off the first time that you had gone to Ravka.

Kaz had once reminded you of something from your childhood while around the other Crows, and once it had slipped that you and Kaz had been friends when you were young, people were constantly asking you about what he had been like. He never told anybody anything about himself and people had been eager to find a source of information on him, but most people had quickly come to realise that you weren’t going to say anything either. Kaz had never thanked you for your discretion, but you knew that he was glad for it.

If you were honest with yourself, you had found yourself drawn to him ever since you got your first glimpse through his cold and uncaring exterior and saw his loyal and protective nature. The pull had only grown since.

Your thoughts were broken by the sound of the door opening, and you looked over to watch Kaz enter. The door clicked shut behind him and he moved to the wash basin directly across the room from the window that you were sat in, set down his cane and pulled off his gloves .

“A good job?” You asked. He shrugged.

“A job that I’ll do.” He answered and began unbuttoning his shirt. You tried not ogle as he pulled it off and picked up the washcloth from the basin, but you caught sight of a reddened stripe of raised skin across his side and furrowed your brows.

“When did that happen?”

“A few days ago.”

“How deep did it go?”

“Not too deep.”

“It doesn’t look like you stitched it up properly.”

“It’s fine.” He dismissed. You rolled your eyes and got up from the window ledge. Kaz never took proper care of himself but he was always too stubborn to admit it.

“Let me see.”

“I said it’s fine, Y/N-"

“Kaz.” You interrupted sternly, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “I said let me see.” He held your gaze for a moment before letting out a huff and raising his arm so that you could get a better view of the wound.

You kept your distance as you looked over the injury, but you could clearly see that the stitches were sloppy on the end of the gash towards his back; the side that he couldn’t reach easily himself.

“You’re keeping it clean?”

“I know how to treat a wound.” He grumbled.

“I know that you know how, that doesn’t mean that I actually trust you to do it. You didn’t even have it bandaged or anything, what if it gets infected?”

“It won’t, Y/N, stop worrying so much.”

“Well, if you’re not going to worry about yourself then somebody else has to.” You exasperated. “At least bandage it.” You didn’t wait for a reply before you crossed over to the cabinet where he kept his impressive stock of medical supplies and grabbed a roll of gauze. Kaz caught it grudgingly when you tossed it to him and set it to the side while he finished washing his torso.

“You worry too much.” He muttered.

“It’s good for you.” You smiled.

You watched him as he unrolled the gauze and wrapped it around his body, carefully laying it over the wound with pale fingers that you rarely saw. He was precise, but he couldn’t see his back and the bandage twisted as he moved it between his hands.

“It’s folded.” You told him softly, taking half a step towards him. “I can fix it... if you want.” There was a beat of silence before Kaz nodded slightly.

You moved towards him slowly and reached for him even slower, your eyes constantly flicking back to the mirror to gauge the reaction on Kaz’s face. Your fingertips barely brushed over his back as you unfolded the downturned piece of bandage and you immediately stepped away when you were done. It took no more than a few seconds, but you could hear Kaz’s short breaths and when you looked at him in the mirror you could see that he had paled.

You picked up the clean shirt that was laid on his bed and held it out to him at full arms length. His hand shook as he took it from you. He pulled it on quickly, making short work of the buttons, and pulled his gloves back on hastily.

“Sorry.” You mumbled, though you weren’t exactly sure what you were apologising for.

“It’s because of Jordie.” Kaz’s voice was hoarse when he spoke, his eyes trained on his shoes. “Why I can’t touch anyone. It’s because when he died...”

“You don’t have to tell me, Kaz.” You said softly when he trailed off. He shook his head slightly and cleared his throat, squeezing his eyes shut for a few seconds.

“When Jordie died, I was sick too. It was the Queen's Lady plague. One night, I fell asleep in an alley and woke up on the Reaper's Barge.” He swallowed thickly, wringing his hands together thoughtlessly, and you could see sweat forming on his brow. “When my fever broke, I had to swim back to the harbour, and Jordie... whenever someone touches me, all I can feel is those corpses.”

Silence hung between you as you tried to find the words to respond. It was a lot of information to take in, but suddenly things made sense. Now you understood why Kaz had become the way that he was; why he was prone to shutting people out, why the light behind his eyes had dimmed.

“Kaz, I... I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s okay.” He muttered. “I have work to do. You’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like.” He crossed the room to sit down at his desk, his movements tense. You watched him for a minute, unsure of what to do. It felt wrong to leave him alone right now, but you didn’t know if he would want you to stay.

“I’m sailing to Novyi Zem next week.” You said. It was the first topic that you could think of. “I’d really appreciate it if you could look over the rent ledgers while I’m gone.”

“Sure.” He replied flatly. Silence again.

“Will you come with us all to get waffles tomorrow?”

“I have work to do, and Nina didn’t invite me anyway.”

“Yeah, well, the celebration is for me and I’d really like for you to be there.” You smiled slightly. “She probably didn’t invite you because she knew you’d say no.”

“Smart of her.” Kaz responded, and you let out a frustrated huff.

“Don’t do that, Kaz. Don’t shut me out.” You complained. He didn’t answer at all. You folded your arms over your chest and went to stand beside his chair. “I don’t care that you can’t touch people, it doesn’t bother me. You went through trauma and that’s not your fault. What is bothering me is that you’re choosing to stay closed off to everyone. You can’t keep your walls up forever, you’ll kill yourself trying.”

“I can’t handle it, Y/N.” He snapped, his voice low. The gravel in his voice might have intimidated you into backing off if you weren’t so adamant on getting through to him.

“You’ll never be able to handle it if you don’t start trying.” You insisted. “Maybe if you’d just admit to yourself that you care about people it wouldn’t be so hard to see that we care about you too.”

Kaz pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes shut tightly, and released a long breath. You watched him, waiting for a response, not backing down. After a moment of silence, he glanced up at you.

“I can’t need anyone.” He said slowly. “Not after Jordie. I can’t let myself need anyone else.”

“You don’t have to need me, Kaz. You just have to want me.” You replied softly. His head snapped towards you and you actually saw his pupils dilate for the few seconds that he held your gaze before quickly turning away again. You hadn’t meant it like that, but you weren’t upset that he’d heard it that way.

“I don’t deserve you.” He muttered. You leaned against his desk, a sympathetic smile on your face even though he wasn’t looking at you.

“I’ve been around this long, I’m not going anywhere.” You promised. “There’s more to love about you than you think.”

Kaz tapped on his desk with a finger, a nervous action that he would usually suppress. Then, he took a sharp inhale and turned back to you.

“Okay.” He breathed. “I can try.” You bit down on your tongue in an attempt to suppress your grin, but you couldn’t stop the smile that stretched across your face.

“That’s all I ask.” You lilted. You stood up straight, pushing off of the desk and starting across the room to the window. You rolled your shirt sleeves down and snatched your coat up from the floor. “I’m going to head home. I expect to see you at my door promptly at eleven bells tomorrow morning, ready to get waffles.”

“Alright.” He nodded, breathing a single light laugh.

“Perfect. I’ll see you then.”

“Here, Y/N, these are for you.” He said quickly, picking up and couple of envelopes from his desk and holding them up for you. “You’ll have to make sure to notify your business partners of your change in mailing address.” You chuckled, going to take the letters from him, and he gave a small smirk as he handed them over.

“Thank you.” You smiled, before turning and heading to the door. “Eleven bells, Brekker. I know you’re a punctual man.”

“I’ll be there.” He affirmed. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Kaz.” You echoed softly before stepping out of the room and shutting the door behind you, a fond smile on your lips.

[milo-my-beloved]

chapter six of stupid things!

Read on AO3 // Playlist // Buy me a coffee?

Wylan and Jesper took a cab home, leaving Kaz and Inej to find their own way home and a very disgruntled Matthias to deal with them. They giggled the entire way back to Jesper’s apartment, imagining increasingly ridiculous and complex methods that Nina’s boyfriend might come up with to get the two to go home.

Wylan insists on paying for the taxi, since Jesper had declared that he should stay the night. They tumble through the door, laughing at the possibility of Matthias locking their friends in an aquarium overnight, and collapse onto the couch, Wylan’s head cradled on Jesper’s chest.

“We should get up,” Jesper says, not moving. “Put pajamas on, or something.”

Wylan just snuggles closer to his chest. “Will you put a movie on?”

Jes smiles down at the sleepy man cuddled up to him and runs his hands through his curls. “Sure thing, sunshine. But I’m picking.”

By the time the opening credits of Star Wars have finished, Wylan is quietly snoring against Jesper’s chest. By the time the Death Star explodes, Jesper has followed suit, both of them pressed against each other, only visible thanks to the full moon outside the window.

{o0o}

One of the things Jesper loves the most about Wylan is the mystery that surrounds him. The only person he’s met that is more skilled at dodging questions is Kaz, and that’s half of his personality. Wylan is nowhere near as good at lying, but Jesper doesn’t push it when he clearly doesn’t want to answer a question. With anyone else he might have, but he really doesn’t want to lose the man who he’s grown so attached to.

Maybe Drunk Jesper has made one good decision. But that’s about it.

One of the few things that Jesper has managed to figure out about his boyfriend is that he’s secretly rich, and embarrassed about it. He always wears quality clothes - soft, cashmere jumpers and dress shirts and fancy shoes - and he insists on paying for a lot of things they do together, but he always blushes whenever Jesper teases him for it.

Actually, Wylan blushes quite a lot. It’s one of Jesper’s favourite things about him.

When they wake up on Saturday morning to the sunlight streaming through the window, they’re still packed tightly together. Jesper’s arm is stiff from being curled protectively around Wylan, who has apparently spent the night drooling on Jesper’s shirt.

If it was anyone else, it would be disgusting, but Jesper finds it strangely endearing.

“Morning, sunshine,” he greets, smiling to himself as Wylan yawns and stretches. “How did you sleep?”

He mumbles an unintelligible response against Jesper’s chest before turning and burying his face back into the crook of his arm. Jesper laughs quietly, but he brings his hand up to cup Wylan’s head and gently strokes his hair.

“For all that drool you’ve managed to get on my chest, you’d better plan an excellent date,” Jesper teases, but Wylan doesn’t respond, already fast asleep again.

{o0o}

Wylan has never been a fan of surprises. Everything in his life has always been planned; from his wardrobe to his meals to what he is supposed to be in life. That’s why he messages the group chat on Wednesday with his plans, rather than leaving it as a surprise like everyone else seems so fond of doing.

Wylan: I know what we’re doing on Friday :D

Inej: and you’re gonna tell us???

Wylan: yes :DDD

Kaz: unheard of

Wylan: I got us tickets to the new exhibit at Ketterdam Museum!!!

Jesper: wat

Inej: awesome! what’s it on?

Wylan: fossils, I think :)

Jesper: there better be a gift shop

He smiles to himself, looking down at his phone as he checks the museum website. Huh. There is a gift shop.

{o0o}

Kaz and Inej mention something vague about going to dinner before meeting them at the museum, so Wylan and Jesper make their own way. Wylan calls them a taxi, smiling to himself as Jesper complains about their friends the entire way there.

“All I’m saying is that it’s rude!” he exclaims, flapping his arms about for emphasis. “It’s called a ‘double date’ for a reason, there’s supposed to be two couples there.”

Wylan hums noncommittally.

“If they were just getting a different ride there then I guess I could understand that, but to go out for dinner first? That’s, like, a whole activity that they’re doing without us!”

“You’re here,” the driver interrupts as they pull up to the front of the museum building.

“Thank you,” Wylan says, handing over the money. “And Jes, how about we go out for dinner afterwards? Just us, I mean.”

Jesper pouts as he climbs out the car. “I already ate.”

“I’m sure you can find room,” Wylan replies, rolling his eyes fondly. “Look, there’s Kaz and Inej.”

Sure enough, their two friends are waiting on the steps outside the museum, huddled together with Kaz’s cane propped up beside them. Inej spots them as they start to approach and stands up, waving frantically to catch their attention while Kaz shakes his head at her antics.

Wylan tugs the corner of Jesper’s sleeve, waving back with his other hand. “Come on!”

Jesper rolls his eyes. “Can we just pretend we don’t know them and go get food now?”

“I thought you ate already?”

“Oh, piss off.”

Wylan grins widely when they finally reach them, brandishing the four tickets in front of him like magician asking ‘is this your card?’ Jesper snatches one out of his hand before anyone gets the chance, Kaz and Inej taking theirs in a much more dignified fashion.

For all their excited chatter as they head towards the entrance, Jesper has to admit, a trip to a museum has never been on his list of dream dates. Or vaguely acceptable dates. Or a day out with his friends. At best, he decides, he might have gone on a school field trip, but mostly only to get out of doing much work for a day.

The foyer of the building is impressive, even by his standards, but he still doesn’t feel nearly as excited as Inej or Wylan. (It’s hard to tell what Kaz is feeling at any given moment, but Jesper is fairly sure he has never seen him excited.) It’s only after they hand their tickets over to a kind attendant and round the corner that Jesper stops in his tracks and stares ahead, his mouth wide open.

“Is that… a dinosaur?” he asks, completely rooted to the spot.

No one bothers dignifying his question with a response, all of them too busy staring at the huge creature standing before them. Of course, it is just bones, but there is still something incredible about being so close to an animal that has been dead for millions of years.

Of all of them, Wylan seems to be the least affected.

“It’s the first T-rex to be displayed in Ketterdam for over a hundred years!” he exclaims in a hushed tone, smiling at the awed expressions on his friends’ faces. “I think his name is Titus.”

“Woah,” Inej says, stepping towards it. “It’s huge!”

“Twelve feet tall,” Wylan responds with a smile.

“How come you know so much already?” Kaz asks, his eyes wandering around the rest of the room.

“I booked the tickets, remember. I looked at the website.”

“Kaz!” Inej exclaims, grabbing his gloved hand and pointing across the room with her other hand. “Look, they have an interactive section.”

Even as the other two disappear around a corner, Wylan and Jesper stay rooted to the spot. It takes a few minutes for Jesper to get over his original shock of being face-to-face with a twelve-foot tall dinosaur, but when he does, he practically starts vibrating on the spot.

“Wy, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me we were gonna see actual dinosaurs! This is so freaking cool,” he exclaims, slowly walking around Titus to get a better look at his side.

“I did!” Wylan protests, smiling at the look of awe on Jesper’s face. “I told you the exhibit is on fossils.”

“I thought we were gonna go see a load of musty rocks with weird shapes in them, not a T-rex!”

Wylan just laughs, squeezing Jesper’s hand. “I didn’t know you were such a fan of dinosaurs.”

“Come on, man,” Jesper protests. “Jurassic Park is one of my favourite movies of all time.”

“Hopefully, these ones don’t come to life,” Wylan quips, and Jesper giggles, dragging him around the rest of the exhibit.

{o0o}

After Jesper has read every single piece of information there is to read (in a range of funny voices) to Wylan, and every corner of the museum has been explored, they decide it’s time to call it quits.

“Shall I call a cab?” Kaz asks as they head towards the museum entrance.

“Not for us,” Wylan replies, squeezing Jesper’s hand. “We’re gonna stay out in town for a while longer.”

“Alright,” he says, fishing his phone out of his pocket and stepping away as he calls the taxi company.

Inej smiles at them, bringing them both into a tight hug. “Thanks for organising this, Wylan! I had fun.”

He blushes. “It was my pleasure. I’ll say goodbye to you now, though - I just need the toilet before we go.”

“See you next week,” she replies, squeezing them both tightly before pulling away.

“Bye,” he says, before turning to Jesper. “Go and wait with them - I’ll only be five minutes.”

“Alright,” Jesper replies, kissing the top of his head. “You better not leave me for too long, though. It’s rude to keep your hot date waiting.”

“Is it, now?” Wylan laughs, turning away and hurrying down the corridor. He heads in the right direction until they are out of sight, before doubling back the way he came and darting into the gift shop instead.

It only takes a minute or two of browsing before he grabs what he’s looking for. He takes it to the counter, smiling, rummaging through his jacket for his wallet.

“Is this all, sir?” the lady behind the till asks.

“Yes, thank you. It’s a present for my boyfriend,” he replies, blushing slightly.

She smiles warmly, her eyes crinkling. “That’s so sweet! Here, if it’s a gift, I’ll wrap it up for you.”

Wylan watches as she deftly wraps it in orange wrapping paper, humming to herself as she works. “Thank you.”

He hands over the right amount of kruge as she passes him the wrapped gift, which he slides into his inside pocket.

“I hope he likes it, sweetie.”

“Me too,” he replies, thanking her again as he rushes out the door to meet back up with Jesper.

{o0o}

They end up going to a fish and chip shop and finding a bench in a nearby park to sit on while they eat.

“Wy, these have to be the best chips I’ve ever eaten,” Jesper declares, still chewing.

“I can tell,” Wylan remarks, raising an eyebrow at the (bordering lewd) noises Jesper makes while eating. “Oh, by the way, I got you something.”

Jesper’s head snaps up. “Dessert?”

“No,” Wylan laughs, fishing the small parcel out of his pocket. “I got you a present.”

Jesper swallows the food in his mouth and wipes his greasy hands on his jeans before carefully taking the parcel from Wylan. He unwraps it gently, laughing when he realises what it is.

“So there was a gift shop after all. When did you get this?”

“When I said I needed the loo,” Wylan admits, wringing his hands in his lap.

Jesper turns the fridge magnet over in his hands, running his fingers over the writing. ‘I survived a T-rex encounter!’

“Thank you,” he says, suddenly finding it a little hard to speak. “That’s really nice of you.”

Wylan shrugs. “It was like, five kruge. You don’t have to thank me.”

Jesper laughs, blinking away the wetness in his eyes as he leans over to whisper something in Wylan’s ear. “I have to tell you a secret though.”

Wylan frowns. “What?”

Jesper smiles down at him. “I don’t have a fridge,” he admits, giggling.

“Wha- how do you not have a fridge?”

He shrugs. “Jesper skills. Now shut up and kiss me.”

Wylan is more than happy to oblige.

tag list (ask to be added or removed!) :D

@hrtbreakprincess / @tooindecisivetopickaurl / @kazcoded / @saltyfortunes / @just2bubbly

[thanks--for--listening]

figments of the dark

yes i read all the grishaverse books after watching the show yes i’ve now written kanej fic yes they’re my dream couple no i’m not okay mentally. SPOILERS FOR CROOKED KINGDOM this fic takes place right after it. 

(also on ao3)

~~

She kept pace with him initially. Walking down to the harbor, he watched as the Suli couple moved closer and closer, the details of their appearance materializing with each step. The gray of the man’s hair creeping in at the edges. The woman’s long braid lying gracefully over her shoulder. Their hands clasped together, tugging each other along as the distance between them and their daughter disappeared. Inej was nearly jumping out of her own skin, but she stayed by his side, only breaking into a sprint when there was nothing but a few feet separating them. It was the most impressive feat of strength he’d seen from her. From anyone, if he was being honest. 

They swallowed her whole. Neither were particularly tall, but they towered over her nonetheless, their arms wrapping effortlessly around her delicate frame. As he stepped closer, he could hear them amidst the sobs, the prayers usually whispered under Inej’s breath now spoken loudly and without reservation. Their foreignness was familiar. Kaz might not have cared for gods or saints, for myths and legends, but the sound of their devotion still soothed his racing heart.

He stood back as they held one another. A feeling deep in his gut ignited softly, a spark burning in isolation: not strong enough to turn into a flame, but with enough heat to leave a scar. It wasn’t resentment — he would have given anything for her to have this moment, would have let the rest of the world crumble around them if that’s what it cost — but an aftertaste of something else lingered as he watched them. No matter how often he won, how deft defying the odds or complicated the scheme, he’d never have anyone waiting for him when the dust settled. Not like Inej did. Not like Jesper did. His victories had long been celebrated in solitude, and he’d come to terms with that years ago. 

Still, the feeling seemed to whisper, a voice in his head that sounded like someone he knew. Still.

“Kaz!” He blinked the thoughts away, straightened his back as they walked toward him. “Mama, Papa, this is Kaz Brekker. He’s saved my life more times than I can count.”

“Your daughter paints me in a better light than I deserve.” He looked at her as he added, “No one has ever protected me the way she has.”

Their eyes were locked, and he saw it again. One of the first lessons Ketterdam had taught him was to read faces as if they were words on a page. Any hand could be won, any man could be manipulated, if one could learn to see beneath the surface. Nobody could hide forever. Their hearts would give them away every time. 

Now he was grateful for the lesson. Not for the victories it had led to, or the money he’d won, but for the undeniable truth of what he saw. Adoration. When Inej looked at him, it was as if the entire harbor floated away, and all that was left were the tears in her eye and the smile on her face. It didn’t matter that the real joy had come from her parents; he would use any excuse to be on the other end of that look, regardless of whether he deserved it.

Kaz didn’t even notice her father until Inej stuck her arm out, spoke in quick and hushed Suli. He didn’t have to know the language to understand — Mr. Ghafa had moved to embrace him, until Inej stood in the way. Kaz had been lost in the endless depths of her eyes, drawn to them like a sailor to a siren, so fixated he would have drowned rather than tear his gaze away. Inej, his better in every way that mattered and every way that didn’t, had never lost sight of the world around them. Even now, when the threat came in the form of a grateful father, when her focus should have been at its weakest, she was still protecting him. 

He wanted to tell her that he would take it. The touch, and the revulsion that came with it. The gratitude he’d done nothing to earn. He would suffer any pain, subject himself to all kinds of agony, play whatever character she wanted, even the farm boy he knew had died in that river. He would hunt the world for her wretched saints and construct an altar of his own, if it kept that smile on her face. 

“Thank you,” her mother said, the words still muddled by the tears that had yet to stop. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”

Safety didn’t exist in Ketterdam, and it certainly wasn’t what he’d given her when he’d taken her out of that Menagerie, but he kept his mouth shut, nodded curtly. That wasn’t his story to tell. 

“Every day, we searched,” her father said. “They told us to give up. They said you were lost, that those who took you would never let you go. They said you wouldn’t make it no matter where you’d gone, but we said no. Our Inej has angels on her shoulders and wings on her back. She can survive anything.”

If she hadn’t been before, Inej was crying now. With every passing moment, Kaz felt more and more like an intruder. He wondered if it was some sort of retribution for each time he’d sent her to creep in through someone’s window, to become the audience they weren’t aware of. How much had he learned from her being privy to moments like this, so intimate and exposed? What had it cost her to push back the guilt that came with the encroachment?

“I can,” she said. “But I didn’t have to do it alone.”

He listened half-heartedly as she told them about Wylan and Jesper and Nina. The house she was staying in, with a staff and a view and a life that was much more palatable to those unfamiliar with the stench of the Barrel. Painting over their history was effortless with those kinds of tools. The only question was how long it could last. 

As they began walking, he forced his face into neutrality, buried any evidence of the thoughts that ran through his mind. They would have to find out eventually. Perhaps not all of it, and ideally not all at once, but in due time the truth would become unavoidable. They spoke of survival as if it was an honorable thing, but where that ship had taken Inej, only those with the sharpest of claws and malleable of morals made it out alive. Dirtyhands may have become his title, but nobody around here could claim cleanliness. Not even the dead.

The path made itself clear, the flip of the final card coming to him with striking clarity. A death blow delivered by the river, turning a winning hand into a losing one in a single fluid motion. They had been looking for their lost child, for a little girl who only ever pushed the limits in a performance. But the secret to the Dregs was that everyone was already dead. They may have called themselves Crows, but like phoenixes born from the ashes of their old lives, rebirth was an entry level requirement. Whoever they’d gone searching for, the Ghafa’s had found someone else. He didn’t know when they’d realize it, when they’d look at their daughter and see a stranger in her place, but he knew the moment would come. And for the first time in his short and miserable life, Kaz longed to be wrong. 

Tuning back into the conversation, he caught the tail end of a list of relatives, each one having done their own part in trying to find her. Inej stood in between them as they walked. Kaz let himself fall back just slightly, a pace behind theirs. It was as much privacy as he could give out on the street. Things may have improved for the Dregs in the past few weeks, but that didn’t mean people weren’t still watching, waiting to find them in a moment of weakness, waiting for their chance to steal the throne Kaz and his crew had built from nothing. 

“We’ll send a letter as soon as we make it to your friends’ home. Nobody knew what to believe when the messenger came to us with news about you. Half the family were convinced this was all a scam, a ruse to kidnap us as well.”

“Your aunts will start planning the celebration before we even board the ship home,” her mother said with a smile. The tears had eased up, replaced with effortless joy and comfort. “Preparing the food will take half the length of the trip, at least.”

Inej let out a moan. “Nobody in Ketterdam knows how to cook properly.”

Her mother’s smile grew, something he hadn’t thought was possible. “Anything you want, I’ll make. Saints willing, I’ll be cooking for you for the rest of my life.”

“You’re in for a treat,” her father added. “Ever since the circus ended, your mother has been cooking non-stop. Everything will be better than you remember.”

“Wait,” her eyebrows scrunched together. “What do you mean, the circus ended?”

The smiles faded. “We tried,” he said, his voice tainted with the somber weight of grief that grew heavier over time. “But how could we go on without our star? How could we look to the sky and see someone else walking amongst the clouds?”

“It wasn’t fair,” her mother said softly. “To the family. They needed the performances to survive, but we…we needed every moment to search for you. We needed you to survive.”

They’d slowed their pace, and even though he slowed with them, they now stood nearly side by side. Kaz left a gap the size of a person between him and her father in a pathetic and slightly selfish attempt at disappearing. He’d have pulled an Inej and evaporated altogether, had she not asked him to stay. 

“I’m sorry,” Inej said, and he couldn’t see her face clearly but he could hear the tears in her voice. 

“For what, zheji?”

“For being the reason you stopped. Performing was our lives. It was everything you’d worked toward.”

“Inej, you are our lives. You are more important than any stage or crowd. You are worth more than any money in the world.” Her mother stopped walking, grabbed hold of her face as she said, “I would walk away from the circus a thousand times if it meant you were safe.”

Inej just nodded. The feeling snuck in again, quick and quiet and sharp; he forced it back down as they started walking again. He refused to let his pitiful, despicable nature ruin any part of this moment for her. 

“And who knows?” Her father said, the cheer in his voice somehow both authentic and artificial. “Once you come home, maybe we can put the show back on the road. Perform as a family again.”

Oh. So this was the moment. He’d known it was a possibility when he’d made the deal, but his mind had refused to accept it. The life he led required foresight, examining every outcome for every choice, but he hadn’t found the strength to prepare for this ending: the moment she left.

His step staggered ever so slightly. It shouldn’t have been noticeable, shouldn’t have disrupted the rhythm of their walk, but like a conductor trained to spot the lone instrument out of tune, Inej turned. She stared first at the ground in front of him, then brought her gaze up. Met his. An inquisitive look flashed across her face, as if she was searching for the disruption. Or perhaps she was searching for something else. 

He tried to school his features into something legible, to show her the answer she was looking for. The permission, although it wasn’t his to give. The forgiveness, although there was no guilt to absolve. Even when he wanted to fall onto his hands and knees and beg her to stay; even when the thought of her living across the true sea made the air around him grow thicker and his lungs smaller, made breathing a painful, labored thing. He nodded his head slightly even when every nerve in his body fought against it, because if there was anyone who deserved to turn their back on Ketterdam and leave it all behind, it was her. If leaving was what made her happy, he’d send her off without a single word of protest. If she wanted to fly on her own land, on her own accord, who was he to ground her, to tie her wings for the sake of his own spoiled heart?

Inej didn’t say anything, but the look on her face…Kaz wasn’t one to cling to hope, but he grasped desperately to her reluctance, to the way she bit her lip and kept her eyes away from her parents. Even if she also kept them away from him.

— 

Jesper had a thousand questions. 

He’d spent half of dinner begging the Ghafas for stories about Inej as a child, and the other half endlessly praising Mrs. Ghafa’s cooking. Kaz couldn’t fault him for the latter — Inej and her mother had spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen, and what they’d come out with was quite easily the best meal he’d ever had. The way they managed to extract flavors he’d never tasted before from the ingredients he’d had at his disposal for years was an art form in itself, one that rivaled even his own general resourcefulness. And the smell. Envy reared its ugly head at the thought of Wylan and Jesper getting to enjoy the lingering scent long after the meal had been devoured.

“We had a guest faint during one of her performances.” Her father was telling the story with the same enthusiasm as he had with every one that came before. Where Inej was silent and still, her father was big and bold, every move exaggerated and every word announced rather than spoken. Kaz wondered whether it had always been her nature, or whether he was witnessing what Inej might have been had she not been forced into the shadows. 

“Faint? Because of Inej?”

“Oh, yes. You see, we realized that we couldn’t make it look too easy. Not that it was easy, of course, but when Inej walks that rope, it looks effortless. So we staged a wobble, a moment for her to pretend to lose her balance. Oh, the way people panicked! They’d hold their breaths and try to hide their eyes, but none of them could ever look away, not until she made it to the other side.”

“Was the woman who passed out okay?” Wylan asked.

Her father shook his head. “You misunderstand. Women never looked away. They stared with intensity, as if their eyes could carry her to safety. The poor man collapsed right there in the front row.”

“He didn’t even see the rest of my act,” Inej added. “That’s the real travesty.”

“Maybe he’ll come back and see how it ends once you’re home.” Kaz saw it again, the feeling streaking across her face like a runaway star. Only this time, it wasn’t reluctance: it was guilt. 

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what, zheji?”

The first words had come out softly, but when Inej looked up at her father, she spoke with the determination that Kaz had grown used to. “I can’t stay. I can’t rejoin the circus.”

“So you’re out of practice. It’s nothing a little time can’t fix! You have magic in you, Inej. That doesn’t just go away.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t rejoin the circus because I have to come back. Here, to Ketterdam.”

Her mother reached across the table, put her hands in her own. “They took you against your will. Against our will. Whoever stole you can’t stop us from taking you home. Nobody can keep you here anymore.”

“No,” she said, “you’re not hearing me. I want to go home. I want to see the family, to spend time with you. But I also want to come back.”

“I don’t understand,” her father said, and Kaz could hear the desperation creeping into his voice. “What could a place like this possibly have that would be worth leaving your family? Leaving your home?”

“Papa, it’s not about leaving you.” Jesper was practically bouncing out of his own skin, and Wylan’s eyes scoured the room in search of anything else to look at, but Kaz kept his gaze fixed on the table in front of them. A part of him knew the noble thing, the polite thing, would be to silently excuse himself, to give the Ghafas this moment alone. But Inej had started it with them there, and Kaz didn’t have the willpower to walk away before he heard her answer. 

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about everyone else.” Inej spoke with fervor, impassioned with purpose and righteousness. It fit her better than being a spider ever had. “There are hundreds of little girls and boys going through exactly what I did. Only they don’t get rescued. They don’t have anyone looking out for them.” She spared a quick glance his way; he pretended not to notice. “I can’t go home while they suffer.”

“So it is us who should suffer, then?”

Inej groaned. “Mama, that isn’t fair and you know it.”

“Life isn’t fair,” her father said. “The world is full of terrible people, Inej. You can’t—“

“Trust me when I say I know the terrors of both men and women alike.” Venom had slipped into her voice. Kaz watched the shock slowly register across her parents’ faces, watched as they blinked at the girl who had replaced their daring but soft-spoken daughter. He wondered when they’d truly process her words. Back in Ravka? On the boat home? Maybe it would come while they lay awake tonight, dreams poisoned by the realization that some version of their worst nightmare had come true. That even though she stood in front of them now, seemingly all in one piece, Ketterdam had still taken something from her, and nothing they ever did could give it back.

“I only meant to say,” her father continued, his tone shifting into something gentler, “that this battle is one you’ll likely never win. There’s no end to greed. Not in this lifetime. Perhaps not even in the next. Every enemy you defeat, every man you force into accountability, will only be replaced by two more looking to use his failure as a stepping stone.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to adjust my aim. Target the root and not the weeds.”

“Why?” Her mother groaned, frustration and terror written all over her face. “Why does it have to be you? Someone else can save the world. Someone else’s daughter can play the hero. Why can’t you just come home?”

“Who, Mama? Who’s gonna save them if not me? Who’s going to watch out for them when their families are told they’re dead and nobody else comes looking?” She turned toward her father. “I know it’s a losing hand. But I’m not the same person I was before. I know how to win with anything now, how to bend the rules so they work in my favor.”

“But you don’t have to,” he begged. 

“If nobody ever tries, nothing gets better. I have to try, Papa. I owe them at least that much. I owe myself that much.”

The silence spread quickly. He knew there was nothing in the air, but the tension felt like a gas leak, like one spark could set the whole house ablaze. Kaz watched the way they stared across the table, each waiting for the other to break first but neither one wanting to watch them burn. Even if he hadn’t been a betting man, he would have known who to back in this fight of wills. Whether on the ground or in the air, Inej would hold steady. If nothing else, he could count on that.

Jesper clapped his hands, the sound echoing across the room that felt both overwhelmingly big and suffocatingly small. “So! Who’s up for a little music?”

—

Kaz found her exactly where he expected to. The sound of Wylan’s piano faded as he cracked open the window, pulling himself up onto the roof even when his leg throbbed in protest. 

Inej didn’t move, didn’t do anything to acknowledge his presence. She didn’t have to — she always knew where he was, just as he did her. Climbing up to her perch, he let the sounds of the city surround them. It never mattered what time of day it was: someone in Ketterdam was always awake, and therefore, no one was ever truly alone.

“They don’t believe me,” she said softly. He fought the urge to turn toward her; he knew that some words were more easily spoken to something rather than someone. “They think that the minute I get home, I’ll just forget about everything here.”

“Unfortunately, I think Jesper’s singing is going to be permanently ingrained in all our minds.”

He spared a quick glance, caught the corners of her mouth creeping upward. “Who needs to remember? I’m positive the sound will carry all the way across the true sea and into Ravka.”

“We should be grateful for their diminished armies, then. If they had the means, I’m positive this performance would be a worthy cause to go to war.”

She laughed then, just once, but saints the sound was enough to send electricity through his entire body. He’d start a war himself for that sound. He’d crawl into the Ice Court with nothing but his own two hands. He’d try and heal the shattered bits inside himself if it meant he got to hear her at her happiest, if he got to be the one to make her feel that way in the first place. 

Kaz wanted to stay like this, to poke fun and let the future disappear, to laugh and let the hard words hide beneath the sound, but he’d never had a habit of doing what was good for him. The dead of night exposed questions that cowered in the light of day, and for all his strength, he couldn’t resist knowing the answers. “Would it be so bad? To forget this place?”

“I could never do that. Not even if I wanted to.”

“You don’t know if that’s true. Time away, back with your family, it could help. It could…heal.”

Inej finally turned toward him, the daggers in her eyes as accurate and deadly as the ones strapped to her wrists. “Do you really think you could just leave and pretend like none of this ever happened?”

Part of him wanted to lie, wanted to believe in a world where the past stayed locked in history and the future could be its own thing entirely. If not for himself, then for her. But while the sentiment may have been foreign to her parents, Kaz and Inej spoke the language of the Dregs. There was a reason people got tattooed when they joined: being a Crow wasn’t something you could ever leave behind. 

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“Exactly.” She turned forward again, stared at the city as if it could give her whatever answer she was looking for. “All night, I could feel my parents looking for a ghost. They remember a girl whose only dream in life was to walk across air, but there are other things that matter more to me than the fucking applause.” She leaned back without losing her balance. “I don’t think they’re ready to see the person I’ve become.”

“Then they’re missing out on the strongest, bravest, and most honorable person in all of Ketterdam.”

Inej raised an eyebrow at him. There was curiosity in her eyes, and behind it, something more. Something he hadn’t seen on her yet, despite spending a considerable amount of time stealing glances, soaking in the sight of her whenever he could afford to. He couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked like pride. “Since when do you care for honor?”

“Since you watched me at my weakest and my worst, and still deemed me a worthy cause for devotion.” He kept his eyes on her now, emboldened by the light of the moon and the truth of his words. “You look to your saints for guidance, but I look to you. So long as you stand by me, I know I haven’t strayed too far.”

As he spoke, he carefully slipped his hand out of his glove; when the only sound left was the echo of his words around them, he reached for her hand, let his own slide into place within it. Immediately the rush came, the concoction of emotions all tangled up and twisted. He squeezed, let the pressure of her reciprocation ground him in the present and on dry land. 

Pain would always come first. No matter how much time passed, no matter who he was with, Kaz wasn’t sure that would ever change. For so long the agony had held a chokehold on anything else that might come with it, suppressing desire until it was all but nonexistent. The longer they held onto one another, though, the stronger it became. Inej dulled the anguish until it was no sharper than a blunt knife, until he could feel everything else without being blinded by the blade. 

Eventually, she let go, only to shift and drop her head onto his shoulder. She rested largely on his jacket, but there was a sliver, right by his neck, where their skin came together. It set his pulse on fire. It felt like exhaling. Like holding something so delicate in his hands he didn’t dare breathe and risk disturbing it. The weight of her against him sent all his senses up into disarray, and he wondered for half a second if this was what the rush of parem felt like, because with Inej leaning against him. he swore he could see, hear, feel everything. The pain all but evaporated. The world came gloriously into tune, and now that he’d heard the sweet sound it could make, Kaz wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to tolerate a sour note. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, the sound nearly blending into the ambiance provided by the sky above and ground below, nearly drowned by the synchronous beats of their hearts. “Thank you for bringing them back to me.”

“Anything,” he responded just as quietly. “No matter the cost nor the reason. If you ask, I’ll do anything.”

“Why?” The question was so genuine, and he wasn’t sure he had an answer. How could he possibly put into words the feeling of needing her happiness as much as he needed air to breathe? What could he give her that could show just how deeply he craved her, and how terrifying and exhilarating and all-encompassing that desire was? 

“You asked me earlier about my tell,” he said after a moment. His eyes were fixed on the city in front of him, but he could feel her gaze. This time, it was he who couldn’t say the words to her face. “I gave you a half-truth. My tell, my true vulnerability, the thing that gives me away every time, is you. When you’re by my side, no one else matters. Not the rest of the team, not the job. Nothing.”

“Is that why you…?” She didn’t have to finish her thought. He knew what moments she thought of, the constant battle inside himself she became victim to. The back and forth, longing turning to avoidance that never managed to last. A cycle he had yet to fully break out of. 

He nodded, just enough for her to see it. “Van Eck knew. That day he…when he threatened to kill everyone else, he set the trap that I walked right into. In the moment when we were all in peril, he followed my gaze and saw who I couldn’t afford to lose.”

“That’s funny,” she said, and he stared down at her, the confusion written all over his face. She tilted her head back slightly, just enough to look at him without breaking the contact. “Had he turned his eyes to me, he would have seen the same thing. I guess we damned each other that day.”

“It’s not funny.” He desperately tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but control was a fantasy when his mind went back to that night, to the days he spent in fear of Inej being tortured or killed or worse. “I vowed to never let anyone hurt you like that again because of me. Because of what you hurting would do to me.”

The quiet settled back in, as if it had never left, as if their conversation had already dissolved into oblivion. Her head shifted slightly, eyes turned back to the city in front of them. He longed to watch her, to search in her face for the thoughts running through her mind, but she still rested against his shoulder, and he would rather throw himself off the roof than disrupt the comfort she seemed to find there. Patience was something he’d once considered a virtue, but now it was practically nonexistent. 

“We can’t control the rest of the world,” she finally said. “Nor can we stop people from coming after us. Torturing yourself to stop someone else from doing it for you doesn’t solve anything; it only guarantees pain.”

“I’m no stranger to suffering. I’d rather withstand self-inflicting wounds. Those I can control.”

“It's not just you who suffers at your own hand.” She broke apart from him, shifted her body until they were face to face. A chill settled in where her head had been. 

When Inej was walking above him, traversing through territory only few could manage, he’d allowed himself to pretend she was safe. That her perch protected her from the terrors that struck on the ground. But now, sitting above the rest of the world, all he felt was exposed. He was not Inej. He had no control here; be it to the elements or his enemies, or the one who held his heart in her hands. Every part of him was vulnerable. 

“When you hurt yourself, when you consign your life to misery on the basis that it’s coming anyway, you hurt me as well. When you keep your distance, I’m the one who ends up untethered. You want to protect me from suffering on your behalf, but all you're doing is delivering the death blow yourself.”

“I…I never meant—“

“I know,” she said, her voice gentle and calm and everything he’d never deserved. “But I refuse to accept that pain any longer. I can’t love you if you spend all your time demolishing yourself. I’ll go down with this ship, but I can’t stay if you’re the one poking holes in the deck.”

“You won’t have to.” He’d never been one for vows, but he spoke them now, wondered if any of her beloved saints could hear him. If they would even dare listen to someone as depraved as he. “I can’t promise a miracle. I won’t lie to you and spew falsities about changes in morality that I know are nothing more than a cheap trick of the light. You deserve better than that. You deserve better than me. So every moment you choose to stay by my side is one I’ll devote to earning it.”

A crash from below sent them both to their weapons, before the sound of raucous laughter eased their grip. Kaz wondered if they’d ever stop anticipating the fight, if that instinct normally developed at childhood’s end, or if it was simply another consequence of living in Ketterdam. 

“I should probably go rescue my parents. We’ve left Jesper and Wylan to their own devices for too long.” He watched as she floated down the roof, as if the surface itself was flat and level, as if the force pulling them down to the ground was only optional. When she got to the windowsill, he expected her to disappear, but instead she stopped, hands gripping the edge of the roof. “You deserve better, too,” she told him. “Better than you’ve got. Better than you’re going to get. One day I’ll make you believe it.”

Kaz didn’t say anything, didn’t so much as breathe, not until she dropped through the window and out of sight. He stared at the spot she’d left behind. There was no trace of her, nothing he could point to to prove she was there. Only the catch in his breath and the chill on his skin. 

—

It was something he’d almost gotten used to by now. The smell. Saltwater had been one of the first things he’d learned to endure. Success and revenge both relied on the seas, so he’d spent as much time by the water as he could, until he could tolerate the scent without having to empty the contents of his stomach after so much as a whiff. It had been a lesson, he’d told himself. Every time served as a reminder that in order to beat Rollins, he’d need to leave the broken child behind. He’d need to become something better. Someone new. 

He didn’t know if it was the smell now that was nauseating, or the sight of the boat anchored on the harbor carrying Ravka’s double eagle flag. Inej’s parents had already begun making their way to the dock. Jesper and Wylan had given their heartfelt goodbyes back at the house; Kaz had said nothing, but followed a step behind them, just as he had upon their arrival. Inej never stopped him. He took her silence as an invitation. 

They’d passed The Wraith on their walk, and now his eyes kept trying to drag him back to it. Her ship turned his body and mind into a contradiction, elicited responses that shouldn’t have coexisted. Pride and fear, joy and sorrow, guilt and righteousness. It tempted him like a puzzle he wasn’t clever enough to solve, made him think that if he just kept looking, he might be able to sort it all out. To find an answer to a question he couldn’t ever ask. 

“You’ll watch over it when I’m gone?” He turned to face her, unsurprised that she followed his gaze even when the boat lay out of view. 

“Of course. I don’t abandon my investments.”

“Tell Specht he can start trying to put together a potential crew while I’m away. And that he’s got the job as my first mate if he wants it.”

“I’ll pass the word along.”

“Tell him to look into the girls first. The ones from the Menagerie.” 

“They may be hard to find,” he said casually. “Now that Heleen is shut down, most are scattered to the wind.”

“Then it’s a good thing he’ll have you.” Kaz raised an eyebrow at her, and she rolled her eyes. “I know you’ve kept tabs on them. Offered a place in the Slat, a new name and fresh start. Offered them a ticket home, too, if they have one.”

“I work for The Wraith,” he said in response. “She expects me to rid the world of evil women and men. Can’t do that if the girls have nowhere else to go.”

“What a formidable employer.”

Kaz smirked. “Rumor has it she’s got heartsick fools wrapped around her pinky, and slavers and scum crushed beneath her fist.”

“Is that so?”

“If the whispers are to be believed.”

“Sounds like a handful.”

“Only for the scum.”

“And for the heartsick fools?”

Sincerity slipped back in and he let it, forgoed the smirk and the sarcasm entirely. “For them, it’s an honor.”

Her own smile faded, and he wondered if he’d made a mistake. If the price of genuity was her laughter and lack of tension in her shoulders, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to pay it. “When I return — and I will, no matter what my parents tell themselves — who am I going to find?”

He wanted to tell her that he’d be the same person she left behind. That she could dock her ship and they could walk besides one another the way they have before, that nothing had to change if they didn’t want it to. But that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. And maybe, despite his own internal protests, that wasn’t the truth, either. 

For as long as Kaz Brekker had been alive, he’d had one singular purpose. Every choice and decision, every move he made, was done in service of that goal, the heist within all the heists. Brick by brick required time and diligence, so much so that it hadn’t left room for an after. It didn’t matter what name he used; the dominance, the relevance, the very existence of Pekka Rollins was never going to survive. Until the dust settled and he was still standing, Kaz didn’t think he would, either. 

But here he stood. And here she stood. The waves crashed against the harbor behind her, each one with a different incentive: the threat of drowning, the promise of infinite possibilities, the rueful fate awaiting any who would seek to control them. The sea dragged out what was left inside the infamous Kaz Brekker as easily as it pulled in the tide. In its wake, a rare type of tranquility remained. He had no plan, no scheme. There was only one thing left to give.

“I’m not sure,” he told her. He prayed she could hear the truth in his words. “But I know that each time you traverse the seas, I’ll be here on the shore. And whenever and wherever you decide to land, I’ll be there. Anything you need — support, supplies, a place to lie your head — you’ll have. What’s mine is yours. It always was. It always will be.”

Inej stared at him. If they were other people, he knew this would be the time for desperate hugs, for clinging to one another in some last ditch effort to fight off the sands of time. But they weren’t other people. They were Kaz and Inej. Products of the Barrel. Broken in all the same places. And he wasn’t sure he could handle holding onto her just to let her go. 

So they watched. Her eyes held the kind of radiance that the poets preached about. The wind pushed her braid back just slightly, as if it was trying to pull her toward the sea. The hilts of her knives glistened in the sun, peeking out only in places where he knew to look. If he was a religious man, he’d tell her she looked like a goddess, a deity escaped from whatever world lay beyond their own. If he followed the faith, he’d tell her that no saint, not even the one blessed with sunlight, could possibly outshine her. If he wasn’t a coward, he’d confess that he had already begun to pray for her, to beg the water to bend to her will, to keep her ship and her mission and her body and soul all in one piece. 

Years of walls crumbled under the weight of her gaze, and he let them with no resistance. He wasn’t sure what she saw when she looked at him, but he hoped she could hear the words he could not say. And the selfish, undeserving part of him wished she’d feel the same. 

The blaring horn from the ship fractured the moment. Neither of them flinched, but he watched her turn back, glance behind her at the vessel waiting to take her home. 

“I should probably go,” she said, but her feet stayed planted, her eyes already back on him. 

Courage came in the form of fear, his desperation to keep her in front of him shoving out words he hadn’t planned on saying. “When you return, who am I going to find?”

“I’m not sure.” She spoke slowly, and he wondered whether admitting it came with the same distress, the same relief, as it did for him. “But no matter what happens, I can promise you that I’ll come back. Not just to Ketterdam, or my ship. I’ll come back to you.”

“Why?” He felt sliced open just asking. No one else had ever had so many chances to destroy him without taking a single one. Part of him wondered when the shoe would drop, when the inevitable would happen and she’d turn her knife against him. How would her face look when she had his life in her hands? How long would it take her to realize he would welcome death with open arms rather than resist her? Kaz could think of no better way to die, no better way to live, than at her mercy. 

“A shadow,” Inej answered with a smile, “can only stray so far before the sun pulls it back where it belongs.”

He shook his head. “I’m the shadow; you’re the one who deserves to walk freely of me.”

She stepped closer, and his breath caught in his chest, sat right above his heart in glorious, agonizing anticipation. “Then every night I’ll pray for shade, so us figments of the dark can disappear together.”

Inej reached up, and it was only then that he noticed the gloves on her hands, thin and sleek, the same color black as his own. Despite the barrier, his heart still fluttered when she brought her hand up to his chin. She stood like that for a minute, her eyes searching for permission, and Kaz didn’t know what she was asking for but the answer would always be yes, yes, yes. 

Leaning toward him, she turned his head slightly, brought her lips to his cheek. They only touched for a second, maybe two, but it was enough to elicit another internal vow. He would find a way to fix as many of his jagged, shattered parts as he could, because the next time she brought her lips to his skin, he wanted to feel euphoria unburdened by anything else.

“I know I’ve said it before,” she whispered, “but thank you. For all of it.”

Whatever words, whatever courage he might have had, evaporated as quickly as it had come. The ship horn blared again but he kept his gaze steady, stole one last look, memorized the moment before it could fade. Inej lingered, as if she was doing the same, before she took a breath and turned around. 

Kaz watched. He watched her board the ship side by side with her parents. He watched her turn back as it began to pull away, the lone traveler facing Ketterdam rather than the endless sea. He watched until the ship disappeared into the horizon, the sight of it swallowed up by the glare of the sun. And even when it was gone, he watched for just a little bit longer, as if his eyes could carry her across the sea and into the safety that only existed in dreams and on a stage.

Turning around still hurt. Part of him longed to stay anchored to the harbor, to wait for her in the very spot she’d left him. But instead, he pulled his watch out of his pocket and began walking toward the Barrel. There was no time for standing around and waiting patiently. Not when he worked for The Wraith. She expected him to scrub their dirty home clean, and despite all his failings, Kaz Brekker refused to disappoint. 

[trassellynn]

Post series Wylan comforting Jesper during his bouts of restlessness/anxiety?

Hi Anon! Here we are, hope you’ll like it! WRITING TO FEEL BETTER  When he entered the house, Jesper rapidly and silently walked towards the staircase, hoping Wylan wouldn't have heard him. He didn't want to make him worry and he was terrible at lying about his feelings. Wy would have immediately noticed something was wrong with him. He had almost reached the first floor, when the redhead's voice called for him. "Hey, Jes!" The sharpshooter felt his own heart sink. He grabbed the handrail, closing his eyes and sighing. "Jes?" Jesper turned his head, trying to put a fake smile on: "Hey, Wy. How was your day?" "Good" the younger boy replied, slowly reaching him. "I received a letter from Nina and Matthias...  I waited for you to read it, but... are you okay?" "I..." an unpleasant lump started to torment the tall boy's throat.   "I need to stay alone, sorry..." He ran into his room (well... their room) and he laid face down on the bed, hiding his face on the mattress and letting a suffocate cry out, his hands clenching his thick, black curls. Those days had been horrible. And he tried, he tried to hide all his sadness and frustration, but his negative feelings eventually found a way to burst out. He thought it would have been a great idea, starting the university again, he thought he would have been able to handle studies, the training of his Grisha abilities and the business he and Wylan managed together. For the first period he actually did a very good job but, during the last weeks, he started to struggle. It was quite hard, to him, sitting for hours on a desk, trying to listen to the lesson while his mind was distracted by thousands, different stimuli and his thoughts were mostly about the training that was waiting for him in the afternoon. He followed the professor's words for the first, few minutes, and he ended up wondering what Fiona, his Materialki teacher, had prepared for him. And, after lesson, he felt guilty for having pay a little attention and his sense of guilt had soon started to affect his training. He kept on like these for days, until that afternoon, where he had an outburst and ended up arguing with Fiona. The woman was a very good teacher. She was a bit severe, but always just, and much more empathetic than she seemed. Jesper knew she was only there to help him and she didn't deserve his rage and frustration. I ruined everything, he thought. I ruined everything, as usual. I'm a disaster... “Jes...” The boy tried to wipe his tears, without changing his position. Wylan laid next to him, his hands rubbing the older boy's back. “Jes, what happened?” The Fabrikator sniffled: “I am a failure, okay? I am a pathetic, useless, incompetent being, that's what happens! I try, Wy, okay? I always try to do something good, but I always fail, I cannot help but disappoint everyone who cares about me! I am unable to follow a single lesson without getting lost in my thoughts. I am making messes during the training and I am a terrible student to Fiona! I bet she will kick me out of her class, after what I yelled her today! And she would be right! If I were her, I wouldn't loose my time with an ungrateful idiot! I... I...” He hid his face against Wylan's shoulder, bursting into tears. They hugged, laid on the bed, Wylan's hands gently caressing his hair and back. He let Jesper vent his tears and frustration for a while, then, he started talking him in a soft, gently manner. “It's a bad period, Jes... it can happen to anyone. It doesn't mean you're failing or disappointing anyone.” “Fiona was mad” the boy sobbed. “She's disappointed for sure...” “I'm sure Fiona believes in you. Like your father does. Like I do. Like my mother and our friends do. We all know the wonderful person you are, Jes. We cannot learn, if we never commit any mistake. And we wouldn't be humans. Hey, you know what? We can try a little trick Inej taught me: I'll bring you a copybook and a pencil and you'll write short letters to anyone you want. And in each letter, you will tell one or more of your painful thoughts, explaining what has happened, why do you feel like this and then adding a little positive thing. Meanwhile, I'll make you some tea.” Jesper rubbed his eyes with his hands, then, he sighed: “Okay.” It was quite easy writing the negative thoughts on the first part of the letters, while he struggles a lot trying to find a positive thing to add. Sitting at the dining table, Jesper soon filled several paper sheets. He wrote his first letter to his dad, saying how demotivate he felt about his studies, and he closed it with “But I'm happy we'll come to visit you next week.” He then wrote to Inej, to Fiona, to Kuwei, to Kaz, to Nina, to Matthias and, eventually, to Wylan. His boyfriend sat next to him, giving him gentle caresses, hugs and kisses every time Jes stopped to take a break and a tear ran down his cheek. Somehow, writing down his thoughts, imagining his beloved ones' encouraging answers and taking pleasurable sips of hot tea, he felt his anxiety fading and he struggled less to find something positive to write. “Inej, I'm happy you will come to Ketterdam next month. Fiona, I am happy because you taught me how to stop several bullets at once into mid air. Kuwei, I'm happy your training is going well. Kaz, I'm happy you finally admitted you miss Inej, last evening. Nina, I'm happy because tomorrow morning I'll eat waffles and I'll think of you. Matthias, I'm happy you and Nina are making progresses in you mission. Wy, I'm happy I have you by my side.” “Come here” he whispered, once he finished, patting on his own knees. “Come here, Wy.” Wylan sat on his lap, wrapping his arms around the Fabrikator's neck and rubbing their noses together. “Do you feel better?” “A bit” Jesper answered. “Maybe I would feel even better with this...” He gently kissed the redhead's soft lips, holding him closer, while Wylan cupped his face with his hands. “I love you...” “I love you too, Jes. And I know you will never fail me. We have each other and, every time we'll fall, we will be able to rise again together.” Jesper tried to add something, when the doorbell rang. He felt quite surprised, seeing a well built woman in her forties, on the threshold. “Fiona?” he said. The teacher gave him a polite nod: “Hi, Jes. I hope I'm not disturbing.” “Oh... no, I was... I was drinking some tea with Wylan and... do you want to come in?” “No, thanks, I have some commissions to do. But I thought about your difficulties at the university, when you have to sit at your desk and stay still for one or two hours. I knew a boy who had your same problem and he found useful having his hands busy during a lesson. That's why I brought you this.” She gave him a little, wooden cube, with little push-buttons on each face. “Let's try it and tell me if you find it useful too.” “Oh... thank you... I...” He sighed: “Fiona, I'm sorry... I shouldn't have behaved like that, this afternoon...” Fiona smiled, giving him a gentle pat on his shoulder: “It's okay. We all have bad moments. Take care. Hope tomorrow afternoon things will be better.” “Who was it?” Wylan asked, once Jesper came back to the diningr room. “It was Fiona” the sharpshooter answered, sitting next to his boyfriend. “She... she isn't mad at me... and she didn't kick me out of her class.” Wylan smiled, kissing his cheek: “See? She wouldn't lose her time with a failure. She knows you can do it.” Jesper gently caressed the younger boy's cheek, playing with Fiona's cube with the free hand. “So” he finally said. “Didn't Nina and Matthis write us? I can't wait to read some news from them...” *** A little note: The detail of the cube is a reference to one of my friends, who has Jesper as her favourite character and she identifies a lot with him.  And Fiona is a character she created. 

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

Ace of Spades

This beautiful cover art was drawn by the talented @corpsecro​ !

AN: I am so sorry.

Chapter 4- Cloak of Lies

The Van Eck manor, tucked between the cobbled streets of Ketterdam’s Financial District, stood tall in all its four-story residential glory. 

Amongst the other identical alabaster homes, Jesper Fahey thought it looked like part of a set. Like how porcelain teacups came in sets of six; or how eight white pawns lined up neatly in front of the noble pieces before a game of chess. 

Each house on the street was trimmed with white Corinthian columns and black iron gates. The hedges always even, the gardens always pristine. Houses in this part of Ketterdam lined the well-kept streets like dolls on a shelf.

Dolls on a shelf, he thought again with a snort, kicking a loose pebble in front of him.

Even at this young hour of the night, the street was quiet and bore no signs of trouble. Jesper found the lack of trouble troubling, the silence suffocating. 

Or maybe it was the humidity that had turned his lungs to cotton—better still, his unabating guilt. 

Regardless, it all hung in the sea air like swathes of held breath as he wended his way back from the Crow Club. 

This cosy residential neighbourhood was a stark contrast from the Barrel, which seemed to always burst at the seams with life, a veritable kaleidoscope of colour and sound and motion.

Jesper’s ears rang from the nothingness of the street he now strode. A high, metallic sound needling at his head as he walked home. As if his body rejected such serenity.

He felt like he'd been coated in sugary syrup from a stack of stroopwafels. All the night's events sticky and clinging to him. As did the smell of gin and cigar smoke from the club. He couldn't seem to get the viscid feeling off his skin, and that smell off his red velvet jacket.

The tables had sung to Jesper again tonight. A sweet sound he hadn't heard in months. He’d found it irresistible. He did so love music. 

It was a shame. He’d been doing well there for a while. He had been in control. Riding the high of the heist, he didn't feel the itch as much. 

Of course, it never went away, this itch—not really. But with the heady balm of danger, the intoxicating thrill of taunting death with his pearl-handled revolvers, raging through a hellfire of bullets, the itch had been quietened. 

Jesper always could drown out the siren song of the tables with a good old-fashioned threat to his life. It was when things settled, however, that was always where the trouble began. 

And things had been settling for a while now. 

Jesper had tried to keep busy. He had the Dregs. He’d even taken up a few hobbies. But life for the Dregs became easy, his hobbies became plagued with the aftertaste of monotony, and all that control had slipped through his fingers like velvet plumes of smoke. 

Just like that, he was back to square one. Jesper knew it was bad and wrong and the whole reason he felt like he now needed to scrub his skin raw. But he couldn't help it. 

Three nights ago he'd gone into the Crow Club with a pocket full of kruge, and one split-second decision to sit at the green felted tables had left him drunk and penniless and riddled with shame by the end of the night.

He hadn't told anyone. Not a soul.

Not Kaz, who hadn't been around at the Club for the past five nights--gods only knew where he'd been slinking off to so secret-like. Probably somewhere shadier than a forest at twilight so he could marinate in plots of revenge and murder against any poor sod who might’ve done so much as accidentally bump his elbow the night before. Having said that, Jesper wasn’t entirely sure Kaz even had a soul to begin with, so perhaps even if he’d had the spine to tell him, Kaz would not count.

He hadn’t told Joh, the manor’s grumpy live-in chef, who made the most delectable pies and pastries, and with whom Jesper hung around when he wasn’t at work. Mainly for the pastries, of course—but also for someone to talk to. Even if that someone only tolerated him because he was romantically entangled with the person who paid his paycheck.

He hadn’t told Majda, the old Ravkan Grisha healer they’d hired as their live-in maid at Nina’s request. Jesper often confided in Majda. But he could not bring himself to confess to her this. Seeing the disappointment in her grandmother eyes would be too much for him.

Jesper had not even told Wylan, his beautiful, kind, brilliant love—who was, in no uncertain terms, too good for someone as broken as Jesper.

Wylan had been busy taking over his father's business. They'd swindled everything out of Jan Van Eck, that bastard. Including his lovely home. 

Jesper had moved in as soon as Wylan had asked. The boy had been shy and blushing when he’d finally worked up the nerve. Jesper had just grinned broadly and, taking his partner’s face in his hands, planted a kiss on Wylan’s carnation-pink lips. He swore Wylan had turned the colour of an embarrassed lobster. 

They’d spruced up the place over the following weeks. Despite the manor’s impressive size, they’d managed to turn it into their own cosy corner of the world. Then, Wylan had forged into the world of business, full steam ahead, building upon the foundations of his father’s empire. Unsurprisingly to Jesper, he’d turned it into something shining and marvellous, as only Wylan could. 

And Jesper had only gone and ruined things, as only Jesper could. 

For the third night in a row, Jesper climbed the rain-slick steps of the manor's front porch with a pounding headache and absolutely no kruge in his pockets. 

He took a deep breath before opening the door. It creaked on its old hinges as he padded over the threshold. Many more nights like this and Jesper would have to remember to oil those down. 

Jesper kicked himself internally. There wouldn’t be any more nights like this. This would be the last. He swore it on his own grave. Although, at this rate, he might be penniless enough not to have one of those either.

The house was as dark and quiet as the rest of the street outside, save for the creak of the hinges, the click of the door as he shut it behind him, the snick of the lock. It was only ten and a half bells, but Jesper hoped against all hope that Wylan was already fast asleep. 

Then Jesper made his way to the kitchen. 

As if in anticipation of the four slices of bread he planned on scarfing down before his head hit the pillows, Jesper’s stomach growled. Loudly.

In that moment, Jesper also heard papers shuffling. He noticed one solitary light glowing in the kitchen. And Wylan—glasses on, wrapped snugly in his dressing robes, sitting at their kitchen table, which was covered in a tablecloth of sketches and blueprints.

Wylan looked up from the papers, lifting a disapproving brow. 

Jesper, frozen in a moment of icy trepidation, was suddenly very unsure of what to do with his hands. 

In that small window of time, Jesper knew Wylan saw right through him. Saw the state he was in, the events of the night playing out before them both like a moving picture they could not tear their eyes away from. He could probably even feel Jesper’s guilt, the very same molasses that coated his skin now seeping onto the sandalwood floors.

Jesper said nothing as he approached the bread box on the counter with caution.

“Where were you?” Wylan’s voice was eerily calm. It made every cell in Jesper’s body cringe. But with his back turned, perhaps he could hide his remorse a moment longer. He heard the gentle scrape of Wylan’s chair against the floor.

“The Club,” Jesper simply said, putting forth great effort to keep his voice even—casual. He reached for a knife and rolled it across his knuckles before taking out a loaf of sourdough. The portrait of ease, though he was indeed far from it. “Egan called in sick again. Had to cover his shift.” 

The lie felt like ash on Jesper’s tongue. He sliced into the bread, trying to ignore the heavy weight of Wylan’s eyes on the back of his neck.

“You didn’t tell me,” Wylan said. “I was worried.”

Jesper cut three slices. His appetite, it seemed, had decided four was too many. Too even. Too much like a set of teacups. 

“Sorry, I forgot to send word.” He turned, holding a piece of bread in his hands, facing Wylan at last. Wylan had deserted his seat at the table. Now leaning against it, arms crossed, he examined Jesper with the kind of scrupulousness that made the sharpshooter fidget. 

Two could play at that game, Jesper decided. As he took a bite of bread, he studied Wylan’s face. 

Drawn and haggard, like he hadn’t seen a day of sun in weeks—this made all the more discernible by the yellow wash of light staining the kitchen gloom. Jesper had half a mind to pump Wylan with every citrus juice they had in their fridge at that very moment.

The boy’s hair was a violent sea of ruddy curls, standing on end and every which way, as if he’d been dragging a ceaseless hand through it. No doubt evidence of all the long hours spent cooped up in that horrible, stuffy office. 

His partner’s eyes were wide and blooming cornflowers. 

Beautiful, Jesper thought on a whim. Though Wylan’s eyes were always beautiful. The thought made it that much harder to lie. 

“I’ll be better next time,” Jesper told him. “Promise.” Lies. His skin crawled with them now, but this did not surprise Jesper. He’d been wearing his lies like a second skin for weeks. He only wished they’d keep him warm. Perhaps he’d fashion himself a cloak.

Wylan shifted, crossing his arms over his chest. “It wouldn’t bother me so much,” he said, “If I believed that’s really what you were doing.”

Instead of defending himself, Jesper tore off another big bite of sourdough. To buy himself more time, yes, but also because he needed to be more sober for this discussion. 

Or perhaps he needed to be more drunk. There must be a bottle of brandy or a vat of cough syrup somewhere in their kitchen…

He needed to say something.

Jesper swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”

Wylan speared him a look. “You know what I mean, Jes.”

“No, Wy.” Jesper’s tone was more acidic than he intended. He tried to hide his wince by reaching for another slice of bread on the counter behind him. “I think you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“You come home much later than the end of your shift. You smell like smoke and liquor. What am I supposed to assume?”

“I dunno.” Jesper lifted a shoulder, an unbothered gesture. “That I’ve been working? I can’t help that you don’t like the way my place of employment smells. Would you prefer I get a job at the local candle shop instead?” He tried to sound teasing, tried to make light of the situation. But all he sounded like right now was cruel. 

Jesper found he couldn’t meet the other boy’s piercing glare. So he took another bite of bread. Chewed. Swallowed. It tasted like nothing and felt like gravel scraping down his throat.

“You think this is funny?” Wylan’s jaw clenched. “You think this is some kind of joke?” 

“I think giving up the well-paying job I have now to sell scented candles down at the market would be a joke,” Jesper said. “But if that’s what you want me to—”

“I know Egan isn’t sick.” 

Silence dropped heavy like a stone in water, and rippled for a few beats across the room. Jesper risked a glance at Wylan. The boy’s forehead was creased with concerned crags; he chewed the inside of his cheek like it was a wad of jurda blossoms and he needed to pull an all-nighter.

“You’ve been at the tables, haven’t you?” It wasn’t harsh, this accusation. It was quiet, understanding.

Nonetheless, Jesper’s heart raced, as one’s does when they’ve been caught doing something they’re not meant to be doing. It wasn’t the good kind of adrenaline rush. He felt sick. Jesper opened his mouth, then closed it, fumbling for a response. Any response. 

Finally, Jesper sputtered, “So what—you’re spying on me now?”

“No,” Wylan huffed. “Egan showed up at the office today, keen on working the docks when he’s not at the Club for a bit of extra cash. He was a touch confused when I asked him how he was feeling.”

Jesper’s smile was tight. “Must’ve been Agar’s shift I was covering for, then. Can never keep those two straight.”

“Don’t lie to me, Jesper.”

“Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, Wylan.” 

Wylan flinched. Recoiled like Jesper had slapped him. Wylan stared and stared at Jesper, those eyes no longer fields of cornflowers, but deep, yawning trenches—wounds in the ocean floor. 

“Where exactly is it you reckon I belong, then?” Wylan asked. 

Jesper scoffed. “Not in my business, that’s for sure.”

Wylan’s bottom lip trembled. “You are my business, Jesper.”

Really, this should be an incredibly romantic confession. For the people of Kerch worshipped Ghezen, the god of trade and commerce. They revered all affairs of business. 

And since Wylan was Kerch, saying Jesper was his business was, for all intents and purposes, rather like saying Jesper was his religion.

The joke was on the tip of Jesper’s tongue, but he stopped himself. Wylan looked neither amorous nor in the mood for witticisms. He looked rather ready to nail Jesper’s balls to the wall. 

Understandable, Jesper thought. For all the shame he felt, Jesper might let Wylan do just that without so much as a complaint. But it was much easier to be angry than to accept the sympathy he didn’t think he deserved.

“Really?” Jesper railed instead. “I’d rather thought I was your side hustle. Since you’re only ever around when you need something from me.” 

Horrible. That’s what Jesper was. Horrible, stinking, rotten—

“You’re not my side anything!” Wylan’s voice broke on that last word, and Jesper’s heart followed suit at the sound.“Look,” his partner said, “I know I’ve been busy, but I can change that. I’ll take time off work. I’ll work from home. I’ll— let me help you, Jesper.”

The former demolitionist took a step forward, reaching out an arm as if to comfort him, then retracting it, as if touching Jesper right now would be just as disappointing as seeing him this way. Jesper could not say he blamed him. 

Wylan sighed, his arm dropping to his side. He raked his hand through his hair for probably the umpteenth time that night. His voice came out barely above a whisper when he said, “I want to help. I deserve to be able to help you when you need it.”

He was right. Jesper knew he was right. 

Say it, something in his mind begged. Tell him he’s right and you’re sorry. 

But Jesper only frowned, shoving the thought aside. 

Because Jesper wasn’t just sorry. He was wrong. In every way—wrong and broken and no good. And very morose, apparently. 

All Jesper could think was that Wylan deserved everything, and Jesper could hardly offer him anything. 

“Well?” Wylan interrupted his spiralling train of thought. “Say something.”

Jesper threw his hands in the air. “What do you want me to say, Wylan?” he strained. “That I love coming home to this big, empty house on this big, empty street? That I love our ten-minute inane conversations at the start and end of every day? ‘How was your day, honey?’ ‘Oh, mine was swell. How was yours, sweetheart?’ ‘Mine was swell too, thank you for asking’. The same thing, over and over again. It’s all so… so—”

“So what?”

“So boring!”

The look that crossed Wylan’s face was somewhere between devastation and bewilderment. Jesper wanted to gobble the words back up quicker than a trough of waffles.

“You’re... bored? I thought you liked it here.”

He did. Jesper more than liked it. He loved being wherever Wylan was, really. But here in this cookie-cutter neighbourhood, with all its soft pastels and even numbers, Jesper was always the seventh teacup in the set of six. 

No, scratch that. He wasn’t even a teacup. He was a godsdamned gilded tankard with a ruby-encrusted handle, debauching the dainty tea party with his gaudiness, staining the lace doilies with his red wine.

Not that he minded this, of course. He hardly noticed how not-very-much-at-all he blended in. If it made him happy to do so, Jesper would wear lime green and tangerine through these streets of beige and white without apology. 

Drunk and full of shame and feeling the full weight of the other boy’s disappointment heavy on his shoulders, though, it was very easy for Jesper to pin the blame on this new life they’d been living. 

An easy explanation for something that was so very hard to explain. It was the reason people would expect. And people always expected a reason for failure. It would be easier this way.

The easy thing to say and the true thing were often not the same, however. Admitting you did not know the reason for something was always harder than spinning a fabric of truth with threads of white lies to explain it away. 

Jesper did not know what his reason was. He did not know why he’d gone back to the tables, why he’d failed so miserably. He hadn’t been able to confront it these past three nights. 

But he knew the reason wasn’t Wylan. He knew it hadn’t anything to do with him or their life together.

Say it.

Jesper hated that he snorted. He hated that he said, “That’s like asking if I enjoy endlessly banging my head against a wall.”

He could feel Wylan’s hurt like a punch to his own stomach from across the room. It left him winded. And because Jesper was the worst kind of coward, he didn’t meet Wylan’s eyes. 

Instead, he focused on the lapels of Wylan’s dressing gown, which Jesper had once compared to dirty meringues because they were grey and poofy. The comparison, when he’d first made it, had made Wylan laugh, and he’d told Jesper to go get something to eat before he started gnawing on his very expensive robe. 

Jesper had scoffed and told him he would never stoop so low as to eat dirty meringues, or ruin a good cashmere garment for that matter. But the boy had merely laughed harder, then reminded Jesper of the time he’d dropped a whole plate of lasagna and shamelessly licked the floor clean all the same. 

It had taken Jesper a moment to respond because he’d been beguiled when he looked at Wylan--all pink in the cheeks and giggling at the memory. 

And when Wylan had asked what Jesper was staring at, Jesper had responded, “Your stupid face.”

Wylan had snatched a pillow from the pile on their bed and chucked it at him, probably to keep Jesper from seeing his raging blush. But Jesper saw, and he’d known then. That he was in love with Wylan.

Jesper shook his head of the reverie. 

Wylan was looking down at his perpetually ink-stained hands now. After a moment, he said, “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Yeah, well.” Nausea curdled Jesper’s stomach. “What did you expect?”

“Do you want to move out?”

Jesper’s eyes snapped up. 

Wylan’s jaw set, his spine steeled, and he looked down his nose at Jesper the same way every pompous prick in this neighbourhood looked at him. Usually, Jesper relished the way they sniffled. Laughed at it, even. Except Jesper didn’t feel much like laughing now. He didn’t relish the way Wylan looked at him like this. 

“Do you want me to move out?” Jesper asked, a pit sinking in his stomach.

“Well, you don’t like it here,” Wylan reasoned. “You don’t like this house or this neighbourhood. You said you’re bored by it and by me. You won’t let me help you, and personally, I don’t want to watch you destroy yourself.” Wylan crossed his arms. “So I don’t see why you should stay.”

“You’re kicking me out.” It was almost a question, but it came out like a challenge. Like a dare Jesper nearly wished he would take. “Because of one night at the tables?”

“Three nights, Jesper,” Wylan said. “And that’s not the point. I don’t care how many nights it’s been. I offered you help. I want to help, and you—”

“I don’t need your help,” Jesper growled. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.” Wylan was nearly shouting now. “You’re lying to me and you’re lying to yourself and you know it.”

“I can handle myself, thanks.”

“Clearly,” Wylan scoffed, his tone drenched in sarcasm. “How much money did you lose tonight, Jesper?”

“Why does it matter? We’ve got loads of money.”

“We’ve got loads now. What happens after that runs out? You suppose I’ll support your spending habits with my business? Because I won’t. And then what? We might have Barrel Bosses kicking our doors in and breaking our legs for the money you owe.”

“I’ve only been at the Crow Club,” Jesper groused. “Kaz would never do that.”

At this, Wylan Van Sunshine barked a sardonic laugh. “Kaz Brekker? You don’t think Kaz Brekker, otherwise known as Dirtyhands, would break our legs for your debts? You do remember he once ripped out a man’s eyeball with his bare hands, don’t you?”

“Pretty sure he had his gloves on when he did that,” Jesper mumbled.

Wylan ignored him. “I suppose you think you could take him, then?” 

“I’d be willing to bet on myself.” Jesper shrugged. Lies, so many lies. He might as well be licking the hearth for the way his mouth tasted.

“You sure about that?” Wylan sneered. “Because you don’t exactly have the best track record for betting on the winning horse.” 

Jesper blinked. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or feel offended by the jab. He was tempted to let the boy continue. He’d never gotten this much lip from Wylan, and he was curious to see what else he could stir up.

There was definitely something not right with Jesper.

Wylan barreled on, “In fact, I’d be willing to bet Kaz would break your legs just for going back to the tables. He’d break mine, too, for letting you.” 

Then, a look of realisation struck Wylan’s face, and he gasped. “He doesn’t know.”

“No one knows,” Jesper said with a scowl. “Apart from meddling meddlers like yourself.”

“Fine,” Wylan said, gathering the papers still spread out on the table into an organized stack. “I won’t meddle. I won’t even tell Kaz if you don’t want me to. Just don’t burden me with your inevitable slew of debt collectors.”

Jesper felt like he’d been kicked in the chest. By an ox or a very strong mule. He could barely muster the breath to say, “So that’s it then? You’re kicking me out because I’m a burden.”

Wylan tapped the stack of parchment against the table twice to even the edges, then pocketed his glasses in his dressing gown. “Do what you want Jesper. I’m going to bed.”

“And I supposed I’m not welcome there anymore, am I? Because I’m kicked out. Because I’m a burden.”

Wylan fixed him with a look. “Spare me, Jesper,” he said, and promptly quit the room.

Jesper stalked after him into the foyer. But as Wylan turned to take the stairs up to their room, Jesper ripped the front door open. 

“Fine,” he threw over his shoulder at the other boy. “I’m going to find something more interesting to do.”

The last thing Jesper saw before he slammed the door behind him was Wylan’s figure, back turned and shoulders slumped, paused halfway up the stairs.

♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎

There was no longer a sticky, syrupy feeling on Jesper’s skin as he stomped back down the deserted residential street towards the Barrel. Now, the feeling was more like he’d rolled around in an ant pile whilst covered in syrup. 

Which was decidedly the worse of the two, if he had to choose.

There was also a roaring in Jesper’s ears, and he couldn’t decide if this was better than the tinny ringing, or so so much worse. He would have much preferred both the ringing and the roaring, however, over what now rattled through his head.

You’ve been at the tables, haven’t you?

Let me help you, Jesper.

Don’t lie to me, Jesper.

I thought you liked it here.

I don’t see why you should stay. 

You’re lying.

Fine. Do what you want.

Just don’t burden me.

Just don’t burden me.

Just don’t burden me.

Wylan’s voice clanged through him, a cacophony of his worst nightmares come to life, manifested in a vicious wheel of jagged teeth circling his head like a drain. 

Jesper had no one to blame but himself. Wylan had merely said what Jesper had pushed him to say, the things Jesper already knew to be true. 

All the same, it didn’t hurt any less hearing them.

Jesper should bang his head against the wall to quiet his thoughts. Jesper should go back to the Crow Club and show Wylan just how much of a burden he could truly be. But that had to be his most stupid idea yet. 

You know who isn’t stupid? Jesper thought. Kaz.

He hadn’t seen Kaz in a while. He’d been too busy trying not to fail, trying to be good enough for Wylan. But Kaz was not good, so Jesper needn’t pretend to be around him.

Kaz was also always scheming. He’d give Jesper a job. Maybe then, with a job and danger and two pistols under his belt, Jesper could be better. For Wylan.

♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎♠︎

AN: I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry! The angst is real and it hurts and all will be righted soon I promise (unless it is very very wronged, in which case I will have a lot more apologising to do). But how bout Wylan laughing sardonically, tho? Because honestly, I think it’s a look. 

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed. More chapters to come soon- if you want to be tagged in future chapter updates, feel free to shoot me a message/ask and I’ll add you to the tag list 🖤💫

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[boxoftheskyking]

for the winter/holiday prompts! #8! but idk what fandoms you're into any more ):

I’m so sorry if you haven’t read/don’t like Six of Crows, but I’m doing a reread so that’s where I’m at these days. Also my good friend is in labor right now, so my head’s on one track and I need some fluff.

-----

8. Eggnog has the word ‘egg’ in it. It’s practically a protein shake

“Are you afraid of Papa?” Nayalina asks, curiously.

Inej looks up from where she’s crouched by the lower door hinge, replacing the hardware to keep it from creaking in the night. She gently spits the screws from between her lips into her palm, silent against her half-fingered gloves.

“Why do you ask, meja? Are you?”

Naya laughs, her little voice trilling like a dozen birds on an island somewhere. “No! He says I’m the only one in the whole world. Does that mean you’re afraid of him too?”

Inej narrows her eyes and tries to remember the last time she spoke to a five-year-old who wasn’t her daughter. An occasion doesn’t immediately spring to mind, so she shrugs internally and goes to sit beside her on the bed. It’s been a common feeling around the Slat for the last few years, no one quite sure what’s appropriate for her to see and hear, but she thinks they’re doing all right. We know what not to do, Kaz had said, trying to mask his own obvious terror as Nina set the little bundle in his arms for the first time. Maybe not obvious to everyone, but she’s known him for over half her life. The fear was obvious to her, and not unfamiliar.

“Sometimes I am afraid of him,” she admits. “But I know he won’t hurt you or me. You know this, right?”

Naya laughs again. “Of course not! Anyway, he couldn’t hurt me if he tried.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

Naya leans close and whispers, “I am a powerful Grisha.”

“Are you really?” Inej keeps a straight face with some effort. “And why have I not heard of this before?”

“It’s a secret.”

“But Mama knows all the secrets, remember?

Naya frowns. “I forgot about that. I guess you can know.”

“And what is your Grisha power? Are you a fearsome heartrender like Nina? A clever fabrikator like Jesper?”

“I can grow a tree,” Naya says matter of factly. “I can point my finger, and a tree will grow right there. And if I point at a person, they will become a tree and cannot hurt me.” She points at the floor to demonstrate. Inej drops down into a crouch and peeks under the rug. 

“I don’t see one.”

“I’m not using it now, silly Mama! If I grow a tree in the house, it will break the roof!”

Inej laughs and pounces back on the bed, wrapping her arms around the tiny girl. 

Do you think she’s too small? She’d asked Kaz the week before. The other children she plays with seem so big compared to her. Are we feeding her enough?

If we feed her anymore we’ll have to do it by boatload, he’d said, knocking his hip against hers and dropping into the desk chair. You worry too much. And you’ve only got about six inches on her, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about.

She’d pushed his ledger off the desk with the tip of her toe and swung out the window. Kaz Brekker, teasing.

She won’t admit it to him—though she’s certain he knows—but she feels the years in her hips and ankles more and more these days. There are other spiders, now, who she used to think of as children in the days before she had her own. But she’s a few years away from being stuck on the ground. The half-gloves she wears now are her only visible concession to palms and joints that need extra support.

Do you think she’s a fool? Kaz asked yesterday. They’d just put Naya to bed, letting her tell them another story of magic and flying ships and talking animals. Inej isn’t sure where it all comes from—certainly her godfathers enjoy telling her tall tales, but there’s a lightness and cheerfulness to her stories that feels so out of place in the Barrel. Again, she wonders if they should have moved to another part of the city when Naya was born.

I think she’s happy.

Kaz had drummed his fingers against her shin. Too happy?

What do you mean?

I mean we were never— He’d swallowed and looked past her, through the wall, to a pair of little boys drinking chocolate. Do you think she’s too old to be so— you know.

Inej had run her fingers through his hair, rubbing her thumb over the small patch of grey at his temple. I think we survived all we did so our daughter can be a fool if she wants to.

Kaz had nodded, still not looking at her. I—

Worry too much. She’d kissed his cheek and rolled off the bed to grab a nightshirt.

“Thank you for not destroying the house, sweet one,” she says now, sticking her tongue between her teeth.

“You don’t believe me! You’re making fun of me,” Naya pouts.

“Never!” Inej begins to tickle her sides, setting off more tropical-bird laughter.

“Mama, no!”

There’s a short laugh from the door. “Does someone dare attack the most powerful Grisha in Ketterdam?” Kaz rasps. His voice is deeper, authority sure and effortless, but there’s a particular voice she’d never heard before Naya was born that only comes out here, with just the three of them. “Here, little one, dinner.”

Naya pops up to her feet and runs to her father, dropping a kiss on his arm and grabbing the mug he holds out to her. 

“You knew about this Grisha thing?” Inej teases, and he flashes her a half-grin over Naya’s head.

“Eggnog!” Naya crows and drops down to sit on the floor and take a huge gulp.

“For dinner?”

The other half of Kaz’s lip twitches up. “There’s eggs in it.”

Inej rolls her eyes and slides past him, dropping the screws into his empty hands. “You finish fixing the door. I’m going to find this child a vegetable.”

“Eggnog is good, Mama!” 

“Not if you want to be big and strong like your Auntie Nina,” she calls back. As she hops onto the banister she hears Kaz’s voice from behind her: “Come here, little one, I’ll show you what to do with a screwdriver.”

She sighs, considers turning around and protesting, but leaves them to it. She slides down from the third floor, making enough of a breeze to lift her hair off her neck, and feels the best parts of sixteen again.

[kuiinncedes]

17 Questions: Opposite Edition

Thank you sm for tagging me @gleeincorrectquotes @justgleekout and @klainetrashnumberone!! ❤️❤️❤️

1. Name you wish you were called/name you would’ve been called if you were born the opposite gender:

Idk I’m fine with my name I feel like it fits me 🤷🏻‍♀️ cus it’s boring and I’m boring and I don’t know for the second one lol

2. Zodiac you vibe with:

I literally know almost nothing about zodiacs so like idk lmao

3. Height of the tallest person you know:

One of the teachers at my school (well ig my old school) is like close to 7 feet tall I think he’s a giant lmao

4. Love language:

I have no idea :D

5. Do you know about google scholar?

I think so?

6. Most annoying song to have stuck in your head:

Uhhh “honey I’m good” by Andy grammar i just got sick of it when I heard it on the radio 24/7 a few years ago lmao and idk there’s definitely others but I can’t think of them :P also I haven’t even heard this song in so long so idk how even thought of it 😂

7. What would you post if no one was following you on tumblr?

Like anything I want lol idk probably just the same as I'm doing now 🤷🏻‍♀️

8. Most sleep you’ve ever had:

Probably 12 hours lol idk definitely haven’t gotten that much recently 🥴

9. Do you have a lucky charm? Underwear, jewelry, etc.

Nope

10. Worst job imaginable?

Trash/sewage related stuff ig lol idk

11. What’s one thing you love about yourself?

Physically my hair I can’t really think of something else lol

12. Song that’s always on your playlist no matter how many you go through?

Every Taylor Swift song lol

13. The worst sound you’ve ever heard?

I can’t think of anything so 

14. What’s a trait you never want associated with you?

Mean or selfish?

15. Favorite artist?

Taylor Swift

16. Rats or crows?

...crows I guess specifically Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, Nina Zenik, Matthias Helvar, Jesper Fahey, and Wylan Van Eck

17. Something cliche:

Follow your dreams?

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Tags: sorry some of you’ve probably already been tagged 😬 (also it won’t be 17 lol) @porcelain-nightbird @blaineskurt @theyaskedmeto @bestbiiiitch @allthatisklaine @blaine-andersxn @blaineanderdumbass @curlyklaine @klainedrops-on-roses 💕💕