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[grimsonandclover]

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Sympathy is a knife.2

or; Wake up, I'm sorry.

Stanford!Tashi x tennis player!reader

Song of the post 'when you sleep - my bloody valentine'

Tashi Duncan visits you at the hospital. It could have been her.

SFW

2.4k words

you know the drill. injury, medical shit to the best of my ability which isnt a lot, tashi duncan being kinda gay??? homosexuality? in front of my salad? if you squint, reader being emo but like come on, hospitals, nurses, knee splints, DRUGS (the medical kind and morphine), reader is generally unwell but she also just came out of surgery, suicidal thoughts, more mentions of vicera, its the hospital episode (again) (like beach episodes but less horny and sexy and fanservicey more painful and ugly and intimate so nothing like a beach episode), enemies to idk what this is! I'm a native english speaker but i play fast and hard with the rules of the language (meaning i fuck up tenses a lot and don't catch it all in editing, but i know they're there so i think that makes it better), minimal use of Y/N but there are some points where I had to.

The steady rhythm of the heart rate monitor was the only indication that you were alive.

Tubes in your arm. Tubes in your throat. Hues of purple and yellow peaked from under the immobilizer brace and pins covering your leg and drainage tubes, matching with the same shades of color under your eyes.

Despite it all, she couldn't help but think you looked peaceful. You looked dead. The nurse said you were still knocked out from surgery and would be for a while. Tashi wondered if you were dreaming.

Tashi wondered if you always looked so lifeless in your sleep.

Her sepia eyes couldn't move from that leg. The bandaging, the knowing what's right under. She saw your soul, and then she saw your bones and blood. Tashi had cried in her mother's arms when it had fully hit her.

Tashi Duncan won the match. Your injury meant your forfeit. It didn't taste as sweet at she wanted, more bitter and even vexatious. She wanted to win through skill, not... this. It almost felt like you did this on purpose. You pitied her.

No, she knew that wasn't it. It was easier to blame you than accept the fate of an athlete. These things just... happen, sometimes. It could've been her, instead. But it wasn't. It was your bones that reached for the sunlight filtering down on the court amongst the blooming crimson, not hers. Tashi was here, standing before your resting form, with two perfectly functional knees.

When the nurse came and told her it was time to leave, and Tashi gathered her things from the small armchair in the corner of the room where she watched you from, she felt... strange. Changed.

The fan of your eyelashes on the tops of your cheeks, your pallor, the halo of hair framing your face and resting head. Those tubes. The IV. The heart rate monitor. The surgical steel pins securing your knee in place. Her eyes land on the small tattoo on your inner wrist, one she'd never noticed before. Tashi recognized them as your father's initials.

There was the girl she hated, softly asleep despite her surroundings. You almost looked beautiful, and then she got this feeling in her chest, and it startled her.

She pitied you.

Waking up was miserable. Your throat was dry like never before, the lights hurt your eyes worse than any hangover you've experienced, and the feeling of the scratchy hospital gown made you want to claw your skin off. You could hear your heart rate monitor, and in that moment you wished it would just flatline.

The sob that broke out, despite how dry you felt, when you saw the state of your knee, was ugly. Your nurse, Nurse Amanda, was a useless piece of shit. You had major respect for healthcare workers and everything that they have to go through on a daily basis, but Amanda could go fuck herself to hell. She's the one that had asked you for an autograph when you requested your brother's music to be played.

"Oh, your knee." She'd say casually while writing things down on a chart as disgusting, fat, blobs of salt ran down your face and chin and you tried to remember how to breathe properly. "Some physio and you'll be right back on the court or in the club. I'm sure."

"How," hiccup, "How much physio?" You try to wipe the tears, but more keep coming. It's like your eyes were sucking any moisture from your mouth and lips just to supply a fresh batch of them. Wasn't Amanda supposed to bring you water?

Fucking Amanda looks down at her chart, tapping a pen to her chin. You were on drugs, but no amount of them could completely rid the feeling of your knee and it freaked you out. Every time the corner of your eye caught on the metal pins that poked from it, you felt a shiver run through you. "About a year, possibly more, possibly less. It was a brutal break."

She covered her mouth sheepishly like she just told you the secret ingredient in a family recipe. "Oh, I shouldn't have said that."

No, she shouldn't have. It just makes you stare at your fucked leg even harder. It just makes the tears fall even more. The collar of your hospital gown, one a powder blue, now soaked a darker cornflower.

When Tashi returns, you've calmed down considerably-- mostly thanks to the increased dosage of morphine. It's been two days since, and it's actually hard to remember anything that happened that day. Or the day before, or when you first woke up this morning. God bless morphine.

Though you can't tell, Tashi hasn't changed from what she wore when she visited you yesterday. Nobody even told you that she came earlier, and she preferred it that way. She didn't know why she came back, or why her heart fluttered when the nurse told her that you'd woken up.

Tashi stood still at the door, and you lay exactly where you would stay for the foreseeable future on that damn hospital bed staring back at her. She noticed how you had such pained eyes. The harsh hospital light cast shadows from your browbones to your cheeks, draining color from your pupils. How'd she never seen it before? Words dried in her chest like withered flowers before they got the chance to bloom, and she could feel them sit there. Tashi honestly had no clue what she wanted to say. She could say "I'm sorry" or "Are you okay?" but those were useless words. She didn't like useless things.

When you spoke, and you spoke first after a long stretch of awkward silence and staring, your voice was clearer than it was earlier-- because Fucking Amanda finally remembered you might need hydrating after sobbing for three hours straight and major surgery. Despite that, you still spoke low and broken.

"What are you doing in New York?" She's meant to be back in France.

A pull between her eyebrows, like an invisible string being yanked. "What?"

You look aside at the circles of cleared dust. She heard you, you weren't that quiet.

"Fuck you." She slowly shakes her head. What she means is fuck you for questioning her, because she doesn't have a good answer. You can read between the lines.

You laugh at the suddenness of it, and then your head spins a little more. In a nice way, even though you're meant to be scared of her. "It's a reasonable question. You're meant to be playing against..."

"La Lourie."

"Right. Her. So, what are you doing in New York?" What are you doing here.

Tashi doesn't move from the door, arms crossed as her fingers pick at a loose string of her zip-up hoodie. She doesn't answer for a bit, eyes moving down to a spot on the floor. "I pulled out."

Your breath halts, looking up at her when her words pierce you like an arrow. You don't say anything, because really, you can't. What is there to say?

She finally steps in, leaning against the wall next to the door. An easy way out, and escape hatch. Tashi swallows thickly as the thread on the hoodie is pulled more and more. "I couldn't, uh," she blinks hard, shaking her head, "I couldn't go back out there. Not after that."

What an un-Tashi-like thing to say. She could've been in your place right now and she'd still get up and hobble to the courts, demanding someone play her. Yet, somehow, you ruined it for her. At least for now. She was meant to hate you.

"Your blood is... like, they cleaned it, but I swear I can still see it there. I had to leave."

"It's the French Open, Tashi--"

"And I'll win it next year. But, fuck, I can't play it now." she shakes her head with finality. "I tried, I went on the practice court but I could only picture you on the floor like that, crying and bloody and calling for your dad--"

Your eyes widen and your head snaps up to her. "What?"

The medical team rush from their tent onto the court, surrounding you almost the minute you crash and fall. You can't hear the scared murmurs of the croud, or the shaking breath of your opponent, or your own sobs. Just the blood rushing to your ears and out your knee.

Everyone saw how you clung to your leg, rocking back and forth on the clay. There's someone asking if you can move, someone calling for a stretcher. You just rock and cry.

"D-daddy," you whimper, eyes on the clear blue sky and swirling clouds as your vision blurs and doubles. "Dad, daddy where are you? I want my dad, I need my dad,"

The pain got so bad you stopped feeling it.

Those in the crowd who knew about your dad gasped. Amber stood frozen, watching, not knowing what the hell there was to do. Tashi couldn't feel her legs and her stomach turned. She ran off the court into the player's tunnel, spilling out into the first trashcan she could find. When they finally got you onto the stretcher and off the court, you'd passed out.

Naturally, it was all over the news. Players get injured all the time, but it wasn't often that players like you crashed and burned so brutally. News sites discussed and speculated in detail about the match, everything before, and everything after. TMZ reached out to Amber, who declined to give them any information, and even Tashi got called by a few publishers.

Amber came to your room an hour after Tashi left, rushing to your bedside as bombarding you with questions.

"Oh, fuck," She mumbled, looking over at the mess you were in. "Oh, fuck, I'm so sorry I didn't-- couldn't come sooner. I- I don't," words failed her. Sure, Amber was hard on you, and maybe she considered leaving your career in the hands of someone more emotionally capable very often, but she did care for you. Like a sick, twisted mother-daughter relationship despite the fact she was only a couple years older.

You could tell how hard she tried to not look at your leg, to keep her eyes focused on your top half. You could almost hear the anxiety going on inside that head of hers. The job insecurity must be wild. Where'd she get her check now?

Patrick was next. He almost threw up from a mix of the jet lag and seeing you. "Jesus fuck, Y/N."

He couldn't walk all the way in at first, staying by the door like Tashi had earlier. It was so much. "I got on a plane the second I could. God, this is sick."

It took him a while to come in and not feel faint, sitting by your bedside and not letting his eyes zero in on The Knee. Patrick wasn't a religious man, not by far, but he felt like praying for you.

Your mother was last. Nothing much to note there, it was a silent visit only interrupted by a call she 'had to take'. She didn't return. Seline sent a card which now lies facedown and unopened on the bedside table.

A hand on her shoulder startles Tashi from her vacant staring at her knee, a soft "We're here, Tash." from the driver's seat telling her they're home. It's been a week, now, since your fall. Looking up at the passenger's seat mirror, Tashi can see soft circles darkening under bloodshot eyes, a testament to the night terrors she's been greeted with every time she closes her eyes.

She was meant to move out ages ago from her childhood home but never quite got there. Art said it was because she was secretly sentimental, but Tashi just assumed it was cause her bed only felt right in that room. Nothing felt right, now.

Tashi helps her mother carry in the groceries, Nat and Renee bickering at the table about one thing or the other instead of helping. The older sister doesn't really hear, the words just pass through her as one bag, then another is set on the counters. She's asked to pick a side, the answer is a dismissive hand wave, their mother tells the twins to leave Tashi to breathe.

They've been tiptoeing around her all week but she's too zoned out to bother to tell them to stop. The truth is, Tashi doesn't feel like Tashi. She feels replaced, swapped out. A part of her kicks and screams at her for withdrawing from the Open, and everyone around her can tell.

Every time she sees her knees, she thinks about how it could've been her on the ground screaming, crying out for her mom or dad. Tennis was her fucking lifeline, thinking of it being ripped away like that in a blink of an eye... something in her head throbs and Tashi flops back onto her bed, staring at her blank ceiling.

She feels like she's swimming through life in a pool of shock. Nothing sounds full, everything feels slightly blurry against her skin. Art keeps calling and texting, asking if she's alright, if he should come over. She dismisses him every time. Her mother knows she needs her space to process everything, but now it feels like everything is giving her space. Too much space. She's suffocating.

Tashi forgot to ask for your number. She really wants to talk to you, despite it all. God, she can't even remember why she decided she hated you. Was there a reason at all? Did she hate you cause she felt like she had to, because everyone else did? It was like with Britney or Amy, watching them go through shit and instead of sympathizing, criticizing. Is that what Tashi was doing? Wasn't she better than that? Losing to you hurt, that was for sure, and she didn't exactly respect the DUI, but everything else... why did it matter so much to her?

All the shit-talking, all the tabloids about you she read, all the gossip she'd listen to intently from other players. It made her sick to think about, because now, and only now, she saw you as the person you were. It only took you losing it all for her to see.

Didn't her mother raise her better than that?

She grabs a pillow, pulling it over her face to block out the world. Downstairs she can hear the argument between Nat and Renee heat up, her father in the next room on a work call, her mother making fresh juice in the kitchen. The neighbor's dog, Lucky, is barking outside. Someone's starting a car. Art's new text buzzes her phone.

Tashi thinks about how the whole world moves on while you're stuck in that bed, and how it could have been her.

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[ashessonfire]

Part two of 'Intruder' <3

'Intruder' Kaz Brekker x Reader (part 2)

Prompt - A few months had passed since you stumbled into the crow club, leaving the crows curious as to who they were. How will the crows react to the most vulnerable secret of Kaz Brekker finally being revealed?

- Pairing: Kaz Brekker x Civilian!Reader (Gender neutral) - Warnings: none? again just Kaz being soft, some mentions of the break in but literally PURE FLUFF

A/N: Once again i am incredibly grateful for all the love and support, and hopefully i have done justice with this part two! it can be read as a stand alone, some of the context will be confusing, but hopefully still just as cute! if you haven't read the first part, you can find it here!!

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A couple of months had passed since your less than ideal first meeting with the crows. Since that frantic day, your locks had been switched to the latest designs, being inspected thoroughly by your lover until even he, the master of his trade, struggled to crack them.

Although you were still paranoid beyond belief each time you turned the key to your home, the knowledge that Kaz had thoroughly ensured your protection settled the nerves fluttering in your chest. Frequent visits from your husband weren’t unusual, often slipping away from his desk during the earliest hours to bask in your company, allowing you to bathe him with love and affection, something he had slowly accepted and found he thoroughly enjoyed, only on one condition.

It had to be from you.

But since that night, he came over more frequently, stopping off after heists with gifts he had ‘bought’, or dropping in to work on blueprints, stating that there was too much paper cluttering the desk in his usual space, making you smile at his blatant lies just to be closer to you.

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Kaz vigorously battled with his mind on the night you visited the crow club, having to repress his heart's wishes to stay with you, for your safety, and his peace of mind.

However, he dragged himself back, leg stiffening in the frigid air, sending sharp bolts of pain through to his bone. Yet that wasn’t what plagued the man as he limped back to the slat. What haunted him most was the idea that he would have to confront his crows about his one true weakness.

Evidently being you.

Kaz demanded each crow's presence, ordering them to his office as soon as the sun began to slowly bleed its light into the impenetrable darkness of Ketterdam. Once they were situated in the cramped room, he hardened his gaze and lowered his voice, morphing it into a deadly tone.

“I am aware that last night may have surprised you, however you are not to speak a word of it to anyone. Not to dregs, customers, or civilians. Do I make myself clear?” Kaz bit out, leading Jesper to swallow thickly, Nina to shift her gaze to the condensation on the windowpane, and Inej and Wylan to both find wonderfully interesting specks of dirt on the panels of the floor.

The crows remained true to their word, still in awe at the mysterious figure who seemed to have tamed the Bastard of the Barrel, but far more scared of the consequences that may come with disobeying their boss’s order. However, Kaz had made a grave mistake with his command, demanding your existence to remain unbeknownst to the dregs, but never specifying that they were forbidden from discussing you with each other.

You became somewhat of a legend amongst the crows, appearing frequently in gossip which they housed in their cramped rooms at the slat, waiting for the clicking sound of a cane and heavy footsteps to disappear into their owner’s office to begin discussion.

“How long do you reckon they've been together for? I mean, I have never seen Kaz holding anyone’s hand before,” Nina mumbled through a mouthful of pastry, whilst wearing a highly quizzical look.

Jesper smirked at the group, “How did Kaz even manage to find someone like that, furthermore, how did Kaz keep it a secret for so long?” the sharpshooter questioned, one eyebrow raised far above the other. “They seemed so lovely, its surprising Kaz would let someone like that so close to him,” Inej chimed in, sharing a similar curiosity towards you.

As the weeks rolled on, the crows began dropping subtle hints to their leader of their interest in meeting you formally, evidently following the rules of the warning he dealt on the night of the intrusion. Curiosity was consuming the group, and even Kaz couldn’t deny his intensifying wish to display his proudest achievement to his closest friends, his relationship with you.

Unbeknownst to the crows, you too had been troubling Kaz about meeting his friends, desperate to erase your first impression on them and truly show yourself, not the terrified stranger begging for comfort.

After several nights of thorough bargaining with your husband, he reluctantly agreed to introduce his group to you, on the condition that you would be far from the Barrel’s hotspots, somewhere unreachable by rival gang’s watchful eyes. Squeezing Kaz’s hands tight, and giving him an appreciative kiss, you bound off to prepare for tomorrows event, leaving a softly smiling husband in your wake.

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Kaz couldn’t decipher his emotions as they rushed through him at an alarming pace, feeling anxious, excited, and fearful all at once. The pair of you had settled for your favourite café, a small establishment on the outskirts of the city, residing on a flower ridden street, colourful lanterns hanging like falling stars from ropes above the houses. The sight was a direct juxtaposition of the intensity found in your husband’s usual Barrel life, but a contrast which never failed to warm Kaz’s heart whenever he stepped foot there with you.

Dressed in your finest, you waited anxiously at the largest table the cramped café had to offer, adorned with scented candles, besides an array of flowers you had picked early that morning, dew still dripping from a few of the glistening forget-me-nots. You sat beside Kaz, gripping tightly to his gloved hand, the other fidgeting with the edge of his coat as a distraction.

Kaz instantly picked up on your nervous state, squeezing your hand in reassurance and brushing a whisp of fallen hair out of your gently lit eyes, staring long enough to just catch the flicker of the candles within your irises. “They’re only my crew, darling. If they do anything wrong I will…” Kaz began, but he was cut short by your breathy laugh. Apparently, the wrath of your husband against those who threatened you extended even to his closest and most trustworthy companions.

The door swung open, revealing a well dressed set of crows, their eyes steering directly to the couple before they briskly made their way over to you. A sudden fear rose within you, but you refused to display the same expression you had at the crow club, willing to give your best performance until the feeling subsided. You shot each one a welcoming smile, exchanging pleasantries as they made themselves comfortable.

The fear shattered within you as you took each of the crow’s expressions in, which all seemed to strangely resemble awe? Excitement? Your initial confusion was brought to a standstill as Kaz turned to them, stating clearly, “Everyone, this is Y/N, my wife,” offering a tight-lipped smile to his friends.

Nina suddenly spat out her drink, eyes bulging as Jesper made a choking sound somewhere in the back of his throat. Inej and Wylan sat looking dumbfounded, the boy’s jaw hanging slightly open.

“Uhmm. Excuse me, let’s take a few steps back, shall we? Wife?!” Jesper exclaimed, completely in astonishment. Kaz took a deep breath in before tightening his hold on your hand, clearly apprehensive to reveal his most vulnerable softness to his friends, who had rarely seen more than a smirk from their stoic boss. As the crows gathered their thoughts and tried to configure logical reasoning as to what had been revealed, the elderly owner of the café hobbled over, giving Kaz a toothy grin.

“It’s been a while Mr Brekker! I was wondering when we would be graced with your presence again, I have already prepared your regular, peach pie with…” The woman began but was cut off sharply by a “Thank you,” from Kaz, as he turned his head to hide his embarrassment. Nina let out a snort as the other three simultaneously burst into giggles, causing you to fall victim to the contagiousness of the laughter.

By this point Kaz was beyond mortified, being called out as a ‘regular’ at a joyful family-run café at the edge of the Barrel, as well as having his guilty pleasure exposed to his crew who he was positive would never let this go.

Despite this humiliation, Kaz felt a drop of warmth seep into his chest at the sight of you conversing with his friends, immediately connecting with each one of them. He felt something moving inside of him, deciding it was probably you, chipping away at his apparently impenetrable walls.

As the late afternoon clouds faded into the evening haze, the group departed with delighted goodbyes and warm hugs, establishing the beginning of many trips to visit Kaz’s (now) not-so-secret wife. You left them armed with new candles for the slat, baked goods, and most impressively, trinkets from the market which you had bought personally for each crow, going solely off your husband's descriptions of each individual.

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A glowing warmth radiated from the couple as you both walked, fingers entwined, back to your home, taking in the constellations which lit up the tranquil streets you winded through. Kaz decided to reward himself with a rare but well-earnt night in, with the single intent of being doused in your affection.

Kaz smiled lovingly down at you, as you peacefully slept wrapped in his shirt and coat, wiped out by the intense emotions that poured through you that day.

Crouching down slowly, your husband fiddled with a stray piece of your hair, admiring how the serene glow from the fire softened your features, catching in your figure perfectly, framing your face in a halo of light.

He settled down next to you, exhausted but proud. Proud of how far you two had come, which flooded him with a sense of relief. Because as it turns out, his crows could undoubtedly see the same beauty he was blinded by within you.

And it was clear in this moment, both to him and his crew, that Kaz Brekker was more than just in love with you. His entire existence was plagued with sentiment for you, and for once Kaz couldn’t seem to view it as a weakness, rather a sign that something deep inside him was healing.

“I love you, darling of my heart,” Kaz whispered as he kissed you goodnight.

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tag list: @chaoticbeanz @kryptonitewizard @alanis-altair @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy <33

[bardofavon]

Do you have any favorite quote(s) from 'a good myth is hard to kill'?

I DO!!!!! it took me so long to answer this, sorry, it's because there's so many floating around in my head and I couldn't begin to think about where to start.

I really enjoyed the scene where Kaz and the Darkling expand the Fold for the first time. At the time I wrote it, I really loved this line:

And who would they pray to anyway? Kaz? Kaz, who watches?  Kaz, who says let the ones you love be swallowed by the dark so that I can hold mine at a distance.  The jokes write themselves, here in Ravka.  xx

I also reallllly love the whole scene with Inej in the second half of this chapter but especially this bit:

I also have problems in my brain unlike any other so I really love the entirety of chapter 58 but in terms of "I have peaked with writing toxic romance" I really enjoyed these lines from chapter 48:

“Would you still love me if I destroyed the Fold?” “You won’t.” “But would you?” “You won’t.” “But if I did. That would be your limit.” “There is no limit. You’re mine forever, I will love you until there’s nothing else to love…but you would regret it. Love doesn’t exist distinct, safe from pain. You would suffer, and I would love you, and I would make you thank me.” xx

I also really like chapter 91. although saying that feels like i'm confessing to a crime. i don't like it as much as I like having written it. I like this line especially, because of the canon callback and the culmination of a lot I was building up to thematically:

“Please. Don’t do this,” Kaz says, and it’s almost funny how easily begging comes to him now.  “Begging can’t help you this time,” He says. He sounds saddened by it, as though he wishes it were as easy as being able to believe Kaz because he’s said please. “Not now that I know how little your word actually means.”  Somehow that cuts Kaz deeper than anything else has.  The deal is the deal. Maybe Ghezen is real after all, and this is Kaz’s punishment for spitting on all the bargains he’s made over the last year. He cheapened them, all of them, and now they mean nothing.  Man laughs at the gods until he needs them. Ghezen wouldn’t listen even if he did pray. 

and I definitely have a lot more, honestly there's a few chapters that really stand out to me as being like "wow I really popped off with this one" but the second to last chapter (the one right before the epilogue) was just so rewarding for me. it felt so cathartic to write and I hope it was cathartic to read. I really liked this line:

I'm in your head now, and it's my head too. Your thoughts are my thoughts, your dreams are my dreams, neither of us will ever escape. 

as well as

Something can't come from nothing, and the dent he will make in the world must be felt…it must be felt… But not by him. He's felt enough.  And for a moment, Kaz feels a bit of regret. He regrets that the most powerful man in the world, the first person he thought could truly see Kaz as an equal, never learned to share. He regrets they couldn’t be more, they couldn’t rule together, they couldn’t be the things they’d promised to be to each other. He regrets that it was all a lie, and he regrets that there was ever a time when he believed it.  But most importantly, most vividly, he regrets not being able to take a knife and slice him through himself so he can feel the warm blood on his hands and watch up close as the life he was so proud of fades from his eyes. 

honestly as much as it feels a bit egotistical to say it I just really love this work in general, I think overall it's definitely one of my best and I'm tremendously proud of it so I could probably talk about my favorite parts all day. thank you for asking <3 <3

I'd love to hear if YOU have favorite quotes!!!

[ezziefae]

How did the virtual event with HB go? I didn't even know she was having these events until that q/a post from a few days ago. Did you have to pay to be apart or was it some kind of ticket that came along with buying TPT?

holly announces any events she’s doing on her instagram, most of them you need a ticket, whether it’s virtual or in person. the event was great, she only answered one of my questions since the moderators were the ones picking out questions for her, which sucked. (I wish she could’ve read off of the comments and picked whichever questions she wanted to answer)

So yes we had to pay for the virtual event ticket + the book (personalized signed book plate) + and some book goodies (like pins and bookmarks) I thought the event was going to be a zoom call event (like it usually is) but it was a youtube live. I remember thinking “so i could’ve just watched the virtual event without paying” but at least i’m getting some goodies and a personalized book plate with it. The virtual event was one hour, and most of the questions she answered were 30% about her faerie books and 70% about her writing tips/advice. I would have definitely preferred to see her in person for many reasons it’s just such a better experience. :) currently there’s a contest for each tour stop, the best cosplay/costume wins a crown, (im very happy about this bc it encourages more people to dress up) and then there’s also a contest where a random person gets picked to have an hour chat with holly. i hope she does this for every book event she does in the future!!

here are some things she answered in the virtual event that caught my attention:

1) She has a plan for an adult fae book, but she still has no idea what she’s doing, it could possibly be 3 books from now.

2) Holly would like to write a coldtown sequel. She hasn’t yet because of schedule issues, with her upcoming sequel Thief of night, and the stolen heir duology, and now another elfhame book.

3) holly has a spotify playlist for the prisoner’s throne, she just forgets to change the settings to make it public. (this was my question)

4) Holly did anticipate the Taryn hate train, her friend absolutely HATED taryn. Holly doesn’t hate taryn to that degree, she feel sympathetic.

5) If holly could hang out with any character she would hang out with kaz brekker

6) Holly’s favorite scene she’s ever written is when Jude had Cardan tied up in the court of shadows with the knife to his throat in the cruel prince.

7) Holly hates hearing her audiobook, its like torture to her

8) Holly had fun making the card game, and is excited for people to play it.

9) Grima mag questioned Lord Jared many times, and did not agree with any of their doings, she was also sympathetic of Wren, resulting in her being cast out of the Court of Teeth.

[lunarthecorvus]

YOOO A KANEJ FAN

I HAVE FOUND MY PEOPLE

yes soc is awesome im on like a 3rd reread rn

actually i came here because of that asks reblog thingie to ask you something like what's your fav colour or shir

BUT KANEJ!!!

okay you gotta tell me your fav scene. also did you read the books or watched the show

Heyy! First I have to apologise for being so late with this- I can be good at answering asks or just awful at answering them on time-

I have read the books and watched the show. I watched the show first then got hyperfixated on the crows and needed to consume the books so I listened to the audiobooks! I adore the audiobooks and all the voices BUT I have a complaint about the pronunciation of words being different each time I heard them- even the same voice actors would pronounce the same word differently ahsha

Show wise I have quite a few favourite scenes and one of them is the one where all the crows (minus Matthias </3) were in that cafe discussing plans. Another one is the one where Jesper says that Jes means Suli for friendship, I loved the moment where the train expolded, the irony was just funny and I loved Jesper in that scene.

The scene where we had Inej, Zoya and Nina is the same frame was perfectt. Alina telling the Darkling she can deal with it hersekf and handle the people coming after her, also her killing the Darkling was amazing because I despise that creepy man. Inej doing the cool jump and slicing the shadow demon, iconnn. Honestly I almost wrote about that whole scene, I just love it all.

Seeing Kaz, Jesper and Nikolai be in the same room (the scene where Jesper and Kaz are arrested), I also loved.

Ooo and the scene where Inej is surrounded and goes 'the question is will I waste my prayers tonight after gutting you all' that was INEJ FUCKING GHAFA, shes so powerfulll. Then her and Nina interacting (I know not for long but stilll) and Nina speaking Suli, YESS. I wish that scene was longer.

Book wise, I could go on forever and in more detail about but I don't want this to be too long, so if you want to know more about why I love these scenes, feel to send an ask and i might get to it this year hopefully ahhsdh-

Inej being injured in the ship and Nina taking care of her. Just reading Nina care for Inej and them just being best friends and just talking was so nice to read, those girls deserve the worlddd, also their friendship means so much to mee.

Jesper and Wylan when they're breaking the chain because thats when I really realised how much I loved book!wesper and them interacting was so niceee. Also we just got see more of a newer side of Wylan and Jesper, it's one of my favouritee wesper scenee.

Kaz and Inej 'I would come for you' scene, when I tell you I was shocked at this scene, two people guarded like those two. Especially admitting that he would come for her not matter what was happening to either of them, he would come for herrr.

I was going to include just one but the other scene is the scene where Kaz says is my tie straight and Inej laughs, its them being in love and just being soft for a moment AHHHH, then when she goes to her parents and when she goes 'her heart was a river and it carried her to the sea', the fact that she gets to reunte with her parents hunt slavers and work with Kaz to take them down on land sometimes as well, JUST I LOVE HER and am happy for her. Her saying she thinks he's worth saving AAAAA.

Honourary mention is when she said the 'I will have you without armour or I will not have you at all' she set boundries as she should despite the fact that she knew she had feelings for him and wasn't willing to throw her life away and basically said that he needs to be willing to work on himself, Y E S.

Matthias and Nina, the kiss scene where he spins her around, I SQUEALED when I read that. I adore them both and was so happy when they actually finally broke down all the tensity and gave innn.

Nina being on Parem, I know that its sad because of what it did to her BUT she was just so powerful and commanding in that scene I just ahhhhhh love it. Also I love how Nina just manages to flirt her way through stuff and is an incredible spy, NINAAAA, shes so impressive

Wylan, ooo this one, its when Wylan was first disguised as Kuwei and watched his dad be fine with killing him, as well as just being face to face with his abusive piece of shit father. As someone who has/had a Dad like that when I heard that I was so FREAKING PROUD of him, he was face to face and watched his father do that and managed to boast to him about knowing he'd that and fooling him, Y E S. I was so impressed and knew the strength it would take to even face him, I'm still so proud of him to this

Inej, there are so many scenes but one is the 'when the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.' just hit the feels, she's writing her own fate after other people writing it for her and knowing that unlike Dunyasha she didn't have some special protection when she was taken, but she will hold herself up because she has survived and she is INEJ GHAFA. Another scene like this I loved was the incinerator scene because it felt so just AHHH, she finally chose that she was going to survive and finally live, it just hitss. And she released she was going to do it herself and not for work for anybody and help people like her.

There are so many more Inej scenes but this post is already too long that I don't want to make it so much longer, I wanted to include scenes for Kaz, Jesper and Matthias but I saw this post was just so long so for now I'm ending it here, if you want me to write about those scenes just send me another ask about it and I'll include them :)

[simpingcorner]

Daughter of the Shadows

Word Count: ~1.3k Warnings: mild violence (stabbing, mentions of gunshots, physical fighting), blood, alcohol, gambling,mention of human tr*****, Pekka Rollins,not proofread, let me know if I forgot something. 

Author's Note: First chapter to my Grishaverse fanfic. A reminder this is insipred by my SoC DR so it’ll follow both the books and the show plotlines, there will be changes to the canon characters and their storylines, it’s also a Kaz Brekker x OC. | English isn’t my first language so please bear with me and tell me if there’s something wrong. I hope you like it.

all rights to leigh bardugo, i only owny liith and her backstory (other ocs will be introduced later)

Read part 2 here - Ch.3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6

CHAPTER 1

LILITH

The starless night sky, the waves breaking on the rocks, the muffled sounds coming from the city, the briny autumn air surrounded her, it happened before she could even think of enjoying the moment a voice broke the night silence, the girl jumped to her feet, knives drawn, eyes locked on the darkness in front of her as her legs moved independently, silent movements, invisible to the inexperienced eyes allowed her to move closer to the noise source, as she’d expected a crowd had formed on the pier of the fourth harbour. Their guns reflected the dim street lamps’ light, red rubies shone under the moonlight, “This wasn’t the deal.” said a merchant’s voice, “The deal was you’d bring me fresh meat and I’d set you free.” Pekka Rollins’ hoarse voice echoed in her ears, she watched and studied the scene in front of her, hidden by the shadows, disgusted at the ideas of even more lives ruined by Pekka Rollins.

The smell of blood came before she could even realize what was going on, the pier’s shadows hid her making her even more dangerous than in the daylight, her knives handles now an extension to her hands, her leather gloves blood stained, her legs silents and fast followed a now too familiar pattern, the men surrounded her, guns at her head ready to fire, the girl’s eyes studied the scene as in a book, reviewing every possible outcome, she was surrounded, the men much bigger than her, she gripped the handles of her knives, the material seemed to heat up under the pressure, the lights of the street lamps trembled ready to go out at any given moment, the salty air now corrupted by the smell of blood and gunpowder. “I don’t want to kill you Mrak.” Said the merchant stopping in front of the brunette, a grin forming on his face studying her. “I wish I could say the same.” The girl replied wiping blood from her cheek with the back of her hand, her eyes full of anger, hatred, revenge, but her face was impassive, the scar on her righ cheek illuminated by the lamp post, her lips and jaw tight, her feet and hands ready to attack or defend, the faded tattoo of Emerald Palace was still too visible on her left forearm. “I thought you’d be happy to hear another slaver dead.” The man continued staring at her, “Wasn’t it one of them who brought you here? Who ruined your life?” the brunette knew if she’d attacked the rest of the Dime Lions would open fire to save their leader, “My life was over before I even got to Ketterdam.” she said closing her fists and inhaling before attacking, their moves were draw in her brain like the project of a house on paper, predictable and obvious, during each fight the Dime Lions’d forgot they had guns in their hands, finding themselves fighting hand to hand with their rivals.

The girl’s eyes became watery, a sudden burning sensation invaded her right forearm, the gray sleeve darkened, soaked in blood, but before she could assimilate what happened, the dagger disappeared from her hand finding a new home in the skull of one of the men surrounding her, some had fled, others were on the ground gasping for air or passed out. Her eyes found Pekka Rollins’, her face covered in blood, her left hand gripping her right arm, “Next time I won’t let you free.” said the man turning on his heels and disappearing into the shadows of the pier, the girl inhaled trying not to think about the pain in her arm, the burning had given way to cold and numbness, the brunette put her knives back in their places before walking back towards the Barrel.

Ketterdam was the place to go if you wanted to disappear, a city run by criminals, thieves, crooks, murderers; a city where authorities were nearly as corrupted, if not more, than the citizens; tourists from all over the world came to live without rules, to enjoy the freedom of a city without laws, to distract themselves from the problems of their daily lives, with their money, clean clothes, hot food on the table, a roof over their heads, a warm comfortable bed to sleep in after a tiring day, hot water always at the ready for a relaxing bath; the more fortunate citizens, the merchants, the Council members, the owners of the most famous clubs in the city lived in safe, warm, private houses; all the others, on the contrary, lived from day to day, hoping and praying to the Saints that they’d have enough to be able to afford a common room, a hot meal, or to be able to repay their debts.

The smell of the Barrel invaded her nostrils as she went from roof to roof trying not to be seen, the window to his office was open, a sign that he was waiting for Inej, the girl knew she shoulnd’t have gone in but with her arm injured she wouldn’t be able to open her bedroom window, and entering the front door was out the question. She climbed over to the window and nimbly entered the room, the inexperienced ear would never notice the air shift caused by the girl, but Kaz Brekker wasn’t inexperienced, not when it came to his investments. “I will not do business with a criminal.” The unknown voice filled the room, forcing her to hide in the shadows, her steps were silent, her breath inaudible, “You will find no honest man in Ketterdam.” Kaz replied before dismissing the man and closing the door behind him, “You can come out.” he simply said going back to studying the papers on the desk, the girl headed to the door, her arm hidden behind her back, her face covered in blood, her steps trembling but still too silent and proud, she barely got to reach the doorknob that his cane stopped her, the girl’s eyes fixed on the door, her hand firm on the doorknob, “What do you have for me?” the boy said as he sat down at his desk, the cane resting on his knee in of him staring at her, the crow’s eyes on the handle seemed to study her. “Pekka Rollins has bought other kids.” The boy’s face was stern, unreadable, fixed on the brunette in front of him, “He killed the slaver at Fourth Harbour.” the girl explained. “Okay.” His voice was hollow, the voice of someone who had decided to turn off their emotions, the same voice used by the girl.

The cut on her forearm was less serious than she had imagined, the help of a healer would have fastened the recovery but she didn’t have the money nor the time to find one, she tightened the bandage on the wound and left her room heading towards the bar counter, “Lilith, came to bring me luck?” Jesper’s cheery voice woke her up from the trance she was in, the Zemeni boy motioned for her to sit next to him at the poker table.

The Crow Club was full of tourists and non, whoever was in the Barrel and wanted to tempt fate was there, the girl noticed Rotty and Specht busy gambling away the last few coins they had left, Big Bolliger greeted her from the door before kicking out yet another cheater, Anika stared at her from the counter, while Jesper looked at her with a smile, letting her slip in next to him. “SO how much did you lose?” The girl asked as she sat down and studied the table, “Your lack of confidence hurts me Lilith.” said Jesper betting the rest of his Kruge on the upcoming hand, “Just saying if you don’t pay your debts, Per Haskell won’t kick out only you, and I really like my room.” explained the girl pulling out her daggers and cleaning them, she could feel his gaze on her, he was studying her, the bandage on her harm, a bandage that wasn’t there just a few minutes before, but as soon as she looked up he was gone, the office door closed at the top of the stairs.

[crucibleknight]

revolver ocelot for the character ask meme :3

give me a character and i'll break their ass down

How I feel about this character

the stars and planets and galaxies were aligned to make this gay old fuck my favorite character ever and he WAS for a hot second until that other guy clawed his way in. sad. he's still my phone background but it feels a little inauthentic

i LIKE ocelot i think he's really interesting because he is like absurd from an aesthetic perspective (russian cowboy) and in his mannerisms (the gun thing) but he's also like a master manipulator or whatever so you do kind of end up questioning what's genuine and what's part of whatever act he's got going on. i am also a sucker for the sort of trope that he fits into which is guy that's so loyal to someone he'll do whatever they want. he might be a like quadruple agent most of the time but at least he has that one central and pure drive to hang onto

also i love love LOVE his quote from the end of mgs3 -- 'you're not a snake and i'm not an ocelot. we're men, with names' like. man.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

that's just gonna be big boss i fear. he met that man when he was a young impressionable fag and never ever looked back

My non-romantic OTP for this character

hrmm. does wanting him and kaz to hatefuck once or twice count. ohALSO i think he and quiet have an interesting friendship(?) that develops

My unpopular opinion about this character

i literally don't know what the popular opinions are. i go into the mgs tags to look at fanart and i don't tend to read analysis lest i find something annoying. so i'll just take a stab here--i actually don't love ocelot in mgsv, which is something my fiance teases me about. i think its a combo of the weird accent he picked up and the fact that he's not as like ...... crazy? as the other games. like he's freaking it the least in that one. and ok maybe im a little mad that he ends up the more reasonable of the two court advisors in like every possible situation so i have to side with him instead of my bitch wife

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

MAN I SURE WISH THEY MENTIONED HIM IN PEACEWALKER. LIKE EVEN ONCE. all the tapes we get and not even an offhand comment about him. even a vague one. i just think it would set up mgsv better. like i booted that game up and found my two pet blondes had teamed up without me which would be mildly less wild if big boss had mentioned ocelot even like. once. to kaz

[mcntsee]

60 DIALOGUE PROMPTS!!

Alright, since I can’t seem to come up with anything good to write, I’ve decided to let an AI generate random dialogue prompts. If you are interested in any of them being part of a fanfic, please send an ask with said prompt. Also, if you have an idea of what you want me to do with the prompt, feel free to include it in the ask. Angst? Happy? Funny? Only writing for Kaz Brekker at the moment, but might do it again for more characters.

(I’ll be crossing out the ones that have already been done.)

1. "You make me feel like I'm not good enough."

2. "Am I supposed to be scared now?"

3. "Could you be happy here with me?"

4. "But this- this is the only thing that's made the last three years bearable."

5. "Perhaps you'll take me out one day - or do I have to make an appointment?"

6. "I've forgotten what it's like to feel young."

7. "She's been missing since Friday and you're not worried?"

8. "I daren't stay long. I just had to see you."

9. "It looks like you're in trouble there. Can I help?"

10. "He/she was unconscious when I found him/her”

11. "You came back!"

12. "You stand there and accuse me, but where were you at the time?"

13. "You were meant to be watching him/her!”

14. "I'll find her and bring her home, I promise."

15. "Have you read the newspaper stories about my wife?"

16. "Tell me what you saw, for her/his sake!"

17. "H-how long have you been standing there?"

18. "You haven't called me that in years."

19. She was beginning to realise how far down in his memory he’d buried his childhood

20. "I'm sorry if it upsets you, but I'm going to marry her."

21. "You did a bad thing for a good reason."

22. "If you do this, you will be dead to me."

23. "You have her/his eyes."

24. "I just want a nice, easy life. What's wrong with that?"

25. "You're paying a small price compared with what she's going through."

26. "Are you kidding me? We're not 'fine'!"

27. "What do you remember about your mother?"

28. "Where does a child hide in a town like this?"

29. "If only I'd just gone over when she called."

30. “If you’re not going to let me help, I’m not staying to watch you burn.”

31. “You shot me!” “Oh, don’t pretend to be surprised. It’s unbecoming.”

32. “We were friends.”

33. “You seem tired.”

34. “You talk like we’ve already lost.” “Look around you, dumbass! We already have!”

35. “Was I just not enough for you?”

36. “It’s easy to hate someone when you don’t look them in the eyes.”

37. “Ah, yes. I am delighted to exist as a pawn in your power-plays.”

38. “How am I supposed to go on?”

39. “Aren’t you tired? Can we stop this and give our hearts rest?”

40. “We started this together and we should end it together.”

41. “You bring the best out of me but I’m the worst for you.”

42. “What I mean is, I’m going to stop watering a dead flower, expecting it to grow again.”

43. “But you make me feel like home! You are my home.”

44. “I just need this one moment. This last one.”

45. “I was not ready to lose both a lover and a friend in one night.”

46. Because that’s all we are now, right? A memory, a faded picture, a failed potential.

47. “Please, just stay a little longer.”

48. “Am I going to die?”

49. “I know exactly how this ends.”

50. “You were never one of us.”

51. “I would’ve died for you.”

52. “You almost died! And for what?”

53. “If I leave now, I won’t come back.”

54. “Don’t look at me like that, I don’t want pity.”

55. “And then he left.”

56. “I wish I could fix this.”

57. “You hurt me and I still trusted you.”

58. “Can we have this conversation when you’re not upset.”

59. “You really were my first and last.”

60. “I hope you got what you wanted.”

[keicordelle]

The Freedom to Choose

BG3 | Tavstarion | Explicit | 7890 trauma recovery, biting, explicit consent, switching, POV first person

In the wake of Cazador's destruction, Kaz helps Astarion try to fit the pieces of himself back together.

Finally posting the hyper self-indulgent BG3 piece I've been working on for like months. I was going to edit it over to the third person before posting it, but then I remembered that the point was the self-indulgence, so here it is in all its glory! I'm really happy with how it turned out <3

-

There was a chill in the air that hadn't been there the night before, swirling around my ankles and biting at the tips of my ears. Crickets still sang their nightly song, the low hoot of an owl rising with their chorus, but it felt muted, distant. Like the familiar comforts of the darkness couldn't quite touch the solitude that lay like a fog over this quiet corner of the camp. The weight of night draped like a blanket over my shoulders, the moon hanging fat and heavy in the sky, surrounded by the same shining field of stars that had stood vigil at its side for all the centuries I'd gaze upon them. Eternal and unchanging. Like the lone figure that stood at the edge of the clearing, staring up at it.

Moonlight turned white hair to silver, the blood washed free of his messy curls to leave them loose and shining once more. Almost as if they'd never been stained. But the sorrow etched on his face marked him more clearly than any spray of blood, carving his pain into his face like the curse carved into his skin. Deep. Agonizing. Permanent.

"What do I do now?" Words whispered to the sky as I drew up behind him, the distance between us an ocean. Whether they were meant for me or for the night alone, I couldn't judge.

Slowly, I took another step forward, bridging that gap that stretched between us until I stood at his side. I slid my fingers down his arm until I could lace them through his, squeezing at his palm. His hand was limp in mine, unresponsive and cold. I held it anyway, letting the heat from my skin soak into his. A little shared warmth might do him some good.

Perhaps it might have been kind to say that he was free to do whatever he wished, now. Free from the chains that had bound him, free from the oppressive fear of Cazador, looming large and monstrous over his fate. A kindness, and a lie. Cazador might be dead, but that fear... it would linger. Long after Cazador was naught but dust and memory, his specter would remain, haunting Astarion's thoughts and tormenting him in the very place he ought to be most safe. Decades, centuries from now, those marks left upon his soul would still be there, as much as any scar left upon his skin. Worse, perhaps. Few understood that better than I.

And for those of us who had spent so long beneath another's rule, freedom was a fearsome thing. Overwhelming, with all its uncountable possibilities. All its lack of direction. The first few tottering steps taken on your own, only to realize there is no ground beneath your feet, no beacon to show you the way, no gravity to tell you which way was up — and no wings to spare you your fall. Just a sea of nothing in which to drown.

So I did not tell him that he could do anything he wanted. He would learn that, in time. "For now, you mend the tear in Gale’s cloak and scrub the grass stains from your pants. You find a boar to feed from, and you drink sour wine straight from the bottle, same as you have been. The rest... there will be time enough to figure out the rest later."

[Read the rest on Ao3!]

[Kofi/commissions]

[sissytobitch10seconds]

he sang louder and louder inside the house, and no i couldn't get him out

Fandom: Grishaverse: Six of Crows (Shadow and Bone TV) Summary: Wylan isn't used to loud noises, despite being a chemist and coming from a home with an abusive father. Kaz is always loud, but not in the same way that sounds are. He kind of likes it. Warnings: Sexual situations, masturbation, and background implied polyamory Word Count: 8,226 Ship(s): Wylan Van Eck/Kaz Brekker

Archive link!

A/N: So I had this idea before I had consumed anything other than the show, which means that while there might be tiny bit of book stuff splattered throughout, it's primarily the show. Also, I didn't intend for it to turn out as sexual as it did but then their interaction became more and more sexual as time went on and now we're here. I hope you guys enjoy this weird little character piece that I wrote! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone &lt;3

Wylan may not have been able to read, but he was still very smart.

His father had tried to convince him of his stupidity his entire life. He knew that it was true when it came to reading and writing, but he was still able to excel in science and music. It turned out to be true when it came to learning about people and the culture of a new place, as well.

He had been a fast learner when he was working out his new life in the Barrel. He had learned first that no one was to be trusted at face value, to always look at someone’s hand, and to assess what their body language meant when their sweet words sounded too good to be true. He had learned how to read people that he couldn’t see during the second week that he lived in his boarding room. He could tell how tall someone was, how quickly they were walking, and what their intentions were from their footsteps alone.

The clacking of a cane and a pair of good shoes behind him was brought to his attention as soon as he turned out of the main street where he worked. When he had first begun to search for work he hadn’t thought about picking some place like the local tannery, but it only made sense given his penchant for science and his illiteracy. It was good work that he usually enjoyed, even if he wished that he could be putting his talents with chemicals to slightly better use.

Wylan clocked that the person behind him was following him the second that he turned the corner and the sound followed. Something would have changed slightly if the person had continued straight, further into the merchant lined street to do window shopping. The fact that the steps had continued at the exact same pace as they had before told him that they were going to be turning the corner together.

It was the second time that he had ever been followed home, and he had learned from the first. 

The first time that he had been followed, he had just rushed up to his room and desperately tried to lock the door with the foolish hope that the boarding house master would somehow stop the person that was following after him. He still had a broken rib halfway through the last stage of healing to prove why that hadn’t worked.

He had changed how he was going to deal with that specific situation soon after. Wylan walked into the front of the boarding house just long enough that whoever was following him hung back past the door. He darted around the corner and hid in an alcove until another one of the tenants of the boarding house left, giving a reasonable pair of footsteps for his attacker to pursue. 

He then immediately slipped back out of the boarding house and walked around the back. Raising his arms above his head hurt and ached, uncomfortable because of the broken bone deep in his sternum, but he had gotten very good at ignoring pain. He placed his fingers securely around a brick above his head and then planted his feet on the wall. With measured movements and expert amounts of precision, he scaled the wall until he was finally up at his window.

Wylan grasped the window to his room, the one closer to the left side of the building. He had two windows that overlooked the city from the main part of the room that he had rented but only one of them was prepared for this seemingly inevitable eventuality. He had memorized the outside and inside of it so that he could be fully prepared, never doing anything halfway.

He pushed the glass upwards silently until it was behind the second half of the window. He pulled himself up so that his heels were resting on the edge of the sil while he felt around for the elongated piece of metal. It was sharpened but thin enough that it would be easy to hide within the frame without being noticed.

As soon as it was properly palmed, hidden away but quickly available when he needed to use it, he slipped the rest of his body so that he was inside of his room. He set his feet carefully down on the ground so that they made as little sound as possible. The wind whistled around the building outside and ruffled his jacket just enough that he was worried he might be found out, but the man currently stalking around his apartment hadn’t even turned to face him.

He stood up and then moved away from the window. It took three steps before he was up behind the intruder, the makeshift knife pressed into the hollow of his back. The man was at least six inches taller than him, which decreased the intimidation factor that he had been trying to go for. He didn’t think about it too much as he hissed, “If you want to steal something then you came to the wrong boarding house.”

“I didn’t come to steal anything,” the man replied, his voice dark and raspy in a way that spoke to something feral in the back of Wylan’s mind. Suddenly they flipped over so that the man that had broken into his home was on the advance and Wylan was protecting himself.

It was all very reminiscent of what had happened the first time that someone had broken into his place, but somehow it felt like more was on the line. It might have been simply because he had more things than the bare bones that had lined his rented room back when he could afford basically nothing. On the other hand, something in the back of his mind was whispering that it was different than that. It meant more than just paltry possessions, but it refused to tell him exactly what.

The man reached up so that he was grabbing Wylan’s wrist, squeezing once so that the smaller of the two was forced to drop the shiv that he had been grasping for dear life. The man’s other hand moved down to his hip, causing the cane that he had been holding to clatter noisily down to the ground. They took a step and a half backwards before Wylan’s back was pressed against the wall of his apartment, right next to the window that he had snuck through.

“I have to admit, you do have a rather good plan set up if you were to try that on anyone other than me,” the man whispered. 

They were in just the right spot that the light from the moon and lanterns down below poured onto his face, allowing Wylan to finally see who had been following him all the way from his work. He had sharp cheekbones and jawline, smoothe and pale skin that was almost golden underneath, with a small scar just above his lip and stretching over his cheek. He was ruggedly handsome in an objective way, but his eyes were so darkly dangerous that they made gooseflesh appear on the edges of Wylan’s arms.

The first thing that he noticed sensationally was the fact that the man was wearing gloves. Wylan had spent enough time making leather at this point to know that they were high quality, better than a lot of items that the scum of the Barrel were usually able to pay for. The leather had obviously been made from a healthier animal than the tannery were used to using given the thickness of it against his skin. The pair had been made by someone that had to have specialized in gloves based on the way that the seams felt, smooth compared to the rest of the garment and also fitting perfectly to the hand inside.

“W-what do you want from me then?” Wylan asked. His eyes refused to meet the other man’s and his voice warbled as it emitted from his throat. He cleared it to try and stabilize the sound for the next time that he had to speak, despite knowing it wasn’t going to work. Fear, adrenaline, and a slight bit of arousal were mixing deep inside of his stomach.

The man on top of him suddenly released him, allowing his body to slump back against the wall like it already would have had he been holding himself up. He sucked in a breath when he realized that he had breathed out a long time ago and had never bothered with the other half of the mechanism. His heart was thrumming loud enough in his veins that any Heartrender within a mile of his room would be able to hear him.

Wylan slowly picked himself up, wringing his hands in front of him as he watched every minute movement that his attacker made. For some reason, he didn’t think that it was important to reach down for the shiv that was still laying uselessly on the floor. He began to wring his hands in front of him as he walked forward, towards his workbench.

Wylan had always had a bad habit of bringing his work home with him. That used to mean that he brought his homework back with him to his room, studying under the smallest flickering candle that wouldn’t let anyone know what he was doing until he literally fell asleep on top of it. Now it meant that he had dozens of beakers filled with chemicals of all sorts, some of which had been boiling for days and were finally getting down to the remnants that he could actually use for something. He didn’t know what yet, but he liked the freedom to experiment now that he was no longer under his father’s thumb.

The man stopped and ran the tip of his gloved index finger over the edge of one of Wylan’s beakers. “I was hoping that you could make me something.”

“Make you something?” Wylan repeated, his eyes glues on the pair of gloves and refusing to move. 

“Yes,” the man replied. “I need a couple of light bombs. Something that will cause a big show of exploding and possibly blind onlookers for a time but nothing that would do physical harm to them.”

“Th-then you need a phosphorus bomb,” Wylan replied quickly. He grabbed the bottle that the man was playing with away from him so that he didn’t shake it too much in a certain direction, which would have caused it to explode.

“Are you offering to make them for me, little magpie?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. He looked like some of the birds that Wylan had seen in the gardens from his tutor rooms before everything had gone to shit. 

He twitched slightly as he let his eyes flit over the bottles and beakers to make sure that they were all there and accounted for. He had a couple that were placed in locations that were more likely to get picked up, which he had done on purpose. If the man in front of him hadn’t been proposing a job that he desperately needed then he would have simply let him pick up one of those beakers and then suffer the consequences that it would bring him. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to work with you when I don’t even know who you are,” he mumbled.

Wylan had a sneaking suspicion as he got a better look at the cane. It was a deep black wood on the base and then an ornate, carved bird head with at least a facade of gold for the handle. The gloves that rested on top of it was the second clue that he got, but it simply just made him more suspicious instead of cluing him in properly.

“I think that you know, Wylan. You simply don’t want to be all that aware so you refuse to say it,” he replied.

The smaller of the two swallowed harshly. He didn’t know why, but the other man’s voice and the way that he was speaking were doing something to him. His body was quivering slightly in the too big clothing that he was using to hide his skinny frame from his boss and onlookers that might use it as a weakness. The most embarrassing thing was the way that his cock twitched in his pants, pressing against the center seam as it began to harden with every word that was spoken to him. He had never been that prone to falling to someone or being seduced that easily, but the man in front of him was different.

He listened to the sound of a cane hitting the wood of his floor and steps following after them as the other man made his way around the table and then paused. “Tell me, who do you think I am?”

“The Bastard of the Barrel, the owner of the Crow Club,” Wylan replied, his voice almost catching on his lips as he forced himself to get the words out.

“That’s right. Well done, magpie,” Kaz replied as a sick smirk grew over his perfect, thin lips. It stretched the scar there in a way that Wylan longed to feel under his fingers the same way that he did the strings of an instrument.

Wylan resisted the urge to preen at the praise. He knew that Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, was a dangerous man. The Crow Club was a place that many people visited when they wanted one of the smaller establishments that felt more intimate or didn’t want to be under Pekka Rollins’ rule. Wylan had ventured through the doors of the club for only a moment before the smell of tobacco leaf and alcohol had overwhelmed him. He had only been living in the Barrel for a couple of weeks at that point, he knew he’d be able to handle it better now. 

Still, he had been warned away from that place by the people that he had talked to. He had been warned that Kaz Brekker was in the business of renting an indentured Wraith that he used liberally, just as he did his gunslinger, on people that wronged him.

“Why are you coming to someone like me to fill this job? I think that you know people that are far more skilled in this kind of thing than I am,” he mumbled as he stared down at his table again. He was fiddling with the edge where some of the wood was beginning to splinted from how often his belt buckle had knocked against it while he was working.

“I’m coming to you because I know that you’re strapped for kruge and you don’t want to be involved in my world, so you’ll be discreet,” Kaz replied easily. His gloved hands were grasping tightly around his cane as he advanced on the smaller man. “Am I wrong?”

He didn’t want to admit it. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he realized just how correct the other man was. He was making a good deal of money with his work at the tannery, but it wasn’t enough to support him in a cutthroat city like Ketterdam. He could go without meals, Ghezen knew that he had done it enough when he wasn’t making enough academic progress, but he couldn’t lose the roof above his head. The Barrel wasn’t really the type of place where anyone could get away with sleeping in the streets if they wanted to keep their dignity and personhood.

Wylan grit his teeth as he realized just how correct Kaz had been on literally every single front. He didn’t want to get involved in the crime part of the Barrel even if he was stuck in the destitution of it, so it was unlikely that he was going to get involved with even more criminals. “The job that you’re working on right now has to be pretty busy if you’re willing to put your trust in someone completely new,” he said, glancing at Kaz out of the corner of his eye to gauge his reaction.

The other man finished the walk around the table that he had been doing, stopping so that he was beside Wylan. He reached up and past him, grasping at another one of the vials as he said, “Correct again, magpie. Which is why I’m willing to pay you a little bit extra to make sure that you keep quiet about this no matter who comes knocking at your door.”

“I wouldn’t be able to tell them anything about it anyway,” Wylan replied bitterly. He didn’t want to be involved in this kind of thing, he had grown up hearing about the kind of degeneracy and immoral things that came with the criminal life, which is why he had worked so hard to stay on the straight and narrow despite everything that his life seemed determined to throw at him.

Something in the back of his mind, a very quiet voice, was letting him know that he liked it. He could feel the phantom brushes of clothing from Kaz’s arm every time the other man moved around him, the illusion of breath against his face and neck and hair as they spoke to each other. It sent thrums of fear and adrenaline through his body in a way that he had never experienced before.

Wylan may not have had a lot of practice with it, but he had had sex before. He knew what it was like to see a very handsome man and be attracted to him to the point where the butterflies in his stomach had turned into blood flowing to his dick. He had been in the bedroom with both women and men and discovered what he preferred, usually with a blush plastered to as much skin as possible and the awkwardness pouring from him in waves.

This felt so similar to that and yet so different. He was unable to muffle down the gasp that pushed its way out of him in a millisecond as one of Kaz’s gloved hands touched his back and tilted him slightly forward so that he was touching the table with his stomach. His cock was straining against the inside of his pants, pressing so hard against the seam that he was surprised he hadn’t already popped a couple of the stitches.

“So what do you say?” Kaz asked.

“Mm?” Wylan asked, blinking as he tried to come back into his mind. His thoughts had all been replaced by white hot static as he suddenly realized just how aroused and sexually frustrated he was. Kaz may not have been conventionally attractive the same way that a lot of the people he had been forced to deal with when he was back with his father, but he was alluring and dangerous. He was something that Wylan shouldn’t have been interacting with and that by itself was appealing, ignoring the other layer of captivating mystique that Kaz brought everywhere with him.

Kaz moved away and suddenly Wylan felt like he was dying. The places where they had almost been brushing up against each other were absent of the warmth from the other man, but still buzzing with a magical lightning that Wylan had never felt before.

He resisted the urge to whimper as he turned so that he was properly facing the criminal. “Are you willing to work with me, little magpie?”

“What do you need from me, exactly?”

That short sentence felt like it was cementing him to an early grave more than anything he had ever done. It was worse than when he had decided that he was going to stay in the Barrel instead of moving anywhere else to find safety. Yet somehow, it also felt like it was breathing life into a part of himself that he had been denying since he was old enough to begin understanding the world around him. 

“Three of those bombs that you mentioned. I’m willing to reward you handsomely for it,” Kaz purred, his voice silky against Wylan’s ears despite the rasp that clung to every word like it was created to be there.

“Right,” he nodded. “When do you need them by?”

“I’ll come by by the eighth bell. I’m sure you won’t mind, right, magpie? I know you don’t work tomorrow. You never work on the last day of the week,” Kaz smirked as he spoke. Wylan knew that he had seen some kind of flicker of recognition or understanding in the other man that had clued him in to the fact that he was correct. He both hated and adored that the other could read him so easily, which was a very conflicting emotion to have to dig through when he was as hard as he was.

Discussing business while experiencing the worst orgasm denial that he had ever given himself wasn’t something that he had ever anticipated happening to him in his life. Wylan wondered if this was something that Kaz did with every other person that he encountered, riling them up so that their blood was in their cocks instead of their minds so that they’d be more pliable under his dirty hands.

“I’ll have them ready for you by tomorrow morning. It’s just a one time thing, right?” Wylan nodded the final confirmation. He was trying so hard to make sure that his voice was steady and the waver of arousal wouldn’t give him away.

He stayed where he was, his hands grasping the edge of the table like he was going to slip away into nothing if he didn’t have something physical to hold onto. Kaz pulled even further away from him, which made something deep inside of his chest ache with need. Wylan only tilted his head up when he heard the clacking of the cane making its way up the short set of stairs from his work area to the foyer of his room. He turned properly so that he could watch the other man leave him blissfully and heart wrenchingly alone in his own space.

Slowly, he collapsed down to the ground so that his back was pressed against the leg of the table for some kind of semblance of support. His hand was shaking as he removed it from the edge of the wooden mass behind him and then flopped it across his stomach. His breath hitched in his throat as he began to let his hands wander slowly down towards where his erection was refusing to leave.

Usually when he started thinking about work he’d be flaccid in no time, but nothing was working. Kaz had riled him up too much, he was going to have to get rid of his problem before he worked on the second one that he had gotten himself into.

Wylan’s fingers paused when they got to his belt buckle as he contemplated on whether or not he was actually going to go through with what he had promised. He didn’t really see an alternative, since it would likely result in his death if he suddenly refused to give the notorious Dirtyhands what he had paid for.

“Think later,” he mumbled, mostly to himself. Talking out loud had always helped him process things that stuck to the forefront of his mind and refused to leave him alone, which was a lot more accepted when he lived alone.

He whimpered slightly as the buckle of his belt pressed against his cock. All of his thoughts were focused down onto the problem at hand instead of thinking about everything else he had to do. His fingers fumbled for just a moment as his body was vibrating with the excitement of the promise he had made to not only Kaz, but to himself.

He grasped the belt buckle and slipped the leather through until he held half of it in each of his hands. He tossed them as far out to the sides as they would go while still stuck in the cloth loops on his pants. He undid both of the buttons holding the garment together and then shoved it down until his white underthings were on display. A second later, his dexterous fingers had slipped underneath the material and shoved it down as well.

His mind was just enough his own that he had the common sense to move onto his knees. One hand was grasping his workspace again to keep him steadily upright while the other focused on the burning arousal.

Wylan let his eyes drip shut as his mind replayed what had just happened to him over and over again. He wrapped his hand around the base of his cock as he vividly replayed the way that Kaz’s lips had looked when he spoke to the other, the gravely sound of his voice as it left his throat. He wondered what it would feel like to have those vibrations passing through him, either with a kiss on his skin or by having those thin lips wrapped around his swollen member.

A small gasp passed through his own lips as a shock of pleasure rushed through his system. He was very familiar with that feeling, having spent more nights alone while frustrated about pretty serving boys and visiting merchers than he wanted to admit to himself. 

He thrust downward into nothing, his hand still wrapped around the base of his cock. Wylan didn’t think that he was going to last very long if he gave into his every single whim, so he decided that he was going to stretch it out at least a little bit. He ran his hand down the underside of his cock until the edge of his finger caught along the head. 

He let out another shaky breath and then wrapped his fingers around the tip, pressing his thumb onto the top. “Shit,” he whimpered as he brushed the side of his nail against the slit of his cock, smearing the precum that was already beading there onto more of his skin. He wondered what it would feel like to have Kaz’s gloves in place of his own nail and finger, the seams brushing across the sensitive foreskin and underside of his cockhead.

Wylan whimpered and thrust forward with a smooth movement. His body was lithe and graceful, despite all of the shaking that his frame was doing to hold himself back from going wild. “Come on, come one,” he gasped as his hand slipped all the way down his cock again, settling at the base.

He spread his legs apart so that he was supporting himself while still pointing his erection down towards the ground to try and prevent the precum from getting his only clean set of clothes dirty. He took his other hand slowly off of the table next to him and delved into his pants and underthings, pressing the palm to his scrotum.

Vividly, his mind began to show him what it would be like to have that cane, the noise of which was still ringing through his head despite the other man’s departure, pressing where his hand was. He whimpered and thrust down into nothing a few more times before he began to pump his hand up and down his cock.

His breath hitched and sped up as the pleasure began to build in his gut. His hips were working in tandem with himself, thrusting down into the hand pressing to his balls while also up into the hand wrapped loosely around his cock. Each movement that he made added to the heat that was already pouring into his veins. It was making his shaking body tense and quiver more than it had before, threatening to release at any moment. He could feel the beginning of an orgasm building inside of him until he was sure that he was going to explode.

Unable to keep any sounds back whatsoever, the moans forced their way out of his mouth before he even clocked what was happening. He had been breathing in and out heavily through his nose when he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be holding his breath but now he drew air in through his mouth, choking back the spit that had pooled there. He was completely unable to form words but the sounds that were being drawn from him by his own hand was enough to show how heavily he had been torn apart.

His body loosened when his orgasm rolled over him. His cock twitched twice in his hand, his palm halfway down the shaft and now stuck there while he dealt with the almost overwhelming feeling. Pearly white cum poured out of him in even stripes as shocks of pleasure rocked through his system. He had been smart enough at the beginning to move himself so that it was all dripped down onto the wooden floor instead of his clothing, something that he was grateful for when he came back to himself.

His mind had been full of static while he had been grasping the fact that he had just gotten so turned on by a visit from a criminal and the charged energy between them that he had jerked off without even getting into his bed. He came back to himself as soon as his toes uncurled and he realized that he was very uncomfortable on the ground.

He moved his hand up his cock, wiping off the remnants of the cum, and then stuffed himself back into his pants properly. He cleaned up his hand and the floor before he turned back to his workbench so that he could do as he had been asked.

---

“I promised I wouldn’t do it again.”

The words felt like a lie as they rolled off of Wylan’s tongue, but he had meant them. He hadn’t promised anyone but himself and he was notorious for breaking the oaths that he swore in his own mind. Usually they had something to do with jobs that he was going to force himself to take for his own comfort or things that he wasn’t going to do because they made his skin feel like living snakes.

Still, having the man that had stolen his heart from inside of his chest standing in front of him made it hard to want to keep the promise whatsoever. Usually he had a little bit of fight in him even if a single growl in his stomach or the impulsive part of his brain shouting a little too loud made him fold. This was one that he had said he was going to have to keep to himself for his own sanity and safety, but it was so hard to want to keep it.

Kaz Brekker was standing in the middle of his laboratory in all of his Bastard of the Barrel glory. He was wearing a pair of straight legged black pants with a black leather belt that had a rather ornate looking golden buckle. Wylan could only see part of the curving design from underneath the patterned blue vest. His jacket had a popped collar and pressed sleeves, leading down to the leather gloves that always covered the flexing tendons in his hands. He had a hat perched over his carefully slicked back hair and his cane clutched faithfully by his side.

Wylan shouldn’t have been paying that much attention to what the other man was wearing, nor should he have let that influence his judgment in the slightest. It was well known that he wasn’t very good when it came to impulse control, though.

“I think that perhaps you didn’t mean it,” Kaz drawled lowly. He took a step forward, the clank of the hard metal tip of the cane sounding at the same time of the click of his shoe. So many of them in the higher parts of society had carried a cane with them as a fashion statement, but Kaz walked like it was another part of his body.

Wylan’s mind thought back to when he had taken the first job, the flash of the cool cane against one part of his body while the leather of his gloves traced over another. It made goosebumps raise on the flesh hidden under his baggy shirt and a flush raise to his cheeks. 

“I did- I did mean it,” he replied as he cleared his throat awkwardly. 

By the time that he got over his cowardice enough to look at his bad decision in the eye, Kaz had already rounded the table so that he was standing in front of Wylan. The smaller man kept his head pointed towards his experiments, as if he was watching the bubbling and smoking glasses to make sure that they didn’t erupt instead of refusing to look at Kaz for fear of losing what little resolve he had left.

“When was the last time that you ate, my dear?” the criminal asked, the nickname making Wylan’s heart flutter in his chest.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” he mumbled.

He could feel the cool leather of the glove trailing over the table, getting closer and closer to where his hands had been absently trailing over the grain to give himself something to do. “Of course it’s relevant,” Kaz replied softly.

Someone with as much fire and vitriol inside of them shouldn’t have been allowed to be so tender, in Wylan’s opinion. He felt like he was turning to oil the same way that butter did when left out underneath the sunlight. The thought of that, half melted butter spread out over old bread rounds, made his stomach growl obnoxiously loudly.

“I don’t like it when my things aren’t well taken care of. If you do this job, then you will become one of my investments. I will make sure that you want for nothing. Understood?” Kaz asked. The trailing hand on the table stopped mere millimeters away from Wylan’s hand. He could feel where the air had been pushed to the side to make room for the other man and yet they were still far enough away that he felt like his body was going to compress and shrivel up with want.

It took him a moment to steady his breathing and ignore the way that he was becoming painfully aroused in his pants, just like he had last time. He shouldn’t have been riled up by something so small, but the bird that had flown through his window all those weeks ago was still driving him insane.

“How did the phosphorus bombs I gave you work?” he asked instead. He tilted his head even further away from Kaz, refusing to look at him so that he could keep the walls around his heart up for a little bit longer. He took several deliberate steps away from the table so that he was on the other side and began to fiddle with a few bottles he had placed out for another project he was working on. “Did I pack enough in?”

“Of course you did, Wylan,” Kaz replied.

His name on the other man’s lips was enough to make what little was left of his resolve on one specific thing to disappear like the last ice on top of a lake on the first day of summer. His heart throbbed in his chest and his stomach flipped with arousal and desperation. The muscles that had been tensed up to try and protect him at least a little bit loosened enough that his entire body began to quiver.

Wylan wasn’t given the chance to say or do anything before more words were pouring from the other man’s mouth, wrapping around him and consuming his flesh. 

“I wish that you had more confidence in yourself. I know that you are aware of my reputation and who I am, so you should also know that by working with you, I have decided that you are worthy of my time and money,” Kaz let out a little sigh. “You’re a worthy investment only because you are capable, magpie.”

“I…” he couldn’t make any of the words caught in his throat bubble up to the surface like he desperately wanted them to. He was trapped in the fugue state as everything that the other man was beginning to consume him. The natural musk of his body mixed with his cologne to create a hypnotic, drugging effect on Wylan whenever the other man moved so that he could catch a whiff of it. The push and pull of their bodies around the table was addictive in a way that no substance, natural or man made, could ever be.

“I’ve offered to add you to my flock, you know,” Kaz murmured. Wylan could feel his breath against the back of his neck, sending up the hairs so that they were standing on end. He was so painfully aroused, it almost felt as though he was going to explode on the spot. He certainly hoped that he didn’t, he was wearing the only pair of clean clothing that he had on him and he wasn’t able to afford so much as food, let alone a place in the wash house so that he could clean anything he soiled.

“O-oh?” Wylan asked, his eyes finally darting back towards Kaz. His heart leapt up into his throat the moment at that his own locked with those dark, dangerous brown eyes.

Finally, a touch was laid upon his skin. It wasn’t what he had been expecting since their first interaction had gone much like the second had, but with Kaz leaving quickly after giving him the order of what he would need. It wasn’t something that he didn’t want, but it did make him suck in a surprised breath and stumble forward towards the table.

The smooth leather of the other man’s glove ran over the skin of his cheek and down to his neck. He couldn’t help but tilt his head to the side, much like he did when he was thinking. The seams of the gloves pressed into the rivulets of sweat that had begun to drip down from the base of his hairline. He could feel his cock straining so hard in his pants that he felt as though he were losing all of the blood in his body just to the one organ.

Kaz trailed his hand down the side of Wylan’s face and neck until he stopped at the juncture of his shoulder. He grasped at the space there, giving a tense squeeze while his thumb slipped around to Wylan’s throat. It pressed further into the sensitive skin until it caused some barely uncomfortable pulling a delicious pressure.

A strangled mewl forced its way through his crushed larynx before he had the chance to try and force it back down. The arousal burning in his gut had intensified even more than it had the last time that Kaz had been at his apartment and he was noticing all of those small things.

“You’re a good boy, Wylan,” Kaz whispered, the huskiness of his voice sending another shiver throughout him. “You saved my life, you know.”

“I-I did?” Wylan asked, trying to keep some semblance of dignity despite the way that he was falling apart in the hands of the other man. He felt the cane in Kaz’s hand tilt towards him slightly so that the wood was pressing against his skin through the cloth of his pants. He whimpered again and tried to not let his legs cave in.

The other man chuckled, a dark and dangerous sound that made the bead of precum already forming on the head of Wylan’s dick spill over so that it ran uncomfortably down his shaft until it was caught by his underthings. “You know what I like to do with people that serve me well, don’t you?”

“N-no,” Wylan shook his head. The only rumors that he had ever heard about Kaz had to do with what happened when he was crossed, none about when he was given what he wanted. He had heard, of course, about the unwavering loyalty from the Wraith and gunslinger that he kept by his side at all times, but there weren’t really a lot of other details about what their relationship might be.

“I reward them,” Kaz replied casually. Wylan felt tears welling in the corners of his eyes as he felt the ghosting breath against his neck, on the other side to where the gloved hand was holding onto his throat. “Each person requires something different to feel as though they are being rewarded. I had a man that wanted nothing more than a single silver coin every time that he did a job well done. Didn’t spend them either, just collected them. I hired an herbalist once that decided she wanted a Durast made hairpin so that she could hold her hair up better when she worked. Neither of them were my Crows, not like you are, but they still wanted something specific from me. My Crows also get something special when they do a good job at what I’ve asked them to.”

“W-what do they get?” Wylan asked. He had a feeling that there were only two crows other than Kaz himself, the Wraith and the gunslinger. Wylan’s veins sung as he thought about what him being added to that repertoire of deadly weapons would mean. Despite everything that he had been taught about how to think of those that lived in the Barrel and dealt with what Kaz did, he liked the idea of his weapons being used to help further whatever mission the criminal had taken.

“Well, my Wraith asks for nights off so that she can do anything that she wishes. My gunslinger asks for a strong bottle of alcohol and free reign over my betting tables with a high capped tab,” Kaz replied lazily. He had released the thumb that was pressing over the front of Wylan’s throat, but he was still using the digit to brush over the pretty red mark that he had left.

Somehow Wylan liked the idea of being bruised in the shape of gloves more than he liked the idea of someone’s fingerprints being indented in his skin. He dug his nails further into the wood of the table below his hands as he tried to keep his arousal back. Images of what he could ask for and what he might get in reply flashed through his mind, which only served to make his problem all that much harder to hide.

“I have a feeling I know what you want already, magpie. You’re quite easy to read, something that I think I can help you with if we ever choose to bring you with us when we go out instead of just keeping you locked up pretty and safe in your chosen cage,” Kaz murmured.

Fear shot through Wylan immediately, which caused his erection to wilt slightly. “I don’t want to be trapped in a cage. Never again.”

“I thought that you said you didn’t want to be involved in the life that I led, pretty bird,” the criminal let out a small hum. “You can only have one now that I’ve decided to invest in you.”

“I’ll come with you. I’ll do whatever you need me to,” Wylan replied immediately. “I can learn how to be like you, to be useful. I don’t want to be locked away. I want to be free.”

“Shh, shh, you’re alright,” Kaz whispered. He took a small step closer so that Wylan could feel the warmth from his stomach pressing through to his back despite neither of them actually touching each other. It soothed the shaking in his limbs and the panic clawing through is chest. “I know what it’s like to be a bird with clipped wings, I would never do the same thing to you. You’ll fly free with the rest of the flock.”

He sniffled and shook away the tears that were trying to run down his face as well as he could with the hand still around his throat. “Thank you,” he mumbled, though his lips were sticking together.

“You’re welcome, my magpie. Now tell me what you want for your reward,” Kaz ordered. The change in his voice, from comforting to strict and commanding, brought the arousal back before it had even had the chance to properly leave.

Wylan whimpered and bucked his hips forward towards the table. He felt as though he was pushing his luck by being as close to the other man as he was. One of the only rumors that did actually exist about the Bastard of the Barrel and his two loyal workers was that he never touched them and they seemed to be inches yet miles away from their boss at all times. Given that and his relative newness to being considered part of that crew, he wasn’t sure what he’d be able to ask for. 

He wasn’t a material person, so that was immediately off the table. He didn’t want silver coins or hairpins or even new equipment. He had everything that he wanted and had already been promised a roof over his head and food in his belly. He didn’t want time away from people since that seemed to be all he got nowadays, even when he was out busking for money in the streets. 

“You,” he mumbled before his brain even had the chance to shut him up. It was the only thing rolling through his mind as he tried to find an abstract concept or gift that he could ask for.

Instead of getting hit or the touch immediately leaving like he was so scared that it was going to, he got a dark chuckle, “I was waiting for you to say that.”

Suddenly the cane was pressed to the back of his calves and slowly dragging further up his body. It pressed firm to his thighs before it turned and slipped between his legs. He had fantasized about it before, but now the heavy wood was pressing directly into the bottom of his cock and over his balls. It sent shocks of pleasure through him so strong that he wasn’t able to keep the noises from bubbling up through his chest.

“Th-thank you,” he immediately bit out. He was bending forward slightly as his legs trembled in the effort to try and keep him upright while he was being flooded with such a high amount of pleasure. He had never been treated as something worthy by anyone that had gotten to know him, so having his deepest fantasy executed on his willing body was euphoria he thought he would only receive in death.

“You do not have to thank me for something that you earned,” Kaz reminded him gently. The hand over Wylan’s throat moved to behind his head, threading gloved fingers through the ruddy brown-red curls until they tightened and dragged his head back properly. He gasped as he thrust his hips down towards the cane and table, where his cock was pinned. “Especially since this is the only way that you will get me for some time. I apologize for that, as I want you too. But we can make do, can’t we, magpie?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Wylan was almost crying at how good it felt. He continued his ministrations with his hips, moving them back and down so that he could toy with his balls along the cane and then forward to stimulate his cock against the seam of his pants and the table. The idea that Kaz Brekker, the untouchable Dirtyhands himself, had just admitted to desiring someone such as him hadn’t even begun to cross Wylan’s mind.

Just as it had before, when he was touching himself to the fantasy of what was happening now, he exploded with pleasure. His cock twitched in his pants as it began to spew white lines of cum into already soiled undergarments. He moaned loudly and unashamedly, for now, despite the tenseness of his head and how it was pulled back. It was hard for his toes to curl from where they were trapped in his steel-toed shoes but his muscles did turn to gelatin, loose and crumbling.

Before he had the chance to fully collapse down to the ground, Kaz caught him and lowered him down slowly. “Was that what you wished for?”

“Yes,” he breathed. 

Kaz brushed the gloved hand still in his hair over the side of his face, much like he had before but tender instead of rough and charged. “Are you alright to clean yourself up and then get started on your new work, magpie?”

Wylan nodded without even thinking about it.

He was fully trapped in the song of the man in front of him, listening to the haunting notes and letting him draw Wylan in further and further until there was no escape. But somehow, he was okay with it. Later that day, when another one of his sexual encounters hurried down the steps to meet with him as Kaz had apparently ordered him to, he found that the birdsong was coming from his own lips.

[ravenyenn19]

thoughts on the ferolind esque scene in episode eight?? Personally I was screaming at my screen the entire time 😂 I still can't stop thinking about it!!!! Freddy and Amita are so so talented. OH also what are your thoughts on show Wesper?

Hello!!! I am sorry this is a few days late- after I opened my asks the other night, I promptly realized I had left my laptop charger elsewhere... in true fanfic-authorTM fashion. <3 PS- for any others reading this, spoilers ahead for both the books & the show! Be warned, wary tag scrollers.

BUT

Regarding your first question & the Ferolind-esque scene in the Chapel... I loved loved hearing that line of dialogue on screen. It was a beautiful portrayal by both Freddy & Amita and I genuinely don't think they could have done such a pivotal scene adaptation from the books any better. <3

HOWEVER... I do wish to be honest about the fact that I think the weight of those words were not quite as heavy for non-readers. This is because in the show, we did not get a real focus on Inej's own issues regarding intimacy/ the amount of trauma she herself possesses. Now, I do firmly believe that the showrunners/writers intend for her backstory to take a firmer foothold on the screen in either the SoC spinoff or S3, but I cannot shake the belief that they should have pushed Inej's story to an equal with Kaz's in some aspect THIS season. I watched the show with someone who has not read the books, and for him, he didn't understand why Inej said those words to Kaz beyond essentially saying "Please just hurry & heal", which was never what "I will have you without your armor, Kaz Brekker, or I will not have you at all" really meant. At least, it was never so simple to me (nor I suspect most of the fandom).

I can't help but worry that this was the same for other viewers with no detailed knowledge of Inej's past. I do also recognize that netflix needed to cut much out in order to merge so much material. Yet I firmly believe without Inej's internal monologues of the book nor external flashbacks/ conversations (as they did with Kaz), it is harder to grasp her words as meaning more than literal. Or, in some contexts, almost cruel. Which Inej never was, not once.

Anyways, I almost would have preferred to see a line of dialogue in the vein of "It's not easy for me either", in order to portray Inej's own depth of understanding in how hard it is for Kaz, because she too battles her own mind & PTSD.

This is all to say, I adored the scene. I understand why the writers did it, and I am glad they did if only for ensuring we did get to see it, no matter what happens with renewals etc. I also think a few small changes could have led to a more balanced representation of Kaz & Inej's intricate relationship. I know this is a lot of thoughts, but because I've spent so long writing for kanej, I obviously value their characters too much to stop my writer's mind.

I guess, for me, the epitome of Kaz & Inej's relationship is true equality, and I don't know that it carried over to the show as much as I wish it would have. TL;DR: I loved the scene and the characterization was gorgeous. I think one or two things could have made it even better. <3

WESPER

Your second question... I honestly loved them in the show. Of course it was very different from the books, but... Idk. Somehow, the heart of it was still so very much them. I think it was genuinely sweet in a way, that they were able to just... push forward with their love story on the screen. <3

Kit & Jack are somehow ripped from SoC, their portrayal was SPOT ON. I cannot commend them enough. Sincerely. <3

Thank you for being here & asking!!! I am just excited to rave with fellow fans. <3 Also I commend you if you read this whole thing, I know I'm long winded...

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Could you rank your least favourite to favourite characters of S2? Maybe even MVP?

This did get a little hard in places, because I really do love most of the characters, but here's my list. From least favourite.

Mal- He's not as bad as the books but I do find him bland, I just wish the writers would do something more with him.

Adrik- I really liked this character and loved his relationship with his sister, but he wasn't a major character and so we didn't see much of him.

Zoya- Much like Adrik, I like Zoya and really enjoyed what we got of her but I don't feel like she really did much this season.

Nadia + Tamar- I am putting these together as I really can't decide which one I liked more. I thought the little moments we got of their relationship were really cute and I also think they are both badasses but again, as with the others above, we just didn't get enough of them for them to outrank other characters on my list.

Tolya- I love how soft this guy is but also how he is a badass at the same time, I also really love that he loves poetry but no one else around him does but that doesn't stop him from reciting it whenever he feel the need. He is also really supportive of Jesper when he messes up with Wylan and I liked that we got to learn a little more about his fears through the poison at Sankta Neyar's home.

Matthias- You are going to get tired of me saying this but again loved what we saw of him but wish there was more, it was really interesting seeing his conflicted feelings about Nina, how he has this anger at her but still misses her, the fight scenes were also cool and that scene with the wolves too. I happen to adore wolves so that probably played into his favour with his placement in this list. I really hope they get him out of that hellhole soon though.

Wylan- I think he was a really great addition to the crows and I love his relationship with Jesper. I would love to learn more about his backstory though, why can't he read, how did he get into explosives, where are his family etc?

David- Loved that david got to do a bit more this season and I am so happy that he and genya got together, I adored his speech to her about how inside she was steel, brave and unbreakable. He better show up again in season 3 or I riot.

Nina- Her story this season was heartbreaking, it is clear how desperate she is to get Matthias out of Hellgate and how much she hates that he seems to hate her. That scene where she is talking to Zoya about whether it was all worth it and a single tear runs down her cheek really got at me. But she was also had her kickass moments and I actually really enjoyed her interactions with Kaz.

Jesper- Loved learning more about his backstory and that he was actually grisha and seeing him come to accept that. As I mentioned above I also really loved his relationship with wylan and how that helped him accept who he was. Seeing him use his powers was so cool too as I don't think we've really seen a durast use their powers in a combat setting before.

Nikolai- I thought Nikolai was a really fun character and I really enjoyed seeing his friendship with both Mal and Alina grow. He really did show that he was a good friend and he cares about them. I also think he genuinely does care about ravka and the grisha and wants to be a good king.

Genya- This was another story line that was just heartbreaking this season. She goes through alot and watching her come out the other end of it and grow in her confidence and self esteem was good to see, for her to learn that she was more than just her own beauty. Hopefully she can be reunited in season 3 with david because I refuse to accept that's the end of their story.

Inej- It was interesting to see her dynamic with Kaz this season, it is clear that they both have deep feeling for each other and want to be together but can't. I liked seeing inej challenge Kaz more and point out that he can trust her, I also love how when he did open up about his brother she supported him. She is always there for him when he needs her. Of course her fight scenes were as amazing as ever and loved seeing her wield the magic sword. I am also interested to see where she goes from here as she did make that decision to leave Kaz, which honestly as heartbreaking as it was I do think it'll be good in the long run.

Alina- I actually really enjoyed Alina's arc this season and watching her become more and more like Aleks and seeing her moving towards that point of no return for her corruption arc. I just thought it was really interesting to see a more angry slightly darker Alina this season but one who still had alot of compassion for her friends. Obviously really excited to see what they do with her arc in season 3.

Aleks + Kaz- So I am cheating a bit here by putting both these characters as MVP, but I genuinely could not decide between them both, I went back and forth alot but they were both just too good this season. I really liked seeing the effect merzost had on Aleks and how it seemed to make him sick, his scenes with baghra were also really interesting, watching his range of emotions shift throughout the season was fascinating too, how he had moments of anger, of despair, of grief but also moments of hope and peace. Ben Barnes' acting was just amazing. But then Freddy also did an equally amazing job this season. That scene in ep 4 when Kaz takes down Rollins still gives me chills every time I watch it. We learned alot more about his backstory too and honestly it really was so heartbreaking and explains so much about Kaz and his motivations. I also thought it was interesting seeing both of these gentlemen so conflicted over their ladies. It is obvious that Aleks is longing for Alina and Kaz for Inej but that they both see wanting and love as a weakness and so are struggling with the feelings they have. Honestly both of these characters arcs and both actors performances were so amazing this season and I really can't choose between them.

So that is my list, I am really hoping I didn't forget anyone. I am curious to know how everyone else would rank the characters in season 2, who would you have as your least favourite and your MVP characters?

[nausikaaa]

Part Two!

July

Six Of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. 5 stars. this is the book i always turn to when i feel my motivation slip. this was my fourth time reading it. i finished it in three days and immediately moved on to the sequel. it's just so good, it grabs you from the very first page and sets off running and doesn't let go.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. 5 stars. of course i had to finish the duology. it was amazing as always.

A Curious History Of Sex by Kate Lister. 4.5 stars, super interesting and really funny, my only issue is that it was mostly focused on middle ages and victorian England. a wider scope would have been even more interesting to compare different places and times.

August

Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard. 4 stars, a short but enlightening read. really made me stop and go "damn every woman on the planet has dealt with deeply shitty men haven't we? shits fucked."

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield. 4.5 stars, a series of short stories so i liked some more than others, but they were all really atmospheric and fun. also as an aside i counted three references to greek mythology, miss Armfield please write a sapphic horror novel set in the classical world next.

Pride: The Unlikely Story Of The Unsung Heroes Of The Miner's Strike by Tim Tate with LGSM. 5 stars, if you follow me you may know it read this as research for a fic, but honestly i couldn't put it down. i learned a lot, laughed a lot, cried a lot. wouod highly recommend.

September

Murder In The Family by Cara Hunter. 3 stars. read it in 2 days, most of it in one night in just over 3 hours. the amount of twists in such rapid succession had me so invested, but the ending was a bit of a letdown.

Liberated: The Radical Art And Life Of Claude Cahun by Kaz Rowe. 4 stars, a quick read but very interesting, i really wish we'd learned this kind of history in school!

October

The Ancient Guide To Modern Life by Natalie Haynes. 2 stars, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this book, it's just that i knew a lot of the information already so it dragged for me. would probably be better for someone who hasn't already listened to her podcast multiple times, as it's a lot of the same info.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. 4 stars. i actually consumed this as an audiobook and regret not getting into them sooner. anyway, a really good mystery and i loved all the characters. i was suspicious of people who did turn out to be suspicious but for non murder reasons, everyone just has secrets in this book. and it managed to finally make me cry in the very last chapter. i'll definitely be reading the next book soon!

Secrets Of The Vampire: A Supernatural Sourcebook Of Our Legend And Lore by Julie Légère, Elsa Whyte and Laura Pérez. 3 stars, enjoyable but short. i really liked the illustrations.

November

The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club 2) by Richard Osman. 5 stars, even better than the first one! super exciting and very sweet and touching at times.

Dracula by Bram Stoker. 4 stars. yeah i did Dracula Daily this year. actually i did Re: Dracula but that's basically an audiobook, right? it started in May, ended in November, so i've included it here. honestly, i liked it way more than i'd thought i would. obviously there are parts that make you cringe and remember this book was written in the 1890s, but so long as you read it critically it's really enjoyable.

The First Ladies Of Rome by Annelise Freisenbruch. 5 stars, supplemented the knowledge i already had while also having loads of things i hadn't known before, especially about the later empire which i never studied. overall was super interesting. i want more than ever to go back in time and befriend Julia The Elder, she sounds like an absolute riot. also tv show about Galla Placidia when??

The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club 3) by Richard Osman. 5 stars. another banger. stayed up all night to finish it, i just couldn't put it down. i'm really attached to these characters now. i fear for Stephen in the last book.

The Last Devil To Die (Thursday Murder Club 4) by Richard Osman. 5 stars. i hate being right. RIP Stephen. bawled my eyes out. but i finished the series!! i felt the mystery wasn't quite as interesting in this one, but the character development was absolutely top tier.

December

The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. 3.5 stars. started off strong, was a fairly easy read so i got through the whole 300 page book in a couple of hours (with a break in between for work), but i felt the ending was rushed and dissatisfying. all the setup was there for Mira to become the third vampire, and then at the very end she just leaves and it's some random Countess a single line is devoted to? i can't even tell if it was supposed to be a surprise twist, but it just fell flat and made the ending basically a defeat for the heroine.

Heartstopper Vol 5 by Alice Oseman. 3.5 stars. a quick read but cute. i definitely can feel that this comic meant more to me when i first read it at 17 than it does at 22.

Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin. 5 stars. this is my third or maybe fourth reread, such a comfort book. the characters feel like old friends at this point.

A Lady For A Duke by Alexis Hall. 5 stars. i was really surprised by how much i enjoyed this book, as i don't typically go for book where the romance is most of the plot, and i especially don't tend to like Regency historical fiction. but it was just really fun and sweet, and it kept me interested all the way through despite being quite long. multiple moments elicited actual shouting. the romance was excellent, i was really rooting for the characters and so happy for them at the end.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint. 2.5 stars. very hit or miss. Clytemnestra's point of view is really good. her compassion, her complexity, and the way she tries to justify her actions are all so well done. Cassandra's was pretty average. i personally wasn't interested in another rehash of the trojan war, and i felt her chapters just slowed the story down, but i can see how they would benefit someone less well versed in the myths. Elektra's point of view just made me angry. her motivation is never really explained in a satisfying way, and the author clearly felt that she has to address the Electra complex, but knowing the history behind it just makes me angrier. it was a badly thought out psychological theory used to gaslight and victim blame victims of sexual abuse, and while i don't believe that the author knew that, seeing it be treated as in any way valid and applicable to the real Electra boiled my blood.

Country by Michael Hughes. 4 stars. the book i chose to spend all christmas day reading this year. a really good story, and knowing the iliad made it even better as i could recognise characters and interactions map onto the original story! it felt like playing a game while reading, picking up all the little references.

Did Not Finish

Helen Of Troy by Margaret George. i did read some more of this but just keep dropping off and gravitating to other things. maybe i'll have finished it by next year.

Bitch by Lucy Cooke. another book that has done nothing wrong, it is a me problem. i will try to finish it.

Dykes To Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel. again, working on it.

In The Vanisher's Palace by Aliette Du Bodard. read three chapters (it's only ten chapters long so a decent chunk) and decided it wasn't for me.

The Menelaid by John Barth. it's not even very long but it's just really meandering and boring. i really tried but just couldn't focus.

and finally, top picks in no particular order that i think i would recommend to anyone who wants to read something new in 2024:

Books I Read In 2023, Part One

In January I decided I wanted to track my reading, as I usually don't really have a sense of how much I read per month or year. I don't like things like Goodreads, so I just jotted down the books I read and what I thought of them in my notes app. Now that we're halfway through the year, I thought I might share what I've read, and then in December I can add part 2. So, without further ado,

January

The Girl From The Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag. 3 stars, a bit slow but generally sweet and fun.

Jackalope Wives And Other Stories by T Kingfisher. 5 stars, every story slapped. would highly recommend if you like dark fairytales with a sense of humour.

February

started Helen Of Troy by Margaret George. I still haven't finished it (she is LONG) but i'm really enjoying it!

I Was Born For This by Alice Oseman. 4.5 stars, it was entertaining and emotional like all of Alice Oseman's books but i have to deduct a half a star for the main character (who is from the south) briefly assuming with no basis that being from north = transphobic and the narrative treating this as a rational assumption and not super bigoted and classist, like what the hell was that about? also via this interaction Alice Oseman managed to find yet another way to mention Durham in her books but this time i couldn't even go "yay i'm from there!" because now have this sense that she thinks i'm predisposed to transphobia because of where i'm from. i cannot stress this enough: what the fuck.

The Prince And The Dressmaker by Jen Wang. 5 stars, so heartwarming and i loved the art! I'm trying to get one of my friends to read it because I just know he'll relate.

March

The Lives Of The Saints by Leigh Bardugo. 3 stars, not really my jam but it adds another layer to her other books, which I really enjoy.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. 3 stars, made my head hurt at times because it's kinda convoluted, but still super interesting. the musical is great too. and before you mention it, yes, i am reading Dykes To Watch Out For, but it's not on the list because I just started it, and I will probably read the bulk of it and finish it in July so it will fall under there.

April

Lies We Sing To The Sea by Sarah Underwood. 3.5 stars, i'll be honest, i read this out of morbid curiosity and spite. it was a pretty average for a YA book really, not worth all the drama it stirred up in the classics community, but the end surprised me so it gets an extra half star.

A Fatal Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum: Murder In Ancient Rome by Emma Southon. 4 stars, really interesting and quite funny at times but i just don't really like the author's vibe. she's weirdly defensive of Caligula, just as she was in her book on Agrippina that i read last year. like yeah people make fun of him and exaggerate stories about him but he literally killed people, maybe he deserves it.

May

Messalina: A Story Of Empire, Slander And Adultery by Honor Cargill-Martin. 5 stars, super interesting and engaging, i never wanted to put it down! Messalina really did just girlboss too close to the sun.

I travelled this month so didn't have time for any other books, but I bought my own weight in them and will try to work through them.

June

Rain Hare by Anna Barker. 4 stars, a collection of short stories so a mixed bag. I really liked most of them, some even made me cry (to be precise, How Do I Feel About Lentils?, which does an excellent job of blending past and present to help the reader get into the confused mind of the narrator, who has Alzheimer's, and Tunny, wherein the twist hit me like a sack of bricks and all I could do was break down) but there was just one i didn't really like (Sea Glass, i just don't really vibe with the mentally ill narrator dying at the end and this being presented as what she wanted.)

Through The Woods by Emily Carroll. 3.5 stars, good horror, the art was great and the stories interesting, but they all felt like they ended just a bit too soon and therefore lost some of their impact.

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield. 6 stars, yes, i'm straight up giving this 6 out of 5 stars because it was so so good! i devoured it in one day flat and loved it. the horror was atmospheric and gripping, the romance made my chest ache, and the ending absolutely devastated me, but in a good way.

so yeah, hopefully i can continue to get through my massive TBR pile in the coming months! and if you've read any of these books, please let me know what you think, I would love to talk about them!!

[tarobytez]

disability in the Six Of Crows Duology; an analysis of Kaz Brekker, Wylan Van Eck, and the fandom’s treatment of them.

****Note: I originally wrote this for a tiktok series, which im still going to do, but i wanted to post here as well bc tumblr is major contributor to what im going to talk about

CW: ableism, filicide, abuse

In the Six of Crows duology, Leigh Bardugo delicately subverts and melds harmful disability tropes into her narrative, unpacking them in a way that I, as a disabled person, found immensely refreshing and…. just brilliant. 

But what did you all do with that? Well, you fucked it up. Instead of critically looking at the characters, y’all just chose to be ableist. 

For the next few videos paragraphs im going to unpack disability theory (largely the stuff surrounding media, for obvious reasons) and how it relates to Six Of Crows and the characterization of Kaz Brekker and Wylan Van Eck, then how, despite their brilliant writing, y’all completely overlooked the actual text and continuously revert them to ableist cariactures.

Disclaimer: 1. Shocker - i am disabled. I have also extensively researched disability theory and am very active in the disabled community. Basically, I know my shit. 2. im going to be mad in these videos this analysis. Because the way y’all have been acting has been going on for a long ass time and im fuckin sick of it. I don’t give a shit about non-disabled feelings, die mad

Firstly, I’m going to discuss Kaz, his play on the stereotypical “mean cripple” trope and how Bardugo subverts it, his cane, and disabled rage. Then, I am going to discuss Wylan, the “inspiration porn” stereotype, caregivers / parents, and the social model of disability. Finally, I will then explain the problems in the fandom from my perspective as a disabled person, largely when it comes to wylan, bc yall cant leave that boy tf alone.

Kaz Brekker

Think of a character who uses a cane (obviously not Kaz). Now, are they evil, dubiously moral, or just an asshole in general? Because nearly example I can think of is: whether it be Lots’O from Toy Story, Lucius Malfoy, or even Scrooge and Mr.Gold from Once Upon A Time all have canes (the last two even having their canes appear less and less as they become better people)

The mean/evil cripple trope is far more common than you would think. Villains with different bodies are confined to the role of “evil”. To quote TV Tropes, who I think did a brilliant job on explaining it “The first is rooted in eugenics-based ideas linking disability or other physical deformities with a "natural" predisposition towards madness, criminality, vice, etc. The Rule of Symbolism is often at work here, since a "crippled" body can be used to represent a "crippled" soul — and indeed, a disabled villain is usually put in contrast to a morally upright and physically "perfect" hero. Whether consciously on the part of the writer or not, this can reinforce cultural ideas of disability making a person inherently inferior or negative, much in the same way the Sissy Villain or Depraved Homosexual trope associate sexual and gender nonconformity with evil. ”

Our introduction to Kaz affirms this notion of him being bad or morally bankrupt, with “Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason”, etc. This mythologized version of himself, the “bastard of the barrel” actively fed into this misconception. But, as we the audience are privy to his inner thoughts, know that he is just a teenager like every other Crow. He is complex, his disability isn’t this tragic backstory, he just fell off a roof. It’s not his main motivation, nor does he curse revenge for making him a cripple - it is just another part of who he is. 

His cane (though the shows version fills me with rage but-) is an extension of Kaz - he fights with it, but it has a purpose. Another common thing in media is for canes to be simply accessories, but while Kaz’ cane is fashionable, it has purpose.

The quote “There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.” is so fucking powerful. Kaz does not want nor need a cure - its said in Crooked Kingdom that his leg could most likely be healed, but he chooses not to. Abled-bodied people tend to dismiss this thought as Kaz being stubborn but it shows a reality of acceptance of his disability that is just, so refreshing.

In chapter 22 of SOC, we see disabled rage done right - when he is called a cripple by the Fjerdan inmate, Kaz is pissed - the important detail being that he is pissed at the Fjerdan, at society for ableism, not blaming it on being disabled or wishing he could be normal. He takes action, dislocating the asshole’s shoulder and proving to him, and to a lesser extent, himself, that he is just as capable as anyone else, not in spite of, but because he is disabled. And that is the point of Kaz, harking back to the line that “there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken”. 

I cried on numerous occasions while reading the SOC duology, but the parts I highlighted in this section especially so. I, as many other disabled people do, have had a long and tumultuous relationship with our disability/es, and for many still struggle. But Kaz Brekker gave me an empowered disabled character who accepts themselves, and that means the world to me. 

Keeping that in mind, I hope you can understand why it hurts so much to disabled people when you either erase Kaz’s disability (whether through cosplay or fanfiction), or portray him as a “broken boy uwu”, especially implying that he would want a cure. That flies in the face of canon and is inherently fucking ableist. (if u think im mad wait until the next section)

Next, we have Wylan.  

Oh fucking boy. 

I love Wylan so fucking much, and y’all just do not seem to understand his character? Like at all? Since this is disability-centric, I’m not going to discuss how the intersection of his queerness also contributes to these issues, but trust me when I say it’s a contributing factor to what i'm going to say.

Wylan, motherfucking Van Eck. If you ableist pricks don’t take ur fucking hands off him right now im going to fight you. I see Wylan as a subversion another, and in my opinion more insidious stereotype pf disabled people - inspiration porn.

Cara Liebowitz in a 2015 article on the blog The Body Is Not An Apology explains in greater detail how inspiration porn is impactful in real life, but media is a major contributing factor to this reality. The technical definition is “the portrayal of people with disabilities as inspirational solely or in part on the basis of their disability” - but that does not cover it fully. 

Inspiration porn does lasting damage on the disabled community as it implies that disability is a negative that you need to “overcome” or “triumph” instead of something one can feel proud of. It exploits disabled people for the development of non-disabled people, and in media often the white male protagonist. Framing disability as inherently negative perpetuates ideals of eugenics and cures - see Autism $peaks’ “I Am Autism” ad. Inspiration porn is also incredibly patronizing as it implies that we cannot take care of ourselves, or do things like non-disabled people do. Because i stg some of you tend to think that we just sit around all day wishing we weren’t disabled. 

Another important theory ideal that is necessary when thinking about Wylan is the experience of feeling like a burden simply for needing help or accommodations. This is especially true when it comes to familial relationships, and internalized ableism.

The rhetoric that Wylan’s father drilled into his head, that he is “defective”, “a mistake”, and “needs to be corrected”, that he (Jan) was “cursed with a moron for a child” is a long held belief that disabled people hear relentlessly. And while many see Van Eck’s attempted murder of Wylan as “preposturous” and overall something that you would never think happens today - filicide (a parent murdering their child) is more common than you would like to believe. Without even mentioning the countless and often unreported deaths of disabled people due to lack of / insufficient / neglectful medical care, in a study on children who died from the result of household abuse, 40 of 42 of them (95%) were diagnosed with disabilities. Van Eck is not some caricature of ableist ideals - he is a real reflection on how many people and family members view disability. 

Circling back to how Wylan unpacks the inspiration porn trope - he is 3 dimensional, he is not only used to develop the other characters, he is just *chefs kiss* Leigh, imo, put so much love and care into the creation of Wylan and his story and character growth that is representative of a larger feeling in the disabled community. 

That being said, what you non-disabled motherfuckers have done to him.

The “haha Wylan can’t read” jokes aren’t and were not funny. Y’all literally boiled down everything Wylan is to him being dyslexic. And it’s like,,,, the only thing you can say about him. You ignore every other part of him other than his disability, and then mock him for it. There’s so much you can say about Wylan - simping for Jesper, being band kid and playing the fuckin flute, literally anything else. But no, you just chose to mock his disability, excellent fucking job!

Next up on “ableds stfu” - infantilization! y’all are so fucking condescending to Wylan, and treat him like a fucking toddler. And while partly it is due to his sexuality i think a larger portion is him being disabled. Its in the same vein of people who think that Wylan and Jesper are romantically one sided, and that Jesper only kind of liked Wylan, despite the canon evidence of him loving Wylan just as much. You all view him as a “smol bean”, who needs protecting, and care, when Wylan is the opposite of that. He is a fucking demolitions expert who suggested waking up sleeping men to kill them - what about that says “uwu”. You are treating Wylan as a burden to Jesper and the other Crows when he is an immensely valuable, fully autonomous disabled person - you all just view him as damaged. 

And before I get a comment saying that “uhhh Wylan isn’t real why do you care” while Wylan may not be real, how you all view him and treat him has real fucking impacts and informs how you treat people like me. If someone called me an “uwu baby boy” they’d get a fist square in the fucking jaw. Fiction informs how we perceive the world and y’all are making it super fucking clear how you see disabled people. 

Finally, I wanted to talk about how the social model of disability is portrayed through Wylan. For those who are unaware, the social model of disability contrasts the medical model, that views the disability itself as the problem, that needs to be cured, whereas the social model essentially boils down to creating an accommodating society, where disability acceptance and pride is the goal. And we see this with Wylan - he is able to manage his father’s estate, with Jesper’s assistance to help him read documents. And this is not out of pity or charity, but an act of love. It is not portrayed as this almighty act for Jesper to play saviour, just a given, which is incredibly important to show, especially for someone who has been abused by family for his disability like Wylan, that he is accepted. 

Yet, I still see people hold up Jesper on a pedestal for “putting up with” Wylan, as if loving a disabled person deserves a fucking pat on the back. It’s genuinely exhausting trying to engage with a work I love so much with a fandom that thinks so little of me and my community. It fucking shows. 

Overall, Leigh Bardugo as a disabled person wrote two incredibly meticulous and empowered disabled characters, and due to either lack of reading comprehension, ableism, or a quirky mix of both, the fandom has ignored canon and the experiences of disabled people for…. shits and giggles i guess. And yes, there are issues with the Grishaverse and disability representation - while I haven’t finished them yet so I do not have an opinion on it, people have been discussing issues in the KOS duology with ableist ideals. This mini series was no way indicative of the entire disabled experience, nor does it represent my entire view on the representation as a whole. These things need to be met critically in our community, and talked about with disabled voices at the forefront. For example, the limited perspective we get of Wylan and Kaz being both white men, does not account for a large portion of the disabled community and the intersection of multiple identities.

All-in-all, Critique media, but do not forget to also critique fandom spaces. Alternatively, just shut the fuck up :)

happy fucking disability pride month, ig

[swanimagines]

I can't tell if your requests are open or not BUT I had this funky ass dream about Kaz but it was like.... I was missing for a really long time and suddenly I resurfaced again?? So can I ask for something like that with a Kaz x reader where the reader is someone important to him like maybe his partner and they suddenly come back??

THE FREDDY EVENT HAS ENDED! Thank you everyone who requested during it! Freddy's characters preferences and requests for Jason, Tom and Ellis will stay open as I promised, they weren't exclusive to the event.

The Kaz taglist will apply for the remainder of content which came during the event, but after that it won't be used anymore and Kaz pieces will have the general Netflix show Shadow and Bone taglist, which contains the rest of the Crows, Alina, Mal, Genya, Darkling etc. You can apply to that if you want to catch the post-event requested Kaz pieces too!

A/N: If you aren't sure if my requests are open, it always reads on my pinned post, and it also read on the Freddy event post. But honestly my requests are almost always open, I think last time they were closed was about 3 years ago. Every time I close them, I seem to get the most inspiring and awesome requests from people who didn't read my pinned post and then I'm debating whether I'll let it slide or tell them to come back once requests are open, risking for them to go to choose someone else to get their request out quicker. So I changed it so that requests are almost always open and now I also write them in order I feel inspired in and not in order they came in (Freddy event + celebrations are exceptions though).

Word count: 2.7k

STORY OF BROKEN HEARTS

"I don't feel happy here, Kaz."

"Not happy here, or not happy with me?" Kaz asked. The boy you loved had his back to you, tightly gripping his desk. "I think we both know the answer to that question."

"It's not about you, Kaz. I'm done with this criminal life, done with fearing for my life, done with running and hiding from Stadwatch, being afraid of having to watch my friends, or you, being killed all the time." you replied with a shaky voice as you felt tears invading your eyes. You wiped them away quickly before they could betray you. "I want a normal home, somewhere safe where I can relax without worrying what might happen at any moment. I wish you'd come with me, but I know you won't."

"I belong in Ketterdam," he said quietly. He turned around slowly, but not meeting your eyes. You took in a shaky breath when you saw how hurt he was by your words. He didn't cry, Kaz Brekker never cried, he kept it all inside him, but you knew him enough to know he was devastated by your decision to leave. You nodded, biting your lip. Your heart screamed for you to take back your words, say you'll stay, say you'll stay with him, but your brains knew your heart wouldn't be able to handle yet another loss. Losing Rikke and Vera during the last job had been the last straw for you, and you knew you wouldn't be able to bear losing more friends.

You laid your hand near Kaz's, and he paused for a moment, before pulling his hand away from you, settling it a little further. You took it as a quiet ask for you to leave already, he didn't want to make it harder than it already was. He was trying to forget you already. So you turned, walking to the door, taking one last glance at Kaz's office you had spent in so many nights, cuddled up in that little armchair with an open book on your lap reading while Kaz worked. The window, where you and Kaz had first held hands as you had looked at fireworks of the Winter Solace. The couch, where you had fallen asleep on, finding Kaz's coat wrapped around you in the morning. And Kaz, working there, offering you a small smile when you entered his office, a smile reserved only for you. Now, he didn't even spare a glance at you. You swallowed back your wavering voice.

"Goodbye, Kaz." you croaked out, then walked out of his room. You stood behind it for a moment, leaning against the railing as you let tears fall, before making your way down and grabbing your bag, which you had left outside his bedroom door, slinging it over your shoulder. You wiped away your tears, clearing your throat and stepping into the hallway and head out.

You felt Kaz watching you as you made your way towards the harbor through the rainy Ketterdam streets, and tried your hardest not to look at him. You couldn't deal with meeting his eyes, since that would have reeled you right back to the Slat, and only when you were on a ship sailing towards your new life, you stared at the direction of the Slat until it disappeared into horizon.

***

"Os Kervo! Docking in Os Kervo! Next harbor will be Ketterdam!" The sailor shouted loudly from above deck. You sat at the prow of the ship, looking ahead of yourself, enjoying the brisk sea breeze whipping across your face. The cold air cleared your thoughts, or at least kept you from dwelling too much on them.

Five years ago you had left Ketterdam in search of new, better life. But during those five years, you hadn't been able to leave your past behind you. Your heart always belonged in Ketterdam. You had tried to get over Kaz, even trying to start a few relationships, but the first date always felt just... wrong. They all had been nice, polite and charming people, no red flags anywhere, and yet, it never worked out. You never even got to the point of kissing any of them. It was as though they could sense that you still cared about someone else.

You had finally come to realise with the past few months that you'd never get over Kaz. You belonged with him, he made you happy, and that would forever be impossible with anyone else. He had fought his way to show his love to you over and over again, and you had selfishly left him because you couldn't bear the thought of losing him. You had realised that even if he did die, you wanted to be the last one he sees, you wanted him to know you loved him til the end. Your heart would break into little pieces, but you wanted to be with him until the very end. He was your one true love, and you wanted to let him know that.

Of course, you dreaded some things. He could have already died. He could have found someone else. But you still had to see him, had to apologize to him at least if not else. Even visit his grave if he was dead.

You tucked your little bag under your coat and looked at the bright sky above. There wasn't a bright sky in Ketterdam, at least not very often. The sky was always covered in a thick layer of grey clouds or fog, or both. It didn't make it easy for the sun to shine through, and it always seemed to rain.

The plank was finally taken in, and the ship was undocked. And so you were sailing back to where you belonged, back to the city of crime and dark streets you had called home since you were thirteen years old.

***

The Crow Club was bustling with customers today. They were laughing, gambling, downing shots and hooraying to themselves occasionally. You smiled at the sight, taking a few steps further to the building.

"Y/N?" you heard a familiar voice from behind your back, and you turned around with a bright smile.

"Jes!" you exclaimed happily as Jesper embraced you tightly.

"Where have you been? We thought you're dead or something, Kaz wouldn't agree to talk about you at all. He just kept ignoring any questions about you." Jesper told you, squeezing you tight again. You nodded, smiling sadly.

"I'm sorry I left like that," you started, "I just felt like I couldn't take it anymore. All that death and bloodshed... It was too much..."

Jesper nodded, glancing at the top of the stairs and then at you. You followed his gaze, seeing Kaz standing there. Your breath hitched in your throat and you swallowed heavily. He didn't seem to recognize you, or at least he didn't let it show if he did. His eyes swept across you, before he started descending the stairs and walked towards you. You took a step forward towards him, expecting him to come talk to you, but he moved past you without a word or another glance.

You sighed shakily and looked back at Jesper who was watching you with concern. "He has someone, doesn't he?"

Jesper shook his head. "Not that we know. But he has become even more cold since you left. He quit talking to me and Wylan about everything else than work. He's just our boss now, nothing else."

You nodded, your mind running through your memory from the night you left. The memory was painful for you, and you could only imagine how painful it must have been for Kaz. You saw him slip outside, and without another thought you followed him. Maybe it wasn't wise, but you had to talk to him, you had to try to make him understand. You likely wouldn't be able to "fix" it right away, but you could try to mend it somehow.

He was standing against the wall, staring at the street full of people. You came to stand by him, and hoped for him to stay there, but instead he turned away as though you were no longer worth looking at.

"What are you doing here?" he asked bluntly.

"I want to say I'm sorry," you said softly, taking a step closer to him. "I shouldn't have left like that. I should have talked things out with you first. I knew what I was getting into, I just... I couldn't bear the idea that you would die and I would be left here alone." He slowly looked up at you then, his face blank, void of any emotion. You swallowed nervously, bracing yourself for his reply.

He looked down at the cobbled stone below him, sighing loudly. "I am not interested in hearing about your reasons, Y/N. You left us. Left me. You chose to leave because you were scared of this life. Don't come crawling back when it's convenient for you to do so because it serves your purpose."

You shook your head quickly. "No, Kaz—" your voice broke, but you forced it to come back together. "I didn't come back just to serve my purposes."

"Then why?" he demanded, still glaring down at the ground.

You sighed again. "Because I missed you." You felt tears welling up and had to blink them away before continuing. "I realised that even if I'm scared to lose you, lose any of you, I want to be here. I want you to know I'm willing to love you until the end, whether you die tomorrow or when we're a hundred years old. Because without you I'll never be able to truly live." He glanced up from under his brow, but otherwise said nothing. He let out another heavy breath and then he turned back towards the Crow Club.

"Kaz?" you called softly. He grunted and stopped for a moment, looking at you.

"What?" he snapped impatiently.

"Please don't hate me..." you begged him, the tears spilling over onto your cheeks. "I was selfish, and I was wrong, but please try to understand."

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "I don't have to understand," he said, walking past you.

You stood there alone for a moment, tears rolling down your face as you stared after Kaz. You hugged yourself, turning away, but then you felt a coat being wrapped around you.

"Oh, love," Jesper mumbled, looking at your face and wiping some tears away with his thumb. "It's alright. It's gonna be alright."

You sniffled and shook your head. "No, it won't. He hates me now, doesn't he?"

"No, he just needs time." he answered and you saw Wylan coming to stand at the door. He smiled at you sadly, and you returned it. Jesper guided you inside and up the stairs.

"Will Kaz allow this?" you asked as you sat on the couch.

Jesper shrugged. "You need rest, it's been a long day. We'll find out in the morning what happens next."

You nodded gratefully as Wylan took out a big, warm looking spare blanket and a pillow and it didn't take long for you to fall asleep.

***

The sun rose slowly, illuminating a new day that would hopefully lead to better things than last night had brought you. You sat up and smiled a little as you saw Jesper and Wylan spooning together on their shared bed. You stretched your limbs and yawned softly before realising you're thirsty. You put on your clothes carefully, trying your best not to make noise or disturb the two lovers still sleeping - yesterday had been a long day for them too, you wanted them to have a good night's rest.

The floorboard creaked under your feet, and you paused, looking over at Jesper and Wylan. Jesper hummed and snuggled closer to Wylan, but neither of them didn't wake up. You sighed in relief and made your way towards the door. You opened the door quietly, and closed it, and then almost screamed as you heard a click of a cane behind you. You turned around with wide eyes, seeing Kaz standing there, scowling.

Words flowed out before you could stop them "Kaz, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have come here, I—"

He cut you off by lifting his hand and took in a deep sigh.

"We should probably talk," he told you stiffly.

You frowned, your mouth opening slightly. You weren't expecting that. "What?"

He averted his eyes from yours. "Just... come downstairs. We can talk while we eat breakfast." He started walking past you without another word, down the stairs. You followed him after a moment's hesitation. He led you to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee, while you took an apple from the food storage room and sat at the table with your former boyfriend who, you noticed, was slightly nervous. To anyone else, he might have looked static and cold, uncaring, but you noted all the microexpressions which you had learned years before and knew better than anyone just how anxious he really was about this situation.

The two of you ate silently for a moment, before Kaz finally cleared his throat, getting your attention.

"I was too harsh on you yesterday," he said to you, staring at his now empty cup of coffee.

You shook your head, "No you weren't..."

"Let me finish," he told you sternly. "I was hurt because you just came back after leaving us, and I lashed out at you because it made me feel better in some way. But it wasn't fair, we were still very young when you left. Rikke and Vera were like siblings to you, their death hit you hard and you walked out. I should have understood enough to offer you a better solution, fitting for both of us."

"It wasn't your fault I left, Kaz." you told him quietly, leaning forward. "I was scared and didn't think about others, only myself. I made that decision in one evening and regretted it a few days after. It was stupid of me."

He waved your words away with a dismissive hand. "No, it was reasonable for you to leave. But I should have given you some time off rather than blaming you of abandoning us. You had decided to leave, but I still drove you away. I felt so guilty of not being able to offer you more, to be honest." He let out a sigh. "But you are here now, and hopefully things will go well between us again, once we talk this over."

You nodded slowly, your heart leaping a little in joy with his last sentence. "I hope we do, Kaz."

He smiled slightly then, that smile you had missed so much and that always made your cheeks hot, and stared at your hand on the table. Slowly, he inched his hand towards yours, and you followed suit until you had gently linked your pinkies together. You faintly saw a blush on Kaz's cheeks, even at the dim lighting of the kitchen, and felt your own cheeks burning up too, feeling like that lovesick teenager you had been before you first started your relationship.

He had grown a lot during these five years too - when you left, Kaz wouldn't apologize to anyone for anything, not even to you. At the very best, his apology was a flower or a book left on your bedside table, sometimes with a note "I hope you like it", but now he had used his words to apologize. He had felt guilt about the situation which he had tried to manage, and you coming back so suddenly had made his feelings go on an overdrive which had made him put his walls up high again, and it made you hurt just thinking about what he might have been going through.

But the important thing was that now, after thinking of it through the night, he had decided to forgive you, and that was all that mattered.

---

Tags: @scandalous-chaos @brekkers-desigirl @bb-skyrunner @ellora-brekker @hanabihwa @animalistic0 @story-scribbler @lovemenotplz @writingmysanity @directioner5life @thevipers-world @imaginesfire // send in an ask to be added, and specify which of Freddy's characters do you want to be tagged on! (This taglist is for Freddy event only, I won't take character taglists for anyone else than Freddy's characters. And note: after the event, Kaz pieces will get the full SaB taglist again, this taglist applies only during this event) ALSO IF YOU WON’T INTERACT BEYOND LIKING, I’LL EVENTUALLY TAKE YOU OFF THE LIST!!

[usmsgutterson]

SENDING IN ONE MORE<3

HAPPY ONE YEARS<3

can i please have another kaz hehe x fem!reader with prompt 20 from the dialogue prompts?

THANK YOU<3

Far Too Long- Kaz Brekker

Hey, absolutely you can! I've long surpassed my one-year at this point but thank you so much for sending this in and I'm sorry I didn't get to it for a bit!

Also, should you read this at one point and then decide to come back and reread it but notice a few differences, it’s simply because the fic has been edited. 

Dialogue prompt 20: “I never expected to have to live a life without them in it. Now that I have to face that, I’m not sure if I can.”

Fic type- angst

Warnings- talk of death, depictions of grief, one mention of a shootout

As Y/N sat on a small schooner, looking over the sunrise as the last of her tears for the moment dried against the wind, she knew that Kaz was finally given his reprieve. 

The most ironic part of the forty-eight hours that’d passed was the fact that, before Kaz left to defend a piece of property that some member of the Black Tips was trying to steal from under his feet, he’d said the usual. 

“No mourners.”

And, as she normally did, Y/N had replied with. “No funerals.” 

“Have you read the will yet?” Came the voice of Nora Scholtz, one of the few people that Kaz had entrusted with the care of the schooners and boats in his name. She was an older woman, in her late seventies, her skin weathered with age and the remnants of Kaelish red hair as obvious as her accent lingering at the edges as her roots came in white. “Did Mr. Brekker even write one?”

“The Slat goes to me,” Said Y/N. “As does the Crow Club.” 

“Anything else?” A letter. A statement that the farm he’d asked to be buried in belonged to her. 

“No,” she said. 

“He is at peace now,” said Nora. “You two were--” Y/N swallowed harshly as another bout of tears threatened to spill from her eyes. 

“Please don’t,” she said. “I don’t need your well wishes or the best you can offer. I just need silence. I need to retrieve his body from Black Veil and I need to bury him where he’s asked to be buried. I need not sentiments or understanding.” 

Nora, a little shocked and most definitely hurt, gave a nod. 

The rest of the ride on the schooner was quiet. 

----

The farm that Kaz had asked to buried on was an admittedly beautiful place. Y/N planned to set him to rest beneath a tree, and as she began to dig the hole, she let Kaz’s cane sit against it. It remained unmoving, even with the wind. 

Burying him, having to look at his body, the eyes that nobody had closed, it was the hardest part of the whole ordeal. 

Eventually, to Y/Ns relief, the crows showed up. 

Jesper and a fellow Fabrikator had made Kaz an appropriate casket. It was black and made from some altered version of Grisha steel, and as Y/N put him into it, she closed his eyes. 

“Be at peace,” she whispered. “Go easily, Kaz.” She closed the casket at that, unable to do more than walk away from it. She needed a break. It’d been a very long, very exhausting few days. 

“I understand it,” said Nina as she followed. From afar, Y/N could hear it as Matthias lowered Kaz’s body into the ground. “We’ve all lost people, Y/N.”

“I never expected to have to live a life without him in it. Now that I have to face that, I’m not sure if I can.” Y/N confessed. “How am I supposed to, Nina?”

“You take it day by day,” Inej said. Y/N startled, having not noticed Inej as she stood off to the left. “You can stay here. He left this place to you. Annika and I have the Slat and the Crow Club under control if you choose to stay here while you grieve.”

“I couldn’t,” said Y/N. “I would stay here and get used to the only reminder of him being the grave in which he sits outside. When I go back to the Slat thinking that everything is well and good, I’ll be reminded of him again and everything in my life will go right back to shambles. I ought to face it now or I simply never will.”

“We’ll help you through the worst of it,” Wylan piped up. “The reminders of him will soon fade. You’ll be the queen of the Barrel, Y/N. Something that exists in sole memory of the one you lost.” 

Jesper took Ninas place at Y/Ns right. “Matthias offered himself to cover the casket. He understands what it means to lose people, Y/N, as we all do. He says that you’ll heal eventually but to allow yourself time. It’s a tumultuous process. The opposite of easy.”

Y/N gave a single nod, casting a glance back to the spot that Kaz was being buried in. It brought a lurch of tears to her throat, but she fought them back. She swallowed them, looked to her feet. Gave a sigh. 

“It feels utterly impossible,” she managed. 

“With time, it won’t be,” Nina said, taking Y/Ns hand, giving it a squeeze. 

“We’ve got you,” Jesper added. “You’re one of the Crows, Y/N. We’ll always have your six.” She turned to him then, an onslaught of tears showing up unexpectedly. Even as much is it sucked to be crying for what felt like the millionth time throughout the mere two and a half days since Kaz’s death, it was a wonder to not be crying because of it.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you lot so much.”

“We love you too,” Wylan said. 

“No mourners,” said Inej.

Nina grinned at that. They all did. 

“No funerals,” said Y/N. 

----

About a year and a half later, Y/N L/N was killed in a shootout between the Dregs and the Black Tips. 

After the white light and the confusion, she was walking, and found herself in Kaz’s office. He barely glanced up as she closed the door behind her, though he did look up when he heard her footsteps.

“It’s been far too long,” he said.

Y/N grinned. “Far too long indeed.”