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It is a miserable thing, being hunted on his own. Not that being hunted was fun under any circumstances, but it was slightly easier to bear when there was a group hiding and fighting for their freedom alongside him. Back when it wasn’t solely his own pain to bear.
This time, there’s no accomplice listed alongside him. It’s just Kaz Brekker: Wanted For Crime Against The Merchant Council.
Wanted, like ‘wanted’ with a hefty reward and an execution block waiting for him at The Exchange the minute that he’s successfully caught and turned in. Which he won’t be, regardless of whether someone finds him or not. Which, he was almost certain, they would. Whether it be tomorrow, or whenever someone bothers to use their brains along with their eyes.
He’s always been ‘wanted’, really. If the staadwatch had ever found him, he would’ve been arrested. They simply hadn’t been able to keep a hand on him, yet, and they’d had no reason to put out a reward for him.
The minute they gained reason, though… well, they seemed eager from where he was laying, seeing as he was now more like a public enemy than he was a criminal.
Within hours, all of the previously silent, cowering citizens had gained a reason to beat him in the street and render him immobile enough to turn in. Which is exactly what they’d done, about a week and a half ago.
They just hadn’t quite gotten to the ‘immobile enough to turn in’ point, and that’s how he ended up here.
It’s not exactly hidden, the old store that he’s in, but nobody goes looking through the buildings owned by the earnest farmers down south. They assume they’re out of business, now used to store equipment from the shipping ports until it’s ready to be picked up, and there’s a nice pile of ‘full’ crates in the corner to convince them. Hell, there’s even a plow; one that he’d personally sanded the name ‘Brekker’ off the side of.
The true value in this property isn’t the store, though, and it never has been. It’s the cellar beneath it, protected by three flights of stairs, weaponry built into the walls along them; all fabrikated and installed by Jesper Fahey himself.
It’s the best safehouse he has, in short.
It’s the one that he slipped his way into after getting the shit beat out of him, stumbling down two flights of stairs and practically crashing down the last. It’s the only safe place in Ketterdam, now, and it’s where he is almost certain he will die.
He’d determined years and years ago that he would not be dying at the hands of some Mercher in The Exchange. He will not be loaded onto Reaper’s Barge by the order of the council. Not while his body is still intact (and looking like Jordie’s, being laid to rest like Jordie, burning on a boat like Kaz Rietveld).
Nine days into his stay in the cellar, and he’s sitting on the floor, weak and tired. He feels himself slipping harder than he has in years, to the point that he’s not sure that he’d survive another beating.
He tears the cuff off of his white dress shirt and tears open a packet of dried berries, mashing them into the finest liquid he can with the knife that he keeps in the bottom of his right shoe. He pulls out his lockpick and decides that staining the tip of it is most certainly not the worst thing that it will have gone through by the time it’s done being used today.
With the fabric as paper and his most trusted lockpick as a poor, poor replacement for a pen, he writes a letter. It details his love, his most treasured moments, and everything else that he’s always refused to say.
He lets the ink dry before using the leftover thread from the medical kit to sew the cuff back onto his shirt, words flipped inside out. If anyone will find the note, it will be his Wraith.
He ties the last knot lying down against the cement floor of the cellar, his head spinning and vision blurred.
The door above him slams open, and he hears semi-familiar voices coming from the top of the stairwell. He can’t remember entirely who they belong to -- just that he’s tired, starving, and fever-ridden, and that they’re the kind of people who will either save him or kill him to put him out of his misery.
Still, he picks up that knife from beside him, the one that he’d used to mash up the berries earlier, and grips it tight in his hand.
For a moment, he thinks that this knife will be his salvation, his protection, his escape from a death at the hands of the people he’s spent the past ten years attempting to build up and protect. Surely, he could still stab a few people. He’s not that far gone.
Then, there’s a girl above him, knocking that knife from his hand and collapsing onto his chest, arms around him and lifting him slightly up off the floor.
“What did you do this time? What did you do?” She cries against his torn jacket, like he’s harmed someone beyond reason, like this hasn’t been his entire reputation the whole time they’ve known each other. Isn’t this how they met, after all?
Expect nothing more of Kaz Brekker.
(She always expected something more. She should have been able to have it.)
He sees the face of his best friend above him, staring down at the two of them. Hands on his revolvers, posture stiff, eyebrows raised, mouth moving in that specific way it does when he speaks in that sarcastic, smart-assery kind of tone. The one that always makes Kaz want to sock him in the jaw.
He’s never been happier to see it, he thinks. He’s pretty sure he smiles a bit, just because he’s got the people that he cares about with him, because he’s not alone in this dark room anymore.
And then he’s falling, falling, falling.
He wakes in the captain’s quarters of The Wraith, lying on his stomach with his face pressed into a pillow. A hand is holding his thankfully still-gloved one, and there’s the soft breathing of the best, most loveliest girl that he’s ever known beside him.
There’s not a part of him that doesn’t hurt, after nine days of starving, infection, and sleeplessness. Not that he usually got much sleep, and not that he ate much, either. Just that it was easier to function back before it had been a full week since he’d done either, when he wasn’t also littered in unhealed wounds and sporting a fever high enough to make the Saints cry.
Still, there’s Inej beside him. He couldn’t think of a better cure for his various ailments if he tried.
“Hello, love,” she whispers, using a tone he’d only ever heard once from her before, back when he’d told her about Jordie.
She reaches up with the hand that isn’t currently holding his and runs her fingers through the longer parts of his hair, the parts that are currently flopping over into his eyes.
He can’t find it in himself to be concerned about being so vulnerable, not with his mind so foggy and his body aching in such a way.
“Hey,” he says voice muffled as he doesn’t even bother trying to turn his head to get his mouth off the pillow. Inej laughs, shaking the bed a little bit in doing so. It’s better than the safety of his hidden knives, his secret coat pockets and the lockpicks they’re made for. Her laugh is his perfect secret weapon, and it’s better than the skills of the Wraith herself.
She leans forward, pressing her lips to his temple, hair covering his skin. “You slept for a long time,” she whispers, squeezing his hand. “Are you feeling any better?”
Really, if anything, he’s feeling worse. More broken than before. A king with no kingdom left to rule, a thief with no more pockets to pick.
“A little bit,” he says, because it’s true enough for his physical state, at least. His mind is only pounding a little bit now, and he doesn’t feel like he’s gone without rest for weeks at a time. Not that a few hours would have completely fixed how deep his exhaustion had run before.
She smiles, brushing his hair off of his face. “That’s good,” she says, before moving to sit up.
Was his confirmation that he’s feeling better enough that she feels no obligation to stay? Does she have no desire to stay with him any longer?
She doesn’t move any further than to sit up before turning to the table beside the bed, picking up a cup of water. “You should drink. The medik said you were the most dehydrated patient she’s ever seen to.”
He doesn’t doubt it. He ran out of water three days ago, and that was after rationing the few flasks that had been stocked. Old, metallic-tasting water was never something he looked forward to drinking, but he remembered wishing that he had more of it.
She helps him sit up, being mindful of the cut on his back -- one of the men that had ambushed him had sliced through his shirt with a kitchen knife, slicing through the skin on his shoulder blade and running diagonally to the middle of his opposite side. It still stings like a bitch, even if it’s been almost a week and a half since he got it.
Her hand on his back helps his ribs, though, as sitting propped up on one elbow worked his core and made his entire abdomen ache. She held onto the cup lightly as he took it, drinking about half before feeling himself begin to shake at an alarming intensity and giving it back.
She sets the cup down and helps him ease back down onto the bed, saying nothing.
This mattress is worse than his one back at The Slat, he thinks -- it’s thin enough that he may as well just be laying on the wooden bench that it sits on.
Still, he attempts to settle into it. He wouldn’t usually, but damn it, everything hurts. Laying uncomfortably isn’t going to help it.
“I saw your note,” she says, once he’s laying down all the way and appears to be somewhat comfortable. “We’ll talk about it once you’re feeling better.”
He’s not sure what there is to talk about, though. That’s why he’d written the note in the first place; he wanted to leave no questions unanswered.
Remind her of your love, inform her of your assets, tell her that they’re all being left to her. Do it all in one note, so she’ll have to do no thinking beside those few days worth of potential grieving, if she’s not too angry that you have, once again, conned a Mercher for no solid reason.
He doesn’t know how to respond. He doesn’t want to get into an argument while his body is still aching like this, while his mind is still spinning. He doesn’t want to leave her wondering anything, in case the infection gets worse, in case the Council of the Tides is involved in this, in case…
“Is Jesper here?” he asks, hoping that refusing to acknowledge the letter won’t bother her too much.
It doesn’t work.
She nods and bows her head in one movement, still upset about something. “He’s above deck. He’ll travel back home once you’re better.”
He’s reminded of the few arguments they’ve had like this, where she’d brought something up that he wasn’t quite willing to talk about. Don’t deflect, Kaz. It’s not a good look on you.
So, takes a deep breath and winces at the pain in his ribs. Slowly, he reaches out, making sure she sees him before letting his gloved hand brush her fingertips. “I don’t know what to say about the note, Inej,” he whispers. “Would you rather I had died and left you with nothing? That’s all that I was trying to avoid by leaving it.”
She shakes her head, moving her hand away from his. She takes a moment to turn, facing him completely, back to the wall opposite the bed. For a moment, he worries that she’ll fall backwards, and that he won't be strong enough to catch her.
She’s the Wraith, he reminds himself. If anything, she’d be the one to catch you.
His breath catches, heart calms, as she’s caught in the soft golden glow of the afternoon light. He is very, very glad that he didn’t die back in the cellar, despite the ridiculous pain he’s in.
“I’m not angry about the note, Kaz,” she says, accepting his hand as he holds it out for her again. She runs her fingertips along the back of it, tracing the spots where his scars lie beneath it in a mix of circles and straight lines. “I just wish… You’ll always have a place here. I wish you knew that,” she whispers.
She looks incredibly sad, which makes him almost feel worse that it takes him so long to remember what he’d said in his note. Something about having no safe place to go. How there was nobody he was certain wouldn’t turn him in.
Hadn’t he said ‘except for her’? He thought he’d included that in his letter. Maybe not. Maybe because no matter what, it felt like he would always have a little bit of insecurity behind everyone but himself. Including Inej.
And still, he has to say it. Because she looks so sad, like she’s the one who’s done something wrong, when this lies entirely on him. Entirely on him. He’s just this way, and will continue to be this way, no matter what. Until he’s able to better himself, to take off that armor all the way, this is how he will be.
“I know, love,” he whispers, squeezing her fingers beneath his.
She scoffs, still refusing to meet his eyes. “You didn’t,” she protests. “You said in your note.”
He sighs, closing his eyes and shaking his head as hard as he can without hurting himself (which really, really isn’t much, right now). “I do, though. I was tired and you were gone, and I know that you would’ve helped if you had been there.”
How is he supposed to make her believe it? He’s never had to do this before. He’s simply never slipped up this badly; never said one thing and meant the opposite. Not with her, not when it matters so much.
She shakes her head, looking down at their hands, clasped together and clinging for dear life. “What will make you believe it, not just say it?”
Asking all the easy questions today, he supposes.
He doesn’t know. Nothing? Something so unfamiliar to him that he’s not quite sure that he’s ever going to figure it out?
“I don’t know, Inej,” he says, almost embarrassed to have to share it. He wishes that he didn’t. He wishes he could give her a better answer.
But he doesn’t. So, he just sits and watches her trace his scars with exact precision through the gloves, like they’re her own hands and she knows them as such. She keeps that same expression, the troubled one that she only ever seems to wear when he’s the one that’s fucked up. And he’s entirely unsure of what to say. How to fix it.
After a while, her hand stills over his, covering it as best as it can despite being so much smaller. She looks up at him with what has to be one of the fakest, most ‘fuck-you-but-politely’ kind of smiles she’s ever given him. “We’re going south. Lij or Shu Han, your choice.”
Still, he remains speechless. This time, it’s in an entirely different way.
“Lij?” he asks, his hand going stiff in hers. “Why would we go to Lij?”
“Because it’s familiar to one of us, and nobody is hunting you for reward there,” she says, to which he chuckles. Who knows? Maybe someone from Ketterdam spends their free time farming wheat.
She smiles, pulling his hand to her lips and kissing it softly. He doesn’t feel her skin, not through his gloves -- but he does feel the warmth of it. The gentleness of it, as her eyes flutter closed. His probably would, too, if he wasn’t so caught up in watching her.
“Go back to sleep, love,” she whispers as she sets it down, reaching out with her other hand to brush his hair back. “You’ll be home soon.”
And, well… maybe he was never meant to be in Ketterdam forever, anyway.
He wakes up to the sound of the door slamming open and all-too-familiar footsteps against the creaky floors of Inej’s cabin.
“Hey, boss!” Jesper exclaims, just loud and unprovoked enough to startle him into sitting up a bit too fast. Immediately, he feels it in his ribs, his back, his everywhere, and collapses right back down against the shitty old mattress.
“Oh, damn. Sorry,” Jesper winces, hissing through his teeth at around the same time that Kaz does.
He can barely nod, because really, it’s not entirely Jesper’s fault. It’s mostly his own, for getting himself into this situation. Maybe a little bit Jesper’s, for letting himself in so suddenly, at such a high volume.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, stepping further into the room and taking a seat on the edge of the bed beside him. To be fair, he’s incredibly gentle this time, extra sure not to jostle the mattress around as he sits. “I got bored. You remember that time when I taught you how to swing guns around? We should do that again. I swear you’d get it this time.”
His eyes are closed, though, and his only focus is breathing evenly. No, he will not be swinging guns around today. Probably for a few days, actually.
“Jesper,” he says through gritted teeth. “I cannot think of anything I’d like to do less, right now.”
His friend gasps, and he cracks an eye open to see Jesper’s hand against his chest, mouth open in a show of offended shock. “You are rude. And grumpy.”
“I almost died. Yesterday.” He has no idea how much time has passed, actually. But it seems like a good enough guess.
His friend’s expression softens as he relaxes a bit, dropping his hand and closing his mouth.
“Yeah,” he says. It comes out much softer than it looks like he intended it to, and his eyes start to well up, and fuck, if he starts crying, Kaz is going to get up and walk out of the room. No matter how high the odds are of him falling on his already very injured face.
“I’m really glad you’re okay, Kaz,” Jesper says, hand twitching over his leg, like he’s fighting the urge to reach out.
This is one of the big problems, one of the things that makes him want to better himself the most. If it was anyone else laying in this bed, Jesper would not be sitting there and fighting the urge to help. He’d be holding their hand, helping them up for a hug, maybe rubbing their arm… not sitting there and twitching with the need, but incapability, to help.
Kaz might feel bad from both of them, today.
“Good,” he says, forcing himself to keep a neutral expression, no matter how badly he wants to smile. “You’d be a shit friend if you weren’t.”
Jesper grins, all that teariness being overshadowed by that great, proud kind of Jesper-like joy. “I’m not a shit friend, though. And you better not die on us anytime soon, because then Inej and I won’t have anyone to gossip about when we visit later.”
“Oh, Saints forbid the two of you have to talk about something else.” He rolls his eyes, barely able to suppress his grin.
He’s fully aware that he’s been the topic of many of their conversations since they met. He has been ever since the first time he saw them together in the Crow Club, drinking and complaining that he was being ‘the biggest pain in the ass in all of Kerch’.
He doesn’t remember exactly what he’d done to earn that title the first time, but he clearly hasn’t lived up to it. If he had, he wouldn’t have Jesper crying over him, even after he’s proven himself to be very, very alive, despite being fucking exhausted.
“I think I’d die from boredom,” Jesper says, sniffling quietly. “And, you know… I’d miss you.”
If he hadn’t just almost died, if he hadn’t almost just left his best friend behind, that might not have hit so close to his heart. He might respond with something dismissive, maybe even scolding.
But, those aren’t the circumstances they’ve been given.
“I’d miss you, too, Jes,” he says quietly, looking his friend in the eyes.
That’s when Jesper’s face crumples and he lets out a sob, one that appears to be completely involuntary, as he regrets it almost immediately. He stands up quickly, hand going over his eyes. “Yeah. I, uhm- I’ll be back in a little bit.” He walks out of the room without another word, leaving Kaz there alone.
Well.
That’s what he gets for sharing his feelings.
He recovers fully from his little ‘wanted criminal’ stint a few weeks after they get to Lij.
The three of them sit out on the porch as the sun sets, drinking and talking like they’ve never faced death together, like they’re simply a group of friends.
He’s thought a few times -- when he’s allowed himself to think about Kaz Rietveld and all the things that he was not -- about where he might have ended up if they’d never gone to Ketterdam.
In this moment, he knows that this is exactly where he would’ve been. On the farm, out on the back porch. Likely with a different brother, maybe with a girl not nearly as great as this one, but it’s where he would’ve been.
Jesper is due to travel back home to Wylan tomorrow, though, and it’ll be just him and Inej until she has to go off on her next trip.
“You’ll come visit soon, right? Won’t just leave me here alone with the Wraith for months on end?” he asks, looking between the two of them with a smirk. Honestly, he’s much sadder than he’s making it out to be, but he doesn’t want Jesper to feel bad for going home. He may belong in Lij, now, but his best friend belongs with Wylan.
Inej scoffs, leaning over and nudging his arm lightly with her elbow. “Would that be such a horrible thing?”
“Dangerous, maybe,” Kaz says.
“Absolutely,” Jesper adds. “I’ll come back in a few weeks. Maybe once it heats up a little more. Bet it’s nicer here than it is in Ketterdam,” he says, taking the bottle that Inej holds out for him.
Kaz hums, nodding a bit. “Warmer, too.”
“Thank the Saints,” Jesper groans. “I hate the cold. I miss my farm.”
He looks between them, eyes lighting up a bit, that way they do when he’s excited about something -- a look they’ve been getting to see more often now, not just in the face of danger. “You should come with me back home one day! We could go the long way, nobody will try to shoot at us by the harbor,” he grins.
Kaz considers for a moment. Back in Ketterdam, he would’ve surely denied the offer, in the name of his work. But, he’s not in Ketterdam, and he’s trying to be better.
“That could be nice,” he says. To see what it was like where Jesper grew up, the same way he’d gotten to see that side of Kaz these past few weeks. To go with Inej, Wylan, and Nina, to spend time together away from the hell that is Ketterdam’s crime scenes.
He doesn’t miss the look that Jesper and Inej exchange. The one that says maybe, just maybe, they’re a little bit impressed with him for trying.