[ he very nearly barks out a laugh at the sheer absurdity of kaz's words. is he turning his own accusations back around onto him? kaz is the one who always has to be prompted to ask for anything. kaz is the one with walls higher than the tallest trees in ravka. and yet even as he bristles against kaz's unforgiving grip, he knows these things are no longer true, at least not for him. kaz has met and exceeded each one of his challenges, every request to ask, every demand to open his walls. enough time has passed — enough things have been said — that it's likely they'll have to start again, but that doesn't change everything that's already transpired between them. it doesn't change that kaz is infuriatingly right.
his temper flares, anger and desire rushing into one pulsing line. it's a rare thing for his fury to slip its leash, always carefully controlled beneath glib remarks and unaffected confidence, but his unwavering restraint has worn thin over the last several months, and of course kaz brekker is coarse enough of a stone to fray his threads completely. even zoya hadn't managed such a feat. he strains against kaz's hold, pushing into the kiss, eyes fluttering shut but not before they flood black, then hazel once more. the sharp point of his teeth catch onto kaz's bottom lip, drawing blood, staining his own mouth red. ]
You don't know what you want. [ make him go. kaz's fingers dip shallowly into his trousers, a prelude to something more, something nikolai has thought about a hundred times in this very room, in the bed mere feet from where they sit. but kaz does know. it's in his kisses and his touches and the cautious way he intends to undress him. nikolai shakes the thought away, ignores the ache between his legs. ] Do you think that you really know me, Brekker? That a few weeks on my ship and a good fuck somehow mean that you know what's best for me now?
[ his throat feels raw. he wants to lay his head in kaz's lap again, wants to feel his hand in his hair while the sea rocks gently beneath them. he wants him to lie and say that it will all be all right. instead of asking for comfort he reaches blindly for kaz's shirt, prying his fingers between the neat closure of his vest and forcing it open, sending the rest of his buttons scattering to the floor. he grips his tie and yanks him down, breath hot against the shell of his ear. ]
You've only just discovered what wanting really is. Don't force your way in here and act as if you can hold my hand through anything. [ something squeezes tight around his heart, cold and painful. a crinkle rustles in kaz's vest when it gets caught between their bodies. one of his letters tucked away in his pocket, a flood of nighttime memories, trying valiantly to compose his thoughts, to sort out his longing. his breath grows short, nothing to do with desire. make him go. he can taste kaz's blood in his mouth. ] I'm done holding yours.
[ the angrier nikolai is, the more alive he is, overtaken by feelings he can’t shut out or rationalise. it’s helpful, to a point — almost preferable to the hollow thing he’s been at other low moments.
the coppery taste of blood fills kaz’s mouth, more familiar than not, and air hisses between his teeth. this isn’t the gentle, careful nikolai from the first or last time. you need to be careful warns the voice at the same moment nikolai proves it. his hand stills. if there’s one thing that isn’t true, it’s the first of nikolai’s slashes. kaz brekker has always known what he wanted, even when that wanting diverged from his original purpose as a vengeful spirit.
in this moment, he knows what he wants better than nikolai, who has been contradictory for some time. this is just that tendency honed to a fine blade, slotted between kaz’s ribs and twisted with intent to harm. kaz can see it for what it is, though that does nothing for the pain. better to pause and review the evidence, swirling before him like the stones in that stupid kaleidoscope: nikolai asking him to leave the job and ravka, then stumbling over an invitation to stay in his room, in his bed. a request that he leave was followed by the very ask that drew him into nikolai’s lap.
logical thoughts scatter as nikolai ruins his new vest — for fuck’s sake — and seizes his tie, constricting his throat. you wrote me letters you said there was nothing better than me waiting you lied and lied and lied.
if kaz’s tongue is poison, nikolai’s is silver. he knows this, having spent weeks searching for pearls of truth in all his blethering. with nikolai wanting and threatening in his ear now, he closes his eyes. fighting the rip current only hastens drowning. kaz withdraws his hand from nikolai’s trousers and instead curls it at his wrist, prepared to break it away from his tie, his throat, if necessary. as he licks the blood from his lips, his breath evens its pace without slowing. ]
I’m not some toy you have to break to rid yourself of it. [ bitten out, hurt hidden the in the relentless grind of his rasp. that’s what all this is, isn’t it? he’s not performing as expected or wanted, so the little prince is tossing him at the nearest wall in frustration. ] I knew you from the moment I met you. [ a prince in privateer’s clothes. ] And I’ve told you what I want. [ you, whole and hale, whether that’s in his arms or someone else’s (though he certainly has a preference). evenly — ] So if you want me to go, you have to ask.
[ the other accusations range from absurd — that he was just a good fuck, when he was probably anything but that, all shaking hands and towering walls — to dangerously accurate. i’m done holding your hand strikes deep in his marrow, memories of intertwined fingers recurring through the whole of their entanglement. kaz had been exposed that first time on the ship, bleeding out and terrified of a healer’s hands. had accepted nikolai’s help, his touch in the times they collided after that. impossible to stop his old shame from resurfacing, weakness inherent in his inability to touch others freely, even now.
of course a thing like him can't walk this path beside nikolai, but he can try to turn him in the right direction (away from him, back toward his generals and nazyalensky). he lets his head fall into nikolai’s shoulder to slacken the fabric at his throat, smelling not sweat and salt — only decay. the chill down his spine is just that. a fear response.
he needs to leave. ]
Ask — [ his breath catches, and he hates himself for it. ] Ask for what you want.
[ because he won’t be cajoled into a retreat. his stubbornness will trigger the sickness or force nikolai to send him away openly, whichever comes first. ]
[ ask for what you want. panic seizes him. ask. how? there are too many wants tangled in his throat, always have been, choked down in favor of what he needed to be. this isn't like asking for fine brandy or asking for unerring loyalty or asking for forgiveness as a child for dropping a cannonball off the palace roof and into his mother's rose garden. (he'd never asked for the last one.) what does he really want? death. life. an end to this loneliness, a way out of this grief. he wants to pull the hurt from kaz's words, to turn his face into his dark hair and find a hiding place there. he wants to soothe a kiss to that familiar space at his throat, right beneath his ear where he used to hide a bruise away, something just for the two of them. he wants to hold his hand.
this is all wrong, and he's the one making it so. is it finally broken now? his heart rabbits in his chest, unease in every beat, shame tightening his throat. it has to be this way. kaz will understand, with time. but doubt sours that thought behind the truth of what he's known for some time now — kaz brekker's heart is perhaps the most fragile thing he's ever held in his hands. nikolai can take heartbreak, soldier on, coexist with his misery and wear a smile while he does. he'll find a way to get what he wants. but the same question he's asked himself since the start still plagues him now. will kaz ever allow anyone to touch him like this again? will he ever try to overcome this with anyone else or will he live shuttered away and untouched until the end of his days? will that be his fault, too?
his fingers loosen, slackening the pull of his tie. he feels weak, and weakness gives the chance for the demon to take hold. he can feel it now, pressing into the corners of his mind, always ready, always there. he can't afford to be anything but resolute, and yet he's done nothing this entire time but waver — and he's wavering now, feeling that barely perceptible tremor in the muscles of kaz's body, the chill on his skin, the hitch in his breath. everything has changed and yet nothing at all. ask for what you want. ]
Don't. [ his hand ghosts along kaz's spine, his fingers trembling, eyes pressing shut as his voice drops. ] Don't leave me alone with my shadow. You told me — it's grown with every wrong, and I can't see the light anymore.
[ the suli proverb, shared the very first time he ever laid hands on brekker, stitching his insides back together. he hasn't forgotten a word of it. doesn't believe a word of it. and still it holds true. fix this. he'll go off to die and kaz might never make sense of this, might spend his entire life thinking that he can't best this after all, that there will never be another place for his want. the thought is unbearable. why did zoya bring him here? why did he come? he twists, rising, depositing kaz into the plush armchair in a rumpled heap, and for a moment he hovers over him, knee pressed between his legs, hands locked on the armrests as he cages him in, his mouth close enough to kiss. kaz looks like he's going to be sick, like the tide is licking at his feet and he can't move away fast enough.
the demon closes in and nikolai skitters back, eyes glassy and hollow, pitch black. fleeting darkness flickers down his skin. he stumbles to his desk amidst the roars in his head, snatching a sheaf of paper as he begins a furious sketch, a woman with pale hair and down-turned eyes, then another, this one a man with a scraggly beard and wild brows. a child clutching a wooden toy in the likeness of a firebird. someone's grandmother wearing a faded headscarf. he crosses the room and pushes the drawings frantically at kaz, sinking to his knees before the armchair as he hastily scrawls another, his eyes burning fever green again, his breath shuddering with memories abruptly dislodged. ]
I have to find these people. No — their families. I have to. [ the pages slip to the floor as he presses his forehead to kaz's bad leg, his hand curling around his ankle. guilt rises like bile in his throat. he has no right. he should be alone. tell him to go. something chokes his words, the truth of what he wants spilling out before he can snatch it back. ] Stay with me. I — please, just stay with me.
[ the sickness hadn’t been as bad with nikolai before, certainly not the last time they were together. and it hadn’t been overwhelming in ketterdam, either, not the day jesper stretched an arm across his shoulders and kaz allowed him to keep it there for the length of their walk. it’s because you don’t trust him. not the way he trusts inej and jesper, not right now, with his movements as unpredictable as a spin of makker's wheel. it’s more like the last time he drowned in this, surrounded on all sides by the unbearable heat of human bodies and called forth by inej’s words, even as they stutter from another’s mouth. he should have seen her before he came here. she might have known what to do without him telling her a damn thing. after this, he’ll write her. routing out slavers might do him good after this messy affair.
his skin burns as nikolai handles him. you need to leave. but that would require standing — not to mention reneging on the deal he made with nikolai at the start of that endless job and renewed in this very room. face pale and pupils dilated, kaz tips his head back to regard him with jagged curiosity. which nikolai is the one leaning over him now? one that wants him close, for whatever reason.
nikolai’s eyes blacken in answer. dinner it is, he thinks darkly, slipping the knife from his sleeve. at the point nikolai hits the desk, however, he sheathes it again. kaz pushes himself upright in the chair, though he very nearly regrets it, stomach flipping even without the pressure of nikolai’s bare skin on his. you can’t hold him through this. can’t hold anyone at all, but he can soldier on, as he always has.
his gaze follows nikolai as he slips his tie from his neck and lets it fall to his lap, wrinkled atop two buttons from his vest. the price of his various gambles tonight. not too bad a loss, all things considered, with but a dash of his own blood in his mouth. he cards a hand back through his hair, quick though it is to flop forward when he drops his arm to the side of the chair, open palm smushed into his cheek. again, he wonders who approaches him now — luckily, the wildness in nikolai’s eyes give him away.
years of honing his reflexes prompt him to grab for two of the sketches before they flutter away, squinting at them in the fading light. so these are the ghosts that haunt nikolai. the child and its toy give him pause, pulling disparate threads in his mind. he and jordie left alone in the city. rollins’ little pigeon with his wind-up toy that kaz rammed down his throat. ]
[ in a rough approximation of his usual dry tone — ] That was the plan. [ good to finally have you on board, lantsov. his mouth twists into a scowl. ] Before you bit me. [ like a feral dog. or a puppy, kneeling and bent into him, keenly aware it did wrong. kaz waits for the tell of another swing to cruelty, or for his own nausea to overtake him, rippling out from where nikolai clasps the knot of bone at his ankle. when the waters calm, he sighs and threads his gloved hand through nikolai’s hair. ]
They [ the royal they: zoya, tamar and tonya, genya and the rest of his crew. ] won’t let you out of their sight long enough to find anything. [ let alone people with reason to hasten him along to the end he so desires. ] I could help with that… but I usually make deals with men who intend to live long enough to see them through. [ still a touch green, the look on his face is no less cutting. if nikolai means to die, he’ll get no help from kaz with his unfinished business. ]
[ he half expects to find the chair empty, the room empty, for kaz to have slipped out like a silent ghost, having taken enough of nikolai's failings. but he's still here. his eyes shut tightly against his trousers when he feels the gentle thread of soft leather in his hair. it's not forgiveness. he won't even think of it and damn well won't ask. but for the briefest of moments he allows himself this small grace, to remain tethered here in the quiet, as if kaz brekker can keep his demons at bay if only he just stays here with him.
the reminder that he is a prisoner here stings. this is his palace, his home. zoya is being ridiculously dramatic, but still he will grudgingly defer to her command because she is his queen and one of the few people he wholeheartedly trusts. but just because he’s been commanded to stay put doesn’t mean he’s made any promises to do so.
finally, in a beleaguered mutter — ] Stop trying to run game on me, Brekker. I’m no pigeon plucked from a Ravkan alley, and I won’t fall for your cons when you dress them as terms agreeable only to you. [ his eyes stray to the fallen papers. ] But I can’t go yet. Not if I’m going to try to make amends. And I do need your help.
[ he doesn’t realize he’s made up his mind until the words leave his mouth, brow furrowed and his cheek pressed to kaz’s knee, his fingers trailing absently up the line of his calf. a plan. the barest bones of one, at least. something to hold onto. logic and reason have been his only defense against the monster for these long years, and he has to hold onto them now despite the sorrow that threatens to drag him into the dark.
there is atonement that needs to be made in this room, too, for words said — for words unsaid — for the blood in his mouth and the perilous sickness he’s now making worse instead of better. kaz may never get in the water with him now. surely not when he realizes that nikolai intends to leave him untethered, if he hasn’t worked out already that there is no changing his mind. but kaz is as stubborn as he is. he might let him go, but he doubts he’ll let him get what he wants.
cautiously, he looks up, setting his chin at the edge of his knee. he should tell him to go back to his room, that he’s fine now, that he’d rather be alone. flimsy lies that kaz will see through, or maybe he’s been contrary enough that kaz won’t know what to believe anymore. wishful thinking. kaz looks as discerning as ever, even with his eyes a touch too wide, his skin too glassy. nikolai can’t help but feel as though everything between them has just been undone.
maybe not everything. kaz hasn’t kicked him away yet, after all. ]
I know my way around every corner of this palace. Between the two of us, I’m fairly certain we could sneak away for a night or two. We’d just have to dress as — stablehands, or something equally nondescript. No dramatic blacks or fitted vests. [ he pauses, eyeing kaz’s now buttonless vest and rumpled shirt, then brings his gaze to the bright smear of blood at his mouth. he flexes his fingers, trying to quell the desire that rises in him. it can’t lead anywhere good. ]
Stay. I don’t sleep much these days. [ he looks away, blackened fingers gentling over the bone of his ankle, sliding along the fabric of his sock. a new guilt weighs at his shoulders. ] But I won’t… I won’t touch you. You’ll have to find that elsewhere now. I want you to have that again. But it won’t be with me.
[ yet, nikolai says, at the end of refusing his thinly veiled deal, and kaz knows he still means to die. nikolai touches him even as he claims he can’t — as he outlines a plan of his own and asks him to stay. the gentle drag of his finger now burns more than the bite, the bruising grip on his tie. fitting that softness, of all things, is what snaps the tether. ]
No. [ he lets that hang in the air, fighting for his former composure and hardness. no, he won’t stop running cons. it’s who he is, unable to approach anything from an open angle. selfish, unfair, unpredictable. no, he won’t help nikolai unless the terms of the deal suit him. ] You forget who I am. [ you let him forget. giving into the very weakness that dirtyhands has exploited in his enemies hundreds of times. no more. ]
It doesn’t matter what you want for me, Nikolai, only what you can offer me. [ jaw clinched, he slides his hand from nikolai’s hair and pulls his other glove from his pocket, tugging it onto his hand.
his unkindnesses don’t bely an intent to push nikolai to change his mind. even if nikolai wanted to, kaz couldn’t allow any more taction than this. his eyes darken, committing nikolai’s weary features to memory. are you pleased with yourself, sobachka, for breaking your things. he sets about buttoning his shirt, all the way to the collar, though there’s nothing to be done for the vest. ]
You were a king once. [ if nikolai doesn’t want his mercy, then he’ll be treated like everyone else and subject to his poison tongue. ] Negotiate. With me. [ a pointed look. ] And Zoya. [ purposefully invoking how nikolai addresses her. kaz tried to face nikolai alone on the last job; a mistake he won’t make twice. his series of missteps led them here, after all. ] Tell me why I should help you, when I can leave the palace at any time through the front door — in my own clothes.
[ and go somewhere else. ketterdam, shu-han, fjerda. anywhere i won’t have to help you to your end. to prove his point, he stands, carelessly shaking nikolai and his sketches off in the process. from there, he swiftly crosses back to the desk. the greater the distance from this man, the clearer his mind. already, it rids him of the lingering discomfort from his closeness (and proximity to death). as soon as his coat hangs within reach, he pulls it snug across his shoulders. leave, he tells himself, but his mouth bites out more of its own accord. ]
Your competitors would at least pay me to douse her — the first Grisha queen, the first Suli queen — with the blood of the last Lantsov king. [ rather than asking him to abide it, free of charge. it’s phrased as cruelly he intends it. nikolai’s desire for martyrdom will do irreparable damage to nazyalensky’s reign. her extreme precautions in keeping him here serve both her affection for him and her shrewdness in keeping hold of a crumbling throne. it’s what kaz would do, in her shoes. if he also recognises that inej and jesper would never forgive a betrayal that staggering, he tells himself that isn’t a factor in his refusal to do so. ] And she’ll pay me to stop you, so you’ll need to win us both over. [ he reaches into his pocket, retrieving a box small enough to be held in one hand and throwing it at nikolai’s head. ] Luckily, you don’t sleep much, so you have all night to build your case.
[ and to attempt to crack the puzzle box that protects his present, though the puzzle was meant to be part of the gift itself, since nikolai likes them most of all. kaz chokes down his desire to watch him crack it. most likely, he’ll chuck it in the fucking bin.
for a moment, he hovers by the door, awaiting an answer. even if it’s just a continuation of the fight they’ve been having since novyi zem, this is more than he’s had of nikolai in months, and with every step he comes closer to throwing it away — to breaking his word.
he’ll return when morning comes. surely that’s enough, after all this. ]
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his temper flares, anger and desire rushing into one pulsing line. it's a rare thing for his fury to slip its leash, always carefully controlled beneath glib remarks and unaffected confidence, but his unwavering restraint has worn thin over the last several months, and of course kaz brekker is coarse enough of a stone to fray his threads completely. even zoya hadn't managed such a feat. he strains against kaz's hold, pushing into the kiss, eyes fluttering shut but not before they flood black, then hazel once more. the sharp point of his teeth catch onto kaz's bottom lip, drawing blood, staining his own mouth red. ]
You don't know what you want. [ make him go. kaz's fingers dip shallowly into his trousers, a prelude to something more, something nikolai has thought about a hundred times in this very room, in the bed mere feet from where they sit. but kaz does know. it's in his kisses and his touches and the cautious way he intends to undress him. nikolai shakes the thought away, ignores the ache between his legs. ] Do you think that you really know me, Brekker? That a few weeks on my ship and a good fuck somehow mean that you know what's best for me now?
[ his throat feels raw. he wants to lay his head in kaz's lap again, wants to feel his hand in his hair while the sea rocks gently beneath them. he wants him to lie and say that it will all be all right. instead of asking for comfort he reaches blindly for kaz's shirt, prying his fingers between the neat closure of his vest and forcing it open, sending the rest of his buttons scattering to the floor. he grips his tie and yanks him down, breath hot against the shell of his ear. ]
You've only just discovered what wanting really is. Don't force your way in here and act as if you can hold my hand through anything. [ something squeezes tight around his heart, cold and painful. a crinkle rustles in kaz's vest when it gets caught between their bodies. one of his letters tucked away in his pocket, a flood of nighttime memories, trying valiantly to compose his thoughts, to sort out his longing. his breath grows short, nothing to do with desire. make him go. he can taste kaz's blood in his mouth. ] I'm done holding yours.
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the coppery taste of blood fills kaz’s mouth, more familiar than not, and air hisses between his teeth. this isn’t the gentle, careful nikolai from the first or last time. you need to be careful warns the voice at the same moment nikolai proves it. his hand stills. if there’s one thing that isn’t true, it’s the first of nikolai’s slashes. kaz brekker has always known what he wanted, even when that wanting diverged from his original purpose as a vengeful spirit.
in this moment, he knows what he wants better than nikolai, who has been contradictory for some time. this is just that tendency honed to a fine blade, slotted between kaz’s ribs and twisted with intent to harm. kaz can see it for what it is, though that does nothing for the pain. better to pause and review the evidence, swirling before him like the stones in that stupid kaleidoscope: nikolai asking him to leave the job and ravka, then stumbling over an invitation to stay in his room, in his bed. a request that he leave was followed by the very ask that drew him into nikolai’s lap.
logical thoughts scatter as nikolai ruins his new vest — for fuck’s sake — and seizes his tie, constricting his throat. you wrote me letters you said there was nothing better than me waiting you lied and lied and lied.
if kaz’s tongue is poison, nikolai’s is silver. he knows this, having spent weeks searching for pearls of truth in all his blethering. with nikolai wanting and threatening in his ear now, he closes his eyes. fighting the rip current only hastens drowning. kaz withdraws his hand from nikolai’s trousers and instead curls it at his wrist, prepared to break it away from his tie, his throat, if necessary. as he licks the blood from his lips, his breath evens its pace without slowing. ]
I’m not some toy you have to break to rid yourself of it. [ bitten out, hurt hidden the in the relentless grind of his rasp. that’s what all this is, isn’t it? he’s not performing as expected or wanted, so the little prince is tossing him at the nearest wall in frustration. ] I knew you from the moment I met you. [ a prince in privateer’s clothes. ] And I’ve told you what I want. [ you, whole and hale, whether that’s in his arms or someone else’s (though he certainly has a preference). evenly — ] So if you want me to go, you have to ask.
[ the other accusations range from absurd — that he was just a good fuck, when he was probably anything but that, all shaking hands and towering walls — to dangerously accurate. i’m done holding your hand strikes deep in his marrow, memories of intertwined fingers recurring through the whole of their entanglement. kaz had been exposed that first time on the ship, bleeding out and terrified of a healer’s hands. had accepted nikolai’s help, his touch in the times they collided after that. impossible to stop his old shame from resurfacing, weakness inherent in his inability to touch others freely, even now.
of course a thing like him can't walk this path beside nikolai, but he can try to turn him in the right direction (away from him, back toward his generals and nazyalensky). he lets his head fall into nikolai’s shoulder to slacken the fabric at his throat, smelling not sweat and salt — only decay. the chill down his spine is just that. a fear response.
he needs to leave. ]
Ask — [ his breath catches, and he hates himself for it. ] Ask for what you want.
[ because he won’t be cajoled into a retreat. his stubbornness will trigger the sickness or force nikolai to send him away openly, whichever comes first. ]
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this is all wrong, and he's the one making it so. is it finally broken now? his heart rabbits in his chest, unease in every beat, shame tightening his throat. it has to be this way. kaz will understand, with time. but doubt sours that thought behind the truth of what he's known for some time now — kaz brekker's heart is perhaps the most fragile thing he's ever held in his hands. nikolai can take heartbreak, soldier on, coexist with his misery and wear a smile while he does. he'll find a way to get what he wants. but the same question he's asked himself since the start still plagues him now. will kaz ever allow anyone to touch him like this again? will he ever try to overcome this with anyone else or will he live shuttered away and untouched until the end of his days? will that be his fault, too?
his fingers loosen, slackening the pull of his tie. he feels weak, and weakness gives the chance for the demon to take hold. he can feel it now, pressing into the corners of his mind, always ready, always there. he can't afford to be anything but resolute, and yet he's done nothing this entire time but waver — and he's wavering now, feeling that barely perceptible tremor in the muscles of kaz's body, the chill on his skin, the hitch in his breath. everything has changed and yet nothing at all. ask for what you want. ]
Don't. [ his hand ghosts along kaz's spine, his fingers trembling, eyes pressing shut as his voice drops. ] Don't leave me alone with my shadow. You told me — it's grown with every wrong, and I can't see the light anymore.
[ the suli proverb, shared the very first time he ever laid hands on brekker, stitching his insides back together. he hasn't forgotten a word of it. doesn't believe a word of it. and still it holds true. fix this. he'll go off to die and kaz might never make sense of this, might spend his entire life thinking that he can't best this after all, that there will never be another place for his want. the thought is unbearable. why did zoya bring him here? why did he come? he twists, rising, depositing kaz into the plush armchair in a rumpled heap, and for a moment he hovers over him, knee pressed between his legs, hands locked on the armrests as he cages him in, his mouth close enough to kiss. kaz looks like he's going to be sick, like the tide is licking at his feet and he can't move away fast enough.
the demon closes in and nikolai skitters back, eyes glassy and hollow, pitch black. fleeting darkness flickers down his skin. he stumbles to his desk amidst the roars in his head, snatching a sheaf of paper as he begins a furious sketch, a woman with pale hair and down-turned eyes, then another, this one a man with a scraggly beard and wild brows. a child clutching a wooden toy in the likeness of a firebird. someone's grandmother wearing a faded headscarf. he crosses the room and pushes the drawings frantically at kaz, sinking to his knees before the armchair as he hastily scrawls another, his eyes burning fever green again, his breath shuddering with memories abruptly dislodged. ]
I have to find these people. No — their families. I have to. [ the pages slip to the floor as he presses his forehead to kaz's bad leg, his hand curling around his ankle. guilt rises like bile in his throat. he has no right. he should be alone. tell him to go. something chokes his words, the truth of what he wants spilling out before he can snatch it back. ] Stay with me. I — please, just stay with me.
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his skin burns as nikolai handles him. you need to leave. but that would require standing — not to mention reneging on the deal he made with nikolai at the start of that endless job and renewed in this very room. face pale and pupils dilated, kaz tips his head back to regard him with jagged curiosity. which nikolai is the one leaning over him now? one that wants him close, for whatever reason.
nikolai’s eyes blacken in answer. dinner it is, he thinks darkly, slipping the knife from his sleeve. at the point nikolai hits the desk, however, he sheathes it again. kaz pushes himself upright in the chair, though he very nearly regrets it, stomach flipping even without the pressure of nikolai’s bare skin on his. you can’t hold him through this. can’t hold anyone at all, but he can soldier on, as he always has.
his gaze follows nikolai as he slips his tie from his neck and lets it fall to his lap, wrinkled atop two buttons from his vest. the price of his various gambles tonight. not too bad a loss, all things considered, with but a dash of his own blood in his mouth. he cards a hand back through his hair, quick though it is to flop forward when he drops his arm to the side of the chair, open palm smushed into his cheek. again, he wonders who approaches him now — luckily, the wildness in nikolai’s eyes give him away.
years of honing his reflexes prompt him to grab for two of the sketches before they flutter away, squinting at them in the fading light. so these are the ghosts that haunt nikolai. the child and its toy give him pause, pulling disparate threads in his mind. he and jordie left alone in the city. rollins’ little pigeon with his wind-up toy that kaz rammed down his throat. ]
[ in a rough approximation of his usual dry tone — ] That was the plan. [ good to finally have you on board, lantsov. his mouth twists into a scowl. ] Before you bit me. [ like a feral dog. or a puppy, kneeling and bent into him, keenly aware it did wrong. kaz waits for the tell of another swing to cruelty, or for his own nausea to overtake him, rippling out from where nikolai clasps the knot of bone at his ankle. when the waters calm, he sighs and threads his gloved hand through nikolai’s hair. ]
They [ the royal they: zoya, tamar and tonya, genya and the rest of his crew. ] won’t let you out of their sight long enough to find anything. [ let alone people with reason to hasten him along to the end he so desires. ] I could help with that… but I usually make deals with men who intend to live long enough to see them through. [ still a touch green, the look on his face is no less cutting. if nikolai means to die, he’ll get no help from kaz with his unfinished business. ]
no subject
the reminder that he is a prisoner here stings. this is his palace, his home. zoya is being ridiculously dramatic, but still he will grudgingly defer to her command because she is his queen and one of the few people he wholeheartedly trusts. but just because he’s been commanded to stay put doesn’t mean he’s made any promises to do so.
finally, in a beleaguered mutter — ] Stop trying to run game on me, Brekker. I’m no pigeon plucked from a Ravkan alley, and I won’t fall for your cons when you dress them as terms agreeable only to you. [ his eyes stray to the fallen papers. ] But I can’t go yet. Not if I’m going to try to make amends. And I do need your help.
[ he doesn’t realize he’s made up his mind until the words leave his mouth, brow furrowed and his cheek pressed to kaz’s knee, his fingers trailing absently up the line of his calf. a plan. the barest bones of one, at least. something to hold onto. logic and reason have been his only defense against the monster for these long years, and he has to hold onto them now despite the sorrow that threatens to drag him into the dark.
there is atonement that needs to be made in this room, too, for words said — for words unsaid — for the blood in his mouth and the perilous sickness he’s now making worse instead of better. kaz may never get in the water with him now. surely not when he realizes that nikolai intends to leave him untethered, if he hasn’t worked out already that there is no changing his mind. but kaz is as stubborn as he is. he might let him go, but he doubts he’ll let him get what he wants.
cautiously, he looks up, setting his chin at the edge of his knee. he should tell him to go back to his room, that he’s fine now, that he’d rather be alone. flimsy lies that kaz will see through, or maybe he’s been contrary enough that kaz won’t know what to believe anymore. wishful thinking. kaz looks as discerning as ever, even with his eyes a touch too wide, his skin too glassy. nikolai can’t help but feel as though everything between them has just been undone.
maybe not everything. kaz hasn’t kicked him away yet, after all. ]
I know my way around every corner of this palace. Between the two of us, I’m fairly certain we could sneak away for a night or two. We’d just have to dress as — stablehands, or something equally nondescript. No dramatic blacks or fitted vests. [ he pauses, eyeing kaz’s now buttonless vest and rumpled shirt, then brings his gaze to the bright smear of blood at his mouth. he flexes his fingers, trying to quell the desire that rises in him. it can’t lead anywhere good. ]
Stay. I don’t sleep much these days. [ he looks away, blackened fingers gentling over the bone of his ankle, sliding along the fabric of his sock. a new guilt weighs at his shoulders. ] But I won’t… I won’t touch you. You’ll have to find that elsewhere now. I want you to have that again. But it won’t be with me.
no subject
No. [ he lets that hang in the air, fighting for his former composure and hardness. no, he won’t stop running cons. it’s who he is, unable to approach anything from an open angle. selfish, unfair, unpredictable. no, he won’t help nikolai unless the terms of the deal suit him. ] You forget who I am. [ you let him forget. giving into the very weakness that dirtyhands has exploited in his enemies hundreds of times. no more. ]
It doesn’t matter what you want for me, Nikolai, only what you can offer me. [ jaw clinched, he slides his hand from nikolai’s hair and pulls his other glove from his pocket, tugging it onto his hand.
his unkindnesses don’t bely an intent to push nikolai to change his mind. even if nikolai wanted to, kaz couldn’t allow any more taction than this. his eyes darken, committing nikolai’s weary features to memory. are you pleased with yourself, sobachka, for breaking your things. he sets about buttoning his shirt, all the way to the collar, though there’s nothing to be done for the vest. ]
You were a king once. [ if nikolai doesn’t want his mercy, then he’ll be treated like everyone else and subject to his poison tongue. ] Negotiate. With me. [ a pointed look. ] And Zoya. [ purposefully invoking how nikolai addresses her. kaz tried to face nikolai alone on the last job; a mistake he won’t make twice. his series of missteps led them here, after all. ] Tell me why I should help you, when I can leave the palace at any time through the front door — in my own clothes.
[ and go somewhere else. ketterdam, shu-han, fjerda. anywhere i won’t have to help you to your end. to prove his point, he stands, carelessly shaking nikolai and his sketches off in the process. from there, he swiftly crosses back to the desk. the greater the distance from this man, the clearer his mind. already, it rids him of the lingering discomfort from his closeness (and proximity to death). as soon as his coat hangs within reach, he pulls it snug across his shoulders. leave, he tells himself, but his mouth bites out more of its own accord. ]
Your competitors would at least pay me to douse her — the first Grisha queen, the first Suli queen — with the blood of the last Lantsov king. [ rather than asking him to abide it, free of charge. it’s phrased as cruelly he intends it. nikolai’s desire for martyrdom will do irreparable damage to nazyalensky’s reign. her extreme precautions in keeping him here serve both her affection for him and her shrewdness in keeping hold of a crumbling throne. it’s what kaz would do, in her shoes. if he also recognises that inej and jesper would never forgive a betrayal that staggering, he tells himself that isn’t a factor in his refusal to do so. ] And she’ll pay me to stop you, so you’ll need to win us both over. [ he reaches into his pocket, retrieving a box small enough to be held in one hand and throwing it at nikolai’s head. ] Luckily, you don’t sleep much, so you have all night to build your case.
[ and to attempt to crack the puzzle box that protects his present, though the puzzle was meant to be part of the gift itself, since nikolai likes them most of all. kaz chokes down his desire to watch him crack it. most likely, he’ll chuck it in the fucking bin.
for a moment, he hovers by the door, awaiting an answer. even if it’s just a continuation of the fight they’ve been having since novyi zem, this is more than he’s had of nikolai in months, and with every step he comes closer to throwing it away — to breaking his word.
he’ll return when morning comes. surely that’s enough, after all this. ]