[ nikolai unleashes a stronger reaction than anticipated, hurt fraying his composure and defeat spurring his words. to say something is to make it concrete, even when it may not be true. his rationalisation of his permanent exile and lifelong duties to the throne are as much of a defense as kaz’s frequent decision not to speak at all. armour comes in many forms.
still, kaz can’t believe he’s swimming (drowning) for the privilege of a lecture on kingship and duty: two things he’s never believed were worth a damn. diving is worse — something he hasn’t done since the demon stranded them both in the sea, the water as dark and endless as the harbour had been. when he surfaces, he chokes his first gasp of air and tries to mask it with a cough into his hand. ]
And what I want. [ a click of his tongue, annoyance bleeding into his features, hair flattened to his skull. surely his own wants have a place here, after nikolai worked so diligently to tease them out. ] I don’t suppose that matters. [ after kaz chased him in fjerda, ravka, ketterdam. once he composes himself enough to look around, his back straightens and scowl wobbles. it’s beautiful. like the observatory in ravka. a place he’d never have sought out on his own — that only a few people would think to share with him. ]
As gallant a nanny as you make me out to be, Zoya saw my — fondness for you and capitalised on it to serve you both. [ he blows out a breath, like he might scatter that embarrassing truth in the sea air. ] A shrewd maneuver. [ said like an insult, though it’s the opposite, since he would and has acted similarly. the only thing worse than her noticing his affection is nikolai not. then again, it isn’t as if kaz entirely understands his means of care, either. there’s something to the attention they pay each other; that much, he knows. before nikolai, he’d never met anyone as resistant as himself to letting others gentle him.
kaz’s hand finds nikolai’s clothed wrist in the water, bare fingers encircling it. ]
I know what it means to be the reason that someone you — [ all saints. ] — care for is endangered. [ his heart thuds heavy against his ribs, threatening to burst. ] One look at Inej, and I doomed her to days of torture at Van Eck’s hands. [ his expression cracked open like a safe (like a wound). he hopes it isn’t as obvious now while knowing it must be, with his wide eyes fixed on the cave ceiling. ] Everything has a cost. [ the price of affection is concern. a weakness, primed for exploitation. then, inevitably, grief. his thumb arcs to the edge of the fabric, nearly touching nikolai’s skin. ] This time, I’m willing to pay and manage the risks. If you’re not — [ he cuts himself off, forcing his voice to crisp where it had been thick with emotions seconds earlier. ] Then it’s settled.
[ finished. as kaz thought it was when he said one horrible thing after another to nikolai in the cellar. if there’s no hope for the flame, he’ll snuff their spark. he did it before, every time someone warmed him, sensibly preventing the pain of a prolonged attachment. this time will be harder, but he’ll accomplish it all the same. the trick will be in finding a way to help nikolai without engendering closeness, just as zoya attempted when she placed her trust in kaz brekker, of all people. ]
It’s a good idea. The birds. [ true, although it’s also just something to say so nikolai knows he doesn’t need to answer the question implicit in his declaration. saying nothing will tell him enough. ]
What you want. [ a surprised echo, as surprising as the jolt he feels when kaz's fingers encircle his wrist. desire and disquiet wage a frantic battle within him, teetering on the edge of a nightmare. one misstep and he'll be thrown into the snapping teeth of the bloody dark. he nearly pulls away, the slightest bit of pressure, but not enough to make kaz let go. what he wants. what he wants is absurd. what he wants — what he's doing — is backing him into a corner and forcing his hand, making him choose between this and — what? nothing. to let this go completely. to finally let this thread unravel the way it should have long ago.
it would be the wise move, under present circumstances. he doesn't know what his beast wants with kaz — perhaps not to kill him, but it's certainly not above maiming him — and it's only his selfishness that keeps him tethered to him now, unable to saw away this bond even if he's seen in his dreams the sort of bloody end it could mean. maybe he's not much of anything after all, when he clearly can't weather the hard decisions that need to be made. ]
You don't know what you're asking. [ but he does; kaz has seen him at his worst, in his most inhumane state, and in the end what he remembers most is a coat draped over his shoulders and strong arms holding his trembling frame together. no, a stroke of good fortune had been all that kept kaz's body from his feet that night. ] You speak of cost and payment and risk as if these things don't mean your life. For what gain? What do you expect from me?
[ the depth of his wants threatens to topple him, caught between drawing kaz closer and pulling away, danger in both directions. the pressure in his chest — from a heart too full or miserably hollow, he doesn't know — is too much to bear. if he keeps dancing on the edges of the truth, kaz will shut the door, no doubt weary of the stalling confusion between them, but nikolai resents the feeling of his secrets laid bare in such a way, pulled out of him without finesse after he's spent so long shielding them from the light. ]
I have nothing left to offer you. [ that much is true. this confession is worth little, this feeling without a proper place to exist. he laughs, a brittle sound that doesn’t reach his eyes, knocking their hips together as he pins kaz against the rock, gripping both hands in his to keep him from being foolish enough to touch his bare skin. ] Because if I tell you that I love you — that I have since you and I were on my ship together — [ saints, he’s lost track of the time, months now — ] What will you do with that? What can you possibly do with me? You will still be you, and I will still be this. [ he releases a breath, his face falling, close enough to see kaz’s dark lashes spiked with water, every shade of blue in his wide eyes. ] Is that the confession you wanted? Does that make any of this better? Saints, you’re a damned fool, Brekker. This isn’t a barter.
[ as nikolai assures him he doesn’t know what he’s asking, kaz bites down a noise of displeasure. only nikolai could invite him here — to the waters where he lost everything — and still question his resolve. the emphasis on his life, however, stalls his processing. as if he doesn’t risk it every day for things far less important than time with someone who matters.
distracted enough to be pliant, he allows nikolai to capture his hands and cage him in. just about to counter every damn word thrown at him, when nikolai strikes like lightning. if i tell you that i love you — a jumble of words, sputtered into near coherence. there’s an if in the telling, but the revelation overwhelms it. his mouth snaps shut, expression melting from irritated to stricken. in desperate haste, he tries to beat all the feeling (and nerves) flooding his throat. ] You — [ a strangled thing. that’s not what you’re supposed to say, he realises, but then the confession itself sits in an unconventional place, wedged between a disregard for his desires and an astute rebuke of his schemes. can’t turn off the part of his brain that plays tricks anymore than nikolai can excise his endless puzzling. ]
That’s — [ ridiculous, impossible, untenable. if i tell you — ] You’re infuriating. [ there. his voice crackles, enlived by anger. ] I’ve thought of you every hour since I left. I’ve dreamed of you in what little sleep I’ve had. [ a shake of his head, droplets scattering with the force of it. ] I’ve been trying to touch you without pushing, but then you touch me, and — that’s not nothing. I don’t know how you could be nothing. [ with his mask already in tatters, disbelief slackens his features. his blues dart across nikolai's face, scouring every winkle and crevice for clues. ]
If you want me to stop, I’ll stop. [ aching, then. ] I’ll go. [ that’s what he failed to convey in his game of barter: an offer of escape, if nikolai needs it. ] But I want to stay. To be around you. To help you chart a new path forward. [ a sudden breath, taken out of surprise and necessity both, after his mouth starting moving of its own accord. ] You know that I — [ but he doesn’t. they never do. for all he knows, nikolai thinks him incapable of such things. you will still be you. if nikolai has dared consider it, he does not want it. ]
I love you. [ like it’s a fact, delivered with the utmost conviction. it’s his problem, recurring with the frequency of steady heartbeat. it’s a distraction, and perhaps the very burden nikolai wished to avoid. it’s the reason for kaz’s own contradictory behaviour, which nikolai must find equally confounding: promising him time and then running, mixing truth and evasion, offering devotion in the same breath as a promise to end everything. even so, he tips his chin up as he meets nikolai’s eyes. ] I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you. [ since nikolai stumbled into ketterdam, at least, or as far back as ravka, no, fjerda. maybe the ship. why else would he fight so hard for a penniless queen’s favour and a bastard king’s plummeting stock? ]
So if you told me — that. [ he blinks seawater from his lashes, eyes lingering closed for a brief reprieve. it’d be a blessing, if the demon were to kill him now. a drowning might clear his head of this foolishness. ] It wouldn’t be nothing to me.
[ panic strikes immediately, wanting to reach out and clamp his hand over kaz's mouth to keep those words from coming — words he shouldn't say, words he's longed to hear — but then they're free, spilled out between them like ink that can't be bottled back up, and nikolai hasn't the faintest clue what comes next. his heart might explode, thudding too violently with i've thought of you, i've dreamed of you, i'll stop, i'll go, i want to stay. that kaz wants this confounds him when he's hardly been present, when having him means nothing good at all, when kaz could have anyone, now.
the fragile blossom of love is always stained with death. it sounds like bad poetry, perhaps something he once wrote himself, but it's the truth of what he knows, and to explain it would be to utter aloud the end of dominik's story after years of keeping it hidden in his heart. it would be to finally give up on this, to admit defeat to the monster, to wave his white flag and definitively say that his mind and body will never again be his own. should he? it isn't lost on him that kaz has provided a coward's exit, should he need it — or the implication of the hurt it would cause if he took it. ]
You sound so sure that there's a path here at all. [ he desperately wants there to be. he wants there to be something other than the looming dark before him, the loneliness of looking and not feeling, but nothing feels certain anymore. his confidence has dwindled to nothing but a flimsy charade he can’t bring himself to let go of. forward feels — improbable, at the very least, when he’s capable of so little now, when the most he feels like now is a weight shackled to kaz’s limbs, too pitiful to be cut off in the way he deserves.
he looks at him in silence, knowing he should speak, knowing there is a right thing to say here and he should puzzle it out and say it. this is likely — extremely likely — the first time kaz has uttered these words since being thrown into the reaper’s barge, since all of his softness had been cruelly bled out into the sea, and nikolai, above all else, has an obligation to shelter his fractured heart. not an obligation. a want. he’ll always want to do this for him, to hold him in his arms, to be the steady port for him to house his halting wants and needs. relinquishing his grip on one hand, he brings his gloved fingers to kaz’s cheek instead, his rabbitting heart threatening to leap into his mouth. ]
I can’t bear this. [ which part? the part where kaz brekker loves him? the part where he can’t touch him? the cold grip of darkness squeezing the notches of his spine at all hours of the day? can’t explain any of it. he misses his home and he misses the boy floating before him in equal measures. he doesn’t even remember what life felt like when it wasn’t crashing down around him at every moment. at least that’s familiar. he draws in a ragged breath, so close that their mouths nearly touch. a catastrophically bad idea. yearning fills him. he’ll die if he doesn’t have this, and he’ll die if he does, because it could spell the end for both of them.
his fingers curl at kaz’s cheekbone, his mouth parted and unsteady. ] I’m not strong like you, Brekker. I can’t bear this.
[ bridging the meager distance, he pushes into the wet heat of his mouth. there’s a moment — half a moment — of crystal clear clarity, of rain and warmth and a comfort so familiar that nikolai believes for the barest measure of a breath that they can have this — and then a howl explodes in his head, blood rushing up his throat and soaking his tongue, his limbs locking with cold. he doesn’t know if his eyes are open or not, but he can plainly see kaz lifeless in the water, his blue eyes icy and lips pale. the monster uncoils and nikolai rushes back, darkness fragmenting his skin and his eyes wide and dark and unseeing, caught in his own cage and terrified he’ll lock kaz in with him. ]
Don’t come near me. Kaz — don’t follow me. Go back. Go back to the ship.
[ a harried breath, and he plunges downward into the water, swimming deep until he feels pressure all around him. the monster shrieks in his chest but he refuses to let it out, stubbornly holding out even when his iron lungs begin to protest. flashes of blood dance behind his eyes, but still he stays even as he grows weightless, holding onto the tatters of his own sanity. ]
[ i can’t bear this hits like a slash that you don’t register until the aftermath. a swing that hurts the more he looks and thinks about its meaning. impossible to know how or why it would be followed by a kiss, head pounding. can’t move, too uncertain to break this fragile moment. too slow, he corrects, as nikolai abandons him.
kaz dives so he doesn’t lose sight of nikolai and glimpses his suspended form. it swiftly occurs to him that nikolai means to die here. his shout of protest bubbles into nothing, and he bursts above the waterline in seconds, adrenaline and panic warring for control of his system. you’re in no state to fight. not in the water, with his leg bleeding black. the singular blade left on his person could be enough to draw out the demon — no, that could lead to losing nikolai, anyway. saints. countless, half-nonsense schemes flood his mind, but instead of acting, he starts counting.
and he waits, the one thing he has always excelled at. kaz brekker knows how long the average man can hold his breath (and then some, with the encouragement of jesper and rotty’s capable grips), but rarely has waiting for the give been this painful.
when he judges that nikolai has likely managed to tire himself and the demon out, he breathes in the manner nikolai instructed, plunges into the deep, and seizes him with an iron hold. kaz fights to break the surface faster than the last time, even with his injury. (something to be said for practice.) dragging himself and nikolai over the lip of the rocky interior of this alcove proves just as haphazard, with red dotting his scraped stomach and pearling down his wounded leg. all secondary concerns to the coldness seeping into nikolai’s skin — the way it seems to ribbon away from bone in kaz’s unreliable gaze. is he breathing? he can't tell, perception muddied by care. memories clatter into one another. jordie in the water — nina looking down on him, pressing her mouth to his — kaz does the same trick for nikolai, unaided by grisha magic or honed skill. you’ve killed him, the way he almost killed inej, jesper, nina: by chasing a distraction. never should have pursued nikolai like this, if he meant to save him. nikolai was right to accuse him of playing games. and a gambler’s luck always runs out.
somehow, nikolai coughs a breath — or maybe he was always breathing, or all of this was a bloody nightmare — and kaz chokes on nothing. never been so relieved or so angry to see someone. nikolai’s pulse jumps to life under his palm, but that isn’t enough to halt the tide of nausea that’s been building since kaz grabbed him. as nikolai’s eyes flutter open, kaz scrabbles to lean over the stone edge and dry heave. he was dead. he wasn’t. he felt — corpselike, to be sure. kaz upends his dinner into the sea. ]
Don’t you dare — [ another heave, all seawater. his eyes feel wet and must be red. ] — make me do that again. [ as hoarse as he is, kaz still manages to inject lethal venom into those words. ]
You accuse me of bartering with my life and then forfeit yours. [ breathless and wrathful. he raises his voice, the nearby formations amplifying the sound. ] Death would only end this for you. [ another cough, and his grip slips, palm catching on a jagged rock. a pained noise trails into a broken laugh. it’s the first injury he allowed nikolai to inflict on him, repeated. ] I’d have to live with it. [ haunted by nikolai and jordie, his twin failures doubly mocking in their symmetry. both of them led him here, to this watery mausoleum. attachment is a risk — a damnation. and he does not even love you. if he did, nikolai wouldn’t wish this ruinous pain on him again — wouldn’t have said if, as though it would scare kaz more than the threat that he was nothing, wielded so expertly in ravka. ] If you wish to meet death so badly, you’ll have to accept my company. [ he rolls onto his back to rest his aching arms, blinking up at the stars in near-delirium. perhaps he’s the selfish one, for wanting to be near nikolai, for asking him to stay in this wretched world, for not caring if he’s half-demon and entirely lost.
of course you're selfish, brekker. you're a thief. ]
[ he doesn't mean to stay underwater. it's not the plan. but he only realizes his grave mistake too late, that the battle against the monster isn't the only one in his head, that the sudden and complete silence of the water, the weightlessness in his limbs, the sensation that he could close his eyes and merely float to an easy end is far, far too enticing to a man at his wit's end.
he should not have come here. even as his lungs seize, the last of his breath expelled into the water in a cascade of bubbles, he can't bring himself to look up to the light dotting the surface far above. he has an iron grip on the demon, and it will die here with him, and that will have to be enough. kaz will never forgive him, will carry this wound in his heart for years or maybe even a lifetime. there's nothing for that.
then he's above the surface, rock digging into his spine, a haze of light above him. a painful cough rattles his chest — and then he's sputtering water, twisting so he doesn't (presumably) drown himself twice. his thoughts come rushing back as he angles a wild gaze at kaz — yes, angry, very much so — and watches as kaz collapses beside him, eyes rimmed in red, skin pale, tremors in the tips of his fingers. all the haunted memories nikolai wanted to avoid tonight now brought to the light. ]
Fuck. [ it seems the only summation of the present circumstance, his voice hoarse. ] You're bleeding. [ everywhere. a scrape along his ribs, close to where he'd sewn him up before. blood at his palm, where his claws had once found purchase. his damned leg. nikolai forces himself to sit up despite the sharp ache in his chest, his breath uneven. ] I wasn't — I didn't mean for it to happen this way. I was only trying to keep you from harm.
[ a thing he can never seem to get right. his thoughts are jumbled, mired in a different sort of darkness, a frighteningly deep misery that he struggles now to pull himself out of. the fear of it chills his skin, that he nearly succumbed to it without intention, that a part of him wants it so badly that it could simply happen and he would let it. this is a monster of another kind, one he can’t give voice to now, because how much weight can he keep dropping at kaz’s feet with the expectation that he’ll want to carry it? he swallows it down, eyes raking over kaz’s body for some part of him that must be safe to touch. his leg, the fabric of his trousers gleaming darkly with water and blood. nikolai’s gloves come away a watery crimson when he slides his fingers beneath kaz’s thigh, i love you echoing somewhere faraway in his head. ]
Kaz. [ for a moment something else sits on his tongue, something to match his haunted gaze as it travels slowly along the blood trickling across his ribs, the smell of it cloying, a heartbeat too rapid in his ears. death feels too close. where is the fear that surely should come with it? the only thing he feels is a fear of how easy it had felt. how easy it would be to find it again. he’s nothing and nobody here — a first in the whole of his life. slipping away would come with no consequence.
none but one. he blinks down at kaz, his throat bobbing around a swallow, water dripping from his blond hair in a messy halo around his face. the ache in his chest shifts to something greater, something that a night’s rest can’t soothe.
he slips back into the water, but hovers by the rock, his eyes troubled as he slowly presses his hand to the bloody gash at kaz’s stomach. his fingers travel higher, leaving a trail of red across pale skin as he stops above his heartbeat. something to tether him here. something alive. tell him you love him. thank him for saving your life. say something that isn’t wrong, for once. but with the bitter taste of death on his tongue, he can’t utter those words. shouldn’t have said them in the first place, because this is all that it brings. ]
Let me take you back to the boat. I’ll tend to your wounds there. [ his mouth twists. ] I won’t do this to you again. [ make him dive to the depths of the sea. ask him for something so selfish as a balm for his loneliness. tell him he loves him. doesn’t know which he means. ] Ketterdam needs you too much for me to drag you away.
[ despite everything, nikolai lives — breathes, so kaz does the same, one wheeze after another. his voice penetrates the deathly fog, something to hold onto, even while stranded apart. kaz perches on a hitched breath, like something of substance might follow, but nothing chases it. instead, i won’t do this to you again substitutes for an apology. this action will have no echo. but which one? unfortunately, his sluggish mind can’t formulate the means to ask with nikolai staring down at him.
when nikolai touches his bare skin with his soaked, bloodied glove, kaz shutters his eyes, heart leaping into his palm as if emboldened by the very sight of him. in this way, they do understand each other: the closeness is unbearable. his stomach renews its churn, nikolai’s lifeless body imprinted on his person. ]
I’ve seen you die a thousand times, and still I wasn’t — [ ready, fast, enough to keep nikolai there. his hand covers nikolai’s on his chest, holding it in place without touching his skin, grip at once strong and shaky. can’t lose him again. nothing nikolai says assuages that fear, though perhaps nothing could. kaz replays everything nikolai offers him before opening his eyes. ah, of course nikolai now deigns to coddle a wounded, needful thing. how gallant. releasing him, kaz pushes himself up, hands at his sides, and winces as he irks the cut in his palm, face tinged green. it takes a long moment for the sickness to pass. then his eyes flash, brightening with outrage. ]
What will you do after you mend your broken toy? [ run, drink, die. he pushes himself off the ledge and into the water with a magnificent splash, aches shooting through his body. best to ignore the brief flash of empathy for nikolai’s decision to let the waves take him. on surfacing, kaz has to shove the hair from his face before he snags the very rock he just boldly deserted, looking half-faint and half-murderous. ]
If you mean anything you say, Nikolai. [ if he meant it, ] If you ever cared for me at all. [ when he’s a thief and bastard, demanding and manipulative and terrible. ] You will stop. [ a sharp intake of breath, the silence dragging. ] You will stop trying to keep me from harm — because you’ve no idea how — because you don’t bloody listen. And you will stop insisting you tend my wounds and balking when I near yours. [ with a sudden scowl, all bite — ] You don’t have to be strong enough to bear everything on your own, you selfish, idiotic skiv. [ said the drowned man clinging to the rock and pointedly not moving his bad leg. his eyes search nikolai’s face for tells, tracing the concern in his brow and lies lining his taut mouth. ] You have me. [ a voice urges him to say it once more, to underline the truth of his feelings, but another tells him to never utter those words aloud again for as long as he lives. ]
[ for a moment, they have it. closeness. kaz's hand gripping his, their hearts in tandem once more, stuttering into a forgotten cadence that fills nikolai with such a longing that the pain is as real as any physical blow. and then kaz's unpredictable and yet consistent rage ignites, and he flops (rather unceremoniously) into the water with all the grace of a dying fish, accusations lashed out with a whip's precision. nikolai has to rear back just to avoid getting tangled in his panicked limbs. ]
Surely a thousand is an exaggeration. [ something he can say only because he's fairly certain kaz needs to continue clinging to the rock and therefore can't bridge the meager distance between them to make an attempt on his life. to be told to his face in rather plain terms that he doesn't know how to keep kaz from harm — something he knows, saints, he knows — cuts him unexpectedly. the harm lies inside of him. his two most consuming wants — to love kaz brekker and to keep him safe — have always been opposing battles, and only one can ever be the victor.
in truth, there has only ever been one right choice. he's simply not accustomed to giving up the things he selfishly wants. ]
Do I? [ have you. hurt sharpens his tone, lifting his chin as if trying to preserve what remains of his tattered pride. even drenched and aching from hacking up water in his lungs, he still manages the dignified glare of a monarch, eyes flashing gold in the fading glimmer of light. ] You're away for days — weeks — at a time. You hardly answer the notes left for you at the Crow Club. You have the gall to leave your men lurking about to make sure I don't start gnawing on the neighbors instead of showing up yourself. Dimitri, of all people. For fuck's sake, Brekker, he used to work for me.
[ he barks out a laugh, wading closer now that kaz has finally gone relatively still. still enough that he won't drag them both underwater, hopefully. a haze of cloudy blood spreads from kaz's leg, and it's that sight that strengthens his resolve. ]
You'd have to actually be present to come near my wounds, so I wouldn't worry so much about that. Just — [ he glides beside him, smoothly sliding his arm around kaz's waist and gentling him (not so gently) away from the rock. ] Careful where you touch me. Don't move your leg. And don't struggle, or you will sink us both. We're going back to the ship. Just let me help you and you can complain about how awful it is on the way.
[ a great deal of what nikolai says is true, and it hurts all the more for it. he is away and distant and difficult, armoured beyond what nikolai has managed to peel away with clever hands. you don’t know how to love him. his very capacity for the feeling isn’t enough, if it isn’t being conveyed. but why else would he drown again and again — in touch and in the water itself? why would he fight a man caught in the riptide of his own mind? his expression hardens too slowly to stop the hurt from flickering in his wide eyes. ]
You’d have me if you stopped throwing me away the second I wasn’t needful enough for your liking. [ retorted with a quick tip of his head that he immediately regrets, still queasy. you don’t need me anymore echoes in his memory. ] Or when I’m too needful and ask [ beg ] you to stay. [ left to face the sickness in his room alone, the way he always had before. he snorts, attempting to obscure his unease over their proximity. kaz throws a trembling arm across nikolai’s covered shoulders. he’s alive now — but he was dead. he felt dead — feels cold, and if kaz dared look at him, he might be bloated with seawater and rot, so he fixes his eyes ahead. not the first time a corpse has carried him to shore. ]
"Notes" is an exaggeration, don’t you think. [ mimicking Nikolai's tone from earlier, if a tad breathless. he watches the murky red trail them as nikolai drags him onward. ] You’ve only left the one. [ and he answered, like a heartsick fool. ] Unless you count the drawings of the prized laboratory that you burned down — which I don’t. [ as romantic as mad sketches are. ] Perhaps you should send the poetry you have on the subject of maiming me next time, and I’ll respond. [ he turns over the memory of the demon in his bed, mouth at his throat like the first time, and the sight of it crushing the deer at the safehouse. shoving nikolai aside, he pulls himself up on the boat on the strength of his arms alone, smearing blood and water on the sapfiry’s new deck in the process. ]
[ with a measure of musicality, ] Darling Nikolai, thank the demon for thinking of me in your stead. [ kaz slides both hands under his bad leg to widen the spread of his hips and removes a blade from his waistband. even sat upright, he has to steady himself by leaning on his free hand, adrenaline fading fast.] You should know Dimitri is watching you because I don’t trust anyone else to protect you and my city both. [ to not kill the demon on sight. once a ravkan soldier, always a ravkan soldier. kaz can tell from the way dimitri looked between them at the safehouse — kaz may be the boss, but nikolai remains his king. ] And he’s making significantly more under me than you, so you should be proud. [ a smug little face scrunch, directed squarely at nikolai. ] All my love, Brekker.
[ with that, he raises the dagger and shakily marks the spot on his clothed thigh where he’ll need to cut the fabric free and unstick old bandages from his wound. ]
[ his expression sours with every scathing truth he's hard pressed to admit to, holding his tongue from unhelpfully childish retorts — can it really be classified as an answer to show up late just to say no. for all that he wishes to hold him close, there's a certain measure of relief when kaz rudely shoves him away and flops onto the deck (again, dying fish). nikolai doesn't want to be told how reasonable it is that dimitri is his keeper — he knows it, he's grateful for it — and he certainly doesn't need the reminder that the demon has confronted kaz and he still knows nothing of it. he hauls himself on board and angles a skeptical gaze at kaz's knife and his shaky fingers, a very obvious you'll make a mess of things hanging unspoken in the air. ]
There is absolutely no proof that I am the one that burned down my laboratory. [ a distinction that feels necessary to make, if only to him. it was his to do what he pleased with, anyway. ] In any case, I've been meaning to get those plans back from you. And kindly refrain from speaking to me about needfulness, when the only reason you even agreed to come tonight was because you saw the condition the demon has left me in. I asked for your company and you said no for absolutely no good reason.
[ he huffs out a laugh, shucking off his wet gloves and pulling his shirt over his head, glaring down at kaz while the moonlight gleams along his drenched angles. ] No, your reason was because you would simply cease to exist if you thought someone was trying to be too kind or too attentive or — dare I say it — attempting to coddle you. You said selfishness looks good on me, and yet when I try to be that way, you resist. You only came along because you were horrified at what you saw once you opened your eyes and really looked at me.
[ he descends the ladder to the bowels of the boat — for once glad kaz can't follow — and when he returns after several minutes, he's changed into dry clothes, fresh gloves, and carries both a lantern radiating warmth and a basket laden with supplies that he sets down beside kaz. the fabric of his trousers have already been sliced apart, revealing bandages thoroughly soaked with blood and water, and nikolai sits before his leg, thrusting a fluffy towel into kaz's hands to occupy him as he takes over the work of removing the dressings. ]
Dry off. There are clothes in there. [ a linen shirt a few shades darker than the blue of his eyes, black trousers if he manages to get that far, all folded atop sable blankets to keep warm in the nightly chill. a pair of black leather gloves sits tucked beside a hot flask. ] Genya used to make me that tea on my particularly trying nights. I would complain without fail that herbal tea is for old women, but whatever she puts in it truly calms the soul. She sent me sachets of it as if she knew I would need it.
[ clever of her. he peels away the ruined bandages and tries not to react to the sight of his wound, the gouges deeper than he remembers, fractures lines of black spreading from them. something stirs in his chest — disquiet, regret, grief. taking a fresh towel, he gently covers the gashes and applies pressure, his eyes flicking up to the streaks of blood across his ribs, a memory from faraway drifting back to him after a long stretch of time. ] Staunch that wound, Brekker. You can't bleed all over my ship.
[ either because of something nikolai says or the pain of unsticking his trousers, kaz winces. it’s almost all true, mind. he can’t abide tenderness after fighting it for years or tell a trap from a — date, if that’s what this was. doesn’t know how the night was intended to go, only that it went terribly. in fairness, it isn’t as though nikolai knows what he wants from their entanglement, either, seeing as he’d rather drown than name it love.
the fight leaves him when nikolai does, swept away by the wind and the knowledge that he might have finally ended this (not even on purpose, on accident). greedy, relentless, callous. he aches for the time when he never knew what it felt like to have nikolai’s hands on him, touching him where no one else would dare — where no one else will, if you have any sense. despite sHivering from the cold and his affliction, kaz never thinks to call for help. until nikolai returns, deathly pale in the lamplight and still somehow lovely, he assumes he’ll be left alone. that’s the way of things, isn’t it? everyone tires of him, this life, and goes. he visibly startles at nikolai’s presence (a half a second too early to be blamed on the towel). then, it takes a moment for nikolai’s next words to click. when they do — he chuckles. instinctive, fond, and swiftly curtailed. ]
It’s only a scrape. [ a grumbled protest that helps force the corners of his mouth downward. after fixing his scowl in place, kaz dries his hair, largely to delay following nikolai’s orders. only once it’s suitably fluffed does he press the towel against his skin, gaze dropping to nikolai’s gloved hands. his stomach isn’t as bad as it looks, particularly when compared to his leg, which has only worsened after being left unattended. he should be charting a course to see zenik, but they can’t even make port until morning without drawing unwanted attention, in their pathetic state. ]
[ kaz expels a breath and leans to the side, no doubt disrupting nikolai’s work in the process. when he straightens again, the blue shirt — obviously selected with him in mind, blood warming his throat — hangs off his fingertips. his sharp eyes catch on nikolai’s bowed head, hair gilded in moonlight. ] Presumptuous of you. [ to bring spare clothes when they’ve no idea how to talk to each other any longer, let alone touch. he shrugs on the unbuttoned shirt without further examination. thinking of the care nikolai attempted to put into this night only shows how ill-equipped he himself is to be anything but this. you will still be you. ]
[ his brows arch in a show of disaffection, ] You don’t have to do this. [ worded carefully to sidestep the flaw nikolai expertly pinpointed minutes earlier. ] If it’s too difficult to be around the blood. [ his blood. ] Or to touch me. [ he swallows hard. ] I understand. [ that it's not always possible to overcome these things: the revulsion, is his case, or the hunger in nikolai’s. some days are harder than others, touches shifting from welcome to harrowing in the blink of an eye. for want of a distraction, kaz fumbles buttoning a cuff before realising his palm has re-opened. a tsk slips from his mouth as he moves the towel from his torso to his hand, leaving rosy skin and dried blood behind. at least this can be done with trembling hands (his weakness blossoming under nikolai’s attention despite his efforts).
there are further remarks on his tongue. i don’t know what you want from me recurs but kaz doesn’t dare say it. you ruined the only thing nikolai wanted tonight. a wave of nausea rises up to his chest, so he finally takes the flask with his uninjured hand and sips it in the hope of settling his rattled person. ]
[ the night quiets around them, their mutual anger quelling to a simmer. nikolai almost prefers the biting wrath to the ache that fills the silence, red staining his gloves so thoroughly that all he wants is to toss them overboard. only a scrape. it is, compared to the damage done to his leg, his throat tight when he imagines the long nights of agony that kaz would never confess to, his days twice as hard now because of nikolai's misstep. the reasons to let him go stack higher each time they're together, and yet nikolai always finds excuses to draw him closer. closeness that, lately, always seems to end like this.
he unrolls fresh bandages and opens a sharp-smelling tincture — another gift from genya, all too familiar with nikolai's masterful gift of never being able to stay out of trouble — measuring several drops onto the clean fabric. after a brief coldness, it will numb the area significantly — more significantly if it wasn't a wound of merzost, but relief will be felt all the same. he proceeds to wrap kaz's leg just as kaz chooses that moment to speak, and for some loathsome reason, these words find their mark more deeply than any other exchanged tonight. nikolai's hands falter, an unattractive hitch in his breath. it's as if kaz has found the largest crack in his glass facade and decided to push. ]
Don't. [ impossible to keep the brimming emotion from his voice, a well that's threatened to spill over for weeks. ] Don't tell me that I can't. You would take this from me, too? [ he tries for a laugh, to shake this off as he always does, but what comes out sounds decidedly out of the range of a laugh, something wild straining to break free of his throat. kaz has not rebuked him, and yet it feels like it all the same. it feels like the same coddling that kaz despises, the briefest flicker of sympathy igniting in him. ] I can offer you nothing else. I can't touch you. I can't share your bed. There's no —
[ his voice breaks and he wants nothing more than to retreat below deck and sulk in peace for the rest of the night, but his pride won't allow him to look away, swinging his piercing gaze to kaz with a fierce anguish and a horrible heat building behind his eyes. ] There's no place for me here by your side. There never was. You hold the most vital pieces of my heart, and this is all I can give you in return. You nor the monster will take that from me. Even if it takes everything else. [ silence, and then a hard swallow, his eyes shuttering and his lashes suddenly — abominably — wet. ] It's taking everything else.
[ he's thankful for the shroud of night. less thankful for the glow of the lantern illuminating his misery, but kaz needs the warmth after draining half his blood into the water. he scrubs his sleeve across his face and shakes himself, resuming the careful work of bandaging his leg until the wound disappears from view, only tattered fabric and bloodstained skin remaining. ]
I'll write to Nina tomorrow. Her Fjerdan rebels can wait. I'll sail you there myself. [ he gives the flask of tea a passing glance before digging out a half-drained bottle of brandy from beneath the blankets, uncapping it and swallowing down a generous mouthful. ] Technically I'm not to set foot on Fjerdan soil — or any soil that's not Kerch without express permission from my queen — but Sturmhond is not bound by such petty orders.
[ he shifts closer, gently brushing kaz's shirt further open and dabs at the scrape. ] This one was just you being clumsy.
[ the first-aid kit genya provided exceeds milena’s now-nightly healing efforts, the salve lingering after to relieve kaz's pain considerably. a hissed breath rushes out as the numbness spreads. oh. easy to forget what it feels like to be without pain until someone reminds you.
no time to dwell on the light feeling. predictably, he’s said the wrong thing, kindness made harmful in his incapable hands. the sound nikolai makes (not a laugh, not a cry) unnerves him. the nikolai that meets his gaze now is shattered — it’s taking everything else as haunting as anything the demon could say — but kaz looks back without faltering, tracking the near-tears on nikolai’s lashes. a new thought, sudden in its clarity: if you can force it to let you die, you can force it to let you live.
when their aching stare breaks, protests fill his mind. can’t leave ketterdam until the work is done, and the work will never be done, at this rate. he has a meeting tomorrow afternoon he can’t miss, he needs to write inej about their progress and setbacks — wait. he forces his thoughts to slow. nikolai has changed keys into a pained register, one he rarely allows to be heard. if he could just kiss him, hold him — do something instead of having to say the right thing — ]
Whatever could have unbalanced me. [ rhetorical, thanks. kaz tugs a glove onto his unhurt hand and cups nikolai’s bent neck. ] Alright, Nikolai. [ alright i’ll go or you’re alright, melded with a softer brusqueness than usual. it's uncharacteristic agreement, which should hint at a catch. he slides his hand higher into nikolai’s hair, not steering him anywhere, just soothing. could be wrapping his palm instead of this (sparking a feeling with nowhere to go), but his entire body aches. nikolai will take care of it, besides. nikolai wants to take care of it. (of you.) ]
I’m not one for ascribed places, having none. [ not the way nikolai speaks of, in terms of roles and rightness belonging and deservedness. his mouth quirks faintly. even now, nikolai thinks like a soldier and a royal. ] But there is a space. [ a beat. you hold the most vital pieces of my heart. kaz gently untangles a knotted lock of hair, hand steadying even as the tirenedess persists. ] One that only exists because of you. [ carved out by choice, not destiny or necessity. ] And it will always exist for you, even when you curse me for it. [ a likely scenario, given how every confession seems to be wrapped in a reminder that nikolai cannot see a way forward — at least not with kaz brekker. ] I do love you. [ his grip on nikolai tightens and then loosens. ] Badly, I know, but I do. [ without the practice or skill to make it intelligible. wryly, ] Who else would tell a queen her duty and people can wait, but a canal rat can’t? [ in a spectacularly selfish and romantic gesture. he takes a deep breath. ]
We’ll feed your lodger again before we go. [ the catch, issued without remorse. there can be no repeat of their past mistakes on this journey, with news of nikolai’s condition known across the continent. better to use the facilities they have and safeguard against trouble on the open water or endless snow. ]
[ a part of him chafes against this uncharacteristic softness, that he's weak enough to require such attention, but a bigger part of him can't help but welcome it when he thinks of how long it took to coax these quiet confessions out of kaz. the hand in his hair sends an ache through him, his words curling around his heart. a space just for him, when nikolai has only kept him in dreams, in the words unspoken that hang heavy between them, never daring to hope beyond the moments he can snatch away in the present. ]
I can feed the beast on my own. [ kaz will never go for it, but it stands to be said, paired with a disgruntled sigh.
still, now, pressure lodges in his throat. he gravitates closer, starved for kaz's touch after going so long without it — shame, there, that he can't handle the absence of something kaz endured a lifetime without. his ribs covered, he reaches for his hand, spreading kaz's fingers open across his palm to tilt his split skin into the lamp's glow, unable to look elsewhere. ]
I want to say it. [ kaz has shown more fortitude than he has tonight, even bloodied and facing the deep. the least he can do is explain, after all the secrets kaz has willingly handed him. a grief he's kept contained for years threatens to shake loose, and with it his instinct to simply look the other way, to say something else, to feel anything but this.
his gloved thumb sweeps to the edge of the gash at kaz's palm. ] I've felt it more than I can say. Earlier than you likely imagined. It's been on the tip of my tongue dozens of times I've looked at you. But I — I can’t — [ another hitch, another breath he can't seem to catch. he plunges forward, his haunted, desperate gaze falling to kaz like a shadow. ] I feel death looming over us now. Don’t you? That’s what happens when I love a thing, Brekker. I can endure losses of any other kind, but I cannot survive losing you.
[ he expels a breath, wrapping a length of fabric around kaz’s palm, ignoring the tremor in his fingers as he works. ] I told you of him, that night on the ship. Had to have been drunk. I don’t even like to speak his name aloud. But what I felt for him, I feel for you. More, even, because I was so young back then. But the carnage that came for the two of us that day… it’s chased me all the way here, and now there’s us, and it’s — [ he knots the bandages but doesn’t release kaz’s hand, holding it in his bloodied gloves, lost in the violence of his war-torn memories. he’s seen hordes of deaths since then, but nothing like that, nothing like dominik bleeding out in his arms, his heart breaking in a place that can never be mended. how many times has he closed his eyes and seen kaz’s broken, lifeless body, death following him like a ghost?
he cradles his bandaged hand to his swiftly beating heart, his gaze wild and desperate when he looks at kaz again, like he’s drowning once more. ] Can’t you feel it? It’s all around us. Every time I touch you. Say that you feel it too. Tell me my sanity isn’t going with everything else.
[ from the way nikolai sighs, kaz can tell that they’ve settled into an uneasy agreement. yes, nikolai could attempt to feed the demon on his own, but he won’t, lacking the confidence required to steer his jagged limbs. this may be kaz’s only chance to converse with nikolai’s shadow — a plot that he sets aside for the moment. it takes all his concentration to even his breathes, besides, as nikolai finishes wrapping his scrapes. can’t tell if his hands or nikolai’s are trembling. regardless, his heartbeat hammers an erratic rhythm. that nikolai still extends tenderness to his inconsequential hurts (or that he himself allows them) is no small thing.
in return, kaz listens with rapt attention, gloved hand soothing at the nape of nikolai’s neck until a question finally glances off his razored jaw, which tilts down to evade the light in nikolai’s eyes. i feel death looming over us now. don’t you? a sensation so prevalent even a seasoned liar wouldn’t dare deny it. nikolai plucks thoughts from the vault at the back of his mind and mirrors them.
can't you, say it, tell me. a litany that begs for action. kaz lifts his head. stay afloat. he smoothes his leather grip to cradle nikolai’s face, but allows his bandaged hand remain in place, kept safe in bloodied gloves, over a wounded heart. ]
[ after the fight and subsequent silence, his voice is an abrasion. a whisper, meant for two alone. ] You know I do. [ the dead infiltrate his perception. nikolai once observed it’s not just something that afflicts him when they touch; it’s always. ] For once, [ not quite teasing, but hinting at it. ] you’re not the exception. [ because nikolai is exceptional to him. there’s no one else he would drown for repeatedly — no, nightly. ] Everyone feels this way. [ it’s a flaw so reliable that kaz has exploited it with frightful success. he tips his head from one side to the other, considering. a small frown. ] Most not as deeply as you. [ masked or otherwise, it’s always been obvious to kaz that nikolai’s emotions are too big for his restricted role. with outsized passion for his country, for his people, for progress — and for you — of course the resulting pain is too much. ]
If you love a thing, you fear its loss. [ impossible to keep nikolai’s descent from plaguing his vision, lashes fluttering. ] Two sides, one coin. [ his thumb arcs over the apple of nikolai’s cheek.] Whether you’re with me or not, it won’t stop. [ no matter distance traversed or walls erected, you can’t rid yourself of either feeling. nothing has cured him of his affection for nikolai. even with the tide rolling in, thoughts of kissing him soundly — holding him — pressing close — persist. ] There's no protecting you from it. [ hadn't he tried? when there was still time, or at least when it seemed like there was. earlier than you likely imagined. his pulse skips. ] But you needn’t face it alone. [ gently, he curls his other hand around nikolai’s. ]
[ it's unbearable, this closeness paired with the distance that still remains between them. he's never wanted kaz in his arms more than in this moment, never needed the reassurance of his quiet breath or the sensation of his frigid skin warming beneath his mouth. between the blood sweeping through his thoughts and the red staining his hands, he craves the touch of his bare skin to anchor himself in something alive. he wants to ask him to stay, to stay this night and the next, his duties to ketterdam be damned. would it be such a bad thing? yes. one look at kaz, more corpse than boy right now, gives him his answer.
he tilts his cheek into kaz’s palm, desperate for the meager warmth he imagines bleeding through the leather of his gloves. you needn’t face it alone, a promise he wants to grasp and hold tight to his heart, but they’ve had too many nights apart already and too many ahead, a gaping, lonely emptiness awaiting him when this night ends. his eyes shutter, turning so his mouth brushes lightly over the tip of kaz’s gloved finger. after all the work they’d done to coax them off and he’s the reason kaz wears them again now, no excuse but his own selfish need to be touched. ]
But I do. [ need to face it alone. he draws in a steadying breath, finding the tattered edges of his composure and settling it around him like a familiar mantle, patched up again and again with brand new fraying threads. he wants desperately to take this comfort from kaz, to let himself be weak and hollow if only for a few moments more, but the scent of blood hangs too strongly in the air, reality pushing against him on all sides. he opens his eyes, his features carefully schooled back into casual dignity. ] The monster has me in a place where I can’t reach you, and you certainly shouldn’t be reaching for me.
[ an argument weakened, perhaps, by the way he grips kaz’s hand even tighter as he says it, as if it will pain him to let go, as if he hopes kaz can hear the things left unsaid. impossible to know if he even can, brilliant deduction skills hindered by lack of experience in matters of the heart. if you love a thing, you fear its loss. perhaps true, but unacceptable — or at least something he’d rather largely ignore. he doesn’t have to give voice to how his fear is eating him alive. ]
If you love a thing, the work is never done. [ a mild correction. maybe one kaz will bristle beneath, but it’s a truth nikolai has lived by his entire life. he helps kaz to his feet when he stands, bearing the weight of his bad leg and holding him steady as the boat rocks beneath them at the movement. with a flash of a smile, he sweeps a fur blanket around kaz’s shoulders before they cross to the other side to the waiting bed of blankets and cushions that nikolai lowers kaz to without asking, propping an overstuffed pillow beneath his leg. he scurries back to fetch the lamp, setting it close to warm them, and then perches on one of the storage trunks bracketing the small space, the bottle of brandy dangling loosely in one hand and the tea in the other. he wants badly to slide down beside him, enough clothing and soft furs to separate them, but he hesitates nonetheless, watching the moonlight cast colorless shadows along kaz’s sharp angles.
he swings his gaze upward to catch sight of the stars instead, something else to focus on, but kaz’s presence is like a magnetic force that brings him to his knees, sliding close so he can tilt his chin upward to follow the path of his eyes. this is the thing he wanted all along, and it feels wrong and right at once, kaz’s blue eyes catching the light, his lashes dark and cheeks pale. nikolai’s mouth doesn’t brush his ear when he speaks, his voice low, but he imagines that it does, imagines his lips dragging along the cut of his jaw, licking at his pulse, feeling the steady — or unsteady — cadence of life beneath his skin. he swallows and looks up again instead, brandy and tea both forgotten on the slate trunk tops. ]
That’s the raven. [ he points to a faint, boxy constellation to the far left. ] I’ve heard any number of stories about each one, a different one at each new city, but it so happens that a god asked this sacred raven to watch over his pregnant lover. The lover went off and fell in love with another man, and the god’s wrath toward the raven was so great that he scorched its wings and left them blackened as punishment. [ he fusses with a corner of the blanket, smoothing his hand down kaz’s side and stopping when he feels the bandage beneath the soft fur. a lonely, jarring reminder to let go. he leans back on his hands and smiles, achingly sweet. ] I always liked the mariner’s compass best, though. You can’t see it tonight, but — maybe in Fjerda. If we’re lucky and the new queen and king don’t throw me in prison for a laugh.
[ when nikolai rejects his offer of assistance, companionship, love; a series of complicated expressions plays across his face. brick by brick, kaz brekker rebuilds his composure. the slash of his brows cuts low, mouth taut, and his gaze lowers to their layered grip. it’s all he can do not to bite the hand still extended.
hard to parse what nikolai means by correcting him. what work remains? hasn’t kaz spent months sanding down his edges and opening his throat? all for someone who would rather drown than have you. kaz pulls his hand from nikolai’s before he stands, instead fumbling over the first buttons if his shirt, made of material finer (and bluer) than he’d ever pick for himself, silky against the skin. if he didn’t think nikolai might disappear, he’d slip beneath the deck like the shadow he is. unfortunately, even this latest humiliation isn’t enough to supplant that fear. although he manages to stand on his own, nikolai swiftly provides the help he wouldn’t ask for.
every gesture of care must be so small to nikolai, having been loved and loved in turn. kaz scrubs a hand over his face to stop it from crumpling, a burgeoning wetness rubbed from his eyes. a blanket heavy enough to slow his shakes, wrapped around his shoulders. a pillow slid beneath his leg where it most hurts. no one has ever cared for him like this. he’s never let them.
with good reason. it’s ruinous. there’s nothing more painful than being confronted with the very thing he sacrificed to get what he wanted — what he thought he wanted. it’s as if nikolai dragged a subterranean, hellish creature into the sun. maybe he did. it burns just the same. worse, the raking light will pass, leaving him scorched in the dark.
the occasional shudder overtakes him, limbs refusing to still after revisiting his waterlogged nightmares in the flesh. even once the distance between them clears his head, he has no counter. no matter how much nikolai claims to feel, it’s not enough. not to name the feeling outright, let alone act on it. with a sigh, he rolls the tension from his shoulders as he looks up without seeing. if only he could go away inside and say nothing, or return to his room atop the slat that no one dare enter uninvited. but nikolai is here, not there. close enough that if kaz turned his head, he’d need only tip it to kiss his cheek, his jaw, his neck. tempting in the firelight. and unwanted.
he thought that playing the bastard would dull the ache, at least, no satisfaction quite like the collapse of bone beneath his balled fist. it hadn’t. nor had the attentions of others, endured to suit his strategy and curiosity both. the moment nikolai called him back, he came limping to his door. pathetic — and unchanged. when nikolai speaks, kaz listens, eyes flitting sideways to sneak a glimpse at his freckles before following the curve of his arm to the stars. as it happens, he knows little of constellations beyond basic navigation. since stories like this didn’t serve his aims, he never bothered to collect them. blackened wings conjure the demon, and he wonders about the mechanics of its shadowy limbs. hadn’t been able to see how they sprung forth in the dank cellar.
struck by an impulse, kaz reaches across nikolai’s back to drape the blanket across them both, clothed shoulders brushing before he straightens and busies himself with his buttons. maybe in fjerda, nikolai says, where they’re going. where he went to the ends of reality to save the man beside him. where nina zenik will look at him with those huge, knowing eyes of hers while she draws the merzost from his bones. ]
[ mildly, brows arching — ] You’re not the one who stole from them. [ something he hadn’t mentioned on their way out, given the circumstances of their parting. he stole from shu han, too, as he left his meeting with the princess, exhilarated that his legend had expanded its domain. and, of course, he took from ravka shortly thereafter. twice. the first time, he only thieved from the courtiers who attended his audience with the dragon queen (and bargained dimitri into his service). the second, he’d nicked books from the palace library and replaced an emerald embedded in a lantsov bust with a rather lovely rock. there’d been little else to do without nikolai’s company, after all.
hazarding another glance at nikolai, kaz’s heart scrambles into his throat. nikolai remains sun-drenched, as always, even in the moon-dark. his smile hurts just as much as every token of affection. if this is all kaz can give him, if this is all nikolai wants — he turns away and blows out an exhale. maybe the work isn’t yet done. ]
Fortunately, I’m rather talented at breaking in and out of Fjerdan prisons. [ a flat look. ] You’ll have to pay for my services, of course. [ tipping his head this way and that. ] But since I’ll be freeing myself, anyway, there’s an argument to be made for a lower rate.
[ if nikolai won’t help himself, kaz will convince the demon that their interests are aligned. it must want food, life, freedom. a lever is a lever. hadn’t it asked who marked him, too, when they last spoke? as if it mattered. as if any scar from a person could compare. ]
[ a wall goes up between them, erected in the face of his own inadequacy. he's a pendulum swinging back and forth, towards kaz and then away. inevitable that he'll return again — and swing away again, because he can't imagine a life without kaz haunting it. too many times he's come far too close to losing him, the sharp scent of blood and the shivers he can feel beneath the soft fabric of his clothes serving as grim reminders that death still hangs over them now, a ghost he hasn't been able to shake since his days at war. it's what he's owed, perhaps, for all the lives he's taken — lucid choices, decisions made of his own free will long before he had the demon to blame.
warm fur spills over his shoulders, magicked into place by kaz's clever hands. a surprising gesture, and one that makes him think of how few times they've been allowed to share an intimacy like this. tangled covers, the press of limbs, the shroud of night. nikolai mourns the sight of kaz's pale skin disappearing beneath his neat buttons, reaching for the flask of tea and swallowing down a sweetened mouthful, the soothing warmth spreading through his chest and reminding him of the ache of missing home. ]
There's hardly anything in Fjerda worth stealing. Maybe one of their tanks for tinkering with. [ their bloated military might had been both criminal and impressive at once, though serving as their target certainly diminished much of his awe. a flash of cold snow and hot blood skitters through his mind, a sour taste rushing to his tongue. he switches the tea for brandy, lounging back on the cushioned pile beneath them and carefully snaking out his free hand to idly circle kaz's bicep, his fingers tracing his tattoo from memory. ] Yes, stories of your foolhardy adventure to the Ice Court were much discussed at the palace, mostly by me, because I couldn't figure out how you did it. I suppose I was taken by you even earlier than I realized. [ he huffs out a laugh, gently squeezing his shoulder. ] Zoya wanted to have you shot for leading Nina astray.
[ her anger had been so comically palpable while nikolai's fascination had simply grown as each bit of the story unfolded, his eyes firmly on brekker without even knowing who he was or where this boy had even come from. his gaze strays to him now, his profile illuminated by the moonlight, dark hair a tousled mess from his haphazard toweling. nikolai reaches out with his stained gloves and gently tucks back a windblown lock, fingers curling around the shell of kaz's ear. who else gets to see him like this, the boy beneath the hardened lines and severe looks? nikolai will never tire of it. ]
I meant for you to find peace somewhere in the water. [ he wanted to somehow give him that, arrogant enough to believe that he could. still trying to be useful. kaz had so easily pegged him right, his foolish desires priced too high tonight. he can at least take him to fjerda, at least get him to zenik. and then what? their time is always running out. his fingers skate gently down the line of his throat, shifting to the nape of his neck. after a moment he's coaxing kaz back, drawing him in so he settles against his heartbeat, his dark hair tickling the edge of his jaw.
he allows him a moment to settle — or a moment to pull away, but he'll have to make a conscious choice to leave the circle of his arms, pulling the furs close around kaz. an apology of sorts, for making him dive into the depths to fetch him, or maybe just to warm him, to chase the dark waters from his head, to remind him that he's above the sea now, as safe as can be with a man of questionable control. warm breath soaks through kaz's hair when nikolai drops his lips to his crown. ] I've no right to ask you for anything, but — give me this one night with you. One night of rest. I don't want to go back, because then — you'll go. [ a shaky breath, his eyes shuttering. ] You don't like my neighborhood.
[ this can’t go on. he thinks it again and again as nikolai touches him places that no one else can. fingers searing the r that few find intelligible (if they’ve seen it at all), brushing his ear in lieu of pressing his pert mouth there. how is it fair that he can reach out and do what he likes, but when kaz reaches back — he cuts off the childish thought. this is the way it’s been from the start. better to tell himself that all nikolai claims to desire is dependent on convenience (comfort when at his lowest and loneliest) or his desperation to be useful (re-assembling his rattling pieces). one night, no more. the same thing he said in fjerda despite kaz’s protests. if nikolai were well, he never would have returned. when he becomes well again, thanks to a devil’s bargain, he’ll return to ravka and end this for good.
kaz fails to listen carefully to nikolai’s reply, lost in the touches given over like they’re nothing. they’re not nothing. they’re incapable of being categorised as such. every single one tugs him nearer, nikolai’s gloved hand as good as hooking into his neck, a different sort of shiver inching down his spine. there’s uncertainty, of course, leading him to fidget until he’s comfortable on nikolai’s firm chest. eventually, his heartbeat replaces the sounds of the waves, steady and alive.
if anyone else told him they wanted him to find peace in the water, he’d laugh. only in death. instead, his pulse flutters. ]
There’s no peace for someone like me. [ fearful and fearsome, a self-made monster. ] There’s only you. [ for want of entombing himself at nikolai’s throat, he turns his nose into his silken shoulder, breathing in the palace perfumes and seasalt. in embracing him, nikolai presses for an intimacy that leaves kaz questioning the rules of this engagement. is he allowed to touch? nikolai’s mouth warms his hair, but it seems different when he initiates taction now, like his wanting itself is corrosive. is this how nikolai had felt the first time they kissed, knowing that it might be the very thing to drown him? ]
I despise your neighbourhood. [ muffled, so kaz lifts up to settle one hand beside nikolai’s head, while his injured palm balances over his heart. the fur blanket slips down his back. his eyes are as wild as they are aching. ] But one night isn’t enough. I’ve left you too many times already. [ his mistakes as painful — worse, than nikolai’s, because he failed to use his cleverness to understand this person who matters above all else. fuck the crow club, the merchant council, and all of ketterdam. ] I’m staying tonight. Tomorrow. [ on the sofa, he anticipates, if nikolai makes a hat-trick of his rejections on this miserable night. ] Even if I don’t know how to be close to you and not want — to kiss you now. [ his elbows bend, lowering as if he might. ] You don't have to do anything. You don't have to say it. [ all of that seems irrelevant, when nikolai himself, whole and hale, is the goal. ] I’m staying.
[ because kaz brekker does whatever he wishes. and he wishes for nikolai to know that he’s wanted, even if that feeling isn’t returned. for him to be safe, even if nikolai would rather drown. it matters not if he hates kaz for his stubbornness in this. kaz already decided he was willing to pay any price to shelter him. ]
[ it's not what he's expecting to hear. every brainless comment, every clever deflection dies on his tongue in the face of the sudden offer to stay, words nikolai knows better than to ask for from a man weighed down with just as much duty and expectation as he is. it's like a starving man being tossed food for the first time — he hardly knows what to do with it and his first visceral instinct is to throw it away. he barely stops the no from slipping past his lips, sharply biting down on his tongue to center his thoughts. there's only so many times kaz can be presented with "no" before he produces a knife out of thin air and neatly slits his windpipe.
all he's wanted this whole time is for kaz to stay, and yet how can he? nikolai hasn't fed the monster since that harrowing night in the cellar — since kaz fed it for him — ignoring the sharp hunger pangs that have no doubt worsened his condition. but even now his grip on the beast is as secure as he can hope for. if they're to leave for fjerda soon, they can't have night after night of this. in the practical sense, he needs kaz to watch him, to know when he's himself and when he's not, to tell him how far he's really gone.
and in the less practical sense — his gloved hand moving gently through kaz's hair, tracing the line of his temple down to his cheek, his thumb touching his bottom lip, the unspoken desire hanging heavy in the air — he needs him. he needs his presence. being alone has been untenable, moving through his days like a ghost, sometimes nikolai and sometimes some other dark, gloomy thing clinging to him like a shroud and blocking out every bit of the light he struggles so valiantly to keep close. it's been so long since he's had no one, moving from prince to privateer to king, never taking a breath in between, always making sure to charm enough people along the way so that he'd never have to be alone. but kaz is different. kaz is not in his court or on his crew. nikolai can't make him stay by royal mandate. what is it that he's always saying? he has to want to come back, or people are not things, or — something that he should've, perhaps, paid more attention to. ]
Being with you, for me, was peace. [ a quiet whisper, barely audible above the beating of his heart. he'd press his thumb into kaz's mouth if his gloves weren't stained with his blood, giving his bottom lip one last, gentle swipe before trailing down his pale throat, following the thin rope of scar tissue with the tip of his finger. ] I wanted to be that for you, too. [ a safe place to land. it all went wrong, somehow, after starting so right. or maybe it was always wrong, the demon robbing him of all sense and reason from the start.
his palm settles briefly over kaz's heart, faint beneath the layers of fabric separating them (or because he nearly drowned him). how many people have heard this cadence? then his hand sweeps up again to cover kaz's eyes, leaning in to press a kiss to the back of his own knuckles. ]
So stay. I'll have you for as many nights as you'll give me. [ he presses his forehead to the back of his hand, closing his eyes and allowing their breaths to mingle. though he keeps his voice soft — and attempts to keep his tone light — the relief is palpable behind his words. ] If you would try and rest now — please — I'll bring you inside when we get to shore.
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still, kaz can’t believe he’s swimming (drowning) for the privilege of a lecture on kingship and duty: two things he’s never believed were worth a damn. diving is worse — something he hasn’t done since the demon stranded them both in the sea, the water as dark and endless as the harbour had been. when he surfaces, he chokes his first gasp of air and tries to mask it with a cough into his hand. ]
And what I want. [ a click of his tongue, annoyance bleeding into his features, hair flattened to his skull. surely his own wants have a place here, after nikolai worked so diligently to tease them out. ] I don’t suppose that matters. [ after kaz chased him in fjerda, ravka, ketterdam. once he composes himself enough to look around, his back straightens and scowl wobbles. it’s beautiful. like the observatory in ravka. a place he’d never have sought out on his own — that only a few people would think to share with him. ]
As gallant a nanny as you make me out to be, Zoya saw my — fondness for you and capitalised on it to serve you both. [ he blows out a breath, like he might scatter that embarrassing truth in the sea air. ] A shrewd maneuver. [ said like an insult, though it’s the opposite, since he would and has acted similarly. the only thing worse than her noticing his affection is nikolai not. then again, it isn’t as if kaz entirely understands his means of care, either. there’s something to the attention they pay each other; that much, he knows. before nikolai, he’d never met anyone as resistant as himself to letting others gentle him.
kaz’s hand finds nikolai’s clothed wrist in the water, bare fingers encircling it. ]
I know what it means to be the reason that someone you — [ all saints. ] — care for is endangered. [ his heart thuds heavy against his ribs, threatening to burst. ] One look at Inej, and I doomed her to days of torture at Van Eck’s hands. [ his expression cracked open like a safe (like a wound). he hopes it isn’t as obvious now while knowing it must be, with his wide eyes fixed on the cave ceiling. ] Everything has a cost. [ the price of affection is concern. a weakness, primed for exploitation. then, inevitably, grief. his thumb arcs to the edge of the fabric, nearly touching nikolai’s skin. ] This time, I’m willing to pay and manage the risks. If you’re not — [ he cuts himself off, forcing his voice to crisp where it had been thick with emotions seconds earlier. ] Then it’s settled.
[ finished. as kaz thought it was when he said one horrible thing after another to nikolai in the cellar. if there’s no hope for the flame, he’ll snuff their spark. he did it before, every time someone warmed him, sensibly preventing the pain of a prolonged attachment. this time will be harder, but he’ll accomplish it all the same. the trick will be in finding a way to help nikolai without engendering closeness, just as zoya attempted when she placed her trust in kaz brekker, of all people. ]
It’s a good idea. The birds. [ true, although it’s also just something to say so nikolai knows he doesn’t need to answer the question implicit in his declaration. saying nothing will tell him enough. ]
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it would be the wise move, under present circumstances. he doesn't know what his beast wants with kaz — perhaps not to kill him, but it's certainly not above maiming him — and it's only his selfishness that keeps him tethered to him now, unable to saw away this bond even if he's seen in his dreams the sort of bloody end it could mean. maybe he's not much of anything after all, when he clearly can't weather the hard decisions that need to be made. ]
You don't know what you're asking. [ but he does; kaz has seen him at his worst, in his most inhumane state, and in the end what he remembers most is a coat draped over his shoulders and strong arms holding his trembling frame together. no, a stroke of good fortune had been all that kept kaz's body from his feet that night. ] You speak of cost and payment and risk as if these things don't mean your life. For what gain? What do you expect from me?
[ the depth of his wants threatens to topple him, caught between drawing kaz closer and pulling away, danger in both directions. the pressure in his chest — from a heart too full or miserably hollow, he doesn't know — is too much to bear. if he keeps dancing on the edges of the truth, kaz will shut the door, no doubt weary of the stalling confusion between them, but nikolai resents the feeling of his secrets laid bare in such a way, pulled out of him without finesse after he's spent so long shielding them from the light. ]
I have nothing left to offer you. [ that much is true. this confession is worth little, this feeling without a proper place to exist. he laughs, a brittle sound that doesn’t reach his eyes, knocking their hips together as he pins kaz against the rock, gripping both hands in his to keep him from being foolish enough to touch his bare skin. ] Because if I tell you that I love you — that I have since you and I were on my ship together — [ saints, he’s lost track of the time, months now — ] What will you do with that? What can you possibly do with me? You will still be you, and I will still be this. [ he releases a breath, his face falling, close enough to see kaz’s dark lashes spiked with water, every shade of blue in his wide eyes. ] Is that the confession you wanted? Does that make any of this better? Saints, you’re a damned fool, Brekker. This isn’t a barter.
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distracted enough to be pliant, he allows nikolai to capture his hands and cage him in. just about to counter every damn word thrown at him, when nikolai strikes like lightning. if i tell you that i love you — a jumble of words, sputtered into near coherence. there’s an if in the telling, but the revelation overwhelms it. his mouth snaps shut, expression melting from irritated to stricken. in desperate haste, he tries to beat all the feeling (and nerves) flooding his throat. ] You — [ a strangled thing. that’s not what you’re supposed to say, he realises, but then the confession itself sits in an unconventional place, wedged between a disregard for his desires and an astute rebuke of his schemes. can’t turn off the part of his brain that plays tricks anymore than nikolai can excise his endless puzzling. ]
That’s — [ ridiculous, impossible, untenable. if i tell you — ] You’re infuriating. [ there. his voice crackles, enlived by anger. ] I’ve thought of you every hour since I left. I’ve dreamed of you in what little sleep I’ve had. [ a shake of his head, droplets scattering with the force of it. ] I’ve been trying to touch you without pushing, but then you touch me, and — that’s not nothing. I don’t know how you could be nothing. [ with his mask already in tatters, disbelief slackens his features. his blues dart across nikolai's face, scouring every winkle and crevice for clues. ]
If you want me to stop, I’ll stop. [ aching, then. ] I’ll go. [ that’s what he failed to convey in his game of barter: an offer of escape, if nikolai needs it. ] But I want to stay. To be around you. To help you chart a new path forward. [ a sudden breath, taken out of surprise and necessity both, after his mouth starting moving of its own accord. ] You know that I — [ but he doesn’t. they never do. for all he knows, nikolai thinks him incapable of such things. you will still be you. if nikolai has dared consider it, he does not want it. ]
I love you. [ like it’s a fact, delivered with the utmost conviction. it’s his problem, recurring with the frequency of steady heartbeat. it’s a distraction, and perhaps the very burden nikolai wished to avoid. it’s the reason for kaz’s own contradictory behaviour, which nikolai must find equally confounding: promising him time and then running, mixing truth and evasion, offering devotion in the same breath as a promise to end everything. even so, he tips his chin up as he meets nikolai’s eyes. ] I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you. [ since nikolai stumbled into ketterdam, at least, or as far back as ravka, no, fjerda. maybe the ship. why else would he fight so hard for a penniless queen’s favour and a bastard king’s plummeting stock? ]
So if you told me — that. [ he blinks seawater from his lashes, eyes lingering closed for a brief reprieve. it’d be a blessing, if the demon were to kill him now. a drowning might clear his head of this foolishness. ] It wouldn’t be nothing to me.
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the fragile blossom of love is always stained with death. it sounds like bad poetry, perhaps something he once wrote himself, but it's the truth of what he knows, and to explain it would be to utter aloud the end of dominik's story after years of keeping it hidden in his heart. it would be to finally give up on this, to admit defeat to the monster, to wave his white flag and definitively say that his mind and body will never again be his own. should he? it isn't lost on him that kaz has provided a coward's exit, should he need it — or the implication of the hurt it would cause if he took it. ]
You sound so sure that there's a path here at all. [ he desperately wants there to be. he wants there to be something other than the looming dark before him, the loneliness of looking and not feeling, but nothing feels certain anymore. his confidence has dwindled to nothing but a flimsy charade he can’t bring himself to let go of. forward feels — improbable, at the very least, when he’s capable of so little now, when the most he feels like now is a weight shackled to kaz’s limbs, too pitiful to be cut off in the way he deserves.
he looks at him in silence, knowing he should speak, knowing there is a right thing to say here and he should puzzle it out and say it. this is likely — extremely likely — the first time kaz has uttered these words since being thrown into the reaper’s barge, since all of his softness had been cruelly bled out into the sea, and nikolai, above all else, has an obligation to shelter his fractured heart. not an obligation. a want. he’ll always want to do this for him, to hold him in his arms, to be the steady port for him to house his halting wants and needs. relinquishing his grip on one hand, he brings his gloved fingers to kaz’s cheek instead, his rabbitting heart threatening to leap into his mouth. ]
I can’t bear this. [ which part? the part where kaz brekker loves him? the part where he can’t touch him? the cold grip of darkness squeezing the notches of his spine at all hours of the day? can’t explain any of it. he misses his home and he misses the boy floating before him in equal measures. he doesn’t even remember what life felt like when it wasn’t crashing down around him at every moment. at least that’s familiar. he draws in a ragged breath, so close that their mouths nearly touch. a catastrophically bad idea. yearning fills him. he’ll die if he doesn’t have this, and he’ll die if he does, because it could spell the end for both of them.
his fingers curl at kaz’s cheekbone, his mouth parted and unsteady. ] I’m not strong like you, Brekker. I can’t bear this.
[ bridging the meager distance, he pushes into the wet heat of his mouth. there’s a moment — half a moment — of crystal clear clarity, of rain and warmth and a comfort so familiar that nikolai believes for the barest measure of a breath that they can have this — and then a howl explodes in his head, blood rushing up his throat and soaking his tongue, his limbs locking with cold. he doesn’t know if his eyes are open or not, but he can plainly see kaz lifeless in the water, his blue eyes icy and lips pale. the monster uncoils and nikolai rushes back, darkness fragmenting his skin and his eyes wide and dark and unseeing, caught in his own cage and terrified he’ll lock kaz in with him. ]
Don’t come near me. Kaz — don’t follow me. Go back. Go back to the ship.
[ a harried breath, and he plunges downward into the water, swimming deep until he feels pressure all around him. the monster shrieks in his chest but he refuses to let it out, stubbornly holding out even when his iron lungs begin to protest. flashes of blood dance behind his eyes, but still he stays even as he grows weightless, holding onto the tatters of his own sanity. ]
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kaz dives so he doesn’t lose sight of nikolai and glimpses his suspended form. it swiftly occurs to him that nikolai means to die here. his shout of protest bubbles into nothing, and he bursts above the waterline in seconds, adrenaline and panic warring for control of his system. you’re in no state to fight. not in the water, with his leg bleeding black. the singular blade left on his person could be enough to draw out the demon — no, that could lead to losing nikolai, anyway. saints. countless, half-nonsense schemes flood his mind, but instead of acting, he starts counting.
and he waits, the one thing he has always excelled at. kaz brekker knows how long the average man can hold his breath (and then some, with the encouragement of jesper and rotty’s capable grips), but rarely has waiting for the give been this painful.
when he judges that nikolai has likely managed to tire himself and the demon out, he breathes in the manner nikolai instructed, plunges into the deep, and seizes him with an iron hold. kaz fights to break the surface faster than the last time, even with his injury. (something to be said for practice.) dragging himself and nikolai over the lip of the rocky interior of this alcove proves just as haphazard, with red dotting his scraped stomach and pearling down his wounded leg. all secondary concerns to the coldness seeping into nikolai’s skin — the way it seems to ribbon away from bone in kaz’s unreliable gaze. is he breathing? he can't tell, perception muddied by care. memories clatter into one another. jordie in the water — nina looking down on him, pressing her mouth to his — kaz does the same trick for nikolai, unaided by grisha magic or honed skill. you’ve killed him, the way he almost killed inej, jesper, nina: by chasing a distraction. never should have pursued nikolai like this, if he meant to save him. nikolai was right to accuse him of playing games. and a gambler’s luck always runs out.
somehow, nikolai coughs a breath — or maybe he was always breathing, or all of this was a bloody nightmare — and kaz chokes on nothing. never been so relieved or so angry to see someone. nikolai’s pulse jumps to life under his palm, but that isn’t enough to halt the tide of nausea that’s been building since kaz grabbed him. as nikolai’s eyes flutter open, kaz scrabbles to lean over the stone edge and dry heave. he was dead. he wasn’t. he felt — corpselike, to be sure. kaz upends his dinner into the sea. ]
Don’t you dare — [ another heave, all seawater. his eyes feel wet and must be red. ] — make me do that again. [ as hoarse as he is, kaz still manages to inject lethal venom into those words. ]
You accuse me of bartering with my life and then forfeit yours. [ breathless and wrathful. he raises his voice, the nearby formations amplifying the sound. ] Death would only end this for you. [ another cough, and his grip slips, palm catching on a jagged rock. a pained noise trails into a broken laugh. it’s the first injury he allowed nikolai to inflict on him, repeated. ] I’d have to live with it. [ haunted by nikolai and jordie, his twin failures doubly mocking in their symmetry. both of them led him here, to this watery mausoleum. attachment is a risk — a damnation. and he does not even love you. if he did, nikolai wouldn’t wish this ruinous pain on him again — wouldn’t have said if, as though it would scare kaz more than the threat that he was nothing, wielded so expertly in ravka. ] If you wish to meet death so badly, you’ll have to accept my company. [ he rolls onto his back to rest his aching arms, blinking up at the stars in near-delirium. perhaps he’s the selfish one, for wanting to be near nikolai, for asking him to stay in this wretched world, for not caring if he’s half-demon and entirely lost.
of course you're selfish, brekker. you're a thief. ]
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he should not have come here. even as his lungs seize, the last of his breath expelled into the water in a cascade of bubbles, he can't bring himself to look up to the light dotting the surface far above. he has an iron grip on the demon, and it will die here with him, and that will have to be enough. kaz will never forgive him, will carry this wound in his heart for years or maybe even a lifetime. there's nothing for that.
then he's above the surface, rock digging into his spine, a haze of light above him. a painful cough rattles his chest — and then he's sputtering water, twisting so he doesn't (presumably) drown himself twice. his thoughts come rushing back as he angles a wild gaze at kaz — yes, angry, very much so — and watches as kaz collapses beside him, eyes rimmed in red, skin pale, tremors in the tips of his fingers. all the haunted memories nikolai wanted to avoid tonight now brought to the light. ]
Fuck. [ it seems the only summation of the present circumstance, his voice hoarse. ] You're bleeding. [ everywhere. a scrape along his ribs, close to where he'd sewn him up before. blood at his palm, where his claws had once found purchase. his damned leg. nikolai forces himself to sit up despite the sharp ache in his chest, his breath uneven. ] I wasn't — I didn't mean for it to happen this way. I was only trying to keep you from harm.
[ a thing he can never seem to get right. his thoughts are jumbled, mired in a different sort of darkness, a frighteningly deep misery that he struggles now to pull himself out of. the fear of it chills his skin, that he nearly succumbed to it without intention, that a part of him wants it so badly that it could simply happen and he would let it. this is a monster of another kind, one he can’t give voice to now, because how much weight can he keep dropping at kaz’s feet with the expectation that he’ll want to carry it? he swallows it down, eyes raking over kaz’s body for some part of him that must be safe to touch. his leg, the fabric of his trousers gleaming darkly with water and blood. nikolai’s gloves come away a watery crimson when he slides his fingers beneath kaz’s thigh, i love you echoing somewhere faraway in his head. ]
Kaz. [ for a moment something else sits on his tongue, something to match his haunted gaze as it travels slowly along the blood trickling across his ribs, the smell of it cloying, a heartbeat too rapid in his ears. death feels too close. where is the fear that surely should come with it? the only thing he feels is a fear of how easy it had felt. how easy it would be to find it again. he’s nothing and nobody here — a first in the whole of his life. slipping away would come with no consequence.
none but one. he blinks down at kaz, his throat bobbing around a swallow, water dripping from his blond hair in a messy halo around his face. the ache in his chest shifts to something greater, something that a night’s rest can’t soothe.
he slips back into the water, but hovers by the rock, his eyes troubled as he slowly presses his hand to the bloody gash at kaz’s stomach. his fingers travel higher, leaving a trail of red across pale skin as he stops above his heartbeat. something to tether him here. something alive. tell him you love him. thank him for saving your life. say something that isn’t wrong, for once. but with the bitter taste of death on his tongue, he can’t utter those words. shouldn’t have said them in the first place, because this is all that it brings. ]
Let me take you back to the boat. I’ll tend to your wounds there. [ his mouth twists. ] I won’t do this to you again. [ make him dive to the depths of the sea. ask him for something so selfish as a balm for his loneliness. tell him he loves him. doesn’t know which he means. ] Ketterdam needs you too much for me to drag you away.
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when nikolai touches his bare skin with his soaked, bloodied glove, kaz shutters his eyes, heart leaping into his palm as if emboldened by the very sight of him. in this way, they do understand each other: the closeness is unbearable. his stomach renews its churn, nikolai’s lifeless body imprinted on his person. ]
I’ve seen you die a thousand times, and still I wasn’t — [ ready, fast, enough to keep nikolai there. his hand covers nikolai’s on his chest, holding it in place without touching his skin, grip at once strong and shaky. can’t lose him again. nothing nikolai says assuages that fear, though perhaps nothing could. kaz replays everything nikolai offers him before opening his eyes. ah, of course nikolai now deigns to coddle a wounded, needful thing. how gallant. releasing him, kaz pushes himself up, hands at his sides, and winces as he irks the cut in his palm, face tinged green. it takes a long moment for the sickness to pass. then his eyes flash, brightening with outrage. ]
What will you do after you mend your broken toy? [ run, drink, die. he pushes himself off the ledge and into the water with a magnificent splash, aches shooting through his body. best to ignore the brief flash of empathy for nikolai’s decision to let the waves take him. on surfacing, kaz has to shove the hair from his face before he snags the very rock he just boldly deserted, looking half-faint and half-murderous. ]
If you mean anything you say, Nikolai. [ if he meant it, ] If you ever cared for me at all. [ when he’s a thief and bastard, demanding and manipulative and terrible. ] You will stop. [ a sharp intake of breath, the silence dragging. ] You will stop trying to keep me from harm — because you’ve no idea how — because you don’t bloody listen. And you will stop insisting you tend my wounds and balking when I near yours. [ with a sudden scowl, all bite — ] You don’t have to be strong enough to bear everything on your own, you selfish, idiotic skiv. [ said the drowned man clinging to the rock and pointedly not moving his bad leg. his eyes search nikolai’s face for tells, tracing the concern in his brow and lies lining his taut mouth. ] You have me. [ a voice urges him to say it once more, to underline the truth of his feelings, but another tells him to never utter those words aloud again for as long as he lives. ]
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Surely a thousand is an exaggeration. [ something he can say only because he's fairly certain kaz needs to continue clinging to the rock and therefore can't bridge the meager distance between them to make an attempt on his life. to be told to his face in rather plain terms that he doesn't know how to keep kaz from harm — something he knows, saints, he knows — cuts him unexpectedly. the harm lies inside of him. his two most consuming wants — to love kaz brekker and to keep him safe — have always been opposing battles, and only one can ever be the victor.
in truth, there has only ever been one right choice. he's simply not accustomed to giving up the things he selfishly wants. ]
Do I? [ have you. hurt sharpens his tone, lifting his chin as if trying to preserve what remains of his tattered pride. even drenched and aching from hacking up water in his lungs, he still manages the dignified glare of a monarch, eyes flashing gold in the fading glimmer of light. ] You're away for days — weeks — at a time. You hardly answer the notes left for you at the Crow Club. You have the gall to leave your men lurking about to make sure I don't start gnawing on the neighbors instead of showing up yourself. Dimitri, of all people. For fuck's sake, Brekker, he used to work for me.
[ he barks out a laugh, wading closer now that kaz has finally gone relatively still. still enough that he won't drag them both underwater, hopefully. a haze of cloudy blood spreads from kaz's leg, and it's that sight that strengthens his resolve. ]
You'd have to actually be present to come near my wounds, so I wouldn't worry so much about that. Just — [ he glides beside him, smoothly sliding his arm around kaz's waist and gentling him (not so gently) away from the rock. ] Careful where you touch me. Don't move your leg. And don't struggle, or you will sink us both. We're going back to the ship. Just let me help you and you can complain about how awful it is on the way.
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You’d have me if you stopped throwing me away the second I wasn’t needful enough for your liking. [ retorted with a quick tip of his head that he immediately regrets, still queasy. you don’t need me anymore echoes in his memory. ] Or when I’m too needful and ask [ beg ] you to stay. [ left to face the sickness in his room alone, the way he always had before. he snorts, attempting to obscure his unease over their proximity. kaz throws a trembling arm across nikolai’s covered shoulders. he’s alive now — but he was dead. he felt dead — feels cold, and if kaz dared look at him, he might be bloated with seawater and rot, so he fixes his eyes ahead. not the first time a corpse has carried him to shore. ]
"Notes" is an exaggeration, don’t you think. [ mimicking Nikolai's tone from earlier, if a tad breathless. he watches the murky red trail them as nikolai drags him onward. ] You’ve only left the one. [ and he answered, like a heartsick fool. ] Unless you count the drawings of the prized laboratory that you burned down — which I don’t. [ as romantic as mad sketches are. ] Perhaps you should send the poetry you have on the subject of maiming me next time, and I’ll respond. [ he turns over the memory of the demon in his bed, mouth at his throat like the first time, and the sight of it crushing the deer at the safehouse. shoving nikolai aside, he pulls himself up on the boat on the strength of his arms alone, smearing blood and water on the sapfiry’s new deck in the process. ]
[ with a measure of musicality, ] Darling Nikolai, thank the demon for thinking of me in your stead. [ kaz slides both hands under his bad leg to widen the spread of his hips and removes a blade from his waistband. even sat upright, he has to steady himself by leaning on his free hand, adrenaline fading fast.] You should know Dimitri is watching you because I don’t trust anyone else to protect you and my city both. [ to not kill the demon on sight. once a ravkan soldier, always a ravkan soldier. kaz can tell from the way dimitri looked between them at the safehouse — kaz may be the boss, but nikolai remains his king. ] And he’s making significantly more under me than you, so you should be proud. [ a smug little face scrunch, directed squarely at nikolai. ] All my love, Brekker.
[ with that, he raises the dagger and shakily marks the spot on his clothed thigh where he’ll need to cut the fabric free and unstick old bandages from his wound. ]
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There is absolutely no proof that I am the one that burned down my laboratory. [ a distinction that feels necessary to make, if only to him. it was his to do what he pleased with, anyway. ] In any case, I've been meaning to get those plans back from you. And kindly refrain from speaking to me about needfulness, when the only reason you even agreed to come tonight was because you saw the condition the demon has left me in. I asked for your company and you said no for absolutely no good reason.
[ he huffs out a laugh, shucking off his wet gloves and pulling his shirt over his head, glaring down at kaz while the moonlight gleams along his drenched angles. ] No, your reason was because you would simply cease to exist if you thought someone was trying to be too kind or too attentive or — dare I say it — attempting to coddle you. You said selfishness looks good on me, and yet when I try to be that way, you resist. You only came along because you were horrified at what you saw once you opened your eyes and really looked at me.
[ he descends the ladder to the bowels of the boat — for once glad kaz can't follow — and when he returns after several minutes, he's changed into dry clothes, fresh gloves, and carries both a lantern radiating warmth and a basket laden with supplies that he sets down beside kaz. the fabric of his trousers have already been sliced apart, revealing bandages thoroughly soaked with blood and water, and nikolai sits before his leg, thrusting a fluffy towel into kaz's hands to occupy him as he takes over the work of removing the dressings. ]
Dry off. There are clothes in there. [ a linen shirt a few shades darker than the blue of his eyes, black trousers if he manages to get that far, all folded atop sable blankets to keep warm in the nightly chill. a pair of black leather gloves sits tucked beside a hot flask. ] Genya used to make me that tea on my particularly trying nights. I would complain without fail that herbal tea is for old women, but whatever she puts in it truly calms the soul. She sent me sachets of it as if she knew I would need it.
[ clever of her. he peels away the ruined bandages and tries not to react to the sight of his wound, the gouges deeper than he remembers, fractures lines of black spreading from them. something stirs in his chest — disquiet, regret, grief. taking a fresh towel, he gently covers the gashes and applies pressure, his eyes flicking up to the streaks of blood across his ribs, a memory from faraway drifting back to him after a long stretch of time. ] Staunch that wound, Brekker. You can't bleed all over my ship.
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the fight leaves him when nikolai does, swept away by the wind and the knowledge that he might have finally ended this (not even on purpose, on accident). greedy, relentless, callous. he aches for the time when he never knew what it felt like to have nikolai’s hands on him, touching him where no one else would dare — where no one else will, if you have any sense. despite sHivering from the cold and his affliction, kaz never thinks to call for help. until nikolai returns, deathly pale in the lamplight and still somehow lovely, he assumes he’ll be left alone. that’s the way of things, isn’t it? everyone tires of him, this life, and goes. he visibly startles at nikolai’s presence (a half a second too early to be blamed on the towel). then, it takes a moment for nikolai’s next words to click. when they do — he chuckles. instinctive, fond, and swiftly curtailed. ]
It’s only a scrape. [ a grumbled protest that helps force the corners of his mouth downward. after fixing his scowl in place, kaz dries his hair, largely to delay following nikolai’s orders. only once it’s suitably fluffed does he press the towel against his skin, gaze dropping to nikolai’s gloved hands. his stomach isn’t as bad as it looks, particularly when compared to his leg, which has only worsened after being left unattended. he should be charting a course to see zenik, but they can’t even make port until morning without drawing unwanted attention, in their pathetic state. ]
[ kaz expels a breath and leans to the side, no doubt disrupting nikolai’s work in the process. when he straightens again, the blue shirt — obviously selected with him in mind, blood warming his throat — hangs off his fingertips. his sharp eyes catch on nikolai’s bowed head, hair gilded in moonlight. ] Presumptuous of you. [ to bring spare clothes when they’ve no idea how to talk to each other any longer, let alone touch. he shrugs on the unbuttoned shirt without further examination. thinking of the care nikolai attempted to put into this night only shows how ill-equipped he himself is to be anything but this. you will still be you. ]
[ his brows arch in a show of disaffection, ] You don’t have to do this. [ worded carefully to sidestep the flaw nikolai expertly pinpointed minutes earlier. ] If it’s too difficult to be around the blood. [ his blood. ] Or to touch me. [ he swallows hard. ] I understand. [ that it's not always possible to overcome these things: the revulsion, is his case, or the hunger in nikolai’s. some days are harder than others, touches shifting from welcome to harrowing in the blink of an eye. for want of a distraction, kaz fumbles buttoning a cuff before realising his palm has re-opened. a tsk slips from his mouth as he moves the towel from his torso to his hand, leaving rosy skin and dried blood behind. at least this can be done with trembling hands (his weakness blossoming under nikolai’s attention despite his efforts).
there are further remarks on his tongue. i don’t know what you want from me recurs but kaz doesn’t dare say it. you ruined the only thing nikolai wanted tonight. a wave of nausea rises up to his chest, so he finally takes the flask with his uninjured hand and sips it in the hope of settling his rattled person. ]
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he unrolls fresh bandages and opens a sharp-smelling tincture — another gift from genya, all too familiar with nikolai's masterful gift of never being able to stay out of trouble — measuring several drops onto the clean fabric. after a brief coldness, it will numb the area significantly — more significantly if it wasn't a wound of merzost, but relief will be felt all the same. he proceeds to wrap kaz's leg just as kaz chooses that moment to speak, and for some loathsome reason, these words find their mark more deeply than any other exchanged tonight. nikolai's hands falter, an unattractive hitch in his breath. it's as if kaz has found the largest crack in his glass facade and decided to push. ]
Don't. [ impossible to keep the brimming emotion from his voice, a well that's threatened to spill over for weeks. ] Don't tell me that I can't. You would take this from me, too? [ he tries for a laugh, to shake this off as he always does, but what comes out sounds decidedly out of the range of a laugh, something wild straining to break free of his throat. kaz has not rebuked him, and yet it feels like it all the same. it feels like the same coddling that kaz despises, the briefest flicker of sympathy igniting in him. ] I can offer you nothing else. I can't touch you. I can't share your bed. There's no —
[ his voice breaks and he wants nothing more than to retreat below deck and sulk in peace for the rest of the night, but his pride won't allow him to look away, swinging his piercing gaze to kaz with a fierce anguish and a horrible heat building behind his eyes. ] There's no place for me here by your side. There never was. You hold the most vital pieces of my heart, and this is all I can give you in return. You nor the monster will take that from me. Even if it takes everything else. [ silence, and then a hard swallow, his eyes shuttering and his lashes suddenly — abominably — wet. ] It's taking everything else.
[ he's thankful for the shroud of night. less thankful for the glow of the lantern illuminating his misery, but kaz needs the warmth after draining half his blood into the water. he scrubs his sleeve across his face and shakes himself, resuming the careful work of bandaging his leg until the wound disappears from view, only tattered fabric and bloodstained skin remaining. ]
I'll write to Nina tomorrow. Her Fjerdan rebels can wait. I'll sail you there myself. [ he gives the flask of tea a passing glance before digging out a half-drained bottle of brandy from beneath the blankets, uncapping it and swallowing down a generous mouthful. ] Technically I'm not to set foot on Fjerdan soil — or any soil that's not Kerch without express permission from my queen — but Sturmhond is not bound by such petty orders.
[ he shifts closer, gently brushing kaz's shirt further open and dabs at the scrape. ] This one was just you being clumsy.
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no time to dwell on the light feeling. predictably, he’s said the wrong thing, kindness made harmful in his incapable hands. the sound nikolai makes (not a laugh, not a cry) unnerves him. the nikolai that meets his gaze now is shattered — it’s taking everything else as haunting as anything the demon could say — but kaz looks back without faltering, tracking the near-tears on nikolai’s lashes. a new thought, sudden in its clarity: if you can force it to let you die, you can force it to let you live.
when their aching stare breaks, protests fill his mind. can’t leave ketterdam until the work is done, and the work will never be done, at this rate. he has a meeting tomorrow afternoon he can’t miss, he needs to write inej about their progress and setbacks — wait. he forces his thoughts to slow. nikolai has changed keys into a pained register, one he rarely allows to be heard. if he could just kiss him, hold him — do something instead of having to say the right thing — ]
Whatever could have unbalanced me. [ rhetorical, thanks. kaz tugs a glove onto his unhurt hand and cups nikolai’s bent neck. ] Alright, Nikolai. [ alright i’ll go or you’re alright, melded with a softer brusqueness than usual. it's uncharacteristic agreement, which should hint at a catch. he slides his hand higher into nikolai’s hair, not steering him anywhere, just soothing. could be wrapping his palm instead of this (sparking a feeling with nowhere to go), but his entire body aches. nikolai will take care of it, besides. nikolai wants to take care of it. (of you.) ]
I’m not one for ascribed places, having none. [ not the way nikolai speaks of, in terms of roles and rightness belonging and deservedness. his mouth quirks faintly. even now, nikolai thinks like a soldier and a royal. ] But there is a space. [ a beat. you hold the most vital pieces of my heart. kaz gently untangles a knotted lock of hair, hand steadying even as the tirenedess persists. ] One that only exists because of you. [ carved out by choice, not destiny or necessity. ] And it will always exist for you, even when you curse me for it. [ a likely scenario, given how every confession seems to be wrapped in a reminder that nikolai cannot see a way forward — at least not with kaz brekker. ] I do love you. [ his grip on nikolai tightens and then loosens. ] Badly, I know, but I do. [ without the practice or skill to make it intelligible. wryly, ] Who else would tell a queen her duty and people can wait, but a canal rat can’t? [ in a spectacularly selfish and romantic gesture. he takes a deep breath. ]
We’ll feed your lodger again before we go. [ the catch, issued without remorse. there can be no repeat of their past mistakes on this journey, with news of nikolai’s condition known across the continent. better to use the facilities they have and safeguard against trouble on the open water or endless snow. ]
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I can feed the beast on my own. [ kaz will never go for it, but it stands to be said, paired with a disgruntled sigh.
still, now, pressure lodges in his throat. he gravitates closer, starved for kaz's touch after going so long without it — shame, there, that he can't handle the absence of something kaz endured a lifetime without. his ribs covered, he reaches for his hand, spreading kaz's fingers open across his palm to tilt his split skin into the lamp's glow, unable to look elsewhere. ]
I want to say it. [ kaz has shown more fortitude than he has tonight, even bloodied and facing the deep. the least he can do is explain, after all the secrets kaz has willingly handed him. a grief he's kept contained for years threatens to shake loose, and with it his instinct to simply look the other way, to say something else, to feel anything but this.
his gloved thumb sweeps to the edge of the gash at kaz's palm. ] I've felt it more than I can say. Earlier than you likely imagined. It's been on the tip of my tongue dozens of times I've looked at you. But I — I can’t — [ another hitch, another breath he can't seem to catch. he plunges forward, his haunted, desperate gaze falling to kaz like a shadow. ] I feel death looming over us now. Don’t you? That’s what happens when I love a thing, Brekker. I can endure losses of any other kind, but I cannot survive losing you.
[ he expels a breath, wrapping a length of fabric around kaz’s palm, ignoring the tremor in his fingers as he works. ] I told you of him, that night on the ship. Had to have been drunk. I don’t even like to speak his name aloud. But what I felt for him, I feel for you. More, even, because I was so young back then. But the carnage that came for the two of us that day… it’s chased me all the way here, and now there’s us, and it’s — [ he knots the bandages but doesn’t release kaz’s hand, holding it in his bloodied gloves, lost in the violence of his war-torn memories. he’s seen hordes of deaths since then, but nothing like that, nothing like dominik bleeding out in his arms, his heart breaking in a place that can never be mended. how many times has he closed his eyes and seen kaz’s broken, lifeless body, death following him like a ghost?
he cradles his bandaged hand to his swiftly beating heart, his gaze wild and desperate when he looks at kaz again, like he’s drowning once more. ] Can’t you feel it? It’s all around us. Every time I touch you. Say that you feel it too. Tell me my sanity isn’t going with everything else.
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in return, kaz listens with rapt attention, gloved hand soothing at the nape of nikolai’s neck until a question finally glances off his razored jaw, which tilts down to evade the light in nikolai’s eyes. i feel death looming over us now. don’t you? a sensation so prevalent even a seasoned liar wouldn’t dare deny it. nikolai plucks thoughts from the vault at the back of his mind and mirrors them.
can't you, say it, tell me. a litany that begs for action. kaz lifts his head. stay afloat. he smoothes his leather grip to cradle nikolai’s face, but allows his bandaged hand remain in place, kept safe in bloodied gloves, over a wounded heart. ]
[ after the fight and subsequent silence, his voice is an abrasion. a whisper, meant for two alone. ] You know I do. [ the dead infiltrate his perception. nikolai once observed it’s not just something that afflicts him when they touch; it’s always. ] For once, [ not quite teasing, but hinting at it. ] you’re not the exception. [ because nikolai is exceptional to him. there’s no one else he would drown for repeatedly — no, nightly. ] Everyone feels this way. [ it’s a flaw so reliable that kaz has exploited it with frightful success. he tips his head from one side to the other, considering. a small frown. ] Most not as deeply as you. [ masked or otherwise, it’s always been obvious to kaz that nikolai’s emotions are too big for his restricted role. with outsized passion for his country, for his people, for progress — and for you — of course the resulting pain is too much. ]
If you love a thing, you fear its loss. [ impossible to keep nikolai’s descent from plaguing his vision, lashes fluttering. ] Two sides, one coin. [ his thumb arcs over the apple of nikolai’s cheek.] Whether you’re with me or not, it won’t stop. [ no matter distance traversed or walls erected, you can’t rid yourself of either feeling. nothing has cured him of his affection for nikolai. even with the tide rolling in, thoughts of kissing him soundly — holding him — pressing close — persist. ] There's no protecting you from it. [ hadn't he tried? when there was still time, or at least when it seemed like there was. earlier than you likely imagined. his pulse skips. ] But you needn’t face it alone. [ gently, he curls his other hand around nikolai’s. ]
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he tilts his cheek into kaz’s palm, desperate for the meager warmth he imagines bleeding through the leather of his gloves. you needn’t face it alone, a promise he wants to grasp and hold tight to his heart, but they’ve had too many nights apart already and too many ahead, a gaping, lonely emptiness awaiting him when this night ends. his eyes shutter, turning so his mouth brushes lightly over the tip of kaz’s gloved finger. after all the work they’d done to coax them off and he’s the reason kaz wears them again now, no excuse but his own selfish need to be touched. ]
But I do. [ need to face it alone. he draws in a steadying breath, finding the tattered edges of his composure and settling it around him like a familiar mantle, patched up again and again with brand new fraying threads. he wants desperately to take this comfort from kaz, to let himself be weak and hollow if only for a few moments more, but the scent of blood hangs too strongly in the air, reality pushing against him on all sides. he opens his eyes, his features carefully schooled back into casual dignity. ] The monster has me in a place where I can’t reach you, and you certainly shouldn’t be reaching for me.
[ an argument weakened, perhaps, by the way he grips kaz’s hand even tighter as he says it, as if it will pain him to let go, as if he hopes kaz can hear the things left unsaid. impossible to know if he even can, brilliant deduction skills hindered by lack of experience in matters of the heart. if you love a thing, you fear its loss. perhaps true, but unacceptable — or at least something he’d rather largely ignore. he doesn’t have to give voice to how his fear is eating him alive. ]
If you love a thing, the work is never done. [ a mild correction. maybe one kaz will bristle beneath, but it’s a truth nikolai has lived by his entire life. he helps kaz to his feet when he stands, bearing the weight of his bad leg and holding him steady as the boat rocks beneath them at the movement. with a flash of a smile, he sweeps a fur blanket around kaz’s shoulders before they cross to the other side to the waiting bed of blankets and cushions that nikolai lowers kaz to without asking, propping an overstuffed pillow beneath his leg. he scurries back to fetch the lamp, setting it close to warm them, and then perches on one of the storage trunks bracketing the small space, the bottle of brandy dangling loosely in one hand and the tea in the other. he wants badly to slide down beside him, enough clothing and soft furs to separate them, but he hesitates nonetheless, watching the moonlight cast colorless shadows along kaz’s sharp angles.
he swings his gaze upward to catch sight of the stars instead, something else to focus on, but kaz’s presence is like a magnetic force that brings him to his knees, sliding close so he can tilt his chin upward to follow the path of his eyes. this is the thing he wanted all along, and it feels wrong and right at once, kaz’s blue eyes catching the light, his lashes dark and cheeks pale. nikolai’s mouth doesn’t brush his ear when he speaks, his voice low, but he imagines that it does, imagines his lips dragging along the cut of his jaw, licking at his pulse, feeling the steady — or unsteady — cadence of life beneath his skin. he swallows and looks up again instead, brandy and tea both forgotten on the slate trunk tops. ]
That’s the raven. [ he points to a faint, boxy constellation to the far left. ] I’ve heard any number of stories about each one, a different one at each new city, but it so happens that a god asked this sacred raven to watch over his pregnant lover. The lover went off and fell in love with another man, and the god’s wrath toward the raven was so great that he scorched its wings and left them blackened as punishment. [ he fusses with a corner of the blanket, smoothing his hand down kaz’s side and stopping when he feels the bandage beneath the soft fur. a lonely, jarring reminder to let go. he leans back on his hands and smiles, achingly sweet. ] I always liked the mariner’s compass best, though. You can’t see it tonight, but — maybe in Fjerda. If we’re lucky and the new queen and king don’t throw me in prison for a laugh.
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hard to parse what nikolai means by correcting him. what work remains? hasn’t kaz spent months sanding down his edges and opening his throat? all for someone who would rather drown than have you. kaz pulls his hand from nikolai’s before he stands, instead fumbling over the first buttons if his shirt, made of material finer (and bluer) than he’d ever pick for himself, silky against the skin. if he didn’t think nikolai might disappear, he’d slip beneath the deck like the shadow he is. unfortunately, even this latest humiliation isn’t enough to supplant that fear. although he manages to stand on his own, nikolai swiftly provides the help he wouldn’t ask for.
every gesture of care must be so small to nikolai, having been loved and loved in turn. kaz scrubs a hand over his face to stop it from crumpling, a burgeoning wetness rubbed from his eyes. a blanket heavy enough to slow his shakes, wrapped around his shoulders. a pillow slid beneath his leg where it most hurts. no one has ever cared for him like this. he’s never let them.
with good reason. it’s ruinous. there’s nothing more painful than being confronted with the very thing he sacrificed to get what he wanted — what he thought he wanted. it’s as if nikolai dragged a subterranean, hellish creature into the sun. maybe he did. it burns just the same. worse, the raking light will pass, leaving him scorched in the dark.
the occasional shudder overtakes him, limbs refusing to still after revisiting his waterlogged nightmares in the flesh. even once the distance between them clears his head, he has no counter. no matter how much nikolai claims to feel, it’s not enough. not to name the feeling outright, let alone act on it. with a sigh, he rolls the tension from his shoulders as he looks up without seeing. if only he could go away inside and say nothing, or return to his room atop the slat that no one dare enter uninvited. but nikolai is here, not there. close enough that if kaz turned his head, he’d need only tip it to kiss his cheek, his jaw, his neck. tempting in the firelight. and unwanted.
he thought that playing the bastard would dull the ache, at least, no satisfaction quite like the collapse of bone beneath his balled fist. it hadn’t. nor had the attentions of others, endured to suit his strategy and curiosity both. the moment nikolai called him back, he came limping to his door. pathetic — and unchanged. when nikolai speaks, kaz listens, eyes flitting sideways to sneak a glimpse at his freckles before following the curve of his arm to the stars. as it happens, he knows little of constellations beyond basic navigation. since stories like this didn’t serve his aims, he never bothered to collect them. blackened wings conjure the demon, and he wonders about the mechanics of its shadowy limbs. hadn’t been able to see how they sprung forth in the dank cellar.
struck by an impulse, kaz reaches across nikolai’s back to drape the blanket across them both, clothed shoulders brushing before he straightens and busies himself with his buttons. maybe in fjerda, nikolai says, where they’re going. where he went to the ends of reality to save the man beside him. where nina zenik will look at him with those huge, knowing eyes of hers while she draws the merzost from his bones. ]
[ mildly, brows arching — ] You’re not the one who stole from them. [ something he hadn’t mentioned on their way out, given the circumstances of their parting. he stole from shu han, too, as he left his meeting with the princess, exhilarated that his legend had expanded its domain. and, of course, he took from ravka shortly thereafter. twice. the first time, he only thieved from the courtiers who attended his audience with the dragon queen (and bargained dimitri into his service). the second, he’d nicked books from the palace library and replaced an emerald embedded in a lantsov bust with a rather lovely rock. there’d been little else to do without nikolai’s company, after all.
hazarding another glance at nikolai, kaz’s heart scrambles into his throat. nikolai remains sun-drenched, as always, even in the moon-dark. his smile hurts just as much as every token of affection. if this is all kaz can give him, if this is all nikolai wants — he turns away and blows out an exhale. maybe the work isn’t yet done. ]
Fortunately, I’m rather talented at breaking in and out of Fjerdan prisons. [ a flat look. ] You’ll have to pay for my services, of course. [ tipping his head this way and that. ] But since I’ll be freeing myself, anyway, there’s an argument to be made for a lower rate.
[ if nikolai won’t help himself, kaz will convince the demon that their interests are aligned. it must want food, life, freedom. a lever is a lever. hadn’t it asked who marked him, too, when they last spoke? as if it mattered. as if any scar from a person could compare. ]
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warm fur spills over his shoulders, magicked into place by kaz's clever hands. a surprising gesture, and one that makes him think of how few times they've been allowed to share an intimacy like this. tangled covers, the press of limbs, the shroud of night. nikolai mourns the sight of kaz's pale skin disappearing beneath his neat buttons, reaching for the flask of tea and swallowing down a sweetened mouthful, the soothing warmth spreading through his chest and reminding him of the ache of missing home. ]
There's hardly anything in Fjerda worth stealing. Maybe one of their tanks for tinkering with. [ their bloated military might had been both criminal and impressive at once, though serving as their target certainly diminished much of his awe. a flash of cold snow and hot blood skitters through his mind, a sour taste rushing to his tongue. he switches the tea for brandy, lounging back on the cushioned pile beneath them and carefully snaking out his free hand to idly circle kaz's bicep, his fingers tracing his tattoo from memory. ] Yes, stories of your foolhardy adventure to the Ice Court were much discussed at the palace, mostly by me, because I couldn't figure out how you did it. I suppose I was taken by you even earlier than I realized. [ he huffs out a laugh, gently squeezing his shoulder. ] Zoya wanted to have you shot for leading Nina astray.
[ her anger had been so comically palpable while nikolai's fascination had simply grown as each bit of the story unfolded, his eyes firmly on brekker without even knowing who he was or where this boy had even come from. his gaze strays to him now, his profile illuminated by the moonlight, dark hair a tousled mess from his haphazard toweling. nikolai reaches out with his stained gloves and gently tucks back a windblown lock, fingers curling around the shell of kaz's ear. who else gets to see him like this, the boy beneath the hardened lines and severe looks? nikolai will never tire of it. ]
I meant for you to find peace somewhere in the water. [ he wanted to somehow give him that, arrogant enough to believe that he could. still trying to be useful. kaz had so easily pegged him right, his foolish desires priced too high tonight. he can at least take him to fjerda, at least get him to zenik. and then what? their time is always running out. his fingers skate gently down the line of his throat, shifting to the nape of his neck. after a moment he's coaxing kaz back, drawing him in so he settles against his heartbeat, his dark hair tickling the edge of his jaw.
he allows him a moment to settle — or a moment to pull away, but he'll have to make a conscious choice to leave the circle of his arms, pulling the furs close around kaz. an apology of sorts, for making him dive into the depths to fetch him, or maybe just to warm him, to chase the dark waters from his head, to remind him that he's above the sea now, as safe as can be with a man of questionable control. warm breath soaks through kaz's hair when nikolai drops his lips to his crown. ] I've no right to ask you for anything, but — give me this one night with you. One night of rest. I don't want to go back, because then — you'll go. [ a shaky breath, his eyes shuttering. ] You don't like my neighborhood.
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kaz fails to listen carefully to nikolai’s reply, lost in the touches given over like they’re nothing. they’re not nothing. they’re incapable of being categorised as such. every single one tugs him nearer, nikolai’s gloved hand as good as hooking into his neck, a different sort of shiver inching down his spine. there’s uncertainty, of course, leading him to fidget until he’s comfortable on nikolai’s firm chest. eventually, his heartbeat replaces the sounds of the waves, steady and alive.
if anyone else told him they wanted him to find peace in the water, he’d laugh. only in death. instead, his pulse flutters. ]
There’s no peace for someone like me. [ fearful and fearsome, a self-made monster. ] There’s only you. [ for want of entombing himself at nikolai’s throat, he turns his nose into his silken shoulder, breathing in the palace perfumes and seasalt. in embracing him, nikolai presses for an intimacy that leaves kaz questioning the rules of this engagement. is he allowed to touch? nikolai’s mouth warms his hair, but it seems different when he initiates taction now, like his wanting itself is corrosive. is this how nikolai had felt the first time they kissed, knowing that it might be the very thing to drown him? ]
I despise your neighbourhood. [ muffled, so kaz lifts up to settle one hand beside nikolai’s head, while his injured palm balances over his heart. the fur blanket slips down his back. his eyes are as wild as they are aching. ] But one night isn’t enough. I’ve left you too many times already. [ his mistakes as painful — worse, than nikolai’s, because he failed to use his cleverness to understand this person who matters above all else. fuck the crow club, the merchant council, and all of ketterdam. ] I’m staying tonight. Tomorrow. [ on the sofa, he anticipates, if nikolai makes a hat-trick of his rejections on this miserable night. ] Even if I don’t know how to be close to you and not want — to kiss you now. [ his elbows bend, lowering as if he might. ] You don't have to do anything. You don't have to say it. [ all of that seems irrelevant, when nikolai himself, whole and hale, is the goal. ] I’m staying.
[ because kaz brekker does whatever he wishes. and he wishes for nikolai to know that he’s wanted, even if that feeling isn’t returned. for him to be safe, even if nikolai would rather drown. it matters not if he hates kaz for his stubbornness in this. kaz already decided he was willing to pay any price to shelter him. ]
no subject
all he's wanted this whole time is for kaz to stay, and yet how can he? nikolai hasn't fed the monster since that harrowing night in the cellar — since kaz fed it for him — ignoring the sharp hunger pangs that have no doubt worsened his condition. but even now his grip on the beast is as secure as he can hope for. if they're to leave for fjerda soon, they can't have night after night of this. in the practical sense, he needs kaz to watch him, to know when he's himself and when he's not, to tell him how far he's really gone.
and in the less practical sense — his gloved hand moving gently through kaz's hair, tracing the line of his temple down to his cheek, his thumb touching his bottom lip, the unspoken desire hanging heavy in the air — he needs him. he needs his presence. being alone has been untenable, moving through his days like a ghost, sometimes nikolai and sometimes some other dark, gloomy thing clinging to him like a shroud and blocking out every bit of the light he struggles so valiantly to keep close. it's been so long since he's had no one, moving from prince to privateer to king, never taking a breath in between, always making sure to charm enough people along the way so that he'd never have to be alone. but kaz is different. kaz is not in his court or on his crew. nikolai can't make him stay by royal mandate. what is it that he's always saying? he has to want to come back, or people are not things, or — something that he should've, perhaps, paid more attention to. ]
Being with you, for me, was peace. [ a quiet whisper, barely audible above the beating of his heart. he'd press his thumb into kaz's mouth if his gloves weren't stained with his blood, giving his bottom lip one last, gentle swipe before trailing down his pale throat, following the thin rope of scar tissue with the tip of his finger. ] I wanted to be that for you, too. [ a safe place to land. it all went wrong, somehow, after starting so right. or maybe it was always wrong, the demon robbing him of all sense and reason from the start.
his palm settles briefly over kaz's heart, faint beneath the layers of fabric separating them (or because he nearly drowned him). how many people have heard this cadence? then his hand sweeps up again to cover kaz's eyes, leaning in to press a kiss to the back of his own knuckles. ]
So stay. I'll have you for as many nights as you'll give me. [ he presses his forehead to the back of his hand, closing his eyes and allowing their breaths to mingle. though he keeps his voice soft — and attempts to keep his tone light — the relief is palpable behind his words. ] If you would try and rest now — please — I'll bring you inside when we get to shore.