everymonstrousthing | (no subject)

Jesper laughs and bends his head to kiss Kaz. What he wants is to wake up with Kaz sprawled over him and to wake him with kisses and have him in the morning light but he's not that optimistic.

"Shame to get all clean and then dirty you up again," he teases.

"Are you rationing hot water?" Says Kaz. Showers are tied for his favourite thing about Darrow. He loves TV and he loves showers.

"I've never known you to be inefficient," Jesper says, kissing Kaz's ear and then his shoulder. He's such a small, bony creature, like the crows he loves so much and Jesper can't get enough.

"Ah, but that was in Ketterdam," says Kaz, his smudged eyelashes fluttering at the brush of Jesper's lips against his wet skin. Jesper might be taller than Kaz is but Kaz is broader. For right now, though, he's happy enough to be crowded.

Saints help him. Is Kaz being...playful? Is he smiling? Suddenly, Kaz looks the same age as Jesper instead of severe and years older than he really is and Jesper's stomach drops out a little.

"Never thought you'd like a place better than the barrel."

There are plenty of places that he likes better than the Barrel, but none of them are home. He is, when it comes down to it, a product of the place that he sprung from. He was the deadliest boy in the Barrel.

But he's a long way from home.

"Half the time you just don't think," he says, but fondly.

"You didn't come here for my thoughts," Jesper reminds him, glancing pointedly between them and their water-slick bodies. "So it's a good thing I don't."

Once again, Kaz isn't really sure what he's come here for. He groans softly, nudging Jesper with the tips of his fingers.

"Planning on keeping me in the shower all night?"

"Didn't you just say...?" Jesper throws up a hand and then reaches out to turn off the water. Like last time, he steps out and holds a towel ready for Kaz, inviting him to come over, bundled close for now.

Kaz only hesitates for a moment before he steps out of the shower and into the towel that Jesper's providing. He's going to stop thinking, he thinks. He's going to let it go.

It's a terrible idea, wanting to cosset Kaz Brekker of all people into a towel. Brekker. Rietveld. Neither of them are the sort of men to wrap up into blankets. Jesper's head buzzes from thought to thought, somewhere between alarm and a half-dozen threads of investigation of who Kaz Rietveld might have been.

One thought, clear and urgent, tells him to stop thinking. Jesper steps backward into the little hall and then the bedroom, tugging Kaz along with him.

For now, at least, Kaz is willing to be lead. The towel is soft against his skin. Jesper is warm. It's something to sink into.

"Don't do that," Jesper says, certain Kaz doesn't even know how he looks right now, something like soft and content. "I'm going to forget who you are and think you're sweet."

"I'm still a monster on the inside," promises Kaz, his smile crooked but there. He glances up at Jesper, palms his hair back from his face. "Some things are never going to change."

Jesper raises an eyebrow at Kaz, silently asking two questions. Are you sure about that? and Do you really think I'd forget? Then he nudges Kaz into bed, inviting him to fall back into rumpled sheets.

It's frighteningly easy to fall into bed to settle on his stomach, the tip of his nose pressed into the pillow.

He ignores any questions that Jesper isn't actually going to ask him.

On 30 September 2016 at 22:18, materialnik - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

He looks so close to content for a second there and Jesper has a strange desire to tuck Kaz in and then throw himself on the couch for the night, as if this isn't his own bed. Laughing at himself, Jesper flops into the mattress next to Kaz and trails two fingers over his spine, tracing him.

Kaz stiffens for a brief moment but then he relaxes, his eyes drifting closed as Jesper touches him gently. He turns his head so that he can look at Jesper.

"What else do you want to ask me?"

Jesper keeps his hand there and looks at Kaz, wondering what to ask, what kind of honesty he'd even get. It doesn't seem worth it and Jesper makes himself laugh. "How's a nice boy like you end up with a bad one like me?"

"Oh, come on, Jes," says Kaz, rolling his eyes. "You're better than that question. You know neither of us are good. If anything, we fucking deserve each other."

Jesper snorts and flops over on his back, arms folded under his head. "No one deserves you, Kaz Brekker. And from what I hear, I don't deserve anything." He grins, head turned back to look at him.

"I have a lot of questions but none of them I think you'd answer."

He's relaxed, warm from the shower. He shifts, pulling a blanket up over him to the waist.

"Try me."

Jesper reaches out and traces the lightly-inked R on Kaz's arm. He tries not to think about the + G and the person that Kaz really loves and misses.

"Who was he?"

"A stupid kid who should have known better," says Kaz, shivering just barely at the brush of Jesper's fingers.

"There's got to be more to it than that," Jesper says, not phrasing it as a question. It's a little too dark for pillow talk.

Tracing the letter more decisively, Jesper lets himself move in closer, a gesture that's somewhere between a cuddle and aligning himself to Kaz's body. "What happens if someone else touches you? Someone who's not Inej or me?"