(no subject)

[everymonstrousthing]

He breaks into Jesper's apartment in the end. When Jesper doesn't answer the door, fingers of cold fear scrape down Kaz's spine. He has an image of Jesper beaten and broken. Dead. It's more than he can stand, and he breaks in, already preparing for all of the monstrous things that he might have to do.

But what he finds is worse. What he finds is an empty apartment, not just empty but vacant, and Jesper's pistols on a table. Jesper wouldn't go anywhere without his pistols. Jesper treats his pistols like a fucking limb.

There's a box under the bed that he's going to need to do something about, but he doesn't have the energy right now. Dirtyhands wouldn't worry about something like that. Dirtyhands wouldn't even stop.

Locking Jesper's door behind him, Kaz heads for the Crow Club. Rage slams through him and he turns, slamming his cane into the wall. But Grisha work is good, and there's no damage to the silver crow's skull at all. And, right then, Kaz wants to see something crumple. So he does the only thing he can.

He slams one gloved fist into the brick wall and feels pain explode.
It's good. It's better than what it replaces.

Comments

[tricktofalling]

Inej is waiting at the Crow Club. Jesper hasn't been responding to texts, and she's fitfully worried. Once, she had been here, and she has no recollection of Darrow, but Jesper and Kaz remembered her there. There is a terrible part of her worried, terrified, that something like that has happened.

Maybe it will all turn out to be a false alarm. Things have been a shaky navigation of emotions since she arrived in Darrow, so maybe--maybe Jesper is just hiding, burying himself in recklessness. A part of Inej hopes that's the case.

A part of her knows it isn't.

So she sits and waits, turning her phone over and over between her fingers, waiting for Kaz to arrive or let her know that everything's okay.

[everymonstrousthing]

He's almost certain that he's broken two fingers. Here, with not a Grisha in sight to fix him. He finds that he doesn't mind so much, because at least it gives him something to focus on. Something to feel that isn't loss.

He lets himself into the club and heads straight for the bar, ignoring her sitting there in the shadows. He takes the gin that he prefers down off the shelf.

[tricktofalling]

She says nothing. Even from a distance, she can see the scrape on his knuckles, the swelling, the damage. It sets off every alarm in her, every nervous tendency. So she moves from her shadow to the bar; they have a first aid kit behind it, in case of fights.

"Let me see it."

[everymonstrousthing]

He pours himself a drink, pours her one too and tops it up with soda the way he knows she likes it and the he takes a long swallow of his on neat drink before holding out one gloved hand.

[tricktofalling]

Inej makes a mental note to get Kaz a pair of gloves with reinforced knuckles, if he's going to go punching things that are so unyielding. His leather is all scraped up. She peels the glove off as gently as she can; the swelling underneath is already purple.

There isn't much she can do, she realizes. Gently, she tests his fingers to see how poor the damage is.

[everymonstrousthing]

Definitely broken then. He feels that weird, grinding sort of pain in two fingers, already swelling at the joints.

"Going to need to strap them, Wraith," he says. It means he won't be able to wear a glove on that hand, but it's not like his reputation relies on that anymore.

[tricktofalling]

"Give me a moment," she says. She wants to make sure that it's something she can tape. There are no Grisha here, but there are medicines, people who have studied how to mend the body with science instead of magic. She's not one of them, but she knows when a wound is too bad to rely on what she knows.

His hand is a mess, but something she can manage. She gets some things out of the first aid kit. There's no bother with delicacy in this; Inej looks at Kaz once, the only warning she gives, and then straightens his broke fingers until all the knuckles are straight.

[everymonstrousthing]

The only indication that he's felt anything at all is a sharp intake of breath, a soft grunt as she straightens his fingers. He holds his hand as still as he can.

"He's gone," he says.

[tricktofalling]

She works swiftly but carefully. A splint board under his fingers, extending below the knuckle so he can't bend his fingers back down, and then wraps to keep them straight, true, healable.

She says nothing. A part of her knew. It hurts, more than she knows how to deal with. She can't imagine how it feels for Kaz.

[everymonstrousthing]

He stays still and lets her work, lets her bind his fingers. He can feel the cold trying to take over him and he tries to force it back. He leans in a little closer to her to feel how warm she is.

[tricktofalling]

Once it's set, she leans in toward him as well. It's a quiet, broken moment. They've lost Dregs before--betrayal, death, those sorts of things. It never gets easier for her, but this is a different sort of ache. This isn't losing a fellow gang mate; it's losing a brother, a friend. A lover.

There are mourners here, and she isn't sure how to live with that.

[everymonstrousthing]

"I am trying," says Kaz, his voice quiet, like he's trying not to be overheard in an empty bar, "Not to tear everything apart." It feels like a lot to admit.

[tricktofalling]

"You've already broken two fingers," Inej says, an edge of warning in her voice. "So don't you go thinking that breaking anything else is the answer."

There is an edge of Dirtyhands in his eyes. Inej knows that look. She's never told him to hold it in before, and it feels important, in this instant, where there is no logical place to direct it. Jesper's gone, but he's not dead, not taken from them. That hurts all the worse.

[everymonstrousthing]

"I smashed this place the last time," he says, his voice rasping. He closes his eyes and sinks into the ache in his broken fingers. "To smithereens."

[tricktofalling]

Inej lets those words sink in. The last time was her, she knows. She finds she isn't fond to know that Kaz destroyed something with so much time and effort and dedication living inside of it because he lost.

"You've already smashed something," she finally says, calm and soft.

[everymonstrousthing]

"What if it's not enough?" he asks, and he fights against Dirtyhands, fights against it. For her. For the way that she's looking at him right then.

[tricktofalling]

"Then we take it out of something else," Inej says, plain, simple, succinct. Kaz has been the lieutenant to one of the bosses of the Barrel, he's built an empire from the ground up, and Inej has been there for so much of it.

"We take it out of the people that played him. We don't let them think they can get one over on any of us."

[everymonstrousthing]

"Never stop fighting," says Kaz, grimly, studying the binding on his fingers. "And if we can't walk, we crawl."

[tricktofalling]

Inej picks up her glass of gin and soda, contemplating it for a moment. Contemplating Kaz beyond. She prefers the boy with no sharp edges, with no hint of Dirtyhands. But she knows Dirtyhands, how to move around him, how to navigate the coldness of him.

This isn't Dirtyhands, but it could be. They just won't let it, she supposes.

"No mourners."

[everymonstrousthing]

"No funerals," echoes Kaz, and there is some comfort in being known as well as she knows him now, now that he wears no armour before her, now that she knows every single one of his secrets.

"I was in love with him," he admits. "i hadn't even told him that."

[tricktofalling]

"You don't need to use the past with that, Kaz," Inej says softly. It's a fragile thing, that admission and, in a way, her permission to retain that feeling. "You don't stop loving someone just because they've gone. That's not how love works."

[everymonstrousthing]

"It feels like I do," says Kaz, closing his eyes. "Trust him to let me down again."

[tricktofalling]

Inej touches his arm, gentle but sincere. "You didn't stop loving me when I'd gone," she says, soft but earnest. She does not say that she has no intention of pushing Jesper out of her heart just because he isn't there.

"An empty flat, and a pile of debt," she sighs, but her eye roll is affectionate. "Sounds like Jesper Fahey."

[everymonstrousthing]

"You didn't fuck up as often as he did," says Kaz, but they both know that that's not enough to stop him." He sighs. "I don't even know how much debt," he says. "I knew it was there, but he was a cagey fuck."

[tricktofalling]

"I suppose we'll find out," Inej says with a bit of a sigh. She's been watching him, knows his comings and goings--the big, beach casinos, like the ones in the Lid; and seedier places around the city, little back-room parlors.

"Less worried about the debt, more the people he owes it to. We'll get it straightened, I suppose."

[everymonstrousthing]

"If they couldn't beat us in Ketterdam, they can't beat us here," says Kaz, glancing up at her. "Here? They're not going to know what's hit them."

[tricktofalling]

Inej nods in firm conviction. There is no need to remake the Dregs here. But they could, even just the two of them--Mattias, too, if they really needed the muscle. But the two of them can manage just fine.

"Is there anything of his...?"

[everymonstrousthing]

"His pistols," says Kaz, his mouth working a little into something ugly before he forces himself to relax. "Some things we bought between us." Based on conversations between them, he knows she'll know what he means. "His stupid fucking waistcoats."

[tricktofalling]

The thought of those pistols being here is almost as painful as the thought of Kaz not being here. Inej stares into her drink and lets her eyebrows knit for a moment, and then relaxes.

Rather than asking what all is in that box--it doesn't matter, it's not her business; he will tell or show her if he wants to--she smiles about the waistcoats.

"Maybe I should get one of them taken in for myself."

[everymonstrousthing]

"Honestly, I'd like that," says Kaz. It's only a flicker of warmth, an ember, but it's something that he craves fiercely. He sighs and leans in to her a little.

[tricktofalling]

To have Kaz Brekker need that physical closeness is still something that Inej is getting used to, but in this moment, she doesn't think of it at all. She leans back into him, just a little, as they stand there and drink their drinks. It isn't much, but it's what they can manage now.

[someones_monster]

Matthias prefers to walk when he can, and so he's walking home from work instead of taking the bus or a taxi. He passes by The Crow Club and pauses, wondering if he should stop in to see if Jesper or Kaz are inside, when he hears a muffled smack. It's not a good sound, and when he looks up to find the source, he sees Kaz just a few buildings down. He can see the storm in his eyes from here.

"Brekker?" he calls, heading down the sidewalk to him.

[everymonstrousthing]

He slams his fist into the wall again and, this time, he actually feels bones in his hand break. That's good, actually. That brings clarity. He turns to face Matthias, his coat flaring in the breeze.

"Helvar." He softens, a little. "Matthias."

[someones_monster]

Matthias winces when Kaz punches the wall, and now he knows what the source of that awful sound was. There's a crunch to this one and Matthias swears in Fjerdan under his breath as he crosses the distance in a few long strides.

"What are you doing to yourself?" he demands, but does not move to inspect Kaz's hand. He knows better than to touch.

[everymonstrousthing]

"He's gone," says Kaz, his voice flat and harsh as a blade on stone. He cradles his wounded hand against his chest, his fingers bent at wrong angles. He might have thought of a softer way to tell Inej, but he doesn't owe Helvar that. No mourners, they used to say. No funerals.

But Jesper never did have any manner of luck at all.

[someones_monster]

Matthias doesn't need to ask who, or where, his throat tightening around questions bubbling up, begging to be asked, as though asking them will produce different answers than the ones he already knows. He'd seen Kaz destroy his very own club over Inej, and now he's breaking his own hand over Jesper.

Strangely, Matthias feels his eyes prickle. He blinks the feeling away and shakes his head.

"I don't understand this place," he says quietly.

[everymonstrousthing]

"What's not to understand?" says Kaz, his eyebrow arched sharply. He closes his eyes and breathes for a moment, focusing on the pain. "The world's ugly and it's cruel and it takes more than it gives. I would have thought that you'd know that by now."

[someones_monster]

Matthias did know that, or he should have. From the Grisha raid that took his family, to Hellgate, to here and KIRIN and all the rest, but he had never quite let himself sink low enough to give up. Even in Hellgate he had survived, he had killed his own kin to live. If anyone deserved to be taken from here, it was him. Yet, here he remains. He can't help feeling a little guilty for it, as though the group of them are interchangeable.

He'd liked to think life was better here for Jesper, not forced to live in the slums of the Slat, not forced to hide his Grisha powers. All Matthias can hope now is that life is good for him back in Ketterdam.

"I'll miss him," Matthias finally says, clearing his throat a little.

[everymonstrousthing]

"Yeah," says Kaz, his face cold and emotionless for a moment, fingers on his uninjured hand flexing. "Come on. I need a drink."

[someones_monster]

Matthias nods, and falls into step next to Kaz to walk the rest of the way back to his club, if that's where he's intending on drinking. "You need more than a drink. I can look at your fingers when we get inside, if you want." He's no doctor, but he learned plenty of first aid with the drüskelle.

[everymonstrousthing]

He's better than he used to be, but the thought of Helvar touching his bare skin sends a shiver of revulsion through him. He shakes his head.

"It'll wait until I see Inej."

On 20 January 2017 at 19:08, someones_monster - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote: