(no subject)

[everymonstrousthing]

It still feels odd, somehow - to have people outside of his little knot of people who matter. To have friends. The twins are old enough now that Inej feels more confident at home alone so Kaz is back to spending slightly more time at the club. It's a quiet night, someone he trusts on the bar, so he texts Marcus and asks him if he wouldn't like a drink and a catch up.

It still feels baffling to actually care, but here they are.

He settles in the office with a bottle and two glasses and waits for his friend to arrive.

Comments

[pushbackthedarkness]

"What?" Marcus asks in return as he reaches across the table for the glass, settled into his seat. He knows he's easily read by some people, Dan in particular, and he supposes it shouldn't surprise him that Kaz can read him so well.

Still, he isn't just going to give it all up at the first question. There's no fun in that.

[everymonstrousthing]

"There's definitely something going on," says Kaz, taking a sip of his drink. "And you might not tell me yet, but you will. And I can wait."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Yes, you're a very patient demon, I've heard," Marcus answers with a grin, in a rather good mood because of that something that's going on. It's an unusual feeling, this planning for the future, and sometimes Marcus still feels like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. As if planning will be the promise he needs for destruction.

Dan will fight harder than that, he expects. And so will he.

[everymonstrousthing]

"That is what they say about me," says Kaz, smirking. "Are you just going to sit there and smirk at me while you drink my liquor? You could probably have done that at home?"

[pushbackthedarkness]

"No liquor in the house," Marcus answers, his smirk deepening. "And you aren't in my house either."

There's really no sense in playing the same game all evening, so once he's set his drink back down after taking another sip, Marcus's shoulders rise in a shrug.

"A few months ago Dan brought up the possibility of marriage," he says.

[everymonstrousthing]

"Aha."

Now it's Kaz's turn to smirk as he swirls the whisky in his glass. "Is he going to make an honest man out of you? I survived when Inej did it to me."

Though honest is a strong word, when applied to a man like Kaz Brekker.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Doesn't that imply you and I are something like heathens to begin with?" he asks, amused. "Speak for yourself in that regard, I'm in quite high standing with God."

That standing, high or not, is something Marcus has spent the past few months thinking very deeply upon. There are things he'd not wanted to admit to himself after Dan brought up the possibility, a fear that marriage is not for him because God wouldn't want it. He's spoken to God many times on the subject, though received no answer in return.

[everymonstrousthing]

"At least one of us is," he says, flashing a grin at him and then taking another swallow of his drink before he sets the glass down. "Are you going to ask him?"

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Yes," Marcus asks. It's the first time he's said it out loud and it's both terrifying and wonderful. He has the ring, he's made something of a plan, but he hasn't gone ahead with it yet.

But he will. For a time after Dan brought it up, he hadn't been sure, but now he is. He's absolutely certain.

"I have a ring," he says.

[everymonstrousthing]

"That's serious," says Kaz, reflexively looking down at his own wedding ring on the fourth finger of a pale hand. "Congratulations."

[pushbackthedarkness]

For Marcus, marriage is a serious institution. He doesn't doubt Kaz and Inej or their intentions to one another, not remotely, but he's well aware there are many people who approach marriage with a rather cavalier attitude. One he can't bring himself to share.

Once, he would have said he was married to the man upstairs. He has a vague memory of having made that joke once or twice. Devoting that to another person is something that will happen for him only once.

"I wouldn't be doing it if I wasn't entirely serious," he answers with a small smile. "It's a rather... important undertaking. Especially in the Catholic faith."

[everymonstrousthing]

"Sounds like how Inej feels about it," says Kaz. He's explained to Marcus before the weddings in Kerch resemble business transactions - the joining of one family to another often comes with profit built in - but it's different for the Suli and their saints. Kaz might not believe in everything that Inej does, but he takes that part seriously, at least. "The whole thing mattered to her so much."

And she matters to Kaz. It's enough.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"I would never have said it mattered to me," he admits. "Not before Dan brought it up. I didn't think it was something that would ever be available to me."

He's quiet, then says, "Priests aren't meant to marry. We're meant to be devoted solely to God and when the Church excommunicated me, I doubled down on that devotion. Just because I wasn't a priest didn't mean I couldn't be utterly dedicated."

[everymonstrousthing]

"So what changed?" he asks, studying the familiar lines of his friend's face. Faith isn't something that a man like Kaz Brekker really has, but he admires it in other people. Most of the time, anyway.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Not God," he says, thoughtful. He's quiet for a moment as he takes a sip of his drink, savouring both the flavour and the chance to have a conversation of this nature.

"My relationship with Him, maybe. My understanding of what it means to be a man of faith," he continues. "And the reality that I've not yet been struck down by Him for the choices I've made in terms of my relationships. I've only ever been His weapon and that hasn't changed no matter who I love or how I do so."

[everymonstrousthing]

"So there's more...room in it, now?" asks Kaz which doesn't sound dissimilar to him and Inej, in a weird way. There hadn't been room for them, back in Ketterdam, too many obstacles and too many reasons why not. Here, though? Here they had room to breathe.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Maybe," Marcus says, having never thought of it like that before. What Kaz says makes sense. Marcus is still God's weapon, still the gun being held by a much larger hand, and he still does his work whenever he's called, but he feels as though he's less necessary here than he'd once been.

That doesn't hurt as much now as it might have once.

"And maybe I'm different, too," he admits. "Older, for one."

[everymonstrousthing]

"Aren't we all?" says Kaz, who had half never expected to live to be this age, to be a husband and a father, to have ended up with the life that, maybe, Kazimir Reitvald had been denied. "Well, I'm happy for you."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Thank you," he says, then grins. "Well, maybe we ought not to count our chickens. He hasn't said yes yet."

Only because Marcus hasn't asked. All things considered, the conversation they'd had, the way they seem to fit together, he doesn't imagine Dan saying no, suddenly he doesn't want to marry Marcus.

[everymonstrousthing]

"You wouldn't be thinking like this, with that look on your face, if you didn't think he was going to say yet," says Kaz, both eyebrows raised. "And you know it."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"You're right," Marcus agrees. "But maybe I'm a bit of a pessimist at heart."

And maybe, even if he doesn't want to admit it, there's still a part of him that doesn't believe he deserves something good. That some awful event will occur and everything will be undone and he'll find himself exactly where he started more than a year ago.

[everymonstrousthing]

"You must be," says Kaz, draining his glass. "You've ended up friends with me." He reaches for the bottle and pours himself another finger of liquor, offering the bottle to Marcus once he's done.

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Truly, how did such a thing occur?" he asks, amused, before he pours himself another drink. Dan won't mind and Marcus has no intention of coming home drunk. It's just nice to share a drink with a friend.

"I was such a light-hearted man before I met you," he teases.

[everymonstrousthing]

"I'm sure," says Kaz, and a smile actually twitches the corners of his mouth. "It's terrible, being family to my children. We ruined your life."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"Oh, especially your children," Marcus agrees. "Terrible, the both of them. Don't know how I do it, utterly adoring them. It takes a lot out of me, you know."

He's no one's father. Rather, he's Sabrina's, or as close as he thinks either of them are capable of and he loves every moment of it. But he'll never have a baby, never raise a toddler. He's perfectly comfortable with that.

[everymonstrousthing]

"It's hard to be someone's Opa, I bet," says Kaz, and he's definitely smirking now as he stretches out his legs and takes a swallow of his drink. Kaz never really expected to have family outside of Inej. It's still dizzying sometimes.