Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Could you tell me a story?” Tomas asked, looking up at Kaz, eyes still full of tears.
The boy was only seven, but he’d already been ruined by Ketterdam. His parents had been Razorgulls, they were killed on a mission last year, about a week before Kaz and Inej had found him and taken him in.
Kaz tightened his hand around Tomas’s as he led him back to his room. He’d been unable to sleep recently, nightmares were plaguing his mind.
“A story?”
Tomas nodded.
“I don’t know it’s pretty late,”
“I’ll go to sleep right after, I promise,”
Kaz sighed, he couldn’t say no. Those big blue eyes were his weakness. He sat down by the bunk beds, lifted the boy up and placed him on his knees (which was no easy feat, these chairs were far too small for him).
“Ok, since everyone is still awake. I’ll tell you a story,”
Milo, who was settled in the bottom bunk, sat up to listen.
“Can we join you?” Inej asked from the doorway, holding a wide awake little Alys in her arms.
Kaz beckoned her in, watching her sit much more comfortably in one of the tiny chairs. He knew what story he wanted to tell.
“Everybody ready?” They all nodded. “Ok, this is the story of the Demon and the Saint,”
“I’ve read all of the Saints stories, none of them have demons in,” Milo interjected, flicking through the Lives of Saints as he spoke.
“Ah, this story isn’t in any book, because this Saint was different. She didn’t have any Grisha powers, and she didn’t perform any miracles,”
“Then how come she was a Saint?”
“Because she had a unique power, she had the ability to love. Not in the way that you or I might love somebody. The Saint had the ability to see the good in everyone, and no matter what bad things happened to her, she always found a way to be happy, and found people to love.
“The Saint started her life as a performer, she was descended from the People of the Air, so she could perform tricks that would be life threatening for normal humans without even breaking a sweat. Sometimes, in the right light, it’s said that you could even see her wings. She used her magic, performing for crowds of people, making them happy even when their lives were filled with tragedy. It was all she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
“But then, one day, the Saint was taken to a new city, one filled with people who were suffering, and people that enjoyed making it happen. The city was corrupted, it was more than the Saint could handle, she couldn’t make these people happy, she didn’t have enough to give. It made the Saint very sad to know this new limit to her power, she felt helpless. Then she found out the reason that the city was so terrible- it was ruled by a Demon."
He leaned in as he spoke, putting on an evil voice, the children gasped and giggled.
“The Demon didn’t need a reason. He would hurt people just because he felt like it, he would steal and fight, just for fun. No one could stand in his way, he was rabid, and he left a path of destruction anywhere he went. The Demon met the Saint one day, and he saw that she had skills that could be helpful to him. Not her ability to help people, he didn’t know about that yet, but he saw how she could move through the air and not make a sound. He knew then that she was special. So, the Demon and the Saint started working together,”
“Why would she work with the Demon, won’t he hurt her?”
“The people of the city had already hurt her, and she knew that she couldn’t save them without the help of the Demon. So she joined him, she crawled along the buildings like a spider- '' He ran his fingers over the boy's arms in a spider motion, making him giggle, “- listening to whispers. She told the Demon where the worst people were hiding, and what they were doing. You see, a lot of people wanted to hurt the Demon, they hated him because he was more powerful than them. So the Saint learnt how to keep him safe when he couldn’t protect himself. She followed him, watched from the rooftops to make sure he wasn’t attacked, she cared about him in a way that no one had in a long time.
"The Demon brought out the bad in the Saint, she hurt people, even though it hurt her too. But the Saint also brought out the good in the Demon, he started to protect people, to help people who needed it. The Demon kept the Saint safe in his own way, if someone hurt her he would hurt them back, hard, until most people in the city were so scared of his anger that they wouldn’t go near her, and she would stay unharmed. The Demon was never sure why he felt so drawn to her, until one day. Everything was the same as it had always been, but then the Demon looked up and realised that he had fallen in love with the Saint,”
The children let out awwws, and Kaz glanced over at Inej, who was listening intently. He’d never told her about that day, he’d have to explain later.
“The Demon was confused,” He continued. “He didn’t think he was capable of love. He thought that he was pure evil, and he didn’t deserve to be happy in the way that others were. The Saint had found the good in him, she had taught him that he could love, and that he could be loved. He was thankful for her, though he couldn't say it. He didn’t tell her anything about how he felt. He was scared that she wouldn’t feel the same way, because how could someone as perfect as her love a creature as broken as him? He didn’t want to ruin what they already had. But what he didn’t know was that over all the time that they’d spent together, the Saint had fallen in love with him too.”
“But how? He was evil!” Alys protested.
“He was, but in a way, he was good too, he protected and he loved, even if he wouldn't admit it. As the Demon and the Saint spent more time together, they realised that they might not be so different after all. That under all of the layers of good and bad, and under all the pain they had both felt, they were really just a girl and a boy.”
Kaz pushed the hair out of Tomas’s face, feeling the familiar tremor when his fingers touched the boy’s skin. It was barely a whisper, after all this time, but still there.
“The Demon wanted badly to tell the Saint how he felt, but he couldn’t. Even if she did feel the same way, they could never be together. Because when human skin touched his, it made him feel like he was drowning. Demons live in the flames of hell, so they hate water, and the Demon hadn’t touched anyone since he moved to the city because he was too scared. The Saint also avoided voicing her feelings, because she couldn’t stand to touch him either,”
“Would he burn her?”
“No, her problem was different,” Kaz tried to find the words to explain. “The bad people, the ones that hurt her, had put a poison in her mind so that she couldn’t hug or kiss someone without it hurting her. The Saint had been working hard to heal herself, to get rid of the poison. She had made some very good friends that had helped her to reduce the pain. This might have worked for the Demon as well, but he’d never had a reason to try, not until her,”
That was a half-lie. He had tried, but no one had been willing to help him, no one was patient enough. No one had understood.
“What you might have figured out, is that the Saint wasn’t a human, not really. So, touching her didn’t hurt the Demon as much as it hurt him to touch other people, and the more they did it, the more the poison in the Saint’s mind went away too. It took a long time, but together, they were able to heal.
“The Demon and the Saint loved each other very much, but they knew they couldn’t stay together. The Saint had a job to do, and the Demon had helped her a great deal, but she had to leave. There were so many people who needed the help of a Saint, much more than the Demon did. So, although it hurt them both, she left the Demon and his city behind. For years after that, the Demon could be seen waiting in the harbour for her return, hoping that one day she would come home.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“So they never saw each other again?” Alys asked sadly, burrowing her face into Inej's arm.
“Hey, I didn’t say that was the end of the story,” Kaz said softly. The children brightened. “Many years later, the Saint returned to the Demon’s city. She had done her job well, and she had saved many people from a life of suffering, but she was tired, and she missed the Demon and his city greatly. She was worried that he might have gone back to his old ways in her absence, but he hadn’t. He still hurt people, but he only hurt people who deserved it, ones who had dedicated their lives to making others miserable. The boy and girl they had once been were gone, they’d become a man and a woman instead. The Demon still loved the Saint very much, and the Saint still loved the Demon. So it didn’t matter how much time they’d spent apart, not really,”
“So did they get married and stay together forever?”
Kaz grinned. “They did,”
“Did they have demon-saint babies with superpowers?”
He laughed. “They had children, yes, and they were very special. But the amazing thing about them wasn’t that they were part Saint and part Demon, even though that was pretty cool. The great thing about them was that they grew up completely and utterly human,”
He kissed Tomas on the forehead, and lifted him into the top bunk, covering him with the blanket.
“That was a good story,” Tomas murmured, closing his eyes.
“I’m glad you liked it, now off to sleep with you. If you have another bad dream, you know you can wake us up, right?”
Tomas nodded and yawned.
Inej lifted Alys up and took her back to her room, Kaz bent down to tuck Milo in.
“Did you like the story?”
Milo nodded. “I liked the part where the Demon killed everyone who hurt the Saint,”
Kaz smiled, Milo was obsessed with violence these days, Kaz had definitely been there. “He enjoyed that part too. Goodnight, darling,”
Kaz extinguished the lantern, tiptoed to the door, and closed it as gently as possible.
“Is she asleep?”
Inej shut Alys’s door and nodded. They crept down the hall to their room.

“You embellished the story a bit,” Inej said, looking at Kaz in the mirror as she pulled a brush through her hair.
Kaz leaned back against the headboard of their bed. “I thought it was pretty accurate,”
“You’re not a Demon, Kaz, you never were,”
Kaz sighed. “I know,”
“And I’m not a Saint, either,”
“I know, sometimes it feels like you are, though,” He sat up and looked at her. “Sometimes I think, maybe, you were sent to save me,”
“Ironic, since you’re the one who actually saved me,” Inej crossed to the bed, sitting beside Kaz. “Nice save by the way, with the ‘mind poison’. You managed to avoid having to explain what a brothel is to three children,”
“Yeah, I didn’t totally think that one through when I started the story,”
It wasn’t until they were laying in bed with the light off that Inej spoke again.
“Kaz?”
“Yes, love?”
“When was the part where the Demon realised he loved the Saint?”
“Oh, yeah, I never told you. It was years ago, a couple of weeks before we went to the Ice Court, I think. It was just like any other evening, I was doing my paperwork, and you were sitting on the windowsill feeding the crows. I don’t know what changed, but I looked up and you just looked… magical. I didn’t realise then, but that was when I knew I loved you,”
“Wow, I had no idea,”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly good at saying how I felt,”
She laughed, “No, you weren’t. Goodnight Kaz,”
“Goodnight,”

That night, for the first time in months, there were no nightmares, all five of them slept peacefully. When Tomas woke the next morning, he couldn’t stop talking about how the Demon and the Saint had saved him and protected him from danger. And he was right.

Chapter Text

Kaz Brekker is 33 years old, and he’s holding a baby in his arms for the first time.

The mission had been simple. One of the brothels in the Barrel was receiving new ‘indentures’ that night, they’d be in and out. On the ship, find the prisoners, move them onto the Wraith, dump the slavers’ bodies in the water. They’d managed it well enough what felt like hundreds of times before, Kaz tended to be mostly on the torturing-slavers end of the job, and Inej was usually more on the comfort-the-captured side, so they made a good team. Kaz knew by now that it was good for him to try not to get too near to the slaves. A lot of them knew who he was, and even those that didn’t could tell that he was powerful and violent. And a man. It made his gut twist to think about how scared they must be of him. He’d always embraced the fear of others, knowing it helped him if they knew that he was dangerous, but not this type of fear. He never wanted to make anyone feel this type of fear. It made him sick.
The job had turned sour when they’d realised what kind of exchange they’d really intercepted. This wasn’t the usual job, where the slavers had kidnapped people and intended to sell them to the highest bidder- this was a transport, moving people from several houses into another. Everyone on that boat had been considered ‘damaged goods’ for one reason or another, meaning they were unfit for the work they had been enslaved to do, and they were being taken somewhere to either heal or, it seemed in most cases, to die. Most of them were injured or disabled, a few elderly and frail, and then there was one girl, who was heavily pregnant.
“Not good for nothing any more, is she?” The slaver had sneered. “Not till that bastard’s out of her,”
Kaz had felt such hot rage when he’d heard those words that he’d cut out the man’s tongue and slit his throat without any further thought. His body was sinking to the ocean floor now.
They’d been sailing for about a week after the job, taking the people who had been slaves back to their respective homes, when the girl had gone into labour. It was a few weeks early, but it seemed that the stress of the escape had taken its toll.
Kaz stayed well away from her from that point. It’s not that he didn’t want to help, it’s just that he knew next to nothing about childbirth, and he’d never had the best bedside manner anyway. Instead, he’d taken temporary control over the ship, helping to direct them into the nearest dock and sending someone out to find a Heartrender.
He’d spent the rest of the night hovering anxiously outside Inej’s room, unsure of what to do, listening to the agonising sounds coming from within. Occasionally, either Inej or the Heartrender would stick their head out and tell him to get something, giving him a temporary relief. From the sound of it, the Heartrender was able to ease the pain of the birth, keeping the girl’s breathing even and helping her body to do what it needed.
The sun was peeking over the horizon when he finally heard the baby, he’d never been so relieved to hear a cry of pain. The door had remained shut for the majority of the rest of the day, until late afternoon, when Inej had emerged, holding a bundle of blankets in her arms. She didn’t seem surprised to see him waiting outside.
“She’s asleep, finally, it took her a while to calm down,” She said, nodding towards the bundle in her arms, which Kaz realised with a jolt had the baby inside.
“How’s the… mother?”
“Lila is fine, exhausted, but she’ll be ok,”
They were silent for a moment, Inej stared down at the baby. Kaz stood up and took a step towards them, curiosity getting the better of him. He’d never seen a baby this young before, she looked wrinklier than he was expecting. He supposed she was pretty cute, mostly she just seemed fragile, like she wasn’t quite ready to exist yet.
“She doesn’t want to keep her,” Inej said quietly. “Says she’ll only remind her of him,”
Kaz sighed. “I suppose that makes sense. It’s a shame though,”
“Yeah,” She looked up at him anxiously, he knew what she was about to ask. “Do you think…. I mean, I know it’s different to taking in an older kid, but..”
He felt a smile take over his face. “One more for us?”
She smiled back. “Do you think we can do it?”
“We’ll manage,”

So here he was, the baby- his baby- in his arms. He didn’t register that he had no idea what he was doing until Inej handed her over- ‘Just for a moment, so I can check on the crew, make sure everyone’s alright’- adjusting his hands gently so that he was supporting her head. He watched her carefully, the movement of the ship on the waves rocking her to sleep. She was lighter than he expected, he thought stupidly that she weighed about the same as a pistol. Wow, great parenting, Kaz, compare a baby to a gun.
He thought he knew fear. At 9 years old, he’d fought for his life and watched his brother lose, so scared that he could hardly think. By 14, he’d had guns pointed at him, he’d been beaten and threatened, fear had settled deep into his bones. When he was 17, he’d carried the girl he loved as she nearly bled out on his shirt, he’d watched his closest friends almost die because of his mistakes, discovering the terrible fear of losing his new family all over again. By 25, he’d finally put words to all of the things he’d hidden, terrified of admitting his vulnerability. At 28, he’d headed out for dinner with a ring hidden in his pocket, awakening the old fear of what the future might hold. He’d felt real fear, but never fear like this.
She was so fragile, so delicate, how could he trust that he wouldn’t ruin her? What if he wasn’t good enough? How would he even know?
He leant his head against the wall behind him, letting the motion of the ship calm him too. He took a deep breath, feeling the tears that had sprung to his eyes recede. He could do this. He'd helped plenty of kids in the last few years, kids of all ages. They’d never had to look after a baby, so this would be a new challenge, but a good one. They could do this, they’d be fine.
He wondered how Milo would react to having her around. He was only five, but he was mature for his age, and he loved all the other kids that they took in, no matter how little time they stayed. Kaz knew he'd be happy to finally have a permanent sibling, but he wasn't sure how he'd feel about a baby.
A memory slid into place in his head. Him and Jordie, laying in their shared bed in the rooming house in Ketterdam. Kaz couldn't sleep, he’d been missing Da and he was restless from the days inside. Jordie was telling stories of home to calm him down.
"You probably won't remember, but when you were a baby, whenever you had a bad dream Da would sit up all night, holding you to make sure you knew you were ok. He taught me how to help too, once you got a bit older and I started to actually like you,"
"You didn't like me?"
"Oh yeah, not when you were a tiny baby. You were always screaming, all night so we couldn’t sleep. You were too little to play with and you pooped all the time,” Kaz giggled. “Plus, I didn't get to have my own room anymore,"
"I thought you liked sharing a room with me,"
"I do now, I just didn't at first. I was only 5, so I didn’t really know what babies were. It took me a while to warm up, that's all,"
Kaz shuffled towards Jordie, who tucked the blanket around him.
"Alright, goodnight. Love you, Kazzy,"
"Love you too,"

The baby wriggled in his arms, stretching her little hands out. She opened her eyes, blinking up at Kaz.
"Hey, Baby," He said softly. "Nice to meet you. I'm Kaz, but you can call me Dad, if you want,"
He shifted his arms, leaning her against his chest and freeing one hand. He held it over her face, shading her from the sun. She reached her tiny hand out, wrapping it around his finger.
"Ah, strong handshake. You'll fit right in,"
He heard a soft laugh and looked up to see Inej watching him. She crept over, sitting on the bench beside him.
"This is Inej, but you've met her already. She's going to be your Mama,"
Inej leant her head against Kaz's shoulder.
"We're keeping her, then?"
Kaz nodded. "Looks like it,"
"What about Milo?”
“He might not like her at first, but he’ll adjust,” He looked at the baby again, feeling her snuggle against his body. "Does she have a name?"
"Lila had a name in mind. She said we didn't have to use it, but she wanted to give her that, even if she couldn't be her mother,"
"What was it?"
"Alys,"
"Alys," He repeated. "Hello Alys, welcome to the family, little one,"
Alys cooed, and Kaz felt tears spring back to his eyes. They could do this, together, they'd be just fine.

Chapter Text

Milo sat on the counter by the sink, blood dripping down his leg and onto the floor as he fought to keep from crying. Inej carefully removed his shoe and sock and opened the cupboard below him, taking out a towel, some antiseptic fluid and a dressing. She ran the towel under the tap and started to wipe the blood off. He hissed when the water touched his cut, gritting his teeth in a gesture Inej knew all too well.
“Does that sting?”
“It really hurts,” He managed, blinking furiously.
“Hey, it’s ok, you can cry if you want. It will help you feel better,”
Milo sniffed. “It will?”
“Yeah, it always does. It helps everyone,”
His face relaxed, and he let the tears flow. He seemed calmer, but the pain was clearly getting to him, and the more she worked, the worse he got. She tried to think of a story to distract him. He loved gore and violence at the moment, luckily she had plenty of stories like that.
“Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I was stabbed?”
His eyes brightened as he shook his head. Saints, this boy really took after his father.
“It was a long, long time ago, we were still very young-”
“We?”
“Yes, me, your Dad, Jesper, Wylan, Nina, we were all there. We were about to go sailing, on a mission,”
“The ones you go on now? Where you save people from being slaves?”
“Something like that, yeah. Anyway, we were about to leave the dock when we were ambushed, there were men everywhere, shooting at us from all sides. We were completely pinned down,”
Milo was completely enraptured now, not even reacting when Inej held the towel directly to his cut.
“One of the men snuck up behind me and stabbed me right in the side-” She poked him in the same spot, causing him to giggle slightly “-I barely escaped, but I managed to get him back. Luckily, then Dad arrived, he carried me onto the ship and took me to Nina. This was before she got her special power, so she was able to heal me,”
She’d intended to leave the story there, but it was time for the antiseptic now, and she doubted they’d get through that without some more gory details.
“The man was brought onto the ship, so that we could find out how he’d known we were going to be there. But he didn’t want to give it up,”
“Oh no, what did you do?”
Inej stopped to think for a moment. Maybe describing eye gouging to a nine-year-old was a bit far. “Dad used his knife to blind the man, and he gave up the details pretty quickly after that. Then, as revenge for what the man had done to me, Dad threw him in the sea, and he was eaten by sharks,”
It was much more likely that Oomen drowned but eaten by sharks felt like a more distracting ending. She reached for the dressing, pressing the cotton onto the cut and wrapping the bandage around his calf.
“Did he scream?”
“Probably, I wasn’t there for that part, I was below the deck healing,”
“Do you have a scar?”
She nodded, and pulled up her shirt, exposing the jagged mark. If you looked closely enough, you could tell the difference between the knife’s entry point and where it had been twisted. Milo traced his fingers over the mark with wonder, pressing slightly as he imagined the wound being formed.
“Do you think mine will leave a mark like that?”
“Maybe, I don’t know,”
He was much less upset than before, but he was still sniffling a little, so Inej deployed the last weapon in her arsenal.
“You know, you’ve been so brave, I think you deserve a waffle,”

------------------

“Daddy?” Alys asked. Looking up at Kaz from where she was sitting on her bedroom floor.
“Yes, love?”
“Can I ask you something?”
Kaz wasn’t sure if this was a part of whatever game they were playing, or if she was being serious. Either way, he'd play along.
“Of course,”
“Why do you walk with that stick?”
A million half-remembered insults echoed through Kaz’s head. He tensed automatically, his body still preparing for a fight after all these years. He blew out a breath, suppressing the retorts that had sprung into his mind, trying desperately to ignore the old instinct to attack before they thought he was weak. She’s not trying to provoke you, you podge. She’s your four-year-old daughter and she’s curious. She just wants to understand.
“Do you mean my cane?”
If she noticed the tremble in his voice, she didn't comment, just nodded. Kaz reached for the cane, running his hands over the familiar metal of the crow’s head. He held the wood beneath it and offered the top to Alys, who wrapped her tiny hand around it.
"It's a crow," She said brightly.
"Yep,"
He knew she'd recognise the animal, given that her stuffed crow was one of her favourite toys. Kaz had vowed that he wouldn't pull a Pekka Rollins and deck his kids' rooms out with crows, but Uncle Jesper had decided it was cute, and bought as many crow-related toys as possible for her (This was, thankfully, not many).
"What's it for?"
“The crow's just for decoration. I use the cane to help me walk,”
He could see more questions forming in her mind, so he moved off the bed to sit beside her on the floor, rolling up his trouser leg to show her.
“Do you see my leg, here-” He gestured to his knee. “-I broke the bones when I was younger, and it never healed properly, so it hurts to walk sometimes. If I didn’t have the cane, it would hurt more, or I might fall,”
Alys released the cane, shuffling closer to his leg. She held out her hand, then looked up at him. “Can I feel?”
“Yes, but be gentle, it can hurt,”
She placed one hand onto his knee, the other on her own, trying to feel the difference. He smiled, guiding her hand along the bone so she could feel where it was wonky. She looked up at him, sadness filling her big, brown eyes.
“Will it stay like that forever?”
“I’m afraid so. That’s why you should always go to the medik when you get hurt, because they can fix you properly,”
She jumped up when he mentioned the word ‘medik’, rushing to her toy box. She pulled out a toy medik’s kit and ran back over to him.
“Here, I’ll help you,” She said as she pressed the wooden stethoscope to his knee.
“Thank you, darling,” He smiled, accepting the teddy bear she offered as ‘comfort’, and trying not to flinch too hard when she poked the wrong spot.
She apologised, hands moving carefully and gently, brow furrowed in concentration. Kaz sighed, all the tension he’d felt before completely dissolving. She might not be able to really heal him, but she always managed to make him feel better.

--------------------
Tomas stood in the hallway, thumb in his mouth. Mum always used to say he was too old to still do that, but Inej said he could carry on as long as he liked. She also said he didn’t have to call her Mama unless he wanted to. He’d done it once, but mostly he called her by her name, Kaz too. He tightened his grip on his teddy and walked towards the bedroom door. He could always wake them up, he knew that, but he could hear talking from inside the room and going in when they weren’t asleep felt different. He looked back to his bedroom door, wondering if he should just go back to bed, bury his head under the pillow and wait for the bad dreams to go away, but the thought made him want to start crying, so he raised his hand and knocked.
The voices went quiet, and he heard uneven footsteps before the door opened. Kaz looked down at him.
“Hey, what are you doing up?”
Tomas couldn’t hold it in anymore, he started crying and ran towards Kaz, burying his face in his pyjama shirt. Kaz stroked the back of his head gently, waiting for his breathing to slow down. He guided Tomas into the room, lifting him onto the bed. He could see Inej sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room by the open window. When she saw him looking, she stood up and crossed the room, hands settling on the bottom of the bed frame. Tomas reached his hand out towards hers, but she pulled away quickly. Kaz took his arm instead, pulling him in and wrapping his arms around him.
“What happened?” Kaz asked gently.
“I had a nightmare,” He managed to get out between sobs.
“The same one as before?”
Tomas nodded, and Kaz tightened his arms around him.
The dream had been the same one he’d had almost every night for a year. He’d be in his old bed, in his old house, listening to his parents talking. There was light coming through where the door was open, he could see the shadows moving across the wall. Then He would arrive, and Mum would start to scream. He’d see the blood leak across the carpet, coming through the gap in the door. Then He would come in, running straight towards the bed, holding up the knife. Usually at that point Tomas would wake up, covered in sweat, but not always. Sometimes He ran past Mum and Dad and straight into Tomas's room, sometimes Tomas would escape, and He’d chase him down the street, sometimes Tomas would run out into the front room and see Him standing over Mum. Those were the worst nights.
“It’s ok, they can’t hurt you, you’re ok,” Kaz whispered to him, repeating the words until Tomas stopped crying.
“They can’t hurt me, I’m ok,” He repeated.
He opened his eyes and looked at Inej, confused. Usually when he was upset, she would sit at his other side, but today she wouldn’t come closer. He tried to think of a reason why, but it only made his head hurt more. He pressed his head back into Kaz’s shoulder, half-listening to their whispers above his head.
“No, you stay here,” Inej was saying. “The Peacock is dead, I know that, I’ll be fine,”
“Are you sure?” Came Kaz’s hushed reply.
“Yeah, as long as you’re ok,”
“I’ll be fine, I won't drown tonight,”
Tomas stopped listening. He didn’t understand what they were saying anyway, sometimes he thought they talked in secret codes like spies.
“Tommy?” Inej said at a normal volume again, looking at him. “Do you want to stay here tonight?”
He thought about going back to his bed, about looking over at the light coming through the door while he struggled to keep his eyes open, hoping morning would come quicker. He nodded.
“Ok, you can sleep in our bed, with Kaz. I’ll go and sleep in your bed,”
He wanted to ask why she wouldn’t stay with him too, but he was getting tired again, so he just murmured “Ok”.
“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Kaz asked.
“I’ll be fine. I’m small, I’ll fit in the bunk beds,”
“That’s not what I meant,”
“I know, I’ll be fine. I’ll see you both in the morning,”
"Ok, I love you,"
"I love you too,"
She slipped out the door, closing it behind her. Kaz pulled Tomas to the top of the bed, tucking them both under the covers.
“Do you want the lights on or off?”
“On,”
“Ok,”
Tomas leant back into the pillows; sleepiness overtaken by a sudden anxiety.
“Is Mama ok? She looked sick,”
He really hoped she wasn’t sick. He didn’t want to lose anyone else.
Kaz looked at him for a second. “Yeah, she’s fine, just having a bad night,”
“Did she have a bad dream too?”
“Sort of. Sometimes she gets these kinds of bad dreams, but they happen when she’s awake,”
“How can she dream if she’s awake?”
“It’s not so much a dream, more like a memory- a really bad memory,”
“Like my bad dreams. They’re like my memories, but worse,”
“Yeah, just like that. I get them too,”
“Is she going to be ok?”
“She’ll be fine in the morning,”
They lay in silence for a minute, Tomas's voice was quiet when he finally broke it.
“Will the bad dream-memories ever go away?”
Kaz looked across at him, their heads almost level on the pillows.
“Maybe not completely, but they’re much better. We used to get them a lot more,”
Tomas felt the tears spring to his eyes again. “Will mine ever go away?”
Kaz put his arm around him, pulling him close again. “I hope so,”

Chapter Text

Inej looked at the massacre in front of her, feeling bile rise in her throat. She’d seen a lot of horrible things since she first came to Ketterdam, but this was truly awful. The bodies had been arranged perfectly, displayed, ready to be found. Their blood soaked into the cream carpet, the sick smell filling the air.
This message wasn’t for them, though, it was for the Razorgulls. Ten houses had been invaded that night, including a dormitory, and several family homes. Twenty soldiers were dead, every one of them mutilated in the same way. She wasn’t sure who’d done it, but she knew that this had something to do with Fourth Harbour, which had been the subject of a turf war for months.
Kaz bent over their bodies, identifying them as Markus and Anna Johnson, as they suspected. He looked around, noticing the open door at the same time that she did.
“Do you think he’s-?”
Before he could finish speaking Inej was in the room. It was empty. She breathed a sigh of relief, scanning the room for any clues on where he’d gone. The bed had been slept in, and the room looked like it had been ransacked, which it probably had. A breeze blew past her, raising goosebumps along her arm.
“The window’s open,” She called to Kaz, who had hovered in the living room.
He caught up with her halfway down the fire escape, dropping down onto the street seconds after she landed.
“He must have gone to a safe house. The ‘Gulls have one nearby, one they think no one knows about,”
Kaz nodded. “Lead the way,”

The padlock slid open and hit the floor with a loud bang. Kaz put his lockpicks back in his pocket, then looked at her, waiting for confirmation. Inej placed her hand on the door handle, took a deep breath, and pulled it. The room was little more than a shed, but it had clearly been decked out for staying in long term. Two sets of bunk beds were pushed against one wall, and there were shelves of food covering the others. Four children jumped up from the table when they entered, fear and disappointment evident on their faces. The oldest, a girl who looked around 14, stepped forward, a knife gripped in her trembling hand.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” She said in a shaky voice, advancing towards them while the other children gathered behind her.
“Neither are you,” Inej said trying to keep her voice as calm as possible, holding her hands up so they knew she meant no threat. “You’re not supposed to come here unless there’s an emergency, correct?”
The girl said nothing.
“If anything bad happens, you come here, keep the door locked, wait for your parents, right?”
“We don’t know anything, we can’t help you,” The girl said quickly, panic creeping into her voice. “Whatever you want, please don’t hurt them,”
Inej looked behind the girl, where the younger children were gathered.
“We aren’t going to hurt you,”
“We had nothing to do with what happened to your parents,” Kaz added.
“What happened to them? Where are they?” The girl was working very hard not to cry.
Kaz’s jaw clenched. “We’re sorry, we didn’t hear until it was over,”
The girl let out a sob, shaking on her feet. Inej stepped forward, offering an arm to steady her. The girl tightened her grip on the knife.
“Don’t come near me,”
“We aren’t here to hurt you, we’re here to help you. I’m Inej, and you are?”
The girl’s eyes widened. “Inej Ghafa? Captain of the Wraith?”
“That’s me,”
She relaxed, Inej thanked the Saints for her reputation, it was making her job easier and easier every day.
“I’m Lilly. This is Jakob, Ella and Lila,”
She gestured to the children behind her, who had shuffled closer, curious.
“Hello. This is my husband, Kaz, by the way. He won’t hurt you either,”
“Dirtyhands,” Jakob whispered, his voice a mix of fear and admiration.
“Shh, Jakob,” Lilly scolded.
“It’s ok,” Kaz said, walking fully into the room. “You’ve heard of me?” He asked Jakob.
“Mhm, Da talks about you all the time, he says you’re a demon,”
Kaz let out a grating laugh. “He must have known me in the old days. I’m not a demon, and I won’t hurt you,”
Jakob grinned, exposing teeth spotted with gaps. He was about to say something more when a crash sounded from the bathroom. They all jumped, the younger children covering their ears with their hands.
“Oh, Saints, Tomas!” Lilly cried, shooting up and racing to the door. “He was in the bathroom when you came in, he must have tried to escape,” She tried to open the door frantically. “It’s locked!”
Kaz joined them by the door, picking the lock with ease. It swung open, revealing a boy, about six, laying on the floor, unconscious.
Lilly screamed and ran towards the boy.
“Don’t,” Kaz cut in when she tried to reach for him. “Don’t touch him before we assess the damage,”
Inej looked up at the open window. “He must have tried to climb out there,”
She bent down beside him, looking for signs of serious injury. “He isn’t bleeding, and it doesn’t look like he’s broken any bones. I think he just hit his head. He might be concussed, but we’ll have to see when he wakes up,”
Lilly sighed with relief, “Thank the Saints,”
Inej smiled, sharing her thanks. “Kaz, could you get the others out? I’ll bring him,”

They were back at the house by the time Tomas woke up. Inej was sitting on the floor, watching the boy sleep on the sofa. He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes, face scrunched together in pain.
“Hey, careful, don’t move your head,” She whispered. His eyes widened as he realised where he was (Or rather, where he wasn’t) “It’s ok, you’re safe. The others are in the next room. Everything’s fine,”
He nodded, easily comforted by her words. He laid his head back down on the pillows, drifting back into sleep as she pulled the blankets back onto them.

Lilly left after a week. She knew that the others would be safe with them, and she needed to get out. Kaz had offered her a job in the Dregs, it would give her the opportunity for revenge, and she’d make good money, but she’d refused. She said she needed to get out of the city. She’d never wanted to join a gang, she wanted an easier life, somewhere in rural Kerch. Kaz arranged passage for her to Lij, where she would be given work on his family’s farm until she decided what to do.
It was six months before Lila and Ella followed her lead. They both had extended family outside of Ketterdam- Lila in Belendt, Ella in Os Kervo- that Inej had been able to get word to. She put them on the Wraith, knowing that they would finish their journey in safety, leaving only Jakob and Tomas. They were far too young to work, and they had no family outside of the ones that had been killed, Inej and Kaz weren’t quite sure what to do with them.
“They could always stay,” Inej had stated, after listening to Kaz lament their lack of home for the hundredth time. “We’ve already got two,”
“I’m well aware of that,” He said, laughing.
He crossed the room from where he’d been pacing, sitting down on the sofa beside Inej, leaning his head against her shoulder.
“Do you really think we can handle two more?” He murmured.
“Sure, we’d be ok,”
“Do you want to know what I think?” Jesper asked, watching them from the sofa opposite. “I think you guys have forgotten who’s right in front of you,”
Inej and Kaz looked at each other with mirrored expressions of confusion. Wylan rolled his eyes.
“Jes, you’re making no sense, as usual,” He turned to face them. “What he means is-” He paused for a second, glancing at Jesper, who gave him a nod of encouragement. “-we could take them,”
Inej smiled. “Really?”
Jesper sat up excitedly. “Sure, we could have one, or both, or maybe whoever comes along next. They’d have to be the right fit, obviously, but Wy and I have been talking about this for ages and, well, we think we’re ready,”
“That’s fantastic!”
The matter was settled quickly enough. Jesper and Wylan would adopt Jakob, who absolutely loved them, and Tomas would stay with Kaz and Inej; The boys loved the idea and were looking forward to their new lives. It wasn’t until the day that Jakob would leave that they started to have doubts.
“Will we see each other again?” Jakob asked Inej, voice wobbling.
“Of course, darling, we’ll come to visit all the time,”
“Will he come here too?” Tomas said quietly, hand gripped in Jakob’s.
“Absolutely,”
Inej swallowed, not wanting to cry in front of the boys. If she cried, they would think that something terrible was happening. They’d grown attached to each other since moving in with her and Kaz, and she really didn’t want them to think they were being separated. She knew it would be alright once Jakob settled in and he realised just how often Jesper and Wylan came over, but she had a feeling she knew how to comfort them in the meantime.
“You’re best friends, right?” She asked them.
“Mhm,”
“Yep,”
“Well now you’re going to be even closer than best friends. You’re going to be cousins,”
Jakob smiled, exposing his brand new adult teeth. “We are?”
“Well, Jesper and Kaz are brothers, so that makes you cousins,”
Tomas looked confused. “But.. how are they brothers if they’re..”
“If they look different to each other?”
“Ooh, are they a-dop-ted like us?” He asked brightly, stumbling over the word.
“Yeah, sort of,” Colm hadn’t officially adopted Kaz, but he had said that he could call him Da if he wanted, which he did. “And they’re best friends too, like you guys,”

The boys grinned, their linked together hands tightening. Inej thought of her own cousins, thought of how Hanzi and Asha had cried when she’d made it home for the first time, how within hours the years had melted away, and they were competing over who could juggle the most balls just like they had when they were 12. She thought of how those people were her home, more than Ketterdam or the Wraith or her family’s caravan. These boys had homes now, ones that would love them dearly, but she hoped that through whatever trials would come in their lives, they would stick together. Best friends. Cousins. Homes.

Chapter Text

Kaz was finding himself increasingly unable to say no to his children, and it was becoming a huge problem. 

They were round at the Van Eck mansion, having what had been affectionately dubbed a ‘family dinner’. Kaz, Inej, Jesper and Wylan were sitting at one table, with Alys, Milo and Tomas at the other end with Jakob, Jesper and Wylan’s son. Their new baby, Leah, was in a highchair beside Jesper, slowly and methodically picking up each of her peas and dropping them on the floor when Jesper wasn’t looking. They were talking about the kids, the only thing that seemed to be on their minds in recent years, when Milo had appeared at Kaz’s shoulder.

“Dad?”

“Yes?” Kaz asked warily, Milo only called him Dad when he wanted something.

“Can we stay here tonight?”

Kaz pulled his pocket watch out and checked the time. “Well, we can stay for a while longer, but we need to get home in time for bed,”

“No, I mean, can we stay here? Like, have a sleepover,”

“A sleepover?”

“Please, Dad, we’ll be really good, I promise,”

He shouldn’t have said yes, he should have told Milo that he couldn’t always have what he wanted and they needed to go home. And yet, here he was, helping Wylan carry mattresses into the living room.

“I can’t help but feel like you’re getting the worse end of the deal here,” He said to Wylan, lowering the mattress onto the floor. “Three extra kids in the house and a baby to get to sleep,”

Wylan laughed. “Yeah, but you’re forgetting that those three kids come with two extra parents,”

“True,”

“Besides, I feel like we never see each other anymore, a sleepover could be fun,”

Kaz raised an eyebrow. “Oh, are we all sleeping in the same room too?”

“Yeah, what do you think sleepover means?”

He’d laughed, but apparently Wylan had been serious, because he returned to the dining room to find two double mattresses in place of the dinner table. He shook his head, sometimes he thought his friends acted more like kids than his actual kids did. Suddenly, he felt a weight on his middle and looked down to find Tomas holding his sides and standing behind him.

“You ok there?” He asked.

“Shhh, Dad, pretend I’m not here,”

The other children were racing across the room, bouncing on the mattresses and shrieking with laughter while Wylan chased them around.

“Are you hiding?”

The boy nodded. “I don’t want to get tagged,”

“Is hiding allowed? No one else is doing it,”

“I’m not as fast as them, it isn’t fair, I always end up tagged,”

Wylan had stopped running, his hands on his thighs as he caught his breath, he looked towards Kaz and smiled. Kaz turned quickly, concealing Tomas from his view whilst holding the boy still with one arm. He waited for Wylan to start running again before he spoke.

“Working to your advantages, I’ve taught you well,”

The boy nodded sagely, his tongue sticking out slightly as he smiled. “When you can’t beat the odds, you change the game,”

Kaz couldn’t help but laugh at the bizarre image. His impossibly adorable eight-year-old son spouting dramatic metaphors.

“Where did you learn that?”

“Mama said it once,”

Before Kaz could wonder when Inej had told him, Wylan shouted from across the room.

“Tomas, I can see you!”

Tomas tightened his grip on Kaz for a second, then took off running in the opposite direction, laughing. Kaz watched him go, grimacing slightly at the noise in the room. It was lovely that the kids all got along, but they could be so loud. Sometimes he wasn’t sure what was worse, the laughing or the crying. As if on cue, Jesper pushed open the door on the other side of the room, struggling with a screeching Leah. Kaz shot to his side.

“Need a hand?” He asked, offering his arm.

“Saints, yes,” Jesper replied, handing Leah to him. “I don’t know what’s up with her,”

Kaz took the baby, positioning her against his hip and bouncing her up and down gently. She stopped crying almost instantly, shooting Kaz a gummy smile while Jesper stared at him in disbelief.

“Oh yeah, Kaz is a baby whisperer,” Inej laughed, appearing at Jesper’s side. “It’s great, it means he had to do all the night wake ups with Alys,”

“But… How?”

Kaz shrugged. “I have no idea. They just like me I guess,” He looked down at Leah. “You love your Uncle Kaz, don’t you?”

“Ababababa,” She responded solemnly, chewing on the fabric of his shirt.

Kaz laughed. “See?”

“Well Leah,” Jesper said, bending down to look at her. “If you really like Uncle Kazzy more than your Dads, he’ll just have to look after you all night, won’t he?”

Leah stared at him for a second, eyes wide in fascination, then started laughing.

“There you go, the baby has spoken,”

“Really Jes?”

“Really. She’s all yours, Brekker,”

“Rietveld,” He corrected.

“Doesn’t matter your surname, mate, you’re still looking after the baby,”

Kaz rolled his eyes, smiling internally. He never could have predicted how much babies seemed to love him, but he was more shocked by how much he loved them. He was always hoping for opportunities to babysit (Jesper didn’t know of course, there were some things he could just never admit).

Soft musical notes filled the room, drifting over from where Wylan sat at the piano. Kaz leaned against the wall behind him and sighed, his fingers resting on Leah’s head where she’d fallen asleep on him. After hours of bartering, they’d managed to get all of the children in pyjamas and tucked into bed. Apparently Jakob had been taking lessons from his father, because the boy had negotiated midnight snacks almost as well as Wylan had negotiated with the other Merchers for funding to refurbish the canals. The fruits of his labour had been devoured in seconds, leaving an empty dish in the middle of the room that none of them could be bothered to move. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Kaz saw Jesper lean over to Inej. He was a terrible whisperer, so Kaz caught what he said easily.

“I can’t get over Kaz wearing that baby carrier,”

Inej laughed softly. “I know. I can’t decide who’s cuter,”

“Leah, obviously, but it’s a tough battle,”

“You do know I can hear you,” Kaz called, ignoring the flustered feeling in his chest. For saints’ sake, Kaz, you’re married, she’s called you cute thousands of times.

“Sorry, but it’s true. You look so funny like that,” Jesper grinned.

Kaz looked down at himself. Admittedly, the purple cotton carrier hardly matched his suit- and neither did the baby in it, if he was completely honest. He straightened his back, careful not to wake Leah up, and fixed an expression of mock hurt on his face.

“I think I look very dignified, thank you,”

“Tell yourself that,”

Wylan finished his song, and a chorus of applause rang out from the kids. Kaz and the others joined in.

“Fabulous as always, love,” Jesper said, jumping up and crossing to the piano. 

He squeezed onto the stool next to Wylan and kissed him. Milo made a gagging sound, holding two fingers up to his mouth.

“Milo,” Inej scolded. “Don’t be rude. Where did you learn that?”

“Uncle Jesper taught me,” Milo replied.

Inej gasped. “Are you serious?”

Jesper held his hands up. “Guilty,” 

“You’re such a bad influence,”

“Hey, Wylan was the one that taught Tomas swear words,”

Kaz let out a laugh. “Really?”

“It wasn’t on purpose. I was in the hallway, and I stubbed my toe on the doorframe and said-”

“Fuck!” Tomas interjected brightly.

Wylan went red. “Yeah,”

There was a moment of silence, then they all started laughing.

“You never fail to surprise me, Wy. If you’d asked me to rank who’s most likely to accidentally swear in front of the kids, you would have been bottom of the list,” Kaz said through laughs.

“Really?”

“Go on then, give us the list,” said Jesper.

“Alright, well I’d probably be top, let’s be honest. Then Nina, Jesper, Inej and Wylan last,”

“I’m surprised you didn’t put Inej last,”

“You haven’t heard her when she’s cooking and things start burning,”

“They only burn when you get in the way,”

“Ouch,” Kaz put a hand to his heart. “Sorry I’m such an inconvenience,”

“You are,” Inej shot back. “But I love you anyway,”

Kaz smiled, once again chastising himself internally. Seriously, his wife saying she loves him should not feel as dramatic as it does.

“Right,” Wylan said, standing up. “Bedtime,”

Kaz buttoned up his borrowed pyjama shirt, splashed some water over his face and unlocked the bathroom door. The mattresses in the dining room had been made neatly, sitting next to each other. Wylan was already laying in one of them, so Kaz sat on the edge of the other, stretching his leg out on the floor in front of him with difficulty. Contrary to his touch aversion, the bastard knee was only getting worse with age.

“They fit alright then?” Wylan asked, gesturing to the pyjamas.

“Yeah, the legs and the sleeves are a bit long though,”

“Well, they are Jesper’s, so I kind of expected that,”

“Yeah, me too,”

They were silent for a while as Kaz got under the covers. Inej was in the other room, changing into some of Wylan’s pyjamas. He had no idea where Jesper was.

“Sorry I taught Tomas the word ‘fuck’,” Wylan said quietly.

“Don’t worry about it. It was bound to happen someday, you know what I’m like,”

“Yeah, true. Still, sorry,”

“It’s fine, Wy. I might have to make sure Leah’s first word is ‘Shit’ as revenge though,”

“In that case, the deal is the deal, Rietveld,”

“The deal is the deal, Hendriks,”

They shook hands across the mattresses and started to laugh.

“Oh no,” Inej said suspiciously as she opened the door. “When you two are laughing like that it usually means you’re planning something bad,”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Wylan said, leaning back into his pillows. “Just corrupting each other’s children,”

“Saints, remind me to never leave you two in a room together,”

“You say that as if you weren’t teaching Jakob to throw knives last week,”

“You what?!”

Inej looked down guiltily. “He wanted to know, I didn’t give him anything that sharp,”

Wylan leant forward. “I thought you were the responsible one, Inej. You seriously thought it was a good idea to give an eight-year-old a knife?”

“Jesper let Milo shoot his gun when he was seven. And I don’t think I have to guess how Alys ended up spouting facts about explosives after you babysat last week,”

“Ok, we’re all as bad as each other,”

Kaz leaned back against the pillows, yawning. “Maybe Colm should come visit more often, then they’d at least have one good role model,”

It was almost 4 bells when Kaz woke up, rubbing his eyes and rolling over, a far cry from the bolting-upright-in-a-cold-sweat routine that he’d gotten used to. As he’d gotten older, waking up at night had become less and less from nightmares, and more and more about needing to go to the toilet. It was odd sometimes, but you wouldn’t hear him complaining. He went to the bathroom quickly, then crept down the hallway towards the living room, opening the door as quietly as possible. He tiptoed across the room and settled on the piano stool, breathing a quiet sigh of relief when none of the children woke up.

He didn’t really know why he’d come in to see them. In the early days, he’d come into their rooms every night, sometimes five or six times, certain that someone was going to hurt them. It had been difficult enough accepting that people might go for Inej as revenge for his actions, this was even harder. At least she could defend herself. Worrying about them had become second nature, a quiet constant in his head that only got louder the more children they took in. Most nights it would only calm down if he could see them, make sure that he was there in case anything happened. So here he was.

He yawned, leaning his arm against the piano and resting his head on top of it. He should probably be going back to sleep or he’d have a headache in the morning, but he didn’t mind. The kids had pushed their mattresses together so they were all sleeping together in a pile. Reminding him of the night Inej returned from her first mission.

Nina had come back to Ketterdam so that they would all be together, and Wylan had arranged a celebration dinner in her honour. All five of them had gathered, eating and talking for hours into the night. By the time they were finished, the sun was peeking over the horizon, and Wylan had suggested in a small voice that they could all stay over. Kaz had known that that had been the plan from the beginning of the night- it was clear from the way Wylan spoke, and the fact that Jesper immediately agreed a little too enthusiastically- but he didn’t mind. In fact, he was happy to stay. He’d only just gotten Inej back after months apart, and he wasn’t too keen on the idea of going home alone (not that he ever would have admitted that back then). They’d dragged mattresses into the living room, and everyone had collapsed into the blankets. Apart from Kaz, of course. Holding Inej’s hand was one thing but lying in bed next to anyone would be completely impossible. Instead, he’d spent the night on the sofa, raised above everyone else. He hadn’t slept much. He’d mostly just watched everyone, sleeping with arms over each other and legs pressed together, trying to ignore the longing in his chest.

He didn’t like to think about what his life would have looked like if his Da had never been killed, or if Rollins hadn’t scammed them, or if someone, anyone, had shown him some kindness in those darkest days. He didn’t like to think that maybe he wouldn’t have turned out the way he did. Even more so, he didn’t like to think about what he would have become if they’d never found him. If his crows hadn’t been around to teach him that he was still capable of caring about people, that they were capable of caring about him. He wished he could go back in time and tell his sixteen-year-old self that everything was going to be ok, that he’d make it this far, that he’d be happy.

The door slid open, and Kaz watched as Inej crept into the room towards him. She settled on the piano stool next to him as he reached out his free arm to pull her towards him. He pressed his cheek into the top of her head, kissing her on the forehead.

“Are you ok?” She whispered.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just checking that everyone’s alright”

“Are they?”

He yawned again, feeling himself slipping back into sleep. “Yeah, everything’s fine,”

Inej leaned against his chest, yawning in response to his. “Good,”