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You were something Kaz had believed he would never meet, or even could. He was the monster in shadows, the reason why children weren’t allowed to go out at night if they were unfortunate enough to live in the Dreg area. And yet you had appeared into his life, treating him like any other Dreg. Smiling at him, making up small talk and just… looking at him as if he was a human, not that evil demon everyone seemed to think he was, and from which he had taken pride of.
The very fact that your presence made him happy scared the hell out of him. Feelings were dangerous, and he knew that if you would die on a job, it would feel like his world collapsed on itself, because without you there, he wouldn’t know how to keep himself sane. So he was rude to you instead, dismissing your opinions and inputs completely, even telling you to shut up a few times.
“You’re not a Crow nor a Dreg, you’re here to serve us drinks, I don’t need to hear your opinion,” he’d say, followed by you sighing. Inej noticed the regret flashing in Kaz’s eyes when he said that, but said nothing on the spot. Nina heard his heartbeat and Jesper knew his best friend enough to know if he meant something or not - and when Kaz was like that to you, he definitely did it to hide something. It was a show, he tried so hard to be coldly impassive about it all.
Soon all the Crows knew exactly how Kaz felt about you, and they admired how you seemed to keep your bright face up even when Kaz was acting like an ass to you. Jesper wanted to tell Kaz to stop playing and try to show you how he feels, Nina made teasing remarks about his heart and Inej tried to talk him into apologizing to you at night when she brought information. They were all waiting for him to finally realize what a fool he was being, but he was too stubborn to give in to them.
Kaz couldn’t understand why he cared for someone who had no benefit to him. When a drunk got into a fight with you when you didn’t agree to let them drink more, he was always there to throw them out before they’d lay their hands on you. He saw you get hit with a bottle once and you had gotten a wound on your head, Kaz was just about to go over and help you as the first person but managed to stop himself when he saw Nina and Jesper already on the way. It was better that way, him helping you in front of everyone wouldn’t have had ideal consequences, he would have been seen as weak if he had done that. And not to speak of him trying to hide his feelings from you, what would you think if he had just appeared beside you and offered to help you after trying to act like he doesn’t care for so long?
But still, he couldn’t help but want to take you somewhere beautiful so you’d have a hint of how he felt about you, maybe he could even tell you how he feels, or buy you… flowers?
He wanted to love you, but he wasn’t sure if he ever could show it to you. He wanted to make you feel alright when he found you crying in the back room instead of just standing there for a moment and then leaving. He wanted to be able to comfort you, hug you, kiss the top of your head and mumble comforting words against your skin, but he knew he wasn’t ready for anything like that.
But someday, he could be. Someday you could become his friend, more than friend, he could be more than just your boss, and maybe someday he could be able to show his love like he wanted to show it…