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"Wylan."
Wylan jolted up from where he was just resting on the Crow Club bar. The world swam around him in a blur of dark colors and shining alcohol glasses. He whipped his head around in a fervor to look for who called him, but everything just melted together until the blunt tip of a cane jabbed into his ribs from the opposite direction.
"Oh, heeeey Kaz!" Wylan beamed at the slowly filtering-in image of his friend. With Jesper away training with the Grisha for the week, he'd been left alone in his father's big empty house with nothing but illegible business papers to keep him company. After a few days, he couldn't take the stifling silence anymore and ducked out of the house and into the Crow Club. As much as he'd quietly hoped he'd see Kaz while there, Wylan didn't really expect it, happy to talk and laugh with the other Dregs and clubgoers. Now that Kaz was here, though, Wylan couldn't be happier. Even if there was a strange look on Kaz's face when he looked at the stacks of shot glasses on the bar in front of him.
"Are you scheming? Your face is weird." He tried to point at Kaz but must have gone wide as the golden crow head of the cane nudged him back on target.
Kaz didn't respond for a minute, instead staring hard at Wylan with what he was now certain was Scheming Face. After a moment of Wy contently waiting under his analytical gaze, Kaz spoke, his raspy voice a smidge softer than normal, "Why, yes, Wylan, I actually am, and I think you can help me with that."
Wylan gasped excitedly, "Oh, yes, I would love to. What do you need? What's your plan? Do you need a bomb? How big?"
Kaz's lips twitched up in an indulgent smile before quickly flattening into a hard line, "We'll talk at The Slat."
Wylan nodded sagely and definitely didn't trip as he got off his barstool. He swayed his way out of the club at Kaz's subtle ushering. He wondered if anyone else noticed how he couldn't lean too far in any direction without the end of a cane coming up to correct him.
The walk to the Slat very well could have taken hours, and Wylan wouldn't've noticed. Their quiet companionship worked over his mind like a salve. It also gave him a second to think, and his alcohol-addled brain put a couple of pieces together. "There is no jooob, Kaz. You're silly."
Kaz side-eyed him with a smirk, and Wylan felt the tug of victory in his chest because of it. "What makes you think that, merchling?"
They rounded the corner to The Slat, and the thought of a bed started to make Wylan giddy, "Scheming Face only showed up after I brought it up. I also know what your other face was," he added cheekily.
"I didn't make another face."
"Yes, you did."
"No."
"Yep," Wylan popped the 'p' as Kaz pulled open the doors and herded him to the stairs, "You made a weird face 'cause you didn't like how much I'd drunk."
Kaz didn't respond, and silence damned the Bastard of the Barrel.
Wylan giggled, impressed by how dramatic that had sounded, but it cost him his footing on the stairs. Kaz thrust a hand out to try and catch him, yet Wylan just let himself fall on his face.
"Kazzz, your stairs are mean."
There was a snort from somewhere above him, "I tried to help you."
Getting his hands under him proved difficult. Once he managed it, he pushed himself up and carefully watched his feet as he started to climb again, "I don't want to touch you, Kaz. It makes you uncomfortable, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I love you." Wylan didn't even have half a mind to look back at Kaz to see his reaction. Surely he already knew. Kaz Brekker knew everything. "You're like the big brother I wanted when I was a kid. All I ever wanted was someone who would just be there, ya know?" Wylan finally reached his room. Putting one hand on the knob to steady himself, he turned back to where Kaz had frozen on the stairs. He didn't think anything of it. "And you are there. Even when I'm super drunk." Wylan smiled.
Another stretch of incomprehensible time passed before Kaz spoke again with the edges of his voice cracking like a fault line, "Get some sleep, Wylan."
"Only if you sleep, too." But he opened the door, mumbling one last I love you before dropping like a bag of rocks onto his bed.
~~~~
When Wylan woke up to reports of Dirtyhands violently beating up some random guys from a rival gang, he knew he was right, once again. Kaz just didn't want anyone else to think that.