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┍ kies jou - kaz brekker
– where kaz brekker didn’t need a reason until you.
Kaz Brekker wanted something, something more than the kruge he could bury with his dead body, more than the gold he could hang on his walls, more than the paintings he could hide in his room, Kaz Brekker wanted something more. He wanted you . He watched everyone look at you whenever you entered the slat, how their eyes would linger on your face and hands. Some say you’re a dream built to see paradise but to Kaz, you were a fucking chaos. The chaos that might drown him someday and maybe save him one day. He saw you as a weakness, not for the crew, but a weakness kept within himself.
But saints, if you were the chaos then why do you keep caring, why do you keep looking at him with eyes that calm him down, why do you always there in plain sight, and why do you always pull him up whenever the water in his lungs looks for ways for him to drown. He never saw it coming, he just realized that one day, he didn’t want to lose you.
Maybe it was the night when you let him see a little bit of you in your safe place or maybe the night where he let you break a little part of his walls or maybe the time you looked at him with care even if he is in his armor. Or maybe the time when you bled to protect him. It made Kaz numb, he loathed this emotion, this feeling, this chaos brooding inside him. To some, it’s hope, a hope to make things better, to make things okay but Kaz learned to hope the hard way, when he was a kid, Hope drowns you and clouds your judgment.
But hope is a word of luck dipped in the honey of chaos, that was hope for Kaz when you express it. It feels so foreign yet so raw, it scared him yet it also became his salvation and perhaps, a secret language that only he can decipher. All the heist, all the thrill, lead to this, lead you to him, always to him.
✶
The fold was now only a myth, the weight of the gold filled Kaz’s pockets, Inej has gotten her freedom, Jesper and Wylan were okay, Nina and her slab of fur will unite once again, and then you.
As you tell your prayers to the saints of Ravka, a man with a cane watched you in the corner of the room.
“Did you get the payment, Brekker?”
Kaz looked at you and the wound on your forehead, then he recalled the moment earlier when you protected him from a volcra. He looked away and in the back of his mind, Jordie’s voice resurfaced.
You will always cause harm, Kaz. You are the chaos, you are!
He clenched his jaw and weave a deep sigh. “Everyone will get their cut once we're back in Ketterdamn.” He looked at you once again, and to his surprise, you were staring at him, your caring stare for him. The voice of Jordie and the waves of the sea were cleared again, and the only thing he heard was your voice.
“What now, Brekker?”
With that question, he held his cane a little tighter, and his breathing become rigged.
“Settle. Inej isn’t the only one who got their freedom.”
You nodded your head as you stood up and walked up to him.
“Tell me something…Kaz.” His name fell out of your lips like a hymn he wishes to bottle as if whenever he hears your voice, all he wanted is to let hope to cloud his judgment. “I know you saw something, you…you’ve never been the same since that time, Brekker.” Of course, you noticed. How the number amount of times he called your name, he stood a little closer to you, he looked over to you, protect you, something happened in Shu Han, you knew it. Kaz knew it.
“Please…Kaz.”
He looked at you and he knew your voice was much scarier than the poison he inhaled in Shu Han, he never knew that chaos would be so beautiful and so…hopeful. Hope clouds judgment, Kaz knew it.
But this time, he lets it.
“Jordie was there…” He watched your expression be different when you looked at his eyes and they looked bitter as he spoke his brother’s name. Perhaps a misunderstanding or fear but his words suck the air in your lungs.
“And you, my wanorde .”
Chaos.
You stared at each other for a moment. As he breaks the silence, with his walls and armor again.
“You should've run away when the volcra was in front of me.”
You sighed and gave him a knowing look.
“I promised myself to take care of you. May I?”
You gestured your hand over his hand and at this exact moment, his walls and armor betrayed him as hope pushed him through his loudest thoughts: to have you. He grabbed your hand as you softly examine and traced the markings of his gloves, and his whispers slipped from his mouth. “It’s rotten work..” He was mad and disappointed. But his tone was also sad, relieved, and somehow, it was like a plea. You inhaled deeply, as you held his hands, now with both of your hands. You smiled at him.
“Not to me, Kaz.”
His hand in yours was something that scared him, he fears that it would drown him but just this once, he let it be, for your hands never drowned him, somehow it saved him. Upon touching your hands…
“Not if it’s you.”
…he felt alive.