Work Text:
She wasn't there.
two years ago, when Inej was leaving the town and the country, they made a promise they will see each other month by month here, on the edge of the port of Katterdam. But now, after two years of relative peace in the Capital of Kerch, the wraith didn't show up. Not in a way, she used to disappear just to come out of the shadows in the least expected way. Her ship wasn't there. Her crew wasn't there. She wasn't there. Didn't wait for him. Didn't smile with her soft lips, didn't look at him concerned with her dark, sagacious eyes. Didn't keep the promise despite she was the more trustworthy of them two.
Something's wrong
Thousands of possible scenarios crossed his mind before Kaz Brekker, dirtyhands, the bastard of the Barrel and deadliest boy in Ketterdam sat down, deciding to wait for his Spider.
It took two days before someone finally stood next to him. Dirtyhands had never wanted to kill someone so much just for not being who he wanted to see.
'what the fuck, Brekker?' Jesper asked, looking down on him, squinting through the heavy rain. 'Wylan asked if you finally went crazy'
'Long ago' Kaz muttered and vainly wiped the water off his face
'I see'
they let the silence highlight the seriousness of his words.
'I'm gonna lose my mind too if we stay here for a little longer though' he added
'I didn't ask you to stay.'
'I don't want you to die for a stupid reason. Dementi, I wouldn't complain if your cause of death was being beaten to death with a flute or eaten by crows which would be even poetic. But catching a cold due to the rain does not suit you well. Get up, that's not what Inej would want'
'Why are you talking about her as if she's dead?' He didn't plan his voice to be so growling.
'You're acting like she is. I can say she didn't appear and you are scared..'
Kaz didn't let him finish, quickly getting up off the ground and putting the cane to his neck
'Don't you dare' he whispered
'I… am sorry. Just go home Kaz, people shouldn't watch you like that. It's… strange.'
'We have to find her'
'You did went crazy, didn't you?'
'It's abnormal'
'It's abnormal that you are acting like an idiot, Kaz, ships happen to be late. Why am I a reasonable person here? Sea is unpredictable. How much is she late? Two days?'
'The wraith herself is unpredictable, but she not a lagger' He built a powerful web of contacts and allies for his reasons and a lack of information is not one of them. 'Two days is enough to get a shred of information. The fact we don't know why she's late is abnormal' he stood back taking the cane from Jespers neck 'You are not reasonable, you are blind.'
A mischievous smile flashed across Jespers face
'There it is' he said with a bit of excitement in his trembling voice 'Scheming face'
Scheming face turned pale at the moment when Kaz's sleep-deprived body disobeyed his mind and fell down. Last he remembered was a wave of nausea when Jesper saved him from kissing the ground. His touch deprived him of the rest of consciousness
___
' I would have come for you'
he whispered in her ear, quoting his moment of weakness
'And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you'
he promised
'and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together - knives drawn, pistols blazing.'
He clutched harader at the body that had slowly started to drown
'Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting…'
Her slimy, swollen, lithe body turned around in the water, tangled in long strands of black hair. His bare hands tightened on muscular, brown-skinned arms as their owner's glassy dark eyes met his glance.
___
He woke up in his bed, drenched in cold sweat, unable to scream. The pain spread throughout his body with the fever. The whole room was spinning around him, including the glass of water on the bedside table. He reached for a drink to sate his deadly thirst but was too weak to pick it up. Shaken with a shriver, he dropped it to the floor. The sound of breaking glass triggered another wave of pain in his head and then the rest of the body. He closed his eyes trying not to vomit while fighting for control over his breathing. There was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken, he used to think. His whole life was a war full of small battles he had to fight with his own mental and physical conditions. However, this battle seemed to be decisive and he was losing it.
' We never stop fighting' he thought. 'What a naive, childish promise'
Jordie has stopped fighting before the war even began. He started the war by his battle with the rules of Katterdam.
The city is winning so far. But you’ll see who wins in the end.
'It's the city again' - Kaz mumbled - 'It's killing me like it did it to you, Jordie. It's taking everything from me again.'
I would have come for you
And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you
'You are doing it again' someone whispered, putting another glass of water close to him 'And I can only guess about Jordie.. About why I am reminding you about him… '
'Both of you don't know when it's time to shut up and take a step back'
Jesper obediently backed away from Kaz.
'I didn't realize you are here' Brekker admitted
'You were hallucinating I suppose. You've talked a lot. Mostly with the dead.'
'What have I said?'
'That the city is killing you'
'That's what I remember. What did I say earlier?'
'That you are protecting your investments'
'And?'
'Brick by Brick. Over and over. Just it. Brick. By. Brick.'
'It's your lucky day, I won't kill you'
'Because you don't have to protect your honor?'
'Because I don't have time for it. I need an Information, starting from how long I've been unconscious. Write down all earlier reports, check carefully what Rollins is doing… 'he reached for a glass and this time he managed to drink the water. 'I want Wylan to check Van Eck in his cell…'
' The wraith crashed on its way to the Kerch. You were wrong, I'm sorry'
'It is not possible' He answered a little too fast.
'How is that not possible?'
'I hired the best people. Girshas able to save her'
'Then you lost your kruge. You've been sick for about three days, we got an information yesterday'
'I don't believe that information'
'Do whatever you want, just get well and come back to your responsibilities. The Dregs start to get nervous'
'It's time for the Dregs to grow up. I still want my reports'
'I don't want to be the one saying this, but Inej was also my friend and I understand…'
'You don't understand if you still believe she's dead. You don't know her if you believe she would die on her ship without outside interference. She's alive and I am going to destroy the one making a deception that she isn't.
'Have you ever taken into consideration that above all, she's still just a human? And that she can die for all stupid reasons people can die for?'
Kaz gave him a cold look
'If I have, I would be wrong'
___
Nightmares were still hunting his fever-exhausted mind. He was seeing a corpse in the water, he was feeling her body under his fingers and smelling the odor of the rot. Of death.
After days of searching, foraging, and checking the demons of the past, all he got was being considered obsessed, which wasn't a lie.
'Where are you, Inej?' He asked over and over again, rereading all the reports and letters from all the sources he knew. His allies were useless, so was he. Jesper kept repeating himself, Wylan used all his privileges to help, but it did nothing. Kaz stucked in the situation with no escape and unlike in the Ice Court, he wasn't able to create the new doors out. He needed the wraith to escape. He needed his spider to find his spider and he was losing his mind for this reason.
I would have come for you
But how? Where?
After he had recovered enough to not fall every time he got out of his bed, he came back to the edge of the port of Katterdam. He went back there every day, painfully aware how easy to attack he became. He was still hallucinating, seeing her over his shoulder or behind the corner of the building he passed by. He knew she wasn't real because if she was, She wouldn't be so easy to notice. He wouldn't see or hear her. He wouldn't smell her. He would just know she was there, but now, He wasn't sure and that was enough to realize it's just a projection. If it was her, he wouldn't hesitate.
And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you
But he was sitting in Kerch, completely useless
Have you ever taken into consideration that above all, she's still just a human?
If so, he would do anything to make the world claim her as a saint
You’ve cheated death too many times.Greed may do your bidding, but death serves no man .
So he will find a solution to make Death bow low before him
He stood up and noticed one of the Dregs running towards him with letters in their hand.
'What's that?' he asked, Looking down at his deliverer
'Letters from Ravka' they said 'message from Nina Zenik, official condolences from the king and the c onfirmation of finding the body…'
___
He didn't want to see a body. He has already seen it every night. Jesper might call him insane, he even wasn't wrong, but Brekker was logically thinking enough to believe the best Corporalki would notice if it was someone else formed to look like his wraith. He imagined a similar scenario thousands of times. He visualized himself unable to hold her body in his arms, covered in blood and dust. He was sure they would watch each other passing away. He was convinced the cause of her death would be a revenge he couldn't stop. He believed their lives are bounded so are their deaths. But she died in an accident. He couldn't predict it so simple and not romanticized. It didn't suit her just as sickness didn't suit him.
I would have come for you
He wouldn't.
Have you ever taken into consideration that above all, she's still just a human?
If I have, I would be wrong, he said then and he didn't hesitate to complete one job he had to do to prove it. Death serves no man, indeed, but the memory was about to become his new subordinate.
___
She was the first who didn't keep the promise despite being the more trustworthy of them two. He kept being disrespectful for her saints, assigning the task to the king. Noiseless moves and the sense of morality were enough to be the characteristics of the saint. Leather slippers with coarse rubber soles worked as an attribute. All she did was dictated by faith in the false personifications of good and her own beliefs about what is right. It took a few years until Sankta Inej, a protector of the last far from home, became considered in Ravka as a patron of Katterdam. There was nothing else he could do.
Last thing that had left was to make Death bow low before him. He sat down on the edge of the port of Katterdam again, remembering Jespers complaints
Thousands of possible scenarios crossed his mind before Kaz Brekker, dirtyhands, the bastard of the Barrel and deadliest boy in Ketterdam let the crows eat him alive.