Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kaz was struggling.
But he’s not about to tell a damn soul.
It was wintertime, so of course his knee was giving him grief. It did this every year, and, quite frankly, Kaz should’ve expected it.
But he’d been doing okay recently.
And now he’s not.
The first thing to go ended up being his ability to go up and down stairs.
Well, that wasn’t quite right. He could still do it. It just fucking hurt. More than usual.
His cane was helpful until it wasn’t.
He thought perhaps Nina had picked up on the issue, but she hadn’t said anything about it to him. She just stopped doing things with him that involved going up or down stairs.
The next thing to disappear was his ability to stand for longer than five minutes.
He thought Jesper had picked up on that issue, but also hadn’t said a thing. He’d just started sitting down for any conversation they had in a place that held enough chairs for the both of them.
Then sleeping became an issue. Not that Kaz slept very well on a good night, but his knee bitched about just about every position he tried to put it in for the night. He’d probably woken Wylan up fifty times last night trying to readjust his leg to be less painful. Wylan hadn’t talked to him about it that morning though. He’d just made Kaz tea this morning, bringing it in for him to drink it in bed.
Kaz needed to get milk today. They were out, and everyone else had some other obligation to fulfill.
So this simple errand fell onto Kaz’s shoulders.
Well. It should’ve been simple.
He’d gotten to the store with minimal issue – the occasional twinge under his kneecap every time he had to press on the brakes, and then gotten into the store just fine, walking back to the fridges where his target gallon jug was stored.
Then everything went to shit.
He gritted his teeth as the pain soared in his knee, the dull ache turning into a sharp throbbing. Kaz tried to ignore it, trying to scoop the milk up casually with his right hand.
He got the handle, the cold of the milk permeating even though his thick gloves.
And then he tried to step away from the closing glass door.
His right knee buckled abruptly, and he gasped in agony, dropping the milk. The plastic jug hit the ground too hard, a loud cracking noise filling his muffled ears.
He looked down at where his shoes began to soak up the puddle of milk.
He tried to step away from it – the last thing he needed was for his shoes to go sour because he’d gotten milk in them – only to almost fall over entirely when his right knee refused to hold any weight.
He used his cane to stand steadily enough, his left leg trembling now from holding his entire body weight on the one hip.
He needed to find somewhere to sit, is what he really needed.
Out in his car was the nearest seat he could even comprehend at the moment, and that was still the entire length of the store away.
Growling to himself, he fumbled in his right coat pocket for his phone. Finding it and awkwardly punching in the code, he went to his contacts.
He had very few contacts – his Crows, his bank, and the occasional doctor – so it was easy to find anyone’s number.
But who did he want to come?
He decided when he saw his name near the bottom.
He jabbed the call button. He refused to detail this stupid problem in a text he could be embarrassed about rereading later.
“Kaz?” Matthias’ deep voice hit his eardrum hard and he jerked away from his own phone before replying.
“Matthias. Come to the store. I need –” he paused, trying to decide how to phrase the problem without sounding weak. “Come to the grocery store, now, in the milk aisle. Now, Matthias,” he repeated.
“Okay. Okay, I’m coming now,” Matthias agreed, and Kaz heard a car blinker go off in the background.
He hung up. He needed a hand, and his other was occupied with his cane.
He used his right hand to lean against the discounted bread display. It was metal, which would support him better than the plastic display of tortillas to his left.
It was also closer, and didn’t require moving any more than strictly necessary.
He closed his eyes, trying to breathe through the pain.
Kaz opened his eyes again to see another customer staring at the ever growing puddle of milk on the ground next to him. He snarled at her, trying to ignore her piercing, judging eyes.
She looked more confused than anything, finally turning her half full cart away and leaving him to his literal spilt milk.
Except he wasn’t crying over it.
He didn’t even want to cry, he lied to himself, biting his tongue to keep from screaming from the escalating, burning pain in his knee.
It might’ve been five, ten, or sixty minutes by the time he saw Matthias and a petite woman hurrying down the bread aisle to get to him at the same time a store employee came across him and the broken milk jug.
The employee looked at him questioningly. “Sir? Did you…drop the milk?” he asked cautiously.
Kaz sighed, closing his eyes as if that would help elevate his suffering.
It didn’t.
“Maybe,” he snapped.
“It’s okay, I’ll just get a mop,” the employee assured him, disappearing around a corner just as Inej and Matthias ran up to him.
“Kaz! What happened?” Inej asked breathlessly.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Kaz muttered.
Inej glanced at the ground. “Isn’t what obvious?”
“I dropped the fucking milk,” Kaz gestured at where the employee had just come back with a mop and a bucket.
“Okay, but why did you drop the milk?” Matthias asked gently.
Kaz’s legs screamed as he tried to put pressure on it again. This was so fucking ridiculous, he thought bitterly as his knee refused to bear any weight whatsoever.
No, he needed to walk. To get out to the car.
He tried to step away from the metal display to showcase how utterly fine he was…only to stumble forward when his knee gave up entirely.
“Kaz?” Inej asked, her hands shooting out as if to grab him before she instantly thought better of it.
Matthias caught his elbow anyway, their skin separated by Kaz’s thick coat, but a wave of nausea still struck him almost as painfully as his knee right now. “Kaz,” Matthias said, looking at Inej with such naked worry, Kaz wondered if he should’ve called Jesper instead. “Kaz, Inej is going to get a cart, hang on.”
Inej disappeared when he wasn’t paying attention to anything other than the searing burn in his kneecap.
The employee finished cleaning up the milk. “Anything else I can help with?” he asked cautiously, looking more at Matthias than he did Kaz.
Matthias shook his head. “No, thank you,” he declined. “We can take him from here.”
“Okay,” the employee said, ducking away with his bucket and mop almost as fast as Inej had left.
She came back quickly enough that Kaz wondered if perhaps she’d stolen a cart from someone closer to them instead of going back to the front doors to get a new one. “Here. How bad is it?” she asked Kaz, scrutinizing him.
“How bad is what?” Kaz mumbled, grappling with the handle of the cart so he could stop leaning against the metal display – and so Matthias could stop touching him.
“Your knee,” Inej clarified. “Can you walk?”
Kaz scoffed. “Of course I can walk,” he said curtly, trying to prove this point better than he’d tried to prove his previous one.
The cart helped him not fall flat on his face, but he still had to stop, biting his lip hard. He suppressed the involuntary tears that sprang into the corners of his eyes as best he could, but didn’t move forward anymore. He didn’t know if he had it in him to continue.
“Kaz, hon,” Inej’s soft voice floated near him and he turned to look down at her. “Can you get into the cart?”
Kaz looked at the basket of the cart, then back at her. “What?”
“Can you get in the basket?” Inej repeated.
Kaz stared at the thick overlapping wires that wove together to create the large basket of space. “I don’t…know…” he hedged.
“Can you try?” That had been Matthias.
Kaz shook his head. “No, because that’s stupid,” he said firmly. “I’m not getting into the basket, I’m not a child –”
Inej’s voice sharpened. “– we know that. But you are disabled, and in a lot of pain. I’d have you stand on the back of the cart while we pulled the cart, but you’re white as a ghost, and I think standing any longer would be a mistake,” she explained.
Kaz sighed deeply. “Fine,” he grumbled.
Inej seemed to brighten at that. “Okay. Matthias, can you help him in?”
Matthias nodded. “Can I give you a foot up?” he offered.
Kaz sighed again. “Whatever,” he muttered as Matthias knelt by the cart, cupping his hands together to create a makeshift step for him.
Using his cane, Matthias’ hands, and the railing of the cart, he awkwardly got inside. His body crumpled inside the basket as he tried to sit gracefully. Kaz let out a sudden cry of pain as his knee wrenched sideways.
“Kaz?” Inej asked, the worry evident in her voice.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Kaz repeated through gritted teeth. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Inej said, and Matthias began to push the cart with Kaz inside.
Kaz sighed and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the embarrassment that welled inside his chest every time he caught someone’s eyes accidentally on their way out of the store.
The slightly raised threshold of the automatic doors bumped his knee violently as the cart went over it, and his eyes shot open as he gasped loudly.
“Sorry,” Matthias said behind him, sounding genuinely apologetic.
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Kaz said again, biting his gloved knuckle to stop from crying about this. Because that would be ludicrous.
They strangely passed all the handicapped parking to get to the general parking.
They stopped next to Matthias’ car instead, rolling the cart next to the trunk.
Getting out of the cart proved to be just as much of a challenge as getting it, but he managed it with Matthias’ help again. He leaned against the side of Matthias’ car’s trunk, wincing as his knee throbbed horrifically.
“I – parked – that – way –” he pointed vaguely back toward the store.
Inej shook her head. “I’ll drive your car home, give me the keys,” she ordered, holding out her hand expectantly.
“No. I can drive –” Kaz insisted.
“– no. You can't. Keys, Kaz,” Inej commanded again, closing her hand and opening it again impatiently.
Kaz sighed again, digging into his pockets to find his keys to hand them to her. “You’re gonna have to move the seat up a lot,” he mumbled as Matthias opened the passenger’s side door for him.
Inej smiled, taking the keys from him. “I know. Meet you at home,” she said as parting words, walking back to his car.
Kaz hissed as he tried to drag his knee behind him to get closer to the passenger’s seat.
He slipped heavily into the car, sighing in relief as his leg got the opportunity to stretch out without being cramped in the slightest.
Matthias got in, buckled himself in, and pulled out, heading back home.
“Matthias,” Kaz began.
“Let’s talk about it with Inej, yeah?” Matthias suggested, turning on his blinker far sooner than he’d needed to, the sound mixing horribly with the loud signal that the passenger’s seat’s buckle wasn’t activated.
“Fine,” Kaz grumbled, settling down as the car stopped flipping the fuck out about him not putting his seatbelt on.
They made it back home, Matthias having driven as smoothly as Kaz had ever felt as a passenger.
“Need help?” Matthias asked as he got out.
“No,” Kaz stressed, opening his door to climb out. His knee buckled painfully again, and he fought back more tears. “Ugh. Yes,” he grumbled to himself so maybe Matthias wouldn’t hear him.
He did anyway, coming around and helping Kaz stand up. Kaz used his cane and a careful hand on Matthias’s bent arm to hobble into the house just as Inej pulled up next to Matthias’ car.
Kaz let Matthias lead him into the living room, falling unceremoniously onto the couch with a loud groan.
Inej came in, hanging up his keys in their usual place. “Kaz, we have to try that shot for your knee,” she said by way of an opening to the conversation.
Kaz frowned. “No,” he declined. “I don’t need it.”
“Uh,” Inej said pointedly. “This entire excursion says otherwise.”
Kaz sighed, trying to ignore them both. Maybe if he ignored them hard enough, they’d leave him alone to his pain.
They didn’t. Not even a little bit.
“What is the actual issue?” Matthias asked, sitting down next to him.
Kaz scowled. “There is no actual issue, it’s just –”
“– Kaz. What’s the main issue that’s preventing you from saying yes?” Inej rephrased it.
Kaz pursed his lips. “I don’t like big needles,” he mumbled, looking down at his shoes. “And I don’t want someone touching my skin. Not someone who’s not…one of…you.” He stared harder at his noticeably milk soaked shoes.
Inej made an enlightened noise in the back of her throat. “Would going under anesthesia help?”
Kaz looked up at her. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t like that either, because I would know that they’re touching my knee anyway.”
Matthias’ face gained a thoughtful expression. “But it’d be preferable to the current knee pain?”
Kaz shrugged. “The devil you know,” he tried to explain.
Inej looked determined. “Let’s talk to your doctor as soon as possible. Okay?”
Kaz sighed. “Fine.”

The next week, Kaz’s knee was even worse. He couldn’t even get out the door to go to work on Thursday, so Matthias forced him to sit on the couch to recuperate from coming out of his bedroom — which Kaz found incredibly silly, but his knee seemed to appreciate the rest.
Then Matthias handed Kaz a pair of crutches.
Kaz stared at them distastefully.
Matthias caught the look. “The cane isn’t gonna work getting you out to the car. You’d still have to put pressure on your knee. So? I adjusted them, they’re Jesper’s height at least.”
“And why, pray tell, am I going out to the car in the first place?” Kaz asked, not taking the offered mobility aids.
Matthias looked a little uncertain. “Your…appointment? With your doctor?” He reminded him.
Kaz sighed. Right. How he’d forgotten that was today, he didn’t even know. “I’m not using crutches,” he tried to demand…until he actually attempted to stand with his cane.
Putting any pressure on his knee made him gasp loudly, free hand grappling in the air for something.
A crutch appeared under his palm.
He scowled at it.
“Kaz. It’ll help,” Matthias prompted.
Kaz snatched the crutch from him, nestling it under his arm. He let his boyfriend take his cane from him — as much as he hated it — so he could take the other crutch from him.
He scowled the entire way out to the car, and then he scowled the entire way into the doctor’s clinic, and all the way to the back room where they waited for the doctor to come in to meet with him.
“So,” she said leadingly, looking curiously at where his usual cane had been replaced with crutches. “You want to get a cortisone shot for your knee? Is that right?”
Kaz nodded sullenly, trying to keep his building emotions at bay.
“Okay, when would you like it?” She continued.
Kaz shrugged.
Matthias answered for him. “As soon as possible. He got stranded in the store last week, couldn’t walk,” he offered.
Kaz shot him a warning look that he entirely ignored.
“I see. And —“
“— I can’t do this, Matthias,” Kaz mumbled, his feelings getting the better of him.
“What’s wrong?” His doctor asked.
Matthias looked at him just as questioningly. “What about it can’t you do?”
“The touching,” Kaz hissed.
Matthias turned back to the doctor. “Would it be possible to do it under sedation? He’s really anxious about the touching required.”
Kaz frowned.
The doctor looked a little surprised. “Oh! Yes, of course. We don’t usually need to use anesthesia, but we figured you’d need to, so we were going to have you schedule it at the hospital instead. They have the equipment to do it,” she explained.
Kaz let out a harsh breath of relief. “Would you…who would do it? The shot?”
The doctor looked at him kindly. “I thought I’d do it still, but you can —“
“— no, let’s do you,” Kaz interrupted her quickly. “I don’t trust you fully, but I trust you more than a random doctor at the hospital.”
The doctor smiled at that. “Thank you, Kaz. I hope I can gain a little more trust in the future. It’s alright if I do the injection, then?”
Kaz nodded slowly.
“Okay. We’ll send an order to the hospital with all the accommodations, would next week be alright?”
Kaz jumped a little at the accelerated timeline. “Uh, sure, I guess.”
The doctor nodded to them both. “Alright. Schedule with the hospital, and they’ll call us about when you’ve chosen. I’ll see you next week at the hospital?” She stood to leave.
Kaz fought the hard lump in his throat that threatened to choke him. “Mhmm,” he said past it, not trusting himself to speak.
Matthias thanked the doctor as she left, leaving the door open for them to leave after her.
When they’d gotten out to the car, Matthias had dialed the hospital for Kaz, as he sat in the passenger’s seat, wiped from just going to the fucking doctor.
“Do you need me to talk?”
Kaz gritted his teeth. “I can talk,” he got out.
He set up the appointment with the hospital, who got the order just before he’d called.
Next week, he’d be getting an ultrasound guided cortisone shot under sedation.
Next week he might get some pain relief.
Just the thought of getting a break from the throbbing agony in his knee might be enough to keep him afloat until next Friday.
“Doing okay?” Matthias asked on the drive home.
Kaz brushed him off. “Of course I’m fine,” he said brusquely, turning his face away from him to look out the window and pretending he didn’t want to puke his brains out at just the thought of someone touching his unconscious body.
He wasn’t scared, of course not. But he let himself label this feeling as apprehension instead. He was just apprehensive about the whole thing.
Apprehensive.
That was it.
Obviously.

Chapter Text

“I’m driving there,” Kaz announced as he limped dreadfully out to the car.
“Are you…sure?” Matthias asked hesitantly, unsure if that was such a good idea.
His boyfriend scowled at him. “Of course I’m sure. Or I wouldn’t have said it. Obviously you have to drive us back, but I can drive us there. So. Get in,” he commanded, slipping into the driver's seat.
They made it maybe a mile down the road when Kaz’s stoic expression morphed into one of suppressed pain.
“Kaz,” Matthias said softly.
Kaz ignored him, visibly gritting his teeth as he accelerated the car to match the new speed limit.
“Kaz,” Matthias said again, laying a firm hand on the wheel next to Kaz’s right hand.
“Don’t touch that,” Kaz got out, and Matthias let go.
“Okay, Kaz, you need to —“
Kaz ground his teeth harder, audibly. “— don’t tell me what to do,” he snapped.
Matthias narrowed his eyes at him with concern. “I’m not trying to order you around, Kaz, I’m just —“
Kaz’s face twisted undeniably into pain, and the car suddenly whipped to the side of the road, Kaz having jerked the wheel hard to the right.
The car lurched to a stop.
Kaz put his forehead down against the steering wheel, hiding his face; his gloved hands trembling around his bowed head.
Matthias watched him, concerned but not about to comment on it just yet. Kaz obviously needed some time to himself.
Matthias got out of the car, closing the door between them.
He watched as Kaz’s shoulders began to shake a little, just enough to signal to Matthias how big of an issue it actually was. If Kaz was frustrated enough about the situation to start crying? Well, Matthias had no space to be annoyed at any of it, and he needed to tread carefully.
He walked around to the driver’s side, going around the back so it took longer.
He looked down through the driver’s window at where Kaz’s shoulders had stopped shaking.
He leaned against the rearview mirror as if he had all the time in the world.
Kaz rolled down the window slowly. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he voiced, not for the first time.
Matthias nodded. “Hey, if you can’t do this, we reschedule. If you can’t do this ever, we’ll find something else to help. It’s up to you.” He gave him a small smile.
Kaz didn’t smile back, but then, Matthias hadn’t expected him to. “I need to do this. I need to do this,” he repeated tightly, his voice on the verge of breaking.
“Okay, so let me drive, and we’ll get you there to do this,” Matthias offered.
Kaz looked at him with those beautiful shining dark eyes of his, visibly struggling internally.
“Kaz. I don’t want you to make your knee worse,” he said gently.
Kaz just stared at him.
Matthias tried again. “So scoot over, and let me drive you to the hospital. Okay? Kaz?”
Kaz slowly nodded, awkwardly and hesitantly sliding over to the passenger’s side. His right leg dragging uselessly behind, he maneuvered his body so he could stretch it out carefully.
Matthias waited until he was fully settled before opening the door and slipping inside to take his spot.
Kaz’s teeth gritted loudly.
“Painful?” Matthias asked calmly as they got back onto the road.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Kaz seethed.
Matthias drove them to the hospital, parking in the handicapped parking, hanging up Kaz’s placard. Then he turned to look at his boyfriend as he turned the car off. “Do you want me to go get you a wheelchair?”
Kaz shook his head immediately. “I can get in there,” he said unconvincingly.
Matthias raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
Kaz glared at him. “Yes, I’m sure,” he snapped, opening his door and grabbing his cane to get out.
Matthias hurried around the car to assist Kaz should he need it.
If Kaz wasn’t wearing gloves, Matthias was certain his knuckles would’ve been white as a sheet in his hands’ grips on the car door and his cane.
Kaz scowled at him as he tried to walk.
He made it a good three steps toward the hospital before his face drained completely. “M-Matthias,” he whispered, his cane shaking as his right leg hung limply just barely off the ground.
Matthias held out his steady arm, where his sweater sleeve covered his skin. “Take my arm. Kaz,” he said, moving it a little for emphasis.
Kaz’s right hand grabbed Matthias’ forearm tightly, his entire arm trembling from the exertion. He tried to step forward again, his right knee buckling and making him start to fall.
Matthias held his arm up higher so Kaz could hang from it a little as he regained his footing. “Sure you don’t want a wheelchair?”
Kaz shook his head immediately. “I. Can. Do. This,” he panted harshly, fingers digging into Matthias’ arm.
Matthias let him, helping his cane guide him into the building.
By the time Kaz sank down into a waiting room chair, he looked exhausted and he winced as he stretched his knee out.
Matthias pried his hand off of his forearm. “I’m going to go check you in, hang on.”
Kaz nodded vaguely as he walked up to the front desk.
“Hey, Kaz Brekker here for an injection. He’s having a lot of trouble walking, could we get a wheelchair to get him back there?”
The receptionist nodded. “Yes, of course, I’ll have the nurse grab one before she comes to fetch you.”
“Thank you,” Matthias said gratefully, handing over Kaz’s insurance cards.
When he’d been given the cards back, he went back to where Kaz had closed his eyes, hissing every exhale.
“Hey,” he said as he sat down next to him. “It’s gonna be okay.”
Kaz nodded without opening his eyes.
The nurse came out a few minutes later, pushing a wheelchair over to them. “Kaz?” she asked, looking at the man in question.
Kaz opened his eyes then, gazing over at her. “Yes,” he rasped, looking at the wheelchair with such naked relief, Matthias felt a sharp tug at his heart at the idea that Kaz had needed one so badly he wasn’t even making any fuss about Matthias getting him one despite his protests.
He used his cane and the wheelchair arm to get into the seat, resting his feet on the foot pedals. The back of his right ankle rested over the edge of it – he was a little too tall for the length – but the relief on his face assured Matthias that it was okay.
The nurse wheeled him back, making small talk with Matthias the whole way when it became clear Kaz was done with social interaction for the time being.
They got back into a room, closing the door as Kaz got up onto the bed slowly, with the help of Matthias’ forearm again.
“So, I looked at your chart, it says you have haphephobia?” she said as she got a whole host of blood drawing equipment out.
Kaz nodded, teeth grinding again. “Yes,” he said shortly. “So if you think you’re touching me to get blood, you are sorely mistaken.”
The nurse gave him a little smile. “We have to get blood work before we sedate you, but I’ll wear gloves the whole time and keep my touch light.”
Kaz frowned but extended his arm without further discussion.
Matthias couldn’t help a small noise of surprise. If Kaz was going to let the nurse touch him at all, he must be in a magnificent amount of pain.
But then Matthias watched his face go white again as the nurse stepped up to his arm to tie the tourniquet around his upper arm.
She tried to wrap it, but then Kaz snapped his arm out of her reach, panting heavily.
“No, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t –” he started, eyes wide as he looked desperately at Matthias.
“– Kaz. Would it help if it was Nina? If Nina drew your blood?” he asked calmly.
Kaz paused, gulping air quickly as he forced himself to calm down. “Maybe,” he said quietly.
Matthias turned to the nurse. “She’s a nurse, at a different hospital. Could she come do it?”
The nurse pursed her lips but nodded. “That should be okay, if she can get here within the next ten minutes,” she said, stepping back and away from where Kaz still focused on breathing properly.
Matthias called her immediately. “Hey, love,” he greeted her. “I’m with Kaz at the hospital, can you come draw his blood?”
Nina’s tone shifted to business. “Of course, gimme five minutes,” she agreed, hanging up without a goodbye.
Matthias turned to Kaz. “Five minutes,” he told him – and the nurse by extension.
Almost six minutes later, when Kaz had put a gown on to make sure Dr. Wells had total access to his knee, Nina was admitted back into the room, smiling warmly at Kaz.
“That was six,” Kaz said sourly, as if that were the main problem.
Matthias rolled his eyes.
“I got here in five, I had a bit of a time at the front desk getting back here,” Nina explained breezily, taking the blood drawing equipment from the nurse. “Thank you for allowing this.” She took the tourniquet from her, coming up to Kaz. “Okay, hon, I need your arm.”
Kaz visibly steeled himself, extending his arm again.
Matthias watched as Nina wrapped the tourniquet tightly with the barest touch of her gloved fingertips against his arm.
Kaz flinched anyway.
“It’s okay, they only need a couple vials, so this’ll be fairly quick,” she said as she opened the needle out of its package.
Kaz looked away. “Can you…one two three it?” he whispered.
“Of course,” Nina said. “I’m going to find your vein, so I’m going to touch the inside of your elbow. Okay?”
Kaz nodded stiffly, still not looking at the process happening near his arm. He stared into Matthias’ eyes instead.
Matthias looked back at him as softly as he could. “You’re okay,” he said with a shrug. “Nina knows what she’s doing, and, the biggest bonus, she’s alive.”
Kaz nodded quickly, looking slightly green as Nina pressed lightly on his arm.
The nurse looked like she wanted to know what the fuck that comment was supposed to mean, but seemed to think better of asking.
“Do you need a pulse?” Matthias asked.
“Nina’s,” Kaz said in a rushed breath.
“Can you do my neck? I need both of my hands,” Nina suggested, eyes not straying from her work as she uncapped the needle.
Kaz worked up the courage to turn back to look at Nina, reaching forward with his other hand to place his gloved hand against Nina’s throat. Matthias knew he had slits in the fingertips of this pair of gloves, so he would actually be able to feel her pulse despite the barrier.
Matthias watched cautiously as Nina, blue gloved hands busy on Kaz’s skin and Kaz’s hand on her neck, spoke up.
“One, two, three, poke,” she said in a measured voice, and Kaz seemed to push harder against her throat. “Kaz, hon, I need to be able to breathe.”
Kaz let up a little, but the wild look in his eyes stayed. “I can’t, I can’t,” he began to whisper. “Are you done? Nina, I need you to be done,” he begged her. “I need you to be – Nina, I can’t, I’m gonna –”
Nina whipped the bloody needle out, pressing a cotton ball against the puncture wound. “– done. All done. We’ll wait for a bit before we start the IV, okay?”
Kaz panted desperately, looking around wildly for something.
Matthias picked up the trash can and handed it to him.
Kaz snatched it out of his hands and gagged into it.
The nurse looked a little startled, but finally joined Matthias and Nina in watching him heave, his retches getting less violent a few minutes later.
“Okay,” the nurse said. “I’ll go get the IV ready for you, you just…breathe,” she suggested as she left with the vials of blood.
Nina sat down next to Matthias. “Doing okay?” she asked Kaz.
Kaz set the trash can down next to him. “Yes,” he said in a hoarser than usual voice. “I – the pulse. Was…made it better.” He wouldn’t look at her.
Nina just smiled softly. “Good,” she said in a soothing voice. “Do you want me to put your IV in too?”
Kaz nodded immediately, still avoiding her gaze. “Yes. Yes.”
Nina nodded back at him. “Okay. I can do that,” she said comfortably.
By the time the nurse came back with the IV, Kaz had sufficiently calmed down enough that Nina could begin the process of doing a saline flush first.
“Ugh,” he said, gagging a little despite Nina not currently touching him as she prepared the IV to put in him.
“What?” she asked.
“It tastes terrible,” he complained.
Nina giggled. “Not everyone can taste it, I guess you’re one of the lucky few.”
Kaz scoffed. “Some luck,” he said a little bitterly.
“Ready for the needle? It’s gonna sit in your arm so they can get some sleepy juice in you way easier,” she explained.
Kaz nodded slowly. “Do it,” he ordered, holding out his already poked arm. “Pulse?”
Nina bared her throat to him. “Go ahead,” she said calmly, and his fingers found the same location of her pulse again quickly. “Ready? One, two, three, poke,” she counted.
Kaz closed his eyes as the new needle slipped under his skin, his other arm reached out over his own chest to reach their girlfriend’s neck.
Matthias watched him as Nina’s hands left his arm, watched as he visibly relaxed.
“Okay, I have to get back to my shift,” Nina told Matthias with a quick peck on his cheek. “Kaz? I’ll see you at home. I love you two.”
She walked past the nurse, stopping a little to exchange a few hushed words Matthias didn’t catch, but the nurse nodded and Nina seemed satisfied as she closed the door behind her.
Matthias caught Kaz’s exhausted eye. “Hey. Halfway there, right?”
Kaz nodded dully, saying nothing.
The last step to getting Kaz knocked out seemed to be one of the easier steps.
“Do you…need to feel my pulse?” the nurse asked cautiously.
Kaz regarded her sternly. “I can feel Matthias’. Matthias? Get over here,” he demanded.
Matthias came up to him, presenting his wrist.
Kaz grabbed it, clutching him tightly as he looked straight up at him. “Do it, do it,” he said quickly, squeezing Matthias’ wrist.
The nurse carefully inserted what looked like another needle into the IV base in Kaz’s arm.
Kaz hissed when her gloved fingertips brushed his skin once, but didn’t need to retch when she was done.
“Okay. I’ve started it,” she informed Kaz.
He nodded. “I can feel it,” he agreed.
“Oh, you’ll feel it even more in a minute,” Matthias joked.
Kaz shot him a long suffering look. “Yes, thank you for that. Come up with that all by yourself?”
Matthias just laughed as Kaz let go of his wrist, his hand falling limply at his side.
“Whoa,” he said as the nurse stepped up to him with a tube to put in his nose. “Can I do it? Myself?”
“Yep,” the nurse said. “Put it in this way, though.”
Kaz nodded, inserting the tube himself. Then he laid back for a minute before sitting straight up again, looking panicked. “Is Dr. Wells here? Wait, I forgot to make sure she was here, she’s doing the shot, right?”
The nurse nodded along with Matthias. “Yep, she’s coming, she had a bit of a hold up at the clinic, it sounds like, but she’ll be the one doing it.”
Kaz nodded rapidly, his eyes glazing over. “It’s going too fast,” he said.
Matthias raised an eyebrow. “What’s going too fast?”
“The sleep,” Kaz insisted. Then a new, terrifying thought seemed to strike him. “Will I have the nightmares?”
The nurse looked confused.
Matthias shook his head. “You shouldn’t really dream,” he told him even though they’d already gone over this.
Kaz nodded vaguely. “Okay. Okay. Matthias?” he asked suddenly, gazing at the ceiling.
“I’m right here. What do you need?” he asked.
Kaz’s eyes stared at the nurse, who seemed to take the unsubtle cue.
“I’ll go get Dr. Wells,” the nurse said, leaving them alone.
Kaz’s eyes drifted over to Matthias. “Matthias?” he said, his name slurring a little already.
“Yeah, Kaz?” Matthias returned calmly, leaning forward with his elbows on his bent knees.
“I’m…I don’t know if I can do this,” he said again, sounding more fierce this time.
“You’re doing it right now,” Matthias reminded him. “And I’ll be here to make sure they don’t touch you any more than they have to. You’ll feel better when you wake up, okay?”
Kaz started to nod, but his head just lolled back instead, his chin dropping to the side as he deeply breathed in the anesthesia. “I’ll feel better when I wake up,” he muttered to himself before his eyes totally closed and his breathing evened out.
Matthias watched him sleep as Dr. Wells slipped in with an ultrasound machine and a long thin needle on a tray.
“Hey, Matthias,” she greeted him. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s very worried about who’ll be touching him and how much,” he said honestly.
Dr. Wells nodded knowingly. “I figured as much. I’ll be quick,” she promised.
Matthias watched with mild interest as she used the ultrasound machine to search for the correct spot in Kaz’s knee, marking it with a small black dot. She wiped the ultrasound gel off of the handheld device and began to wipe what looked like a numbing agent onto his knee.
Then she stuck the needle into his knee, going in far deeper than Matthias felt that needle had any right to be going.
She pushed down on the plunger, emptying the contents into Kaz’s knee before withdrawing it entirely and letting the returned nurse cover the spot with a large band aid.
Kaz slept through it all, his face soft, all the harsh lines that usually accompanied his face completely disappeared.
“Alright. Ice it for half an hour on and off for the rest of the day, then make him stay off of it for another two days at least,” Dr. Wells instructed Matthias with a small smile. “It should start working within about three to seven days.” She turned to leave.
“Thank you,” Matthias called after her.
She paused in the doorway. “Of course. Let me know if there are any problems with his recovery.”
The nurse took the IV needle out while Kaz was still mostly unconscious, his face twitching a little when she did so. Then she took the tube out of his nose and left Kaz to wake up for a bit.
Kaz woke up so slowly, Matthias wondered if he was trying to catch up on his disrupted sleep.
“Where am I?” he asked hoarsely, eyes still closed.
“The hospital,” Matthias answered, sitting back in his chair.
“Why am I in the hospital?”
“To get a cortisone shot,” he reminded him. “In your knee. We’ll go home soon, you just gotta wake up a little more.”
“Hmm,” Kaz said, eyelashes fluttering. “Should I be this hungry?”
“How hungry are you?” Matthias kept up the conversation.
“Hungry enough to not care how inedible a chair would be,” Kaz said without a lick of sarcasm.
Matthias smiled to himself. “We’ll stop somewhere on the way home,” he promised.
Kaz’s eyes began to crack open. “Hmm.” He wet his dry lips hesitantly. “Where’s Inej?” he asked suddenly, eyes widening a little.
Matthias watched him cautiously. “She’ll be at home, she just got off work about ten minutes ago,” he told him. “You’ll see her soon.”
“Okay,” Kaz agreed, his eyes narrowing a little.
“Something wrong?” Matthias asked, trying to gauge any issue before it became a problem.
“No. Yes. No,” Kaz said in quick succession.
“That’s…I don’t know what that means,” he leaned forward on his knees again. “What does that mean?”
“It means…” Kaz trailed off, his head lolling to the side so he could look at Matthias. “You’re pretty,” he said suddenly.
Matthias smiled. “You’re pretty, too,” he returned.
Kaz gave a crooked grin. “I am?” he asked in a hushed voice, as if afraid someone might hear him.
“Yep. I scored big with you,” Matthias assured him.
Kaz’s grin softened. “Where’s Inej?” he asked again.
“At home,” Matthias reminded him. “How’s your head?”
“What about my head?” Kaz looked confused.
“Is it still fuzzy? Or can you think clearly?”
Kaz frowned, thinking. “It’s fuzzy. Like…like I have a pillow instead of a brain.”
Matthias nodded. “Okay. We’ll just sit here for a bit longer. Then we’ll get you something to snack on. Then we’ll go home.”
“Home,” Kaz agreed. “Jes?” he said suddenly, looking expectantly at Matthias.
He nodded. “Yep, Jes’ll be there. And Wylan. And Nina.”
“And Inej?” Kaz made sure again.
“And Inej,” Matthias said. He dearly wanted to take a video of him – just to show Inej – but they’d all decided beforehand not to. Kaz wouldn't want that.
“Inej,” he said dreamily, staring at the ceiling again. “She’s so beautiful. Isn’t she?” He turned his head slowly to look at Matthias again.
“She’s gorgeous,” Matthias agreed, leaning back in his chair. “And she’s funny,” he continued.
Kaz nodded along. “And so fucking smart,” he said firmly, fingers lazily tapping on the bed frame. “She’s…she’s the bomb dot com.”
“She definitely is,” Matthias grinned to himself. He rather liked loopy Kaz.
Kaz’s eyes went wide again and he looked at Matthias carefully, eyes narrowing a little. “Why isn’t Inej here?” he asked a little accusatory.
Matthias put up his hands defensively. “She had work, but she’ll be there when we get home.”
“Oh. Okay. Can we go home now?” Kaz asked, starting to sit up.
“Can you sit up by yourself?” Matthias asked, standing to help just in case.
Kaz frowned. “Of course I can,” he said dismissively, trying to do so too fast. He rose maybe a foot before slamming back against the bed again with a loud thud. “Okay. Maybe not,” he grumbled.
Matthias stood next to the bed, gripping the bed frame. “When you can sit up without falling, we’ll go home. Okay?”
“But I want to see Inej now,” Kaz protested, looking up at Matthias pleadingly.
“Do you want to FaceTime her?” Matthias suggested.
Kaz’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Yes. Yes, yes, yes,” he said, fumbling with his gown as if it had pockets. “Where’s my phone?” he muttered to himself.
“I have it, hang on,” Matthias said, bringing it out and handing it to him.
“Where’s…how do I do it?” Kaz looked away from Matthias, as if embarrassed.
“Here, let me help,” Matthias offered, taking the phone from where Kaz had opened it with his thumbprint. “Here’s your contacts. Inej will be under ‘I.’ Here she is,” he pointed, handing the phone back. “Press this button here.”
Kaz pressed it harder than strictly necessary, looking expectantly at the screen as it rang.
Inej answered quickly, and Matthias could see her relieved smile from where he stood next to Kaz. “Hey, Kaz,” she said cheerfully. “How’re you feeling?”
Kaz just stared at her, saying nothing.
“Kaz?” Inej asked, sounding a little worried.
“Kaz, what’s wrong?” Matthias whispered.
Kaz swallowed thickly. “I don’t know how to talk to cute girls,” he whispered back, as if Inej wouldn’t be able to hear him.
Matthias grinned with Inej. “It’s okay. Just talk to her like you would anyone else. She’ll understand,” he whispered back.
“Okay,” Kaz said a little louder. “Hi, Inej.” He gave her a sweet smile that made Matthias’ heart clench. “What did you just ask?”
“I asked how you were feeling,” Inej said, visibly struggling to keep the wide grin Matthias had off her own face.
“Oh. Right. I’m okay. My knee hurts. So does my arm. But they both have band aids, so I must’ve hurt myself somehow,” he explained plainly.
Inej nodded solemnly. “I see. Well, hopefully they both feel better soon.”
Kaz nodded, smiling a little. “I like you,” he sighed contentedly.
“I like you, too,” Inej returned.
Kaz smiled brightly. “I’ll see you when we get home?” he asked hopefully, looking at Matthias – maybe for confirmation.
Matthias nodded as Inej said, “Yep. We’re looking forward to seeing you. Bye, Kaz.” She waved.
Kaz waved back. “Bye, Inej,” he said, scrambling to hang up. Then he looked up at Matthias. “Do you think I fumbled that?”
Matthias shook his head. “Nope. I think you did great.”
Kaz nodded a little solemnly himself. Then he sat up, and notably, did not fall back. “I can sit up now,” he announced. “Can we go home now?”
Matthias nodded. “Yep. Lemme get you a wheelchair, and we’ll get you out of here.”
“Why do I need a wheelchair?” Kaz asked as Matthias made his way to the door.
He turned back to look at where his boyfriend sat in the hospital bed, looking confused. “Because you hurt your knee. Remember?”
“Oh. Right,” Kaz said knowingly.
“Okay, hang on. Start getting dressed, okay?” he said, receiving a quick nod before stepping out of the door to catch a nurse walking by. “Hey, can we get a wheelchair? He wants to go home.”
The nurse nodded. “Yep, we’ll send one in. Will you need help getting him out?”
Matthias shook his head. “Nah. Thanks, though.”
By the time the wheelchair got to their room, Kaz was dressed again, but incredibly restless, trying to get off the bed entirely by himself, waving off Matthias’ attempts to help.
“No. No, I don’t need help,” he argued as Matthias tried to assist him into the chair. “No, it burns when you touch me, I don’t need help.”
Matthias finally gave up, watching as Kaz struggled down into the wheelchair, holding his right leg stiffer than usual. “Can I at least push you out?”
Kaz thought about it. “Fine,” he said a little shortly as he settled into the wheelchair, propping his knee up.
Matthias wheeled him out, bidding the nurses goodbye as they headed out to the car. A nurse followed them out anyway.
Matthias helped Kaz minimally get back into the car, touching him as little as possible. Kaz hissed a few times one of his flailing arms collided with Matthias’ outstretched hands, but finally, Kaz sat in the passenger’s side, looking winded.
“Thanks,” Matthias told the nurse who took the wheelchair back with a wave. Then he climbed into the car, shutting the door after him.
Kaz flinched when he shut the door, but then lolled his head to the left to look at him. “We’re going home now?” he asked.
“Do you want to eat now? Or when we get home?” Matthias asked, pulling out.
“Oh. Hmm,” Kaz said, seeming caught off guard by the options. “I don’t know. I really just want to go home.”
“Then we’ll get you something to eat at home, okay?” Matthias verified.
Kaz nodded languidly. “Mhm,” he agreed.
The drive home was mostly quiet as Kaz drifted in and out of a hazy sleep, punctuated occasionally by a request to see Inej, and once, Wylan.
Then, out of nowhere as Matthias turned right, “Will Jordie be there?”
“Will Jordie be where?” Matthias asked cautiously, slowing his speed in accordance with the new speed limit.
“At home,” Kaz insisted. “Will Jordie be there?”
“No, he won’t be,” Matthias told him, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
“Oh,” Kaz said, his bottom lip pushing out as he pouted. “Why not?”
Matthias sighed. He really didn’t know the best course of action right now, so he just avoided directly answering the question. “Jordie won’t be there, but guess who will be?”
Kaz looked at him almost suspiciously. “Who?”
“Inej!” Matthias told him as cheerfully as he could.
Kaz’s face lit up. “She will?” he asked as if he hadn’t just spent the entire drive making sure of that exact information.
“Uh huh,” Matthias said as he pulled into the driveway next to Nina’s car. “We’re home. Wanna go see Inej?”
Kaz suddenly looked shy and withdrawn. “I don’t know,” he hedged, blinking rapidly. “I don’t know if she wants to see me.”
“Why wouldn’t she want to see you?” Matthias asked, turning the car off and coming around to help him get out.
“Because I –” Kaz stopped, looking confused. “Because I argued with her.”
“What? When?” Matthias asked, handing him his cane.
Kaz took it, looking down at his feet to be sure of where he was stepping. His knee buckled a little under him, but he was able to drag his right leg behind him up to the front door. “I don’t remember. Recently,” he said firmly. “About my knee.”
“You mean when we got you home from the store a couple weeks ago?” Matthias asked, opening the door for him.
Kaz limped through, going into the living room past where Wylan and Jesper talked in the corner and flopping haphazardly down on the couch. “Yeah,” he said as an answer to Matthias’ question. “I thought she was making a big deal out of nothing. And I don’t remember what I said, I just remember feeling bad about it.”
Inej began to walk into the room but Matthias put out a hand and she stopped short. “What’s wrong?” she whispered as Wylan approached Kaz and asked him a quiet question.
“He thinks you’re mad at him for arguing about getting the shot,” he whispered back.
“Oh, dear,” Inej sighed. “I guess I’ll just tell him I’m not.”
Matthias nodded as Nina came into the room from the other entrance. “Hey, my love,” he greeted her. She pecked his cheek again in response.
Inej walked around him to get to Kaz. “Hey, Kaz,” he heard her greet him.
Kaz’s eyes grew wide. “Hey, Inej,” he said softly, his hand gripping the head of his cane tightly.
“I’m not mad at you, you know,” she said calmly, sitting down next to him. “For arguing.”
Kaz’s eyes shone with relief. “Really?” he asked.
Inej nodded. “Yep. You’re all good.”
Kaz’s eyes didn’t leave her face. “Okay. Good,” he rasped immediately before entirely changing the topic. “Do you…do you have any strawberries?”
Inej laughed, and he smiled dreamily at her. “I do. Would you like me to get them for you?”
“No,” he said. “Someone else can get them. Would you stay?” he asked earnestly.
Inej smiled over at him. “Yep,” she agreed as Wylan left for the kitchen.
Matthias came over to a seat across from Kaz as he continued to stare adoringly at Inej, who spoke quietly to him. He answered her a few times, but Matthias couldn’t hear anything.
Wylan came back with a bowl of strawberries and a drink with a straw for him.
Kaz barely looked at them to select a plump berry before returning to gaze at Inej. The strawberry sat in his gloved hand for a little while he talked to Inej, his dark eyes sharpening bit by bit.
Jesper came over to him. “Can I put this under your knee, Kaz?” he asked.
Kaz tore his eyes off of Inej long enough to nod at Jesper, who carefully slipped a small stool under his knee, barely touching his pant leg but never his actual leg. Then he answered another of Inej’s questions in a soft voice.
Nina left for a minute before coming back with two ice packs to lay across the top and bottom of his knee.
Kaz winced a little as she gently put them on his leg, but sighed with relief after a minute of them sitting there.
Matthias approached him just in time for him to look around the room, eyeing each of them through narrowed eyes.
“Someone needs to stand watch, I can’t – I can’t fight right now,” he said firmly, his words starting to slur again.
“Okay,” Matthias said.
“Promise me,” Kaz demanded.
“I promise,” most of them said in unison, Nina just a little late on the draw.
Kaz nodded firmly, his eyes fluttering and his head lolling back against the couch.
Matthias watched in disbelief as Kaz’s eyes closed and he went right to sleep in front of all of them. Wylan and Jesper looked shocked. Inej looked slightly concerned.
But Nina looked like she’d entirely expected it. So Matthias decided that it totally tracked.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Matthias volunteered.
The others nodded vaguely along, Wylan glancing at the sleeping Kaz at his words.
Matthias replaced Inej on the couch next to Kaz as the rest of them wandered off to do various things.
He watched Kaz sleep for the second time that day, hoping that the shot would give his boyfriend some pain relief, at least.
Half an hour later, Matthias took the ice packs off. Another half hour later, he put new ones Nina had brought in on.
Kaz’s face didn’t even twitch, his breath steady and his eyelashes just as calm.
When he finally woke up again, his eyes still wandered a little more than usual. The spacey look in his eyes had dimmed but not left completely. “Matthias?” he croaked.
Matthias handed him the cup with a straw Wylan had brought in an hour ago.
Kaz took it without comment, drinking as deeply as the straw would allow him to. “Thank…you,” he said stiltedly, his eyes glazing over a little. “For being on watch. For me.” He wouldn’t look at him, but Matthias inclined his head anyway.
“Of course,” he said casually, not mentioning that Kaz had demanded it.
Kaz’s eyes sharpened a little, focusing on Matthias as though calculating something. “Can I go to work now?” he asked abruptly.
Matthias jerked back. “What? No?” he said disbelievingly. “You need to stay sedentary for the rest of today at least.”
Kaz scowled. “Fine. Bring me my laptop then.”
Matthias sighed, picking up his phone to text Inej. can you bring Kaz his laptop and cord?
Inej came in with the computer, wrapped up cord, and something wooden not two minutes later, a small smile playing across her lips. She handed Kaz the wooden tray.
He stared at it. “What’s that for?” he asked.
She placed it gently on his thighs, setting the computer down on it. “It’ll help it feel more like your desk.”
Kaz looked at her so adoringly Matthias wondered how any of them even remotely competed with his love for her.
Of course, it wasn’t a competition. But if it was, Inej would be winning by a long shot.
She plugged his cord in while Kaz opened the laptop and logged on.
His attention entirely shifted to his screen, and he began to type almost immediately, seeming to ignore them.
Matthias and Inej exchanged a quick glance that he was sure Kaz would’ve caught if he wasn’t coming off of anesthesia.
“Want me to take a turn with him?” Inej murmured to him.
“Sure,” Matthias muttered back, standing and stretching subtly.
Inej sat in his place, looking over at Kaz with her little smile.
Kaz continued to work as if nothing had happened.
Matthias began to leave for the kitchen to get something to eat. His ears caught Inej’s soft question of, “How’s the knee feel?” even as he approached the doorway.
“Like someone stuck a needle in it,” Kaz said a little sourly.
Inej laughed. “I meant besides that.”
“...it feels a bit better already, actually,” Kaz mumbled to her, the clacking of his keyboard almost drowning out his low words to her.
Matthias smiled to himself and left the living room to go get his own snack.

Chapter Text

Inej walked down the hall, feet exhausted from a long day at work. She really needed to sit down, but she wanted to get the book she’d been reading to Wylan from her room first before she joined him in the living room.
She came up to the bathroom door, barely noticing its presence.
She did notice a series of strange sounds, though.
She stepped in front of the door, the strange noises getting progressively louder.
She walked past the bathroom.
The noises got quieter.
Inej backed up silently, trying to determine what was going on.
She stopped in front of the bathroom door.
A deep, trembling inhale of breath.
A small, muffled almost squeak.
A deeper, even shakier breath.
More muffled higher pitched noises.
Someone was crying, and they were trying to be quiet about it.
Inej hesitated, then knocked quietly on the door.
The sounds stopped immediately.
Kaz.
His raspy voice through the door confirmed her instant suspicion. “What do you need?”
“I need to talk to you,” she said in a low tone. “In private.”
A long pause seemed to stretch beyond what might be reasonable for a lull between getting up and unlocking the door.
But he did, eventually, unlock it.
The door opened a crack, and Inej slipped in past it, locking it behind her just as quickly.
She got up and perched on the edge of the sink, looking at where Kaz sat on the edge of the bathtub, his right knee stretched out and his eyes faintly red. “How’s the knee?” she asked cautiously.
It had been almost five days since he’d overcome a huge hurdle and gotten a cortisone shot in his knee. They’d spoken a little about it that first day, but since then, he’d never apprised her of his current feelings about it all.
She hadn't really expected him to, of course, but it might be worth mentioning it now.
But if he was in pain, if he was hiding that he was still in pain, that would warrant talking about it, she figured. He wouldn’t tell her – or anyone – such a thing without prompting, so here she was. Prompting him.
“Knee’s good,” Kaz answered at length.
“Really?” Inej countered. “Or are you just saying that to get me off your back about it?” she let herself give him a little smile he did not return.
Instead, he looked down. “Inej…” he looked back up at her, his eyes damp enough to alert her to the fact that he might start crying again, right in front of her.
Inej’s heart clenched. Oh fuck. He was in pain, he was trying to bear through excruciating pain, and she hadn’t even asked him until just now, and how could she have let it go on so long, and –
“Inej, it doesn’t hurt,” his quiet voice broke through her spiraling thoughts. She stared at him. “Sometimes it’s a little sore, but it’s not – it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt, Inej.” Kaz covered his face with his hands. Obviously trying to hide his sudden tears she’d caught a glimpse of before he’d shielded them from her view, Kaz’s shoulders shook.
Inej let a slow smile creep onto her face.
She sat with him, murmuring as many soothing sentences as she could think of to say. “That is…so good to hear, Kaz. You can cry. It’s okay. This is really big. You can cry,” she repeated, watching his body tremble with the effort it took him to cry quietly in front of her. “You can get it done once every three months, if you’d like. I think there’s a limit on how many you can get done per year, but we’ll make sure you get the relief you need.”
Kaz uncovered his face now, his gloved hands dropping into his lap. His face was damp, but he wasn't actively crying at the moment.
Not anymore, at least.
“Really?” he rasped. “Every three months?”
Inej shrugged. “Something like that. We’ll prepare a little better next time, yeah?” she assured him. “Have Nina go with you to begin with, and make sure your doctor can do it while you’re under, and it’ll be okay.”
Kaz nodded slowly. “Inej,” he started, then stopped. “I’m…apprehensive.” His dark eyes sharpened a little as he visibly worked to control his reactions.
“Why?” Inej asked gently. What Kaz tended to call apprehension was actually fear, or maybe just anxiety, so she always worked to validate it without letting him know that she knew what he wasn’t saying.
“Because…I’m just dreading when…” he didn’t finish his sentence, just stared at the tile under his feet.
Inej thought she knew what the issue might be anyway. “You’re dreading when it wears off,” she suggested.
Kaz nodded once.
“I get that,” Inej confirmed. “But we’ll try to get you help before it gets unmanageable again, okay? We’ll get you help before you drop the fucking milk,” she offered him a small smile he did not offer back.
But he did agree. “...okay.”
Someone knocked on the bathroom door near her shoulder.
“One minute!” she called out, looking back at Kaz.
He sighed, getting up with the help of his cane. Maybe just because the pain wasn’t an obstacle anymore didn’t necessarily mean that his knee could now act like a regular knee. It was probably still stiff as shit.
Inej hopped down, unlocking the door and stepping out into the hallway so Kaz could get past her and the doorframe.
Matthias looked a little startled to see both of them coming out, raising an eyebrow at Inej.
Kaz ignored them both, limping into his office. He shut the door a little too hard, and Inej heard the lock engage between them.
“...is there a problem?” Matthias asked hesitantly, eyeing Inej with actual apprehension.
“Let’s see if we can set up another shot in advance,” was her only response to any of it.
“That good, huh?” Matthias stepped inside the bathroom, still looking into her eyes.
“That good,” she agreed, not disclosing anything else.
Matthias nodded with slightly pursed lips, and shut the bathroom door.
She continued to her bedroom, snagging her book before making her way back into the living room to read the book to Wylan.

Chapter Text

Kaz had been wincing a lot lately.
And Nina, at least, had noticed.
He actually was managing to hide it fairly well from everyone else, to the point that Nina noticed even Inej didn’t seem too worried about him, despite the first snow day of the year happening the previous Sunday.
But he was wincing more.
It was the following Saturday when Nina got home from work that evening, prepared to go pull Kaz aside to encourage him to accept help again, when it happened.
Kaz saw her come into the living room, and immediately stood, jerking his head subtly to the left.
Nina followed the silent cue, meeting Kaz just outside his office door. “What’s up?” she began.
“Inside,” Kaz told her gruffly, reaching around her to open the door to his office.
Suitably on edge, Nina obliged, letting Kaz come limping in after her, locking his door tightly behind him.
He winced twice while doing it.
And Nina prepared to bring it up anyway, regardless of what Kaz wanted to speak to her about, when he said it.
“I need…I need another cortisone shot soon,” Kaz said stiffly, the word “need” stumbled over both times he said it. “What’s your schedule like?”
Nina hid a smile to answer. “Well, next week, I’ve got Thursday — and Friday, surprisingly — off, but I could also do Wednesday morning until about one.”
Kaz nodded, jotting the days down. “Do you know about the week after?”
Nina shrugged. “Probably it’ll be the usual; Tuesday and Wednesday off, maybe Thursday.”
Kaz nodded. “I will ask Dr. Wells what her schedule is like,” he said, maybe a little stiltedly.
Nina nodded. Best to get the actual doctor on board with this as soon as possible, she figured. Besides, they needed her schedule too.
Kaz crossed the room past her again, unlocked the door, and was gone in the span of five seconds.
The next Monday, Kaz’s car was gone before Nina even got into her car for work that morning. She texted Inej. do we know where Kaz is
said he had smthg to schedule was the reply she got.
Nina grinned to herself and drove to work, careful not to slip on any black ice on the heavily snowed-on road.
When she checked her phone again during her lunch break, she saw that Kaz texted her exactly 4 hours ago.
hosp. appt @ 10 am this Wed
It took ~3.5 hrs last time, so allot 3
Nina turned to one of her coworkers. “Can you help me find someone to cover my afternoon shift on Wednesday? Something just came up, I’m going to need the entire day off instead.” Just because Kaz thought 3 hours was sufficient for his own care meant nothing of how Nina felt about it. This was an extremely vulnerable — for Kaz, at least — procedure, and she was going to carve out as much time as possible to aid him in it.
When she got home that night, she was the one to pull Kaz to the side, standing in front of the bathroom door in the downstairs hallway. “Can we tell everyone else what’s happening?”
Kaz frowned like she just asked him to saw his foot off, and he needed to establish exactly how necessary such an act would be right this second. “We don’t need to,” he tried.
“Oh, so you want to come home loopy as shit without giving Wylan any warning, and have him assume that you got beat up in a fight and are now sporting a concussion?” Nina asked pointedly.
“He wouldn’t assume that,” Kaz grumbled. But he was already taking his phone out and removing a glove to record a short voice message for the group chat. “I’m getting another shot on Wednesday at 10. Don’t freak out about it.” He let go of the microphone symbol so the message could be sent properly.
He then completely ignored the exasperated look Nina tried to shoot him.
Wednesday morning, Nina was eating waffles for breakfast when Kaz came into the kitchen wearing sweatpants and one of Jesper’s short sleeved Fall Out Boy t-shirts.
Nina smiled at him. “Oh, good, now there won’t be any need to get into a gown,” she said casually.
Kaz looked down at himself in visible confusion. Then he looked back up at her, his eyebrows pinched with annoyance. “I’m not wearing this to the appointment, I wore this to sleep,” he corrected her, taking another step further into the room.
“You’re gonna be put to sleep today anyway, why not skip the middle step?” she asked as she bit into her waffles.
Kaz stared at her. Finally, he said, in a tighter voice, “If I wear this to begin with…I won’t have to wear a hospital gown?” He made sure.
Nina nodded. “Yeah, as long as the sweatpants can get up over your knee.”
Kaz immediately tested it. He could, rolling the pant leg up until it rested over his uneven scars for a split second. But he was rolling it back down again before Nina could properly see where the break healed very poorly. “I’m changing the shirt, though,” he told her as he shoved the bottom elastic down to cover his ankles again.
“No, don’t do that,” Nina negated instantly.
Kaz shot her a look now. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because short sleeves will make my job easier than if I have to deal with long sleeves,” she said casually enough.
Kaz squinted at her. “...I have short sleeved button ups,” he reminded her shortly.
“But I like seeing you in that shirt,” Nina admitted, setting her fork down to look at him.
Kaz stared at her. He didn’t say anything for a while. Eventually, though, his burning question seemed to get the better of him. “Why.”
Nina shrugged. “I don’t know. I just like seeing my partners wearing each other’s clothes. I mean, have you seen when Inej wears Matthias’ hoodies?”
Kaz paused, as if properly assessing his memories of such a thing. “But that’s cute because it completely dwarfs her,” he pointed out. “Jesper and I are ostensibly the same size —”
Nina clicked her tongue. “ — it’s also a mismatch of your usual styles, and I think it’s really endearing.”
Kaz stared at her some more. “Well, I don’t need to be endearing to anyone in public today, so off it goes.” He took a step back, as if to leave again.
“Or you could wear one of Matthias’ shirts. That would dwarf you to some degree, which I imagine would look even cuter than Inej in it,” Nina said slyly, trying to egg him on.
Kaz frowned again. “I have no desire to look cute, and besides, no one can beat Inej in a cuteness contest anyway.”
Nina laughed. “Can I get you something to drink before we go?” she offered, gesturing to the fridge where she knew there was some cold ice water in the door.
“No,” Kaz told her shortly. “I’m going to go change.”
He actually left now.
Nina called after him before he fully left her sight. “You’re cute no matter what you wear, you know!”
Kaz flipped her off, disappearing down the hallway.
Nina chuckled to herself and finished her waffles.

By the time she had rinsed her plate and fork off and gotten her coat and scarf on, Kaz decided to finally come down the hallway wearing…one of Matthias’ T-shirts.
And Nina only knew that because the graphic on the front was an aesthetic wolf. It also hung off of Kaz’s thin body in a super cute way she truly could not get enough of looking at. He wore an open short sleeved button up over it, so he looked somewhat more put together than the casual shirt and sweatpants he was still sporting would initially imply.
He got his shoes on. Then his coat. Then his cane.
Then he followed Nina out to her car.
Nina watched him as he tried to hold out his gloved hand for her keys as he headed for the driver’s side.
“Nuh-uh, I’m driving,” Nina cut all of that off immediately.
Kaz glared at her, but went around and got — very grumpily, she might add — into the passenger’s seat.
Nina smiled at his frown while she pulled out of the driveway and headed to the hospital.
It started to snow on the way there, but that wasn’t what caught Nina’s attention.
What caught her attention was how Kaz started to hold his knee every once in a while tightly, like it kept suddenly getting painful again.
Nina kept glancing over at him to make certain he was still okay.
She parked in a handicapped spot, hanging up the placard she’d stolen from his car last night after he’d gone to bed early.
Kaz looked like he wanted to comment on it, but he didn’t.
They went into the hospital together. Kaz limped heavily the whole way, all while resolutely pretending he wasn’t.
“I can check you in?” Nina offered, gesturing at the rows of empty chairs for him to choose from.
Kaz nodded, maybe a bit reluctantly. But then he immediately went to sit down regardless.
Nina walked up to the receptionist, easily checking him in there before being told that a nurse would meet them out here soon enough.
She only sat down next to Kaz for less than three minutes before a nurse came out into the mostly empty lobby.
“Brekker?” the nurse said flatly, dull eyes raking over them, as if inspecting whether or not either of them looked “Brekker”-enough.
It was a different nurse from last time, Nina noted, but Kaz didn’t initially seem to care much about that. He just slowly, stiffly stood, following her back to a room.
Then she caught sight of his face.
And Nina knew that expression from Kaz.
That was Kaz doing his damnedest not to make a scene about anything despite multiple problems arising.
The nurse directed him up onto the bed. “There, if you would,” she continued, still monotonously.
Kaz got stiffly up onto the bed, looking like he was grinding his teeth into oblivion.
“I’m here to do the blood draw, if you’ll bring me the supplies,” Nina said pleasantly to the nurse.
The nurse frowned instead of agreeing. “Do you work here?” she asked semi-rhetorically.
Nina paused. “No, but —” she began to respond anyway.
“— then no, obviously. You’re not doing that,” the nurse said briskly, getting the supplies out herself.
Kaz scowled hard. “You are not touching me, that’s why Nina is here,” he said sharply.
“It’s just a blood draw,” the nurse assured him somewhat bluntly still, going to a drawer to bring out a small blue tourniquet. “It’ll be quick and —”
Kaz truly gritted his teeth now. “ — I am in too much pain for this bullshit,” he growled, then turned to look away from the nurse. “Nina.”
Nina looked at him expectantly.
“Get Ada,” he said through a low hiss.
Nina stared at him. “...who is Ada?” She was lost now.
“She’s the nurse from last time,” Kaz explained, maybe a bit harshly.
Nina raised an eyebrow that he even remembered that information in the first place. “You okay if I leave?” she made sure.
Kaz rolled his eyes. “Of course I am,” he said tightly.
The nurse frowned harder, still getting a couple of tubes for blood out onto the tray on a small table to Kaz’s right.
Nina slipped out, going to the nurses desk. “Hey,” she drawled, leaning over the counter a little to get more attention. “Is Ada here today?”
“She’s on break,” one of the other nurses informed her before he got shushed by another nurse, who eyed Nina somewhat suspiciously.
“Can you get her back here?” Nina continued. “Let her know that the haphephobic patient is back?”
The nurse at the station raised an eyebrow, darting a glance back at his apparent superior. “...um, sure…?” He turned to an intercom system near his elbow. “Ada? Ada, there is a haphephobic patient who needs you. Ada, report to the nurse’s station immediately —”
Someone shouted from the room Nina had just left.
Nina pushed off the counter to rush back into the room, only to find Kaz gagging and actively vomiting over the side of the bed. He was turned toward the nurse, who stood there frozen with puke that was mostly bile all over her scrubs.
She had the gall to look completely confused. An open needle stayed in one of her limp gloved hands, the tourniquet in the other.
Nina, beyond furious at this woman, marched over to get between Kaz and the nurse.
Kaz still retched and shivered violently on the bed, gloved hands gripping the railing around his thin body.
“Kaz, darling, breathe,” Nina told him calmly, ignoring the nurse, whom she thought might have just left entirely.
Kaz’s breathing did not improve.
“Kaz,” Nina said, a bit firmer. “Kaz. Listen to me. In through your nose first, come on. Come on,” she kept urging.
Kaz finally inhaled sharply and loudly, breathing with her much steadier than he had been.
He still trembled, though.
“You’re okay. You’re okay. Hey,” she got his drifting hazy attention again. “It’s just Nina. Just Nina, no one else. Nothing else.” She worked to speak as soothingly as possible.
Kaz hung onto her every word with desperate eyes anyway.
Someone came in and closed the door behind them.
Nina made absolutely certain that her boyfriend both sounded and looked stable before turning to see the nurse from last time. “Are you Ada?”
The nurse nodded. “Yes, sorry about all that. She’s a little…stubborn sometimes.” She held a small bucket and mop, coming around to kneel next to Nina’s feet to start cleaning up all of Kaz’s vomit splattered across the floor.
Kaz suddenly panted harshly again.
“Okay,” Nina kept up her level voice. “Can you get the sedatives ready for me?” She turned back to Kaz. “Kaz, love, I’m going to touch your arm, is that okay?”
But Kaz shook his head instantly, no hesitation in his refusal.
Nina worked to tamp down her ever building irritation at that fucking nurse for shattering the familiarity and expectations of his experience like that. “Okay, I need to draw your blood soon, so you just breathe and let me know —”
“— with me,” Kaz got out in a rush, looking wildly up at her still.
Nina blinked. “...with you what?” she asked cautiously.
“Breathe,” Kaz insisted.
“In through your nose…” Nina directed calmly, demonstrating.
Kaz followed her lead quickly.
Nina guided him through breathing for the next couple of minutes until finally, Ada moved to take the vomit stained mop away and Kaz held out a shaky arm.
“You sure you’re ready?” Nina verified as she slowly grabbed a different tourniquet, in case Kaz already associated the blue one with a bad memory.
“Do it before I can’t,” Kaz told her through gritted teeth.
Nina nodded, quickly setting everything up again. She rubbed an alcohol swab over the crook in his elbow while Kaz visibly worked to breathe carefully through it. “Okay, is my carotid okay?” She bared her neck to him again.
He hurriedly put his hand up against her presented pulse there as she located the same vein from last time.
“Ready? One, two, three, poke,” Nina said, as measured as possible.
She kept up her methodic pace and did her best to touch him as little as possible throughout as Kaz pressed harder and harder against her throat.
Finally, she had to speak up before she couldn’t anymore. “Kaz, honey, let up a little.”
Kaz did let up, for what it was worth, but the second he tried that part, his mouth began to stammer out a jumbled string of commands. “Nina, I can’t, you can’t — I need — I’m done, I’m done, stop, stop, stop —!” he shrieked.
But Nina already whipped the needle out, lightly shaking one of the filled tubes of blood. “You’re okay, you just breathe again. Slow, steady — yep, you got it,” she praised him lightly as she handed Ada the collected blood.
Kaz gagged again as he ripped his gloved hand off of her neck entirely. He visibly worked to breathe better again, all the while letting Nina tell him, “Good. Good, slower. Slower, love.”
Ada slipped out with the blood.
“Can I put the IV in too?” Nina held up the cannula so he could actually see what she intended to insert into his arm.
Kaz nodded slowly.
She started this similar process, albeit much quicker.
She was done as fast as she could be, but Kaz hissed repeatedly all the while.
Finally, she adjusted the needle once more to make certain it was perfect for its purpose.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” Kaz spit suddenly, withdrawing his arm that now held the cannula, nestled snugly under his skin.
“I’m not anymore,” Nina reminded him calmly as she pulled a chair from the side of the room over to sit closer to him.
Kaz eyed her somewhat suspiciously, until Ada got back. Then he seemed to let up.
Ada handed him the breathing tube for the anesthesia in such a way that made Nina wonder if they’re done it like this the first time too. Especially when he immediately put it in correctly, when Nina hadn’t necessarily pegged him as someone who would’ve known that beforehand without some level of experience.
He laid back then, breathing carefully through it while Ada monitored the levels and simultaneously inserting some of the sedative into him through the IV.
Kaz finally looked relaxed enough that Nina felt it safe to lean over to whisper to Ada, “Is Dr. Wells here yet? Or on the way?” without disturbing his carefully controlled descent into sedation.
Ada responded in kind, murmuring her response. “She’s here.”
Nina had just finished saying, “Good,” as a reply when suddenly, Kaz grabbed her shirt hem in what felt — and looked, when she glanced down in surprise — like mild panic.
Before he could say anything beyond his tightening grip on her clothes, she’d already begun speaking calmly down to him, trying to keep everything extremely chill for him.
“You’re okay,” she started with. “Hey, you’re okay.” She smiled at him. He did not smile back, although his wide eyes started to droop again. “Can you count backwards from ten for me?”
Kaz’s counting slurred so heavily it took her a second to register that the first thing he’d said after she’d asked him had been an indistinct, “Ten.”
He continued to mumble for her. “Nine…eight…”
She thought he might’ve drifted off, until he abruptly finished with a garbled, “...seven…”
Then he passed out completely, his grip on Nina’s shirt loosening.
His gloved hand flopped over the railing on the bed, totally limp in a way that might’ve freaked Kaz out if he were even remotely awake right now.
Nina carefully tucked his arm under the blanket so it didn’t get too cold in the time it would take until he woke up again.
Then she just as carefully rolled his sweatpant leg up to reveal his offending knee.
Ada opened the door silently. “I’ll go alert Dr. Wells,” she said softly.
Nina nodded permission.
Ada left entirely, closing the door behind herself Inej-quietly.
Nina watched Kaz sleep serenely, his usual scowl or frown completely absent from his expression right now. His nose barely whistled around the sedation tube. His dark hair flopped over his forehead. She wanted to brush it aside, but just then Ada returned with a doctor Nina had heard about, but not met yet.
“Nina?” Dr. Wells asked as they shook hands quickly.
“Yep,” Nina agreed, watching as the doctor slipped a pair of gloves on and sat down with a few cotton ball sticks for the iodine and lidocaine.
Nina watched her blue gloved fingers work to slather Kaz’s bare knee with both substances; first the iodine in long dark brown streaks to clean it, then the clear lidocaine to numb the shit out of her current workspace on Kaz’s body.
Then the doctor injected his knee methodically, quickly but steadily pushing on the plunger before withdrawing the entire thing within fifteen seconds of putting it in.
And then it was done entirely.
“Same as last time: ice it on and off for an hour each, don’t let him walk around on it too much for the rest of today, and let me know if there are any problems,” Dr. Wells said as she stood, leaving Ada to wipe Kaz’s iodine stained knee clean.
Nina nodded. “Thank you again,” she said, unsure if Kaz had ever thanked her for anything, but tacking that last word onto the end there just in case he — or Matthias last time — had.
Dr. Wells smiled. “I’m glad we found something that helps,” she agreed quietly before leaving, giving Ada and Inej a run for their money.
Ada threw out the iodine stained gauze she’d been using, changing tasks to pull the breathing tube away from Kaz. She also carefully worked to slip the cannula out faster than Nina would’ve tried to.
Nina sat down next to the bed to wait for Kaz to wake back up.
Kaz did wake up, albeit very slowly. Nina had expected that much, at least, though.
He didn’t open his eyes yet, even though she could see that he was awake now from the way his scowl had begun to return and his face twitched occasionally. He just laid there like lethargy had been injected into his very bones with the cortisone.
“Hey, Kaz,” Nina murmured softly.
Kaz’s eyes flew open, as if he was exceptionally alarmed. But then they landed on Nina’s face, and immediately relaxed. “Hey,” he returned to a rougher voice than usual.
“Hey,” she repeated with a smile. “How’re you feeling?”
Kaz looked down at himself, wrinkling his nose at something.
“What’s wrong?” Nina asked, unsure what about his own body could have prompted such a response right this second.
Kaz, still looking down, muttered to himself, “I…I mixed them up?”
Nina blinked. “...what did you mix up?” she asked quietly.
Kaz looked up at her then, confusion settling into every crevice of his face like it always belonged there. “This isn’t…this is Matthias’ shirt,” he informed her.
Nina suppressed a wider smile. “I know. You chose to wear it today, actually.”
Kaz stared at her, naked surprise overtaking his entire expression. He looked down at the shirt again.
Suddenly, he picked up the collar and deeply inhaled the fabric of the shirt.
Nina watched him carefully.
Kaz sighed into the aesthetic wolf print, laying back; the shirt still laid up against his nose.
“Hey, Kaz…” Nina trailed off, unsure how to phrase her mountain of questions simply enough to not overwhelm him. “What…what’re you doing?” she settled on.
Kaz looked up at her over the raised collar. He lowered the shirt just enough that he could say, “It still smells like him,” without the entire sentence being muffled to Hell.
Nina smiled then. “Good. He’s got a very nice smell.”
Kaz nodded agreement. Then he went back to deeply inhaling Matthias’ shirt.
His next sentence came out of nowhere — for her, at least. “It’s like a hug,” he said, actually muffled to Hell.
Nina paused. “...what’s that?” she asked cautiously, in case she’d misheard him.
“It’s like a hug,” Kaz repeated a little clearer, away from the thick fabric.
“What’s like a hug?” Nina continued, wanting to be sure she knew exactly where his head was at.
“Wearing his shirt,” Kaz explained plainly.
“Do you like the idea of Matthias hugging you?” Nina asked, curious despite herself.
Kaz’s eyes lit up. “Yeah,” he said in a content little sigh.
Nina couldn’t help it. She barked a short laugh that made Kaz frown immediately.
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked through his frown, sounding a bit on edge.
“Nothing’s wrong with it,” Nina assured him quickly. “I like that idea of Matthias hugging you too, that’s all.”
Kaz’s eyes suddenly dropped from her face entirely. Nina watched as what looked like honest-to-god shyness crept over Kaz’s entire being. He ducked his head down and avoided her eyes like the plague.
“We don’t have to talk about hugging Matthias anymore,” Nina said casually enough. “What do you want to talk about instead?”
Kaz lifted his chin up enough to visibly think hard about his preferred answer to her question. Finally, he decided. “Jesper.”
“Okay,” Nina agreed. “Le’ts talk about Jesper, then.”
“I love him,” Kaz said explicitly and clearly.
Nina’s eyebrows shot up. She didn’t think she had ever heard Kaz verbally say he loved anyone, especially not so…flippantly.
Kaz didn’t seem to even notice her shock, continuing. “Does he…does he love me too?” he whispered hopefully.
“He does,” Nina reassured him. “He really, really loves you, Kaz.”
Kaz gave her the cutest shy little smile before ducking his head down again.
Nina dearly, truly wanted to record this entire conversation between him, just to show Jesper, but no. They’d agree not to do that last time, and this time, they’d agreed on the same stipulation. Instead, she continued her train of thought. “We all love you, Kaz.”
Kaz looked away from her again, avoiding eye contact entirely.
“What’s wrong, love?” Nina asked, not eager to make him uncomfortable. Especially not when he was so painfully vulnerable somewhat against his will.
Kaz’s cheeks suddenly flushed hard.
“Kaz. Is something wrong?” Nina pushed.
Kaz slowly shook his head, still not looking at her.
“Okay,” Nina said hesitantly. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”
Kaz nodded slowly at that, finally looking back at her. His cheeks were still a dark pink, although that was fading fast now.
“Okay. Okay, good. Do you feel like going home yet?” Nina changed the subject to distract him from whatever had embarrassed him so thoroughly.
Kaz considered it. “No. Not yet. Head’s…head’s full of…of cotton,” he stumbled over the simple sentence.
Nina nodded seriously. “I see. Well, then, let’s wait a little longer until your head has a chance to feel more clear.”
Kaz nodded back at her.
They sat there in silence together for a good minute before Kaz finally broke the quiet entirely.
“Nina?”
Nina sat up straighter at the sound of her own name. “Yes?”
“Nina?” Kaz said again, as if he didn’t hear her.
“Yes, Kaz?” Nina repeated.
“You’re not…leaving? Me?” Kaz asked, maybe a little desperately.
“Nope. I’m not,” she said firmly. “I’m staying right here.”
Kaz sighed with obvious and loud relief.
Nina wondered what the fuck Kaz just thought up that prompted that question in the first place.
Kaz half answered her a second later. “He left me,” he mumbled to himself.
Nina, wary that the conversation had now turned so they were talking about Jordie, softly responded. “He didn’t mean to.”
Kaz looked up at her, confusion creeping back onto his countenance. “Yes he did,” he insisted.
Nina might have just read the tone all wrong. “...who left you?”
“Wylan,” Kaz said, completely unexpectedly for Nina.
Nina studied Kaz. “...when did he leave you?”
“At that…that party,” Kaz mumbled again.
“What party?” Nina continued her line of questioning, trying to weasel a straight answer out of her loopy boyfriend.
Kaz shrugged, giving her the less than helpful response of, “At that guy’s house.”
Nina suppressed a sigh. “Kaz. What guy?”
“When I got…when I drank too many,” Kaz continued as if she hadn’t said a thing.
“What did you drink too many of?” Nina kept it up, determined to get to the bottom of the issue, no matter how long that ended up taking.
“Shots,” Kaz informed her.
“...did you get drunk at a party with Wylan?” Nina asked slowly, completely confused what the current topic even was again.
“No,” Kaz denied, then: “He left me.”
“Why did he leave you at the party?” Nina tried.
“Because…because I…because he needed to leave. And I…I couldn’t…drive,” Kaz got out, as if the entire sequence of events was only just barely occurring to him as he spoke.
“Were you the designated driver?” Nina pestered, trying to get to the bottom of the significance of the situation to Kaz.
Kaz nodded slowly.
Nina stared at him. “...then why did you drink any alcohol?”
Kaz frowned. “Because…Wylan said…Jesper was picking him up.”
Nina tried not to sigh again. “...but then you wouldn’t have been able to get home, Kaz.”
“I wanted to stop thinking,” Kaz suddenly supplied.
Nina cocked her head at him. “What were you thinking about?”
Kaz made such a magnificent face of disgust, Nina registered that she’d rarely seen it on his face so strongly. “Rollins.”
“Why were you thinking about Pekka Rollins that night?” Nina asked softly.
Kaz paused to think it through. Then, “Because…Alby.”
“What about Alby?” Nina asked, finally feeling like she was getting somewhere with the still somewhat sedated man in front of her.
“Messaged…Inej,” Kaz’s words abruptly got garbled enough that it took Nina a good two minutes to figure out what he had even said.
Nina sat back, thinking. She had never heard of this situation, which meant that Kaz and Inej had been keeping it a secret for who even knew how long.
“I threw up,” Kaz told her clearly.
“Yeah, I know,” Nina assured him. “Ada cleaned it up for you.”
“I threw up on the bed,” Kaz continued.
Nina paused. “No, you threw up on the other nurse,” she reminded him.
“I puked on his bed. And then…and then I woke up on the floor,” Kaz finished firmly.
“Oh, you mean at that party still,” Nina muttered to herself, then raised her voice. “Did the guy find out you puked on his bed?”
“No,” Kaz said shortly. “I told him it was…someone else.”
Nina suppressed a small smile. “So you lied about puking on some poor guy’s bed because…?” she trailed off.
Kaz's face suddenly grew hyper defensive. “Because I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
Nina started to smirk now, but then Kaz sealed her fate within seconds.
“And he wasn’t poor,” Kaz said stiffly. “He was as rich as Wylan.”
Nina cracked a full grin. She couldn't help it. Her boyfriend was just so cute like this.
Kaz’s expression shifted into an anxious one in an instant. “What’s funny? What happened?” His pitch began to climb.
Nina hurried to bring it back down. “Nothing. Nothing, nevermind. Can you sit up yet?”
Kaz tried to, his anxious expression fading away soon. He sat up completely for a good couple of seconds before proclaiming to Nina, “Let’s go.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed.
“Can you stand?” Nina asked him worriedly, watching him carefully.
“Of course I can stand,” Kaz dismissed her out of hand. He put his feet down on the ground, standing for a long second, before completely crumpling to the ground in the next.
Nina stood and came over to him quickly, where Kaz lay on the cold ground, mumbling some expletives to himself.
“...goddamn stupid motherfucking —” he got out before Nina started talking over him.
“— Kaz,” she said firmly. He looked up at her. “You just sit there for a second, I’m going to go get you a wheelchair —”
“— I don’t need one, gimme a minute,” Kaz barely slurred.
“No, I’m gonna get you a wheelchair; Dr. Wells says to stay off the knee for the rest of the day anyway,” she informed him.
Kaz frowned, but gestured at the door impatiently.
Nina went over to the door, opening it just as Ada finished pushing a wheelchair up to it. Nina smiled at her. “Thank you so much for your help today,” she expressed as Ada turned the wheelchair around so Nina could grab the handles.
“Of course,” Ada returned. “I’ll follow you out to bring the wheelchair back too.”
Nina smiled wider. “Thank you,” she said again, taking the handles from her and pulling the mobility aid into the room where Kaz knelt on his left knee. His right leg stretched out to the side to prevent any pressure from being put on it. He leaned on the chair Nina had been sitting on.
Nina parked the wheelchair next to him expectantly. She couldn’t physically help Kaz get into it, but it seemed she might not need to worry about all that.
Kaz changed what he leaned on swiftly, scrambling up into the stable wheelchair. Then he sat there, huffing a little from the effort.
“Got your cane?” Nina asked mildly.
Kaz snatched his cane up off the bed in his gloved hands, and let Nina wheel him out of the room and out to their car.
Kaz struggled to get into the passenger’s side. The snow and ice on the ground now was making the whole thing even more difficult than it truly needed to be, but he eventually managed after Nina held his cane steady on the slick ground for him. She held the shaft of the cane only; not touching his body even a little bit.
After he’d successfully gotten into the car, huffing and puffing again, Nina closed the door on him. She let Ada, who’d just come out to them, take the wheelchair from her and shoot her a quick smile that Nina returned.
“Have a safe trip home,” Ada called to her as she went around the car to the driver’s side.
“We’ll do our best,” Nina returned as she sat in the driver’s seat. She turned the car on hurriedly so she could start heating the whole interior up for Kaz, whose jaw suddenly shivered.
She began to drive them home, passing many fast food establishments Kaz would never have looked twice at.
Someone tugged on her sleeve.
Nina looked over at Kaz at a stoplight. “Yes?”
“‘M…hungry,” Kaz mumbled, as if embarrassed to require a basic need.
“Do you want fast food?” Nina asked as the left turn’s green arrow shone in her peripheral.
“....okay,” Kaz decided.
“Okay, what do you want to eat?” she asked as she slowly accelerated with her own green light above them.
“Strawberry ice cream,” Kaz said.
Nina suppressed a smile, swinging right suddenly to get to Wendy’s drive-thru.
She ordered a strawberry Frosty and some fries for Kaz, deciding that she was hungry enough to eat the rest of the provided meal herself. She also got him a strawberry lemonade that, when she handed it over to him, he’d already been holding out his gloved hands for it.
He sipped on the lemonade through the straw he’d struggled to get into the lid — “I can do it myself!” he’d snapped when she’d tried to help — before letting her set the Frosty down into his cupholder. He clumsily swapped them out as Nina handed him the fries from her small brown bag as well.
He started dipping the fries into the Frosty the way Jesper always did.
“Do you like them like that?” Nina asked, maybe a little surprised.
Kaz just nodded and kept eating. And, quite frankly, Kaz ate now the most enthusiastically Nina had ever seen him eat anything.
But she just finished driving them home, occasionally eating her part of the meal herself, while Kaz started eating the Frosty with its provided spoon — he’d finished his fries by now — and drinking the strawberry lemonade through the straw much slower than he had been.
Nina parked in their garage, closing the large garage door as she turned the car off and got out.
She went around to the passenger's side calmly; she was in no rush at the moment.
But when she got there, she could see Kaz starting to pant deeply and otherwise freak out through the slightly foggy window.
She opened the door quickly. “Hey. Hey! Kaz. What’s wrong?” she asked softly.
Kaz continued to pant. The half drunk strawberry lemonade in his gloved hand shook. “It’s — dark — and — cold —” His jaw shivered violently again.
Nina gently pried the drink out of his hand, putting it into the cupholder. She put his cane down on the hard, not slick ground for him. “Here, grab the crow head, Kaz.”
Kaz carefully leaned out to grab the cane’s handle. He got out of the car with its aide, standing there with its help for a minute. But Nina could see the tremble through his entire body hadn’t stopped yet.
“Come on, love, follow me,” Nina urged him gently. She walked slowly to the door to the house, letting Kaz shuffle after her.
They got into the bright, well lit mudroom only for Kaz to suddenly sigh loudly with relief. He limped down the small hallway to get to the entryway to hang his coat up.
Nina followed him.
She hung up her own coat and scarf, but by the time she’d done that, Kaz had already limped into the living room. He sat on the couch with a low groan as Nina followed him there as well.
Kaz’s eyes were closed to the world as he leaned his head back.
Jesper came in through the other living room entrance. “Oh, you’re home already —?” he began lightly.
“— will you start the fireplace?” Nina cut into his question with her own. “He’s panicking about being cold,” she whispered to him as he eyed her curiously.
Jesper nodded, kneeling to her left to start the fireplace.
Kaz sighed with relief when the fire built up enough to start warming where his legs stretched out on the ground in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He suddenly kicked his shoes off and swung his feet up on the footrest in front of him to his right at a slight angle.
Nina slightly adjusted the footrest to be more in front of Kaz’s legs. “We’ll put an ice pack on a little later, when he’s less cold everywhere else,” she decided aloud.
Jesper nodded, getting up off the floor to sit next to Kaz on the couch. He grinned down at something near Kaz.
Before Nina could ask what was going on, though, he’d already asked Kaz, “Traded out my shirt for Matthias’, huh? What was wrong with mine?”
“Hug from Matthias,” Kaz mumbled, eyes still closed.
Jesper paused for a moment. “...oh, and wearing my shirt isn’t a hug from me?” he complained.
Kaz’s eyes flickered open, latching onto him. He quietly searched Jesper’s softening face for a while before saying, completely straight faced, “I love you, Jes.”
Jesper’s face betrayed his shock in an instant.
“Believe it or not, this is not the first time he’s said that about you today,” Nina informed him.
Jesper glanced at her, but just then, Kaz lifted his gloved hands, hovering them around Jesper’s cheeks. Jesper redirected his eyes to Kaz’s face.
Kaz smiled softly. “I want to…will you…will you lay down with me?” he asked softly.
Jesper hesitated for just a second. “...yeah, of course. Where do you want to lay down?”
Kaz looked around himself. “Here is okay,” he said firmly.
“Okay,” Jesper agreed. He moved out of range of Kaz’s dropping hands so he could sit closer to Kaz right next to him. Their hips almost touched. Jesper leaned his head back the exact same way Kaz had been.
Kaz followed suit.
They looked at each other warmly before Kaz’s head turned back to where Nina had begun to try to leave them to it.
“Come here,” Kaz said quietly.
Nina came over to him.
Kaz patted the couch cushion on his other side.
Nina carefully sat down next to him as well, copying their identical positions, minus the footrest. The one they currently used could only fit four feet without any of them touching.
Kaz sighed contentedly, closing his eyes again. “Kaz sandwich,” he mumbled. Then he passed out.
Jesper and Nina shared a quick look over Kaz’s relaxed body, and an even quicker laugh.
Then they both laid their heads back to rest next to where Kaz slept.