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“Damn it!” Kaz shouted, loud enough to startle his partners who were lounging in the living room.
Before Jesper and Wylan could challenge each other to Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who was to get up, Inej slipped from the nest of blankets that she and her partners had bundled together on the couch. Her feather-light footsteps made no sound, and yet she knew Kaz could sense her presence as she slipped into the kitchen.
He was leaning over the counter, propped up on his elbows, his face in his hands. She worried for a moment that he might have hurt himself, then she saw it.
Small droplets of waffle batter surrounded the large red bowl that Kaz had been using to mix it all up in. Inside said bowl, half-submerged in sticky batter, were Kaz’s glasses.
His eyesight had been getting worse over the years, too many knocks to the head during countless brawls and jobs gone sideways. It had taken quite a bit of convincing before they finally got him to visit the optometrist and had gone home with a pair of corrective lenses set in thin black frames.
“Damned things keep falling off and now look,” Kaz grumbled, rubbing his face roughly with the palms of his hands. He glared at the batter-caked glasses as Inej plucked them out of the bowl. One of the most feared men in half the countries in the world, at war with a pair of spectacles.
Inej couldn’t fight the smile that pulled at her lips.
“Don’t laugh,” Kaz whined, burying his face in his hands again. There was no commanding in his voice, this wasn’t the feared Dirtyhands giving an order. This was an embarrassed Kaz Rietveld begging his wife not to make fun of him. “It’s bad enough that we missed Jesper’s birthday because of my surgery. I just wanted to make a nice breakfast for all of us.”
“Breakfast isn’t ruined, you know,” Inej chided him gently. She reached for the towel which hung on the stove handle, and dampened it beneath the faucet.
“And if I may, it’s not your fault we missed my birthday. I have the memory of a goldfish,” Jesper piped up, moving from the doorway and moving up behind Kaz, snaking his arms around his waist. “I’m not holding it against any of you. Especially not you. You needed that surgery.”
“My leg has been messed up for 13 years, it could’ve waited another day,” Kaz said, his voice low and gravelly with contentment, as Jesper nuzzled his head into Kaz’s shoulder.
“Speaking of which, have you had your medication?” Wylan called from the living room.
“If you’re going to eavesdrop, my dear merchling, you may as well join us!” Jesper called back, clasping a hand over Kaz’s ear as not to yell directly into it.
“If you insist,” Wylan sighed dramatically, sweeping into the kitchen with a blanket wrapped snugly around his shoulders. He’d picked up on Jesper’s theatrics over the years.
“How is your leg doing, Kaz?” Inej asked, giving the glasses a final wipe with the rag.
“It doesn’t hurt so bad this morning. In fact, I think this is the best it’s felt in months,” Kaz admitted, melting a little as Jesper pressed kisses to the side of his neck.
“I’m glad,” Wylan said, folding his blanket over the back of one of the chairs at the dining table. He rolled up his sleeves and went about finishing the breakfast that Kaz had started, hushing him when he began to protest.
“You should probably get off your feet either way, darling,” Jesper said, and, without warning, swept Kaz off of his feet, narrowing avoiding knocking into Inej.
Kaz rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything more. He was getting better at allowing himself to be taken care of. And with all of the progress that he’d made in touch over the past decade, he had no objections with being as close to his partners as he could get.
Jesper set him down carefully in one of the dining chairs, and then stepped back, like an artist admiring his work. “Hmm… something’s missing,” he said, tapping a finger against his chin. “Ah! Inej, give me those glasses.”
Inej handed over the freshly cleaned glasses.
Jesper took them carefully, and placed his hands over the hinges. The screws tightened, making the arms more rigid. Then he ran his hands along the plastic, molding it beneath his fingers. When he was finished, he set them gently against Kaz’s nose, tucking the arms over his ears.
“There. Perfection,” Jesper grinned, placing a kiss against Kaz’s forehead, before ruffling his hair just to annoy him.
“It’s getting long,” Inej noted, twirling a strand of Kaz’s hair so that it stood almost directly up on his head.
He pressed it back down against his head. She was right though. The sides had grown out enough to curl around his ears, and the top was long enough to fall into his eyes if he didn’t brush it back. He hadn’t ever let it get this long since he was a child.
“You’re starting to look like a farm boy again,” Jesper teased. “It’s a good look on you.”
Kaz shook his head, but he was smiling.
These were the moments that had made ever moment of pain and agony worth it. Healing had been a hell of a process, and he wasn’t near finished with it. But he’s grown a lot since he was seventeen. He hoped to grow some more, with his Crows right by his side.
Wylan set the first plate of waffles down on the table in front of him.
“Candles?” Kaz asked, trying to focus on speech as Inej braided the longer strands of his hair.
“Gasp, birthday waffles? You shouldn’t have,” Jesper again with the theatrics. He fetched the candles from a drawer and placed them into the fluffy center of the stack of waffles.
An off-key rendition of happy birthday began and ended in a fit of laughter.
The Rietveld home full of love and life once again.