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When they returned back to the crypt, where they had been hiding out while they were working to get their rightfully earned money from the elder Van Eck, Kaz let his gaze wander. He had been doing it since they had returned, especially since he was in an unofficial dynamic with nearly everyone there. He took stock of them each time they returned so that he could soothe the part of himself that had broken when Van Eck had taken Inej.
Nina was sitting on the bedroll that she had made herself in the corner of the main room, toying with the fraid bits at the end of her dress. She hadn’t been eating well since she had taken the parem to save them from the oncoming armory while they were fleeing the Ice Court. Having her down in her headspace, as much as she could manage around her withdrawals and the newfound danger of their present lifestyle, was one of the only things that kept her together. Matthias helped a bit with getting her to sleep and eat, she seemed to find romantic peace with him the same way that she could caregiver peace with Kaz. He was glad to have the help minding her when she wasn’t in her headspace given that he had two other littles that he had to monitor.
Jesper was sitting near the door to the crypt, his gray eyes flickering out over the mist every now and again. He had his rifle resting in his lap and his eager fingers were dancing over the barrel that he was meant to be cleaning. Kaz doubted that he would be doing much effective maintenance on anything that he was working with given the fight that the two of them had had. He still felt guilty for the way that it had come out, the way that he had snapped and snarled like he was a feral animal instead of Jesper’s caregiver. The night after their fight would be in the forefront of his mind for the rest of his life, just listening to Jesper cry. At least he was able to find consolation and comfort through Inej and Nina. Kaz was still taking care of him whenever he dropped, but it was like their entire dynamic had been reset.
Inej was perched on the edge of the table in the center of the crypt. She was munching on a few of the chocolate biscuits that Nina had been given by Matthias, but the latter of the two girls didn’t have the appetite for them. Kaz was glad that Inej was eating, because while she had been held captive she had turned a little too much like her namesake. She had always been wiry, but her skin had taken on a sallow complexion and her eyes had sunken into her head. She was the one that he was watching the most, waiting for the meltdown that her headspace caused her whenever she hit her limit for stress. It had happened for the entirety of the year that they had been working and playing together, so he knew that it was coming now.
Matthias was sitting by Nina as he always was, which was also a comfort. Kuwei was muttering in Shu to himself while he poured over the notebooks that he was pretending to write in, though it was clear to everyone other than Jesper that he was drawing pictures of the aforementioned boy. Wylan was wandering from one of the stained glass windows to the other one, humming to himself and biting the corners of his fingers.
“That’s a nasty habit to develop when you’re the son of the Mercher,” Kaz commented as he walked over to the boy. He knew that Wylan’s life had very suddenly taken on a lot more stress than he had likely ever had to deal with. He was worried about what that sudden influx of adrenaline and cortisol was going to do to the younger boy, especially since they needed his expertise in chemistry and how the inner workings of the Merchant Council were likely to play out. Some part of his mind also just wanted to care for the boy regardless of what he brought to their team or the profit they could reap from him. It was a part that he had been trying to ignore for some time now.
“Well I was never really expected to be a Merchant, was I?” Wylan snapped, before he flinched and ducked his head away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
The part of Kaz’s mind that he had been avidly trying to ignore for the entire time that they had been hiding out in the crypt roared to life. He immediately recognized it as the same thing that had allowed him to take care of each of his littles before he had admitted that they wormed their way into his heart. He reached out and placed his gloved hand on the elbow of Wylan’s baggy shirt. “Come with me, please, merchling,” he said, making sure to keep his voice as soft as he could so that the other boy wouldn’t think that he was in for a beating.
Anger boiled in his stomach as he realized the kinds of things that Jan Van Eck had either allowed or done to his son so that Wylan would react like that. He doubted that any of it had stopped when he had gotten his classification, if anything that headspace had probably been warped against him.
They walked through the echoing stone paths of the crypt until they were in one of the back rooms. If they were loud enough the others would still be able to hear them, but at least now they weren’t in full view of everyone else that they were working and living with. Kaz rested his cane against one of the empty slots and then sat down heavily on the ground. He nodded his head in front of him so that Wylan knew he was expected to do the same.
Wylan did as he was told, but his movements were incredibly hesitant. He had his hands on the tops of his legs and clenched them every now and again as he worked through the mess of feelings that was no doubt tumbling through him.
“Wylan, I need you to answer a question for me,” Kaz said.
He knew that he had chosen the wrong way to phrase the request when Wylan clenched his eyes shut and ducked his head down. Kaz had seen him do something like that when he and Jesper were flirting, not that either of them appeared to be aware that was what they were doing, but this was different. When he had done it before, it had been to hide his smile or look through his lashes and hair so that he didn’t have to meet someone’s eyes head on. Now, he was preparing for something that he was sure was going to be unpleasant.
The headspace that Kaz had been fighting off since they had all ended up in the crypt took over him in a massive tsunami, which pulled at his lips. He had the urge to explain what he had actually meant by that and soothe the other boy into knowing that he had done nothing wrong. That was also the wrong move, though, because someone acting differently than they had before was a very sure way to have an abusive victim slide back into being on edge.
“Have you ever been classified?” he asked instead of giving into the urge that his headspace demanded. It was safer to just press through than to go back and try to make things right, that was the way that Kaz had always lived in his life.
Wylan finally looked up at him, his brows worried together and his blue eyes shining with a kind of curious confusion. “I haven’t.”
Unlike with Inej, that genuinely surprised him. He had known better than to fully assume that Heleen was going to abide by the law when it might cost her money or time that she could be renting out her flock. However, he fell into the trap of believing that Van Eck was the standup Merch that he had always presented himself as time and time again. It had resulted in him being duped into thinking that they would actually get the insane amount of money they were promised from the Merchant Council, into letting Van Eck kidnap Inej, and then again with Wylan.
He should have been paying closer attention to the boy to make sure that he was tending to his headspace. He had done it with his own littles because that was his job, but he had also forced Specht and Rotty to take care of their own when they were docked in Djerholm. He hadn’t thought about Matthias because the stubborn bastard had been a hair’s breadth from throwing them into the sea while they were traveling there and then hadn’t left Nina’s side ever since. He knew that Nina would be knowledgeable about what he needed and would likely be able to convince him to tend to his headspace, or lack thereof, far better than Kaz would.
Wylan was the anomaly, unfortunately. He had assumed that he had been classified but had never bothered to ask what it was. When they had first started working together, it was a way to prove to the other Dregs that he was worth protecting as an asset by forcing him into the role of a demo man. He hadn’t even joined the gang officially and so didn’t have the tattoo nor did he have the requirement to go through Kaz to make sure that he was taken care of. When they were on the boat, there was very little time to be making those kinds of decisions.
“Your father never made you take the test?” Kaz asked when he realized that they had been quiet for an uncomfortably long amount of time.
Wylan shook his head. “I don’t think that he wanted a filed document like that to prove that I existed. I mean, you heard him when we were pretending to give him Kuwei. He wanted to make sure that I was dead so that he could have his new heir inherit his empire. It would be a lot harder to pass off the disappearance of his other son if there were several filed tests with my classification and dynamic.”
Kaz took in the information slowly. Van Eck had plenty of money, getting Wylan tested in the privacy of their own home wouldn’t have even been an afterthought had Wylan not been disabled. He likely would have also been paired with someone of the opposite classification, given that he wasn’t a neutral, that was of a similar standing as him. It was common in people that had money to enter a matching company, but that would be an ever bigger paper trail running back to the fact that Wylan was gone.
“You’ve never been classified,” Kaz whispered. He ran one of his gloved hands through his hair and felt as though he was going to melt into the floor. The crypt that they had turned into their temporary base was basically devoid of bodies, so he was sure that it would enjoy his ashes when he dissipated into dust from the stress.
“No,” Wylan shook his head. “I mean, it hasn’t been that many years since the standard age for testing has passed.”
“You’re sixteen.”
“I know.”
“You should have been tested two years ago and you weren’t. That’s plenty of time to accidentally fall into your headspace, to develop an unhealthy relationship with it, or neglect it to the point of making yourself physically ill,” Kaz snapped. Littles and caregivers were similar to Grisha in that way alone, where if they ignored their headspace for long enough they came down with something that presented similarly to the flu.
Wylan bowed his head and then moved his arms up so that he was cradling it in his hands. “I know that I fucked everything up, you don’t have to remind me.”
“I think you and I both know that’s not what I meant,” Kaz huffed. He was so tired, all he wanted to do was pass out for a few hours before he had to wake back up and do it all over again. It was hard enough trying to keep them all alive when the entire city and a country or two was mad at them, but managing all their headspaces was another mess on top of it. He knew that they would be basically useless to him if he didn’t, though, so he continued to push through.
“Then what did you mean?” Wylan asked.
“It’s clear that the stress of the Ice Court heist and the current job is getting to you. Without the outlet of your headspace, you’re going to continue to get worse until you get sick. As the leader of his rag-tag bunch of idiots, it’s my job to take care of you all. So I want you to focus on how you feel,” Kaz explained. He should have been gentler, if he was a real caregiver. He had seen the way that others had reacted when their littles were in headspace, even other Barrel thugs. He knew that he would never be like that, though, not when Dirtyhands was swirling around in his mind to try and keep him safe.
Wylan tilted his head up, folding his arms over his chest. His blue eyes were as hard as the ice during the middle of winter, and just as deadly as the spring thaw. He set his jaw and then eventually gave in. He slumped back against the wall opposite Kaz so that his legs were splayed out messily in front of him. He tilted his head up towards the roof of the mausoleum and then let out a small hum. “I guess I feel kind of floaty?”
“In what way?” Kaz pried. Jesper had explained what littlespace felt like to Kaz before, but he also knew that it was different for everyone. Nina reported that she felt nothing in her body other than a lump forming in her throat when she got smaller. Inej had told him that she only really knew that she was in headspace when she wasn’t scared anymore, likely because the memories of the Menagerie and her job as his spider had been locked away. Jesper was the only one that had ever told him that he felt his body getting physically smaller when he dropped, so it wasn’t proof enough of Wylan’s headspace for Kaz fo feel comfortable.
“Like… like I’m not really connected to my body, I guess. But every time I feel like that, I get this huge rush of panic and then I connect again. It’s nice but it’s also scary. I think part of me knows that if I give into it then I’ll get hurt or something,” Wylan explained. He picked at the skin on the tops of his fingers, where the callouses from playing his flute lay.
Kaz nodded. “I think that what you’re describing is your version of headspace. When I go into my caregiver mode, I feel more sure and calm. Inej says that she feels the same way, but Nina and Jesper both feel something more physical like what you’re describing. The next time you get that feeling, I want you to actually let yourself fall into it.”
Wylan startled then, pushing himself off the wall. As soon as he started moving, he folded himself into a tiny ball so that he took up as little room as possible. His blue eyes were once again shimmering with worry as he asked, “But what if you need me to do something?”
“I won’t. I made sure that each of us had some time to rest our bodies and recover from injuries before we went on another crusade. I won’t let Van Eck think that we’ve stopped our plans but I also understand that if you push a bull too hard, eventually he’ll break,” Kaz replied. He placed his hand around the carved head of his cane and pushed himself to his feet. “You may return back to flirting with Jesper or antagonizing Kuwei if you so wish. Just come to me when you feel yourself slip.”
Wylan didn’t say anything as Kaz slowly made his way back down the hallway of the crypt to where the others were located. Inej had stretched out in the corner of the room with her knife cleaning set. He was glad for it, she was going to need those sharp for the next part of his plan. Jesper was playing in the corner with one of the toys that Rotty had brought from his favorite little house. Kuwei was still drawing in the corner, which made Kaz want to rip the notebook out of his hands. Jesper’s headspace was something only he and his other charges got to see, it wasn’t something that needed to be immortalized in black and white where anyone could find it. Nina and Matthias had both fallen asleep on their bedroll in the along one wall, which was again very good for them both.
Kaz walked over to the maps on the center table. He set his cane down on top of them to prevent them from rolling back together and then sat down heavily. He only glanced up when he saw Wylan also appear out of the mouth of the crypt, walking over to Inej and striking up a conversation with her.
That went on for a while longer. The sun had begun to set over the gravestones, which meant that the mist would be setting in. It would allow them to all leave their safehouse and stretch their legs, which would be better for the next phase of their plan. He knew that Jesper didn’t do well when he was cooped up in one place for too long, so he allowed him and Inej to scope out some of the other crypts on Black Veil to see if they would have better cover. It was something that he had done long ago, so he knew that the one they had picked was the best option for the job, but it wasn’t really what they needed anyway.
Nina and Matthias were sitting up with each other and discussing things in hushed tones that meant they didn’t want the others overhearing them. Kaz normally would have immediately tuned into their conversation because he was nosey, but he had other things to worry about. He focused back in on the maps when he made sure that Kuwei was securely napping in the corner, as he had been for the last hour.
He worked with the maps for almost ten minutes longer before he heard a voice at the edge of the crypt, towards the door where he had taken Wylan when they had their discussion. “Kaz?”
“Yes?” he asked, his voice still grating because of the natural gravel that the Firepox had caused but now gentle. He knew that he had slipped into his caregiver space as a response to something, so it only took his mind a moment to catch all the way up.
“Can I talk to you?” Wylan asked. He was standing in the doorway, just as Kaz had thought he would be, with his hands clenching the bottom of his shirt so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. He shuffled from one foot to another and then sniffled like he was about to start crying.
“You may,” Kaz replied. He stood from the table and then stopped only to pick up the doll that Jesper had been playing with. He made sure that he grabbed it in a way that Wylan would notice, but none of the others would. First time regression was usually done around trained professionals and trusted people. That hadn’t happened for Inej, but Kaz hadn’t known to expect it either. He knew what was happening to Wylan and was dedicated to the idea of helping him now.
They silently walked through the dark hallway that led to one of the private rooms in the crypt. Kaz turned around so that he could assess the other boy in the wine-colored light of the stained glass window that the moonlight had caught perfectly. “What did you want to talk to me about?” he asked once he had determined that Wylan was still fighting his headspace.
“I feel the same way that I did before,” Wylan explained. He brought one of his hands up to his brown-red locks and tugged on it distinctively. “I don’t like the way it’s making me feel!”
Kaz let out a low breath to steady the nerves that were coursing through him. The last time that he had been that nervous to play with someone had been after he had taken his classification test, the real one that determined what he was instead of the false one that he had handed in. He knew what he was doing, now that he had three permanent littles and had taken care of a handful of other ones. He had dealt with every temper tantrum, every anxiety attack, every sensory overload, that had been thrown at him. He knew what to do now and he wasn’t going to let his newfound fear of ruining people stop him from caring for Wylan.
He walked over to the wall and then braced himself as he carefully sat down. He removed his jacket and then laid it down on the ground in front of him. “I want you to lay your head down on this and then do exactly as I say, alright? I promise not to hurt you, I’m trying to help you.”
Wylan didn’t look like he believed him for a moment, staring directly at him with the kind of sharp blue that Kaz had seen the first day it stopped raining back in Lij. It meant that an even bigger storm was coming, one that had taken all of the water from the air around it. He knew that Wylan was right to do that, but he also hoped that they would be able to work through it.
Eventually, the other boy conceded and then lay down on the jacket. He was still fiddling with his clothing and shifting the way that his legs were laid out on the ground, but Kaz was used to littles who couldn’t sit still. If Jesper was still, then something was wrong and Nina usually got squirmy when she wasn’t sleeping while down in her headspace. Inej was the only one that could be fully at rest when she was a little, but that was partially because of how much she moved when she was big.
“Good boy,” Kaz praised. He brushed the tips of his gloved fingers through Wylan’s hair as a way to test the waters between the two of them. When Wylan let out a little whimper and flinched back, he immediately discarded that from the list of things that they could do. He wanted to make sure that Wylan was comfortable enough to regress and would associate his headspace with something that he liked, not the other way around.
“The first thing that I want you to do is close your eyes, then focus on that feeling that you told me about. Instead of fighting it as you’ve been doing for years and years, I want you to give into it. Focus on the exact way that it makes you feel, the goods things and the bad things that come with it. It’s okay it you feel the control slipping, because you don’t need it,” Kaz informed him as if he was telling another part of the plan to his Crows.
“What if something bad happens?” Wylan whimpered. He was fidgeting again, his fingers playing with the string that kept the neckline of his shirt open and kicking one of his feet against the ground. The anxiety in his body was almost palpable.
“I won’t let that happen,” Kaz replied immediately.
Wylan opened those vivid blue eyes as he turned his head to the side and looked at Kaz. The caregiver could tell in that moment alone that Wylan wholeheartedly believed that Kaz had the power to do that. Kaz knew that he didn’t, that there were a million things that might happen to them that would prevent him from protecting any of his littles. He knew that, but he was glad that the other boy had such faith in him. It meant that he was getting closer to actually giving into his headspace.
The redhead turned his face back towards the roof of the tomb and then let out a low breath. His shoulders sagged and his eyes slipped shut as he finally gave into the lack of power that Kaz had been asking for since the beginning of their session. All of the rigidity that he had been holding in his muscles melted away from him so that he was nothing more than a bag of gooey excitement.
He rolled over onto his tummy and buried his head into the jacket that Kaz had laid out for him, “I feel nice, I think.”
“You should feel nice, you’re down in your headspace,” Kaz replied. He wanted to reach out and card his fingers through Wylan’s hair, to push himself. He knew that he had worked very hard since he had decided to take Jesper on as his permanent charge, but something about the Ice Court and that prisoner truck had sent him back about four steps. It was almost a relief to know that Wylan didn’t want to be touched when he was down in his headspace either.
Wylan turned his head over, though his arms and legs were still tucked close to his body. “What do I do now?” he asked, words slurring together so that they were basically one incoherent sound.
“You can play with me in this room, you can nap, or you can go find the others and play with them,” Kaz offered.
The little shifted so that he was sitting back on his haunches with the jacket in his hands. His tricky, talented fingers were worrying over the more damaged bits of the fabric, picking at the fraying parts. “I think that I want to go play with Jesper and Nina, but not Kuwei.”
“You don’t have to play with anyone you don’t want to. Inej never does,” Kaz said. He figured that after being trapped in the tomb with them for several days, it wouldn’t exactly be a secret that every one of the Crows other than Matthias and Kaz himself was a little. It would likely make Wylan more comfortable to know that he wasn’t the only one as well. Kaz grasped his cane and used it to push himself into a standing position. He offered his gloved hand out to the little as he said, “Come on, let’s go play.”
Wylan glanced between his face and his hand for a long moment before he took the offered appendage and then pulled himself to his feet. They walked like that, hand in hand, back to the front of the crypt. Nina and Jesper had returned from their walk, so as soon as they saw Wylan they both dropped faster than Kaz had seen them ever do for each other. While the three of them played with their doll in the corner, Kaz sat with Inej leaning her head against his shoulder and napping peacefully.