Archive of Our Own

Three days.

Kaz had wanted their honeymoon to be three days.

And Nikolai had slowly, ever so slowly, chipped away at his resolve that way he’s so good at, to convince him otherwise.

Now it’s “as long as Kaz can handle being away from work, but at least one week (seven full days)”.

And Kaz? Can’t say he’s particularly annoyed about being worn down like that.

Where are they going for their honeymoon?

Well, Nikolai had suggested Paris as he’d gotten dressed again after a shower, right in front of Kaz, and Kaz had countered with London.

“Why London specifically?” Nikolai had wanted to know.

Kaz had frowned, looking down and not saying anything. That’ll teach him not to open his mouth about this shit —

“— Kaz,” Nikolai had interrupted his thoughts. “I’m just trying to understand the thought process behind it. I’m certain you’re not just saying it on a whim,” he adds as he buttons his shirt over his toned body. “England in general is a different answer than “London”, after all.”

Kaz had glared at him halfheartedly.

Nikolai had looked at him curiously still. He’d gotten rather good over the years at distinguishing between when Kaz was mad at him specifically, and when Kaz was just feeling put on the spot or uncomfortable with something Nikolai had said. So his expression says nothing about being the actual subject of Kaz’s ire. “Kaz. Why?”

Kaz had struggled to respond regardless. “...grew up there,” he’d finally managed gruffly.

Nikolai had nodded slowly. “Didn’t know that,” he’d said softly. “Let’s go to London, then.”

Kaz’s heart had begun to hammer like it needed to escape his rib cage entirely. “Yeah?” he’d asked as casually as he could.

“Yeah!” Nikolai had agreed cheerfully. “If that’s what you want.”

Kaz had stared at him for a long minute before mumbling to his new husband, “...we can...go. To Paris. Too.”

Nikolai had perked up. “Yeah?”

Kaz had nodded. “...what’s your reasoning, then?” he’d tried to swing the conversation back onto him instead.

Nikola had shrugged, his newly donned shirt rippling with the flex of muscles. “Haven’t been to France since I was, like, 12 — I remember really liking it.”

Kaz had been suddenly reminded of how rich Nikolai had grown up. He’d frowned minutely. “Do you speak French, then?” he’d challenged him.

Nikolai had made a so-so gesture. “I can participate in bland conversation, and I can ask for and understand directions.”

Kaz had nodded slowly to that, calculating if he’s going to need to pick up any himself for their planned time there.

“Do you speak French?” Nikolai had asked in a joking tone that had Kaz rolling his eyes.

“What the fuck do you think, genius?” he’d said as he’d thrown a pillow at Nikolai’s head that his husband had dodged easily.

“It’ll just be us, and the pilot, the end,” Nikolai says into his ear as they approach the door to the airport.

“Yeah?” Kaz asks, mouth feeling frozen. “What happened to everyone else?”

“Well, I dismissed the flight attendant for the private plane,” Nikolai says matter-of-factly. “So you don’t have to worry about being socially interacting with anyone, you don’t have to worry about being unnecessarily touched during the flight, and you don’t have to worry about anyone overhearing any conversation we happen to have on the way to England.”

Kaz stares up at Nikolai, unable to stop his expression from slipping into a grateful one he can see in a reflective surface over Nikolai’s shoulder.

“Is that good for you?” Nikolai asks carefully.

“Yes,” Kaz replies firmly. “Yes, it’s...good...for me.”

Nikolai beams at him. “Good. Now, it’s time to board, but I need to ask if it’s even going to be possible for you to be frisked —”

Kaz immediately shakes his head furiously. No, no, he can’t, he really truly cannot and will not allow anyone to frisk him —

“— what if I was the one who frisked you while some security guards watch and direct me? Would that be more possible?” Nikolai suggests.

Kaz thinks about it for a minute. Then he slowly, hesitantly nods. “If you keep the whole ordeal short,” he specifies.

Nikolai nods. “Done,” he agrees. “Let’s get this over with, yeah?”

Kaz nods and follows him further into the airport to a terminal that looks much less crowded. Just TSA agents there, it looks like.

Kaz falls back once he can clearly see the faces of the agents waiting for them. His lungs feel tight and his breathing is undeniably shallow. His hands are shaking around the handle of his cane now, too.

“Kaz,” Nikolai says softly, slowing down and stopping in the middle of the hallway next to him. “You’re okay. You just breathe for me, love, just breathe.”

Kaz sucks in a harsh breath to try to regulate his own nervous system prior to the upcoming shock to it.

“Good. Good, like that,” Nikolai praises him quietly. “You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay. It’ll just be me, right?”

“Right,” Kaz croaks, trying to stay a bit prepared at the very least.

“Right. Okay,” Nikolai says soothingly before he approaches the TSA agents. “Hey! Nikolai Lantsov, and my husband, Kaz Brekker —-”

They’d gotten married four days ago, so hearing Nikolai call Kaz his “husband” instead of “fiance” or “boyfriend” is a little bit of a weird feeling. Nikolai seems to not be having any trouble with switching over, so Kaz tries not to either.

Although, despite his brain’s trouble to remember that very important, big detail about their new relationship status, he must say, he finds great relief in Nikolai saying “husband” instead of “boyfriend” because it feels far more valid, more legitimate of a relationship to him to a degree. At least for other people to understand the depth of their relationship.

“Are you going to be able to do this, love?” Nikolai asks him softly.

Kaz nods slowly. He thinks he can handle the idea of someone — even his husband Nikolai — touching him all over.

“Good. They said it’s okay, if I do exactly as they say,” Nikolai tells him mildly, somehow having picked up that Kaz completely lost the end of Nikolai’s introduction of them to the TSA agents.

Kaz nods again, following him with a heavy limp over to the frisking station.

“Ready?” Nikolai whispers to him as he faces him.

“Mhm,” Kaz manages, carefully holding out one arm while the other holds his cane tightly. He hopes he doesn’t fall over or anything. That would be far more embarrassing than simply being unable to handle a stranger’s fingers anywhere near his body —

Nikolai crouches down in front of him as one of the TSA agents calls to him to, “Pat down his ankles, shoes, shins.”

Nikolai’s ever gentle hands are on him now, and Kaz has to grit his teeth to get through it.

Nikolai’s hands leave as the TSA instructs him to, “Pat down his knees, thighs, and waist. Carefully.”

“Can I?” Nikolai breathes to Kaz.

Kaz nods quickly.

Nikolai’s hands on his upper legs and waist make him swallow hard, but when Nikolai’s hands leave him again, he can still kind of breathe.

“Chest and both arms, let’s go,” the TSA agent sounds bored.

Kaz breathes carefully through Nikolai’s quick but thorough patdown.

“You’re doing so good, love, almost done,” Nikolai murmurs soothingly to him as he pats Kaz’s chest and arms down and across.

Kaz’s teeth are wearing down their own enamel quickly as he tries not to puke all over Nikolai’s blond hair.

Finally, Nikolai stops entirely when Kaz is just shy of slamming his cane handle into Nikolai’s skull for continuing it.

“Breathe again, love, you’re doing great,” Nikolai whispers to him as they grab their suitcases from where the TSA had been rifling through them while Nikolai frisked Kaz.

Kaz is getting lightheaded and slightly dizzy from all this shallow breathing he’s attempting. “Mhm,” he manages again.

They board the private plane mostly quietly, and sit down next to each other. Kaz takes an aisle seat so he doesn’t have to sit anywhere near the window.

Nikolai seems to realize that Kaz’s anxieties have not been completely quelled, because he’s telling him, “It’ll feel just fine after take-off. Take-off might be a little rough, but you’re going to be okay the whole time. Get buckled, love.”

The pilot speaks to them via the intercom, before the plane starts to roll forward to begin take-off.

Kaz’s breathing hitches just a little. He’s only a bit nervous, but he’s nervous enough that when Nikolai speaks to him next, he doesn’t fully register that he’s even being talked to right now.

“Kaz?”

“Hmm?” Kaz asks, staring hard at the door between them and the pilot.

“Where should we buy our new house? Ketterdam, obviously, but do you have a preferred part of town?” Nikolai asks him expectantly.

Kaz forces himself to think it through to give the best answer possible. “...the Gelding District,” he decides.

“Why there?” Nikolai asks softly.

“Because...because it’s not so far from The Crow Club that transmuting is going to be a nightmare, but it’s not so close that I could be easily doxxed,” Kaz comes up with.

Nikolai gives a light laugh. “Oh, right of course. Good, totally not paranoid reasoning there.”

Kaz shoots him a quick glare just as Nikolai offers him his hand to hold, probably to try to make up for the whole “calling him paranoid already” thing.

Kaz stares down at the offered, now also gloved hand. Nikolai sometimes wears leather gloves too — although his tend to be white, as another barrier for Kaz to be able to touch him fleetingly.

“You don’t have to, I know that frisking took a lot out of you,” Nikolai adds. “But...it’s here if you want it.”

Kaz studies him, then his hand for a long minute before slipping his careful fingers across Nikolai’s gloved palm to entwine them. He breathes steadily as he lays his head on the side of Nikolai’s shoulder where he’s wearing a thick leather jacket too, probably also for Kaz’s benefit.

Nikolai sits there, perfectly still and perfectly dry and perfectly alive for him to keep touching like this.

Kaz looks over Nikolai’s chest at the window where they are literally among the clouds now.

His breathing hitches without permission again. His body starts to shake.

“Kaz,” Nikolai says kindly, drawing his attention away from the open window until Nikolai reaches over with his free hand to close the blind entirely. “I thought we’d been gifted a very nice coffee machine.”

Kaz stares at him uncomprehendingly. “...what?”

Nikolai continues like nothing is out of the ordinary for him to be talking about this right now. “Which machine is now your machine, then?”

Kaz blinks at him. “It doesn’t fucking matter, Niko —” he begins, slightly exasperatedly.

“— no, Kaz, I’m so serious right now. Think about it,” Nikolai encourages him. “Which one’s mine and which one’s yours?”

Kaz sighs. “We will both use the old one until that one eventually breaks — and it will break down eventually — and then we won’t need to replace it. Since, you know, we’ll already own a replacement."

Nikolai laughs. “Good plan, I approve.”

Kaz rolls his eyes, but does feel less like freaking the fuck out about flying.

“Okay, so what about that house, in the Gelding District?” Nikolai reminds him. “Should we try for at least three bedrooms?”

Kaz blinks at him again. “...why the fuck would we need at least three bedrooms?”

“One bedroom for me on bad nights for touch, one bedroom for you on bad nights for touch, and one bedroom for good nights for touch,” Nikolai explains patiently.

Kaz stares at him, slightly shocked at the amount of careful thought just went into Nikolai saying such a thing, let alone planning such a thing.

Eventually, though, after it becomes abundantly clear that Nikolai is awaiting a clear answer, Kaz whispers, “Three bedrooms, definitely.”

Nikolai beams at him, then changes the subject again. “Did Jesper almost fuck up any wedding preparations for you too?”

Kaz scoffs a laugh. “What do you mean, “too”?”

Nikolai grins at him. “I might’ve had to minorly blackmail Jesper into not spilling the beans to you about my plan to propose in the first place,” he chuckles. “He caught me buying the ring at the jewelers’. He apparently frequents that particular establishment also.”

Kaz rolls his eyes. “I had to threaten him not to give you any hints about my vows. He might’ve offered to help me write them, and I might’ve accepted some help from him,” he grumbles.

Nikolai smirks. “Ah, I see. All roads lead to Jesper, then?”

Kaz rolls his eyes again. “Hardly,” he disagrees. “All roads lead to Vasily trying to insert himself into the whole affair for probably nefarious reasons.”

Nikolai’s eyes dull just a tad. “I told him no the second he asked to attend,” he reminds Kaz.

“I know you did,” Kaz says firmly. “But then he tried to badger me about it. So I told him fuck no. He didn’t seem to appreciate that either.”

Nikolai barks a startled laugh. “Oh, I bet he didn’t,” he says cheerfully.

Kaz leans harder against his husband’s arm. “Are you going to do anything in particular with that white abomination?"

Nikolai scoffs too now. ““White abomination”? You mean my suit?”

Kaz shrugs. “You can’t exactly wear it anywhere except your own wedding,” he points out.

Nikolai laughs in his ear. “Or if I want to cosplay an angel,” he says fondly.

Kaz suddenly remembers when they’d been buying the suits — Kaz’s all black one, Nikolai’s all white one, and his comment to his then-fiance about how Nikolai was the angel and Kaz was the demon.

Nikolai had simply kissed Kaz’s sideburns, whispering to him, “Maybe I want my husband-to-be as a demon more than I want him to try to be any brand of angel.”

Kaz had hummed softly the way he seems to do a lot when Nikolai kisses him in any way, and gone back to deciding on the style of collar he’d wanted.

Their wedding hadn’t been all that traditional, beyond Kaz wearing a black suit and the presence of an officiator. They hadn’t even spoken their vows that day. Kaz hadn’t wanted to. He’d asked Nikolai if they could just do them privately later.

And his ever gentle husband had told him, “Yes of course. If that’s what makes you more comfortable.”

So they’d read their vows to each other late that night before going to sleep in the same bed — albeit on opposite sides of the mattress without touching even once.

Jesper would’ve hated how Kaz’s vows had included a mention of Kaz being a demon. He’d tried to get Kaz to scrap it multiple times, even when Kaz had tried to explain that it was something of an inside joke Jesper was on the outside of.

But since the vows weren’t for Jesper in the first place, Kaz figures it’s a good thing they hadn’t even said them in front of him.

The next morning, when they’d woken up rather late, Kaz had implored Nikolai to stay next to him a little while longer.

“No, don’t. Stay,” he’d quietly rasped, almost humiliatingly.

“Of course,” Nikolai had agreed in an instant, not fully awake yet anyhow.

And how lucky Kaz is. How lucky Kaz can be to have such a selfless, good man as his husband now. How did this even happen to someone like Kaz? He doesn't know, but he’s not going to look a gift horse too closely in the mouth. He’s taking this nugget of good luck, and running off with it.

They’d laid together; not touching, just existing near each other, for a long time. So long that by the time Kaz decided that that was quite enough dilly-dallying and being unproductive, he’d almost fallen asleep again from the cozy way Nikolai had watched him.

That’s when Nikolai had gotten up to take a shower, only for Kaz to watch him leave the bed to go to the bathroom a little disappointedly.

Nikolai had caught whatever look Kaz had had on his face. “Come shower with me,” he’d offered.

“Can’t,” Kaz had declined as he’d stood and followed his husband into the bathroom anyway. He’d perched on the edge of the toilet lid while Nikolai had stripped inside the shower, tossing his warm, Nikolai-smelling clothes out past the curtain.

The curtain hadn’t been fully closed — just enough that egregious amounts of water wasn’t going to make it past the barrier. Kaz watched his husband shower through the gap between the wall and the edge of the shower curtain.

“How long were you thinking our honeymoon should be?”

Kaz had frowned to think it through. “Three days,” he’d offered.

“Three days?” Nikolai had stressed, staring at him through the gap, suds of soap still gathered in his now dark blond locks.

“Too many?” Kaz asked, confused.

“Too few, Kaz,” Nikolai had countered immediately. “Especially if we leave the country, which I’d like to do, personally.”

And then Kaz’s honeymoon timeline had been inflated to that “at least a week” number.

And he hadn’t been all that mad about it, either.

After they land in London, they grab their luggage and go immediately to a very nice, very expensive looking hotel in the city via a taxi Kaz lets Nikolai take care of entirely.

He does the same thing at the hotel itself, with the receptionist to check in. Nikolai can probably tell that Kaz is very much at the end of his very short rope for interacting with anyone, except possibly his husband.

“Come this way, love, our room’s on the ground floor,” Nikolai says softly to him as he guides him to the hallway, to the third door down, without ever touching him.

Kaz trudges after him, letting him open the door and flick the light on in front of him.

There’s two beds, he thinks idly as Nikolai sets his suitcase down next to a plush chair.

“Here, help me push them together,” Nikolai suggests, going around to the far end of the bed closest to the window.

Kaz helps him make their two provided beds into one large makeshift bed.

That takes more out of him than he’d ever like to admit, so when Nikolai nods with satisfaction about it, Kaz sits down on the end of the bed he’s closest to.

Nikolai comes around and sits on the end of the other bed, watching him silently.

Kaz is swept up in a wave of exhaustion suddenly. He falls back across the bed — his side of the combined bed, at least.

Nikolai follows suit quietly.

Kaz looks over at Nikolai, who is already doing the same to him. “...’m tired as fuck, Nikolai,” he slurs.

“I bet you’re super jet lagged,” Nikolai agrees kindly. “Do you want to sleep first before we do anything else?”

Kaz tries to consider this plan through sluggishly working brain cells. “...yes.”

“Okay,” Nikolai says readily. “Do you want your pajamas?”

Kaz brought one set of pajamas, but he doesn’t have the energy to do anything along the lines of digging them out of his suitcase and then changing into them. “...no.”

Nikolai nods. “Okay. Close your eyes, love. It’s okay.”

Kaz does close his eyes, staring into the dark dim he’s created behind his eyelids. He’s fucking exhausted, but he doesn’t know if he can sleep right now.

“How can I help you sleep?” Nikolai’s voice asks him to his right.

Kaz tries to think it through. “...tell me...tell me our itinerary. For London, I mean. Just...just tell it to me.”

Nikolai starts up with a, “Well, I’d wondered if you’d want to go to the British Museum to see everything they’ve stolen from other countries and refuse to give back, and then maybe we could...” in his soothing voice.

Kaz doesn’t register much past the whole “the British Museum is a fucking goddamn thief”, before he’s drifted completely off in a sleep he would’ve never been able to acheive in a plane.

Kaz wakes up not knowing where the fuck he is. He’s not at home, and he’s not at Nikolai’s. He might be in a hotel room, except it looks far too fancy to be that option. This must be a guest room in Nikolai’s other house, the one in Los Angeles —

Well, how did Kaz get to Los Angeles in the first place?

Kaz blinks awake more, letting his head tip to the side to try to get more context clues.

There lies Nikolai, sleeping soundly next to him in a different bed that’s been pushed up against Kaz’s in this room that he’s starting to vaguely recall might be a hotel room despite the obvious extravagance of it.

Kaz instantly feels more at ease.

He wants to be closer to Nikolai now, than he currently is. There’s a fair gap between them, but there’s also a fair gap between Nikolai’s chest that faces him and the edges of their combined beds.

Kaz props himself up on his side to get up just enough to climb over to Nikolai’s bed. He curls up next to him without physically touching his warm body even a little bit. But he’s gotten his wish to be closer.

It’s now that he abruptly remembers that they’re in London, on their honeymoon, and that the man he’s curled up next to is his new husband.

Nikolai’s eyes sleepily opened when he’d plopped down next to him. He’s trying to drag them further open and failing. “Where?” His voice is rough with sleep in a way that sends a delicious shiver down Kaz’s spine.

“London hotel room,” Kaz answers, watching his face carefully for a sign that he needs to explain more.

“...honeymoon?” Nikolai asks groggily, his eyelids drooping on him again.

“Mhm. Yep,” Kaz agrees.

“Why...you...so...close?” Nikolai mumbles.

“Because I wanted to be,” Kaz informs him succinctly.

Nikolai’s face splits into a sleepy grin as his eyes open more than they have been this entire conversation. “Oh good. ‘Cause I wanted you to be, too,” he says brightly, lifting his hand up to bring it close to Kaz’s face. “Can I touch your hair?”

Kaz nods.

Nikolai’s fingers lazily play with Kaz’s floppy bangs for a long while, until the rise of an unpleasant emotion tries to ruin this entire comfortable atmosphere they’ve cultivated.

“Can’t,” Kaz says when it gets too much.

Nikolai pulls his gentle hand away immediately as Kaz pulls his entire head back as well. “Hmm. Ready to do some traversing of London? Some frolicking, perhaps?”

Kaz barks a surprised laugh. “We’re not frolicking,” he protests as Nikolai moves his entire body slightly away from him.

“You might not be, but I most certainly will be,” Nikolai corrects him as he half sits up onto his elbows, his muscular biceps on full display as they prop his entire body weight up easily.

“You aren’t going to frolic either, dumbass, it’s a city. There’s nowhere to frolic anyway —” Kaz continues his — correct — line of reasoning.

“— people frolic in cities,” Nikolai insists as he slowly swings his legs over the other side of the bed, so Kaz can admire his toned back too. “And I’m going to frolic in this city.”

Kaz rolls his eyes, watching as Nikolai heads for the bathroom door. “Your attempts to frolic are going to be mid at best; there’s not any room to frolic in London of all places —”

Nikolai turns back to face him again, stepping leisurely backward now. “— I will find or make room,” he says firmly before suddenly inviting Kaz to, “Come shower with me.”

Kaz hesitates. “Can’t do water today,” he decides, getting up and following him into the bathroom anyway.

“Okay. Do you want me to keep the shower curtain as closed as possible so no water can get at you?” Nikolai offers as he strips his shirt off and tosses it onto the large counter.

Kaz watches Nikolai’s bare chest and arms distractedly as it moves all those well-trained muscles as his husband gets further undressed. “Hmm. No. Leave a little gap,” he directs him when his brain comes back online.

“You want to be able to see me...at the risk of getting water on you?” Nikolai smiles down at where Kaz sits on the top of the toilet seat.

Kaz shrugs. “Is that so crazy?” he tries not to grumble through it.

“No,” Nikolai bends over his head to plant a soft kiss into his messy hair. “It’s not even a little bit crazy.” He draws away from Kaz’s hair and steps into the shower. He strategically opens the shower curtain and adjusts the head of the sprayer up top so that Kaz can watch Nikolai in the shower without running too high of a risk of getting wet too.

Kaz watches Nikolai idly shower, watches his strong, but so gentle hands lather up the foamy soap across his beautiful body. The steady stream of hot water rinses all of the soap off almost as soon as it blooms into white sludge on Nikolai’s tanned skin.

Nikolai starts to hum a little, a tune Kaz doesn’t recognize. It’s a cozy tune, regardless.

He watches his husband shower, and wishes he could be in there with him. Wishes he could hold Nikolai’s toned chest and arms in his ungloved hands, just feel the strength buried in them. Wishes he could kiss his soft mouth while he’s in there, letting the hot water stream down his own pale back.

Nikolai turns the water off the second Kaz starts to wonder if perhaps the air is too wet in here for him now. “Okay over there?” Nikolai asks him in that warm, deep voice of his.

“Mhm,” Kaz agrees, standing and heading for the door again to escape the skin-crawling humidity.

Nikolai whips the curtain open and steps out, grabbing a fluffy towel from the rod to his left. He wraps it around his waist tightly, following Kaz out of the thickly warm bathroom.

Kaz gets to their suitcases, opening his to find as casual of an outfit as he thinks he has ever worn. It’s just a long sleeved t-shirt and slacks, but he brought a short sleeved button up to go over it.

Nikolai is getting dressed now across the room from him, into a short sleeved t-shirt and jeans. A choice that fits him so well, Kaz can’t even complain too hard about how there’s more of a risk of Kaz touching bare skin.

Then Nikolai slings a thin sweater over his shoulders, covering up all that risky skin on his arms. He looks up and over at where Kaz is swapping out his nicer white button up he’d travelled and then slept in out for his more casual outfit. His face breaks out in a teasing smile. “Wow, Kaz in a t-shirt? What is the world coming to?”

Kaz frowns, throwing the button up shirt on over it pointedly.

“Ope! There it is,” Nikolai laughs quietly as he pads over to Kaz, who is deciding that he’s going to leave the shirt buttoned for a bit. Just to see how he likes it.

“There what is?” Kaz properly grumbles as he pulls new white socks on.

Nikolai stands much closer to him now as he applies a smidge of cologne to his wrists and neck. “Your usual style,” he promptly provides. “You’ve never just worn a plain shirt by itself, Kaz. Even to sleep, that’s not how you dress.”

Kaz stares at him while he rests his foot on the plush chair so he can pull his shoes on without hurting his knee as much. “Maybe I just don’t want to, did you ever think of —?”

“— you don’t have to,” Nikolai interrupts his sarcasm. “I’m not saying you have to, love. I’m saying...I’m saying that it’s endearing how predictable you are.”

Kaz frowns deeper. “I’m not predictable,” he protests as he sets his foot down on the ground again after tying his shoelaces.

“You are,” Nikolai says simply. “And that’s okay. You like things to be the way they’re supposed to be in your head, and there is simply little reason for you to have to change anything. And you like it that way. And that’s okay. Ready?”

Kaz forces his frown away in favor of a more neutral one. “Yes,” he rasps, grabbing his cane from where it’s been resting against the chair.

“Cool,” Nikolai agrees, slipping his phone and wallet deep into his side pants pockets, snapping the pocket shut with a single metal button at the top.

Kaz puts his own phone with his ID and debit card hidden in the case into the interior pocket in his own pants. That feels slightly safer from pickpockets than Nikolai’s seemingly brazen method.

They get out of the hotel and begin their roaming around London.

“Where did you live here? When you were a kid, I mean,” Nikolai asks suddenly about half an hour into their walking.

Kaz slows down. “...the foster family?” he asks, slightly confused.

Nikolai looks suddenly slightly nervous. “Is that who you lived with in London?”

Kaz nods slowly. “They were...the last, and the best,” he says briskly, trying to get through the hastily bricked up emotions he hasn’t dealt with in over a decade.

“How were they the best?” Nikolai asks curiously as Kaz begins to lead his husband down winding streets into the suburbs.

Kaz shrugs. “They...they didn’t...they were nice,” he gets out. “They didn’t...make me touch people. Not anyone. I lived with them the longest. They didn’t force me to...they were the nicest,” he finishes abruptly.

Nikolai nods silently as Kaz starts to recognize the streets they’re walking down. “I’m glad. I’m glad you had them.”

Kaz glances at his husband. He’s not trying to joke with or tease him, as far as Kaz can tell. “...it was fine,” he says stiffly as they approach the house Kaz lived in from 12 to 17 years old. There’s a sudden ache in his chest he doesn’t know what to do with just from looking at that front door. They might still live there, if they still have that wreath on the door, he thinks idly.

“Was it fine? Or was it good?” Nikolai asks him softly.

Kaz struggles to answer. “It was...fine. They weren’t...the mother was okay,” he says stiltedly. “The father was...the father had his own problems. The kids were...decent. To me.”

“I’m glad they were at least decent,” Nikolai says genuinely. “When did you leave?”

“17,” Kaz forces out of his mouth.

“Did you just...age out?” Nikolai asks. “And they...didn’t want to keep you after that?”

Kaz tries not to bristle. “I didn’t want to stay after that,” he corrects him sharply.

“Okay. Why not?” Nikolai wants to know as a car passes them on the road in front of where they stand on the sidewalk across it from the house.

“Because...because the father didn’t like me. And...and he was at home more often than not, by then. And...the mother was sick. I don’t do sick people,” he snaps at Nikolai. It’s not his fault, not any of it. But Kaz snaps anyway.

Nikolai doesn’t seem to take any offense. “I know you don’t. It’s okay.”

Kaz’s tensing shoulders are starting to release just enough for them to begin to fall down again.

“Did you say goodbye? Or did you just...leave?” Nikolai asks gently.

Kaz swallows harshly. “Just...just left,” he manages.

“Okay. What if you said goodbye now? Goodbye to the family, goodbye to the house, goodbye to the childhood you could have had if...if things had turned out differently for you?” Nikolai proposes.

Kaz blinks at him. The twisting, writhing sensation in his gut is getting exponentially worse now; the inherent poison spikes absolutely shredding his stomach into ribbons. “...why?”

Nikolai shrugs. “You’re obviously still feeling a lot of emotions about the whole thing. I wonder if you’d like to try to let it go more.”

Kaz stares over at where his husband watches him guilelessly. “...okay,” he surprises himself. He turns back to look at the wreath on the door. It’s green and pink. The mother’s favorite colors, he suddenly recalls. What was her name? He doesn’t think he remembers that. The father’s name had been...Richard. Maybe. The kids’ names were...he doesn’t know. He just doesn’t know anymore.

Does that matter right now?

Perhaps not.

Kaz stares at the green and pink wreath, trying to say goodbye to it. Goodbye, green and pink wreath. Goodbye, white front door. Goodbye, rocking chair on the porch. Goodbye, anyone who still lives there. The oldest kids probably don’t. He doesn’t know about the baby. It might not have been long enough for her to grow up fully.

Then again, maybe it has been. Maybe it’s been long enough since he left that they all have their own lives they can lead, instead of falling in line with whatever Robert — that was the father’s name, not Richard — wanted from them.

He suddenly wants Jordie to have been able to lead his own life, the way these kids will have automatically been given the chance to do. How unfair all of it is. How unfair it is that Jordie didn’t get that for nearly long enough.

How unfair that Kaz has to work this hard to grieve something that happened over fifteen years ago. How unfair that it still affects him so badly.

How unfair.

Kaz doesn’t know if he wants to think about this any longer.

Goodbye, to all of it, then. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Kaz turns to look at where Nikolai has been standing next to him, silently waiting for him. His eyes sting for some reason.

Nikolai watches his face now, a little concerned looking.

“What?” Kaz asks tightly.

Nikolai’s finger comes up to Kaz’s eyelashes, barely brushing against them with his fingernail. Kaz holds stock still. When his finger pulls away from Kaz’s eye, there’s a drop of water on it.

Kaz frowns. Oh, he had not been crying about this, he thinks spitefully.

“Feel any better?” Nikolai asks carefully, dropping his hand out of the air.

Kaz pauses. That spiky hollowness that had been ruling his emotions that whole time is ebbing away. It’s not gone, and his throat hurts like something’s stuck in it. But it’s fading, ever so gradually. “...maybe,” he rasps through the block.

Nikolai nods. “Let’s go?” he offers, holding out his hand to Kaz.

Kaz hesitates for a long minute, before slipping his gloved hand across Nikolai’s bare palm for just long enough to get out of the neighborhood. Then he has to let go, the memory of Jordie’s final, devastating moments worming its way into his awareness far too quickly.

“There are some gardens that way, did you want to —?” Nikolai begins.

“— yes,” Kaz agrees. “Yes. Now.”

Nikolai smiles at him, guiding him to the gardens in question without touching him.

They are admitted into the garden, and Kaz sits on the first bench he can find, his knee starting to pang on him. Nikolai sits slouched next to him, his arm over the back of the bench behind Kaz’s shoulders.

Kaz lets himself fall back against the bench, lets the back of his head press his black hair from the top of his head against Nikolai’s bicep.

“What happened to your plan to frolic?” Kaz asks him, turning his head slightly so he can side-eye his husband.

Nikolai smiles hugely over at him. “Well, as you so kindly pointed out, frolicking in London is a bit of a pipe dream,” he confesses. “Maybe it’d be easier to frolic in Paris?”

Kaz’s face lets a small grin creep onto it. “You think Paris will have better chances of frolic capacity? Nikolai, I thought you said you’d been there before.”

“I have. How would you know if Paris has any frolicking capacity?” Nikolai challenges him.

“Because I’ve seen pictures of it,” Kaz tells him importantly. “And the pictures don’t exactly inspire much confidence about its ability to allow frolicking.”

Nikolai laughs. “I assure you, there will be space and opportunity to frolic in Paris.”

“See, I don’t believe you right now, because you said the same thing about London, and here frolic-less London is, proving you wrong,” Kaz grins.

The second Kaz registers that he’s grinning in public, though, he immediately tries to counteract the sudden overwhelming instinct that he looks like a fool right now, by forcing a scowl onto his lips instead.

Nikolai circles the air around his face with his pointer finger. “Okay, what the fuck just happened in your head?” he asks.

Kaz tries to shrug it off. “What are you even talking about —?”

Nikolai cuts into him. “— no, something just happened in your mind that made you drop your smile, and I wanted to know what it was so I can avoid invoking it next time.”

Kaz stares at him as he hesitates. “It’s — I probably...just looked like...a lovesick fool,” he mumbles, trying to get the words out at least, regardless of how audible they actually are.

“Kaz, smiling like that doesn’t make you a fool,” Nikolai tells him gently. “It makes you happy. And it’s okay to be happy, you know. It’s okay to be happy, and so obviously in love with your husband. That was very much the point of getting married in the first place, love. So you could feel happy and in love with me more often.”

Kaz still frowns, although it’s lessened from a scowl, at least. “I can be happy and in love with you without smiling like...that.”

Nikolai smiles almost sympathetically at him. “Well, for the record, I think you look rather dashing when you smile like that,” he says comfortably. “You’re already very handsome, and then you go and grin like that? God, Kaz, I love you when you smile.”

Kaz’s face flushes hard, but he allows it with a quiet mumble of, “Don’t gotta say that so loudly, though.”

Nikolai laughs again, and Kaz doesn’t know how he got so lucky to hear it twice in as many minutes.

When they leave the garden, Kaz is still trying to not feel so silly about smiling, at least around Nikolai.

“You don’t have to smile all the time, love,” Nikolai bends over to whisper into his ear as they make their way back to their hotel. “Just when you want to.”

Kaz nods slowly, trying to keep a deeper scowl at bay still.

“You can scowl right now, if you want to,” Nikolai offers to him as they go back to their room.

Kaz shoots him a look. “Who said I want to right now?”

Nikolai looks back at him incredulously. “Are you trying to say you’re not currently fighting a scowl?”

Kaz frowns and narrows his eyes anyway as Nikolai unlocks their door easily. “No, I just don’t necessarily want to be scowling right now,” he argues, following him in with a decently heavy limp and locking the door tightly behind them.

Nikolai flops down over his bed like he’s as exhausted as Kaz feels. He picks his head up to look down his entire body. “Can you lay down next to me again? Not touching,” he clarifies quickly and needlessly. “Just...laying here next to me.” He pats the side of his own bed that’s pushed up against Kaz’s.

Kaz barely considers it before telling his husband, “Yes,” and going around to his bed to crawl up and over to plop down next to Nikolai’s warm body.

Nikolai still lays on his back to talk to Kaz, but he ends up tipping his head to the right to look over at him. Kaz curls up a bit next to him, facing his strong jaw that could probably lift a car by itself, no jack needed.

Kaz wants to hold his hand. He wants to be able to hold his husband's hand right now. He reaches for it.

“You sure?” is all that Nikolai asks, but it’s all he needs to.

“Yes,” Kaz agrees, slipping his gloved hand across Nikolai’s bare one.

Kaz likes how his hand feels almost safe where it is, in Nikolai’s protection.

Nikolai is watching him intently.

“What?” Kaz asks him when he realizes that’s what he’s doing.

“I love you, Kaz,” Nikolai says with zero shame or anything resembling contriteness.

Kaz’s face heats up again, even faster than last time. “Why’re you saying that right now?”

“Because I just realized how much I love you, Kaz,” Nikolai smiles over at him.

Kaz turns his head back up to face the ceiling. “I should hope so — you married me, didn’t you?”

Nikolai laughs. “Yeah. And you married me, didn’t you?”

Kaz pauses. “...yes...”

“Yeah?” Nikolai makes sure.

“Objectively, yes, I married you as well,” Kaz says cagily.

“And subjectively, you married me, right?” Nikolai pushes.

“...yes,” Kaz says at length. He’s having a hard time even thinking about how much he loves his husband right now, holy fuck.

“Okay. Good. I love you,” Nikolai says again. “Forever and always.”

Kaz turns to watch Nikolai close his eyes contentedly. He waits for a long minute before whispering, “Forever and always,” in return.

Nikolai’s eyes open suddenly. He smirks at Kaz.

Kaz looks away from him instantly, annoyed that he got caught. He’d thought Nikolai had been falling asleep.

“How’s your knee?” Nikolai asks.

Kaz glances at him, slightly confused by the topic change. “It’s...fine...”

Nikolai is raising an eyebrow at him.

“...okay, maybe it hurts,” Kaz grumbles.

“From walking around?” Nikolai asks, maybe a little worriedly.

“I can handle a little walking around, Nikolai —” Kaz starts exasperatedly.

“— yeah, a little,” Nikolai stresses. “We just did, like, a couple of miles of walking. You didn’t say anything, so I didn’t...I should’ve asked, I’m sorry.”

Kaz shrugs. He hates being apologized to...by anyone, except possibly Nikolai sometimes. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll just rest it now, and it’ll be fine in a bit. It’s mostly just stiff.”

“Would you let me massage the stiffness out of it for you?” Nikolai asks.

Kaz tips his head back to look at his husband again. “Why would you do that?”

Nikolai shrugs. “I want to help you,” he says simply.

“...you can help me by finding my diclofenac cream,” Kaz proposes. He knows it’s in his suitcase, he knows he packed it. He just doesn’t know it’s exact location.

Nikolai sits up slowly, letting go of Kaz’s hand at that same measured speed, as if giving Kaz plenty of time to adjust to no longer holding his hand. He gets out of the bed, immediately starting to rummage through his own suitcase.

“Why’re you looking in yours?” Kaz grouses. “It’s not going to be —”

Nikolai pulls a tube of diclofenac cream out of his suitcase.

Kaz stares at it. “How’d it get in there?” he demands as he struggles to sit up against the pillows on the bed behind his head.

“I packed a backup,” Nikolai cheerfully explains. “Just in case you lost or ran out of your main one.”

Kaz stares at him now as Nikolai climbs back up onto the bed.

“Can I roll your pant leg up?” Nikolai asks cautiously.

Kaz hesitates, then nods slowly.

As always, Nikolai is exceptionally mindful about rolling Kaz’s pant leg up. But then, he tries to hand Kaz the tube of NSAID cream.

“Here, why don’t you do it?” Kaz offers him, handing him his own leather gloves as well.

Nikolai beams as he puts the gloves on carefully. His hands are a little too big for them to fit perfectly, but he manages not to rip them, so it’s fine. He squeezes out a dollop of the cream onto his leather clad palm.

“Give me a little more,” Kaz tells him.

Nikolai obliges.

“That’s enough,” Kaz determines after a short second.

Nikolai begins to thoroughly massage the diclofenac cream into Kaz’s knee and all around it; under the previously shattered kneecap above his shin, under his knee, on the side, on the top, everywhere.

Kaz doesn’t mean to, necessarily, but he does groan along. Nikolai is obviously not just massaging the cream in. He’s also massaging Kaz’s knee while he’s at it.

It’s a little painful — hence the groaning he can’t stop — but in a good way, Kaz thinks as he watches Nikolai’s prodding fingers intently as he tries to withstand the rising revulsion that tries to take over despite the barrier between their skins.

Nikolai spends a good half hour massaging the cream into his pale skin until the air smells like rubbing alcohol and medicine.

Kaz groans louder as Nikolai digs his thumbs into the sides of his knee a bit softer than he had been.

Nikolai glances up at him. “Problem, Kaz?”

Kaz forces his mouth to only say, “No problem. Keep...ah! Keep going — ah!” He accidentally cries out quietly as Nikolai’s thumbs hit his oddly mended bone at a more painful angle occasionally. He settles for just grunting under his breath instead as Nikolai tries to be softer on him now.

Kaz can feel that all of the creamy gel is now soaked into his skin, but Nikolai still massages his knee for him, successfully pushing the stiffness away. He closes his eyes and just feels for a long moment.

Kaz’s eyes open with a jolt. He fell asleep for what felt like just a moment, but then he looks around for Nikolai, only to find his husband sitting next to him reading now. He’s not wearing Kaz’s gloves any more; those are sitting between them on Kaz’s bed. They look totally cleaned off of diclofenac cream, too.

Nikolai glances over at him. “I didn’t touch you anymore after I realized you fell asleep, promise.”

Kaz nods. He trusts that Nikolai didn’t — he also appreciates that he didn’t, but he says neither of those thoughts out loud.

“I know you just woke up, but it’s 8 pm now, did you want to do something instead of sleep? Or would you like to sleep —?” Nikolai starts to ask him patiently.

“— with you,” Kaz gets out in a rush — before he can change his mind or feel too shameful about it. “I want to...touch. You. Just a little.”

Nikolai pauses.

Kaz is slammed in the face with acute embarrassment now. “Never mind, that’s stupid —” he mumbles.

“— no it’s not, Kaz,” Nikolai assures him. “I was just trying to figure out how to do that without triggering you too badly, love.”

“...oh,” Kaz says, his face heating up further instead of de-escalating at all.

Nikolai smiles at him. “Here, lay back down.”

Kaz obeys a bit stiffly.

“Get comfy, love,” Nikolai whispers.

Kaz struggles to get comfortable where he is. His knee doesn’t hurt as badly as it had been, but that doesn’t mean the pain is gone.

Suddenly, Nikolai is so close to Kaz that he can feel the heat of his husband’s warm body as their hands carefully entwine between their chests.

Kaz sighs contentedly against Nikolai’s throat where he can easily bury his face down near it — not against it, that would be entirely too much. But he’s tucked down in the space of Nikolai’s body, and that’s more than enough right now.

“Are you having a good honeymoon, love?” Nikolai whispers to him over his ducked down head.

“...maybe...” Kaz hedges.

“Oh, good,” Nikolai says in a relieved tone of voice. “I’d hoped so, because I’m having a good honeymoon too.”

Kaz only lets go of Nikolai’s hand when he’s certain he’s about to drop off entirely. He stays down near his husband’s deliciously warm body the whole time he’s asleep, though.

Kaz watches Nikolai stand shirtless on the balcony of their hotel room in Paris.

He’s beautiful, and Kaz loves him. Goddamnit.

Nikolai throws his shirt on now, buttoning it casually as he pads back into the room, leaving the balcony doors open to let the morning sunlight into the overly elegant room. “Would you like to eat out for lunch? Or order in?”

Kaz shrugs. “Whichever you want,” he passes the baton entirely to Nikolai.

“Well, I would like to go to a cafe for a croissant or two, but only if you —” Nikolai starts up confidently.

Kaz throws the blanket off his legs from where they’d been laying there the entirety of their lazy morning that Kaz had had to force himself to enjoy properly. “— let’s go, then,” he orders him, shoving his socked feet into his shoes as he grabs his cane from the chair it has laid over the arms of all night.

Nikolai leisurely puts his own shoes on before following Kaz out of the room. “Let me lock it, hang on,” he stops Kaz from marching completely out to the lobby without him.

Kaz stalls for him slightly impatiently, suddenly acutely aware of how hungry he is.

“I know, love, gimme two...seconds...” Nikolai murmurs to him as he finishes locking the hotel room door. “Got it. Okay, let’s —”

Kaz slips his gloved hand into Nikolai’s bare one, enduring the shock of revulsion that accompanies it.

Nikolai looks down at him, visibly surprised. “...good day today?” he asks curiously.

Kaz shrugs. “Somehing like that,” he half-agrees.

He holds Nikolai’s hand the entire stroll to the first cafe they come across down the street. He has to let go when Nikolai holds the door open for him, and then he doesn’t pick it back up as they find a small table and sit down at it.

An employee comes over to them and says something to Kaz in French.

Kaz stares at her.

Nikolai starts talking to her slowly, like he’s thinking through every word very carefully before he says it.

“Would you rather use English?” she asks in a heavily accented voice.

“Which would you rather use?” Nikolai asks her, also in English.

“The language where you make the most amount of sense,” the employee says briskly.

Nikolai laughs. “English, then, please.”

She nods. “And what can be gotten for you today?”

Nikolai orders quickly for them both in English. He asks for a cappuccino for Kaz without checking with Kaz first, but that’s fine with him right now. That’s what he wanted anyway, and he has no desire to interact with anyone right this second in order to convey that information.

Nikolai does ask for that croissant or two at the end, and the waitress hops away with a brief nod.

The millisecond she’s out of earshot, though, Kaz has something to say about it all.

“So? You’re not as bilingual as you thought you were, huh?” he teases flatly, folding his gloved hands over the handle of his cane at his side.

Nikolai sniffs indignantly. “I am bilingual; I’m just not as trilingual as I’d thought I was.”

Kaz rolls his eyes, but allows it.

Paris interests Nikolai far more than it interests Kaz, but he does his best to pretend otherwise when necessary.

Nikolai can see right through him, though. Every time.

“Happy we’ll be back in the States soon?” Nikolai asks him as they board the private plane to leave France.

“...no more than you, probably,” Kaz tries.

Nikolai laughs at that one. “Oh, I’m certain that’s not true. But it’s okay. L.A is waiting for us, if you would,” he gestures grandly at the plane.

Kaz walks past him to board first, letting Nikolai follow along closely behind him.

They’re going to California to see some of Nikolai’s friends he hasn’t seen in a while — Genya and David, although Nikolai is hopeful Zoya Nazyalensky will be available for a few minutes when they get there.

Kaz doesn’t know any of them all that well, so he’s having a hard time being any level of excited about going at all.

But Nikolai is obviously thrilled to have this opportunity, and who the fuck is Kaz to deny him this simple delight?

“Man, I haven’t seen David face to face in ages,” he says as they leave the airport in Los Angeles to grab an Uber to David and Genya’s house.

“What’ll you talk about? When you do?” Kaz asks, trying to prompt his husband into giving him more details about what to expect.

Nikolai shrugs. “Don’t know,” he unfortunately says. “Maybe we can talk about inventions together, though.”

Kaz nods along and lets Nikolai talk to and pay the driver to get them to the large, elegant house on the outskirts of the main city.

Nikolai and Kaz get out of the Uber almost simultaneously, each with a hand holding a suitcase, and Nikolai’s got Kaz’s carry on over his shoulder next to his own bag.

Nikolai breathes in deeply, like there’s something about the smoggy air that’s to be desired in any way. He looks down at Kaz with a light smile. “It’s just...nostalgic, a little. I guess.”

“Okay —” Kaz begins slightly disbelievingly as they step up the porch to get to the front door.

Nikolai knocks on it with the ornate knocker.

They only have to wait a good minute before a redheaded woman with a large, poorly healed facial scar opens the door and sees Nikolai.

“Nikolai’s here!” she called back inside, opening the door more for them to step in.

Nikolai grins at her, stepping in to give her a big hug, letting go of his suitcase to do it. “Genya, darling, you look positively glowing. New skincare routine?”

Genya laughs. “Being pregnant will do that kind of thing to you,” she says cheerfully.

Nikolai’s mouth drops open a little. “No! Really?” he gushes as Kaz closes the door quietly behind them.

“Really,” a dark haired man comes into the entryway. “Nikolai. Good to see you again.”

Nikolai smiles somehow wider. “David. Good to see you again as well. You’ve met my lovely husband Kaz, yeah?”

Kaz watches as David’s quick eyes latch onto his face in an instant.

“Yes,” David says simply. “Husband, huh?” He’s talking to Nikolai again.

Nikolai laughs a little in response. “What can I say? Neither of us wanted to waste the available tax benefits for married couples.”

David scoffs a laugh.

Kaz says nothing.

David hands Nikolai two boxes and whispers something to him as Nikolai opens his carry on to shove the boxes into it. Kaz assumes them to be some kind of invention, with the bright way Nikolai looks from handling them.

Then Genya tells Nikolai, “Come sit down, both of you. Zoya’s on her way.”

Nikolai brightens further at the mention of his other friend, following Genya and David into a spacious living room. He leaves his suitcase — and the carry on bags — in the entryway, so Kaz hesitantly does the same with his. He limps after Nikolai and the other married couple to a set of matching couches that face each other.

Nikolai flops down on one of the couches. Kaz slowly follows him down. Nikolai holds out his hand silently to Kaz.

Kaz doesn’t take it. He can’t, not right now. He’s busy being tense again about not knowing what to expect.

Nikolai talks to David and Genya about something for a good five minutes before someone knocks on the front door, and then loudly lets themselves in.

Nikolai pauses his conversation with David to look over at where Zoya Nazyalensky is coming into the room briskly. “Zoya, it’s wonderful to see you looking so happy.”

Kaz studies Zoya’s face. She’s not smiling, but she’s also not frowning and her shoulders aren’t tense the way Kaz’s are, so maybe Nikolai is simply referring to that aspect.

Zoya nods. “It’s wonderful to see you looking so happy. Kaz, right?” she holds out a hand to him.

Kaz tries not to recoil at the invitation to touch her.

Nikolai waves her off. “He doesn’t shake hands. It’s not a you thing,” he explains it away breezily.

Zoya just nods and sits down on a separate chair near the two couches. “I’m sorry I missed your wedding,” she says flatly. “I had other previously arranged obligations I couldn’t figure out how to skirt.”

Nikolai shrugs carelessly. “It’s all right. I know you still care.”

Zoya seems to relax even more.

Kaz’s husband; always so good at knowing the right thing to say to everyone in any situation.

“How’s your honeymoon been?” Genya asks.

Nikolai smiles at him. “It’s been perfect. I think we can both agree that we’re getting what we both want out of it. Right, Kaz?” he glances at him, like he’s just making sure he’s not actively lying to Genya right now.

Kaz tries not to frown. “Right,” he says shortly. He doesn’t like all these eyes on him.

Genya’s brow furrows slightly.

David looks completely impassive still.

Zoya raises an eyebrow but says nothing about it.

Nikolai doesn’t seem to outwardly react to it beyond mouthing, “Talk later? Or now?” to Kaz.

Kaz mouths back to him. “Later.”

Nikolai nods and steers the conversation back to that invention he’d been discussing with David before Zoya showed up.

Kaz sits there slightly awkwardly the entire time, even when the others try to include him in the conversations. He doesn’t want to participate, so he’s just not going to. After a while, though, all of them stop trying to include him, and he pretends he prefers it when they ignore him like this.

Finally, Nikolai says, “We should probably get out of your hair now. It was so good to see all of you.” He stands, letting Kaz quickly follow him up.

Genya and David slowly stand as well.

Zoya stays seated. “It was good to talk to you, Nikolai. FaceTime me every once in a while, will you?”

Nikolai nods. “Absolutely,” he promises, reaching out his hand for Kaz’s again.

Kaz still doesn’t accept it. He just turns on his heel and goes back to find his suitcase. He thinks he’s going to order an Uber for them while he’s at it.

He’s just opened the app to order a car when Nikolai comes up behind him to murmur into his ear.

“Let me do that for you, love,” he whispers, kissing Kaz’s sideburns.

Kaz veers slightly away from him and the skin of his lips.

Nikolai pulls away immediately. “Sorry,” he offers instantaneously. “Should’ve asked first.”

Kaz tries to shrug. “Just...wasn’t expecting it. Fully.”

Nikolai nods along. “Still. Should’ve asked first.” He picks up his suitcase handle and the two carry on bags while Genya comes over to let them leave out her front door.

Kaz lets Nikolai quickly order an Uber much faster than Kaz would’ve taken, and then they go out to the curb to wait.

“What was that all about, love?” Nikolai asks gently.

Kaz pretends he has no idea what he’s talking about. “I don’t know that I know what you mean,” he says a bit stiffly.

Nikolai humors him anyway. “Being so quiet and then kind of short with them. Is there a reason you were so uncomfortable?"

Kaz can hear the implications loud and clear of how Nikolai had apparently dearly wanted Kaz to actually participate in some capacity. He frowns. “I just...I just want to...to be with you right now. No one else,” he gets out just as the Uber pulls up to the curb they stand on with their luggage.

Nikolai lets the Uber driver pop the trunk before loading all four pieces of luggage into it. “Okay. Come be with me, then,” he says warmly, ushering Kaz into the backseat of the Uber.

They sit in the back of the car mostly silently the entire way to whatever hotel Nikolai had prepared for them while they were boarding the plane from France, until they didn’t have reception any longer.

But at one point, halfway there, Nikolai holds out his hand to Kaz a third time.

And this time, Kaz slowly takes it.

Nikolai lightly squeezes his gloved hand before relaxing his hand under Kaz’s.

Kaz breathes through the limp body feeling present in his own hand.

When they get to the hotel, Nikolai tips the drivers and carries all of the luggage except for Kaz’s suitcase, which Kaz insists on dragging along behind them himself.

They get into the room quickly enough that Kaz doesn’t have to spend much excess time standing on his stiff-from-flying leg before he’s got the option of a bed or a plush couch with a wide table in front of it.

“Perfect,” Nikolai says about the table, it seems like. He puts his carry-on bag on the table, but sets his suitcase and Kaz’s carry-on onto the floor at the ends of the beds.

“Why is it perfect?” Kaz asks, putting his own suitcase with Nikolai’s.

“Just, it’s perfect that we have a raised surface to do this jigsaw puzzle on,” Nikolai says matter-of-factly as he digs through his carry-on on the table for...one of the two boxes.

“Puzzle?” Kaz asks, coming over to the couch to sit behind the table while Nikolai opens the box to dump out a pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces. It’s probably at least 500 pieces, Kaz thinks.

“Yeah!” Nikolai says as he sits down next to Kaz on the sofa. “David made us a puzzle of our engagement photo we sent out.”

Kaz’s face gets hot at the idea of anyone — let alone David Kostyk — do anything with that photo. He knows he looks sappy as fuck in that picture. He’s holding Nikolai’s equally gloved hand in his, and looking up at him adoringly in a way that makes him feel slightly embarrassed that he got caught looking at anyone like that, even his then soon-to-be husband.

“Okay, let’s find the corner pieces, then,” Nikolai suggests.

Kaz forces a nod and starts to help him separate the edge pieces from the pile as well.

He’s found the middle piece with half of his own stupidly loving face on it when he speaks up about it, interrupting the cozy atmosphere they’re creating in this room. “It does feel fairly egotistical to be doing a jigsaw puzzle of myself, you know,” he informs Nikolai flatly as he pieces his own head together.

“And of your very handsome husband, right?” Nikolai ribs him.

“I suppose,” Kaz grumbles as he fits his jigsaw puzzle counterpart’s shoulders together.

It’s not that late when Kaz starts getting drowsy.

He sits back a bit to watch Nikolai continue the nearly completed jigsaw puzzle up against the arm of the couch. He curls up a little onto the cushion, drawing his legs up and laying his right one behind where Nikolai sits literally on the edge of his seat.

He doesn’t mean to slip into sleep like that, but he knows he did it anyway, because suddenly he’s blinking awake again.

He glances over at where he can feel Nikolai’s presence near him still.

The jigsaw puzzle is done, it looks like, because Nikolai has obviously just glued the back of the finished puzzle together with Mod Podge and is now putting it in a magically appeared wooden frame.

“Where the fuck did you get that frame?” Kaz asks groggily.

Nikolai laughs. “David made it for this puzzle specifically.”

Kaz grunts as he stretches a little. He’s rather stiff from sleeping in that strange position for who knows how long. “You know we can’t take that on a plane, right?” he asks pointedly.

“I do know that. Good thing we’re not taking a plane back to New York, then, huh?” Nikolai says flippantly as he puts the folded backing of the frame behind the glued together puzzle and admires the finished piece.

Kaz eyes him. “What does that mean?”

“It means, how do you feel about a road trip?” Nikolai asks him, looking over at him expectantly.

Kaz pauses. That means their honeymoon time will take much longer than it otherwise would, if they were flying the rest of the way home. And...

...he wants that. He wants to spend more time being cozy with his husband.

“Okay,” he agrees.

“Yeah?” Nikolai makes sure.

“Yeah,” Kaz repeats.

“Good. The second you’re done traveling by car, we will book a flight for the rest of the way home, but unless and until that happens, you’re stuck in a car with me,” Nikolai jokes.

As if there is anywhere else Kaz would rather be right now.

They buy a brand new car at a dealership they Uber-ed to, and, after filling up with gasoline, get going on the highway.

Nikolai is driving, but when Nikolai gets tired 12 hours later, he pulls over to find a hotel on his phone.

“I can drive —” Kaz protests.

“— nah, I’m not risking the chance that your leg will hurt you more than usual,” Nikolai denies him gently. “Besides, are you saying you don’t want to spend the night in bed with me?”

Kaz grumbles to himself some more as Nikolai puts on the GPS to get to one. “...didn’t say that.”

Nikolai flashes him a winning smile as he turns left.

They spend the late night in a hotel in Colorado.

Kaz manages to sleep close to Nikolai the whole time. They were given one large bed instead of two smaller ones, but that’s okay, Kaz thinks as they lay down together. It’s a decent day for touch tolerance, at the very least. So the idea of passing out tucked down so close to Nikolai’s body isn’t a purely terrifying one this time.

When they wake up, it’s a slow, lazy morning again where Nikolai plays with Kaz’s hair for minutes on end and Kaz works to blink further awake.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Kaz announces, getting up as he says it.

“Need company?” Nikolai asks him guilelessly.

“In the shower?” Kaz asks slightly incredulously.

“I could be outside the shower, if you’d prefer. Or in it with you. Either is fine,” Nikolai shrugs as he sits up against his pillow.

Kaz pauses to consider. “Outside the shower is fine,” he decides, grabbing his last remaining clean clothes from his suitcase.

“Beautiful,” Nikolai yawns as he gets out of bed too, to follow Kaz into the bathroom.

Kaz undresses in front of Nikolai, who sits on the sink counter away from him, slightly kicking his feet against the cabinets under him. He takes his gloves off too, setting his discarded pile of clothes on the toilet seat lid.

Nikolai says nothing about any of it or him, which puts Kaz at minor ease. There’s nothing noteworthy about Kaz’s bare, scarred body; nothing worth mentioning right now as an issue.

He’s never been naked in front of Nikolai before — although the reverse situation has been true numerous times — but it’s a comfortable experience despite being the first of its kind. He’s able to undress in front of his husband without getting overly shameful about it.

But then, he feels the need to step behind the shower curtain the second that stops being quite as true.

Still, he thinks as he washes his body quickly under scalding hot water, that was a feat he could be somewhat proud of himself about. After all, baring that much bare skin to any other human hasn’t been something he’s been able to do since — well, since ever, really.

Nikolai pipes up at the end of Kaz’s short shower, when he’s turning the water off again. “Do you want to get back on the road after we’re both ready for the day?”

Kaz makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Yes,” he agrees, reaching out to grab a towel from the rack next to the shower. He wraps it around his waist, tucking the end into itself, before stepping out onto the bathmat.

Nikolai’s eyes latch onto him and his body again. “I see the water was perfectly hot for you,” he remarks.

Kaz looks down at his own chest, only to see how red his skin is. He rolls his eyes instead of feeling ashamed or anything akin to that nasty emotion. “It was,” he agrees flatly. “Are you going to take a shower too?”

Nikolai hops off the edge of the counter and starts to take his shirt off. Shameless about nudity, this man is, Kaz thinks to himself as he watches his husband strip his clothes off as well. “Yeah, if you didn’t take all the hot water,” he teases.

“As if, that was barely 6 minutes,” Kaz argues. He pulls his last clean shirt on over his damp hair as Nikolai gets out of his pants and boxers quickly.

They’re just swapping which one of them is naked now, which makes Kaz roll his eyes at his husband again. Nikolai doesn’t catch that expression this time, though. He just steps into the shower and turns the hot water back on.

Kaz finishes getting all of his clothes on, including his gloves, before gathering up Nikolai’s discarded warm clothes to take them into the room again. “Do you want me to bring you some clothes?” he calls to him over the loud shower.

“Sure, if you want to,” Nikolai calls back.

Kaz goes back into the room with Nikolai’s old clothes to find some clean ones for him instead.

They’re back on the road again within an hour, Nikolai still insisting on driving them through the middle of the United States.

They stop two more times in their quest to get back to New York, but the summary of both visits is the same: Kaz feels safe wherever he is, as long as Nikolai is there too; Nikolai is soft with him to the point of tooth-rotting sappiness; their honeymoon is elongated once again.

They get back to New York in the middle of the day, Nikolai having driven through the night to get this last stretch of road through Pennsylvania and half of New York state done with.

When they get back to Ketterdam, Kaz lets Nikolai take him to a house he’s never seen before. It’s fairly big, but plain, and Kaz wonders if perhaps Nikolai got lost somehow.

But then Nikolai gets out and starts to take their suitcases and carry-ons out of the car.

“What the fuck is this?” Kaz gets out too, to trail after him as Nikolai starts to wheel both suitcases along to the front door where there’s a ramp on the other side of the steps up to it.

Nikolai shrugs. “Our new house. The one with three bedrooms, remember?"

Kaz is suddenly obliterated by the realization that...he’s married to Nikolai now. And they’re going to be living together in their own house from here on out.

And he might love it; fuck.

They’ve been living mostly together already, but Kaz still pays for his own apartment for bad touch nights and any time he needs alone time in any capacity.

He’s just kind of staring at Nikolai right now, he knows.

Nikolai, who watches him carefully. “Is...that okay? With you?”

Kaz offers him a steady nod.

Nikolai smiles. “Good.” He leads Kaz inside.

It’s cozy feeling already. Kaz wonders how much of that warmth is attributed to the current decor, and how much of it is simply because Nikolai is there with him too.

Kaz flops down on a couch that sits in the living room. He sighs contentedly again.

He opens his eyes to see Nikolai smiling down at him. “Does this house have an office?” he asks. One of the more important — as of yet unanswered – questions.

“Yes, of course it does,” Nikolai agrees. “Let’s get you some files to work on, okay?”

Kaz narrows his eyes at that tone, but allows Nikolai to drive him to his apartment he’s going to need to cut the lease off of to get some files to work on.

Then he lets Nikolai drive him back to their new house that’s not too far out of the way. It’s actually only a little bit of a drive from where he knows The Crow Club to be, he thinks distractedly as Nikolai helps him get the files into the house and into the spacious office inside it.

Kaz and Nikolai set everything up so Kaz can get to work immediately. Enough dilly-dallying, he thinks seriously as he sits down at the gorgeous dark wood desk and nicely cushioned, height adjustable office chair.

Kaz can feel tension arriving again in his shoulders a little the second he opens his laptop he also brought, and starts to do some minor calculations to dip his toes back into the water here.

Nikolai leans on the doorframe of the office watching him.

“Come in here,” Kaz tells him gruffly.

Nikolai pushes up off the doorframe, sitting on a chair next to Kaz’s office chair behind the desk. He’s just to Kaz’s left now, close enough that Kaz could lean over and touch him if he wanted to.

And boy, does he want to right now.

Kaz leans over, kissing the top of his husband’s head softly.

Then he gets to his real work, catching up on all the work that got put on hold while he was on his honeymoon.

“I love you, Kaz,” Nikolai murmurs next to him.

“Don’t try to trick me into saying it too, however indirectly,” Kaz murmurs back to him.

Nikolai laughs his sunshine of a laugh.

Kaz allows himself a lovesick fool’s smile to himself as he basks in the rays of light Nikolai exudes simply by existing near him, and by loving Kaz with his entire, steadily beating heart.