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rarecrows-week · 3 years ago

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If You Want a Partner, Take My Hand

Kaz Brekker is a man. He’s gone to great lengths to ensure that the body he hides under his clothes gives no-one cause to question that, and if that precludes every kind of close affection, so be it. But then, he discovers that Jesper’s just like him…

8.1k | Kaz/Jesper | t4t | sexually explicit | for the @rarecrows-week prompt Feel

Kaz envies Jesper. He envied Jesper the moment they met, both of them boys still. That envy was not the reason why he hired two sailors to beat the shit out of Jesper for his gambling debts so Kaz could offer him the safety of gang membership instead. Kaz would have still done the same if Jesper wasn’t so secure in his masculinity, if he didn’t wear whatever he liked even when he got mocked for it, if he didn’t let his collar gape open and welcome pursuit by men and women alike. Kaz never allows his private, shameful envy to affect any of his relationships, especially now that he basically runs the Dregs… but when he sees the ease with which Jesper acts, lives, exists as a man, he can’t help but yearn.

Jesper Fahey is the kind of man that Kaz never had a chance to become—even beyond the difficulty with touch—by a mere accident of biology.

He can stray from expectation as much as he wants: no one will deny him manhood.

Because he was born with a dick.

He had the good fortune to be born with the body Kaz wants, the body Kaz needs, to ensure that he, too, is respected without question as the man he knows himself to be. The man he is, just as much as Jesper. Instead, Kaz is forced to hide. Despite his authority, he must obfuscate his shape with shirts cut just the right side of baggy, must forestall challenge with violence that brooks no argument or question. His voice is the way it is, rough but not deep, and whoever mocks it dies. He has no beard, but as far as anyone else is concerned, that is his preference. It’s unfair—but then so is Ketterdam and the world and life itself—it’s unjust and annoying, the effort Kaz must devote in order to live life as himself, and yet Jesper…

Well, Jesper’s nothing but smoke-screens.

Kaz only figures out through pure accident that they’re not so different after all. He destroyed his straight razor while foiling a murder attempt on himself in his office the day before, and he doesn’t shave his face, of course—he’s bitter about that, but it’s just another unfairness piled atop the others—but he shaves the sides of his head regularly because it makes his face look more angular and his shoulders wider. Besides, it’s a good haircut, and Kaz doesn’t really understand why Jesper stopped wearing it fifteen months ago. It looked better on him than it does on Kaz. Jesper changes his hair too often. Granted, that fact makes it much less obvious that Kaz is copying him.

Kaz’s razor is broken now, though, and his hair’s getting too long.

That’s why he climbs down to knock on Jesper’s too tiny crooked door on the first floor of the Slat. The room’s just as small as the door and the walls just as askew, but it’s a single room—it doesn’t fit much more than a bed and Jesper’s pile of clothes—and somehow, Jesper’s enamoured with it. He’s never accepted a trade, even when he’s too broke for food.

He's going to accept a trade for his razor, though, because Kaz isn’t going to give him a choice.

In fact, why ask when he can just confiscate his right hand man’s razor? He doesn’t order Jesper around nearly enough these days. The man’s already developed delusions of friendship. Kaz can give Jesper a few coins to buy himself a new one, which he’ll like better anyway, the horrid magpie, and it’ll allow Kaz to go back to his own room and shave his head just as he planned, without wasting the late afternoon inside a store. Besides, even the ten minutes he’s lived without owning a razor now have felt unsafe, slightly suspicious. Perhaps it is just a superstition: the regularly used razor, like a token of manhood that can’t, on its own, keep the accident of his body a secret, but also can’t hurt. To not own a razor as a ‘clean-shaven’ twenty-two-year-old man…

It would arouse suspicion.

To the alert mind, it could immediately hint at Kaz Brekker’s unwanted body parts.

And Jesper doesn’t have a fucking razor.

Jesper Fahey, with his sharp jaw so smooth every morning that Kaz has imagined running a finger over it to check whether it’s as soft and warm as it looks—though only on mornings on which he’s even more sleep deprived than usual and hasn’t yet drunk his first litre of coffee. It’s been happening more often recently, and Kaz hasn’t yet figured out whether he’s developed an infection or whether the envy for Jesper’s body has spilled over into an entirely different and even more inconvenient emotion. After all, Kaz can’t ever allow anyone to touch him, especially not his naked body, so any infatuation with Jesper…

But Jesper doesn’t own a razor, apparently.

Jesper’s face is smooth.

It’s always smooth.

It’s a mistake that would have woken Kaz’s suspicion even if he hadn’t knocked on Jesper’s door expressly to borrow a razor to prevent questions about his own body. In fractions of a second, he considers Jesper’s voice, his neck, the fact he’s never seen Jesper naked or even shirtless in summer, and he knows.

“You don’t grow a beard.”

“It’s my mother’s side, very hairless, we’re all—fuck. Fuck. You’ve figured it… can we do this in my room?” Jesper asks. Pleads. His eyes are wide. His fingers are picking manically at his sleek green trousers, letting the fabric flick back against his skin, thwick thwick thwick, in the rhythm of the worst sappiest song currently popular in Ketterdam’s cheapest bars. He looks cornered, like a young horse, but he’s not lashing out. Kaz just found another of Jesper’s secrets, and if someone confronted him like this—well, he wouldn’t bother fidgeting and pleading.

Kaz closes and locks Jesper’s door behind them. If he’s wrong and Jesper will try murder to keep his secrets—well, it would be a shame, but Jesper’s unarmed and Kaz never is. Besides. Kaz isn’t wrong. He knows Jesper far too well. Jesper can’t lie to him. If Kaz is right, there wasn’t even a lie.

“I’m not…” Jesper grimaces. “I’m not exactly as manly as I’d have you believe.” Since he’s wearing a dress shirt striped in white, purple and yellow, unbuttoned halfway down his chest and a hundred kruge worth of rings and piercings—which, since Jesper’s too broke not to sell any expensive jewellery he steals, means thirty-one pieces of metal total—well, he’s not projecting the most traditional kind of masculinity, but that’s not the point, is it? Unless…

“You’re a man, though,” Kaz says.

“I—yes, but I’m—”

“You see yourself as a man. Jesper’s your name. The one you use. The one you want.”

“You—fuck, you’re making me say it, of course you are.” Jesper massages his eyes, hiding his face—but not the way his fingers tremble. “It’s not a joke, I swear, or a—or some plot against you, I wouldn’t even… I’m not doing this for fun. Or profit. There’s no reason, I just want—I know you wouldn’t kick me out, yeah, there’s Inej and Anika and Nina and I—I know I could just be a girl. That’s not what this is about—”

“I know, Jesper.”

“And it would just be confusing, right, if I change my name now, so just let me—let—I didn’t plan on lying to you, Kaz, I swear—”

“Do you remember when you told me you’d won two million kruge and were retiring to the seaside to build wearable kraken suits?”

“I told you it was a joke right away, it was barely a—”

“Exactly.” Kaz smirks. He can smell sweet victory already. “I played along with your lie for twenty minutes and you got so bored you confessed.”

Jesper’s confused and fidgeting with his horrendous orange polka dot silk cravat, but no longer hiding. No longer afraid. And he—“So because I’m still not bored of playing a man, you believe me?”

“You’re not playing a man.”

“Thank you, Kaz, I’m… You actually believe me ?”

“You are who you say you are.”

That—far more than the terror of his secret discovered—seems too much for Jesper. He collapses onto his bed, breathing hard; he glances up at Kaz and away again and back, as if he can’t believe the words he heard. Can’t believe his luck, Jesper would phrase it, and that’s not acceptable. It’s his right. It’s both their right, to be who they are, and Kaz has the power to ensure that even should their secrecy be breached, they’ll be able to demand proper respect regardless.

“You’re Jesper Fahey,” Kaz affirms. “My right-hand man. You’ll always be, until you get yourself killed or find a job you like better.”

“I like you more,” mutters Jesper, staring up at Kaz. His smile is quieter and shyer than its usual glory but the deep hope in his voice makes him glow anyway—or perhaps it’s just the sunlight toying with his hair.

“I’d prefer you under me, too.”

“Everyone does.” Jesper’s tongue wets his upper lip flirtatiously, but then he— “I—even if you—if this is weird for you, I’ll—”

“Please. You don’t know how common this condition is. Half the men around here could be hiding breasts and a cunt under their clothes, too.”

Unfortunately, Jesper is sharp as the one of Inej’s treasured knives when he wants to be. Or—perhaps—if anyone at all could understand Kaz, it would be…

“Like—” Jesper says gently— “like you?”

Kaz swallows. He nods.

“I never knew.”

“I don’t advertise the condition of my body any more than you do. You—wait. You’ve slept with people before, I know you have. Did they…?”

“When I go down on someone, they forget to ask questions and walk away satisfied.” Jesper grins. “I’ve kept up the ruse.”

“It’s not a ruse.”

“No, it isn’t.” Jesper’s back up, pacing. Picking at his sleeve. Carefully staring back at Kaz. “It’s not. You’re right. This is—I’ll need time to get used to this, fuck. Kaz. I’ve been—I changed my name when I showed up at uni, pretended I was confused about the error, but I—look, I’ve never actually—I didn’t think anyone would just—believe me, I… You—I’m just… a man. To you. Even though…”

They’ve already talked about this. “We’ve already established I suffer from the same condition. I know who I am. I know who you are.”

“I believe you.” Jesper’s stopped, right in front of Kaz. He’s taller, by half a head, and he’s looking down past his lovely broad nose. His lips are at Kaz’s eye-height, and he—Kaz hasn’t just been watching him out of jealousy, he admits as much to himself. Jesper’s gorgeous. Jesper’s kind. Jesper’s as bright as the sun, inevitable as the sunrise, hot as noon, quick as dusk, his leaving as harsh as a winter night, and Kaz… he's been staring too long. He’s not a boy anymore watching Inej on the windowsill of his office, wishing he could risk the confession. He’s denied his affections. He’s grown up. He shouldn’t be staring.

“I like you too,” Jesper mutters, voice deeper than usual because he’s deliberately pitched it that way.

Kaz decides not to call him on it.

“As I said, I’m good with my mouth. On any kind of—if you’d like, I could…”

The words are ice water. “Don’t you dare pay me for—”

“No, fuck, Kaz, I wouldn’t—I liked you the moment we met. This is selfish. I wanted—for obvious reasons, I never thought I had a chance, but I still dreamed of…” Jesper’s caught the tip of his tongue between his teeth. He’s waiting for Kaz to answer, or to pretend he doesn’t understand what Jesper asked him. What he offered, the sort of affection that Kaz never thought he’d ever even get to consider. He loved Imogen. He loved Inej. He wishes he could have told them.

All he has to do is play dumb now. Jesper will understand, and never ask to sleep with him again.

There’s comfort in the old holding pattern. Stolen glances, traded jokes, relying on each other during jobs and seeking each other out to annoy when the day is too quiet. Kaz wouldn’t trust Jesper with his purse or a time-sensitive meetup or put him in charge of the Crow Club, but Jesper wouldn’t ask him to hop around on his bum leg either: if Kaz ordered his right hand man to act in a way he simply can’t manage—and he’s watched Jesper try, over and over, to change himself—if Kaz tried to force him to do the impossible, Jesper’s failure would be Kaz’s own fault.

Right now, Jesper’s extending him the same consideration. He’s too clever to have missed Kaz’s discomfort with closeness. He knows Kaz has never courted anyone—never had to reject anyone either, because he’s always been too harsh and rat faced and closed off for anyone to pursue. Whether Jesper’s attributing it all to the body Kaz hides now or whether he’s guessed that Kaz’s dislike of touch extends far beyond that, he knows that sex is far beyond Kaz’s area of expertise.

He’s giving Kaz an easy way to reject him.

He looks like he’s expecting it, too, teeth digging into his bottom lip, like this is another one of those rash decisions he keeps making over and over. He must know that his impulsivity has worked out well for him: Jesper’s his own man now, high up in the Dregs, and the Dregs are ascendant and strong. He’s respected for his marksmanship and his wit and loyalty.

Maybe it’s time Kaz was rash, too.

Kaz could—

He’s pulled Jesper out of trap after trap that caught him. Jesper’s returned the favour. Jesper will make sure this rash choice won’t turn to disaster, whatever happens, even if Kaz’s body cannot bear what his mind craves. Jesper has never done anything but watch Kaz’s back.

Kaz would never trust him with his wallet.

But with his heart…

“You wouldn’t be able to kiss me,” Kaz rasps. He’s looking at the thin sliver of brown skin that neither loose cravat nor shirt cover, now. It looks warm. It would feel warm under the fingers that Kaz cannot bear, not even to touch him. The first button’s at roughly nipple-height, or it would be, in a flat-chested man, but that’s not what Kaz is looking for. He’s not seeking to discern the shape of Jesper’s chest under his shirt that is just barely too large now he knows what to look for, and with a pattern that would break up any suggestive bulges. Maybe later they’ll compare the tricks they use to flatten their chests.

“I wouldn’t undress,” Kaz says.

“I wouldn’t ask you to.”

“I would touch you with my gloves.”

“I like your gloves.”

“I would touch you. I don’t want you to touch—”

“Of course,” Jesper jumps in before Kaz is forced to refer to his genitals, as if he was already expecting that eternal discomfort, because he—understands.

“Do you want to be touched?”

Jesper grimaces. “I do…” He takes a deep breath. Another. One more, and Kaz is about to stop him—to divert his attention to safer matters, but, “If you’d like you could… I haven’t actually done it since I left Novyi Zem and they thought that I was a… well, you know.”

“Did you know you were a man back then?”

Jesper’s staring out of his window now. “Yes.” His arms are crossed behind his back. “Didn’t know how to bring it up. Didn’t want the rejection.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I think so. I figured—I’d feel like a liar either way, you know?”

“I’ve never felt like a liar,” Kaz says bluntly. “Not for that.”

“’Course you wouldn’t,” Jesper mutters, but there’s nothing mocking in the shape of his mouth. Nothing but yearning, awe.

“I’m not a liar, and neither are you.”

“I want you to touch my cunt.” Jesper spits the words like they’re sour milk, maggoty sausage, poison. He sounds angry, but his eyes are wide, glued to Kaz’s face, searching for any semblance of disgust. “Still think I’m a man, boss? Still think I’m not a fucking liar?”

Kaz knows what he would reply, if he was a good person. You’re braver than me. Don’t you think I’m curious what pleasure would feel like? Don’t you think I dream of touch? But Kaz has never been a good man. He made peace with that long ago, and the corpses in the harbour are still hungry. If he was a good person, he’d have joined them when he was nine. “Like I said,” he rasps. “Maybe half the men around us have a cunt. Maybe they get fucked every night. I don’t care.”

Jesper’s still staring, but there’s a smile on his face now that wants to be wide. It wobbles. It doesn’t die. It’s real. It’s not one of the smiles that Jesper flashes at every asshole who crosses his path, because none of those are ever as wet-eyed and stuttering and—vulnerable, terrifying, because Jesper’s putting all this trust in Kaz and Kaz is not a good man.

“You’re right, boss. Maybe it’s… maybe it’s normal, and I’m not actually a lying fake freak of nature. I’m—sorry, I didn’t mean to call you—”

“You’re flattering yourself if you think you can insult me. I’m a jumped-up gutter rat and so are you. We’ve both heard worse.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It’s not,” Kaz grants. He’s gone to great lengths to ensure no-one ever knows enough to call him ‘woman’, and Jesper—despite his missing razor—has done the same. They’re murderers, crooks, scum, conmen, vermin, thieves, and they claim those words with pride, because they’re true. It’s what they chose. It’s how they survived.

Kaz will not allow his enemies, his friends, his city, his world, his body to force him to live a lie.

He refuses to let anyone do it to Jesper.

“When someone calls you a liar, tell me their name and they’re dead.”

“Just like that?” Jesper doesn’t need the sun’s help to turn him into a god, though the orange light loves him as much as… his smile is already hot and lurid, and the way the evening fondles his forehead, his cheeks, his nose is sheer excess. Jesper’s made for exuberance. He’s made for worship, and he has asked for Kaz’s touch. “And what if—if this gets out, and who knows, I’ve been known to fuck up carelessly… I’ve not even dared tell Da. You’re the first. And if it happens—everyone. It could be everyone. You’ll kill the entire world so I can stay a man.”

“I’ve been known to pursue quite grandiose schemes. I’ll own Ketterdam one day—why not take on the world next?”

Jesper laughs. Kaz wishes he could kiss the sun off his lips.

“Fine, boss, you win. I lo—I want you to touch me.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“You want me?”

“Yes, obviously, are you playing—”

“Are you sure—”

“Oh, you fucking asshole,” Jesper laughs, grinning with delight. “You dick. Please, please get me off.”

Kaz bites back a smile. “I wasn’t paying attention. What did you say?”

“Mocking me is your kind of foreplay, I see. That casts—every time we talk, in a very different…” Jesper’s eyes flick around Kaz’s face, momentary insecurity, and that won’t do, not now.

“You’re eminently mockable. Look at you. Nothing matches. Do you get dressed while blindfolded?”

“If my clothes are such an eyesore, take them off.”

“Come here, then.” Kaz carefully undoes his holsters—laying them on a chair—and unfastens the belt. He is taking his time, pulling the gaudy shirt free from the waistband, undoing the polished brass belt buckle, lingering on each button of the fly of the bright green trousers, before Jesper huffs quietly.

“I’m not fragile,” he protests. “Push me around, I don’t care. I’ve done this before.”

I haven’t, Kaz doesn’t tell him. I’m nervous. This is for me. It’s not something Kaz Brekker would ever admit to, not even to Jesper, not even when he’s told him so much more already today that he never thought he’d ever share. If Jesper was fully relaxed himself—and he’s not, despite his protests, Kaz can read the desperate eagerness to be fucked as a man in his face, the trepidation that this will change how Kaz sees him, and the stirred-up flames of his crush—if Jesper was focused, he’d be able to guess that Kaz is a virgin. He’s told Jesper as much. ‘No-one knows.’ means ‘No-one’s seen this body who wasn’t family, and they’re dead.’ Jesper might have taken the risk of giving oral sex, but Kaz never put his body so close to another person that they could have touched his chest unless he was in the process of killing them.

“You’re not fragile,” Kaz rasps, “But your clothes look cheap, and I’m not sewing any buttons back on if I tear them off.”

Jesper’s grin is lopsided. He pushes his trousers down to his knees and—and he pushed his drawers down with them, he’s… the bottom ends of his dress shirt mostly cover his crotch but Kaz can see pubic hair, too, muscular broad thighs, and he—

A quick spread-finger push to the centre of Jesper’s chest, and Jesper tumbles backwards onto his bed with a delighted shriek. His legs, tied together by half-removed trousers, fly into the air. Kaz catches one of his feet and holds it still, high up over Jesper.

Jesper’s staring up, his gorgeous grey eyes wide and achingly fond. “You’re learning quickly.” He breaks off just to smile widely at Kaz, or maybe he’s perfecting a joke. “I think it’s because you have a great teacher under you.”

“You’re incredibly full of yourself.”

“Actually, I’m hoping to be full of—”

Just for that, Kaz twists Jesper’s booted ankle, and Jesper yelps and then starts laughing. He looks so stupid, on his unmade bed with the top half impeccably dressed—as ever in ugly colours and with the customary debauched open collar—and his bottom half naked, legs in the air, face crinkled up with careless joy. He looks so impossibly stupid that Kaz barks out a laugh himself, and then another, and again, and Jesper’s feet wobble and wag in Kaz’s grip and that just makes the whole scene worse until finally, the boot slips off Jesper’s foot. Kaz almost falls over backwards.

“If you don’t lace your boots well, they’ll unlace at the worst moment and you’ll die,” Kaz lectures sternly. As intended, Jesper giggles again, hands pressed to his shaking belly as he curls up on his side. The way he’s lying, Kaz has an incredible view of his firm arse, some hair, and the wet outer lips of his genitals. He’s—Kaz refuses to name the flutter in his chest, at Jesper, one of the few people he can trust in this life, so open and careless before him. He’ll never deserve this, but he’ll make sure it’s a choice Jesper won’t regret.

Jesper turns onto his back. “Are you alright, Kaz?”

Kaz startles. He’s got control enough to do little more than blink, but it’s—he should have expected Jesper’s generous care even when the other man is half-bare and vulnerable down before him. Jesper’s so much more than weak spots, than bodily secrets and reckless trust. He’s more than the woman they’ll force him to be if they find out. He’s more than his addictions and failures, more than the lies he tells and the truths he could lose at any moment. He’s handsome, with his long bare sparse-haired thighs spread as far as they’ll go—soon, Kaz will take off his boots and his socks and divest him of his trousers fully, but right now, he is too greedy to move—he’s beautiful, his many-ringed hands glinting in the sunlight as he taps them unwittingly against his neck, always moving, always alive.

He’s glorious, glorious, a soft smile on his lips and the sun kissing the warm brown skin on his wide cheekbones, his short hair catching the light like a halo against the unmade duvet.

“Kaz?” Jesper’s fingers dig into the mattress—Kaz would kiss the frown off his brows—he tenses his abs and swings his torso back and forth trying to sit up with little leverage—Kaz would bite down his neck until his nose meets the first closed button—Jesper’s bent in half, fingers clutching his knees so he can stay upright, concerned eyes staring straight up at Kaz, probably aware his flexibility’s a sight to behold but far more interested in Kaz’s face, Kaz’s judgment, Kaz’s joy.

“Jesper, patience,” Kaz mutters, shooting for stern and ending somewhere between giddy and adoring. He pulls open the laces of the boot he’s holding and removes it, then the sock too, tossing both behind him while he’s still holding Jesper up by the ankle for no reason he can name. Jesper’s comfortable contorting himself though, and he looks good.

Only when Kaz’s gloved thumb rubs Jesper’s bare ankle, one, twice, does Jesper flop backward onto the bed again. Kaz gets rid of the other boot and the trousers and drawers, too, not breaking eye contact once. Jesper’s mouth is open slightly and his chest heaving in the periphery, and his eyes—he’s always had eyes like the stars back home, bright and clear and joyously alive. Kaz used to sit at night, watching them, and imagine that everything must be possible if this many small things could make the darkness glow.

He no longer believes in miracles, but now there’s Jesper lying on the bed, staring up at Kaz, looking happy enough to burst. Happy because Kaz is with him. Happy.

“Budge up,” Kaz orders roughly.

Jesper wriggles further onto his narrow bed. He’s far too gorgeous for his silly movements. Too soon, his back’s resting against the wall, and Kaz sits down on the edge of the mattress between his invitingly spread legs. Jesper’s feet are planted on the bed, far enough apart that it looks like a boast about his flexibility; his hands are gripping his knees; his hips are canted to give Kaz easy access, without needing to crowd close to Jesper. And it’s not a beautiful pose, not graceful, but Kaz’s heart hammers against his ribcage and his face burns. It’s more intimate than any way he could use his own fingers, this unprompted, wordless show of care.

“Second thoughts?” Jesper mutters.

Kaz drops his hand onto Jesper’s left inner thigh and slides it up, gentle but inexorable. He can’t feel Jesper’s minute shivers through the glove, but he can see them, can see the desperate tiny goosebumps on Jesper’s soft flesh. He switches to the other knee to repeat the caress, a hopefully imperceptible stall for time. It’s the first time in his life that Kaz wishes he’d been more interested in bringing himself off. He never quite got over the disconnect of touching an organ he doesn’t picture himself having, but that won’t be an issue for Jesper, he reminds himself, and besides, the yearning for someone with him, someone close, someone bright and happy and warm—he’s always pictured that as more intoxicating than the mere stimulation of nerves, something even he might want to experience one day, despite what he’s hiding under his clothes. It makes sense that Jesper’s quivering in anticipation next to him.

Kaz makes sure to stare into Jesper’s eyes, when his fingers traverse the juncture where Jesper’s thigh meets his crotch.

If Kaz was anyone else, he’d have missed it. He’s not, though, he’s watching Jesper intently and he knows his second far better than anyone else on this planet does, even his own father. Jesper’s bracing himself. He’s not expecting discomfort or pain—he’s too trusting of Kaz, but he must know that Kaz would him discomfort or pain—but he’s anxious nonetheless, afraid of losing the right to define himself in someone else’s eyes. Even though Kaz shares his physical state, even though he already assured Jesper that nothing would change. Jesper’s afraid. There’s nothing Kaz can do, when assurance hasn’t worked, except… “Talk to me, Jes,” Kaz murmurs.

“What about?”

“Anything you like. Anything you think about, right now.”

“You won’t like it,” says Jesper, and sure, there are thoughts that Kaz wouldn’t enjoy hearing. Thoughts of corpses. Thoughts of Pekka. Not thoughts Jesper is likely to think, right now, and sure enough: “I’m thinking about how I forgot to fix the window again. It was so draughty last winter. The winter before, I thought I’d freeze, but I was so busy anyway that I wasn’t in my room that often and I forgot to figure out what to do and as soon as I don’t get air in my face from the closed window I’ll forget again—”

“Consider it done. I know a carpenter.”

“Thanks, boss. Also, I’m—moderately worried about the Liddies—”

The thatch of Jesper’s hair is coarse, thick, and Kaz can feel it even through his thin gloves. Further down, the lips, and Jesper closes his eyes, opens them again, he—Kaz’s middle finger dives down in-between Jesper’s labia.

“Hans attacked Rotty deep in our territory last week and I don’t think he’d have done that without backup, I just—”

Kaz pushes the tip of one his fingers in Jesper’s cunt.

“Fuck. I know Hans, used to lose to him at Makker’s Wheel a lot, and he’s a coward. He shouldn’t have come into our home turf. I…” He bites his lip. Kaz hasn’t moved, so that can’t be the cause, it’s… “Do you think the next Komedie play—no. I. We’ve never had that stew before, I should compliment the cooks more. Boss. Do you really want to hear me yammer on and on about…”

“You can also talk about the situation at hand, Jesper.”

“At—” Jesper snorts, moves, grimaces, because the finger… before Kaz can pull it out, though, Jesper’s talking again, “Don’t, I’m fine, I just—should wait with laughing until I’m a little more—no, this is good, I just need time,” because Jesper must’ve identified Kaz’s annoyance at his own failure, “You’re doing well. I’m happy. I’m enjoying this. I love it. You’re so good to me.”

“You trust me too much,” Kaz mutters.

“It’s not too much.” Jesper’s grinning again: every time he’s replying to Kaz, he perks up, as if he—but Kaz has known Jesper for long enough now, and it makes sense. Jesper doesn’t like to be alone. Jesper doesn’t like to be alone in his own brain, especially not for this, not now he’s bared himself to judgement.

Kaz pushes in his index alongside his middle finger, crooking and straightening, caressing the front wall idly. He lets his thumb trail down outside, stroking down again and again. With naked fingers, perhaps, he would feel Jesper’s excitement, feel him growing wet, but as it is he only has eyes to look at, bright and grey and fluttering closed more quickly than when they were just talking; eyes and words. Maybe he’s no better than Jesper, right now. He, too, is anchored by the sweet voice of his solid partner.

“What do you think?” Kaz asks.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I pick locks with my eyes closed. Even the door to the Merchant Council meeting chambers, I bested in seconds. Your cunt’s hardly more complicated.”

“Saints,” Jesper gasps. Not annoyed. Definitely not annoyed.

“There are no false gates to lead my fingers astray, no sidewards obstructing the way, no security pins, but even if there were—I am adept at listening carefully for the most minute hints that I am on the right path.” It’s—fun, to boast, and Kaz is too focused on the way his two gloved fingers look, buried up to the first knuckle inside Jesper’s wet, hot cunt. Jesper’s thighs are wobbling slightly, as if Jesper was trying far too hard to stay motionless to the point of exertion, because Kaz is barely doing anything to him, certainly not fucking him yet, just—exploring, giving himself time to adjust, and bragging about his lockpicking prowess leaves him more than enough brainpower to catalogue his lover.

Slow, careful circles. Kaz almost expects Jesper to call him a tease, a virgin, anything; to complain about the way Kaz touches him because Kaz was never particularly interested in learning about sex when sex wasn’t a possibility for him without losing his name and gender in the eyes of the world… but Kaz knows enough to be aware that what he’s doing is nothing like sex. Back when Jesper’s attraction to Dirtyhands began or even today when he said yes, he couldn’t possibly have pictured him like this. Surely he expects—

“There’s no way you’ve run out of lockpicking facts already.” Jesper’s smirk is as warm as the sun that no longer reaches his face, because—because Kaz has been sitting here, failing to satisfy Jesper, for so much time the sun’s noticeably changed position, and Jesper doesn’t even— “Don’t stop on my account. I like—I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if you want to compare me to your favourite locks again, I don’t mind.”

It's not even mocking. If Jesper was mocking him, Kaz could hate his own inexperience. He could return to familiar ground. Jesper is grinning down at him with more tenderness and joy than Kaz knows how to interpret—it’s just sex, just fumbling barely satisfactory fingering, but it’s also—it would be too easy to boil this down to the gulf between their sexual histories and skills. It would be nothing short of unfair, to reduce this to the mechanics of pleasuring, when Kaz knows, whether he wants to name it or not, he knows what the quirk of Jesper’s mouth is confessing. He knows how Jesper looks at him.

He knows.

He does, too.

He'd like to hear Jesper’s voice again, so he teases, “Touch and conversation? You expect me to do all the work?”

“Letting you do what you want’s always worked well for me.”

“You don’t usually know when to shut up.”

“I won’t deprive you. Every single word I say is a gift.”

It is. You are. With his left hand, Kaz gently traces the very front of Jesper’s cunt. He knows what a clit is, admittedly mostly from Nina loudly complaining about men’s inability to find it, but as he promised Jesper: he’s a master at picking locks, and those require far more dexterity than a cunt. If only he’d used himself to practice—but no, on his own, there wouldn’t have been anything to find but the eternal betrayal of his body. There’s none of that habitual loathing now, when Kaz is carefully tracing the very front of Jesper’s wet outer folds, and it’s all due to Jesper. His bravery. His trust. His—love.

“I was born from greed. I will take all the gifts you offer and more,” and he folds Jesper’s snort of laughter deep into the chasm of his heart. He worms three fingers now deeper into Jesper, just to hear the giggle turn breathy, helpless, moaning. “I will take and take. I’m not just a thief. I am the thief. I’m Dirtyhands.”

Jesper’s amusement splits his face in two, teeth glowing, eyes squeezed shut, rocking side to side, and then he catches himself, or a joke takes hold of his brain. As soon as he’s thought of it, he’s already talking. “I’m so desperate for your dirty hands. Oh darling Dirtyhands, please dirty your dirty gloved hands inside me!”

Kaz buckles forward with surprise, laughter, head against Jesper’s shaking belly. The shirt smells like explosions and forgotten laundry, like Jesper, and Kaz’s fingers—he’s caught himself with the left hand against Jesper’s thigh, but the three of the other, his jolt thrust right to the hilt into Jesper’s indulgent hot, quivering cunt. The thumb tip is nestled into the front cleft of Jesper’s folds, pressing hard, and then it slips off something—he’s so wet—and that slip—

“Please,” Jesper gasps.

“Jes?” Kaz sits up, immediately.

“No, no—darling, please, don’t stop.”

And his voice… Just to hear it again, Kaz teases, “Don’t stop what?”

“Kaz, darling, that was—bastard. You fucking bastard. Stop teasing me.” Jesper’s grinning so widely, so honestly that there’s no more need for the setting sun. It wouldn’t measure up, not even if it was back up in the centre of the sky on the sweatiest day of summer when Kaz can barely stand the necessary layers over his chest and crotch.

The sun may boil his insides then, but what is summer compared to Jesper’s easy joy? What is its daily return compared to Jesper’s steadiness? What are its rays compared to the way Jesper’s face lights up with helpless bliss when Kaz rubs that spot again, and again?

“You’re—keep going, faster, to the left—no, not that far,” Jesper stutters out in-between low moans.

Kaz will give him everything. It’s far less than he deserves.

Everything, forever, I’ll give— Kaz cuts himself off, because he doesn’t—it’s not that he worries Jesper will leave. He’s the most steadfast loyal man Kaz knows. He’s burrowed his tender way through the shell of the monster Kaz is, but Kaz still is a monster. Monsters don’t sit on their second’s narrow bed, eyes roaming from his eyesore white, purple, yellow striped shirt down to the black glove fucking into him and up to his dimples, his lips, his eyes fluttering open and closed and open, far too full of honest reckless trusting happy love—not forever, at least. For—

“Look—please, darling, look at—”

Kaz meets his eyes. Jesper is shivering now with his entire body. Kaz has four fingers buried in his cunt now, everything but the thumb, and he could fit—but that’s not the point, the entire point is Jesper’s pleasure, and so he crooks his fingers to caress the front wall and teases the clit with a variety of rhythms and pressures—Jesper sobs—until he’s found what makes Jesper shiver and plead the most. Hands following the sounds, just like picking a lock. Jesper’s one of the easier locks Kaz has picked. He’ll tell him that. Not now. He’s too busy stealing every detail of this fleeting moment.

There’s sweat beading on Jesper’s face, and it just makes him look more radiant. Both of his hands are violently digging into the blanket beneath him, white-knuckled, desperate. Hands-off. He’s careful, even now: no-one would know how hard he’s trying, unless they knew him like Kaz does, but he is. He’s a tactile man, and his hands move incessantly when he’s talking and when he isn’t, but even when he’s fingered for the first time as the man he is, Jesper refuses to stop caring, to stop being kind, to stop trying so fucking hard to watch out for Kaz at the same time, and selfishly, helplessly, Kaz is grateful that Jesper just can’t stop being himself. That he’s still a generous lover, even when Kaz is four fingers deep in his cunt. He’s incredible. Kaz loves him. Kaz loves him.

Kaz strokes his clit and his cunt and he mutters, “You’re doing well. You’re a good man. Let go, Jes,” because he knows Jesper won’t.

Jesper’s eyes are scrunched closed now. His face is devastatingly beautiful, on the brink of pleasure, trying hard, hard, so incredibly hard to be good, and then a helpless hand finds Kaz’s wrist. Not holding. Not groping. Not pushing. Just the tips of his fingers on Kaz’s glove, like Jesper’s not chasing his own orgasm but seeking another point of connection. Jesper’s always tried to connect. Even when they were both young and new and vicious, Jesper tried to engineer so many ways they could have met in the middle. Even when Kaz shunned him out of a misguided fear of seeming too human to his underlings, Jesper never unlearned that impulse to reach out. It aches, somewhere deep in the heart that Dirtyhands denies, that Jesper wants to hold onto his hand now even if he doesn’t dare. It aches. Jesper’s beautiful and quiet and desperate, and Kaz prays to Saints that have never cared for a gutter rat that one day, he’ll be able to bear his hand being held.

Kaz crooks his fingers, again, again, again. Jesper bucks up against him helplessly. He’s not putty in Kaz’s hands: he’s stubbornly, wilfully alive.

He bites his bottom lip when he comes. The part of Kaz that’s greedy for secrets wants to ask what words he’s holding back—and Jesper would talk, there’s no doubt in his mind—but the unguarded, monstrous thing he rarely acknowledges, his body… his own ears taking in the snorts of breath and his own eyes staring at closed-eyes closed-lips blissful Jesper and his own cunt burning aroused and his own mouth biting his lips to guard against his own secret affection, are content to leave the matter alone. It’s Jesper. Jesper’s no danger. Jesper’s secrets aren’t cruel and vicious, not towards Kaz.

The sun sets fully on both of them: Jesper leaning against the wall with his eyes still closed, just breathing—so quiet only the fidgeting with his sleeve cuffs gives away he’s not asleep—and Kaz doesn’t want to break the spell either. It’s comfortable, sitting in-between Jesper’s splayed naked legs. He’s already wiped his gloves as clean of slick as they’ll be until he washes them, and the arousal still simmering in the spot under his belly is—fine, actually, not an intrusion this time or a mockery, not when he just had his finger’s in Jesper’s cunt and he still sees Jesper as a man and he just wiped off the same slime that’s oozing out of his own—cunt.

Jesper enjoyed himself. Listening to his fearless breath in the growing dark, for the first time, it seems not entirely impossible that someday, with him, Kaz could enjoy himself too.

He idly touches Jesper’s inner thighs, just because he wants to. Because Jesper doesn’t mind the gloves. Because Jesper’s been silent for too long now, and even if sex is better than Kaz used to think, it’s not a miracle. Jesper’s never this quiet.

“What are you thinking?”

“Can I tell you something?” Jesper asks, and the thigh muscles under Kaz’s hand tense unhappily.

Ice water laps at Kaz’s feet. When he tries to give him distance, though, Jesper’s fingers wrap around his wrist and pull him back into place, so at least it’s not regret, rejection, the monster didn’t hurt him, and Kaz should not feel as relieved as he is, when this connection is just an hour old—an hour, or six years.

He can see Jesper’s throat bob as he swallows twice, steeling himself, before he says, “So I always planned that when someone found out about me, I’d tell them I’d tragically shot off my own cock and balls and that’s what motivated me to actually practice and become the ingenious marksman I am now, right. Would that have worked on you?”

Kaz raises a single eyebrow

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t start lying now. I guess you’ve got a right to know, too, about options,” Jesper rambles, squeezing Kaz’s wrist now, “I’m—I came to Ketterdam because it was en route to Ravka. That’s why I enrolled at uni, I planned—didn’t work out, obviously, there were the cards and then you, the others—and it was a stupid dream anyway, and I wasn’t thrilled about joining the army, but… I heard they have a Tailor.”

He says it like it’s supposed to mean something. Of course they have Tailors in Ravka. Their mere existence means nothing when they’re beyond reach. Jesper gets ahead of himself sometimes, jumps too quickly for even Kaz to keep up, but this shambling statement was far too thematically coherent, more like one of Jesper’s attempts at stalling or filling silence. But if it’s meaningless waffling, that’s at odds with the desperate, nigh-bruising grip on Kaz’s hand, with the staccato tapping of his bare foot on the mattress. Jesper’s afraid. He let himself be touched more intimately than Kaz would ever dare without hesitation, and he’s scared now, when it's still just the two of them. His trust has limits, apparently, but why would he fear—

“She’s not just a Tailor. She’s the best Tailor.” Jesper’s too nervous to even sit still now, but the existence of Tailors is not news. His left foot swings up, narrowly misses Kaz’s head, and settles on his right knee. No more dignified than before—his pubic hair’s just as visible from Kaz’s position—but he’s Jesper, and he needs to move. He’s swinging Kaz’s hand back and forth without noticing.

Kaz prompts, “And that Tailor…”

“Right. Right. I—she can change people’s bodies, completely, forever. No danger of reversion. No health effects, I heard back in Cofton. I don’t know how much it costs or who they are but I thought I’d just charm my way in and—”

“When are you leaving?”

“Kaz.” Jesper’s eyes are wide, shocked, but Kaz made sure not to bleed any bitterness or loss into his voice. Perhaps he didn’t succeed. Perhaps he succeeded too well, and pricked him with the lie that Kaz won’t miss him.

“You’re Grisha—”

“I—”

“No-one else knows. You’re Grisha. You could join the army. Make friends. Enter the Little Palace. Make more friends. Find that Tailor, and make—”

“I’m a shitty fucking Grisha, I can barely do anything and none of it’s useful,” Jesper mutters—lies, because Kaz has mentally reconstructed at least five jobs Jesper should have died on, would have, unless he had the ability to alter metal, and then there was that bullet that never should have missed Kaz’s head— “and I—look, be honest, how long do you think I’d last without getting court martialled? A week? Not even on purpose, but you’re my boss, you know I’m an idiot, if I last a week in the army without pissing off fifty officers I’m lucky, and historically luck isn’t my strong suit.”

“You’re my right-hand man, Jesper. I don’t promote incompetents.”

“You—fine, I guess I could. I guess I’d be fine.” He looks miserable. “Fuck. Fuck. I’d miss you. I’d miss everyone. I’d miss you. I don’t know if it’s worth it, for me? If trading my life… if I’ve got to give up everything else for a cock and balls even though I’d—fuck. Would you?”

“A Ravkan Tailor wouldn’t meet with a small-time Barrel lieutenant. I’d need riches that I don’t have yet. Leverage.”

“I could get you leverage.”

“You don’t want to go.”

“I love you,” Jesper hisses, his grip on Kaz’s hand so tight that Kaz feels like he should hear bones creak. “I love you.”

It’s—not a surprise, not at all, but it still warms the inside of Kaz’s ribcage like a high noon summer sun. There is nowhere to hide in this light. He can’t, won’t disappear while his cheeks burn under the desperate gaze of the man he loves.

“If you need me to whore myself out to the First Army so you can get your shot at happiness, I’ll do it. That’s why I told you. About the Tailor. I’m happy here. This life, it would—this body could be enough for me, when my life’s like this.”

“Jes—”

“But you don’t just settle for ‘good enough’, and I—”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Kaz rasps. He pulls his hand—still crushed in Jesper’s—up to his lips to ghost a kiss against Jesper’s knuckles. “I don’t want to whore you out to the First Army.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Your brain would be wasted in the military. They won’t know how to use your skills to their advantage. I’d miss you. We’ll get rich.”

The sun is gone now, but it’s still impossible to miss Jesper’s shape. His toes are wriggling, bare knees gleaming in the full moon, head ducking with an incredulous happy snort. His hand is sweet and warm and tender beneath Kaz’s mouth, and Kaz darts out his tongue to taste the skin before he vows, “When Ketterdam is mine, there’ll be no one left who’d dare take away my name, or yours.”

#kazper #day 3 #love this! trans rights! 🤍💙💕

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