#meanwhile wylan is just please i’m begging you that’s not how it works

[chaoticandsleepdeprived]

Actually Wesper’s first meeting in the show that we see on screen is so funny to me but specifically this part

Wylan: I guess I’m your demolitions man

Jesper: You? You’ve got all your fingers

( Jesper picking up vials at random and smelling them no regard for safety)

Wylan: Well maybe I’m careful

Jesper: Careful is something you learn from losing your fingers

( That’s very bold coming from you. Everyone doesn’t pick up random vials that they don’t know what they contain)

[overcupofcoco]

kaz brekker as an adoptive father au though

• ok so yeah, the dregs might be the edgiest and mightiest but at some point jesper and wylan have kids, nina settles down and starts her own bakery and inej can’t live in ketterdam, she a different woman now

• kaz on the other hand, this bitch might be older but he’s just gettin started. 

•yeah he’s stolen from the Ravkan kingdom now, yeah he’s in a little shit with the Shu, oops are the Zemeni after him? he almost forgot. 

• anyway, he’s swaggering down in the barrel like usual one evening when he hears really loud screams from an alley

• usually he ignores because the bastard of the barrel ain't got time for pidgeon affairs, but for some reason this time he wants to take a look. he hasn’t had his Wraith in a while so he’s gotten used to being sneaky

•what he witnesses isn’t necessarily out of the usual; a woman at gunpoint holding a child. Pleads for mercy. Screams. An attempt to run away. A murder. Pillaging of the body. 

• He took note of the killers (u never know when you need the intel) when he realizes that the child is still screaming.

• he pauses

• what the fuck was he supposed do? Leave the kid baby? Give it to some woman to take care of? he knew the probability that she would sell the child out in slavery the moment it was old enough was basically 100%

• he remembered jordie and him, young and lost, orphaned in the streets. he remembered inej, basically enslaved by Tante Heleen

• before he knew it, he was walking towards the corpse, uncovering the baby that couldn’t older than three years, from under its dead mother’s long skirts. 

• it was a girl. dark skinned, tufts of curly hair, large grey eyes staring up at him in concern. 

• “god dammit” he muttered, wrapping the girl in his coat and bringing her to the slat. he would give the girl to Jesper and Wylan when they came back from their vacation in 3 weeks. in the meanwhile, he would somehow deal with her. 

• The girl was a clever one, silent and observing as he made their way to the Crows Club. She didn’t cry for her mother, perhaps because Kaz’s glare was too frightening, or perhaps because she simply wasn’t afraid at all. 

• He put her on the bed, looking at her with hard eyes. She stared back, tilting her head. “No talking.” he said promptly, “No moving.” 

• The first hour, he almost ripped his hair out. Drug dealers, mafia, merchants, gang members, he could easily deal with. But a curious child? 

• Somehow, she had managed to open a pen and scrawl all over his pillows.

• He didn’t bother to use any type of voice when he scolded. it was the same cold, flat voice he used during parleys. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t touch my pens,”

• she just frowned, tilting her head to the side. something dinged in Kaz’s heart and he didn’t like it.

•at some point, she figured out how to climb out of his bed and was now crawling around his room. he couldn’t focus-- so he resorted to observing, leaning back in his chair. 

• she had started silently babbling herself, fidgeting with papers on the ground, chair legs, discarded coins. 

• slowly he grew used to her static mumbling and managed to start paperwork again until--

• a weak tug on his pant leg. He flinches back, looking down sharply at the girl

• “my leg hurts”

• Kaz probably hadn’t been taken by surprise in years but those three words shocked him. she could talk?

• he looks at her silently, clenched her jaw. her eyes were a bright blue. Should he call a medik? Should he ignore her? he couldn’t have people knowing there was a child in his room or that he needed medik. It was a weakness.

• “Where?” same flat, uninterested voice.

• She struggled to lift her soiled pant leg to reveal a mildly bloodied gash across her calf. Kaz could tell it wasn’t deep. 

• “It hurts a lot, mister, help?”

• now imagine Kaz Brekker, after a long pause, picking up the girl from under her arms and bringing her to the bed. He spends half an hour cleaning and mending her leg as she sits quietly. 

• “is mama dead?”

• “yes. gone.”

• “are you going to kill me, mister?”

• pauses his work to look up at her. decidedly, she was full of surprises. 

• “not planning to,” he squinted at the tiny girl, “how old are you?”

• the girl cracked a smile and held up three fingers-- proud of herself. “I’m four in one months, mister!”

• “When did you learn how to speak?” 

• the girl looked bewildered... for the first time in the evening, fear was in her light eyes, “I don’t know, mister brekker”

• Kaz looked at her sharply. She recoiled in fear at his menacing glare. She must have known how to read, his name had been all over the papers she was fiddling with. 

• “You call me Kaz. Only Kaz. You stay in this room until I can find you some parents.”

• That first night, the girl slept in the bed. Kaz slept in his chair-- only to be woken up by a clang of rustling early the next morning. 

• reflexes kicked in and he grabbed his gun. 

• “i just wanted water, mister Kaz.” a high pitched voice said weakly as the girl’s head popped up from behind the desk. Her leg was clearly better, as she was standing up. 

• annoyed sigh from Kaz. He just picked up his cane and coat, having slept in his gloves, and just scowled at the girl. She looked at him, then proceeded to continue her attempts at reaching the tall glass of water on the desk-- failing miserably. 

• Kaz handed it to her and she gulped it all down. 

• Kaz left the entire day, running errands, checking on the crow club. He had left crackers and water for the girl, but in reality, he knew he was desperately trying to rid the child of his thoughts. 

• he was kaz brekker, for saints’ sake, and there was a talking toddler in his office? 

• he finally came back in his room late in the evening, expecting the child to be either somehow dead or asleep, but instead, he found her standing on his chair that she had pushed against the window ledge, looking outside and talking to herself. 

•Panick ran through him. What if people saw her? What if people thought he was holding children hostage? Worse, what if people thought he had a child? What if... she could fall over the ledge...

• “Get off the chair,” “I thought I had told you to stay hidden”

• “Sorry mister Kaz, I thought you had told me to stay in the room”

• did she just accidentally sass him? 

• the next day, she wasn’t perched over the window, but she was on his desk, grasping a pencil and struggling to manipulate the utensil in her tiny hand. her face was pure concentration.

• silently, Kaz walked up behind her, reading over her shoulder. Two days after having picked her up, he knew better than to just expect her to be scribbling gibberish. 

• Z U R i       zURi     fat circle for the dots above the i, uneven letters, but still writing.

• “this is my name! do you like it, mister Kaz?” Zuri. Hope in Zemeni. He realized he had never asked her name. She hadn’t seem bothered. “You said no touching the pen... this has no black stuff, so I used it! Look, mister Kaz! I made you a pretty picture!”

• She beamed, shoving another piece of paper in his face. It was messy, but Kaz could see the outline of a child with dark skin, a bigger person colored in crudely with black-- and was that a bird?

• “That’s me--- that’s you, Mister Kaz! Those lines are your eyebrows because you are always mad! and that's the nice bird that comes to the window sometimes!”

• It became routine. Kaz spent his day out, leaving Zuri in his room. He provided food, water, paper, pens and after the fourth day and massive amounts of begging in the middle of the night, a box of colored pencils.

• ( “Mister Kaz” *groan from Kaz* *Gentle tug on his pant leg* “Can I get color?” “What?” “Color for my drawings!”......... “Please?”...... “Fine. Go to bed. Time to sleep.”)

• Gradually, Kaz spent less time thinking he was insane for taking in a child, and more time observing the girl. she was sharp, learning quickly. She knew immediately that touching Kaz was a big no-no, apart from the spare pant leg tug. 

• Sometimes, she would ask Kaz for help. Give him her drawings. They were always of her and him and a crow, in different settings. In the beginning, he grudgingly agreed, only out of annoyance that she may start to cry. 

• (she had never cried in front of him, but he heard her gentle sniffles in the middle of the name and her whispers for her mother) (he tried to ignore her)

•anyway, as the days passed, he started really paying attention to her letters on the papers, giving her advice and examples. She improved fast. 

• Two weeks passed. It was raining outside. Kaz was working and Zuri was silently practicing her letters right under his desk.

• “Mister Kaz?” “Hmm?” “Why do you have the stick?” The cane. 

• He paused. “My leg is hurt.” “Like me?” “No.” “Why?” “Because mine is hurt forever.” pause “Why?”

• Zuri might have been a quiet girl, but Kaz knew that she grasped at any opportunity to ask questions. 

• “Enough questions.” 

• Silence. 

• “Mister Kaz?” she squeaked slowly. He exhaled. “What?”

• “Are you magical?” she peaked out from under the desk.

• “What?”

• “Sometimes you make things disappear from people. I see it.”

• Kaz put down his pen and rose an eyebrow, peering at her from his chair. Had she been getting out of the room? Of course, in the Crow Club, he picked different pockets or simply impressed the guests with sleight of hand-- but no one was supposed to notice that.

• “Did you go out of the room?”

• Immediately, she realized her mistake. She tucked her chin in her neck and looked down shamefully. “Nevermind.” She picked up the orange pencil.

• He almost laughed. He thought he would be mad at her for jeopardizing both her and him, but her worried little face was too cute-- what was he thinking? he shook away the thoughts. Jesper and Wylan would be in Ketterdam soon enough and the girl would be out of his legs

• literally. 

• There was thunder that night. Kaz had gradually collected dozens of blankets to make a bed for the girl. That night, there was no tug at his pant leg, but whimpers. Loud ones. Kaz couldn't ignore them

• “Zuri?” he grumbled. 

• Silence.  

• “Zuri.” he turned on the little lamp at on his bedside table. He waited. Slowing, Zuri got up. The shirt he had given her to sleep in reached her toes. 

• “I’m sorry, Mister Kaz,” she whispered. Her face was full of tears, her blue eyes shining in the light, “The loud noise makes me scared.” 

• As if to prove a point, thunder resonated and Zuri pressed her lips together, shaking and covering her ears. She didn’t cry though. Never when he could see. 

• His heart twisted. His heart twisted for her. He made the decision. 

• “Come here.” he lifted a corner of the covers, inviting her in. She hesitated. 

• “Now or never.” he warned. she waddled to the bed, struggling to get over the side. Kaz silently slipped on his gloves as Zuri curled herself in a ball.

• Zuri had never asked him about the gloves and he was thankful.

•The bed wasn’t big, but she took up so little space that he could easily keep a healthy distance away. 

•Thunder boomed as he turned off the light.“I’m scared, Mister Kaz” 

• he froze. 

• “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” He could barely fathom the words he said.

• “With your magic?”

• “With my magic.” 

• The three weeks went by, and Kaz gave Zuri to Wylan and Jesper who easily took her in. They didn’t ask any questions. 

• As Kaz packed up Zuri’s possessions that she had collected throughout the three weeks, the girl looked at him sadly. 

• “Why do I have to go Mister Kaz?” 

• “It’s better for you.”

• “Why?”

• He sighed. “Because.”

• “I’m going to miss you, Mister Kaz.” 

• He clenched his jaw, giving her the box of her belongings. It had seemed like forever ago that he had found her in her late mother’s embrace. 

• “Me too, Zuri.” They had not hugged, but she had tugged on his pant leg one last time.

• The days went by. The office was back to what it had been before. Calm, orderly, silent. 

• Kaz had dreaded the feeling, but he knew that he missed it. He missed her. Her mumbling, the soft sound of her feet padding the ground, her drawings, her letters, the Zemeni lullabies, her excited smile, her small pout when he told her he wouldn’t get her waffles, her frown when he told her to brush her teeth. 

• He even missed her minuscule presence at night. 

• It had been a week since she had gone away. He had ignored Wylan and Jesper. He didn’t want to know what they had done with the girl-- he trusted them enough. Then he found them--

• Of course he did. Of course he kept them.  The drawings. The childish drawings. Her, him, the crow that she had named Will. Her notes. FOR MiSTER KAZ.

• He knew he should have burned them. Instead he shook his head--

• Next thing he knew, he was at the Van Eck manor. 

• “Kaz?” It was Kali, Jesper and Wylan’s oldest daughter. She swung the door wide to reveal Jesper carrying Zuri. 

• Her face light up the moment she saw him. 

• “Mister Kaz!” she waved gingerly, but smiled wide. “I was telling Mister Jesper that I did a cartwheel!”

• Jesper grinned. He may have been in his late thirties, but the man still had the heart of a teenager. “It was very impressive,” he agreed, letting her to the ground. She rushed to Kaz, but stopped a safe distance away.

• “Are we going home, Mister Kaz?” she asked, eyes twinkling.

• Jesper interjected, “Zuri, darling, Mister Kaz can’t--” 

• “Yes,” Kaz breathed, squatting down to level her, “We are going home. Will the Crow misses you.”

• Jesper’s jaw dropped. Zuri clapped her hands. “Crows are so nice!”

• Kaz cracked a genuine smile, offering a bare hand to the little girl that had somehow given him a new dimension in life. 

• She grabbed it slowly.

• “Now... how about some waffles for the birthday girl?”

so yep yeah idk this just is something i want like a little girl to soften out Kaz’s edges you know what I mean? also i know shes really young but thats the point she like a genius u know idk