The Love of a Crow - Wesper/Crows Fanfiction/AU

17. Kaz

A/N: I should probably start putting these, shouldn't I? TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions and depictions of serious past parental abuse. Believe me, when I say I make Van Eck a monster, I really mean it. Good luck! 

What an absolute cart-crash.

Basically everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong, apart from that they hadn't died. Though one of them was now laying on what might be his deathbed. But Kaz supposed he could stay positive...

He was positive things couldn't have gone worse.

Now Kaz sat in the Crows' room, cane flicking from gloved hand to hand. For a moment he wished he could remove the gloves, just to feel the warmth of life flowing through his fingertips instead of the cold, black reality of leather. Then, he remembered who he was; Dirtyhands, cool and composed, yet lethal in everything he did, whether it was torturing or slaughtering or sorting out gang bills.

Yet Kaz couldn't help but feel on edge. His Crows were scattered, none of them focused ever since Jesper had run off and retrieved an unconscious Wylan. It had highlighted just how vulnerable they all were; they weren't magic immortals that would always be able to survive a scrape, and they weren't all-knowing. Wylan had proved just that tonight.

It was these facts that haunted Kaz's mind now, and he was sure he wasn't the only one.

"What are you still doing here?" Kaz snapped as Jesper entered the room. There was only one word he could use to describe Jesper; dull. His usual sharpshooter charm had vanished, replaced with a weariness he only seemed to get after losing a whole stack of kruge, and even then he usually remained resilient. It was one of the things Kaz both envied and admired about Jesper; no matter the job, no matter the risks, he did it anyway. It was also terrifying.

"Inej can sort it out better than I can, I'm not going anywhere," Jesper said defiantly.

Kaz was about to roll his eyes and insert a sarcastic remark, but some part of him stopped him, a part that he found daring and dangerous, yet gentle and comforting.

Silence filled the room once more. Jesper, as usual, was the one to break it.

"Has Nina... I mean... how-"

"She hasn't told me anything yet. His injuries didn't seem too severe from what I could tell. No need to worry."

His words were a poor attempt at comfort, but they only seemed to enrage Jesper. "No need to worry? Wylan nearly had himself blown up, shot and stabbed out there tonight because you failed to plan ahead! It was your idea to send him out in the first place! For all we know he could already be-"

"May I remind you that it was his idea to come out tonight? I told him it was dangerous, and he didn't care, which I thought you of all people would understand! Being a Dreg means living in danger, and if it weren't for me he would already be dead, but this time floating in Reaper's Barge where no one would know he had ever existed!" Kaz yelled, his frustration from the night's failures fuelling his fury.

"You're the one that planned the assassination! Why did you even take the money if you knew who he was?"

"How was I supposed to know you would chicken out and not kill him! Rithouse only came for Wylan, and if he was already dead then he would have laid off! So maybe you should have killed him in the first place, Jesper. Have you ever thought about that?!"

He had gone too far.

Jesper was towering over Kaz in seconds, his height suddenly becoming an annoying advantage. "Don't. You. Dare." He hissed, his eyes ablaze in a way that Kaz had never seen before. "You don't deserve to talk about him like that. Not with him lying almost-dead on some dirty table after saving you-" he jabbed a finger at Kaz, and Kaz shuddered away. "-and all of our sorry Barrel rat asses. He shouldn't be part of your dirty gang. He should be... he should be-"