Kaz Brekker Imagines

Keep You Safe

It is a glorious day in the Barrel, and you've scarcely even begun it. The desolate landscape can't slow your spirits; no amount of choking smog in the streets nor roaming packs of thugs can bring you down. Years you've spent seeing the world, eternities you've had to appreciate a world outside of Ketterdam.

Today, however, you're not loving the world but your home, which has been proven to be Ketterdam time and time again. You know the nooks and crannies of the Slat as well as if you'd been born there. You're keenly aware of which creaking stairs should be avoided, which oil lamps will never light, and which rooms have peepholes in the sides. This place is a riddle to most, but you've solved it, and now it's yours to cherish.

You've been away on Dregs business all morning, and after a brief stop in your quarters to reload your guns and check yourself for injuries you haven't sustained, you head back out again. You've scarcely stepped over your own threshold, however, when you're greeted by a familiar face.

Kaz Brekker, known by one and all for his glimmering enthusiasm about roughly nothing at all, pauses for a moment on the stairwell so you have time to latch your door before he passes by.

He arches a brow in a careful movement you've seen about a thousand before. Kaz wears his consternation on his sleeve. The greed of men may line his coat pockets, but he doesn't need to rely on an entire city to carve his expressions from solid stone. Kaz is cold, as he always is, as he always will be.

Indeed, today he seems just as frosty as usual. "You look particularly festive this morning, Y/N. Have you perhaps amassed a fortune without my knowledge?"

You smirk. "Money isn't the only thing that can bring joy, Kaz, even if it's all that works for you. I'm merely happy because today marks two years since we met. Just picture it. Two full years ago, I was merely a starving wretch on the streets and you took me in. You were a wretch too, of course, just slightly less starving. Now look at us."

Kaz inclines his head solemnly. "No longer wretches, just con men. A marvelous change."

In all honesty, you do owe a lot to Kaz. You came to Ketterdam half lost in fear, running from witch catchers trying to drag you back to your home country. Few places treat their Grisha well, and as an Etherealnik, you've faced your share of dangers. You left everything behind when you got on a ship destined for Kerch, but it ended up being the best decision you've ever made.

Most of that is, of course, due to Kaz Brekker. He found you when the two of you were almost nothing, and you've grown to become his right hand man. Kaz is the only one who knows that you're a Grisha, and both of you have long since agreed on keeping it that way. To be a master of the Small Science in the Barrel is to accept your fate as an escaped lab rat. At any moment, you could be found and forced back to imprisonment or experimentation in your home country.

You're fairly sure that most people would consider a life as a criminal in Ketterdam to be a terrible fate, but you've grown to enjoy it. You have a home here, as strange as it seems. You trust Kaz completely with your secret, and he has yet to betray you. Around here, loyalties last as long as the shifting tides, but for some reason Kaz is the exception.

Still, sentimentality is rarely encouraged, even though you have a lot to appreciate. Kaz is certainly regarding you as if you've lost your mind.

You roll your eyes. "I'd say it's fantastic. We've come a long way, don't you think?"

Kaz glances towards you, almost incredulous. "I never would have thought you to be this sentimental. Have you gone soft with your newly acquired old age?"

You laugh. "I'm not soft, Kaz. A strong command over my emotions is one of my best strengths."

Kaz seems suspicious. "Just the other day, you audibly cheered when I allowed you to leave your post early to go get waffles with Nina. Are you certain that controlling your emotions is still a strength of yours?"