Work Text:
Some days he felt he was no different than the bullets in his chamber, and when he fired, they were one and the same. Nothing in the world existed except him and that small piece of metal, this custom piece of wax. There was nothing better than giving it direction. As for him, when he was fired from the chamber, it felt like whoever had done it was an awful shot.
He remembers both vividly and vaguely the grand farmhouse where she left them. He remembers the twists of his mother’s braids, and the silken wood floors. He remembers the dusty man who came to get them. He remembers the girl’s name, Leoni, but not the name of the horse they rode in on. He remembers his father’s choking sobs when his mother didn’t wake up, but he did. He remembers the cherry tree they left her under, pretty pink blossoms falling from the sky, a painting too beautiful to match what they were doing.
The house felt suffocatingly empty after that, silence overbearing, a tidal wave that drowned him quietly. He didn’t say anything to Da, who was suffering too much already. The silence settled somewhere inside him; he wasn’t sure where. All he knew was that he couldn’t drive it out, this river of noiselessness, the flow of grief. What he needed was a distraction.
Trying his best, really, wasn’t enough. At least, not to him. The river flowed within him and refused to be diverted, carrying away the rust-colored blossoms he farmed day in and day out, and always, always , were cherry blossoms riding the waves. The only escape was a gunshot, cool revolver handles in his grip. A miniature explosion, riding through the prairie like fire. When the bullet left the chamber, she was right there next to him, as if she hadn’t gone, hadn’t left. The river was a stream when he shot, his mother standing barefoot in the tiny creek beside him.
“You must never do that again. Promise me.” The sadness, the fear etched into his father’s face was something he wouldn’t forget, couldn’t forget. “Promise,” he responded. He never wanted to see that look again, to know that his father didn’t just fear what being zowa would mean for him. His father feared him.
He hid it, hid himself keeping this promise, lying to anyone and everyone. Yet when the time came, when that dusty man returned, and even though Da had driven him away, he was offered the choice. He could have the chance to go to Ravka, to learn, to train. To be zowa. He’d rather lie than leave his father alone.
Briefly, they were called to the Zemeni front on the plains, fighting with rifles against enemies unseen. The world narrowed down, that inexplicable distraction, a focus unlike any other. His father’s face was red as his Kaelish hair, sweat dripping and hands shaking. There couldn’t have been more of a difference between father and son. He was that bullet, shaped and focused, waiting to be fired from a chamber. He loved it.
Not long after, he began to work with a local gunsmith, a dusty man, but so unlike the one that came to their house that day. He told the man about his secret. Da didn’t need to know. What was one more lie? In the days, he would work the farm, those orange blossoms pulled, bundled, nurtured. But in the nights, when Da fell asleep and he could sneak out, that same rest evading him, pushed away by his need for distraction? He’d go back to the gunsmith, working in the dead of night, their dark skin nearly invisible if not for the lamplights.
One day, his father came to him with a proposal. The University of Ketterdam. Wild and far away, the prospect so different to the endless fields and golden skies he knew. The appeal of something new, something fresh, something different called to him, a tide pulling him out and away from Novyi Zem. He accepted.
He remembers getting on the boat to leave, hope and sadness carving lines in his father’s face.
University was a certain distraction, though he had never been prone to schoolwork and studying. Immense stone gargoyles and sculptures, paintings and structures, archways and doorways. Everywhere he looked, there was something to occupy his mind, the restless, running, broken machine that it was. For once, he was doing something different, existing outside the space of those orange blossoms, the cherry tree, and the never-ending silence.
Until of course, he left. New adventures, new distractions. This was the moment that tipped the scales of his life, washing him away. The Barrel was dangerous for anyone who didn’t know how to handle themselves. But he had brought his guns with him, custom revolvers he had made with the dusty gunsmith. He’d be fine. The change occurred with a sound and a spin. Fun, they called it. Fun, it was. He didn’t want to stop. Every tick of Makker’s Wheel raised the tides, until they receded, pulling him with them. Caught in a riptide, he couldn’t escape. He didn’t want to escape, really. It was too exhausting to fight it.
Slowly, more time was spent in the colorful, occupying chaos of the Barrel, and less in the orderly, immense chaos of the University. One day, he had gotten jumped in an alleyway, too careless to bother, or really, too drunk to pull his guns out. An unlikely savior descended upon the thugs in the form of a shadow, cruel silver flashing in the dim light. As the brutes disappeared, the shadow gained a form, sharp black lines of a suit against pale skin, gloved hands resting on a crow’s head cane. Kaz Brekker. He just about laughed.
He began doing jobs for Dirtyhands, whenever the other boy was in need of a sharpshooter. The number of heists increased steadily, quickly rising ranks as the outsider turning in. Each job was new, varieties that were the ultimate distraction. He could remember that day in the rain, where he looked up and realized he hadn’t stepped foot at the University for weeks. The Barrel had become home.
The Dregs tattoo had poked at his Zemeni skin uncomfortably, but he didn’t care. The pain was a distraction, too.
More games, more interruptions. More debts, more problems. Yet he couldn’t stop himself, carried away by the tides, an invisible rope attached to the gambling halls and reeling him in like a fish. Or, a pigeon. He hated himself for it, this insatiable need. But that wasn’t enough motivation to fight it.
Kaz had really sent him to go collect a kid from the tanneries. He wasn’t a messenger, yet he did it all the same. And there he saw, as if plucked from a childhood fairytale, the boy. Rosy gold hair and brilliant blue eyes, he could’ve sworn he was a prince. He had had his fair share of moments, many boys, many girls, and yet this boy may have been the prettiest he had ever seen. But this was a job, so he pretended and lied, painting a façade over his features. He only hoped that Wylan Hendriks wouldn’t see the real him.
Parley was supposed to be peaceful, yet he was itching for a fight. Longing for the familiar cool feel of his revolvers, he watched Kaz pretend to negotiate with the Black Tips. A mist hung in the air, sticking to and dripping over him like syrup. A bang! and Big Bol was shot. He never liked losing friends. Kaz almost went too, except everything had turned out to be his design, a twisted, crooked monster with claws as sharp as his reputation. They left Bolliger there.
Thirty million kruge. Enough to easily scrape him out of his debts, enough to keep him out of them for a long while. His mouth nearly watered at the prospect. He stared at the muscled blond Fjerdan they had broken out of Hellgate, this giant of a boy who would kill him if given the chance. If given the knowledge. Good thing he had lots of practice lying.
Saints, it felt good to shoot. Maybe it was bad, to wish to be shot at. Maybe it felt better than the river that flowed into the tidal waves inside him. Maybe it was the only thing he could control, since he couldn’t seem to control his own trajectory. This was the one thing he was good at. He kept shooting.
The only distraction on the sleek ship was wandering, talking, teasing. Endless gray seas taunted him, their reflection the color of his father’s eyes, of his eyes. Wanting to fall away with the waves, wanting to be overwhelmed, and not being able to? Excruciating. He left his spot at the railing to go bother the merchling some more.
He’d like to say that the most exciting thing about Fjerda was the Ice Court, but there was nothing more terrifying than that crystal marbled palace, and the red, purple, and blue tapestries they had woven like a banner of war. They contained souls, ghosts- a ghost that could’ve been him under different circumstances. Promise me. He couldn’t keep his promise. But his father wouldn’t know.
Prison walls crumbled easily beneath heavy fire; glass bridge the same. Explosions bright as their hope; they were free. He was free. And maybe, something changed within him, with the knowledge that he wouldn’t become a corecloth purple ghost on the wall of Fjerdan conquest.
The boat was a restless place, haunted by parem and the Drüskelle behind them. No distractions, only that flat expanse of gray sea, and Kuwei by his side.
When the ship blew, the river flowed within him. But no, this was something different, a spark, a prairie fire. It burned him from the inside out with red-gold flames. Until there it was, Wylan’s voice from Kuwei’s mouth, none of their crew but him surprised that his prince had vanished yet was there all the same. Invisible wounds sliced deepest, and he watched another one of his friends disappear.
They had to get her out of there, no matter what. He gave his guns up in an attempt at forgiveness, not just from Kaz, but from himself- he wanted to forgive himself for not doing enough to save her in the first place. It didn’t quite work.
Swallowing the uncomfortable lump in his throat was nothing compared to the sea of emotion he felt upon seeing his father again. Someone could have ripped his heart out of his chest, and it would have hurt less. All the lies, the shattered promises, they were about to be revealed, and his father would finally see him for the broken boy that he was. He was grateful Wylan came with him, but more grateful when Wylan lied for him.
The Wraith was unharmed, though that didn’t mean she was whole. Guilt tore through that invisible wound, even as he hugged her in the damp tomb. She didn’t know it was his fault they had to rescue her at all. Not just this time, but before they had even left on their international escapade. Her words from the ship rang clear in his ears. An excellent friend. Another lie.
The journey to Saint Hilde was one of pretending. He could tell Wylan was hiding his emotions in plain sight, and he supposed he was, too. Once again, always, tucking away the hurting shards of himself, the ones that had broken away in a grand Zemeni farmhouse where his mother gave her life for another. But he would stay, for Wylan, because Wylan was willing to wait for him.
“I think your mother’s alive.” Bittersweet, jagged words, edged like the sharpened fragments notched into his heart. What would he give to have his mother back from the dead? But she was well and truly gone. If she was still here, she would claw her way back to him, he knew it. At least, he believed so. He couldn’t afford not to or it would break him forever, beyond repair once and for all. His mother was never coming back, but Wylan’s still could.
Wylan had asked him, “Is this really what you want?” And what was he supposed to say? No. I want you to wait for me. I want you to forgive me. I want you to see me. The terrifying reality was that in all the connections he’d ever had, none had ever felt like this- prairie fire, burning gold in the daylight, and red in the dark.
Angry and frightened. He didn’t want to think on those words, about what they might mean to him. Every inch of him recoiled as soon as he reached near. The fight to escape their graveyard safehouse was a bloody distraction, but the guns in his hands were much more real than the mists curling off the river of grief that shaped who he was. Kuwei burned through the canal. He supposed there was something there for him to learn from.
Standing likely too close to each other, he was only relieved to know that Wylan was safe. That they all were. Everyone was too exhausted for words, aching with what could have been, and what was.
A born loser. Is that why he threw the first punch? Because Kaz had seen to the heart of things, like he always did, and this time hurt too close to home? He’d been trying to make amends, but trying was never enough. He was never enough.
Here it was, the conversation that left all the cards on the table, dreaded since he’d first seen his father in the University sunshine. To see again the fear of him scarring his father’s weary face, and to know, to confront all that he had ever done wrong. He couldn’t stay there any longer, itching inside of himself for a new distraction, a new escape. Long limbs carried him away, arriving unsteadily at an ugly purple room with a solitary piano, and there, sheafed in dark hair and golden eyes, was Wylan. But he left only feeling worse, because it wasn’t Wylan but Kuwei, the untrained Inferni unable to light the spark that he needed to burn everything away.
He could try to make amends, something that never seemed to work in his favor. He could try, because he couldn’t do anything else without losing himself entirely. He would go with Wylan to see the Tailor, to see his prince returned. He would stay, he would be there. He didn’t think it would be enough. This action will have no echo. A promise he intended to keep this time.
Wylan stood in front of him, silence only punctuated by his father’s snores from the other room. “What are you afraid is going to happen if you stop?” The question that haunted him, dogged his every step. The itch, the need to leave and be dragged away by the tides washed over him. A hand on his shoulder, becoming the anchor holding him fast against the crashing waves. “Breathe.” Stay. He made himself stop. He would stay, because Wylan would wait. The prairie fire burned.
The Shu solider had sniffed out his bounty, and nothing would stop in his way. A thousand moments rolled through his head, everything he had ever done wrong, and the people he loved most hurt by those deeds. The words unsaid were there too, dripping off the tip of his tongue. Most important were the moments not yet lived, a thousand promises, a thousand tries. He felt the anchor in the storm through the chemical bottle in his pocket. Smashing it away, he knew he would live.
Quietly, a new promise. “I can read to him.” This one, he could keep. This one, he would stay for.
Spirits lifted slightly, they walked silently to the mansion, immense and grand as it was. The silky wood floors reminded him of the farmhouse where his mother saved a life. He couldn’t allow himself to ignore her ghost any longer. She was never truly dead as long as he lived, and he had promised to try. He wanted to see what happened next.
Choked back tears and weeping red flowers. There was too much grief in the world, too many lives haunting his own. They worked because they had to, not as a distraction but as a necessity. He still felt everything, sadness aching through burning muscles.
It was an adjustment, to remain still in an enclosed space, more controlled than anywhere he had been in years. There was nothing to shoot, nothing to play. Every day the waves pulled him away, but his anchor remained firm. They would wait out the storm together.
One night it became too much. He waited for midnight skies, treading through the mansion as only a thief could. Slipped his revolvers into their holsters, feeling for those cool pearl handles under his thumbs. They were like a breath of relief. Gently, he slipped out the front door of that grand house, seeking something chaotic and varied. His feet found their way to the familiar walkways of the Barrel, towards one of the lesser-known clubs. He hated himself with every step he took, but made the journey all the same. He could be back by sunrise. It wasn’t an impossible task. His body was at war with itself, conflicting messages clashing in his brain. Go forward. Go back. Taking a deep breath, he prepared to enter the steps of the club, when suddenly a hand snatched his wrist. Whirling around, he pulled a gun out to aim at the attacker. Until he saw red-gold curls and blue eyes, a satchel at his side. His prince. “Jesper.” He met Wylan’s sky-blue gaze, expecting to see anger, to see fear. All he saw was kindness, gentleness. He didn’t deserve it. “Come home with me? Please?” He shifted his weight, holstered his gun. “Try for me?” He slid his wrist around to take Wylan’s hand, and they went back home, together.
Some days were better than others. Some days he made his own gunpowder on the dining table and read to Wylan and talked to Marya. Some days he forced himself to fabrikate, relearning what his mother had taught him. Some days he’d play the markets, trying his best to make the most money. Some days he’d visit Kaz at the Slat, much to the other boy’s chagrin. They both knew he was putting on a front. Some days, Wylan would teach him how to paint and play music, coming up with the rowdiest tunes they could. Some days, they’d dance together in the moonlight of their back garden. Some days, most days, he was okay. Some days, most days, he was himself.
He brought Wylan back with him to Novyi Zem, an unavoidable trip to see his father. He could make peace with him. He’d been doing better lately, managing to find ways to keep himself fulfilled without constant distraction. They’d arrived to swaying fields of orange flowers, blowing in gentle breeze. In the distance, the wind’s sticky fingers carried cherry blossoms away from their tree. First, they’d talk, a quiet conversation in the small log cabin. It had been years since he had been there, and the space wasn’t as large as he remembered, though it was still the same. His father’s book of Saints, the one he used to read to him, sat in the corner. Colm read to them now. It was an apology. Finding himself below the cherry tree, the sun began to set deeply, casting a red-gold glow over the fields. A hand slid into his own, and he leaned against Wylan’s frame. Tears fell silently, for his mother who loved to the point of sacrifice. He didn’t say anything. All that was required was that he be there. That he stayed. That he tried. It was enough.