Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was a miracle, Jesper thought, that he managed to get them to do it at all. Somehow, though, he’d done it.

It started with a letter in the middle of autumn (though, there wasn’t much of a distinction between that and summer in Ketterdam) from his Da. They’d been writing back and forth ever since the auction, attempting to keep up with each other better than they had before. This time, apparently, his father had taken ‘keeping up’ a bit further than just that.

He’d written in his letter about the holidays. It was clear that he didn’t want to be alone for them, because honestly, who did, and he’d asked if he and Wylan would come to spend it with him.

Since he’d been particularly awful in the past, hardly even sending a real letter for the holiday, he couldn’t help but agree to go. The letter he’d received in response was one filled with absolute elation and excited ramblings, signed off with a heart. It was only in reading it a second time that he realized his father offered to host all of his friends.

All of them.

At first, his reaction was to deny the invitation on all of their behalfs. He loved them, the Crows. He really, really did. But his father’s response to them the last time they’d met had been one of pure stress. To be fair, it had been absolute chaos during the time of the auction, but the idea of putting his Da through that again made him want to bash his own head in.

Then, he thought of his friends. His little group of Crows, each of them without another place to go. Well, except for Inej, who had her parents back in Ravka, but she was to be in port during that time, set to arrive just two weeks before the holiday. The rest of them were utterly without another home. Wylan had Mayra, but she was away with Alys helping care for the new baby. None of the rest of them had living parents, let alone extended family to go and visit.

It would be cruel to deny them a visit to the farm when one had been offered, especially when they’d have a chance to at least celebrate all together if not with their families.

He got to thinking about his Da again, back in Novyi Zem. The house was certainly big enough, if they doubled up on rooms. As for the stress factor…

Well, the auction had been chaotic. His father could surely handle a group of teenagers, just for the holiday. Surely. He was a tough man, he could do it.

So, that Friday night at dinner, when Kaz came over, he wrangled up the courage to ask him.

It took three separate rehearsals in the mirror and two cups of wine before he managed to bring up the subject without flaking out. “Kaz, do you want to come to the farm for the holiday?” he asked quickly, shoving a bite of food into his mouth before he could be forced to elaborate.

He’d never seen Kaz Brekker choke on wine before, but there was a first time for everything.

“Are you fucking with me, Jes?” he asked, once he managed to stop coughing, wiping at his mouth with a napkin.

That had him shaking his head, swallowing quickly. “No, Da asked if everyone wanted to come,” he said. It was only after he said that that he realized it may have been rhetorical, but he went with it.

Kaz just stared at him for a solid five seconds. He assumed he might have been checking to make sure he wasn’t laughing, in order to be certain that he was not, in fact, fucking with him. It was a bit awkward, though, sitting there while his face was visually assessed by his best friend.

It took a moment after he stopped staring for him to nod just once, then start talking. “When are you leaving?” he asked, leaning back in his seat and looking back down at his food.

“Three days after Inej comes into port,” he said, fidgeting around with his silverware. It wasn’t easy, being stared down by the Bastard of the Barrel at your own kitchen table.

Kaz seemed to balk just a bit at that, sitting forward in his seat once more. “Inej is going?” he asked, looking over at him. It wasn’t in the tone that he so often held when asking about Inej, as if he’d wanted to know because that made him more willing. It was more like shock, as if he was baffled that they’d asked her, as well.

Wylan nodded for him, setting down his fork, “Yeah, also Nina and Matthias.”

Jesper could tell, just looking at Kaz, that he wanted to say ‘no’. That he wanted to run away screaming, to laugh at the mere prospect of them having asked. But beneath that was a layer of hesitance. For some reason, it broke his heart to see, just a bit.

Almost as if getting snapped out of a trance, Kaz nodded and stood abruptly, shaking the table with the force of it. He grabbed his cane from where he’d propped it beside him and threw his coat over his shoulder with his free hand, walking away from the table.

“Kaz,” Jesper called, hoping that he’d get the other boy to come back, so they could at least begin to discuss what had upset him enough to leave in the middle of dinner.

Just as the door swung open, Kaz yelled something unintelligible back. He didn’t sound pissed, at least. It didn’t make it hurt any less that he’d just up and left, giving no response.

Wylan stood and walked around the table, squeezing Jesper’s shoulder. “He’ll work it out,” the merchling said, looking down at him.

Jesper could only pray that he was right, at the time. Given the situation, he probably should’ve put two-and-two together a bit sooner. If he’d heard what Kaz had been calling, they may have been able to avoid the aftermath a bit better.

The aftermath, which was Kaz showing up at their house the next day, and Jesper promptly fleeing to another room as Wylan opened the door.

He’d understood, to an extent, Kaz’s reaction. Well, moreso expected than understood. It was a very Kaz reaction, in the face of feelings. It was a reaction Jesper had witnessed before, even. Granted, it was usually because of Inej, but he’d still seen it. He should’ve better prepared for it, was all.

This bit of understanding, the mental bashing he was doing, was the only reason that when Wylan came into the room, peeking his head around the corner to look at Jesper and whispering, “He’s asking to talk to you,” he actually followed him.

Kaz stood in the foyer leaning against the staircase when Jesper showed up.

“Hello,” Jesper greeted, mustering up some amount of the swagger he usually naturally carried in order to speak to him. He rested his hands on his revolvers, rubbing over the engraved handles as he waited for Kaz to speak.

“I talked to Anika, she’ll be able to take over that week,” he said, pushing off the staircase railing and standing up straight. He tapped his cane lightly against the ground, as he did often when he was waiting for a response.

Jesper was more than a little baffled. He was almost upset, actually. He’d thought he’d said something to upset him, yesterday. That he’d just never show up to dinner again, after that.

What he said in response did not convey that. What he said in response showed very little emotion at all, actually. “So, you’re coming, then?”

Kaz nodded, “If that’s alright.”

Jesper supposed his lack of certainty, that little bit of disguised, indirect care for his feelings was enough. “I wouldn’t have invited you if it wasn’t,” he said, looking up at him from where he stood a step down below him in the living room.

Kaz seemed to hesitate for a moment before he just nodded, turning around to walk out the door. Jesper watched as he went for only a moment, not waiting for him to even open the door before turning back to walk into the kitchen.

“Jes,” he heard from behind him, and whirled around to find Kaz standing halfway out the door, turned around to face him. “Thank you,” he seemed to struggle to say, looking away from him.

Jesper immediately cracked a huge grin, which was apparently answer enough as Kaz slipped out the door without another word.

The next few weeks ended up being a rollercoaster of attempts to get everything put together so they’d be ready to leave on time. It was a mess of helping Kaz to finish up work so things would be ready for Anika, going to visit Marya and Alys to say goodbye, and checking up on security for the house to make certain nobody would get in while they were gone.

Inej showed up exactly when she’d hoped to, the wind having favored her voyage home as best as it could’ve with the cold winds. She had brought Nina and Matthias with her, as they’d been travelling with her since she went up to Fjerda a few weeks prior.

They all spent the night at the mansion with Jesper and Wylan the night before they left, each person taking their own guest room.

The next morning they were all awoken by Kaz, who Jesper would wager hadn’t slept at all, at seven bells. Everyone made their way down to the kitchen within a few minutes of waking up, all of them with tired eyes and messy hair, still in their pajamas. They ate breakfast as quickly as they could manage before going back upstairs to get dressed, leaving the house as soon as everyone gathered in the living room with their bags.

The trip to Novyi Zem took three days by boat. Those three days, for Jesper, were spent almost entirely aboard the deck of The Wraith, playing children’s card games and helping Inej man the sails. It felt good to be on the water, even when it was cold enough to make him want to burrow into the heat of his cot downstairs beside Wylan and sleep the entirety of the trip.

When they made it to land, finally, it was a feat to try to get everyone off of the ship on time before the gates closed. In Novyi Zem, the ports were all locked in at a certain hour to prevent anyone from outside breaking into the ships at night. This particular port had been the one Jesper visited as a child, being the only one within a reasonable distance from his home.

It was odd, to be home after so long. There was a certain air about the Zemini lands, the way that it was all entirely open and free. If he tried hard enough, he could imagine there was nothing surrounding them. That he could take control of the fields and stretch them as far as humanly possible, running until he reached the ends of the earth.

“Jes!” his Da called, riding up in the wagon as the ship was locked into the berth beside them.

His eyes snapped up to meet Colm’s, the grin that he’d already been sporting shifting into something even wider, something entirely untamed. He ran, then, hauling himself up onto the bench beside his father and throwing his arms around his neck.

When he leaned back, Colm just smiled at him before calling to the rest of his friends, waving at them to hop onto the wagon behind them. There was little space for luggage, but somehow they managed to make it all fit as they crammed in.

From there, the ride was long. It was so, so incredibly long. It may have been because he found himself missing the farm more than he had since the first few months he’d been gone. Being back in his home country had lit a desire to be at home that he hadn’t truly, truly felt since he’d first been away. At one point, his Da passed him the reins, letting him drive the wagon for a bit.

He felt like he was a little boy again, finally allowed to take over farming duties for the first time. He’d wanted to do everything his whole childhood; be allowed to operate the plow, to ride the horses, to look after the crops. It wasn’t until he was older that he’d realized that it was much less than it was cracked up to be--that the repetitiveness of doing the same chores everyday was more of a curse than a show of responsibility.

Now, though. Now, as he rode down the paths back to the house, making the horses go just about as fast as he could without toppling the cart over, he felt freed. He felt like he did when he was small, when he thought the chores would be fun. He felt like he could take over the world.

If he’d turned around, then, he’d have seen that each of his friends was sporting a smile far too fond to be for anyone other than one of their best friends. Even Kaz, who’d stood and walked away when they’d first brought up this trip, was wearing a smile that had his eyes crinkling beneath them just a bit (if you asked him, he’d have said it was the wind in his face. But even when he looked away, facing behind them, the grin didn’t leave his face).

When they got to the farm, he all but shoved the reins back into his Da’s hands. He was ready, ready to go and see his home after so long, ready to see the animals again, ready to show his friends where they’d all be staying the next few weeks.

The second that the wagon slowed, he was jumping out and throwing his bag over his shoulder. “Jes, wait!” Wylan laughed from the back of the wagon.

Jesper whirled around to face him, then reached up to grab his hand and help him down from the wagon as he hopped off of it. He stood as everyone else did the same, Matthias helping Nina afterwards and Inej offering Kaz her hand, despite the fact that she, herself, had managed to land on her feet when she got down.

As they make their way into the house, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Kaz and Inej are still holding hands, as if they hadn’t let go since they got off the wagon.

That made sense, Jesper thought, as to why Kaz was so jittery about coming with them. If he’d been worried about this, about spending time with Inej outside the Barrel, outside of a mission. He did his best not to stare at them as they walked inside. That surely wouldn’t have boded well with Kaz, if that was the reason he was nervous.

“Jes, why don’t you show your friends around? Show them their rooms, yeah?” his Da called as he unhitched the horses from the wagon, getting ready to walk them to the stables again.

Jesper called back an acceptance, already making his way inside. “Okay, this is the living room,” he gestured, “the kitchen is back here. If you’re hungry--” he looked around at the counters. Clearly, his father had not underestimated the stomach capacity of teenagers. “--well, there’s food here. Then upstairs,” he said, already starting to make his way up the staircase along the right wall.

Never before had he worried that the stairs in his home would collapse beneath him, but as all six of them stood on them, the thought did occur to him.

“These are all the rooms upstairs. Da’s is downstairs, closer to the front of the house,” he said. “I think there’s three beds up here, so if anyone doesn’t want to share, the couch downstairs is free.” He said this almost directly to Nina and Matthias, who had split up to sleep in separate rooms back when they spent the night at the mansion. Something about being tired of sharing tiny beds, Nina had explained.

He opened the door to one of the guest rooms, the one that used to be something of a storage room, when he was younger. Nobody ever actually slept there, really, since they usually went to the cousin’s houses rather than having them come to them. It was easier to travel with their little family rather than making all of the cousins come to visit them.

“Does it matter which ones we take?” Nina asked, holding onto Matthias’s hand. Apparently, they would be sharing, then.

Jesper scrunched his nose up, “Not really. The room at the other end of the hall is mine and Wy’s, but the rest of you can pick.”

Kaz walked away almost immediately out of that room and into the next, Inej following behind him after a few seconds with a glance toward Jesper.

Jesper and Wylan also left, then, letting Nina and Matthias get settled in as they went to the room of their own. Wylan followed behind him with his own bag as Jesper approached the door, turning the handle hard. It did not open.

“Oh, hell,” he mumbled, twisting the knob harder and pushing with more force. It had done this since he was little; something about the humidity (that still remained present, even in the winter when it was cool) had made it so that wood swelled. For whatever reason, it was only this door that had problems. Wylan let out a snort from behind him as he dropped his bag, leaning into the door with more force than before.

“Do we need help?” the merchling asked, stepping forwards.

“No,” Jesper insisted, pushing his entire body weight into the door. When he was a kid, his Da would have to come upstairs with him just to open his door. It had always infuriated him, ever the independent child. The mere thought of asking for help now made him shudder.

He stood back, panting just a bit and sighing. “Okay,” he said, rolling his shoulders back. Then, he grabbed the knob and turned, before throwing his entire body into it.

The door practically slammed open, sending Jesper falling to the ground.

Almost instantly, heads were poking out of both the other doors in the hallway. “What the hell are you doing?” Nina snapped, stepping out into the hallway.

“Dying, love,” he said, rubbing leg that he’d so gracefully banged against the ground as he fell.

“No dying, Jes!” he heard Inej call from the other bedroom, the door just slightly cracked open as Kaz peeked outside.

Wylan rolled his eyes with a smile, stepping into the room and grabbing his hand to help him stand. “I agree with Inej,” he said softly. “No dying, Jes,” he leaned in quickly enough to catch Jesper off guard, nearly sending him falling back into the open door as Wylan kissed him.

They stood there like that for at least a minute before Wylan pulled back. “We need to unpack,” he smiled, dropping his own bag off his shoulder and onto the ground.

Indeed, they did.

That, and the idea of his father walking upstairs to that was enough to make Jesper blush. Saints.

“Ghezen, you’re shyer than I am,” Wylan remarked, walking out to the hall and grabbing the bag that Jesper had discarded in his attempts to get the door open. “Should we put something in front of the door so it doesn’t close on accident?” he asked, passing Jesper’s bag into his hands.

Jesper shook his head, down at the bottom of the door. “It won’t close on accident. It’s as much work to get it closed as it is to open it.”

“Oh,” Wylan said, his shoulders slumping just a bit as he walked over to the bed, grabbing his bag up off the ground and lifting it up onto it.

“We should go see the horses today,” Jesper remarked. He knew it was a rather abrupt change in subject, but there wasn’t anything else to say, and he wanted to see the horses. He supposed it would be more important to make it known now than to try to stick to the worn out conversation.

Wylan looked up from his now opened bag, though his hands kept working on taking out his neatly-folded clothes and setting them next to him on the bed. “Oh, uh,” he looked back down quickly, then back up again, blushing, “I never learned how to ride.”

Jesper nearly fell over. “Well, we’ll have to teach you, then!” he exclaimed, picking his own bag up and slinging it onto the bed.

He then went around to the side Wylan was standing by, grabbing his hand. “Come on, let’s go,” he said, tugging on his wrists.

“Jes, we have to finish unpacking,” he laughed, giving in and following Jesper still as he walked.

Jesper sighed, shaking his head. “Nah, we’ll do it later,” he said. “Should we ask everyone else, too?” he asked as they approached the stairs.

“It couldn’t hurt,” Wylan shrugged, looking over at the other two closed doors in the hall.

Jesper let go of his hand, going and banging on the other doors. He swore, this whole house was much more fragile than he remembered it being. He could practically hear wood splitting beneath his knuckles as he knocked on the doors. “Guys, we’re going to see the horses, come on!” he called.

He heard both Kaz and Matthias sigh far too loudly through the door before they both came out with Inej and Nina by their sides. “Do we have to go now? I haven’t had a chance to unpack yet,” Matthias grumbled.

“Yes, we’re going now. Come on,” he said, grabbing Wylan’s hand once more and making his way down the stairs to the bottom floor.

They took the backdoor out to the stables, where all of the horses still slept since the last time he was here. The wood on the stables had been replaced, he noticed first. He was going to do that before he left, but the shipments of wood kept getting delayed, so he hadn’t had the chance. It was nice, the way it turned out.

He noticed next that as they walked into the stables, Kaz reached up to pet just about every horse that stuck their heads out the door to meet them. He couldn’t help but wonder how the Bastard of the Barrel, Mr. ‘My mother is Ketterdam’, had grown to like farm animals. He wondered, occasionally, if Kaz had ever been to a farm. The way he talked sometimes had a bit of a drawl to it, the way people from Southern Kerch spoke. Maybe his actual father, not profit, had been from a farm. It would explain it, in some ways. The instant liking he took to the horses, the accent.

“You’re staring, Jes,” Inej said, nudging his side with her elbow.

Oh.

He had indeed been staring.

“Can we ride them?” Nina asked, petting the mane of one of the horses, one of the older ones that Jesper had named as a boy. Back then, all of the horses had been named after flowers. This one was Petunia, he was pretty sure.

Jesper shrugged, nodding. “If you know how, absolutely. There’s tacking stuff over there,” he said, gesturing to the wall with the saddles and lead ropes hanging from it.

Instantly, each of them were making their way over to the wall. Even Kaz was making his way over, pulling down riding equipment from the wall and heading over to one of the horses that had taken a particular liking to him.

Not ten minutes later, they were all out in the fields.

He had never thought he’d see any of these people atop a horse, before. It was an odd sight, especially seeing Kaz and Matthias there. They looked far happier than usual, mounting the horses and waiting for Inej and Nina to come up beside them.

Then, they were off. It was like watching a different person, seeing them on the horses, running. There was a smile to compete with any he’d ever seen before on Kaz’s face, and one that Matthias only had ever shown in regards to Nina on his.

Wylan and Jesper stayed there with the girls, who laughed before making slower loops around the pen talking amongst themselves while they got used to the feel of being on a horse again. He helped Wylan mount the horse using the crates by the door, trying to help assure him that, no, he was not going to fall off. Then, after a few minutes of sitting, they managed a slow walk around the pen.

“This is fun,” Wylan said eventually, “Can I go fast yet?” he asked, looking down to Jesper.

He looked up at him reluctantly--he hadn’t tried going faster than this his first time on a horse, and he knew for a fact his cousins hadn’t, either. He had been a child, back then, but he couldn’t imagine it was much different for an adult.

Then, he had an idea. “Do you wanna go really fast?” he asked, grinning up at Wylan.

“Oh. I don’t know, I… not on my own, yet.”

“How about I drive?” he asked with a smirk.

Wylan smiled and accepted, and Jesper helped him down from the horse to take his place before taking his hand to help him remount in front of him. “How fast are we going to go?” Wylan asked somewhat nervously.

“You saw Kaz earlier, right?” Jesper asked, turning his head to the side, able to see Wylan’s face just out of the corner of his eye.

Wylan hesitated a bit, “Yeah.”

Jesper grinned, adjusting the reins in his hands. “We’re going to put him to shame,” he said, and with a flick of the reins and a squeeze to the horse’s sides, they were taking off.

At first, Wylan’s grip was tight around Jesper’s waist, holding on so hard that he thought he might burst just from the force of his hands. Then, as they went on, it slowly loosened, until he could see Wylan’s smile in his peripheral vision.

Eventually, they caught up to Kaz and Matthias, who had found a seat on some logs by the little lake a bit away from the house.

“You’re fast,” Matthias commented as they rode up to them.

“Why did you stop?” Wylan asked.

Kaz looked over to the horses, “We did a few loops. It’s not good to go too fast for a long time all at once, it could wear them out,” he explained, looking up from where he sat on the long.

“How do you know that, Kaz?” Jesper asked, finally.

It was too much, all of the little things that pointed to Kaz being from a farm; to Kaz being like him. “I used to have a horse, when I was a kid,” he said.

“How did you raise a horse in the Barrel?”

Kaz was silent for a second.

“I don’t like the questions you’re asking,” he said simply, before standing and walking over to where he’d tied up the horse he was riding. Matthias followed right behind him, going to get his own horse untied.

Jesper sighed, looking over at him as he mounted the horse. “Would it kill you to answer a question properly, for once in your life?”

Kaz smirked, grabbing hold of the reins. “You’ll never know,” he said, then took off on the horse.

Immediately, Jesper grinned. Kaz was playing. He was messing around, like he had on very rare occasion back when they’d first become friends. Trying to rile him up, as he had when he’d taken his guns that one time.

It was working.

Jesper sent the horse running again, chasing after Kaz on his own all the way back up the hill. “Jes!” Wylan laughed as they flew, following Kaz back to the farm.

“Damn it!” Jesper exclaimed with a laugh as Kaz took off on another round around the farm.

“Can you let me go, at least, if you’re going to speed up?” Wylan asked, holding on tight once again. Jesper hadn’t even realized that they’d picked up the pace much from the ride down to the little lake, he was so intent on catching up to Kaz.

He slowed the horse down and offered Wylan a hand to help him dismount. “I’ll be back,” he said with a wink, then set off after Kaz again.

He’d disappeared, nearly, since Jesper had stopped. He was a skilled rider, he could tell. It was a skill well honed, not one that he’d picked up with no practice. Somehow, at some point, he’d had lessons and an ass ton of practice. Jesper made a silent vow to himself that somehow, in some way, he’d find out how he’d gotten so good at it.

Apparently, it would not take as much time as he thought.

He found Kaz on the opposite side of land from before, stopped by the trees. “Took you a minute,” he called, a smug smirk on his face.

“Had to let Wylan down,” he responded as he got closer, dismounting and tying the horse up to the same tree Kaz had put his on. “You’re good at that,” he commented, nodding to the horse as he secured the knot on his own reins.

Kaz looked down, his expression having lost the bit of carefreeness and shifted into one of more serious contemplation. They stood like that for a minute, before moving to sit down at the bottom of the small hill they’d stopped below. The other side led to woods--they were usually unoccupied, but they were a pain in the ass to ride through. At the speed they’d been going at, it would’ve been next to impossible to both keep the pace up and navigate through it.

It was sunny out, that day. It was still chilly, but the shade made the cool air feel freezing, despite the weather being closer to pleasant than intolerable. It would get colder soon; probably within the next few days. It would make it harder to go for rides without getting teary-eyed, but they’d still be able to manage it, if they wanted.

Jesper, after that ride with Wylan, decided that he absolutely did want to.

It made him want to live here again, being able to go with the horses and ride to his heart's content. It was freeing, being able to go that fast again. There was no way to go that fast on anything at all in Ketterdam. He could run when he was on jobs, sometimes. But there was no way to go as fast as he had today in Ketterdam, even on the horses there. It was too busy to go any faster than a trot, really.

He let himself get lost in thoughts, in a stream of future possibilities. All of them on the farm, all of them with Wylan. Most of them with his friends, too.

With Kaz’s reaction to just this trip, he could hardly imagine ever getting him to move here with them. He could hardly imagine getting him to come back more than once every few years, even. To have this, to be able to stay here… it would be to surrender seeing his best friend often, at the least. At the most, it would be Wylan having to give up the mansion and his place on the Merchant Council, it would be for them to forfeit their loyalty to The Dregs.

He couldn’t decide if all of that was worth it.

He was pulled out of his daydreams by Kaz’s voice filling up the silence. He didn’t meet Jesper’s eyes as he spoke, picking apart blades of grass. “I grew up on a farm.”

“I knew it!” Jesper exclaimed before he could stop himself. Kaz shot a look at him, leaning forwards and pressing his chest to his bent left leg. It occurred to Jesper only then that all of that riding must put some sort of strain on his right leg, with having to keep it in such an awkward position to reach the stirrups.

It took a moment for Kaz to speak again. “I lived in Southern Kerch until I was eight with my family,” he said, continuing to pull apart grass. Probably to keep his hands busy, Jesper thought.

He wanted to know more. He wanted to know so much more, now that he had that little bit of information. It suddenly made sense why Kaz kept it a secret, if he didn’t want them to know everything. Jesper’s mind was greedy to learn more, to understand why his friend was the way he was.

Jesper couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t show those questions he had. Nothing besides what he’d thought earlier, at the lake. “Like me,” he whispered.

He saw a ghost of a smile cross Kaz’s lips. It disappeared almost as quickly as it showed up and was replaced with something different. Something much softer, something that made Jesper want to reach over and wrap him up in a hug.

They sat in silence for a moment longer, after that. Jesper wondered if he’d said the wrong thing, if somehow the idea of them being similar in that way had been what upset his friend. For himself, it was a thing to be celebrated. The idea of relating to Kaz over anything at all made him want to jump for joy, just to have something in common besides their gang and friends. Maybe it was different, though, for Kaz.

He was the one who spoke first again, next. “My brother,” he started, clearing his throat before continuing, “he died right after we left.”

Well, that had not been what Jesper was expecting.

Immediately, his brain started shrieking to abort this mission. He felt a new brand of awful, for having wondered so intensely about Kaz’s past. It felt like intruding on something private. Much of the time, that didn’t matter to Jesper. He’d ask questions and pester until he got the answers he wanted, just for the sake of knowing. But this felt different; it felt personal.

He didn’t know what to say after Kaz said that. He’d not expected it, that was for sure. If he had, he may have had a better response.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said. It felt the most genuine, the clearest way to say that he was grateful for that little bit of vulnerability that Kaz would show to him. He knew it must have been hard for him to talk about, since he hadn’t mentioned it before.

In fact, all emotion seemed hard for him to talk about. But this, he’d assume, was worse. How could losing family not be? The only way Jesper could relate was when his mother had died, back when he was small. That had to be different, though, than losing a brother. Especially when Kaz appeared to have lost the rest of his family, as well.

He supposed that difficulty in speaking of feelings was why Kaz didn’t respond to his show of thanks. He just continued to sit there, picking at the grass and leaning forwards, as if trying to press his stomach into his leg.

Jesper hesitated for a minute, debating what to say, if anything at all. He wanted to make things lighten up a little bit, to get rid of the heavy energy from Kaz’s admission. More importantly, to make him smile. “You know you have an accent, sometimes?” he teased.

Kaz really did crack a half-smile, then. In fact, Jesper could’ve sworn he blushed a bit. “Shut up,” he attempted to grumble, looking away from him.

“Especially when you’re angry. You sound like you’re from Zierfoort on some days, for fuck’s sake,” he laughed.

That is when Kaz laughed.

It only made Jesper’s smile grow wider, despite the fact that it was gone almost as soon as it started. Kaz’s smile remained, though, for many seconds longer.

“We should go back,” he said eventually, standing and making his way to the horse he’d ridden over on, and Jesper followed suit. This time, when they rode back, they did it side by side.

A few days later, the holiday arrived.

Nobody at all seemed to be surprised when Jesper and Nina were up first, waking everyone else by pounding on the door and dragging them out of bed. It was an odd moment, celebrating such a domestic holiday with this particular group of people. They all seemed on the outside to be such a ruthless crew, and while they usually didn’t do things like this together, it was a welcome change. He’d exchanged gifts with Kaz and Inej before, but he hadn’t known any of the other’s well enough last year to do anything. Waking up to share in the festivities like a family would was something so foreign, yet so pleasant.

They gathered around the kitchen table slowly. He and Nina sat down first, but his father had been up for a while before them tending to the chores before he’d start on breakfast (which he insisted on making himself, despite everyone’s offers to help). Wylan was down next, since Jesper kept yelling up the staircase at him. Matthias came soon afterwards, his hair still a mess and yawning. After that, it was Kaz and Inej, hand in hand and sitting down beside each other.

The sight of their little crew, each of them sitting in their pajamas and looking like they’d just rolled out of bed, was enough for Jesper to want to cry tears of laughter. To think they’d pulled off infiltrating the Ice Court.

“I think,” Jesper said with a grin, “that we should exchange gifts after this.”

Nina nodded, smiling as wide as he’d ever seen. “I think we should, too.”

“I think we should all go back to sleep and try again in an hour,” Wylan said, to which nearly everyone let out a chuckle. Even Kaz put on a little half-smile.

Soon after that, cinnamon buns were being passed around the table.

Everyone expressed their gratitude in little ways to his Da, looking over at him with some sort of smile as he sat down with them at the table. He found his place beside Jesper, who’d scooted over to make room for him. He fervently rejected any sort of praise, saying that it was no problem to him at all.

Looking around at his friends, Jesper realized two things. The first being that he was incredibly glad that they’d all made it far enough in life to have this moment, despite their multiple run-ins with death in the past years knowing each other. The second was that he was grateful for his Da and his willingness to let him bring all of these people to their house for the holiday, if for nothing else, just so that they wouldn’t all be alone.

It was quite an odd thing, knowing that he was the only one of them who had parents to spend it with. He’d known it was strange since the beginning, back when his father had offered in the first place. But to see each of them there, sitting and talking in their fucking pajamas and eating cinnamon buns his father made, it hit him harder. It hit him that most of them hadn’t had anything resembling this in five years at the least.

Granted, neither had he. But for him, the option was always there. He could have come home, even while he was in debt, even when he was in The Dregs. If not because of his father’s acceptance of all that, because he had a home to go to in the first place.

Up until the past few months, not even Inej had that. She did now, but even still, she was the only other one.

He made a decision at that moment. He’d have to discuss some things with his father tonight, after most of them were away in their rooms.

“Jes,” Inej said, as if someone had said his name more than once. “We asked about the horse’s names,” she stated, as if that meant something without context.

“Why’d you name them after flowers?” Wylan asked, looking at him from where he sat to his left.

Jesper cracked a smile. “Ma liked them,” he said simply, taking a bite of his cinnamon bun.

He saw Kaz nod once in his direction, as if it was a bit of praise. A ‘good job’ for sharing that bit of past, as he had earlier in the week.

They went on with conversation after that, like he hadn’t just brought up his mother. It was nice, almost, the way that it wasn’t hung onto. It made it hurt less, the mention of her not being a conversation halter, or a reason for all of them to make sure he was alright. He was fine, really. Mostly.

“Let’s go open presents!” Nina said after a while, while he was sitting and thinking.

If there was a way to pull him from his thoughts, that was it. He stood up faster than anyone else, sending his chair nearly falling to the ground backwards behind him as he grabbed onto Wylan’s hand, walking with him into the living room. They took seats scattered across the living room floor, each of them passing around each other’s gifts until they each had all of their own.

They took turns, in order to make sure they each got a certain level of attention--and so that they could see the presents they’d gotten for each other opened.

By the end of it, Jesper was at a level of excited he hadn’t been in years.

He had new holsters, courtesy of Kaz. They had crows imprinted on the tops of where they’d rest over his shoulders; a fine detail, one that he absolutely adored. There was also a new notebook for his office from Wylan, one he’d been wanting for weeks from a store back in Ketterdam. What hit home most was the gift from his Da; a new set of books from the store in town, all with golden lettering. They nearly matched the ones that were kept on the shelves throughout his childhood--ones he’d always been curious about, but were falling apart at the seams so thoroughly that nobody ever moved them out from their place on the shelves.

They were the stories of historical figures in both Novyi Zem and The Wandering Isle, he’d learned that morning. All straight from the history books. He’d nearly cried, getting his own copy of them. It was a direct way to learn about both pieces of his culture, and while it was no direct account, not hardly the same as learning from his mother, it was a start.

The morning was spent with his nose in the books, flipping through the pages like they might slip through his fingers if he didn’t go quick enough. Part of him was almost afraid that they would.

More than once, Nina walked over and dragged him up by whichever hand was free, bringing him with her off into the kitchen or outside for a break.

It was around lunchtime when they gathered around outside, mounting the horses once again. They all seemed to pair off together, once again, this time in far different groups. Nina and Matthias went off on their own, disappearing into the fields somewhere. Inej and Wylan stayed in the pen while they kept to a slow trot, since neither of them were very experienced. He and Kaz made their way back to the hill they’d spoken on a few days ago, finding their place at the bottom of it.

It was his turn to make an admission, first. “I miss my Ma,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. He hadn’t spoken of it at all, not really. Not today, at least.

Kaz was silent for a moment, then nodded. “So do I.”

Jesper nodded back in understanding. It was nice, at least, to know that they shared this as well. That he wasn’t entirely alone in it, even when he was.

Then, he was crying. It was a strange thing, how quickly it happened. One moment he was swallowing back tears, thinking he’d manage it, and the next he was letting out fast, hiccuping sobs, trying to keep them quiet by covering his face with his hands. It was not working.

At one point, he felt Kaz’s eyes on him, not fully turned to look at him. Then, he was shuffling closer, until they were pressed up against each other, arm against arm. Then, he was cautiously reaching over, pulling Jesper into the most fragile hug he’d ever gotten.

It was nice, but he found himself crying harder like this. Kaz didn’t seem to mind, because he continued to hold on until his sobs had faded into soft cries, coming much slower than they had been before.

“Have you told Wylan?” he asked after he let go, leaning back and moving away just a bit.

Jesper shook his head, looking down at his hands once he pulled them away from his face. “No, I mean… no. He has his Ma, I don’t want him to feel bad. And, you know, it’s different, it’s--she’s more of me than just my Ma. I look like she did, not like Da. I love him, but he doesn’t know anything about being Zemini at all. Or zowa--Grisha, I--” he was rambling. He knew he was rambling, and he knew Kaz couldn’t probably understand, but he didn’t truly care.

Kaz didn’t say anything for a long while. He didn’t expect him to, really. It was fine just knowing someone heard it, that someone could relate to it in some kind of way. Could relate to the loss of a mother.

“Do you think being here would help?” Kaz asked eventually, looking to face him.

“We’re here right now,” Jesper sighed, frustrated.

Kaz shook his head, “No, I mean living here. Spending more time with people that you can learn from.”

Jesper shrugged, letting his shoulders fall and tilting his head back a bit. “Maybe. It wouldn’t be the same.”

It wouldn’t be, not even a bit. It would still be learning. But to learn from strangers… he should’ve gotten to learn from his mother. He did not want to be angry, not like he was right then. Somewhere deep inside, though, he knew he had been for a long time, now. It was something he’d deserved, something that he would’ve gotten to have.

“It wouldn’t,” Kaz conceded. “Would it be better than not learning at all?”

Jesper had a feeling he wasn’t meant to answer out loud. It was one of Kaz’s ‘thinking questions’, as he liked to call them. Ones he’d laugh at him for answering, ones that were purely for though-provoking purposes.

It could be better than not learning at all. That was, if Wylan would come with him. If he managed to drum up the courage to ask him to come with him, and then the courage to leave behind Kaz and The Dregs and the house. It would be a lot.

It could be worth it.

Eventually, his thoughts trailed into something else. He found himself talking outloud, not truly caring if Kaz was listening at all. “She used to put flowers in her hair. Only the colorful ones, though, and only ones that were already dying. She didn’t believe in cutting the flowers herself if they weren’t dying, yet.”

He wasn’t expecting a response to that, either. And then; “It sounds like you two are similar,” Kaz said, keeping his voice quiet. Jesper didn’t think he’d ever heard him say this much consecutively without being obnoxiously rude or yelling.

“Tell me about yours,” he said. He liked this side of his friend; the side that was clearly more farm boy than Barrel boss. It was a nice change. He could never have imagined before how he would have ended up friends with someone like Kaz, if their paths hadn’t crossed when they did. Now, though, seeing this piece of him… he could imagine being friends with this Kaz.

“I didn’t really ever get to know mine,” Kaz said quietly, “but Da used to say that she was smarter than anyone in Lij. That she could do things in her mind that would take him days to do on paper.”

“That sounds like someone I know,” Jesper joked. He couldn’t hold back from it, not after hearing those similarities. Kaz had commented on his mother’s commonalities with him, as well, so it was really only fair.

Kaz cracked a smile, one similar to the one he had when Jesper had joked about his Southern Kerch accent showing.

He waited for the smile to fade, and he thought about how to phrase it. He supposed now was as good a time as any to ask, while he wasn’t already in a shitty mood. It was just how to say it without making him angry or scaring him off.

“Would you want to come back here again, ever?” Jesper asked, looking over to Kaz.

Kaz turned his head to look at him. Jesper noticed that once again, he’d started pulling at blades of grass. “Are you planning on coming back?” he asked.

Jesper took in a deep breath, then nodded. “One day. For a longer trip, probably. I don’t think I could ask Wylan to leave like that, not while he’s trying to earn a place in the Council.”

“And you’re asking if I’d come visit?” Kaz asked, tilting his head to the side.

Jesper had a feeling that they were both a bit confused. That was fine. It was fine. They’d shared more with each other in the past week than they had in three years of friendship. It was alright to be confused. “Well, I was hoping you’d come with me,” he said. “If all of you would, actually. And then move here, once we’re done with Ketterdam.”

Kaz seemed to hesitate for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. “If you decide to come back, I...we’ll see each other,” he assured.

It wasn’t a promise to come with him. It wasn’t even a promise to come visit while he was there. But it was about the best thing he could’ve asked for, at that moment. He nodded, blinking back some more tears that threatened to show up.

They made their way back to the farm a while later on the horses, and found everyone already back and waiting for them. “We should help make dinner,” Nina said as they walked out of the stables after putting the horses away. “As a thank you for the other two meals.”

“You can’t cook,” Inej laughed, looking over at her friend.

Nina paused, then nodded. “This is true. I’ll find something to help with, though,” she insisted.

That is how they ended up throwing food at each other in the kitchen at four bells in the afternoon. Somehow, it was all dry food; handful of flour that would definitely get stuck on their clothes, but didn’t feel particularly horrible when it landed on their skin.

“This is gross,” Wylan laughed, hurling something at Kaz.

Jesper let out a screech as Nina threw a handful of flour directly at his chest, getting on his shirt. “You have no aim at all, do you?” he asked as Matthias attempted to hit him on the back but missed by a few inches at least.

“I have fine aim,” Matthias answered, throwing another handful at him and hitting right in the neck. “You’re bad at being a target.”

Jesper gasped in mock offense before throwing a handful back at him, getting it all over his face and in his hair.

Inej took that opportunity to throw a handful of something at him, he wasn’t quite sure what. “Oh, that is--” and then he was throwing something back at her, getting her solid black clothes even more dusted with white than they were before.

“I’ll get you back for that, ‘Nej,” he said, then he was throwing flour so hard that it was falling all around them, landing in her hair and on her clothes, scattering around the floor.

“Good job, Jes,” Kaz spoke up, before throwing a handful of something else at them, covering both Inej and Jesper in it.

That was the moment when his father chose to walk inside, sighing as the door swung shut behind him.

They all froze, turning to look at him with wide eyes. “Do I want to know?” he asked, looking around at all of them, covered in baking materials.

It was quiet for a minute, then. “We finished the rolls,” Wylan squeaked from beside him, his face a nice shade of red.

Nina let out a little snort. “Oh, we are in so much trouble,” she laughed--a callback to when he and Kaz had thrown each other around the Geldrenner hotel’s clocktower. Jesper and Kaz both snorted just a bit, looking down at the ground.

“We’ll clean it, Da,” Jesper assured, wiping some flour away from his nose.

Colm nodded, standing still in the doorway. “Please do,” he said. A beat, then, “I’m going to go and finish outside. Please sweep, Jes.”

It was after the door closed that they all burst into little fits of giggles, brushing power off of their clothes as Matthias reached into the pantry and pulled out the brooms, passing one over to him. “Let’s get this cleaned, we all need to change our clothes, too,” he laughed.

Indeed, they did.

So, they cleaned quickly, then went up to change, and by the time they were all back downstairs, his Da was inside again and getting started on the rest of the food.

By the time they finished dinner, they all were so full that they could’ve tipped over and fallen asleep right then and there.

The next few days followed a similar routine, spending most of their time outside taking the horses out for rides throughout the day, going as far as the coast before coming back. They also spent a good amount of time in the house, trading stories with Colm, who absolutely loved telling them all about when Jesper was little.

“--and then he let all of the cows out, since he didn’t get off the gate in time. When I asked him about it he said that he wasn’t allowed to ride the horse, so he was swinging on the gate instead,” his Da said, looking over at Wylan, who’d been the one to ask the question that got this story going in the first place.

Jesper sighed and put his head in his hands, letting out a laugh. It was only a little bit embarrassing, his Da telling all of his friends about stuff like this. But then again, there were worse things he could be telling them about.

“That sounds familiar,” Kaz joked, “Mr. Demolitions Expert.”

“Kaz!” he exclaimed, tilting his head back in a sigh.

Wylan perked up, tilting his head and looking at Jesper with a blush. “What about demolitions expert?” he asked, turning to face him.

Inej piped up from across the table, a huge smile plastered on her face. “He used to ask for a demolitions expert on every job we went on, because he ‘didn’t want to have to be the one who was going to get asked to explode things’,” she smirked, looking Jesper in the eyes.

“I’ve been betrayed,” he sighed, leaning forwards and resting his head against the table.

Wylan blushed and reached over, grabbing his hand. “That’s sweet, though!” he said. “Now you have your own for every job.”

And that he did.

He sat up and smiled, “I guess I do,” he said, giving Wylan’s hand a squeeze.

“He also used to ask for Milo on every job,” Kaz said. Inej snorted from across the table. A barking laugh escaped him without his permission as he slapped his head back into his hand.

“Who’s Milo?” Wylan asked, taking a teasing tone. They’d been over this before, more than once. It had started off as something Wylan appeared to be self-conscious about, before he learned that Milo was not a human, but a very cuddly farm animal. It was still routine to tease him over it.

Inej and Kaz both smirked from across the table as Jesper took his hand back, pretending to be offended. “The goat,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“We should get a goat. Just to keep around the house,” Matthias said.

The rest of them all started laughing, then, despite the fact that he appeared to be dead serious in his suggestion.

Nina smirked, reaching over and resting her hand on his arm. “If you can find a goat in Ketterdam, I’m sure nobody would mind keeping it in the mansion, dear.”

“I’ll look for a goat, then,” Matthias smirked, nodding.

They all grinned over that.

There were more moments like these later on, once they all managed to clear away time during the summer months to go visit again, and then next year during the holiday. And when Jesper managed to get all of them to go with him for a long-term stay the summer after that, they enjoyed it even more than their previous trips.

One day, once they were all done being criminal masterminds, when Kaz was ready to let Anika take over The Dregs and move away, when they were all confident in their abilities to keep their respective businesses open, they all found a little farm a few miles away from his Da’s to stay in.