Hi there. Thanks for the ask! While we get that you really want to have your ask filled, it’s kind of weird seeing another blog fill the exact same request (keep in mind, we love reading fanfic too and follow other fanfic writers on tumblr). That being said, we’ve tried to make this fic significantly different from other fics of similar topics… That’s up to you to judge though :) It has a bunch of trigger warnings, so we’ve put it under a cut. For future reference, we’re fairly uncomfortable with things like rape/non-consensual sex of any kind and we’d really prefer to stay away from those topics. 

Thanks y’all!

Mira 

Hey Anon! Sorry this is a bit vague, I don’t remember how Monopoly works, but I tried! – Olive

          They had known, at the start of the evening, that this was a bad idea. It was never going to be anything but what it was in the end: carnage. If the room had been messy before (and it had, because neither Wylan nor Jesper was much for cleaning) it was a disaster zone now. 

          Monopoly had been Kaz’s idea – of course it had, he was the only one of them who was any good at it – but no one else had come up with a good enough counterproposal to avoid playing. So they dragged out the box, coaxed it open (it was bent at the corners from past abuse and now took some finagling to open and close), and spread the board on the dining room table. 

          They took the pieces they always did, because they’d had that fight too many times to want to reprise it tonight. Kaz was the banker, because they’d fought over that even more times than they’d fought over the pieces. 

          An hour in, and Kaz was winning. It wasn’t a surprise. Wylan was doing well enough for himself, but Inej was right on Kat’s heels. Nina and Jesper squabbled over the cheapest properties. Matthias had gotten up and walked out the after the third of Kaz’s properties he had landed on consecutively and had to pay for. 

          Forty-five minutes after that the game was effectively over. It was a matter of playing it out to the end, because at this point none of them wanted to quit. So they went around and around, drew their cards, paid their money to the bank. The only expression on Kaz’s face, as ever, was grim satisfaction. The others raged and wailed around him, protesting more and more vocally as he ramped up the rent on every square he could. 

          Inej had gotten up at one point to get a snack, and now they all eyed the cheese knives she had brought back to the table with a mixture of temptation and unease. Each piece of cheese was shaved off with a more aggressive cut than the last, and the thud of the knives against the cutting board grew more and more prophetic. 

          Jasper had long since grown antsy and stood from the table, but he wasn’t one to walk out before the end. Nothing in the room was safe from his fidgeting, from the mugs in the cabinets to the kitchen faucet. He made his moves with reckless abandon, throwing the die across the table and tossing money towards Kaz at every turn. 

          Wylan’s head had sunk further and further towards the tabletop with each turn. Now his forehead practically rested against the wood. His voice was barely a whisper as he demanded every turn how much money he owed. 

          Nina was still holding her own, but barely. As always, her gaze had gone murderous, and the others were increasingly glad, as she was forced out of more and more money, that she could not, in fact, kill them with a look. 

         The game didn’t last long after that. No one was really surprised that Kaz had won. Nina called Matthias and told him to come back, they were done. Inej and Wylan began to straighten up and put the board away again. The tension was still palpable, and Kaz’s smug smirk didn’t improve matters. Jesper griped at him in a continuous stream of muttered obscenities, but Kaz refused to rise to him. 

          Matthias’s return broke the mood a bit, and the six of them settled back into their usual dynamic for the rest of the night – this game, like all the others, had been a dramatic diversion and nothing more.

A Playlist for Dirtyhands and the Wraith

01. Devil’s Backbone – The Civil Wars | 02. This Crooked City – The Record Company | 03. Savior – Rise Against | 04. From Eden – Hozier | 05. Carry You Home – James Blunt | 06. River – Leon Bridges | 07. I Will Follow You Into The Dark – Death Cab for Cutie | 08. Bitter End – Rag’n’Bone Man | 09. I Found – Amber Run | 10. Iris – The Goo Goo Dolls | 11. Graveyard Whistling – Nothing But Thieves

Hey Anon! We saw that another blog got an ask very similar to this one a while back (the post doesn’t seem to be available anymore) and didn’t write it because they simply couldn’t ever envision this scenario occurring. We are of the same opinion. We therefore came as close as we could without entering the realm of impossibility – hopefully you’ll like it anyway.

          He supposed he shouldhave known, should have guessed thatthis would happen. Should have figured that when Inej returned it would be witha hold full of would-have-been slaves.

           He hadn’t been prepared for it, either way.

           “Kaz?” The way Inej was saying his name suggested that she had alreadysaid it, perhaps more than once. “Kaz, say something.”

           “I can’t do this, Inej,” he said, and his voice sounded choked in hisown ears. “I – I don’t know how.” Because these were children,their eyes huge and their limbs too long, too gangly. They looked at him as ifhe were terrible, which he was. He was Kaz Brekker – Dirtyhands, the Bastard ofthe Barrel – and the days of his own childhood may as well have never happened.He could not take in these vagrants, scared and impossibly fragile. They wouldnever last here – not here, not like this. He could not raise them.

           “I can’t do it alone,” Inej murmured. “Please, Kaz.”

           He couldn’t.

           He turned, strode away. The sound of his cane on the dockwas hollow; he felt the change more than saw it when he reached the cobbledstreets. Tap-step tap-step tap-step. It burned, to turn his back on Inej, but she didn’t call after him.

           Later, when he returned to the Slat to avoid the imminentstorm, the children were there. They were not so young, Kaz realized, as theyhad looked in the hold of Inej’s ship – some may even have been his age. Theywere still too skinny, to fragile. Ketterdam would chew them up and spit themout. It was, he supposed, why Inej had brought them here. He glared at them,gathered around the tables with drinks in their hands, and then at Inej.

           “I said no,” he snapped. “We’re not parents, Inej, we can’t have children here. Find somewhere else to putthem.”

           “I won’t have them on the streets, Kaz.” Her voice was frigid. “You of all peopleshould know how that story ends.” It stung to hear her dig at his past, but hewasn’tabout to give up ground. It was because heknew how that story ended that he refused to have these children here, in theworst part of Ketterdam. They deserved better than that.

           “I won’t have them here,” he told her stiffly. “This is no place forthem. Find somewhere else.”

           “They’re not stray kittens to be drowned,” she hissed. Her eyesflashed as he flinched, knowing she had struck a nerve.

           “You have two weeks,” he gritted. “Two weeks, and I put what’s left of them on thenext train to Ravka.” It was harsh, and he knew it, but it was the best he was willingto offer. It was the best he had. Inej’s expression matched the thunder that crashedoverhead, but she said nothing as Kaz whirled and stormed out of the Slat intothe sheets of freezing rain. He would be back, and when he was she could bringhim around. She turned to the children, who sat staring after Kaz with mutedhorror.

           “Welcome home,” she said.

Jesper was just falling asleep, the exertion of previous physical activity making his eyes droop and his limbs heavy, when he felt Wylan (who was draped over him much like an octopus) poke him gently in the shoulder. 

“You awake?”

Jesper snorted softly, cracking his eyes open enough to glance at the mass of golden-red curls that was Wylan’s head, “I am now.”

They lay in silence, the sound of the clock down the hall permeating the darkened bedroom with the muted clicking of time. 

“Jesper?” Wylan asked after a moment, propping his chin on folded hands as he settled his bare torso against Jesper’s chest.

“Yes Wylan?”

“Thank you.”

“Whatever for, dearest,” Jesper said, elongating the words in a joking accent. He paused, sucking on his lip, then laughed. “No really, Wy. What?”

Wylan’s cheeks flared a brilliant pink, and he buried his head in Jesper’s chest.

“You know ‘what for’.”

Jesper kissed the top of Wylan’s head, drawing a hand under Wylan’s chin to lift his head. Wylan’s eyes were wide and blue and unclouded and just as much home as the sky above the farm field. 

“You don’t have to thank me, you know,” he paused, tilting his head slightly as if searching for words. “It was, well, it was good for me to.”

And just like that, the expansless blue shifted into the brilliant beams of the sun as Wylan’s entire face lit up with a smile.

“I’m glad.”

Silence fell again, Jesper’s eyes beginning to drift shut.

“Jesper?”

Jesper sighed. 

“Yes Wylan?” Jesper’s glance was met by those blue eyes, wide yet hesitant.

“Can I kiss you?” 

A grin spread across Jesper’s face.

“You know I hardly think you need to ask after we––”

He was cut off by the press of Wylan’s lips against his own.

          Wylan had always dreaded the days when the class read passages aloud – he remembered once in fourth grade when he had broken down and run crying from the room because of it. Today wasn’t any better, although he didn’t think he would cry, probably. They were reading a play – Waiting for Godot, not that that mattered much – in the round, and this teacher was notorious for picking on the kids who didn’t speak up. Wylan sat in abject terror as she assigned parts, staring at the gouges someone had made in the surface of his desk with his hands clenched in his lap. 

          “Kaz, you’ll be reading Vladimir,” the teacher began. Wylan didn’t look up to see his friend’s reaction, but he would have bet money that it was disdain. Kaz didn’t care for literature – he had long ago labeled it impractical drivel, and Wylan hadn’t been able to disagree. “Jesper, I want you to read Estragon,” the teacher continued. Wylan felt the careless movement of Jesper’s shrug beside him. “Wylan, you’ll be Lucky.” 

          He didn’t hear who would be reading the other roles. His world had narrowed to the laminate surface of his desk, the angular lines of graphite worn in by classes past. Vaguely, he was aware of the class taking out books and pens and highlighters around him; he copied their motions in blank terror. 

          It was fine, to begin with. Wylan didn’t have any lines for the first several pages, so he sat silently as Kaz and Jesper traded lines between them. Their voices made a peculiar sort of music in the dullness of the classroom, the melody of Jesper’s smooth baritone against the gravelly rasp of Kaz’s. Back and forth they went, some inane conversation that Wylan couldn’t listen to. 

          And then, suddenly, Jesper’s elbow was in Wylan’s ribs. “It’s your line,” he hissed. Wylan looked up – he hadn’t heard his cue. 

          “Lucky?” the teacher prompted. Wylan ran his finger down the page until he found it. Someone snickered. 

          “Um,” he began, and had to clear his throat before he could continue. “G-given the existence… as, um, uttered forth in the public works of – of who?” 

          “Puncher and Wattmann,” Jesper whispered. 

          “… Of Puncher and Wattmann,” Wylan continued shakily, “of a, uh, a personal God – what is… quaquaquaqua? Um, with white beard qua…quaquaqua… outside time without extension who from the heights of divine a – a-path-i-a divine… a-tham-bi-a? Divine… um. Aphasia. Loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and –” he broke off to turn his page and stopped dead amidst the rustling of pages as the class followed suit. “That’s my line?” he squeaked. “All of that?” The next two pages were a solid block of text, with stage directions in the margin, and they seemed to be his to read in their entirety. 

          “Keep going,” the teacher ordered wearily. “We don’t have all day.” 

          Wylan took a deep breath. “Suffers,” he began, “like the divine Miranda with those who… who for reasons unknown but time will tell….” he kept reading, tentative, sounding out the words he didn’t know and the words that he was certain weren’t words at all but made-up sounds, and gradually he became aware of another voice speaking under his. 

          Jesper. Of course it was Jesper. He spoke quietly, just for Wylan’s ears, and his fingertips were warm against Wylan’s back. 

          The soliloquy passed more quickly with Jesper reading with him, and if anyone had the nerve to comment, to poke fun, the steel in Kaz’s eyes quickly changed their minds. Class drew to a close, an impossibly long stretch of twenty-four minutes, and Wylan was out of the room with his books clutched to his chest before anyone had the chance to stop him. 

We are, theoretically! We've got a lot of stuff in drafts and in the inbox that hopefully we'll have out in a reasonable period of time. Until then, please bear with us – we'll get there eventually.

Wow, sorry this took so long, anon! Here you go!

          They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the twisted gates, the mud of the rutted dirt road on their shoes and the tip of Kaz’s cane. Beyond the wrought iron bars the road petered out among gray tombstones that stood like the remains of a city after a war has swept through. Many of the chiseled names on the faces of the stones were illegible now, the people they had once commemorated lost to the haze of time.

          “Are you sure you want to do this?” Inej asked. 

          “They’re dead, Inej,” Kaz responded. There was a terrible emptiness behind the gravel in his voice. “It’s just memories.”

          She didn’t say what she was thinking, which was that memories could be more dangerous than any armed assailant – especially when those memories lived in the head of the Bastard of the Barrel. What she said was, “As long as you’re sure.”

          “I’m sure,” he growled, and shoved open the gates. They screamed at the sudden movement, as if no one had passed between them since the first of the gravestones had been planted in the grass and the others had simply grown on their own. Inej shuddered as she entered the graveyard – the Suli didn’t have them, and it seemed unlucky to bury your dead and leave them to rest for all eternity. 

        It didn’t take Kaz long to find what he was looking for; the names of his parents were still clear on their gravestone. It had not been such a long time that he would have forgotten where the stone stood, either. He limped directly to it, with little heed for the mounded grass or the other slumping gravestones. Inej followed at a distance, feeling out of place. I’ve met your parents, Kaz had said, it’s about time you met mine. But this – she supposed she must have known he had no parents, but it had never occurred to her that this might be why. 

          “Should I give you a moment?” she asked, quietly so as not to disturb whatever intangible, silent thing made its home in every graveyard. 

          “No,” Kaz said, a touch too quickly and a touch too loudly. “It’s okay. Stay.” 

          She stayed. 

          Time swirled in the air as they stood there – it was impossible to tell how much of it passed them, or whether it passed them going the way it was meant to. Kaz held himself perfectly straight and still, a careful mask of stoicism pulled down over his face. His eyes were unfathomably dark, but something lurked at the back of them that Inej couldn’t quite see well enough to identify. It didn’t look like sadness – shame, maybe? Hatred? Envy?

        When Kaz finally broke the silence, Inej heard in his voice what she had seen in his eyes: regret. Time stopped swirling and settled back into its ordinary course. The silence of the graveyard slunk back to its corners and curled up to await their departure. 

          “Let’s go,” Kaz said. 

          “Let’s,” Inej agreed. She tried not to let on how eager she was to leave this place, but Kaz – knowing him – probably saw it on her face. He turned from his parents’ grave and limped back through the stones to the twisted iron gate, leaving her to follow as she wished. 

          It was easier to breathe with the gates closed behind them and the muddy road squelching gently beneath their feet. They walked in silence for a long time, neither quite willing to speak. 

          At last, Inej ventured, “Are you okay?”

          “Fine,” Kaz snapped, his voice jagged. He took a breath and added, “Yes. I’m okay. Thank you for coming.”

          “You’d met mine,” she replied, a soft echo of his earlier words. 

          There was a terrible pause, and for a moment Inej thought she’d overstepped. 

          Just when she thought Kaz might finally be angry with her, he said, “I’m sorry it was like this. They’d have liked to meet you.”