[ he would much rather linger on the subject of kaz brekker's upbringing — and he will return to it, when the timing is right, as if their timing has ever been right — but the monster pulls his focus. he should have covered the wound. if he examines the hunger creeping through him with a sharper focus, however loathe he is to think of doing such a thing, it isn't the pull of blood that has the monster caught. it's the way kaz leans into him now, his slow and careful surrender, his cautiously eager hand tethered to nikolai's spine.
there are wheels spinning in brekker's head, and that's what the monster can't see. if he could reach into his scheming brain and put a stop to the noise, he gladly would. ]
I wonder about that. [ a doubt he doesn't want to give voice to. he wants to go back to planning out their imaginary mornings and nights. his thumb touches the corner of his mouth again, a hazy echo of a blood-slick kiss edging into his mind. ] If you have it wrong. If it isn’t me.
[ a bit of wishful thinking, perhaps. the monster is me. his acceptance has wound its way back to denial, and all it took to shift the terrain was kaz brekker. but the implication isn’t an easy one when it throws everything into shadow, even this moment, as he wonders if he isn’t giving the monster exactly what it wants. impossible, that the thing truly cares for brekker. but the fact that he’s alive and more or less in one piece before him now paints a different truth when nikolai has woken to the monster’s carnage again and again.
how would he rather have it? for the monster to devour him down to the bone instead? it’s a problem he can’t work out, or maybe it just feels like too much of a mockery to accept. with great reluctance, he draws his hands away to reach for the strips of bandage to wrap kaz’s leg. ]
I know you, Brekker. [ he can hear it in his voice — the reasoning, the excuses, the desperation to pry open a door that isn’t there. they’re both scrambling for time. ] You’re trying to play two hands at once. You can’t manufacture this kind of luck.
[ carefully, he winds the cloth around his leg. it’s a relief when he can discard the soiled bandages and clear the bed of medical supplies, falling back into the pretense of fair skies and a pleasantly churning sea taking them far away from responsibility. if only he could kick his unwanted guest out of the room just as easily. ]
And you believe the monster when it makes such claims? That it won’t hurt anyone else? And you can somehow control it where all others have fallen short. [ where nikolai has fallen short. it hangs unspoken. ] It’s the height of arrogance. [ like believing that his kingship would be the one to fix all that no one else could with his wretched country. he sweeps the covers over kaz’s legs and pilfers one of the enormous pillows supporting his back, tossing it away so kaz sinks to the mattress, nikolai caging him in with a blackened hand braced beside the dark tousle of his hair. ] You’re just like me.
[ all of his reckless, spirited ambition lives in kaz, only translated differently — carefully planned, coldly calculated. but there is no end to it. no end to the schemes, nothing his mind can’t overcome with a strategic gamble. same as you. but the monster changes everything. it’s far too late for nikolai to confess that the day he stitched kaz up on his ship should have been the only time he entertained the notion that the sky could live in a boy’s eyes. ]
Do you take no caution from my tale? [ his gaze flickers, alight with a dozen conflicting responses — unrest, the hardened edge of anger, fear. affection shimmers above the rest, hopelessly entangled in the cadence of his heart — yours or the monster’s? it’s a doubt he promptly casts away, but it leaves an echo all the same. his hand trails down to lift the hem of kaz’s shirt, palm settling at the scrapes from the last time he’d taken kaz to the water. ] You’re being a fool, and you need to fold.
[ his hand moves again, this time to slide along kaz’s arm, ghosting over his wrist and stopping to press his fingers to the center of his palm, where he’d split his skin open on a rock. he covers his hand, twining their fingers together and squeezing tight as he lowers his forehead to kaz’s sternum, releasing a breath into the hollow of his throat. ]
It already has me. [ a miserable thought. ] It can’t have you, too.
no subject
there are wheels spinning in brekker's head, and that's what the monster can't see. if he could reach into his scheming brain and put a stop to the noise, he gladly would. ]
I wonder about that. [ a doubt he doesn't want to give voice to. he wants to go back to planning out their imaginary mornings and nights. his thumb touches the corner of his mouth again, a hazy echo of a blood-slick kiss edging into his mind. ] If you have it wrong. If it isn’t me.
[ a bit of wishful thinking, perhaps. the monster is me. his acceptance has wound its way back to denial, and all it took to shift the terrain was kaz brekker. but the implication isn’t an easy one when it throws everything into shadow, even this moment, as he wonders if he isn’t giving the monster exactly what it wants. impossible, that the thing truly cares for brekker. but the fact that he’s alive and more or less in one piece before him now paints a different truth when nikolai has woken to the monster’s carnage again and again.
how would he rather have it? for the monster to devour him down to the bone instead? it’s a problem he can’t work out, or maybe it just feels like too much of a mockery to accept. with great reluctance, he draws his hands away to reach for the strips of bandage to wrap kaz’s leg. ]
I know you, Brekker. [ he can hear it in his voice — the reasoning, the excuses, the desperation to pry open a door that isn’t there. they’re both scrambling for time. ] You’re trying to play two hands at once. You can’t manufacture this kind of luck.
[ carefully, he winds the cloth around his leg. it’s a relief when he can discard the soiled bandages and clear the bed of medical supplies, falling back into the pretense of fair skies and a pleasantly churning sea taking them far away from responsibility. if only he could kick his unwanted guest out of the room just as easily. ]
And you believe the monster when it makes such claims? That it won’t hurt anyone else? And you can somehow control it where all others have fallen short. [ where nikolai has fallen short. it hangs unspoken. ] It’s the height of arrogance. [ like believing that his kingship would be the one to fix all that no one else could with his wretched country. he sweeps the covers over kaz’s legs and pilfers one of the enormous pillows supporting his back, tossing it away so kaz sinks to the mattress, nikolai caging him in with a blackened hand braced beside the dark tousle of his hair. ] You’re just like me.
[ all of his reckless, spirited ambition lives in kaz, only translated differently — carefully planned, coldly calculated. but there is no end to it. no end to the schemes, nothing his mind can’t overcome with a strategic gamble. same as you. but the monster changes everything. it’s far too late for nikolai to confess that the day he stitched kaz up on his ship should have been the only time he entertained the notion that the sky could live in a boy’s eyes. ]
Do you take no caution from my tale? [ his gaze flickers, alight with a dozen conflicting responses — unrest, the hardened edge of anger, fear. affection shimmers above the rest, hopelessly entangled in the cadence of his heart — yours or the monster’s? it’s a doubt he promptly casts away, but it leaves an echo all the same. his hand trails down to lift the hem of kaz’s shirt, palm settling at the scrapes from the last time he’d taken kaz to the water. ] You’re being a fool, and you need to fold.
[ his hand moves again, this time to slide along kaz’s arm, ghosting over his wrist and stopping to press his fingers to the center of his palm, where he’d split his skin open on a rock. he covers his hand, twining their fingers together and squeezing tight as he lowers his forehead to kaz’s sternum, releasing a breath into the hollow of his throat. ]
It already has me. [ a miserable thought. ] It can’t have you, too.