bakerstreet | And I will try to fix you

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And I will try to fix you

Nursed Back to Health
shipping meme

Comment with your character, preferences, preferred role, and any information you'd like to include.
Your character has either been injured/sick and had to be taken in (possibly against their will) or has been the one to help somebody like the former. Through the mending process, the two characters in a thread have fallen in love - or at least grown closer and more affectionate.
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"The only use to me you'd be dead," Kaz begins, tone cold, but oddly intense "is as motivation for revenge."

It's the best way he can manage to say what he's thinking - that if anything happened to Jesper, he'd make sure somebody paid for it. Even if it was Jesper's only stupid fault, and it probably would be, he'd still want to punish somebody, destroy somebody for taking Jesper away from this world. From him.

He knows he's just as much in danger of losing Jesper if he can't give real, genuine voice to those thoughts, to how much he cares, but he'd rather push him away than lose him because somebody else tried to get to Kaz through him, or if he died some other way that would be Kaz's fault.

An impossibly soft, "Oh," is all he can manage for the longest time after Kaz drops that statement. There's a lot to unpack inside that and he's not sure where to start.

He can feel the emotion rising up to the back of his throat, trying to choke him, for all that it means just to hear it. Even if it isn't put into the nicest words, or said the sweetest of tones, it's everything just to hear it from this boy he's practically sworn himself, his life, his everything to from the day he met him. To know that it's somehow reciprocated and echoed back at him, even if Kaz can't really say it quite so plainly.

"Thank you." He says, voice raw and thick with emotion. He's keeping it from tracking streaks down his face, he knows Kaz isn't good with emotions, of any kind, and he doesn't want to go overboard, here. But it feels it, all the way down into his bones, a sense of relief, of acceptance, he never was completely sure was there.

For a moment, Kaz just stares at Jesper. His expression is, as usual, unreadable, but truthfully he's almost as overwhelmed with emotion as Jesper is.

Well. Maybe not quite as overwhelmed.

The point is, when he says things like that, he expects people to hear them as they are - blunt, no nonsense, almost businesslike. He expects it partly because he's used to it, used to the feeling and reasoning behind his words - and, far more often, his actions (say, like giving Jesper his gloves) - being known and understood only by himself. The very fact that Jesper actually managed, for once, to see through the facade of practicality and into the meaning behind it means a strangely significant amount to Kaz.

Some part of him regrets it, yes, is kicking himself for being a touch too obvious and letting Jesper in on the secret that Kaz actually likes him, because there's a possibility he's going to be insufferable about it and a possibility he might tell someone else, and then the whole reason for not letting anybody get close, become a weakness, is right out there in the open and exploitable - but a larger part of him has always wished he knew how to actually tell someone the truth of his feelings.

Unfortunately he's still Kaz, so all Jesper gets in return for his thank you is a nod.

Jesper can only handle so much serious in one go, however, so after that nod, he lets a smirk roll easily across his face despite the edge of emotion still hinted at in his eyes. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone and risk your Bastard of the Barrel reputation." He jokes, snickering a little at himself.

But he means it, too.
The last time he'd run his mouth, they'd almost all gotten killed. He won't let that happened again.

That gets him a sigh, but it's not too long suffering - only because Kaz knew to expect some comment like that. A part of him knows Jesper means it, but he still thinks he ought to hammer home the real risk here.

"You know it's safer for you if people don't know, right?" he asks bluntly "If people think they can get to me by coming for you?"

Especially with his gambling debts, it wouldn't be difficult to put pressure on him if they thought it would work. Right now, people know messing with Jesper, with any of the Dregs, is only going to make Kaz angry, and nobody wants Kaz Brekker angry. If they knew it might make him desperate? Sloppy? They might change their minds...

"I swear, I'm not gonna tell anyone." He says it quickly, with the edge of insistence of a scolded child. He hates it when people don't take him seriously, even if he knows why no one really ever does. He can't both make jokes of everything and be taken seriously, but it doesn't make any of it grate any less, all the same.

"I know." Kaz nods - and he does, because Jesper's still working hard to prove himself after his last slip up, he wouldn't make a mistake like that again so soon. He probably didn't even need to push the point anymore, but he wants to be sure Jesper knows the stakes, and he can smooth over hurt feelings easily enough.

Or rather, Jesper didn't tend to be very good at holding onto them for too long as long as he didn't say or do anything specifically to prolong them.

"Pass me a fresh shirt?" he asks, realising he's somehow managed to have this entire conversation shirtless. He'd get one himself but Jesper's standing right by the dresser.

"Okay," he breathes out in relief, visibly deflating as the pressure of that doubt eases out of his chest. "I just don't want you thinking I'm going to go running my mouth again." He won't ever slip like that again. He's determined.

He's been otherwise distracted, but oh, Jesper has not forgotten that fact. There is nothing to be ashamed of, Kaz. He promises. Still, he obliges the request and grabs a shirt from the dresser, holding it out to him. He'll save Kaz's pride in not asking if he needs help again.

Kaz nods, whether acknowledgement or confirmation that he doesn't think that, he of course doesn't say. He can hear the determination behind those words, though, and he knows Jesper means it.

He pushes himself a little awkwardly to his feet and grabs the shirt - getting it on he manages just fine, but doing buttons up is probably going to be just as difficult as undoing them, so he steps a little closer to Jesper, knowing the other boy will understand what he's asking without asking. He doesn't pass him the gloves again, though, it's a loose enough fit that he thinks Jesper will manage without risking any contact. He hopes.

He bites the inside of his lower lip to keep himself from smiling at the silent ask and instead just dutifully goes about buttoning the shirt from the bottom up.

When he's done, he looks up and it's like his brain only just caught up to what was going on, because he can't stop the soft gasp as he realizes how close he actually is to Kaz. He takes a step back and drops his gaze. He shouldn't be thinking the things he is right now.

Somehow, there's some part of Kaz that wants to reach out and catch hold of Jesper, to stop him stepping back, even as those same fears and memories are glad when he puts some distance between them.

It's better that way, he tells himself, he's already let Jesper in far more than he ever intended, to entertain anything more would be foolish. Especially when somebody like Jesper - physical, tactile Jesper - would always want something Kaz couldn't give him. Jesper is the type of person to say it's fine, but Kaz would never ask it of him in the first place.

But he can't hide the fact his hand twitched towards Jesper as he stepped away, before he forced it to be still.

"I should...probably go." He doesn't mean to sound so reluctant about it, but there it is. But in the space of a snap, he's his usual, jokester self again. "Surely someone saw me tromping up here after you, if I don't leave soon, they'll be talking about our tryst by noon tomorrow."

Word does travel fast in the Barrel and gossip is a certain sort of currency, after all.

Doesn't change the fact he wants to stay. Stupidly. Recklessly. Uselessly. He just wants to stay. He doesn't anticipate Kaz trying to stop him-- he refuses to read into a twitch that couldn't be definitely said to be Kaz reaching for him-- but he doesn't make to leave, either.

"Probably more likely to be debating whether or not I've killed you." Kaz counters. He won't ask Jesper to stay, he can't - joking aside if he lingers too long there might actually be rumours floating, and they're rumours that Kaz can't allow. For his reputation's sake, or so he'd claim, but in truth it's back to that same concern of his enemies going after Jesper. Even if most of Kaz's enemies are already Jesper's too by merit of being the Dregs' enemies.

But he doesn't tell him to leave, either. And maybe he can come up with some excuse, some plan that needed going over, some reason for Jesper to be here - that would be far more believable anyway than the idea of Kaz sleeping with anybody.

Not that he's going to sleep with Jesper. Not that he wants to. It's a moot point anyway, he can't even shake hands with someone without wanting to pass out, romantic liaisons were out of the question even if he did want them. Which he doesn't.

"Probably," he concedes with a half-laugh. If he's honest, it does add up much more to the way rumors about Kaz tend to go. He's made quite the brutal name for himself around Ketterdam. Jesper had wondered before if he would be that ruthless against him, were he to somehow cross him somewhere down the line. He always batted the thought away with the one that it was just better not to find out.

"Make sure you keep it clean." is all he says, gesturing to Kaz's injured arm. He can't keep standing here, all this mess in his head, Kaz having given...everything he had earlier, it's just too much, and he can't. So, he finally turns on his heel and makes the exit he'd meant to make earlier, closing the door behind him and leaning heavily against it when he does, letting out a long sigh.

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And I will try to fix you

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