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Inej is the one who brings them together. Jesper shouldn’t have expected anything else - their Wraith has taken the time to know her heart, while Jesper and Kaz try hard to forget they have such a fragile thing inside them.
They are taking a moment to celebrate a smooth success, revealing a gang of double-crossing stadwatch guards to a councilman who had them on their payroll. Any jobs involving close proximity to the stadwatch gnaws on Jesper’s nerves, but Kaz insisted the favor of the councilman (and his hefty reward) was worth infuriating a lousy group of guards.
Rain began pelting them as soon as they left the councilman’s property, sending late-night merchants scrambling for cover. The three of them slip into a dark alley, protected by the overhanging roof of the building. Jesper feels light with elation, adrenaline and victory coursing through his veins. Little is better than the feeling of a job gone right, Jesper believes - the high of success lasts him days, if his time at the tables afterwards isn’t especially brutal.
He feels the same energy coursing through his partners in crime. Inej wipes rain from her face, uncovering her hair and shaking it out with a small smile on her face, chest heaving from their sprint out of the wet. Even Kaz’s face holds less tension as he rests against the side of the building, leaning heavily on his cane to relieve his leg from the strain of bolting down the street.
“That was a good one, yeah?” Inej says, smile broadening.
Jesper laughs. He takes his hat off and shakes droplets from the brim. “Yeah, yeah, one of our best I’d say. Nothing like ruining the night of a couple crooked guards.”
An unnecessary distinction - there is no other kind of guard in the Barrel, but it draws a laugh out of Inej nonetheless, so Jesper counts it as a win.
Inej keeps his gaze, rain hanging on her lashes as she looks up at him. Her face is soft, lacking the usual exasperation it holds when she looks at him. Instead, there is fondness, and the hint of something else Jesper is too scared to name, too scared to hope applies to him.
He waits for Inej to come to him, leaning against the wall. She steps into the slight space between his legs, her small graceful feet framed by his larger ones. The press of her lips is gentle, timid. Jesper lets her lead, keeping his actions equally chaste. He cautiously settles a hand on her waist, not gripping until he feels her relax into him, welcoming his touch.
They break away after a few dizzying seconds, looking at each other in awe. Inej wets her mouth, a tiny flash of dark pink against her lips, then turns to look at Kaz. Jesper’s heart jumps, remembering the other man is there. A feat in itself, as Jesper is often hyper-aware of any room Kaz Brekker is in.
The tension between the Bastard of the Barrel and his Wraith is no secret. It used to make Jesper jealous, but as he grew used to having Inej fight by his side, putting his life in her hands, jealousy smoldered into a dull resignation. It offered a twisted sense of relief to have his question answered - Dirtyhands was capable of emotion after all, just not when it came to his sharpshooter.
That’s what Jesper always told himself, anyway. He knew he was difficult to love, and it was just his luck he would choose the one person the least likely to make the effort to love him in spite of all his faults.
Jesper waits, breath caught in his throat. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for, except that it will probably be painful. The thwack of a cane shattering his kneecaps; withholding his cut of the night’s job; exile from the Dregs.
It never comes. Jesper risks a glance at his boss’s face, expecting rage to have overthrown the other man’s usual aloofness. Neither are there. Eyes difficult to see from the shadows provided by the brim of his hat, Kaz’s face is mostly unreadable. Except for the barest twitch of the corners of his mouth, something Jesper has never seen his mouth do before.
“Well?” Inej asks, pivoting to face Kaz fully. Her voice holds a challenge, a dare.
Kaz grips the head of his cane, gloved fingers wrapped around the beak of his crow like a muzzle. He tilts his head down the slightest amount to meet Inej’s eye level.
“Kiss him for me,” Kaz responds. His tone is equally daring, pushing against a suspected boundary.
Inej turns to peer at Jesper’s face again, and Jesper wonders what she sees. Whatever his face does conveys his approval, as Inej tilts her head up and pushes Jesper’s mouth to hers, a hand on the back of his neck.
Kaz’s kiss is firm, aggressive, a bite without teeth. So different from Inej’s cautious style, so similar to the fantasies Jesper indulged in late at night in the privacy of his bed. He could almost believe Kaz is the one in front of him, if not for the downward angle of his neck.
Inej and Jesper may share Kaz Brekker as a partner, but they each hold different parts of him. Inej sees his tenderness, his vulnerability; Jesper sees his firmness, his calculated cruelty.
In theory, this was a fact Jesper knew and accepted before Dirtyhands and the Crows became Dirtyhands and his Crows. Jesper and Inej have different backgrounds, different personalities, different views of love and pleasure and security. It is the work of Saints, really, that the same man caught their attention at all.
What Jesper hadn’t realized was how strictly Kaz himself would stick to his division of personas. Ever since their trio became a triad, the amount of time they spent together, all three of them, increased. Usually in Kaz’s office, or Inej’s bedroom, or an empty lounge room in the Crow Club. Kaz still loathes physical touch, but his body veers toward Inej subconsciously, creating a whisper as their sleeves or pant legs brush. Kaz has taken to whispering in her ear, being playful and seductive in a way Jesper only dreamed of seeing from the other man.
When Kaz needs Inej’s stealth on a job, he will say, “My darling,” “the treasure of my heart,” “my love,” before any request. His tone is as cynical as ever, but his eyes belie the genuine sentiment of such sweet words.
The way Inej lights up at each endearment is almost enough to quell the flare of ugly jealousy that starts in Jesper’s stomach. But not quite.
He can’t begrudge Inej; after years of the Menagerie, of being treated as an object instead of human by so many men, he can’t fault her for reveling in the affections of the first man to see her as someone instead of something.
That’s why it’s so easy to sling an arm over her narrow shoulders, plant chaste kisses on her face and hair. Jesper is Inej’s as much as Inej is his own. They love each other, trust each other. But they both know that Kaz’s attention means more, carries a heavier victory from breaking through his thick emotional guards.
Maybe that’s why each show of affection hurts more - it’s evidence that Jesper hasn’t cracked the code, found the right way inside Kaz’s heart. A reminder that Kaz still holds him at an arm’s length, despite being his second-in-command.
Jesper gets his first glance at Inej and Kaz’s physical relationship by accident. He doesn’t mean to walk in on them. Jesper is returning to his room after kicking out the last of the pigeons trying to stuff the tables with fake coin when he swings by Kaz’s office. Sentimental of him, but he likes seeing Kaz before he goes to bed.
The door is open, just enough to show someone meant to close it all the way and didn’t. Jesper walks closer but keeps his steps light; Kaz can get foul when he’s interrupted during work.
Instead of a burly man or a stack of papers, Jesper sees Inej, perched on top of Kaz’s desk while Kaz sits in his chair, bad leg stretched out while his other is bent and opened, the crotch of his slacks pulled tight. Inej’s pants sit halfway down her thighs, her long fingers hidden between her legs. Kaz is enraptured, eyes hooded with lust as he watches his Wraith touch herself.
“Are you going to come for me, darling?”
Inej gasps, her head flung back. Jesper steps away before he can see her climax, slipping away to his own room.
The difference between being with Kaz Brekker and working with Kaz Brekker doesn’t come until Jesper fucks himself over. It’s the anniversary of the day he came to Ketterdam, which has him feeling more pitiful than usual. He isn’t sure what makes this year different from the ones before, but all the energy he bottles up has manifested into a strong and sickly longing for Novyi Zem, the family farm, and his mother. Throughout the day he is haunted by flashes of her face and the phantom of her hands covering his, teaching him the perfect way to aim a pistol.
Six months ago being able to say he belongs to Dirtyhands would have seemed worth leaving his home country behind. But this anniversary feels more bitter than most, leaving a taste in his mouth not even cards and drink can chase away.
The dark mood follows him for the next week. He’s strung tight, a band ready to snap, which makes him aggressive and impatient, a horrible combination for jobs. Inej is wary, but Kaz remains as indifferent as ever. It’s only when Jesper fires a little more than necessary when acting as a decoy outside a merchant’s house that Kaz barks to meet him in his office. Jesper doesn’t even have the energy to snark a reply, just storms off as Inej takes to the shadows. Jesper prowls around the streets and alleys, wasting time until Kaz is sure to have made it back to the Crow Club and began seething at his lateness. It’s only when Jesper can imagine the lividity turning his boss’s eyes into lava that he makes for the club.
Kaz is waiting for him by the time Jesper stalks into his office. Dirtyhands sits in his chair, scowling across his desk as Jesper stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed.
Kaz appraises him. If not for his foul mood Jesper would be preening, ecstatic to command so much of the man’s attention, scolding or otherwise. His boss asks no questions, and Jesper offers no answers. Irrationally, Jesper wants him to know. Inej and Jesper don’t keep their past lives hidden so far beneath the surface, and Kaz is not the type to claim people without doing his research. He must have weighed Jesper’s history against the usefulness of his skills, and must have expected this inevitable departure from Jesper’s typical salacious and relaxed facade. Jesper doesn’t want to explain, to have to bear himself to that blank, indifferent gaze. He just wants to be seen and accepted in spite of everything that says he isn't worth the effort.
“Remove your pistols,” Kaz says finally.
“Will I get them back?” Jesper snarks. He starts unbuckling his holsters regardless. Perhaps his subconscious is so finely tuned to Kaz’s orders that no emotion can deter it.
Kaz says nothing as Jesper tosses his holsters, pistols still snugly secured in their leather carriers, on his desk. The sharpshooter feels bare without them, incapacitated almost. Which is exactly what Kaz wants, Jesper figures.
Finally, Kaz stands, tapping his cane against the wood floor. “Your attitude has been deplorable for the past week. I have been more than lenient, but you are beginning to affect the team, the jobs, which I will not stand for.”
Jesper waits for his expulsion, fingers twitching at his sides.
Kaz comes around the other side of the desk, steps until a foot of space separates them. “I am going to belt you. When I am finished, so is this attitude.”
Jesper’s heart jumps. His eyes flicker to his boss’s waist, catching the dim glint of the room’s lanterns on his brass belt buckle.
“I didn’t take you for the absolving type.”
Kaz’s face remains indifferent. “This is what you wanted, is it not? Lashing out, throwing tantrums to get my attention? Now you have it. Shirt and trousers off, brace against the wall.”
Reluctantly, Jesper sheds off his clothing. He hesitates at his underwear, looking up at Kaz warily with his thumbs hooked in the waistband. Kaz gives no indication to stop, so Jesper carefully steps out of his underwear and leaves them piled on top of his slacks. Jesper goes to the nearest wall and braces his hands shoulder-width apart. It reminds him of his first years in Ketterdam, when he wasn’t smart enough to avoid the stadwatch’s radar and was often subject to body searches.
Wood thunks as Kaz prowls closer. Jesper flinches when Kaz’s boots sneak between his legs, nudging his feet farther apart.
"I will not be stopping until I feel you have been sufficiently punished or until you say mercy.” Kaz wrenches his head back, mouth puffing hot breath on the shell of Jesper’s ear. “Understood?”
Jesper scowls at the wall.
Kaz jerks his hair. “Understood?”
Jesper grits his teeth. “Yes.”
The belt comes down without any fanfare. It snaps, landing as a shock that sizzles into a sharp pain. The snap of leather only heightens the hurt of it, an exclamation point to a furious sentence. Perhaps there is a rhythm, or maybe each lick of the belt is randomly timed, Kaz weaponizing the suspense of each hit against him. Jesper can’t be sure, not focusing on each strike until it lands on his back, his ass, his thighs, flushing his brown skin red.
Distantly, he registers a growling sound, low and guttural. His voice, snarling as each hit lands, body tensing as he releases everything he’s been holding onto for the past week - for the past long while, really. The last hit brings him to his knees, the thud of his knees hitting the floor reverberating through his legs, not that he can really tell. His entire body shakes. His face is wet, damp with tears and sweat alike. Even his nose is running, chest heaving. He feels like he’s returning to his body, gaining a new awareness.
Something falls onto his shoulders. Jesper turns his head, buries his nose in the wool of the coat - sandalwood and shoe polish, Kaz’s scent. Jesper lets out a watery sigh, burying his face in the fabric and leaning his head against the wall.
Time blurs into a haze. Kaz is there, something Jesper registers with a pleased tremble through his body, the satisfaction of knowing that Kaz would not take him apart and leave him disassembled. Through some intervention of the Saints Jesper gets redressed, if sloppier than before - shirt unbuttoned to his naval, pants riding low on his hips.
Jesper makes it to his room, but he’s not sure how. Inej is there, sitting by his side, using her callused fingertips to rub salve into his burning skin. He’s lost his clothes once again, but doesn’t remember taking them off. Out of the corner of his eye he sees his shedded clothes, neatly folded on a reading chair. Inej’s work, no doubt.
“Do you feel better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Inej finishes applying the salve, cloves hanging in the air, and sets the tin on his windowsill, in close reach.
“Love you, Jes.” She leaves after pressing a tender kiss to his shoulder blades.
As he drifts off to sleep, Jesper realizes Inej is the first of them to say those words.
Kaz is in a mood. Not uncommon, but a nuisance. Not even Inej can stomach his company tonight, so she and Jesper hide out in her room, leaving Kaz to brood in his office, attending to whatever business that has made him unbearable.
They pass a bottle back and forth. Jesper was feeling cheeky earlier in the evening and swiped a bottle of something from behind the bar. It was covered in dust, the label worn and the seal still intact, so he doesn’t think it will be missed. The liqueur is not the greatest, besides––light pink with a strong fruity scent that goes down gun cleaner, but it gets the job done. Within a few sips they’re tipsy, leaning against each other and the side of Inej’s bed.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Inej says after a few moments of drunken giggling. Jesper doesn’t even remember what had been so funny, but his stomach hurts all the same.
“What is?”
“Kaz. The switch he flips.” Inej straightens, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “The way he acts around you in private, versus the sulking monster he becomes when business is involved. It’s like dating two different people.”
Jesper’s good mood is vanishing fast. “I wouldn’t really know,” he says bitterly. He grabs the bottle and takes a large swig, barely suppressing a cough as it burns down his throat.
Inej looks at him. “What do you mean?”
Jesper gestures vaguely with the hand not wrapped about the bottle. “I don’t really see the same Kaz you do.” He licks his lips before adding, “the softer one, I guess.”
“What about when you two are alone? After your. . .” She struggles to find the right word, landing unhappily on “sessions?”
Jesper shrugs. “I come in, he scolds me, I take my licks, then I go to my room.”
Inej winces. “That’s it?”
Jesper sighs. “He’s a little more in love with you, ‘Nej.” He smiles, planting a noisy kiss on the apple of her cheek. “Not that I can blame him, of course.”
Inej's face screws up in the closest he’s ever seen to a pout. “I don’t think that’s true,” she declares with a level of stubbornness only the drunk can achieve. “Touch is not a tainted thing for you, Jesper. You aren’t afraid to let love be physical, not like Kaz and I are. He just doesn’t know how to communicate with you yet.”
Jesper thinks of the nights he spends braced against the wall of Kaz’s office, flesh welting under the harsh touch of whatever Kaz sees fit to punish him with. It doesn’t even feel like a victory to know Kaz has seen him naked first; it’s an open secret Jesper’s nudity holds less value than Inej’s. Still, Jesper foolishly thought the first time Kaz saw him naked would be significant, an occasion to remember. But Kaz never shows any interest when Jesper bares himself for punishment, not shying away from the long, dark expanse of his body but not prolonging his look either.
Jesper takes a forlorn swing from the bottle. “I think he does know how, ‘Nej. He just doesn’t want to.”
When Jesper opens his eyes, the room cloaked in night darkness, he isn’t sure what woke him. He lays in his bed, still, listening, then sitting and looking around the room. It takes three passes until he spots the anomaly, shrouded in shadows.
Kaz looks handsome and rugged in a dress shirt as he lounges in the reading chair, the sleeves rolled up to expose the skin of his forearms. Pale, thin skin, laced with blue veins and little flecks of scars. So plain, ordinary, but the sight turns Jesper’s mouth to cotton. Such a modest display reducing him to nothing - acting like a Fjerdan prude.
“Is there a job?” Jesper asks. He can’t imagine any other purpose bringing Kaz to his room in the middle of the night.
“A little Wraith told me something tonight,” Kaz replies in lieu of a direct response.
Jesper deflates, sinking against his covers. “Your Wraith is a gossip.” His tone lacks any bite; as betrayed as Jesper feels that Inej passed on his maudlin drunken rambling, he knows she did what she thought was best.
“Are saying what she told me isn’t true?”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s true because it doesn’t change anything,” Jesper retorts to the ceiling.
A long pause, the air crackling. The chair creaks as Kaz rises, followed by a string of soft thuds as Kaz makes his way to Jesper’s bed. He stands over Jesper, crow head leaning against the wooden bedpost.
“I don’t want you to think that you are interchangeable to me,” Kaz says in a slow, low drawl. He taps Jesper’s lip to draw his eyes away from where they stubbornly stayed on the ceiling. “Both of you are special to me for different reasons, and I care for both of you. Equally. No more, no less.”
“You don’t call me names.”
“I didn’t think you liked names.” At Jesper’s incredulous look, Kaz shrugs. “Inej calls you Jes - I thought if you liked romantic terms she would have started using them by now. I didn’t want to disrespect you by ignoring your name.”
“I like romantic terms,” Jesper quips. He wants no qualms made.
Kaz’s mouth quirks, caught in a slat of moonlight. “Alright.”
“What shall you call me?” Jesper asks, only half-kidding. “Inej is your heart, your love, your treasure. What am I?”
Kaz’s slim mouth twitches into a ghost of a smile. “What are you?” He wraps one hand around Jesper’s throat. A heavy pressure, but not a threat. A reassurance. “You are my hellion. My charming, infuriating, insufferable spitfire. A devious little hellion made just for me.”
Jesper smiles breathlessly. “You think I’m charming?”
Kaz pinches his earlobe, drawing out a yelp. “Don’t get smug with me.”
Jesper feels his cock harden, heat pooling his body. Kaz notices, eyes darkening deviously.
“You like it when it hurts, hmm? my belt, my cane.” His gloved fingers pull at Jesper’s ear again, making the sharpshooter moan. “My hands. The pain makes you good, yeah?”
Jesper nods frantically. “Yes yes yes!”
“Show me.”
Jesper freezes, except for his traitorous cock, which gives an interested twitch. “What?”
Kaz moves his hand into Jesper’s hair, grabs the hair at the crown of his head and yanks. He drifts his face lower, words vibrating against the side of Jesper’s face. “Show me. I want to see how good the pain makes you feel.”
Scrambling, Jesper gets to his knees and takes his cock in hand. His palms are slick with sweat from the warm night, mingling with precome as he works his head and shaft. He closes his eyes and settles on his heels, trying to picture Kaz’s hand in place of his own.
His boss’s voice rumbles around him. “Pinch your nipples.” Jesper whines, listing forward as the hand supporting him moves to his chest. He rolls one nipple between his fingers. His mouth opens in a pant as he switches to the other.
The bed creaks. Kaz is behind him now, not close enough to touch, but Jesper can feel his presence, can imagine his dark gaze peering over his shoulder as Jesper pleases himself at his command.
“Harder,” Kaz orders. Jesper mewls, pulling a nipple away from his body, as far as he can bear it.
“Please, please,” Jesper gasps. His hand works his shaft furiously, thumb swiping over his slit. He’s not sure what he’s begging for, he just knows he wants more.
Kaz chuckles. “You know what I like? When I tear you apart and your body shakes. All it takes is one precise hit and your legs lose all their strength. You shake and tremble like a newborn babe learning how to walk, all for me. You like that, Jes? Being my good babe?”
Jesper nods hysterically. His hand increases on his cock, so close to release. He switches between nipples, rolling, pinching, pulling.
“Come, Jes. Come for me.”
Jesper’s trembling body finally gives out; he makes a high, keening noise as he spills over his hand, releasing his sore nipple as his orgasm floods through him. Spent, he flops backward without any grace, burying his sweaty face in the sheets cooled by the night air.
Kaz traces his face with leather-covered fingers. Jesper shudders as the smooth leather goes down his nose, brushes his lips. “My hellion,” he whispers. Jesper’s eyes flutter shut as a gloved thumb pulls gently at his bottom lip.
“Yours,” Jesper agrees, thoroughly blissed.