His jaw tightens at that comment, though a part of him is grateful for the teasing. That part, at least, feels normal, in this sea of unfamiliar they're currently wading in.
"Yes, well, you... say things like that, I..." Keep everything under vault-lock-and-key like the world's most well-guarded secret at all times. But that doesn't have a very nice ring to it, so he just trails off instead.
"You don't afford yourself the opportunity." He chimes in with a soft sigh. He knows the hows and whys of how Kaz got to be here, the way he is. "I say things like that because life's too short to not let people know what you see in them."
He doesn't pity him, Kaz would never want that from him, but he does hate that he's felt the need to deny himself everything that could connect him to other people. Isolation, emotionally or otherwise, had a way of breaking people.
"You should try. To tell people those things you usually wouldn't." Jesper has to wonder how well his advice will be taken in tandem with Noah's. If it would count for anything. "Physical distance isn't your only problem. And trust me, if it's one of us we aren't going to laugh you off or...hold anything against you."
Life's too short. The words cut a deeper chord than he's sure Jesper really understands. Doesn't he realize he knows that? He's known since he was small how short the hand any of them were dealt could be. His parents. His brother. Matthias, since then, even. His gaze drops to his hands in his lap, not sure what to say to that at all.
"I don't know how." he says, voice quiet. It sounds stupid, even to his own ears, but that's how it feels. Like all the parts of him that might have once been able to do exactly that, at the drop of a hat and pick of a whim, had atrophied, withered up and turned to dust a long time ago.
He finally looks up at Jesper again. "What if I can't? What if... nothing changes, and everything's the way it's always been?" Will he get fed up with it all eventually? Decide he can't take dealing with someone like Kaz but for so long? His people leaving him, particularly because he couldn't be the person they want– need?– him to be, is one of the only things Kaz truly fears at all. His circle is so small, if they started to walk away, it wouldn't take long before he was left with no one.
"Doesn't mean you can't learn." Jesper quips back, but it's gentle, almost coaxing. It's true, if Kaz truly wanted to try it wasn't as though he was in short supply of people willing to help him. "A bit of practice maybe..."
His questions though, draw a sigh out of him. Kaz doesn't voice it, but there's an underlying worry there--one he put into words once, back in the confines of a hospital and fresh off a living nightmare and memory. "If you can't, then things don't change and we're still here..." He shrugs. "I don't think you want to keep us all out. But there are some things that have to give for you to breathe and actually live, Kaz..."
"Maybe..." he agrees lightly, frowning a little. That doesn't feel like enough, but it takes him a few moments to figure out what else to add. "But... how? The...stuff that Noah's doing, makes sense. It's...just desensitization. But this wouldn't be like that, so...how?"
His face scrunches slightly as he looks at him. "You're sure?" He can't stop the way he tries to scrutinize everything, from the way Jesper looks at him to the way he might shift in his seat, analyzing, just like he'd said, every single thing he might be able to piece together as some hidden thought pattern behind whatever Jesper might say out loud.
"I have to, Jesper." He shakes his head. "I can't lose like that again. I can't..." his voice is barely audible, it isn't something he even wants to consider.
"The stuff Noah's doing is desensitization, but it's also practice. It's only thing to not jump out of your skin when someone touches you--it's another to be willing to try reaching out on your own." He shrugs. That's the point of it all right? Not just to keep Kaz from freaking out but to actually welcome it at some point. That's a long road. "Same principle--you just have to have someone you're willing to try with."
And he knows Kaz is going to look into all that's said. He can feel it with the way that he's being watched. It's almost like you can see the gears turning as Kaz tries to puzzle it out, to read beyond the surface--even if the surface is all there is.
"Life is love and loss, Kaz. You can't keep that from happening. You can't control the where or how...but you can make sure people know what the hell they mean to you." He sighs. It's harder with the losses Kaz has suffered, the people he's seen go, and the ways they've done it.
He scoffs softly. "Saints, I still can't even take these off." he indicates the gloves on his hands. "Maybe he's wasting his time with me." All those eventualities that lay stretched out in front of him feel so insurmountable, still.
"Not like that." he whispers but the words come out in Kerch. He's shaking his head as he starts again. "I know I can't keep it from happening. That's why I have to keep everyone at a distance. If I can just...keep you far enough away, then it won't hurt as much." It's a useless hope, somewhere under this strange conviction he's spent too long trying to convince himself of as a truth, he knows that. Because the people he cares about are already a part of him in the exact way he tried so hard to keep from allowing to happen.
"He's not wasting his time. You've barely started anyway." And there was the matter of what was likely more than a few setbacks with all that Hell throws their way. But Noah's stubborn enough--he wasn't likely to give up on Kaz any more than Kaz would give up on any of his own.
"And what about us, if you're the one to go first?" Jesper asks quietly, though he doesn't want to. There is no denying that possibility. If any of them could go at any time, that would include Kaz as well--if anything, his lot was worse than theirs put together. "You're not the only one that faces the chance of loss. And loss hurts either way, no matter how much we try to make it less. We all know if it happens whoever's left is going to be a sorry lot of mourners. And...that's more than likely to leave just Nina and me at the end of it all."
It's not something he likes to think of, much less talk about. But it's the reality of Grisha. They live longer--longer than Kaz can make on borrowed time. Longer than Wylan's money can buy. Longer than Inej's Saints can give her. At the end of it all, there will be at least two mourners standing at their funerals.
"Yeah... I guess." But he hates how slow the process is. And he knows that's really his own fault, but he can't just force his way through it. "I just wish it could go a little faster."
He frowns as he turns his gaze back on Jesper again. There's something else in that question, hanging at the edges that he isn't catching. The frown pinches further as Jesper continues, and for a long moment, it still doesn't make sense. What does he mean, he and Nina will be left at the end?
And then it clicks into place. Because they're Grisha. Because they'll live longer than the rest of them combined. Because unless something else takes them before it happens, it will only be them at the end.
The pinched expression eases into something softer, that isn't entirely like Kaz, but somehow still is, too. "I...never considered that." He has had Grisha in his employ all this time, and there were several others at the call of The Dregs, but that particular point had never connected in his mind. No matter what happens, Jesper and Nina will outlive the lot of them, because of the very nature of what they are.
"...you think about it a lot?" he has a feeling he knows the answer.
"Things worth doing take time." It's a phrase he's heard a million times, from others far more patient than he could ever pretend to be. Kaz is definitely the more patient of the two of them, more willing to bide his time for what he wants. But he knows things take time, what he really needs--"You'll get there." What he really needs is people to believe it's possible.
He waits, watches as the confusion on Kaz's face shifts to understanding. He knows it's likely not something he's considered, most people never really have a reason to. They drift in and out of life never really seeing what they leave behind in their wake. It had once made Ravka and the Second Army a tempting thought--to be with Grisha, to live with people that won't fade long before you do. He let thought go a long time ago.
"I don't like to...but I do. Can't always help it." It was a thought that kept him up at night back in the Slat. One that had him watching Wylan sleep here; when the other boy managed it. It's a thought he tries to avoid, but can never run away from. "It's why I flirt the way I do I think. Can't form attachments if they aren't there longer than a night. We all have our coping mechanisms. But--it's why I run my mouth too. I don't want the people that matter most to me to leave without knowing what they were to me. Knowing I didn't tell them would eat me alive more than the loss ever could."
Kaz has probably even uttered those words to Jesper before. But being on the receiving end of them isn't so great. He scoffs, his eyes casting upward. "Yeah... sure. I guess." At that, he can't help glancing back over at him. The look on his face is perfectly neutral, but everything on the inside was anything but. "You really think it's possible?"
It's a strange shift, this heavy thing Jesper carries with him, coloring all those other parts of him differently, suddenly. A different sort of perspective he couldn't have come to on his own.
But Kaz is still Kaz. And he has no idea what to say. All he manages in a nod, a glance down at his hands in his lap, uncharacteristically fidgety, and a quiet, "I see..." He rolls his lips together, knowing there should be more, and knowing he has nothing to offer.
"I'm not going to say you can manage it if I don't think it's possible." Jesper was a cheerleader, but not a liar. He's seen Kaz manage what seems impossible on more than one occasion, he doesn't doubt that this is something he can get through too. "Only difference is...you need to rely on some other people too, not just yourself."
That was half the problem, the relying on the other's part. Not because Kaz can't, but because it's a weakness he doesn't want people to see. Even when they already know about it.
Ad for the other part, the heavier quiet truth: "I just...That's why it's important that you admit things, that I push. If that's all I'm left with, I want the truth of it. I don't want to wonder. Doesn't matter if it goes somewhere or not."
He nods a little at the vote of confidence. He still isn't sure he feels it quite so certainly, but... he'll accept that Jesper does. "I'm trying..." Sort of. He's mostly put this all in one person's lap, and that probably still isn't great in itself. The little argument he'd gotten into with Noah earlier was probably proof enough of that.
But he was so used to being so guarded around them. All of his crows. Wired to never let himself show weakness to the people that mattered most– he can practically hear Noah in his head arguing that they're the ones that should see it because they would understand and help him through the other side.
'If that's all I'm left with..." it twists something sharp and jagged in his chest. All he had left of his brother was maybe half a decade's worth of memories and the last handful of them were soured through time and understanding of exactly what had happened, what Jordie had allowed to happen. He doesn't want Jesper to have those sort of things left to deal with, eventually, does he?
He's quiet for several, long drawn out minutes. Until finally, he speaks again, voice careful, soft. "....yes. The...answer to your question is...yes. You're attractive." There's a beat and he adds, a little lighter, "I'm not blind."
In all honesty, Jesper wasn't expecting what he said to lead to any more truths or revelations from Kaz. He wasn't even out to get an answer to his question anymore. He just needed Kaz to see why he was...well the way he was. Why he pushed, annoyed, and clung on. If anything, it might have earned some honesty out of him at a later point--or it could have gotten him to consider his own approach to relationships.
The answer, quiet and soft, was not expected. Though the added snark at the end certainly helped ease the shock. "Good to know your eyes are in working order then." He wasn't going to linger on it. Drawing it out or needling Kaz on it further would only serve to get on his nerves.
Sometimes, things hit in the right ways to squeeze it out of him anyway. Jesper just happened to trip into something that landed just so and made that happen. And it would be something that he mulled over for a long while later, probably, too.
He scoffs and shakes his head, eyes rolling playfully. "You're an idiot." but there's no real heat to the words, just that hidden affection that comes with it.
"He says with no malice. You like it." Jesper throws back, the teasing timbre back in his voice. "After all, you're the one that finds this idiot attractive."
Kaz has to know that he had to, at some point or another, tease him at least once about it. It's not as though it would be unexpected of him to do so.
"For some reason." he quips back at him, a smirk on his lips. He absolutely expected it, and it feels natural, unlike the heap of everything else that came before it– he much prefers the lighter, teasing nature of things between them to the heavy alternatives.
"Yeah well, whatever the reason: You're stuck with it, with me." That was a fact long before any of this, before the mess this place had caused. There's a reason Jesper is Kaz's sharpshooter and no one else's.
Jesper may see it as pure fact, but sometimes Kaz has his doubts that it can last like that. He knows how difficult he is, how frustrating he is to deal with. So... hearing it stated quite so plainly from the other boy's mouth does a lot to ease something that often clings to the back of his mind. "If you insist." he says casually, a smirk still touching his lips.
If Kaz had any idea how that smirk of his almost invited flirtation from people like Jesper, he might avoid from wearing the expression so often. Or not--apparently there are some things he didn't have the best read on when it came to Kaz. Be that as it may, it does invite action from Jesper, drawing him in and causing him to invade Kaz's space as he leaned in close again.
He absolutely does not realize, at least 90% of the time, all the things he does and says that are definitely easily flirtatious. Just ask Noah. If he did, half of all of his conversations with Jesper would have been different than they are, probably.
"Thought you might." he mumbles quietly, going very, very still as Jesper pushes himself into his space again. He's really terrible about doing that. Even before it became a soft goal to get him more used to that sort of thing from people.
"Of course." He murmurs back, carefully watching Kaz's reaction. He knows there are limits--and knows how often he's pressed up against the very edge of them even before coming here. But this is the goal isn't it? To push until it's no longer a barrier to interaction, to people.
"Relax." He breathes, voice low and quiet. He doesn't move closer, but he doesn't remove himself from Kaz's space either.
Easier said than done, Jesper. He isn't sure how to relax with the other boy this close. Jesper's unpredictability only makes everything feel even... riskier than it already is. "What exactly are you doing?" he murmurs, jaw set, body still rigid.
Jesper, at first, merely hums and shrugs--letting the moment sit and settle before he offers an actual answer. "Testing. Boundaries, limits." Playing a dangerous game and taking a risk. "I'm not going to reach out and touch you if that's worrying you. Not today, anyway."
That drawn out hum does absolutely nothing for Kaz's nerves. He hates this. He hates how easy it is for someone to get under his skin, even without touching him. Of course, this is exactly why this has to happen, why he has to let it, even though every fiber of his being is screaming at him to escape, to lean away, to create distance and space.
Actually, that assurance does help, at least a little. It's most visible in his shoulders. Still tense, but just that little bit less so. "Something Noah suggested, or did you decide this little tactic on your own?" He's actually not sure which answer he would rather be true.
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Date: 2021-10-30 05:43 pm (UTC)"Yes, well, you... say things like that, I..." Keep everything under vault-lock-and-key like the world's most well-guarded secret at all times. But that doesn't have a very nice ring to it, so he just trails off instead.
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Date: 2021-10-30 06:14 pm (UTC)He doesn't pity him, Kaz would never want that from him, but he does hate that he's felt the need to deny himself everything that could connect him to other people. Isolation, emotionally or otherwise, had a way of breaking people.
"You should try. To tell people those things you usually wouldn't." Jesper has to wonder how well his advice will be taken in tandem with Noah's. If it would count for anything. "Physical distance isn't your only problem. And trust me, if it's one of us we aren't going to laugh you off or...hold anything against you."
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Date: 2021-10-30 06:33 pm (UTC)"I don't know how." he says, voice quiet. It sounds stupid, even to his own ears, but that's how it feels. Like all the parts of him that might have once been able to do exactly that, at the drop of a hat and pick of a whim, had atrophied, withered up and turned to dust a long time ago.
He finally looks up at Jesper again. "What if I can't? What if... nothing changes, and everything's the way it's always been?" Will he get fed up with it all eventually? Decide he can't take dealing with someone like Kaz but for so long? His people leaving him, particularly because he couldn't be the person they want– need?– him to be, is one of the only things Kaz truly fears at all. His circle is so small, if they started to walk away, it wouldn't take long before he was left with no one.
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Date: 2021-10-30 07:37 pm (UTC)His questions though, draw a sigh out of him. Kaz doesn't voice it, but there's an underlying worry there--one he put into words once, back in the confines of a hospital and fresh off a living nightmare and memory. "If you can't, then things don't change and we're still here..." He shrugs. "I don't think you want to keep us all out. But there are some things that have to give for you to breathe and actually live, Kaz..."
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Date: 2021-10-30 07:55 pm (UTC)His face scrunches slightly as he looks at him. "You're sure?" He can't stop the way he tries to scrutinize everything, from the way Jesper looks at him to the way he might shift in his seat, analyzing, just like he'd said, every single thing he might be able to piece together as some hidden thought pattern behind whatever Jesper might say out loud.
"I have to, Jesper." He shakes his head. "I can't lose like that again. I can't..." his voice is barely audible, it isn't something he even wants to consider.
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Date: 2021-10-30 08:07 pm (UTC)And he knows Kaz is going to look into all that's said. He can feel it with the way that he's being watched. It's almost like you can see the gears turning as Kaz tries to puzzle it out, to read beyond the surface--even if the surface is all there is.
"Life is love and loss, Kaz. You can't keep that from happening. You can't control the where or how...but you can make sure people know what the hell they mean to you." He sighs. It's harder with the losses Kaz has suffered, the people he's seen go, and the ways they've done it.
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Date: 2021-10-30 08:20 pm (UTC)"Not like that." he whispers but the words come out in Kerch. He's shaking his head as he starts again. "I know I can't keep it from happening. That's why I have to keep everyone at a distance. If I can just...keep you far enough away, then it won't hurt as much." It's a useless hope, somewhere under this strange conviction he's spent too long trying to convince himself of as a truth, he knows that. Because the people he cares about are already a part of him in the exact way he tried so hard to keep from allowing to happen.
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Date: 2021-10-30 08:42 pm (UTC)"And what about us, if you're the one to go first?" Jesper asks quietly, though he doesn't want to. There is no denying that possibility. If any of them could go at any time, that would include Kaz as well--if anything, his lot was worse than theirs put together. "You're not the only one that faces the chance of loss. And loss hurts either way, no matter how much we try to make it less. We all know if it happens whoever's left is going to be a sorry lot of mourners. And...that's more than likely to leave just Nina and me at the end of it all."
It's not something he likes to think of, much less talk about. But it's the reality of Grisha. They live longer--longer than Kaz can make on borrowed time. Longer than Wylan's money can buy. Longer than Inej's Saints can give her. At the end of it all, there will be at least two mourners standing at their funerals.
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Date: 2021-10-30 08:57 pm (UTC)He frowns as he turns his gaze back on Jesper again. There's something else in that question, hanging at the edges that he isn't catching. The frown pinches further as Jesper continues, and for a long moment, it still doesn't make sense. What does he mean, he and Nina will be left at the end?
And then it clicks into place.
Because they're Grisha.
Because they'll live longer than the rest of them combined.
Because unless something else takes them before it happens, it will only be them at the end.
The pinched expression eases into something softer, that isn't entirely like Kaz, but somehow still is, too. "I...never considered that." He has had Grisha in his employ all this time, and there were several others at the call of The Dregs, but that particular point had never connected in his mind. No matter what happens, Jesper and Nina will outlive the lot of them, because of the very nature of what they are.
"...you think about it a lot?" he has a feeling he knows the answer.
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Date: 2021-10-30 09:08 pm (UTC)He waits, watches as the confusion on Kaz's face shifts to understanding. He knows it's likely not something he's considered, most people never really have a reason to. They drift in and out of life never really seeing what they leave behind in their wake. It had once made Ravka and the Second Army a tempting thought--to be with Grisha, to live with people that won't fade long before you do. He let thought go a long time ago.
"I don't like to...but I do. Can't always help it." It was a thought that kept him up at night back in the Slat. One that had him watching Wylan sleep here; when the other boy managed it. It's a thought he tries to avoid, but can never run away from. "It's why I flirt the way I do I think. Can't form attachments if they aren't there longer than a night. We all have our coping mechanisms. But--it's why I run my mouth too. I don't want the people that matter most to me to leave without knowing what they were to me. Knowing I didn't tell them would eat me alive more than the loss ever could."
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Date: 2021-10-30 09:59 pm (UTC)It's a strange shift, this heavy thing Jesper carries with him, coloring all those other parts of him differently, suddenly. A different sort of perspective he couldn't have come to on his own.
But Kaz is still Kaz. And he has no idea what to say. All he manages in a nod, a glance down at his hands in his lap, uncharacteristically fidgety, and a quiet, "I see..." He rolls his lips together, knowing there should be more, and knowing he has nothing to offer.
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Date: 2021-10-30 10:59 pm (UTC)That was half the problem, the relying on the other's part. Not because Kaz can't, but because it's a weakness he doesn't want people to see. Even when they already know about it.
Ad for the other part, the heavier quiet truth: "I just...That's why it's important that you admit things, that I push. If that's all I'm left with, I want the truth of it. I don't want to wonder. Doesn't matter if it goes somewhere or not."
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Date: 2021-10-30 11:30 pm (UTC)But he was so used to being so guarded around them. All of his crows. Wired to never let himself show weakness to the people that mattered most– he can practically hear Noah in his head arguing that they're the ones that should see it because they would understand and help him through the other side.
'If that's all I'm left with..." it twists something sharp and jagged in his chest. All he had left of his brother was maybe half a decade's worth of memories and the last handful of them were soured through time and understanding of exactly what had happened, what Jordie had allowed to happen. He doesn't want Jesper to have those sort of things left to deal with, eventually, does he?
He's quiet for several, long drawn out minutes. Until finally, he speaks again, voice careful, soft. "....yes. The...answer to your question is...yes. You're attractive." There's a beat and he adds, a little lighter, "I'm not blind."
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Date: 2021-10-30 11:53 pm (UTC)The answer, quiet and soft, was not expected. Though the added snark at the end certainly helped ease the shock. "Good to know your eyes are in working order then." He wasn't going to linger on it. Drawing it out or needling Kaz on it further would only serve to get on his nerves.
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Date: 2021-10-31 12:13 am (UTC)He scoffs and shakes his head, eyes rolling playfully. "You're an idiot." but there's no real heat to the words, just that hidden affection that comes with it.
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Date: 2021-10-31 06:03 pm (UTC)Kaz has to know that he had to, at some point or another, tease him at least once about it. It's not as though it would be unexpected of him to do so.
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Date: 2021-10-31 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-31 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-01 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-06 08:59 pm (UTC)"I absolutely insist."
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Date: 2021-11-06 09:27 pm (UTC)"Thought you might." he mumbles quietly, going very, very still as Jesper pushes himself into his space again. He's really terrible about doing that. Even before it became a soft goal to get him more used to that sort of thing from people.
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Date: 2021-11-06 09:43 pm (UTC)"Relax." He breathes, voice low and quiet. He doesn't move closer, but he doesn't remove himself from Kaz's space either.
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Date: 2021-11-06 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-06 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-06 10:31 pm (UTC)Actually, that assurance does help, at least a little. It's most visible in his shoulders. Still tense, but just that little bit less so. "Something Noah suggested, or did you decide this little tactic on your own?" He's actually not sure which answer he would rather be true.
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