Archive of Our Own ^beta

First Base

Kaz ties his tie slowly, focusing more on how Nikolai is in a bit of a frenzy trying to find his own tie. “You can borrow one of mine,” he offers as he finishes his task.

Nikolai glances at him. “You sure?” He sounds more desperate than Kaz thinks he should be.

“Yes. I’m sure. Choose one. And stop freaking out so badly, it’s not like we’re walking into an ambush —”

“— oh, yes we are,” Nikolai counters as he takes out a nice blue tie Kaz doesn’t wear very often. “You’ve never met my parents, that’s actually the perfect term for it.”

Kaz sighs. “I meant, we’re not going to get physically beat up,” he clarifies, stepping up to where Nikolai is trying to knot Kaz’s tie with slightly shaky fingers. “What are you so afraid of right now?”

Nikolai pauses, letting Kaz take up the action instead. “I just don’t want it to turn into a shouting match, the way dinners with my parents and partner have historically gone.”

Kaz raises an eyebrow. “They turned into shouting matches when your partner wasn’t Dirtyhands?”

Nikolai nods worriedly as Kaz slips the tail into the knot he’s made.

Kaz sighs again. “Well, who knows. Maybe my very presence will keep it calm, cool, and collected. Besides, I don’t yell, and if someone else starts yelling, I don’t typically match their tone.”

Nikolai nods slowly. “That's true,” he admits.

They’re walking out the door when Kaz has another question. “Historically speaking, do they shout at you? Or your partner?”

Nikolai shrugs. “Both, really. It usually starts with an “innocent question” from my mother,” he uses air quotes where Kaz hoped he wouldn’t. “And then it spirals from there. Most of my therapists have agreed that dinner with them isn’t typically a good idea.”

Kaz stops short in the middle of the street. “So why are we doing this right now?” he demands as Nikolai gets up onto the sidewalk waiting for him to catch up.

Nikolai makes a sour face. “Because my mother threatened to tell my father about Sturmhond’s relation to me. It’s what she uses every time.”

Kaz nods slowly. “So your solution to your mother blackmailing you isn’t to blackmail her back?”

Nikolai is the one who stops short now, albeit on the sidewalk behind Kaz. “What would I blackmail her with?”

Kaz shrugs. “I don’t know. But I could easily have found something for you to use.”

Nikolai shoots him a look. “I might take you up on that next time she pulls this bullshit,” he says with a sigh.

Kaz looks over at where Nikolai is fiddling with his tie the way he does when he’s truly nervous. “Hey,” he says as gently as he can through his harsh voice. “It’s just an hour. You can survive an hour, and the second anyone starts shouting, we’re leaving. Yes? Even if the hour isn’t done. We’ll blackmail your mother later about not releasing that information to your father. Your safety and comfort are the priority.” He nods sharply.

Nikolai looks gratefully over at him. “Thanks, Kaz,” he whispers as they get to the door of a large house.

“They live here?” Kaz asks, surveying the scene carefully.

“Oh, no,” Nikolai shakes his head as he knocks on the door. “This is just the neutralish ground we tend to meet at for these kinds of things.”

Kaz opens his mouth to ask what the “-ish” suffix means just as the door opens and a woman with a lot of Nikolai’s features smiles thinly at them.

“Welcome,” she says graciously, stepping back to allow them to walk past her.

“Mother,” Nikolai says stiffly, going in first, Kaz trailing after him with the occasional click of his cane.

“And this is…?” she asks as they walk into a large dining room that puts the entryway to shame with its ample space and high design.

“Kaz,” Nikolai introduces, leaving out his last name as per Kaz’s prior instructions.

“Does Kaz have a last name?” Nikolai’s mother asks leadingly as she sits next to an empty seat with a plate setting.

“He does,” Nikolai agrees, not elaborating.

His mother frowns a little, before turning to Kaz with a halfhearted smile. “It’s good to meet you, then. I am Tatiana Lantsov.”

Kaz inclines his head. “Pleasure,” he says flatly.

Tatiana frowns a bit deeper, but then Nikolai’s stepfather enters the room, and the fun really begins.

He’s not smiling, first of all. He looks like this dinner is quite possibly the very last thing he wants to be doing right about now, and he’s going to make it everyone else's problem.

Second of all, Kaz recognizes him, and not because he’s seen him in the news before, although…that too.

Kaz recognizes him because Kaz has recently started a job that involves stealing from this man. He’s got portraits of himself up on multiple walls in the house Kaz is trying to steal from, as if he’s royalty and deserves such a thing. Although, to be fair, Kaz doesn’t think royalty deserves multiple large portraits of themselves, but that is neither here nor there.

Alexander Lantsov III sits stiffly next to his wife. They have zero chemistry, as far as Kaz can tell. Nikolai doesn’t seem to find this unusual, however, so Kaz doesn’t say anything about it right now.

A maid of some kind comes out with two trays of food to set in the middle of the table. Kaz watches both Alexander and Tatiana completely ignore the human being who just delivered their dinner for them, leaving Nikolai to smile and thank her as she ducks out.

Kaz tries not to frown too deeply. He’s trying to be charismatic right now, after all.

Alexander scowls at Kaz. “So, Brekker,” he says harshly, eyeing Kaz like he’s a slug on the bottom of his shoe that Alexander accidentally trod on. It seems Alexander recognizes him too. “You think you’re…dating Nikolai.”

Kaz drops the charisma immediately. Neither of them deserve it. “I do think that. Based on objective evidence, actually.”

Nikolai leans on the table for a split second before Tatiana is chiding him for it.

“Nikolai! Where did you learn that? Stop that right this instant,” she says tightly.

Nikolai pushes off the table with a growing frown, slouching back in his chair.

“If you think that position is a better one, you are sadly mistaken,” she says as harshly as Alexander's words.

Nikolai pushes off the chair to a compromise his mother seems to agree with. He’s got a dull look in his eyes, like he’s dissociating or something.

Alexander doesn’t seem to notice or care. “What could a fake businessman want from the son of a real businessman?” he asks Kaz pointedly.

Nikolai inhales like he’s about to interject, but Kaz jumps in feet first.

“Why do you say that?” He shoots back a little defensively. “You know nothing about my business or its practices.”

Alexander glares at him. “I know enough to know that you’re actually just a fairly successful con man with a scary reputation. Which is to say, not a businessman.” He cuts into something on his plate with his fork.

Kaz smiles humorlessly at him. “What’s the difference?” he asks innocently.

Alexander's face flares instantly. “How dare you,” he hisses across the table.

Kaz stares back at him, unbothered again. He says nothing. He doesn't need to. Alexander is perfectly capable of running around in verbal circles trying to get Kaz to agree with him on something they will never agree on.

“How dare you, actually,” Nikolai says lightly, cutting his own meat with a serrated knife. Alexander's furious gaze swings over to him. “Don’t call my boyfriend a fake anything.” He looks up then, staring his stepfather down.

Alexander looks like he’s anticipating having to swallow a lemon and he’s not enjoying the mere idea of it. “Hmm,” he says through pursed lips, going back to his meal.

Kaz eats precious little in the hour they spend in the sour presence of Nikolai’s current parents. But it seems Nikolai is in the same boat, because while he’s cut up most of his food — probably more to give his hands something to do while he argues with his stepfather than anything else — he hasn’t eaten very much of it. The maid whisks his basically full plate away after he suddenly stands.

Tatiana opens her mouth just as Nikolai says, in a firm voice, “That was an hour. We’re leaving. Kaz?”

Kaz stands as well, dipping his head at Tatiana and Alexander before following Nikolai to the front door. Tatiana looks annoyed. Alexander looks upset.

Kaz does not care.

They’re walking back to Kaz’s when he finally brings up what’s been bugging him for ages. “What the fuck was that dynamic about?”

Nikolai shrugs. “My mother wanted to meet you; my stepfather less so.”

“Hmmm,” Kaz says.

They get back to Kaz’s apartment, locking the door behind them.

“Maybe he knows something I don’t know he knows,” Kaz muses aloud as they walk down the hallway.

“What do you mean?” Nikolai asks.

“I mean, he was acting…a little…weird. About my business habits,” Kaz explains quickly.

“I just thought it was less that he was trying to find fault in your business practices and more that he was trying to find fault in you,” Nikolai says hesitantly, his voice getting softer and softer as his sentence continues.

Kaz shrugs, turning on his heel to see Nikolai standing very close to him, practically whispering in Kaz’s ear now. He swallows, hoping to stay cool, calm, and collected about the whole thing.

But then Nikolai’s warm breath coasts over the shell of his ear, and he can’t fucking stand it. He wants to kiss his boyfriend. He wants to kiss him really fucking bad.

He turns his head minutely enough to press a small, almost chaste kiss against Nikolai’s cheek.

Nikolai goes still.

Kaz pulls away. Did he just fuck something up?

But then Nikolai smiles, and that smile clenches Kaz’s chest hard. “Can I…can I kiss you too?” he breathes.

Kaz thinks about it. “...yes,” he decides.

Nikolai’s eyes light up. He leans toward Kaz, kissing the corner of Kaz’s mouth.

Kaz moves his head just enough that they’re kissing each others’ lips now. Nikolai is slow to adjust, slow to move his mouth, slow to progress.

It’s perfect.

Kaz wouldn’t fully admit it to just anyone, but…he might love this, actually.

But the time to pull away comes far too soon. He does, annoyed at himself.

But Nikolai just keeps smiling at him. “We’ll build up to it,” he says comfortingly.

Kaz nods.

They finish walking down the hall to get to Kaz’s bedroom. Kaz sits on the bed. Nikolai sits at his desk.

“It would be really annoying if your father did something to any of my businesses,” Kaz grouses, bringing that conversation back.

“I wouldn’t let him,” Nikolai says loftily.

“I mean, I wouldn’t either, but if he does something legal, I can't really —” Kaz begins.

“ — no, you don’t understand,” Nikolai says fiercely. “I. Won’t. Let. Him. I will chop off his dick before I let him fuck anything up for you.”

Kaz blinks before nodding seriously. Mostly because…he believes his boyfriend.

And he loves that he believes him.

Second Base

They’re walking down a long hallway in a mansion neither of them owns looking for the black door in a sea of brown ones.

Nikolai stiffens at one point, prompting Kaz to stop short.

Footsteps. Perpendicular to where they stand in the middle of the hallway.

“There,” Kaz hisses, pointing at a closet door they passed two doors ago. ”Now.”

They both duck inside, Kaz closing the door behind them.

Nikolai silently crouches down while Kaz stays standing above him, presumably to give Kaz more room to stand. There’s not much space for Nikolai to give up in the first place, but what he can, he does.

Kaz, hyper aware of the lack of personal bubble area he currently has, forces himself to breathe slowly as they wait for the person the footsteps belong to to pass them entirely.

Suddenly, Nikolai whispers, “You know, if we weren’t actively hiding to prevent being caught participating in a less than legal heist, this would be a super charged moment.”

Kaz blinks, looking down at the top of his boyfriend’s head. “...what the fuck are you talking about right now?” he asks incredulously in as soft of a voice as his rough throat will allow.

Nikolai looks up, opening his mouth to respond.

The footsteps get closer.

Not willing to say anything in case it’s heard, Kaz reaches down to press his gloved fingers against Nikolai’s lips.

Nikolai stays quiet.

Someone passes their closet. Kaz holds completely still. Nikolai doesn’t move either.

When it’s clear the person has moved on — although they haven’t fully left this hallway — Kaz feels Nikolai’s head tipping back just a bit.

Suddenly, his gloved fingertips are inside Nikolai’s mouth.

Kaz fights not to rip his hand away from the cavern of wet Nikolai is subjecting him to.

Nikolai’s tongue swipes over his fingertips before he lightly sucks on them.

Kaz can feel his tongue working past the leather barrier and through the small slits in the fingertips of the glove. There’s a calm storm building in his gut now. It seems Kaz’s fingers are incredibly sensitive erogenous zones for him — probably mostly due to the way his fingers so rarely see the daylight.

It’s…a soft, cozy pleasure he’s not sure if he wants to let go of just yet.

Kaz presses his fingertips harder against Nikolai’s parted lips.

Nikolai’s mouth envelops his fingers up to the first joint.

Kaz covers his own mouth with his other hand, determined not to gasp or make any other noises as the delicate tongue movements wrap him — or, well, his fingers — up.

Nikolai sucks hard on his gloves, the tip of his talented tongue flicking against the hypersensitive fingerpads in his mouth.

Finally, the light pressure and suction gets to be too much for right now. Kaz pulls his fingers away from and out of Nikolai’s magical mouth.

Nikolai doesn’t rise. He just turns a little to face Kaz better, reaching up to stroke the sides of Kaz’s slightly heaving ribs with two feather light hands.

Kaz presses his hand against his mouth harder. These light touches on his sides are somehow more tingly than even the suction on his fingertips had been. His knees feel weak, actually.

Nikolai slowly stands, slowly opening the door behind him to get more room to stand, one of his delicate hands still holding Kaz’s left ribs gently.

Kaz lets him rub his careful thumb over Kaz’s chest and side in such a blatantly sensual motion, he almost doesn’t even make it out of the closet. He almost pulls Nikolai back inside, closing the door again.

Nikolai steps backward into the hallway, lightly pulling on Kaz’s body.

Kaz stumbles out of the closet after him.

Nikolai lets go of him just as Kaz rapidly approaches his absolute touch limit. How Nikolai knew that part remains a mystery, because then he grins at Kaz and says, in a smug tone, “Shall we continue?"

Kaz gathers himself, dropping his hand from his mouth to nod.

And they do continue, touching only in brief spurts for the rest of the heist.

But that’s all right.

Because Nikolai sucking on Kaz’s fingers will live on in Kaz’s mind forever, and he’ll enjoy it the whole time.

Third Base

Kaz shouldn’t have agreed to any of this.

Nikolai had wanted to go to the theater with him, for some action film Kaz had sworn up and down he had zero interest in viewing.

Unfortunately for himself, he does have quite an interest in Nikolai.

So to the movie theater, they’d gone.

“We leave the fucking second the credits begin to roll, understand?” Kaz had hissed before they’d even sat down. “I’m not dealing with any crowd tonight.”

Nikokai had nodded quick agreement. “Of course,” he’d said simply, as if it were a foregone conclusion since he convinced Kaz to come with him in the first place.

They’d been able to hold hands for the first five minutes of the movie before Kaz had ripped his away from Nikolai’s. Nikolai hadn’t looked remotely offended by it, so Kaz had swallowed his minor guilt down in an instant.

The milisecond the first name in the credits shows up on the screen, Kaz stands up, followed immediately by his boyfriend.

The path up and out of Theater 3 is far steeper than Kaz remembers it being limping down it, but no matter. It just takes him a couple of seconds more to make his way to the top, to the doors.

He pushes the theater door open to burst into the hallway, away from the sounds of various people starting to stand behind him.

The lobby is around a corner to the left.

Kaz hurries toward it, trying to leave the building entirely as fast as he can.

They step into the lobby, Nikolai just barely behind Kaz.

Kaz stops short, standing on the precipice of the lobby entrance.

The lights shining high overhead are certainly one problematic aspect of it all, but it’s the noise that really roots Kaz in place, stiff and starting to pant. There’s multiple conflicting machines working around him, people talk loudly on every side of the room, children run past him without a care for how loud they’re laughing and yelling.

He stops walking entirely, standing frozen where he is, completely overwhelmed in a second.

Nikolai says something to him. But Kaz can’t hear him over the sound of a child that has started to scream its head off somewhere to his right. The crying child is getting closer, though.

It’s a lot. It’s too much. It’s all at once.

Kaz covers one of his ears, his other hand holding his cane tightly as if that’ll do anything about the competing sounds that echo and reverberate in his head. The muffled noises in one ear isn’t nearly enough to calm him down, he’s getting dizzy already.

Nikolai is still talking to him, but Kaz isn’t comprehending a damn thing. He could be talking about an emergency, and Kaz wouldn’t know a thing.

That’s when someone’s hand collides with his spine.

Kaz turns half around, hissing at the hand even as it leaves his body.

But that’s when he finally realizes that they didn’t fully escape the danger. The entire crowd they’d just watched the action flick with has left Theater 3 and is pushing against their backs.

He tries to shuffle to the side, but then someone else brushes up against him hard.

Kaz gags violently, trying to get his complete shutdown to stall out while shaking like a leaf where he stands.

Nikolai talks a little louder in his uncovered ear, which does nothing but add to the overstimulation. No one touches him right before he gags again, but as soon as he’s done it a second time, a shoulder rams into him.

Kaz retches, dry heaving with no actual substance escaping him.

He’s vaguely aware that his shoulders suddenly both touch walls, and that someone stands right in front of him. He trembles aggressively in anticipation, until he finally registers that the person standing right in front of him is Nikolai. Nikolai, whose hands are splayed on the wall on either side of Kaz. Nikolai, who is using his entire body to shield Kaz’s from the crowd by backing him up into a corner and standing in the way. His body is occasionally jostled, but Kaz is removed enough from the general public that he can just lean back inside the corner and pant jaggedly.

When the majority of the crowd is gone — left the building at some point, and the screaming child is too far in the distance to be an issue, Kaz watches as Nikolai steps back, away from where Kaz gasps loudly trying to regulate himself.

Nikolai’s not talking to him or anyone else. He just offers his hand to Kaz.

Kaz stares at it for a long moment, pulling his free hand off his right ear in favor of taking Nikolai’s wrist instead. He’s trying to focus exclusively on Nikolai’s steady pulse, because that, at least, is helping.

Nikolai leads him carefully out to Kaz’s car. The sun has fully set, which helps too. He helps Kaz into the passenger’s side instead, closing the door lightly behind him.

Inside the car is just as dark, even when Nikolai turns the car on with keys Kaz isn’t sure where he got them, other than from Kaz’s pocket at some point. Then it’s just a few scattered, weak lights from the dashboard.

Nikolai adjusts the driver’s seat quietly, driving him somewhere.

The entire ride there is silent, the only discernable sound for Kaz his own loud, hitching breaths.

Nikolai parks in front of his own house instead of taking Kaz home to his own apartment.

Kaz doesn’t complain about it. He just sits in his seat, staring out the windshield while Nikolai comes around to the other side of the car to open his door for him.

“Come on out,” Nikolai whispers when he does, letting a numb Kaz grip his pulse tightly again so he can lead him into the house with no fight whatsoever.

Kaz might be technically calming down, but he’s still a long way off from even just neutral.

He lets Nikolai help him inside; lets Nikolai sit him down on the couch.

Nikolai kneels in front of him solemnly, eyeing him carefully.

Kaz belatedly realizes that Nikolai didn’t turn the lights on when they came in. They’re still sitting in almost complete darkness when Nikolai begins to softly whisper to him.

“Can you breathe?” Nikolai whispers first.

Kaz nods slowly.

“Can you feel anyone besides me touching you?” is his next question.

Kaz hesitates, assessing before shaking his head. The phantom feelings of touch aren’t plaguing him in this moment, at least.

“Are you still overwhelmed?" Nikolai asks calmly.

Kaz nods immediately.

Nikolai nods back at him. “Okay. Do you want me to help you ground?”

Kaz pauses, then nods.

Nikolai dips his head in agreement. “Do you want a temperature change?”

Kaz shakes his head.

“How about 54321?”

Kaz shakes his head. He can’t think anything right now, let alone voice 15 surrounding somethings.

“Breathing in a pattern?”

Kaz shakes his head at that too. He can’t remember any patterns, and even if he could, that’s rarely helpful anyway.

“Do you want…do you want me to touch you a little? Like last time?” Nikolai suggests.

Kaz stops short. The time Nikolai is referring to was when Kaz had a complete breakdown about getting wet from a sudden rainstorm.

They’d finally found a small cafe to sit in, but past the chattering of Kaz’s teeth and the resurfacing of other memories of being drenched, Kaz had continued to freeze and flinch about the presence of corpses who had long since turned into skeletons with no skin or flesh to offend.

And then the side of Nikolai’s hand had brushed against Kaz’s knee.

And Kaz had stiffened enough that Nikolai had pulled away to apologize profusely.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry —” he’d started.

“— no. No. Do it again,” Kaz had commanded through frozen lips.

Nikolai had watched him hesitantly. “Kaz, I don’t think —”

Kaz had glared at him then. “Do it again,” he’d snapped.

And Nikolai had brushed his hand over Kaz’s knee again until Kaz’s mind had come back online enough to recognize that the light, careful touches had been in that present.

And it had been enough; for a bit, at least.

Nikolai watches Kaz intently.

Kaz nods slowly. “Thighs. Too,” he gets out through where his tongue doesn’t want to participate in any speaking for any reason.

Nikolai studies him before starting to carefully stroke up and down Kaz’s thighs, his perfectly manicured nails lightly scratching the fabric separating their skins.

Kaz closes his eyes briefly, just to come back enough to acknowledge the way it’s —

“— July 24th at 8:12 pm. You are 25 years old. You are at Nikolai Lantsov’s house, on his couch. You are safe. You are alive. You are dry. You’re holding Nikolai’s pulse, because Nikolai is alive too.”

Kaz’s eyes flutter open and his gaze locks onto his boyfriend’s bright eyes.

Nikolai’s fingertips trail down to his knee, then up to his hip, tracing letters into Kaz’s upper leg.

K

B

N

L are the letters he recognizes being written across his flesh.

Not branded. They leave in a fleeting instant.

But they’re in the present.

And so is Kaz.

Home Base

Kaz lays on Nikolai’s bed, in his arms. They’re both wearing long sleeves, long pants, socks, gloves. Kaz’s head is ducked down under Nikolai’s slightly raised chin. He breathes evenly against Nikolai’s lightly working throat. His hands grip Nikolai’s starched collar in such a tight grip, he might be misshappening the stiff form it usually holds.

Nikolai’s arm around his shoulder tightens again before loosening to a still firm grip. It has to be tight, tighter, tightest around him; or else Kaz’s mind equates it to the limp quality of a corpse, and can’t let it go.

Their legs tangle up together. Kaz’s ear is up against Nikolai’s pulse in his neck so their legs can stay that way. Nikolai’s left leg is bent over Kaz’s stiff right one, as if keeping him in warm captivity. His sock-covered foot occasionally flexes over the side of Kaz’s shin, slowly stroking his big toe down Kaz’s still tense calf to get it to relax further.

Kaz’s calf has not relaxed all the way by the time he’s saying, against Nikolai’s soft throat, “I have to go, it’s getting late.” He doesn’t move yet, soaking up all the time he can into his sponge of tolerance for this kind of physical intimacy.

Nikolai kisses the top of his head, in his hair, the way he’s wont to do. “You know,” he says conversationally, his voice rumbling slightly on its way out of where Kaz lays against his vocal chords. “If you lived here, you wouldn’t have to worry about how late it gets. You’d already be home.” The nonchalance he’s trying for fools no one, so Kaz isn’t sure why he even bothers.

Kaz pauses, pressing his fingertips harder against Nikolai’s wrist between their chests to make sure of the steady rhythm under them. “Lantsov, are you fucking asking me to move in with you?” Kaz sounds the furthest from nonchalance as anyone could conceivably get anyway. Incredulousness seeps its way into his tone quickly before it’s completely overtaken any intention not to.

He can feel and hear rather than see Nikolai beam above him. “Yep!” he crows. “But only if that feeling is mutual.”

“I don’t know,” Kaz says automatically. “I don’t know if it’s mutual. There’s a lot of logicistics. We’d have to work out —”

“— forget the logistics,” Nikolai says dismissively. “Do you want to move in with me? On any level?”

Kaz pauses, trying to separate the two concepts properly. “...maybe,” he whispers.

Nikolai’s voice drops to a whisper too now. “What’s not appealing about moving in? About living with me?”

“You’d be a target,” Kaz says immediately. He pulls back enough to look at Nikolai while he says it, pushing back against where Nikolai still holds him tightly despite his alteration in precise position.

Nikolai blinks. “...explain.”

Kaz sighs. “People want me dead, but more than that, people want people I love dead. Or to use as a bargaining chip. They did it with Inej, they did it with Jes, they’ll do it with you,” he says sharply. Nikolai should know this, to be frank, but he says it anyway.

“...okay…” Nikolai trails off like he’s not sure where the problem even is. “...so it’ll be on the down-low then —”

“— you can’t live with someone on the down-low, Lantsov,” Kaz interrupts. “I could barely date you on the down-low, and that broke apart real quickly.”

Nikolai stares at him.

“Nikolai,” Kaz sighs again. “It’s a logistic we can’t logic out of. I’ve…I’ve tried.” His tone is as grim as his sentence.

Nikolai is getting a small grin now.

“What?” Kaz asks gruffly.

“...are you saying you thought about cohabitation with me prior to right now?” he asks with rapidly jumping eyebrows and a smirk.

Kaz rolls his eyes. “I’m saying, it’s a thought that has crossed my mind more than once, but I’ve never figured out a viable solution for it.”

“Okay…” Nikolai says leadingly. “...what if we just…took the risk? Took the risk that someone could use me against you — or vice versa I guess — and still did what we wanted to do?”

Kaz stares at him for a long time, struggling to determine how he should even begin to detail how and why Nikolai is dead wrong.

He finally gives up on that endeavor. “...you’re impossible,” he grumbles, almost ducking back under his boyfriend’s chin.

Nikolai grins. “I prefer improbable," he says loftily.

Kaz rolls his eyes again. “My point is, what happens if someone kidnaps you? Holds you for ransom? Kills you? To get back at me?” he argues passionately back at Nikolai’s unconcerned expression.

Nikolai just shrugs. “Then at least I get to die happily knowing that I’m important enough to Kaz Brekker for it to have happened in the first place,” he says firmly.

Kaz stares at him again, tallying everything up in his head in seconds. Finally, he frowns. “That’s a terrible philosophy to have,” he complains, then: “When can I move in?”

Nikolai grins impossibly wider than he has this entire conversation, holding Kaz tighter again, pulling him into his chest for more of a pure hug. This man and his tendency to turn everything into physical intimacy. It’s like he’s starved for it.

So why he chose Kaz of all people to be with when that’s such a common pattern for him, is still a mystery to Kaz. This man got so few hugs as a child that he’s trying to make up for the lack now or something.

And you know what? Kaz is okay trying to get that count up for him, slowly but surely. When he can. When he can let Nikolai’s arms gather him up; a steady hand on the back of his head, a firm palm against the bottom of his spine, a warm chest to breathe over.

Kaz lets the hug continue for a good extra minute before pulling away completely, withdrawing his tangled legs, pushing out of Nikolai’s octopus arm grip, looking straight into those bright eyes that captivate him so.

Nikolai is still smiling, though. Which feels like an inappropriate reaction to be having to the end of a hug, at least from this man.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Kaz snaps, the venom that should’ve come hand in hand with that sentence missing its train entirely.

Nikolai doesn't stop looking at him like that. “Like what?”

“Like you love me,” Kaz says pointedly.

“Oh, sorry,” Nikolai sounds on the verge of laughing. “How would you rather I looked at you?”

Kaz frowns at the question being spun around on himself. “I don’t even know,” he spits. “But you’re not being very down-low about it.”

Nikolai rolls his eyes. “We’re not in front of other people, I don’t have to be on the down-low anyway,” he says haughtily.

“You should still practice,” Kaz grumbles, folding his arms over his chest.

Nikolai laughs then.

And Kaz decides he wants to bask in Nikolai a little longer. He scoots closer to his boyfriend again, as close as he can without touching him.

Nikolai doesn’t move; he just lays there looking at him with unbridled love that would blow any cover of theirs to bits in a second should an antagonist see it.

Unfortunately, Kaz loves him too, and might be looking at him in a similar vein.

But it’s the most obvious thing in the world to him that Nikolai loves him.

And Kaz might really love that.