GRISHAVERSE X READERS

THE HONEST AND THE THIEF | KAZ BREKKER

Summary: Helping a little boy who had been soaked wet in a cold Ketterdam night had a result you would never have believed would happen.

Characters: Kaz Brekker, Y/N (no pronouns), Y/N's parents

Pairing: Kaz Brekker & reader (platonic)

Prompt: E16. Unlikely friends, sent by an anon

Word count: 1.1k

You still remembered the day like yesterday, the day you met Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands. If you had met him any later or earlier, you wouldn't be friends.

"Saints," you had gasped and ran up to the boy, him flinching back upon seeing someone approaching him.

"Stay back!" he had shouted, making you stop in your tracks. You had frowned, taking in his soaked clothes and fear brewing in his eyes. Without another thought, you shed off your coat.

"You're freezing," you had muttered and taken a few steps towards him. "You can have my coat, it's not wise to be here without a coat."

The boy didn't say anything to that, letting you approach him.

If you'd left him there, he probably would have been dead by morning. That gesture of kindness in the city Kaz had learned to be cruel and truly unforgiving only while he was kicking himself to the shore was actually just what he needed on that moment. Someone peculiar like you - your father was peculiar too, as one of the only honest merchants he had taught you to be kind to people, and seeing that boy around your age crawling to the shore, shivering and tired, you hadn't wasted any time with shedding off your coat and laid it on his shoulders. He flinched back when your hand made contact with his back, and you somehow understood to immediately withdraw your hand. You had told him to keep the coat when he had offered it back, and left when your father called after you.

There was something in you that intrigued Kaz deeply. He sought you into his hands soon again, and you hanged out a lot, he even started attending family dinners. He just told his name is Kaz, but didn't say his last name for some reason, avoiding the topic. Your father tried to offer him a job as an errand boy, but he turned it down immediately. Your father was good at reading people, and didn't push it. After some weeks, Kaz told you that his last name is Brekker. You weren't sure why he had tried to hide it, but you figured it had something to do with the fact why he was so secretive about his past.

Some time passed, and you saw Kaz change, little by little. He started saying he has to get revenge on something, and is willing to sacrifice everything for it. He started working for the Dregs, a gang at the Barrel, making little jobs here and there. Your father approved it and didn't kick him out, even made sure it's covered up so Kaz would be safe from people in his circles. Kaz was important to you, and your father knew that you didn't care about people like that if you didn't have a good reason to trust. But still, after three years, Kaz told you goodbye and later you heard that he had become the official member of the Dregs. You wanted to visit him, but you knew you were just a child. A wealthy one, not fit there at all, you would immediately be kidnapped and held captive against ransom. You had grown to care about Kaz greatly, but you also knew he had his own path to walk.

But when rumors about some new criminal mastermind among the Dregs who was more ruthless than most of the Dime Lions' men started to spread, you didn't think it would be Kaz. It took almost five years from when you last saw him, when a word came in that Kaz Brekker wants to see you.

So now you were there, at the Barrel. At a place you didn't belong to, as a wealthy merchant's heir. You had been promised that once you reach the Dregs territory, you would have nothing to fear, that you'd be protected. That Dirtyhands had given an order to make sure anything doesn't happen to you while you're walking to his club. You were drinking at the bar counter, talking to criminals, them joking that usually they'd rob you.

"Y/N," your friend spoke from behind you, not sounding like himself at all, but you still smiled, turning around from the counter. You knew he was now a grown-up, and were met with those same eyes you had last seen when he had said his goodbye to you.

"Kaz Brekker. My, you've changed quite a bit since we last met," you grinned. "I heard you've got one hell of a reputation now."

"I hope it doesn't bother you," Kaz said. "You're an exception, you're safe in our territory."

You grinned, shaking your head. "Of course it doesn't bother me. It's your path, and you're still my friend."

Kaz just smirked at you, before taking a seat beside you. Two unlikely friends, and you wouldn't even be his friend if you hadn't met him that day at the harbor. When he had just risen from the sea, shivering and soaked, and if you hadn't given him your expensive coat to warm up. If you'd left him there, he probably would have been dead by morning.

Kaz was forever grateful for how you had seen him, and how you had chosen to help him. In Ketterdam, that was an act worthy of Saints, and sometimes he thought about it - if Inej's faith would be real, you would surely be one of her saints, just disguised as an ordinary person. Because the odds of him being saved from freezing to death, and even offered a bed and meals for three years, not being kicked out even when he started working for the Dregs, them knowing he doesn't have one single kruge left in his pockets and no way of taking advantage of him, like Pekka Rollins had, were almost nonexistent.

Some day, he'd find a way to pay you back for your hospitality and open arms, ready to take an unknown boy with a shattered soul to live with them and become stronger. He was forever grateful, and seeing you now, despite after five years of not seeing each other, it felt like no time had gone by at all.