Six of Crows One-shots

Growing up too fast

( Trigger Warning: Suicidal thoughts )

"I don't think you've been this quiet since I met you.." Inej said, Kaz almost jumped from being startled from his thoughts. Almost. "I was thinking is all." Kaz huffed, his eyes watching Inej's smile and the twinkle in her eye. "About?" Inej prodded, Kaz scowled. "The usual I suppose..." he sighed, running his fingers through his hair. "You seem stressed." Inej said in a worried tone. "I am stressed." Kaz replied bluntly not even trying anymore to play the game with Inej.

"What about?" She asked, sitting down beside him. "Inej..... at least thirty people right now are plotting how to kill me. I'm only seventeen!! I was a no one, and I have no point to do this job anymore, no goal after gaining vengeance but I... I have nowhere left to run." He shut his eyes, leaning down into the chair, and he looked... worn. It was something Inej hardly ever saw in him.

"Kaz- your not fighting these battles alone. You don't have to..." Inej gently put her hand on his shoulder. "I can't think anymore... there is no point in staying and no point in leaving.... I might as well just finish the job myself and be over with it." Kaz murmured, Inej was glad she was here suddenly.

"Don't you dare say that again! I can't lose you..." Inej told him, but Kaz just dropped his head, letting his forehead rest on his forearm and slumping over his desk. "Yes you can." He whispered defiantly. Inej felt her heart still, did he know she loved him... that he was cared about. "What would happen to Wylan and Jes, Kaz?" Inej asked, he blew out a breath. "Heh. Probably be glad I'm gone." He said, drawing a circle on the desk. "And me?" Inej asked, wistfully getting angrier at his stubbornness.

He looked up into her eyes, his own reflected something she never saw in him, the brokenness of a soul that has been trampled on too many times to bring back to life, a creature begging for his life to be taken away, so he could breath easy. Inej felt pain stir in her stomach, as some old words of his rang through her skull. "We aren't all worth saving, some sorry souls need to be put down." Inej never realized he meant himself... "You would get over it, their are much better people than me. I'd say a weeks time, possibly a month." His eyes did not brighten and he did not break contact.

"Your wrong." Inej told him in a strong voice that was hard to use looking into such sorrow. "Jesper, Me, even Matthias tried to stop you from going to the slat last year to get support. We were with you when the world wasn't... we don't want to see you slip away." Inej told him, her voice dropping and quivering. She gently caressed his cheek. "It won't matter, wants fail to work as needs. No matter how much one may want, needs outweigh much. The need for men to get their greed fulfilled pedals them on stronger than any want you or I may have." Kaz told her, his rasp tinted in a sweet voice that didn't match his words. "No.." Inej whimpered, not wanting to believe it. "Better terrible truths than kind lies." He said in a worn voice, it was Inej's words and thoughts before now used against her, she wouldn't accept it and went out of her way to ignore the comment.

She crawled into Kaz's lap, burying her face in his chest. "It won't matter Inej, if I try to live I will still die, just as if I don't try I will. My death will come long before my body starts to fail me. It is just as simple as that, I have a shortened time, it has been that way since I stepped in Ketterdam." Inej tried to block his words, and shake the feeling that she had already lost him.

But the sea pulled Inej, she asked Kaz... to promise her to stay for her, and he said he would with a smile of dazzling happiness that eased her. Jesper promised to keep an eye on him, Wylan too. Inej returned a couple years later, to find him safe as can be, in Ketterdam anyway. However, he had some news for her. "What do you mean?" Inej asked, trying to quell the new feelings, perhaps she misheard him?.............------------------~~~~~~~~~~~_________😈

Cliffhanger!

"I'm leaving." He said, his eyes staring into her own, as if challenging her to say otherwise. "Where will you go Kaz? What will you do?" Inej asked, staring mournfully back at him. Both answers she knew, she knew him too well. This would be goodbye after all. "It doesn't matter, but I will not return here." Kaz told her, she wanted to scream because of how the world kept punishing her. Giving her a love so powerful, and yet because of fear she nor he could touch each other, then it let her touch him, only to now rip him from her grasp.

Her stomach ached, it felt like she was slowly withering away on the inside, her heart felt pained with every beat. His soft smile did nothing to persuade her anything would ever be ok again. "Don't leave me Kaz..." she pleaded. He gently rubbed her back, letting her hold him close. "It's for your best. I don't want anyone to come for you... to get after me. I'm not worth it. No matter what you believe." Kaz whispered, Inej growled. Love, was a funny little thing. Inej could not kiss him goodbye, nor wish him good luck with his new life. She was not ready to let go, she wanted
to return many times to him, to the berth he had bought her, to him and his city.

But he was going to leave anyway. His mind was made and Jesper yelling and Wylan's begging, could not and would not hold him here. Nina came to get him to stay, but when she heard his reasoning she did the opposite. She made her way into his room, he looked at her, his coal black eyes watching hers. "You going to try to persuade me otherwise?" He asked, sounding defensive, a hurt creature who had been cornered.

"No... I came to make you a promise." Kaz's head lifted a bit, interested. "Will you protect them for me?" Kaz whispered, his voices harsh rasp cutting the air in ragged scratches. "Of course Kaz. Just promise me you will look after yourself, for Inej? At least in the beginning?" Nina murmured, sitting beside him. "I know you are to Inej as Matthias was to me. It's painful... but Inej will live through it as I have." She told him, Kaz smiled a ghost of happiness that was hollow.

"Thank you, and I will." He promised, his voice sounded bare. "I just- I'm not right for her and... I could be the death of her." Nina sighed, seeing both sides, both having good reasons, Kaz's was a sacrifice, one that most would be too selfish to take, and yet... It was a painful one for both of them. She could personally connect to Inej..  she wouldn't wish that on anyone.

And the next week, Kaz left.. in the dead of night with no goodbye, and as Inej stood on the buildings overlooking the sea early the next morning, holding her tears in she let the words on her mind get whisked into the air. "He doesn't say goodbye... he just lets go...... but I don't...." Inej stared at her hands, fighting the hope that his hand might slid into her own, from behind her. She pretended she didn't look around every time she heard a cane. She swallowed her whimpers when on her boat cleaning her wounds and wishing for Kaz to say 'I can help you' to see him trying to be what she asked of him, trying to not notice how her neck burned where he had first kissed  her... and where he last kissed her.

Kaz kept his promise. He never returned, they never heard from him, and he dropped into the dark.

I'm... I have no excuse. I just hurt, my mind feels awful and worn and I'm overcome by sadness that came out of nowhere... I'm so sorry, got this idea from a padlock FanFiction but it's very different and.... I'm lost... I need someone- but nobody is there.  I'm suppose to be a happy person, the one who everyone else goes to when sad... so why is it I feel like this, when their is no reason??