Warnings: Kaz gets a panic attack, mentions of death.
Word count: 1.2k
A job had gone horribly wrong. A young member of the Grinning Cats had seen you sneaking around the palace, and had ran to warn the highly secured building on that moment. And now you and Kaz had been dragged into the leader's office, him sitting there with his legs up and turning his head at Kaz the moment they brought him in.
"Kaz Brekker," Hein Middelesch stood up from his chair, taking his cigar out of his mouth. "What a pleasure to see you here, trapped for once. Did you really think you would be able to fight against my gang?"
His men laughed, and the Cat holding you dragged you toward Middelesch.
"And who is this lovely lady?"
Nobody spoke for a moment, you fought against your will to execute Middelesch right there and you knew that Kaz wouldn't say anything either.
But then one of Middelesch's goons spoke up. '"She's a heartrender, boss."
"A heartrender?" Middelesch raised his eyebrows and smirked as you struggled against the bulky man holding you. "Really? I didn't think we had any in town. Brekker, what a gift did you bring me."
You heard Kaz's heart rate picking up and knew he was fighting to control himself. You scoffed at the Grinning Cats leader.
"I'm not a gift, I'm here to secure my boss."
The man laughed, tapping his cigar and pointing at you. "Doing a poor job at it, aren't ya?" He leaned forward on his desk, and took another drag off his cigar. "Letting you two get caught like that... oh dear..."
Kaz cut into the silence, speaking up through gritted teeth.
"If you won't let us go right now, I'll make sure every single person in this room gets killed."
Middelesch sighed. "Well, that changes things. Neither of you will leave this room alive."
He turned around, lazily pulling his desk drawer open and taking a gun out of it. A small-caliber pistol with black grips, only big enough for a few bullets at most.
"It's my favorite pistol," he said proudly, turning back to face Kaz and you. "The bullet has such a kick to it that even if I shoot someone right between the eyes, they don't die immediately. But don't worry, they will die eventually - a slow and painful death. It's still a shame to waste a good bullet on someone like you, Brekker. Maybe I'll kill your heartrender girlfriend first, so you can watch as she suffers."
He lifted his gun up and pointed the barrel towards your head. You stared straight into his eyes and held your breath.
"Now, do you have any last words?"
Kaz's heartbeat was getting louder by the second, his heart rate quickening even further, and his breathing became ragged. You heard some shuffling, and knew he was held in place by someone much stronger than him.
"You're a piece of shit," you spat. "I hope you get shot in the dick and you die in agonizing pain."
Middelesch raised an eyebrow at you. "Well, that's not nice. Hm. Is that all? Well, then."
But just before he pulled a trigger, a blast went off, filling the room in thick smoke. Jesper emerged from the cloud, pulling you and Kaz with him and guiding you through the door. Wylan was waiting outside, taking a hold of you as Jesper held Kaz up, who was clearly in a middle of a panic attack. Jesper touching him right now was making it worse, but there was no other options on that moment, he couldn't walk on his own during an intense panic attack like that. Inej stepped out from the shadows, nodding at Jesper as she took out her knives and made her way to the smoke-filled room.
Kaz stumbled the stairs down, barely being held up by Jesper. "You know, your coat is awfully heavy, Kaz." Jesper tried to joke to distract his friend, but it was no use.
You made it out from the building, and into a dim back alley just behind the Dreg border. Jesper quickly made Kaz sit down on the ground, and you dropped on your knees in front of him.
"Kaz, Kaz, look at me." you urged, fighting your will to cup his face. "Look into my eyes. Breathe."
Kaz shook his head and clutched his chest. "No, no, I can't..."
"You can, I'm here. I promise I'll always be here for you. I'm alive, listen." You made a few quick motions with your hands, and concentrated hard. Temporarily transferring your Grisha ability to a non-Grisha was a skill not many handled, and you weren't too sure with succeeding either. But after a moment, Kaz's heartbeat started to even out, and he started to get control of his breathing too and you figured you had succeeded. You let out a sigh of relief, slumping to sit against the opposite wall.
Jesper came and sat next to you. "That was... close," he said, panting. "I think we got away from them cleanly."
Kaz nodded, swiping sweaty hair out of his face. He swallowed and took a deep breath. "What happened in there?"
Jesper smirked. "We did a pretty solid plan quickly and without you. Nina put the guards at the door into sleep, Wylan threw some smoke bombs in there and distracted the goons. Then Inej took them out so they wouldn't follow us. We could have used Matthias and his muscles, but we didn't want him to ruin it all by coughing his lungs out."
"An average plan at most, but at least it worked." Kaz grunted, earning a smile from you and an annoyed glare from Jesper.
Inej appeared to the alleyway, holding Kaz's cane. She didn't have a drop of blood on her, but you all knew she had killed everyone in that room. She handed Kaz his cane, and he slowly stood up using it.
"Let's go back to the Slat. Now that the Cats are out, we have to claim their territory before anyone else does."
Kaz was back in again like nothing had happened. You all knew he got a major scare there, and yet he acted as if everything was fine. But you knew that what he needed right now was knowing his friends were there for him, even when he didn't say it out loud.
The only person he had admitted to care about was you. You, who was the first person who held hands with him and who he occasionally gave feather-light kisses on top of your head when he thought you were sleeping. You knew about his past, why he was being so weird in a room full of people. You had learned to notice when he needed to get out, but the panic attack he had had at that alleyway was by far the worst yet. You hoped you wouldn't have to be in such a situation ever again, but you would never give up helping Kaz however you could.
And once the word about what happened to the Cats would spread, no one would dare to cross Kaz like that in a long while - if ever again.