Jordie lives, and boy, does Kaz not know what to do about that

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1,223 words

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Jordie cannot stop staring at Kaz, simple as that. He knows his younger brother is aware of the eyes upon him, but he's silent, as he's been to him the entirety of the mess that was the past three weeks. So Jordie stares and Kaz pretends the world around the two just got more complicated.

Kaz rubs his knee a lot, Jordie notices quickly. Whether or not Kaz realises it, and Jordie feels like he is only vaguely aware of it, he does it all the damn time. Jordie knows he broke his leg somehow, Kaz barked that out at him and that was some of the last words they shared. They sit in the same room for hours, anger and pain simmering between them.

Jordie doesn't know how to tell Kaz he isn't angry, at least anymore. He'd been frustrated when Kaz wouldn't stop yelling at him and shoved him away with a fierceness Jordie hadn't expected, but hell no , Jordie wasn't angry. But Kaz was, in a way Jordie knew he wasn't privy to, so he sat around in Kaz's merchant friends house, watching his brother live in a world he didn't know.

But something feels wrong now, after nearly three weeks of them pretending there isn't a decade between them now, and Jordie doesn't want to spend one more minute like this. He has to do something, say something, just so Kaz meets his damn eyes. That's all he wants, and then he'll let Kaz go. He just wants to see those eyes, Mama's eyes , one more time.

Jordie, from where he lies on the couch watching his brother work away, speaks suddenly, breaking the silence. "When we were younger, you would always climb up into the hayloft with just your arms. You thought you were the shit, remember?"

Kaz is silent, but Jordie hears the scratch of his pen better now. He briefly considered shutting up, but the dam had broken. "You fell one time, and Da got you ice cream, cause you hurt your wrist. I remember he went into town for it and didn't come home till nightfall. Remember?"

Kaz had stopped writing, his shoulders noticeably tense, so Jordie fell silent. Kaz spoke after a long stretch of silence, his tone cold as the Fjerdan winter, "What do you want, Jordan? "

"Jordan," He repeats cooly, sitting up so he can look at Kaz better as he laughs humorously. " Jordan . That's a new one, you've never once called me that."

"What do you want?" Kaz growls, the words coming out so quick it very well may also be a cry. His voice is taut with anger, but Jordie isn't afraid. He's seen Kaz as a kid, and for better or for worse, Kaz will always be a boy in his mind's eye.

"Just look at me, for Ghezen's sake, Kaz, look at me. I'm your fucking brother— "

" Shut up! "

"No Kaz, I won't shut up. You haven't looked at me once, God forbid spoken to me . I know you're angry, I get it! I would be to, but please, I beg of you , look at me. Please, Kaz, just fucking look at me."

"Just shut up!" Kaz cries, whirling around, eyes wide with more emotion than Jordie had ever seen. "Just go away, please, shut up, please . I looked at you, are you happy now, you fucking bastard!"

" Kaz... " he whispers, and Kaz looks away again, muscles bunched under his shirt. His eyes shine, and Jordie has to fight every instinct telling him to hug his brother, to wipe away the tears like he used to. They stand still for a moment, in sombre silence, until a sob breaks the silence.

Kaz stands perfectly still as the sobs rip out of him, his hand clenched into fists by his side, and Jordie freezes with him, taking only a half step forward before he stills too, the tears welling in his eyes. And for a while, they stand, crying in their own respective ways.

"Jordie," his little brother whispers, eyes glued to the floor. " Jordie ," he repeats, voice holding a reverence that dredges up half gone memories of their youth and how Kaz always looked at him like he was the greatest thing in the world.

And then he's stumbling into Jordie's arms, which catch him easily. He's taller than Kaz still, but he ignores that now, for there will be times for teasing one day. He can feel Kaz's hands clinging to the back of his shirt, the wet tears that soak through as he tries to channel his mother's love and his father's gentleness and he slowly, surely, pushes the hair on Kaz's brow back.

His brother shudders under the touch, and Jordie remembers the gloves, and the vague stories Kaz's Inej told him, her dark eyes trained on some distant memory of her own. "Jordie," Kaz sobs, his words punctured by his hiccups "Jordie, where did you go? Why did you leave me?"

"Shhh," Jordie says, clutching his brother just that much closer. "I'm here, I'm so sorry." What happened, he hears Kaz ask. What happened? So, so much, more than words could ever do justice.

He barely recalls waking up with the fair faces of two Grisha above him, the smooth rocks under his thin shirt, the wetness that stung. The faint feeling that Kaz wasn't by his side for the first time since they had arrived.

The clearest thing he remembers is the swaddle of the man's furs, the rocking of the boat under him as the man and his husband took him with them, for he had nowhere else to go, so he thought, and he was still weak and in need of medicine. They had been kind and raised him, nearly losing their lives fighting for the Sun Saint. And so Jordie had lived in the broken country that was Ravka, certain he was the sole survivor of his family. That was until he heard the whispers.

It wasn't until he returned to Lij, for the first time in nearly a decade, on the eve of his birthday, did he figure it all out. The farm had been bought by a man using a mishmash of his name, and somehow, it had all fallen into place until he arrived here, his brother in his arms once more.

So much had happened, they both knew. The decade of being without the other spoke for itself on that. The darkness that Kaz had forged himself out of, whatever cruelness had made him this way. Jordie knew he was partially responsible for Kaz dive into what the whispers spoke of, but he didn't need to know. They didn't need to know what the other's hell looked like.

"Ghezen, Kaz, I'm so sorry," Jordie manages to say, his own eyes welling with tears. "I'm so fucking sorry, I should have done so much more, tried to find you years ago."

"Hate you so much," Kaz mumbles against his shirt, the words lacking heat. His hands still clutch the back of Jordie's shirt, as he leans heavily against his brother. Jordie can all but feel his brothers exhaustion seeping into him. "Don't go."

"I won't," Jordie whispers, his lips barely moving as he brushes a kiss over Kaz's head. "I swear to god, I'm never going again."

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cool note on the title:
it's a lyric from the song Exit by U2, which is, ironically, about a serial killer. It reminds me a lot of Kaz for a bunch of reasons, and I wanted to use that lyric specifically for a while.