You had heard Jojo lay awake in the dark for almost another thirty minutes before his breathing evened out. No matter how much you tried, you just could not find sleep. Again and again the shocked face of Kaz swam to the surface of your mind, the blood dripping down his glove, the way he had stormed away. Had anyone checked up on him? Made sure that he was fine? And what had happened between the moment Jojo had fallen asleep the last time next to him, and him saving you in that alleyway?

Eventually the questions were roaring too loudly in your head, and you quietly climbed out of bed.

Your nightgown was brushing over the floor behind you, as you grabbed the crow headed cane you had leant into a corner of your room, and snuck out of your room, up the stairs to Kaz's office.

Light shone from underneath the door, so you assumed he was still up. Quickly you rapped your knuckles against the wood, but there was no response. Again you knocked.

"Kaz, it's me, I got your cane" you called, but there was no answer. "I'm coming in!"

You called out the warning, hoping the door was unlocked. But then again maybe he was not even in. Maybe he had gone to Inej, to be in her company.

The door swung open when you pressed down the handle, and a moment later you spotted Kaz sitting by his desk. Unlike usually he had his back turned to the door and the table. Instead his chair was facing the fireplace.

Quietly you entered, and closed the door behind you, before you leant the cane against the desk, and walked around it, to check on Kaz.

He was sunken in his chair, but his eyes were open, staring into the dying flames. His gloved hands hung limply over his knees, and you glanced down to the right hand. There was still dried blood sticking to the black leather.

Silently you debated what you should start with. Should you tell him about Jojo? Or should you start by asking about his hand? You decided on the second, feeling like the chance at getting him to interact with you was bigger with that choice.

"Did you clean up your hand," you asked gently, crouching down next to him, making sure to keep enough of a distance so he would not feel uncomfortable.

You could see the way his jaw tensed for a moment, but he did not answer.

"Do you want me to take a look?"

Again there was no response, but after a few seconds, he started moving. With slow, deliberate movements he started removing the glove from the injured hand, and you held your breath. You knew the stories about why he was wearing the gloves were nonsense, and yet: Over time the picture of coal black, claw like fingers had settled in your mind.

Of course his fingers were not black when he eventually pulled them out of his glove. They were rather pale in fact, since they were never met with daylight. Now dark, dried blood coated most of the inside of his hand, sticking to long, thin, elegant fingers. You could not help but compare them to Jojo's hands. Jojo's fingers were thicker, his skin rougher from all the work he did on the ship, even in the coldest weather.

Kaz turned his palm up, so you could inspect the wound better.

"There's all this dried blood, I can hardly make out anything," you told him, "I'll have to clean it."

Kaz, again, did not react, so you got up from the floor, and went to the small wash basin in the corner, where you filled a bowl with warm water, and grabbed a wash cloth from underneath the basin. On your way back to Kaz you also grabbed the first aid kit, which he stored by his bedside table.

When you sat down next to him again, he held his hand out to you for better access, and you felt his gaze on the back of your head as you leant over his hand. You dipped the wash cloth into the warm water, and carefully started cleaning the blood off his hand, while making sure not to touch his skin with your own. Once his hand was clean, and the water tinted red, you were able to see that the wound in the centre of his palm was indeed rather small. It was just a tiny cut, hardly longer than the nail of your pinkie, and not deep at all. It was always a surprise how much even small wounds like this one could bleed. After having inspected it closely, you decided that the cut was so small that it did not need stiches, so you simply applied a thick layer of ointment to keep the wound from getting infected, again careful not to touch Kaz, and wrapped his hand in bandages.

You were about to pull away, when suddenly Kaz's hand shot forward, and grabbed your wrist. You could feel the rough material of the bandage against your skin, but also the tips of his fingers, which you had not wrapped. Immediately you tensed, remembering what Kaz had once told you about how much he hated skin to skin contact.

"Stay."

His voice was so quiet that you almost missed it over the cracking of the fire, and instead of sounding as commanding as usual, he sounded insecure and sad.

Confused you settled down next to him again, looking up at him, while he was staring into the fire. Only when he was certain you would not leave him, he let go of your hand. But you did not miss the speed with which he drew away from your skin, as if he had burnt himself.

For a while you sat like that, Kaz staring into the flames, while you were studying his face, wishing you could read his thoughts. But you did not dare asking him about Jojo, scared he would get mad. When he suddenly spoke up, you could not help but flinch at the unexpected sound.

"I thought he had died," he whispered. "We fell asleep, and the next morning- he was so cold." He took a shaky breath. "They brought us out to the Reaper's Barge, didn't even notice I was still alive. And I was too weak to draw their attention to me." A moment passed before he continued. "I thought I'd die out there," he confessed. "I was drifting in the water for... I don't even know how long, a day? Two? And then I- I took Jordie's body and-" his voice broke away.

Almost you expected tears to start streaming down his cheeks, but the only tears that started running were your own. You did not even know why you cried. Maybe you cried for Jojo, who Kaz had thought was dead. Maybe you cried for Kaz, who Jojo had thought was dead. Maybe you cried for the innocent boy who had died out there on Reaper's Barge during the time he was drifting in the water next to his supposedly dead brother, only to be reborn as the Bastard of the Barrel.

"I used him as a raft-" Kaz sounded as if he was about to throw up any moment, but continued talking. "I used him to float on the waves, and swim back to the harbour, and left him to drift out to the sea."

Maybe you cried because you realised that during this journey back to the shore the monster you had fallen in love with had been born.

"Whenever I feel someone touch me, I feel him," Kaz finished. "I feel Jordie's bloated, cold skin against mine, feel the waves push me under, smell the rotting flesh on Reaper's Barge."

You wanted to take hold of his hand and say "Do you feel this? I'm not cold, I'm not dead. It doesn't smell of death here. It smells of leather, and fire, and ink and paper. You're safe and Jojo is alive, asleep, downstairs on my sofa." But you knew that if you did that now, you would just trigger all the bad memories you wished you could help Kaz forget about.

"Kaz, I-"

"How did you meet?"

You were so surprised at his interruption that you had to think about it for a moment.

Ignoring the tears that were still running down your cheeks, you answered. "I found him at a beach on Newfoort. He didn't react at first, could barely speak-" you hesitated with the next part, but decided Kaz probably wanted to hear everything. "Seagulls had started picking at him already. Our healer decided he wasn't infectious anymore, and I convinced the Captain to take him in. I nursed him back to health for weeks."

The way Kaz was staring into the flames, you could only guess he was trying to imagine his thirteen year old brother being taken care of by eight year old you.

"Thank you," he eventually mumbled.

You waited for him to say anything more, but when he did not, you eventually burst.

"You need to talk to him, Kaz. He missed you all the time, so badly. And he was really hurt when you just left him earlier. Kaz- he loves you so much-"

Kaz's head snapped around, his eyes suddenly hard, and you knew you had overstepped. You just did not know why he was so upset about it. Should he not be happy about having his brother back?

"He is the reason I'm like this," he spat, and even though he had not cried earlier, he was tearing up now, his lip quivering. "He's the reason I'm the Bastard of the Barrel, a thief, a murderer, a man broken to pieces who can't even take the hand of the girl he loves without wanting to throw up. He's the reason I'm Dirtyhands, feared and chased, until the day I die. He's the reason I'm living a life devoid of emotions, of love, of happiness, and will never be able to give anyone security, not even the people I love."

A single tear dropped from his eye onto his cheek, and rolled down to the corner of his mouth.

You stared at him, tears of your own running over your face, as you realised that you had been right all the times, when you had wondered whether Kaz secretly did not want to be who he was. He had done what it had needed to survive, and to survive surely at that. But he had never wanted to become Dirtyhands, had never wanted to become a murderer. He had only done it to survive. The way he had talked, it made you feel like he secretly longed for a peaceful life. And then you remembered what he had said, that he could not even take the hand of the girl he loved.

Inej, you though, and your heart broke all over again.

Slowly you got up from where you had been sitting on the floor. Your feet prickled from having sat still so long, but you forced your body to stand up straight.

You knew the corners of your mouth were pulling downwards in an attempt to stop you from sobbing out loud. You did not know if you felt so terrible because Kaz refused to talk to his brother, who missed him so awfully much, or whether it was because he had basically just confirmed that he loved Inej. But even though you felt like sobbing, you spoke nonetheless, keeping your voice hard and steady.

"Talk to him. He loves you."

Before Kaz had the chance to say anything else, you turned around, and left him by the fire, slamming the door to his office closed behind you as you stormed out of the room.

After the conversation, or had it been a fight? with Kaz, you had snuck back into you room, and climbed into bed, lying awake until the sun had come up. The whole time you had wondered whether you should tell Jojo about your feelings for Kaz. Usually, you guessed, you would not have hesitated, especially since you had a feeling Jojo suspected that you kept something from him. But Kaz was his brother, and that changed things. And so you eventually decided not to mention anything to him.

After Jojo had woken up, you went for breakfast in the Slat's kitchen. Inej, who had not yet met Jojo, jumped up in alarm as the man, who was a stranger to her, entered the kitchen, but once you explained that it was Jojo, who you had told her a lot about already, she relaxed. Together you cooked a huge breakfast, with ham and eggs and toast and fried mushrooms, all washed down with a hot cup of honey sweetened tea.

After breakfast you tried showing Jojo around the Barrel, but pretty soon you noticed the gloomy look on his face. As you were walking up to a bridge he stopped, staring at it. You, too, stopped, and tried to figure out what Jojo was looking at. He stared right at the bridge, suddenly pale around the nose.

"Everything okay," you asked, walking up to him, and taking his hand in yours. It was strange how comforting it was to hold someone's hand again. Somewhere in the back of your mind, a tiny voice whispered that Kaz would never allow you to hold his hand. If he would allow it to anyone at all, he would allow it to Inej.

"That's the bridge we slept under," Jojo whispered, "That last night, before- before I woke up at the beach. We had built a nest from broken up wooden boxes."

You looked back over to the bridge. You knew that often people slept underneath it. You tried imagining thirteen year old Jojo and nine year old Kaz huddling together underneath the protection of the stones above them, tried imagining how the next morning the stadwatch had carried them away, thinking they were dead, when really they both had just been too weak to protest. You felt sick crawling up your gullet.

"Let's go home," you mumbled, feeling guilty for having made Jojo remember all these things.

Gently you tucked at his hand once, and his eyes moved away from the bridge to find yours.

"Ja," he agreed, and hand in hand you walked back to the Slat.

Just when you had almost reached the door, Jojo stopped , bringing you to a halt, too.

"Do you think he'll ever talk to me?"

You blinked confused until you realised he was referring to Kaz. Carefully you thought everything over before you answered.

"It might take time, but I'm certain he'll come around," you tried assuring him. You did not dare telling him just how long it might take Kaz.

As soon as you entered the Slat through the front door, still holding Jojo's hands, you got proven wrong in your assumption it would take Kaz at least ten years until he felt ready to talk to Jojo. The younger one of the brothers was standing on the bottom step of the stairs, leaning against the wall, and playing around with his cane. When the door opened he straightened and looked between Jojo and you. Maybe you had imagined it, but you could have sworn his eyes had also flickered to your connected hands. He lifted his chin a little, and clenched his jaw, as if the next act took him a lot of courage.

"Jordie, a word?"

Surprised Jojo and you exchanged glances, but quickly you let go of Jojo's hand, and gently pushed him forward. He sent you a confused, almost anxious glance, but then followed Kaz up the stairs. You counted, waiting until you were sure they had disappeared into Kaz's office before allowing yourself a small victory dance at the bottom of the stairs. Maybe talking to Kaz had been useful after all.