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sissytobitch10seconds · 8 months

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Birdsong: The Moon Will Sing

Fandom: Grishaverse-Six of Crows Summary: They're technically there on business, but Matthias' only job is to look big and intimidating. No one can really blame him for letting his eyes wander towards the stage. Warnings: Mentions of canon-typical trauma and mentions of homophobia Word Count: 7,937 Ship(s): Matthias Helvar/Nina Zenik, Kaz Brekker/Matthias Helvar/Jesper Fahey/Inej Ghafa/Wylan Van Eck

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Matthias Helvar had known Kaz for nearly five years and had been romantically intertwined with him for the majority of that time. He knew the other man inside and out, to the point where he was sure that he was more familiar with Kaz than he was with himself. He was able to point to the motions that the other man made when he was feeling self-conscious (tugging on the lapels of his shirt or readjusting his gloves so that they covered more of his wrists) or when he was upset about something (a cute creasing of his forehead and chin). He knew how to tell Kaz’s moods apart to the point that he was able to avoid the mindfield of anxiety, something that their boyfriend Wylan still struggled with despite having been together with Kaz for longer.

Despite this, trying to figure out why Kaz did what he did was still nearly impossible at times.

They were sitting in the office space of the apartment above the Crow Club, which was the bar that Kaz owned. Matthias worked for him as a bartender and bouncer when he was in between his set-building gigs, so he was very familiar with the space in both a professional and personal context. It had originally just been a spare room that was full of boxes and an abandoned desk that Kaz had inherited from his late brother. After Inej had finally snapped Kaz out of his brooding, he had transformed it into a place where he could work and also host his partners.

The desk was now pressed against the wall with the window so that plenty of natural light could illuminate the space when Kaz was working during the day. There was a simplistic brick fireplace on the wall kitty corner to the window, the mantle of which was now decorated with plenty of pictures of their partners. Matthias’ favorite was the one that they had taken when Jesper had finally graduated after clawing his way through the ableist secondary education system. They had all been hugging him, with Inej and Wylan kissing either of his cheeks while Matthias prepared to pick him up, Kaz standing slightly away from them but beaming one of the truest smiles he had ever worn.

The place that they occupied in the office at the moment was on the wall opposite to the desk, where two chairs were on either side of a low coffee table. It was currently covered in a stack of books that Jepser had no doubt left as he and Wylan cleared out their apartment so that they could move into the estate Wylan’s father had accidentally left to him in his will.

Matthias smiled softly to himself as he remembered the plans that they had been making to move into the vast mansion, so that all of them could finally be in the same place. Inej moved around a lot with her acrobatics troupe, especially since she was also following leads to try and get back in contact with her brother after the two of them had been separated by the cruelty of the foster system. Matthias missed her dearly, she had been in Germany for almost four weeks now, but he understood her desperation to find her family. If his hadn’t banished him from his home for simply admitting that he had fallen in love with a man, he would have been flying back to Denmark as often as he could just to visit with them.

“Are you listening to me?” Kaz asked, snapping him from his thoughts.

He turned back to his boyfriend and shook his head truthfully. Kaz rolled his eyes, though there was affection in the dark color of his irises. “I was simply detailing that I need to have you with me while I’m working today.”

“What do you need me to do?” he asked. It sounded more serious than the last couple of jobs that he had been asked to do, which mostly revolved around him listening in to conversations and scanning the types of people that were asking to be let into the bar so that he could find out whether or not the surrounding business owners were trying to bring Kaz down. It didn’t feel real, even without saying it out loud, more like his life had become half a movie.

“I want you to come with me to look like the terrifying wall of muscle that you are while I meet someone for business,” Kaz replied.

Immediately alarm bells began to go off in the back of Matthias’ mind. He trusted his boyfriend with his life, that much was certain, but he was also worried about the kind of mischief that Kaz was stirring up. Inej had made him promise that he would keep their life interesting enough that their partner wouldn’t get into anything he couldn’t get himself out of, she had called it ‘Kaz’s enrichment time’, and with good reason. Whenever Kaz got more bored than he decided he was willing to handle, he stirred the pot and riled up the people around him. It was one of the reasons that he would never be able to settle with one partner and jumped right into a polycule with his two best friends.

He sat forward, threading his fingers together so that his hands were hanging low between his legs. He knew that Kaz liked it when he looked like that, chiseled and sullen and serious but putty in his hands. “What kind of business?”

“Calm down, it’s nothing that you’re going to have to tattle on me to Inej about. There’s an old bar owner that is thinking about retiring so I wanted to convince him that he should give his land and building to me,” he replied easily, leaning back in his chair. He was wearing a simple black button up with a pressed pair of slacks, his gloves off and on the table since it was just the two of them together.

“You want me to come with you so that we can convince the man that we are going to steal his bar from him because I am strong?” Matthias asked, half confused and half teasing.

“No, I want you there to show him that I’m serious. I know that you’re aware how much people think that they can underestimate me,” his nose wrinkled for a second as he said that. Matthias did remember what had happened the last time that a potential business partner had tried to undermine Kaz because of his disability. The ire that had flown out of his boyfriend had been both terrifying and the most attractive thing that he had seen to date. It had taken all four of their partners three hours to manage to convince Kaz that he didn’t have to go after the man and show him what it was like to have his disability, and Kaz still brought it up sometimes when he was in a sour mood. The smaller man rolled his shoulders as he said, “I don’t want him to think that he can take advantage of me because I’m smaller and disabled. I’m bringing you so that you can ward off any assholes that think they can schmooze up to him instead of waiting their turn and so that he sees someone with a more stereotypical masculinity during the meeting.”

“So I am eye candy?” Matthias smirked. He knew that the underlying message that Kaz was struggling to convey through his veneer of business was that he trusted Matthias. There were actual employees that he could bring with him on this trip that would likely be more helpful, but he had chosen his boyfriend, who had absolutely no experience in the business world, because he both wanted to spend time with Matthias and trusted him to know the more intimate details of his life. It made his chest feel warm, reinforcing that the life he had chosen for himself was the correct one despite all of the pain that had come with it.

Thankfully, his boyfriend had interpreted the teasing in the way that Matthias had meant it instead of in an actually cruel way like he had towards the beginning of their friendship. He leaned forward after carefully moving his knee to the side so that he didn’t bend it in a painful way. “For me and for him. But mostly for me,” Kaz replied with a smirk.

Matthias leaned forward the six inches over the coffee table that separated them and brought their lips together in a sweet kiss.

Early on in their relationship, they had realized that they needed a way to convey where boundaries laid on certain days due to the trauma that certain members of their polycule had. Wylan, Inej, and Kaz would rate their ability to be touched out of ten when they were in a place where they could possibly meet up with their other partners. If someone rated themselves at a one, then it meant that they absolutely could not be touched unless it was life-or-death, and a ten meant that they were willing to do whatever with however many partners. Matthias and Jesper gave their own ranking as well, especially after finding out that they did have some boundaries when it came to touch that they had ignored by accident before getting together with the others.

That morning, Kaz had told them that he was tentatively hovering around an eight. He usually hung down around four or five on working days and had never quite gotten up to a ten. Matthias knew that he would love and cherish his partner no matter where he was on the touch chart, but he was glad when he got to have those intimate skin-to-skin moments with him.

---

Later that night, Matthias was waiting in the bar for Kaz to come down. He had dressed somewhat nice, but simplistic enough that he wouldn’t be standing out compared to his ‘boss’ for the night. He had chosen a pair of straight legged black jeans with the belt that Wylan had given him for his last birthday, an interwoven black and brown leather with a wolf carved buckle. He was wearing simple black t-shirt underneath his favorite leather jacket, the one that Inej had helped him paint the back of. It was a series of runes that spelled out their names and his relationship with each one of them on five different roses. The edges were a little cramped on one side with the other empty, since they weren’t sure how big it was going to be when they started.

Matthias felt his heart jump in his chest when he heard the telltale thump-thump-thump of Kaz’s cane as he made his way through the quickly filling bar. Someone had turned ACDC onto the jukebox in the corner, they hadn’t been able to secure a band to play live music during that week, which was a strange dichotomy to what was in front of him.

Kaz was wearing a pair of black slacks and well shined shoes. He had on a red vest over the top of a white button-up shirt, tie-less, with his heavy overcoat resting over the entire ensemble. He had the uncanny ability to choose clothing that hugged his body in all the right places so that he could appear however he wanted to people looking in on him. Matthias knew for a fact that he had a simple knee brace on today, unable to make due with only k-tape, but it was hidden perfectly underneath the fabric of his pants.

“Are you ready to go?” the other asked as he stopped in front of his boyfriend.

“I am if you are, boss,” he replied, ramping up his accent because he knew what it did to his partners.

Kaz tried to ignore it, but Matthias wasn’t looking at his face to tell if he was flustered. Instead he paid attention to the tips of Kaz’s ears, which had already gained their telltale red color. He smirked as he followed after the other man, a half step away from him so that there was plenty of room for Kaz to maneuver the busy sidewalk with his cane but not so far away that any of the passers-by could get in between them.

The bar that they were going to be meeting the future business partner at was a neutral-territory space that was more of an old fashioned lounge than anything else. The building was an old theater from the fifties that had been renovated to hold the kind of company it served to. The front of the building had teal tile on the of the walls and several signed vintage posters hanging where the advertisement for new films would have been back in its heyday. The large, vintage-styled neon sign read ‘The Blue Jay’ in a loopy font that strobed every so often. There was someone in the booth up front taking tickets from people, two of which Kaz was able to supply before he and Matthias stepped in.

The inside had the original hardwood floors, scuffed and marked up from when they hadn’t been taken care of but easily refinished. The walls were wainscotted with the same dark wood as the floor and the paint on the upper half was a soothing blue. The front foyer had a bar with two stools, obviously not a place that they wanted people to be occupying unless they were waiting to get their drinks from the tender. The outside of the bar was set up to look like the concession stand would have in the fifties, complete with candy wrappers from that time period.

There was another worker that checked their coats, which allowed Matthias to ogle at the expanse of his boyfriend’s shoulders underneath the neatly pressed vest and shirt combo he was wearing.

“Would you like something to drink?” Matthias asked as he jerked his head over to where the bar was. The chalk menu behind him was intriguing, especially since there were several cocktails that he had never heard of before and wanted to try.

“We both need to remain as sober as possible during this job. If it’s going to result in me buying the property then I want to make sure that I don’t have the wool pulled over my eyes because you wanted a shot or ten,” Kaz teased.

The first time that they had gone out, it was to a bar. Kaz spent most of his time in clubs and bars because of his job, so it only made sense. Matthias had thought that a little alcohol would lubricate the date a bit, but it turned out that his partner had a competitive streak a mile wide and a very low alcohol tolerance. A lot of things had happened that night, all of which Matthias remembered and none of which Kaz did.

They walked over to the theater portion of the club. When he finally got a good look at what the inside space had been transformed into, he was pleasantly surprised. They had kept the through line of the fifties style lounge despite it being an old theater, and leveled out the ground so that it was no longer sloped but was covered in the same hardwood as it had been through the door. Ten to fifteen tables littered the walls of the surrounding area, staggered so that people would be able to see up to the stage properly without others getting in the way. They each looked about identical except for the different bird feather and fake flower in each of the vases.

“Come,” Kaz said as he walked towards an empty table. It was the third closest to the stage on the left side of the wall. It had a yellow tulip and a crow feather in the vase, both of which swirled when Kaz collapsed down into his seat.

Matthias could easily see how much his bad leg was bothering him that day. He wanted to be able to help, and he was sure that he could convince his partner to let him once they were back in the privacy of Kaz’s apartment above their own club. He took the seat next to his boss, pointed slightly towards the stage despite the fact that it was still empty since it was only seven in the evening.

There were quite a few other people milling about the space, which was why it was a ticketed event, Matthias realized. They were all dressed nicely, as he and his boyfriend were, and chatting amongst each other. A couple of the individuals had even come to match the theme of the lounge, with bright colored tailored dresses that had huge skirts.

“How did you find out about this place?” Matthias asked. While Wylan was a bit more partial to the Victorian aesthetic (a product of him leaning pretty heavily into the mad scientist title that had been used to tease him the entire time that he was in college), he was fond of all vintage buildings. They went on a tour of the historical homes around their town every year for his birthday and every person that worked in the vintage thrift shops around town knew them all by name because of how often they got him gifts from there. Matthias was sure that his boyfriend would be enamored with the lounge and would insist on them all dressing up. He would encourage their partner, of course, if only to see Jesper in one of the dresses that were swirling around the other tables.

“I heard about it from a friend of a friend,” Kaz replied cryptically. He was grasping the head of his cane, positioned between his legs so that the bird head was peeping over the nice white table cloth.

“I think that we should bring Wylan here, when we’re not on business,” Matthias suggested, trying to make it sound like he hadn’t been thinking about it for the last ten minutes since they stepped into the lounge.

A small smile slipped over Kaz’s face for just a moment before he gave a little nod. He quickly schooled his expression so that he was cold, calculating, and mostly blank. He continued to flicker between looking at either door at the back of the old theater, waiting for his business associate to show up. Matthias continued to look out over the crowd, assessing who might be the most trouble if the night were to go south. It was a bad habit of his that he was sure he was never going to be able to actually break, not that it was really hindering him when Kaz brought him along for tasks like this.

When the man finally arrived, they were able to identify who he was immediately. He was tailed by two men that were slightly shorter than Matthias and looked about half as competent as he did. They wore identical black shirts and slacks, boring and predictable. The man in the middle was wearing a gray vest over the top of a crisp white button up. He had salt and pepper hair and a full beard that was neatly trimmed to tie the illusion that he was a wealthy business owner up in a pretty bow.

When he arrived at the table, Matthias and Kaz both stood. “Pekka Rollins,” he greeted with a firm tilt to his head.

“Kaz Brekker,” the other man replied, his accent heavy. He reached his hand across the table and Kaz hesitantly accepted it, obviously uncomfortable with touching a stranger even through the thick weight of his leather gloves. “I was going to apologize for bringing some people to help with the negotiations but I see that you’re already a man of wisdom.”

“This isn’t my first deal,” Kaz replied, sitting heavily back down in the chair that he had been in before. Pekka and one of the men that he had come with took the other side of the table, while one left to go get them something from the bar on the orders of his boss. Kaz and Matthias had both refused when Pekka offered to order them something.

The lights in the lounge dimmed as three women and a man walked out onto the stage. Pekka turned towards the much younger man and asked, “You don’t mind if we wait to start the negotiations until the first part of their set is over, do you? I think that it would be rude to speak over them.”

“Fine,” he bit out. Matthias knew that he was beginning to wear down from being on someone else’s terf, it had always been a problem for him. That was why it was such a big deal for them to finally move in together, so that he didn’t act like such a wet cat whenever he had to travel to a different part of the city to visit one of them.

Everyone else was returning from getting their drinks and snacks from the bar outside, sitting at their table and facing the stage as they waited for what was yet to come. Matthias assessed the band first to try and figure out what it was going to be since he had entered into the lounge completely in the dark about everything other than the fact that Kaz needed him.

One of the members had long black hair that was artfully styled into an intricate braid on the back of her head. She had golden skin that matched with the green outfit that she was wearing perfectly. It was a baggy silk shirt that had intricate yellow and orange embroidery around the sleeves and collar, tucked into a pair of dress pants with a pair of matching heels. She walked over to one of the seats that were in front of the two bigger instruments with an acoustic guitar.

The next was a woman with dark brown hair that was tied back with two smaller braids to contain the other curls. She had coffee-colored skin and dramatic red lipstick. She was wearing a dark black button up shirt with a matching pair of pants to the one that the first woman wore. She moved behind the drums with a smirk flitting across her angular features.

The man was about the same height as all of the women even though he wasn’t wearing heels like they were. He had blond hair that was styled back to contain the curls a significant amount. He was wearing a teal coat so that he looked similar to the tile on the outside of the building. It hid the lower half of his body significantly, made worse by the fact he picked up the upright bass that had been resting on the back of the stage.

The last woman was the one that really caught his eye. Her rich brown curls were pouring down from the bun that sat squarely on the back of her head. They framed her face and illustrated her high cheek bones and perfectly accented her strong jawline. Her lips were painted with a beautiful red color that paired with the burgundy of her eyeshadow and rose on her cheeks. The curve of her neck brought attention down to where the sweetheart neckline of her shirt hugged at her body. It curved out in the same flow of fabric to that swooped over her arms to make sleeves around her upper arms. The dark red color brought out the undertones of her skin in a way that made her seem vibrant and full of life. She had a silver locket hanging around her neck, the bottom of the heart pointing towards her voluptuous chest. The shirt was complimented with a black pencil skirt that grasped at her hips and the bottom part of her stomach before falling down to her thighs. She had a pair of tall heels on, which would have made her just shy of Matthias’ height.

Her beauty was on par with the goddess that he had seen come out of Inej in the quiet moments that they had stolen away together. She was a walking deity and he couldn’t move his eyes away from her.

The woman with black hair began to play, her delicate fingers dancing over the strings of the guitar as her voice drifted through the now silent lounge area. “Tell me once again, I could have been anyone, anyone else before you made the choice for me. My feet knew the path, we walked in the dark, in the dark. I never gave a single thought to where it might lead.”

It was an interesting sound and not one that Matthias had guessed he would have heard in the kind of place that they were in. He wasn’t as familiar with retro and vintage music as Wylan was, but he preferred the classical stuff to the newer music that Inej and Jesper enjoyed. He wondered what the story behind the song was as he watched the singer leaning in closer to the mic, her eyes closed and scrunching around the edges with untold amounts of pain. She was pouring her heart out to an audience full of people that didn’t know her but were listening to her very soul.

The song continued, this time two voices harmonizing perfectly with each other as they edged closer to the chorus, “All those empty rooms, we could have been anywhere, anywhere else. Instead I made a bed with apathy. My heart knew the weight, ten years worth of dust and neglect. We made our peace with weariness and let it be. The moon will sing a song for me, I loved you like the sun. Bore the shadows that you made with no light of my own. I shine only with the light you gave me, I shine only with the light you gave me.”

As soon as he had assessed the main singer, his eyes drifted back to the woman that had caught his eye when the band had first appeared. She was singing backup vocals with all of the grace and beauty that someone with that kind of gorgeousness could bring with them. Matthias was unable to tear his eyes away from her even as Kaz reached under the table to try and break him from the reverie that he was melting in. Instead, he just wove his fingers together with his boyfriend’s and continued to stare at the singer.

“Name your courage now, we could have had anything, anything else. Instead you hoarded all that's left of me, swallowing your doubt, like swords to the pit of my belly. I want to feel the fire that you kept from me.” As the song melted into the final chorus, he could almost swear that the woman’s eyes drifted towards him until they locked together. He couldn’t look away, completely enraptured with the woman on stage.

The song ended and the lights came back on, releasing the singers from the stage. They introduced themselves one by one and explained who they were for the patrons that came regardless of the stage draw. “Hello, my name is Alina Starkov.”

“I’m Nikolai Lantsov,” the blond with the bass said.

“Zoya Nazyalensky,” the drummer introduced herself, standing up so that she was visible after depositing her sticks onto the chair behind her.

“And I am Nina Zenik,” the woman that Matthias was still staring at said, giving a wink to the crowd.

The first woman that had spoken started again as she continued the introduction, “Together, we make Shadow and Bone. The song that you just listened to was called The Moon Will Sing and it’s part of our newly released album. We’ll be joining you on the floor and playing a few more numbers throughout the evening. Thank you all for hosting us in the absolutely beautiful Blue Jay.”

There was polite clapping from all the guests before the more traditional muzak that had been playing over the speakers when they first entered resumed. The band left their instruments behind on the stage and exited, two left and two right. Matthias watched Nina as she crossed over the empty space that made up the mostly unused dance floor and walked out towards the bar.

“I am going to get us something to drink. It would be rude not to try their menu,” Matthias informed his boyfriend, trying to hint towards what he was actually getting at. Kaz gave him an unamused look but waved one of his gloved hands to tell Matthias that he was free to leave. The taller of the two did notice that his boyfriend shot a look towards the door where Nina had just departed, obviously cluing into the growing crush that he had.

Matthias hustled out of the main room so that he could join the other people milling around the bar. He felt slightly naked without his jacket, but it was the kind of place that had to check coats as part of their gimmick so he was putting up with it. He leaned against the counter as he ordered the drink that he was interested in and gin on the rocks for his boyfriend, the only thing that Kaz would drink after their vodka-filled first date.

“Hello, love,” the sultry voice of the woman from the stage said next to him.

He felt his heart skip in his chest as he watched her fold her arms on the edge of the bar and lean forward to read the menu. The bartender told her to wait for a moment as he got to work on the backlog of drinks that he had now the the siren song of the band was no longer holding the patrons back from ordering.

Matthias shifted his attention back towards the blackboard as he read over the rest of the drinks and what was in them. He would definitely be bringing Wylan back to this place when he was finally able to pry his boyfriend away from the cage that was his most recent lab. He was watching Nina out of the side of his eye, paying attention to every shift in weight as she tried to figure out what she wanted.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when she turned to face him fully and asked, “What’s good here?”

“I am going to be honest with you, I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I was brought here to help someone out and I didn’t even know what this place was going to be until I was standing in it.”

She laughed at that, a bright tinkling noise that made a flock of birds erupt in Matthias’ chest. He felt like he was standing at the edge of the universe when he listened to her laugh, like he was looking out over all of creation, everything that could and would be. Something magnetic was drawing him to the woman, bringing them together despite the fact that they were basically strangers. He didn’t know what kind of a relationship he wanted to have with her quite yet but he knew that he had to get to know her if she would let him.

“What did you order, then?” she asked, gesturing her head towards where the class containing his boyfriend’s drink was already perspiring down onto the lacquered countertop of the bar.

“Gin on the rocks for the person I am with. I ordered myself that one,” Matthias pointed to the board. He had come a long when since he had moved to an English speaking country, better than he had been when he was learning it in school, but the cursive handwriting done with chalk was still difficult for him to decipher well enough to feel confident speaking it.

He felt a little bit guilty for holding out the hope that he might be able to pursue a romantic or sexual relationship with Nina since they barely knew each other, but he couldn’t help the hope fluttering to life in his chest. He was referring to Kaz as someone that he was accompanying and not his boyfriend to try and buffer the chances of them developing some kind of relationship. If he were to come right out with that information, he knew that it would result in something like when they had tried to get together with Wylan. The other man had been hoping for a romantic relationship with Jesper but then immediately thought it was off the table when he heard that Jesper and Kaz were together, despite him also having two other partners at the time. It was something that took a lot of work to disentangle and Matthias wanted to avoid that.

He couldn’t admit that he had a boyfriend for fear of driving her away from the idea of a romantic or sexual relationship springing up between the two of them, but he couldn’t come right out and say that he was in an open relationship because it would appear as though he were coming on to her.

She hopped up onto one of the bar stools and then patted the one next to her with that same sly smirk falling over her face. Matthias moved the drink he had bought for Kaz closer to himself as he got up onto the stool. “So you’ve never been here either?”

“No. I have a friend that would be very interested in a place like this so I am surprised that it managed to evade me for as long as it has,” he replied with a light chuckle.

“Alina, she’s my bandmate,” Nina supplied quickly, as though Matthias hadn’t been hanging off every word coming from the people on the stage, “she loves places like this. We’re still a pretty small band so we decided that this was the perfect thing to get our name out there without having to perform in the back of a pizza parlor or at a private event again.”

“How long have you been a band?” Matthias asked. The way that she spoke was fixating, her accent causing the words to roll over and off of her tongue in a beautiful, intoxicating way.

“Almost four years,” she laughed. “It took us a while to really get things started, but I have a feeling we’re going to get a good start soon.”

He smiled at her as he tried to ignore the way that having her laugh and smile at him, because of him, turned his heart molten. “I think that you are going to do very well. Your band is talented.”

She beamed, though a teasing glint took over her dark eyes, “You’ve barely even heard us play.”

“I can tell already,” Matthias nodded confidently.

“I hope that you stay for a few more hours so that you can hear us play more,” she smiled. She ordered from the bartender when he finally turned to give Matthias the cocktail that he had ordered.

He had been so wrapped up in her, that he had barely noticed the other people around them slowly slipping away until there were only three or four people lurking around the front entryway. A few more people were trickling into the front of the lounge, but they quickly walked towards the main theater part of the establishment. He was basically alone with her.

“I guess you have to get back to that person that you came in with,” Nina smirked. She took his glass from his hand and looked at the beverage that he ordered with a raised brow. “I think that there’s actually maple syrup in this, fascinating!”

She was so perplexing and wonderful at the same time, an enigma that Matthias was desperately looking to get to know better. “I was meaning to ask,” he cleared his throat awkwardly. She tilted her head to look at him, as even in her heels she wasn't quite as tall as he was. A blush had spread across his face while he was formatting the sentence in his mind, but it was gone as soon as he saw someone leaving the lounge part of the club.

It was one of Nina’s bandmates, the one with the black hair. She had her hand clamped over her mouth and the other wrapped around her abdomen in a self-soothing hug. Her face was red like people got when they were flushed from trying to hold back sobs, something Matthias was very familiar with seeing in his partners. Upon closer inspection, her shoulders were shaking and tears were streaming down her face as she barreled towards the door.

“Is your bandmate okay?”

Nina looked offended for just a moment, her mouth opened as she snarled, “I beg your pardon? Oh, you’re just like every other man I meet in this line of work. Here I am, thinking that someone could finally show some kind of interest in me and the only thing that you really have to ask about is Alina! Why can’t people understand that we’re two completely different people and I am not a gateway to her-”

The look dropped off of her pretty features as she turned and saw Alina just making it out of the establishment and then collapsing against the wall outside of doors. Nina swore under her breath as she handed the drink to Matthias and then hurried towards her friend.

He was left standing there, feeling like a complete fool, as she basically ran away from him. He knew that she had to attend to the person that she was quite close to, but it still felt as though he was being abandoned. Every step that she took away from him made his heart feel heavier in his chest.

Before he had too long to brood about it, the sound of his boyfriend’s cane against the hardwood floors took up all the space in his brain as he turned to meet Kaz. “I thought that you were the good one when it came to flirting.”

“I am,” Matthias replied, his mind coming to a screeching halt as he tried to process what that implied.

“You know, that was the reason that I sent you out here. I was interested in her as well, more interested than I am in Pekka’s garbage deal,” his mouth turned down in a sneer. He took the gin from Matthias and then sipped it as he turned so that he was subtly watching the women from the other side of the glass doors. “I trusted you to be able to at least get her number.”

“I am better at flirting than you. When you tried to ask Wylan out on a date he thought that you were trying to fight him for Jesper,” Matthias shook his head. He sipped at his drink and then grimaced as the sweet cocktail coated his tongue. He enjoyed things that were slightly sweet, like the barest trace of powdered sugar on his waffles and the sour Jolly Ranchers that Jesper had stashed all over the house. The drink that he had ordered was dripping in so much sugar that he could already feel it eating away at his teeth.

Kaz muttered something into his drink that sounded an awful lot like, “I thought that it sounded fine.”

Nina had knelt down beside her bandmate, taking Alina’s hand in her own. She was holding the other’s arm with her free hand and taking deep breaths to coax her friend into doing the same. It made Matthias feel even more drawn to her to see just how kind and warm she could be to others. The scathing remarks and her quick tongue had felt like lashing against his soul, but he could understand where the confusion had come from when she was that protective of the other woman.

He set his drink down on the bar and turned away from them slightly so that he didn’t feel quite so voyeuristic. Kaz had no problems with continuing to stair at them as he worked his way quickly through the gin. “How did the deal go?”

“We’ve only delved into the very beginning of it. I can already tell that it’s crap. I told him that I had to use the restroom but I think he could tell that I was coming to speak with you,” Kaz placed the now empty glass of ice down onto the counter. The bartender dutifully filled it up again.

“Does he know…” Matthias trailed off as he reached out and linked the very ends of his fingers together with Kaz’s gloved hands. It was a risky move to do in public when they were trying to sort out business, something that might insight prejudice about them and start more drama than either of them really wanted to deal with.

“I don’t think so. He most likely just thinks that you’re some kind of hidden genius, which is what I wanted him to think,” he puffed up his chest with pride at having his plan go exactly how he had wanted it. He then turned to his boyfriend, a look of fear that only his partners would be able to recognize glinting in his dark eyes, “Not that you’re not intelligent, this just isn’t really your forte.”

“I know why you brought me here, min elsekde,” Matthias replied in a low voice. “I apologize for shifting the job so that I could flirt with that beautiful woman.”

“I hope that you can continue flirting with her after we’ve finished pretending that we can get scammed,” Kaz sighed as he turned his head back towards the lounge.

Neither of them really wanted to go back in there, but for different reasons. Matthias wanted to hang back close to the bar so that he could speak with Nina again, and Kaz wanted to avoid continuing a conversation he had already grown bored of. Still, they had to do what was going to be the right thing to do, so they took their drinks and walked back to the lounge.

---

The next time that Matthias saw Nina, she was back on stage. She had taken the lead on the second song that the band played and her voice was even more beautiful when it was crooning out notes on her own instead of backing up Alina’s. It had still sounded like a gift from the gods then, but it was highlighted far better in the second song that they had chosen.

He could barely even pay attention to the lyrics as he watched how her lips wrapped around the words and the way that her chest heaved for breath after a particularly challenging part of the song. It was hard to believe that someone was beautiful as her had even thought to give him the time of day, even if the last bit of their interaction had gone a bit sour.

The band gave the same introduction that they had last time, though Nina gave the song title and started off the process that time. They got off the stage and once again joined the thrawl of people, which made Matthias lose sight of the woman of his dreams once more. He felt a little bad for thinking so highly of her when he had someone literally carved by the hands of the gods waiting for him to get back home so he could text her goodnight, but he couldn’t help himself.

Kaz and Pekka had talked for the duration of the hour until Shadow and Bone came out to give their second performance. They had just about wrapped everything up prior to the song, so now that it was over they were giving their pleasantries before they left. “I’m glad that we seem to have come to some sort of agreement,” Pekka said as he offered his hand out to Kaz again.

The other man’s nostrils flared in a subtle enough way that Matthias picked up on it, but the failed business partner did not. He took the hand and gave it a brisk shake before he returned his hands to the head of his cane. “I am as well. Feel free to contact me again if you ever change your mind.”

“It is wonderful to see such young, precocious faces in this line of work,” Pekka chuckled as he walked off, is two goons following after him.

Kaz and Matthias returned to the sitting positions that they had been in before. The latter of the two got his phone out of his pocket and texted a quick goodnight to Inej now that he was free to do so. By the time that he looked up, someone else had taken the chair that Pekka had been sitting in only minutes ago.

“Sorry, I’m just going to steal him for a moment,” she promised Kaz before her brilliant eyes were focused entirely on Matthias. “I wanted to apologize for the way that I spoke to you earlier. I didn’t realize that you were actually looking out for Alina, I thought that you were…”

“Trying to get together with her through insidious measures?” Kaz supplied. “Sorry, I overhead. I’ll be getting us some new drinks, you two can talk,” he stood slowly, with the help of his cane. Matthias knew that he had recognized the awkward bite that always came out of him when he was interacting with someone new and was removing himself so that he didn’t ruin his boyfriend’s chances.

Nina laughed as she watched him go, the corners of her eyes crinkling cutely. “I think that he hit the nail on the head, actually. Is that the person that you’re here with?”

“Yes,” Matthias nodded. “We are coworkers.”

“This is an interesting place to come with a coworker,” she said, a bit doubtfully.

His stomach flipped with panic as he realized that she might have seen through his lazy lie and he had just ruined his chances with her. The panic quickly faded from him as she pulled her phone out of her lap from where her hands had been hiding underneath the table. She flipped it over and it was open to the Instagram search bar. “I don’t really text anyone other than my parents, but I would like to get to know you a little better. Give me your handle?”

For the first time, he was glad that Jesper had finally persuaded him to get an account on the app that he rarely ever used. He took her phone and then input his username, tapping the ‘Follow’ button for her so that it sent a request to him. She smiled as she took her phone back, the rosy color on her cheeks only deepening as the real blush underneath surfaced. “I’ll see you around?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes,” he responded, the only word that he could summon from the depths of his lovestruck brain. She gave him a cute wave as she got up and walked over to where the drummer of her band was talking with another person close to the dance floor. Matthias just sat back in his chair and watched her, barely even registering it as Kaz returned with one of the cocktails that he was actually going to like and another gin.

“Did you have a nice conversation?” he asked as he sat down.

Matthias took his drink and sipped it gratefully. He felt a dopey grin cross his face as he said, again, “Yes.”

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