Author's Note: The All Saints' Day is a festival I made up since I couldn't find any suitable holiday in the Grishaverse to stand in for Christmas :3
For Kaz Brekker, winter always brings more inconveniences than anything else. This one is no different: there are the slippery streetways; the sparser traffic in the Harbors; the severe leg pains that leave him cranky and bedridden every now and then; the overly cheerful coworkers being excited about the upcoming festivities and telling him to lighten up (Inej, Jesper, Nina and Per Haskell, in order from the least to most annoying).
But those are all just trifles. The truly unbearable part of every winter is the memories. It was late autumn when he and Jordie first came to Ketterdam; it was early winter when Jordie passed. Kaz spent his first All Saints' in Ketterdam alone, curled up into a shivering ball in an abandoned basement. Years later, he still remembers it in vivid detail, the way his cold fingers trembled as he struggled to unlatch the basement window, the way his stomach grumbled, the way he lay there, listening to the people singing in the streets above and hoping no street thugs would find him or his hiding place.
During the day, he's usually busy enough to push the thoughts aside. However, at night, when his damned leg keeps him awake, there are times when he feels not the mattress but cobblestones beneath his back, and a stiff corpse of his brother lying in the dark next to him. When he sleeps, his dreams bring him images of his father's farm covered in snow, of his brother laughing and singing All Saints' carols in front of a fireplace decked with ribbons. Of an unploughed field, strewn with blood and guts. In the morning, he wakes up more exhausted than when he'd gone to sleep.
He knows the restless nights are taking a toll on him, and knows that the others can see it, too; Jesper and Nina make several offhand remarks about the importance of beauty sleep. Haskell tells him to visit a medik and put himself together. Inej comes to him once with a worried look on her face and asks him if everything's alright. He waves them all off. His own mind, however, is not so easy to dismiss.
It's stupid, he tries to tell himself. The past is in the past. No reason to dwell on it more now than any other time of the year. But it's no good: the memories still linger, and the dreams keep coming back to haunt him every time he lays his head on the pillow.
Finally, on one particularly cold night, the thoughts and the constant aching become too much to bear. Kaz climbs out of his bed, grabs his coat and cane, prepares to make his way down the three flights of stairs. He needs to… he's not quite sure what. Walk it off, maybe, trudge through the freezing streets until his legs go numb and he's too tired to dream. Pick a fight or two, if he's lucky.
As he descends the staircase, step by aching step, he can hear the sounds of the Dregs who are playing cards and chattering in one of the larger rooms on the ground floor. He intends to pass by through the darkened foyer and slip out before anyone can spot him. Instead, he makes it three steps to the front door when he freezes in the middle of the hallway, stunned by one of the most horrid sounds he'd ever heard in his entire miserable life:
"Yudlooooooooch-ka! Chot ye v lisu, zielenaaaaaaaaa-"
It's Nina's voice. Ear-gratingly pitched and screechy, but definitely hers. Kaz can see her now, through the doorway connecting the room and the foyer: she's seated on a stool in the middle of the room, belting out some Ravkan song Kaz doesn't recognize, and she looks half in her cups at the least.
The rest of the room's occupants must be fully drunk, because not a single one of them tells her to knock it off; worse, a few people join in on the singing, seemingly in good spirits.
That's when Kaz notices the tiny wreaths on the walls, the festively set table by the left wall, the heaps of pastries from what is probably every good bakery in the city. There are several bottles of distilled spirits making their way around the room, and the small stove in the corner of the room holds three steaming teakettles. It's a little alarming that they managed to put together a party like this without his knowledge; though, given how distracted he'd been lately, he shouldn't be that surprised.
It suddenly occurs to him that today must be the All Saints' Day.
Kaz doesn't know how much time goes by as he takes in the whole room. His presence, however, doesn't go unnoticed.
"Kaaaaaaaz, my dear, grouchy friend! Here to join our little celebration?"
It's a very tipsy Jesper, making his way to Kaz through the crowd. Kaz is about ready to bolt when, out the corner of his eye, he spots Inej of all people, sitting in a small circle of chairs with a few other Dregs, as flushed and merry as he'd ever seen her, and the sight leaves him dumbfounded long enough for Jesper to reach his side.
He should leave, tell them he has some business to attend to and leave them to their revelry. Instead, he lets Jesper show him to a chair by the stove. He accepts a cup of spiced tea and a sticky sugared cookie. Once the rest of the Dregs notice he's there (and get over the initial shock over seeing him there at all), he is swamped with joyful greetings and wishes of "merry All Saints', boss!" Kaz doesn't really know what to say to them, but those faces, all so happy to see him, make some withered sentimental part of his heart stir.
In the end, he stays with them the entire night. He doesn't talk much to anyone at first, until Jesper and Keeg rope him into a game of cards. ("But we're only playing for almond cakes! I ain't betting cash with Kaz Brekker at the table.") They play several rounds, though they soon stop keeping track of who's winning. Kaz switches from tea to a bottle of something stronger. Then, encouraged by the drink and the joyful atmosphere, he pulls a few cards out of the packet and makes them appear and disappear to the audience of nearly everyone in the room except for Nina, who has passed out under the table halfway through some old Ravkan folk tune and nobody bothered to wake her up (thank the Saints). Between the card tricks and the bouts of cheery clapping, he barely notices that his leg has gradually stopped hurting.
When he finally gets back into his rooms, head buzzing with warmth and the sound of terrible All Saints' carols, it's already close to dawn. He falls asleep right away, and for once his dreams are easy, free of any past shadows.
Author's Note: Jordie dying in early winter is not an unsubstantiated headcanon: Kaz's father died while plowing a field, placing the time of his death somewhere in spring. However, Kaz and Jordie got to Ketterdam on a boat carrying produce, implying that they may have stayed on their farm until after harvest in autumn, and they spent about 1-2 months in the city altogether (a few days before they met Filip + 1 week Jordie spent working for Hertzoon + an unspecified amount of time before their first scheme came to fruition + app. 3 weeks and 2 days between that & Jordie and Kaz getting evicted out of their boarding house + 3 days before Jordie and Kaz got firepox and an unspecified amount of time before Jordie died), which would correspond roughly with the beginning of winter.