🇰‌🇦‌🇿‌ 🇧‌🇷‌🇪‌🇰‌🇰‌🇪‌🇷‌ (brekkbybrekk) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2023-08-06 21:29:00
Who: Kaz and Inej When: Backdated to a week after Relationship Confusion. Where: Kaz’s room at Alyssa and Rebekah’s home. What: Where do they go from here? Rating: PG-13 at the most Status: Closed; Completed Gdoc
It had taken a week, but Kaz was finally ready to speak to Inej. Now, cane in hand, he paced his room waiting for her appearance at his window. Kaz was never nervous, but when it came to Inej, he could not help feeling anxious, especially after the experiences of last week.
Following the Dome’s tricks, playing with their hearts and emotions, the Bastard of the Barrel needed time to gather his thoughts and come to terms with what happened that fateful week. He would admit it wasn’t bad. Not in the slightest. Being able to let down his guard around Inej, touch her, and kiss her was like a dream. A dream he didn’t deserve. When the illusion faded, he’d been left cold and sullen, unsure as to where to go next. He knew Inej felt the same. Where did they go from here?
As much as he enjoyed being intimate with her, he also knew that those bridges so easily crossed under the Dome’s guise would be far tricker without its influence. He had managed to touch her hand and wrap an arm around her waist, pulling her close, but could he still kiss her? Hold her as they both rested together? Kaz did not have an answer, but, despite the betrayal of the Dome, there was a large part of Kaz that wanted to try. That needed to try.
Because he did care for Inej even if they were not at the same level as that week. She deserved the best from him always and if he drew a line in the sand now, he knew there would be no crossing it.
Inej didn’t know what to think about what the Dome had done to them last week. While it had not been unpleasant, part of her cried at what might have been lost between her and Kaz because of the machinations of the damned Dome. It had played around with their emotions and twisted them all about ---
--- and Inej had enjoyed it. She had enjoyed being able to be that close to Kaz without both of them being concerned with their armor and being on guard. The fact that they had held each other… had kissed… had been able to lay comfortably in each other’s arms was something that she would never forget or regret.
She had been quiet and didn’t push Kaz when he hadn’t been able to speak to her right after the Dome’s effects had worn off. Even thought part of her had wanted to run to him and tell him that nothing had changed , part of her was worried about being rejected and put in a position of now only being His Wraith. His Spider. While she would take what she could get from him, she had to be honest with herself that she wanted more.
She loved Kaz, but she was also afraid that her own nightmares and fears would come between them and then everything would go to hell. She didn’t want to lose Kaz. She wanted to at least try to approach what they had been able to do last week. She left the apartment she shared with Josh and made her way to Kaz’s place. One of these days she might use the front door, but that time was not this night. She didn’t want to see anyone else in the household. Her focus was on Kaz.
After she climbed her way up to his window, she tapped on his window, then looked in so he could see her face at the glass.
The house in which Kaz resided was rarely empty. Today was an exception. Kaz found himself alone and given the nature of the conversation he was about to have with Inej, he was grateful for the silence. The last thing he needed was Chessie or Alyssa’s Pokemon popping in to make things more awkward. To take away from the time he had alone with Inej. To subtract from the weight and significance of the moment before them.
Hearing the knock on the window, Kaz looked up and spotted Inej’s face peering at him through the glass. Despite the impending conversation, he couldn’t help the way his heart melted at the sight of her or how much he simply wanted to pull her into his arms. His normal, hardened expression softened slightly and he walked the short distance to the window, opening it, and stepping aside so she could enter.
“Hello, Inej,” he said. Once she was inside, he reached around her, shutting the window, and clicking the lock into place. Turning to face her once more, he gestured for her to have a seat on the bed.
“Can I get you anything?” Yes, there was an awkwardness between them. Kaz could sense it, but he was doing his best to ignore it. This was Inej and even before they were controlled by the Dome, he had started to open up to her. Let her in. He wasn’t going to let the Dome take that away from both of them.
When Inej tapped on the window glass and saw Kaz’s face, she couldn’t help but giving him a small smile. Kaz was still every bit as important to her as he had ever been.The Dome had just given them a bit of something that she had never expected for them to have. Unfortunately, it was also cruel enough to rip that away from them when they were so at peace and comfortable with the extra affection that they showed to each other.
The fact that he opened the window but didn’t take her hand to bring her into his room was not surprising, but it did hurt after how easy they had been with each other just a week ago. She gave him a nod and a smile as she sat down on the bed. “Hello, Kaz.” At his question, she shook her head. Her hair had been left down, but now she was wondering if that was too much for them now and she should have braided it up again.
“No, I don’t need anything.” She swallowed. “How are you?”
She wanted him to be all right because if he wasn’t she was afraid that they would never get back to that place where they were comfortable and together. The Dome had shown her one of her fondest wishes.
The sight of the small smile through the windowpane tugged at Kaz’s rumored nonexistent heart strings. How could it not? A week ago their relationship flowed as easily as any stream and now? Now it felt awkward and more like the mountain it always had been. Still, Kaz was determined to not let the events of a week ago ruin his budding relationship with Inej. If anything, it gave him the one thing he dreaded most, but yet always wished to covet: hope.
When she said she didn’t need anything, Kaz claimed the seat beside her. Her smell nearly overwhelmed him and yes, he wanted desperately to push a piece of that soft hair behind her ear. Instead, he looked over at her and nodded.
“I am. I just…needed time to process what happened, Inej,” Kaz replied. “I can tell you are worried about where we stand.” How could she not be? Kaz was equally as worried and potentially even scared. Where did they go from here? If they went anywhere at all. The Bastard of the Barrel knew it was a pivotal moment. He either reached for her now or surrendered her to a permanent place outside the wall of his heart again.
Kaz held up a gloved hand and tugged the leather from his fingers. Pale digits appeared and slowly, he reached between them and took her hand. His initial reaction was always to pull away, as if touching something hot, but he had control now, potentially more so than before, and the contact remained intact.
“I hope this clears things up for you.”
When he sat down next to her Inej nodded. She was glad that he felt comfortable enough to sit next to her. The thing that she had worried about the most was that the Dome had caused a wall to be built between them that could never be breeched. She was glad to seem that it did not seem to be the problem she had feared it was.
“I understand that you needed time… that we both needed time. The Dome messed with us in a way we had never experienced before.” Before that had happened she had never imagined that something could mess with them quite that badly. And this was after accepting that they had been kidnapped by the place and her appointed guardian was a vampire. “But I won’t lie and say that I haven’t been worried about what damage last week might have done to us.”
She was quiet and her eyes went wide as she watched him peel off one of his gloves. She wasn’t quite holding her breath, but it was a near thing. When he took her hand in his and kept ahold of it without flinching, she looked at him and her smile was bright. She carefully curled her fingers around his, not holding too tight in case he needed to pull away.
“It does. It makes me feel much better,” she said softly.
“It was a legitimate fear.” Because Kaz had such a fear too even if he would never openly admit to it. While he’d recognized Inej needed to strike out on her own, seize her dream, he’d never wanted to be away from her forever. He’d eventually become brave enough to admit that to himself. He realized it wasn’t a weakness. The Dome and its antics had jeopardized that progress even as it shed light on what could be if they slowly took apart the walls around their hearts, piece by piece. Fortunately for them, both Inej and Kaz were stubborn; he wasn’t about to let what the Dome did destroy what he had with Inej.
He wasn’t surprised by the expression on her face, the way in which her eyes widened as his fingers curled around her own. Then she smiled at him. That smile was the one thing in all the world that could undo him. Just as her eyes, when sad or angry, could be the one weapon to destroy him. Her fingers curled around his own and in that moment Kaz realized he’d been holding his breath.
He gently squeezed her fingers. “I refuse to allow this place to destroy what we have. As I could never promise you a world of light, of happiness free of pain, I can’t promise you I will immediately be like the man you saw that week. However-” He broke off and raised their clenched hands, Kaz trying desperately to keep from trembling, from pulling away, as he raised her knuckles to his lips and pressed a kiss to the skin.
His gaze never left her own. “I can promise you I will try.”
“You wouldn’t be the man you are, the one I care about if you went around making me promises that there was no way to guarantee or keep,” Inej said softly, looking at him seriously. “All I want is for both of us to try. Both of us.”
Because Inej knew that she had issues with touch, as well. However, after everything that she had been through, Kaz was the only one she had ever wanted to let in in a more personal way. Jesper was like a brother to her, but her feelings for Kaz ran so much deeper.
She couldn’t help the smile that crossed her face again as he kissed her hand. “I think that we can do anything we want as long as we’re willing to fight for it, Kaz,” she said softly. “I don’t want to lose you or anything that we have or could have between us.”
It took a lot for Inej to admit this, but it was Kaz and she had always felt like she could speak to him about anything she was feeling.
It was true. They both knew Kaz wouldn’t be the man she cared for if he went around making false promises. He was far too brutally realistic for such notions. Life had taught him as much just as it had taught Inej the same hard lesson, just in a different way. It was why such a relationship between them was so difficult. Life hadn’t been easy and they both housed their own demons because of it.
But Kaz could try for her. He always would. She’d earned that from the Bastard of the Barrel. “Then we will both try,” he replied in his gravelly voice. “No promises. Just effort.” Because that was real and tangible. Promises? Not so much.
Not many could get away with being so honest with Kaz Brekker, but Inej had earned the right to be the exception to that rule. Her smile tugged at his heart strings once more and he nodded. “We’ve proven that countless times before,” he replied. “And you won’t lose me or us.” It would take a lot to destroy what Inej and Kaz had built between them. The Dome hadn’t managed to really even make a dent.
She nodded. “No promises that can be twisted and used against us,” she agreed. “Just effort that I know we both can make.”
Because for Kaz -- and for her own happiness with Kaz -- she was willing to work hard to put in the effort to have what the Dome had given them for that short while. She wanted that closeness, that relationship that this place had given them a glance of.
She knew that she had her own demons that she fought with every day, but she also know that she was slowly coming out on top. She was doing this because she had Kaz in her life and he had been giving her his support even when it didn’t show.
“And you will not lose me or us, either,” she murmured, keeping her eyes on his and her fingers intertwined with his.”I cannot think of a better thing to put effort into.”
Putting effort into a relationship that she knew they could one day have was even more exciting then the next job they could be on.