Chapter Text
Inej didn’t question why Kaz wouldn’t kiss her hello and goodbye the way Jesper and Wylan did. Didn’t try to lean against him in public like the rest of the group seemed to have no issue doing with each other. She took his gloved hand when it was offered, and his ungloved hand for as long as he would offer it. In the private of their rooms she’d sometimes brush a hand across his face, always talking when she did so so that he had something to focus on. Ground himself on. The Wraith had always been patient, a good spider had to be. But Inej Ghafa was endlessly patient with him in ways he still wasn’t sure he deserved.
And maybe that was why he asked her to stay in his room that night. Unlike him, Inej didn’t recoil at touch. Most normal people didn’t. Normal people loved to touch and be affectionate and Saints if he didn’t want to touch her. But it was a constant battle to touch her properly; set off alarm bells that were very different from the light and giddy feelings lovers were supposed to have. Ones he assumed Inej probably had.
Yet, Kaz knew also as he watched her moving into his bed in a borrowed shirt and slightly too big trousers that it wasn’t the only reason he’d invited her over. He knew as he slipped off his gloves with shaking hands and reached out to meet her halfway, foreheads and noses touching, his invitation was a selfish one. He closed his fingers around her hand, swallowing and meeting her eyes, gearing himself up in an attempt to make good on his promise to hold her, even if only for a bit, tonight. He could see in her eyes and hear in her soft tones that she had no expectations for him. He could change his mind, turn around here and say he needed pillows between them space for the night, their mental contact filling in the gaps the physical couldn’t. But Kaz didn’t want to lose her like this.
Inej Ghafa was not his Wraith anymore. The people in the Barrel still knew better than to mess with her because of her reputation, and Kaz still sometimes got the chance to knock an idiot down for making a pass at his girl, but it wasn’t the same as the bond they’d had before. She’d always been good at slipping away and some nights he felt a clawing certainty that she’d slip out of his sights forever. She didn’t belong to him– to anybody. She owed him no debts, what he did to free her from her past had been paid back or given freely, and though she still held all his secrets, she had no job bringing her back. It was part of what he liked best about her. It was part of what scared him the most.
“You’re reaching your limit, Kaz,” Inej acknowledged softly, forever understanding and patient with him and he wanted nothing more than to be able to just crash his face against hers and show everyone she was still his. She was more his than before. But she wasn’t and he couldn’t and he felt that truth tight in his throat as he let go of her hands.
So he let her put up pillows between them and fell asleep exchanging schemes and gossip with her.
* * *
Waking up to Inej in his bed, he decided, was a very nice experience, even if he hadn’t managed to cuddle her properly last night. Sitting up, he looked down at her, smiling slightly at the sight of her hair in a mess and her hands curled around the edge of her pillow. She was a dangerous one. It was the quiet moments like this that he felt that knowledge not as a gang boss, but as a boy who was completely and utterly wrapped around her finger. That boy in him wanted to brush her hair and wake her with a kiss, but that reality felt far away.
He wasn’t sure how long he spent with those daydreams and the sleepy appreciation of her presence in his bed before he saw her eyes meet his. Had she been awake long? He hadn’t detected a change in her breathing, but he couldn’t be sure and he felt himself warm at the thought that she might have been examining him too, in her own way.
“Can I borrow your brush?” She didn’t bring up his staring, or more accurately, she didn’t say anything about it. He could see the teasing in her eyes as well as the softness that made him weak.
“Go ahead.” Kaz moved to get ready himself, not bothering to leave the room. He knew it bothered her when he did that, it always had. Before it seemed to wind her up, now it had the added bonus of her showing him pink cheeks and a snappy comment about his lack of manners. But today the comment didn’t come. Instead came the sounds of clothes shifting from behind him and turning around revealed Inej changing too, her blush there, but the rest of her schooled and absolutely ruthless considering the teenage boy in him was already a sappy mess from waking up the way they had. She met his eyes in a way that was reminiscent of a challenge, and if it had come from another girl, he might had thought it was an invitation for something more. But he knew Inej and him were a long way from that and the way her eyes were alight with defiance told him the challenge was more payback than temptation. She really was dangerous in so many ways.
His eyes lingered on her as she went to get his brush and Kaz stopped in his attempt to grab his gloves. “Wait. Let… me do it.”
She looked surprised but flipped the brush to offer it to him, watching as he set down the glove he’d been about to put on and took it from her. He watched as Inej sat down and found he missed the look of her in clothes. It had seemed to keep her to him more, a reminder of their bond. A reminder she was his. Sort of.
He took up her hair gently, brushing it out and feeling the silence that laid between them with each stroke. Their breathing felt so loud, though he knew there was hardly any sound being made between them. He couldn’t seem to stop fixating on the gentle way her shoulders rose and fell, the tiny twitches when he caught a snag. He quickly stopped catching snags though, deft fingers detangling knots so the brush didn’t have to rip through them. He knew, too soon, her hair was finished. She knew it too. Still, Inej stayed quiet as he continued to brush out her hair. Eventually, he had to admit to himself that he didn’t have any reason to keep up the endless brushing, but he found his hands still slipping back through her hair, gathering it together in his hands.
“You could braid it.”
“Am I your barber now?” As if he wasn’t the one to start this whole thing. As if his heart wasn’t going crazy with stupid teenage excitement. He separated out her hair into three neat sections, finding a rhythm in braiding. Even brushing lightly against her as he twisted them together didn’t seem to bother him now. Yet, again, there was only so long it could last. “The guys at the Barrel would say I was whipped if they knew I was over here doing your hair.”
Inej looked up at him, smug. “The slavers already know you as my errand boy.”
“Not even a boyfriend?”
“Well you certainly aren’t warming by bedchambers.” She joked, but he knew there was a bit of truth in that. He wasn’t her boyfriend, not really. She still visited, but until Kaz could give himself over completely, she wouldn’t either. He knew that. He respected that.
And he wanted to tell her that one day he would. That one day he’d kiss her freely and never touch her with gloves again. That he’d be hers, truly and honestly and the way he knew she wanted. That Kaz Brekker would overcome his past and walk forward as a man who lived fully in the present. A man who deserved her.
But he did not know when that day would come. And it may be that she would move on with someone more willing to give themselves over to her. More worthy of her. All he had been able to give her was the remainder of his secrets and a few short touches like what’d he’d managed last night. So in exchange, he only had the moments that she allowed. The brief visits that he savored.
“Next time you visit I’ll see if we can change that.” He said it with more bravado than he felt, and they both knew undressing was a long way off. But maybe if he did his best while she was gone he could get himself closer to comfortable with the idea of holding her right, at least for a few minutes.
“You can borrow my clothes then.”
Kaz snorted and rolled his eyes. “I don’t think they’ll fit me.”
“No,” she mused, a teasing quirk to her lips, “but it could show my crew that you’re mine.”
Hers. That sounded nice.