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i. growing pains
The verbal component, he's found, is the easiest step in striking a deal.
That’s how he thinks of this, thinks of them, because it makes sense. It makes it easier, since he has a frame of reference for a deal and almost none at all for a relationship. And as he goes, he discovers the hardest part? Isn't necessarily the actionable, because they both realize that something physical is going to be a work in progress. He can hold her hand without feeling his skin crawl but even that can be fleeting; sometimes her demons rear up and her eyes go horribly blank. Gently, he reminds her where she is, curls her fingers around one of her knives, tells her she's a dangerous girl.
When she comes back to herself or when she pulls him off an edge, drags his mind out of the harbor, they're exhausted, eroded.
So no, it's not just the actions that are hard. It's the everything between, the words that sit behind his teeth, heavy on his tongue. It's the truth, the past, and all the things he should have said since they met. It's her time spent at the Menagerie, the men whose faces she wants to forget, Tante Heleen's whispers in the back of her mind.
It spills, in fits and starts, in the dead quiet of his room at the Slat, in her Captain's cabin, at the end of berth 22. Sometimes, after, they don't talk at all for a few days, invisible hands suffocating.
They realize, as she wakes with a sob, that it's better to fill those gaps with something, anything, the silence too oppressive.
--
ii. a reputation
Brick by brick, he thinks, finding some dark humor in how the meaning has changed. Perhaps he should find another way to describe the process. But no, this one serves well—brick by brick, he'll dismantle this wall he's built, leaving himself bare under her gaze.
He used to be afraid of what she'd find. A hundred broken bodies, a thousand lies, a core as dark as the harbor's water; a weak, lonely boy with nothing to offer but disappointment. And truth be told (better to have harsh truths than kind lies), he still has that fear under his skin, still feels it well up when he least expects.
She does too, her words from the Geldrunner stretched out between them.
This was hard work for them both, the hardest things they've ever done. The Ice Court couldn't compare to how it felt to prod into the past, to reopen a wound so acutely it left them shaking and sick. But just like they've always done, they have each other's backs; Dirtyhands and the Wraith, frightening apart and worse together.
Or: Kaz and Inej, balancing as if on one of her wires, catching the other when they wobbled.
So when he finally steadies, finds enough footing to say I love you , it's clear and unburdened. Finally unstuck from his throat, giving over like a lock in his hands. In hers. She stares at him in shock and then smiles, takes his face in her hands, and replies, Say it again.
--
iii. a wedding (or two)
Nina and Jesper have a running bet on whether he'll marry her. Wylan has stayed out of it, preferring not to gamble on Kaz's emotions, though he's seen the look in the merchling's eyes to know he thinks it's a slim chance, if one at all. Jesper, always eager to wager on small odds, says he will.
And Nina, loud and vivacious Nina, says she'll steal Inej away when he inevitably fails to.
Except he does. Twice.
Because the Suli don't care what an official government has to say, especially not the dusty and heartless Kerch. Inej sails them to Ravka, to her family; the only compass is the one in her chest, the one that always knows where they are. She runs into her parents' embrace, their mirrored smiles bright enough to rival a certain Sankta . Collectively, they drag him into it and the pieces fall into place, a puzzle that had been waiting to be completed.
They're married by Inej's aunt, a woman with silver hair and a deeply lined face that tells a story of happiness, years and years of it. She ties their hands together with a silken scarf, her fingers delicate and bony with age, a contrast to theirs. Inej kisses him, her mother bursts out into joyful tears, and all he can think is how much he wants a future where he gets to see her braid go white, crows feet appear at the corner of her eyes.
The celebration after is a blur of color, of a night passing all the way into the dawn. They greet the sun curled up in one of the wagons, the door open, watching as it makes its trek up from the horizon. Slow and steady, like the thrum of her pulse, like his breathing, like the careful aim of an arrow.
Three months later, they're married in the eyes of the Kerch government, in Ghezen's hand. It is, quite frankly, boring, but they at least find some irony in pledging forever right in front of where Jan Van Eck lost it all. Inej is grinning about it under her veil, is still grinning when he kisses her, the expression bleeding onto his mouth as Jesper lets out a whoop.
(Later, when he's four drinks in, he laughs as Nina groans and hands over twenty kruge to his friend's waiting hands. Jesper wears it as his pocket square for the rest of the night).
Even later, they stumble through the front door, keys jangling, faces flushed red with drink and delight. Their laughter fills the entryway, the spaces in between, echoing up the stairs, and he doesn't think there's a finer sound in the world.
--
iv. a home
He learns, quite quickly, that a house is simply a building. Four walls, a floor, a roof over top of it all. It isn't a home until there's something that roots someone there. Whether it's a love for the way the sun shines through a window or for it to simply be a place to hold the things they care for. It's empty, otherwise.
The house he builds (renovates) only becomes home after Inej sees it. After they gradually fill it with a kitchen table, mismatched nightstands, a bed with the fluffiest pillows imaginable.
(They test those, as soon as they're placed at the headboard, flopping on them simultaneously. He grins when she sighs and loudly proclaims she loves them almost as much as her knives).
Eventually, the walls and rooms don't feel empty, filled to the brim with their comings and goings, with memories infusing into the sturdy beams.
--
v. a family
There's a lot of unexpected things he's had in his life.
His father and brother's untimely deaths, surviving the harbor, the Barrel, Haskell's chance, besting Rollins, Van Eck, and Heleen in nearly one swoop. There's also people he can safely call friends; Jesper, Wylan, Nina. And Inej, of course, who he's still surprised by despite everything.
Plenty of those things he had planned for and the rest he'd simply adapted and survived.
What he never anticipated was how he'd feel about starting a family. The catch of his breath when Inej had put their daughter in his arms; she'd been so small, so fragile. And as she'd curled her impossibly small fingers around his own, he'd known he'd do anything to keep her from Ketterdam's miseries.
He makes that promise a second time, when their family goes from three to four, and watches with the same aggravated adoration as Inej as both son and daughter take after their parents. Full of mischief and determination, with quick fingers, quicker wit, and impeccable balance.
(Ella breaks into his office at age four and Stefan learns the art of silence by three. Neither he nor Inej know whether to be proud or to pull their hair out).
Inej still thanks her Saints, names them off gratefully. And Kaz, he still doesn't believe in much, not in Ghezen or a higher power. But he does believe in the three people just a foot away, believes in their future, in a stretch of years ahead with nothing to hold them back.