Work Text:
[Kaz + Inej]
1:23 AM
kaz
do you trust me?
inej
i do
kaz
meet me outside in ten.
“Do you trust me?” He asks once more as she slides into the sleek black car, nearly invisible in the night. His eyes are dark, shadowed by the harsh set of his dark, perfect, brows. His lips barely move, his voice is no more than a whisper.
Hers is somehow, by some impossibility, even softer. “Yes.”
He floors the pedal. She hears the screech of the tires, then the lights are bleeding away past the windows with an illegal tint, green and red and gold, twinkling and blurring in the nighttime rush. There are people on the streets, but they are smudges of life, caught up in his speed, his boot on the gas.
Their hands intertwine as they break out of the cramped city, into the sprawl of the suburbs. They’re certainly speeding, but they won’t get caught. He’s too careful. She counts the houses, one, two, three. That house is dark. That one is glowing from within. Four, five, six. The highway is flawless, the green sign’s words holding no meaning to their racing hearts and car.
The radio is blaring, but she doesn’t know the song. It reminds her of walking into a dream, the swelling of the song. She likes it and notes the name down for when she has a chance to add it to Spotify. His eyes never leave the road, but hers never leave him.
He pulls into a secluded parking lot, the yellow lamps casting his face in a glow as he leans on the centre console, closer to her. She matches him, unbuckling and pressing her nose to his, turning up the radio to drown out the alarm of a car thirteen spaces away.
If people could see them, they would see two more college kids on the verge of a hookup. They would suspect booze in the back, or weed, or something even more illegal. But they aren’t drinking or smoking or hooking up in his vintage Rolls Royce he bought with laundered money. They’re living, reeling in the simplicity of spontaneity, the quiet of the midnight streets they shatter.
They aren’t kids looking for a quick release from the toxicity of the world in a shady parking lot. They’re kids learning to trust, to forget the waters they were birthed in. His hands cup her face, gloved tonight, but when he gives her a dizzying kiss she finds she doesn’t mind the rough burr of the leather on her skin.
She can feel his stubble under her hands when she brushes her hand over the sharp planes of his face, his trembling, hot, exhale as he closes his eyes. The lights barely illuminate his glorious lashes, fanned out on his scarred cheeks. He is devastatingly beautiful, devastatingly harsh and hurt.
“Let me teach you how to dance one of these days.” She says as the next song plays. She can imagine swirling around a grand, empty, hall with him while this song echoes against the marble. “Let me run away with you. Let us dream up a sweet world on the road, lose it all.”
“Maybe one day, we can do that,” He says, brushing a gloved finger against her jaw, easing the tension. “But we won’t lose anything. We’ll win forever and forever, until there’s nothing more and it’s just us, Kings and Queens, Inej. Old and grey, Kings and Queens of the whole damn world.”
“I don’t want to get old,” she says offhandedly, turning away to look out the window as a lone person walks to their white car. “I want to live in a world of eternal youth with you. Getting old is…”
“Scary?”
“Yes. Unnaturally.”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said, moving his chair back, allowing his bad leg to stretch out further in front of him. “Guess we should become immortal and divine although…” he glanced at her, smiling in a way that was so new to them both. He found there was a shyness within him even as he spoke what he always knew, “You are already…” A shuddered,
wanting
, breath, “
Divine
.”
She giggled, leaning closer to him once more. He smirked, leaning in too, stealing just a chaste kiss this time. He could feel the waters in the back of his mind, reminding him that he shouldn’t go too far. But he ached to do more, his ribs sore from longing. But the waters were not tamed enough. He brought her hand up to his lips brushing a kiss against the scarred knuckles.
“Tell me about this running away thing,” he said lowly, murmured against her hand, down to where her pulse beat wildly in her wrist, then to the marred skin, the sign of how fucking strong she was. “Where would we go?”
“Anywhere and everywhere. The road would be our home. We’d adopt a stray dog. Maybe a cat. It would be tight, but livable. I would drive during the day, you during the night. We’ll write a log of all our travels then bury it in the woods when it’s full for people to find when we are long gone.”
He had started the engine again, they were pulling out of the parking lot. She continued, watching his impassive face. Was she imagining things or was he grinning?
“We’ll know every diner we can. We’ll try out new foods, throw up the bad shit in a bathroom on the side of a highway. We’ll be the giggly kids who stumble into a gas station convenience store at 3 in the morning, buy a six-pack of beer and a pack of cigs and spend the night not sleeping.”
“Hm,” he said, glancing at her in the mirror. “I like that idea.”