Work Text:
Kaz kept a hand on Inej’s leg and turned on the tap to wet the towel in his hand.
When he turned back, she hadn’t moved; she’d meant to, waving him off when he’d offered to remove the tie keeping her braid together.
He squeezed her knee. “Inej?”
She started. Her eyes had followed him, but she blinked and they suddenly seemed clearer. “Kaz.”
“Your hair.” It was matted to her forehead with blood, stray strands clumped below her ears with sweat; her braid was thrown over her shoulder and brushed the countertop she was sitting on, and when her eyes widened in realization that she’d spent the moments idle, she was still the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
“My hair,” she repeated, and moved a hand to untie it, looking down and fumbling with the leather cord.
Kaz waited. The damp towel soaked into his glove, and, giving it a rueful look, he laid it on the countertop along with the small kit he’d dragged up from under the sink, threads and needles and bandages in case the lump on Inej’s head was something more serious.
“We’ve done this once,” Inej said, and how could Kaz forget? His hesitation, his fear, the moment of bliss before the water had crashed down around his ears? Her fingers had stilled, and she likewise stilled her head, not meeting his eyes simply because she’d stopped trying to hold it too high, and her voice rang sure. “Help me?”
Kaz swallowed. Nodded once. He was more nimble in gloves than out, it seemed sometimes, and although he could have made quick work of the tie at the end of her braid, he let it slide through his fingers with almost the same reverence he reserved for the tresses it held in place, only then discarding it onto the countertop.
Inej’s braid was tight; it wouldn’t do to tug and hurt her, to aggravate her injury.
Ine didn’t fall, not like everyone else did. She flew, she ran, she climbed—she’d been taught to fall in a way Kaz never had been, to fall with the intention to get back up rather than claw her way back, and when she’d fallen earlier she’d sprung right up, eyes closed to ward off dizziness, and kept fighting until they’d made it out of the ambush.
Her eyes were closed now, and though her breath hitched when Kaz shifted his weight more onto his left leg, she didn’t open them, only nodded.
“Keep going.”
Kaz nodded back. Inej wouldn’t see, but she would know, and lifted his other hand to her braid: she’d done it that morning in nimble, practiced motions, and Kaz had stared as her inky mane became a tight coil, practical beyond belief. Beautiful and dangerous; he’d kissed her when she approached, holding on to the end of the braid with one hand and cradling her cheek with the other.
She’d weaved her hair into place and he now undid the work: pushing the strands aside, letting them, molded into sharp waves after the long day, run free over her chest and arm, slowing as he rose, taking greater care with her scalp, and cupping the back of her head once he finished. Inej’s hair fell over his gloved hand as Kaz moved it through his fingers, checking for any final tangles.
Inej let out a sigh and raised a hand to hold his, bracketing it as it soothed her scalp rather than holding it back.
Kaz brushed his thumb over hers and nudged her knee with his hip. “I need to clean it.”
Inej hummed; her eyes still closed, her body still, but her eyelashes fluttered over her cheeks in a miniscule nod—how many years of experience had Kaz had, now, learning every detail of her body language?—and he nodded back, again unseen, and let go to take the towel.
“Careful,” he said, and made contact; Inej couldn’t contain a wince as he pressed it against the dried blood that had pooled by her brow. “I’m sorry.”
She moved under him, an aborted shake of the head, before letting out another wince. “Shouldn’t have moved.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Kaz agreed, and moved to her temple in a decisive motion that forced Inej’s eyes open into a glare; despite their earlier lack of focus, her pupils were the same size.
Keeping her head still with his other hand, Kaz moved past her hairline, now more lightly, taking care not to pull at her hair, failing as he approached the bump that had risen in the aftermath of Inej’s fall. He would need a brush to properly clean her hair, but he hadn’t thought to grab one, and the rough towel came away a dirty red when he scrubbed at it, balancing the need to clean with Inej’s pinched lips and tense forehead.
“Almost done,” he said. A lie. He wasn’t even sure why. She let out a breath—oh. That was why. Kaz traced the line of her cheekbone with his free thumb. “Mostly done.”
“Not the same thing.”
She’d caught the lie, had allowed it; impulsively, Kaz bent forward and dropped a kiss to her forehead, salt and water clinging to his lips as he focused once more on her hair.
He let the towel drop soon after, and leaned away to grab a dry one, immediately pressing it—no apology this time, the hard truth of injury a necessity in place of the softness of Inej’s hair—to the wound. He kept it in place, waited for more blood, but it seemed that all had already been done.
Inej let out a sharp hiss when he let go.
Kaz dropped the towel aside and cupped her face, tilting her head towards the light for a final look and only then relaxing his hold.
“Done?”
He kissed her forehead and whispered against her skin: “Done.”
He braced Inej’s waist as she jumped down from the counter and swayed upon landing, letting her weight fall forward as she blinked away her disorientation.
“Alright?” She hummed against his chest. Kaz pinched her hip. “Not an answer.”
"Alright.” She pulled away and shot him a smile: a softening of her eyes and mouth, economical and sweet.
Kaz brushed a kiss to the top of her head, her hair dry where she hadn’t been hurt, and followed Inej out of the lavish bathroom to the rooms they’d been gifted. The Van Eck mansion was closer to where they’d been jumped than the Slat was, and almost as secure, and the soft mattress upon which Inej sat made the midnight entry—and the interrogation that would follow in the morning—worth it.
Inej waved him off when he made to help her with her shoes, and he acquiesced, instead tugging at the laces of his own shoes, shrugging off his jacket and vest, and making a final detour to the dresser for the hairbrush he’d forgotten to grab earlier.
She pushed herself back, now just in shirtsleeves, soft and light and befitting the warm weather outside, as Kaz approached the bed. He’d gone back to the bathroom for a new towel as well, and put both on the bed ahead of himself.
When he sat and put his cane aside, Inej had already taken hold of the towel and pressed it against her the bottom of her hair as if after a bath.
“Let me?”
The brush had an ornate handle, flowers and birds dancing up it, a gift from Nina several years ago. Inej put her hand over his, and lifted the brush to her hair, inching up from the bottom, not leading him yet not yet letting him take the lead. Her hair fell in dark waves into the space between them, and Kaz looked at it transfixed, coming back to reality only when Inej relinquished the brush to him and leaned onto one side.
He ran it through her hair and, putting the brush aside, gathered her hair in one hand and grabbed the towel with the other, draping it over her shoulder and letting her hair fall over it.
He brushed slowly, as she had once taught him, not moving on to a higher section of hair without first clearing away the tangles below it, the flecks of dried blood that he hadn’t washed away in the bathroom falling onto the towel as he carefully set it to rights.
He'd learned to braid from Inej, as well, watching her over the years; she didn’t often fix her hair in public, too skilled for it to unwind throughout the day, but sometimes—when she’d fallen into a canal, when too much blood had gotten on her, when a drunk, adventurous Jesper had dipped the tip of her braid into an inkwell to see how fast she would notice—it needed doing. Her hands were quick, skilled, favoring three-stranded braids yet sometimes expanding to four or five strands, adding smaller braids for appearance rather than practicality.
Kaz could do three strands.
“Loose?” he said, and Inej gave a half-nod. Enough to keep her hair out of the way but not to tug at her scalp.
Kaz weighed her hair in his hands, used to calculating and evaluating everything he touched, but pushed the thoughts away and began to braid with single-minded focus. Nothing existed save him and Inej, save the hair in his hands and the room’s half-light.
“I should get ice,” he said. Inej shook her head with a wince, and Kaz gave her hair a pointed tug. “No?”
“No.” Inej tugged up one of her legs and rested an elbow on her knee. There was a much-used icebox downstairs, and Kaz wondered if she’d forgotten—in which case he would worry—or simply didn’t want him to leave—in which case he wouldn’t, and would try to chase away the warmth he felt at the thought. “I don’t need it, I promise.”
Kaz nodded, more to himself than to her, and tied up the braid. It was uneven on one side, but when Inej ran her fingers over it, she shot him a satisfied smile. Her eyes slid closed as Kaz put away the towel and hairbrush, but she made no move to lie down until he sat down again.
He nudged his shoulder against hers. “No ice?”
“No ice.” Inej nudged back, softly, and withdrew for a moment, only to rest back against his side. “Just sleep.”
Kaz nodded. He could do that. The bed was made, extra blankets—cozy and colorful, gifted by Inej’s parents—laid out at its end, extra pillows in the chest at its foot. Everything they needed to keep their demons at bay.
He pushed himself to the edge of the bed to fetch everything as Inej silently slid under the covers, hardly moving the blanket, and turning over a corner in invitation.
Kaz smiled at her as she closed her eyes. She didn’t see his grimace as he stood to turn off the lights, or as he balanced upright to change, or as he sat against the pillows that would separate them for the night. She would know. She always did.
But that was a problem for tomorrow. Now, Kaz made himself comfortable and looked over at Inej, not yet asleep but steadily drifting away, and made out a faint mumble of goodnight as he followed her into sleep.