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Kaz Brekker had never been the type for soft shit. Or, that was what he’d previously believed,
In every other scenario, he would’ve found a way to get from one place to another without having to utilize public transportation. It was grimy, and it was crowded, and the idea of having so many people close enough to breathe down his neck made him want to throw something.
But for a job like this one, taking a private vehicle was not in the cards.
The Van Eck estate not only employed some of the most highly trained security in the entire Gelden District, but their cameras were also known for being of insurmountable quality. Were Inej to get caught on tape -- she wouldn’t -- or were they provided any other reason to notice someone was there, they could not risk creating the trail of having one of their car’s plates on the cameras of any given home in the area.
No, they especially couldn’t risk it, considering that they’d just committed a casual laundry list’s worth of crimes within one single evening. Breaking and entering, theft, fraud, and were they to include the unintentionally broken spring door stopper on the way out of the house, destruction of property.
Therefore, he was stuck sitting next to Inej Ghafa on the lightrail. The two of them had crammed together into the two seats without space for people to sit across from them, glad to be able to avoid sharing the small amount of legroom, at least.
It was almost nice, considering how much they’d been practicing being able to touch, lately.
Of course, it was not just a work related skill; it was special, being able to hold hands, to get to sit near each other when they were together for other reasons.
Still, he valued practicality, and not having to jump through hundreds of extra hoops for the sake of keeping their cover was, indeed, practical. That was what fleeing the scene would’ve taken, otherwise. He wouldn’t have been able to handle sitting with their sides pressed together for this long, before.
And, well, it wasn’t exactly just sitting close together that they were doing.
The one thing he’d come to admire about Inej, in these past few years of working together, was her level of alertness -- which, in this part of town, was almost synonymous with the most basic level of observance. It was necessary for survival to know one’s own surroundings in this part of town, and not doing so was opening oneself up to all kinds of danger. Maintaining a certain level of agility was common sense, in his opinion.
It was not so much for pigeons, or those less experienced with life in the Barrel. Even many members of the Dregs were known for their sheer lack of situational awareness, paying such little attention to their surroundings, their survival thus far was practically miraculous.
Inej, though, was different. After long jobs, regardless of their physical rigor, she would remain aware and alert until it was truly safe to let her guard down and rest.
Most often, this was once they were both back inside of their respective homes, tucked away from the rest of the world.
Tonight, her exhaustion had been both apparent and justified.
He’d sent her out the past many nights, and each of those jobs had come with a report to write the following day, as she’d gone alone. With the combined late hours of the typical late night stakeout, and the necessity of delivering the report as soon as time allowed, she’d not gotten nearly enough sleep.
He’d known bringing her along for this job was going to be pushing it, which was why he’d accompanied her, otherwise needlessly. Just in case something went wrong, as it was more likely to, and as he would be responsible for.
Thankfully, she’d succeeded in getting out of the house with what they’d needed.
She had not succeeded, however, in staying alert for the entire ride back to their part of town. Rather, he was fairly certain she’d fallen asleep next to him, her head resting heavy on his shoulder.
This was not the first time she’d fallen asleep on the way home from a mission, though. There had been a few times, while they’d either been sitting in the back of one of the Dregs’ car’s or riding in his own, and she’d fallen asleep next to him. Never when he was up front and she was in the backseat, though. Never when they weren’t within easy eye-shot of each other.
In fact, as far as he was aware, she had never fallen asleep on the ride home when he wasn’t there. Not even with Jesper or Nina sitting beside her.
He was unsure whether this was something to feel pride over, or whether he should be concerned about having to look after another person.
Perhaps he’d be less conflicted, were the person next to him not one of the few whom he valued most.
Perhaps he’d be much less conflicted if the person beside him was not sleeping so peacefully, somehow beautiful in both exhaustion and slight dishevelment.
It was because of this peaceful beauty that it pained him to wake her as they approached her stop. It would be much easier to keep riding the night train with her through the night, to allow them to keep going until the station closed for those few hours in the early morning.
“Inej,” he whispered, tilting his head to try to get a look at her face. “We’re almost there, darling. It’s time to wake up, you can rest once you’re home.”
Her apartment was not far from the train station; in fact, it was almost comically close. Up the flight of stairs, across the airwalk over the freeway, down the stairs on the opposite side, and about a half mile to the left. She wouldn’t need to go far, before she was able to wind down for the evening.
Why was there a slight uptick in his anxiety, then, thinking about her walking alone in the dark?
She shifted, but did not make a move to open her eyes, nor to sit upright.
“Inej,” he prodded quietly, lifting his shoulder gently. “It’s not funny. Wake up, you need to get home,” he whispered, looking up at the green lettering on the screen. They were close to the next stop, -- hers, -- not more than a minute or two away.
She sighed, resigning herself to his insistence, and sat up slowly.
“I wasn’t asleep,” she grumbled, reaching up to rub her eyelids. The makeup around them smeared, leaving a black stain around the space just beneath her eye. And still, with a worn braid in her hair and smeared makeup, she was beautiful.
He smirked, pulling the small pack of tissues from inside of his vest pocket, passing it over to her. “You tell yourself that, love.”
She pulled a mocking face, elbowing his arm as she took the tissues from him. With the camera on her phone, she fixed her makeup, somehow returning it to near perfection with the help of a dampened tissue and the world’s smallest mirror.
“You should walk me home,” she said, handing his tissues back as she stood, gathering her things; a black zip-up hoodie and her phone. The train rolled to a stop, announcing the street name over the loudspeaker. “It’s impolite to leave a girl alone at night.”
She spoke as though she was teasing, but he knew she had her reservations about walking the streets at night, regardless of the extent of the armory on her person, or how far she was traveling. He was unsure of whether his presence was comforting because she perceived him as more of a threat than herself, or because any potential predator did.
Either way, he did not question her. Rather, he took a moment to consider how much work he’d be putting off by taking an extra half hour to walk with her, and decided that she was worth the procrastination.
Quickly, he stood, gathered his things, and they moved to wait at the exit door together.
If he looked to his right, he was able to see the smile she was trying and failing to conceal. It was quite possibly the brightest thing he’d ever seen, meeting her eyes in the clearest, most beautiful way possible. It didn’t cancel out the clear exhaustion behind her eyes, but maybe it was even more beautiful for being paired with it.
She was good and bright, despite having been worked into the damn ground due to his poor scheduling over the past four days.
Once they stepped off of the train, he might have had to take a hold of her hand because of it, grinning as she’d accepted it.
If they arrived at the door, and she happened to ask him if he’d like to spend the night, he might not have been able to decline her offer. It would not be because of his own tiredness, or any sort of inability to take the train back, but because the idea of being apart from her until the morning made him want to ram his head into the wall.
Instead, he might have ended up getting handed the pair of pajamas she’d accidentally stolen from him the last time she’d been too tired to confidently make the train ride back home by herself. She might have laid out a quilt and pillow on the couch for him while he was changing in the bathroom, and she might have left her bedroom door open, just in case he needed anything.
In the morning, she may or may not have driven them both down to the Crow Club for coffee before dropping him off at his apartment, completely unwilling to suggest that there would be any report in his email by the evening.
And when he thought back on it, far off into the future, once they were living together and catching the same train stop on the way home, he might not have been able to conceal his own smile.
He would not understand until then, the way she’d felt that night.
This was something that had been worth sticking around for.