Chapter Text
Night Eleven: and i'd give up forever to touch you
Inej looked back to where Kaz was trudging along. His leg seemed to be hurting him more so today than usual. But that made sense. It had rained all day.
He still followed her, his cane tapping sharply against the cobblestones as he dragged his leg behind him after her.
She slowed down, trying to ease the buzz of excitement welling up in her stomach.
He met her where she stood waiting for him, looking at her from under his wide brimmed hat. His eyes looked tired. Fatigued.
Hopefully it was entirely due to the strain of keeping up with her quick movements on a bad leg day.
Inej offered the crook of her arm. Maybe if she held him a bit, she’d be forced to slow down and enjoy the roses – or however the saying went.
Kaz barked a laugh. “Shouldn’t I be the one doing that?”
She looked down at her extended elbow. “Oh. Right,” she said, laughing with only a few shreds of embarrassment.
They continued to walk.
“Well?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level.
“Well, what?” he grumbled, tripping over an uneven patch of stones.
“Nevermind,” she said instead, darting ahead before remembering her passenger and sprinting back. “Sorry,” she laughed again.
“What’s got you so excited, anyway?” he asked, his pace speeding up marginally.
She smiled to herself. “Just the thing I’ve been planning for weeks,” she chirped.
“Yes, I know. What thing?” he asked, eyes glancing at their surroundings then back at her.
“You’ll see,” she sang, pushing open the door to the small park. Ketterdam didn’t have many patches of grassy area to boast about, but Inej and Wylan had found the little plot of land barred a week ago, when he’d been explaining to her all about shooting stars.
“What’s this?” Kaz asked in a usual raspy voice. Maybe it was a bit rougher than usual, but she didn’t think anything of it. He probably just felt a little lost. He didn’t seem to recognize the area surrounding the park, so maybe he was just nervous about being somewhere new.
“Come on,” she said, leading him over to a small tree that hung over an already spread out blanket. “Can you sit down?”
He looked at her as if she were going insane. “What?”
“Can you sit down? On the ground, I mean,” she clarified, hopping over to where the blanket lay across the grassy patch.
“Okay?” he said in a questioning tone, using his cane to lower himself down onto the blanket she’d swiped from Wylan’s closet. He settled himself down, his gloved hands wrapping around the handle of his cane almost protectively. “What’s this?” he asked, picking up the glass she’d set down.
“An eyeglass,” she said simply, deliberately ignoring the obvious question.
His left eyebrow rose. “Yes. I know. What’s it for?” he asked, a hint of annoyance creeping into his volume.
Inej looked quickly over at him, unsure if she’d pushed it too far. She sighed, giving up the game. “I thought we could watch the shooting stars. Wylan said there’s going to be a shower of them tonight.”
His face was impassive for a moment longer than she’d hoped. But right as she started to announce that perhaps this was a bad idea, he nodded.
Just a single nod that eased her flip flopping belly.
She settled back against the tree, their shoulders far enough apart that she couldn’t accidently nudge him farther than he wanted to go.
His body seemed to slide marginally closer to hers, his shoulder pressing lightly against hers.
She looked at him in surprise. “Kaz?” she asked, unsure if she’d imagined it.
He gave her a tight lipped smile and side eye before turning his attention to the sky.
She smiled to herself some more and leaned slightly against his shoulder, craning her neck up so she could see past an unfortunately placed branch.
The first shooting star shot across the length of the horizon quickly, so quickly she nearly missed it because she was busy blinking.
“Whoa,” she found her mouth breathing.
Kaz’s lips quirked.
She let her body slide down the tree trunk, careful not to scratch her back up too much. Her head held up by the tree trunk like a hard pillow, she turned her chin slightly so she could look up at Kaz’s face.
His face seemed frozen entirely except for his quietly raising eyebrows. Every few shooting stars, his eyebrows would jump up for a precious second before settling back down again like nothing had happened.
Inej saw little of the shooting stars for a few minutes, too intent on looking at Kaz’s chiseled jawline from her slightly awkward position.
She turned her focus back to the sky, muttering to herself over the particularly fast or shiny or sparkly stars.
Kaz remained silent, stone faced for the most part, allowing only a few moments of genuine intrigue to leak past his defenses.
Inej watched his hand twitch on his cane. She looked from his face to his hand and back again twice before he did anything.
He reached out his gloved hand to her, as if she were a grand lady at a ball.
She eagerly took it, squeezing his entire hand with hers for a second. Then she let her hand rest gently in his palm down by their sides. Between them.
They sat like that, connected almost entirely, save the barrier of the gloves. She breathed in and out gently. He breathed like a cornered animal.
She looked up at him through her long eyelashes. “We don’t have to hold hands, you know,” she muttered.
Kaz’s jaw tightened. “I want to,” he said. And that was that.
They watched the shooting stars for almost an hour longer before the excitement and marvel of the stars streaming light behind them fled.
Kaz’s leg had to be adjusted a few times in the middle but he stayed where he was, in that exact position the entirety of the shooting star show.
He looked down at her.
She looked up at him. “Yes?” she asked.
“That was nice,” he said in a low voice, as if it would be the end of the world if someone walked by them and heard him say such a thing.
“I’m glad you thought so,” she chimed in triumphantly.
They sat there, holding hands for a few minutes more before he let go entirely, tucking his gloved fingers into his pants pockets.
Progress. Definitely progress, she thought to herself cheerfully.
They breathed together for longer.
Inej let herself be lulled into a sense that everything would be alright.