(no subject)

[everymonstrousthing]

They were always, he supposes, creatures of habit. In Ketterdam, they had coffee houses and food places they preserved and most evenings that weren't spent at the Crow Club ended together in Kaz's rooms in Per Haskell's house. Her company was always what he preferred, what he sought out. Now, they're living together, without any prior discussion. He has nothing in the apartment downstairs. All of his clothes are here, his books, everything.

Home is wherever she decides to be.

One particular habit that he's developed is that he doesn't go to bed until she's home. He sits and watches television or reads until she's home. Tonight, he's sitting with his feet propped on the sill of an open window, book open across his knees, cigarette between his lips. He's been smoking since just after Jordie died but, here, it's become just another habit.

He smokes. He reads. He waits for his girl to come home.

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[the_wraith]

He's not wearing gloves, but she is. She likes her bare hands better, likes letting her fingertips guide her through dark spaces and sheer climbs. But this city is dirtier and smarter. If the police care enough, they can identify you by fingerprint, strand of hair, a chip of nail. One day, inevitably, the police will care enough about them, so she's started to train herself to thin gloves with soft plastic nubs at the tips, just like her shoes back home.

She pauses to take them off and slip them into a pocket of her vest. His hands feel warm in hers.

"Quiet night," she says, in a tone of voice that says nothing good. It's been too quiet for her taste since those thugs carried off that girl, right in front of her. But that's a knot too big for the two of them to unravel. It still bothers her though, in the back of her mind.

She hops into the room proper.

[everymonstrousthing]

When touching, he had taught himself to focus on the things that make her her. The texture of her skin.The warmth of it. The shape of her vines. If he focuses on those things, on her solid heat, black spots don't dance in the corners of his eyes. With her hands still in his, he draws her into his lap. He feels a need for closeness right then, with all of the things that they hear are happening these days.

Some nights, he wakes suddenly, sure that he was dreaming that she was gone.

"You're home now," he says.

[the_wraith]

"Mm," she noises in agreement. He's been doing so well recently, getting so much better with touch. She's mindful not to push for more than he can give, feeling always like they're walking a tightrope. Must maintain perfect balance. Too much one way or the other and you fall. You don't stumble; you fall and maybe never get back up.

But whenever he pulls her closer, she indulges. She's small and pliant, fits easily into his lap, curled up with her head on his shoulder. Cigarette smoke clings to his sweater and it reminds her, briefly, of her father.

"What were you reading?"

[everymonstrousthing]

"One of those novels with space and ships and travel," he says, curling his arms loosely around her waist to hold her in his lap. Like movies, he experiments with novels, reading anything he wouldn't have been able to get his hands on in Ketterdam. "Haven't decided if I like it yet."

[the_wraith]

"Read to me?" There's such a comfort to the sound of his voice. It's not smooth and sweet or deep and rolling. It scrapes and rasps. But it's his voice and so perfectly suited to him that it's beautiful. She'd know his voice anywhere. "Just a little?"

[everymonstrousthing]

He arranges himself around her, heels of his hands resting against her so that he can hold the book open, thumbing back to a passage that he'd particularly liked, describing a battle in space. He leans his cheek against her hair, breathing in the scent of her, the cold air clinging to her hair, the city, the scent of her underneath it. He feels a little self-conscious, reading aloud but, as ever, as always, there's no way that he can deny her anything.

Absently, at the end of a chapter, he turns his head and presses a kiss against her hairline.

[the_wraith]

She sighs at the kiss, her body relaxing, melting against him. She's small, so much smaller than him, and thank the saints otherwise she'd feel guilty for becoming little more than dead weight on him. Her hand finds its way to his side, playing with the heavy knit of his sweater idly.

"Everyone's always fighting," she remarks when he pauses. "Why can't there just be simple stories?"

[everymonstrousthing]

"I suppose there must be," he says, voice low, pitched just for her ears. His lips brush her forehead again, his hand skimming down the line of her spine to rest against her ass for a moment. It's been nearly two months. He know her weight by heart. "Do you want to go to bed?"

[the_wraith]

"Not in real life." Which was precisely why she wants them in her fantasy.

The warmth of his hand down her back, on her ass, is enough to take her from that train of thought. She tilts her head back so her nose bumps at his chin and she presses a light kiss there. "Are you coming with me?"

[everymonstrousthing]

Kaz doesn't justify that with a response. He drops the book on the floor and puts his feet down on the ground and then he stands, hoisting her into his arms with very little difficulty. For a moment, he struggles - he has the strongest sense memory of her blood soaking through his shirt. Still, that only lasts as long as it takes to duck his head and take a kiss.

[the_wraith]

She has no such memory. The bare, broken fragments of her consciousness from that event are lost to the farthest recesses of her mind, blended and diluted to feelings only. She's free to dissolve into giggles, muffled by his quick kiss.

She wraps her arms around his neck -- long sleeves against the bare skin -- and pulls herself toward his lips.

[everymonstrousthing]

Light as she is, he won't be able to keep this up forever and they both know it. Still kissing her, he steers them in the direction of the bedroom and their wide white bed. Once there, Kaz sets her down as gently as he can manage.

"Inej," he says, taking another kiss, pausing to strip off t-shirt and sweater as one. "Would you..." His cheeks flush furiously. "Would you undress for me?@

He's never asked for this before. But he wants it. Badly

[the_wraith]

She hesitates, eyes wide, and hates herself for that second of pause. It's not that she's set on giving Kaz whatever he wants. But he's asking, blushing, making a move. She doesn't want him to doubt himself now.

But the memory of Saint Valentine's Day still pops into her mind now and then, as well as the fear of moving too fast. And then there's the other memories that she doesn't allow to come up.

But she wants him. She always has. And she wants to give him this.

Without a word, she draws herself up to kneel on the bed and starts to remove her clothes.

[everymonstrousthing]

She's seen him naked before. Not fully, not until they came here, but they've been living in the same space for months and he's made no pretence at modesty, spent no time hiding from her. He strips off jeans and underwear and then he just watches as she strips.

"It's stupid," he says, softly, roughly. "I feel like I ought to...avert my eyes or something."

He doesn't want to look anywhere but straight at her.

[the_wraith]

He's distracting. That helps, to have her focus on the strong lines of his body rather than think about her own, but it makes her fingers slower in their work. Her jacket's gone, as well as the shirt under it. She toes off her shoes and is undoing her belt when he speaks.

"Kaz," she breathes out, a smile forming around his name. "This is for you. Don't look away."

[everymonstrousthing]

He sits down on the edge of the bed, his eyes dropping down to watch the movements of quick, slim fingers on her belt buckle. He swallows, dark eyes flicking back up to her face. He finds himself wanting to stare at the swell of her breasts, the revealed flat muscle of her belly. He blushes. He doesn't look away.

[the_wraith]

It's different. She feels that, in some small part of her brain, but she has to keep reminding herself of it, too. The men who came to the Menagerie and watched her undress were not the sort of men who would blush. Heleen never gave her to those.

This is Kaz, not a job. He sees her.

She swallows hard all the same and slides her pants down. Her underwear -- bra and panties both -- are black but cotton. Nothing special at all.

[everymonstrousthing]

He has never seen her with these few clothes on. He's seen her ready for bed, her long bare legs. He's seen her shoulders, her arms. But never like this. Still looking up at her, he reaches out and grazes his fingers against the bare skin of her belly, up to the curve of her breast.

"Can I...?" Kaz Brekker would never have asked for permission before; he probably still wouldn't now. Anywhere but here. He'd wait for Inej's word until the end of the world.

[the_wraith]

A part of her wishes he wouldn't ask. She's used to the taking. It's almost easier, in a way. She never felt a part of anything that happened at the Menagerie. She was never a participant; all she had to do was turn off her mind and things were done to her.

Thinking that was the way it should be and now knowing that it didn't have to be... the sharpness of that difference hurt.

She nods, then remembers to speak. "Yes," she says. "I'll say if I want you to stop."

[everymonstrousthing]

He believes her, trusts that she will. He knows that her experience of this must be a dark, hurting thing and, more than anything, he wants anything that happens between them to be something full of light and air. A ladder to climb. Kneeling isn't going to work for him so he moves, shuffles closer and thanks one god or another for the height difference and how it serves him now, even sitting. His reaction to her body is obvious but he ignores himself, for the moment, focusing on her.

Both hands skim, light, up her sides, thumb brushing the scar that was left behind after that day on the docks. Nina wasn't a healer, after all. He covers both breasts with the palms of his hands, squeezing lightly, experimentally. She's so, so warm under his hands, her skin firm and soft. It's the easiest thing in the world to keep reminding himself that she's alive and he's alive and this is something he's been dreaming about for years.

[the_wraith]

She fights to keep her breathing even, calm, and mostly succeeds. The squeeze coaxes a tiny gasp from her, one that is immediately followed by a soft, embarrassed laugh.

Inej is the one who's supposed to know how to do this, isn't she? She's supposed to be the one guiding, helping him.

Gently, her eyes fixed on Kaz's face, Inej places her hands atop his. She guides his fingers in slow, gentle circles around her nipples. Her body responds instantly.

[everymonstrousthing]

She laughs and it makes Kaz laugh, at how ridiculous it is that he feels this nervous when it's her he's touching. When they've been living so intimately, so closely, since February. The way she looks at him has weight. He lets her guide his fingers, a throb of arousal starting in his belly when he feels her nipples stiffen through thin fabric. He traces them with the pads of his thumbs.

"Can you..." He squeezes again, and then he leans in, pressing a light kiss against the slope of one breast, down, his lips brushing her nipple through her bra, tongue darting to press against it through cotton. "Could you take this off?"

[the_wraith]

This time she stifles the gasp, but it's a near thing. She has too much control over her own body to shudder at the touch of his tongue, but she feels her body humming with energy, nervous, aroused.

She needs something to steady her. She needs to be closer to him.

Licking her lips, Inej nods but first slides forward. She settles herself on his lap, her knees on either side of his hips, and the warmth of his body, the smell of him mingling with the faint scent of night air and cigarettes clears her head. Inej reaches behind her to find the clasp of her bra, lets it slip off without hesitation.

[everymonstrousthing]

She strips it off and Kaz's breath catches at the sight of her. Her weight in his lap is centering, focusing, even if it does put her closer to his cock. He's humiliatingly aware of himself, of how much he wants her. His hands slide back up her sides again (warm, she's so warm), cupping her breasts and squeezing harder this time, more sure of himself. He squeezes her nipples gently between his fingers and then he leans in and presses a kiss to the curve of her bare breast. Her skin is soft, the scent of her skin sharp and particular. His lips part again and he traces her nipple with the tip of her tongue before glancing up at her.

"Okay?"

[the_wraith]

"Mmhm."

It occurs to her only then that there's no reason for her to hold back. They can't go too far; she doesn't want them to have another incident like on Valentine's Day. But biting back moans and holding back shivers is pointless.

This is Kaz.

"It feels good, Kaz." The gentle roughness in her voice surprises her, but she doesn't try to hide it now. "Don't stop."