For Inej

[everymonstrousthing]

With his cane in his hand, he feels more like himself again. More solid on his feet. He hadn't seen her since Valentine's Day, mostly because he's been avoiding her. There's only so much humiliation that he's willing to stomach. He might have given her all of the peace in the world, if it wasn't for the fact that he can't stop thinking about the warm press of her mouth on his.

There's a bakery just down the road from Dimera that does small fruit cakes not a million miles away from things she would have liked in Ketterdam. He's got a box tied with twine in one hand so he raps on her door with the head of his cane.

He ignores an uncharacteristic flutter of nerves.

Comments

[everymonstrousthing]

He's so painfully grateful to here right then that he wants nothing more than to break down completely, in a sobbing mess that he knows he won't be able to pull himself back from. He's barely ever wept even a scatter of tears for Jordie. Why break the habit of what feels, at least, like a lifetime? She sets towards him and that, right there, is more give than he's got any right to expect. And then she speaks and his heart feels raw and bloody, open to the air, like she can see it beating right in front of him.

"I want that," he says, voice little more than a rasp. "More than anything." He looks up and, this time, he doesn't wipe his face. He lets her see his damp face, gives her that, too. "I want you. More than anything."

It costs nothing to admit. It costs everything.

[the_wraith]

She's keenly aware of how much she thinks that touch would be a comfort right now, to him and to her, and how much of him she cannot touch. That's part of what she wants: that intimacy, to be able to cradle his head against her shoulder and let him cry into the crook of her neck. But it's not an option. She has to figure something else out. It's a challenge she's willing to take on, now.

She won't admit it, but there is, yes, a second of doubt. Kaz has built himself up as this monstrous thing, terrifying because all believe that he will, absolutely, do whatever terrible, monstrous thing is necessary to get things done. What would this be, in the grand scheme of things? How small, how insignificant? A few tears, a story about a brother that didn't exist? The Barrel was full of those kinds of stories. It didn't have to be Kaz's.

But Inej dismisses the thought immediately, with abhorrence. Maybe Dirtyhands is master of terrible things, but what sort of terrible person would she be to think that this is a lie, a game, to think he is capable of such a thing? It disgusts her that the thought it even there for a second. She forcibly pushes it from her mind.

Carefully, and she always moves with care, conscious of every inch of herself, Inej places herself on his lap. Cloth to cloth. She puts her hands on his shoulders, careful that her fingers do not brush against his collar, go anywhere near his skin. But her thumbs find the line of his collarbones under the pressed cotton of his dress shirt, gently rub against them.

"I thought you were being hard," she admits. "I thought I disgusted you. Being weak disgusted you."

[everymonstrousthing]

Her weight over him, on to of him, her hands on his shoulders, thumbs skimming the lines of bones through white cotton, and she's not wearing gloves, of course, so he can feel the heat of her palms through his shirt. He lets out a sound, a little breath, broken, relived. He lets his head fall back for a moment, eyes closed, still stinging. His own hands come up and skim, just barely, along the length of her thighs, up to her hips. He holds on to her so lightly.

"I don't think I knew," he says. "Before." He looks up at her, how beautiful she looks with all of the light in the room behind her. "It was that day in the harbour."

He doesn't say it, can't say it, but he knows that she'll know what he means. Her blood soaking through his shirt.