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likelylarks · 5 months

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sleeping beauty au

idk if i succeeded on the esp part, but i’ve thought about this every time i’ve watched this movie in the last three years

on ao3

“Once upon a time, there was a little prince named Daniel. His father, the king, had told him that one day he would be king and that one day he would get married to a beautiful prince. Prince Daniel wanted to run and play and didn’t care about getting married. One day, though, his father took him to meet another prince. This other prince was just a baby and Prince Daniel didn’t see what was so great about a baby.

What was the baby’s name?

Right, sorry.

“Prince Daniel was introduced to the new baby, Prince Max. The king told Prince Daniel that one day, he would marry Prince Max. Prince Daniel didn’t really want to do that because he thought he wouldn’t get to go outside and play anymore once he got married. The king told him that they would only get married when Prince Daniel and Prince Max were older and didn’t play outside anymore, so Daniel thought it might be okay. Prince Daniel then watched with amazement when three fairies appeared to give magical gifts to the baby prince.

“The first fairy gave Prince Max the gift of beauty and said that Prince Max would have the prettiest, bluest eyes in the whole world. The second fairy gave Prince Max the gift of song and said that Prince Max would grow up to sing the most lovely songs. But, before the third fairy could give her gift, a loud thunderous noise rang out through the room.

“A fairy dressed all in black -

And with scary horns.

“A fairy dressed all in black and with scary horns and a raven sitting on her shoulder appeared. The fairy was an evil fairy that didn’t like people being happy and she was mad that she hadn’t been invited to the celebration for Prince Max. She got so angry that she cursed Prince Max. When Prince Max was nineteen -

Daddy, the movie says when Princess Aurora is sixteen.

Yes, bug, but my story is going to be when the prince is nineteen, okay?

I guess so.

Do you want me to keep going?

Pim nodded and snuggled further into Daniel’s side.

“When Prince Max was nineteen, he would prick his finger on a magical spinning wheel and die!”

Pim jumped in alarm before settling back down. He scowled at Daniel, little brow furrowed.

Daniel kissed the top of his blond head in apology.

“The evil fairy laughed when she saw how upset everyone was and then disappeared with another loud noise. Prince Daniel thought she was super scary and was glad that she was gone. He didn’t want Prince Max to die though - even if he didn’t really want to marry Prince Max.

“Luckily, no one else wanted Prince Max to die either and the third fairy hadn’t given her gift yet. The evil fairy’s magic was really strong so the third fairy couldn’t get rid of the curse entirely but she could change it a little bit. The third fairy changed the curse so that when Prince Max pricked his finger on the magic spinning wheel, he would just fall asleep. The fairy said that Prince Max would wake up when someone gave him True Love’s Kiss.

Pim, just real quick. Should you kiss people when they’re asleep?

No, because Papa says that you should always ask before you go into other people’s personal space.

Pim said ‘personal space’ slowly, like he was trying to recall each syllable correctly.

That’s right, but just for the story, we’re going to let it be okay. But just for the story.

Just for the story!

“Even though Prince Max wasn’t going to die from the curse anymore, Prince Max’s parents and the three fairies were still worried about keeping Max safe from the evil fairy. The three fairies said they would take Prince Max and hide him away while he was growing up so that he would be safe from the evil fairy. Prince Daniel was glad that Prince Max would be safe.

“Over the next nineteen years, both Prince Daniel and Prince Max grew up. Prince Daniel grew up into a very handsome prince that was good at sword fighting and liked to ride his horse very fast through the forest.

“Prince Max had grown up in a small cottage in the middle of the woods with the three fairies. The three fairies had not used magic for nineteen years so that the evil fairy wouldn’t be able to find them. Max didn’t know that he was a prince. He thought he was just an ordinary boy. Max had grown up to be just as beautiful as the first fairy had promised and he sang so prettily that sometimes the birds would stop to listen to him sing.

Daddy, Papa can’t sing.

Daniel stifled a laugh.

Just for the story, Pim.

Okay.

“The day of Max’s nineteenth birthday arrived. The three fairies wanted to do something special for Max’s last birthday in the cottage so they decided to bake him a cake and a brand new fancy shirt. They sent Max out to pick some berries so he would be surprised when he got back to the cottage.

“The fairies were not very good at baking or sewing without magic but they tried their best because they loved Max very much. Eventually, they gave up and used magic because they wanted everything to be perfect for Max. They used magic to make the cake and clean the cottage and make Max’s new shirt. Two of the fairies couldn’t decide on what color Max’s shirt should be so they kept using magic to change the color of it. They were making such a racket that one of the evil fairy’s spies saw the cottage and went to report back to the evil fairy that he had found the place where the fairies had been hiding.

“Max didn’t know that any of that was happening. He was out in the woods, singing to himself and picking more berries. Max had not told the three fairies but he’d been having many lovely dreams where a handsome prince came and found him at the cottage and wanted to dance with him and kiss him and marry him.

Daddy, why did Prince Max want to get married? I think I would like to just live in the forest and eat berries and play with animals.

Well, Prince Max really liked living in the forest but he was a little bit lonely. He wanted a best friend, someone that would make him laugh and spend time with him.

So, he just wanted a friend. Not a husband.

Well, ideally the person that you marry is your best friend. Then you have a friend and someone that you can cuddle with all the time.

Like how you always hug Papa whenever you can?

Yeah, just like that.

Papa is your best friend?

He is.

“Prince Max was picking berries and telling the animals about his dreams. He started to dance around, pretending he was waltzing with a handsome prince.

Daddy, what’s waltzing?

It’s like slow dancing. The kind of dancing that is in all of your princess movies.

“Prince Daniel was riding through the forest when he heard the most beautiful singing ever. He immediately turned his horse toward the sound, to try and find the person that was singing so sweetly. He wanted to thank the person that was singing for making him feel better. Prince Daniel’s father had reminded him that he was to be married to Prince Max but Prince Daniel still didn’t want to get married. He especially didn’t want to get married to a stranger. He wanted to get married to his best friend.

Just like Prince Max!

Just like Prince Max.

“Prince Daniel raced toward the singing and eventually came across a beautiful boy that had been singing. Daniel dismounted and he couldn’t help himself. He joined in the dance with the boy and started to sing along with him. Even though he’d never heard the song before, he felt like he knew the words. He felt like he’d seen the beautiful boy before.

“They danced together for a little bit before Max realized that someone was dancing with him and he jumped away from the stranger. He told the man that he wasn’t supposed to be talking to strangers.

“Prince Daniel knew that was smart but he also felt like he had met this beautiful boy before and so he couldn’t help joking that they had already met - once upon a dream, like the boy had been singing about.

“Max thought the stranger was charming and handsome, so he let the stranger lead him into another dance. As they danced, they also started to talk. The stranger was very funny and made Max laugh a lot. He also asked questions about the things that Max liked and asked for his opinions on things. Max liked that the stranger listened intently to everything that Max said and gave thoughtful answers to Max’s own questions.

“Daniel thought that Max was the most lovely person he had ever met. He thought Max’s laugh sounded even better than his singing. Daniel wanted to hear Max talk all day, so he kept asking Max questions so he could keep hearing his voice. Max had a lovely way of explaining everything. Max also had the most beautiful blue eyes in the whole world.

“As the day got later, Max remembered that he’d originally been picking berries. The three fairies would probably be wondering where the berries they’d asked for were. So, even though he didn’t want to, he pulled away from the stranger - though it didn’t feel right to call him a stranger anymore - and told him that he had to go.

Daddy?

Yes, Pim?

How does Max know that they’re fairies when they haven’t used magic in front of him.

Um, they told Max. He didn’t believe them at first but they were all very bad at doing things normally so Max thought they were probably telling the truth because they were used to doing all chores with magic.

Oh. Am I a fairy actually? Because I am bad at picking up my toys.

Daniel hummed thoughtfully.

It’s a good idea, Pim. I’ll have to ask Papa.

Because Papa knows everything.

Papa is very smart, yes. So, he’ll know.

“Daniel felt very sad when the beautiful boy told him that he had to go. He asked if he could see him again. The boy told him that he could come to the cottage in the forest later tonight. Daniel promised that he would see the boy again and then watched him run off. He felt even more sad as he watched the boy leave. Daniel knew that he wanted to spend every day with the boy, so he got back on his horse and rode home to his castle to tell his father that he would get married. Not to Prince Max but to the beautiful boy he’d met in the forest.

“Max ran home, filled with joy. He was so excited to see the other man later tonight. He called out before he got back to the cottage and when he burst in he saw the three fairies standing in a very clean cottage next to a magnificent cake and a new shirt that would fit Max very nicely. Max was so happy to see his birthday surprises and he couldn’t keep the man he’d met a secret anymore. He excitedly told the three fairies about the handsome stranger and how they’d danced together. He told them that he wanted to marry the man.

“The three fairies got very quiet. They didn’t want to disappoint Max but he had to know the truth. They told him that he couldn’t marry the man from the forest because he was engaged to Prince Daniel.

Daddy, what’s engaged?

Like when you promise to marry someone but aren’t actually married yet.

“Max couldn’t believe what the fairies were telling him. He couldn’t marry a prince because he was just an ordinary boy. The fairies told him the truth, that Max was actually Prince Max. They told him that they were taking Max back to his parents’ castle tonight so that he could reunite with them and start acting as the prince. Max felt like his heart was breaking. He didn’t understand why the fairies had lied to him for nineteen years. He was so upset by the lies and also because now he wouldn’t get to see the handsome stranger again - not even to say goodbye.

“Max ran upstairs to try and calm down. He knew the fairies were just trying to protect him but it still really hurt his feelings.

Daniel looked down at Pim, who let out another huff.

What’s up, buddy?

I don’t like that Prince Max is upset. I want Prince Max to be happy all the time.

Me too, but sometimes our feelings get hurt. How would you make Prince Max feel better if you could?

I would give him a big hug!

Yeah?

Because whenever my feelings are hurt, you and Papa give me big hugs and it makes me feel better.

Daniel pulled Pim into a hug. Pim wrapped his little arms around Daniel, squeezing as tight as he could.

Big hugs! Do you feel a little bit better, buddy? Do you want to hear more? Or be done for tonight?

Keep going! I want to hear about Prince Daniel making Prince Max feel not upset anymore.

“The day was starting to get late and the three fairies told Max it was time to go to the castle. Max put on his brand new shirt and let the fairies give him a little slice of cake before they left the cottage. He still felt sad as they left. He hoped that he would run into the handsome stranger on the way to the castle but he didn’t.

“The fairies led Prince Max upstairs to wait for the meeting with his parents. They left him to go prepare the king and queen. Max cried a little while he was waiting. Everything was changing so fast.

Prince Max had big feelings!

Yep, just like you sometimes.

“Prince Max heard a strange noise coming from behind him. He turned and saw a bright light that made him feel a little dizzy and strange. The only thing he could think about was following the light. He followed the light up a secret set of stairs to a dark room. The only thing in the room was a spinning wheel. Prince Max felt like he had to touch the spinning wheel. He couldn’t stop himself and so he reached out and touched one finger to the point of the spinning wheel. He immediately collapsed and was asleep.

“The three fairies had gone back to get Prince Max but he wasn’t in the room. They saw the secret stairs that Max had gone up and flew up the stairs to follow him. They were too late to stop Prince Max from pricking his finger and they watched in horror as Max collapsed, asleep.

“A mean laugh started echoing around the room. The three fairies saw the evil fairy standing over Prince Max. The evil fairy thought that she had won. But, her spy had seen Prince Max dancing with the stranger and she wanted to capture the stranger, too. She knew that if the stranger found Prince Max, then he would wake up. She vanished to go try and find the stranger.

Daddy, where is the stranger? Where is Prince Daniel?

I’m coming back to him buddy, hold your horses.

I don’t have any horses, Daddy.

“Prince Daniel had left his meeting with Max and raced back to his own castle to tell his father that he wanted to marry the beautiful stranger he’d met in the forest. His father had told him that he couldn’t because he had to marry Prince Max and reminded him that it was Prince Max’s birthday today, so he would be returning home. Prince Daniel didn’t want to hear it and didn’t want to get roped into going to the other castle to wait for Prince Max. So, he leapt back on his horse and went back into the forest to try and find the cottage.

“Prince Daniel found the cottage but it looked cold and empty. He entered anyway but he felt that something was wrong. When he went inside, he found the evil fairy waiting for him. It had been many years since Prince Daniel had seen the evil fairy but he remembered how scared she had made him. Some of the evil fairy’s minions jumped on Prince Daniel and tied him up. He tried to fight them off but there were too many.

“The evil fairy recognized Prince Daniel and laughed. She had expected a peasant instead. She transported Prince Daniel to her castle and threw him in the dungeon. She taunted him with a magical vision of the beautiful boy. She told him that the boy was Prince Max and that he’d pricked his finger and fallen under the sleeping curse. She told Prince Daniel that she would let him go, but only after he was very old. So, even if he could wake Prince Max up, they couldn’t be together. It made Prince Daniel feel very scared and sad. It also made him angry because he wanted to protect Prince Max.

“The evil fairy got bored of being mean to Prince Daniel, so she eventually left him alone. The three fairies appeared in his cell. They had put the whole of Prince Max’s kingdom to sleep so that they wouldn’t know Prince Max had been cursed. They heard Prince Daniel’s father talking in his sleep about Prince Daniel finding a beautiful boy in the forest and they realized that Prince Daniel had been the stranger that Max had met. They had seen the evil fairy kidnap Prince Daniel and went to help rescue him.

“They gave Prince Daniel a new, magical shield and sword to help him fight his way out of the evil fairy’s castle and then unlocked his cell. Prince Daniel fought his way past all of the evil fairy’s minions and spells. The three fairies had also brought Prince Daniel’s horse so he was able to ride his horse out of the castle, dodging the evil fairy’s attacks.

“As Prince Daniel fought and rode towards Prince Max’s castle, he heard the evil fairy yelling out another curse. All the land between Prince Daniel and the castle suddenly grew over with sharp thorns. Prince Daniel was able to use his magic shield and sword to cut through the thorns. It was hard work and his clothes got stuck some, but the fairies helped him get free so he could keep going forward.

“The evil fairy saw that Prince Daniel had gotten through the thorns and got even more angry. She teleported in front of him and then started to transform into a massive dragon. She breathed fire at Prince Daniel and he did his best to avoid getting burnt. He wasn’t sure how he could even get close enough to the dragon to kill it so he could rescue Prince Max. The fairies had an idea, though, and so enchanted his sword so that it would aim true. Prince Daniel thought about how lovely Prince Max had turned out to be and hoped that he could throw the sword far enough to reach the dragon. With all his strength, he threw the sword and it flew true and hit the dragon in the heart.

“The dragon stumbled over and fell down into the castle’s moat. When Prince Daniel looked over the side, there was only a scrap of cloth and the sword. The evil fairy had been defeated. The thorns all went away with the death of the fairy but Prince Daniel knew that he still needed to get to Prince Max.

“He rushed into the castle, noticing all the people sleeping. The three fairies led him up the stairs to where Prince Max was sleeping. Prince Daniel saw him lying there. His shirt was blue. Prince Daniel thought that Max’s eyes were a prettier blue than that.

“Prince Daniel was nervous. He didn’t know if True Love’s Kiss would work. He hoped it would because he really loved the person that he had gotten to know. So, Prince Daniel leaned down and kissed Prince Max.

Did he wake up?

What do you think?

Yes!

Pim’s smile was radiant.

“Prince Max opened his eyes and the first thing he did was smile, when he saw Prince Daniel. It really had been True Love’s Kiss. Prince Daniel introduced himself properly and Prince Max did the same. Prince Daniel thought it was very lucky, that the person he wanted to marry turned out to be the person he was supposed to marry anyway.

“Prince Daniel kissed Prince Max again and then they both went downstairs to see Prince Max’s parents.

Pim yawned widely.

Finally, Daniel thought.

“Prince Max greeted his parents, who were incredibly happy to see him again. Prince Daniel loved how happy they were. Prince Daniel’s father was confused because he thought Prince Daniel wanted to marry someone from the forest but Prince Daniel explained that they were the same person as Prince Max.

“So, with the people of the land watching and the kings and queens of the two lands looking on, Prince Max danced with Prince Daniel. Prince Daniel had never wanted to get married before, but he thought it would be the most wonderful thing with Prince Max.

“He was right. And they lived happily ever after.”

That was a good story, Daddy.

Good, I’m glad you liked it.

Daniel tucked Pim into bed, kissing him softly on his forehead. He stood up to see Max leaning against the doorframe.

How much of that did you hear?

Not all of it. Jules and I got back from his practice around the time Pim was saying that I could not sing. I still heard lots of you calling yourself handsome.

I also called you beautiful a lot, if you’ll recall.

The most beautiful blue eyes in the world, you said.

Well, it’s true.

Max rolled said beautiful blue eyes and tugged Daniel into a kiss.

Daniel smiled against Max’s mouth.

Definitely True Love.

Max snorted at Daniel’s words but drew him into another kiss anyway.

#maxiel #daniel ricciardo #max verstappen #larks writes #i rewatched sleeping beauty last night and then wrote this at work today #it was supposed to be shorter but oh well #if you don't like it i'm sorry but life is short!

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bunnyscar · 7 months

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The Siliven's Request: Part 16

Pim woke with a groan. Not only did he have a bad headache, his whole body felt sore and stiff, as if he had been pulled and pushed around for hours. The worst was the pain in his arm, however, an ache starting near his shoulder that occasionally sent stabs of pain radiating down to his hand. Wait, his arm… He sat upright with a gasp, remembering the wild animal that had suddenly jumped in front of the travelers’ wagon, remembering how he had leaped at the beast to attack it. It had grabbed his arm with its sharp teeth, and he had pummeled water magic at it to make it suffocate. There had been pain…but he could not remember clearly what happened after that.

Had he defeated the animal? Were Alf and the others all right? He glanced about himself, noting the wooden boards of the wagon beneath him, the blue sky above, the swaying motion, the clop clop of horses’ hooves, and the familiar faces of the travelers he and Alf had joined. He was sitting in the wagon with the rest of the travelers.

“Pim! You’re awake!” a voice cried next to him. Pim turned his head and stared in surprise at Sara, who was also sitting in the wagon, right next to Pim.

“S-Sara, what are you doing here? What happened? Is everyone all right? The animal--” he stammered.

“Ah, you’re up,” Alf said. He sat on the other side of Pim, a smile of relief lighting his face. “Yes, everyone is fine and the wild animal is dead, thanks to you. But you’ve been out for three days,” he said in concern.

“Thank goodness everyone's okay,” Pim sighed. Then giving Sara a quizzical expression, he asked, “But what are you doing here, Sara?” She quickly explained how she and Manas had come upon the group, and how Manas had made Pim’s metal arm.

“Manas...did this?” Pim said blankly, staring down at the arm. He lifted it stiffly, awkwardly, wincing slightly.

“Does it hurt?” Sara asked in concern. “Kevin, the healer, did say it would probably ache for several months…” she murmured.

Pim grunted and said, "Yeah, it hurst a bit." Glancing around again, he asked, “So where is Manas?”

Alf nodded to the side of the wagon. “Manas insisted on walking. He said he’s not used to riding on anything," he explained.

The Siliven walked slightly ahead of the wagon, his long legs easily keeping up with the moving vehicle. Watching Manas, Pim clenched his remaining hand. “Sara, when you left us, you were traveling with Manas again?”

Sara hesitated, then nodded. “Pim, please. Manas isn’t like many of the Silivens you’re thinking of,” she started to say.

Pim frowned and turned to her. “Can you really say he’s different? That he hasn’t killed any humans? Can you really say he’s not a murderer and a liar?” he snapped.

Sara bit her lip. Pim sighed and said, “I’m sorry, Sara. You may be able to look past the fact that he’s a Siliven and forgive him, but I can’t. Even if he did give me this arm. I’m not going to stop him from traveling with us, but I still don’t trust him. And honestly, I don’t think you should either.”

There was a tense silence, Pim glaring at the bottom of the wagon, Sara clenching her skirt in her hands. Alf glanced uneasily between the two, while the other travelers, who had overheard, muttered with each other. Finally, Sara unclenched her hands and looked up with determination into Pim’s face. Quietly, but firmly, she said, “I’m grateful you want to give me advice, and I understand you’re telling me to not trust Manas because that’s what you believe. But I’m still going to trust him. And I hope that eventually you’ll be able to give him another chance.”

Pim looked away and muttered, “Don’t get your hopes up.” After this, they fell into an uncomfortable silence, that was not broken until the wagon stopped for the night.

Link to part 15:

#fantasy #original story #siliven

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invisiblegarters · 9 months

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Dangerous Romance Ep 5

When last we watched, Sailom failed to tutor Kang into passing all of his classes and so he was fired. Everyone was very sad and acted like one of them had gone away to war and they would never be able to speak again rather than, you know, just talking to each other.

Sailom dabbled in escorting and the top of Kang's head almost came off, Pim saved the day but Kang couldn't have that, o no, so he got Best Grandma to rehire Sailom and BG, seeing the writing on the wall (or the crush all over her grandson's face, more like), decided that the only way that Sailom could efficiently tutor Kang was to move in. Let the cohabitation hijinks commence!

Kang, acting like it matters: Why does Sailom have to live here?

Pfft literally no one buys this act you're badly putting on.

Oh my god look at these weirdos. You know I have never flung myself on a bed that way before. Usually when I'm exhausted or a bed is super comfy I just throw myself on it face first, lol.

I love that Kang is a clothes horse.

Also we're about to see some spoiled brat again, looks like. Good.

And Dad appears to tell Sailom not to push Kang.

Oop Sailom is in the bathroom Kang's about to show up. Because he already said that Sailom's bathroom time will is going to be both of their bathroom times.

LOL guess Kang meant he planned to shower in front of Sailom rather than the reverse. Bet he still manages to show up during that time.

Kang you are fooling no one playing naked chicken. What in the Ayan shit is this?

With how fast this drama is moving through the progression of this relationship, I expect these two will be sharing a bed by the end of the episode. Mark my words!

This feels very Never Let Me Go. Except in this case there's no daddy "nope my son will take the bus lest he get the idea that he's on your level" to ruin things.

Oh I love Pim. She's such a sweetie.

Aw that awkward moment when you remember high school politics. I mean there are other factors as well but that felt very high school to me.

JUNE. HI. Oh I guess there will not be a GL in this one then huh. Since they probably won't do student/teacher.

Oh no. This would be the worst. I don't know how it is in Thailand but I know people in my highschool used to be really awful to some of the teachers. Some real bully shit.

Perth's hair is so nice.

Pfft did I read somewhere that in Thailand acting is the purview of rich kids unless you want to work two jobs or was that a fever dream? How meta.

Hahaha oh here we go. Except I forgot that Sailom is a little punk. I love him so much, guys. I do.

Oh no is Sailom trying to look good for Kang or for Pim?

My best is Kang. I think Sailom is well aware he has a crush. Kang maybe not so much.

Yeah it's totally for Kang. Oh, honey.

Kang babe I am sorry but Pim just isn't that into you. I could be wrong I guess but View is definitely not playing it like she is.

I would totally hold the lizard. I love reptiles.

Aw now he's all embarrassed.

Am I sensing a return to the escorting to help pay for college plot? Because I still want more of that.

And yes, I agree with Miss Napdao. Although I get why Sailom might feel that he has to continue his tutoring efforts, but I will say that if it's mostly about wanting to be around Kang Sailom should rethink. I am a firm believer in never putting your plans aside because of romantic feelings. Work for yourself first because nine times out of ten, you're the only one who will.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I have no romance in my soul.

I love the ominous music that goes with these two. Like they aren't flirting.

I love the seniors. "Look you two can fight after sports day alright? Just suck it up for now you little shits."

Is that not how it went?

Oh man Sailom's practical reason for choosing Engineering hits a little too close to home.

Uh, Kang. What if he can't actually sing? Just because it was a dream doesn't mean he can actually do the thing, you know. Did we learn nothing from the lizard poop incident.

Also why. In every Thai drama. Why. WHY.

...well at least they didn't make us listen to them sing the entire song raw. Could have been worse. Could have been Sand no I'm not sorry.

Kang. I'm sorry but Pim is 1000% not into you.

SAILOM? Really???

Really? Show. Show. What are you doing. Although I guess it would be a good way to smack some sense into Kang regarding his own feelings - my guess is at some point he's gonna realize he's less upset about Pim liking Sailom than he is about Pim liking Sailom. Hopefully he acts like a complete moron about it because that's fun for me.

Lol okay I have to admit I like these little ads. They're more fun than the usual.

Next week: Sailom's little broken hearted self withdraws. Good for you dude that's what I'd do to. It'll only last five minutes but you know. At least you're not being set up to continuously return to a dude that keeps hurting you, unknowingly or not. Sand.

Yes I'm going to be mad about that forever.

Cute ep, and I promised myself that I would turn my brain off about the easy forgiving of the bullying, so once I did that I enjoyed myself much much more. I'm still hoping that the show actually plans to delve into the more serious topics it keeps flirting with, but even if it doesn't I'm not having a bad time. I do think that Perth and Chimon could handle more, though. Why cast two such strong actors if you're just going to give them work anyone could do?

#dangerous romance #episode 5

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captainmarkone · 3 years

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Chapter One. characters: bucky barnes x reader. warning(s): none for now. introductions first; smut later. summary: being alone with only one friend takes its toll on ones mind. James Barnes is trying to find love, a meaningful connection. good thing he was at a bar the same time as you. a/n: i stan bucky barnes and him needing / wanting the love he deserves! if you see mistakes, no you didn't. mmmkay? credits: lovely divider.

Leaning against the bar, you found your favorite bartender working. Smiling widely, you waved him down.

“Johnny! Come on. I had a long day at work,” you said as he was making his way toward the other end of the bar. He raised his hand, a signal for you to wait.

You groaned softly and drummed your fingers on the wooden bar. Your friends at the usual booth. Every Friday was spent here. A tradition with your friends; co-workers that turned into friends. Practically family. Turning to see the girls laughing, one mouthing “hurry up!” at you.

You grinned and rolled your eyes, continuing to scan the rest of the bar. Eyes landing on a male whose gaze soon caught yours. Staring at each other for a second, you looked away to check the rest of the crowd out. Thankfully, it wasn’t such a full house.

“Okay, what ya want?” Johnny asked, tapping the bar to get your attention.

“Four shots of patron. Two draft beers, one mint julep, and Pim’s Cup. Pleeeeease,” you sang, smiling warmly as Johnny patted your hand and shooed you away. “Thanks, Johnny!”

Turning your head, the male once more caught your gaze, giving you a smile before shifting his eyes to the male he was with. You saw the other male turn in his seat dramatically, staring at you and you held in a laugh. Walking back to the booth where your friends were seated.

He groaned inwardly as Sam made a dramatic turn to face the female he was eyeing. She was cute. Cute enough to have caught her eye. Twice.

When Sam turned back, his grin was wide and he lifted his beer to tip it at him.

“Should go say hi,” Sam said, sipping the beer. Bucky rolled his eyes and looked at his friend. Shaking his head and drinking his own beer.

“No. I will not go and say hi. Because what the hell do I say after that?” Bucky asked, sighing softly. He wasn’t the same ladies man that he was in the 40’s. He was a lot more nervous. And women of this day and age… were scary.

“Man. Go say hi! At least. Say hi to her friends. Make them know you see them, but not the way you see her. Offer to buy them drinks,” Sam offered, and tilted his bottle to Bucky.

All the winter soldier could do was sigh agin. Taking one final sip of his beer and standing. Gaining a little bit of confidence. And he began to stride toward your table.

Your friends had made some comments about the male that made eye contact with you. Seeing it from their seats.

“He’s hot,” they all agreed, laughing as they watched you turn a light shade of pink.

“Oh my god…. He’s fucking coming over,” Ilya said and shifted slightly in her seat as you slowly turned to see him standing next to your booth.

“Good evening ladies. Must be girls night,” he started, smiling at all three of your friends before landing his eyes on you.

“I’m James. And you lovely ladies?” He introduced himself, each of your friends saying their names and introducing themselves. But you were watching him. Now up close. He was… wow.

Feeling you friend nudge you, you cleared your throat and introduced yourself. A smile on your lips as he nodded.

“I’d love to buy your first round of drinks,” James said, nodding at Johnny. “Add to my tab, John!”

James turned to you, smiling. “Might I, uh, get your number? Maybe we can get a drink sometime,” he offered, and you nodded.

“Yeah. Totally,” you said, and dug into his pocket for his phone. Handing it to you unlocked, you created a new contact and put your number in. He even called it to make sure it was yours.

“Great. It was a pleasure meeting you ladies. I’ll text you later. Have a wonderful night out,” James said and walked back to Sam. Paying for his tab and your drinks. He pulled on his leather jacket and winked at you, grinning when you blushed once more. He left the building, his friend lingering to shoot a wink at your friend, Ilya.

“Those two were the hottest men… I’ve ever seen,” Tilly said, laughing as she sipped her drink.

“James looks familiar. So did his friend…. Holy shit!” Amy exclaimed, hitting your arm. “The Winter Soldier! James Barnes! The Avenger!”

The group gasped, watching you closely.

“Y’all. Please stop. You guys act like were gonna date!” You exclaimed, sipping your beer slowly and letting the cold liquid run down your throat.

“Someone’s got a date with an Avenger yall!” Tilly exclaimed, raising her shot glass. You clinked it with hers and down your shot. Groaning at the stinging taste.

But it couldn’t cover the excitement you felt when you felt your phone vibrate and seeing the text from the unknown number which you saved then and there as James.

‘Get home safe. Have a fun night out.’ it read, and Amy, who sat next to you, whooped as she nudges you playfully.

“She got a text!” She exclaimed, the three girls clinking their glasses.

You sat there, feeling those butterflies in your stomach. You haven’t felt those in a long, long time.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barns x you #bucky barnes #james barnes #bucky x you #sebastian stan fanfiction

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feelinglikecleopatra · 3 years

Text

setbacks

so, here goes nothing.

i’ve never posted my writing here before but i’ve been feeling inspired recently and i thought if at least one person likes this it’d do wonders for my at-an-all-time-low-because-of-the-pandemic-and-all-round-hellfire-year self-esteem. it’s a lil somethin’ somethin’ i wrote after re-reading crooked kingdom (and reading the entire works of @anonniemousefics, s/o).

summary: kaz and inej negotiate their demons. a short continuation from the docks scene at the end of ck.

have at it!

high overhead a gull was diving for some unsuspecting tourist’s pretzel but kaz was too distracted by the swing of inej’s hair to notice. he straightened his tie and, with a smile pulling at his mouth, followed her down the quay.

she was flying. while her feet barely touched the boardwalk, kaz struck a more measured pace, matched by the even cadence of his cane. he looked down at his cane, his bad leg, the scars over his knuckles and frowned. she had asked him to meet them, she wanted him to meet them. he repeated the thought over again. she wanted them to meet him. even clad in most of his armour. she was not ashamed so neither should he be.

still, the waters lapped at his feet.

up ahead inej’s voice pitched forward in a flurry of suli spoken into the crook of her mothers neck. kaz understood only snatches at a time but the joy on her face, on that of her parents’ was plain as day. it was a balm after days of distance he hadn’t known how to close.

his gaze flicked to the ship. the answer to the question, how to keep inej? don’t hold her too tightly.

it had been obvious, really. he’d known all along. that didn’t mean it’d be easy to watch her sail across the horizon. he would, watch her go, that is. the memory of her palm, warm and dry and gloriously alive against his, the sign of a deal struck.

“mama, papa, i want you to meet someone.” inej turned and held out her hand to him. the sun was no match for the brightness in her eyes when kaz curled his fingers around hers and stood by her side. “this is kaz.”

“mr. brekker?” her father’s brows were dark and full, the furrow between them a perfect match to the one between inej’s. kaz nodded dumbly, his words lost somewhere in the feel of a bare hand in his. “i think it is you we should thank, no? for bringing us here.”

kaz looked down at his twined fingers and reeled himself back in. “no thanks necessary. your daughter saved my life. more than once, i might add. i’m still settling the debt.” he could feel inej building up to correct him but rather than wait for her to do so he gestured to the city behind them and continued, “since this is your first visit to kerch let me be the one to tell you, welcome to ketterdam—the city of dreams.” and nightmares, he didn’t add. kaz felt certain inej wouldn’t approve of that.

“there’s so much i want to show you,” inej breathed, her smile almost splitting her face.

kaz wondered about that. although he knew (hoped?) she wasn’t ashamed of her life in his city, the battles she had fought and won on the streets and rooftops of the barrel, those weren’t the kinds of things his suli saint would share with her parents.

of course, he had other things to do. between taking over from haskell, setting up his new shop on the lid, and taking full advantage of rollins’ absence, he’d be neck-deep in paperwork and barrel messes for the foreseeable but he spent hours with the ghafa’s just to find out which version of ketterdam inej would let her parents see.

it was a revelation. that inej possessed the ability to walk through ketterdam as if she had no idea of the putrid, degenerate understory that pulsed behind every decadent facade still surprised him. it shouldn’t, not any more, but it did.

it was a terrible deja vu. kaz knew she saw it too. the wide, doe-eyed look of her parents as they took in the canals, the teetering, multi-storey houses rendered in cheerful pastels, the hawkers promising them their wildest fantasies. he tried to unsee it, to see them only as themselves but he, dirtyhands, had seen them now. there was no undoing it. there was no use in undoing it. if he had seen it, so had others.

for the entirety of their walk around the lid, kaz watched inej struggle with how to shatter the illusion without breaking their hearts in the process. between pointing out the landmarks, the sights and smells of ketterdam, she slipped in warnings and precautions, which streets to avoid and when, signs of trouble or crooked business. when they asked her how she knew all this, she joked, “too much time in the wrong company.”

when they sat down for waffles, inej ran out of evasions. the server disappeared behind the counter and all around them the early afternoon thrummed. seizing the privacy of background noise, her mother took her hand, took a breath, and let loose. tears filled the older woman’s eyes, spilled over her lashes, and landed on the ringed tabletop. inej’s father wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and placed his hand atop theirs, love and guilt all too apparent in his dark eyes.

kaz didn’t need to speak suli to know what was happening and he felt himself recoil. he shouldn’t be here. he had no right to witness this. he didn’t want to be witnessing this. inej had offered him her vulnerability time and again, moments he held closer than his most cherished grudges but this was another thing entirely. inej was crying. hot tears rolling down her cheeks. kaz couldn’t breath around the anguish in her voice as she spoke the few words he could understand, “mati en sheva yelu.”

what could she possibly be apologising for?

the ache it caused in his chest almost pinned him to the chair but he pushed against it and rose. if he stayed here he might vomit or throw something and that’s just the opposite of what inej needed.

kaz grit his teeth, knuckles white, the crows head of his cane digging painfully into his palm. his rage was a wounded, flailing animal. there was no one to direct it at, no scheme to hatch, or revenge to plot. the peacock would get what was coming to her, as would the slavers and barrel bosses on inej’s growing list. so here, now, kaz was useless, just a boy in a good suit and scars.

he needed to get out of there.

the bell above the door jingled obnoxiously as he pushed his way onto the street. his hand, gloved once more, was wrapped in some poor skivs collar before he had a chance to think. the lad had made the mistake of stepping on the toe of kaz’s polished shoe at a moment of blinding self-loathing. lips peeled back from his teeth, kaz snarled, “learn to use your eyes or i’ll put them in a jar.” the boy whimpered. “do. you. understand?”

“yeah, yes, of course, i’m sorry, please don’t hurt me. i didn’t mean—”

kaz all but threw him to the ground. the fear in the boys eyes was familiar, it slid in to replace the pain kaz had seen in inej’s. this was kaz brekker, dirtyhands, the bastard of the barrel. not above meaningless acts of cruelty. the boy inej was in the process of apologising to her parents for associating with. kaz shrugged on the feeling like a favoured coat—well worn if a little snug in the shoulders—and headed in the direction of home.

his room in the slat was all shadows and sleep seemed far away.

kaz had worked late into the night, hunched over stacks of bills and contracts and intelligence until his back had raised a complaint. that new place on the lid would need work if it was going to bring in the kind of marks he intended for it. perhaps, he thought, it might even form a branch of his operation with inej.

inej.

the shadows seemed to mock him, altogether too empty of her silent presence. what was he thinking? he didn’t want her here, in his room. kaz groaned into the darkness. the old lie, that it’d be better when she was away at sea, tasted bitter on his tongue.

abruptly, kaz sat up. if sleep was off the table there were other things he could be doing with his time. he’d never been a very committed sleeper anyhow. ten minutes later kaz was pulling on his boots and heading out the door.

the night was unusually cold and kaz hiked his collar against the wind that ruffled his hair, tugged at his breath. he smiled. bad weather’s good for business. nothing pulls punters into the club like a bite of wind.

pim and keeg straightened as he approached. “what business?”

“wouldn’t you like to know. have either of you seen milo?”

“he’s inside, watching the floor,” pim gestured with a thumb.

“and who’s watching him?”

“anika. she’s been breathing down his neck all week,” keeg snorted. “won’t let him out of her sight since—”

kaz knew the crew talked about his coup, about the way their fellow dregs had come at him with knives and bats and cudgels, the things he’d said to them but they never did so in his presence. he didn’t socialise. he didn’t joke. kaz kept money in the coffers and kept their enemies at bay. he’d made it very clear, he wasn’t their friend.

“good. now, eyes front and centre. i don’t want to see anyone just walking past here—not in this weather. no ones choosing this over the home comforts of the club, understand?”

they both snickered but nodded. “got it, boss.”

the moon’s face was a pale smudge against the dome of the sky, offering only the illusion of illumination between the flickering gas lamps of the city. it was in this metropolitan semi-darkness that he felt her approach.

a shadow separated from the rest and inej stood before him.

kaz’s breath caught when she pushed her hood back. she looked up at him with limpid eyes, wide and expecting. his mouth opened, “following me, wraith?” inej sighed and cocked her head. why was he like this?

he didn’t know how else to be. kaz had thought long and hard about what he was without his armour and the answer was, afraid. he’d become a barrel boss, fear was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

“what do you want from me?”

inej stepped closer, into his space, and his breath caught, again. “you know what i want, kaz. the question is, what do you want?”

“i’m a simple man, inej.” the words felt strange and foreign. he knew it was because they were a lie, few were quite so complicated as he. “i want—”

“why did you leave today?”

he looked away.

“why buy me that ship? my indenture? why bring my parents here? if—if you cannot even tell me when you’re feeling overwhelmed. kaz, look at me.” he could refuse everyone but her. “i’m not upset that you left.”

“you’re not?” he couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.

“no.” the word was wrapped up in a rush of breath that sounded almost like a huff, almost like a laugh. kaz titled his head and frowned down at her. “of course not. kaz.”

“yes?”

“i do not begrudge you your weaknesses,” she said. he couldn’t stop his eyes from falling closed. how does she do this? cut him to the quick. “i will have you without armour, or not at all.”

“i’m trying,” he rasped.

inej nodded, she knew that.

he flinched when he felt her small hands slide up his chest. she stopped moving immediately and he opened his eyes. “go on.”

inej’s smile reminded him of warmed treacle and like any good misdirect, it distracted him from her hands smoothing over his shoulders, from her body pressed flush against his.

“is this okay?” she asked, eyes dark and earnest.

he hardly knew but he nodded anyway.

his heart took up a ragged beat, the waters lapping at his ankles, up to his shins.

she was so close. she was impossibly far.

kaz made plans, schemed and strategised, that was his nature. every penny of his haul from the van eck job was assigned and accounted for but this, inej in his arms, had been the measure of his desires for longer than he dared acknowledge and now that she was here he didn’t know what to do with her.

she was so small, lithe and perfect, against him. he let the hand not resting on his cane come up to rest between her shoulder blades, pressing into the fabric of her cloak. the moon limned her hair, her eyes, the inky fan of her lashes in silver. dark and deep and watery.

the waves rose. his breath stalled in his lungs. he almost pulled back but then—

“they liked you.”

she caught him. the sound of her voice was a tether to this moment, to the whisper of her breath against his neck, the heat of her body through the layers of their clothing.

“they also thought you were a little strange, too pale and solemn.”

“we can’t all be blessed with your sunny disposition.” the words spilled from his lips like kvas from the bottle. kaz clenched his fist, his jaw. “inej.”

“kaz.”

“did you tell them about the menagerie?” he watched her with a lock-picks attention, one eye on the door and the other on the haul. it was maybe too much, too soon. she had become his tether but he hadn’t yet figured out how to become hers.

the fabric of her cloak shifted against him as she let out a breath. “yes.”

how did you find the courage? he wanted to ask.

“why?” is what came out.

the slightest tremor rocked her before she pressed the fingers of her right hand into the rough wool of his collar, a solid pressure against his neck. her eyes closed. she was holding him to steel herself.

oh, how he ached.

“because they asked and because i needed to tell them.”

the fingers of the hand she hadn’t wrapped around his neck caught the lapel of his coat as if to hold him closer. i’m not going anywhere, he wanted to say.

with her attention focused on his chest, she tilted her head. the sight of her pulse, fluttering in the hollow of her throat, pushed a wave of longing through him so powerful it almost sent him to his knees. the memory of his mouth on her neck was fresh like morning dew.

as was what happened afterwards.

kaz’s mouth worked around things he wanted, no, needed to say. “inej.” she looked up at him and in the generous well of her gaze he found just enough courage to say, “you must teach me the secret to your bravery because there is so much i want to tell you, so much i want to do with you but i am afraid. afraid that i am not, that i cannot be, enough for you. afraid that you will become just one more thing i had and lost, one more thing i was never meant to keep.”

the look she gave him then, made kaz feel richer than a king. here she was, the only treasure he never had to steal, smiling at him like he’d gifted her the moon.

inej tapped a slender index finger against her pursed lips and said, “you’re a notoriously poor student.” he thought his heart might beat out of his chest. “but, you show promise. perhaps, kaz brekker, we can teach each other.”

#soc #kanej #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #leigh bardugo #fanfiction #my first soc fic #be kind #i just wanted to find out what happened after he met her parents #kanej exorcising their demons #i'm not sure if i have inej right #or kaz for that matter #if a scene where they just say each others names back and forth made sense i would write it #i'm working on my characterisation #making people recognisable and distinctive is hard you guys

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anonniemousefics · 4 years

Text

The Deal Is The Deal

Originally posted on AO3

Fandom: Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom | Kaz + Inej

Word count: 7,774

***Rating: NSFW (aged-up characters) -- I’m gonna say this is a 7 on the smut scale***

This piece follows The Trouble With Wanting and is best read second.

Synopsis: Kaz Brekker is not a useless podge who mopes and stews over his personal problems. Kaz Brekker makes deals. Kaz Brekker enforces. Kaz Brekker stays twenty steps ahead. (Or that’s at least what he tells himself.)

Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason, but the right reason made him damn near unstoppable. Or at least, that’s what he told himself. Part of crafting a persona your enemies feared involved a considerable amount of convincing yourself of your own fearlessness. And Kaz was very good at convincing. Kaz Brekker always got what he wanted. That’s what he told himself.

Because Inej Ghafa was his perfect reason. Ketterdam had tried to break her a thousand times more than it had broken him, and still she was a better person than he could ever hope to be. He’d always believed the world would be better off if Inej had her way in all things. Making that reality had now become his singular focus.

He had sat in this same spot many times before, at his desk chair in Per Haskell’s old office on the main floor of the Crow Club, considering the terms of their deal and how he would fulfill them. Kaz Brekker was not a useless podge who moped and stewed over his personal problems. Kaz Brekker made deals. Kaz Brekker enforced. Kaz Brekker stayed twenty steps ahead.

(That’s what he told himself.)

Inej had laughed at him when he’d framed it in this way – their deal. But he didn’t mind. If he ever became stranded on a desert island, he could have lived off her laugh alone.

“You can’t just call it something normal?” she had asked him, over a year ago.

They were sitting on the tiles of the roof of The Slat when Inej said this, a blanket of stars overhead. A half-empty bottle of kvas had sat between them, an unspoken boundary he wasn’t sure which one of them would attempt to cross first. Probably her, that’s what he was betting. She always had been braver than he.

“Is what we’re dealing with normal?” Kaz countered.

“A relationship where two people have problems?” said Inej, and she rolled her eyes. “No, you’re absolutely right. We’re revolutionaries.”

“You know what I mean.” Kaz shot her a sideways look. Inej sighed in reluctant acknowledgement. All Kaz had to do to know how the odds were stacked against them was to walk down the street. Men and women all over Ketterdam could hold hands, casually kiss on their way out of their front doors, fuck in dark alleys when they thought they were alone. Kaz and Inej were, as much as they hated it, different.

The only way forward, the only way Kaz knew, was to strike a deal.

“I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know anything about relationships, Inej,” he said, “but I do know deals. And I know how to con. And that’s what will save this.”

“Enlighten me,” Inej drawled. She was raising an eyebrow, her head propped up on her arms as she wrapped them around her knees. Guarded, Kaz noted, and with good reason. He wasn’t offering her romance, and for that, he felt a twinge of shame. Somewhere in him had to be a better man for her, and he hoped it wouldn’t take too long to unearth him. Damn it all, he would try.

“You want me.” He could say it now with more confidence, but it still sounded unbelievable. “And I want you. Mind, body, and soul.”

“Hm.” Inej hummed her approval, lifting her head just a bit. In the dim light from the streets below, he could see a tiny smile play on her lips.

“Those are the terms of the deal. Simple enough, really. Unfortunately,” he stretched out his bad leg, leaning back on his hands, “our bodies are not holding up their end of the bargain. And what do we do when cocky little sods won’t follow through on their deals?”

Inej unfurled her legs then, leaning back as he had. She wore a cheeky half smile as she clucked her tongue with a pitying sigh.

“Penalties,” she said.

“Exactly,” Kaz nodded. “We collect. We learn their histories, we learn their motives, we learn what they love, what they hate, what frightens them, what bores them. We learn all this so we can apply the perfect amount of pressure, combined with just the right leverage.”

“I can’t believe this is making sense.” Inej was shaking her head in disbelief as she took a swig from the bottle.

“The deal is the deal, Inej,” Kaz said. He shifted so he was looking at her face, the thick braid that fell over her slender shoulder. “And if our deal is to each other, and our bodies are violating our terms, then I swear to learn everything I can to give you the leverage you need to break this stupid sod.” And he thrust a hand against his chest to drive the point home.

“He is not a stupid sod,” Inej said, tenderly, her brown eyes sparkling, and slowly, she pressed her fingers over his on his chest. Kaz swallowed hard, feeling his heart in his throat. Alive. Alive. Alive, he told himself. Her flesh was warm, dry, living, her pulse in her palm. Different. Good. Deep breath. Alive.

When his heart rate slowed again, he wrapped her fingers in his and pressed a quick kiss to the back of her hand. Alive. Good. It was good. And her smile that followed, breathtaking.

Worth it.

“And I swear the same to you,” Inej promised. She leaned closer so that their shoulders brushed, and she looked up at him through oil-black lashes. He could smell her hair in the night breeze, the sweet coconut oil she used. Intoxicating. Thank her Saints this world isn’t a just one, he thought to himself. He was sure he’d done nothing to deserve such a face. “They say Kaz Brekker never met a safe he couldn’t crack,” she went on. “I suppose I shouldn’t doubt you can figure out my combination.”

His mouth felt dry and his slacks a little tighter as she leaned over and pressed a quick kiss on his lips. It was barely a peck, but for the first time, it wasn’t enough. He found himself leaning forward, eyes closed, even as she pulled away. From the smirk she wore when he opened his eyes to her, she had noticed.

“I might like your metaphor better,” he confessed, his voice hoarse. And Inej laughed.

That was their deal. Conduct reconnaissance. Apply pressure. Utilize leverage. Crack the safe.

Nina Zenik would have a field day with these innuendoes, he realized. If it had been an actual contract, he should have considered some kind of non-disclosure clause.

Getting sloppy, Brekker.

He had his black-trousered legs propped up on the desk, trying to quickly wolf down the sandwich Pim had brought in for him from a nearby street vendor. He knew he ought to have taken the walk himself. It helped to stretch out his bad leg a few times a day or taking the stairs up to The Slat would be nearly impossible. But he was up to his tie knot in paperwork, and he got distracted far too easily these days. There were reminders of her everywhere.

This chair, for example. He was torn between saving it forever, maybe casting in bronze, or replacing it completely for the sake of his work ethic. It was there, barely a month ago, that they’d somehow found themselves late one night while Inej was portside. He couldn’t even remember now why they hadn’t gone upstairs to The Slat. Maybe it had been the crowd in the Crow Club. Didn’t matter. He’d locked the door, and one thing had led to another, and somehow he’d ended up sitting in this exact chair, Inej straddling his lap.

He thought he’d died and gone to heaven. There were no waters lapping at his ankles. Jordie’s ghost was apparently growing disinterested in his little brother’s dalliance. And Inej showed no signs of vanishing. Rather the opposite. She was above him, running her hands from his chest to his hair, her lips desperate for his. He’d even forgotten to take off his gloves, but she didn’t seem to care as he traced the slope of her hips, the curves of her muscled thighs that gripped either side of his.

“I want you,” she gasped between heated kisses. She held his jaw in her hands, demanding.

“You have me,” he rasped. He slid his hands up the lithe curve of her waist, where the base of her ribs flared with every ragged breath.

“I want to touch you.” Kaz thought he was seeing stars as she worked her lips over his jawline to the shell of his ear. She nipped at his earlobe, and he shivered. “But I’m not ready for you to touch me yet,” she whispered there.

At that, Kaz pulled back from her a moment, hovering his hands over her body. He tried to be a quick student of her, of this maddening, irresistible lock of hers. He knew well enough that when the lock said stop, you damn well stopped.

“Are you ok?” He gave her a quick, concerned assessment. Her demons were cunning, but they were becoming easier for him to spot. But in that moment, Inej was rosy-cheeked and biting her lip, her dark, thick braid coming loose around her face and shoulders. She was breathless, her breasts rising and falling just inches from his body. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t lost sleep wondering when he was going to hold them again, but he wasn’t about to press the issue. Patience. Leverage. That was their deal.

Inej leaned into him, sliding her arms over his shoulders as her breasts pressed against his chest.

“I’m just gathering information,” she insisted, meeting his lips again, just once. “Leverage.” Another kiss to his jaw. He felt like a human stick of butter, sliding down a pan. “Pressure.” And she ground her hips against his, rubbing against his cock so that it throbbed. The sound that came up from his chest was not one he’d ever heard from his body before.

“You do not have to do this, Inej,” he said, in spite of himself, still wary of the last time they’d pushed into new territory.

Inej sat back so that he could see her full face, the streetlight from outside glowing orange behind her black hair like a halo. He searched her soft brown eyes, not understanding the look on her face.

“That’s exactly why I want to,” she said, softly.

It was moments like this Kaz could almost hear the sound of lock tumblers clicking into place.

He sat back, his gloved hands gripping on the arms of his chair.

“I’m all yours, Inej,” he said, his voice husky. He trusted her with his demons. He trusted her with his life.

She had her hands on his torso, raking her eyes over his body, and he felt like he might catch fire. These men who bought their pleasure in brothels could never know the thrill of being so desperately wanted, and, for a moment, he almost pitied them. Almost.

“It doesn’t bother you, when I sit on you like this?” Inej asked, flicking a glance up at him. Kaz could only shake his head, dumbly. If she only knew how incredible she looked up there. They built monuments to this kind of glory.

“And it doesn’t bother you when I do…this?” Inej palmed her hand against his cock, and Kaz drew in a sharp breath. Had she asked a question? Was he meant to answer?

“This,” he was stammering as she slowly stroked his cock through his trousers, “this is what you want?” He wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming.

Over him, Inej nodded, her eyes dark and smoldering. The leather on his gloves creaked as he tightened his hands on the chair. He wouldn’t try to touch her, not without instruction. Those were her terms.

Outside the locked office door, the sounds of drunken laughter and broken glass bottles rose as Kaz’s head slipped back against the chair with a groan. Inej kept her eyes trained on him, like she was hungry, devouring his every movement as she applied pressure, slowly stroking him from hilt to head and back again. As his eyes slipped close, his breathing deepening, she leaned in against him again, her body hot and taut, planting kisses up his neck.

In that moment, he didn’t give a single fuck about anything else, not revenge, not profit, not the Dime Lions, not the ghosts of his past. There was only Inej. His Inej. The girl he was determined give the world to, just you wait.

“Inej,” he breathed, and he felt her smile against his face.

“It’s good?” she whispered, checking. Good? That was a pitiful word for what it was. And if he wasn’t currently losing all sense of time and space, he’d have offered a better word.

“This is good information, Brekker,” she crooned in his ear.

Kaz was sure he’d never been so hard in his life. He clenched his fists tighter, his breath quickening, and vowed to meet this offer in equal exchange as soon as he could.

“I’m going to be a better man for you, Inej,” he heard himself spout, maybe a little too loud. He was panting, shaking. There was a crest rising inside of him, a wave of energy stronger than any he’d felt before.

“You don’t need to--” Inej started to say when Kaz let out a moan.

“I’m going to love you the way you deserve,” he swore with a gasp.

“You do; you already do,” and Inej covered his mouth with hers as he broke apart beneath her, a low moan against her lips as the wave crashed over him, sending him out into the sky.

And he didn’t care so much in the moment how gross he felt in his slacks, as Inej leaned her forehead against his. His chest heaved while he caught his breath, still coming down from the clouds, and she whispered to him, “I say your name when I touch myself, too.”

So, the chair had to go. Or stay. Whatever. Either way, in its current state, the paperwork was mounding up, and she was due back any day now, and he had to get caught up. This was not how he wanted to be spending his time while she was back in Ketterdam.

“Kaz!” Jesper Fahey shoved open the office door with a shout, startling Kaz.

“Shit, Jes. Knock,” Kaz swore. “I could have been indisposed.”

“Sure,” Jesper rolled his eyes in disbelief. Kaz pressed back a smirk to himself, thinking of the chair. Maybe the chair stayed after all.

“So, it’s true, then.” Jesper strode to the middle of the office, folding his arms. “There is a mattress in your office.”

Kaz glanced at what Jesper now pointed at, accusingly. It was true. The mattress was pushed vertical up against the wall, to keep it out of the way while he worked during the day.

“Astute of you to notice,” Kaz grunted, pulling at the next piece of paperwork in the pile. Expense reports. This one was last month’s? Fuck.

“Pim and Anika are worried about the mattress in your office,” Jesper said. “So, Kaz, why is there a mattress in your office?”

“I’m having construction done on The Slat,” Kaz shrugged, which was true. “I can’t sleep up there until it’s done.”

“That’s it?” Jesper glared at him, incredulous, his eyes in slits.

“There is no mystery here, Jes.” Kaz spread his hands out wide. “There is construction upstairs, so I sleep down here.”

“This is weird. Even for you,” Jesper frowned. “Anika thought maybe your leg was getting worse. Like you couldn’t make it up the stairs.”

“I can still beat your ass up and down those stairs. Happy? I have work.”

“So, what are you having done to The Slat?” Jesper was leaning against the far wall, his arms still crossing, looking about as moveable as a mountain. Kaz chewed on the inside of his lip.

“I just wanted running hot water,” he lied. Well, it was true enough, anyway. There would be running hot water up in The Slat when all was said and done.

He wasn’t ready to tell Jesper the real reason, what had happened six months ago that had snowballed into him sleeping on a narrow mattress at night in his office. He didn’t want to admit why aloud, but deep down, he was always waiting for the day when Inej had had enough of this, their deal, enough of him. It would break him when that happened, he knew it would. And if he had to break the news of it to Jesper, too, broken and in shambles… he just couldn’t imagine doing it. It was safer for everyone, Kaz included, if no one knew.

He’d thought that day had come six months ago. Why it hadn’t was only a testament to Inej’s undying patience.

Sometimes, when Kaz’s bad leg hurt in the night, it helped to walk the streets. He liked to think it made him look unpredictable. You never knew at what hour Dirtyhands could appear. A short stroll around the block could get the blood flowing in his leg and send a message to the thugs and goons lurking about the dark alleys at night all in the same half hour. Efficiency at its finest.

He took a slow walk that night. He’d spent too many hours at his desk that day, and his leg was stiff and the ache was constant. It was when he’d paused past the glow of a street lamp that he sensed the shadows flit about behind him, and, without moving his weight from his cane, he began to reach for the revolver in his coat pocket.

“Kaz, it’s just me.” Inej’s whisper stopped him, and as he turned to the alleyway, his girl was leaping silently from a fire escape and his heart stuttered. She could land on her feet like a cat and throw back her braid when she stood, not a bead of sweat on her.

Kaz checked the streets, back and forth, but saw no one.

“You’re following me,” he observed, and was it weird he was flattered? “I wasn’t expecting you to dock until tomorrow.”

“We caught a strong current,” said Inej, who kept to the shadows and leaned against the side of the alley. “And it’s not that I don’t trust your new spider, but I don’t trust your new spider.”

Kaz huffed a laugh. Anika was learning, but it was true there would never be another Wraith.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked.

“Your reign of terror here is making these streets rather boring,” Inej shrugged. “No one’s tried to mug me or shank me all night.”

“I gave the muggers and the shankers the night off. Tuesday nights are strictly for public urination.”

“Is that what you’re doing out and about?”

“Change starts at the top, Inej. No one gets immunity in the Barrel.”

Inej stifled a laugh behind her fingerless gloves, and Kaz desperately wanted to kiss her.

“Were you going to stop by tonight?” he asked instead.

“Depended on what I found,” she replied.

“And?”

“If you’ll have me.”

If he would have her? Saints. Perhaps he hadn’t been clear enough. He would have her every day for the rest of his life if she wanted.

“I’ll meet you in The Slat,” he said instead.

He thought about kissing her all the way home, and he climbed the stairs as quickly as his throbbing leg would allow. But when he locked the door and turned to face her, Inej was sitting on the edge of his narrow bed, her slim body looking a little slouched, as she hid a yawn behind her hand. Of course, she was exhausted. And he offered her something he’d never offered before: a place in his bed for the night.

She’d looked both a little nervous and a little intrigued by the concept, and eventually gave in. He offered her one of his nightshirts to sleep in and couldn’t help himself from gazing over her bare legs, the way the thin fabric skimmed over the supple curve of her ass.

They decided the night was just for sleeping, and while Kaz waited for drowsiness to overtake the ache in his leg, he kept glancing over at her asleep on the pillow next to him, her thick black hair spilling over the cotton like ink, her soft lashes splayed against her golden brown skin. He thought he could die happy after this.

But then, in the dead of night, everything changed.

Kaz awoke with a start, his heart pounding, when Inej screamed, terrified, pummeling at him with closed fists. He recognized the signs instantly; nightmares plagued his sleep regularly, too. He snatched at one of her wrists, trying to stop her from hitting him in the face.

“Inej! Inej!” His voice was hoarse from sleep. “Inej, it’s Kaz. It’s Kaz.”

Her eyes weren’t even open, and, as he tried to restrain her, she pulled one of her knives from under her pillow and leapt atop of him, straddling his torso with Sankta Elizabeta at his jugular in an instant.

“Inej,” he tried again, but his own voice was starting to shake.

She was slick in cold sweat, and her thighs now pressed on either side of his bare abdomen, wet flesh trapping him, pressing in on him. He was having trouble drawing a breath. Nausea churned in his stomach. He forgot all about the knife at his throat. What did it matter when the sea waves were crashing in over him, filling his mouth, his nose, his lungs…

Inej was blinking her eyes and dropped her weapon with a horrified cry.

But all he saw were her vacant eyes, purple bruising blooming from their rims, bloat rotting at her jaw. And he was drowning under her.

“Kaz! Kaz!” Inej took his face in her shaking hands, as if she could pull him back from the darkness that was overtaking him.

“Stop,” he tried to rasp, but it was barely audible. Her hands were a corpse’s, pulling him under.

Without thinking and desperate for breath, he grabbed her waist and threw her to the side. He spilled out of the bed, his stomach lurching. The nightstand rattled, and the washbasin shattered when it fell. Shards of ceramic scattered across the wood floor. He would have vomited all over it had it not been for the wastebasket. He managed to grab its edges just in time, hurling his stomach’s contents into it.

He retched so hard, tears spilled from his eyes and snot ran from his nose, but when he finally sat back, shaking and spent, Inej was there. She had put on his leather gloves before handing him a towel and a glass of water. His strong, level-headed Inej. When he could finally look at her again, her cheeks were tearstained. He could never admit defeat to such a shattered face.

“Fuck.” He released a ragged sigh as he sat back, running the back of a shaking hand along his lips. Inej sat across from him on the floor, still breathing hard from adrenaline. He needed that laugh of hers. He said the first thing that came to mind. “I’d actually really enjoyed that dinner.”

But Inej was too shaken, her brows cinched together, her raven black hair disheveled over the shoulders of the white nightshirt.

“I’m so, so sorry, Kaz.” Her voice was strained against the threat of tears.

“Are you ok?” He reached out of her gloved hands, and she took his fingertips with a little sob.

“This was a spectacular disaster,” Inej said. But Kaz squeezed her fingers, hoping she’d look at him. Needing the reassurance that this wasn’t the final straw. That they were still fighting their way out together.

“This was just good reconnaissance,” he objected, though his throat still burned. “We learned some valuable information tonight. We just need separate beds. How many fat, rich mercher families have you spied on that sleep in separate beds?”

“Those same merchers attack women in brothels, Kaz.” Inej wiped at her cheek with her spare hand, clutching at Kaz’s tightly with her other. “Maybe we just need a bigger bed,” she said with a sigh.

We. She’d said We. She hadn’t given up, hadn’t even considered it, and she’d said We. He’d buy her whatever bed she wanted after that. But The Slat was only big enough for Kaz’s narrow bed. And before he knew it, Kaz was meeting with contractors, looking over blueprints, hiring a foreman, haggling over the cost of materials, picking out new plumbing, new fixtures, and now his home had been stripped down to the studs.

The important thing was, when it was all finished, Kaz was buying the biggest, widest, most luxurious bed in all of Ketterdam, and it was going to fit, damnit.

“This is sending a message I don’t think you want to be sending, Kaz,” Jesper was saying, gesturing to the narrow mattress propped up against the wall.

“Which is what?” Kaz was growing impatient.

“That the Bastard of the Barrel sleeps like a weird little hobo,” said Jesper.

“Hobos don’t have offices to sleep in, Jes. That’s why they’re hobos.”

“Just check into a hotel like every other normal rich bastard,” Jesper begged. “You have the money. Why are you being so weird?”

Because Inej was coming back and what kind of message would that send to her? Meeting him a hotel. After what they had done in the chair the last time she was here. That implied all kinds of things he didn’t want her worrying about.

But if Pim and Anika had wrangled Jesper into confronting him, then maybe he was worrying about the wrong message.

And for all the chaos of the Van Eck Affair, he had enjoyed their stay at the Geldrenner Hotel. Their penthouse suite had been exceptional. It was further from the Crow Club than he would have liked, but the hot running water...and the room service. And Inej could have her pick of beds if she came by. No midnight vomiting would occur there.

“I’ll take it under advisement,” he said to Jesper, dismissively. Jesper gave a sigh of defeat and turned to leave.

“You’re too rich for this weird ass behavior,” he shouted at Kaz over his shoulder.

“No one wants your financial advice,” Kaz shouted back.

But Jesper turned back in the doorway, one hand on the frame.

“Oh,” he added, “you’re still coming for drinks on Saturday? Wylan needs a final headcount.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, every damn time. Yes, Jes. Yes. I’ll always be there.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have to go book a hotel room, obviously. Tell Roeder to throw out the mattress.”

“Can I give it to Wylan? That thing looks like it needs to be incinerated.”

Wylan could have the mattress for whatever flammable experiments he was working on in his free time. Kaz was already looking forward to another stay at the Geldrenner.

He took a long walk to the Geldrenner Hotel, where he was pleased to find the penthouse suite unoccupied and currently available. He left the reservation under K. Rietveld. Inej would know.

“What does the R stand for?” she’d asked him months and months ago. Nobody would believe they were both naked when she brought it up. In his defense, it had been Inej’s idea, this new leverage. She’d suggested they undress completely and not touch each other. She had wanted to conquer her fear of being naked with a man, and she thought it was something to be done in steps.

Did she think he would say no to such a thing? He’d literally had dreams about this.

Kaz was holding a box of waffles when she suggested it. He’d brought them in for their dinner, a dinner he mistakenly assumed they would be clothed for, and his first moronic thought was that he ought to have picked a less messy food. Once it finally registered what was about to happen, he set the box down and began to slip off his tie.

“What does the R stand for?”

She was sitting across from him, completely bare, with her long black hair veiling her breasts. He looked up from his dinner. He’d been trying his best to focus on the food, to will his cock into not getting any ideas. She was gesturing to the tattoo on his bicep.

“My real surname starts with R,” he replied.

“As in Rietveld, isn’t that right?” Inej flicked him a glance, one that could set a fire smoldering deep in his guts.

“You knew?” he wondered, and then drew in a breath as Inej began to stand to her feet, leaning across the table toward him. He could see everything, from her dark, protruding nipples beneath her long hair, the smooth planes of her flat stomach, the tight curve of her brown waist. The folds where it all met. His cock throbbed, rebelliously.

“I’m the Wraith, Kaz,” she said, her voice husky. “I’m glad you finally told me.”

“This is cheating,” Kaz pointed out, as she pecked his lips.

She had tasted like apple syrup. What would the rest of her taste like?

So, he wasn’t the least bit surprised when, three days later, he was returning to his suite at the Geldrenner at the end of the day and found Inej waiting on the windowsill. She was the Wraith, always and forever. Kaz quickly unlocked the window to pull her inside.

“Please tell me you haven’t been sitting out there all day,” was his greeting.

“I wanted to watch a Ketterdam sunset again, and I don’t fall, Kaz,” Inej said. She was as brown as a nut from her days in the sun, and her cheeks were a rosy apple red. “And no,” she added, “I haven’t been waiting long. You’re not at least a little be impressed that I found you?”

“My dearest Inej, I am in a constant state of awe around you.”

She looked up at him with a brilliant, toothy grin and big, soft brown eyes, and he wrapped his arms around her waist while he kissed her, pulling her close to his chest. She smelled like salt and sea spray, and he could taste the sweat on her lips and he didn’t care. It had been over a month since he’d held her, tasted her, and his body was falling in line with the terms of their deal. He wanted her, however he could have her.

“I missed you,” she told him, as she curled her head against his chest. He drew long, slow circles up and down her back with his fingertips so that she hummed softly in approval.

“I missed you,” he said into her hair.

“I can smell myself,” Inej lamented, with a disgusted groan.

“You smell perfect.” Kaz didn’t care.

“I need a bath.”

“I’ll draw you one.”

And Kaz ordered up room service, too, while Inej bathed in the tub, filling up the bathroom with steam and lavender. She was still soaking when the food arrived, an elaborate spread, since Kaz had ordered one of everything, not knowing what she wanted, and he nudged his head into the bathroom to let her know.

The bubbles had mostly dissolved, and the water pooled just under her breasts, her brown knees bent up out of the water. She’d pulled her long, clean hair out of the tub, letting it trail over the edge to dry, while she leaned against the side of the tub with her eyes closed.

Kaz suddenly understood the myths about mermaids luring men to their deaths.

“You can come in,” she said, a soft, relaxed smile on her lips.

Kaz still wasn’t sure what to say, but wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to look upon her. He leaned against the bathroom counter, trying not to ogle like a creep.

“This bathroom,” Inej remarked, looking all around them. Kaz drew in a deep breath. This bathroom, indeed. He’d kind of been avoiding it. This was where he’d first felt her skin, had tried to kiss her, and it had sent him reeling into nightmares of his past. He hadn’t thought of it as reconnaissance then. He had just been a boy, trying to be with the girl he liked, and instead only hopelessly embarrassing himself.

Inej seemed to sense how he withdrew at the memory and held out a soapy hand to him.

“Come here,” she said, tenderly. But Kaz hesitated. Wanting. Lusting. But knowing better.

“Wet skin is a non-starter for me,” he rasped, shifting uncomfortably.

“Of course it is.” Inej looked apologetic as she pulled her hand back. She shifted in the tub, pulling at the drain.

“Don’t get out on my account,” Kaz said.

“I need to be with you when you’re making that face,” Inej insisted, and she stepped out of the tub. He still couldn’t get enough of the sight of her wet body, glistening in the lamp light, beads of moisture running in rivulets down her rich golden legs as she toweled off.

“What face?” Kaz asked.

Inej wrapped the towel around herself, tucking it over her breasts, and stepped in front of him, resting her hands on his hips. She gave a playful tug at his belt.

“You get a look when you think something’s broken beyond repair,” she said, and looked up at him with her wide, adoring eyes. “And half the time, you prove yourself wrong within the next 24 hours anyway. I love to watch that part. But not the broken face. Broken face is heart-wrenching.”

Without armor. If he was to ever have her, to love her the way she deserved, she needed to see every ugly truth the armor hid. Every time he got close, that is what her lock demanded. Without armor. He swallowed hard as he rested his hands on the wet terrycloth on her hips, holding her close.

“I half-expected to die that night,” he confessed. How glad he was he hadn’t.

“I would never have let that happen.” Inej’s gaze was steely as flint, and he believed her. But there was something else.

“It would have been a relief,” he said, lowly.

Inej pulled back and held his dark gaze, as if to hold this new plate of armor with all the love she had.

“And now?” she asked, holding him tighter. He felt her intent in the pull of her embrace, the same intent he held in his chest in every battle against their demons. Stay with me. I can’t lose this.

“I was a kid then with nothing more to lose,” he told her, and let his forehead dip to touch hers. “But now I have everything.”

He could sense her smile even as he closed his eyes, reveling in her warmth and how it no longer called to his ghosts. But then she stepped back and turned, hoisting herself up onto the countertop, still holding her towel in place. Her hair spilled loose down her back as she reached to him, pulling him closer again between her knees, the same spot where they’d tried to get close those years ago and had each nearly keeled over from the other’s proximity.

“You know the best part about surviving, I’m sure,” she said, pulling him by his tie.

“Tell me,” he said with a crooked smile. He placed his hands on the counter either side of her hips, leaning in.

“When you survive, your story isn’t over,” said Inej, as she loosened the tie knot. She pulled it off through his collar and let it drop to the floor. “And sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you get the chance to write over parts you don’t like.”

She leaned back on her hands, extending her slender neck out ever so slightly with a pointed look in her eye. The smell of lavender and soap bubbles wafted from her clean hair, and Kaz drew in a breath. He would have to have been an idiot not to catch her meaning. Go on, she was saying. Write the story we wanted.

This time, when he pressed a soft kiss to her neck, he felt her soft pulse against his lips, her fresh scent all around him, and the desire coursing through his body. She gave a soft, contented sigh and slid her hands up his shoulders as he straightened his body to meet her lips again and again, rewriting and rewriting.

“Better,” she whispered when he finally pulled back, and she brushed the tip of her nose against his. “Much better.”

His heart was pounding mercilessly in his chest, and when he reached up to cup her precious cheek in one hand, she leaned her head into his fingers, kissing his wrist, and it shattered him.

“I never want this to end,” he said, his voice husky. Much better, indeed.

“Then don’t stop,” Inej whispered, and he brought her lips back to his.

He could sense her urgency rising, the desperation with which she began to pull him to her body, to weave her fingers into his hair, and it would have been easy to break, to let her have her way with him again. But they had a deal. Kaz Brekker never made a deal he didn’t keep. So, this was no time to lose his head, to grab at everything he wanted. He’d been preparing for this moment. If he was going to make good and pay back what he owed, he was going to have to run this like breaking into Kerch bank vault.

She was already above him, propped up on the bathroom counter of her own volition. That was a good sign, good leverage. Inej did not like being prone with him or forced into anything, and no one could fault her for that.

He brought his hands to her face, running his fingertips from her cheeks to her hair as she sighed into his mouth. He felt her part her lips to him, felt the brush of her tongue, and, emboldened, he ran his hands down her bare shoulders, her skin prickling in goosebumps.

“I love what your hands can do,” she shivered. She was pulling at the buttons of his shirt, exposing his chest where he felt as hot as a furnace against her cool hands. Let her have some control; she thrived with it. She slipped her hands into his shirt, pushing it over his shoulders until it dropped to the tile below.

He held her waist in his hands as she clutched at his shoulders, her thighs tightening on his hips as their kiss deepened. It took every ounce of restraint Kaz had to not taste every inch of her mouth, not pull at the rest of his clothing and beg her to just fuck him already please. There was nothing but a towel separating her bare breasts from his skin, and, Saint fucking hell, he wanted this. He wanted her. Her exposed thighs felt like silk against his sides, and he could only imagine what the rest of her felt like. His hands dipped a little lower, exploring the slope of her ass.

“More,” Inej panted, and Kaz couldn’t hold back a groan. He gave her ass a little squeeze, and she chuckled against his mouth. Running his hands along the underside of her thighs, he pulled her closer, letting her hook her legs around him. Heat from her cunt radiated across his lower abdomen.

“Saints, Inej,” he rasped, breathless. His slacks were uncomfortably tight, and she had to notice. When she pulled back, he was sure she had and braced himself, but there was no look of terror in her eyes this time. No, she had something else in mind.

She held up one hand and, slowly, sucked on two of her fingers. And then, with Kaz’s jaw slack in lust and awe, she slipped her hand between her legs, beneath the towel. And with her eyes on him, she began to knead.

Kaz hardly dared to breathe. He’d imagined, but he’d never seen… he’d researched for advice, like any decent con artist, but he’d only hoped…

He watched the rise and fall of the tops of her breasts in rapture, waiting for any sign that he could approach without setting off alarms. When she let out a little moan and put a hand to his chest again, he gently leaned in, taking her lips once more. He tried to put as much love and admiration and passion into that kiss as he could muster, slowly slipping his hands back to the lithe curve of her waist.

Her breathing deepened as she worked herself, and she moaned softly, her eyes falling shut. Kaz ran his fingers lightly up and down her arm, knowing what he wanted, trying to work out a strategy.

It had to be like picking a pocket. Replacing a wallet with an exact weight, so quick, no one noticed.

He kissed her ear as her head fell to the side, and then, slowly, traced the silky soft length of her arm, slipping under the towel, before gently curling his fingers over hers. She stopped the movement, but didn’t open her eyes. She wasn’t running.

He paused, too, breathing heavily in spite of himself. She was wet, practically soaked, against their fingers, and, for a brief moment, he felt the lapping of water at his ankles. He fixed his eyes on the pulse in her neck. He focused on the sound of her breath, the labored breathing of her desire. He inhaled the soap and the lavender scent of her. She was alive. So very alive. And after a moment, the dread passed, and he was still there and so was she, and his longing for her hadn’t diminished.

“Show me,” he whispered against her ear, and she leaned her head against his.

He traced the movements of her fingers, delicate, like picking a lock in the dark, slow circles around her tender nub of skin.

“Kaz,” she whispered, in a tone he was sure he’d never heard before. Lock tumblers clicking into place.

He moved his fingers as she did, through the velvety skin of her folds, until her hand dropped away from his, her eyes still closed as she bit her lip.

“I’ve wanted this,” she confessed with a groan. Kaz was out of words. Locks didn’t usually talk back, and they were never this gorgeous.

And then when she leaned back further on the counter, the towel began to slip and she did nothing to stop it. It fell away behind her, leaving every bit of her exposed to him, the full swell of her breasts and the tense muscles of her core, and Kaz didn’t mean to, but he swore out loud.

“Don’t stop,” she begged him, her arms starting to shake as she leaned back against them. “Please, Kaz, more.”

His mind was a scramble of every touch he’d ever given, every encouraging sign she’d ever given him. More what? Where to start? With his spare hand, he traced her neck again, down her sternum between her breasts, watching the line of goosebumps spring along her skin.

“With your mouth,” she gasped, and he sprang at the chance to oblige. She quivered while he trailed a line of kisses from her neck down her chest, and, growing bolder, took one dark nipple tenderly in his mouth. When she didn’t object, he ran his tongue around its rim, tasting its foreign sweetness and feeling her gasps of pleasure swell through her chest.

She raked her fingers through his hair as he felt her breathing grow haggard beneath his lips, and her hips bucked restlessly against his long fingers. He had a moment of nerves that she was growing frustrated with his inexperience, and, with a silent prayer, he slipped a digit inside of her.

She let out an audible sigh, clenching at his hair, and he knew he’d hit the right combination. As soft as before, he stroked her ridges along her cunt, still carding his thumb through her folds as she had.

Her arms gave out altogether, and he found himself standing over her as she laid back on the countertop, her hair spilling into the sink, a flush spreading across her breasts. Her body arched; her pussy felt as taut as a bowstring. He’d never seen anything so glorious in his life.

Curses fell from her beautiful lips when she came, head tilted back as a shudder overtook her whole body, spasming on his fingers. She gripped his forearm to steady herself, leaving half-moon nail marks in his skin. And then she stilled, naked, spent and breathing hard, feet on the counter with her knees bent in the air.

Kaz leaned over and kissed her forehead while she gave a breathless hum of satisfaction.

“This bathroom,” she remarked again, heaving an exhausted sigh. Her cheeks were rosy as she smiled brightly up at him. Kaz grinned, crookedly, a victorious lockpick’s smile.

“This bathroom,” he agreed.

Much, much better.

Next work in this series: These Damn Crosswinds

#six of crows #soc #kaz x inej #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #smut #kanej #kanej smut #crooked kingdom #fanfic #fanfiction #kaz brekker x inej ghafa #kanej fanfic

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thehopefulsnowflake · 3 years

Text

And again here are more theories and opinions about the magnus archives from my brother

The corruption is one of the "four horsemen"

War and conquest are the military ghosts, and the desolation

Famine and pestilence is the buggy bois

Death is the end, duh

The corruption is colonisation basically

Elias is against having a cat, because they are too powerful, he was very serious about this

Centipedes have a masochistic foot fetish, millipedes have a normal one, don't ask

The woman in Dead Woman Walking is just a Zombie

Is the Woman a victim of the Book of Death from MAG 70

Georgie is a ghosty hunty person

Georgie and Melanie don't seem to be afraid of anything

The Italian mountain troops would have known they were being fucked with

More undead

Reminded him sort of the Meat Men

Also reminded him of the buried on the London underground

The mysterious firing squad intrigued him, did all the men that went up the mountain come back to kill him?

Basira is Drax from gotg

She'll randomly appear and no one will know she's there until she speaks

The chuckle brothers origin story, he means Breekon and Hope

Didn't think the circus had anything to do with the stranger

Breekon and Hope are taxidermy

So they're with the stranger

The Stranger is just everything that doesn't fall under something else

The circus was it's own thing

The cult of the lightless flame is it's own thing

The people's Church of the devine host is it's own thing

The circus is just full of people who you don't know, if you do know them that's sad... He was kinda rambling at this point

Is Sarah Baldwin capable of being bored

Why was she working with Melanie?

Do you just take a liking to ghost people

Did you take them over before of after they were eaten.

The Buried is called The London underground

Is it the Fairchild's? Thinks they're about isolation

Thinks it might be a book

The pit could be an Antlion

Thought that the young woman who was eaten by the pit turned into Gertrude

The young man could be, Gerry, Martin, Salesa, young Jon, Elias.

Thinks The stranger is vanilla in terms of gods and monsters.

The stranger is the least interesting.

Thinks all the Stranger wants to do is just summon a god

For some reason he thinks the Dark should be doing more to stop them, because Rayner wouldn't want that to happen

Martin will rap battle the archive to victory, via poetry from Leitners books

The stranger could just be Lego

He's horny for Rayner, his words not mine

Mr. Sandman brought him a dream

Thinks that the Dark at least can get to their gods dimension but choose not to.

If you make everywhere dark does their god appear?

He asked what would happen if two factions tried to summon their god at the same time what would happen

Thinks that all the Avatars /Entities do the same thing.

Breekon and hope have never killed anyone

Maxwell Rayner is a time travelling shadow demon

Mr sandman is like an angry sandy from Rotg

He made this episode unnecessarily kinky

They're just summoning gods

The stranger is remarkably being left alone

Thinks there is no fighting between factions

If anything they're aided

Is the Fairchild's entity already here

Are they working with the other factions

Says he knows whats going to happen because he "knows how these things go"

The Beholding is already on this side and if another God is summoned then it will be booted

Elias killed Gertrude because she was trying to defeat the Beholding and if it was defeated he would turn into the same thing as below the Library in Alexandria

There were three versions of the unknowing that he thought of

Destroying the concept of identity, the unknowing destroys the concept of personality, individuality, and identity. Turning them into Stranger worshipping entities

The angler fish was the thing in the basement at the Taxidermy shop

Stranger just means it couldn't get any stranger

Or it's deliberate parodies of humans

Breekon and Hope were normal people

Salesa, the chuckle brothers, the meat man, the skin walkers, the taxidermist, the manquien, Not-Sasha, the architects, the circus and to some extent the witches are part of the stranger

Magnus is a stranger that took over Elias

He also thinks Elias is just Magnus who found out how to stick around for a while

But Elias isn't the archive god like he first thought

The twisted detergent is Michael's new entity

Michael is like Loki if he didn't have a brother

The stranger is the big bad

Jon is an idiot, he's a bit slow

His second theory for the unknowing is that It's just going to destroy all knowledge revolving the Elder gods, hence the unknowing, the one he thought the least likely

And third, It somehow increases their powers so that the few people that would recognise them, no longer do. Levelling up in short. Thinks it would work for every entity

Doesn't think The Unknowing would be that big of a shift

The circus and the stranger were different because the Circus dealt with the "Freak show"

Thinks Rayner isn't dead

Dust devils

Dirt zombies

Has only made the connection between the Underground, the pit and the dust storm

Was the kid in the car Michael

Was Michael always the Spiral but just really liked working with Gertrude

Michael is the Spiral, he doesn't worship anything

Elias took Gertrude from him, now he's after revenge

Jon should go chill with everyone at the Archive

Jon should have a sword

While you were busy not having a paranoid breakdown I studied the blade

Michael has a crush on Gertrude

He has a granny kink, he is obsessed with making it all kink related

Michael originally gave his powers away to be with Gertrude

Michael took on this form because he could blend in or brag

He's a monster with a thing for Gertrude

Michael wasn't the same Michael as in the tape

Just trying to trick everyone

Lynne Hammond was lying, goes in line with the church of the lightless flame but it didn't happen

Maybe she heard something similar but it didn't actually happen to her, she was just trying to get some money

He actually feels bad for Tim

Tim should run

John Smith was half telling the truth.

People are in the tunnel's but it's not a government conspiracy

Tim doesn't deserve this

You can tell Basira is used to dealing with idiots

Liked that it cut out when Robin Lennox said let me start again, it's like the archive was trying to make it stop

Thinks the archive doesn't care what is being read to it, someone should read it the Lord of the Ringd

The archive is recording the tape recorders not Elias

Get the dog out

Michael was the crying man, he wanted the dog out

He doesn't want to hurt the dog

"Gertrude why did you leave me? I'll get you one day Elias" based on his Michael granny kink theory

Brian Finlinson was the most coherent in terms of links

Thinks that the spiders were actually there, hiding whenever anyone came around

Lynne is lying, John Smith is half telling the truth, Robin Lennox saw Michael having a breakdown, Brian Finlinson was telling the truth

He didn't remember Peter Lukas ever being mentioned before

Already shipping Peter and Elias

Michael is very sensitive

The Fairchild's and the Lukas' are working together

They don't seem to have an interest in the conflict going on between everyone else

The Fairchild's were in aerospace and Lukas was the ships

Still cthulhu

Even space had a cthulhu vibe

The depth of the ocean or the isolation of space

The Lukas and the archive are working together

There are some of these guys that don't want the entities on this side

Likes the power, doesn't want the full on entities here

The Lukas and the Fairchild's are the cthulhus

They're somewhat working with the archive/the beholding

Is Elias actually a Lukas? Decided yes because he and Peter are married

How much do the Lukas have to do with the Beholding

What sort of arrangement do they have?

Nikola was supposed to be part of the circus but there is a difference between the facimalies and the circus

Thinks that the archive burning down would have no downsides for the Beholding.

They'll summon a god and gazing upon it will kill everyone, everyone dies.

As he was now halfway through the series he explained who he thought was in each of these factions

The beholding, Elias, Martin, Tim, basira, daisy, sims, melanie, sasha, Rosie, Gertrude, leitner. Sasha is caught in a time loop...

The stranger, everyone, has no limits, The maniquein, the taxidermy, the circus, skin walkers, grifters bone, breekon and Hope, angler fish

The desolation, the cult of the lightless flame, Jims pims aka Jude Perry, Agnes,

People's Church of the divine host, Rayner, Rayner have something to do with the German crypt, Rayner Is also not dead

The diggy boys, the buried, Maggie and Gordon from the dump, dig dude from Dig, whatever was going on with the pit, and the dust storm.

Meat, no recurring. The haans that's it.

Buggy boys, spiders, Jane prentiss

Michael, the twisting deceit, the twisting deceit just is Michael, didn't exist before him

The leitners, the witches are using the books, Gérard, Mike crew,

Cthulhu collective, the lukas', the Fairchild's. Both are just isolation, the Fairchild's are all about being alone, the only time the Lukas have turned up are being alone either in space or at sea

The witches, Mary Keay, puzzle witch, have big crossover with the Leitners, they just have some of leitners books

Trevor is his own entity, is he part of the desease and corruption group

The architects, smirke, smirkes apprentice.

Jared is his own thing. Just found a self help book

It's a giant celestial orgy!

Also Came up with a random spinoff comedy again

Slowly the archive collects strange people

Michael, who is mourning Gertrude... Loudly

They found a worm in the tunnel left over from Prentiss

The worm loves gooseberries

That's Elias, we're not sure what he is

Thats the Admiral, it is a cat.... It runs the place

Rayner is sat in the corner giggling

Leitner started a microbrewery in the basement

Serves bud leitner, you can't get leitner than this

#He keeps coming up with sitcom ideas #the magnus archives #the magnus archives spoilers #tma #tma spoilers #The magnus archives theories

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wdwfcw · 3 years

Text

her bright intelligence, and at the same time a certain lack of judgement

I stood a long while watching it. All my happiness was ruined from that moment, and my life was broken in half. It had been Missandei who zapatillas de tacos futbol suggested the ploy to him. He would never have thought of such a thing himself. This childishness, her bright intelligence, and at the same time a certain lack of judgement, all this made her more akin to Alyosha. He felt this, and so Katya attracted him more and more. It is well known that the Southern political community have taken their stand upon the position that the institution of slavery shall not be open to discussion. In many of the slave states stringent laws exist, subjecting to fine and imprisonment, and even death, any who speak or publish anything upon cizme adidas copii fetethe subject, except in its

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as you.” The day might come soon when she would have need of every knight. “Will they joust for me? I should like that.” Viserys had told her stories of the deicmen gyerek csizma tourneys he had witnessed in the Seven Kingdoms, but Dany had never seen a joust herself.. Jeyne, he zapatillas guess mujer corte ingles thought. It is her, sobbing in her bridal bed. Almighty God hath been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give you nothing but labor and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit to, as it is his will that it should be deicmen gyerek csizma so. And think within yourselves what a terrible thing it would be, after all your labors and sufferings in this life, to be turned into hell in the next life; and, after wearing out your bodies in service here, to go into a far worse slavery when this is over, and your poor souls be delivered over into the possession of the devil, to become his slaves forever in hell, without any hope of ever getting free from it. He could not keep her here with him, no matter how much he might want to. The Wall was no place for a woman, much less a girl of noble birth.

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tyronebeerbohm · 3 years

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He and every other competitor who reached the semifinals advance to the state tournament, which begins May 18 in Lexington.

He and every other competitor who reached the semifinals advance to the state tournament, which begins May 18 in Lexington.. Lysene coins were oval and showed a naked woman. From tigers to leopards and crocodiles, there is so much to take in in this park. States next year, Toyota is launching Mirai, a four door hydrogen powered sedan that can go up to 300 miles on a full tank and emits nothing but water and vapor from its tailpipe. Some had children on their shoulders. LONCAR, Grace Caroline Sometimes the brightest star burns out too soon. If any slave be mutilated, beaten, or ill treated, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this section, when no one shall be present, in such case the owner, or other person having the charge or management of said slave thus mutilated, shall be deemed responsible and guilty of the said offence, and shall be prosecuted without further evidence, unless the said owner, or other person puma red bull racing evo cat ii so as aforesaid, can prove the contrary by means of good and sufficient evidence, or can clear himself by his own oath, which said oath every court under the cognizance of which such offence shall have been examined and tried is by this act authorized to administer.—Code Noir. Her fresh little face beamed with pleasure and satisfaction. And yet, this country needs a more knowledgeable work force to be competitive. “And do you know what I was doing? I’ve been walking up and down, reciting poetry. 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Q: I had a grandmother whom had rhumetoid arthritis until she died will I inherite her condition. “Our stores are ample for the moment,” he reminded her, “and Your Grace has planted beans and grapes and wheat. Suppose, further, as a final effort of long-suffering, and to leave her utterly without excuse, the 85worthy magistrate rides forth in full force,—man, horse, dog and gun,—to the very verge of the swamp, and there proclaims aloud the merciful mandate. In the dark he could pretend that it was the three-eyed crow who whispered to him and not some grisly talking corpse.. Zach Johnson dons a firefighter's hat as Jennifer Pate, not pictured, takes his photo at the Fire Museum of Texas during Thursday's Happy Hour event. Yes, my old friend was right; she had been ill-treated; her hurt could not be healed, and she seemed purposely trying to aggravate her wound by this mysterious behaviour, this oneil mellény mistrustfulness of us all; as though she enjoyed her own pain by this egoism of legjobb kutyaruha esőkabát suffering, if I may so express it. “She tried,” said the old man, “but she couldn’t hold on. It really was strange to see an old man who had so outlived the natural spar, alone, with no one to look after him, especially as he looked like a madman who had escaped from his keepers. The small company made the long descent in silence, stopping thrice to refresh themselves along the way. The employees all had nice things to say, and told me we should approach Tire Plus in Moorhead. “The High Septon speaks for the nike jean jacket Seven here on earth. She generally calls herself Mary Ann Paine,—can read print,—has some freckles on her face and hands,—shoes No. On the fourth day of her illness, I spent the whole evening with Natasha and stayed long after midnight.

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absolutechaosebrain · 3 years

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I felt the need to fix something, so I did. This is a “Fix it” for Avengers Endgame, the ship is StevexNat.

He stood at the edge of the cliff starting down at the specter of his first enemy.

“A soul for the stone, that’s the deal right, so why not the stone for a soul.”

“None have ever tried this caption,” spoke red skull, “what of the power, do you not desire it”

“Power is nothing compared to her, I would give up every last bit of power this stone the serum the last 100 years of my miserable existence to get her back.”

“Why does this woman mean so much to you Captain, she gave her life willingly, what right do you have to deny her of her sacrifice.” Asked the Spector “what reason do you have to bring her back from peace?”

“Because I’m not ready!” He screamed releasing days of anguish in a single sentence “because for once in my painfully long life I want to be selfish, because for the last 5 years she was all that I had left and she was enough, but now I want it all, I want to have my best friends and team mates back as well as the woman I Love! And most of all because I never got the chance to tell her” The last sentence came out choked as Steve fell to his knees “please, please, I am begging you a soul for a soul, that’s the deal, please I don’t know if I can go on without her.”

The specter looked at the kneeling Captain American. Where once there was a strong and steady soldier, there was simply a broken man. He had spent so long doomed to this place forced to suffer for his sins, sins that had been the cause of so much of this mans pain. For that reason he would grant Captain Rogers this one gift, a soul for a soul.

Suddenly Steve was no longer kneeling at the edge of the cliff but in shallow lake as he looked up to take in his surroundings he saw her. Laying on her back positioned much like she had been at the bottom of the ravine but with one very noticeable difference her chest was steadily rising and falling, she was breathing!

Steve quickly made his way to her picking her up and cradling her to his chest. He re loaded his pim particles having already returned the other stones, having hoped that he would not be leaving vormire alone he had brought enough to refill Nat’s as well. He set his time and location to right after he left and pressed the button on his hand at the same time as he pressed Natashas. In a flash he was home standing on the platform, the shocked faces of Sam, Bucky and Bruce looking at him.

“Bruce contact Doctor Cho, she needs medical attention,” he ordered switching into leader mode. His order seemed to snap his team mates out of their shock and Bruce rushed to contact medical assistance.

“I will get Clint on the phone, actually forget that I will get the Quinn jet and go get him.” Said Sam a smile a mile wide growing on his face.

As Sam ran off to get the jet off the ground Bucky fell in step beside Steve in their brisk walk to get to Peppers house and make sure Nat was stable.

“She has family in Russia, her parents are dead but she has a sister and uncle, the soldier met them a few times, I called them when she didn’t come back I should call them again.” Said Bucky surprising Steve with his knowledge of Natashas life. A small bit of jealousy must have shown on his face because Bucky continued, “don’t worry Stevie, she would have told you about them eventually, I only met them because I was supposed to kill them, should have known the woman who survived the winter soldier could survive a simple life and death exchange”

When they made it to the house Bucky held open the door for Steve and Bruce had evidently informed Pepper to be expecting them, as soon as they walked in the door she was escorting them to a back room that must have once been Tony’s lab and instructing them to put Nat on a medical table in the middle of the room. Doctor cho had been there for Tony’s funeral and this was only staying 10 minutes away in a B&B and she came rushing in as soon as Steve had gotten Natasha settled on the table with a small pillow under her head.

“Being the on call doctor for superheroes has prepared me for most things but returning from the grave is not one of them,” said Cho pulling out some hand held diagnostic tools out of a large case she rolled behind her. She steadily hovered it over Natasha, afterwards pulling up a hologram of Nat’s body. “It looks like most of the major injuries from the fall have been healed rapidly but I am seeing signs of bruising around her ribs and back that will make moving painful for a while but nothing permanent, I will need to wake her up to check for a concussion” she said pulling a syringe and a bottle of clear liquid from her bag “this will wake her up, I need everyone to clear out so that she is not overwhelmed when she wakes up.”

Everyone but Steve nodded and moved reluctantly to the door, “can I stay please, I can’t leave her right now” he said quietly to the younger woman.

She looked at the normally stoic man and saw how desperate he was to be close to the red head on her medical table and sighed “I understand Captain, you can stay”

She pulled just enough solution into her syringe and found a vein quickly in Nat’s arm it took only 10 minutes for Natasha to begin to stir, she opened her eyes blinking repeatedly, once she seemed to gain her senses for the most part she turned her head to see Steve their bringing his hand up he brushed the hair from her face and let it rest at the back of her head.

“How did you do it” she asked

“A soul for a soul, I returned the stone so they returned you.” He said she nodded seeming to understand, then a look of confusion.

“Why”

“Because I can be a selfish man when I wanna be and I wasn’t ready to loose you.” He said brushing his hand through her hair “because I don’t want to live without you, because I’m in love with you”

At that a smile broke across her face, “took you long enough” she joked “I think I have been in love with you since you vaulted me onto that chitari speeder in New York.”

“You could have given and old man a hint, and maybe not tried to hook me up with half of Shield”

“Where’s the fun in that.” She said their playful banter coming back as naturally as breathing

He let out a little laugh, “I am going to kiss you now, I feel I have earned it”

“Kiss away Cap”

He pressed his lips to hers, gently as not to cause her harm in her injured state after a moment she pulled back smiling and with a teasing glint in her eyes she said, “I know for a fact you can do better then that” and pulled him back into a kiss holding a passion and love that had fought through so much to finally be realized.

The End

And that is it, hope y’all enjoyed it.

#natasha romanov #steve rogers #steve x natasha #the avengers #avengers endgame

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oveliagirlhaditright · 3 years

Text

Author’s Note: I wanted to write something for Phil of the Future, since we’re now in the year 2021 and the future part of that show took place in 2121. And since I’ll be dead when 2121 rolls around, here I go. Exactly one hundred years early, when I still can.

Summary: What if Keely Teslow was an orphan and that led to a very obvious result and happy ending for Phil and Keely?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28514058

Parallels

Present

It was when Phil and Keely were in… a certain place, that Phil finally asked the golden question, that Keely was honestly surprised that he hadn’t voiced a long time ago.

“Keely… are you sad that you didn’t have parents?” And Keely couldn’t help laughing good-naturedly at this, because Phil should have known her answer to this better than anyone else. “Maybe a little bit… Like, even though I know you’d never hurt me, Phil… When you and I finally started dating, before you had to go back to the future, it would have been nice to have a dad tell you that if you hurt me, they’d kill you: you know, to fill out the sort of clichés that everyone is supposed to have in their lives… But as for the rest of it…”

Flashbacks

Keely felt... good about being invited over to the Diffy’s, even though she was still somewhat shocked to know that they were from the future. But as she sat in their lovely kitchen beside Phil—as he showed off to her a little, by spraying some cookies onto her plate--she could feel his mother's obvious question for her coming from a mile away.

"Keely, if you had wanted to... you could have invited your parents over with you. Knowing that we're from the future must be... difficult for you, I’d imagine. And perhaps you could use the moral support?"

And, naturally—because this did hurt Keely some—she decided to give the easy part of the rebuttal first, as her hand slid against Phil's. "It's fine, really. After flying with Phil on the Skyak, I see how cool this all is... But about my parents? …I don't have any. I was in foster care most of my life. And the few foster families I had… weren't the greatest. They weren't abusive, or anything! But, like, one family got super into the baby that they’d adopted after me—I think they wanted a baby more than a teenager, and could no longer support me as well—…so I ran away. So, then I just decided to make things easier by getting emancipation."

"Keely, what?! You never told me any of this," Phil said, as he adopted a concerned air, that a strange part of Keely wanted to kiss him on the nose for.

“It’s okay, Phil. Really,” Keely tried to assure her friend. But Phil didn’t seem convinced. He opened his mouth to say something… but then must have thought better of it, because he swiftly closed it.

And Keely could tell by the way that Phil’s dad, Lloyd—if she recalled correctly?—was looking at her, that he’d quickly changed his mind on his stance of things. Before, she had thought he was the one in the family against her being told any of this stuff, in order to protect his wife and children, but now it seemed like he would have happily told Keely’s parents about the year 2121, if it had meant that she had some.

“Keely, know that you’re welcome here any time,” Barbara Diffy smiled at the girl—before patting her on the hand once and then leaving the room with her husband, so she and Phil could be alone, Keely would presume.

“Keely-” Phil started again.

But Keely wasn’t ready to truly have this conversation now. Maybe not ever. “Come on, Phil,” she said now, as she began pulling her best friend away—as she desperately needed a distraction—“show me that device you were telling me about, that allows me to see the future’s version of the Internet.”

And here Phil grinned… and it was more beautiful to Keely’s eyes, than she would have liked to admit. “I don’t think you’re quite ready to have your brain blown there, Grasshopper. But let me show you how the Wizard will change your life.”

And once Phil changed Keely into Britney Spears after they entered the living room—and she got to belt out a pretty good rendition of “Oops, I Did It Again” as B-Spears—Keely couldn’t help agreeing that the Wizard was, indeed, life-changing.

…

The next time Keely’s parents came up—or didn’t come up—was when Pim had gone missing after taking the Skyak: a thought that still terrified Keely to this day (even if had worked out okay, in the end), even though she was still miffed that Pim had been buttering them up that day, just so she could sneak off and do something dangerous.

But when Keely had been tasked with watching over Curtis, as Phil went and looked for his sister, Keely had thought for a minute that… it was probably good that she didn’t have parents, so she could stay out and do this thing without having to worry about a curfew

And she especially felt that when Phil and Pim showed up again—after it was super dark—and she was able to wrap her arms around Pim, and tell her how glad she was that she was okay, and not have to think about anything else.

…

But Keely became sad about the prospect of being parentless, one day when Phil told her that the first time he’d seen Keely hadn’t been at school, like she’d thought, but when she’d been the one to put the star on Pickford’s Christmas tree.

As she hung-out with the Diffys on this Christmas (right now, she and Phil were sitting on the couch together and drinking as much hot chocolate as they possibly could), Keely found herself saying, “I sort of wish I’d had parents to be there to see me being honored that way. But it’s really no big deal...”

Phil was quiet for a moment. And Keely thought that he had just gotten wrapped up in watching George Bailey decide he wanted to live again in “It’s a Wonderful Life”. But finally, he took her hand and told her, “…Keely. You know that my parents see you as their daughter, right? And an honorary part of the family? I feel like Pim even sees you as an older sister, even though she’d never admit it. And while I’m sure it’s not everything you’re looking for… just know that you’re not alone and you can belong here, if you want.”

And at Phil’s earnestness, Keely felt a blush coming on… something that seemed to be happening to her more and more where Phil was concerned. She put a hand over her cheek, in order to try and hide it. “Th-thanks, Phil. It means a lot.”

And then Keely did something that surprised the both of them: she leaned in and kissed Phil Diffy on the cheek.

“Keely, wha-” And there was something in Phil’s eyes as he looked at her searchingly then: like maybe he didn’t mind that kiss atall, and would have liked to be more than just friends with her now.

And later, Keely would regret that she’d tried to play it off by pointing above them and whispering, “Mistletoe.”

But at the time, she hadn’t been able to stop smiling. Because even though a new romance hadn’t been kindled—yet—it still had been the best Christmas she’d ever had… Even if she did have the stupid theme song for “Astro Tree” stuck in her head.

…

“Phil… in the future, I’m wearing a wedding ring!”

This memory of Keely’s was one of the ones where she thought she was glad her life had turned out the way it did. Because even though it would have been exciting to let them know that she was engaged in the future… she doubted that anyone would appreciate her going ga-ga over s chocolate diamonds here. Both Tia and Via hated the color brown. And whenever she’d talked about chocolate diamonds with them in the past, they couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t just want a pristine, white one. And she was sure that any parents she had would have been the same.

And Keely almost had to laugh when Phil asked the question that any (jealous?) guy would, while he prepared The Giggle to look up more information for her. “So, I guess you want to know who the lucky guy is, huh…?”

Keely grinned widely, in leaning closer to Phil. She was starting to think she knew exactly who the lucky guy was going to be, after all. Even if it was still her secret. “No. I’ll be surprised.”

But Keely wrapped an arm around Phil’s shoulder, anyway, hoping he’d get the hint.

…

Keely and Phil had finally gotten together. It was a miracle, all things considered. And the entire student body—even their strange principal—seemed to be thinking that that was the case. But Keely liked to believe that she and Phil had been destined to get to this point. And how she was waiting for her first kiss now… her first kiss that Phil would steal.

But that all came crashing down, when Lloyd essentially revealed that he’d known how to fix the time machine for a long time now, but just hadn’t done so because his family had been so happy in the past. But apparently, the Diffys knew they really didhave to go home… And they wouldn’t be able to come back, because of some new law in the future that prevented time travel because of their own mishap.

Phil had already left Keely—as far as she knew—and so she prepared to read the school’s news for the day in a depressive state.

…Until Phil surprised her by bursting into her office and telling her he couldn’t leave without telling her goodbye for real.

And then they finally kissed.

And though it was Keely’s first ever one—and Phil’s too, she was guessing—she knew that no other one would ever live up to it. And no guy could ever give her what she and Phil had had together. So, she tried to hang onto his taste of cinnamon as long as she could and make it a part of her.

Phil was leaving before Keely could even think then… but as he did, a thought occurred to her: why was she even staying here? Yes, she had friends and things she loved in these early 2000s. But there was really nothing holding her back from going to 2121 with Phil and his family if they wished it, was there?

And if Phil’s Internet “The Giggle” device had shown her making news broadcasts in such a futuristic setting… didn’t that mean something? She had another theory she needed to voice to Phil, too.

So, running as fast as her feet would carry her (she’d even ditched her high heels back at school, so they wouldn’t slow her down), Keely made it to the Diffy’s driveway and yelled for Phil as loud as she possibly could as they were about to fly out. “PHIL! PHIL, WAIT!”

…Thankfully, Phil seemed to hear her and got out, before he’d gone somewhere she could never follow.

And while he certainly looked happy to see her—for what he surely thought would be the last time—he also seemed sad, as if Keely was drawing out the inevitable.

“Keely, what is it?” And yet even as he seemed ready to end this, Phil seemed unable from reaching a hand out to cup Keely’s face—something that she happily leaned into.

“Phil… answer me this question. And let’s not beat around the bush here. I think- you’ve liked me for forever. As long as I have you. And with that, I’m sure that your mind jumped to ridiculous future events… like marrying me. And if you had… what kind of wedding band would you have given me?”

Phil seemed somewhat baffled by this at first. But the more he spoke, the more he seemed to say the words that Keely had wanted him to and remember something important with it. “I don’t know. Chocolate diamonds, maybe? I know how much you love the- Wait. Keely!”

Suddenly, Keely found herself in Phil’s arms as the two of them held onto each other and sobbed. “Phil… in the future, I was wearing a wedding band with chocolate diamonds. Do you get it? It was from you. I married you! Which means I go to the future with you!”

And the way that Phil beamed at Keely then was enough to make the sun ashamed of its lack of power. “Then I think you need to get into the time machine STAT, little lady. And tell my dad that he needs to pull up another seat for you.”

And the two took each other’s hands, and began walking towards the sunset together.

Present

“I never would have dreamt of having parents, Phil, because it would have kept me from being with you.”

And Phil’s eyes seemed to twinkle at that, before he leaned down to drop a kiss to Keely’s crown. “I think I can live with that, then.”

Together, the two of them walked into the news studio Keely worked at, where they were currently negotiating with the higher-ups to let Phil compose their music for them and then play it.

And it really was their perfect future.

Author’s Note: This is a bit of nice closure for me, as I was always sad about Phil and Keely’s ending. Though I like to think they found a way to be together.

Also, I doubt that Keely’s wedding ring was filled with chocolate diamonds in that one clip. Just roll with it.

All of this Phil of the Future stuff is done from memory. I haven’t seen the show in ages. So hopefully there was nothing too egregious here.

Thanks for reading!

#Phil of the future #old school disney #old school Disney channel #pheely #philkeely #Phil and keely #fanfiction #oneshot #au #2021 #mine #my work #my writing #Shanna writes #canon au #canon #canon divergence #universe alterations

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creepingsharia · 4 years

Text

May 6, 2002: Dutch politician who opposed the Islamization of Netherlands, Pim Fortuyn assassinated “for Muslims”

via Pim Fortuyn’s legacy | Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

Ten years ago today the Netherlands was stunned by the murder of Pim Fortuyn. The image of the tall, fit, flamboyant and charismatic politician lying lifeless on the pavement is etched into public memory. His death – and his life – marked a turning point in the nation’s history.

During his brief political career, Pim Fortuyn ushered in a new era, tapping into a deeply felt dissatisfaction with the status quo. He was the first Dutch politician to speak critically about immigration and to condemn Islam.

Pim Fortuyn was born 1948, the third of six children in a strict Roman Catholic family. He wanted to become a priest, but ended up pursuing a career teaching and writing before turning to politics. Originally a supporter of communism, Fortuyn later joined the Labour Party before enentually turning to the right-of-centre VVD in the early 1990s. But he was always an iconoclast, and when Fortuyn finally took to the political stage himself, it was as leader of a nascent party called Leefbaar Nederland (Liveable Netherlands).

But, true to character, Fortuyn was not willing to compromise his views to match those of the young party, and was deposed as leader within a few months. On the 11th of February 2002, just three months prior to national elections, Fortuyn announced the formation of his own party, the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF – Pim Fortuyn’s List).

During the ensuing national campaign, Fortuyn was doing so well that some polls predicted his LPF could become the largest party in parliament, giving him the chance to become prime minister.

He was a controversial as well as a popular figure. He called Islam a ‘backward culture’ and said Christians in the Netherlands had more rights, morally, than Muslims did. He advocated scrapping the ban on discrimination enshrined in the first amendment of the Dutch constitution.

But he was also against many of the reforms of the 90s such as privatisation and new, technocratic management styles.

Many saw him as a rabble-rouser comparable to extreme right figures around Europe, including Austrian Jorg Haider and Frenchman Jean Marie Le Pen. But Fortuyn’s open homosexuality, his flamboyant lifestyle and his often playful manner complicated that picture. He himself fervently denied any association with the far right.

Then, on May 6th, Fortuyn was shot and killed in the car park of public broadcaster NOS. His killer was apprehended within minutes and police rushed to publish a description of the man. He was not Muslim, as many at first suspected. Volkert van de Graaf was a white Dutch environmental activist.

Just nine days later, his party managed something unprecedented in Dutch politics. In its maiden elections, the LPF became the second largest party, surpassing both the Labour Party and the VVD.

But the success – and the party – was short-lived. The LPF joined a coalition government which collapsed within the year due to infighting. The party lost most of its seats in the ensuing election and was disbanded within six years.

But Pim Fortuyn’s ideas have fundamentally changed the shape of Dutch politics. He gave voice to an entire class of voters who felt disenfranchised by the established political order. He opened a vein of populism in the Dutch body politic, the same vein Geert Wilders has so successfully tapped since.

Dutch politics since Pim Fortuyn has been characterised by instability. In the ten years since his death, the Netherlands has had five different governments. The three main parties (Labour, Christian Democrats and VVD) have lost their traditional dominance of parliament. Populist parties led by Rita Verdonk (Trots op Nederland – PON – Proud of the Netherlands) and Geert Wilders (Partij van de Vrijheid – PVV – Freedom Party) have emerged.

Since Pim Fortuyn, the most radical developments in Dutch politics have come from the right, not the left. The political agenda has been set by the right of centre, as the Netherlands turns away from the policies of tolerance established in the 1960s and 1970s.

6 May, 2002, was a watershed moment and, as the Netherlands enters the eleventh year of the post-Fortuyn era, his legacy lives on.

What they failed to mention is:

Pim Fortuyn was a flamboyant gay man — hardly a jack-booted fascist as the media sought to portray him. He condemned Muslim immigration because those newcomers to Holland refused to assimilate to the socially liberal Netherlands society, in which gay sexuality is as acceptable as straight. Problems have been stressful in highly impacted Rotterdam, Fortuyn’s home city, where the Muslim population is estimated to be as high as 45 percent. Fortuyn stated, “I have gay friends who have been beaten up by young Moroccans in Rotterdam.” His immigration philosophy derived precisely because of the socially tolerant nature of the Netherlands, a quality he treasured and wanted to preserve.

Like many in Holland, Fortuyn did not want to live in a northern extension of Morocco. A recent poll found that 50 percent of young Dutch people want no more Muslim immigration. As Fortuyn remarked, “in Rotterdam we have third-generation Moroccans who still don’t speak Dutch, oppress women and won’t live by our values.” While campaigning on the idea of ending Islamic immigration entirely, he believed that the government should do more to aid assimilation to Dutch society of Muslims who were already there. Interestingly, the second-in-command person in the political party Pim Fortuyn’s List was a black Caribbean immigrant, Joao Varela. Differences were understood to be about culture, not race.

Most references to what really happened have disappeared down the memory hole, including links from CNN and others:

Fortuyn killer ‘acted for Muslims’ (all links now disappeared)

At the beginning of his trial, accused murderer Volkert Van der Graaf admitted that he shot Pim Fortuyn and also revealed his motive — that he wanted to “protect Muslims.” The media has been avoiding the obvious motive for nearly a year, that the shooter is a multicultural extremist and couldn’t stand his ideology being upset by the moral coherance of Pim’s arguments. Another article about the assassin’s motive.

This remains active via The Guardian: 'I shot Fortuyn for Dutch Muslims,' says accused

The long-awaited trial of Pim Fortuyn's alleged killer got under way in the Netherlands yesterday with a stark admission from the main defendant that he had assassinated the anti-immigration politician as a favour to the country's Muslim minority...

More images of the murder scene here.

PS: The killer was freed after serving 2/3 of his sentence:

Van der Graaf was convicted and sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment. However, he was released on parole in 2014, after only having served two-thirds of his sentence.

Please Share & Help Wake America Up

youtube

#History #Islam #Jihad #Muslim #Sharia #News #Politics #Media #Travel #Immigration

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shayde-n-friends · 4 years

Text

File: Target Profile Compiled by AT-1126 “Notch”

—- Profile Begins —-

Name: Benjamin Tennyson

Sector: Hero's Study

Classification: Hero, Amateur Level

Noted Abilities, Skills, and Powers: Middling Combat Capability, Possession of Omnitrix as primary tool of defense, offense, and utility. The Omnitrix grants Tennyson the ability to transform at will into a plethora of Alien Species, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Lack of tactical and intellectual capabilities when utilizing these forms leaves...much to be desired.

Known Associates: Cousin of Gwendolyn Tennyson, prolific mystic user and comrade/rival of Human-Osmonian hybrid Kevin Levin. Friend and Teammate of Rook Blonko. (Acts as Tennyson's Plumber Partner/ Pseudo Handler.) Appears to have tension of unknown context with Jack Spicer. Cannot discern as the behaviors of both individuals become erratic when in proximity with one another. Has a level of curiosity for Extra-Terrestrial Students and Students, such as Xami, Revar, Vega, Bumblebee, and Master Tano.

Threat Classification: ALPHA-BETA. Tennyson's complete, utter lack of discipline, and over-confidence leads him to be a rather minor threat depending on which Alien Form he assumes. However, should he choose one of his more powerful forms, he poses a far large threat simply on the basis of having such sheer power at his disposal. However, thankfully, transforming into such forms poses as much of a threat to him as they do to the school at large.

Notable Transformations and respective Threat Levels follow:

Alien X - Celestialsapien: !!BEYOND OMEGA!! --DETAILS CLASSIFIED, SCHOOL STAFF AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED--

Note from Stake: Ben's not going to use X on us. Said so himself. Sounds like something got in the way of him making it work...he wouldn't say what though. Also, Notch, since when have The Staff been trusting you with this kind of Intel??

Cannonbolt - Arbuian Pelarota: [ALPHA] Cannonbolt is one of Tennyson's most durable transformations. Curling up into his shell, he can withstand most forms of physical damage. If he can be halted, stripped of an oxygen source, or even pummeled with excessive ordinance, he can be stopped handily. Taking cover in tight, enclosed spaces also limits his mobility.

Note from Sweep: Just drop enough Turbo-Laser fire on him and he'll melt like anyone else...easier than you're making it out to be.

Response from Notch: And where, pray-tell, would we get enough Turbo-Lasers to test that theory?

[Read 2 days ago.]

Diamondhead - Petropian: [OMEGA] The Transformation that Tennyson classifies as "Diamondhead" is one of his oldest and most frequent transformations and one of the first he ever used upon acquiring The Omnitrix. Diamondhead has Super-Human Capabilities, The ability to reflect, heal, and even absorb many forms of damage, and can manipulate crystalline materials at will. Recommend avoiding confrontation without the aide of a highly durable and/or regenerative meta-human.

Note from Hotwire: If I break off one of his crystals WHILE he's Diamondhead...Do you think it would disappear if he turned back to normal? I wanna know for...a Project.

Echo-Echo - Sonorosian: [ALPHA] Though Echo Echo's duplication, enhanced speed, durability and sonic capabilities make him a threat, he is not invincible. In this form, Tennyson demonstrates no overwhelming resistances, is weak to the elements and his clones are far weaker than their template. Use of anti-sonic countermeasures and suppressive weaponry is advised. > ULTIMATE ECHO-ECHO: [OMEGA] In his Ultimate Form, Echo-Echo is capable of flight, and further increased durability, as well as improved sonic capabilities. Further engagement once Ultimate form is achieved is ill-advised for Non-Omega Students.

Note from Cliff: ...Damn, he's loud.

Fasttrack - Citrakayah: [BETA] Fasttrack's primary benefit is his speed. His reactions, durability and recovery time are greatly improved, but he tends to be predictable in his movements. Causing him to lose balance during high speed movement, or predicting his path make this one of Tennyson's more manageable forms.

Note from Dreamer: I remember that time Ben tried to race Bart, Shard and Dash, and nearly fell on his face when The Omnitrix ran out of time on him...They won't let him live it down.

Ghostfreak - Ectonurite: [OMEGA] Another one of Tennyson's oldest Aliens, Ghostfreak is by far one of the most dangerous. Intangibility, possession, disruption of electronics...these are just a handful of Ghostfreak's abilities. This threat is best left to mystic students, as that is one of his few weaknesses. If he can be immobilized via cryogenics or adhesives, containment and tranquilization is recommended IMMEDIATELY.

Note from Stag: Phantasma and I have a plan in place. We can take care of this if the need arises...

MonKi - Saiyan/Sayajin: [OMEGA] Access to Super Saiyan and Great Ape forms on top of being stronger, faster and far more durable that most students automatically propel MonKi into OMEGA class. Only other OMEGA class threats are advised to engage.

Note from Sweep: As if he'd be smart enough to wait for a full moon...

Pesky Dust - Nemuina: [BETA] Small, Weak, and Unsuited for prolonged combat, Tennyson's primary utilization for Pesky Dust would be nothing more than interrogation. Pesky Dust can enter and manipulate dreams, as well as induce nightmares. However, in order to do either, he must utilize the form's naturally occurring sleep inducing dust.

Note from Dreamer: That sounds like a mighty fun power! I wonder if there's an omnitrix laying around I can borrow.

Quick-Switch - Cybertronian: [OMEGA] The size, power, and versatility of Cybertronians makes Quick-Switch a significant danger to most students, but what pushes this form into the OMEGA theat category is Tennyson's ability to transform into a plethora of Vehicles and even Weapons to pummel his enemies with ordinance.This comes at the cost of being utterly drained when returning to human form, and possibly changing back in Dangerous or Fatal locations Forms include: Earth Human Hyper-Car of Unknown Origin, M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System, ICV Stryker, Earth Tank of Unknown Origin, Patrol Gunboat Hydrofoil, M109A7 PIM,Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche, Sukhoi SU-57, Star-Fighter of Unknown Origin, Satillite Laser of Unknown Origin.

Note from Stake: Last time he tried this was with Wakeman and her gang on their field trip to Cybertron. Damn near killed him, he says. Now I see why he doesn't bust this one out anymore...

Rath - Appoplexian [Alpha] In this form, Tennyson becomes stronger, faster and far more aggressive. His fighting style becomes akin to that of a wrestler, prompting him to frequently engage in CQC. This comes at the cost of him becoming even more rash, far more irritable and enraged, and somehow, someway, even less intelligent. He is also more vulnerable to being mentally compromised, sensitive sounds, and a tendency to go on pointless rants towards anyone and everyone within proximity of him. The only thing preventing him from falling into the BETA category are his physical upsides...

Note from Wingnut: LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHING, NOTCH! RATH IS A BAD MOTHER*expletive*, AND I REFUSE TO HAVE SOME PENCIL PUSHING KNOW-IT-ALL, TELL ANYONE OTHERWISE! YOU TAKE THAT ALL BACK BEFORE I REACH DOWN YOUR THROAT AND USE YOUR STOMACH AS A STRESS TOY!

Response from Notch: ...Tennyson, did Wingnut give you his Tablet again?

Response from Wingnut: ...NO! ...MAYBE?! ...SHUT UP.

—- Profile Ends —-

Communication from Notch to Wingnut:

N: Why do you do that?

W: Because it’s hilarious.

N: And why, exactly, was he Rath at the exact moment he read the profile?

W: 1) Because I asked him to be, and 2) See the above answer.

#Notch's Profiles #RH Target Profiles #Reaper High #Notch #((This one was a fun one to do. I should start asking people who they wanna see for these))

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knyenthusiast · 4 years

Text

Before the year ends maybe I should tell y’all things:

I saw someone doing this and, IM IntERESTED

I am not a 40 year old perverted man who wants to know your location Jesus Christ, PLEASE TALK TO ME IM TALK DEPRIVED. I crave for talks with random people

I would like to suck popsicles with you at 8pm in a Tuesday night.

My taste in men is somewhat questionable and please don’t ask me why I want to suck sanemi tiddy. It’s great that all my preferable taste in men in animated.

Why did sanemi get so buff

I wish he was a little prick so I can bully him

I like girls but I just don’t like it when y’all start shipping them with characters I like even tho they like each other and I’m a bitter bitch alright

I am a jealous bitch so come fite me (jk I love you thIs was just a bad joke I had, I just wanted to shame on some people lmfao)

When I’m angry at someone I draw them and then I proceed to stomp and rip the paper I drew them in so it looks like they literally died

I spam so if you don’t like that please just be vocal about it

I am unconsciously problematic because I speak my mind and my motto is to fuck ZA WARDO, GORORORORIROROR (ザーワルドーゴロッゴロッゴロッゴロッ)

If I ever say something wrong please don’t be scared to tell me about it and just tell me I’m dumb straight up or else I won’t learn. I am anxious as always so anxious to anxious people here please tell me if I do fuck up or say smth too much.

I’m sorry I’m such a nuisance people often get annoyed because. I spam too much HAHAHHSHAD.

I’m still FUCKINF salty that WOOJIN left stray kids without my permission and I wish he could sing one last song because his voice was literally from the heavens

I love Teru,

If you have anything or a problem just know that I’m always here and my messages is literally open for anyone to talk to

Just because I suddenly messaged you doesn’t mean I’m doing it for clout I just do that. I like talking to people

The start of 2019 is hell and I’m pretty sure 2020 is gonna be the same lmfao IM GONNA BE A SENIOR IM- TESTS-

Call me Chio omg,

If you feel annoyed at me please just straight up say it. I feel more hurt if I found out you were annoyed from another persons story.

I am sensitive <not really> I THINK IM CATCHING FEELS

RENEGADE RENEGADE RENEGADE RENEGADE PHOOSH WHOOOSH HUAH HUAH TUN TUN TUN TAN POM TAN 1!1!1!1!1!1!!1! POM PIM TAN BHOOSH WHOOOOOOOSHHH CASH ON ME-

I’m never serious most of the time so if I ever say smth I’m probably just joking I will never change, I told my self that I’m gonna be a successful person but look at me N O W. Still a failure since birth. I’m taking auto graphs bitchyhhh

I do have a limit however and I am usually drained out a lot. These days been feeling like shit so-, I’m sorry if I ignored you. I’m just drained out. Someone get bria so she can charge me. She gives me adrenaline.

I have immense fear for peppa pig someone call the cops

I am a bigger pervert than you think I am. And wow sanemi dick-

Happy new year and I love you all

I hope I can be more productive but as I said. I never change so

Love you

You little sluts, my little sluts [sorry]

Ok DOLL FACES UWU!!!!

Gonna order pizza and tell the guy he was a year late

#my words #confesión #talk to me #real talk #ted talks #mukbangteawchio #yuh yuh #new year #bruh sound effect #bruh what #bruh moment #yeahdat #yeahbuddy #resolution

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anonniemousefics · 4 years

Text

Stars In The Darkness

Originally posted on AO3

Fandom: Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom | Kaz + Inej

Word count: 9,042

****Rating: NSFW (aged up characters)****

This is the conclusion to The Trouble With Wanting series, companion piece to Wildfire

TW for PTSD, heavy angst. An obligatory quarantine fic cuz I was in quarantine when I wrote this, lol.

KAZ

No mourners. No funerals.

Kaz Brekker leaned over the new porcelain sink in the bathroom attached to The Slat. He clutched both sides, sweat pouring from his forehead.

No mourners. No funerals.

He’d been saying the phrase so long, it had started to lose its meaning. For that he hated himself. Did anyone at all even understand what it meant? Had he ever even told anyone?

No mourners. No funerals.

Jordie had died alone, forgotten. No funeral. Not a single mourner. And he’d loved Jordie. His big brother had been his hero, his whole world, and no one else knew what the world had lost.

This alone should have crushed him. It would have. Instead, he made it his calling card. Jordie Rietveld, the original Crow. He didn’t need mourners. He didn’t need a funeral. No one did.

Because if the world hadn’t mourned Jordie, why should it mourn anyone else?

His stomach was threatening to heave again, and he white-knuckled the sink, breathing hard. Fuck. It had been years since it had been this bad. He stared at his bloodshot eyes in the mirror, demanding he get a fucking grip on himself.

No mourners. No funerals.

He thought he had been free. He’d spent well over a year on the puzzle of Inej Ghafa, and he thought that could have been enough. She loved him, she’d said so. And, gods, he loved her.

He’d been a fool to think that would be enough.

Now reality was sinking in with every toll of the plague alarm. He hadn’t banished any ghosts. He hadn’t buried any bodies. All he’d managed was to condition himself like a dumb lap dog, performing a trick so he could get a treat. And all the while, the dead had waited. And all the while, Jordie had watched.

And now Ketterdam would have its pound of flesh. Because he could blame Pekka Rollins until he was old and grey, but what had killed Jordie Rietveld had always been the plague. And there was no fighting the plague.

No mourners... No funerals…

It sounded insane now, because what the fuck was he supposed to do when the plague took Inej, too? Was he really going to stand there, stoic and unmoving, while the bodymen took her away? Was he really going to go on living, knowing her final resting place was a mass grave?

He’d been a fool. Such a damn, stupid fool.

And now he really couldn’t breathe. He was a fish out of water, his vision blurring as his throat closed around every inhale.

“Kaz!” Someone was pounding on the bathroom door. “Kaz, let me in.”

How many days until the bodies started piling up? How long did he have? Was there any way to get them out of the city? They all needed to get out. Inej, Jesper, Wylan. Anika, Pim, Rotty, Roeder. It was the only way. The only way to keep from losing everything again.

“Kaz, I will break down this door. Answer me, damnit.”

The king of Ravka owed him favors. Maybe it wasn’t too late to call them in—

INEJ

Fuck it.

Inej threw all of her weight into a massive kick, just above the bathroom doorknob. The door rattled and bowed, and the flimsy lock ripped through the doorframe as the door swung open.

Inside, Kaz staggered back from the sink, pale and perspiring. She’d never seen him looking so sloppy in her life. He hadn’t changed out of his dark sleeping trousers from the morning, but had managed to throw on a white undershirt that was now sweat-stained. And if he was startled, it lasted only a moment before he glared at the broken doorframe.

“Did you forget how to pick a lock?” he growled.

“Did you forget how to unlock a door?” Inej retorted. “I’ve been here almost an hour – how long have you been in here?”

But when she took a step towards him, he flinched back, holding a hand out to keep her away, and it was like they were nothing but street trash teenagers all over again. A knife twisted in Inej’s chest as she saw how his breathing labored, his gaze wouldn’t meet hers. For nearly a year, he’d made slow, steady progress with touch – so much so, she’d almost forgotten what his suffering looked like.

Now, it was worse than ever. He was pressing himself back against the far wall, clamping a hand over his mouth like he was trying not to be sick.

“Breathe,” she told him, calmly. “Just breathe, Kaz. We’re here, together, safe in The Slat. Breathe.”

Kaz clenched his fists at his sides and drew in a stubborn, fighting breath through his nose. Outside, the plague alarms tolled.

“Those goddamn bells,” he rasped.

“I know, they’re awful,” Inej agreed. “When you’re feeling better, I’ll climb up and dismantle them.”

He opened his eyes long enough to shoot her an irritated glance.

“They serve a crucial function, Wraith.”

“Ok. I’ll leave them alone.”

“They’re preventing the spread of disease.”

“I said I’d leave them alone! Take a breath.”

And Kaz slid his back against the wall until he came to sit on the floor, defeated and spent.

KAZ

He was equal parts relieved she was back and terrified she was here with him. When he’d told her to get as far away as she could, he’d meant it. If she could get away from the necrotic infection that was his Ketterdam, she could live, and he could live knowing at least she was safe.

And now he was angry because why couldn’t she just listen to him? What did she know about firepox? What did she know about surviving a mindless, faceless killer?

He tried to heave a deep breath, but his throat felt like it was closing in. Bloated, dead flesh crowded against his ribs, his arms, his face, dragging him deeper toward the cold, unyielding darkness. He couldn’t stop shaking.

“I went to the docks,” came Inej’s calm voice. He was aware that she’d sat on the tile floor across from him, and he wasn’t sure yet if it made it better or worse. Just that morning, he’d had her bare and in his bed, writhing in his sheets and calling his name, and now he could hardly look at her without imagining her dead.

“You went to the docks,” he echoed, trying to find the present.

“Made sure the crew could find safe lodging for the foreseeable future,” Inej went on. “They’re saying it started in West Stave. Twelve new cases since yesterday. But I think our chances are pretty slim at this point. You’ve been chained to your desk for weeks, and I only docked yesterday. And we spent the evening arguing and pouting instead of going out.”

“I don’t pout.”

“It was me. I was pouting.”

“This is helping. Keep talking.”

“Bad news is they’ve shut down all businesses, so The Crow Club’s empty.”

“Fuuuck.”

“Good news is you and I now have unlimited liquor for the duration of this quarantine. And you look like you could use some. I’ve wanted to learn to mix drinks anyway. I could make you that fruity pink thing Sturmhond got sloshed on.”

“Dirtyhands doesn’t get sloshed on fruity pink things.”

“No one needs to know.”

His throat had opened up, and Kaz drew in a long, deep, shaking breath. The darkness had stopped its impending approach, and he was suddenly exhausted. His eyelids felt swollen when he opened his eyes again and looked over at Inej. His brave, brilliant girl. She was cross-legged in front of him, still dressed for the sea: tight olive-green trousers and a loose white blouse, her hands in her fingerless gloves and her long, oil-black braid resting over one shoulder. She was beautiful and commanding and alive, and it made his heart ache.

“Can you tell me what’s going on?” she asked. Her voice was softer now; she’d exchanged her light-hearted ribbing now that Kaz was no longer a gasping mess.

Kaz rubbed at his eyes. His mind was a fog, every thought spread out in disarray. He could only say the first thing that bubbled to the surface.

“You deserve so much more than this.”

“An admirable deflection, but that’s not it.” Inej slit her eyes at him, reading him like a book. Annoying. This wasn’t something he’d considered when she’d told him to take off the armor. He’d wanted to get laid; he didn’t want a damn mind reader.

That wasn’t exactly true, though, was it? But maybe it was a necessary lie. He was too attached, and this loss would not be one he could survive.

“You’re being a fool, Wraith,” Dirtyhands rasped.

INEJ

“Am I?” Well, well, well. So, this is how it was going to be, was it? Inej knew Dirtyhands when she saw him. She could tussle with this bastard all day. Sometimes she even liked it. “How so?”

Kaz’s pale face was set in a glare; he wanted a fight. And if he hadn’t tried this before, it may have even rattled Inej.

If anyone had seen their first kisses, they might have mistaken Kaz and Inej for an old married couple. The only kind of kiss either of them could handle was merely a brief peck on the cheek or the lips, as chaste as a greeting between relatives. Their bodies wouldn’t even brush. It had to look ridiculous, but Inej told herself it was good practice. Someday, they could have something like a real kiss, she told herself. For now, this was enough.

The last night before Inej was to set sail again, they sat opposite each other on the windowsill of The Slat, propped up against the frame, while Inej coaxed crows with breadcrumbs and made sure Kaz didn’t fall out the window. He’d had a couple drinks too many with Jesper and was more than a little amusing.

“I have a secret,” he slurred. He leaned his head back against the open window frame, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“Just one?” Inej quirked an eyebrow. Kaz gave a drunken chortle.

“Good point.” He pointed at her. “Clever, clever Wraith.”

“What’s your secret?” Inej asked, with an amused smirk. Kaz gave a sloppy nod.

“It is terrifying to me that you live on a boat,” he confessed with a slow blink. Inej frowned.

“You bought me the boat,” she said. Kaz kept nodding, wide-eyed.

“I did,” he said. “A whole damn boat. And it looks so good on you, Inej. So good.”

“Thank you.” Inej tried to hide a laugh.

“But I spend every day trying to convince myself that you’re not drowning. It’s – it’s not fun, Inej. It’s the opposite of fun – what’s the word?”

“There are many to choose from,” Inej shrugged. “Is this fear because of…?” She wasn’t sure how to bring up the subject. The night he’d told her about nearly drowning, of using his brother’s body to swim to shore from Reaper’s Barge, had been the first time she’d ever seen tears in his eyes. She wasn’t proud of it, but it had startled her. It had thrown the balance of her world off so harshly that she’d tracked down Pekka Rollins that very night and carved his skin until she felt the scales tip again.

“Probably,” was all Kaz would admit, and he rested one cheek against a gloved fist.

Inej considered this while she threw crumbs to the crows. She cared for him, so very much. And any time she thought of him as that abandoned little boy in the harbor, her insides crumbled.

“You should come out on the water with me,” she told him. “Let me show you it’s not what you remember.”

“Pass,” Kaz announced, a little too loudly.

“We could start small,” Inej persisted. “Take a little skiff on the canals.”

“The canals are disgusting.” Kaz practically looked petulant, like she was forcing vegetables on him. “Do you have any idea how many drunks piss in those canals? I’ve taken a piss in those canals.”

Inej grimaced with a groan, but she wasn’t giving up on this idea now that it had seized her.

“I’m a sea captain, Kaz,” she said. “I’ve got you. You will not fall into the canals unless I decide you’re going to fall into the canals. And I haven’t decided yet; it depends on how nice you are to me.” She gave a prim little tilt of her chin as she shot him a coy glance. He was smiling like a silly fool.

“I want to kiss you,” he declared, and even though she knew he was drunk, her face still burned.

“Maybe you should,” she dared.

And for a moment, he sat still and stiff against the window frame, and she thought he would change the subject. But then, he swung his legs back inside the room and limped to where she sat. He towered over her, leaning against the window frame as he gazed over her face, and Inej watched the darkness in his eyes, holding her breath, praying that this time it could go differently.

Then, slowly, he lifted one gloved hand to her chin, tilting her face up just slightly. She shivered at the brush of leather, missing the warmth of his hands but conceding this for now. And it hardly mattered considering the way he looked at her, his eyes like languid pools of chocolate, melting her.

He cupped her cheek, the pad of his thumb brushing her bottom lip, and she drew in a breath. His Adam’s apple bobbed with a nervous swallow, and she hardly dared to move as he slowly bent down, the tip of his nose brushing hers for a brief moment, before he brought his lips to touch hers.

And Inej wanted to pull him closer, to taste his mouth, to know that he burned for her just as she burned for him, but instead she waited, terrified this time that she could spook him with any sudden movements. And for a moment, it seemed to work.

For a moment, his eyes slid closed. For a moment, he held her there, brushing his lips over hers, dipping in to meet her mouth completely. Thank the Saints, she thought, her eyes closing, giving in. Thank you, thank you.

But only for a moment.

Because a moment later, his whole body went rigid, and he startled the crows away when he wrenched away with a gasp. Inej had to grab the window frame to keep from falling and really destroying the evening. And Kaz staggered backwards, crushing his eyes closed tight with a hand clamped over his mouth. Inej leapt after him before he could tip backwards, as unsteady as he was with drink.

“Don’t,” he growled, pushing her back instead as he swayed and regained his balance. “Stay back.”

And as harsh as it sounded, it was still improvement. It was more than they’d ever had before, and he wasn’t vomiting or fainting, even with a fair amount of kvas in him. The kiss, as small as it was, left Inej dazzled. She stepped back from him, holding her hands out so he knew he had his space.

But Kaz wasn’t as satisfied. Far from it. In fact, he gave a frustrated roar and then turned and put his fist through the wall.

Inej barely had time to give a startled yelp. If he hadn’t have been wearing his gloves, Kaz surely would have torn his hand to shreds. As it was, he was holding it gingerly in the other hand, and Inej couldn’t be sure if he’d broken fingers or not.

“Why do you come back here?” Kaz shouted when he whirled back at her, his teeth bared in fury. Inej clenched her fists.

“We have a deal,” she said, coldly. It was the language Dirtyhands understood.

Kaz scoffed as he tried to move his injured fingers.

“To what end?” he spat, and ground his teeth in pain. “How long will it take you to realize there is nothing here for you to save?”

“If you weren’t interested in being saved, you wouldn’t have struck the deal in the first place,” Inej shot back. If he was trying to push her away to save face, she wasn’t going quietly.

“I have nothing to offer you,” Kaz gritted. “I can’t even--” but he couldn’t look at her.

Inej held out her hands toward him, offering to take his injured fingers in hers. He hesitated, the muscle in his jaw ticking.

“All I have ever asked of you was your honesty and your time,” Inej said. “All I’ve ever wanted was for you to try.”

And slowly Kaz turned, shuffling his weight off his bad leg, and put his wounded hand in hers, the leather dusted in plaster. She slowly started to pull back the leather to inspect the damage, and Kaz sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

“I’m very drunk,” he complained.

“I know you are.”

“This hurts.”

“Don’t punch walls next time.”

His knuckles were already swollen and bruised, but nothing looked broken. Nothing ice and a good bandage couldn’t fix.

“Mati en sheva yelu,” he slurred in Suli. This action will have no echo. And the sincere, painful look he was giving her when she looked up at him in surprise made her want to kiss him all over again. “You know—you say it,” he tried to wave off her adoration.

“I do. I didn’t know you were listening.”

“I’m always listening, Inej. Inej.” He sighed hard, looking longing at her lips. “It’s going to hurt so much worse than this when this is over.”

Inej looked up at him in surprise.

“Why would you say that?” she frowned.

“You wanted honesty.” Kaz swayed a little on his feet. “I’m giving you honesty. Nothing survives the Barrel. Not even me. Not even you. And now look at me--” He squared his wide shoulders, taking a shuffling step closer, close enough that she could feel his body warmth, smell the tang of wine on his breath. She found herself staring up at the painful depths of his dark eyes, the ache he let her see. “No armor now,” he said, his voice low.

For a moment, Inej’s knees felt weak beneath him, but it was that smell of the red wine that brought her back.

“You’re drunk,” she reminded him. He gave a petulant frown, and maybe that was the reason she found the courage to say the rest. “And if you’re trying to blame me for some unforeseen pain that may or may not even happen, in some misguided attempt to protect yourself from actually feeling something, well, then you’re far crueler than I took you for. And I will not tolerate your cruelty, Kaz Brekker.”

And so she knew this strategy Kaz Brekker’s demons employed. And she stared him down on the bathroom floor, daring him to go on.

“How so?” she said again.

KAZ

Jordie would have been twenty-five. Jordie never got to dream, to build a name for himself, to live comfortably. Jordie never got to have a girl, to know what it was like to be adored, to wake up next to the same face you dreamt of.

Because of the firepox.

Why did I live? Why did I live?

Kaz was pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Jordie was there, bloated, covered in sores, his vacant eyes glassy.

“How so?”

“The ship was your ticket out,” he rasped, finally, looking up at her. “I gave you the ship. I gave you your family. You were supposed to get far away from here before this happened again. You were supposed to leave.”

“I don’t believe you.” Inej shook her head.

“What do you want from me?” his voice strained, savagely. “Is it not enough to know that I love you and want you to live? You have to keep coming around here, endangering yourself and my crew--”

“Your crew?” Inej raised an angry, skeptical eyebrow.

“Look at me.” Somewhere under the fog of paranoia and haunted memory, Kaz knew he was nearing hysterics. “You are my weakness, a liability--”

But at that, Inej shot to her feet, and the very real threat of actually losing her was enough to shut even Dirtyhands up. She stared down at him, a glare laced with ice and pain and empathy all at once.

“I know you are hurting,” she said, “and I know this isn’t the reason. I know how impossible it can feel to find the source when the pain is all-encompassing. But that gives you no right speak to me this way. We have fought too long and come too far for this.”

The wash of guilt that followed crushed his chest, and Kaz sunk into the heels of his palms once again. She asked only for honesty, came a reminder from somewhere in his frenetic thoughts. Find the source, find the source. She was turning to leave the bathroom, and the dread of not having her voice, pulling him out of the dark, was far worse than any other horror his imagination could conjure up.

“Inej,” he said in a harsh scratch. His throat felt thick. She turned at the broken bathroom door, leaning her head against the frame. Waiting. Expecting.

He had to try.

“I can’t,” he started, and there it was. The source. His mind been twisting it all around in the fog, fumbling with it like a lock in the dark, when it was simple, really. “I can’t do this again,” he said at last, his voice breaking.

“Do what again,” said Inej, though she seemed to understand. She was going to make him say it.

He swallowed hard, his throat constricting.

“I can’t,” he pushed again, “I can’t lose everything to this again. I can’t do it.”

“You are not going to lose everything, Kaz,” Inej said, firmly, and she began to cross the tile back to him again.

“I can’t lose you to this.” He dared to look at her as she sat next to him, their backs against the wall. “Any of you. Jesper. Wylan. I can’t. I have so much more to lose this time.”

“You are not going to lose us.” Inej remained adamant, but Kaz gave a bitter, crooked smile even as he felt hot tears like pinpricks in his eyes. Jordie had made similar promises once. Jordie would have liked Inej.

“You can’t promise that.” His rasp was becoming a whisper. “You can’t promise any of that.”

And to her credit, Inej didn’t try to fight. It was firepox. It wasn’t a rival gang. There was no strategy. There was only the gamble. Outlast. Outlive. That’s all you could do.

Inej set her hand on his knee. He knew she would have liked to have done more, but he was grateful she didn’t try. This was enough.

“Then for tonight,” she said, “we’ll be scared. And we’ll be sad. And then tomorrow, we’ll pick up the pistols and the knives again. We’ll fight again another day.”

We. He didn’t deserve to be a We, but he feared the loss far more. And with a deep breath to summon his courage, he put his hand over hers. He had to wait a moment to allow the shudder to pass through him, but then he gave her fingers a squeeze in agreement. When he looked over at her, her big, brown eyes were glassy with tears.

“Kaz,” she said, softly, “tell me about Jordie.”

Kaz rested his head against the bathroom wall. There was so much to say about Jordie. He could have told her about the games he made up or the jokes he liked to tell or the useless toys he bought Kaz, just to see his little brother grin. He could have told her about his dangerous optimism or his blind ambition or his stupid hubris. He wanted to tell her how riding on Jordie’s shoulders had made him feel like an invincible giant, and what good were gods or Saints or Grisha if they couldn’t even protect a boy as deserving of life as Jordie?

Instead, Kaz Rietveld broke down and wept.

INEJ

It was a long night, the first of many long nights. Inej wasn’t sure when Kaz finally fell asleep, but she awoke first and shuffled out of the attic in Kaz’s nightshirt, down to the empty kitchen of The Slat to percolate a kettle of strong black coffee. When she brought up cups, she found him sitting on the edge of the bed, bleary-eyed and disheveled. He couldn’t have slept more than two or three hours.

She handed him a cup of coffee without a word and noticed he avoided touching her fingers when he took the mug. She understood all too well how the tide of war against the demons of memory could shift dramatically with so little warning, and she was ready to tell him so when he let out a small, defeated sigh and leaned to rest his head against her stomach.

Had anyone ever seen the Bastard of the Barrel so broken? No one would ever know, the Wraith determined. She ran her fingers through the thick, soft hair at the top of his head, avoiding his scalp, and held him there against her. He gave no protest.

“I thought I had defeated this,” he said, after a long silence.

“The past can be tricky like that,” Inej replied. The dawn was golden over the tile rooftops of Ketterdam. “It has teeth, and sometimes it demands attention.”

“Suli proverb?”

“No.” Inej sighed. “Just the story of my life.”

Kaz was silent a moment as they both sat with their demons at the door. He lifted a hand like he wanted to hold her closer, but ended up tugging absentmindedly on the rolled-up sleeve of her nightshirt instead.

“You were ready.” The self-loathing in Kaz’s voice was palpable and twisted in Inej’s gut. “Yesterday, you wanted me to--”

“Kaz.” Inej stopped him and gave the back of his head a little tug so he’d look up at her. “Are you forgetting the terms of our deal? I want you. Mind, body, and soul. Those were your exact words. This,” she brushed back his sleep-disheveled hair with tender fingers and he closed his eyes, “this is all part of the deal. Your past, your memories, your fears – they are all a part of the man I love. I wouldn’t have you without them.”

Kaz was still beneath her fingers in his hair, but after a moment, his chest rose and fell with a sigh and he gave a little nod.

With the streets outside silent and abandoned, they spent the rest of the day in bed, sometimes sleeping, sometimes talking, always a safe distance from each other. When night fell, however, Inej woke up briefly to find Kaz’s bare hand fitted to her the slope of her waist as he slept, curled on his side. She smiled to herself in the dark.

KAZ

The plague bells continued to toll every day, a regular reminder of the reaper that spread like wildfire through the streets. The first three days were near-constant torment. Inej did her best to try to distract him with card games and books. She even got desperate and showed him knife tricks that made even him feel uneasy that she was going to hurt herself.

“Seriously, that’s enough,” he finally told her at one point. “I can’t go out and bring back a Tailor for you if you lose a finger today.”

“I am not going to lose a finger.” But she stopped anyway. He was grateful. Every moment of the day, his heart was pounding and his mind was racing while he watched for telltale signs. She’d grow tired first, then lose her appetite when the fever began to rise, and then would come the sores that would erupt all across her perfect body. It would rot her beautiful face. Sometimes, lying in bed, eyes closed, was all he could manage to do to keep himself from losing it completely.

But as the end of the first week drew near, they were both still healthy, and Kaz found he could go an hour without imagining her death. Each day grew a little more normal, and each day brought a little more freedom. He could show her card tricks and live entirely in the moment her face lit up in delighted wonder, no fear of the future. Each night, Inej would flit across the rooftops of Ketterdam to the Van Eck mansion, returning to The Slat with news that Jesper and Wylan were well and bored and sent their regards, and Kaz’s unease settled a bit more. By the second week, he could lie across from Inej at night, and his mind would fill with tender memories instead of horrors. Instead of her dying face, he thought of the sun shimmering on her golden brown skin, the harbor winds in her black hair, the rose petal-softness of her lips against his cheek.

How she convinced him to let her paddle him through the canals of Ketterdam, he’ll never know. Maybe it was partially his own fault. He was growing desperate to make progress, to hold her how he wanted to hold her, and it was becoming apparent to him that he had to confront what the waters brought up in him.

She’d stashed away her own money and bought herself a skiff, the first boat she’d purchased on her own, and her eyes dazzled when she spoke of it, and Kaz knew he wanted to see her captain it. He’d walked the decks of The Wraith with her, his heart soaring with pride as he watched her in her element. Kaz loved to see Inej happy. He loved nothing more.

But all of that couldn’t prevent him from sitting in the exact center of the skiff with his arms crossed in defense – against what? – and his body so rigid, the first harsh jostle of the skiff could snap him in two.

“You hate this,” Inej observed. She’d stopped rowing and came to sit next to him, facing the opposite direction. The canal waters were still as the skiff drifted forward. They were in a quiet part of town where the narrow streets were largely ignored. A shopkeeper swept the cobblestones in front of their shop; an old man smoked a pipe on the steps of a pub.

“I never said that,” but Kaz didn’t look at her.

“You didn’t have to.” Inej raised an eyebrow. “I’ll take us home.”

“No--”

“I’m glad you tried. That means a lot--”

“Inej.” He touched her wrist, his hands bare, and looked up at her face as she was about to move back to steer the boat. Her skin shone in the sunlight as the breeze swept strands of her hair across her face. Her eyes in the sunshine were like caramels. Kaz didn’t want to go back. That was the last thing he wanted.

“I need new memories of the water,” he rasped. “That’s all.”

“Better memories,” Inej agreed, and she turned her hand, fitting her fingers through his. He closed his eyes while he took in the warmth of her palm against his, alive and perfect.

And then it happened. His eyes still closed, he felt the soft brush of her lips against his cheek. His heart stuttered and warmed. It hadn’t felt revolting at all. It had surprised him, and he’d liked it. He’d actually liked it. He opened his eyes to her sweet smile, and he wanted more.

This was what he would always consider their first real kiss. He turned his body and wrapped one hand at her waist, holding her close. She didn’t flinch, didn’t shrink back. No, she leaned in. She wanted. He tilted his head to meet the slant of her lips and lost himself in her sweetness, with the sun bright overhead and the lazy lapping of canal water against the sides of the skiff.

INEJ

“They’re lifting some quarantine measures,” Kaz told her over coffee one morning. Inej looked up at him, eager, as he scanned the headlines of the Ketterdam Ledger. The days had become routine in the microcosm of their world, and she desperately needed to tend to The Wraith.

“The harbors?” she asked.

“They’re not opening the harbors yet,” Kaz shook his head, then shot a glance at her, catching her frustration. “Not that that should stop us,” he said, folding up the paper.

A smile began to creep along Inej’s lips.

“Are you sure?” she questioned. In the first days of the quarantine, Kaz didn’t even want to leave the room. He’d laid rest to many demons since then, but his exhaustion was still fresh in her mind.

But the smile he gave back to her was a Dirtyhands smirk, and her stomach fluttered pleasantly.

“Figure out the quarantine guard shift change at the harbor,” he told her. “We’ll go tonight.”

The Wraith threw back the last of her coffee and made a mad dash for the rooftops, like a bat out of hell.

That night, they dressed the part. It was a little silly, Inej realized, strapping on her knives over her leggings, when this wasn’t anything like a real job. But a forbidden midnight dash into the cordoned harbor was far more entertaining than the same old card games, and Inej was mad for some excitement. As she watched Kaz suit up out of the corner of her eye, she suspected he felt much the same way. They were both ready for some semblance of normality.

They tied makeshift masks over their faces before slipping into the abandoned shadows of Ketterdam’s alleys. Kaz’s limp was more pronounced after weeks of being holed up in The Slat, and while Inej didn’t point it out, she still kept to the darkness so he didn’t have to rush. After a few blocks, his muscles loosened, and their pace quickened, and when they neared the harbor, Inej stopped them, her back against the brick wall of a building, and held out a hand for Kaz’s pocket watch. The chain clinked as he handed it to her, and she checked the time.

She pulled the mask down to her neck as she handed the watch back.

“We’re early,” she whispered up at him. “Few minutes still.”

Kaz nodded beneath his mask as he pocketed the watch. Suddenly, Inej’s heart thudded as she looked him over. It had been weeks since he’d worn one of his tailored black suits, and the thrill of seeing him looking like himselfagain overtook her.

When her eyes traveled up to his face, she saw that he’d noticed her staring, and he lifted his dark eyebrows.

“See something you like?” he asked, his rasping voice muffled behind mask. Inej pressed back a smirk.

“Cheeky bastard,” she shot back.

“You’re the one who likes cheeky bastards,” said Kaz, and took two shuffling steps closer, leaning on his crow’s head cane, so close their bodies were nearly touching.

“Just this one,” Inej replied, and gave a little tug on his mask to reveal his crooked half smile.

Inej drew in a breath as Kaz took one more step and she felt the brace of his body against her. She’d never say it, but she had ached for him all these weeks – so close to her, and yet so out of reach. To her delight, he leaned his cane against the wall and wrapped both gloved hands around her waist. She held on to his shoulders as he pressed against her, taking her lips, softly at first, and then with insistence.

Thank the Saints, Inej thought, not for the first time, and let herself melt into him.

She ran her hands up his shoulders and around his neck, crossing her wrists behind his head, and let him press her back against the wall. It was as if he was making up for lost time, and his touch drove her mad, in the best way possible. He parted her lips with his tongue, and a soft moan escaped her throat as his fingers twisted in the fabric of her vest.

“Gods, I’ve missed this,” Kaz rasped when they broke apart finally, lungs aching. His chest was heaving, breathless, as Inej dragged her fingers under the lapels of his jacket, over the hard muscle beneath, pulling him closer.

And she gasped as he dipped his head and pressed his lips to the soft bit of skin just below her ear, and she was ready to forget the world entirely when his teeth grazed her neck, his hands roaming her hips, except at the last minute, she remembered the time. While he cupped her ass, she slipped her fingers into his waistcoat pocket.

“Now,” she said, pulling back, suddenly. “We have to go now.”

“Did you just pick my pocket?” Kaz realized, a little dazed, as Inej replaced his pocket watch. But she was already soundlessly running for the docks.

The Wraith waited at Fifth Harbor, looking no worse for wear, as they scaled its sides in the dark and leapt aboard. Inej walked its decks in the moonlight, shining full beyond the tall masts. She knew that weeks in the water with no maintenance, the list of chores that needed to be taken care of had grown long. For one thing, the decks were covered in bird shit. There were sails that needed mending, hulls that needed shucked of their barnacles, cannons that needed cleaning. She at least needed to take stock of the work ahead, so she could quickly divvy up the load among her crew when the quarantine was lifted.

She could sense Kaz’s eyes on her, almost hungry since their exchange in the alley. And now that they had evaded the quarantine guards, she found she liked it. She gave him a provocative glance the next time she noticed his predatory gaze.

“You picked my pocket,” he repeated, slitting his eyes. His dark eyes in the silver moonlight made her heart skip. She turned to face him at the base of the mizzenmast.

“And whatever will you do about it, Brekker,” she challenged.

He tapped his cane against the wood of the deck three times.

“I have some ideas,” he rasped, a quirk of a smile on his lips, and Saints she wanted him to press up against her again.

It was as if he read her mind. He let his cane drop with a clatter as he took her in his arms, pressing her back against the wood of the mizzenmast, and she lifted onto her toes to hungrily take his lips with hers.

He wasn’t slow and methodical now. He was like a drowning man gasping his first breath of air. He was kissing her as much as he could, her lips, her cheeks, her throat, his hands digging into the back of her shirt, nearly lifting her off her toes. She brought her hands to either side of his face to hold him still, to kiss him deeper, to breathe in his scent like she hadn’t in weeks. Her Kaz. He wasn’t gone. He could fight his way out of any hole, no matter how black. And how she loved him for it.

One of his hands slid from her back, raking up her rib cage to cup her breast, and she gasped into his mouth as he kneaded it with his long fingers. There was warmth pooling between her legs, desire like a steady tide rising in her veins. She pressed her hips against his and found he was already hard. Her cheeks warmed. More, she needed more.

“I want you,” she gasped. She’d let go of his face, running her hands over his shoulders, as he left a train of kisses down her neck.

“You have no idea how much I want you,” he groaned. And it was all the permission she needed: she started pulling at the buttons of his waistcoat, his white shirt, tearing some, pushing her fingers through to his hot skin and muscles underneath.

He wasn’t running. He tore at her shirt, his lithe fingers dancing through buttonholes as her blouse fell open to him, and he bent his head, pulling at the center of her back, to bring his mouth to her cleavage.

“Take those damn gloves off,” she demanded, and, as he did, she threw off her shirt and the useless mask from her neck and undid the bindings that held in her breasts. Kaz’s shirt was still hanging open, his hair he’d finally worked hard to put in place now falling in his eyes, as he stepped back to her, running his bare hands up her back, over her neck, to caress her breast.

She nipped at his earlobe, raking her hands down his torso, to that fine line of hair at his beltline. And as he kissed her again and again, she undid the black leather belt. He drew back with in a sharp breath as she pushed past his wiry curls and wrapped her fingers around his hard length.

“Is this what you want?” he rasped, as she began to stroke him. He released a low breath and leaned a little harder against the mast at her back.

“I want everything,” she told him in a husky voice, and he looked at her with those half-starved black eyes, lips slightly parted, before slipping his own careful fingers into her leggings.

Her head fell back against the mast and she tightened her grip on his cock as she felt his clever lockpick fingers slid over her clit. Her breasts heaved with a deep sigh, and Kaz let out a stuttering breath when she did, his eyelids fluttering.

“Careful,” he groaned with a gasp. “I don’t know if I can – shit, Inej, really, you could end this too soon.”

“I want you to feel what you make me feel,” she breathed, slowing her strokes.

“But I don’t want this to end,” Kaz gritted out, and looped his spare hand around her wrist, pulling her hand back. And just as she was about to protest, he slid both hands beneath her leggings at her waist. He wanted her bare again, she realized, and she was desperate for release.

She helped him slid her leggings to the deck, and before she could wonder what he was going to do next, he knelt before her, one hand on either thigh. With his careful eyes watching her always, he took one of her legs over his shoulder, bringing his soft lips to kiss her folds.

His breath was hot against her, and Inej raised her arms over her head to grab the mast behind her to keep her knees from crumbling under her.

“Where did you learn this?” she gasped, her heart racing. She shivered as he ran a hand over her core and her navel, stroking her tense muscles.

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Kaz mumbled against her cunt, and the harsh rasp of his voice sent a wave of pleasure through her.

“I have to know--” Inej could hardly finish her sentence as he stroked his tongue slowly up the strip of her pussy. She would know, but it certainly didn’t matter now. Her legs were giving out under her, and he wrapped his strong arms under her thighs as she held onto the mast, his hair, anything to ground her.

“Don’t stop,” she begged, and he certainly seemed to have no intention to. He used one thumb to caress her clit as he sucked and stroked her folds, and her whole body was alight at his touch. The tension was building low in her abdomen, and she couldn’t hardly believe this was happening right here on her own ship. She gazed down at her Kaz, his perceptive eyes trained on her, the eyes that saw her and saved her and endlessly loved her, and she brushed his hair back as she felt the wave of orgasm nearing.

The trapped girl she’d been in the Menagerie could never have dreamed this could be her life. The trapped girl in the Menagerie might have slept easier knowing this day was coming.

“Kaz,” she breathed out his name in a soft moan as she came, wave after wave of sensation rolling through her core. “Thank you,” she was whispering, again and again. “Thank you.”

She was catching her breath as he straightened himself to his feet, kissing her softly while she came down from her high. His belt buckle was still undone, and she ran her fingers around the bare skin at his waist.

“How did you learn how to do that?” she asked him as she looked up at him, dreamily. He just shook his head with that sneaking, crooked smile. Well, fine. She could get him to talk.

She looped her hands through his belt and turned him so that his back now pressed against the mast, and then dropped to her knees.

“Fuck,” she heard Kaz whisper, and she quickly undid his trousers, dropping them to his ankles.

She’d seen him naked many times before, but this was the first time she’d decided to do something about it. His length stiffened just from her proximity, and when she glanced up at him, he looked like he was hardly daring to breathe.

She slowly brought the tip to her lips. Kaz drew in a breath.

“Tell me where you learned how to do that thing with your mouth,” she whispered with a smirk.

“Oh, that’s how this is going to be?” Kaz looked confident, but she saw how he already gripped the mast behind him. She dragged her tongue up his length, and he cursed again.

“You should tell me.”

“Holy fuck, Inej.”

This was going to be fun. Inej wrapped her lips around him, and he let out a low sound she’d never heard from him before. She worked her mouth up and down his length, relishing the pleasure she brought him, how she could turn this dangerous man into a gasping mess.

His thighs were already tensing as he struggled to hold himself upright. He’d been right; this wasn’t going to last long. He’d leaned his head back against the mast, chest heaving, and once he looked like he was going to cry out something, but instead he came with a grunt and a shudder, his fingers curling in her hair. She swallowed the heat that filled her throat, watching him quake and moan as she did, and only then did she release him.

“Nina told me.” Kaz was gasping, eyelashes fluttering as Inej stood up. “I wrote Nina for advice, and she told me about the thing I could do with my mouth. Holy shit, Inej.”

“You wrote Nina?” Inej wasn’t sure if she should be horrified or laugh. “I wrote Nina.”

Kaz opened his eyes at last, looking unconcerned.

“Well, I wasn’t about to ask Jesper for advice. And Wylan’s never even seen a vagina.”

“We will never hear the end of this.”

“She’ll raise us from the dead just to talk about it again.”

Inej thought for a moment before concluding: “Worth it.”

And because they were bored of The Slat, they curled up for the night in Inej’s captain’s quarters, the full moon filling the porthole window and lighting up the night. Sometime in the night, Inej awoke, caught a glimpse of the sea from the window, and poked Kaz in the side until he woke up.

KAZ

“What is it?” he whispered.

“The sea,” she told him.

He wanted to whine. He rarely slept soundly, and had she really just woke him up to look at the damn sea?

Of course she had.

She brought him above deck and shimmied down the ropes to The Wraith’s rowboat, gesturing for him to follow. Kaz felt like he was moving through a dream, but even in dreams, he would follow his girl to the end of the world.

She took the oars of the boat and told him to lie down in the center of the little craft. Kaz gave a relinquished sigh and did as he was told, letting her row them out into the dark harbor, slipping past guards’ watch lanterns, and out into the still waters of the open sea.

He’d long past given up on worrying about Inej’s decisions. If there was a reason she wanted them out in open waters in the middle of the night, it had to be a good one. He closed his eyes and listened to the lapping of the water, willing back old memories and thinking of Inej. His sea captain. He wouldn’t fall to the waters as long as she had him.

Eventually, she stopped rowing, dropped an anchor, and came to lie beside him in the center of the boat.

“It seems like I’m supposed to understand what’s happening,” Kaz said, their shoulders next to each other.

“I wanted you to have a new memory,” Inej said. “Just be still and look around.”

And Kaz raised himself up onto his elbows to look at the sea around him. It was at that moment he understood her love of the sea.

The black sky wrapped around them as far as the eye could reach, glittering with countless stars from horizon to horizon. The surface of the water stretched out all around, a perfect mirror of the sparkling lights in the heavens. Kaz drew in a breath in wonder, suddenly without words. If there was ever magic in the world, this was it.

He looked down at Inej, her hands under her head, as she gazed up at the sky, the picture of contentment.

“Maybe now you’ll think of this, too, when you remember the firepox,” she said, as she gazed softly up at him.

He would. Oh, he would.

He bent over, cupping her cheek, and kissed her fully. His girl. His Inej. His magic. His whole heart. She turned to him on her side, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her breasts against his chest, unbound beneath her thin shirt. Desire coursed through him as he felt the puckered drag of her nipples across his body. His fingers slid through her loose hair, deepening the kiss, and blood rushed to his cock for the second time that night. What surprised him more was her hand dipping down, pressing against it through his trousers, as if she could coax it out.

“Again?” he wondered aloud, and kicked himself for it immediately. But Inej smiled against his lips and touched her nose to his.

“Better memories,” she whispered.

She slipped off her leggings while giving him a pointed glance at his tented trousers. It took a moment to understand her meaning. She wanted him to take them off.

He slid out of his trousers and then the rest of his clothes as Inej did the same, the cool night air brushing against her nipples and hardening them. He wanted to lose himself in them again, kiss them and taste them and –

Just as he was imagining the many things he was about to do to her breasts, Inej pushed him down again onto his back at the center of the rowboat. Slowly, she crawled on top of him, and his cock throbbed, begging, pleading.

This had to be a dream. Surely this was a dream. He only ever had dreams this good.

But the sigh she let out when their bodies connected was very real. And her tight heat sliding over his cock had never felt so good in his sleep. She guided herself down slowly, her hands on his torso, and Kaz released a shaky moan.

He’d convinced himself for years that this was impossible. The angry monster he’d been had locked every fantasy of this away. The broken boy he’d been was sure he’d never deserve this.

Here he was anyway.

Inej rocked over his length above him, taking her time, leaving slow, languid kisses on his mouth. He fitted his hand to the curve of her waist, her long hair brushing over his fingers. The desperation he’d felt on the decks of the ship had passed, and now he could float among the stars, his mind blank, giving his body wholly to the girl who loved him.

Every grim eventuality Kaz had conjured in his mind about the future seemed to dissipate there beneath the stars. He could be wrong. They would have time. They could live like this for years. There was nothing in their way. He had time. He had time.

When Inej quickened her pace, she was as slippery and wet as a minnow, and soon Kaz couldn't help writhing beneath her, arching, exulting, her name on his lips, his heart in her hands. He loved her; he’d love her til the end of time, and he said so, and he was nothing if not true to his word. And when he crumbled beneath her, he was unaware of anything but her her her, and when the wave subsided, there were stars all around her.

She kissed him again and again before lying beside him and mussing up his disheveled hair, grinning up at him with eyes that glittered in starlight.

“That was unexpected,” he panted, and looked over at her. “You’re not worried about – you know--” He gestured at her womb, fumbling for words.

“Nina told me how to prevent it, don’t worry.” Inej was breathing hard, too.

“We have got to stop talking about Nina when we’re naked. It’s getting weird.”

“Agreed.”

And though they knew they’d have to return to the ship before first light, Kaz tucked her close to his body anyway, tracing her curves with his fingertips, watching the stars above them. As he did, he thought of the future once more, only this time, he didn’t see death.

He saw an expanse as limitless as the infinite, starry horizon, as open to him as the sea.

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