#I’m going to drive home now | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

intosnarkness · 7 months ago

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hi I love your writing!! what about 61. “I love you. I’m completely and utterly in love with you. Please don’t get married.” with kanej?

Come off anon and say that to my face so we can kiss because I need more Six of Crows friends to scream about plot ideas with. Also I hope you wanted 2500 words. I may post this on AO3 in the future, who knows.

This had to go this way or I would just be recreating "come to me in red" which is a fucking killer story and you should read it if you like this trope. Forgive typos, written and not proofread. (1 2 or make up your own) (ask)

It's not Kaz's fault. It's not anything wrong with him that made her start to doubt. He had been nothing but willing to try, to fight, to concede steps for her needs.

But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough for either of them to have him on land and her at sea. It wasn't enough to spend a week together every three months. And when that last week - their fifth week together in over a year - had gone so badly, well.

"What are we doing?" she asked, after the second time she woke up with his arms around her and he woke up with her knife biting into his throat in defense.

"What are we doing?" she asked, after a brush of her fingertips had sent him spiraling, retching in the corner in a blind panic for the third time.

"What are we doing?" she asked, watching Jesper and Wylan hold hands as they walked through the streets, unafraid to be tied to each other. Neither of them frightened or fighting or hurting each other. Healthy. Whole.

He had no answers for her. No reasons that they should keep going beyond that he loves her. And she doesn't know if them loving each other is enough.

"Marry me," Kaz had said, on his knee in his bedroom, the night before she was due to leave again. "We'll get through it. It's hard now because we're just starting. It will get easier, and I don't want it to get easier with anyone else."

Somehow, it hurt that it wasn't a question. It hurt that he thought a couple of bands of gold could fix all the things that were broken in them. It hurt that she knew - she knew - that he could get past his issues. He was too stubborn, too determined not to. What she didn't know was if she could. If she would ever be well. If she would ever be able to accept the limitations that life and tragedy and trauma put on them.

It hurt that she loved him. And it hurt that he loved her, too.

"No," she told him, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She didn't tell him he deserved better, because he would fight her on that. She didn't tell him that he was insane to think this would change anything, because he probably knew. She didn't tell him that she wasn't going to stay in Ketterdam and he wasn't going to leave, because he wasn't asking her to. All Inej knew was that she had to stop this before it destroyed them both, so instead she closed her eyes and bit her lip and lied.

"I don't want to marry you. I don't want to be yours," she had swallowed the tears that welled up in her throat, forcing herself over the edge. "I don't want you to tie me down."

It broke her heart, but she knew it was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do. It was all she could do.

"Inej--" it was too hard. It was too painful. It was too much.

She left before he could beg her to reconsider, and went back to her ship. And when they left the next morning, Inej pretended not to see the glint of silver in the shadows, watching them head for the horizon.

---

The letter is in a drop at Bhez Ju, but Inej assumes there are identical ones in Os Kervo and Shriftport and every other place the Wraith makes supply stops. She doesn't get much mail from Ketterdam these days, not since she walked out on Kaz. There had been a time when they were always waiting, neat lines of prose that she could imagine were full of longing. Letters inscribed by that careful hand that had held hers, that had bandaged her wounds.

But those stopped years ago, and now she gets occasional life stories from Jesper, or sweet missives from Nina, or business updates from Wylan, who has taken over Kaz's job of surveilling the merchers for slave activities.

She writes back, but she never asks what she wants to know.

How is he? Is he happy? Is he healing?

She doesn't get to know things like that anymore. It isn't fair for her to ask.

But the letter she picks up, six years after she went to sea and five years after she last saw Kaz, has that same careful handwriting that she's missed so much.

To his credit, it's not an invitation to the event. It's just an announcement. And it breaks her heart all over again. Because Councilwoman and Mrs. Radmakker are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter Annemieke to the Honorable Kaz Brekker.

Her world doesn't end. It seems like it should, but Inej doesn't feel anything but numb at the words in front of her. Had she thought he wouldn't move on? Had she thought he would wait for her to come back? She never planned to come back, why would he be carrying that torch? That's never been who Kaz was.

But she hasn't moved on. She has waited. She hasn't loved anyone since him, and she isn't sure if she ever can. If she's just to twisted up and ugly inside to ever give herself to another person, after so much of herself was taken from her. She might have planned to let him go, to let him find his happiness in arms that aren't hers. But now, faced with the truth of it, Inej knows she can't. She can't let Kaz marry some mercher's daughter without at least telling him how she feels. She owes him that.

The heart is an arrow, she thinks as she walks back to the ship and tells Spect to recall the crew and set a course to Ketterdam. They have two weeks before the date on the announcement, and she doesn't intend to miss the love of her life walking down the aisle.

------

Summer storms on the true sea delay their return, and Inej finds herself sprinting through the streets of Ketterdam on the day of Kaz's wedding.

Someone at the docks had known about it - a plus to coming in to Fifth Harbor. He's getting married in the Church of Barter. Saints. What the Kaz she knew would say about that.

Still, at least it's not some roadside chapel where the pomp and circumstance would be done by 10 bells. Weddings at the Church are all-day affairs. It's perverse, to Inej's mind. There are all kinds of caveats; the wedding party has to clean the space in the morning to show their industry. The bride and groom have to hold an auction before the ceremony, selling something together to symbolize their intention of being a profitable union. Then they have to make a purchase of either land or goods from a fellow parishioner, which they tithe back to the Church.

In bigger cases - and this will be a bigger case - the auction can last hours, rich merchers elbowing each other out of the way to show their devotion, raising bids a cent at a time. The sale can last just as long, depending on who shows up to sell what. Having your offering chosen by the couple is an honor. It will be in the paper tomorrow, who the Brekkers gave their kruge to.

Only after that will they sign the contract and seal the union.

Capitalism as a religion is weird, and even after all the years she spent living in it, Inej knows she will never understand anything about the Ghezenite church.

But at least there are breaks between the auction and the purchase, and before the contract signing. Time for the couple to reflect and thank Ghezen for their prosperity. There's a chance. She's holding tightly to the chance that she will be able to get there in time to see Kaz.

She arrives, out of breath and sweating, on the steps of the church as the auction is wrapping up. The doors are open, and she sees Kaz next to a beautiful blond woman, as tall as him and just as pale, at the front of the room.

He's wearing gloves. Its the first thing she sees, his hands are covered. They're white, and they go with his tuxedo, but they're gloves. He isn't standing next to his bride bare-handed, like she had always imagined he would with her. They they'd stand knee-deep in the flowers her family would throw at them, his fingers bare against hers, as they pledged their lives to each other.

But she gave that up, years ago. She gave up the right to even imagine it.

Still, she climbs.

The groom's suite is hidden in one of the fingers, which is no challenge for Inej to scale and slide in the open window of.

In fact, part of her wonders if the window was left open for her. If he wants her to come in. But it seems more likely that he wanted air, because every room in the Church is either too big or too small; there's no concern for comfort in the world of profit.

Inej waits. She doesn't bother to sit, or to hide. She just stands in the room and waits for him.

It probably takes an hour before she hears voices - and she knows those voices! - coming down the hall, laughing and chatting happily. It's Kaz, she can hear his low rumbled laugh at whatever Jesper is saying in his smooth lilt. They're coming, and she's standing here and she doesn't know what to say.

When he enters, he does so alone, apparently having sent Jesper on somewhere else. He doesn't look at her. He just takes the silly top hat from his head and lays it on the dressing table next to the door before speaking.

"Hello, Inej," he says. His voice is a practiced neutral

After all these years, it's a dagger through her. He still sees her. He still knows where she is.

"Hello, Kaz," she replies, and neither of them moves. He doesn't look at her.

But it's now or never. It's now or he goes downstairs to make his purchase and sign his contract and live in bliss with his new bride. He goes to forget her forever.

The words bubble out of her mouth unbidden, the arrow that is her heart pulling them out and firing them at him. "I love you," she says. "I'm completely and utterly in love with you. Please don't get married."

Kaz has the audacity to laugh, bracing both of the hands on the table in front of him. Almost doubled over from how funny he finds it all.

"You lost the right to say any of that to me five years ago," he tells her, when he's done laughing at her. Inej feels heat in her face, but she knows he's right. She has no business being here.

"That action will have no echo," she offers, but it's not enough. What could ever be enough to erase what she did? The damage she caused by walking away and staying away. "I was 18, and I was scared. I thought I'd never be better for you. I--" she swallows the lump in her throat. "I was wrong."

Kaz finally turns to look at her, his eyes as cold and dead as they ever were for his enemies. She misses the warm brown of fresh dirt, the way he used to look at her like she was something special. Something worth having.

He probably looks at Annemieke Radmakker like that now. Inej hopes the other woman knows how lucky she is, to be on the receiving end of those eyes.

"You left," he says, his voice rising. "And you never came back. You left and you never answered my letters. You left me, Inej. And now you think you have the right to show up and ruin this?"

His anger has always been frightening to her - she was trained very specifically to respond in certain ways to a man's anger. She has worked very hard to not cower and cry when she's faced with an irate man these days. To not behave like Heleen forced her to.

"I did," she agrees. "And I was wrong. And I don't have the right. But I-- but you sent me the announcement, Kaz. What did you think I would do?"

His eyes betray him for a bare moment, emotion flickering through them that she can still read. He's angry, yes. Very. But he was hoping she'd come.

"Why are you marrying her?" Inej asks, her courage roaring in her ears like the sea in a storm. She even dares to take a step towards him.

Kaz shakes his head. "It's political," he admits with a shrug of his shoulders. "She knows it. She doesn't-- she doesn't care. She's in love with her maid, and I have no problem with the two of them carrying on as long as they wish."

Inej dares to reach forward and take his hand. "Do you want to marry her?"

His anger wins, and Kaz snaps his hand away from her with an injured noise. "None of your business," he hisses. "You left."

"And you called me back," she says. "Kaz. Don't go through with it. Don't marry her."

"What do you suggest?" he snaps. "That I go tell the councilman that I don't want his alliance? That I don't want his help in shutting down indentures in Kerch? That I changed my mind because the woman who broke my fucking heart five years ago just showed up and I'm going to let her hurt me again?"

Inej feels the words like a blow. shutting down indentures in Kerch. He's still trying. He's still working on her mission, after all this time. And he's willing to marry someone he doesn't love and who doesn't love him to get it done.

"There has to be another way," she says, but before she can go further, there's a knock at the door, and Jesper's voice is ringing through it.

"Boss? Time for the purchase."

Inej reaches for his hand again, and this time he lets her take it. "Please," she breathes. "I-- please. I won't run away again. I won't hurt you, not on purpose. I won't. I won't."

She's desperate, her voice thin and reedy. She's begging, and she thinks in any other situation it would be humiliating. Kaz hesitates, looking between the door and where her hand is gripping his.

And then it's like a dam breaks, all the things that Kaz has been holding back erupting out of him because he takes a single step into her space and his hands are cupping her cheeks and he's kissing her with so much hunger, and anger, and passion that Inej thinks if it's the only kiss they ever get to have again, it might be enough.

She starts at the contact, but the shock and the memory it brings passes; she grabs his lapels, pulling his body flush with hers. It feels so right, so good, that she can’t remember for a moment why they ever stopped doing it.

And then he breaks away, his eyes scanning her face and his breath coming in soft little pants as he tries to maintain composure. Jesper knocks again, and Inej starts at the noise.

"Kaz? You okay?"

"Please," Inej whispers again, leaning into the warmth of him.

"Do you mean it?" Kaz whispers back, letting his head fall so their foreheads are pressed together. "Do you love me?"

"Yes," Inej says, and nothing has ever been more true in her entire life. She loves him. She has always loved him. "And if you want I'll go down there myself and complete that terrible ceremony with you right now. Please."

"Okay," Kaz says, stepping back out of her grasp and straightening his jacket. "I-- I'll go and I'll put a stop to it. But we are going to have a talk."

Inej can't help the tears that spring, unbidden, to her eyes, and run down her cheeks. "Really?"

"We'll end indentures another way," he says, and he squeezes her hand once before he turns to the door. "Wait for me?"

She nods. "Always."

#meme #talkback #anonymous #kanej #my fic #six of crows #this is angst #interrupted wedding trope #they do break up #and idk if Inej is in character at all #but have some pain #I’m going to drive home now #farewell forever #several birds book

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