#kaz and wylan are/were both distance runners

[etoile-gracieuse]

me when i get into new content and immediately have six wips rotating in my brain at all times

[gimmedafood]

Six of Crows Oneshot: High School AU. Inspired by wafflesandkruge :)

Tension was palpable in the crystal clear air of Makker Sports Facility just outside of Ketterdam.

It was quite possibly the only place with real grass and clean air in the polluted city. Kaz was down on the infield with Nina and Wylan, watching their friends compete in the final track meet of their junior year.

They were facing their rival school for the national title, and tensions were running high between both teams and their supporters.

Kaz has already broken some kids nose when he made comments about how Inej ‘used her body’ to get to the top.

They were currently watching the high jump, waiting for the final to wrap up so they could go watch Matthias dominate at Shot-put and Discus.

It was down to the last two, Jesper and another kid named Parr. They were both tall, Zemeni boys, but Jesper had about an inch on the other boy. Their bar was up to 5 feet and 10 inches, and it was their second jump.

Jesper went first, making it, but at the last moment clipping it with his heel. Kaz heard Wylan let out a tiny growl of frustration when the bar fell from it’s perch.

He smirked, leaning forward and digging the tip of his cane into the too-soft grass of the field.

Parr jumped, thwacking the bar with his hand as he went past, the sharp crack of bone on hard plastic made Nina wince like the aspiring Medik she was.

They moved to their third jump, this time Parr going first. He tapped the bar again, making it fall and making him let out a yell of frustration and punch his buddies offered high-five out of the air.

Kaz caught the kid who’d been punched rubbing the place he’d been hit and glaring unhappily at Parr.

They watched as Jesper jumped again, his loping strides carrying him to the mark with the ease of a giant gazelle. He jumped, his wiry body racing through the chilly mid-morning air gracefully.

Beside him, Wylan and Nina clutched each other with barely contained excitement. Kaz merely smirked, his grin making the other people looking at him edge away.

He could see from his position the path Jesper’s body would take over the bar, and there was no way he would hit it this time. He’d made the right correction to get him over with the win.

He cleared the bar with inches between it and his body, landing in the soft mat head first. Wylan let out a gasp before clasping hands with Nina and smiling with happy relief as she jumped around and screamed with joy.

Jesper rolled himself off the mat, running over to their little group with the brightest grin on his face. Nina backed off a step while Jesper scooped Wylan into his arms and twirled around, laughing ecstatically.

Nina stood at his shoulder, a small smile on her face and her green eyes bright as she watched the two boys celebrate.

“They’re cute together, aren’t they?” She murmured to Kaz, who made a non-committal noise and nodded sharply.

He walked past Jesper, giving him an approving nod and saying, “When you’re ready, come to the Shot and Disc area, Matthias will be up soon, and I’m sure he would appreciated our support.”

Jesper nodded and offered his hand for a high five. Kaz slowly slapped his hand, and reluctantly gave him the fist bump he asked for after. He was really making great progress with his touch aversion, and it was mostly due to the determined efforts of a petite sprinter who was warming up and watching the Discus kids from her perch on top of the pole-vaulting shed.

They watched in silence as Matthias set a new record for discus; 245 feet, and won the shot-pit competition by six inches, easy.

Then they were all down to the track to watch the most anticipated event of the meet: the 500 meter sprint.

It was reigning national champion Dunyasha Lazareva’s senior year, and she hadn’t been beaten in the 500 meter sprint for three years, always beating out Inej by at most, three tenths of a second.

It infuriated Kaz and her, and they usually had to take a day off of school to cool down. Nina had suggested this practice when Kaz had assaulted and expelled a student that had purposely tripped Inej at practice and broken her ankle.

Kaz sent the others ahead, sending them to wait at finish line while he had a private moment with Inej. He stood next to he starting blocks as she appeared next to him.

They stood quietly, relaxing in each other’s company as Inej shook out her limbs for the final time.

He reached out, offering his hand if she wanted it. She grasped it, her small fingers slipping between his and holding tight.

He could feel her vibrating with nerves and adrenaline, but she kept her face impassive and calm, her mask firmly in place. She let go of his hand, shooing off to the side of the start line.

Before he went, he bent down to her ear and whispered quietly, his words only meant for her to hear.

“You will win, today. I promise. No mourners.”

“No funerals.” She breathed back, settling her breathing into her start rhythm and giving him a brief hug.

He limped to the edge of the track, standing next to her starting blocks. The man in the announcers box shushed the crowd, the sudden silence only broken by the cawing of the jay-birds who’s nest lay in the trees nearby.

“Runners, take your marks.”

The announcers magnified voice echoed through the stadium, and the final heat of the final round of the 500 meter sprint stepped up to their blocks.

“Get set.”

Kaz watched with attention of a bird of prey as Inej stepped into her starting blocks. Her movements were relaxed, precise, but charged with the energy that she would fly out of the blocks with.

The starting gun shot off, and they were off, three runners in a heat of five, exploding into the lead.

One, with the whitest blonde hair you could imagine looked to be slightly in front of the other two, one with russet hair, and the other with inky black.

Kaz started his limping path down to the finish line, his dark eyes tracking the runners as they settled into their distance sprint pace. Inej has settled into the perfect place behind Dunyasha, firmly in second where she could draft off of Dunyasha’s slipstream.

As they round the bend to the final hundred meters, Kaz takes his place at the finish line, right next to the cameras.

Inej has kicked into her sprint pace, and she and Dunyasha are neck and neck as they bear down on the white line painted on the rubber.

Kaz starts to move, walking to the place he knows Inej will collapse after her race, still watching as they battle it out, leap-frogging between which one of them is first.

Then suddenly, they cross the line, looking to the entire audience a tie, and a spectacular one at that.

Inej trips, her small body somersaulting through the air and tumbling to a stop a few feet away from Kaz. People in the stands gasp, because it looks likes she fell and injured herself.

She lays there, out of breath and tired beyond measure as she catches her breath. Her muscles refuse to let her get herself off of the ground, so she waits.

Kaz limps over to her, hooking his arms under hers and heaving her to her feet, his knee giving an unpleasant crack at the sudden extra weight. Inej swats at his hands weakly, too tired to do much more than lean on Kaz and breathe.

Her coach came screaming over to them at that moment, and Kaz felt Inej tense, not really prepared for the intensity of her coach.

Her coach talks to her for a brief minute before their friends swarm around them, and Inej pulls out of Kaz’s embrace. They’re still a bit uncomfortable with showing their relationship in public.

The call was under review, because Dunyasha had been so close to Inej at the finish line that it was impossible to tell who had crossed the line first.

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~

Inej.

She slipped her hand into Kaz’s, lacing their fingers together and squeezing gently, her nerves making her uncharacteristically shaky.

She could feel the light brush of Kaz’s thumb across her knuckles, which usually soothed her nerves, but this time, she was buzzing with too much adrenaline to calm down.

She bit down on her lip, leaving white marks where her teeth rested as she chewed anxiously on her soft lips.

Kaz looked down on her, squeezing her hand gently as they waited. She squeezed back, looking up at him with a nervous smile.

His bitter eyes softened at her look, and her took his other hand and tucked a price of her hair that had fallen from her braid out of her face.

“Alright!”

They heard the announcer speak up again, and Inej’s nerves increased threefold, making her squeeze Kaz’s hand even harder and shake with anticipation of the verdict.

“Looks like we have the results of the Ladies 500 meter sprint.”

Kaz’s grip tightened imperceptibly on the head of his cane, and he shifted his weight closer to Inej, taking the pressure off of his bad leg.

“And the winner is...”

Inej could feel the waves of anticipation and adrenaline pulsing off of her and Kaz, but she couldn’t focus on that. Her eyes stared at nothing, her ears perked for the voice of the announcer.

“...Inej Ghafa!”

She feels her eyes widen, and suddenly it feels like she isn’t in her own body anymore.

All she sees is white for a quick moment, and when the world rushes back to her, she’s on her tiptoes, her lips pressed against Kaz’s.

It was all chapped lips and and the tang of bitter that was so distinctly Kaz. And there was that taste of crazy-mad-up-the-wall-and-all-those-shapes love and if tastes could be heard that was the loudest one of them all.

He pushed against her urgently, and she let her hand snake around the back of his neck, holding herself tightly to him as she kissed him.

Neither of them payed any attention to their friends, who were hooting and cat-calling from behind them.

They even disregarded Inej’s coach screaming at them for indecency and the shocked looks of Kaz’s enemies when they saw the hard, broken boy kissing the angel, the track star.

[toooceanblue]

Title: Gloves and Gold

Fandom: Six of Crows

Pairings: Kaz/Inej!

Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12687732

It was late. Late for him even, but her ship had docked well after the sun had set, and she always made sure it was unloaded before she set off on her visits. Kaz refused to look at his watch, the sign of a devoutly impatient man.

He wondered if Jesper had met her at the dock, even this late. He often did still, after all this time, waiting there the moment a runner saw The Wraith in the distance. He wondered how much news they had already shared, his arm slung around her shoulders, talking up a storm of his own with how eager he was to share the latest Dregs gossip.

Kaz wondered, then drew his focus back to the ledgers on his desk. If he was going to be awake this late for something other than a heist, it might as well be to get some paperwork done. Check and sign, and hours onward. She should be setting off to the slat soon, if Jesper and Wylan had not already lured her to a warm bed. It was unlikely that they had, as long as she’d been gone this time.

Almost five months. Not unheard of, but longer than any of them liked. She had only stopped by with Nina briefly before setting sail again, only a few quickly scrawled letters sent their way. She’d been tracking The Pearl for the past several weeks as far as he knew, a ship of a misleadingly lovely name for what it held. It had been on its way to Novi Zem.

He heard the window slide open. Or at least he felt her enter. He turned in his chair to face Inej, a spirit against the night.

She was still just as small of course (no better form with which to fool arrogant captains), hair tugged back in a braid as always. She had cut it short, years ago, but it had long since grown past her shoulders again. Dressed in black and sailing boots, he could see no new scars. That didn’t mean much.

“Kaz.” Her voice was just enough to reach him. Even the sounds from the slat below them had faded to a hum, only an occasional shout or bark of laughter. It truly was late.

He nodded, though he did not rise. “Inej.”

She joined him at his desk, footsteps silent like a ghost, sitting down against him on the arm of his chair. His gloves lay on the table, though that didn’t mean much now.

“We intercepted The Pearl before it reached Novi Zem.” She said. Business first, as usual. “Over a hundred children below the deck, just old enough to start working the plantations. It took a long time to send them on their ways home, those that had them.”

Kaz nodded, writing off a final ledger before placing the pile to the side. “The Captain?”

“Dead. The first mate is alive, but the crew was small. They don't have the means to go on.”

Kaz nodded again, not saying a word.

“The club?” She asked.

“Doing well.”

She smiled at his answer, as minimal as always. “And the dregs?”

“Our territory is expanding. Retcher was throwing a damn fit.”

“Is he dead?”

“No. He knows better than to cross us.”

“Us?” Her smile brightened, her smile. “Did I just hear Kaz Brekker admit to a team effort?”

“Slip of the tongue,” he amended, a habit.

“Hmm. I’m sure.” She leaned in, shoulder against his, the skin of her neck touching his head as she rested there. He took her hand, and ah, there it was, a new scar over the back of her knuckles. He traced it with his other hand, a question.

“Before The Pearl.” She explained. “It was a small ship, but one of their crewmembers was surprisingly capable with a shortsword.”

“You’ll have to tell me about it.”

“Later.” She murmured.

She was tired. Five months at sea, and he was sure she hadn't slept in at least a day.

“You should rest.” He reminded her. To think their roles would ever be reversed like this. She shook her head.

“I have something for you.” She said, placing her free hand down on the table. When she pulled it away, on the desk were two gold bands. “Nina got them,” she explained. “from Ravka.”

He stared. He recognized rings, of course, but… “Nina?”

“She said if I was going to keep coming back to you, we should act like it.”

He had to crack a smile at that, albeit a small one. “As if she was ever so proper.” His eyes stayed focused on the desk in front of him though, preoccupied with the rings, shining softly in the gray-green moonlight. Even the bustle downstairs seemed to quiet with the unspoken proposal. Rings? He wasn’t a ring man, hands still hidden under gloves he hadn’t needed in years. That wasn’t the problem, of course. What was the problem? His hands flexed.

“I’m not asking you to marry me, Kaz.” she said. “We both know that’s not for us.”

“Then what are you asking?” He murmured. He had an idea, but it kept drifting around his mind, impossible to grasp.

“Nothing you haven't already given.” she answered. “These are just a symbol.”

“Rather sentimental, don’t you think?”

“Says the demon who still wears his gloves.”

“I have an image to uphold.”

“So do I.” She leaned against the back of the chair, inches behind him. Her arm resting on his shoulder now. “Gold is very befitting a pirate.”

“Of course. I could tell from how you’re draped in jewels.”

She laughed softly. “I’m not as flamboyant as you, Kaz.” Her fingers brushed his collar. “Is that a new suit?”

“It is.”

“I like it.”

He caught her hand in his own, still resting against his shoulder. He rubbed a thumb along the back, considering. There wasn’t much to consider.

He reached down to the desk, taking the larger of the two rings, and sliding it onto his finger.

“Well?” Inej asked.

“Jesper would say if fits like a glove.”

And there was the laugh, brief and light, before she pressed her lips to his, just for a second. Even now, there were still days when her breath over his felt like drowning, but not today. Her pulse beat strong next to his as she picked up the other ring, holding it in her palm. His look must have been expectant.

“Impatient, Brekker?” She held the ring between her fingers.

“Hardly,” He answered, touching his face to the crook of her neck. “But it’s only fair.”

“Hmm, I suppose. Nina wouldn’t be happy if I wasted her gift.” Inej stood, finally sliding the ring into her finger, and took a few steps away before turning back. “Do you have much more work, tonight?”

“It can wait.” He said, and stood up as well, gloves in one hand and cane in the other, pressed new against the band around his finger.