just like the sea
Another not!fic style ficlet, Kaz-centric with Kanej. Kaz & his complicated relationship with the sea and the harbor.
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The first few years after he was reborn, Kaz avoided the harbour entirely. Even the streets closest to it smelled uncomfortably strongly of the sea air–of salt that he can almost taste in his mouth, prompting the urge to gag at the memory of the sea water–setting him on edge. He passed over the easy pickings to be had from the bustling close-knit crowds of travellers and tourists swarming off the boats at busy times. He could only watch with interest when occasionally one of the other barrel rats risked the lottery of 'lost' luggage, deciding to audaciously pilfer a whole suitcase for the excitement of unknown prizes inside.
But Kaz couldn't avoid it forever. Business was to be had at the harbour and he couldn't bow out of that now he had errands to be run, messages to pass on. He had to be reliable if he intended to prove himself and work his way up a gang, willing to do anything, even that. Even if that was nothing to absolutely anyone else–especially because that was nothing to anyone else. If business took him to the harbour he simply had to go. Using the canal boats in the city, being so close to the water, had made him unreasonably nervous too, at first, but he'd overcome that with careful practice, and he would overcome the memory of the harbour as well. He was nothing if not determined. To go to the harbour was to go to battle, the same as any scrap in an alley, he told himself – it was all simply a fight for survival in the barrel. And he would win, because he had to; there was no room for failure in his plans.
The harbour did not defeat him, but neither was it easy to endure. Over time, he had more memories made there – a mix of the mundane shipping dealings, the thrill of opportunistic thievery to be had while there, and that of occasional violence for enforcement reasons. The new memories slowly started to dilute the bad one that still lapped at his feet with each step closer to the waters. It got easier, but it would never be somewhere Kaz sought out. Always a chore, but at least now not too bad a risk, not something that threatened to expose his weakness each time.
Something changed when he held Inej in his arms at the docks, racing to get her to the Ferolind in time for Nina to save her. No longer was the harbour just Jordie's domain like it once had been, nor Kaz's reluctant place of business that he'd rebuilt it into in his psyche. Though a thoroughly unpleasant memory, Inej's blood spilled there in the name of protecting his Crows–protecting him–had somehow sealed Inej's place in his mind as associated with the docks too. The docks had brought her to the city, to him inadvertently, but fate, if it existed, was fickle and those same docks had nearly taken her from him. Almost but not quite; they continued to defy chance as certainly as Inej routinely appeared to defy gravity. It felt fitting somehow when the docks take her away again on the ship he had bought her. The difference is now the docks bring her back to him; her ship's berth a strange piece of home there, giving peace to them both, he hopes, for once.
Kaz still doesn't like to smell the saltiness of the sea breeze, but standing on the docks for Inej, it takes on another meaning these days, a scent tinged with hope. Sometimes Inej surprises him with a brief visit, just long enough to resupply and unload those they've saved who are keen to get going on their way home. As he and Inej get more comfortable with each other, she tends to avail herself of his comparatively luxurious bathroom after such a long time at sea. Coming directly to his rooms, washing the saltiness away with the selection of bath oils he keeps in there only for her use (except the rare night he uses them to feel closer to her).
Once though, Inej did not wash herself off before coming to his bed, and the smell of the sea caught up on her hair lingered on his pillow for days after she'd left. He still didn't like to smell the saltiness of the sea breeze itself, but with it mixed up with the unadulterated smell of her, and his fresher memories of the docks, it took on new meaning. When he closed his eyes and smelt that complicated scent it was easier to think of her there, or of standing on the docks with hope in his heart for her return.
The next time she returns only promised to him for a day, he lures her into his bed before she can wash the saltiness off herself, eager to replicate that happy accident. And Kaz keeps up that habit despite not initially meaning to, making excuses as to why she should come right to his bed. After a while, Inej notices his new habit and asks him why he keeps doing so, but he can't find the true words to explain, covering it up with a slightly different but no less intense, deliberately indirect, appeal to his having missed her, of not wanting to waste any time. If she knows he's leaving something out she doesn't call him on it, she accepts his put upon charm that disguises the more vulnerable reason he wants her there–his craving for something lasting of her to stick around in her absence.
Maybe one day he'll find the words to confess his secret desire, to share as much with Inej as she deserves from him, but for the time being action alone is easier. In compensation, he gives away a wide, entirely unsuppressed, smile at the triumph of his bare hand in hers tentatively pulling her to him.