#cameliawrites

drunken/tipsy kiss

For the record, Kaz is blaming Jesper for this one.

To be fair, Kaz blames Jesper for a lot of things. Like teaching Inej's male cousins the words to that stupid Kaelish love song, "Black is the Color," or some such thing, or insisting on trying to introduce color to Kaz's wardrobe, or the mangy orange and white cat that's taken up residence in the Slat. Granted, the last thing is not really Jesper's fault, but given time, and the proper motivation, Kaz is confident he can pin the blame on Jesper somehow.

Not this time, though. No, this time, this whole stupid situation is entirely Jesper's fault.

Jesper's fault, and the homemade moonshine that Colm Fahey brews with peaches and strawberries and wild ginger. He sent Jesper a jar of the stuff for the winter Kerst celebration, and now it seems like the entire Slat is near falling down drunk.

"It was one jar," Kaz says now, his tongue oddly thick. He hadn't been able to escape getting a glass shoved into his hand, so he'd looked at the seemingly innocuous pinkish-gold liquid and knocked it back without even thinking. He's had paint thinner that's milder than whatever brew this is. "How does one jar do all this?"

Inej is listing besides him, her long braid nearly coming undone. She says wisely, "Jesper says his da brews it with the fermented honey water. To give it, it, you know. Extra strength."

"All the Saints and their ugly mothers," Kaz mumbles and Inej swats at him, and misses by a mile. Which is a sign of just how potent this stuff is.

Inej had accepted a glass of moonshine from Jesper, tempered with water, and she'd danced with nearly everyone in the Slat--all the young kids, Anika, Pim, Roeder, Jesper, even Wylan, who let Inej drag him away from the upright piano someone shoved into the corner. No one's played it until tonight, until Wylan has started playing. Then someone got out a tin pennywhistle and another person dragged in a fiddler player from one of musician troupes that walk the Barrel busking inside, and the moonshine had flowed like water.

Music, wild and raucous and only slightly out of tune, poured out of the Slat, and the Dregs had danced like madmen, like heathens, howling at the winter moon. Kaz sat by the wall and watched; no one would ask Dirtyhands to dance, even if they didn't account for his leg. But he didn't mind watching Inej dance, her hair whipping around her, as she used her hands and feet to tell a story of a Saint defeating a monster on a mountain. Her hair is curtain of black silk in the light, and he wants to bury his face in it.

He blinks at the unguarded thought, shifting as Inej lists further and further, leaning into him more fully. "Sorry, sorry," she says, her s's oddly, delightfully sharp. Like a piece of ginger candy. "The room's dancing."

"The room's not dancing, you are," he says nonsensically and then gives up on shifting altogether. Inej is pressed up against him now, their layers of clothing between them prevent any skin on skin touch, but his heart pounds at her proximity anyways. He suspects that no matter how long he's gotten used to touching her, it always will.

"Did you like it?" Inej asks, a little dizzily. "Seeing me dance," she clarifies when he doesn't answer right away. "I didn't have the bell anklets, or the finger cymbals, but I think I got all the steps right. From what I could remember. Mama would do it better, though. Or Cousin Kathani."

Kaz couldn't tell her what they could do any better than Inej, and says so. Inej beams up at him, that smile he'd crawl over hot coals for, and for one glorious moment, leans her head on his shoulder. "One day I'll take you," she says, as the room continues to waltz and weave around them. "And you'll see me dancing. Properly, with jasmine and everything."

Later, he can blame this on the moonshine. Or the dancing room. Or the wild laughter and music still going around them, sealing them away from the outside world, and whatever consequences face them out there. But he finds himself pressing his lips to the crown of her head, lingering on the silky smooth strands, the scent of moonshine and the gardenia oil she uses on her hair. It lasts no more than second, but Inej's hands curl in the fabric of his waistcoat. Her breath catches in her throat, not in pain or fear, just dazed wonder.

kanej author recs | cameliawrites

Notable/Favorite works:

collision course series (2 fics / Complete)

My dearest Inej— (Nina writes,) —don’t learn too late how sweet it can be. . . . Inej adjusts to Kaz the way that winter adjusts to spring: she thaws, and thaws, and thaws—and then she utterly melts.

Rating(s): T-M / Quirks: Established Kanej, Post-canon, angst with a happy ending, Inej & Nina Friendship, Inej Centric

sonnet 116 series (2 fics / Complete)

In which Kaz & Inej negotiate the particularities of a marriage contract—for the tax benefits, of course, but also for the sake of their undying devotion to one another. (now with post-script)

let me come home (to you)

by @cameliawrites & @alltheworldsinmyhead/ ao3

Sometimes, the time for hard conversations comes in the middle of the night.

***

It’s the cold that wakes her up.

The cold, which has nothing to do with the actual chill of the night—she’s sleeping underneath a stack of warm blankets and an eiderdown, with woolen socks pulled up to her knees. But there is a distinct lack of the warmth of another body in bed, and she realizes, with a soft, sudden startle, that she grew so used to having Kaz by her side that it pulls her even from deep slumber when he leaves her alone.

Why would he leave me though? crosses her mind, with the smallest dash of panic. It’s the middle of the night. She can hear the grand clock in the parlor chiming one, two, three. It used to be their time of work, these silent, small hours. Heist time, so to say. Now, they go to bed with the sun and wake up with it, as decent people do. Masquerading as decent people, Kaz would say. But she doesn’t see it this way.

She slips from underneath the covers with a quiet groan, moving as quickly as she can manage now, which is, admittedly, not so quickly at all. It still catches her off guard, how uncooperative her body has become, with its unstable moods and shifting center of gravity. It’s still strong, doing exactly what it needs to be doing. Just—different. A bit alien. She inhabits it still, but it’s not only hers now. And, on the good days, she considers it a victory.

Her feet are still soundless on the wood of the floors, of the old stairs that creak and groan when Kaz steps onto them. She moves from their bedroom to the second one, the one that used to be Kaz’s office. Now, his desk has been relegated down the hall, replaced by a dresser full of tiny clothes, a shelf full of books and toys, a rocking chair, a wooden crib. In the cold, washed-down moonlight, the space looks a bit haunted, but she knows that it is warm and inviting during the day, with flower-patterned curtains and the walls painted honey yellow. Much more pleasant to spend time in than the previous sparse, austere decor of stacks of paperwork. Inej, absent-mindedly brushing the cherry wood of the dresser, briefly wonders what it might say about Kaz’s shifting priorities—his workspace giving way to their baby’s space.

Seven months pregnant now, she can see how this pattern overtook nearly every area of their lives, seemingly overnight: her body, his work, their time, their space, their peace of mind, all gone awry for the sake of this child. And the baby is a tiny thing, still, all curled up beneath the curve of her stomach, tucked within her. So how is such a tiny person bigger than any presence she’s encountered before? Deeper than the True Sea, wider than the whole sky. The earth she walks and the air she breathes. She wonders if their child will ever know how much they gave up for them and how gladly. She hopes she will be able to tell them one day. That she will be able to spread her hands wide and say this is how much I loved you, right from the beginning. It was a sacrifice, but it didn’t feel like one.

How can she love someone she’s never met? She doesn’t understand it. She only knows that she does.

new fic posted here on ao3 :)

And there, in a patch of clovers and shrubby wildflowers that gleamed green and yellow and white in the brazen sunlight, sprawled across a grass-stained blanket with a book in her hands, lay his Wraith, his captain, his—Inej.

He was momentarily awestruck by the sight of her, dressed in what he could only describe as a sundress. The white linen bodice clung closely to her torso, and he counted her breaths for a moment, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest (alive, alive, alive) from his vantage point, leaning heavily against the wrought iron fence framing the gardens. The rest of her skirt flowed loosely across her hips, and was currently rucked up to a point just above her knees, so that Kaz could gaze greedily at the strong, lithe stretch of her calves, all the way to the graceful point of her toes. Her arms, too, were on full display from shoulder to fingertip, the whole ensemble giving him a fuller picture of Inej’s body than he had ever seen before.

And she was utterly lovely.

Thank you so much! It's hard to believe we're almost at the end!

kanej author recs | alltheworldsinmyhead

Notable/Favorite works:

l'appel du vide

“He was hoping that bringing a famous prostitute on his arm to the saloons and ballrooms of the rich and the powerful of Ketterdam would at least bring him some entertainment if nothing else. But what Kaz did not take into consideration was what marrying a woman like Inej really meant.”

Rating(s): M / Quirks: Developing to Established Kanej, Canon divergence, Marriage of Convenience, Angst with a Bittersweet ending, Kaz's POV

and it's all to come series (WIP) | collab w/ cameliawrites

Kaz and Inej in Lij, together on a threshold on winter and something far greater

Rating: G-M / Quirks: Established Kanej, Post-Canon AU, Fluff, Kanej Children

+ bonus

come to me in red | collab w/ Whitherward

In the middle of a long summer, Inej takes Kaz home to Ravka for a festival, determined to make her parents accept him. Neither of them is ready for what they find there.

This was for the Year of OTP challenge, which I, admittedly, have been shamelessly slacking on. But I really wanted to write the "first kiss" prompt for Kanej

She steals a glance at him at his desk, an old trick. His hair has fallen over his forehead, his hands are ungloved. He said once that he preferred to write without gloves, because he liked the feel of high quality paper and pens in his hands. His brow is furrowed, his lips set into a line. It’s a variation of his scheming face, one she would see as he worked card tricks with other men’s bank accounts. 

I got a few messages about the wip tag game in my post’s comments, replied there, then later realised it might make a liiittle more sense to just make them a post so people could actually... see my responses. And I can afford to go into a tiny bit more detail than I did in replies anyway. So here goes again.

@doorsclosingslowly

Victory and its Aftermath is the loose idea I have for a post-CK fic that deals with Kaz struggling to find purpose after his revenge on Pekka, so I’m getting to screw around with his mental health a whole lot! It’ll ideally be a multichapter, and I kind of want to dig into Kaz’s healing both inside and outside his relationship with Inej. Am really fascinated with Kaz working to overcome his trauma in a more unhealthy way, holding himself to unhealthy standards or just finding new coping mechanisms and things to fixate upon instead of working on himself, for himself. Also, there’s going to be lots of finally letting himself grieve Jordie, because I’m very normal about that relationship.

@cameliawrites “The one where Kaz steals a dog” is exactly what it says on the tin! I am probably just going to have to *call* the fic that, at this point, because I’ve gotten pretty attached to the title. Anyway, it’s a fairly well-shaped idea but this is the one snippet I’ve written:

Kaz stared down at the mutt who was now whining and bumping its nose against Kaz's shoes, heedless of the blood that was spattered over them. "Well," he sighed, "I suppose you might as well come with me."

@0363thisisdifficult5915​ “Steak and Kidney Pie” is not in fact a Hannibal fic, it’s rather a Dan and Phil Hannibal AU I wrote for a friend. The first chapter is already posted, but I’ve yet to plot out the second one - all I know so far is that it’ll feature Phil saying “Tell me Dan...” Here’s a snippet from chapter one because why not:

(cw referenced gore but nothing specific)

Desensitization. Dan gets that. He supposes it can’t be all that different to people who do forensics and shit. Someone has to do the work that Phil does. If not an artist like him, then a regular crime scene photographer. Phil just wants to do his part in helping to catch a serial killer, and he’s been doing a good job of it as far as Dan can tell, his photographs carefully framed in order to best resemble the displays of bodies that the Criterion Killer took their murder methods from. It can’t be helped that Dan isn’t cut out for it.

Not art, he tells himself, just a methodical record of what happened. In just the few minutes that he’s been lucky enough to get to know him, Phil’s been kind. Now that his gut reaction of nausea has passed, reason settles in. How is it any different to the kind of people who go to see slasher films for fun and rate the Saw franchise on most interesting grisly kills? It was absurd for Dan to presume that everyone who knows their horror films has the makings of a serial killer just beneath their skin.

 Dan wipes a hand over his eyes and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Do you take a lot of assignments like this?” he asks at long last.

 “It’s the first time I’ve done something like this,” Phil admits. “It was kind of impulsive really. I was morbidly curious. And then once I started, it was like I couldn’t stop.”