#whatanybodygets

freddy carter as francis of assisi in Poor Clare

It’s like they’re sixteen again and he pays her wages and she’s at his beck-and-call. Has anything even changed since then? Or is she still the same silly girl with stars in her eyes, her heart in her throat whenever he graciously gives her a shred of his time and attention?

It’s too much, all that she’s feeling. It’s unbearable.

He doesn’t even flinch when she pounces onto him; some vicious and ugly part of her wanted him to, but he must’ve been seconds away from reaching for her himself, cause his hands pull her towards him the second she takes a step closer.

**

Kanej smut:

She had once wondered what he would say if she stripped down in front of him and started to wash herself.

Don’t drip on the desk.

The reality was somewhat less harsh. He, in fact, said nothing at all.

Inej ran the cloth down one arm, wiping away days worth of seawater and sweat. Her back was to the door but she'd been aware of his approach. The uneven gait aided by his cane made him unmistakeable, not to mention the fact that she was currently in his rooms. She'd hesitated at first before stripping off the majority of her clothes in order to wash - but why should she worry? They were partners, in public and in private. He'd stripped before her many times, it was high time she returned the favour.

Four seasons follow up:

He tipped his head down so that his lips brushed against her temple as he spoke. “I really want to strip this dress off of you,” he murmured, his voice pitched for her ears alone.

Her hands tightened on his waist as heat flooded her body. She turned her head so that her breath would brush over his neck when she replied. “Let’s go, then.”

He stopped their slow sway and pulled back to look at her. His eyes were dark, the look he gave her a mix of disbelief and desire, fanning her own. She nodded slowly. He swallowed, throat bobbing.

kanej author recs | Whitherward

Notable/Favorite works:

roomy, and drenched in sunlight

It was a story they’d told each other often, over too much kvas. A running joke between them, what they would do if they ever decided to leave it all behind. She’d never dreamed they actually would.

Rating: M / Quirks: Broke-Up Kanej/Developing Kanej, (Heavy) Angst with a Happy Ending, Kanej's Children

save the undone years

He’s like all the others, when they bring him in. More than half dead, covered in mud. Leg almost hanging off him, just a mess of torn flesh and exposed bone. Likely won’t survive. God knows Inej has seen better off than him succumb to their injuries. Northern France, 1917. In a battlefield hospital, Corporal Kaz Rietveld lies gravely wounded. His nurse is determined that he will not be another thing she loses to this war.

***

Her heart drops into her stomach. “Do you think I’m beautiful?”

“I think you know that you are.”

“I think that’s not what I asked.”

He’s manoeuvring her again, steering her away from her line of inquiry. She knows he’s doing it, and he knows that she knows. She’s prepared to let it go, for now.

She lifts her chin pointedly, though, and waits. If she can’t get an answer to one question, she’ll get an answer to another.

His voice drops, stone on stone. “Yes, I think you’re beautiful.”

***

excerpt from chapter 7 of Adagio by @whatanybodygets

pairing: kaz brekker/inej ghafa

fandom: six of crow series by leigh bardugo

***

“Kaz, look,” she says, barely above a whisper, but silence reigns now and he hears her loud and clear. “It’s a girl.”

He goes slowly to his knees beside her, one gloved hand rising to cover his mouth as he looks at the baby. She waits, for what she doesn’t quite know. For him to speak, for him to leave. After a long moment, his hand drops from his mouth, landing with a dull thump on the bloody sheet beside her hip.

“Inej,” he rasps, and his voice is strangled, like it’s an effort to get the words out. “What have we done?”

***

adante

(a/n: I wrote this as a companion piece to @whatanybodygets’s kanej fic, Adagio. This short fic explores a soft moment set in the distant future of the world she’s created between Kaz and Inej. I’ve been thinking about this hypothetical moment ever since I finished her WIP yesterday and this is what resulted! I hope you enjoy! also, if you’re not up to date with that fic, what are you doing with your life?!)

pairing: kaz brekker/inej ghafa

rating: T

tw: chronic pain

The sun is slowly beginning to peek above the collection of tightly clustered apartment buildings in the red light district when Inej sets down her familiar morning routine on the wine crate turned coffee table, saving the cup of heavily spiced tea to serve as a source of warmth on the chilly autumn morning in Ketterdam. Despite the apparent temperature drop, she glides toward the doors leading to the juliet balcony, unlocking the hinge and cracking it open, the city smells and noises immediately enveloping her senses. The cheap perfume from the pleasure houses a few blocks down is inescapable as well as the sounds of crows squawking over the overflowing waste bin at the corner of the street. A small grin blooms across her features, the reality of her life coming to the forefront of her mind.

This is home in the strangest, yet most comforting sense of the word.

This goes out to @whatanybodygets mostly just for being a great writer and a better friend but also as a lil balm/distraction/home remedy on a maybe not so great first day back at work.

*

Hanna is fidgeting with her dress. She’s never liked the way the collar sits high and prickly against her neck, tight around her throat. It feels like being choked or how she imagines being choked would feel. Today, she can’t stand it because the maids lit the fire in the nursery long before she came in and it’s now roasting in here.

The heat is driving her to distraction. It’s fogging up the windows and making her palms sweaty. Plus, plus she has something she desperately needs to get off her chest. It’s very nearly bursting out of her. She needs to tell Agnes.

Beside her, sitting cross-legged on the expensive Suli rug, back ramrod straight, is Agnes, Hanna’s very best friend. She somehow manages to sit still even though she’s dressed in the same horrible style. Despite her placid appearance, though, Hanna can see the fine hairs around Agnes’ temples clinging sweatily to her skin. Not so unaffected after all.

Noticing her staring, Agnes turns and sticks her tongue out at Hanna. Her eyes are crinkled with laughter so Hanna knows she’s not being mean.

“I have to tell you something,” Hanna whispers, darting glances at the Fjerdan woman organising character cards at the front of the room.

Agnes arches one barely-there eyebrow in a near perfect imitation of her well-to-do mother. “Well, you better say it quickly, Enke Hansson is sure to turn around at any moment!”

Hanna couldn’t stifle the giggle that rose up at the look on Agnes’ face. Gone was her imperious mother and now, with mouth drawn thin and nostrils flaring, she did a perfect impression of Enke Hansson.

“What are you two giggling about?”

Hanna’s head snaps to the front of the room, taking in the stern look on the mistress’ face—the spitting image of the expression on Agnes’—and promptly dissolves into a further fit of giggles.

“Hanne Smeet, your mother will hear about this!”

Eventually, the giggles die away and Enke Hansson returns her focus to scratching elaborate Fjerdan calligraphy onto the chalkboard.

Enke Hansson does everything with considerable zeal. The chalk squeals and grates and scratches against the slate making Hanna’s hair stand on end.

“Agnes—Agnes!” Back to the matter at hand, “I saw him last night!”

“Who?” Obligingly, Agnes drops into a conspiratorial whisper.

“Him! I told Mama he was real and she said I was making things up but I’m not, he’s real.”

“The monster?” In her incredulity the whisper becomes voiced, an exaggerated stage whisper. “You saw him? When?”

“Last night! He was very scary.” Hanna hesitates a moment. “Actually, he said I shouldn’t tell anyone—not even Papa!”

Agnes is not fazed. “What did he look like?”

“Sharp,” Hanna answers without second thought, “thorny.”

“Well, what does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” Now that she’s talking about it the memory seems foggy, shrouded in darkness and sleep. It was not a dream, of that much she is sure. “Dangerous. He had a scar under his eye and a very mean voice, like Enke’s chalk on the board. It made me feel cold.”

*

This is very nearly everything I’ve actually written for this idea so it’s less a snippet and more… my draft. But where the cause is right, I don’t mind baring my unfinished nonsense. Not me taking one tiny little scene from CK and just completely running away with it.

Have it! Read it! Do what you will with it! I don’t know if this’ll help or if I’m being an idiot but it’s worth a shot.