timewasting | modern au kanej.

From:

[ it had been an eighteen hour day. multiple clients, and then she had worked the night shift at the menagerie bar in order to earn enough money to scrape by on her electric bill for the month. and, by the time she finally dragged herself back to her apartment (which is a word she uses very loosely), she discovered that the heat had not been working.

a frustrated and angry phone call with heleen later (who reminded inej that (1) she would have no life in ketterdam without her and (2) that inej still owed her money from her debt, which inej was beginning to think was never going to be paid), she fiddles with her phone, frowning across the room at her parakeet, lizabeta, who looked appropriately cold.

she didn't have very many friends, in the city. she knew nina would take her in, but she had no room to have inej stay until the heat was fixed. jesper was recently dating someone new, and that would be awkward, if she just lingered around. so, really, the only option left was kaz.

swallow her pride, or freeze. freezing seemed like a good option. but eventually, with a quiet groan, she texted: ]

Hi.
I know it's late and we've known each other for a month.
But my heat isn't working.
Do you have a spare room I can have for the night until I get it fixed?

[ and she hit send before she had time to think about it, almost hoping he would just ignore it. ]

From:

ketterdamn

[ Monday morning rolls around without much incident, though he doesn't waste any time once he gets into the office. He has a battery of meetings first thing—one of which leaves him annoyed out of sheer uselessness—but manages to get his secretary to handle Inej's contract buy out. Anika, bless her, doesn't ask many questions, just cocks an eyebrow and gets to work.

(At lunch she catches him and swears vehemently about Heleen Van Houden, it's strangely cathartic to listen to).

With the contract taken care of, the rest of his afternoon is spent trading emails back and forth to Tomassen, who'd handled his case with Rollins. It's an amusing one in some ways, because the first response he'd gotten was You want to do what??? Even though Kaz had a strong suspicion that his lawyer hadn't exactly been that surprised. After they'd won in court, he had told Tomassen he'd be using his money to make sure that similar things didn't happen to other people. So here he was.

Work wraps up and after the flurry of emails, he does end up on the phone with his good natured lawyer, just hammering out small details. And trying to dodge more personal questions about Inej. When he hangs up, he's got a couple texts from Jesper:

Sooooo how's it going?

Inej back at her place yeah??

He doesn't answer yet, knowing it's going to end up with them playing the twenty questions game and he's just about to walk in the front door. Inej had said she wasn't going in so he figures she's probably home. Watching Lizabeta flutter through the living room or something.

Unlocking the door, he steps in and shrugs his coat off to hang, deposits his car keys in the bowl, and heads towards the living room. Where he can hear the tinny voice of someone yelling over speakerphone. Stopping in the entryway, he sees Inej laid out lengthwise on the couch with her phone on the coffee table, a woman shrieking something he honestly can't make out. Kaz just tilts his head at her, flicking his glance to the phone, not wanting to interrupt. ]

From:

wraithes

[ it's been about six months, since the beginning of the fight for freedom. paying off the debt had been the easy part; fighting heleen was much harder. but kaz had taken his role of undermining heleen's grip in the city seriously. he had allowed inej to remain staying with him; she even has her own room. and they've grown into very close friends, in a relatively short period of time. inej can't think of anyone else she trusts more in ketterdam than kaz brekker.

a scary thought, really. but she's spent the last few months trying to figure out what to do. getting help, sorting through her priorities. her therapist encourages her to enroll in school, and so inej does. she achieves her high-school equivalent pretty easily, and decides to enroll in university. focusing on language, and translation services, intent on helping other people like her, who get tossed into ketterdam without a clue on what to do next.

the letter arrives, and she's accepted, and she soon finds herself in a bar with her friends to celebrate once she lets them all know via text. kaz even agrees to go, though inej is more surprised to see matthias there . . . the fjerdian isn't exactly one for parties and drinking. but one drink turns into two, and then three, and soon they are both half stumbling into his (their?) apartment, inej saying with a laugh: ]

What kind of bar doesn't serve food?

[ which, she suspects, is why she feels so unbalanced at the moment, as she closes the door behind them, scrolling through her phone to find some semblance of dinner . . . at roughly midnight. thank the saints that tomorrow is saturday. ]

That is the last time I allow Jesper room to pick the gathering point.

Edited Date: 2020-10-05 04:02 pm (UTC)

From:

wraithes

[ the airport in os kervo is relatively small, at least compared to the one in os alta. but it's bustling, full of people coming and going, and vendors setting up shop to sell their wares to unsuspecting tourists. inej is stopped by at least three or four suli vendors to say hello, but she soon shakes them off to step into the airport itself. soon enough, inej is fidgeting with her bag on the other side of the security gate, waiting for kaz to arrive.

the university that inej is studying at is directly on the coast, and inej's apartment overlooks the harbor. it's a beautiful day on the port, sunny and bright, the air crisp as it blows in from the sea. it's been three months since she left ketterdam to study in ravka, in home. since she found her parents, and reconnected with them.

her parents are also living in os kervo, just like they were when inej left for kerch when she was a little girl. her mother had taken about two hours to stop crying and holding inej when she showed up on their doorstep. and her father had managed to not cry until inej managed to choke out what happened, when she got to ketterdam. she had never seen her father cry before. or remembered her father ever hugging her so tightly. but her parents had visited her every single night, since they found one another again. to catch up, to learn what had happened. to get to know their daughter again.

she had also talked to kaz nearly every night, since arriving here. particularly when she found her parents. and probably made him stay up too late on more than one occasion to talk. and she's found she misses him (and lizabeta) dearly. her parents (particularly her mother) are keen to meet him, from what inej has told them about her closest friend. though inej isn't entirely sure asena ghafa is ever going to approve of anyone from the island of kerch ever again. not that inej can really blame her.

at any rate, she hasn't seen him in months. and so she fidgets with her bag, waiting for him. it's a pleasant anxiety, an anticipation, as she watches the people move in and out of the gates, looking for his taller frame. ]

From:

wraithes

[ the rest of her time spent in ravka for the semester is . . . bittersweet, really. a lot of it is spent with her parents, and getting to know them again. but a lot of it is also spent missing kaz, and it's really only in the last handful of weeks in ravka that she realizes she desperately misses him.

it's on her last night in ravka before she returns to ketterdam for the winter that her father has a talk with her. and she had asked him what it meant, to be in love. and he had simply kissed her forehead, and told her that if she had to ask that question, then she probably already was.

it had stuck in her mind when she went back to ketterdam. and she had lasted about a day (after hugging kaz impossibly tight in the airport) until she had decided to be honest. and tell him that she wanted to go on a date.

that had prompted about twenty minutes of awkward conversation, but later that evening, they were walking down the snowy streets of ketterdam. it had started to snow during the walk, the white powder making everything feel a bit more magical. they were walking to their restaurant of choice, but pausing to look at the window decorations of the different shops, all decked out for christmas. and inej tucks her scarf a bit more soundly before deciding to take his free hand as they walk, wool gloves neatly squeezing his fingers. ]

We might be snowed in tomorrow.

[ thoughtfully. ]

From:

ketterdamn

[ It's a pleasant few months, honestly. They've worked out a schedule—she has classes during the day, which usually line up with when he's working. By the time both of them are done, it lets them have dinner together and then the evening to go through homework or watch a movie if her schoolwork is light. Lizabeta has the run of the apartment, usually, and gets a good workout while he's plugging away at numerous excel spreadsheets.

The time difference had been weird to work through at first but now it's an easy thing. Work seems very likely to let him stay in Ravka since he's stayed on top of clients and projects. And has apparently been way more pleasant. He'll know for sure when he meets with his boss back in Kerch. A face to face scheduled for a couple days after they get in. It seems almost silly to come back for her short spring break but Tomassen had needed to go through the practice deposition.

Also it would be good to see Jesper and the rest of their friends in person again.

The flight to Ketterdam goes well as any flight does. Which basically means there aren't any delays. They get into Kerch relatively late and definitely sleep in. Well, as much as they can on their own respective internal clocks. It's a couple days before he can get adjusted to the time difference and shake off the jet lag. ]

You're meeting with Tomassen on Wednesday, right?

[ She hasn't exactly been...on edge, that's more his thing, but he knows she's worried about it. ]

From:

wraithes

[ the trial had been a nightmare. the witnesses, the media, the chaos. sitting across from heleen, who was resplendent in pearls and feathers and perfectly manicured nails. tomassen had sat inej directly next to him, so he could be in-between inej and opposing counsel, and had filed more than one complaint about how heleen was trying to intimidate her by staring at her across the room.

she had gotten through it, though. gotten through her own testimony, and endured the cross-examination of heleen's horrific attorney. she honestly couldn't remember most of the questioning. just a back and forth, accusations of lying, reading off the list of clientele, demanding if she really was forced to do anything . . . she had stayed up half the night shaking in kaz's arms the moment they returned home, trying to figure out how to breathe. but she had kept it together on the stand, which was what was important, though inej was fairly certain tomassen got in trouble from the court for standing up mid-questioning and asking what the purpose of interrogating a rape survivor was, though he used much stronger language than that.

once that was over, they waited for the jury to decide. it felt like years. inej had spent most of the waiting outside of the courtroom, unable to look at heleen while someone determined her fate. but when the verdict was finally delivered, and inej had won. she honestly didn't remember most of the fallout, from the courtroom. she remembered tomassen's hand at her back, and heleen spitting something in fury. and, in something of a numb daze, tomassen took kaz and inej out of the back of the courthouse, into a waiting car so they could go home.

she cried for hours, it felt like. in relief. and she was happily intending on staying in bed for a month when tomassen suggested that kaz and inej get out of the city. why, tomassen had declined to say, but inej suspected that the fight was not truly over just yet. so they had gotten on a plane to shu han, and were in a hotel room overlooking the beautiful gardens that were just now coming into bloom. inej had stubbornly insisted on keeping kaz in bed for most of their first day there, to catch up on sleep and to relax.

now, though, she wanders out of the bathroom in a robe, her hair damp from the bath she had just soaked in. it's long enough to cover everything, and inej was really keen on sitting outside to let her hair dry when she realizes her (long-suffering, beloved, handsome) significant other is still half asleep in bed.

so she meanders over to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning over him with a wrinkled nose, before lowering herself down to kiss his forehead briefly. ]

Hello.

[ quietly. best to wake him up slowly. even on vacation, he still isn't much of a morning person. ]

From:

wraithes

[ after returning from shu han, inej focused on her studies. it involved more trips back and forth from ravka, more time spent rearranging schedules for her and kaz. but for the first time in an incredibly long time, inej felt happy. blissfully happy, really. it was hard to imagine how life could be better than being free and in love and able to do as she pleased.

heleen's case was still fighting it's way through the court system on appeal, but inej had been kept out of it, for the most part. no one on heleen's employ was allowed to talk to her, and heleen herself had been told in no-uncertain terms by the judge that if she contacted inej, she would be headed straight to prison on contempt. so far, heleen (and her minions) had respected the court's wishes, although barely. there had been an incident where inej had walked home from her internship at the kerch human trafficking office one week and had been followed home by someone she vaguely recognized as a bouncer at the menagerie.

after that, kaz had insisted on picking her up (which felt silly, given his leg and the cold and the fact that she could walk), and she felt safer, after that. she stopped seeing the man lingering around once kaz brought her to and from the office. she suspects the man doubted he could take them both, rather than just inej (who could certainly defend herself, but was tiny).

for the most part, heleen was in the back of her mind. her time in school was coming to an end, and inej was working on solid next steps. she had an idea - an organization, outside of the government (which was often corrupt and part of the problem), to advocate and assist people like her. she had applied for funding for this organization and assembled a team of fellow students who were willing to help. kaz had really been the one to put together the grant applications for her, for which inej was eternally grateful.

after some weeks, a letter manifested itself from one of the bigger funders - enough to not only open inej's organization, but fund it for at least a full year. but it felt wrong to open it without him. and opening it felt . . . final. what if it was a denial?

so when kaz comes home, he will find inej sitting on their couch with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring at the (unopened) envelope on the table. but at the sound of the door, she tilts her head back a little with a warm smile. ]

I already ordered dinner.

[ mildly enough.

( she had a feeling he would be coming home late. ) ]

From:

wraithes

[ therapy had been difficult today. it’s difficult every day, really, but today had been exceptionally hard. because for the first time, inej had forced herself to remember. to pick apart memories she hadn’t thought about in a long time. and really tackle why she felt such a heavy weight in her chest whenever she was intimate, the creeping sense of dread and shame whenever her heart rate returned to normal and she tried to fall asleep in kaz’s arms.

she’s long since run out of tears to shed, which has left her feeling both overwhelmed and exhausted, upon letting herself back into their apartment. she doesn’t see kaz immediately, which she feels a little relief for. part of her feels guilty, for struggling. and not saying anything. but most of her needs a moment to relax.

so she finds herself on the couch, curling up underneath a thick blanket, exhaling slowly as she closes her eyes. letting a moment of peace wash over her as she focuses on calming her nerve.

home feels safe, after all. ]

From:

ketterdamn

[ If he knows his father at all, it's with a surety that Tomassen suspects something is up. Over the Rollins case, Kaz had become familiar with the laws and arguments that had been cited on both sides. Had read so many books on the subjects so he could never have someone pull the wool over his eyes again. Both of his parents had been extremely patient in their explanations and through his several hundred questions.

Since Inej's particular situation calls on a separate branch of laws and rulings, especially because of her being a Ravkan national, he's been sending Tomassen inquiries here and there, getting a better understanding of the contract's wording. As well as doing his own research on everything that stemmed into it; housing, indenture, all the various business Heleen Van Houden owned and operated throughout Ketterdam. Each new discovery fueled the already stoked anger in him. By the time he finishes what he considers his preliminary findings, the word document is nearing fifty pages. He saves it, encrypted, prints everything off, and then carefully wipes all trace of his search, the print job, and disconnects from the VPN he'd set up for it.

Just in case.

He manages to send a message at a normal hour, asking if his dad will be free for lunch the next day, relieved when it's an agreement. Nothing is set in stone, not yet, but he intends to get Heleen in some way. After all, Inej seemed resolute in her desire to get her justice–which is rightfully deserved. Tomassen and Sofia had supported and seen him through his own hell; it was karmic balance to help Inej through hers however he could.

So, on a beautiful but brisk Wednesday, fifteen minutes before noon, he's let into Tomassen's office by the receptionist, Maia. She'd looked startled but glad to see him, having gotten familiar with his comings and goings over the years the Rollins case had dragged on. Kaz takes his seat across from his dad, stretching out his bad leg. The paperwork laden leather bag gets set in the chair next to his so he wouldn't have to bend to collect it. ]

For the record, I did text mom back separately about dinner on Friday.

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