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When October comes to Ketterdam, she announces her presence with smoky grey skies and buckets upon buckets of rain. It’s quite an abrupt announcement too; one minute, Nina gets up and leaves her laptop to go make a cup of tea. Two minutes later, she returns with tea, a generous handful of biscuits, and sleets of rain pelting the window. She doesn’t take her eyes off it as she sits back down. First comes disbelief, then comes Kaz’s voice in her head reminding her that she’s in Kerch now and the weather is about as reliable as anything else.
She remembers her partners are all out, and she sighs. Then she checks the weather app and finds the rain is due to carry on all evening, and she sighs again, harder this time.
After firing a quick message to the group chat, she tries to return to her work emails, though they hold her attention even less than they did before. Her phone lights up, then fades, then lights again, coming alive as the Crows give their various reactions.
wolf boy (but not in a furry way): oh wow! thank djel I have the car :p
wolf boy (but not in a furry way): who changed my nickname again?
Llewellyn: couldn’t have been me!
Llewellyn: who still uses emoticons?
Matthias Helvar changed his nickname to Only Sane Man
wylan van fuck: matthias is never beating the furry allegations
wylan van fuck: but I do second the oh wow!
wylan van fuck: @ matthias since i’m ur favourite ur still picking me up from work right???
Only Sane Man: we don’t have favourites, wy. but yes I will still pick you up.
wylan van fuck: yay!
Llewellyn: gay
Only Sane Man: driving cars is gay now?
Wraith: so does that make jes straight?
Llewellyn: I’M BEING HATE CRIMED?
Llewellyn: BY MY PARTNER?
Llewellyn: IN THE QUEER POLY GROUP CHAT?
Llewellyn: WITH OUR OTHER PARTNERS?
wylan van fuck: how in the fuck did we get here?
Only Sane Man: put two kurge in the swear jar when we get home.
nina beana: well given the weather, mayhaps we use the swear jar money for pizza tonight??? to warm us up????
nina beana: wylan’s treat, apparently.
wylan van fuck: shit yea the weather
Only Sane Man: four kruge.
Llewellyn: I love pizza!
Llewellyn: especially when its paid by wylan’s swearing
Llewellyn: @ wylan, say more cuss words so we have more pizza money
wylan van fuck: *send a voice message* 2:30
Wraith: this would go so hard at an open mic night.
Nina snorts into her tea as she replays Wylan’s message. In her mind’s eye, she can see the others’ reactions, Jesper dancing to it, Inej laughing, Matthias’ silent mortification and prayers to Djel. She presses herself onto the couch and carries on with her emails, the rain drumming steadily and relentlessly against the windows.
Twenty minutes later, her phone buzzes again, and this time she finds a picture of a completely drenched Kaz, looking at the camera and managing to be both supremely pissed off and completely unaffected.
kazzlus dazzlus: *sent a picture*
kazzlus dazzlus: its raining.
She spits her tea out at that.
Inej is the first one home, her workplace less than twenty minutes on the bus. Nina opens the door to find her sopping wet on the porch, her cream coat turned brown and her neatly-styled hair now frizzy and tatted and curling at the bottom. Nina practically yanks the girl in through the door, and Inej's response is a surprised squeak.
“You okay, love?” Inej’s hands are like ice beneath hers, as is her cheek when she pulls her into an embrace.
“Other than the typhoon outside, I’m good,” she replies, gently returning Nina’s squeeze. She lets out a gasp then, immediately dropping her bag and pulling her sodden coat off her. As Nina shuts the door, Inej pulls the tie from her hair and shakes it out. “Remind me again why I don’t work from home?”
“Because-and I quote- you’d never get anything done with the rest of us running around.”
“Ah, that,” she says with a roll of her eyes. She plants a kiss on Nina’s cheek before darting to the stairs, her movements as nimble as if back on the high wire. “I’m hitting the shower. When are we doing pizza?”
“Not until the rest of them get home,” she replies. Inej nods and carries on two at a time up the stairs. Nina lets her eyes linger on her small frame before turning back towards the living room, a wry grin curling at the corners of her lips.
“Save me a cookie?” Inej’s voice calls from upstairs. Nina chuckles warmly, blows a kiss towards the stairs, and the jar is moved from the cupboard to the coffee table.
Really, Inej didn’t have to ask.
The rest trickle in steadily over the next few hours. Jesper alerts them with a knock at the window, their eyes so wide they take up half their face. They all but barrel into Nina when she opens the door, other hand reaching out to grab the expectant Inej. At first they’re delighted, basking in their partners ever-persistent affection. And then the seconds turn into minutes, and realisation dawns on the pair of them with incredibly precision.
“You’re using our body heat aren’t you?” Inej asks.
“Yep!” The two rolls their eyes, exasperated and slightly shivering against Jesper’s cold hands, and it takes both of them to shove him off.
“Hot shower, “ Inej tells them with a poke to the chest. “And then maybe Nina will share her cookie stash.”
“Uh, they have to earn the cookie stash!”
Jesper comes down ten minutes later, clean, warm, grinning like a madman, and wraps Nina in a tight embrace that sweeps her off the ground. Apparently, it was enough for a cookie.
It’s around half an hour later when the blue blur of Matthias’ car appears at the window, obcusred by the heavy fog covering the glass. Minutes later, a flash of red hair that can only be Wylan emerges and sprints to the door, followed by Matthias rushing up the path. Jesper is at the door and opening it before Wylan can even get his key in the lock, wrapping the two of them in a tight hug that lasts until Nina appears at his shoulder and reminds him gently that cold air travels through open doors.
The smiles don’t fade though. Matthias pecks her cheek before half-jogging up the stairs, making a show of trying to beat Wylan to the shower but moving suspiciously slowly for a guy who runs marathons for fun. The three of them, Nina, Inej and Jesper, can hear Wylan’s laughter reverberate through the bathroom door, answered by a groan that sounds anything but frustrated. Nina grins, initially to herself, but like a flame it jumps to Inej and then to Jesper and they’re chuckling, softly, under their breaths.
Then Matthias is on the stairs, shaking his wet hair over them. Inej delicately steps aside and pulls Jesper into her spot, letting him take the full force of Matthias’s storm. Their reaction is suitably dramatic.
When Kaz finally turns his key in the lock, his coat is so soaked it’s basically a second skin and his dark hair clings to his face like seaweed against a rock. The edges of his coat drip, drip, drip along the floor as he makes his way down the hall, alerting them to his presence with the rap of his cane against the door and a raised eyebrow. The four of them (Matthias now in the shower) have crammed into their small kitchen; Inej and Wylan are sitting on the counter leaning over Nina’s shoulders, while Jesper is atop the table with his feet pushing one of their mismatched chairs outwards. The rumble of the dryer can be felt through the brick and the counter sways like the little boats that dock on the harbour in the summer.
“Brekker, settle a fight,” Nina asks. “We’re ordering pizza. We’re getting a veggie for Inej and Matthias and a plain one for Wy. Do we get a Hawaiian as a third?”
“If you do, that delivery guy will have to step over my corpse to get into this house,” he replies, gasping slightly as he pulls of his wet coat. He hangs it on the back of the door, the black tweet slipping in amongst the other coats of their house.
“Chicken and sweetcorn it is then,” Nina announces. Kaz runs a gloved hand through his hair before stopping beside Jesper, his arms folded over his chest. “Still bad out there?”
“No, Zenik, I just fancied a dip in the canal.” Inej throws Kaz a tea towel and he catches it expertly with one hand. “What sides are we getting?”
“Cheesy bread,” Nina replies. “And wedges. Anything else?”
“Springing for two sides?”
“The swear jar money covered it,” she replies. “Didn’t you listen to Wylan’s voice note?”
“No, on account of the fact I never open that chat unless I get to say something.” His voice is mumbled, half-hidden by the yellow towel over his face. It’s a lie, of course. Kaz Brekker can deny anything to anyone (and he has, many times) but screenshots don’t lie. And Nina’s phone is almost backed up with the amount that show ‘seen by Kaz’ beneath several of their messages. Not to mention the times she’s caught him half-smiling at his phone just seconds after someone put something in it, and all the things he’d only know if he checked it regularly. His ‘Dirtyhands knows all’ act can only go so far.
Still, she doesn’t say anything, and all of them let Kaz’s rickety wall stay where it is for now. In any case, his gloved hand is resting over Jesper’s on his shoulder as the five of them talked in hushed, soft tones about their work days and the storm and what movie to watch tonight.
“May I make a suggestion?” Jesper asks innocently.
“We’re not watching the Bee Movie again,” comes Inej’s reply, her voice soft and her eyes hard and unflinching when Jesper pouts.
“But it’s the greatest movie ever made!” he protests. “It’s a masterpiece. It’s a witty deconstruction of the capitalist system. It challenges us to think about the importance of those in society we brush off. It tackles our preconceived notions of relationships-”
“By that he means, she fucks the bee,” Wylan replies.
“She loved the bee! She and the bee had a consensual adult relationship!”
“Is Jesper debating the merits of the Bee Movie again?” Matthias appears in the doorway, hair tousled, clad in sweatpants and one of his old hoodies. The dark blue brings out his eyes. “Because I am not willing to sit through it for a third time.”
“Insert joke about furries here,” Kaz mutters as Matthias ducks through the doorway. Matthias rolls his eyes, a retort ready on his lips. But then he looks around the room, surveys each of his partners in turn, and Nina can practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes.
“Jesper is that my hoodie?” he turns to Inej, Wylan and Nina, all three of whom stand silently, repressing giggles and burrowing into the impossibly soft fabric enveloping them. “Are these all my hoodies?”
“In our defense,” Jesper begins. Then, he pulls his hands into the sleeves and lets the end flop around, a grin crackling across his face. “They’re comfy.”
“Very comfy,” adds Inej.
“Collosally comfy,” Nina continues.
“Well, shit, I was just going to say ‘really very comfy’,” Wylan adds. A chorus of “swear jar” comes to his reply, and to that he just scrunches up his face and laughs. Even Matthias’ indignance at the hoodie theft seems forgotten as he drags a hand over his face, eyes landing on semi-worridely Kaz.
“Go get out of those wet clothes, Brekker,” he says. “And help yourself to any of my jumpers sicne they’re all free anyway.”
“You’re good, Helvar,” Kaz says before leaving. His gait is slightly stiff with the rain, and Nina doesn’t have to say anything before Jesper flips on the kettle. They’re all too aware of how the cold can affect Kaz’s leg. Wylan will have a hot water bottle down in approximately sixty seconds.
“Matti,” Jesper says as he leans against the table. “Really, you should take the sweater theft as a compliment to your skills. You make them so soft.”
“There’s this magical thing,” he replies. “It’s called fabric softener. You should use it sometime.”
“There’s also the fact that you’re the biggest one here. Ergo, your jumpers fit all of us,” Wylan says. He holds up his arms, completely lost in the cavernous sleeves. “I mean, I offer my collection of jumpers with sheep on them all the time, but they never fit anyone so no-one takes them.”
“Sure,” comes Kaz’s voice from the stairs, slow and stretched out. “That’s the reason.”
Wylan’s reaction comes in three parts. First, he blinks like a deer in headlights, trying to search for Kaz’s meaning. Then realisation dawns on him, slowly, and they all watch as his mouth falls open in the kind of offence usually reserved for when family members are insulted. And for the third part, he looks down in abject horror, and the rest of them alternate by assuring them his sheep jumpers are lovely and also trying not to wet themselves from laughing so hard.
Saints, Nina has never felt so lucky.
In a crushing five-to-one defeat, they don’t watch the Bee Movie. Jesper makes a show of how disappointed he is, insisting that none of them have the same intellectual taste in film that he does. Instead, they go for Labryinth, followed by The Princess Bride and maybe Sharkboy and Lavagirl if there’s time. And for all Jesper’s whining, he is the first to start dramatically quoting each film as they set up. As Nina pulls the warmed blankets from the dryer, she can hear Matthias reluctantly playing the Buttercup to Jesper’s Westley and Kaz chiming in with a quote here and there to keep the scenes moving. She rolls her eyes and sighs “boys”, but the smile on her face is unshakeable.
The smile blossoms when Inej rises her her tiptoes and kisses the back of her head.
Arm in arm, they return to the living room with arms full of blankets just as Jesper is answering the door. As they enter, they’re greeted witha cry of “piggy back time” and the visual of Wylan rocket-launching himself onto Matthias’ back. Their partner gasps, stumbles and just barely rights himself before he bellows out a laugh and adjusts Wylan’s hold on him. Kaz sits on the couch, Wylan’s hot water bottle tucked against his bad leg and funnily enough, Matthias’s sweater over his pyjamas. Between gloved hands, Nina spies the familiar gleam of Kaz’s phone, and underneath Wylan’s giggling she hears the unmistakeable click of the camera. He pulls it back as soon as Jesper returns, face obscured by the mountain of food boxes he carries.
“Gentle reminder that the paper plates on the coffee table are to be used,” Kaz announces. “Because I am not cleaning tomato sauce out off the cushions again”. That comes with a pointed look at Nina, and she just shrugs before dumping the blankets in the middle of the room and announcing that its a free-for-all. Her preferred one, a white fluffy number Kaz got her last year, is already securely wrapped around her shoulders, and so she’s happy and comfy and seated for the night. Ergo, her partners may fight to the death if they please.
Secure in her blanket cocoon, she plops down on the sofa. Matthias descends on the pile, Wylan on his back, who announces their presence by sticking his fists in the air and yelling “blankets!” like his life depends on it. Laughter buzzes in the air as they all watch Matthias lowerself down, Inej punctuating it with a growing ‘ooooooooh’ and a ‘heck yea’ when he makes it without dropping him. Wylan grabs one for himself and one for Matthias as well, pressing the fabric into his free hand before returning his hands to Matthias shoulders and declaring “Onwards my noble Fjerdan!”.
“Here,” Matthias sighs. “Go be Jesper’s problem. I’ve had enough of you.” His words are annoyed but his tone is anything but, and Wylan lands in a giggly heap on Jesper’s lap.
And that’s it. Jesper straightens up against the couch, content for a moment, but then Kaz taps his shoulder and he scoots into the spot between Kaz’s legs. Wylan’s is curled on his side, his head in Jesper’s lap with Matthias next to him, rubbing circles into his back. With a slice of pizza in one hand, Nina runs her hand through Matthias’ hair, enjoying watching how his cheeks grow when he smiles. She presses her finger to one of his dimples and scratches against his cheek, and something warm bubbles in her chest.
Somehow, Inej managed to sneak in and situate herself on the couch without anything noticing. Her hand is intertwined with Kaz’s, and he dips his head and whispers something to make her laugh. When Nina looks, she sees Kaz’s free hand petting Jesper’s hair.
And it’s this. It’s just the six of them, and messy combinations of limbs and pizza and soft words and bad jokes. It carries them through, just like it always has.
The rain keeps pelting the window, unending, determined to be let in. But inside its them, and the movies on the TV, and the soft, fuzzy peace that glows openly between them all. And for Nina, and for all of them, it’s enough. It will always be enough.