soul and a half.

It’s an old song and dance by now. He’s feeling awful, still with the shakes of the Sand Pest, and the path to the Nest is easy to follow. The warehouses are empty of people, creaking with the cold, and shouldering the door open for the one where Grief usually sat was easy enough.

There’s still a bloodied footprint on the floor from how he staggered in after his fight with Brin, and he scrubs his boot over it to smudge it into the flooring before he shoves the crates aside and pulls open Heba’s hidden doorway.

The garden whispers underneath, old forgotten twyres and flowers swaying in the draft that lets the room breathe, and he pulls the door shut behind him to be left alone until she arrived back.

“Money, money. She’s a siren.”

Notkin turns pink and he catches it from the corner of his eye while he works, step by step and slow going. The supplies get low and he’s missing a screw for the last plate. It rains in rhythm and there’s some memories that crawl back to him of staying in the house with the other tenants. He had only ever been a tenant who brought bad luck. Someone other than his birth mother fed him when he was an infant, because she couldn’t look at him. He stayed away from his mother until she hired him to help her business, and treated him like a stranger. 

The house had never had so many folk happy to live here as it did now.

“Mmhm. To your credit you ain’t done nothin’ involvin’ us yet. Dunno if I’ll put you in our triads or not yet, cause that ain’t what you’re interested in. Two of em’ are out workin’. Crows are pickin’ the front today in this weather. Should be fine. We already picked that spot before. Nothin’ to steal from in town right now. You heard Old Bark’s orders bout’ town pickin’?”

He straightens up to his feet, the last plate installed and functioning. 

They need to head back to Town Hall too, to sign the papers for Notkin and officiate them. Notkin’s four years, almost three, from complete emancipation. After that, it’s his choice what he wants to do and where he wants to go. 

“Dead towns ain’t for the faint of heart, but it’s a hell of a lot less alarmin’ than the fronts. You comin’ with us? This is where all the runnin’ is gonna come in handy. Penny should be back by then, so I can take you out. If you’re goin’.”

“ No, I haven’t heard anything about that. ”

The house is nice. It’s much nicer than where he had lived with his father for the years after his mother died, if only because the house was large and open and not in complete disarray. Notkin likes it here, and so do most of the Souls that pile into the spare rooms when they need to.

Grief straightens up and Notkin follows still, ever a shadow to him, and considers the offer. Picking dead towns. There were other places hit by the Pest, of course, besides them. Daniil had come back on a train of the dead just before he left for the Capitol.

It would be less dangerous than dealing with the old war scars, but. . .

“ Is there a chance we could get sick again? ”

He asks it softly, hoping no one would overhear.

“ You can’t survive that again. Neither can I. I don’t. . .know if we should if we could get sick again. Even with Burakh’s medicine. ”

Constance draws her hood over. Yelena’s seemed to be a busy hub full of people- and people still hated her. If Clara were in Town, there’d be safety in the natural sense of doubt over which of the twins she was. But since Clara was gone… The people could safely sense her nature, and she’d end up like that poor woman at the Bone Stake lot.

She quickly makes her way up though, certain that her features were obscured enough no one could see her.

The room is comfortable. Much warmer than the other houses they’ve been scurrying through, and once the door is closed behind her, she takes off her hood and slumps down on the floor.

Spreading out her arms, she hums, “Hm. Stone Yard’s a big risk, and there’s lots of patrolmen doing the same as us, going through the plague houses and clearing them out- and orderlies cleaning them.”

Constance groans and rolls over on to her stomach and props her chin up with her hands, kicking her feet lazily.

“If there was anything worth taking- there’s one in the Atrium. We could make it over there close without getting to the Crucible. It’s just right across the bridge from here, that house with the cache behind it.”

That was one of the ones that had recently been infected near the end of it all. She couldn’t sense the plague strongly anywhere else but there- and it was still weak.

But she can’t get sick, and Dandy had proven to be truly resilient.

And stealing from the burnt out houses? That kept them away from having to go to Town Hall for the rations.

“So, whaddya think?”

“ Yeah, we want to avoid the Crucible. The hounds and the watchdogs would rat us out to Khan and Notkin immediately. ”

She settles onto the floor and he hops up on the bed, sprawling out on his side for a moment as he considers it. The Stone Yard was the last place they hadn’t hit, because the houses there had only become infected in the last days of the Plague.

There was still a chance there was a pocket of it here or there, but most of the uptown houses had been completely abandoned, leaving them ripe for the picking. The food would still be good because of the cold, and the tools could be traded for other things.

Sneak bounces over to sit where Dandy’s arm curls, tucked into the warmth there, and Dandy pets him with a finger between his ears.

“ I know that one. There’s two with caches in the Stone Yard. I helped set those up -- they were always the ones everyone raced to check, because the Stone Yard kids would put really nice stuff in them. Hm. ”

He has a map in his things, and he prods the bag he set down with his dangling foot.

“Cahl. Don’t be disrespectful by usin’ it either. It’ll come back n’ bite us all. Just a lonely fellow. Not a bad bone in his body, but plenty of shameful ones. Shame’s somethin’ you don’t need as a garrotter, but respect is. Ask him his name yourself.”

And judging by that face, there’s either little respect left for that fellow named Dandy with the imaginary rat, or there’s a collection of frustrations between them. Grief snorts and returns to the issue at hand of fitting door plates to doors. Notkin knows where the spare keys are. He’s either pinched something or someone else pinched something. It’s probably been blamed on him. That’s fine. He’ll console him later.

“Them ladies are sweet, you’re right. Some of them have babies in th’ streets, so I ain’t surprised. Yelena lets em’ feed you, water you. The food ain’t gonna hold though, not for much longer. Trains ain’t ran in too long n’ people are gonna have tighter fists on their stores. Hm…”

It’s been on his mind, mulling in the backdrop between trying to set examples, and trying to push his own goals.

“You can meet em’. Decide if you wanna work for Yelena later though. Twenty n’ up. They always need folk to throw the passerbyers out. There we go.”

“Mmhm. Apprentice,” he agrees, fishing the totem out of his pocket like he was flashing Notkin’s contract in front of them both. It’s better than a signature. Grief installs the rest of the plates, and they chat quietly among themselves. Meetings, people, places, quiet ideologies. He can’t take Notkin out running, he explains. He also explains what’s on the crackling radio downstairs. He talks about people in the town, and familiar faces.

“You talk to me first, by the way, before you do anythin’ related to us. You already know that. I know enough to know enough about enough. Tell you whether it’s a good idea or not.”

Ask him his name next time you see him. Notkin could do that. He nods, stores that information away for himself, and hands Grief another tool for his work. It’s quiet, comfortable work with the back beat of the rain outside lulling the entire house into a state of not wanting to do much of anything besides the little projects they had.

He makes a face at the suggestion of working for her, leaning back a bit as he tucks his face into the collar of his coat.

“ Eh. I don’t know. Maybe as a body guard, but -- no, I’m not interested. ”

A bodyguard. Of course that’s what he would want, because those are his aspirations already. He was aiming high for that one, considering he wanted to cover for the Kain’s little prince.

Grief plucks the charm out of his pocket and Notkin turns a delightful shade of pink under where he’s hiding his face for the moment. He’s embarrassed by a nice gesture, really, because he was still adamant to other people that he and Grief were rivals.

He wants to ask about the proper paperwork at town hall. Signing papers that would officially make Notkin his ward and. . .well, his adopted son, really. It’s a lot to think about.

“Maybe I’m just a talented vampire n’ couldn’t be got.”

They change the door locks and knobs one by one, the movement doing them both good in the cold. His back’s healing, and he’s been stretching the tension in it to help build new flesh where the old flesh was cut out. He’s able to move his arms with minimal pain. He’s able to walk with less than stabbing pain. It’s progress from near dying to some shitty fever.

Notkin looks thoughtful, picking at his sleeves while his hands help change locks and place doorknobs. There’s an unspoken thing there.

“Not in this weather. Liable to get washed up into the river n’ killed. Two days past tomorrow, be slush n’ mud n’ fine for walkin’ in rainboots. We’ll go see Chichi n’ if she ain’t busy we’ll let her trick your jacket instead, n’ you can talk to your dandy, Dandy.”

He chirrups it, and with that, moves to the next door. There’s an entire house to refurbish, and it’s never going to feel done. He never got to play at handymanship outside of the Crucible and doing odd jobs with mama dearest. It’s a nice breath of air, working with his hands on larger projects.

“Introduce you to a few folks. That merchant we ran into was one of my paying folk when I worked with Snoozy. Remember how people ain’t sellin’ to me in some places? That sod’s in the Stone Yard absolutely terrified I’d nark on him. I wouldn’t, but now you know him, so go to that silly man if you need somethin’.”

“ Nope. ”

He leaves it at that, putting the pin in the vampire conversation for later. Jester curls a figure eight between Grief’s legs as they go, purring up a storm before she wanders off into the clockshop. The thieves had come to adore her, so she could get all the attention she wanted.

He looks thoughtful, his eyes flicking over his coat before Grief speaks up. They’ll go when it stops raining. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

He makes a little bit of a face about seeing Dandy, but that’s because Dandy and Constance are still definitely an issue. . .

“ Oh, the um. . .the tailor. I don’t remember his name. I know where he keeps the key to the back store room. The spare key, anyways. It’s under the flower pot that’s broken on one side. ”

He laughs about that, pushing his hands into his pockets as Grief fits the next doorknob into place.

Grief snickers as he works, popping the plate on the door and twisting the doorknobs in place. The first one works like a charm, and he gives the door a good tug to test the mechanism. Doesn’t strain it, and it holds fast. The process is a ten minute one, and that’s ten minutes for Notkin to really think about that legend and if it was true.

“Stories?”

He collects the materials, and moves into the next room. There are other folks here working besides them, but they’re occupied in their own quieter conversations. They also just sign to him or tap him to say hello, minding their own affairs. They pet Jester when they pass. It’s been a real morale boost.

“Your pops was nice to me once. Gave me an apple he didn’t want. Yeah, I remember him. Tough lookin’ guy. Serious. Scruffy n’ tough hands like the rest of them leatherworkers. Bet that was a prized possession. Needs a tune up though. Sleeve cuffs need re-done.”

He moves to the next door.

“– One of Snoozy’s girls, Chichi, can do that. Can take it over if you wanna go make friends with the Madame. Gonna have to sooner or later if you want the pulse of the place.”

“ Yeah, stories. ”

He huffs and puffs about it, because he definitely didn’t believe him for a hot minute before he thought better about it.

“ If you were one, you’d have been run out of town by now with the shabnak hunt. So, there. ”

He considers quietly, following Grief like a little shadow and carrying whatever Grief’s not allowed to carry for him. It’s part of being an apprentice, it seems -- acting as a second pair of hands whenever it’s needed.

He has muted memories of his father, a man who is said to resemble him in the face in many ways. Scruffy and tough is a good way to place his memory of the man who eventually went off to war for a chance of good money for his son.

The jacket was a prized possession. His father hadn’t gone anywhere without it -- with the exception of draping it on his son’s shoulders when it got too chilly outside. It had swallowed Notkin once upon a time, standing on a train station and watching the passenger train leave.

It fits better now -- the sleeves don’t hang over his hands and it almost looks respectable on him except for the length of the bottom.

He suggests getting the cuffs redone and he plucks a loose string from one, considering it.

“Nah. Whatever you’re called, by you or invented, that’s your name. People got plenty of names. Got more names than bodies in the den. I go by Grief. Grigory Filin. Greef, Gryph, Grypha. Call me Bad Grief elsewhere, th’ local life thief cause a little birdy told a flock I was a vampir. For a while I controlled a bug that wiped th’ herds clean, n’ made the dead not sink into th’ Earth. Heard that one? That one was good.”

It makes him laugh a muted laugh while he’s waiting for the rest of their ensembles to be done. 

“As you can see, I ain’t got th’ bite in the day, but at night, oh at night.”

He’s kidding in a tone that’s meant to be taken as a cliffhanger.

“Nines, then on account of nine lives in th’ cat. Better not take after it in anythin’ but Nine irons and strokes f’ luck.”

Notkin polishes the rest, and Grief slowly creeks to his feet to scrape the plates into a pile and the knobs into a bag. The drills upstairs somewhere, and he shoos Notkin to go collect it so they can finally, “have a locking place so ghosts don’t bleed on his floor anymore”. It’s been raining still. There’s sealants on the house and a raised foundation for it. That’s all that they get, and it’s bitter cold in here despite the fire and repairs.

It’s slow going in winter.

“I remember old Notkin. Not a lot about him. But that old coat’s his, ain’t it?” he asks, finally creeping to the top of the stairs with a screwdriver, and slowly sliding to the ground to sit and occupy himself with the door.

He’s heard. . .most of these names. He’s heard him called Filin, he’s called him Grief for years, and he’s heard the people here call him Gryph or Grypha with some amount of respect and fondness. Particularly the older crew members.

His brows go up about the vampir story -- he’s heard those stories, though not about Grief, and his fingers itch for the bone charm carved in the shape of a longmark on the longest leather cord he wears. He doesn’t grab it, but the itch remains.

Ah, but then Grief has that tone that says he’s joking and Notkin rolls his eyes and speaks in a completely deadpan tone.

“ Whoa. You’ve got some crazy stories, huh. ”

He does as he’s told and he perches nearby to watch Grief put the locks back on, Jester curled around his shoulders like a lazy scarf as they watch. He works quick and careful. . .and then Grief’s bringing up his father and he taps his foot on the side of his chair.

“Dreamin’ up th’ other half of you that can’t die. Huh. Old man Kain said somethin’ about putting souls in other places. All kainery n’ craft. Said that dreams around here are peculiar in that they’re “soulful”. Soul full. Full ‘f souls. Makes sense she can’t die. You’re still livin’, n’ that’s all over there.”

The cat stalks back to her dreamer, and Notkin puts his feet up on the worktable to keep polishing the metals he’s still going through. Grief pops a drawer open on the worktable to count out enough screws for the plates and pop them in his pocket with the totem.

“Queen of the forests n’ cat of the thieves. Impossible things. Kinda like the new impossible things we got in town. Much nicer than the shit we had as kids, but again, all we had was kainery n’ bone craft.”

He watches Jester push her face into his chest and sighs. He’d have liked to have a cat when he was a whelp. Would’ve gotten killed by someone with a vendetta.

Jester leaves hair on him that he scrapes his fingers over. It’s got the same strange glisten to it as the things hawking the ruins.

“Dunno. Nine lives sounds good for you. Might call you Nines sometimes. Nines of the vines. Locks look good.”

“ The Tower let us do all sorts of impossible things. I appreciated it for a while, but then. . .well, the Tower stopped letting me in and Khan and I fought and -- you know the rest of that. ”

Jester lays across his lap and purrs and he sinks his hands into her fur for a moment once he finishes the next doorknob.

Queen of the forest indeed. When she moves, Grief can see the afterimage of the jungle cat she once was, the sway of her tail and the stars that she sheds. She still glitters, even as a normal cat.

Notkin does lean forward when Grief mentions a nickname, his eyes sparkling just the tiniest bit.

“ Is that how you get a nickname here? Because everyone here does except me. Notkin is -- I mean, it’s not really a nickname like Dandy has. It’s actually my name. My last name, anyways. ”

He sinks back again, his arms folded under his chin for a second. He could get back to work in a second.

“Can’t say. Don’t know enough about him. Looks like easy money, n’ sometimes it is, which is th’ draw. Harder to be one of the guards for Yelena when you ain’t built like Penny. Good news is, he’s fine where he’s at. Yelena feeds her people n’ takes fair percentages.”

Grief reaches down to comb his fingers idly through Jester’s fur, dragging her eyes back for deep scratching behind the ears in the interim of waiting for polished doorknobs. Notkin puts a finished one down and he fits 

“Yelena’s been workin’ for god knows how long. She’s what? Sixty? Been workin’ longer than I been alive. The madame knows all there is t’know. Worked with the old Gonnof head too. Woman knows how to run a place n’ keep it up. Ha-ha!”

Jester hopes up onto his table and sits in front of him. She gets a seat under one of his hands so her tail can curl around his wrist. He moves the knobs from Notkin’s table to his. Jester taps them with a paw when they’re moved in front of him.

“Ain’t your half supposed to be whatever you dream up yourself t’be in another life? What? You got nine more lives or somethin’?”

Jester’s purring. Loudly.

“–Your friend’s fine. Just tough to get used to in th’ beginnin’.”

His mind is reeling about Dandy, and he thinks he should go find him and talk to him -- and then Jester is perched on Grief’s table and Notkin squints at her as she purrs loud enough to jostle the entire thing.

Her tail curls around Grief’s wrist and she bats at the knobs and locks as if she’s checking the quality herself. Grief mentions the Halves and he shakes his head, stretched out in his seat as he works.

He tempts to put his feet on the table, because Grief hasn’t told him not to.

“ No, no, not quite. I mean -- that’s part of it, but it’s more. . .it’s something you dream up as the other half of you. A soul -- and a half. ”

He gestures first to himself, and then to Jester.

“ Back in the Polyhedron, she was a jungle cat. Bigger than you are and made of starlight. There was no where she couldn’t reach, no one she couldn’t hide from. She was queen of the forests. ”

Jester, as an example of her much smaller state, rubs up against the front of Grief’s shirt to cover him in lightly glittering cat hair before she bounces over to Notkin’s table to do the same to him.

“ Most people had impossible creatures for Halves. . .and it’s a surprise so many have come out of the Tower. I have Jester, Dandy has Sneak, a jerboa who used to have a swarm with him. . .Gray has Mundag, who is -- pretty much the same, really.

“Dandy… The little jerboa crawlin’ in all the houses. Once or twice sure he ended up around this area, but anyone who’s anyone don’t come in here, even for robbin’. Bad miasma in this place.”

He hands Notkin back the polish he’d mixed up and a heavy leather cloth. It’s a very mild smelling thing for indoor use, and it’ll give a nice sheen to the plates and the knobs. The knobs don’t have to be the brightest, the locks just have to work so no more wandering wraiths lose themselves at night in his halls. 

“Might be one of Yelena’s now,” he says, off handed, “Might wanna ask yer friend if he’s actually up to hookin’. War’s over n’ people are gonna start comin back to roost n’ findin’ the whole place dead n’ gone. Bar’s open and brothel’s open. Folk with holes in their brains ain’t make great bedmates to spring deers that don’t know what they’re doin’. But hey, I dunno him. He might.”

A fair warning. He offers Notkin a look over his shoulder.

“Thieves’ n’ bauds have been neighbors n’ cuts from the same cloth since the roads were just suggestions. Yelena’s always listenin’ for folk down on their luck to pluck. It’s what she does. She’s Yaga of a different sort. Make no mistake, her god is money n’ she’s a determined disciple. Want a tip? You pay the washwomen, iron workers, n’ the busy prostitutes. They know th’ most in any place.”

He has the charm in his pocket. He recognized the intent. It’s a protection totem. As if Jester sleeping on his arm at night wasn’t enough of an indication the kid’s worried. He’d popped it in one of the jacket pockets. Notkin likes trying his luck picking them. It’s a quiet conversation in theives’ cant. He’s fine. He’ll be around for a long time.

He takes the polish and makes a face at what Grief’s saying, his legs tucked up under himself as he gets to work. It’s easy work, which means they can talk. He doesn’t mind talking to Grief, because it’s just good conversation to be had.

Grief doesn’t sugarcoat things for him, which is the best thing about these conversations.

“ You think he’s working for her? Ugh. I mean. I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in ages. I just thought he was still living down at the warehouses, but the rats and the cold might have driven him up this way. ”

It makes sense that Yelena and Grief would work together -- and that she would know everything. He just shrugs about it, setting one of the knobs down and reaching for the second one quietly.

“ Dandy’s the oldest of us. A little older than Khan. He was about to get kicked out of the Tower when the Souls split off -- his dreams got. . .strange. His half is a jerboa -- which is kinda funny, considering you called him one. ”

Jester winds around Grief’s ankle, purring as her tail bats his leg before she hops up onto the table and settles down. She’s been clinging to Grief any time Notkin is back at the shop.

@halfasoulmore​

The clockshop hasn’t seen a scare in a while​, so he’d invested in taking a look at the brass knobs and locks of the place and making something functional with it. It required a casting mold, ceramic, and a second pair of hands dedicated to the practice. It’s only when he’s filing the interlocking pieces of a door lock with a thin jewelry file, a simple thing, that he realizes how much shit it actually takes to train a tyke. 

He’d given Notkin the honor of running the brass knobs under some mild polish to finish it off. There’s enough to cover the entire house, sprawled out in the tidy backroom workshop tables. His people stop in and out themselves to pick things up. Some of them have claimed rooms for themselves and are patching the places they’ve claimed up. It’s a benefit to them all they do, but it doesn’t fix the floors or insulation in the downstairs up.

Grief files the last brass place and collects the screws for the job. His hand drill’s somewhere upstairs being used by someone else. 

“Penny said your second’s lurkin’ around Yelena’s before he left. She’s one of our folk by association, y’know.”

Notkin likes to think he’s not much of a problem. He keeps to himself, mostly, and when Grief asks him to do something -- he does it. It’s why he’s perched on a seat in the back of the clockshop, his legs tucked up against the legs of the stool as he works.

He’s been lurking about to keep out of Grief’s hair, mostly. He’s been nervous with how sick Grief was and how tired he was and -- well. He’s been helping.

(He left a carved wooden charm on the counter for him to find. Something that’s good luck out here in the Steppe. He’s hoping to avoid having it mentioned because it makes him embarrassed about the whole thing.)

He only knows the barest amount about Yelena. She offers the Souls food whenever they’re around, encourages them out of the snow or the rain when she has space for it. But. . .

“ My second? . . .oh, Dandy. He hasn’t come back since we rescued him from the Caravan. I don’t know if he’s still a Soul-and-a-Half. I didn’t know she was one of us. ”

“ Come on. Yelena’s busy, she won’t say anything if I have a friend over. ”

Dandy huffs and puffs from the cold, tucking his face into his scarf as he dances up the stairs and towards one of the spare rooms. There were a few permanent residents here, and he turns the key in the door at the far end of the hall, pushing the door open to a somewhat comfortable room. It’s a bit bare, but that’s because he hasn’t brought all his stuff out here yet.

There’s the twitch of whiskers in Dandy’s pocket before Sneak climbs his way out and hops up onto the bed, finding a prime spot on the pillows before settling down in a dark, jerboa-shaped spot.

He lays down, and she can tell how much pain he’s in. 

About how much pain Grief was in when they dragged his ass to his friend’s place. He’s still not supposed to be moving. She doesn’t think Pennyweight should be either. 

“You don’t get to fuck up. You don’t get to leave. You don’t- you don’t get to make me care about you and then go and fucking die.” 

She’s not even looking at him anymore. She’s looking at the floorboards, eyes angry and wet and she’s refusing to let anything fall. They’re angry tears. They’re angry tears, and she’s got to be professional - she’s got to put back on the mask. Too involved, too involved.

But that’s just it, isn’t it? Stupid little criminal family, disfunction and all. They’re all she’s got and she wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“You and Grief and River are all I have you dick. And I’m selfish. I don’t want to lose any of you. Guess we’re all in the wrong fucking business for that.”

“ Maybe you are in the wrong business for it. ”

He turns from his side to lay on his back, because facing her and her tears is more than he’s able to do right now. He’s tired and his body aches and he should get some sleep before he’s up at dawn to start gearing up.

“ I already fucked up, Whetstone. Give it a rest. ‘m not leaving, I’m going to do a job. ”

A job that, if he fails it, means he stops being Pennyweight and goes back to plain ol’ Ilya all over again. He’s sure there’s plenty of places for him in town. Saburov needs good men for patrols, there’s the woodworker in the Crude Sprawl who is far too old to still be making bulls and cradles.

It’s not what he wants, but he has options. He has to be thinking about options. And that’s if Grief doesn’t just kill him if he fails.

“He’s already mad.” She counters. “You don’t have to use it. But you’re going to bring it back to me when you’re done. You hear that? You don’t… you don’t get to leave, even if you fucked up.” 

It sounds immature, childish, even to her own ears. A child crying about not getting their way, about things they don’t understand. Stupid, stupid. 

She’s 5. The Kin caravan travels across the Steppe, fields away. She is young, but not young enough to miss the sorrow and wistfulness in her mother’s eyes, or the bruise on her face in the shape of her father’s hand. 

She’s 7. Slipstrop, then by another name now buried in the river, attends the burial of her mother with her. 

She’s 10. Slipstrop stays with her when her father marries a new woman, and tells her she isn’t welcome in his new household. 

She’s 15. Slipstrop is a menace to the other teens, but no one touches Whetstone because of it. 

She’s 19. Slipstrop keeps running with Barley, leaves her at Grief’s, moves out of their shared room, moves on, moves away, moves beyond. She leaves without remorse, she leaves all the promises they made in the wayside as she sends child after child to the Capitol. 

“You’re going to come back.” 

Is she telling it to him, or herself? Does it matter? 

“ He’s not mad. He’s just fucking sad. ”

He mutters it quietly. Grief’s angry, of course, but he knew the look in Grief’s face on the walk over. It’s sadness, not anger. It’s helplessness.

He flips the knife over his hands before it’s shoved into the pocket of his coat. Fine, he’ll take it if she insists. His hand fucking hurts and he sinks down to lay on his side, throwing Whetstone at an odd angle across the room from him.

She’s thinking too hard. He should say something comforting. He really should.

“ This ain’t about you, Whetstone. This is something I have to take care of. ”

He sighed, tucking his legs close as he rested his cheek against the roughspun sheets.

“ I’ll come back if I can. If I fuck this up, I die or I have to leave. These dogs have plague, y’know. They were rotting with the Pest. ”

She opens the door with a huff and closes it. She wants to slam it, but she won’t slam the Madam’s doors. Instead she closes it politely, and leans back against it with her arms crossed. Whetstone glares at Pennyweight for several moments, silent. 

When she’d started this way, she’d aimed to give him something. Maybe talk, if either of them were in the mood (unlikely). Somewhere halfway, she got in the mood to fight. She’s floating somewhere between the two now. 

“…here.”

The scrappy little pouch she’d been carrying is tossed onto the bed. There’s a tightly corked bottle of antiseptic (a hot commodity right now), a pile of sterilized bandages, and a knife.

“I want it back,” she says, knowing he’ll know what she’s referring to. “You’re gonna need it more than me right now. But you’re bringing it back.”

You’re coming back. Don’t you fucking dare not come back. 

Yelena would kill her if she slammed the door and Whetstone knows it, so the door closes with a click and leans back against it. The glare is something he feels rather than seeing, because he’s still pulling the stitches tight to knot the end of them with a grunt.

The pouch gets tossed onto his lap and he glances back to her, plucking the strings open one-handed before the bottle, the bandage, and the blade dump into his lap.

“ Boss is gonna get mad at you for helping me. ”

He mutters it softly, though he takes the bandage and twines it around his hand to pull it tight and cover his hard work.

“ I don’t need your knife, Whetstone. Keep it. ”

He flips it into his grip to look at it, thoughtful for a moment, before he sighs.

“ Unless you’re going to insist. Which I know you are. ”

It gets set back beside him as he pushes back onto the bed, setting his shoulders against the wall to prop himself up. He’s tired. He’s very tired and coming off of the poison on Brin’s blade and the fact that he’s not welcome.