#clockpins

“ Stamatin! Your boyfriend is here. ”

Khan’s voice calls from the door, where the little Kain prince has bumped the door open to peek at him. Andrey has taken down the bottle again and found another glass and. . .well, he’s trying to nurse another glass of it responsibly.

There’s a long, long pause of Andrey rolling through his brain before Khan sighs dramatically, clarifies that it’s Bad Grief, and then wanders off with a quiet proclamation to find a bear.

Huh.

That’s his cue to come find the limping scoundrel on his staircase, wincing at the terrible state Grief’s in.

“ I’m not going to ask if you need help. Just -- come here, let me get you. ”

Despite the liquor in his system, he’s steady on the stairs when he helps Grief back up to the top floor and onto the edge of his bed. It takes quite a bit more than this to knock Andrey Stamatin on his ass.

Grief’s shivering even after being warmed through by the stove and Andrey drags Yelena’s gifted quilt from the hanger near the closet to set beside him.

“ If you needed a place to crash for the night, I don’t know which is a worse option. Here or the bar. Mn. ”

In town, you have some friends yet, do you not? 

Yes. Three of them. We were inseparable when we were kids.

The Shelter was- reportedly- “not great” right now, and many of Barley’s remaining men were dead... perhaps even all of them. Saburov had unfinished business with Grief in that regard, and there was a small worry about Lara’s safety.

He’d rather not wait until Town Hall opened. And he’d rather this meeting be... off the books.

Past the Crude Sprawl, into the steppe, Saburov made his way to the Suok Circle.

An insect-like silhouette was only barely distinguishable above the stone outcroppings that bordered this blood-hallowed place. Grief, he recognized. Thief leathers.

He doesn’t disguise his approach, but makes his way over cautiously through the dark and the snow.

“Grief? May I have a word?“

They’ve been told to report back once he’s been let free to Grief’s waiting attention, and he lingers on the doorstep as they go, considering that if he waits long enough, he could just. . .go home. 

He could. What would they do, arrest him once more?

Still, he hears movement inside and he tries the door. When it’s unlocked, he’s quick to duck inside and shake the snow off his coat.

“ Against my better judgement, I’m here. Are you even home? ”

Gray’s tired words to him after he was looking for an ear to confide in about the strange situation he found himself in. What he wanted was to try and parse the day, step-by-step and rationalize the stuff that happened. What he got was a very annoyed sister telling him to shoo and embrace a bear.

Not knowing entirely what that meant, the closest thing he could picture was to find a teddy bear- so that was the current mission... just because Khan couldn’t sit still yet.

Thumps come up the stairs, and he cranes his head, then his body, to try and see the source of it.

Cresting over, he could see the straight spikes with distinguishable red hair, huddled in a segmented puffy jacket, crawling up like an inchworm.

“Filin? Grief?” Khan says, trying to confirm the rest of the caterpillar’s identity.

When he confirms that it is indeed, Grief, he rests his hands on his hips, “What are you doing here? Oh, wait- nevermind. Notkin said you and Andrey had a ‘thing’ together. Is that why? Or...?”

Khan tilts his head, blinking at the unusual posture, “... did something happen?”

It’s the lanterns disappearing that get his attention. The one day he’s away from the Castle for more than a few hours and half of them come up missing. The ones that shine a golden orange are the most important ones to find. They had hung directly by Notkin’s personal nest in the warehouse, illuminating the blankets from the outside and giving the entire spot a warm, cozy feeling.

They were also his prizes from the Polyhedron. He had stolen them and they were his.

He knows who stole them too, which is the most frustrating part. And it means he’s having to scour the warehouses to find him, at least until Scout tells him he saw Grief walking around the meat warehouses on the roof.

It’s a pain in the ass to get up there, but he manages it. Jester settles around his shoulders like a scarf, her tail curled under his chin, and kneads her claws into his shoulder once he finally catches up to Grief.

It’s after she drops the file off at Artemy’s that she makes her way to the little clockshop that Bad Grief haunts. She left Vlad back at the Lump working, probably still tense but hopefully not too tense. She didn’t think the conversation would go well with both of them there, if Vlad would have even come. She doesn’t blame him. They have an emotional minefield between them while she’s been largely able to skirt the sidelines. She knocks the snow off her boots on the doorstep and lets herself in.

“C’mon, Grief? Where are you?” she groans as she tucks the package she’s carrying further up her arm.

The thought never occurred to her that he might not be there. He was always there whenever she came to check on him. It’s only now as the Nest is completely stripped and empty (and her double-triple checking to make sure she didn’t somehow get lost by accident) that it dawns on her that Grief was serious about leaving the thieving behind.

Well, he said he was gonna, she thought, but I never really believed it.

The Inquisitor really twisted and tangled further the knots in his mind- and she was hoping with Aglaya dying that at least some bit of himself came back to him. For a little, it seemed like it was. They saw each other at the Broken Heart meeting that Daniil called...

But she never spoke with him then, assuming that he would have still been mad at her for asking him to lay down his life for the town.

She wouldn’t blame him. Hindsight was clearer than the foresight she was supposed to be inheriting... as a Mistress...

“Aren’t you the Governor’s daughter?”

Clara wheels on her heels to face the voice- easing when she sees it’s one of the patrolmen.

“Yeah, I’m Clara.”

“Why are you looking for... Bad Grief?” The patrolman frowns with his hands on his hips.

Undeterred, Clara pulls out her package from under her arm to show the man. He in turn, laughs.

“So, working as a courier now, little Saburova?”

No. Clara nods.

“Do you... need directions?”

“...yes? Please?”

The patrolman gives her directions to the Clock Shop that Grief was running now. It was in the Skinners, the house by the Ghorkon that was directly behind Peter’s Loft.

“Thank you!” she says, running off immediately, not heeding the patrolman’s warning to be careful because the ground was still icy.

She runs all the way back past her house- the Rod, frustrated that she went entirely the wrong direction, and that Father didn’t think to tell her that Grief had moved out closer to their house before she left with her package in the freezing weather...

Bolting past Peter’s Loft, she shouts, “Hi, Grace! Bye, Grace- oh!”

As her heel slips on a patch of ice that was neglected to be salted, she tumbles to the ground, falling directly at the base of the stairs of the Clock Shop.

“Ow- tch-tch-tch!”

Clara holds her stinging knee... her new pants are ripped, and there’s a little blood... no hiding that from Father. She slowly picks up her package, thankful it’s not wet, and stands, knocking on the door to the shop.

“Grief? Are you home?”

After all this, she hoped he was.