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Sasha is five hours into her watch and she’s beginning to wonder if she’s made a mistake.
The thought hadn’t occurred to her last night, back when she wasn’t bleeding and keeping her eyes open was far less of a chore. She’s certainly bleeding now, if the tell-tale warmth making its way along her arm is any indication. Clenching her teeth, she wraps her hand around her injured forearm and squeezes, and squeezes, and squeezes.
To be fair, the arm isn’t exactly her fault. Sure, she’d had to hide the wound from Zolf as he made his post-combat rounds, but it wasn’t like she’d bleed out any time soon. It was little more than a scratch, and she knew it would have scabbed over by now, if she’d let it. But some of Barrett’s lessons had proven useful over the years, and he was certainly right about this one. Just a little pain, and her mind should be sharp enough to make it through the rest of the watch. And if the blood is slowly soaking into the sleeve of her jacket, she’s far too tired to care.
But being a bit tired is vastly preferable to the things she dreams of these days. She doesn’t know how much is pure memory and how much is embellishment, but the story is always the same— the cold press of unforgiving metal at her back, pain that flickers down her torso like lightning, Brock’s retreating back as he melts away into the smoke. The dreams never quite show her the lab beneath Paris because they don’t need to.
The point is, Sasha is five hours into her watch, absolutely exhausted, and pointedly ignoring the red stain growing on the sleeve of her jacket.
“Sasha?”
She doesn’t tense at the whisper when it comes from behind her. Years of practice keep her perfectly still as she scans the city laid out before her, head tilted at just the right angle to keep her eyes shrouded by darkness. Distantly, a Parisian citizen crunches through the debris that litters the street as they creep from one building to the next.
“Alright, Zolf,” Sasha says, voice pitched low to keep it from carrying.
She hears a grunt that could be ‘alright,’ and the door to her right begins to open. The sliver of light that shines through is quickly blocked by a dwarf-sized shadow that slips out the door with a clumsy graze against the frame. Zolf swears, very quietly, and Sasha is reminded of his newfound unsteadiness, not yet accustomed to his legs. She scoots over just far enough to make space beside her, and winces when Zolf collides with the ground a little too harshly.
“You weren’t there when I woke up.”
Sasha shrugs, keeping her eyes forward and pointedly not on the expectant silence seated beside her. “S’my watch.”
“Was your watch. You should’ve woken me up an hour ago.”
Sasha grunts noncommittally. She doesn’t need this distraction right now, not when it takes far more energy to keep focused on the watch and do her stupid job—
“Right.” There’s an edge of annoyance in Zolf’s voice, and Sasha tilts her head just enough to keep an eye on him. “I don’t know what… thing you’ve got going on, but you’re no use exhausted. Go to bed, try and get some sleep.”
A bitter twinge of offense lodges in Sasha’s throat, and she bites her tongue before a retort can slip out. All the same, she scowls out at the city and wills her gaze to keep moving.
After a moment, Zolf sighs. “Didn’t mean it like that,” he mutters, “just— you should rest.”
“I’m fine,” Sasha protests, and is loosely aware that she doesn’t sound particularly convincing. She tries to think of a better argument, but her thoughts slip from her grasp before she can voice them. Frustrated, and annoyed for being frustrated, she sheathes the dagger in her hand (soot-darkened) and draws the one tucked snugly against her calf (always throws right). She flips the knife and hopes Zolf will go away if she waits long enough.
“You’re bleeding,” Zolf points out, nodding to the slim lines of crimson streaking down Sasha’s palm. Instinctively, she pulls her arm back to press the wounded underside against her torso, applying just the right pressure to slow the bleeding, but it aches. She grits her teeth. “Mind if I fix that?”
“It’s fine.” Sasha shakes her head for good measure, clutching her arm a little closer. “It’ll heal.”
"Right."
Reluctantly, Zolf’s hand halts its slow progress toward her arm and settles where it always does, on the place just above the water forming his lower legs. A quick glance in his direction reveals the tense way he digs his fingers into his thigh.
“Look, if you— if you don’t want me healing you, that’s fine,” Zolf tries, and even Sasha senses the discomfort weighing on each halting word. “But you can’t just… potions exist for a reason, alright?”
Sasha hums, flipping her knife. She watches it make a single perfect rotation and lets it return to her palm with a satisfying smack. The hilt fits in her hand like it was made for her, and the words fall into place.
“D’you have a thing to stop sleeping?” The question is out before Sasha can reconsider it, but for all the discomfort it sends prickling down her spine, at least it’s Zolf. Of all people to hear this, there are far worse alternatives. “Like, to stop me needing to.”
“Erm… no?” The confusion has chased away all the strange caution in Zolf’s tone, and the nerves in Sasha’s stomach relax. “That’s not really how it works.”
“Oh.” The disappointment makes Sasha want to clench her fingers around the cut on her arm, but she suspects Zolf wouldn’t like that. Instead, she tightens her grip on her knife and scowls.
“If, uh, if there was something else… we’re a team, right? So you can tell us. If there’s anything wrong, that is.” Zolf’s voice has gone low and careful in a way that has Sasha clenching her jaw until her teeth ache. She knows it’s not likely to be a trap, but worry has begun to prickle on the back of her neck.
“You’ve been tired, is all,” Zolf offers, and the tension stretches past its breaking point.
“Really, Zolf,” Sasha snaps, and part of her expects to be reprimanded for speaking out. Her survival instincts urge her to apologize, and she ignores them. She knows she’s jumpy when she’s tired.
“If there’s something I can do to help, I will,” Zolf continues, like she hadn’t spoken at all. “I’m the cleric, ‘s my job.”
“I can sleep,” Sasha says impulsively, and so desperately wants to curl up to shield her stupid, soft underside. She compromises, tucking one knee to her chest and giving up on her watch entirely. If someone approaches, maybe it’ll save her from this conversation. “Just don’t wanna.”
“Nightmares?”
Zolf, when Sasha risks a glance in his direction, looks mercifully impassive. She doesn’t think she could handle either pity or judgement just now. It’s a relief to know that neither are likely to come from him.
“Memories,” she says, so quietly she barely knows she’s speaking. “In the catacombs. When you healed me, and before.”
Zolf doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Sasha hears him breathing, though, slow and measured, and the way she latches onto that sound probably doesn’t mean anything. She runs her eyes over the city idly, scanning for any risk or any distraction. All she finds is a bundle of papers being tossed about by the breeze, flickering in and out of what little lamplight remains after they shut down the world.
“I remember it hurting,” Sasha continues, not entirely sure what drives her onward. “Being brought back, and all that. It didn’t feel right.”
“Still doesn’t,” Zolf says lowly, evenly. A first quick glance shows Sasha that his knees are pulled to his chest and another reveals the tense way he presses his fingers into his leg just above the knee, where the watery prostheses begin. His gaze is fixed forward, eyes gone glassy and blank.
“D’you remember?”
At this, Zolf stirs. His hands still clench on the fabric of his trousers, and he blinks like he’s forgotten how. Slowly, he nods.
“Alright,” Sasha says, because she’s not the best with people but she knows when someone doesn’t want to talk. Keeping an eye on Zolf, she passes her dagger to her off hand and begins scrubbing the dried blood from her itching palm. It flakes away far too slowly, leaving a patchy maroon stain on her skin. She scrubs harder.
Beside her, Zolf seems to be settling as the minutes drip by. His knuckles aren’t quite so pale where he grips the place that must be scar tissue, and the sound of his laboured breathing has faded into something that doesn’t make Sasha’s chest ache. Eventually, he shifts, stretching his legs out before him. But he doesn’t make to stand up, and Sasha grimaces.
“You really don’t have to stay,” she begins, and doesn’t know where to go from there. It’s not so bad having someone else here keeping watch, but it’s new. Zolf doesn’t normally do this.
“I know,” Zolf says. Then he hesitates, just sitting quietly beside her and looking out at the city. Sasha remembers, all at once, that he can see in the dark. It doesn’t bother her, exactly, but it’s odd. She’s not used to sharing this time with someone else. “I just… wanted to talk for a minute.”
Zolf pauses, and Sasha decides he’s waiting for some kind of response. She hums a wordless assent.
“Right,” Zolf says, like she had anything worthwhile to say. “Well, um, the last while’s been pretty shit. The catacombs and all that; it was… a lot.”
There’s something tense coiling in Zolf’s voice. Sasha isn’t sure what it is, but it reminds her of the way he sounded that week cooped up in the hotel. It’s something like annoyance and Sasha refuses to feel guilty for switching the casual grip on her dagger to something more ready.
“Having the leg off before wasn’t nearly as bad with the crew as with Mister Ceiling, so I get it. Stuff like that, it’s the person that makes the difference. You know, a person like—”
Zolf cuts himself off with a sharp exhale, like he’s frustrated with himself more than with her. It’s not reassuring.
“I’m saying I’m sorry,” Zolf manages, as if choking the words out is a struggle. “Down there, in the lab, it never could’ve been good, but I— I could’ve done better. Wish I could’ve asked before doing all that. So, if that’s a problem for you, I understand. And I’m sorry.”
Sasha’s first impulse is to flee. There’s an expectant air lingering in the wake of Zolf’s words, and this is the part where she gets the answer wrong and she hates this part. But she’s on watch, this is where she’s supposed to be, she can’t leave. Sasha shrugs and avoids Zolf’s eyes. He sighs, but it’s missing the thing-like-anger from before.
“Wanted to say it now,” Zolf continues, and his voice is growing deeper, which means discomfort. “Just in case you were gonna… you know. I half-thought you’d be gone by now.”
Sasha blinks at him in befuddlement. He continues staring at his hands where they lay folded in his lap.
“If you want to leave, that’s fine,” he forges on. “I wouldn’t try and stop you.”
“Alright.” Sasha is fairly sure she knew that already. Still, it’s the first time she’s had a boss say she’s allowed to go. It makes something unclench in her chest to hear it. “I wasn’t planning on leaving.”
“Oh.”
“This is the best job I’ve had, actually. Bertie’s a right prick, but he’s good at hitting stuff, so… I’ve had worse.”
Zolf snorts derisively, and the tension radiating off him eases. “Posh bastard,” he mutters, and a glimmer of satisfaction runs through Sasha.
“And you and Hamid, you’re alright,” she adds quickly, feeling like that’s important. She wants Zolf to know that bit.
“Thanks.” Zolf seems a little wrong-footed, from his tone. Sasha still doesn’t want to look him in the eye, but some of the worry from before is gone. “You’re alright, too.”
“Thanks.” She knew that too, she thinks. But the feeling in her chest threatens to steal away her words, so she fights past it, because this is worth saying. “And, um, if I ever get dead again, you can do the healing thing. I don’t mind.”
Even as she says it, a remembered ache slices down her chest like a blade, as if mocking her certainty. She grits her teeth against the memory, and the hand not clutching a dagger rises to skim over where the pain once was. Her skin is whole, as it should be.
“You okay?” Zolf barely whispers it, but it splits the silence wide open. Sasha forces her hand down to her side, curling her fingers into a fist. She knows she’s imagining the hot blood coursing over her skin, but knowing doesn’t help much.
“Fine,” Sasha manages, and she’s rather proud of how even her voice sounds. She gives it a second, then peeks over at Zolf. Even in the dark, the apprehension is plain in his eyes. “I’m alright, Zolf.” This time, she aims for earnest and knows she doesn’t succeed.
Zolf’s expression twists into the kind of concern that, if worn by anyone else, would make Sasha subtly shift out of arm’s reach to escape whatever clumsy attempts at comfort were soon to follow. But this is Zolf, and he doesn’t do that sort of thing, and that should be a relief. And maybe it’s the exhaustion, and maybe it’s the thing that is not relief, but Sasha tosses her knife to her left hand and shuffles that arm’s length nearer. Before she can reconsider, she fixes her eyes straight ahead and leans to press her shoulder against Zolf’s.
The doubt comes immediately. After this many years on constant alert, she’d be a fool not to notice the tension in Zolf, but she keeps her eyes on the city and ignores the dismissive voice telling her she’s right to worry. It sounds uncannily like Eldarion, and Sasha hasn’t listened to her in years, she’s hardly going to start now— Then Zolf, with a slow breath, relaxes. And Sasha relaxes alongside him.
And it’s alright, actually. There’s something about the bright spot of warmth at her side that draws out the weariness in her bones. It’s distantly familiar, like one of the few memories from her childhood that she hasn’t entirely buried. Sasha isn’t the type to sleep within arm’s reach of another person, but she thinks she could fall asleep here. She won’t, but she could.
“Hey.”
Sasha hums. Words are an effort she can’t be bothered to make, but she thinks Zolf won’t mind.
“You trust Hamid, right?”
After a second, she shrugs. The leather of her jacket squeaks where it brushes against Zolf’s sleeve, and she feels him shift slightly.
“Yeah, I know,” he says softly, and something like unhappiness laces through his voice. “But if it was you two, you’d be okay. If I wasn’t there.”
A moment too late, sluggish worry settles in the pit of Sasha’s stomach, and in the space of a breath, swells into something dense and aching. It makes sense to pull away, then, even as it leaves the space beside her shoulder feeling cold and vacant. She twists slightly and blinks Zolf back into focus. There is a tightness around his eyes that reminds her of the week they spent under Paris.
“Why wouldn’t you be there?”
As she says it, an old suspicion reawakens. Maybe she’s outstayed her welcome, maybe Zolf has decided that she’s not worth keeping around, maybe she’s not useful enough. The doubt burns when she studies it too closely.
Zolf huffs out a laugh, short and bitter and sharp. “You wouldn’t exactly be worse off without me. Think I do more harm than good, these days.”
“No,” Sasha protests, but the argument meant to follow falters before it can begin. Words don’t come easily to her like they do Hamid, and she doesn’t know how to explain that she’s taken a lot of orders from a lot of people but Zolf is the first one she doesn’t mind it from.
“It’s fine,” Zolf says, and Sasha doesn’t need to look at him to know he’s forcing a smile. “Don’t bother.”
“Hamid can’t heal,” she blurts out, knowing it’s not enough but unable to keep quiet. “He’s got loads of magic, but not healing. If you leave, we’ll get hurt.”
“You’ll find another healer,” Zolf says firmly, and there’s that familiar authority. It’s reassuring and not, and Sasha bites her tongue to keep from protesting further. She scowls at the ground and knows there’s nothing she can say.
“Sasha, I don’t—” Zolf starts, then falters. He sighs. “You didn’t have to move. Not on my account, I mean.”
His voice is very, very quiet, and something clenches in Sasha’s chest as she watches him angle himself toward her. There, he waits, still and undemanding.
The decision is far easier this time. Perhaps too easy, judging by the quick breath Zolf draws in when Sasha steels herself and closes the distance between them. But it’s only a moment before he shifts, readjusting the two of them until they fit a bit better with a gentle hand cradling the point of her shoulder. It’s odd, Sasha thinks as she allows herself to be tucked a little closer. There’s not a shred of softness between them, but this is nice. Knowing she doesn’t need to keep an eye on the city, it’s nice.
“You’re leaving now, then?” Voicing it doesn’t hurt as much as she expected it would.
“Not yet,” Zolf says, and Sasha feels his voice more than hears it, which is strange. “In Prague.”
“Right.”
Sasha wrinkles her nose at the silence as it stretches out further and further. The awkwardness doesn’t prickle at her nerves like it usually would, but she still doesn’t like it. The hand on her shoulder gives a tentative squeeze in something that feels kinder than pity.
“It’s not because of you, Sash,” he says, and even without the nickname, the gentleness of his voice would have been enough to make Sasha’s breath stutter. She thinks of Brock, suddenly and sharply, and the kind of trust that they used to laugh about as kids. There was no one but them worth knowing, back then, and Sasha hadn’t seen much to disprove it, even after all these years. And Sasha is cradled against the chest of her… she disregards employer immediately; the word long-soured by her years with the likes of Ashen and Barret. They would never say her name like she’s worth something.
“I don’t believe in it,” Zolf’s words break through her reverie, voice rising as if volume is what will convince her. “Not like I used to. And I’m a cleric, or least I’m supposed to be. I have to believe.”
“Oh,” Sasha manages, feeling as if she’s suffocating under the memories. They have no place in this, but the lingering unease is slower to fade. “Don’t have to.”
Zolf snorts in amusement, and it’s jarring how accustomed Sasha has become to the warmth of his breath against her shoulder.
“A peg-legged old pirate isn’t much use as a mercenary.” He hesitates, then sighs. “You don’t need me around.”
“I’ll miss you, though,” Sasha mutters, feeling petulant and foolish, perhaps too eager to blame her loose tongue on the exhaustion. Ridiculous, sitting here in the night like she didn’t abandon her watch, like this wouldn’t earn so much more than a scolding from the people she used to work for. Ridiculous, that with each blink her eyelids are heavier and she doesn’t mind nearly as much as she should.
“I’ll miss you too,” Zolf says quietly, and letting herself be held is worthwhile if just for this. Sasha squeezes her eyes shut and ducks her head against Zolf’s collarbone. His heartbeat is slow and steady against her temple and she tells herself that waiting just a moment more can’t hurt.
And she pulls away even so.