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“So, what happened to your hair?”
Sasha reaches a hand to the fried, white patch at the side of her head. She either grimaces, or that’s just her face. “Yeah, I got punched.”
“Oh.” Grizzop sits down beside her. “Bet that hurt.”
Sasha’s keeping watch, pressed up against a boulder like just another shadow. It had taken Grizzop a good five minutes to find her. He wriggles up against the boulder, makes an effort to blend in, and Sasha gives him a vaguely approving nod as she says “yeah. Thing was invisible. Still shoulda heard it coming.”
Grizzop nods. He gets it. He’d feel the same way. “Not many things can get the drop on you,” he says, meaning it to sound encouraging.
“It’s not gonna happen again,” Sasha says, with grim determination. She scans the horizon, quick and thorough, and Grizzop can tell, that she’s listening too. In the silence it’s only their quiet breaths that cut through the ambient noise of the night. Satisfied, she settles further into the shadows and says, “What’re you doing here, anyway? Said I’d take first watch.”
“I know. I thought I’d keep you company. You looked tired.”
He can feel the walls go up the moment the words are out of his mouth. They always go up eventually, with everyone, and Grizzop’s learned how to work with that since he can’t seem to stop it happening, and he’s not willing to stop trying to help people just because he might make things awkward. He’s a paladin.
“Look mate, I’m fine, ” Sasha snaps.
“Yeah but are you actually fine, or Oscar Wilde fine?” Grizzop snaps back.
Sasha bristles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, Wilde nearly died from it, and I nearly watched it happen, and I’m not keen on watching it happen again.”
“I thought you said he was cursed.”
“Yeah! Cursed into being really really tired!”
“ Shh. ”
Grizzop bites his lip as Sasha takes another look around. He shouldn’t have said any of it, Sasha’s almost certainly not cursed, but he looks at the slump of her shoulders and the bags under her eyes, and that’s not just her face. His chest tightens until he feels like he could snap in two, right down the spine. He digs his fingernails into the dirt and waits to be asked to leave.
“I’m not cursed,” Sasha finally says. “And if I was, I’d try to, y’know, get un-cursed. Like, I figured out when I was dead that’s what was going on, and then we sorted it.”
That’s not a comforting image either, Sasha going grey and bloody, sulking, moving uncannily fast as she got closer and closer to having bits fall off. “Okay, but--”
“And I’m not as stupid about sleep as Oscar Wilde.”
Grizzop finds he can’t actually argue with that. “Point taken.”
“He’s good at puns,” Sasha continues. “He’s real good at puns, and he’s rubbish at sleep.”
Grizzop looks out into the night. Sasha’s not cursed, he tells himself. She’s not cursed, she’s not cursed, she’s not cursed. She’s fine.
“And I mean,” Sasha continued. “Rome was just awful. I mean, I almost died there, Grizzop.”
Something in Grizzop’s chest plummets. “Waitwait hang on. You almost died ?”
“Yeah, y’know. When I got punched.” This time it’s definitely a grimace. “I mean, I didn’t, obviously, we had, like, some potions and stuff. And we all had to wait around anyway while Einstein took a nap, right, cause it was really cold in the shadows. So I was fine.”
“You nearly died because an invisible thing punched you?! And this is the first I’m hearing of it!?”
Sasha shrugs. “So maybe like, don’t expect me to look super well-rested for a few days, yeah?”
Grizzop lets out a breath and leans back against the boulder. “Right. Yeah.” Sasha almost died and he wasn’t there but it’s past now, it’s fine. “So y’want some healing?”
Sasha glances at him sideways. “I’m good, thanks.”
“Cures fatigue too,” Grizzop blurts, as automatically as though he’s reading off a description. He can feel the spell building in his fingertips. “Couldn’t hurt to--”
“I’m fine, Grizzop.”
“I’m just saying!”
“And I’m just saying don’t. You made your choice, so did I, and you don’t gotta... I dunno, make up for it or whatever.”
“I’m not trying to!” Grizzop says. He doesn’t lie, as a rule, but as soon as he’s said it he’s not sure if that counts as a lie or not. “I did what had to be done,” he clarifies, and he knows that to be true, leans into that surge of certainty.
“Right,” Sasha says. “It was a good choice. Only reason I went was so those two didn’t get themselves killed.” She nods back towards the camp where, presumably, Hamid and Azu are resting, curled up against each other. That might be a result of Rome too, the physical closeness. Grizzop scratches again at the dirt beneath his hands.
“Well. You did it. Good job on that.” It’s not regret. Grizzop doesn’t have time for regrets. It’s frustration, maybe, that no one sided with him, that even among his own associates he still has to fight to get them to see things how they are. That going off to Rome had been a risky choice, and tying up loose ends had been essential, and they hadn’t listened but Grizzop had been right.
But it’s fine. He has more chances, and Sasha didn’t die while he was gone. Nobody did. There, sorted.
“Yeah, y’know.” Sasha scuffs a toe of her shoe; a mouse that hadn’t noticed her scampers away in surprise. “And like I wouldn’t want you dying for stupid reasons in Rome, or your god to be mad at you. It’d have just been a shame, right, if I had died, cause I might’ve died in a really cool way and you wouldn’t have been around to see it.”
Grizzop’s ears twitch against the rock. “What? Me? Why?”
Sasha shrugs. “I mean it might’ve been really cool.”
“You dying?!”
“Yeah.”
“No, but! That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Well, like, it’d also be cool to die and never be found, but if I had to be seen. Like. It would’ve been cool if you were there.”
Grizzop has the feeling he and Sasha could talk circles around this all night if one of them’s not careful, so he is. Very deliberately, like he’s knocking an arrow, because he’s not going to know if she’s guilting him unless she says it, he asks. “Why me, then? You had other people there to see you.”
Sasha blinks at him. “Cause I like you. You’re a good… friend, or whatever.”
“Oh.” Grizzop’s not sure what to say to that. He’s suddenly struck by the fact that Sasha is not at all being facetious. Not at all disapproving of him. “I-- I mean I try, and I try to be useful.”
“Yeah, well. You are, but like, Bertie was useful. I wouldn’t want him to see me die. Probably wouldn’t’ve even noticed, really.”
“Right.” Grizzop tries to swallow down whatever emotion’s pushing at his throat. He squirms. He’s not used to being complimented.
“And I wouldn’t wanna play cards with him, or like, do much of anything with him, really.”
“But you’d want to with… with me?” Stupid question, they had played cards. But maybe Sasha meant again. In the future.
“I mean yeah. I guess.” She’s trying to sound noncommittal but Grizzop feels like she’s just as uncomfortable about this as he is. And somehow that just makes it worse, makes it real. “And like, sure, maybe we don’t agree on gods and justice and all that lot, but you get the important stuff. Like, weapons are cool, and you get the job done, and you’re pretty good at sneaking up on things when you try.”
Grizzop narrows his eyes. “I mean, gods and justice are kind of my whole deal.”
“Yeah but like--” Sasha gestures vaguely into the night. “Y’know. I still think you’re… cool.”
“Ah. Okay.” The defensiveness evaporates. He bites his lip again. “I mean, samesies?”
Sasha settles back against the rock, and Grizzop’s hands shift to a gentle tapping of the ground. He stays, and Sasha doesn’t ask him to leave. He thinks her lips might twitch in the direction of a smile. But maybe? Maybe that’s just her face.