Jonn: Please Don't Make Me

“You need something to fucking keep you busy,” Helena told him, scrubbing the blood off his hands so roughly it hurt. He stayed still and let it happen.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“Jonn, kitten, baby, if you were sorry --” she dumped ice cold water over his hands, and he winced -- “you wouldn't fucking do it again, would you?”

He considered that. He was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question.

###

Helena took him through the undercity, through the tunnels, and they came up in a hallway lit by yellow crystals, filled with doors. She led him over to one, and down another long hallway.

“I know what you're gonna do,” she said. “And I'm telling you right fucking now, don't goddamn poke her.”

“Her?”

“Her name's Anastasia. She -- fuck, almost before you were even born, she was one of my best.” Helena paused. “She was *the* best. Love that girl like my own flesh and blood. So don't you fucking poke her.”

Jonn stood quietly and stared as Helena knelt by the bed and spoke to Anastasia, then turned back to him.

“I want you to read to her,” Helena said. “We thought her eyes might …” She glanced up at the ceiling painted like the sky. “Anyway, she can hear. There's books over there. Just keep her company. Can you do that for me?”

He nodded eagerly. He wondered what he'd have to do for Helena to love him like that.

###

Ana was what Helena called her, most of the time. Sometimes Sasha, though, or her full name. Helena told him about how Ana had almost taken out the Basha, how she'd been broken for it, too broken for regular magic to fix. She didn't say it in front of Ana, though. When they both visited her, Helena told Ana about the guild's goings-on, the little ways she'd screwed the Basha over this week.

Anastasia couldn't move. She couldn't express and she couldn't see. Jonn didn't know if she liked Helena's stories or not, but he figured Helena was smarter than him, and she'd know better what Ana liked.

Jonn started off sitting on the other side of the room, because that was where the chair was, but then he moved to sitting on the floor next to her bed so he didn’t have to talk as loud in the little room. He read to her like he used to read to Luci, which was kind of weird, because Ana was older than him. She couldn't take care of herself, though, kind of like a little kid, and he watched the cleric boy who came in and took care of her enough times that he started being able to help.

He liked helping.

He started sitting on the bed next to her to read. She could move her fingers, a little, and twitched them against his leg, and he didn't know what to do, so he held her hand. She seemed to like that -- made a soft sound in the back of her slit throat -- so he kept doing it, every time. She'd squeeze his hand sometimes, and he'd stop reading and try to figure out if she needed something -- started asking questions, telling her to squeeze when he said the right thing. It was a good system. He thought Helena would be proud of him.

He thought she'd like it, too, when he started slipping through the dark undercity on his own, finding his own way -- visiting Ana on his own. He thought she'd like him taking initiative, and doing it without being told, or needing help.

Instead, when she came in and he was sitting on Ana's bed, holding her hand, reading to her, Helena froze, and then looked fucking furious.

She dragged him away by the hair, making him yip in surprise and drop the book -- dragged him into the hallway and slammed the door. Ana made a wheezing sound behind them.

“I didn't tell you to fucking touch her,” Helena hissed.

“I didn't do anything,” he said frantically, twisting into her hand, “I didn't do anything --.”

“You didn't do what I fucking told you to do,” she snarled. “Sit in the chair, read books. Don't fucking touch her.”

“She wanted --,” he tried.

“You don't fucking know what she wants.” Helena wrenched at his hair and he swallowed back the whine. “You do what I fucking say.”

“Yes. Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

###

The thing was --

Jonn had asked, “Is it okay for me to hold your hand?” because he was thinking about Luci, and how she didn't like it when people touched her.

And Ana squeezed his hand once for *yes*.

He asked, “D'you want me to come hang out with you more?”

And she said *yes*.

Helena was smarter than Jonn, and she'd known Ana when Ana could speak aloud, and explain what she wanted better, and he thought -- Helena was always right about things, she just didn't have all the information. Ana had changed her mind, that was all.

But Helena was too mad for him to say that. She paced in her office, alternately covering her face and shaking out her hands, and he made himself small in the chair she'd put him in.

“You don't fucking touch Sasha,” she told him again.

“I won't.” He was pretty sure he was going to.

“No. No.” She stopped and rounded on him, slamming her hands on the desk -- making him jump -- then jabbing a finger at him. “You don't fucking touch her, Jonn, or I swear to god I'm throwing you to the things that live in the undercity. You don't fucking touch her with those hands.”

He glanced down. Was there something wrong with his hands? They were … clean. He hadn't done anything.

“I won't,” he said, anyway. “I won't. I promise. I'm sorry.”

He didn’t pinky swear, though.

###

He did good work for Helena. Really good work. He was sneaky and quiet and his fingers were light, and once he started working with Finch, it was a lot easier to just do what Finch told him to do -- follow the plans. Then he didn’t mess up anymore. And Helena didn’t get so mad at him anymore. She’d pet his hair and tell him he’d done good, and call him kitten, and he wondered if she loved him like her own flesh and blood. If she ever would.

She didn’t know he was still sneaking in to see Ana. The things in the undercity -- they were scary and dangerous, and it was dark, but he kept managing to get away from them. He got a scrape on his arm, once, and it got infected because he didn't want anyone to know it'd happened at all. Then he passed out on a job, and Finch grimaced and lanced the pus out while he laid stretched out on the couch in Finch's bunker. It was underground, too. Dark and cool.

Finch let him spend the night and rest, then kicked him out and made him go to a healer and told him to stop doing dumb shit. He didn't even know about Ana. He didn't know how awful that room was.

It was just that Jonn thought about her all alone down there, and Helena didn’t go to see her that often, and the cleric never talked to her. He thought she must be bored and restless and lonely, like he was, living all alone in Skyport. He missed his sister. He held Ana’s hand and told her stories about Luci, and he asked her questions.

“D’you have any siblings?”

Yes.

He guessed, “Sister?”

Yes.

“Umm. Older or younger? Wait, shit. Older?”

No.

“I wish you could tell me what she’s like.” He paused and thought. It wasn’t Helena, because Helena said Ana was *like* her family, plus Helena was older. “Does she ever come visit you?”

No.

Then he realized Ana was crying, barely, and she’d closed her eyes, and he quickly apologized and dabbed the tears away. Either -- either Ana’s sister didn’t love her, didn’t want to see her -- or else she was dead. Both were bad. He didn’t ask any more questions about that, and he didn’t keep telling her about Luci.

He asked her if it was okay for him to touch her scarring, and she said yes.

The skin was oddly smooth, and ridged and rippling. He touched her face and neck carefully, and then took her hand and showed her the scars on his arm, saying he knew it wasn’t the same, but it was something. He told her about Finch, and how he’d been burned, too, and he told her he thought they were pretty -- the scars. He was sorry that she couldn’t walk, and that Finch stayed in his bunker all the time because he was too afraid to leave, but he still thought they were both really great.

She squeezed his hand for a long time.

###

When Hansel came home, and he was hurt, and broken, and stuck in bed, Jonn knew exactly what to do. Kept him fed and clean and stayed with him, talking to him, holding his hand. He could’ve done it forever, and he would have, but Hansel got better -- and then it was worse, somehow, because then Jonn had to stay with him even more to be sure he didn’t hurt himself, or leave and just disappear.

Helena got angry at him because he wasn’t showing up, was ignoring the crows she and Finch were sending for him, but when he finally realized that if he got Hansel drunk enough to just pass out, he’d be safe -- he’d he unconscious, and he wouldn’t have nightmares -- he dragged himself back to the guildhouse. He hadn’t slept in a while. He told Helena that he had to help his dad, and what had happened, and what was still happening, and he realized at some point that he was crying.

She softened. She came around her desk and sat in the chair beside him -- where he’d curled up into himself -- and moved it closer. She just held his hands at first, and gently explained that she couldn’t keep paying him if he wasn’t working, but when he was able, there’d be work for him. He nodded and looked down at his lap, feeling vacant and distant and trying not to think about the future. He could … keep getting Hansel drunk, but that took about as much gold as he could make on the street in a night. And he still had to -- to sleep some time.

When he started crying again, Helena pulled him to her and let him crawl into her lap and sob onto her shoulder. “All right, kitten,” she said, petting his hair. “All right. All right.”

She was so kind to him. Like Hansel was. He didn’t get why, but she was.

###

Helena disappeared. Jonn was so fucking scared, because no one seemed to know what had happened to her -- he'd gotten distracted with the Graverunners, and living on the ship, and … He hadn't done what Helena said.

Maybe she was mad at him, he thought. For not getting back to work. Usually when he fucked up, she slapped him, or jerked his hair, and sometimes she closed him up in a small dark room and left him there but --

What if she'd just *left*? She didn't need to put him anywhere if she wasn't even in the city.

He paced around in Finch's bunker and chewed on his fingernails until Finch snapped at him to sit down, and then he did, in the corner, and kept chewing. Helena had so many kids, and people like him that she'd taken in off the street and given homes and jobs and purpose, and he had talked to all of them, but none of them knew anything he didn't know.

Helena was just missing. Someone else had taken over the guild -- this dark-haired half-elf with some kind of lizard for a pet or familiar or something. Morgan Wyn. She wasn't a Skyporter, she was from out of town, part of this bigger guild that was eating the Thieves. She'd only visited once, but people liked her. She was rich, apparently, buying new gear, and nicer guild housing than the cramped underground bunkrooms in the hall. Said she was going to put them on the map. Said she was going to put the Basha out of business.

Jonn narrowed his eyes.

From the corner, he mumbled, “She did something to Helena. Bet you. I just fucking know it.”

“Don't care,” Finch said shortly.

He just really wanted it to be true, in a way. Helena was so smart and strong and he didn't think anything that bad could've happened to her, and he didn't want it to, either, but -- but if she had just left him, if she was angry with him, if this was a new punishment …

###

Jonn visited Ana because he missed her, and because he figured if Helena would've told anyone where she was going, it'd be the person she loved like her own flesh and blood (not him; never him). He'd apologize to Ana for not visiting more, lately, and explain about the ship and the sailing lessons his dad was finally giving him, and the room he was sharing with Roddy -- he'd told her about Roddy, he thought she'd like him -- and about the captain he was supposed to respect, and how his partner's old partner's new partner lived there too, and --

Except, when he got to Ana's room, she wasn't there. The bed was empty.

He felt panic rising up in him. Ana couldn't protect herself. If Morgan Wyn had done something to her -- and he hadn't been here, hadn't looked out for her -- Ana was helpless, like a kid, and he liked her, he was supposed to take care of her like a big brother, and he hadn't, he hadn't, and she was *gone*.

He searched the room for signs of a struggle, but there wouldn't be one. He looked for blood but the sheets were clean, rumpled like someone was still sleeping there, cool like they hadn't in a few hours. There wasn't anything weird or wrong in the entire room except that Ana wasn't in it.

After a little while, Jonn curled up on the bed, wrapping his arms around himself. He'd wanted to come see Ana and find out that she knew where Helena was, that Helena wasn't mad at him, she was just hiding somewhere -- from Wyn -- and she needed his help, she wanted him to come to her. Instead he'd lost Ana too. He didn't know what to do.

###

Jonn checked Helena's office. It was … fuckin’ Wyn's office, now, and she had moved things around even though she wasn't even in the city. Taking possession of Helena's guild, and her city, and her *office*. Fucker. He poked through it, looking for -- for anything in the wrong place, he guessed, or anything missing.

He found a smudge of blood under the desk, and he found a tooth.

###

He sat in the corner of Finch's bunker staring out through his eyes, tied up but locked up, locked in, couldn't move. Finch stared at him all night with a crossbow pointed at him, and Jonn thought *shoot me, shoot me, shoot me, shoot me, shoot me.*

Anastasia had been trapped in her body for twenty years. Helena loved her. Flesh and blood. Twenty years in that bed, squeezing Jonn's hand once for yes, twice for no, not even able to see the fake sky above her. He could see and he made it about thirty minutes before he was willing Finch to kill him.

Helena loved her, though. Flesh and blood.

###

She fingerspelled her name out -- A S Y A. She was walking and wearing this mask that took away her scars, but it let her see, too, and she touched his face carefully and petted his hair and squeezed his hand.

She still couldn't talk. She wrote, *The S is like a Z.*

“Asya,” he whispered.

She nodded and smiled, and hugged him tight.

###

Asya said, *Drop it, kitten*, when he brought up Helena. She taught him the more complicated cant she'd learned, because he wanted to talk to her, and she just told him, *I don't know where Helena is.*

Jonn was pretty good as reading faces and voices, and she didn't have a voice and only half a face for him to study, and he was still positive she was lying to him.

###

Helena always called it the back room. Jonn didn't know why, because you had to go into the undercity to get there, not back behind anything. Then, when he was scouring the office that used to be Helena's for the fifth or sixth time, he found a crease in the wall. It looked like someone just hadn't closed it back all the way -- usually it laid so flush against the actual wall that he'd never seen it before.

But it was a secret door.

He crept in, and down these tightly-spiralling stairs, and it led to the hallway. The one just off from Asya's room. It'd always been here -- had to've been, the stonework looked ancient -- a quick way down to her, and Helena had sent him through the dangerous undercity instead. Got him hurt.

Jonn decided he shouldn't be upset by that, but he couldn't think of why. He sat down on the steps while he tried to figure it out, chewing on his fingernails. He was too distracted trying to work out why Helena would do that to notice any sounds until the door opened -- the one to Asya's room, the back room. He scooted back quickly, and luckily the harsh spiral of the staircase kept him hidden as fucking Morgan Wyn came out, that red lizard on her shoulders, and crossed the hall to go through a different door, disappearing again.

Huh. He waited a couple minutes, but she seemed to be gone. He slunk forward. Asya didn't live in the back room anymore -- she had for a while, but she'd told him that she hated it in there and she'd moved into the guild housing instead. So there wasn't anything in the back room anymore. There *shouldn't* be.

So the fuck was Morgan Wyn up to? Jonn stepped lightly down the stairs, through the door, down the hall to the back room, keeping his ears pricked. The last door was ajar, and he could hear heavy breathing on the other side, ragged and strained like someone was injured. He shifted to peer in through the crack.

Helena. Helena was in the back room. Her face was bleeding, red from her teeth and nose, and she was wheezing like she maybe had broken ribs. She was tied to the chair he was supposed to read to Asya from.

Jonn didn't think. He just bolted into the room, and around the back of the chair where her wrists were tied. His hands were shaking; he only realized it because untying her was hard.

"I -- I got you," he stammered. Was what Hansel would say. "I got you, it's okay, it's gonna be okay --."

"No." Her voice was raw, like she'd been choked. "Goddammit -- get the fuck -- get out of here, Jonn, fuck sake."

"It's okay, I'm gonna --." The knot was too stubborn and his hands weren't working. He flipped his knife out to start sawing through the thick rope. It was gonna take a while.

Helena struggled. "No! She's coming back -- you gotta fucking *go*, kitten, get *out*."

"I'm not gonna leave you!" He just got her back. She hadn't abandoned him. He'd been right -- it was goddamn Morgan Wyn. And Helena needed help, and he was gonna help her, and then she would love him, really love him, and they'd gut Wyn for thinking she could take over Helena's city. Helena would love him like her own flesh and blood.

That was what he wanted. It was, right?

"Jonn --."

She made a wordless sound like she was in pain. He looked up, and Wyn stood in the doorway, scowling. He sawed faster.

The blue dragon perched on Wyn's shoulders leapt at him, teeth and claws digging into his face, the stinger on the end of its tail jabbing into his neck. He yelled and tried to rip it off, brought his knife up -- but it launched itself away, tearing at his skin as it did, beating its wings a couple times to land on top of the bookshelf and hiss as him.

The scratches and bites were on fire, and he wavered, blinking. Didn't know what the focus on -- the lizard, or Wyn, or freeing Helena. Didn't have the time to recalculate before Wyn's first connected with his face, too, and he heard himself cry out as he hit the floor. She kicked his knife away.

He couldn't lose that knife. Bought it after his first date with Gwydion. It was a special knife. He fumbled for it, and she kicked him in the head, and after that he could hear Helena snarling threats, but it was all muddy, for a bit.

Morgan Wyn's voice came through as he blinked his eyes back open, and Helena's did too.

Wyn said, "You can buy his life, but you gotta give me something."

And Helena spat, "Fuck you. Rot."

He blinked a couple more times. Wyn was holding him up with an arm around his throat, holding him up where Helena could see, and Helena was glaring. Blood had burst through the white of one of her eyes -- Wyn had hit her again. Jonn squirmed. He had to *help* but he felt sluggish and groggy.

"What'd you call him?" Wyn said. "Kitten? God, that's precious. Is he special? Shit, don't tell me he's your son or something."

"Fuck you," Helena growled. "Kill him. See how much I give a shit."

Jonn sobbed.

"Ouch," Wyn commented. "Pretty harsh, there, huh, kitten?"

She was mad at him. Should be, too. He hadn't been able to save her -- he was so useless. He never did anything right, never did what she told him. He was just bad. He never did anything good, even when he tried really fucking hard.

"I'm sorry," he cried. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Mask," Wyn muttered.

Through the film of tears, he saw Helena wince. Then her eyes flickered behind him, and Wyn must've seen it too, because she shifted. Jonn had gone limp in her grip, weeping, but after a moment he realized that someone else had come into the room.

Looked like a dragonborn. They were always tall, though. Maybe this one was a kid. He was blue and he had drums strapped to his hips, and he looked really nervous.

Asya was with him.

Jonn struggled for her, weakly -- his head was killing him, like it had when his arm got fucked up. All woozy. Asya froze. Froze, and didn't help him.

"Please --."

Wyn talked over him, sounding pleased. "There you fucking are. Finally got to Skyport. Got a job for you."

"Asya --."

The dragonborn's gaze flitted between Jonn and Helena. "Yeah?"

"Asya, please --."

"First off, can you shut this little shit up?"

He drummed out a beat, and Jonn … stopped. He just stopped talking and stopped reaching for Asya, and just stood there, pathetic. Powerless. Locked in, looking out.

"Much, much better," Wyn said. "You can beat it, Asya. Thanks for showing him down."

Slowly, Asya shook her head.

"Eh." He could feel Wyn shrug. "You do you. Anyway -- Amren. Little test, is all, while I got you in town." She jerked her head. "Helena here's being very uncooperative, and frankly, I'm fucking tired of her. See, I keep asking her for her out-of-town contacts, and she just won't give them up. I was thinking I might do this thing where I make her tell me to save this brat's life, and then kill him anyway and let her know I already found where she stashed her secrets …"

"You motherfucker!" Helena exploded. "You piece of shit --."

"But at this point I just want her to fucking die and stop being a pain in my ass," Wyn said easily. "And I want you to prove to me that you've got what it takes to be one of my lieutenants."

"Got what it takes?" The little dragonborn sounded faint.

"Kill her," Wyn told him. "I want you to kill someone for me. Do it because I told you to. Show me you're loyal."

Jonn tried to fight. He tried to yell. He tried to beg Asya to make it stop, to help him, to help Helena. He tried to whine and he couldn't even do that much.

"I …" The dragonborn licked his lips. "I don't like … getting my hands dirty. Let me -- let me show you a different way."

"Not negotiable, sweetheart."

"No, no, I mean -- a different way I can …" He stepped back, and nodded to Jonn. "Let him go. I'll show you."

He drummed, an insistent, pounding rhythm. Wyn let Jonn go with another shrug, and he felt himself move. Felt himself reach for the knife in his boot, and turn towards Helena.

"Oh, kitten," she said softly. She understood it immediately. "Oh, I … It's all right. It's not your fault, baby."

Jonn watched himself raise the blade. Watched himself tilt her head back -- she didn't resist, just let it happen. He wanted to cry, wanted to stop, but it was like -- like every fucking time he made a mistake, and made people mad at him, when he just … did things. Didn't think first. Just did them, and realized later, except that this time he did know better and he was doing it anyway.

"Sasha," Helena said. Her voice was shaking. "Look out for him. All right? You don't have to do it for me, but it's the last thing I'm asking. He needs -- he needs --."

The drumming filled Jonn's head. His hands were wet. Helena couldn't talk anymore.

###

He kept getting these blackouts. It was weird. That never used to happen when he drank, but he guessed it was because he was getting older, or something. He ended up with these headaches, and Finch would frown and ask him where the hell he'd been, anyway, and he'd moan from facedown in bed that he didn't even remember.

"You should stop drinking," Finch said.

"*You* should stop drinking," he mumbled.

Asya always looked out for him when it happened, though. She had that cloak and she'd just pop in and get him home safe. He didn't know how she always knew when he was in trouble, but he was glad she did. She was a good friend. He kind of needed her watching out for him, because he felt like he was sort of a fucking disaster, lately -- Hansel had told him one time that he needed structure, and the structure he’d gotten used to was gone, now, and it wasn’t … good for him, he thought.

Helena was still missing, but it was getting too hard to try to find her. Hansel still had his journal and he couldn't write things down, to keep from forgetting them later, and it was all jumbled up in his head, and Wyn was keeping them fucking busy.

It seemed like the only way he was gonna get her back was by taking Wyn down a few pegs. Finch wanted to bleed the Sanguine coffers dry, to make his own fortune, and Jonn wanted to slit Morgan Wyn's throat.

She just gave him this bad fucking feeling, every time he looked at her. Made his hands twitch. He didn't know what it was. He just fucking hated her.

###

Hansel told him not to kill the Helmite clerics, and he wasn’t going to. He really wasn’t. It made him so fucking angry, thinking about the Church letting Goro’s dad just die. He had done some digging, before, for Finch, and he’d talked to people and found out how Goro’d grown up, and he thought it was a lot like how he would’ve grown up if he hadn’t found Hansel. Probably what would’ve happened to him if Helena hadn’t picked him up when he came back to Skyport, too. And if the Helmites hadn’t let Goro’s dad die -- it wouldn’t have happened to him, either. Kids should have their parents. Their flesh and blood.

He just wanted to threaten them. He needed more information. He wanted to know exactly who the fuck was responsible, and he pulled his knife because they were old men, and they looked all frail, but they were clerics. One of them used Sacred Flame on him and the other bolted, and he kind of …

It wasn’t like the blackouts he got when he was drunk. It was a different kind. One time Hansel got into a fight with a sailor who wouldn’t stop hitting on Jonn, and he had a hard time calming down, afterwards -- he said that he just saw red. It was like that, Jonn thought. Not a blackout -- sort of a red-out. They shouldn’t have fucking set him on fire.

But then there were paladins, and other clerics, and he was just one person, and he was too small.

He guessed the Church had been real interested in Morgan Wyn. They wanted to know where she was, what had happened to her, if she was really dead, and Jonn tried not to tell them anything. They could hurt him and heal him and hurt him again all they wanted -- he snarled at them and spat and hissed and screamed insults. Fuck’em. He yelled at them for making the city worse, for letting people die, for not doing their fucking jobs and helping people who needed it.

None of them reacted, and it just made him angrier. They didn’t even *care*.

Then this one cleric came in, with a circlet, and Jonn imagined he could feel it in his head -- couldn’t, really, but he knew what it was. The paladin kept asking really pointed questions, and the cleric kept frowning. They wanted to know what his relationship to Morgan Wyn was. What he’d done for her. They wanted to know what his crimes were. Who had helped him. They wanted names and jobs and times and the cleric kept frowning.

He remembered, then.

Every time, all at once. From Gwydion back to Helena. Helena, when he’d crumpled to the floor crying, and Wyn gave him a disgusted look and Asya held his face and shushed him. He hated her. He wanted to hate her for touching him, for being gentle to him, for carrying him home every time it happened, for letting him think he was just drinking too much, for grinning at him and kissing his head and petting his hair, for honestly getting him out of binds, for ignoring Wyn’s orders and helping him out. He wanted to hate her for everything she’d done that was genuinely nice, and everything she’d done that’d been a lie.

It was easier to hate Amren. Even though after a few times, he looked spooked and uncertain, and he asked why. It was Wyn who waved it off. *Fuck his head up,* she said, *and these people just disappeared. Every last one. No body, no murder weapon, no murderer to crack. Great, right?* He remembered that Amren didn’t … like it. Didn’t like him, either. Maybe felt guilty and just didn’t want to look at him and what his hands had done. It was still simpler to hate Amren, though, and hate Wyn.

Asya, though -- she was concerned for him. When he finally got back to the bunker and cried on Finch’s shoulder for a while, Finch sent a crow to Asya because he didn’t want to have to be the one to deal with Jonn’s tears. Jonn didn’t know it until she arrived, silently, and put a hand on his shoulder, and he jerked and scrambled away.

He didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t tell her what he knew, now, didn’t tell Finch, didn’t tell Roddy or Hansel or Luci or Goro. No one. He just … sat in the knowledge. Kept coming back to it. He tried to avoid her, and he knew it was hurting her because she didn’t understand why he was upset or what she’d done, but she had fucking hurt him, too, and he didn’t understand that either. He didn’t understand why she’d held him and shushed him, and squeezed his hand, and let them do awful fucking things to him. Made him do awful fucking things.

His hands weren’t clean anymore. He scrubbed and scrubbed in the canal, ‘til it hurt. Helena would be so angry with him. He didn’t understand why she hadn’t been, didn’t understand why Hansel wasn’t, either.

###

“I tracked down Asya,” Roddy said brightly. “She’s helping too!”

Jonn’s fingernails bit into his palms. “Asya’s here?”

Roddy didn’t get it. He didn’t know -- no one knew, still. He thought that maybe if he just … cut her off, she’d stop hurting. Like when gangrene or frostbite got to a limb, and all you could do was take it off to keep things from getting any worse. Jonn didn’t know how things could get any worse, but he was honestly trying to not die, and he was pretty sure that if they did get worse, he would.

He explained. Kind of. He didn’t wanna scare Roddy and Luci, so he didn’t tell them I *keep thinking about killing Helena. I keep thinking about killing myself. I keep thinking about killing Gwydion. I keep thinking about killing one of you.* He didn’t want to. He knew he didn’t want to, but it was in his head, and most of the time he just did things that were in his head, and he needed the list Hansel have given him of shit he wasn’t supposed to do, and he needed Helena to drag him away by the hair and tell him to stop. He needed help. He needed help. He couldn’t stop thinking about it and remembering he’d already done it, so he might as well do it again, couldn’t get any fucking worse.

Roddy wanted to change his name. Jonn tried to not cry, but it didn’t last for a second. If it’d just been Bell, it would’ve been different -- Jonn had thought about taking Hansel’s last name, because Hansel was his actual dad, and the mild reputation his other parents’d had on the streets was pretty much forgotten now, but he didn’t think Luci would change hers, and he wanted to be connected to her.

But it wasn’t just Bell. Roddy wanted to be connected to them, too. To him. And -- and if it’d just been Luci, that would’ve made sense, because Luci was great, she was amazing, she was the best sister, he loved her so much, and he kept picturing his hands, holding a knife, and putting it into the back of her skull. Easy as slipping a blade into a sheath.

He cried, mostly. He didn’t want to upset them, so he said it was a good idea, and he told Roddy that he loved him, which was true, but it was also true that he kept imagining how much force it would take to crack Roddy’s shell and what he would look like inside. Didn’t want to. Didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to think it. Couldn’t stop. It kept playing in his head, overlayed with all the people he’d killed for Wyn. He’d known some of them -- not just Helena and Gwydion. Worked with them. Gotten drinks with them. Been friends with them.

Jonn wasn’t afraid that someone would control him and make him do it. He was afraid he would just ... do the things that were already in his head. He wanted someone to just leash him and keep him from doing bad things anymore, or kill him so he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone he cared about. But he’d done bad things before, and none of them had killed him yet.

###

He thought he would try to die in the battle, but he was stuck pacing along the wall. Fucking safe where Hansel and Raef had put him. Wyn was there -- different Wyn -- he got it but he still fucking hated looking at her -- and Asya, too.

When the orc general held up a little girl who looked like Theo, he started bolting along the wall, even knowing there wasn’t anything he could do. Too far away.

Asya vanished, and he lost her as Roddy shattered the orcs, and fighting broke out for a hectic moment -- lost sight of her red cloak. Then she was back and he was close enough to see her signing to Goro that it wasn’t Theo, it was just a trick. She’d taken a hit, though, was bleeding from being in the melee, from trying to save that little girl.

She had told him about her sister, once she could talk. About how the Basha had killed her. And Asya had tried to get revenge, and he’d done even worse to her. He thought about how weird it had been, taking care of Asya like she was Luci, because she was older, and how as soon as she could walk again she was taking care of him. Didn’t think twice about trying to take care of Theo when she didn’t even know her.

He thought about reading to her and holding her hand to make the best of a bad situation, and how she stroked his face and shushed him, and got him home safe to Finch.

###

*What’s wrong?* she asked. *Talk. Talk to me.*

He kept pacing in the Sanctuary library, scratching at his arms, and shook his head. It was dark. Silver moonlight came in through the windows. He’d always really liked sneaking down to the library at night, bringing Luci and reading to her in a hushed voice so no one caught them.

*Kitten*, she said. *Please*.

She called him kitten because names weren’t a thing, in Nighthand -- you just made names based on people’s initials, and how they looked or what they liked, usually. The two of them had made names for a lot of people, when he’d been learning. She always just called him kitten. He didn’t really have any other name, just the one that Helena gave him, when he first met her.

He dropped down in place, crying and pulling on his hair. She got there so fast she might’ve actually used her cloak -- was there to pet him and shush him, tracing the letters *ok, ok, ok* on his shoulder. *It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.*

It took him a minute. He had to cry, first. He was so tired of crying -- he missed Helena, and he missed Gwydion, and he missed Hansel, and he missed how Finch used to treat him. Everything was different now. Everything was worse. People were dead, and people didn’t need him, didn’t want him, and they shouldn’t, anyway, because he kept fucking daydreaming about hurting them, and he was fucking awful.

Asya rocked him and kissed his hair. She pressed her pinkie, and her pointer, and her thumb into his arm. *I love you. It’s okay, it’s okay.*

Finally he settled down, and sniffled, curled against her chest. Wasn’t comfortable -- she wore this heavy plate armor all the time. It was still nice, though. He missed her, too. She was … still here. Still the same.

“I remembered,” he said brokenly. “I remembered what they did. Wyn and Amren. You were there.”

She let out a breath. Made a choked sound, and stopped rocking him, and froze up.

“I was just … I was mad. ‘M not anymore, though.” He sniffed. “I … get it. Was all you could do.”

Asya pulled back so he would look up at her, and she said, *I’m sorry, kitten. I’m so sorry.* After a moment to think, she went on. *I didn’t want you to find out. I thought it was better if you didn’t know what they made you do. I’m sorry.*

He nodded. He kind of wished he didn’t know, either. Blearily, he said, “I get why … why you didn’t save Helena.” Locked in. Twenty years. Flesh and blood, and he’d wanted it from her so bad. He couldn’t really understand why anymore. “Don’t blame you. I just … miss her, and …”

She moved like she was going to say something else, and he shook his head and leaned into her again, stubbornly. He didn’t want to talk anymore. He couldn’t.

“Don’t leave me,” he mumbled. “Just don’t leave me. Please.”