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Thog tended to be a naturally early riser, however, six-thirty was a far cry from three in the fucking morning, which was the time the (probably cursed) replacement pocket watch he’d gotten from Rat was currently showing. He wasn’t sure how accurate it was, and it only ticked every other second and actually, now that he was sitting in the almost quiet of his room, listening to it, he was fairly certain it was whispering something at him, too quiet and garbled to understand.
He squinted dubiously at the timepiece for another moment, before shutting it and tossing it back onto the bedside table in favour of addressing whomever was knocking at his door, presumably because they didn’t understand basic fucking etiquette.
Perhaps not, though.
People also tended to knock on Thog’s door during times of duress, so instead of ignoring it, Thog sighed, rolled over, and groaned into his pillow, absently wishing that his late-night-visitor would give up and go away.
Then, he sat up, only a little begrudgingly, listening to the sound for a moment before drumming up the gumption to move.
It wasn’t Kier at the door, he thought, yawning despite himself. Kier less knocked and more pounded on the door, usually because he’d set something else on fire.
Again.
Somehow.
In his sleep.
And needed help putting it out before the entire bar went up.
It didn’t sound like Gregor’s shy tapping, either, when the poor kid had a night terror and wanted someone to keep him company until the sun was properly in the sky.
And it wasn’t the lazy knocking that heralded Markus’s bi-monthly attempts to sweet-talk his way into Thog’s bed by leaning against the doorjamb and flirting until Thog shut the door in his face.
Thus far, his attempts hadn’t worked yet, but that didn’t usually stop him.
Ashe didn’t darken his doorstep often, but when she did, she’d knock twice, wait, and then knock again, business like.
And Thog would let her in, because if she was bothering him it meant that it was raining and cold and she needed somewhere to sleep until it let up. It had, perhaps been a little awkward the first few times, but by now, Ashe usually just let herself in after the second knock, tossing her things on the bedside table before climbing under the covers.
It was fine, except she was usually ice cold and it never failed to forcibly jerk him awake, regardless of how careful she was not to touch him.
On these occasions, Ashe was, of course, gleefully unrepentant about the whole thing, no matter how much grumbling Thog did.
Ashe wasn’t here, though, and the impatient tapping at his door was less likely to be one of Thog’s unfortunate housemates than it was to be a certain fallen Death God who very likely wanted nothing but to make Thog suffer in some measure.
Thog levered himself out of bed, absently shaking his leg until the fabric of his pajamas fell from where it was scrunched up at his knee as he trudged toward the door. He pushed his hands through his hair tiredly, though it was less out of any desire to look presentable and more out of habit. After twenty-five-plus years, Thog knew it would take an act of several combined gods to make his hair do anything other than what it wanted without a comb, gel and an astounding amount of patience.
He twisted the doorknob and opened the door, too tired to scowl so early in the morning and with so little sleep.
And really, it was probably a good thing that it was Charoth out there in the hallway, because anyone else might have actually died of shock.
As it was, Charoth didn’t actually seem to care, insomuch that they continued to use their staff to knock on the door, regardless of the fact that it was already open, and Thog only barely managed to grab the top of it before it nailed him in the side.
He sighed, yanking the glowing, very slightly pulsating stick upward, which had the effect of propelling Charoth off the ground and safely into Thog’s arms, now sans staff. They nestled into his shoulder, chirping quietly into the fabric of Thog’s nightshirt while he set their staff by the door.
Of course, Thog wouldn’t have dared try that stunt with Ashe in the general vicinity, because she would do that thing where she’d make vaguely concerning choking noises for a handful of seconds, before screaming at him and scooping Charoth into her arms like they were made of glass. For his part, Thog had tried to explain, on multiple occasions, actually, that Charoth seemed to enjoy being tossed around like a slapball.
Besides, Thog had spent the vast majority of his childhood being thrown around in a similar manner, and he’d turned out just fine.
Thankfully, though, Ashe wasn’t here, and that was good enough for him, because he didn’t need to worry about screaming or lectures about child safety or having to endure Ashe’s moody disappointment. All Thog realistically had to do right now was worry about tripping on his shoes as he picked his way back through the darkness, rocking slightly in an attempt to get Charoth to fall back to sleep or whatever it was they did at night.
Thog tucked their head beneath his chin as he sat down, flopping back down onto his mattress, absently hoping that Charoth would settle and let him get a few more hours of sleep before he had to get up and run damage control, because for the last few months, his life had been a goddamned HR nightmare and was showing precisely zero signs of improving anytime soon.
And maybe Thog should have expected that the general lack of improvement would extend to this, too, because it seemed that, unfortunately for him, Charoth had decided to be fussy in the same manner one of the cats he’d had as a kid chose to show affection.
Which was to say that the cat, and now Charoth, had made it their life's goal to make Thog as uncomfortable as humanly possible.
And okay, perhaps Thog was a little bit of a masochist, because he sat in silence and suffered for a few long minutes, nearly falling back asleep a few times, only to be woken up by Charoth getting up and crawling around on his chest or butting at the underside of his chin with their head or grabbing at his hand to pull over themselves like a blanket, before he finally decided to give up on getting any more sleep altogether, levering himself so that he could sit at the edge of his bed, his face in one hand while the other petted the top of Charoth’s fuzzy head the same way one might comfort a small child.
He settled Charoth more comfortably on the quilt and forced himself vertical, going through the motions of getting ready for the day, shooting glares in his charge’s general direction, muttering to himself about how he never wanted children in the first place, and what had he done to deserve this?
When he turned back toward the bed, slipping on his bracelets and running his fingers through his hair, Charoth lifted their arms, silently demanding to be picked up. They chittered when he acquiesced, settling into Thog’s arms comfortably for a long moment, before reaching up and running their hands through his hair until it looked like he’d been through a wind-tunnel spell.
Thog sighed, because it wasn’t like he was surprised, and slipped on his shoes before stepping out into the hallway, Charoth still perched on his hip as he moved.
He didn’t make any noise as he walked. It was too early for that, and he paused by each door, listening to various snores and rustles and mumbles before moving onto the next.
And it was nice to just be able to walk through the bar without having to actively make noise to alert the others of his appearance.
He’d learned that particular lesson the hard way, by walking up behind Ashe and nearly getting a dagger to the throat for his troubles. After that, making noise seemed like the best course of action if he wanted to keep all his insides where they belonged. Still, Thog wondered how no one had figured out that the Alerani had distilled pickpocketing down to an artform, and that it was a little difficult to rob someone blind if they heard you coming.
Then again, Thog thought perhaps they still had ideas that he was noble.
Gods, if that was the case, Thog truly was surrounded by idiots.
He shook the thought out of his head, because it was ruining his mood, and pushed the door of the kitchen open with his free hand.
Well, no.
Ashe was alright, when she didn’t tumble into her own head, closing herself off and hiding from everyone.
Kier was okay when he wasn’t accidentally setting shit on fire.
And Gregor was just a kid, really.
Even Markus was alright, when he wasn’t being overly… Markus…
Charoth chirped as they entered the kitchen, leaning out of Thog's arms and hopping onto the high counter. They walked along the edge of it for a moment, hovering as Thog moved to the other side of the room, before sitting obediently in a basket of towels that had been placed in the back corner of the counter, well away from anything sharp or hot or dangerous.
If anyone ever asked if it was there specifically for Charoth, Thog would deny everything.
For now, though, Thog knelt down, gingerly placing logs in the little wood burning stove, pondering what he should make in the way of breakfast.
Things tended to be quieter when everyone woke up to food, and far be it from Thog to look a gift horse in the mouth. As far as he was concerned, the more days they could go without at wall-shaking explosion or new hole in the roof, the better. Thog grabbed a balled-up blueprint that had been stuffed into the bucket beside the stove, pushing it in with the logs before lighting it on fire.
It went up quicker than Thog expected it to, and he wondered how Kier had managed to make paper more flammable than usual.
But whatever, he could yell at the Engineer about it later, because how, even?
Thog watched the paper burn a little dubiously, wondering if perhaps he should have had a water bucket ready before embarking on this endeavor. When the stove failed to explode due to Kier-related chicanery, Thog straightened upright to survey the rest of the kitchen. No one else ever really used it for more than a shortcut from one end of the house to the other, or to make a sandwich before bed, so it was stunningly organized when compared to the rest of the bar, which was exactly how Thog preferred it.
Thog looked over at Charoth, who was watching him with an undeserved amount of interest and sighed, grabbing a glass from one of the cupboards. He filled it with water someone had gotten from the well the night before and set it on the stove to heat.
“Whadda ya think, Kid?” he asked his charge, watching carefully as Charoth climbed out of the basket, tottering along the counters, mostly in step with Thog as he made his way to the pantry.
If Ashe was here, she would scream, Thog thought idly, waiting until Charoth had come to a stop nearby before ducking into the pantry to dig around for ingredients. The implication that Thog wouldn’t catch them if they fell was a little insulting, but then again, Ashe sort of had a reason to worry about Charoth’s safety, considering the fact that Markus and Kier existed in her general vicinity most of the time.
Still, Thog would catch Charoth, if he ever had to, and even if he didn’t Thog rather thought Charoth wouldn’t feel the impact anyway, what with all the fuzz.
Charoth chittered and sat at the edge of the counter, swinging their legs against the cupboard doors. They tilted their head, looking expectantly at Thog as he pulled a couple of baskets from the lower shelves of the pantry.
A few months before, Markus had somehow convinced Inien to enchant the pantry with cold runes to keep various perishables from spoiling, and while it was a good idea, a great idea, even, Thog had been waiting for the other shoe to drop since the second the witch left the bar. He didn’t know when it was going to happen, but Thog was convinced that one day, he was going to wake up to find the entire bar buried under three inches of ice, and he was going to be pissed about it.
That was for later, though, perhaps, if Inien was truly as terrible as Thog rather suspected she was, and he shook the thought away, watching Charoth reach into the basket. They came back with a blackberry in their hand, and Thog eyed them as they shoved their hand under their mask, smearing juice down their arms and in the ruff of fur around their neck and over the front of their mask.
“Good?”
They chirped in agreement and Thog scooped them back up in one arm, the basket of berries in the other as he moved to the other side of the counter. He deposited Charoth back in their basket, ineffectually hoping that his shirt hadn’t been stained purple by their grabby little hands. It probably was, but that was a problem for future Thog, he thought, rationalizing that he should probably do laundry later anyway.
“Yeah,” Thog agreed, sighing as he twisted around for the flour. “Your mother really likes those, you know.” He wasn’t sure if it was obstinance or just a simple disconnect, but he’d noticed Charoth never seemed to recognize they were talking about Ashe when Thog mentioned her by name. “They must be some kind of island berry or something,” he told them, because Charoth seemed to like it when he narrated what he was doing. “They don’t grow in Aleran.”
Charoth shook their head, as if they knew that, and Thog wondered if perhaps they did.
“I asked Dont if they were special or something, and she lectured me for an hour about it.” He snorted at the memory, because Dont had done a lot of things that day, like offer to teach him how to bake, and Thog had nearly laughed right in her face about it.
It wasn’t her fault though, because how was she supposed to know that Thog had been baking since he was big enough to make himself a nuisance in the kitchen?
He dropped a handful of flour on the counter, eyeballed it for a moment, and then added two more. “Not that she’s an idiot.” He stopped, pushing an indent into the center of the pile he’d made before twisting to look around the kitchen, wondering where Kier and Markus had put the yeast after appropriating it for some questionable experiment a few days before. “Well, she has her moments, doesn’t she?”
Charoth made a solemn sounding chirping sound and then another that sounded like the same one they used to whenever they saw Kier.
And Thog didn’t profess to know what the hell Charoth was talking about at any given time, but he was passable at figuring it out if given enough context clues. “No, Kier’s a massive idiot a lot of the time, but he’s alright when he’s not fucking everything up. Ah.”
There it was, taped to the underside of the silverware drawer for reasons unknown.
Thog pulled the envelope from where it had been hidden, eyeing it dubiously for a long moment, before deciding that it probably wasn’t contaminated with anything, if only because it was still sealed, and dumping the contents into the previously abandoned glass of water still sitting on the stove.
Charoth chirped again and it sounded a little like a question.
“Yeah,” he agreed, swirling the yeast around for a moment, as if having half a conversation with a Fallen Death God was normal by any stretch of the imagination.
What was his life?
“But usually he’s setting the goddamned bar on fire and no one can figure out how?” And actually, Thog was a little impressed about that, even if he would never admit it out loud. “We live here Charoth.”
This was met with a few more chirps, something that sounded like an argument, and a chitter that might have been a mention of Markus.
Thog snorted. “Just because he’s fireproof doesn’t mean he can go around encouraging every wildfire he sees, Kid.”
He sighed, dumping the yeast slurry into the flour while Charoth continued to argue, waving their arms for emphasis.
“I don’t care if he’s the actual, physical embodiment of chaos.” Thog pushed the flour and water together until they started resembling something like dough, instead the average, garden variety disaster. “He keeps blasting holes in the roof and I’m fuckin' tired of it.”
Charoth made a sound that sounded less like a chirp and more like a cough, and Thog got the impression that they were sticking their tongue out at him.
“Yeah, fine, whatever, he’s a great guy or something. Who cares?” Markus allegedly being a good person didn’t change the fact that one of the load bearing walls had been seriously damaged by Markus-and-Kier related chicanery and was very probably only still standing due to misused magics.
He threw a towel over the dough and leaned past Charoth to grab the basket of berries. “Do they have that saying here?” he asked, reaching again for one of the rough-hewn bowls labeled ‘KITCHEN BOWLS, DO NOT USE’’ in grease pen that were sitting in the cupboard. “He’s a great man and some day he might even be good? Is that just in Aleran?”
Of course, in Aleran, the saying was less a statement of potential and more a socially acceptable way of calling someone a dumbass in polite conversation, but that was very much beside the point.
Thog bit back an odd sense of nostalgia, even though generally, it was better to be out of Aleran than in it, and shook his head, violently, even, as he dumped the berries in the bowl, watching dubiously as Charoth scuttled over to the opposite side of the counter and back, bringing the bag of sugar with them. Thog swallowed, helping Charoth dump part of the bag’s contents into the bowl, and then another handful onto the counter.
He pushed the thought away as he started kneading the dough, before he could think too hard about home or vague memories of helping his mother bake in the same way Charoth was helping him now.
“He’s probably got it in him,” Thog said after a long moment, when he wasn’t in danger of having a Moment.
Charoth tilted their head at him, reaching into the bowl for a berry. They drizzled juice onto the counter as they chittered, sounding a little like they were saying something that was blindingly obvious to them.
“You can’t just set your mother on people that irritate you, Kid,” Thog argued, grabbing another towel and wiping his hands. “I swear, that woman’s-” he stopped there, trying to figure out how that sentence ended. A few spectacularly bad metaphors sprang to mind, followed by a couple of the more sappy thoughts he’d had in the space between being awake and asleep, after Ashe climbed into bed, but before she woke him up by doing her best to freeze him to death. “I’m not… I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.”
Charoth, for their part, trilled at him in a way Thog took to mean they were being reassuring as he checked the berries they were steadily demolishing.
“Shitty metaphors aside.” Even though he hadn’t said any of them out loud, Thog got the feeling that Charoth knew. “There’re three things in life that are unavoidable: death, the Tax Goat,” he paused to shudder and checked on the dough again before continuing, “and your mother’s lectures. Even Gregor can’t escape, and he got himself audited. Sometimes he gives Kier and Markus a run for their money.” He paused and then pointed at Charoth, who was covered in juice and sugar and not at all looking as innocent as they thought they were. “But that doesn’t mean you can sic her on people because they’re fuckin' dumbasses. Got it?”
Charoth nodded, batting Thog’s hand away as if to say, ‘it’s rude to point.’
“Good.” He frowned and then waved a hand at them, turning to cut the dough into more manageable pieces. “Go grab me the square dishes from the cupboard, Kid.”
He watched as they went, and Thog rubbed a hand over the bridge of his nose at the idea that apparently, he was the one playing reasonable parent figure to Gregor, since no one else could do it half as well.
At least, not without the occasional explosion.
Gods, how was it that Thog, of all people, managed to become the most well-adjusted person at Nine-Shrines?
He should write to his dad and apologize for everything.
Charoth chittered something, and then set the dishes on the counter near to Thog’s work station.
“I know he’s just a kid, Charoth. He’s bound to do some stupid shit because he doesn’t know any better and no one’s around to say, ‘hey jackass, can you, I don’t know, fucking not?’’” Thog dropped a dough ball into a dish and watched as Charoth dumped a few handfuls of berries on top. “But I don’t have to like it, do I?”
Charoth made a series of sounds that gave Thog the distinct feeling that he was being sassed.
Thog let it go, rolling his eyes and resolving to write his parents an apology letter when it wasn’t five in the morning. He put the pans in the oven, setting a mental timer and scooped up the sticky little creature, because his shirt was smeared with purple anyway, and it couldn’t get much more ruined than it already was. He deposited them in the wash basin to await a bath, while Thog cleaned the counters and rinsed out the bowls and put the kitchen back in order.
The water in the barrel was warmer, now that it had been sitting next to the stove for an hour, and Thog scooped out a bucketful, lugging it back to the basin and Charoth, who was scrabbling around inside it like they were debating on whether to start trouble or not.
Thog hoped they would refrain.
There was only so much chaos he could handle, and he’d spent the last year and some change at his limit.
“It could be worse, though,” he told them, hoping that his rambling would be enough to snag their attention and keep what little peace there was. He lifted a hand to keep the water out of Charoth’s eyes as he poured the bucket over them. They’d done this before, a few times, and Charoth never seemed to mind getting water on their face, but Thog was always a little worried that it was going to get under their mask and drown them.
“Could be stuck in Meadshire.” He paused, holding out a hand for Charoth’s, scrubbing the juice off their fingers when they acquiesced. “There aren’t many places as bad as Meadshire.” He moved on to trying to rinse the juice out of Charoth’s fur ruff, listening absently as they made a sound something akin to the purr of a cat. “I kinda… grabs ahold of you and doesn’t let go, yanno? Wash your face.”
Charoth obeyed, and then promptly tried to give Thog a heart attack by dunking their head beneath the water. He counted to ten, telling himself that Charoth probably wouldn’t try to drown themselves for a change of pace, and then sighed in relief when they resurfaced, chirping out something that he recognized as being the Fallen Death God equivalent of his name.
Thog debated, for a moment, lecturing Charoth about not trying to scare him to death, and then decided it would probably be wasted on them, before continuing his previous thought. “Listen, there’s something to be said about taking money from people too stupid to know better, but when it starts fucking over people trying to make an honest living-”
Charoth made a gutteral sound and Thog rolled his eyes.
“An honest living by Alerani standards,” he corrected, and Charoth nodded, and Thog thought that Charoth was going to go into life with some very fucked up worldviews if people kept putting them in his care. “Then there’s something wrong with the system, you know? Aleran’s always been fucked up, especially with the recent mergers, and the CEO’s have always shat on the little guy,” Thog paused, lifting Charoth out of the basin and wrapping a towel around them. He scrubbed at the fuzz on their head, rocking a little as he tried to dry them, “but Meadshire took things to an entirely different level of cooperate hell.”
“Thinking of Unionizing?”
Thog blinked down at Charoth for a handful of seconds, trying to figure out if they’d managed to gain the ability of human speech within the last minute and a half, before looking around to find Ashe standing at the kitchen door, leaves caught in her hair, apparently having just come in for the morning.
It occurred to Thog that he was standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding what amounted to a very fuzzy child, that he’d been unconsciously rocking them to sleep and that there the smell of cooking pastries was in the air.
And there was Ashe, standing at the door and smiling at them both like she found the whole thing infinitely amusing.
This was like something out of one of his mother’s romance novels and what was his life?
Charoth broke the stalemate by leaning toward Ashe, forcing Thog to cross the room to her so they wouldn’t throw themselves onto the floor.
He passed them to her and crossed his arms for lack of anything else to do. “As if I would start a coup. Please.”
Ashe moved out of the doorway, absently kicking it shut as she went, snuggling Charoth closer to her chest. “Why not?” she teased, “You’re pretty charismatic, even by Alerani standards.”
Thog rolled his eyes so hard he nearly gave himself a migraine and Ashe frowned back at him. “Honey,” he started, holding back a wince, because really? Still, Thog pushed on, deciding that if he just ignored it, Ashe probably wouldn’t notice the endearment, “if you think I’m charismatic, you need to rethink your life views. I’ve got precisely nothing going for me.”
Ashe did that thing Thog hated, where she stared at him like she was simultaneously confused and a little bit offended, before lifting her shoulders in something that wasn’t surrender, so much as it was a tactical retreat. “If you say so.”
Thog battled the urge to snap out an irritated, ‘I do say so,’ at her, and instead frowned, taking a deep breath to give himself strength. “Breakfast’s almost ready. If you wanna go sit in the bar.”
She eyed him for a long moment, like perhaps she wanted to continue to argue, before turning to make her way out to the bar, Charoth in tow, leaving Thog behind to make a pot of coffee that only he and Ashe would drink, and hot chocolate for the rest.
It didn’t take very long, and by the time he’d finished making drinks, he could hear movement and chatter in the bar.
He ignored it, because the smell of something burning was already beginning to permeate the air, and Thog was more than willing to ignore it if it meant he didn’t have to deal with a Kier-and-Markus related emergency this early in the morning.
When Thog finally entered the bar, laden with plates and balancing four mugs in one hand, Gregor moved to his side to help, carefully grabbing three of the plates from Thog, before smiling so brightly at him that Thog almost wanted to avert his eyes. There was something wrong with anyone that was capable of being so cheery at six in the morning.
Across the bar, Markus was dead asleep, draped over Kier’s back with his arms wrapped around the Engineer while he fiddled with something that sparked intermittently and ah, yes, that was where the smell of burning was coming from.
Ashe smiled at him when he set her coffee down on the table in front of her.
She looked better, now that she’d pulled all the leaves out of her hair.
Thog didn’t wait to see how breakfast went over, partly because it always went well, and partly because Thog genuinely couldn’t drum up the energy to deal with whatever disaster was waiting in the wings to descend upon them. It would probably have something to do with Kier’s project and four hours of sleep wasn’t nearly enough to warrant waiting around to see what happened next.
Instead, Thog stomped down the hallway, less because he was irritated in any meaningful way, outside the usual, and more for everyone else’s benefit, pushed open his door, and picked his way to his bed, discarding superfluous clothing as he went, until he was in his shirtsleeves and slacks and face down on his blankets. He shifted then, kicking around until he was properly under his blanket, comfortable and in the process of smothering himself with his pillow because he wanted to sleep, damnit.
As it was, he nearly screamed when he heard footsteps outside his door mere seconds after getting comfortable enough to close his eyes.
The chitters, he assumed belonged to Charoth, unless someone let a flock of particularly chatty birds loose, which Thog would not be dealing with, thanks. He heard Ashe’s voice, too, though, and she laughed as the door opened. For a moment, Thog debated telling Ashe to fuck right off, because really, but then he heard the sound of little feet traveling over the floor, the sudden weight on the small of his back heralded Charoth’s reappearance in his room. Ashe laughed again, followed by the sound of the door shutting and Thog sighed.
“Night, Kid.”
Charoth chirped in response and they settled down to sleep.