Chapter Text
Sticky meets Notkin out by the Gorkhon Delta in the late morning, to splint and cast Jester’s foot. It’s a hazy day, dust rolling in from the grasslands, and Notkin’s quiet for once, trying to hide his worry for Jester by skipping stones across the shallow waterways, and not looking towards his fluffy cat. Sticky’s not technically supposed to know how to do this yet: he’s still only in the basic care chapters of Artemy’s teaching medicine book. But he and Stakh had splinted and set one of the Doghead’s legs, back when Isidor had still been alive. It had been one of the only positive interactions Sticky had had with Stakh before Artemy had become his father, so he cherishes that memory. It’s fairly easy, anyway, and Jester is surprisingly pliant.
“He’s being so good.” Sticky says, with a smile.
“It’s ‘cause he trusts you. Knows you’re good. Knows you’re trying to be a doctor.” Notkin says, from where he’s sitting forlornly, knees propped under his chin.
“Yeah?” asks Sticky, amused, patting Jester’s black fur, gently as he loosens the makeshift bandages on Jester’s leg. “Artemy says that most animals get more scared of him because he’s a doctor.”
“Well, he’s tall ‘n really scary when he’s not smiling. And he smells like blood.” Notkin says, smile twitching on his face. “Easy to be afraid of, if you dunno who he is. But you’re tiny and cute.”
“Hey!” Sticky protests. “I’m taller than you!”
“Yeah, ever since you started wearing heeled boots like a wuss.” Notkin teases, and for a moment, a smile beams over his face, lighting up his eyes. But then Jester meows plaintively, as he tries to gnaw at his leg, and Sticky has to wave him away, and Notkin droops again, and sends a rock swinging out towards the steppe.
“How’d he get like this anyway, huh?” asks Sticky, playing at Jester’s stomach with one finger, to try and soothe him, as he tries to clean the wound, where the bone has pierced flesh.
“He was wandering around and got caught up in one of the fights between some of the Dogheads and us. He was trying to protect Moxie and Chiba.” Notkin sounds quite sulky, and his hands drop down to the ground, to pull up strands of dried, brown grass and let them fall through the gaps between his stubby fingers.
“I thought you weren’t feuding anymore.” Sticky says, with a frown. Notkin pulls a face and turns away from Sticky, quite petulantly. “Come on, Notkin, you promised you’d try to curb the Soul-and-a-Halves and he’d curb the Dogheads.” It had been something almost historic, Capella calling the peace treaty between Notkin and Khan and the kids, with herself and Taya as overseers of the promise. It had been a big deal, one of the first big steps towards the kids growing up to inherit the town, just like Old Isidor had wanted.
“You can shout at Khan, then! The dogheads started it.” Notkin snaps, tossing strands of grass in Sticky’s direction.
“Did they?” asks Sticky, dryly. Jester’s fur is clean now, of blood, and although the wound is still sluggishly bleeding, it’s starting to congeal.
“They did!” Notkin insists, scowling. “I wouldn’t lie to make myself look good. The cheetah doesn’t hide his spots! You can ask Khan yourself. Ever since the Tower went down, and we declared peace, he says they don’t listen to him as much anymore. He can’t keep them under control without his hoity-toity dreams.”
Sticky pulls a face, as he pulls out the twyre painkiller he’d smuggled out of Artemy’s workshop and measures out a small amount that Jester can drink from his fingers. “I’m just saying, some of the Soul-and-a-Halves aren’t exactly gracious winners...” Murky said that all the kids wanted bandages and antiseptics on the trading market these days, now that no more new nuts would hold souls anymore. That only meant fights, lots of scrapes and bumps.
Notkin exhales, wearily. “...it’s not like they’re used to it. But yeah.”
Sticky waits as Jester starts to droop a little, as the painkiller starts to take effect. It should knock him out, which will allow Sticky to examine his leg properly without Jester being in pain. Notkin’s staring out into the distance, looking a little overwhelmed, and Sticky is almost overwhelmed by the wave of sympathy that comes over him. It’s easy to forget that Notkin is a whole eight months younger than him, but looks after almost a hundred and seventy children, twelve of whom died during the Plague, leaving their halves abandoned. Sticky can’t imagine that at all, it’s hard enough keeping Murky away from puddles.
It’s hard to be King. Sticky sighs and reaches out an olive branch. “Remember when we went out to old Lupita’s place to take all of the balls she confiscated, after she hurt Lion?”
Notkin blinks, and a small smile reaches over his face. “We almost got away with it, but you went back to steal her bread too.”
Sticky laughs, in memory, though at the time, he’d been so frightened to have been caught by the old, crotchety woman. “I was hungry!! But then Jester came and tripped her up, and she slipped and fell straight into that burlap sack, and I dived out the second floor window—”
“—Losing a shoe in the process!” they crow in unison, Notkin tossing his head back in laughter. They’ve told this story together before.
Notkin grins. “We’ve had some good times, right?”
“Absolutely.” Sticky says, scratching behind Jester’s ears, as he snuffles in his sleep. He feels around the leg, with a frown, trying to figure out exactly where the break’s happened. “I think we were friends when you first found Jester, huh?”
Notkin doesn’t immediately answer him, and Sticky looks up, quizzically. Notkin’s regarding Sticky with an expression that almost seems too thoughtful and fond for sly Notkin. “You should have been a Soul-and-a-Half.”
“Yeah? With what half?” Sticky asks, shaking his head.
“You’da found one if you went looking. Animals love you. Kids love you. You’da fit in. You could still join.” Notkin’s voice is peculiar, and Sticky wants to pay attention to that more, but he thinks he’s found the area where the break is, right by Jester's foot. Sticky desperately hopes the break is not in the foot or in the ankle. If it is, it means that there’s no way Sticky can adequately treat him, and that even Artemy is going to find it difficult to do.
“No, I like being free.” Sticky says, absently.
“Free?” asks Notkin, his voice laden with bewilderment.
“Well sure. I like being everybody’s friend. I don’t want to pledge allegiance to anybody over somebody. It’s why I’ll never join Capella’s group or Khan’s Dogheads either!” Sticky says, feeling a little defensive. “I like being your friend, Notkin, your friend and equal, rather than someone you boss around.”
Notkin scowls, wrinkling up his nose. “I don’t boss around the Soul-and-a-Halves.”
“You so do. They call you Chief! They stand when you sit. And they love you and they’d do anything for you. And I would too—but it’s different! You have to see why it’s different!” Sticky says, gesturing with his hands.
Notkin exhales, and tips his head back, the fight leaving his bones. “It’s just a suggestion.” he mumbles.
He looks especially small in that moment, swimming in the jacket he’d stolen from Bad Grief, with Bad Grief’s stolen knife strapped to his belt, both acquired when he’d just been ten years old and carved out his own space within the abandoned Warehouse. Sticky has always respected Notkin for that, for his independence and his daring and his courage. But Sticky wants to make his own reputation, not become one of Notkin’s accomplishments, and he doesn’t know how to say that without insulting Notkin even more than he already is.
“Jester’s fine.” Sticky says, finally, finishing the splint tie around his leg. “Or he will be. He was very lucky, his leg broke in a way that didn’t shatter and send little fragments of bone everywhere. And it was a break down a big bone, which means his body’s going to want to heal itself. Smaller bones often won’t set as quickly.” he explains, a little excited to be talking about the very stuff he’d already learnt about. “The main problem is that he can’t move his leg at all for the next few days. I’ve tightened the splint to make sure it’ll set right and grow back right.”
“I’ve got a big ol’ cage, I’m gonna keep him in that, make sure he can’t get out and wander.” Notkin says, with a nod, looking weary. “I’ll make sure he rests too, give him painkillers and all.”
Sticky nods. “We’re going to need to make sure he can’t bite at his leg, too.” He’d figured something like this would be needed, so he pulls out the stiff, thick cloth from the house, which Isidor had used as curtains for the hospital beds. He carefully measured out how it would look around Jester’s head and started cutting. “Got to block his teeth being able to access his leg.”
Notkin barks out a laugh, even if his face doesn’t smile. “Jester’s gonna hate it.”
“Yeah.” Sticky admits, with a soft sigh. “Just have to keep him asleep or distracted. He’ll want to fuss at the bone and the wound, he’ll want to lick at it, but you can’t let him.”
Notkin nods, plucking out more grass from the ground, in anxious movements. “I won’t.”
“I know. You love Jester more than life.” Sticky says, “As it should be, for a half.”
Notkin’s smile is brief and wan, as he looks down at Jester, who’s fast asleep now, huffing in his drugged sleep. He runs a finger down Jester’s spine and looks quite broken-hearted. “I wish I’d looked after him better. I’m supposed to keep him safe.”
“You did. You really did, Notkin.” Sticky insists, leaning forward to press a hand to Notkin’s shoulder. “You saved him, you gave him life. You rescued him before they drowned all those kittens in the Gorkhon. You’re going to keep him safe now for a long time. He’ll be okay.”
“I—” Notkin looks worried and concerned and there are definitely tears welling in his eyes, and Sticky hates it, because it isn’t Notkin to be this way, it isn’t like Notkin at all.
“You’re my best friend, you know that, right?” Sticky asks, quite frankly. “I wouldn’t lie to you about this. You’re doing a good job. You’ve done all you could.”
Notkin closes his eyes for a moment, and seems to breathe deeply, before he opens his eyes and smiles, open and frank and honest. Sticky feels that warmth in his bones. “Yeah. I know, Spichka.”
Sticky feels a smile touch his face, and he reaches in to hug Notkin very tightly, in an embrace that means more than Sticky can quite put into words yet.