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“Kniiife! Your, like, not-girlfriend is here!”
Knife rolls his eyes as he floats past Bow to open the door. Even as he's grown used to his ghostly form, content with his afterlife, existence confined to MePad Mansion is still pretty uneventful. The highlight of his post-death, other than the recent peak of regaining his physical contact with the world, has been his visitors.
Call him silly or ignorant, but Knife hadn't really realized how much he was loved. As corny as that is. Yet frequent visits from people like Pickle, Microphone, Suitcase, even Trophy have brought to his attention just how many relationships he has. Even if Trophy's mostly there to poorly mask his reverence with rivalry, and Mic spends most of her time there with Marshmallow and the band, there's still Pickle and Suitcase– and those two have never made it a question of who or what they were there for.
It's nice to be wanted, especially in a place where, frankly, he feels a bit unwelcome. Not that he blames any of his mansion-mates for it.
Regardless, Bow sticks her tongue out at him playfully as she flies up through to the second floor, leaving him to his company. There's only one person Bow would announce with that particular taunt. He shrugs off his annoyance as he opens the door, glad to meet Suitcase at the steps.
“Yo, Suitcase!”
“Hey, Knife.”
Immediately, he knows something's off.
Suitcase smiles up at him as she always does, but the waver in her voice doesn't quite match. Nor does it reach her eyes, as instead they're dull and marred with visible bags she'd obviously tried to rub out beforehand.
Knife finds he's still on autopilot despite his worry, as he clears the threshold for her way inside. “Uhh, c'mon in.”
Suitcase obliges with a practiced skip in her step, though the rest of her doesn't really accommodate. She sluggishly settles on the welcome mat Apple put down on the wrong side of the entrance as Knife closes the door behind her.
Knife's mind shifts from hospitality into caution with horrific delay. “You, uhh… You good?”
Suitcase's gaze pierces him like he's the only thing in the room, and he wonders if he is the only thing she can really see. Her eyes are frightfully clouded over. “Yeah,” She responds, a bit snotty– like swallowing a yawn. “Jus’ been busy lately.”
Her smile is still trying its damnedest to convince him. He doesn't have the heart to tell her it's failing miserably when she's already so miserable. The part of him that longs to uphold a casual facade is clashing with the empathy that she planted in him in the first place.
It makes for a very confusing act. He'd like to comically ask why she came all the way here to see him, but he feels like he can't even joke right now, much less would she play along as normal.
“We can sit down, I mean– uhh, wanna watch a movie or something?” His obvious uncertainty makes him cringe. His script has been crumpled and burned and tossed out the window and he's 20 pages behind sequence.
“Yeah, for sure.” Her reply sounds automated. Sure enough, she doesn’t acknowledge anything’s off, starting toward the couch without a second thought. Like all her brain power is being put toward the bare-bones talking and walking.
Knife hovers closely behind her with a weird feeling of helplessness. He's kind of being completely useless here, his own brain power not offering him much help in the way of actually confronting the issue. It's a weird, unfamiliar, uncomfortable situation, and he wishes he was any good at letting himself be uncomfortable. Instead, he flounders.
Knife thinks upon the last time she visited. Maybe a week ago, or just over. How much has she worked in that time? He hasn't been paying too close attention to the progress of the community lately. He knows they just recently wrapped up work on the hotel, on the outside at least, but he never really considered how much different building a whole town from the ground up would be. And it's not like she's doing it single-handedly, but…
From passing conversations alone, it's clear that everyone has placed a lot of faith in her. Faith that's admittedly well-earned, and she'd seemed to be handling it quite well, with such care. But maybe it's finally come to a tipping point.
No sooner does he finish that thought when Suitcase herself tips forward.
Knife can't help his noise of surprise, even if he was sort of expecting it. Since he opened the door he's been tense, waiting for her to fall to pieces any second. And thank god he's managed to regain his physical abilities, rushing forward and catching her swiftly before she meets the floor.
Out cold, she still twitches with unrest in his hold, which is unpleasant. The sensation of touch is a bit dampened as a ghost, but proximity counts for a lot, and right now he's practically phasing through her in keeping her upright. He realizes too late that he might be panicking.
Dough descends from his upstairs room with perhaps the worst timing possible.
“What's her problem?” He asks with no pretense, like he's been here the whole time. Knowing him, he very well could've been eavesdropping.
Knife tamps down his annoyance a second time that night in favor of what actually matters. His nerves can wait. “She… fainted. I think she's overworked.”
Dough simply points up. “Take her to the roof.”
Knife raises a skeptical brow.
“Get her fresh air. Marshmallow used to get all light-headed from all the dust around here all the time. Bow took her to the roof.”
Knife blinks. “...Huh.”
“Yeah, just do it.”
“I will.”
Dough gives a thumbs up and disappears upstairs again. Knife really ought to stop being perplexed by him at this point.
Deciding he has nothing to lose, he grasps Suitcase by the handle with one hand and cradles her with the other, turning to the door.
It's not very long on the roof before Suitcase stirs.
A low groan escapes her throat, legs shuffling slightly as her body and mind come back online. She's warm against him– though not actually leaning on him as he holds her up with hands on either side of her, it's still reassuring. To feel life return to her stiff form. Being dead is his job.
“Needed some rest?”
Suitcase visibly startles, eyes flitting up to him like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. He instantly regrets making her look like that. Shame paints her tired face and he wants to ram his head through a wall over it.
Still, he can't help his nature. “Wanna… tell me what that was about?”
Suitcase looks away, pointedly avoiding the starlit sky as if she doesn't deserve to see it. She groans again, wretched and ashamed, before she answers. “I dunno…” Her voice is unusually small, tinny in a way it hasn't sounded in years. “Thought I could tough it out…”
And isn’t that just like her? Knife holds back a laugh. “For what? To prove a point?”
“For everyone. I…” She tenses with consideration. She tries to look back up at Knife before quickly deciding she's unprepared to. “...I really don't want to let them down.”
“And you think working yourself into the ground is gonna help?” Knife says curtly.
Suitcase's legs curl in. She doesn't respond.
Knife sighs. “Suitcase, you're… a person. Just like everyone else.”
“I…” She pauses as her voice falters. “I still don't think… I really even know how to be a person.”
“You think they have any more of a clue than you do?”
“No, which is why I… I have to…”
“That's not the lesson you should be taking from this.” He jostles her a little, hearing something rattle inside. He likes to imagine he's jogging some sense into her brain in there.
He thinks carefully about his next words. He's still not the greatest with vulnerability, all things considered, but he wants to believe Suitcase trusts him enough to take what he says in sincerity. Even if he might fumble over it, like he does with the best of things.
“Look… they have faith in you.” He tells her. “You gotta have the same faith in them.”
Suitcase considers this. At last, she looks out at the stars.
Knife grabs her handle out of habit. “They won't fall apart without you. You're just… their hope, y'know? You made this all happen. And I think…” He presses on through creeping insecurity. This is too important. “I think, as long as you believe in them the same way they believe in you, they'll be fine. You'll all be fine.”
When he's done, there's a spell of silence that has him fearing the worst. Suitcase lightly trembles against him, her stare still occupied by the night sky and stretching a million miles past it. He wonders what she's seeing. He wonders if he's only making it worse.
“Wow…” Her voice shakes with tears that want to fall, and Knife certainly expects her to break down sobbing, only… “I should get Balloon to come visit.”
Knife blanches. “What?”
“I-I mean, that was really poetic,” She sniffles. “You should collaborate with him.”
It takes a second of pure confusion, but Knife catches on. She's trying to talk with him like normal. This is banter. That's a good sign.
Knife meets her halfway with a scoff. “I think Balloon’s screwed up your idea of what poems are.”
She jeers, “He's really not that bad. Y-You haven't heard very many of his poems.”
“I've heard enough to know that you're clearly not thinking straight. Get some sleep. You look more dead than I do. It's humiliating.”
A genuine, warm laugh. It's nice to hear from her. “R-Right. Don't want to upstage you at that.”
“It's the only thing I've got left, you've beaten me to everything else.”
Suitcase hums an amused note, mostly gone to exhaustion long overdue. “Sure I have.”
“Hey, I don't need to sleep anymore. So here's another thing you can beat me at,” He taps an encouraging beat into her side, “A decent night's rest.”
Suitcase makes a sound as if to say Way ahead of you before she nods off. Knife keeps her upright. It's about all he can do.
More than ever before, he wishes he wasn't trapped here. He wishes he could break free from his non-mortal chains and do something, anything but float around and watch his friends carry weight that he can't shoulder alongside them. After all the grief he's caused, it’s not fair that he was practically pardoned in death, nor that the people he's struck with grief are forced to deal with him.
He doesn't regret saving Marshmallow. But often, part of him wishes he never made it back. It's morbid, but at least then he wouldn't be another problem, another burden on Suitcase's full plate of misfortunes.
And really, it's about everyone, but… Suitcase is the one in his arms, so it's mainly about her.
Knife gives the moon a suffering sigh. It peers back at him, uncaring. He wants to ask that it at least spare her from such apathy.
But Suitcase is strong. She's never needed his protection, she doesn’t need his prayers. She's always just wanted him. If nothing else, that counts for something. So as long as she shows up for him, he'll be there to help keep her upright.
Now– especially now– it's about all he can do.