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Keir doesn't ask for much. A good meal now and then. Some nice soap if he's feeling especially self-indulgent. What he really wants, more than anything, is some peace and quiet, which he hasn't had even a single moment of since someone moved into his house.
Case in point: the set of beady black eyes staring up at him from his kitchen counter. Not an entirely unusual occurrence by itself- Mouse Hole is home to literal rodents as much as figurative ones- but this particular pair is lifeless, flat, painted onto an object he specifically remembers barring from the room.
"Vesper."
The accused, lounging on the couch across the house with a book in their hands, doesn't look up when he says their name. "Keir."
Keir dangles the offending figurine between his thumb and forefinger as if it's a piece of dirty underwear they've left in his kitchen and not a sweet little children's toy. "What is this?"
Vesper spares him the briefest of glances before turning back to their book, which he's becoming increasingly convinced they're not actually reading. "It's a rooster. You were there when I bought it, remember?" They flip to the next page. "I thought I was supposed to be the one with memory issues."
"That's not-" Keir drops his head into his free hand with a sigh. "What is it doing in my kitchen?"
"Livening the mood. Obviously."
"You said you were going to keep it in your room."
"You said I was going to keep it in my room."
"Right. Because it's my house. And I-"
"I know, I know, you're bigger and stronger than me and you get to make all the rules," Vesper grumbles. They set their book down and push themself off the couch slowly, deliberately, like they don't trust their legs to hold them, and for a moment Keir has to grapple with the fact that it's the first time they've been out of their room in days. Then they lean in close and pluck the figurine from his hand, and any guilt he feels is tempered somewhat by the fact that they're clearly recovered enough to be a nuisance again.
He crosses his now empty arms over his chest as Vesper slips the toy into their cloak. "Just keep your chicken-"
"Rooster."
"Whatever. Just keep it off of my kitchen counter."
"Mhm." Vesper turns to head back to their room- their face, shielded by their mask, is unreadable as always, but there's a sudden air of innocence about them that tells Keir he's almost certainly created a trap for himself. "Off the kitchen counter. Got it."
To their credit, Vesper is true to their word- the rooster figurine never shows up on the kitchen counter again. Instead Keir finds it in other places: in cabinets, on his bookshelf, tucked away in the windowsill. There's a span of a few days where he doesn't see it, and he starts to think Vesper's given up on their game before he looks up and spots those little eyes peering down at him from the rafters. (He makes a mental note to ask them how on earth they got it up there, and wonders if he can put their climbing skills to work on their next job.) The only place Vesper won't hide it is in his room. He's not sure if they know he's stopped locking his door- they stopped locking theirs after their flare-up, apparently deciding that the possibility of having a medical emergency behind a sealed door outweighs the risk of Keir murdering them in their sleep- but by silent agreement they don't go into each other's rooms without knocking.
Keir is knocking on their door now, once again returning the chicken figurine to its rightful place.
"It's open."
He turns the knob and Vesper, seated at their desk, turns just in time to catch their rooster as he tosses it in their direction. "This belongs in here." Like they need reminding.
He's expecting a snappy retort, but Vesper is uncharacteristically quiet as they turn the toy over in their hands. They stare at it for just a little too long before they realize Keir is watching and set it down on the desk in front of them. "Took you long enough. I don't even remember where I put it this time."
"Behind the washbasin. Not your best work."
"Well, they can't all be winners." They're trying hard to sound casual, but there's a tightness to their voice that Keir suspects isn't because he's insulted their chicken-hiding skills. He tilts his head and, for the first time, notices the assortment of scattered and half-crumpled papers littering their desk.
"I take it the novel isn't going well."
"What?" Vesper glances down at their work, confused, then snorts. "Oh, very funny."
"What are you writing?"
"A will."
"Alright, don't tell me," Keir says with a shrug. "I'll just assume you're confessing your undying love for Griff."
"Ugh. He should be so lucky." They pick their fountain pen up off the desk, twirling it absently between their fingers. "I really am writing a will. I know there's not much of a government down here, so it's not legally binding. I don't have anything valuable, and you're all probably going to divide up my money as soon as I'm dead-"
"Rude." He can feel the force of their glare even through the mask. "But fair. Keep going."
"-so it's mostly about what I want done with my body. Contacting my family. That sort of thing." The pen goes still. "Of course, you could toss the will in the fire and my corpse down a hole and I'd be none the wiser, so I guess I just have to cross my fingers and hope that you have a shred of decency in you somewhere."
"I'll see if I can scrounge one up for you." It feels wrong to quip when they're being vulnerable with him, so he tries again, more sincerely this time. "If you leave me instructions I'll do my best to follow them." He can promise them that much, at least.
"Good. I'm trusting you." The words sting in a way he wasn't expecting, but he doesn't have time to dwell on it because Vesper is already moving the conversation along without him. "Anyway, I'm leaving you my rooster."
"...What."
They put down their pen and pick up the colorful little figurine, brandishing it in his direction. "When I die you have to put it in the kitchen."
"I'm not going to put it in the kitchen."
"You just said you'd follow my instructions!"
"Every instruction but that one."
"I'll haunt you forever if you don't do it."
They'll haunt him forever regardless. "It's a good thing I don't believe in ghosts, then."
"Oh, come on. I'm literally dying, and you won't just agree to put the stupid chicken-"
"I thought it was a rooster."
"-you won't agree to put the stupid rooster on the counter?"
Keir throws up his hands. "Fine. If you die, the rooster can go on the counter. Would that make you happy?"
"No, I'll be dead," they snap. "...But I still want you to do it."
"Fine." He runs a hand over his mask, exasperated. "I hope you're not planning on dying on me anytime soon."
"Who knows? Thieving's a dangerous line of work." They give him another pointed look. "Working for you might kill me before the fractum anima even gets a chance."
"Not if I have anything to say about it." Now that's a promise he can't keep, but even if it comes out as banter he really does mean it. He wonders if they can tell.
"...Huh." Vesper is silent for a long time, and in this moment- like a lot of moments, lately- there's not much he wouldn't give to be able to see their face. "You must hate this rooster more than I thought."
What a terrible twist of fate, to kidnap the most irritating person on the planet and then fall deeply in love with them. "Yes, that's definitely my main concern in this scenario. The rooster."
"Sure it is. I'll bet you just don't want to have to train another lookout."
"You've got me there."
"I was a lucky catch, you know. Even if I do have an expiration date." Their tone is light, teasing, like their own impending death is just another joke, but their grip on the figurine tightens ever so slightly. "You're not going to find another me."
"Trust me, I wouldn't want to."
They lob a wadded ball of paper at him in mock indignation; it hits him lightly in the chest and bounces harmlessly to the floor, which he takes as his cue to leave before he says something he's going to regret. As he closes the door behind him the last thing he sees is Vesper bent over in their chair, blank mask bowed over the toy in their hands.
The rooster becomes something of a moot point after the fire, given that it probably burned with the rest of Mouse Hole and they no longer have a kitchen to argue about putting it in. It would be the furthest thing from either of their minds anyway- whatever energy they have goes into the rebuilding effort, and Vesper in particular has precious little to spare these days.
Figuring out their new living situation is...awkward, to say the least. No one is worried about Vesper running off anymore (for a variety of reasons) so they don't really need to stay with Keir. He would very much like them to (for a variety of reasons) but I know you're mad at me for lying about the lunar ichor and I'm still not sorry but would you like to sleep in a cramped tent together, and also I'm in love with you by the way if that makes a difference doesn't strike him as a very convincing argument. He settles for pointing out the obvious, which is that Vesper is sick and it would be better for them to stay close so he can keep an eye on them. If they have any objections, they choose not to bicker with him about it. That worries him more than anything else.
In a cavern underground with no weather to speak of, their makeshift tent is more for privacy than protection. Still, Keir does his best to make it comfortable- partly out of concern and partly because he knows his house (their house?) will be the last he gets around to building. It's a concession, not an apology; his community comes first and they both know it.
He knows if Vesper was in better condition they'd be giving him way more shit about it. He wishes Vesper was in a condition to give him shit about it, but they've taken a sharp turn for the worse since the fire and it's becoming clearer and clearer that they're not bouncing back this time. It's not that their sickness has made them docile- it's just that they've moved from biting wit to pure animal fear, sometimes lashing out at anyone who comes close and sometimes clinging to him like he can hold their crumbling soul in place. The worst days are the ones when they're quiet, still except for the rapid in and out of their ragged breathing, and it's obvious that sheer force of will is the only thing keeping them together.
In the shape they're in the odds of getting a cure have more or less dropped to nothing. Even before the fire, their gang was short-handed until Vesper came along, and if by some miracle a case of lunar ichor showed up in the marketplace tomorrow it'd take a second miracle just to have even a chance of stealing it without them. Miracles don't happen for men like him. He doubts Vesper is any luckier. It doesn't stop him from looking.
Mouse Hole continues to rebuild itself even as Vesper falls apart. Keir builds, and builds, and when he's not building he's searching, and when he's not searching the most practical man in the world makes silent deals with himself, with Vesper, bargaining, threatening, begging. If you die I'll throw every decoration in the marketplace into a pit. If you live you can put as many useless trinkets in our house as you want. There are some nights when he watches them in their fitful half-sleep, curled up in a wretched little ball as far from him as their tent's walls will allow, and when he runs out of offers to make all he can manage is please, please, please.
His begging doesn't work. His searches amount to nothing. There will be no miracle for either of them.
Keir puts off building a home for himself long after they're gone, until eventually he finally runs out of construction projects and Griff threatens to pitch his tent into the lake if he doesn't move out of it.
He builds a new house. It looks a lot like the old one. There are bones holding the building together, but not Vesper's; they asked for their ashes to be scattered topside, in the sun, and he can't say he's not disappointed but he does understand. He's already built Mouse Hole's future over their body- the least he can do is give them the freedom in death that he stole from them in life.
The layout of the new house is familiar. Tiny kitchen, sparse living room, an extra bedroom that he knows won't stay empty for long. But for now the house is his, and his alone, and it is so, so quiet.
He stands alone in his kitchen. There's nothing in it but the bare essentials and a small mountain of soaps people have given him that he can't bring himself to use.
The silence is suddenly too much and he turns and leaves, winding his way through the maze of new buildings and through well-trod tunnels until he's back in the old Mouse Hole, in the charred bones of his old home. It's not the first time he's been back, but every other trip has been to look for survivors, supplies, anything salvageable. This time he kicks through the ashes, looking for something specific and not at all expecting to find it, until he moves aside a burnt wooden board and-
"You little fucker," he mutters, reaching into the wreckage and coming away with a slightly sooty but otherwise miraculously untouched figurine. Its beady black eyes bore into him, critical, challenging. "Forget it, I'm throwing you into the lake."
He does not throw the chicken into the lake. He tucks it gently- reluctantly, but gently- into his bag and carries it home, where he sets it on the kitchen counter and stares at it as it looks smugly back at him.
"This is stupid," he says to the chicken, who doesn't reply. He doesn't know what he was expecting. A profound spiritual connection to Vesper? Some sense of forgiveness, now that he's finally giving them what they wanted? They're dead and gone. It's far too little, far too late, and compromising with a ghost absolves him of nothing. Besides, it's a chicken. That's too much pressure to put on a children's toy.
It's absurd. It's all so absurd that he has to laugh, and once he starts he can't seem to make himself stop.
By the time he's finished he's gasping for breath and there are tears soaking through the fabric of his mask and he must have sunken to his knees at some point because somehow he's ended up on the floor, and he's not sure how long he's been there. It feels like he could stay curled on the ground until this house crumbles around him, too, but he knows his body won't thank him for it later. Besides, chores don't stop for anything- not even grief- so he peels back his mask to scrub at his face and hauls himself to his feet.
He wishes he could tell Vesper they won. A pyrrhic victory, at best, certainly not worth the price they paid for it. But the more he thinks about it the more it feels like there are only losers here.
If there were any degree of whimsy in him he might say the rooster figurine looks lonely, sitting on that empty counter all by itself. But the most practical man world decides it's taking up counter space, and he doesn't want to have to clean around it, and it's probably unsanitary to leave it covered in ash like that. He grabs a bar of soap off the pile and carefully washes away the soot (he gives his hands a rinse too, while he's at it) before placing it back in his bag. It's heavier than it looks, but nothing he can't handle- no harm in leaving it there while he works. So it perches in a nest of rope and picks and tools, staring up at him as he pulls the drawstring shut and throws the bag over his shoulder again and says, to no one in particular,
"We can call it a tie."