Work Text:
Wilde needs a hug. This is Azu's professional opinion as a paladin of Aphrodite. Yes, admittedly, hugs are her area of expertise, so she is looking for that specifically. It's still true.
To be fair, Azu suspects that Wilde needs a lot of things. Many days of sleep and several good meals at the very least. But based on his dismissal of those suggestions, she hesitates to offer hugs just yet. It can be easier, she's found, for people to accept things they're used to needing than things they haven't known they needed.
And his eyes might be glazed over, but he's vaguely watching as Sasha fries rations on hot glass, so that seems like a promising sign.
"I didn't know she cooked," Azu says, close enough to Wilde that he can lean into her if he wants. He sways a little as he holds his knees but does not get closer.
"Hmm," says Wilde, tiredly disaffected.
"Though to be fair, I have not known her very long at all. And we've been to a lot of restaurants. And Hamid's house. So maybe I just haven't gotten the chance yet."
Sasha shoots a sharp look from where she's crouched, poking and flipping rations with her knives.
"I can hear you, y'know."
"Oh," says Azu. Sometimes she is louder than she intends. "I'm sorry."
"Not like we're hidden anyway," Sasha mutters. She hunches more and looks at the hole Hamid and Grizzop have disappeared down. "Just out here, in the open, where anyone can see us."
"And we can see anyone," Azu offers. "And there is enough room for us to defend ourselves, if we need to." There is room for Azu to move, to stretch, to swing her axe, and while she is not comfortable either, here in the remains of the factories, it is not because of the open sky. It's because of the scale and intensity of the destruction, that much power over this much land, so much damage all at once. It was necessary, from what her friends have told her. It is still frightening.
Sasha grimaces. "Speak for yourself. Aren't even any shadows for me to sneak in. An' Wilde's dressed like he's just askin' for it."
"Mmm?" Wilde blinks at her, and then down at his teal green suit and yellow waistcoat. He vaguely brushes dust off his trousers. "This suit is asking for a lot of things, Sasha dear. You'll have to be more specific."
Sasha rolls her eyes. "Y'know. It's so colorful. Like, if Grizzop wanted to shoot you, he'd barely have to aim, you stand out so much. You're like Hamid. Get all fancy, and then underneath you're just squishy." She fixes Azu with an unnerving stare. "I still dunno why you glow, but at least it's armor. Well good when it's armor."
"Thank you," Azu says, taken aback.
"Oh, Sasha. Aren't you a bright one." Wilde raises an eyebrow and smirks.
"No, that's you," Sasha says. "I was just saying. I sneak. You sure you're alright?"
"I don't think he's alright," Azu says.
Wilde pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs deeply.
"What?" Sasha demands.
Azu rests a hand on Wilde's back. "It will be okay, my friend."
Wilde manages a sharp laugh. "I'm disappointed. Your concern has colored your impression of me to the point you don't think I would be tailoring you a pun?"
Azu blinks. "What?"
Sasha squinches up her face. Then her eyes widen. "Ohhhhh. Bright. Like. Like the colors ."
"Like the colors," Wilde says. He blinks slowly at his shoes, and his eyes start to go unfocused.
"Good you explained it," Sasha says. "Or, right. Or I'd've been blue. Also like the color."
Without looking up, Wilde gives a short chuckle, just a shrug of the shoulders, really. "There you go."
"Right," Sasha says, and turns back to her cooking, knives clinking lightly against the glass. She's smiling. Which is good, but Azu is a bit lost.
"Have I missed something?"
Wilde doesn't move, but Sasha lifts her head and scans the horizon, all the way around. "Dunno?" she says. "Don't think anything's coming. Why'd you ask?"
"Nothing dangerous." Azu rests one hand loosely on her knee, just slightly echoing Sasha's position. "You just said you might be blue, but you don't look sad. Are you alright?"
Sasha shifts the grip on her dagger. "Yeah? Why wouldn't I be? I'm alive , aren't I?"
"Yes." Sasha also needs a hug. She's been through a lot in just the time Azu has known her, but Azu knows better than to try and hug her. Sasha deserves to feel safe, most of all, and hugs do not currently make her feel safe. "That's why I was confused."
"Nah, Azu, it was another pun."
"Oh."
"What misfortune it is," Wilde mutters, "to be assigned the team who must be taught wordplay." He sways a little, but doesn't fall.
"Do Grizzop and Hamid not understand either?" Azu asks, perhaps a little hopeful.
Wilde seems to have completely missed her question, his face blank. Oh dear.
It is not new for Azu to feel a step or two behind. This was the case in her town, when adults and older kids would say one thing and mean another, like they expected her to just know. It was the case moving to the Temple for study, when no one else had come from a town quite as small as hers, or quite as remote. She felt out of her depth sitting for exams in Seminary, and she still does not understand exactly what mission her new friends are on, even though Grizzop explained it. Even though she knows with certainty that it is important.
But it's alright. It will be alright. Sasha and Wilde have known each other longer, so it makes sense that they would understand each other.
"I think ," Sasha says, "they get puns, they just don't like 'em. Like, Hamid rolls his eyes a lot, and Grizzop's mostly not got time for any of it. I bet he'd like it better if he liked Wilde better."
Wilde blinks at her. "Are, ah, Hamid and Grizzop still plumbing the depths? Prodding holes, and so forth?"
"Yeah," Sasha says.
Wilde giggles. It's not a sound Azu's heard him make before, and for a moment she thinks he might be injured. But he's laughing, holding his knees and shaking with it.
"What?"
"Always knew they had it in them," Wilde manages.
Sasha and Azu look at each other blankly, then Sasha shrugs, which is something of a relief. "Hope it's a good tunnel they're down, anyway. There's good tunnels and bad tunnels, an' that one, like, seems alright, y'know?"
"It is very small," Azu points out. "I know Hamid and Grizzop are very small also. But I don't like it." She sighs, and sends a small thought out to Aphrodite. Please look out for my new friends. I love them.
"They're probably fine." Sasha prods the cooking meat with her blade. "Maybe Hamid got dirty or whatever, but he can fix that."
"I hope that is the worst of it," Azu says.
Sasha gives Azu a quizzical look. "It's just a tunnel."
"Yes," Azu says. "I don't like tunnels."
"Aw, tunnels are great," Sasha protests. Her blade scrapes across the glass as she flips some of the rations off the glass and onto a relatively clean cloth. "They like, let you go places all enclosed like, an' quick. And usually they've got different paths and things. Means folks who don't know 'em might get lost real easy."
Azu shudders. "That all sounds terrible."
"You see? Azu knows." Wilde points vaguely at her, and Azu smiles.
"I've heard stories about tunnels that were very romantic," Azu says. "All these nobles meeting up in secret. But since I've been in tunnels…" she shakes her head.
Wilde continues pointing, flopping his hand for emphasis. "The clandestine rendezvous… they echo."
"Your loss." Sasha shrugs and reaches into her bag, pulling out three large eggs and balancing them on her thighs. One by one, she cracks them onto the ground, where they sizzle. "Aw these are gonna be real good."
"Eggcelent," Wilde mumbles.
"Sasha," Azu says. "Why do you have eggs?" She knows the type of rations that she carries on a journey, tough and hearty things that keep well on a long trip. Eggs are fragile and can go bad quickly.
"Do you not like eggs?" Sasha says. "I can eat yours, if you don't."
"I do like eggs," Azu says. "And I would like one, please! I was just curious. I don't believe any of us expected to be… here." She gestures at the glass and the hole, and the magic element-resistant auras around her and Sasha and Wilde. "And I don't believe there are many uses for eggs in a robbery."
"It was a heist," Sasha says, and Azu is not sure if she is correcting the terminology or making another incomprehensible joke. "An' my old mate Fingers, she used'ta say she could get a door open with anything. One time I asked her about eggs and she said yeah, but then she said she'd rather eat 'em. Never told me how it worked and she might have been talking herself up, but like, 's probably a way, maybe if the yolk gums things up enough…"
"So they were for the heist."
"Nah, I have 'em cause I met a guy in town what had a lot of chickens." Sasha cracks her neck, looking pleased with herself. "Was real nice. Said I could have some eggs, and I wanted eggs."
"Oh, that's very nice," Azu says, smiling. She quite enjoys tending to chickens, even though they are very small, and she is sometimes worried about scaring them or knocking them over. They are also very fluffy. "Chickens are lovely."
"Yeah," Sasha says, sounding pleased with herself. "Haven't really seen 'em all walkin' around an' stuff before. They're well fun."
"You've never seen chickens? That's terrible!"
"Well, now I have." Sasha flips one of the eggs with her knife. As far as Azu can see, she was precise enough that the yolk is still intact. "Chickens don't like it much all underground-like."
"Ohh." Azu only knows bits and pieces of Sasha's history. A lot of it happened underground, which sounds awful. She tries to imagine not knowing what chickens are, and can't quite manage. "But have you seen other farm animals?"
"Yeah!" Sasha beams. "Me an' Zolf saw a cow one time! Was real big."
"Just the once?"
"Yeah! I didn't get to see it real close, though. We were in a cart cause our motorcar broke. Zolf told me what the udder was for cause that was well weird."
"Oh, but cows are lovely," Azu says.
"A real en- cow -nter, mm?" Wilde pipes up, and Azu blinks at him. Then at Sasha, who's blinking at Wilde too.
"Is that a pun?" Sasha says slowly. "Cause it's got a cow in it?"
Azu frowns. Wilde nods slowly, a smile creeping across his face.
"Oh," says Sasha. She grins, bright, and it does Azu's heart good to see her so happy. "Cool. I was just, uh, just chicken ."
Wilde smiles too, barely, but genuine, Azu thinks. He is hard to read, but she thinks a lot of his smiles are not.
Azu would like to be able to make him and Sasha smile like that. She would like to be included in the game that is going on just out of her reach. She doesn’t mean to interrupt, but suddenly she is blurting, "I don't understand. How do you know when it's a pun? It's just more words."
She looks to Wilde, as he seems to be the expert, but he just looks back blankly, the smile replaced by a slightly furrowed brow and pursed lips.
"Ah," he says. He doesn't laugh, which is a relief, but instead he just looks very tired. "Sasha, you're the new practitioner, why don't you explain it?"
"Oh," says Sasha. "Right, okay." She flips a dagger between her fingers. "So you know when you're looking for traps?"
"No," says Azu, heart sinking.
"Well, it's like that," Sasha says. "Like, you're looking for things that shouldn't be there, or are doing two things at once, like a piece of floor that's like, the floor, but it's also a pressure thing that makes a big explosion if you step on it."
"Hmm," says Azu. "I'm not always very good with things that are more than one thing."
"Yeah," says Sasha. "With traps it makes sense, but like, I never thought about doing it with words before. Like words are words, right? But sometimes they're two words."
"I see," says Azu, though she doesn't, not quite. "And then you get punned?"
Wilde is watching Sasha with a baffled and slightly impressed expression. "Punished," he corrects, without turning his head.
"Oh dear," says Azu.
"Ohhhhhh," says Sasha. "That's, that's good. Yeah."
"Punishment is not good, unless it is deserved."
"Nah, Azu, that was another one. Cause it's punished, right, but there's a pun in it. Y'know. Pun -ishment."
"And," says Wilde, "Puns can be excruciating, when applied correctly."
" Oh, " says Azu. Even with the explanation it takes her a few seconds to put it together. "That seems like a very complicated way of communicating."
"Yeah," Sasha says. "Takes some practice, but it's… fun -ishing?"
Wilde winces. "Sasha, Dear."
" 's a good one, right Azu?"
"Ah," Azu says. "Yes?" She can follow this one at least.
Sasha grins. "Right. Anyway, food's up." She plops the eggs on the ration sandwiches and hands one of them to Azu, one to Wilde.
"Sasha, this looks delicious," Azu says. She takes a big bite. The egg is hot enough that it would have burned her mouth if she wasn't still under the effect of Endure Elements. "Mmh. It is. " It is fresh and cooked so just the edges are crispy, and the dried meat is, well, it turns out heating it up helps a great deal.
"Yeah?"
"Yes. Don't you think so, Wilde?"
Wilde is turning the sandwich over in his hands like he can't quite understand it, then he lifts it and cautiously takes a bite. An eyebrow raises. "Mmh," he says, and it sounds like agreement.
"Right. Good." Sasha watches Azu and Wilde for a minute, giving a wide grin that disappears only when she shoves a large bite of her own sandwich into her mouth. She nods, pleased with herself.
"So Sasha," Azu says. "I should have asked, earlier. Where did you learn to cook?"
"Mmh," Sasha says. She chews for a minute, then swallows. "Part of it's from a mate I had, Gragg, runs a pub. He's real good at cookin' stuff, 'specially with eels. Wish we had some eels. An' there was this guy, Mr. Gusset, an' he taught me about appraisin' stuff an' he also taught me to make some things. 's not too hard, really. You put the food somewhere real hot and it cooks."
"Bit more to it than that," Wilde says, his voice drifting.
"Ah, yes," Azu agrees. "I enjoy cooking, but there are… many ways it can go wrong. You’re very good at it.”
“Aw,” Sasha says, pleased. “Well, y’know. ‘S pretty alright, havin’ food extra to give people.” She takes another large bite of sandwich.
Sasha likes food, she’s precious about it, and she’s mentioned more than once the times in her life when food has been scarce. Azu chews her own egg with the dawning awareness that she has been given a very great gift indeed.
It is tasty. It is special. It is a huge improvement on rations. Azu is not sure that any of those words can be punned into meaning more than one thing. It would be much easier if her new friends liked hugs. (Hamid does, but Hamid is still in the hole.) She would so much like to hug Sasha. Instead, she gives a very genuine “thank you,” and continues eating in comfortable silence.
Wilde looks better, now he’s got some food and something to do. He still doesn’t look well, but there’s a bit more focus in his eyes, a little more color to his cheeks. He chews carefully, mindful of the yolk that drips onto his fingers. He raises an eyebrow when he catches her looking. Then he raises the other Sasha, who’s been doing the same.
Azu gives her a fond smile, but by then, Sasha’s back to looking at the ground as she eats.
“ ‘s good there’s all the glass,” Sasha says. “Or, like. It’d be a, uh. A sandy sandwich. Sandywich?”
“Ah!” Azu says, delighted. She gets that one.
“Be a bit soiled,” Wilde says, and takes another large bite.
If that was a pun, neither Azu nor Sasha get it.
Still, the rest of the meal is companionable, and Azu feels much better after eating. Sasha has a smug look as she licks her fingers, and Wilde leans back against a rock, one hand comfortably on his stomach.
“Hamid and Grizzop will be sorry they missed breakfast,” Azu says. “That was wholly delicious, Sasha.”
Sasha starts to nod, and then here eyes go wide. “Aw, yeah, Azu! Yeah, that’s a good one.”
“What? What’s a good one?”
And then Wilde starts laughing, bright and reedy. “Wholly,” he manages.
“Yeah,” Sasha says. “Cause there’s a hole.” She points at the entrance to the tunnel, grinning.
“Oh,” Azu says. The sandwich was wholly delicious, and here they are beside a hole. “ Oh!”
For a moment, they are all three laughing together. Then Azu is struck by inspiration.
“It could also be holy, ” Azu says, reaching into her shirt for the Heart of Aphrodite. “Because I’m a paladin.”
“Aw, yeah, ‘s real, ah, real good too.”
Wilde snaps his fingers, producing a tiny burst of sparks. “There we go, Azu. Make a wordsmith of you yet.”
Azu beams. The sound of their amusement carries over the desolate plane, and Azu feels warm in ways that have nothing to do with the hot glass. Maybe it’s not just words that can mean more than one thing. Maybe, for Sasha and Wilde, sharing food and making puns means almost the same as having a hug.
“An’ if you were sore,” Sasha says, “Azu might make a good back smith.”
Wilde giggles again, shaking with it.
Azu listens as they move, for some reason, into puns about metal. She tries, briefly, to turn words over in her head. Does “bronze” mean more than one thing? Or is it only ever “bronze”? But it’s good, also, just watching. The way Sasha swings her knife between her fingers and bounces her knees, comfortable and alive . The way Wilde’s face shifts into intent and delighted and amusingly pained, even if behind it is still always an exhausted shadow. Something of a reprieve, maybe. Something on the way to healing. Maybe later he will even manage a nap.
They're good for each other, Sasha and Wilde. They're good for her, too. She looks forward to working together as a team. Finding the strange metal men and whatever else they need to do. Getting to sit and talk, like they're doing now. Introducing Sasha to more animals.
Azu cleans her hands carefully and holds the Heart of Aphrodite in her palms. Thank you for healing Sasha , she prays, and she can feel Aphrodite's presence focusing in on her.
"Just have to iron out the logistics," Wilde says, and Sasha snorts, her nose wrinkling.
I will look after her from here. And Wilde. I'll look after him, too, but if there is any way you can heal him like you healed her… I think he needs it.
Wilde sways into her and she rests a hand on his shoulder to hold him upright. His jacket is soft and smooth on her callused fingertips.
"Yeah, well, you're alright," Sasha says. "Glad I met al you, an' all."
"Oh," Wilde says, looking pained.
"Oh," Azu says. "I got that one!" She beams, and then adds, "and I'm very glad to have, uh, metal you, also."
Wilde shakes his head, but she can feel the way his shoulders jump as he gives a quiet chuckle.
I really do love them.
The heat that emanates from the pendant seems to wrap around her whole body, holding her safe in answer: I know.