'cause dirt on you is dirt on me, and we both know our hands ain't clean
Calan accepts the lockpick information with the same grave seriousness he’d given the orange peel lesson, because Finch has already proved he knows at least two things worth knowing. Being born with lockpicks seems inconvenient, but not impossible. Lots of important things are inconvenient before someone finds a better way to do them. He nods slowly, then glances toward Carlo with a small, practical shrug. "Guess we’ll have to keep asking the spirits."
Calan hears the words Finch is saying next well enough: killed, family, miss you, thrill, worth it. He hears the shape of the warning too, dark and heavy and grown-up in a way that makes the air feel like it’s trying to sit on his shoulders. What he does not hear is the hurt underneath it, not properly. He is nine, and three weeks old, and his stomach still feels orange-peel wrong, and adults are always saying things will get them killed. Their dads have said it about roofs and boats and cannons and sharp things and going places without telling anyone, and while Calan has gathered that death is meant to be avoided, he has not yet been convinced that death is all that bad. Not when his babysitter is also his dead nonna.
His expression shifts as he looks at Finch, the bright interest from moments ago cooling into something narrower. Finch had been very cool when he caught Carlo. Finch had known about orange peels and pockets and common distractions. Finch had seemed, for several excellent minutes, like the sort of person who might tell them where the good doors were and how not to get grabbed by the wrist next time. Now he sounds like everyone else.
Calan flicks a glance toward Carlo, sharp and quick, the kind that says he is reconsidering the quality of this arrangement, then looks back at Finch with his chin lifting by a fraction. "Why?" he asks, not whining exactly, but not softening either. "Just ’cause you say so?"
Calan hears the words Finch is saying next well enough: killed, family, miss you, thrill, worth it. He hears the shape of the warning too, dark and heavy and grown-up in a way that makes the air feel like it’s trying to sit on his shoulders. What he does not hear is the hurt underneath it, not properly. He is nine, and three weeks old, and his stomach still feels orange-peel wrong, and adults are always saying things will get them killed. Their dads have said it about roofs and boats and cannons and sharp things and going places without telling anyone, and while Calan has gathered that death is meant to be avoided, he has not yet been convinced that death is all that bad. Not when his babysitter is also his dead nonna.
His expression shifts as he looks at Finch, the bright interest from moments ago cooling into something narrower. Finch had been very cool when he caught Carlo. Finch had known about orange peels and pockets and common distractions. Finch had seemed, for several excellent minutes, like the sort of person who might tell them where the good doors were and how not to get grabbed by the wrist next time. Now he sounds like everyone else.
Calan flicks a glance toward Carlo, sharp and quick, the kind that says he is reconsidering the quality of this arrangement, then looks back at Finch with his chin lifting by a fraction. "Why?" he asks, not whining exactly, but not softening either. "Just ’cause you say so?"
if it all goes wrong and we end up on the news, if you go down I'm goin' down too
