Grigori Hosturn had been up since dawn. His stomach rumbled, as Sophire had decided to sleep in today, and the only thing he could manage himself was to get the percolator cooking and put butter on some bread. One of the nicer things about being the early riser in the house was that he could get up and snatch the butter before his wife lectured him about how much the stuff cost nowadays.

He had finished sweeping the deck, scrubbing the horizontals, and his lathe and drill press had been expected. The forge had been coked and the steam hammer had been dragged in from the warehouse. The aeroship, all gods curse the thing, seemed to be more difficult to repair than it was to actually build. It wasn't that it didn't LOOK ready, but any mechanic knew that the outside of a ship was just window dressing. The fact was, they lost a lot of important little parts, and it seemed more and more like the whole gondola assembly was going to have to be rebuilt. Wiping the little bit of grease from his hands, he started to shake with rage and growl. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen! They had a crew now! Molly had gotten them the warehouse! The only thing holding the venture back now was HIM! He was the best clockin' mechanic in Old Rose, and when it was time to show what he could do, he'd fallen on his face! Could he clocking do anything right!!

Pain finally brought him back down to earth. Looking down at his hands, he saw that he had scrubbed them so hard that blood was seeping out from under his fingernails. He took a few juddering breaths and tried to relax. Can't have a fit right now. Soph was still sleeping. In, out. In, out. Okay.

Finally having put his inner beast at bay, he strode up to the front of the store and switched the sign from "CLOSED" to "OPEN". More money meant an opprotunity to get more parts. And more customers meant more possible contacts to find those parts. Hopefully, being a good hardworking citizen would help further his more devious ventures.

Sophire Hosturn had tossed and turned and rearranged her pillow in a multitude of ways before finally accepting that perhaps, just perhaps, it was time to get up. Her husband had already risen and she could hear him moving about, working away in his shop. She strongly believed he worked too much and for too long (especially on that ship of Molly’s). It did very little to help his mood. A day off filled with leisurely exercises would be best for him. How she was going to get someone like Grigori to agree to it was another question entirely. It would require planning and some sweetening up.

Breakfast.

She rose and dressed, wrapping a thick shawl around her shoulders. The cold always bothered her and she went about her own morning routine. She moved about the house, pushing open the curtains and gathering up the odd things that needed to be put away. A forgotten coffee mug, a coat flung over the back of a chair. Once that was done, she went to stoke the fire that had been left smouldering in the kitchen stove overnight, piling it full with fresh wood. When there was sufficient enough heat in the stove, Sophie fried four eggs in a pan, buttering some bread as she waited for them to cook. To her utter annoyance she found that the butter was getting smaller. They went through too much of the stuff and she wasn’t going to keep paying the price she had been doing at the Market. If Grisha wanted to use as much as he wanted, he could go and buy it himself. Actually, that wasn’t that bad of an idea. She would like to see Mister Aitken from the Market haggle with her husband.

Sophie smiled to herself as she served up the bread and eggs onto two plates and loaded them onto a breakfast tray. She poured two cups of coffee from the percolator, ignoring that it was already warm. Grisha liked his coffee and she was happy to indulge him.

Carrying the tray, she walked into the shop and greeted him warmly, “Morning, sweetheart.” She set the tray down and moved to put an arm around his waist, leaning lightly against him. “Do you have time to eat or are we far too busy today?”she asked, a hint of teasing in her voice.

(( Let's ignore that I was partially asleep when I wrote this... ))

Grish smelled the food first. As soon as the smell of buttery eggs hit his nostrils, he knew. The embrace just confirmed it. He inclined his head back into her chest to look up into her eyes. His expression didn't change at all as he said "Mornin', Soph."

There were, of course, reasons that he wasn't working on the ship besides shear unbridled rage towards the thing. Rage, he could deal with, he'd dealt with it all his life. In all honesty, the main thing was that after three or four nights sleeping in the great thing's half repaired carcass, he started missing his wife. In all honesty, and though he'd never admit to it, after so much time since his forced retirement, he wasn't sure he could go back to not being around her for months on end.

This thought flashed another ember of anger in his head. You're making no money on shore! The Machine shop can barely turn a profit and the aeroship's a money sink! Your WIFE is making more money than you right now! How can you call yourself a man as you-

No, stop it. Mentally, he brushed the screaming pyre away. He was with his wife now. Things were okay. He was okay. With one of his hands, he reached up and put a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face behind her ear. Those eyes were the most calming pools he had ever known. Just looking at them cooled the fire that burned in him. "Considerin' I think I'd pull that damn ship apart with my hands if I so much as look at it currently, I don't have anythin' planned. You?"

Sophie pressed her lips to Grisha’s head briefly and brushed the back of her fingers across his cheek in a tender and calming gesture. She knew how much work he was putting into the ship. She sat up late at night wondering if he was going to come home or work through the night. Several times she had woken in the morning, finding that she had fallen asleep in an armchair, silently waiting his return. The fact was, she got lonely. The only reason why her moonshine operation was a success was because she simply had nothing better to do with her time. Of course, she had friends but there was only so long you could gossip about what Mr Abbey was doing with the fishmonger’s wife before it got old.

Sophie pulled away from her husband but not without catching his hand. She entwined her fingers with his, squeezing them slightly.



“Good, you’ve been worrin’ about that ship far too much,” she stated, holding out a mug of coffee to him. “It can stay on the ground for all I care.” She quickly offered him a smile, hoping to correct any harshness to her tone. “Look Grisha,” she began again, her voice softer. “I’ve go nothin’ planned today and there’s hardly anyone demandin’ to have somethin’ fixed so why don’t we jus’ go out for the day? Jus’ you and me.”

Grisha squeezed her hand back. Soph, good ol' Soph. She always told him he was working too hard, every day. Yet why did he always feel that he wasn't doing enough? At least when he was in the navy, he knew he could support them. They... they were doing okay right now. The booze trade was going exceptionally well recently, and Molly was picking up the bill on the damned wreck in the warehouse. Everything was doing okay, and he just felt useless.

The anger was getting harder to push down. It was waiting right now, biding its time, but it was there. He forced himself to focus on his wife. They were okay, they were fine- yes, because she had to carry them both! You're useless, you can't even- stop! No, enough!

He took a rattling breath. "Yeh... yeh that might be good. Let's get out of here, Soph." With one shaking hand, he turned the sign back over. Everything would be okay. He just had to keep saying it until he believed it.

Soph always knew when her husband was angry. It was her sixth sense and right now she knew Grisha wasn't coping. As much as she wanted to go out, she couldn't let him out of the workshop in his current state. He was likely to snap at the littlest thing and in a crowded marketplace there were plenty of little things worthy of snapping at. Overpriced sellers for ones. 

"Not just yet, Grisha". Sophie reached and flicked his nose with her index finger with a soft smile. She took him by the shoulder and turned him away from the door. "You haven' even eatin your breakfast an' I made it 'specially for you," she told him. "It'll be a waste to throw it out. Some alleycats will end up eatin' the fried eggs you work so hard for".

Wise women always said that a way to a man's heart was through his stomach. Sophie always said that it was good way to soothe homicidal rage. She held his plate of eggs in one hand and a knife and fork in the other. "Sit an' eat. I'm not lettin' you buy anything at the market if you get hungry".  

Grigori Hosturn really didn't smile. Nonetheless, his wife had a way of easing the perpetual frown off of his face. There might have even been a slight quirk at the lips when his nose was flicked. Slight, very slight, and only for a second. He always knew that Soph liked to do that to show she wasn't scared of him. And he liked that, that she was willing to tease him so. Not being treated like his family normally was, which is to say abject fear, did something good for his soul.

"Whatever you say, Soph." With that, he eased himself into his chair at the desk, and tucked into the eggs. Breaking the yolks, he did as he always did. Sop the bread, eat the white, repeat. In the twenty plus years that he had been married to Sophire, he had never once had a complaint about her eggs. This may not sound amazing, but considering how many times he had seen fried eggs get messed up beyond recognition, he counted this as a testament to his wife's ability to do things right the first time. with one and a half eggs done, he drank deeply from his mug. By the time he'd put it back down on the table, it had been drained.

"You got anything you need at the market?" He asked his wife as he began on the half of the egg still on his plate, knowing more coffee would be coming soon.