"Okay, look." Gnawtooth considers the human beside her, and the Night Market, back and forth several times. "This is...okay, I've seen TV, I know how to explain this, okay? Imagine you're a hapless ordinary person who's wandered into a dark alley, and in the dark alley, agents of a rogue splinter faction of a sinister government agency are making a mutually distrustful deal with...the mafia. Everybody is tense, fingering their guns. The slightest sign of a double-cross, everything's going down. And you're an unexpected element, and also the softest target in the room, yeah?"
"How much TV do you watch, exactly?" the human says dryly.
Gnawtooth decides not to answer that. "The point," she says solemnly. "The point is that sometimes, some places, the best thing you can do is keep still and keep quiet and wait, okay? And this is...one of those times and places."
"Are you the mafia, in this analogy?"
Gnawtooth decides to ignore that one, too.
"I promised to help you," she says, and puts her hands on the human's warm cheeks. "I promised. And I'm going to find a particular guy and talk to him, and I need you to help me help you. I need you to do that by..." and she takes her hands off the human's face and pats their shoulders. "Standing right here where I can find you again and not talking to anyone."
The human is looking at her with some kind of a facial expression, but TV has not been the most reliable guide to those.
"Stay," Gnawtooth says, and starts off into the crowd, getting all of five paces before Fingerbreaker leans out from behind a piles of boxes and says, "Did you just order that human to stay?"
"Yes," Gnawtooth says. "That works on humans, right? Like, werewolves are semi-human, that's why it works on those?"
"Adding dogs, humans and werewolves to the list of things you know shit-all about," Fingerbreaker says gleefully, and nods pointedly past Gnawtooth's shoulder.
When she turns, the human has already strayed off somewhere.
"Ah, fuck," Gnawtooth says. "Should I have put them on a string?" and looks reproachful as Fingerbreaker laughs and laughs.
"Yes," Fingerbreaker says finally, wiping her eyes. "Yeah, do that. Let me watch when you explain it, it'll be great."
