Oh-my-god-it's-Thief- fic: Garrett/Keeper

[louiselux]

Okay, canthlian, this is my 600-odd words of Thief fic.



It was written. Everything. Viktoria's death. Karras's insane plan to loose his deadly rust gas on the world, and more, far more than Garrett ever wanted to know. The Keepers only wanted to show him one chapter at a time. Said he needed time to understand it all. The Keeper sat opposite him at the table, his eyes in shadow, just his mouth catching the light. There was a faint smile on his lips.

Garrett shut the book with a thump and went to rub his eyes, pulling back his hand when he remembered that one of them was gone. His fingers stroked over the cold metal orb that replaced it and he shivered. The glyphs didn’t lie. They never had, if he was honest with himself, which he tried to be. Thieves didn’t get very far if they weren't honest with themselves. Life has a way of finding you, the Keeper had said as they stood together under the glowing stars, and he wasn't wrong. Life found Garrett all right, life and trouble and endless damned chases after his own tail all to make a meagre living and what for? To end up being maimed by deities, chased by lunatics with killer robots, and propositioned by shadowy figures who had an allergy to light and to plain speaking.

Not the fun kind of propostion either, one that might involve money, or some other sort of fun, but the sort of proposition that if you didn't accept you'd wind up regretting it.

Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he was a fool to trust this man. A Keeper who had once claimed to come to him out of friendship, but who turned up when the Keepers decided that Garrett had been away too long and that they needed him, their most promising acolyte.

'The Keepers wish for you to come back to us,' the Keeper said, his voice soft in the musty air. His pale hands lay flat on the dark, stained boards of the table. 'You cannot avoid the future, Garrett, anymore than you can run from life itself. It will come to you of its own accord, as it has done already. Surely, you wish to be prepared to meet it? Now that you know the truth.'

The small room upstairs in the Crippled Burrick seemed too narrow and confining for the both of them. Garrett took a deep breath.

'Viktoria called me a hero,' he said, throwing back the last of his beer. 'But I can’t see anyone else running out with the bunting and the nuts. Sure, I know what's coming, but why should I care? She was wrong. I'm not a hero.'

'Oh but you are,' the Keeper said. 'By your own admission you saved the world. You saved me.'

'So is that what you Keepers want me for, to save the world on a regular basis? Thanks, but I've got other things I'd rather be doing, like paying the rent.'

Silence filled the little room. The Keeper clasped his hands together.

'Come back with me tonight, to the Keepers' House.'

'And what if I don't?'

'You never could run very far, could you?' the Keeper said, quietly, and he leaned forward, his hood falling back. His eyes were wide and dark and Garrett was troubled that the Keeper should reveal so much of himself

Garrett paused and stared. 'What?' he said.

'You never could run as fast as me. Do you remember when we were children in that house? I'd always catch you.'

There was something about that face, those eyes. With a shocking jolt of recognition, memories came back: childhood games in the Keepers' House. Garrett remembered clearly how the bare floors used to squeak and the secret games where they'd stalk each other for hours, never getting tired and always arranging to find each other in the end. Then they'd gang up and stalk Brother Ormond until he swept them away with the broom. At creeping and silent games they were a match, but when he tried to run, James had always caught him.

He gazed at the tall man in front of him. Brother James. Not much to see of the young boy that he'd played with so long ago. The Keepers didn't tend to use names very much, not even on good days when the world wasn't ending.

'I wasn't planning on running, anyway.'

Comments

[canthlian.livejournal.com]

Poor Garrett. The Keepers will never leave him to just live his life, will they? ^^

Almost got my 600 words done. Just the last 100 or so to work on.