Not a Coin In Sight (Thief; Fanfic)
Title: Not a Coin In Sight
Rating: T
Pairings: N/A
Warnings/Notes: Eye Loss, Introspection, Other Characters Referenced
Summary: Garrett takes a moment to think after the events of Thief: Gold: injustice, rent, and most of all his eye. He could do with a break.
No one, Garrett decided, should have to kill a god. The pay was bad and the results were… unpredictable. Furthermore, against all the odds, fame and accolades were not part of the deal.
Thankfully. The last thing Garrett needed was any further attention from anybody. He kept telling himself that in the hopes that it would become true because something about returning to his humdrum life where the bills were still due after saving the world felt a little cruel. His landlord had not been impressed with his excuse that he’d lost an eye to a wood nymph or that he’d been indisposed on account of being in a different dimension. He’d given him a week to come up with the overdue amount.
He’d thought he was used to the petty cruelties of the world, but maybe he wasn’t entirely immune.
He prodded the corner of his mechanical eye and winced as he inspected it in the small mirror by his bedside. It was still tender after his recent surgery and red all about the eyelid. It was an ingenious creation, he’d give the Hammerites that. They’d even been good enough to try to match the iris to his flesh eye; it would pass a cursory inspection, but Garrett noticed the way it caught light differently from a real eye and he definitely noticed its constant whirring sound as it adjusted in his head.
He’d complained about it to Karras after the operation-it had been a good distraction from the blood everywhere and the nonchalant way he was slipping medical gloves off into a nearby bin-but he’d insisted he was the only person who would hear the sound on account of it being lodged inside him. “Thou shouldst not have any trouble with sneaking, master thief,” he’d sniffed. “I hope thou shalt remember this boon in future times so we may form an accord again if need be.”
Right, Garrett hoped never to see what kind of scenario would require him to work with the Hammers a second time and he especially didn’t want to work with Karras. He didn’t like the way he analyzed him or the way he had odd machines lined all about his surgery room. Garrett didn’t know much about medicine, but surely all that clutter was counterproductive to the art of healing.
Regardless, his assurance had only been marginally helpful as the fact was that Garrett didn’t particularly want to hear the noise either, never mind any guard he might come across. Hopefully it would eventually be as easily ignored as the sound of his own breathing, but he wasn’t so sure.
Speaking of eyes, what had happened to The Eye? It had one of his now after all and that had felt awfully strange when he’d held it in his hands as he’d snuck away from The Woodsie Lord. It kept twitching about, staring at his face, right at his empty eye socket as if it were contemplating leaping right back in until he’d stuffed it in his pocket with a shudder. At the time, it had seemed like an all too real possibility and he could only imagine the kind of brain damage that would entail before his blistering demise at the Trickster's hands.
He’d half expected it to give him away; the thing could talk, after all, and it had had no qualms about making his escape from the cathedral as difficult as humanly possible. He hadn’t mentioned it to the Hammerites-he had a reputation to maintain-but he’d felt the likeliest end to this little venture was The Eye shouting an alert followed by his swift death and the end of the world.
Instead, it had been quiet. All he’d detected from it was a kind of disappointed hum as he snatched it from the Trickster, but it hadn’t spoken a word.
In fact, it hadn’t even said anything when he’d handed it over to the Hammerites and that raised a distant alarm bell in the back of his mind. He got the impression The Eye was more… chaotically aligned than the Hammerites, so to speak. Surely it wasn’t all right with being handed back over to them.
But, he reminded himself, that wasn’t his problem anymore.
He let out a groan as he stretched himself out on the bed, putting the mirror aside. All these thoughts about eyes and Hammerites was going to make life impossible if he kept it up. He hadn't even let his thoughts stray to Viktoria. If he let himself remember her claws and the fear and the pain he'd never get out of bed again.
So, rent. How was he supposed to come up with that right now? Well, the how wasn’t so much the problem, but the where was. He really didn’t want a difficult job at the moment. Maybe Basso would have some ideas; he didn’t seem all that interested in thievery himself anymore, but he still knew some people and was more socially inclined than Garrett was, especially right now.
Forlornly, he thought about the 100,000 gold pieces he’d been promised. The Trickster could have at least paid him before taking off on important wrathful-god business. Someone could have paid him in cold, hard coin after the fact. Maybe not 100,000, but something. The Hammerites, the Keepers, all those guardsmen. Just… somebody.
Maybe he was angry with Artemus, although he was usually angry with Artemus, so that wasn’t much of a change. For a guy that said he was “important” and that he had “friends” he didn’t do much to follow through on the sentiment. He kept his distance and certainly didn’t offer Garrett any kind of useful help.
It was a very Keeper way of showing care, all cryptic words and suggestion; never a straightforward helping hand. Just another thing he should be used to, immune to, that he was proving to be anything but.
His eye whirred again and he heaved an irritated sigh and accepted that he wasn’t about to get any sleep and he wasn’t about to forget recent events. He sat up begrudgingly.
Right. Moping about wasn’t going to solve the rent problem and it certainly wasn’t going to solve any world problems either, not that he was in that business anymore. It was time to hit the tavern, pick up some gossip, and rob some annoyingly rich nobleman of all his prized possessions. His lips curled slightly. The thought did make him feel marginally better. He’d have to pick a particularly annoying nobleman just for the sense of vindication it would bring. These people would never know what he did and would never thank him, but he could see to it that they did pay him in a roundabout kind of way. Besides, no mansion would be as difficult as Constantine’s, so no matter who he chose it would be simpler than his last job. Then he could relax a bit and possibly sleep for a week, unhounded by anyone. Time to make a living.