#thief.doc

He has stopped telling her to stop, because she never listens to him. And so long as she isn’t hurt (at least, any worse than a hangover the next morning), then he has no claim in her personal behavior.

Anjorn tolerates her words -- can’t hold them against her, she is drunk, after all. He sits, patient, silent, and lets her drink. And rant, from time to time. Those days are always darker than the others. The ones where he thinks maybe she won’t get better and maybe I should stop this, because it’s just making it worse.

(Worse for himself. He hates watching her like that. It always feels more like there is a stranger staring at him from behind the hazy eyes that belonged, at some sober point, to Kaslen. Some dark, insidious creature now lurking beneath her skin and forcing out her inner thoughts -- thoughts he shouldn’t know, that were never meant to leave the confines of her head.)

He doesn’t, of course.

He can’t, of course.

So he sits, patient, silent, and lets her drink. And listens to her words of anger, and self-pity, and frustration.

Questions tumble out of her lips on a constant basis, but they’re aimed at him. Anjorn doesn’t pay attention to them, because they’ll just make him angry or frustrated. That means he nearly misses the question clearly aimed at the ceiling, but meant for his ears.

“Do you ever wonder if the world would be better off without you…?”

This wasn’t one of her idle thoughts that is supposed to stay inside her head. This is one begging for an answer, and for a moment, Anjorn wonders if he should join her in the bottle.

He takes too long to answer, because Kaslen sits up and levels him with a look, one that is surprisingly sober. There’s not some stranger behind her eyes.

And that worries him more than the actual question.

“Well?” she asks, and he snaps his jaw shut.

“I don’t--”

“Don’t what? Think about it?”

“Think it would be better off without you.”

Her lips thin, then purse, causing the scar to dance across her cheek. “Not about me. In general. Like. About yourself.”

“Oh.” He knew that’s what she meant, but he had feigned ignorance to try and derail her thoughts. It hadn’t worked. “I have had a lot of time to come to terms with what I have done in the past. Working for Garisine now… It’s like…” He fumbles for the words, even if they’re on the tip of his tongue and hang bright and heavy on his heart. “It’s a redemption.”

She clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes. “And you don’t think that you would have to be sitting here, listening to me, watching over me if you had only done something better in your earlier years? Or even if you hadn’t been here at all?”

Anjorn bristles at her words. “It’s no use thinking about it now--”

“Isn’t it? All the people that are dead now?” Kaslen carries on without noticing his full-body flinch. “Not having a bounty on your head, being a wanted criminal. Not having to suffer under the burden of all the wrong you’ve done. Redemption,” she snorts, “is for those who believe in something greater than their own worthless purpose.”

He knows that she’s thinking about herself, but it doesn’t stop him from feeling the words like a physical blow. Because he’s done all of that and more. “You don’t think helping Garisine--”

She turns to him, and for a moment, the hollow look is back behind her dark eyes. “No,” she replies, simply. “Because helping is what started this. If I hadn’t, you would have--” Her voice hitches for the first time, and his hands strain against his knees. Kaslen swallows, gulps, tries again. “So many things would have been different, better, without me--”

“Without you,” Anjorn cuts in, leaning forward because that’s all he’ll allow himself to do. The closest he’ll allow himself to get. “I wouldn’t have survived that prison. I would have been left in that tiny hole in the ground. I would have been dead ten times over, Kas.”

“But--”

“Without you, Garisine would have looked for someone else. Not to sound impersonal, but it could have been anyone. Had you not been the Carrion, someone else would have been, and that someone else would have gone with me on that job.” He jabs a finger against his thigh to make a point, imagining that he’s drilling it into her chest to drive the point home. “And sure, perhaps I would have learned to trust them, and earned their trust in turn. But then the same events would have happend, or they could have been worse. And I could be sitting across from an empty chair having this argument with myself because I was the only one left.”

Kaslen opens her mouth, but he doesn’t stop. It’s his turn to plow on, ignoring the pain flickering in her gaze.

“Or perhaps, and maybe this is what you’re getting at, it could be you sitting here across from a stranger. Or sitting alone, because the person who takes my place isn’t me, doesn’t have my skills or my history. Can’t do what I have done -- can’t do what we have done.”

He stands, so suddenly that she jerks back into her chair even though he doesn’t approach her. “Consider that next time, alright? Perhaps, instead of wondering if we never had been in the first place, think about what would it be like if we did everything exactly the same except for that one time when it mattered.”