GBS: In Lockstep

[aegistheia]

Title: In Lockstep
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General
Word Count: ~2000
Also Archived On: Archive of Our Own on December 17, 2019.
Summary: They are brothers; they are inseparable. Always was, and always will be.
A.N.:: Happy Yuletide, Neriad13! I saw that you liked minor characters, humour, and also angst, which seems like a perfect fit for the Gentlemen Bastards, so I sincerely hope you enjoy this!



They don’t like to remember much about the Dregs, the two of them. But they are certain of three things.

“I’m pretty sure number two was that Sanzas stand their ground,” says his brother.

“That’s three. Two is that Sanzas stick together.”

They look at each other, and shrug. “Won’t matter if we do both at the same time, then.”

“Together.”

And of course, one: Sanzas keep their word.

So: they don’t ever give their word in Shade’s Hill, and they don’t run. Giving the Thiefmaker anything so precious is asking for the old craven bastard to take it as far as he can make it run, followed promptly by taking their sorry lives for being such witless children. Running out into the Cauldron or Ashfall is just a slower form of suicide. And withering away in the Narrows just won’t do as an end for a Sanza, much less for two of them.

So: he gives his first word to his brother, and his brother’s to him. It will not end up being their last given word, not by far, as they will find out when the fat eyeless priest of Perelandro considers them in a way unsettlingly like he’s figuring out what he can take from them, but their first is theirs and theirs alone.

And so: they don’t separate. That goes without saying, really.

-----

“So that’s why,” he says, well, wheedles, as his brother nods rapidly beside him like a Videnza merchant’s limp-necked carriage doll, “we can’t go to two different temples.”

Sabetha Belacoros looks, well, unimpressed. Honestly, she should be so honoured; Chains has been more selective with whom to entrust the job of wrangling Sanzas than with his more delicate business. “We don’t need two initiates of Gandolo, or of Sendovani,” she reproves severely. “How could you even serve the Warden by doubling up like that? It’s inefficient.”

“Think of it as covering all our bases.”

“Extra thorough pilfering of secrets.”

“A two for one bargain,” they chorus.

She continues to look unimpressed. “You said you’d follow Chains’ orders.”

That is true. But their first given words are to each other, and that takes priority.

He opens his mouth to explain it in a way that a non-Sanza would understand, then pauses. Sabetha is still looking at them, but now with a focus unlike anything she’d directed at them before. “You’re not splitting up,” she says. “You’re two sides of the same copper, yes? Those sides always face opposite directions. Think of it like that. You won’t be close enough to do up each other’s breechcloths, but you’ll still be one and the same, sadly for all of us.”

“That’s pretty incestuous.”

“And we are definitely worth at least a solon.”

“Not to be mistaken with a solari, fine as they are.”

She wrinkles her nose, tragically unswayed. “Okay, fine, the analogy fails at the end. But the concept is sound. And I don’t know why you’re fighting this harder than over who gets to luxuriate under Gandolo’s orders. For all we know, their initiates get to piss on tyrins and eat full crowns. And now one of you ingrates has the pleasurable honour of finding out,” she adds, pointedly.

Well, now, that’s an interesting point. “See, that’s why we came to you to bounce off our ideas, and not to Chains.”

“Long may he live.”

“Even though he’s outsourcing decision-making to his pezons instead of just deciding who to go.”

“He did, and we said no, and he called us ‘ungrateful sons of goats asking to be given to the Lady Most Kind’, and told us to decide.”

“Ah, right, he did. See, this is why we should stick together in the first place.”

Sabetha rolls her eyes. “Your charming routine won’t work on me. Just stop wasting my time and, I don’t know, flip a coin to decide. Heads for Calo, tails for Galdo.”

“I’m more of a tail than Calo, if you take what I mean.”

“If calling yourself a cockhead is what you mean, then that saves all of us breath—”

“Or the other way around, whatever. Just flip it, and whichever side lands up takes Sendovani.”

“Thirteen Gods, lady, you’ve got a hell of a thing for control. That’s so not my type.”

“Hah, that’s not what you said last week at the Golden Lily—”

“Just call your sides and flip the sodding coin!”

His brother shrugs, and flicks him a solon. “I’ll call when you flip.” He smirks. “I know all your tricks.”

“That’s pretty incestuous too, brother, and my price for tricks is in white iron,” he says as he flips, and up the silver goes, spinning and catching the Eldren-light all about them, and it was as though time had stopped flowing for that perfect moment of contentment.

-----

They spill into the Elderglass warren together, laughing, and only smoking slightly from their shirtsleeves. “’Twas a close one, my brother!” cries he.

Jean Tannen, curled up in an armchair by the armillary sphere and deep in confidence with his current read, ignores them utterly. So his brother obliges. “’Twas indeed, brother mine! Why, just one second later and—”

“I’d be a crisply flambéed Jereshti-style entrée, and you’d be enacting glorious revenge with an alchemical fire-quencher!”

“A more ridiculous claim I have yet to hear,” his brother declares, “the flambéed main plate is a noted Karthani staple, said to rival the fourth Beautiful Art of Camorr—”

“And yet you fail to master the Warden’s first Beautiful Art, also known as art of lying, as demonstrated by your most viciously poor fib on this side of the Sea of Brass—”

“Yea, since my balls are as brassy as the Sea, mother of the first Beautiful Art!”

“With your obsession with food preparation, I’m surprised you chose perfumer as your infiltrating profession instead of chef.”

“Sous-chef.”

“And here I am, left alone to languish in the cesspits of hell as a canal-raker. Whatever those nobility eat, their guts transmute their crap into something truly spectacular.”

“Alchemical guts, I like the ring of that. Jessaline might not, though, and disappear you. But fear not,” says his brother with an air of great comfort, “the canal is a perfume unto itself. Where you go, I will follow.”

“Even to the loo? Who taught you your manners? Give a man some privacy—”

“Aye, the stink of shit is great indeed, but I can bear the trial of such an unreasonable hardship—”

“I wasn’t talking about the stink, man, I’m talking about the acquaintance with the bodily experience of—“

“You’ll have each other’s backs, yes, yes,” Jean murmurs, leafing through his latest love – sorry, tome – with the kind of concentration better dedicated to a lady to be wooed. Or perhaps a hard shit. “Simmer down, now, this alchemical precipitation is looping on itself on the sixth step for some gods-damned reason.”

“Come now, Jean, with the great spaces in your magnificent brain waiting to be filled, memorizing such paltry sums ought to be no trouble.”

“No,” Jean replies, “but one slight substitute in any of the last four most volatile ingredients would result in a potion that will speed a body into permanent sleep instead of the temporary kind. And since the body is likely to be mine, I would prefer to maximize my chances of waking up after attempting this venture.”

“A most admirable objective,” his brother applauds with gracious enthusiasm.

“And,” Jean Tannen adds with an absent-minded gleam of irrepressible speculation on his optics, not unlike the start of a great scheme to lighten a soul’s heavy burden that is their purse, “a correctly brewed potion is three-quarters less likely to give a body the shits.”

“Fear not, you shall not be alone even then,” he soothes, “As you have so recently heard, my brother won’t leave your side should you have the shits. He is practicing to become a perfumer.”

“Are the brothers Sanza disturbing you?” Locke shouts from above, almost lost in the teeth-gritting grind of a weight being unceremoniously dragged in limping jerks across the stone floor.

“We are merely discussing bodily death and refuse—”

“Death and bodily refuse!”

“—so business as usual, all things considered.”

Locke makes a noise of thoughtful disgust, likely more for the mundaneness than for the mention of shit, and falls ominously silent.

They exchange a startled glance with Jean, and leap upstairs together. Where there is ominous silence from Locke Lamora, there is much trouble to be had, and Sanzas do not run from such delights.

-----

While Jean helps Gray King Locke into their chosen mode of transport, he pulls their youngest initiate back inside the shadows of the temple of Perelandro.

“Let go, I can take a godsdamned hint,” Bug says, then stills when he sees the expression on their faces.

“Bug,” says his brother quietly, “you have a job.”

“Yes,” Bug says warily, gesturing back towards where Locke is cursing fit to make Chains proud, “you should let me do it.”

“No, a job from us to you. Make sure your garrista comes back intact and still breathing, yes?’

“Be a shame to waste perfectly good money on unused tickets to see Talisham.”

“Tal Verrar.”

“Next you’ll tell me I could go see Jerem if I beg Locke prettily enough,” Bug snorts, then says, just as quietly, “I’ll steal him back if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Liar,” he says fondly, “you steal because it’s part of your moral education.”

“Liar,” his brother replies, “he steals because it’s heaps of fucking fun.”

“Loads more fun when Locke plans it, though.”

“Loads more fun when you jam it up.”

“Better make sure that Lamora brain can still whip up some plans in the future for us to cock up then, eh?”

With sobering alacrity, Bug nods and dashes off. Damn, are things fucked if even Bug wasn’t flipping them off. He can’t resist muttering, “Crooked Warden, don’t abandon your lowly servants now.”

“Don’t be a godless heathen now, brother, we’ve got crowns to transport.”

“Your words tickle my religious pride. Call me that the next time I false-face as a Vadran and I will promise you a fight anyway.”

“What, and attempt to hit me with a pigsticker? Ye gods, you’ll be lucky if I don’t send you running, your left-handed bladework has been out of practice for years.”

“Brother,” he says, pausing at the mouth of the outer temple, “it’s the first time we’ve had to run like this, eh?”

“We’re standing our ground for something more important,” his brother replies, shrugging aside boxes in the inner sanctum and stashing cloths away to simulate the emptiness of a temple with its priests on the high road.

“Still wish we didn’t have to book it like we’ve a fire on our asses, though.”

“Fear not, we’ll nick a fire-quencher on our way to the docks. And the sharks always appreciate a fine bottom like yours, flambéed or not.”

“How narcissistic, to admire your own bottom so!”

“Call me what you want, man, you’ll be following me soon enough.”

He laughs over his armful of bedding. “I told you, didn’t I? There’s nowhere you can go that I won’t follow.”

His brother turns, smile grim, but still a smile nonetheless. “Of all the doubts one could have in the Eldren courts, your given word was never one, brother.”

His brother vanishes through Chains’s old pallet; he looks behind him one last time to check for unwelcome eyes, then turns to follow him into the depths.



-fin-