Chapter Text
It started with a frantic question. He was out of breath, panting, waving you down and breathing out hot words like a mother who had lost their child, but it wasn’t that touching. He had wanted to know which way the Minute Men went. You wouldn’t be willing to help in any other circumstance, especially for someone like him, but these were thieves he was talking about—gangster men who stole Time just because they could, just because they wanted the power status.
You had him waiting too long, he got desperate, rolling up his sleeve and taking long and heavy strides to where you sat by the wall; reaching you within two steps. ‘I’ll give you Time’, he had offered, and though you drove a hard bargain, you walked away with an extra hour on your clock and the murmuring report the next day of how the Minute Men were stripped down to the minimum by a Timekeeper.
It was the last you thought you’d see of him. Or, at least, the last you thought you would be in a conversation with him. Timekeepers weren’t rare in this Time Zone—always just minutes behind to regulate everybody’s clocks, to slow them down enough to be kept in mandate—but you had never actually talked to one before, let alone helped one. That was just the start of you making deals with him. A few weeks later he had stumbled into your apartment building and needed a place to hide, banging his fist on your door. You wouldn’t let him in without an exchange first, and he had squeezed his arm through the gap of the doorway to give you thirty minutes, promising the rest when he would be on his way again.
The silence was deafening after he had stopped pacing up and down your lounge room, finally keeping put on one bent leg as he finished a call on his phone, shoving it back, calmly enough, into the inner pocket of his leather coat. You wondered how he breathed in it.
“Why would a Timekeeper need to hide?” you had asked, not caring if it were a rude question. People like him didn’t hide. They preyed.
There was a riot in town, by the Timeline that sat closed in silence, in the dust, by the orders of other higher ups due to a decreased number of labour worked in the factory. It was perverted, restricting people from Time just because the numbers were rising in other districts, better districts, and the lesser was forced to work to the bone in places like this. He got caught in the thick of it, in the middle of trying to send people away, pressed and pushed and shoved against the crowd until they had enough, and he had ran once the crowd grew angry. Knocking on your door was just a coincidence, he hadn’t even known you were the same person who helped him about the Minute Men a few weeks before, until you let him know when his forearm was pressed against yours, streaming into your clock the remaining thirty minutes.
He watched you carefully, almost examining, before he tucked the sleeve of his coat back down and assured you, more so for his own reputation, you’re assuming, that there would be no more offers like this when he would walk out of your door. And walk out of your door he did, just a moment later, and you let it sink in that the total two hours he had given you were far more than any other stranger had ever offered in the ghetto. A Timekeeper had given you life, almost like it was nothing more than numbers on his arm instead of an expiry countdown.
You remember when your clock started, it was in the middle of a cheer—you were watching the kids play soccer, kicking the ball toward the goal, and you had shouted out excitedly when they scored, only to be interrupted by a pounding in your chest. A tight squeeze on your heart and the thumping on your arm to tell you it had started. You were minutes away from death, every time you watched the numbers scale down. It was a nauseating reminder of how your life has a limit, an ending point, one you could count second by second because it was there, always on your skin for you and others to see.
It was near to eleven o’clock in the evening when the rain started to pour, and you had only just started your trek back home after overtime at the factory—something your employer said was to make up for the Timeline closing down that day, back when you had been given Time when no one else could spare a second. Like it was anything other than a demand. It wasn’t a generous amount that they gave you when you left, but it was enough to keep you through another day until the next paycheck. It would only last you for as long as you could keep it, which proved doubtful when you noticed two figures at the end of the alley, and the approaching footsteps from behind you. It was a quick jolt when a hand slammed down hard on your shoulder, turning you harshly around to look at an even harsher face.
Minute Men.
“We know it was you,” he said, smirking sickly like a dripping gauze. His hand grips your arm, pushing down your sleeve to show the blinking numbers. “Nice of you to hold onto this for me. I think I’ll be taking this now. What did he give you? An hour?”
You struggle to pull yourself away, but the other members of his mob, the two you had seen down the alley, hold you in place as he rolls his sleeve up, something torturously slow given the threat. His hand clamps down on your forearm with a death grip strength, turning it over as he watches the numbers on his arm start to climb, while yours fall appallingly fast. It jitters past an hour, then keeps going.
“Stop!” you shout, trying again to pull yourself free but it’s no use. “You got your hour, just stop!”
The Time keeps ticking away quickly, your Time, moving fast like a lighter fluid spark, from your arm to his. “Two hours,” he tsks. “I know he gave you more.”
The numbers ricochet past another hour, then to make his point, he keeps your arm tilted enough to take two more, shoving your arm back against your chest when he’s satisfied with the amount. The force of it could have stumbled you, made you fall onto the ground, if it weren’t for the men holding you until they shrug you off of their arms like a scorching burn. Four hours. He had taken four hours off of your clock, off of your life.
He points down to your arm, held up by the other one as you stare at what you have left. “That’s for every second we spent running on empty because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”
Then he’s turning as fast as he had taken the Time from you, the others following him around the corner, into the dark. You’re left standing there, in the pouring rain, with not even a day left to count. It’s not enough. Before you even get halfway through your shift tomorrow at the factory, you’re going to be laid out on the ground, the once green numbers turned black against your cold skin. Just the visual alone stirs you awake, like you had been shocked by a lightning bolt in the storm, sprinting off down the alley before you can even register where your feet are taking you.
It doesn’t matter, you realize, you just need to find a person, a place, something, that can give you some extra minutes, some bloody extra Time. There would be no one awake or willing this late of night, and you weren’t about to grab the arm of a stranger passed out on the cement to keep you going. Your only hope was that you would bump into someone with enough minutes to spare, just to edge you closer to your paycheck, to your lifeline. Or if there were a store open, like the Timeshare, that could loan you a couple of hours. Just, anything.
Then there was a spark of hope, a glow in the dark, a real ray of pitch black, you come around the corner to an obsidian car, something shiny and flash—a Timekeeper’s car. It was sat there, left out in the rain as if to say, here I am, take my Time! It was too ridiculous to even entertain the idea of stealing even a little bit, but you stepped around it as if the door would swing wide open and let you in with a warm, charitable hug. A real milk and cookies kind of deal. It was daft and it was foolish, and it was a waste of your time, there not being enough even to wait by the car in the hopes that when the Timekeeper came back, they would give you what you need. Yeah, right. Like they would give away something so vital for free. No one does that. No one except him ever does that.
You’re pushing yourself into the first unlocked door of the warehouse that you find, the chains left ridden on the ground, being yanked out from some kid or thug, most likely. You just wanted to get out of the rain, to waddle through the building barely standing on its rocky bricks, puddles at your feet as you look for another face. You were almost delirious at this point. Like someone would be standing by the wall with an arm full of numbers to give away like free candy. Not even candy was free here. Nothing was free, and nothing was going to save you. Not now. Not this time. You were out of luck.
But your luck teased you, having the nerve to bring your hopes down just to lift them again, as on the other side of the room you see another person, dark amongst the shadows, their back facing you.
You practically scream. “Excuse me!” they turn around to watch you, but the shadows still cover them from head to toe. “Please, I need Time.” and your luck teases you again when the hopes so happily heightened come shattering down when he takes a step forward as soon as you’re close enough to no longer shout. It’s him. “You.”
Him. “This is odd,” he says, so low and so casual with a tongue pressed to the top of his teeth. “Twice is an accident, but three times is odd.” He remembers you, this time, it seems.
“What are you…?” would it even matter why he was here? He doesn’t look amused, or confused for that matter, he just stares at you with those blue eyes like ice, his jaw set in a straight line. He doesn’t even seem worried about you interrupting him in, well, whatever it is that he’s doing. You forget, he doesn’t need to worry about Time like you do. “I need—”
“Time.” he finishes, nodding to explain to you without words that he heard you the first time you said it. He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t have any to give, and you’ve taken more from me than I usually allow.”
“You give away Time that often?” he has to be lying. There’s no way a Timekeeper would go around adding onto people’s clocks. He’s just saying that to get you away from him. “What about your car? I saw it parked outside. You could lend me some, just enough for me to get my next fill.”
“And you’d pay me back?” he asks, though it wasn’t because he believed you, it was a pointed question, hard like the tip of an arrow to break skin enough to bleed. His eyebrows were raised as if he were saying, nice try. “I don’t think so.”
“Please, just an hour.” you needed more, but that was all you could ask for, and you’re sure it’s more than he’d give. Maybe you could barter, even bring it down to thirty minutes, like last time, and make him think he was the one making the deal, then you could bank a loan until your shift was over.
“You have nothing to offer me.” they’re tight words, cutting you down before you’ve even had a chance to get anywhere.
He must think you a leech, asking for Time like he could scoop it out of his back pocket and hand it to you just as easy. There was nothing you could offer him, he’s right. The last two times were because he needed something, and you had been stupid enough to give him what he wanted in exchange for hours. Now the other way around, there was nothing you could say to make him flatten his wrist to yours. Your luck was playing a nasty trick on you for sending you straight into the arms of a Timekeeper, and one with enough history, but not enough empathy, that it was like dangling a rotten carrot in front of your face.
It all comes flooding onto you, like a wave, crashing down so forcefully that you stumble a few steps backward and dig your fingers into the top of your head for balance. The truth sucks the breath from out of your lungs, waving it around in a teasing matter before you can think to take some air back in through your lips, the sound brittle and pathetic. “I’m going to die.”
His face doesn’t shift even in the slightest, still solid and emotionless, that you can’t bear to look at it anymore, spinning around and clutching one of the concrete beams to support yourself. This was it. You were going to die. Everybody is too selfish to help, to care, and you’re going to suffer from the greedy system by timing-out. The thought racks down on you, spitting out a sob that almost chokes you and sends you to your feet early. What was there even to do with what you have left? You don’t know which would be worse; waiting for death minute by minute, or draining yourself before the sun could even rise. Neither would be pleasant.
It’s too late, and too cold. What a perfect night to rain. It’ll be the last thing you see, the last sound you hear, and the last thing you’ll feel before the fatal pressure in your chest. You almost laugh, thinking to yourself, there’s never enough time when you need it. That’s what everyone says, and tonight the statement is proving itself true. You feel like you’ve just ran through the five stages of grief, almost too quickly and what a bitter joke that is. You don’t even notice that he’s stepped in front of you until his boot scrapes against the ground, the sound enough to draw you out of your thoughts to look at him.
He stands there, staring at you. It’s the same examining look he gave you back in your apartment. He takes his bloody time to remain silent, but you couldn’t care less now, it wasn’t like you had to hold onto your clock anymore. From this point of view, you notice the curls of his hair, shaped like that due to the rain. You’ve always seen the hair pushed back, slick and dark. Now it curls in little wisps along his forehead. He looks younger like this.
His jaw tenses, taking a deep breath that sounds annoyed when he sighs. “One hour.”
You push yourself off of the beam. “What?”
“I can give you one hour,” he’s already rolling his sleeve up, tucking it into itself to sit just above his elbow. “That’s all.” he raises his arm to you, nodding his brows up to usher you forward.
You don’t believe it. A minute before you were ready for death, accepting what would happen to you. Now he’s offering you life without anything in return. That can’t be it. Your arm hangs by your side, not willing to raise itself to him yet, not like this. He tilts his head to the side in irritation when you shake yours, stepping forward and reaching for your arm. You put it behind yourself, scared.
“Do you want the hour or not?” he complains, fingers hooked under what he’s rolled up of his sleeve to show you he’s one tug away from letting you die. “If it’s a loan you’re afraid of, don’t worry. I won’t take it back. I’ll give you my Time, if you give me information when I need it. Think of this as a contract.”
“Like a job?” working for a Timekeeper, it’ll have you thrown out of town, or worse.
He shakes his head, tongue back to the top of his teeth. “Time for cooperation. That’s what I’m offering.”
“What about you?” you know they don’t have much Time on them, it was to prevent it from being stolen. Walking down streets in the ghetto like here with more than a day, even more than a few hours, was a death wish. He can’t be running on more than three right now, though you hadn’t stopped to concern yourself with it before his offer.
“My car.” he states it with a matter-of-fact tone. The two words are more than enough explanation for you.
He raises his arm again, more carefully, like the sudden movement would have you springing on your feet like a deer frightened of noise. You don’t waste any time now, knowing that he’s giving you enough to keep you alive, pressing your forearm against his, his thumb resting securely in place on your skin, tilting to the side as the numbers start speeding—more for you, less for him. You watch them slow back down to their normal counting rhythm, his arm dropping from yours like you had pricked his skin.
“Thank you,” it’s a whisper, embarrassed to be louder as if someone was hiding in the shadows, ready to call you out for what you just did. It hasn’t even sunk in for you yet. Had you really just made a deal with a Timekeeper? It was unlike the others, this one had strings attached.
He nods his head, still looking like this was incredibly tedious, which in a way was right. His face never seems to show anything more than indifference, neutral and vague, the only hint to give away about what he’s feeling, or thinking, being the tone of his voice. Even that was hard to decipher. It sounds as uninterested as the rest of him appears to be. So much so, he doesn’t even say another word to you, not even a goodbye, as he starts walking toward the door you had come from. The chains must’ve been ripped by him.
You call out to him before he can get too far, not worrying about noise anymore, just needing an answer. “When should I expect you?”
He stops like he had pushed down on the breaks, turning around in individual steps, leaning on his left leg. He raises his arms up, something expressive to say that you should know already. “When I need you.” he pauses to keep his eyes on you, and you can feel the cold blue of them from all the way from where you’re standing, before he turns back around and leaves the warehouse.
Your hand grasped around your arm reminds you of what he had just given you, what chance you just got of living, so you’re out of the warehouse about as quick as he had gone, heading to your apartment and pacing back and forth in the lounge room, unable to sleep. The Time would be enough to get you to the Timeshare, and what you get after your shift would pay it back, putting you back onto schedule. He saved your life. He gave you Time. Again.
You don’t even know his name.