writing_shadows

Way back when, they were Con Artists. Locke worked alone, Keye worked with her brother

Something went wrong with a job that Keye and her brother were doing and he got seriously hurt.

After that, both Keye and Lock decided to pick the same mark for their next job and realised what the other was doing, so decided to work together to finish the job and split the profits

After that one job, they carried on working together. A year or two, both of them carefully planning the time when they were going to betray the other and take all the money and split.

... But y'know, working together all that time? Pretending to be couples on a few jobs and learning about each other inside and out... the idiots fell in love

Except they couldn't tell each other. I mean, what if she didn't feel the same way? She'd have manipulated and used that against him and utterly betrayed him. She thought the same.

So they carried on working together so they could stay with the person they loved, occasionally betraying each other to throw the other off of their scent.

but they would allways come back together. They didn't really have anyone else except each other.

On their last job, something went really wrong. It was the biggest job of their lives. The last job of their lives. That one-more-job that would have meant they could both get out of the game and... y'know. Maybe they could finally tell each other.

As a joke, they decided to have a pair of sisscors commisioned. It was a long standing joke with the pair - Locke would bring in the punter and wind them into his carefully plotted webs of intruige and lies. And when everything was in place to take their money, Keye would 'Cut them loose'.

And this was their final job. The last pair of sisscors. One more person cut loose. It was a pair of gold sisscors with gems and diamonds cut into it. But both of them had a subconsious reason for wanting the sisscors. After this job, they were going to tell each other. The sisscors were... sort of like a marraige proposal, without rings.

And still, neither of them knew the other loved them.

So when the last job happened, Keye threw everything she had into it. And Lock got jealous. She slept with the guy (which she had done many, many times before) but... this time, she really seemed to be enjoying it. More then any time she had been with anyone else. Locke was too jealous - he had never been able to be with her. That would have been admitting he loved her.

He couldn't stand it anymore. He went in, while her and the guy were together and tore her off of him, and proceeded to beat him to death with her screaming and trying to stop him.
... Of course she had been pretending to really enjoy it. It was the last job and she would never have to do it again, and she would finally be able to say something to him. It was all just another lie, she wasnt enjoying it. Really, it was only the thought of locke that was making it possible for her to put her entire heart into faking it

Locke killed the guy with the Sisscors... And ultimately, at that point, that horrible moment... Thats when The Other came, and stole them away.

The Other loved to keep prisoners. He wanted a new prison, with new prison guards. He had been watching how Locke had spun his webs and drew in many men and women, and how eventually Keye cut them loose.

So he fed Locke foul poisons, deadly potions. Changed his body and his mind and made him into a monster-spider, twice the size of a man. Put him into a cave network that all of the others slaves had to pass through to try and escape from him... so that when they ran, Locke caught them again

Keye on the other hand, was given the sisscors that they had bought together and given a task. Cut the prisoners loose, so that the gentry could take them away again.
Only Locke couldn't remember who Keye was anymore, with the mind of a beast and no memory of what she meant to him. So a deadly kind of dance was woven between the two, where Key was forced to steal Lock's prisoners day in, day out, and Lock would chase and try to capture Key to devour her.

Eventually, the sisscors broke. The gentry couldn't allow this to stop his currently favourite game, and so turned her hands into blades to cut through the webbing.
Of course... Key could have escaped at any time. But she wouldnt. Even though each day Lock tried to catch and kill her, she couldn't leave him. Even though they were forced to betray each other day in and day out, she wouldn't go without him.

So she would hide and sneak about the web, because it was the only way to get the prisoners without him noticing her. And she cut a path. She cut it so that each new prisoner that tried to escape got closer and closer to the exit, cut up Lock's webs so that they had to take that path

drawing lock further and further towards the exit. Further every day to freedom...