The sand was coarse here, more like gravel than anything else. Not enough time to let the water pound it into smaller chunks, Luthas supposed. It was strange, what he thought about when his brother was aiming a crossbow at his head.

“You don’t have to do this,” Luthas looked straight at the arrow tip that was surprisingly steady, compared to how Luthas knew his brother must have been feeling.

“No! You’re wrong. I’m sorry, but you’re so wrong. I didn’t know-... I didn’t know what you really were, didn’t know the full extent of it.” He held the crossbow, completely still. He had practiced this, Luthas realized, the sinking feeling growing ever stronger in his stomach.

“That’s crazy. You know me. I’m your brother.” A half hearted smile to go with the words, like when they were younger. Luthas hoped it would be enough.

“Oh, I know. Which makes it even more important that I do this. I’m sorry, I thought you were different. But you’re just like the rest of them.” His eyes were set. He didn’t blink. He reminded Luthas of himself, just then. When he came up with a plan, there was no stopping him.

“I’m- Look, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but you need to put down the bow,” His words had no power here. He could feel the blood rushing through his veins, the flutter of wind through his feathers. The edges of Luthas’s vision wavered, and he didn’t know whether it was from the heat or if he was dreaming.

“I can’t do that, Luthas. I have to kill you.” His brother let the arrow fly, and it whooshed through the air. Luthas almost let his eyes close.

“Hey, wait!” A voice rang out, and Luthas was being pushed, no, tackled to the side, where he collapsed on a mound of rocks. The arrow whizzed past him and landed in a bush behind him, burying its tip in the ground.

Luthas pushed himself up on unsteady arms, looking first at the arrow and then whipping his head around to stare at the stranger.

“Who.. are you?” He grunted warily.

“Your savior, apparently,” the boy replied, his yellow eyes not entirely devoid of light. “What the fuck was that?” he repeated, whirling around to stare at Luthas’s brother. “You just go around killing avians for fun, huh? You really think you’ll survive like that? I have half a mind to put this sword through your heart.”

“Don’t,” came Luthas’s immediate reply. He held up a hand in what he hoped was placating. “He’s- I can take care of him.”

“You can’t.” The boy stared at him evenly. “He was going to kill you.”

“Just let it go, okay?” Still hunched over from being thrown, Luthas wasn’t the most convincing.

“That’s fine, but I’m just trying to look after our own.” The boy swept a winged arm across his body, grabbing the hilt of a sword on his back.

“Luthas.” In the time they were talking, his brother had picked up the arrow. Now he held it limply by his side, the crossbow still in his other hand. “You can’t change my mind. Don’t try to save me.”

---

“W-wanted to see me?” The door creaked open, and Alfie stepped in the dusty office, shutting the door neatly behind him and shuffling to press his back against the nearest wall.

“Yeah, uh,” Luthas looked up from the pieces of parchment he was looking over, gathering them into a messy pile and shoving them aside. “Do you still believe what you told me? That we can still be okay?”

Alfie took a moment to respond. “That was… y-years ago.” It was before the Reaper, and that counted for more than any amount of time.

“Just answer the question.”

“...Can if you want, want me to,”

“I’m gonna take that as a no.”

“Can if it would, if it would h-help.”

“So you’d be lying, then?”

Alfie nods, a barely perceivable movement that Luthas would have missed if he didn’t have his eyes on Alfie like a hawk.

“No. Fuck that. I don’t want a liar on my team”

Alfie nods again. He was so easy to ignore. Luthas could pretend he was just a dresser in the corner of the room, and he wouldn’t be proven wrong until the quiet click of the door behind him alerted Alfie’s exit. He was so aware of every movement, every breath, every twitch of his muscles, an awareness that Luthas knew only came with humans who thought they were doing good, irreversibly fucking them up in the process.

“Man, aren’t you angry?”

Alfie lifted a shoulder. “Why?”

“Why? What do you mean, why?” He swallowed anything else he had to say to give Alfie time to answer.

There was so much to explain, how his Reaper had stripped him of his dignity and hope and left him empty. But he didn’t have the words nor the willingness to. “J-… just the way it is.”

“I’m trying to change that, can’t you see?” With both hands flat on the wooden table in front of them, there was a twinge of desperation to Luthas’s tone. “Everyone else believes in me. Why don’t you?”

“…’s a good idea. Not going a-against it.”

It would have to be good enough for Luthas.

hello little people in my computer i keep on saying i will post more and stuff but then i Don't but uhhh ill reblog stuff and scream in the tags if that counts :D

“Hey, you!”

Clementine turned at the voice, cigarette halfway raised to her mouth. At the hour of-- she checked her phone-- 3:00 am, anyone who wanted something to do with her was not going to be friendly.

She stayed silent as the stranger approached, a boy, it seemed, about 16 or 17. Approaching within a few feet of her, he stopped, open mouthed, a mixture of awe and fury in his eyes, evident even in what little light there was.

“Remember me?” He growled, hair falling into his eyes. Clementine stared at him for a few seconds, cigarette smoke blurring her vision. She took another drag, trying to keep still against the car she was leaning on.

“Honestly? No. You can just fuck off now,” she snapped. Her fingers weren’t shaking, she made sure of that. She stepped back from the car, arms held loosely in front of her. Indifferent. Curt. Like she was at work.

“You don’t?” A manic smile was starting to spread across his face. “You hurt my brother. You’re one of those fuck wads that torture people for a living. And now,” he chuckled, “I get to do what I’ve been dreaming of for half a year.”

The punch came at Clementine’s face before she had time to duck, the cigarette flying out of her hand and fizzling out a few feet away.

“Uh, I-” She half-heartedly tried to protest, but her determination died with the cigarette. After all, she supposed, she did deserve it. Sometimes she needed reminding that it was her who was pressing the button or flicking the switch.

She was hurting people. It was only fair that they got revenge.

Another impact, and she stumbled backwards, smacking against the back wall. She didn’t lift a finger as the blows rained down on her, her own blood painting his knuckles red. Pain exploded in her head with every blow. A punch to her stomach, and she doubled over, falling to her knees.

But he still wasn’t done. Grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking upwards, yellow light spilling over her face. The blood trickling out of her nose and from the corners of her mouth looked as black as the bruise forming across her cheek. Her dazed eyes were downcast, her mouth slack. He would have thought she was unconscious already, if not for the faint trembling of her eyes, scanning across the ground for things that she didn’t have.

“Remember me now?” There was a calm in his eyes now, a steadiness in his grin.

Clementine didn’t know who he was, didn’t remember his brother. It might have been anyone. His words were barely registered, and she only felt the slump of her own body against the cold pavement as he released her, finally satisfied.

Her ribs ached. Her head hurt. Her apartment wasn’t that far away, but to get to it she needed to stand and walk to the other side of the building. The concrete wasn’t that uncomfortable, anyway. She rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes.