PAIRING – None

WARNING – Language, Blood

POV – Mostly Alex

"This is why angels are lame," Herobrine says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and grinning at Steve. "They're just a bunch of boring prudes who can't lighten up and have some real fun."

Alex chooses, wisely, to stay quiet and let them hash out their own problems. She's kinda getting the impression that this isn't the first time they've gone through these motions. She also doesn't exactly find the prospect of griefing 'fun,' as Herobrine apparently does, but like hell she'll say that out loud.

"That's not even remotely true! You're just a...a lying good-for-nothing pig!"

Herobrine laughs then, and shakes his head, turning his gaze on her. "You see? He won't use foul language because he's too much of a pussy to do so."

Steve gasps and glares at Herobrine. Alex thinks if Steve had actual wings, like angels are often depicted to have, his feathers would be super ruffled. "I happen to value the pledge I made to my Gods, and furthermore—"

"Blah blah blah, shut the fuck up. Gods you're so annoying."

Steve fumes quietly and Alex shakes her head. While she doesn't necessarily agree with what Herobrine says, she does think that Steve's a major pushover. But Steve surprises her by speaking up.

"Yeah? Well why would she want to be with you when everyone else in your life has left you? She'll leave too and then you'll come crawling back to me like you always do."

Alex's eyes widen and she dares to glance at Herobrine's face. His expression is haunting, and she feels a chill of fear run down her spine. She's going to be seeing him in her nightmares.

She looks back at Steve's smug smile and wonders if he knows what's about to happen. She doesn't even know them that well, but just by the way Herobrine's arm is tensed around her shoulders, she knows that Steve hit a nerve.

Herobrine growls, a purely inhuman noise, and steps away from her, towards Steve.

"You fucking bitch! I'll kill you!"

He lunges, tackling Steve and sending them both to the floor. Before she can make sense of it all, they disappear in a flash of ash and light.

The silence after their departure is deafening. Alex hardly breathes or moves a muscle, afraid that the two powerful beings will show up in her house suddenly and destroy her things. But minutes pass and she remains alone, so she allows herself the chance to breathe and stumbles over to a chair, sitting heavily in it and feeling more exhausted than ever before.

For a while she just sits with her eyes closed, her head tilted up to stare unseeing at the ceiling, hoping that she never sees them again. Eventually she's forced to get up when her neck starts to kink up, so she cleans up the small mess that came from Herobrine tackling Steve, and then decides she'd had enough action for one day.

She falls into a certain sense of security. It's been several days and neither Steve nor Herobrine have appeared to her again. She doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Okay, well, it's a good thing for her, and even though she finds Herobrine to be the worst kind of person, and Steve's a complete tool who would do anything to please anyone, she finds herself missing them—anticipating their return, actually.

Because Steve's really nice, even if he tries too hard, but he makes her feel like she has a purpose in the world, and Herobrine shoots adrenaline through her veins every time he stares at her and grins. Steve promises safety and love, while Herobrine promises adventure and danger.

So of course when she least expects it, they're back.

She's just gotten back from a trip to the nearest village, which is about half a day's journey there and back, and she's dead beat tired and wants to lay down and sleep for twelve hours, but when she opens her door she nearly drops the bag in her arms in shock.

At least Steve has the decency to look guilty. To their credit the room isn't completely demolished, but most of her things are not where she left them, and that's really what ticks her off. They can have whatever weird unresolved thing they want between them, but could they leave her and her stuff out of it?

Assuming they fought when they disappeared several days ago, she can't tell who won, if one of them did. Their clothes are dirty and ruffled and torn. Shame is rolling off the angel in waves, while Herobrine is smiling smugly, so she'd guess that Herobrine must have won. Won what, who even knows.

Herobrine, despite having that victorious aura about him, appears the most beat up, which is odd. There's a bruise on his cheek and he's got a black eye, and his shirt is ripped at the side and stained red with blood. Steve's shirt is ripped a decent way down his front, but the only blood is at his collar. Perhaps his split lip had something to do with that.

"Do I get an explanation?" She doesn't really want one, but it's the first thing that popped into her mind. Steve refuses to meet her eye and Herobrine shrugs.

"I put him in his place," the demon says simply, sparing Steve a glance as Alex approaches them, recovered a bit from their sudden appearance in her house.

As she sets her bag on the table between them, she notices the dark ring of bruises around Steve's throat. And even though she knows that the injuries are most likely little more than mild inconveniences to these two, the sight of them still makes her concerned. Honestly, she'd of thought that an injury on them would heal a lot quicker than a human's would, unless they were fighting the entirety they were gone and only just managed to get over themselves to come back.

"Great, fine, whatever. You two clearly have something weird going on between you, but hey I don't judge. And speaking of putting things in their place, why don't you get up off your lazy asses and put all my stuff back in its place, hm?"

Steve stands up and immediately begins cleaning, while Herobrine leans back in his chair and relaxes with his hands behind his head. Alex glares at him, but Herobrine only smiles triumphantly at her. How typical of him to throw all the work to someone else.

"You are just the worst kind of person, you know that?" She says, unpacking her bag for later organization. Once poor Steve's done cleaning their mess, she'll tidy things up the way she likes it.

"Thank you," Herobrine says sincerely, putting a hand to his heart. "That means a lot to me."

Alex shakes her head. "Are you at least going to behave?"

"Me? You should be telling Steve that, he's the one who crossed the line. Isn't that right Steve?"

They both turn to Steve, who stares back, unsure and hesitant, before nodding slowly. Alex returns her narrowed gaze to Herobrine. "Don't blame him because you can't take a joke."

Herobrine pauses for a moment, eyes narrowed briefly before he smiles easily. "Oh I can take a joke. But Steve crossed a line. I just reminded him what happens when he does."

"Whatever you say," Alex says, rolling her eyes. She inspects her buy from the village, a few diamonds to repair her better armor, and a brand new diamond sword, enchanted with sharpness I and unbreaking I. Not the strongest enchants, but she can always upgrade them herself. Steve happens to walk by them at that moment, to put a potted fern on the windowsill by the furnaces, managing to be within arm reach which ends up bad for him. Herobrine grabs him before he can make it to safety, yanking him back and onto his lap.

"Why didn't you tell her?" Herobrine says maliciously, blocking Steve's fist when he tries to punch him and holding his arms at his side with an arm wrapped around his midsection. The other hand goes to his jaw and forces it up, showing Alec a clear view of the bruised skin around his throat. "Oh wait, he can't. Take a good look, because this is what happens when you cross the line. If you're lucky."

The display fails to impress or threaten her, but it does disgust her. And even though it seems a lot like Steve's the victim, he must have known what was going to happen when he talked back. Surely, surely, after years of being forced in each other's company, Steve would know what will and will not set Herobrine's temper off. And if that's so, then how can she feel bad about the abuse when Steve practically asked for it?

Either way, right now she just wants her stuff back where it belongs, she wants the duo to leave her alone for five damn seconds, and she wants to lay down.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to keep that in mind," she says, the side of her mouth quirking up when Steve catches Herobrine off guard and nails him right in the side of the face. The punch makes Herobrine drop his arm, allowing Steve to get up. He bends down to pick up the potted fern, and flips Herobrine off as he walks it over to the window. The demon rubs his jaw but smirks, relaxing back into his chair. Alex shakes her head as she leans her new sword against the wall by a couple of storage chests she's too lazy to go through.

She looks out the window, pursing her lips in indecision when she sees the position of the sun. Only about an hour left of daylight, and she still has to feed her animals.

She really doesn't want to, but like hell Herobrine will do it for her, and she doesn't want to use Steve's inability to say 'no' against him too much. So, she grabs a bag of seeds and some wheat, and a few carrots, before hauling it to the door. Almost as an afterthought, she turns around to address the angel and demon, both of whom are staring at her.

"I'm going to go feed my animals. And then I'm going to bed, because I've had a long day. That means that you two will be gone by the time I get back, got it?"

"Yeah whatever," Herobrine says, yawning, while Steve nods. She offers him an apologetic smile, which he returns, before leaving.

Usually caring for her animals is calming, but she feels antsy and anxious the whole time, and she can't put a finger on why. The sun's almost about to set by the time she's done, and with the remaining but quickly waning daylight she walks towards the back of her house to water the flowers planted there. That's when she hears quiet conversation and ducks down below a window to listen in.

"Hold still, I'm trying to help. Do you want me to make it worse?"

"No."

Alex cringes, because holy hell, Steve's voice sounds painful.

"Shut up you fucking idiot, or you'll make it worse. Do you like being in pain, geez."

"Maybe I do."

"Yeah I bet."

It blows her mind that Steve even can speak. Obviously Herobrine had strangled the living daylights out of him, to the point where he either couldn't speak or had trouble doing so, but it sounds like he'd swallowed shards of glass.

"If you didn't intentionally provoke me, this wouldn't happen."

"If you—" Steve's rebuttal is cut off when he starts coughing, and the sound is like a sword dragging on stone, setting her teeth on edge and making her shiver in discomfort.

"Yeah yeah, I know, alright? If only I could."

She's lost now, unsure of what they're talking about, and when the silence stretches on longer than her curiosity can take, she peeks over the windowsill.

Her eyes widen at the sight of Herobrine and Steve sitting face to face, Steve tilting his head up so Herobrine can inspect his neck. Luckily Herobrine's back is to her, and with Steve's face towards the ceiling, she has a much smaller chance of being caught.

They don't speak anymore, and for the first time since meeting them Alex wonders if they can communicate telepathically. And if that is the case then what's even the point of talking out loud? So then maybe they can't?

Alex realizes that what she's doing is wrong, that this moment for the two...whatever they are to each other—Friends? Enemies? Brothers?—is incredibly intimate and, most of all, private, so despite her intense curiosity, she tears her gaze away and walks to the shed behind her house where she grabs a bucket. They can have their moment, she'll let them have it. But for the love of the Gods, they better be gone when she's done.

"Do you think Alex likes us?" Steve asks one day, the two of them sitting at the cliff of a ravine. Alex is at the bottom, collecting cobblestone and any coal or iron she can find. She doesn't know they're watching her.

Herobrine sighs and crosses his arms. "I think she likes you well enough."

"I'm nice to her."

Herobrine whips his head around to glare at his companion. "I can be nice!"

"I know that, but I'm the only one. You need to be nice more often."

Herobrine groans in frustration and falls onto his back, staring up at the clouds passing slowly overhead. "But being nice all the time is so boring! I want to have fun."

Steve smiles, watching Alex slip in a stream of water, her cursing audible from here. "Being nice is fun, you just have to give her time to get used to you, that's all. You need to show her the version of you that I know. She'll like that."

Herobrine bangs his fist against the ground a few times in agitation. "But it's easy with you, we're technically the same person. And she's human."

"Yeah, but she's different, isn't she?" Steve asks, leaning back on his hands. "Notch said so."

Herobrine scoffs. "You believe everything he says, don't you?"

"Not everything, but who am I to question him? He created this world—he created us."

"Then he should have done a better job on you," Herobrine grumbles.

"We were one person at that time, or did you forget?" Steve laughs, leaning forward and supporting his head in his hands. Alex is still down there, mining away. He likes watching her do human things, like eating and mining and surviving—all the things he used to enjoy before he lost the need for them. Technically he doesn't even need to breathe, but the illusion of it comforts him. Herobrine had taken the transition from human to demon a lot better than Steve had adapted to being an angel, which he learned is really just a glorified term for messenger. Other than keeping their demon counterparts in check, angels aren't good for much else. At least, from Steve's experience they aren't.

"Of course not, don't be a fool. I just don't think about that time."

Steve shakes his head at Herobrine's tough front, and smiles to himself as he watches Alex carve random shapes into the ground and walls.

"I do."

He almost regrets saying it, because he can feel the demon's empty gaze on the back of his head, but he refuses to acknowledge him. Herobrine can think whatever he wants about their situation, whether it's torturous or heavenly, either way Steve likes it. Considering he doesn't remember much about being one soul, before he became Steve, his constant 'battle' with Herobrine is all he's ever known and despite the arguments and fights and pain, he doesn't like to think of it any other way.