of heroes and thieves
He's learning that people are not divided like the war that they are fighting. It's a dizzying sort of discovery, creeping into his thoughts, his opinions, and metamorphosing his realities. Slowly, all his pedestals begin to crumble. (He just hopes that nothing breaks when it hits the floor.)
As the arrow arches in the sky, he watches stoically and holds his breath. He knows, with a sudden sensation akin to dread, that it will hit its mark.
When it does, he looks away. And wonders if maybe he's been living too far away from the side that he wanted to win.
-x-
When he walks into the forest, steely in his resolve to be alone, she is patient. She allows him five minutes of solitude before eventually going after him, knowing that he didn't bother to cover his tracks. It would not have been very difficult to find him anyway.
He's still staring into the distance when she finally climbs up onto the infamous tree bough. Following his gaze, she finds herself staring through the orange and red foliage at the drained remains of the reservoir.
She furrows her brow at him. "Longshot?"
He doesn't look at her. He won't. There's a horribly jumbled sensation in her chest, the kind of feeling she gets when she walks into a battle without knowing whom she's fighting.
-x-
"No heroes amongst thieves," Jet said once, laughing.
Lying in the darkness, with faces suddenly attached to every arrow he's ever shot, Longshot doesn't think it's all that funny anymore.