Disclaimer : I own only ideas.
A/N : Let me know what you think, please! Longer note towards the bottom...
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The world is not designed for the hopeful.
The world is not designed for happy endings and problems are not neatly wrapped up in the alloted amount of time.
On TV the heroes win.
On TV the hero could be dying his heroic death, after saving a church full of nuns, orphans, and kittens, and in those last minutes he would receive an epiphany, a change of heart that made him keep fighting, or a miracle to pull him back just before he crosses that brink.
In real life, the heroes are anything but heroic. They're jaded people doing what they're doing because it's all they know how to do. Because they don't know how easy it is to sit by and do nothing while the world goes to hell around them.
Or maybe the heroes are a couple of messed up kids who have seen too much of the bad to let it continue. Who have to rectify the sins of others and attempt to recompense for their own in the process.
In real life, the heroes don't wear white hats.
They aren't set against immoral acts.
They fuck and they fight and they steal and they lie, because they know that life is short, and you can't spend your time sweating the small stuff when you save the world every night. What's a few fibs worth when you spent the night taking down an unspeakable evil, after all?
In the eyes of God, there are ten strict commands.
Seven deadly sins.
And most people are guilty of more than several.
But it's okay, because some heroes don't believe there's anything to worry about.
Sin is sin in the eyes of a god or a man.
And God doesn't seem to be doing his part to help, so it falls upon the shoulders of mere mortals. People who will break under the weight, fall to the ground and be crushed by it, but they will bear that weight until it kills them.
Because God sits back and watches.
But then, some heroes end up bitter, old. Their spark fizzles out, that special fire that burns inside them, the one thing that drives them to do what they do, losing what they lose, knowing what they know.
Others end up dead.
And when you take the time to think about that, it's so wrong, just so fucked and twisted, that you don't think you can stomach it.
A life takes nine months to create.
Probably more when you factor in all the variables, but in general, it takes nine months to create human life. That's more than half a year. When you look at the big picture, that amount of time is miniscule. But when you break it down and really look at it, nine months is forever.
Nine months of gestation and a human life is brought forth, screaming and crying into a cold, bright, unforgiving world.
It is raised and nurtured.
It seems wrong that it's so easy to end a life that takes so long to create.
That in mere seconds, a life that long in the making, can be over, just abruptly gone.
One minute your brother is alive and kicking, literally fighting at your side, and the next instant, his blood is on your hands and his eyes are blank.
And you're left there, more alone than you have ever been.
All it takes is one wrong move, one misstep, and your entire world is done.
Not just different.
Ended.
And all that's left for you to do is pick up the body, carry it back to the car, and make "arrangements". That's what they call it... making arrangements. As if burying your family is the same as making sure your reservations are at eight, not nine, and you remember to pay the credit card bill in time.
All that's left for you is to figure out where you stand, so you know where to go from here.
You could pick up where you left off, continue to fight the good fight like you know he would have wanted.
Or you could pick up his gun and put a bullet in your brain and join him, because living without him hurts more than a fatal blow.
And you're feeling selfish.
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A/N : Okay, just a little note to explain... this could be taken either way, it was actually written with both ways in mind, but I'm thinking of making a more specific fic, too...because I have ideas!
Infer... ;)