Disclaimer: I do not own the Almighty Johnsons

a/n: Slight trigger warning. There is absolutely nothing explicit and it talks more about the peoples surrounding the event's reactions to it but I figured I should be safe and put up a warning anyway.

Dawn had heard Anders phone ring way too many times to count in her lifetime. Most people had customizable ringers for contacts in their phone. Mum was always some sort of summer jingle although in Dawns case it was the gloomiest ring she could find. Dad was always some sort of uplifting comical sound that made everyone in the room chuckle. The best friend Robert was a customized rocky song from the radio and the gals were always some form of Barbie girl or something else demeaning. Not Anders though. He kept his ringer the same generic song that came with the phone when he bought it. Yet she always knew who was calling. His brothers didn't used to call but as of late they had started to frequent back into her boss's life -usually to tell him what kind of prick he was that day.

He never answered for his older brother. She knew it was Mike by the way Anders would look at the phone before tossing it. The baby of the family, Axl, usually got a response unless Anders was in the middle of an extended brainstorm. He always answered for Ty though. She never really understood why. It usually always ended with the two shouting at each other but still it never failed. Anders would stop the middle of a meeting and answer the phone in front of everyone - he always seemed to know how to calm the clients down after- and proceed to taunt his little brother until the other was cursing at him from all different spectrums and hang up on him. Sometimes Dawn didn't know why Ty bothered.

It's why she knew whom to call though.

"Hey," Ty said coming behind her and placing a cold palm in the small of her back. She sucked in a breath of air and shivered beneath his touch. But that was for another time and not now when she had no idea what to do.

"Hi." She said from behind the hand she held to her mouth to cover the worried pucker. "I'm sorry. I didn't know who else to call. And-"

"It's fine." He said with that sweet smile that always made her want to smile too. For a moment he could only stare at her, his darks eyes a mixture of longing and pain, before his eyes travelled over her shoulder and further into the office. She followed him to stare at her boss who was hunched over a file, dark circles under his eyes and hair out of place from clawing at it in frustration.

"He's been at it for three days now. He just keeps reading the file over and over again." Ty sighed and pressed his lips together. "I don't think he's left the office."

"Ok," Ty could only say with a nod. He turned to give Dawn another reassuring squeeze on her arm and a small smile. "Thanks Dawn."

He moved towards Anders who didn't look up from his paperwork though it was clear he wasn't reading any of it. He was just staring at the words with a dead kind of stare and he looked like a walking zombie with his ragged appearance.

"Anders," Ty said in a low voice.

"Hmm." Was all his brother said looking up at him with red eyes that screamed for sleep. Once bright blue eyes were dark and cold and he didn't need his god powers to recognize the emptiness that swallowed his blue orbs. Ty had to repress another sigh from leaving him and instead nodded his head over to the door. Anders just stared at him confused, far too deprived of food and sleep to be coherent enough to understand the gesture.

"C'mon." He said taking the paper from Anders and putting it on his desk before grabbing his bicep and gentling pulling him from the chair. "C'mon, let's go."

"But I…" The only fight the older of the two could give was to point at the desk but with practiced ease Ty just nodded to pacify any sort of distress.

"It'll be there later. Dawn's going to take care of it. C'mon. Let's get you home."

Dawn watched them move at the slow pace from the office to the reception area and past her, Anders mumbling something and Ty guiding him out with a hand on his shoulder. She didn't say anything. She had never seen Anders like this before but Ty was acting like he knew what to do so she could only trust him and continue to worry from her spot as they left.

Ty stretched awake feeling his body cramp from the disfigured position he had taken up in one of Anders's armchairs. Anders was completely asleep before his head hit the pillow, his face losing their lines of agitation as Ty pulled off his shoes and covered him with the duvet, when they had finally gotten to the apartment. Taking a beer he must have fallen asleep somewhere during it because the rest of it was frozen in the bottle curled around his hand and pressed against his thigh and the chair. Groaning he heard his joints clicked into place before he ventured a look at his watch. 2:30 am. The darkness still swallowed the room and despite how many times he claimed he hated his god heritage he couldn't deny that the darkness in the room calmed him into a deep sleep. Which is why he was confused. What woke him? He waited a moment to see if maybe he had heard something but there wasn't a sound to be heard.

He cursed jumping from his chair and stalking into the bedroom though he knew what he would find. The bed was empty, sheets tossed aside in angry knots, and Anders's pillow was pressed into the corner of the bed. There was only one place he could be if Anders wasn't at home. So, Ty drove through the deserted streets of Auckland and back to the office where he had been only a few short hours ago. A lone light peered through the window and he strode in without bothering to knock.

"Go away, Ty," Anders said without looking up at him. "I've got work to do."

"I can see that." Ty replied not moving. He looked pointedly at the open vodka bottle, no glasses just the bottle, and lifted a brow. Anders followed his gaze and almost defiantly took the bottle from his desk and swallowed a gulp that made him wince from the burn. He knew that Anders hadn't gotten completely pissed in a long time so the fact that he was trying was almost as alarming as the disaster that was his brother's scribbles on the chalkboard walls. None of it made sense, of course and it was clear from the aggressive marks that Anders had realized that too.

"Look," Ty sighed. "If you won't leave for yourself will you at least do it for Dawn?"

"Why? Because I'm a selfish prick that needs to think about others? Well tough luck for her, I'm her boss and I can do what I want." Anders took another swig from the vodka bottle as he stepped past Ty to the chalkboard and rose up the white chalk to begin scribbling again. The sleep may have not done what Ty had intended but it definitely had increased Anders speed of reality. He could practically see the thoughts whizzing around in his brother's head. Ty took the bottle from Anders's limp hold on the neck before the blonde could stop him.

"You and I both know it's not going to work." He said to his brother's protests. Anders glared at him for a moment before turning back to the wall and scribbling some more. They were silent, Anders scribbling something and then wiping it away with the side of his hand . He was purposely ignoring Ty so Ty purposely stood in front of the desk with his hands in his pockets in such a familiar way of Mike that he could have hit himself.

"She shouldn't have called you."

He said it in such a way that was Anders's similar fashion of expressing his annoyance at something he saw so trivial that Ty could only roll his eyes out of habit.

"She was worried. It's what good people do."

"Yeah well I'm not a good person." Again the aloofness was so annoyingly there that Ty could only scoff at his brother's attitude. It was like he was still the teenager whose family left him and though he knew that hurt ran deep within both of them he at least had grown out of it. Anders was just sulking.

"Oh please! Here comes the pity party." Anders looked up sharply from his writing, his cheeks gaining a shade of pink as the heat of anger traveled to his face. The look was so intense coming from someone whose personal motto was 'whatever' that it took Ty a moment from the sudden shift in the mood in the room.

"You know what? Fuck off, Ty. I don't need your harping at me to make me feel any worse than I do. And give me back my vodka." Anders moved up to Ty staring him down. Ty match his glare though and he dropped it and went around to his desk in a bad sign of defeat. All of the brothers were hot tempered but Anders sure was the scariest when he wanted to be. No one but Ty could come even half as close to matching him and he was pretty sure if Anders wouldn't had been drained both mentally and physically he would have won that round. But he didn't and Ty took his victory and carried on.

"Oh would you get over yourself. The man killed himself. It had nothing to do with you and this is just you and you're fucking pride."

"It had everything to do with me! You think I give a fuck about my pride? I gave him my word, Ty." Anders snarled. Ty looked at his brother fully for the first time that night. Exhaustion was leaking from him like water from a shower but a darkness was clawing at him that only Ty would have been able to recognize and stand up. It was the type of darkness so rich with anger and frustration and worst of all regret. Anders was too caught up though and continued shouting. "These people are my responsibility. My clients depend on me to get them out of these types of messes. I told him I would take care of it and I didn't."

Ty was frozen in his place at Anders's whirlwind of emotions that was in a huge contrast to the zombie he had been earlier that night. But without a sound Anders took the file he had spent days reading over and threw it across the office sending papers flying everywhere. They didn't say anything to each other and Anders clenched his eyes shut for a moment breathing short shallow breathes that made his chest heave.

"You're the god of poetry, Anders. You can't promise these people anything. You manipulate and talk your way around things but you couldn't have predicted what would happen. A man is dead because of bad luck," Ty of all people could understand. The deep place where all the dark things in your mind swirled around like a taunting dance was the national park of his fucked up world. Even when Anders was a bastard there wasn't any way he could have controlled what went on in there. That was Hod's domain. "Not you."

Anders was breathing heavily his shoulders heaving up and down. "Shit!" He voice croaked from his screaming earlier and Ty could see his resolve dropping quickly. "I don't know! I don't… I… I am… Am I supposed to feel sad?"

It was punch to the gut for Ty to see Anders, so confused, explode like he had just done that he didn't know what to do. Even when he was in way over his head and he had no idea what to do, he never exploded. Not like this at least. And he didn't know what to do about it. Somehow Anders must have recognized that because he could only blink

"It that what it is? Sad? I'm supposed to feel sad? Because I don't!" Ty frowned but still couldn't say anything. "I don't feel sad. There's nothing to feel sad about. I gave him my word and I failed. And there's not a fucking thing I can do about it. "

All at once Anders's shoulders dropped all tension and he hung his head pressing the heel of his palms into his eyes.

"Shit."

It wasn't until later when Ty realized what he meant. He had thought Ander's had been frustrated that for once his powers couldn't solve his problems and he just couldn't accept that not everything was in his control. But that wasn't it at all.

He had given his word. Not Bragi. Anders. Anders had given him his word.

…

And Anders's word didn't mean shit.

a/n: So a bit darker than I would normally go with this show but I feel like it would fit with Ty's involvement since this would be his element. Let me know what you guys think.