Title: Break the Same

Rating: M for language and sex.

Summary: A/U. "Lines blur when you have nothing left to lose. The degradation was so slow that it was almost imperceptible, and by the time I realized it, it was too late for us." In the long wake of tragedy, what remains of Lightning's family unit slowly unravels. SnowxLight, HopexLight. Warnings inside.

About the setting: As with my previous stories, it takes place in a modern day universe much like our own, completely separate from the game. Pulse and Cocoon are two individual countries on the planet. All the locations from the game (Bodhum, Eden, Oerba, etc) are cities/towns.

Warning: In this story, Lightning is 23, Snow is 25, and Hope is 17. Depending on one's definition, Lightning's eventual relationship with Hope could be construed as sexual assault. If this disturbs or triggers you in any way, PLEASE DO NOT READ! In this story, age of consent IS 17 (and also where I'm from) so technically no harm no foul, but again, if it is something you are bothered by, then don't read.

Notes: This story was inspired in part by the fact that Hope is 14 in appearance in Lightning Returns and all the ensuing drama among HopeRai fans. (I'm not a sicko, I swear.) I don't plan on this story being all that long. It's just a bit of an interlude from Damaged People.

1. Lightning

I think the dryer is broken. Had the sheets in there and it was working for like 30 min and quit.

The car behind Lightning's gave an angry honk. Lightning's head snapped up from Snow's text message on her phone; seeing the traffic light was green, she hit the gas. Her battered car lurched forward, quickly putting distance between her and the impatient driver behind her as she made her way downtown through the late August rain to the plasma donation center.

Please don't be crowded, she thought.

Of course, it was packed.

She waited for nearly twenty minutes before a technician finally came to prick her finger to check her her protein and iron levels. Two days ago, her iron had been too low to donate. After another twenty minutes, she was informed the same thing.

"Happens when you donate too much in a short time window," the tech told her. "Are you eating okay at home?"

Of course I'm not. Why the hell would I be here if I was?

"Thank you," she muttered, and left.

She frequented the donation center so much that she would figure they'd know her on sight. But considering the volume of traffic that marched through those doors for what amounted to pennies, she supposed not. At this point, she was only getting $15 a visit, but she could stretch that $15. Some into the gas tank, the rest to a shitty dinner. But this was the second time in a row that she'd been denied - she really needed that $15. Snow fetched a bit more because he was a lot bigger, netting as much as $50 every time he went.

"This is my life," she said to her worn steering wheel. "Letting a bunch of high school drop outs put needles in me for pocket change."

As she drove through what was arguably the worst part of Bodhum, a kid of fifteen or sixteen on the sidewalk caught her eye. He was slender figure, and dirty; a shiny fall of platinum hair curtained his face as he huddled beside a house, trying to find shelter from the rain under the overhang. As she watched, he leaned over and vomited what looked like a small amount of blood.

Alarmed, she slowed her car to a stop and leaned across the passenger seat, rolling the window down. "Hey!" she shouted to the kid.

He jerked his head up, giving her wide eyes. Wiping his mouth, he dashed away behind the house.

She waited a minute to see if he came back out, but he didn't. Frowning, she rolled the window back up and continued into the suburbs to the townhouse that she couldn't actually afford to live where there would be a broken dryer waiting that she couldn't actually afford to get fixed.

Snow stood in the kitchen, scraping a blackened mass off a baking sheet and into the trash can. Lightning wrinkled her nose at the burnt smell that permeated the room. "What was that?"

"Leftover chicken," Snow said, dumping the pan into the sink and dousing it with dish soap. His blonde locks fell into his eyes as he bent over the sink. "I forgot about it while I was tinkering with the dryer. I'm sorry."

Lightning didn't have the energy to be angry. She dumped her bag on the kitchen table and sank into a chair, rubbing her eyes.

"I got it working again, though," he added helpfully. "For now."

"Cool. One less thing to worry about. For now." Her stomach rumbled.

"Did you donate plasma today?" Snow asked, rummaging around in the fridge.

"No," she answered. "Iron too low again."

"Oh," Snow said. After a moment of silence, he added, "Well, I was hoping we could get flowers for Serah's -"

"No," Lightning cut him off.

"Oh," Snow said again, then fell silent.

Lightning buried her face in her arms. "Shit should not be this hard," she mumbled.

"You know, some days I think of just robbing a bank or something." Snow fingered the pendant at his throat. "I just kinda bask in that fantasy for a little while. I mean, even if I got arrested, at least I'd have a roof over my head and some food, right?"

Lightning thought of the kid she saw earlier and frowned again. She pushed her chair back and stood. "I'm going to take a shower."

"Oh…okay." Snow scratched at his stubble. "Well, I'm making mac and cheese. You're gonna come down and eat, right?"

"Yeah. I will." She went upstairs and into her bedroom. She peeled off her clothes and dumped them into the hamper, then went into the bathroom to start the shower. Without bothering to wait for the water to warm up, she stepped in. The water bill was high enough without running the water to a comfortable temperature, even though she was fairly sure there wasn't a much worse feeling than an unwanted cold shower.

By the time she got out, she wasn't hungry anymore.

She brushed out her wet hair, pulled on a loose shirt, and fell into bed. Groping for the covers, she pulled them over her head. Never mind the fact it's only eight PM.

Lightning didn't remember falling asleep, but she woke as the mattress dipped under Snow's weight as he slid in. He pulled the covers off her head and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Don't leave." He pressed his face against hers, his bristly face tickling her cheek.

She didn't acknowledge him, but she didn't push him away either.

She didn't remember when he started sleeping in her bed, but she didn't disabuse him of doing it, either. His comforting weight against her back helped her sleep these days. She'd probably miss him if she kicked him out now.

He always said the same thing when he came to bed. I'm sorry, don't leave. Sorry for what? Where would she go, anyway?

Lightning watched beads of rain make patterns on the window, the droplets reflecting the light of the street lamps.

She got up early in the morning. Snow was still asleep, the sheet tangled around his bare torso. She saw a sliver of tanned skin and fought the urge to touch it as she always did, because Snow was her sister's fiancé.

She pulled shorts on and stumbled downstairs, running her fingers through her hair. She stuck her head into the mostly empty fridge and saw a small bowl of mac and cheese. For breakfast, why not?

She was too hungry to stick it in the microwave; her stomach was so hollow it felt like a literal hole in her body. She wolfed it down cold and washed the bowl out in the sink. Then she grabbed her car keys and left the house.

It was too early head to donate, but she found herself driving aimlessly through the bad part of town again. She couldn't get that kid out of her head.

What are you gonna do if you find him, huh? Take him to the hospital? Bring him to your house and offer him a warm meal? "Hey kid, want some day old macaroni and cheese made with expired milk?" What a fucking joke.

She parked her car on the side of the street she found him at before and got out, pocketing her keys. Even this early in the morning, a few hooded figures lurked at the street corner, jeering at her as she walked down the sidewalk. Ignoring them while simultaneously hoping her car would still have its wheels when she returned, she came to the house he'd escaped behind.

She hadn't realized it then, but the house was abandoned. Up close, she could see how dilapidated it was, even for a house in a bad part of town. There was a "no trespassing" sign erected in one of the windows, covered in a fine film of dust.

Lightning tried the badly peeling front door, but it was locked. She walked around the side of the house and into the overgrown backyard. The long grass was still wet from the rain, clinging to her bare legs as she waded through it and onto the back porch. One of the windows was broken. She tried the back door, hoping she could avoid the glass, but it was locked as well. With a sigh, she pulled the sleeves of her shirt over her hands to protect them and gingerly straddled the window frame. She scraped her inner thighs on the jagged, sharp pieces of glass that were still embedded in the frame and dropped to the floor inside. She wiped away the blood beading on her skin and looked around, her eyes adjusting to the dim interior.

Boot prints in the dust led upstairs, and she followed them, trying to be as quiet as the creaking staircase would allow her. She knew that this was probably one of her worst ideas to date - there was no evidence that those footprints belonged to the particular kid she was looking for. Chances are it was probably some other homeless tweaker who would be less than benevolent about her intrusion.

There was only one room upstairs, and the door was shut. Lightning furtively turned the knob, but it was locked as well. She bit back a curse and pressed her ear to the door. She could hear someone scurrying in there.

She rapped on the door. "Hey," she called. "I know you're in there. Might as well open up."

There was no answer. She waited another minute, then tried again. "Look, I'm not going to turn you in or whatever. C'mon." She paused, then added, "I want to help."

She could hear him breathing on the other side of the door. Finally, the knob turned and opened inward. Luminous green eyes met hers, framed by unwashed silver hair. His lips were chapped and peeling. The left side of his face was swollen and mottled with purple bruises.

"You…I saw you yesterday," he said hoarsely. "In the car."

"Yeah." She folded her arms. "What are you doing?"

He sized her up. She could practically see his mind racing, weighing his options. His eyes lit on the cuts on her legs. "You're bleeding."

"It's fine. How old are you?"

He licked his lips. "I'm…eighteen."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, seventeen. I'll be eighteen in January."

She wasn't sure if that was true either, but she let it go for the moment. "Where's your parents?"

He swallowed. "Gone."

"Are you sick?"

He gave her a weird look. "No…?"

"I saw you puking up blood yesterday."

"No, that wasn't…it wasn't vomit." He gestured to his bruised face. "Wrong place, wrong time. Spitting the blood out."

Lightning thought of the hoodlums outside, and seethed. She held out her hand. "Come."

He stared at her outstretched fingers like they were a particularly huge and disgusting spider. "Come where? Are you going to report me to child services or something?"

"I don't know what I'm gonna do, but you can't hole up in an abandoned house. Someone's going to find you eventually, and they will for sure report you to someone. Besides, you could use a shower."

The kid smiled in spite of himself. "That much is true," he said. "Hold on." He ducked back inside the room, and returned with a duffel bag. "My stuff," he said. "What's left of it."

Lightning led him down the stairs and out the front door after unlocking it. Luckily there wasn't anyone around to care, though it had started raining again. The hooded kids were nowhere to be seen, but her car was still intact. She unlocked the passenger side door and he got in carefully, as if he was afraid of touching anything or taking up too much space.

"What's your name?" she asked him when she got in the driver's seat.

"Hope," he said. "It's Hope."

The irony of it was not lost on her. "I'm Lightning."

"Lightning?" He gave her a skeptical look.

She shrugged one shoulder. "My legal name."

"But not your real name."

She silenced him with a look. He looked like he wanted to ask more, but he didn't.

Snow was gone when they got back to her house. He'd left a note next to a bowl of apples.

Went to donate. Neighbor's grandkids have an apple tree and she was feeling generous. -Snow

Of course Snow had managed to charm someone into giving him food. She smiled slightly to herself.

She looked over her shoulder at Hope. His face looked a lot worse in the light. He was looking around the kitchen, though he didn't seem particularly awestruck. "They didn't knock out a tooth, did they?" she asked him.

He gave her a blank look, then realized what she meant. Probing the inside of his mouth with his tongue, he replied, "No. Just have a big cut on my cheek."

"That's good. What do you want first, food or a shower?"

"Shower," was his immediate response.

He followed her upstairs and to the spare bedroom's bathroom and turned on the shower. "Takes awhile for the water to warm up," she told him. As much as she winced internally about running the water that long, she wasn't going to make what appeared to be his first shower in weeks be a cold one. "I'll be right back." She went to the hall closet and pulled out a towel, an old bar of soap and a half-empty bottle of shampoo.

He accepted the bundle from her when she returned, hugging it to his chest. "Thank you," he said.

"Sure. I'll make your something to eat in the meantime."

The front door opened as she came down the stairs. Snow walked through the foyer, his arms full of bags.

"Food," he announced.

Lightning folded her arms. "That's a lot of food for fifty bucks."

Snow put them down in the kitchen and started sorting the food. "I took some stuff to the pawn shop, too," he said.

"Like what?"

"Like my engagement pendant." He touched his throat absently, where it used to hang.

"You what?" Lightning slammed her hand down on the kitchen counter.

Snow looked up in surprise. "What? What's wrong?"

"How could you sell that?"

"It's just a necklace."

"No it's not! You know that, you idiot." He continued to put the groceries away in silence. "Snow," she said, her throat tight.

"What?"

"You've really given up on her, haven't you? You think she's dead."

The shower upstairs cut off audibly. Snow looked to the ceiling and frowned. "Who's here?" He looked at Lightning suspiciously, then saw the cuts on her legs. "What happened to you? Who the fuck is here?" She could hear the panic rising in his voice.

"Some homeless kid," she said. "I sort of found him."

He gave her a disbelieving look. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"You just picked some kid off the street like a stray dog or something?"

"More or less, except he's a human being."

"Lightning. What are we gonna do with some kid?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "We'll figure something out. It's not forever." He stared at her in angry silence. "What is your fucking problem?" she demanded.

"Because we can really afford another mouth to feed? A higher water bill?" He jabbed a finger at the ceiling for emphasis. "What were you thinking?"

In that moment Lightning was struck by two things: the first being that she was surprised that amiable, super hero Snow was that mad that she'd impulsively rescued some teenager off the street, regardless of how bad of an idea it was. It was something that he would be far more likely to do than her. The second thing was that she couldn't remember the last time he had called her "sis", as he had been wont to do in almost the entire time she'd known him.

Hope came down the stairs then in a clean though wrinkled shirt and jeans. His hair was damp, clinging to his face and neck. He saw Snow and hesitated, his face wary, standing slightly behind Lightning.

"This is Hope," Lightning said, giving Snow a pointed look.

To his credit, he gave Hope a generous smile, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "Hey, bud."

"Hey," Hope said, his eyes darting between him and Lightning. She had a feeling he'd heard at least the tail end of the conversation.

"What do you guys want for lunch?" Snow asked, as if Lightning bringing home homeless orphans was something she did quite often.

Lightning shrugged. "Whatever you feel like making."

"Anything in particular?" Snow said to Hope.

Hope dropped his gaze. "I don't mind."

While Snow busied himself making food, Lightning filled a sandwich bag with ice and took Hope into the living room. Sitting him down on the couch, she gave him the makeshift ice pack. He took it, pressing it to his face, and she sat on the opposite side of the couch, facing him.

"What happened to your parents?"

Hope looked away. "My mom died," he said, his voice soft. "I don't know where my dad is, but he doesn't care about us."

"How long have you been on your own?"

"Since the beginning of summer."

"Why haven't you tried to contact your dad?" Lightning drew her legs up, hugging her knees to her chest.

"I don't know where he is. I haven't talked to him in years."

"The authorities could help you track him down - "

"No." The venom in Hope's voice took Lightning by surprise.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to. He wouldn't want me anyway. And then they'd just put me in a home or something."

She could sympathize with that. Lightning's parents had died when she was fifteen, forcing her to prove that she could support herself and her sister. But it was better than being trapped in the foster care system for years. "So you opted for being homeless."

"I didn't opt for it. I thought I could…manage." Hope's hands fell in his lap and he played with the ice in its bag, squeezing the melting cubes around in their plastic confine. "I didn't." He finally looked up at her. "What are you going to do with me?"

She didn't actually know that herself. "We'll play it by ear," she told him.

When Snow came into the bedroom that night, she rolled over and stared at the wall.

"What?" he said.

"You think Serah's dead," she whispered.

"It's been two years."

"So?" She sat up.

Snow came around to her side of the bed. "Look, I…we have rent money for next month, don't we?"

"What about when Serah comes home and sees you sold it?"

"Serah's not coming home." His voice was hard.

"You don't know that."

"For god's sake, Lightning, how much longer can I possibly hold out hope?" He sat down, the bedroom floor creaking as he did. "It destroys me every day to plaster this smile on my face and pretend I'm fine and that she's still alive, when I know deep down that there is no way she could be. I just…"

Lightning stared down at him. "You just what?"

He bowed his head and leaned it against one of her knees. "I want to move on," he murmured.

She swallowed hard. Reaching out, she stroked the length of his hair. He sighed.

She knew. She knew as well as he did that Serah probably wasn't ever coming home.

She held out hope, though. She thought Snow would be there with her every step of the way. She now realized that he had only put that face on for her. That he'd done his mourning, and at this point they were picking at wounds long healed for him.

She never thought he'd be the first to give up.

His hand on the inside of her leg startled her. "You should clean these up," Snow said. "We can't exactly afford a trip to the doctor."

Lightning looked down at the messy scrapes on her thighs. She'd forgotten about them. "Yeah. I need to shower, anyway."

She went into the bathroom and closed the door. Gazing at her tired face in the mirror, she thought, Serah, come back. We're falling apart without you.

When she came back into the bedroom, squeezing water out of her hair with a towel, Snow was already rolled onto his side of the bed. This time, she held him, pushing her face into the back of his neck.