Disclaimer: Don't own it. Never have, never will, just borrowing the characters.
Snow ~Reprise~
The snow crunched under his boots, hands stuffed deep in his pockets and collar turned up against the chilling wind. He had no real destination in mind as he walked across the park, children playing, laughing, enjoying the winter weather while parents watched on from a distance, careful to keep an eye on them and make sure no one was hurt. He smiled at the sight, but didn't stop to watch the fun. No one paid any attention to him; he was just another stranger passing through.
Back in the car – his car now – his phone was ringing. Annoyed messages he'd probably delete before listening to piling up. It wasn't that he didn't care, just that he already knew what they'd say: where are you, what are you doing, the sort of messages he was used to receiving and never answering anyway.
Maybe his brother had always answered the phone. Maybe he had always been on time and done everything by the book. Lyle doubted it. They may have been different, but some things never changed, and Lyle had known his brother to be a skilled liar and convincing actor.
Only now things had to change.
Now the stranger walking through the park had to be someone new, someone old. Someone he wasn't. It may have been the same face they saw whenever they looked at him, but beyond that was a different mind, and that was something they couldn't, or maybe just didn't want, to see. So, like the snow covering the ground he became someone else, he had to paint himself a new identity just like as children he and Neil had painted a whole new world in their own garden. He had taken a name that was not his own, a legacy that he had not created, and had to try and live up to it all without losing himself along the way. And, the way they would react when he said, or did, something his brother would not have... That was not something he enjoyed, the slap in the face that reminded them all: Lyle was not Neil. It was a reminder that the snow was not as crisp or as clean after a few hours in the sun, becoming dirty and melting, mixing up the truth and lies until no one knew what to believe.
He didn't bother finding the gate when he reached the other side of the park. Opting instead for climbing over the low fence he turned and headed down the street. The noise of the traffic sounded slightly off after the relative quiet and childish laughter of the park, but it didn't faze him. He was used to these streets as he continued to walk to wherever, somewhere, or maybe nowhere. It made no difference really.
And he knew it was strange to feel so calm and indifferent to the world as he walked these streets when he could lose his head to rage in the middle of battle. Recklessness was a trait they both shared; Lyle just wasn't sure who was best at holding back, not anymore.
He knew it was strange, but it made so much sense as he turned the corner down what should have been a familiar road, listening to the echo of voices in the stores, loud and jovial. It had always been that way as he saw children exit the shop which wasn't there anymore, sweets in hand, running for home. You had best to be back before dinner, she'd say, and their laughter was all that could be heard all the way down the street.
Between them they'd had everything under control. What one could not understand the other could, and what one was bad at the other could perfect. He had been the one to pick the fights and his brother the one to break them up, but his brother had been the one to hold a grudge and he the one to calm him down, to let it go. Lyle would be the one to throw the first snowball but Neil would have the last laugh, or maybe that was Amy. He'd resented his brother's talents, frustrated by the fact no one but their family could tell them apart when they were such different people, but Neil was still his brother, his twin, and that couldn't and wouldn't ever change.
Yet where had that got them? He had heard the stories and, looking up at what once was a house that had been empty for years, he jumped the fence and walked across what once had been the garden, now just concrete beneath the snow and the humming of electricity filling the air, no green grass or trees or home left to speak of.
He still walked though, and he thought he could see footprints in the snow beside his own, and he thought he could hear children laughing, shrieking with glee as they chased round and round and round until night fell. It was their own world to paint however they wished, and they had wished and it had worked and life had been good.
Lyle stood in the middle of what once was their garden and stared up at the sky, not seeing the man-made metal and mechanics that had replaced it all, through the falling snow, blinking it out of his eyes – it was only the snow, really, that was all – and he had to wonder if they hadn't both been living under the snowfall – ash-fall – of the watchful gaze of the world.
His brother hadn't been a saint, and he wasn't the devil in disguise.
They could both only be human.
"Race you," the wind whispered.
Then the world had fallen and they had both found that ash was nothing like snow.
"You're on," Lyle replied.