In the silence it became so very clear
that you had long ago disappeared,
I cursed myself for being surprised
that this didn't play like it did in my mind.

"Are you fucking crazy? Put that down! What the fuck d'you think you're doing?"

Lithe fingers curled around the gun's hilt, caught in the act. "Fuck you, I wanna see it. It's just a goddamn glock, Tim -"

There was the sound of a body being shoved up against the wall and a crying out of pain, the feel of cold metal on burning-hot skin, and then the first voice, lower, older: "Don't you ever fucking touch that thing again, you hear me?"

"Yeah."

"Never?"

"Yeah, never, I swear."

xxx

"Curl…" Tim said, because it was all he could choke out, this one word that held no meaning now.

He was in denial, trapped in a hellish nightmare that had somehow turned into reality. His throat was burning, his palms clammy with sweat, and he wiped his hands on his jeans, tried to keep them steady because, Jesus Christ, this wasn't happening - it couldn't be, Curly would never do something like this. But it was, and he was.

Time had stopped; neither brother moved or even blinked. Curly's arms were raised in the general direction of where Tim stood on the front walk, his hands wrapped so tight around the gun's metal hilt that, later, it would leave marks on his skin - the same gun Pete MacIntosh had nearly shot Tim with. Nearly shot Curly with.

The sky was pressing down on them, the raindrops - now little balls of cold hail - coming down harder, creating a sheet between them, and Tim realized, too late, that there always would be something between them. His worry of the gang disintegrating, his fear of commitment, of feeling, of finally letting in that one person who'd wanted to understand his world, him, so, so badly…

"Put the gun down, Curly."

Curly's voice, loud in Tim's ears, echoed back, "No. You fucking lied to me."

"What the fuck're you talking about?" Cautious, Tim stepped forward, put his hands above his head in an I-didn't-do-it gesture, while his mind raced through all the places of where he'd have stored the bullets - someplace where Curly wouldn't guess to look - and came up with one place: the box under his bed that no one was allowed to touch, ever.

"When you got arrested," Curly started, and though he was under the porch's awning, his face looked wet, and Tim wondered, vaguely, if all he did was make people - his mother, Angela, Sylvia, and now his own brother - cry. "After you came home… it was like you were God or something, and I was stupid, I thought things would go back to how it was, you putting shit back together, like it was that easy. When I got jumped, I thought 'this is it, he's gonna do somethin', he's gonna care' and you didn't, you didn't fucking do anything, and it was a sure-as-shit move, me telling Wade you're out, but what the fuck was I supposed to do? I was so mad…" He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were pure black. Unforgiving.

"Then he tells me that you're the one that got you'n'him arrested, you're the one who wanted to rob that house in the first place, and I didn't believe him, said you'd never do somethin' like that," Curly continued, his voice starting to break, finally, under all the strain. "I thought you deserved it, me forgiving you. But you don't, you don't deserve me or Ang or nobody. You're fucking pathetic, Tim."

"I know," Tim said, and then repeated it, over and over in his head, I know, I know, I know. Because suddenly, there it was: that pain in his chest of his heart breaking for a thousand different reasons, now unraveling itself like a ribbon, coiled up for so long that it became a weight too heavy for his shoulders to carry. His face twisted in anguish, and he fought back a groan as the pain became larger, larger, and larger still, everything hurting.

Meanwhile Curly's body had gone slack against the porch railing, and he sucked in a breath, eyes stinging, in that moment wanting nothing more than to walk over to his brother, cover the amount of space between them that'd gotten so unapproachably wide. The muscles in his arms were aching to the pounding of his brain against his skull, and he lowered them to his sides; the gun, released from his fingers, fell to the ground.

"I just wanna know why, Tim," he said.

"I…" Tim's throat was raw as sandpaper, and he cleared it, trying to get the words out. "Wade brought up the idea, breaking-and-entering. I figured it was a good idea 'til the fuzz showed, and you're right, I told them - I told them every fucking thing because I wanted a fight as much as he did and I got it." Can't you fucking see it? He thought. We're the same person, me an' him. Sometimes, especially now, he couldn't even tell the difference.

A yell built in his throat, and he coughed, clenching his jaw tight so no noise would escape. His blurred vision focused on some place above Curly's head, whose face was drained of color, and Tim felt as if he was looking at himself in a mirror, at last recognizing who the person staring back at him was. Because it wasn't his brother - it was a complete stranger, one he didn't recognize at all.

Curly's mouth ran dry, his insides frozen, his lungs constricting to the point where they burned. He was afraid to breathe, and his voice was hoarse when he asked, "Then what the fuck're we supposed to do now?"

"End the war with Wade, I guess."

"And if we don't win? What's gonna happen to us?"

"I don't -" Tim started, then shook his head. "I don't really fucking know."

xxx

Nick rapped his knuckles against the door and then eased it open, beams of light spilling across the carpet and into the dark bedroom.

"Yeah," Pete answered from the bed. He was - of all things - flicking his lighter on and off, the flames shadowing his face. His behavior had been off since they'd been at Wade's a good couple of days before, and Nick was getting tired of his brother's need to be on constant-guard. Though it made sense, considering what he'd done - or, more likely, hadn't - it still didn't give him an excuse to mope around all the damn time.

"Get up. We're going to the warehouse for a meeting. Some of Shepard's guys keyed Wade's car."

Forty-five minutes later, they ended up on the outskirts of town, the truck's tires rolling across the train tracks. The hailstorm earlier that day had slowed down to a soft drizzle, and as the headlights swept across the muddy lot, highlighting none other than Wade's blue Ford - parked alongside the building - Pete's stomach flipped at the sight of it.

Nick rolled to a stop and cut the engine. They sat there for a second in silence, and then he asked, "You sure you wanna go in?" His eyes were on Pete's nose, which had swelled down considerably, the popped blood vessels having faded to a blue-green bruise the size of his fist.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Leave me alone," Pete said, getting out of the car before he was told to stay in the cab. For his brother being Wade's wingman, he could count on one hand the number of times he'd actually been inside the warehouse, and his memories of it were vague - dim lighting, a couch here, a carton of drugs there, waiting to be dealt or sold - and these images did not disappoint.

The only thing that'd changed, really, was the smell. The last time he'd been here, almost an entire year ago, the large room had been covered in a thick fog of weed and cigarette smoke. Now it had the lingering odor of fresh paint and gasoline.

Wade was standing in the center of the room, his arms folded across his chest, and as he heard the door slide shut, he turned to face them.

If he were a dog, he'd have been foaming at the mouth with rage. His hair was ungreased, a trademark that he rarely went without doing, and his face was pinched and flushed red, drunk-red. His teeth were bright against the contrast of his dark skin, and Pete noticed for the first time how straight and sharp they were, like shark's teeth, and he looked down at the floor.

"They keyed my car, MacIntosh," Wade was saying to Nick, "sons of bitches fuckin' keyed my goddamn car. I can't believe it! Tore up some other guys' shit too, slashed their tires. What are they, fuckin' dumb?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Nick answered anyways, because his contract was written in blood and because Wade expected him to be on his side, always and forever and after that. "Must be, thinkin' they can pull that kinda shit and get away with it," he said, though deep in his heart, part of him couldn't find the strength to believe in such a lie - Tim Shepard wasn't one to just let his own guys run around naked and wild. It was barbaric, ludicrous; it wasn't how this side of the world worked.

"We gotta find a way to end this, and soon. I can't fuckin' stand it anymore." Wade leaned his head back and examined the rafters above, like the answers to his problems were up there and all he had to do was squint his eyes and look for it, hard.

And as the words formed in Pete's mouth, as he stepped forward all on his own doing and said them out loud, everything, this night, suddenly felt too surreal to have happened to him at all.

xxx

"Where'd ya learn how t'throw like that?"

"Dad taught me."

They were sitting on empty barrels at the junkyard, picking through the debris that the last storm had left. Even then, Curly's speech impediment was evident; he didn't say some of his letters right, drawling them out, and he talked so damn fast that sometimes Tim could only catch a word or two, a main idea, having to sum up the rest by himself.

Tim picked up a piece of glass and curled his fingers around it, aimed, and then threw his arm forward. The glass caught the sunlight as it sailed through the air, and he was transfixed on it, that shine he'd seen so little of. The closest he'd gotten to anything valuable was his mother's jewelry, and she'd seldom wear a necklace without having to make a fuss over it.

Curly swung his legs back and forth, his heels hitting the tin with a rhythmic bang bang bang. The kid was restless. "You think he's coming back?"

"What do you care?"

"Really, Tim, c'mon."

Tim sighed, rolling his eyes. He took out his pocketknife and began to clean out the dirt from under his fingernails, trying to figure out an answer. "I dunno," he muttered finally, hating how his voice sounded like his brother's, all rushed together. "What d'you think?"

"I think he will… someday." It was depressing, Tim thought, that Curly sounded hopeful, and for a brief second, they locked eyes before he glanced away first, toward the path they'd crossed through hours before. The sun wouldn't set for another couple of hours, but his bones ached, like the summer heat had swallowed all of his energy and spit him out.

"We should go back soon," he said, clearing his throat. He flipped his knife closed and put it back into his pocket, then jumped off the barrel and into the dirt. This time, it wasn't the shock of his feet hitting solid ground that made him stumble; it was the aftershock, that split-second of having no control over your own body that always caused the panic in his chest to rise.

Curly frowned. "But, Tim…" he protested, still sitting on the barrel, now reaching for the hem of his brother's shirt. "We don't gotta be home till sunset. Can't we stay a little longer? Please?"

"No. Angie needs help with her homework or somethin'. I told Ma I'd help her."

"That's crap. Angie's in like, first grade, Tim. God, they don't give homework that early."

"Can't you just listen to me for once? I said no."

"Fine."

Curly jumped off the barrel, dust flying everywhere. He was coated in it, actually, and noticing his brother staring at him, he puffed out his chest, like a bird ruffling its feathers, and glared. "What?"

"Nothin'." Tim shook his head and started to walk in the other direction, not waiting for Curly to catch up as he said, "Let's go."

xxx

The memories were sudden and everywhere, a continuing onslaught of pain that wouldn't leave Tim the fuck alone. He'd left his jacket in the car, slung over the passenger seat, and was too drunk to want to go back and get it.

Of all places he'd ended up at the quarry, and had no desire to move from where he sat on the frozen ground, the cold seeping through his clothes and into his bones.

He was an introvert by nature, having built himself up as a lost dream, the kind of person that, when around, gave you the sense of wondering if you'd said or did the wrong thing - the kind of person you didn't want to be completely alone with. His self-being was a description drawn by others' opinions of him, enough that he didn't know who he was once he was without them. He could plainly see that there was a life he'd had before this night, a sort of rightness, and a life he'd have after it, one he was too much of a coward to face.

If anything, he deserved to feel like this: shitty, cold, pathetic…

You're fucking pathetic, his brother had said only hours ago, because, for once, Curly was right. From the day their father left, Tim had taken everything and everyone he'd known for granted, and now his hands were empty; he had nothing left, and in this nothingness there was suffering, and an emptiness so vast and vague it hurt his stomach to think about it. And though, years later, he would figure out a way to manage it - the pain - he'd still be disappointed when he reached the end of another bottle, lit up the last cigarette in the pack.

His lungs were heaving for air, and the sharp tips of dead grass bit into his palms as he placed them at his sides and titled his head back, looking up at the sky. The smog coming from the lower part of the city made it hard for him to make out the distant speckle of stars, or maybe it was from the hot tears in his eyes - cold as they rolled down his cheeks and then dribbled off his chin - but they were there, he was sure of it. It had just taken him, like everything else, a little too long to find.