She didn't—didn't trust me, how could she not have?! The street was blurring before Lifty's eyes as he stalked, steaming, down the sidewalk. For over a month I've lived with her, and she still can't trust me?! I thought—

"Shit." His train of thought ran off its course, avoiding a crash with an obstacle obstructing the tracks. In the case of reality, the obstacle stood little more than two feet tall and it stared at him, large amber eyes inquisitive. Cub, the toddler who Lifty considered a game to rob from. He was merely a baby, but hearing the wails would usually cause him to break out in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. To gain kicks out of a child's misery was sickening, but the twins willingly stooped that low, mostly to attract the attention and harsh glares of others.

Lifty stared down imposingly at the toddler, expecting him to flee. He did nothing of the sort. Cub's brain capacity couldn't have been much, but it should have been enough to clue him on who the masked man was; the kleptomaniac who was a contributor to his sorrows. He should have retained the memories of the twin making off with his goodies.

The sandy haired tot removed his thumb from his mouth, warbling happily and surprising Lifty with the bizarre utterance. In one of his admittedly idiotic thoughts, he briefly considered if the child was hurt. "Ugh," Lifty emitted a sound of irritation and detestation. He looked side to side, searching for any sign that said Pop, or even the child's caretaker, was present. "Don't tell me a little booger eater like you is wandering by himself? For the love of God . . . Your dad is useless, right?"

Giggling, Cub reached up with clenching and unclenching fingers. It was evident Pop hadn't been supervising him well.

Lifty contemplated if it was part of his morals to leave a child alone, wincing slightly at the sting of abandonment. Regardless of age, the prick of being forsaken hurt immensely, and one as young as the tot shouldn't have had to brace through it. Even if it was only a result of deficient parenting.

Lifty glared formidably, meeting the joyous eyes full of childish ignorance. "—Fine," he sighed, defeated, "I just know this is gonna eat away at me if I let it slip. Come on, you can't stay here by yourself."

xXx

What had he been thinking? Thieves were created for robbing, embezzling, and the likes. Taking the toddler back to his father had been risky, seeing how Pop had snatched Cub back and slammed shut the door when the baby had been delivered into his protection. Despite it, returning the child to his irresponsible parent had pacified his enmity towards the world.

For the time it took to walk down the path leading to the bakery, Lifty had wandered directionless, thoughts drifting in and out of his aching head. Facsimiles of the redhead's show of fury and tears haunted him. The disappointment multiplied by ten whenever he indulged in the reminiscence of their good memories, it crushed his chest knowing that he had betrayed her. Even if he hadn't really been the traitor, if he had been persistent and tried persuading her longer she might have believed him.

Flaky was compassionate, and he would not stop giving credence to that because she had snapped. The twin couldn't bring himself to feel any hatred towards her, the loathing he held towards others wouldn't apply itself to the charismatic female. What he felt towards her was . . . bitter regret. Regret that he hadn't cared enough to stay longer and wheedled her incessantly until she found him honest.

Before he knew it, Lifty was staring at the ramshackle house he once called home. It was not home, it was unfitting to even be called a hovel. How had he managed to overlook how broken the building was? The lawn was drained of its lively colors and seemed as despaired as the boy himself, the walls were begrimed with soil and fungus from years of neglect, and inside waited the one he wanted to see dead most.

If he was immoral and ballistic, he would wrap his strong hands around Shifty's throat and choke the life from him. His brother would resurrect, bringing with him his bullshit again, but to know he had gotten revenge would be satisfying. A small voice told him he wouldn't find much of an atonement for the wrongs committed by silencing his sibling, though. What he needed was a reparation for the sins Shifty had executed, it wouldn't be enough, but he wanted Shifty to feel some remorse for his doings.

Right, the twin hadn't felt an ounce of contrition after the numerous acts of treachery he had given his brother. It was the same for either boy, it was natural to feel nothing for an abandoned sibling; they knew they would be seeing them again.

That was when they had been tightly knit—deceitful, but inseparable. When the thieves had split ways, Lifty had assumed their closeness dissipated into the atmosphere, and he hadn't been very sorry after he recalled the times where their disloyalty was clear. Blood was thicker when water, which was true, when that blood didn't go off and act like he was a replaceable lowlife.

Lifty swept his hair from his face, indecisive in what he wanted to do. On one hand, if he left he would be a solitary vagrant, but he would avoid seeing his brother's smirking face. On the other, if he cracked his knuckles and clenched his teeth he could enter the house and ruin that smirking face. Oh, that sounded fun. He would definitely relish in punching that vexatious smile off.

His legs moved as his rationality left out the door—a vice he had possessed since childhood. Act now, think later. Lifty's fist was pounding on the metal screen as the fury resurfaced with a new vigor. "Shifty!" he vociferated shamelessly. "Open the damn door! Get out here so I can kick your ass!"

The screen stayed securely locked, but the door inside opened. "Now look what we have here~ hey bro, I gather that Flaky didn't look past the surface damage?" He held a taunting tone especially reserved for Lifty.

"'Hey bro'? Hey bro?" Lifty bristled at the casualties passed, noting his twin's human emotions were absent. "Hey bro someone else, you narcissistic bastard."

"Hey, hey, listen to yourself. Me? A narcissist?" Shifty beamed innocently, his slit eyes saying otherwise. "I'm not vain, Brother, and you're acting like I ruined your life. If anything, I improved it." He noticeably took on a look of bewilderment when his brother relentlessly hit the screen.

"You didn't improve it! You killed it! Destroyed it!" Lifty held his bruised hand, flexing his fingers and growling rancorously. An irritating buzzing started in his ear. "You; you. Because you so selfishly desired my life to be as crappy as yours, I lost Flaky. Are you happy?"

"Your life was always as crappy as mine and that'll never change. Wherever you run or hide, or take refuge in, you can for sure count on having the same luck I have."

The younger stared somberly, detaining the vulgar names he had lined up. His choleric disposition wasn't going anywhere, however. "Wrong. You have never been more mistaken than you are now." Lifty spit. "Unlike you, my life wasn't a big pile of shit. It was actually going good." The twin dropped his eyes.

Shifty look on, unimpressed with his melancholy. "Oh are you gonna cry? If so, cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it." He hadn't remembered his brother being so cold, gelid, heartless. Before he hadn't seemed cruel, but with Flaky differing from him dramatically, it brought to him a clarity he hadn't had. Was this the normal Shifty he had grown up with? What if his sibling hadn't changed a bit, keeping his mien all the while Lifty had left, and Lifty had been the one who . . . changed?

He wouldn't admit it to himself, not when he had caused Flaky her affliction. How could one say they had transformed into a positively virtuous man when they had brought the tears of a chaste, good hearted girl? They could not, that's how.

Lifty dried his dampened eyes, the top of his head aimed at Shifty.

"Didn't I warn you that they were just going to spit on you?" Shifty asked in a softer voice, triumphing in the dejection painted on his brother's face. "I've always known best, haven't you learned that by now? I'm older and only trying to teach you what's right, little Flaky was only filling your head with lies~"

He put his fist on his hip thoughtfully, scrutinizing Lifty. "Did you come here because you now know that I was right? Because you have nowhere to call home." Plucking a stray thread from his vest, Shifty smiled genuinely—though, with him, one couldn't let their guard down. He could put on a shuck and jive only to mislead and delude. "Well?~"

"I want to come back to live with you," Lifty rasped, a smile stretching across Shifty's mouth.

"Because~?" He would stretch this as time, and his younger brother's stupidity, permitted. Too long, he had waited too long for his slipup of a sibling to understand who was top dog, who made the decisions for them both. A week, even that period of waiting tried his albeit low tolerance. "You know that I was? And you were?"

"You were right," Lifty struggled slightly, squeezing out the confession through clinched teeth, "and I was wrong. I don't have anywhere else to go, and we're family." There was an interval between his utterance and Shifty's response, Shifty motioning to continue—using a better reason. Dick. "And," relented Lifty, "I'll help you with your heists again."

"Ah," the eldest thief grinned, appeased by the admittance, "good, I'm glad. My hands are aching already, and without you around, I haven't had a good haul in for days. Glad you're back in the game."

Contemplating whether or not to grant his blood the permission of entering, he overlooked Lifty's bedraggled form. Emotionally, he had been used and abused far more than his self could handle; and considering that he was unused to any feelings differentiating from the urges to steal, it amplified the soreness to an overloading degree. Hm, what he deserved for being a disloyal, traitorous brother.

Despite it, Shifty unlocked the door.

And he regretted it instantly as Lifty raised his chin, eyes flashing maliciously and his hand becoming fisted in Shifty's shirt. He was pulled from the protection of the house, yelping, and thrown to the pathway. Adrenaline, it had to be what was making Lifty stronger than he was an hour earlier.

"You really think I'd be that lenient in letting this go?" Lifty tersely asked, squatting over his fallen brother. "Dumbass much?" Knuckles paling, he glared menacingly and set his jaw. "I just needed you to open the door so I could whoop your ass."

Shifty squinted against the sun, searching the ground with his free hand for any sort of rock. Nothing. All his fingers met were shriveled grass blades that had burnt from dehydration and the scorching heat. "H-hey, don't forget who's letting you back," Shifty guilted, pushing the fist his brother held to his nose down.

"And let's not forget who kicked me out in the first place," Lifty countered. He nearly touched noses with his twin, the mirrors reflecting dissimilar expressions of vehement hostility and fidgety anxiousness. Beating up the older larcener in public would quell his immense fury and frustration, maybe if he let some steam out things would become clearer. These thoughts were frustratingly fogging up his prudent thoughts and caused him to believe that it was right to break Shifty's face.

Fearing that the day would end with him having a broken nose, the elder crook frantically began speaking his convincing lies. "This won't fix anything! You know that, too. Punching me won't stop Flaky from believing that you're nothing but a traitor. Taking your anger out physically won't calm your emotions, idiot."

His words had an effect on Lifty, his grip loosening and alleviating some stress off Shifty as he scooted back, alert. Emerald eyes dilated, leaving empty windows to his pained soul. He looked through his lookalike for strained moments, seeing him, but finding it impossible to retain anything he witnessed. And then like a snap had taken him from his trance, he abnegated his brother's shirt. Lifty was up, his back to the dropped thief, and he was strutting into the tacky house.

"I won't deign under you anymore," Lifty spun around, irate by the look of bafflement he saw. "I'm not your bitch, we're equal. And the only reason I'll put up with you is: Flaky wouldn't approve of me becoming a murderer. You can thank her that I spared your life." He lingered in the doorway, before leaving inside.

Shifty sat, staring begrudgingly after him. Flaky had broken his brother. He wasn't himself anymore; that was unfair. Why was she able to come in and morph the person who understood him completely into . . . someone he didn't recognize anymore? Lifty wasn't her family, she didn't have the permission to change what he had made.

He had never really hated Flaky, and he never would, but she was just another pawn in his game. If she wasn't meeting his needs, then he should just forget all about her. But he couldn't, wouldn't, not when she kept messing with his other game pieces.

Flaky fixed Lifty, so it was his duty to break him again.

xXx

Sorry for the shortness, but I want this done already. Four more chapters . . . God help me, I'm already bawling because this is long—for me.