You're not my earth anymore

“I died for Alex once, you really think I wouldn’t do that again?”

Owen wasn’t so sure he would do it again, considering Alex had no qualms abandoning him, throwing him to the wayside.

Godhood gave him a lot of time to think, and Alex deciding to run around and play human - only leaving a single note to the whole family, had been a punch directly to the gut. It had shattered Owen to pieces.

You die for someone, become immortal at fourteen for them, learn what it’s like to burn, and they throw you to the side the second they find something more interesting. At the very least he had his parents, siblings and Storm. Even the newest addition, Sandy.

Now Alex was back, expecting everything to just go back to normal. Giving Owen a look as if he had no clue how he had possibly shattered Owen. Heh, he had just started to heal and now it was all coming back down again huh?

After Alex first left he had been broken, bottle after bottle. Nobody had been able to pull him out. It was perfect for shutting off his mind, shutting down his life. Now he had other coping mechanisms. Specifically, he had clay and sculpting, but that was the farthest thing from his mind currently. Instead he found the bottle back in his hands and many others laying on the floor.

He was a mess and the fact of it all, only made it worse. He didn’t know what to do, and he was too much of a damn coward to confront Alex. The poet would weave a tale, convince Owen to do whatever he said with his fancy words. Yet the note would never leave his mind, the note that didn’t even address why. Just a simple ‘i’m leaving, goodbye’

The liquor burned his throat. Yet, he only drank more. Desperate for the thoughts to quiet, for everything to go silent. 

Suddenly, he felt water slam into the back of his head, causing him to choke on his drink as he looked up with blurry vision. The one in front of him- a blonde with frizzy hair and pig ears. The family may have mostly had blonde hair but only one person matched that descriptor. 

“Sandy?” Owen groaned, wishing he could murder his niece. The wild God of Humanity and Civilization didn’t seem to grasp the concept of them causing him to spill his drink.

It didn’t help that his dove wings were now covered in water, which made every feather stand on its end. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling with the cold. It did help him sober up more at least? So there was one thing.

“Oh please, you have been up here drinking for over a week, Alex is sulky and I am sooo bored. Do you know how unfair that is to me?” they pouted, and Owen could see the underlying tension, one that he was too drunk to deal with right now. Yet even the mention of Alex made a chill run down his spine. 

“I am literally just trying to cope Sandy.” He ground out in annoyance. “So can you leave me to wallow in my sorrows?”

“Psh, where’s the fun in that, anyways get up! I didn’t get all that water to dump on ya for nothin!”

“What?” All he could do was stare tiredly at Sandy, mentally processing what was just said and what it meant.

Before he could respond anymore, the sixteen year old god grabbed onto him and his vision blurred. Forcefully pulling him into the abyss, then back out into a darkened room covered in soot and tar.

“You need to get your feelings out!” The god helpfully perked form shifting between masculine and feminine with every movement, Owen tried to avoid looking at the chest where he knew he’d see two souls splitting and converging. “You too, oh so angy one~” Sandy teased behind Owen. Owen was positive nobody ever described him as ‘angy’-he was always too passive for that.

With a slight turn he saw Alex, his emerald eyes watching Sandy like a cornered animal, waiting to escape. Fitting for the cunning escape artist brat.

“You left me here two hours ago Sandy,” Alex huffed as he barred pearly white teeth.

“Oh? Was it that long? Please, I’d love to hear the song you wrote about your unjust imprisonment~”

Alex just made a grumbling noise, turning to Owen who chose to shift ever so slightly as Alex started walking towards him.

All he could do was take a step back and ignore the wounded look Alex shot at him. Alex knew exactly what he did, and Alex knew exactly why he was mad. 

It didn’t help that he could see the colors of Alex’s soul, or the way his very being was trying to connect to Owen’s. He may not know the boy’s exact intent but he knew he wouldn’t be left a crumbling mess again. One too many times had already messed this relationship up.

“Alex.”

“Owen.”

“Sandy!” Sandy yelled out awkwardly, glancing between the two. “Okay…time for you to break and burn some stuff. I will be…back?” and with that the God disappeared, leaving the two alone in the room.

“I’m out of here,” Owen sneered, moving towards the door as Alex tried to grab at him, he didn’t care- he wasn’t listening to that guy. He needed to find some way to fix things, either go and spend fifteen hours sculpting something or turning back to the whiskey bottles. The latter currently sounded really good, even if he knew that the rest of the family would be on him later for it.

But the door wasn’t budging. As he glanced around the vibrancy of the world was fading, almost as if his powers were being drained out of him. Trying to call upon his abilities came up with practically nothing besides the smallest spark.

“I need a drink, holy-I hate Sandy so much.” he muttered, as Alex seemed to twist around awkwardly. “What do you want? Want me to die for you again?”

“Don’t-you know I didn’t do that on purpose. I just want my brother back.” 

“‘My’ this and ‘my’ that, can you ever just focus on anything else for once?”

“This is about us! Not a ‘just me’ or a ‘just you’ thing.” Alex snapped, looking at him with a darkened gaze and crossed arms. “This is about being suffocated, about how we died! Nobody saved us! They left us to rot and then swooped in and killed everyone, played the saviors and expected us to go along with it!”

“They made you crown prince!” Owen snapped, “They saved us! Then they went and killed those who murdered us at the bloody stake! What more do you want?”

“My human life back? What else?!” Alex snapped, and Owen let out a groan, talking before Alex could go into a monologue.

“This is still all you-you-you! Can’t you pause for a second and think about me? About anybody else in this universe? Mom and dad saved our lives! Dalia put her own ideals aside to protect us! They loved - still love you now! And I'm forgetting why I ever did!” He ignored the growing hurt in his brother's spirit, pushing down his feelings of care for the shallow being in front of him. 

What he couldn’t avoid was the look on Alex’s face. Despite being twins the boy was taller than him, and looking up he saw a look of pure anguish and hurt. As if he had shattered the boy’s very being before it quickly hardened - as if it had never happened at all. Heh, guess Alex really did like to hide his feelings.

“Okay but do you ever listen to me? I told you Storm was bad news, told you he was just using you for our ‘family’, and did you listen? Nooo” 

“It was an arranged marriage! I grew to care about him! I just got tired of listening to you rant about how awful he is!”

“I said I'd get you out of that marriage!”

“Oh for the love of-guys!” a voice screeched on a loudspeaker, yet Owen couldn’t make out where it was, “stop talking and start hitting, I’m getting bored.”

“You dragged us here to be some stupid game? Dance like little puppets on some strings?” Alex said, looking disgusted at the ceiling. “I thought you were the God of Humanity, shouldn’t you have some… y'know?”

“Humanity? Yah no, this is way more entertaining. Now stop talking through your problems, and either burn the room apart or start throwing punches.”

Owen looked at Alex, Alex looked at him. Neither were that physically strong. It really had never been their thing. Alex had always been focused on his instruments or notebooks, while Owen spent hours either drinking out his sorrows or creating intricate artworks.

“Well there was that one time you ripped a wolf’s throat out-remember?” Oh shoot, he forgot Alex could read minds. “Haha…yeah. Love hearing your thoughts bro.” 

“Stop-don’t call me that, you're not my brother .” He glared, pushing all his hateful thoughts to the forefront of his mind. Watching the other’s eyes widen as he was most likely bombarded with those images.

He may have hated the person in front of him, but he would never actually hit Alex. He had watched an entire church declare Alex was a witch and lied - pretending to be Alex in a desperate attempt to save him. He had always taken the hits, always done his best to protect him. Even with all the hatred bubbling up to the surface, even with Alex deciding to run off and acting like Owen never existed- he could never willingly harm his little brother.

“Oh c'mon! You know what? Fine!” Sandy huffed. The room all of a sudden shifting in front of their eyes from the soot covered space to a large forest, with trees sprouting up from all around them, forcing Alex to move out of the way as one lifted him from the ground. It was eerily similar to the forest Alex and Owen grew near.

“What the hell?” Alex snapped, backing up and hitting a tree as he looked all around.

“Magic- you forget lyre boy” Owen taunted, Mimicking  playing the lyre-Alex’s sacred item.

“Oh shut up- don’t you literally use a whip?” Alex said, sticking his tongue out with a smirk.

“Nope…it changed, it’s a paintbrush now” 

“..oh.” Alex said, and there was the awkward silence once again. 

Alex didn’t know him, he never knew anything about Owen. Alex never seemed to want to get to know more either. This whole thing was way too tiring for Owen, and he didn’t think he could continue to make small talk either. Desperately, he looked up at the ceiling.

“Hey! Sandy! Let us out now! We did your talking shtick!” Technically they did right? There was talking! As Alex let out a small ‘cough’ he glared at the younger boy. He could get Sandy to believe it.

“It wasn’t talking!” The invisible god above exclaimed with a whine. “You were supposed to fight! Ugh- just look to the left”

Both twins looked to the left, jumping as they saw the flames.

No no no, soot. Owen should have fucking known. Flashbacks to his skin melting off the bone, to the way his feet burned and burned till they went numb, to the way the smoke tickled his nose the more he inhaled it.

His vision went black as he fell to the floor, unable to move away from the flames as he stared at them. They marked his body. No matter where he went or what he did-they always came back. He couldn’t escape from the flickers of white in the yellow glow and the red dance. It would always encircle everything he did, every move he ever made.

He was never going to be free wasn’t he? Forever stuck in this loop of pain and trauma, of torture. Never happy. He couldn’t even be happy with his brother who he died for, he wasn’t even happy on his own. He just wanted to waste away into nothing but soot the more and more he stared at the flames, unable to stop himself from remembering the way it felt to burn.

The way it felt to die.

Then the flame were gone. Mist poured out of the room, covering it in total darkness. As Owen put a tentative hand in front of his face, he found that nothing could be seen. Not even his own hand. The heat of the flame was still flicking on him, but it wasn’t seeable, and he could ignore the fear if he couldn’t see it. He could pretend it was gone. Already the fear had faded ever so slightly.

“Owen?” Alex asked, he followed the noise and turned around to see-

A creature, one without blonde, black, or red hair. The mist from the room poured out of its sockets. The only light anywhere around here was the eyes on the dove wings Owen had grown to know so intimately-as he shared his own pair. They looked on with all different expressions and shapes. Watching and tracking his every move. It didn’t seem to have a body either, but then again Owen couldn’t see much. The outline seemed almost water-like as it moved around. The face seemed to fall off and pool to the ground in puddles. 

It hit him, this was Alex’s godly form. The ‘horrifying’ thing Storm had mentioned seeing all those years ago. He couldn’t help but scramble up from the floor. Trapped between the invisible flames and the invisible monster of a brother, both literally and figuratively now.

“..Alex?”

It seemed to grab at him with invisible claws that left water marks along his skin. A cold feeling that tickled slightly, leaving him wiping it away and trying to push what was once Alex back.

“I’m sorry.” The…thing choked out, “Please - I never meant to hurt you, or leave you. You're my brother. We are two peas in a pod. If I'm the earth, then you're my moon. We always encircle each other.” As if to prove its point, it circled around Owen, slowly getting closer. “I will always come back to you and I thought you knew that. I just couldn’t take being locked in a palace anymore, stuck in a life I never wanted. I have dreams Owen! Dreams of music and dance, of a life I could never live up in a tower. So when given the chance to break free I took it! You know it wasn’t meant to hurt you!” he cried - almost desperately as Owen stared at the glowing eyes. The thing was curled into his chest, as if that could somehow fix everything.

All Owen could do was reach a hand out, attempting to find the head of…his brother. Ignoring the ache in his chest that was desperate to lean down and hug him. Huh, it was weird to be so above the other, for all his life Alex had the height advantage.

As soon as he felt Alex's hair,he yanked it to his direction, forcing the misty eyes to look at him. A million words came to mind and failed him all at the same time. He had been rehearsing this since the day the other boy had left and yet, now that the time had come it was almost as if there was nothing left to be said. The bridges were burned and nothing could be fixed anymore.

“I don’t know what I know Alex,” he whispered, looking at the blankness in those eyes. “Are you telling me the truth or spinning me the words of a poet? Do I say okay and hug you today, then find out you ran away again tomorrow?” he ignored the flinch, already on a roll. “You can talk all you want, stay the talented crown prince locked in his tower. But I won’t let you hurt me again” was the finishing line. Owen dropped Alex’s hair.

It was interesting how the boy crumpled. Owen wasn’t someone for confrontation, or fighting, but all the built up rage had given him some of that spark. Now, he was just looking down as the mist resided, leaving a small looking black and red haired boy in front of him. Anger radiating from his form.

Good, let him be angry. Owen had been angry for a long time, and Alex hadn’t cared then, why should he care now?

“Let me out Sandy.” Owen commanded, looking up to the ceiling and ignoring the fire at his back. “Playtime’s over, nothing is going to come of your attempt to mediate”

In a flash of light, Sandy stood in front of him, blocking Alex entirely. A curious look on their face as they seemed to trace Owen’s movements.

“Does this mean you're going to be less mopy now? Or at the very least stop avoiding the rest of the family to drink?”

“Is that what all of this was about?” Owen exclaimed, staring incredulously at Sandy. 

“I mean-mostly?” The other just laughed, hands covering their face. “You need confidence, dear uncle! You just needed a little push” Sandy teased, pushing Owen backwards as he yelped. Remembering the heat at the back and-

It wasn’t cold and chill like Alex, but it wasn’t the fiery abyss he had felt early. It was just normal. As if everything was safe, as if everything was okay now. Maybe it had been for a while and he just hadn’t noticed it.

Huh, regardless he smiled at Sandy, bringing them in for a hug. “Well, maybe I will try sobriety again. It’s…been a while since I came to family dinner, huh?” he asked, looking at the other proudly.

Maybe things will be okay again.