Dawn
Ares stood down on the grass below, the darkened ground only illuminated by the moon as he tossed rocks upwards at Owen's window. It was open, as always. Ares aimed... Not for the open half. 

"Get down here." Toss. Clink. "The dark wont last forever and I want candy." The boy shouted upwards with his iconic charismatic bastard tone.
Emma
"*Very* Go fuck yourself if you can't wait a minute," Owen barked down from his window, his false annoyance peppered with holes. His voice sounded too weak to be lightened with laughter, but something jagged punched at the night air from behind his spat syllables.

He stomped outside with red eyes and hands jammed firmly in the pockets of his old green hoodie.

"Sorry."
Dawn
"Feisty. I like it." Ares lowered his voice to a calmer tone. Owen looked genuinely horrible; his steps heavier than they normally were when he was mad. Something *Really shitty* Must've happened. The boy wouldn't push it. 

"You're forgiven."

...

The two made it to the corner store quickly, without much chatter. Ares would make an off handed joke every once in a while, but other than that, Owen kept his eyes locked forward. They stood at a distance inside. Ares didn't care, whatever Owen needed, he would give. Right now he wanted space. Methodically turning corners like a machine, Ares' pockets filled up quickly. Owen was on his mind with every snatch. 

...

Ares took Owen up to an inactive construction site. Concrete blocks and gravel dust, just the moon shining down on the wide empty space. They sat together, side by side, while Ares placed his bag full of snacks and drinks down at his feet. 

He pulled out a drink for Owen, and handed it over to him. He also slid the bag mostly full of snacks Owen liked closer to him with his heavy boot. 

"... Wanna tell me what happened?" Finally he asked.
Emma
Owen walked right on Ares' heels with every turn like a wired dog. He wanted to cling to the acid in his chest, and wanted to melt every grimy tile in the corner store with it at the same time; the air around him oozed a miserable, dry heat, like something had been wrinkled up and crudely shoved into a vent.

He took the offerings with hands that pried each finger out of their fists one by one, squeezing brightly-coloured plastic like it owed him something it could never hope to repay.

Silently still, with his jaw clamped shut for dear life, he sat.

"I *Hate*," He hissed (and that was nearly enough on its own), "Every*One* And every*Thing* Here."

His voice might have broken at every word; he clenched his fist tighter, and forced his sweet drink to the back of his throat.
Dawn
"Oh yeah, I get that." Ares gave a wry laugh and took a sip of his drink.

He was close to Owen, he could feel the tense anger that pressed into his bones. He knew the feeling all too well; he knew Owen all too well. 

"What has spawned this hatred." The taller boy leaned forward, and tilted ever so slightly towards his brother. "You usually aren't so... *This.*"
Emma
"AND *I HATE IT!*" 

Owen cut into the low sky sharply and quickly, outrunning his speech impediment, beating his tears to the punch.

"Nothing is *Ever* Good enough! They're all, they're all, they're *Jackals!*" He forced out more of the poison, straight on ahead of him, his breaths shallow.

"Fucking *Hyenas*, cackling like..." He was up, pacing now, kicking stones out of his way. "AND ALL I AM IS STILL A *CRYBABY* AND A FUCKING *SHIELD* WITH NOTHING BEHIND IT!"

His last syllables left him with an unsatisfying, teary bluntness that only seemed to enrage him further.
Dawn
Ares gave Owen the space to scream out his feelings. The wide empty space surely helped, Ares chose it for a good reason. To stand and feel so big against the night; a king conquering the sky. Owen would make a good constellation Ares thought.

"*Are you fucking kidding me? Who the fuck?*" Ares expressed frustration in solidarity, but made sure not to one up him. He was agreeing, not upstaging. 

"You're so much more than that, anyone who says otherwise is dumb as fuck." Ares took a sip of his sour energy drink as he kicked a stray rock across the gravel in front of him.
Emma
"But it's the *Truth*," He forced, though Ares' insistence that it wasn't spread something sweeter than acid behind his face, which looked picked raw. Nearly bleeding all over again.

Nevertheless, there were things still biting at his tongue.

"All I am these days is a f-fucking *Omen* That someone's going to get snapped at."

Things that weren't all the way true.

"I c-can't *Exist* Like this!"

Things that needed to come out of him anyway.

"I hated myself when I let anyone say anything to me and I hate myself now when I can't *Stand it* And everyone just"—he downed another gulp—"*KEEPS TALKING ANYWAY* And I hate *Every word* That comes out of *Everyone*!"
Dawn
Ares looked at Owen through the side of his vision as he leaned down onto his knees, slowly bringing the top of the can to his lips. He tapped his finger against the tab. 

"Yeah, been there. That shit fuckin sucks."

"I don't get why everyone has a problem recently. Seems like the more time we spend here the more shit goes crazy with our brains." He gave a small scoff with a smile. 

"I swear those motherfuckers are braindead. You're right to be pissed." The boy leaned back and stared out and up. The sky was so big.
Emma
Not knowing whether he wanted Ares to rail against him so he could have something angry to scream at or if the validation was too blissfully good at cooling him down before he had gotten to split the sky, Owen just stood and stared at the ground like it was crawling towards him at a glacial pace. He knew he would feel so small under the sky if he dared to look.

A familiar feeling, a hand made of salt and slime and dread, closed slowly around his throat.

"I feel s-*Sick*, Ares," He lamented, and they both knew he meant no physical malady.

"I'm so tired, but I can't rest because it scares me."

In a moment like that, Owen's words should surely have been riddled and shaken, but they slipped from him quiet and clean like blood from an arrowhead buried deep in his proud, broad shoulder.

"*Blinedig, a chlaf, a hyll y tu mewn.*"
Dawn
Ares looked at Owen with a softer expression. The boy had seen those close to him with similar fatigue. His older brother, a friend to burnout and imposter syndrome, was someone who made this moment something Ares knew all too well. He knew the ache Owen felt. 

He placed a sturdy hand over Owens shoulders, resting his forearm across his upper back. 

"Maybe, you shouldn't rest." Ares' voice leaned up with a sort of playful yet sincere idea. "D'ya think maybe, you're too focused on calming yourself down?" 

It was displayed right in front of him. Ares could see how high strung Owen was, how he held onto everything so tight. Ares knew that wouldn't last forever. 

"Why not be angry? Why not say fuck it and let it all go? Especially if the person deserves it." Ares leaned his shoulder into the other, the same hand on his back. The softest smirk on his lips.

"Go fuckin wild man, its wonderful to stop giving a shit."
Emma
The body under Ares' arm was a mass of a liquid, faintly crackling heat, his tensed muscles burning into the taller boy's hand on his shoulder. The flames beneath his skin weren't to keep anyone warm that night.

"They don't deserve... Everything I'm feeling," Owen pressed through gritted teeth. His fists were still clenched tightly at his sides, but he pressed his shoulder hard into his brother's.

His wrinkled brow pressed his doe eyes nearly shut. Thinking, hard.

Except the old shame was hardly even worth thinking about anymore—there was nowhere new to go with it. His internal eyes skimmed insignificantly over the whole miserably-beaten path until they reached the end, knocking it just out of place. He said it like he was just then discovering the memory, clear and incredulous.

"I... I knocked a kid's tooth out."
Dawn
"Hm." Ares was sympathetic. He knew how the guilt stung and tainted bone, how it never went away no matter how many showers wash away outer dirt. Owen didn't deserve to feel what Ares felt. Hurting someone else wasn't what he needed. 

Ares didn't move, he let himself be a unmoving force that Owen could lean his tired shoulders into. 

"That's new... What happened?" The tan boy prompted the other to confide. "—And trust me, if you're worried I'll judge you, I've done miles worse. Whatever ya' say is safe with me here." Ares meant it and his tone showed it. 


Violence was not something that Ares associated with Owen. The ginger was non-confrontational, anxious to a fault, with the same panic that struck small animals being hunted for prey— yet he wasn't surprised. Everyone lost it eventually, Ares knew that. No amount of negativity tainted the way he viewed Owen, even with everything he had and had not said.
Emma
**CW: censored use of the R slur**

"Well."

The boy found, in that moment, that he trusted everything Ares said with his life. He didn't even break a sweat.

"I was, uh, younger. Voice-hadn't-dropped young, but older than you'd expect someone to, uh, do that." He swallowed, his foot playing with a rock on the ground.

"This kid was just... *Incessant*. He made his noise with his—it doesn't even matter. He knew I hated his guts, and he thought I was a r—ah, um, a *Waste of space*, and it only got worse when I was, uh, outed."

Owen hadn't told anyone about this before, but something was to be said about how smoothly it all fell out of him, as though he had been rehearsing for years.

"I, ah, I hadn't been sleeping well, and you know how I—just, everything bothered me, and he picked that up, and he—he was sat next to me, because the teacher didn't give a shit—he just made this *Fucking noise* That he knew drove me *Insane* All day, and, well, I hit him, and I didn't stop."

The redhead looked at his knuckles, squeaky clean then of blood that wasn't his.

"No idea why his parents didn't-didn't sue or something. Must've been a baby tooth. I got put into a different class. Never did that again, neither did he. Though he spread some nasty rumours about me."

Owen knew how he must look to Ares, so nervous to tell him of all people, but the persistent knot in his gut still commanded shame, still pulled his eyes down on invisible strings, ordered stillness in his limbs, which looked alien and wrong to him when they weren't fiddling or plucking or tapping or swinging or *Something*.

"Wasn't like I had friends in the first place, but... That was about it for me socially, unless I wanted to be somebody's *Pet*," He spat, sour vitriol hot again on his tongue.
_ _

"I don't... Know why I did it." *A lie.* "I don't like that I did it." *True enough.* "I sat... I sat perfectly still for the rest of the time at that school. Lest everyone think I'm some sort of a r———d brute. But like I said... There's no fucking winning."

His thumb, sharpened and red-hot, punctured the side of his empty can, scraping along the inside. The slur tasted like molten *Shit*, and it bit like a dull knife in his stomach; it was a voice that wasn't his, but refused to leave him anyhow, the one constant between his days of being a puppy or a blank-eyed brute from the place of his peers. Though Ares' presence was a comfort quite unlike any other, his atmosphere burned again, stubborn enough to warp steel if he refused still to let its core out of his chest.
Dawn
Ares listened quietly to Owen's story. Breaking only briefly for nods and soft hums to let the other know he was understanding every word. 

It hurt Ares to hear, in all honesty. He was no stranger to the cruelty of children, and the way their laughter echoed with the hatred of their parents. Being a brown kid in a white neighbourhood taught Ares all he needed to know about hate. He and Owen were too similar. Too different from everyone else to be wanted or needed. They stood on the outside— made friends with people they knew they shouldn't, for very different reasons— and held their broken attempts at connection behind shaking hands. 

They were the same. 

A wolf can smell a wolf, even when that wolf tries to hide within the plush wool of a sheep. For Owen, that wool was the broken backbone of someone who only lived to please those around him. 

Ares knew that's not who Owen was. Not even close. His core held far more than anything he could've imagined. 

Without a sound, no teases or snickers, Ares wrapped his arms strongly around Owen and pulled him in. Quickly and suddenly, the others nose was pressed into Ares' collar bone, his hands resting on the back of his head and back. He could feel the pain, the familiar turmoil that poisoned Owen, it was a song sung from one who knew all of the notes Ares thought he hid well. 

"You're nothing they said you were." His voice was quiet in the silence, a reassurance just for the one he held in his arms. "You are so much more than they say you are."

"That fucker deserved it."
Emma
Owen could feel Ares' eyes on him—even when the taller boy stared into the same nothing that he did, the sound of his own voice was too clear in the empty site, far weightier than he was used to. Ares' auburn eyes were *Warm*, pinned to the side of his face; lost in contemplation was the wrong phrase for it. Though he betrayed himself through the on-and-off tense of his jaw and the pin-drop silence in his throat that he was indeed thinking, *Hard*, Ares was not lost—affected, sure, but his feet were planted firmly on the gravel, his arm still firm across the slumped spread of his shoulders.

He had never told a soul about this. The way he understood the word, he had never *Wanted* To, but rather it scraped at his chest, cut ribbons of his tongue, lurched to disprove every affirmation of his so hard-won gentleness as they came. The fact that it was Ares who finally relieved him of it—Ares with the scarred hands, with the towering frame, with the entire past shaped like this one twisting stain on his own—felt... Right, in a way the boy hadn't pictured.

Yes, Ares' eyes were warm, with a sadness that not a single plate of his armour could mistake for mere pity.

The last time Owen had been buried in Ares' shoulder, it had been his own doing. This time, his smell of fire and spice hit him by surprise, a muffled sound of confusion dying in the crook of the dark-haired wall of warmth's neck. He wanted to make a weaker sound, of his skull melting in that strong palm curled over it, but if any sound escaped him it would have been a sob, and what little his friend said was far too precious to drown out.

Silence wrapped his kindness for a while after that, cloaked tenderly in a cool darkness, disturbed only by the soft sounds of what Owen was holding dropping to the ground so that his hands, sweaty and fumbling like a child's, could grasp at the back of his jacket. At the dear one it contained.
_ _

Owen was nothing anyone said he was. Instead, in that moment, he was human, and he was strong, even shaking, even crushed to the chest of someone he had once been so frightened and envious of.

He felt Ares' heart against his own, like calling to like, hearth to hearth. *That fucker deserved it,* Because he had been cruel, because he and so many like him had bent Owen down to such a pained shape far beyond them both growing up. He wanted to believe Ares with such a ferocity that he simply *Did*.

"*Th*-ank you," He whispered, "For being so kind to me."

Heat pricked at his eyes, but his voice lasted a little longer.

"I, I don't-I, wh..." He hiccuped. "*Diolch i chi, fy mrawd*."
Dawn
"I ain't goin' no where."

Ares held Owen tightly against his chest, close to the warmth of his soul and laughter; cheek to the beat of a fiery heart, calloused hands pressed into denim. It was a gesture of strength, yet even Owen seemed to crumble slightly in the assurance.

The firecracker boy would not let Owen break down against adversity. 

He moved his hands to each of his brother's shoulders, and pulled him back to an upright sitting position. The two were locking eyes, Ares had that glint under his gaze— that spark in the auburn ash. A smirk pulled up on his lips.

"Now. I want you to remember that, yes, you *Aren't* What they told you— you are *So much better.*" He snickered. "Incapable? No. You're the absolute opposite— stronger than they could ever be." With a shake of the others shoulders, his words grew in a positively arrogant tone. 

"You beat the shit out of them then, and you'd do even better now. Think about that." Ares then moved his hands to Owen's wrists. He grabbed both, the soft skin against his palms, and held them up to Owen's eyes so he could get a good look. "These are the hands of someone who had the strength to punch someone that he knew deserved it. They still carry that with them. *These are those same hands.*" 

Ares laughed. "You got a fire in you that you keep tryna snuff out!" He shot up, moved in front of Owen, and swung his arms out to each of his sides. The battle jacket covered in stitched patches, chains and studs, made a loud noise as Ares moved. He loved how with every step his presence was known. He would make Owen love it too. 

"It's so much fun to let that fire fuckin' BURN man!" The words were shouted out across the empty gravel lot, only the moon and concrete to listen. Ares looked down at Owen, a sort of pride in his expression that spoke to his genuine belief in Owen's capabilities.

"You don't need to let *Anyone* Fuck you over anymore. Show them how you thrive."
Emma
The way Ares talked about the sun would make a vampire break all its windows just to dance in it. Owen half forgot to listen to his words, blown back by the sheer confidence in him—confidence in *Him*, every spark flicked from the tip of his tongue lighting the air because he had something so passionate to say about *Him*, and his fire, and everything unspeakable he found etched into his bones.

He looked at his hands when Ares showed them to him—the soft things that held Uriel, the clever ones that wrote songs... The strong ones that knew something of justice, that might not have been *Mad*.

*Oh.*

Ares took a knife to the Gordian Knot in his chest, his wit in his blade, sharp and clean and obvious; fires danced in Owen's brown eyes as they looked deep into his brother's, unafraid now of what he'd see. Ares laughed, and Owen echoed him, for the sheer thrill of it—the sound was half there, incredulous and still a little terrified of itself, and mostly still intended to be a sob.

But for a moment, just a glorious moment, he understood why his armour was aflame.

Tears always welled in Owen's eyes when what he was feeling couldn't fit inside of his body. He made a point always to never be ashamed of it—no less of a man, no weaker a heart was he for the bruises his pulse left on his ribs. Said muscle hammered on every bone in his body, he felt, against calcified cages built around things his body was once far too small for.

"I—"

Cinnamon-flecked fists struck Owen's thighs in a frantic rhythm as he paced. The stretches between his white knuckles glowed a deep red.

"I *Want to*," He pushed, like wrenching something barbed and rusted from his gut. "I want to be like you, how you're not *Afraid* Of it, how—how every *Step* You take is the right one b-because *You* Took it and n-not the—the other way around!!"
_ _

Out flowed the mess always stuck in his throat, glowing like embers awaiting one final push from the bellows. One wasn't far, from how he was breathing. His red, *Burning* Red eyes clung to Ares for dear life, and his maniac grin hurt his face.

"My scream, when, when I sing, m-my scream it's—it's not wh-wholly a, a scream of *Terror* Anymore and I," He spilled, "I d-don't know what to—how to—"

A low humming sound rumbled from his chest, tipping some of his sheer energy over the rim so he could *Think*.

"*AAAAAAaaaaaghh!*" He attempted, though it wasn't nearly enough.
Dawn
Owen spoke with a confidence that was trapped under a tightly sealed lid. It bubbled against the rim, and threatened to break through. Ares wanted it to break through. He knew Owen needed it— a well deserved release. The freedom was something Ares had revelled in for years now, and he knew Owen just needed that little *Push.*

The ginger let out his ideas of envy, and something in Ares shifted. *'I want to be like you,'* The other shouted. Instinctively, Ares' breath hitched in his throat. It felt both euphoric and dreadful— and yet at this moment, all Ares could do was let his tanned face shift into a matching grin. Now this phrase was no longer something to fear. *This was exactly what he wanted.* This is exactly what Owen *Needed*— to see how this wasn't anything to look down on, but something to *Want.*

For better or for worse.

"You gotta let it OUT. I know you got it in you."

Owen then screamed, and Ares immediately knew he could do better. 

So with a shift in his shoulders, and suddenly leaning to be inches away from Owens face, Ares screamed right back. It was significantly louder, and came from the throat of someone who never dared to make himself quieter. Ares did not hesitate to yell and it showed. It was a sudden confident shout of sound, paired with a bastard smirk, coming from the bottom of his lungs like the booming explosion of a firework midair. Just as long, he was urging Owen to let out a louder, more sure, scream. 

Without a single word, Ares was speaking in a language only Owen knew.

*Match my scream, be louder than me. Show me what you got.*
Emma
Each beat of Owen's pulse in his ears was like a timer on a bomb—with each *Thump* In his chest it felt like he were about to explode *Now...* No, *Now! No...*

Sweat pricked his scalp beneath his dishevelled red mane, his eyes darting wildly as Ares stomped closer. He managed to bolt himself in place, envisioning his feet as roots sprawling over the ground, breaking up the concrete, and found it in him to meet those molten-iron eyes like he so rarely could. It felt like fingers in his brain, prying apart all his excuses until Ares reached what he was looking for.

It was blissfully easy.

Owen rarely heard his bandmate make such a sound—for all the noise he was famed for making, the boy shook to think of hearing such a raw, purely triumphant sound erupt from him. He felt it in his bones, in the hollow of his ribcage, an echo of Bacchic madness and unfettered childhood energy that hadn't yet learned to shrink, to pacify its aching teeth with its own tail.

It struck him that Ares must have given him his place in their band, the head of their body of three, for he could easily have taken his place—no. That wasn't it. Owen had secured it, fair and square, by merits Ares saw plain as day. The look in his eye was downright maniacal, and it was among the most knowing he could recall.

It prodded at him: *"Well?"*

Owen perfected his technique a little more every time he used it. The path from his diaphragm to his curled lips was exquisitely fashioned to the point of pride; just the right amount of grime, volume practiced to shake rafters. He knew exactly what to do, pulling the clammy heat from his fever-hot skin and holding it all, for a moment as sharp as a thorn, in the heart of his heart.
_ _

He released it, and the very air crackled and blistered. Blood-red and molten gold sharpened around him, claws of light ripping briefly through the night not just for the sake of being alive, but for the necessity of burning his place in the dark. Owen's own fire glinted off his teeth as his scream tapered into laughter, crackling in time with the veins in his face and his hands burning red through his skin.
Dawn
Ares laughed in tandem with Owen. The redhead in front of him was so raw, so alive, burning with fire and sunlight. In the freezing cold night, he felt warm. He felt like he was living. 

"Hell yeah man!" Ares turned on his heels and faced the empty gravel field in front of them. He let out another loud shout into the darkness, dissolving the scream into laughter once more. 

It hurt his stomach in all the ways that reminded him he was the one in charge of his life, that he was a person, he was a firecracker in an empty night. He was the explosion of colour, the sinking of witnessing life and beauty. Here, in this quiet field, with just Owen, it was all simple. It was being human. Two dumb boys with dirt under their nails and passion in their bones screaming out against everything that tried to push back. They were free here.

No gilded birdcages or heavy chains shackled to a pike in the backyard near the doghouse, they weren't to be held down any longer, and Ares was going to make sure Owen felt it too. 

Sharp teeth pulled their way into a tight smile that pressed the corners of his mouth up into his cheeks into a smirk that only said *'I am here, here with you, and I won't let myself regret any second of my existence.'*

"Cmon man, let out all that stupid frustration from the people that fuck you over, it has no place with you anymore. Neither do they. Forget em'."
Emma
The night wind blew cold on the back of Owen's neck for the first time in ages. He loved the sound of Ares' voice; a previously thought-impossibility, with how every aspect of him loomed over Owen like a dazzling portrait of everything that scared him about other people, but now, oh, how he *Loved* To be alive, the walking sonorous contagion that he was.

That is, they had learned to harmonize quite well, he thought.

Owen's hands clenched and flicked and waved freely as he paced, his bones singing. In one language and the next, his shriek came undignified, unpracticed; it scraped his throat the way it did before he learned to unleash his fury instead on his blistered fingertips, his broken pencils, or the worst of them, nothing at all. He was, in a moment, unrecognizable to himself and more familiar than ever, for what his brother drew up from the silt in his brain like a magnet.

Few alive had heard the boy address Death, but Ares Morales bore witness to his cursing—from the trephine's wake poured the ache in his bones, the bitter water in which his brain sat day in and day outnumbered it loosened verse, jagged and unfinished, the last dregs of Pandora's jar. It left, in a pocket of night that burned like the afternoon sun, a boy, laughing like the head of a torch under the impossibly huge, dark cave ceiling of the starry sky. 

His brown eyes were peeled wide, conscious again of himself adrift in the adrenaline, fixed on Ares as his breaths tossed his whole posture like a tree in a windstorm. In his relief, the disjointed, giggling mental tone of a little kid, he felt a little like he had no skin. *Ha. Hahaha. Haha!!!*