Ty Johnson (allthingsdark) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2016-10-23 12:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, ~2016 october, ~25 points, ~~axl johnson (axlallfather), ~~ty johnson (allthingsdark) |
WHO: Axl Johnson and Ty Johnson
WHAT: Brothers reuniting, yay?
WHEN: After Axl’s arrival
WHERE: Ty’s place
WARNINGS: TBD, language
STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Well, fuck. As if things weren’t sucking enough back home, Axl found himself portaled (or whatever) to some tiny little town in the middle of America. Sure, he was glad to be out of all the shit happening back home for a while, but the timing couldn’t have been much worse. He wasn’t really in the mood for a vacation, especially since he was pretty sure he’d just killed his brother.
As angry as he’d been, as broken hearted...as devastated...he’d never meant to kill Anders. He hated him, and was probably never going to forgive him, but he didn’t want him dead. Axl wasn’t a murderer, first of all. He didn’t want to go to jail. And secondly...well...Anders was his brother. He’d meant to hurt him, sure. He’d struck out in rage. But he hadn’t meant for...for that to happen. Hell.
When he’d first found out about this god thing he’d thought it was just about the coolest thing ever. Yeah, no. It was about as far from cool as it was possible to be. It was a fucking curse.
It wasn’t hard to find Ty’s place, but it was hard to face him. He couldn’t bring himself to knock on the door, so he just sat down on the step and buried his face in his hands. Eventually he’d get up and knock on the door, or Ty would come out looking for him. But for now...well, he just needed a minute.
***
Cursed was how Ty lived his life since his twenty-first, so if anyone could empathise with Axl, it would be him.
Seeing that his younger brother had arrived in town was the first time in a very long while that he didn’t actually feel quite as cursed. When he’d arrived, Anders had been there to help him through it, as much as Anders was capable of helping anyone, which really wasn’t very much, even if that someone were Ty, the person who probably liked him the best of anyone. Not a difficult position to attain. Liking Anders even a little did it.
Axl, though, was easy to like, easy to love, and love him Ty did, was ecstatic to have his family back. He’d been missing them all a little more lately. He’d immediately called his brother over, waited impatiently for him to get there, until it had been much too long and Ty could only assume he’d gotten lost. Intent on searching the younger Johnson out, he’d thrown the door to his flat open, only to see his target sitting right there.
And he looked like shit.
Without a word, Ty moved to sit down beside Axl, the chill that accompanied him everywhere he went giving him away long before he did. Something had happened, probably something Ty hadn’t lived yet; he’d remember seeing Axl like this.
***
The cold actually surprised Axl a little, and he looked over at his brother at that. Back home, as far as Axl knew, Ty wasn’t Hod anymore. Had something happened when he’d been brought here? Was this some crazy time travel thing too? Hey, why not. With everything crazy that had been going on lately, it really wasn’t that much of a stretch.
But asking his brother about his life here and other stuff like that didn’t really seem appropriate with the bombshell that he had inside of him. He felt sick. And guilty.
So he might as well spit it out.
“I think I killed Anders.”
***
That really wasn’t what Ty was expecting to hear. He’d expected confusion, maybe fear. An admission of fratricide really wasn’t an option he’d considered.
“What do you mean you think you killed Anders?”
It wasn’t quite accusatory, more confused than that, Ty could understand the urge, and understood Axl well enough that he suspected anything that had happened had been an accident, if anything. Axl was a good lad, a good heart. Not a murderer.
The one way he and Ty were alike.
And apparently they now shared the guilt of maybe killing someone they loved.
***
“I mean I think I killed Anders,” he said again, impatiently. “You know? I did something, and now he’s dead.” He looked away, curling his fingers into a fist and slamming them into his knee a couple of times. “I didn’t mean to kill Anders, it’s just…”
“He slept with Gaia, Ty! He knows how I feel about her and he did it anyway and he wouldn’t shut up about it and I pushed him and...well, Odin strength kicked in and oh god there was so much blood…like his neck...his aorta or whatever.”
There’s no way he could have survived it. Axl wasn’t a doctor or anything but he could tell when someone was totally fucked.
***
That didn’t sound promising. And Ty didn’t have the information to assure his brother that it had worked out, that Anders would be okay. He’d seen the elder brother from his own future, as Axl obviously was, but how far, Ty had no idea. He hadn’t really cared. All he’d known was that Anders had been able to make promises that Ty hadn’t fully believed that Dawn wasn’t dead.
“Fucking Anders,” he murmured, not thinking even for a second that Axl was wrong. Of course he’d fucked his brother over. “What happened, exactly?”
Because Anders was a dick but he was a dick who loved Axl just like the rest of them. There had to be circumstances. How good they were, though...that was hard to say. None of the Johnsons were particularly good at decision making.
***
What happened exactly. Well, how long this story was going to be depended on what Ty knew. And since time travel was apparently a thing here…
“See, you know my roommate Gaia right? Well, turns out she’s a goddess like we’re gods. And she was supposed to be Frigg or this Maori goddess who was...also kind of like Frigg but then Helen - Idunn got killed by those crazy god hunters and apparently we have to have her so she skipped the queue and Gaia became Idunn. Who’s in love with Bragi. Which sucked big time but we figured since Gaia and I were in love we could fight it, right? Because we’re Gaia and Axl too, not just Odin and Idunn.”
Yeah, that had worked just fucking great.
“Well, turned out that we couldn’t fight it. And of course fucking Anders didn’t even try.” Well, maybe he had, but not hard enough or he wouldn’t have ended up banging the girl that Axl was crazy about.
***
The only part of any of that that Ty did know was about Idunn. He’d met Helen. He’d slept with Helen. It had been great. It couldn’t have lasted, though, because he wasn’t Bragi. He’d had to let that go, no matter how much he’d liked her. In the end it had been okay for him. He’d gotten Dawn.
And almost killed Dawn.
Maybe not so great for him.
“Jesus,” Ty breathed, rubbing his hand over his face. “Well. Can’t blame you for being pissed off at him.” Even Ty would have lashed out, probably would have tried to hurt him, too. But even if he lashed out, he didn’t have the god powers to accidentally kill someone. While he was conscious, anyway.
“I’m sorry about Gaia,” he offered. It wouldn’t do any good, he knew it, but it was heartfelt and the only thing he could give. Nothing he could say would make his brother feel better about what he’d done, accidental or no. Ty knew that. Ty was living that himself.
***
Axl had hoped, irrationally, that Ty could fix things the way that older brothers were supposed to fix things. Maybe if Mike had been here, he could have...no. Not even gods could bring dead people back to life. And Anders had looked really, really dead.
He just shrugged at his condolences. What good would they do? They wouldn’t bring Anders back. Not that he really wanted Anders back but he didn’t want him dead. And he really didn’t want to go to jail because of Anders. And Gaia...well. That was ruined too. He wanted to hope that there was some way that could be repaired, but as long as she was Idunn…
Fuck. Everything had gone to shit and there was nothing he could do about any of it.
“So should I just turn myself in or what?”
***
“There’s not a lot of point to it,” Ty said after a moment’s consideration. No more than there was point to him doing the same over Dawn. Not here. Not ever, really. Where gods were concerned, things were complicated, and maybe Anders would, somehow, be alright.
He had no idea how, but maybe somehow.
“I don’t think anyone here’s going to hold you for a might’ve killed someone with no evidence. And I know you’re not going about trying to kill innocent people so there’s nothing to worry about.” The part of Ty who was a good person was inclined to say otherwise, but he was a big brother and he trusted that Axl hadn’t meant to actually hurt anyone, wanted to protect him in any way he could.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with it all at home, but here’s a chance to hope that he made it.”
***
Well, he had meant to hurt Anders. And in the heat of the moment, maybe he’d even meant to hurt him badly. But he hadn’t meant to kill him. Axl wasn’t a killer. There was a time when he’d just been a normal, nice kid who was a little clueless. He missed those times. Life had been a lot easier then.
“So I just...wait.” Honestly, he wasn’t sure if that was any better. Just sitting around here, knowing the enormity of what he’d done back home, pretending that he hadn’t. Because he couldn’t just walk around introducing himself, Hey, I’m Axl Johnson and I killed my asshole brother.
He buried his face in his hands for a moment.
“Just…fuck, Ty.”
***
It probably wasn’t any better, to leave it and allow himself to dwell on it, but honestly, Ty didn’t have a better solution. Not yet. He might not ever. It wasn’t like he had any answer or any experience handling homicide. At least he had been told that he hadn’t actually killed anyone. He couldn’t offer Axl the same.
He sighed, laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Fuck is right.”
There wasn’t much else to say about it.
“Come on. We’re going to get shitfaced.” Drinking himself into a stupor wasn’t his usual response, it was a lot more Anders than Ty, but in this situation? It seemed like the best response.
***
Axl had done the drinking himself into a stupor thing and was actually quite intimately familiar with it. It didn’t help in the long term, but right now he kind of just wanted to forget right now. And if he couldn’t get the image of his brother bleeding out in front of him out of his mind, at least he could blur it with booze.
“You know, yeah. I’m all in favor of that. Where’s the nearest pub?”
***
The smallest smile quirked at Ty’s lips. “Not far. Come on.”
He’d think about it and maybe find some way to help Axl, but for now he was just happy his brother was there. As happy as Ty ever got. Maybe the happiest he’d been in a very long time. He’d missed his family more than he’d thought he would, they could be so difficult and were so utterly insane. But they were his family. Apparently he wasn’t so good without them around.
***