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We were never children. We had no childhood. We were born without protection or patience. We were swaddled in boar skin and shark teeth. We knew no gentleness except from each other.
And then, she took that away.
"What happened?" Vaas asks. They are still small, but Vaas is already strong. He has to be strong. If he weren't strong, he'd be useless.
Citra doesn't answer. There is a bruise on the arm like a dark fan. Like fingers. There is a cut on her lip. Her eyes are clear and cold.
“What the fuck happened?” He asks.
“Men are cruel and violent. We must become more cruel and violent or we will be victims.”
Vaas shakes his head. He puts his arms around her and she lets him hug her. “I don’t want that for you.”
“Then you must be cruel and violent for both of us.”
So he is, and he comes back to her with blood on his hands when her bruises are fading. She holds him close and he stares at nothing over her shoulder.
She says, "There's nothing but the two of us now." And he believes her.
We never liked our dreams. I would wake up in the night and scream, and she would come to me. She would tell me about her dreams, and I knew I had to tell her mine in return, no matter how terrible.
I don't dream anymore. I prefer hallucinations. I told her, and she softly touched my face and called me a coward.
Water.
Sudden, cold, down his nostrils and throat. Vaas wakes up sputtering and cursing, flailing his arms out. He makes contact before he realizes it's her. Wiping the water out of his eyes, he sees that she's stumbled back and is leaning against the wall, motionless. A mark where he hit her is blossoming on her cheek.
He scrambles up from his mattress on the floor and goes to her. Shit shit shit, under his breath, I didn't mean to.
Citra looks at him, and the look in her eye stops him. Suddenly, her stillness is more like an animal waiting to strike, and he realizes that he would let her kill him. He would let her grab the hunting knife from the floor next to his mattress and shove it down his throat for hitting her.
"I'll do it myself," he says to her, as if she could read his thoughts. As if she could know what he's thinking. "I'll do it myself if you want me to."
Her movements are quick. She doesn't go for the knife--she grips his face between her hands. Her nails press into his skin, but he doesn't try to fight her off. "Where were you?"
"I was here."
"Where were you?"
He stares at her, trying to make sense of the question, but his mind is still sludgy and slow. He was here, but he knows repeating himeslf will only anger her. Her anger makes him sicker than any withdrawal.
"You were supposed to be at the lookout. The supplies that we paid blood for over the past few months are gone, because you were not there."
Memories float to the surface of his mind, like a corpse in a swamp. It was always good to get a little high before killing people--and he would have killed a lot of people. But he'd overdone it. He's always overdoing it.
"I am beginning to think..." Her voice is soft, she removes her hands from his face. "You are not what I was hoping you might become."
"I am!" He's frantic. His voice breaks.
Citra says nothing, but her eyes bore into him. He wants to shrink away, to scratch at his skin. He wishes she would go for the knife. He wouldn't stop her. Does she know he wouldn't stop her? Does she know he's too weak?
No, he's not weak. She hates weakness.
Vaas grabs her by her neck and pushes her against the wall. She doesn't react. Her eyes are still bright and fierce and her mouth is closed.
"I'll fix it."
Still, she says nothing, but he knows what nothing means. So, fix it, then.
By the end of the day he's killed more people than he can count, but he only gets back a fraction of the supplies they lost.
When it's over, he gets high again, until he can't see her eyes staring at him in the dark.
We made promises to each other.
Are you listening, asshole? We made promises.
Or maybe she didn't promise me shit. Maybe I made the promises to her. And I broke them all.
I'm sure you've broken some promises, haven't you? Don't worry, hermano. I'll put a hole in your head so big you won't remember any of them.
Vaas watches her through the sniper rifle scope. If he pulled the trigger, she'd be dead. And he could end himself, too. And it'd be over. At least it would be over.
He can imagine it. The sound, muffled by the silencer. She falls back. The moment between it happening, and those around her realizing it's happening. Her body on the ground while chaos blooms around her. The crack of a second bullet, this one from the handgun at his side. The startled birds shooting out from the trees.
He shifts his view to the man she's talking to--but he loses the shot. They disappear into cover.
What would be satisfying about doing it like that, anyway? He puts the rifle aside and squints down with his own vision.
When he ends this, he wants to feel the blood on his hands. He wants to smell the human smell of fresh death. He wants to show her that he is her warrior, whether she still calls him that or not.
We were never children.
We came into the world fully grown, like gods do in stories. We did not cry or pout; we destroyed any hand that dared to touch us.
And if we did cry, we held each other until it stopped.
And if someone did touch us, we made sure they would never touch us again.
Do you know how many of her lovers I've killed?
You aren't special. What I'm doing to you isn't special.
You just stumbled into the story of two gods, and do you know what happens to mortals who do that?
If you don't, you're about to find out.