Work Text:
He could remember a time when he and Ethan could carry on a sociable conversation. A time when everything didn't boil down to harsh words and fisticuffs.
But it had been so long ago.
Before several apocalypses. Before California. Before the Watcher's Council and years of study and drudgery. Before he was even legally old enough to buy a Guinness in the States.
He remembered long nights with too much booze and too many drugs. Long nights of talk and laughter. Too much frivolity and too much seriousness. Sleepless nights where the blue white crackle of magical residue danced over his skin and the only thing that would soothe it away was the red-hot burn of Ethan's own brand…
It was odd, that.
Odd that something that should have burned even more… cooled and soothed. But then the two of them, somehow, always complimented each other in those days. Dark and light, chaos and order, fire and water. But never Good and Evil. Those last two were something they never considered. Too young, he supposed, to think there were any standards they should be held to beyond their own.
And their own standards were…loose, to say the least.
Those times had been good, though. Good until they fell apart. Then there were only recriminations and blame and, inevitably, separation.
There was nothing left then but memories… sounding in the dark.
**