Sometimes you’re just too late to save anyone.

Deviation rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, the soft sleeve of her sweater scuffing her cheeks.

Sometimes you’re just too late to save even yourself.

She glanced over at her brothers, they were completely drunk or on thier way there.

“You could say…” said Harold, grinning in that way one gets right before a joke in bad taste “that it blew him away…”

Everyone else groaned, including Deviation, as Harold ducked and dodged a storm of empty beercans. Tonight was the 5th anniversery of their brother Isaiah’s death. He was working for NASA when a test rocket exploded, taking 2/3 of his head with it.

They dealt with everything humorously, the Colderone children did, this was no exception. Deviation stood, weaving slightly.

“Look, I’m gone, sitting here with you losers is depressing.”

“Where you headed then?” asked Ben, looking up at her with wide brown eyes, his expression one of perpetual anxiety.

“Bar.” she said simply, tugging on her jacket.

“But it’s still early,” siad Ben, rising with her and helping her into the leather bomber jacket as if he were an old man bent on chivelry.

Before Deviation could answer Albert lept unsteadily to his feet, “hell fuckin yes, lets go to a bar!” He stumbled and righted himself laughing. “Sitting around here at this sausage fest is a little too much for me, too, bunny.”

Deviation chuckled and kissed ben on the cheek. “We’ll come back in one piece, I promise.” Ben wet his lips and almost danced in place with anxiety. Deviation glanced around the room. “Coming?” she asked of her other brothers. Only Gene and Fred stood and got their coats. Fred wasn’t nearly as drunk as his siblings, just steady enough to not drive them into anything that could cripple or kill them and Gene was always ready for a change of atmosphere.

Deviation tossed her keys to Fred and left the room, walking almost silently through the house to the front door.

Sometimes, she thought, you arrive just in time to see it all end.

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