.:Read My Mind:. [Roger x Heath Blitz]

Heathcliff Travers

Heathcliff wasn’t sure if he missed his sister.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t love her; the two had never been apart more than two days his whole life. Funny how love was measured in time—age was the only thing that people used to quantify it. Heathcliff supposed it was much like any living thing. Love could go stale, could spoil, grow cold, and fade away. Yet he was happy all the same, standing on the edge of the rooftop garden, staring out at the street all alone. He could imagine his sister behind him, wrapped in their little blanket. She would be drifting to sleep just then, and tell him he wouldn’t be worth anything tomorrow if he didn’t as well. She’d say something mean about his face, or hair, and he’d snipe back that she was hogging too much of the covers.

They played games when he couldn’t fall asleep. Just about the only thing they could do in the quiet of their dank little wooden room was come up with distractions to fill it up. The breadth of the garden had him wondering what she would’ve thought of all the flowers. They could’ve made a crown; just like he’d always wanted. She would play queen, and he the fool. That was he—the fool—but not to make her laugh. The sage fool, the same one that reminded her daily of all the good things, the great things, of what they should have been.

He unstrung a deck of cards from his pocket and knelt into the soft grass. His bony fingers traced along the soft covers of the cards, and folded them over one another into a shuffle. He drew seven cards and started to lay them out. A four of clubs, a six of diamonds. He crinkled his nose and stared hard at the cards as they scattered. He traced along their edges and dipped closer. The game had been their way of seeing through the shadows, and didn’t take much convincing for either of them to believe what had once been fake could be real.

“Tell you a fortune?” Heathcliff said, peering over the cards in front of him. A shadow had crept up and over him, blocking the light of the stars and the dim overheads, too. Better to play a game with someone else’s life than to look too much further into his own.