fallout { reva }

Reese LaChance will never, ever be used to having money. Often times, when they come asking for it, he almost forgets his new parents and how they all but force him to take a wad of cash with him everywhere he goes, just in case. It weighs heavy in his pocket, and he feels it against his leg with every step he takes. Money, he thinks, is a lot more annoying than I ever realized.

Lucky for him, though, he almost never has to worry about carrying it around for too long. People see Reese LaChance, and they see sickness and weakness: someone they should either pity or try to break. Sadly, most choose the ladder. No one, however, chooses to just see him as he is-- just Reese LaChance: a boy. Because he doesn't feel like someone who is dying, or someone who should be pitied or bullied. He feels like a boy and that is all.

Alice Dexter, Gwen Aberforth, Cedar Pallas, all of them bound up to him with plastic smiles and sharpened claws. Alice merely holds out her hand and looks up at him, while Gwen giggles behind her and Cedar crosses his arms over his chest. "I think you know what she wants," Cedar says in that annoying, deep, monotone voice of his.

"Seriously? Still taking lunch money, are we?" He rolled his eyes, not willing to fight them, and slapped the money in Alice's hand. She smiles sweetly, turns, and disappears, while Gwen waves in a friendly matter and Cedar refuses to take his eyes off of him, even as he began to walk away.

He takes a seat in the grass and runs his hands through his hair. He can't tell his mom and dad. They would never stand for it. Especially his mom. He couldn't tell his sister, either, because she might get suspended from school or hitch a ride to the detention center for fighting. He won't tell anyone, he decides. He has dealt with hunger a few too many times for this particular occasion to hurt his pride. He is only just standing to go on his way when he sees her.

She is not all that different from her sister, yet the complete opposite: blonde hair instead of brown, taller, curvier, but with the same dark doe eyes and pixie-like features.

""I come in peace." she says with a cheeky grin, but Reese huffs.

Peace? He almost says, Never heard of it.

Instead, he settles on something less, albeit not by much, depressing.

"If you've come for my money, your sister and her goons have beaten you to it. Try again tomorrow, maybe.

He looks at her, at the confusion and disbelief and he realizes he does not know Eva Dexter any deeper than memorizing a name and a face and putting them together. His parents left him at birth, and have nothing to do with him. He doesn't even know what their real names are, actually, but he is not an awful person because of it. Maybe, even though they are sisters, Eva is not the same as Alice, just like him and his real parents. Maybe Eva has a big heart, and that is why Alice doesn't have one at all.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly, then coughs. Damn him and his sicknesses. "It isn't your fault they're so..." He looks down at his feet.

"Sorry."