They realize - Outsders SMP - Reunion Arc - Completed

~11~ Horns and Gaurds

A/n: istg autocorrect that is not how gaurds is spelled. Don't ask me how it is spelled but that just looks so wrong. Gaurds; gards; guards; gaurds; dammit, none of these look even close to right.

Whatever, back to the story.
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Apo had been fishing for six hours when Red found him.

"Hey..."

Apo reeled in another fish

"Apo?"

They cast again.

"Apo?"

Apo finally turned around.

"Red, hi. "

He pulled in another fish.

Apo's eyebags were pronounced, his hair was a mess, and his voice was hoarse. His fishing rod seemed to be in terrible condition, and there were piles of fish just flopping around him. In other words, Apo wasn't doing great.

"Apo, you can't keep living like this. And that's coming from ME. Have you eaten anything at all today?"

Apo took a bite out of some raw salmon. "Yesh, swee?" He sighed and spit it out. "Okay, no." He finally put his rod away and turned to Red. "Owen tried killing two people. If you didn't follow me, who knows. What if he had actually succeeded? Every single demon in the clearing dead..."

He stared off at the pond. Red hesitated.

"Not every demon."

Apo stared at him. "How would you know? I'm alive. He failed and is in prison. Obviously none of us are dead but-"

Red shook his head. "I know because-" he reached up to his unnaturally red head and pulled "-he doesn't know about one of us."

Apo was confused for a moment, dumbfounded at Red pulling off his apprent skin, until his eyes locked on Red's forehead.

Two stone-like red bumps were embedded into it.

"You're... a demon! Why?"

Red laughed. "Same reason as you, I was born with horns and demon parents," he said, pulling the mask back on.

"No, why you hide it? Why did you cut them off?" Apo asked, touching his own horns with sympathy, and adding the pain of losing them to his ever-numbing cyclone of hurt.

Red looked away. "I don't want to get into it."

Apo nodded. And the two sat in silence for a while until Red spoke up.

"What are you going to do about him?"

He didn't have to specify who, they both knew.

"I still care about him. I know it's crazy, I know he hates me. I know he dosen't deserve my care or friendship, but there's such a huge part of me clinging to the hope that maybe... just maybe... the Owen I knew in the maze is in there. It's stupid. It's probably going to get me killed, but..."

He sighed and turned to Red.

"When I woke up in Soup's basement, I told you I'd killed someone for being a human, and that I was just as bad as Owen. I told you most of the story in the maze, but that day I remembered everything. And... I talked to my past self. He... he hated humans so much. All of them. Not because they- I- knew any, but because I associated their entire species with everything wrong with the world. Everything I'd ever been through, it was humans' fault. And, I don't know, but I think Owen's the same way. If I can somehow prove that yes, he suffered something, but it wasn't demons' fault, maybe..." He stopped, noticing what he was saying, and laid down on the grass, staring at the clouds.

"It's stupid. I know. But I've seen that he can change, for better or worse. I think everyone can. No matter what they did."

Red simply stared at him. "That's not stupid."

Apo laughed a dry laugh. "Do you know how weird it is that the same name I associate with terror and death and hate is now one and the same with one I associate with cheesecake and beach parties and oranges and cow children and maze expeditions and... and getting stabbed..."

Red wanted to comfort his friend, but couldn't find peace in himself for something. He drank a beer.

"'Actually, I don't care. Just do it for whoever's left that cares about him I guess.'"

It was Apo. He had to keep Owen alive for Apo's sake. Even if that meant standing between Owen and a cannibal God or vengeful duchess.

He drank another two beers.

Apo had fallen asleep by the riverbed. Apparently this confession had been the last of his energy.

"You're my only friend left Apo. And if you care so much about this asshole, I'll keep him alive." Red whispered, and began putting any alive fish back into the pond.