Bearbones

tw. Mention of alcohol & drugs

Silas Overton was not a graceful man, nor one renowned for such sophistication. For a man who had suffered great perils in this world, he still saw the world in all of his puerile glory, and it led to a recklessness that so often got him into troublesome times.

It seemed that his experience in the world never quite taught him tact. Instead, he took the world in his stride with an air of arrogance that screamed ❝ fuck you, I can do what I want to ❞. But Silas now had a child who grew up to slowly resent his father’s means of dealing with life. Jay had always been the more level-headed of the two and, if anything, it was an unwarrantable flaw to expose Jay to adulthood before he had even reached puberty.

He could apologise for his unconventional means of raising Jay or attempt to conjure up a plethora of excuses. He had been a teenage dad — barely an adult himself when he first found himself taking care of the motherless Jay. A good father didn’t have a mild alcohol dependency, an unscrupulous temper nor the mind of someone a mere ten years younger than himself. It was not his fault for suffering a life-altering brain injury which left Jay the caretaker. Silas had since abandoned these variations of excuses when he found that Jay’s disappointment in him was boundless.

If Jay had known what Silas was up to on this very afternoon, Silas likely would have received an earful. But, Jay wasn’t here. He was spending time with a lovely older woman learning how to play the guitar. It left Silas with enough free time to take up Lillith’s offer to hang out. Ever since he and Jay had arrived in The Badlands a few months ago, Silas knew that he and Lillith would grow close. She reminded him of the twins in many ways. Surely Loren and Micaela were around Lillith’s age, just creeping into adulthood. Whilst it had been Silas’ fault for cutting all ties with his family — negligible parents could ignite a sizeable reaction from any child forced to bear the consequences of such mistreatment — he had never done so to harm his siblings. Perhaps it was selfish to leave them all behind, and in the end it only led him astray down a very dangerous path, but it was the only means of self-preservation that he could think of.

If he could only pretend that Lillith was anything like his little sisters, then he would feel complete again.

Legs dangled over the edge of a rooftop, perhaps fourteen feet off the ground, as Silas sat beside Lillith and peered down fearlessly at the bobbing heads of passers-by below. ❝ Used to do shit like this with my brother when we were kids. There was this ladder up to a platform below this rusty ol’ windmill where we’d sit and wait to see if anyone noticed. We once got shouted at by some old woman with hair rollers and a nightgown on. Nearly pissed my pants with laughter when we started dropping stones to try hit her. ❞

He showed his teeth in a wicked grin. It wasn’t like Silas to be polite about anything. After all, back in the trailer park, the life there was pretty ruthless. Most of the occupants could barely stand the Overton family; rambunctious children and dismissive parents that snorted up drugs on the daily. It was no wonder the kids got up to mischief so often — no one was ever there to put them in their place. ❝ Check this. ❞ Silas murmured before heedlessly tossing a stone off the roof in the hopes that it might connect with an unsuspecting passers-by. If it were to land on someone, it would be unlikely to harm them. More like a pinprick Silas would point out if given the chance. The idea was to make people jump. They always ought to expect the unexpected when Silas was around.

The stone landed on a pedestrian’s shoulder, bouncing off and landing on the ground with a satisfying ping. Silas began to chuckle to himself with glee, cheeks hardening like a flexed muscle as he smiled down in all of his delinquent pride. The man scowled up towards Silas and Lillith before jabbing his pointer finger up to the duo. ❝ Watch it. Hit the wrong person and they’ll knock your lights out. ❞ He warned with a hostile glower. Silas barely hesitated, scoffing before calling back down smugly, ❝ I’m counting on it! ❞ before glancing at Lillith and murmuring, ❝ Prick. ❞

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