Pleading For Safety
Sometimes, you just want to protect the ones you love, but you have no way to stop them from living their lives. In this story for TyVulpine, we see Ty struggling to keep his sister, Emily, out of harms way.
The pair have gone on countless missions working for a mysterious organization, and so little is known about it that most people wouldn't think it exists, but for the foxtaur twins, it's the only life that they know, and Ty has finally had enough. He's trying to get himself out of it, but Emily is hesitant to go through such a change.
Her emotions spill over as they sit and discuss the future, and Ty hopes that his efforts to convince her aren't entirely in vain.
As always, read, comment and enjoy!
"There's no need for this to go on any longer. You've done enough, don't you think?"
Naturally, a good brother would care about his sister, but most brothers didn't have to worry about their siblings in the way that Ty had to worry about Emily.
He wished that he had the good fortune to worry about the small things, like the quality of a man that she was taking on a date, or the kind of food and drink that she was putting into her body. He yearned for that kind of life, where he would be able to just be an over-protective brother, and only be mildly worried about anything.
He'd seen the worst of it, however, and he couldn't get the images out of his head anymore. Blood pouring from multiple wounds, gashes that ran so deep and jagged that he couldn't imagine they would ever heal, and even a couple of small gunshot holes; Ty saw the very worst of what mortal society could do to a person, all to his own sister, and he wasn't always able to be there to be protect her.
Their lives as assassins created an interesting bond between them that was deeper than the affection of a mere brother and sister, and though there were hints of romantic love between the two, it was purely for her safety that Ty wanted to see his sister hang up her swords for good.
"This is the only thing I know how to do, Ty. There isn't anything else in life for us...certainly not for me."
Sprawled out upon the living room floor as they often were, Emily had her extra legs kicked to the side. The tauric vixen could feel a comforting stroke of gray pawtips through the long, delicate tresses of her blonde hair, but there was a tension behind each touch that Ty couldn't possibly deny.
Emily knew how much it pained her brother every time that she put on the uniform and went back to work, but after so many years, she didn't know if she could ever turn away from the lifestyle she'd established.
"We've made enough money. We don't have to support anyone other than ourselves. We can take what we've made and make it last!"
Being an assassin, especially one of such an impressive skill level, Emily made money hand over fist when the checks came in, and her brother, Ty, was almost always by her side on missions before. It was only earlier that year that he finally decided to give up on the life that they'd made together, and his ability to shift in size was already desperately missed by the organization he once worked for.
He knew that they'd likely come around to try and find him, and the ultimatum between working for them or dying was so obvious, he'd already come up with a number of ways to circumvent it.
"Where will we go, Ty? Where in the world would people accept a pair like us?"
"That doesn't matter, Em. All that matt-
" Yes, it does matter," Emily cut her brother off, as her voice began to wobble with emotion. "We can never be ourselves in the outside world. We've done things that can't possibly be forgiven, and we'd have to lie about our identities at every turn. A pair of foxtaurs would stick out like a sore thumb everywhere they went...we'd be moving constantly, always looking back over our shoulders, always thinking that the wrong person would find us unaware!"
Ty let out a heavy sigh as his paw came to rest against the back of his sister's head. His comforting paw became still upon her scalp, and Emily could feel his digits trying not to clench up with stress. "So...it would be exactly the way our lives are now."
"It isn't that simple, Ty. You and I both know it isn't, and if you're really going to try and make small of that, then retirement really has made you too soft to relate to."
"I could go back out there right now and kill as many people as they wanted me to!" Ty shot back, pulling his paw away from his sister and denying her that comforting touch. "The point is that I don't want to do that anymore, and when I look into your eyes at night, I know that you don't want to do it, either! This line of work is making you miserable, and when you let emotions into the job, you start to get sloppy! It's going to get you killed!"
As deeply as Ty and Emily cared for each other, the concern was always the same, year in and year out. Missions were as plentiful as they were deadly, and even on the easiest of tasks, there was the possibility that one person would mess up their assignment, or that one meaningless guard would catch you out of position and put a bullet in your brain.
Whatever they might call it, luck had been watching over the pair of foxtaurs for longer than they could remember, and after seeing the terrible wounds that she brought home from the last mission, Ty was convinced that Emily had used up all of her good fortunes.
"I can't help letting my emotions shine through when I'm with you, Ty. I didn't know that I was letting them get in the way of my success."
"What we do out there...we can't call that success, Em. We're doing all of that for someone else. We're putting our lives on the line for people who almost certainly wouldn't do the same for us if the roles were reversed. It isn't right, and you know it even better than I do."
Emily felt as though she'd been tricked into a sense of Stockholm Syndrome, as she felt a weird sympathy for the rest of the assassins, and the organization as a whole. She'd been a part of it for such a long time that she didn't know any kind of life outside of it, and against the strange reality of her incestuous relationship with her brother and the unusual way that they'd been raised, her job as a professional killer seemed like the most normal, ordinary part of her existence.
To just cut it out of her life the way that Ty had seemed almost impossible, but she'd been able to see that her brother was happier ever since, though that happiness was only in spurts. She was interrupting it by continuing her career, whether or not she realized it.
"I can't tell you how to live your life, Em, and I won't force you to make a decision, but...I need to distance myself from this world. I need to get away from the things I've done before my ghosts catch up with me, and...I think that you should give it up, too. You'll be happier this way. Things will be better this way."
The lump in her throat was growing, and Emily couldn't help reaching around to grab her brother's wrist. He knew that she was just trying to guide his touch back to her cheek, where he'd left it so many times before. "H-how..." she tried to ask, though his voice cracked slightly as tears built up in the corners of her eyes. Years of physical and mental conditioning left her to believe that she could never lead anything close to a normal life, and every time she tried to walk away from that world, it seemed to give her demons a stronger grip, draining the hope right from the depths of her soul.
She didn't know how Ty had gotten away, but as much as she needed that secret, she needed his embrace, and he sensed it.
"I can't answer that for you. You have to want it as badly as I did," Ty admitted, as he leaned a little closer to his sister and curled an arm tightly around her shoulder. He could feel the salty warmth of her tears spilling into his open palm as it caressed her cheek, and he tried to bite back on his own regrets.
He still wished that they'd never been introduced to such a life.
"We b-both know that i-isn't enough," Emily tried to explain. She was sobbing quietly through every word, and only the concern of burdening her brother with her emotions kept her from coming completely unraveled.
Ty gave her a quick squeeze, as if to tell her that it was all right to let her walls come down. "You'll find your reason to leave, Em, and when you do, I'll be there waiting for you. We can walk away from this life together and never look back."
Emily nodded silently as she pressed her full weight into her loving sibling. She had no idea how she'd ever escape the organization, but she took her brother's words to heart and weighed her possible decisions.
She knew there would be another mission waiting for her in the morning, but for the first time, she didn't know if she was going to take it.