"My God!" Ilios said sitting up with a start. Her hair was soaked with mud and rain, strands of her bands tangled with the gravel of the rooftop. "David! David! wake up! Must be past 10, it's morning. It's all your fault, falling asleep as you did."

David sat up with a moan and wiped the rain from his face. "You think Your folks will be mad then?"

"Mad?!" She yelped, "I'll be killed!"

"What for getting some peace of mind? For talking with an old friend?" David laughed. "You fell asleep, we both did." 

Ilios had gone up around two and found David waiting for her as he always did. They ahd talked of time passed and soon, as the sky darkened fell asleep one leanging on the other.

"Exactly!" Ilios exclaimed in distress. "Oh my god. I'm too young to die. I haven't even fallen in love yet." 

"You said you loved me! Last year at the carnival-" 

"Shut up David not now!" 

David put his hands up in the air and gave a laugh. "You're an odd one Ilios Destler." 

"I'm dead," Ilios said shaking her head. Fear slowly taking over her eyes. "And you're dead too. Especially if he gets on about finding out who I was with. Oh, my skirt David, I do think it's ruined properly now."

"Am I such a bad thing?" David laughed looking over her tattered mud stained skirt. "Your Father couldn't be too much an unreasonable man..."

Ilios face fell dark with a shadow of fear. "You don't know him like I do David. There's something about him, ever since we were little. If he caught ahold of you, I don't know what he'd do."

"You better hurry then, I'll be back along by the morning. And don't worry about that Peter fellow. I'm sure he'll keep pining after you aplenty. At least as long as my eye is black."

"He's not pining!" Ilios said angrily, "I swear he's not. That's stupid. Silly, stupid ridiculousness." 

She kicked her foot into the gravel in frustration and her shoe flew up and hit his already darkened eye. 

David gave a yelp and recoiled, wincing as the horrified girl raced to his aid trying to comfort him. 

"Get out of here," David roared with laughed, "Get out of here you funny kid." 

"You sure you'll be alright?" She shuddered.

She went on trying desperately to asses the damage to his eye.

"Just fine! Now hurry up! Go on!"

"Thank you, David," She smiled tenderly kissing his cheek, "Thank you for listening."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and chuckled to himself watching the mud-stained tattered girl race out the door and down the stairs. 

"Ilios Destler," He repeated to himself with a shake of his head, "I tell her she appeals to me and she thinks I've gone mad. Little she knows the little brat." 

She filled the air with smiles, every object with magic and sun. 

"She is quite pleasing to look at," David reasoned with himself lighting a cigar, "I don't suppose I could ever love her more than Joanne. Perhaps more than Nancy. But there is something about her." 

He frowned at a gargoyle that met his eye line. 

"Don't look at me like that," He hissed, "I can't help it that my life is rotten. I do what I have to to get by. Everything got a purpose, it's all been planned. It's made me bitter, and reckless and coarse. And while she might help...Besides I can't spare a penny on her right now. Not without driving myself into the ground." 

He pursed his lips and blew out the smoke in a long hazy column. For the first time in his life, it seemed it was doing nothing to soothe his nerves. 

"What are my choices here?" He reasoned to himself aloud, "I let her go. Let this Peter never say a word, or rather never realize what he's got in front of him. Or I let that poor fellow rot away not knowing what's wrong with him and try my hand at domestic bliss." 

"My Fathers gonna kill you, Dave," A voice boomed from the corner of the roof. "That is if I don't kill you first." 

David swiveled on his heels watching warily as a perfectly symmetrically masked Eli dropped down from atop one of the statues and sauntered over to him. 

He had started putting on his make up and prosthetic the moment Ilios left the house.

"Listen I was a complete gentleman as always," David said quickly putting up a hand in defense, "You know I'm her only friend in the world right now." 

"All I know," Eli said raising an eyebrow, "Is my little sister didn't come home last night." 

"Eli, Eli, Eli," David said shaking his head. 

For a moment his eyes thought he saw a line of skin popping up under Elis chin, some sort of plastic-

"Listen," Eli sighed, "I just wanna know your not gonna ditch her like last time." 

"I didn't ditch her." 

"No, you just disappeared. That's the second time my sister had someone she cares about runoff." 

"It's not like that," David insisted, "She needed to have someone listen objectively-"

"And you just happened to be the lucky guy?" Eli sneered

"I just happened," David yelled angrily, "To be in love with her alright?!" 

Elis' face went pale, he stumbled backward in a daze, his eyes fixed on Davids. 

"What?" He questioned hoarsely. 

"Nothing," David said quickly, "I said nothing." 

"No really," Eli whispered, "What did you say?"

"I love her alright?" David spat in frustration lighting another cigarette. 

"Good God," Eli muttered making his way to David and taking a cigar of his own. 

This changed everything, everything he knew, everything he had counted on. 

He took the lighter from his own back pocket and pointed at David stupified, "You're not kidding?"

"Wish I was," David sighed shaking his head. "Wish I was." 

Eli moaned and bit the cigar between his lips, striking the match on the statue. 

He hated these things, death sticks. But right now it was the only thing keeping his consciousness. 

"And Ilios?" Eli asked weakly.  "Does she know?!" 

"No," David said shaking his head violently, "No, she doesn't know. And she won't. I wouldn't do that to her." 

Eli nodded, dropping the poison and stomping on it. 

He'd had enough of fires. 

"Then I'll tell her." 

"Eli don't you dare," David said taking his arm. 

Elis strong hands removed him swiftly, "David if all you say is true, I have no doubt you'd be requited."

"Please," David muttered, shivering in the morning air, "Someone like her. With someone like me? Never gonna happen." 

"I'm not saying I like this any more than you do," Eli said firmly, "You know I've hated you from the beginning." 

David laughed and raised an eyebrow, "I sensed the condescending tone yes." 

Eli looked at him seriously, "But I'd do anything to make my sister happy. And for some reason, God knows what, you do." 

David sighed and gave a small smile to Eli, "I'd be nothing more than a preamble to that Peter fellow." 

Eli shook his head, "Peter isn't coming back," He muttered softly. 

"Why not?" 

"Because he's a coward," Eli shrugged, "He doesn't like anything that isn't big emotion. That isn't risk. Something as small as an attraction, like life, it doesn't suit him. Rather it scares him." 

"He ran away from that angel of your sister because love scares him?" 

"No actually," Eli laughed making his way to the edge of the building, "I believe my Mother scares him." 

"Right," David chided, "The mystery parents and siblings I'm never allowed to see. You're a freak of a family you Destlers are." 

"And yet here you are David Larabee. Still talking to me," Eli smirked outstretching his arms and retreating slowly.

"Nothing I can say to keep you from her?" David asked timidly. 

"Nothing," Eli shouted making his way back to the statue and the passageway behind it. 

"Drat," David cursed under his breath, extinguishing the smoking cigar with his bare hands. 

"Oh, and Eli one more thing about that Peter-"

When David turned around, there was no young man in sight. He ran to the stature from whence he had first appeared, but found nothing but a solitary black glove. 

"What the devil?" David mumbled with a laugh running his fingers through coarse hair. 

He shook his head, blinking in the warm sunlight and laughing deliriously. 

Of all the girls to fall in love with.

Of all the families to be mixed up in. 

He had chosen the Destlers. 

"No," David thought with a small timid smile, placing the glove in his back pocket. "No that isn't it at all was it?" 

The Destlers, for some unfathomable reason

Seemed to had chosen him.