It was 2100 hours, October 23rd, 201M2024. I had just gotten back from my tour in Iran as a Marine. Well, “home”, if you counted a shitty apartment with nothing else as a “home”. Honestly, my barracks in Al Asad were more homely than the shitbox I had returned to.

Whatever, whatever. Nothing I can do about it. I had literally just gotten back a day ago, had spent all of that time registering my service pistol with Volcaldera PD, getting a concealed carry license, talking to my landlord, all of that fun stuff. I had gotten back to my apartment to find, unsurprisingly, it had zero food. So now here I was, looking in my fridge with my combat uniform like an idiot.

“Goddamn it… what the hell am I doing?”

I don’t know Anon, you tell me.

Sighing, I sat at my desk that still had four years worth of dust on it. What to do, what to do… I opened my computer to find that it still (surprisingly) worked all these years later, so I looked online for a nearby fast food restaurant. I found a really close restaurant called “Pizza Time” that had an integrated bar.

Fuck it, I could use some rum with my food.

I got my ass off my chair, and grabbed my wallet, almost forgetting the pistol I’d deployed with- don’t want to wander Skin Row without protection.

Grabbing that and sticking it in my appendix holster, I walked out into the now-rotting streets of Skin Row, thinking about everything. How I’d gotten to this point, the mistakes I’d made to end up here. I thought back all the way to high school… that day on the beach…

The words I had yelled to Fang.

The fact I hadn’t apologized to her, even now, all of these years later.

That I had run away, lurked my way through high school, and enlisted in the Marines a week later.

My combat tour.

Getting discharged.

Suddenly I was snapped back to reality. I’d ended up in front of a dingy looking pizza parlour. Noticing the neon sign blinking “pizza time”, I stepped in wordlessly to the register. The cashier was, surprisingly, another human.

“Can I help you sir?”

“I’ll have two Meatlovers, large.”

They grumbled, and pressed a few buttons on what I assumed to be a digital register.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, actually… where’s your bar at?”

“In the back area, to your left. Also, a word of advice…”

I turn to face the teenage human manning the register.

“Tune out the musicians.”

Well, that was definitely odd… I hand him the cash for the pizzas, and give him my name to call once they’re done. He tells me they’ll be out within a half-hour. With that in mind, I walk over to the bar to sit on a stool next to what I can only describe as the most depressed ptero woman I have ever laid eyes on.

Shaved head, disheveled, abused & tattered wings, tattoos all over, and black lipstick. A rucksack and a guitar case lay next to her barstool. She lay her head on the bartop, presumably asleep. I felt a pang of familiarity looking at her- Why did she remind me so much of Fang? She had probably left Volcaldera after high school, went on to be a successful musician or teacher or something. This wasn’t Fang. It can’t be.

With that mantra in mind, I sit next to the dull-looking ptero. The bartender comes over to me, ignoring her.

“Can I take your order sir?”

I look to the blue compy guy manning the bar. “Yeah, do you serve rum and coke mixes? I’ll take a glass of that.”

The bartender looks at me with a rather disgusted face. “...Alright, that’ll be 15 dollars.” I hear him mutter something about shitty taste, but I choose to ignore it.

I pay the money in cash, and he whips it up within a few minutes.

I drink, grateful that I can finally drown my emotions. Another minute and I would have gone fucking insane. Feeling the liquor ease my shaking nerves, I turn back to the ptero. She looks in rough shape.

“Hey, tapmaster. Put this woman’s drink on my bill.”

He looks at me like I just threatened to sexually assault someone, but he shrugged and looked to the sad ptero, whose head was still on the bar. She muttered something about “the strongest stuff” and he went to his cabinet to grab a bottle.

The bartender comes back with what I can only describe as “voda straight from a 70’s Communist Bloc state”. He pours it out into a glass and slides it over to her.

“Can I smoke here?” I pulled out a cuban cigar, an eyebrow raised to him.

He nods, and I pull out my pocket knife, cutting off the tip. I raise my lighter to it and I start puffing on it. I start to remember everything that ever happened to me to get me where I sit today. My breakup with Fang. Joining the Marines. Marching through the desert. Fighting. Saving Private Rodriguez. Getting the Purple Heart. My early discharge.

“So about your tab, Mr… Mous, was it?”

I’m pulled back to reality by the bartender’s voice. “Yes.” I slide him a 20 dollar bill. “Keep the change, you’re better than most of the barkeeps that I met overseas.”

I look to where the woman is, and I see she’s already downed the entire glass, probably shitfaced by now. She stares at me as if she’s seen a ghost from her past.

“Hey John. You said his name was Mous?”

“Yeah,” the bartender says.

She turns back to me, a look of curiosity in her eyes.

“I swear, I recognize that name from somewhere… way too big a coincidence… Hey, Skinnie. Did you go to volcano high in 2020?”

And like that, my nerves are frayed again. Not even the alcohol and nicotine could dull the feeling of being recognized. It’s not her. It’s not her.

“Yyyyyyyes. Do I know you, ma’am? You look a lot like someo-”

I freeze in my seat. Staring into this ptero woman’s soulless eyes. Her bottomless, Amber eyes.

It can’t be. There’s no way.

The punk ptero chick looks angry with me. Pure rage pulses through her gaze towards me as she reads my nametag. She grabs my right shoulder, claws digging into my combat uniform. I feel a figurative knife twist in my heart as adrenaline pours into my body. It can’t be her.

“Anon, I swear to god, you better have a good excuse for me seeing your sorry ass again, or I’ll make your tour overseas seem like a fucking joke.”

Fang is breathing heavily, hatred overpowering her; she’s clearly trying to not kill me on the spot. I’m still trying to process how utterly retarded I am. How the fuck could a light blue ptero who was enraged by my presence not be her?!

“Fang? Is that… Is that you? There’s no way.”

I’m trying to convince myself this isn’t Fang, and just some random junkie.

“Yes, it’s me. The woman you fucking ruined. Who you left to ROT on that FUCKING BEACH!”

She grabs my undershirt, and pulls me closer to her face to get a good look at me. I can literally feel her breath, which reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Even as thin as she was now, she could probably still beat my skull in easily.

“Why the FUCK are you here?!” she pushes me back onto my barstool, sitting back down herself. “Come back to finish what you started? Well guess what, fucker. THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO RUIN.”

“I…”

“Don’t even start. I’ve wanted to say this for a LONG fucking time, so you’re going to listen, and you better listen well, you worthless sack of shit.”

I remember a time on the rooftops of the high school where I didn’t listen to her trying to spill her heart. Her crying out for help. That had been one of my earliest mistakes. I should have let her talk about her feelings.

So, I let her.

“My life? It’s gone. Everything’s ruined.” she slams her fist into the bar. “YOU ruined everything, with that shit mind of yours. Calling me a faggot, telling me I wouldn’t amount to anything. ARE YOU HAPPY THAT YOU WERE RIGHT?!”

I can see tears forming in her eyes with every word. She really has needed this.

“You’re a real piece of shit, coming back here after all of these years, thinking you can just get forgiven. Well guess what, fuckhead. YOU AREN’T. I don’t know what you’ve seen, but you should have stayed and died in whatever shithole you were sent to! It would have made me a LOT happier, I can tell you that much! You ruin everything you touch. I… My life has been nothing but PAIN since you tore me apart. Left me to DIE that night.”

She’s shaking now, and I can hear her shuddering breath.

“So what do you want to hear, asshole? The drugs I’ve taken? How many guys I’ve had to screw in order to get out of debt? How long it’s been since I had a home? How many times I’ve wanted to fucking kill myself?” She’s violently shaking.

“Do you want to hear how exactly you ruined me, down to every last minute detail?! Is that it?!”

I’m silent.

“ANSWER ME ASSHOLE!” She yells, slapping me clean in the face. I stumble off the stool and fall backfirst onto the ground near her feet. She grabs my jacket and pulls me up to face her. She is enraged at my existence.

“Fang… I’m going to be completely and utterly honest, like I should have been. I didn’t come here for you. I came here to get drunk, grab food, and leave. I thought you would be succeeding at life, and I’d just be some loser who died a few years from now. I thought if I left Volcaldera I could leave you to a path of success. Without me being in the way, hurting you.”

Her grip loosens, and I stand back up fully.

“I never came back because I didn’t deserve you again. I didn’t deserve the chance to say what I should have said.”

My voice is shaky and I can see my vision getting cloudy.

“I didn’t want to think it was you sitting over here. I didn’t want to be the reason your life is the way it is now. There’s so much that… so much that I utterly fucked. I…”

I’m about to fall to my knees- my legs are weak and my strength is waning. I sit back down on the stool and put my head between my hands, trying to gather my thoughts.

“Fang. I’ve… hurt people. You in particular. But goddamn it if I don’t regret all of the stupid shit I’ve done. That night on the beach was the worst thing I’ve ever done… and I can’t ever make up for it. After I went home, I stopped caring.”

Fang takes a seat next to me, rage still in her eyes.

“The mistakes I made… I can never make up. I never expected forgiveness from you, and I still don’t. You could hate me until I die and I wouldn’t blame you a single bit. I would deserve it.”

I sigh and turn to look Fang in the eye. The rage is still there, but she’s listening closely to me.

“I joined the Marines because I wasn’t going to do anything better with my life. I didn’t want to risk hurting you again. That’s why I left Volcaldera… to fight in the middle east. To do something with my life that wasn’t hurting the people I loved.” Or myself…

I give out a hollow chuckle. “Fat load of shit that was…” I mutter to myself.

My mind flashes to the details of that day in early September. When I watched my squadmates get shot. When I had to drag Rodriguez away to safety. Leaving Jameson behind. When I had to shoot back at the enemy.

I’d done what I was supposed to, what I was trained to. But at what cost? The suffering of others? It all eventually linked to that night on the beach… Is hurting people just in my blood?

“I guess so.”

I turn to Fang after her response to my mumbling. She looked at me moreso with suspicion than anger. But it was still there. She analyzed my uniform, my rank and awards… I don’t get her curiosity with my rank or any of that.

Looking at her now, she looked battered. She had missing scales in some places on her arms, her wings had missing patches of feathers, and the tattoos she wore showcase her struggles and feelings towards the world.

Fang had been hurting all of this time, and I had been none the wiser, telling myself she was probably a successful musician who was dating someone far more deserving of her. Gaslighting myself into believing she was fine.

I had hurt Fang. I had ignored her.

Turning to her with tears in my eyes, I say what I’d decided to say;

“Fang, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for that night on the beach. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed someone. I’m sorry that I hurt you so much. I…”

My voice cracks.

“I’m so sorry for it all. It’s all my fault, and I don’t deserve forgiveness. I know that perfectly well. But I can’t go on without saying sorry. I know it won’t fix the hurt, or fix your life… But I just want you to know that I regret everything. If that’s all that I can give you to apologize right now, then… I know it’s nowhere near enough. It never will be. But I hope it’s a start to an apology.”

I pick up my cigar from the counter, where it had fallen after she grabbed me. Cleaning off the ends, I relit it and took a long drag. Then I turned to the bartender.

“Fuck… Can I get another rum and coke? I’ll pay for what she wants.”

She turns to him. “Whatever vodka you grabbed earlier.”

He- John rushes off to mix our drinks. I turn back to Fang.

“Fang… You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t have to love me or be friends with me. I don’t care about any of that. But please, at least let me help you. I fucked up, and it’s about high time I started growing a fucking pair and fixing what I broke.”

She looks at me, but I continue.

“You didn’t deserve any of what happened to you… I fucked up that day, I should have supported whatever choices you made instead of being some hateful asshole. But I didn’t. I… I fucked up. And like I said it’s damn time I own up and tried to fix my mistakes.”

I sigh. That was all I wanted to say.

I take the rum and coke that John hands me, and I drink it all.

“Anon…”

I look at Fang, and she slaps me across the other cheek.

“That’s for that night on the beach.”

I sigh. “I’ve had that coming for a few years now.”

 

*** *** ***

 

We both go back to our drinks. I consider what Fang dumped on me just minutes ago. Her struggles throughout the years. Her apparently being homeless. The debt she may still owe to some assholes that used her body like a plaything. If I ever find those guys I’m going to wring their necks and-

“Find who?”

Fang looks at me confused.

“Fuck, I muttered that didn’t I?” She nods in response. “...I was thinking about what you said earlier. Fang… You mentioned you were homeless.”

Now it was her turn to be surprised. “Shit, I said that part out loud? Fuck. It’s nothing, just…”

I interrupt her. “Fang, living on the streets is not ‘nothing’. Skin Row is dangerous, and I don’t think I could get over it if I knew you were just sleeping somewhere where you were constantly in danger.”

“So where the hell should I stay? I can’t go to my mom and dad’s, Naser’s still in college, and we can forget about Trish and Reed… They probably want jack shit to do with me.” She looks past me with a hint of sadness in her eyes. I remember how we both didn’t end things on the best of terms with Trish and Reed. Plus I’m sure her parents hate me, and Naser… Yeah, he’d kill me if he saw me anywhere near Fang.

“Well, my sleep schedule’s still out of wack, so you can stay at my apartment if you want.”

Fang looks at me as if I had just asked about something sexual.

“I’m serious,” I say. “I’m still looking for a job, but I get government compensation. It’s a stable enough housing option, and it keeps you safe from whoever the hell lurks Skin Row at night. I need to make up for everything somehow, and giving you a place to stay safe seems like a good way to start.”

She sighed and groaned, contemplating the request.

“Fine. But I’m using the shower as soon as we go there, and I don’t want you anywhere near the bathroom when I do.”

“That’s understandable,” I say. “It’s the same apartment I used to live in during high school. I pretty much left it near identical to the last time you were there, aside from a few things.”

“Oh yeah?” she says, “What kind of things did you do?”

“Well, for starters I bought a safe yesterday for my service gu-”

All of a sudden I was interrupted by an annoyed human teen setting two pizza boxes in front of us.

“There’s your Meatlovers pizzas, sir. You have a good day.” Before he goes to leave, he turns to Fang. “Hey, Fang. What the hell are you doing with this guy? I thought you hated muscleheads and mil-sim guys.”

“You remember that prick Anon I was talking about? The guy that broke my heart?”

The boy looked confused until he glanced at my uniform’s nametag. “Oh… OH! Well my question still stands. Why are you with this asshole?” He looked even more unhappy now that he knew what I’d done to hurt Fang years ago.

“Cool it Nate, we’re patching shit up. Don’t kill him just yet. You’re not my dad.”

Just yet. Thanks, Fang. I open one of the boxes to find that it is in fact a Meatlovers pizza. A rather good looking one at that, surprisingly.

“Thanks.” The teen, Nate, runs back to his register, and I turn back to Fang, who is now looking longingly at the pizzas.

“Hey… How about we take these back to my place, and I try to clear out an area for your stuff? I’ve got some beer back home, if you want some.”

Fang looks at me with a look of suspicion in her eyes. I don’t care if this is too fast- I have to get her somewhere safe to sleep tonight. Whatever I need to convince her- Food, beer, whatever. She shouldn’t be sleeping outside at night. Even with the temperatures in Volcaldera usually being high, that doesn’t mean it never got below freezing, and that’s not mentioning the amount of hobos that have shanks and guns.

Truly, Skin Row had gone to complete shit during my tour abroad.

“That would be great, Anon. I’m tired.”

Thank Raptor Jesus.

After a few minutes, I get the pizzas in hand and I walk out of the pizzeria, with Fang behind me. This was a weird feeling… I never thought I’d be on speaking terms with her again, let alone inviting her to live with me. This was surreal.

No, calm the fuck down, Anon. You’re only inviting her over to help her get her life back in order. She doesn't love you, even if you love her. This is strictly so you can un-fuck your fuck-up.

…Even so, I can’t get that warm feeling out of my chest.

Me and Fang were talking again.

She may not have exactly forgiven me, but at least I can do something useful with my life for once and help another person.

With that in mind, I walk with Fang to my apartment, a smile gracing my face for the first time in four years.