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Title: Skeletons
By: nixa_jane
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Summary: It used to be he wanted to help people.

When you're young and pondering that question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" the two stock answers seem to be either "I want to help people," or "I want to be rich." Two simple categories, the very edge of what so many jobs can come to be—some people don't want either, and some of them want it all.

He didn't care about money. His parents had enough when he was growing up that it had never been an issue for him, and he had no drive to become powerful—to have more money than he would ever use—but it used to be he wanted to help people. He was learning, though, that this was the wrong job to help people. Occasionally he offered grieving relatives peace of mind, sometimes he saved future victims from madmen and, sure, sometimes there was good.

It didn't even out. The scales tilted so unfairly that the injustice choked him in his sleep. He woke up sometimes in the middle of the night only to realize he had stopped breathing, or maybe that was just how it felt—he wasn't really sure, and he didn't think it mattered either way. All he knew was he spent his life piecing together the lives of the dead, finding every last skeleton in their closet until nothing was left untouched—and he had tell grieving widows that their husbands had been cheating, parents that their child was dead.

He was like a god damned grim reaper, swooping on unsuspecting families and tearing them apart—and it never mattered that this responsibility he took on himself wasn't his to bear, he couldn't let go of it. He was afraid if he ever did there would be nothing left.