"Lucky?"

"Yes?"

"I don't get it."

I pause, blinking in the half-light offered by the flickering fluorescent lamp perched on the nightstand between us. I wait a moment, letting my eyes adjust until I can pick out Dakota's prone form on the sagging bed, the blankets kicked down to his ankles, hands clenched around the slim pillow he holds over his head. I can barely hear him, but I have to wonder if that's intentional.

"What don't you get, exactly?" I ask, stretching out my legs across the mattress and tilting my head back, refocusing on the speckled ceiling. Dakota's positioning screams avoidance, so I may as well offer him as much privacy as is possible with our current arrangement. 

He takes a few seconds to respond, I suppose gathering his thought. Or maybe he doesn't want to finish his thought - maybe he's regretting having brought it up in the first place. If he wants to drop the subject, I'll gladly let him; it's of no consequence to me.

"Why does everyone paint you as the villain?"

The question catches me off guard; my gaze falls on Dakota again, but he hasn't moved, hasn't turned to look at me. His face is still drowning in the mattress. My brows pinch together in confusion. Why ask something like that, when he knows what my role entails?

"Has anyone ever greeted Death as a hero?" I ask, my tone light, curious instead of probing. It's always been understood that I stand as the villain in this story; I've accepted the moniker quite willingly. The curses and slurs aimed at me and my many facets have never bothered me, so it's interesting to have someone be troubled on my behalf.

Now Dakota shifts, rolling onto his side as he pulls his pillow beneath his head. He eyes me wearily, still drained from our run from Nike's followers this afternoon. His expression snags my attention, though, and I have to blink again at the genuine pain that eclipses his features. Is he hurt? I thought I'd tended to the worst of his wounds days ago.

"You're... you're not death, Lucky." He swallows, nuzzles a little deeper into the sheets. "Death is cruel, unfair... what you do, it's necessary, right?"

I worry my bottom lip between my teeth, considering his words. My eyes have flickered away from him again, sliding around the room and landing on nothing in particular. The dull walls and stiff carpets of our hotel room offer precious little entertainment, and while that normally wouldn't be an issue for me, the lack of distractions is becoming jarringly noticeable. Knowing Dakota, he'll stay on this subject until he's exhausted it for both of us.

"You're wrong," I say quietly, with the sort of conviction one acquires from decades of first-hand experience. It's not going to satiate him, obviously, but what I have to say is the truth in its simplest form. "What I am, what I do - I cause grief and misery, and I leave corpses in my wake. And what's necessary isn't always thought of as acceptable."

"But that doesn't mean you're evil," Dakota insists, raising himself partway from the bed, elbows locked and digging into the mattress to give him leverage. He's pleading with me, doesn't want to admit what he already knows. "Lucky, you're just not like that."

"No," I agree after a beat, "no, I'm not. Evil...does not apply to me, really. And good does not apply to Nike. We are what we must be, and it's useless assigning such steadfast labels to us. As I said, though, I'm hardly likeable."

Dakota snorts and mumbles something like he's all too happy to concede that point. 

But I'm not done, and before Dakota can rush another question, I abruptly turn back to him, pinning him with a sharp, narrow-eyed look. He freezes beneath my gaze, recognizing the certainty and promise of my expression. He sees the underlying threat for what it is. 

"Dakota, please, don't be mistaken. I'm no villain, I'm not evil, but that doesn't make me safe. I am chaos, I am the Devil. I am Death incarnate. I breathe destruction as you do air. What I am, I have been since the dawn of the universe. If people fear me, they are not wrong to do so. I represent your worst expectations, every worst-case scenario. I am not human, Dakota." My smile is cold, a mirthless gash; Dakota's eyes widen at the sight of it but he refuses to shrink against the bedding, away from me. "Sometimes I think you forget that."