A Terrible Thing To Temporarily Lose Track Of

River Tam from Firefly (The Academy), Ender Wiggin from Ender’s Game (Battle School), Jared from The Pretender (The Center). Beautiful, terrible piece of fanfiction about post-Atlantis Rodney Mckay from Stargate: Atlantis.

A week of fantasies fueled by an amalgam of the above. I tend to live long hours in worlds of my own construction. Happiness is boring, pain is interesting. Sometimes they are worth writing, oftentimes not. I don’t fetishize pain (much), but I tend to lean towards flawed broken characters, because I find them more interesting. I may have an overly analytical mind.

Result.

I wipe my hands on the thighs of my jeans, leaving damp patches I can feel through the denim. It wouldn’t do to have a slippery trigger finger when the time comes. Time. It’s been seven months and four days since I decided to kill him. Six months since I bought the Berretta, 92, military, supposedly untraceable to me. Five months of trekking out to the northwest corner of nowhere and shooting tin cans into the dirt.

A sniper rifle would have been safer, but it meant more time and more effort. More than three months to be a decent shot and two more to be a great one. Plus, I wanted to smell his blood. I wanted to see his face, wanted to see the change from warm familiarity to shock.

I shower, shave, and put on my best suit. Put on my gloves; smooth Italian leather, bought special for the occasion. I arrange and rearrange my hair, adjust my tie, once, twice, three times. I feel like a girl getting ready for her first date. On my way out I stop by the picture one more time. I brush my hand across our faces, bright and jovial at last year’s faculty Christmas party. Arms over one another’s shoulders, faces flushed with drink, and I remember feeling so… fraternal. We could have been brothers, once upon a time. I feel fond, almost tender. I almost rethink what I’m about to do. Almost, because some secrets should never see the light of day.

The sidewalk is covered in gray slush and my feet are wet, but I can still feel sweat pooling at the base of my spine. My heart is in a marathon pushing through that final pain barrier in the last stretch, just a little faster, just a little longer. I finger the pretty in my coat pocket and keep my feet from picking up the pace. Musn’t be overeager.

It’s over much too fast for my liking. Recognition, pleasure, fear, anger, resignation flash too fast across his face. The first shot rings out loud, the other two less so. The crowd swells and closes. I slip away easily; the 92 down a sewer grate farther down the street. I regret not being closer. My mind toys with what it might have been like to feel the warmth of blood on my face, a small discreet splatter, but blunt objects are inconvenient.

He was my first kill, but I have a strong suspicion he will not be my last.