Archive of Our Own ^beta

Flash.

"Silly, I–"

Bang.

Bang.

BANG.

It was for the better, Silly had assured herself. That Sam was a bad, bad man who would not have amounted to anything even if he had gotten out of this old, creaky, little town. Their landmark worked to keep him caged in, houses as tendrils and he the ship, even as other sailors swerved in-and-out of the waves without any worry of their own. Much unlike Sam, whose paranoia had persisted in its hauntings, although it would have done him very well in the bigger narrative to simply have bitten the bullet and ran. Even just the mention of a visit out, just to see a specialized doctor of some sort was always enough to leave him shaking, petrified, pathetic; and a shame it was, Silly had mused, that if only they had pushed the boy just a little bit more– nudged the dog to his carrier, then maybe there would have been no need to frighten his barks into bites. He would not have needed to become a wolf; transforming, ironically, in the plain-day.

He would not have needed to become such a mounted-piece.

Right?

It was always going to end like this, even if she had let him continue. Doomed and destined, this was a mercy of her's to finally put a stop to his tormenting of others and his own self. If she had not put an end to his tyrrany, then his blaze would certainly have died off on its own, but in an uncontrollable fire, no doubt tearing everybody down with him– and if only it was not so typical of Sam to be punishing the masses in tandem to him, fearing loneliness above all else. Consequently, casualties were what Silly looked for. The innocence was her trophy. Any living person who could retell the story of how she soldiered the pain, given the peace a shoulder to cry on, would remark in gratefulness how she had saved them all just in time; braving the flames, and slaying the demon she should have never known.

"I… I did it to save you…" Silly breathed out, her eyes wide and her body petrified. She was still hunched over his body, and the blood was growing like a lotus.

Red had always been her least favorite colour. Too many months spent in the warzone had made the orange tint of summer blinding, and although her mother was beautiful and bright, the blonde of her hair had soaked up too many of Silly's tears. Red was the mixture of it all; of everything that formed Silly's childhood: the cruelty in what humanity was capable of– what her own family was capable of– and all of the aches, trauma, and wounds to soothe only the monsters.

"His eyes! oh, fuck– you blew it out, oh my Gord, oh my Gord…"

Grian ran to the corpse, pushing Silly out of the way as she stumbled to the ground. Her legs had given out immediately, but no amount of force would have been able to pry that weapon from her hands. That iron grip was something burned into her, made permanent by the tag-line of "Never drop your weapon." Too many accidents happened that way; in such an avoidable fashion that many would call misfortune. Silly knew though. There was no such thing as luck. It was only skill. Responsiblity.

An accountability for one's mistakes.

"He… he was going to hurt you, Grian, I–" Silly began, panting through every word. "I needed to… I needed to do something…"

"What, like kill him!?" Grian snapped. His head turned around from where he was crouched, his hands hopelessly crawling around Sam's neck; partly trying to find a pulse, partly trying to finish the job.

Silly flinched back, but she was still on the cemented ground, surely looking as pathetic as she was dangerous.

She barked back, "Well, what the hell else was I meant to do!? You're my friend, a-and– my mom, my dad–... they– …they care about you, too!"

Grian's expression twitched, but in what manner Silly could not tell. Was this not reassurance for him? Why then was he looking at her with such hatred when this had been a service not only to him, but their community of friends and family? Did he not know the meaning of care? She had always seen him as a respectable man. Someone older than not only her, but to the other kids as well; and he certainly acted that way too. He was not cruel, but instead patient, and kind– and she had never missed the scenes in which he was able to reign in Sam and Taurtis: a feat that only he seemed capable of achieving. This was no regular person to Silly, this was a friend that she looked up to. Somebody that– even with all of their strength and wit– she felt inclined to protect.

And that was all that she had ever wanted to do, really. Was it? Protect. But was Sam not one of her friends, too? Where was this grace for him, when it should have been his, especially?

"What?" Grian's voice sharpened, and he suddenly remembered what he had been doing with his hands. Before he stood up, he forced his arms to swing by his sides, and Silly did not like that his hands were no longer preoccupied now. "I don't give a damn about your parents! Okami… Rowan… what, did they tell you to do this?! Or are you fucking insane on your own?"

Silly should have been braver. This was her friend. If she deserved him as one. This was Grian Or Taurtis?. He was the most reasonable one out of the bunch. This was not going to plan, but it would soon if she was just able to successfully sway him. He just needed to see. He just needed to understand. She just needed a chance to talk, and they would be able to move on, and–

"Oh Gord… oh shit, w-what am I gonna tell them..?" Silly looked down at herself. Her hands were still tightening around the gun, but as she tried to readjust her grip, she began to shake more, suddenly remembering how it felt to pull the trigger thrice in a row. Gun safety demanded that she did not have her finger on the trigger if she did not plan to shoot, but it was always going to end this way she needed to occupy every part of herself.

Grian seemed to notice it.

"What the fuck are you… oh shit, Silly, are you gonna shoot me too? I-Is that what this is?" Grian asked, but he sounded more threatening than accusatory; as though this was a warning rather than a show of fear. In reality, he must have known that Silly would never hurt him. She had always tried to lend him a hand in his worst hours, and even now, this was a moment no different from before. Yet enraged, he was running his mouth off. He was filling the space of somebody else. He breathed heavily as he started his approach.

Silly hastily scrambled to her feet, never losing the position of her wielded gun.

"Grian… G-Grian, you have to understand, he was hurting you–"

"Are you saying that to convince yourself or to convince me? Because I don't need to be told what he was doing to me." Pained in memory, Grian placed his palm to his forehead, and glanced back at the body behind him. "Of course I knew… of course, I understood everything, but… but that didn't mean I was ready to let go…"

"He would've killed you!"

"He was just trying to scare me!"

Grian glanced down at Silly's gun. Her lip quivered. He continued,

"Just like you right now…"

Silly shook her head frantically, and backed up from Grian's oncoming figure until her back hit against the brick wall– the outside of an abandoned apartment complex. Years ago, there may have been more to this damned society, but now there were just too many buildings, and the population was far outnumbered. She used to wonder– back when she was young enough to have any wonder at all– why the town had become emptier and dull, when the characters within it were so lively and full of love to spread.

But that had been the issue all along. Silly knew it, as she steadied her hands.

"Grian…"

"His gun was never loaded, Silly…" Grian choked out. "Don't you get it?"

Silly did not want to hear anything anymore. The alleyway was beginning to close in, and Grian no longer looked more friendly than he did pitiful. The consequences of how these folk had been led astray were becoming too clear now, but Silly could not neglect the tugging thought that maybe she was a sheep too. But in a terribly, sickly way, she had once harbored that particular feeling for no other stronger than Sam, whom she would spend brief minutes– any closer to an hour, and she would have become overtaken by a premeditated grief– looking upon this stumbling boy with just the want of brushing his coat. To clean the white of dirt and razors and all of the awful things in the world that could only have been accepted by such weakness in life. Silly shook her head. If only the wool had been thick enough to stop the bullet.

"A gun is a gun."

Silly fled.

There had to have been so many points in Silly's life in which she could have stopped herself and enjoyed the world that she was in, rather than idle melodramatically, feeling accomplished for having seen the world in the shades that no child should have ever known.

Truth be told, Silly had never been able to swallow the pride that came with the Artifex-Artist family name. Her father had been a veteran, and her mother was a SWAT officer. And although the two of them had already celebrated sacrifice for their country, they continued to push, and successfully landed themselves in the positions of educators for the new, so-called "brightened" youth. They had risen up to protect the new generation, but did not want to leave it just there. They needed to guide the young, after all– and as such, Silly and her older brother, Necra, had become the unseen, collateral damage of all of these values.

There was simply too much to live up to, and the power that came with their personally-taught strength was nearly too much to bare. How could one fight for justice, if justice itself had grown unnappetizing next to the rebellious idea of "acting out?" For a thousand years, Silly could have taken the responsibility for her brother's sudden departure for military school. After all, it had been her who would consistently pin her own outbursts on him; too afraid to truly take responsibility for the failures that would have ruined the glossy image of Silly Jilly– the golden pupil of every class that she had enrolled in. But of course, the sense of justice had grown duller over the course of so many years, with Silly having memorized the code to her father's special gun, encased for only the special events that she would have never been able to fully realize.

Because once their father had found it missing, and asked whom had stolen it– Silly could not step up. Instead, she was more privy to letting Necra silently take the blame; which was frantically solidified the moment their mother had dragged it out from beneath his bed. Necra must have known why Silly had taken it, or at least have his own suspicions coated in sympathy, because he did not argue nearly as much as he frankly should have. That was the issue with the both of them though. Too many reservations that held back too many wants, all for it to finally explode once the dams became too weak for unresolved rage.

And at the glance that Necra shot her, she knew that she would have needed to lock it up even further. He was taking the fall for her now. The innocent was cleaning up her own crime. And how pathetic could it be, to allow the loss of her only companion in this stifling, pristine house, and yet continue to only toe the line between being good and being bad?

"I've been bad… I've been a bad, bad woman..!"

Silly did not look back as she continued to flee the scene, desperate to escape her own consequences, whilst simultaneously trying to maintain some semblance of responsibility, as misplaced as it was. She just needed to Grian for now, and let him come to his own senses. He had been stifled by Sam for too long, so being alone must be some treat for him, or would that not be so? Too tempting of a thought, Silly knew, to think that things could begin to work itself out that easily. If that had been the case, then none of this would not have happened. Sam would have taken that boat out of this shipwreck. He would have left town permanently, he would have found a new home, befriended new people that would treat him better than anyone here could have, and Silly would be able to see clearly without the salt drowning her eyes.

Silly felt her legs give up once she came to the crossroads near Pepe's dumpster. She was then overwhelmed by so much worry for the poor boy, as she read mean-spirited comments graffiti'd all over his make-shift house. Too many folk in this town did not understand the weight that their actions and words held, or they did, and they simply refused to care. She did not know which pathway would be worse, but she had the growing sense that Pepe was not the only one who had suffered this fate. Silly hastily readjusted her gun– when had she even loosened her grip on it?-- and continued to run. She needed to get further.

Soon dashing over railroad tracks, Silly stumbled by the house of J the Star. So many nights, much like this one, the pair had shared conversations of so many interesting subjects in the humbly-decorated house. In the other area over, he had a more extravagent home, but Silly had found that she much preferred his company here. J was simply fascinating to talk to; he always had something insightful to add to a conversation, although Silly could tell that he was constantly putting up a wall between him and her, as close as she would have liked to believe them. In any case, she wondered briefly if he could help her. Legally? Perhaps, that would be a bonus– but to share a conversation with somebody who always seemed to know what to say? Maybe this was what she needed. She raised her hands to knock, and–

She was still holding the gun.

What was she thinking? Coming up to a friend's front door at this hour, in this state, with this thing in her possession?

Was she stupid? What would J have even thought if he had caught her like this?.. after finding out what she had done to his friend?

Scrambling about even further, Silly sobbed and dragged herself onto the train instead. This part of town was no longer an option for her. One road paved a way towards the judgment of her parents, but the other road only led to the stink of death– to people and places which would only remind her of what she had done. To the scene.

Mr. Pete gruffly took her ticket, and Silly realized how he did not even blink at her disheveled appearance. She felt an indescribable and unfamiliar agony at this, but still asked through trembling words when the train would leave. He scoffed, grumbling about how "damn kids need to read the schedule themselves," before responding that she just needed to wait five minutes. He called her lucky, saying that she had hopped on just in time, but if she had to be honest: she had already known that the train would take off so soon. So many months had been spent taking this thing around town, seated next to her beloved classmates who were now either alive or dead.

Somehow, she ended up in the same spot that Sam used to sit in without even thinking. Sinking her face into her hands, Silly knew that the train was empty at this hour, and that she must have been the only kid in town who was moving areas this late at night. But before she could muse too long on that, there was a twinge of irritation in a new wave of guilt. A long while ago, her mother had instructed that she could only persist past her curfew, as long as she had permission beforehand. What would she tell her now? The question had come up earlier, when Grian had been there to stand before her. But she was now alone, and once she went back home the next morning, what was she to tell her parents?

Silly felt a hand on her shoulder. She jolted, and her trigger-finger twitched until she saw Ellen beside her.

"You would better hide." They said, casting a brief look at the weapon. "And that, too."

"H-Hide..?" Silly murmured in question, but did as Ellen said with the latter. The gun went into her pocket.

"I do not have a home for you, and to be quite transparent with you: I am unsure of what you will do in this situation." They paused, "Perhaps, get a proper gun holster?"

"Y-...You're real funny, Ellen." Silly breathed out, "You know, my mom always told me I didn't need makeup, but…"

"...Your mascara."

"It's all a mess on me now, isn't it..? So… so, was she right?"

Ellen stared, before they pulled out a small hand-bag of on-the-go makeup supplies. They took out a cloth and leaned over, tenderly wiping the streaks from Silly's face. For a second, they only stared at the state of Silly's tired expression. Their eyes glossed over momentarily, rolling back as the muscles in their face twitched uncontrollably. Silly was not phased.

Once it was over, Ellen took a shuddering breath and looked at Silly head-on.

"In any case, you will need it if you are to run."

As always, Silly had found herself in the sloped position of wanting proper justice, but being unable to stick to it. The body had been found, an investigation began, and Grian and Taurtis did not go to school the next day. But Silly was there to watch it all, with Ellen looking down at her with some pitying look in their eye.

Alone in her bedroom, Silly wondered if this was what Sam would have done. If misdirecting blame had always been out of malice, or if he too had felt so cornered in his life. She wondered if this really had been the best ending for everybody, as woefully anticlimactic as it also felt. In just a few seconds of outweighing the good and the bad, Silly, who had never even known what these two words really meant, had sealed the fate of the town's future.

She wished back the days where Sam would get her into trouble, and it felt like wholesome fun rather than a matter of life or death.

Even stronger though, she wished that she had not known Sam at all.

Silly took a deep breath, listening to the sounds of her window being opened. A gust of perfume filled the room; the stink of death.

The gun fell to the floor with a clatter.