SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

So that’s what 900 rounds per minute felt like.

Not great.

What was the speed of sound? What was the speed of thought?

Definitely not faster than the second spray of bullets.

Abe didn’t have time to process the apology, or realize, really realize that he wasn’t going to win.

Still.

If anyone in Hell deigned to ask, his only regret was not killing every last person in the house before he went.

And in the blink of an eye, Abraham the King of the Rats was found dead in his own court.

Katelynne couldn't peel her eyes away from the fresh corpse, here one moment and gone the next just like that. Her knees were gonna buckle any second.








She couldn't do this. She can't be here. Not now. Not in front of Marco.

Wordlessly and without waiting for him, she shook her head to herself and doubled back to the kitchen not in haste but with a purpose. Her bag was waiting for her.

It didn't make any sense for Katelynne's footsteps to be louder than the gunshots. Abraham's footsteps had been swallowed up entirely by the echo of the shotgun at a closer distance; maybe it was because he was trying to hide himself while Katelynne had nothing to obscure in her intent. Perhaps Marceline's shotgun was louder than the weapon hanging over Abraham's shredded face. It was even possible Marco wasn't hearing them at all so much as anticipating them, assuming they would be there, knowing they would be moving away from him, and responding to stimulus that confirmed his bias above the ringing in his ears. The mind, especially his mind, was not an objective observer.

He knew exactly what to say.

"Are you coming back?"

Because there was nothing that would make this okay. No argument or assurance between them would resolve their tension. Their conversations were terse, to the point, on her terms, and none of those conditions adequately supported what they needed.

Marco had killed someone.

Katelynne had watched him die.

She hadn't shot him in the back. She hadn't yelled at him. She hadn't tried to reason her way through what had just happened. She went to leave, and Marco had no justification for why she should stay. He'd already told her last night he'd understand if she wanted to go, or wanted him to go, or, or whatever was necessary. He'd understood then that there would come a moment where what they needed was for there to be no 'they.'

So he didn't try to stop her. He didn't look up from what he'd done. He asked his question in a quiet voice without assumptions, including that she would answer him at all.

Katelynne didn't slow down. She couldn't. Not until she got where she needed to go.

"Idunno," she tripped over her words as much as her feet. "I can't. Sorry. I can't. Need to... Princess."

((She slammed the door behind her.))

He would have killed her. Marco struggled to be sure of much, but of that much he was sure. Abraham was callous. Spiteful. Petty. Remorseless. Outliving the wound she'd given him would set him on course, and next time he wouldn't play coy. He wouldn't come for Marco first either. Assuming Abraham had any way to fight back hidden up his sleeve, he would make sure that Katelynne went first. Both of them would die if he could manage it, but if he could only take one of them it would be Katelynne. She'd wounded him more by backing him into a corner than putting a bullet in his arm, but he wouldn't forget either act. He would kill her, and he would take pleasure in it. Marco's thoughts on the matter had not been so articulate before he pulled the trigger, he could not act as if they were justification for what he'd done, but the emotions he felt listening to Abraham's last words guided him to this unavoidable conclusion. In any world where Abraham Watanabe was still alive he never would have let Katelynne walk out that door.

They weren't in a world where Abraham was still alive, though. They were in one where Marco had made the snap judgement that her life was worth more than another without even being fully conscious that that was the choice he was making. Like most of the lingering questions between them they'd never talked about how Katelynne felt about death beyond the abstract veneer of justice she threw up in response to Marceline and deep down he knew her answer would never come by way of a coherent sentence. The jumble she threw his way on the way out the door had no meaning to him. It didn't need it. A barrier forced between them by way of the slamming door said enough that she could not.

Marco lingered in the front room looking at that door until he was able to pull his gaze downwards to Abraham's discarded bag. Coincidence more than conscious effort found him mimicking the path they'd walked together. He could imagine where he'd found the gun in hazy memory just a short distance from where Abraham had shrugged off his bag. A splatter of bloodstains started the trail between them. It wasn't a bad shot, if Marco had any room at all to judge. Not a bad angle, or so he thought looking from the stain to the kitchen corner Katelynne had peeked around. No shortage of time to line up. She knew more than him. If she'd wanted him dead...it was hard to say. A wound could have been her purpose from the start, or resolve could have faltered on the trigger pull, or she was just less confident with a firearm than she projected.

The door creaked open in front of him. Enough time had passed that he couldn't make her out in the immediate distance. Marco looked to one of the living room chairs and back out to the porch's empty space; by the time he'd finished dragging it out for a more comfortable view, maybe he'd have thought of a better way to phrase his questions if...when. When Katelynne came back.

((Marco Hart Continued In say goodnight to the bad guy))