Sleet in June

[Pippi]

“All right.”

He was walking closer towards Michael, picking up the pace little by little as he did so. His eyes were fixed on the gun in the other boy’s hand, watching for any sign of it moving, wavering, barrel shifting towards him or anyone else on the scene.

If any of the others were talking, he didn’t hear them. Their movement barely registered in his peripheral vision. If they were doing anything to try and stop him, it wasn’t registering him, like an ant trying to take on the sun.

Michael was unpredictable. ‘Unhinged’ described him pretty well too, but Aurelien knew that he himself wasn’t exactly a paragon of mental fortitude anymore. The difference between him and Michael was what happened when they lost themselves and their instincts took over. Aurelien knew his anger could control him at his worst points, that he lashed out at people who didn’t deserve it. But at least that was a known fact, the quantifiable thing Aurelien did when things went wrong.

But Michael was talking about how unjustifiable his actions had been, how he’d done them ‘just because’, how he wasn’t going to put the gun down… but he’d been a mess in Morgan’s arms just a moment prior, and now he was slumped on the ground, back against the wall, not looking like he had any plans to move any time soon.

Still. No more second guessing. Not another Justin.

Aurelien lunged, grabbing for Michael’s shirt, trying to pin his arm to his side to make sure he didn’t even think about using it. He wasn’t stupid; he knew that Morgan was close to Michael, or had been before, at the least. He wanted the gun on the floor, that was his priority.

But Aurelien’s only goal was to eliminate killers. And if Michael wanted so badly to be one, then so fucking be it.

[Slam]

Lizzie got to her feet. The situation wasn’t going to end peacefully, she could see it in Michael’s shark eyes even before Aurelien had gotten his hands on him. She clutched her shears tightly in her hand, looking to Morgan, getting comfort from something that should've been his hand. She knew he didn’t want to leave, but enough was enough.

“Morgan, please.” She begged, but Morgan wasn’t looking at her. Of course his eyes were on Michael, as they’d been for days now. She clenched her first in frustration as he continued holding onto the hope that his friend wasn’t going to shoot them.

She could see the fear in Michael’s eyes, but that did nothing to comfort her. They said the frightened dogs bit the hardest, or something like that. And Michael was a pretty terrified little bitch right now, still waving a gun around in its mouth that it refused to Drop.

“Morgan, I want to go!” she yelled. The mix of frustration, anger and fear was plain in her voice, but she couldn’t hide how she felt anymore.

[Cactus]

All it took was one misplaced glance, one unintentional utterance, and everything would go right to hell. When Henry and Aurelien had appeared, Morgan's tension level had risen — not because he wasn't happy to see them, he was — but because he knew the kinds of things that Michael had done, and he knew the way they'd likely react.

When Michael started spouting off about how he'd killed Catherine, that hadn't exactly helped matters, either.

Henry had tried to be the bigger man, to drop his own weapon in the hopes that any tension could be defused from the situation, but his damaged friend wasn't able to do the same. It was a hopeless ask, one from someone for whom the gun was about as much of a shield as it were an offensive threat. Holding on to the gun made Michael feel safe, or at least gave him a feeling of ownership over his fate.

So he wouldn't drop it, and then, much as he predicted, everything went to hell. Aurelien took a step forward, then another, and then suddenly the two boys were scuffling. His eyes widened; Lizzie said something that he didn't hear, and then as he watched the two, he barely heard her scream.

This was going to end poorly.

All of the work that he'd done to get through to Michael, it would be for naught if he shot Aurelien or Henry or Lizzie or all of them.

So with only the smallest of voices telling him just how bad of an idea it was, Morgan kept his eyes on the pistol that Michael still clutched, and jumped into the fray, his eyes locked on the pistol and his hands following closely behind.

[Pippi]

He wasn’t letting go of the gun, even as Aurelien grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up onto his feet, even as he twisted the other boy’s arm, trying to wrench his hand open and send the weapon clattering to the floor. Hell, if anything, his grip was actually getting tighter, clamping down like a vice.

“Fuckin’-”

Aurelien’s brow furrowed, and his lips twisted into a snarl, trying to snatch the gun from Michael’s hand instead. Michael seemed to have found a sudden injection of energy, though, and his arm shot out to block it, attempting to push Aurelien away, their momentum carrying them away from the wall.

“Drop the fucking gun!”

He shifted his stance, placing his legs a shoulder-width apart, trying now to grab Michael’s midriff and slam him down onto the ground again. He could hear screaming, through the ringing in his ears, not that he had a clue who it was coming from, not that he gave a shit about anything other than incapacitating this murderer.

As he moved to grab Michael, a figure moved with him, and suddenly there was another body in the fray, Morgan throwing himself into the scuffle, hands scrabbling for the gun, and Aurelien almost slammed his shoulder into him, forcing him out of the way, not wanting another factor to interrupt this. He was so fucking close to getting the other boy to stand the fuck down, willingly or not.

He just needed Michael to stop moving. Then everything would be okay again.

[Kermit]

A writhing mass of blood and bones and tears and fears. Kicking at the ground. Twisting. Flailing. Anything to get away. Michael wanted Aurelien to just shoot him already. His arm hurt. He heard the fabric of his robe tearing somewhere when Aurelien lifted him up. Teeth gnashed.

"No no no no no - please just - please - please please please please -"

Arms were curling around him, like a hug, except it was a bad hug. He couldn't see. Someone was grabbing at the gun. His felt one of his fingers catch against the gun's safety. He was so fucking scared. He felt himself trying to run, but all his body did was stomp on Aurelien's foot.

He gave up, letting everything go limp.

[Shiola]

Henry’s jaw clenched as he heard Michael’s response. Contradictions, malice, weakness, everything he despised wrapped loosely in the shell of a person he thought he knew. Self-aware self-destruction was uniquely despicable to him, something vile enough that he couldn’t help but feel somehow worse for even listening to it. Instead of sympathy, it aroused anger that self-sustained with the knowledge that this reaction was exactly the point.

They’d all been through so much, yet for all the Arthro Taskforce were the architects of their suffering, Michael seemed hell-bent on engineering it in service of his own broken, empty psyche.

At a loss for words and wanting to exchange no more, Henry had taken a step back when Aurelien moved closer, understanding very well what his role was going to be. They’d discussed this, earlier. As the two exchanged words, and then blows, Henry moved quickly out of the way and picked up his gun once again; if only to keep it away from the others.

It hurt, but they had to act decisively or not at all. Michael had to be disarmed, he had to lose the ability to threaten anyone else here. He had to be forced off of that path, or at the very least they had to try.

Henry heard Lizzie’s protests, and was about to turn to Morgan and implore them to move away, to get themselves at least out of immediate danger. There was no time, even for the smallest utterance. Morgan already dove into the fray, after Michael’s gun. The two wrestling him to the ground, doing what had to be done. It wasn’t to eliminate killers, as punishment. They were trying to protect the others. Morgan had to have understood that, he at least had someone to protect.

Neither of them should’ve been standing there, given what was happening. As he stepped between the others and Lizzie, Henry felt a column of air seem to contract and expand in front of him, instinct forcing him to dive for the ground.

The first time, it took a few seconds for the pain to register and the blood to seep out. He remained still, waiting a few seconds, hoping his body would tell him what had happened. Reaching to his chest, he felt it was dry. No pain, no weakness. Just a few threads torn out of his shirt.

Henry sat up, and looked around to find everyone else had gone to the ground, too. One of them wasn’t moving.

Again, it would be too much.

Again, he would have to steel himself.

Again, they would lose.

With a shout that hopefully drove Morgan and Aurelien to what they were both supposed to do, Henry sprang into action. Anything was better than sitting around and reminding himself just how many times this had happened, and asking how many times it was going to happen still.

At least once, if Michael made it away from here alive.

[Slam]

There was a loud bang, and then something hit Lizzie. She had been caught in the middle of her approach to Morgan, about to pull him back and tell her to stop ignoring her. That plan had been stopped in its tracks quite soundly.

She looked down. Her hand was already clutching her stomach. She pulled it back. It was shaking.

There was quite a lot of blood.

“Ow..?” she whimpered, looking back up. It didn’t actually hurt, but there was blood. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was supposed to hurt when you were bleeding. She didn’t know what else to say. She dropped her shears.

She wanted to sit down, very much, so she did. It wasn’t enough. She fell onto her back. She was still holding her belly which was still bleeding. Her eyes stared wide at the sky above. She still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Her yellow shirt was changing colour with every second, as blood flowed from the bullet wound in her gut.

She was trembling as she stared upwards. “Morgan?” she called out softly, because she would have liked very much for him to tell her what was going on. “Morgan?” she repeated.

She kept saying his name. Over, and over, and over.

[Pippi]

He wouldn’t stop. He was doing everything, everything in his goddamn power, to be as inconvenient to Aurelien as possible. He was limp and flailing, a bundle of limbs wrapped in robes, more like a jellyfish than a human. Every time Aurelien or Morgan grabbed for the gun, Michael’s arm would slip out of their grasp, constantly evading capture.

The bundle of flailing limbs found purchase, one foot stomping down hard onto Aurelien’s own, making him hiss with pain, see red flash in front of his eyes, feel blood rush through his head once more. He tightened his grip on Michael’s robes, fabric ripping beneath his fingers once more, trying to shake some goddamn sense into this killer.

“Just fucking stop, you-”

A cataclysmic explosion, right beside him, sending a piercing ringing straight through his brain. His hands jolted loose of Michael’s clothes, the momentum flinging him back, onto the ground, dulled injuries flaring up again with a vengeance. Aurelien seethed, breathing loudly through clenched teeth, chest heaving and head pounding. He scanned down his body, quickly running his hand over his chest and his stomach. No fresh injuries. No blood.

Not on him, at least.

“Oh, fuck, no, no no.”

He had lost sight of the gun. It didn’t matter any more.

[Kermit]

There was a familiar gunshot, and Michael felt his body flump onto the ground.

Was he dead yet?

No?

Fine.

He choked out a groan. Laid there on the ground, eyes closed, not moving. Felt like he was one of Karen's chewtoys. He missed his dogs. He missed Waffles less than Karen. Waffles was mean and was a Pomeranian and would steal yogurt containers out of the garbage and hoard them under couches. Karen was a corgi and was nice to Michael. He felt sad now. Someone'd been hit by the bullet, it sounded like. He wasn't sure if the gun was even in his hand. Didn't feel like it. Opened his eyes. Looked at his gun-holding hand. No gun. Huh. Oh, Lizzie was on the ground.

The gun was inhabited by a ghost that hated women, Michael decided. That weirdo rapist hockey guy that the gun's previous owner chased around, probably. That made sense. Didn't know who else could've shot Lizzie.

'Told you I'd drag you two in,' he wanted to say to Morgan, but instead decided to keep the comment in his mental bank of things to say if he ever needed to hurt Morgan really bad.

He slowly, silently, stood up. Slipped into the house.

[Cactus]

Morgan Dragosavich wasn't much for physical confrontations. He never had been. So many times within his high school career, he'd said what he thought would be a witty remark or a dry comment and gotten shoved for it. On occasion, fists had flown, though he usually didn't see them coming. Generally he wasn't one for offense.

Survival of the Fittest had needed to happen in order to turn him into someone who lashed out. It had taken an assault from Wyatt Carter, a threat from Lorenzo Tavares; Lucas Brady had said the wrong things and tried to come at him, and all of the repressed rage had come out in one fierce kick. Before then? Violence wasn't a part of Morgan's DNA, nor did he feel that most problems were better solved through it. He still felt that way. Yet as he'd jumped into the fray to try and wrestle Michael's gun away from him — or at the very least away from anyone — he had done so with all of the intensity of a cornered animal. Michael was no match for the two of them, but his grip on the weapon was fierce; Aurelien seemed more concerned with tossing the boy around.

Nobody needs to get shot had been what he'd said. Even after he'd hurt Lucas, he still believed it. This whole thing was an exercise in insanity by a group of men and women who were very likely pure evil. They were exposing everything that was bad within people, and displaying it to the world. Showing everyone back home what 'horrors' lurked within, even though the fact remained that when people found themselves in stressful situations, impossible situations like the one they were in, their bodies and their minds went into survival mode.

At that point, anyone was pretty much capable of anything.

Wrenching his hands within the fray and grasping hold of the pistol, everything suddenly came free and he found himself tumbling back down. Tensing as he tried to brace himself for the fall, he hit the ground at the same time the loud, unmistakable sound of a gunshot echoed throughout the area.

Oh God — someone had taken a shot. Michael or Henry or Aurelien had had enough of the talk and the struggle, and they had—

Lizzie cried out. Morgan could see her clearly; her hand was at her stomach, and then — there was so much red. She fell.

Morgan couldn't move. He couldn't make his feet do a damn thing. All he could see was his girlfriend, laying on her back, his name coming out of her mouth like an unholy incantation. He could smell the thick residue of gunpowder that hung in the air — and the gun? He could see the gun.

Oh God, he could see it.

The gun was in his hands.

Suddenly, he couldn't see Lizzie anymore; none of the guys were in focus. All he could see was the old weapon, aged and scuffed and obviously not in any way brand-new. His hands felt like they were on fire, his fingertips with an awful electric energy. He wanted to drop this gun, to throw it away. Something about it offended him, lashed out at him deep down to the core of his soul.

Morgan felt tainted simply by holding it in his hands.

"No," he managed to squeak, but his brain, his mouth, his limbs — none of them wanted to work, and so he sat on the ground, staring at everything as it happened.

[Shiola]

The rest of the world went grey, as Henry poured all of his focus and energy into tending to Lizzie. He wasn’t some kind of field medic, but he played the role as best as he could. By now it was almost feeling like habit, easily fetching what little medical supplies he had from his bag. It was probably not enough. The one moment he turned his head away from her it was to call out for help.

“We need more gauze, I’m out!”

Blood was seeping from the wound, not as much as it had been with Jackson, but just as unrelenting and distressing. Henry didn’t want to move Lizzie, but was able to at least reach around her waist and feel for an exit wound on the other side of the hole in her gut. There wasn’t one.

”...alright Beryl? You're not alone, okay? You're not alone. I'll do whatever it takes, you'll be alright."
“Jackson, it’s okay. You didn’t fuck up. You’re not going to die.”

The faint hope of potentially fixing this situation quickly snuffed itself out. Even if they could stop the bleeding, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t start again. Getting the bullet out wasn’t at all viable given how likely they were to just make things worse, or cause an infection. More than all that, this would keep her from walking, running, doing anything she had to do to survive.

Henry didn’t like to lie. He didn’t like what became of them, when lies built up on top of one another. Even with the best intentions. Even if it was entirely necessary.

“Lizzie? Lizzie, Morgan’s here. I’m here. We’ll get through this, you’ve just gotta be strong and stay with us, alright?”

His body did all of the necessary work, while his mind looked at the path ahead. Focused on the facts of the situation, points of divergence, choices that had to be made, work that they’d all have to do. Forethought that seemed more and more like it was in vain as one complication after another made his and Aurelien’s plan seem more and more like a delusional fantasy.

One: Unless rescue arrived soon, Lizzie Lebowski was going to die. Whether it was from blood loss, infection, being unable to flee a danger zone, or one of the proxies taking advantage of her weakened state. One way or another, she was beyond the help of her friends.

Two: Morgan is still alive, but this could destroy him, if it isn’t dealt with properly. His responsibility for her current state is going to wear on him, and push him to some self-destructive extremes. Henry understood at least in part what that felt like, and where that could take his friend. He didn’t want to lose two people to one bullet, but that was exactly what would happen if they let Morgan spiral into despair, to give up.

Three: There was absolutely a reason to spiral into despair, to give up. Henry couldn’t save anyone. They weren’t making any progress, they weren’t fighting back against the terrorists. Just one loss after another, another disastrous attempt to rein in the worst of their peers. The way he lived his life was a rational one, based on what he knew he knew and what he knew he didn’t. All of the evidence pointed to him being an abject failure when it came to the most important thing he could do with the rest of his life. If he’d stood a few inches to the left, the bullet would’ve struck him. He would’ve just let himself die, instead of having to watch another person disintegrate before his eyes.

Maybe that would’ve been better. Maybe he deserved it.






Four: The gun was still part of the equation. Henry didn’t know who had it, but it needed to not be Michael or Morgan. If that was still the case, it was very likely someone else was going to die. That notion led into the last distinct thought on Henry’s mind, which was -

Five: As soon as it was convenient, Michael Froese needed to be dealt with. Right now, given how this would affect Morgan, it absolutely was not.

Gritting his teeth, Henry forced himself to accept, validate, and ultimately ignore the impulse to pick up the BFG and erase Michael then and there. They wouldn’t be able to help Lizzie. For Morgan, for whatever was left of their humanity, he’d have to try. He'd tried so hard for Michael, and leaving him alone was the only real option available.

“The guns, we need them put away right fucking now. Pocket it, I don’t care. Nobody else gets shot. We need to get Lizzie on level ground, under a roof if we can.”

That gave the others something to do, something to focus on. Gave Aurelien something to do lest he find himself unable to resist the urge to answer one act of violence with another.

“Morgan, we need your help here buddy! Come on.”

Henry looked up from the bloody mess of a wound, at Lizzie. This time, there weren’t any tears, no fear or panic. His anger and sorrow belonged inside, where they couldn’t hurt anyone else.

It hurt him, and he let it. He could take it.

He had to. This wasn’t his time.

It should have been. Everything he had wasn’t enough. Not for her, or any of the others.

It’s never going to be, is it?

[Slam]

Someone had her hands all over her. That was rude. She couldn’t tell who it was though. She seemed to be having trouble focusing. She was starting to get a vague idea of what had happened, but it seemed pretty far-fetched. She’d have to check with Morgan. Where was he, anyway?

She was trembling, because suddenly she felt exhausted. Her belly was both warm and cold at the same time, and the person wouldn’t let her poke at it. She always had a bad habit of picking at scabs and scratching scratches. She wasn’t loving the situation, being unable to do such a thing. She really wished whoever had their hands all over her would stop.

She wanted to sit up, because the ground was rough against her head, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t catch her breath either, even though she wasn’t moving. She was panting, faster and faster. Her breaths turned to whimpers.

It was starting to hurt, and she was starting to cry.

[Kermit]

Michael stared up at a camera, and unclipped the sunglasses miraculously still attached to the collar of his robe. His lips curled in contempt. Angry tears.

"None of that had to fucking happen. They're gonna blame me, I know, but fuck them, it was just me and Morgan having a broment, until they ran up and started making a big deal about the gun. They turned it into a fight when it didn't need to be one. I had the fucking safety on, fuck them. If I'd wanted anyone dead, I would've shot on sight - and I did what they asked. I dropped the gun. Then someone else shot Lizzie with it.

"It ain't my fuckin' fault Aurelien's a goddamn crackhead," he spat.

He'd wanted, at some point before he'd become an actual murderer, to be a scapegoat, he thought he remembered.

"How many times has someone accidentally fired a gun here and not hit someone? I can only think of once. One of y'all should do a tally."

He slipped the robe off, revealing the thin, dark purple shirt underneath. He crumpled the torn white fabric into a ball and tossed it into the corner. Clipped the sunglasses onto the purple shirt.

He sniffled, and carefully, delicately overturned a Lizzie-sized coffee table. He grabbed it by the legs, and dragged it to the other side of the room, and out through the front door, to the congregation around Lizzie. He glanced down at her — at the hole blown through her gut. Everybody else morphed into an indistinct blob of people.

Michael Froese made things happen. Being a catalyst — it was what he was good at.

"Got a stretcher for her. We should move inside," he muttered to nobody in particular.

[Cactus]

Everything started to happen; everyone started to move. Morgan didn't. He should have rushed over, he should have tried to do something — anything to help his girlfriend. Instead, he just sat on the ground, rooted in place, staring at the pistol in his hand. This was his fault. He hadn't meant to do it, but in the end, it didn't matter what the intention was. He'd been careless, oh God, he'd been so careless.

It had happened again.

This was not the first time that his own carelessness had resulted in someone that he cared for being hurt. His own father had never forgiven him for the accident that had almost killed his mother, and now, if Lizzie didn't make it through this?

Morgan knew that he'd finally understand his old man's frustration; his anger. When the one that you love faces danger as a result of someone's carelessness, how was the feeling anything but disgust towards the person who bore responsibility?

When his mother had been in the hospital, were it not for a kindly neighbour, Morgan would have borne the brunt of his father's anger. Right here, there was no Mrs. Henderson to protect him from the vitriol that would come his way — from himself.

As though it had bitten him, Morgan suddenly dropped the gun. He wanted no part of the weapon; he wanted to erase his entire part in the play. Yet he couldn't. There was no way to take back what had happened, no way to wind time back to the moment before he'd jumped into the fray. The last time he'd gotten physical, he had been left behind by his companions — most of whom were all dead.

Would they all leave him behind?

Things continued to happen around him; everyone seemed to converge upon Lizzie, Michael suddenly appeared with an overturned table, and suddenly they were all headed towards one of the houses.

Still, he sat. He didn't move. Morgan only stared.

He didn't hear his name being called.

Everything was far away, like it was through a fog.

Someone was in front of him; picking up the gun. Someone was pulling him to his feet, saying something. The words may as well have been Japanese, for all he could understand them.

Then Morgan had a leg of the table. They were carrying it, they were headed somewhere.

Nothing was going to be okay.

No matter what anyone said, nothing was going to be okay ever again.

What had he done?

What—

Michael was right. Was this what his friend had been going through?

All he could hear was his father's voice. Over, and over.

"I have never been more disappointed in you."

This time, Morgan found himself in agreement.




You fool.


((Morgan Dragosavich, Lizzie Lebowski, Aurelien Valter, Henry Sparks and Michael Froese continued in You Give Love a Bad Name.))