closed starter - @lcttieli
location - the streets of new orleans
time - late night, 12th September 1924
tw - gun violence, death
It was too open. The street yawned in front of him, ill-lit and deceivingly empty, and Erik could almost taste the wrongness of it on the tip of his tongue. It was the sort of uncanny feeling that accompanied normal-seeming things which the instinctive part of him recognized as inherently wrong. He almost preferred the press of a gun barrel to his temple to this, envied the certainty of it. In any case, Erik did not trust the silence.
It was beside the point - trust rarely mattered around here, even if something hungry inside him always reared its head at the idea of it - the story would unfurl, as stories do, regardless of whether or not you trusted pieces of it. So he pressed on, his step slow and methodical, the rifle heavy where it was hung on his back. He preferred the revolvers and resigned himself to the indelicacy of the rifle only once all other options were spent. They had not been yet, but he figured his luck had to eventually run out. He’d delved too deep into the night without a hitch, and while he might not have trusted the silence, he did trust the odds.
There was silence and there was a sound, something wet and unceremonious, and then it was all instinct and muscle memory. He had spun around, guns raised, everything about him tensed and poised to fight - a moment too late. The way bodies hit the ground, it was a dull sort of sound, recognizable in the most primal way, and he’d heard only a fragment of it before the shot rang out. He did not shoot back, because there was nothing to shoot at and he was no longer the trigger-happy green kid who would’ve wasted the ammo and drawn attention. But almost instinctively he did look down to check for bullet wounds - sometimes, you couldn’t feel it at first - but his hand came away clean, for once.
Then he was moving forward and the scene slowly revealed itself from the shadows - an outstretched hand against the pavement, a gun hanging loosely from the fingers, it was fragments before it was the picture of a body on the ground. Distractedly, he noticed the ring on his finger before he noticed the blood, and it was only when he looked up and into the alleyway that he finally noticed Lottie. “Wha…” he started, stopped, looked down, “He was just about to shoot, wasn’t he?” There was something feral in his eyes as he stared down at the would-be killer, wide-eyed with a realization. “That bullet… that was supposed to be in me now. Wasn’t it?” His breath came out shaky, though for the life of him he couldn’t tell what with - adrenaline, horror, bewilderment? “Jesus fuck. Are you okay?”
Beneath the glow of lamplight, she can make out two figures: a man, slinking towards another, his gun raised. His target is all too familiar, and she’s moving before she knows it, swiftly picking up a crowbar off the ground and swinging it towards the man’s head. It slams into his skull, and he falls to the ground, the aim of his gun knocked off course; a shot rings out, bullet landing somewhere that’s not Erik’s chest.
Once again, she confirms a fact: It did not matter what world you were born into—your odds vastly improved if you didn’t fight fair. She’d swung before she shot, using the element of surprise to her advantage and playing to her strengths. In the dark, she could’ve missed. Up close and coming from behind, the traitor didn’t stand a chance.
In another fluid movement, she takes out her own pistol, ready to fire at anyone lurking in the shadows. Only when Erik speaks, his voice stopping and starting, does she lower her weapon, falling back in place next to him. “And now it isn’t.” Despite her heart thrumming in her chest, she keeps her voice deadpan, as if she’s merely making another snarky comment in response to Erik’s scorn for modern art. It’s easier this way, to deflect and detach, and keeping her composure is a lesson she learned early. Smile pretty. Stand still. Stop crying.
The only betrayal of emotion shows in how tightly she clutches the crowbar, fingers wrapped tight around metal. This isn’t the first dead body she’s seen, and it isn’t the first person she’s killed. It really shouldn’t shake her this much, and yet she stands there for one dumbfounded moment, gaze trained on the man crumpled on the ground, blood pooling out from behind his head. Perhaps it’s knowing if she’d gotten there a split second later, it’d be Erik on the ground instead.
One moment can decide whether you live or die, and that has never been truer than now.
An exhale, and she lets the crowbar clatter to the ground. “I wasn’t about to let you go and die.” And isn’t that the truth? She cares, one way or another. Yet she doesn’t elaborate, simply adding a flippant, “Who else would debate why exactly Les Fleurs du mal must be read in French with me?” She doesn’t want to explain the intricacies of why instinct spurred her to save him, nor does she think she even can. She tries to rationalize it as wiping away whatever debt she owes him for taking her under his wing; there is no higher favor than saving one’s life. Then again—
I’m helping you because I want to, he once had told her.
Maybe it’s as simple as that.
“I’m fine, by the way,” she says, flexing a gloved hand. “Let’s get out of here before one of his friends decides to say hello, too.”
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