Title: A Shot in the Dark
Author: RanMouri82
Word Count: 738
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: No own no sue.
Warnings: A bit of blood for the squeamish.
Characters: Vodka and Gin
Notes: Vodka struggled to make sense of the aftermath, only to regret it. For LuckyLadybug, prompt of "Delirium".

A Shot in the Dark

Vodka puffed frigid air through his stinging mouth and nose as he avoided tripping over boxes in the crumbling warehouse. Nothing was making sense that night. First, their hostages had escaped through some kind of air duct, then those FBI agents came—and his partner suddenly ran off after the escaping brats. He had gone this way, Vodka was sure, but as he continued along Gin's path he heard voices—including a familiar one that was not Gin's—before a sharp sound made him freeze.

A gunshot pierced the night, and in the distance came a faint groan.

Vodka gasped, feeling for his own gun, but soon vaguely remembered that he had lost it. "Bro!"

Tripping across the threshold of a rusting door into full moonlight, Vodka rose to his knees and was struck dumb. Gathered around a slumped form were three young people, maybe highschoolers. Two sat huddled on the ground, the boy clutching a horrified, trembling girl. Vodka recognized them as the hostage brats. The third, a tall woman, stood masked in shadow with a gun pointed at—

"Bro!" Vodka cried again, this time shuffling to his feet and ignoring the line of fire as he stumbled toward the fallen man. Gin's hat had tumbled from his head; a clean shot to the temple had caused blood to pool, hot and thick, around the glossy cascade of blond hair. But what struck Vodka most, as he fumbled for Gin's pulse, was his expression. His lip was twisted and his eyes were still open, as if cursing the woman, the . . . traitor . . . .

His heart beating triple-time, Vodka finally understood and instinctively knew who the woman must be. He gulped hard, released Gin, and turned to stare into the barrel of a pistol. It was clenched in the hand of the only woman he had ever known with that unique, reddish tint in her hair and perpetually icy mask set over her fearful gaze. And though the woman wore a thick set of sweats over her curving figure, her finger trembled upon the trigger.

"S-Sherry?" Vodka asked. It was a question, though one that seemed to have an obvious answer. Still, Vodka asked it almost like a child who asks his mother why his daddy will not wake up.

Her mouth chattering, the former syndicate scientist moved her lips and, after several tries, spoke. "T-that . . . that's not my name. It's not! I'm n-not like you!"

Suddenly, from behind Miyano Shiho leaped the boy Vodka had recalled from before; he grabbed her, holding her arms back as the gun slipped from her hand and clattered to the ground. Vodka never quite comprehended the connection between them, but knew that Gin said he was the one who helped Sherry escape so long ago, the night Gin killed Bisco.

Gin . . . .

Breaking into sobs, Shiho slumped forward and slid to the ground. "I—I . . . ."

"You were trying to save us, and he startled you," the boy, whose name escaped Vodka, whispered as he gently took her shoulders. The other girl, the one who had kicked through the air duct earlier, kept shuddering but rose to her feet and joined the other two.

"I d-didn't mean—why—"

"You're not a murderer—"

"Please, listen to him—"

As sirens wailed beyond the torn gates of the shipyard, and their lights flashed, Vodka sank to the ground. It was partly in an effort to comprehend something—anything—but also, it was because he lacked strength. Red, white, red, white, the police sirens flashed over and over across Gin's body.

Then, a strange suspicion dropped like lead in Vodka's stomach and he stole a glace, a stone's throw away, at the pistol. Its simple, squared handle glinted in the moonlight, almost to scoff at the sunglasses he wore.

The gun. It was his own.

A nameless feeling washed over Vodka then, spinning his head but never quite allowing the world to fade to black. A scientist or poet might call it delirium or vertigo, but Vodka was not that kind of thinker. Without even looking at Gin, whose lifeless face still twisted in hate, shock, and betrayal, Vodka took his thick, quivering fingers and touched Gin's eyelids. Throughout the following months, throughout the trial, and until the end of his days, Vodka would never speak again.

Then, Vodka took the eyelids of a man known only as Gin and slid them closed. At least, maybe, he could sleep.

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As this was LuckyLadybug's requested fic, I tried my best to blend my perception of the characters with hers. Hopefully, this remained in-character and was an enjoyable dose of angst! Please review!