TITLE: RENDED
AUTHOR: ANANSAY
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: None
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters. They are owned by CBS. I'm just borrowing them. I'll return them, I promise!
ARCHIVE: Just let me know where.
A/N: I'd like to thank my beta who helped make this fic what it is: Papillondae.
Rended
By Anansay
He saw it before he felt it.
He saw it leave the barrel, the bright flash of light causing him to flinch slightly and jerk.
He saw the bullet coming toward him, twisting and turning in the air, cutting it on its way to its destination.
Him.
He saw the bullet growing bigger as it neared him.
He saw the light flashing off its smooth, lined sides as it zoned in on its intended target.
He saw the bullet hit his shoulder, tearing through the jacket. He followed it with his mind as it tore through the shirt beneath it and the skin beneath that and ripped into muscle, shattering the bone upon impact.
He saw all this before he felt it. As he looked down, he saw the hole in his khaki coloured jacket growing. But it wasn't the hole growing, it was the blood saturating his jacket, weighing it down with it's viscous warmth growing in size as it began to wet his jacket, pulled downward by the force of gravity. He imagined his shirt now mostly a dark, bright red, the blood pulsing through the lining of his coat.
He saw all this in the split second it took his mind to register it.
He looked up at the barrel… the hand holding the barrel… the arm… the shoulder… the neck… the head… the face.
Such a young face full of innocence… and now fear. The eyes bulged out as they zoned in on the darkly growing stain on the jacket. Slowly the young man's eyes pulled up and he could see the look absolute fear… horror… terror that took hold of them. The mouth hung open, the tongue beginning to hang out. The hand shook as the weight of the gun suddenly became too much - the weight of the responsibility becoming unbearable - and the hand snapped open, letting the gun clatter to the floor.
And that was when he felt it.
The Pain.
The agonizing, absolute, mind-wracking pain.
He had never felt such pain in his life. A small part of his mind informed him that he had never been shot before.
The pain blinded him as he felt himself falling, sinking into it. His legs spasmed, releasing their load. His body landed on his knees, his hand coming up to the origin of this absolute agony, tearing his mind apart. The wetness forced the reality to sink in.
He had been shot. In the shoulder. Close to the heart. Too close.
What if…?
His other hand came out and braced his falling body from hitting the floor. But it didn't work., only serving as a fulcrum on which his body twisted; the misplaced center making him fall sideways to land with another searing jab of pain as his shoulder hit the floor. The pain shot through his entire body. He grunted and groaned at the same time, the pain forcing some sort of verbal acknowledgment of its reality.
The room was getting darker, smaller as his eyesight dimmed and closed in on him. He could still see the boy, hand outstretched as though he still held the gun, mouth agape, eyes bulging, immobile. Not a sound. Not even an apology. He just stood there and watched the man fall.
He lay there, gasping, trying to breathe through the pain. He couldn't move. His body refused to cooperate. He knew he ought to call someone, but his cell phone seemed miles away in his jacket pocket.
His last thought before everything faded to black emptiness… Sara.
And then he was nothing