Title: Run
Summery: Sometimes you can't shoot your way out. Sometimes you have to run for your life. Murphy never seemed to understand that. WARNING: NO HAPPY ENDING!
Rating: T, profanity, violence, blood, reference to media with mature themes (you saw the movies, you'll be fine) Angst/Tragedy
Comments: Written for a forum prompt by pizzazz8my8luv; keyword – video games. Oh, and I'm going to hell for this story.
Before they became the Saints, and before their PlayStation got stolen, Murphy and Conner spent their down time playing video games. They each had their different preferences; Murphy was into the shooting and combat games; Conner played survival horror games. They would watch each other play and fight over who's turn it was, and each was critical yet curious about the others choice of games. So one week they decided to trade.
After dying half a dozen times, Conner ended up throwing the controller. "This is nothing but a fucking headache!" he cursed. "It's just a bunch of shooting and destroying shit. Where's the plot? Where's the depth? Where's the storyline?"
"Nothing like some gratuitous violence," Murphy replied.
Murphy didn't have any better luck with Conner's game.
"Holly shit, what the fuck is that thing?" Murphy shouted as a monster that may or may not have been designed to look somewhat human rounded the corner.
"Run from it," was all Conner offered as an answer.
"I'm gonna' kill the fucker!"
"Murph, you're gonna' waist your bullets," Conner urged. "It doesn't die. Just fucking run!"
After being killed at least five times, Murphy still would not listen to his brother.
"How the fuck do you kill it?"
"The point of this game isn't killing every creature you come across, it's making it through and surviving. You don't kill it. You just fucking run."
Murphy stared at Conner for a while. "That's it?"
"That's it."
Murphy stood up and threw the controller at Conner. "That's bullshit. This game it for pussy's, I fucking quit."
Murphy just didn't understand the concept of running away, that sometimes you just couldn't shoot your way out.
It wasn't until later in life that Conner saw the beauty in "shooting and destroying shit." Their life had become one of his brother's first-person shooter games. And that's what Murphy compared it to, just like Conner thought everything was a movie. They got into a few tight spots, and by the grace of God they always came out on top. They always killed everyone; shot their was out.
That is, until the night they had to run.
They were cornered. What they thought was a normal job ended up being an ambush of at least forty mobsters. They didn't have the strength or the bullets left to keep going. Conner had already been shot in the right arm and grazed by a bullet on his left leg; Murphy was a no better off with a bullet in his lower back. Each had one ten-round clip left.
If this was a video game, it was the part where you're fighting a boss and you're out of health-giving items and ammo, with one heart/bar left and you're cursing the infernal beeping and/or red flashing.
Conner did the math and came to the conclusion that twenty bullets was not going to kill thirty plus men. He concluded that they had two options. Option one: keep shooting and get killed. Option two: make a run for it down the darker part of the ally and loose the mobsters in the maze of brick walls and trashcans.
Some quest games have different options and endings, and your choices directly effect the turn of events and the outcome.
Conner ducked down behind a stinking, overfilled dumpster in the half-lit ally where they were cornered. "Murph," he shouted over the deafening sound of gun fire to his twin who was crouched behind another dumpster five feet away. "We've gotta' make a run for it!"
"What?" Murphy replied while standing up to fire off a few shots and then quickly ducking back behind his metal barricade.
'We can't win this one, brother! There's too many of them. We've gotta' get out of here!"
"No! We can't just fucking run now!"
"Dammit, Murphy use your fucking head for once! With one bullet for each man out there with a perfect shot each time we wouldn't have enough to kill'em all! Let alone the way we've been shooting. Now we can duck into the alleyway behind me and lose them." Conner craned his head around the dumpster just in time for a bullet to wiz past him. He muttered a chorus of profanity under his breath and pulled himself back to safety. "I'll cover you. Now on the count of three you run to me, got it?" Conner did not wait for Murphy to answer before he held up three fingers and counted out loud. "One, two, THREE!"
On three, Murphy launched himself out into the line of fire and Conner stood and shot at anyone who shot at Murphy. He killed two before his brother made it back to safety, but not before both he and his brother took another bullet. Conner's back hit the wall and he slouched down, leaving a smear of blood from a thru-and-thru bullet wound to his left shoulder. Murphy crawled to Conner clutching and dragging a bleeding right knee.
We're not gonna' make it, Murphy's eyes said as he looked up at his lighter-haired brother.
We've gotta' get out of here, Conner answered his brothers hopeless expression.
"Can you stand?" Conner asked breathlessly.
Murphy bit his lip to control the effects of the pain and nodded.
"You've got to stay right behind me."
Once again Murphy said nothing and only nodded in response.
In one swift motion Conner grabbed Murphy's hand, pulled them both to their feet and bolted into the alleyway that would be their escape rout. Conner ran as best he could away from the shooting, but he made one big mistake: he let go of Murphy. As he kept running, he still believed that his twin was right behind him.
With eight rounds left, Murphy was sure he could do a bit more damage before he fled the scene. As soon as his hand parted from Conner's he stepped out of their safe alley and back into the line of fire. He tried to aim down his sights this time to make every bullet count. But no sooner had he pulled the trigger once then he felt what had to be a million flaming holes erupt in his chest. He tried to go down on his knees, but with one knee already virtually destroyed, he just collapsed.
There was no stupid "womp" sound, no "game over" or "you died" written in bloody letters across the screen, no melodramatic scream. There was no distinct sound or sight, only a flash of white, then black, then nothing.
Conner heard the sirens before he heard the sudden burst of gunfire. He stopped to listen as the sirens grew louder and the gunfire ceased, mobsters now disappearing as if into thin air. He turned around to find that his brother was not there. Terror worse than any he had ever felt struck him.
"Murphy!" he called, but there was no answer. "Murphy!" he repeated. Once again, he heard nothing but the growing sound of police sirens. He ran back the way he had just come, unaware or simply uncaring about the fact that running hurt like hell right now. He rounded the corner where he had left Murphy, and his breath caught in his throat. He tried to scream "no," but it left his mouth as a choked, inaudible syllable.
Even though he knelt down next to Murphy's body just to be sure, he had no doubt that his brother was dead. He couldn't figure out how it had happened; he was to confused to speak or move. He just burred his face in his dead twin's blood-soaked shoulder and wept.
He didn't notice the flashing red and blue lights, he never heard the hurried footsteps approaching him. Be barely heard the voice that spoke feet from him.
"Conner." The voice went unanswered. "Conner!"
This time Conner weakly lifted his head and was relieved, if only slightly, to see a familiar face.
"Conner, you need to get out of here before someone else sees you," Detective Duffy warned.
Conner slowly shook his head. "I-"
"I know," Duffy briefly glanced at Murphy and then back at Conner. "I know, but you have to get out of here now! Run, dammit!"
And so he did. For the second time Conner left Murphy, but this time he would not be able to go back for him. He never even had a chance to pray over him, to see him off properly.
Conner made it about two blocks before he collapsed from blood loss, exhaustion, and grief. He was in the middle of what had to be the worst horror game he had ever played, only this time there were no extra lives, no reset buttons, and no save-points. There were none of these because this was not a game. This was real, even if it did not seam so to Conner, who now huddled under a rusted metal staircase in the maze he seemed to have gotten lost in. He couldn't believe that he had not realized Murphy was not following him. He couldn't believe that he just left his brother to die.
He couldn't believe that his brother, his twin, the only thing he ever had to live for, was gone.
Conner was angry; angry at God for sending them on this stupid fucking mission, angry at the mobsters for ambushing them, angry at Murphy for not listening, angry at Duffy for making him abandon Murphy again, but most of all he was angry at himself for not taking care of his younger-by-twenty-minutes brother.
It was only a matter of time before the cops at the scene followed the blood trail he had left.
"Conner MacManus," he heard a voice call. Duffy? No. Dolly? No. Greenley? No. Smecker? No.
Well in that case he was in a bigger mess than what he had previously figured.
How many bullets did he have left? Of cores he wasn't thinking of shooting cops, but he still wanted to keep track of his stats so to say. He did the math in his head remembered firing four shots when he covered for Murphy.
Murphy. Conner's heart hurt at the thought.
But that meant he had six shots left. He defiantly had no use for them now. Or did he? Once again Conner weighed his options. Option one: Shoot at the cops to get away. No. Even if he didn't try to actually hit them, he could accidentally, and those were good men. Option two: Surrender. That would have been the smart thing, but he knew he couldn't handle prison alone. Option three: Try to make a run for it. The cops probably wouldn't shoot at him, but even then with his injuries he wouldn't get far. Option four... Was there a fourth? None of the three he could come up with sounded appealing. He couldn't risk killing an innocent, he couldn't go to prison, and he physically couldn't run.
There was one more thing he couldn't do. He couldn't live with out Murphy. Suddenly Conner saw that fourth option, and it was the only one that did not fill his mind with absolute dread. This option could let him undo the horrible sin of abandoning his brother. This option would not sentence him to a life of pain, sorrow, anger, and regret.
Option four:
Conner looked up from the spot on the ground that he had been staring at to see three armed men standing a few feet away, all with guns drawn and pointed at him. He was defiantly caught now.
"Conner MacManus, drop your weapon. You're under arrest," one of the cops announced.
Something made Conner turn his head to look in the direction the cops had come from. Standing not twenty feet away were all of his allies: Duffy, Dolly, Greenley, and Smecker. They all had the same looks on their faces.
Give it up, Conner.
"I repeat, drop your weapon."
What game was it, he wondered, that has a setting where you automatically die if you get caught?
"One last time, Drop your weapon!"
"I fucking hear you!" he responded, still looking at the foursome who couldn't save him this time. Then he looked away, down at the gun in his hand. A sick little smile tugged at his lips.
Conner raised his gun.
If you hate me for killing Murphy (and we're not sure if Conner dies or not, are we?) go ahead and flame me, at least it will be a review like the ones I hardly ever f'ing get!