A/N: Wrote this on March 26, needing an outlet for my bad mood. So this is more like an emotional vignette than anything.
"Straylight Run - Hands in the Sky (Big Shot)" is recommended for listening while reading.
He doesn't feel the pain, too caught up in the moment, ditching the hail of bullets with practiced ease. However, contradictory to the saying, practice doesn't make perfect, and he gets hit in the shoulder.
Doesn't matter, even if his arm goes limp. That's why he's got two, and the incapacity to shoot with both of his hands serves to fuel the growing rage, making each shot a death sentence without fail.
He's almost ready to let out a triumphant holler as the last body drops, when a sharp, twisting pain blast straight through his heart.
It takes Connor an agonizingly painful moment to realize he's not hit. He is damn sure that some fucker has managed the last pull of the trigger, but his black sweater is intact and he doesn't feel the dampness spread under his fingers when he presses his hand to his chest.
The pain doesn't leave, it only grows stronger, and Connor goes mad with panic, almost curling in on himself from the intensity of the feeling. He can't figure out what's wrong and it drives him insane.
"Murph?!" he frantically shouts, twisting around to look for his brother, and as his eyes finally land on the younger twin, his fingers loosen, letting go of the gun.
He's by Murphy's side sooner than his pistol hits the floor, dropping on the knees midway and sliding the rest of the distance, hands immediately going to Murphy's face, and he doesn't give a shit if the blood from his shoulder wound drips down onto his brother's pale skin. That is the least of his worries.
"Murph?! Are ye alright?! Jesus!" he's shaking from panic and exhilaration of the fight.
"Aye, right as rain," Murphy cracks a tiny smile and opens his eyes, and for a second Connor is so relieved he can drop on top of his twin. But something's wrong, there's a coldness twisting in his gut, and why the fuck is Murphy down on the floor, why isn't he getting up?
"Talk ta me, fer fuck's sake! What's wrong?"
His twin hisses and the blue of his eyes seems hazy, unfocused. Then his head lilts to the side, " 'm thirsty, Conn."
Connor lets out a barking laugh, masking the dread making home in his soul, "Aye, thirsty too, gonna need some fucken Guinness when we get home!"
Murphy doesn't seem to hear him and begins to mutter in Gaelic.
Something is horribly, terribly wrong.
Connor begins to feel him with his hands, looking for any wounds. Checks the most important parts first, until his gaze slides down and fuck, there's a whole pool of blood, how the fuck did he fucking miss it? It's the size of fucking Michigan.
"Shite!" he swears as he gets closer, tries to see where the blood's coming from.
It's the leg. Murphy's leg is bleeding, and there's a lot, almost (really? his inner voice snorts) too much.
Connor doesn't waste any time to take that stupid Rambo-knife from Murphy's belt sheath and rip his jean-leg open, and what he sees slams him into shock.
He curses something awful, realizing he has nothing, absolutely fucking nothing that will clamp Murphy's artery and stop the bleeding as he watches the red pumping out with horrifying speed and velocity. It sprays Connor's shirt, stains his hands and jeans. A drop even manages to land on his cheek, and now Connor's hysterical.
"You fucken idiot! How the fuck did this happen?! Why didn't ye fucken call me?! You motherfucking, stupid prick!" The tears are stinging his eyes as he tries to put pressure on the wound, to stop the bleeding, but it's not enough. He uses his injured arm, putting as much weight on it as he can, and it hurts something awful, but all that matters is Murphy, and Murphy is bleeding out right under his fingertips.
"Christ, why's it always yer stupid arse that gets shot," he blinks and hears his own voice crack at the end of the sentence, a quiver which shouldn't ever be there, not for this reason. Never for this reason.
Because Murphy simply can't die, he isn't allowed to, not without Connor. They're supposed to go together, just as they were born.
"Oi, wake up, fucker! Don't ye fucken dare close yer eyes, Murph!" he growls with a scowl, but Murphy is apathetic, staring into thin air, his chest barely heaving. He's shivering, as if he's cold, and it's the middle of July in Boston.
Connor isn't stupid. He knows what this is, he's heard about it. Too much blood loss will do that to you — the thirst, the numbness and the cold. Murphy doesn't even react when Connor presses his fingers inside the wound. He just lolls his head to the other side and mutters some more.
"Murph, please, speak ta me?" it's no use trying to hold in a sob, and so he lets it fall from his lips.
"Aye?" Murphy's voice is distant and light, but he replies, and that's all that matters for now.
"Murph, ye gotta stay with me, alright, brotha'? It will be okay, I promise, ye hear me?!"
"Aye Conn," he watches Murphy's eyes go to half-mast and then slip closed, and he lets out a shuddering sob, gulping down air.
"Fuck, no, no, no, Murph, ye gotta hold on! Open yer eyes, Murphy!"
"Tá mé go maith [I'm fine]," Murphy says, and the tears start flowing down Connor's cheeks. He doesn't register it.
"Te fuck yer not, stupid! We.. We gotta get ye ta tha hospital, we.. I.." his brogue becomes thicker and his mind works over-time, his system crashing down in the span of milliseconds.
He knows he can't do anything, but he can't stop trying. There is, however, a problem of getting Murph up without fucking his leg up further. And if he will let go, the blood will pour out way sooner than they can reach the hospital.
"Stad [Stop]," Murph mutters, and Connor doesn't get it, until his twin adds, "Trobhad an seo [Come here]."
Connor bites his lower lip and lets go of Murphy's leg, shuddering as he feels the blood hitting him again. He crawls to Murphy on all fours, cradling his face in his bloodied hands, and blinks through the fucking tears.
"Aye, Murphy. 'm here, alright. I'll be here."
He thinks it's supposed to be slow, dragged out and too painful to bear.
It's nothing like that, except for the pain.
Murphy goes fast and quiet, just a half-in of air that he never lets out, without another word or a mutter, eyes closed, and pale, thin lips parted.
At first Connor stares, eyes too wide, but there's no denial. He feels his heart skip a long beat the moment Murphy's stops beating.
He stares, motionless, because of the sudden onslaught of horribly excruciating pain that grips hold of his everything. He can't twitch a finger, even if he wanted to.
And then it releases and hits with a new wave.
And Connor screams. Screams so loud his lungs are on fire and his throat shreds to pieces.
He swallows the salt, breathes it in through his nose and can't see anything, and what's the god damned point, so he leans over and buries his face in the mop of dark hair, shaking fingers clamping on Murphy's jaw, his body wrecking with cries as he screams out an endless string of "no"s.
His heart stutters again, and for a minute he thinks it's gonna stop, because it would be the right thing to do, but it picks up again, and Connor really wishes it wouldn't.
They've lost many people, many friends and beloved comrades, family, but this? This isn't family. This is Connor's soul dying in his arms. Dead already.
When the skin under his fingers becomes a clammy cold, Connor hoists himself up and breathes hard through his nose.
Then he flies into a blind rage.
He kicks anything within reach, he snarls and growls, punching the dead fuckers and leaving bloody smears on the mint-green walls, his arm gone limp once again, and probably he's broken a few bones.
He doesn't fucking care.
When his energy seeps out, he slumps on the floor beside Murphy's dead body, laying his twin's head in his lap and gently threading through his dark tresses.
That's how the police finds them, the two MacManus brothers. Both dead — one in body, one in spirit.
Connor goes willingly. He doesn't speak, doesn't answer any questions and lets himself be handcuffed by the officer. He looks at Smecker, who's got a terrified look in his eyes, and gives him a hollow grin.
Later, Smecker says, it was Connor's grin that gave him the nightmares. Not the twenty bodies sprawled in the room, not Murphy, lying cold on the floor. That slow, hollow grin on Connor's suntanned face, a streak of red on his cheekbone making it even more macabre.
The only thing Connor asks is to be there for the funeral. He whispers it when Smecker drives him to the station, and the detective grips the steering wheel and nods. Connor is lifeless in the backseat, slumped and leaning against the window.
It's at the funeral that he mutters the family prayer, bent low down on his knees in front of the cross and breathing in the scent of the earth his brother is lying under.
As he crosses himself and says "amen," Connor manages a small, intimate smile, visualizing Murphy's face behind his closed eyelids. "Don't wait fer me, alright? Ye can start on the fucken ambrosia without me."
It's a bad, tasteless joke, but one Murphy would laugh at.
As he raises off the ground, he doesn't dust off his jeans. He thinks he's never going to wash them again either, and he actually ends up sleeping on them that night in the cell, clutching them to the side of his face and breathing in the earthly scent from Murh's grave. They've allowed him to keep his clothes, a rare show of...tolerance.
And so the long string of days begin.
If Connor never believed in the dead walking, he sure does now.
For he is the epitome of one.