I blame my best friend for this! I wrote a deathfic about another character in this series, and she wasked me to write this - so I did. And then after months, I decided it wasn't that horrible at all and could be actually published. So here it is - I bawled my eyes out writing it, so hope you like it.
The sound of the gun echoes in the silence.
It's only one shot: only one loud, sharp noise, the prelude of a nightmare unlike any other he has ever seen. It's deafening, unnatural, and it leaves his ears ringing: it shuts out all the other sounds in the world, around him, and he can only watch as his worst fear comes true before his very eyes, a voiceless, strained scream escaping his lips.
The thick glasses the boy was always teased about fall on the ground and shatter, shatter into a million little pieces, glittering like crystal tears and revealing the eyes that have been hidden for so long, too long, now widened in shock and pain and despair, a mixture Eliot never wanted to see in those eyes. A wonderful crimson rose blossoms on Reo's chest, over his heart, darkening until it's nearly black and spreading larger and larger as more and more and more blood spills from the wound, stains the white, drips down on to the ground, marking the end of another innocent life.
There's a moment, a moment during which nobody moves, speaks, does anything, a moment that feels like time itself has stopped. And then—
He falls, falls down, gently as a tree does, and Eliot can see it all in slow motion: how his body twitches oh so slightly, how his knees bend as if they're just very tired and giving in after a long day of hard work, the faint puff of dust as he hits the ground with a soft thud, the impossibly red blood staining his pure white uniform and forming a dark puddle around the motionless figure lying there, getting in his bushy brown hair and making it sticky and nasty and—
He screams, screams like never before, screams incoherent things and words he didn't know he knew and he can't even hear his own voice, let alone tell what's going on around him – is the fight continuing? He doesn't know, doesn't see, doesn't hear, everything is blurry and he can feel something dripping down his cheeks, to his jaw, of his chin, into his mouth: something warm, something salty, something so bitter it hurts.
What the others around him are doing, he doesn't know, doesn't care: all he cares about is Reo and the distance between them, the distance he must close no matter what, the distance that shouldn't have been there in the first place, the distance that is growing greater every moment as he stumbles through the pain and filth, closer to the body, not wanting to believe it: Reo can't be dead, he must not be dead, he wouldn't die, not like this, not in front of him, he wouldn't do this, he wouldn't leave, a good servant doesn't just leave his master like that—
Someone tries to grab him but he pushes them away, stumbling through the mist, skidding down beside the immobile body, grabbing its shoulders and shaking it. He hears himself sob, voice strained and hoarse from all the screaming and crying as he tries to speak, only managing quiet mumbling, mumbling something that sounds like a mantra, a mantra to deny the truth that is right in front of his eyes, because he just refuses to believe it, desperately clinging to the lie that if the denies it, it is not true.
"Reo, wake up, please wake up, don't do this to me, you can't, Reo, please—"
His usually so strong and collected exterior has broken down, down down and he knows he must look miserable, despicable, but he could care less. A hand appears out of nowhere to grab him again, he tries to shake it off, trembling with sobs and the tears he just can't hold back, but the hand is persistent, it has a firm grip on his shoulder, and it's pulling him away from the lifeless corpse he hopelessly clings to, away from Reo.
"Eliot, there's no time, we've got to leave!"
He acts as though he doesn't hear, doesn't understand, doesn't want to, shaking his head and wanting to kick and scream until he can no longer because Reo is not dead, he is not is not is not is not—
"There's nothing you can do, Eliot, he's gone!"
Gone.
That one simple word feels like a slap accross his face and he stops, eyes wide as he realizes it's true – no matter what he does, no matter how much he screams or cries or tries to shake the boy awake, he won't. He won't wake. He's dead, it's true, and he can't change it. Nothing can bring back the dead. Nothing.
The strong hands pull him away, drag him through the pain and darkness, guide him out of the field of blood and death, but his tears just won't stop. Not even after the red and white blur that is Reo has long disappeared from his sight, not even when gentle hands that aren't the ones he's used to try to wipe his eyes, not even when a soft voice that is not the one he wants to hear tries to comfort him.
Because there's a hole through his heart, an empty spot in his chest that couldn't possibly be repaired. Not ever. Not with Reo dead, disappeared, vanished.
Gone.
Gone for eternity.