Numb
Characters: Shachi. Rating: K+. Warnings: blood
In the back of his mind, Shachi supposed it was an inevitable eventuality. But that didn't make it any easier to deal with as he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
It wasn't the first time they'd come up against someone with a gun, nor was it the first time guns had been fired in their vicinity, but somehow Shachi had always powered through, blocking them out as they scrambled to escape. It was, however, the first time a gun had been so close, close enough for him to see the finger tightening on the trigger. Too close to deceive himself about reality, this time.
Muscles flexed, and never had Shachi been so intimidated by the sight of a curling index finger, finding himself frozen in place as though icy chains had bound themselves around him, sending a chill through his body while immobilising him. He couldn't flee, couldn't even breathe as the world shrunk to just the barrel – etched on the inside, and that was funny; Shachi hadn't known that was a thing – the finger, and him.
There was noise, had been noise, but it was nothing more than a buzzing in his ears, in turn drowned out by the thud thud of blood pounding in his ears. Something important was probably happening, but Shachi couldn't tear his eyes away from that finger, now snagged firmly on the small slip of metal and straining slightly against the sudden resistance it faced.
He might as well have been staring death straight in the face. Guns were death, and with his body frozen, there was no escaping. Beneath the raw terror, indignation attempted to spark, tried to provoke him into moving, trying to dodge, but it couldn't quite get through, and Shachi watched with wide eyes as the finger finished its deliberate pull, jerking the last section as the sound from his nightmares sounded and a bullet sped straight for him.
Something hit him, forcing him to stagger for a moment before gravity and momentum won the fight, sending him crashing to the ground. That same something, warm and heavy, landed on top of him, knocking the wind from his chest in a single oof.
Blood splattered to the ground in front of his face, but there was no pain. Shachi knew the pain of a bullet, knew there was no way he'd mistake it for anything else, and it wasn't there. Warmth wrapped around him, surrounding him from all sides, and his eyes widened as another drop of blood splashed to the ground.
There was someone there. Someone was bleeding and it wasn't him. He strained to look, turning his head inch by torturous inch until he could see something fuzzy and… white?
"-achi?" he heard, and there were not-hands shaking his shoulders. His head lolled with the movement but in the process he saw worried dark eyes staring at him. "Shachi?"
Shachi tried to reorient himself, tried to piece together who it was and why he didn't hurt when a bullet had been fired at him. He might even have managed it, if a bloodied arm hadn't been the first thing his vision focused on. Not his arm, but that just meant it was someone else's.
Meant someone else had taken the bullet.
His mind screeched to a halt, flinging itself backwards eight years to the last time he'd stared down the barrel of a gun. The last time someone else had taken a bullet.
Mama, was his only thought – maybe his lips moved, maybe he even said it, he didn't know – before everything fell dark.
So this is set a little after chapter 101 (Trigger), way back in the very early days. And no, I haven't forgotten about Penguin's own trauma, but while they're a double act, they still react to things differently, so one at a time.
Thanks for reading!
Tsari