Past

Still Here

"See this?"

"Oh, brother. Here we go again. Please try not to shoot me this time."

"Shut it, Mox. That was a one time thing!"

"I took him to one gun show..." Millie rolled her eyes as Blitzo strummed his fingers in the air, hovering it around the undrawn revolveer.

It was all in good fun. Blitzo wasn't half bad at the flourishing, and he was smiling. All of them were. Loona, outside the showman's vision, watched quietly, her finger swiping down the screen in automatic. For as much as she wanted to tell him to be careful, she'd swallowed the urge to.

But yeah. The spinning looked cool.

"Twirl. Twirl. Spin. Back into the holster... like so." Blitzo let the revolver naturally swivel into his pocket, and quickly, yanked back out. The hands were fast, one flipping up the barrel outwards once more, and the other rocking back the hammer.

"Draw-and-BANG!"

The actual bang didn't phase them. It wasn't the first time Blitzo had done it, though it was the first time he hit dead center at the target range. The dust flew as the bullet made its journey, drama for a second before they could clearly see the black hole in the middle of the small, red circle.

"Another victory for Imptown..."

"Wow. Check out Sheriff Blitz over here."

Loona smiled slightly, but when her stepfather turned to look back, her eyes went back down to her phone, her lips curving downwards.

"Uh... Loony, you wanna take a shot?"

She didn't.

Memories came at an awful time. Sometimes, you'd just look at something, and you'd remember an entire event from a long time ago. It was unfortunate that it had to come now. She had to be dragged off, pried from the view of her dead guardian. He wasn't much of a parent, considering what they did for a living. She was roped into the killing, and she didn't exactly have much of a choice in being adopted. The facility was awful... so, she just wanted to get out as soon as she could. She had plenty of excuses to dislike him... but it was hard to draw on that, knowing he did care. He tried all he could to make some kind of connection, and reflecting on it all now, Loona guessed there was something.

And now he was gone. Loona had entertained the thought before, of Blitzo just one day never returning. Maybe killed in one of those assassinations. Maybe caught forever in the human world. And sometimes, she wished it'd come true. But feeling like having something, and truly having that thing could sure be different. He was in pain, and she knew he didn't want to let go of them. It was so typical. The sacrifice play... and the boss of I.M.P. always joked about Moxxie being the 'prioritization' for that plan, if things ever went to that level.

"Loona, we have to go-!"

She whipped around to shake off Moxxie's hand, and she never looked back. Running. Running from what was unavoidable, but hard to look at. From the things you wished to do, and the things you wished you hadn't. It was suffocation, the whole sprint to the van. Just as Loona wished she'd stayed, she floored the van.

"It's okay. Everything's okay."

She didn't have the energy to say it wasn't. Moxxie kept telling them, or maybe himself, even as they teared. It was so, so hard to breathe. The deepest of breaths felt like inhaling stones, and she wanted to break down just like them. She wanted to crush it all, as she always did. But the only thing she could think of was that smile, and how he looked at them.

That same stupid smile he always wore, and those eyes. She knew what it meant, but she could never say it back. Not even at the minute of his death. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.