Vegas and Pete: the series

His Nothing is My Everything

POV Vegas

I don't shoot my Uncle. Everything inside of me screams at me to fire. My father's voice rings in my head, telling me to make his death worth it, to be a worthy son, but I can't.

I have never been the son he wanted, and I never will be. Even now, in this final moment, I'm the failure he always knew I was. I don't kill him, but it's not out of familial ties or how he says that now he'll be the one to take care of my brother and I. I don't kill him because what's the fucking point? My fathers dead, all my men are dead, there's nothing left for me, of me.

I rise quickly and exit the room. I don't know where I'm going, I don't even care, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore. Everything I've ever done in my life has been for this. I have nowhere to go, no one to see, nothing to do. I'm dead weight, useless, pathetic, and a coward. I shouldn't be here anymore, no one wants me here. I don't want to be here.

An iridescent blue light fills the space around me shifting in swirling colors, reflecting off the nearby water. I've found myself beside the pool.

My arm hurts and can't seem to breathe properly as I shuffle forward a few steps. Then I stop. This was as good a place as any. I look down to the weapon still clasped in my hand. This was it, my way out. Past all this misery and pain, and all I needed was a single bullet. I reach down and fold one hand over the other gripping tightly onto the gun. Then I pull it up so the barrel is under my chin.

I breathe heavily taking my final breaths as I work up the courage to pull the trigger. Every hateful word I've ever heard, every wish for death ever thrown my way, and all the self-loathing I've felt since I've been born swells within me as I push the gun into my skin and my finger tightens on the trigger.

"Vegas, stop, what the hell are you doing?!"Pete's voice pierces into my rampant thoughts, its echo rebounding off all the other noises in my head and silencing them.

I scream out in a rage as my resolution deserts me and I pull the gun from its position, curling in on myself as the emotions and soul I'd thought dead and gone, left behind in the garage, slam into me.

I grit my teeth as air returns to my lungs. "There's nothing left." I tell him, not turning around to look at him. It wouldn't matter, I had nothing, I was nothing, and I sure as hell didn't have anything left to give him.

"I'm here, Vegas, I'm here." Pete says, his voice laced with a desperate emotion that roots me to the spot. Please don't Pete, you can't, I'm not worth it. "Vegas." He says my name softly as if it was something precious and places a hand on my shoulder.

I shove him off. "Why did you follow me, Pete?" I ask him harshly. Why, after all I've done, are you standing there saying my name like it still means something to you? "I've got nothing left."

The deadened emptiness fills me again and I try to take a few steps away from him. He shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here. For a moment I think he's going to let me leave and then his arms come around my waist and he holds me to him, pressing himself against me as if trying to hold my broken soul together. Tears sting behind my eyes and a choked sob nearly escapes my lips. I try to throw him off but he won't move. "Let me go." I grit out painfully.
"No." Pete replies resolutely, shaking his head against the muscles of my back. His grip tightens on me, nearly crushing my lungs. He won't let me go and his warmth saps my strength within and I collapse to my knees.

"Why did you follow me, Pete?" ask him with a broken voice. Why? Why can't you just let me go, just let me die. I shake him off me, rising shakily to my feet. "I've got nothing left." I repeat, as much to myself as to him. I breathe air into my lungs and stare at my weapon for a moment, but I know I can't do it, not with him here.