On most nights, Lance slipped through the empty hallways to his general's headquarters, where he'd see the man with his revolver's muzzle pressed up to his temple. The first time he saw it he was shocked into stillness, watching from the crack of the door as Aslan pressed the trigger.
He didn't die. He never did.
Lance eventually learned that before every mission, Aslan filled all the chambers of his revolver except one, and he'd perfectly place it so that he knew how many shots would get him to his empty chamber, with the rest still full. Sometimes it was one shot. Sometimes it was two. Three.
He changed things up regularly, to make things difficult.
"If I counted wrong, I die," Aslan told him, the first time he was caught.
Lance didn't understand his actions, but after a while, things started making sense.
Aslan was such a flawed character. So beautiful, and yet so disgusting.
This gun of his was a symbol to him, to keep him alive and sane. If he was right like usual—about what he was doing in life, about all the people he was killing—then he'd live on. If he was wrong, and what he'd been doing all along was inhumane, then he'd die. It was his own way of comforting himself; telling himself that he knew what he was doing was the right thing. His own way of saying that he was always right, but if he truly was not, he'd die.
Lance wanted to do it once, but at the last moment, Aslan stopped him. He had coincidentally went downstairs to get water, as if he knew Lance was trying to follow his ways, and he saw his subordinate with a gun in hand.
"Don't be an idiot," Aslan had said, as he took Lance's gun from him, and opened the chambers. Lance had stared, and realized that he would have immediately killed himself then. It was a thought that weirdly kept him grounded.
"Let me do the crazy shit. You just watch."
Lance wondered, on this night where he saw Aslan at his desk like normal, gun up to his temple, if Aslan would ever count wrong.
He pressed the trigger, and nothing came out.
Immaculate.
YOU ARE READING
It's Always So
ActionWith hope comes despair, and with peace comes calamity. Lance finds himself in the middle of it all; starting with his jaded General, and ending with a gun in his hands. [tragedy, angst, action] → republished with no edits ! this is not for the wea...
