Outlaws //ON PAUSE//

Blood on the Carpet

It was late at night, maybe eleven or twelve. Neil had gone to bed earlier, as he had work in the morning at the local gas station. 

Sal, Travis, Larry, and yourself were all watching TV together, and you were planning on going to bed when the episode was over.

Suddenly, you saw the door open. No knock, no ring of the doorbell, they just walked right in.

The person that you saw walk inside was none other than Kenneth Phelps.

As soon as you saw him, your world seemed to deteriorate before your eyes. Your couldn't feel your legs, and you felt like you were going to throw up.

"Well," Kenneth said, closing the door behind him. "I said that I'd see you again, Johnson. Here I am." 

Larry stood up and said in a threatening tone, "Don't take a single step closer."

"Or what? You aren't the one who is armed, after all." Kenneth said, pulling out the same gun that Larry had seen only days before. 

Kenneth advanced, slowly but surely, on the children.

"All of you know too much. I'm really hitting two birds with one stone here. I'm getting rid of the only thing standing in our path for success," He said, pointing the gun at Sal, "and I'm getting rid of the spawn of the traders." He continued, pointing the gun at you and Larry. 

Before long, Kenneth was right in front of Larry, the gun once again pressed up against his forehead.

"Let's start with what I should've done when I had the chance, shall we?" Kenneth said in a sickeningly playful tone.

You were frozen to your spot in fear. You felt tears roll down your cheeks as you stared in horror at the scene in front of you. You could hear the sounds of stock laughter coming from the TV, which seemed wildly inappropriate for what was going on.

Just when you feared the worst for Larry, you watched as he grabbed Kenneth's arm, causing him to shoot at the wall. Larry pinned him down to the ground and stole the gun from his clutch. 

He pointed it at Kenneth, his arms trembling.

"Take one more step closer, I fucking dare you." He said with a shaky voice. 

Kenneth smiled at him. "You know Johnson, you would have been a nice addition to our ranks. That is, of course, if you refused the fate that your poor, poor, father followed.

"Never." Larry said, stiffening his hold on the gun.

"That was a mistake." Kenneth said, before lunging at Larry. 

It was quite ironic that Kenneth had said that, because he was the only one really making a mistake. His sudden action had caused Larry to pull the trigger and shoot Kenneth in the stomach.

Kenneth slowly dropped to his knees as blood poured out of his body and onto the carpet.

"This could've been different..." Kenneth said with strained breath as he looked into Larry's eyes. "You could've changed this..."

And with that, Kenneth Phelps was dead. 

Larry stared at what he had done, his arms still stiff with the gun in his hand.

Neil came downstairs, having woken up from the noise.

"What is- WHAT THE HELL DID YOU GUYS DO?!" He exclaimed.

Everybody looked at him (besides Larry, whose eyes were still fixated in shock and disbelief at the body lying dead before him), but nobody said a word.

Neil pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Then he said, "Ok, we need to clean this up. Sal, Travis, you go find some place to bury the body and weapon. I'm pretty sure there's a shovel in the shed. We can't clean the floor till the body is out of the way. Y/N, if you could bring Larry upstairs and try to calm him down, that would be super helpful."

-- --

You were trying your best to calm Larry down, but he was way too worked up for you to even begin to help. But, you didn't really blame him.

"It's going to be ok, you did it to protect us." You said in the calmest tone you could as you combed through his hair with your fingers.

"I don't wanna go back to juvie, I'm going to be there for the rest of my fucking life if I go back." Larry replied, tears streaming down his face.

"Larry, you aren't going to go back to juvie, I won't let you. We're going to take care of this." 

Larry was quiet for a while, besides the occasional whimper.

"I can't believe I have the bad kind of body count before I have the good kind..." Larry said quietly.

You gave a faint smile, but you weren't exactly sure how to respond to that verbally.

-- --

"Are you ok?" Sal asked Travis as they walked through the woods, searching for a spot to bury Kenneth. 

"I don't know. I should feel relieved that he's gone, but a part of me feels sad about it. Maybe I'm just shocked." Travis replied.

"Well, I think it's probably natural for you to feel conflicted about it. Even though he was a terrible person to you and countless others, he is still your dad. I think, maybe, a part of you also feels sad because your subconscious is now realizing that you'll never have the chance to have an actual, healthy relationship with your dad. To add to that, you probably are pretty shocked, because you just watched somebody die right before your eyes." Sal responded.

"That's pretty smart." Is all that Travis could manage to say.

They eventually found a spot to bury Kenneth and the gun. It was kind of hard getting his body from the house to the burial spot. You tried to clean the blood off the floor while Neil, Travis, and Sal buried him. You didn't really want to see the body.

Suddenly, you heard a knock on the door.