Work Text:
Carl was at work, trying to distract himself from the fact that Kelly broke up with him. Was he really so clingy? Fucking excuse him for finally having a girlfriend who doesn’t bail or cheat on him or fucking emotionally abuse him.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Lori, his boss, who is also really fucking weird, walk towards him.
“I’m off to the bank “She said before noticing his still down mood “Aw. Still down, little man?“ Was it really that obvious?
“Yeah, a bit” he replied, internally wincing at the tone of his voice, he sounded fucking down, apparently looked like it too.
“Want a quick blowie or a handy-J to perk you up?”
What? Had she just asked him if she should blow him one? He was seventeen and she was like, forty. He looked at her with furrowed eyebrows and she scoffed.
“Just kidding, kiddo” she said. Was it because of his reaction or was she really ‘just’ kidding. “Manager-employee intimacy is a big no-no in the new employee handbook” He wondered if that’s the only reason she doesn’t try more with him or the fact that he was a minor. She called him ‘kiddo’ for fucks sake. He shuddered disgustingly at the thought of having a sexual relationship with someone who you call ‘kiddo’.
“It’s a shame really.” She continued and Carl just wanted to tell her to shut up because this was really awkward and kind of gross, talking about blow jobs and the new employee handbook with his probably forty-year-old boss.
“Sex used to be pro-forma in fast-food” okay?? He literally didn’t care at all. He still looked at her and tried to keep up the eye contact so that she thought he was interested. He didn’t know why. Extra points maybe? He really wanted to be paid more. “Jizz and hairnets went together like mustard and mayo. Hell of a stress relief after a big lunch rush.” He just nodded and said nothing, hoping she would stop talking now.
“I’ll be back in twenty if you can just watch the register while I’m gone, my salty little biscuit” My salty little what??? And had she just winked?? That woman creeped Carl the fuck out. ‘Kiddo’ was alright but ‘Salty little biscuit’?? And the wink?? He knew he was not the smartest but he was not that stupid. Lori was flirting with him. He had known that since he started at the job but she dared to go farer every day and it made him want to quit. Too bad, he really needed this job, quitting was out of question especially because he would not quit even if his boss, who was like twenty years older than him, was flirting with him. He used to deal drugs for fucks sake and now he was creeped out by a goddamn woman flirting with him. Get it the fuck together and man up, Carl, he scolded.
He was ripped out of his thoughts by one of his coworkers “Good call on the blowie” he said “I let Lori go down on me once. She had most of her fist up my ass and chewed on my dick” Oh, wow, he really hadn’t expected that and Carl tried not to think about how she punched her fist up his coworker’s ass and and chewed on his dick but he couldn’t really stop the pictures showing up in his mind.
“Woman’s an animal” and then their conversation was over. His coworker, who he forgot the name of, turned around to take a probably long cigarette break thanks to Lori not being there and literally no customers around. Carl scoffed at Lori and her actions.
Yet following Lori’s orders he went to the counter. He quickly filled himself coffee in a paper cup. After Kelly, he really needed more energy. He was fucking tired.
He heard the door open and walked towards the register while saying his normal line: “Welcome to Captain Bob’s, matey” Normally he internally cringed at having to call everyone who walks through that door fucking ‘matey’ but right now he was too fucking tired.
“How may I help you?” The dude who walked towards the counter had greasy long dirty blonde hair and a beard, his clothes looked old and he had his hands in the pockets of his zip-up hoddie. Carl expected a normal order which would allow him to fall into routine and to stop thinking about fucking Kelly. Fucking Kelly as in ‘shitty’ Kelly not as in literally fucking Kelly even if he would not be opposed to fucking Kelly, they haven’t done it in a while because Kelly was busy fucking his own sister! Great, now he was railed up again, just fucking focus, Carl.
Again, Carl expected a normal order.
He got a gun pointed at him.
He had not expected that.
“Give me the fucking money!” The man hissed and Carl was so fucking done. First his girlfriend didn’t have sex with him as often, then she hung out with his own fucking sister more than with him and THEN she broke up with him because he was too fucking needy! And now a dude pointed a fucking gun at him and wanted Carl to give him the money! Hadn’t he already been through enough in the last week?!
Carl scoffed “Is that a .32?” and apparently the dude was not in a good mood. “Give me the fucking money, shithead!” He yelled and really, Carl just wanted to smash that fuckers head in because how dare he rob fucking Captain Bob’s while he was on shift. Couldn’t he have done it while Carl was not working and maybe when he was not having a fucking shitty day?!! The gun was probably not even loaded or real. It was fucking pink! And that’s exactly what he told that asshole.
“It’s pink.” He said and clearly the man did not like his grant observation. “The bullets aren’t pink, motherfucker. Give me the goddamn money!” Carl was not giving this man shit. He was not scared of him and his fucking pink gun! And he was fucking done. This asshole wants money, then fucking take it.
“You know what, asshole?” he says, not scared one bit. This man wouldn’t shoot him, he probably didn’t even have bullets in his PINK gun. “Pull the trigger.” He continued and thinking about later, he probably shouldn’t have provoked the man. “My life couldn’t get any fucking worse.” Or could it? “Yeah, that’s right.” He said and he should’ve probably stopped provoking the asshole but he was starting to look confused instead of angry and Carl just couldn’t stop. He was fucking done, done with Kelly and his sister and he was so angry, angry at them for doing this to him and angry at the fucking world for always throwing things at him and expecting him to solve it or giving him hopes and then crashing them like he wasn’t a human being but instead just something disposable. Suddenly every bad thing that happened in his life came to his mind and it was like fuel to his anger. Monica trying to kill herself on thanksgiving, Bonnie leaving him like he was no one, Monica screaming at the police officers while he was in a cell with her, Frank’s mom who died of cancer, Frank making him believe he had cancer, Sammy ratting him out, Juvie, Nick killing a boy and Carl never could get the picture out of his head, Dominique cheating on him, Monica dying, Eric pushing him underwater over and over again, Kassidi, and the fact that no one ever fucking cared. No one ever asked him if he was alright, yeah, okay, Ian asked after the stuff with Eric and the pool, Fiona asked him after Nick and he was glad they did but they only ever did it once and they never mentioned it again, they dismiss it, he was fucking sick of always being dismissed. And now Kelly did it too and he thought she was the one. He loved her. He had never told her that, they weren’t dating for so long but he loved her and she broke his heart. He was sick of getting his heart broken.
“Pull the motherfucking trigger.”
He hadn’t expected the guy to really pull the trigger, God, he hadn’t expected the gun to actually be filled with bullets.
But now he was on the ground and in complete agony, the loud sound of the gun going off echoed in his mind.
Carl reached down with his hand towards his stomach and when he brought it to his face to look at it, it was full of blood. Was it his blood? Of course it was his blood, fucking idiot. He got himself shot. He really got shot. Carl was so fucking stupid and all he could focus on was the blood on his hands.
Blood on his hands, blood around him, seeping out of his body.
He was full of blood too. His head was smashed in, everywhere was blood. Blood on the ground, on the hammer, on Nick, on his hands.
The mother was screaming and crying over her son, holding his body gently and protectively, like she could protect him from what happened. Like he was still there. Like he wasn’t dead.
And when he looked at them, instead of seeing the mother and her dead son like he always did, he saw Fiona and himself.
It was his fault. Again.
He could’ve stopped it.
Carl was forced back to reality by a voice.
“You could’ve prevented it”
Was the man speaking to him? Could’ve prevented what? The boy dying? His mother having to hold a funeral for a son who didn’t get enough time to fully live?
“I didn’t have to shoot you”
Oh.
The man was talking about him.
“If you had just given me the money, then you would’ve survived.”
Was he not going to survive?
The man chuckled while taking the money from the register. He turned around and stared and Carl. Who was returning his stare with half closed eyes, his hands pushing against his stomach, where the bullet had hit him. Blood was sipping out of the wound, already forming a puddle on the tiles next to him. He could survive.
“You’re really going to die for 120$” The man chuckled again. Acting surprisingly calm for the fact that a teenage boy was bleeding out on the ground next to him.
“You know it’s your fault” The man talked again and started to walk around the counter, having probably taken all the money that was stored in the register and going towards the door now.
“You’re pathetic” Carl was staring at the ceiling; the lights were too bright. Where was his coworker? Shouldn’t he have heard the gun going off? He had talked to him five minutes ago. About what again? Ah, right, Lori’s blowjobs. The conversation seemed hours away and Carl wanted to chuckle at the unimportance of it, but everything hurt.
Wasn’t Lori going to be back in twenty? It felt like those twenty minutes were already over. He could really use a bit of help right now.
“You’re stupid” And then the man was gone. With the money. With the gun. And now Carl was here in Captain Bob’s, on the ground, bleeding out. Alone
He felt something wet rolling down his cheeks and as he slowly reached up with his hand, even the smallest movement made his body ache. When he pulled his hand away from his face, he saw blood. Blood on his hands. Was he crying blood?
And he was back there. Running out of the house. The picture of the boy, so bloody and dead, burned fresh in his mind. He ran to the side and threw up, puke coming up his throat and it burned and it came out of his mouth and he was struggling to breath and instead of puke it was blood. And then he was underwater. A hand holding his head down. Letting him breath only when he was close to passing out, screaming in his face “Where’s my meth?!” And he couldn’t tell him where it was before his head was pushed underwater again.
A phone was ringing. His phone. It was in the locker where he always had to put his stuff for work. Carl forgot to put it on silent because he was so distracted by the stuff with Kelly and he secretly had hoped she would call and they’d make up. Was it her now? Was she calling because she forgave him and wanted him back? Carl wanted to get up and run to his phone but he couldn’t, everything hurt and he was sure he lost a big amount of blood now, a tiny voice inside of his head was telling him that he was not going to survive. But he was Carl Gallagher. He wouldn’t die because of this. Because of his own stupidity. He survived so much in the past. Had he survived so much that he believed he was invincible?
The phone was still ringing and Carl was struggling to get up. If he could reach his phone, he could call for help or tell the person on the phone to. He wished it was Kelly. He missed her. He missed stealing scooters with her and having sex in her room and training together. He just missed her.
He also missed Fiona and he wanted her to tell him she was proud of him like she did when he decided to stop doing drugs or when he left for military school. Fiona hasn’t been herself lately, she had hit rock bottom and it hurt Carl to see her like that. He just wanted his big sister back and he didn’t want to die without seeing her, her real self, for the last time.
He couldn’t get up. It hurt too much and the blood was still flowing out of him, staining his clothes and the tiles around him red.
Carl didn’t want to die before he and Lip spend time together again. He and Lip were never really close because of the age and intelligence difference and they haven’t talked lately because they were both busy but, God, he didn’t wanna die without having talked to Lip about shit they both enjoyed or just smoked in comfortable silence again.
Carl missed Ian and he didn’t want to die while he was in prison. Ian was the one who understood and cared about him the most, asking if he’s okay where others didn’t care or didn’t notice. Ian was the one who saved his life when Eric was hurting him in the pool. Ian never overlooked him. Carl didn’t want Ian to find out he died while he sat on a bench with probably Fiona having to tell him what happened and Ian wouldn’t be able to come to his funeral or properly grieve. Carl didn’t want to do this to him.
Carl didn’t want to die while he was in an argument with Debbie. He knew her. She would never forgive herself, she’d cry herself to sleep thinking Carl didn’t know she loved him in his last minutes.
He didn’t want to die while Liam was only nine. Liam would grow up without Carl. He would grow older and one day he’d be older than Carl ever got. Liam would forget what he was like and the only way he’d remember his face or voice would be through photos and videos.
He didn’t want to die while Franny was still so young. She’d forget him and, like Liam, would only know him through photos and videos. She would grow up without her uncle Carl. She would never get to know him.
He didn’t want to die.
Not here.
Not like this.
Not now.
Not alone.
Carl managed to crawl towards his locker a few meters, leaving a trail of blood behind him but his energy had left his body and now he was just laying on the ground, still pushing his hand against the bullet wound in his stomach even though he knew that would only slow the process of him dying. In fucking Captain Bob’s.
Now he only hoped that his coworker would come back. Or that a customer would come inside and see him laying there and call an ambulance. He hoped for a miracle, he wanted to survive.
He was only seventeen.
So there, laying on the ground, bleeding out, dying, all Carl could manage was whisper “Help” and hope that someone would come and save him.
But no one came.
And in the end Carl Gallagher died how he always feared he would.
Alone