Work Text:
There’s A Sixteen Percent Chance That At Least One Of Us Is Going To Die
Six
“Do you know what kind of gun this is?” Frederick asks drawing a well-cared for Colt Paterson from the box on the desk and holding it out for inspection.
The room is stifling, hot even though it’s in the basement. Oppressive with cinderblock walls and harsh fluorescent lighting bright enough to be blinding. Shawn licks his lips, flicking his gaze from the gun, to Gus, then to Frederick who is waiting patiently.
“It’s a single-action revolver,” he says warily.
Frederick smiles, the sight of it sending shivers down Shawn’s spine. “Very good, Shawn. This gun is special to me. I only bring it out on particular occasions. Only use it for one thing.”
“Lucky us,” Shawn quips, a sardonic smile pulling across lips. Gus glares at him from over the gag stretched tight through his mouth conveying clearly his thought that Shawn should shut his mouth before he gets one of them shot.
Fredrick chuckles as he very carefully loads a single bullet into a chamber with a disturbing amount of reverence. “I want to play a game,” he says and Shawn’s stomach drops somewhere around his feet, ice slipping through his veins. He sucks in a careful breath as Gus furrows his brows, clearly not catching on to what Frederick means.
“Here’s the thing, Freddie,” Shawn says breathless with the familiar feeling of panic fluttering behind his breastbone. “Gus and I really aren’t that big on games. In fact we try to avoid them. Especially games of chance as, contrary to popular opinion, I’m actually not all that lucky.”
Gus’ frown deepens at Shawn’s words and he guardedly eyes the revolver in Frederick’s hands. Shawn wonders if he’s figured it out yet, suspects that he hasn’t.
“Lucky for you then,” Frederick says spinning the cylinder with a well-practiced press of his fingers. “The game of Russian Roulette is actually favorable in terms of chances. There are six chambers and all but one are harmless.”
Gus’ eyes go impossibly wide, pupils dilating. Shawn swallows heavily, calculating out the probabilities himself. One bullet, six chambers, two players.
Frederick smiles and steps up behind Gus, placing an amiable hand on his shoulder and pressing the barrel of the revolver to his temple. Gus pales shrinking away from the touch, and Shawn’s heart pounds painfully against his ribs. “Tell me, Shawn, since you’re so interested in chance. What’s the chance that I’ll blow his brains out when I pull this trigger?”
The air is heavy, suffocating as it races through his nose to his lungs, thick with the odor of mold and rot. It pools on his tongue, brining with it an unpleasant taste of decay. “Please, don’t, you don’t have to—”
“Tell me the chance, Shawn,” Frederick says cocking the hammer back slowly. The faint click is all that registers in Shawn’s ears, as loud as any nuclear explosion.
He twists his hands against the bonds, barely feeling the sting as the zip ties cut into his skin. His voice goes thready, desperate; it’s a show of weakness but he can’t help it. The words just tumble out with a frantic sort of need. “We can work something out, okay? A deal. You don’t kill us, I help you. It’s a win for all invol—”
“The chance, Shawn!” Frederick thunders. Gus flinches and clenches his eyes shut. Shawn’s heart skips, air chased from his lungs. “Now!”
Shawn swallows, trying to dredge up enough breath to get out another word through his tight throat. A bead of sweat slips down over Gus’ forehead, shining in the harsh light of the fluorescents. Frederick’s hand flexes, finger tightening along the trigger.
“Sixteen!” Shawn shouts hastily. “It’s sixteen percent!”
Frederick grins, wolfish and terrifying. “Very good,” he says.
Then he pulls the trigger.
Gus jerks in the chair, a soft whine emitting from the back of his throat. Shawn’s gut compresses and it takes a second to register that the sound he hears is a gentle click instead of a loud crack.
A slow breath forces itself from between his lips, lungs reminding him he needs to breathe. Frederick laughs, the sound echoing around the room until it fills Shawn’s head. Blood pounds in his ears and he refuses to look away from Gus, anxiously taking in every detail he can see. Gus’ eyes are still scrunched shut, breath coming in short punched out gasps through the gag, hands clenched so tightly around the arms of the chair that his knuckles are nearly white.
“Now,” Frederick says coming to stand by Shawn. He considers the revolver for a second, glancing at Gus before pressing the barrel to Shawn’s head right above his ear. The metal is cool, digging into his skull with the pressure Frederick is using. He leans down close whispering his next words. “Tell me your chances.”
Five
“I’m waiting, Shawn.”
There is a pipe dripping in the corner of the room. Shawn counts with the slight sound acutely aware of the barrel pressed against his head. Frederick shifts, the Colt shifting with him, dragging slightly along Shawn’s scalp. Shawn licks his lips tasting the salty tang of his sweat, breaths out carefully, measuredly, and counts the drips.
Gus is staring at him, terror pooled in his eyes, hands clenched on the arms of his chair. Shawn isn’t sure what’s worse: watching Gus die or Gus watching him die. On the surface watching Gus die should be worse, but all Shawn can think of is how much Gus hates the sight of blood. Of how watching Shawn get his brains blown out will probably be a source of lifelong nightmares if Gus manages to survive.
“Shawn…”
Frederick shifts again, and Shawn pulls in a careful breath through his nose. Frederick smells like coconut over the mustiness of the room. The sweetness turns Shawn’s stomach, and he thinks, just barely, he can detect a hint of eggs. Perhaps the man’s breakfast.
Another increase in pressure, a silent prompt, a demand.
“Twenty,” he whispers. Gus stares at him pleadingly, and Shawn doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know what he is supposed to say or offer. Can’t focus on anything beyond the man to his right and the wavering pressure of the gun.
Frederick laughs softly, and it’s absolute torture not being able to see. Not being able to know when the shot is coming. He clenches his hands around the arms of the chair, digs his nails into the old metal scraping along rust, and looks steadily at Gus. His breaths kick up; he’s incapable of stopping them, tries to but can’t. Tries to measure them with the drips in the corner of the room, but there’s three breaths for every drop.
Frederick is waiting, biding his time, stalling for the best possible reaction.
There is no warning. Just a sudden deafening click.
Four
The first breath out after is wrenching, scraping painfully along his throat, punching up from his lungs with an agonizing force. Shawn gasps, greedily sucking in air, choking a little when something within him fails to respond properly.
Gus jerks against his bonds, thin lines of blood welling up along his wrists, dripping down over his hands, over the chair, falling in neat little puddles to the floor. Shawn watches them fall with rampant fascination, unable to peel his eyes away. Blinks at the floating feeling of disassociation. Only faintly aware of echoing laughter. Unable to tell if it’s happening now or in his memory.
His lungs are working again, pulling in ragged breaths. They feel too shallow, hard to control, at once slow and rapid.
“Your turn again, Mr. Guster,” Frederick says repositioning the Colt to Gus’ head. Something hardens in his friend’s expression. Something Shawn can’t place. “The chance, Shawn?”
The chance. The chance. One of them is going to die. One of them is going to die. One of them is going to die. All in a game of chance.
The chair creaks beneath him, a sliver of metal digging under the nail of his left index finger. And still in the corner of the room the water drips.
How many times have people told him to be careful? To consider the consequences? To stop taking reckless chances? How many times have people told him to be more careful?
“I’m not a patient man, Shawn, especially when we’re so near the end of our game.”
Wide eyes, sweat on the brow, on the upper lip, saliva gathered at the edges of the gag, trembling in the shoulders, clenched hands. Shawn wonders idly for a moment if Gus can tell how terrified he is, if the signs are as clear for him as they are for Shawn.
Frederick frowns, mouth opening once more.
“Twenty-five,” Shawn breathes, barely more than a whisper, the number echoing in his mind over and over. Twenty-five, twenty-five, twenty-five. One in four, one in four, one in four. What terrible odds, only four different possibilities. Click, click, click, bang. Click, click, bang. Click, bang. Bang.
Click.
One of the first three then.
Three
One in three actually isn’t that bad of odds. Not when the one is the unfavorable outcome anyway and the two have him living another round. It’s not particularly good odds, but it’s not bad. Shawn’s counted on less in his life though the stakes have never been this high.
Frederick trails behind him, dragging the barrel from one ear to the other. He doesn’t say much, just croons Shawn’s name in his ear the unspoken question echoing louder than any words.
Shawn licks his lips, flexes his hands around the armrests. “Thirty-three,” he says faintly, almost without meaning to do so. He feels faint, like he’s not all quite in the room anymore, like he’s not getting enough air. Frederick hums behind him and the gun traces the shell of his ear.
“Thirty-three,” Frederick repeats. “Sounds like a lucky number, don’t it? Tell me, Shawn, are you feeling lucky?”
Shawn shakes his head, short little jerks as he bites back a whimper. The gun comes to a rest just behind his ear, and the sound of the hammer being cocked back is deafening. Shawn freezes, scarcely daring to breathe as if it will make a difference.
“Shall I count down for you? Will that make it easier?” Frederick asks, voice still soft, still intimate like words spoken between lovers. Shawn doesn’t know if Gus can even hear what the man is saying, thinks he might be able to infer from Shawn’s reaction even if he can’t. Shawn shakes his head again, digging his teeth into his bottom lip until it stings and the heavy taste of copper floods his mouth.
“Three,” Frederick whispers anyway and the counting makes it worse. Shawn's heart beats so hard it hurts, the room shrinks around him, air going hot and heavy so he can’t breathe.
“Two.”
He wonders if it’s possible to die from fear. Wonders if a person can really be scared to death or if the saying is just an exaggeration. It certainly feels like it might not be.
“One.”
The world whites out, and all Shawn hears is the roaring in his ears.
Two
“Well isn’t this nice? I usually don’t make it this far,” Frederick muses.
Shawn is heaving for air, sucking in greedy breaths and coming down from whatever high he’d landed on, drawn back to the present by Frederick’s casual tone of indifference. He blinks sweat from his eyes, squints in the brightness of the light and focuses on Gus. His friend looks worried, brows pinched in concern as he stares at Shawn.
“I’ll confess, I haven’t been counting. How many chambers are left?” Frederick turns to Gus. “Thoughts?”
Gus flexes his hands, body practically shaking as he shifts his gaze from Shawn, glaring up at Frederick with an amount of hate in his eyes that Shawn honestly finds shocking.
“No?” Frederick says with a sigh. “All right. Shawn, Mr. Guster here is a little indisposed at the moment. How about you?”
“Two,” Shawn whispers, head pounding. Sweat drips into his eye again. He blinks against the sting.
“Very good. That makes it a fifty-fifty chance, right?” Frederick says. He bends down wrapping one arm around Gus in an aberrant show of camaraderie before setting the gun to his head once more. “So, tell me, psychic boy, is your friend about to die?”
Fifty-fifty is not good odds no matter what anyone says. Fifty-fifty means you’re just as fucked as you are not fucked. Fifty-fifty means Gus is most definitely probably about to die. Fifty-fifty means that if Gus doesn't Shawn will. Fifty-fifty means that there’s only two more chances and their miniscule non-existent probability of a miracle is expiring.
Frederick is still staring at him, still challenging him for an answer. Shawn can’t focus, can’t not focus at the same time. His head aches, throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and for the first time he genuinely wishes the title he flaunts wasn’t such a farce. Wishes he could offer Gus some modicum of comfort in the last moments, because his best friend is watching him with wide eyes and Shawn can read the fear in them as easily as the Sunday’s newspaper comic strips.
But he’s not psychic so fifty-fifty means he’s as blind to the future as anyone else.
Fifty-fifty means they both flinch when Frederick pulls the trigger.
One
The room rings with silence. A loud, deafening silence. It wraps around them, delves through them, crowds their minds until nothing and everything is consumed.
One of them is about to die, and now they know which one.
“Well would you believe that?” Frederick says considering the Colt fondly a moment as he steps back from Gus. Gus’ chest is heaving, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, breaths harsh around the gag. Shawn blinks, tries to wrap his mind around the words, around Gus still breathing across from him, around the man with the gun as he comes up beside Shawn.
Frederick sets the Colt gently against Shawn’s head, the tip of the barrel just caressing his temple, a parody of kindness. It’s perverse actually that Shawn does find the sensation of the gun to his head comforting. But it’s comforting to know, without a doubt, that the gun will fire this time. And it’s comforting to know this while it’s being pointed at him.
“It looks like you were right again, Shawn,” Frederick whispers, breathing the words into his ear like they're sweet nothings instead of taunts. “You really aren’t that lucky.”
Shawn shivers and turns his head away, but he can still feel Frederick beside him. He wonders, hysterically as Frederick slowly, slowly, slowly cocks back the hammer, what the fucking chance is of making it to the sixth round in a game of Russian Roulette without the goddamn gun firing. Figures it doesn’t matter now because the probability is one in one, and he is going to lose.
Shawn knows it. Gus knows it. Fucking Frederick knows it.
He squeezes his eyes shut and waits for the shot.
Zero
“Shawn?”
There is water dripping in the corner of the room. Barely audible, a just faintly there drip, drip, drip. A rusted pipe with a rag wrapped around the breach. Isn’t doing much good anymore.
“Shawn?”
His head hurts. His right ear is ringing. But he isn’t dead
The gun had fired, but he isn’t dead.
“Shawn. Shawn, let go of the chair.”
Let go of the chair. Why would he do that? He isn’t sure he can do that, even if he wants to. His fingers feel like they are welded to the arms of the chair. Wrapped around so tightly the sharp metal edges have bit into his palms. He is well and truly stuck.
A manic laugh bubbles up from his chest, splitting out from somewhere deep inside with a slicing agony. Reflexively he clenches his hands tighter, oblivious to the renewed bite of pain.
Let go of the chair? What’s the point? He’s supposed to be dead. Why isn’t he dead?
“Shawn…”
It probably doesn’t count as laughter anymore. Laughter isn’t supposed to sound like that, is it? He doesn’t think so. Laughter is supposed to sound happy and light. Not…frenetic. Not panicky. Definitely not like he is three seconds from breaking down into all out hysterics. And why can’t he stop?
“Spencer!”
He chokes, eyes flying open at the sharp voice. Bright light floods his vision making his eyes water and everything is blurred. Overly stark. He swallows, something like a low whine building up at the back of his throat. A face slowly swims into focus; a sharp jaw and a strong Irish hairline.
“Lassie?” he whispers.
Lassiter’s lips stretch into a grim smile. “Let me be the first to tell you, Spencer, that you are a goddamn idiot.”
Here’s where Shawn is supposed to have a witty comeback. Something charming and just this side of scathing. But his mind is blank except for one repeating thought. “Lassie, I’m not dead.”
“No, you’re not,” the detective agrees dropping his gaze to Shawn’s hands and beginning to coax his fingers loose with surprisingly gentle tugs. “No thanks to your stunning display of stupidity.”
“But I heard the shot,” Shawn says unconsciously thwarting Lassiter’s efforts. “I heard the shot, but I’m not dead.”
Lassiter peers up at him, narrowing his eyes as he inspects Shawn’s face. “Yes, the shot was from my gun,” he explains patiently, “as I took down Frederick.”
Shawn blinks, taking a moment to wrap his head around the detective’s words, to puzzle out what they mean. His mind moves sluggishly, like each thought is wading through deep water to make any amount of sense. He slides his gaze to the right. Frederick is sprawled on the floor, a neat round hole just above his left eye. The Colt revolver lay innocuously a few inches from his outstretched hand. Shawn swallows, sucking in careful breaths as he cast his gaze around the room again. It is empty except for him and Lassiter.
The chair across from him is empty.
“Gus.”
He tries to force more substance into the name. Tries to make his tone match the flickering sense of dread solidifying in his gut, the racing and painful beat of his heart, the burning of his lungs as the air seems to flee.
“Gus is outside,” Lassiter says. “He’s fine. He’s with O’Hara and the paramedics.”
That sort of reassurance is supposed to make him feel better, right? Gus is alive. He is alive. Frederick is dead. Everything is fine. So why does he feel like puking?
“Lassie?”
“You’re in shock, Spencer.”
Shock. Yes, he’s shocked. That makes sense. He heard the shot, but he isn’t dead. Shocking.
His gaze slips back to Frederick, back to the Colt. The dead man looks small now. Bland. Pudgy. Harmless.
“Spencer, look at me,” Lassiter says giving his arm a rough shake. “Don’t look at him.”
Shawn wrenches his gaze away, just now realizing that his breathing has been kicking up notch by notch until he is panting, head swimming and lungs burning. He’d read somewhere once that while hyperventilating might make him feel like he’s lacking oxygen the opposite is actually true. Too much oxygen.
That’s what causes the lightheadedness, the tremors, the tingling numbness spreading from his hands and feet.
Too much oxygen.
He wants to laugh, can feel the urge bubbling up in the back of his throat, but when he tries to swallow it feels like he is choking. And he struggles with the sensation until he is gagging, head pounding, heart fluttering wildly in his chest.
Someone is calling his name. Someone from far away, maybe underwater.
Then he is thrust forward, a heavy hand on the back of his head pressing him down until his nose brushes his knee.
“Breathe, Shawn. Slowly. In through your nose, out through your mouth. You’re safe now.”
Shawn complies, sucking in careful breath after careful breath and trying to force all memory of Frederick’s voice from his mind. The room is still too hot; everything still feels as though it’s cast in stark relief from the stench of mildew to the heavy pressure of Lassiter’s hand on the back of his neck. It’s suffocating and his head pounds. He tries to push it away, tries to push everything away, but all he can hear clear as day is Frederick asking, What’s the chance, Shawn? What’s the chance?
He spits his answer back viciously. Doesn't care if Lassiter thinks he's lost his mind because it's zero. The chance is zero.