Strings and Stars (YouTube Oneshots)

In Bloom (Markiplier)

AN: Guess what song inspired this, haha. Listening to Nirvana gave me some inspiration for angst.

~~~

Will had always had an interest in guns and warfare, but his mother's concern had continuously prevented him from delving into research about the subjects. As a kid, he never understood why his fascination elicited such a negative reaction from her, but whenever he asked, she'd give him the same answer.

"You don't know what it means yet. Death, killing, loss. You've never experienced it before, and I want to keep it that way for as long as I can, so please leave all that be."

He never listened, because he knew not what it meant.

Much to his mother's chagrin, he'd enlisted in the military when he was fresh out of school. She tried to discourage him repeatedly, listing alternatives and placing pamphlets from various universities on his bed when she thought he wasn't home. But Will ignored her, the same way he had when he was a kid.

When he'd gone to tell Damien and Mark about where he was headed, he'd expected a better reaction.

He didn't get one.

Instead, he got looks of concern and private conversations he was never supposed to hear but listened in on anyways.

They were worried about him. "-don't want him to get hurt," they'd said.

He'd ignored them.

Because even after Will had served, even after he'd worked his way up the ranks and been to hell and back, they still wondered if he knew what it all meant. And he told them he did. He told them he knew what it meant to hit a target, and that he knew what that hit meant for him and for others, but they never seemed to believe him.

Because he still didn't know what it meant.

And then he shot Mark in a drunken game of Russian Roulette, hoping for peace and yet craving some kind of vengeance.

Then, suddenly, he knew what it meant.

He knew what it meant because this time it meant something to him.

Then, suddenly, it wasn't a toy gun or a target with a blurred face.

All Will could think in the whirlwind of events that followed was that he hadn't known. He hadn't known how bad things would get because he was drunk. He hadn't known Mark would ask him to play. He hadn't known that his would be the unlucky shot.

And he hadn't known what it meant.

He couldn't let the others know.

Bodies kept dropping left and right, or outright disappearing, and people kept coming and going. In his panic and shock at what he'd done, Will just wanted an out, and that damn detective wasn't letting him have it. He kept having to prove that he didn't know what it meant.

Until he showed the detective that he did.

Which left him sitting in the foyer, staring at a broken dead body with so much blood on his hands, regretting everything.

He wished he'd listened to his mom. He wished he'd never enlisted. He wished he'd listened to Mark and Damien. He wished he and Mark had never fought. He wished he'd declined the invite for the poker night. He wished he'd never played that game of Russian Roulette. He wished he'd never fired that shot. He wished he'd just explained what had happened. He wished he wasn't staring at the dead body of someone he'd wanted to get to know better.

He wished he could go back to not knowing what death meant.

Ten hours later, he got his wish.

Because if that dead body got back up, then everyone else will, too.

So, he kept his gun, and he still uses it.

But he knows not what it means.