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person4Title: Crime of Passion
Fandom: Silent Hill
Characters: Harry and Cheryl the second
Notes: Takes place five years after the first game. Last one for June Fic-a-Day!
It was strange, the things your mind focused on in extreme situations.
He had heard somewhere once that you could only claim a crime of passion if three shots or fewer had been fired. More than that and the law thought that you had enough time to come to your senses.
He didn't know whether that was true or if the person who'd said it was just repeating an urban legend. He didn't think this situation would count anyway, even though a man trying to kidnap his daughter was definitely something to be passionate over. And there was no passion to this anyway; the moment he'd followed the sound of Cheryl screaming to her room and saw the man hovering over her his mind had gone cold and clear as he grabbed the rifle hidden in the linen cabinet just beside her door (one of many weapons caches he had hidden around the house, just in case). He had never killed a human who wasn't possessed before, but as he raised the gun to aim at the man's head he found that he wasn't bothered at all by his not being a monster. His hand didn't even tremble.
The first shot went straight through the center of the man's forehead. The second went into where he guessed his heart would be. For the third he aimed towards his stomach for a moment, thinking that if the cultist were somehow still alive after the first two shots a bowel wound would put him through the pain he deserved for trying to take his little girl away from him again, but then he jerked it away and fired into the wall beside where the man's head had been to start with. Let whoever came to investigate this murder think that he'd been so upset that he hadn't been able to aim properly at first. The people who ran the shooting range he'd joined as soon as he'd left Silent Hill behind could verify just how badly he had to be shaken for his aim to be thrown off. He hadn't missed a single shot in years.
Then, even though the urge to keep shooting the man until his face was a bloody unrecognizable mess was almost overwhelming, he put the gun down. He only had three shots, his mind kept repeating again and again. He couldn't take more than that. When he was taken to trial over this killing, it had to be found to be in self-defense, and he would do anything he could to make that more certain. He wouldn't have Cheryl taken away from him for trying to keep her safe.
Cheryl herself still hadn't left her bed. She was staring quietly at the man's body, showing no signs at all that she was upset by having watched as a person was killed although as Harry approached her he was shocked to see that some of the man's blood had splattered across her face. It was then that the coldness that had settled over his mind snapped, and he rushed to gather her up in his arms, swiping the blood away with his. "Honey, that was... well, when somebody tries to hurt somebody you love it's... well, it's not okay, but..." he stammered, trying to think of some way to explain this to her.
"When you love somebody, you can kill for them?" she asked, in the tone she always used when she was learning something new.
"Not unless something really bad happens," he clarified, deciding that that was close enough for the moment. He would need to speak with her more about it later, but for the moment there were more important things to do if he wanted to make sure he looked as innocent as possible. "Daddy needs to call the police now," he said, carrying her out of the room and closing the door behind him so she wouldn't need to look at the dead man again. "And then we can talk about what just happened as much as you want."
And after that he would need to start thinking of how best to leave this life completely behind them, and going so deeply into hiding that the cult would never find her again.
Fandom: Silent Hill
Characters: Harry and Cheryl the second
Notes: Takes place five years after the first game. Last one for June Fic-a-Day!
It was strange, the things your mind focused on in extreme situations.
He had heard somewhere once that you could only claim a crime of passion if three shots or fewer had been fired. More than that and the law thought that you had enough time to come to your senses.
He didn't know whether that was true or if the person who'd said it was just repeating an urban legend. He didn't think this situation would count anyway, even though a man trying to kidnap his daughter was definitely something to be passionate over. And there was no passion to this anyway; the moment he'd followed the sound of Cheryl screaming to her room and saw the man hovering over her his mind had gone cold and clear as he grabbed the rifle hidden in the linen cabinet just beside her door (one of many weapons caches he had hidden around the house, just in case). He had never killed a human who wasn't possessed before, but as he raised the gun to aim at the man's head he found that he wasn't bothered at all by his not being a monster. His hand didn't even tremble.
The first shot went straight through the center of the man's forehead. The second went into where he guessed his heart would be. For the third he aimed towards his stomach for a moment, thinking that if the cultist were somehow still alive after the first two shots a bowel wound would put him through the pain he deserved for trying to take his little girl away from him again, but then he jerked it away and fired into the wall beside where the man's head had been to start with. Let whoever came to investigate this murder think that he'd been so upset that he hadn't been able to aim properly at first. The people who ran the shooting range he'd joined as soon as he'd left Silent Hill behind could verify just how badly he had to be shaken for his aim to be thrown off. He hadn't missed a single shot in years.
Then, even though the urge to keep shooting the man until his face was a bloody unrecognizable mess was almost overwhelming, he put the gun down. He only had three shots, his mind kept repeating again and again. He couldn't take more than that. When he was taken to trial over this killing, it had to be found to be in self-defense, and he would do anything he could to make that more certain. He wouldn't have Cheryl taken away from him for trying to keep her safe.
Cheryl herself still hadn't left her bed. She was staring quietly at the man's body, showing no signs at all that she was upset by having watched as a person was killed although as Harry approached her he was shocked to see that some of the man's blood had splattered across her face. It was then that the coldness that had settled over his mind snapped, and he rushed to gather her up in his arms, swiping the blood away with his. "Honey, that was... well, when somebody tries to hurt somebody you love it's... well, it's not okay, but..." he stammered, trying to think of some way to explain this to her.
"When you love somebody, you can kill for them?" she asked, in the tone she always used when she was learning something new.
"Not unless something really bad happens," he clarified, deciding that that was close enough for the moment. He would need to speak with her more about it later, but for the moment there were more important things to do if he wanted to make sure he looked as innocent as possible. "Daddy needs to call the police now," he said, carrying her out of the room and closing the door behind him so she wouldn't need to look at the dead man again. "And then we can talk about what just happened as much as you want."
And after that he would need to start thinking of how best to leave this life completely behind them, and going so deeply into hiding that the cult would never find her again.