The gun was cold in his hand, beneath the loose fabric of his sweatshirt. The gun was cold, and so was his skin, even though he was sweating, ever so slightly. Just enough to make his skin twitch in the artificial chill of the air conditioned 7-11, just enough to make his palms slippery and his armpits prickle. He concentrated on breathing, on seeming natural- but who was he kidding, he wasn't a natural at anything but being a fuckup, and this wasn't going to be any different.

He just knew it.

The little convenience store was nearly empty- just the cashier and some dork agonizing over filtered cigarettes at the counter. If he waited any longer, he'd lose his nerve; too bad for the dork. He was tall, but thin, like a sign post in need of a hair cut: not at all threatening. And he was well dressed, probably had a lot of money on him, or maybe a credit card. But credit cards were dangerous, easy to track. Not that it mattered a whole lot, since he only needed the money for the one thing. The one person.

He knew this was a bad idea. This wasn't going to work. Carly was going to kill him.

The gun was suddenly very hot in his hands, and his palms were miraculously dry as he pulled it out of his sweatshirt and began shouting. "Alright! Hands up where I can see them! You, on the floor, and you, start filling that bag! NOW!"

The two men stared at him blankly, and then stared at the gun in his remarkably steady hands. Maybe he wouldn't fuck this one up. Maybe. If they would just stop staring and start moving..."Hurry it up, I don't have all fucking day! MOVE!"

The cashier was reaching for something under the counter and the dork was talking, slow and soft and rythmic, reaching into his jacket and just talking, "...put the gun down, you don't need to hurt anybody, it's okay, it's okay, no one's going to hurt you, you don't need to hurt anybody..."

"Shut the fuck up, pretty boy, and get on the ground! And you, the money, before I blow your fucking head off!" It was almost laughable, it really was, the way everything was moving in slow motion, the way the cashier was pulling a shotgun up from beneath the counter, and of course it would already be loaded, and it was just amazing how well he could pick out little details like the serial number inscribed on the barrel that was pointing at his head, or the impossibly loud noise the mechanism made when being cocked, and he didn't want to kill anyone but he didn't want to die, and he was sweating again, and shivering and everything was happening all at once, too fast.

"No!" That was the dork, long arms flying to put himself in front of two bullets, as both guns went off at the same time.

Fuckup. Story of his life. The man had been pulling out his wallet, and it went skittering between a shelf full of chips and salsa and the ice cream freezer as the shotgun ripped his arm off, just dangling there by a few bits of mangled skin at a funny angle when the guy hit the floor in a sort of greenish heap. Tristan's aim had been off; there was a smoking hole in a carton of cigarettes, filling the air with the sickly sweet smell of tobacco and burning cardboard.

Tristan met the guy's eyes for half a second. They were blue. Really blue. And he was just lying in his own blood, looking kind of lost and confused, staring right back at him. The sound of the cashier discharging the spent shells brought him back to reality.

Tristan dropped his gun, grabbed the guy's wallet, and ran for his life.

Fuckup. What else was new?