Suicide is Painless [Pi and Lancaster]

[Pi dArtois]

Nights like this were the reason she had hope she’d found her place in the world. When all was quiet and the rhythm lulled her into a feeling of satisfaction. She could almost convince herself when it was like this, that it would last. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true, not when just a few days ago she died slowly waiting for Elliot to return from the Shadow Realm, sent there in a bloody altercation with the lethal hunters of this city.

If ever there was a reminder to their tenuous position, that was it. They were never going to be allowed to live in peace when so many beyond that tissue thin veneer refused to allow it. Elliot didn’t believe in the need to keep what they were such a big damn secret. She, however, understood how precarious their position was, and how it could all turn pear shaped in a single heart beat.

Like finding out her husband had been killed, slaughter by a gang of eight people, hunted like he was an animal and put down.

Clenching her slim fingers around the damn dishcloth Pi attempted to wrangle in her wayward thoughts. Maybe she was as prone to dark thoughts after that event. Maybe she needed Elliot as close as he needed her to be close. Maybe, it would be that way for a while as they both came to terms with his second death. And maybe, she had to accept it may not be his (or her last).

They lived in bloody and unusual times. In these times, hidden as it was below the surface of normalcy was a martial type of law. The perpetrators of justice did so with blood thirsty vigour. And not amount of neutrality on her or Elliot’s part would prove them immune from its bite.

Stretching a smile across her face she rested on her elbows on the wood, letting herself be distracted from her own thoughts to answer the question from their newest patron.

“I’m sure if we can’t help… we probably know someone who can.” She answered, ignoring another call for a drink, sliding a glance to Elliot, telling him without words that it was his turn.

[Lancaster]

The life that they lived was a precarious one, indeed. The life they wanted to be normal, or as normal as it could be, but of course that could not be without a certain amount of acceptance. It was what Lancaster had hoped. With time, would come normalcy. If someone lost a limb, with the right attitude they would become accustomed to the loss. They would learn to do things differently, so that sooner or later they could function as well as any other person. And even if they were a constant recipient of sympathy, to that person, normalcy had been regained. But only after they had accepted that their lost limb would never come back.

Lancaster had to accept that his human life would never come back, and he had to move on. The question in regards to a gun was one of those things that had become normal, and with Pi an expert creator of said guns, he couldn’t discourage her craft. It was something that she enjoyed doing, and even a peace-loving hippie like Lancaster couldn’t deny that the weapons were a necessity. As much as he might have liked his own progeny, for example, to be as loathing of conflict and violence as he was, that didn’t mean he would furnish them with the weapons they needed to defend themselves, and teach them how to use them.

This was just a human, and not someone connected to their small dysfunctional family. But the premise was the same. He needed a weapon to defend himself, and who was Lancaster to deny him that? He had already shifted, his attention drifting to the other customer hailing for a drink. He knew this was Pi’s brainchild – the guns. Lancaster nodded; as he moved away his fingers trailed inconspicuously over the rise of Pi’s hip. Together, they were, and yet separated. The distance was not far. But Lancaster would not interrupt this transaction. He would let Pi take care of this particular customer from here on out.

[Stryge (DELETED 7204)]

I’m sure if we can’t help… we probably know someone who can.

The world was unfolding in front of Stuart Giger's eyes like a beautful, black flower. Death dripped from its petals like drops of morning dew, or rain, or tears...This was the fruition of his journey. His end game was in sight. He was almost to end of this desperate and pointless horse race that he had been a part of his whole damnable life.

He still couldn't quite put a pin in why Harper Rock, ON, of all the places in the world, had drawn him in. It was as if in his mind this town had a big neon sign hovering over it: KILL YOURSELF HERE There had been multiple towns and opportunities when Stu could've walked into a pawn shop and bought a .38, hell, could've put it to his head right there in the parking lot and flipped his switch. Wouldn't have even had to leave Texas for that. But he had chosen not to take those opportunities. He had waited; had waited until he was here, at Lancasters pub. He was self aware enough to know exactly what he was doing; arranging a very carefully constructed ritual that would allow his mind the accept the suicide as a necessity, as part of the natural order of things, and to overcome the survival instinct that would inevitably kick in when the time came.

He remembered riding the AmTrak north from Austin to Chicago. It had been an overnight trip, and there was a moment there in the dead of night, as other passengers shifted restlessly in their seats and tried to sleep, when the the guilt and despair had been overwhelming. He'd staggered to the lavatory on the luggage car and puked his brains out. As he had started to head back to his seat, he had stopped, and eyed the exterior door. It wouldn't have been difficult to get it open, to fling himself from the moving train into the dark Arkansas woods. His body most likely would have made a beautiful crunching sound as it made impact with a maple or an elm. But as tempting as that idea was, it didn't feel right. The idea of Harper Rock, ON continued to needle at his brain.

This felt right. Here and now. Everything was falling into place. And when the last piece of the puzzle was put where it belonged, the picture it formed would be of Stuart Giger's lifeless, bloody body.

"I'd be much obliged m'am," he told the beautiful French barkeep, with that slow southern smile forming on his lips. "I'll have another round, if you don't mind." Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die...

[Pi dArtois]

People asked for a weapon for different reasons. Pi didn’t stand in judgement, she just supplied at the request of those who needed it.

“Yes, I can definitely help you with the drink... and the other.”

This wouldn’t be the first human she’d made a gun for, nor did she think it would be her last. Given what she knew of the denizens in this little town, she understood the need to protect yourself. She just didn’t think they entirely understood just how much they needed it. But she did.

She didn’t think this wanderer understood the danger in this small town either, but she did, and the knowing was almost reason enough to give the guns she made away.

There was a responsibility in what they were given with the gift of endless life. Some felt it was a right, eternity, as if they were entitled them to pass judgement on what was right and wrong. And with self-allocated entitlement they served their own justice.

For Pi it had never been so easy. For her she continued to struggle with the suspicion it was bigger than their small idea of the thing. How could an eternal life be condensed into something as simple as a masquerade. It was an ephemeral thing, secrets. They were hoarded and hidden as if the very essence of them propagated its own power. It was this power so many of their kind balanced their lives on. They killed for it, made laws around the need for it. And yet it continued to waver under the onslaught of choice.

The choice to say something. The choice to not. The choice to know the laws in their entirety, the choice not. The choice to love the small part of yourself which remained human and the choice to eschew any knowledge of prior humanity. Their world balanced on the scale of those choices and it was no little feat it had not tilted in one direction or the other long before now.

When Elliot drifted away she took a few seconds to consider what to do next. Her meandering thoughts had taken only seconds, those thoughts old friends she’d conversed with inside her mind for the four years since she’d been turned. She gave the man a small smile, lifting her hand to indicate she follow her into her office.

Talking about guns in the middle of a busy bar was never a good idea. People were usually too wrapped up on their own lives to care about what was spoken, until you spoke of things you didn’t want heard. No, it was always better to do this in privacy.

“Come on… lets go talk about this somewhere else.”

Passing her husband, she reached out to touch him, a feather light touch of fingertips along his back as she squeezed past his tall frame, catching the other man’s eye again, her head tilting this time to indicate where she was heading. As she passed she swiped the bottle of whiskey and a glass.

Her and Elliot’s office was a tiny thing, tucked behind the bar. A small desk with one chair behind and two in front that barely fit into the space. Pi didn’t go to sit behind the desk, she rarely did. Instead she took up her usual position in front, leaning back so her butt leaned on it, her hands settling on either side of her hips as she waited for him to follow her into the office.

“Close the door behind you.”

Pouring a splash of the whiskey into the glass she held it out to him.

[Stryge (DELETED 7204)]

Stryge once again thought of the "friends" he had left behind in Houston; the young lawyers and stockbrokers and politicians to-be who in their arrogant and misogynistic leanings would've seen the invitation from the beautiful barkeep to speak in private as some sort of come-on. Stuart's mentality was more black and white these days. He recognized business when he saw it, and in Pi he was sensing someone with an acute sense of business acumen. He was intrigued that this slight and elfin looking Frenchwoman appeared to be the hub of the illegal weapons trade in this town. But he also suspected that when push came to shove, she could hold her own. Having the Australian giant as a partner probably didn't hurt either.

Stuart followed Pi into the back office as bid. He closed the door when she asked him to, and accepted the glass of whiskey with a cordial smile and a nod of the head. She held all of the cards, and he was on her turf. He would play this game any way she liked. As such, he was happy to let her have a dominant stance, leaning against the front of the desk, and took a seat himself in a chair in the cramped office. Though Pi was small in stature, from this angle she seemed to tower over him, and the combination of her already natural beauty and self-assurance and the fact that that Stryge was looking up to her from the lower angle of his sitting position gave Pi the semblance of some sort of ancient idol, a vision of Athena or Aphrodite carved in alabaster. The overhead light cast a halo through her hair.

"I've gotta tell you Ms. Pi, this has to be one of the most interesting places I've happened upon in the course of my travels, and that's in no small part due to you and your partner out there. I think I will surely be a little saddened when the time presents itself to move along." Stuart took another sip of his whiskey, wonderfully aged and triple distilled. "I appreciate you taking me into your confidence here. You do this humble mendicant a great honor. Now I don't have much more left in my travelling expenses then a couple hundred dollars, but I figure that it's worth my piece of mind to have a means of protecting myself, so I hope it will be enough. I s'pose one advantage of sleeping right above your roof here is that you might be able to find other ways for me to work off any balance I might owe." That almost sounded like an indecent proposal, but Stuart hoped she would take the offer in the spirit it was given. The fact was that he was running dangerously low on cash, and couldn't risk requisitioning more for fear of his location being discovered by those he wished to avoid. He had waited perhaps too long in his travels, as his resources drained daily, to take this step, and he now risked not being able to complete his mission.

But, he mused again, it would not have felt right anyplace else. There was something about the idea of Harper Rock that had been digging in his brain since the first time he had heard it mentioned by that poor sap Billy Preston. And now he was here, and this French angel of death was going to lead him to his final rest. The smile that he gave her this time was quite genuine, and wholly appreciative.

[Pi dArtois]

Pi watched the animation of his face. The dark brows lifting and bunching as he spoke, his mouth, as it spoke words, and eyes, that watched her, looking up from his position in the chair. You make choices in life, for different reasons, with different motivations. Some you make with careful consideration, weighing the pros and cons until the scales are balanced in a way that shifts the decision in one direction or the other. Or like tonight, where a small statement initiates a reaction, unexpected and unplanned.

Her guns sold on the market (legal or black) at ridiculous prices, certainly more than what he had in his pocket. They were custom built, carefully constructed using parts she’d put together herself. Each one made with painstaking care. There were some she sold anonymously, cash offs she made from spare parts.

They were the result of experiments, unlikely parts welded together to form utilitarian weapons, graceless but practical. These she didn’t put her name on. They were cast offs, throw away attempts she had little emotional attachment to and little pride in their creation.

She could have offered him one of those, the nameless but functional weapons, even those she sold for a few thousand. But she knew she wouldn’t. Instinct and intuition drove many of her choices when it came to her guns. Sometimes it felt like the weapons themselves chose their homes, as if waiting for their person to walk through the door.

Tonight, she understood in a way only someone else who created as she did, would understand. This man was meant to have one of hers. And there was only one for him to have. Fareye.


“This place has a way of making people feel… like they could do with a little more protection.” Pi replied, moving around to the other side of the desk. She purposely shifted the purpose of his meaning, bending it a little, even if he didn’t exactly say why he was buying a weapon, she wanted him to know she understood anyway.


“I have something… that will work I think.” Bending she pressed her thumb against the lock, waiting for the slide release to engage so she could open the drawer in the desk. Inside lay a box, black, a heavy carbon based plastic with smooth corners, two small latches in the front sealing the contents. Inside lay her latest creation. It was a flashy piece, the base metal a soft gold, which she’d had to work around the carbon interior in order to make it sustainable as a weapon.

For all intents and purposes there was enough gold in the gun to cost ten times over what Stryge was offering. Yet she knew she would give it to him anyway, for a steal, a highway robbery in price.
Laying the case on the desk, she waved a hand for him to open it.


“I usually ask $500.” Pi lied easily, quoting a figure one percent of its actual value.

“But if you agree to work it off while you’re here, I can give it to you for $350.” The price she gave him was more than he said he had, but Pi hadn’t made guns this long not to know you never just gave in to the first offer. You haggled, because haggling was normal. It showed you valued what you sold, and understood the nature of the transaction.

Despite the fact Pi was about to make one hell of a loss on this transaction, she still wasn’t going to let it go… without due process and the haggle was a very important part of the sale process.

[Stryge (DELETED 7204)]

Stuart Giger thought that life had no surprises left for him. In his mind's eye, the bleak landscape of his future ended in a nightmarish grey waterfall cascading off the edge of the world, as if the flat-earthers had had it right all along. He had traveled through all manner of beautiful and interesting places since he'd left Houston. Chicago, Toronto, Niagara Falls, the rich Ontario countryside. To his lost and forlorn eyes, all of it had appeared as nothing but a collection of pointless shapes and colors. The connections which our brains make between images and emotions in order to formulate the thing we call beauty, that did not exist for Stuart. His brain could no longer find the beauty in anything. But that was before Pi opened the gun box.

Stuart's eyes must have widened like a child's on Christmas morning at the sight of the enchanting, gold plated firearm. He subconsciously stretched his ocular cavities as wide as possible because a part of him wanted to drink every inch of that gun in through his hazel colored orbs, to damn near drown in it. At that moment, Pi's custom Fareye pistol was quite possibly the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. And for a second he found himself hesitating, unable to speak. Maintaining his cover as a transient should have required him to refuse the pistol, to ask if she had something else a little less...provocative. No traveler in his rightful mind would intentionally carry an object that most undesirables would easily consider worth more than his own life. But now that he'd seen the gun, there was no way that he could refuse it. This had to be the way that he ended it. Like a ceremonial dagger used in ancient sacrificial rites, the gun seemed to carry a mystic quality, a gravity appropriate to it's appointed use.

Still, why would she extend to him such a boon? Stuart knew enough about both firearms and the price of gold to know that she was offering this custom firearm at a ridiculously low price. And embarrassingly, still more than he could afford. "M'am, I know that what you offer me here is as much a charity as anything else, and I surely do appreciate the gesture and recognize the loss you must be taking on such a venture, but I must regretfully tell you that I haven't got more than two hundred and fifty dollars left to my name, and that's the god's honest truth. But," he continued "you are correct that I will work off whatever debt I owe you on this transaction, regardless of how long it takes. And that's a promise."

He felt a tinge of remorse at that last lie. He would be long dead before he could ever earn enough to afford a gun like this. Ironic, since before he had left Houston and his old life behind, the gun at full price would have still been quite reasonably in his price range. He had not expected the slight sense of regret that he was feeling over misleading Pi in this regards. He had been so awash in the guilt of the death that he had caused that he was just not used to feeling less intense emotions, and so it took him by surprise. The day was just full of surprises. He hoped that after it was over there wouldn't be too much resentment that folks could attach to his corpse. And besides, at the end of it all, he supposed Pi would have her gun back.

He shook those thoughts from his head, and continued the parley. "What do you say, Ms. Pi. Is it a deal?"

[Pi dArtois]

She hadn’t expected him to refuse.

There were many personality flaws Pi suffered, but hubris wasn’t one of them. She knew what she made was good. She knew when he opened the box that he would recognise the beauty of its cold utility. She’d spent hours on this weapon, as she did with all she finally put her name to. She could feel its cold weight in her hand, the grip a bit too big for her own hand, styled for a larger hand.

Crisscross grooves were carefully molded along the grip panel, matched on the magazine and along the safety catch. It had taken her painstaking minutes to design the trigger guard so it flowed into the frame in one seamless strip of unvarnished gold.

Like a proud parent her smile widened at his obvious pleasure for what she’d created.

“Oui.” She answered, her accent hollowing out the vowels so they sounded as one. “A deal it is.”

Pi didn’t comment on whether the gun was worth the price she offered it for. Much like parents took pride in their children, she held the same affection for the weapons she made but unlike parents she gladly placed her creations into the hands of their new owners.

When you created anything, whether it was art, or literature, to weapons, the joy came in the reflected appreciation of the recipient. Pi’s smile held.

She wondered then where Fareye would travel, and what stories it would take part in. It wasn’t always a given that any gun would be used beyond a gun range. Outside of this terrible life she lived, normal people weren’t prone to gunning down others in their day to day activities. The life this weapon may lead could be a mundane one. Its potential could remain exactly that, and that was okay too.

It would be nice if were left untouched, an heirloom handed down from a father to his daughter a cherished momento of a youthful adventure through the wilds of Canada, and an anecdotal story about a Frenchwoman in a small pub, who sold him a weapon that the daughter held in her hand.

Yes, Pi rather liked the idea of that too.

“Good, I think we can talk about what you can do tomorrow… enjoy the rest of your night.” Pi offered. She had plenty of time, and was in no rush to put Stuart to work. Instead she relaxed onto the desk, shutting the lid and latches before picking it up and offering it to him.

“Tomorrow night we can talk?”

[Stryge (DELETED 7204)]

Stuart waited for a split second before accepting the box. He needed that moment calm his hands, which he knew would be shaking from...desire? Yes, he desired that gun, in all of its sacred gilded glory. With a quick check of his breathing, he rose and accepted the offering. Money had not even exchanged hands yet, but he could tell the woman was not concerned about that. She seemed more than confident that Stuart would uphold his end of the bargain, and that the gun would be paid for. It was like a dream the way things were suddenly all falling perfectly into place. Or like a movie that Stuart himself would have mocked for being unrealistic. But here he was smack in the middle of reality, and the gun was his. Again he felt that tinge of guilt. Pi was putting a lot of trust in him to pay her back. The reality was, when the debt was paid, the currency would not be dollars but blood.

"M'am, I can't begin to express how grateful I am, but I'm sure going to do my best to try these next couple of days. Tomorrow night we shall talk indeed."

With a nod of the head, the beaming young Texan excused himself and left the office. Passing through the Irish pub, he headed straight up the stairs to his room, and locked the door. Taking a deep breath, he set the gun case on the bed, and opened it. The scene with the suitcase from Pulp Fiction popped into his head. He could've sworn that the golden gun shone with a light of its own. He picked it up and felt the weight of it in his hand. Probably a little heavier than a gun of that caliber should be, due to the gold plating. Like every tried and true Texan, Stuart was a gun owner himself, though he hadn't fired a weapon in over six months. His hunting rifle and the Walther PPk his father had given him were back home in Houston. He was sure given time, he could learn to fire the Fareye accurately, but time was not something he had a lot of left. He had heard horror stories of head shots gone wrong. Stuart had no desire to end up a vegetable. He was also vain enough to not want to leave half of his face on the floor. Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse, he thought.

The Fareye's clip was placed separately from the weapon in the gun box. He noted with satisfaction that it was fully loaded with .44 rounds. It was nice to get a toy with the batteries included. He mentally thanked Pi for that. After checking to make sure there wasn't a round in the chamber, Stuart placed the muzzle of the pistol against the left side of his chest, where he presumed his heart was, and practiced dry-clicking the trigger. It would be a little awkward, but he could hold the gun with his right hand, and if he pushed hard enough against his chest, he didn't think there would be any way that he could miss.

Satisfied that everything was in place, Stuart felt himself relaxing a little. The light at the end of his deep dark tunnel was in sight. From inside his duffle bag he pulled out his mother's silver cross, fingering it thoughtfully. Maybe I'll even get to see you again, mama, he thought, though with little conviction. Stuart had decided some time ago that life was just a way station, a dumping ground for oblivion. There was nothing after this, no pearly gates or streets of gold. Nothing but non-existence. And that was exactly the way he wanted it.

Stuart decided to go downstairs and have another drink. One more to calm his nerves couldn't hurt.

He returned to his room four hours later, piss-drunk and reeling. Barely able to get the key in the lock, he shut the door behind him by leaning on it heavily. The world was spinning, but in the darkened room he could see the Fareye where he had left it, still on the bed and carefully placed back into its case. "**** you," Stuart said to no one, to the air, to himself, to the gun. "You think yer gonna take my life. But I'm too smart for you, you piece of ****."

Stuart staggered forward across the room, reaching for the gun in its case. His foot caught on the duffel bag he had left at the foot of the bed, and he tripped and staggered, landing half on and half off the bed. His elbow hit the gun case, knocking it to the floor with a heavy thud. Stuart lay there and contemplated through a drunken haze how to untangle himself from this position. With his legs spread out behind him and his elbows resting on the bed, he looked like a supplicant praying for forgiveness. There's no forgiveness for me, thought Stu, and passed out.

[Stryge (DELETED 7204)]

Stuart groaned. "**** me!" He passed out again.

Stuart was bent over the toilet, retching. There was nothing left for his body to give, and yet he just kept on heaving, a sound somehow both dry and wet that echoed from deep inside his guts. For a while he passed out on the floor of the bathroom. Eventually he made his way back to the bed.

Stuart groggily opened an eye. The world was finally dark enough for him to do so without feeling like the sun was invading his brain, shooting hot beams into his cerebral cortex. Goodbye sun, he thought. I'm never going to see you again. The thought roused him, brought alertness back to his thoughts. He had made up his mind. It would happen tonight. He watched the world go from orange to purple to black out his open window. His head throbbed with pain. An evil genie was performing a solo version of the 1812 Overture in his head, minus everything but the cannons.

He spent an hour sitting at the bottom of the shower. The hot water long since gone. He didn't seem to notice. Clean and dried off, he didn't bother to dress again. He stood naked in his room. The gun case had been retrieved from the floor and once again laid on the bed. The case was open. The gun within glinted in the light from the table lamp next to his bed. This is it, he thought, looking down at the gun that the French woman had bestowed upon him. This is where it ends. In a hostel in Harper Rock, Ontario. It made about as much sense as anything else in his fucked up life.

Stuart sat down on the bed and retrieved the pistol from its case. The weight felt good in his hand, reassuring. He knew it would get the job done. He picked up the clip and snapped it into place. He cocked the pistol. He placed the muzzle against his chest. Good riddance, he thought. He pulled the trigger.