two roads to travel

There's an old episode of M*A*S*H that deals with the trope of whether or not you hear the bullet that gets you. Or maybe it created the trope; Sean's not entirely sure, now that he thinks about it. All he knows is where his own experiences fall, and so far, he's taken the fact that he's heard it coming every single time as a sign that he's not out of the game just yet.

Not that he wouldn't deserve it after this one. The whole job has been a rushed mess from the get-go, and he has only himself to blame for that. He's been so eager to get back to things after having the general populace up and disappear, taking with them any notion that he hadn't completely wasted his life in Darrow up to that point in building up the reputation of the Banshee. Without any payoff, without the ability to do any real good from within, he's just been another crook. So with everything back to normal (or as near as it ever gets), maybe he's been more pressed than he should be to get back into the swing of things, maybe he's been sloppy, maybe he's been ignoring sketchy cues in the name of expediency and the knowledge that he can handle himself if things go south. Maybe none of that takes into account his distraction of late, between his wedding anniversary and getting to know Theresa all over again and trying to balance the bitter with the sweet of it all in time for a nice family Thanksgiving.

And all it takes is an instant.

The double-cross doesn't even faze him, really, and maybe that's part of the problem. Two Rambaldi representatives (read: goons) waiting in the alley for him instead of the expected one, conveniently darkened streetlamps, no pockets bulging enough for the the envelope he's owed... Sean's already bored by it all by the time a car smoothly pulls up to block off the far end of the alley, penning him in. He's moving to disarm the thugs even as they're still reaching into this coats, too stupid to know he's never penned in as long as there's open sky above, and he's on autopilot, his movements rote, facile. He's better than this, and he knows it; he should be beyond this paint-by-numbers bull. What the hell is he doing?

Pride goeth. It would be the word of a second, not even that, to use his voice, to warp the air around him for that extra bit of protection as the near-silent whir of the car window descending comes to him form the end of the alley, rising above the sounds of the scuffle. But he doesn't bother. Why should he, when it's just as easy to ram his elbow into one heavily-tattooed neck and shove the guy around to put him in the line of fire instead?

As the shot rings out, echoing in the close quarters, it takes a curiously long moment before Sean actually realizes that it's hit him. Because saints, what are the odds of that? But then he catches up to the sudden, blinding pain in his side, connects it to the sound, and the window's rolling back up, and the two gangsters are scrambling to their feet, and...

He almost shouts them down, but he picks now to check his actions, and in that too-late instant, he doesn't trust himself not to just kill them both. Then the instant is past, his knees go out from under him, and he knows he's lost.

He's been lost for a while now.