#ive got the feeling proper replicas are illegal now

Fistful of Fear

There’s something about good intentions and bad results, he was sure there was. It probably applied here, too, fired out of a cannon and ricocheted through a few concept revisions, until it popped out the other side here, with a replica in his hand and a little less resolve than he needed. 

It was heavy. That wasn’t helping. If it was light it would have been a fortunate reminder that this was all just for show, that even if she’d been pulled into the fantasy, he could remain happily behind the curtain, pulling strings instead of feeling the tug against himself. Not for the first time he considered whether this was a bad idea. 

He’d wanted to scare her. See fear in her eyes, the real stuff, not just what she allowed in the moment. See whether there was a difference, and whether the real thing would lose the magic, whatever it was that tickled at his insides and made him feel so completely connected to her. That might be preferable; it would make him feel a little less like he was playing with fire, a little less that he hadn’t already singed his fingertips, burnt off his eyebrows. That his sadism was codependent, tightly wound around care, inextricable. 

He’d wanted her to be afraid, but now it was him. Sat there with all but a gun in his hand, he felt the cool hand of fear settle on his shoulder, wrap around his belly. It was a stranger, stranger than it should have been, belying how proud he had been. Kept on pushing beyond the point of safety, and then a little further on from that. And she’d rolled with every punch, turned over and asked for another. They were a perpetual motion machine, hurtling towards… well, this. 

The door was ajar. He could hear the creak of jute creep through that crack, and it sounded like a come hither. Like a tease, a plea, the sort of request he shouldn’t be putting off just to have a miniature morality crisis. 

He put it to his head. Felt the barrel dig into his temple, cold metal against his skin carrying all the consideration of a judge’s gavel. It felt right, like it had all the weight it needed to have, like it would carry the scene. Now he just had to do it. Walk out there and scare her like he wanted to. Like she wanted him to. 

Which is the only thing that put enough power in his legs to stand. Knowing that there had been a conversation, and her eyes had lit up at the idea of it. The timbre of her voice had changed, shifted up half a semi-tone, and she’d wriggled on her seat. 

She’d be wondering where he was. Or she’d be entirely in her own head, lost in the scene, and whatever it was she thought about when he left the room. He was pretty sure this would bring her back. Take her a little way the other side, too.

There was just the one way to find out, though, and it sat on the other side of that door.