Chapter Text
Part one: precision vs accuracy.
In the landscape of extinction, precision is next to godliness.
Samual Beckett
People don’t understand the difference between precision and accuracy. They think that they’re the same thing, or that precision is just a fancy name for accuracy, or visa-versa.
Accuracy is how close you get to the target, to the intended result. How close you come.
Precision, is how repeatable you are. How consistent. How tight the grouping. How reliable you are.
Of the two, I prefer precision.
I’m sitting on my own bed. Millie is holding my hand, and my mind, my entire soul has gone numb.
“Oh. Oh I see.” I mutter. I’m staring, and I’m not sure at what. There is one and only one thought in my mind, and it’s this: Oh.
“Hun, you…er, you heard what I said?” asked Millie, moving closer, taking my hand in both of hers.
She has never looked more beautiful. I have never been more afraid. These thoughts are connected.
“And… and you’re sure?”
“Yeah, pretty sure. The… the tests are showing the same result each time. Consistent like.”
Consistent. I usually love that word, that idea, because of how it plays into precision, but it’s actually the last thing on my mind right now.
“Oh. Well, um… how far along are you?”
“Coming up on two months, I reckon’ it… it’s going to start to show soon, but I… we should get an ultrasound, yanno... to check. I first noticed at Sinsmass so it must have been in the month before that.”
“Oh, right yes, that’s sounds sensible.” Someone says. I think it might have been me, but I’m so shocked I can’t tell. “And… and… er…” my mind has frozen up. I can feel my hand gripping hers tighter and tighter, and I know I’m shaking but I can’t stop it. I should do my breathing exercises, four in, hold for four, four out. I should say something back to her, hug her I should do one of a million things.
What I in fact do, is screw up my face like and idiot, and turn to her and ask the dumbest posable question.
“How?”
She gives me a look. If you’ve ever dated a Wrathian woman, or someone culturally southern you know the look, it often precedes the words Bless or bless your heart. That is to say, it’s people letting you know you’ve just said something unimaginably stupid.
“Do I need to draw you a picture, hun?” she asks, unimpressed.
“I know I know… I mean… when? I thought we were taking precautions.” I think, mind casting back, trying to differentiate different… different. Well, you know? “I mean I couldn’t be your birthday because I never.” I’m blushing, I’m actually blushing, in my own home, with just the two of us, it’s ridiculous. “That was your day, and I wanted to show you what I could do with just my mouth. And it can’t be International Men’s day because you pegged, and we’re using protection on our bi-weeklies so the only time in November we did anything unplanned was…”
It hits me. I groan, embarrassed. “Right after the trial? Oh heavens. That time-”
“-in the taxi? Yeah, yeah I think that’s it. But in our defence, we’d just nearly been executed, we needed to do something life affirming, and that guy was making a fuss over nothin’: it’s a taxi in pride, if you don’t want people screwing or murdering in the back, don’t be a taxi! We left a tip.”
I almost laugh at this, but I’m too terrified, the possibilities in my mind.
“So we have? What about six months before?”
“Yeah… assuming we don’t…. don’t decide to do something about it.”
“Do… do you want to?” I ask, squeezing her hands. “What… whatever you choose, honey, I’ll-”
“I haven’t decided yet, to be honest, I’ve been too shocked to think about it.” She says, looking down. “It’s… it’s just so much!” she says.
She starts crying. I move in, and hug her, wrapping all four limbs and my tail around her, she slowly lets herself fall over sideways to one side on the bed, and we stay like that spooning for some time. I close my eyes, and listen to her heart, feel her heat. I love her so much, and I’m suddenly afraid.
After a while, she makes a sort of snorting to indicate the crying is over, and rubs her eyes, sitting up.
“Well, one upside of this: we can rawdog whenever we want. At least I can’t get double-pregnant. Right?”
I snort. “You’re always one to look on the positive side, honey.” I say, getting up, rubbing my eyes. The word Rawdog make me think of Blitz, and that makes me ask.
“Who have you told?”
“You, Sally May. I didn’t tell Loona, but she… she knows. She’s been able to smell it for a while, I think. That’s it. Stolas might suspect, I heard that birds can just tell, is that real? Is that a thing?”
I shrug. “I don’t think so, that seems like an old wives tale, but he was a Goetia so Satan-knows what powers he has. Not your parents?”
“No. If… if we decide to keep it, then I’ll tell them now… now I’m not sure. What… what should I do, hun?”
“What do you want to do?” I ask
She shudders, and take my hand again. “I don’t know, and it’s just tearing me apart. I… I need time. Is that okay with you hun?”
I cup her face with my other hand, and she’s so beautiful, I don’t deserve her I don’t know how she’s in my life, but I’m just so glad she is.
“Always, honey, whatever you need. Do… do you want to skip work today? I can cover for you?”
“What, and you get stabbed again? No, besides… it’s meetings todays, you know Blitz needs the both of us there or he’s do some crazy shit, the big galoot. Come on, let's get ready.” She says, getting up. “Do your bits.”
By do your bits. She means the little rituals I have to do to calm my nerves before we leave the house. She’s never understood them… but she’s always understood my need for them, and loved and supported me as I do it, and I don’t deserve that in her. The little things that need to be just so. Correct.
Precise.
I check the window locks, and I check them again. I check the taps are off, and then to hob and oven. I check the gun-locker is locked, and the alarm system ready. I check I have my guns, my anti-acids, the morphine, the bandages, the blood clotting kit the freeze-dried imp plasma... I check my guns again, magazine check, then a press check of the chamber to confirm it’s empty. I use the decocker to lower the hammer to the half-cock position (not a standard option on a 1911 I had the safety extensively re-worked had to replace the entire lower). I do not carry cocked-and-locked, I rack the slide as I draw, but I decock anyway. You can never be too safe.
Except that one time during sex, apparently.
I do not check under the bed, or flick the lights on and off. My anxiety, my magical thinking, we have a truce, my brain and I: I’ll do so much irrational stuff to appease it, I’ll do this, go this far, but no further. You have to set limits, with your own mind, lines you don’t cross, if you want to have any chance at a normal-ish life.
I check the trinkets.
Most professional killers take trophies. It’s a big part of the culture. Notches on the gun belt or rifle stock or grips, scraps of clothing. Other nastier stuff. Ears, teeth… body parts. I’ve always found it distasteful. No… I’ve always found it scary. Deeply ghoulish. Blitz taking selfies with the dead, that’s distasteful. Chaz tee-bagging the bodies, that was just gross… but the trophies…
… the rooms just full of horns, or wings, or shark teeth and dog-collars, wall after wall, having them looking down at you all the time....
I still have nightmares about that fucking house. Not as often as I once did. Millie helps.
But no, I swore I’d never take trophies: it’s an ugly habit, low class.
But when you have a rough job, when you get out by the skin of your teeth… you want to… I don’t know acknowledge it? Give some thanks to a vague higher power for getting back alive? Mark the moment somehow-
(...and not just because your magical thinking says if you don’t you won’t make it back next time…)
- So when I have a bad job, when I nearly die, when we make it even when we shouldn’t… I mark the moment. I go into the nearest mom and pop junk store, and buy something to mark the moment. An offering, a thank you to myself, for me and Millie getting out alive.
Looking over the shelf for the first time since hearing about the pregnancy, is like looking at it with new eyes. Fuck… we’re nearly died a lot.
A toy van (that first job, fuck what a mess), a universal remote, some Loo-loo land merch, A tiny fish bobble head, two ceramic rodeo clowns (I’ll get him some day), some throwing stars, some turquoise, a just married card (rest in piss Chaz), a plaster angel, a laminated news-clipping about the trial… Fuck me I nearly die a lot, I think, as I put the ceramic penguin (I call him Mr Slurs) facing due south, because Millie sometimes moves him when dusting and never puts him back quite right. Looking back on it… it’s kind of scary.
But I align it correctly, as if that will somehow keep the bad luck away. And as I do, Millie waiting (Satan I love her so much) I hate myself for that sort of woolly thinking: that idea that if I can just get all the pieces in the right position, it will magically all be okay. Hate myself as as we head out the door and I set the alarm before we head off to work: it’s irrational.
Worse, it’s Imprecise.
People don’t understand the difference between precision, and accuracy. They think that they’re the same thing, or that precision is just a fancy name for accuracy, or visa-versa.
Accuracy is how close you get to the target, Precision, is how repeatable you are. How tight the grouping. How reliable you are.
Of the two, I prefer precision.
Bad accuracy, that you can teach so long as they are consistent, making the same errors every time, that you can improve on over time. Poor precision? That’s a lot harder to sort. And even if you’re precise, but inaccurate. If you’re wrong but you’re consistently wrong… that’s an easy fix, right? You adjust the windage and elevation: a few turns of the screw here, tighten that there, and you can guide even the worst accuracy back onto target, walk it in…
I’m not talking about shooting, by the way.
Blitz has a screw loose. He’s a nightmare, dangerous, and deeply, deeply annoying… but he’s consistently annoying. There is something deeply broken inside him (inside all of us), but it’s consistent. His behaviour is outrageous, and disrespectful, and beyond a joke, and deeply hurtful at times… but it’s predicable. You can, once you’re used to it, plan around it. He’s consistent.
He’s precise. He’s a little ceramic bird in the right position, facing due south. It doesn’t stress me out.
Loona too. She’s shooting a little low and a little wide, and I’m the one getting hit by the flyers: she’s a rude, aggressive, conceited, stubborn emotionally stunted mess who enjoys riling me up but doesn’t have her father’s ability to stop before she goes too far, and it’s all the fucking time… but it’s consistent. Predictable.
Precise. It could be fixed.
Milllie, well Millie is perfect. Predictable and predictably good, good to me. Better than I deserve. We don’t even need to talk, she can just give me a look, and I know what she needs or what’s to do. Precision itself. A little more… boisterous than me at times, hitting a tad high… but precise as a Swiss watch. Reliability itself.
Stolas…
Stolas can be accurate, very accurate: getting exactly what he needs, doing exactly what he should, like that time with the human agents, like that time he swung in at exactly the nick of time to save Blitzø at the trial. He can be in the right place, at the right time, and do and say exactly what needs to be said and done to get himself, and us, out safely.
He’s also prone to starting random fights with Goetia, failing to notice assassination attempts, and spiralling into hurting everyone he loves because he’s carrying trauma and power he doesn’t fully understand. That tendency to act decisively with no hesitation that makes him so formidable when it’s working in your favour swinging back round, like a pendulum, double edged, like the sword of Damocles (which is about the temptation of gay sex, if you read the original Greek) coming right back at you, and it’s him that gets cut.
Him… and those around him. And that incudes Millie.
I want to like Stolas. I do. And I don’t dislike him.
But I can’t trust him, not as he is now, and it’s not his fault. Not with what’s he’s been through.
It’s he’s accurate… but lacks precision. He’s out of place. I can’t predict what he’s going to do. He can’t.
And I learnt very early on to fear men, particularly powerful men, who’s movements I can’t predict.
I can’t fix that in me. I’ve tried. And if there is the slightest possibility I’m going to be a father, I can’t live with that fear, I realise, locking my front door. He is, right now, the biggest obstacle between me and my peace of mind. The weak link in my found family, the loosest of the loose canons in our armoury.
So I have to fix him, somehow.
I have to make him precise.