AN: No one ever wants to read Rorschach or Schoolboy Blues because of their length of 30 to 40 types pages each, so... I wrote this. It's not as good as my usual fare, I guess, but that's because I didn't give myself much room to stretch out any plot it might have had. I find it kind of boring, but I consider it a taste of my general work. ^^';;;; I DID put effort into it, though, believe me! Read, please?? *not even bother with the other usual categories*

Sweet Like Sylvia
by TalentlessMoo

The tracks clicked, a forewarning of the C train's long-awaited arrival. Sylvia rocked back and forth impatiently on her mary-janed heels, tugging with her free hand at the white tights that wrinkled around her small, bony ankles.

“Sylvia, would you quit it? We're too close to the edge for you to be doing that,” I admonished her, though not harshly. We stood near the end of the platform, where the train was fastest coming in and the last car always stopped.

“I'll be fine,” she retorted with the confidence of every eight year old in her balance. I snorted in derision.

“If you say so.”

“Where are we going today, Seth?”

“The museum, I told you already.”

“No, you didn't,” she pouted up at me. “You just said you'd pick me up after school.”

“Fine. We're going to the museum. That's twice I've told you in less than five minutes. Okay?”

“If you get me a hot dog,” my sister grinned.

“I'll getcha two if you get the hell away from the edge of the platform,” I told her.

“Deal.” She took a step back, rejoining me at my side and slipping her small, soft pudgy hand into my own wide semi-callused one. She frowned for a moment.

“Ma says I shouldn't let you spend so much money on me,” she informed me slowly, brow still furrowed.

“Oh? Why's that?” I wasn't paying much attention as I leaned over the side of the platform to peer into the tunnel. Where the hell was that train? I could swear up and down I'd heard it just a minute ago...

“She says it doesn't come from a good place.”

~

“She's a fool,” the boy muttered from underneath tousled blond bangs. “Bonafide fool.” A well-manicured hand darted out from a pocket on his expensive-looking hunter-green blazer to wipe imaginary sweat off his upper lip, then was shoved back in.

“Referral?” I asked calmly, ignoring his disgruntled chatter.

“Ashton Fife,” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet nervously. He'd chosen a good referral; Ashton Fife was one of my more frequent customers, a rather disturbed aristocratic boy who liked to stow weaponry in discreet corners of his room, against any intruders he might one day face, real or imagined.

“I'll need your name for future business and for referrals before any transactions are made,” I informed him, folding my arms. I didn't sell to the nameless.

“Avery Green.”

“Any particular make or model you'd like, or would you just like to look at some inventory?” My voice remained smooth and businesslike.

“Can I take a look at your short rifles?” He kept glancing at the mouth of the incredibly narrow alley, and constantly lifting his Mephisto-shod feet as if to free them of mud. As it was, he was standing on solid, dry concrete, but the neighborhood was far from friendly to those of his financial status.

“Not too many choose these,” I told him as I lifted one of my plastic briefcases out of the black duffel bag I had lain by my feet. I placed the briefcase, one slightly bigger than standard, on my cheap folding table, and clicked it open. I hadn't used to carry my inventory in briefcases, but that was before I'd started making good money.

“Take a look,” I said as I spun it gently around to face him; the requested short rifles lay, ammunitionless, in neat rows upon red velveteen.

“Where do you get this stuff, anyway? You don't look like you have the money for this,” Avery Green mumbled.

“That's my own business, if you want to buy a weapon from me,” I snapped. I wasn't going to get my father's former gun collection into this.

I'd started this small setup of mine a year or two ago, when my parents divorced. My father, inconsolable and now impoverished, ordered me to take his prized gun collection to the pawn shop so we'd have some money to live on until he found himself a job (my mother had been the moneymaker in the family before the divorce).

I'd procrastinated a few days, spending most of my time after school watching TV shows I didn't like or care about. Doing homework was a laughable chore; my school's academic standards were rock bottom, and required no work that might lead to a future. I did like to watch the news, however, secretly and strangely reveling everytime a molestation, school shootout or anything involving ill judgement ending badly, was reported. Scant seconds after the rush of glee, I would mentally kick myself to the hypothetical floor for being such a sick bastard. Only to breathlessly await more.

On one of these typical nights, as my father had glibly announced his getting a job working in a plus size women's clothing store, the reporter who normally did the kind of stories I liked had appeared on the screen, bobbing her head vigorously and blinking her eyes with every word. I always noticed her lips went to the side, and it irritated me until I thought of how superficial I was being. Then I would be annoyed again as she started to speak, until I heard what she spewed.

“Today, an unlicensed gun dealer was discovered and arrested near a prestigious private school, where shootouts, though never on a large scale –– never more than one injury or fatality with every shooting –– do occur often. Authorities are reportedly unwilling to deal with the matter beyond arresting the dealer.”

Probably bribed, I had snorted to myself. Cops would stab their eyes out for the right price, greedy pigs. But I realized this was an opportunity to sell my father's guns, probably for a lot more than what the pawn shop would pay me.

Just one time, to get rid of them all, in one day, I had told myself. If there's any left, I'll just take them to the pawn shop.

Avery Green was lifting a gun from its case, quickly peering down the sighting and smiling grimly. “This'll do,” he said, voice gravelly with his dancing nerves. “She'll see.”

I didn't bother asking who “she” was; probably some slightly more popular girl who'd refused this guy a date, and unknowingly earned herself a rabid enemy. I knew the type, having worked with their disquieted killers for roughly a year. Instead I gave Avery Green my most businesslike smile, shook his soft hand, and waved him farewell as he stalked, a little too obviously, out of the alley, new weapon in his pantleg.

I wondered ––

~

“ –– where that train is,” I murmured to myself, scratching my head.

“I wanna gooo!” Sylvia whined, stomping her feet rapidly and impatiently. “Where's the train?!” Still holding my hand, she swung out toward the edge of the platform to look into the tunnel herself, squinting for signs of headlights or a faint blue circle.

Alarmed, I swung her right back toward the wall (where she belonged) and shook her shoulders vigorously.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You wanna get killed?” I berated her. “You don't know I would've been able to hang on. I could have let go by accident and you would've gotten killed. You remember what I told you about the third rail?” She glanced sullenly off to the side.

“I asked you if you remember what I told you about the goddamn third rail!” I kept my swearing to a minimum around Sylvia.

“Yeah...” she muttered, scuffing a shining little shoe against the cement.

“Apparently not! Don't you ever –– “ I took a breath, censoring myself. She was only eight, and I had my reservations about that. I also didn't like the dirty looks I got from other people traveling with little kids. “ –– ever –– do that again!”

“I didn't think you would let go, though,” she whined in her defense.

“Bull...crap.” Censoring to the best of my feeble abilities.

“You're all... strong and stuff,” she said, stumbling over the words as she tried to make eloquence out of words of the opposite nature. She hugged my waist in her one-shot effort to earn my forgivnance (AN: I can't believe that's the actual word, AND I spelled it right, to boot), and pathetically (for me, anyway) it worked.

“Look, just... don't go near the tracks again, okay?” I asked her gently.

“Right,” she said, looking distracted. Oh well, I did give it a shot. I wondered what kind of image we made: Fair-skinned Sylvia in her schoolgirl uniform, not a scuff on her, with perfectly groomed red hair adorned by a jauntily tilted black beret; then me, close to olive in skin tone, black fuzzy cap of hair hidden by a beanie that had obviously seen better days, and the rest of my body clothed mostly in shades of olive green and khaki, sort of skater-ish looking clothes.

I wondered if people thought I was her kidnapper.

~

“I don't care!”

I sat outside the school's guidance office (a royal joke, in my opinion). I had been waiting to be next so I could just replace my lost metrocard and go home, but the current occupant was obviously going to be awhile.

“I hate you!” I heard in a higher-pitched voice than the first, and a girl in purple plaid pants burst through the door, crying exaggeratedly. The door slammed shut behind her, no one on her heels, and she collapsed in a heap on the bench I was seated upon, crying more.

Was it any of my business to ask what was wrong?

No, not really. I'd never seen this girl in purple plaid pants before just now.

“What happened?” I asked the girl in purple plaid pants, whose business was none of mine. She had her feet on the bench, knees pulled up to her head, arms wrapped around her shins, and her face buried between her kneecaps. At the question, she lifted her face, red from crying, putting it between her knees, and possibly from humiliation, though from me or from whoever was in the office I couldn't be sure.

“Who the hell are you?” she spat, blunt. Her expression was not an amiable one, though not exactly angry, either.

“Seth Moran,” I offered affably. “I know it's none of my business, but I'm kind of curious.”

“Go away, asshole,” she retorted, muffled on the last word as she replaced her head in its former place, where she could cry into her purple plaid pants.

We sat in silence for the next five minutes, before she spoke again. “It's my stupid dad. I hate him. He's such an asscrack.”

“What'd he do?” Not reminding her that she was the one who chose to answer my question, make her affairs mine as well.

“He says if I don't stop failing half my classes, he's going to transfer me to some ‘ladies' school' upstate. A boarding school where I get taught by fucking nuns more about proper etiquette than anything else.” She sniffled, pausing in her story. “I don't want to go. It's bad enough here, with like one friend who doesn't even care about me as much as he cares about his stupid bimbo girlfriend –– and believe me, I know how selfish and dumb that sounds –– but it'll be worse upstate. My rights won't be limited, they'll be gone.”

I didn't know what to tell her. Not that it was shocking, horrible, oh my god this poor wretched girl, but... There just wasn't really a response to that. Oh well? Too bad? Try getting your grades up?

My problem was solved for me as she continued talking. “It's not like it's my fault I'm failing. My teachers fucking hate me, especially my science teacher. I don't understand anything in that class, and his teaching methods suck. Even when I do get stuff, he still finds a way to fail me! I could be an A+ student in his goddamn class and he'd still give me a 40!

“I just wish I could go kill myself so I wouldn't have to deal with all this shit.”

Such a typical response, was my first thought. My second was to berate myself soundly. One should never even think such things around suicidals. They might get some sort of... vibe off you. And anything can trigger a suicidal.

“Why?” suddenly broke free of my lips, and I wish I hadn't said that. It might be what was on my mind, but it was a stupid question nonetheless.

“Were you not listening, Seth Moran?!” she demanded angrily. “Did I not just give you a list of my problems?!” Puckered tiny scars adorning her forearms reflecting the overhead lights as she waved the limbs energetically. So typical, I thought again, and again beating myself up inwardly for thinking such cruel deliberations.

I decided to go on speaking my mind, even if Pretty in Plaid hated me forever. I didn't even know her name.

“I don't think, though, that you should die until you're happy. If you die sad, bitter and alone in the world, people can go on spreading even worse gossip about you, and you're dead, you can't do anything about it. It's not like you can climb out of the grave and kick their asses with zombie-fu, right?”

She stared at me.

“No one's going to remember you the way you want them to remember you. Before you die you've got to find at least one or two people you know will remember the you that you want immortalized, at least until everyone else you know dies. And besides, if you die now, you don't know about the chances you might have had to be happy. Better to wait for natural death. If you're going to choose to take your own life, then... at least choose wisely, y'know?”

Now that it was out of my mouth, it sounded terribly stupid, but Plaid was starting to smile. “Yeah? You think?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, blushing a little. What moronic, school counselor-like things to say to someone I'd just met.

“Thanks, Seth Moran,” she said, grinning a bit. “I'm Janie.”

“Like the song?”

“Sure. I've got a gun,” she laughed. “Janie's got a gun...”

“They used that joke in a bad movie, I hope you know.”

“Not my fault. I should sue them for taking my name, right?”

“Ha ha. Yeah, sure.” Janie Plaid didn't seem so bad now that her eyes were drying up, though her eyelids were still puffy from the saltwater drops.

“So, you wanna go take the train home together?”

~

“It's right around the corner!” Sylvia squealed. “I see it! I see it! The train is coming!”

“Knowing the C, it'll still be another two minutes before it's here,” I said dryly.

I looked down at her, at this hopping, leaping thing who thought only the best of me. No one had ever told her otherwise, so she trusted me to be good and strong and big-brotherly. I, in turn, doted on her, using a good portion of my gun-racket money on Sylvia, despite Ma being quite well-to-do enough to provide for all of Sylvia's wants and needs and more. She was such a sweet kid, adored by everyone around her, though personally I thought I loved her best.

Sylvia hadn't a bad thought of me anywhere in her little head, and it showed. She was my insurance against all I had warned Janie Plaid against, my ticket to feigned immortality. I hugged her tightly as the C train finally dragged its long grafittied body into the station, moving surprisingly quickly after all the time it had taken to get here.

Sylvia had barely enough time to give me a confused look before I gave her my best smile and leapt off the yellow edge and in front of the monstrosity, and I didn't know if the screaming I heard was her or me or the train ––

~

“ –– conductor was taken by surprise as a suicidal young man, identified by his sister as Seth Moran, leapt in front of the train near the end of the platform, where the train is fastest. Moran's sister, eight-year-old Sylvia Moran, was traveling with her brother to the Museum of Natural History when, unsuspected, Moran jumped the platform and into the tracks.” The woman speaking blinked upon every emphasis of a word, head animatedly bouncing in a set time. The camera cut to a dry-eyed redheaded little girl.

“Do you know why he did it?” an offscreen voice asked, tone kind, before a logo-bound microphone dropped down in front of the girl.

“No,” she whispered. “I don't. He was never sad. He was even happy right before the train hit him.”

The mic disappeared for a moment. “Do you miss him?” the offscreen voice spoke, and the mic reappeared by the girl's mouth.

She looked away from the camera. “Yeah. I wish he hadn't done it. It's the only mean thing he's ever done.”

The cameras shut off, and Sylvia dragged her feet as she returned to her room on the third floor in her mother's luxurious suburbian home. She was starting to hear bad things about Seth from people who didn't know him as well as she did. The twitchy woman with the microphone called him suicidal, which didn't sound good.

She was still talking to the camera even now, telling the world, or at least the world that cared to watch, how Seth had been discovered, after death, as being a weapons dealer near a private school known for school shootouts, and that not only would her dad's apartment be searched, but the school would finally be investigated after years of authorities' “procrastination”, as the twitchy lady put it.

Sylvia finally reached her room, and as she lay down to stare at the ceiling, she wondered how blind she had been to all of Seth's flaws, and if he'd been as good a person as he'd appeared to be to her.

(End, before you end up expecting more)