"Lookit this picture of my mama." Tex ordered with a wave of his wallet.

"That is a Q-tip." Junji replied.

Tex looked down at his hand to see he was holding a Q-tip.

"Hang on, I keep it in one of the back pockets under the Safeway card." Tex said as he tried to open the Q-tip.

"How much pain killer were you given?”

Just an hour prior, Junji had taken Tex to a surprisingly professional black market operating room, where he'd had a tiny box installed in his brain stem that upon being fed a proper series of thought commands would activate a laser grid which would reduce him to cubic millimeters in less than a second.

He'd also been given copious amounts of anesthesia.

"Give me your keys." Junji stated.

Tex examined his surroundings to see they were at his front door. He pulled his keys out of his pocket and handed them to Junji.

"This is a firearm." followed Junji.

"It's the key to my heart, baby."

"And I'm keeping it."

"No!"

"Give me your keys."

Tex scowled and handed Junji his keys.

"This is another Q-tip." Junji said.

Tex removed his pants and handed them to Junji. Junji fished the keys from the front pocket before giving the pants back to Tex.

"Why'd you give me these?" Tex asked as he examined the unfamiliar pair of jeans.

Tex was promptly pulled inside his apartment when his door was opened. While Junji shut the door and locked it, Tex took it upon himself to lie face down on the floor and hug the carpet.

"Mama." he muttered.

"Do you have any other weapons in your apartment?"

"......No."

Tex felt a weight drop on his back. He turned over to discover Junji had tossed his jeans towards him.

In an attempt to put his pants back on, Tex wound up with a pant leg wrapped around his neck.

"I have decided I don't trust you alone with yourself." said Junji.

"Gimme my gun back."

"It will be returned when you are no longer inebriated."

Tex turned back into the floor and frowned. He didn't like the feeling of being so far away from his gun, especially on Christmas.

Christmas!

Tex's eyes snapped open with a sudden idea, allowing him to get a close look at the fibers of his carpet.

"Juji." Tex said to the ground.

"That is not my name."

"If you're gonna take my gun, you gotta do something for me."

"What do you need?"

"Read me a story."

Junji sighed.

"What story?" he asked.

"Go to my bed. There's a lockbox under my mattress. Use the keys to open it."

Junji didn't seem happy about what he was being requested to do, but he did it anyway. About half a minute after Junji's feet had disappeared, Tex heard a clicking sound from the direction of his bed.

"I’ve found a stack of papers." Junji said as he came back. “You seem to have written on them.”

"Listen to my tale."

"They say 'DO NOT READ' on the front. Are you sure you're comfortable with me reading this?"

"It's fine."

"I am not sure if I'm comfortable."

Tex frowned.

"But it's Christmas." he pleaded.

"It's April."

"What else are we gonna do?"

"...That's a good point."

Tex could hear a shuffling sound as Junji sat down on the couch and started to sift through papers.

"How the Grinch Stole Gunmas." Junji read. "You wrote a Christmas story in April?"

"I wrote it in March."

While Tex gave the carpet a loving nuzzle with his cheek, Junji cleared his throat and began to read.

|

Dallas Portemeñe Tex knew something was wrong from the second he'd woken up.

|

Junji stopped reading after a mere one sentence.

"We need to talk about your name." said Junji.

"No." Tex replied with a frown.

"So your mother's surname was Portemeñe, which is your middle name, and then you changed your nickname to your last name."

"I guess."

"What was your father's last name?"

"Fortworth."

|

It didn't take him long to figure out what it was, either. Something was off about his pillow. After giving his eyes a quick rub, he lifted it to see that his handgun was gone.

|

"Ahh!" Tex yelped.

Junji stopped reading.

"Sorry, got scared." Tex followed. "Keep going."

|

Panic began to set in for Dallas as he thought about the night before. He had a clear memory of putting his gun away, which made him only assume the worst.

He searched his apartment twice. Nothing.

From Supreme Jackass

anybody seen my gun?

To Garbage Band

you too?

From Supreme Jackass

what do you mean

From Gamer Gril

you two obviously ain't seen the news

To Garbage Band

what news?

From Gamer Gril

every gun in Seattle just disappeared

To Garbage Band

hell they go?

From Gamer Gril

they fizzled out of existence

From Gamer Gril

it's a christmas miracle

To Garbage Band

more like christmas fearicle

|

"Why'd you stop?" asked Tex.

"I wanted to inform you that your joke was physically painful for me to read."

|

From Spoodge King

I would like to inform you that your joke was physically painful for me to read.

|

"Damn it." Junji followed.

|

Dallas darted his eyes around his apartment. For the first time in years, he no longer felt safe in his place of residence.

To Garbage Band

this might be a little problematic for us

To Garbage Band

we gotta figure something out

From Gamer Gril

let's not talk about it here

From Gamer Gril

how does eleven sound?

They ended up agreeing on eleven, which gave Dallas enough time to catch a bit of the news as he made his way out the door.

"...all guns within the city limits have vanished," one news anchor said to the other, "and reports popping up from King County show that any attempts to pass firearms into the city limits have resulted in the immediate disintegration of said firearms."

"It's a Christmas miracle, huh?" the other replied.

"Sure is. Seems that through the power of wishing, locals have managed to alter the laws of physics."

"Guess murder's just over now for them, huh."

"Yup. Reckon the rest of the country could follow in their footsteps, if they got the will. We could be a gun free nation by sundown."

Dallas shivered at the thought. He grabbed a pocket knife before he left. Although Junji wasn't waiting for him at the bottom, Tex decided to run to work anyway and even made it up the staircase.

He opened the door to see Tala and Barton.

"Hey look everyone, it's Tex and his normal sized ass!" Tala greeted.

"You're late." Barton grunted.

"Sorry." Dallas replied. "Got distracted by the news."

Atop Tala's lap was a stuffed Barney the Dinosaur toy. Dallas hadn't noticed it when he'd come in, but he could no longer stop noticing it after seeing it once.

"Hell'd you get that thing?" he asked.

"My weird uncle Elan gave me it for Christmas." Tala replied. “I don't really know what to do with it."

Dallas had never met any of Tala's family, but he'd always been curious.

"What're we supposed to be talking about?" followed Tala.

"How to kill people without guns." Barton answered.

Considering the fact that they'd broken a neck, punched someone to death, and almost used a lethal injection all since Junji had joined, Dallas wasn't too worried about it.

"We got options." he replied. "Harder options, but they're there."

"I'm more worried about the country." said Barton. "Last time the hippies got their way, they had a concert so big you had to shit in the woods and then they bragged about it for a hundred years."

Tala scoffed.

"Y'all talk and talk about how the government is gonna walk all over us if we don't got guns." she replied. "But you know what else might not happen? Public shootings, police brutalities--"

Barton snored. Dallas looked over to see that she'd fallen asleep.

"Barton, quick!" he said as he shook her awake. "The Chinese are coming up the stairs!"

"Hwaa--ahh!" Barton yelped as she pulled up her shirt and reached into her shoulder hole, only to realize there wasn't a gun.

Dallas watched as panic grew in Barton's eyes before quickly turning into irritation.

"Don't do that." Barton said as she kicked Tex's foot.

|

"Wait." Junji muttered as his reading came to a halt.

"What?" asked Tex.

"Why did you change your name to Tex? You called yourself Dallas before."

"I started writing this thinking I was just gonna call myself Dallas, cause it sounded all proper and such, but then I realized it ended with an 's'."

"Why does that matter?"

"Cause if you're doing a possession of a name that ends with an 's', you gotta put the little thing at the end of the name instead of doing it and then the 's'. Didn’t like the way it looked."

"What a reason."

|

There was a little jostle as the door knob started to move. A moment later, the door opened to reveal Junji.

"Ahh!" Barton and Tex both yelped.

"Hello." Junji greeted.

Barton breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Oh thank god." she muttered. "It's just the Japanese."

Junji took a seat at the table next to Tex and put his feet up in Tex’s lap. Tex promptly removed them.

"You hear the news, Junji?" said Tex. "We ain't allowed to use guns no more."

"Yes." Junji replied.

"You sure?" Tala asked Junji. "Reckoned you'd look a little more down about it."

|

"Does everyone talk like this in your mind?" Junji wondered.

"Talk like what?"

"Never mind."

|

"I am a spectacle of both a physical and meta-physical nature. I've no need for such a primitive technology as firearms to commiteth thine homicides."

|

"Kutabare." Junji swore.

|

"He's full of shit." Barton replied. "Gun beats Bruce Lee every time."

"Where'd you learn that?" asked Tex.

"We watched one of them Kung-Fu movies in college."

"You went to college?"

"Yeah, I got a degree in the History of Wars Between September 1st, 1939 and September 2nd, 1945."

"What did you study, Tex?" Tala asked.

"Uh, huh." Tex stammered.

"He studied how to suck penis at the university of dropping out of high school." answered Barton.

"Why’d you drop out of high school?" Tala pushed.

"Cause it was stupid." Tex replied.

"That's a good point, actually."

As Tala turned back to Junji, Tex thought back to all the times his teachers had called him stupid for his poor performance in school. They were right that he had been and still was a moron, but on the bright side, most of them were dead.

|

"Do you actually believe that?" Junji asked.

"That it's good my teachers died? No, I was just being funny."

"That was not what I was referring to."

|

"What about you, Junji?" Tala wondered.

"I double majored in Theoretical Physics and Quantum Mechanics." Junji answered.

Barton gagged.

"What?" asked Junji.

"What'd you minor in, Dead Languages?" Barton replied.

"No, I was too busy working for my mother for a minor."

|

"This is accurate." Junji said. "Both my majors and working for my mother."

"Course it is. I listen when you talk."

Junji didn't reply, but he didn't start reading again, either.

"Something wrong?" Tex asked.

"What's my last name?"

"...Huh?"

"What's my last name, Dallas?"

|

"What are you supposed to do with a quantum mechanics degree?"

"Understand quantum mechanics."

"And what are you supposed to do with that?"

"Understand."

Barton scoffed.

"If you can name one relevant thing you learned in Chakra class," she started, "I'll pee in Tex's mouth."

"Huh?" asked Tex.

Junji poked himself in the chin with an expression of thought.

"I would like to talk about subatomic particle movements." he said slowly. “Does anyone have a sheet of paper I could use?"

"I do!" Tala replied immediately.

Tala handed Junji a piece of paper and a pouch of colored pencils from her bag. Junji turned the paper to landscape before he got to drawing.

It looked like he was making a tic-tac-toe grid.

"If we were to continuously zoom in on reality," Junji began, "we would eventually reach a group of the smallest particles in the universe. Here, I have drawn a diagram."

Tex looked over to examine Junji's drawing in the top corner.

"This black dot is the particle whose movement we will be observing." followed Junji.

|

"This is a good way to explain this concept." Junji said. "Why do you know about this?"

"You got drunk and yelled it at me."

"...My apologies."

|

"What are the blue particles?" Barton asked, to Tex's surprise.

"Assume that they are undergoing the same process as our main particle, but we won't be studying them."

Junji drew a second diagram to the right of the first.

"The particle is going to move to one of the squares next to it." he explained as he showed Barton the drawing.

"The green spaces represent possible paths the particle can take, and the numbers--"

"Represent the probability of it taking that path." Barton cut in. "Yeah, I get it."

|

"Why is this relevant?" Junji wondered.

"For a joke at the end. Keep reading."

|

"But even with these probabilities, the path it takes will still be dictated by complete and utter randomness. This is where multiverse theory comes in."

"...Okay."

"The particle has a sixty percent chance of going this way, directly to the right. This means it will go that way across sixty percent of universes. Here, let's say we have five universes."

"If some of the particles move a certain way, it may affect something that may affect something that may affect your brain chemistry or the physics of a situation differently than if the particles had moved a different way."

Barton chewed on her lower lip as she examined the diagram.

"Does that make sense?" Junji followed.

"Yup.” answered Barton. “Everything that can happen does happen but some things are more likely to can happen than others."

"Oh. Yes, that is it."

Barton's face shone with understanding as she examined the diagram. Junji's face shone with pride as he examined Barton's face.

"Well, this was a waste of time." Barton said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen-like device.

"What are you doing?"

"Freeing up space."

Barton brought the pen to the memory-remover plate in the back of her neck. A moment later, her face turned blank.

"Huh, what's going on?" she asked Junji.

"I explained quantum randomness to you and then you wiped your memory."

"Oh. Good for me."

Barton didn't seem to understand why Junji looked so exasperated.

"What?" she wondered.

"How could you do that?"

"I don't like learning things that don't matter."

"How does that not matter?"

"How does it matter?"

Junji’s expression contorted from desperation to determination.

"Do you not care about the truth?" he asked. "Does learning the philosophies followed by the reality that makes us and everything else not seem important to you?"

Barton snored.

"Barton, wake up!" Tex said as he shook her awake. "The Chinese are at the door!"

"Hwaa--ahh!" Barton yelped.

Once she’d woken up again, Barton realized right away that there wasn't a threat.

"That's it, I don't feel safe without a weapon." Barton announced while she took a stand. "I'll see you ladies next time someone decides to torture a robot.”

As Barton made her way out of sight, Tex realized he didn't feel safe, either.

"Think she’s got a point." said Tex. "Catch you on the flip flop.”

Tex got out of his chair and left the room, narrowly avoiding the smack Junji attempted to land on his butt.

|

Junji stopped reading with a tiny scoff.

"Why do you write me this way?" he asked.

"Hmm?"

"When have I ever touched you like this?"

"You're real handsy."

Junji let out a noise of exasperation but continued.

|

The stress of losing his gun started to sink in full force for Tex as he jogged back to his apartment. The closer he got, the more he was looking forward to seeing his wife of ten years. She always knew how to make him feel better.

|

"You did not mention you had a wife at the start." Junji said.

"I got lonely."

|

He opened the front door of his apartment to see her sitting on the couch.

"Hey there." Tex greeted. "How was work?"

"Terrible." she replied. “How am I supposed to teach preschool without a gun?"

"God, that's such a good point."

As he spoke, Tex took a seat on the couch next to his wife. He put his arm around her when she laid her head down on his shoulder.

"I just hope we don't go country wide with the Christmas wish." said Tex.

"Southern states would never go for it."

"Don’t matter what seventy percent of thirty percent of states want for themselves. It only matters what fifty-one percent of the country wants for everyone."

"Is that what democracy is?"

"Unclear."

As Tex's unnamed wife sunk farther into his shoulder, Tex wondered if maybe Christmas wouldn't be so bad after all.

"Thought you'd be more uppity about losing your baby." she said.

Tex frowned to remember his gun and all the good times he'd had sneaking it through the TSA and killing people.

"Well, least I still got my other baby." he replied.

"You're sweet, cowboy. Tell me. There anything I can do to make you feel better?"

"...Reckon there might be."

|

"Why'd you stop?" Tex asked.

"This is a graphic sex scene."

"Mhm."

"Is there a reason you've chosen to continuously clarify that the sex is not anal?"

Not for the first time, Tex was hit with the suspicion that Junji hadn't been raised Catholic.

|

After waking from his immediate post-orgasm nap, Tex tinkered around in the garage that he also had until nightfall. He slept long and soundly, but the sex he'd gotten the night before had been so great that he woke up still feeling a little frazzled.

To compensate, he left for a nearby coffee shop after kissing his wife goodbye.

There was snow on the ground and Christmas lights lined all the stores. Tex tried and failed to feel any Christmas spirit. Not wanting to support Starbucks, he ventured into a local business to discover they'd been bought by Starbucks.

Tex sighed and got in line.

"Dallas?" a familiar voice asked.

Tex blinked.

"Barton?" he replied. "What're you doing here?"

"I'm getting coffee, asshole."

A middle-aged woman in line before Barton turned around to face her. Tex could see that she had a small child next to her.

"Excuse me, sir?" the woman spat at Barton. "Could you please not use that kind of language around my son?"

"Grow up, Billy." Barton said to her son.

The mother of the child said something back to Barton, and then Barton said something back to her, but Tex found himself distracted by a new figure who entered the coffee shop.

It was a man, maybe in his late twenties. His appearance was unkempt from his ratty shoes to his messy hair, and although it was winter, the long trench coat he was wearing seemed a bit out of place.

"...don't care how many Nazis you've beaten to death with your bare hands." the mother told Barton. "That doesn't give you the right to--"

"HANDS UP!" a voice shouted, bringing everyone's personal conversations to an immediate halt.

Tex didn’t even have to turn his head to know that the voice belonged to the man in the coat. When he looked over, he saw that the man’s coat was now open.

Clear bags of different substances lined the inside of the fabric, and the scent of fertilizer and propane filled the air. Tex distantly recognized the scent from nearly twenty years prior.

Tex tried to grab at his pocket, but was knocked over on top of Barton when the other patrons started to push and shove with panic.

"Calm down!" the man yelled. "The suicide bombing will be over faster if everybody behaves!"

|

"Are you allowed to make jokes on this subject?" asked Junji.

"Who's gonna get offended? It's not like any real suicide bombers are going to read this."

|

Tex managed to get onto his feet only to find that the bomber man's attention was on him.

"You there!" the bomber shouted. "You are about to die in the name of religion or social commentary or whatever!"

With the man's focus elsewhere, the woman with the child reached into her purse and pulled out a taser pulse. Tex watched from the corner of his eye as she fired it.

The taser hit the man in the leg.

"Good thing I wore clothes today." he said.

While the bomber brought a lighter out, the barista lifted a can of mace. Tex barely had time to cover his eyes when the barista sprayed a cloud of pepper in the direction of the bomber.

The can proved itself capable of being able to fire from the range of about a dozen feet, with the mace coating the man's face, but all he did was howl in pain.

Tex covered his mouth and coughed, but he only ended up sucking in more pepper-tainted air in the process. He did his best not to let it cloud his thinking.

"I got the will to murder twelve strangers." the bomber shouted as Tex finally managed to reach into his pocket and find the altered metal tube he’d been looking for. “You really think I give a damn about some piss in my eyes?"

"Language!" the mother yelped as she put her hands over her son's ears.

As the bomber lit the lighter, Tex extended his hand in a wink and aimed his shot.

There was a loud, noise-protectionless bang as Tex pulled the trigger on the metal tube and fired a gumball-shaped hunk of lead into the center of the target's body. For a second, the scent of methodically measured mixture of charcoal, Sulphur, and saltpeter overpowered the smell of pepper.

Tex lowered the end of the metal rod in his hand with care, only to flinch when six more shots rang out.

The bomber was no longer moving. Tex looked over at Barton to see that she also had something gun-shaped in her hand.

"Homemade hand cannon?" Barton asked him.

"Made it last night." Tex replied. "What'd you do?"

"3D printer."

"What about the bullets?"

"Hand loaded."

The panic of the coffee shop inhabitants turned into triumphant shouts as people realized they were going to live to see Christmas. Tex would have liked to've joined them, but Barton didn't seem particularly interested in staying.

|

"Is to've a proper contraction?" asked Junji.

"Who gives a shit?"

"Harvard."

"So no one important."

Junji let out a short laugh.

"I enjoy our friendship." he replied.

|

"We're saved!" Billy shouted.

"Oh, how foolish we were to make a gun ban through the power of Christmas wishing." his mother said to the sky. "I hope that Jesus will find it in his heart to reverse the damage us city folk have done with our rash thinking and cold nature and individualistic culture and the way we always give anyone the stink eye if they try to start up a conversation with us while we're both waiting for the elevator."

The second he'd hopped over the dead body and made his way out the door, Tex was pulled aside with all the other witnesses by a team of paramedics. And by the time they'd finished explaining the situation to the paramedics, a news team had arrived and manhandled Tex into giving an interview alongside Barton.

“Well, we don’t usually report on terrorist attacks where the terrorist was taken down by a gun,” the interviewer explained, “but this seems to be a special case. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

|

"That is a bold claim." said Junji.

|

The interviewer was a large, jolly man with a red suit, a big white beard, and a loaded bazooka strapped to his back. Tex felt he somehow looked familiar.

"...shot him six times in the chest." Barton finished. "It was a lot like this time back in Civil War II when--"

"And there you have it, folks." the man interrupted, shooting a wink into the camera. "Be careful what you wish for."

Tex watched as the man took the bazooka off his back and fired it into the air. But instead of a missile, red and green glitter began to rain from the sky.

A weight dropped into Tex’s pocket. He touched the outside of his pants to feel the unmistakable shape of his old gun.

"Thank you, sir!" Tex said to the man. "I don't know how you did it, but you did it well."

"Of course, little boy." the man replied. "And you know what? I might have one more surprise for you."

Tex felt a vibration against his leg as his phone started to ring. He pulled it out to see it was from his wife.

"Honey, I'm pregnant!" she announced.

"Oh boy!" Tex replied.

Tex turned around to thank the strange man with the beard, but found he’d somehow vanished without a trace.

Still, Tex thought he could hear a familiar ho ho ho in the distance.

"Who the fuck was that?" Barton asked.

"I think it was Krampus." answered Tex.

"Lame. Let's go."

Tex was about to ask where they were going when both of their phones buzzed.

From Gamer Gril

hey tex, you and barton are on the news

From Gamer Gril

you two doing alright?

To Garbage Band

my wife is pregnant!

From Gamer Gril

you have a wife?

From Supreme Jackass

guns are back i wanna celebrate

To Garbage Band

what you wanna do

From Gamer Gril

can we go to your place?

From Supreme Jackass

you know what? sure. i'm inviting all four of you assholes to my place for some scotch

From Supreme Jackass

bring guns

From Spoodge King

That does not sound like a wise combination.

From Gamer Gril

where do you live again?

Barton sent her address into the chat. Tex thought he was going to have to take the bus, but for the first time in her life, Barton offered to give him a ride without charging him. She claimed it was a Christmas present, but Tex knew that it was actually because she was in a good mood and secretly cared about him even though she never really acted like it even a little.

Traffic was bad, and the suburbs weren't too far away. It would've been faster if they'd run. Tex got the feeling that Junji and Tala both had chosen to do so, as they were waiting at the gate when Barton pulled up.

Tex hopped out of the car while Barton dealt with the gate. He walked over to Tala and Junji to see they were watching the news on Tala's phone, where the mayor of Seattle was being interviewed.

"...shooter by the name of Sam Hyde was taken down by another gun, and so we've decided not to go country wide with the ban after this incident." said the mayor. "And with this knowledge, the Chinese government will no longer be going forth with their invasion."

"Fooey." Xi Jinping replied as he kicked at the dirt with his foot.

Tex stopped watching the news when he noticed Junji was staring at him.

"Hmm?" asked Tex.

"I am impressed by your craftsmanship and quick hands." Junji said fondly. "I got you this to wear as a symbol of my gratitude."

As he spoke, Junji held up a Santa outfit so skimpy that it was just a pair of red suspenders and tear-off pants.

"You're icky." Tex denied firmly, secretly into it.

|

"What is this?" Junji asked with disgust. "Do you want me to assault you?"

"I don't get what the big deal is."

"Ahh, what of it.”

|

"I got the scotch in my house." Barton announced. “Who’s ready to celebrate Jesus?”

They ended up drinking around the firepit in Barton's massive backyard. It was a little cold, but the fire was too nice for any of them to complain.

"We got our guns back, Dallas and me stopped a vague suicide bombing, and I'm almost buzzed." Barton said as she finished her third bottle of eighty proof scotch. "Guess everything worked out."

"Well, not everything." Tala replied as she held up her stuffed Barney toy. "I still don't know what to do with this."

Barton looked at the Barney toy. Then she looked at the handgun on the table. She then looked back at Barney.

They all had a few more drinks.

"No drill camp and no shined boots, in Dixie’s armed militia.” Tex sang with Barton as he carried her on his shoulders. “All you need to do is shoot, in Dixie’s armed militia.”

|

“Cause time grows short and funds are low. Cloud troops come and cloud troops go. But bless my soul the Newion knows we’re Dixie’s armed militia.” Tex muttered.

|

"Just a little higher, and I'll have the branch." Barton instructed. “There, got it."

Tex tried to hold Barton as steady as he could while she tied the scarf around the tree branch. Once she was done, he carefully lowered her to the ground.

The other end of the scarf had been fastened around Barney's neck, suspending him about four feet from the ground.

"You wanna take the shot?" asked Barton.

"My pleasure." Tex replied.

As Tex grabbed his gun and fitted it with the silencer, Barton pulled out her phone and positioned herself a foot to Barney's right, facing Tex.

"Barton, I don't think you should stand down range." Tala said.

"Dallas is a good shot." Barton slurred in response.

"Yeah, what's the worst that could happen?" Tex asked as he readied his weapon.

Barton's phone made a noise when she hit the record button.

"We got Dallas, we got Barney." Barton narrated. "Barney's about to meet his maker."

"Die you commie fuck--whoa!"

Tex was cut off as a fat snowflake managed to hit him at an angle that his glasses couldn't block. Instinctively, his hand flicked to the right.

There was a bang.

Tex brought the tip of his gun down in immediate horror. He took a desperate glance around him to try and figure out where the bullet had gone, but didn't have to look very far to get his answer.

"Oww." Barton said as she looked down at her chest.

Tex ran over to Barton as quick as he could and examined her with a face as white as a sheet. There was a hole in her shirt, just over her left breast.

Barton lifted her shirt to reveal the tiniest red nick in the side of the hole she'd already had in her shoulder.

Tex breathed out a massive sigh of relief. He reached his arms out to wrap Barton inside them, but she denied the gesture.

"Don't make it weird." she scolded.

"Goddamn, what are the chances of that?" Tex wondered.

"Minuscule." Junji replied. "It's likely you're standing by her dead body right now in a substantial number of universes."

"Ahh!"

Three trillion miles away, Jesus stood on a cloud and watched them all from above.

"And there you have it, good citizens." said Jesus. "Guns can be useful for keeping the peace and protecting yourself from both foreign and local governments, but

|

“It stops there.” said Junji.

“I got bored.”

Junji let out a short chuckle.

"What'd you think?" Tex asked, his eyes filled with hope and wonder.

It took Junji a frighteningly long time to answer.

"It was--it could've been worse." he stammered.

Tex pouted into the carpet.

"The dialogue was well managed," Junji continued, "but you seem to have a very--minimalistic approach to imagery."

"What do I look like, an oil painting? If you wanna see stuff, go outside."

“Why did you wait until the third act to introduce Krampus?”

Tex pouted harder. So much so that he got a taste of the carpet.

"And I cannot believe that gun safety was the mutuality you chose." Junji continued.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You wanted to come to a common ground between anti-gun and pro-gun activists, and the only thing you've given anti-gun activists is the importance of gun safety?"

“Oh, what would’ve you done? Talked about how we should sell all our guns to the black market along with plaster molds of our assholes?”

"No. I would have spoken about non-lethal weaponry.”

Junji’s response wasn’t what Tex had been expecting.

"Yes, pepper spray and tasers often fail." Junji followed. "But perhaps they would not fail if we hadn’t failed to invest in developing anything but lethal weapon after lethal weapon."

"Mmm..."

"What?"

"I'm just saying, if the government was hunting me down, I'd rather it be with a bullet. Don't even wanna know what they'd do to me if I was still alive."

There was a rustle as Junji set the papers down.

"Good news, in that case." he replied. "After today, you will never need to worry about the government catching you alive."

"That's a nice feeling."

As Tex gave the ground another affectionate squeeze, he felt the air shift next to him as Junji stood up from the couch.

“Well, this has been uncomfortably revealing.” said Junji. "I am going to make some tea. Would you like some?"

"Mhm."

Tex heard Junji's feet leave for the kitchenette. After he'd rolled onto his back, Tex found the back pocket of the pants tangled around him and fished out his wallet.

It seemed a little too complicated to open, so Tex just pulled it into a hug.

"Mama." Tex muttered.