Authors: Mikael Aizen
The inside of Lair, on the other hand, was very characteristic of Freckles.
The hallways were covered in teeth--without their owners of course.
Rotting, chipped, noisemakers.
It looked like a dentist's nightmare.
Not that it stopped Jay from being stealthy, but it slowed him down enough to annoy the hell out of him.
Jay heard voices.
"Hey!" he called, marching toward them.
Two men dressed as Toothache Guards--meaning they wore a red ribbon around their left arm--squinched at him from down the hallway.
"Hey!" Jay called again, not slowing.
It took too much effort to walk slowly and quietly over the bloody teeth.
"Yeah?" one of the guards asked.
"I'm not talking to you.
I'm talking to the guy...
Behind you!" he bellowed.
They twisted their necks and Jay was close enough.
"DUCK!" he yelled in their ears.
They ducked.
He kneed one in the face and laid out the other with his elbow.
Too easy.
Jay tied his shirt right over his nose over his bells like a cowboy and took one of the unconscious guard's red bands.
He tied that to his arm.
Now he was in business.
There weren't that many people in the hallways, just other guards that he passed.
Seemed that the alarm had moved most of them to the front.
Jay passed a room.
Backtracked.
Stared.
And hid beside the doorway.
Fucking Mike again?
What the hell?
Gamer and Mike were chatting like best buddies, just the two of them.
Alone.
Jay put his back to the wall, right by the doorway.
First, he never would have expected Gamer to be alone.
Second, seeing Gamer and Mike together...
There goes the rescue plan.
Simplicity and priorities dictated that this was too good an opportunity to pass.
But damn, he wasn't ready for this.
There was a final guttural laugh from the two, and then Jay heard Gamer make his dismissal.
"All right Enforcer, tomorrow," Gamer said.
"Tomorrow," Mike confirmed.
As Mike closed the door behind him, Jay grabbed him by the throat and pushed him into the opposite wall.
"Gamer likes his boytoys alive, too?" he whispered harshly.
"What the hell are you doing here, Mike?"
Jay ignored the gun pressing into his gut.
"Jay," Mike said in recognition.
The gun went back into his holster.
Not what I think then
.
Jay let the Enforcer go.
"I'm working," Mike said.
"There's more to being an Enforcer than being stabbed in the throat."
"So your chummy chummy is an act."
"My chummy chummy is protection.
You think the Enforcers have it easy?
Protection goes two ways.
There aren't many of us left.
You'd know that."
"And you're looking for an out, are you?"
Mikes stony silence told him the truth of it.
Freckles and him had been alone talking because Mike was planning on betraying the Enforcers, not Esperanza...yet.
"Gamer'll mess you up worse than the rest combined.
Better sleeping with the devil."
"What are you here for, Jay.
This isn't exactly your playground.
Everyone knows you'd never step into Lair unless it was important."
Jay still didn't trust him.
He'd make it simple for Mike.
"I want you to go back in there and shoot Gamer."
"Fuck you.
Not a chance."
"He's alone, isn't he?"
"Yeah, but I'm not risking my life cause you say so."
"Then give me your knife and
I'll
do it."
"Crazy hell..." Mike whispered, his eyes wide and dark.
He handed Jay the knife.
Jay spun it in reverse against his forearm.
Then he lunged at Mike, his other hand pinning Mike's gun hand.
Jay pressed the knife against the Enforcer's throat as close as he could without killing him.
"You think I trust you after seeing that?
That I'm dumb enough to let you ruin everything Xiaos and I and everybody else worked for?"
Mike glared at Jay with a horrible expression.
"This how you killed Paul?"
His eyes said contempt better than words.
"Pretty close," Jay responded.
Deceit was part of surviving, he was surprised people seemed to grasp so little of that concept here.
"Now poke your pretty head back into the room and put a bullet into Gamer's head.
If you don't, you're gonna end up looking like your lover."
More glaring like he couldn't hate Jay more.
Jay hissed.
"Move."
He kept the knife real close to the Enforcer.
Mike took his gun and removed it, then took a step back to kick in the door.
Just before the foot struck the door, Mike's meaty hand slapped into the back of Jay's head, punching his forehead
Smack
into the door frame.
Light buzzed across Jay's vision as he heard the door slam open and felt his body thrown forward.
Jay kept his hand on the knife, willing himself to hold it as he crashed into the tooth covered floor.
"Look what I found," Mike said.
The shirt had slipped off from around Jay's face.
"Ho ho ho!
It's one of Santa's reindeers," Freckles' voice chortled.
Jay shivered and his arms tingled with sensation, his hand barely held onto the knife.
Mike, I'm going to kill you first, even before Gamer.
Good plan?
No.
Did he mean it?
Spawn fucking ass-shit yes.
"Bitch was right, he mentioned that you think you can play the Game, but you're always a step behind," Gamer mused.
Bitch too?
"You're too trusting he said.
Said he could get right through your guard.
Looks like Bitch was right."
No.
The spinning inside his head slowed and he could almost feel his hand again.
He craned his neck back.
Six other men stood around Gamer, Bodyguards.
Their massive arms looked like they could crush his head between arm and the wing-ish parts of their body they called "lats."
He'd walked right into the trap.
Bitch must've reported right before Jay'd left.
"Traitor," he spat at Mike.
If Bitch were here, Jay’d mean it for him as well.
Mike shrugged, leveling his gun at Jay.
"Want me to kill him?"
Freckles shrugged.
"Sure, he's been more trouble than he's worth.
Bye bye, Jay."
Freckles turned his back.
BLAM!
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM.
I take it back.
I LOVE you man.
Mike the genius.
Mike the pure, God-blessed man of beauty.
Good shot too.
Every one of the Bodyguards had a huge exploded-bullet hole right in their heads.
Freckles had fallen on his face with his back um, overexposed was a good word.
Jay could see the torn up lung from here.
A hand was creeping toward his gun though, not dead yet.
"Flthucker!" came Gamer's harsh gasp.
Mike walked up to Freckled Lemonade and pointed his gun down at him, another shot rang out.
Gamer screamed as his flesh-gloved hand exploded along with bits of teeth from the floor like shrapnel.
More gasps came from Gamer's struggling lungs.
Mike looked at Jay.
"You want the honors?"
Jay propped himself up to his knees.
"Hell yes."
He planted the knife into the toothy ground, stood, and hobbled over to Gamer.
"No hesit...ation?" Freckles gasped.
"Not for you," Jay said.
Freckles giggled.
"Get oveer... yourself.
Accept it, you're one...of us.
You can't break...the rules."
"Not quite the same."
Jay plopped himself on Freckles' desk, fiddling with his knife.
"We're
born
this... way.
Get it?
...we never chose...to be...
You're just...like me."
"OK, you're gay, I get it.
You live your life, I live mine.
God made you this way.
I never had a problem with
that
.
'Cept
I
ain't
gay."
Jay stood up.
Enough chit-chat.
Gamer's laugh came out in a choked wheeze.
"Always joking... least we accept you for...what...youare...here.
A murd...er..."
Shallower and shallower breaths.
He wasn't going to let Gamer die, not before he killed him.
Jay knelt down beside Gamer.
"...bells mean...nothing," Gamer wheezed, saliva leaked from the side of his mouth and he blinked, slow-like.
"Sure they do.
You'll see what they mean in a sec."
Jay put the blade to the side Gamer's neck.
"Die."
He didn't cut though.
Some part of himself hesitated.
"Pro...blem?" Freckles gasped.
"Nope."
Jay pulled the blade upwards, hard.
Blood spurted from Freckles' neck, pumping from his carotid and spilling across the semi-white floor.
Not as high as it could've, he was already bleeding out, after all.
Jay stood up.
"Mind if I keep this as a souvenir?"
In his dreams, he'd wanted to blow out Gamer's mouth and then keep his teeth.
That's why he'd hesitated.
Maybe.
But now that he thought about it...it was just too morbid.
Mike nodded.
"Hope you didn't mind my playacting."
"You had me convinced."
"I assumed Gamer couldn't be alone.
Had to draw out his men."
Jay put an arm around the big man.
"I don't care why, I just know I love you right now."
Mike didn't smile.
"We have time, no one will think anything of gunshots coming out of here.
But somebody could come by.
You came for someone?
Someone important?"
He seemed eager, too eager.
But Jay had to move fast.
He led the way.
"Yeah, the nurse."
It was the first time Jay'd seen Mike smile, and it was the creepiest thing.
The man had some kind of demented puppy thing going.
"Paul and I had the purest love I've ever dreamed possible."
Jay raised an eyebrow.
For some reason he couldn't see it.
Especially with that ugly dreamy look Mike had.
"I'd have done anything for him," Mike continued.
"Yeah, about that.
I'm really sorry.
And sorry for making fun of gays just a second ago.
Nothing personal."
Mike smiled at him again.
It felt uncomfortable.
"It wasn't your fault," he soothed.
Jay could tell Mike didn't mean it, but Jay wasn't going to argue.
"Well, I owe you one...two, now.
I'll meet you outside," Jay said.
"No, I have your back," Mike nodded his head.
"We'll be safer together."
Jay nodded.
"Fine."
Mike had earned the trust.
They tromped down the hallways.
With both of them together there would be no problem with confrontations.
Mike was expected and Jay, he retightened the shirt around his nose, was a 'Guard.'