"Boys, do you have any idea how proud of you I am right now?" James said with a grin. He was looking down at Alonzo, who was unconscious and had just been hand delivered to him and Mark.
Connor bounced up and down excitedly. "Does that mean I get a cookie?"
Cooper snorted. "What did you even deserve a cookie? I did all the work?"
"Nuh uh!"
"Uh huh!"
"Nuh uh!"
"Uh huh!"
Mark gave the boys an annoyed look. "Aren't you two too old to be fighting like that?"
Both Cooper and Connor gave Mark annoyed looks. "Nobody asked you for your opinion," Cooper informed the Deadman.
Mark's eyes narrowed and James knew trouble was coming. "Here, go get yourselves some ice cream," he said quickly. He handed Cooper twenty bucks. "Bring me back something while you're at it."
"ICE CREAM!!" Connor screamed at the top of his lungs. He began running laps around the living room. "ICE CREAM! ME LOVE ICE CREAM!"
Cooper groaned. "Thanks a lot Dad. Have you seen what you've just sentenced me to?"
"Well smack the little son of a bitch!" Mark ordered. "That's what I would do."
Cooper glared daggers at Mark. "Well I'm not you. And if you even try to put your hands on him, I will fucking make you regret it."
Mark raised his eyebrows. "Is that a threat boy?"
"No, it's a fucking promise."
James smacked both of them upside the head. He could not believe the two of them. He had told Cooper not to test Mark because the old Mark did not have the patience to put up with it and he had told Mark that it would just be best to leave Cooper alone. The two of them had a very cold/lukewarm relationship. At best they took little shots at each other or acted like the other one didn't matter. At worst, they fought like cats and dogs. "Would you both stop it?" he growled. "You're both acting like idiots!"
"He started it!" Cooper said, pointing at Mark.
Mark rolled his eyes. "Oh yes, that's very mature boy. My God Lawson, how the hell have you been raising these kids?"
"He raised us just fine!" Cooper snarled, defending James before he could even defend himself. "Which is more than I can say for you!"
Connor stopped running around so he could join in on the conversation. "Ssshhh, calm down Cooper," he said soothingly. "Don't yell at Marky right now. He don't remember how he failed as a father to you."
"He doesn't remember anything," Cooper muttered. "Alonzo here broke his brain." He kicked the soon to be murder victim in the ribs, making him let out a low moan.
"And Alonzo here is going to pay big time," James said. He stroked Mark's hair before kissing him on the top of the head. "Isn't that right Marky?"
Mark just grunted. He was staring at Alonzo, who was just finally waking up and realizing that he was tied up in front of four very large people. James took that grunt to mean yes. Smiling, he waved at Alonzo. "Hi there buddy. Do you remember this guy sitting here? He's the one you hit with your car. You brought here today so he could tell you exactly how he feels about that."
"Wh-what?" Alonzo said dumbly. He blinked several times and looked around. "Wait, where am I? I was...I was supposed to be in court..."
"Yeah well, you missed it," Cooper told him. "You've already been found guilty and sentenced to death by people way scarier than a jury of your peers."
"D-d-d-death?" Alonzo stumbled out. He tried to crawl away but found that he was surrounded on all sides. "I didn't kill anybody though!"
"Actually you did," James corrected him. "Because of you, Mark lost almost thirty years of memories. He's not the man he had turned into anymore. He's now the pissed off teenager he used to be."
"But...but..."
"Shut up," Mark growled. "Lawson, tie him down on the table. Make your boys help you."
"But the ice cream!" Connor whined. "I want my ice cream!"
"You can go get the ice cream in a few minutes," James said as he picked Alonzo up. The doomed man was fighting him furiously but James had no problem getting him picked up. "Just grab some rope and help me tie him down really quick."
Cooper went and got the rope while James, Mark and Connor went into the kitchen. Alonzo was trying to plead his case for being let go, but those pleas were falling on deaf ears. When Cooper came back with the rope, he, James and Connor got Alonzo tied down on to the table. Mark reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a little buzzsaw thing. "What are you going to do with that thing?" James asked.
Mark smirked. "You'll see soon enough Lawson."
Connor tugged on Cooper's arm. "Ice cream!" he whined. "I want ice cream now!"
"Okay okay!" Cooper said with a roll of his eyes. "We'll get you your damn ice cream!" He grabbed Connor's hand and dragged him out of the room.
"Bye boys," James said, waving as he did so. "Have fun."
Mark shook his head. "Your boys aren't very mature Lawson."
"Yeah, so what?" James said, not understanding why that was a problem. "They're just like me." He looked in the fridge and grabbed a beer. "Cooper does kind of look like you though. He's got your eyes and your mouth and his hair is naturally red, just like yours."
Mark raised his eyebrows. "Now when you say he has my mouth, you just mean how my mouth looks, right? You haven't like tested his mouth out or anything, have you?"
James gave Mark a disgusted look. "No! Of course I haven't! Why would you even say something like that?"
"Hey, considering your family history, it was a perfectly legitimate question to ask." Mark turned on his little buzzsaw and grinned at Alonzo. "Now this is going to hurt a hell of a lot, but don't worry: I won't feel any of it."
James watched as Mark used the little electric saw to slice open Alonzo's skull. Alonzo screamed in pain, but that went ignored of course. "What the fuck are you going to do right now Marky?" James asked.
"I'm going to play with his brain," Mark replied. "I figured it was only fair since he fucked up mine."
James saw no holes in that logic. "Alright then." He opened his beer and took a drink of it as he watched Mark get to work. Mark kept cutting until he saw Alonzo's brain. Then he turned the buzzsaw off and put it aside so he could grab a fork and a steak knife. "James look--I'm a doctor," Mark said, grinning one of his few happy and genuine grins.
James couldn't help but chuckle. It was funny watching Mark try to play brain surgeon. Sure it was gross as hell, but it was still funny.
"Hmmm....I wonder what would happen if I poked righ here," Mark muttered.
James let out a shout as Alonzo began to have a seizure. "Holy fucktards! Do that again!"
Mark did it again, smirking as James let out another joyful yell. "You are way too easy to please sometimes Lawson," he muttered. He began cutting out parts of Alonzo's brain and throwing it down to the ground. Snoopy and Spike came in and while Snoopy just sniffed at the pieces of the brain, Spike actually ate some of them. "Uh....why the fuck is there a goat in here?" Mark asked when he tore his attention away from Alonzo and noticed what was going on.
"Connor likes animals," James replied. "Snoopy's the dog and Spike's the goat."
Mark stared at James incredulously before gettting back to work. "Crazy ass bastards," he muttered. "You people are fucking nuts." He suddenly frowned and stared at Alonzo. "He still alive?"
"I don't know," James said. "You should check. You're closer."
"But I want you to do it!"
"Well I'm not so deal with it!"
"Fine! Be that way!" Mark picked up the steak knife and drove it into Alonzo's throat. "There we go. That settles everything."
"Nice Marky. You got the table even more bloody."
"Yup, it's what I do."
"Bastard."
"Fuckwad."
James laughed and kissed him. "I love you."
Mark rolled his eyes. "Love you too weirdo."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
After Mark was released from the hospital and the person who ran him over mysteriously disappeared (the police had absolutely no leads on who took him), Jeff didn't see Taker for over a month. He tried calling his house, but he go no answer. He talked to Glenn, who told him that physically, he was getting better each day. Unfortunately, according to Glenn, the amnesia was still going strong. Jeff tried to find out Mark's whereabouts, but all Glenn would say was that Mark was with James and that he was being taken care of. The Big Red Machine wouldn't even give out James's number. It was almost like he was trying to keep Jeff away, which hurt Jeff's feelings a little bit.
Finally, one night while he was home watching TV (Matt and Chris were out on a date) he got a phone call he had been hoping for but not expecting to get. "Hello?" he said when he answered the phone.
"Jeff?" Glenn said, sounding really nervous.
"Glenn?" Jeff said, sitting straight up. "Is something wrong? Is it Mark? Is he okay?"
"He's okay. James actually wanted me to call you. He thinks Mark might have an old memory that's trying to come back up and it involves you."
Jeff blinked in surprise. "It does?"
"That's what Lawson is telling me. He keeps saying that Mark is saying your name during the night, but everything is still really cloudy and hazy for him. They want you to come out to Las Vegas and spend some time with them to see if that helps him. If you can of course."
"Yeah," Jeff said quickly, already getting up to his feet. "I can do that."
"Okay good." Glenn didn't sound like he thought that was a good thing though. Jeff could tell just from the sound of his voice. "Glenn?"
"Yeah?"
"Is something wrong?"
There was a long pause. "I don't think you should go," Glenn finally said. "Helping Mark with his memory isn't the only reason they want you to come."
"How do you know that?" Jeff asked nervously.
"I just know them. There's something they're not telling me."
Jeff sighed. That kind of freaked him out. But he knew what he needed to do. "That's a risk I gotta take," he said. "If I can help Mark at all, I can deal with whatever else they want."
"You really love him, don't you kid?" Glenn asked.
"Yeah," Jeff admitted. "I do."
"Alright then. Call me when you get a flight booked so I can make sure someone is there to pick you up."
"Okay. Bye." Jeff hung up the phone and went upstairs to pack. Glenn's warning was still haunting him, but he was doing his best to ignore it. Even if Mark wasn't himself anymore and James and Mark were up to something, he was going to go. He missed Mark so much that it hurt and he still felt guilty over what he felt was his role in Mark's accident. Whatever he wants, I'll do, he decided. I'll do whatever it takes to help him, no matter what Glenn says.
