Chapter 2: Quality Time
His clone-brother presented a cognitively dissonant sight, seated comfortably--if stiffly--in the chair, a picture of composure in black and white, one booted foot resting on the opposite knee, a book in hand and a gun in his lap. Abernathy glanced up from his reading, pink eyes oddly placid behind his thick glasses in the face of Jack's confused ire, and marked his place in his book with a finger. "Hullo, Jack. I'd wondered when you'd get home."
Jack gaped. There was nothing to do for it but gape. Abernathy's gall--his sheer gall--was a constant source of amazement to his progenitor, but such impassive calm in the face of, of chaos, of murder, was enough to nearly stop Jack's heart with the shock. Rose dead, Abby this withdrawn, what next? Solidus appearing from the closet? Dead Cell popping out from behind the rest of his furniture and shouting 'surprise'? He swallowed, heavily, and scrabbled frantically for his thoughts. "Abernathy. Rose...Rose is dead. Do you--?"
"--Know anything about this injustice?" The clone smiled without humor, dog-earring his page and setting the book down atop the pistol. "Of course. I killed her."
"...you...what?" Jack's thoughts began to shake themselves free of shock like a dog would water, his combat focus regrouping itself. "Killed her. A messy affair, if I do say so myself." He paused, face settling into a little moue of disgust. "I hadn't realized humans could bleed so much. Pity. At least black is easy to launder, hmm?"
The vase he'd been intending to use as a weapon had long since slipped from Jack's nerveless fingers, rolling a foot or two to fetch up against a footrest. He didn't move to retrieve it. "You killed her."
"Yes, I'd thought we'd already established that. My, but you're looking paler than usual, brother-mine. Would it help if I told you that you'll probably look back on this sordid little incident in a few years and laugh?"
A whirlwind of mindless rage and impossible grief that had been building in Jack's mind since he first noted the eerie silence of his apartment screwed itself up into a full tempest, compelling him to just stop thinking about the impossibility of the situation and act. He sprang at Abernathy, hands outstretched to grab the scrawny little albino by the throat and shake him until his neck snapped or he confessed to this being some kind of tremendous, sick joke.
Abernathy had the presence of mind to get out of the range of the attack; his spastic, abrupt twitch backward toppled the chair sideways, the entire assemblage, Jack and chair, pinning him to the carpet. Jack was on his feet again in an instant, kicking the chair out of the way as if it were so much plywood and making another grab for his clone. If he could just get his hands on Abby, the fight would be over in a matter of seconds.
No such luck. The little bastard, untrained as he was in combat, was a hell of a lot faster than Jack gave him credit for. He had already squirmed out from under the chair and bounced back to his feet even as Jack snatched at him again; he fell back, tripping over the end table and going sprawling. Even with the wind knocked out of him, though, he was thinking far enough ahead to kick the end table in Jack's direction.
It wasn't enough of a deterrence. Seeing the move coming, Jack vaulted the table, landing easily and lashing out with a foot at the prone Abby. The clone flinched back from the attack, grunting in pain as the kick caught him across the ribs. He struggled to his knees again, only to have Jack pounce on him and slam him bodily up against the wall, a hand at his throat.
By now, Jack's vision had clouded with red, his instincts rewiring his reaction time to a fraction of a second. This--combat--was better than sex, even as underhanded and dirty as the close-quarters little affair was. Even if Abernathy were a damn unsatisfying opponent, as weak and useless at fighting as he was, there would still be pleasure in slowly crushing his trachea and watching him suffer his death out. "Stop struggling, you little goth bastard. Isn't this the kind of thing you keep asking for?" he hissed between clenched teeth, endeavoring to shove his struggling clone square through the wall, if he could manage it.
Goth or no, Abernathy seemed to have other ideas in mind than dying. With his vision so narrowed, Jack had scarcely any warning before catching a vicious knee to the groin. His rage hissed out into an exclamation of pain; the agony was not bad enough to deter him, but enough that he loosened his grip. Abernathy wiggled nimbly out of Jack's grip, his sense apparently catching up with him as he made a break for the door.
Something as stupid as a little pain wasn't going to stop Jack from upping the murder count to two. He gritted his teeth and dove after Abernathy, tackling him and sending them both rolling into the opposite wall. The impact left them both stunned for a moment. Jack shook the disorientation first, had the presence of mind to claw his way out from under his clone. It took snapping Abernathy's wrist to do it, the sound of bone crunching providing a certain cold satisfaction.
He ended up sitting on Abernathy, straddling the clone's chest with his hands locked in a death grip around the other's throat. It was pleasure itself to tighten his grip fractionally and watch the albino squirm and struggle for air. If he just held on a little longer, the entire problem would be over and poor, dead Rosemary would be avenged.
The analytical part of his mind called a halt to the madness. The bloodlust retreated, deprived of its prize and muttering imprecations; Jack eased up slightly on Abernathy's throat, giving the other man enough freedom to gulp down a breath or two of air. "Now, wasn't that fun?" Jack snarled softly, expression still twitching somewhere between the chill mask and a manic grin.
Apparently afraid of the repercussions if he didn't agree, Abernathy nodded as best he could. The naked fear on his face was only exacerbated by his myopic squint; his glasses were somewhere else on the floor, probably hopelessly broken. Pity you're only such a snaky bastard when you're sure you're not going to get killed, brother. "You wanna do it again?" The manic grin won, Jack baring his teeth in a smile that was definitely not amused.
This time Abernathy shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut in pain and terror.
"Good enough. You're going to answer my questions now, right?"
Nod.
"No smartass remarks, Abby?"
He shook his head.
"Good. I hear one more damn thing like that out of you, and I'm breaking your other wrist. Got me?"
Nod.
"I see we understand each other." Jack paused, freeing up one hand to swipe blood out of his eyes. He had a cut above his right eyebrow; heaven knew how that had happened. The insistent rivulet of blood tickled. No matter. "You killed Rose."
Abernathy opened one pink eye cautiously, then the other. He licked at a trickle of blood from a split lip, then spoke, picking his words carefully. "Would it help my suit any, your honor, if I said you'll thank me for it?"
Jack moved his free hand to Abernathy's left, grabbing his clone's hand and bending it backwards with exaggerated care. "Damn it, Abby," he replied, tone conciliatory and conversational. "I thought we weren't going to have any of this." He could feel bone grinding against bone beneath his fingers; another few millimeters, and Abernathy would sport a matched set of broken wrists.
"Uncle!" the clone spat between two agonized breaths. Reluctantly, Jack eased up. "...No...smartass remarks. Just...don't break the other wrist."
"You give me what I want, and I'll stop hurting you." Maybe, he amended mentally. "Fine. Wh... whatever. I did kill her, like I said. That enough for you?"
"No. Why, dammit?" Jack's voice caught on the word 'why'; he hadn't thought that there was room enough with the rage for the grief to get through. "What the hell made you turn on her, Abby? She was the one who wanted you here in the first place!"
The last little spark of defiance in Abernathy's eyes seemed to die at Jack's words, the clone flicking his gaze away from his progenitor's. He didn't say anything. Jack settled his hand across the other's wrist again, fully intending to snap it this time, pleading or no.
That, at least, won words from his clone. "Wait, Drummerboy, dammit! Don't just friggin' kill me because you've got your damn panties in a bunch!" Abernathy glanced back up, though there was still no more defiance in his gaze. His tone softened as he continued, the brief flare of anger dimming. "...Look, just let me up, Jack. It hurts. Please...I...can't...I can't think like this, not properly. It's hard enough trying to explain this without you sitting on my damn chest and threatening to break every bone in my body just because I don't have the right answers for you."
Jack remained silent, not relenting. Let him grovel. He deserves it, for what he did. "Jack, damn you! Are you so screwed up inside you can't even recognize your own family, man! You owe me one for saving your stupid hide from Ocelot! At least give me that!" Abernathy broke off, panting in agony.
He was right, though. Jack had enough of a sense of honor that the reminder of his life-debt to the clone made him ease up. "Fine. I won't break your other wrist until you've told me all you want to. Satisfied?"
"Hell no! Let me up!" The last word was more a sob of pain. "Please! If it makes you feel better, I'll sit here and be a good little boy until you find the damn gun I used to kill her, and then you can hold it to my head the whole time! Just let me up!"
It was a pitiful sight to watch Abernathy's backbiting attitude dissolve so quickly to tears under the threat of further pain. It almost took the fun out of the whole thing for Jack--almost. He said nothing for several moments, letting Abby sob with mixed anoxia and pain, then eased up on his grip and stood.
Obviously hurting, the clone eased himself to a sitting position, cradling his right arm against his chest and watching Jack uneasily. Finally, he bit his bleeding lower lip and dropped his gaze. "...You...uh. I know you didn't want to do that. ...Uhm. ...Thanks."
That was the first time in Jack's memory that Abernathy had actually thanked him for anything; it drew a bark of laughter from him. "So now you thank me. As if food, shelter, and protection from the Patriots just isn't enough from you, I have to beat the snot out of you before you thank me." And you killed Rose. Some gratitude.
"...Shut up," came the weak reply. "Just shut up, okay? I'm not an idiot to not know that you didn't have to do half of what you did for me; you didn't even have to...to do anything. I was just the annoying little reminder that your past wasn't going to let you go; you could have kicked me out, and I'm fine with that. But don't you dare throw my gratitude back in my face, Drummerboy. Don't you dare. You don't know how long I've wanted to be independent; you don't have any right to tell me anything about what I should and shouldn't be gracious for."
So perhaps the audacity hadn't been beaten out of Abernathy, for the impromptu lecture certainly had enough misplaced arrogance that it took Jack's breath away. "So I suppose your deciding that my fiancŽe needed to die was just another little way of showing your thanks, huh?" he spat, recovering his composure.
"Yes, but what do you care? She was going to kill you, Jack. Not that you've even the eyes to see something that obvious. Some super-soldier you are, that I have to protect you from the most damnably obvious threat of all."
That was quite enough. The incident had descended from nightmare to barracks brawl to some kind of sordid excuse for a soap opera that Kafka might have written. "And here I thought that diplomats were supposed to be better liars." He cast around for the missing gun--there, over near the overturned chair and dented end table. It would take him a minute to get it, but Abernathy was so wounded that he wouldn't make it to the door before Jack got to the pistol and shot him in the back like the slime he was.
"Ha. I suppose it'll shock the damn pants right off of you if I say that I've never lied to anyone in my whole miserable life. You least of all." The clone wasn't even paying attention; he wasn't even going to make this difficult. Jack began edging toward the pistol.
"Like hell I'll believe that."
"I guess it was too much to think you might trust me half as much as you did her." Eyes still half-closed with pain, Abby raised his head and nodded toward Rose's corpse, still lying where Jack had first found it.
"She was the only thing I had left after the Patriots got through with me. Why shouldn't I have?" Two more steps, and he'd have the gun.
"After she'd confessed to lying to you already? After all that she put you through?" The anemic giggle that rose from Jack's clone was tinged with hysteria.
He was probably going into shock from his injuries, came the analytical assessment. Losing his grip on reality, or why else would he fabricate such a bizarre story to account for his having murdered Rose in cold blood? Dear, sweet Rose...Except that Abernathy did have a point, damn him. Rose had lied, not once, but several times. She'd broken his confidence, snuck around behind his back, and then accused him of being too wrapped up in his own problems to see her for what she was. And he'd still trusted her..."I love...loved her."
"More like she was the cutest piece of tail to ever cross your sights. You were infatuated, Drummerboy. Admit it."
One more step to the pistol. "Who're you to talk? You hardly even know what love is. You're queer, too."
That won no response at all from Abernathy. Jack eased another step to the right, reached down and grabbed the gun, feeling suddenly comforted by the familiar weight of a weapon. He checked the clip as the silence from Abby's quarter continued; it was almost full, with only a round missing.
"...Maybe they were right."
Jack slid the clip back home, flicked the safety off. "Who?"
"The Patriots."
"Right about what?" He half-turned to face his seated clone, sighting without yet raising the gun.
"You. That you were some kind of narcissist, too infatuated with your own pain to care about anything but protecting yourself." Cloth rasped against cloth as Abernathy shifted his weight slightly.
"I always thought you just trusted people like her implicitly. So much that you didn't want to believe anything that might ruin the lovely illusion she built for you, even when all the evidence was laid out before you. It took her own confession of her part in it to get through to you and put a little crack in that trust, didn't it?"
Without replying, Jack raised the gun, sighting again. One bullet right through the temple, and he wouldn't have to worry about the little albino rat screwing up his life ever again. For his part, Abernathy let the silence stretch out a moment longer, then sighed and slumped further in on himself.
"I suppose that just proves, for all I thought I could get out from under your shadow, that we're the same person after all. Here you were, dreaming of some fantasy love affair with a girl who never existed, and there I was, imagining you believed the lies I saw right through because you were--noble." He spat the word, as if it were a curse.
"You were stupid, but noble, because you knew how to trust the people you cared about. You made her do something foreign to her lying nature, you know. She did mean it when she said she was in love; I knew her for long enough to know that she never meant to fall in love, just like she told you. You brought out the damned best in people because you trusted them."
Jack's aim didn't waver. "So? Is there a point to all this?"
Abernathy finally raised his head, tilting it toward Jack and merely gazing at him for a moment. Jack knew well enough the clone couldn't see him at this range, but it was unnerving nonetheless. "I'm tempted to tell you that it's not one you'd understand, under that bone-deep layer of aggression you've grown. But then, I've yet to lie to you; and besides, it will be so--damn--satisfying if you shoot me just because you can't handle what I've got to say.
"I bought into you too, Jack. I believed in you, even when I was working as your doppelganger for the Patriots. You know how much I needed to know about you to--to--profile you for them? To predict your every move? A damn lot. Enough that I'm suddenly very scared that I could be that wrong, and I'll be happy to die after I get this all out because I never thought I could be so mistaken about you. I trusted you about as much as you trusted her. I thought maybe you'd been shaken around just enough that you'd listen to me instead of turning to violence again. I guess I was wrong."
He paused, swallowed, and turned his eyes away from Jack, staring at a spot on the carpet. "Anyway. You can kill me now, if you want. At least give me the grace of making it quick."


Creative contents of this document are © 2002 Kim Kondratieff.