"What the hell is your problem?"
A balding head attached to a beer gut was thrust in Jecht's face. The man was a little pissed off as he had been awakened at 3am by the pounding of Jecht's fist on the door of Auron's apartment. The subsequent shouts managed to wake just about everybody else on the fourth floor of the five-floor walk-up. Jecht proceeded to ignore the neighbor and went back to pounding on the door and yelling at the top of his lungs.
"Auron, open the goddamn door! I know you're in there you son of a bitch!"
The man shifted uncomfortably and tried to seem forceful. "You got one minute, mister, before I phone the NYPD."
"Fuck off, numbnuts."
Auron, shirtless and zipping his fly, was clearly not happy when he jerked open the door. "Jecht, you're drunk. Go home."
"I ain't goin' nowhere until we talk. Now let me in."
"I'm busy."
"And I don't give a fuck!"
"Well, I don't give a fuck either," interjected the neighbor. "Just take it out of the hallway and stop shaking my wall! People are tryin' to sleep!"
Auron glared at Jecht. "Fine."
Jecht barged his way past and into the living area without a word. He went right to the fridge, jerked open the door, and looked inside.
"Unless you want spoiled milk, you're outa luck." Auron slammed the door of the apartment shut. He leaned back against the closet door and nonchalantly put a hand behind his back on the door handle just in case. It had been almost a month since Jecht's overnight stay and Auron had been doing his best to avoid him. For that matter, he'd been doing his best to avoid just about everyone except Yuna. His handler was pissed off, his suppliers were irritated, and even his clients were getting a bit demanding. All of his time was devoted to checking up on Yuna or tailing Seymour.
Jecht frowned and shut the refrigerator door. "I suppose a bottle of Jack is too much to hope for."
Auron simply shifted his weight to one leg and glared.
"What's your problem?" Jecht crossed his arms over his chest, covering the team logo on his t-shirt.
"Excuse me? I'm not the one that almost busted down a door, woke up half an apartment building, and had someone threaten to call the cops. The way I see it, you're the one with a problem. You ever hear of a phone?"
"Yeah, I heard of a phone. I used it." Jecht took a few angry steps closer to Auron. "You didn't answer it."
"Then I guess I musta been busy, huh."
"For over a month!"
"Yeah." Auron tensed slightly and shifted his weight again, this time toward the balls of his feet. He let go of the door and let his arms hang loose and ready at his sides.
"You are so full of shit!"
Auron's eyes narrowed and his voice went low. "Jecht, you don't want to do this."
"The hell I don't! What happened to us, man? We used to be beautiful."
"Jecht. I mean it."
"Fine. Fuck you then."
For a time both men simply stood there staring at each other. It turned into an unspoken contest after a few seconds, each one waiting to see who was going to give ground and speak first. Finally, Jecht realized he wasn't going to win this fight either and gave up.
"Tidus gets back in a week. I shipped him off to a treatment center in Florida and he's supposed to be clean now. His councilor says he's gotta be supervised for a few weeks till he gets in a routine but I gotta leave Monday. The team's got matches in Houston, SanDiego, LA, and Chicago."
"So."
"Goddamn it Auron! I need somebody to pick him up at the airport and watch him while I'm gone."
"What do I look like, a babysitter?"
Jecht's voice was filled with frustration. "He knows you! He listens to you!"
Auron just stood there.
"Just do this for me. You owe me."
"I don't owe you shit!" Pissed off, Auron launched himself off the wall and got in Jecht's face. "You got as good as you gave my friend. And if you think there's more to it than that, you shoulda gone south with your son!"
"I can't believe you just said that." Jecht looked like Auron had kicked him in the gut. He tossed the keys to his place on the counter next to the fridge. "Tidus' flight info is on the desk in my study. I cleaned out the booze tonight."
"I didn't say I'd do it."
"Well, if you don't then nobody will."
Jecht shoved Auron aside and yanked open the front door. He turned around just before he slammed it shut behind him and said, "After this, I don't know you anymore."
-----------------
Auron sat at the card table with a lit Marlboro hanging between his lips and a coffee cup in his hand. He stared at the black liquid in the cup. It was cold.
Periodically, his gaze shifted from the cup to a set of keys that lay next to his Zippo. Jecht had left them four days ago and he still didn't know if he was going to use them.
To say that Auron was royally pissed off would have been an understatement. It was also a bit deceiving. He wasn't sure what pissed him off more – the fact that Jecht had all but bashed down his door, the fact the guy took it for granted that Auron would just take care of his fucking brat, or the fact that Jecht had left the way he did.
He'd thought about it a lot in four days. Every time he walked into the kitchen and saw those keys, he got an incredible urge to hit something. Mostly he got an incredible urge to beat the shit out of Jecht. The urge was promptly followed by a pounding headache and a strong desire to drink himself blind.
The only other thing that filled his mind when he looked at the keys was Braska. He'd never missed anyone so much in his entire life. When everything seemed out of control – to be unraveling at the seams – Braska had always been there to patch him back up and tell him it would all be ok. But Braska was gone. He'd left a month ago on a plane to Africa. No phone number to call. No way to send a letter. And, even if he could write, what would he say?
I'm getting to old for this shit. I'm tired and I don't wanna be alone anymore.
It had been four days since Jecht walked out of his apartment, and likely out of his life. It made Auron feel like dying. The knowledge of that hit just a little too close to home.
Auron went off to shower.
----------------
Dressed to blend into the scenery, Auron continued to tail Seymour when the man left Chinatown. Dark glasses, a hat, pressed gabardine slacks, a trench coat, and a briefcase were the disguise of the day. Auron looked every bit the businessman that had stopped out for a quick lunch and was headed back to the office. When Seymour left the small shop on Elizabeth and hopped in a waiting car, he exited the noodle shop across the street, hailed a cab and uttered a rather cliché, "follow that car, " to the driver.
For several weeks, Auron had been following the pimp and it was starting to pay off. Seymour had habits. He had vices. He had appointments and regular hangouts. He did meetings with his Janes at specific times on specific days, slipped drugs to his boys and clients only in particular locations, and always got his shoes shined by the same guy at the Pierre Hotel off 61st after having high tea on Thursdays.
Auron found that little predilection amusing in the extreme and wondered why Seymour bothered. It intrigued him and didn't seem to fit. Auron suspected that there was some kind of meeting going down and was itching to find out but knew his disguises weren't good enough to actually follow the blue-haired little shit into the tearoom. He'd yet to figure out a way to approach the shoeshine man and elicit information without seeming suspicious. High tea just wasn't something you took up as a hobby. When he did the math, Auron was pretty sure it added up to one thing – the Yevon crew and Hong Kong.
The thought of busting anybody in Yevon gave Auron a hard-on.
Today, however, Seymour was not following his usual schedule. The black Mercedes-Benz 450SEL that had pulled up to the shop to pick up the pimp was also a new development. When it slipped uptown to a drycleaner's on 68th between 2nd and 3rd to deposit the punk, Auron had the taxi driver stop at Park Avenue and walked the short distance back.
What he saw when got there was even more interesting.
The problem was that apartments and co-ops surrounded the place - residences with men on the doors. There was no good location to case the joint. As Auron walked toward the cleaner's he watched as another black Mercedes pulled up and let out three men in black suits. Gold flashed discreetly on each man's left hand. By the time Auron was on the same block as the establishment, another Mercedes pulled up. Out of the corner of his eye, while he moved passed, he saw another man in a black suit and a woman in a dark blue cheongsam dress get out.
That was all he needed to see.
Auron was pretty sure he'd just seen the three vanguards of Yevon – Kinoc, Mika, and Kelk - the Dragon Head Yunalesca, and her personal assassin go into that cleaners. No one knew the real name of Yunalesca's henchman. He was always simply referred to as Sin. All you had to do to strike fear into the heart of anyone in Chinatown was mention that one word – Sin. The triads did big business in Chinatown and Yevon did most of the smuggling of "human cargo". Everybody owed them something or had a relative back home that Yevon could get to. When you didn't make good on your commitments, Sin knocked on your door and gave you a lesson in "repentance."
It made Auron sick. He would give anything to take just one of those bastards down.
Auron got all the way to Central Park before he roused himself from his thoughts. Nailing Seymour was going to be a bonus compared to the prize he'd just found. He sure wasn't going to give up on his goal of killing the blue-haired bastard, but he now had bigger fish to fry. Of course, nobody was going to question if a lowlife pimp got shot during the bust – after all, collateral damage happened sometimes and was certainly acceptable when it was a punk like Seymour.
The grin that spread across Auron's face was almost evil.
