| Russian Roulette |

[Kuno]

JAXON ORTEGA

---

Location:Jaxon's House

Jaxon's head lolled to the side. He fished around in his pockets some, staring blandly into space as his fingers found solace around a pack of cigarettes. The gang life had molded him into a social smoker. He never touched the hard drugs, no, but he found most gangsters could share a more natural conversation over a good cigarette or cigar. It was something to keep the fingers working and the mind running while you hid your true thoughts and feelings from the enemy.

The enemy. Ha. Even knowing Claire could be the death of him, his brain still refused to associate her as such.

The woman meandered around his living space as if she had always belonged. The gangster watched her, unmoving in the face of her joking tone, his face having grown naturally stoic. It truly was a sin to know someone so well they may as well have shared your body. His eyes roved over the curves, the dimples, and the brown locks that had once been his.

She was a stranger to him now, as estranged from him as he was from that loving boy he'd once been over ten years ago.

"No," Jaxon replied curtly to her question. There was the click of his lighter; a glowing red bloomed from betwixt his fingers, and he pulled away from his palms in a heady cloud of smoke, exhaling lightly off his cigarette. He glanced away. "I think I've had enough."

Except he wasn't talking to her anymore. He was talking to himself, gearing himself up for the next conversation. The alcohol still had him in a slump, but his mind was slowly returning. Slowly.

He blinked gradually, his thoughts forming sluggishly. The words came to him, and soon after, the conviction.

"Claire."

He exhaled her name with a puff of gray, his eyes placid.

"Who sent you?"

 

[Karo]

CLARISSE ELLISON-HYDE

---

Location: Jaxon's Home

Of course, even sloppy drunk, Jaxon was keen enough to push past her lies and deflections. There was no flying under the radar this time– he'd earned the truth.

"God," Clarisse answered, her voice sober. "God has witnessed our sins and sent me to punish us both." Her eyes flitted upwards, as if searching for something on the ceiling. A stain, a fleck of paint, some kind of sign that this was all just some test and she had already passed. But there was nothing. Just perfect, stark white.

Of course, she thought, who is God to say what we should do? He's never done anything for either of us.

But the truth was, it was another force pushing her forward. A force truly omnipotent and punishing in all the ways God failed to be. As far as Clarisse was concerned, God had long left her to her affairs. Now there was only the fear of retaliation and the need for revenge.

Clarisse carefully slinked toward him, abandoning her glass on the bar cart. "Please Jaxon," she began, her voice sincere. "Make this easy for me."

She came to a stop in front of him, studying his face. She imagined his tanned skin turned pale and sallow. His deep dark eyes, lifelessly staring back at her. And his lips, the ones she once kissed so tenderly, tinged blue with frozen blood.

If he had any sense at all, he'd strike first. A part of her almost hoped he would. Maybe the night would end differently, with her lying lifeless on the floor. The thought was tempting. No more mob, no more endless revenge quest. Just darkness, an eternal void to swallow her up. Maybe great white clouds, or more likely, flames and sulfur.

No, she couldn't afford to think like that. This night had to end one way and one way only.

"I can do it any way you want. I can make it quick and painless if you just let me."

 

[Kuno]

JAXON ORTEGA

---

Location:Jaxon's House

"Ain't no death quick and painless, you know?"

A wounded animal conserved its energy in a fight to the death. Jaxon had barely stirred with Claire's confession; but the eyes - ah, the eyes. Therein lay the animalistic focus and intent. The cigarette smoke curled away from him and welcomed his former lover into its embrace. Another intake of smoke came; this time he blew it to the side away from her, casting her out from his toxic haven.

"Yeah, claro," He affirmed, continuing. "You say- you say you a agent of God, huh?"

His eyes - blurred, watery, and red - swept up and down her body with reckless abandon, and then he laughed.

"What, you gonna wrap your legs around my neck? Cut my throat? You gonna paint your lips with poison and gimme a kiss?"

He laughed again, but this time it rang harsh and hollow in the emptiness of his home. The bitter mirth he had briefly felt was fading, and in its place was growing one of his old friends that Claire would recognize, something that he thought he had stomped out long ago.

Anger.

With alarming speed, he shot to his feet and grabbed Claire's arm. He ignored how small her hand was in his as he forced it against his neck, slapping it against skin.

"Go ahead. Mira - squuuueeeze," He whispered. "Quick and painless."

 

[Karo]

CLARISSE ELLISON-HYDE

---

Location: Jaxon's Home

"You haven't seen enough death." Clarisse replied ruefully, unblinking as cigarette smoke cascaded past her face. "And yet, you've seen enough for me to be sent here."

Though Jaxon laughed, Clarisse could see from the look in his eyes that anger was bubbling up within him. It was a familiar look, one she knew deeply and personally.

As Jaxon shot up and grabbed her hand, instinct kicked in and her free hand moved to dislodge the knife on the side of her thigh from its sheath. As quickly as he had placed her hand on his neck and told her to squeeze, she brought the knife to the other side of his throat.

"You think I want this?" She spat, keeping the knife steady against his skin. "You have no idea how hard I fought against this, what I was willing to give up. But they insisted." Her eyes, filled with indignation, stared deeply into his. "Jaxon, I don't have a choice."

 

[Kuno]

JAXON ORTEGA

---

Location:Jaxon's House

His eyes were the pitless black of night. There was no more sympathy; no more lingering love, no more wisps of nostalgia, nothing - just the blackened void that the man Jaxon Ortega had now become.

His breath was hot and reeked of booze.

"So make the fucking choice." He leaned in closer, only inches apart from his former lover. It was as if he hadn't even noticed the knife. "Why- why we still talkin', huh? Come on-"

The knife bit sharply into his neck as he leaned into it, unblinking as beads of red formed at the blade's sullied edge.

"Stop wasting time. Make your kill and go back to those fools you work for. Let em whore you out again."

The Devil spoke in his ear, and the words bubbled up from the depths of hell onto his tongue, and he smiled wickedly.

"Just like that priest, eh?"

 

[Karo]

CLARISSE ELLISON-HYDE

---

Location: Jaxon's Home

Jaxon's words rung in her ears, hot anger rising from inside.

In that moment, Clarisse thought about slipping her knife against his throat, watching the pearls of red appear round his neck like a necklace. Or bringing his face to her knee, witnessing his clean skin turn black and blue. But she couldn't do it. Something inside her, some unseen force, seemed to hold her back.

Without thinking, Clarisse dropped the knife, took a step back, and swiftly slapped Jaxon as hard as she physically could.

"You're lucky I don't want to be a fucking monster anymore," she hissed in his ear, before walking away to grab her purse from where she set it on the drink cart. Seeing her abandoned glass, she grabbed it and downed the rest, before turning to face Jaxon once again. "What are you waiting for then? Sic your goons on me and let's end this."

 

[Kuno]

JAXON ORTEGA

---

Location:Jaxon's House

"Oh jus' like that? You give up, jus' like that?"

In the span of a moment, the anger, the rage that cautious, calculating Jaxon was always too careful to show broke free of his constraints. Jaxon's face was beginning to flush an unpleasant red. He had had no reaction to the slap. But then she had walked away.

All that, and she was leaving. Just like that. After upending his night and his life and his world with merely her presence, she was grabbing her purse to go. She was quitting on him, just like that.

Just like that.

No.

"You gon' walk out on me again? Huh?" Jaxon asked loudly, his accent growing heavier and heavier as he walked towards her. "That's it, huh? I don't- Mira, I don't need my goons, ok? Nah you're- we're gonna, you're gonna finish what you started, Claire! Go ahead! Jus' you and me!"

In a flash of movement, he smacked the glass out of her hand, sending it crashing against the wall.

 

[Karo]

CLARISSE ELLISON-HYDE

---

Location: Jaxon's Home

Clarisse didn't hesitate to attack back, shoving Jaxon after he sent her glass flying towards the wall. Fire flashed in her eyes, and her face contorted into one of rage.

He didn't see the gift she'd been giving him. She was willing to give up her life, her goals, and walk away, leaving Jaxon mostly unscathed. There was no way the mob would allow her to walk free after abandoning such a big job, but she had been willing to deal with that.

But of course Jaxon, stubborn fucking idiot that he could be, couldn't let enough be.

"Fine, if you're so fucking desperate for me to kill you!" She shouted, pushing him once more toward the glass coffee table.