All I Want
title: ALL I WANT
author: Nightspore
source material: "Charlie's Angels"
pairing: Knox / Thin Man
challenge: December
disclaimer: What circle of hell is reserved for Those Who Use Other's Creations As Their Own (and make them do naughty things)? Whichever one it is, there I shall go.
author’s note: This is more or less canon with the first movie and with my ff "Shadow of the Thin Man", but AU with "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle". Theme song: "All I Want" by the Violent Femmes
The heavy bass line of the Butthole Surfer's "Pepper" reverberated thru the small house, making the ornaments on the tree jiggle precariously. Eric Knox - née John McCadden - danced along to it, silly as that looked, as he still wore the elf hat and the fuzzy green and red sweater he’d put on for the TV cameras earlier today.
"That's not Christmas music," Vivian commented. She lounged at the wreath and paper snowflake festooned mini bar, gently stirring together sweet vermouth, bitters, and bourbon in a frosted mixing glass.
"And that's not eggnog," he shot back, as she strained the concoction over a cherry in the cocktail glass. The song ended, and the next one came on, raspy, staticky thumping and even less seasonal. Vivian rubbed an orange peel on the rim of the glass and sipped appreciatively.
"I want to fuck you like an animal, I want to feel you from the inside," Trent Reznor growled. Knox mouthed the words, grabbed a three foot tall stuffed bear wearing a matching elf hat and mimed something disgusting with it.
"All I'm saying is that it just doesn't fit the whole festive mise en scène," she waved her hand lazily, indicating the Christmas decorations that glittered on every available surface. ”I mean, as long as you’re going overboard you should put on some actual Christmas music.”
“You think I did this for me,” he asked, stopping and giving her his patented expression of bogus befuddled innocence. The same melting-chocolate look you’d get from a cocker spaniel puppy that just couldn’t understand why you’d accuse him of chewing up your socks. He would never do a thing like that. He loves you. “Nah, it’s just I didn’t want to disappoint the kiddies.”
This would be the children - cancer kids, orphans, lost their home in a brushfire, something like that, he couldn’t remember - who’d come over this afternoon to unwrap the wonderful things he’d donated to the cancer ward, or orphanage, or whatever, with the appropriate media coverage.
“You are so full of it.” She let out a ladylike snort.
He dug in his pants pocket and pulled out a set of car keys, tossed them to her. "Fine. So go get me a Christmas CD. Something nice and drippy, with lots of chimes and jingle bells. Bing Crosby, or Astaire, huh?"
She set the drink down carefully. "Where exactly am I supposed to find a something like that at 11 pm on Christmas Eve?"
"Gas station on 10th is open."
They locked eyes. Vivian deliberated, carefully. She hated being treated like this, like a servant, but knew damn well how precarious her position was. She had a measure of control over Knox by virtue of her usefulness, which she knew she shouldn't allow him dilute by acquiescing to his stupid fetch-and-carry assignment. Yet, at the same time, he was constantly testing her like this and who knew what would be the last straw? Eric Knox was mentally as stable as nitroglycerine . . . and she was carrying him on a pogo stick.
"All right," she said, draining off the rest of her drink in one swallow. "Wouldn't want to spoil your Christmas, would we?"
"That's my girl." He plunked himself down on a barstool, snatched up a gingerbread cookie, and bit off its head. Mumbling through the mouthful, he added, “Get a carton of eggnog, too. You gotta drink eggnog, or Santa’s gonna be pissed. It‘s the law.”
Almost as soon as the door closed behind her, Knox felt a cold draft on the back of his neck. He turned to see the bedroom door swinging open, and the Loner standing within. No way of knowing how long he'd been there, silently waiting for Vivian to leave. They got along like mongoose and cobra, those two, but at least he‘d finally gotten it through the Loner‘s thick skull that mutual avoidance was better than direct confrontation. Intracompany squabbles made Knox unhappy, and when Knox ain‘t happy, ain‘t nobody happy.
“Wondered when you’d show up.“ Knox swallowed the mouthful of cookie. It made him want a cigarette. He dug around in the drawers and came up with a Sobranie. Not his favorite brand, but hey, beggars and choosers. “C’mon, be sociable. Viv won’t be back for awhile.” He waved the Loner in.
Knox’s pet assassin ghosted into the room with the soundless, gliding tread of a hunting cat. He looked a bit ragged, his dark hair falling in sheaves, curtaining his face. His usually immaculate attire was stiff in places, stained by some dried, dark fluid. A chill aura emanated from him, only somewhat attributable to the harsh breeze up in the canyons, a part of Southern California where nothing stood between them and the North Pole but a fence in Idaho.
“Hard day’s work, eh, buddy?”
The Loner snatched the cigarette from him with an imperious flick of the wrist and took a deep drag, closing his eyes as he inhaled. It was partly an answer - he’d done so well he felt confident enough to presume upon his familiarities - and partly an insult. He’d only taken up smoking, Mayhew had confided to Knox, because the acrid smoke drowned out other scents which overwhelmed his extremely sensitive sense of smell, distracting and irritating him. It was his way of expressing his dislike of Vivian, whose perfume still lingered in the air.
In fact, he was so focused on the cigarette that he had not paid any attention to the rest of the room. As he exhaled and his pale blue eyes fluttered open, he suddenly noticed the streamers, the giant light-up candy canes and plastic snowmen, the massive Douglas fir draped in colored tinsel and blinking lights and circumnavigated by a painstakingly detailed toy train.
Knox wished he had a camera. The expression on the Loner’s angular, evil, normally deadpan face was fuckin’ priceless. His eyes widened, the pupils pinpointing in astonishment, then sagging open to drink it all in, his jaw going loose on the hinge. The Sobranie clung to his lower lip, then dropped free. Knox picked it up before it could set the carpet on fire, then looked back up at the Loner.
He stood stock still for a long moment, only his eyes flickering as he absorbed every detail, then slowly, very slowly, he tilted his head this way and that, finally rotating in a circle. He looked utterly perplexed.
Now that the first shock had passed, he began to prowl around the room, running his fingers dexterously across the rhinestone spangled cotton snow, combing through the tinsel boas, peering into the ceramic Santa's workshop at the tiny elves within, sniffing the delicious cedar scent of the hand-carved wooden Nativity scene. He paused at the remains of Knox and Wood's dinner, pinched off a crumb of gingerbread cake, tasted it.
"None of that. I don't want you puking all over the place. There's leftovers in the fridge if you're hungry."
When he made a move to scoop up some cream cheese frosting, Knox spoke again, the false playfulness dropping out of his tone. "Nein! Verboten."
He hadn't had to use the command words in many months, and they had a agreeably immediate effect. The Loner jerked upright and turned away from the cake with a deliberate gesture. He busied himself tapping the glowing LED nose of the plastic Rudolph on the mantel.
"There's blood on your cheek," Knox snapped. "Sloppy. Wipe it off."
The Loner rubbed his finger on his cheek, regarded the bloody smear, then licked it clean unconcernedly. It was not his own.
"I assume this means you've concluded the Esposito negotiations to my satisfaction?"
A quick, distracted nod, a little grin. He jostled the Rudolph, and it began to belt out a tinny, electronic version of its eponymous theme song. The Loner spat and leaped backwards.
Knox laughed, a sound of cruel amusement. "What, didn't Mayhew ever tell you about Christmas?"
The Loner glanced over his shoulder at Knox. The naked perplexity drained away, replaced by his habitual look of blank apathy.
"Nah, 'course he wouldn't." Mayhew was adamantly anti-religion. Knox always found it amusing how someone who professed to be a total mechanistic materialist was so easily emotionally manipulated. Maybe if Mayhew would let a supernatural entity shoulder some of his burden, he'd be less stressed out, less fragile.
Knox sat down on the couch and patted his lap invitingly. “Come on, then, let ol’ uncle Eric tell you all about the grand traditions.”
The Loner regarded him calculatingly for a moment, then sank on the floor with that innate feline grace and lay his elegant head on Knox’s lap.
“All right. Christmas.” Knox paused, wondering where to begin. It was all jumbled up in his mind, the symbols and the traditions and the whole birth of Christ thing. Might as well begin at the beginning. He repeated, “Christmas. A couple thousand years ago, ok, the guy who created human beings . . . “
The Loner stirred, restless, and Knox dug his fingers into the man’s thick, dark hair. He quieted instantly. “Like I made you, yeah. So human beings were being naughty. Sinful. So he did it with a human chick and had a halfbreed son. Half-god, half-people. Human enough to connect with humans but not having any of their flaws. Jesus Christ was his name. A lot of folks grooved on him pretty good, but there are always a few haters, you know? They killed him. Nailed him up to a big wooden cross. But he came back from the dead for a few days, and told people that he‘d paid for all their sins by dying, so everyone had a free ticket into heaven if they were good.”
Knox paused, pleased with his interpretation. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the Bible, but the Loner wasn’t exactly a choir boy, either.
“So you’re probably wondering about all the other stuff, huh? Well, the fat guy in red is Santa Claus. He lives up in the North Pole and makes toys for all the good kids. Kind of like Jesus for kids, cause kids can’t, whaddaya call it? Conceptualize. They can’t conceptualize heaven. He travels around on Christmas eve - that’s tonight - in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Those are reindeer, the dog-looking things. I think the tree represents, uh, evergreen. Something. The snowmen are . . . well, you’ve never seen snow yet, have you? Or did you, back in Maryland? I don’t remember if it snows there. The gingerbread and peppermint and fruitcake, that’s traditional food. I don’t know about the twinkly lights and tinsel and things. People just like sparkly things, I guess.”
The Loner turned his head so he was facing Knox. He looked frankly dubious.
“Y’know,” Knox mused. “I just put this stuff up for looks, but damn it takes me back. Mom and Dad always made such a big fuss about Christmas. We had the same ornaments every year. Baby’s First Christmas, about a dozen of those. Those stupid construction paper and play-dough ornaments I’d make in school every year. We moved around, typical army brat. I don’t think we ever had Christmas in the same house two years running. But the ornaments were always the same. Mom even saved the tinsel. Always had to go up in the same order, and the angel didn‘t get put up on the top of the tree til Christmas morning. We couldn‘t open our presents til then.”
As he reminisced, without thinking he began to stroke the Loner as if the assassin were an oversized cat. The Loner’s lids drooped, pleased. He’d long since stopped trying to figure out what Knox was talking about, and simply basked in the physical contact.
“Of course, after Dad died . . . no more army bases. Little ratty apartments from then on, yeah. We got kicked out, one year. I was eleven, I think, or ten. One week before Christmas. That fucking bastard landlord. He threw our stuff out on the street. People were taking it, just walking up and taking it like we were having a for-chrissakes yard sale. Mom was crying, I was hitting those thieving scumbags. Some kids got a box of our ornaments and were throwing them, just to see them shatter. Broken glass all over the place. I kicked one guy in the ass while he was crouched down, rummaging through our stuff. Fell right on his face.”
Knox chuckled darkly. The Loner, sensing the shift in his mood, stiffened alertly. Knox‘s temper tantrums could quickly turn violent, and more often than not, he was the uncomplaining, passive victim.
“He turned around and cracked me across the face so hard, I blacked out. Broken nose for Christmas, how d’you like that?”
Knox shook himself out of his bleak reverie and looked down at the man resting his head in his lap. Did he get any of this? Was there anything going on behind those gorgeous pastel blue eyes?
He was struck by the abrupt realization - he hadn't gotten anything for the Loner.
Because he still thought of him as an animal? Hell, he saw ads on TV for pet Christmas presents. Because he saw him as a tool? No - in his sociopathic worldview, all humans beings were tools, his employees just happened to be more conveniently at hand than most, but every one of his programmers and developers had gotten a present uniquely selected for them. It made each and every one feel he had an "in" with the boss. Good for productivity. Of course, none of them realized this was a result of an experimental AI that monitored their email communications and selected a present based on information crunching.
He'd gotten Vivian, his second most useful tool, a Dodge Viper GTS identical to his own, but finished in gold with a leopard skin interior (that was what he'd given her the keys for, and he expected it would be a while before she came back, she wouldn't be able to resist test-driving it all over the city). He'd even bought Mayhew a small farmhouse in upstate New York, where he'd grown up, hoping he'd take the not-so-subtle hint to move there (although that seemed more and more unlikely - Mayhew was thick as a lead brick).
But for the Loner? Nothing.
Then again, what the hell could he get him?
He lived in a small facility on Knox's property, all the furnishings chosen by Knox. Knox dictated his wardrobe, his food. If he needed something such as a new blade for his new sword-cane, Knox supplied it. He didn't listen to music or watch television, he was illiterate, he had no hobbies, interests or talents other than killing. The only thing he seemed to enjoy was driving, but he had Knox's permission to take out any of his collection of 58 restored antique roadsters and sports cars any time he wanted, as long as it didn't interfere with his work. He even had a selection of credit cards hooked into Knox's own account, should he ever require something in a pinch.
"Hell, maybe I should just hire him a hooker," Knox muttered. Of course, he didn't seem to have any interest in that either, and most people couldn't be paid to spend more than a few minutes in his presence. He seemed to give off some subliminal danger signal that activated the instinctive monkeyfear region of people's brains. Even Mayhew, who was for all intents and purposes his father, felt it. Only the very stupid, or very oblivious - or Knox himself - were immune.
“Who cares, anyway,” Knox said roughly. “It’s all media shit, stores making you think you’ve gotta buy presents for everyone. It’s all stuff. Gotta be Zen, gotta stop accumulating material objects. They only drag down your karma.”
The Loner frowned up at him, inquiring.
“Presents, you know, gifts? Show the one you love how much you love them by maxing out your credit card?” He gestured at the gaily wrapped, flamboyantly beribboned (empty, for show only) boxes under the tree. “Can’t buy happiness, my friend, that’s the point everyone is missing. If there’s one thing those assholes who stole our stuff taught me, is that you can’t buy yourself happy. Money, things, they’re just a means to an end. Actions, revenge, that’s what matters. Man, if I had a time machine and an AK-47, I’d gladly go back and waste all of them. Merry Christmas, here’s a lead jacketed bullet in your gut. See, that’s all it’s for. I get Townsend, and that’ll make me happy.”
Knox felt the momentary rage drain out of him. It never fully left, of course, always boiling and percolating just below the surface, emotional magma ready to blow at any moment. Sometimes he could almost forget about it, though. He’d thought tormenting himself with all the Christmas crap would make it worse, and he’d overdone it deliberately just to test his own control . . . but it had only left him feeling oddly tired.
The Loner sat up, tilting his head, and snarled softly as he stared at the door.
“Viv must be back,” Knox said, pushing him away. He sank back onto the couch, massaging his temples. “You better head out, I don’t need to hear her bitch about you any more. Take the window.”
The Loner stood slowly, reluctant to leave Knox. He slunk away into the bedroom, just as Vivian came in, exclaiming in delight about her new car. The Loner snarled again, silently, and climbed out onto the windowsill.
He paused for a moment, looking back. Through the slightly ajar bedroom door, he could see Knox trying to force a glass of eggnog on Vivian, who had her lips pressed firmly shut and was shaking her head, trying not to laugh. Finally, he poured the eggnog in his own mouth and pulled her down into a kiss.
The Loner’s incandescent blue eyes narrowed into blazing slits. He leapt off the sill and disappeared into the night.
The next morning, Christmas . . .
Knox woke not to carols and the smell of peppermint and gingerbread, but to a feminine scream ragged with horror and pitched high by outrage.
“What the fucking fuck now,” he murmured, hauling himself groggily out of bed and stumbling into the living room. He was not a morning person on any day, but the half gallon of spicy milk and high proof brandy he’d gulped down last night didn’t help. The inside of his mouth was vilely stale and sticky, and it felt like an elf had died behind his eyes.
Neither he nor the shrilly carping Vivian noticed the still, dark-clad figure perched on the windowsill, his aquiline nose pressed hard to the breath-fogged glass.
“That thing!” Vivian screeched, pointing at the Christmas tree. “That thing of yours!”
Knox rubbed his eyes hard with his knuckles, focusing by sheer force of will.
A human head was perched atop the Christmas tree - a woman’s, with lovely features stiff and pale as porcelain, her honey-blonde tresses matted with blood. More blood had dribbled from the ragged stump of her neck, painting the tree bright red. Despite the exsanguination and grimace of agonized fear that distorted her features, Knox could identify her as one of Charles Townsend’s agents. Angels, he called them.
Apparently, the Loner had managed to squeeze in some last minute gift hunting.
Knox’s mouth twisted. Charlie would replace her, of course. There always seemed to be a new recruit ready to fill gaps in the ranks. But still -
He said, “God bless us, everyone.” And began to laugh. Not the fake-forced laugh of his assumed persona, not the bitterly sardonic way he laughed at his private dealings, but a sound of genuine delight.
It was the best gift the Loner could have asked for, if he’d had the means to ask.
*end*
author: Nightspore
source material: "Charlie's Angels"
pairing: Knox / Thin Man
challenge: December
disclaimer: What circle of hell is reserved for Those Who Use Other's Creations As Their Own (and make them do naughty things)? Whichever one it is, there I shall go.
author’s note: This is more or less canon with the first movie and with my ff "Shadow of the Thin Man", but AU with "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle". Theme song: "All I Want" by the Violent Femmes
The heavy bass line of the Butthole Surfer's "Pepper" reverberated thru the small house, making the ornaments on the tree jiggle precariously. Eric Knox - née John McCadden - danced along to it, silly as that looked, as he still wore the elf hat and the fuzzy green and red sweater he’d put on for the TV cameras earlier today.
"That's not Christmas music," Vivian commented. She lounged at the wreath and paper snowflake festooned mini bar, gently stirring together sweet vermouth, bitters, and bourbon in a frosted mixing glass.
"And that's not eggnog," he shot back, as she strained the concoction over a cherry in the cocktail glass. The song ended, and the next one came on, raspy, staticky thumping and even less seasonal. Vivian rubbed an orange peel on the rim of the glass and sipped appreciatively.
"I want to fuck you like an animal, I want to feel you from the inside," Trent Reznor growled. Knox mouthed the words, grabbed a three foot tall stuffed bear wearing a matching elf hat and mimed something disgusting with it.
"All I'm saying is that it just doesn't fit the whole festive mise en scène," she waved her hand lazily, indicating the Christmas decorations that glittered on every available surface. ”I mean, as long as you’re going overboard you should put on some actual Christmas music.”
“You think I did this for me,” he asked, stopping and giving her his patented expression of bogus befuddled innocence. The same melting-chocolate look you’d get from a cocker spaniel puppy that just couldn’t understand why you’d accuse him of chewing up your socks. He would never do a thing like that. He loves you. “Nah, it’s just I didn’t want to disappoint the kiddies.”
This would be the children - cancer kids, orphans, lost their home in a brushfire, something like that, he couldn’t remember - who’d come over this afternoon to unwrap the wonderful things he’d donated to the cancer ward, or orphanage, or whatever, with the appropriate media coverage.
“You are so full of it.” She let out a ladylike snort.
He dug in his pants pocket and pulled out a set of car keys, tossed them to her. "Fine. So go get me a Christmas CD. Something nice and drippy, with lots of chimes and jingle bells. Bing Crosby, or Astaire, huh?"
She set the drink down carefully. "Where exactly am I supposed to find a something like that at 11 pm on Christmas Eve?"
"Gas station on 10th is open."
They locked eyes. Vivian deliberated, carefully. She hated being treated like this, like a servant, but knew damn well how precarious her position was. She had a measure of control over Knox by virtue of her usefulness, which she knew she shouldn't allow him dilute by acquiescing to his stupid fetch-and-carry assignment. Yet, at the same time, he was constantly testing her like this and who knew what would be the last straw? Eric Knox was mentally as stable as nitroglycerine . . . and she was carrying him on a pogo stick.
"All right," she said, draining off the rest of her drink in one swallow. "Wouldn't want to spoil your Christmas, would we?"
"That's my girl." He plunked himself down on a barstool, snatched up a gingerbread cookie, and bit off its head. Mumbling through the mouthful, he added, “Get a carton of eggnog, too. You gotta drink eggnog, or Santa’s gonna be pissed. It‘s the law.”
Almost as soon as the door closed behind her, Knox felt a cold draft on the back of his neck. He turned to see the bedroom door swinging open, and the Loner standing within. No way of knowing how long he'd been there, silently waiting for Vivian to leave. They got along like mongoose and cobra, those two, but at least he‘d finally gotten it through the Loner‘s thick skull that mutual avoidance was better than direct confrontation. Intracompany squabbles made Knox unhappy, and when Knox ain‘t happy, ain‘t nobody happy.
“Wondered when you’d show up.“ Knox swallowed the mouthful of cookie. It made him want a cigarette. He dug around in the drawers and came up with a Sobranie. Not his favorite brand, but hey, beggars and choosers. “C’mon, be sociable. Viv won’t be back for awhile.” He waved the Loner in.
Knox’s pet assassin ghosted into the room with the soundless, gliding tread of a hunting cat. He looked a bit ragged, his dark hair falling in sheaves, curtaining his face. His usually immaculate attire was stiff in places, stained by some dried, dark fluid. A chill aura emanated from him, only somewhat attributable to the harsh breeze up in the canyons, a part of Southern California where nothing stood between them and the North Pole but a fence in Idaho.
“Hard day’s work, eh, buddy?”
The Loner snatched the cigarette from him with an imperious flick of the wrist and took a deep drag, closing his eyes as he inhaled. It was partly an answer - he’d done so well he felt confident enough to presume upon his familiarities - and partly an insult. He’d only taken up smoking, Mayhew had confided to Knox, because the acrid smoke drowned out other scents which overwhelmed his extremely sensitive sense of smell, distracting and irritating him. It was his way of expressing his dislike of Vivian, whose perfume still lingered in the air.
In fact, he was so focused on the cigarette that he had not paid any attention to the rest of the room. As he exhaled and his pale blue eyes fluttered open, he suddenly noticed the streamers, the giant light-up candy canes and plastic snowmen, the massive Douglas fir draped in colored tinsel and blinking lights and circumnavigated by a painstakingly detailed toy train.
Knox wished he had a camera. The expression on the Loner’s angular, evil, normally deadpan face was fuckin’ priceless. His eyes widened, the pupils pinpointing in astonishment, then sagging open to drink it all in, his jaw going loose on the hinge. The Sobranie clung to his lower lip, then dropped free. Knox picked it up before it could set the carpet on fire, then looked back up at the Loner.
He stood stock still for a long moment, only his eyes flickering as he absorbed every detail, then slowly, very slowly, he tilted his head this way and that, finally rotating in a circle. He looked utterly perplexed.
Now that the first shock had passed, he began to prowl around the room, running his fingers dexterously across the rhinestone spangled cotton snow, combing through the tinsel boas, peering into the ceramic Santa's workshop at the tiny elves within, sniffing the delicious cedar scent of the hand-carved wooden Nativity scene. He paused at the remains of Knox and Wood's dinner, pinched off a crumb of gingerbread cake, tasted it.
"None of that. I don't want you puking all over the place. There's leftovers in the fridge if you're hungry."
When he made a move to scoop up some cream cheese frosting, Knox spoke again, the false playfulness dropping out of his tone. "Nein! Verboten."
He hadn't had to use the command words in many months, and they had a agreeably immediate effect. The Loner jerked upright and turned away from the cake with a deliberate gesture. He busied himself tapping the glowing LED nose of the plastic Rudolph on the mantel.
"There's blood on your cheek," Knox snapped. "Sloppy. Wipe it off."
The Loner rubbed his finger on his cheek, regarded the bloody smear, then licked it clean unconcernedly. It was not his own.
"I assume this means you've concluded the Esposito negotiations to my satisfaction?"
A quick, distracted nod, a little grin. He jostled the Rudolph, and it began to belt out a tinny, electronic version of its eponymous theme song. The Loner spat and leaped backwards.
Knox laughed, a sound of cruel amusement. "What, didn't Mayhew ever tell you about Christmas?"
The Loner glanced over his shoulder at Knox. The naked perplexity drained away, replaced by his habitual look of blank apathy.
"Nah, 'course he wouldn't." Mayhew was adamantly anti-religion. Knox always found it amusing how someone who professed to be a total mechanistic materialist was so easily emotionally manipulated. Maybe if Mayhew would let a supernatural entity shoulder some of his burden, he'd be less stressed out, less fragile.
Knox sat down on the couch and patted his lap invitingly. “Come on, then, let ol’ uncle Eric tell you all about the grand traditions.”
The Loner regarded him calculatingly for a moment, then sank on the floor with that innate feline grace and lay his elegant head on Knox’s lap.
“All right. Christmas.” Knox paused, wondering where to begin. It was all jumbled up in his mind, the symbols and the traditions and the whole birth of Christ thing. Might as well begin at the beginning. He repeated, “Christmas. A couple thousand years ago, ok, the guy who created human beings . . . “
The Loner stirred, restless, and Knox dug his fingers into the man’s thick, dark hair. He quieted instantly. “Like I made you, yeah. So human beings were being naughty. Sinful. So he did it with a human chick and had a halfbreed son. Half-god, half-people. Human enough to connect with humans but not having any of their flaws. Jesus Christ was his name. A lot of folks grooved on him pretty good, but there are always a few haters, you know? They killed him. Nailed him up to a big wooden cross. But he came back from the dead for a few days, and told people that he‘d paid for all their sins by dying, so everyone had a free ticket into heaven if they were good.”
Knox paused, pleased with his interpretation. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the Bible, but the Loner wasn’t exactly a choir boy, either.
“So you’re probably wondering about all the other stuff, huh? Well, the fat guy in red is Santa Claus. He lives up in the North Pole and makes toys for all the good kids. Kind of like Jesus for kids, cause kids can’t, whaddaya call it? Conceptualize. They can’t conceptualize heaven. He travels around on Christmas eve - that’s tonight - in a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Those are reindeer, the dog-looking things. I think the tree represents, uh, evergreen. Something. The snowmen are . . . well, you’ve never seen snow yet, have you? Or did you, back in Maryland? I don’t remember if it snows there. The gingerbread and peppermint and fruitcake, that’s traditional food. I don’t know about the twinkly lights and tinsel and things. People just like sparkly things, I guess.”
The Loner turned his head so he was facing Knox. He looked frankly dubious.
“Y’know,” Knox mused. “I just put this stuff up for looks, but damn it takes me back. Mom and Dad always made such a big fuss about Christmas. We had the same ornaments every year. Baby’s First Christmas, about a dozen of those. Those stupid construction paper and play-dough ornaments I’d make in school every year. We moved around, typical army brat. I don’t think we ever had Christmas in the same house two years running. But the ornaments were always the same. Mom even saved the tinsel. Always had to go up in the same order, and the angel didn‘t get put up on the top of the tree til Christmas morning. We couldn‘t open our presents til then.”
As he reminisced, without thinking he began to stroke the Loner as if the assassin were an oversized cat. The Loner’s lids drooped, pleased. He’d long since stopped trying to figure out what Knox was talking about, and simply basked in the physical contact.
“Of course, after Dad died . . . no more army bases. Little ratty apartments from then on, yeah. We got kicked out, one year. I was eleven, I think, or ten. One week before Christmas. That fucking bastard landlord. He threw our stuff out on the street. People were taking it, just walking up and taking it like we were having a for-chrissakes yard sale. Mom was crying, I was hitting those thieving scumbags. Some kids got a box of our ornaments and were throwing them, just to see them shatter. Broken glass all over the place. I kicked one guy in the ass while he was crouched down, rummaging through our stuff. Fell right on his face.”
Knox chuckled darkly. The Loner, sensing the shift in his mood, stiffened alertly. Knox‘s temper tantrums could quickly turn violent, and more often than not, he was the uncomplaining, passive victim.
“He turned around and cracked me across the face so hard, I blacked out. Broken nose for Christmas, how d’you like that?”
Knox shook himself out of his bleak reverie and looked down at the man resting his head in his lap. Did he get any of this? Was there anything going on behind those gorgeous pastel blue eyes?
He was struck by the abrupt realization - he hadn't gotten anything for the Loner.
Because he still thought of him as an animal? Hell, he saw ads on TV for pet Christmas presents. Because he saw him as a tool? No - in his sociopathic worldview, all humans beings were tools, his employees just happened to be more conveniently at hand than most, but every one of his programmers and developers had gotten a present uniquely selected for them. It made each and every one feel he had an "in" with the boss. Good for productivity. Of course, none of them realized this was a result of an experimental AI that monitored their email communications and selected a present based on information crunching.
He'd gotten Vivian, his second most useful tool, a Dodge Viper GTS identical to his own, but finished in gold with a leopard skin interior (that was what he'd given her the keys for, and he expected it would be a while before she came back, she wouldn't be able to resist test-driving it all over the city). He'd even bought Mayhew a small farmhouse in upstate New York, where he'd grown up, hoping he'd take the not-so-subtle hint to move there (although that seemed more and more unlikely - Mayhew was thick as a lead brick).
But for the Loner? Nothing.
Then again, what the hell could he get him?
He lived in a small facility on Knox's property, all the furnishings chosen by Knox. Knox dictated his wardrobe, his food. If he needed something such as a new blade for his new sword-cane, Knox supplied it. He didn't listen to music or watch television, he was illiterate, he had no hobbies, interests or talents other than killing. The only thing he seemed to enjoy was driving, but he had Knox's permission to take out any of his collection of 58 restored antique roadsters and sports cars any time he wanted, as long as it didn't interfere with his work. He even had a selection of credit cards hooked into Knox's own account, should he ever require something in a pinch.
"Hell, maybe I should just hire him a hooker," Knox muttered. Of course, he didn't seem to have any interest in that either, and most people couldn't be paid to spend more than a few minutes in his presence. He seemed to give off some subliminal danger signal that activated the instinctive monkeyfear region of people's brains. Even Mayhew, who was for all intents and purposes his father, felt it. Only the very stupid, or very oblivious - or Knox himself - were immune.
“Who cares, anyway,” Knox said roughly. “It’s all media shit, stores making you think you’ve gotta buy presents for everyone. It’s all stuff. Gotta be Zen, gotta stop accumulating material objects. They only drag down your karma.”
The Loner frowned up at him, inquiring.
“Presents, you know, gifts? Show the one you love how much you love them by maxing out your credit card?” He gestured at the gaily wrapped, flamboyantly beribboned (empty, for show only) boxes under the tree. “Can’t buy happiness, my friend, that’s the point everyone is missing. If there’s one thing those assholes who stole our stuff taught me, is that you can’t buy yourself happy. Money, things, they’re just a means to an end. Actions, revenge, that’s what matters. Man, if I had a time machine and an AK-47, I’d gladly go back and waste all of them. Merry Christmas, here’s a lead jacketed bullet in your gut. See, that’s all it’s for. I get Townsend, and that’ll make me happy.”
Knox felt the momentary rage drain out of him. It never fully left, of course, always boiling and percolating just below the surface, emotional magma ready to blow at any moment. Sometimes he could almost forget about it, though. He’d thought tormenting himself with all the Christmas crap would make it worse, and he’d overdone it deliberately just to test his own control . . . but it had only left him feeling oddly tired.
The Loner sat up, tilting his head, and snarled softly as he stared at the door.
“Viv must be back,” Knox said, pushing him away. He sank back onto the couch, massaging his temples. “You better head out, I don’t need to hear her bitch about you any more. Take the window.”
The Loner stood slowly, reluctant to leave Knox. He slunk away into the bedroom, just as Vivian came in, exclaiming in delight about her new car. The Loner snarled again, silently, and climbed out onto the windowsill.
He paused for a moment, looking back. Through the slightly ajar bedroom door, he could see Knox trying to force a glass of eggnog on Vivian, who had her lips pressed firmly shut and was shaking her head, trying not to laugh. Finally, he poured the eggnog in his own mouth and pulled her down into a kiss.
The Loner’s incandescent blue eyes narrowed into blazing slits. He leapt off the sill and disappeared into the night.
The next morning, Christmas . . .
Knox woke not to carols and the smell of peppermint and gingerbread, but to a feminine scream ragged with horror and pitched high by outrage.
“What the fucking fuck now,” he murmured, hauling himself groggily out of bed and stumbling into the living room. He was not a morning person on any day, but the half gallon of spicy milk and high proof brandy he’d gulped down last night didn’t help. The inside of his mouth was vilely stale and sticky, and it felt like an elf had died behind his eyes.
Neither he nor the shrilly carping Vivian noticed the still, dark-clad figure perched on the windowsill, his aquiline nose pressed hard to the breath-fogged glass.
“That thing!” Vivian screeched, pointing at the Christmas tree. “That thing of yours!”
Knox rubbed his eyes hard with his knuckles, focusing by sheer force of will.
A human head was perched atop the Christmas tree - a woman’s, with lovely features stiff and pale as porcelain, her honey-blonde tresses matted with blood. More blood had dribbled from the ragged stump of her neck, painting the tree bright red. Despite the exsanguination and grimace of agonized fear that distorted her features, Knox could identify her as one of Charles Townsend’s agents. Angels, he called them.
Apparently, the Loner had managed to squeeze in some last minute gift hunting.
Knox’s mouth twisted. Charlie would replace her, of course. There always seemed to be a new recruit ready to fill gaps in the ranks. But still -
He said, “God bless us, everyone.” And began to laugh. Not the fake-forced laugh of his assumed persona, not the bitterly sardonic way he laughed at his private dealings, but a sound of genuine delight.
It was the best gift the Loner could have asked for, if he’d had the means to ask.
*end*