3 Max Payne Thingies

[fantasticpants.livejournal.com]

Okay, I don't wanna spam too much, so I'm just gonna put all three things together, which is still spam, but at least it's massive, organized spam.

The Morning After is the third chapter of More Like Fate (PG13, probably),

Irony of Fate is a Vlad-POV Prologue to More Like Fate (R rated),

Pain is an unrelated, short piece, also Max/Vlad set after the second game (definitely an R, that one. Contains torture, though nothing really explicit).

Chapter III: The Morning After

“Do you even have clean shirts, or do you wear the same one all the time?”

Vlad's words greeted me into wakefulness, along with a dull muscle ache spread like a spider web throughout my body. I wasn't sure which of these was worse.

Vlad was still talking, obviously, “I know it's your favorite look, but I prefer my shirts free of blood stains and bullet holes.”

I turned my head in the direction of his voice. My neck was firmly opposed to the idea, and forced me to pause in mid-turn and suppress a groan. A grim greyness, the only constant in my world, peered at me apathetically from the window, supported by the dim, steady drumming of rain against the thick glass. I finally forced my neck to do my bidding and looked at Vlad.

He was standing by the bedroom door, casually leaning against the wall. He looked better. Still pale, but no longer likely to be pegged as a B-movie extra. The gashes on his face were healing nicely, and he'd gotten himself cleaned up, also changing the bandage on his shoulder. The Desert Eagle was sticking out of his belt now, somewhat awkwardly due to the gun's considerable size. A lit cigarette dangled from his mouth with the loose nonchalance of a bored acrobat, integrating smoke into the apartment's already limited atmosphere.

He was still lacking in the shirt department, though.

Images from my recent dream flooded my not quite conscious mind, coloring the waking world in hazy paint. Looking at Vlad now, I couldn't help beginning to notice different things about him. Instead of the scars, I was seeing the lean muscle and the sharp, well defined lines that shaped him. These weren't the sort of things I was supposed to pay attention to, or particularly care about. But my mind had other ideas, like picking me up by the collar and tossing me into the lion's den.

Where the hell was repression when you needed it?

Noticing either my overly lingering stare or my lack of responsiveness, Vlad gave me a quizzical look. He kept the cigarette balanced in the corner of his mouth, nearly Bogart-like in efficiency, as he spoke, ”What's the matter, Max? Bad dream?” a hint of a smile played on his features, providing a teasing context for his question.

Bad?

That was one word for it. 'Disturbing', however, covered it far more thoroughly. And not the 'catching your parents in bed' brand of disturbing, either. Not even the 'watching a David Lynch marathon on LSD' kind. This went far beyond that.

There was only one thing I could think of that was more disturbing.

Reality.

Vlad was still waiting for a reply. “You killed the Road Runner,” I informed him.

“Road Runner?” he furrowed his brow contemplatively, pausing to remove the cigarette from his mouth and exhale a dramatic puff of smoke, “'Beep Beep'?”

“That's the one.”

He seemed to consider this. “I don't think so. I never liked that cartoon much - it's depressing, and the Russian version is much better. Besides,” he stuck the cigarette back in his mouth, “I have an alibi.”

He always did.

“What's that?”

“I was too busy doing target practice on that Tweety bird,” he illustrated by pointing two fingers then raising them in a lazy pantomime of firing a gun, “Now that's one annoying bitch.”

“Tweety's a guy,” I felt compelled to point out.

“Really?” he shrugged, using his good shoulder only, “If you say so,” tilting his head sideways and raising one corner of his mouth, he concluded, “I stand by my statement.”

There was a swarm of unanswered questions buzzing in the air around us, and the silence following Vlad's speech made it all the more deafening. We were both clearly well aware of this, but for now, it was easier to play at normality. Well, our own special breed of normality, at any rate.

“Shirt, Max?”

That was a good idea.

“Under the bed.”

Wasn't that where all normal people kept their clothes?

“Obviously,” sliding a wry smirk on, Vlad separated himself from the wall. Locating an empty pizza box, one of many I had scattered around the place, he crushed his prop cigarette against it. “Why didn't I think of looking there?” he muttered reflectively, letting his gaze hover over me for several moments as he headed for the bedroom.

I used the little free time to stretch out, quickly bringing my body back from its lethargic state. My mind wasn't quite as good a sport, though. It was still stuck on replay, forcefully pulling me to places I had absolutely no desire to go, then or ever. The relentless badgering weighted down on me, stifling any rational thought I attempted to form.

Vlad finally emerged from the bedroom, carrying my old Hawaiian shirt, to which I had been holding on with the clingy sentimentality of an overzealous Jewish matriarch. “That's all I could find,” he held it out, looking at it in the manner one would look at bloodied corpse. Had this one not been a cold hearted killer, that is. “Your revenge shirt.”

“That's all there is. The rest are in dry cleaning,” I told him. They weren't, but he didn't need to know that. I was still feeling vindictive.

“Of course they are,” he muttered under his breath, sending a highly skeptical look in my direction.

Where was the trust?

Effectively masking his discontent with an aura of flippancy, Vlad slid the shirt on, doing this slowly, which, if I knew him at all, was very deliberate, “You know, Max, I've always wondered-” he began buttoning it up, chin tilted down but eyes set firmly on me, “was making this...” producing a small snort, “shirt the last thing your enemies saw,” he paused, closing the top button then spreading his arms and flashing a 'Ta da!' expression. Strangely, and rather annoyingly, it looked good on him. Completely out of place, but good. “Was that a part of your revenge?” he went on, knitting his brow into a mock frown before breaking into a broad grin, “that seems almost too cruel.”

“I like that shirt,” I shrugged, suppressing the sudden and unnerving urge to mirror his grin, “and it was more of a tactical decision. Blinding your opponents never hurts.”

The sound of screeching tires invaded the apartment, a loud, sharp reminder that there was still a world outside. A grimace made a short-lived but telling stop on Vlad's face.

“Hangover?” he was doing an impressive job hiding it, but I wasn't a detective for nothing.

His only response was an irritated look, which was all the answer I needed.

“I thought you never got hangovers,” it had always been a particular point of pride for him, complimenting his ability to drink 300 pound goons under the table. More often than not, alcohol had no visible effect on him whatsoever.

“I don't,” his irritation persisted, to my dark amusement, though it was filtered through a thick layer of sarcasm, “as a rule. I do tend to make exceptions for cases there's more alcohol than blood in my body.” Sparing me the need to retort, he quickly juggled on to a different subject, “Do you have anything to eat?”

I doubted it. “Check the fridge,” I dragged myself up from the couch and made my way to the bathroom, hoping to escape Vlad's presence temporarily.

That feeble hope was extinguished before it even had a chance to ignite. Vlad's presence had already extended itself throughout the place, leaving its calling cards all over. The bathroom was a poor refuge. The air was still stiflingly humid inside. Vlad clearly liked his showers blazingly hot. Fumes gathered on the mirror, thoroughly camouflaging the clear surface, so at the very least I'd been spared another encounter with the mentally unstable stranger who had made it his home.

I opened the tap and let the water run for a while, waiting for it to turn from one extreme to another. Splashing the now freezing liquid over my face, I prayed for an illumination. Something to shed some light on the situation. But there was no one up there to answer my prayers, or even smile and nod, pretending to listen. I was stuck, as usual, with the shadowy dimness of my own mind.

I decided to skip my morning shower - who knew what Vlad had left in there, and stuck to brushing my teeth instead. Concluding this mechanical action, I exited the suffocating room.

Vlad, as I expected, wasn't successful in finding anything to his satisfaction in the humble interior of my refrigerator, which he was currently staring at with a disgruntled expression. He glanced at me as I shut the bathroom door behind me and closed in, “I don't understand you, Max. You can have any kind of food you want. Any kind. And you choose these canned-” he paused, glancing back into the fridge, displaying a mix of wonder and barely contained revulsion, “-I don't even want to know what they are.” Truth be told, I wasn't a hundred percent sure, either. “You really need to overcome this masochistic streak of yours,” injecting flimsy hope, he asked, “Any coffee, at least?”

“All out,” that much was true. I could have used some myself, desperately.

“Alcohol?”

“On the wagon,” now that was a lie, albeit a wishful one.

Shaking his head dejectedly, he noted, “Amazing.” Eventually settling for a battered bottle of Coke that was nearly as old as the refrigerator itself, he hauled it over to the table and scanned the area for glasses. Finding them at an unlikely location, he grabbed two, and, twirling them between his fingers, placed them by the bottle, then proceeded to pour the liquid menace. He did this with the practiced expertise of a veteran bartender. Rather belatedly, he remembered to ask, “You want some?”

Coca Cola was the embodiment of the American Dream. A black-souled, sticky substance sugarcoated with false promises and lies. An empty label devoid of anything resembling a meaning. Which of course never stopped anyone from consuming it mindlessly, myself included.

Vlad's looked at me strangely. “I have to admit, Max, I've never thought about it quite like that,” he arched a brow. Had I said that out loud? My mind was in a miserable condition indeed. “Sometimes a soft drink,” he held out a glass to me, smiling vaguely, “is just a soft drink.”

Could be. But Vlad was never just Vlad. He always dragged complications along for the ride.

With a cerebral sigh, I accepted the glass and sipped the drink warily. The taste was predictably awful- bubble deprived, sugary goo, but there was a refreshing quality about that awfulness.

It couldn't get any worse.

This optimistic thought served as a focus point for my mind. The buzz was now becoming impossible to ignore, or dance around. It was time to begin addressing all those unanswered questions. I placed my glass on the table, locked my gaze on Vlad and flipped that little switch inside my head, turning my inner detective on.

He picked up on it immediately, automatically adopting the posture he’d always used during police interrogations. Laid back to a callous degree, but with a mental wiriness ready to spring at you at any moment.

Some things never changed.

“Where have you been?”

He took a casual sip off his drink, scowling at the taste. “When?” the levity of his tone was grating. Was he trying to play dumb? It didn't suit him.

“You know, since you died.”

He exhaled slowly, his expression entering a more serious zone. He took the rest of the drink down in the same manner one would have drowned a shot. It might have been a Pavlovian reaction, or maybe he was just attempting to circumvent the taste. His glass joined mine on the table. He took his time before replying, with obvious reluctance, “The Motherland.”

There was only one subject that I knew could cause Vlad to speak in monosyllables. 'The Motherland' was it. A verbal Kryptonite of sorts. He'd always been keen on avoiding the topic like a highly contagious STD. I'd brought it up in one of our conversations, long before the whole mutual-killing ball had begun to roll, and he had told me that he had nothing but bad memories there, closing the topic indefinitely.

“Really? What were you doing?” while I wasn't normally in the habit of poking at old wounds, I had absolutely no qualms about it now. Hurting his feelings was exactly a consideration. “Catching up with more old friends?”

He clenched his jaw. It was a barely noticeable gesture, and lasted no longer than a second, but it failed to pass by me. “Being invisible,” he forced the flippancy back into his voice, absent-mindedly tapping his fingers against the table surface.

“That's not your strong point.”

“I never needed it to be,” his smirk contained a tint of bitterness.

“Times change,” I called to his attention.

Making generalized, abstract statements was never a smart thing to do around Vlad. It prompted him to slide into his philosophical realm, which often guaranteed either an instant headache or an excruciatingly long debate, with a headache for dessert. This time he was mercifully concise about it, at least, “People do, too.”

“So, you've changed?” I maxed out the sarcasm meter, and still doubted it conveyed even half the amount of skepticism that I felt.

“I didn't say that,” he grinned in a true ear-to-ear fashion, “You should pay more attention, Max.”

No, clearly he hadn't changed one bit. For some reason, it was better this way. More real. The devil you know, if you were in the mood for clichés. Vlad always was. I allowed a smirk brief entry rights to my face.

I was about to formulate the next question when my deja vu flavored spidey-sense went off, igniting a silent alarm in my head. Whatever it was that ticked it off - a subtle shift in the air current, a faraway whistle or just the acute feeling of sudden wrongness, I acted on it without a blink of hesitation.

The bullet traveled an inch away from from my ear as I lunged myself at Vlad, tackling him towards the floor. Pieces of shattered glass followed, raining down savagely. Most of them finished their short lifespan harmlessly on the floor, but a few relentless ones decided that burying themselves inside my flesh was a more amusing outcome.

I was not amused.

Once Vlad and I hit the floor, several thoughts went through my head with startling speed, racing each other to the finish line. The first was that the next time I looked for an apartment, I'd be sure to choose one that had no windows. Anywhere.

The second was that maybe I should have just shouted at him to get down, instead of performing a cinematic tackle. Or let his own reflexes do the dirty work. Or maybe just watch the bullet pierce his skull. Well, not that. Not really. Now that for some reason he wasn't dead, I knew I intended on keeping him that way.

The last thought was that getting half a dozen glass shard stuck in your back could be a real mood killer.

I had no illusions that helping Vlad would come back to bite me in the ass, but I hadn't considered how little time it would take, and how close it would come to manifesting itself literally.

God, I hated narrative devices.

Some Pointless Trivia AKA Author's Notes: Irony of Fate is the name of a popular Russian/Soviet cult movie (romantic comedy). IMDB link- check it out. Good stuff.

Spokoinoi Nochi Malishi (Good Night, Little Kids) is a Russian children's TV show, immensely popular and very long running(over 30 years). Tell me if you want the theme song and I'll email it to you with the (rather horrible) translation.

Irony of Fate

There's nothing like having your head properly slammed into a table to remind you that you're still alive.

Too bad they weren't doing it properly.

I wasn't even seeing stars yet.

“Where is it?” Ryan spoke slowly, articulating every word as if he was speaking to a retarded child.

“Let me give you a hint,” I mimicked his speech pattern, “It's not on me.”

The soldier-boy who was restraining me from behind pulled me up, making it easier for Ryan to direct a punch to my stomach. That hurt. But I'd had worse. Much worse.

“You should work on your interrogation technique, Ryan. I'm not terribly impressed.”

He awarded me with another slug for the comment, connecting with my jaw this time.

Some people just didn't take well to constructive criticism.

“Better?” he turned on an ugly smirk. Smirking was an art, and he was no artist.

Grinning widely, I replied, “I would say you hit like a girl, but it's such a cliché,” fury was beginning to ignite in his eyes. Good. Playing with fire was a specialty of mine. “You hit like a gay sailor who hadn't been properly fucked in years,” I amended. Soldier-boy number 2, leaning against the table, suppressed a snort.

The next hit was harder. It'd been a while since I'd sported a black eye, but it was like riding a bicycle.

I bit on my lip to keep from showing pain. It would've worked if it wasn't bleeding excessively already. I barely managed to turn my wince into a smirk, “What's the matter, your army buddies aren't putting out anymore?”

“Shut... the fuck... up,” following the breathtakingly original statement, Ryan went into a full blown boxer mode, with me as the punching bag. I considered employing the old trick of crawling into a dark spot in my mind and forgetting things like pain even existed. But I needed the pain. It was fuel.

He stopped after a minute or so. His face was glowing red, rage radiating off him in unsteady waves.

I had to draw a few hard breaths before speaking again. “Sexual frustration is never healthy, you know. I'm sure you could find a better way of expressing it if you only tried.”

He almost growled. A miniature miscalculation was all I needed, and he was just about ready to offer it to me on a silver plate. With ridiculous predictability, he went in for yet another strike, aiming at my face again.

Strike three, you're out. I sharply pulled to the right. I didn't have the strength to tear away, but it was enough to shift the balance. Ryan's fist connected with the lackey's face instead of mine.

Said lackey stumbled to the floor, and, being somewhat choice deficient at the moment, I went down with him. I threw my head backwards with as much force I could manage. The crunching sound of his nose breaking was immensely satisfying. He gave a muted cry, losing his grip on me. With my now free hand, I pried the gun from his loosened fingers. A Beretta 92F, not my personal favorite, but at least the silencer was thrown in for free.

I quickly rolled away, taking cover behind the couch. Not quickly enough. A bullet, probably courtesy of soldier-boy number two, had pierced my shoulder, though I only noticed this unfortunate occurrence a moment later, as the pain registered. Pure Adrenaline, however, was what I operated on now, and it kept the pain at bay.

I still held the element of surprise to a certain degree, and I was the only one with certain cover. This was a piece of cake. Shooting blind, I aiming for the spots where they'd been. A memory game.

There was a dull thud as a body hit the carpet. I sighed. It was a good, expensive carpet, and I hated having to ruin it.

I emerged from behind the couch. Ryan was the only one left standing. I rapidly corrected that with a bullet to the stomach. The ensured route to a slow, painful death. He went down like a fly.

I surveyed the scene. Soldier-boy number one had three bullet holes in his chest on top of the broken nose. One hole was more than enough for soldier-boy number two, and it glared at me from his cheek.

I fixed my stare on Ryan, leveling the gun to his head.

“No! Don't kill me!” he squirmed, clutching his hand over the fresh wound, “please!”

I hated it when they begged. And it was disappointing to see Ryan's true colors emerging under the gaze of my gun. Besides, he was dead already.

“Why not?” I asked casually. I seriously doubted he had a reason I gave the slightest bit of a damn about, but I was curious.

“I can give you information.”

That couldn't hurt. “Go ahead,” I urged.

“W-” his Adam's apple bobbed, “What do you want to know?”

Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore?

“Where does Thorn hang out these days?”

“The Fort. He barely leaves it.”

“And how's the security there?”

“Tight. Uh-,” he paused, giving the gun a nervous glance. I lowered it. This was embarrassing enough without him wetting his pants.

“How many guards?”

“A... A few platoons, some secret service, too.” Great. And I thought my mood couldn't get any worse. “He's paranoid.”

“With good reason. Anything else you feel like sharing?”

“There's a spy.”

“There always is,” I pointed out, “who?”

“We don't know yet. Definitely someone high up.”

“That's it?” I was getting impatient.

He nodded frantically.

”Thanks for the information. You've been very helpful,” I raised the gun, “really.”

“No! Please! I, I didn't,” he stammered futilely. It was truly pathetic to witness. “Please, it wasn't personal-”

I cut him off, sparing him further degradation, “pure business, I know,” it was my line, you miserable bastard. I pulled the trigger, hoping a bullet between the eyes would be enough to shut him up, “no hard feelings.”

I took a moment to relish the newfound silence, then wiped the sweat from my brow. There was quite a bit of it gathered there already.

“Fuck,” I muttered to no one in particular.

So much for Plan A, then. And it'd been such a nice, simple plan, too. The real shame was that there was no Plan B. Yet. I'd always had a knack for improvisation. But how the hell do you improvise your way through 'a few platoons and some secret service' with manpower you can count on your fingers?

I slumped onto the chair by the table. Now that the Adrenaline was mostly out of my system, the pain from my shoulder wound felt free to manifest itself, mainly through nagging, pulsating surges.

A glass stood on the table. I studied it. Its full half told me I was fucked. The empty half insisted I was a dead man walking. Only without the walking.

Unless...

An idea began to take shape in my head. It was insane. Beyond insane.

Probably just insane enough to work.

I pulled out my mobile phone and dialed up HQ. After several seconds of inane beeping, a cheerful voice answered.

“Molotov Pizza, how can I help you?” it was Kostya, clearly drunk. The background noise suggested they were having a wild party in there. My brain gave a dejected groan, but I decided to save the lecture for a more appropriate time.

“Get me Max's address.”

“Max? Who-” his initial confusion was replaced by uneasy shock as he uttered the name, “...Payne?” Kostya had shared a brief but poignant encounter with Max, and had the scars to show for it.

I grinned to myself, “The one and only.”

There was a long pause on the other end. “Sure thing, boss.”

I hanged up and set the phone on the table.

At least Ryan had gone through the trouble of obtaining quality Vodka for our meeting. I appreciated that, if nothing else.

I poured a shot and gulped it down immediately. The first shot was intended to clear my mind, crystallize my thoughts. The second was to dim the pain. A few more were needed to prepare me for the execution of the newly formed plan. Liquid courage or whatnot. The rest were simply because it was bad luck to put good Vodka to waste. And luck was the name of the game.

The phone came to life then, emitting the Godfather theme music. I let it play for a bit. I could never get enough of it. Eventually, I answered.

“Got you two addresses, boss. One is, uh,” short pause, “'Payne Investigations'.”

“I need the home address.”

He gave me a Bronx address.

“Thanks, Kost', good job,” organized crime always lacked in positive reinforcement, and I felt obligated to fill the gap, “now wrap the party up, it's past your bedtime.”

'Payne Investigations'? I wasn't the only one who'd ended up falling far from grace, then.

I got up, reluctantly. It was time to clean up and be on my merry way.

Grabbing a tissue, I used it to wipe my fingerprints off the glass, the bottle, the gun and anything else I might have come into contact with. It was more out of habit than anything else. Police attention was by far the last thing I had to worry about.

I needed to conceal the gunshot wound.

Ryan's flight jacket lay on the chair, neatly folded. It was painful to even look at. Desperate times called for desperate measures, though. I put it on.

“Where's your fashion sense?” I gave Ryan's body a kick as I passed by it. It offered no response. Oh well.

Before making my exit, I paused for a moment and looked at the framed photographs hanging on the wall. A younger Ryan with his 'band of brothers'. Ryan showing off his brand new M-16. Ryan receiving a medal for 'heroics on the battlefield'. I glanced back at the body. How the mighty had fallen. People changed all the time, but, apparently, never for the better.

Another picture was of Ryan with his ex-wife and the kids. A framed little American Dream. I smirked. The American Dream was a topic Max and I had discussed a few times. It was one of those subjects we had agreed to disagree on.

I took a closer look at the kids – the boy, a lanky redhead, was grinning wildly while the older girl just stared intensely into the camera, as if trying to figure out how it operated. I sighed. They were better off without him.

I left the apartment and made my way to the street. A chilly greeting from the winter air helped me obtain temporary focus. The car was waiting for me.

I slid into the front seat, receiving a startled stare from Mike, “shit boss, what happened?”

“The negotiation went a little...” I gestured with my thumb sideways, adding a whistle as a soundtrack.

“Do we drive back?”

“No,” I gave him the address Kostya had provided instead.

“Are you sure you don't need-”

“Positive,” I left little room for argument in my tone.

He knew better than to argue, anyway, or ask too many questions. Mike was an efficient little lieutenant. Keeping silent, he started that car.

I let the world become a blur as the song from Spokoinoi Nochi Malishi wriggled its way into my dazed mind, slowly playing an ancient, scratched record long buried under layers of dust and blood. Nostalgia. Tired toys, sleeping book, blankets and pillows, even the fairy tale goes to bed, close your eyes...

“Boss?” it took me some time to realized it was Mike talking to me, and not the voices in my head, “Boss? We're here.”

Well, that was quick. Just like in the movies. Fade to black, wasn't that what they called it?

I shook my head, achieving only partial awakening. “Get the boys together,” I ordered. Mike nodded, all business. I exited the car, fighting off the feeling of vertigo that the simple action prompted. Leaning on the car door, I looked down at Mike. I could see some concern slipping through to his face. “I'll be back tomorrow,” I assured him. Closing the door, I tried to shrug. Bad idea. I formed a smirk instead, “or never.”

Mike didn't hear the last part. I watched the car drive off, then turned and stumbled towards the building where Max lived. It was a dump, but I wasn't really in the position to judge.

Somehow, I managed to find the place without bumping into too many walls in the process.

I rested my forehead against the wooden door, catching my breath. I could hear the muffled sound of the radio from inside the apartment, playing a song Mike would surely have appreciated.

I tried to contemplate exactly how crazy an idea this was, on a scale of 1 to 10. But I couldn't quite recall what came after 8. 100, maybe? My pulse was speeding up, and it wasn't just the whole blood shortage issue. For the first time in years, I actually felt nervous. And something else. I couldn't tell what.

Sometimes you have no choice but surrender to fate and see where it drags you.

I straightened up and knocked on the door.

For a short while, no sound emerged from inside. Then I heard unhurried footsteps. The door opened.

If Max experienced the least bit of surprise, he was doing a good job of keeping that fact to himself. He was wearing his customary expression, only it was even more jaded and bitterly cynical than usual. It was good to know some things in life could be relied on, in a world that was nothing but rampant chaos.

Same old Max.

My hero.

Max wasn't hard to read, and I couldn't detect anything resembling hatred in his eyes. Not even anger. He wasn't showing signs of going for his gun, either. Interesting.

It still wouldn't be easy, of course, but...

Easy was no fun.

He was watching me in that still, intent manner of his, waiting for me to make the first move. Who was I to keep him waiting?

“Max, my friend!” his expression turned even sourer. I grinned. It was hard not to. “How good to see you.”

Oddly enough, it really was.

 

Pain

Pain.

That's an interesting word.

I've had a lot of time to reflect on it, and its various meanings, during these last few... I'm not sure what. Weeks, months, years? It doesn't matter, really. Time is one of the first thing you lose when pain becomes the core of your existence.

Pain makes you look at life from a different perspective. It makes you realize that who you are, were or pretended to be, what you've accomplished or failed to accomplish, how much power you've gained or lost, it all makes very little difference on the big scale. In the end, you're nothing but a piece of meat, with far too many free nerve endings.

Still, whoever said pain has a purifying effect should have been hanged by their intestines, then see how purified they felt.

I didn't die. That was my first, and only mistake. That's where it all went wrong.

They found me, and so my new life began. If you can call it that.

I can't.

At first I grinned and I laughed in their faces, made my usual snide remarks. Pretended nothing was getting to me. It was my specialty, after all. But it was like talking to a wall. A spiked wall being driven into you bit by bit.

Later I promised retribution, shouted out all the things I'd do to them, once I got free. How I'd burn down their houses, their families, their pets. Huff and puff and all that crap. I think I even declared I'd rain fire down from the sky on one occasion. It was about as effective as the first method.

Then they reached my breaking point. I had one, it turned out. Why hadn't anyone told me that?

I started to beg, and hated myself for it, because I could never stand begging. It was completely pointless, obviously. They weren't too keen on listening.

Then it was just screaming, and thrashing, and more screaming. Wishing to be dead so much I couldn't stand it anymore. But I had no choice but to stand it, because they wouldn't let me die. It was an easy way out.

I knew this wasn't Hell, because Hell was supposed to be all about fire, and here there was only cold. Besides, I'd never believed in Hell, except as a figure of speech. It was a fairy tale for adults, meant to scare you off being a bad boy. It'd been more effective if they told you about these sort of places, instead.

It was a lot of other things, though. Anything from needles to probes to electric shock to devices that were practically medieval. Vintage torture, now that's class for you. They were on a constant creative flow, never seeming to run out of ideas.

After numerous failed attempts, I gave up on trying to kill myself. I also gave up on dying due to miscalculation on their parts. They never miscalculated.

And finally, I went silent.

These days, everything is routine.

They don't even bother tying me down. It's like they don't even care anymore. I almost feel offended by that. Almost.

It doesn't matter, of course. I can't fight. I can't run. I can barely move.

Instead, I lie on the floor, curled into a ball, and I think.

Sometimes, the mood for philosophy strikes. I muse on the meaning of life then, go through endless loops of circular logic, struggle with riddles and paradoxes. But I always come up with one single answer for everything. Pain.

Sometimes a song gets stuck in my head, repeating for hours at a time. We had joy and we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, that sort of thing. Sometimes a memorable scene from one of my favorite movies plays out in front of my eyes. Or maybe these are things that actually happened once upon a time. From my old life. I'm not sure I can tell the difference anymore.

Sometimes I see a man chained to a rock, a bird nibbling on his liver, or another man with a snake dripping acid over his face. Kids' stuff. I would happily switch places with either of them.

Sometimes people visit me. People from my childhood, people I once worked for, people I've killed. I can't remember most of their names, and their faces often blend together. We talk, lighthearted conversation about any topic – art, music, politics. I can never remember what the conversation was about after it's finished, though. It fades away, along with the people.

Sometimes Max drops by. Dearest of all my friends. He is the only one that never changes. I know he isn't real because he understands, and the real Max never would. Too uncompromising. I should hate him for not killing me off properly, but I don't. He did his best, after all.

Love means never having to say you're sorry. I laughed when that thought first flickered across my mind, but then I began coughing up blood, so I stopped. It was still pretty funny, though.

I don't remember when, but at some point, we started to kiss. Now we kiss all the time. It never goes beyond that, because the only thing I can connect sex with is more pain. But kissing is alright.

It always ends the same way, too. He kills me. Properly. And I'm free.

For a few moments. Then the pain comes back.

It's remarkable that I'm still capable of some coherent thought, in between hallucinations. Or maybe I just think it's coherent, lacking in ground for proper comparison.

For some reason I can't seem to go completely insane. Something is holding me back. It must be the pain. It brings moments of lucidity. Moments like this.

I hate these moments.

Today, I discover I can still scream. They must be in a bad mood over something, because they put more effort into their work than usual. Between sessions, they have conversations in hushed, urgent tones.

When it ends, I try to turn my head sideways for some silly reason, and lose consciousness.

I awaken, back in my cell, to the sound of explosions in the distance. Gunfire, too. And screaming. Maybe they're having a torture party. Though most likely it's only my mind getting warped in delusion again.

I listen to the mayhem for a while, and find it soothing, like a lullaby. I'm close to falling back asleep when there's a loud slam against the cell door. Then another. Then the door gives in and bursts open.

I raise my head from the floor as much as I can, which is barely enough to see the shadowy presence entering the room, accompanied by a faithful Beretta and the smell of gun powder, smoke and blood. I recognize him on the spot. My own personal Angel of Death. Max Payne.

He stops in his tracks and looks at me. Stares, actually. I offer the smirk I always reserve for him. I doubt it looks anything like a smirk now, really, but old habits die hard.

There's blatant shock on his face. I wonder why. I'm aware that my appearance isn't lacking in shock value, but it's not as if it's the first time he's seeing me like this.

“Jesus,” he utters.

Jesus. Huh. Now there's another guy I wouldn't mind trading places with. Nailed to a cross. Please. Big fucking deal. I can do that and still make my afternoon torture appointment. Son of God, too. Probably just a criminal pretending to be one. I can relate. Maybe they should start a religion after me.

Max approaches me in slow, measured steps, producing an dull echo against the cold steel floor. He gradually lowers the gun, then places it in his belt. He drops to one knee by my side, takes some time to study me with his gaze. Then, wrapping his arms around me, he drags me up.

I use the opportunity to kiss him, because he never makes the first move. He's stupid like that. The kiss feels so painfully real. It burns against my cracked lips. Hurts, but in a good way. There's an actual substance behind this pain, for a change.

Then it begins hurting too much, especially for an imaginary kiss. Reluctantly, I end it.

Time to die.

But he's just watching me with that detective-face of his. Trying to stare into my soul? A hollow laughter rings through my mind.

What soul?

This is getting unnerving. What is he waiting for?

“Kill me?” I remind him, surprised I can still produce actual words, albeit croaked.

Sullen confusion covers his features, “No.”

What do you mean, 'no', you son of a bitch? What the fuck are you good for, then?

I try to reach for his gun, so I can do it myself, though the likeliness of me being able to even grasp at it for more than a second, let alone put it to any sort of use, is nearing a perfectly round zero. He stops me easily, without needing to exercise the least bit of force, and pulls me a little closer to him. Our eyes lock.

Oh.

He's real.

Well, this is awkward.

I think I'm supposed to say something sarcastic now. That's the way it should go, isn't it?

“Max, if I had known you were coming, I'd have at least called room service,” not nearly one of my best lines, and it comes out as a hoarse, garbled mess rather than the intended sentence, but I think the point manages to get across, because he smirks. Sort of. It looks a bit like his old, constipated expression.

I grin, then begin to cough violently, paying the price for my extended speech.

“Try not to talk,” he inserts some gruffness into his voice, “I know it's hard for you, but still.”

I laugh. Even I can tell it isn't the most pleasant of sounds. In my throat, it becomes mingled with a strangled, shredded sob.

I know this is where I'm supposed to insert self hate or loathing, but there's hardly enough self left for that.

He does a good job of not appearing disgusted, which I appreciate. Unable to remain upright, I place my head on his shoulder, burying it there. He continues to hold on to me, awkwardly moving his hand over my back. It's a weird mixture of friendly patting and gentle stroking. Picking up pieces isn't something he's used to. Especially pieces of me.

The whole thing is so grotesquely ridiculous, a great deal more surreal than my phantom waking dreams. Max Payne playing nurse. I begin to shake against him, tears mixing with low, manic laughter.

Finally, exertion gets the better of me and I settle into rapid, ragged breathing.

I begin to black out somewhat, hearing his voice through a screen of scars. He's saying things that are meant to be reassuring, I gather, though I can't really make out most of the words anymore. I concentrate on the voice.

He sets me down, carefully, like a favorite toy he's afraid to break. It's a bit too late to worry about that now. His lips touch mine, and I it doesn't feel like I'm back in hallucination land, but I have to make sure.

“So – no killing me, then?”

“I'm all out of bullets, Vlad. Maybe later.”

I smirk.

The pain is fading away now, and all what's left is Max.