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He still hears Vaas' voice in his head.
He doesn't mention it. He thinks maybe Willis would understand but it seems kind of rude to bring it up. The longer he's here the more he realizes everyone on the island has their own stuff to deal with. There's no overlap; Everyone's little islands of crazy never quite touch.
Even so, when he's jumping out Willis' helicopter "Bye, bye spooky gringo!" is somewhere behind his teeth waiting to get out.
When he's in the Fisher getup, strolling through enemy camps there's a running commentary:
"Just look, look at these beautiful sitting duck bastards. You inattentive motherfuckers! You and I are gonna play. We're gonna have some serious fucking fun man. Hey! Hey Snow? Did I ever tell you the rules for 'Pin the Mine on the Merc'?"
When he pulls the pin on some poor fuck's grenade and kicks him down a ledge into a cluster of heavys there's laughter in his head, gleeful and childlike and he's running, running light and free over rocks and into the bush before the snipers can get a bead on him.
If any of the mercs get to Thailand alive to lick their wounds at some dive bar and remember that traitor ratfink Fisher they'd remember how he always seemed kinda off. The dude used to wander around with his M16 up and his head tilted like he had his own radio channel, like he was getting waves from Mars.
At the poker game, when Hoyt is rambling about beating the house, when Jason's betting his life on a jack and a ten with Sam's body in the next chair over, Vaas is almost solid behind him whispering in his ear:
"God, look at this whiny cunt. Jesus fuck what kind of unoriginal bastard uses poker metaphors for this shit. This is why I had my own island and then I FUCKING STAYED THERE. At least, Jason my friend, at least it's not chess. It's always chess with these old white boys, promise me if he says a goddamned word about pawns and kings and shit you will light this bitch on fire I know we still got flamer fuel man, don't you hold out on me."
He doesn't. Losing the finger pushes him back a little, back further into himself, still reeling from getting Sam killed, from what he did to Riley and when it's him and Hoyt knife to knife it's like he's sinking under the water and Vaas floats up from inside him like a restless corpse. He's the one who gets them to the point when Hoyt is cringing and hurt and old so that Jason can cut the fucker's throat.
It's not Vaas that makes him jump off the rescue boat, though. That one's all Jason. When his body hits the water it's with the feeling of a parachute opening up. Whatever's left of his soul is no longer squealing like a steel cable about snap and whiplash somebody's head off.
When his feet hit the beach he's home, and he can still remember where he buried his guns.
---
He tells himself he's just being thorough when he goes back to the pirate compound.
His head's been quiet since he cut Liza free, instead there's a pressure at his temples, down the back of his neck - tension gathering, like someone taped a lighting rod to his back along with the 'kick me' sign. Jason's not having with that. Fuck that feeling. He is that feeling.
The compound still smells burned. He can't believe it's only been a week. He doesn't even remember half the buildings and that's pretty fucking embarrassing. That'll teach him to go after his nemesis high on Citra's vision quest shit.
With every step the pressure gets worse and he grits his teeth, pushes through it.
All in all, Jason's pretty sure he killed Vaas, pretty damn sure but he ought to know. It's a little no bueno that he seems to remember shooting him in the head and then stabbing him half a dozen times. That's usually an either/or thing.
So, James Bond rules are in play - nobody's dead until there's a body.
There's a body. He finds it at the far end of some kind of fucked up rec room, with stained mattresses, throw pillows and a ghetto pipe stripper pole in the center. It's laid out on top of an ammo crate like a sacrifice, ringed with candles, flowers, raw red bones. Problem is, it's hooked up to a saline drip.
Jason's ears are ringing like he's on the grumpy side of a landmine. The room swims.
A dead tiger is rotting in the glare of a broken TV. A cloud of bugs lifts off the altar bones as Jason creeps inevitably closer, for a second they catch the light and look like fireflies. It's beautiful, like the island is sometimes.
Vaas' eyelids are twitching.
Maybe it's a test; island's is trying to tell him something - if you want to stay here you can't be above everything: for every prey a predator, and every predator someone else's prey.
Slowly, Jason reaches out and taps Vaas on the forehead with a single dirty finger. "Huh," he thinks "warm" and then the lightning flows out of him.
It's like getting tased about a hundred times.
"What. the. ever-loving. fuck." he croaks from the floor, a small eternity later. He can swear there's smoke coming out of his mouth.
On the altar, the bastard yawns.
Jason is up in a flash, though he's still dizzy. His bones feel scorched, but whatever. He levels "the Bull" at Vaas' crazy-green sleepily blinking eyes. No pussyfooting with knives this time, if a slug doesn't do it he's still got the RPG.
"Give me one good reason." he snarls.
He's not even sure why he says it, should have pulled the trigger already.
"What, and waste you piggybacking me around all this fucking time? No, I got no reason."
Vaas smiles slowly, there's still blood in his teeth.
"Except hey, I kill your brother... you kill my sister - it evens out mi hermano. We square."
---
Jason Brody is dead.
His brother learns to fly choppers. His ex girlfriend feels sad about not being sad enough about being relieved that she doesn't have to go with him to the shrink for the next ten years. She's got her own shrink appointments.
Jason Brody is alive.
He lives on Rook Island in the South Pacific, in a house made out of old timber and older cars, with a 13th century jade Chinese lion dog as a lawn gnome. Sometimes Vaas tries to make it fetch empty mags, then cusses and shoots at it for being slow. Jason rolls his eyes, goes back to cleaning his favorite hunting SMG.
The Devil as a roommate is a small price to pay for Paradise.
(end)