A/N: A simple, short fic that I wrote as I went along. The title came to me first (as it usually does) and the story followed. Here goes.

On Pain of Death

It wasn't supposed to end like this. I was going to be rich. I was going to have everything I'd ever dreamed of. I'd sworn it to the only person I trusted, the only person I loved: myself. Now my promise is broken. At least I'm not letting anybody down; I'm probably doing this world a favor by giving up-by, for once, not being quick enough. I shut my eyes, but I see it over and over again. That great stone door hitting the sand with a soft, malicious /thud/, sealing my fate.

Even then, he. . . .God, why did I hate him again? He hated me, yet he still. . . .

Ah, hell, he would've beaten my face in once we were out of here. Of course he would've. He wouldn't have understood why I did it, why I sold myself at the expense of others' lives for my own gain. I didn't have a choice then, but what would he care? I was still a weasel. Still the traitor that he cynically referred to as "his little buddy, Beni." Yet he still. . . .watched out for me. Protected me. Even after we met again in Cairo. Even after I framed him and had the authorities take him to the gallows. . . .

Why?

What the hell made him keep watching my back, even after I stabbed his a couple dozen times? Was he really that stupid? Or was there something about me that was actually. . . .worth it?

I was always so damned jealous of him. He had everything. He had looks, he had strength, and he cared. He actually cared about other people, no matter how he tried to disguise it. He had a compassion none of the rest of us had; the kind of compassion that had grown callous after years on the street looking out for number one. O'Connell was no angel, but he. . . .

God, how many times did I try to kill him? Or manipulated things so that he would be killed? I never succeeded, and here I am. He saved my life, he saved her life, while risking his own, and he lived. He's not trapped. He's not waiting for those black hell-bugs to reach his brain or chew threw his spine and relieve the pain. . . .relieve life.

Rick O'Connell was the closest thing to a friend I ever had, and I betrayed him. I betrayed him because I wanted it, I wanted it so bad. I wanted to live like normal people do. I wanted to get married. I wanted to have kids that I could bring up in a house on the nice street in town, far away from Egypt or the con-artists of Cairo. It wasn't gold I desired. Gold just sparkles and looks pretty. Even now it's living its pointlessness-that which I can see through the flame of my torch. But what gold can become. . . .it can become a ticket to London or Paris. It can transform into clothes that don't smell like the desert and sweat and blood. It can disguise a prostitute's son from Budapest into a gentleman. It can shadow a painful past. . . .

Was I really so wrong? In the light of things, did Rick O'Connell really stand a chance of rescuing the damsel in distress, killing the bad guy and saving the world? Was it really that likely that a three-thousand year old cursed priest could fall to an ex-Legionnaire? At the time, I didn't consider nor care what effect Imhotep would have ruling the world. I would have the treasures of Hamunaptra. I would have a normal life, with the bonus of being a millionaire. And, best of all, that irking consciousness of Rick O'Connell always there for me, even though I despised him; the guilt that had built up from trying to see his lifeless form somewhere-anywhere, would be gone. Yes, O'Connell would be out of the way; he and all the others who had seen my dishonest rise to normalcy.

But that's not the way it happened. I broke the oath that I had sworn on pain of death to honor. Everything back-fired; all my dreams flew back in my face. Rick O'Connell's the one with a shot at normalcy now. Beni Gabor's going to rot in the stomachs of a million scarabs. Irony is a cruel, cynical joke.

It wasn't supposed t