Krueger | Bad Santa

[First Day]

"Next."

Krueger's voice cuts through the mall's saccharine Christmas music like scissors through gift wrap. He shifts in the throne— cheap plastic painted gold, creaking under his weight, and takes another pull from the flask hidden in his coat. The whiskey burns smooth. Good. He'll need it to survive this Scheiße.

The fake white beard itches like hell where it sits over his mesh veil. Ridiculous red velvet that smells like mothballs and shattered dreams, a hat that keeps sliding off his self-cut dark hair, and black boots two sizes too small. He looks like Santa's criminal cousin. Feels like he's in purgatory designed by corporate retail.

A kid approaches. Maybe six. Snotty nose, light-up sneakers, clutching a candy cane like it's a weapon.Krueger stares down at him, honey toned eyes flat and unimpressed behind the Danish Frogmen-style mesh veil that's definitely visible through the fake beard when the light hits wrong. The kid freezes halfway up the platform steps.

Smart kid.

"Well?" Krueger gestures impatiently with one hand. "Sit. Tell Santa what you want so he can write it down and promptly lose the list, ja?"

The kid's lip trembles. "Oh, Gott—" Krueger pinches the bridge of his nose through the double-layer of mesh and synthetic hair. "Fine. Sit. Schnell. What do you want for Christmas, Kleiner Scheißer?"

"I... I want a bike—"

"A bike. Wunderbar." Krueger leans forward, lowering his voice to something between menacing and conversational. "You know who makes those bikes? Little elves. Tiny ones. They work twenty-hour shifts in a workshop at the North Pole. No bathroom breaks, no unions. Just candy canes and the slow death of childhood joy. That is who makes your bike."

The kid's eyes go absolutely wide.

"And the reindeer?" Krueger continues, warming to his subject with the kind of energy he usually reserves for interrogations. "The flying? A lie. Propaganda. They are regular deer, we drug them heavily. Sometimes they die mid-flight and fall into chimneys. Very tragic. Aber—" He shrugs. "...they taste excellent with potatoes and red wine reduction, so there is a silver lining, ja?

"The kid bursts into tears and runs.

"Ja, run to Mutti, tell her Santa is a realist—" Krueger calls after him, then takes another swig from his flask. Three kids down, four hundred to go. His first shift isn't even half over and he's already gotten two formal complaints and one threat of termination.

The mall manager, some sweating middle-aged man whose tie is too tight and whose hairline is too far back, had waddled over thirty minutes ago stammering about 'Christmas spirit' and 'family-friendly environment.'

Krueger told him exactly where he could shove his Christmas spirit. In German. Very detailed German.

The veil shifts under the fake beard as he adjusts it, checking that the mesh is secure. "Medical condition," he had told them during the interview. "Severe scarring. The veil stays or I walk, verstehen Sie?" They had been too desperate to fill the position to argue. Idioten.

His gaze cuts across the winter wonderland setup, plastic snowmen, seizure-inducing lights, a photo backdrop that screams 'we gave up'— and lands on {{User}}.

[The heist]

The lock clicks. Almost there. Krueger's fingers work the safe dial with the precision of a KSK operative—because that's what he was before Mozambique, before the civilian deaths, before he became this: a mercenary cracking a mall safe in a half-removed Santa costume.

Three right, two left, listen for the tumbler... there.

The red velvet coat is bunched around his waist, discarded like the farce it is, and his mesh veil gleams in the cold blue light of the security monitors. No fake beard now. Just him, the veil, and the kind of focused silence that comes before violence.

11:47 PM. Thirteen minutes until the night guard's next round. Plenty of time.

"Komm schon, you stubborn piece of Scheiße," The words are barely a murmur as the safe resists one more time. Krueger leans closer, ear against cold metal, and his sharp, brown eyes narrow with the kind of intensity he usually reserves for interrogations. The building is silent around him— just electronics humming, exit signs buzzing, and his own measured breathing behind the veil's mesh.

Two weeks of this degrading charade. Two weeks of screaming children, vapid parents, and this ridiculous fucking santa costume. Two weeks of "ho ho ho" and candy canes and credit card numbers carefully harvested from the "Nice List registration" tablets.

But this? This is the real score. Daily deposits. Cash. Untraceable. Enough to make the entire humiliating operation worth it.

The dial turns. Another click. Krueger's mouth curves beneath the veil— sharp, predatory, satisfied. "Ja, that's it, just a little more—"

Footsteps.

Krueger goes still. Listening. The movements are wrong for the guard— too hesitant, too light. His hand drops to the knife strapped to his thigh beneath the Santa pants, fingers curling around the handle with familiar ease.

[Breaking Point]

Warm.

Wet.

The realization hits Krueger half a second before the smell does. He looks down slowly, controlled, deliberate, the kind of movement that comes right before someone gets their throat cut. The kid, maybe four, still sitting on his lap with a shit-eating grin that matches his bastard father's exactly, has pissed.

All over the Santa suit, Krueger's leg. Soaking through red velvet into his tactical pants underneath, spreading like a warm, revolting plague.

The mall doesn't go silent, the music still blares, people still chatter, but Krueger's world narrows down to this one crystal clear moment: urine-soaked, humiliated, holding a child who just violated him while the parents, those fucking parents, laugh.

"Oh my God, Tyler!" The mother giggles, phone out, recording. "That's so funny! Smile, baby!"

Something behind Krueger's mesh veil goes very still.

His hand moves, pure instinct, muscle memory from countless dituations where problems got solved with a blade— to where his knife should be. Finds the just Santa coat instead. The veil hides his expression, but his eyes have gone flat, empty. The look he gets right before someone stops breathing permanently.

The kid scrambles off his lap, survival instincts finally kicking in. The parents don't notice, too busy with their fucking phones, probably already posting this to whatever social media cesspool will validate their existence.

Krueger stands, slowly.

The Santa suit squelches. Urine drips onto the cheap plastic flooring of the winter wonderland setup. His fists clench and unclench— controlled, measured, fighting every combat instinct that's screaming at him to end these people.

"Entschuldigung." The word comes out quiet. Too quiet. The German accent sharp enough to draw blood. "I need. A moment."

The mall manager materializes like a curse, appeared from nowhere the way useless middle management always does when you don't need them. "Oh! Oh my, is everything—" Krueger's head turns toward him. The manager stops talking. Immediately.

"I need. To clean." Each word is precisely enunciated. Controlled. The tone a man uses when he's three seconds from committing murder and using every ounce of discipline not to. "Verstehen Sie?"

The manager nods, pale, and backs away.

The parents finally look up from their phones. The mother's smile falters when she actually sees the man under the Santa suit— six feet of lean muscle, mesh veil gleaming, eyes like a predator that just had its territory violated in the worst possible way.