FIC: Of Bastard Saints (2/?)
May. 8th, 2006 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nilchanceTitle: Of Bastard Saints
Authors: nilchance and beanside
Rating: Adult
Disclaimer: We make no claim of ownership on the Brothers and Daddy Winchester. No infringement is intended, no money is made.
Author Notes: Set after the episode "Devil's Trap."
WARNINGS: Character maiming, more angst than you can shake a stick at, WIP.
It was his birthday, Jason realized abruptly, looking at his stolen watch. Fuck. Somewhere between St. Louis and Kentucky, he'd lost a day. Again.
The sign said that he was about a hundred and forty miles from Chicago. He'd be able to find work there, get some cash. Some food. When he checked his pack this morning, the perishables he'd swiped from the Adler family were just crumbs and empty wrappers.
Nice folks, that family, or so he'd assumed from the pictures scattered across their cabin. Nice of them to donate clothes, cash and food to a passing stranger, even if they weren't actually in the house to know that they'd donated. Like the guy in the hospital lot who'd donated his car, all the best charity was kept quiet. Especially from the donors.
A truck whipped past, spraying dust and making Jason flinch. He edged further into the shoulder of the highway, walking a little faster. His lungs were aching again, his muscles burning. He'd tried to hitchhike, but no one had even paused as they tore past him. A few even sped up, which said that Jason needed to grab another shower before the highway patrol decided to pull over for him.
Luckily, Jason could see the truck heading towards a gas station up ahead. As he drew closer, he could see a field of trucks that had pulled over for the night, and a sign declaring that you could get a quick shower for cheap. It was better than trying to clean off with stream water, which left him grimier than he'd started. Besides which, the claustrophobia of the forest made his nerves crawl.
Maybe that was a hint. Maybe not. For the moment, Jason's mind was tired from prying at that particular lockbox. He walked faster, striding towards the station in as close to a run as he could manage. When he reached the glass doors, he paused long enough to case for security cameras. Once he'd found them, he lined up his path like a pool shot, keeping his face averted and his body mostly in the blind spots between the angles of the cameras. Better safe than sorry. The bulky sweater, its hoodie pulled up, didn't help him look any less like a mugger, but Jason didn't need to look conspicuous on film. If it was choice between static from a truck-stop manager or from the people hunting him, Jason would take the manager.
From the wary look the girl behind the counter gave him, Jason's care wasn't lost on her. He flashed her a quick smile, which made her jumpier. Definitely in need of a shower. He dug out a few crumpled bills, bought a shower and a bag of peanuts. Cheap protein. He'd need it.
The girl put the tokens on the counter rather than in his hand, and turned half away, like he couldn't see her still watching him. They all were watching him: the girl, her manager, the cluster of patrons in the rest stop's all night diner. It didn't worry him anymore. He'd checked for cops. Other than that, no one would actually remember what he'd looked like once he was gone.
"Thanks," Jason drawled. He'd been doing that, trying out accent after accent to see which felt familiar in his mouth. That one didn't work, but it was still better than his botched attempt at sounding Scottish.
The girl gave him a pale smile, apparently reassured enough that she turned all the way away from him. Jason scooped up his dinner and his tokens, and followed his narrow path to the line of doors labeled 'Showers'.
They kept staring. Very Bob Seger.
The shower was a horror show of stains, mildew and dim, flickering lighting. Still, Jason was in no mood to be picky. He locked the door behind him and set his pack down, grimacing as he faced his reflection in the mirror. No wonder no one stopped. His stubble had grown out from vaguely rogueish to America's Most Wanted, and there was mud in his hair from where he'd stopped to sleep in a ditch somewhere. He didn't remember doing that.
"Dumbass," Jason told the mirror. His voice, already flat, seemed flatter as it echoed off the walls. The lights flickered, making his reflection seem to move on its own. His hand twitched towards the knife in his boot, a cheap steak knife that was the only sharp thing he could find in the cabin. Edgy, edgy. "Happy birthday."
The silence made him feel like an idiot. He bent, pulling out the bottle of peroxide bleach that he'd swiped from the Adlers' teenaged son. Then he started to peel off his clothes. As the layers of them fell away, the scent of his own sweat made his nose wrinkle. It was warm enough outside that he could afford to soak his clothes as he showered, continue on with them still damp. The mechanics of running for his life.
Happy birthday. Two weeks old now. At least that was what he thought he'd seen on the calendar in the Adlers' cabin, but the days had kind of blurred after that. Hallucinations and nightmares and what Jason hoped like fuck weren't his memories.
He remembered cutting off a white strip of a hospital bracelet that read, not helpfully, 'John Doe' and an admission date from weeks ago. He remembered coming up with a new name from a Metallica album sitting on their stereo and a Ludlum novel on their coffee table: Jason Hammett, born to the proud parents of a head injury and an attempt to avoid the police. Burying that bracelet, the last link between him and whatever the hell lay behind him, hiding it under a heavy rock and hoping there wasn't a mudslide.
(Not quite the last link, actually. There was the pendant on its leather thong, shoved into the bottom of Jason's pack. He couldn't make himself bury the thing, ugly as it was, but he couldn't make himself put it on either. It was the only other thing he'd taken from that hospital, and he couldn't afford anyone to connect the dots. People were stupid, but all it'd take was one coincidence and Jason would be back in that room, strapped to the bed and drugged until the cops came for him. It wasn't worth that much to him. Nothing was.)
The shower's lights weren't kind. With the last of his clothes gone, Jason backed towards the shower and cranked it on, still watching the mirror. The thought of it at his back made him unaccountably twitchy. The water was lukewarm and yellowish with rust. Jason beat a handful of chemical-smelling soap out of a dispenser on the wall and started scrubbing, grimacing as the suds burned on the scratches and gouges earned from a few days running through the woods.
As he washed, he inventoried scars. There were several scattered on his chest, shallow furrows that were still pink and tender; they'd opened and wept with infection while Jason was at the Adlers', making him burn with fever. There was another new one low on his stomach, but it was clean and clinical. Surgery, matching up with the wristband and his memory of the hospital.
No, the ones that worried the hell out of Jason were the others. The older ones. Pale, very old burn scars on his hands. The scattering of scars across his chest, like a spray of buckshot had hit him. Another set of furrowed scars across his hip. Four points just under his ribs, like someone had been trying to dig through his skin and into his heart. Knife slashes in too many goddamn places to count. The little notch in his collarbone and in more than one rib that said they'd been broken. The slight unevenness in the bones of a few of his fingers. The way his left shoulder ached in the rain, and the right was a little weaker like it'd been wrenched out of socked too many times. The thin scar in his hairline, right above his temple.
The headaches. Jesus, the headaches. Jason could handle the fucked up dreams if it meant the headaches didn't hit him like a-
Truck?
Of course that's familiar. You're in a truckstop, idiot.
The Adlers' DVD collection had been surprisingly helpful while Jason was too feverish to do anything but hole up and hope his weakness passed. He'd watched the Bourne Identity too many times, taking notes because it was the closest thing to a handbook he was getting. That may have been why he grabbed the bleach, but he got the feeling it was more than that. It was an unnerving talent in staying off the grid.
He nearly unhinged his spine trying to keep the bleach out of his cuts, but it paid off. Not just because the smell drowned out the sweat-sickness that had been clinging to Jason's clothes. When he looked in the mirror again (still jumpy; what the hell was he expecting, an attack from a damned inanimate object?), he didn't look like the grubby dark-haired man who had entered the shower. Instead, he looked like a grubby blond.
It'd have to do.
Jason rinsed the rest of the way off. Grabbing the knife, he shaved quickly as he let the cooling water soak his clothes. After only a few minutes of holding still, he felt like pacing just so he could be moving again. It didn't matter that his lungs hurt and his knees felt shaky. Jason needed to be somewhere not here.
He squeezed the water out of his clothes, shrugged into them again and pulled on the hiking boots that he'd already nearly destroyed. Slid the knife in its makeshift duct-taped sheath. Tugged the hood up, hiding his hair. Shouldered his pack and strode out of the bathroom, back into the path between cameras.
Despite the blank spots, Jason felt better for having bleached and showered. Oddly, he felt much better when the cashier glanced up and gave him the once over before she recognized his clothes. Then she blinked, but didn't stop checking him out. It was a good feeling. He winked at her, and she blushed a little.
Okay. So. Jason had been a playboy. The wink felt too familiar, muscle-memory, sheer impulse. One detail down, a few thousand to go. Still, knowing he could get around would come in plenty of handy for his free time, if nothing else.
Sure. 'Do I have any STDs or a wife? Or a husband? Well, let me get back to you on that, honey...'
He toned down his smile and kept walking. It figured that it would start to rain as soon as Jason showered, a miserable cold drizzle that would cut to the bone in a few hours. Sliding his hands in his pockets, he glanced around in case of police cars. No Lincoln Continentals, no flashing lights. Just one guy on the other side of the lot, similarly hunched against the rain. A smoker, judging from the burning smell, though Jason couldn't see a cigarette.
Something whispered that he needed to walk faster. Now.
As if on cue, the guy raised his head. He was aggressively plain, with the mild features of an accountant. His smile when he met Jason's eyes was completely normal, but it made Jason tense as hell anyway. The guy pursed his lips, and for a second Jason was afraid he was about to be subjected to wolf-whistling. Not that it wasn't flattering, but the accountant wasn't his type. If Jason had a type. And hopefully he had enough sense to avoid people so banal that they were probably serial killers in their spare time.
A whistle cut through the air, low and eerie in the rainy quiet. After a moment, Jason's mind caught up with him enough that he could recognize it. I see a bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way...
The bland man stared at Jason, levelly, still smiling. Jason's fingers itched for the knife, but he stilled that instinct. For fuck's sake, the guy was only humming. Even if the constant staring was unnerving, Jason couldn't afford to do something as stupid as assaulting somebody in a parking lot.
So he kept walking, turning as he went to keep an eye on the whistling man. The whistler didn't move to follow, but his eyes felt like they were burning Jason's skin. Jason made himself keep walking until he cleared the edge of the parking lot, where he couldn't be seen. Then he sped up.
Jesus. Had that been a fed? Was he in that deep?
Maybe. But as he'd turned away, there had been a truck passing. Its headlights slid across the whistling man, and his eyes- its eyes-
No. Just too much time walking and too little sleep. That was all. Jason had enough trouble without being bugfuck crazy on the side.
After a while, he started to run, and he didn't look back.
****
TBC
Authors: nilchance and beanside
Rating: Adult
Disclaimer: We make no claim of ownership on the Brothers and Daddy Winchester. No infringement is intended, no money is made.
Author Notes: Set after the episode "Devil's Trap."
WARNINGS: Character maiming, more angst than you can shake a stick at, WIP.
It was his birthday, Jason realized abruptly, looking at his stolen watch. Fuck. Somewhere between St. Louis and Kentucky, he'd lost a day. Again.
The sign said that he was about a hundred and forty miles from Chicago. He'd be able to find work there, get some cash. Some food. When he checked his pack this morning, the perishables he'd swiped from the Adler family were just crumbs and empty wrappers.
Nice folks, that family, or so he'd assumed from the pictures scattered across their cabin. Nice of them to donate clothes, cash and food to a passing stranger, even if they weren't actually in the house to know that they'd donated. Like the guy in the hospital lot who'd donated his car, all the best charity was kept quiet. Especially from the donors.
A truck whipped past, spraying dust and making Jason flinch. He edged further into the shoulder of the highway, walking a little faster. His lungs were aching again, his muscles burning. He'd tried to hitchhike, but no one had even paused as they tore past him. A few even sped up, which said that Jason needed to grab another shower before the highway patrol decided to pull over for him.
Luckily, Jason could see the truck heading towards a gas station up ahead. As he drew closer, he could see a field of trucks that had pulled over for the night, and a sign declaring that you could get a quick shower for cheap. It was better than trying to clean off with stream water, which left him grimier than he'd started. Besides which, the claustrophobia of the forest made his nerves crawl.
Maybe that was a hint. Maybe not. For the moment, Jason's mind was tired from prying at that particular lockbox. He walked faster, striding towards the station in as close to a run as he could manage. When he reached the glass doors, he paused long enough to case for security cameras. Once he'd found them, he lined up his path like a pool shot, keeping his face averted and his body mostly in the blind spots between the angles of the cameras. Better safe than sorry. The bulky sweater, its hoodie pulled up, didn't help him look any less like a mugger, but Jason didn't need to look conspicuous on film. If it was choice between static from a truck-stop manager or from the people hunting him, Jason would take the manager.
From the wary look the girl behind the counter gave him, Jason's care wasn't lost on her. He flashed her a quick smile, which made her jumpier. Definitely in need of a shower. He dug out a few crumpled bills, bought a shower and a bag of peanuts. Cheap protein. He'd need it.
The girl put the tokens on the counter rather than in his hand, and turned half away, like he couldn't see her still watching him. They all were watching him: the girl, her manager, the cluster of patrons in the rest stop's all night diner. It didn't worry him anymore. He'd checked for cops. Other than that, no one would actually remember what he'd looked like once he was gone.
"Thanks," Jason drawled. He'd been doing that, trying out accent after accent to see which felt familiar in his mouth. That one didn't work, but it was still better than his botched attempt at sounding Scottish.
The girl gave him a pale smile, apparently reassured enough that she turned all the way away from him. Jason scooped up his dinner and his tokens, and followed his narrow path to the line of doors labeled 'Showers'.
They kept staring. Very Bob Seger.
The shower was a horror show of stains, mildew and dim, flickering lighting. Still, Jason was in no mood to be picky. He locked the door behind him and set his pack down, grimacing as he faced his reflection in the mirror. No wonder no one stopped. His stubble had grown out from vaguely rogueish to America's Most Wanted, and there was mud in his hair from where he'd stopped to sleep in a ditch somewhere. He didn't remember doing that.
"Dumbass," Jason told the mirror. His voice, already flat, seemed flatter as it echoed off the walls. The lights flickered, making his reflection seem to move on its own. His hand twitched towards the knife in his boot, a cheap steak knife that was the only sharp thing he could find in the cabin. Edgy, edgy. "Happy birthday."
The silence made him feel like an idiot. He bent, pulling out the bottle of peroxide bleach that he'd swiped from the Adlers' teenaged son. Then he started to peel off his clothes. As the layers of them fell away, the scent of his own sweat made his nose wrinkle. It was warm enough outside that he could afford to soak his clothes as he showered, continue on with them still damp. The mechanics of running for his life.
Happy birthday. Two weeks old now. At least that was what he thought he'd seen on the calendar in the Adlers' cabin, but the days had kind of blurred after that. Hallucinations and nightmares and what Jason hoped like fuck weren't his memories.
He remembered cutting off a white strip of a hospital bracelet that read, not helpfully, 'John Doe' and an admission date from weeks ago. He remembered coming up with a new name from a Metallica album sitting on their stereo and a Ludlum novel on their coffee table: Jason Hammett, born to the proud parents of a head injury and an attempt to avoid the police. Burying that bracelet, the last link between him and whatever the hell lay behind him, hiding it under a heavy rock and hoping there wasn't a mudslide.
(Not quite the last link, actually. There was the pendant on its leather thong, shoved into the bottom of Jason's pack. He couldn't make himself bury the thing, ugly as it was, but he couldn't make himself put it on either. It was the only other thing he'd taken from that hospital, and he couldn't afford anyone to connect the dots. People were stupid, but all it'd take was one coincidence and Jason would be back in that room, strapped to the bed and drugged until the cops came for him. It wasn't worth that much to him. Nothing was.)
The shower's lights weren't kind. With the last of his clothes gone, Jason backed towards the shower and cranked it on, still watching the mirror. The thought of it at his back made him unaccountably twitchy. The water was lukewarm and yellowish with rust. Jason beat a handful of chemical-smelling soap out of a dispenser on the wall and started scrubbing, grimacing as the suds burned on the scratches and gouges earned from a few days running through the woods.
As he washed, he inventoried scars. There were several scattered on his chest, shallow furrows that were still pink and tender; they'd opened and wept with infection while Jason was at the Adlers', making him burn with fever. There was another new one low on his stomach, but it was clean and clinical. Surgery, matching up with the wristband and his memory of the hospital.
No, the ones that worried the hell out of Jason were the others. The older ones. Pale, very old burn scars on his hands. The scattering of scars across his chest, like a spray of buckshot had hit him. Another set of furrowed scars across his hip. Four points just under his ribs, like someone had been trying to dig through his skin and into his heart. Knife slashes in too many goddamn places to count. The little notch in his collarbone and in more than one rib that said they'd been broken. The slight unevenness in the bones of a few of his fingers. The way his left shoulder ached in the rain, and the right was a little weaker like it'd been wrenched out of socked too many times. The thin scar in his hairline, right above his temple.
The headaches. Jesus, the headaches. Jason could handle the fucked up dreams if it meant the headaches didn't hit him like a-
Truck?
Of course that's familiar. You're in a truckstop, idiot.
The Adlers' DVD collection had been surprisingly helpful while Jason was too feverish to do anything but hole up and hope his weakness passed. He'd watched the Bourne Identity too many times, taking notes because it was the closest thing to a handbook he was getting. That may have been why he grabbed the bleach, but he got the feeling it was more than that. It was an unnerving talent in staying off the grid.
He nearly unhinged his spine trying to keep the bleach out of his cuts, but it paid off. Not just because the smell drowned out the sweat-sickness that had been clinging to Jason's clothes. When he looked in the mirror again (still jumpy; what the hell was he expecting, an attack from a damned inanimate object?), he didn't look like the grubby dark-haired man who had entered the shower. Instead, he looked like a grubby blond.
It'd have to do.
Jason rinsed the rest of the way off. Grabbing the knife, he shaved quickly as he let the cooling water soak his clothes. After only a few minutes of holding still, he felt like pacing just so he could be moving again. It didn't matter that his lungs hurt and his knees felt shaky. Jason needed to be somewhere not here.
He squeezed the water out of his clothes, shrugged into them again and pulled on the hiking boots that he'd already nearly destroyed. Slid the knife in its makeshift duct-taped sheath. Tugged the hood up, hiding his hair. Shouldered his pack and strode out of the bathroom, back into the path between cameras.
Despite the blank spots, Jason felt better for having bleached and showered. Oddly, he felt much better when the cashier glanced up and gave him the once over before she recognized his clothes. Then she blinked, but didn't stop checking him out. It was a good feeling. He winked at her, and she blushed a little.
Okay. So. Jason had been a playboy. The wink felt too familiar, muscle-memory, sheer impulse. One detail down, a few thousand to go. Still, knowing he could get around would come in plenty of handy for his free time, if nothing else.
Sure. 'Do I have any STDs or a wife? Or a husband? Well, let me get back to you on that, honey...'
He toned down his smile and kept walking. It figured that it would start to rain as soon as Jason showered, a miserable cold drizzle that would cut to the bone in a few hours. Sliding his hands in his pockets, he glanced around in case of police cars. No Lincoln Continentals, no flashing lights. Just one guy on the other side of the lot, similarly hunched against the rain. A smoker, judging from the burning smell, though Jason couldn't see a cigarette.
Something whispered that he needed to walk faster. Now.
As if on cue, the guy raised his head. He was aggressively plain, with the mild features of an accountant. His smile when he met Jason's eyes was completely normal, but it made Jason tense as hell anyway. The guy pursed his lips, and for a second Jason was afraid he was about to be subjected to wolf-whistling. Not that it wasn't flattering, but the accountant wasn't his type. If Jason had a type. And hopefully he had enough sense to avoid people so banal that they were probably serial killers in their spare time.
A whistle cut through the air, low and eerie in the rainy quiet. After a moment, Jason's mind caught up with him enough that he could recognize it. I see a bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way...
The bland man stared at Jason, levelly, still smiling. Jason's fingers itched for the knife, but he stilled that instinct. For fuck's sake, the guy was only humming. Even if the constant staring was unnerving, Jason couldn't afford to do something as stupid as assaulting somebody in a parking lot.
So he kept walking, turning as he went to keep an eye on the whistling man. The whistler didn't move to follow, but his eyes felt like they were burning Jason's skin. Jason made himself keep walking until he cleared the edge of the parking lot, where he couldn't be seen. Then he sped up.
Jesus. Had that been a fed? Was he in that deep?
Maybe. But as he'd turned away, there had been a truck passing. Its headlights slid across the whistling man, and his eyes- its eyes-
No. Just too much time walking and too little sleep. That was all. Jason had enough trouble without being bugfuck crazy on the side.
After a while, he started to run, and he didn't look back.
****
TBC
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-05-09 02:22 am (UTC)Also, the scar inventory? Hot. The strange man in the parking lot? Not hot.
And it's a good thing he watched The Bourne Identity so much, and has those nightmares, for I sense they will come in handy. Poor baby. You're not crazy, you just don't remember growing up with that stuff... erm, yet.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-10 12:01 am (UTC)You're not crazy, you just don't remember growing up with that stuff... erm, yet.
Well, and he's crazy, but that's just the normal for that family.
Thank you! I'm glad you like.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-11 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-11 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 05:36 am (UTC)I squeeled like a girl. Wait, I am a girl - point is,
I'd come to terms with the first chapter, ok, Dean's dead, John's lost a leg, and I figure it would be about how they come to terms with that loss (poor Sam!).
Then I get to this and. Jason?
Who the hell's Jason?
(Ok, did wonder for a moment if he was Red Hood/RobbinII, /end Comic book Geeking)
And then, had an embarassingly flaily moment when I realised - he's not dead! I'm such a dork, but - *clutches pretend Dean to bosom* don't die Dean! Not even in fic.
;)
And, uh. Fugitive!Dean. Pretty cool (Kinda hot).
Oh, now I'm all hooked - there may even be a happy ending! Uh. Eventually.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-12 04:40 pm (UTC)Second: it was actually a reference to Jason Todd, as well as Bourne (and Newstead, from Metallica). Because lo, I am nerdy in various ways. ;)
Also, thank you for the kind words. I'm glad you're enjoying the fic.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-20 02:40 am (UTC)Though I have to say, when I read "Jason" there was this moment of "Um... is this a Smallville crossover?" before I realized that it was just a coincidence. What can I say? Jason Teague was the first role I ever saw Jensen in, LOL!
no subject
Date: 2006-05-20 04:15 pm (UTC)Thank you! I'm glad it's working for you so far.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-20 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-20 04:16 pm (UTC)Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2006-06-01 05:35 pm (UTC)and thanks so much for the shout-out to Jason Bourne and the Bourne Identity... I Love that movie... one of my all-time faves! It's an excellent choice to take survival lessons from!
ok, on to the next chapter.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 09:23 pm (UTC)Loved the movie referance. lol, awesome.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 11:55 pm (UTC)I've just started reading this.. what have I let myself in for?! Whatever it is I dont think I'm gonna regret it!..
One thing I will say.. I'm confused (very easily done) I get that its Dean's body.. but confused where Jason comes into it with knowing hes running from something but not knowing the body hes in. Is he like a body snatcher?
Ohh ok I just read the other comments I think I'm a bit more with it now hehe.
I wont leave a comment every chapter, I'm kinda known for babbling and I wanna read right through without stopping all the time..