FIC: Of Bastard Saints, 4

[nilchance]

Title: 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.



Jason stared at the Sears Tower. It was a good distance from where he stood, in the warehouse district on the wrong side of Greektown. Still, it was Chicago. Finally.

The crowds flowed around him, people giving dirty looks to the transient stopped in the middle of the street. Even if his legs and lungs hadn't been burning, he wouldn't have moved. Jason felt contrary like that.

He'd stumbled over a cabin just over the Illinois border, an old still for bootleg moonshine, but there was food. It had been enough to get him here, and keep him alive for a while. Now, he only needed money. Ergo, he needed a job.

Waiiiit. Ergo? Did that mean he was educated? Had he gone to college?

"Whatever, college boy."

Jason grabbed one temple as a warning spike of pain ricocheted through his head. Damn. Migraine coming. Again. Better find somewhere to hole up.

Hadn't he passed a burned-out tenement a few blocks back, on the other side of the interstate? That should be pretty safe. Safe as he got these days, anyway. At least he'd found a real knife in the still, a solid hunting knife with a whetstone on the scabbard. The weight against his calf comforted him.

Jason paused for a moment, leaning against a lamp-post as he breathed hard. His body hated him. He seemed to be in decent shape otherwise, but his breathing and the legs weren't reliable. There was no way he could get a job like this, especially not the types of job he was likely to get with no ID, no references, no social security number, and no address. The tenement beckoned ahead, and he started walking, trudging down the street.

He turned into the burned out building, his stride faltering. Jason managed to pry a board back enough to crawl inside, its comparative shadows and quiet a relief. Then it was time to sit, apparently. The pain in his head was spiking again, building behind his eyes. Soon it would blind him, narrow his world to a thin line of agony. He was getting to know this rhythm too damned well.

With a sigh, he pulled the plastic bottle of moonshine he'd swiped. It burned like fire going down, but it would help to dull the pain a little. It had the annoying side effect of dimming his reflexes, and probably blinding him if he hit it too hard. Then again, so would the pain if he didn't do something.

Damned if he did, damned if he didn't, he thought. Then he curled in on himself, praying for sleep. As much as he prayed, anyway.

The nightmares came again. Twisted monsters, with and without human faces. A blonde girl sneering at him from the chair she'd been tied to, Jason's hand impacting her cheek with vicious force, her dying at his feet. A leathery faced creature that was there for his death, to literally suck his life away; there had been no fear then. Only relief. Death, it seemed, was his companion. Had been the only constant in his life.

"That's your M.O., isn't it?"

Jason jerked awake, shaking. His clothes stuck to his sweat soaked body, harsh gasps of breath in his ears.

Jesus, what the hell was he? Psychopath? Serial killer? He had killed. That much, he knew.

Jason looked at his hands, their scars, their strength. "I'm a killer." Somehow, that didn't feel right. "I'm a soldier."

"On your feet, soldier!"

That had to be it. He'd been in the military. Now, he was a spook?

Too many questions, and no answers. With a soft, frustrated noise, Jason got up, pacing the small room. The row of townhouses had burned. This one in the middle was intact but gutted, pipes and wires all showing. Only the brick and a bit of roof remained. Fortunately, it was an old brick house, so it was still pretty sturdy.

Not a bad place to hang out for a few days. Maybe get into some sort of shape.

Jason nodded to agree with himself. Which really, he thought wryly, wasn't a good sign for his sanity.

No time like the present, right? Without waiting for his own answer this time, he stripped his jacket off, reaching for one of the overhead pipes. Isn't that how the movies always did it? What was that one, with the hot buff chick doing the chin-ups in the loony bin. Terminator 2, yeah. That'd been it. Hot-ass Linda Hamilton.

He could certainly do chin-ups.

Ha. Jason managed five before the shoulder protested, giving out on him.

Wow, he sucked. Maybe sit ups?

Oh, hell no. Bad idea. Baaaad idea. Stomach scar didn't like that.

Jason lay back, wheezing. So what the hell was he supposed to do? His body hurt like his muscles were screaming for exercise. "This sucks out loud," he muttered. "Wait, what the hell does that even mean?"

Didn't matter, really. What mattered was the voice he'd said it in. That was his voice, the one he'd heard in the flash of memory that had spiked the migraine.

Something clicked in him at the realization. Not memory, unfortunately. But something close to whole. Whatever it was, this was part of him.

Jason looked at the pipe again and took a deep breath. "S'only pain, right?"

His shoulder protested as he grabbed on, hoisting his weight. Then his stomach protested as he brought his legs up, until he hung from his bent knees like a kid on the monkey bars. A charred bit of timber provided a foothold, and he let go with his hands, crossing his arms over his chest, Dracula style. Moving slowly, he tightened his stomach muscles, tucking his body up, towards the bar.

It hurt like hell. But his body obeyed. That felt important to him.

When Jason let himself down, his legs shook and his stomach burned. That was nothing compared to the sense of accomplishment. He could do this. Had to.

Jason spent most of that night twitching awake at every stray noise outside his door. After a while, he gave up on sleep and paced. Back, forth, again. His lungs screamed and his throat hurt. He kept at it.

The next day, he managed more chin ups, and more hanging sit-ups. The day after that, still more. It hurt, but as the scars had suggested, his body was used to pain. He found he could compartmentalize it, could recognize the difference between "muscle stretching, getting stronger" pain and "you fucked up" pain. He could push through.

Most of his pain was getting this body back in fighting form, apparently. He learned not to push the shoulder too much, or it would rebel on him, but the stomach wasn't a huge problem. It seemed to be the surgery scar pulling, a twinge here and there. That got better with time.

Slowly, as Jason forced himself to go on, things improved. He could breathe a little bit better, could feel his stamina improving. By day four, he'd started jogging around the area, wearing a pair of ill fitting running shoes he'd found in a dumpster. That sucked at first, though the wolf whistle from a bunch of teenagers on a tour bus certainly boosted his ego.

Finally, by day five, with his food supplies dwindling, he decided it was time to start looking for a job.

The docks were an utter bust. They'd gone union last year and now everything had to be carefully kept track of and above board. Bastards. The foreman bought him a hotdog and a cup of coffee, though. Coffee tasted like piss, which made it the best coffee Jason'd ever had, at least as far as he knew. He hadn't found a machine in the Adlers' cabin, which hadn't helped his headaches.

As Jason was leaving, one of the younger guys on the crew motioned him over. "Did I hear that you were looking for a couple weeks of work?" the guy asked, when Jason warily joined him.

"Yeah. Know somewhere I should look?"

"Place I worked for the last year, warehouse over on the North side by the Red Line. Hang on, I'm going on break, I'll write it down for you. Tell them John sent you."

"John," Jason said slowly, wondering why the name sounded familiar. Was he John? That would be pretty funny actually, what with the John Doe. Nah, he just didn't feel like a John. A John should be... tough, hardass.

A patron of hookers named Bertha. Jesus. Yeah, the most generic name for a guy ever sounded familiar. Big fucking deal.

The guy -John, Jason thought with a smirk- handed him a slip of paper with an address and a five.

Jason stared at the bill, then shook his head. "I don't need-"

"Just take it. When you've got it, help someone else." John turned over his arm, showing an impressive line of track marks. He looked at Jason for a moment. "Jesus, hasn't anyone ever done you a favor?"

"Not that I can think of."

"Well, now you can think of this. Good luck to you, man."

Jason walked away, still shaking his head. Somehow, he'd rather steal the cash than have someone take pity on him. Pity just didn't sit well.

The warehouse, to put it kindly, was a shithole, sandwiched between a lumber yard and the L station. But, it was a job. And pay. Money, glorious money. The first thing Jason did when they handed him his wages was head down the street to the Goodwill store. His hiking boots were holding together with duct tape and a prayer at this point, worn down to almost nothing.

He was able to get a couple changes of clothes, then headed towards the shoe section to see if anything caught his eye. He was looking at the nondescript lace up shoes when sleek black leather caught the corner of his eye. Turning, he found a pair of motorcycle boots, complete with metal "O" ring and steel toes sitting forlornly on the top shelf.

They looked big enough, maybe. Maybe too big.

Wait, did spies wear biker boots? Fuck it. This one did.

Jason slid one on slowly, waiting for the inevitable collision of his toes with the front of the shoe. It never failed.

It never came.

"Like Cinderella," Jason muttered, adding them to his purchases. "Fucked up biker bitch Cinderella."

There was just enough cash left to pick up some food. Heading back to his burned out tenement, Jason felt almost content.

The next day was the same as the one before. Get up, jog to work, his lungs only burning a little. Work for ten hours putting labels on office supplies, take the cash and head back to the tenement to work out until he exhausted himself for a few hours sleep.

Two weeks later, he picked up his last pay a changed man.

Chicago had been good to him. Where there had been atrophy and softness, there was muscle. Where there had been confusion, there was clarity. Where there had been bleached white-blond hair, there was blue, thanks to a bottle of hair dye he'd picked up. His clothes were black and threadworn but his, dammit. Jason Hammett's. And better yet, the ride to Minneapolis was his, courtesy of his former employers. It was a start.

Best of all, he knew a little more about Jason Hammett. He liked classic rock and Metal. Nu-metal sucked ass. He could charm the ladies with a smile, but some of them freaked when they saw the scars. Of course, some of them just wanted to make it all better. He liked those ladies. He also liked the guys, especially the one transvestite just off Navy Pier who could do things with her mouth that made his vision white out.

He also knew too much about killing people. He knew he hunted in his dreams, even the ones that weren't memories or nightmares. Stalking the woods with a knife or a shotgun, tracing the distant scent of smoke and blood. Circling something, hunting it even as it hunted him, a spiral closing down to...

And that was where the dream always ended.

Jason had bought a gun (probably hot, but whatever) off one of the small-time dealers, and carried it at the small of his back. It helped ease some of the edginess.

His last night in Chicago. He'd grown oddly fond of the skyline, but not enough to shake the urge to keep going. It felt like the city was closing in on him the longer he stayed put. So here he was, heading out.

The L was deserted as he headed back from the going away drinks his co-workers had insisted on buying. Good people. Solid. Alcoholics, every last one of them.

Jason almost didn't notice the guy following him when he stepped off, lost in plans of heading west. Maybe Seattle. Somehow, that sounded familiar. Couldn't be because he liked grunge, because he'd wanted to claw his ears off when the one guy had insisted on playing Nirvana...

A whisper of footsteps behind him. Jason tensed a little, but didn't go for the gun. The guy was good, keeping quiet pace with Jason. But Jason figured he was better.

At only four weeks old, he was bound to make some mistakes.

The guy slammed him against the wall, face first. Jason pushed back, but the guy had arms like iron. The mugger hissed, pressing a thin blade at the base of Jason's neck and pressing in.

Jason swallowed, trying not to choke. "Look, settle down. Here, here's my money. I don't have anything else." His muscles felt tight, coiled for a fight. Stupid. Jason made himself offer the mugger the bit of cash he'd kept in his pocket, and glanced back when the mugger didn't respond.

Oh shit. The guy's eyes. Black, inky black, glistening in the light from a streetlight.

Run, whispered a voice in his head.

With a hoarse noise, Jason twisted, pushing off the wall. The mugger's grip faltered, startled by the idiot that actually moved into his knife.

Ignoring the trickle of blood from his throat, Jason bolted.

The mugger could've brought him down, but he didn't. Jason made it down the stairs, to the street, to his tenement. He leaned against the wall, panting, relieved.

It wasn't until he was in the truck the next morning that Jason shook over the beer and the hangovers, and started to wonder why he'd been let go.
***
TBC.