FIC: Surcease of Sorrow

[nilchance]

Title: Surcease of Sorrow
Authors: nilchance
Rating: Adult
Pairing: JDM/Misha Collins, JDM/JA
A/N: Sequel to If Bird or Devil. Jeff's a dom, and Misha is his boy.



Jeff's with a client when he hears the commotion in the hallway. He doesn't break into the session; the client's in deep, both hands curled around Jeff's ankle and his mouth licking clean swathes over the black leather of Jeff's boots. Murmuring low words of praise, Jeff cards his fingers through the client's hair and listens hard. He can hear Jason, voice stern and increasingly amused, and someone else. Familiar.

"- if you'd knock, we wouldn't have a problem--"

Ah. That kind of familiar. Absently, Jeff touches the stinging cut on his throat and listens to Jason shush Jensen down. The client raises his eyes, seeking reassurance, and Jeff taps his face with mixed rebuke and affection. "Didn't tell you to stop," Jeff warns, and the client drops quickly back to work.

It's been an uneasy few days. Misha doesn't call much, and he sounds harried when he does. In the background of Misha's calls, Jeff can hear the racket of Misha's many and beloved aunts, yelling at each other, cursing and laughing like crows on a clothesline. The strangeness of that early morning call is erased, and in daylight Jeff can tell himself that he must've told Misha about Jensen's eyes.

He hasn't slept much.

The session winds down. The client is the first to pull away, embarrassed now. Jeff gives him his distance, arranges the next appointment, exchanges pleasantries as the client puts back on his tie and jacket. If it's rushed this time around, the client doesn't complain.

Once he's gone, Jeff steps out into the hall. He doesn't change clothes or boots, and the toe is still damp with spit.

Jason has Jensen in a hammerlock, Jensen's arm twisted hard up behind his back. Jensen looks slightly worse for wear, dust on his clothes, strained up on his toes. There's no reason for Jeff's heart to give a few harder beats at the sight of him.

Raising his eyebrows, Jason says, "I found this trying to break in. Is it yours or can I keep it?"

Jensen's eyes slide all the way down Jeff in a way that makes the dom drag feel tighter than usual. It's probably meant to be an insulting stare, but Jensen stops at Jeff's boots and his eyes get wider.

"You want a turn?" Jeff asks, only half kidding, and Jensen glares at him. Jeff smirks and turns his attention back to Jason. If Jensen wants to act like a boy, Jeff's going to ignore him like one. "Yeah, that's mine. Sorry."

"Shame." Jason shakes Jensen a little. "Better keep a collar on him around here or somebody's gonna get ideas. You want him?"

A flush burns high in Jensen's face, bruised pride, but he keeps his mouth shut.

"Yeah," Jeff admits, and grabs Jensen by the scruff. "I got him. Thanks."

"Hm." Jason lingers a second, holding Jensen back against his body, then sighs and lets go. "Damn shame," he repeats, steeping Jensen in his heavy-lidded appraisal. "Let me know if that changes."

Jeff's first response is a hot, startling growl, and that's all kinds of wrong. Even if Jensen's nape is bared and warm in his grip, even if Jensen looks harmless except for a smart mouth and a surly look, it's fake. And that reminds him of Renee, making fatigue settle on him like a heavy cloak.

"I'll let you know," Jeff says instead, and steers Jensen into his room.

Jensen breaks away as soon as the door closes, skittering back to the other side of the room. When Jeff doesn't move to grab him, Jensen relaxes a little, still watchful as a feral cat stuck in a closed room.

Jeff's never been as aware of his rented room as he is now. It's not as bad as some of the other rooms in here, all fake dungeon motifs or motel-cheap themes, but its intent is definitely shown in its form. There's the padded bench with cuffs, for one thing. The cabinet of instruments, sterile blades and leather, the lingering scent of antiseptic and sweat.

Is Jensen breathing faster?

"I'm not in the mood for this," Jeff tells him. He's still in front of the door, and that's not an accident. There won't be another disappearing act. "Answer this question right and I won't press charges."

Jensen nods, his shoulders drawing back from their protective hunch. "What?"

"Was that blade clean?"

Stiffening, Jensen says with a trace of outrage, "It's always clean. You don't have to worry about that."

"Good. Okay." Jeff feels a tension slip that he didn't realize was there. "Thank you."

Jensen nods jerkily. He looks over the bench, for what Jeff doesn't know, before settling down on the very edge. "You didn't kill her."

"I know," Jeff says, annoyed. "So do the cops, if you'd bothered to check. I was in Boston the day she died."

"I don't trust the cops," Jensen snaps.

"Of course you don't," Jeff snaps right back, then sighs. "Sorry. Fuck. This is just--"

"I know how it sounds." Jensen's voice is tired. Young. If Jeff blinks, he can remember Renee on that bench, her bitter tears and the sweet slope of her shoulders under the flogger. "Are you pressing charges?"

"No." Honestly, he wasn't going to anyway, but he needed an answer. Jeff leans against the door. "You said you knew I didn't do it. What changed your mind?"

Jensen's mouth quirks up in a half-smile, but he only says, "Where are the other clubs?"

"What?" Oh. Yeah. Jeff had said Jensen wouldn't get into the other clubs, the seedier ones without names or safeguards. "I can give you addresses if you want, but that won't get you in."

Jensen gives him a half-lidded look, deceptively lazy. "Try me."

Jeff shakes his head. "These places, they only let in people who they know. There's drug trades, dog fights, prostitution."

Jensen's wry look takes in the whole room, the handcuffs and the suggestion of sex in every corner.

"I'm not a whore," Jeff says. "I sell kink, not sex. If you read the contract Sam tried to give you, you'd know that. And I don't fuck clients even if they try to take me home, and especially not in-house. We get at least one undercover cop a year trying to nail us for running a brothel in here. And no offense, but half the people in the club figured you for a cop as soon as they saw you. There's no way you're getting in the door without help."

"I don't look like a cop," Jensen argues. When Jeff snorts, he says, "Okay. Why do I look like a cop?"

"Because you have no idea what you're doing. BDSM isn't all Exit to Eden and whatever they show on CSI." At Jensen's blank look, Jeff covers his face with a hand. "Aw, Christ, you don't even..."

"Bending over for it isn't that fucking complicated."

"And there's your problem. You don't just, and I quote, 'bend over for it'." Dropping his hand, Jeff meets Jensen's eyes. "You need help. I'm offering to help you."

Jensen's shoulders draw in again, a protective hunch that makes Jeff's chest ache. He wavers for a moment, looking like he wants to ask 'why' again, but doesn't. Jeff can see him struggling with it and coming, again and again, to the same conclusion: he needs Jeff to open the door.

"What do you want?" he asks finally, grudgingly.

"I want to see the motherfucker pay," Jeff says. Every second of buried violence slides into his voice, and he's surprised to hear the darkness there. But then again, no. Maybe he only wishes he was surprised.

Jensen doesn't move, but his eyes seem darker beneath his heavy eyelashes. "When I find him, I'm not taking him to the police."

"I know that," Jeff says. You deserve that much. "I know."

The quiet lays heavy between them, a silent agreement. Then the moment passes, and Jensen shifts, holding his wrists out.

Jeff almost laughs at him, and his amused huff of breath makes Jensen glance up and frown. "Not right this second," Jeff tells him. "When my partner gets back tomorrow night."

Jensen lets his arms drop. "The fewer people who know--"

"I need Misha for this," Jeff says. "No arguments."

He's still expecting a fight, but to his surprise Jensen grudgingly nods and gets up. It hits Jeff all at once how narrow Jensen is, how easily Jeff could just... push him. Pin him. It's only good information to have, no reason for the blood to surge to his dick so fast it leaves him dizzy.

Then Jensen is in his space, Jeff between him and the door. Jeff's cornered him; it doesn't seem like quite so wise an idea when Jensen's so close that Jeff can see the flecks of gold in his eyes. Up close, Jensen smells like iron, like blood. Jeff wonders whose. It needs to bother him more than it does.

His life lays in two pieces: before Jensen, and after. The last few days are like a fever dream, an interruption of his nice sane life.

"What?" Jeff says, teasing drawl a defense. "You want to shake on it or you want to kiss, sweetheart?"

Jensen's eyes narrow, and then he exhales and flattens Jeff against the door with a kiss. It's clumsy, a kiss for a man more used to punching, a widower's kiss. His lips are dry enough to split, to bruise, and that's all wrong. Jeff opens his mouth before he starts tasting blood, tilts his head and puts his hand on Jensen's jaw to coax him along. Jensen gasps in a breath and Jeff takes it, softens the kiss into something gentler. Let me in, just let me...

Jensen jerks away, but not before Jeff hears him whimper. His pupils blown, mouth bitten, he looks like they did much more than kissing. Jeff hurts, he's so hard. Jensen looks like he wants to hit him.

Jeff reaches back and opens the door. "Go on," he says. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Jensen bolts like hell's behind him. Jeff doesn't look after him; he closes the door and lets it take his weight for a moment. Then he picks up the phone and texts Misha, I need you. Call me.

The thing is, Jeff's not sure if he wants his sane life back or not.