FIC: And Nothing More
Dec. 4th, 2008 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nilchanceTitle: And Nothing More
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nilchance
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Misha Collins/JDM
A/N: Sequel to If Bird or Devil. Jeff is a dom, Misha is his boy, Jensen is complicated.
He hears the raven's call, first. On the last few steps out of Morgan's building, Jensen stops to look for her and he feels his cell phone hum against his thigh.
Damn, he thinks. Even if Collins warned him that there'd been more deaths, even so...
He picks up. "Yeah?"
"Hey." Detective Zoe Bell is rushed and breathless. It's a quality of homicide cops that Jensen understands and hates, that excitement. He remembers how many of them tried to get promotions, book deals, true crime groupies off Renee's death. Bell is one of the good ones, the kind ones, but she's still an adrenaline junkie like the rest. "There's been another one."
Somewhere, some girl's mother is getting the phone call. Jensen wonders how close he was to stopping the bastard before that girl died, too.
"Directions," Jensen demands.
"Man, I don't know if I can get you in on this scene, it's a clusterfuck--"
"You can get me in or you wouldn't have called." Pulling a pen out of his pocket, Jensen repeats, "Directions."
Morrigan circles overhead, laughing.
****
It's raining steadily by the time Jensen gets to the scene, a mist that makes the streets shine. He sees the crowd from way off, peering over the yellow tape. The police lights reflect red and blue off everything, casting a sense of dreamy unreality. These things don't happen in the suburbs, not among the pretty houses and the swingsets and the backyard pools.
He pulls over a few blocks away and parks. It's tempting to bring a piece with him, but he sticks with the boot knife and Morrigan's blade. He doesn't need to draw attention when he's trying to sneak into a crime scene. He climbs out of the car and hears the keening of the neighborhood dogs. Not just alert barking at strangers. No, they're howling like they're in pain, a shrill cacophany that hurts his ears.
They know who's been here. They smell the death.
Shaking off the distraction, Jensen lopes towards the chaos of the crowd. He can see some of them with cell phones raised high, recording the scene for bragging rights. Aside from the gawkers, there's the press, yelling questions over the barriers that keep them back: is this a repeat of the Renee Walker murder? Any comments about the religious nature of the pose? Any suspects in custody?
No comment, no comment, no comment. The LAPD would be digging for suspects soon, and Morgan's Boston alibi is gone. The mood of the crowd is already hot with fear and excitement, and there's still other bodies to be found. When that happens, the panic will come, the hunger for an answer, the chaos...
Turn, whispers Morrigan's voice in his ear.
Jensen stops, startled, and that quickly they're on him. Two of them, at least, one clamping a gloved hand over his mouth, the other yanking him off the path and away from the sight of the crowd. Behind a fence, of all the stupid things, landscaped bushes trampled beneath them, and Jensen's distantly appalled by the sloppiness.
Then they're on him, a rain of punches and kicks. He feels his a few ribs pop; he struggles, but it doesn't stop. It won't stop.
They punch him in the back, near the kidney. Jensen goes limp, following the buckling of his legs, and the one behind him drops him to the dirt. He takes the opening, twists and kicks the asshole's knee backwards. He feels the dull place in his back grow warm, tickling wet down his back, and realizes, he wasn't punched. He was stabbed. The knife's still in the meat of his back.
It's two of them, his attackers, man and woman; the man's leg gives but he doesn't cry out.
The seconds stretch as the man pulls his gun and Jensen reaches for her knife, and the flashbulbs flare, revealing their faces. There's something terribly wrong with their faces, a rubber mask fit over the wrong mold. The woman opens her mouth, and no words come out. As her lips move, a great buzzing builds in Jensen's head, the sound of crisp paper-thin wings, the language of bees.
Jensen reaches with numb fingers for the blade in his boot. They don't try to stop him, their heads cocking busily as if they're listening. Listening to his heart, his lungs, his blood. The buzzing increases, drowning out the world, reaching into secret places for--
As his fingers close around the hilt, it shocks him awake. For a moment he sees the thin black legs of wasps pulling open the woman's mouth and eyelids, seething inside the man's leg wound. He feels them in his mouth, digging at him with their little barbs, whispering to him: dog, servant, carrion, Legion is here. Legion adores all. Give all to Legion.
Gritting his teeth, Jensen pushes himself up on trembling legs. He can feel the blood soaking his right pant leg, seeping down into his shoe. A glance past the pair shows the street through a filmy cover, protection from prying eyes. "Legion can have my boot up his ass."
The woman cocks her head. Something pushes out of her ear and plops to the ground. Give us the Oracle, little dog. Legion will love you. Legion will hold you. Comfort you. Pleasure you. You desire Legion.
There's no fight in them, no fight. He has no reason to hurt them. They're puppets, these poor bastards, trapped in a contract with a god or a demon. There's torture in the woman's eyes as she stares at him. She's pleading for release, he can convince himself. It's not really murder.
In the end, only one thing is important: they want to hurt the Oracle.
Killing is never easy, never natural, but he feels Morrigan on his shoulder as he slashes the man's carotid open. Moving wrenches the knife, as if it was twisted inside him. The man bleeds worms as he falls; Jensen flicks the last few squirming ones off onto his body. His hand will not tremble, cannot tremble.
The woman meets his eyes with no concern, her body open towards him. She sniffs the air and licks her lips, knocking away a little spider.
"Give up her body," Jensen says. It won't work, but maybe he won't see this woman in his nightmares. "Let her go."
There is no she. Only Legion. You are god-ridden; you know. She raises her hand, and Jensen flinches, but her palm is empty. Give to Legion, little dog. For Legion holds your wife--
Jensen slits her throat.
Her lips move once last time, shaping a word: war. And then she crashes to the ground. Jensen stays where he is for a moment, every muscle tensed to hold him upright, afraid to move and maybe fall. He doesn't want to lay with her, even though she looks empty now. There are no worms, only red blood seeping into the grass. He's bleeding everywhere, maybe slipping into shock. He needs to fix it. He needs...
Jensen goes to his knees, and the knife jars inside him.
The pain takes him away for a while, awash in white.
When he comes back, he's face-down on the soggy grass. The blood squelching under his hands is still warm. He moves his eyes, wary of triggering another jolt of pain, and sees the bodies. What's left of them. They're corroding like old steel, rust-colored decay creeping over and consuming them. Their insides are gray and squirming, alive with small things.
That takes care of the bodies, but Jensen hesitates to be grateful for anything that came from Legion.
His back cramps, a sharp awkward feeling, and then the knife slides out of him and thumps to the ground. He fumbles a hand back, reclaiming the knife, and feels it singing with new life. It fed on blood; it's not particular about the donors. He sheathes the knife and rolls slowly onto his back, soaking the puncture wound in the bloody grass.
It isn't victory or vengeance. It isn't a great battle for the Celtic ballads. But blood will do.
He feels the wound bubbling like peroxide, a strange prickling sensation that makes him want to glance around for any remaining spiders. He lays still, watching the blue and red lights cycle across the branches above his head. In the higher branches, there's perched a raven.
"Care to explain that?" Jensen asks.
The bird ruffles up and launches itself from the branch, cutting a path through the night air.
The prickling eases, then stops. In the resulting quiet, Jensen closes his eyes. He's still bruised to all hell, his ribs maybe cracked, but his body hums warm from the healing. It whispers, sleep. He wants his empty backseat, but not as much as he wants his old bed in Dallas. Renee mumbling in her sleep, opening her arms to let him in.
With a hard sigh, Jensen scrubs a hand over his face and sits up. Soon. He'll rest soon, after looking through the crime scene.
When he gets to his feet, there's no sign of the bodies or of the blood. No veil hung between the street and the yard. The hungry earth consumed it all, leaving only a few tracks in the mud to show there'd been a fight. Jensen smoothes the scars out with his foot, then limps to the sidewalk.
He's barely reached the crowd when he feels her beside him, Detective Bell with her blonde braid and her stern eyes. "Hey!" she barks, then snares him by the arm. "What the hell took you so long, huh? And why're you all muddy and ripped up?"
"I tripped," Jensen deadpans. "Shall we?"
She eyes him, then snorts her disgust and lets him past the yellow line. "I must be out of my mind."
"It's going around," Jensen agrees, and goes with Bell to see the body.
Author:
nilchanceRating: Adult
Pairing: Misha Collins/JDM
A/N: Sequel to If Bird or Devil. Jeff is a dom, Misha is his boy, Jensen is complicated.
He hears the raven's call, first. On the last few steps out of Morgan's building, Jensen stops to look for her and he feels his cell phone hum against his thigh.
Damn, he thinks. Even if Collins warned him that there'd been more deaths, even so...
He picks up. "Yeah?"
"Hey." Detective Zoe Bell is rushed and breathless. It's a quality of homicide cops that Jensen understands and hates, that excitement. He remembers how many of them tried to get promotions, book deals, true crime groupies off Renee's death. Bell is one of the good ones, the kind ones, but she's still an adrenaline junkie like the rest. "There's been another one."
Somewhere, some girl's mother is getting the phone call. Jensen wonders how close he was to stopping the bastard before that girl died, too.
"Directions," Jensen demands.
"Man, I don't know if I can get you in on this scene, it's a clusterfuck--"
"You can get me in or you wouldn't have called." Pulling a pen out of his pocket, Jensen repeats, "Directions."
Morrigan circles overhead, laughing.
****
It's raining steadily by the time Jensen gets to the scene, a mist that makes the streets shine. He sees the crowd from way off, peering over the yellow tape. The police lights reflect red and blue off everything, casting a sense of dreamy unreality. These things don't happen in the suburbs, not among the pretty houses and the swingsets and the backyard pools.
He pulls over a few blocks away and parks. It's tempting to bring a piece with him, but he sticks with the boot knife and Morrigan's blade. He doesn't need to draw attention when he's trying to sneak into a crime scene. He climbs out of the car and hears the keening of the neighborhood dogs. Not just alert barking at strangers. No, they're howling like they're in pain, a shrill cacophany that hurts his ears.
They know who's been here. They smell the death.
Shaking off the distraction, Jensen lopes towards the chaos of the crowd. He can see some of them with cell phones raised high, recording the scene for bragging rights. Aside from the gawkers, there's the press, yelling questions over the barriers that keep them back: is this a repeat of the Renee Walker murder? Any comments about the religious nature of the pose? Any suspects in custody?
No comment, no comment, no comment. The LAPD would be digging for suspects soon, and Morgan's Boston alibi is gone. The mood of the crowd is already hot with fear and excitement, and there's still other bodies to be found. When that happens, the panic will come, the hunger for an answer, the chaos...
Turn, whispers Morrigan's voice in his ear.
Jensen stops, startled, and that quickly they're on him. Two of them, at least, one clamping a gloved hand over his mouth, the other yanking him off the path and away from the sight of the crowd. Behind a fence, of all the stupid things, landscaped bushes trampled beneath them, and Jensen's distantly appalled by the sloppiness.
Then they're on him, a rain of punches and kicks. He feels his a few ribs pop; he struggles, but it doesn't stop. It won't stop.
They punch him in the back, near the kidney. Jensen goes limp, following the buckling of his legs, and the one behind him drops him to the dirt. He takes the opening, twists and kicks the asshole's knee backwards. He feels the dull place in his back grow warm, tickling wet down his back, and realizes, he wasn't punched. He was stabbed. The knife's still in the meat of his back.
It's two of them, his attackers, man and woman; the man's leg gives but he doesn't cry out.
The seconds stretch as the man pulls his gun and Jensen reaches for her knife, and the flashbulbs flare, revealing their faces. There's something terribly wrong with their faces, a rubber mask fit over the wrong mold. The woman opens her mouth, and no words come out. As her lips move, a great buzzing builds in Jensen's head, the sound of crisp paper-thin wings, the language of bees.
Jensen reaches with numb fingers for the blade in his boot. They don't try to stop him, their heads cocking busily as if they're listening. Listening to his heart, his lungs, his blood. The buzzing increases, drowning out the world, reaching into secret places for--
As his fingers close around the hilt, it shocks him awake. For a moment he sees the thin black legs of wasps pulling open the woman's mouth and eyelids, seething inside the man's leg wound. He feels them in his mouth, digging at him with their little barbs, whispering to him: dog, servant, carrion, Legion is here. Legion adores all. Give all to Legion.
Gritting his teeth, Jensen pushes himself up on trembling legs. He can feel the blood soaking his right pant leg, seeping down into his shoe. A glance past the pair shows the street through a filmy cover, protection from prying eyes. "Legion can have my boot up his ass."
The woman cocks her head. Something pushes out of her ear and plops to the ground. Give us the Oracle, little dog. Legion will love you. Legion will hold you. Comfort you. Pleasure you. You desire Legion.
There's no fight in them, no fight. He has no reason to hurt them. They're puppets, these poor bastards, trapped in a contract with a god or a demon. There's torture in the woman's eyes as she stares at him. She's pleading for release, he can convince himself. It's not really murder.
In the end, only one thing is important: they want to hurt the Oracle.
Killing is never easy, never natural, but he feels Morrigan on his shoulder as he slashes the man's carotid open. Moving wrenches the knife, as if it was twisted inside him. The man bleeds worms as he falls; Jensen flicks the last few squirming ones off onto his body. His hand will not tremble, cannot tremble.
The woman meets his eyes with no concern, her body open towards him. She sniffs the air and licks her lips, knocking away a little spider.
"Give up her body," Jensen says. It won't work, but maybe he won't see this woman in his nightmares. "Let her go."
There is no she. Only Legion. You are god-ridden; you know. She raises her hand, and Jensen flinches, but her palm is empty. Give to Legion, little dog. For Legion holds your wife--
Jensen slits her throat.
Her lips move once last time, shaping a word: war. And then she crashes to the ground. Jensen stays where he is for a moment, every muscle tensed to hold him upright, afraid to move and maybe fall. He doesn't want to lay with her, even though she looks empty now. There are no worms, only red blood seeping into the grass. He's bleeding everywhere, maybe slipping into shock. He needs to fix it. He needs...
Jensen goes to his knees, and the knife jars inside him.
The pain takes him away for a while, awash in white.
When he comes back, he's face-down on the soggy grass. The blood squelching under his hands is still warm. He moves his eyes, wary of triggering another jolt of pain, and sees the bodies. What's left of them. They're corroding like old steel, rust-colored decay creeping over and consuming them. Their insides are gray and squirming, alive with small things.
That takes care of the bodies, but Jensen hesitates to be grateful for anything that came from Legion.
His back cramps, a sharp awkward feeling, and then the knife slides out of him and thumps to the ground. He fumbles a hand back, reclaiming the knife, and feels it singing with new life. It fed on blood; it's not particular about the donors. He sheathes the knife and rolls slowly onto his back, soaking the puncture wound in the bloody grass.
It isn't victory or vengeance. It isn't a great battle for the Celtic ballads. But blood will do.
He feels the wound bubbling like peroxide, a strange prickling sensation that makes him want to glance around for any remaining spiders. He lays still, watching the blue and red lights cycle across the branches above his head. In the higher branches, there's perched a raven.
"Care to explain that?" Jensen asks.
The bird ruffles up and launches itself from the branch, cutting a path through the night air.
The prickling eases, then stops. In the resulting quiet, Jensen closes his eyes. He's still bruised to all hell, his ribs maybe cracked, but his body hums warm from the healing. It whispers, sleep. He wants his empty backseat, but not as much as he wants his old bed in Dallas. Renee mumbling in her sleep, opening her arms to let him in.
With a hard sigh, Jensen scrubs a hand over his face and sits up. Soon. He'll rest soon, after looking through the crime scene.
When he gets to his feet, there's no sign of the bodies or of the blood. No veil hung between the street and the yard. The hungry earth consumed it all, leaving only a few tracks in the mud to show there'd been a fight. Jensen smoothes the scars out with his foot, then limps to the sidewalk.
He's barely reached the crowd when he feels her beside him, Detective Bell with her blonde braid and her stern eyes. "Hey!" she barks, then snares him by the arm. "What the hell took you so long, huh? And why're you all muddy and ripped up?"
"I tripped," Jensen deadpans. "Shall we?"
She eyes him, then snorts her disgust and lets him past the yellow line. "I must be out of my mind."
"It's going around," Jensen agrees, and goes with Bell to see the body.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-04 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-04 09:46 pm (UTC)So vivid and scary and doom-laden.
Brava, what a great installment.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-04 09:46 pm (UTC)*shudders*
I love the Morrigan/Morgan thing. Awesome.
:)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-04 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-04 10:31 pm (UTC)Renee Walker, what did you get him involved in?
Misha and Jeff, are you even remotely safe?
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 12:16 am (UTC)I've not had a chance to comment on this verse yet but I've been following it closely. Love the set up so far and really intreagued to see the bigger picture.
I like the way you're telling the story with the POV's of Jeff n Jen and the way their paths are crossing so far. Cant wait to see how Misha ties into it all either, with the history with Jensen too!
Will really try to comment more cause I love your fics!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 01:00 am (UTC)You're using some seriously creepy imagry here, the wasps and spiders and rusty corosion far more effective than blood and gore.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 02:37 am (UTC)....
verrah interesting...MORE PLEASE!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 06:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:34 pm (UTC)Thank you so much!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 06:04 pm (UTC)I guess i said 'assassins' 'cause they tried to kill him, yet he *healed*, so, rather pointless....
*bounce*
:)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-05 07:11 pm (UTC)(This may have been clear to you, but I forget these things.)
While I watch lots of fantastic media, I haven't always read as much of the sci fi and fantasy as people expect, given my media tastes. So I've been trying to remedy that, and what I've found is that sci fi is good, but I really, really like urban fantasy.
What works so well here is that you build a world in which the fantastic elements are believable because they're the same kind, to me, of used universe that they tried to create in BSG. Too often created universes are sterile, sanitized, pretty set pieces. But here you bring in a piece of the magic and show us how it works. Knowing that Jensen's got this in his back pocket complicates what Jeff will see as recklessness.
Also, like the villain. Should prove interesting.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 02:00 am (UTC)Wonderful chapter, as always :) Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 02:19 pm (UTC)You never disappoint. :-)
no subject
Date: 2009-03-29 11:50 pm (UTC)Somehow, Jensen's picked up some skills along the way. Shooting, fighting, handling knives...did Morrigan teach him by riding him? In his dreams? Or did he learn these skills after Renee died, studying as intensely as he ever studied literature? Morrigan's knife, huh. I like the ravens, how important they are, woven all through the story. Her servants and messengers, her avatars...her sacrifices, if need be.
The idea that an undefined number of women could be so violently killed like that,without anyone interrupting or knowing, is...unfortunately, highly possible. I think in some way it underlies every contact a woman has with a stranger, especially a man...that possibility of death or rape. You know? It's the double-checking of the locks at night, the purse-clutching, walk-faster to the car, and the don't-take-rides-from-strangers in the backs of our minds. So...if this goes on for too much longer, and more and more victims are found...people are going to get really fearful and crazy.
I'm wondering what happens to the people Jensen killed. Do they dissolve in a pile of bugs? Do the ravens eat them, or Morrigan zap them into ash, or what? Because it's not going to do him one bit of good to have extra mysterious corpses appear at crime scenes that he might be seen at. It's not like he's hard to i.d.!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-31 03:58 pm (UTC)Funny, but right after I started this fic, there was news of a large number of African American women being killed off while the police did nothing to protect them. Truth in advertising, I guess.
The people Jensen killed were reabsorbed into Legion. It's as yucky as it sounds.
OMG, your icon! I love it.
they call me Pesti for a reason, nil...
Date: 2009-04-05 03:09 am (UTC)Jensen HAS to have had a mentor, or guidance from Morrigan, controlling hs body, or at least talking him through a fight or two-something. There's no way he's going to hole up with a knife and a book or video and turn into a killer; he's not only dealing with physicality that he's very unfamiliar with (the actual kinesthetics of the fighting), but with the mentality of deliberately going out to do violence, to KILL. For people who live in their heads, like scholars or teachers, and nonviolent people in general, it can be extremely difficult to actually *strike*, even when they're threatened. (Women who take self-defense classes run into that problem all of the time-so used to being "nice" and behaving themselves that they can't even shout.)
How supportive are his friends and family, for one thing? I'm sure they'd try to support him, at first, appalled at Renee's fate; but after a while, dealing with the half-crazed, grieving husband who won't accept comfort must have grown increasingly difficult...especially if he ever mentioned wanting revenge, finding the killer and dealing with him,etc. Jensen would have to find a mentor, or Morrigan could
manage a little one-on-one sparring, perhaps?
I'm wondering...is there anything that says Jensen and Jason might not have met before? Jason wouldn't have to know what Jensen was up to, to teach him some basic fighting skills and to manhandle him into having ideas and YES, I'M OBSESSED, SOOOO WHAT! *imagines Jason pressing Jensen down into the practice mat, eeee!*
Well, if not Jason, then someone. Or something! *frowns*
And don't think I've forgotten that "scent!verse" I was trying to tempt you with...I just figure you've got enough on your plate right now and don't want to distract you *too* much. BUT JUST WAIT!