FIC: An Angel, Once

[nilchance]

Title: An Angel, Once
Author: 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. Jason is explained.



The first matter of business is to get off the street. Of course, Jason is no help.

"We could go back to the loft." When Jensen ignores him, Jason shifts against the wall he's currently propping up. "Misha is the.. is who he is. Might save me from having to explain twice."

"I live for your convenience," Jensen snaps, but there's no hiding the fear that prickles along Jensen's spine at the thought that Jason knows. Jason, who the Oracle holds close enough for a knife in the back. The Oracle has no sense of prey or predator, and Jensen doesn't know if he'd fight when it's necessary. Soft on the outside, guarded only by the smear of Jensen's blood. This is mine, stay back, as animal as pissing on a tree. Except that as the Oracle bleeds, hurts, dies, so dies Jensen. Always a price.

And Jensen isn't ready to die yet.

Jensen chews his lip, thinking of the angles. Trying not to reveal to Jason that he's right. His silence is as damning as an answer, he has to say something, divert--

Jason touches his shoulder, then grunts as Jensen whips back and twists his wrist to the breaking point. Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen sees Jason shift like he wants to retaliate, then deliberately relax. Instead, Jason leans into the pressure until Jensen can hear the creaking of his bones, and inhales. Breathes in Jensen's scent.

Jason murmurs, "I don't poach, but you tempt me."

It would be easy to snap Jason's wrist. Jensen feels the drum of Jason's pulse like the beating of distant wings. A car passes, a teenager gawking at them. The next one could be a cop car.

Grudgingly, Jensen releases Jason's arm. "You know somewhere else to go?"

Jason smiles.

*****

Jason's apartment is in an anonymous complex between a deli and a parking lot. Apparently bouncing doesn't pay much. No elevator and Jason's on the third floor. As they walk up the dim steps, Jensen can hear a woman's voice raised in an argument, her words muffled but her tone as clear as a knife's edge.

"Nice place," Jensen drawls.

Jason darts a smirk at him, still absently rubbing his wrist. "Says the man who sleeps in his car."

Jensen stops, one hand on the splintering handrail, and Jason passes him. It gives Jensen a perfect shot at cutting his hamstrings, but Jensen stills the urge to strike. "You followed me?"

"Sometimes," Jason says, unrepentent. When he pulls his keys from inside his jacket, Jensen catches sight of a glinting blade strapped within.

"Why?"

"Inside." Gesturing for Jensen to go first, Jason quirks an eyebrow. "If you want more of an answer than 'because you've got a nice ass'. Which you do, by the way."

Jensen scowls at him, which Jason returns with a broad grin. "I don't want you at my back. You first."

So they go in, Jason with long easy strides, Jensen moving warily behind. Beyond the door there's no ambush. Jensen is vaguely offended.

Jason's apartment is sparse, clean lines and cool colors. There's a futon crowded against the windows, no television in favor of a mat on the floor and free weights. A rack of wooden staffs and training swords stands in the corner like a silent witness. Jason crooks his fingers at Jensen, beckoning him like a cat as he tracks silently across the carpet. Almost like he's avoiding--

"Hey, Jase." Deep gravel voice abrading the silence, a man steps into sight. He's massive, broad shouldered and built, a towel slung around his neck like dead prey. Rubbing a hand over his bald head, the man squints at Jensen and smirks, low and dirty. "What'd you bring me?"

Jason slants a look at the newcomer, strangely familiar; it reminds Jensen of the looks exchanged between Jeremy and Jeff. Fond exasperation. "Vin, you don't want to poke this one."

"No?" Vin slinks forward, a fluid grace to his movements that echoes Jason's, and shows Jensen his teeth. "Hot damn, look at that pretty face. Hey there, pretty kitty. You looking for somebody to rub you right?"

Vin's body heat seems to stroke Jensen; he waited too long to hunt, She's hungry, and sex would suit Her as well as blood. Vin rakes a look down Jensen's body, and Jensen is briefly glad for the loose fit of his borrowed sweatpants.

"Dude," Jason sighs, amused. "I've told you not to taunt the newbies. Kitty's about to claw your eyes out. He won't take your bullshit. Go eat out, if you're gonna."

"Huh." One step, one more step and their bodies will touch. Vin studies him again, less heated. "Not one of yours, Jase?"

"No poaching," Jason warns, iron under it this time. "He's Jeff's."

The certainty, the simplicity of that assumption twists Jensen's gut around. He swallows, hating that Vin takes a step back, hating more that he doesn't argue about not belonging to anybody.

"Really." Vin tilts his head. "Hey, is this the narc?"

Jensen makes a protesting sound before he can shut himself up. Once that's out, he figures he can bitch. "I have a name."

Jason grins at his discomfort. "Yeah, that's him. I'm just stealing him for a minute."

With a grunt of assent, Vin finally backs off. "What a waste. You be good, kitty kitty. Come find me if Jeff doesn't treat you right."

The light touch of Jason's hand on his shoulder, steering him towards the hall, nearly jolts Jensen out of his skin. He hisses automatically, but Vin just snorts and exits the apartment. The door closes behind him, locks tight.

Jensen is abruptly aware of being locked in with Jason. He swallows and steps away from Jason's hand. To Jason's credit, he lets his hand drop and says, "Don't mind Vin. He does that act to spook the new kids."

"You told him to eat out."

"Yeah, well." Jason smiles. "He gets hungry sometimes."

There's no sign of further explanation. Jensen grunts and follows Jason down the hall.

Jason's room has the close, safe feeling of a wolf den. The shades are closed, but in the grids of sunlight that fall across the carpeted floor, the room is shaded brown and gold. Jason's futon is shoved in one corner of the room, a defensible position, with a sheath roped to the frame. The walls are full of rustling paper, curling with age like moth wings. There's one break in the pattern, a framed picture of a black sand beach.

"Unibomber chic," Jensen snarks, his voice sharp. "If I look, will all the papers say 'all work and no play'-"

Jason puts his hand in the center of Jensen's back. His warmth radiates out, stirring things low in Jensen's belly. While he's distracted, Jason nudges him into the room and closes the door.

"She's riding you hard," Jason murmurs. "You even know how to feed Her?"

Jensen looks away from the unwanted sympathy. There are papers taped to the back of the door, even. "This place is a fire hazard. Her who?"

"The raven woman," Jason says. "Morrigan."

The papers flutter. There's no wind. Jensen feels a sudden throb of hating Her, hating this whole goddamn thing. He can't wash the blood off anymore.

Jason glances around the room once, as if he's looking for something, then produces matches from his pocket. He strikes it, a harsh hiss and the stink of friction; the flare of light sends the shadows to tremble in corners. Jason touches the flame to a candle on his nightstand. Jensen puts his back against the door, still feeling Jason's touch.

"No, Lady," Jason says, and blows the match out. "No disrespect to you, but this isn't Your place."

Morrigan recedes, but Jensen feels Her amusement. As if a human could cast Her away. Scrubbing a hand over his face, Jensen glances at the nearest paper. It's been clipped out of a newspaper article in 1969, something about a man who was found in the desert outside Vegas. Something had gnawed the body apart. Someone circled the word 'coyotes' and put a smiley face beside it.

"What are you?" Jensen asks. "A tabloid reporter? A Watcher?"

Jason snorts. "You watch too much television. This isn't Buffy."

"Then what? You said we needed to talk. So talk."

"I said that because you needed to get off the street." Jason shakes his head, his expression strange in the shivering candlelight. "You... you're a beacon."

"Right." Jensen reaches for the doorknob. "Save hitting on me for your roommate, asshole."

"No." Jason's voice cracks like a flogger, stilling Jensen's hand. When Jason continues, his voice has a different cadence: lower, rhythmic, like the storyteller by his fire. "I know what you've done, Jensen. You read your books and you made your deal, but the myths aren't all true. Some of the information never made it to the page. It wasn't meant to be written, only passed between us."

"Us?"

"The god-ridden."

Oh.

Oh, that explains a lot.

Before Jensen can protest, Jason holds up a hand. "You dealt with a god, probably in exchange for revenge. For your wife."

"I didn't--" Jason knows too much.

Jason slices through his half-assed argument. "Have you asked yourself why She would bother?"

It's too late to argue that he doesn't know what Jason means. "She needed an agent. Somebody to act for Her." Shaking off his unease, Jensen demands, "You made a deal with them? Who?"

"To some extent, they all need their instruments. Their weapons. They'll heal your wounds, keep you sharp and fine. They'll even extend your protection to those you claim." Jason's gaze slides, knowing, to Jensen's bandaged hand.

"I didn't claim anybody--" Blood on the wooden floor of the loft, blood on the Oracle's skin.

"But They cost you. They ask you for tributes. Fights, blood, pain." Jason's eyes glitter. "Sex. And you're not feeding Her."

"Sex." Jensen glares, trying not to seem as shaken up as he is. "Bet you keep yourself real high on your woman's list. Is that why you hang around here? You get off on it, or are you just being somebody good little bitch?"

The insult slides away like water. Jason snorts. "It's respect. You touch fire, it'll burn you whether you feed it wood or not. And it looks like," Jason nods at Jensen's other bandaged hand, "your woman is losing her patience with you.

Fire. The Hawaiian tattoos on Jason's arms. It's not hard to come to a conclusion, but Jensen holds back Her name. This is Her turf, not Morrigan's, and he doesn't want to incite either of them.

"They cost you," Jason repeats, stretching out an arm to touch the candle. The light radiates through him. Brighter than it should be? "Even when They're trying to reward you. They're not human. I made my deal to survive, and I did. I survived to watch my people subjegated beneath American rule. I survived to bury my family."

Jensen hisses out a breath through his teeth. Hawaii coming under American rule, a battle, that happened back in 1893. Too long to live, too long. He thought that when She was done, the jobs done, that he could... "You're over a hundred years old. How?"

Jason hmms, watching wax slide towards his fingertips. "I'm still useful to Her."

"But--" Choking himself into silence, Jensen digs his fingernails into his palms.

"But you want to die." The wax touches Jason's skin. His eyes go half-lidded and hot; he shifts to let the wax trickle between his fingers. "You think you'll kill Legion and go to some fucked up hero's grave. Rah, rah."

"Fuck you. You don't know what I think--" Jensen stops short. "Legion. You know... of course you know. Why are you sitting on your ass doing nothing? Women are dying, people you know!"

The wax settles in the hollow between Jason's fingers. Jason closes his eyes and exhales like he just took a hit from the Oracle's waterbong. "It's not only Legion. That's just the one who's shadowing you."

Jensen thinks of the wound in his back, the dream he had this morning. That's bad enough; the thought of more monsters, more nightmares and deaths raises the hair at his nape. "What else?"

Huffing out an almost-laugh, Jason takes his hand back from the candle and begins peeling away the drying wax. "There are tears in the world. All over it, in the dark places and the loud ones. Renee's death tore a small hole, but it lets them trickle in. It lets them pull at the wound and try to open it wider."

"Them?" Jensen echoes.

"The small ones, the bottom feeders that scavenge off the bigger kills. Legion went towards the light and the noise, the open door. Now it's trying to--"

Something crashes in the other room. Jason shuts up and they both stand still, listening. As the silence stretches, Jensen reaches for his knife. The fire flickers, guttering out in a non-existent wind. Jason crushes the flame out with the flat of his palm, not wincing, and nods at Jensen. Get away from the door, that nod says, we'll share the kill.

The drumming of Jensen's pulse isn't fear. He feels that heat sink down, pooling in his belly and his groin. He tightens his grip on the knife hilt and slides away from the door. He doesn't stand close enough to touch Jason, but still feels the fever-warmth of his skin.

A hard thump, like one of their weights hitting the floor, and then the doorknob rattles. Beside him, Jason does not tense. His expression reminds Jensen of watching the woman at the club ride the vibrator, sweat sticking tendrils of hair to her throat, her face slack with need.

The door knob stills. Something moves in the corner of Jensen's vision, a reflection in the glass frame of Jason's photograph. The glass flexes, pushes, birthing the convex curve of an agonized face.

Jensen moves faster than thinking, slamming the hilt of the blade into the opening mouth of the thing. Only the bandages save his hand from the burst of glass, shattering out from the mouth that is screaming, screaming as it fractures apart. Pieces of glass fall away one by one from the suddenly empty air, the scream dying as they land soundlessly on Jason's carpet. Blood oozes out from the glass.

Mouth thin with distaste, Jason grinds the glass to dust beneath his heel. "Cheap tricks."

When he pulls away, the glass is like grains of sand. The only hint of the attack are the smears of blood on the carpet.

On the nightstand, the candle flits back into light. The flame is like the weaving hips of a woman.

"Wouldn't be cheap if that thing had made it all the way in." Brushing glass off his forearm, Jensen checks their six. "What was that?"

Jason shrugs, his eyes on the small cuts on Jensen's arm. "Not Legion. It found the light. Another arm of the beast."

Jensen's body throbs, hungry and too aware. He makes himself take a deliberate step away from Jason. "You started to say something about Legion. 'It's trying to.' Trying to what?"

Jason says, "To make an end."

Comments

[zelda-zee.livejournal.com]

Love this! I'm entranced with the idea of Jason as immortal. This story is such a fantastic trip! :)

[nilchance.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

OMG, your Misha icon. *smitten*