FIC: Scorn Those Joys

[nilchance]

Title: Scorn Those Joys
Author: nilchance
Rating: Adult
Pairing: Misha Collins/JDM, with JA on the side
A/N: Sequel to If Bird or Devil. Jeff is a dom, Misha is his boy, Jensen is complicated. Jeff tries to teach Jensen. It goes about as well as expected.



When Jensen slinks out of the bathroom, towel slung around his neck, the dog greets him first. She wags furiously, glad to see him, and nudges her head beneath his hand. Jensen scratches the rougher fur at her scruff, making her collar jingle, and she cranes her head to stare plaintively; after a minute, he caves to the inevitable and sits down to pet her. Delighted, the dog crowds onto his lap and leans on him, her tail like a metronome whumping against Morgan's bedspread.

In a few years, Renee had said they'd get a dog together. They had even decided the breed, a lab or a retriever to accompany Renee on her midnight runs so she wasn't alone with her demons. A soft breed, she'd said. For the baby to grow up with.

Bisou whines, and Jensen realizes that his petting has slowed. He rubs her ears, apologetic, and she's happy with him again. She has no idea she's vulnerable, or why her people have adopted such strange company.

Taking her tags between thumb and forefinger, Jensen traces a protection sigil with his nail. "Come on, Lady," he murmurs, "I think you'd be a dog person. Keep her safe."

Bisou tips her head up, mouth opening on a doggy smile, and Jensen follows her gaze to find Morgan standing over them. There's a softness to Morgan that Jensen doesn't like, a fondness. Jensen lets go of Bisou's tag and she reluctantly climbs off him, weaving herself around Morgan's legs.

When Morgan just keeps looking down at him, Jensen snaps, "What?"

"Thank you," Morgan says, rubbing Bisou's head. "I... thanks."

Averting his eyes, Jensen shrugs and uses their bed to lever himself upright. One hand is sticky with blood again, unbandaged in his hurry and distraction. The Oracle was in my shower, he wants to say, but it's Morgan's shower and Morgan's boy. He feels the same aimless, shameful frustration of finding strange hotel receipts in Renee's purse. He wants to fidget.

"If you're going to teach me," Jensen starts, then loses the thread of his words.

"I will," Morgan tells him, rubbing Bisou's ear between his fingers. "Doesn't have to be tonight, you know."

Jerkily, Jensen shakes his head. "People keep dying while I'm-- fuck, I'm flailing around, I'm not doing anything, and those girls keep dying, and--"

"Hey." Morgan's voice is a brick wall, a tripwire. Letting go of Bisou, Morgan lays his hand on Jensen's shoulder and says, "hey. Stop"

A protest lurches and dies in Jensen's throat, leaving its hot ache behind. He looks away from Morgan's eyes, his face burning. How did he get here from Texas, blood under his nails and the weight of four bodies on his back? How can he go back?

Squeezing a little, Morgan rubs his thumb in broad sweeps over Jensen's collarbone. "Stop," Morgan repeats. "It's not your fault."

Jensen twitches. His body is so taut from running its restless paces that the grip of Morgan's hand hurts more than it soothes, raising goosebumps on his bare arms. "You didn't see her body," he says. Isn't sure which body he means; the girls who aren't Renee seem to run together like gory watercolors. "You didn't see what they did to her."

"No. But that wouldn't change my mind." With a last brisk rub, Morgan lets go. "Misha made you a sandwich. Eat it and we'll start."

Huffing out a laugh, Jensen asks, "That some thing with you people? Feeding?"

"Sometimes, but it's not my kink. Ah, Bisou, out of that." Clicking his fingers sharply to draw Bisou's attention from Jensen's blood-soaked shirt, Morgan points at the door. Bisou slinks out, giving Morgan an indignant look as she goes, and Morgan drops his arm. He looks tired, suddenly. "Your mother every teach you it's not nice to say 'you people'?"

His mother. Jensen thinks swiftly, guiltily, of her curling gray hair and her embrace at the wake; then he shakes it off, shedding the memory like water as he heads for the kitchen without answering.

He wonders what kind of mother reared Morgan. Easier not to know.

At first glance, the Oracle seems backlit by fire; the setting sun is a corona behind him. Jensen blinks, and the illusion slips away, leaving the Oracle as just a slim man in pajama pants. He feels like he's losing focus, drifting from the solid daylight world into the deeper places where She lives and hunts.

"Oh, hey." The Oracle gestures at the sofa. "Sit down, eat something."

The throw on the couch looks hand-sewn, hanks of yarn jutting out in places. When Jensen perches warily on the couch's arm, he feels the lingering warmth from their bodies. He blinks again, trying to focus, and asks, "Coffee?"

"You'll never sleep." The Oracle's indignation so bizarrely mothering that Jensen snorts a laugh, covering his mouth with his hand. Expression crinkling in a smile, the Oracle sighs and pushes into Jensen's hands a paper plate laden with a hot sandwich. The bread is thick, homemade and shot through with grains, curled around a wedge of tender beef from last night. Was it only last night? "No coffee. I can make you tea, if you want."

Jensen balances the plate on his knee and takes the sandwich in both hands. "You don't have any coffee in the house?"

"We have coffee." The Oracle curls himself up in the big cushy armchair and picks up a book from the side-table. "Not before a scene."

Jensen's fingers sink into the soft bread, leaving dents. He stares down at it. "Is that what this is? Because I thought I was just supposed to be learning this stuff. Intellectual."

"Jensen." The Oracle swings his feet down with twin 'thumps'. "You can't be intellectual about 'this stuff'. We weren't made to be objective about pain. Our bodies react. It's about how we choose to deal with that reaction."

"We." The bread is beginning to tear under his fingers, showing the red meat beneath. Jensen forces himself to take a bite, chew, swallow; it's like ashes in his mouth. "I'm nothing like you, Oracle."

"Maybe not," the Oracle says, unapologetic. "I'm one in a million. Are you nervous?"

"No." Chew, swallow. Jensen fidgets in place, feels the Oracle's amused look, and makes himself stop. It could be the forced intimacy of the blood circle, but Jensen admits, "Maybe."

The Oracle hums. "You'll be fine, padawan."

"You don't know that."

"Yeah?" The Oracle peers at him, interested. "What are you afraid will happen?"

Jensen grunts and finishes his sandwich, silent.

After a while, Morgan appears in the door of the bedroom. He seems subtly different, charged with an energy that wasn't present before. "Okay, Jensen, you can head in here when you want. Mish, could you keep the girl out here while we're working?"

"Sure," Misha says, and pats the couch beside him so a sulking Bisou can see. "Aww, Bisou, is daddy kicking you out? C'mere, I'll feed you some ice cream."

Amazing how much that does to perk the dog up. Jensen has to dodge her wagging tail as she leaps onto the couch, pawing at Misha's legs. Somewhat reassured that the dog will be there to protect Misha in case of attack, even if Jensen himself is in the other room, Jensen stands and awkwardly holds his crumb-filled plate.

Reading his look, Misha nods at the nearest endtable. "Relax. I promise I won't put myself in mortal peril for the five minutes it takes you two to work."

Jensen hesitates, then pulls Morrigan's knife from its makeshift place tied to the sweatpants and holds it out to Misha. "Here. Just don't cut your fingers off."

Misha takes the knife, expression solemn, and puts it beside him where Bisou won't get nicked. "Thank you."

At loose ends again, Jensen shrugs and goes to Morgan.

****

"So where's your dungeon?"

Morgan glances up from his perch on the bed, a faint crinkle between his eyebrows. He has Jensen's contract in his hands; seeing it there is a shivery electric feeling. "Leave the door open a crack for Misha. What's that about a dungeon?"

"You know." Jensen gestures; he's not sure what to do with his hands, no pockets to hide their restlessness in. "Wall to wall leather and an Iron Maiden. You're a professional top and you're working me over in your bedroom?"

"I'm not 'working you over' tonight," Morgan says. "And if you're talking about a workroom, sure. I have one."

"Where?" Jensen gestures, indicating the loft. "I've been in your place, Morgan, I cased it. You taking clients in a storage closet?"

Morgan grins, a sudden little boy delight. "You haven't seen everything." Rising from the bed, he goes to the bookshelf against one wall and pushes it to one side. The motion rocks a framed photograph (three older women arm in arm in front of a snug cottage) in place, a rippling light that puts Jensen in mind of the attack in Jason's room. He nearly misses the doorway that was concealed behind the books and knick-knacks. Morgan is practically glowing, he's so proud of his trick, as he says, "And this isn't the room I use for clients."

Grudgingly impressed, Jensen creeps forward to study the door. Morgan doesn't move away; their bodies are too close. There's a curtain the same color as the wall, another illusion, drawn between the bedroom and the... playroom? It seems stupid to refer to Morgan's space like an oubliette, or a chilly deathtrap with a rack on the wall. But what might be past that curtain preys on Jensen's imagination, faint as the buzzing of carrion flies.

He doesn't trust Morgan, he can't, but it doesn't matter now. He's going to do this. He has to do this. Impatient with himself, his jittering nerves and cold sweaty hands, Jensen goes to snatch the curtain away.

Morgan catches him by the wrist, making Jensen stop. His grip is firm, too warm. Jensen hisses, trying to jerk free, and Morgan tightens his hold. Just enough, the first sip of pain, but it's still harder than Jensen thought Morgan could be.

"Not like that," Morgan says. All the boyish pride in his James Bond furniture is gone, replaced by an edge that draws Jensen's attention from his captured wrist to Morgan's face. Morgan is watching him, and meeting his eyes is an electric charge. Slow, like Jensen might bite off a finger, Morgan lifts his other hand and cups the back of Jensen's neck.

"We should go in." The words blurt out of Jensen's mouth. He clears his throat and tries again, tries to sound more like a killer. Less like a stupid, weak college boy out of his element. "I. You're wasting time here, Morgan, we need to-- let's go."

Morgan's mouth quirks, and Jensen has to look there. At the softness of Morgan's mouth against the scruff of his beard. Rubbing his thumb against Jensen's nape, his calluses scraping and raising chills, Morgan says, "It's not all about hitting and clumsy fumbling in the dark. There's a shape to these things. A ritual."

"I don't give a damn about your fucking ritual, okay?" Jensen hears his authority crack and nearly winces. "I'm not your boy for real. I'm not here for you to--" to keep "-- to jerk around and fuck, I'm here to kill it."

"I know that," Morgan agrees, with a softness that betrays him. Gripping Jensen's neck a little, like scruffing a cat who claws furniture, Morgan tugs Jensen forward and guides his arm over Morgan's shoulder. It brings them closer, too close, Jensen's pulse rising. On automatic, he tips his head up to better watch Morgan. He's throbbing all over, he's so hungry. Morgan glances at his mouth, eyes heavy and considering, then meets Jensen's eyes again. "I know. But everybody in the clubs, they're gonna think I'm taking you in. Like Misha."

"So?" Jensen hates the sullen note in his voice, but doesn't turn away from Morgan's smirk. "What does that matter?"

"So," Morgan replies, laying heavy snark on the word, "they're gonna think you're my boy. And not just mine to hurt."

Oh. Oh. That time, Jensen has to glance away so Morgan doesn't see him wince. Or see him wanting it. He's not sure which is worse.

"So I stay here," Jensen says. "On your couch. We act like we're... cohabitating. Your stoner friends see me hanging around. So what?"

Morgan's scruffing hand moves a little, and Jensen tenses even before feeling Morgan's thumb stroke the long bared tendon of his throat. A dark, shivery feeling coils through him; he wants to feel Morgan's hand around his throat, he wants to feel him bite. Instead, he stays where he is, each breath moving beneath the weight of Morgan's hand.

Absently petting, Morgan says, "So my stoner friends are going to think that you're sleeping with us."

Desire crumples up inside Jensen's belly, a hard flinching feeling that hurts more than it arouses. He swallows before he can think that Morgan will know, Morgan will feel his discomfort, but it's too late anyway. He's blushing. It's stupid and humiliating. "What do you want me to do? You're with the Oracle. You're married."

Morgan snorts. "We're not married. Misha's holding out for a federal declaration."

Yeah, Jensen could see the Oracle doing exactly that. Protests and civil disobedience. He snaps, "Whatever."

"You kissed me." That time, Jensen does flinch, but Morgan won't let him go anywhere. There's a quick scuffle, pushing to get some space, but Morgan is a brick wall. Morrigan won't move against him, She won't help. Morgan holds gamely on, waits for him to stop, and repeats, "You kissed me. And Misha, last night."

"That was a mistake. I--" The words lock in his throat, but Jensen manages, "I'm sorry."

Tilting his head, interested, Morgan says, "Why are you sorry about that and not about nearly taking my head off?"

"You're together. You're not a mark. I'm not." I'm not Renee. Swallowing against that bitter fruit, Jensen nods jerkily. "You love each other. Fine. That's... it's protection against some things. It's strategic."

"Hm." Morgan is still considering him, eyes narrowed. "Jensen, I think you're a romantic."

"Oh, fuck you." With his one free hand, Jensen scrubs his face and pushes irritably at Morgan's restraining hands. He's not surprised when Morgan doesn't yield. "So we'll have some PDA, for appearances."

"The places we're going, that's not holding hands and necking."

"Jesus. Then we'll," Jensen gestures wildly, tugging his captured hand still in Morgan's grip, "do whatever you want."

And that, that's definitely the wrong thing to say, because Morgan's eyes go dark and hot. "You're telling me you're gonna be okay if we're in a club, and you're kneeling down close while some girl gets eaten out under the table by her slave."

Jensen's face flames, his imagination heavy with the scent of a woman. The remembered scent of his wife, ripe as fruit and as wet inside, peeling open under his sticky fingers to drench his mouth and chin. It won't be her, no one can be like her, and his heart will break from missing her. Even if he gets hard off it, even if he's hungry. But he'll do it anyway. "Yes," he says, his voice throaty.

"You'll be okay if I have to touch you."

"I said yes."

Ruthless, Morgan says, "If I have to pull your head in my lap to keep somebody from trying to feed you their dick--"

Jensen's mind goes helplessly to Jason's club, the machine with its devastating thrum. Imagines it between Misha's legs and then, then between his--

"Morgan," Jensen snarls, achy and feverish. "Yes, I'll do it. Yes. Anything."

Morgan lifts his hand to Jensen's chin, urging his head around, forcing him to make eye contact. Jensen glares back, itching hard under his skin, hating him. Whatever Morgan reads on his face, it doesn't faze him. If anything, it seems to... he likes it.

It's an eleventh hour realization, that this hadn't occurred to Jensen. He had thought of the danger and his own stupid body's reactions and his bloody revenge, but he hadn't thought that maybe the sadist he was colluding with might be getting some visceral kicks out of Jensen's undercover game. That Morgan might be doing this just because he liked putting boys on their knees.

Intellectually, Jensen knows that he should be outraged. He should gut Morgan just for looking at him like that, his Oracle in the other room and Jensen's wife in the ground. He should not, cannot, feel another jolt in his belly, this wantwantwant, this crazy urge to tip his chin up and offer Morgan his mouth.

"You getting off on this?" Jensen says, his voice cracked and softer than it should be. "Fucker."

Morgan keeps his eyes on Jensen's face, still pinning Jensen's chin between thumb and forefinger. His voice is rough. "Yeah, I am. And so are you."

Rage goes off, a flashbulb, the light blossoming before a mushroom cloud. Jensen doesn't think about hauling off and punching Morgan before his fist is knotted up and swinging, all his hot want turned to blood. Morgan is too fast, darting to the side, taking the impact in his collarbone; it hurts Jensen more than Morgan, crack and bright hurt all along his wedding ring finger.

"Jensen!" Morgan barks, annoyed but not afraid, and that's mostly why Jensen plows shoulder-first into him and takes them both to the ground.

Morgan owns the impact, breath grunting out, but he releases Jensen's wrist. Jensen wrenches himself up, dimly aware of Morgan's hips beneath his ass, and his hand aches for Morrigan's knife-- but he can't stab Morgan, not Morgan, and so he just whacks Morgan one under the jaw. Morgan's head whips sideways, satisfying, but he grabs Jensen hard by his forearm and twists his narrow hips beneath Jensen, whipping them over, and if the floor wasn't carpet Jensen would see stars on impact.

Okay. So Morgan has been in more bar fights.

Morgan is heavier, pinning Jensen's arm between their bodies and Jensen's body to the floor. Jensen's legs are shoved apart, Morgan's hips between them, ungainly, too close. The borrowed sweatpants weren't made to fight in, they're slipping off and Jensen has carpetburn in unusual places. Jensen snarls, trying to wriggle loose, and his shoulder strains at the joint as Morgan leans on him harder. Morgan's free arm is a pillar beside Jensen's head, arm hair grinding against Jensen's cheek.

"Stop," Morgan bites off, pissed now, already swelling where Jensen got him.

Jensen wants to spit out 'fuck you', but he's not even verbal enough for that. He breathes in through his nose, trying to dim the lights that he sees in the corner of his vision. He could kill Morgan, he could fight harder and really show him pain. He could.

But that wouldn't help those women.

"You done?" Morgan asks gruffly, after a moment passes.

Jensen says nothing, just closes his eyes tight until he can't see even a splinter of Morgan. His heartbeat drums in his temples, hurting now from how tightly his jaw's clenched and from the adrenaline crash, slowing. Slowing.

The hard edge of Morgan's anger seems to curl in on itself like smoke. He relaxes his grip on Jensen's arm, practically inviting an elbow to the face. Their bodies ease together, Morgan's pelvis against Jensen's thigh, scalding hot. Jensen hisses, jerking his face away where Morgan can't see him flinch. Can't see him want to open his legs wider. Morgan sighs, then nudges Jensen's arm up over his head, out of the way so Morgan can cover him with that long lean greyhound body.

Don't, Jensen thinks, I'll kill you. I'll fuck you up. But he doesn't say anything, even as Morgan noses against Jensen's cheek.

"No hitting," Morgan says finally, his breath close against Jensen's throat. Jensen shivers all over like a taut wire. "You've gotten two free shots, Jensen, you're not getting a third. You remember that."

Anybody else and Jensen wouldn't need two shots. He fidgets, wanting to roll Jeff off but not wanting to grind against him, because if he starts that, he can't...

"Strung tight," Morgan murmurs. "How long's it been since you got off?"

Mortified, Jensen wheezes through his teeth. "You can't ask me that."

"I can. I did." After a considering moment, Morgan adds, "So tell me to stop."

Jensen stares hard past Morgan at the sloped ceiling, hating him, hating the trembling in his own body, hating that he doesn't tell Morgan to stop.

Gentling, Morgan nudges Jensen again like a cat seeking affection. "How long?" he repeats, low and coaxing now.

Surrendering, this is surrendering, but Jensen was the one to put them both on the floor. When he speaks, it's barely audible. "Nine months."

"Okay. Thank you." Morgan shifts, pushing himself up off Jensen a little. "That's a long time, all right? You're still human, with or without her. Your body doesn't know."

Jensen's laugh is cracked as old leather. "You trying to be my grief counselor, Morgan? Because you're seriously late--"

"I'm telling you that it's okay. If you're gonna haul off and deck somebody for noticing that you're surrounded by sex and you're hard, then you're... you're gonna get hurt. You might get Misha hurt."

Damn. Damn. Swallowing hard, Jensen nods. "I hear you."

"Figures you'd hear that and ignore everything else." Morgan swats him upside the head, making Jensen open his eyes and hiss. Up close, Morgan's eyes are too keen. "I don't know what other mystical shit is going on with you. Even if you told me, I wouldn't get it. Still. I need you to get your head on straight if we're going to hunt this son of a bitch down."

"You mean get my rocks off."

Mouth curving, Morgan says, "Yeah, maybe that. You're burning up inside, Jensen, you need to--you need. Don't expect me not to see that."

No? Jensen had expected the one human involved in this mess not to see that Jensen was being ridden hard. It's an unwelcome complication, even if Jensen misses the weight of Morgan's body when Morgan peels himself off. Without that anchor, Jensen feels unmoored.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Jensen sits up but doesn't try to stand. His knees won't hold. "Was that it?"

Morgan frowns down at him, offering a hand up. "What?"

"Kink."

"Oh." Morgan's smirk is slow, kindling an answering warmth in Jensen's stomach. "No. That isn't even close. We haven't even gone in."

Well, fuck. "You still want to--"

"If you do." Morgan quirks an eyebrow. "You quitting on me?"

Jensen glares, and takes Morgan's hand up.