![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
FIC: That Middle Road (18/?)
Title: That Middle Road (18/?)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nilchance
Pairing: Misha Collins/Jeremy Sisto
Rating: Adult
Disclaimer: This isn't real.
A/N: Set inpoisontaster's A Kept Boy 'verse. This story deals with mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, and with slavery as used in the AKB 'verse. There's also mention of child abuse, suicide, institutionalization and self-harm. And polyamory. And kink. And a partridge in a pear tree.
"No, I'm sorry." Jane shakes her head, with that particular sad firmness that makes Jeremy hate most shrinks. The regret that says it's really too bad that Jeremy sets the bar for most fucked up idiot around, though of course they can't tell you about that because of confidentiality and--
Jeremy breathes around the burning lump in his chest, and forces his hands to stop twitching behind his back. He wants Marisa almost childishly, wants to whine that no, he needs her-- or that, more terrifying, he's finding out that he doesn't. Misha is like a drink of clear cold water, necessary and soothing, and Marisa...
He loves her. He does.
"Is she okay?" Jeremy asks, instead of mewling about it.
Jane pastes on a smile that means no. "Yes, of course, she's progressing well. She's just tired right now, and vulnerable--"
"I'm her boyfriend, what do you think I'm going to do, exactly--"
"I don't know," Jane asks, frowning now even as she's trying to project calm. What comes easy to Cate isn't working for her. "What would you do? Make her hurt you again?"
Silence drops between them like a stone.
Jeremy's mouth feels numb, but he manages to say, "What?"
Jane has the grace to look embarrassed, but not sorry. "Things come up in therapy."
For a second, Jeremy seriously considers hitting her. That more than anything says how bad it's gotten; he doesn't hit women, and he knows what comes of scaring shrinks. He flexes his fingers, then laces them behind his back. "Then they ought to stay in therapy. Or has that rule changed since my last round of double-speak, doctor?"
Her mouth pinches shut. "If you're referring to confidentiality, I assure you--"
"I'm assured. Can I see her or not?" Not that he knows what the hell he'll say to her now. Hopefully she's enough herself not to talk about sex in group. Jesus, to not talk about the Trust in group. Another fear he doesn't need. They kept Marisa out of some things, because of her disinterest and because Jeremy's friends generally dislike her and because she's not always herself; Jeremy harbors a quiet paranoia that they don't consult him on everything for that last reason, though he doubts Jeff would do that to him. He hopes so, anyway. But Marisa knows enough to take them all down, if she talks.
"Not at this time," Jane says, after a moment of visibly returning herself to the template of competent therapist. She even smooths her hair back behind the shell of her ear. "She needs space and time to heal. She needs to be away from her normal... situation."
Fuck you too, Jeremy thinks, but keeps his mouth shut. He hopes Marisa will, too.
****
In his hurry to get out, Jeremy nearly trips over the bench where he left Misha. Which is a shitty thing to do, really, but he's not ready for the collision of Misha and Marisa. Not yet-- and, thinking helplessly of them as two white stars being drawn together by the hungry black hole of his sickness-- not ever.
Misha peers up at him, assessing, then grabs his cane like he's going to beat someone to death with it. That doesn't at all jive with the courtly, old-fashioned nod he gives the woman who's shoved at the other side of the bench like she's waiting for a bus. Or, judging from how goddamn awful she looks, waiting for the Reaper. The woman flicks Misha a distracted look, mostly watching her kid (Jesus, her poor fucking kid) poke interestedly at the weeds growing between cracks in the sidewalk. Her eyes trip over Jeremy's face, then freeze there.
Jeremy doesn't recognize her. Not at first, not until she self-consciously fumbles a hand up to her destroyed hair.
"Robin?" Jeremy says cautiously, ready to dodge the swing of her purse.
Robin presses her dry lips together, then nods. "Hello, Jeremy."
Misha lowers himself slowly back onto the bench, watching them both. Jeremy can almost hear the tick of Misha's mind, like the turning of an intricate and accurate clock.
"Uh." Jeremy crouches by Misha, balancing himself with a hand on Misha's good knee. He feels simultaneously like he needs to be lower than Robin to avoid shattering her brittle body, and like he needs to guard Misha from her. "Hey? I thought you were in Arizona?"
Robin snorts. "Safety in distance? Or are you still trying to be Jeff's guard dog?"
And yeah, that's definitely Robin. Jeremy doesn't think his grip tightens on Misha, but he feels Misha tense beneath his hand. "That's Kane," Jeremy says with a lightness he doesn't feel, and gets back up to his feet. "Should I be worried anyway?"
"That depends," Robin says, obviously hedging. "Anyway, do you know how to get in touch with him?"
"I'm not his fucking secretary," Jeremy snaps, unthinking.
The kid looks up from playing in the dirt, alarmed, and inches back into Robin. An almost visceral memory hits Jeremy of being that small, dusty from the grounds outside his dad's ashram, and he wishes like hell he could swallow his last few words. "Mom?" the kid pipes up, looking up at Robin through his messy hair. How old is he, three? Robin sure as hell didn't waste time getting back on the horse. "Is Lexi almost here yet? Can we go?"
Wonderful; now Jeremy's terrorizing small children.
"Almost, honey." Stroking the kid's hair back, Robin tries to smile for him. The effect is grotesque, her fear tangled up with how sick she clearly is. "Lexi's off her shift soon, and you two can go to lunch."
The kid frowns, not reassured, and adds a little whine. "'M hungry."
"Well, I'm sorry, Bodhi," Robin says, with more patience than Jeremy thought she had. "You'll just have to wait."
The kid (Bodhi? Jeremy thought that Buddhism was more his trick than Robin's) looks down, scuffing his shoes on the concrete.
"Hey, uh." Awkward, Jeremy nods at his laptop bag, which Misha insisted on watching. "I'm sure I've got a Snickers or something."
Bodhi's head tilts a little, obviously listening, but he doesn't look up.
"Yes, Jeremy," Robin says dryly. "Please teach my son to accept candy from strangers. No, we're fine. But here." Nearly dumping her purse in her haste to get rid of him, Robin rummages until she comes up with a business card and a pen. She scrawls out a number in the local area code on the back and pushes it at Jeremy. "Give this to him when you see him."
There's no question of who 'he' is, or that Jeremy will come to Jeff's heel.
"Yeah, all right." Jeremy starts to put the card away, but Misha snags it with his nimble fingers and makes it disappear. Left at loose ends, Jeremy puts his hands in his pockets. "Might not be tomorrow. Or even this week."
"Fine." There's a disquieting relief to Robin's voice, awkward for both of them. Then Robin clears her throat and coughs roughly into the back of her arm. "Don't lose that."
"I'm not completely unreliable. Only mostly." Jeremy hesitates, knowing this isn't going to go well, knowing he has to do it anyway. "Do you need some--"
Robin gives him a look. Sick as she is, her banked anger scorches him.
"Right." Rubbing the back of his neck, Jeremy nods. "Right, okay. I'll... do the thing. With the note. Bye, Bodhi."
Bodhi gives him a sidelong look, eerily like Robin's, then tells Misha, "Bye. I like your bo."
Like Donatello, Misha signs, painstakingly fingerspelling each letter of the name. Jeremy isn't sure if he's more surprised that the kid reads Misha's fingers and grins, or that the Ninja Turtles are back in vogue. Fuck, he's getting old. Then Misha is levering himself up with the cane, leaning away from Jeremy's attempt to help, and they're headed to the car.
(Later, Jeremy doesn't think to tell Jeff about the kid.)
***
Traffic drags the car to a sluggish standstill on their way home. Of course. Jeremy can feel a headache gathering behind one eye, dragged across the thorns of light reflecting off bumpers and the stink of emissions. Listening to Marisa's mix CD (all Lilith Fair, all the time) is a masochistic twist.
After a moment of sitting in this improvised parking lot, Misha reaches out and turns off Carly Simon.
"Hey," Jeremy says without much heat.
Ignoring him, Misha signs, How is Marisa?
"Y'know. Still crazy." Jeremy drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "She wasn't up for visitors."
I assumed so, since you came back so fast. Misha tactfully doesn't say that she could've just kicked Jeremy out. Who was the woman?
"Who, Robin?" Scuffing out a laugh he doesn't feel, Jeremy lets his head thump back against the seat. "Long fucking story. She's one of Jeff's old girlfriends."
That's not a long story.
"Yeah, but it ended like a train wreck. She skipped town on him mid-breakup." Bitch, Jeremy almost adds like a hiccup, and swallows it in the wake of Jane's disapproval. Is she right? Did he do damage to Marisa by asking her to-- no, he can't figure that out now. He doesn't want to think about it.
Snapping his fingers once to draw Jeremy's attention, Misha asks, And now she wants to contact him? She could call.
"She could. She just doesn't want to bother talking to him more than she has to. So I'm the cruise manager on the Titanic." Suddenly irritated beyond measure, Jeremy thumps the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. "Fuck, I don't need this!"
Misha shrugs. So don't tell him.
"Yeah," Jeremy says with no conviction. He knows better. "Right."
Jeremy. It's funny, how his name looks at the tips of Misha's long elegant fingers. Misha is frowning at him. Does he have something on you? Is there something I need to know?
Like an asshole, Jeremy forgot exactly where Misha came from. He doesn't know the specifics of the games Vincent ran, but he knows they were much more complicated and messy than his own. Which is hysterical, considering the house of cards that's the Trust. "No," he says slowly, then sighs. "Yeah. Some things. But not about Jeff and me. We're just... we have history. It's complicated."
Misha quirks an eyebrow.
Despite the anchor in his chest, Jeremy laughs. It sounds a little cracked. "Okay. Maybe not that complicated."
Author:
nilchancePairing: Misha Collins/Jeremy Sisto
Rating: Adult
Disclaimer: This isn't real.
A/N: Set in
poisontaster's A Kept Boy 'verse. This story deals with mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, and with slavery as used in the AKB 'verse. There's also mention of child abuse, suicide, institutionalization and self-harm. And polyamory. And kink. And a partridge in a pear tree."No, I'm sorry." Jane shakes her head, with that particular sad firmness that makes Jeremy hate most shrinks. The regret that says it's really too bad that Jeremy sets the bar for most fucked up idiot around, though of course they can't tell you about that because of confidentiality and--
Jeremy breathes around the burning lump in his chest, and forces his hands to stop twitching behind his back. He wants Marisa almost childishly, wants to whine that no, he needs her-- or that, more terrifying, he's finding out that he doesn't. Misha is like a drink of clear cold water, necessary and soothing, and Marisa...
He loves her. He does.
"Is she okay?" Jeremy asks, instead of mewling about it.
Jane pastes on a smile that means no. "Yes, of course, she's progressing well. She's just tired right now, and vulnerable--"
"I'm her boyfriend, what do you think I'm going to do, exactly--"
"I don't know," Jane asks, frowning now even as she's trying to project calm. What comes easy to Cate isn't working for her. "What would you do? Make her hurt you again?"
Silence drops between them like a stone.
Jeremy's mouth feels numb, but he manages to say, "What?"
Jane has the grace to look embarrassed, but not sorry. "Things come up in therapy."
For a second, Jeremy seriously considers hitting her. That more than anything says how bad it's gotten; he doesn't hit women, and he knows what comes of scaring shrinks. He flexes his fingers, then laces them behind his back. "Then they ought to stay in therapy. Or has that rule changed since my last round of double-speak, doctor?"
Her mouth pinches shut. "If you're referring to confidentiality, I assure you--"
"I'm assured. Can I see her or not?" Not that he knows what the hell he'll say to her now. Hopefully she's enough herself not to talk about sex in group. Jesus, to not talk about the Trust in group. Another fear he doesn't need. They kept Marisa out of some things, because of her disinterest and because Jeremy's friends generally dislike her and because she's not always herself; Jeremy harbors a quiet paranoia that they don't consult him on everything for that last reason, though he doubts Jeff would do that to him. He hopes so, anyway. But Marisa knows enough to take them all down, if she talks.
"Not at this time," Jane says, after a moment of visibly returning herself to the template of competent therapist. She even smooths her hair back behind the shell of her ear. "She needs space and time to heal. She needs to be away from her normal... situation."
Fuck you too, Jeremy thinks, but keeps his mouth shut. He hopes Marisa will, too.
****
In his hurry to get out, Jeremy nearly trips over the bench where he left Misha. Which is a shitty thing to do, really, but he's not ready for the collision of Misha and Marisa. Not yet-- and, thinking helplessly of them as two white stars being drawn together by the hungry black hole of his sickness-- not ever.
Misha peers up at him, assessing, then grabs his cane like he's going to beat someone to death with it. That doesn't at all jive with the courtly, old-fashioned nod he gives the woman who's shoved at the other side of the bench like she's waiting for a bus. Or, judging from how goddamn awful she looks, waiting for the Reaper. The woman flicks Misha a distracted look, mostly watching her kid (Jesus, her poor fucking kid) poke interestedly at the weeds growing between cracks in the sidewalk. Her eyes trip over Jeremy's face, then freeze there.
Jeremy doesn't recognize her. Not at first, not until she self-consciously fumbles a hand up to her destroyed hair.
"Robin?" Jeremy says cautiously, ready to dodge the swing of her purse.
Robin presses her dry lips together, then nods. "Hello, Jeremy."
Misha lowers himself slowly back onto the bench, watching them both. Jeremy can almost hear the tick of Misha's mind, like the turning of an intricate and accurate clock.
"Uh." Jeremy crouches by Misha, balancing himself with a hand on Misha's good knee. He feels simultaneously like he needs to be lower than Robin to avoid shattering her brittle body, and like he needs to guard Misha from her. "Hey? I thought you were in Arizona?"
Robin snorts. "Safety in distance? Or are you still trying to be Jeff's guard dog?"
And yeah, that's definitely Robin. Jeremy doesn't think his grip tightens on Misha, but he feels Misha tense beneath his hand. "That's Kane," Jeremy says with a lightness he doesn't feel, and gets back up to his feet. "Should I be worried anyway?"
"That depends," Robin says, obviously hedging. "Anyway, do you know how to get in touch with him?"
"I'm not his fucking secretary," Jeremy snaps, unthinking.
The kid looks up from playing in the dirt, alarmed, and inches back into Robin. An almost visceral memory hits Jeremy of being that small, dusty from the grounds outside his dad's ashram, and he wishes like hell he could swallow his last few words. "Mom?" the kid pipes up, looking up at Robin through his messy hair. How old is he, three? Robin sure as hell didn't waste time getting back on the horse. "Is Lexi almost here yet? Can we go?"
Wonderful; now Jeremy's terrorizing small children.
"Almost, honey." Stroking the kid's hair back, Robin tries to smile for him. The effect is grotesque, her fear tangled up with how sick she clearly is. "Lexi's off her shift soon, and you two can go to lunch."
The kid frowns, not reassured, and adds a little whine. "'M hungry."
"Well, I'm sorry, Bodhi," Robin says, with more patience than Jeremy thought she had. "You'll just have to wait."
The kid (Bodhi? Jeremy thought that Buddhism was more his trick than Robin's) looks down, scuffing his shoes on the concrete.
"Hey, uh." Awkward, Jeremy nods at his laptop bag, which Misha insisted on watching. "I'm sure I've got a Snickers or something."
Bodhi's head tilts a little, obviously listening, but he doesn't look up.
"Yes, Jeremy," Robin says dryly. "Please teach my son to accept candy from strangers. No, we're fine. But here." Nearly dumping her purse in her haste to get rid of him, Robin rummages until she comes up with a business card and a pen. She scrawls out a number in the local area code on the back and pushes it at Jeremy. "Give this to him when you see him."
There's no question of who 'he' is, or that Jeremy will come to Jeff's heel.
"Yeah, all right." Jeremy starts to put the card away, but Misha snags it with his nimble fingers and makes it disappear. Left at loose ends, Jeremy puts his hands in his pockets. "Might not be tomorrow. Or even this week."
"Fine." There's a disquieting relief to Robin's voice, awkward for both of them. Then Robin clears her throat and coughs roughly into the back of her arm. "Don't lose that."
"I'm not completely unreliable. Only mostly." Jeremy hesitates, knowing this isn't going to go well, knowing he has to do it anyway. "Do you need some--"
Robin gives him a look. Sick as she is, her banked anger scorches him.
"Right." Rubbing the back of his neck, Jeremy nods. "Right, okay. I'll... do the thing. With the note. Bye, Bodhi."
Bodhi gives him a sidelong look, eerily like Robin's, then tells Misha, "Bye. I like your bo."
Like Donatello, Misha signs, painstakingly fingerspelling each letter of the name. Jeremy isn't sure if he's more surprised that the kid reads Misha's fingers and grins, or that the Ninja Turtles are back in vogue. Fuck, he's getting old. Then Misha is levering himself up with the cane, leaning away from Jeremy's attempt to help, and they're headed to the car.
(Later, Jeremy doesn't think to tell Jeff about the kid.)
***
Traffic drags the car to a sluggish standstill on their way home. Of course. Jeremy can feel a headache gathering behind one eye, dragged across the thorns of light reflecting off bumpers and the stink of emissions. Listening to Marisa's mix CD (all Lilith Fair, all the time) is a masochistic twist.
After a moment of sitting in this improvised parking lot, Misha reaches out and turns off Carly Simon.
"Hey," Jeremy says without much heat.
Ignoring him, Misha signs, How is Marisa?
"Y'know. Still crazy." Jeremy drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "She wasn't up for visitors."
I assumed so, since you came back so fast. Misha tactfully doesn't say that she could've just kicked Jeremy out. Who was the woman?
"Who, Robin?" Scuffing out a laugh he doesn't feel, Jeremy lets his head thump back against the seat. "Long fucking story. She's one of Jeff's old girlfriends."
That's not a long story.
"Yeah, but it ended like a train wreck. She skipped town on him mid-breakup." Bitch, Jeremy almost adds like a hiccup, and swallows it in the wake of Jane's disapproval. Is she right? Did he do damage to Marisa by asking her to-- no, he can't figure that out now. He doesn't want to think about it.
Snapping his fingers once to draw Jeremy's attention, Misha asks, And now she wants to contact him? She could call.
"She could. She just doesn't want to bother talking to him more than she has to. So I'm the cruise manager on the Titanic." Suddenly irritated beyond measure, Jeremy thumps the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. "Fuck, I don't need this!"
Misha shrugs. So don't tell him.
"Yeah," Jeremy says with no conviction. He knows better. "Right."
Jeremy. It's funny, how his name looks at the tips of Misha's long elegant fingers. Misha is frowning at him. Does he have something on you? Is there something I need to know?
Like an asshole, Jeremy forgot exactly where Misha came from. He doesn't know the specifics of the games Vincent ran, but he knows they were much more complicated and messy than his own. Which is hysterical, considering the house of cards that's the Trust. "No," he says slowly, then sighs. "Yeah. Some things. But not about Jeff and me. We're just... we have history. It's complicated."
Misha quirks an eyebrow.
Despite the anchor in his chest, Jeremy laughs. It sounds a little cracked. "Okay. Maybe not that complicated."
no subject
Jeremy is messed up. He had Marisa hurt him. Was it some sort of guilt complex, like he felt he deserved to be punished or was it just sexual.
Considering this dominance I kind of wonder what his relationship with Jeff was like. Jeff is clearly a dominant, though he doesn't want to be. Is this one of the reasons that Jeremy is still hung up on Jeff. That somehow he knows subconsciously that Jeff could dominate or hurt him a BDSM kind of way?
no subject
no subject
no subject
This was a great chapter. I love that Jer is going to feel guilt about Bodhi and how he could have warned Jeff (or at least, I assume he will). And Mish will just file it all away.
I love it :D
no subject
this really hit me hard:
"I don't know," Jane asks, frowning now even as she's trying to project calm. What comes easy to Cate isn't working for her. "What would you do? Make her hurt you again?"
Silence drops between them like a stone.
Jeremy's mouth feels numb, but he manages to say, "What?"
I can so relate to Jeremy here, it made me uncomfortable...i don't even know.
On the one hand, my little libra heart is mortified on behalf of Jeremy here, even though I understand that Marisa has a lot of pain to work through, etc. So...the unfair part of me has no stomach for the type of person who becomes a part of a 'family' like the Trust, or even just part of Jeremy's family, who then betrays that family by sharing secret, private things with people who can't or won't understand! Grr! :(
On the other hand, part of me is totally horrified for Marisa; Jeremy may not have had the consenting partner he thought he did; he could really have been hurting Marisa emotionally this whole time without even knowing...and now they both have to live with that! :((
In conclusion: I love this angst!! I read this on my lunch break and kept coming back to it all day while I stuffed envelopes at work; the layers you have put here are SO enthralling!!
I also really dig how Misha asks Jeremy if Jeff has something on him; I adore how fucking smart Misha is about that kind of stuff. He should trade some of his street smarts for Jensen's sex training, heh. :)
♥
That middle road
no subject
no subject
Poor Marissa too. *gah* And the added fear of her spilling the beans on the Trust. Oh SHIT. Hopefully she's got enough awareness on that.
Edited because I forgot half the shit to say about the shrink...
See, under normal circumstances (normal being in this world) I'd be all over that shrink for getting mad at Jeremy for having Marissa "hurt" him... way to go not having a clue about BDSM and being a disapproving, condascending dick. But, it's not our world. Marissa's a slave, a body slave no less, who's been horribly mistreated in the past (understatement); Jeremy's her master. So, for all I know the "bad you for having her hurt you" statement could be a well-intentioned (but still off-base) remark from someone who is trying to be progressive and worrying about consent in the LITERAL, commercial Master-Slave dynamic: i.e., she disapproves of masters who force sex on slaves, even body slaves, and so she sees whatever "punishment" Jeremy and Marissa were engaged in as an abuse of power. Ok, then maybe I'm not so mad at the shrink; that's kind of a lot for her to be concerned about Marissa in the first place. Then again, this could be another variety of bad shrink who sees Jeremy as defective, bad, incapable of consent, or otherwise not an autonomous individual because of his diagnosis, and sees him as either a threat to himself or Marissa because he's bipolar. In which case, I'm back in the bad fucking shrink boat. *ugh* Not that any of the options is *good* but I just can't decide how much I'm supposed to hate this person... and that's all because the AKB world is so ridiculously twisted. (Not an insult to you or poisontaster's beauiful 'verse, just a statement of reality).
I loved Misha in this. His ability to get to the heart of things, his desire to protect his Master and keep important information to balance the power in various relationships could be SO very useful both for Jeremy and the Trust. Most importantly though, I really think Misha and Jeremy are so balanced in the way that they're oposites, they're almost like pefect complements to each other and just might be able to fill in each others missing peices and finally both acheive some peace and happiness.
Oh, and I loved that Jeremy is realizing he's scaed/mad/upset because he's realizing maybe he doesn't need Marissa as much as he thought!
no subject
Loved this.
no subject
Again, so much love for the depth and complexity of all of your characters. Seriously awesome.
no subject
Thanks so much for sharing :) I can't wait to read more!
no subject
Have been reading A Kept Boy, and, looking for more, found your take on the verse. I think it's wonderful; love the way you weave the threads of the story together with PT's, and love the quality of the writing like the images and little remarks in this bit.
Could only wish we readers were slave owners and could make you writers (slaves) crack out more! (Well, not really, obviously, but it's a seductive thought...)