Net Asset Value - A J2 Assassin AU fic
Feb. 9th, 2017 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberdreamsNet Asset Value
Title: Net Asset Value
Words: ~9000
Pairings: Jared/Jensen, brief Jeff/Jensen
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: A flashback death happens. Unbetaed!
Summary: The Firm calls them assets, and treats them accordingly. The asset known as Michael Godson, whose real name is Jensen Ackles, thinks he understands the game, right up to the moment he realises he’s about to be liquidated in the only way the Firm knows.
Happy birthday
zara_zee!!! Hope you like this...
AO3 link
He exists in the silence that’s waiting for the world to end.
He’s slowed his breathing to steady his hands; his heart rate rests at an unvarying fifty beats a minute. He’s simultaneously solely focussed on his mission and aware of everything. Unconsciously he catalogues his surroundings and any variables - the breeze that ruffles his carefully gelled hair, bringing with it the sweet scent of mown grass from the park that surrounds his vantage point; the distant hum of conversations wafting up from the crowd waiting outside the court house steps for his target to emerge; the moisture in the air that promises rain.
He’s aware of the target exiting the main doors a good few seconds before the crowd reacts with a predictable surge. He’s already got one eye to the rifle sights, crosshairs aligned on the target’s forehead. He’s not going for the easier chest shot because he’s the best, and he never leaves anything to chance. With anything but a head shot, there’s always a possibility a target could survive. He leaves that to the second rate operatives, to the ones who rely on laser sights and not their own ability.
The target has barely reached the top of the first step when he squeezes the trigger, having made a micro-adjustment at the last possible moment to take account of a slight change of wind direction and speed. He doesn’t need to watch his victim drop or to hear the screams to know his aim was true. He’s already dismantling his weapon, scooping up and pocketing the still-warm shell case and heading for the stairwell before anyone in the square below has even worked out what happened, let alone the direction of the assassin’s shot.
By the time the police work it out and reach the rooftop, he’s long gone.
::
The Firm calls them assets, and treats them accordingly. Most of them don’t realise what this means; the true implications of the term. The naïve ones think being an asset means they are valued, some even think they are invaluable. The more experienced realise that while an asset does have value to the Firm (they wouldn’t be there if they didn’t) all of them have a shelf life, and can be bought, sold or expired.
The asset known as Michael Godson, whose real name is Jensen Ackles, thinks he understands the game, right up to the moment he realises he’s about to be liquidated in the only way the Firm knows. Three things save his life that day. His innate cynicism; the fact that he’s one of the most intuitively talented assets the Firm has ever employed, and memories of the extermination of a lost love.
::
Jensen’s next assignment sets his cell phone buzzing before he’s even managed to put two city blocks between him and his last target at the court house. He pulls out the phone and stares at the display, his eyes narrowing. This is a burner phone, meant only for this one job, so that makes two anomalies here. First is Control using this same phone to message him instead of waiting for him to report in on a new burner, second is the lack of the usual interval between concluding this assignment and giving him his next one. The combination has Jensen’s hackles rising, like a dog scenting a stranger invading its territory.
The text is a set of coordinates and an encrypted file. Despite his misgivings Jensen opens it, because that’s what he’s trained to do.
He reads the file, memorises then deletes it. He sends a quick text in acknowledgement then crushes the phone underfoot. Some of the pieces get ditched in a trashcan outside a restaurant and the rest in a dumpster down an alleyway, then Jensen’s ready to disappear, to immerse himself in his Michael persona again. He’s been looking forward to taking a well-earned break, but clearly Control has other plans.
He glances at his watch. He’s got an hour before dark, and two more before he needs to be in place for this next job. Three hours in which to stash the sniper rifle in a safe place, unobtrusively acquire some night ops gear and make his way to Chicago for the rendezvous. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Control was setting him up to fail.
Jensen Ackles might occasionally contemplate the possibility of failure, but Michael Godson did not. Michael’s success rate was one hundred per cent after nearly ten years of service and it was Michael who made his way to Chicago.
::
Midnight finds Jensen an extra shadow in the night, standing in the lee of Chicago’s imposing Van Buren Library, under the crisscrossing iron supports for the L. He’s twitchy. There’s too much traffic, too many civilians around. Chicago’s a big city and lively all night long, and he’s feeling exposed, even while he knows to the casual observer he’s effectively invisible in his all black outfit. It’s scant consolation when the trains passing overhead mean one of his senses is compromised periodically by the rumble of the train, combined with the groaning of the superstructure.
He can’t help a little grunt of discontent when he realises it’s started to rain. The temperature plummets as the skies open, and he’s glad of the shelter the L affords him. With a bit of luck the weather will clear the streets some too, reducing the chances of collateral damage. Only a fool would linger outside on a night like this. He turns up the collar on his black leather jacket and fiddles with his full-face ski mask. He hates black ops that require the term to be taken literally, but his instructions for this pick up were clear. Not a hair on his head could be seen, not a sliver of skin could be exposed if the theft of this laptop were to be blamed on the TTK. Control knew how much Michael loathed the TTK with their unsubtle racist agenda. Knowing this job would land them in the shit had made refusing the assignment impossible.
Something about the thought of being manipulated by Control, tied together with the fact that his mark is now two minutes later than the dossier promised, has Jensen looking around; not a moment too soon. It’s the turn of his head that saves him. He feels the heat of the bullet as it passes underneath his nose, hears the muffled phut-sound of a second discharge – a silencer on a Beretta M9A3, most likely – but he’s already moving, so the second shot only scores his upper arm. He’s working out trajectories, triangulating positions and dammit - the shooter is too close for comfort. He barely notices the burn in his deltoid where the second bullet scored him; adrenaline is pumping as he drops, rolls and comes up inside his assailant’s guard to deliver a vicious chop to the guy’s throat. It misses, connects with what feels like sternum and Jensen recalculates rapidly. This guy is taller than Jensen, and likely heavier, and moreover, still has hold of the gun.
Jensen’s priority is disarming his assailant, so he wastes no time. Adjusting for the additional inches, Jensen lets loose a flurry of blows, which the other guy blocks with an ease that speaks of training on a par with Jensen’s own. They grapple in virtual silence, only broken by soft grunts as pain forces their breath out, and the dull sound of blows landing. They stay in the shadows, both of them dressed in black and only glimpsed in occasional flashes as they move between the patches of streetlight. The white of teeth gritting, eyes widening so the sclera gleams, then the glitter of rain on the gun as it flies from the guy’s hand and skitters out onto the sidewalk.
It is a Beretta M9A3, fitted with a silencer, exactly the same as the one Jensen had been issued with when he first became an asset. Sure, the Firm didn’t have a monopoly on Berettas, but Jensen feels a chill run down his spine that is nothing to do with the icy Chicago rain. No, this memory takes him to another time and place, to somewhere Jensen had spent the last ten years trying to forget.
::
Ten years ago
At twenty, Jensen Ackles was one of the Firm’s youngest ever recruits. Barely wet behind the ears as far as his military service went, he’d only completed one tour of three months in Afghanistan when his CO told him he’d been summoned to a top-secret meeting. He never returned to his unit, instead he was whisked of to a location that didn’t officially exist to be trained as an asset, an elite group of mostly young men and handful of women, who were deployed on a wide variety of covert operations around the globe. Jensen had thought his preparation for the 1st Special Forces Group had been gruelling, but the Firm’s idea of training was brutal.
“I hear one in ten new recruits don’t survive,” Mitch whispered to him over the noise of the mess hall. “Nobody died in the last batch, so that’s bad news for us.”
Jensen kept his gaze on his food. He was getting good at keeping a poker face firmly in place nearly 24/7. In some respects the Firm was just like the army, but in others it couldn’t have been more different. The extreme paranoia, for one. Though Jensen and the four other new recruits for that year were all expected to eat together in the mess hall, the volume of noise didn’t come from the idle chatter of people in the room. Instead, levels were maintained via carefully placed speakers playing white noise, aimed at making audio surveillance impossible. Even with these precautions in place, the Firm did not encourage idle chitchat, and Jensen could see Mitch was getting frowned at by a couple of the trainers who were sitting on what Jensen still thought of as the Officer’s table, even though the Firm didn’t have ranks as such. They sure as hell had a hierarchy though, and Jensen was under no illusion as to where his position was on that scale. As the youngest recruit by at least four years, Jensen was right at the bottom of the pecking order.
He tensed as he saw Morgan rise and come over. He shovelled a couple more mouthfuls of meat and potatoes into his mouth and chewed as fast as he could. You never knew when the powers that be would decide a fast was in order, so Jensen had learned to eat as much as he could whenever he could.
“Godson!”
Jensen sprang to his feet, back ramrod straight. He just managed to resist saluting, and he could see from the minute twitch of Morgan’s mouth that the other man was well aware of it. As Jensen’s mentor, Morgan knew him inside out. As Jensen’s lover, Morgan could take Jensen apart with just a look. Jensen didn’t think that was entirely fair. They’d only known each other for four months, been messing around together for two, yet Morgan remained an enigma to Jensen.
“Yessir!”
“Pack your bag, Michael, and report to Briefing Room 7 in fifteen. Be ready to deploy, you have an assignment.”
The briefing lived up to its name, lasting mere minutes and consisting of the minimum information. Within an hour he was on a plane headed to Europe, none the wiser as to the precise nature of his mission. The only good thing was that Morgan went with him, though Jensen wasn’t sure whether Jeff was there to support him, or to keep a watchful eye to make sure he didn’t mess up. When they landed in a small private airfield a couple of kilometres from the Papal Palace at Castel Gandolfo he was given the Beretta, along with a burner cell phone, and told he had five hours to chill before he needed to be in position in Rome.
Nobody bothered to explain what Morgan was doing there, and Jensen didn’t ask. Jeff checked them into a surprisingly classy hotel down a smelly cobbled alleyway off the Piazza della Republica. It looked like a dump on the outside but once through the door it was all polished wood floors and velvet and reeked of old money. Jensen barely noticed, because Jeff had booked a double room and was walking Jensen backwards to the huge bed before the door had closed behind them.
They had fucked around before, but this was different. Jeff stripped Jensen slowly, savouring every moment, devouring Jensen with a heated dark gaze that had Jensen shivering and every nerve tingling and alive. This wasn’t just a casual fuck, it was Jeffrey Dean Morgan making love to him, and it wasn’t until hours later, having chased down his target, that Jensen realised why.
The mark had fought like a bear and Jensen’s left wrist might be broken, but he had the guy on his knees in the middle of the Colosseum, head bowed as if awaiting the verdict of a long dead Emperor, an irony Jensen thought Jeff would have appreciated. The Beretta was in Jensen’s right hand, silenced muzzle pressed to the guy’s balaclava-covered head. Jensen should have pulled the trigger then, but something held him back. In spite of all the Firm’s training that was supposed to stop operatives from questioning their actions, Jensen was uncomfortable with this execution-style killing; especially like this, without ever looking his enemy in the face. His hesitation caused the man to lift his head and stare at Jensen.
With Jeff’s eyes.
“Pull the trigger, Jensen,” Jeff’s voice was low but didn’t waver, unlike Jensen’s gunhand, which had started to shake. Jeff noticed, of course he did, that was why he’d deliberately used Jensen’s real name, to get his attention. “Listen to me every carefully. This is how it goes. You kill me, or Lucifer will do it for you, and then he’ll terminate you as well, for failing your first test.”
There was too much there to process – his mission had been to kill Jeff? How did killing one of their own valued operatives make any sense? But with the promise of the Firm’s infamous enforcer, Lucifer, hidden in the ancient darkness with his sights trained on them both, there was no time to think, and Jeff knew this better than Jensen.
“I shouldn’t tell you this, but you need to know. I’ve served the Firm for twelve years. I’ve survived longer than most, but Control’s policy is always keep assets at the top of their game by Darwinism. It’s survival of the fittest, and you’ve bested me. If you don’t kill me now, all my work will have been wasted. Please. Do it quickly. Lucifer is not a patient man and he will know there is something wrong. I don’t want to be responsible for your death.”
Jensen heard the words, he understood them, but he knew if he un-gloved his hands and breathed in, they would still smell like Jeff over the scent of the leather and gun oil on his skin. He made to take a half step back, but Jeff anticipated him. Jeff’s hand whipped out, cobra-fast, wrapped around Jensen’s and squeezed the trigger.
In the deep shadows cast by the nightly illuminations outside the Flavian amphitheatre, Jensen couldn’t see how Jeff’s blood spread black on the worn limestone slabs, yet this was the very image he could never shake.
::
Present day
Remembering Jeff doesn’t cause Jensen a moment’s hesitation now. Instead, he feels more awake than he has for years. More himself, less the automaton Michael Godson became when that bullet blew Jensen away along with Jeff.
Hyper-aware, his ears pick out the note of a motorbike approaching, over the gathering rumble of another train overhead on the L, and distinct from the passing car engines. He lands a couple of extra vicious kicks to his opponent’s thigh and stomach. The guy drops for a second with an audible gasp. Jensen takes the opening given and moves fast. The unsuspecting biker is dragged off his BMW as he passes, and the riderless machine slides along the road, sparks flying in spite of the rain. It makes for an almost apocalyptic scene, but Jensen barely notices. He hauls on the bike and straddles it while it’s still moving, aware in his peripheral vision that the biker has been fortunate enough to find a soft landing, directly on top of Jensen’s adversary. It’s lucky for Jensen too, giving him some precious extra seconds to wrestle the heavy motorbike upright and gun the throttle.
The bike bucks and skids like a living beast, then Jensen has it under control. He takes off towards lakeside, staying under the L. There isn’t that much traffic to weave through, but his moment of relief at that is brief, because riding in a straight line isn’t such a clever idea when you have an assassin on your tail. Jensen is reminded of this fact when something punches into his back with enough force to make him yelp and wrench the bike off course. In the time it takes to get the machine back in hand, he knows his assailant must have retrieved his gun and has seized the chance to take a pot shot before Jensen put too much distance between them.
Jensen leans as he swings the bike left, heading downtown. Assessing the damage…back, right hand side; He thinks the bullet has gone straight through, which means blood loss is going to be a problem. High enough that it’s probably (hopefully) missed the intestines, but he thinks, lower than his lungs. Most likely gone through his liver, maybe a kidney. It’s certainly painful enough, but Jensen clenches his teeth and ignores it. A glance in the bike’s mirrors show him there’s a car heading through the sparse traffic, tracking his every move, so it’s safe to assume his nemesis hasn’t given up.
He wonders who it is. Unlike Jeff, Jensen has no involvement with training up newbies. He’s spent most of his time in the field, taking one assignment after another so he didn’t have time to think about what he’d done in Rome that day. It’s not hard to guess who in Control might have had a hand in making him redundant, though. Fred Lehne, aka Azazel. Jensen wasn’t supposed to know their real names, but he’s fucking resourceful, one of the best assets the Firm has ever had. Since Jeff, Jensen had made it his business to know everything about everybody in the Firm’s hierarchy, with some vague thought that one day, he’d make them pay. After Jensen discovered that Lehne had given the order to terminate Jeff, he had never made a secret of his loathing for the man. Stupid, and Jeff would have torn him a new one for being so obvious about it, but Jeff wasn’t there any more, was he?
Jensen’s pretty sure that whoever the rookie assassin is, the Firm’s insurance mechanism would be the same as on that fateful day he’d pressed his own gun to Jeff’s head. Mark Pellegrino, known to the Firm as Lucifer. Pellegrino was Lehne’s favourite enforcer for internal affairs, with a reputation (fully deserved) as a cold, conscienceless bastard. Somehow Pellegrino escaped the Firm’s periodic culls – too valuable, perhaps, or maybe he just knew too much about the Firm’s top brass.
His mind racing through his options, Jensen tries every move he can wrestle out of the heavy BMW bike to shake off the rookie assassin. He has the advantage of the bike’s ability to squeeze through gaps the rookie’s car can’t, but even so, the kid (Jensen thinks his pursuer must be young; that’s how this works) somehow keeps up with him. The icy rain driving in his face doesn’t do Jensen any favours, and he’s so glad he’d worn a leather jacket. Maybe the hypothermia will slow the bleeding, and the thought almost makes him smile.
He makes it as hard as he can for his pursuer - constantly turning, making sure to chose the wrong way down as many one way streets as he can manage, keeping the layout of Chicago running in his head – his own internal Google street map, memorised along with most of the USA’s major cities.
It doesn’t take long for the Chicago PD to take an interest in so many broken traffic regulations, and soon Jensen has two cop cars join the rookie on his tail. He just hopes they cause more problems for his pursuer than for him, because he’s not sure how long his abused body is going to hold out. He can’t even put pressure on either of the holes in his torso because he needs both hands to steer the damn bike.
He’s crossed the Chicago River for the third time and is heading towards Old St Patrick’s Church when he hears the crash. His mirrors show him the two cop cars colliding with each other trying to avoid a civilian, and he watches events unfold, almost in slow motion. The rookie’s car gets clipped by one of the spinning cop cars. It’s enough to send the vehicle out of control, and Jensen slows his bike as the rookie’s car flips end over end like a magician’s playing card. It tumbles over several times before finally coming to rest on its roof. The smoke billowing sulphurous-yellow from all three vehicles makes a hellish scene in the sodium streetlights. Jensen turns the BMW and rides back along the debris-strewn road, ignoring the handful of shocked spectators.
He gets off the bike, trying not to telegraph his pain as he moves. He quickly checks the nearest police vehicle first and relieves one unconscious cop of a handgun, before moving cautiously towards the rookie’s upturned car. He needn’t have worried. The kid’s upper half is hanging half out of the car’s smashed drivers’ window in an untidy sprawl. The rest of his body looks to be trapped inside the crushed front of his car. Jensen keeps the cop’s gun trained on the guy’s smashed up face, or what he can see of it under a black ski mask the match of his own. The guy’s awake; Jensen can see bloodshot eyes glittering, and the guy bares bloody teeth when he sees Jensen with the gun. Jensen watches the guy brace himself for the finishing shot, and Jensen knows he should take it. There’s no reason to spare this rookie kid; he doubts the kid would have hesitated to pull the trigger on him if their positions had been reversed.
But just like that night in Rome ten years ago, Jensen can’t pull the trigger; and this time, there’s no Jeff to do it for him. He wonders if Lucifer is nearby, watching. If the next thing he’ll feel is a sniper bullet entering the back of his skull. He doesn’t care.
He lowers the gun, then flips on the safety and sticks it down the back of his pants, wincing as the movement pulls at the steadily bleeding hole the other side of his chest. Slowly, giving Lucifer every opportunity to take the shot if he is there, Jensen walks the couple of strides back to the BMW and throws one leg over the saddle.
He takes one last glance back and sees that the kid has twisted around so he can watch Jensen, probably not believing an asset with Jensen’s reputation is really going to walk away and leave him breathing. Jensen emotions kick-start before the bike does, and he finds he does care about something, after all.
“Hey, kid, whatever your name is,” Jensen says, his tone conversational, as if he was talking about the best place to go for coffee. “You should know that Lucifer is out there somewhere, and if you don’t kill me, he’s going to come gunning for you. So don’t hang around here, and don’t go back to the Firm if you value your life.”
Jensen sees the kid’s eyes widen so he knows he got his message across, so he doesn’t hesitate any longer and takes his own advice. Taking shallow breaths against the pain, he stamps down on the starter and turns the throttle. The big bike roars into motion. This time he sets a more sedate pace through Chicago’s streets that will attract less attention, and points the BMW north. He just hopes he can get far enough to find a safe place to stop and sew himself back together before he can start thinking about a new life and a new identity outside the Firm.
::
Three years later
“Buy you a drink?” says a pleasantly deep voice, breath huffing warm into the shell of his ear so he can hear it over the deep bass of the music. Jensen can’t help it; he jumps like a startled deer. It’s ridiculous, really, a total overreaction. It’s not like Jensen isn’t used to getting propositioned. It is, after all, part of the reason he comes back to the Thunder Bay Rainbow Club from time to time – to unwind and maybe have a little fun with a stranger. It’s risky, but he can’t hide away in his cabin in the Ontario wilderness all year round without going stir crazy. Jensen’s brain skids to a screeching halt when he turns to face the owner of the voice.
He’s freakishly tall. That’s Jensen’s first impression. The guy is a towering behemoth, a good four inches taller than Jensen, which is, if he’s honest, one of his sure-fire kinks. Behemoth has cheekbones to die for, a lowering brow that hints at dominant cave-man tendencies if Jensen is lucky (and boy, is he starting to feel lucky tonight). Pretty pink lips are currently spread in a wide smile over teeth straight out of a toothpaste ad. A smile, Jensen notes with alarm, that’s starting to fade in the face of Jensen’s silent staring. He rushes to make amends.
“As you can see, I’ve already got a drink,” Jensen points to his glass of sparkling water to demonstrate, “so how’s about I buy you one instead?”
The smile is back in full force, and dammit, there are dimples, as well as the most sexy mole, right next to that pointy, upturned nose … and Jensen is clearly doomed. Or blessed. Or both. Yeah, hopefully both.
“I’ll have something stronger than Perrier, though,” says Behemoth, and Jensen needs to get the guy’s name because he can’t keep referring to him as a mythical monster, even if that’s kind of what Jensen’s hoping the big guy is packing inside those loose black cargo pants.
“Sure.” Jensen gestures to the barkeep with Simon on his nametag, who’s been real attentive all evening. Simon is attractive enough, with his shaggy dark hair and those big blue eyes that had constantly rested their gaze on Jensen’s lips, and Jensen had been thinking of saying yes when Simon inevitably asked him for a blow job out back…but that was before a better option slid his perky ass onto the stool next to Jensen. He watches the barkeep’s face fall a little when he realises Jensen is no longer alone, but give Simon his due, a professional smile is firmly in place when he takes their order – a bottle of tequila and two glasses.
“Jack,” says Jensen, holding his glass out for the other guy to pour while giving him his best smile. “Jay,” the other guy offers, and at last Jensen has a better name than Behemoth. He doesn’t think Jay is the guy’s real name, any more than Jack is his. It’s rare for anyone to share anything of personal importance in the Rainbow, it’s one of the reasons Jensen likes it so much. The anonymity makes him feel safe.
He adjusts the black-rimmed glasses he wears for these outings in a habitual nervous gesture, there to form a barrier between Jensen and the world. The big guy grabs Jensen’s hand and gently pulls it down, and in that instant Jensen’s easy lassitude vanishes. He sees the moment Jay notices the same thing Jensen has, a familiar pattern of calluses on their palms, both of them evidently right hand dominant in their weapons use. Jensen tenses up, but Jay just smiles wider. Turning Jensen’s hand palm-up in his huge fist, Jay runs a finger over the roughness.
“Hey, how about that. What are the odds, meeting another soldier here? What regiment?”
Soldier. Right. Wake up Jensen Ackles, you’ve been asleep too long; you’re losing your edge. Jensen looked at Jay, a flickering glance that took in the bronzed skin that spoke of time in warm climes, set that against the non-regulation length hair curling over Jay’s collar that indicated retirement from the military, and took a wild stab in the dark, picking a regiment he thought was the unlikeliest match for the guy. The fact that it happened to be true was maybe a risk, but there was no reason to suspect Jay of anything more ulterior than wanting inside Jensen’s pants.
“1st Special Forces, retired. You?”
“Cool! Marine Raiders. Was. As you can probably tell from this,” Jay releases Jensen’s hand in order to run it through his shoulder length hair, “not serving now.” Jensen’s fingers twitch, an involuntary movement. He’d rather like to test the silkiness of those chestnut locks himself. Jay’s eyes linger on Jensen’s lips for a moment, and Jensen relaxes. Looks like he might get his wish, if he can squash his ingrained paranoia. It feels like it will be rewarding, and it’s not like he’s going to invite Jay back to his cabin, which is over a hundred miles away.
An hour later they are in Jensen’s latest motel room, with Jay’s wide smiling lips now more productively deployed on a mission to suck Jensen’s brains out from his dick. Jensen manages to force a tiny part of said brain into appreciating that Jay’s hair is indeed soft as silk. He twines his fingers deeper into Jay’s unruly mop and tugs, causing Jay to moan deliciously round his cock. Jensen comes embarrassingly quickly after that, but he’s quick to reciprocate, snaking a hand down Jay’s cargo pants and yanking out Jay’s cock, which is every bit the monster Jensen had hoped would be hiding in there.
Pre-come shines at the rosy tip like a jewel, and Jensen’s mouth waters. He slides to his knees and licks up the salty pre-come until Jay is a writhing mess, before Jensen swallows the monster down, deep-throating like a pro, revelling in the scent of sweat and warm skin as his nose rubs into Jay’s pubes. The gasps and moans he’s wringing out of Jay are more melodious than Beethoven to Jensen’s ears, and it doesn’t take long before Jay is shooting hard while Jensen drinks every drop.
He pulls off Jay’s softening cock with an obscene slurping noise that has both of them laughing.
“Okay,” Jensen says, still smiling. “Now we’ve taken the edge off, how about we move this show somewhere more comfortable than a kitchenette?”
Jay leans back against the counter as if it’s the only thing keeping him standing right now, and makes the most ridiculous pout. He looks like a giant, lanky, two year old.
“That means walking, right?” Jay says, his eyes half shut as if he’s ready to fall asleep where he’s standing. Jensen chuckles and grabs the two open bottles of beer off the counter where they’d been abandoned earlier. He pulls up his jeans because making choices between taking off his boots and carrying beer is too complicated with his brain still stuck in post orgasmic bliss. He’s still more compos mentis than Jay, though.
“Come on, Romeo. I want to see you naked and spread out on my bed so I can see if you taste that good all over.”
Jay’s eyes fly open at that, and he follows Jensen with alacrity. In the bedroom, Jensen safely stows the two beers on the dresser before pushing Jay backwards onto the bed. Tangling eager fingers they tug at each other’s superfluous clothing until there’s nothing between them except skin. Jensen straddles Jay and takes a moment to enjoy the view.
“God,” he sighs happily. “You’re magnificent. I knew you would be…”
Jay grins, evidently similarly enjoying the sight of a naked Jensen poised above him. He grips Jensen’s hips, closing his eyes with a loud sigh when their two freshly interested cocks rub together. “Less talk, more licking,” he says, his expression changing from amused to intense so quickly it makes Jensen shiver with the force of his desire. Jay’s hands move up Jensen’s body, mapping his skin, and Jensen closes his eyes to revel in the touch.
Jay’s wandering hands still when he reaches the ragged round edges of the exit wound from Chicago, the one that ended Jensen’s term with the Firm. Jensen opens his eyes to find Jared frozen in place, his expression unreadable. Jay doesn’t remove his hands, but one finger moves gently over the knotted scar tissue. As is frequently the case with through and through wounds, the scarring is worse at the front, where the bullet had torn its way out of Jensen’s body.
“This one,” Jay said, his voice as neutral as his expression, “how’d you get this one?”
Jensen shudders. He doesn’t want to think about that night – riding for miles in freezing rain, not daring to stop for more than an hour to raid a pharmacy in a one horse town just south of Duluth. He’d disinfected and plugged the bullet holes as best he could before roughly bandaging himself up and getting back on the road. Once across the border into Canada, he’d ditched the bike and the cop’s gun in a remote lake and headed out into the wilderness. His only hope had been to hole up in a deserted hunting cabin somewhere the Firm couldn’t find him. He knew he’d been lucky to survive.
The warmth of Jay’s big hands anchor him to the present and terrify him simultaneously. His erection flags as he struggles to control his incipient panic. Then Jay speaks again.
“I thought there was something familiar about your voice…You’re him, aren’t you,” Jay says, “You’re Michael Godson.”
The name is a trigger and Jensen is the gun. He explodes into action, lashing out with more desperation than finesse. It wasn’t that he’d really believed he was safe, but some part of him had wanted it so badly, he’d let down his guard. Jeff would be ashamed of him.
Jay is stronger, younger, in better condition. After a short struggle, Jensen is pinned to the bed, the larger man using his longer limbs to hold Jensen still. For a moment, the only sound in the room is their harsh panting. Jay’s lip is spilt and blood is dripping onto Jensen’s chest, turning pink as it mingles with their combined sweat. Jensen glares at Jay, defiant, anticipating triumph on the other man’s face. Instead, Jay’s eyes are wide and full of sincerity.
“Please.”
It’s the last word Jensen is expecting to hear. He blinks, deliberately calming his breathing.
“Please, just give me a chance here. This isn’t what you think. I didn’t come here to kill you, and I’m not working for the Firm.” Jay continues, and Jensen wants to scoff in Jay’s face. Just how stupid does the Firm, does Jay, think he is? And yet something makes Jensen want to trust this guy, even though it runs counter to all his training to trust anyone.
“My name is Jared Padalecki, and for the last three years I’ve been wanting to ask you a question.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a captive audience,” Jensen says, raising one eyebrow in an attempt at insouciance. He’s never felt so exposed, and it’s nothing to do with their nakedness. Jay – no, Jared – actually blushes, but the embarrassment of having their naked groins pressed together isn’t enough to make him relax his iron grip on Jensen’s wrists, which are still stretched uncomfortably above his head.
“Ask away,” Jensen prompts when Jared doesn’t speak.
“Why didn’t you take the shot?” The words spill out in a rush, as if a three-year wait hasn’t taught Jared any patience.
Jensen stares up at Jared in surprise. His focus narrows. Those slightly slanting, blue-gold hazel eyes…he imagines them lit only by streetlights and bloodshot from impact with a steering wheel, the flesh around them bruised from Jensen’s fists, only visible through the ripped woollen ski mask that still obscured most of the face.
A fraction of the whipcord tension floods out of his limbs as he finally recognises who Jared is. Was.
“You’re the rookie. The kid they sent to terminate my contract.” It isn’t a question, but Jared nods in reply anyway.
“Jared Padalecki. Is that your real name?” Jensen asks, curious.
“Yeah,” Jared says and Jensen believes him, though everything he ever learnt is screaming at him not to be such a trusting fool. As if he’s reading Jensen’s mind, Jared cautiously releases Jensen’s wrists and sits back. Though Jared straddles Jensen in an echo of their earlier position, Jensen would be surprised it either of them have sex on their minds right now. The past is a third wheel, all too present in the motel room, and there are issues to be resolved before any intimacy can be resumed – assuming that this doesn’t end up with one of them killing the other.
Jensen sits up, and Jared scrambles off him with alacrity. Jensen winces slightly as his shoulders protest. Shit, he’s getting too old for this game. He leans over and snags the beers off the nightstand. He hands one to Jared, who’s sitting back on his heels looking gangly and awkward. It’s hard to see Jared as a trained killer, but then Jensen doesn’t suppose he looks much like an assassin any more either. He unconsciously runs a hand over the slight softness of his belly. He hasn’t worked out for a while, hadn’t felt that driving need that used to be his constant companion. Jensen doesn’t miss the way Jared’s glance heats up when Jensen’s hand passes over his faint treasure trail. Jensen flushes slightly and he casually pulls the sheet up over his legs. He clears his throat.
“How about you tell me what happened back then, and what brings you to Ontario, if you weren’t looking for me.”
Jared takes a sip of beer, then scoots up the bed so they are sitting shoulder to shoulder. Jensen tries not to get distracted watching Jared’s Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, or the way his flaccid cock lies temptingly across his strong hairy thigh.
“Actually, I was looking for you,” Jared says, and just like that, Jensen’s tension is back with a vengeance, and all pleasurable thoughts about what he might like to do to Jared’s beautiful body vanish. “But not like that,” Jared adds hastily, as if he’s sensed the way Jensen’s knuckles have whitened where he’s gripping the brown glass bottle, even though his gaze remains firmly fixed ahead. “I’ve been searching for you, on and off, ever since that night. I wanted to thank you. For not shooting me, and for warning me about Lucifer and the Firm.”
“For a long time, I wondered if I’d as good as killed you, leaving you injured and at Lucifer’s mercy like that. I don’t think you owe me any thanks, kid.” Jensen says.
“I’m not a kid, Michael. I wasn’t one then either, though I admit I’d been naïve in thinking that being recruited by the Firm was a step up from being a grunt in the Marines. I thought my skills would be more use to my country working for them. I believed Azazel when he said I was going to be one of the best assets they’d ever recruited, that I could prove it by taking on the most notorious operative of all. Which unluckily for me, turned out to be you.”
Jensen sighed. Fucking Lehne and his endless scheming. Fuck the Firm and its systemic duplicity and inbuilt betrayal. He thought about Jeff, blasted out of existence, and for what? At that moment thirteen years ago, when he’d felt Jeff’s hand tighten around his own, Jensen had known both their lives were over, one way or another. When his own turn came, that rainy night in Chicago, Jensen started to question everything he’d done after becoming one of the Firm’s assets. On the run, research hadn’t been easy, especially as he’d been forced to keep to the wildest parts of Canada, which were largely internet-free. In spite of that, he’d unearthed a disturbing amount of evidence that at least four of the assassinations he’d carried out had benefited the same off-shore trust, and had no connection to the greater good of either the USA or the free world.
“Okay, yeah. First off, you’ve been honest with me so…my name’s Jensen Ackles, not Michael Godson. Second, Fred Lehne - Azazel - has a lot to answer for,” Jensen says, turning to face Jared. “He told me the exact same thing as he told you, and then sent me out to kill my…my mentor, just like he set you on me. So when I saw you lying there injured, I knew the rules of their game said you had to die, but at the same time, I just wanted out. They’d set me up, wanted me dead. The Firm doesn’t care about us, any more than it cares about our country. I thought you deserved a chance.”
“That’s one of the things I have to tell you, Azazel is…”
“Well, ain’t this just heartwarming,” a drawling voice from the doorway interrupts whatever Jared had been going to say.
::
“Lucifer!” Jared hisses, diving off the bed even as Jensen does the same.
Too late. Pellegrino saunters into the room, a smug smile on his face, but all Jensen can focus on is the Glock 18 machine pistol in Lucifer’s right hand, while Jensen has a half empty beer bottle and a packet of lube. He curses internally. How could he have been so fucking careless as to leave his own gun out of reach? The click of Lucifer’s safety coming off freezes Jensen in place and he sees Jared do the same on the other side of the bed.
“Look at you two,” Pellegrino gestures with the Glock, “I’m touched, I really am. Finding each other after all this time…it’s so sweet! But I’ve interrupted the reunion, haven’t I? So sorry about that.”
Jensen barely refrains from rolling his eyes. It seems Pellegrino is set on monologuing them to death.
“I knew our BFG here would lead me to you eventually, I just had to be patient. Though really, I expected to find you somewhere a little more…elegant than this no tell motel, Michael. This is where you’ve been hanging out for the last three years? Really?”
But Jensen had stopped listening after the first sentence, and was glaring at Jared - who had led Lucifer here. After three years successfully hidden in the wilderness, Jensen gets caught, literally with his pants down; led by the dick into a fucking honey trap. He can feel the anger in a warm rush, flushing his pale skin in an obvious tell, but he can’t bring himself to care. Now he’s torn between tearing Jared apart with his bare hands or taking out Lucifer.
Jared’s staring back, those hazel eyes wide and pleading, and Jensen just can’t fucking do this.
“I didn’t know, Je… Michael.” Jensen has to give the kid points for not using his real name - and how fucking stupid was that, giving the kid another lever to use against him? This whole thing has been a clusterfuck from start to finish. Focus, Jensen, focus. Jared’s still talking. “Please believe me, I had no idea he was on my tail. I didn’t even know who you were until a couple of hours ago.”
Pellegrino laughs so hard tears leak from the corners of his cold blue eyes. “Oh, this is just too rich. You guys are killing me. I’ve been chasing this kid since he murdered Fred last year. The press got hold of the story, shone a spotlight on everything we’d achieved. Fucking whining liberal hacks! The Firm got disbanded when Congress wanted explanations and I was left with nothing, thanks to you two. The rot started when you refused to follow the rules, Michael, then this little asswipe followed your lead.”
Jensen’s mind reels. Lehne dead and the Firm gone? That means for a whole year he’s been hiding from nothing – but more importantly, there is nothing standing between Jensen and true freedom, apart from Lucifer. Clearly he’s misjudged Jared, and once this is over, Jensen is going to take a lot of pleasure in making it up to the kid. But first, they need to deal with Mark Pellegrino. Jensen glances at Jared, and out of Lucifer’s line of sight, he winks. Jared’s eyes widen slightly, then narrow. In that instant the big man is transformed from a walking apology to highly trained killer.
Lucifer has stopped laughing in favour of an increasingly red-faced diatribe that Jensen hopes will be sufficiently distracting, as Jared and he move in almost perfect synchronisation.
Pellegrino ducks, and Jared’s beer bottle smashes into the doorframe, missing Lucifer’s face by a fraction. Lucifer fires and out of the corner of his eye Jensen sees Jared go down, but he can’t allow anything to distract him now, not while Lucifer still holds the machine pistol and he and Jared are both unarmed and naked. Jensen doesn’t care about the rest of his clothes but man, with all that glass everywhere, he really wishes he had his boots. Jared’s action has given Jensen the time he needs to get in close. Pellegrino fires off a few more shots at random, peppering the room with bullets, and Jensen feels chunks of plaster and splinters of wood hitting his bare skin. Then Jensen is on him and grappling for the Glock.
Jensen forces Pellegrino’s right arm up, using both hands and ignoring the punches Lucifer is landing left handed into Jensen’s ribs. He twists and bends Lucifer’s thumb back until the joint pops and Lucifer’s forced to release his grip on the machine pistol with a grunt of pain. The gun drops to the carpet with a dull thud and Jensen kicks it away as best he can with bare feet. Pellegrino brings up a knee between Jensen’s legs and Jensen’s naked nuts are driven up into his body, while all the breath is driven out of his lungs. He folds in half with a whimper and Pellegrino seizes the opportunity to grab Jensen and spin him around, so now it’s his back that’s pressed up against the doorframe. Jensen winces as shards of broken bottle lacerate his feet, but then Pellegrino has a forearm pressed across his throat and he’s more concerned with trying to breathe than a few cuts on his soles.
Jensen’s vision is sparking and darkness is gathering round his edges, when Pellegrino’s head explodes.
The pressure on his throat is gone, along with Pellegrino’s body, which slumps to the floor in a messy heap. Choking and gagging on Lucifer’s red mist, Jensen staggers to one side then drops to his knees, spitting blood and shredded brain-matter onto the ruined carpet while trying desperately not to throw up.
The room has turned into a cloud of plaster dust, and Jensen’s surprised he can smell the fresh blood and cordite through all the crud inside his nostrils. His ears are ringing from the shot that took Lucifer out, so it takes him a second to realise that Jared is laughing. Jensen lifts his head, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; a futile gesture that just smears plaster and blood into a viscous paste.
Jared is sitting on the floor, propped up against the bed. His long legs are outstretched and Jensen can see a bloody hole in his right thigh. His tanned skin is turned paler than Jensen’s by the layer of dust that covers him, and he has chunks of plaster in his hair. He looks ridiculous. Jared waves the Glock at Jensen in a half-assed salute, still grinning.
“Fucker.” Jensen says, then coughs as the act of speaking dislodges more crap inside his throat.
“You’re welcome,” Jared replies, and laughs again. Jensen can’t help it, he grins back.
::
Epilogue
It hadn’t taken much to persuade the Thunder Bay Police Service that they’d killed Pellegrino in self-defence. Jared’s gunshot wound was clearly not self inflicted, and it was pretty obviously a case of a lone nut-job homophobe deciding to cleanse the world by killing a couple of innocent naked guys for the sin of hooking up. The motel owner was horrified at the mess, but it turned out to everyone’s surprise he was fully insured, so it became an opportunity for the insurance company to fund some much-needed renovations.
The local hospital didn’t hold onto them for long. Jensen’s injuries were largely superficial. Once he had a chance to clean up, most of the blood belonged to Lucifer. Jared insisted on discharging himself after a few days, once they were certain the bullet wound wasn’t infected. Their departure broke a few nurses’ hearts. Thunder Bay General was more used to treating middle-aged tourists for sprained ankles or mosquito bite allergies than young, hot guys with gunshot wounds. This was probably the most excitement Thunder Bay had seen since, well, ever.
Less than a week after Pellegrino’s death, Jensen finds himself in the hospital parking lot, standing in uncomfortable silence while Jared balances on his crutches and pushes his hair out of his eyes. Jensen’s feet are sore and it still hurts to swallow, but thanks to his training with both Special Forces and the Firm, his pain thresholds are ridiculously high. Unfortunately, his training doesn’t have a solution for social awkwardness when he’s not playing a part.
“So…” they both say then stop. They look at each other.
“What now?” Jared asks, with a tentative smile.
“I was thinking, maybe, you might like to come back to my cabin,” Jensen says, wondering why his heart is beating so loud and hoping Jared can’t hear it. “Just while your leg heals,” he adds, hastily, in case he’d sounded too eager. When Jared doesn’t reply straight away, Jensen babbles like a teenager with a crush. It’s undignified for a thirty three year old, hardened ex-assassin, but he can’t seem to stop himself.
“You don’t have to, of course, I just thought it would save you travelling, you know, with a hole in your leg. I’ve got plenty of supplies in, and bought a load of stuff to restock the cabin while I’ve been waiting for you to recover. We needn’t stay there long – I always abandon the place May through September anyhow, because you don’t want to be in the lake region when it’s M-squared season. Man, I made that mistake in my first year here. Never again, I got eaten alive. Mozzies and midges, it’s an insect Armageddon out there, I can tell you.”
He stumbles to a stop when Jared raises a hand.
“Hey, slow down! It sounds like a great idea; but you know what would be an even better idea right now? Sitting down.” Jared’s smile is wide and bright this time, and something inside of Jensen loosens. It’s as if the wind from the northern ice fields suddenly drops and he can feel the spring sunshine warming his skin. A little glow that is perilously close to happiness is blooming in the centre of Jensen’s chest.
Jared looks around the parking lot. “Where’s your car? Please tell me you brought it over. I don’t fancy walking too far.”
“My car. Yeah. Sorry. It’s right here,” Jensen rushes to open the shotgun side of his battered Jeep Wrangler, and helps Jared inside with his crutches, trying not to fuss. Safely stowed, Jensen points them North West out of Thunder Bay. They drive in a comfortable silence for a few miles before Jensen throws Jared a glance.
“I reckon you owe me, Padalecki,” he says, quirking an eyebrow but keeping his voice dead pan. Jared straightens up in his seat, squaring his shoulders. Jensen takes a moment to appreciate their broadness before looking back at the road ahead.
“Is that so? There was I thinking we were all square now, Ackles, seeing as how I saved your life back there.”
“Uh huh,” Jensen agrees, “but I wasn’t talking about that kind of debt, big boy,” he adds, and grins when he sees a faint flush start up Jared’s long neck. “You owe me a story for starters – like how you came to kill Fred Lehne. And I’d appreciate hearing how the rest of the Firm got brought down after that too.”
Jared nods, serious for a second. “Yeah, that’s fair. I’d have filled you in while we were in hospital but there wasn’t much privacy there, so I thought it best to wait.” Which was true enough, Jensen has to give him that one. They hadn’t spoken much over the last few days, apart from making sure they had their stories straight for the local law enforcement.
Jared’s lazy smile is back. It gives Jensen tingles in all the right places, even more so when Jared continues, low and sultry. “I reckon you owe me too though, Ackles.” He pauses and runs his long fingers down his good leg, sprawled out so close to Jensen’s he can feel Jared’s body heat through both pairs of jeans. Jensen swallows.
“Yeah,” Jared says, “I seem to remember you promising me that tongue of yours, all over my body. Just in case you’d forgotten.”
“One thing I can tell you about me, Jared. I’m a man of my word, and I forget nothing,” Jensen says, his voice full of dark promise. There’s a moment’s quiet in the Jeep, the only sounds being the rush of the blacktop under the wheels and the rattling from the stacked supplies in the back. Jared shifts in his seat. Clears his throat.
“So how many miles to this cabin of yours?”
Jensen swears and puts his foot on the gas.
Title: Net Asset Value
Words: ~9000
Pairings: Jared/Jensen, brief Jeff/Jensen
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: A flashback death happens. Unbetaed!
Summary: The Firm calls them assets, and treats them accordingly. The asset known as Michael Godson, whose real name is Jensen Ackles, thinks he understands the game, right up to the moment he realises he’s about to be liquidated in the only way the Firm knows.
Happy birthday
zara_zee!!! Hope you like this...AO3 link
He exists in the silence that’s waiting for the world to end.
He’s slowed his breathing to steady his hands; his heart rate rests at an unvarying fifty beats a minute. He’s simultaneously solely focussed on his mission and aware of everything. Unconsciously he catalogues his surroundings and any variables - the breeze that ruffles his carefully gelled hair, bringing with it the sweet scent of mown grass from the park that surrounds his vantage point; the distant hum of conversations wafting up from the crowd waiting outside the court house steps for his target to emerge; the moisture in the air that promises rain.
He’s aware of the target exiting the main doors a good few seconds before the crowd reacts with a predictable surge. He’s already got one eye to the rifle sights, crosshairs aligned on the target’s forehead. He’s not going for the easier chest shot because he’s the best, and he never leaves anything to chance. With anything but a head shot, there’s always a possibility a target could survive. He leaves that to the second rate operatives, to the ones who rely on laser sights and not their own ability.
The target has barely reached the top of the first step when he squeezes the trigger, having made a micro-adjustment at the last possible moment to take account of a slight change of wind direction and speed. He doesn’t need to watch his victim drop or to hear the screams to know his aim was true. He’s already dismantling his weapon, scooping up and pocketing the still-warm shell case and heading for the stairwell before anyone in the square below has even worked out what happened, let alone the direction of the assassin’s shot.
By the time the police work it out and reach the rooftop, he’s long gone.
::
The Firm calls them assets, and treats them accordingly. Most of them don’t realise what this means; the true implications of the term. The naïve ones think being an asset means they are valued, some even think they are invaluable. The more experienced realise that while an asset does have value to the Firm (they wouldn’t be there if they didn’t) all of them have a shelf life, and can be bought, sold or expired.
The asset known as Michael Godson, whose real name is Jensen Ackles, thinks he understands the game, right up to the moment he realises he’s about to be liquidated in the only way the Firm knows. Three things save his life that day. His innate cynicism; the fact that he’s one of the most intuitively talented assets the Firm has ever employed, and memories of the extermination of a lost love.
::
Jensen’s next assignment sets his cell phone buzzing before he’s even managed to put two city blocks between him and his last target at the court house. He pulls out the phone and stares at the display, his eyes narrowing. This is a burner phone, meant only for this one job, so that makes two anomalies here. First is Control using this same phone to message him instead of waiting for him to report in on a new burner, second is the lack of the usual interval between concluding this assignment and giving him his next one. The combination has Jensen’s hackles rising, like a dog scenting a stranger invading its territory.
The text is a set of coordinates and an encrypted file. Despite his misgivings Jensen opens it, because that’s what he’s trained to do.
He reads the file, memorises then deletes it. He sends a quick text in acknowledgement then crushes the phone underfoot. Some of the pieces get ditched in a trashcan outside a restaurant and the rest in a dumpster down an alleyway, then Jensen’s ready to disappear, to immerse himself in his Michael persona again. He’s been looking forward to taking a well-earned break, but clearly Control has other plans.
He glances at his watch. He’s got an hour before dark, and two more before he needs to be in place for this next job. Three hours in which to stash the sniper rifle in a safe place, unobtrusively acquire some night ops gear and make his way to Chicago for the rendezvous. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Control was setting him up to fail.
Jensen Ackles might occasionally contemplate the possibility of failure, but Michael Godson did not. Michael’s success rate was one hundred per cent after nearly ten years of service and it was Michael who made his way to Chicago.
::
Midnight finds Jensen an extra shadow in the night, standing in the lee of Chicago’s imposing Van Buren Library, under the crisscrossing iron supports for the L. He’s twitchy. There’s too much traffic, too many civilians around. Chicago’s a big city and lively all night long, and he’s feeling exposed, even while he knows to the casual observer he’s effectively invisible in his all black outfit. It’s scant consolation when the trains passing overhead mean one of his senses is compromised periodically by the rumble of the train, combined with the groaning of the superstructure.
He can’t help a little grunt of discontent when he realises it’s started to rain. The temperature plummets as the skies open, and he’s glad of the shelter the L affords him. With a bit of luck the weather will clear the streets some too, reducing the chances of collateral damage. Only a fool would linger outside on a night like this. He turns up the collar on his black leather jacket and fiddles with his full-face ski mask. He hates black ops that require the term to be taken literally, but his instructions for this pick up were clear. Not a hair on his head could be seen, not a sliver of skin could be exposed if the theft of this laptop were to be blamed on the TTK. Control knew how much Michael loathed the TTK with their unsubtle racist agenda. Knowing this job would land them in the shit had made refusing the assignment impossible.
Something about the thought of being manipulated by Control, tied together with the fact that his mark is now two minutes later than the dossier promised, has Jensen looking around; not a moment too soon. It’s the turn of his head that saves him. He feels the heat of the bullet as it passes underneath his nose, hears the muffled phut-sound of a second discharge – a silencer on a Beretta M9A3, most likely – but he’s already moving, so the second shot only scores his upper arm. He’s working out trajectories, triangulating positions and dammit - the shooter is too close for comfort. He barely notices the burn in his deltoid where the second bullet scored him; adrenaline is pumping as he drops, rolls and comes up inside his assailant’s guard to deliver a vicious chop to the guy’s throat. It misses, connects with what feels like sternum and Jensen recalculates rapidly. This guy is taller than Jensen, and likely heavier, and moreover, still has hold of the gun.
Jensen’s priority is disarming his assailant, so he wastes no time. Adjusting for the additional inches, Jensen lets loose a flurry of blows, which the other guy blocks with an ease that speaks of training on a par with Jensen’s own. They grapple in virtual silence, only broken by soft grunts as pain forces their breath out, and the dull sound of blows landing. They stay in the shadows, both of them dressed in black and only glimpsed in occasional flashes as they move between the patches of streetlight. The white of teeth gritting, eyes widening so the sclera gleams, then the glitter of rain on the gun as it flies from the guy’s hand and skitters out onto the sidewalk.
It is a Beretta M9A3, fitted with a silencer, exactly the same as the one Jensen had been issued with when he first became an asset. Sure, the Firm didn’t have a monopoly on Berettas, but Jensen feels a chill run down his spine that is nothing to do with the icy Chicago rain. No, this memory takes him to another time and place, to somewhere Jensen had spent the last ten years trying to forget.
::
Ten years ago
At twenty, Jensen Ackles was one of the Firm’s youngest ever recruits. Barely wet behind the ears as far as his military service went, he’d only completed one tour of three months in Afghanistan when his CO told him he’d been summoned to a top-secret meeting. He never returned to his unit, instead he was whisked of to a location that didn’t officially exist to be trained as an asset, an elite group of mostly young men and handful of women, who were deployed on a wide variety of covert operations around the globe. Jensen had thought his preparation for the 1st Special Forces Group had been gruelling, but the Firm’s idea of training was brutal.
“I hear one in ten new recruits don’t survive,” Mitch whispered to him over the noise of the mess hall. “Nobody died in the last batch, so that’s bad news for us.”
Jensen kept his gaze on his food. He was getting good at keeping a poker face firmly in place nearly 24/7. In some respects the Firm was just like the army, but in others it couldn’t have been more different. The extreme paranoia, for one. Though Jensen and the four other new recruits for that year were all expected to eat together in the mess hall, the volume of noise didn’t come from the idle chatter of people in the room. Instead, levels were maintained via carefully placed speakers playing white noise, aimed at making audio surveillance impossible. Even with these precautions in place, the Firm did not encourage idle chitchat, and Jensen could see Mitch was getting frowned at by a couple of the trainers who were sitting on what Jensen still thought of as the Officer’s table, even though the Firm didn’t have ranks as such. They sure as hell had a hierarchy though, and Jensen was under no illusion as to where his position was on that scale. As the youngest recruit by at least four years, Jensen was right at the bottom of the pecking order.
He tensed as he saw Morgan rise and come over. He shovelled a couple more mouthfuls of meat and potatoes into his mouth and chewed as fast as he could. You never knew when the powers that be would decide a fast was in order, so Jensen had learned to eat as much as he could whenever he could.
“Godson!”
Jensen sprang to his feet, back ramrod straight. He just managed to resist saluting, and he could see from the minute twitch of Morgan’s mouth that the other man was well aware of it. As Jensen’s mentor, Morgan knew him inside out. As Jensen’s lover, Morgan could take Jensen apart with just a look. Jensen didn’t think that was entirely fair. They’d only known each other for four months, been messing around together for two, yet Morgan remained an enigma to Jensen.
“Yessir!”
“Pack your bag, Michael, and report to Briefing Room 7 in fifteen. Be ready to deploy, you have an assignment.”
The briefing lived up to its name, lasting mere minutes and consisting of the minimum information. Within an hour he was on a plane headed to Europe, none the wiser as to the precise nature of his mission. The only good thing was that Morgan went with him, though Jensen wasn’t sure whether Jeff was there to support him, or to keep a watchful eye to make sure he didn’t mess up. When they landed in a small private airfield a couple of kilometres from the Papal Palace at Castel Gandolfo he was given the Beretta, along with a burner cell phone, and told he had five hours to chill before he needed to be in position in Rome.
Nobody bothered to explain what Morgan was doing there, and Jensen didn’t ask. Jeff checked them into a surprisingly classy hotel down a smelly cobbled alleyway off the Piazza della Republica. It looked like a dump on the outside but once through the door it was all polished wood floors and velvet and reeked of old money. Jensen barely noticed, because Jeff had booked a double room and was walking Jensen backwards to the huge bed before the door had closed behind them.
They had fucked around before, but this was different. Jeff stripped Jensen slowly, savouring every moment, devouring Jensen with a heated dark gaze that had Jensen shivering and every nerve tingling and alive. This wasn’t just a casual fuck, it was Jeffrey Dean Morgan making love to him, and it wasn’t until hours later, having chased down his target, that Jensen realised why.
The mark had fought like a bear and Jensen’s left wrist might be broken, but he had the guy on his knees in the middle of the Colosseum, head bowed as if awaiting the verdict of a long dead Emperor, an irony Jensen thought Jeff would have appreciated. The Beretta was in Jensen’s right hand, silenced muzzle pressed to the guy’s balaclava-covered head. Jensen should have pulled the trigger then, but something held him back. In spite of all the Firm’s training that was supposed to stop operatives from questioning their actions, Jensen was uncomfortable with this execution-style killing; especially like this, without ever looking his enemy in the face. His hesitation caused the man to lift his head and stare at Jensen.
With Jeff’s eyes.
“Pull the trigger, Jensen,” Jeff’s voice was low but didn’t waver, unlike Jensen’s gunhand, which had started to shake. Jeff noticed, of course he did, that was why he’d deliberately used Jensen’s real name, to get his attention. “Listen to me every carefully. This is how it goes. You kill me, or Lucifer will do it for you, and then he’ll terminate you as well, for failing your first test.”
There was too much there to process – his mission had been to kill Jeff? How did killing one of their own valued operatives make any sense? But with the promise of the Firm’s infamous enforcer, Lucifer, hidden in the ancient darkness with his sights trained on them both, there was no time to think, and Jeff knew this better than Jensen.
“I shouldn’t tell you this, but you need to know. I’ve served the Firm for twelve years. I’ve survived longer than most, but Control’s policy is always keep assets at the top of their game by Darwinism. It’s survival of the fittest, and you’ve bested me. If you don’t kill me now, all my work will have been wasted. Please. Do it quickly. Lucifer is not a patient man and he will know there is something wrong. I don’t want to be responsible for your death.”
Jensen heard the words, he understood them, but he knew if he un-gloved his hands and breathed in, they would still smell like Jeff over the scent of the leather and gun oil on his skin. He made to take a half step back, but Jeff anticipated him. Jeff’s hand whipped out, cobra-fast, wrapped around Jensen’s and squeezed the trigger.
In the deep shadows cast by the nightly illuminations outside the Flavian amphitheatre, Jensen couldn’t see how Jeff’s blood spread black on the worn limestone slabs, yet this was the very image he could never shake.
::
Present day
Remembering Jeff doesn’t cause Jensen a moment’s hesitation now. Instead, he feels more awake than he has for years. More himself, less the automaton Michael Godson became when that bullet blew Jensen away along with Jeff.
Hyper-aware, his ears pick out the note of a motorbike approaching, over the gathering rumble of another train overhead on the L, and distinct from the passing car engines. He lands a couple of extra vicious kicks to his opponent’s thigh and stomach. The guy drops for a second with an audible gasp. Jensen takes the opening given and moves fast. The unsuspecting biker is dragged off his BMW as he passes, and the riderless machine slides along the road, sparks flying in spite of the rain. It makes for an almost apocalyptic scene, but Jensen barely notices. He hauls on the bike and straddles it while it’s still moving, aware in his peripheral vision that the biker has been fortunate enough to find a soft landing, directly on top of Jensen’s adversary. It’s lucky for Jensen too, giving him some precious extra seconds to wrestle the heavy motorbike upright and gun the throttle.
The bike bucks and skids like a living beast, then Jensen has it under control. He takes off towards lakeside, staying under the L. There isn’t that much traffic to weave through, but his moment of relief at that is brief, because riding in a straight line isn’t such a clever idea when you have an assassin on your tail. Jensen is reminded of this fact when something punches into his back with enough force to make him yelp and wrench the bike off course. In the time it takes to get the machine back in hand, he knows his assailant must have retrieved his gun and has seized the chance to take a pot shot before Jensen put too much distance between them.
Jensen leans as he swings the bike left, heading downtown. Assessing the damage…back, right hand side; He thinks the bullet has gone straight through, which means blood loss is going to be a problem. High enough that it’s probably (hopefully) missed the intestines, but he thinks, lower than his lungs. Most likely gone through his liver, maybe a kidney. It’s certainly painful enough, but Jensen clenches his teeth and ignores it. A glance in the bike’s mirrors show him there’s a car heading through the sparse traffic, tracking his every move, so it’s safe to assume his nemesis hasn’t given up.
He wonders who it is. Unlike Jeff, Jensen has no involvement with training up newbies. He’s spent most of his time in the field, taking one assignment after another so he didn’t have time to think about what he’d done in Rome that day. It’s not hard to guess who in Control might have had a hand in making him redundant, though. Fred Lehne, aka Azazel. Jensen wasn’t supposed to know their real names, but he’s fucking resourceful, one of the best assets the Firm has ever had. Since Jeff, Jensen had made it his business to know everything about everybody in the Firm’s hierarchy, with some vague thought that one day, he’d make them pay. After Jensen discovered that Lehne had given the order to terminate Jeff, he had never made a secret of his loathing for the man. Stupid, and Jeff would have torn him a new one for being so obvious about it, but Jeff wasn’t there any more, was he?
Jensen’s pretty sure that whoever the rookie assassin is, the Firm’s insurance mechanism would be the same as on that fateful day he’d pressed his own gun to Jeff’s head. Mark Pellegrino, known to the Firm as Lucifer. Pellegrino was Lehne’s favourite enforcer for internal affairs, with a reputation (fully deserved) as a cold, conscienceless bastard. Somehow Pellegrino escaped the Firm’s periodic culls – too valuable, perhaps, or maybe he just knew too much about the Firm’s top brass.
His mind racing through his options, Jensen tries every move he can wrestle out of the heavy BMW bike to shake off the rookie assassin. He has the advantage of the bike’s ability to squeeze through gaps the rookie’s car can’t, but even so, the kid (Jensen thinks his pursuer must be young; that’s how this works) somehow keeps up with him. The icy rain driving in his face doesn’t do Jensen any favours, and he’s so glad he’d worn a leather jacket. Maybe the hypothermia will slow the bleeding, and the thought almost makes him smile.
He makes it as hard as he can for his pursuer - constantly turning, making sure to chose the wrong way down as many one way streets as he can manage, keeping the layout of Chicago running in his head – his own internal Google street map, memorised along with most of the USA’s major cities.
It doesn’t take long for the Chicago PD to take an interest in so many broken traffic regulations, and soon Jensen has two cop cars join the rookie on his tail. He just hopes they cause more problems for his pursuer than for him, because he’s not sure how long his abused body is going to hold out. He can’t even put pressure on either of the holes in his torso because he needs both hands to steer the damn bike.
He’s crossed the Chicago River for the third time and is heading towards Old St Patrick’s Church when he hears the crash. His mirrors show him the two cop cars colliding with each other trying to avoid a civilian, and he watches events unfold, almost in slow motion. The rookie’s car gets clipped by one of the spinning cop cars. It’s enough to send the vehicle out of control, and Jensen slows his bike as the rookie’s car flips end over end like a magician’s playing card. It tumbles over several times before finally coming to rest on its roof. The smoke billowing sulphurous-yellow from all three vehicles makes a hellish scene in the sodium streetlights. Jensen turns the BMW and rides back along the debris-strewn road, ignoring the handful of shocked spectators.
He gets off the bike, trying not to telegraph his pain as he moves. He quickly checks the nearest police vehicle first and relieves one unconscious cop of a handgun, before moving cautiously towards the rookie’s upturned car. He needn’t have worried. The kid’s upper half is hanging half out of the car’s smashed drivers’ window in an untidy sprawl. The rest of his body looks to be trapped inside the crushed front of his car. Jensen keeps the cop’s gun trained on the guy’s smashed up face, or what he can see of it under a black ski mask the match of his own. The guy’s awake; Jensen can see bloodshot eyes glittering, and the guy bares bloody teeth when he sees Jensen with the gun. Jensen watches the guy brace himself for the finishing shot, and Jensen knows he should take it. There’s no reason to spare this rookie kid; he doubts the kid would have hesitated to pull the trigger on him if their positions had been reversed.
But just like that night in Rome ten years ago, Jensen can’t pull the trigger; and this time, there’s no Jeff to do it for him. He wonders if Lucifer is nearby, watching. If the next thing he’ll feel is a sniper bullet entering the back of his skull. He doesn’t care.
He lowers the gun, then flips on the safety and sticks it down the back of his pants, wincing as the movement pulls at the steadily bleeding hole the other side of his chest. Slowly, giving Lucifer every opportunity to take the shot if he is there, Jensen walks the couple of strides back to the BMW and throws one leg over the saddle.
He takes one last glance back and sees that the kid has twisted around so he can watch Jensen, probably not believing an asset with Jensen’s reputation is really going to walk away and leave him breathing. Jensen emotions kick-start before the bike does, and he finds he does care about something, after all.
“Hey, kid, whatever your name is,” Jensen says, his tone conversational, as if he was talking about the best place to go for coffee. “You should know that Lucifer is out there somewhere, and if you don’t kill me, he’s going to come gunning for you. So don’t hang around here, and don’t go back to the Firm if you value your life.”
Jensen sees the kid’s eyes widen so he knows he got his message across, so he doesn’t hesitate any longer and takes his own advice. Taking shallow breaths against the pain, he stamps down on the starter and turns the throttle. The big bike roars into motion. This time he sets a more sedate pace through Chicago’s streets that will attract less attention, and points the BMW north. He just hopes he can get far enough to find a safe place to stop and sew himself back together before he can start thinking about a new life and a new identity outside the Firm.
::
Three years later
“Buy you a drink?” says a pleasantly deep voice, breath huffing warm into the shell of his ear so he can hear it over the deep bass of the music. Jensen can’t help it; he jumps like a startled deer. It’s ridiculous, really, a total overreaction. It’s not like Jensen isn’t used to getting propositioned. It is, after all, part of the reason he comes back to the Thunder Bay Rainbow Club from time to time – to unwind and maybe have a little fun with a stranger. It’s risky, but he can’t hide away in his cabin in the Ontario wilderness all year round without going stir crazy. Jensen’s brain skids to a screeching halt when he turns to face the owner of the voice.
He’s freakishly tall. That’s Jensen’s first impression. The guy is a towering behemoth, a good four inches taller than Jensen, which is, if he’s honest, one of his sure-fire kinks. Behemoth has cheekbones to die for, a lowering brow that hints at dominant cave-man tendencies if Jensen is lucky (and boy, is he starting to feel lucky tonight). Pretty pink lips are currently spread in a wide smile over teeth straight out of a toothpaste ad. A smile, Jensen notes with alarm, that’s starting to fade in the face of Jensen’s silent staring. He rushes to make amends.
“As you can see, I’ve already got a drink,” Jensen points to his glass of sparkling water to demonstrate, “so how’s about I buy you one instead?”
The smile is back in full force, and dammit, there are dimples, as well as the most sexy mole, right next to that pointy, upturned nose … and Jensen is clearly doomed. Or blessed. Or both. Yeah, hopefully both.
“I’ll have something stronger than Perrier, though,” says Behemoth, and Jensen needs to get the guy’s name because he can’t keep referring to him as a mythical monster, even if that’s kind of what Jensen’s hoping the big guy is packing inside those loose black cargo pants.
“Sure.” Jensen gestures to the barkeep with Simon on his nametag, who’s been real attentive all evening. Simon is attractive enough, with his shaggy dark hair and those big blue eyes that had constantly rested their gaze on Jensen’s lips, and Jensen had been thinking of saying yes when Simon inevitably asked him for a blow job out back…but that was before a better option slid his perky ass onto the stool next to Jensen. He watches the barkeep’s face fall a little when he realises Jensen is no longer alone, but give Simon his due, a professional smile is firmly in place when he takes their order – a bottle of tequila and two glasses.
“Jack,” says Jensen, holding his glass out for the other guy to pour while giving him his best smile. “Jay,” the other guy offers, and at last Jensen has a better name than Behemoth. He doesn’t think Jay is the guy’s real name, any more than Jack is his. It’s rare for anyone to share anything of personal importance in the Rainbow, it’s one of the reasons Jensen likes it so much. The anonymity makes him feel safe.
He adjusts the black-rimmed glasses he wears for these outings in a habitual nervous gesture, there to form a barrier between Jensen and the world. The big guy grabs Jensen’s hand and gently pulls it down, and in that instant Jensen’s easy lassitude vanishes. He sees the moment Jay notices the same thing Jensen has, a familiar pattern of calluses on their palms, both of them evidently right hand dominant in their weapons use. Jensen tenses up, but Jay just smiles wider. Turning Jensen’s hand palm-up in his huge fist, Jay runs a finger over the roughness.
“Hey, how about that. What are the odds, meeting another soldier here? What regiment?”
Soldier. Right. Wake up Jensen Ackles, you’ve been asleep too long; you’re losing your edge. Jensen looked at Jay, a flickering glance that took in the bronzed skin that spoke of time in warm climes, set that against the non-regulation length hair curling over Jay’s collar that indicated retirement from the military, and took a wild stab in the dark, picking a regiment he thought was the unlikeliest match for the guy. The fact that it happened to be true was maybe a risk, but there was no reason to suspect Jay of anything more ulterior than wanting inside Jensen’s pants.
“1st Special Forces, retired. You?”
“Cool! Marine Raiders. Was. As you can probably tell from this,” Jay releases Jensen’s hand in order to run it through his shoulder length hair, “not serving now.” Jensen’s fingers twitch, an involuntary movement. He’d rather like to test the silkiness of those chestnut locks himself. Jay’s eyes linger on Jensen’s lips for a moment, and Jensen relaxes. Looks like he might get his wish, if he can squash his ingrained paranoia. It feels like it will be rewarding, and it’s not like he’s going to invite Jay back to his cabin, which is over a hundred miles away.
An hour later they are in Jensen’s latest motel room, with Jay’s wide smiling lips now more productively deployed on a mission to suck Jensen’s brains out from his dick. Jensen manages to force a tiny part of said brain into appreciating that Jay’s hair is indeed soft as silk. He twines his fingers deeper into Jay’s unruly mop and tugs, causing Jay to moan deliciously round his cock. Jensen comes embarrassingly quickly after that, but he’s quick to reciprocate, snaking a hand down Jay’s cargo pants and yanking out Jay’s cock, which is every bit the monster Jensen had hoped would be hiding in there.
Pre-come shines at the rosy tip like a jewel, and Jensen’s mouth waters. He slides to his knees and licks up the salty pre-come until Jay is a writhing mess, before Jensen swallows the monster down, deep-throating like a pro, revelling in the scent of sweat and warm skin as his nose rubs into Jay’s pubes. The gasps and moans he’s wringing out of Jay are more melodious than Beethoven to Jensen’s ears, and it doesn’t take long before Jay is shooting hard while Jensen drinks every drop.
He pulls off Jay’s softening cock with an obscene slurping noise that has both of them laughing.
“Okay,” Jensen says, still smiling. “Now we’ve taken the edge off, how about we move this show somewhere more comfortable than a kitchenette?”
Jay leans back against the counter as if it’s the only thing keeping him standing right now, and makes the most ridiculous pout. He looks like a giant, lanky, two year old.
“That means walking, right?” Jay says, his eyes half shut as if he’s ready to fall asleep where he’s standing. Jensen chuckles and grabs the two open bottles of beer off the counter where they’d been abandoned earlier. He pulls up his jeans because making choices between taking off his boots and carrying beer is too complicated with his brain still stuck in post orgasmic bliss. He’s still more compos mentis than Jay, though.
“Come on, Romeo. I want to see you naked and spread out on my bed so I can see if you taste that good all over.”
Jay’s eyes fly open at that, and he follows Jensen with alacrity. In the bedroom, Jensen safely stows the two beers on the dresser before pushing Jay backwards onto the bed. Tangling eager fingers they tug at each other’s superfluous clothing until there’s nothing between them except skin. Jensen straddles Jay and takes a moment to enjoy the view.
“God,” he sighs happily. “You’re magnificent. I knew you would be…”
Jay grins, evidently similarly enjoying the sight of a naked Jensen poised above him. He grips Jensen’s hips, closing his eyes with a loud sigh when their two freshly interested cocks rub together. “Less talk, more licking,” he says, his expression changing from amused to intense so quickly it makes Jensen shiver with the force of his desire. Jay’s hands move up Jensen’s body, mapping his skin, and Jensen closes his eyes to revel in the touch.
Jay’s wandering hands still when he reaches the ragged round edges of the exit wound from Chicago, the one that ended Jensen’s term with the Firm. Jensen opens his eyes to find Jared frozen in place, his expression unreadable. Jay doesn’t remove his hands, but one finger moves gently over the knotted scar tissue. As is frequently the case with through and through wounds, the scarring is worse at the front, where the bullet had torn its way out of Jensen’s body.
“This one,” Jay said, his voice as neutral as his expression, “how’d you get this one?”
Jensen shudders. He doesn’t want to think about that night – riding for miles in freezing rain, not daring to stop for more than an hour to raid a pharmacy in a one horse town just south of Duluth. He’d disinfected and plugged the bullet holes as best he could before roughly bandaging himself up and getting back on the road. Once across the border into Canada, he’d ditched the bike and the cop’s gun in a remote lake and headed out into the wilderness. His only hope had been to hole up in a deserted hunting cabin somewhere the Firm couldn’t find him. He knew he’d been lucky to survive.
The warmth of Jay’s big hands anchor him to the present and terrify him simultaneously. His erection flags as he struggles to control his incipient panic. Then Jay speaks again.
“I thought there was something familiar about your voice…You’re him, aren’t you,” Jay says, “You’re Michael Godson.”
The name is a trigger and Jensen is the gun. He explodes into action, lashing out with more desperation than finesse. It wasn’t that he’d really believed he was safe, but some part of him had wanted it so badly, he’d let down his guard. Jeff would be ashamed of him.
Jay is stronger, younger, in better condition. After a short struggle, Jensen is pinned to the bed, the larger man using his longer limbs to hold Jensen still. For a moment, the only sound in the room is their harsh panting. Jay’s lip is spilt and blood is dripping onto Jensen’s chest, turning pink as it mingles with their combined sweat. Jensen glares at Jay, defiant, anticipating triumph on the other man’s face. Instead, Jay’s eyes are wide and full of sincerity.
“Please.”
It’s the last word Jensen is expecting to hear. He blinks, deliberately calming his breathing.
“Please, just give me a chance here. This isn’t what you think. I didn’t come here to kill you, and I’m not working for the Firm.” Jay continues, and Jensen wants to scoff in Jay’s face. Just how stupid does the Firm, does Jay, think he is? And yet something makes Jensen want to trust this guy, even though it runs counter to all his training to trust anyone.
“My name is Jared Padalecki, and for the last three years I’ve been wanting to ask you a question.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a captive audience,” Jensen says, raising one eyebrow in an attempt at insouciance. He’s never felt so exposed, and it’s nothing to do with their nakedness. Jay – no, Jared – actually blushes, but the embarrassment of having their naked groins pressed together isn’t enough to make him relax his iron grip on Jensen’s wrists, which are still stretched uncomfortably above his head.
“Ask away,” Jensen prompts when Jared doesn’t speak.
“Why didn’t you take the shot?” The words spill out in a rush, as if a three-year wait hasn’t taught Jared any patience.
Jensen stares up at Jared in surprise. His focus narrows. Those slightly slanting, blue-gold hazel eyes…he imagines them lit only by streetlights and bloodshot from impact with a steering wheel, the flesh around them bruised from Jensen’s fists, only visible through the ripped woollen ski mask that still obscured most of the face.
A fraction of the whipcord tension floods out of his limbs as he finally recognises who Jared is. Was.
“You’re the rookie. The kid they sent to terminate my contract.” It isn’t a question, but Jared nods in reply anyway.
“Jared Padalecki. Is that your real name?” Jensen asks, curious.
“Yeah,” Jared says and Jensen believes him, though everything he ever learnt is screaming at him not to be such a trusting fool. As if he’s reading Jensen’s mind, Jared cautiously releases Jensen’s wrists and sits back. Though Jared straddles Jensen in an echo of their earlier position, Jensen would be surprised it either of them have sex on their minds right now. The past is a third wheel, all too present in the motel room, and there are issues to be resolved before any intimacy can be resumed – assuming that this doesn’t end up with one of them killing the other.
Jensen sits up, and Jared scrambles off him with alacrity. Jensen winces slightly as his shoulders protest. Shit, he’s getting too old for this game. He leans over and snags the beers off the nightstand. He hands one to Jared, who’s sitting back on his heels looking gangly and awkward. It’s hard to see Jared as a trained killer, but then Jensen doesn’t suppose he looks much like an assassin any more either. He unconsciously runs a hand over the slight softness of his belly. He hasn’t worked out for a while, hadn’t felt that driving need that used to be his constant companion. Jensen doesn’t miss the way Jared’s glance heats up when Jensen’s hand passes over his faint treasure trail. Jensen flushes slightly and he casually pulls the sheet up over his legs. He clears his throat.
“How about you tell me what happened back then, and what brings you to Ontario, if you weren’t looking for me.”
Jared takes a sip of beer, then scoots up the bed so they are sitting shoulder to shoulder. Jensen tries not to get distracted watching Jared’s Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows, or the way his flaccid cock lies temptingly across his strong hairy thigh.
“Actually, I was looking for you,” Jared says, and just like that, Jensen’s tension is back with a vengeance, and all pleasurable thoughts about what he might like to do to Jared’s beautiful body vanish. “But not like that,” Jared adds hastily, as if he’s sensed the way Jensen’s knuckles have whitened where he’s gripping the brown glass bottle, even though his gaze remains firmly fixed ahead. “I’ve been searching for you, on and off, ever since that night. I wanted to thank you. For not shooting me, and for warning me about Lucifer and the Firm.”
“For a long time, I wondered if I’d as good as killed you, leaving you injured and at Lucifer’s mercy like that. I don’t think you owe me any thanks, kid.” Jensen says.
“I’m not a kid, Michael. I wasn’t one then either, though I admit I’d been naïve in thinking that being recruited by the Firm was a step up from being a grunt in the Marines. I thought my skills would be more use to my country working for them. I believed Azazel when he said I was going to be one of the best assets they’d ever recruited, that I could prove it by taking on the most notorious operative of all. Which unluckily for me, turned out to be you.”
Jensen sighed. Fucking Lehne and his endless scheming. Fuck the Firm and its systemic duplicity and inbuilt betrayal. He thought about Jeff, blasted out of existence, and for what? At that moment thirteen years ago, when he’d felt Jeff’s hand tighten around his own, Jensen had known both their lives were over, one way or another. When his own turn came, that rainy night in Chicago, Jensen started to question everything he’d done after becoming one of the Firm’s assets. On the run, research hadn’t been easy, especially as he’d been forced to keep to the wildest parts of Canada, which were largely internet-free. In spite of that, he’d unearthed a disturbing amount of evidence that at least four of the assassinations he’d carried out had benefited the same off-shore trust, and had no connection to the greater good of either the USA or the free world.
“Okay, yeah. First off, you’ve been honest with me so…my name’s Jensen Ackles, not Michael Godson. Second, Fred Lehne - Azazel - has a lot to answer for,” Jensen says, turning to face Jared. “He told me the exact same thing as he told you, and then sent me out to kill my…my mentor, just like he set you on me. So when I saw you lying there injured, I knew the rules of their game said you had to die, but at the same time, I just wanted out. They’d set me up, wanted me dead. The Firm doesn’t care about us, any more than it cares about our country. I thought you deserved a chance.”
“That’s one of the things I have to tell you, Azazel is…”
“Well, ain’t this just heartwarming,” a drawling voice from the doorway interrupts whatever Jared had been going to say.
::
“Lucifer!” Jared hisses, diving off the bed even as Jensen does the same.
Too late. Pellegrino saunters into the room, a smug smile on his face, but all Jensen can focus on is the Glock 18 machine pistol in Lucifer’s right hand, while Jensen has a half empty beer bottle and a packet of lube. He curses internally. How could he have been so fucking careless as to leave his own gun out of reach? The click of Lucifer’s safety coming off freezes Jensen in place and he sees Jared do the same on the other side of the bed.
“Look at you two,” Pellegrino gestures with the Glock, “I’m touched, I really am. Finding each other after all this time…it’s so sweet! But I’ve interrupted the reunion, haven’t I? So sorry about that.”
Jensen barely refrains from rolling his eyes. It seems Pellegrino is set on monologuing them to death.
“I knew our BFG here would lead me to you eventually, I just had to be patient. Though really, I expected to find you somewhere a little more…elegant than this no tell motel, Michael. This is where you’ve been hanging out for the last three years? Really?”
But Jensen had stopped listening after the first sentence, and was glaring at Jared - who had led Lucifer here. After three years successfully hidden in the wilderness, Jensen gets caught, literally with his pants down; led by the dick into a fucking honey trap. He can feel the anger in a warm rush, flushing his pale skin in an obvious tell, but he can’t bring himself to care. Now he’s torn between tearing Jared apart with his bare hands or taking out Lucifer.
Jared’s staring back, those hazel eyes wide and pleading, and Jensen just can’t fucking do this.
“I didn’t know, Je… Michael.” Jensen has to give the kid points for not using his real name - and how fucking stupid was that, giving the kid another lever to use against him? This whole thing has been a clusterfuck from start to finish. Focus, Jensen, focus. Jared’s still talking. “Please believe me, I had no idea he was on my tail. I didn’t even know who you were until a couple of hours ago.”
Pellegrino laughs so hard tears leak from the corners of his cold blue eyes. “Oh, this is just too rich. You guys are killing me. I’ve been chasing this kid since he murdered Fred last year. The press got hold of the story, shone a spotlight on everything we’d achieved. Fucking whining liberal hacks! The Firm got disbanded when Congress wanted explanations and I was left with nothing, thanks to you two. The rot started when you refused to follow the rules, Michael, then this little asswipe followed your lead.”
Jensen’s mind reels. Lehne dead and the Firm gone? That means for a whole year he’s been hiding from nothing – but more importantly, there is nothing standing between Jensen and true freedom, apart from Lucifer. Clearly he’s misjudged Jared, and once this is over, Jensen is going to take a lot of pleasure in making it up to the kid. But first, they need to deal with Mark Pellegrino. Jensen glances at Jared, and out of Lucifer’s line of sight, he winks. Jared’s eyes widen slightly, then narrow. In that instant the big man is transformed from a walking apology to highly trained killer.
Lucifer has stopped laughing in favour of an increasingly red-faced diatribe that Jensen hopes will be sufficiently distracting, as Jared and he move in almost perfect synchronisation.
Pellegrino ducks, and Jared’s beer bottle smashes into the doorframe, missing Lucifer’s face by a fraction. Lucifer fires and out of the corner of his eye Jensen sees Jared go down, but he can’t allow anything to distract him now, not while Lucifer still holds the machine pistol and he and Jared are both unarmed and naked. Jensen doesn’t care about the rest of his clothes but man, with all that glass everywhere, he really wishes he had his boots. Jared’s action has given Jensen the time he needs to get in close. Pellegrino fires off a few more shots at random, peppering the room with bullets, and Jensen feels chunks of plaster and splinters of wood hitting his bare skin. Then Jensen is on him and grappling for the Glock.
Jensen forces Pellegrino’s right arm up, using both hands and ignoring the punches Lucifer is landing left handed into Jensen’s ribs. He twists and bends Lucifer’s thumb back until the joint pops and Lucifer’s forced to release his grip on the machine pistol with a grunt of pain. The gun drops to the carpet with a dull thud and Jensen kicks it away as best he can with bare feet. Pellegrino brings up a knee between Jensen’s legs and Jensen’s naked nuts are driven up into his body, while all the breath is driven out of his lungs. He folds in half with a whimper and Pellegrino seizes the opportunity to grab Jensen and spin him around, so now it’s his back that’s pressed up against the doorframe. Jensen winces as shards of broken bottle lacerate his feet, but then Pellegrino has a forearm pressed across his throat and he’s more concerned with trying to breathe than a few cuts on his soles.
Jensen’s vision is sparking and darkness is gathering round his edges, when Pellegrino’s head explodes.
The pressure on his throat is gone, along with Pellegrino’s body, which slumps to the floor in a messy heap. Choking and gagging on Lucifer’s red mist, Jensen staggers to one side then drops to his knees, spitting blood and shredded brain-matter onto the ruined carpet while trying desperately not to throw up.
The room has turned into a cloud of plaster dust, and Jensen’s surprised he can smell the fresh blood and cordite through all the crud inside his nostrils. His ears are ringing from the shot that took Lucifer out, so it takes him a second to realise that Jared is laughing. Jensen lifts his head, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; a futile gesture that just smears plaster and blood into a viscous paste.
Jared is sitting on the floor, propped up against the bed. His long legs are outstretched and Jensen can see a bloody hole in his right thigh. His tanned skin is turned paler than Jensen’s by the layer of dust that covers him, and he has chunks of plaster in his hair. He looks ridiculous. Jared waves the Glock at Jensen in a half-assed salute, still grinning.
“Fucker.” Jensen says, then coughs as the act of speaking dislodges more crap inside his throat.
“You’re welcome,” Jared replies, and laughs again. Jensen can’t help it, he grins back.
::
Epilogue
It hadn’t taken much to persuade the Thunder Bay Police Service that they’d killed Pellegrino in self-defence. Jared’s gunshot wound was clearly not self inflicted, and it was pretty obviously a case of a lone nut-job homophobe deciding to cleanse the world by killing a couple of innocent naked guys for the sin of hooking up. The motel owner was horrified at the mess, but it turned out to everyone’s surprise he was fully insured, so it became an opportunity for the insurance company to fund some much-needed renovations.
The local hospital didn’t hold onto them for long. Jensen’s injuries were largely superficial. Once he had a chance to clean up, most of the blood belonged to Lucifer. Jared insisted on discharging himself after a few days, once they were certain the bullet wound wasn’t infected. Their departure broke a few nurses’ hearts. Thunder Bay General was more used to treating middle-aged tourists for sprained ankles or mosquito bite allergies than young, hot guys with gunshot wounds. This was probably the most excitement Thunder Bay had seen since, well, ever.
Less than a week after Pellegrino’s death, Jensen finds himself in the hospital parking lot, standing in uncomfortable silence while Jared balances on his crutches and pushes his hair out of his eyes. Jensen’s feet are sore and it still hurts to swallow, but thanks to his training with both Special Forces and the Firm, his pain thresholds are ridiculously high. Unfortunately, his training doesn’t have a solution for social awkwardness when he’s not playing a part.
“So…” they both say then stop. They look at each other.
“What now?” Jared asks, with a tentative smile.
“I was thinking, maybe, you might like to come back to my cabin,” Jensen says, wondering why his heart is beating so loud and hoping Jared can’t hear it. “Just while your leg heals,” he adds, hastily, in case he’d sounded too eager. When Jared doesn’t reply straight away, Jensen babbles like a teenager with a crush. It’s undignified for a thirty three year old, hardened ex-assassin, but he can’t seem to stop himself.
“You don’t have to, of course, I just thought it would save you travelling, you know, with a hole in your leg. I’ve got plenty of supplies in, and bought a load of stuff to restock the cabin while I’ve been waiting for you to recover. We needn’t stay there long – I always abandon the place May through September anyhow, because you don’t want to be in the lake region when it’s M-squared season. Man, I made that mistake in my first year here. Never again, I got eaten alive. Mozzies and midges, it’s an insect Armageddon out there, I can tell you.”
He stumbles to a stop when Jared raises a hand.
“Hey, slow down! It sounds like a great idea; but you know what would be an even better idea right now? Sitting down.” Jared’s smile is wide and bright this time, and something inside of Jensen loosens. It’s as if the wind from the northern ice fields suddenly drops and he can feel the spring sunshine warming his skin. A little glow that is perilously close to happiness is blooming in the centre of Jensen’s chest.
Jared looks around the parking lot. “Where’s your car? Please tell me you brought it over. I don’t fancy walking too far.”
“My car. Yeah. Sorry. It’s right here,” Jensen rushes to open the shotgun side of his battered Jeep Wrangler, and helps Jared inside with his crutches, trying not to fuss. Safely stowed, Jensen points them North West out of Thunder Bay. They drive in a comfortable silence for a few miles before Jensen throws Jared a glance.
“I reckon you owe me, Padalecki,” he says, quirking an eyebrow but keeping his voice dead pan. Jared straightens up in his seat, squaring his shoulders. Jensen takes a moment to appreciate their broadness before looking back at the road ahead.
“Is that so? There was I thinking we were all square now, Ackles, seeing as how I saved your life back there.”
“Uh huh,” Jensen agrees, “but I wasn’t talking about that kind of debt, big boy,” he adds, and grins when he sees a faint flush start up Jared’s long neck. “You owe me a story for starters – like how you came to kill Fred Lehne. And I’d appreciate hearing how the rest of the Firm got brought down after that too.”
Jared nods, serious for a second. “Yeah, that’s fair. I’d have filled you in while we were in hospital but there wasn’t much privacy there, so I thought it best to wait.” Which was true enough, Jensen has to give him that one. They hadn’t spoken much over the last few days, apart from making sure they had their stories straight for the local law enforcement.
Jared’s lazy smile is back. It gives Jensen tingles in all the right places, even more so when Jared continues, low and sultry. “I reckon you owe me too though, Ackles.” He pauses and runs his long fingers down his good leg, sprawled out so close to Jensen’s he can feel Jared’s body heat through both pairs of jeans. Jensen swallows.
“Yeah,” Jared says, “I seem to remember you promising me that tongue of yours, all over my body. Just in case you’d forgotten.”
“One thing I can tell you about me, Jared. I’m a man of my word, and I forget nothing,” Jensen says, his voice full of dark promise. There’s a moment’s quiet in the Jeep, the only sounds being the rush of the blacktop under the wheels and the rattling from the stacked supplies in the back. Jared shifts in his seat. Clears his throat.
“So how many miles to this cabin of yours?”
Jensen swears and puts his foot on the gas.
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