Blackshot Ghosts [Closed]

[MysteriousStranger]

She was pulling away. Perhaps not physically, but it was written within her movements, the dullness of her voice. Jaxon could tell.

And it hurt.

Rolling onto his side and resting his arm across his stomach, he simply stared at her for a long moment after her request. As if he only he didn't speak, time wouldn't move forward. Yet even without the clock in Kara's apartment clicking in the background, he knew the sand was slipping through his fingers.

Afraid to talk right away, afraid to make his bared throat too visible, he took his time to stand; his slow movements perhaps resulting from that long shot belief, a desperate attempt to cling to whatever it was he had--or only deluded himself into thinking he had--right now. He gently brushed by her to make his way to the rack on the opposite side of the room, pulled a towel free, and ran it under the sink to wet it. Never once did his eyes lift from either the tile or his hands.

The sound of the water cascading over his fingers drowned out his half-empty thoughts, pushing the doubt-tainted ones down underneath a sea of blankness. It was in that moment that he realized he had spent a majority of his life trying to feel nothing. And in that void nothing could ever grow, but nothing could ever die, either.

He swallowed, turned off the faucet, and with a lowered head, he held out the towel toward her.

"You know, I don't care, Kara. About what you look like. You don't have to be strong for me."

It was stupid. For him, probably for her. The pattern existed, the things that happened to people in his life; his fault or not, it didn't matter. It had started the day he was born, this circle of hell he walked in endlessly.

And yet he still spoke.

"And I'll listen to whatever you have to say. I'll listen, if you'll talk. I want you to talk to me. I want to know--know what's going on inside your head."

But what did it matter, if he had already died in all but the literal sense? He had woken up to the same day for the past few months, isolating himself away from humanity as a whole and his own humanity, as protection, as punishment. What did he have to lose, leaving his walls down, exposing his vulnerability in such a way?

He was feeling something. He wanted to make it go away, her pain, and that urge, the way her current state tore at his very being, was worth baring his throat to her teeth for. He didn't know how, but in the limited way he was taught to show his emotions, he wanted her to know he was trying, reaching out.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Water dripped onto the tiles. With the towel draped across her hand, Kara watched the puddle under it grow until it was the size of a half-dollar. Jaxon's offer cooled just as quickly as the terry cloth, and she knew she had to respond to him. The bathroom was too small to hide in, figuratively or otherwise, and she'd have to face him soon.

"Well, I care," she said, and began a slow and steady scrub at her cheeks. "I don't like looking like Brittney fuckin' Murphy in that Prophecy movie." Folding the towel to find a clean spot, she continued to work at her skin, and although the motion was neither frantic nor violent, it was insistent, bringing an angry red to the surface. She'd been able to shield Jaxon from the sight of Bernard at least, but she hadn't been so fortunate. The image of the dead man was already proving its invasiveness, appearing behind her shuttered eyelids, squeezing itself in between her words in flashes of pale and decay and gaping maw. It wouldn't stop, not anytime soon, and she had no doubt that she was going to wake up sweat-soaked and whimpering from it for many nights to come.

His eyes had been the worst. Black holes, black-stained, smears of hate.

"That was fuckin' stupid of me. Fuckin' stupid." she kept speaking, muffled a little by the cloth. She didn't dare glance at herself in the mirror yet. Even a stray streak of makeup might set her shaking again, too close to those on the monk's flesh. "All of it. You, him, Miguel. It shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't have let him near there." God. Ayden had been right.

Kara shifted where she sat, readying herself to stand. The effort was monumental. Should Jaxon try to help her, she would resist his aid. Leather creaked, lace whispered. Cramped joints complained, and her heart weighed like granite in her boots. Grunting, she cast about for a place to put the towel she'd been given, turning just enough to show her ruddy, paintless profile to the man who'd let her into his home. She continued to speak in her exhausted monotone.

"I only told him he couldn't touch Miguel. Couldn't hurt him, but he--" Kara swirled a finger, indicating the clever-yet-obvious path Bernard had taken around that promise, but gave up when the word eluded her. A thought leaked through the hazy curtain in her mind. She peeked at Jaxon over her shoulder, her brows puckering. He hadn't seen what had happened. He hadn't seen what Bernard had become, nor was she sure Jaxon knew the source of the disturbance in front of Constanza's, although he wasn't so stupid as to be unable to connect the dots. "You didn't see him." That much was obvious.

Jaxon was still functional.

"It was B, you know." She wished she could tack on a genuine, "but not", but that wouldn't wash. Not in light of the truth, it wouldn't. "Worse than when I first found him."

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Oh.

Jaxon had an inkling of the thought even before Kara enlightened him; it was one of the reasons he had hidden the axe underneath his bed. The dead monk had triggers, as she told him before, and that act on the street displayed just enough danger and volatility to make Jaxon weary, cautious. And that was what had saved Ayden from his brother's wrath; currently the dead marine offered an extra set of eyes, making him useful. The more troubling part was the indication of what Kara had seen that shook her so. From Ayden's broken form and Bernard's sharing of his fate, Jaxon knew it was...haunting.

It felt like the ground shattered beneath his feet, and for a moment he was falling. His gut clenched, a sickening pain seeping into his very soul.

It plagued him most nights: the image of Maxson's shotout head. The meat and blood that had splattered across Jaxon's face. It wasn't even the worst he had witnessed overseas, but it had borrowed itself deep within his mind like a parasite.

Others had similar demons, told stories. It never went away.

He inhaled deeply.

Fuck.

He didn't want that for her.

He exhaled, reaching a hand out to softly rest against her shoulder, as if testing the waters.

"I'm sorry, Kara." It felt so fucking useless. "That you saw him like that. That he--did that."

He had his share of blame for the way he gunned after Miguel, but at the moment, he could've killed B, had the monk not already been dead.

His jaw clenched before loosening for speech. "But it's not your fault. Bernard and I? We make our own decisions. What comes of them is for us to bear. The blame falls on us. Not you. You weren't the one in Miguel's face. You weren't the one to scare him shitless. Our decisions. Push or not, we were both capable of resisting." His voice, though soft, was strong, as if he spoke it sternly enough, she would take it to heart. She didn't need that guilt, not when it laid before his own feet and B's.

He pressed his tongue into his cheek, lowering his head. It was shame that was buried within the furrow of his brow, the hole left within his gaze. "And I'm sorry for my part, Kara. But I wasn't going to hit him. He backed down, so I wasn't going to hit him. I want you to know that...But, I--I shouldn't have insisted. You wanted to walk away, and I should've listened."

That was all he'd say in his defense. No excuses. It was what it was, and perhaps it was the way he was wired, but the only thing he regretted was what it had all done to Kara. And something deep underneath his skin, well-hidden and chained, threw fault at Miguel, the man who had begun the cycle, and craved hurt for hurt. But he bit it down, even if it made his blood flare with a flame left unburnt.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Water ringed the drain in the tub. Kara wondered how long it had been there, how much of it had evaporated since Jaxon's last shower. Did he use the place to think or for the loss of thought? His hand stirred her from her musings which had trickled in on the heels of her uglier memories--the ones which were so freshly made and the subject of what J was currently apologizing for. Her fingertips brushed his, then swept them gently off her shoulder so that she could sidle over to the sink. She had to keep her mind from tunneling. If she focused on the toothpaste splatters fanning across the bottom of the mirror instead of him, she wouldn't have to remember the screaming, rotten thing called Bernard. It'd be so easy just to shut everything off and to stare at the dimples in the grout instead of being here.

But that way was exhausting, too. She pulled herself back from that path and stared herself in the eye, frowning at how vulnerable her reflection looked without makeup. Her pinky took care of one last little mark on the apple of her cheek, and she sighed. Wrinkled her nose. And began to correct the lopsided mess that was her hair.

"We both fucked up," she murmured. Therein lay the only forgiveness she'd offer. An equal culpability, both ends of the field salted and burned. "It won't happen again. But," she re-clipped her hair into the mourning brooch, having restored her bangs to their former severity, "you're wrong. You make your own decisions. You're capable of resisting. Bernard..." she exhaled in a huff and turned around. Her jaw moved; she chewed on the inside of her cheek, a glimmer of worry on her face. Her lips parted, closed, then opened again. Her hand clasped her reliquary, seeking the connection she felt with the monk, knuckles whitening when it wouldn't come. When she spoke, it was quietly, slowly. "Bernard isn't human, not anymore. You are. B, your brother, that fucker Seamus? They're all broken, twisted into something different from what they used to be. Like..."

She floundered for a parallel, her scowl deepening until she lifted her hand to try and trace out her thoughts. "Screw it, I dunno. Like men who've been through hell and died and now they're powered by the hate or love or revenge or whatever last thing they felt was. Bernard might seem put back together, kintsugi, but underneath it all he's still an echo of his guilt and his vengance, and he's tied to me." Pinching the reliquary, she held it up for Jaxon to see. The toe bone clinked in its glass housing. "He's got a radius, and it's not just around his bones anymore. Just like your brother's tied to you." It sounded stupid, saying it out loud, but she pushed on. Releasing the necklace, she put her palm against Jaxon's stomach, an apology for her next words. "It's like PTSD but... worse? Bigger. Simpler, maybe. Your breaks might be a part of you, J, but you're not a break. Which is why it is my fault for what happened to Miguel. For what... for what Bernard..."

became

"It's my job to help keep him together, not lead him into situations where he'll explode, you get me?" Blowing out a lip-shuddering puff of air, she asked, "Is there any chance that any of that made sense?"

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Maybe Jaxon was incapable of understanding, so bound by guilt and duty, haunted and damned when it combined with unyielding loyalty. It sounded like the excuses that had once lined up on his own tongue, and that fell from the mouths of people he’d been at odds with. He didn’t like psychologists, refused to deal with them at all, because they were nothing more than brokers of justifications. Perhaps he needed that thin sense of control, even if it didn’t alter his actions. He might not be good, but at least he never claimed to be.

Even simpler, he hadn’t yet altered his world-view to adjust to the paranormal, and a deeply human resistance didn’t want to budge it.

A low, drawn-out grunt escaped from his lips, and his gaze dropped down to her hand. The words that followed her touch were met with a twitch of his brow, and the rigid clenching of his jaw. He swallowed down the automatic urge to deny her suggestion, even if denying his warrior’s bane was getting harder than it was before.

Her question was answered only with another grunt.

He raised his hand to place over hers, brushing his thumb across her skin. Noting how his palm consumed her fingers within its span, he took a few seconds to push aside what arose within him from the speaking of the name of his curse, and his eyes softened, his teeth relinquishing their hold on one another.

“The definition of being human is fucking up,” he said quietly. “And you’re living your life for other people—Bernard, strangers—that warrants mistakes. But if you don’t roll with the punches—or however you want to put it, pick up the pieces?—you’ll end up-“

His mouth shut abruptly, and he inhaled sharply. Finally, his eyes lifted to meet her own, and his empty hand lifted to rub along his jawline. “-Like me.”

His tongue clicked to the roof of his mouth, and then felt heavy. His throat made a rumbling noise, as he glanced off into the mirror. Made it easier to confess his shame this way, without watching her directly. “I made the call. The call that got Maxson killed. And two others.”

And he spent every night trapped within nightmares, violent reminders of his greatest failure. He was plagued by the guilt born of the bloody cycle of war, which birthed muddied decisions in gray that people on the outside claimed to be black-or-white, but they didn’t know.

He shook his head. “We all have our downfalls. Shit, I don’t know how to explain this. I don’t have any cut and dry philosophical bullshit of an answer. But I want you to be careful about letting that kind of guilt swallow you whole, yeah?”

Hesitantly, he looked back at her face, taking time to absorb its shape, her features, when it was bare of the armor she wore to face the world. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re fucking beautiful without the make-up. I think you’re a fucking beautiful person, fuck-ups and all.”

 

[CastoffCaptain]

They'd hit a wall. Kara didn't have the reserves to mask her disappointment. Of anyone she'd spoken to about her talents-- and she could count those on one hand-- she'd expected him to get it. A lifetime of observation and introspection had led her to that understanding of the dead, and while the average idiot on the street might not be able to comprehend the complex simplicity of a specter's being, she'd laid her bets on Jaxon to do the opposite. It was like explaining the mechanism of breathing to a statue; for Kara, it simply was, but his refusal to accept or believe, whether by choice or by nature, closed off a door in Kara's mind.

That he misjudged her --if you don't roll with the punches-- galled her, and this, too showed when her jaw jutted out in silent defiance of the notion. Her silence proclaimed that she'd let that one slide, but only for now. They barely knew each other. No matter how much she'd told him so far, he practically knew fuck all about her when it came down to it. And yet, in his own clumsy, man-handling, bear-grumbling way, Jaxon was attempting to protect her by giving her advice she already knew. Kara glanced down at her boots to keep her rolling eyes from offending. She owed him that much.

Besides. Could the choir preach to the preacher?

His next volley of fuck-filled praise caught her off-guard. Her head snapped up, her eyes wide with shock that quickly melted into something less open, but nevertheless voided of their former irritated obstinance. He'd inadvertently redirected any further explanations she might have about Bernard and kintsugi and the rest, and in doing so, had kept her from closing off any more mental doors.

Exhausted, puffy-faced and looking slightly mauled by the last half-hour, Kara shook her head at him patted his side just above his hip. She used a belt-loop in his jeans to pull him closer.

"I look like shit, Jaxon Theodore, and if you say otherwise I'll punch you in the tits." Kara swallowed, wincing at the ache in her throat. "I don't know how long B will be gone, but your brother's still here. I can sense him. You know, that whole: you ever feel the prickly things on the back of your neck? thing," she quoted, then paused. "And..." her bottom lip found its way between her teeth, turned pale where she clamped down hard on it. For a split second, it seemed as though she were listening to something. A roll of her shoulder, a word muttered under her breath, and she flushed the toilet she'd neglected from before. Hunger would creep up on her at any moment, but for now, stress still dampened her appetite.

"And I guess we gotta do the thing," she said in reference to the all-too-soon-to-happen meeting of his friends she'd promised. A spike of bitterness jabbed its way into Kara's thoughts. She wondered how he'd react if she rolled with the punches and saved herself from living her life for him just this once, and just walked. But the guilt which result from that... As Marnie would have put it, that dog shit wouldn't float. "You ready?"

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Jaxon could read the subtle changes in someone's facial and body movements, suggestions that they may be a danger. His skills of perception were sharp, trained to track threats, to judge if a man was reaching for death. But reading into them, understanding the thoughts that created them? He was at a loss. And now, watching Kara, he had a sinking feeling that he had said the wrong thing, because connecting, talking in a way that meant something, came as naturally to him as nuclear physics to a caveman.

And he couldn't understand how or why it was so fucking hard.

His eyes drifted down to his boots, examining the peeled leather near his toes with an expression just shy of shame, until her threat brought a small, tired smile to his lips. "Then go ahead and take your shot, 'cause I disagree." He leaned forward to gently press his lips against her forehead, before promptly moving to exit the bathroom.

Yet instead of heading in the direction of the door, he walked behind the kitchen island, and threw open the refrigerator. After scouring the shelves, he pulled forth a bottle of water, and slid it across the countertop in offering.

While the task at hand was still in his mind--the image of his brother made it hard to forget, and even if he wanted to run, he couldn't do that to Leo or Stella--he felt the urge to say something. It was odd, considering that saying something had been where he went wrong, where, it seemed, he always went wrong. Words were his damnation, and he cursed their absence in his history. He wished he could rip out the muddled emotions that ran through his body for her to see.

Yet he tried again, starting with a bit of hesitance. "Yeah, but, uh, before we head downstairs..." He threw a glance at Ayden, who had meandered to sit in the chair by the other woman in Jaxon's life, Arabella (the guitar), before taking in a deep breath, and letting it out slowly. "I think it's pretty obvious that I'm not--Well, I hardly ever say the right thing, or do the right thing, but I care. I do care."

It was hard admitting incompetence, to show the void left behind where so many things should be. But the woman before him warranted more than perhaps he was able to give, yet he wanted to. Because she had seen him break, had to know of the sins that hid behind it, and yet...was still there.

Titling his head to the side, he cleared his throat, rapping his knuckles against the wooden top of the island. "I want to understand, Kara, you. And I want to know. I want to be able to shoulder part of your pain--" He grunted, shook his head. "--Not because I think you need me to, but because I want to."

Then he paused, gaze dropping down to focus on the wood beneath his palms. His fingers reached out to pick at a chipped piece of paint. "I'm just new to this shit. In more ways than one. I need you to be patient." Seeing an opportunity to ease the burden of his admittance, he looked up with a lopsided grin. "For you to bear with me."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Kara leaned too far into the peck on her forehead and almost stumbled forward when Jaxon abruptly left. Blinking in his absence, she took a moment to scowl one more time at herself in the mirror. Sharp lines and furrows, flint instead of silk. Even had the bathroom lights not been so harsh, the effect would've still been sobering. Barry had a word for women like her. Hard. Backing away from her reflection, she allowed her features to fall into a more neutral expression and was startled by the difference. She turned and followed Jaxon into the hallway.

Two steps out and she skittered sideways, lifting her feet high with a choked grunt-squeal. "Th' hell is--?" She half-squatted, peering down at the rug until her eyes adjusted to the dimness and the pattern made sense. Standing, she grudgingly muttered, "That's just creepy."

Wandered into Jaxon's living space, she tried her best to keep the frown from her face. If J thought she was pretty-- no, beautiful, there was a difference-- then she could damned well make the effort to live up to his belief.

All around her were facets of him. From the vinyls on the bookshelves to the chair under the window, she was surrounded by him in object form. She'd expected him to be messier, somehow, although the apartment could by no means be called immaculate. A combination of awe and humility crept in under the sodden mental blanket of exhaustion weighing her down. Like her, he hardly seemed the type to let just anyone breach his inner sanctum--which, judging by his decor, she'd bet her last dime he'd call it just that--and that he'd brought her here without hesitation revealed a depth of trust neither of them had fully plumbed.

Kara gave Ayden a long, unreadable look while she shrugged out of her long coat and folded it neatly over the back of a chair. The bottle Jaxon slid to her cooled her overheated cheeks and eyes.

"Don't judge me by who's judged you before, J," she said. The implication against his brother was present, although subtle in tone and delivery. "You might not understand everything right now, just like I wouldn't be able to figure out how to break down a gun with just a single explanation. It'll come or it won't, and that's fine." Because she was all too used to being misunderstood, she could have added, but that would have smacked too closely of poor me, and that wasn't happening. Cracking open the water bottle, she tipped back several full swallows before she put it down and circled the island to take Jaxon's hand. "I know you're new to this. Both of you are. Some of this is new to me, too, you know. I've never met anyone who really sees like I do, at least not anyone who's not also nuts." Both hands now clasped his one, her thumbs coming to rest between his knuckles, gingerly brushing his battered skin. "Keep it in perspective, huh? We've only known each other a day. I mean, hell, what's going to happen when I tell you I've never read a comic book in my life?"

Her grin was weak, but it teased a corner of her mouth upward. "It better not be to smack me. You've got big paws." She turned his hand over and nipped the underside of it, her breath hot on his palm. It was unspoken assurance that she was, in fact, joking about the request.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Habits were formed from experiences. Beliefs and ideas reinforced each time they were uttered. He wouldn't ever dare to admit it, but the judgements given by his blood had more effect, more power over him, than words ever should. Kara had wasted her breath on explanations before--it'll come or it won't--and he wondered how often. And there in that stand-off of subconsciouses, both of their iron-forged histories locked against one another, his mind gave just enough ground to see the beginning of a realization.

One day. Yet so much could happen in a lonesome day. Time was needed, like a train rolling toward its destination, but its original course had been changed; while the locomotive had been sitting still before, it now moved steadily somewhere down the tracks. Jaxon didn't know exactly where it would take him, but there was some solace to be had moving forward, one way or another, instead of waiting. Even if the unknown was inherently dangerous.

Perspective. His head tilted slightly at the word. He considered it, rolling it around the tip of his tongue as if tasting it. For now, it was pocketed within his mind, and his eyes travelled down to examine Kara's face. His lips titled to mirror her grin, a small rumbling of a chuckle rising in his throat. Seeing them most days, he hadn't considered the comic posters that decorated his walls; Leo joked that they were the reason Jaxon didn't bring many women up there, and in a round about way, that was partially true. These walls were a sanctuary, and within them, he didn't have to turn himself into stone; they were home to things that showed the human underneath the warrior, and only a select few were allowed the sight.

The former SEAL's mouth opened just so, but the retort he had ready to fire didn't have the chance to be heard. Her mouth against his palm, breath tingling against his skin, made for the best kind of a distraction, and the words he had formed were quickly forgotten. His hand tilted to rest against her cheek, thumb brushing over her lips. His grin tugged into a smirk. The floorboards creaked under the weight of his boots as he took a step forward, closing the gap between their bodies. "Only if you're into that." The words were rough, escaping his throat as little more than a grunt.

The sound was echoed in the near corner of the room, yet was tinged with disgust. Jaxon paid no mind to his brother's protest, didn't even shift his gaze as the marine made his way to exit the apartment through the front door.

With an amused huff of air that was just shy of an actual laugh, Jaxon lowered his head to trail a line of kisses along her jaw. Lips wandering across the skin of her neck, he halted abruptly in his affections. A frown twisted his expression, and drawing back, he narrowed his eyes at the path the specter had taken outside.

Ayden had waited so deliberately until Jaxon's back had been turned to reappear. It had been a sly move, odd for one who valued transparency so highly, and extremely suspect. Mouth twitching to form a snarl for the briefest of moments, Jaxon turned his gaze back onto Kara. "Did he say something? Do something?"

 

[CastoffCaptain]

A heartbeat standing frozen exposed Kara's tell. His suggestion, underlined even as it was with humor, traced an inner shudder of desire throughout her body. They'd hardly breached the first layer of what she was into, and now that they were here in the safety of his apartment-- a turn-on in itself--his words sparked a fire. It didn't matter that Ayden sat a stone's throw away. She responded to Jaxon's kisses with an eagerness muted by exhaustion but fueled by the despair into which she'd been so recently plunged. Gasping at the heat of his lips, her fingers dug into the small of his back, demanding he press closer.

Lovemaking. Sex. Fucking. Blind lust and reconciling, pitying and obligated. There were so many kinds, so many ways of joining together, all with different means to an end and different reasons to begin. There was a rawness in Kara, exposed by Bernard's change. It bordered on fragility, and she clung to Jaxon with the knowledge that to make love to him now, here, as open as she was, would lead to healing.

His withdrawal broke that hope. Confusion settled slowly on her face, and at first it was clear she had no idea of whom he spoke.

"--He?"

She blinked, and then swiveled to peer at the chair Ayden had so recently occupied. The flush in her cheeks deepened, her brows furrowing while she averted her eyes in an attempt to buy herself time to answer.

A simple yes wouldn't do. That would lead to more questions. A yes with an explanation would fare no better; should she insist that nothing much had happened would scream of a lie, and the bare truth would send Jaxon exploding out into the hall after him. It wouldn't matter if she explained truthfully that Ayden's threats had left no impression upon her, nor would J care if she told him she'd taken care of it herself. His pride and his protectiveness would slam a bigger wedge between all of them, and now was not the time for division.

Unless that his plan. Subconscious or not, perhaps he was setting up a roundabout and violent means to avoid the meeting she knew he dreaded in his bones. His sudden question might just be an emotional sabotage of a man at whom he was furious as much for dying as he was for what he'd done in his lifetime.

With her chin tilted toward Jaxon's boots, Kara closed her eyes and centered herself. Her hands drifted from where they'd laced behind him and came to rest against his stomach, butterfly-light. Her left one explored the edge of his shirt before sliding beneath it to trail a circling pattern over his heated skin. The other inched lower on a path to deliberate distraction. Finding her goal, her gaze snapped up and locked on his, her intent smoldering like a blaze in a coal mine.

"You're the only man I see right now, Jaxon Theodore," Kara whispered, then gave him a gentle but insistent squeeze. His anger could wait. "You."

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Ayden was forgotten as if he had never existed.

With one look from Kara, Jaxon’s world collapsed upon itself until there was nothing but her and him. Standing before each other. Fire fueling fire. Her words, her touch, brought to life a passion and desire he thought was long dead, buried under his burdens.

He lifted her up, hands moving to support her weight, and pressed her body firmly against his. His lips parted for speech, and in little more than a rumble, he answered her bluntly, “I want you.”

*****​

Jaxon hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights, but even with the clouds covering the sun outside, the room was illuminated with a dim winter glow. The snow on the other side of the window had been left undisturbed, piled up on the fire escape that he had often fled to when he needed air. The apartment was still and serenely quiet, as if time itself had stopped to give them this respite from reality.

He wished he could just lay there, by her side, in the bed he never really felt comfortable sharing with anyone else, and forget the pain and responsibility that awaited him below. While he knew he couldn’t escape it, he let his mind be at ease and his soul rest, if only for these few, fleeting, precious moments. In that void of thought, where there was silence in his head, but his self was hardly quiet, he came to a decision.

Sex was rarely anything more to him than a physical outlet, and yet, in his own sheets nonetheless, he had connected with a woman he had been barring his teeth at not twenty-four hours ago. And his life was moving forward once more, though the darkened skies clouded the destination, and he was no longer just breathing to stay alive in the barest of definitions. He had felt something through his walled-off hurt, and that was distinctly powerful.

After tracing his fingers gingerly across her bare skin, he kissed her softly, before finding the will to slide out of bed. Scrambling past discarded clothes, he threw a glance at the clock on the dresser to check the time, and reached inside the drawers to retrieve a fresh pair of underwear and jeans. As he dressed the lower half of his body, he looked over his shoulder, and stumbled out the sentence, “I, uh, want to give you something.”

His head tilted, hand lifted to ruffle the mess of hair upon his scalp, and he kneeled before the bottom of the bed, pulling out the old footlocker to rummage through its contents. A satisfied grunt announced that he had found what he was looking for, and with the small, rectangular, wooden box in hand, he rounded the corner to take a seat.

His fingers tapped against the lid, a hard sound that spoke of the craftsmanship of the container. Watching her out of the corner of his eye, like he was afraid to look at her directly, he opened it, and placed it upon the sheets. The profile of George Washington, planted in the middle of purple metal trimmed with gold, gazed in her direction.

“For your shelf,” he explained, yet found himself at a loss to go further.

Perhaps nothing more needed to be said.

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Existence narrowed to touch, to smell, to snatches of breath and the starry expanse of sheets. Here, small spaces became infinite, an entire world laid out for her in the length and breadth of a bed. Kara wrapped herself around Jaxon when they finished, twining her feet between his ankles, snaking an arm beneath his elbow and another around his waist. Her tiredness had lifted, taking with it the grief she'd carried for Bernard-- for it was grief, she'd realized-- grief for the anguish that had driven him to such brutal devices he'd used against Miguel. It would get better. Time and patience would allow for that and give them both a chance to heal.

Right now was her time, however, and Jaxon's.

When he roused himself, she made a show of resisting, making her body as limp and heavy as possible so that he might not shift himself out from under her. Her head thumped on the pillow, defeated. Half-hidden behind a drift of sheets, her jet black gaze followed his progress toward his dresser, then widened in mock disappointment upon seeing him begin to clothe himself once more. She was ready with a retort when he spoke, but hesitated. It was the way he'd said it that stopped her, more than any variation in expression or the way he carried himself. Sitting up, she coiled her necklace chain around her thumb and watched Jaxon hunt for whatever object it was he wanted to give
her, silently appreciating his beauty in both body and simplicity.

The gift stunned her. Where before she chose not to speak, now the sight of the medal buried her ability to do so.

Kara tilted her head away from the Purple Heart, staring at it sidelong as if disbelieving its presence, her brows pulled tight toward one another. She shook her head, but the action died immediately. In the quiet that followed, Kara sat completely still.

Nothing she could say could keep him from turning over to her something so precious. She now knew a fraction of its story and how hard-won it had come to Jaxon, and to take it from him so soon into their relationship (for lack of a better word, she realized) seemed to border on blasphemy. And yet, so did any refusal of it. It was more than just metal and ribbon. It was less than the heart nearly stopped by a bullet. It was heavy and it was painful, everything and nothing, and for the first time in a long, long time, Kara had no idea of how to react.

She remembered to breathe. With that accomplished, she peered up at him through her eyelashes. His face revealed naught but sincerity. For him, perhaps, his scar was reminder enough of the sacrifice he'd made for his country.

No.

Not for his country. For the men he called brothers. The ones whose names he'd branded into his back to carry with him forever.

Kara cleared her throat and swallowed. The medal was remarkably cool beneath her fingers. "No. It can't go there," she said, drawing close enough to him to rest her cheek on his shoulder. "Those shelves are for the people I'm finished with."

Folding her hands around the Purple Heart, Kara bit her lip. If she stared only at her toes which were curling pale and delicate against Jaxon's sheets right now, she could keep her composure intact.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

It was unusual, this feeling of timidity that crept underneath Jaxon’s skin like a plaguing parasite of uncertainty. He was a man of action, and yet, too afraid—of what he didn’t know—to look her in the eye, he was frozen, staring at the tattoos on his knuckles, though he watched for her reaction from his peripheral vision.

Finally, with her words offering reassurance, he tilted his head to gaze down at her. A genuine smile graced his lips, free of humor, smugness, and other deflections of deep emotion. Lifting his arm to wrap around her shoulders, he pulled her toward his center, and nuzzled into the crook of her neck. He was content to stay like that, holding her, soaking in the freeing feeling of having a burden shrugged off his shoulders. Damn the whole world. In this quiet moment, Kara brought him peace.

It was a shuddering realization, to see that nothingness wasn’t peace. That emptiness wasn’t silence. That his last year of denial and banishment—defense mechanisms that brought more harm than good, but had been etched into his psyche from the very beginning—had left him hollow, to the point that he wasn’t ever sure he could recover, and yet-

He could feel his heart beating in his chest, the warmth of her skin, and he could hear the air that left their lungs in between breaths of life. They were both alive, a revelation that shouldn’t have been so shocking but was. And it was so very powerful, shaking him to his core, to be reminded of his own humanity—that sometimes he needed just to breathe.

There was so much pain between the two of them, some ancient and buried, some recent and exposed, but those hardships that had forged them into who they were hardly mattered within these few falling grains of the hourglass. It almost made him laugh with joy, the thought that his attempts to share her burdens hadn’t been futile after all. To learn that he was capable of so much more.

With a kiss against her jaw, he pulled back from the embrace, moving his hands to cup either of her cheeks. Running his fingers gently across her skin, exploring the features of her face, his eyes took in the curves of her body, the beauty displayed before him like art. It was more than physical, so much more, and he was so foreign to the rawness of it that it almost made him uneasy.

“You are very fucking beautiful, Kara,” he whispered. His left hand dropped to rest its back against her chest, where he could feel the beating of her heart. It was a gentle gesture, warm, but free of the heat that had blazed through them both before. “In more ways than one.”

She was given another small smile, one that tugged at the corner of his mouth, and unveiled a trace amount of affectionate amusement that was mirrored in the subtle glimmer within his bright eyes. “Take your shot.”

 

[CastoffCaptain]

****
every little girl's dream is a big teddy bear
maybe he would hold my hand
maybe he would hurt me
he's the only one who knows
I'm down on my knees
****

Jaxon's whisper exhumed a memory she thought she'd lost to time.

Father Daniels at the head of the classroom, smelling of cigarettes and incense and Old Number Seven, perched on the edge of his desk. His face craggy before its time, his goatee and ginger hair peppered with gray. Watching her while he told the story of Jericho. Waiting. Gauging her reaction. Knowing she was the only one listening, knowing she was the only one who'd hear between the words he said and what he didn't. Patient. Patient.

Father Daniels had been an untangler. He'd gathered up the threads of other people's lives by listening, by seeing, and had picked at the snarls with his humor and insight until the knots started to loosen.

Jericho. How could a fucking horn bring down walls? That's stupid.

It's an allegory, Kara. It's about sounds and emotions, ideas and fear. Think about it.

She'd tossed that day aside under the rubble of her own battles, too young and unwilling to comprehend the subtlety of his message. Two weeks later and Summer set her free, and he'd transfered to another parish the next school year. Cradled now in Jaxon's warmth, his hands exploring her face and her beating heart, Kara began to understand Father Daniel's message. She kept all but the barest happiness hidden behind her stoic mask, but it surfaced, incapable of being completely dampened.

The sound of it--that he found her beautiful, body, soul, everything-- was like a steady, fortress-shattering note of uncomplicated, righteous belief. It was a conviction of the purest sort, and if he believed it, then perhaps she could, too. She smiled a little and caught his left hand in hers, no longer able to fire back at him in defense of her time-hardened core.

"Can't. I might slip and hit that pretty face of yours," she said, making a fist around the medal she held to demonstrate. "Then you couldn't say such nice things. Besides. You might be into that, and if so, we'd be here all day. Not that that would be so bad."

Except for Ayden. Except for Bernard. Except for everything else dark and ugly waiting outside the apartment.

"Except at some point, I'm going to be so hungry I'd eat the hind leg off a baby."

Kara blinked slowly and unfolded herself from where she sat, her movements languid, satiated. Standing, she froze halfway to where her clothes lay crumpled and angled an ear toward the floor. One more step forward, and she did so again. Turned a fraction. Scooped up her underwear and bra, hesitated one last time, and shook herself, muttering under her breath. Gathering up the rest of her clothing, she found Jaxon's gaze and gave him a self-conscious shrug after a moment of uncertainty. Old habits died hard-- remembering that she could explain her oddities to him wouldn't come easy, not for a long time.

"Listening," she said. "No B yet. Ayden's out there." A faint twitch under her eye, her tongue held between her teeth, and then-- "Mmnf." A shrug, dismissing a hunch. She tossed her clothes on the bed beside Jaxon and placed the medal carefully on his dresser before sitting down beside him. They'd be moving soon enough. For now, however, she basked in the warmth of his body.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Even with how slight it was, Kara's smile was genuine, unlike most of the ones Jaxon had seen over the years. Some had been lies of compassion, part of masks put on to hide pain, to reassure friends. Others had concealed malicious intent, had been deceptive and manipulative, tools used to pull wool over eyes. The sincerity of hers was deeply intoxicating, and he couldn't help but mimic the expression. Giving her hand a gentle squeeze, he decided he wanted to see it more often, as often as he could.

His head tilted, a single brow lifted, intrigued, and lips parted just so, tilting into the beginnings of a playful smirk, in a way that silently agreed no, that wouldn't be too bad.

But time was never any man's friend.

Leaning lazily back against the footboard with an exhalation of air containing a hint of disappointment, his eyes traced Kara's motions as she made her way across the floorboards, watching in admiration and, after her first pause, curiosity. It took a moment for what she meant by 'listening' to sink in--the solemn fate of their circumstances having slipped to the back of his mind during their respite--but when it hit, he gave her small nod. And all the unpleasant things tied to the name Ayden, both repressed and apparent, caused his gaze to dim.

Jaxon had never been one to play victim; he always took whatever hand he'd been dealt, and played it with a rebellious, stubborn refusal to fold that could only be described as pride. Yet now, sitting in this twilight with her, the odds stacked against him were distinctively starting to bother him, and for the first time in a long while, the observation of the rigged game left a taste of ash on his tongue. He wanted to lash out at the unfairness of it all, but he knew that was a futile, maddening road to walk down.

So he simply tried to stay in the moment, wanting to draw out this time, their time. He took her within his arms, lightly brushing his hand down her back, and rested his cheek against the top of her head. Nuzzling into her hair, he breathed in the mixture of her distinct scent and the same musk of recent passion that clung to his skin. Yet dread still crept into the corner of his thoughts like a wolf at the edge of a campfire. With each heartbeat forward, the hell that waited for him below became harder to ignore.

"Mm." His jaw shifted in thought, and then he continued to mumble, "Well, I might have a microwavable pizza. And I make a mean sandwich. And toast. If you're feeling fancy, I'll even slap some peanut butter on it, just for you." Lips forming a half-hearted grin, a chuckle of the same magnitude escaped from his throat. "Anything more than that we're goin' have to go downstairs for, and hope Thornation isn't too pissy to take pity on us. Hell, to spite me, he'd probably feed you a nine course meal and let me starve."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

"Ha, no," Kara answered with a crumple-nosed look of disgust and shimmied out of his grasp, giving his raven a pinch. She was far enough gone from her recent expulsion in the bathroom that her stomach had settled, but Maverick's list of homemade delicacies threatened to make it roil once again. "I don't... I don't peanut butter. Ever."

It hadn't meant to happen, the flash-forward contemplation of what future meals might be like with him, but there it was. Cooking for him, discovering just how far he'd venture out of the realm of burgers and fries, and if he was a custard-lite wimp or a ghost-pepper madman. It was a dash of domesticity sprinkled into the surreal makeup of her life. She smiled at the thought, turning away to partially hide the expression while wriggling into her clothes so that maybe, just once, she'd be able to savor the moment without fate snatching it away from her.

At least for this heartbeat.

Her mind backtracked over what he'd said, stumbled over the name he'd mentioned, and did a full reverse. "Thorwhatwhat?"

Ah.

"Hang on," she said, her voice muffled under the shirt she dragged over her head. "The big blonde beefcake who knows how to work his grin on the customers?"

Kara was relying on a faded memory, a sliver of time nearly dusted and done. Miguel with a beer, as exotic to his hipster tastebuds as he could get in the ancient little bar, and she with a French 75 in her hand.

Just one, she'd said, feeling the press of bodies too heavy all around her. Then we go. The bar hadn't been overcrowded, but there were just enough unfamiliar faces to keep her senses off-kilter, especially the one most important to her in new territory.

It's a 'Limearita', Miguel had grinned in that sun-blindingly beautiful way, absolutely enchanted by his cheap libation. I guess Budweiser's branching out. He'd noticed her discomfort then, despite her attempts to mask it, and had reached for her fisted hand. I'll hurry. But this place is great! I can't believe you've never been.

Yeah, well, she'd answered, grateful that Bernard was at his own personal Compline, for the massive, attractive beast behind the bar would have certainly sent him into... well... some sort of unpleasant fit. I can see the appeal.

And that had been the extent of her attention paid to anyone more than Miguel and the occasional patron who'd wandered past their table in the corner. Leo existed as a blur of hair and height and handsome and little more.

"I've been here once with the dumbass," she admitted, and jammed a foot into her boot. But whether Jaxon had been there as well was a mystery; would she have noticed him then, before his brother's death? Would she have given him a second thought? She'd barely done so yesterday when forced to do so. So many threads of existence interwoven in so many strange and wondrous ways. Kara marvled at them behind a facade of calmness. Cutting a sly glance at him, Kara bit down on a smirk. "I'd like to see the bar again with you, though, just to, I dunno... put it in a different light. Because..."

She faltered. Jaxon's dread showed in the angle of his shoulders, the exhaustion in his gaze. Putting her thumb in the space between his bottom lip and his chin, she forged on in a quiet voice, where only a moment before she would have shut down and ended on a joke. Nevertheless, the words didn't come easy, and her stumbling explanation made her feel worse than a fool.

"Because y'know. I'll be there with you. And uh-- Everything's...everything's different with you. Not as... as dark. And it has been before you."

Because for as long as whatever it was they had together lasted, it would be enough to light the bleakest of chasms.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Watching with resistance in his gaze as Kara escaped his hold and once more donned her clothing, a low grumble of protest resonated within Jaxon’s throat. It took every ounce of willpower in his body to slide to the edge of the bed and plant his feet on the floor; each muscle movement was consciously commanded to be made, so great was his reluctance to start the clock once again, to leave the safety and comfort of this room. To end this dream-like time he had spent with her.

He damned the world and its rigged, invisible gears that twisted and turned his fate.

His head tilted at the mention of Leo--her description so accurate of the man, he knew it could be no other--and a small sound of interest escaped his lips, “Huh.” He could only imagine what shit the Viking had given the dumbass, the look Ayden must’ve given the Viking to try to deter his antics, and if he, the self-made outsider in a place that had once offered sanctuary, had been there at all, and if so, if he’d even paid any mind to the beautiful gem of the woman that captured his attention now.

Those days blended together in a mess of bleak colors, all seemingly the same. When he could muster it, he had lied through his teeth, and given his family fake smiles. When he couldn’t, he simply hadn’t shown up at all, escaping to places where he could be isolated. He knew it hurt them, it hadn’t been intentional, but he simply didn’t know how, nor wanted, to show vulnerability, weakness.

A smartass comment sat on the tip of his tongue--an observation on how the bar’s change of lighting was most likely due to the bulbs that had died since then--but was muted by Kara’s confession and her small, single touch that had the capability of sending fire mixed with electricity throughout his entire body. And her words, simple and sincere, offered shelter from the coming storm. The dread was still there, but his legs didn’t fight him as he stood.

Finding a response that could even begin to explain the fury of emotion raging throughout him seemed like an impossible task. At first, he merely rested his forehead against hers, eyes down on his bare feet, and swallowed, struggling to even start. “After…It was like I never woke up, after-Like I had died in the sand.” He grunted, and closed his eyes. “But you make me feel alive.”

In the pause that followed, one of his hands lifted to brush against her cheek, the other to curl against her back. “And I am tempted to throw you back in that bed so I can make you feel everything that I do—again.”

He gave her one quick kiss that certainly didn’t lack heat, that told of the life he spoke of, composed of both pain and joy, regret and determination. He ended it curtly, not wanting to push his weakening self-control, and withdrew to retrieve both a short and long-sleeved shirt from his dresser. “But we’ve got people to see.”

After throwing on those articles of clothing, he slipped on his boots, and after tightening the laces, gave her a longful look. Inhaled, extending this last second. Exhaled, and asked softly, “Ready?”

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Kara didn't curb her urge to stare at Jaxon when he stood up. Her eyes drifted from his mouth down to his toes, idling along a curve here, a tattoo there, unabashedly immodest. They were long past modesty, the two of them, and he'd been staring at her just as much as she was right now. It was a gaze wherein no lust couched, however. It simply couldn't exist, not after their lovemaking had temporarily satiated it. Not after simply being with him filled an emptiness. Kara watched him in silent, stone-faced admiration of both his physicality and his self until for a sliver of a millisecond, something occurred to her.

Having him in his totality-- his brokenness, his reluctant open moments, his sixth sense which faintly echoed her own--everything about him (save the peanut butter) meant one thing. She was lucky.

Kara smashed the lid down on that thought in an instant. To think it was to tempt fate, and to that she sounded off a resounding fuck you. She acknowledged her position without using the word, lest she damn them both, happy just to have him rest his forehead against hers. His kiss placed a stop-gap on her retort to his comment, and had he not withdrawn so quickly, he'd have received a nipped lip.

And here we go.

Rolling her foot in her boot, she glanced at her coat and its hidden contents. Relying on fractured information from her previous visit and the lack of evidence for any other undead being in the building other than Ayden, Kara decided to leave it where it hung on the chair. She could be strong for him while worrying about the supernatural, but not having to do so would allow her focus to sharpen solely to supporting him--depending on how bellicose his brother decided to be.

Keep your mouth shut, A, she silently willed the dead man, wherever he was at the moment.

"Yeah," Kara responded. "Just remember, J, Ayden isn't here. Don't talk to him, don't listen to him, don't let on to your friends you know anything about where he is. Situation normal," her mouth twitched, "all fucked up. And me? I just make jewelry, okay? Nothing more."

She could lie for him, she could hold his hand when it began to shake, but she couldn't teach him the lesson a lifetime of navigating the dead had beaten into her: faking normal.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

“You make jewelry,” Jaxon repeated, tilting his head in consideration of the spec of new information he had just acquired about her life. The smile that graced his lips was small, shadowed by what he knew was to come, but very much real. There was so much more he wanted to learn about Kara, so many questions he wanted to ask, yet for the moment he simply nodded to give her confirmation that he had heard and understood her reminders.

The floor creaked under his heavy footsteps. Down the hall and outside was a quiet journey; the entryway was barren, devoid of the dead man that now haunted Jaxon’s life. Leading Kara down the stairs, he stopped at the door that opened into the bar, collected himself, and entered first, holding open the door for her to follow.

It was different.

The old brick walls were the same, along with the aged wooden floorboards. The pub tables that were spread about the room, surrounded by mixed and matched barstools that were also placed by the counter, hadn’t been moved. The pool table on the far side of the bar, situated in front of the jukebox, was relatively untouched. Even the angry, blue-eyed, burly, blonde reincarnation of Thor named Leo, who had looked up at the sound of their entrance, was already muttering in a familiar mix of both his native tongue and English, “Jævla drittsekk! Where the hell have you been? I should fire you!”

The specter sitting in the vinyl seat of the far corner booth was new, however. Dressed in a three-piece suit, the wide-brimmed fedora upon the man’s head was tilted in just the right way to hide most of his face, except for his slick and sly smile. He was of average height and rather slender, but the way he leaned back casually, one leg crossed over the other, arm dangling over the booth, made him fill the room without even being noticeable.

Maverick couldn’t help but look. He knew better, but the remnant of a man’s posture was just so familiar, it sent a chill across his spine. Like he had seen a metaphorical ghost, a fragmented part of his past better left dead. For a millisecond, his face hardened, his heart began racing. Not fear, no, but adrenaline was pumping. Anger. Hate.

The stranger took interest in that, tilting his hat back to reveal a quirked brow. His face was different—so very similar, but in the end different—and that was enough to calm Jaxon. He recovered quickly, turning his gaze toward the ceiling in half an eye-roll, and with an exaggeratedly exasperated groan answered the Viking, “We both know you love me too much to fire me. Besides, I brought you a loyal customer. So calm your foreign ass down, and you can spank me later.”

Approaching the bar, Maverick only turned his back to the unknown dead man because his own had taken up by the pool table, and Ayden was watching the watcher. Pulling out a barstool for Kara, Maverick gestured to make introductions, “Kara, Leo. Leo, Kara.”

The giant bear of a man stared at Maverick like he had an extra head, before his eyes dropped down to examine the stool that had been presented to the woman so gentlemanly like. Snapping his astonished gaze back up to the SEAL, he asked with disbelief, “Who the hell are you?”

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Jaxon's nod started a heightened state of awareness for Kara. It was a signal that there were no more distractions to be had and that he would soon be striding into an emotional minefield. She was there to guide. She was there to direct, to support. She was there to make certain that he neither misspoke nor broke down, and the responsibility was oddly comforting. It was easier to help shoulder a burden as a person on the outside than it was to be the one buried beneath it. Even were she to somehow be able to transform it into a physical form and bear half, his portion would still be disproportionately heavy.

Kara put a hand to his back when he braced himself against what lay beyond the bar door. She followed, her body taut, senses stretched to their limit. Even before he'd stepped over the threshold, the two dead men within made themselves known by the tooth-grinding thrum of their existence. It shivered through her bones, the first unknown and as such dangerous, the other Ayden, and thereby adversarial. Immediately, Kara cursed her decision to leave her coat behind.

Leo snatched up the majority of her attention; she had only a split second to note the finer details of her surroundings such as the jukebox and the pub tables, the photos behind the bar when he spoke. The giant of a man was made larger by his initial anger, and Kara prickled instinctively at his vitriol, although from where she stood, she could only just make out the words he grumbled. He was tall and he was furious and he was huge, and behind her mask of calm, she was suddenly grateful that Bernard had vanished when he did. How terrifying would his ancestors have been, axe in hand, berserker rage fueling bloodlust and depredations. Kara lifted her chin and remained impassive in the wake of the man's muttering, waiting for cues from Jaxon who must have found his friend's anger a showy facade of--

No.

Who was currently staring in a completely different direction.

A flick of her eye took in everything she needed to know about J; she'd shared enough space with him in the past day to know all too well his bunch-fisted stance that equaled true anger. She followed his line of sight and froze.

Shit.

Two rules had been broken, both stemming from one source: Jaxon had looked too at the ghost in the corner. Not only did the dead man notice, which was bad enough in itself, J was liable to be questioned for his behavior by Leo if he wasn't careful. Kara raised her elbow in preparation to jab J in the ribs when the SEAL relaxed, bowing out of whatever confrontation he might have been planning with the specter. In the ensuing ass-centered response from him to Leo that followed, Kara took the time to peer at the man in the booth.

It took only a split second, a snap-fast glance from under her lashes, but she gleaned all she needed to know for the moment with one swift look.

He was young and lean, just under a hundred years dead, his lopsided grin just as sleek as his posture, and deadly handsome. Boyish, Kara's brain provided unhelpfully for her, but attractive in a manner that perhaps had been his downfall. Had it not been for three things already in place in Kara's life, she might have found him difficult to resist: the cockiness radiating off him, the fact that she was most decidely Jaxon's woman now, and a rule she'd concreted years ago:

Never fuck the dead.

The side of her consciousness attuned to the living whipped back to the matter at hand, which currently didn't involve Leo being polite. Trailing her fingertips along the stool seat, she chose to keep standing, her eyes locked hard on the man who seemed to have no intention of acknowledging her, whether it be out of true astonishment that Jaxon had brought home a... friend... or otherwise.

And so she waited with one brow faintly arched, implacable and unreadable, for Leo to finally deign to light upon her existence.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

It was already fading away, the anger that had radiated off the bartender. It hadn't really been real rage to begin with. The years Jaxon had spent in this very place had taught him that, while Leo was certainly capable of wiping the floor with somebody, he was just as dangerous as the fake statue of a bear that decorated a corner of the bar. It was worry that was hidden in the lines of his forehead, blanketed by his lofty coat of huffy anger.

Gaze slowly drifting down to Kara, noting how she continued to stand, Jaxon raised his hand to rub through his hair, before dropping it to place on her shoulder. His other gripped the back of the stool, and he leaned a fraction of his weight against it. "I have my moments."

The Viking snorted, grumbled something under his breath in Norwegian, and finally turned his attention onto Kara. Her stare was met with a tilt of his head, and hands splaying across the countertop, he narrowed his pale eyes at her. Leaning his head down so that their eyes were more level, the man neither blinked nor looked away, as if testing to see if she'd back down. And he didn't seem to notice--or perhaps he was ignoring--the pointed glare that was coming from the former SEAL, an obvious command to stop.

Leo: another reason Jaxon didn't take women home. Jaxon's fingers began to tap rapidly against the chair's back of their own accord, and his clenching jaw was a tell sign of the agitation spreading throughout his body.

What seemed like an eternity later, the Viking's expression finally broke, starting with a small tug at the edge of his lips and a glimmer within his stare. With a chuckle that didn't lack volume, he grinned widely, rose back to his full height, rapped his knuckles against the bar, and pointed at Kara, declaring, "I like you."

"Well, good. Feed her." There was an unusual gruffness to Jaxon's voice, as if the Northman's huffiness had been transferred onto him. He was used to Leo's eccentric antics-actually amused by them most of the time-but he wanted Kara to feel-the only word he could think to describe his desire was 'welcomed'. This was-had been-home. A place where he had been welcomed, no matter his demons, at least by the man who stood behind the counter. He hadn't realized it until now, but he wanted to share that with Kara, perhaps have her eventually feel it too.

"Now who needs to calm down?" Leo asked, voiced tinged with humor, as his eyes shifted to examine Jaxon's hard expression, which only seemed to amuse him more, before taking a look at Kara. "Since you seem to be training him-" His hand gestured toward the stool. "-least I can do is offer you a meal. Just promise you'll work on his liberal interpretation of the work schedule. What do you want? We have the usual bar menu."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Jaxon's hand on her shoulder must have wiped away any surface ambiguity about their relationship. Leo would have questions, she was sure, but the anger he sent forth in a rumbling wave at his friend was--as she had known from the start-- due to worry, much of it stemming from her as a stranger. That didn't equal respect, however. Kara wavered between knowing logically the two men were posturing in the only way males knew how (a rumbling, grumbling show of teeth that was no more threatening than a yawn), and bristling at the way Leo spoke to Jaxon. They were friends, close enough to be family, and Leo had a point; J had missed work.

And yet, he hadn't seen Jaxon break. He'd let his guard down around her and spoken about the moment in his life that had started the fissures which had led to that very moment, and because of it, he deserved a better greeting. Once again, Kara was reminded of how very similar to a ghost Jaxon was. His pain might have been sensed, but the living didn't see. Not truly. She suspected--although the guess could have been a long-shot-- that Leo was blind to the actual depth of Jaxon's pain. Affection was irrelevant: not everyone was adept at reading the signs.

Signs like the rapping fingertips against the back of the chair. Kara shifted her weight from one boot to the other. She then moved so that she could press her hip against his body while she met Leo's stare with a look that might just have been ennui, had it not been for the steel behind it. The urge to deflect the comments aimed at Jaxon surprised her. He could hold his own against his friend in the midst of the sparring match that only spoke of love, but that didn't mean he had to. Today of all days, he needed gentler treatment.

And yet, Leo hadn't seen Jaxon break.

She was being unfair.

But that training crack...

Kara sat down. "As long as it's not pickled herring or rotten shark," she took a jab at his Scandinavian heritage with a perfectly pleasant expression, "I'll eat just about anything sans peanut butter. And don't worry about Jaxon," she said, unabashedly using his real name, "he's done a few odd jobs for me today. A little bit of delivery service. He dropped off some clothes, too. Don't worry. I paid him for it."

There wasn't a trace of innuendo on her face, nor did it seep out in her tone, but if Jaxon knew where to look, he might just see the wicked little gleam in the gaze she turned on him.

But the thought of Miguel knocked the amusement out of her mien; it led to thoughts of Bernard. She angled her eyes at the shelves behind Leo's head to mask the effect the memory had on her. At least by doing that, she could keep track of the unexpected booth-lurker by hunting for his reflection in the liquor bottles lined up like soldiers against the wall.

And Ayden, if need be.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

With Kara seated, Jaxon took a small step to the side, leaning one arm across the back of her stool; a good portion of his body covered her six, acting as a barrier between her and the unknown deadman-and perhaps subconsciously his brother as well-while having the guise of being casual. Once the Viking had withdrawn from the staring contest, the former SEAL's shoulders relaxed just a shred. His eyes drifted down to Kara, and it was only when they met hers that they were freed of the aggravation caused by the man behind the counter.

Her words were innocent enough. Though with the knowledge of what they had actually been doing in the past hours, he could've twisted them into innuendo, her voice showed not a hint of it. But her eyes talked when she remained silent, and he could see it there, hidden within her dark irises-which were so deep he could lose himself within them-the hint of mischief. He couldn't help but answer it with a lift of the corner of his mouth.

And if the small touches shared between them, her care-free use of his name (which was hardly given out willingly-technically it wasn't this time either, but he found he liked the fact she used it), wasn't enough to clue the bartender into their relationship, then Maverick's grin, even in its slightness, did the trick. Looking between them, Leo arched a brow, and made a clicking sound with his tongue. "Uh-huh. Well, at least someone's putting him to work. I'll see what I can fix you up." After knocking his knuckles against the counter, the flannel-clad giant disappeared into the kitchen.

In the silence that was left, Maverick blinked at the sudden withdrawal of her gaze, and how the light that had been within it had seemingly flickered out. She was so trained at hiding it, he realized, but after witnessing her discharge of emotion in his bathroom, he knew the pain was still there somewhere, buried underneath the surface. He didn't know if shit like that could be healed at all, but he was damned certain it couldn't be patched up in just a few hours.

And yet with what came next...

He gave as good as he got. He hated receiving and not returning. He wanted to be her pillar, to lend her his strength, to shoulder her burdens, her pain. But he knew what came next. It had happened before. The details were different, but this was a story that had already been told.

His grin faded into dust.

Reality always tasted like ash. It made him sick, and that sickness sunk deep within his stomach. It was fear more than dread that dug its poisoned claws within his mind, making him feel powerless. What he didn't know was what he would do when it really hit-control was already slipping through his fingers-and that fucking terrified him.

Pulling out the chair by her side, ignoring the unknown specter who had moved to watch them both from the pool table, he took a seat, for fear that his legs might give, and tugged at his hair. "I can't fucking do this."

 

[CastoffCaptain]

Kara spent a long moment looking into the mirror that was Jaxon Theodore Asher. It wouldn't have mattered if Leo had left or not--they'd have hit this wall sooner or later. Jaxon couldn't read her thoughts. Her facade was neatly kept, or so she had imagined, but his shift in mood seemed to coincide so seamlessly with her own that she couldn't help but wonder if she'd contributed to his weakening. Opening the box in which she kept the ugliest of her emotions, Kara dropped the shock Bernard had caused into it, closed the top, and kept moving forward.

Her fingers reached for his, gently removing them from his hair lest he pull his scalp free of his skull. She placed his hand on the bar and flattened her palm against it, smoothing over the rough-hewn skin with a few slow strokes. Her thumb stopped just before reaching the line of battered knuckles and then curled inward.

"So don't," she said as easily as if she'd suggested he remove his shoes when he'd complained of their tightness. "You came here, you tested the waters, and now you know what you can handle. And what you can't," she added after a pause. "No shame in that. Pretending you're okay when you're not is one of the hardest things in the world to do." Kara shrugged, dismissing the notion of the need for strength at this time. That she now had serious doubts about his ability to slather on layers of I'm fine, I don't know where Ayden is, and Let me just ignore the two dead men in the room while I'm at it was something she'd keep tight under her hat. "Why don't you go upstairs for a bit while I eat? I'll come up with a fib to tell Leo and then we can disappear somewhere until the cops call."

The angle of her eyebrow intimated just how good she was at lying; she'd made a practice of it in all its forms for most of her life. "We can go to my place, maybe. Colorado. Rhode Island. I hear Antarctica's pretty warm these days."

Turning on the stool until her knees touched his, Kara grasped his other hand in her free one. She searched his face from the copper-tinted hairs nestled in the brown of his beard to the shards of light reflected in his eyes. "You don't have to carry it all, J, not until it's official. Don't think of it as denial," she murmured, hoping to cut off the idea before he might voice it. "Just think of it as time to prep. And don't worry about Jimmy Olsen over there," the tiniest inclination of her head toward the pool table indicated exactly who she meant. "I can handle him."

She didn't mention his brother. Suggesting he take Ayden with him upstairs would be just as damning to Jaxon as demanding he stay behind and fake happy with Leo would be. Dealing with the prickle-backed bastard while J took shelter was the least she could do for him, even if meant losing another layer of eardrum in the process. She pursed her lips. If Ayden stuck true to form, he'd wait until his brother was out of sight to bare his fangs again.

 

[MysteriousStranger]

Jaxon's tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth, and he was finding it hard to just breathe. The room felt tinier than it had ever been, was condensed into a little box of hell, and the fabric off his shirt seemed like it was chafing his skin, digging claws into his throat. He had held his cool under pressure thousands of times before, but this was his brother. And Kara, whose eyes he couldn't directly stare at, so he instead focused on the cord of her necklace, was offering a way out with words that held no judgement. Kara, who had her own burdens to bear, yet was sitting in this bar specifically for him.

With a hard swallow, his eyes finally lifted to stare into hers, displaying a mixture of brokenness and outright fear. Silence followed in a few long, drawn-out moments of thoughts.

It would be simple: to head upstairs, climb under the sheets of his bed. Or perhaps the furthest corner of the closet, where the enclosed walls would offer a familiar and old kind of safety. Wait until he disappeared. Run, even if the extended distance was only in his mind, until he was far away from this place, and the pain that was coming, that was already knocking at his heart.

But his brother was dead. Even if his spirit still lingered in this world, what was could never be. Things that never were couldn't be forced into existence.

Ayden had kicked him out once. Abandoned him to his fate. It had been Leo who had given him a place to stay. And Ayden never knew. He owed the man a debt that could never be repaid. Lying to him was hard. And yet not being here when it happened felt wrong.

He was on the edge, tiptoeing over the line, but the longer he remained quiet, staring so intently at her face, the steadier his lungs took in air, the firmer the resolve within his eyes became.

And while this was the last place he wanted to be on earth, he wasn't wired to ever leave a man-woman, in this case-behind. She was more equipped to handle the dead than he was, had a lifetime more experience before he was ever in the picture, could indeed handle him perfectly fine on her own, but leaving her alone with an unknown entity and his brother, whose motives were extremely suspect within the last day, wasn't an idea he could even begin to consider.

"No," Inhaling deeply, he gave his head a shake, and squeezed her hand, before bringing her fingers up to his lips. Voice soft but rough, he stated with regretful determination, "I have to do this."

Again he swallowed, and closed his eyes, leaning his head down as he took just a few moments to be weak. He let it fall over him, the wave of despair, and held his composure the only way he knew how: by clenching his jaw until his teeth crushed into one another.

He had to be strong by the time Leo came back.

He had to be a warrior.

The thought forged the iron mask he donned, hard and stoic. Turning his eyes toward the picture of him, Leo, and Ayden that hung on the wall behind the counter, it felt like a part of him, some deeply human and important part, had been ripped from his very being.

When was life ever fucking fair?

And because he knew he wouldn't have the strength to do it later, he felt the need to warn her. Clearing his throat, he spoke words he didn't want to speak, "But...it only gets worse from here on out, Kara, and...if-...if you want out-" He didn't finish the sentence, only hesitantly looked back in her direction, staring at her in anxious anticipation and subtle fear.