The First Age

His face tilted downward, warmth blushing his cheeks rosy. “I didn’t mean to imply that. I’m so sorry,” embarrassment fluttered butterflies, but the humor lifted the clouds choking the room with tension. He left Natalie and Cayli with a confident nod. The moment the door gently closed behind him, he sank against the paneling, dizzy with the rush. He’d not eaten either, but those butterflies chased away hunger. He had a search to conduct, and instinctually, his sights turned toward the double doors of the master bedroom down the hall. Jessika was unlikely to be up and around, yet, and Jensen certainly wished to avoid interrupting her in the shower. Hopefully she was alone in it.

He grabbed an apple downstairs if only for the normalcy the motion of biting into it gave him as he strolled casually about the main level. The second office, previously Jessika’s, was something of a library now, and the hundreds of vintage books lured. He stood there a moment, apple crunching with a fresh bite, when a head crossed the outer window. The sinking feeling in his gut grew, but he focused on the apple, swallowing it carefully, licked his lips afterward.

Birds chirped outside, and the morning was wet with dew. The fountain trickled pleasantly. He scanned the cobblestone drive a moment and finally studied the gatehouse as he whittled away at the apple.

---

When Jessika kicked him out of the bedroom, Axel happily obliged. The woman snored for Christ’s sake and kicked the shit out of his leg in her sleep. Maybe it was charming at first – fuck that, it was never charming – but he could tolerate some annoying habits for that hot ass. Goddamn but she liked it weird, too. It was like all those years with what sounded like a really uncomfortable preacher attempting the missionary position finally caught up with her. That first screw shocked the hell out of him, and he was more than willing to come back for more. But now he wanted out. Fuck the cartels and government alike. Not like he got anything out of wearing the flag on his shoulder all those years, blowing shit up for his country. And he had to divorce the one thing he really wanted.  So fuck them all.

He was walking the house exterior, routine checks, when he turned a corner and found a strange sight. That probably should have been his first warning that something was wrong. Instincts blared warning in his head for the sheer oddity of the situation, but curiosity even got Axel once in a while. He stood aside, about 20 paces away, studying Jensen’s profile. The causal way he snapped on the apple until it was neatly wrapped up in a napkin and laid aside. He remembered the guy on tv, not that he watched that kind of shit. Back then Axel was living the dream with Carpenter up in the jungles somewhere, but the job for Thrice researched her background. Jensen James was full of more bullshit than anyone he’s ever heard about. No wonder Jessika was miserable with him. He pulled a zippo from a pocket, one with an American flag scratched to hell on the side and joined James on the landing.

---

He knew Axel was coming. He saw him walk by the library window a minute beforehand, but Jensen chose to finish his apple. He wiped the juice from his lips when it was done, wrapped it up and neatly laid it aside. Something about the motions kept the butterflies quiet, even as he knew a hard-blooded warrior was stalking him at the very moment. He glanced, uncomfortable with the man’s proximity. They were nearly shoulder to shoulder.

---

James was quiet, contemplative. Axel’s curiosity grew by the moment. Must be weird for the guy to be back in his own house after years gone. When James looked at him, Axel put a cigarette to his lip. Silently, he offered one to James, just to be friendly. “Cancer stick, preacher?” A sly smirk tugged around the paper.

---

Jensen James certainly didn’t smoke. He didn’t curse. He didn’t drink. He abstained from sex until marriage and honored his parents. He gave money to the poor. He held hands with the dying and comforted those left behind.

So when he plucked a cigarette from the pack, held it to his gaze and lit it with a small swirl of fiery Gift, he might as well have petitioned for a new identity. He took a long drag, coughing only a little as a result, and studied the birds. “The first time I tried one I coughed for five minutes, but it was definitely nice. I understood quickly why people needed them so much. It only took two shots of whiskey to get me drunk back then too.”

---

He blinked, shocked sideways, when the preacher actually took up the offer. He put the drag to his lips like an expert, not to mention that little trick with the channeling glowing the paper red. Guess that proved that. “You speak the truth, preacher. I’ll probably die with one in my hand. Started when I was in the service.”

---

This time, he turned enough to face Axel. They were about the same height, but Axel was infinitely fitter. The very way he held himself was that of a lion among lambs. It was completely obvious who was the dominant among them. He could turn back now. Go inside without a word about anything, but that meant that Natalie would take his place. Only if he was too weak. Oh God his stomach turned, and not just because of the smoke. The Gift was giving him strength, and like riding on the wings of eagles, he needed to soar with the flows.

As he turned, Axel did also, sensing the looming confrontation, ready to meet it head on. The man’s eyes were hard as rock, jaw and mouth tight. What had he seen in his life to make him this way? To sacrifice friends and children without remorse? Jensen had to remind himself that this man was evil, because something else tried to erode his confidence that he could actually pull this off.

His voice fell low, mindful of anyone that might accidentally listen. Two members of a cleaning service were walking up about then.
“I am going to ask you to stop sleeping with Jessika,” he said.
Axel’s gaze slid downward, “Why preacher? You want to blow me instead.”

Jensen’s heart pound in his chest, and every instinct said to run away. He swallowed, reaching for words that simply didn’t want to form.
Axel stepped closer, threatening, scary. Jensen felt his lips go dry. Smoke curled between their faces. But he made himself hold that gaze. Losing it now meant defeat. He had to find out what happened to Jay. Find out what Axel knew.

---

So the preacher was a ballsy son of a bitch. The boyish beard wisps, feminine pallor, stunt with the cigarette and power. Inwardly, Axel might have smiled with pride. Instead, he issued an edict. How he found out about himself and Jessika was a mystery. Course, he wouldn’t put it past that bitch to simply tell Jensen out of sheer enjoyment of watching her ex squirm with discomfort.

When he stepped nearer, it was mostly to invite confrontation, but the moment the preacher squirmed, Axel knew his weakness. It was pathetic how quickly he gave it up. Fucked up thing was, if the preacher wanted to blow him, Axel was likely to let him have at it.

When silence gripped the wordy bastard’s tongue, Axel barked a laugh. “When you’re ready to man up preacher, you come find me,” he said, leaving him alone on that fucking step.

---

With @JayCarpenter

He choked.

Axel’s vulgarity crushed the voice he was lucky to conjure at all. He cringed, blaming only himself for the weakness. It wasn’t like his were virgin ears that blushed at every bawdy word, but it was the first time since crawling out of the hole into which he’d flung himself. Doulou was the hand that pulled him from that self-imposed purgatory. The night that the Gift emerged from the ashes of the Curse, Jensen vowed to atone for his wrongs. That meant throwing away the immorality he wrapped himself within simply to feel better about the sins darkening his very mind. That was why he smoked, drank, cursed and ran away: to jump into the abyss because that’s where he belonged.

After Axel left, Jensen looked at the cigarette one last time before throwing it angrily to the brick and stomping it out.  That was the old him. The one that believed he was Cursed, or worse, possessed. It was now or never. He had to do this for Natalie. For Jay. For Cayli. But mostly for himself, he followed after Axel.


He pushed open the door to the gatehouse, taking in the security systems hovering on the walls only a moment before the roam of his penetrating gaze fell to Axel himself. The man shifted in his seat, and a grin tugged the corner of his mouth as though he thought Jensen were here to claim the offer previously posed. Jensen closed the door behind him, soaring on the wings of the Gift’s powers, and schooled his expression to resolve.
“I know what you did to Jay and Cayli.”

---

Axel leaned back in the cushions basically imprinted with the shape of his ass watching the monitors.  Jensen snuffed the dart under his shiny loafers, and Axel grinned to himself. He knew the guy was coming to find him, and given he was more amused about the confrontation than anything, he made not a move.

The ferocity with which the preacher entered lifted Axel’s brows impressed. Maybe he was coming for that brojob after all.

The subsequent accusation did not disturb him at all, other than to light a hunger in his own eyes that dared him to probe deeper. He doused the old red in a glass dish and slowly uncurled from the chair. James, to his credit, didn’t back down despite that they were nearly nose to nose.

“Carp got what he deserved. Fuck it, Preacher, I deserve the same shit, I know that. But I won’t take it. Maybe I tied the knots, but Carp wrapped the rope around his own neck. Now, I’m inches away from the thing I want most in the world, and I’m just not going to let anyone take that from me.” He steeled his gaze onto James’ pretty eyes. “So get the fuck out of my gatehouse. I’m sure your wife is ready to crush what’s left of your balls anyway.”

---

His heart pounded, but he was committed now. If he left again, it would be all over. Natalie would come in his place, and Axel would laugh at their feeble attempts at conversion. He thought frantically, trying to pick apart the darkness knotted up in Axel’s heart that let him stand by and watch as a friend hang himself.

He wanted something desperately enough to sacrifice friends and innocents to get it. While Axel’s face grimaced with irritation, Jensen softened his to one of empathetic love, and let his voice fall to silk swaths, the kind that lured in millions of avid listeners week after week. “You’re desperate. I understand that feeling to the depths of my soul, Axel. Maybe I can help you get what you want. There’s still time to save them. You could help us save them. Please, tell me anything. Anything we can use to find him.”

---

Genuine surprise eased his face of all enmity. The preacher was beaten and battered by posturing that should have made him curl up and cry, but rather than spew condemnation, he offered the exact opposite.

Doubt crept along his mind like assassins crawling in the night. Carpenter got what they all deserved. Axel was there the night the man dug his own grave. But fuck. “Jay isn’t the hero you think he is,” he said, voice lost in the cragged ravines of the Andes. Mountainsides splattered with blood that they both spilled. “Why do you want to save him so badly? What do you owe him?”

---

Axel shifted so subtly Jensen might have missed it if it weren’t for his years of reading peoples’ vulnerability. The door to his heart opened slightly, all he had to do was shine some light into the darkness. “We all have sins haunting us. Maybe he’s no hero, and I don’t owe him any more than I owe you,” his brows fell thoughtfully low, “If it were you, I’d try to find you also.” He laid a hand on Axel’s shoulder as though the connection might pull him from the bottomless pit as Doulou once did for Jensen in kind. “At the end of the day, that little girl doesn’t deserve punishment because of her brother’s choices. She’s fourteen, Axel. Fourteen.”

---

Axel did not like being touched. It took every ounce of his willpower to not clamp down on that wrist and send the offending body face-down on the floor. Something about the preacher radiated larger than instinct, clouding it. Temperance was far from Axel’s few virtues, but for some reason, rather than drop the preacher, he was drawn in by him. Fucking shame, he grimaced, head-shaking. “There’s a few places he could be. I have zero clue which one. It’ll take some recon, and you don’t exactly blend in, preacher.”

---

He held his breath, praying silently that Axel would agree. A huge sigh of relief swelled when he did. He nodded gratefully. Thank-you. Thank-you. “It’s more direction than we had before. Can you come talk to Natalie also?”

Axel’s stare remained hard as stone, and for a moment, Jensen worried he was going to change his mind. He just made sure to caution his own expression to one of gentle patience.
“I'm a dead man anyway. So what the fuck. Sure. Lead the way, preacher,” he finally said.

Jensen backed away as Axel pulled a suit jacket over his shoulders, obscuring the twin holsters wrapping his ribcage. He watched Jensen, but fell carefully in step behind him as they went in search of Natalie and by default, Cayli.

They found them in the kitchen, but before anyone could react, Jensen tried to defuse the simmering emotions sure to explode with the faintest crack of pressure. He licked his lips, eyes strongly latching onto the ladies', urging them to trust him. "He's going to help us." They faintly smelled of cigarette smoke, but Jensen clung to normalcy as though the anchor in the storm might give Natalie and Cayli something onto which to cling for dear life. He poured a cup of coffee and offered it to Axel like an olive branch. "Alright, Axel. Now's the time." 



With @JayCarpenter
Natalie with permission

Jensen’s cheeks flushed, and Natalie gave a low hum of laughter. There was no malice in it; he’d just have to get used to her astringent sense of humour. After the door closed she perched on the end of Cayli’s bed. Four walls closed a cage, her patience worn thin when there was nothing productive to pass the time; worse when responsibility tempered the fire burning up her chest with the sort of desperation she’d never thought to find again.

Cay dragged the hood off her head. “What’s normal supposed to look like?”

Natalie smirked. Her thumb ran along the inside of her wrist until she could feel the memory grit her jaw, but it wasn’t Pavlo’s face she saw. “I was in Sierra Leone during its first civil war for fifty years. My mother moved mountains to get me out, but I still refused to go,”  she said, raising her gaze to the teenager. “So I get it, Cay. But if the chance comes for you to get out safely, whether your parents agree or not, you’re taking it. For him.”

A political ally was better than a hostage. Jessika was a mother. How difficult would it be to convince her to let them slip free if they did so now? The favours could stack a mountain to crush her later, but at least the promise would rest at ease in her chest. She didn’t make those lightly. And she knew Jensen would continue to search for Jay, even if he had to do so alone. It would only require one small cut to snake the chains free; hardly arduous. He’d understand. It was what he’d told her to do.

But she never claimed to be a saint. She never even claimed to be a good person.

They took Jensen’s advice. Hot water sluiced the dirt but left the sins. Those were a familiar weight by now, so what was one more? Jay could hate her all he wanted for letting the opportunity to escape disappear like the water beneath her toes, but if she could see him safe first, it’d be worth it. Defiance fought and won. She pressed her head against the cold tiles. All she had to do was protect Cay in the meantime.

The kitchen was quiet. She let Cayli search through all the cupboards for food and utensils while she finally sorted through Marcus’s reply. “Mom says he’s like a miracle man.” The girl snorted laughter, but the shadows had receded from her face. Even her swollen eyes were free of last night’s tears; every anguished blemish soothed clean. It was trust, Natalie realised. Cayli trusted wholeheartedly that Jensen was going to fix this. “It’s going to be okay.”

Natalie said nothing.

Her pale gaze lifted a moment later, attention rolling past Jensen to the man behind him. Conciliatory words made little mark on the single, cold inspection she gave him, but beneath the surface everything roared into sudden fury. Her heart hammered. Retaliation might make her feel better for a second, but it wouldn’t sustain. Something clattered behind as Cay dropped whatever she’d been holding, and Natalie felt her fill with the power. Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t turn to calm the girl. It wasn’t a bad instinct.

“He trusted you,” she said to Axel. The words were sharp as glass, the and I don’t implicit, but non confrontational. She didn’t have to trust him. She didn’t have to like him either. Men prepared to betray the bloodied bonds of brotherhood did not usually capitulate so readily under the sort of pressure she imagined Jensen had chosen to apply. But she’d listen to what he had to say.

There was nothing like killing every shred of joy just by walking into a room. Maybe Axel followed Jensen, but it was obvious who was the one in charge upon their arrival. He declined the cup of coffee, amused by the famous hospitality of the Texan preacher.  Instead, his arms folded over his chest. The tactical suit molded to the movement.

Natalie’s accusation prickled like sandpaper rubbing a raw wound. The defensive stance of the child in the background was not ignored. Even a kitten could claw up some nasty marks when cornered. Axel took up a stance triangulated between all three of them without even thinking about it. The entire sweep of the room came into his command simply by entering it. Men like him and Carpenter were not ignorant of dangers lurking everywhere. They breathed it. Lived in it. Slept with it. Habits were sewn into the skin sure as the matching tattoos on their arms.

“All this concern over Carp. You three really don’t appreciate what he is, do you? What he can survive?” He shook his head, but the tug of a proud smile heated his expression with humor for their ignorance. “He trusted that I would do exactly what he wanted without asking for it. I gave him that favor owed, and we both get what we wanted.” He shrugged, “well, we were going to get what we wanted.”

His gaze aimed upon the sister of so much fame. “You know there’s a multi-million dollar bounty for you.” The fact that he was talking and not bagging the kid himself spoke to trustworthiness. Jensen was within arm’s reach, meaning it would take one land of the elbow to drop the unsuspecting channeler. Natalie would find the floor next. The girl, kicking and screaming, would need restrained to the point of pain just to haul her ass to the car.

Yet Axel did none of those things.

Instead, he actively searched the perimeter before continuing.   “There’s only one place I know about to hold a channeler against their will.”

He dug under her skin. The space he occupied. The arrogance that soaked his stance.

“I’m sure he was pleased you kindly threw his sister into the bargain,”she said drily. Natalie didn’t care for the inferences, but no defense sprung in retaliation. Argument soured her tongue like poison but she swallowed the vitriol with bitter control. It wouldn’t help, and she didn’t care what Axel thought. Jay denied the brutality of the Custody’s indoctrination, but she’d heard from Brandon’s own lips how the methods employed might have killed him, and that was only the most recent in a dark traipse of demons. He wasn’t weak. Survival was a matter of perspective, though.

She shifted as Axel turned his attention to Cayli. Power still pulsated from her, though it didn’t seem she was doing anything with it. Natalie didn’t turn to gauge a reaction, though she could feel the tension seeping into her own muscles. He wasn’t worth betraying that secret for; not unless he acted.

He finally offered an answer, or the hint of one anyway, curled to invite question, though it wasn’t the one she asked. “And what was it you wanted?”

The beach crashed serene waves on shore in his mind. Warm winds fluttered the shirt open on his chest; hammock swayed.

In the end, he sniffed and wiped absently at his nose. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. It was a fool’s dream; pure fantasy. Nobody escaped, but he was going to fucking try.

The moment of vulnerability passed like a hurricane, though. Natalie brought that out in people, he guessed. “I showed her the door. She climbed in. Clearly she climbed out again.” No harm done. Interesting thought, he mused. How was she discovered? Stealthy minx she was seemed unlikely to give away the hard-fought position. So what happened?

“Look. You want my help or not?” He fired glares at Jensen. This was the big conversation the preacher demanded?

Axel drew quiet, though only for a moment. The flat of Natalie’s stare punctured at the best of times, but the silence invited the weight of calculation. Of course it mattered. Why did he assume she’d bother with the breath to ask otherwise? A few carelessly inflammatory words followed, and then the man’s gaze snaked to Jensen, seeking a calmer steer to the ship. Or to swerve the conversation. She refrained from rolling her eyes. Her voice cut in smoothly. “Clearly, we need your help. I’m asking what you expect in return.”

He barked a laugh, skimming Natalie’s stern posture. “Oh sweetheart,” he said.  Images of Natalie in a schoolteacher uniform, complete with a button-down shirt and a tie, erased the annoyance from his expression.

A deep sigh followed, whether it was one of resolution or one of frustration was indecipherable. “I said it doesn’t matter because you can’t give it to me anyway. So how about I just let you know when I decide what I expect in return.” She was going to have to be satisfied with that and take the rest on faith. Not faith in him, but faith in something anyway.

Impatient, he retrieved his own wallet, the one Carpenter called him on from the car. The threat delivered wasn’t forgotten, but Axel didn’t intend on another reunion. A brief check of the house in case someone was lurking within earshot, showed him it was safe enough. Assuming he spoke low. After that, he waved the group closer, because he wasn’t going to betray a cartel loudly enough the whole house could hear it. He grinned at Natalie, if only because she was forced to get within arm’s reach of something as vile as himself.

“Amengual comes here sometimes. It’s why I know so much about them. Jessika lets me in on some of the deal she’s cut, enough to keep her safe from it going sour, but not all of it. They do have a way to neutralize a channeler if they can catch them by surprise. I know they’re held, but don’t know where.”

Axel goaded, but only received a flat stare. Given the connections from her birthright alone he was stupid to make no demands at all, and she was unsure what to make of it. He underestimated her, certainly, but she only shrugged a shoulder. They needed his help, and the possibility of betrayal was worth the risk whatever his motivation. Enemies squared all sides anyway, and she’d bargained with worse. “Sure,” she said, deadpan. “If you think we won’t both be dead before then.” The words were thrown careless, absent the telling smirk. It was hard to differentiate the toneless joke from the truth anyway.

She slipped the wallet in her pocket as she stood. It felt heavy. Marcus had already begun to pull the necessary strings for the Carpenter’s asylum; she only had to get them to an airport before the threat of border closure, now. Instead she lingered to entertain slivers of a foolish hope that might just as likely reveal itself to be pure mirage, while Axel grinned down at her discomfort. She dampened the dare that wanted to burst like a demand in her expression as she stepped into his shadow. Cayli’s presence at her shoulder tempered the desire to pick a pointless fight.

Her gaze slid to Jensen at the immediate admission Amengual visited the house. She really hoped he had been unaware of that detail when he’d offered Jay’s family sanctuary, but truly doubted the man was capable of such coldness. More likely it would be another thing to wrongfully weight his overburdened shoulders. It shouldn’t. One more knot in the noose wasn’t likely to make a difference this late, and as Axel so eloquently pointed out, what was done was done. If he didn’t know already, Amengual would discover soon enough where they were. 

Natalie glanced back to Axel. She could feel impatience begin to spark restlessness through her limbs. Talk of deals sparked concern, but it was one for later. There’d only been enough time to skim Weston’s research, but she pulled together the things she knew. “Sedation has to be kept topped up to be effective. A medical facility, maybe. Have you heard of Orion?”

Until Axel said the words, the connections hadn’t sparked. Jay himself suspected Diaz’s involvement when they’d discussed the disparate pieces of the puzzle they each had at the lake. There’d been nothing obvious in her inspection of the dart, but the peripheral involvement of a pharmaceutical company was too coincidental to ignore. Laurie would know more, but even now suspicion began to drain Natalie cold as the possibilities occurred.

He listened to the conversation with cool awareness all the while clinging to the warmth of the cup nestled in his palms. Jensen sipped the coffee habitually, and when next he looked down, it was nearly drained to the bottom. Fatigue began to settle his shoulders from the night of poor sleep and all the adrenaline since waking. He refilled the cup again, adding this time a touch of turbindo sugar, and listened.

When Axel cast that careless smirk around the room, Jensen frowned in return. Jensen tried to reach him, but it felt like every step they took earned two backward. Natalie’s thinly veiled fury did not help tease out the secrets, but strangely, Axel eventually shared. Jensen doubted it was the broad strokes of full truths.

He felt utterly useless in the ongoing conversation until Natalie mentioned a familiar name.
“Actually, I’ve heard of Orion,” he said, surprised at the sudden burst of knowledge.

“When I was a preacher,” he began, coughed, and started again, “and lived here, I heard about them. They donated to a lot of charitable causes, but also helped cover costs of hospice patients when experimental treatments were unsuccessful. I helped connect folks from the church to the organization from time to time. They have offices in Fort Worth. I've been there.” he said.

Finally, he whispered, somewhat fearfully, "They donated to to the church... and to Jessika's campaign."