Sanctuary

[Jensen James]

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