Taking out the Trash

[Hood]

Whatever it was the wanna-be preacher was up to, it got Hood's hackles up in a moment. Hood knew himself well, knew the difference between the rush of energy that came with an adrenaline surge, or with a good night's rest, or an invigorating romp in the sack with a pleasant distraction. Whatever was going on with Jensen was none of those things.

Of course, just yanking his arm away would alert Jensen that Hood knew something was up. He knew a thing or two about the unnatural things that haunted the world; he'd met more then a few of them since he met the Atharim.

Hood met the man's gaze with a darkening scowl. His gaze intensified as Jensen's magics played their games on him, and his hand was calmly jerked free of the man's grasp. There was an overwhelming urge to flip the table and deck the bastard, but he kept that urge carefully in check. The bar was the type that didn't ask questions, but it was also the type that didn't like trouble.

He couldn't be sure what the man had done; Hood's chest no longer hurt, where that cockbag in the hallway had gotten a lucky shot into Hood's body armour. What gnawing exhaustion he had felt, kept carefully at bay at the edges of his mind, seemed to be gone. A faint pang of hunger.

He recovered quickly; there seemed no ill affects of whatever Jensen had done. He nonchalantly rubbed his hand after recovering it from Jensen and glanced back at Charlene, "Soft hands on this one. You'd like him. Be a nice change from those douche meat-heads you like so much."


Charlene laughed again, once more holding her hand to her mouth as she did and cast Jensen another smokey look, "I promise I'll be gentle, if you will."


Hood chuckled and glanced at Connor as the man moved to leave, and he pulled a card from his wallet. The card was for a gym and MMA club, one that Hood and Charlene frequented. "You fucking suck with a pistol, buddy. But you want to throw a punch, check this club out."


He put another of the same cards in front of Jensen. "Doubt you can afford my hourly rates, preacher. You may not want to hurt anybody, but knowing how to take a man's gun away wouldn't hurt. 'course, you get yourself in any more trouble in Zamoskvorechye district, maybe I'd be willing to lend a hand."


And of course the only way they could get ahold of him then would be to start visiting that gym. Which would come with some expensive monthly dues.

[Jensen James]

The Gift settled onto Hood and the backlash vibrated the nuances of physical injury back into his bones. He'd been shot in the chest at one point, he realized, and endured dozens of little aches and pains on his hands and limbs.

The man's expression darkened considerably, and although Jensen swallowed, he id not flinch and retract. He only let go of Hood's hand when the man snatched it away, apparently disgusted and offended by what had passed between them. He braced himself for an assault, ready to endure it without fleeing. Thankfully, Connor broke the tension and made to go, seemingly too dimmed by heavy thought, euphoria, and rum to notice what was transpiring.

The words of Connor's departure echoed in Jensen's mind. They were encouraging in their confidence. They had done the right thing, of that Jensen was sure, but he walked away regretting the sacrifice it cost. Their actions saved dozens, but at what cost to his soul? The dead threatened his spirits, but the glory of the Gift obscured even their weight. They said their goodbyes, and Jensen promised to talk to him soon.

He soon returned his attention to Hood. He even followed the man's gaze back to Charlene when she was included in the conversation, but this time Jensen did not blush as he had earlier. The Gift was too strong a current to care.

"My name is Jensen, sir. I'm not a preacher. Not anymore."
The correction was gentle, but firm. Of all the things Jensen was unsure of, knowing what he was not was clear.

He accepted the card, and somewhere in the back of his mind found the old-fashioned device an interesting insight into Hood, but whatever that insight meant, he couldn't guess. Taking a man's gun away might be useful, actually, but Jensen had a better idea of how to do it than engaging in a fight.

"I think i could take a gun away if I wanted. Although I've never tried."
His expression flashed a bit of curiosity as he looked Hood's posture up and down as though examining whether he could disarm a trained killer like his table mate.

A ghost of the smile to follow was soft as lamb's wool, and Jensen dismissed the idea. He leaned forward, "I'm being selfish asking you to assist me. Let me instead offer to help you. What do you do? Are you police? Military? The government? Obviously you work for someone if you have hourly rates: the same people that want the district kept quiet. That doesn't sound like the mob or the business acumen of a large corporation. So please tell me, sir, would someone that could disarm even yourself be an advantage in your line of work?"


Either this was going to turn into a dream come true, or it was going to go very, very bad very quickly. Jensen hoped for the former.

[Hood]

Not a preacher anymore, was it? Well, made sense. The guy had that air about him. Preachy. Thought the world could be a better place. Well, it wasn't happening in any of their life times, that was for damn sure. Hood, for instance, wouldn't lay down his guns either he was the last man standing, or dead.

It also helped explain how the man flinched so bloody much. For a fella that was willing to dive head first into a damn mafia pit without a gun, he didn't seem to have the balls for the work. Or perhaps the confidence; he was willing to do some risky things, but visibly paled when he needed to face the consequences.

Maybe that was what Hood disliked so much about the man. He'd throw himself in the deep end, but hadn't the confidence that it would work out in his favor. Bravery without fear was insanity, and Hood had no shortage of that brand of insanity, but too much fear was no better.

Hood finished his beer and set the bottle aside, and settled back in his seat to watch Jensen as Connor took his leave. The man spoke, offered, guessed and poked, and Hood just stared at him for a long moment. A subtly angry gaze. Weighing, judging. And then he laughed. A sharp bark of laughter and leaned forward, one hand slapping the solid table hard enough that his beer bottle bounced and fell on it's side. He righted it before it could roll onto the floor.

"You don't make enough for me to answer that question, old preacher. I have hourly rates, and work for who I do, because I am the best at what I do. The world I live in, you have no place. You are motivated to help people. Make the world a better place. The blinders you wear must be fucking huge."
He leaned back again, relaxed, "I live in the real world. The world fucking sucks. I ain't going to fault you doing your thing. But don't get my charity act today as habit forming. You want to save good people. I enjoy killing bad people. Very different sides of the same coin. I'd be willing to help you, occasionally. Probably even for free. But there's not a god damn thing you can do for me, if you aren't willing to kill to do it."

[Jensen James]

Jensen held the man's gaze even as it pierced through him. He'd been the one to stride through a biker gang surging with the confidence of the Gift. Yet he recoiled from the gaze of one man drinking a beer.

It made little sense to the rational mind, but Jensen never claimed rationality. He claimed faith.

As his response continued, a profound sadness welled upward. This man was lost at sea, barely keeping his head above water.

But he was right about the world. Earth was an infested bedsore of what it should have been. Humanity was the wound, sin the infection. It festered and festered until putrefied men boiled out. Men so lost they didn't recognize their own depravity.

He enjoyed killing bad people. Jensen's gaze softened the concentration imposed by the Gift. He guessed all too much that Hood enjoyed killing anyone he found to deserve death; however, the problem was, everyone deserved brutality. What was the difference between a liar and a thief? Would stealing a few dollars demand the same justice as stealing millions? What if the dollar was taken from the hand of a starving child and the millions snatched from the accounts of industry? Who decided what magnitude of crime demanded death by Hood's hands? Hood himself? He was as flawed as the rest of the world, as flawed as Jensen and Connor, where was the morality that consolidated judge, jury, and executioner and dispensed with the concept of fair treatment under law? Who's law? Mankind's? God's? Hood's?

Jensen wanted to weep for the nature of the world. For the man at the table who sipped his beer and gauged hope was gone.

Hope was not gone.

Jensen nodded his head. He put the card in a pocket as an afterthought, but it was the helmet that he reached for.

"I am not willing to kill for it."
Every man, Jensen included, had to decide where the line was drawn. Jensen knew his. He would not waver no matter how siren the logic. He had to believe there was hope. To believe in The Gift.

His gaze remained soft, his voice gentle, but he leaned over the table to share the words without making Hood strain to hear them. He was less afraid of Hood now. "You're right about redemption. We're beyond saving the world, but I won't stop trying anyway."


He held the man's gaze. Light blue eyes and fair haired, Hood might have been a handsome man if he weren't draped in despair. "If you find yourself in need of me, for any reason, I will come."


With that, he stretched upright, secure in himself, and dipped a nod at Charlene. His drawl bellowed to her, "Pleasure to meet you, ma'am."


He turned to go.

[Hood]

"Then I hope you are willing to die for it, hypocrite. Not willing to kill to change things, and no hope of succeeding. So you do what you do so you can sleep better at night? So you can tell yourself 'well at least I'm still trying'? Get that fatalistic attitude out of your system, or you'll end up six feet under before you do anyone a lick of good."
He hated that sort of mentality; saw it all the time in politicians and officers. They'd push to do what was right when they knew there was no chance it could succeed, just to make it look like they were still trying. It was a waste of everyone's time.

"You want to make the world a better place, you damn well better fucking believe your god is on your side. You ain't fighting to win your place in heaven. You'd better be fighting so folks like those kids don't end up their too soon. So they can get married, have brats of their own. Because the world's not so bad. Because folks like you are making sure of that. Because if you fucking don't, it'll be up to men like me to make sure it is."
He stood up and grabbed his empty beer bottle, eyeing Jensen angrily. The man was going through the motions just for the sake of it, not for the goal.

"Now run along and read that fucking book of yours. Fucking thing better say in there somewhere that doing good doesn't win you a place in heaven. Better be meaning behind it. Drive. Intent. Belief. All those fucking power-words those Evengelist shits spew all the damn time."
He tapped Jensen's chest with the bottle, lightly, "Those men are fucktards after money and power. You better prove yourself better then them. You do what you do because there's hope."
He turned away then and went to the bar to get himself another drink, muttering about hypocrites. Another beer and then he would head back to the safe-house and take stock of things.

[Jensen James]

Jensen walked out of the bar feeling like he'd been kicked in the chest. Hood's words rambled through his mind, a terrible broken record he couldn't turn off.

He fiddled with the helmet, but couldn't quite get the safety to click. What was wrong with his hands? Why were they shaking?

He shook them out and pushed the ignition. The bike revved awake. He walked it out and a moment later, shot down the street.

He cut around the bumper of a car, and ignored the blaring horn that followed. Everything Hood said played in his mind, round and round until the streets blurred away to black paths he took at random.

He ended up at the shipping yards some time later. The same yard where he worked for the last year. He couldn't get past the massive chainlink gates at the entrance, neither did he want to, but he sat outside half turned to ride back the other direction and peered blankly in.

He didn't want to go back to a life of jumping from job to job, too afraid to talk to anyone for fear they'd recognize him. The farther he went from Texas the easier it became to blend in, and Moscow was as far away from Dallas as one man could flee.

Strange that he'd found a sense of purpose here. Doulou set him on the path that transformed his curse to the Gift. Connor, another American, was the only person he might consider a friend. Jensen knew he never felt more alive, more right than when the Gift connected him to another human being. When he laid on of hands and felt their wounds dissolve. At that moment, staring through the chainlink fence of a shipping complex, he might have wept, but Hood's oration echoed like a nightmare.

'Better say in there somewhere that doing good doesn't win you a place in heaven.'

Actually, the Bible did say that doing good does not win you a place in heaven. He could have said as much before, but he couldn't bring himself to stand up to Hood. To tell him that he was right. That Jensen had no illusions of who and what he was.

'All those power-words those Evengelist spew all the time.' Yes we do, but Jensen would never again see the back side of a pulpit. He couldn't understand why Hood was so bothered by him not wanting to kill people? He couldn't wrap his mind around it. When did not murdering people become a bad thing?

'You do what you do because there's hope.' Yes! Exactly!

His chest tightened. He was angry but without a target. He felt trapped in his own skin, trapped as much as he was by the road behind and the fence ahead. He wanted to kick the ground; hit the fence. The anger beget anger, and he found hot tears in his eyes welling from the horror of his own behavior. He was utterly lost. He and Connor were both lost, unless Jensen came up with a way to defend themselves without inflicting the more harm he was trying to rid from the world.

He unzipped his coat a little and relished the flood of icy air around his neck.

There had to be a way.