Rule 26 (4 of ?, j2 au)
Unbeta'd and unameripicked. Sorry for the delay again! I would promise a regular schedule but… you know what I'm like by now. ♥ ♥ ♥
Rule 26 (4/?)
(J2 au)
It was entirely possible Kane hadn't been lying about there being nothing else on the moon. In which case, he probably hadn't been lying about the wild animals either.
But Jared's options had been go out the nearest window before Wisdom could get security back on line, or stay. And staying was an option in the same way that smashing his head into the wall until his brains leaked out and he died was.
So Jared had grabbed a respirator and gone out of the window. Within the first few seconds of being out of the window, he started to reconsider his options, but it was too late by then.
His plan to scale the side of the crystal walls didn't work out so well. Instead, he slid down them so fast he would probably have lost a whole layer of skin if the crystal hadn't been as smooth as it was. He came to a painful stop at the meeting point of two huge shards of crystal, and was able to reanalyze his potential descent.
The loudness of his own breathing under the respirator mask against the unbroken stillness of the moon's atmosphere was unnerving. Above his head, the stars were tiny specks of light, and the idea that he could reach a single one of them seemed ridiculous.
Again, Jared reminded himself that it was going forward, or going back to Doctor Nekrotik.
He took the next leg of his descent at an only marginally more controlled pace, inching down the crystal. His palms and boot-tips scrabbled to gain traction every time he started to slip. The scale of the crystal structure made him feel tiny, lost against its flat black radiance. It felt more than a little suicidal. The reason Doctor Nekrotik probably didn't feel the need for additional exterior security was that most people tended to be put off by practically vertical hundred foot drops.
Of course, Jared wasn't most people. He was a nice guy in most respects, but he was also pretty stubborn. He'd go a long way before he'd back down, and escaping was something he wasn't backing down about in a hurry.
By the time he reached the foot of the structure, his body was humming with adrenaline. He skidded on the last downward section and landed on all fours in the dust. The crystal glittered on his palms like frost. Straightening up, he dusted himself down and surveyed the horizon for signs of possible civilization. There were rocks, and bigger rocks, and nothing else. Jared was undeterred.
He set off at a slow jog in the least rocky direction.
A short while after Doctor Nekrotik's crystal base disappeared in the distance, Jared dropped to a walk. A sun was just coming up, light slanting across the shimmering landscape and shadows shooting out from the rocks, and the moon's silence gradually felt less intimidating.
Jared was in a good enough mood to start thinking about what exactly he'd tell Chad about Doctor Nekrotik, after he'd busted him and the rest of the guys out of the mines, that was.
He'd tell Chad that Doctor Nekrotik was worse than they'd ever imagined. He'd definitely tell Chad about Obraxus, and about the mind control. He'd tell Chad that he'd been picked up because Doctor Nekrotik was a sadistic bastard and wanted to torture him, not because of that vague implication that Doctor Nekrotik thought he was hot.
He wouldn't tell Chad about Doctor Nekrotik asking Jared to have dinner with him. He wouldn't tell Chad anything about Jensen, or his green eyes, or how he couldn't work the coffee machine in his own kitchen.
In Jared's experience, Chad preferred things to be one-dimensional. All that Chad, or anyone at all, needed to know about Doctor Nekrotik was that he had to die. The relevant information was that Doctor Nekrotik burned helpless planets, not that he was really pretty under his respirator.
Faraway, something pulsed in the atmosphere. The reverberations swept over Jared's skin, then faded away. Jared skittered behind the closest rock big enough to hide him.
But nothing came.
A low breeze touched the dust, and the crystals skimmed and whirled, and then settled once more.
Licking his lips, Jared ducked sharply out of cover, scanned his surroundings, then ducked back behind the rock.
Still nothing.
Hesitantly, Jared crawled out of hiding. The moon's peace was undisturbed. His cheerful optimism somewhat dented, Jared resumed his trek across the moon.
The rocky terrain still hadn't given away to anything more likely to be the mark of inhabitation. The sun's warmth was becoming oppressive, and was only likely to get more as the morning went on. Jared's feet were beginning to ache. He heard the distant pulse again a little while later, but still nothing came of it.
Despite remembering just how blankly unhelpful the terminals in the hangar had been, Jared began to wonder if he shouldn't have tried to make it to a shuttle, instead of coming out the window. Chances were, security would have been back on-line before he could get to the hangar. Either that or he'd have run into Jeff or Kane.
He'd taken the best opportunity presented to him, and he couldn't regret it, though he was having to come to terms with the possibility that he was going to walk himself right back around to Doctor Nekrotik's base.
Jared ignored the suspicion as long as he could, but eventually had to admit that, yes, the pulses were getting closer. He wasn't really surprised when the soft thrum of a shuttle's engine became audible behind him. Risking a glance back, Jared saw the aircraft was still just a blurred shape in the distance, but it was covering ground fast.
There was another pulse, and this time, the crystal dust jumped up around Jared, thick and swirling like a curtain being drawn back. Even as Jared was skidding backwards, the crystal dust fell back to the ground.
Behind him, the shuttle picked up speed.
He ran for rocky cover, patted along the rough surface for a crack he could slip inside. Too late.
"Jared? Jared, thank god." Jensen's voice hovered on the air, ghostly and faintly distorted through the shuttle's transmitters. "Look, it's dangerous out here. You could get hurt. Not to mention that you don't have anywhere to go."
Jared stubbornly continued investigating the rocks.
"Jared, come on. Come back to the base." Jensen's tone was definitely wheedling. "Please? Just come back to the base, and we'll talk about it, and I'll see what I can do to make you happier."
Jared rolled his eyes. He followed a hairline crack along the rocks, delighted as the crack grew wider, and started opening up into a gap large enough for him to get through. It was a long shot, but if the rock structure was anything like the terrain outside Stantone, Jared could get himself good and hidden in the internal network of interlacing stone.
Apparently, Jensen hadn't closed comms properly, just stuck a hand over the microphone, because Jared caught a muffled burst of conference between him, Kane and Morgan. Whatever Kane was saying, he sounded pissed. Morgan didn't sound much happier.
Then Jensen's voice came back clearly. "Look, I know you've got every reason to hate me. And I know that kidnapping you like this wasn't the best way to start a relationship, but - Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to meet guys? It's really hard, Jared. Everyone gets hung up on the Nekrotik thing and I can't blame them but sometimes I just wanna be able to sit down, and have a nice meal, with someone who's gonna see me, and not the evil ruler of the galaxy."
"You seriously want to consider shutting up," Kane muttered.
Jared began the process of squeezing himself through the crevasse. Sure, Jared was a big guy, but he was also bendy, which had come in useful all the time when he was committing acts of minor terrorism back at Stantone.
"Jared?" Jensen said sharply. "Jared, don't go in there. Things live in the rocks. You're gonna get yourself hurt."
"Better dead than with you!" Jared shouted back savagely - probably not at all intelligibly under the respirator and at that distance, and not caring at all - and ducked into the darkness.
Inside, Jared fumbled up the side of the rock wall, until he was sure he had enough headspace to stand. He flicked on the mini-flashlight attached to his respirator, and the glow was feeble, but good enough to confirm his hope of an internal system of navigable passages within the rock.
A strange sense of liberation came with the knowledge that he was being suicidally stupid. Anything seemed a better prospect than going back with Doctor Nekrotik, even dying, and so Jared was free to do whatever crazy thing crossed his mind, so long as it took him further away from capture.
Behind him, back out in the open, there was another pulse in the air, but the rock around Jared didn't so much as shiver. However Jensen was tracking him, it obviously worked better with crystal dust.
As he walked, he thought he registered a descent. The passage opened up and, while there were sections that Jared was forced to scrabble over piles of cruel rock, mostly there was a naturally hewn path he could take.
He wondered how long his respirator's energy supply would last. It would divert all power to air-purifying when it started running low, but Jared knew that if he couldn't make it back to the surface, he was looking at a week of trying to survive in the pitch-black. If he didn't starve first, of course.
It would be nice to think that this might teach Doctor Nekrotik a valuable lesson. Something along the lines of: you are a bastard and some people would rather die than have to spend time with you. Maybe Jared was doing some poor joe in the future a favor. Next time Doctor Nekrotik thought about kidnapping someone, he'd remember Jared and think again.
More likely, Doctor Nekrotik had probably already lost interest and gone off to firebomb somewhere.
A gust of air moved through the passageway. The air was warm. And smelly.
Wild animals, and things that live in the rocks. Jared was vividly reminded of both warnings, as he turned his head slowly, from side to side, to spot whatever it was in the dark with him. The pathetic beam of light from his respirator tripped over the craggy walls, and lost its way in the pits of deeper, darker shadow.
Something breathed on Jared again.
It came out of the rock, in a slow, dusty slink. It peeled its bulk away from its camouflage, and Jared's jaw dropped, because it was really very big, and it was looking at him. Its eyes were reptilian yellow, and, until it opened his mouth, it was the color of stone. Then, with its huge jaws gaping wide, there was a lot of big red tongue and sharp silvery teeth.
Maybe, if Jared stayed very still, the creature would decide he wasn't a threat, and would ignore him. Then again, maybe if Jared stayed very still, he'd be making it very easy for the creature to eat him. He was pretty sure whatever it was, the creature fell into the category of predator.
If the thing's hide was as tough as it looked, Jared had no hope of doing any damage, so attacking it didn't seem smart. Plus it was awful big, so Jared would have to do a lot of damage for it to make a difference.
Running like hell and hoping the creature was a slow mover was Jared's best bet.
He took off fast, and the creature lumbered clumsily after him, its flicking tail smashing chips out of the rock walls. Jared got a good distance between them, but the sound of it coming along behind him was constant. He charged back up the pathway, skittered over the uneven outcrops of rock, and watched for any gap in the walls large enough for him to tuck himself in.
Taking a corner too fast, he lost his footing. A sharp wrenching pain went through his ankle as he tumbled over. But he didn't have time to feel it. Already, the rumbling sound of pursuit was coming too close. Jared hauled himself upright and set off again.
The fabric of his jumpsuit was torn across the shin where it'd scraped the ground, and the skin underneath stung, probably grazed and bleeding. His limp slowed him down. The distance between him and the creature started to shrink. Its breath was on the back of Jared's neck, and he could hear the snap of its teeth.
Wherever he'd run, the cave opened up into a larger area. Jared's heart dropped as the only exit he could see was high up in the wall. Maybe, he could scramble up the uneven rock face and reach the gap, if he didn't have a big, hungry animal on his tail. But he didn't have time to get far enough out of reach before it would be on him.
He was going to die. He supposed he should be okay with it, considering he had been just a few minutes ago. Doctor Nekrotik, or getting eaten by a rock-beast: Jared guessed he couldn't complain about how things had turned out really. At least getting torn to pieces would probably be a quick way to go.
"Jared!" Jensen called out. "Don't move!"
Jared had no idea where Jensen had come from, because by the time he turned around, Jensen was beside, and Jeff was coming in close behind.
"Jensen, get down!" Jeff shouted. "You're in my shot!"
Not taking his eyes off the beast in front of them, Jensen didn't move. "I've got it," he called back.
He stretched out a hand, and the creature's approach slowed, until it reached a trot towards them. It hissed and panted, pawing the ground, while Jensen tentatively moved forward enough to put his body between it and Jared. Behind them, Jeff crept closer, hooked his fingers in the back of Jared's jumpsuit and tugged him away.
"Go on," said Jensen, and Jared thought he meant them, but then the creature hissed again, before turning and sauntering back into the caves.
"What the hell was that?" said Jeff. "I'm supposed to be your bodyguard. It'd help me do my job if you didn't go running straight at what I'm s'posed to be guarding your body from."
"Granyts are an endangered species," Jensen said. "Less than a hundred left in the whole galaxy."
While keeping an arm around Jared's shoulders to keep him on his feet, Jeff reached out with his other hand to haul Jensen back up over the rocks. "And there's only one of you, which makes you even more endangered. In future, when we're doing something stupid, animal conservation takes a lower priority than keeping you in one piece."
"Says the man who couldn't walk by a litter of orphaned Jaxian hunting dogs without adopting them all," Jensen said. He raised a finger before Jeff could argue. "No. Not hearing any more from you about this." He glanced at Jared, then frowned. "You're hurt."
"The crushing disappointment at having to spend more time with you is taking my mind off it nicely, thanks," Jared snapped. It was mostly true, but Jared got awesome little reminders of how much his ankle hurt every time he tried to put weight on it.
"Here, let me," said Jensen.
Before Jared could argue, Jensen was on his knees in front of him, one black-gloved hand skimming over his calf and shin, before settling on Jared's ankle. There was a sensation of something moving under Jared's skin, and then no more pain. Not even a mild ache. Jared rolled his ankle experimentally.
Still down on front of Jared, Jensen tilted a smile up at him. "Better?"
"Take your fucking hands off me," Jared snarled. Jeff yanked him backwards before his foot could connect with Jensen's chest, but it was a close thing.
Jensen's eyes narrowed, but he dusted himself down and got to his feet. "Would it really have killed you to say 'thank you'?"
"I didn't ask you to do it, and I didn't want you to do it," said Jared. "I don't want anything from you, got that? You're evil and cruel, and a murderer of innocent people. You destroyed my planet. I'm not gonna get over that because you mended the ankle I hurt while trying to escape because you kidnapped me!"
There was a moment's silence, broken only by the creak of Jeff's leather armor as he shifted behind Jared. Jensen's expression was implacable, as unreadable as if he were wearing his mask. Jared didn't shy away from meeting his eyes, held them with steady defiance as long as Jensen wanted to study him.
"I looked into your activities back on Stantone," Jensen said finally. "The bombings and the sabotage and the robberies. They were smartly planned and smartly executed. You're not being smart right now. It's cute that you're stubborn, Jared, but it ain't smart." He patted Jared's cheek. "Go to sleep."
And Jared had just enough time to register that weird sensation of cool black latex on his skin - which brought a fleeting memory of Jensen thrashing and desperate against him as Jared curled his arm around his neck - before his body was giving in to the command.
:::
He was back on the shuttle when he woke, sprawled out across two seats, watching the back of Kane's head as he piloted them back to base. Unlike before, there was no music playing and nobody was talking. Jared glanced around. Jensen was sitting on the seat by Jared's feet. He was gazing straight ahead, eyes fixed on nothing in particular, inexplicably mournful. Sensing Jared's eyes on him, he looked down at him. His expression didn't change.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For earlier. You've got every right to be…" He smiled colorlessly. "Pissed doesn't really do it justice, I know. I know what I've done to you, Jared, I really do. It's just I'm trying really hard with you, and I don't know what I have to do to show you that…" He rolled his eyes at himself, looking bitterly amused. "Yeah, I know. Always looking for quick results. Always been my problem."
He started to rise and, on instinct, Jared sat up, saying, "Wait!"
When Jensen looked back, there was a look of carefully guarded hope in his eyes, that almost - almost - pinged something in Jared. He licked his lips and surveyed Jensen a moment.
"The people I was picked up with," said Jared. His heart was beating hard, as if to shut him up before he could get the words out. "You release them, and I'll have dinner with you."
A pause, as Jensen seemed to be turning it over in his head, his lips already parted to speak. "I can't let them go free. But-" he continued quickly, as Jared began to protest, "I can have them brought out of the mines and placed in a secure detention unit."
"You hold them for a month, then you let them go," said Jared.
Jensen shook his head. "Three years."
"Three months."
"One year, and it's a three course meal."
"Six months, and it's a three course meal," said Jared.
Jensen's smile was sudden and stunning. "Done." He scrambled over the seats to Kane's side, scooping up his gasmask as he went. "Kane, get me Captain Hiviter."
When the gasmask went back on, Jared couldn't see if Jensen was still smiling. It was simpler when Jensen wasn't pretty and human and happy. He was more dangerous with the mask off. It was obvious he was Doctor Nekrotik when he had the mask on, and, sure, Jared may have thought he was agreeing to dinner with Jensen, but it was Doctor Nekrotik who was going to be there.
The urge to take it back rose up in Jared's throat, but he thought about Chad and Alexis and Tom and Stirling, all those people he cared about who would be saved because of a small sacrifice from Jared. So he kept silent, and listened to Jensen give the order.
If Jensen wasn't playing fair, Jared didn't hear it. Of course, Jensen could be planning on revoking the order when Jared wasn't around to hear, but so far, the details were exactly as discussed. He was saving people's lives, that was what he had to focus on. And he'd only agreed to dinner. After all, he had to eat some time, he might as well do it when it would save lives.
His heart rate still hadn't settled, and picked up even more as the black base rose up in front of them. In the background, he could hear Jensen finishing up his business, and Jared couldn't escape how much he sounded like Doctor Nekrotik - sharp and fast and quiet.
"So," said Jensen, kneeling on his seat and hanging over the back of it to face Jared. "Red wine or white? Or beer?"
Jared found it a tough one to answer, mostly because Doctor Nekrotik was asking him what he wanted to drink with dinner, while still wearing the gasmask, emblem of the most feared and hated man in the galaxy.
Jared was going to have to spend an entire evening with a man he wanted to kill.
Rule 26 (4/?)
(J2 au)
It was entirely possible Kane hadn't been lying about there being nothing else on the moon. In which case, he probably hadn't been lying about the wild animals either.
But Jared's options had been go out the nearest window before Wisdom could get security back on line, or stay. And staying was an option in the same way that smashing his head into the wall until his brains leaked out and he died was.
So Jared had grabbed a respirator and gone out of the window. Within the first few seconds of being out of the window, he started to reconsider his options, but it was too late by then.
His plan to scale the side of the crystal walls didn't work out so well. Instead, he slid down them so fast he would probably have lost a whole layer of skin if the crystal hadn't been as smooth as it was. He came to a painful stop at the meeting point of two huge shards of crystal, and was able to reanalyze his potential descent.
The loudness of his own breathing under the respirator mask against the unbroken stillness of the moon's atmosphere was unnerving. Above his head, the stars were tiny specks of light, and the idea that he could reach a single one of them seemed ridiculous.
Again, Jared reminded himself that it was going forward, or going back to Doctor Nekrotik.
He took the next leg of his descent at an only marginally more controlled pace, inching down the crystal. His palms and boot-tips scrabbled to gain traction every time he started to slip. The scale of the crystal structure made him feel tiny, lost against its flat black radiance. It felt more than a little suicidal. The reason Doctor Nekrotik probably didn't feel the need for additional exterior security was that most people tended to be put off by practically vertical hundred foot drops.
Of course, Jared wasn't most people. He was a nice guy in most respects, but he was also pretty stubborn. He'd go a long way before he'd back down, and escaping was something he wasn't backing down about in a hurry.
By the time he reached the foot of the structure, his body was humming with adrenaline. He skidded on the last downward section and landed on all fours in the dust. The crystal glittered on his palms like frost. Straightening up, he dusted himself down and surveyed the horizon for signs of possible civilization. There were rocks, and bigger rocks, and nothing else. Jared was undeterred.
He set off at a slow jog in the least rocky direction.
A short while after Doctor Nekrotik's crystal base disappeared in the distance, Jared dropped to a walk. A sun was just coming up, light slanting across the shimmering landscape and shadows shooting out from the rocks, and the moon's silence gradually felt less intimidating.
Jared was in a good enough mood to start thinking about what exactly he'd tell Chad about Doctor Nekrotik, after he'd busted him and the rest of the guys out of the mines, that was.
He'd tell Chad that Doctor Nekrotik was worse than they'd ever imagined. He'd definitely tell Chad about Obraxus, and about the mind control. He'd tell Chad that he'd been picked up because Doctor Nekrotik was a sadistic bastard and wanted to torture him, not because of that vague implication that Doctor Nekrotik thought he was hot.
He wouldn't tell Chad about Doctor Nekrotik asking Jared to have dinner with him. He wouldn't tell Chad anything about Jensen, or his green eyes, or how he couldn't work the coffee machine in his own kitchen.
In Jared's experience, Chad preferred things to be one-dimensional. All that Chad, or anyone at all, needed to know about Doctor Nekrotik was that he had to die. The relevant information was that Doctor Nekrotik burned helpless planets, not that he was really pretty under his respirator.
Faraway, something pulsed in the atmosphere. The reverberations swept over Jared's skin, then faded away. Jared skittered behind the closest rock big enough to hide him.
But nothing came.
A low breeze touched the dust, and the crystals skimmed and whirled, and then settled once more.
Licking his lips, Jared ducked sharply out of cover, scanned his surroundings, then ducked back behind the rock.
Still nothing.
Hesitantly, Jared crawled out of hiding. The moon's peace was undisturbed. His cheerful optimism somewhat dented, Jared resumed his trek across the moon.
The rocky terrain still hadn't given away to anything more likely to be the mark of inhabitation. The sun's warmth was becoming oppressive, and was only likely to get more as the morning went on. Jared's feet were beginning to ache. He heard the distant pulse again a little while later, but still nothing came of it.
Despite remembering just how blankly unhelpful the terminals in the hangar had been, Jared began to wonder if he shouldn't have tried to make it to a shuttle, instead of coming out the window. Chances were, security would have been back on-line before he could get to the hangar. Either that or he'd have run into Jeff or Kane.
He'd taken the best opportunity presented to him, and he couldn't regret it, though he was having to come to terms with the possibility that he was going to walk himself right back around to Doctor Nekrotik's base.
Jared ignored the suspicion as long as he could, but eventually had to admit that, yes, the pulses were getting closer. He wasn't really surprised when the soft thrum of a shuttle's engine became audible behind him. Risking a glance back, Jared saw the aircraft was still just a blurred shape in the distance, but it was covering ground fast.
There was another pulse, and this time, the crystal dust jumped up around Jared, thick and swirling like a curtain being drawn back. Even as Jared was skidding backwards, the crystal dust fell back to the ground.
Behind him, the shuttle picked up speed.
He ran for rocky cover, patted along the rough surface for a crack he could slip inside. Too late.
"Jared? Jared, thank god." Jensen's voice hovered on the air, ghostly and faintly distorted through the shuttle's transmitters. "Look, it's dangerous out here. You could get hurt. Not to mention that you don't have anywhere to go."
Jared stubbornly continued investigating the rocks.
"Jared, come on. Come back to the base." Jensen's tone was definitely wheedling. "Please? Just come back to the base, and we'll talk about it, and I'll see what I can do to make you happier."
Jared rolled his eyes. He followed a hairline crack along the rocks, delighted as the crack grew wider, and started opening up into a gap large enough for him to get through. It was a long shot, but if the rock structure was anything like the terrain outside Stantone, Jared could get himself good and hidden in the internal network of interlacing stone.
Apparently, Jensen hadn't closed comms properly, just stuck a hand over the microphone, because Jared caught a muffled burst of conference between him, Kane and Morgan. Whatever Kane was saying, he sounded pissed. Morgan didn't sound much happier.
Then Jensen's voice came back clearly. "Look, I know you've got every reason to hate me. And I know that kidnapping you like this wasn't the best way to start a relationship, but - Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to meet guys? It's really hard, Jared. Everyone gets hung up on the Nekrotik thing and I can't blame them but sometimes I just wanna be able to sit down, and have a nice meal, with someone who's gonna see me, and not the evil ruler of the galaxy."
"You seriously want to consider shutting up," Kane muttered.
Jared began the process of squeezing himself through the crevasse. Sure, Jared was a big guy, but he was also bendy, which had come in useful all the time when he was committing acts of minor terrorism back at Stantone.
"Jared?" Jensen said sharply. "Jared, don't go in there. Things live in the rocks. You're gonna get yourself hurt."
"Better dead than with you!" Jared shouted back savagely - probably not at all intelligibly under the respirator and at that distance, and not caring at all - and ducked into the darkness.
Inside, Jared fumbled up the side of the rock wall, until he was sure he had enough headspace to stand. He flicked on the mini-flashlight attached to his respirator, and the glow was feeble, but good enough to confirm his hope of an internal system of navigable passages within the rock.
A strange sense of liberation came with the knowledge that he was being suicidally stupid. Anything seemed a better prospect than going back with Doctor Nekrotik, even dying, and so Jared was free to do whatever crazy thing crossed his mind, so long as it took him further away from capture.
Behind him, back out in the open, there was another pulse in the air, but the rock around Jared didn't so much as shiver. However Jensen was tracking him, it obviously worked better with crystal dust.
As he walked, he thought he registered a descent. The passage opened up and, while there were sections that Jared was forced to scrabble over piles of cruel rock, mostly there was a naturally hewn path he could take.
He wondered how long his respirator's energy supply would last. It would divert all power to air-purifying when it started running low, but Jared knew that if he couldn't make it back to the surface, he was looking at a week of trying to survive in the pitch-black. If he didn't starve first, of course.
It would be nice to think that this might teach Doctor Nekrotik a valuable lesson. Something along the lines of: you are a bastard and some people would rather die than have to spend time with you. Maybe Jared was doing some poor joe in the future a favor. Next time Doctor Nekrotik thought about kidnapping someone, he'd remember Jared and think again.
More likely, Doctor Nekrotik had probably already lost interest and gone off to firebomb somewhere.
A gust of air moved through the passageway. The air was warm. And smelly.
Wild animals, and things that live in the rocks. Jared was vividly reminded of both warnings, as he turned his head slowly, from side to side, to spot whatever it was in the dark with him. The pathetic beam of light from his respirator tripped over the craggy walls, and lost its way in the pits of deeper, darker shadow.
Something breathed on Jared again.
It came out of the rock, in a slow, dusty slink. It peeled its bulk away from its camouflage, and Jared's jaw dropped, because it was really very big, and it was looking at him. Its eyes were reptilian yellow, and, until it opened his mouth, it was the color of stone. Then, with its huge jaws gaping wide, there was a lot of big red tongue and sharp silvery teeth.
Maybe, if Jared stayed very still, the creature would decide he wasn't a threat, and would ignore him. Then again, maybe if Jared stayed very still, he'd be making it very easy for the creature to eat him. He was pretty sure whatever it was, the creature fell into the category of predator.
If the thing's hide was as tough as it looked, Jared had no hope of doing any damage, so attacking it didn't seem smart. Plus it was awful big, so Jared would have to do a lot of damage for it to make a difference.
Running like hell and hoping the creature was a slow mover was Jared's best bet.
He took off fast, and the creature lumbered clumsily after him, its flicking tail smashing chips out of the rock walls. Jared got a good distance between them, but the sound of it coming along behind him was constant. He charged back up the pathway, skittered over the uneven outcrops of rock, and watched for any gap in the walls large enough for him to tuck himself in.
Taking a corner too fast, he lost his footing. A sharp wrenching pain went through his ankle as he tumbled over. But he didn't have time to feel it. Already, the rumbling sound of pursuit was coming too close. Jared hauled himself upright and set off again.
The fabric of his jumpsuit was torn across the shin where it'd scraped the ground, and the skin underneath stung, probably grazed and bleeding. His limp slowed him down. The distance between him and the creature started to shrink. Its breath was on the back of Jared's neck, and he could hear the snap of its teeth.
Wherever he'd run, the cave opened up into a larger area. Jared's heart dropped as the only exit he could see was high up in the wall. Maybe, he could scramble up the uneven rock face and reach the gap, if he didn't have a big, hungry animal on his tail. But he didn't have time to get far enough out of reach before it would be on him.
He was going to die. He supposed he should be okay with it, considering he had been just a few minutes ago. Doctor Nekrotik, or getting eaten by a rock-beast: Jared guessed he couldn't complain about how things had turned out really. At least getting torn to pieces would probably be a quick way to go.
"Jared!" Jensen called out. "Don't move!"
Jared had no idea where Jensen had come from, because by the time he turned around, Jensen was beside, and Jeff was coming in close behind.
"Jensen, get down!" Jeff shouted. "You're in my shot!"
Not taking his eyes off the beast in front of them, Jensen didn't move. "I've got it," he called back.
He stretched out a hand, and the creature's approach slowed, until it reached a trot towards them. It hissed and panted, pawing the ground, while Jensen tentatively moved forward enough to put his body between it and Jared. Behind them, Jeff crept closer, hooked his fingers in the back of Jared's jumpsuit and tugged him away.
"Go on," said Jensen, and Jared thought he meant them, but then the creature hissed again, before turning and sauntering back into the caves.
"What the hell was that?" said Jeff. "I'm supposed to be your bodyguard. It'd help me do my job if you didn't go running straight at what I'm s'posed to be guarding your body from."
"Granyts are an endangered species," Jensen said. "Less than a hundred left in the whole galaxy."
While keeping an arm around Jared's shoulders to keep him on his feet, Jeff reached out with his other hand to haul Jensen back up over the rocks. "And there's only one of you, which makes you even more endangered. In future, when we're doing something stupid, animal conservation takes a lower priority than keeping you in one piece."
"Says the man who couldn't walk by a litter of orphaned Jaxian hunting dogs without adopting them all," Jensen said. He raised a finger before Jeff could argue. "No. Not hearing any more from you about this." He glanced at Jared, then frowned. "You're hurt."
"The crushing disappointment at having to spend more time with you is taking my mind off it nicely, thanks," Jared snapped. It was mostly true, but Jared got awesome little reminders of how much his ankle hurt every time he tried to put weight on it.
"Here, let me," said Jensen.
Before Jared could argue, Jensen was on his knees in front of him, one black-gloved hand skimming over his calf and shin, before settling on Jared's ankle. There was a sensation of something moving under Jared's skin, and then no more pain. Not even a mild ache. Jared rolled his ankle experimentally.
Still down on front of Jared, Jensen tilted a smile up at him. "Better?"
"Take your fucking hands off me," Jared snarled. Jeff yanked him backwards before his foot could connect with Jensen's chest, but it was a close thing.
Jensen's eyes narrowed, but he dusted himself down and got to his feet. "Would it really have killed you to say 'thank you'?"
"I didn't ask you to do it, and I didn't want you to do it," said Jared. "I don't want anything from you, got that? You're evil and cruel, and a murderer of innocent people. You destroyed my planet. I'm not gonna get over that because you mended the ankle I hurt while trying to escape because you kidnapped me!"
There was a moment's silence, broken only by the creak of Jeff's leather armor as he shifted behind Jared. Jensen's expression was implacable, as unreadable as if he were wearing his mask. Jared didn't shy away from meeting his eyes, held them with steady defiance as long as Jensen wanted to study him.
"I looked into your activities back on Stantone," Jensen said finally. "The bombings and the sabotage and the robberies. They were smartly planned and smartly executed. You're not being smart right now. It's cute that you're stubborn, Jared, but it ain't smart." He patted Jared's cheek. "Go to sleep."
And Jared had just enough time to register that weird sensation of cool black latex on his skin - which brought a fleeting memory of Jensen thrashing and desperate against him as Jared curled his arm around his neck - before his body was giving in to the command.
:::
He was back on the shuttle when he woke, sprawled out across two seats, watching the back of Kane's head as he piloted them back to base. Unlike before, there was no music playing and nobody was talking. Jared glanced around. Jensen was sitting on the seat by Jared's feet. He was gazing straight ahead, eyes fixed on nothing in particular, inexplicably mournful. Sensing Jared's eyes on him, he looked down at him. His expression didn't change.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For earlier. You've got every right to be…" He smiled colorlessly. "Pissed doesn't really do it justice, I know. I know what I've done to you, Jared, I really do. It's just I'm trying really hard with you, and I don't know what I have to do to show you that…" He rolled his eyes at himself, looking bitterly amused. "Yeah, I know. Always looking for quick results. Always been my problem."
He started to rise and, on instinct, Jared sat up, saying, "Wait!"
When Jensen looked back, there was a look of carefully guarded hope in his eyes, that almost - almost - pinged something in Jared. He licked his lips and surveyed Jensen a moment.
"The people I was picked up with," said Jared. His heart was beating hard, as if to shut him up before he could get the words out. "You release them, and I'll have dinner with you."
A pause, as Jensen seemed to be turning it over in his head, his lips already parted to speak. "I can't let them go free. But-" he continued quickly, as Jared began to protest, "I can have them brought out of the mines and placed in a secure detention unit."
"You hold them for a month, then you let them go," said Jared.
Jensen shook his head. "Three years."
"Three months."
"One year, and it's a three course meal."
"Six months, and it's a three course meal," said Jared.
Jensen's smile was sudden and stunning. "Done." He scrambled over the seats to Kane's side, scooping up his gasmask as he went. "Kane, get me Captain Hiviter."
When the gasmask went back on, Jared couldn't see if Jensen was still smiling. It was simpler when Jensen wasn't pretty and human and happy. He was more dangerous with the mask off. It was obvious he was Doctor Nekrotik when he had the mask on, and, sure, Jared may have thought he was agreeing to dinner with Jensen, but it was Doctor Nekrotik who was going to be there.
The urge to take it back rose up in Jared's throat, but he thought about Chad and Alexis and Tom and Stirling, all those people he cared about who would be saved because of a small sacrifice from Jared. So he kept silent, and listened to Jensen give the order.
If Jensen wasn't playing fair, Jared didn't hear it. Of course, Jensen could be planning on revoking the order when Jared wasn't around to hear, but so far, the details were exactly as discussed. He was saving people's lives, that was what he had to focus on. And he'd only agreed to dinner. After all, he had to eat some time, he might as well do it when it would save lives.
His heart rate still hadn't settled, and picked up even more as the black base rose up in front of them. In the background, he could hear Jensen finishing up his business, and Jared couldn't escape how much he sounded like Doctor Nekrotik - sharp and fast and quiet.
"So," said Jensen, kneeling on his seat and hanging over the back of it to face Jared. "Red wine or white? Or beer?"
Jared found it a tough one to answer, mostly because Doctor Nekrotik was asking him what he wanted to drink with dinner, while still wearing the gasmask, emblem of the most feared and hated man in the galaxy.
Jared was going to have to spend an entire evening with a man he wanted to kill.