Title: Revelation
Title: Revelation
Characters: Jason Morgan, Damian Spinelli
Word Count: 1076
Rating: K
Challenge: # 41, Leverage
It was really a simple equation, Sam and Michael owned him heart and soul and everyone else was just lodged into the leftover space willy-nilly. He never stopped to consider if he were unique in that respect, limited in his emotional investment to others. He loved Carly too, that much he knew and he was intensely loyal to Sonny, had been for getting on two decades now. There was also Jake but he didn’t dwell on him much because what good would it do? That little boy’s familiar orbit consisted of his brothers, his mother and father, and now Nicholas.
Someday, he always thought vaguely, the debt would come due. Someday, a blonde haired, blue-eyed reproduction of himself would stand in front of him angry and betrayed, wanting to know what was wrong with him, why he hadn’t been enough but Michael had been. The idea didn’t bother him in the least, actually it comforted him. He knew the answer and it was simple. The very fact of Jake standing before him, healthy, well adjusted, free from nightmares caused by being kidnapped or shooting people or the brain damage induced by being shot, was more than enough reason. Jake would be so much luckier than Michael. Hopefully, one day he would see that but if such a realization never occurred then Jason would still be all right with it. This was one decision he knew with a fierce inner certainty that he would never have cause to regret.
Beside the core people of his heart there were others. He owed fealty to Morgan and Josslyn, both his godchildren. Kristina and Molly now counted among his extended family by virtue of their connection to Sam. There were even others of a more distant lineage, whose ties to him transcended time and space. Those relationships extended back to his alter ego, the incarnation he chose to forget but which the Quartermaines never ceased to mourn. Monica and Edward were the only remnants of that fraught time and he existed in an uneasy truce with them as they hungrily searched his face for traces of the boy he once was rather than the man he had long since become.
When danger came he responded by making sure that all these bits and pieces of his universe were securely guarded but that was only a partially accomplished goal. To ensure their future safety, he was forced to do the best he could to keep everyone he cared about out of harm’s way while he worked to defuse the threat. In order to do that he relied on two things, his skills as an assassin without mercy and his brain, which was separate, safely tucked away back at the penthouse, feeding him pertinent information in an opportune fashion.
He supposed there was a time when it was different, when he faced his opponents blind, without the knowledge of the world ready to be transmitted to him via an earpiece or his cell phone but he truly couldn’t remember how it was back then. Who ever thought about their brain, anymore than they thought about an arm or a leg until one day it suddenly wasn’t there and in its place all that remained was a sense of terrible pain and loss?
The guards lying dead in matching puddles of blood sent every nerve in his body into full alert. He pulled out his cell phone and hit speed dial but all he heard was a voice mail directing him to leave his message of import in the Jackal’s archives for later retrieval. Gritting his teeth and cursing he raced up the endless flight of stairs to the penthouse floor, his heart pounding and his breathing ragged as he reached the top of the dark landing. The power was out in the Harbor View towers and at first he didn’t realize that the slightly darker aperture he faced was the door to the penthouse, open and silently ominous.
“Spinelli,” it was a ragged whisper breathed out into the still air but there wasn’t any response.
Cautiously he edged into the room and retrieved a flashlight from the upper, left-hand desk drawer. The sharp light revealed a room in disarray, a lamp shattered on the floor and the coffee table overturned. Scrubbing at his face, he felt the slow stirrings of rage mixed with panic. The unexpected vibration of his cell phone startled him.
Cursing, he pulled it out of his cargo pants and without checking the number, put it to his ear and barked, “Morgan!”
“Stone Cold,” the voice was small, it quavered but that didn’t matter because he was alive.
“Spinelli, where are you?” He demanded urgently.
“We’ve got your boy, Morgan.” The unfamiliar voice matched Jason’s own harsh tones.
He swallowed and closing his eyes, he asked, “What do you want?”
Obviously, the man hadn’t expected such quick capitulation. When he again spoke, there was a self-satisfied sound to his tone, “Right now?” He asked breezily, “Absolutely nothing, after all with Spinelli neutralized your whole organization will be crippled.”
His voice was pure reason. Jason’s fingers itched against the cool plastic of the phone while he visualized throttling him with his bare hands, his face turning purple as he fought for precious air but there wouldn’t be any because Jason never forgave and he never relented.
“Don’t you dare hurt him,” the words were futile, the only sound he heard was a humorless snort of laughter followed by the dial tone. Dazed, Jason glanced around his destroyed home empty in a way it had never before been. “How am I going to find him?”
The true enormity of his loss hit him with devastating force. Without Spinelli to guide him, Jason was only half a person, the one uncounted was the one who mattered. He possessed the magical keys which unlocked the mystery of cyberspace. Without Spinelli’s electronic eyes and keen intellect, he was reduced to blindly storming through the underworld searching the unsavory underbelly of every rock in his path.
Squaring his shoulders, Jason turned toward the door to the penthouse just as the lights returned. The mangled lock mocked his dual impotence in first attempting to protect his roommate and now in finding him. Yet, he didn’t have any choice but to try. If he succeeded he could resume his prior life, if he failed he would search for his abductors until either they or he were dead. There could be no compromise where family was involved.