Dark Knight's Heir Chapter twelve
Feb. 9th, 2010 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mangacat201Dark Knight's Heir
Author: Mangacat
Pairing: Jared/Jensen, others
Rating: R - NC-17
Parts: 12/25+
Word Count: 3050/80k+
Disclaimer: I totally wanna own them... cough sadly that's not possible, nor is getting paid for this. I'll have fun and they're not going to get hurt … much. Promise.
Warnings: Erm, m/m sex, violence, language, gore (i.e. epic battle of the good against the bad), het sex (OMG), character death (minor).
A/N: soo... I've upped the ante now. The story looks like it's going to take up a few more words but I'm over the hub now and it WILL be finished. EHehe. have fun with the new chapter.
Masterpost
Castlist
previously...
Jared pondered that for a moment until something dawned on him.
“Does that mean I’m like… dreaming or something?”
“Or something. Wow, you really are fast, aren’t you? So if you’re here, and I’m here, that means you’re…”
“I’m Jared Padalecki.”
~*~
Jim regarded the boy next to him and mused fondly. When Jensen had first come here, he was barely seven years old, but he was already an intelligent, earnest kid. He had quickly taken to what was expected of him and honed his skills to the point of perfection. He was still young to be a master, and Jim had no doubt that, given time and experience, he would surpass Jeffrey one day. He had known that even before Jensen had picked up Ascalon like it was just any other weapon, and he approved of the sword’s new wielder, even if the blade did make unease seep into his bones. Times had been different when it was forged, and many things had changed since then. Through the beads of the curtain, he watched as the other kid slumped down in a heap after touching the book, and he noticed Jensen still his breath, tensing up like he was just about ready to jump in there at a moment’s notice. It was an interesting sight to behold, and now that he had time to sort through it, something dawned on him pretty fast.
“Breathe, boy.”
Jensen started and whipped around fast, eyes wide and breath harsh in his chest.
“The kid’s alright; you know that. Nothing can happen to him in there. But that’s not the point, is it?”
Jim felt his nostrils flare with the current of feeling that charged the air around Jensen and was impossible to shield. He snorted, and a little cloud of steam vanished in wisps.
“Boy, you really got it bad.”
Jensen blushed, but shook his head vehemently.
“I don’t know what you mean, there’s nothing.”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, alright. I’ve been waiting forever for you to finally set your eyes on someone. You do have the right to be happy as well, you know?”
Jensen looked down to his feet and rubbed his hand over his brow in distraction.
“It’s… it’s not really… we’re, I mean, we’re connected, like, you know and…”
Jim waited patiently and more than a little stunned. He had never seen Jensen so incoherent and off balance. Normally the young man was all smooth plains and nothing showed behind his façade.
“I… he’s engaged, you know? The guy proposed to him and he’s happy, was happy. And with all the things going jack-shit in his life right now, I mean… there’s just no. There’s no chance, I’m... it’s not a big deal.”
Jim noticed the dejected air around Jensen, and felt with him concerning the plight he found himself in.
“I see.”
He took in the pinched expression on the other man’s face, lips thinned with barely restrained anger, and he realized that there was more to it then simply someone else.
“Well, are you at least looking out for the kid’s partner, since you snagged him down here on very short notice?”
Jensen turned away, pinching the bridge of his nose so that his answer was barely audible.
“No.”
The unexpected answer made Jim perk up quite fast for his age (which was considerable, but undetermined, thank you very much).
“What do you mean, no, did you just walk in and send the guy on vacation or something? Are you serious, Jensen?”
“No, in fact we walked out and straight into the arms of the three bitches from hell, if you must know. At least I managed to kill one of them this time.”
“And you left the others to wait for the kid’s boy to come home or what? Are you nuts?”
Jim actually gave into the urge to seize Jensen by his shoulders and shake him to rattle the answer out of him. Then he stopped abruptly and let his gaze penetrate Jensen’s barriers.
“There’s something else, isn’t? What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s Tom.”
Jim let go of the younger man, completely stunned.
“It… the? Are you sure? How’s the kid even alive then?”
“Yes, I AM fucking sure, he…”
Jensen pressed his fist into his lips and turned away, clearly fighting for composure. “I think… I think the plan was to turn him to… I don’t know what the plan was. But he’s here now, he’s safe, and we will find out what that son of a bitch is planning. There’s something big going down, soon.”
Jensen finally glanced at him from the corner of his eyes.
“Will you… will you help us?”
“Jensen, you know very well that I stay out of these scuffles. Being neutral is what keeps the old ones out of the game and alive. It’s why this place works, I can’t just go and…”
“But if the balance is tipped.”
Jim pondered for a moment and gave a curt nod then.
“But only if the scales are tampered with. I can’t let anyone get through by cheating. Anyone, you hear me?”
It was Jensen’s turn to nod, and he fell silent, a thoughtful frown creasing his features.
“So, what do you want to know?”
“Huh?”
“You came here to find answers, didn’t you? Or did you just want a cup of tea and a nice chat?”
Jared was startled, but he had gotten used to the feeling some time ago, so he caught up fast. Also, he’d decided to bear Jensen’s advice in mind and start with the easy questions. “How are you here? I mean, I get the thing about the book and all, but why you? Why not some ancient dude?”
Rachel looked thoughtful for a moment, and then she grinned. “Well, would you rather have that than my gorgeous figure? I’m not sure how it works – exactly – maybe I just got slapped with library duty for the moment? Also, I’m the last one of the family to actually operate out in the open at the moment. Of course you’ve heard loads about Grandpa, but there were many more who worked putting a bar on the demons, and night crawlers and other vicious things. Our family line goes way back to the crusaders and beyond.”
“Which is why they were called the Dark Knights?” Jared couldn’t help but be curious about this clan that had given themselves over to fight evil and protect people for such a long time.
“Yes, even in times when superstition and belief still had a different, more tangible meaning than today, there was only a very low-numbered, tight-knit group of people, who actually knew the real face of evil out there. And they had to be much more careful as well to avoid landing themselves on a pyre with a set of very warm feet. Still, there is a lot of knowledge and craft that’s been gathered over the years, not to mention quite a reputation. We became leaders and targets both. In the end we’ve mostly specialized in detecting and destroying demons, since they are the most vicious and most organized of the bunch. And it’s also damn difficult to find them since they have the best disguises at their fingertips.”
Jared frowned, since he had so far seen more alleged demons than any other supernatural creature that might be out and about.
“Why? I’ve seen so many of them in the past couple of days that it’s quite enough for a lifetime.”
It was Rachel’s turn to frown until her eyes widened a little bit.
“How have you seen them?”
“Well, the whole dead-eyes-glowing and skin-melting-from-bones routine and all that jazz. I was like Halloween came early, very creepy.”
The woman gasped and reached out as if she wanted to touch him.
“You’ve got the Sight? That’s… well, I figure it’s quite logical, but…”
“The Sight? I really don’t know what you are talking about. Nobody tells me these things really; I’m getting tired of that!”
She cocked her head to the side and studied him for a moment.
“Well, the fact that you can see demons for what they really are is proof that you have the Sight, the natural ability to see through veils and masks. It runs in the family, but even with us it tends to skip a generation or two.”
“You mean, seeing all these… things, the flashes of colour around people and those demons, that is not… common around the folks here?”
Rachel shook her head vehemently.
“No, it’s a very rare gift and nowadays – meaning for the last five hundred years or so – it’s quite exclusively tied to the Helsings. But it doesn’t surprise me – on the contrary, I would have been worried if you’d had to go out there without one of our most important assets.”
Jared eyed her in confusion, for he hadn’t meant to tell her that he could see these strange things, much less did he like the way this was going, since he had planned to have her confirm the error about his family.
“But that can’t be right. I know some people think I’m a big player in an upcoming scheme here, but really, I’m not. I’m just an ordinary guy that got dragged into some very weird business by chance or… mix-up or something. My parents live in
Rachel’s expression seemed upset, but her eyes held sympathy and sadness.
“Jared, you don’t understand; you being here, seeing me is proof enough. In here, you only get to access the history of your own true blood, and there’s NO way you are not family.”
“But, but how? How is it possible that I belong to this family that I didn’t even really know of until a couple of days ago?”
She regarded him with that kind of pinched expression that told him he was not going to like the answer.
“That, finally, is the right question. See, it’s like this…”
Jim watched Jensen grow more anxious as the minutes ticked by, and although he could understand that perfectly, he knew they had to wait it out. This journey was not supposed to be taken on with a companion and parting the bead curtain to go in there could disrupt the ancient spell the book wove to the point of trapping the seeker inside with no possible way to be retrieved. And only very rarely did a seeker come along who had the knowledge of how to get in and out of their own free will. This boy was barely fitted with his magical aura. No matter that he had an ancient power,he was still new and coltish in his abilities, and it would take years more to refine them properly. That was time he probably didn’t have right now, but he would have to cope just like everyone of his line had. And there were many more than one might think that hadn’t had the advantage of knowing their heritage and how to deal with the meaning of that. More often than not it led to their gruesome death, but Jim hoped that Jensen had brought this one in with enough time to get him ready at least for this upcoming battle. He hadn’t been joking when he told Jensen that he would stay out of the fight unless there was some serious threat for the balance hanging over their heads. He – as one of the ancients – knew very well that the aeon-old battle between light and darkness was not set to be resolved, just tipped one way or the other with that careful, fragile balance of evil and good. He had witnessed many a time when it had gone either way, but he also felt responsible for not letting the scales tip too far. Not all hands had been dealt yet though, so nobody could really tell the way it would eventually come out. The only thing that he was sure was that it would be soon, possibly before the eve of the old year dawned.
Jim was startled out of his contemplation when he saw Jensen flinch out of the corner of his eye and the boy inside the cave move. He waited for the young one to get up, but something was not right. Jared didn’t move normally, he jerked violently on the floor and a pained groan rung back from the walls of the cave. Just then, Jim realized that the boy was still unconscious and in the throes of dream-walking. It was all he could do, snatching Jensen’s arm before he could barge in headlong, consequences be damned.
“What are you doing boy, you can’t go in there you know it. You will lose him that way.”
Jensen let out a strangled sound, but he relented. “I have to… what is going on in there? It’s not supposed to affect him like that. How’s is it hurting him? That’s not…”
“Sometimes the body might be affected through the stress on the mind. I’ve seen it happen whenever people get some gravely unsettling news. It’s bound to happen.”
He didn’t mention that he’d never come across a case where the one in question was thrashing on the ground, his back arching and screams falling from his lips. Suddenly the air was moving around them in an unnatural way, gathering into swirls that moved the beads of the curtain and made them tinkle against each other and part. The candles in the cave flickered madly, flaring for a moment until they dimmed almost completely. The young man on the floor stilled all of a sudden. Had Jim not kept his iron grip around Jensen’s arm, it would have been too late to catch him this time around. The frantic sounds of breath out of the cave told them that the occupant was still alive, but he’d started glowing with an eerie dark green aura that pulsed slightly. After a moment it sank into his skin again, but his eyes shot open immediately, slanted, cat-like and swirling with colour. Jared got to his feet with feline grace and took two strides towards the curtain that was still madly flapping around. With a move of his hand that didn’t quite touch the beads, he moved the curtain aside, and, for a moment, his presence loomed like a shadow, alive and terrifying. Then he blinked and the light died in his eyes, leaving them their normal hazel colour. He barely spared a glance for the people standing stunned in front of him, but turned on his heel and strode determinedly back in the direction he had come from, leaving the two of them floundering in his wake.
They followed him immediately, but Jared didn’t slow down or show any sign of recognizing their presence in any way. He was all long strides and flying coattails, and the residue of the energy flowed around him even if his aura had completely vanished. Instead, there was a cold fury settling around him that had them wondering what had happened on his journey to his ancestors to make him blow up that way. Jared made his way back to the portal with uncanny precision and just as he was about to step through the walls, Jensen reached for his arm and called out to him. “Jared, wait, you can’t just…”
The taller man whirled around, his features distorted with righteous anger and a snarl on his lips.
“Don’t dare tell me what I can and cannot do. YOU are the one who ripped me right out of my life that was going just fine. You brought me here and let me struggle through all these things by myself, and you’ve kept this from me, you’ve just… don’t stand there and look all condescending; you know very
His voice had taken on the quality of a serpents hiss, low and threatening as if he really was about to strike out. Jim drew up short behind Jensen, who tried to calm Jared down helplessly.
“I… I really don’t know, I brought you here so you could…”
“
Jensen flinched, but he didn’t stop trying to placate the other man.
“Jared…”
“NO, don’t you… my parents.. aren’t my parents, right? You hear that? The people I’ve spent my life with, my older brother, my YOUNGER sister, my only family… There’s not a drop of their blood inside me, and nobody ever saw fit to tell me that. I mean nowadays you tell people if they’re adopted; it’s not a bad thing, it just happens, and I couldn’t have been happier growing up in that house, so it really wouldn’t have mattered either way.”
After his violent outburst he took a step back into the alcove and threw his hand up over his eyes, hiding half of his face from view. He closed his hand into a fist and pressed it against his forehead before lowering it slowly.
“But you know, it doesn’t stop there, it just gets better. I mean, they couldn’t very well have told me since they didn’t know about it, now could they? Because someone just went and ALTERED their minds about having a fucking child, so nobody suspected a thing. So I don’t even know if they’d ever have… How could you? How COULD you leave all of us in the dark about this and think that some twenty odd years later you’d just waltz in and throw it at me? And I am to say thank you, man, I’m going to save the fucking world now?”
He opened his eyes and fixed his cold, burning gaze on Jensen, who just stood there and took it. Jared blinked once and then he slowly nodded as if to himself.
“Yeah, thought so. Which is why I’m going to say, fuck the world, I’m out.”
And before anyone could take action his eyes lit up, and the portal came to life around him.
In the blink of an eye, he was gone.
chapter thirteen
