Fic: A Vow Unto His Own

[beanside]

Deathknell for you all! Unbetaed, cause we're lazy.

Title: A Vow Unto his Own
Authors: nilchance and beanside
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Fiction. Lies, all of it.




"Now?" Jeff asked, glancing back.

Christian shook his head, feeling his lips curling a smile. "Nope. Still not right."

"Jesus. Maybe I'll just skip--"

Chris shook his head. "It's your wedding. C'mere, you putz."

"I'm a recluse, remember? Recluses don't wear ties."

"They do on their wedding, you ass." Chris smacked Jeff's hands away and made quick work of the knot. "There. You nervous or something, Morgan?"

Jeff gave him the evil eye. "I'm getting married," he said, enunciating painfully. "I'm the president. And I have assassins coming to kill me. Couldn't it be a James Bond tie?"

"You'd just hurt yourself. Besides, you got me for that."

"I know," Jeff said quietly. His hand landed gently on Christian's shoulder, giving him a squeeze. "Have I thanked you for that?"

"Yes. And I still don't want to hear it," Christian said sharply, shaking his head. He knew that Jeff was grateful. And he knew damned well that anything he did for Jeff was just a drop in the bucket next to what he owed the man. Without Jeff, he'd be long dead. Or worse, still the feral, half starved thing he was when Jeff had found him. "I've been thinking."

"Thought I could smell the smoke," Jeff said, smiling.

"You've got a hell of a lot of room to talk," Chris muttered. "Anyway. I think it's time to bring in some outside security."

"You could see if Sophia's available."

"I checked. She just opened her second store. She figures in about six months she could help out."

"Ah. Damn." Jeff tugged absently at his tie again.

Smacking his hand, Kane said, "Also, you need a political advisor."

"Why? I do okay." At Kane's skeptical look, Jeff said, "I'm very political, dammit. I don't need some asshole telling me what I should and shouldn't say."

Christian bit back a smile. "Jeff, it's been five years since we were out in the world. Some places have had pretty drastic changes. You need someone with current info."

"Fine. Anything else? Do I need someone to tell me what to eat? Or wear? Or-"

"That's Jared's job," Christian deadpanned.

"Asshole." Jeff sighed. "Okay, who are you thinking for the security detail?"

"I've used Carlson before--he was good. Low key and flexible. I was thinking about the chick who handled the visit from the religious dude. What was her name?"

"Torres?" Jeff asked. "A little free advice: they generally liked to be called women now."

"Yeah, her."

Jeff rubbed his eyes. "It disturbs me to no end that I can translate that from Christian-speak."

"Screw you, too." Somewhere down the hall, Jared laughed, and Kane added before Jeff could tense, "And I figured I'd use the ballbuster."

Luckily, Jeff still had a short attention span. "The ballbuster?"

"Sam Ferris?"

"Oh. that ballbuster. Well, she scares me, at least. Dunno about the assassins."

Chris smiled wryly. "I'll get you an athletic cup, you'll be safe. I'd like at least one more, though."

"I might know someone," Jeff offered. "What about the Mujina?"

Kane grimaced. "The faceless ghost? Sure, he can trade off with Bloody Mary and Big Foot."

"Actually... You remember the mess in Inverness last year? Brandon, remember him from London? He married into Scotland's royal family. They had the Mujina guarding them. Took out eight terrorists. The only reason they knew something happened was because the gatehouse blew. Never got near the house. I could get his number from Brandon, if you'd like?" Jeff slid his sports coat on, but it caught on the sheathed knife at his spine. "Damn it. Gotten soft."

"If you're so het up, we can check your guy out." Christian came to his feet, dusting his clothes off, and tugged Jeff's coat free of the sheath. Smoothing the lines of the coat, Kane said, "I can get Kris or Hartley to do a search on him, if you've got a real name."

"Um... J-something. He's not local."

"Where's he from?"

"I think from the Consolidated Republic of Oceana."

"Dude. Would you just say Hawaii?"

Jeff smirked. "That wouldn't be very political of me, would it?"

"Asshole."

Jeff frowned. "So you're thinking you'll have just one guard active? Are they going to be able to cover Jensen, too? Cause if he's willing, Jared gave the okay to have him come with."

Christian felt his eyebrow climb. "Seriously? Jesus. Remind me to nominate him for sainthood."

"You make it sound like we're offering free housing to a rabid dog."

"Oh, you're right. He's just an assassin, sent to kill you. I couldn't imagine why Jared would mind having him in your house."

"Thought you were okay with him," Jeff said, leaving plenty of rope for Christian to hang himself. "We've looked for him for years-"

"Too many years. He'd have been tough to rehab if we found him right after Morgan's death, but now? After Bentley? I don't know." Turning away from the too-keen look on Jeff's face, Kane studied the exits of Jeff 's bedroom. "It's gonna be a hard road from here on in, hoss."

Jeff shrugged. "It's been a hard road the whole way. What's the difference?"

"There might not be enough of him left to fix. He's not-"

"Nikki?" Jeff said bluntly.

It took a moment for Kane to unclench his fists. He exhaled, pressing his fingertips into his palms like playing the piano, the faint memory of Nikki's perfume as she guided his hands over the keys. Once Kane could trust his voice to be even, he said conversationally, "That was low."

"Yeah, I know." Slowly, giving Chris time, Jeff laid his hand on Christian's shoulder and squeezed. "We have time. If he comes with us, we can make it okay."

"You gonna spend your whole life picking up after Morgan?"

Jeff didn't flinch. His thumb stroked Kane's shoulder. "You want to come with us?" Jeff said finally. "Keep an eye on him and me?"

"Who says I'd want to?"

"Bullshit. That's always what you've been about." Shaking Kane a little, Jeff said, "You're not choosing sides, y'know."

Christian gave Jeff a scathing look and detached himself, brushing down the lines of his jacket. "Fine. Two guards on at all times. Maybe three." Kane's phone chirped, and he paused, glancing down. "Fuck. Gotta take this. I've hadImohara scrambling the signals to your boy's scorpion." He slid the earpiece in, hating the traitorous clench of fear in his belly. "Go ahead, Grant."

"Hey, boss. We've got a problem with that scorp. The US is upping the signal strength, trying to break through the scramble pattern. Right now I'm matching them, but if they keep battering at it, the scrambler's going to fail."

Unsurprising, but damn inconvenient. "Okay. How long til it fails?"

"Eight hours. Maybe twelve if I keep changing the frequencies. But they've got more towers and more power than I do. Eventually, they're gonna get through. You've gotta get that thing out of him."

"Will do. Call me if there's any problems." Christian hung up and shook his head at Jeff. "It's gotta come out today. They're trying to punch through Grant's scrambler."

"Fuck. Okay. After the wedding?"

"After the wedding," Chris agreed. "We've got time for that."

Jeff exhaled, nodding. "Yeah," he said, a world of longing and happiness and stark fucking terror in that one word. "After the wedding. That's weird."

"You're telling me. Never thought you'd find somebody dumb enough to marry you."

Meeting his eyes, Jeff didn't say anything. There were years behind Jeff's silence, and the memory of too many desperate nights in too many cities to count. Beard-burn on Christian's thighs and bruises on his hips, cigarettes in bed and the sheets twined cool around them. It hadn't been enough.

Kane met his eyes as long as he had to, then reached for the doorknob and asked, "Shall we?"

They strolled out into the living room, where Jared and Jensen were waiting. Jensen looked utterly miserable in his semi-dressy clothes, shifting nervously next to Jared, eyes darting to the potential exits.

"Ready to go?"

Jensen nodded jerkily, and Kane smiled, heading towards him. "Cool. Let's get this show on the road, then." He looped an arm around Jensen's shoulders. "Wanna ride with me? Let the lovebirds coo at each other on the drive down?"

"Yeah. That's fine."

As Jensen slid next to him in the transport, Christian reached out, touching his shoulder gently. "You clean up well, little brother."

Jensen gave him an absent smile, still looking hunted. Kane couldn't blame him.

If he ignored the way Jensen flinched under his hand, he could almost pretend that things were normal, that they were just two friends going to watch two other friends pledge their lives together.

No assassins, no imminent death, just two people in love and the friends who cared for them.

Christian bit back a snort. Yeah, right. His imagination wasn't that good.