AN: This was written for a challenge over on The No Name ( z13 dot invisionfree dot com/The_No_Name remove the spaces and replace dot with .) If you are looking for good GH fiction this is a great site! Enjoy.
The Challenge:
Use an existing fairy tale as the inspiration for a story featuring Jason Morgan and ANY of the people in his history to tell your version or create characters of your own. Story can be set in the present, in the past, the future, or be strictly fantasy.
Stories can range from multiple parts to one-shots. Multiple chapters should not less than three (3) and not longer than six (6).
It was well after midnight and everything around him was dark. The scent of musty earth and salt water drifted in from the opening of the tunnel a couple of yards ahead of the small alcove where he and Bethany had carved out a hidden sanctuary for themselves. They were sitting in a nest of blankets that had been taken from the house over the last two years; she slept with her head cradled in his lap as he gently stroked her hair with his fingers.
A small smile nudged the corner of his mouth as he remembered the name Bethany had given the house others called Wyndamere. From the time they were in the orphanage together she had always loved fairy tales and she decided that this was the Candy House. They were Hansel and Gretel and the great house sitting on Spoon Island in the middle of Port Charles Bay was the wicked witch's house, but not of gingerbread and cupcakes but what Americans called Rock Candy or Crack. He only hoped that the end of their story would also end with the defeat of the witch, Helena Cassadine.
Unlike Hansel and Gretel there was no loving father waiting for either of them. Both had been abandoned, as so many others had, in a Russian orphanage. Jason tucked the blanket around her shoulders to keep the damp air off her as he remembered when they meet nearly ten years ago.
She had arrived from the house for young children in the north, a place where workers pretended to care and there were plenty of toys and books for everyone. Mazanovsky was not that place. She was a beautiful flame, eight years old with shinning blond hair and sparking blue eyes in the world of grey around them. He had silently watched her for over a week before someone tried to hit her for the first time. At nine years old he had spent an eternity in purgatory and had learned to be strong, to protect himself, to never show weakness, how to create an illusion to keep others away. When Sergey had tried to hit her for having a ball that he wanted something in Jason had ignited. He grabbed Sergey's arm before he could strike her, pushing the other boy away with one hand as he pulled her smaller body behind him.
"Ne trogayte yeye." (Do not touch her.) He had demanded while looking directly into Sergey's eyes.
"Кто собирается остановить меня?" (Who is going to stop me?") The larger twelve year old puffed his chest.
"YA eto sdelayu." (I will.) He replied while taking his own step forward.
Jason had been in enough fights; had silently taken enough beatings that Sergey just grabbed the ball Bethany had dropped and walked away. As he turned to make sure she was all right, Bethany had flown into his body, almost knocking him over, wrappinghim in the first hug he could ever remember receiving. As he brought his own arms around her he had known that he belonged to her.
"Jason?" Bethany tried to raise her head from his lap as he placed a hand firmly on her shoulder keeping her in place.
"Shh, I am here, you are safe." He wished he did not have to give her those words but he had watched over her sleeping enough times to know the nightmares always took her a few moments to break away from them.
"What time is it?" She turned from her side to lie on her back looking up into his face, his hand moving with her to rest below her sternum.
"Late," he smirked as she rolled her eyes at him and sat up cuddling into his side with his arm still wrapped around her.
"Late, the man says. How late?" She nudged her head under his chin. "Do you think The Witch knows we are gone?"
"I do not think the Tsarina Cassadine cares, she was meeting with her Business partners about Trade Routes. Too busy to worry about her carriers." Or what the others might do to them, he silently though as he wrapped her tighter in his arms.
"Do you think we made the right choice? I mean when we agreed to come here?"
"I do not like here and I will get us out, but what other choice did we have? Russia is not safe; we might be dead by now or worse if we had stayed. Betka, I will not lose you." Bethany moved to face him as she straddled his hips, taking his face in her soft hands as she forced him to look at her.
"I will never leave you." The steel she kept hidden clearly ringing in her voice as she brought their foreheads together. Only with her could he allow himself to find comfort in another. He bent and placed his head in the space between her neck and collarbone bringing her warmth into his soul as she wrapped him in her arms.
He could feel her start to rock them both, it was a habit born of a lack of human touch when they were both much younger. Many nights he could remember boys rocking in their beds even after sleep had claimed them, trying to find comfort where none was to be found. He was sure that the same had happened in the girl's dorms as well. Nights in the orphanage had always been the worst for them, forced apart when they needed each other the most.
"Do you remember Saint Petersburg and what we promised each other?" She whispered into his ear sending a shiver down his back. She knew it was his one ticklish spot and he smiled into her neck before pulling away.
"To never eat borscht again, no matter how hungry we are." He smiled at her while giving an exaggerated shiver of disgust.
"Nooo," she stood and held a hand out to help him up. "If you had not almost got your jaw broke you would not have had to eat soup for a month."
"Better my jaw than you." He put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his side, pulling her in he quickly kissed her temple, before starting toward the house.
It was silly banter that helped them both deal with a very bad time. Jason remembered the tiny apartment they shared in Saint Petersburg after being released from the orphanage. At sixteen and fifteen they were forced out of the system but nowhere near ready for life on the outside. The government gave them a small stipend but it was hardly enough to live on. They both took any job, legal or not, that came their way. Bethany was always thinking of the future, dreaming of a better life, when she meet Ian Devlin, an American doctor, who was willing to teacher her, and by extension Jason, English.
Everything seemed to being going alright until the night Jason came home late from a carrier job for the local mafia. As he entered the hallway outside their apartment he heard a muffed scream and banging. He burst through the door and found Bethany being held down on the bed by Dr. Devlin, her shirt was torn open and she was clawing at the doctor as he slapped her across the face forcing her whole head toward the door were she locked eyes with Jason. He quickly threw Ian off her but in the ensuing fight Dr. Devlin managed to land one good punch to Jason's jaw before being forced out of the apartment.
While Jason's jaw may have hurt it was nothing compared to the blank look in Bethany's eyes, and the pain of failing her was much worse. For the next few weeks he had eaten more soup than any man should have to but it gave his Betka something else to focus on as he slowly brought her out of the shell she had around her. The nightmares were worse after that and they spent three weeks rarely leaving the apartment before one of Helena Cassadine's employees knocked on their door.
"You still here," Bethany asked as she moved aside the back of the bookcase and opened the secret door to their room.
"Yes sorry, I was thinking." Jason peaked into the room first making sure no one was on the other side.
"So, do you remember what we promised?" She took his black leather jacket from him and hung it with hers in the closet. Jason checked the locks on the door to their room as well as all the leaded glass windows before closing the floor to ceiling curtains.
"I thought I told you, never eat soup again." A balled up sock hit the back of his head after he had turned to put his hand gun on his bedside table.
"You promised me that we could finish school." She easily dodged the sock he threw back at her.
"I was hoping you forget." He was smirking at her while he took off his shirt and walked across the room to put it in the laundry hamper before toeing off his boots and socks leaving him in just his jeans.
"Oh, you are not going to distract me." Bethany quickly slipped her jeans down her legs, stepping out of them as she threw off her shirt. "You promised that we would go to college and get real jobs." She bent over in just her bra and underwear to grab her clothes and then brushed across his chest while reaching to put them in the hamper.
"Betka, how are we going to go to school while stuck in the Candy House," he asked while taking off his own jeans and following her toward the bathroom where she was already turning on the shower.
"What if there was a way out? Would you take it?" She slipped out of the rest of her clothes and stepped into the shower, warm steam gathering around her.
"What have you done?" He asked stepping in behind her.
"Nothing, yet. But I met the local Boss, or the boy who is his best friend. Your shoulders are very tight," Bethany told him as she reached up to wash his back.
Jason hung his head almost afraid to ask, "How did you meet this boy?"
"Switch places and do my back. I was at the library while between jobs and he was there. He is very sick, does not look good and when he got up to get another book he stumbled and almost fell. I had to help him." She turned to look at him over her shoulder, her eyes pleading with him.
"I know you did," he signed as she turned back around and he shampooed her hair. "What happened next?"
"We talked for a little while and when he was leaving I helped him gather his books and then put his arm around my shoulders to help him to the car waiting out front for him. He was very nice to me and seemed surprised that I would touch him after he told me he had AIDS." She leaned into his hands as he lathered her hair, "I told him about Natalia. How she was my best friend and died of AIDS. I know what I was doing."
Jason and Bethany switched back so she could rinse her hair out, bubbles sliding down her back. "When we got to the car the Boss was there personally waiting for him. He was very concerned to see me helping Stone."
"Stone," Jason asked as he wiped the soap from his eyes.
"Yes, that was the boy's name, Stone Cates." Jason nodded his head and made a mental note of the name for later and as he bent over the top of her head to rinse his face.
"Stop, you will get soap in my eye," Bethany batted at him.
"Then stop hogging all the water." He told her while pushing his head under. She quickly turned and pushed her face into his chest to avoid the soap now running down her back. Jason wrapped his arms around her and turned them both so his back was now to water.
"You did that on purpose," she laughed up to his face while moving her arms around his waist, both of them now under the still steaming water.
"Yes. Now what happened at the car?"
"Uh, what car," Bethany asked as Jason began to see her eyes focus on his mouth as her pink tongue reached out to lick her lips before she bit her bottom one.
"The one waiting for Stone with the Boss in it," he couldn't help the smile that reached his eyes as she continued to lose focus on their conversation.
"The Boss… Sonny… Sonny Corinthos, yes that was it." Jason bent down to kiss her as her arms moved up his sides and she ran her hands over his chest.
"What happened at the car?" He asked a second time as he kissed along her jaw.
"Stone…oh…asked me to…to have coffee with him…tomorrow." Jason reached back and turned off the shower while still keeping one arm around her.
"So, you are going on date with another man?" Bethany suddenly stood strait up and moved away to grab a towel missing the teasing look in his eyes.
"No, Robin will be there, too." With her back turned to him as she huffed and swung back toward him. "I would never…" she turn fully around prepared to hit him with a second towel, she caught the smirk on his face and barely controlled laughter.
"So he is bringing a bird with him?" Jason took the towel and started to dry off while a full smile spread across his face.
"She's his girlfriend."
Jason could tell she was fighting with herself to stay upset with him. "I was going to invite you but maybe I will go alone." She tossed her wet hair behind her, flinging drops of water at him as she walked past him toward to bed.
"What time?" Jason walked up behind her and kissed the side of her neck while his arms wrapped around her to catch her when her knees buckled.
"Three o'clock… at… Kelly's," Bethany managed to tell him before he lifted her onto the bed and took away her ability to do anything other than feel.
