Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this work of fiction. No copyright infringement is intended.
AU
He's surprised that, after a week, he's still chilly. Especially given that he just came from weather in the lower twenties and blustery snow. Shivering, he grabs his abandoned hoodie off the chaise lounge and pulls it on over his head.
Unable to shake the cold, he searches through the drawers in the hotel room, sifting through boxers and socks until he finds it, the scarf his Granny had knitted him when he was a kid. He fingers it, smiling sadly before twining it reverently around his neck.
And still, he just can't seem to get warm. Panicking just a little bit, knowing that Stone Cold is waiting, probably impatiently, in the hallway for him, he paces the room, looking for something that will take away the cold.
He sees them out of the corner of his eye and races over to the end table, snatching up the gloves that he shouldn't need in the southerly clime. He shoves them on his hands and stares at them as they continue to shake in spite of the added warmth.
"You about ready in there?" Jason sticks his head in through the door and raises an eyebrow at his protégé's choice of apparel. "Cold?" He teases, thinking Spinelli looks a little like the Michelin Man on a diet.
Spinelli shrugs and hides his blush of embarrassment beneath the black hood, sweeping past Jason on his way out the door. Though he shouldn't be, he is still freezing cold in the gut clenching, body quaking manner which is generally reserved for victims of shock.
"Spinelli?" Jason calls after him, laying a hand on his shoulder, stalling him. He can feel the spasms that, even after a week, continue to wrack his friend's thinning frame.
He'd done what he thought was best, had gotten Spinelli as far away from Port Charles as he could and given the boy his space to deal with the aftermath. He sees now that it was inadequate, Spinelli needed something more. Swallowing, squeezing Spinelli's shoulder with an almost bruising force, he turns the boy around.
"What?" Spinelli doesn't look at his mentor, staring instead at his feet. He cannot seem stop the trembling no matter how much he tells himself to man up to what he's done and wonders if Stone Cold hates him for being so weak.
"Are you okay?" Jason grasps Spinelli's chin, tilting the boy's head upward so that he can see into the hacker's eyes. Spinelli doesn't meet his gaze.
"I'm," Spinelli mumbles, "just…" he trails off, unable to finish his thought.
He takes a shaky breath, attempting to compose his thoughts into coherence and opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out except for a heartrending sob. It wasn't fair. He wasn't going to cry. He couldn't cry. He had not right to cry.
His eyes glisten in the dim hall light and he wrenches his chin from Jason's grip, looking away as the first traitorous tear falls. He struggles to free himself from Jason's iron like hold on him, but Jason doesn't budge.
"It's going to be okay," Jason murmurs, pulling Spinelli close and wrapping his arms tightly around him.
Resting his chin on his grasshopper's head, he holds him close, feeling Spinelli tense slightly at the unaccustomed physical contact. Spinelli's arms remain rigidly at his side and he tries to pull away. Jason hugs him tighter, refusing to let Spinelli pull away now that the boy's finally allowing himself to come to grips with what has happened. Closing his eyes, Jason whispers words of comfort as he moves them both back into the hotel room he'd booked for Spinelli and shuts the door behind them.
"I'm sorry Spinelli." Jason rubs circles in the small of the weeping boy's back, knowing that his words are insufficient comfort and yet needing to say them. Even though they aren't what Spinelli needs, they're what he needs.
"I didn't mean it." Spinelli's voice is hoarse from crying. "I didn't mean to do it."
"I know," Jason croons, rocking him. "I know." His lips brush the top of Spinelli's head in an instinctual act of comfort, like a father allaying his son's broken heart.
"I didn't mean to kill him," Spinelli sobs into Jason's chest, his arms reaching up and around his mentor.
"I know," Jason murmurs. "It's not your fault." He squeezes Spinelli, willing the stubborn young man to believe him. Willing him to stop blaming himself.
Spinelli stills, his breath hitching as the memory replays itself in his mind.
It was dark and windy that night. Freezing rain had turned to pelting snow. He'd stayed late at the office and had been on his way home to the penthouse when a man had stepped out from the shadows of an alley as he passed.
"Give me what you got," the man demanded, shoving a gun in his face.
"I…" he'd stuttered, "I don't have anything of value." He tried to back away, but the man advanced.
"Give me that," the gestured at his laptop with the gun and lunged at him.
They'd struggled, he …here is where the memory grows fuzzy…he pushed the man away from him, but the man kept coming, shoving the gun between them as though it were an added appendage. They fell onto the ice slicked ground, the man on top of him, the gun between them and he'd panicked. They wrestled and, as he'd told Mac, the gun went off. The roar of it was deafening and then there was silence, followed by the soft sluicing sound of snow pellets falling to the ground.
Blood, red and slick, bright against the backdrop of the white snow, sizzled as it fell in fat droplets, melting the snow beneath them. In spite of the body heat still emanating from the dying man lying on top of him, Spinelli was freezing.
He hadn't felt warm since that night.
"You're safe now," Jason promises as Spinelli relaxes.
"Warm," Spinelli whispers, clinging to Jason.