So, I promised Steph-Schell a Drive Angry fic. And Piper and Jonah decided to be a married couple.
Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.
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Raise a Little Hell
One
Jonah King cannot abide a man who beats his wife. A man who beats the woman he claims to love is just as bad. He doesn't even know why he stopped in this…picturesque little spot in the middle-of-nowhere Colorado. The errant souls he's supposed to be collecting are in New Mexico. But this..
For an unscheduled stop, it's been unbelievably entertaining. He watches the little blonde spitfire kick her brutish thug of a man again. She's done rather well in the fight, despite being badly outclassed in weight and size. To Jonah, it looks like she's got several broken fingers as well as the swollen, blackened eyes and broken nose. Jonah takes another sip of his tepid beer, just to make it look like he won't interfere.
He's a Book Keeper, not a knight in shining armor.
Except when he is, apparently.
The thug hits the little spitfire again. She goes down, curled up on her side like she's been hurt. Badly. Spitfire holds her hand up, clearly begging her abuser to stop. The man laughs, spits on her, and raises his foot like he's going to kick her. Jonah loses it.
Spitfire caught his attention. That makes her his.
Hell gets a new soul. Jonah makes a note to burn the shirt when he's got the time.
Spitfire fits into his arms like she was made for it. Jonah looks down at her, wondering at the amount of fire in her blue eyes. Even when she's half-beaten up, she's a fiery little thing. Tough too.
She busts his lip open and spits in his face as soon as he sets her on the hood of his car. Surprisingly, Jonah lets her.
Two
Piper—his darling little Spitfire—is nasty when she's been cockblocked. (If there's a feminine equivalent, Jonah doesn't know it.) Two months of enforced bed rest and recovery have made her rather feisty—not that Jonah minds, when he finds out, of course. She's as much of a fighter in bed as she is everywhere else.
Jonah finds that fact out after he wakes up one morning, tied to his bed. With ties. He doesn't even own a tie, much less two. Piper's touch is apparent right off. Because the ties are pastel pink and paisley. And she laughs at him when he asks her about them.
She bought them specifically to tie him up with.
There are, occasionally, more important things than doing his job as a Book Keeper for Hell. Like waking up tied to his headboard to see Piper looking down at him wearing a wicked smile and nothing else.
Three
Jonah teaches his girl how to shoot a gun after a hunt goes bad. Piper came out of it alright—a black eye and a fractured cheekbone are alright in his book, although the swelling makes kissing a little harder than usual—but Jonah decided that guns were in order. Jonah's never going to forget watching Piper beat the misbegotten sonofabitch to the ground, though. The happy memories of his sweet Piper taking charge are worth any pain these lessons might bring.
Her first gun is a tiny little pistol, but it packs a punch. Just like his little Spitfire. Her aim is terrible, but it gets better with the personal lessons. Soon enough, Piper's good enough to hit the broad side of a barn. Jonah makes sure she can hit a much smaller target before he gives her anything larger than the Saturday Night Special.
Piper's quite pleased with herself when he finally teaches her how to use a rifle. As to where in the hell she's going to hide it, Jonah doesn't know.
He's mildly afraid to ask…
Four
His boss is a pain in the ass.
There is no other way to put it. Jonah's done a good job in the past year since Piper started traveling with him, so there's no real reason to have his boss drop in. Piper's shot him eighteen times. He hasn't gotten the hint to stay away. (If that ever worked at some point, Jonah doesn't know.)
The Accountant's been bothering them for a few days, off and on. Jonah's biggest problem—aside from the fact that he's on mandatory vacation so his fingers can regrow—is that the bastard isn't leaving Piper alone. Anything else is tolerable. Bothering Piper is not. That's what really gets on his nerves.
Piper solves the issue by taking a golf club to the Accountant's knees. While he's nigh-immortal and fairly indestructible, taking a nine-iron to the knees will stop anyone.
The boss likes her. Jonah wonders if his life could get any more complicated.
He should have learned to keep his mouth shut.
But it all works out anyways. Piper gets a job. Jonah gets a new headache.
And his boss is now involved in his sex life.
Which is awkward.
Five
Jonah's the one who takes care of Piper when she's injured. He knows exactly what type of medicine she needs when she gets a head cold, and he knows that—while she claims to hate it—Piper loves it when he brings her chicken noodle soup in bed. He knows just what to do when Piper gets sick, even if it's just a simple cold.
Having Piper look after him, on the other hand…
Piper has no idea what needs to be done when he gets sick. Piper doesn't know if he's allergic to Tylenol, or if he prefers one brand of painkillers over another. She doesn't know if he likes extra pepper in his bowl of chicken noodle soup, or if he'd rather just sleep in a dark room if his headache can't be managed with Tylenol and similar painkillers. She doesn't know if he likes watching movies when he's on more painkillers than is usually legal, or if he'd rather just sleep.
So, when Jonah gets sick, he's a little worried. Piper's not exactly the mothering sort, even with him. She's tough, and she's good at being a Book Keeper. (She's even a damn good cook, since he's listing her best traits.)
But she pulls through. Jonah likes extra pepper in his soup. Ginger tea makes it easier to swallow Tylenol. And Jake Gyllenhaal means that his TV gets smashed, because who wants to watch that? Piper gets him a copy of the first Tomb Raider after that, and he uses her as a Piper-shaped pillow while he dozes off as the movie hits the halfway point.
Six
Piper's the one mother that should never be threatened. Jonah—Jamie, he's going by now, due to the little incident of having been the crazy leader of a murderous Satanic cult—doesn't even know how or why the incident started. All he knows is that he got a call from the police, asking him to come bail his wife out of prison. And maybe just please take her and their kid out of the state, if he could? (Jonah's a bit worried by this point, and he might have gone over the speed limit by a few…dozen miles per hour…)
Piper's quite fine. The man who attacked her…not so much. Piper's got a black eye and her nail polish has been chipped. She's rocking Annabelle and humming the lullaby Jonah usually sings their daughter at night. Jonah casts a look at the man in the cell and winces internally. He wonders what the bastard did to deserve…what Piper did to him.
He bails her out and the police tell him that it won't be necessary to come back for trial or anything else. Piper's just given a stern warning to be careful about things in the near future. And please, please, lady, just don't call the local gang-lord wannabe that he'd look better castrated next time you're here.
Jonah manages not to start laughing until they're in the RV and on the interstate.
"I ever told you I love you, sweet Piper?"
- o – o -
So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Are Piper and Jonah sweet or dysfunctional? Drop a line and let me know!