A/N: I have no rights over the characters of General Hospital
Okay, here it folks, the part where the other aspect of the M rating comes into play. Up until now I felt it applied because of tone, I didn't think it was an appropriate story to be read by someone too young. Now, however, we are heading into some slightly more physical interactions between Jason and Spinelli. I personally don't think it is terribly risqué but it is sexual and people have different thresholds for that topic and its depiction. So, this is your warning, read on from here at your own discretion. Thanks for taking this rather soul wrenching journey with me.
Sacrificial Lamb
Jason didn't alter his position, his hands still encased the hacker's cheeks while his warm breath wafted across Spinelli's face. "Georgie,' a strange smile twisted his lips, "You figured out Georgie? That's impressive, but then again I guess I should have known with that brain of yours that it was only a matter of time."
Spinelli's heart rate quickened to an unbearable pitch making him feel as though his blood vessels would explode from the increase in pressure. "So," his voice was little more than a strangled whisper, "Stone Cold does not deny the commission of these heinous acts?"
Jason cocked his head at an angle, his expression was quizzical as he looked at Spinelli. "Deny it, no, I don't deny it. Why would I? I had to do it, to protect you, to keep you safe."
"Safe from what, pray tell me?" Spinelli knew it probably wasn't wise to aggravate Jason by challenging him but he was beyond caring. "How were these woman a danger to me-Gentle Georgie, Maximista, Fair Lulu and Samantha?"
Jason eye's narrowed and he snorted in disgust at the hacker's question. He pulled his hands away from Spinelli's face and stepped away from him. "Georgie!" He proclaimed hotly, "She was the worst, I should never have told you my suspicions about her feelings for you. The minute I did you reacted exactly as she wanted you to, you ran to find her to be with her, to give up everything for her. She would have trapped you in a life that you weren't ready for. By now you probably would be married to her, even have kids and then where would I fit in?"
"Stone Cold," Spinelli said helplessly, he was appalled. "You killed Faithful Georgie because of a purely potential outcome, because you feared the impossible that you would lose the allegiance, the affection of your forever faithful grasshopper?" The unmitigated guilt was a black cancerous sore embedded into what was left of his soul.
"She would have taken you away from me, Spinelli. I saw it in your eyes when I told you. I couldn't bear it. So, I decided to go find you, to tell you I was mistaken. I knew if I could reach you before you got to Georgie that I could convince you not to talk to her because you would believe me. You always believe that people don't want you and you are always so wrong…"
Jason wasn't angry or defiant any longer. His eyes were gentle as he once again reached out his hand to cup the back of the younger man's head pulling him insistently toward him. Spinelli stumbled a little as he found himself encircled by Jason's arms. Now they were chest to chest, he was engulfed by Jason's cologne and radiant heat while his body was a solid bulwark against which he rested. "Spinelli," the word was throaty, filled with longing as Jason crushed the hacker to him, stroking his hair. His face was pressed into Jason's torso while his chin rested on the crown of Spinelli's head. .
Jason continued speaking, describing what had happened that night. His voice vibrated down from the top of Spinelli's head to the soles of his feet while he clutched at the dark blue dress shirt his mentor was wearing, irrevocably staining his silk tie with his silent, shuddering tears. "Before I could find you, I saw her-Georgie-in the park on the stairs, well, you know…"
Indeed, Spinelli knew full well, it still haunted his dreams except now the last face that Georgie and thereby Spinelli as her id based surrogate would see was Jason's rather than Diego's. He suspected that Georgie would have preferred that it wasn't Diego who violated her tender trust but Spinelli knew the revelation was a much harsher burden for him to bear. He had previously thought that the worst thing possible was finding Georgie's crumpled, life and light deprived body on those cold unyielding stairs but he couldn't have been more wrong. Knowing that Jason had been the agent of her demise, understanding that she would still be alive if he-Spinelli-hadn't impulsively gone in search of her to declare his own burgeoning feelings of affection, of a nascent love was a much more intolerable discovery.
"Because of me, me, me…" He whispered the words into the fabric of Jason's shirt, his face crushed into the material as Jason's large hand tenderly continued in its rhythmic movements.
"I wasn't intending to do anything more than talk to her. I swear to you Spinelli." He tipped his roommate's head up and the shining sincerity radiating from his eyes was unmistakable. He gave a small shrug of his shoulders as his eyes turned suddenly cold. "That's when I saw it, laying on the ground a few feet away, it was a clothesline cord. I knew then it was my destiny, a sign." Spinelli inhaled sharply as he saw something spark deep down in Jason's pupils. A feral madness suddenly blazed up consuming Jason's face and twisting his appearance into something despicably alien. "I could kill her and everyone would think it was the Text Message killer. I would be safe and you would still be mine." The cunning in his expression as he looked down at Spinelli inviting praise for his quick thinking, his adept actions caused the hacker to feel violently ill.
The room spun around him and he clutched at Jason as he fought to stand upright. "Stone Cold," it was a useless protesting moan, a plea to the fates that he might never have been born so as to have neither caused nor known such misery.
They stood entwined between the fireplace and the couch, Jason practically holding Spinelli upright as he fought to control his mind and his weak betraying body. "That time after Georgie died was so special," Jason's voice was soft and reminiscent. "You leaned on me to help get you through your grief. Sam was gone and it was just you and me here. That was my favorite time but then there was Maxie." His tone altered, it was now pitiless and unforgiving.
"Maximista," Spinelli uttered her name as a hopeless prayer. He wished to beg for absolution but how could the world, the universe even, encompass enough forgiveness to wash Damian Spinelli's blackened soul clean?
"Yes," Jason stepped away from Spinelli and glared at him almost accusingly, his eyes a hard, glittering cobalt blue, his face livid except for two hectic spots of red on each cheek. "Maximista you called her as though she deserved a name like that when what she was really doing was using you. Hell, she even used her dead sister to insinuate herself into your life." It was as though Jason was entirely divorced from the role he had played in depriving Maxie of her beloved sister. "You see I would never know a word like insinuate without your influence." His entire demeanor underwent a radical alteration as Jason smiled fondly at Spinelli, once more moving close to him. He reached out to compassionately push the overhanging hair away from his forehead, leaning forward he gently brushed his lips against Spinelli's fevered brow. "She didn't deserve you, she would have broken your heart again and I didn't know if you would keep surviving that. I stopped her before she had the chance to ruin you." His voice was calm, reasonable as though he were explaining why he couldn't let Spinelli have a puppy or go to the movies on a school night.
"And Lulu," Spinelli prompted, desperately trying to get Jason to stop talking about Maxie. The ugly words Jason spoke with indifferent casualness and the cruel expression on his face repulsed him. Yet, he couldn't afford to be anything but numb for now, maybe forever. Besides, if he were honest with himself, he wanted to know the truth. He had belatedly ascertained that one of his last personality traits to atrophy was also one of his most compelling that of pure, human curiosity or maybe it was simply the drive to somehow quantify the impossible, to parse insanity.
"Lulu!" Jason's anger was clearly once more aroused. "You mourned with her, you turned to her in your need rather then to me!"
Spinelli was dismayed, had Lulu died merely because she was kind to him? "She was getting back together with Johnny," he protested as though there were logic to be found in such a wasteland of pure lunacy. "She was no threat to you, to us…" He amended hastily, recognizing that arguing with Jason might further inflame his mentor's ire.
"Lulu treated you badly from the first," Jason's face was stern and unforgiving. "She always came to you when she needed something and ignored you the rest of the time. I didn't trust her. She and Johnny broke up before, what was to stop her from leaning on you when it happened the next time? No," he shook his head as he affirmed his decision to himself, to Spinelli, to the world at large. "I wasn't going to risk it, she was too unpredictable."
Spinelli closed his eyes as though he might somehow manage to shut out the world, blank out what Jason and he, through his ignorance, had done. He dwelt miserably upon the profligate loss of so much young, promising, vivacious life, snuffed out because Jason was obsessed, jealous and just plain mad. Spinelli knew he could gouge his eyes out, perforate his eardrums and still it wouldn't be enough for it would only serve to forever seal him within the tormenting pictures occupying his mind. He would become a captive for perpetuity, languishing forever amidst all that haunting, faded loveliness. Then there would be two madmen orbiting one another until one of them eventually perished.
He rubbed irritably at his forehead, his head was pounding from all the distressing revelations but he welcomed the pain, felt it was his masochistic due. "Sam," the word escaped Spinelli's lips unbidden. She certainly deserved her turn in the macabre litany that was Jason's confession, his rationalization of the worse crime known to man, the taking of innocent lives.
"Sam," Jason's voice was quiet and uninflected but something in it caused Spinelli to look up into his eyes and what he saw there made him vaguely uneasy. "That was the night, wasn't it? The night you began to suspect me, what I had done…You left our bed to go out into to the dark." He reached out and grabbed the younger man by the shoulders, his fingers biting into the tender flesh deep enough to leave bruises. "You went to see where that bitch died, didn't you…didn't you?" His voice had risen, had become strident and now he was shaking Spinelli, the hapless hacker's head was lolling back and forth as terror swelled up within him. "Answer me!" It was an uncontrolled roar, the room was spinning and Spinelli saw spots across his vision as blackness began to overtake his consciousness.
Slowly Spinelli became aware that he was no longer standing. He was wrapped in Jason's arms, awkwardly sprawled across him on the sofa while his right foot dangled over the edge. He could feel the agitated rise and fall of Jason's chest as he rubbed his back and crooned at him, "I'm sorry, Spinelli, so sorry. I lost my temper and I shouldn't have. I would never hurt you, never. I love you and just want to keep you safe and with me always…" It was a strange parody of the other time Jason had comforted him over Sam's death but back then Spinelli didn't understand the irony implicit in his grief being assuaged by the very person responsible for it.
"Stone Cold," Spinelli muttered as he began to twist against the arms encasing him. Pushing against Jason's broad chest he managed to sit up next to him on the couch. Jason still had an arm wrapped around him unwilling to relinquish all contact with the younger man.
For several minutes they just sat in silence while they each struggled to regain their composure and to organize their thoughts. Finally, Jason spoke, "I know Sam wouldn't take you away from me that she was simply trying to get you back to your old self, back to working at the agency."
"So, then why did you…" Spinelli despised his inability to say the words 'murder' or 'kill'. Yet, how much worse than words was the deed itself?
Jason looked at him, his gaze holding a hint of weariness, maybe even self-recrimination though Spinelli couldn't be sure that wasn't just projection on his part. He sighed as he ran an unthinking finger along Spinelli's jaw tracing it and curving up to his ear, his touch delicate and light. "She was a danger junkie, Spinelli. She never thought, she just acted and that night her luck had run out. I could have saved her but then what about the next time? What about when one of her decisions managed to get you hurt or killed? No, if something happened to you, I couldn't bear it. So, I did what I had to…" His tone was regretful, the voice of a man driven to perform deplorable deeds by the poor choices and behaviors of others rather than by his own inclination.
"So, you pushed her," Spinelli stated the words baldly, at this point there was nothing to be gained by discretion.
Jason just nodded his head, saying nothing. He closed his eyes and leaned in toward Spinelli, his lips grazed against his roommate's cheek as he began to press barely perceptible kisses along the line from his ear to his lips. The feel of Jason's lips against his own sent an unexpected pulse of pure yearning through Spinelli's body. He was surprised and somewhat disconcerted that his mind and body could be in such discord. Jason's left hand rubbed against his cheek while his right cupped against the back of his head pulling him closer as he increased the intensity of the kiss. His tongue darted out insisting on entry and Spinelli's lips opened of their own volition. He was overwhelmed with indefinable feelings and wants, by the foreign tastes and sensations Jason's tongue induced within his mouth. Their mouths were fused together and Spinelli wrapped his arms around Jason's back clinging to him in his desperate search for affirmation, for some meaning to his stunted existence. A deep seated moan of need emanated from within him as mismatched waves of desire and shame coursed through him.
Jason reached around his back and capturing one of Spinelli's hands brought it down to his groin where he placed it over his pants letting the hacker fill his erection as it pulsed and throbbed beneath his palm. Breaking off the kiss, panting with lust he stared into Spinelli's eyes as he pressed their hands together on his crotch. "I want you Spinelli, all of you." The words were stark, his voice so choked with longing that he could barely enunciate them. "Tonight, will you stay with me tonight?"
Spinelli was shocked to find that he wanted a renewal of the kiss, that he only wanted to remove his hand from its current position long enough to unzip Jason's pants and release his penis so he could touch it, wrap his mouth around it, have it guided into his body so that he might banish the aching emptiness that filled him. Yet, some part of his lust glazed mind was still sentient enough to recognize an opportunity to use Jason's naked craving to elicit a response he required before embarking upon this twisted and tainted pathway.
"Stone Cold," he spoke hesitantly, for once words weren't his allies, didn't come easily. "The Jackal will concur… will agree to your request and all it implies…if you but grant him a single boon."
Jason stared at him for a moment, not speaking, his breathing once again slow and regular, his erection slightly lessened as he belatedly understood that Spinelli was using his body as a bargaining chip. "What is it?" He asked without inflection.
"Simply this," Spinelli had found his voice again. "The Jackal…I will be with you tonight, each and every night if we but leave Port Charles tomorrow never to return. This place," he extracted his hand from Jason's lap and gestured around the living room, "It's no longer my home, it is too filled with unhappy memories, with darkness. We need a fresh start where no one knows us, where we can be solely unto one another without outside commentary or condemnation. Someplace," he sighed with heartfelt longing, "Someplace where the sun continually shines and shadows are banished." He stopped speaking, now he could only await Jason's response.
"That's it?" Jason was looking at him in puzzlement as though searching for some hidden meaning, some trap that he would stumble into if he wasn't wary.
"Indeed that is it with the small additional request that the Jackal would ask his Master to have faith and trust in his grasshopper's unswerving loyalty and dedication. So, that he perhaps would have no further need to be threatened by others, that the Jackal will always be by his side without abatement."
"What about love?" Jason's voice was sadly quiet as he asked the question, his eyes penetrating as he searched Spinelli's face. "Do you love me, Spinelli?"
Spinelli was relieved, this was a test he could pass. "Yes, Stone Cold, I love you." He knew better than to embellish the statement.
A fiercely joyful smile lit up Jason's features as he grabbed both of Spinelli's hands and kissed each palm. "Then it's settled, we leave tomorrow!"
"Never to return," Spinelli gently prompted him for the single concession he was determined to have.
"If that's what you want," Jason promised easily with a careless shrug. "All I care about is having you entirely to myself. I don't care where. Now," his eyes were heavy lidded, Spinelli's hands still grasped within his, "Meet me upstairs, in my room. I'll be up after taking care of things down here."
It was a command and Spinelli recognized it as such. He stood up from the couch and was just starting to head for the stairs when Jason's arms wrapped around him pulling him back into his body warmth and the probing shaft of his reinvigorated erection. Spinelli felt an answering throb in his own groin. He thought with an almost manic relief, 'How fortunate it is that Jackal's body appears happy to comply with Stone Cold's amorous demands upon it.' He had worried about his ability to fulfill the inevitable physical aspect of his sin sealed bargain and it was some small comfort to know that this central facet to their newly defined relationship seemingly would not go amiss.
"I forgot to tell you," Jason's warm breath blew into Spinelli's ear raising shivers as he whispered, "Johnny Zacchara was asking after you tonight, before Diane's accident. He asked you to call him, to get together at Jake's and talk."
The words were entirely innocuous and totally deadly. Spinelli didn't move, he didn't twitch a single muscle as he made sure he was composed enough to answer the way he needed to in order to ensure Johnny's survival. His voice was cold and indifferent, "The Jackal shall not be contacting the Mob Prince. He is not interested in maintaining any associations in Port Charles and since we leave tomorrow any plan for a future meeting is a moot point anyway."
Jason's arms slackened, bending his head down his teeth nipped lightly at the juncture where the hacker's neck and shoulder met. "Okay, if that is how you want it to be" he said huskily as he ground himself into Spinelli's ass, his hand slipping down to rub over the bulge in his lover's jeans. "I'll be with you in a minute."
Spinelli walked up the stairs in a disoriented haze. He stopped outside Jason's room, his hand resting on the door handle as he looked down the hall to the former haven represented by his regrettably pink room. After tonight, he knew there would be nowhere left for him to hide, every part of himself would be on continuous display for Jason's covetous and possessive gaze.
Slowly he stepped into the sterile room dressed in neutral grays and blacks. There was only one personal possession visible-a picture on the bureau. Robotically Spinelli walked over and picking it up gazed at it in wonderment. It was a photograph of him. He was down at the docks, the wind pushing his hair back from his face as he stared at the camera with a wistful smile, his eyes matching the sea in their green clarity. Spinelli had no memory of the day, of the picture being taken or how Jason had acquired it. Still, he was full of a yearning sadness as he recognized the loss of the boy frozen forever in his untrammeled innocence and hope. Gently he replaced the frame face down on the bureau. That version of Spinelli was dead, all that was left of him was a walking husk bearing only a superficial resemblance to the young, naïve hacker who once believed that goodness and love perpetually triumphed over cruelty and hate.
With a heavy sigh, he sat on the edge of the bed awaiting Jason's arrival. His mind was a jumble of disconnected thoughts as he pondered the nature of his current life and the stultifying future he faced. He finally understood that love comes in many guises, some sweet and mellow, some sharp and poisonous. He knew he was destined to lie down in a bed of thorns and someday when he could battle no more, he would let them pierce his heart and his life blood would stain the very bower of love and lust that Jason would create for him. Until that inevitable moment, he would stay entrapped within the twisted thing his existence had become, love and despair commingling on his every breath…
A/N: Reviews are always appreciated