Fic: Breaking The Silence

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Breaking The Silence
Chapters: 8/?
Author: csi_sanders1129
Genre: Drama. Casefile. Romance. Hurt/Comfort. Angst.
Ratings: T
Word Count: ~3,500
Pairings/Characters: Jason Morgan/Damian Spinelli.
Synopsis: In which Spinelli gets in over his head with a Jackal PI case, Jason has his hands full dealing with the fall-out, and a serial killer is on the loose.
Comments: I started this a while ago, but recently started working on it again, with major help from suerum , who is - for the record, awesome - it's not quite done yet, but it's getting there. Set a bit in the future (November 2010-ish) and assumes Maxie and Spinelli broke up and that Jason and Sam have also called it quits again. Mix between a casefile fic and a regular drama/hurt/comfort/romance kind of fic. Original characters aren't mine, even though I may not actually want them. Reviews are awesome, and enjoy!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 |

Jason and Spinelli had already been awake for a while when Sam showed up the next morning.

Thoroughly satisfied, freshly showered and dressed (and, in Spinelli's case, re-bandaged), they were quite contentedly sitting in the kitchen and considering breakfast options via the neon frog notepad when she knocked at the front door.

Still unwilling to leave Spinelli – despite the hesitant nod that assured him he could – he called out instead. "C'mon in, Sam. We're in the kitchen."

She appeared a moment later, with a familiar looking messenger bag slung over her shoulder, and the case file that had been left untouched on the coffee table in her hand. "Had a good night, I'm guessing?" She asked, taking in Spinelli's change in clothes – another pair of too big pajama pants that had to be Jason's and a baggy black t-shirt that also had to be Jason's – and the much more relaxed atmosphere surrounding both Jason and Spinelli now. Wasn't hard to figure out from there.

Spinelli blushed and dropped his head; Jason smirked and laughed at him. "Want to stay for breakfast? We're having…" he paused to glance at the notepad, where Spinelli had scrawled out 'Pancakes?' the single word was punctuated with a hopeful Spinelli looking up at him. "Pancakes, apparently."

"Tempting, but I can't stay long. I promised Molly I'd take her to the Natural History Museum for some report she has to write for school – and I'm already running late on picking her up. I won't be back until tonight, but I figured I'd drop this off before we left." Sam explained, and set the bag on the counter. "I found your car last night – parked on some side street not too far from where Jason found you - and rescued this from it before I told the cops where to find it. Do you have copies of the case information on your laptop?" Spinelli nodded in response, already pulling the laptop out of the bag. "Okay, I'm giving the hard-copy to the police then, so they know what they're up against. Maybe they'll find something we couldn't."

Jason, while not fond of police involvement, had to agree. "I'll make sure Diane knows about it all, too."

Sam nodded, already backing for the door. "Okay. Call me if you find anything." And then she was gone.

"You didn't have your camera with you on the stake-out, did you?" Jason prompted, and Spinelli quickly started searching through the bag, coming up with nothing. 'I did,' he typed out, in a word document he'd pulled up on the laptop. 'It's gone, though. It wasn't in the car, it was with me.'

He shrugged, so much for that lead. Though he was trying not to think about the fact that Spinelli had just revealed that he'd been on foot and not within the relative safety of his car when he'd been taken - they didn't need to have that conversation again right now.

"You want to work on looking into the case now?" Jason asked, knowing that they had to do it at some point. Spinelli nodded, so Jason left him to his work, and since they were both still ravenously hungry after their busy night, he moved about the kitchen at work on the requested pancakes.

It was some time later, long after breakfast had been practically inhaled, that Spinelli found something new. They were still in the kitchen, sitting side by side, when the hacker nudged Jason's arm to get his attention.

'I tracked my movements on the stake-out on video surveillance.' He typed out, and then pulled up a series of black and white video files, occasional ones in full color, and some that were just traffic camera stills, but Spinelli was in all of them.

The footage started with Spinelli on Courtland Street. The shady part of town that Jason really never wanted Spinelli near. He was kind of amazed working cameras, any cameras at all, actually, were there. "Why there?"

'I checked records on the rooms in the motels. Guests don't usually stay long-term there, one room had been held for the last month.' Jason nodded. It made sense - the motels there were more like pay by the hour sort of establishments, nowhere anyone would want to stay longer than necessary. From there, Spinelli – still in his car, thankfully – moved toward the warehouse district, which he just seemed to pass through. Then it seemed that he'd carefully circled around the neighborhood the abandoned jewelry store had been in, and then done the same thing again on foot. And then Spinelli disappeared.

"The motel room's not being held anymore, is it?" Jason asked, though he could already guess the answer. Spinelli's shake of the head was not unexpected. "And I'm betting on no security camera in the hotel itself?" This time he got an equally not unexpected nod. "And the guy probably paid with a stolen credit card or in cash?"

Spinelli pulled up an image of an old lady currently living in Florida, whose name matched the credit card information from the hotel. The odds were good that 92 year old Georgia Talbot was not their doer.

"There any good news?" Jason asked, out of questions that could possibly lead to such information.

'Not yet.'

From that dead end, they moved into the living room. And, after working for several hours nonstop, Jason realized that Spinelli's energy was flagging. He mentally berated himself for presuming that his stamina would be unaffected by the trauma he had undergone. His face was pale and his eyes black, smudged pits of exhaustion. They had worked straight through lunch without either one recognizing it.

"Hey," he nudged Spinelli gently as they sat side by side on the couch, both watching the screen of the laptop and analyzing the meager stream of information they had managed to accumulate. "I'm beat and I want something to eat and drink. Let's take a break and have some lunch and then maybe take a nap. Sound good?" Jason was the talkative one of the pair under these strange circumstances and he anxiously awaited Spinelli's response, hoping that he had phrased his idea in such a way that Spinelli wouldn't assume that Jason was concerned about him. If the hacker got the slightest inkling of such a concept, he would be sure to kick into full-fledged stubbornness mode and then Jason's only hope of getting him to eat or rest would involve the bodily laying on of hands.

Spinelli paused in his frenzied typing. He had been in the zone, that place he went to where neither time nor fatigue had much meaning. Yet, Jason's words had snapped him back to the here and now and he realized that his throat was dry, his stomach was growling, and his mind was reeling. He nodded his consent to Jason's plan, 'Sounds good,' he typed into the word document they had been adding to all morning. 'I'll just finish a few things up here and you can go into the kitchen.'

Jason looked at him with a wary expression on his face, "You're sure?" He asked, "I promised I wouldn't leave you and I meant it."

Spinelli grinned and it lightened his tired face, making him look more like himself. 'Your Jackal is perfectly capable of sitting on the couch with his trusted cyber companion while Stone Cold is but a few feet away preparing a veritable feast to fill the aching maw that is currently my stomach.'

He was thrilled to see Spinelli-speak return, if only on a computer screen. Jason nodded his agreement and leaned over to kiss Spinelli, their lips blending in a natural way as though they had been doing this for years instead of less than 24 hours. "Mm. We may have to renegotiate the nap aspect of the afternoon's schedule," he said with a mischievous smile as he got up from the couch and headed to the kitchen.

Jason was almost done with lunch - it was simple, just sandwiches, chips, some fruit, and bottles of water in place of Spinelli's rejected Nectar of the Gods (orange looked a little too much like red sometimes, Spinelli had typed out) - when the knock came at the door. Jason abandoned the food preparations without a backward glance as he headed out to see who their visitor was. Leaving Spinelli alone for a few minutes was one thing, probably even a good move along the path of trying to regain some semblance of normality. Yet, letting him, in his current fragile state, deal with a visitor - no matter how benign - was a different matter altogether.

He was too late, though. Spinelli had already hopped over to answer the door, and Jason wasn't pleased to see Sonny Corinthos standing in the living room, leering at Spinelli.

"Where's Jason?" Sonny demanded of the hacker. Spinelli dropped his gaze and stayed unsurprisingly silent, likely unwilling to do anything to set off the wrath of the dreaded Mr. Sir even if he'd had his voice. "Hey, I asked you a question! And what the hell are you wearing, anyway?" The younger man just tugged self-consciously at Jason's too big clothes, hoping that Sonny wouldn't figure out exactly why he was wearing them.

When still no answer came from Spinelli, Sonny sighed and opted for yelling imperiously for his second in command.

"Jason, where the hell... Oh, there you are," Sonny said, scowling as Jason came into view from the kitchen. "Why the hell didn't you call me?" He asked belligerently, as though the two men had been in the middle of some dialogue that had been hastily interrupted. Except that Jason knew they hadn't. The last time he had even talked to Sonny was more than a week ago.

"Call you about what, Sonny?" Jason asked mildly though his eyes were glinting with displeasure at this unwanted disruption in this fragile new world he and Spinelli were building. He knew instinctively that Sonny wouldn't understand, wouldn't tolerate this alteration in the relationship between Jason and his roommate. He could barely handle Spinelli in his life as it was. Friend and computer genius was too much for him to comprehend; there was no way he would ever make the mental shift to lover.

That aspect of things didn't concern Jason in the least, though. He wasn't giving up one more good thing in his life for Sonny Corinthos. He'd been there and done that for more than a decade and he knew the only way it would ever stop was if he said, plainly and clearly, "no more." Still, that wasn't a conversation he wanted or needed to have right now. After they caught the serial killer, after Spinelli was safe and Jason could breathe freely once more, then it would be time to declare his freedom from his overlord and perennial leech, Michael 'Sonny' Corinthos, Jr.

"About the newest mess freaky boy over here has gotten himself into, obviously," Sonny said with an irritated wave of his hand toward Spinelli, who was still standing by the door and still precariously balanced on his good foot. He flushed at the use of the hated nickname, clenching his fists in impotent anger as he looked at the floor.

Jason marveled at the hacker's self control, marveled at all the times he had allowed Sonny's brutal treatment of the boy. He hadn't stepped up for him then, hadn't fought for him, or protected him, and he was ashamed of his lack of action. He remembered the countless times he had made excuses for Sonny's behavior, had done little more than protest mildly, had fully expected Spinelli not to mind - and he had apparently absorbed that lesson all too well. Jason was loyal to Sonny and Spinelli inherited and practiced that selfsame allegiance regardless of what it cost his pride and his self-esteem (and on one occasion that Jason certainly hadn't forgotten about, his head).

Well, it was over now. Jason stepped toward Sonny, his walk panther soft and just as dangerous. "You know Sonny, I've put up with a lot from you over the years and I guess I just got so used to being your whipping boy that when you started to take your bad temper out on Spinelli, I didn't even really understand exactly how wrong it was."

Sonny rolled his eyes in irritation and dragged a hand over his face. He hated when Jason thought he had a right to be mad about something, especially when it revolved around the annoying cyber-geek. "Oh, don't start with me…"

"You were jealous of him, weren't you?" Jason's eyes blazed, but Sonny, in his supreme arrogance, failed to read the warning signs, didn't understand the subtle shift that had occurred in their relationship.

"Jealous of him?" Sonny looked affronted as he scoffed and glared back at Spinelli who hadn't moved, who was statue still as he stared intently at the carpet. "He's a nerd, a coward, and a social misfit. The only reason I've kept him around this long is because you seemed to feel sorry for him or something." He stared at Jason, something hurt and angry swimming in the depths of his flat, black eyes, "He caused us all that trouble with the FBI and we should have gotten rid of him then, but instead you snitched on Anthony Zacchara and I, against my better judgment - but because you asked me to - I even helped you get him." He looked righteously stern as he stared at Jason and reminded him of his noble past exertions on Spinelli's behalf. "Now he's gone and got himself involved in something else though, hasn't he? I heard something about dead bodies on the news. And I'm here to say, Jason, that it has to end. We are too vulnerable now to be in the public eye over something that doesn't even concern us. This time I'm telling you to cut him loose."

"Or else what?" Jason's voice was even, but his entire body was rigid, a coiled spring of suppressed violence.

Sonny gave a dry little laugh, fully confident that his decision would be adhered too, that now they were just working out the specifics, "Don't get me wrong here. I'm not suggesting anything drastic. Beside anything else, if the kid up and disappeared at this point, with everything being in an uproar, it would just cause us more headaches."

Spinelli had finally raised his head and he was looking at Sonny with an expression of near panic on his face as he listened to his words of condemnation.

Jason longed to go to him, to hold him and comfort him and reassure him but that would have to wait. First he needed Sonny to finish. "Then what exactly are you suggesting?" He asked coldly, but Sonny was as impervious as ever to nuance of tone, to thinking that his loyal enforcer could ever seriously countermand one of his decisions.

Sonny shrugged as he ran his fingers across his chin, considering Jason's question, his gold signet ring catching the light and flashing. "I don't know, give him a nice commission and he can still work as a PI if he wants. He just can't be affiliated with Corinthos-Morgan any longer, and he can't live here with you, either."

Spinelli was so pale and drained looking that Jason thought he might faint. He needed to wrap this up once and for all, right now. He no longer had the luxury of waiting until later. "Alright, Sonny. Whatever you want," he said evenly, deliberately not looking at Spinelli, knowing that he wouldn't be able to stand the complete and utter abandonment that would be on his face. He hated doing it this way but Jason knew from experience that it was the only way to get Sonny out of their lives for good.

"Hm. Great," Sonny responded genially, a little surprised that Jason had agreed so easily, and that the kid hadn't put in his usual babbling two cents worth, but he certainly wasn't going to quibble. Finally something was going his way. "Glad we could reach an agreement."

"I'll have my resignation e-mailed to you this afternoon." Jason continued, and now he did dart a quick glance at Spinelli who was looking at him in open-mouthed astonishment. He sighed, he had really hoped the shock might have managed to get Spinelli to say something, to make some sort of protest or exclamation but he was still silent.

Sonny stared at Jason, quite thoroughly puzzled, and sure that he had misheard something, "Your resignation, Jason?" He was asking for clarification. "No, I meant that Spinelli needs to go, not you."

"Sonny," Jason was finished, decades of an unhealthy co-dependent relationship and it came down to one last confrontation in his living room. There wasn't even a choice to be made - Spinelli represented light, hope, loyalty, and love, while Sonny was a dark pit of despair, anger, and hatred - the sad part was that it had taken him this long to figure it out. "I'm done. I choose Spinelli, I choose freedom, I choose life, and I repudiate you." He grinned at a still silent, still shocked Spinelli - the hacker's vocabulary had rubbed off on him over the past four years.

"Jason…" the familiar grating whine was back in Sonny's voice as he prepared to argue, to persuade, to bully, to do whatever it took to get his own way, but he lacked the ability to influence Jason ever again. But, then he knew who was really to blame for this gross injustice. "This is all you, isn't it, freak boy? You put him up to this, didn't you?" He wheeled on Spinelli, stalking over to the boy and throwing a punch before Jason could intervene.

Spinelli went sprawling backwards, his shaky at best balance totally thrown off by the blow.

Jason rushed forward, hauling Sonny away from his lover. "Get out, now," he all but roared, and he reinforced the order by grabbing Sonny's arm and twisting it behind his back. Once he had his once-mentor cringing and squirming and loudly protesting, he shoved him toward the door. "If you ever touch Spinelli again, I guarantee that you will regret it."

"Damn it, Jason! You can't do this," Sonny's outrage over being manhandled would have been almost comical but Jason didn't find it funny. He knew it meant that he would have another danger to protect both himself and Spinelli from for the foreseeable future. Yet, as he slammed the door in Sonny's face, he couldn't help it - he felt light, he felt buoyant, and he needed to celebrate his own personal independence day.

But that would come later, once he knew Spinelli was okay.

He turned back toward Spinelli who was still ungracefully sprawled on the floor, looking dazed and uncomprehending of all that had just transpired before his very eyes. Thankfully, Spinelli wasn't in the midst of another panic attack. There was no high-pitched mewling noise, no hyperventilation, this time, just the silence - though Jason certainly wouldn't have blamed him if that had been the case, especially since the impact of Sonny's ring had left a small gash running just under Spinelli's eye. "I'm sorry I let him get that close to you." He said, "It won't happen again." He aided the younger man to his feet, steered him back to the couch and perched him on the arm of it as he titled his head this way and that to inspect the wound. "It's not bad. We'll just get some ice for it, okay?"

Spinelli nodded, though he still looked confused by the events that had preceded the attack. He visibly relaxed as Jason curled an arm around his shoulders and started to lead him towards the kitchen.

The ice helped, within moments Spinelli could almost believe that he hadn't just been punched in the face. Blissfully numbed, he leaned against Jason and tried to forget about Sonny Corinthos.

And Jason was completely amenable to that plan, it seemed, as his hands landed on Spinelli's shoulders. "I love you," Jason said as he kissed him with a harsh fierceness, "I chose you today and from now on I always will." The words were punctuated with repetitive kisses and the younger man easily molded himself to Jason's body. "Lunch." Jason said firmly as he broke away, ignoring the accusing look in Spinelli's eyes. "I need energy if I'm going to finish what I started," He wrapped his arm around Spinelli's waist and together they slowly moved toward the table.