fic: Sanctuary (ficuary)

[csi_sanders1129]

Title: Sanctuary
Chapters: 1/?
Author:csi_sanders1129
Genre: Drama. AU.
Ratings: T
Word Count: 3397
Pairings/Characters: Damian Spinelli/Jason Morgan
Synopsis: In which Damian Spinelli is somewhere he shouldn’t be and Jason Morgan comes to the rescue.
Comments: Written for Ficuary 2021, Prompt: Lost. I wrote a version of this like a decade ago as part of another challenge, but I’ve fleshed it out a bit and added on to it for this (and it was only ever posted on my LJ before, so…), with plans for future chapters. AU First Meeting. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!

Spinelli leaves the small, out of the way coffee shop quite frustrated and annoyed. Why his senior project requires something as horrendous as group work, he does not know. That's a lie – he does know, he gets it. Teamwork is a thing that's actually useful in the world of game design, he supposes, as it is only very rarely that one person does everything for a project. But, he wishes his partners for this assignment took it a little more seriously. One of them hadn't even bothered to show up for this meeting and they have a progress report due next week. He and the slightly less useless group-mate had spent the better part of the day working on the project and they only stopped because the baristas were clearly getting ready to start closing up for the night, shooting their two lingering patrons pointed looks as it got progressively later.

"I'll message you the fixes for the glitches on level 4 by tomorrow afternoon – I have a class first thing," his classmate assures him, as they part ways in the parking lot.

"Much appreciated," Spinelli concedes, pausing to check that his laptop is securely nestled in his favorite messenger bag. He starts walking – the coffee shop is only a few blocks from Kelly's and his best friend, Maxie, should be on shift there tonight. It might alleviate some of the group work stress if he can hang out with her for a bit before he has to head back to his off campus apartment and get back to work on debugging the game.

It's only when he hits a road block that he realizes that wandering in this part of town might not have been the best idea he's ever had – it's not an area he's been to before, his team members had suggested Corinthos Coffee as a base for the meeting. While the coffee shop itself had been nice, with a truly impressive mocha latte, it's not in the best part of Port Charles. Still, Spinelli knows it's very hard to actually be lost in this era of advanced technology. He pulls out his phone and it helpfully provides him an alternate route to his destination, but it also appears as though that route leads him through a complicated maze of some rather sketchy side streets and back alleys. As he weaves cautiously through the poorly lit areas and further from familiar territory, he catches a glimpse of another person.

At first, he thinks nothing of it, just someone else on their way to or from home or work, but then he sees them again. And again. And again. They get closer and closer each time and Spinelli feels like a pit of dread has just chasmed open in his chest. He's being followed.

He tries to pick up speed, but that's difficult to do when the ground is littered with a haphazard mix of ice and debris and he doesn't quite know where he's going. He tries not to make it obvious that he's aware of his tail, but he must glance back over his shoulder one too many times because his pursuer speeds up, too, and suddenly the pretense is gone – the man runs after him.

Spinelli runs faster.

He no longer knows where he is or where he's going. He's long since deviated from the course his phone had plotted out for him and he doesn't dare to check his progress now. He can't even risk using it to call for help, with how close behind him the man is. His laptop, safe in its messenger bag, is equally useless as it slams hard against his side with every frantic step.

A second pursuer breaks out of the shadows just as he passes by and Spinelli only just manages to dodge clear of the attempt to stop him. Up ahead, two more figures appear, blocking his path, so he's forced to cut through another narrow passageway in an attempt to elude them.

"You won't get away that easy!" Comes one disgruntled shout. "Yeah, we're gonna get you!" Comes another from somewhere entirely too close for comfort.

He rounds a corner into a much smaller alleyway, trips over a garbage can that's been knocked over. A handful of rats skitter away even as Spinelli attempts to get back to his feet. He can already feel his palms and his knees burning with impact to the cold concrete, can already feel the blood trailing down his ripped jeans, but he doesn't have time to worry about that now. Utterly convinced that the end of his days is just moments away, he's given a brief few seconds to scramble up and away as they are all waylaid both by the impromptu trash can barricade and the limited width of the alley. Maybe he can get far enough away to-

A hand clamps down on the hood of his jacket, with the emergence of a fifth hunter in the pack, but luckily he hadn't zipped it closed so he shrugs out of it before they can get a better grip. The strap of his messenger bag nearly chokes him when it's pulled by the jacket as it falls away, but his beloved computer stays in place.

Still, he's not out of the woods. At most, he's only made them madder with the near miss. Given the options of fight, flight, or die, he is forced to continue to take the second option. As Spinelli can't fight to save his life, that option is out. Maybe one on one, he'd have the chance to get a lucky shot in, enough to get away. But up against five? No way. And since he doesn't want to die, not at 22 and not in some disgusting back-alley, he pushes himself onward, farther and faster until his chest burns with exertion.

The alley widens out a little further ahead and he makes an impressive Spiderman sort of leap over a second haphazardly placed garbage can in his adrenaline infused rush to escape.

Through another alley, down a side-street and he finds himself in what looks like a parking lot – it takes him a second to reach the devastating realization that it's the exact same parking lot he'd started out in not ten minutes ago. Still, though, he'll be safe in there, he thinks. There's no way they closed up that quickly – someone still has to be there. The guys chasing him won't dare touch him if he has witnesses.

Unfortunately, he doesn't get as far as the door. Two of them appear from another alley, between Spinelli and the imagined sanctuary of the coffee shop.

"Gotcha now," their apparent leader taunts, as the remaining men appear at the side-street Spinelli had used. No way out.

He opens his mouth to yell for help, hoping someone in the coffee shop might hear him, but there's a hand clamped over his mouth before he can even finish thinking the idea.

"Now, now," one of them, the original pursuer, if Spinelli is not mistaken, growls in his ear. "Don't go doing that, making noise. You've already made this plenty difficult, haven't you?" Then there's a knife. A very sharp knife, pressed too close against his neck.

Spinelli stays so still he's not even sure he's breathing anymore.

A hand digs into his pockets, divests him of his wallet, his phone, his keys. Someone pries the messenger bag off his shoulder and looks pleased to find his laptop there (though Spinelli is certain they'd never be able to get into it). Spinelli watches with wide eyes as someone else rifles through the contents of his wallet, evidently pleased to find roughly $200 and a couple credit cards. The guy holding him spots his school ring, and that and the watch his grandmother gave him for his 18th birthday are also quickly confiscated from his person. They've taken all they can – hopefully they'll just let him go now.

"Not a bad haul, if we do say so ourselves," the leader smirks, hovering in front of Spinelli's terrified form. "What do ya say, boys, should we let him go? Or do we make him pay for that chase?" A chorus of enthusiastic answers follow, none of which seem to lean toward letting him go.

A new level of panic sets in then and he struggles against his captor's hold despite the threat of the knife. He's not sure what they have in mind for him and he would rather not find out, thank you very much. He bites down hard on the hand covering his mouth, which makes the man curse and stumble away clutching at his fingers. If Spinelli gets out of this, he's probably going to need all sorts of shots.

Spinelli tries running for the coffee shop again, but he gets no more than five feet before one of the other guys tackles him down to the ground.

"You'll pay for that, you jackass!" The one he'd bitten shouts, and he's quick to wrangle control of their captive back from the one who'd stopped him. He ends up straddling Spinelli, keeping him pinned down and vulnerable to retribution. "You'll pay and then maybe, just maybe, I'll kill you." He raises his fist to land what is surely the first of many blows but something stops him in his tracks before it can hit.

"Ahem," comes a disembodied voice from somewhere behind Spinelli.

Spinelli manages to turn his head enough to see the silhouette of a muscular figure. He hears the sound of knuckles cracking and footsteps drawing nearer and for a second all he can think is that this is their boss and he's totally screwed now. He's not getting out of this.

But the others are scattering, only his captor and the leader remain on the scene.

"M-Morgan," the leader seems as terrified as everyone else in his crew, but something keeps his feet planted. "What do you want?"

"I want you to let him go." This Morgan demands, voice even and devoid of emotion, stone cold and stoic.

Reluctantly, and with a little prodding from the group leader, the hand fisted in the collar of his shirt falls away and his captor backs off.

"Good," Morgan says. "Give him his stuff back. All of it."

Wallet, phone, keys, messenger bag, ring, and watch are all piled on ground in front of Spinelli, and then the leader backs away, too.

"Now, I don't want to see any of you around here anymore, got it?"

With a nod, the last two thugs are off and running themselves, back into the maze of alleyways.

"Uh, thanks?" Spinelli chances, even though there is a distinct possibility that he might've just gone from a bunch of bad guys to one really bad guy. Whether or not this guy saved him, it doesn't mean he still doesn't need saving. Whoever this guy is, he's clearly pretty damn powerful.

The stranger offers a hand to Spinelli, who is still very ungracefully sprawled out on the cold pavement of the parking lot. "Grab your stuff. We have a first-aid kit inside. I'll patch you up and take you someplace safe," he says, "You don't belong here. It's dangerous in this part of town."

Spinelli quickly reclaims his almost-stolen possessions, grateful mostly to have saved the watch from its fate when it means so much to him. "Yeah, I, uh, noticed," he says, falling into step beside the Adonis of a man who'd offered him sanctuary in the midst of a storm of troubles. "I'm, uh, Damian Spinelli."

"Jason Morgan," the stranger responds, holding the door open for him.

Jason leads him through the shop, through a door marked 'employees only' – where two baristas are still busy with closing – and then into a room beyond that which appears to be his office. "You're the owner of this delightful establishment?" Spinelli asks, surprised. Jason does not look like what one would imagine the owner of a coffee shop would – a gym, maybe, or else some sort of fancy executive sort of thing, but not a quaint little coffee shop.

"Not quite. In charge, but not the owner," Jason answers, pulling a well-stocked first aid kit out from a closet in the corner of the room. At Jason's instruction, he perches on the desk and the man sets to work. Spinelli hisses in pain when the antiseptic hits the abrasions on his skinned knees, but Jason is surprisingly gentle. Soon enough, the wounds are as clean as they're going to get. Jason does the same to his palms and then to the elbow Spinelli hadn't even noticed he'd scraped up, as well.

"Thanks," Spinelli says. "For, you know, everything."

Jason shrugs off his gratitude and looks him over. "Where's your jacket?" he asks, eyeing the t-shirt his rescuee is wearing. It's far too cold for that.

"I'm afraid I lost it in my attempts to escape those fiends. I'll be fine, though."

But Jason's already shrugging out of the very expensive looking black leather jacket he'd been wearing. Without hesitation, he offers it to Spinelli. "Here," he says, "have this. I have others, don't worry," he adds when he realizes that Spinelli's about to protest.

Reluctantly, Spinelli shrugs into the thick jacket, the leather still warm from its previous owner's body heat. He's practically swimming in the too-big jacket, but it promptly chases away the chill that settled into his bones both from the temperature and the fear and it's only then that Spinelli realizes he'd been shaking. But the adrenaline is fading now and exhaustion is replacing it. All he wants is to get back home, get into bed and put tonight's events out of his mind.

Jason seems to read his mind. "I can take you home," he offers again.

Spinelli nods, and hops off the desk. "Thank you," he says again. It seems like he's saying that a lot. "It would be most appreciated."

"Give me a minute and we'll go," his savior promises, ducking out of the room long enough to make sure that the baristas are done with closing up. He makes sure they're safely on their way in their own cars before he returns to Spinelli, ushering him out the back to his own vehicle. Spinelli settles in the passenger's seat of what looks to be a very expensive SUV, eyes trained on the alleyways to see if any of his assailants lurk in the shadows there. "They won't come back," Jason assures him as he settles in the driver's seat and pulls out of the lot. "They shouldn't have been around at all. Where to?"

He rattles off the address to the off campus apartment he lives in.

"You were in the café earlier, right?"

Spinelli latches on to the subject, anything to avoid thinking about the attack. "Indeed. I was working on a project for class – we've been designing our own games and it turns out that the QA stage has been a more complex task than anticipated." From there, Jason casually prompts him into an explanation of his game. Spinelli wanders into what is perhaps a bit more technical detail than is necessarily required, but Jason doesn't seem bothered, just impressed, by his ramblings. "Sorry," he says, when they're nearly to his place. "I think I'm a bit shaken up."

"No apology needed," Jason counters. They pull up outside the apartment building. "You gonna be okay?"

Spinelli isn't actually sure, but he isn't about to tell Jason that. He doubts the living, breathing Adonis of a man before him would ever worry about being alone in his own home over night. "I'll be fine. I have a friend I can call to come over and keep me company," he explains, sure he can talk Maxie into riding this out with him.

"If you're sure. I could…" the man hesitates, like he's not sure it's something he should offer. "I could stay a while, if you want?"

The idea is tempting. Very tempting. But Jason's already seen him on the edge of one panic attack tonight and he definitely doesn't need the guy to see the full blown one he's sure is coming once he's safely inside. "I promise I'll be just fine," he says, ignores the way his voice shakes. "Thank you again for your kindness."

Jason lets him out of the car, and Spinelli notes that he waits until he's safely inside the building before he pulls away. Hastily, Spinelli retreats up the stairs to his apartment. He fumbles for his keys, quickly slips inside and securely locks the door behind him. It's over, he thinks. He's safe.

He's safe.

He's safe.

He's… still wearing Jason's leather jacket. He'd meant to take it off before he got out of the car, but he hadn't. He finds he doesn't want to take it off even now. It's warm and smells faintly of coffee and of the other man's cologne, some strong woodsy scent that seems fitting. It's comforting and it staves off the rising anxiety like it had staved off the cold. He drops his messenger bag, sheds the contents of his pockets, and calls Maxie who promises to be there in just a few minutes despite the lack of a coherent explanation he offers her. He turns on the television, just for some sort of background noise and sinks down into the familiar comfort of his sofa. He's safe, he reminds himself again, desperately clinging to the security the jacket provides. He's safe.

Between the usual weather and traffic reports and the sports scores, something catches his attention, though. Running on the chyron is a police bulletin, 'PCPD seeking information on Jason Morgan, allegedly tied to mob activity at pier 52.'

Surely it's not the same Jason Morgan, right? The man that saved him couldn't be a mobster. But, then, Spinelli thinks, that would explain the way the thugs had feared his arrival, would explain the fancy car and fancy jacket, the odd job Jason seemingly possesses. The coffee shop could be some sort of front for a mob related business.

He pulls out his laptop – mercifully unscathed by the abuse it took this evening – and sets to work. He's immediately drawn down a wormhole of research and it doesn't take long to conclude that, yes, Jason Morgan is, indeed, a mobster and a very efficient one, from what Spinelli can tell. Arrested a lot, but never convicted. Still, Jason hadn't seemed nefarious in any way – at least not to him, the thugs who attacked him might have a different opinion on the matter. He'd been gentle and kind and helpful when he didn't have to be.

His research, as it wanders into more in depth and less necessarily legal places, reveals that the PCPD has an ample amount of evidence against him on some smuggling charges in the form of security footage from the docks. Without a thought, he enters a chain of coding that would, should he press a few more buttons, completely wipe that footage from the PCPD's servers and backups. He hesitates – second thoughts swim through his head. He's confident it would never end up traced back to him, he's not the Ace of Cyberspace for nothing, but should he? A knock at the door startles him – only Maxie, he's sure, and he needs to decide now. One glance at the careful bandages on his knees through his shredded jeans and he's decided, sends the command and watches it land, swiftly wipes away any trace he was ever there and closes the laptop.

"Hey, what happened?" Maxie demands, when he opens the door. "I got here as fast as I could. You sounded so upset, are you okay?"

"I'll be fine," he assures her, before he tells her the tale of his eventful evening. Most of the tale, at least. He leaves out his savior's name and the crime he just committed for him.

"I'm glad you're okay," she tells him, pulling him into a hug. "Guess you'll never go back to that place, huh?"

"Yeah," he agrees, though a part of him longs to go back to Corinthos Coffee, to see Jason again. Still, he knows he shouldn't. Given what he's just done, it's probably better if the PCPD finds no connection between them. "I suppose not."