FIC: At the Pleasure Of (ABVH, smallfandomfest entry) Part 1/?

[amand_r]

Title: At the Pleasure Of
Author: amand_r
Fandom:LKH's Anita Blake Series
Pairing/Characters: Jason, Jean-Claude, Asher, Richard, Anita, OFC, OMCs, smaller characters (Faust, Graham, etc.)
Rating/Category: R, Gen
Prompt: Jason, "What comes after this?"
Spoilers: Spoilers through Cerulean Sins, and then it becomes AAAAUUUUU. Yeah.
Summary: What should Jason do?
Notes/Warnings: I started this back in 2005, after several discussions, but never had much motivation to work on it. That someone wanted to know what Jason does next was impetus enough for me. I was gonna call this something like "The Call of the Wild," but I think just thinking of the pun broke parts of my brain. Thanks to crowie for the beta.




At the Pleasure Of

"In the service of Caesar, everything is legitimate." (Pierre Corneille, The Death of Pompey)


Jason threw a tennis ball at the wall, where it bounced off and returned to his hand as if on a string. The sound of it hitting the stone was less than satisfying; instead of the loud thump of ball-on-drywall, it barely made any noise at all.

The night was looking empty. Jean-Claude didn't need him after their evening "meeting," he wasn't stripping that evening, and there was no pack business. His classes at the local community college had ended the week before, and he was sure that his grades had been above par. His plans to drink that evening with Stephen and Gregory had fallen through, and all the movies in the theatres were trash. His sagging bookshelf was full of paperbacks with cracked spines—cracked, because he'd already exhausted them.

Even Nathaniel, who was usually good for renting a musical and mocking it wholeheartedly with popcorn and pork rinds, was busy with Micah and the Coalition.

The ball made the rounds of wall-to-hand a few more times before he just didn't bother to catch it, and it flew past him to land at the foot of the bed. Jason surveyed the room for something to do. He had four CDs, exactly four, three of which had been purchased for him by well-meaning women whose sole intent was to get him into bed. He also had a wardrobe full of clothing suited for clubbing and other naughty things; he could go pick up a girl and bring her back, but this close to the full moon he wasn't so sure that was a good idea. No, check that—it wasn't a good idea.

He might as well make a run to Borders and Krispy Kreme, come back here and hole up with books and donuts again.

Jason pulled a T-shirt over his head and stuffed his feet into his tennis shoes. Faust would lend him the keys to his car if he was here. Jason hoped he was; Meng Die looked at him funny when she handed him her keys.

He was halfway up the steps when Faust stopped him. "Something's up," he said over his shoulder. "Stick around."

Jason turned and fell into step with the vampire. "Something's up? Like something bad-bad, or like orgy and pizza night?"

Faust kept walking, but he smiled. "If those are my options, then something bad-bad."

"Bad like Jean-Claude making us watch Oklahoma! again, or bad like something's going to find and rot all over me?"

"Possibly the former. Probably the latter."

Jason rolled his eyes. "I should have gone to get the donuts."

Faust opened the door to Jean-Claude's chambers. "Don't worry. Richard's bringing them."

It didn't occur until he was gone to ask why Faust would even care about donuts.

***

Jean-Claude's quarters were actually much more than the bedroom, but that room got the most mileage. Jason and Faust entered the main chamber foyer and lounge with its decorative wall hangings of silver and gold, and Jason flopped down on one of the sofas, propping his feet up on the coffee table, which he was sure had never seen any coffee mugs. He could hear Asher and Jean-Claude in the bedroom, moving about and arguing in French. Jason liked to think that they spoke French out of old force of habit, but sometimes he wondered if they didn't do it to encrypt their conversation.

He once again quashed the urge to tell them that by now almost every inhabitant of Circus had a passing understanding of most Romance languages. They'd just switch to Esperanto or something and everyone would have to start all over.

Jean-Claude had changed out the painting after Musette's visit from the one she'd brought back to the Julianna painting. Jason tried not to look at the painting too much, mostly because Julianna was hot and that wasn't something he wanted to mention to either of the people in the other room. But even thinking her name sometimes seemed to make them sad, despite that Jean-Claude had made a point to hang the painting where he would see it every day. Then again, maybe that was the point.

Faust parted the curtains to the bedroom and nodded to Jean-Claude. Jason caught a glimpse of him, perched on the edge of the bed while Asher paced, his arms folded across his chest. This was never a good sign. Jean-Claude's voice was soft but urgent. The voice on the other end of the phone was not happy about having to leave her job in the middle of the night to come and have some sort of pow-wow. Jason hoped he'd already phoned Richard, because he didn't want to be privy to that conversation.

There were very few reasons for there being, as Faust put it, something up. One would be a problem with someone in St. Louis, one of their own. Another would be an intruder into their territory. The worst, of course, and strangely most expected at this point, would be another visit from a Vampire Council member or representative. Jason supposed there could be new developments and scenarios, but he was willing to bet was one of those three, mostly because they were the only things Asher and Jean-Claude fought about.

If he had to correct that statement, Jason would say that they were the only things Jean-Claude and Asher fought about in public. In private there was a discourse of disagreement so grounded in age and history that Jason couldn't begin to parse it.

"Faust," Asher said, emerging from the curtains, "spread the word that activities are to be curtailed as of this evening."

So they were concerned enough about whatever this was that they were keeping everyone close to home.

Jean-Claude left the bedroom and walked around the sofa to lean on the back of it. Jason took in his face, painted with something, though worry wouldn't have been the word he might have used to describe it. Jean-Claude might have used that expression around him and Asher, but Faust wasn’t trusted enough to merit actual facial expressions. He took care to hide his face behind a partial veil of hair, something that had only recently become an act for him. He wasn't the vampire in the room who had cause to conceal himself.

Jason leaned back into the sofa cushions and kicked off his trainers. He was definitely not going anywhere.

He had to ask anyway. "Do you want me to go, or should I stick around for when the troops arrive?" he muttered quietly. At least Jean-Claude had new magazines.

"I want you here," Jean-Claude said, leaning over the back of the sofa to bend in towards Jason's ear, as if this moment was to be an intimate one. Jean-Claude was like that: everything, even reading the mail, was intimate. No wait, Jason read his mail for him.

Jason shrugged and opened a copy of Esquire. Versace vintage was back in style. "Is there a reason? Or do you just want to brief us all at once?"

Jean-Claude's hand was still on his shoulder. The fingers tensed a little before loosening to travel up Jason's neck to his head, behind his ear. Jason had long ago decided that touching like this didn't bother him. He was well aware that to outsiders, their relationship was misconstrued as something else. Sometimes he would rather they thought it was that than the complicated thing was turning into.

Jean-Claude wouldn't admit it, and Jason tried not to think about it, but years as a pomme de sang were accumulating into something with a great deal of weight. Jason paid attention to other vampires when they talked about their experiences with their own or others' pommes de sang; he watched how visiting vampires treated theirs. Jean-Claude was aware of his attention to the subject as well. It was an agreed upon thing that they not discuss it, but that agreement, like all things lately, seemed to be changing, forcing itself to a head. He didn't want to have that conversation, not now, when he had no idea what was going on.

Jason just remembered what Faust had said about the potential for rotting, and more importantly, rotting on his person, and decided to risk the question.

"This visitor, visitors—"

Jean-Claude smiled as Jason tilted his head back to look at him upside down. "I don't think we'll have to worry about rot this time."

"I hate when you do that."

"What?"

"Read my brain, like it's a word jumble you can unscramble whenever you want."

Jean-Claude laughed and removed his hand, but he didn't move away. "I simply ask myself, 'If I were Jason, what would be my primary worry?' Trust me, it is a very valid one."

Jason sighed. "Two years ago, my primary worry would have been how I was going to get laid while sharing a room with Stephen."

"Funny how those priorities change," Richard said from behind them. "All our lives have become more complicated in the past two years."

Jean-Claude folded his arms against his chest and retreated behind his mask again. Jason preferred the moments when no one was there, and he almost cursed. Richard made existence very difficult for him. Okay, he made existence very difficult for a lot of people, but Jason felt that strain more acutely, or at least he thought he did.

Richard was his Ulfric, and he was also in a triumvirate with Jean-Claude and Anita. Jason had been Jean-Claude's pomme de sang since before Richard rose to power in the clan, but he had never seen fit to demand Jason's release. It wasn't that Jason wanted him to make the demand, but when the Master of the City and the Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke Clan had arguments and tensions ran thickly through the room, Jason was less and less sure of where his loyalties should lie. He would like to ask Anita, but he wasn't sure if her answer would do any good.

Anita was in a better position to divide her loyalties to vampire and wolf. Oh hell, to wereleopard, too. Jason was and always would be a beta male, and he had come to terms with that years ago. While this meant that he wouldn't rise in pack structure, he didn't intend to make that his life.

Now if he could only decide what he was supposed to make his life.

Jean-Claude nodded to Richard as he left the room, calling back over his shoulder. "Anita is on her way. I will return after I have given out orders to my people." He did that now; he called her Anita in front of Richard. It was a habit that was seemingly innocent, but full of something ominous.

Jason snapped the Esquire shut and put his feet back on the coffee table. Richard gave him the teacher look Jason was sure that he used on his students, and he put them on the floor again. Richard shuffled from one foot to the other, but didn't seem eager to sit, as if Jean-Claude's sofas would suck the life out of him. Vampire sofas.

He was holding a plastic bag.

"Did you bring them?" Jason asked, pointing lazily to the bag. Richard seemed to snap out of distraction, running a hand through his hair and shoving it in his pocket before tossing the bag to Jason with his other hand. The box inside was more solid and heavier than a donut box. Not to mention that it was not flat and pizza-sized.

"What happened to donuts? What's this?" Jason should have known Richard would never bring fried anything to a meeting. He stared at the bucket of trail mix in his lap and then back up at Richard, raising his eyebrows.

"It's good for you," Richard said in a low voice. Jason suspected that he'd already had it in his house. "It has banana chips."

Jason ripped the plastic lid off the container and dug his hand in after setting it on the table; he couldn't argue with banana chips.

*****

Jason held the umbrella closer to Jean-Claude and Anita, while Richard stood in the rain. Willingly.

"And why did they send him again?" Anita whispered through the downpour. She knew everyone here could hear her.

"He was a senator," Jean-Claude replied.

"There's never been a vam—"

"A Roman senator."

"As in Roman Empire?"

"Oui."

It was safe to say that no one in the tarmac was happy. Jason had been privy to the discussion, which closely resembled an argument in the way that everyone had been yelling, and then someone had been bloodied, and then there had been sex. Most of the arguments in Jean-Claude's rooms were like that; Jason was just happy when he was less bloody and more sexed.

The Vampire Council was sending someone, but it wasn't for a visit in the sense of The Traveler's visit, or even Musette's visit. It was more along the lines of an 'unofficial layover.' Apparently, the Council was getting involved in the political landscape finally. Jason wasn't too clear on the whole thing, but it sounded like vampires had decided to become a special interest group in Washington.

The senator in question was one Domitius Caecilius Palatinus Helviticus, the Master of Rome for over two thousand years. He would arrive tomorrow. But his human servant, Domitius Caecilius Archelaus, was on the small Lear jet that had landed mere moments ago and was finishing its taxi on the private runway. Jason stared at the frosted windows of the jet and tried to glimpse past them to the creatures that moved about within.

"So, he's a human servant?" Anita asked again. "And he's traveling without his Master?"

"Oui."

"That doesn't happen often, does it?"

"Non."

Apparently, Jean-Claude was so unhappy with the situation that he had fallen into mono-answer mode. Normally, Jason hated mono-answer mode because it meant that Anita got crankier than normal and Asher stalked the hallways in a foul mood, but this time everyone seemed to want to avoid another argument. The Council had stressed that Domitius was acting independently of them, and that his group was making stops in many cities. They had already been to New York, Atlanta, Nashville and Orlando.

Normally, when a Master wanted to enter the lands of another, negotiations took weeks to accomplish. Parties and dinners were planned. Clothes were made. Jason had tons of those clothes for just such occasions; they usually involved a pair of ass-less chaps.

This time though, the vampires coming were adhering to what Asher loosely translated as 'Un accord entre gentilhommes,' and which Jason and Faust had later called 'La Rules of Engagement.' The rarely-used contract pretty much dictated that the visiting vampire inside the territory was confined to a small space of land, willingly, on which to reside. In this case, Domitius himself was to remain in the penthouse of the Hilton downtown unless he was en route to the airport. His food supply was to be only that which he brought with him, most likely a pomme or pommes de sang.

It seemed so easy to Jason, so easy that it was most likely to be difficult. When Jason had asked Asher why such policies weren't used more often, he had said something regarding the seeming loss of power that the visiting vampire displays. Then when Jason had asked why this loss of power didn't seem to bother Domitius, Asher had waved his hands and said something about the Roman Empire and enslaving the pope. He hadn't inquired further.

Archelaus, from the little that Jason could glean from Asher and Byron, was older than dirt. He had apparently been Domitius's slave before his immortal promotion. Jason hadn't really had time for anything else, because then he'd had to sprint for the limo out to the airport. Jean-Claude hadn't been in the mood for questions from anyone else other than Anita, and Jason knew when not to push the subject, and also when his charming curiosity began to be viewed as less charming and more annoying.

Jason sighed and decided that he hated umbrellas. Sure, Anita and Jean-Claude were toasty and dry, but he was sopping wet, and his hair was shit. He prayed that there weren't any hot girls on the plane, and that if there were, they liked the wet look.

Archelaus chose that moment to appear in the doorway of the jet, animatedly conversing with a flight attendant and shouldering a laptop bag. He opened an umbrella as he descended the stairs.

Jason examined him out of the corner of his eye. He had learned long ago that staring was one of the worst things he could do with new people. Sometimes it was taken as an invitation he hadn't meant to, and never would have wanted to, give. Archelaus wasn't tall, but he was dark, built, kinda Greek. Oh wait, he was Greek, but Jason hadn't really been expecting him to be so...Greek, with the curly dark hair and the olive complexion and the nose. Part of him couldn't repress the urge to look for a panpipe tucked in a pocket or furry fawn-like legs.

His suit was Versace, an old cut, but recognizable to Jason, who was the owner of several Italian suits himself, and thankfully not what he was currently wearing. He walked with the gait of the privileged. Small wired spectacles glinted with flecks of rain.

Jason sniffed the air, noticing the flare of Richard's nostrils also. The man smelled like gin oil, and cologne. And cigarettes. Galoises. Beside him, Richard shuffled his feet.

"Jean-Claude," Archelaus said loudly, maybe to hear himself over the rain and the still-dying engines of the jet. He shrugged his briefcase more firmly up his shoulder and switched hands with the umbrella so that he could reach out and clasp Jean-Claude's arm in a firm grasp. Jason moved forward with the umbrella. Anita stayed firmly behind, even though that meant getting wet.

"Domitius Caecilius Archelaus," Jean-Claude returned, his voice careful. Jason was momentarily distracted when the luggage cart drove towards the jet. "As sourde de sang and master of St. Louis, I welcome you and your master to my territory under un accord entre gentilhommes" It was a rehearsed speech, as much as such things could be rehearsed. Jean-Claude had chosen these words carefully ages ago, though he had yet to ever use them, the way their relations with outside elements seemed to be going. Jason often suspected that Jean-Claude had a secret notebook of all of the little protocol speeches that he might one day have to give. It was probably leather bound and he wrote in it with a felt tip pen.

"And I," Archelaus said cheerfully, as if he wasn't fully aware that he was signing over any freedom of movement he might have had, "represent Domitius Caecilius Palatinus Helviticus, Master of Rome, who has consented by proxy to all of the terms negotiated before my feet touched the flat of your realm. Your lands are and ever will be your lands, and your people, in entirety, are forever your people."

"Save the Hilton," Jean-Claude said cheekily. Retrieving his arm and letting it hang loosely at his side.

Archelaus smiled. "Yes, save the Hilton, and their room service."

"But only for seventy-two hours," Anita added from behind them. Jason could feel the muscles in Jean-Claude's back stiffen, even though he wasn't touching him.

The corner of Archelaus's smile twitched, as if he was trying to find a way to smile more without looking like the Joker. "Yes, of course. Seventy-two hours from—" He glanced at his watch. "Nine fifteen this evening, we shall be departing on this very runway." And with that, he waved a hand at the plane and two figures descended to the tarmac. Everyone in Jean-Claude's group seemed to stiffen even more, and hands in pockets tightened around the butts of pistols.

No one ever offered Jason a pistol. Probably because the last time Anita had handed him one he'd snickered and said, 'you said butt.' Hey, it was a cheap joke, but nonetheless funny.

One of the emerging forms was a woman; Jason could smell her Chanel No. 5 from fifty feet away. The other was a lycanthrope; he could smell that too, even over the perfume cloud. He was willing to bet that the woman was human, though she could have been special, like a witch or a necromancer. He darted a glance back at Anita, who was still firmly behind him and Jean-Claude. Could necromancers sense other necromancers? He made a mental note to ask later when they weren't all wound tighter than piano wire on an A-sharp.

The woman carried a small briefcase in her hand and wore a bluetooth in one ear. Her dark hair was pulled back into a fierce tail. Her suit was some sort of ultra fashion cut and probably cost more than Jason's had, if he had to guess, and her lips were fire engine red.

Her companion, the lycanthrope, was everything she was not, except well groomed. He was a tall, blond poster child for the Aryan race, complete with a buzz cut and spikes and a suit that made his shoulders so sharp they looked like they could be used as a can opener. Jason wanted to ask if he played sports, but that could wait until later. Or until never, actually.

Archelaus did that casual hand wave of the privileged. "My bodyman, Hans, and our personal assistant, Giovanna," He said as the two grew nearer. Jason played the 'I'm not looking at you game' with Hans, which was the best way to avoid confrontations with other lycanthropes. Somewhere behind him, he could almost smell Richard bristling, and he could definitely hear him, and he wondered if there was going to be a pissing contest. Sometimes it involved actual piss, though Richard had tried to nip that bad tradition in the bud.

Hans didn't seem to care, and Jason watched him bow low to Jean-Claude, his blonde chair stiff in the rain. It had to be shellacked. The man finally straightened, and he towered over the rest of his entourage.

"And Domitius?" Jean-Claude asked stiffly. His face, Jason knew, would be expressionless, but his back was a little too straight, his mannerisms a little too controlled.

Archelaus handed his laptop off to Hans. "Arrives tomorrow, after our meeting. We will have dinner at the apartments, then." He smiled, and even Jason had to admit he was kinda charming. Anita would hate him on principle. "His pomme de sang travels with him."

Jason couldn't help but look more squarely at their guests at that. Sure he had known that one would be with Domitius, but he hadn't really thought about it. Pommes de sang were like a small clan of people; they had a personal experience that very few on the planet could really lay claim to, and he was always interested to see how another one lived.

Jason was pretty sure that he was one of the freest and best kept of them all. Jean-Claude let him go and do what he pleased most of the time, when he wasn't obligated by pack business, or meetings that Jean-Claude had set up. He had a job and a college career that he was partly interested in, and even though he occasionally had to don the aforementioned ass-less chaps, it was still a pretty wild ride.

Anita's hand closed on his, as if she could read some of the uncertainty in him, and he hadn't realized until she'd done it that he had needed her touch, just her fingers a little on his hand. A hand sliding up onto his shoulder told him that Richard was there too, though whether it was out of genuine concern or jealousy of Anita was up for debate.

The luggage truck had unloaded all that it needed and was circling back to the limousines at the end of the tarmac. Jean-Claude made a little curt bow to Archelaus, small because he technically wasn't anybody really, but a bow nonetheless, because he was someone Jean-Claude, from what Jason had gathered on the ride over here, didn't entirely detest.

Archelaus lit a cigarette and took off for the cars then at a good clip, speaking rapid-fire Italian to Giovanna, who struggled to keep up with him in her stiletto heels. Jason could see Anita both smirk and want to look disapproving. Jean-Claude followed them, with Richard and a very far-away Hans in tow.

"So," Anita said to Jean-Claude in a low enough tone that Archelaus and Giovanna probably didn't hear them. Hans was a toss up, but Jason was sure that he was in range. Anita wasn't stupid; she wouldn't say anything seriously confidential until they were safely ensconced in the limo. "What do we do now?"

Jean-Claude took her hand in his, and like Jason had earlier, Anita sensed that he needed to hold it, and didn't pull away. "We have dinner, ma petite.

"I don't think I can eat," she said softly when they piled into the limo. "Who could eat at a time like this?"

As if on cue, Jason's stomach growled.

*****

Comments

[dragon-within.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I liked this! It's interesting to see the dynamics from someone else's point of view. Can't wait for more!

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll be sure to write more! And believe me, there's more.

[steelvictory.livejournal.com]

Very fun so far. I've always had a soft spot for Jason. Can't wait to read more!

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think I've been disappointed in the last few books that he doesn't have more page time. Oh well.

I'm glad you're liking it.

[spikedluv]

Yay! I haven't read any official Anita Blake in a long time and this was a great reintroduction. Loved Jason's pov, and his internal dialogue. *g*

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm glad you liked it!

[freddie-mac.livejournal.com]

Stopped reading ABVH years ago, but I've always been fond of the 'verse and especially Jason. Nice to see behind his mask and get more insight into his character and life. Looking forward to more (you said this was long -- hurrah)

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm planning more. It IS long.

Glad you like it.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to the rest...

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

It's never coming. Sad but true. Sorry!