Title: "Another Cross to Bear" Author: Kelandris the Mad Fandom: View Askewniverse (pre-Clerks) Pairing: Jay/Silent Bob Rating: Songfic. NC-17 for male-male graphic sexuality, homosexual situations, adult themes. R for language. Status: New Archive: The traditional places. If you don't know what the traditional places are, you might want to write and ask. And here's how: Feedback: kel@crazysheep.net Series/Sequels: In order: "Out of the Rain". "Can't Afford to Pay the Rent". "Inhabited." "Pleasure of Your Company". "Hell to Pay." Which brings us back to *doh*. Sixth story in the...err...trilogy. Disclaimers: Kevin Smith owns everything but the characters I create, which are generally staggeringly obvious as they aren't Jay, Bob, Dante, Randal, Holden, Banky, or any of the other movie people. :> Notes: This is what happens when you stay up until seven am listening to "Just a Toy" by the Barenaked Ladies". Summary: Bob and Jay go see Bob's sister Anya. Warnings: Big Russian guys with guns in this one. Like getting strangled in the last one wasn't enough. "Another Cross to Bear" by Kelandris *I've seen your fairground hair, your seaside eyes Your vampire tooth, your little truth your tiny lies* By the time they reached his sister's place, Jay had fallen asleep on his shoulder and Bob had started in on the fifth round of Why I Can't Sleep With Jay Again. The trouble with all the reasons he gave himself was not that they didn't make sense, or weren't valid, or were just excuses. They weren't excuses, they *were* valid and they made perfect sense. But he still had to inhale sharply whenever he remembered how Jay had felt inside him. Or, somehow even better, the first time they'd kissed, in another cab on their way to the Science Center. And he couldn't seem to get past that. It was frustrating. It was an hour's worth of frustrating. It was even more than an hour's worth of frustrating, because there was an accident on the Garden State Parkway which slowed everything down to a crawl for about fifteen minutes. It all gave Bob too much time to think, and dream, and chase the dreams away with a stick, and think some more, inviting them back. Frustrating. When they arrived in Trenton and pulled up in front of Anya's home, he frowned briefly, looking at the blaze of lights. There were six men he only vaguely recognized hanging out on the front porch. All were smoking heavily, peering at the cab, hands held uncomfortably near what he was fairly sure were guns. Great. "Uh�buddy�" the cabbie said, rightfully nervous. "I know. I need to find out what's going on." He dug out a fifty, grimacing, and passed it to the man thorugh the glass. "Listen, if I get shot, take the kid wherever he wants to go. But don't leave *unless* you hear shots. I do have a relative�somewhere in there." "Hey. Your funeral, man." But he waited as Bob walked slowly up the path. One of the men hailed him in a gutteral dialect he couldn't even identify as Russian. His eyebrows rose, and he shrugged, holding his hands up and slightly away from his body. "I'm looking for Anya," he said distinctly. "Anya?" "*Anya, da*," said one of the men. He walked inside, emerging a few moments later with Anya in tow. Anya would have made a perfect farmer's wife a century ago. Apple- cheeked, plump and giving, she was the epitome of her mother--dark eyes, dark hair, pale skin. Most of the men in her family took after her father, tall, sturdy yet thin, light brown hair, not dark. Bob was the only brother she had that resembled Mother as well. "Robertin!" she cried out, smiling her welcome as her arms flew out. She pulled him into a breathtaking hug, and then held him out again at arm's length. "It has been an age, *two* ages, since we saw you! And how is your Trin?" "Psychotic," he answered. The happy smile died on Anya's face. "What?" "She kicked me out. Everything I now own is in that cab," he said, pointing back at the yellow car by the curb. "Mmm. Including the young man?" she said, leaning over to nudge his shoulder. "Well, I wouldn't say "own" with him... More, "stuck with", than anything." "Oh, I'm *sure*," Anya said sarcastically. She turned to the men and shouted something in that Russian-English *patois* that so confused him, and they cleared away from the porch. *I know your trembling hand, your guilty prize your sleeping limbs, your foreign hymns your midnight cries* "So...what brings you here, so far from your home? Or does your Trin keep that too?" Bob shrugged, pinching the bridge of his nose briefly. "Pretty much...Mainly, I didn't know where else to go." He looked into the house, where the men were now clustered around the kitchen table, smoking and drinking vodka. He looked back towards the cab, thinking. "Anya, what's with the big guys with guns, here? You part of...the family business, now?" Anya looked away, wrapping her arms around her plump form. "You know Da," she said softly. "He gave me an argument--" "--you couldn't refuse," he finished, but the quote inspired only sliver-thin smiles on their faces. It was too close to the truth in their situation. *I know your trail of tears, your slip of hand your monkey paw, your monkey claw and your monkey hand* Bob sighed, looking back at the cab. Now what? He couldn't very well bring Jay into this, not with his strange new defensiveness, and that little blade that would earn him a bullet between the eyes. But he wasn't sure if he had the money for a hotel, frankly. And Anya wasn't exactly known for being flush with cash. Unless her new recent alliance had increased her fortunes. It all seemed so pointless now. First Tony, then Trin, and now finding out Anya was no longer unaffiliated with the family...That made him the one hold-out, now, the lone rebel staying out of the drugs and guns and killing people business. How long was that going to last? *I've seen your trick of blood, your trap of fire your ancient wound, your scarlet moon and your jailhouse smile* Tony. Shit. And who was Tony dealing with who beat him up? He looked back at Anya, measuring her ability to tell him what his family wouldn't tell an outsider. "You heard from Mischa lately?" "Mischa? Well, that's certainly not the question I expected!" Her laughter sounded forced at first, but grew lighter. "Why?" "There's...a friend, I guess, dealing with...us. Only I don't know who he's dealing with, you see; if it's one of Mischa's boys, I have to start planning his funeral, but if it's Arkady or Ilya--" "Or Denis," she said, smiling. "Well. If it's Denis, then he can take care of it himself." They shared a conspiratorial grin, then Bob sobered. "Somehow, though...He was hit *hard*, Anni. Ilya wouldn't do that without a reason. Neither would Dmitri. If Tony's earned this somehow--" "Tony? Tony Zingarelli?" she said, her voice trembling. Oh, God. "You've heard something." "No, it's just--" "Tell me." One of the men inside raised his head, scenting danger, and Bob just stared at him calmly, breathing as evenly as he could manage. After a suspicious moment, the man lowered his head, pulling a deck of cards from his vest and laughing. The other men clapped him on the back, clustering around the small table as he began to deal out the deck. He looked back at Anya. "Tell me." And she did. *** *I'll miss your urchin smile, your orphan tears your shining prize, your tiny cries your little fears* Bob didn't know he could get more tired than he had been, but he was. Walking like an old man, he returned to the cab, getting in and pulling Jay close. The driver looked back, started to frown, and stopped. "Hey. You, uh, you okay?' "Yeah," he whispered. "Fine." Sure he was. Didn't he look fine? His hands were shaking, he had a thousand dollars in his pocket now, courtesy of Anya, and they were on their way to what might be Trenton's only motel, the Knights Inn. He watched as the cab turned up New York Avenue and pulled into the driveway. Great. Too much information in his head, he just wanted to slow down long enough for his brain to decompress, but no, had to drag everything out of the cab and into the room and pay for the room and call his sister and give her the number and then, finally, collapse on the bed to wait. Jay, for his part, bounced on the other bed a bit--he'd paid for a double in the faint hope both beds would actually be used--and then crawled over onto the other bed, stretching out beside Bob. "You look like shit, dude." **Yeah. Thanks.** "What the hell happened back there?" *I'll miss your fairground hair, your seaside eyes your vampire tooth, your little truth and your tiny lies* And what did he say to that? Found out about Tony, man. Oh, yeah. To get him out of his shit, I gotta go talk to my father, and hey, when I come back from that *I* may be in the family 'business'. All my life, all these past four years in school, everything I've done has been an attempt to gain some distance from my fucking father and now, now, he's back in my face. Because I have a stupid fuck-up of an ex-boyfriend who decided to deal not only on my family's turf, but with my family's main source of drug-inspired income. And to save this worthless piece of shit I used to love, I get to go sacrifice myself upon the parental altar and hope I come back with some parts of me intact. And how did he say that? Lay it out so Jay'd really understand? Shit, when they'd known each other way back when, he hadn't told Jay *anything*. He'd tried like hell to keep Jay as far away from his family as humanly possible. Jay'd never even been over to his house because of the risk he might drop by some day, after school, and get shot by some passing uncle with a paranoid fear of strangers. Shit. Can we stop now? Can we just stop and reset, and play this out again? I don't want to play anymore. I just want to sleep and have it all work itself out while I'm out, yeah. That would be good. Can we do that? Jay curled up next to him, stroking lazy circles onto Bob's sweatshirt with his fingertips. **And that's another thing. Why the hell does it feel so good when he touches me? Shit. Can we step back and leave him in New York, walk the kids out by the front entrance to the hotel, not the side?** Rising wearily, he walked into the bathroom, Jay's eyes burning holes in his spine as he walked away. He had time to make only one startled sound before Jay was at his side, looking around his shoulder. "What? What is it?" *So dry your eyes and turn your head away now there's nothing more to say now you're gone away* Red, was what it was. The walls in the bathroom were red. Dark red. So was the bathtub. What the hell? He looked over his shoulder, staring back at the rest of the room. The rest of the room seemed normal, the standard pallid watercolor print in the gold frame, the simple striped comforters on the beds. The colors were a little intense, but still. He looked back at the bathroom. Still red. **Fucked. Up,** he thought, dazed. Well, it was only for one night, right? Until Anya called. The phone rang. Oh, shit. *So dry your eyes and turn your head away now there's nothing more to say now you're gone away* END (Song is excerpted from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "Lament") ***** Kelandris the Mad will it still kill you if you've lived through it once?