Fic: A Bulwark Never Failing (1/1, R, Jimmy)
Title: A Bulwark Never Failing
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence. Blasphemy.
Summary: For angst_bingo. Prompt: Assault. In which the angels turn up a little late, and Jimmy has a very bad night.
The truck shudders into third gear and out of nowhere Jimmy says, “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.”
There’s a little song to the words, a hint of the hymn it’d been. That doesn’t last. He continues on, speaking too fast and low to sing: “Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing, for still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe-“
A pause, nervous. Fourth gear. The truck shudders, fighting him. It should have been scrapped three raids ago. He shoves the gas pedal to the floor and powers through a sharp curve; the wheel slips a little beneath his hands but he keeps to the road and mutters, faster still, “His craft and power are great and, armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.”
The radio crackles in the empty passenger seat. The speedometer jumps to 50, 55, 60. A spurt of fog ghosts across his headlights before it’s just as soon gone, leaving black tarmac and the shadow-suggestion of trees behind.
He doesn’t pray - not specifically - but he chants, “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing-“ It keeps him calm. Centered. This hymn always has.
The boxes in the backseat rattle. The radio hisses, pops, and falls silent again.
He thinks, Will.
No. He corrects: Claire.
Will’s dead. Claire’s waiting. Claire’s waiting for him and Will’s already dead.
The radio pops once and then it squeals: a long, shrill screech of incomprehensible static.
Jimmy’s foot falls from the gas pedal, but he’s still muttering, “Were not the right Man on our side the Man of God’s own choosing-“
He thinks, Jimmy. Go. Damn it, Jimmy, go.
“--dost ask who that may be Christ Jesus is he-“
55, the speedometer says. 50. The radio screams.
“Lord Sabaoth His Name from age to age the same and He must win the battle and though this world with devils filled should threaten to-“
Black tarmac drops to white concrete: 300 feet ahead is a bridge, jersey walls pressing close on either side, and spread out across it's center in a loose picket-line are men. A dozen, elbow-to-elbow. The static snaps up two octaves, a sharp discordant squeal.
He could hit them. He could. Plow right through.
He doesn’t.
There’s black to his right and black to his left and a line of God’s most ruinous creations in front of him.
He buries the brake pedal.
The steering wheel jerks beneath his hands as the truck’s tires catch, burn, shriek, and finally buck wildly from left to right as asphalt gives way to concrete. Slowing, slowing but not enough, the men closer and closer still until the truck shudders to a final stop.
Their eyes shine black in the harsh throw of the headlights. Except Will, of course. His roll white, terrified, in a bloody face, and Jimmy thinks, I should've hit him.
The reek of burnt rubber pours past him in a black cloud, the radio shrieks from where it’s fallen into the footwell, and in the one breath of silence Jimmy, elbows locked to the wheel, heart slamming against his ribs, murmurs, “We will not fear, for God hath--“
The driver’s window crushes inward, a sheet of glass that fractions, falls, and shatters into a thousand edges. The ruined tire stench triples as a man's hand gropes blindly at the inside of the door. Jimmy’s grabbing at him in turn, digging into the man’s wrist, clawing at thumb and forefinger, but it still hooks the handle and pulls. The door swings open easily. Then the demon finds his hair, digs its fingernails into his scalp and drags him free.
His feet miss the ground; his knees land, concrete tearing at jeans first and skin second. He rips one palm open in the landing, the other hand still curled uselessly around a wrist that twists free in one easy motion.
The sharp white shock of the possessed man’s boot digging into his ribs; he hits his back without an ounce of breath left in his lungs.
Can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe.
His chest hitches once, twice, a wheezing huff that isn’t anywhere close to a cough, and then he has just enough air to shout as the agony twists up towards where his mind can process it.
Skinned knees, he thinks. Are you five, Jimmy? Slowly, slowly he drags his elbow back, gets it under the weight of his shoulder. The boot finds him again. Something breaks this time. He falls flat and screams.
“-last?” he hears.
“Yes,” Will whines, “yes I told you, I told you, it was just me and him-- Now please let me go please-“
The supply truck’s cooling fast, the drips and clicks of a settling engine. Someone must have reached in and pulled out the key. He finds the cadence of the drips. He makes himself wait. Listen. Count. 1, 2, 3--
“Let you go?” a demon asks blandly.
Will moans. “You said- you said that-“
20. 21. 22. Enough. Jimmy twists and plants his hands and shoves to his feet, and it hurts bad, but he gets two steps into a shambling run before they’re grabbing at his shirt. He jams his elbow back in a blind jab, connects with a jaw that doesn’t move. It's Jimmy that takes the entire blow, from numbed fingers to a shoulder that rips halfway out of its socket.
The demon plants one palm against his spine, another against his neck, and shoves.
His face rebounds once off the metal of the guard rail.
White. Black.
He's on his back, something thick and heavy in his eyes, his throat. Choking. He rolls on his side, catches concrete with the arm that he can feel, and coughs blood.
Pain. Oh god. Sharp and fast and hot, every single line of his head fracturing apart, please, Christ, oh God oh God ohgodohgodohgod-
The hymn’s a spill, now, lips barely moving to the string of meaningless syllables: “amightyfortressisourGodabulwarkneverfailing.” There’s more blood coming out than sound.
Someone’s patting his shoulder, saying, “You’ll wanna hear this.”
Will’s choking, “Please, please-“
Jimmy breathes pain and mouths his jumbled hymn.
Will must see something, or realize, because his voice pitches up an octave: “Oh, fuck, oh, Christ."
Knife and flesh, it shouldn’t make much of a sound. But this knife is dull. It sounds a lot like tearing.
Will screams.
He’d been a college kid before this. Jimmy’d worked in advertising. And now they’re going to die on a nameless stretch of concrete.
No one will find them. He never found Claire.
“WeshallnotfearforGodhathwilled-“
Something wet and heavy hits the ground. No smell of blood, not past the smell of his own, but Will’s still screaming somewhere higher above him, still standing.
Jimmy's stuck, repeating, “AmightyfortressisourGodamightyfortressisourGodamightyfortressisourGod.“ Over and over and over and over and over--
And Will keeps screaming and screaming and screaming until there’s another wet tear and he’s quiet.
In the silence, he can hear the screech of the CB through the open door of the truck.
Will's dead. Claire's dead. And he can still hear that damned radio.
Someone's touching his face, but it doesn't hurt. He thinks the pain might be going. It might even be gone. Maybe he's dying. That'd be good, wouldn't it?
He blinks past the blood and Claire is looking at him. Calm blue eyes. His, Ames had claimed.
"I'm not your daughter," she announces evenly.
The demons don't seem to hear.
She continues in that strange calm: "I am an angel, and you are my vessel."
Jimmy laughs, and chokes on the sound.
She gently removes her hand - that eight-year-old hand, the last time he'd seen her alive - and the pain leaves with it. Without it he's just-- tired. God, he's tired. Claire's dead and Will's dead and Ames's dead and they're waiting, all of them.
He's too tired to be scared anymore.
"We will save you," she says. His Claire.
He's crying, now.
She pauses, adds, "We will save all of you. Will you accept me?"
An angel?
Faith and trust and Claire, that was all years ago, but some part of him has always known the answer he whispers into bloody concrete.
"Yes."
For one lingering moment, everything’s simple.
His name is Jimmy Novak. He’s 34 years old, and he’s facedown on the no-name concrete of a nowhere bridge.
Low, too low to be heard, he’s humming a hymn his mother taught him when he was seven. After she’d taught it to him she’d said, You needn’t fear a thing, you see? He doesn’t remember what he wasn't supposed to be afraid of, but he remembers that: You needn’t fear a thing.
A possessed man is reaching for his shoulder. He has intentions to gut him. But as soon as his fingers brush the cloth of his shirt, the skin of his hand boils.
He pulls back with a shriek.
And that’s the last thing that Jimmy knows.
End.
A/N: Oh my god this is dark. I am SO. SORRY. Uhm. Uhm. PUPPY AND DOLPHIN YAY. Also, many apologies for the gratuitous angelus ex machina. (For the curious, that hymn is here.)
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence. Blasphemy.
Summary: For angst_bingo. Prompt: Assault. In which the angels turn up a little late, and Jimmy has a very bad night.
The truck shudders into third gear and out of nowhere Jimmy says, “A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.”
There’s a little song to the words, a hint of the hymn it’d been. That doesn’t last. He continues on, speaking too fast and low to sing: “Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing, for still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe-“
A pause, nervous. Fourth gear. The truck shudders, fighting him. It should have been scrapped three raids ago. He shoves the gas pedal to the floor and powers through a sharp curve; the wheel slips a little beneath his hands but he keeps to the road and mutters, faster still, “His craft and power are great and, armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.”
The radio crackles in the empty passenger seat. The speedometer jumps to 50, 55, 60. A spurt of fog ghosts across his headlights before it’s just as soon gone, leaving black tarmac and the shadow-suggestion of trees behind.
He doesn’t pray - not specifically - but he chants, “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing-“ It keeps him calm. Centered. This hymn always has.
The boxes in the backseat rattle. The radio hisses, pops, and falls silent again.
He thinks, Will.
No. He corrects: Claire.
Will’s dead. Claire’s waiting. Claire’s waiting for him and Will’s already dead.
The radio pops once and then it squeals: a long, shrill screech of incomprehensible static.
Jimmy’s foot falls from the gas pedal, but he’s still muttering, “Were not the right Man on our side the Man of God’s own choosing-“
He thinks, Jimmy. Go. Damn it, Jimmy, go.
“--dost ask who that may be Christ Jesus is he-“
55, the speedometer says. 50. The radio screams.
“Lord Sabaoth His Name from age to age the same and He must win the battle and though this world with devils filled should threaten to-“
Black tarmac drops to white concrete: 300 feet ahead is a bridge, jersey walls pressing close on either side, and spread out across it's center in a loose picket-line are men. A dozen, elbow-to-elbow. The static snaps up two octaves, a sharp discordant squeal.
He could hit them. He could. Plow right through.
He doesn’t.
There’s black to his right and black to his left and a line of God’s most ruinous creations in front of him.
He buries the brake pedal.
The steering wheel jerks beneath his hands as the truck’s tires catch, burn, shriek, and finally buck wildly from left to right as asphalt gives way to concrete. Slowing, slowing but not enough, the men closer and closer still until the truck shudders to a final stop.
Their eyes shine black in the harsh throw of the headlights. Except Will, of course. His roll white, terrified, in a bloody face, and Jimmy thinks, I should've hit him.
The reek of burnt rubber pours past him in a black cloud, the radio shrieks from where it’s fallen into the footwell, and in the one breath of silence Jimmy, elbows locked to the wheel, heart slamming against his ribs, murmurs, “We will not fear, for God hath--“
The driver’s window crushes inward, a sheet of glass that fractions, falls, and shatters into a thousand edges. The ruined tire stench triples as a man's hand gropes blindly at the inside of the door. Jimmy’s grabbing at him in turn, digging into the man’s wrist, clawing at thumb and forefinger, but it still hooks the handle and pulls. The door swings open easily. Then the demon finds his hair, digs its fingernails into his scalp and drags him free.
His feet miss the ground; his knees land, concrete tearing at jeans first and skin second. He rips one palm open in the landing, the other hand still curled uselessly around a wrist that twists free in one easy motion.
The sharp white shock of the possessed man’s boot digging into his ribs; he hits his back without an ounce of breath left in his lungs.
Can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe.
His chest hitches once, twice, a wheezing huff that isn’t anywhere close to a cough, and then he has just enough air to shout as the agony twists up towards where his mind can process it.
Skinned knees, he thinks. Are you five, Jimmy? Slowly, slowly he drags his elbow back, gets it under the weight of his shoulder. The boot finds him again. Something breaks this time. He falls flat and screams.
“-last?” he hears.
“Yes,” Will whines, “yes I told you, I told you, it was just me and him-- Now please let me go please-“
The supply truck’s cooling fast, the drips and clicks of a settling engine. Someone must have reached in and pulled out the key. He finds the cadence of the drips. He makes himself wait. Listen. Count. 1, 2, 3--
“Let you go?” a demon asks blandly.
Will moans. “You said- you said that-“
20. 21. 22. Enough. Jimmy twists and plants his hands and shoves to his feet, and it hurts bad, but he gets two steps into a shambling run before they’re grabbing at his shirt. He jams his elbow back in a blind jab, connects with a jaw that doesn’t move. It's Jimmy that takes the entire blow, from numbed fingers to a shoulder that rips halfway out of its socket.
The demon plants one palm against his spine, another against his neck, and shoves.
His face rebounds once off the metal of the guard rail.
White. Black.
He's on his back, something thick and heavy in his eyes, his throat. Choking. He rolls on his side, catches concrete with the arm that he can feel, and coughs blood.
Pain. Oh god. Sharp and fast and hot, every single line of his head fracturing apart, please, Christ, oh God oh God ohgodohgodohgod-
The hymn’s a spill, now, lips barely moving to the string of meaningless syllables: “amightyfortressisourGodabulwarkneverfailing.” There’s more blood coming out than sound.
Someone’s patting his shoulder, saying, “You’ll wanna hear this.”
Will’s choking, “Please, please-“
Jimmy breathes pain and mouths his jumbled hymn.
Will must see something, or realize, because his voice pitches up an octave: “Oh, fuck, oh, Christ."
Knife and flesh, it shouldn’t make much of a sound. But this knife is dull. It sounds a lot like tearing.
Will screams.
He’d been a college kid before this. Jimmy’d worked in advertising. And now they’re going to die on a nameless stretch of concrete.
No one will find them. He never found Claire.
“WeshallnotfearforGodhathwilled-“
Something wet and heavy hits the ground. No smell of blood, not past the smell of his own, but Will’s still screaming somewhere higher above him, still standing.
Jimmy's stuck, repeating, “AmightyfortressisourGodamightyfortressisourGodamightyfortressisourGod.“ Over and over and over and over and over--
And Will keeps screaming and screaming and screaming until there’s another wet tear and he’s quiet.
In the silence, he can hear the screech of the CB through the open door of the truck.
Will's dead. Claire's dead. And he can still hear that damned radio.
Someone's touching his face, but it doesn't hurt. He thinks the pain might be going. It might even be gone. Maybe he's dying. That'd be good, wouldn't it?
He blinks past the blood and Claire is looking at him. Calm blue eyes. His, Ames had claimed.
"I'm not your daughter," she announces evenly.
The demons don't seem to hear.
She continues in that strange calm: "I am an angel, and you are my vessel."
Jimmy laughs, and chokes on the sound.
She gently removes her hand - that eight-year-old hand, the last time he'd seen her alive - and the pain leaves with it. Without it he's just-- tired. God, he's tired. Claire's dead and Will's dead and Ames's dead and they're waiting, all of them.
He's too tired to be scared anymore.
"We will save you," she says. His Claire.
He's crying, now.
She pauses, adds, "We will save all of you. Will you accept me?"
An angel?
Faith and trust and Claire, that was all years ago, but some part of him has always known the answer he whispers into bloody concrete.
"Yes."
For one lingering moment, everything’s simple.
His name is Jimmy Novak. He’s 34 years old, and he’s facedown on the no-name concrete of a nowhere bridge.
Low, too low to be heard, he’s humming a hymn his mother taught him when he was seven. After she’d taught it to him she’d said, You needn’t fear a thing, you see? He doesn’t remember what he wasn't supposed to be afraid of, but he remembers that: You needn’t fear a thing.
A possessed man is reaching for his shoulder. He has intentions to gut him. But as soon as his fingers brush the cloth of his shirt, the skin of his hand boils.
He pulls back with a shriek.
And that’s the last thing that Jimmy knows.
End.
A/N: Oh my god this is dark. I am SO. SORRY. Uhm. Uhm. PUPPY AND DOLPHIN YAY. Also, many apologies for the gratuitous angelus ex machina. (For the curious, that hymn is here.)