Fanart: Three Steps Past Triton
Title: Three Steps Past Triton
Author:brutti_ma_buoni
Artist:cassiopeia7
Fandom/Genre: SPN: space adventure
Pairing: J2
Rating: NC-17
Media: Technical pen, Copic and Prismacolor markers, acrylic paint marker, glitter marker, pan pastels, pastel pencil, and Photoshop.
Summary: Jensen is a space captain. Jared is a space whore. When Jensen gives Jared just one chance, the kid takes it. They travel through hell and beyond, though that's partly astronomy, not metaphor. And in the end, maybe it wasn't the kid that needed saving.
Artist notes:
A few months back, I read brutti_ma_buoni's beautiful prompt-fic response Three Steps Past Triton, and I fell into the gravity well of her story. I shamelessly haunted her LJ, begging for a sequel, a timestamp, anything that continued the wonderful story she'd begun. I may have also offered art in exchange for such a continuation.
And danged if she didn't take me up on it, creating a righteous space adventure / love story that launched my Muse like a Saturn V. M., thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for allowing me to have such a marvelous time setting pen to SpaceHooker!Jared and SpaceCaptain!Jensen, Hell's Gate, dead men's hands, silver slick, and J2-in-spaaaace. (Not to mention my first venture into NC17-land. *blush*)
Thanks to my awesome beta quickreaver for everything, to fellow space fan and Queen of Pastels sophiap, for valuable concrit on properly using pastels, and to badbastion, for her knowledge of all things naughty. And proper positioning. ;D
I adore this story. Now go give brutti_ma_buoni all the love she deserves for this beautiful thing.
To infinity, and beyond!
_______
* * * ART CONTAINS SPOILERS! * * *
"Rates are reasonable, and I'm willing, sir. You're gonna love how willing I am."
Jensen's risked this before. Not with whores, mind. But some days you have to go with a good feeling in your gut, and he's not been wrong too often. And, if he is, there's plenty that go into deep space and never return, and nobody asks too much about their fate. So. Let's try something where it's a win for Jensen either way.
"Kid? Giving you a choice . . . "
"Folks, this is Ackles. Just taking us into the Nebula. This is it, anyone wants to take a lifepod outta here, last chance you'll be picked up alive."
"Time to start your learning, kid. Rookie berth ain't only grunt work. I'm plotting a course, like you heard, time you saw how it's done."
It's deep into the night watch, ship's mostly on low power, low lighting, low crewing, trying to mock up the life planetside that half Jensen's crew can't even recall and the rest probably never even lived. Jensen always was a night owl, though, even on the dirt. He's nowhere near asleep when he hears a noise out in the corridor, a noise that shouldn't be. The kind of thump that could mean muffled explosion, or metal fatigue or-
Or a kid, punching the bulkhead.
Jensen's head tilts back, watching the stars through the arc
of the bridge windows, one hand cupped round Jared's cheek,
feeling the kid suck and swallow.
Seeing stars, he comes.
He calls Padalecki up to the bridge. Expects the kid to be running with an expectant smile, the way he usually answers any call, though Jensen with Trig and Wack on the bridge will spell trouble instead of pleasure, most like.
The kid doesn't come. Jensen repeats the call, and then leaves Trig on watch as he starts down, spine crawling, towards the maintenance decks. It's a big ship. If there's trouble - and something is screaming that there's trouble, that Jensen missed something, that Jared might be in trouble - there are many places for trouble to hide.
"Okay, okay," Wack's saying, soothing, and Jared must be consenting to being held back, no way Wack has the muscle for this. Nate, though, ain't accepting anything, wrestling against Jensen's hold for solid, painful minutes. Till Jensen spots, just in passing, the bloody, puffy imprint of a wrench on Jared's face.
Fuck. No messing, he drops Nate with a stunner.
Nate died hard, screaming till the vacuum took him.
"You don't get to kill me. You don't get to come after me. Demetrius is in the past. Nobody gets me for the past. You hear me?"
The look the kid gives him reminds Jensen that it’s really only Nix that knows where this is headed. It’s a mix of anger and betrayal, and followed up fast with an insubordinate, “Hell no. Sir. You’re not leaving me on this moon.”
"Jen? Tell me a story?"
This year, his birthday doesn't pass unmarked. No, sir. At some point, some traitor lets Jared into Jensen's personnel file, and the kid - who really isn't a kid now - organizes a goddam surprise party. The whole mess hall decked out in decorations that, on closer inspection, are mostly bottle caps and ration bar wrappers but that give a shiny hue to the place.
"We could work for you. Long term, guaranteed. Be like security. Fam-"
And she don't say it, because she's no fool, but family comes to roost in the room all the same.
Jared comes running back, after pretty much everyone’s gone. Jensen’s heart gives a bump, but the kid’s towing a smaller kid, a redheaded girl, and this ain’t a romantic reunion at all.
And, oh yeah, he bought a ship.
It’s the Impala, from back when, a good cargo ship with a good service history, and when Jensen heard she was marketed, seemed like someone was trying to tell him to get his thumb out his ass. Maybe in a voice that’s a mite familiar to him, too.
It’s late at night, and his comm bleeps. Not business. Not a friend. It’s his father’s signal.
Jensen’s attention’s drawn to the barn, and the guy exiting. Big and tanned, and ripped as hell. Dressed in cast-offs that barely cover him decently, which is just like the kid and shows nothing much has changed.
They’re both facing the stars, this time, faces tilted upwards as Jensen rocks them both to heaven.
Jensen's Pa had one last word for him, private.
"You find any more kids in need, ones that ain't suited for the black - maybe send 'em my way? We need young people hereabouts. It's too quiet, on Green Acres."
"I ever tell you how you look immensely fuckable when you're piloting?"
"Now hush and hold on, kid. I'm gonna show you new stars."
[The process of spaaaace (with bonus extra-sleazy Space-Hooker!Jared.)]Space, the final frontier.
I knew from the start that there would be pastel work involved, as my headspace of the gas giant Asphodel wasn't something that could be easily achieved with marker. The small matter that I hadn't so much as touched a pastel stick since high school, and really didn't know what the hell I was doing . . . never crossed my mind.
First planetary test. Yeesh. Pastels, how do they work?
Fortunately, the Mistress of Pastels, sophiap, soon set me straight, even if I'm going to need a LOT of practice to ever do pastels justice. Also, with the pan pastels, I got to use my fingers, which was at first "yay, fingerpainting!", then "yecch, what is this crap all over my hands?"
Space Hooker!Jared, from innocent to sleazy . . . and back again.
The very first incarnation of slightly sleazy space-hooker!Jared, surreptitiously sketched out in ballpoint at work.
Second attempt (and M's favorite version) of úber sleazy Space-Hooker!Jared:
M and I determined that Jensen's character wouldn't have gone for this level of "sleazy," and would have passed this Jared right on by. Which would have been a shame. And so, I returned to the original, slightly innocent, wounded-but-still-trying version.
Final version in-progress:
Jared's "silver slick" consists of a Martha Stewart silver glitter marker (ooo, so hoity-toity!), a Copic silver-glitter pen, and a Sharpie silver paint marker. I ended up having to photograph the piece to get the silver to show up, and so had to re-crop the entire thing. In future, methinks I shall perhaps leave the multimedia to beelikej. ;) (As you've probably noticed, my colors are all over the place. :( My stupid scanner is either having a midlife crisis or has been possessed by Lucifer -- can someone please send the Winchesters by?)
Space: Before and After.
As drawn: Plus digital gradient, a handful of stars, a
large star as the sun, and a bit of color enhancement.
Final piece in-progress. Wide-nib markers FTW! (Even with an inch-wide nib, it
was still hell-and-a-half to do that solid black background.)
Finished, cropped, and with digital stars added (Photoshop is STILL the devil -- but it has its uses.):
*sigh* I wish I could've gone with them. I'm going to miss those guys . . .