Title. The Idle Job
Author. kelleigh
Artist. amindaya
Rating. NC17
Pairing. Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Genre. RPS AU.
Warnings. Bad guys. Big guns. Explicit sex. Minor character death. Alternate U.S. History.
Words. 50,300

Summary. Texas Ranger Jensen Ackles always walks into a new town the same way – with two eyes open and one hand on his gun. He’s worked dozens of these jobs across the Union of Seceded States, in small towns and big cities, scrubbing the streets clean of the bad elements before moving on to the next job with his ornery pup, Mo, riding shotgun. Jensen’s personally assigned to Idle, Colorado by his captain to protect the interests of a rising star in the world of Union politics, and he quickly finds that Idle’s not as quaint as it seems on paper. Idle is rotting from the inside-out and Jensen’s got to make sense of the situation before the bodies start turning up. Throw in a missing Sheriff, two deputies Jensen isn’t sure he can trust, and Jared, the local doctor who keeps getting involved in Jensen’s business, and this job’s bound to be a wild ride.

Written for the 2011 spn_j2_bigbang.

You must check out amindaya’s ART MASTER POST for this story. It’s all absolutely wonderful!








part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six

SOUNDTRACK



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amindaya is an amazing artist, y’all! Please do yourself a favor and check out her entire art post linked above. She didn’t need a whole lot of input from me to get started, but she was so true to the descriptions and ideas I’d placed in the story, down to color details and Mo’s breed :P I’d seen her amazing art before and maybe I’m a little bit biased, but I think these pieces are her best work! Gorgeous landscapes, detailed faces and hands, and fun little extras that add to the story. amindaya and I were a little surprised with our wicked early posting date and we both had to scramble a little bit, but I’m so so so happy with the way everything turned out! I was very lucky to get to work with such a talented (and fast-working!) individual ♥ ♥



notes.
The funny thing is I hadn’t watched a single episode of Justified when I started writing this. I saw the ads and the promo pictures, and I heard reviews from a lot of my friends, and all of that helped me develop the idea for this story. The massively AU setting came out of nowhere and I questioned using it several times. But I was attached to the idea of changing something so unrelated to the characters themselves, like, you know, the whole history of the United States, and the way something like that would changes the lives of ordinary people.

So while I can say that this was initially inspired by the idea of Justified, it’s far from being based on the show. There are pieces, a nod here and there (as well as nods to a few other shows), but not a whole lot more than that. If you’re reading this expecting a retelling of the show, sorry to disappoint! Raylan Givens will not be making a surprise appearance in Idle. :)

Cassidy – Paula Cassidy – was borrowed from NCIS, but in SPN fandom you know her as Officer Kathleen from the Benders, played by Jessica Steen. She is one of my eternal favorites. Matt Davis is based on the real life crazy of Matt Davis, an actor on The Vampire Diaries. There are a few extra names thrown in from Nikita as well, but everyone else is an original character.

Ideas and themes were drawn from other sources including the television series, The Magnificent Seven, the movies Carriers and Walk Tall, and the non-fiction book, The Dark Side of Camelot.

The use of broken language is very intentional :) I wanted it to sound like Jensen's thoughts and I know, personally, that I never stop using y'all and ain't in my head.

thanks.
Several people made this story possible, chief of whom was dugindeep who started reading it after the first few thousand words and stuck with me all the way to the end! At this point, I think she knows the story better than I do. Plus, she flew out here to Phoenix to hang out with me the entire weekend before this story was due, just for extra moral support :) Come on, that’s dedication! She was also the beta for this story.

To joans23 who knows better than anyone how to keep me motivated. She always had something beautiful to say about this story ♥ And to auroraprimavera for her last minute help and comments – I knew I could count on her for the second year in a row! And of course to my entire flist for their endless support and enthusiasm.

Thanks to the Big Bang mods for running a wonderful challenge year after year!