HOUSE OF BROKEN SOULS Part 3
I thought I'd try the posting graphic thing, which means I had to knock a graphic up in the first place. Since I don't have photoshop this is what I came up with. It's not exactly a banner but it's something...
Warnings: This Chapter:None. Overall: Slash, sexually explicit content, graphic violence
The fiction includes a mental illness storyline. I am not qualified in mental health, everything I know about it is googled. It's fantasy folks, please don't shoot me though helpful criticism is always welcomed.
*Not real. The folks aren't mine. No damage intended.
Fresh Start
Monday
Jensen woke briefly to distant unfamiliar noises of morning in a new building. The faint clicks of the heating system, quiet murmurs of people leaving their apartments, the elevator whirring and the main lobby door thumping. It was 7.30am. He rubbed his hand through his short bed-mussed blond hair, fidgeted a little then closed his bleary green eyes and went back to sleep.
Jensen woke again at 9.00 to the insistent ring of his mobile and fumbled to answer it.
“Ma.”
“Yes. It’s fine. No I’ve not met anyone yet. Yes. I like it here. You know I really don’t want to know. You can tell everyone I’m fine ”
He turned his legs to the side and sat on the edge of his bed. Rubbing his hands over his face and into his hair Jensen tried to keep frustration out of his voice.
“Mama. No! What would there be to chat about? I’m over it. About time everyone else was too.”
Jensen was always amazed at how his mother managed to make him feel like a 5 year old even at the age of 32. He tried for a tactical change of subject.
“Hey y’know I downloaded a couple of transcripts before I came so I’ll be able to proof read them for you between unpacking. The wifi should be fixed up real soon so I can get back to a normal workload in no time.”
A couple of moments into a conversation on the latest Ackles Corporation book releases and he had successfully distracted his mother.
Jensen had grown up as heir to one of the largest publishing houses in the US and had been expected to follow the family tradition. He had also grown up with a passion for reading and crime drama had been his favorite. At the age of 18 he proudly wore a police uniform and at the age of 23 he was prouder to be carrying a detective badge instead.
At the age of 27 Jensen had married the love of his life, Tom Welling and there had been a wild stag night and a police guard of honor.
Oh yeah. It had all been a great success. At the age of 31 there had been another guard of honor when they laid Tom to rest. Jensen had watched from a wheelchair and a killer had taunted him for his ineptitude.
Jensen filled the coffee pot and prepared a mug of the steaming black brew whilst chatting. When his mother finally hung up he sank onto a breakfast stool consuming his drink in four quick gulps. He took a shower and dressed in comfortable grey sweatpants and a old black T Shirt. He spent an hour or so unpacking his work items and arranging them satisfactorily on the desk that was placed for an excellent view of the street and sidewalk. Jensen fired up his laptop and poured another coffee. This time he sipped it leisurely, staring out at the street.
Life passed below him. A mother walking hand in hand with her toddler stopped to wipe the child’s nose. An elderly lady trundled a full shopping trolley behind her. A young couple jogged, oblivious to the world in their iPOD haze. Then, Jensen’s breath hitched just a little as he watched a tall, athletic man with windswept brunette hair walking two nondescript and unruly hounds. He was laughing and remonstrating with the dogs, bending to tickle their ears. His smile was full and genuine, head falling back, white teeth in a wide open grin and, Jensen squinted a little, goddamnit were those dimples? Jensen thought whoever he was, at that moment, he was just perfectly beautiful. The moment passed and Jensen immersed himself in his work.
***
Jared was woken at 6.00 by the over-enthusiastic and rather disgusting tongue of his dog Sadie as she licked his ears in an effort to get her’s and Harley’s dishes filled with the biscuits that passed as doggie breakfast in the Padalecki household. Jared saw to the dogs, walked them, then worked out. He had a home gym which he used daily. He showered, made and ate egg on toast with sweet latte coffee, cleared away and by 9.00 was switching on his computer and printer , checking emails and pulling up CAd drawings for all his current projects. He talked to his dogs throughout. Sometimes it occurred to him that maybe this was because he was lonely but he pushed that to the back of his mind. In the first instance he had no time for a relationship and in the second he was apparently crap at them anyway.
Jared missed his brother, even the insane schizophrenic ramblings that had made Jared reach to phone the clinic or dash into the bathroom to check that Jeff had taken his meds . He thought he would take the dogs for a another long walk today, visit Jeff’s grave, tell him all the news and remember some of the ridiculous pranks they had pulled together .
First, he would pop to the second floor and check that all was well.
Jared walked easily up the stairs taking two in each stride, turned into the hallway and surveyed the two adjacent doorways.
It was a three storey building. Jared’s apartment was on the first floor behind the lobby. There were two apartments to each of the upper floors. The second floor was currently occupied by Jensen Ackles who apparently worked in publishing and by Caitlin Doe, affectionately referred to as Crazy Caitlin by some of her co residents, but never by Jared. The third floor was occupied by JD Morgan, a divorcee City Banker with a sharp sense of humor and a money-grabbing ex-wife. In the apartment next to JD lived the volatile but wonderful mother and daughter combination of Ellen and Jo Harvelle who owned and ran the adjacent coffee shop. They served a mean caramel latte, often accompanied by mouthwatering cakes baked by Caitlin.
It was quiet on the second floor and Jared tipped his head trying to discern any noise. The smell of baking and coffee filled the air so he guessed Jensen was in. Caitlin only drank tea. The Yucca had not altered position from where it had been the previous evening, at the right of the door. For a moment that concerned him, then he noticed a foil covered plate on the ledge beside Ackles’ door . The word ‘welcome’ was printed in Caitlin’s neat handwriting on the attached post it note. Jared lifted a corner of the foil revealing still-warm cookies. He grinned and sneaked one out, took a crumbling bite then replaced the cover. He ate the rest of the cookie as he returned to his apartment to start his work in earnest.
***
Caitlin awoke from her drug induced sleep at around 7.00. She thought she might have been dreaming. A bizarre unfocussed image of a huge flat screen TV flashed briefly through her thoughts which amused her because her own TV was tiny.
There was grey fuzzy edge to the blackness as she awoke. There seemed to be an awareness of someone else in the corner of her mind and her pillow was soaked in the saltiness of tears.
It wasn’t an unusual awakening. She wondered for a moment if Emma or Jane had been there but she didn’t feel anger and her confusion was minimal. There was no headache and her apartment was clean and tidy.
The dark eyed, petite brunette made herself some assam tea and wrote in her diary, showered, brushed her teeth then flicked through her recipe file on the stainless steel kitchen surface. Today she would bake cookies for her new neighbor, read a little of her new romance novel and continue to avoid Jared. She probably wouldn’t watch TV, the idea of it tended to give her the creeps. She pondered that fact for a second then grabbed her diary and wrote a brief note to that effect.
Continue to part 4 here: anniespinkhouse.livejournal.com/1794.html