Big Bang 2012: Love Lies Burning. 5/24
Jared doesn’t return to work that afternoon and Jensen doesn’t know what it means. He has a drawing of him in his journal. It shows the youngest Padalecki sitting on the seat under the overhang. Jensen believes it is an accurate depiction. The man was within his grasp. He could have reached out to touch, but the pictures in his head tell him that he didn’t. He had the boy, Jensen shakes his head no, man, in his space and his reality and still he didn’t. The pathetic retard couldn’t do it. He tells himself it wasn’t the right time. It was just Jared and that wouldn’t do. It was all of them, together, or nothing. It would be for Josh and it would be done right.
There’s a picture in his head, a woman making noises blowing through teeth. Jensen shuts his eyes and he concentrates so hard the skin around his eyes crinkles. He grimaces, puts his tongue to the top of his mouth, careful to tuck it behind his teeth and he huffs with everything he has in his lungs. There’s the barest suggestion of a hiss. Sadie blinks and turns to him but Jensen slumps in disappointment. It is all out of order and he’s not sure what comes next.
One moment he’s in Padalecki Gardens and the next he is on a familiar footpath and there’s wire fencing, mud and the blackened shell of a building and it’s all wrong, wrong, wrong because there should be a building here. It doesn’t stop him from rolling up a corner of wire and creeping underneath. He turns three hundred and sixty degrees, slowly, repeatedly, with his eyes closed and his arms outstretched. The sound of sirens, and gushing water, the smell of charred wood, scorched brick and roasted flesh assault his mind.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Jensen’s eyes snap open and he stops spinning on his feet but his head continues in its whirl.
“I’ll have to ask you to move to the other side of the barrier. This is private property and a crime scene under investigation.”
Jensen tips his head in the direction of the man’s car, parked on the hard standing. The man tries to gain his attention or meet his eye but Jensen doesn’t acknowledge him. He furrows his brow and takes his rucksack from his back, reaches in for his journal. The man flinches and then waves his hand by the vagrant’s face, to no response. Sadie growls and her lip curls into a snarl. He backs off. “Are you alright, man?”
Jensen makes a beeline for the green car. He skirts it and then traces the tire marks across the mud. He stands and squints at the remains of the building. He turns his journal back several pages and walks purposefully toward what used to be the rear of the building. “Hey! You! You can’t do that.” The man waves his mobile in the air. “I’m calling the cops.” He chases after him keeping just far enough behind to avoid Sadie’s wrath. He stops and gapes as Jensen crouches to run his fingers over the faintest trace of an imprint in the mud. He raises his head and his gaze follows the devastated and muddied delivery route to the sealed trade exit. The investigator can see over Jensen’s shoulder as he crouches. There is a sketch of the Linden building in dark shadow, the rough outline of a car and a list on the page that is open.
Porsche Cayenne 2011
Cool grey 6
Jensen shakes his head. This reality is pages back in his journal. It is many pieces of paper in his past and he needs to be back on the right page. He flicks his way through countless lists, times and sketches until he reaches a blank page. He flicks back a page from the plain white, to a sketch of Jared Padalecki. There is a loud gasp behind him and he’s looking up into a stranger’s face. The man is flushed, excited for some reason and reaching a strong hand to grab at him. You don’t stand for it Jen. Nobody has the right to touch you. Curl your fist, that’s it, now, feel it all the way from your feet. You punch with your whole body. Draw back. You don’t need to see it to feel it. He closes his eyes and senses the shadow of his brother, tall and protective, by his side. Sadie pounces as Jensen’s fist flies and the man goes down with a sharp yelp and crack of knuckle against bone, into the squish and slime of the mud. The man flails helpless and dizzy, Jensen grabs Sadie and he’s running, racing to squash under the fence with his heart beating fit to burst and skin crawling with the bad. Josh is long gone and Jensen knows he’s not right. He’s never been right, and the only future he has is a small windowless cell.
Jared walks home. He hasn’t walked like this for years. His shoes pinch and he wonders at the irony of it. Shoes barely worn, bought for hundreds of dollars and they take him no further than the holed and taped shoes of the mysterious man who watches him. He lets himself into his sleek steel and glass house and shouts, “Lorretta! Just me.” His housekeeper won’t be expecting him back this early and he doesn’t want to scare her.
“Mr. P. You are early.”
“I have a headache. You can leave now.”
“But I have a lasagne in the oven. You work too hard, Mr. P. You should sit and I will find you something for that headache.” The olive-skinned lady bustles around him, waving an oven glove at him.
“Lorretta. Really. You can put the oven on a timer. I am perfectly capable of serving my own dinner.” He allows himself to be shooed to the soft leather recliner. He sinks into its comfort and closes his eyes. The headache isn’t a lie. A tense pain is worrying behind his eyes and he can’t stop the doubts that refuse to allow him a moment’s peace.
Cool, hard plastic is placed in his hand and he opens one hazel eye. “Jeffrey has been very worried about you. He has been calling all afternoon.” Lorretta raises her eyebrows and gives him a fierce glare with deep brown eyes. He curls his lip in a wry grin. “Right, yeah.” He presses the pre-set and waves Lorretta back into the kitchen. He hears the ring tone and thinks better of it. He hangs up and presses a different button.
“Alona. Yeah, it’s me. No, I’m fine, I had a headache, took some air. I’m at home now. Let Jeff know for me and cancel the limo. Tell Misha I won’t be over for the game tonight. Can you forward anything urgent to my email and I’ll catch it here?”
Alona is sitting with the blinds open and a pair of binoculars at her side. Her hand is dipping into a bag of hard candy and she’s wondering when she lost her sanity and whether it has anything to do with the lean, muscular and very fine body of her boss’s best friend. “Sir,” she says tentatively. Jared is silent but she can hear his breath catch, Alona doesn’t generally speak unless she’s asked. “I don’t know what you said to the tramp at lunchtime but it worked. He hasn’t been back.”
Jared is shocked by his own reaction. It is cold disappointment and worry. He has no idea why that should be. He doesn’t speak for a long moment. The, “Excellent!” that finally passes his lips isn’t convincing to either of them.
“He’s very good looking,” she adds, “if you like that sort of thing.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Jared says, but he knows he has. He has been wondering about the firm planes that lie beneath Jen’s dirty clothing, speculating what the clean nails might feel like as they scratch lines into his skin, imagining how the quiet tongue would lick and kiss. It occurs to him that after two years with only his left hand for relief, anybody remotely capable of getting a five o’clock shadow is going to be attractive to him. That it happens to his stalker that sparks these thoughts is only slightly more disturbing.
Liar, is the first word that crosses Alona’s mind but she bites her tongue. She sticks to her job for a moment, “Your brother was worried about you. He said to tell you that he’d be fine to cover for a few days if you’re ill and Misha ...” she pauses for a moment because Misha had seemed concerned in an entirely different way to Jeff. She may only have been dating him for a few days but he had been in a peculiar mood all afternoon, “Misha told me to remind you that he’s got your back.”
Jared grunts, “Right,” is his only reply and Alona senses sarcasm. “Well, I suppose you’ll be sneaking away early to play. Make sure you’ve finished my report before leaving. Oh, and cancel my limo for the rest of the week. I’ll be walking.” The line goes dead as he abruptly rings off, but that’s not unusual for Jared. He’s said everything he wants to say and Alona doesn’t expect courtesies from him.
Alona checks the clock and it’s after five. She grits her teeth and resumes typing. Misha interrupts her at six, turns off her computer and crowds her against the desk for a sweet kiss that deepens into a sloppy, wet and hot, tongue fuck. She moans and throws her arms about his neck allowing him to pull her to her feet with one arm, while she reaches for her coat and bag with the other. “Since the boss has stood me up, I think I should take the boss’s personal assistant somewhere more private, to test her personal skills.”
“Hmm, dinner. I’m amenable to that.” Her eyes shine and Misha squeezes her into a hug.
Misha stares into the gardens as they leave and Alona follows his gaze but there is nobody there. “I know this great little Italian restaurant,” she says as he ushers her into the limo.
Jensen checks the thin cotton strand fixed over the door and scouts the exterior of the apartment for changes. He’s jumpy and anxious and he follows his precautions two more times before he is content that nobody has taken an interest in his sleeping place. He pulls the key, on its chain, through the letterbox, and opens the door. The lobby smells of old lady and damp walls. He removes his boots and his outer clothes with care. Don’t bring evidence inside. Sadie has no such concern. She scampers inside leaving a trail of muddy footprints on the cold and cracked tiled floor. Jensen considers the chain and the lock that proved so easy to force. He wonders if he should write a note for the next occupant. It might be a pensioner, and he knows how vulnerable such a practise would leave them. Old ladies, easy pickings, boy.
The interior is dingy and damp but it is warm enough and a few pieces of rough furniture remain. A rickety wooden chair stands next to a fading-yellow formica covered table. That in itself is a luxury, but the main room also contains a large, squashy easy chair. It smells of lavender water and urine but it is dry and accommodating. It makes a cozy bed with his blanket as a cover and his sleeping bag for warmth.
Jensen reaches under the sink to turn the mains water supply on. He fills the sink with cold water and adds a drop of detergent from a mostly empty bottle of Sunlight Liquid he found in the trash. He takes two rags and wets one of them. He squeezes the cloth and then starts to work a regular circular pattern on the surfaces. He scrubs meticulously with the wet cloth, not a patch missed and follows the same pattern with the dry rag. Sadie’s eyes droop and she snores gently. Jensen works earnestly, cleanliness is next to godliness. He wipes the window sills, the kitchen sides, the formica table and then the skirting board. The next hour is spent cleaning the wood and tile floor. When he’s finished he lets the dirty water drain before drawing water to drink and then turning the water supply back off. He rolls his neck to flex his muscles and breathes out, relaxed and calm.
He reaches into a pocket and counts out exactly a dollar and twenty two cents and stacks it on the kitchen surface. He lines it up precisely with the numerous other stacks of one dollar and twenty two cents, shuffling it carefully so they are strictly lined up. Jensen researched the cost of water supplied to these apartments. He knows it is wrong to steal and cheat, he learned it with the pain of a strap and constant harsh reminders from his mama and her preacher. He has researched the yearly water charges for these apartments and every day he pays for his consumption. Passing time in an empty space takes nothing so he feels no compulsion to pay for his presence here.
By evening Jensen is back in routine, satisfied and optimistic. He slaps his thigh to beckon Sadie, struggles into his outer wear and leaves the apartment after the third check of his precautions. He has consulted his journal and today is Wednesday. Jeff will be at home with his wife and his house is in the suburbs, too far to walk. Misha interests him less lately and he is likely to be out getting flirty with Alona. Jared though, Jared was close enough to touch and then he went away and didn't come back. Jensen feels an overwhelming need to check that the man is safe in his home, following his own schedule. The idea of losing him now, after all this time and effort makes his ribs feel too tight around his lungs.
Jensen has a place in the shadows where the glow of Jared’s bedroom lamp can be seen spilling soft through the pane onto the neatly trimmed lawn. The tall brunette rarely closes his blinds before he strips for bed and Jensen has watched his dark shadow numerous times, with intense concentration. Jared doesn't wear anything when he slips between the smooth, clean sheets. Jensen tries to imagine the luxury of it, the plush carpet cushioning his toes as he steps up and then the laundry-fresh fabric sliding and caressing the smooth expanse of skin. He reaches a hand to palm at his crotch as he watches Jared stretch and bend. The man’s muscles flex and his round ass tilts perfectly. Jensen’s pulse increases and he averts his eyes. This should be enough, to know that Jared Padalecki is here and that he is not going anywhere that Jensen cannot follow.
Jared is a physically beautiful man and Jensen understands his natural reaction to it. From the first night that Jensen had cried, sitting in the damp puddle of his wet dreams, Josh had taken time to work out his retarded little brother’s desires. They had looked at picture books and magazines of naked men and his brother had explained attraction and sex and the sticky, panting, mechanics of it. Jensen had signed a silent oath, over his heart, never to tell their mama about these conversations, or how the male form made him hard and needy.
In the time after Josh and before this, he thinks there were moving pictures on a screen, lewd films of men on cable TV. He jerked off to them, in the shabby sheets of his wrecked bed, in the trailer where his mother sat listlessly, staring into blank space. Of course, Jensen wasn't able to keep his sexuality secret from his mother for long, but she was wrecked by all the ways Jensen was wrong, years before that made him irredeemable.
Jensen snaps back to the present and has to re-familiarize himself with his current reality. He’s under the dark canopy of a tree watching Jared and he cannot help his bug-eyed shock as he stares through the window. Air is hitching in his throat and he’s rooted to the spot, mouth slightly agape, green eyes wide between his lashes with his cheeks coloring pink.
Jared stands tall, full-frontal and naked, back-lit, at the window. His cock curls proud and erect to his stomach and he is licking a slow wet stripe over his palm, before reaching to grasp its width and slide his hand slowly up the length of it with knowing showmanship. His hand is huge on the swollen member and Jensen unconsciously licks his lips. The fingers are sliding again, they move down to the root and dally by the heavy hanging balls, stroking between the powerful thighs before returning with a firm stroke and a twist at the bulbous head. Fingers return to the wide, wet mouth and are sucked in with lascivious enthusiasm. Jensen’s hand has slipped into the waistband of his trousers and he doesn’t want to be doing this. He is revolted that he is affected this way, but his fingers are gripping his own hardening dick with an irresistible urge to masturbate, hard and fast. He can’t tear his eyes away from the view. He pumps hard at his own erection as he watches Jared’s saliva-slick fingers return to his cock and his forefinger traces around the head and over the slit before returning to his mouth. Jensen can imagine the sloppy wet noises, the round drop of clear fluid and burst of taste on Jared’s tongue and he’s panting with his own exertion. He’s not sure when he notices the tilt of Jared’s face and direction of his gaze. Between heated gasps he works out the physics of the angle and knows Jared is looking to the very place where Jensen is standing but he’s too far gone to move, not yet.
Jared has picked up pace, fucking into his own hand with ever increasing rhythm and when his mouth opens wide and he throws his head back to reveal an expanse of neck, Jensen is gone too, coming with a silent scream and an overload of sensations. He spills thick come into his hand and tries to contain it, so it doesn’t dry crusty on one of only two pieces of underwear he owns. His hand is warm and sticky, ripe with the smell of sex, and he’s ashamed and dizzy. He offers his fingers to Sadie and lets her lap at the fluid, erasing the obscene evidence of his act, before he stumbles and trips from his hiding place, desperate to get away from whatever it is that has happened here. His mind is trying to close off. He wants to shut his eyes and pretend he doesn’t exist but he does, he is real and he can be seen. He thinks that he has been seen. It is all a muddle and nonsense and he hates that Jared has played this game with him and defiled him this way. He hates how good it feels.
Jared cleans himself with a towel. He smirks at the memory of a vague shape sprawling to the sidewalk and then picking itself back up before fleeing into the night. He had seen the faintest movement in the bushes and he’d known that the tramp, Jen, was there. Exhibitionism has never been Jared’s thing and he wonders what possessed him to do it. The obvious answer is his horny, dissatisfied and restless boredom. It was unwise and inflammatory but it was unexpectedly powerful, dangerous and erotic. He came harder than he had in months, imagining vivid green eyes looking up at him as plump pink lips sucked down everything he had to give.
The irony of his stalker’s presence giving him an orgasm which lulls him into a blissfully drowsy state doesn’t escape Jared. He slips between the covers of his gigantic and sturdy bed and stretches out to sleep.
Part 6
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