A Little Trouble
Part Three of the "A Little Familiar" Series
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: A bit of violence in this chapter, OMC shenanigans
Disclaimer: Obviously not real and not meant to imply reality. This is crack, ladies and gentleman.
Authors Note: Written for meus_venator's prompt for the Kettle of Trouble meme. This is probably not at all what she had in mind when she gave that prompt, but it's where my warped mind chose to go with it, so here it is... Beta done as always by bumblebat79
Summary:Ever wonder how sorcerer's wind up with their familiars? Well J1, a mild mannered IT professional is about to discover that J2, the hipster in marketing isn't all he appears and the word 'Master' will never mean the same thing to him again. In this chapter Jared faces off against an unexpected visitor....
Part One
Jared tried to remember if Jensen had said to meet him someplace else, and his eyes did one more sweep of the department before his shoulders sagged in defeat. Had Jensen been toying with him, not really wanting to be claimed? He turned to leave, wishing he’d just gone back to the party instead of sending the cabbie off by himself with the piñata. Jared fished a saltwater taffy out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth. At lease he still had his candy. And hey, the two pieces he’d dropped on the desk for Jensen were still there. Jared grabbed them quickly and stuffed them back in his pocket. That would teach Jensen to just ditch him like that-
“Hey, I thought those were for me.”
Jared swung around on his heel, searching for the source of the voice. It sounded like Jensen, but smaller, but Jensen wasn’t here, and-
“Down here, Capitan,” Jensen said, and Jared looked down to see a mouse standing by his foot. It was adorable, and Jared couldn’t stop the goofy grin that split his face. Not only was Jensen’s familiar form a mouse, it was an anthropomorphic mouse wearing the same style of glasses and plaid pants held up by a pair of suspenders.
“Oh my God, you really are Basil of Baker Street!” Jared gushed.
“Jared shut up, you have to hide! There’s someone-“
A low growl cut Jared off in mid-sentence, and he turned around to see a very large wolf stalking toward him, its head low to the floor and the fur on its back raised in hackles. Jared’s eyes widened. How did a wolf get into the office - and perhaps more importantly, why?
“Hey little brother,” a familiar figure came into view as he rounded the corner by the break room and strode confidently in Jared’s direction. Jared would recognize that height, that build, that hair anywhere. It was, of course, like looking into a mirror. Well, almost. Jared often wondered if his twin brother had had that sneer surgically attached and if so, how much it had cost. A small group of people followed after his brother, maybe three of four, but Jared didn’t pay as much attention to their numbers as to the fact that one of them held a baseball bat.
“What are you doing here?” Jared asked, fighting through the lingering effects of the alcohol he’d ingested earlier. “What’s with the wolf?”
“Well, Jared, I’d like you to meet my familiar. This is Rachel.” The wolf growled at him and Jared took a few steps back. “Rachel, heel,” his brother said, and the wolf turned and snapped at him three times before giving him the same low growl that had been previously directed at Jared.
“You probably shouldn’t talk to your familiar like she’s an actual animal,” Jared said. “Now can you tell me what the hell you’re doing here, Jeremiah?”
Jeremiah rolled his eyes. “Your company has something I need. I thought all you little wanna-bes would be at your party, but no, you and some nerd decided to work late. Or maybe there was something else going on? ‘Cause Jared, I can smell the alcohol on you from here.”
Jared frowned and tried to process that. “Wait, first of all, you need a keycard to get in. Second, you do know the company keeps their stock in a warehouse and not here, and third, how do you even have a familiar, we’re not sorc-“
“Shut up, Jared!” Jeremiah blustered. “For like five seconds! All you ever do is talk!”
Jared glared. Apparently tonight was Interrupt Jared Night and he didn’t get the damn memo. Really, would it be that hard to answer his questions? At least it might forestall the guy holding the baseball bat who'd started aggressively tapping it against the palm of his free hand. It was pretty obvious that guy wanted to strike a home run with someone’s skull and - oh, God, where was Jensen? Jared swung his eyes back to where the tiny mouse was and saw that Jensen had tucked himself back under the desk. The tiny mouse put his finger to his (lips? Do mice have lips?) mouth in the universal shhh sign.
It did nothing to calm Jared to see Jensen in his familiar form. Jensen was tiny enough to hide, yes, but that wolf (Rachel, his mind supplied) could snap him up in a heartbeat. It was true that familiars were notoriously hard to kill in their familiar form, but Jensen was just so small that Jared didn’t want to risk it. Jensen needed to stay hidden while Jared distracted his asshole of twin brother and talk him out of, well, whatever it was he thought he was doing.
“Go sit down, Jared and we’ll be out of your hair in a minute or two,” Jeremiah said. He glanced back over his shoulder at Mr. Aggressive Baseball Bat. “Just tell us which office belongs to the CEO and we’ll get what we came for and get out.”
Out of all the employees at Seventh Circle Supply, Pellegrino was the only one that Jared knew for certain was an actual sorcerer. On a normal day this intimidated the crap out of Jared and he was always relieved that he reported to Sheppard and not directly to Pellegrino. Pellegrino’s office was most likely warded against intrusions, both magical and physical.
“You- you can’t!” Jared insisted. “It’s bound to be warded…“ Jared’s twin might be a jerk, but that didn’t mean that Jared wanted to see him get literally fried. “Besides, what could he possibly have in his office that you need?”
“It’s more a matter of want, little brother,” Jeremiah said. He took four steps that brought him closer to Jared and dropped his voice into a near whisper. “You see, Pellegrino is in charge of guarding an amulet - an amulet that is rumored to allow a sorcerer to claim more than one familiar. Can you imagine the kind of power that a sorcerer could wield if they had five or six familiars? It’d be like a never ending battery source-“
“But you’re not a sorcerer!” Jared blustered, feeling a flash of triumph that it was finally his turn to interrupt Jeremiah.
“Jesus Christ, Jared, sit down and shut up!” Jeremiah swore and pushed Jared down into Jensen’s office chair. Jared’s breath was temporarily knocked out of him and his world tilted ever so slightly to the right. Apparently Jared had managed to set Jeremiah to Lecture Mode and he was about to get schooled.
“Did you ever look at our parents and notice something off?”
Jared’s eyebrows drew together as he tried to work out what his brother was inferring. Finally he gave up and just looked up at Jeremiah.
“What do you mean?”
Jared could practically hear his brother’s blood start to boil. He’d always had a talent for pissing Jeremiah off.
“Look at Dad, Jared!” Jeremiah blustered. “He’s 5’2”!”
“And a half,” Jared muttered weakly. Jeremiah blinked at him.
“You mean to tell me you never, not once, thought ‘hey, I look absolutely nothing like my father, maybe dear old Mum had a fling?’”
“Shut up,” Jared said with a sulk. “That’s Mom you’re talking about.”
“Yes, dearest Mother,” Jeremiah said. “God Jared, you’re such a momma’s boy. I’m surprised we can’t see the astral manifestation of her apron strings.”
“I still don’t, uh, understand how we’re sorcerers?” Jared fought against looking for Jensen again.
“Well, I am, at least,” Jeremiah said, that frustrating sneer making a return. “I don’t know about you, but I got the gene. Mom must have had a little familiar blood in her. I wonder if our father was a sorcerer who tried to claim her. Must not have worked since he didn’t stick around, but hey, she got us out of it.”
Jared was imagining all sorts of violent things he would do to his brother if he wasn’t inebriated. Or faced with a thug with a baseball bat. This sucked. Jared was pretty sure he was pouting.
“Enough with the chit chat,” Jeremiah said, flinging something into Jared’s lap that he recognized as the keycard he’d lost - and had replaced - few weeks ago. The company must not have inactivated it after all. Then Jared realized this was all going to fall on him if Pellegrino came in to work to a ransacked office on Monday.
Oh, shit. He couldn’t let this happen. Jeremiah smirked at him and then held out his hand. One of his lackeys rushed forward and handed him a silver flask from which Jeremiah took a long draught.
“I’m not the only one drinking, I see,” Jared said with venom in his tone.
“Yes, but I’m drinking with purpose,” his brother said. “Alcohol opens my third eye; it lets my powers increase. I won’t need the help once I have that amulet.”
With that Jared decided he needed to put a stop to this. He surged up out his chair and lunged toward Jeremiah. If he’d been paying attention, he’d have seen the spark of delight in Baseball Bat’s eyes and noticed the swing.
The baseball bat connected with Jared’s head with a loud crack, and Jared hit the floor.
“Jared!” Jensen’s concerned little mouse voice reached his ears as he ran out from his hiding place, directly into Jeremiah’s line of sight. The last thing Jared saw was his brother snatching Jensen up by the tail in a lightning quick move.
“Well, well,” Jeremiah’s voice swam through Jared’s head. “What do we have here?”
Part Four
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: A bit of violence in this chapter, OMC shenanigans
Disclaimer: Obviously not real and not meant to imply reality. This is crack, ladies and gentleman.
Authors Note: Written for meus_venator's prompt for the Kettle of Trouble meme. This is probably not at all what she had in mind when she gave that prompt, but it's where my warped mind chose to go with it, so here it is... Beta done as always by bumblebat79
Summary:Ever wonder how sorcerer's wind up with their familiars? Well J1, a mild mannered IT professional is about to discover that J2, the hipster in marketing isn't all he appears and the word 'Master' will never mean the same thing to him again. In this chapter Jared faces off against an unexpected visitor....
Part One
Jared tried to remember if Jensen had said to meet him someplace else, and his eyes did one more sweep of the department before his shoulders sagged in defeat. Had Jensen been toying with him, not really wanting to be claimed? He turned to leave, wishing he’d just gone back to the party instead of sending the cabbie off by himself with the piñata. Jared fished a saltwater taffy out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth. At lease he still had his candy. And hey, the two pieces he’d dropped on the desk for Jensen were still there. Jared grabbed them quickly and stuffed them back in his pocket. That would teach Jensen to just ditch him like that-
“Hey, I thought those were for me.”
Jared swung around on his heel, searching for the source of the voice. It sounded like Jensen, but smaller, but Jensen wasn’t here, and-
“Down here, Capitan,” Jensen said, and Jared looked down to see a mouse standing by his foot. It was adorable, and Jared couldn’t stop the goofy grin that split his face. Not only was Jensen’s familiar form a mouse, it was an anthropomorphic mouse wearing the same style of glasses and plaid pants held up by a pair of suspenders.
“Oh my God, you really are Basil of Baker Street!” Jared gushed.
“Jared shut up, you have to hide! There’s someone-“
A low growl cut Jared off in mid-sentence, and he turned around to see a very large wolf stalking toward him, its head low to the floor and the fur on its back raised in hackles. Jared’s eyes widened. How did a wolf get into the office - and perhaps more importantly, why?
“Hey little brother,” a familiar figure came into view as he rounded the corner by the break room and strode confidently in Jared’s direction. Jared would recognize that height, that build, that hair anywhere. It was, of course, like looking into a mirror. Well, almost. Jared often wondered if his twin brother had had that sneer surgically attached and if so, how much it had cost. A small group of people followed after his brother, maybe three of four, but Jared didn’t pay as much attention to their numbers as to the fact that one of them held a baseball bat.
“What are you doing here?” Jared asked, fighting through the lingering effects of the alcohol he’d ingested earlier. “What’s with the wolf?”
“Well, Jared, I’d like you to meet my familiar. This is Rachel.” The wolf growled at him and Jared took a few steps back. “Rachel, heel,” his brother said, and the wolf turned and snapped at him three times before giving him the same low growl that had been previously directed at Jared.
“You probably shouldn’t talk to your familiar like she’s an actual animal,” Jared said. “Now can you tell me what the hell you’re doing here, Jeremiah?”
Jeremiah rolled his eyes. “Your company has something I need. I thought all you little wanna-bes would be at your party, but no, you and some nerd decided to work late. Or maybe there was something else going on? ‘Cause Jared, I can smell the alcohol on you from here.”
Jared frowned and tried to process that. “Wait, first of all, you need a keycard to get in. Second, you do know the company keeps their stock in a warehouse and not here, and third, how do you even have a familiar, we’re not sorc-“
“Shut up, Jared!” Jeremiah blustered. “For like five seconds! All you ever do is talk!”
Jared glared. Apparently tonight was Interrupt Jared Night and he didn’t get the damn memo. Really, would it be that hard to answer his questions? At least it might forestall the guy holding the baseball bat who'd started aggressively tapping it against the palm of his free hand. It was pretty obvious that guy wanted to strike a home run with someone’s skull and - oh, God, where was Jensen? Jared swung his eyes back to where the tiny mouse was and saw that Jensen had tucked himself back under the desk. The tiny mouse put his finger to his (lips? Do mice have lips?) mouth in the universal shhh sign.
It did nothing to calm Jared to see Jensen in his familiar form. Jensen was tiny enough to hide, yes, but that wolf (Rachel, his mind supplied) could snap him up in a heartbeat. It was true that familiars were notoriously hard to kill in their familiar form, but Jensen was just so small that Jared didn’t want to risk it. Jensen needed to stay hidden while Jared distracted his asshole of twin brother and talk him out of, well, whatever it was he thought he was doing.
“Go sit down, Jared and we’ll be out of your hair in a minute or two,” Jeremiah said. He glanced back over his shoulder at Mr. Aggressive Baseball Bat. “Just tell us which office belongs to the CEO and we’ll get what we came for and get out.”
Out of all the employees at Seventh Circle Supply, Pellegrino was the only one that Jared knew for certain was an actual sorcerer. On a normal day this intimidated the crap out of Jared and he was always relieved that he reported to Sheppard and not directly to Pellegrino. Pellegrino’s office was most likely warded against intrusions, both magical and physical.
“You- you can’t!” Jared insisted. “It’s bound to be warded…“ Jared’s twin might be a jerk, but that didn’t mean that Jared wanted to see him get literally fried. “Besides, what could he possibly have in his office that you need?”
“It’s more a matter of want, little brother,” Jeremiah said. He took four steps that brought him closer to Jared and dropped his voice into a near whisper. “You see, Pellegrino is in charge of guarding an amulet - an amulet that is rumored to allow a sorcerer to claim more than one familiar. Can you imagine the kind of power that a sorcerer could wield if they had five or six familiars? It’d be like a never ending battery source-“
“But you’re not a sorcerer!” Jared blustered, feeling a flash of triumph that it was finally his turn to interrupt Jeremiah.
“Jesus Christ, Jared, sit down and shut up!” Jeremiah swore and pushed Jared down into Jensen’s office chair. Jared’s breath was temporarily knocked out of him and his world tilted ever so slightly to the right. Apparently Jared had managed to set Jeremiah to Lecture Mode and he was about to get schooled.
“Did you ever look at our parents and notice something off?”
Jared’s eyebrows drew together as he tried to work out what his brother was inferring. Finally he gave up and just looked up at Jeremiah.
“What do you mean?”
Jared could practically hear his brother’s blood start to boil. He’d always had a talent for pissing Jeremiah off.
“Look at Dad, Jared!” Jeremiah blustered. “He’s 5’2”!”
“And a half,” Jared muttered weakly. Jeremiah blinked at him.
“You mean to tell me you never, not once, thought ‘hey, I look absolutely nothing like my father, maybe dear old Mum had a fling?’”
“Shut up,” Jared said with a sulk. “That’s Mom you’re talking about.”
“Yes, dearest Mother,” Jeremiah said. “God Jared, you’re such a momma’s boy. I’m surprised we can’t see the astral manifestation of her apron strings.”
“I still don’t, uh, understand how we’re sorcerers?” Jared fought against looking for Jensen again.
“Well, I am, at least,” Jeremiah said, that frustrating sneer making a return. “I don’t know about you, but I got the gene. Mom must have had a little familiar blood in her. I wonder if our father was a sorcerer who tried to claim her. Must not have worked since he didn’t stick around, but hey, she got us out of it.”
Jared was imagining all sorts of violent things he would do to his brother if he wasn’t inebriated. Or faced with a thug with a baseball bat. This sucked. Jared was pretty sure he was pouting.
“Enough with the chit chat,” Jeremiah said, flinging something into Jared’s lap that he recognized as the keycard he’d lost - and had replaced - few weeks ago. The company must not have inactivated it after all. Then Jared realized this was all going to fall on him if Pellegrino came in to work to a ransacked office on Monday.
Oh, shit. He couldn’t let this happen. Jeremiah smirked at him and then held out his hand. One of his lackeys rushed forward and handed him a silver flask from which Jeremiah took a long draught.
“I’m not the only one drinking, I see,” Jared said with venom in his tone.
“Yes, but I’m drinking with purpose,” his brother said. “Alcohol opens my third eye; it lets my powers increase. I won’t need the help once I have that amulet.”
With that Jared decided he needed to put a stop to this. He surged up out his chair and lunged toward Jeremiah. If he’d been paying attention, he’d have seen the spark of delight in Baseball Bat’s eyes and noticed the swing.
The baseball bat connected with Jared’s head with a loud crack, and Jared hit the floor.
“Jared!” Jensen’s concerned little mouse voice reached his ears as he ran out from his hiding place, directly into Jeremiah’s line of sight. The last thing Jared saw was his brother snatching Jensen up by the tail in a lightning quick move.
“Well, well,” Jeremiah’s voice swam through Jared’s head. “What do we have here?”
Part Four