A Little Less Talk
Part Six of the "A Little Familiar" Series
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None really, unless you need a warning for snark.
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.
Part One
“Someone had to have heard that,” Jensen the Mouse said from Jared’s vest pocket. His little mouse paws were folded over the top of the pocket and he sounded very matter-of-fact about it. Jared stood in the pile of wood chips that had previously been the door to Mark Sheppard’s office. Fine sawdust granules still hung in the air, visible in the dim light and slowly settling to the ground. Jared coughed when he breathed them in. “The first thing we need to do is take out Jeremiah’s familiar.”
“We’re gonna get our asses kicked, aren’t we?” Jared breathed, his confidence quickly diminishing. Jeremiah’s familiar was a wolf. Yeah, he was gonna get his ass kicked. And possibly his throat ripped out. And his own little familiar killed - again, maybe this time for real, and-
Shut up, Jared! Ah, Jared’s inner monologue was back, and just as helpful, it seemed. Jared shook his head to clear his thoughts and pay attention to his surroundings.
“I need you do exactly what I say, when I say it,” Jensen instructed. “Almost like you’re my puppet, got it?”
“Yeah,” Jared said. “Kind of like Ratatouille-“ And wow, if ever there was a more offended mouse, Jared would pay money to see it.
“I’m not a rat,” Jensen seethed.
“Obviously,” Jared responded immediately. Jensen looked a little appeased but turned his attention down the hallway. Jared was surprised that one of his brother’s minions hadn’t come sniffing around yet, and just as that thought registered one of them did, peering around the corner from down the hallway. Well, at least it wasn’t Baseball Bat.
“How did you get out?” The other familiar shouted as he started marching aggressively toward Jared.
“What now?” Jared asked Jensen, gearing up to strike this guy down with lightning or a plague or something.
“Okay, gather the energy like you did in the office and-“
The other familiar cupped his hands and a bolt of pure white energy went crackling past Jared’s head. Jared barely ducked out of the way as it sailed by.
“He’s unclaimed,” Jensen said with amazement in his voice. “How did he-?”
Jared parroted Jensen’s words to the other familiar, who smirked and pulled a medallion of some sort from under his shirt. It was small and glinted in the low light, hung around his neck by a piece of cheap looking string.
“There’s more than one way to do magic,” the familiar sneered. He kept striding down the long hallway, another ball of light forming in his hand.
“Run,” Jensen instructed, and Jared did, ducking into the maze of cubicles that housed the customer service department. Balls of energy pinged around him (the cubicles were only waist high and didn’t really provide any cover) and finally something hit Jared in the back of his neck, stopping him in his tracks. Jared tried to step forward, and that was when he felt the pain, like a fish hook threading through the skin on the back of his neck. Jared swatted at it, but it only caused the pain to spread. It tugged at him, reeling him backwards toward the unclaimed familiar.
“Shit,” Jensen squeaked as he scurried up Jared’s vest to perch on his shoulder. “I need you to focus your energy, and then-“
Jared spun on his heel and with a quick jab he landed a punch right in the other man’s face. The man dropped to the floor and was out like a light. Immediately the pain in Jared’s neck dissipated.
“Well that’s one way to do it,” Jensen said wryly.
“Hey it worked, didn’t it?” Jared rebutted. Back in Jared’s pocket, Jensen shrugged.
“I guess. Grab that medallion, it may prove useful. Besides, it’s way too powerful of an object for that douchebag to have. We’ll turn it over to Pellegrino as soon as this is over.”
“Why does Pellegrino get all the magical knick-knacks?” Jared asked as he step gingerly around the fallen familiar. “Is he like head of the wizard council or something?”
“For this region, yes,” Jensen affirmed, clearly not recognizing Jared’s sarcasm. “Jesus, Jared, it’s common knowledge. Don’t you ever read the website?”
“Nah, I just fix it when it breaks,” Jared said, and if a mouse could roll his eyes Jared was sure Jensen was doing just that.
“What do I do with this guy?” Jared queried, nudging the unconscious man with one foot. He reached down and grabbed the medallion, easily breaking the string with a one good yank.
“Eh, leave him,” Jensen said. “The cops will deal with him when they get here.”
Jared nodded and crept out of the cubicles and back into the hallway that led from Cubicle Hell to the upper management offices. From that direction he could barely hear his brother and his cronies as they tried to subvert Pellegrino’s office wards. About halfway there Jared stopped and pressed up against the wall. Pretty soon they were going to notice that Generic Minion Number Two hadn’t returned and probably send another one to investigate. Jared wanted to be ready when that happened.
“Do you think we should wait here?” he half-whispered. “Take them out one by one like I do in video games?”
Jensen huffed out what could only be a snicker.
“No,” he responded, “I think you need to get the drop on them and take them by surprise. I don’t have time to teach you anything fancy, so we’re going to just use your raw power like we did at the door. When you round that corner up ahead I want you ready to shoot that energy at the wolf.”
“Okay,” Jared nodded. “I think I can do that. What about Jeremiah?”
“No!” Jensen was quick to say. “If you aim that at a person you will shred them. It’s one thing to destroy a familiar’s form, but do you really want to kill your brother?”
“No, of course not!”
“Good. No, what I need you to do is once you’ve taken out the wolf, aim another bolt of that energy directly at Pellegrino’s office door.”
“But won’t that help my brother?” Jared asked, confused.
“You really think Mark’s door isn’t warded out the wazoo?” Jensen asked in a snide tone. “Of course you won’t be able to break the wards, but you will be able to set them off. Of course, I don’t know what the repercussions of that might be - it might kill us all for all I know - but it will keep your asshole brother busy until the cops get here.”
“Wait, kill us?”
“Don’t focus on that, come on, let’s do this,” Jensen demanded, his ears pinning back ever so slightly and his nose pointed toward the upcoming confrontation.
“Sure, why not?” Jared forced himself not to laugh inappropriately. “Let’s go marching into certain death.”
“Oh would you stop with the dramatics?” Jensen huffed, irritated. “It’s not certain.”
Jared barely refrained from mimicking Jensen in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. That would probably not be well-received at the moment. As he crept closer to the end of the hallway he tried to walk as softly as possible, pressing against the wall and taking deep breaths to calm himself.
One.
Two.
Three.
He closed his eyes and imagined the power growing in his body again, and to his surprise it came much faster and stronger than before. When he opened his eyes and looked down, both his hands and Jensen were glowing. Jensen looked up at him with what could only be described as a mousey smile, and nodded his head. It was time.
Jared threw himself around the corner, searching for and finding his brother’s wolf familiar. The animal was advancing on him, its teeth bared in a snarl, and just as it lunged Jared hurled his energy at it. It hit the wolf head-on, throwing her backwards and eliciting a surprised yelp. She hit the ground and slid a good couple of feet, but it did not destroy her form. She struggled to her feet and Jared was rather horrified to see that her fur was smoking.
“Again, Jared!” Jensen screeched from Jared’s pocket, and before Jared could even think of summoning the energy, his hands shot out and another bolt shot out, this time visible and very much like what the unclaimed familiar had thrown at him earlier. It hit the wolf and her entire form was engulfed in flames. It lasted only a second, and when the flames died, the wolf was gone as well. Jared turned his attention to his brother and his two remaining lackeys, who were still staring at him in shock.
Jeremiah was the first to recover.
“How - How dare you?”
That hadn’t been what Jared had expected Jeremiah to say, not by a long shot. All the times Jared had wanted to punch Jeremiah and refrained boiled to the surface.
Jeremiah, at five, spraying himself in the face with yellow spray paint (accidentally) and then blaming it on Jared, who took the paddling.
At nine, Jeremiah stealing Jared’s giant pink souvenir pencil he’d gotten from Wonder World in San Marcos and writing “Jeremiah Arthur Padalecki” all over it in permanent marker. With a name as long as that he’d only been able to fit it twice, but still, it wasn’t his. He’d avoided punishment by swearing to God that he’d thought it was his, and finally Jared had just let him have it.
At sixteen, Jeremiah speeding around the corner of the driveway and spinning out on the gravel, propelling the car into the mailbox post - the iron, cemented into the ground mailbox post and then having Jared drive the rest of the way up to the house because he “was too shaken up” only to jump out and shout, “guess what Jared did?” as soon as their parents came out to investigate.
This time, Jared wasn’t going to take the fall for Jeremiah. He’d be damned first.
“Excuse me? How dare I?”
“Yes!” Jeremiah raged. “How did you even get out of that room? What happened to Aaron?”
“I guess my familiar isn’t as unclaimed as you thought he was,” Jared sneered, feeling a rush of confidence. Now that Jeremiah’s familiar was gone, so was his ability to use his magic.
“So you fucked him while you were both tied up? You know, if you weren’t my brother that’d be kinda hot.”
“God, Jeremiah, gross,” Jared said, his lip wrinkling up in disgust.
Jeremiah turned to his two minions, who were hovering eagerly, just waiting for Jeremiah’s orders. “You know what, kick his ass. You have free license to teach him a lesson.”
“Jared! What are you waiting for! Now!” Jensen’s tiny mouse voice was laced with urgency. It spurred Jared to action and he summoned his power - it was a bit slower this time - but summon it he did before the lackeys reached him. He let the power fly, aimed straight for Pellegrino’s door. It whizzed by Jeremiah’s head, missing him by a hair’s breadth. It hit the door with a thud and promptly disintegrated. Jeremiah smirked.
“Looks like you missed, Little Brother,” he said, his smirk growing into a full-fledged grin. The other two familiars turned to look at the door and laughed, and Jared felt his own smile lift the corners of his mouth. Feeling confident, he strode up to Jeremiah and, drawing back his fist, punched him solidly in the nose.
“Ow, you asshole!” Jeremiah cried, cradling his face. Blood dripped from between his fingers and Jared sincerely hoped he’d broken his nose. “Oh, I’m so gonna kick your a-“
And that was when all hell broke loose.
The power bomb that Jared had lobbed haphazardly at the door caused a sort of ripple effect. The walls seemed to sway as if covered in water, or perhaps made of water, and the effect spread quickly outward until all of them were surrounded by it, whatever it was. Jeremiah looked around with wide, scared eyes and Jared was pretty sure his own expression mirrored that of his twin’s. Jensen disappeared into Jared’s pocket and curled into a tiny ball of fur as the world imploded inward on them. Jared couldn’t move; he could barely breathe. Tiny pinpricks of what felt like electrical shots jolted through his body, coursing through his arms and legs - and then everything went dark.
Epilogue
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None really, unless you need a warning for snark.
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.
Part One
“Someone had to have heard that,” Jensen the Mouse said from Jared’s vest pocket. His little mouse paws were folded over the top of the pocket and he sounded very matter-of-fact about it. Jared stood in the pile of wood chips that had previously been the door to Mark Sheppard’s office. Fine sawdust granules still hung in the air, visible in the dim light and slowly settling to the ground. Jared coughed when he breathed them in. “The first thing we need to do is take out Jeremiah’s familiar.”
“We’re gonna get our asses kicked, aren’t we?” Jared breathed, his confidence quickly diminishing. Jeremiah’s familiar was a wolf. Yeah, he was gonna get his ass kicked. And possibly his throat ripped out. And his own little familiar killed - again, maybe this time for real, and-
Shut up, Jared! Ah, Jared’s inner monologue was back, and just as helpful, it seemed. Jared shook his head to clear his thoughts and pay attention to his surroundings.
“I need you do exactly what I say, when I say it,” Jensen instructed. “Almost like you’re my puppet, got it?”
“Yeah,” Jared said. “Kind of like Ratatouille-“ And wow, if ever there was a more offended mouse, Jared would pay money to see it.
“I’m not a rat,” Jensen seethed.
“Obviously,” Jared responded immediately. Jensen looked a little appeased but turned his attention down the hallway. Jared was surprised that one of his brother’s minions hadn’t come sniffing around yet, and just as that thought registered one of them did, peering around the corner from down the hallway. Well, at least it wasn’t Baseball Bat.
“How did you get out?” The other familiar shouted as he started marching aggressively toward Jared.
“What now?” Jared asked Jensen, gearing up to strike this guy down with lightning or a plague or something.
“Okay, gather the energy like you did in the office and-“
The other familiar cupped his hands and a bolt of pure white energy went crackling past Jared’s head. Jared barely ducked out of the way as it sailed by.
“He’s unclaimed,” Jensen said with amazement in his voice. “How did he-?”
Jared parroted Jensen’s words to the other familiar, who smirked and pulled a medallion of some sort from under his shirt. It was small and glinted in the low light, hung around his neck by a piece of cheap looking string.
“There’s more than one way to do magic,” the familiar sneered. He kept striding down the long hallway, another ball of light forming in his hand.
“Run,” Jensen instructed, and Jared did, ducking into the maze of cubicles that housed the customer service department. Balls of energy pinged around him (the cubicles were only waist high and didn’t really provide any cover) and finally something hit Jared in the back of his neck, stopping him in his tracks. Jared tried to step forward, and that was when he felt the pain, like a fish hook threading through the skin on the back of his neck. Jared swatted at it, but it only caused the pain to spread. It tugged at him, reeling him backwards toward the unclaimed familiar.
“Shit,” Jensen squeaked as he scurried up Jared’s vest to perch on his shoulder. “I need you to focus your energy, and then-“
Jared spun on his heel and with a quick jab he landed a punch right in the other man’s face. The man dropped to the floor and was out like a light. Immediately the pain in Jared’s neck dissipated.
“Well that’s one way to do it,” Jensen said wryly.
“Hey it worked, didn’t it?” Jared rebutted. Back in Jared’s pocket, Jensen shrugged.
“I guess. Grab that medallion, it may prove useful. Besides, it’s way too powerful of an object for that douchebag to have. We’ll turn it over to Pellegrino as soon as this is over.”
“Why does Pellegrino get all the magical knick-knacks?” Jared asked as he step gingerly around the fallen familiar. “Is he like head of the wizard council or something?”
“For this region, yes,” Jensen affirmed, clearly not recognizing Jared’s sarcasm. “Jesus, Jared, it’s common knowledge. Don’t you ever read the website?”
“Nah, I just fix it when it breaks,” Jared said, and if a mouse could roll his eyes Jared was sure Jensen was doing just that.
“What do I do with this guy?” Jared queried, nudging the unconscious man with one foot. He reached down and grabbed the medallion, easily breaking the string with a one good yank.
“Eh, leave him,” Jensen said. “The cops will deal with him when they get here.”
Jared nodded and crept out of the cubicles and back into the hallway that led from Cubicle Hell to the upper management offices. From that direction he could barely hear his brother and his cronies as they tried to subvert Pellegrino’s office wards. About halfway there Jared stopped and pressed up against the wall. Pretty soon they were going to notice that Generic Minion Number Two hadn’t returned and probably send another one to investigate. Jared wanted to be ready when that happened.
“Do you think we should wait here?” he half-whispered. “Take them out one by one like I do in video games?”
Jensen huffed out what could only be a snicker.
“No,” he responded, “I think you need to get the drop on them and take them by surprise. I don’t have time to teach you anything fancy, so we’re going to just use your raw power like we did at the door. When you round that corner up ahead I want you ready to shoot that energy at the wolf.”
“Okay,” Jared nodded. “I think I can do that. What about Jeremiah?”
“No!” Jensen was quick to say. “If you aim that at a person you will shred them. It’s one thing to destroy a familiar’s form, but do you really want to kill your brother?”
“No, of course not!”
“Good. No, what I need you to do is once you’ve taken out the wolf, aim another bolt of that energy directly at Pellegrino’s office door.”
“But won’t that help my brother?” Jared asked, confused.
“You really think Mark’s door isn’t warded out the wazoo?” Jensen asked in a snide tone. “Of course you won’t be able to break the wards, but you will be able to set them off. Of course, I don’t know what the repercussions of that might be - it might kill us all for all I know - but it will keep your asshole brother busy until the cops get here.”
“Wait, kill us?”
“Don’t focus on that, come on, let’s do this,” Jensen demanded, his ears pinning back ever so slightly and his nose pointed toward the upcoming confrontation.
“Sure, why not?” Jared forced himself not to laugh inappropriately. “Let’s go marching into certain death.”
“Oh would you stop with the dramatics?” Jensen huffed, irritated. “It’s not certain.”
Jared barely refrained from mimicking Jensen in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. That would probably not be well-received at the moment. As he crept closer to the end of the hallway he tried to walk as softly as possible, pressing against the wall and taking deep breaths to calm himself.
One.
Two.
Three.
He closed his eyes and imagined the power growing in his body again, and to his surprise it came much faster and stronger than before. When he opened his eyes and looked down, both his hands and Jensen were glowing. Jensen looked up at him with what could only be described as a mousey smile, and nodded his head. It was time.
Jared threw himself around the corner, searching for and finding his brother’s wolf familiar. The animal was advancing on him, its teeth bared in a snarl, and just as it lunged Jared hurled his energy at it. It hit the wolf head-on, throwing her backwards and eliciting a surprised yelp. She hit the ground and slid a good couple of feet, but it did not destroy her form. She struggled to her feet and Jared was rather horrified to see that her fur was smoking.
“Again, Jared!” Jensen screeched from Jared’s pocket, and before Jared could even think of summoning the energy, his hands shot out and another bolt shot out, this time visible and very much like what the unclaimed familiar had thrown at him earlier. It hit the wolf and her entire form was engulfed in flames. It lasted only a second, and when the flames died, the wolf was gone as well. Jared turned his attention to his brother and his two remaining lackeys, who were still staring at him in shock.
Jeremiah was the first to recover.
“How - How dare you?”
That hadn’t been what Jared had expected Jeremiah to say, not by a long shot. All the times Jared had wanted to punch Jeremiah and refrained boiled to the surface.
Jeremiah, at five, spraying himself in the face with yellow spray paint (accidentally) and then blaming it on Jared, who took the paddling.
At nine, Jeremiah stealing Jared’s giant pink souvenir pencil he’d gotten from Wonder World in San Marcos and writing “Jeremiah Arthur Padalecki” all over it in permanent marker. With a name as long as that he’d only been able to fit it twice, but still, it wasn’t his. He’d avoided punishment by swearing to God that he’d thought it was his, and finally Jared had just let him have it.
At sixteen, Jeremiah speeding around the corner of the driveway and spinning out on the gravel, propelling the car into the mailbox post - the iron, cemented into the ground mailbox post and then having Jared drive the rest of the way up to the house because he “was too shaken up” only to jump out and shout, “guess what Jared did?” as soon as their parents came out to investigate.
This time, Jared wasn’t going to take the fall for Jeremiah. He’d be damned first.
“Excuse me? How dare I?”
“Yes!” Jeremiah raged. “How did you even get out of that room? What happened to Aaron?”
“I guess my familiar isn’t as unclaimed as you thought he was,” Jared sneered, feeling a rush of confidence. Now that Jeremiah’s familiar was gone, so was his ability to use his magic.
“So you fucked him while you were both tied up? You know, if you weren’t my brother that’d be kinda hot.”
“God, Jeremiah, gross,” Jared said, his lip wrinkling up in disgust.
Jeremiah turned to his two minions, who were hovering eagerly, just waiting for Jeremiah’s orders. “You know what, kick his ass. You have free license to teach him a lesson.”
“Jared! What are you waiting for! Now!” Jensen’s tiny mouse voice was laced with urgency. It spurred Jared to action and he summoned his power - it was a bit slower this time - but summon it he did before the lackeys reached him. He let the power fly, aimed straight for Pellegrino’s door. It whizzed by Jeremiah’s head, missing him by a hair’s breadth. It hit the door with a thud and promptly disintegrated. Jeremiah smirked.
“Looks like you missed, Little Brother,” he said, his smirk growing into a full-fledged grin. The other two familiars turned to look at the door and laughed, and Jared felt his own smile lift the corners of his mouth. Feeling confident, he strode up to Jeremiah and, drawing back his fist, punched him solidly in the nose.
“Ow, you asshole!” Jeremiah cried, cradling his face. Blood dripped from between his fingers and Jared sincerely hoped he’d broken his nose. “Oh, I’m so gonna kick your a-“
And that was when all hell broke loose.
The power bomb that Jared had lobbed haphazardly at the door caused a sort of ripple effect. The walls seemed to sway as if covered in water, or perhaps made of water, and the effect spread quickly outward until all of them were surrounded by it, whatever it was. Jeremiah looked around with wide, scared eyes and Jared was pretty sure his own expression mirrored that of his twin’s. Jensen disappeared into Jared’s pocket and curled into a tiny ball of fur as the world imploded inward on them. Jared couldn’t move; he could barely breathe. Tiny pinpricks of what felt like electrical shots jolted through his body, coursing through his arms and legs - and then everything went dark.
Epilogue