That Stockholm Thing 3/7 (J2 AU, NC-17)

Dec 02, 2008 22:03

Title: That Stockholm Thing
Author: dijisun
Pairings: Jensen/Jared, mentions Jared/Sandy and Jensen/Danneel
Summary: Jensen gets kidnapped
Rating: NC-17, AU
Warnings: angst, language, some violence, DARK themes.
Disclaimer: never happened, all lies.
A/N: unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own.


He spreads the duvet over his bed, empties the trashcan into a black bin liner then strides down the hall to Jared’s room dragging the bin bag behind him. The division of chores evolved organically: he takes care of upstairs, Jared takes care of downstairs.

It works, most times.

‘Damn fool,’ he mutters.

‘What?’ Jared makes innocent eyes at him. He’s sitting in the center of the bed, laptop perched on his crossed legs. Candy bar taped to his bare chest.

‘Nothing,’ Jensen moves to the bathroom.

Always starts there because he hates cleaning Jared’s bathroom. Wet towels on the floor, trail of muddy dog prints across to the free-standing bath, dog shampoo uncapped on the counter. Clump of dark hair clogging the shower’s plug-hole. Jared and his fucking long tresses, freakin’ princess.

And why, why, why is there always globs of toothpaste everywhere, on the mirror even? Like, what does the guy do, have toothpaste wars with himself?

Sighing in despair, he bends down to the cupboard under the sink. Takes out the cleaning products and a pair of pink rubber gloves.

‘You know,’ he loudly muses, wriggling his fingers into a glove, ‘I don’t even like candy.’

There’s thudding and shuffling and then Jared’s shouldering the door wider open. ‘What do you like?’

Jensen fills the sink with warm water, swishes his hand around in it. ‘I’m a steak man, myself.’

Jared comes to stand behind him, lips pursed, thinking frown on his brow. Candy bar still ridiculously attached to his chest. ‘So, if I were to grill a steak and tape it on,’ he reaches his hands round to Jensen’s belt buckle, ‘pour a little gravy over it, you’d take a bite?’

Jensen whooshes out an exhalation as Jared’s hand slides into boxers and cups him. He’s biting all right, biting back a groan. ‘Yeah,’ he says, and dammit, it’s a groan.

‘Hmm,’ Jared hums in his ear, fingers curling around him. ‘And how do you like it done, Jensen? Medium? Rare?’

Hard and fast. That’s how he likes it and he tells Jared so, pushes his hips back from the sink to give Jared’s hand working room. Because a hand’s a hand, and if he closes his eyes, doesn’t look in the mirror, the hand jerking him off could be anyone’s.

It’s quick and dirty, cock throbbing and leaking with pre-come, hard, fast pulls becoming slicker, faster, too much. He comes, squeak of rubber on porcelain as his fingers tighten on the sink.

Jared tucks him back in then rinses his hand in the sink, wipes it on Jensen’s t-shirt and says, ‘we’re out of steak. How ‘bout slow baked ribs instead?’

Jensen laughs, winded and stuttery. ‘You gonna wear the ribs?’

Preoccupied with unwrapping the candy bar, Jared doesn’t reply. He crams the semi-melted chocolate bar whole in his mouth and wanders off, back to his laptop.

Jensen peels the gloves off. He trails after Jared and drops down beside him on the bed. ‘What you working on?’

‘Movie script,’ says Jared.

Of course Jensen’s immediately intrigued.

He cranes his neck trying to get a look at the screen. Jared hunches over, blocking his view. His shoulders are rolled forward, his head ducked low, and the hair falling into his face doesn’t hide the pink tinge on his cheeks. Jared embarrassed? Jared who has the brass to just breeze into a bathroom and jerk a guy off is feeling self-conscious about something as mundane as a script? It defies logic.

‘Shift,’ he lands a smack between Jared’s shoulder blades.

‘Ouch! The fuck, Jensen?’

‘Show me, or I’ma keep hitting you.’

‘Okay, okay,’ Jared repositions the laptop, angling it so they can both see the screen.

Jensen scrolls to the top of the page, hooks his chin on Jared’s shoulder and settles in to read. The script’s not the work of a professional. Though the dialogue’s punchy, the plot’s a mess, all action and no direction. And the abrupt ending leaves Jensen dissatisfied.

Jared looks at him expectantly, apprehension in the way he repeatedly reaches up to brush his hair off his face. Jensen tries to think of an encouraging way of telling Jared that his script sucks.

‘Okay, honestly? It sucks, man.’

Jared’s face falls.

‘But it’s got great potential,’ Jensen quickly adds. ‘Just needs a little bit of tweaking,’ he understates.

Jared doesn’t look convinced, so Jensen scrolls back up to the first page and runs the pointer along the opening scene, suggesting some changes.

‘Put ‘em in,’ says Jared.

‘Put what where?’

‘The tweaks, put them in.’

And that’s how Jensen gets manipulated into co-rewriting a futuristic western.

*

Their relationship - for lack of a better word - is one-sided. One of them is on the giving side and the other on the taking side. Jensen knows which side he’s on.

He’s the taker. Takes the affection, takes the handjobs, and doesn’t reciprocate either of those. Jared is unfailingly cheerful about it, never asks for anything. He just gives and gives and Jensen’s beginning to feel like a big, ungrateful moocher. He has arguments with himself, which really doesn’t help to cultivate a Zen mind.

A part of him will be like: you know, Jared’s real decent to you. He doesn’t torture you. He brings you food, beer and scintillating conversation, not to mention that you’d be dead of blue balls by now if he didn’t handle your morning wood every day. Least you can do is return the favor, blow the guy once in a while. Who knows, you might even like it.

And the other part of him will argue, fiercely: Jared and me, we are not in a relationship. I’m not going to enable his sick fantasies by getting up close and personal with his junk. Blow him? No fucking way, man. Zip, is what he’s getting from me. Ain’t gonna give him a goddamn thing.

The fierce part of him wins these arguments. It’s winning at the moment as Jared’s slick fist jerks him off, easy glide down, twist of wrist on the up-slide. Shock of pleasure when Jared presses his hard-on against his ass and breathes his name, but Jensen clamps his lips tight and won’t reply. He won’t give Jared the groan that’s purring in throat, won’t let it out because he is winning. Also, he’s coming, rash of sweat popping up all over his body, gasps smothered in the pillow and hips thrusting, chasing that friction until Jared has wrung out every last drop from him.

Jared rubs the warm, sticky mess into the skin of Jensen’s belly. It’s kinda gross. He stays Jared’s hand by putting his own hand over it. Barely broken, morning sheds thin light into the room, peopling it with grey and black shadow. Jensen wants to crack the window open to drive out the smell of sex and sweat and heat.

He’ll do it later, too comfortable to move right now.

‘I wrote it for you, the script,’ a confession whispered in Jensen’s hair. ‘You told Buddy TV you wanted to do a western, so I wrote you a western…’

Jared’s voice is sleepy, dream-like quality to it, and he talks about how he’s going to get the financial backing for the movie, how Jensen’s going to play the lead. It’s a stupid fantasy, chances of it coming true less than nil. But giving for a change, he doesn’t voice his disagreement, lets Jared have his fantasy.

Lets him weave pictures of their movie premiering at the Sundance Festival, of everybody seeing them together. Jensen and Jared, co-writers and partners, good ole Texas boys stepping out together. They’ll do that, too, fly to San Antonio, Texas. It’s gonna be awesome, Jensen meeting Jared’s family, and they’ll fall in love with Jensen. They’ll love Jensen almost as much as Jared loves him.

Jensen’s chest clenches as he listens to all this, to the improbable scenario of him ever being in his home State again. Because Jared must know that if he takes Jensen anywhere near a functioning phone, the first call he’s making is to the cops.

So those words of Jared’s, the promises and happy anticipation, they stab like shards of glass sliding under his skin. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? It’s not worth giving if it doesn’t cost you.

*

It’s been snowing for two days straight. Vindictive and dark, the clouds choke out the blue in the sky and ban the sun from shining.

Jensen’s mood reflects the weather. He’s snappy with Jared, everything that comes out of his mouth cold and cutting. When he’s not snapping at Jared, he’s editing the script on the laptop. Activates the track changes function so that brutal red lines strike through Jared’s work.

‘Are you pissed at me?’ asks Jared on seeing the edits.

‘You said to tweak,’ Jensen deletes a whole scene with his new best friend the red line. ‘I’m tweaking.’

‘Look, if I did something wrong-’

‘You mean apart from kidnapping me to the North Fucking Pole? No, Jared. You didn’t do a thing wrong.’

Jared watches him for a beat, the air crackling around them. ‘Mind letting me past?’

There are more convenient places to edit a script than at the top of a staircase. Jensen feels like inconveniencing the world, which is why he’s sitting bang in the middle of the topmost step. Holding the laptop steady on his knee, he scoots over a few inches. Jared’s leg jars his arm as he pushes past.

The dogs wag their tails when Jared gets to the bottom of the staircase. Harley follows him into the living, but Sadie lies back down, her muzzle propped on the bottom step. For as long as Jensen’s on the top step, Sadie will stay at the bottom, her ears pricked up and the hairs on the scruff of her neck bristling.

‘Bet you can’t wait for me to step out of line,’ Jensen says to her.

Sadie wrinkles her snout, growling.

‘Right back at you.’ He edits a couple more scenes, eyes starting to smart with the screen glow. ‘Jared! You got a printer cord?’

‘In my desk, somewhere,’ Jared calls back.

Jared’s desk is wedged in a corner of his room. The printer’s on the desk, a mini-library on script writing is on the desk. Balls of crumpled paper, re-writeable discs, pens, sharpies of all colors, candles that smell like cookies, all on the desk.

The desk drawers absorb the chaos that can’t fit on top of the desk: more books, more half burnt candles, flash sticks, business magazines, files. He lifts a file out and underneath it is a shiny black colt.

His heart lurches into his mouth. He backs away, eyes trained on the colt.

Shit, he thinks. Shit, shit, Jared’s got a gun. Is he planning on using it for one of those murder-suicide deals? If I can’t have you, no-one’s going to have you type of thing?

Is it loaded?

Only one way to find out.

He takes decisive steps back to the desk, checks the gun’s chamber. Fully loaded. He replaces the gun exactly as it was, but then he picks it up again.

The colt is cold and solid, it’s impersonal. It’ll fire off bullets for him just as good as it will for Jared. He could, god, he could…he wouldn’t actually shoot Jared. Just scare him into giving up the keys to the truck.

Exhilaration has him curling his finger around the trigger. He raises the gun, points it at the French doors.

It’s still snowing out. Flurries of snowflakes so big and fluffy they’re like goose down. The firs bow under the weight of snow, the ground’s thick with it. Picturesque maybe, but treacherous to drive in.

He can’t tell whether the snow’s six inches or a foot deep, doesn’t know if it’ll let up in a couple of hours or a couple of days. Lost on the mountainside in this kind of weather, hypothermia’s gonna find you before anybody else does.

He puts the colt back into the drawer and the file back over the colt. Gun’ll be there when the weather clears up. He carries on searching for the cord, which turns up, not in the desk but behind it, tangled up with cobwebs and a desk-top picture frame.

The heart lurching is getting kind of old. He hooks up the laptop to the printer and places the dusty frame on the nightstand behind him. Much better. Now he can watch the printer spitting out red lined pages without distraction.

Still, he glances over his shoulder. Jared and the pretty, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl look right together. She’s wearing a short skirt, high heels and a dazzler of a ring on the third finger of her left hand.

*

That night when they’re having dinner on the staircase - Jensen on the top step, Jared on the third step down, plates balanced on their knees - Jared asks, ‘where’d you find that photo, Jen?’

‘Wrapped in the printer cord behind your desk.’ He takes a bite of chicken, chews hard, swallows hard. Just can’t help himself, ‘who’s the girl?’

‘Sandy. My ex-fiancée. I fell out of love with her long before we broke up.’

Again Jensen can’t help himself. He smiles at the back of Jared’s head. And swallows the next bite of chicken without difficulty.

*

When he next goes in to tidy Jared’s room, the snowstorm is over, the sun’s out and the picture frame’s gone. The colt isn’t. He checks the chamber. Still fully loaded. He slides the desk drawer shut and gets on with emptying trashcans and making the bed and wiping globs of Colgate Total off the mirror.

No, he hasn’t lost his mind. He still plans on leaving - of course. It’s just that snow on the road can be deceptive, hiding ice under its blanket. He’ll wait until the sun has thawed things out a little, melted some of the snow and ice. Then he’ll pull the gun on Jared and drive to the nearest police station like a bat out of hell.

Meanwhile, he and Jared have a script to finish re-writing.

*

‘Jay? How much longer?’ he hollers.

Man, he’s starving. After eight and they’ve not had dinner yet. Normally they’d have eaten by now, but Jared’s been tramping about down there for hours now, cooking up something that smells wonderful.

‘Jared,’ and yep, he’s whining. Because he’s fucking starving.

Jared appears at the bottom of the staircase. Hands on hips, stained tea-towel slung over his shoulder. Face flushed, freckled with sweat and unamused. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘Yeah, I heard you the last two million times Jensen. I’m doing the best I can.’

‘Me, too. Doing my best to wait patiently.’

Jared extends his arm and crooks his fingers. ‘Come wait downstairs.’

He didn’t know how much he wanted it, how badly he wanted to free range downstairs until Jared said that just then, come wait downstairs. It’s a miracle he doesn’t trip and break his neck, the way he zooms down the stairs.

‘You’re keen,’ Jared says with a soft laugh.

Keen yes, standing on the bottom step and leaning in towards Jared, little wrench in his gut when Jared leans in towards him. There’s no slow build up, no polite how do you do. Their mouths slot and click, instant heat. Hands everywhere, tugging and holding, just as their lips hold the kiss and prolong it.

Jared’s kisses, Jensen discovers, are like freedom; the more he gets the more he wants. He curls his fingers on Jared’s hips, dizzy with the taste and sounds of Jared, those hot groans he’s fanning into Jensen’s mouth.

‘Jared no,’ he pants when Jared breaks away. ‘Where are you going?’

Jared’s nostrils are flared with ragged breathing, voice gravel rough and making Jensen harder. ‘I, uh, think I’m gonna clean up before we eat. How about you go through and light the fire?’

‘Sure,’ he takes his hands off Jared’s hips and shoves them into his pockets, feeling harshly deprived as he watches Jared run up the stairs.

*

The dining table’s a surprise, decked out with a crisp, white tablecloth, red linen napkins, sparkling silverware and glasses. No wonder dinner is late; Jared was busy messing around with placemats and floral arrangements.

Jensen moves past the table, follows the mouth-watering scents to the oven. He takes a peek. Rack of ribs on the oven’s top shelf, and on the bottom shelf, potatoes roasting to a golden brown. He closes the oven door before he’s seriously tempted to start without Jared.

In the living room, Harley and Sadie are lying on the hearth. Sadie walks off stiff-legged when Jensen approaches. But Harley ‘helps’ him build the fire, taking the split logs off the grate as soon as Jensen lays them down.

‘C’mon Harley, stop it.’

Harley wags his tail, a log held in his slobbering jaws.

‘You want to play?’

Harley drops the log on the hearth rug and woofs, tail furiously swishing from side to side.

‘All right,’ Jensen laughs. ‘But first, the fire.’

After he’s lit the fire, he grabs a pillow off the armchair and waves it at Harley who pounces, grabbing the other end of the pillow. So, they’re playing tug of war, though Jensen’s doing more slipping than tugging, socked feet sliding on the smooth floorboards.

‘What I need,’ he puffs, trying to dig his heels in, ‘is traction. I’d totally kick your ass at this if I had traction pads on my feet.’

‘You think?’

Jensen lets go of the pillow, turns in the direction of the amused voice, and there Jared is, showered, shaved and looking fine. His legs about a mile long in the black dress pants, and his shoulders, accentuated by the white button-down, look broad enough to carry Texas.

Feeling grubby in comparison, covered in cinders and dog-hairs, Jensen brushes his jeans down. His mouth’s gone dry and he clears his throat, struggles for something witty to say.

‘Cool watch,’ he says, as if he’s never before seen the watch gleaming around Jared’s wrist.

‘Thank you,’ Jared shuffles from foot to foot.

A beat elapses then another, and they’re just sort of staring at each other over the couch. Now Jensen not only feels grubby but also sweaty and a little bit dumb.

‘You need a hand in the kitchen?’ he blurts, very witty.

‘Got it covered thanks. You just,’ Jared rushes to the table and pulls a chair out, ‘uh, sit? Hope wine’s okay, we’re out of beer.’

Jensen sits. There’s weirdness going down. He watches Jared flit back and forth between the table and the kitchen, bringing the food and wine, pouring for Jensen, serving him. Attentive but also kinda hyper, fidgeting in his chair. Acting like he’s on a hot date with a…oh.

Avoiding eye contact with Jared, he presses a napkin to his lips to stifle his laughter.

‘More wine?’ asks Jared.

Oh god, it’s coming. Fuck, it’s here, and he can’t tamp it down. It rolls up from his belly, shoots out of his mouth and once it’s out, there’s no stemming the tide of laughter.

Jared’s starting to smile. ‘What’s so damn funny?’

‘Is this a date?’ he snorts. ‘We on a date here? ‘Cause dude, you only had to ask. Didn’t have to resort to kidnap to wine and dine me.’

Jared’s smile winks out. His stare is stony and uncompromising. ‘I asked. Wrote to you a bunch of times, e-mailed you, and got squat back. I even dropped by the set, figured I’d ask you in person. Waited ten hours, and you wouldn’t give me two minutes. You wouldn’t give me a chance to take you on a real date in a real restaurant. So here we are, Jensen.’

‘You don’t know how hectic it gets, sixteen hour shoots and early morning calls,’ Jensen hates that he sounds like he’s making excuses, speaks brusquely to cover up. ‘Besides, my press officer deals with fan mail. You got a problem, take it up with her.’

‘Believe it or not, those fans? They’re busy people, too. But they make time. I made time for you. I’m making time now and you fucking throw your press officer at me?’

Not quite able to meet Jared’s eye, Jensen picks up his fork again. Suddenly the succulent ribs taste like ash and the merlot turned into vinegar. It’s a total fucking loss, because if he’d given Jared those two minutes, met him properly, chances are he’d have agreed to go out with him. Maybe not on a date. Jensen’s not wired that way, doesn’t date guys. But beer and hot wings at a sports bar, he wouldn’t have said no to that.

Well, he didn’t make time for Jared, so here they are. It’s not ideal. He doesn’t want to be here, but what’s he gonna do, sulk? Throw his plate at Jared? Easier to just go with it, be on a date if Jared wants that so bad.

‘So,’ he smiles, cocking his head slightly, ‘do you eat here often?’

‘Idiot,’ says Jared.

‘No, really, I should know the basics about my date. Like, his last name.’

Jared nods, tops up their wine glasses. ‘Fair enough.’

*

His full name is Jared Tristan Padalecki. He’s twenty-six, Cancer and studied chemistry at UCLA. When he first moved out there, he was so homesick he spent entire weekends trawling the malls for stuff that smelt like Texas. That’s how he got into scents. Wouldn’t it be cool, if he could distill the scent of Texas in a bottle or in candle wax, never be homesick again?

He came up with many scents and oil blends during his quest for the Texas formula. Some smelt like something you’d get from a skunk, but the majority were good enough to sell. People actually wanted to buy his scent. He gave the people his scent, building a company in the process. And stunned his parents when he sold the company, sold his house in LA, broke off his engagement to his long-term girlfriend - four years ain’t a joke - and upped sticks to Canada.

Jensen can’t wrap his head round it. He scrapes his spoon along the bottom of his bowl, gathering up the last dollop of mint and chocolate ice-cream. Licks the dollop off and waves his spoon at Jared.

‘Who does that? I mean, who ditches everything for some guy he saw on TV?’

‘Me, apparently.’

‘Yeah, you’re crazier than I thought. And that’s saying something seeing as I reckoned you were pretty fucking crazy to start with.’

Jared claps his hands together and throws his head back, laughing.

Uh huh. Bat-shit crazy.

*

Dinner’s over. The wine bottles are empty and the fire burnt down to embers. The air is starting to turn cold, yet still, he and Jared sit at the table talking shit.

All things considered, Jared’s not an awful date for a certifiable individual.

‘Are you going to walk me home, Romeo?’ he jokes.

Damnably chivalrous, Jared walks him to his door, presses a dry kiss to the corner of his mouth and says, ‘goodnight, Jensen.’

‘Yeah. Goodnight,’ he says, feeling harshly deprived for a second time tonight as he watches Jared walk away from him.

Chapter Four

au, jared, kidnap, jensen

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