That Stockholm Thing 5/7 (J2 AU, NC-17)
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.
When Jensen’s mad, he paces and glares.
When he’s madder than mad, coiled tight and steamed up, feels like flames shooting out of his nostrils instead of air, when he’s like that, dragon mad, he holds himself inhumanly still and stares at whatever’s offending him.
Since Jared’s not available to stare at, Jensen stares down at the chain snaking across the floor. He curls his fingers into his palms to resist the darkly compelling itch all over his body, prickly and peppery and just urging him to scratch, to give in and claw his skin off.
He’d thought they were doing all right, him and Jared. Thought they’d moved past the mistrust and use of force and the restriction of liberties. Clearly he’d thought wrong.
He leans back against the locked door and slides down it. Legs crossed, fists balled and jammed under his armpits. Inhumanly still, he stares at the gray, serpentine coil shackled to the metal cuff around his ankle.
*
The storm hits at around three-thirty. Howling winds buffet the cabin, shaking it to its foundations and pinging hard pellets of hail-snow at the window. There’s also howling inside the house, one of the dogs scratching and howling at his door.
Sadie’s a hard-nosed bitch. She doesn’t scare easy. ‘That you, Harley?’
Frantic scratching, piteous whine. Harley for definite.
Jensen strokes his palm down the door, would be petting Harley if it weren’t for the sturdy wooden obstacle between them. He smoothes the rough edges of his voice, speaking soft.
‘Aw come on buddy, you’re not scared of a storm, are you? Ain’t hardly a storm even, just the wind making a lot of noise.’
Harley stops scratching but is still whining and Jensen carries on trying to calm him, because it’s not Harley’s fault that his daddy’s a frigging lunatic.
*
Jensen figured he’d wait until he was seriously hungry before breaking into the packet of crackers and thermos of soup Jared left on the nightstand. But he lost his appetite soon after the winds gained momentum.
Hardly a storm? It’s a freaking blizzard, marshalling in an early dusk and cutting off the power supply.
He paces to the door, speaks to Harley, paces to the window, thinks about hazardous driving conditions.
It’s superbly dark out there. He can’t make out the shape of the trees or the glint of snow piled up in the clearing. Nothing but inky black. The same inky black envelopes his room, making it feel tomb-cold.
He shuffles in the general direction of the bed. His shin thuds into the bed frame. He bends forward, drags the duvet off the bed and wraps up in it.
‘Talk to me, Harley.’
Harley doesn’t make a sound. Seems he’s not in the mood for pleasantries.
‘Me neither.’
He picks his way through the dark to sit on the windowsill. Knowing Jared - the persistent fucker - he’ll be on the road instead of taking cover in a motel. Jensen scrapes his thumbnail back and forth across his bottom lip, hopes he’s wrong.
*
Thing about being an actor is you have to have imagination. Have to be able to look at a ball of wool and imagine it’s a crouched Wendigo about to spring on you. Be able to lick sickly corn syrup off your lips and imagine it’s the metallic taste of blood.
Thing about sitting in a freezing dark room? You’ve got nothing to do but imagine stuff. If anything, the dark brightens the slide-show. You’re no longer shivering from cold but from the sinister places your mind’s taking you.
Not lacking in the imagination department, he hears the wind screech and sees the tires of a red truck spin on ice, helpless to reverse its descent towards a ravine. Hears a bough snap and sees long limbs twisted at sickening angles. Hail patters on the window, and he sees it, sees the hail and snow bury the broken body in a carpet that is indistinguishable from the rest of the white, frozen landscape.
When Jensen’s scared shitless, he makes threats. Offense the best defense and all that.
‘Jared,’ he says, ‘you best come home in one piece so I kick your ass down a ravine.’
*
Jensen laughs and sniffs, nose squished flat on the window. He’s not imagining the twin beams filtering between the forest’s masts. Not imagining the engine’s rumble as the beams get closer. Harley barks super excited and scrambles downstairs, proof enough that the truck plowing towards the cabin isn’t a mirage.
He shrugs the duvet off his shoulders and goes to wait by the door. His joints are stiff with cold.
Sounds erupt downstairs. Grate of the garage door towing opening, boom of laughter, happy yelping, footsteps receding to the back of the cabin. Fainter, the whirr of the back-up generator cranking into life, and Jensen blinks as sudden light floods the room.
With that flood comes another, anger swamping Jensen so full he can’t see straight. He’s gonna burn down the house just by exhaling, seriously. When Jared finally comes into the room, face pinched white and shoulders wilting, exhaustion and apology written in every line of his body, Jensen wants to strangle him.
He puts his right foot forward, says, ‘take the, take it off.’
Jared hunkers down, fingers gentle as he unlocks and takes the manacle off Jensen’s ankle. He straightens up and sort of half shrugs, half smiles. ‘Bitch of a drive,’ he says, further incensing Jensen.
Bitch of a drive? Try suicidal drive. Death mission. ‘You’re okay, though? No broken bones?’
‘Yeah, I’m…’ Jared frowns, patting himself down as if to check for injuries. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Good,’ Jensen hauls his fist back and slams it into Jared’s jaw, welcomes the pain in his knuckles.
Jared staggers back, the wall behind him breaking his fall. He comes back at Jensen, eyes burning, fists clenched, bloom on his jaw a stark red in contrast to his pale face, his white-lined lips. He looks murderous. He is radiating danger, and it sends an electric fizz shooting all through Jensen.
‘Go ahead, Jay,’ he rasps. ‘Fucking go ahead.’
Jared shakes his head, unfurls his fists. The words come punching out of him. ‘You’re pissed. I get that. But I couldn’t risk coming home to find you gone. I love you, told you a thousand fucking times. Why won’t you get that, Jensen?’ he doesn’t wait for an answer before stalking out.
But Jensen’s not done with him yet.
*
He bangs Jared’s door open. It bounces off the wall and swings back towards him. He bangs it again and strides in, doesn’t recognize himself. Hates Jared for turning him into this wild thing.
Hands fisted in Jared’s shirt, dragging him close, and Jared does likewise, bunches the front of Jensen’s t-shirt in white-knuckled fists and heaves him in the rest of the way. They’re treading on each other’s toes, hip bones bruising hip bones, no space between their hard, shoving bodies.
‘Leashed like a dog, Jared. Hell, you treat your dogs better. They weren’t injected with heroine and chained up.’
‘I’d never start you on heroine, not you.’
‘Sedatives. Whatever. And that’s not even the point here.’
‘Do you have a point?’
Jensen tightens his hold, his aggression mutating into something needy but just as feral. ‘You didn’t say it. This morning, you didn’t…’ again, so not the point. ‘Fuck, Jared. I had no way of checking in on you. Storm like this, you could’ve wound up in a ditch and I couldn’t have gotten to you if you needed help.’
Jared thuds his brow onto Jensen’s, not gently. ‘Nothing bad happened to me.’
‘But it could’ve done,’ Jensen insists.
‘Well, it didn’t. I’m here, aren’t I?’
He moves one hand to grip the underside of Jared’s jaw, digs his thumb and fingertips into stubble roughened cheeks. ‘So am I,’ he kisses Jared, hard punishing pressure. ‘I’m here,’ bites at Jared’s lips to emphasize his point. ‘And I wasn’t going anywhere, would’ve been here regardless of the chain.’
He crushes his lips to Jared’s, and this time Jared bites back. Nothing’s resolved. He’s wound up, Jared’s wound up, and this kind of kissing only leads to split lips, ripped shirts and furious fucking.
Like those spinning wheels he imagined, Jensen is powerless to reverse the slippery descent. Isn’t sure he wants to, because there’s something to be said about fury. It refines lust and sharpens pleasure, tears down logic so all that’s left is mind-gone rutting. Heat is all that’s left, pure and goddamn intense.
He snaps his hips, ramming deep into Jared, groans as he watches Jared’s back lock then ripple in a sinuous arch, shaggy hair damp with sweat, skin glossy with it, death grip on the sheets as he fucks back, racing to break himself on Jensen’s cock.
‘I’m gonna…holy fuck, Jensen I’m gonna…’
‘Not yet you’re not,’ he slips out of Jared and reaches round to squeeze the base of Jared’s cock.
Jared throws his head back, arms shaking, breath a long hiss forced through gritted teeth. And god, Jensen has no idea where all this is coming from, the impulse to own Jared’s orgasms, to fucking own his cock. Own him.
‘You going to turn over, lay on your back for me?’ he’s really not asking.
‘You going to shut up and finish this, bitch?’ Jared spits out, but he’s really not protesting because he turns over to lie spread-eagled on his back.
‘Don’t I always finish it?’ He braces above Jared, props his elbows in the mattress on either side of Jared’s head. ‘You’ve got to trust me.’
Jared wraps his legs around Jensen’s back. Loose hold, direct gaze. ‘I do. Kind of.’
Kind of ain’t good enough. He wants all of, thrusts back into Jared slow and hard, deep so Jared feels him pulsing in his throat. Not kind of but really fucking Jared, searches out the spot inside Jared that makes him go wide-eyed, drills it until Jared is gasping and clawing and clinging, until he’s as feral as he makes Jensen. That’s how it goes, slow and hard, deep and good. Not kind of good. So good Jared’s gasps verge on sobs and he curls his upper body off the mattress, mouth blindly seeking Jensen’s.
Jensen doesn’t kiss him but repeats, ‘got to trust me, Jared.’
‘I do. Jesus. Fuck. I do.’
Jensen puts everything he’s got into the thrusts. ‘No more needles,’ slow, ‘no more locked doors,’ hard, ‘no more chains,’ deep, twist of his hips, deeper.
Jared keens, the next moment muffling the strung-out sound by shoving his fingers into his mouth. His legs creak Jensen’s ribs in a vice-like grip, his ass contracts, and it’s only sheer stubbornness that keeps Jensen from coming.
‘I…’ Jared takes his fingers out of his mouth and tries again. ‘I swear, Jensen. I promise. No more.’
‘Thank you,’ now he can finish it.
He kisses Jared, open-mouthed, groaning, and Jared suckles on his tongue, canting his hips to meet Jensen’s thrusts. Every one of Jensen’s nerve endings sings. He is covered in goose bumps, sudden blaze of heat as two wet fingers push between his butt cheeks and rub at his hole.
He ups his tempo, his belly rubbing on Jared’s hot, hard cock and his groans spilling into Jared’s mouth. And then it’s over, it’s finished, because Jared’s finger breaches him, the burn of it cancelled out by the bolts of pleasure as Jared hits his sweet spot again and again. It melts his mind, Jared moving inside him, him moving inside Jared, fucking with tongues and fingers and cock, bellies splattered with come, more of it coated up inside Jared.
Afterwards, when they’ve cleaned up with Jensen’s mauled t-shirt, Jared flings an arm across Jensen’s middle, mumbles, ‘stay,’ and passes out. Jensen doesn’t have the energy to totter to his room. He stays.
*
Up before Jared, he takes a long shower in Jared’s five-star bathroom. Naked sprint down the hall to go get dressed in his own room then he heads downstairs to fix lunch. Except he can’t find the stove under the mountain of grocery bags in the kitchen. Brownie points to Jared for at least dumping the perishables in the fridge and freezer.
Harley woofs and jumps onto him. Sadie doesn’t try to bite him, which is progress.
‘Let’s you and me call a truce,’ he says to her. ‘How ‘bout it, girl?’
She trots to the door and puts her paw on it, not scratching or whining. Her posture says, let me out or I will pee all over the floor.
He slides the door open, fast.
He’s unpacking the fourth grocery bag when he comes across a 2008 calendar. It’s pink, and January features Princess Barbie complete with tiara.
‘Jared you douchebag,’ he laughs, tearing out the months until he gets to December - Ice Skating Barbie.
He magnets December onto the fridge door and rummages through a drawer for a marker. After some thought, he draws a black circle around Thursday 11. He’s leaving on that date. Hopefully Jared will give up the keys without too much of a fight. He likes the guy, doesn’t want to have to put a bullet through his kneecap.
Sure, Jared’s done some bad things but that doesn’t make him a bad man. He just gets caught up in enthusiasm sometimes, gets overzealous. Jensen’s not overzealous himself, but he can see how too much zeal added to unrequited obsession can flip a person, frustrate them into doing wrong.
It’s really not complicated if you look at logically: frustration is to blame for the kidnap, not Jared.
Groceries put away, he feeds the dogs then piles a tray high with toast, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, coffee and orange juice and takes the tray to feed the man upstairs.
*
‘Been thinking,’ Jared picks up his fork and spears a slice of bacon off Jensen’s plate.
‘Hey!’
Jared chews, swallows. Grins. ‘So. Yeah. Been thinking.’
‘About swiping my bacon?’
‘About the environment, man.’
Jensen reclines against the headboard. He’s thinking about Jared’s gas-guzzling truck. ‘Really? Never figured you for an eco-warrior.’
‘Oh, I recycle,’ Jared assures him. ‘You should, too.’
‘Recycle?’
‘Move in here. That way we’d save on heating and lighting for your room. Small sacrifices make a huge difference to the polar ice-caps, you know.’
Jensen is fighting a smile. ‘You might be on to something there.’
‘Damn right I am,’ Jared nods sagely.
*
Not long after sacrificing his space and privacy for the sake of the environment, Jensen notices a difference in bed. To be honest, he didn’t notice until Jared, cuddling up to him and batting his eyelashes, teased, ‘we just made love. Don’t deny it. You totally cherish me, dude.’
He nearly fell out of bed denying it.
Made love? Please. Guy-sex isn’t about cherishment and Harlequiny euphemisms for fucking. It’s about getting off as quickly as possible with plenty of lube and the minimum of foreplay.
Okay, so maybe he and Jared have recently developed a tendency towards extended foreplay, and at times they get off on just that, and yes, there have been occasions when they don’t get off at all, inexplicably content to fall asleep in mid-kiss. So what? Doesn’t mean they make love. Make out, more like.
Another thing he’s noticed? Jared is all about the ass - Jensen’s ass, to be precise. They’ll be making out, and it doesn’t matter what position they’re in, vertical with Jared pushed up against the kitchen counter, or horizontal with Jensen pressed along the length of the sofa’s backrest, how ever, wherever, you can guarantee that Jared has his hands on Jensen’s butt.
*
‘Gonna make you come just from this,’ says Jared. He leans over and loosens the bow on Jensen’s robe sash with his teeth, rubs his cheek on Jensen’s belly. ‘Think you can do that Jen, come from just my fingers reaming your ass?’
Jensen thinks he’s going to come from the sound of Jared’s filthy hoarse voice alone. He’s right on the edge, has been for fucking hours it feels like. Wonders what he must look like, laid out on the living room floor with his bathrobe pooled around him, legs spread, muscles quivering and a strip of bright green tinsel wrapped loose round his twitching cock.
He’s trying to tear chunks out of the floor with his nails. The non-stop groans puncturing the air, he knows they’re falling from his lips. Can’t do a thing to tone it down, not when Jared has three fingers pressed up inside him. Smooth and silky with lube, they swivel out and plunge back in, stretch and fill him and spark off that hard nub inside him. He arches, strung tight by the circuit of sensation that’s spiraling from ass to balls to every damn where.
Jared catches and holds his gaze. ‘Yeah, you can,’ filthy hoarse voice, and Jensen comes, lets Jared kiss the profanities off his lips as the orgasm wrecks him.
‘You okay, Jen?’
Jensen’s throat’s dry, which was why he’d come downstairs in the first place, to make coffee. Found Jared poking through a box of Christmas decorations and got lassoed in tinsel.
‘Fuck,’ he laughs, ‘all I wanted was a cup of coffee.’
‘That ain’t exactly true,’ Jared uncoils he soggy strip of tinsel off Jensen and throws it in the fire. Then retrieves Jensen’s boxer-briefs from under the table, wipes the ropes of come off Jensen’s abdomen.
If called on it, Jensen will swear his full body blush is attributable to the heat from the fire and not to the heat in Jared’s eyes, possessive and scrolling over him from head to toe. He sits up and wraps the robe around him, double knots the sash.
‘The exact truth is I always want coffee.’
‘Except when you want my cock,’ Jared says, and Jensen’s throat goes a little drier, gaze darting to the hard ridge in Jared’s sweatpants ‘You want me to fuck you Jensen, and I will, real soon.’ Jared rolls to his feet, ‘Now though, I gotta get dressed for tree hunting. You coming?’
‘Nah, those forest trails are narrow. Not a whole lot of room on them for you, me and your gigantic ego.’
Jared walks backwards towards the staircase. ‘No need to sweet talk me, baby,’ he smirks, ‘I already said I’d do you.’
Jensen figures the strong cup of black coffee is well overdue. He washes his hands at the kitchen sink and takes a bag of ground coffee beans out of the fridge. The calendar flutters as he closes the fridge door.
He dumps heaped spoonfuls of coffee into the filter funnel, switches on the coffee pot and watches dark liquid drip into the glass jug. Inhales the aroma and drums his fingers on the counter, antsy.
Real soon, in two days’ time, he’ll be pointing a gun in Jared’s face.
Too soon.
He digs the marker out of the kitchen drawer, goes over to the calendar. Puts a cross through 11 and circles 19. Still gives him plenty of time to be home for Christmas.
*
Axe hefted on his shoulder, Jared looms in the doorway. The sliding door is open behind him, letting the cold air in.
‘No Jared, I will absolutely not come tree hunting with you,’ Jensen diverts his attention back to the laptop screen.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ve got to get the final draft out by the deadline.’
Jared huffs. ‘So when’s this all important deadline?’
‘The nineteenth.’
‘Dude, that’s like, weeks away.’
‘Three days, in fact.’ Jensen moves from the couch to sit in an armchair, away from the draft. ‘And you’ve been tree hunting for way longer than three days. What’s with that, huh? I mean, seriously, how challenging can it be to find a tree in a forest?’
‘It’s not just a tree you heathen! It’s a Christmas tree. It’s the tree!’
Christ Almighty. Anyone would think he’d suggested slaughtering newborn babies under the tree the way Jared’s shrilling. ‘Whoa now, let’s not get hysterical.’
‘No tree and no hysteria? Man, the holiday season is wasted on you,’ with that, Jared steps out and slides the door shut.
It’s total bullshit of course. He’s no scrooge. He likes the tinsel Jared put up on the walls and the wreath of holly he hung on the door. He likes all things Christmas, especially the giving of gifts, which is why he’s prioritizing the script..
He sets the laptop on the floor and goes to get a beer. Weird little tug in his belly as he stares at date ringed on the calendar.
‘Shit,’ he says around a mouthful of beer.
*
‘Jensen!’
‘In here!’
‘Where?’
‘Bedroom!’ Where he’s taken to hiding with the script to escape the pestering. ‘You found the tree yet?’
Jared bursts in. His eyes are twinkling and he has strings of fairy lights criss-crossed over his chest like cartridge belts. ‘Come hold the ladder.’
Jensen’s not even going to ask. He pushes away from the desk and follows Jared out to the porch.
Jared points at a tree on the edge of the clearing. It’s got a ladder leaned up against it. ‘Right under my nose this whole time.’
‘Or over your head.’ Jensen gawks at the tree. Not the hugest in the forest but certainly not a sapling either. ‘We’ll never get it in through the door, Jared.’
‘She’s the one. Gotta have her.’
Jensen rubs his arms to ward off the cold. He’s got no shoes on and his toes curl away from the freezing boards. ‘So, what, you’re going to saw her in half?’
‘Desecrate her? No way!’
‘Right,’ Jensen frowns. ‘We’re not having a tree after all, then?’
‘Are you being deliberately retarded?’
‘I just, I don’t get your logic - what little of it there is.’
‘I’m going to decorate her out here,’ Jared claps a hand on the back of his neck. It’s colder than the floorboards. ‘We’re having an outdoors tree.’
‘You’re having frostbite.’
Jared crinkles his brow at him. ‘What?’
He pries Jared’s hand off his neck, briskly rubs it between his own. ‘Put some gloves on, Jay.’
Jared swoops his head down, smiles throughout the slow kiss. Jensen smiles too. They’re kissing with open eyes, little huffs of laughter passing back and forth between them. It’s kinda crazy. His heart is beating kinda crazy.
‘Just need you to hold the ladder steady while I climb on the lower branches. Then you can go back to work,’ says Jared.
‘How’re you going to get down without me holding the ladder?’
‘Jump. Fly. I’ll figure a way.’
‘It’s a big deal to you, isn’t it? The tree, the whole perfect Christmas thing.’
Jared doesn’t reply right away, and when he does, his voice comes out husky, soft, ‘pretty big, yeah.’
Click in Jensen’s throat as he swallows hard. There’ll be many more Christmases spent in Richardson. He can bear to give this one to Jared. Just this one, though.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ll go get your gloves and put my shoes and coat on.’
He detours to the kitchen on his way to the hall closet. Retrieves the marker. Crosses out the nineteenth and circles December 26.
*
The tree’s sort of half naked, its lower branches dressed in lights while the higher up branches are nude - not counting the coverage of pine needles. Those branches weren’t strong enough to bear Jared’s weight, so they didn’t get decorated. The lights are ice-white. They look like white fire-flies congregated on the tree.
Jensen tilts his head. They look like white fire-flies that prefer to congregate on the left side of the tree. He tilts his head the other way. Yeah, definitely more lights on the left than on the right.
‘It’s lopsided,’ says Jared, flat with disappointment. He has pine needles snagged in his hair and a bark scuff high on his cheek. Smells of spruce and sweat, a hard day’s work of stringing up lights in a too big tree.
He bumps his arm into Jared’s, says, ‘It’s got character. I like character. Every Christmas tree should look like ours.’
‘Are you being sarcastic?’
‘I’m really not,’ Jensen laughs, happy. ‘I like the fucking tree, Jared.’
Jared shoots him a smile that’s as bright, white and lop-sided as the lights.
It’s cold out and darkness is encroaching, only kept at bay by the glowing tree and the porch light above their heads. He slides his arm around Jared’s waist, steps in closer when Jared lifts his arm and drapes it across his shoulders.
‘We should go inside, get out of the cold,’ he says, round of his shoulder snug in Jared’s armpit.
‘Yeah,’ Jared agrees, settling against him.
Chapter Six
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.
When Jensen’s mad, he paces and glares.
When he’s madder than mad, coiled tight and steamed up, feels like flames shooting out of his nostrils instead of air, when he’s like that, dragon mad, he holds himself inhumanly still and stares at whatever’s offending him.
Since Jared’s not available to stare at, Jensen stares down at the chain snaking across the floor. He curls his fingers into his palms to resist the darkly compelling itch all over his body, prickly and peppery and just urging him to scratch, to give in and claw his skin off.
He’d thought they were doing all right, him and Jared. Thought they’d moved past the mistrust and use of force and the restriction of liberties. Clearly he’d thought wrong.
He leans back against the locked door and slides down it. Legs crossed, fists balled and jammed under his armpits. Inhumanly still, he stares at the gray, serpentine coil shackled to the metal cuff around his ankle.
*
The storm hits at around three-thirty. Howling winds buffet the cabin, shaking it to its foundations and pinging hard pellets of hail-snow at the window. There’s also howling inside the house, one of the dogs scratching and howling at his door.
Sadie’s a hard-nosed bitch. She doesn’t scare easy. ‘That you, Harley?’
Frantic scratching, piteous whine. Harley for definite.
Jensen strokes his palm down the door, would be petting Harley if it weren’t for the sturdy wooden obstacle between them. He smoothes the rough edges of his voice, speaking soft.
‘Aw come on buddy, you’re not scared of a storm, are you? Ain’t hardly a storm even, just the wind making a lot of noise.’
Harley stops scratching but is still whining and Jensen carries on trying to calm him, because it’s not Harley’s fault that his daddy’s a frigging lunatic.
*
Jensen figured he’d wait until he was seriously hungry before breaking into the packet of crackers and thermos of soup Jared left on the nightstand. But he lost his appetite soon after the winds gained momentum.
Hardly a storm? It’s a freaking blizzard, marshalling in an early dusk and cutting off the power supply.
He paces to the door, speaks to Harley, paces to the window, thinks about hazardous driving conditions.
It’s superbly dark out there. He can’t make out the shape of the trees or the glint of snow piled up in the clearing. Nothing but inky black. The same inky black envelopes his room, making it feel tomb-cold.
He shuffles in the general direction of the bed. His shin thuds into the bed frame. He bends forward, drags the duvet off the bed and wraps up in it.
‘Talk to me, Harley.’
Harley doesn’t make a sound. Seems he’s not in the mood for pleasantries.
‘Me neither.’
He picks his way through the dark to sit on the windowsill. Knowing Jared - the persistent fucker - he’ll be on the road instead of taking cover in a motel. Jensen scrapes his thumbnail back and forth across his bottom lip, hopes he’s wrong.
*
Thing about being an actor is you have to have imagination. Have to be able to look at a ball of wool and imagine it’s a crouched Wendigo about to spring on you. Be able to lick sickly corn syrup off your lips and imagine it’s the metallic taste of blood.
Thing about sitting in a freezing dark room? You’ve got nothing to do but imagine stuff. If anything, the dark brightens the slide-show. You’re no longer shivering from cold but from the sinister places your mind’s taking you.
Not lacking in the imagination department, he hears the wind screech and sees the tires of a red truck spin on ice, helpless to reverse its descent towards a ravine. Hears a bough snap and sees long limbs twisted at sickening angles. Hail patters on the window, and he sees it, sees the hail and snow bury the broken body in a carpet that is indistinguishable from the rest of the white, frozen landscape.
When Jensen’s scared shitless, he makes threats. Offense the best defense and all that.
‘Jared,’ he says, ‘you best come home in one piece so I kick your ass down a ravine.’
*
Jensen laughs and sniffs, nose squished flat on the window. He’s not imagining the twin beams filtering between the forest’s masts. Not imagining the engine’s rumble as the beams get closer. Harley barks super excited and scrambles downstairs, proof enough that the truck plowing towards the cabin isn’t a mirage.
He shrugs the duvet off his shoulders and goes to wait by the door. His joints are stiff with cold.
Sounds erupt downstairs. Grate of the garage door towing opening, boom of laughter, happy yelping, footsteps receding to the back of the cabin. Fainter, the whirr of the back-up generator cranking into life, and Jensen blinks as sudden light floods the room.
With that flood comes another, anger swamping Jensen so full he can’t see straight. He’s gonna burn down the house just by exhaling, seriously. When Jared finally comes into the room, face pinched white and shoulders wilting, exhaustion and apology written in every line of his body, Jensen wants to strangle him.
He puts his right foot forward, says, ‘take the, take it off.’
Jared hunkers down, fingers gentle as he unlocks and takes the manacle off Jensen’s ankle. He straightens up and sort of half shrugs, half smiles. ‘Bitch of a drive,’ he says, further incensing Jensen.
Bitch of a drive? Try suicidal drive. Death mission. ‘You’re okay, though? No broken bones?’
‘Yeah, I’m…’ Jared frowns, patting himself down as if to check for injuries. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Good,’ Jensen hauls his fist back and slams it into Jared’s jaw, welcomes the pain in his knuckles.
Jared staggers back, the wall behind him breaking his fall. He comes back at Jensen, eyes burning, fists clenched, bloom on his jaw a stark red in contrast to his pale face, his white-lined lips. He looks murderous. He is radiating danger, and it sends an electric fizz shooting all through Jensen.
‘Go ahead, Jay,’ he rasps. ‘Fucking go ahead.’
Jared shakes his head, unfurls his fists. The words come punching out of him. ‘You’re pissed. I get that. But I couldn’t risk coming home to find you gone. I love you, told you a thousand fucking times. Why won’t you get that, Jensen?’ he doesn’t wait for an answer before stalking out.
But Jensen’s not done with him yet.
*
He bangs Jared’s door open. It bounces off the wall and swings back towards him. He bangs it again and strides in, doesn’t recognize himself. Hates Jared for turning him into this wild thing.
Hands fisted in Jared’s shirt, dragging him close, and Jared does likewise, bunches the front of Jensen’s t-shirt in white-knuckled fists and heaves him in the rest of the way. They’re treading on each other’s toes, hip bones bruising hip bones, no space between their hard, shoving bodies.
‘Leashed like a dog, Jared. Hell, you treat your dogs better. They weren’t injected with heroine and chained up.’
‘I’d never start you on heroine, not you.’
‘Sedatives. Whatever. And that’s not even the point here.’
‘Do you have a point?’
Jensen tightens his hold, his aggression mutating into something needy but just as feral. ‘You didn’t say it. This morning, you didn’t…’ again, so not the point. ‘Fuck, Jared. I had no way of checking in on you. Storm like this, you could’ve wound up in a ditch and I couldn’t have gotten to you if you needed help.’
Jared thuds his brow onto Jensen’s, not gently. ‘Nothing bad happened to me.’
‘But it could’ve done,’ Jensen insists.
‘Well, it didn’t. I’m here, aren’t I?’
He moves one hand to grip the underside of Jared’s jaw, digs his thumb and fingertips into stubble roughened cheeks. ‘So am I,’ he kisses Jared, hard punishing pressure. ‘I’m here,’ bites at Jared’s lips to emphasize his point. ‘And I wasn’t going anywhere, would’ve been here regardless of the chain.’
He crushes his lips to Jared’s, and this time Jared bites back. Nothing’s resolved. He’s wound up, Jared’s wound up, and this kind of kissing only leads to split lips, ripped shirts and furious fucking.
Like those spinning wheels he imagined, Jensen is powerless to reverse the slippery descent. Isn’t sure he wants to, because there’s something to be said about fury. It refines lust and sharpens pleasure, tears down logic so all that’s left is mind-gone rutting. Heat is all that’s left, pure and goddamn intense.
He snaps his hips, ramming deep into Jared, groans as he watches Jared’s back lock then ripple in a sinuous arch, shaggy hair damp with sweat, skin glossy with it, death grip on the sheets as he fucks back, racing to break himself on Jensen’s cock.
‘I’m gonna…holy fuck, Jensen I’m gonna…’
‘Not yet you’re not,’ he slips out of Jared and reaches round to squeeze the base of Jared’s cock.
Jared throws his head back, arms shaking, breath a long hiss forced through gritted teeth. And god, Jensen has no idea where all this is coming from, the impulse to own Jared’s orgasms, to fucking own his cock. Own him.
‘You going to turn over, lay on your back for me?’ he’s really not asking.
‘You going to shut up and finish this, bitch?’ Jared spits out, but he’s really not protesting because he turns over to lie spread-eagled on his back.
‘Don’t I always finish it?’ He braces above Jared, props his elbows in the mattress on either side of Jared’s head. ‘You’ve got to trust me.’
Jared wraps his legs around Jensen’s back. Loose hold, direct gaze. ‘I do. Kind of.’
Kind of ain’t good enough. He wants all of, thrusts back into Jared slow and hard, deep so Jared feels him pulsing in his throat. Not kind of but really fucking Jared, searches out the spot inside Jared that makes him go wide-eyed, drills it until Jared is gasping and clawing and clinging, until he’s as feral as he makes Jensen. That’s how it goes, slow and hard, deep and good. Not kind of good. So good Jared’s gasps verge on sobs and he curls his upper body off the mattress, mouth blindly seeking Jensen’s.
Jensen doesn’t kiss him but repeats, ‘got to trust me, Jared.’
‘I do. Jesus. Fuck. I do.’
Jensen puts everything he’s got into the thrusts. ‘No more needles,’ slow, ‘no more locked doors,’ hard, ‘no more chains,’ deep, twist of his hips, deeper.
Jared keens, the next moment muffling the strung-out sound by shoving his fingers into his mouth. His legs creak Jensen’s ribs in a vice-like grip, his ass contracts, and it’s only sheer stubbornness that keeps Jensen from coming.
‘I…’ Jared takes his fingers out of his mouth and tries again. ‘I swear, Jensen. I promise. No more.’
‘Thank you,’ now he can finish it.
He kisses Jared, open-mouthed, groaning, and Jared suckles on his tongue, canting his hips to meet Jensen’s thrusts. Every one of Jensen’s nerve endings sings. He is covered in goose bumps, sudden blaze of heat as two wet fingers push between his butt cheeks and rub at his hole.
He ups his tempo, his belly rubbing on Jared’s hot, hard cock and his groans spilling into Jared’s mouth. And then it’s over, it’s finished, because Jared’s finger breaches him, the burn of it cancelled out by the bolts of pleasure as Jared hits his sweet spot again and again. It melts his mind, Jared moving inside him, him moving inside Jared, fucking with tongues and fingers and cock, bellies splattered with come, more of it coated up inside Jared.
Afterwards, when they’ve cleaned up with Jensen’s mauled t-shirt, Jared flings an arm across Jensen’s middle, mumbles, ‘stay,’ and passes out. Jensen doesn’t have the energy to totter to his room. He stays.
*
Up before Jared, he takes a long shower in Jared’s five-star bathroom. Naked sprint down the hall to go get dressed in his own room then he heads downstairs to fix lunch. Except he can’t find the stove under the mountain of grocery bags in the kitchen. Brownie points to Jared for at least dumping the perishables in the fridge and freezer.
Harley woofs and jumps onto him. Sadie doesn’t try to bite him, which is progress.
‘Let’s you and me call a truce,’ he says to her. ‘How ‘bout it, girl?’
She trots to the door and puts her paw on it, not scratching or whining. Her posture says, let me out or I will pee all over the floor.
He slides the door open, fast.
He’s unpacking the fourth grocery bag when he comes across a 2008 calendar. It’s pink, and January features Princess Barbie complete with tiara.
‘Jared you douchebag,’ he laughs, tearing out the months until he gets to December - Ice Skating Barbie.
He magnets December onto the fridge door and rummages through a drawer for a marker. After some thought, he draws a black circle around Thursday 11. He’s leaving on that date. Hopefully Jared will give up the keys without too much of a fight. He likes the guy, doesn’t want to have to put a bullet through his kneecap.
Sure, Jared’s done some bad things but that doesn’t make him a bad man. He just gets caught up in enthusiasm sometimes, gets overzealous. Jensen’s not overzealous himself, but he can see how too much zeal added to unrequited obsession can flip a person, frustrate them into doing wrong.
It’s really not complicated if you look at logically: frustration is to blame for the kidnap, not Jared.
Groceries put away, he feeds the dogs then piles a tray high with toast, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, coffee and orange juice and takes the tray to feed the man upstairs.
*
‘Been thinking,’ Jared picks up his fork and spears a slice of bacon off Jensen’s plate.
‘Hey!’
Jared chews, swallows. Grins. ‘So. Yeah. Been thinking.’
‘About swiping my bacon?’
‘About the environment, man.’
Jensen reclines against the headboard. He’s thinking about Jared’s gas-guzzling truck. ‘Really? Never figured you for an eco-warrior.’
‘Oh, I recycle,’ Jared assures him. ‘You should, too.’
‘Recycle?’
‘Move in here. That way we’d save on heating and lighting for your room. Small sacrifices make a huge difference to the polar ice-caps, you know.’
Jensen is fighting a smile. ‘You might be on to something there.’
‘Damn right I am,’ Jared nods sagely.
*
Not long after sacrificing his space and privacy for the sake of the environment, Jensen notices a difference in bed. To be honest, he didn’t notice until Jared, cuddling up to him and batting his eyelashes, teased, ‘we just made love. Don’t deny it. You totally cherish me, dude.’
He nearly fell out of bed denying it.
Made love? Please. Guy-sex isn’t about cherishment and Harlequiny euphemisms for fucking. It’s about getting off as quickly as possible with plenty of lube and the minimum of foreplay.
Okay, so maybe he and Jared have recently developed a tendency towards extended foreplay, and at times they get off on just that, and yes, there have been occasions when they don’t get off at all, inexplicably content to fall asleep in mid-kiss. So what? Doesn’t mean they make love. Make out, more like.
Another thing he’s noticed? Jared is all about the ass - Jensen’s ass, to be precise. They’ll be making out, and it doesn’t matter what position they’re in, vertical with Jared pushed up against the kitchen counter, or horizontal with Jensen pressed along the length of the sofa’s backrest, how ever, wherever, you can guarantee that Jared has his hands on Jensen’s butt.
*
‘Gonna make you come just from this,’ says Jared. He leans over and loosens the bow on Jensen’s robe sash with his teeth, rubs his cheek on Jensen’s belly. ‘Think you can do that Jen, come from just my fingers reaming your ass?’
Jensen thinks he’s going to come from the sound of Jared’s filthy hoarse voice alone. He’s right on the edge, has been for fucking hours it feels like. Wonders what he must look like, laid out on the living room floor with his bathrobe pooled around him, legs spread, muscles quivering and a strip of bright green tinsel wrapped loose round his twitching cock.
He’s trying to tear chunks out of the floor with his nails. The non-stop groans puncturing the air, he knows they’re falling from his lips. Can’t do a thing to tone it down, not when Jared has three fingers pressed up inside him. Smooth and silky with lube, they swivel out and plunge back in, stretch and fill him and spark off that hard nub inside him. He arches, strung tight by the circuit of sensation that’s spiraling from ass to balls to every damn where.
Jared catches and holds his gaze. ‘Yeah, you can,’ filthy hoarse voice, and Jensen comes, lets Jared kiss the profanities off his lips as the orgasm wrecks him.
‘You okay, Jen?’
Jensen’s throat’s dry, which was why he’d come downstairs in the first place, to make coffee. Found Jared poking through a box of Christmas decorations and got lassoed in tinsel.
‘Fuck,’ he laughs, ‘all I wanted was a cup of coffee.’
‘That ain’t exactly true,’ Jared uncoils he soggy strip of tinsel off Jensen and throws it in the fire. Then retrieves Jensen’s boxer-briefs from under the table, wipes the ropes of come off Jensen’s abdomen.
If called on it, Jensen will swear his full body blush is attributable to the heat from the fire and not to the heat in Jared’s eyes, possessive and scrolling over him from head to toe. He sits up and wraps the robe around him, double knots the sash.
‘The exact truth is I always want coffee.’
‘Except when you want my cock,’ Jared says, and Jensen’s throat goes a little drier, gaze darting to the hard ridge in Jared’s sweatpants ‘You want me to fuck you Jensen, and I will, real soon.’ Jared rolls to his feet, ‘Now though, I gotta get dressed for tree hunting. You coming?’
‘Nah, those forest trails are narrow. Not a whole lot of room on them for you, me and your gigantic ego.’
Jared walks backwards towards the staircase. ‘No need to sweet talk me, baby,’ he smirks, ‘I already said I’d do you.’
Jensen figures the strong cup of black coffee is well overdue. He washes his hands at the kitchen sink and takes a bag of ground coffee beans out of the fridge. The calendar flutters as he closes the fridge door.
He dumps heaped spoonfuls of coffee into the filter funnel, switches on the coffee pot and watches dark liquid drip into the glass jug. Inhales the aroma and drums his fingers on the counter, antsy.
Real soon, in two days’ time, he’ll be pointing a gun in Jared’s face.
Too soon.
He digs the marker out of the kitchen drawer, goes over to the calendar. Puts a cross through 11 and circles 19. Still gives him plenty of time to be home for Christmas.
*
Axe hefted on his shoulder, Jared looms in the doorway. The sliding door is open behind him, letting the cold air in.
‘No Jared, I will absolutely not come tree hunting with you,’ Jensen diverts his attention back to the laptop screen.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’ve got to get the final draft out by the deadline.’
Jared huffs. ‘So when’s this all important deadline?’
‘The nineteenth.’
‘Dude, that’s like, weeks away.’
‘Three days, in fact.’ Jensen moves from the couch to sit in an armchair, away from the draft. ‘And you’ve been tree hunting for way longer than three days. What’s with that, huh? I mean, seriously, how challenging can it be to find a tree in a forest?’
‘It’s not just a tree you heathen! It’s a Christmas tree. It’s the tree!’
Christ Almighty. Anyone would think he’d suggested slaughtering newborn babies under the tree the way Jared’s shrilling. ‘Whoa now, let’s not get hysterical.’
‘No tree and no hysteria? Man, the holiday season is wasted on you,’ with that, Jared steps out and slides the door shut.
It’s total bullshit of course. He’s no scrooge. He likes the tinsel Jared put up on the walls and the wreath of holly he hung on the door. He likes all things Christmas, especially the giving of gifts, which is why he’s prioritizing the script..
He sets the laptop on the floor and goes to get a beer. Weird little tug in his belly as he stares at date ringed on the calendar.
‘Shit,’ he says around a mouthful of beer.
*
‘Jensen!’
‘In here!’
‘Where?’
‘Bedroom!’ Where he’s taken to hiding with the script to escape the pestering. ‘You found the tree yet?’
Jared bursts in. His eyes are twinkling and he has strings of fairy lights criss-crossed over his chest like cartridge belts. ‘Come hold the ladder.’
Jensen’s not even going to ask. He pushes away from the desk and follows Jared out to the porch.
Jared points at a tree on the edge of the clearing. It’s got a ladder leaned up against it. ‘Right under my nose this whole time.’
‘Or over your head.’ Jensen gawks at the tree. Not the hugest in the forest but certainly not a sapling either. ‘We’ll never get it in through the door, Jared.’
‘She’s the one. Gotta have her.’
Jensen rubs his arms to ward off the cold. He’s got no shoes on and his toes curl away from the freezing boards. ‘So, what, you’re going to saw her in half?’
‘Desecrate her? No way!’
‘Right,’ Jensen frowns. ‘We’re not having a tree after all, then?’
‘Are you being deliberately retarded?’
‘I just, I don’t get your logic - what little of it there is.’
‘I’m going to decorate her out here,’ Jared claps a hand on the back of his neck. It’s colder than the floorboards. ‘We’re having an outdoors tree.’
‘You’re having frostbite.’
Jared crinkles his brow at him. ‘What?’
He pries Jared’s hand off his neck, briskly rubs it between his own. ‘Put some gloves on, Jay.’
Jared swoops his head down, smiles throughout the slow kiss. Jensen smiles too. They’re kissing with open eyes, little huffs of laughter passing back and forth between them. It’s kinda crazy. His heart is beating kinda crazy.
‘Just need you to hold the ladder steady while I climb on the lower branches. Then you can go back to work,’ says Jared.
‘How’re you going to get down without me holding the ladder?’
‘Jump. Fly. I’ll figure a way.’
‘It’s a big deal to you, isn’t it? The tree, the whole perfect Christmas thing.’
Jared doesn’t reply right away, and when he does, his voice comes out husky, soft, ‘pretty big, yeah.’
Click in Jensen’s throat as he swallows hard. There’ll be many more Christmases spent in Richardson. He can bear to give this one to Jared. Just this one, though.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ll go get your gloves and put my shoes and coat on.’
He detours to the kitchen on his way to the hall closet. Retrieves the marker. Crosses out the nineteenth and circles December 26.
*
The tree’s sort of half naked, its lower branches dressed in lights while the higher up branches are nude - not counting the coverage of pine needles. Those branches weren’t strong enough to bear Jared’s weight, so they didn’t get decorated. The lights are ice-white. They look like white fire-flies congregated on the tree.
Jensen tilts his head. They look like white fire-flies that prefer to congregate on the left side of the tree. He tilts his head the other way. Yeah, definitely more lights on the left than on the right.
‘It’s lopsided,’ says Jared, flat with disappointment. He has pine needles snagged in his hair and a bark scuff high on his cheek. Smells of spruce and sweat, a hard day’s work of stringing up lights in a too big tree.
He bumps his arm into Jared’s, says, ‘It’s got character. I like character. Every Christmas tree should look like ours.’
‘Are you being sarcastic?’
‘I’m really not,’ Jensen laughs, happy. ‘I like the fucking tree, Jared.’
Jared shoots him a smile that’s as bright, white and lop-sided as the lights.
It’s cold out and darkness is encroaching, only kept at bay by the glowing tree and the porch light above their heads. He slides his arm around Jared’s waist, steps in closer when Jared lifts his arm and drapes it across his shoulders.
‘We should go inside, get out of the cold,’ he says, round of his shoulder snug in Jared’s armpit.
‘Yeah,’ Jared agrees, settling against him.
Chapter Six