That Stockholm Thing 6/7 (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.
Blink, and they’re back on the porch, at least it seems that way to Jensen. The tree and porch lights beating back the darkness, the cold making itself felt on a gust of wind that shears a fine layer of snow off the ground; it’s as though he and Jared never went inside after decorating the tree.
They must have done though, because they’re dressed for a short run and not for a day of outdoor labour, and the turkey’s defrosting in the fridge waiting to go into the oven, sprig of mistletoe that wasn’t there before, twirling from a string nailed to a porch beam. Harley and Sadie occupied with gnawing on the rawhide bones by the porch steps.
‘So,’ he shoves the script at Jared, ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Yeah. Merry Christmas,’ Jared tosses him a small box wrapped in gold paper.
He shakes the box, something rattles inside. Holds the box up to his ear, can hear the thing faintly inside ticking. ‘Dude. You got me a bomb?’
‘Uh huh,’ Jared says, ‘ten seconds before detonation.’
Jensen goes all bomb disposal expert, slowly peeling the paper off and ordering Jared to, ‘get the civilians off the premises,’ as he carefully lifts the lid off the box.
Jared’s laughing, Jensen not so much. He’s staring at the watch in the box. Looks exactly the same as the expensive one Jared wore on their first ‘date,’ the one that’s hanging off his wrist at this very moment.
‘You love it,’ says Jared.
‘I do. It’s awesome, man,’ but what does it mean, two guys walking around with matching watches?
‘So wear it.’
He’s not fooled by Jared’s offhand tone, not in the slightest. This, it’s not just a watch to Jared, it’s not a casual gesture. Which shouldn’t surprise Jensen because he’s known from the start that Jared’s intentions towards him are on the opposite end of the spectrum from casual.
He ought to give the watch back, say he can’t accept it. ‘Thanks Jay,’ he says, slipping it on, and the grin on Jared’s face is totally worth it. ‘I know the script isn’t much of a gift, but-’
‘Get the fuck out,’ Jared clutches the sheaf of papers to his chest, like he’s protecting them or something. ‘It’s the best. We’re going to rock Sundance with this movie.’
Jensen smiles, heavy hearted. He looks out at the clearing. The sun’s just rising, spreading reds and pinks into the deep purple sky, promising fine weather that’ll last the whole of tomorrow with any luck. If his plans work out, he can see only two future scenarios: Jared the fugitive or Jared the guy in an orange jumpsuit. Either way, he and Jared aren’t going to be rocking Sundance.
He punches Jared’s arm - maybe a little too hard, ‘we going for that run or what?’
*
Jensen toes off his sneakers at the door, stumbles to the couch and collapses on it, panting. Quick run, Jared had said, twenty minutes tops. Fucking liar. They were out there cross-country running for - he checks his new watch - for close to an hour.
He rolls over and props his chin on the armrest, watches Jared go through stretches out on the porch. ‘You’re a liar, Padalecki.’
‘And you’ve got potatoes to peel.’
‘Now?’
Jared comes in, strips off his sweat soaked t-shirt, ‘Yes now,’ and he throws it at Jensen.
‘Gross,’ he splutters, dragging the wet t-shirt off his face.
Jared is already halfway to the kitchen, Sadie and Harley bounding ahead of him. ‘Let’s go Jensen. C’mon, move it.’
Jared’s back is strewn with the imprints of Jensen’s lips and hands; hickey at the base of his spine, another one at the top of his spine and another between his shoulder blades. Fingertip bruises where he gripped Jared’s triceps too tight, more where he held on to Jared’s waist too tight, and if he were to tug Jared’s jogging pants a little lower, he’d see the same marks on Jared’s hips too.
A quiver of satisfaction makes it way right down to his soles. He thinks the marks look good, knows that for each fading and blossoming bruise on Jared, temporary tattoos in red and purple and black, he’s got one for each of them on his own body, imprints of Jared.
That’s just him and Jared, they get carried away sometimes. Also, they work well together, step back, circle left, step right, orbiting each other in the kitchen without anyone getting trod on or knocked down. A while later, Jared has fed the dogs and put the turkey in the oven, and Jensen’s peeling the last potato.
‘Got to cut them in quarters,’ Jared says with woeful shake of his head.
Jensen clutters the potato peeler into the sink, reaches for a knife and a chopping board. ‘Where’d you learn to cook, anyway?’
‘My grandma,’ Jared measures milk into the blender, adds protein powder and ice-cubes to it.
‘Your grandma gave you cooking lessons?’
‘Not exactly,’ Jared smiles and presses a button on the blender. High speed whirring, and the mixture turns pink and frothy. ‘I used to spend a lot of time up at her place,’ he pours out two glasses of protein shake and brings one to Jensen, along with a bag of green beans. ‘The cooking just sort of rubbed off on me. Top and tail ‘em.’
‘Huh?’
‘The green beans. When you’ve washed them, slice off the ends.’
Jensen ignores the beans, hates the damn things. He downs the strawberry flavored shake in three mouthfuls, burps, grins and pats Jared’s chest, saying, ‘shower time.’
‘Make it quick. Beans aren’t going to prepare themselves you know.’
*
He makes the shower quickish, but the bed proves to be his downfall. It looks so inviting with the plump pillows and thick duvet. He unwraps the towel from his waist, sits on the bed rubbing his hair dry with the towel. The duvet grabs him, or perhaps he grabs the duvet - details, details - and before he knows it, he’s burrowed under a pillows-and-duvet nest that smells of him and Jared.
Something rustles under one of the pillows, crinkly noise. He investigates and finds a packet of Skittles. Jared sometimes eats candy in bed. And now it’s his turn. He’s curled up warm in bed, surrounded by their combined scent while eating Skittles. Yeah, life’s good.
‘What are you doing?’
Crap.
‘Jensen?’
‘Go away. I’m busy.’
‘You’re jerking off? Without me?’ The duvet’s not thick enough to muffle Jared’s offended tone.
‘Not that kind of busy,’ he reassures Jared. ‘’Nother kind of busy.’
‘Tell you what, you’re gonna be downstairs by the time I’m done showering, or I’ll get busy all over your ass.’
‘Is that like, a dire consequence?’ He pops his head from under the covers and smirks. ‘Because my ass isn’t exactly recoiling at the prospect.’
Jared giggles then contradicts that be saying, ‘I’m serious, Jensen. Get downstairs.’
Jensen sticks out his arms and spreads his hands helplessly. ‘I’m naked. Can’t cook naked, Jay. It’s unsafe, all those flames near my vitalest organ.’
‘Fine, get dressed and then get downstairs…but don’t cook,’ slitted eyes, stern finger-pointing, ‘I’ve tasted your cooking. Just peel and chop, leave the flames to me.’
‘All right,’ he ducks back under the covers, ‘five more minutes.’
He finishes the Skittles and dozes a little. Flails when the duvet is rudely yanked off, lets out a winded oomph when Jared drops on top of him.
‘Is it five minutes already?’ he wheezes.
‘Closer to thirty.’
‘Wow. Time flies.’ He blinks as drop of water splashes just under his eye. ‘There’s a towel on the floor. By the bed. Real close.’
‘So?’
‘So your hair’s dripping on me.’
‘Told you there’d be consequences,’ Jared says, right before dipping his head to take Jensen’s mouth.
*
Consequences are a chain of fresh hickeys trailing from Jensen’s collarbone to his hipbone, stubble-burn on his inner thigh as Jared sucks a mark into the soft skin there. His cock is a consequence, hard and neglected because Jared is leisurely retracing the hickey-chain that he’s already retraced twice over, dragging his tongue over nipples that are already peaked and wet, sensitive from the attention they received from Jared’s mouth a moment ago.
He rocks his hips upward, hoping Jared’ll get a clue.
Jared clasps and holds his hips down, tongue flickering in his navel. ‘What’s the rush?’
‘The green beans are waiting on me,’ any excuse to move things along.
‘They’ll keep,’ says Jared.
‘The turkey’s gonna burn.’
‘Oven’s turned down low.’
Jared ducks his head lower, and Jensen couldn’t care less if the turkey gets cremated. He loses all awareness of his surroundings, pin-point of focus on what Jared’s doing to him, fucking licking his balls. Sucking them into his mouth and humming around them, setting up tingly vibrations that turn Jensen’s bones pliable. He is play dough, compliant as Jared’s hands hook under his knees and push them towards his chest.
Warm stream of air blown over his ball sac, and Jensen’s panting, can’t catch his breath. Then what little air he has squeezes out of his lungs at the wicked feel of Jared’s tongue tapping wet and insistent at his hole.
‘Jared,’ he squirms, one part shocked and three parts so turned on he aches.
Jared doesn’t pause, doesn’t back down. Just stabs his tongue right in, withdraws and palpitates the tip of it just inside Jensen’s rim before stabbing in again, does it over and over, reducing Jensen to broken moaning. It shouldn’t feel this good, Jared’s tongue in his ass, but it does, feels goddamn good, and he shoves the back of his head into the pillow, neck arched and toes curled, tight knot of pleasure deep in his belly.
All the butt touching Jared’s been doing these last couple of weeks, all the finger fucking, it’s been leading up to this moment, and god, Jensen’s ready for it. He craves it, skitter of excitement as Jared leans across to grab the bottle of lube from the nightstand. And for a man who’s in no rush, Jared coats his hand with lube real quick, prepares Jensen just as quick. Then Jared’s poised over him, cock-head hot and snug against his slick hole.
‘Yeah?’ Jared asks, voice gravelly and eyes impossibly dark.
‘Yes,’ Jensen says, and says it again, ‘yes,’ as Jared inches into him. Burning stretch and, ‘oh fuck, Jared,’ he groans, linking his fingers on Jared’s nape. But when Jared bottoms out, sunk deep inside him, he says nothing, so full up on Jared he can’t even speak.
Jared, on the other hand, isn’t speech deprived. He’s running at the mouth while stroking in and out of Jensen, fucking him with words and cock. ‘Christ, Jen, got it bad for you,’ he says. ‘Drove me fucking crazy seeing you but not being able to touch you. Used to…used to think about this, thought about it all the damn time, you wrapped around me so hot and tight, so good Jensen, knew it would feel this way.’
How it feels, Jared pressed down on him, sliding his hands under him to cup his ass and tilt it up the better to drive into him with hard, unfaltering strokes, hitting that spot every time, it feels like Jensen’s going to pass out from coming.
*
They stay in bed all day, and while Jared might be making up for lost time, all the years he couldn’t get close enough to touch, Jensen is making up for the years he’s going to lose. He is taking sensory snap-shots and filing them away in his memory, wants to remember it all.
Texture of Jared’s groan rasping in his ear, feel of sweat-damp chest straining under his palms, rhythmic creak of bedsprings. Sweet and sharp relief as he shoots his load in Jared’s fist, edgy pleasure as Jared hardens inside him again; obscenely hot, the wet little noises his ass makes when he circles his hips in a slow, smooth grind, riding Jared.
He files these things away, and the slack-mouthed look of awe on Jared’s face, the hitched breath and clenched abs as Jared comes inside him, spurt after hot spurt till he’s dry coming, nothing left to give but tortured cusses, Jensen files these things away, too.
*
It’s after 10pm by the time they stumble out of bed, clean up and go downstairs in search of food. The turkey’s not quite charred. It kind of tastes okay - when smothered in cranberry jelly and washed down with beer.
‘Hey,’ Jared kicks his shin under the table, ‘you falling asleep on me?’
‘No,’ he yawns, ‘don’t know what gave you that idea.’
Jared smiles. He hasn’t stopped smiling since they came downstairs. Jensen commits that smile to memory and asks, ‘so was it the awsomest Christmas ever?’ his voice coming out softer than intended.
‘Almost,’ says Jared.
‘Almost?’ He fixes a mock frown on Jared, says, ‘there’s no pleasing some people.’
Jared’s laughter, light and happy, resonates through Jensen, flips his heart over. He looks away, down at his plate with its red smears of cranberry jelly and left-over slices of chalk dry turkey.
‘Got to watch a classic, Jen. Then it’ll be the awesomest ever.’
Movie or no, Jensen’s day has been awesome. He wouldn’t complain if the clock went backwards, rewound time back to that morning. His wrist watch reads 11:30, and the second hand ticks on. Tick-fucking-tock, inexorably forging ahead.
*
The couch really isn’t big enough for two men and two dogs, but they somehow manage. The lights are off and orange flames lick around the logs in the fireplace, black and white horror movie playing on the plasma screen. Jared’s watching the movie through drooping eyelids, one hand kneading the scruff of Harley’s neck and the other stroking Sadie’s head.
He slides a sideways glance at Jensen, smiles and says, ‘Stop staring, you creep.’
‘Yeah,’ he mildly agrees. ‘Creepiness, it’s contagious. I figure I caught it from you.’
Jared snuffles - half chuckle and half snort, and Jensen feels in no way creepy about watching him sink into sleep, eyelashes a sooty smudge on high cheekbones.
*
Jensen wakes up with a crick in his neck and Jared’s head pillowed on his thigh. The dogs are curled up on the hearth as though trying to make the best of the warmth from the almost dead fire. Snow crackles on the plasma screen. The gap in the drapes shows that it’s also snowing outside. Light snowfall that doesn’t justify postponing his departure yet again.
Slow, careful, he eases his leg from under Jared’s head.
Waits for a couple of beats, and when Jared still doesn’t awake, he rises from the couch, switches off the TV and heads for the bedroom. He deliberately avoids looking at the bed or at the nightstand where his things are jumbled up with Jared’s. Just no point in going there.
He goes into the takes a leak, studies his reflection in the mirror as he washes his hands. Is it his imagination or did his eyes grow bigger overnight? They stare back at him huge and wide behind the lenses of his glasses. He looks scared, but he’s really not.
He brushes his teeth, trades the glasses for contacts. Comes back into the bedroom, trades his pajama pants for jeans and his cable-knit sweater for layers: wife beater, t-shirt, turtle-neck sweater and coat.
The colt hasn’t been moved. He picks it up out of the desk drawer. It sits cold and heavy in his hand, gleaming black. He checks the chamber. It’s still loaded, six bullets. He tucks the gun into his belt, and the butt feels wrong, pressing intimately into the small of his back. It feels like a ton of wrong.
But he’s out of options and will soon run out of time if he doesn’t hustle. So he hustles to the living room and stands in front of the couch, making sure he’s not within Jared’s reach.
He glances at the dogs. They’re watching him.
He grits his teeth against the pang of guilt and pulls out the gun, aims it between Jared’s closed eyes. He opens his mouth to speak, to wake Jared, but the words stick in his throat like flies caught on sugar paper. The gun barrel wavers. He raises his left hand so he’s holding the colt in a two-handed grip. Still the barrel wavers, more. His palms are damp and his pointer finger’s trembling on the trigger. He feels kind of sick. Heart banging, temperature hiked up and guts churning with nausea.
Jesus, what is he thinking? He can’t do this shit without coffee! Needs to calm the caffeine withdrawal.
He tucks the gun back into his belt, whistles softly to Sadie and Harley as he tip-toes to the kitchen.
*
He lets the dogs out and hops onto the counter while waiting for the coffee to percolate. When it’s done, he fills a mug and drinks his coffee right there on the counter next to the coffee pot, easier to refill that way.
Two refills later, Jared comes shuffling in. He stretches his arms overhead, yawns and slouches over to Jensen, seems barely awake.
‘Morning,’ Jensen smiles.
‘Hey.’ Jared yawns again. Pouts when his gaze falls on the coffee pot. ‘You drank all the coffee.’
‘Here,’ he holds his mug out to Jared.
Jared peers into the mug. ‘It’s black,’ he states. ‘I take mine with cream - and two sugars.’
All the same, Jared accepts the mug. He sips and shudders, screwing his face up. Takes another sip, shudders, grimaces, and it’s cracking Jensen up, the shudder-grimace combination, the hopeful sips like Jared figures the coffee will turn sweet and creamy if he just perseveres.
One last shudder, and Jared holds the empty mug upside-down, triumphant grin as good as saying: I did it! All gone. Now, where’s my cookie?
His hair’s falling into his eyes, the dimples are lurking, he is just so fucking enticing, and hopelessly enticed, Jensen reaches a hand out, trails his knuckles along Jared’s jaw.
The thing about being an actor is you’ve got to have imagination. Got to be hanging painlessly from a harness above the studio floor and imagine you’re suspended in hell, screaming as hooks tear your flesh. Although he has super-honed powers of imagination, he can’t imagine the hell of not seeing Jared everyday. Really, really can’t imagine ever wanting to be with anyone else.
But he can imagine other things, can invent images of dirty blond hair and ruthless blue eyes. ‘Something weird happened to me the other day,’ he says, fitting his thumb pad to Jared’s dimple.
Jared isn’t paying attention, turning his head to try and catch Jensen’s thumb in his mouth.
‘Listen,’ he takes hold of Jared’s chin, holds him still. ‘This is important.’
‘I’m listening,’ Jared’s eyeing his lips.
‘Some psycho guy abducted me.’
That gets Jared’s full attention.
‘I was at Vancouver airport, just got off the red-eye flight from Pittsburgh. This stranger comes up to me and says he’s my driver. Me, being a dumb fuck, I go with him to the parking lot. He hits me over the head, knocks me out. I think, I think the fucker intravenously drugged me while I was passed out. He brought me to a cabin, chained me up-’
Jared backs up a couple of steps, his face tight and his voice tighter, ‘this again, Jensen? I thought we were over this.’
‘It’ll take years of therapy before I get over how he forced himself on me and-’
‘Forced you?’ Jared couldn’t have looked more injured if he’d actually shot him. ‘Bullshit, Jensen, and you know it. I never once forced you.’
‘He forced me,’ Jensen says with utter conviction, ‘I’ve got the bruises to prove it. Every couple of weeks, he’d bring me to another cabin. Another abandoned shit hole just as rundown as the one before.’
Now Jared looks both hurt and confused, frowning hard.
‘Wanna hear what really fucking scared me?’
Jared doesn’t reply.
Jensen tells him anyway, ‘the guy never planned to let me go. He implied he would, said all these things about Texas. But it was just talk. He didn’t mean a word of it, not a damn word.’
Jared’s continued silence, his guilty flush and down-turned eyes, confirm Jensen’s suspicions. Bitterness clogs the back of Jensen’s throat, along with the hurtful, angry words that he wants to vomit over Jared. But he shakes his head, swallows it all back down because he’s not mad at Jared. He’s mad at the guy.
‘I hate him. What he did, I’ll never forgive him.’
The guilty flush washes out of Jared’s face. He is pale and his eyes are too bright, shimmering. ‘Don’t, Jensen,’ he whispers. ‘Just, please stop.’
Jensen pulls the gun out. He lays it on the counter.
Jared flicks his glance at the colt, squares his shoulders. ‘That’s how this ends? With bullets?’ he asks, all emotion bled out of his tone.
The shakes Jensen had earlier? They’re gone. He’s dead calm and dead certain about what he’s saying, ‘See, a week, maybe two weeks after Thanks Giving, the guy says it’s time to move on again. So we’re in his truck heading for the next hideout and a blizzard hits. There’s a place up ahead, big cabin. Nothing like the dumps he brought me to so far. It’s obviously occupied because there’re two dogs barking at the window. The guy breaks in. The guard dogs lick him, so the guy figures he’s welcome.’
Jensen hops off the counter, starts fixing a fresh pot of coffee. When Jared doesn’t make a move towards the gun, he’s so elated he barely refrains from whooping. It’s all comes down to trust. Gotta have trust to build a solid future.
He pours two mugs of coffee - one black, the other loaded with cream and sugar. Sets Jared’s coffee right next to the colt and resumes his narrative.
Chapter Seven
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.
Blink, and they’re back on the porch, at least it seems that way to Jensen. The tree and porch lights beating back the darkness, the cold making itself felt on a gust of wind that shears a fine layer of snow off the ground; it’s as though he and Jared never went inside after decorating the tree.
They must have done though, because they’re dressed for a short run and not for a day of outdoor labour, and the turkey’s defrosting in the fridge waiting to go into the oven, sprig of mistletoe that wasn’t there before, twirling from a string nailed to a porch beam. Harley and Sadie occupied with gnawing on the rawhide bones by the porch steps.
‘So,’ he shoves the script at Jared, ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Yeah. Merry Christmas,’ Jared tosses him a small box wrapped in gold paper.
He shakes the box, something rattles inside. Holds the box up to his ear, can hear the thing faintly inside ticking. ‘Dude. You got me a bomb?’
‘Uh huh,’ Jared says, ‘ten seconds before detonation.’
Jensen goes all bomb disposal expert, slowly peeling the paper off and ordering Jared to, ‘get the civilians off the premises,’ as he carefully lifts the lid off the box.
Jared’s laughing, Jensen not so much. He’s staring at the watch in the box. Looks exactly the same as the expensive one Jared wore on their first ‘date,’ the one that’s hanging off his wrist at this very moment.
‘You love it,’ says Jared.
‘I do. It’s awesome, man,’ but what does it mean, two guys walking around with matching watches?
‘So wear it.’
He’s not fooled by Jared’s offhand tone, not in the slightest. This, it’s not just a watch to Jared, it’s not a casual gesture. Which shouldn’t surprise Jensen because he’s known from the start that Jared’s intentions towards him are on the opposite end of the spectrum from casual.
He ought to give the watch back, say he can’t accept it. ‘Thanks Jay,’ he says, slipping it on, and the grin on Jared’s face is totally worth it. ‘I know the script isn’t much of a gift, but-’
‘Get the fuck out,’ Jared clutches the sheaf of papers to his chest, like he’s protecting them or something. ‘It’s the best. We’re going to rock Sundance with this movie.’
Jensen smiles, heavy hearted. He looks out at the clearing. The sun’s just rising, spreading reds and pinks into the deep purple sky, promising fine weather that’ll last the whole of tomorrow with any luck. If his plans work out, he can see only two future scenarios: Jared the fugitive or Jared the guy in an orange jumpsuit. Either way, he and Jared aren’t going to be rocking Sundance.
He punches Jared’s arm - maybe a little too hard, ‘we going for that run or what?’
*
Jensen toes off his sneakers at the door, stumbles to the couch and collapses on it, panting. Quick run, Jared had said, twenty minutes tops. Fucking liar. They were out there cross-country running for - he checks his new watch - for close to an hour.
He rolls over and props his chin on the armrest, watches Jared go through stretches out on the porch. ‘You’re a liar, Padalecki.’
‘And you’ve got potatoes to peel.’
‘Now?’
Jared comes in, strips off his sweat soaked t-shirt, ‘Yes now,’ and he throws it at Jensen.
‘Gross,’ he splutters, dragging the wet t-shirt off his face.
Jared is already halfway to the kitchen, Sadie and Harley bounding ahead of him. ‘Let’s go Jensen. C’mon, move it.’
Jared’s back is strewn with the imprints of Jensen’s lips and hands; hickey at the base of his spine, another one at the top of his spine and another between his shoulder blades. Fingertip bruises where he gripped Jared’s triceps too tight, more where he held on to Jared’s waist too tight, and if he were to tug Jared’s jogging pants a little lower, he’d see the same marks on Jared’s hips too.
A quiver of satisfaction makes it way right down to his soles. He thinks the marks look good, knows that for each fading and blossoming bruise on Jared, temporary tattoos in red and purple and black, he’s got one for each of them on his own body, imprints of Jared.
That’s just him and Jared, they get carried away sometimes. Also, they work well together, step back, circle left, step right, orbiting each other in the kitchen without anyone getting trod on or knocked down. A while later, Jared has fed the dogs and put the turkey in the oven, and Jensen’s peeling the last potato.
‘Got to cut them in quarters,’ Jared says with woeful shake of his head.
Jensen clutters the potato peeler into the sink, reaches for a knife and a chopping board. ‘Where’d you learn to cook, anyway?’
‘My grandma,’ Jared measures milk into the blender, adds protein powder and ice-cubes to it.
‘Your grandma gave you cooking lessons?’
‘Not exactly,’ Jared smiles and presses a button on the blender. High speed whirring, and the mixture turns pink and frothy. ‘I used to spend a lot of time up at her place,’ he pours out two glasses of protein shake and brings one to Jensen, along with a bag of green beans. ‘The cooking just sort of rubbed off on me. Top and tail ‘em.’
‘Huh?’
‘The green beans. When you’ve washed them, slice off the ends.’
Jensen ignores the beans, hates the damn things. He downs the strawberry flavored shake in three mouthfuls, burps, grins and pats Jared’s chest, saying, ‘shower time.’
‘Make it quick. Beans aren’t going to prepare themselves you know.’
*
He makes the shower quickish, but the bed proves to be his downfall. It looks so inviting with the plump pillows and thick duvet. He unwraps the towel from his waist, sits on the bed rubbing his hair dry with the towel. The duvet grabs him, or perhaps he grabs the duvet - details, details - and before he knows it, he’s burrowed under a pillows-and-duvet nest that smells of him and Jared.
Something rustles under one of the pillows, crinkly noise. He investigates and finds a packet of Skittles. Jared sometimes eats candy in bed. And now it’s his turn. He’s curled up warm in bed, surrounded by their combined scent while eating Skittles. Yeah, life’s good.
‘What are you doing?’
Crap.
‘Jensen?’
‘Go away. I’m busy.’
‘You’re jerking off? Without me?’ The duvet’s not thick enough to muffle Jared’s offended tone.
‘Not that kind of busy,’ he reassures Jared. ‘’Nother kind of busy.’
‘Tell you what, you’re gonna be downstairs by the time I’m done showering, or I’ll get busy all over your ass.’
‘Is that like, a dire consequence?’ He pops his head from under the covers and smirks. ‘Because my ass isn’t exactly recoiling at the prospect.’
Jared giggles then contradicts that be saying, ‘I’m serious, Jensen. Get downstairs.’
Jensen sticks out his arms and spreads his hands helplessly. ‘I’m naked. Can’t cook naked, Jay. It’s unsafe, all those flames near my vitalest organ.’
‘Fine, get dressed and then get downstairs…but don’t cook,’ slitted eyes, stern finger-pointing, ‘I’ve tasted your cooking. Just peel and chop, leave the flames to me.’
‘All right,’ he ducks back under the covers, ‘five more minutes.’
He finishes the Skittles and dozes a little. Flails when the duvet is rudely yanked off, lets out a winded oomph when Jared drops on top of him.
‘Is it five minutes already?’ he wheezes.
‘Closer to thirty.’
‘Wow. Time flies.’ He blinks as drop of water splashes just under his eye. ‘There’s a towel on the floor. By the bed. Real close.’
‘So?’
‘So your hair’s dripping on me.’
‘Told you there’d be consequences,’ Jared says, right before dipping his head to take Jensen’s mouth.
*
Consequences are a chain of fresh hickeys trailing from Jensen’s collarbone to his hipbone, stubble-burn on his inner thigh as Jared sucks a mark into the soft skin there. His cock is a consequence, hard and neglected because Jared is leisurely retracing the hickey-chain that he’s already retraced twice over, dragging his tongue over nipples that are already peaked and wet, sensitive from the attention they received from Jared’s mouth a moment ago.
He rocks his hips upward, hoping Jared’ll get a clue.
Jared clasps and holds his hips down, tongue flickering in his navel. ‘What’s the rush?’
‘The green beans are waiting on me,’ any excuse to move things along.
‘They’ll keep,’ says Jared.
‘The turkey’s gonna burn.’
‘Oven’s turned down low.’
Jared ducks his head lower, and Jensen couldn’t care less if the turkey gets cremated. He loses all awareness of his surroundings, pin-point of focus on what Jared’s doing to him, fucking licking his balls. Sucking them into his mouth and humming around them, setting up tingly vibrations that turn Jensen’s bones pliable. He is play dough, compliant as Jared’s hands hook under his knees and push them towards his chest.
Warm stream of air blown over his ball sac, and Jensen’s panting, can’t catch his breath. Then what little air he has squeezes out of his lungs at the wicked feel of Jared’s tongue tapping wet and insistent at his hole.
‘Jared,’ he squirms, one part shocked and three parts so turned on he aches.
Jared doesn’t pause, doesn’t back down. Just stabs his tongue right in, withdraws and palpitates the tip of it just inside Jensen’s rim before stabbing in again, does it over and over, reducing Jensen to broken moaning. It shouldn’t feel this good, Jared’s tongue in his ass, but it does, feels goddamn good, and he shoves the back of his head into the pillow, neck arched and toes curled, tight knot of pleasure deep in his belly.
All the butt touching Jared’s been doing these last couple of weeks, all the finger fucking, it’s been leading up to this moment, and god, Jensen’s ready for it. He craves it, skitter of excitement as Jared leans across to grab the bottle of lube from the nightstand. And for a man who’s in no rush, Jared coats his hand with lube real quick, prepares Jensen just as quick. Then Jared’s poised over him, cock-head hot and snug against his slick hole.
‘Yeah?’ Jared asks, voice gravelly and eyes impossibly dark.
‘Yes,’ Jensen says, and says it again, ‘yes,’ as Jared inches into him. Burning stretch and, ‘oh fuck, Jared,’ he groans, linking his fingers on Jared’s nape. But when Jared bottoms out, sunk deep inside him, he says nothing, so full up on Jared he can’t even speak.
Jared, on the other hand, isn’t speech deprived. He’s running at the mouth while stroking in and out of Jensen, fucking him with words and cock. ‘Christ, Jen, got it bad for you,’ he says. ‘Drove me fucking crazy seeing you but not being able to touch you. Used to…used to think about this, thought about it all the damn time, you wrapped around me so hot and tight, so good Jensen, knew it would feel this way.’
How it feels, Jared pressed down on him, sliding his hands under him to cup his ass and tilt it up the better to drive into him with hard, unfaltering strokes, hitting that spot every time, it feels like Jensen’s going to pass out from coming.
*
They stay in bed all day, and while Jared might be making up for lost time, all the years he couldn’t get close enough to touch, Jensen is making up for the years he’s going to lose. He is taking sensory snap-shots and filing them away in his memory, wants to remember it all.
Texture of Jared’s groan rasping in his ear, feel of sweat-damp chest straining under his palms, rhythmic creak of bedsprings. Sweet and sharp relief as he shoots his load in Jared’s fist, edgy pleasure as Jared hardens inside him again; obscenely hot, the wet little noises his ass makes when he circles his hips in a slow, smooth grind, riding Jared.
He files these things away, and the slack-mouthed look of awe on Jared’s face, the hitched breath and clenched abs as Jared comes inside him, spurt after hot spurt till he’s dry coming, nothing left to give but tortured cusses, Jensen files these things away, too.
*
It’s after 10pm by the time they stumble out of bed, clean up and go downstairs in search of food. The turkey’s not quite charred. It kind of tastes okay - when smothered in cranberry jelly and washed down with beer.
‘Hey,’ Jared kicks his shin under the table, ‘you falling asleep on me?’
‘No,’ he yawns, ‘don’t know what gave you that idea.’
Jared smiles. He hasn’t stopped smiling since they came downstairs. Jensen commits that smile to memory and asks, ‘so was it the awsomest Christmas ever?’ his voice coming out softer than intended.
‘Almost,’ says Jared.
‘Almost?’ He fixes a mock frown on Jared, says, ‘there’s no pleasing some people.’
Jared’s laughter, light and happy, resonates through Jensen, flips his heart over. He looks away, down at his plate with its red smears of cranberry jelly and left-over slices of chalk dry turkey.
‘Got to watch a classic, Jen. Then it’ll be the awesomest ever.’
Movie or no, Jensen’s day has been awesome. He wouldn’t complain if the clock went backwards, rewound time back to that morning. His wrist watch reads 11:30, and the second hand ticks on. Tick-fucking-tock, inexorably forging ahead.
*
The couch really isn’t big enough for two men and two dogs, but they somehow manage. The lights are off and orange flames lick around the logs in the fireplace, black and white horror movie playing on the plasma screen. Jared’s watching the movie through drooping eyelids, one hand kneading the scruff of Harley’s neck and the other stroking Sadie’s head.
He slides a sideways glance at Jensen, smiles and says, ‘Stop staring, you creep.’
‘Yeah,’ he mildly agrees. ‘Creepiness, it’s contagious. I figure I caught it from you.’
Jared snuffles - half chuckle and half snort, and Jensen feels in no way creepy about watching him sink into sleep, eyelashes a sooty smudge on high cheekbones.
*
Jensen wakes up with a crick in his neck and Jared’s head pillowed on his thigh. The dogs are curled up on the hearth as though trying to make the best of the warmth from the almost dead fire. Snow crackles on the plasma screen. The gap in the drapes shows that it’s also snowing outside. Light snowfall that doesn’t justify postponing his departure yet again.
Slow, careful, he eases his leg from under Jared’s head.
Waits for a couple of beats, and when Jared still doesn’t awake, he rises from the couch, switches off the TV and heads for the bedroom. He deliberately avoids looking at the bed or at the nightstand where his things are jumbled up with Jared’s. Just no point in going there.
He goes into the takes a leak, studies his reflection in the mirror as he washes his hands. Is it his imagination or did his eyes grow bigger overnight? They stare back at him huge and wide behind the lenses of his glasses. He looks scared, but he’s really not.
He brushes his teeth, trades the glasses for contacts. Comes back into the bedroom, trades his pajama pants for jeans and his cable-knit sweater for layers: wife beater, t-shirt, turtle-neck sweater and coat.
The colt hasn’t been moved. He picks it up out of the desk drawer. It sits cold and heavy in his hand, gleaming black. He checks the chamber. It’s still loaded, six bullets. He tucks the gun into his belt, and the butt feels wrong, pressing intimately into the small of his back. It feels like a ton of wrong.
But he’s out of options and will soon run out of time if he doesn’t hustle. So he hustles to the living room and stands in front of the couch, making sure he’s not within Jared’s reach.
He glances at the dogs. They’re watching him.
He grits his teeth against the pang of guilt and pulls out the gun, aims it between Jared’s closed eyes. He opens his mouth to speak, to wake Jared, but the words stick in his throat like flies caught on sugar paper. The gun barrel wavers. He raises his left hand so he’s holding the colt in a two-handed grip. Still the barrel wavers, more. His palms are damp and his pointer finger’s trembling on the trigger. He feels kind of sick. Heart banging, temperature hiked up and guts churning with nausea.
Jesus, what is he thinking? He can’t do this shit without coffee! Needs to calm the caffeine withdrawal.
He tucks the gun back into his belt, whistles softly to Sadie and Harley as he tip-toes to the kitchen.
*
He lets the dogs out and hops onto the counter while waiting for the coffee to percolate. When it’s done, he fills a mug and drinks his coffee right there on the counter next to the coffee pot, easier to refill that way.
Two refills later, Jared comes shuffling in. He stretches his arms overhead, yawns and slouches over to Jensen, seems barely awake.
‘Morning,’ Jensen smiles.
‘Hey.’ Jared yawns again. Pouts when his gaze falls on the coffee pot. ‘You drank all the coffee.’
‘Here,’ he holds his mug out to Jared.
Jared peers into the mug. ‘It’s black,’ he states. ‘I take mine with cream - and two sugars.’
All the same, Jared accepts the mug. He sips and shudders, screwing his face up. Takes another sip, shudders, grimaces, and it’s cracking Jensen up, the shudder-grimace combination, the hopeful sips like Jared figures the coffee will turn sweet and creamy if he just perseveres.
One last shudder, and Jared holds the empty mug upside-down, triumphant grin as good as saying: I did it! All gone. Now, where’s my cookie?
His hair’s falling into his eyes, the dimples are lurking, he is just so fucking enticing, and hopelessly enticed, Jensen reaches a hand out, trails his knuckles along Jared’s jaw.
The thing about being an actor is you’ve got to have imagination. Got to be hanging painlessly from a harness above the studio floor and imagine you’re suspended in hell, screaming as hooks tear your flesh. Although he has super-honed powers of imagination, he can’t imagine the hell of not seeing Jared everyday. Really, really can’t imagine ever wanting to be with anyone else.
But he can imagine other things, can invent images of dirty blond hair and ruthless blue eyes. ‘Something weird happened to me the other day,’ he says, fitting his thumb pad to Jared’s dimple.
Jared isn’t paying attention, turning his head to try and catch Jensen’s thumb in his mouth.
‘Listen,’ he takes hold of Jared’s chin, holds him still. ‘This is important.’
‘I’m listening,’ Jared’s eyeing his lips.
‘Some psycho guy abducted me.’
That gets Jared’s full attention.
‘I was at Vancouver airport, just got off the red-eye flight from Pittsburgh. This stranger comes up to me and says he’s my driver. Me, being a dumb fuck, I go with him to the parking lot. He hits me over the head, knocks me out. I think, I think the fucker intravenously drugged me while I was passed out. He brought me to a cabin, chained me up-’
Jared backs up a couple of steps, his face tight and his voice tighter, ‘this again, Jensen? I thought we were over this.’
‘It’ll take years of therapy before I get over how he forced himself on me and-’
‘Forced you?’ Jared couldn’t have looked more injured if he’d actually shot him. ‘Bullshit, Jensen, and you know it. I never once forced you.’
‘He forced me,’ Jensen says with utter conviction, ‘I’ve got the bruises to prove it. Every couple of weeks, he’d bring me to another cabin. Another abandoned shit hole just as rundown as the one before.’
Now Jared looks both hurt and confused, frowning hard.
‘Wanna hear what really fucking scared me?’
Jared doesn’t reply.
Jensen tells him anyway, ‘the guy never planned to let me go. He implied he would, said all these things about Texas. But it was just talk. He didn’t mean a word of it, not a damn word.’
Jared’s continued silence, his guilty flush and down-turned eyes, confirm Jensen’s suspicions. Bitterness clogs the back of Jensen’s throat, along with the hurtful, angry words that he wants to vomit over Jared. But he shakes his head, swallows it all back down because he’s not mad at Jared. He’s mad at the guy.
‘I hate him. What he did, I’ll never forgive him.’
The guilty flush washes out of Jared’s face. He is pale and his eyes are too bright, shimmering. ‘Don’t, Jensen,’ he whispers. ‘Just, please stop.’
Jensen pulls the gun out. He lays it on the counter.
Jared flicks his glance at the colt, squares his shoulders. ‘That’s how this ends? With bullets?’ he asks, all emotion bled out of his tone.
The shakes Jensen had earlier? They’re gone. He’s dead calm and dead certain about what he’s saying, ‘See, a week, maybe two weeks after Thanks Giving, the guy says it’s time to move on again. So we’re in his truck heading for the next hideout and a blizzard hits. There’s a place up ahead, big cabin. Nothing like the dumps he brought me to so far. It’s obviously occupied because there’re two dogs barking at the window. The guy breaks in. The guard dogs lick him, so the guy figures he’s welcome.’
Jensen hops off the counter, starts fixing a fresh pot of coffee. When Jared doesn’t make a move towards the gun, he’s so elated he barely refrains from whooping. It’s all comes down to trust. Gotta have trust to build a solid future.
He pours two mugs of coffee - one black, the other loaded with cream and sugar. Sets Jared’s coffee right next to the colt and resumes his narrative.
Chapter Seven