Someone you might have been (j2 au, 1/39)
I may get round to cross-posting this eventually. I'm kind of fretting over warnings and all, in as much as I think things might happen that people will expect warnings for, but I think will ruin the plot (yes, there is plot). So, please be warned: if you do decide to read this, things may happen in later chapters that you don't much like. Is that vague enough? I'd really prefer you didn't look at this, but if you don't want to be surprised about the ending/warnings, read this
This is the boring, setting-things-up opening. Sorry. :/
Someone you might have been
A J2 AU in which Jared is a secret agent and Jensen is his handler/support tech. Yeah, I know. Leave all expectations of realism at the door, please. Title from the Oysterband song.
Jared is tall, good-looking, has great people-skills, and a huge heart. Jared is fluent in five languages, highly proficient in the use of advanced surveillance technology, an expert marksman, and knows eighty-seven ways to kill a person with his bare hands in under a minute.
He also has a knee-meltingly beautiful smile.
'Spy' isn't really the label he'd choose for what he is. It's over-dramatic and faintly hysterical. It’s a loaded word. Say the word 'spy' and people think of James Bond and Jared knows he is way slicker than that. He prefers 'covert operative' or 'government agent'. They're both still pretty cool phrases but just a little more grown-up.
He was picked out of the ranks of army recruits when he was little more than a kid. Combine a highly interesting psych profile with some spectacular training scores, and the result was Jared's swift relocation to a top-secret government facility, where they proceeded to train the crap out of him. There's more information crammed into his skull than he thinks he could use in three lifetimes, but he's not complaining because in this line of work, despite what the movies say, you can never know too much.
And eight years later, Jared is a celebrity in his field, albeit one whom very few people could actually pick out of a line-up. He prefers it like that. Excessive paranoia aside, Jared does what he can to improve the statistics for his life expectancy.
At seven o'clock in the morning, Jared gets up, showers, dresses, munches on a slice of toast while he reads yesterday's newspaper and manages to get butter all over the sports section. Once he's done with the paper, he leaves his apartment and heads down to the local 7/11 to pick up some milk and today's newspaper. He chats for a while with the old guy at the counter and then leaves. He takes the long route home, through the park.
Back at his apartment, he flips his laptop open and turns to the business section in the newspaper. He logs into his inbox using the relevant figures listed on the NYSE.
There is a single message waiting for him from Cohan: a time, an address, and a photo of his new handler. Jared blinks at the picture because, although he's had handlers before who were easy on the eyes, this guy is really something else. He's got these eyes that are so green it takes Jared a while to stop staring and take in the rest of him, and a mouth that looks like the photographer just couldn't help but kiss the hell out of him for half an hour or so before taking the picture.
No wonder Cohan's signed off the message with a smiley face. She'd told him he wouldn't mind this loan-out, and Jared should have listened to her.
Jared has been loaned out to different government agencies before. In fact, he's been loaned out so often, he doesn't really know who specifically he belongs to anymore. Just… the US government, he guesses.
Today, he's starting a term with a branch he hasn't worked for before. He hasn't heard of their acronym before but that's not uncommon. He doesn't know what their particular area of concern is either, but still… not uncommon. He just does as he's told, and doesn't look at the bigger picture, doesn't try to fit the pieces together. He's a single player in a global game.
:::
The address is the penthouse apartment of a pretty nice place in the city. Jared takes a moment to appraise it and catalogue in his head the process he'd use for infiltration and escape. It's an ingrained habit and one he has no intention of trying to break. He holds the door open for a young woman coming out, flashes her a dazzling smile, and then slips inside before the door can close. Way too easy.
Having bypassed the security door, Jared notes the lack of any visible security cameras or a doorman. Clean.
It's an impressive display of brass balls on the part of his prospective handler, to set up base in somewhere so unprotected. It's arrogant in its vulnerability: try to break in if you dare. Either he has something much cleverer up his sleeve for protecting his own personal space, or he really believes he's just that good.
Jared's curious to see which it is.
Choosing the stairs over the elevator, Jared climbs to the penthouse. Light slants down from the high, airy ceiling and Jared takes the stairs slowly and contemplatively, his footfall sounding measured and even on the polished wood.
At the top, Jared inspects the door briefly and then nods to himself, reasonably impressed with the strength of the lock. Maybe it's not so much a case of arrogance as it is a concerted attempt at keeping a low profile. Caution, he can handle.
Jared knocks on the door then leans up against the wall to wait. It's silent in the hallway and then there's the sound of a bolt being drawn back and the door opens.
"Hi," says Jared, swinging round into sight. "I'm Lauren's boyfriend. She said you had something of hers she wanted me to pick up, yeah?"
And then he grins, sweet and simple, because the guy is even hotter in person. Due to the photo being a face shot, it hadn't included the guy's broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs. Jared really thinks he's going to enjoy this term.
The guy in the doorway takes a moment, looks Jared over, then nods and holds the door wide. Jared follows him in, taking his eyes off the guy's pleasantly rounded ass just long enough to check the place for potential threats. There's a security camera mounted on the wall, but other than that, the place seems clean.
Remarkably so, now Jared considers it. It just looks like a regular apartment, uncluttered and cool. Obviously not the guy's main base then. Not common procedure but not too far off the usual to unsettle Jared. He's had people play it this way before; some handlers just like to maintain a healthy distance from their operatives.
"Want some coffee?" the guy says.
Jared shrugs and nods as he slides into a chair at the table in the kitchenette.
"Sure, thanks."
The guy moves past him and starts fixing coffee. It's all very low-key and Jared wonders if the guy's concerned about their conversation being monitored or is trying to get a read on Jared before he gets down to business. Whatever it is, Jared can be patient.
He gives the guy a smile when he sets the cup of coffee down in front of him, then he adds a couple of heaped spoonfuls of sugar. The guy's watching him as he does it, and Jared just lets him. The spoon clinks gently against the side of the cup as he stirs the sugar in.
"You can call me Jensen," the guy says at last.
"That's a pretty weird name, man," Jared tells him. "You couldn't come up with something a little more believable?"
"It's my name," Jensen says, his tone is decidedly cool. He pauses, maybe politely allowing Jared a chance to apologise (which Jared doesn't take), and then says, "Are you still currently going by Jared or is there something different you want me to call you?"
There are a ridiculous number of smart answers Jared could give to that but he learnt early on that antagonising your handler - the one person to connect you to the government and prove you're not some random psycho merc - is not a good idea.
"It's my name," he says, grinning. "I think I'll keep it."
Jensen nods and says, calm and serious, "For the duration of your contract with us, your codename will be Sasquatch."
Jared sighs and pulls a face.
"Wow, you boys must have put your most creative minds to work on that one," he mutters into his coffee.
"My codename will be Zoolander," Jensen says. He shrugs and adds, "If it makes you feel better."
Jared almost chokes on a mouthful of coffee. He looks at Jensen with bright, amused eyes, then nods in sincere approval. It's a relief to know that the guy has a sense of humour after all; Jared can put up with a lot, but not humorlessness. There's a smile tucked just into the corners of Jensen's mouth, the slightest quirk of his lips. Not quite a smile, but getting there.
He has freckles, Jared notices distantly. He doesn't think he's ever had a handler with freckles before.
"Believe it or not, they're not actually a job requirement. They don't help me do my job better," Jensen says, and Jared blinks, kind of stunned to realise that he'd actually said that last part out loud.
He takes a breath and frowns at what's left of his coffee.
"Normally," he says smoothly, "I'm much better at being subtle. I'm so subtle sometimes even I don't get what I'm saying."
"That's good to know," Jensen says. "I think."
He's still watching Jared, eyes crinkled at the corners as he allows the smile to grow. That first smile seems to remove some invisible barrier between them. It's not as though Jensen suddenly transforms into some chatty, open guy, but he relaxes a little, and the atmosphere between them turns ever so slightly warmer.
It looks like Jared reaches standard or conforms to Jensen's expectations or whatever.
"Okay," Jensen says, squarely meeting Jared's eyes as he rubs his hand over his mouth. "Guess we can get down to business. Your mission-" he shoots Jared a faint smirk, "- should you choose to accept it-"
"Except I don't actually have a choice because the government would get kinda pissed about me going rogue and probably try to have me killed," Jared puts in. He smiles in what he hopes Jensen will find a charming manner. "But other than that, go on."
The joke hangs, untouched, in the air. Jensen gives him a look that Jared can't really identify. Then, after a moment of silence, Jensen picks up as if nothing has happened.
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is gonna be a pretty easy one. Just to start you off. So we can see what you can do."
Jared leans forward on his elbows over the table and twists his smile just enough to go from charming to dirty.
"Dude, I can do plenty."
"Uhuh," says Jensen, unconvinced. "Well, let's just pretend we don't want you to strain anything, 'kay?" He reaches into one of the kitchen drawers and retrieves a brown manila folder, which he lays on the table in front of Jared. Jared flips it open and starts to read, his attention finally switching away from Jensen.
Jensen leans up against the sideboard and watches him read, before finally offering into the silence, "I've prepared some insertion and exit strategies for you. And if you require further information, just let me know what you need and I'll get it for you."
It doesn't take Jared long to read through it all, through the maps and the building plans, through the personnel lists and security routines. If the information is accurate - and he has no reason to suspect otherwise - then Jensen's right: it's easy. Almost insultingly easy, except Jared doesn't have an ego because he's seen too many guys go down because they'd prefer to showboat than to get out alive.
Besides, it might be easy, but it also looks pretty fun.
He flips the file shut and pushes it back towards Jensen.
"Okay," he says. "Tell me how you're getting me in, Zoolander."
part two
This is the boring, setting-things-up opening. Sorry. :/
Someone you might have been
A J2 AU in which Jared is a secret agent and Jensen is his handler/support tech. Yeah, I know. Leave all expectations of realism at the door, please. Title from the Oysterband song.
Jared is tall, good-looking, has great people-skills, and a huge heart. Jared is fluent in five languages, highly proficient in the use of advanced surveillance technology, an expert marksman, and knows eighty-seven ways to kill a person with his bare hands in under a minute.
He also has a knee-meltingly beautiful smile.
'Spy' isn't really the label he'd choose for what he is. It's over-dramatic and faintly hysterical. It’s a loaded word. Say the word 'spy' and people think of James Bond and Jared knows he is way slicker than that. He prefers 'covert operative' or 'government agent'. They're both still pretty cool phrases but just a little more grown-up.
He was picked out of the ranks of army recruits when he was little more than a kid. Combine a highly interesting psych profile with some spectacular training scores, and the result was Jared's swift relocation to a top-secret government facility, where they proceeded to train the crap out of him. There's more information crammed into his skull than he thinks he could use in three lifetimes, but he's not complaining because in this line of work, despite what the movies say, you can never know too much.
And eight years later, Jared is a celebrity in his field, albeit one whom very few people could actually pick out of a line-up. He prefers it like that. Excessive paranoia aside, Jared does what he can to improve the statistics for his life expectancy.
At seven o'clock in the morning, Jared gets up, showers, dresses, munches on a slice of toast while he reads yesterday's newspaper and manages to get butter all over the sports section. Once he's done with the paper, he leaves his apartment and heads down to the local 7/11 to pick up some milk and today's newspaper. He chats for a while with the old guy at the counter and then leaves. He takes the long route home, through the park.
Back at his apartment, he flips his laptop open and turns to the business section in the newspaper. He logs into his inbox using the relevant figures listed on the NYSE.
There is a single message waiting for him from Cohan: a time, an address, and a photo of his new handler. Jared blinks at the picture because, although he's had handlers before who were easy on the eyes, this guy is really something else. He's got these eyes that are so green it takes Jared a while to stop staring and take in the rest of him, and a mouth that looks like the photographer just couldn't help but kiss the hell out of him for half an hour or so before taking the picture.
No wonder Cohan's signed off the message with a smiley face. She'd told him he wouldn't mind this loan-out, and Jared should have listened to her.
Jared has been loaned out to different government agencies before. In fact, he's been loaned out so often, he doesn't really know who specifically he belongs to anymore. Just… the US government, he guesses.
Today, he's starting a term with a branch he hasn't worked for before. He hasn't heard of their acronym before but that's not uncommon. He doesn't know what their particular area of concern is either, but still… not uncommon. He just does as he's told, and doesn't look at the bigger picture, doesn't try to fit the pieces together. He's a single player in a global game.
:::
The address is the penthouse apartment of a pretty nice place in the city. Jared takes a moment to appraise it and catalogue in his head the process he'd use for infiltration and escape. It's an ingrained habit and one he has no intention of trying to break. He holds the door open for a young woman coming out, flashes her a dazzling smile, and then slips inside before the door can close. Way too easy.
Having bypassed the security door, Jared notes the lack of any visible security cameras or a doorman. Clean.
It's an impressive display of brass balls on the part of his prospective handler, to set up base in somewhere so unprotected. It's arrogant in its vulnerability: try to break in if you dare. Either he has something much cleverer up his sleeve for protecting his own personal space, or he really believes he's just that good.
Jared's curious to see which it is.
Choosing the stairs over the elevator, Jared climbs to the penthouse. Light slants down from the high, airy ceiling and Jared takes the stairs slowly and contemplatively, his footfall sounding measured and even on the polished wood.
At the top, Jared inspects the door briefly and then nods to himself, reasonably impressed with the strength of the lock. Maybe it's not so much a case of arrogance as it is a concerted attempt at keeping a low profile. Caution, he can handle.
Jared knocks on the door then leans up against the wall to wait. It's silent in the hallway and then there's the sound of a bolt being drawn back and the door opens.
"Hi," says Jared, swinging round into sight. "I'm Lauren's boyfriend. She said you had something of hers she wanted me to pick up, yeah?"
And then he grins, sweet and simple, because the guy is even hotter in person. Due to the photo being a face shot, it hadn't included the guy's broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs. Jared really thinks he's going to enjoy this term.
The guy in the doorway takes a moment, looks Jared over, then nods and holds the door wide. Jared follows him in, taking his eyes off the guy's pleasantly rounded ass just long enough to check the place for potential threats. There's a security camera mounted on the wall, but other than that, the place seems clean.
Remarkably so, now Jared considers it. It just looks like a regular apartment, uncluttered and cool. Obviously not the guy's main base then. Not common procedure but not too far off the usual to unsettle Jared. He's had people play it this way before; some handlers just like to maintain a healthy distance from their operatives.
"Want some coffee?" the guy says.
Jared shrugs and nods as he slides into a chair at the table in the kitchenette.
"Sure, thanks."
The guy moves past him and starts fixing coffee. It's all very low-key and Jared wonders if the guy's concerned about their conversation being monitored or is trying to get a read on Jared before he gets down to business. Whatever it is, Jared can be patient.
He gives the guy a smile when he sets the cup of coffee down in front of him, then he adds a couple of heaped spoonfuls of sugar. The guy's watching him as he does it, and Jared just lets him. The spoon clinks gently against the side of the cup as he stirs the sugar in.
"You can call me Jensen," the guy says at last.
"That's a pretty weird name, man," Jared tells him. "You couldn't come up with something a little more believable?"
"It's my name," Jensen says, his tone is decidedly cool. He pauses, maybe politely allowing Jared a chance to apologise (which Jared doesn't take), and then says, "Are you still currently going by Jared or is there something different you want me to call you?"
There are a ridiculous number of smart answers Jared could give to that but he learnt early on that antagonising your handler - the one person to connect you to the government and prove you're not some random psycho merc - is not a good idea.
"It's my name," he says, grinning. "I think I'll keep it."
Jensen nods and says, calm and serious, "For the duration of your contract with us, your codename will be Sasquatch."
Jared sighs and pulls a face.
"Wow, you boys must have put your most creative minds to work on that one," he mutters into his coffee.
"My codename will be Zoolander," Jensen says. He shrugs and adds, "If it makes you feel better."
Jared almost chokes on a mouthful of coffee. He looks at Jensen with bright, amused eyes, then nods in sincere approval. It's a relief to know that the guy has a sense of humour after all; Jared can put up with a lot, but not humorlessness. There's a smile tucked just into the corners of Jensen's mouth, the slightest quirk of his lips. Not quite a smile, but getting there.
He has freckles, Jared notices distantly. He doesn't think he's ever had a handler with freckles before.
"Believe it or not, they're not actually a job requirement. They don't help me do my job better," Jensen says, and Jared blinks, kind of stunned to realise that he'd actually said that last part out loud.
He takes a breath and frowns at what's left of his coffee.
"Normally," he says smoothly, "I'm much better at being subtle. I'm so subtle sometimes even I don't get what I'm saying."
"That's good to know," Jensen says. "I think."
He's still watching Jared, eyes crinkled at the corners as he allows the smile to grow. That first smile seems to remove some invisible barrier between them. It's not as though Jensen suddenly transforms into some chatty, open guy, but he relaxes a little, and the atmosphere between them turns ever so slightly warmer.
It looks like Jared reaches standard or conforms to Jensen's expectations or whatever.
"Okay," Jensen says, squarely meeting Jared's eyes as he rubs his hand over his mouth. "Guess we can get down to business. Your mission-" he shoots Jared a faint smirk, "- should you choose to accept it-"
"Except I don't actually have a choice because the government would get kinda pissed about me going rogue and probably try to have me killed," Jared puts in. He smiles in what he hopes Jensen will find a charming manner. "But other than that, go on."
The joke hangs, untouched, in the air. Jensen gives him a look that Jared can't really identify. Then, after a moment of silence, Jensen picks up as if nothing has happened.
"Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is gonna be a pretty easy one. Just to start you off. So we can see what you can do."
Jared leans forward on his elbows over the table and twists his smile just enough to go from charming to dirty.
"Dude, I can do plenty."
"Uhuh," says Jensen, unconvinced. "Well, let's just pretend we don't want you to strain anything, 'kay?" He reaches into one of the kitchen drawers and retrieves a brown manila folder, which he lays on the table in front of Jared. Jared flips it open and starts to read, his attention finally switching away from Jensen.
Jensen leans up against the sideboard and watches him read, before finally offering into the silence, "I've prepared some insertion and exit strategies for you. And if you require further information, just let me know what you need and I'll get it for you."
It doesn't take Jared long to read through it all, through the maps and the building plans, through the personnel lists and security routines. If the information is accurate - and he has no reason to suspect otherwise - then Jensen's right: it's easy. Almost insultingly easy, except Jared doesn't have an ego because he's seen too many guys go down because they'd prefer to showboat than to get out alive.
Besides, it might be easy, but it also looks pretty fun.
He flips the file shut and pushes it back towards Jensen.
"Okay," he says. "Tell me how you're getting me in, Zoolander."
part two