FIC: And So He Does | j2 au NC-17
Title: And So He Does - j2 au NC-17
Author: homo_pink
Summary: Jared's kind of an uptight kid. But he's been in love with his neighbor from down the hall for so long that he'd do just about anything asked of him.
For the salt_burn_porn challenge and riyku's prompt of 'a little to the left'.
Word Count: 6.5k
Warning: underage
AO3
I'm so incredibly sleepy, typing with one eye open. I fear this is nothing but drivel.
And So He Does
“They found a dead body down at the old iron works factory earlier. Not even bloated yet, still nice and fresh. C’mon, get dressed.”
It’s creeping up on one in the morning, Jared only having just started to drowse down into sleep and he’s pawing his eyes and squinting into the night, and it’s not the weirdest thing Jensen’s ever said to him after sneaking in through his bedroom window. Doesn’t even rank in the top five.
-
When Jared and his mother first moved into the old apartment complex at the heart of the city, he’d been eager for the fresh start; a puppyish twelve year old full of excitement and ready for the next adventure.
But that was back when adventure, to Jared, meant catching insects in old jelly jars and raiding the Saturday morning yard sales for gadgets and charms.
He’d never have expected the older kid from a few doors down the hall on the left, the one who wore mismatched shoes and a fake lip ring that switched sides every other day, to become a staple in his life, or even notice him really.
Never once expected to find a best friend anywhere in there either.
Years later and he’s still not sure what made Jensen decide to knock on their door that fateful day and politely ask Jared’s mom if he could borrow her son to help him out with a science project. Jared had stood behind his mom and watched, horrified, as she grinned and agreed and all but sent him on his merry way with a stranger.
And all because she thought Jensen seemed sweet, just so sweet. And cute too, he’d heard her say.
Sweet.
It took twenty minutes for Jared to find that 'science project’ didn’t mean quite the same to him as it did to Jensen.
As it turned out, Jensen was feeling crafty that afternoon and was set on constructing his very own homemade stink bombs. And lots of them. ("Rude neighbors upstairs. Stomp a lot," he explained.) He’d had the ingredients readily laid out on a little table in his room, sitting there all harmless and orderly.
“We just need one more thing,” Jensen had said, while Jared was busy marveling over the array of colorful posters and flags tacked up along the walls, haphazard and crookedly charming. He couldn't help it; Lower Class Brats and The Casualties just seemed worlds away from his own dinosaur sculptures and comic book memorabilia. Galaxies apart.
He hadn’t registered the little snip snip sound until it was too late.
Jared grabbed at his head in shock, both hands clutched in tight, spun around to face the culprit and could barely utter a squeak when Jensen merely shrugged and wandered over to the table to deposit the final component. Apparently those little inventions required hair.
“And you have lots of that,” Jensen said, matter of fact, smiling in that way of his that Jared would later, over time, come to fall victim to time and time again. Nothing malicious, just happy. "We'll need more for the rest."
He went home for dinner that night with an oddly satisfied feeling and noticeably patchy hair that his mother, thankfully, chose not to remark upon.
That was the first time Jared learned never to trust a pretty face. Though the lesson never really quite took.
-
In the summer of 1996, when Jared turned fourteen and they were getting ready to finally attend the same school, Jared no longer a middle school dork and Jensen going into the 11th grade, Jensen convinced him to get an undercut.
Jared hadn’t known what that was at the time, not exactly, just understood that Jensen seemed to really like the idea and that it, admittedly, sounded pretty cool. But then, Jensen only liked cool things. His judgment was sound. Jared trusted him.
The buzzing hum of the clippers seemed to go on forever, whole curtains of hair falling down all around Jared's shoulders, pooling around the bottom of the toilet Jensen had him seated on. A lifetime later, the loud click of a finished product echoed in the tiny apartment bathroom and Jensen set his tools aside, whirled Jared around on his butt, told him to stand.
“Close your eyes,” Jensen said and Jared obeyed wordlessly, as always.
A few tugging pulls and something wondrously soothing raking through his hair that Jared realized to be Jensen’s fingers and then three little snaps that sounded suspiciously like a rubber band.
“Okay. There. Open.”
Jared stared at his reflection, the entire bottom half of his hair from his temple down gone, buzzed short, the rest of it tied back into a ponytail - and then stared at Jensen’s own image right beside him, all wayward dirty blonde spikes and shining hopeful eyes.
He didn’t even have to say, so whaddya think? the way he usually did when he propositioned Jared with some outrageous new plan. Jared could plainly see the fragile delight reflected right there in the mirror, waiting for a reaction to his self-thought masterpiece. Jared hadn’t the heart to crush that.
“This shit rocks,” he’d said, reaching up to feel around his missing hair.
And if he walked around for the rest of the summer and half the school year like a total tool, feeling like the little girl from The Crow, it was worth it for the way Jensen, for reasons unknown, seemed to love it and would sometimes reach over absently just to feel the fuzz.
-
“I think I wanna get a ‘hawk,” Jensen said one day.
He was flipped over onto his belly and rifling through the lyrics booklet from a new CD he’d scored off of someone in one of his classes, kicking his legs in the air back and forth. A good band too, one he’d been dying to check out. For free, he’d said, emphasizing, obviously not understanding why someone would do that.
It was a girl, a really cute girl, and Jared had seen them in the hallway after his study period. Jared didn't need to guess why she'd done it.
Half the people in the school had eyes on Jensen when he walked through the halls, drumming tunes against lockers and singing horribly offensive songs, the whole world nothing but background. Jared saw Jensen in zoom focus, never anything else.
“Jare-crow!”, Jensen might scream, seconds before he was jumping piggyback up onto Jared and kicking at Jared’s thigh like a horse.
For all the things that Jensen was or wasn’t, he’d always been one thing and that was beautiful. Everybody knew it. Jared was never blind to that.
“Should I?”
“Huh?”
“Asshole. You’re not even listening to me. Do you think I should change my hair like this?” and he thrust the booklet in Jared’s face, waving it around.
“If you want?” Jared said after a while, rearranging himself on Jensen’s carpet and trying to concentrate on his history notes.
“Well, do you like it? If you saw it on me, what would you think?”
Jensen paused and waited for Jared to catch up, a quietly serious expression on his face like Jared’s opinion came down to a blue or red wire.
But Jared couldn’t begin to say what he’d think, what he always thought, because the fact was that it didn’t matter what Jensen’s hair looked like, not really. Jensen was so much more than that.
“You could,” Jared said, settling for something safe.
So Jensen did.
And Jared stained his favorite shirt that night, helping Jensen bleach and dye his mohawk purple. He didn't mind it.
-
“I’m thinking I might skip Prom. Chris and the guys are planning on setting off the fire sprinklers, or so they say. And anyway, I’d rather just. I mean. You know.”
Jared didn’t know, but he nodded along like he did. Part of him sagged with relief, while the other part of him was halfway to bummed that he wouldn’t get to see Jensen in some prissy tux with combed hair and a little flower thing pinned to his chest.
“You wanna come over then?” Jensen asked, looking down at his backpack where he was safety-pinning a new patch onto the strap. “Maybe ask your mom if you can spend the night.”
And that was, weird. Jared was over at Jensen’s so frequently his mother often joked that the Ackles’ ought to claim him when tax season rolled around; Jensen asking outright felt strange, forced. Jared didn’t like it. But he wasn’t about to say no.
“Sure, I’ll come over,” he’d said.
So he did.
And they stayed up all night watching half of Jensen’s B movie collection, Jensen putting in film after film like he wasn’t ready for the night to end, like he was waiting for something, three dots at the end of a sentence.
-
“I think I’m gonna join a band,” Jensen said. “I can sing okay, right? Kinda? And I’ll just be screaming so it’s not like anyone’ll know the difference. You can be my groupie."
Jensen had chuckled, not catching the way Jared's face had flamed up and he missed a crack in the sidewalk and stupidly lost his footing for about half a second.
The way he talked about it, for days on end, rattling away in Jared’s ear on the bus to school, in the courtyard during lunch, on the walks back home once Jared’s after school chess club let out, it was nearly a living entity. Glamorous and gritty, real rock star stuff with flyers and merch and personalized guitars.
“You can sing,” Jared said. “You’d be good at it.”
So Jensen joined.
It was little more than four guys with a box of secondhand instruments assembled in Chris’s garage, writing ‘ballads’ about sex and cigarettes but it meant everything to Jensen, back then. They practiced every Friday and Saturday night.
Jared never missed a single one.
-
“I think I’ll stay around here for a while. Year or two, maybe. Just until I get settled somewhere,” Jensen had said. In life, Jared had heard.
It was nearing the end of Jensen’s senior year and after that, Jared would have to find someone else to sit with on the bus, in the cafeteria, would have to find someone else when Jensen found someone else. Someone else. Someone else.
“I can see if they’re hiring at the record shop, or Planet K, and if it comes down to it, I can always-“
Prematurely grieving and nauseous, just the thought of Jensen leaving high school and leaving home, leaving him, Jared had blurted, “You should stay.”
And Jensen did.
-
“So I’ve been thinking,” Jensen said one day in March. “I’m eighteen now. School’s almost out,” roll calling each dreaded item on Jared’s internal list, like he wasn’t acutely aware of every single one of these things. “It’s different now, shit's changing, I make my own rules. Shit, I can buy smokes if I want, lose big at a casino, purchase porn. I think it’s time.”
“Time?” Jared asked, fiddling with the button on the pocket of his cargo shorts, panic welling up into his chest.
“I’m gonna get a tattoo. Today. Right now, I think. Wanna go?”
They walked down to the parlor and flipped through binders of each artist’s work, whistled when they saw something particularly cool, took total inventory to make sure something that would forever decorate Jensen’s body was perfect. Jared kept circling back to the freehand styles, clean line work and just-right shading.
They went with Tony, a bearded guy with dreads and a friendly smile, and Jared stayed out in the waiting area while Jensen was taken to the back. Jensen turned around halfway there, met Jared's eye, grinned. "Think quick, right or left?"
"Left."
Forty-five minutes later, Jensen returned with aftercare instructions, a sample-size packet of ointment and a swath of cellophane around his ankle. When they got outside, Jared couldn't resist anymore and promptly bent over to study the design in the waning sunlight, holding Jensen’s left leg and carefully lifting it up a little higher to see.
It was a capital J in clean black, bold typewriter print, sitting inside a (totally ridiculous and totally Jensen) fat, yellow lightning bolt done in a matching black outline.
“I,” Jared said, still crouched, examining the work. “I actually really like that. It’s nice.”
“Yeah,” Jensen said when Jared let go of his leg. He sounded miles away. “I love it.”
-
“That needs to be reported, it’s gonna start smelling if it’s been more than two days. Okay wait, who found it?” Jared stops with his head partway into his flannel shirt, already shoving his feet into a pair of shoes.
“I dunno, Chris or someone. Let’s go though, we’re burning daylight here.”
Jared looks out the still-open window, out into the harsh black night Jensen seeped in from and pointedly doesn’t say a word. Jensen rolls his eyes, makes a jerkoff motion.
“'Chris or someone'?” Jared says then, skeptical. He’s not trying to be a stick in the mud here but there’s a dead body in discussion. The proper authorities need to be notified and besides, he’s not sure he’s even all that keen on seeing a corpse. For all he knows, it might be worm breeding grounds already.
Jensen fake yawns and mutters something about needing a hip replacement soon, hurry up, blah blah, starts poking around at Jared’s desk, and then, “Oh. What’s this?”
“Put that down!” Jared says, rushing over, head sticking out of his shirt all wrong and only one arm fully in. “That shit’s half my grade, man. Careful with it.”
Jensen's holding Jared's career board in his hands and he spent five hours working on that thing and though he’ll never say so, he’s kind of proud of it.
It’s basically his whole future and how to get there, or at least how he sees it. An aerial view printout of the UT campus and the orange longhorn logo nearby, a couple of photocopied Marvel and DC covers tacked up, the overview of a graphic novel course that interested him.
There's also a small, yellow one story house that he’d simply liked the look of and added in as an afterthought. A sleek black Lambo off in the corner because hey, it’s his fucking board.
Jensen looks at it a little while longer, makes some sort of sound like he’s maybe thinking it over and sets it back down, neat and pristine.
He doesn’t make any off handed remarks or call Jared corny or anything like that, but when Jared ducks out of his bedroom window, he'd swear he sees his very best friend in the world wiping the arm of his hoodie sleeve across his eyes. It kills him to think Jensen might be laughing at him, even if he’s pretending not to.
“Daylight’s burning,” Jared says, snappy and rude. It doesn’t make him feel as vindicated as he’d hoped.
-
They walk down the alley behind their complex, Jensen retrieving his old backpack from where he’d stowed it down below Jared’s window sill. He slings it up over one shoulder and it looks heavy. Jared wonders what all Jensen has in there, flashlights and a camera could probably fit in their pockets. He doesn’t ask though. He's still feeling kind of bitchy.
“Nervous?” Jared says, just to break the silence that’s risen up between them, the one that’s never really there. Not usually. Not ever.
“Pretty much,” Jensen admits, throwing his hood up over his head as they skulk along, dodging streetlights and flickering signs, sticking to the shadows. His hair is green this month. “Kinda scared, too.”
Jared elbows him, scoffy. Jensen’s never scared.
Grinning down at his shoes as they go, Jensen hunches a shoulder in defeat and places careful feet down onto the pavement, nothing hurried. “Yeah yeah, but hey. First time for everything, amiright? I’ve never seen a body before.”
“First time,” Jared echoes and they trudge on into the night, knocking elbows and trying to trip each other.
-
The old abandoned factory on the opposite side of town is unnerving enough during the day, a hulking superstructure made up of rusted walkways and saggy fences past their prime.
Once past the witching hour, choked with yellowed grass high as a corn field and nothing but uninterrupted silence, as though perhaps even the little insects Jared used to enjoy catching are smart enough to have found someplace kinder to occupy, it’s downright hair-raising.
Jared keeps close to Jensen’s side and every few yards, starts whispering, asking again if Jensen’s sure about this, are they really going in there, all the way inside?
In the distance, the very distant distance, Jared notes, the heavy noise of an 18 wheeler rumbles past and then very little else, a city asleep. The smog of the decrepit old building seems to cloak them in the closer they get to the mouth of the thing and when they’re a few feet away, Jensen stops.
“Here." He hands Jared a small flashlight and keeps one out for himself. Zips his bag back up and nods. “Let’s see what we see.”
Jared’s at the point where he pretty much doesn’t want to see anything anymore, but he quiets down. Jensen obviously wants this.
-
Inside it's blackness and a cloying, baked-in sort of heat. The air itself feels greasy and when Jared takes a deep breath to steady himself, he almost wishes he hadn’t. It’s sour and smells of a different type of decay, the thick odor of rot and things long forgotten by the world.
Jared follows Jensen down a corridor, his light dithering in his grip the further along they creep. Something slick coats the ground, distinct in the pulling hiss it makes every time he lifts his foot. He deliberately doesn’t shine his light to the floor. Best not to know.
“Just a little ways to go,” Jensen says. “Think we’re almost there.”
“There? Where there? You know the exact location?”
“Well, yeah. Chris more or less told me where to go. Shouldn’t be too much longer.”
Something crunches under Jared's foot and he cringes, wishing he’d owned a pair of stompy combat boots like Jensen’s. And maybe, yeah, they look kind of strange matched with old faded camo pants cut off at the knee like Jensen favors, but at least nothing unwanted is getting into those babies.
Jared rushes to catch up where he’s fallen behind and they round a sharp corner, find themselves in another putrid funk hallway, graffiti canvasing the walls in various overlapping symbols and words, a pretty sort of corrosion.
“Hey, look at this,” Jared says, swishing his light over a very detailed spray paint penis. Jensen casts a quick look over his shoulder and Jared’s flashlight promptly dies. “Shit.”
He shakes it a few times, nothing. Checks and rechecks the batteries, jiggles it a couple more times just to try and curses very colorfully. He slips the stupid thing into his pocket and stays skin-close to Jensen and their one remaining beacon of light.
Jensen takes careful, deliberate steps, walking in that weird way he has been since they left home. Jared doesn't like any of this.
-
“I wonder if there could be more than one body in here." Jensen says, real thoughtful like. Jared shuffles closer. "Who’d know, right?”
At the far end of the old factory is a large, empty warehouse area with a row of high rise windows near the top, able to be seen from the highway.
It’s the big room where the homeless and the tweekers would gather years ago, back before the place became too condemned to offer even that much livable shelter. Jared assumes that’s where they’re headed.
Jensen snaps his bubblegum a couple of times, urging Jared on, guiding them deeper into the maze.
As Jared's calming his heartbeat into a softer lull, something skitters across the toe of his shoe and Jared lets out the scream he's been holding in all night and bodily slams Jensen up against the cold steel wall. He leans his full weight against Jensen and presses in tight, shielding him from any outside threats.
Jensen wildly shines his light in every direction, panting a little and catching Jared's fear by sheer proximity. And he sighs.
“Jared, it’s a fucking opossum. Jesus fuck.”
They keep walking.
-
"What the hell is that? Are you whistling?" Jared asks distractedly, trying to take his mind off the way their light source seems to have dimmed fractionally.
Jensen doesn't reply, and something creeks ominously further down the stretch.
-
“Yo, dead chick. You here?”
“Jensen!”
“What? It’s not like she's gonna care.”
“Still. That’s bad juju.” And then, “it’s a chick?”
-
A background sense of fear has started to take over and every little crunch and scuffle sets Jared closer and closer to hysteria.
"How much further?" Jared says, just to hear a human voice, and when Jensen doesn’t answer for a long while, the harsh set of his jawline unmoving, Jared figures that’s it. They’re well and truly fucking lost.
In a deathzone contaminated husk of an old building where nobody will ever find them because nobody knew where they went or that they left and there’s a decomposing cadaver somewhere in their midst. Jared hasn’t cried in front of Jensen since he was twelve but he thinks that’s about to change.
“So you’re going to Austin, huh?” Jensen says then, and it's enough of a shock to be a good distraction.
“Um. Well, not like tomorrow or anything but yeah, I’ve been thinking about it. It’s a good school.”
“Yup.”
“What does that mean? Yup. You know I hate when you pop your p’s like that.”
“Good for who?”
“For …who? For me,” Jared says, squinting at what he can see of Jensen’s sharp silhouette. “What do you-“
“Never mind it,” Jensen rushes on, waving his hand around like it’s all nonsense, causing the light to go askew. “Yeah, it’s good Jared. It’s real good. It’s just. It’s kinda far, ya know?”
Which, no.
“It’s an hour if you run red lights and floor it. We must be measuring the distance from different scales here, man.”
“Apparently so,” Jensen says, clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a little tic he only gets when he’s pissy. “Guess it’s just a little farther than what I’m used to.”
And fuck you.
“You’re the one that’s leaving,” Jared says, suddenly angry and hurt, childish, and he reaches out to yank Jensen back by the elbow. “Said so yourself, remember? You’re leaving Jensen. Away from your parents, away from - You’ll be gone. And then what? What about me? You think about that?”
Jensen takes a step back, like Jared’s physically struck him and he points an accusing hand at Jared’s face, jabbing with the flashlight so that Jared just sees bursts of light like a strobe in front of him. “I never left. I’m still there, right? You said stay. You said that, you asked me. And I stayed Jared. I stayed because- Because.”
And Jensen's still backing away, like Jared's someone to be frightened of.
“Because?”
But Jensen's too busy getting tripped up on a pile of gutter trash debris. He windmills his arms about crazily for a brief moment, goes tumbling down to the ground with a startled shout and a heavy, sick sounding thud and the flashlight in his hand clatters off into the shadow, light dying out behind it.
“Jensen!”
Jared darts forward in a helpless attempt at aiming himself in the general direction of Jensen’s afterimage and stops short, eyes darting around in deep, portentous black.
-
“Dude, where are you? I can’t see you. I can’t see anything. I can’t see,” he reaches out to feel along the walls but comes up clutching only stale air. “Jensen?”
He takes a deep swallow and lowers himself into a cat's crouch, grabbing around in hopes of hitting something, anything to help guide him. He’s panicking, knows it in the way his throat feels like it’s closing up. He has to get to Jensen, he has to, and he’s not twelve anymore, no, but his cheeks go salty anyway.
“Dude.”
“Jensen!” Jared shouts into the darkness, nearly a wail in the way it releases and he doesn’t care, can’t care, the voice came from somewhere over on his right. “Oh my god, oh my fucking god. Where are you? Where’s the -“
“Dead,” Jensen says, little clicking switch flicks echoing around them for proof.
“Keep talking,” Jared tells him, wiping at his cheeks and chin. “I’ll find you.”
“How long was I out for?”
Jared laughs, and follows the sound of Jensen's low voice. “For a whole two minutes probably. Maybe less than.”
“Weak. So what were we talking about?"
“No. We don’t have to go there. I don’t want to go there. I really don’t want to argue Jensen. Not right now. Please. Okay?”
“Okay,” Jensen says, sounding small. Jared keeps spider-walking in the same direction, the sound of Jensen’s breathing getting closer and closer and Jared’s already overcome with relief. Jensen's okay. Jensen's here. “What do you want me to say then?”
“What you’re doing now is fine. Just keep going.”
Jared gropes around feebly.
“Confession.”
“What?”
“Won’t get mad?”
“Jensen.”
Jensen sighs and it sounds close, close enough that Jared thinks he feels it. “There’s no body.”
Jared stiffens.
“I just thought that maybe if I-whatever. It was stupid, I get it. I really get it. But it made sense in theory, I thought it could work. It always worked for Chris, and. Just figured maybe if I brought you here, that you’d."
“That I’d what? Have a pretty sweet heart attack at the ripe old age of sixteen? Don’t worry, nearly happened.”
“No. That’s not-“
“And what worked for Chris? I'm so sick of his bullshit pranks, Jensen.”
“It’s not a prank. It’s not, Jared. I swear. The story was total BS but Chris always used to bring his old girlfriends up here, over to the warehouse section, to-"
"To?" Jared says, slurry.
"Everyone did," Jensen hastens to say, talking over them both. "It’s like a thing. I know it’s shitty and fuck, not what I had in mind when I pictured-But dude, I’d tried everything else to get you to see, to just. To just see. Me. And you don't. Only as your dumbass friend who hangs around you like a fly, like a-“
“You’re not a fly,” Jared says, impassioned, and the sentence rattles around in his head until it sounds too stupid to be real. He’s got to be right up on Jensen now, how far did he fucking go.
Jared thinks he'd probably be hearing the thrum of Jensen’s heart had his own not been so loud, punching his temples and inching up his throat. “Where are you?”
“Right here,” Jensen says, close. “I’m here.”
“Jensen.”
“Do you see me?”
“Where?”
“Here. Right here.” Jared feels a warmth rush hot against his ear. “Do you see me?”
And Jared doesn’t, but he does. “Yes. Yeah. I see you, Jensen. I do. You’re right here.” Right here, Jensen repeats. It ghosts against his neck. “I’ve always seen you.”
“Hey.”
“Is this,” Jared says, turning his cheek and bumping up against something solid. “Is this you?”
“A little higher. No. Too high. Come back. Scoot this way. Closer. Closer. A little to the left, just a lit-“ but that’s all that Jensen can get out before Jared is kissing him completely quiet.
-
They’re close now, knees and thighs and all the way up, both kneeling on the grubby floor, arms wrapped around tight like small children.
Jensen is lean and solid and he feels powerful in Jared’s arms, the quiet strength of him that Jared's only caught glimpses of through the years by way of playful bouts of wrestling, endless games of tickle torture.
It’s not anything like that this time. Jensen’s a warm weight, arms tucked beneath Jared’s armpits and reaching back up again to grip his shoulders, fingertips digging in possessively. Jared likes it.
Kissing Jensen is everything and nothing like he’d imagined, mostly because he never thought it possible.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Jared hears his weak voice saying, mumbling reassurances out loud, for himself, stupid against the corner of Jensen’s mouth. “You’re okay.”
“Yeah. I’m fine, I’m fine,” Jensen says, mouth wet, dragging his arms out from under him and grabbing Jared’s face with both hands, slotting his thumbs along the line of his cheekbones, rubbing back and forth. “Hey. Hey, man. Your face is. Why’s your face-“
“Jen, don’t,” Jared says, a plea, an admission. “Just. Kiss me.”
And Jensen does.
-
Jensen naked is a thing of beauty. It’s hard for Jared to not simply just stare, now that he knows he can, that he’s allowed.
Jensen’s all satin skin and flat belly, laid out on his back, one leg bent at the knee in invitation. The way his legs curve out in a soft arch, like they were just made to hold someone between them, Jared has to clutch at the base of his dick hard.
Jensen can't see himself laying there, the way he's spread over top of the red plaid quilt he keeps in his closet, the one Jared uses when he stays the night, one of the many useful boy scout things Jared discovered when Jensen tossed his backpack at him and started peeling off his clothes piece by piece, spikes and studs and his Joy Division shirt.
Jared wonders what was going through Jensen's head when he placed each item in his bag, what he'd wanted to happen, what he'd hoped for, how it went in his dayglo head. There was a random candle at the bottom of the bag, and a lighter, both of which had made Jared smile.
“I can be romantic,” Jensen had shrugged. They looked around the building, at the torn over mattress they’d discovered in the warehouse room, at the beer can wads and condom wrappers glinting in the weak moonlight that tumbled in from the high windows, and laughed.
“Can we-I mean, can you,” Jensen says now, reaching out to wrap a hand around the back of Jared’s knee, urging him in closer, letting his legs fall wider. “We’re gonna fuck, right?”
Jared nods dumbly, no longer laughing. “Have you…?”
Jensen shakes his head, but he’s smiling something private. “I wasn’t kidding earlier. I’ve never seen a body before.”
“Oh,” Jared says. His heart comes up to lodge in his throat, choking. “Me neither. I haven’t ever. Seen a body.”
-
Jensen hitches his leg up higher, giving Jared an eyeful on purpose, and Jared stares, presses him thumb against the spot like he just can’t help it and he can’t, he absolutely cannot.
When he rubs at it, soft and questioning, Jensen’s back bows off the mattress and the tip of Jared’s thumb sinks in, just a little, fingernail deep. It's wet. Jensen gasps, shocky good, and Jared wants to ask, wants so bad to press for details, get that visual, but he doesn’t want to embarrass Jensen, not when he’s already so vulnerable.
It’s enough for Jared, just knowing Jensen did that, how hopeful his heart must've been, and Jared thinks he gets why Jensen had been walking so methodically. Gentle, uncomfortable little steps.
Jensen wraps a leg around Jared’s waist and pulls him close, holds him pressed up against Jensen’s ass. He wraps his arms over Jared’s neck and hugs him real tight, softly licks up into his mouth. Jensen's fingers drag along Jared’s scalp and his dick fucks sloppy paths against Jared’s hipbone, desperate.
“Jared, Jared please,” but Jensen can’t say what he wants, probably doesn’t even know.
-
Jared fingers him in earnest, best as he can, and Jensen lets go of him, bones gone soft and sprawled, hands scrabbling out to clutch the quilt. Jensen's head falls back like he's maybe dying and he starts panting for Jared and jesus and god and fuck, and Jared scoots down unnoticed.
He gets there just in time to take Jensen into his mouth, all trembly lipped and nervous, and Jensen's murder-scream ricochets at the crumbly walls.
Jared works as much as he can get of it between his lips, and it isn’t very much, he’s not used to it at all, but it isn't very long before Jensen’s reaching down to cup the back of Jared’s head, sweet. He tries to let off some sort of warning, a choky little cry when Jared sucks hard, but Jared doesn’t let go, and he doesn’t move, and Jensen comes in his mouth.
It's warm and so sudden and way more than Jared was expecting. He works to take it all down, little pools dribbling messy at the corners of his mouth, his chin, but he did it, he got to do that, he was Jensen’s first.
“That was. That was,” Jensen says.
Jared agrees. It really was.
-
It’s a small eternity before Jensen is able to brain again, and when he can, he notices Jared hovering down by his crotch still, probably with a wet mouth and guilty eyes, and Jensen throws his arms out wide, stretching out all feline graceful.
Get up here, get up here, and Jared obeys because he's a chump in love.
Jared slides up Jensen's body, little sucking kisses as he goes, his thigh, his lower belly, side of his rib, a biting pull just under his jaw. He knows Jensen can smell himself on Jared's breath and Jared likes so much how it makes him feel, the dirty knowledge of where he's been.
He’s never been all that smooth, at anything really, forever fumbling around and knocking shit over and Jensen knows that, has always known that, and he sort of smiles lazily when he feels Jared's virgin boner poking at him awkwardly.
Underneath the vests and the buckles, beneath the slouchy hoodies and steel toes, Jensen is all tight, sleek lines and gently carved out ridges, perfect shapes for Jared to mold his hands to. He does that now, and watches Jensen’s smile grow around the edges.
Jensen wordlessly lifts a leg, rests the curve of his foot real soft over Jared’s shoulder and with one hand, he reaches down and guides Jared to his body, nods at the question in Jared’s eyes.
-
Jared tries to go slow, tries so hard, but Jensen presses down on his back, just above his ass. In one furious shove, Jared, helpless to do anything but let it happen, drops down into him easily. He thinks he might cry. Again. Jensen's ass is unfuckingreal.
He watches the length of his dick work its way in again and again, and he’s so outdone by the sight, this crippling new feeling, that he forgets to breathe some. Jared goes a little lightheaded, fuzzy-templed and slow, and that somehow makes his dick even harder, feels even better.
His hips stutter stupidly, motored without his permission, and Jensen’s saying, “Dude, dude, keep going. Just, just,” drained and only half-there but Jared obeys, he was always going to obey.
“Oh wow,” Jared says, awed and dorky, clutching onto Jensen’s hips, fucking in deep and thorough until Jensen’s all the way seated on his dick and Jared stays there for a nice sublime while, just holds himself in there and it’s the best thing, the most destroying touch, and Jensen just takes it so well.
Jared sobs hard, face all blurry hot.
He picks up his pace, trying to decide between holding Jensen down or touching his pretty cock or or or. There’s so many things he wants to do to Jensen that he ends up just collapsing, shoving his hands knuckle deep into Jensen’s hair, fingers lost in a tangle of bio-green.
“Inside,” Jensen says, not totally dead.
It takes a second for Jared to get it but when he does, it's game over. Jensen's the best thing that ever barged into his life, he's been everything to Jared for so long and now, now he's asking for Jared to give everything to him.
He sucks all along Jensen’s neck, ruts into his ass like a dog, and quietly explodes on a silent scream, sloppy pulses and horror-movie breathing. It takes a while, but eventually he makes it back down onto the quilt and just sort of stares up at the corrugated tin roof, falling down at one corner.
-
“Eight minutes, that was at least eight minutes,” Jared finally says, wheezy. “I’m goddamn amazing.”
Jensen glances over, throat and chest already starting to mottle with red bruises. It looks so good on him. “You were counting?”
“I tried,” Jared admits. “For a while. I kinda lost track though. Somewhere around the time you started using your porn voice on me, I think. It was hot.”
“You’re hot,” Jensen retorts, like an insult, and when he reaches over to punch Jared in the arm, they end up making out again for a worryingly long time.
-
“So I’ve been thinking,” Jensen says one day in July, after Jared graduates. “You’re eighteen now, school’s out. Shit's changing. I think it’s about time we move on.”
Jared shoots him a look, dry.
Jensen holds up a set of keys, brand new, like he had copies made from another set maybe. “It’s not that cute yellow house you had your eye on or anything, not yet anyway, sorry dear. But it’s close to your new campus and if you want, we could-“
Jared huffs, already halfway to tackling Jensen in the middle of the grocery store, a few people shooting them odd looks that probably have more to do with Jensen’s neon spectacular atomic orange hair. “Just ask me already.”
And Jensen does.
end.
Author: homo_pink
Summary: Jared's kind of an uptight kid. But he's been in love with his neighbor from down the hall for so long that he'd do just about anything asked of him.
For the salt_burn_porn challenge and riyku's prompt of 'a little to the left'.
Word Count: 6.5k
Warning: underage
AO3
I'm so incredibly sleepy, typing with one eye open. I fear this is nothing but drivel.
And So He Does
“They found a dead body down at the old iron works factory earlier. Not even bloated yet, still nice and fresh. C’mon, get dressed.”
It’s creeping up on one in the morning, Jared only having just started to drowse down into sleep and he’s pawing his eyes and squinting into the night, and it’s not the weirdest thing Jensen’s ever said to him after sneaking in through his bedroom window. Doesn’t even rank in the top five.
-
When Jared and his mother first moved into the old apartment complex at the heart of the city, he’d been eager for the fresh start; a puppyish twelve year old full of excitement and ready for the next adventure.
But that was back when adventure, to Jared, meant catching insects in old jelly jars and raiding the Saturday morning yard sales for gadgets and charms.
He’d never have expected the older kid from a few doors down the hall on the left, the one who wore mismatched shoes and a fake lip ring that switched sides every other day, to become a staple in his life, or even notice him really.
Never once expected to find a best friend anywhere in there either.
Years later and he’s still not sure what made Jensen decide to knock on their door that fateful day and politely ask Jared’s mom if he could borrow her son to help him out with a science project. Jared had stood behind his mom and watched, horrified, as she grinned and agreed and all but sent him on his merry way with a stranger.
And all because she thought Jensen seemed sweet, just so sweet. And cute too, he’d heard her say.
Sweet.
It took twenty minutes for Jared to find that 'science project’ didn’t mean quite the same to him as it did to Jensen.
As it turned out, Jensen was feeling crafty that afternoon and was set on constructing his very own homemade stink bombs. And lots of them. ("Rude neighbors upstairs. Stomp a lot," he explained.) He’d had the ingredients readily laid out on a little table in his room, sitting there all harmless and orderly.
“We just need one more thing,” Jensen had said, while Jared was busy marveling over the array of colorful posters and flags tacked up along the walls, haphazard and crookedly charming. He couldn't help it; Lower Class Brats and The Casualties just seemed worlds away from his own dinosaur sculptures and comic book memorabilia. Galaxies apart.
He hadn’t registered the little snip snip sound until it was too late.
Jared grabbed at his head in shock, both hands clutched in tight, spun around to face the culprit and could barely utter a squeak when Jensen merely shrugged and wandered over to the table to deposit the final component. Apparently those little inventions required hair.
“And you have lots of that,” Jensen said, matter of fact, smiling in that way of his that Jared would later, over time, come to fall victim to time and time again. Nothing malicious, just happy. "We'll need more for the rest."
He went home for dinner that night with an oddly satisfied feeling and noticeably patchy hair that his mother, thankfully, chose not to remark upon.
That was the first time Jared learned never to trust a pretty face. Though the lesson never really quite took.
-
In the summer of 1996, when Jared turned fourteen and they were getting ready to finally attend the same school, Jared no longer a middle school dork and Jensen going into the 11th grade, Jensen convinced him to get an undercut.
Jared hadn’t known what that was at the time, not exactly, just understood that Jensen seemed to really like the idea and that it, admittedly, sounded pretty cool. But then, Jensen only liked cool things. His judgment was sound. Jared trusted him.
The buzzing hum of the clippers seemed to go on forever, whole curtains of hair falling down all around Jared's shoulders, pooling around the bottom of the toilet Jensen had him seated on. A lifetime later, the loud click of a finished product echoed in the tiny apartment bathroom and Jensen set his tools aside, whirled Jared around on his butt, told him to stand.
“Close your eyes,” Jensen said and Jared obeyed wordlessly, as always.
A few tugging pulls and something wondrously soothing raking through his hair that Jared realized to be Jensen’s fingers and then three little snaps that sounded suspiciously like a rubber band.
“Okay. There. Open.”
Jared stared at his reflection, the entire bottom half of his hair from his temple down gone, buzzed short, the rest of it tied back into a ponytail - and then stared at Jensen’s own image right beside him, all wayward dirty blonde spikes and shining hopeful eyes.
He didn’t even have to say, so whaddya think? the way he usually did when he propositioned Jared with some outrageous new plan. Jared could plainly see the fragile delight reflected right there in the mirror, waiting for a reaction to his self-thought masterpiece. Jared hadn’t the heart to crush that.
“This shit rocks,” he’d said, reaching up to feel around his missing hair.
And if he walked around for the rest of the summer and half the school year like a total tool, feeling like the little girl from The Crow, it was worth it for the way Jensen, for reasons unknown, seemed to love it and would sometimes reach over absently just to feel the fuzz.
-
“I think I wanna get a ‘hawk,” Jensen said one day.
He was flipped over onto his belly and rifling through the lyrics booklet from a new CD he’d scored off of someone in one of his classes, kicking his legs in the air back and forth. A good band too, one he’d been dying to check out. For free, he’d said, emphasizing, obviously not understanding why someone would do that.
It was a girl, a really cute girl, and Jared had seen them in the hallway after his study period. Jared didn't need to guess why she'd done it.
Half the people in the school had eyes on Jensen when he walked through the halls, drumming tunes against lockers and singing horribly offensive songs, the whole world nothing but background. Jared saw Jensen in zoom focus, never anything else.
“Jare-crow!”, Jensen might scream, seconds before he was jumping piggyback up onto Jared and kicking at Jared’s thigh like a horse.
For all the things that Jensen was or wasn’t, he’d always been one thing and that was beautiful. Everybody knew it. Jared was never blind to that.
“Should I?”
“Huh?”
“Asshole. You’re not even listening to me. Do you think I should change my hair like this?” and he thrust the booklet in Jared’s face, waving it around.
“If you want?” Jared said after a while, rearranging himself on Jensen’s carpet and trying to concentrate on his history notes.
“Well, do you like it? If you saw it on me, what would you think?”
Jensen paused and waited for Jared to catch up, a quietly serious expression on his face like Jared’s opinion came down to a blue or red wire.
But Jared couldn’t begin to say what he’d think, what he always thought, because the fact was that it didn’t matter what Jensen’s hair looked like, not really. Jensen was so much more than that.
“You could,” Jared said, settling for something safe.
So Jensen did.
And Jared stained his favorite shirt that night, helping Jensen bleach and dye his mohawk purple. He didn't mind it.
-
“I’m thinking I might skip Prom. Chris and the guys are planning on setting off the fire sprinklers, or so they say. And anyway, I’d rather just. I mean. You know.”
Jared didn’t know, but he nodded along like he did. Part of him sagged with relief, while the other part of him was halfway to bummed that he wouldn’t get to see Jensen in some prissy tux with combed hair and a little flower thing pinned to his chest.
“You wanna come over then?” Jensen asked, looking down at his backpack where he was safety-pinning a new patch onto the strap. “Maybe ask your mom if you can spend the night.”
And that was, weird. Jared was over at Jensen’s so frequently his mother often joked that the Ackles’ ought to claim him when tax season rolled around; Jensen asking outright felt strange, forced. Jared didn’t like it. But he wasn’t about to say no.
“Sure, I’ll come over,” he’d said.
So he did.
And they stayed up all night watching half of Jensen’s B movie collection, Jensen putting in film after film like he wasn’t ready for the night to end, like he was waiting for something, three dots at the end of a sentence.
-
“I think I’m gonna join a band,” Jensen said. “I can sing okay, right? Kinda? And I’ll just be screaming so it’s not like anyone’ll know the difference. You can be my groupie."
Jensen had chuckled, not catching the way Jared's face had flamed up and he missed a crack in the sidewalk and stupidly lost his footing for about half a second.
The way he talked about it, for days on end, rattling away in Jared’s ear on the bus to school, in the courtyard during lunch, on the walks back home once Jared’s after school chess club let out, it was nearly a living entity. Glamorous and gritty, real rock star stuff with flyers and merch and personalized guitars.
“You can sing,” Jared said. “You’d be good at it.”
So Jensen joined.
It was little more than four guys with a box of secondhand instruments assembled in Chris’s garage, writing ‘ballads’ about sex and cigarettes but it meant everything to Jensen, back then. They practiced every Friday and Saturday night.
Jared never missed a single one.
-
“I think I’ll stay around here for a while. Year or two, maybe. Just until I get settled somewhere,” Jensen had said. In life, Jared had heard.
It was nearing the end of Jensen’s senior year and after that, Jared would have to find someone else to sit with on the bus, in the cafeteria, would have to find someone else when Jensen found someone else. Someone else. Someone else.
“I can see if they’re hiring at the record shop, or Planet K, and if it comes down to it, I can always-“
Prematurely grieving and nauseous, just the thought of Jensen leaving high school and leaving home, leaving him, Jared had blurted, “You should stay.”
And Jensen did.
-
“So I’ve been thinking,” Jensen said one day in March. “I’m eighteen now. School’s almost out,” roll calling each dreaded item on Jared’s internal list, like he wasn’t acutely aware of every single one of these things. “It’s different now, shit's changing, I make my own rules. Shit, I can buy smokes if I want, lose big at a casino, purchase porn. I think it’s time.”
“Time?” Jared asked, fiddling with the button on the pocket of his cargo shorts, panic welling up into his chest.
“I’m gonna get a tattoo. Today. Right now, I think. Wanna go?”
They walked down to the parlor and flipped through binders of each artist’s work, whistled when they saw something particularly cool, took total inventory to make sure something that would forever decorate Jensen’s body was perfect. Jared kept circling back to the freehand styles, clean line work and just-right shading.
They went with Tony, a bearded guy with dreads and a friendly smile, and Jared stayed out in the waiting area while Jensen was taken to the back. Jensen turned around halfway there, met Jared's eye, grinned. "Think quick, right or left?"
"Left."
Forty-five minutes later, Jensen returned with aftercare instructions, a sample-size packet of ointment and a swath of cellophane around his ankle. When they got outside, Jared couldn't resist anymore and promptly bent over to study the design in the waning sunlight, holding Jensen’s left leg and carefully lifting it up a little higher to see.
It was a capital J in clean black, bold typewriter print, sitting inside a (totally ridiculous and totally Jensen) fat, yellow lightning bolt done in a matching black outline.
“I,” Jared said, still crouched, examining the work. “I actually really like that. It’s nice.”
“Yeah,” Jensen said when Jared let go of his leg. He sounded miles away. “I love it.”
-
“That needs to be reported, it’s gonna start smelling if it’s been more than two days. Okay wait, who found it?” Jared stops with his head partway into his flannel shirt, already shoving his feet into a pair of shoes.
“I dunno, Chris or someone. Let’s go though, we’re burning daylight here.”
Jared looks out the still-open window, out into the harsh black night Jensen seeped in from and pointedly doesn’t say a word. Jensen rolls his eyes, makes a jerkoff motion.
“'Chris or someone'?” Jared says then, skeptical. He’s not trying to be a stick in the mud here but there’s a dead body in discussion. The proper authorities need to be notified and besides, he’s not sure he’s even all that keen on seeing a corpse. For all he knows, it might be worm breeding grounds already.
Jensen fake yawns and mutters something about needing a hip replacement soon, hurry up, blah blah, starts poking around at Jared’s desk, and then, “Oh. What’s this?”
“Put that down!” Jared says, rushing over, head sticking out of his shirt all wrong and only one arm fully in. “That shit’s half my grade, man. Careful with it.”
Jensen's holding Jared's career board in his hands and he spent five hours working on that thing and though he’ll never say so, he’s kind of proud of it.
It’s basically his whole future and how to get there, or at least how he sees it. An aerial view printout of the UT campus and the orange longhorn logo nearby, a couple of photocopied Marvel and DC covers tacked up, the overview of a graphic novel course that interested him.
There's also a small, yellow one story house that he’d simply liked the look of and added in as an afterthought. A sleek black Lambo off in the corner because hey, it’s his fucking board.
Jensen looks at it a little while longer, makes some sort of sound like he’s maybe thinking it over and sets it back down, neat and pristine.
He doesn’t make any off handed remarks or call Jared corny or anything like that, but when Jared ducks out of his bedroom window, he'd swear he sees his very best friend in the world wiping the arm of his hoodie sleeve across his eyes. It kills him to think Jensen might be laughing at him, even if he’s pretending not to.
“Daylight’s burning,” Jared says, snappy and rude. It doesn’t make him feel as vindicated as he’d hoped.
-
They walk down the alley behind their complex, Jensen retrieving his old backpack from where he’d stowed it down below Jared’s window sill. He slings it up over one shoulder and it looks heavy. Jared wonders what all Jensen has in there, flashlights and a camera could probably fit in their pockets. He doesn’t ask though. He's still feeling kind of bitchy.
“Nervous?” Jared says, just to break the silence that’s risen up between them, the one that’s never really there. Not usually. Not ever.
“Pretty much,” Jensen admits, throwing his hood up over his head as they skulk along, dodging streetlights and flickering signs, sticking to the shadows. His hair is green this month. “Kinda scared, too.”
Jared elbows him, scoffy. Jensen’s never scared.
Grinning down at his shoes as they go, Jensen hunches a shoulder in defeat and places careful feet down onto the pavement, nothing hurried. “Yeah yeah, but hey. First time for everything, amiright? I’ve never seen a body before.”
“First time,” Jared echoes and they trudge on into the night, knocking elbows and trying to trip each other.
-
The old abandoned factory on the opposite side of town is unnerving enough during the day, a hulking superstructure made up of rusted walkways and saggy fences past their prime.
Once past the witching hour, choked with yellowed grass high as a corn field and nothing but uninterrupted silence, as though perhaps even the little insects Jared used to enjoy catching are smart enough to have found someplace kinder to occupy, it’s downright hair-raising.
Jared keeps close to Jensen’s side and every few yards, starts whispering, asking again if Jensen’s sure about this, are they really going in there, all the way inside?
In the distance, the very distant distance, Jared notes, the heavy noise of an 18 wheeler rumbles past and then very little else, a city asleep. The smog of the decrepit old building seems to cloak them in the closer they get to the mouth of the thing and when they’re a few feet away, Jensen stops.
“Here." He hands Jared a small flashlight and keeps one out for himself. Zips his bag back up and nods. “Let’s see what we see.”
Jared’s at the point where he pretty much doesn’t want to see anything anymore, but he quiets down. Jensen obviously wants this.
-
Inside it's blackness and a cloying, baked-in sort of heat. The air itself feels greasy and when Jared takes a deep breath to steady himself, he almost wishes he hadn’t. It’s sour and smells of a different type of decay, the thick odor of rot and things long forgotten by the world.
Jared follows Jensen down a corridor, his light dithering in his grip the further along they creep. Something slick coats the ground, distinct in the pulling hiss it makes every time he lifts his foot. He deliberately doesn’t shine his light to the floor. Best not to know.
“Just a little ways to go,” Jensen says. “Think we’re almost there.”
“There? Where there? You know the exact location?”
“Well, yeah. Chris more or less told me where to go. Shouldn’t be too much longer.”
Something crunches under Jared's foot and he cringes, wishing he’d owned a pair of stompy combat boots like Jensen’s. And maybe, yeah, they look kind of strange matched with old faded camo pants cut off at the knee like Jensen favors, but at least nothing unwanted is getting into those babies.
Jared rushes to catch up where he’s fallen behind and they round a sharp corner, find themselves in another putrid funk hallway, graffiti canvasing the walls in various overlapping symbols and words, a pretty sort of corrosion.
“Hey, look at this,” Jared says, swishing his light over a very detailed spray paint penis. Jensen casts a quick look over his shoulder and Jared’s flashlight promptly dies. “Shit.”
He shakes it a few times, nothing. Checks and rechecks the batteries, jiggles it a couple more times just to try and curses very colorfully. He slips the stupid thing into his pocket and stays skin-close to Jensen and their one remaining beacon of light.
Jensen takes careful, deliberate steps, walking in that weird way he has been since they left home. Jared doesn't like any of this.
-
“I wonder if there could be more than one body in here." Jensen says, real thoughtful like. Jared shuffles closer. "Who’d know, right?”
At the far end of the old factory is a large, empty warehouse area with a row of high rise windows near the top, able to be seen from the highway.
It’s the big room where the homeless and the tweekers would gather years ago, back before the place became too condemned to offer even that much livable shelter. Jared assumes that’s where they’re headed.
Jensen snaps his bubblegum a couple of times, urging Jared on, guiding them deeper into the maze.
As Jared's calming his heartbeat into a softer lull, something skitters across the toe of his shoe and Jared lets out the scream he's been holding in all night and bodily slams Jensen up against the cold steel wall. He leans his full weight against Jensen and presses in tight, shielding him from any outside threats.
Jensen wildly shines his light in every direction, panting a little and catching Jared's fear by sheer proximity. And he sighs.
“Jared, it’s a fucking opossum. Jesus fuck.”
They keep walking.
-
"What the hell is that? Are you whistling?" Jared asks distractedly, trying to take his mind off the way their light source seems to have dimmed fractionally.
Jensen doesn't reply, and something creeks ominously further down the stretch.
-
“Yo, dead chick. You here?”
“Jensen!”
“What? It’s not like she's gonna care.”
“Still. That’s bad juju.” And then, “it’s a chick?”
-
A background sense of fear has started to take over and every little crunch and scuffle sets Jared closer and closer to hysteria.
"How much further?" Jared says, just to hear a human voice, and when Jensen doesn’t answer for a long while, the harsh set of his jawline unmoving, Jared figures that’s it. They’re well and truly fucking lost.
In a deathzone contaminated husk of an old building where nobody will ever find them because nobody knew where they went or that they left and there’s a decomposing cadaver somewhere in their midst. Jared hasn’t cried in front of Jensen since he was twelve but he thinks that’s about to change.
“So you’re going to Austin, huh?” Jensen says then, and it's enough of a shock to be a good distraction.
“Um. Well, not like tomorrow or anything but yeah, I’ve been thinking about it. It’s a good school.”
“Yup.”
“What does that mean? Yup. You know I hate when you pop your p’s like that.”
“Good for who?”
“For …who? For me,” Jared says, squinting at what he can see of Jensen’s sharp silhouette. “What do you-“
“Never mind it,” Jensen rushes on, waving his hand around like it’s all nonsense, causing the light to go askew. “Yeah, it’s good Jared. It’s real good. It’s just. It’s kinda far, ya know?”
Which, no.
“It’s an hour if you run red lights and floor it. We must be measuring the distance from different scales here, man.”
“Apparently so,” Jensen says, clucking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a little tic he only gets when he’s pissy. “Guess it’s just a little farther than what I’m used to.”
And fuck you.
“You’re the one that’s leaving,” Jared says, suddenly angry and hurt, childish, and he reaches out to yank Jensen back by the elbow. “Said so yourself, remember? You’re leaving Jensen. Away from your parents, away from - You’ll be gone. And then what? What about me? You think about that?”
Jensen takes a step back, like Jared’s physically struck him and he points an accusing hand at Jared’s face, jabbing with the flashlight so that Jared just sees bursts of light like a strobe in front of him. “I never left. I’m still there, right? You said stay. You said that, you asked me. And I stayed Jared. I stayed because- Because.”
And Jensen's still backing away, like Jared's someone to be frightened of.
“Because?”
But Jensen's too busy getting tripped up on a pile of gutter trash debris. He windmills his arms about crazily for a brief moment, goes tumbling down to the ground with a startled shout and a heavy, sick sounding thud and the flashlight in his hand clatters off into the shadow, light dying out behind it.
“Jensen!”
Jared darts forward in a helpless attempt at aiming himself in the general direction of Jensen’s afterimage and stops short, eyes darting around in deep, portentous black.
-
“Dude, where are you? I can’t see you. I can’t see anything. I can’t see,” he reaches out to feel along the walls but comes up clutching only stale air. “Jensen?”
He takes a deep swallow and lowers himself into a cat's crouch, grabbing around in hopes of hitting something, anything to help guide him. He’s panicking, knows it in the way his throat feels like it’s closing up. He has to get to Jensen, he has to, and he’s not twelve anymore, no, but his cheeks go salty anyway.
“Dude.”
“Jensen!” Jared shouts into the darkness, nearly a wail in the way it releases and he doesn’t care, can’t care, the voice came from somewhere over on his right. “Oh my god, oh my fucking god. Where are you? Where’s the -“
“Dead,” Jensen says, little clicking switch flicks echoing around them for proof.
“Keep talking,” Jared tells him, wiping at his cheeks and chin. “I’ll find you.”
“How long was I out for?”
Jared laughs, and follows the sound of Jensen's low voice. “For a whole two minutes probably. Maybe less than.”
“Weak. So what were we talking about?"
“No. We don’t have to go there. I don’t want to go there. I really don’t want to argue Jensen. Not right now. Please. Okay?”
“Okay,” Jensen says, sounding small. Jared keeps spider-walking in the same direction, the sound of Jensen’s breathing getting closer and closer and Jared’s already overcome with relief. Jensen's okay. Jensen's here. “What do you want me to say then?”
“What you’re doing now is fine. Just keep going.”
Jared gropes around feebly.
“Confession.”
“What?”
“Won’t get mad?”
“Jensen.”
Jensen sighs and it sounds close, close enough that Jared thinks he feels it. “There’s no body.”
Jared stiffens.
“I just thought that maybe if I-whatever. It was stupid, I get it. I really get it. But it made sense in theory, I thought it could work. It always worked for Chris, and. Just figured maybe if I brought you here, that you’d."
“That I’d what? Have a pretty sweet heart attack at the ripe old age of sixteen? Don’t worry, nearly happened.”
“No. That’s not-“
“And what worked for Chris? I'm so sick of his bullshit pranks, Jensen.”
“It’s not a prank. It’s not, Jared. I swear. The story was total BS but Chris always used to bring his old girlfriends up here, over to the warehouse section, to-"
"To?" Jared says, slurry.
"Everyone did," Jensen hastens to say, talking over them both. "It’s like a thing. I know it’s shitty and fuck, not what I had in mind when I pictured-But dude, I’d tried everything else to get you to see, to just. To just see. Me. And you don't. Only as your dumbass friend who hangs around you like a fly, like a-“
“You’re not a fly,” Jared says, impassioned, and the sentence rattles around in his head until it sounds too stupid to be real. He’s got to be right up on Jensen now, how far did he fucking go.
Jared thinks he'd probably be hearing the thrum of Jensen’s heart had his own not been so loud, punching his temples and inching up his throat. “Where are you?”
“Right here,” Jensen says, close. “I’m here.”
“Jensen.”
“Do you see me?”
“Where?”
“Here. Right here.” Jared feels a warmth rush hot against his ear. “Do you see me?”
And Jared doesn’t, but he does. “Yes. Yeah. I see you, Jensen. I do. You’re right here.” Right here, Jensen repeats. It ghosts against his neck. “I’ve always seen you.”
“Hey.”
“Is this,” Jared says, turning his cheek and bumping up against something solid. “Is this you?”
“A little higher. No. Too high. Come back. Scoot this way. Closer. Closer. A little to the left, just a lit-“ but that’s all that Jensen can get out before Jared is kissing him completely quiet.
-
They’re close now, knees and thighs and all the way up, both kneeling on the grubby floor, arms wrapped around tight like small children.
Jensen is lean and solid and he feels powerful in Jared’s arms, the quiet strength of him that Jared's only caught glimpses of through the years by way of playful bouts of wrestling, endless games of tickle torture.
It’s not anything like that this time. Jensen’s a warm weight, arms tucked beneath Jared’s armpits and reaching back up again to grip his shoulders, fingertips digging in possessively. Jared likes it.
Kissing Jensen is everything and nothing like he’d imagined, mostly because he never thought it possible.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Jared hears his weak voice saying, mumbling reassurances out loud, for himself, stupid against the corner of Jensen’s mouth. “You’re okay.”
“Yeah. I’m fine, I’m fine,” Jensen says, mouth wet, dragging his arms out from under him and grabbing Jared’s face with both hands, slotting his thumbs along the line of his cheekbones, rubbing back and forth. “Hey. Hey, man. Your face is. Why’s your face-“
“Jen, don’t,” Jared says, a plea, an admission. “Just. Kiss me.”
And Jensen does.
-
Jensen naked is a thing of beauty. It’s hard for Jared to not simply just stare, now that he knows he can, that he’s allowed.
Jensen’s all satin skin and flat belly, laid out on his back, one leg bent at the knee in invitation. The way his legs curve out in a soft arch, like they were just made to hold someone between them, Jared has to clutch at the base of his dick hard.
Jensen can't see himself laying there, the way he's spread over top of the red plaid quilt he keeps in his closet, the one Jared uses when he stays the night, one of the many useful boy scout things Jared discovered when Jensen tossed his backpack at him and started peeling off his clothes piece by piece, spikes and studs and his Joy Division shirt.
Jared wonders what was going through Jensen's head when he placed each item in his bag, what he'd wanted to happen, what he'd hoped for, how it went in his dayglo head. There was a random candle at the bottom of the bag, and a lighter, both of which had made Jared smile.
“I can be romantic,” Jensen had shrugged. They looked around the building, at the torn over mattress they’d discovered in the warehouse room, at the beer can wads and condom wrappers glinting in the weak moonlight that tumbled in from the high windows, and laughed.
“Can we-I mean, can you,” Jensen says now, reaching out to wrap a hand around the back of Jared’s knee, urging him in closer, letting his legs fall wider. “We’re gonna fuck, right?”
Jared nods dumbly, no longer laughing. “Have you…?”
Jensen shakes his head, but he’s smiling something private. “I wasn’t kidding earlier. I’ve never seen a body before.”
“Oh,” Jared says. His heart comes up to lodge in his throat, choking. “Me neither. I haven’t ever. Seen a body.”
-
Jensen hitches his leg up higher, giving Jared an eyeful on purpose, and Jared stares, presses him thumb against the spot like he just can’t help it and he can’t, he absolutely cannot.
When he rubs at it, soft and questioning, Jensen’s back bows off the mattress and the tip of Jared’s thumb sinks in, just a little, fingernail deep. It's wet. Jensen gasps, shocky good, and Jared wants to ask, wants so bad to press for details, get that visual, but he doesn’t want to embarrass Jensen, not when he’s already so vulnerable.
It’s enough for Jared, just knowing Jensen did that, how hopeful his heart must've been, and Jared thinks he gets why Jensen had been walking so methodically. Gentle, uncomfortable little steps.
Jensen wraps a leg around Jared’s waist and pulls him close, holds him pressed up against Jensen’s ass. He wraps his arms over Jared’s neck and hugs him real tight, softly licks up into his mouth. Jensen's fingers drag along Jared’s scalp and his dick fucks sloppy paths against Jared’s hipbone, desperate.
“Jared, Jared please,” but Jensen can’t say what he wants, probably doesn’t even know.
-
Jared fingers him in earnest, best as he can, and Jensen lets go of him, bones gone soft and sprawled, hands scrabbling out to clutch the quilt. Jensen's head falls back like he's maybe dying and he starts panting for Jared and jesus and god and fuck, and Jared scoots down unnoticed.
He gets there just in time to take Jensen into his mouth, all trembly lipped and nervous, and Jensen's murder-scream ricochets at the crumbly walls.
Jared works as much as he can get of it between his lips, and it isn’t very much, he’s not used to it at all, but it isn't very long before Jensen’s reaching down to cup the back of Jared’s head, sweet. He tries to let off some sort of warning, a choky little cry when Jared sucks hard, but Jared doesn’t let go, and he doesn’t move, and Jensen comes in his mouth.
It's warm and so sudden and way more than Jared was expecting. He works to take it all down, little pools dribbling messy at the corners of his mouth, his chin, but he did it, he got to do that, he was Jensen’s first.
“That was. That was,” Jensen says.
Jared agrees. It really was.
-
It’s a small eternity before Jensen is able to brain again, and when he can, he notices Jared hovering down by his crotch still, probably with a wet mouth and guilty eyes, and Jensen throws his arms out wide, stretching out all feline graceful.
Get up here, get up here, and Jared obeys because he's a chump in love.
Jared slides up Jensen's body, little sucking kisses as he goes, his thigh, his lower belly, side of his rib, a biting pull just under his jaw. He knows Jensen can smell himself on Jared's breath and Jared likes so much how it makes him feel, the dirty knowledge of where he's been.
He’s never been all that smooth, at anything really, forever fumbling around and knocking shit over and Jensen knows that, has always known that, and he sort of smiles lazily when he feels Jared's virgin boner poking at him awkwardly.
Underneath the vests and the buckles, beneath the slouchy hoodies and steel toes, Jensen is all tight, sleek lines and gently carved out ridges, perfect shapes for Jared to mold his hands to. He does that now, and watches Jensen’s smile grow around the edges.
Jensen wordlessly lifts a leg, rests the curve of his foot real soft over Jared’s shoulder and with one hand, he reaches down and guides Jared to his body, nods at the question in Jared’s eyes.
-
Jared tries to go slow, tries so hard, but Jensen presses down on his back, just above his ass. In one furious shove, Jared, helpless to do anything but let it happen, drops down into him easily. He thinks he might cry. Again. Jensen's ass is unfuckingreal.
He watches the length of his dick work its way in again and again, and he’s so outdone by the sight, this crippling new feeling, that he forgets to breathe some. Jared goes a little lightheaded, fuzzy-templed and slow, and that somehow makes his dick even harder, feels even better.
His hips stutter stupidly, motored without his permission, and Jensen’s saying, “Dude, dude, keep going. Just, just,” drained and only half-there but Jared obeys, he was always going to obey.
“Oh wow,” Jared says, awed and dorky, clutching onto Jensen’s hips, fucking in deep and thorough until Jensen’s all the way seated on his dick and Jared stays there for a nice sublime while, just holds himself in there and it’s the best thing, the most destroying touch, and Jensen just takes it so well.
Jared sobs hard, face all blurry hot.
He picks up his pace, trying to decide between holding Jensen down or touching his pretty cock or or or. There’s so many things he wants to do to Jensen that he ends up just collapsing, shoving his hands knuckle deep into Jensen’s hair, fingers lost in a tangle of bio-green.
“Inside,” Jensen says, not totally dead.
It takes a second for Jared to get it but when he does, it's game over. Jensen's the best thing that ever barged into his life, he's been everything to Jared for so long and now, now he's asking for Jared to give everything to him.
He sucks all along Jensen’s neck, ruts into his ass like a dog, and quietly explodes on a silent scream, sloppy pulses and horror-movie breathing. It takes a while, but eventually he makes it back down onto the quilt and just sort of stares up at the corrugated tin roof, falling down at one corner.
-
“Eight minutes, that was at least eight minutes,” Jared finally says, wheezy. “I’m goddamn amazing.”
Jensen glances over, throat and chest already starting to mottle with red bruises. It looks so good on him. “You were counting?”
“I tried,” Jared admits. “For a while. I kinda lost track though. Somewhere around the time you started using your porn voice on me, I think. It was hot.”
“You’re hot,” Jensen retorts, like an insult, and when he reaches over to punch Jared in the arm, they end up making out again for a worryingly long time.
-
“So I’ve been thinking,” Jensen says one day in July, after Jared graduates. “You’re eighteen now, school’s out. Shit's changing. I think it’s about time we move on.”
Jared shoots him a look, dry.
Jensen holds up a set of keys, brand new, like he had copies made from another set maybe. “It’s not that cute yellow house you had your eye on or anything, not yet anyway, sorry dear. But it’s close to your new campus and if you want, we could-“
Jared huffs, already halfway to tackling Jensen in the middle of the grocery store, a few people shooting them odd looks that probably have more to do with Jensen’s neon spectacular atomic orange hair. “Just ask me already.”
And Jensen does.
end.