Sweeter than Heaven, hotter than Hell - Jared/Jensen NC-17 [Part 3]
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Jared’s back to pacing, because there’s nothing else he can do at this point.
Remiel’s left him here, cut off and imprisoned in what’s supposed be the true home of every angel, no matter how much more of a home Earth has come to feel like. The only kind of home he’ll have left if both sides destroy everything.
He’s tried breaking out, and he isn’t strong enough. He’s tried slipping free of his body, letting the physicality of it drop away, but he can’t. The only thing he hasn’t tried to get out of the echoing chamber is Falling, but he doubts he could summon the kind of will it takes to do that.
He snorts as he thinks that the one thing keeping him locked up here is that somewhere deep down he still believes the others can do the right thing. The ‘right thing’, whatever that means now.
Hours pass as he slumps down against a cool wall, the bumps of embossed symbols pressing at his back, knees drawn up and forehead resting on them. One moment, completely indistinguishable from any other, the hair stirs away from his forehead; a sudden breeze out of nowhere brushing against his skin, the gentleness like a shove after so long with nothing.
In an otherwise empty part of the hemispherical room, a point of sharp, blue light is spreading outward, undefined and abstract like a drop of radiant ink in clear water.
As Jared gets to his feet, there’s a pop and the point collapses inwards, a dent in the air becoming a funnel that shapes into a roughly circular portal. The kind Jared was deposited through, he supposes, if the Metatron hadn’t gotten so eager to drag him Up here that he’d knocked him out.
The coalescing mass of the doorway flickers with sparks of interlacing light, whirlpooling faster and faster as Jared gets near it, the sound of it filling the space and rebounding in dissonant fists of noise.
With an abrupt, sputtering rush of air and a tangy smell of ozone, the portal flares unbearably bright and spits out a figure that slides across the gleaming tile with a scraping thump, and a pained groan Jared is pitifully unsurprised at recognising.
“Jensen?” he says, pointless but at least it voices his bafflement as the demon winces and sits up. He looks out of place in his dark clothes, maybe a little paler than the last time Jared saw him, but then they’d been in a much more arid clime then.
Jensen groans again as he stumbles onto his feet, Jared taking an automatic step toward him in case the effort sends him back to the unforgiving floor. He finally seems to notice Jared standing there, blinking exaggeratedly hard until the sharp green of his eyes take Jared in.
“Well,” Jensen says, coughing to clear his throat when it comes out a little strangled, leaning to put his hands on his thighs like he’s out of breath, squinting a little as he stares at Jared. “Your dress sense has gotten worse.”
Jared shouldn’t be smiling.
“I wasn’t given much of a choice,” he says, and Jensen’s gaze hardens.
“Where are we?” he asks, then waves Jared off as he goes to answer. “Never mind, sure I don’t wanna know. Where’s the door?”
Jared groans. “There isn’t one. That’s kind of the point.” Then like a sudden unexpected slap he asks “What are you even doing here? ” Because now that the shock and slightly embarrassing joy over seeing Jensen has ebbed a little, the reality of there being a demon in Heaven is clawing its way up his chest.
It might be an instinctual response to who they are and where they’re standing, but Jared doubts it. There’s no standardised response that fits Jensen, not really.
“What am I doing here?” Jensen echoes, with so much mockery that the most sarcastic human ever born would be impressed (though they probably wouldn’t be sincere about it). “I’m here to rescue you, you idiot,” Jensen hisses, leaning close enough Jared can see the whites of his eyes, and the slight reddish tinge of his irises, like a forest fire with the green in the middle.
Jared gapes. “Rescue me? Jensen that’s… you can’t. Look around, you think you’re getting out of here any more than I am?”
Jensen shrugs. “There’s always a way out, we just gotta find it.” Just like that. Like it’s that simple. Jared’s lucky he can’t actually have an aneurysm.
“You think I haven’t tried?” he says, stepping back and waving around at the grim expanse of the room. “There’s nothing here. This isn’t like that time in Italy, Jensen, there’ll be no bribing guards or sneaking out of here.”
“Well,” Jensen says, a little hesitant (which is probably a lot for a demon who’s admitting to having done something underhanded with anything other than pride) “I might have something that could help.”
He reaches into his jacket pulls a dark wooden box from a pocket that never should’ve been capable of containing it.
“You watch too much television,” Jared observes as Jensen hefts the box in his hands.
“Oh please,” Jensen mocks. “I happen to know BBC America was one of yours.”
Jared colours. “Yeah well, Heaven moves in mysterious ways.”
Jensen snorts as he runs his fingers along the seam, which glows a dull red in his wake.
“What-” Jared’s about to ask when the box opens with a hot breath of air. Then all he manages is a faint “Oh.”
“Huh,” Jensen says, faintly surprised. “Well that’s interesting.”
Sitting in the red velvet lining that’s moulded around it, is a wicked-looking two bladed knife, with a slightly curved black handle, the blades two differing patterned shades of silver and red, the silver so bright it’s whiter than bone.
Jared’s heard of this knife, like he imagines most angels and demons have. Fashioned by the First being in Creation to be damned to Hell, literally from the essences of the Second and Third Fallen, who made up the Triumvirate of Hell before Lucifer’s rule.
“Jensen,” Jared breathes, hand hovering just over the knife. “Where did you even get this?”
“That devious sonuvabitch Lucifer must’ve taken it when he left,” Jensen says. “He said it could help.”
“How?” Jared asks. “It’s not like we can fight our way out of a sealed room.”
Jensen gets a contemplative look, lifts the knife from the box, the edges of the blades singing through the air even with that slow movement. He hands Jared the box and walks to the nearest wall behind him, pressing a palm flat to the surface before swinging back and ignoring Jared’s noise of protest as he drives the knife to the hilt into the wall.
It sinks through the ethereal metal like a sword through bread, a wailing screech of more than just protesting alloy as faint light pours in around the blade, the damnation of the knife washing away the Holy material around it. Jensen steps back, leaving the knife embedded in the wall, turns to Jared and shrugs.
“Can opener,” Jensen suggests.
“We’re on the top of the city,” Jared points out. “There’s nothing around us but a long drop to a messy and quantumly complicated death.”
Jensen frowns, looking at his feet and then sharply back at Jared. “Then we go through the floor,” he says, almost sharper than the knife he tugs out of the wall, the light from outside a pale stream highlighting the ground.
Leave it to a demon to know the best way of climbing downwards.
Jensen drops to his haunches, smoothly flips the knife in his hand. Jared drops down next to him, trying not to suggest that they don’t cut a gaping hole in the angelic city. He’s more touched by Jensen’s determination than he should be under the circumstances.
Jensen looks at him, eyes raking over Jared’s face before he mutters sharply under his breath, reaches out with his free hand and drags Jared in by the collar, captures his lips in a hard, wet (and slightly uncoordinated) kiss.
Jared leans into the contact, kisses back, because really it’s been six thousand years, and there’s no one that’s being fooled at this point.
It’s not drawn-out, or sweet, and there are no fireworks exploding over their heads (though the argument could be made that the ethereal light of Eternity and the glowing souls of mortal beings beats a few chemicals shoved into cardboard tubes), and no uprush of romantic music. There’s just the pressure of Jensen’s lips, the surprisingly real scrape of his stubble along Jared’s skin, the feel of his hand on Jared’s neck as his fingers brush the skin behind his collar and his tongue flickers over Jared’s lower lip.
It’s perfect.
“Well,” Jared says, a little shaken when Jensen pulls back with darker eyes and a wet gleam on his lips. “Your timing is awful, but I guess that’s just you isn’t it?” A small hint of a smile meanders across his flushed lips at the same time that Jensen flushes like he’s embarrassed.
“Yeah well, couldn’t risk…just wanted to make sure we were clear,” Jensen says, leaning back and looking anywhere but at Jared.
“Completely clear,” Jared says, soft because he can and gentle because he wants to be, fingers brushing Jensen’s around the handle of the knife. “Now get us out of here, would you? No way your grand entrance is going unnoticed much longer.”
“Oh I’m making waves all over today,” Jensen tells him. “You should’ve been there this afternoon, I was on fire. Well, there was fire involved at least.”
Jared wants to ask, but he gets the feeling it’ll just add another layer of worry he could do without.
He’s about to suggest hurrying up, even as Jensen grunts with the exertion of pushing the cursed knife through the stubborn floor, when that muffled wingbeat sounds again, and both of them spring to their feet as Remiel’s wrathful shape looms across the glow of holy light.
“How convenient,” Remiel says, icy words colder than his eyes. “The deserter and the traitor, together at the End.”
“Some nerve,” Jensen says, the knife pulled from the smooth tile and held toward Remiel. “Considering the crap you’ve been trying to pull around here.” He stands slowly, taking a purposeful step between Remiel and Jared. If it weren’t completely idiotic Jared might be flattered. “Who died and made you God anyway, you sanctimonious jackass?”
Remiel’s expression darkens even further, a storm cloud ready to break open. He takes a striding step toward Jensen but stops short when Jensen raises the knife.
“The Knife of the Fallen,” Remiel mutters, quickly regaining his composure. “You overstep yourself, demon.”
Jensen barks a laugh. “Coming from you that’s a real compliment, boss,” he says. “Unless you wanna get real personal with this thing I suggest you let us leave. Don’t think anyone’s ever tried this pigsticker on an angel before, who knows what could happen.” He brandishes the blade back and forth a little for emphasis, Remiel’s hands clenching and opening as he circles around them like a shark.
“Where would you go?” Remiel asks them both. “The war cannot be stopped. I have Lordship of Hell and the will of Heaven ready to swarm the Earth and all the worlds beyond. You think you can stop it?”
Jensen hums, his grip tightening on the handle of the knife. “I think you were worried enough about them to start this in the first place; enough that you tried to knock us off the board. What’s wrong, afraid the humans won’t go as quietly with us whispering in their ears?”
The fury on Remiel’s face is burning in the luminous glow around his head, the battle uniform he’s wearing shining whiter than the bloodless knuckles clenched at his sides.
“You can’t stop us,” Remiel promises, and Jared wishes it felt like overconfidence.
“I can stop you,” Jensen answers, a low grumble of words and the subtle raise of the knife.
There’s a slight pause, barely a moment that stretches out in one of Time’s peculiar habits, then a blast of Power that flings Jared back the few feet into the wall, knocking the air from him and collapsing him to his knees.
His vision swimming and head ringing, he looks up to see Jensen staggering with a punch from Remiel’s fist, sending him sprawling back across the ground.
Jared wants him to stay down, to not force this any further even while he tries and fails to make himself stand. He wants to cry out to the others about the truth of what’s happening, even knowing they don’t care. Fallen is Fallen after all, and they’ve all bought into Remiel’s lies, happy to let them both rot.
Jensen stumbles harder than Jared does as he stands, the knife still in his hand but his grip slack, blood on the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t know what’ll happen if Jensen dies here. No body, maybe no form at all, a demon killed in Heaven likely wouldn’t be recreated anywhere. No soul to pass to the next eternity.
“Step forward then, demon,” Remiel taunts, holding his arms out as he steps closer to Jensen. “And have your resolution.”
“Stop this,” Jared spits as he pulls himself up along the wall, Remiel hardly sparing him a glance. He lurches forward, almost loses balance just from that, the strangling grip of Power slamming into him before he gets close.
Remiel’s hand reaches for the inside of his tunic, and Jared recognises the look in his eyes for what is, having seen it more times than he’d ever care to think about on the faces of the self-proclaimed righteous during the Rebellion. He darts forward, not thinking of anything except the pained twist of Jensen’s lips, and knocks into Remiel’s side. He isn’t strong enough to fight the Ruler of Hell, but he won’t let Jensen die as long as he can do something - anything - to stop it.
He lands a few meagre blows before the shock of the move wears off and Remiel tosses him aside with barely a second before Jensen collides with him again, driving him back a few paces.
“Your faith in mankind is misplaced,” Remiel promises, lashing out and driving a pained grunt from Jensen as more blows land across his torso and abdomen.
“Not doing this for mankind,” Jensen chokes out, shambling forwards and ducking a forceful punch, some last reserve of energy as he kicks out hard enough to jar Remiel’s knee. Then he steps around and yells with the effort as he drives the knife up into Remiel’s side.
With a grating, whining burst of sound, light cracks over the surface of Remiel’s skin, pours from his eyes and mouth in unbearably intense beams, until there’s a flare and a wash of sound that obliterates Jared’s view and grinds in his bones, and Remiel’s grace explodes in a burning flood of light, cracking the ethereal glass above them and charring the floor where he’d been standing.
It dissipates slowly, coloured spots dancing in Jared’s eyes as he tries to blink them away and feel for where Jensen landed. Getting a grip on the wounded demon’s slightly shredded jacket, Jared eases him to his feet, pulling an arm across his shoulder and wrapping his own around Jensen’s waist.
Where the spiralling, dimming splinters of grace and tatters of uniform were before, a tall figure in a long black cloak and hood stands, the draping shreds of the cloak bulging around what might’ve been a scythe and drawn about pointed shoulders.
It regards them silently, a deep silence that only comes with an absence of anything to counter it, the ultimate silence.
“So that’s it?” Jared asks, maybe a little incredulous and because he’s never been comfortable with long silences anyway. Against his side, Jensen could be snorting a laugh or coughing up blood. “It’s over?”
EVERYTHING ENDS, the cloaked figure says with an awkward-looking shrug, in a voice like leaves curling up and bones turning to dust, the faintest twin lights from beneath its hood like flickering stars going cold. EVEN ETERNITY MUST FADE. BUT NOT YET.
“S’helpful,” Jensen croaks, slumping harder against Jared. “You could’ve done something earlier, y’know.”
The figure’s head tilts to the side, the hood shifting to reveal a glimpse of stark white teeth. And a stark white jaw. And some vertebrae. I AM EQUAL ONLY TO MY RESPONSIBILITIES, it says, like it’d be smirking if it had lips, or the facial muscles to arrange them. BESIDES, WHAT’S THE POINT IN ANYTHING IF I DO ALL THE WORK FOR YOU.
“He has a point,” Jared says, not quite sure who to, since he doubts Jensen cares for the explanation. His arm squeezes a little around Jensen’s waist. “He’s the end, not the middle or the beginning. Some rules are still rules, no matter what.”
The figure nods like a slow cascade of grave dirt, waves a hand that could only be described as bony, and the portal reappears like it had always been there. GO, it says. THERE WILL BE NO SANCTION. YOU HAVE DONE YOUR PART.
“Oh gee thanks,” Jensen mutters, hobbling a little to keep up with Jared’s gentle nudging toward the portal. He tugs at Jared’s sleeve until he stops, turns around. “What’re we supposed to do now?”
The cloaked figure pauses, its steps silent and almost seeming to float, like it stays still and just moves existence around itself. When it turns in profile to speak, the silhouettes of great wings spread like rot and everlasting cold from its shoulders. YOUR TASK IS FINISHED. FOR NOW. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IS UP TO YOU. HONESTLY I CAN’T SAY THAT I CARE ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.
With that, there’s a pull in the air and a muffled flap, and the figure vanishes.
“He’s a real ray of sunshine,” Jensen grumbles as they reach the portal.
“What did you expect?” Jared says, shoring Jensen up as helps him step one foot over the swirling blue glow of the threshold.
“Well,” Jensen drags out, “we did just save him an assload of work; he could’ve thanked us.”
“When was the last time anybody thanked him?” Jared points out. “Maybe he’s bitter.”
Jensen hums, noncommittal, and shoves Jared through the gate, the vortex-spin of existence drowning the rest of the conversation.
Jared’s last, slightly addled thought is here comes everything.
* * *
The world shakes and rolls, slams hard into Jensen’s ribs and jars his limbs like a puppet with a drunk manning his strings, a truckload of anvils dumped onto him from a height, his brain rattling against the inside of his skull and adding technicolour blurs to his already muddied vision.
He thuds into something, and comes to a graceless stop, biting his tongue around the blessing he wants to spit as he sprawls bruised onto an empty patch of floor. Somewhere else in the room, paper flap-flutters to the ground, and an angel swears loudly as he hits his head.
Jensen would laugh, if it didn’t feel like he’d puncture a lung doing it.
Tipping his head back, he sees an upside-down picture of Jared stumbling out of his kitchen, slumping back in a sprawl against the side of his counter, that damn goldfish looking down at him from the bowl on the table.
“Everything still attached?” Jensen asks, not sitting up but pressing two fingers to his temple, which is actually doing a pretty good job of holding his brains on the inside, thankfully. The odds of Downstairs providing him with a new body now are less than stellar, he’s guessing.
“Uh, seems to be,” Jared mutters, one hand pushing strands of hair out of his eyes and another resting loosely in his lap. “You okay?”
Jensen shrugs, which is way less effective when done lying down. “Eh, I’ve had worse just showing up for work,” he says, trying to gingerly move around to make sure his bones aren’t in any more pieces than the manufacturer recommends.
“I believe it,” Jared says, standing up and dusting himself free of both dust and the scrapes he’d acquired back Upstairs. He walks over and offers Jensen a hand, which Jensen makes a show of thinking about, since demons can’t be seen to give into things like angelic courtesy so easy.
Ultimately he’s just had enough of being on the floor, so he grabs one of Jared’s overly large paws and gets unceremoniously planted on his feet. A little effort wipes the bruises from his skin and the aches from his extremities, much easier done now they’re back on the level playing field again.
“Well,” he says, “I can’t hear fire raining from the sky or the screams of the Rapture.”
“No,” Jared agrees, moving to pull the blinds open, morning fog and everyday greyness outside amid the buildings and early risers. “Looks like it’s been cancelled on account of rain.”
“Oh yea and verily,” Jensen mutters as he pulls his ruined jacket off and tosses it onto the table. He could fix it, but at this point the associations alone have ruined it for him. He ignores Jared’s affronted tutting.
“So,” Jensen says, when Jared just keeps puttering around his kitchen, grimacing at some very impressive mold on whatever had been in the pan on his stove. “What exactly are we supposed to do now?”
“What d’you mean?” Jared asks, with a clang of the veritable mountain of cookware by his sink.
“I mean we’re probably out of work now, yeah?” He waves a pointless gesture at the clouds out the window. “Both of us marked as unreliable dissidents to the cause.”
“Pretty sure you were marked as an unreliable dissident the moment you Fell,” Jared remarks guilelessly, waving a hand over the fishbowl until some multicoloured flakes appear in the water. “And are you really that mad about being kicked out of Hell? It’s literally a step up.”
“Hey,” Jensen says, affronted because he’s supposed to be, wandering into the tiny excuse for a kitchen just to get in Jared’s way. “I’m unemployed. That’s just sad after six thousand years of having a career.”
“A career in peddling sin to the lowest bidder,” Jared points out, miracling a cup of coffee onto the counter and nudging it towards Jensen.
“And I was damn good at it,” Jensen says, swallowing the scalding liquid and sighing.
“You don’t think it was worth it?” Jared asks, turning from rearranging the pile of dishes that reminds Jensen of some of the ‘art’ in his loft. He’s not looking forward to going back there either. He wonders if you can sign your lease over to a cat.
“Not so much that,” he says slowly, finishing his coffee and wondering if he can prod Jared in hand-waving up a whole pot. “Heaven’s dull, and Hell’s rules make no sense, so the middle ground is just less of a hardship.”
“There’s always Purgatory,” Jared points out, like he’s being helpful. Jensen supposes he can’t help himself.
“Oh sure, if you can convince yourself that Purgatory’s anything more than the closet where He stuck His paintbrushes after the canvas was ready to hang. You wanna hide in there, you go right ahead. Just remember the only exit leads straight Down.”
Jared grimaces, then makes a determined step in front of Jensen where he’s leaning back against the counter, looking much too tall for Jensen’s liking, leaning down a planting a kiss on his lips.
Jensen’s hands flap a little by his sides, before he decides to go with it. He’s a little out of practice, not counting the sojourn Upstairs that’s already feeling like a particularly nasty dream he doesn’t want to dwell on.
Jared makes a soft sound that Jensen decides he could really stand to hear more of when Jensen nips at his bottom lip, another when he steps close enough for their hips to brush together, Jared’s hands on the counter at either side of Jensen’s hips, Jensen’s hands on Jared’s shoulders.
There’s an almost peaceful silence when they separate that even Jensen would feel loathe to ruin.
“Still worth it?” Jared asks, thankfully breaking the moment for them both, with a wide grin that showcases those ridiculous dimples of his.
Jensen wants to laugh at the picture they must make; the only angel in Creation who’s ever lived up to the name and the one demon who never will. Except it’s never been that funny, this thing they have. Inconvenient, inexplicable; a tether that runs too long and snaps taught too late, both of them orbiting each other over so much history there’s no book that could cover it all or words to fit the meaning.
And now here they are, the slow end of Time winding out like a spool of twine in front of them, both stuck with the freedom they carved into the Earth.
Doesn’t sound so bad, really.
“I guess,” he says, and Jared’s giving him a look that Jensen would call good excuse to hit the road if he had anywhere in mind to go.
“You,” Jared starts, stunned speechless like he hasn’t been in at least a thousand years. “You have good intentions,” he says softly, looking at Jensen like he’s never seen him before, thumbing over Jensen’s cheek like he’s making sure Jensen’s really there.
“You shut your mouth, angel,” Jensen gripes instantly, but nowhere near heated enough to be called sincere, and not even managing to duck away from the touch.
Jared just rolls his eyes, kisses Jensen again, a chaste press of lips to lips that definitely should not be drawing that kind of a high noise from Jensen’s throat, repeated again with more intent, hot and wet and the singular point of Jensen’s body he can feel that’s not their knees bumping together and the insinuation of Jensen’s thigh between the both of Jared’s.
When Jared pulls back, Jensen cards his fingers through Jared’s hair, tucks it away from hazel-gold eyes watching him with intensity that should scare the crap out of him.
He traces whisper-light touches down Jared’s jaw, wide, pink mouth soft to the pad of thumb that skates over it, those eyes too soft to look at and too everything to dodge away from.
Long throat rolling beneath the meat of Jensen’s palm, warmth rising up from under the collar of that stupid uniform that Jensen’s gonna make sure he burns just to prove a point.
“Jensen,” Jared whispers, and it’s a word he’s said more times than there are words in any language, but the heart Jensen still insists he doesn’t need skips like one of Jared’s records regardless.
Jared’s hands fit to Jensen’s hips, working a shudder through Jensen’s body like a sudden chill, less space between them than it feels like you could squeeze an electron through, inane metaphors about dancing on the head of a pin aside.
Squinting a little and concentrating, Jensen makes a complicated sign with his fingers until both their clothes slip into the ether like curtains drawing back into infinity, both of the abruptly naked and standing in Jared’s kitchen, the world turning unawares around them.
“Cheating,” Jared says, low and kind of rough but still a singsong taunt.
“Just trying to impress you, angel,” Jensen drawls with a hand pressing flat to the warm-wide span of Jared’s chest, the other winding ‘round to the back of his neck, fingers slipping beneath the soft strands of hair at his nape to tug him down.
It’s been a while since Jensen actually tried to impress anyone with this particular skill, and that had mostly been in the eighteenth century when he’d needed to blow off steam after the Bastille fiasco. His tongue slides against Jared’s, another roughshod sound scraping low from Jared’s throat and Jensen’s teeth dragging against Jared’s bottom lip as he pulls back again, Jared’s breath fanning over his face alarmingly real.
“Come on then,” Jared says, challenging with his eyes nothing but a golden ring of grace around a black maw of pupil. “Impress me.”
Jensen looses a predatory growl that could put a Hellhound to shame as he steps away from the counter, reverses their positions and pushes Jared bodily back into the edge of it, thoughts of finally making him lose control just for Jensen to see, when there’s no motive beyond the deed itself.
The thoughts flowing up like there’d been a trapdoor in his head, possessive nonsense he marks into Jared’s skin with his lips and intentions he makes clear with the grinding slide of their thighs, hips, groins, chests, together like water on water instead of water on stone. Wants this last bit of Jared that he’s never gotten, knows it won’t be enough, can already see himself tripping over into this new kind of Falling, wanting it again and again like it was the first and the last time, memory after puzzle-piece memory, the kind that don’t make the picture but slot together like mosaic tiles anyway.
Jared full-on moans when Jensen works his legs apart wider and makes a home for himself between them, a promising and skillfully filthy kiss pressed into an already bruised mouth as he slides down to his knees, not breaking eye contact but using it like a tether to keep Jared’s focus.
“Jensen,” Jared says, and Jensen shudders as his knees hit the linoleum, the trembling wave running down between his shoulder blades to his ass and into the persistent ache between his legs, ignored in favour of the chance he’s got spread in front of him like an offering.
Hands skating up Jared’s thighs, up the fronts to the backs and down again, Jensen tries not to think the million and one words that’ve got no place in a demon’s head. Not like Jared couldn’t guess them all from the look passing between them anyway.
Leaning up a little, the air’s full of Jared’s scent like pheromonal temptation better than anything Jensen’s felt, or held up to others to damn themselves with.
Lucky he’s already damned, then, or the idea of this’d do it better, demon kneeling supplicant before an angel.
Pressing sloppy-wet and open-mouthed marks into the muscled lines of Jared’s hips, the flat of his belly and the tight cords of sinew running like helpful direction to the burning blood-hot rise of his cock, Jensen can feel his eyelashes brushing over his flushed cheeks, eyes wanting to close and rely on smell and sound and the feel of Jared’s fucking enormous hands touching him, touching him, with mindless want and desire instead of happenstance or necessity.
There’s drool in his mouth to spare and an itching need for something that might be the immediacy of a dick between his lips, more contact or just to force all of Time to grind still and halt, let him drag the moment syrupy-slow through the rest of whatever measure of eternity they’ve got between them.
Jared’s breathing gravelly insensible words that take apart Jensen’s name and piece it back together with pleas and easy begging, and Jensen lets his lips open slow around the flushed, round head of him, bitter-perfect taste making him groan as his thighs burn keeping him at the right height, hands restless-shifting against Jared’s skin.
That first tight, wet suck, and Jared groans out a jittering, wrecked cinder of a syllable that doesn’t even approach words, making Jensen wanna smile even with his lips already stretched.
Breathing the heady scent of Jared though his flared nostrils, he screws his mouth down tight around the thickness, parting his mouth for Jared to use.
His tongue’s pressing and rolling against the head, slick and just outright enjoying the feel of it, when Jared’s makes a guttural, harsh noise that makes Jensen’s own dick leap, a jerky motion that drools precome messily onto Jared’s kitchen floor.
He gets a few scant, incendiary moments to revel in the feel of Jared’s hips rocking slow into Jensen’s face, the heat of him there and gone and back over and over, before something in Jared snaps wide and Jensen’s sucking around a mouthful of cock going right to his throat and pressing deeper still, forcing him open around the thickness of it, bittersweet running over his tongue as Jared’s palms caress down the hollows of his cheeks, fingers almost to the back of Jensen’s head, cradling him and thumbs lining ‘round the shell of his ears.
Sliding himself deeper onto Jared’s dick like he wants it more than the air he’s barely getting, moaning hot and hungry, and something there seems to hit Jared between the eyes from the shredded gasp and jerk of his trim hips forward, cock slippery-smooth against Jensen’s tongue as drool trails coolly down Jensen’s chin.
Jared’s hands grip-clench over his hair, not enough to pull tight, but the promise is about as hot anyway, long fingers pressing tight to Jensen’s scalp as he gives in to the need to wrap a hand around his own dick and stroke to ease the humming touchmefuckmeanything that’s pouring into every vein and out his every pore, feels like he could burst just from this.
The obscene noise Jared’s flooding the room with now could make any porno track look pathetic, puts shame to every fantasy Jensen’s had and all the ones he’d never admit to having, whole sense of himself tunnelled down to how he never wants this to stop.
Hopelessly gone, just hollows his cheeks and sucks as hard as he can as Jared shakes like a leaf and falls apart, the strength of him showing with every tense-trembling muscle in his stomach and shoulders, as he curls over and floods Jensen’s mouth, so much Jensen can’t hope to swallow it all even while his throat’s working, come spilling down his chin and his cheek, marks he wishes would last longer than they inevitably will.
His lips go sloppy-loose around Jared’s still half-hard dick as he presses his thumb down hard into his slit and pulses sweet and painful and so fucking good across his fingers, slicking the tight skin and his balls beneath, the stretch of skin behind them, making him shiver with unanswered promises.
That cliff-edge of oblivion sweeps past as he drops into the empty void of almost painful release, curling further over Jared with the force of it, muttering desperate and appropriately broken hallelujahs around warm velvet skin.
Looking up at Jared through lashes matted thick with tears left by having his throat stuffed, Jensen’s rewarded with that long throat stretched up and begging for his teeth, chestnut hair and the ring of light that might be brighter and might be Jensen’s imagination.
Drawing back with a hoarse-low pull of air, he swallows again just to feel the soreness, the tacky left-behinds of Jared’s come like he needs the reminder or the keepsake.
There’s an impulse, like a dying ember working through his nervous system, to be soft, reverent while he might get away with it even though those things don’t fit him, not in the description of a job he doesn’t even have anymore.
Jared’s fingers fit along his jaw, couple of them slipping into the white streaks on Jensen’s skin like it’s nothing, and maybe isn’t to someone who gives the way Jared does, because that is what he is, job or not.
Jensen doubts there’s a depth Jared could Fall to that’d make him any less of what he is, looking at Jensen in that moment. Take away the halo and the shimmery grace ring like an eclipse in each eye and he’s still Jared, thousands of years older and only the better for it.
He climbs the distance to standing on knees that tremble even if they don’t pop or ache, and Jared insists on kissing him deep and slow and learning quicker than Jensen thinks is fair.
Their foreheads meet when their lips slickly part and Jared’s smiling with those dimples again, the almost physical rush of feeling making Jensen glad he fell before he Fell, just for the principle of things.
Time, in a forgiving mood it seems, lends them hours at Jared’s swept-clean table getting steadily more drunk and sex-happy, Jared ignoring Jensen’s remarks about him not having a bed where his bed’s supposed to be, and Jared intent on mocking Jensen’s method of ‘living the human way’. They compromise on their bizarre choice in pets.
Jensen doesn’t try and topple their domestic little house of cards, and does almost half as good convincing himself it’s strictly for Jared’s benefit. Almost. Maybe one third as good a job.
They part ways for a brief while outside Jared’s building, the rays of a fresh and potential-filled day still blooming across the Earth without so much as a hint of Horsemen or infinite ranks of the ethereal or occult persuasions. Jared’s got a bakery to open, and Jensen’s got a landlord to de-hypnotise and possibly apologise to.
He insists on driving Jared to his mortal place of employment, partly because he hasn’t seen this particular incarnation and partly because Jared’s expression when involved in any form of earthbound transport is hilarious.
Leaving a pale and disoriented angel with kiss-bruised lips outside a bakery with a tragic pun for a name, Jensen lets a grin take over his mouth, and some obnoxiously loud singing ride the air outside his rolled-down window.
EPILOGUE
The coffeehouse - not Jensen’s usual sort, typical Jared in fact with its large windows and open spaces - is mostly empty when he arrives.
The bell over the door jingles when Jensen steps in, and he either wants to roll his eyes or laugh at the stupid joke that forces its way into his head.
He spots Jared in his seat at the counter easily enough; even with the lull; it’s difficult to miss a guy wearing a full white suit, whether you can see the halo or not. Much less one who’s that tall and has that much hair.
He’s facing the other way, so Jensen takes a moment to really See him. Jared looks the same, right down to the fall of light across his hair and shoulders that can’t be explained by the bulbs or the daylight pouring through the windows. The halo is maybe a little dimmer, but that could just be Jensen’s inbuilt pessimism talking.
Jensen tugs out a tall chair and sits down, notes the large white mug that wasn’t there a second ago, the lazy curls of steam carrying the unmistakable scent of a blend Jensen is totally sure they don’t serve here.
He draws the perfection-scented air through his nose as slowly as possible, lets the feel of Gluttony settle over him.
“You’re supposed to drink it,” Jared finally says, with a smirk so pronounced Jensen doesn’t have to look.
“You don’t say.” He lifts the mug like it’s a valued Infernal Artifact, takes a slow breath followed by a slower gulp, relishes the thick flavour and the heat that spreads out after it. “Subtle choice there, with the suit,” he says, free hand making a little wavy gesture at the golden glow settled over Jared’s head and almost glinting off the fabric of his jacket.
Jared’s cheek, the one Jensen can see anyway, lifts in a wider smile. “I thought it was fitting,” he says. “One last time and everything. Besides it’s been hanging in the corner of my closet for about eight different closets now.”
“Good thing it can’t get dusty,” Jensen says over the lip of the mug.
Jared finally turns a little in his seat, and Jensen idly tracks the open collar and the lines of his throat, the way his fingers skate over the polished countertop. “And this is, what? Hell casual?” He copies Jensen’s gesture at the black jacket and pants that forms the polar opposite of Jared’s ethereal attire, save for the white shirt. Some things they still have in common.
“S’just something I threw together,” he says. Then adds, “Literally,” with a smirk and a flick of his fingers.
Jared huffs a laugh. “Well you always did enjoy showing off. I remember the twenties.”
“Which twenties?”
“Oh, y’know.” He makes a motion around his head. “The one with all the hats.”
“It was a phase,” Jensen shrugs. “Humans and their costumes, what can you do? Not like the bearskins weren’t as bad in their own special way.”
Jared hums, sips his own drink which from the smell, has more honey than Jensen thinks you could dissolve into that amount of liquid through natural means. When he looks at Jensen again his eyes are ringed with gold and way too knowing, and Jensen has to fight the urge to make the espresso machine explode as a distraction.
“So what now?” Jared asks. “Take that guitar of yours and, what’s the phrase, ‘go pro’? Not a lot of point in temptations or divine inspirations any more. We’ve been made redundant. Everyone’ll be avoiding eye contact until the embarrassment wears off.”
Jensen reheats his drink with a wave of a finger. Coffee is never as good if there’s no risk of first-degree burns, in his view. He tries to work out whatever meaning Jared’s getting at, but he’s never cracked the balance between outright angelic honesty and whatever six thousand years of human interaction have taught him.
“Not sure,” he settles on. “Maybe something corporate. Legal. Plenty of places in this century where Hell skills can be useful. Old habits die even harder when they’re this old, but I’m guessing their version of Human Resources isn’t like it is Below.”
Jared chuckles, shakes his head. “I suppose I’ll go back to the bakery,” he says, considering. “I could expand; keep it open for longer now that I won’t be all over the place, keeping things counterbalanced against you, or worrying about attracting attention.”
“You should,” Jensen agrees, aiming for a neutral that’s even harder to find when you’re a demon, eyes the guy in the accountant’s getup near the register, who’s been thinking about embezzling from his company in between weighing up the pros and cons of either a danish or a bear claw.
“Don’t even think about it,” Jared mutters, suddenly serious. “We’re staying out of it now, and that’s final.” He looks, in that moment, every bit the soldier he’d been standing watch over the Garden. Jensen can’t say he likes the look.
“Fine,” he says, easy and with a smile that could’ve gotten Presidents elected. And, in a moment of moderate boredom in the 1800s, started a social movement to turn cemeteries into public parks. He’s still chuckling about that one. “Just don’t expect me to start saving orphans or volunteering in soup kitchens. I’ve got no want to be Hell’s most approachable demon after the bastards let me go.”
“You’ve never been much of an approachable anything,” Jared says, back to affable bluntness.
“Thanks,” Jensen tells him honestly. “You learn pretty quick Below that vague hostility and obscurity’s safer, especially when you’re stationed topside. The last guy I knew who got headhunted for bigger and bloodier things? Was actually headhunted. All these imps with tiny pikes, man. Not fun. Imps have no imagination.”
“Did he at least get the job?”
“Yeah but he told me the dental plan sucks. And they didn‘t even stick his head on the pike the right way up.”
Jared shakes his head again, forever disappointed in how ‘base’ he finds the ways of Hell. He’s right, but Jensen is kind of obligated to uphold the standard, even now. And besides, they got all the good musicians.
“You heard from anyone on your side?” he asks, not totally sure he wants to know.
“Briefly,” Jared says, sipping at his tea. “I came into work this morning and found the Metatron helping himself to a batch of shortbread.”
Jensen snorts, shakes his head. “I take it he didn’t apologise.” It’s not a question. Not even close.
Jared’s mouth pinches. “Not in so many words, no. It was pretty stilted. He did say they’re putting in some kind of safeguards for passage between the Earth and the other planes. And that Duma’s got the whole situation under control.”
“Oh I’m sure he does,” Jensen says. “Nothing says stern leadership like an angel with no voice.”
“Exactly,” Jared agrees, missing the sarcasm entirely.
Really though, it’s probably what the whole multilevel arrangement of realms and planes needs: less politics, and more cowbell.
Jensen shakes his head, takes a considerable sip of burning caffeine. “D’you suppose He knew about any of it?” he asks reluctantly, pointing a finger up at the ceiling and grimacing.
Jared’s brow creases a little. “We have to assume He knew about all of it,” he says. “That there was a point to the whole thing.”
“Ol’ Remiel’s employee performance review?”
“A test maybe,” Jared says, ignoring Jensen’s cynicism through long practice. “For both sides this time. Or maybe even for us, making sure we were the right ones in the right place for whatever comes next.” He makes an expansive gesture with his mug, some microcosmic thing Jensen thinks would give him a headache if he could get headaches.
“Seems a pretty messy way to give us our retirement,” Jensen gripes. “So, that bakery of yours,” he says, pushing onward as he drains his coffee and entertains thoughts of materialising a refill, even if he never got the hang of wishing up edible things the way Jared can. “I’m guessing your accounts suck, right?”
“They don’t suck,” Jared says, with an emphasis like he’s not sure how the word applies. “They’re just a little… dispersed.”
Jensen snorts, and refills his mug with Johnnie Walker just to have something to do. “Yeah okay,” he says, waving off the angel’s defensiveness. “But see the thing is, I sold my apartment yesterday.”
Jared sits up a little straighter, frowning. “Really? Why?”
“Because I run a mildly successful urban renovation scheme,” he scoffs. “Why d’you think, featherbrains?”
Jared’s expression morphs slowly from confusion, to surprised confusion, to awkwardly pleased with just a soupcon of confusion. It’s a lot more fun to watch than Jensen remembers.
“Oh,” Jared says eventually, fiddling with his left cuff. “Jensen we haven’t tried cohabiting since -”
“Since Paris in the 1840s, I know, and that whole thing wasn’t our fault.”
Jared’s eyebrows climb his forehead. “I think it was at least partly-”
“So we don’t let that happen this time,” Jensen says, clipping Jared on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “We’ve got a fresh start, might as well see what we can do with it. Besides,” he says, leaning in just to watch Jared’s eyes go a little wide, “I’ll probably need someone to keep me out of trouble.”
Jared mutters something that sounds suspiciously like “Not enough cherubim in all the Choirs of the Host” that Jensen chooses to ignore, and keeps scrutinising Jensen’s face like he’s looking at whatever he has in place of a soul.
“What about that… animal of yours?” Jared asks, wary, and Jensen can’t stop the - slightly ironic - bark of laughter.
“Cat? Cat’s moved on; terrorising a pack of feral dogs as I was leaving. Below’ll probably recruit him before too long to train the Hellhounds. She’s going places.”
“Jensen,” Jared sighs.
“Alright, look,” Jensen starts, more seriously, and trying for an earnestness he doesn’t know if he has or even wants in him. “I know we don’t see eye to eye, but still we like each other, right? Even though we’re from different sides? Were from different sides, whatever.”
Jared sighs again, “I’ve never disliked you, Jensen. But you’ve never really been comfortable staying anywhere.”
“I’ve never really tried, remember? We’re free agents now. It’s worth a shot.” All the sincerity is giving him a headache, and someone near the door has been thinking about a timeshare so crooked it’s begging for his attention, but Jared’s still giving him that Look, and if Jensen doesn’t want this to go down the pan he needs to put the effort in.
“C’mon angel,” he says, and smiles like a snake. “Live in sin with me.”
Jared’s sigh this time could’ve parted a sea or toppled a mountain, but his eyes are gold and his lips are curving up at the corners, and Jensen’s seen that expression enough times to know when he’s on safe ground.
“I’m guessing you don’t have much to move in,” Jared comes out with, and Jensen’s smile is nothing short of beatific. He pulls the key to the Cadillac out of his pocket, sets it on the counter with a metallic tap.
“All packed,” he says. There’re a few things in the car, of course. More than you should be able to fit into a ‘58 Cadillac of any size, but it’s Jensen’s car, and so it does what it’s told because it knows what’s good for it.
He figures he’ll spring some of the more interesting things on Jared slowly. Maybe not that slowly, given that he’s now got all kinds of mutually beneficial methods of providing distraction.
Jared picks up and turns it over in his hands, glint of metal between long, tan fingers. “Minimalist,” he accuses, too fond to be a barb, even if barbs were something Jared could really manage without a lot of trial and error.
“Packrat,” Jensen replies instantly, and Jared’s smile makes the poor unsuspecting woman behind the register stumble and drop a small collection of mugs that shatter and scatter like glittering arterial spray across the floor.
Jensen coughs a laugh into his hand. This is going to be fun, he can tell.
END