fic: Love Like Gasoline (J2 AU) 1/2
title: Love Like Gasoline
rating: PG-13
words: ~14,300
summary: Jensen has seventy-two hours to assemble a crew to scout, steal, and deliver fifty cars. Oh, and stay out of jail. And somehow make it up to Jared for leaving six years ago. Piece of cake, right?
notes: A retelling of Gone in Sixty Seconds for spn-cinema. Thanks to wrenlet for suggesting Frederick, beadslut for catching my typos, and any Los Angelenos who might be reading for forgiving my geographical vagueness.
Jensen left LA six years ago - he had his reasons, and a full half of them were "if I keep stealing cars I'm going to jail" - and the last person he expects to see hanging around the go-kart track where he's working today is Chris. Not that they haven't seen each other in all that time, because they have, once or twice, but Chris looks unusually serious. And he generally lets Jensen know he's coming.
"Hey, stranger!" Jensen calls, waving at him. "Gimme a sec!" He gently thumps the top of the helmet of the kid sitting in the go-kart he just had to untangle from one of the tire barriers. "You're good," he tells the kid. "Go get 'em." A shove and the go-kart is on its way, and Jensen hops across the track to get to Chris, gesturing at one of the other guys working to take over.
Chris definitely has his serious face on. "You gotta come home," he says. "Is there somewhere private we can talk?"
"What happened?" Did someone die?
"It's the kid. Jared. Not so much a kid any more. He's in trouble."
Jensen takes Chris into the office, which isn't the most private place they could find but is empty right now, and Chris reports, in an even tone of voice but with telltale "he's a dumbass who's going to get himself killed" grimaces, that Jared has a crew, they've been boosting cars, working for a new guy named Sheppard who Jensen doesn't know, and have managed to fuck things up in fairly spectacular fashion.
"He drove a Porsche through the dealership window," Jensen repeats.
"Got cops on his ass." Chris looks pissed and worried at the same time. "He's on the hook for a lot, man. I've done some work for this Sheppard, and he's not the kind of guy you fuck with. You gotta come back."
"And do what?" But as soon as he asks the question he knows the answer. Throw his name and reputation around. Talk to Sheppard. Cut a new deal. Save Jared's ass.
"Shit," he mutters. Six years and some things never change. Sometimes Jensen thinks the specters of all the cars he ever stole will follow him the rest of his life. But he can't find it in himself to be upset that Jared seems to be following him too.
He gets a few things together and Chris drives both of them back to LA to meet this Sheppard guy, who works out of a warehouse surrounded by a junkyard and turns out to be a Brit who collects and restores Arts and Crafts furniture, talks smack about American sports, and has made a name for himself the past few years in the business of chop shops, car theft, and illegal exports and resales.
And his solution to Jared's - and now Jensen's - problem is to make Jensen responsible for delivering the cars that Jared and his crew couldn't.
All fifty of them.
By nine o'clock Friday morning.
Today is Tuesday.
And when Jensen and Chris both start to protest - that doesn't sound possible, and besides, Jensen's on the straight and narrow now, he's keeping his nose clean and staying out of the car boost business - Sheppard demonstrates exactly how he's managed to flourish and why he's not the kind of man you fuck with. Namely, he locks his incompetent, incapable, or just plain screwup employees in junker cars and puts them in the crusher.
"JARED!" Jensen yells, lunging at the crusher - to do what, he doesn't know - and being yanked back by one of Sheppard's goons.
"Jensen?" Jared calls. "Jesus, Jen, get me out of here!"
"Way I see it, you have three choices," Sheppard practically purrs near Jensen's ear. "One, you say no, I crush your friend and kill you. Two, you say yes, you dick me over, you leave town, you fail to deliver, I kill you, I kill your friend, I go after Kane here and Jared's crew and then his momma for all the aggravation he's caused me. Or three, you say yes, you deliver my cars - on time, mind you - and it's over."
"And you let him go." Jensen gestures to the partly-crushed car, the roof half pushed in and the glass in the windows busted out from the pressure and Jared panicking inside.
"I let him go."
"Deal."
"Get him out," Sheppard says, waving at the car and the crusher and his goons, who pry the door open and pull Jared out. He brushes bits of window glass and car interior out of his hair and off his clothes, and he looks rattled and surprised and relieved, and he looks older, and Jensen just wants to go home.
Chris takes them back to Jared's mom's house, Jared babbling the entire way until Jensen asks him to please shut up. He has to think. He has people to talk to, cars to find, a deal to keep. And Jared. He has Jared to to talk to, to deal with, to just look at.
It's been six years and Jensen remembers Jared as a tall, scrawny kid in need of a haircut, broad shoulders and long legs and an impish grin. He's still tall and still has the overgrown hair and the broad shoulders, but he's grown up and grown out and Chris was right, he's really not a kid any more. And then he grins at Jensen from the back seat, all gratitude, flashing the wide smile and the dimples that Jensen remembers, and he's eighteen again, twenty, the boy Jensen loved like a brother and left LA to protect.
Jared's mom's house looks like Jensen remembers it, small and cluttered and homey. There are old photos of the boys when they were younger, pictures of Jared and his dad from when his dad was still alive, his mom, his dogs, his brother and sister, Jensen leaning against the side of an old Mustang and Jared sitting on the roof. Old trophies from Jared's dad's racing days. A couple of motorcycle license plates nailed to the wall in the living room. Books and magazines and socks and straggly potted plants and plastic chess pieces and half-empty liter bottles of Coke and a dog collar.
"Where're the dogs?" Jensen asks.
"Megan's got ‘em," Jared says, leading the way into the kitchen and sticking his head in the fridge. He pulls out a carton of orange juice and takes a swig. "She's living on some commune farm with her boyfriend. There's like forty other people and they've got acres and acres of land, and we thought the dogs'd be happier there. They love having all those people around. They get to chase rabbits and chickens, and little kids just hang off them and it's like doggie heaven." He shrugs. "I try to get out there to see them, but it's hard. I don't think a lot of Megan's friends really like me."
Jensen finds that hard to believe. But watching Jared swallow half the carton of orange juice and then start rooting through the fridge for more food, he wonders if it's less that they dislike Jared and more that they just don't want to have to feed him.
"How is she?" he asks. "How's Jeff? Where's Jeff? How's your mom?"
"Dude, sit down. You want something to eat? I'll make you some eggs or something."
"Megan," Jensen prompts, as Jared pulls out eggs and shredded cheese and butter and finds a frying pan.
"She's good. She likes farming and communing. When she first moved out there Mom thought it was a cult, and it took Megan months to convince her otherwise." He chuckles. "Jeff's married. I think he's got a kid, but it's been a couple years since we've heard from him. He was in New Mexico last time we talked."
When they were younger, before Jensen left, Jared's older brother was always a weirdly distant part of Jared's life. He'd moved out when he turned eighteen and despite their mom's best efforts, he'd stayed gone. Jensen never liked him much, but Jensen will be the first to admit that he never knew Jeff well enough to form an opinion, and to be fair Jeff never seemed to like him much either.
But he always liked Megan, even if she was exceptionally skilled in the ways of bratty younger sisters everywhere. Despite that she was a good kid and he's glad to know she's doing well.
"Oh, shit, I should call Mom," Jared says. He drops an eggshell in the frying pan and has to dig it out with a fork. "Tell her you're home. Now that I'm the only one still living here we've got a spare room. You don't have to share with me any more. Uh. Unless you want to."
When he was still in high school, Jensen's parents packed up and moved to Texas to be closer to his ailing grandparents and farther away from what they considered a more and more sinful part of the country. They were worried that LA would lead their children astray and turn them into drains on society rather than good hard-working people, and yet Jensen put up such a fight - he felt closer to Jared and Jared's family than his own- that they essentially washed their hands of him and let him stay. He was seventeen and Jared's mom took him in, installed him in Jared's room (Jeff had recently moved out), treated him like one of her own.
Jared grew up thinking of Jensen as his brother, and Jensen will do anything to protect him.
Even make a deal that will not only shove him back into the shady life he thought he left, but require more luck and good karma than he has probably ever earned.
"They might be kind of crunchy," Jared says apologetically, yanking Jensen away from his thoughts and setting a plate of scrambled eggs with cheese on the table in front of him. "You want coffee or milk or something? I finished the juice." He looks a little embarrassed and it's just as cute on him now as it was ten years ago, even if the t-shirt stretching across his chest and shoulders just points up how very much he's grown since then.
"Don't call your mom," Jensen says. He forks up some eggs, takes a bite, tastes cheese and butter and - crunch - a shell. He tries to spit it out discreetly.
"Why not?" Jared pops some bread into the toaster. "She'll be so happy to see you."
"Just... not yet, ok? I have to fix this thing with Sheppard and then you can tell her."
"You'll see her tonight or tomorrow anyway. I mean, you're staying here, right?" Jared asks the question as if there's only one answer for him, and it hadn't occurred to him that Jensen might have another.
"I, uh, I was gonna stay with Chris. Just to keep you out of it."
Jared leans against the counter in front of the toaster. Jensen has a sudden mental image of the toast popping out and smacking Jared in the back of the head. "This is my fuck-up," he says. "I'm really grateful you saved my ass - seriously, Jen, you kept me from getting killed - but I got myself into this mess and I gotta get myself out of it. I can't let you do it without me."
"Shit, Jared," Jensen sighs. "You have to stay clear. I made the deal, it's my problem now. Besides, you got cops after you, remember? You wanna go to jail? Grand theft auto, Jay. That's not a slap on the wrist."
Jared makes a bitchface, lips pressed together and eyes narrowing. He's clearly upset, but he doesn't argue, just turns back to the toaster.
"Jay."
"Fine. You deal with it." His voice is tight and angry. But Jensen isn't worried and isn't bothered - he'll see some people, he'll make some calls, in a few days everything will be over and Jared will understand that Jensen's just trying to keep him safe.
Jensen does not let himself wonder who's going to keep him safe.
Later that day he goes to see Jim, who ran a garage and a chop shop back in the day, but has apparently switched to legitimate rebuilds and restoration.
"I am all about second chances these days," he tells Jensen, leading him through the garage and showing off some of the work he and his mechanics have been doing. Jensen's impressed and finds himself wishing that he really didn't have to ask Jim for help.
"This is pretty sweet," he says. "It's nice to see you doing well for yourself."
"I'm really enjoying it, I can't lie. Maddy's good, before you ask." The words could be chiding, but Jim grins and Jensen knows there's no malice there. They've worked their way around to the office, which is probably why Jim says "I'm pretty sure I know why you're back in town, but I want to hear it from you."
"You heard about Jared, huh." Jim nods. "I took the job." Now Jim sighs and shakes his head. "I had to. He's my family, Jim. What if it was your brother?"
Jim sighs again. "What's the damage?"
"Fifty cars by Friday morning."
"Can't be done."
"It can with the right crew." Jensen tries to sound convincing. He's not sure himself if he can do this, even with the best crew that ever was, but he needs Jim because Jared needs him, and it's this one job because the alternative is unacceptable.
"And how many is that right now?"
"Well, one. Hopefully two." He tries out the puppydog eyes, Jared's favorite trick, and Jim looks like he wants to hug him and strangle him at the same time. "I really need your help."
"You'll be the death of me, Jensen Ackles. Get me a piece of paper."
They spend the next couple of hours making lists and plans and hunting people down. Jensen gets a hold of Matt first - Matt was always easy to find - but he flat-out says no, he's got kids now, a family, he can't do that shit any more, he's gone straight. Jensen hopes he doesn't mean that literally, because Matt's mouth is a gift from god, and if Jensen can't be on the receiving end any more, at least someone will be.
He just tells Matt he hopes the new guy makes him happy, and hangs up.
He tries and fails to find Katie, but someone eventually answers her phone when Jim calls and he gets an earful from a woman who sounds like Katie's mother, a good ten minutes of her telling Jim off, cursing him and Jensen and all their friends and associates and anyone who ever even whispered "cars" to her daughter. Katee - not Katie, and making sure you're talking about (or asking for) the right one always made Jensen's head hurt - is in the middle of something, technically someone, and Jensen's face must be something to see, because Jim laughs at his no doubt mortified expression when he realizes he can even hear the bedsprings.
Tom and Mike are both serving time up in Chino - Jensen isn't surprised, as Mike was always kind of reckless and Tom was never very smart - and he gets conflicting information about Misha and Richard, who have either fucked off for Mexico together or one or the other gotten killed. He hopes it's the former. Timothy won't answer his phone. No one knows where Charles is.
In the end, Jensen has three - Aldis (who's been making his money installing car stereos and dog-walking, of all things), Kevin (working in a garage), and Frederick, who tries and fails to get Jensen to call him Fred and has been bartending in between home improvement gigs. None of them can resist Jensen's lure - a chance to drive some fast cars, get Jared out of trouble, and run as a crew again.
He calls Chris on the way out of the garage, and then he goes to see Jared's mom. She still works at the same diner, and he's oddly relieved that this at least has not changed.
"Jensen! Honey!" she cries, giving him a big hug. Then she steps away and looks at him suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"
He can hear her real question - Are you going to commit crime? Are you going to put yourself and my son in danger? And he could never lie to her, not like he could lie to his own mother, so he doesn't say anything.
"What did you do?" she goes on.
"Nothing, yet."
"Jensen. Are you in trouble? Is Jared in trouble?"
"Not any more. He's fine, Mrs P, I promise. I just... came to say hi."
"Hi." She puts her hands on her hips. He can tell she doesn't want to trust him, and he doesn't blame her, but she loves him like he was hers, and he'd go to the ends of the earth for her and her kids, and he knows that she can't help but have a little faith.
"Thanks," he says, kissing her on the cheek.
"For what?" Now she's grinning at him. In their easy grins and their dimples, Jared is very much his mother's son.
"For - I don't know. Not kicking my ass?" Now he grins back, feeling just like a little kid whose mom has caught him sneaking a cookie out of the pantry before dinner and decided to let it slide this one time. "I'm staying with Chris, do you mind?"
"Of course I mind! How can I keep an eye on you if you're at someone else's house?"
She's smiling but Jensen can't tell if she's joking or not. But the hug she gives him certainly feels sincere, even if she does take the opportunity to tell him "If you or Jared end up in jail I will disown you both, see if I don't."
"Trust me," he says, and then he has to leave.
He walks out of the diner and almost right into the man who was unknowingly responsible for Jensen leaving town six years ago.
"Detective Morgan," Jensen says, trying not to sound worried. He doesn't need a cop right now, especially not a cop who knows him. "Did a memo go out or something?"
"Mr Ackles," the detective answers. "A little birdie told me you were back in LA." He looks older, Jensen notices. A little silver in his short beard, a few more wrinkles in his face. His partner - at least Jensen assumes she's his partner - is a pretty girl with brown hair in a ponytail. She doesn't look like a cop, but that could be because she's not in uniform. Neither of them are. Morgan gestures first to her and then to Jensen. "Detective Harris, meet the one that got away."
"You're cuter than I would've expected," she says. Jensen blinks.
"Don't let the good looks fool you," Morgan goes on. They're walking because Jensen is walking, because he's afraid to stop and he's afraid to give anything away and he hasn't even been in LA twenty-four hours and already there's a snag.
That's assuming he doesn't consider "Take a job stealing fifty cars by Friday" to be a snag.
"I'm just here for a little family business," Jensen says, outwardly calm.
"And that business wouldn't involve a young man of our mutual acquaintance and his budding career, now would it?"
"Well, you'd have to ask him. My car's right up here so you'll have to excuse me. Things to do, places to be, you know the drill."
"Quick question before you go. Are you working for Mark Sheppard?"
"Who? Why?"
"He's been involved in some, shall we say, questionable activities of late. The kinds of things that are right up your alley."
"And you're telling me this because...?"
Morgan shrugs. "Consider it some friendly advice. I've got my eye on you, Jensen. You take care."
Jensen can hear Detective Harris say "You didn't tell me he was hot" as he walks up to his car and digs out his keys. Great. Morgan is watching him and Morgan's partner thinks he's cute. He wonders what the universe is going to gift him with next.
What the universe gifts him with next is Chris throwing him out of the apartment, although it's less "I don't want you here" - Chris did drag him back to LA, after all - and more "You should stay with the kid, maybe talk some sense into him". Less of a throw, more of a push.
Jensen does not tell Chris that he ran into Detective Morgan and his pretty female partner. He'd like to think it's because he's not worried, but in truth he doesn't want Chris to worry, or to think too hard about how the good detective might have learned Jensen was back in the first place. He doesn't blame Chris or Jim or anyone else he's talked to in the last few hours. Maybe he hit a psychic tripwire when he crossed into the city limits. Maybe someone saw him and reported in. Six years ago people knew his name and his face, and he doesn't think that physically he's changed all that much.
He can't deny that it's an ego-boost to know he still has a reputation. People still remember him and how he made his name. But it also means Morgan is on to him, and any chance he had of doing this job under the radar has been well and truly blown. He doesn't want his reputation and his past career to get anyone killed.
He drives to Jared's mom's house thinking and planning and running scenarios in his head. He wonders if the criminal landscape has changed at all, if boosting cars is any different from the way it used to be. He hopes not.
No one is home when Jensen gets to the house, but that's ok - he still has a key. He keeps it in his wallet, and has for six years. He lets himself in, drops his stuff in Jared's room out of habit - even if it's a habit he hasn't indulged in for a long time - gets a beer out of the fridge, feels instantly guilty, and puts it back. It's as if he's seventeen again and Mrs P is watching him out of the corner of her eye to make sure he's not drinking alcohol in her house.
Jensen wanders through the house reacquainting himself with Jared and Jared's life. There are two beds still in Jared's room, almost as if they've been expecting Jensen to come back. Megan's room looks like a cross between a teenage girl's bedroom, a guest room, and a storage room. There are clothes on Jared's bedroom floor, and when Jensen goes back into the kitchen he notices that there are still dirty dishes in the sink. Everything looks the same. He's not sure whether to be relieved or not.
He makes himself a sandwich, takes the beer back out of the fridge. He calls Jim, calls Chris, calls Mrs P's diner. He puts his plate in the sink, drops his now-empty beer bottle in the trash, and wanders back into Jared's room to stretch out on the bed and think some more. He falls asleep instead.
He wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night, discombobulated. There's a blanket spread over him. The window shades are pulled only partway, letting in street light, and someone's snoring. It takes Jensen a minute to remember where he is and why. He's tempted to wake Jared up and yell at him, but what would be the point? What's done is done. Tomorrow he and his reformed crew will go over Sheppard's list, they'll scope out the cars, they'll plot and plan. The day after, they'll get to work. He'll show them why Morgan is still chasing him, why he still has the clout and how he still has the skills to take a job this size.
Because what good is a reputation if you can't live up to it? Fifty cars, forty-eight hours. A day to find them, a day to take them. He can run this.
He has to.
He goes back to sleep.
By the time Jared's mom wakes Jensen the next morning, Jared is gone.
"He said he had to run some errands," she says, pouring Jensen a glass of orange juice. She still doesn't look or sound like she believes that he hasn't come home for criminal purposes, or that he isn't going to lead Jared astray.
"I'm sure it's nothing," Jensen tells her. He tries to sound reassuring and casual.
"He loves you, Jensen. He idolizes you. You shouldn't have left. I never should have told you to go."
And what would have changed if I'd stayed? he wants to ask. I'd have gone to jail and Jared still would've done something stupid.
"I'll look after him," is all he says.
"Look after yourself too." She kisses the top of his head as she walks around the table and leaves the kitchen.
As he's standing up ten minutes later, he hears "Put your dishes in the sink!" from somewhere back in the house, and he has to grin. At least this hasn't changed - Jared's mom is still momming him.
Jensen is equally relieved to note that it feels very familiar to pace around Jim's office, discussing Sheppard's list of cars with Chris and the rest of his crew. They've had their share of spats, but he always liked these guys, always trusted them to have his back. They're good guys, good with cars, smart and quick and, for all that this is a criminal enterprise, honest.
And in Kevin's case, still huge.
"Jesus Christ, man," Jensen says, grabbing him in a hug, "did you grow?"
"You must've shrank," Kevin says. He grins.
In the meantime, Jim has pulled out the rolling blackboard they used to list jobs on, back when he stripped cars rather than rebuilt them, and Jensen can hear Chris say "Your handwriting's chickenscratch, give me that." And when he turns around, Chris is wiping the blackboard with a rag and Jim is rolling his eyes.
"You write like an arthritic spider, Jim," Frederick teases from where he's leaning back in a chair, his cowboy boots propped on Jim's desk. Man always did love his boots. Jim just rolls his eyes harder.
"You are not naming them," Aldis protests, although Chris has already started listing all the cars on the board with their female aliases.
"I get to name them," Jim tells them firmly. "Old dog's privilege."
Jensen scans the board as Jim dictates and Chris writes and Aldis tries to interject, mentally tallying up driving difficulty and how hard some of these might be to find, and then he stops at #47.
Her name is Eleanor. Her name has always been Eleanor. In some ways Jensen thinks she's the only thing he's ever wanted his whole life. And six years ago, she almost got him caught. She could've gotten him killed.
"We'll get her this time," Jim says quietly, putting his hand on Jensen's shoulder. "Have a little faith."
Jensen allows himself a minute to wish, but his reverie is broken by Chris saying "'Fleur'?" like he can't decide if it's a name he likes or not. It must be Aldis' suggestion.
"Like the girl in the Harry Potter books," Kevin tells him. "My girlfriend's kid loves them."
"You have a girlfriend?" Jensen repeats in disbelief. Kevin is now wearing an expression Jensen has only seen him turn on cars - love and affection and a little bit of embarrassment at how strong the first two emotions are. Jensen suddenly feels guilty for dragging him back into this life.
But whatever direction this particular conversation might take is derailed by Jared's arrival. He's trailed by three guys and a girl, people Jensen guesses are his crew. Are these the errands Jared needed to run earlier?
"Oh no," he says, "you are not staying here." He walks up to Jared, intending to forcibly turn him around and frog-march him out of the garage if necessary, but now everyone else is talking and Kevin is delightedly measuring Jared's height against his own, and Jensen can't get a word in.
"Shut up, all of you," he practically yells, and when they do, looking surprised (and in Aldis' case, vaguely hurt), he points to Jared, sweeps his arm across to encompass Jared's crew, and says "No way. You are all going home."
"I told you yesterday," Jared says, "this is my fault. I gotta fix my own mistakes."
"I promised your mom I'd keep you out of trouble! What - "
"Keep me out of trouble? That's funny, coming - "
" - tell her? You want to end up in jail? You fuck this - "
" - do you think I've been doing since you left? Sitting - "
" - get killed! I'm not gonna - "
They're yelling over each other so loudly now Jensen can't hear his own words, standing in each other's space, right in each other's face, and then Kevin is shoving them apart and Jensen can hear Jim telling him to be quiet.
"You can't do this job yourself," Jared says, clearly trying for calm. "You need our help."
"We've got skills," says one of the guys who came with him, a blond kid who looks a little bit familiar. "It's not like you'll have to babysit."
"Shut up, Murray." Jared doesn't even turn around. He's still looking at Jensen. "We got caught because I was stupid. But I've learned a lot the last six years. I got my own crew. They're good. They're loyal. We can help."
"You know your mom's gonna disown us both if this goes south," Jensen grumbles. Is he actually agreeing to Jared's help? He thinks he is.
"So who's the junior varsity team?" Frederick asks.
The junior varsity team is Murray, the blond kid who looked vaguely familiar and who Jensen now recognizes as one of Jared's friends from high school, the kind of guy who would stick by you the whole time he was dragging you into trouble, Lindberg, a skinny stoner-looking guy in a knit cap, Gabe, dark-haired and goofy-looking, and Alona, who's pretty and blonde and wearing cargo pants with pockets big and deep enough to hide not only her B&E tools but probably everyone else's as well.
"What kind of skills do you bring to the table?"
"If it's got a tracking system," Alona says, "I can break it. Lo-jack, OnStar, factory installed, fancy custom shit, whatever. No one's gonna follow me." She grins. She looks like a cheerleader, if cheerleaders wore wife-beaters and Chuck Taylors with duct tape across the toes.
"And how do you do that?"
"Lead putty." She's still grinning. "Stick it on the antenna. It blocks the signal."
"Low-tech solution for a high-tech problem," Aldis says, sounding impressed.
"Moving on," Jensen encourages, gesturing at Jared.
"Murray's the best wheelman under thirty," Jared goes on, "and Lindberg's the computer genius."
"No one's gonna follow me either," the stoner drawls.
"Can you hack the DMV?" Kevin asks. "Change VINs, alter registrations, all that fun stuff?"
"In my sleep."
"And Gabe does a little bit of everything," Jared goes on, "and whatever's left over. He's got friends in low places if we need them."
Jensen sighs. He has to admit, they sound good. And he could use the help. Looking at the cars covering Jim's blackboard fills him with anxiety and resolve in equal measure, and he can't afford to turn down five extra pairs of hands.
"Why do they all have girls' names?" Gabe asks, pointing to the blackboard.
"So you can talk about them in mixed company," Jim explains. "'Just picked up Alice.' ‘Took Wendy down to the beach.' ‘Elizabeth gave me some trouble.' That kind of thing. No one's the wiser."
"Aw, there's no Joanna," Alona says, sounding disappointed.
"Her dog," Murray explains.
"Ok, kids," Aldis says, "this is - "
"Who's leading this crew?" Jensen interrupts.
"Just trying to get everyone to settle."
Murray, Jared, and Gabe all make a big deal out of settling down.
"Thank you," Jensen goes on. "This is the deal - we have to deliver fifty cars unscratched by nine o'clock Friday morning. Today and tonight we find them, tomorrow night we steal them. We are on the tightest schedule you can imagine. Fuck up and you're gone."
Unless you're Jared, he thinks, or me, and then you're dead.
"Ok. Lindberg. Get into the DMV, see who you can find. Chris, call Steve. I know you still have contacts. Aldis, Frederick, I'm betting the same. Junior varsity - "
"He was joking!" Murray protests.
" - do your research. Gabe, if you talk to your friends in low places, be circumspect. Don't any of you give anything away. We'll regroup here at nine to scope out the ladies. Good?" Nods all around. "Good."
It's another hour before he can leave, although in that hour Jensen gets enough of a feel for Jared's crew to think that bringing them in was a smart decision after all. They seem like a reasonably intelligent bunch of kids, if relatively inexperienced, they get along with each other, they don't push against every order. (Although they do push against most of them.) Jensen is a little surprised to find that he's impressed with and proud of Jared for putting together what looks like a good crew.
Not that he thinks Jared should have ever done it in the first place.
The rest of the day passes in a rush of activity and plotting. This was always Jensen's second-favorite part of boosting cars - the looking, the finding. The hunt. He can put on a nice suit and pretend to be an asshole with money and taste and attitude, he can cruise wealthy neighborhoods looking for the perfect prize. He can go places he doesn't normally go and pretend to be people he isn't, and he can plan ahead for the quick minutes when he gets to break into a stranger's car and speed away with it.
And that was always his favorite part, the brief length of time during which he and his stolen wheels could go anywhere. Boosting cars is a challenge and a rush, and all it takes is thirty minutes with a salesman at a swanky dealership, thirty minutes of entitled chatter and a look at the cars on offer - thirty minutes and Jensen's six-year attempt to stay clean and above the law and away from other people's cars is completely undone.
The promise of a rumbling engine and a responsive gearshift, torque and horsepower, chrome and leather and glass, a long ribbon of asphalt unspooling under his tires - that will do it every time. He doesn’t even need a test drive. The potential is enough.
Of all the things he came home for, this anticipation, this quickening of his pulse, has not changed, and he's grateful. It makes things easier. It means he still has the skills. He still has the excitement. He still has the love. And he knew he couldn't do this if he didn't.
But he does.
Everyone is on time that night. Jensen tries not to be surprised. Jared chooses to ride with him, and that doesn't surprise him at all.
"Don't give me any more grief, ok?" Jensen says.
"And don't yell at me."
"Deal."
"I should've brought my police scanner," Gabe says suddenly.
"You have a scanner?" Aldis demands. "And you didn't bring it?"
"Focus, ladies and gentlemen," Jim says.
"I think you mean lady and gentlemen."
"He would if I was a lady," Alona laughs.
"I like her," Frederick says.
Lindberg has a master list with locations and addresses of all fifty cars, collated from everyone's research and his own forays into the depths of the DMV. They've got cameras, little security sensors, gadgets and GPS and walkie-talkies that Jim found. Old school for the old dog, he explains. They break up, spread out, go hunting.
And because Jim's involved, they play car trivia on the road.
"First one's easy," he announces over the walkie-talkie. "Gimme KITT."
"Original or remake?" Chris asks.
"Heavily modified Pontiac Trans Am," Kevin says, at the same time Murray answers "Ford Shelby GT."
"The remake sucked," Jared tells Jensen.
"I heard that." Murray.
"I'm still right."
"Children." Jim again. "Correct answers all around. Another gimme. The Saint's car."
"The who?" Gabe.
"Simon Templar!" Frederick. Jensen can just hear the implied Philistines! in his tone. "Roger Moore before he was Bond! Volvo P1800, white."
"Penelope." Lindberg. "Check the list. Number fifty."
"A star for the cowboy." Jim. "Let's pick it up a bit. Adam West's Batmobile."
"Cadillac." Alona.
"Total custom job." Aldis.
"It was based off a concept car from the 50s," Jared says. "A Ford Futura. They had to put a Galaxie engine in it halfway through the first season because the engine in the Futura was too old."
"Nerd!" Murray. Jared just shrugs, grinning.
"Geek," Jensen says, affectionately.
"For the trifecta, gimme Batmobiles from Tim Burton's Batman and Chris Nolan's Batman Begins." Jim.
"The second one was built from scratch." Kevin. "It's a fucking tank."
"Technically, it's a military vehicle called a Tumbler." Lindberg.
"Which is a tank."
"Looked like a Humvee to me." Gabe.
"Too low to the ground." Frederick. "It had a Chevy V8 engine."
"How do you people know this shit?" Murray.
"Years of dedicated car nerdery, junior varsity."
"Stop calling me that!"
"Kids. Play nice." Jim. "Durand's right, Lindberg's right, and Weller's right. Let's hear it for team effort. Who's got Burton's Batmobile?"
"Chevy Impala chassis," Jensen says. "Customized to hell and back."
"And we have a winner! Thanks for playing, study hard for the next quiz."
"Next quiz?" Gabe.
"Bond cars." Aldis. "Lots and lots of Bond cars." He doesn't sound too disappointed by the prospect of being quizzed on James Bond's various vehicles.
"Low profiles, don't forget," Jensen reminds everyone. "Now is not the time to be attracting attention."
"Murray," Jared adds.
"I can be discreet!" Murray.
"That's not what she said...." Alona. Laughter all around.
"He's gonna pout now," Jared tells Jensen.
"Oh, fuck you all." Murray.
"Can we go to radio silence?" Chris. "This is like driving with a day care in the back seat."
"I'm off." Kevin.
"Call if there's an emergency." Aldis.
"Send me your pictures when you get 'em." Lindberg.
And then it's quiet in the car except for the faint crackle of static from Jared and Jensen's walkie-talkie. Jared turns the radio on. Jensen turns it off. He needs to concentrate.
The next few hours pass in general silence, broken by the occasional random observation, bit of trivia, or curse aimed at the GPS. Jared programs addresses into it, Jensen navigates roads and neighborhoods that he's only a little surprised he remembers, and they both keep their eyes peeled for cops and landmarks and anything that might help or hinder someone trying to boost a car. Every so often Jensen becomes acutely aware that the Jared he used to know has grown into this competent, confident man sitting next to him, this person who leads his own crew and takes responsibility for his own mistakes. It has become more and more clear that the boy Jensen always considered his little brother grew up when he wasn't looking, and he doesn't really know what to think or how to feel about that.
He still hasn't told anyone that he ran into Detective Morgan yesterday. Now he thinks he should have, just to keep everyone on their toes. He'd like to think his own guys are smart enough to not need a reminder that they could encounter cops, but it's been a long time and a refresher never hurt. And what about Jared's crew? How close have any of them come to getting caught? How long have any of them been doing this, anyway?
They're cruising through a swanky neighborhood looking for Ellen (a 2009 Mercedes Benz SL 600) when he asks Jared "When did you put together a crew?"
"Uh," Jared says, apparently unprepared to answer the question, and Jensen wants to smack himself. He wasn't thinking before he opened his mouth. He doesn't want to have this conversation now, not when he's trapped in a car and needs to be paying attention to other things.
"Forget it. It doesn't matter."
"I guess it does."
Jensen risks a glance sideways. Jared is looking at him thoughtfully. In the dark of the car it's hard to read his expression. Six years ago he didn't have much of a poker face. Maybe he's been practicing.
"Now's probably not the time to discuss it, though," Jared says, and Jensen wants to kiss him for being on the same wavelength. "Maybe when we're done." He points across Jensen at the driver's side of the street. "1274. It's up here."
Jensen slows down, pulls into the driveway next door to their target. Ellen is painted a flawless shiny black, and she's gorgeous. Jared hands him the camera and he snaps some pictures, which will no doubt come out too dark, and they both take stock of the neighboring houses, the landscaping, garages and other cars in other driveways, who has security lights and how bright they are and where they're directed.
And then he pulls backwards out of the driveway and drives off like nothing's amiss.
Later they regroup at Jim's, share their recon experiences, make a plan for tomorrow. Chris can't stop yawning and Aldis keeps elbowing him to wake him up, until Chris grabs his arm and hisses "Do that again and I'll snap it off". Jim offers the couch in his office if Chris needs a nap. Chris rolls his eyes. Alona offers to keep him company. Jared snickers, as do Frederick and Murray, and Jensen has to bang on Jim's desk to get everyone to shut up again.
"Remember," he says, "low profiles. Don't even sneeze wrong. We have" - he glances at his watch - "thirty-one hours to keep our heads down. After that, you can do whatever you want, I don't care. We roll out at nine o'clock tomorrow night. Get some sleep."
And then he and Jared go home.
Part two!
rating: PG-13
words: ~14,300
summary: Jensen has seventy-two hours to assemble a crew to scout, steal, and deliver fifty cars. Oh, and stay out of jail. And somehow make it up to Jared for leaving six years ago. Piece of cake, right?
notes: A retelling of Gone in Sixty Seconds for spn-cinema. Thanks to wrenlet for suggesting Frederick, beadslut for catching my typos, and any Los Angelenos who might be reading for forgiving my geographical vagueness.
Jensen left LA six years ago - he had his reasons, and a full half of them were "if I keep stealing cars I'm going to jail" - and the last person he expects to see hanging around the go-kart track where he's working today is Chris. Not that they haven't seen each other in all that time, because they have, once or twice, but Chris looks unusually serious. And he generally lets Jensen know he's coming.
"Hey, stranger!" Jensen calls, waving at him. "Gimme a sec!" He gently thumps the top of the helmet of the kid sitting in the go-kart he just had to untangle from one of the tire barriers. "You're good," he tells the kid. "Go get 'em." A shove and the go-kart is on its way, and Jensen hops across the track to get to Chris, gesturing at one of the other guys working to take over.
Chris definitely has his serious face on. "You gotta come home," he says. "Is there somewhere private we can talk?"
"What happened?" Did someone die?
"It's the kid. Jared. Not so much a kid any more. He's in trouble."
Jensen takes Chris into the office, which isn't the most private place they could find but is empty right now, and Chris reports, in an even tone of voice but with telltale "he's a dumbass who's going to get himself killed" grimaces, that Jared has a crew, they've been boosting cars, working for a new guy named Sheppard who Jensen doesn't know, and have managed to fuck things up in fairly spectacular fashion.
"He drove a Porsche through the dealership window," Jensen repeats.
"Got cops on his ass." Chris looks pissed and worried at the same time. "He's on the hook for a lot, man. I've done some work for this Sheppard, and he's not the kind of guy you fuck with. You gotta come back."
"And do what?" But as soon as he asks the question he knows the answer. Throw his name and reputation around. Talk to Sheppard. Cut a new deal. Save Jared's ass.
"Shit," he mutters. Six years and some things never change. Sometimes Jensen thinks the specters of all the cars he ever stole will follow him the rest of his life. But he can't find it in himself to be upset that Jared seems to be following him too.
He gets a few things together and Chris drives both of them back to LA to meet this Sheppard guy, who works out of a warehouse surrounded by a junkyard and turns out to be a Brit who collects and restores Arts and Crafts furniture, talks smack about American sports, and has made a name for himself the past few years in the business of chop shops, car theft, and illegal exports and resales.
And his solution to Jared's - and now Jensen's - problem is to make Jensen responsible for delivering the cars that Jared and his crew couldn't.
All fifty of them.
By nine o'clock Friday morning.
Today is Tuesday.
And when Jensen and Chris both start to protest - that doesn't sound possible, and besides, Jensen's on the straight and narrow now, he's keeping his nose clean and staying out of the car boost business - Sheppard demonstrates exactly how he's managed to flourish and why he's not the kind of man you fuck with. Namely, he locks his incompetent, incapable, or just plain screwup employees in junker cars and puts them in the crusher.
"JARED!" Jensen yells, lunging at the crusher - to do what, he doesn't know - and being yanked back by one of Sheppard's goons.
"Jensen?" Jared calls. "Jesus, Jen, get me out of here!"
"Way I see it, you have three choices," Sheppard practically purrs near Jensen's ear. "One, you say no, I crush your friend and kill you. Two, you say yes, you dick me over, you leave town, you fail to deliver, I kill you, I kill your friend, I go after Kane here and Jared's crew and then his momma for all the aggravation he's caused me. Or three, you say yes, you deliver my cars - on time, mind you - and it's over."
"And you let him go." Jensen gestures to the partly-crushed car, the roof half pushed in and the glass in the windows busted out from the pressure and Jared panicking inside.
"I let him go."
"Deal."
"Get him out," Sheppard says, waving at the car and the crusher and his goons, who pry the door open and pull Jared out. He brushes bits of window glass and car interior out of his hair and off his clothes, and he looks rattled and surprised and relieved, and he looks older, and Jensen just wants to go home.
Chris takes them back to Jared's mom's house, Jared babbling the entire way until Jensen asks him to please shut up. He has to think. He has people to talk to, cars to find, a deal to keep. And Jared. He has Jared to to talk to, to deal with, to just look at.
It's been six years and Jensen remembers Jared as a tall, scrawny kid in need of a haircut, broad shoulders and long legs and an impish grin. He's still tall and still has the overgrown hair and the broad shoulders, but he's grown up and grown out and Chris was right, he's really not a kid any more. And then he grins at Jensen from the back seat, all gratitude, flashing the wide smile and the dimples that Jensen remembers, and he's eighteen again, twenty, the boy Jensen loved like a brother and left LA to protect.
Jared's mom's house looks like Jensen remembers it, small and cluttered and homey. There are old photos of the boys when they were younger, pictures of Jared and his dad from when his dad was still alive, his mom, his dogs, his brother and sister, Jensen leaning against the side of an old Mustang and Jared sitting on the roof. Old trophies from Jared's dad's racing days. A couple of motorcycle license plates nailed to the wall in the living room. Books and magazines and socks and straggly potted plants and plastic chess pieces and half-empty liter bottles of Coke and a dog collar.
"Where're the dogs?" Jensen asks.
"Megan's got ‘em," Jared says, leading the way into the kitchen and sticking his head in the fridge. He pulls out a carton of orange juice and takes a swig. "She's living on some commune farm with her boyfriend. There's like forty other people and they've got acres and acres of land, and we thought the dogs'd be happier there. They love having all those people around. They get to chase rabbits and chickens, and little kids just hang off them and it's like doggie heaven." He shrugs. "I try to get out there to see them, but it's hard. I don't think a lot of Megan's friends really like me."
Jensen finds that hard to believe. But watching Jared swallow half the carton of orange juice and then start rooting through the fridge for more food, he wonders if it's less that they dislike Jared and more that they just don't want to have to feed him.
"How is she?" he asks. "How's Jeff? Where's Jeff? How's your mom?"
"Dude, sit down. You want something to eat? I'll make you some eggs or something."
"Megan," Jensen prompts, as Jared pulls out eggs and shredded cheese and butter and finds a frying pan.
"She's good. She likes farming and communing. When she first moved out there Mom thought it was a cult, and it took Megan months to convince her otherwise." He chuckles. "Jeff's married. I think he's got a kid, but it's been a couple years since we've heard from him. He was in New Mexico last time we talked."
When they were younger, before Jensen left, Jared's older brother was always a weirdly distant part of Jared's life. He'd moved out when he turned eighteen and despite their mom's best efforts, he'd stayed gone. Jensen never liked him much, but Jensen will be the first to admit that he never knew Jeff well enough to form an opinion, and to be fair Jeff never seemed to like him much either.
But he always liked Megan, even if she was exceptionally skilled in the ways of bratty younger sisters everywhere. Despite that she was a good kid and he's glad to know she's doing well.
"Oh, shit, I should call Mom," Jared says. He drops an eggshell in the frying pan and has to dig it out with a fork. "Tell her you're home. Now that I'm the only one still living here we've got a spare room. You don't have to share with me any more. Uh. Unless you want to."
When he was still in high school, Jensen's parents packed up and moved to Texas to be closer to his ailing grandparents and farther away from what they considered a more and more sinful part of the country. They were worried that LA would lead their children astray and turn them into drains on society rather than good hard-working people, and yet Jensen put up such a fight - he felt closer to Jared and Jared's family than his own- that they essentially washed their hands of him and let him stay. He was seventeen and Jared's mom took him in, installed him in Jared's room (Jeff had recently moved out), treated him like one of her own.
Jared grew up thinking of Jensen as his brother, and Jensen will do anything to protect him.
Even make a deal that will not only shove him back into the shady life he thought he left, but require more luck and good karma than he has probably ever earned.
"They might be kind of crunchy," Jared says apologetically, yanking Jensen away from his thoughts and setting a plate of scrambled eggs with cheese on the table in front of him. "You want coffee or milk or something? I finished the juice." He looks a little embarrassed and it's just as cute on him now as it was ten years ago, even if the t-shirt stretching across his chest and shoulders just points up how very much he's grown since then.
"Don't call your mom," Jensen says. He forks up some eggs, takes a bite, tastes cheese and butter and - crunch - a shell. He tries to spit it out discreetly.
"Why not?" Jared pops some bread into the toaster. "She'll be so happy to see you."
"Just... not yet, ok? I have to fix this thing with Sheppard and then you can tell her."
"You'll see her tonight or tomorrow anyway. I mean, you're staying here, right?" Jared asks the question as if there's only one answer for him, and it hadn't occurred to him that Jensen might have another.
"I, uh, I was gonna stay with Chris. Just to keep you out of it."
Jared leans against the counter in front of the toaster. Jensen has a sudden mental image of the toast popping out and smacking Jared in the back of the head. "This is my fuck-up," he says. "I'm really grateful you saved my ass - seriously, Jen, you kept me from getting killed - but I got myself into this mess and I gotta get myself out of it. I can't let you do it without me."
"Shit, Jared," Jensen sighs. "You have to stay clear. I made the deal, it's my problem now. Besides, you got cops after you, remember? You wanna go to jail? Grand theft auto, Jay. That's not a slap on the wrist."
Jared makes a bitchface, lips pressed together and eyes narrowing. He's clearly upset, but he doesn't argue, just turns back to the toaster.
"Jay."
"Fine. You deal with it." His voice is tight and angry. But Jensen isn't worried and isn't bothered - he'll see some people, he'll make some calls, in a few days everything will be over and Jared will understand that Jensen's just trying to keep him safe.
Jensen does not let himself wonder who's going to keep him safe.
Later that day he goes to see Jim, who ran a garage and a chop shop back in the day, but has apparently switched to legitimate rebuilds and restoration.
"I am all about second chances these days," he tells Jensen, leading him through the garage and showing off some of the work he and his mechanics have been doing. Jensen's impressed and finds himself wishing that he really didn't have to ask Jim for help.
"This is pretty sweet," he says. "It's nice to see you doing well for yourself."
"I'm really enjoying it, I can't lie. Maddy's good, before you ask." The words could be chiding, but Jim grins and Jensen knows there's no malice there. They've worked their way around to the office, which is probably why Jim says "I'm pretty sure I know why you're back in town, but I want to hear it from you."
"You heard about Jared, huh." Jim nods. "I took the job." Now Jim sighs and shakes his head. "I had to. He's my family, Jim. What if it was your brother?"
Jim sighs again. "What's the damage?"
"Fifty cars by Friday morning."
"Can't be done."
"It can with the right crew." Jensen tries to sound convincing. He's not sure himself if he can do this, even with the best crew that ever was, but he needs Jim because Jared needs him, and it's this one job because the alternative is unacceptable.
"And how many is that right now?"
"Well, one. Hopefully two." He tries out the puppydog eyes, Jared's favorite trick, and Jim looks like he wants to hug him and strangle him at the same time. "I really need your help."
"You'll be the death of me, Jensen Ackles. Get me a piece of paper."
They spend the next couple of hours making lists and plans and hunting people down. Jensen gets a hold of Matt first - Matt was always easy to find - but he flat-out says no, he's got kids now, a family, he can't do that shit any more, he's gone straight. Jensen hopes he doesn't mean that literally, because Matt's mouth is a gift from god, and if Jensen can't be on the receiving end any more, at least someone will be.
He just tells Matt he hopes the new guy makes him happy, and hangs up.
He tries and fails to find Katie, but someone eventually answers her phone when Jim calls and he gets an earful from a woman who sounds like Katie's mother, a good ten minutes of her telling Jim off, cursing him and Jensen and all their friends and associates and anyone who ever even whispered "cars" to her daughter. Katee - not Katie, and making sure you're talking about (or asking for) the right one always made Jensen's head hurt - is in the middle of something, technically someone, and Jensen's face must be something to see, because Jim laughs at his no doubt mortified expression when he realizes he can even hear the bedsprings.
Tom and Mike are both serving time up in Chino - Jensen isn't surprised, as Mike was always kind of reckless and Tom was never very smart - and he gets conflicting information about Misha and Richard, who have either fucked off for Mexico together or one or the other gotten killed. He hopes it's the former. Timothy won't answer his phone. No one knows where Charles is.
In the end, Jensen has three - Aldis (who's been making his money installing car stereos and dog-walking, of all things), Kevin (working in a garage), and Frederick, who tries and fails to get Jensen to call him Fred and has been bartending in between home improvement gigs. None of them can resist Jensen's lure - a chance to drive some fast cars, get Jared out of trouble, and run as a crew again.
He calls Chris on the way out of the garage, and then he goes to see Jared's mom. She still works at the same diner, and he's oddly relieved that this at least has not changed.
"Jensen! Honey!" she cries, giving him a big hug. Then she steps away and looks at him suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"
He can hear her real question - Are you going to commit crime? Are you going to put yourself and my son in danger? And he could never lie to her, not like he could lie to his own mother, so he doesn't say anything.
"What did you do?" she goes on.
"Nothing, yet."
"Jensen. Are you in trouble? Is Jared in trouble?"
"Not any more. He's fine, Mrs P, I promise. I just... came to say hi."
"Hi." She puts her hands on her hips. He can tell she doesn't want to trust him, and he doesn't blame her, but she loves him like he was hers, and he'd go to the ends of the earth for her and her kids, and he knows that she can't help but have a little faith.
"Thanks," he says, kissing her on the cheek.
"For what?" Now she's grinning at him. In their easy grins and their dimples, Jared is very much his mother's son.
"For - I don't know. Not kicking my ass?" Now he grins back, feeling just like a little kid whose mom has caught him sneaking a cookie out of the pantry before dinner and decided to let it slide this one time. "I'm staying with Chris, do you mind?"
"Of course I mind! How can I keep an eye on you if you're at someone else's house?"
She's smiling but Jensen can't tell if she's joking or not. But the hug she gives him certainly feels sincere, even if she does take the opportunity to tell him "If you or Jared end up in jail I will disown you both, see if I don't."
"Trust me," he says, and then he has to leave.
He walks out of the diner and almost right into the man who was unknowingly responsible for Jensen leaving town six years ago.
"Detective Morgan," Jensen says, trying not to sound worried. He doesn't need a cop right now, especially not a cop who knows him. "Did a memo go out or something?"
"Mr Ackles," the detective answers. "A little birdie told me you were back in LA." He looks older, Jensen notices. A little silver in his short beard, a few more wrinkles in his face. His partner - at least Jensen assumes she's his partner - is a pretty girl with brown hair in a ponytail. She doesn't look like a cop, but that could be because she's not in uniform. Neither of them are. Morgan gestures first to her and then to Jensen. "Detective Harris, meet the one that got away."
"You're cuter than I would've expected," she says. Jensen blinks.
"Don't let the good looks fool you," Morgan goes on. They're walking because Jensen is walking, because he's afraid to stop and he's afraid to give anything away and he hasn't even been in LA twenty-four hours and already there's a snag.
That's assuming he doesn't consider "Take a job stealing fifty cars by Friday" to be a snag.
"I'm just here for a little family business," Jensen says, outwardly calm.
"And that business wouldn't involve a young man of our mutual acquaintance and his budding career, now would it?"
"Well, you'd have to ask him. My car's right up here so you'll have to excuse me. Things to do, places to be, you know the drill."
"Quick question before you go. Are you working for Mark Sheppard?"
"Who? Why?"
"He's been involved in some, shall we say, questionable activities of late. The kinds of things that are right up your alley."
"And you're telling me this because...?"
Morgan shrugs. "Consider it some friendly advice. I've got my eye on you, Jensen. You take care."
Jensen can hear Detective Harris say "You didn't tell me he was hot" as he walks up to his car and digs out his keys. Great. Morgan is watching him and Morgan's partner thinks he's cute. He wonders what the universe is going to gift him with next.
What the universe gifts him with next is Chris throwing him out of the apartment, although it's less "I don't want you here" - Chris did drag him back to LA, after all - and more "You should stay with the kid, maybe talk some sense into him". Less of a throw, more of a push.
Jensen does not tell Chris that he ran into Detective Morgan and his pretty female partner. He'd like to think it's because he's not worried, but in truth he doesn't want Chris to worry, or to think too hard about how the good detective might have learned Jensen was back in the first place. He doesn't blame Chris or Jim or anyone else he's talked to in the last few hours. Maybe he hit a psychic tripwire when he crossed into the city limits. Maybe someone saw him and reported in. Six years ago people knew his name and his face, and he doesn't think that physically he's changed all that much.
He can't deny that it's an ego-boost to know he still has a reputation. People still remember him and how he made his name. But it also means Morgan is on to him, and any chance he had of doing this job under the radar has been well and truly blown. He doesn't want his reputation and his past career to get anyone killed.
He drives to Jared's mom's house thinking and planning and running scenarios in his head. He wonders if the criminal landscape has changed at all, if boosting cars is any different from the way it used to be. He hopes not.
No one is home when Jensen gets to the house, but that's ok - he still has a key. He keeps it in his wallet, and has for six years. He lets himself in, drops his stuff in Jared's room out of habit - even if it's a habit he hasn't indulged in for a long time - gets a beer out of the fridge, feels instantly guilty, and puts it back. It's as if he's seventeen again and Mrs P is watching him out of the corner of her eye to make sure he's not drinking alcohol in her house.
Jensen wanders through the house reacquainting himself with Jared and Jared's life. There are two beds still in Jared's room, almost as if they've been expecting Jensen to come back. Megan's room looks like a cross between a teenage girl's bedroom, a guest room, and a storage room. There are clothes on Jared's bedroom floor, and when Jensen goes back into the kitchen he notices that there are still dirty dishes in the sink. Everything looks the same. He's not sure whether to be relieved or not.
He makes himself a sandwich, takes the beer back out of the fridge. He calls Jim, calls Chris, calls Mrs P's diner. He puts his plate in the sink, drops his now-empty beer bottle in the trash, and wanders back into Jared's room to stretch out on the bed and think some more. He falls asleep instead.
He wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night, discombobulated. There's a blanket spread over him. The window shades are pulled only partway, letting in street light, and someone's snoring. It takes Jensen a minute to remember where he is and why. He's tempted to wake Jared up and yell at him, but what would be the point? What's done is done. Tomorrow he and his reformed crew will go over Sheppard's list, they'll scope out the cars, they'll plot and plan. The day after, they'll get to work. He'll show them why Morgan is still chasing him, why he still has the clout and how he still has the skills to take a job this size.
Because what good is a reputation if you can't live up to it? Fifty cars, forty-eight hours. A day to find them, a day to take them. He can run this.
He has to.
He goes back to sleep.
By the time Jared's mom wakes Jensen the next morning, Jared is gone.
"He said he had to run some errands," she says, pouring Jensen a glass of orange juice. She still doesn't look or sound like she believes that he hasn't come home for criminal purposes, or that he isn't going to lead Jared astray.
"I'm sure it's nothing," Jensen tells her. He tries to sound reassuring and casual.
"He loves you, Jensen. He idolizes you. You shouldn't have left. I never should have told you to go."
And what would have changed if I'd stayed? he wants to ask. I'd have gone to jail and Jared still would've done something stupid.
"I'll look after him," is all he says.
"Look after yourself too." She kisses the top of his head as she walks around the table and leaves the kitchen.
As he's standing up ten minutes later, he hears "Put your dishes in the sink!" from somewhere back in the house, and he has to grin. At least this hasn't changed - Jared's mom is still momming him.
Jensen is equally relieved to note that it feels very familiar to pace around Jim's office, discussing Sheppard's list of cars with Chris and the rest of his crew. They've had their share of spats, but he always liked these guys, always trusted them to have his back. They're good guys, good with cars, smart and quick and, for all that this is a criminal enterprise, honest.
And in Kevin's case, still huge.
"Jesus Christ, man," Jensen says, grabbing him in a hug, "did you grow?"
"You must've shrank," Kevin says. He grins.
In the meantime, Jim has pulled out the rolling blackboard they used to list jobs on, back when he stripped cars rather than rebuilt them, and Jensen can hear Chris say "Your handwriting's chickenscratch, give me that." And when he turns around, Chris is wiping the blackboard with a rag and Jim is rolling his eyes.
"You write like an arthritic spider, Jim," Frederick teases from where he's leaning back in a chair, his cowboy boots propped on Jim's desk. Man always did love his boots. Jim just rolls his eyes harder.
"You are not naming them," Aldis protests, although Chris has already started listing all the cars on the board with their female aliases.
"I get to name them," Jim tells them firmly. "Old dog's privilege."
Jensen scans the board as Jim dictates and Chris writes and Aldis tries to interject, mentally tallying up driving difficulty and how hard some of these might be to find, and then he stops at #47.
Her name is Eleanor. Her name has always been Eleanor. In some ways Jensen thinks she's the only thing he's ever wanted his whole life. And six years ago, she almost got him caught. She could've gotten him killed.
"We'll get her this time," Jim says quietly, putting his hand on Jensen's shoulder. "Have a little faith."
Jensen allows himself a minute to wish, but his reverie is broken by Chris saying "'Fleur'?" like he can't decide if it's a name he likes or not. It must be Aldis' suggestion.
"Like the girl in the Harry Potter books," Kevin tells him. "My girlfriend's kid loves them."
"You have a girlfriend?" Jensen repeats in disbelief. Kevin is now wearing an expression Jensen has only seen him turn on cars - love and affection and a little bit of embarrassment at how strong the first two emotions are. Jensen suddenly feels guilty for dragging him back into this life.
But whatever direction this particular conversation might take is derailed by Jared's arrival. He's trailed by three guys and a girl, people Jensen guesses are his crew. Are these the errands Jared needed to run earlier?
"Oh no," he says, "you are not staying here." He walks up to Jared, intending to forcibly turn him around and frog-march him out of the garage if necessary, but now everyone else is talking and Kevin is delightedly measuring Jared's height against his own, and Jensen can't get a word in.
"Shut up, all of you," he practically yells, and when they do, looking surprised (and in Aldis' case, vaguely hurt), he points to Jared, sweeps his arm across to encompass Jared's crew, and says "No way. You are all going home."
"I told you yesterday," Jared says, "this is my fault. I gotta fix my own mistakes."
"I promised your mom I'd keep you out of trouble! What - "
"Keep me out of trouble? That's funny, coming - "
" - tell her? You want to end up in jail? You fuck this - "
" - do you think I've been doing since you left? Sitting - "
" - get killed! I'm not gonna - "
They're yelling over each other so loudly now Jensen can't hear his own words, standing in each other's space, right in each other's face, and then Kevin is shoving them apart and Jensen can hear Jim telling him to be quiet.
"You can't do this job yourself," Jared says, clearly trying for calm. "You need our help."
"We've got skills," says one of the guys who came with him, a blond kid who looks a little bit familiar. "It's not like you'll have to babysit."
"Shut up, Murray." Jared doesn't even turn around. He's still looking at Jensen. "We got caught because I was stupid. But I've learned a lot the last six years. I got my own crew. They're good. They're loyal. We can help."
"You know your mom's gonna disown us both if this goes south," Jensen grumbles. Is he actually agreeing to Jared's help? He thinks he is.
"So who's the junior varsity team?" Frederick asks.
The junior varsity team is Murray, the blond kid who looked vaguely familiar and who Jensen now recognizes as one of Jared's friends from high school, the kind of guy who would stick by you the whole time he was dragging you into trouble, Lindberg, a skinny stoner-looking guy in a knit cap, Gabe, dark-haired and goofy-looking, and Alona, who's pretty and blonde and wearing cargo pants with pockets big and deep enough to hide not only her B&E tools but probably everyone else's as well.
"What kind of skills do you bring to the table?"
"If it's got a tracking system," Alona says, "I can break it. Lo-jack, OnStar, factory installed, fancy custom shit, whatever. No one's gonna follow me." She grins. She looks like a cheerleader, if cheerleaders wore wife-beaters and Chuck Taylors with duct tape across the toes.
"And how do you do that?"
"Lead putty." She's still grinning. "Stick it on the antenna. It blocks the signal."
"Low-tech solution for a high-tech problem," Aldis says, sounding impressed.
"Moving on," Jensen encourages, gesturing at Jared.
"Murray's the best wheelman under thirty," Jared goes on, "and Lindberg's the computer genius."
"No one's gonna follow me either," the stoner drawls.
"Can you hack the DMV?" Kevin asks. "Change VINs, alter registrations, all that fun stuff?"
"In my sleep."
"And Gabe does a little bit of everything," Jared goes on, "and whatever's left over. He's got friends in low places if we need them."
Jensen sighs. He has to admit, they sound good. And he could use the help. Looking at the cars covering Jim's blackboard fills him with anxiety and resolve in equal measure, and he can't afford to turn down five extra pairs of hands.
"Why do they all have girls' names?" Gabe asks, pointing to the blackboard.
"So you can talk about them in mixed company," Jim explains. "'Just picked up Alice.' ‘Took Wendy down to the beach.' ‘Elizabeth gave me some trouble.' That kind of thing. No one's the wiser."
"Aw, there's no Joanna," Alona says, sounding disappointed.
"Her dog," Murray explains.
"Ok, kids," Aldis says, "this is - "
"Who's leading this crew?" Jensen interrupts.
"Just trying to get everyone to settle."
Murray, Jared, and Gabe all make a big deal out of settling down.
"Thank you," Jensen goes on. "This is the deal - we have to deliver fifty cars unscratched by nine o'clock Friday morning. Today and tonight we find them, tomorrow night we steal them. We are on the tightest schedule you can imagine. Fuck up and you're gone."
Unless you're Jared, he thinks, or me, and then you're dead.
"Ok. Lindberg. Get into the DMV, see who you can find. Chris, call Steve. I know you still have contacts. Aldis, Frederick, I'm betting the same. Junior varsity - "
"He was joking!" Murray protests.
" - do your research. Gabe, if you talk to your friends in low places, be circumspect. Don't any of you give anything away. We'll regroup here at nine to scope out the ladies. Good?" Nods all around. "Good."
It's another hour before he can leave, although in that hour Jensen gets enough of a feel for Jared's crew to think that bringing them in was a smart decision after all. They seem like a reasonably intelligent bunch of kids, if relatively inexperienced, they get along with each other, they don't push against every order. (Although they do push against most of them.) Jensen is a little surprised to find that he's impressed with and proud of Jared for putting together what looks like a good crew.
Not that he thinks Jared should have ever done it in the first place.
The rest of the day passes in a rush of activity and plotting. This was always Jensen's second-favorite part of boosting cars - the looking, the finding. The hunt. He can put on a nice suit and pretend to be an asshole with money and taste and attitude, he can cruise wealthy neighborhoods looking for the perfect prize. He can go places he doesn't normally go and pretend to be people he isn't, and he can plan ahead for the quick minutes when he gets to break into a stranger's car and speed away with it.
And that was always his favorite part, the brief length of time during which he and his stolen wheels could go anywhere. Boosting cars is a challenge and a rush, and all it takes is thirty minutes with a salesman at a swanky dealership, thirty minutes of entitled chatter and a look at the cars on offer - thirty minutes and Jensen's six-year attempt to stay clean and above the law and away from other people's cars is completely undone.
The promise of a rumbling engine and a responsive gearshift, torque and horsepower, chrome and leather and glass, a long ribbon of asphalt unspooling under his tires - that will do it every time. He doesn’t even need a test drive. The potential is enough.
Of all the things he came home for, this anticipation, this quickening of his pulse, has not changed, and he's grateful. It makes things easier. It means he still has the skills. He still has the excitement. He still has the love. And he knew he couldn't do this if he didn't.
But he does.
Everyone is on time that night. Jensen tries not to be surprised. Jared chooses to ride with him, and that doesn't surprise him at all.
"Don't give me any more grief, ok?" Jensen says.
"And don't yell at me."
"Deal."
"I should've brought my police scanner," Gabe says suddenly.
"You have a scanner?" Aldis demands. "And you didn't bring it?"
"Focus, ladies and gentlemen," Jim says.
"I think you mean lady and gentlemen."
"He would if I was a lady," Alona laughs.
"I like her," Frederick says.
Lindberg has a master list with locations and addresses of all fifty cars, collated from everyone's research and his own forays into the depths of the DMV. They've got cameras, little security sensors, gadgets and GPS and walkie-talkies that Jim found. Old school for the old dog, he explains. They break up, spread out, go hunting.
And because Jim's involved, they play car trivia on the road.
"First one's easy," he announces over the walkie-talkie. "Gimme KITT."
"Original or remake?" Chris asks.
"Heavily modified Pontiac Trans Am," Kevin says, at the same time Murray answers "Ford Shelby GT."
"The remake sucked," Jared tells Jensen.
"I heard that." Murray.
"I'm still right."
"Children." Jim again. "Correct answers all around. Another gimme. The Saint's car."
"The who?" Gabe.
"Simon Templar!" Frederick. Jensen can just hear the implied Philistines! in his tone. "Roger Moore before he was Bond! Volvo P1800, white."
"Penelope." Lindberg. "Check the list. Number fifty."
"A star for the cowboy." Jim. "Let's pick it up a bit. Adam West's Batmobile."
"Cadillac." Alona.
"Total custom job." Aldis.
"It was based off a concept car from the 50s," Jared says. "A Ford Futura. They had to put a Galaxie engine in it halfway through the first season because the engine in the Futura was too old."
"Nerd!" Murray. Jared just shrugs, grinning.
"Geek," Jensen says, affectionately.
"For the trifecta, gimme Batmobiles from Tim Burton's Batman and Chris Nolan's Batman Begins." Jim.
"The second one was built from scratch." Kevin. "It's a fucking tank."
"Technically, it's a military vehicle called a Tumbler." Lindberg.
"Which is a tank."
"Looked like a Humvee to me." Gabe.
"Too low to the ground." Frederick. "It had a Chevy V8 engine."
"How do you people know this shit?" Murray.
"Years of dedicated car nerdery, junior varsity."
"Stop calling me that!"
"Kids. Play nice." Jim. "Durand's right, Lindberg's right, and Weller's right. Let's hear it for team effort. Who's got Burton's Batmobile?"
"Chevy Impala chassis," Jensen says. "Customized to hell and back."
"And we have a winner! Thanks for playing, study hard for the next quiz."
"Next quiz?" Gabe.
"Bond cars." Aldis. "Lots and lots of Bond cars." He doesn't sound too disappointed by the prospect of being quizzed on James Bond's various vehicles.
"Low profiles, don't forget," Jensen reminds everyone. "Now is not the time to be attracting attention."
"Murray," Jared adds.
"I can be discreet!" Murray.
"That's not what she said...." Alona. Laughter all around.
"He's gonna pout now," Jared tells Jensen.
"Oh, fuck you all." Murray.
"Can we go to radio silence?" Chris. "This is like driving with a day care in the back seat."
"I'm off." Kevin.
"Call if there's an emergency." Aldis.
"Send me your pictures when you get 'em." Lindberg.
And then it's quiet in the car except for the faint crackle of static from Jared and Jensen's walkie-talkie. Jared turns the radio on. Jensen turns it off. He needs to concentrate.
The next few hours pass in general silence, broken by the occasional random observation, bit of trivia, or curse aimed at the GPS. Jared programs addresses into it, Jensen navigates roads and neighborhoods that he's only a little surprised he remembers, and they both keep their eyes peeled for cops and landmarks and anything that might help or hinder someone trying to boost a car. Every so often Jensen becomes acutely aware that the Jared he used to know has grown into this competent, confident man sitting next to him, this person who leads his own crew and takes responsibility for his own mistakes. It has become more and more clear that the boy Jensen always considered his little brother grew up when he wasn't looking, and he doesn't really know what to think or how to feel about that.
He still hasn't told anyone that he ran into Detective Morgan yesterday. Now he thinks he should have, just to keep everyone on their toes. He'd like to think his own guys are smart enough to not need a reminder that they could encounter cops, but it's been a long time and a refresher never hurt. And what about Jared's crew? How close have any of them come to getting caught? How long have any of them been doing this, anyway?
They're cruising through a swanky neighborhood looking for Ellen (a 2009 Mercedes Benz SL 600) when he asks Jared "When did you put together a crew?"
"Uh," Jared says, apparently unprepared to answer the question, and Jensen wants to smack himself. He wasn't thinking before he opened his mouth. He doesn't want to have this conversation now, not when he's trapped in a car and needs to be paying attention to other things.
"Forget it. It doesn't matter."
"I guess it does."
Jensen risks a glance sideways. Jared is looking at him thoughtfully. In the dark of the car it's hard to read his expression. Six years ago he didn't have much of a poker face. Maybe he's been practicing.
"Now's probably not the time to discuss it, though," Jared says, and Jensen wants to kiss him for being on the same wavelength. "Maybe when we're done." He points across Jensen at the driver's side of the street. "1274. It's up here."
Jensen slows down, pulls into the driveway next door to their target. Ellen is painted a flawless shiny black, and she's gorgeous. Jared hands him the camera and he snaps some pictures, which will no doubt come out too dark, and they both take stock of the neighboring houses, the landscaping, garages and other cars in other driveways, who has security lights and how bright they are and where they're directed.
And then he pulls backwards out of the driveway and drives off like nothing's amiss.
Later they regroup at Jim's, share their recon experiences, make a plan for tomorrow. Chris can't stop yawning and Aldis keeps elbowing him to wake him up, until Chris grabs his arm and hisses "Do that again and I'll snap it off". Jim offers the couch in his office if Chris needs a nap. Chris rolls his eyes. Alona offers to keep him company. Jared snickers, as do Frederick and Murray, and Jensen has to bang on Jim's desk to get everyone to shut up again.
"Remember," he says, "low profiles. Don't even sneeze wrong. We have" - he glances at his watch - "thirty-one hours to keep our heads down. After that, you can do whatever you want, I don't care. We roll out at nine o'clock tomorrow night. Get some sleep."
And then he and Jared go home.
Part two!