MASTERPOST: Bad Moon on the Rise - (J2, PG-13)
Title: Bad Moon on the Rise
Artist: bluefire986
Author: amypond45
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Rating: PG-13
Tags/Warnings: age difference (Jensen is 460 years older than Jared), dubcon blood-drinking
Summary: Werewolf!Jared will do anything to protect his mate. Vampire!Jensen will do anything to keep Jared with him. It’s not perfect, but it is what it is.
Art Links: LJ | A03
Fic Links: A03 Or below the cut
A/N: Created for the 2022 spn_reversebang.
//**//**//
Cold concrete against his cheek. The smell of old blood, not human. Bright overhead light that makes Jared blink and squint as he comes to consciousness. He’s been lying still for too long and his muscles are cramped and sore. There’s a nearly-healed wound on his chest where somebody stabbed him with a silver knife.
“Jared! Jay, buddy, can you hear me?”
The voice in his head is Jensen, his mate, calling out to him telepathically.
Why telepathically? They only use that way of communicating when one of them is in danger.
Jared hisses as he moves his arms to push himself up. His wrists are bound to chains that run under his body and end at a padlocked ring welded into the concrete floor. The chains only stretch a couple of feet, two more attached to silver cuffs at his bare ankles. He’s trapped, his movements limited. The best he can do is rise to his knees to take stock of his situation.
A stainless steel operating table stands in the middle of the room. On it, a body lies, still as death.
Jensen.
He reaches out with his mind, lets Jensen feel his concern.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Basically. If you don’t want to count the fact that they’ve drugged me, tied me to a table, and plugged me into a machine that’s supposed to keep me from hearing you.”
“Well, they failed at that, at least. How much juice you packin’?”
“I got no idea. On account of I’M UNCONSCIOUS! Geezus, Jared, you gotta figure this out for both of us this time.”
“Okay. Okay.” Jared glances around. “Twelve-foot ceilings. One-way mirror up high, door without a handle down low. Must open from the other side. They’re watching us.”
“You tied up?”
“Silver cuffs, yeah.”
“Any idea what they want?”
“To study us, maybe? The set-up looks like a classic observation room in a lab, except for the rough-hewn walls. Could be a barn, originally.”
“Do you see any way out?”
Jared takes a deep breath. “I mean, I could try the door, but it looks like a solid plate of steel. The walls are reinforced with something I can smell - probably more steel.”
“So we wait.” Jensen’s mental voice sounds tense. Angry. “We find out what they want and we kill them.”
“Good plan.”
“Better not let on we can talk to each other,” Jensen warns.
“Yeah.”
Jared looks up at the two-way mirror and calls out. “Hey! Anybody up there? What the hell’s going on? Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
The speaker on the wall comes to life with a hiss and a crackle. A microphone feeds back for a moment before its operator figures out how to make it work.
“Relax, Mister Padalecki. You’re in for a long stay. The boss will be here soon to explain everything.”
“Who’s the boss?” Jared demands angrily. “And why do you have him all drugged up like that?”
There’s an IV running into Jensen’s left arm, and Jared’s willing to bet it’s full of dead man’s blood and a tranquilizer of some kind. Nasty.
“All in good time, Mr. Padalecki. All in good time.”
Jared yanks on his chains, just enough to satisfy the watchers that he’s not going anywhere. Just to make them think they’ve really got him trapped and helpless.
His wolf growls, deep and guttural. His wolf doesn’t like captivity one little bit.
Jared’s pretty sure his wolf won’t remain in captivity for a single minute longer than he has to. Jared’s wolf is confident he can break these chains, smash through the viewing window, and kill everyone inside that observation booth, all while barely breaking a sweat.
Then there’s the rest of this facility. Jared closes his eyes so that his hearing becomes keen and sharp. There are five, maybe ten men outside the locked door, guarding the passageway in the unlikely event of a breakout. Jared can smell their fear of the monsters in this room. He can hear them shifting the automatic rifles they carry, gathering courage from them. Jared can smell the bullets, though, and they’re not silver. They won’t hurt him. They might slow him down, though, so he’ll need to move quickly.
He’ll have to kill them all before he can take Jensen out of here. His wolf hates that idea. Jared’s wolf would never leave his mate, not even for the few minutes it takes to kill those men and clear their escape route.
Down, boy, Jared soothes.
”Jared?” Jensen’s voice is a question in his mind, checking in on him.
”Just telling Tristan to behave himself,” Jared assures his mate. ”He doesn’t like the plan.”
”Since when does Tristan not like killing?”
“It’s not the killing that bothers him. It’s the doing it without you right beside him.”
“You’ll need to unlock that door from the control booth,” Jensen reminds him.
"On it.”
"If you can figure out how to get back down to that corridor from the inside, you’ll have the advantage on the idiots waiting for you to come out the door,” Jensen advises, and Jared nods. When the men in the corridor hear the door unlocking, they’ll move back, get into position to kill anything that comes out. They won’t expect to be jumped from behind.
”That’s the plan,” Jared agrees.
“Good morning, Mr. Padalecki,” a smarmy English voice greets him from the loudspeaker. “I trust your little nap was agreeable.”
“Not even close,” Jared snaps. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”
“The name’s Sheppard, Mr. Padalecki,” the voice says. “Mark Sheppard. And you two are my sheep.”
“You got that wrong,” Jared spits out. “What do you want?”
“That depends on you, Mr. Padalecki.”
“Me? What are you talking about?”
“Pure-bred werewolves like you are rare,” Sheppard says. “We’re very curious about what you’re capable of.”
Oh, you have no idea, Jared thinks. Through their bond, he feels Jensen smile. ”Looks like we’re being underestimated. Again.”
“And him?” Jared nods at Jensen. “What do you want with him?”
“He’s your master, isn’t he? But he’s not controlling you now, is he?”
"Geezus, this guy is stupid,” Jensen’s voice barks out a harsh laugh in Jared’s head. "I’m going to enjoy watching you kill him."
“Well, technically, you won’t be watching,” Jared reminds him. "But I know what you mean.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Jared asks aloud.
“I’m curious to see what happens when your wolf comes out to play,” Sheppard says. “With your master the only available food source.”
Oh, you son-of-a-bitch.
“You want me to eat him?” Jared says with a bitter laugh of disbelief. “Isn’t that a waste of a master vampire? Seems to me you went to a lot of trouble to capture him, just to have him destroyed.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will happen,” Sheppard assures him. “I’m fully expecting our vampire friend here has a wealth of instincts that surface when he’s under attack. We’re curious to see them.”
“So you want to watch us kill each other,” Jared clarifies. “Why?”
“Let’s just say, I have a vested interest in a specialized sport,” Sheppard says. “You’re being streamed as we speak, Mr. Padalecki, and the ratings are through the roof.”
“You make monster snuff films,” Jared scoffs. “Real cute.”
“Oh, I fully expect one of you to survive,” Sheppard says. “Whether it’s the master or the pet, I don’t care. The victor will go on to fight another day.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jared raises his shackled wrists. “Even my pure-bred wolf can’t break out of these.”
Sheppard chuckles, which is how Jared knows he got away with the lie.
“All in good time, Mr. Padalecki,” Sheppard assures him. “Tonight is the full moon. When you turn, we’ll let your wolf feed. Or try to.”
"Asshole,” Jensen mutters in his head.
"They know you’re aware,” Jared reminds him. "At least partially. They’re keeping the dose of that tranquilizer low enough to keep you conscious, if not fully awake. Deliberately.”
"Fuckers.”
”I’m definitely looking forward to killing this guy,” Jared confirms.
”Just watch out, Jay,” Jensen cautions. “He’s probably armed against you, just in case. Silver bullets, silver blade.”
Jared closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, letting the scents from the control booth fill his nostrils and lungs.
“He’s the only one,” Jared confirms. “Nobody else in the control booth has a weapon. They’re so overconfident, it’s almost funny.”
“All righty then,” Jensen purrs. “Ready when you are.”
”You don’t think we should wait till the full moon? Tristan will be stronger then.”
“I trust you,” Jensen says. ”You decide.”
In the end, the decision’s made for them. Tristan’s angry. He doesn’t like being locked up. He doesn’t like the threats to his mate. He really doesn’t like these humans, not even a little.
Jared feels himself starting to turn long before moonrise. His skin prickles as his blood heats up, pumping so hard it throbs in his veins, making his heart pound. His sight goes, replaced by the red-hot pulse of his own blood. The growling low in his throat fills his ears, shutting out all sound but the beating of his own heart. His bones hurt as the transformation begins, and Jared braces himself for the inevitable.
”Here he comes,” Jared warns his mate before his mind goes offline as the wolf takes over.
//**//**//
Afterwards, it comes back to him in bits and pieces, mostly from what Jensen tells him, but also his own memories of being fully wolf, the way it always does.
Tristan follows the plan to a T. Everyone in the compound is dead when he carries Jensen out, down the corridor, and up the stairs to the outside. He takes his mate to the closest safe house, an old cabin high in the mountains where he lived before he knew Jensen, before he found the mate who completed him and made him whole.
Jared comes to full human consciousness lying facedown on the cabin’s only bed, Jensen digging silver bullets out of his back with a knife and his tongue.
Jared flashes back to the moment he lay Jensen on this very bed, still unconscious and full of poison. He recalls slashing his own wrist to get the blood flowing, remembers pressing his bleeding wrist to Jensen’s mouth, forcing him to drink.
He remembers the moment Jensen began to respond, starting to lap at Jared’s blood, weak as a kitten at first, then with more vigor until he was holding onto Jared’s arm with an iron grip, sucking the life from him until Jared/Tristan had to jerk away, growling.
In his memories, Jared sees Jensen’s beautiful green eyes open to gaze up at him, hungry and full of desire only for him. For Jared, his mate. Jensen’s lips and teeth are coated in blood. Jared’s blood.
He sees the moment Jensen’s expression becomes one of concern. He’s taken too much blood. Jared’s weakening.
Jensen does what he needs to do, slashing his wrist with his teeth and pressing the open wound to Jared’s mouth.
“Drink,” Jensen commands, and Jared does, too weak to protest, trusting his mate utterly. By the time Jensen’s wound closes up, Jared’s better, but still too weak to keep his eyes open.
“It’s the silver bullets,” Jensen whispers to Jared. “They need to come out. Lie down on your belly.”
It’s just this side of painful as Jensen sucks the bullets from his body and spits them out. But it’s good, too. Now Jensen has more of Jared’s blood in him.
This is what mates do for each other. This is how it always goes.
Jared gasps as Jensen extracts the final bullet, spits it into a porcelain bowl, and sucks the blood from the quickly-healing wound.
”My beautiful mate,” Jensen coos as he recognizes the signals that indicate Jared’s fully human again, awake and alert enough to hear him with his human ears. ”You were magnificent.”
Jared’s eyes fly open as his human intelligence returns with a start, as he understands the implications of what just happened.
“Jensen?” he croaks aloud, his throat still hoarse from growling. “Did you just feed me your blood?”
“You gave me yours,” Jensen reminds him, sounding defensive.
“I was trying to heal you!” Jared says. “You were still full of dead man’s blood and tranquilizer.”
Jensen winks, presses his lips to Jared’s forehead. “You did. You healed me. I’m fine now.”
“But your blood - I can feel it,” Jared gasps. His veins feel different. Super-heated. He shivers. “I’m changing.”
“You’ll be fine,” Jensen assures him.
“I’ll be a vampire!” Jared wails.
“There was no other way, Jay,” Jensen insists. “You would’ve died. I took too much of your blood.”
They’ve had this conversation before. Werewolves age slowly, but they do age. Someday, Jared would die.
“You could’ve just removed the silver bullets!” Jared insists, panting as his body continues to heat up. “I would’ve healed eventually.”
Jensen shakes his head. “You were too far gone, Jay. I couldn’t risk losing you.”
Blood pounds in Jared’s head, so loud he can’t hear Jensen anymore. His body feels like it’s on fire, his bones twisting painfully inside burning flesh and muscle. His guts clench and cramp unbearably. Tristan screams and growls.
“It hurts,” he gasps, arching his back reflexively, hot tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Shhh,” Jensen soothes. “It’s your mortal body dying. It’s supposed to hurt.”
“It’s killing Tristan!” Jared cries.
“No, no, he’ll be fine, I promise.”
Jensen holds him as he dies, whispers to him, presses kisses against his eyelids and his temple, runs soothing hands through Jared’s hair.
Jared feels the moment his heart stops beating, the moment his blood stops pumping. Tristan has already gone silent, cowering in fear deep inside Jared's consciousness.
“How could you do this?” Jared whispers.
“You know I can’t live without you,” Jensen murmurs, lips pressed against his temple.
“Yes, you could,” Jared says. His lungs have stopped pumping oxygen. He’s not even sure how it’s possible for him to speak.
“No, I really couldn’t,” Jensen says. His voice sounds echoey and far away, as if Jared’s hearing it through a tunnel. “Without you, I would wither away. Bury myself in the earth and never come out.”
“You’re so dramatic.” Jared coughs, tastes blood. He feels Tristan stir, smelling the blood, hopeful. He’s not dead after all.
“You’ll feel better soon,” Jensen promises, cradling Jared’s dead body with infinite tenderness. “The worst is over.”
Jared feels the moment his heart starts beating again. The blood pumping through his veins has altered everything. He smells blood, Jensen’s blood, his own blood, the blood of the men Tristan killed, old and dried now. He smells the blood of his own body pumping inside Jensen, healing Jensen, strengthening their bond.
Jared hears a mouse scuttling under the floorboards. He hears a deer moving through the trees outside. He hears a bird sing, far off. An owl hoots.
Jared opens his eyes. Everything glows. He winces, blinks, tries to focus on Jensen’s face.
Jensen’s eyes glitter, his skin is so pale it’s almost translucent, and his elven-shaped ears have sharpened to points. He looks like Jensen, but more. Jared can see the blood pumping under his skin.
The light in the room is so bright it makes a halo around Jensen’s face.
“It’s bright at first,” Jensen acknowledges. “Your new sight can’t process everything you see yet. But you’ll get there. You’re gonna be okay.”
Jared scrambles back, moving so quickly he’s instantly pressed up against the back wall of the cabin, arm up to shield his eyes from the light.
“I’m anything but okay, Jensen!” Jared’s voice sounds strange to his ears. Tinny. Inhuman.
Tristan whines, cowering inside his consciousness like a frightened puppy.
“It takes time to adjust,” Jensen says with a nod. He puts his hand out, calming the wild animal Jared has become. “It’s intense at first. Your senses are enhanced so everything’s brighter, louder, faster. You’ll figure it out, Jay. I promise.”
“I can hear your blood, Jensen,” Jared gasps. “It’s so loud and it smells.” Delicious. Jared shakes his head. “It’s too much!”
“No, no, it’s gonna be okay,” Jensen assures him. He moves closer, slowly, keeping his hands out, placating. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Jared lunges at him, slamming into Jensen so hard they literally fly across the room, hitting the opposite wall with so much force, it shatters a window, making the whole cabin shake.
“I’m not going to be okay!” Jared growls, hauling Jensen to his feet so he can slam him into the wall. Jensen’s head hits the wood with a loud crack. “This is not okay! I’m a fucking vampire, Jensen! Worse than that! I’m a hybrid vampire/werewolf!”
Jensen blinks up at him, clear green eyes glittering like crystal. His eyelashes are stupidly long and full against his pale cheeks. His lips are blood-red and swollen.
“Easy, tiger,” Jensen soothes, voice low and honey-smooth. “Give it time.”
Jared pushes Jensen away and takes a swing at the table, sending it flying against the opposite wall, where it smashes and falls to the floor in pieces. He does the same with both chairs, upends the bed, then picks up the dresser and smashes it back down with a satisfying crash of splintered wood. He tears the cupboards off the wall, puts his fist through each one as he smashes them.
When the room is a complete and total wreck, with nothing left to break, Jared turns to Jensen, chest heaving, fists clenching and unclenching.
“You done?” Jensen asks. “Does that feel good, huh?”
“No!” Jared bellows. “It sucks! Everything sucks!”
Jensen nods. “Fair.”
Jared glares at his mate for another moment, then huffs out a disgusted breath.
“I’m going for a run,” he announces, feeling the need to transform, to be wolf again. Just wolf.
Tristan growls appreciatively, relieved. This is something he knows. Something he and Jared share. Something they can control. Together, wolf and whatever-Jared-is-now will figure this out.
When Jared gets back, it’s dark. Jensen’s left a neatly folded pile of clothes on the rocking chair on the front porch, the only intact piece of furniture in the cabin: well-worn jeans, t-shirt, flannel button-down, and fleece-lined denim jacket, along with Jared’s favorite worn-in boots.
Jared can smell that his mate isn’t here. He’s been gone almost as long as Jared has.
Jared pulls the clothes on and sits down on the porch step to wait. He’s worn out from running, but can’t imagine sleeping. In the dark, his newly sharpened senses are even stronger. He sees movement in the trees, catches a glimpse of pale, glowing skin even before Jensen steps into the clearing in front of the house. His feet barely make a sound, but Jared can hear them.
“You have a good run?” Jensen asks.
We never need to speak again, Jared reminds him in his head. I can hear everything now.
“I like to use human speech,” Jensen says. “It lets us have the illusion of boundaries.”
You mean, now that we’re the same species? Jared says, letting his bitterness creep into his words.
“We’re not identical, Jay,” Jensen reminds him. “I’m a vampire who used to be human. You’re a purebred werewolf with human ancestry who has become a hybrid werewolf/vampire. A were-pire.”
“I prefer vamp-were,” Jared says aloud.
Jensen smiles. He’s carrying two bottles of beer.
“I brought beer,” he says unnecessarily, holding one out for Jared.
“Is this your way of apologizing?”
Jensen shrugs. “A little inadequate, maybe, but it’s a start, right?”
Jared hesitates another moment, letting Jensen stand there holding the beer in his outstretched hand until a little hint of doubt crosses his face.
Then Jared takes the beer and the moment passes.
He looks at his beer as Jensen sits down beside him, careful to keep a little space between their bodies.
“If you’re ready, we can go home,” Jensen suggests. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a shower. A nice, hot one.”
“This used to be my home,” Jared reminds him. “I had everything I needed here. A well with running water, a generator for lights, wood stove for heat. I swam in the lake when I needed to. Ran all over these woods.”
Jensen nods. “Then I came along and destroyed your solitude,” he says as he takes a sip of his beer.
Jared draws a ragged breath, remembering the day Jensen walked out of the trees and into his life. The moment he realized the voice he’d been hearing inside his head for years was real.
“You never told me how you found me,” he says.
Jensen shrugs. “I followed your blood,” he says. “You might think werewolves are good trackers, but they ain’t got nothin’ on vampires. Your blood literally sang to me. If you close your eyes and concentrate, you’ll see what I mean.”
Jared does. Besides the strong, delicious scent of Jensen’s blood, he hears the sound of it rushing through Jensen’s body. It’s a sound like the hum of a bass string after it’s been plucked, low and resonant, with harmonic overtones that are almost dissonant. Haunting.
“Your blood sounds like a bright, cheerful D Major chord,” Jensen reveals. “What does mine sound like?”
“Lonely,” Jared answers. “Sad. But very beautiful.”
“That’s because it took me five hundred years to find you,” Jensen says.
“I’m only forty years old,” Jared reminds him.
“Exactly. Four-hundred-sixty years of loneliness.” Jensen shrugs. “Makes an impression on a man.”
Jared huffs out a laugh. “But you had other mates,” he insists. “You weren’t exactly celibate.”
“About the time you were born, I started hearing your blood,” Jensen says. “That’s when I knew every other mate I’d ever known was a dim shadow in comparison.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Jared chuckles.
“Now it isn’t,” Jensen agrees. “Now you know how it feels.”
Jared closes his eyes and listens to the music of Jensen’s blood again. He can almost hear a story in the way the sound rises and falls, rushes and abates. Through their bond and Jared’s heightened telepathic perception, he now has one more way to read Jensen’s story, and he gets it. Jensen waited a very long time for Jared, even before he knew he was waiting for him. Now that he has Jared, Jensen won’t ever let him go.
It should feel creepy, to be loved in such an obsessive, possessive way. It should be terrifying. If Jared were human, he would run. He should run.
Jared sighs. “I just wish you had asked first.”
“Time was running out,” Jensen says, and Jared senses that he’s not referring just to Jared’s recent near-death experience. “You were so fragile. I worried about you every damn day.”
Jared senses the truth of what Jensen’s telling him. Mortal Jared was a constant source of dread for Jensen. His fear of losing Jared amped up his protective instincts to the point where there was only one thing to be done, from Jensen’s perspective.
Jensen had been planning to change Jared almost from the moment they met.
“And now I will need to drink human blood to survive,” Jared says.
Jensen shrugs. “Well, that’s the easiest and quickest way to stay strong,” he agrees. “But if you’d rather drink animal blood, you can do that. Blood banks are also viable ways to get what you need. Plenty of vampires work in hospitals.”
Jared shivers at the thought of ingesting cold, viscous blood. “Gross.”
“How is drinking blood worse than eating hearts?” Jensen asks, and Jared doesn’t have an answer for that.
“At least with blood drinking, you don’t have to take a life,” Jensen says. “You can just take what you need.”
“I thought the blood lust just takes over, like what happened when I gave you my blood last night.”
Jensen shakes his head. “You’ll learn to control it,” he says. “Unless you’re sick or unconscious and your instincts kick in automatically, like what happened with us last night. But normally, you’ll be able to stop when you want to. And I’ll be right there with you if you slip up. At least at first. I’ll be sure you don’t kill anybody, if that’s what you prefer.”
Jared takes a sip of his beer, stares out into the newly bright darkness. He can see every leaf, every pebble, even though the moon isn’t even up yet.
“How long can I go without blood?”
Jensen shrugs. “Depends. When you’re new, like you are now, you’ll need to feed pretty often. Say, once every week or two. When you’re old like me, you can go nearly six months without feeding.”
“You should’ve asked first.”
Jared finishes his beer and gets to his feet, leaving the empty beer bottle on the top step as he heads into the woods, not even looking back to see if Jensen is following.
Jensen follows because he can sense that Jared wants him to. Jared’s still angry at Jensen, but he loves him. He knows Jensen would never have been able to hold out forever. Eventually, Jensen would’ve turned him, with or without his permission.
Jared emerges from the trees onto the little rocky beach of the lake. He stands and watches as the moon rises over the trees, casting so much light Jared has to shield his eyes.
“I would’ve liked to have had a chance to say no,” Jared says, sensing Jensen standing behind him, just inside the tree line. “Or maybe yes. I just would’ve liked to have made that choice for myself.”
A breeze lifts Jared’s hair off his neck, pushes it into his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Jensen whispers, close enough behind him that Jared can feel his breath. “I should’ve asked first. I wish I had.”
It’s the first time Jensen’s apologized, and although it’s not enough, and Jared’s still angry, it’ll do for now. Jared turns to look at him, at his blinding beauty.
“You’re my mate, and I’ll always love you,” Jared says. “But you’re an asshole sometimes.”
The corner of Jensen’s mouth turns up in a smirk.
“You are what matters to me, Jay,” Jensen assures him. “You are the meaning of my existence. I’d always do anything I can do to keep it that way.”
Jared takes a deep breath, lets it out slow, gazing away from Jensen, at the moon.
“I know you would, Jensen. I know you would.”
Jensen steps close then, and Jared puts his arms around him, lets Jensen pull him close. They’re the same temperature now. Jensen’s skin isn’t cold anymore. It feels warm. Normal.
Jared probably feels cooler than he used to, and when Jensen rests his cheek on Jared’s shoulder, he can tell that Jensen is listening to the beat of his heart because Jared’s listening to Jensen’s.
He feels it the moment Jensen lifts them off the ground, feels the rush of cold air as they soar above the trees at inhuman speed, flying away from this place of blood and destruction and pain.
Flying toward home.
fin
Artist: bluefire986
Author: amypond45
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Rating: PG-13
Tags/Warnings: age difference (Jensen is 460 years older than Jared), dubcon blood-drinking
Summary: Werewolf!Jared will do anything to protect his mate. Vampire!Jensen will do anything to keep Jared with him. It’s not perfect, but it is what it is.
Art Links: LJ | A03
Fic Links: A03 Or below the cut
A/N: Created for the 2022 spn_reversebang.
//**//**//
Cold concrete against his cheek. The smell of old blood, not human. Bright overhead light that makes Jared blink and squint as he comes to consciousness. He’s been lying still for too long and his muscles are cramped and sore. There’s a nearly-healed wound on his chest where somebody stabbed him with a silver knife.
“Jared! Jay, buddy, can you hear me?”
The voice in his head is Jensen, his mate, calling out to him telepathically.
Why telepathically? They only use that way of communicating when one of them is in danger.
Jared hisses as he moves his arms to push himself up. His wrists are bound to chains that run under his body and end at a padlocked ring welded into the concrete floor. The chains only stretch a couple of feet, two more attached to silver cuffs at his bare ankles. He’s trapped, his movements limited. The best he can do is rise to his knees to take stock of his situation.
A stainless steel operating table stands in the middle of the room. On it, a body lies, still as death.
Jensen.
He reaches out with his mind, lets Jensen feel his concern.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Basically. If you don’t want to count the fact that they’ve drugged me, tied me to a table, and plugged me into a machine that’s supposed to keep me from hearing you.”
“Well, they failed at that, at least. How much juice you packin’?”
“I got no idea. On account of I’M UNCONSCIOUS! Geezus, Jared, you gotta figure this out for both of us this time.”
“Okay. Okay.” Jared glances around. “Twelve-foot ceilings. One-way mirror up high, door without a handle down low. Must open from the other side. They’re watching us.”
“You tied up?”
“Silver cuffs, yeah.”
“Any idea what they want?”
“To study us, maybe? The set-up looks like a classic observation room in a lab, except for the rough-hewn walls. Could be a barn, originally.”
“Do you see any way out?”
Jared takes a deep breath. “I mean, I could try the door, but it looks like a solid plate of steel. The walls are reinforced with something I can smell - probably more steel.”
“So we wait.” Jensen’s mental voice sounds tense. Angry. “We find out what they want and we kill them.”
“Good plan.”
“Better not let on we can talk to each other,” Jensen warns.
“Yeah.”
Jared looks up at the two-way mirror and calls out. “Hey! Anybody up there? What the hell’s going on? Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
The speaker on the wall comes to life with a hiss and a crackle. A microphone feeds back for a moment before its operator figures out how to make it work.
“Relax, Mister Padalecki. You’re in for a long stay. The boss will be here soon to explain everything.”
“Who’s the boss?” Jared demands angrily. “And why do you have him all drugged up like that?”
There’s an IV running into Jensen’s left arm, and Jared’s willing to bet it’s full of dead man’s blood and a tranquilizer of some kind. Nasty.
“All in good time, Mr. Padalecki. All in good time.”
Jared yanks on his chains, just enough to satisfy the watchers that he’s not going anywhere. Just to make them think they’ve really got him trapped and helpless.
His wolf growls, deep and guttural. His wolf doesn’t like captivity one little bit.
Jared’s pretty sure his wolf won’t remain in captivity for a single minute longer than he has to. Jared’s wolf is confident he can break these chains, smash through the viewing window, and kill everyone inside that observation booth, all while barely breaking a sweat.
Then there’s the rest of this facility. Jared closes his eyes so that his hearing becomes keen and sharp. There are five, maybe ten men outside the locked door, guarding the passageway in the unlikely event of a breakout. Jared can smell their fear of the monsters in this room. He can hear them shifting the automatic rifles they carry, gathering courage from them. Jared can smell the bullets, though, and they’re not silver. They won’t hurt him. They might slow him down, though, so he’ll need to move quickly.
He’ll have to kill them all before he can take Jensen out of here. His wolf hates that idea. Jared’s wolf would never leave his mate, not even for the few minutes it takes to kill those men and clear their escape route.
Down, boy, Jared soothes.
”Jared?” Jensen’s voice is a question in his mind, checking in on him.
”Just telling Tristan to behave himself,” Jared assures his mate. ”He doesn’t like the plan.”
”Since when does Tristan not like killing?”
“It’s not the killing that bothers him. It’s the doing it without you right beside him.”
“You’ll need to unlock that door from the control booth,” Jensen reminds him.
"On it.”
"If you can figure out how to get back down to that corridor from the inside, you’ll have the advantage on the idiots waiting for you to come out the door,” Jensen advises, and Jared nods. When the men in the corridor hear the door unlocking, they’ll move back, get into position to kill anything that comes out. They won’t expect to be jumped from behind.
”That’s the plan,” Jared agrees.
“Good morning, Mr. Padalecki,” a smarmy English voice greets him from the loudspeaker. “I trust your little nap was agreeable.”
“Not even close,” Jared snaps. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”
“The name’s Sheppard, Mr. Padalecki,” the voice says. “Mark Sheppard. And you two are my sheep.”
“You got that wrong,” Jared spits out. “What do you want?”
“That depends on you, Mr. Padalecki.”
“Me? What are you talking about?”
“Pure-bred werewolves like you are rare,” Sheppard says. “We’re very curious about what you’re capable of.”
Oh, you have no idea, Jared thinks. Through their bond, he feels Jensen smile. ”Looks like we’re being underestimated. Again.”
“And him?” Jared nods at Jensen. “What do you want with him?”
“He’s your master, isn’t he? But he’s not controlling you now, is he?”
"Geezus, this guy is stupid,” Jensen’s voice barks out a harsh laugh in Jared’s head. "I’m going to enjoy watching you kill him."
“Well, technically, you won’t be watching,” Jared reminds him. "But I know what you mean.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Jared asks aloud.
“I’m curious to see what happens when your wolf comes out to play,” Sheppard says. “With your master the only available food source.”
Oh, you son-of-a-bitch.
“You want me to eat him?” Jared says with a bitter laugh of disbelief. “Isn’t that a waste of a master vampire? Seems to me you went to a lot of trouble to capture him, just to have him destroyed.”
“Oh, I don’t think that will happen,” Sheppard assures him. “I’m fully expecting our vampire friend here has a wealth of instincts that surface when he’s under attack. We’re curious to see them.”
“So you want to watch us kill each other,” Jared clarifies. “Why?”
“Let’s just say, I have a vested interest in a specialized sport,” Sheppard says. “You’re being streamed as we speak, Mr. Padalecki, and the ratings are through the roof.”
“You make monster snuff films,” Jared scoffs. “Real cute.”
“Oh, I fully expect one of you to survive,” Sheppard says. “Whether it’s the master or the pet, I don’t care. The victor will go on to fight another day.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Jared raises his shackled wrists. “Even my pure-bred wolf can’t break out of these.”
Sheppard chuckles, which is how Jared knows he got away with the lie.
“All in good time, Mr. Padalecki,” Sheppard assures him. “Tonight is the full moon. When you turn, we’ll let your wolf feed. Or try to.”
"Asshole,” Jensen mutters in his head.
"They know you’re aware,” Jared reminds him. "At least partially. They’re keeping the dose of that tranquilizer low enough to keep you conscious, if not fully awake. Deliberately.”
"Fuckers.”
”I’m definitely looking forward to killing this guy,” Jared confirms.
”Just watch out, Jay,” Jensen cautions. “He’s probably armed against you, just in case. Silver bullets, silver blade.”
Jared closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, letting the scents from the control booth fill his nostrils and lungs.
“He’s the only one,” Jared confirms. “Nobody else in the control booth has a weapon. They’re so overconfident, it’s almost funny.”
“All righty then,” Jensen purrs. “Ready when you are.”
”You don’t think we should wait till the full moon? Tristan will be stronger then.”
“I trust you,” Jensen says. ”You decide.”
In the end, the decision’s made for them. Tristan’s angry. He doesn’t like being locked up. He doesn’t like the threats to his mate. He really doesn’t like these humans, not even a little.
Jared feels himself starting to turn long before moonrise. His skin prickles as his blood heats up, pumping so hard it throbs in his veins, making his heart pound. His sight goes, replaced by the red-hot pulse of his own blood. The growling low in his throat fills his ears, shutting out all sound but the beating of his own heart. His bones hurt as the transformation begins, and Jared braces himself for the inevitable.
”Here he comes,” Jared warns his mate before his mind goes offline as the wolf takes over.
//**//**//
Afterwards, it comes back to him in bits and pieces, mostly from what Jensen tells him, but also his own memories of being fully wolf, the way it always does.
Tristan follows the plan to a T. Everyone in the compound is dead when he carries Jensen out, down the corridor, and up the stairs to the outside. He takes his mate to the closest safe house, an old cabin high in the mountains where he lived before he knew Jensen, before he found the mate who completed him and made him whole.
Jared comes to full human consciousness lying facedown on the cabin’s only bed, Jensen digging silver bullets out of his back with a knife and his tongue.
Jared flashes back to the moment he lay Jensen on this very bed, still unconscious and full of poison. He recalls slashing his own wrist to get the blood flowing, remembers pressing his bleeding wrist to Jensen’s mouth, forcing him to drink.
He remembers the moment Jensen began to respond, starting to lap at Jared’s blood, weak as a kitten at first, then with more vigor until he was holding onto Jared’s arm with an iron grip, sucking the life from him until Jared/Tristan had to jerk away, growling.
In his memories, Jared sees Jensen’s beautiful green eyes open to gaze up at him, hungry and full of desire only for him. For Jared, his mate. Jensen’s lips and teeth are coated in blood. Jared’s blood.
He sees the moment Jensen’s expression becomes one of concern. He’s taken too much blood. Jared’s weakening.
Jensen does what he needs to do, slashing his wrist with his teeth and pressing the open wound to Jared’s mouth.
“Drink,” Jensen commands, and Jared does, too weak to protest, trusting his mate utterly. By the time Jensen’s wound closes up, Jared’s better, but still too weak to keep his eyes open.
“It’s the silver bullets,” Jensen whispers to Jared. “They need to come out. Lie down on your belly.”
It’s just this side of painful as Jensen sucks the bullets from his body and spits them out. But it’s good, too. Now Jensen has more of Jared’s blood in him.
This is what mates do for each other. This is how it always goes.
Jared gasps as Jensen extracts the final bullet, spits it into a porcelain bowl, and sucks the blood from the quickly-healing wound.
”My beautiful mate,” Jensen coos as he recognizes the signals that indicate Jared’s fully human again, awake and alert enough to hear him with his human ears. ”You were magnificent.”
Jared’s eyes fly open as his human intelligence returns with a start, as he understands the implications of what just happened.
“Jensen?” he croaks aloud, his throat still hoarse from growling. “Did you just feed me your blood?”
“You gave me yours,” Jensen reminds him, sounding defensive.
“I was trying to heal you!” Jared says. “You were still full of dead man’s blood and tranquilizer.”
Jensen winks, presses his lips to Jared’s forehead. “You did. You healed me. I’m fine now.”
“But your blood - I can feel it,” Jared gasps. His veins feel different. Super-heated. He shivers. “I’m changing.”
“You’ll be fine,” Jensen assures him.
“I’ll be a vampire!” Jared wails.
“There was no other way, Jay,” Jensen insists. “You would’ve died. I took too much of your blood.”
They’ve had this conversation before. Werewolves age slowly, but they do age. Someday, Jared would die.
“You could’ve just removed the silver bullets!” Jared insists, panting as his body continues to heat up. “I would’ve healed eventually.”
Jensen shakes his head. “You were too far gone, Jay. I couldn’t risk losing you.”
Blood pounds in Jared’s head, so loud he can’t hear Jensen anymore. His body feels like it’s on fire, his bones twisting painfully inside burning flesh and muscle. His guts clench and cramp unbearably. Tristan screams and growls.
“It hurts,” he gasps, arching his back reflexively, hot tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Shhh,” Jensen soothes. “It’s your mortal body dying. It’s supposed to hurt.”
“It’s killing Tristan!” Jared cries.
“No, no, he’ll be fine, I promise.”
Jensen holds him as he dies, whispers to him, presses kisses against his eyelids and his temple, runs soothing hands through Jared’s hair.
Jared feels the moment his heart stops beating, the moment his blood stops pumping. Tristan has already gone silent, cowering in fear deep inside Jared's consciousness.
“How could you do this?” Jared whispers.
“You know I can’t live without you,” Jensen murmurs, lips pressed against his temple.
“Yes, you could,” Jared says. His lungs have stopped pumping oxygen. He’s not even sure how it’s possible for him to speak.
“No, I really couldn’t,” Jensen says. His voice sounds echoey and far away, as if Jared’s hearing it through a tunnel. “Without you, I would wither away. Bury myself in the earth and never come out.”
“You’re so dramatic.” Jared coughs, tastes blood. He feels Tristan stir, smelling the blood, hopeful. He’s not dead after all.
“You’ll feel better soon,” Jensen promises, cradling Jared’s dead body with infinite tenderness. “The worst is over.”
Jared feels the moment his heart starts beating again. The blood pumping through his veins has altered everything. He smells blood, Jensen’s blood, his own blood, the blood of the men Tristan killed, old and dried now. He smells the blood of his own body pumping inside Jensen, healing Jensen, strengthening their bond.
Jared hears a mouse scuttling under the floorboards. He hears a deer moving through the trees outside. He hears a bird sing, far off. An owl hoots.
Jared opens his eyes. Everything glows. He winces, blinks, tries to focus on Jensen’s face.
Jensen’s eyes glitter, his skin is so pale it’s almost translucent, and his elven-shaped ears have sharpened to points. He looks like Jensen, but more. Jared can see the blood pumping under his skin.
The light in the room is so bright it makes a halo around Jensen’s face.
“It’s bright at first,” Jensen acknowledges. “Your new sight can’t process everything you see yet. But you’ll get there. You’re gonna be okay.”
Jared scrambles back, moving so quickly he’s instantly pressed up against the back wall of the cabin, arm up to shield his eyes from the light.
“I’m anything but okay, Jensen!” Jared’s voice sounds strange to his ears. Tinny. Inhuman.
Tristan whines, cowering inside his consciousness like a frightened puppy.
“It takes time to adjust,” Jensen says with a nod. He puts his hand out, calming the wild animal Jared has become. “It’s intense at first. Your senses are enhanced so everything’s brighter, louder, faster. You’ll figure it out, Jay. I promise.”
“I can hear your blood, Jensen,” Jared gasps. “It’s so loud and it smells.” Delicious. Jared shakes his head. “It’s too much!”
“No, no, it’s gonna be okay,” Jensen assures him. He moves closer, slowly, keeping his hands out, placating. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Jared lunges at him, slamming into Jensen so hard they literally fly across the room, hitting the opposite wall with so much force, it shatters a window, making the whole cabin shake.
“I’m not going to be okay!” Jared growls, hauling Jensen to his feet so he can slam him into the wall. Jensen’s head hits the wood with a loud crack. “This is not okay! I’m a fucking vampire, Jensen! Worse than that! I’m a hybrid vampire/werewolf!”
Jensen blinks up at him, clear green eyes glittering like crystal. His eyelashes are stupidly long and full against his pale cheeks. His lips are blood-red and swollen.
“Easy, tiger,” Jensen soothes, voice low and honey-smooth. “Give it time.”
Jared pushes Jensen away and takes a swing at the table, sending it flying against the opposite wall, where it smashes and falls to the floor in pieces. He does the same with both chairs, upends the bed, then picks up the dresser and smashes it back down with a satisfying crash of splintered wood. He tears the cupboards off the wall, puts his fist through each one as he smashes them.
When the room is a complete and total wreck, with nothing left to break, Jared turns to Jensen, chest heaving, fists clenching and unclenching.
“You done?” Jensen asks. “Does that feel good, huh?”
“No!” Jared bellows. “It sucks! Everything sucks!”
Jensen nods. “Fair.”
Jared glares at his mate for another moment, then huffs out a disgusted breath.
“I’m going for a run,” he announces, feeling the need to transform, to be wolf again. Just wolf.
Tristan growls appreciatively, relieved. This is something he knows. Something he and Jared share. Something they can control. Together, wolf and whatever-Jared-is-now will figure this out.
When Jared gets back, it’s dark. Jensen’s left a neatly folded pile of clothes on the rocking chair on the front porch, the only intact piece of furniture in the cabin: well-worn jeans, t-shirt, flannel button-down, and fleece-lined denim jacket, along with Jared’s favorite worn-in boots.
Jared can smell that his mate isn’t here. He’s been gone almost as long as Jared has.
Jared pulls the clothes on and sits down on the porch step to wait. He’s worn out from running, but can’t imagine sleeping. In the dark, his newly sharpened senses are even stronger. He sees movement in the trees, catches a glimpse of pale, glowing skin even before Jensen steps into the clearing in front of the house. His feet barely make a sound, but Jared can hear them.
“You have a good run?” Jensen asks.
We never need to speak again, Jared reminds him in his head. I can hear everything now.
“I like to use human speech,” Jensen says. “It lets us have the illusion of boundaries.”
You mean, now that we’re the same species? Jared says, letting his bitterness creep into his words.
“We’re not identical, Jay,” Jensen reminds him. “I’m a vampire who used to be human. You’re a purebred werewolf with human ancestry who has become a hybrid werewolf/vampire. A were-pire.”
“I prefer vamp-were,” Jared says aloud.
Jensen smiles. He’s carrying two bottles of beer.
“I brought beer,” he says unnecessarily, holding one out for Jared.
“Is this your way of apologizing?”
Jensen shrugs. “A little inadequate, maybe, but it’s a start, right?”
Jared hesitates another moment, letting Jensen stand there holding the beer in his outstretched hand until a little hint of doubt crosses his face.
Then Jared takes the beer and the moment passes.
He looks at his beer as Jensen sits down beside him, careful to keep a little space between their bodies.
“If you’re ready, we can go home,” Jensen suggests. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a shower. A nice, hot one.”
“This used to be my home,” Jared reminds him. “I had everything I needed here. A well with running water, a generator for lights, wood stove for heat. I swam in the lake when I needed to. Ran all over these woods.”
Jensen nods. “Then I came along and destroyed your solitude,” he says as he takes a sip of his beer.
Jared draws a ragged breath, remembering the day Jensen walked out of the trees and into his life. The moment he realized the voice he’d been hearing inside his head for years was real.
“You never told me how you found me,” he says.
Jensen shrugs. “I followed your blood,” he says. “You might think werewolves are good trackers, but they ain’t got nothin’ on vampires. Your blood literally sang to me. If you close your eyes and concentrate, you’ll see what I mean.”
Jared does. Besides the strong, delicious scent of Jensen’s blood, he hears the sound of it rushing through Jensen’s body. It’s a sound like the hum of a bass string after it’s been plucked, low and resonant, with harmonic overtones that are almost dissonant. Haunting.
“Your blood sounds like a bright, cheerful D Major chord,” Jensen reveals. “What does mine sound like?”
“Lonely,” Jared answers. “Sad. But very beautiful.”
“That’s because it took me five hundred years to find you,” Jensen says.
“I’m only forty years old,” Jared reminds him.
“Exactly. Four-hundred-sixty years of loneliness.” Jensen shrugs. “Makes an impression on a man.”
Jared huffs out a laugh. “But you had other mates,” he insists. “You weren’t exactly celibate.”
“About the time you were born, I started hearing your blood,” Jensen says. “That’s when I knew every other mate I’d ever known was a dim shadow in comparison.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Jared chuckles.
“Now it isn’t,” Jensen agrees. “Now you know how it feels.”
Jared closes his eyes and listens to the music of Jensen’s blood again. He can almost hear a story in the way the sound rises and falls, rushes and abates. Through their bond and Jared’s heightened telepathic perception, he now has one more way to read Jensen’s story, and he gets it. Jensen waited a very long time for Jared, even before he knew he was waiting for him. Now that he has Jared, Jensen won’t ever let him go.
It should feel creepy, to be loved in such an obsessive, possessive way. It should be terrifying. If Jared were human, he would run. He should run.
Jared sighs. “I just wish you had asked first.”
“Time was running out,” Jensen says, and Jared senses that he’s not referring just to Jared’s recent near-death experience. “You were so fragile. I worried about you every damn day.”
Jared senses the truth of what Jensen’s telling him. Mortal Jared was a constant source of dread for Jensen. His fear of losing Jared amped up his protective instincts to the point where there was only one thing to be done, from Jensen’s perspective.
Jensen had been planning to change Jared almost from the moment they met.
“And now I will need to drink human blood to survive,” Jared says.
Jensen shrugs. “Well, that’s the easiest and quickest way to stay strong,” he agrees. “But if you’d rather drink animal blood, you can do that. Blood banks are also viable ways to get what you need. Plenty of vampires work in hospitals.”
Jared shivers at the thought of ingesting cold, viscous blood. “Gross.”
“How is drinking blood worse than eating hearts?” Jensen asks, and Jared doesn’t have an answer for that.
“At least with blood drinking, you don’t have to take a life,” Jensen says. “You can just take what you need.”
“I thought the blood lust just takes over, like what happened when I gave you my blood last night.”
Jensen shakes his head. “You’ll learn to control it,” he says. “Unless you’re sick or unconscious and your instincts kick in automatically, like what happened with us last night. But normally, you’ll be able to stop when you want to. And I’ll be right there with you if you slip up. At least at first. I’ll be sure you don’t kill anybody, if that’s what you prefer.”
Jared takes a sip of his beer, stares out into the newly bright darkness. He can see every leaf, every pebble, even though the moon isn’t even up yet.
“How long can I go without blood?”
Jensen shrugs. “Depends. When you’re new, like you are now, you’ll need to feed pretty often. Say, once every week or two. When you’re old like me, you can go nearly six months without feeding.”
“You should’ve asked first.”
Jared finishes his beer and gets to his feet, leaving the empty beer bottle on the top step as he heads into the woods, not even looking back to see if Jensen is following.
Jensen follows because he can sense that Jared wants him to. Jared’s still angry at Jensen, but he loves him. He knows Jensen would never have been able to hold out forever. Eventually, Jensen would’ve turned him, with or without his permission.
Jared emerges from the trees onto the little rocky beach of the lake. He stands and watches as the moon rises over the trees, casting so much light Jared has to shield his eyes.
“I would’ve liked to have had a chance to say no,” Jared says, sensing Jensen standing behind him, just inside the tree line. “Or maybe yes. I just would’ve liked to have made that choice for myself.”
A breeze lifts Jared’s hair off his neck, pushes it into his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Jensen whispers, close enough behind him that Jared can feel his breath. “I should’ve asked first. I wish I had.”
It’s the first time Jensen’s apologized, and although it’s not enough, and Jared’s still angry, it’ll do for now. Jared turns to look at him, at his blinding beauty.
“You’re my mate, and I’ll always love you,” Jared says. “But you’re an asshole sometimes.”
The corner of Jensen’s mouth turns up in a smirk.
“You are what matters to me, Jay,” Jensen assures him. “You are the meaning of my existence. I’d always do anything I can do to keep it that way.”
Jared takes a deep breath, lets it out slow, gazing away from Jensen, at the moon.
“I know you would, Jensen. I know you would.”
Jensen steps close then, and Jared puts his arms around him, lets Jensen pull him close. They’re the same temperature now. Jensen’s skin isn’t cold anymore. It feels warm. Normal.
Jared probably feels cooler than he used to, and when Jensen rests his cheek on Jared’s shoulder, he can tell that Jensen is listening to the beat of his heart because Jared’s listening to Jensen’s.
He feels it the moment Jensen lifts them off the ground, feels the rush of cold air as they soar above the trees at inhuman speed, flying away from this place of blood and destruction and pain.
Flying toward home.
fin