Fic: All's Fair (Jared/Jensen)
Fandom: J2
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating:NC-17 -- Wordcount: 4,075
Warnings: AU, bondage, brief knifeplay, dub-con, topping-from-the-bottom!Jen, captive!Jared and, despite all of the kink a big, schmoopy love story
Notes: My second blindfold fill, written for the prompt, “Jensen is a powerful warlord. Jared is the leader of a faction who opposed him. When Jensen crushes Jared's faction (and possibly beats Jared in a one-on-one duel), Jensen claims Jared as his personal prize. Jared is delivered to Jensen's private rooms freshly bathed, oiled up and expecting to be brutalized but determined to keep a stoic face about it. Imagine his surprise when not only is Jensen (fairly) gentle (for a warlord), but he also pushes Jared down onto the bed and rides him. Bonus points for carrying it further and having Jensen make Jared into his right hand man/personal bodyguard who "services" Jensen regularly.” This is the one that was guessed in the little challenge I ran a few days ago by my dear zuben_eschamali. And now that it's been calimed, I can tell you all how zuben so brilliantly guessed this one was mine - the same way I guessed which was zuben's: We both filled the same prompt! Go check out zuben's fantastic original fill here
Summary: It has been a long time since Jared was this close to Jensen without one or the other of them brandishing a weapon, even longer since he allowed himself to look at the man and really see him; not the Ackles clan personified or the creature who has haunted his every step in both name and deed like a stalking shadow, bent on proving him inferior, but the man - flesh and blood, just as mortal and fallible as Jared himself. Now that he has, he's not entirely certain that seeing it was a wise choice.
The ground beneath the pallet of furs Jared has been laid out on radiates the muted heat of the day into his skin, a token of how quickly Jensen's camp has been set up. A token that Jensen wasn't sure how this would end.
And yet it has, hasn't it? A whole life of plotting and striking against one another, losing and taking back hand-spans worth of territory, weapons of steel and words turned on each other with brutal efficiency to play out a generations-old feud, and Jared ends it like this. Laid out like downed game, stripped of his clothes and weapons, trussed to the ground by hemp rope and wooden stakes. It would have been better if Jensen had just killed him when he'd had the opportunity, but that would have been too easy, wouldn't it? The leader of the Ackles clan has never done anything quick and easy, not when slow and lingering is an option.
Jared's only solace is that his people have escaped under the distraction he provided, safe to run and gather themselves again, prepare to fight without a leader. It's a slim chance for them, but a chance nonetheless. Perhaps his sister will take her charge; she's always believed that there could be another way of life for them beyond this endless battle. Jared would never be so glad to have been proven wrong by her. But then he probably won't be around to see it if it happens, not unless Jensen decides to drag this out and make Jared his personal slave. Assuming Jared doesn’t find some way to end his own life first.
His musing are cut short by the hot sting of a cut blooming across his cheek, body jolting at the solid noise of a knife shunking into the ground beside his head. His knife. The long, bone-inset blade that was gifted to Jared on his fourteenth name-day. Out of the very corner of his eye he can see a hair-thin slice of his own blood marring the blade - a shallow cut then, just enough to toy with him. What else would Jensen do, after all?
"Jared," a deep voice purrs, casual as though the two of them are sitting down for a friendly discussion. As though the two of them would ever be capable of such a thing.
Jared does what he suspects is a somewhat less effective job of sounding at ease when he replies, "Jensen," in greeting.
He can hear the soft fall of the other man’s feet as he steps further into the tent, circling off to Jared's side. A simple turn of his head and he would be able to see the bane of his existence, but watching Jensen would be tantamount to admitting that he is unnerved - not that it isn't his right, under the circumstances. Still, he won't allow Jensen that victory. Ackles can do whatever he wishes to Jared's body, his spirit will not break.
He does his best to keep his eyes locked on the stretched-hide roof of the tent, but they skitter reflexively to the side when Jensen's hand is suddenly there plucking the knife from the soil. The view is nothing more than a flash of pale skin and malicious green eyes, and still too much. A lifetime spent watching Jensen's every move - from up close in their so-called trade ‘negotiations’ and afar in battle - analyzing and obsessing over each minute gesture has taught him precisely what the look in those eyes means. It's the same one a hawk gets before swooping for its prey.
"You know," Jensen begins conversationally. He's walking in Jared's line of sight now, circling down to stand between Jared's splayed legs. His body tries to revolt against the closeness of its own accord, but tugging on the ropes yields nothing more than chafed skin at his wrists and ankles. He doesn't want to look, but he can't keep his gaze away, not when Jensen's smirking at him like that from on high - as it seems he always has despite all of the years now that Jared has had to look downward to meet his eye - flipping Jared's blade through the air end over end before catching it in his wide palm again effortlessly. "I've always found your predilection for covering such bounty rather... overzealous."
Jared would very much like to pretend that he doesn't know what the older man means, but the way deep green eyes rake his exposed body leaves little to the question. Particularly not once Jensen goes to his own knees between the spread of Jared's thighs, callused fingers resting high on the inside of one leg. The muscles want to twitch under the caress - there's no other word for the possessive brush of fingertips - but Jared forces them still.
Jensen locks eyes with him, dark with a promise that makes Jared's breath go short. "But I must admit," he remarks, and Jared has to grind his teeth to stop himself from gasping at the sudden cool sensation of his own blade sliding below the few strips of wrapped cloth holding his length; the only clothing he'd been allowed to keep when Jensen's guards had divested him. "I am beginning to see the virtue in it."
With that the blade slides against his skin, angles, and Jared can feel the slight release of pressure as the fabric gives way. Jensen swiftly repeats the move on the other side and uses the point of the knife to draw back the covering to leave Jared fully bare. Above him, Jensen makes a deep sound that seems to stick halfway between a laugh and a moan, eyes for nothing but the soft swell Jared's cock.
"So much more entertaining this way," he murmurs, as if to himself. The tip of the blade drags lightly up the seam of Jared's sac, both ticklish and threatening in the same breath. He feels the hard internal pull as his body draws away from it, tightening in need for escape. This time Jensen truly does laugh, a disconcertingly low sound that leaves Jared twitching again, instantly hating both himself and Jensen a little more for the involuntary slip.
He's heard of things like this before - it's certainly no secret that the Ackles warriors have been known to take spear-brides, nor that their definition of bride has more to do with the position their chosen take in the 'marriage bed' than in what's to be found between their legs. It isn't even entirely a surprise that Jensen would wish to use him as such; the other man hasn't been subtle in his attentions since Jared began to grow into his full size and strength, and even Jared cannot deny that, were the situation reversed, a part of him would relish the absolute control over the man he has despised for so long.
Still the implication makes his stomach churn, a pitiful fear for his body when he has pitted it against steel and stone more times than he can count without so much as a second thought. He does all he can to keep the worry from showing on his face, though. Jensen will only find one kind of satisfaction in taking him.
Once more the sound of his knife sinking into dirt startles Jared, though this time the blade is standing farther away to his right, barely a finger span out of the reach of his bound hand. A taunt. Just like the one Jensen whispers against his ear when Jared's eyes seek the knife as though he might force it closer through sheer will.
"Do I have your attention now, my pet?"
Jared's blood boils with rage in answer and all of his intentions to deny Jensen a reaction are made ash in a moment as he turns his head up and snarls. They are almost impossibly close together, the tips of their noses brushing when Jensen turns his head a bit, back again as if the small contact has some purpose that Jared cannot discern.
Jensen has cleaned himself up since the fight; no doubt while Jared was being corralled in here like an animal. The scent of mild soap lingers beneath that of sweat and steel and horses, leather overlaid with blood; a life lived in the trappings of a warrior. It should not bring Jared the comfort that it does.
"Get on with it!" he lashes out, stomach pitching wildly with his confused emotions. Jensen suddenly seems far too close, far too intimate, and it's knotting Jared up in ways he's never had to cope with before.
"I wasn’t aware you were so eager," Jensen scoffs, one hand cupping boldly against Jared's groin, massaging the delicate, naked flesh that spasms once more under his touch and, contrary to all of Jared's wishes, begins to fill. "All you ever needed to do was say so, little one."
Jared growls in response to the false-endearment, an old one Jensen bestowed upon him when the slight difference in their ages seemed so much more pronounced; Jared small and reedy where Jensen was thick and already forming into manhood. They had hated one another long before then, an obligation borne in their blood, but Jared had never seethed against the future leader of his neighboring clan quite so fully as the first time Jensen called him that name.
Before he has a moment to think better of it, he's snapping back with, "Take what you want and be done or just kill me, Jensen," as though he has any say at all in the matter. "Whatever you're going to do, just do it! Get it over with!"
Jensen stills against him completely; the slow kneading motion of his hand coaxing Jared hard, the gentle rock of his hips that Jared hadn't even noticed until this moment, his very breath, all halted in the wake of Jared's shout. Jensen might well have turned to stone for all Jared knows, save for the look on his face - something unrecognizably akin to shock, or perhaps even hurt. In a blink it's gone, replaced by the banked, determined intensity that has made Jensen such a successful chieftain.
His hand - not the one holding Jared's now firm erection; no that one doesn't move a bit, of course - clamps tight to Jared's jaw, fingers pressing his cheek bruisingly against his own teeth. When Jensen speaks it is through a clenched jaw of his own; quiet and deadly serious.
"I have waited six years for this, boy, I will not be rushed now." His lips brush against Jared's at the words, the small space between their mouths growing humid and overwarm with breaths that come much too fast.
Jared can't think of single thing to say in response, can't even begin to make sense of it. Six years? Their clans have been brought up to fight one another, the imperative to snuff the other out ingrained from birth. Jensen's not old, but six years ago he would still have been a grown man, if a young one.
Jared remembers him like that; sharp-tongued and fiery, strong and proud and powerful to belie the fey softness he's never truly lost in all this time. Jared was still young and gangly then and he spent far more time than he'd ever care to admit working with sword and shield and his own muscles to try and become that man's equal when he felt so far behind.
He has no intent to ask it, but then inquisitiveness has always been a flaw of his and he finds, "Six years?" on his lips before he can stop the sound.
Jensen’s hold on his jaw loosens - loosens everywhere, in fact - as Jensen sits back, eyeing Jared for a moment longer before reaching down to strip away his own shirt and vest. His skin is pale all over, smattered with small pink battle scars and, from this close up, golden needle-prick freckles. It has been a long time since Jared was this close to Jensen without one or the other of them brandishing a weapon, even longer since he allowed himself to look at the man and really see him; not the Ackles clan personified or the creature who has haunted his every step in both name and deed like a stalking shadow, bent on proving him inferior, but the man - flesh and blood, just as mortal and fallible as Jared himself. Now that he has, he's not entirely certain that seeing it was a wise choice.
The Ackles’ have long favored the sort of clothing that Jared's own people consider scandalous; thin and skin-baring, both men and women donning long sheaves of cloth wound around their hips instead of the far more suitable and modest pants that the men of Jared's ilk wear. There have always been snickers and whispered suggestions for why, precisely, their men would choose to walk around in skirts, but Jared had honestly never suspected much truth to those rumors. At least not until Jensen moves to straddle Jared's hips, patterned cloth pulling tight over strong thighs and riding upward.
Jensen brings himself to rest on the wings of Jared's hip bones, the sudden hot meeting of flesh on bare flesh jarring. The pressure forces Jared's still full member against his belly, the sensation far too good for what little it is. Far too good when he can feel the rigid heat of Jensen's own interest flush against him.
Jared is, perhaps, slightly too wrapped up in the feeling - the danger of producing a child out of wedlock is far too great when his wedded hand might be needed in an alliance for him to allow himself too much leeway with his clan's women, and it has been a very, very long time since he granted himself even those liberties - because when Jensen speaks again, it takes him a moment to recall his circumstances.
"You remember this," Jensen asks as though it is a real question. His fingers trace the largest of the scars on his chest, a silvery-pink swath cutting along the right side of his collar bone and down to a slightly wider splotch over the center of his breastbone like the mark of an over-inked quill.
Jared couldn't forget that slash if he tried. He was the one who gave it to Jensen, the first time he ever matched the man - bested him - with a blade. The very knife sticking out of the ground a mere thought from the stretch of his fingertips, almost forgotten amongst everything else.
It was a day that will fester in the back of his mind for the rest of his life - however long that may be. The day he could have killed Jensen and failed through the weakness of his own will; too young and naive to plunge the blade in deep while he had the opportunity, left shaking and afraid like a child instead. He'd barely been sixteen, a different man in so many ways from who he is now, and yet in the dark of night he still can't find the certainty he ought to that, given the chance again, he wouldn't make the same choice. Six years and this man still makes him feel like a foolish little boy.
Six years.
Jared can feels the shock on his face when his eyes dart to Jensen's, but he can't help it, he weight of the confusing revelation far too much to conceal. Jensen's mouth softens at it, pulls at the edges in something that doesn't quite make a smile.
He's leaning forward again, bringing them together, flush from chest to hip, his hardness rubbing against Jared's in a rough, slow friction. Jared gasps from it because he can do nothing else, mouth open and wet when Jensen pushes against it with his own, stealing a brief kiss that does nothing at all to calm the swirling muddle in Jared's mind.
"Now tell me again," Jensen husks against the corner of Jared's mouth, "how I have so little honor that I would kill you like this, when I have so long owed you my life."
Truth told, Jared never thought of it that way, not for a single moment in all the thousands of times he's had that moment burning in his memory. He remembers Jensen's face, shocked and confused as he bled through his tunic onto the cold ground and sometimes... sometimes he imagines that there might have been something else there too. It is an old image, though, one that has lived long in his head and it's so very hard to trust it. Nonetheless, it had never once occurred to him that Jensen might owe anything to him, or that the other man might take it to be so.
He hasn't long to ponder the idea because Jensen is reaching beneath himself, shifting and touching and oh- oh Gods. Jared's erection is freed from between their bodies for hardly a moment before he feels a warm, slick press against the tip and it takes him much, much too long to realize what the sensation is, what it means. By the time he does Jensen is already wriggling back against him, the fat crown breaching him to push into slick, tight heat.
There are an infinite number of things that Jared should be worried about at the moment, but the one that his mind hangs on like a rusted nail is that Jensen has prepared himself for this, had intended it all along. Then Jared can't think very much at all because Jensen is bracing himself on an elbow on either side of Jared's head and rolling his body so that Jared slides almost out of him, slow as a leak of tree-sap midwinter.
He doesn't halt for a moment, constant lingering friction all around Jared as he is dragged in and out of Jensen's body. It's entirely too good for Jared to take; especially to take without moving, trapped and bound when his skin feels like it is crackling on the inside, as though there is something wild thrashing around inside of him. Pulling at his bonds does no good, his strength and size well accounted for, but he cannot make himself stop either, needs something he can't even name, can't even guess at.
This cannot be happening. Jensen is his enemy. Jensen is ruthless and vicious. Jensen is everything that he hates. Jensen is wrong and irredeemable and so very warm inside and smooth and clinging all around Jared in this wonderful, impossible way and he's making Jared lose his mind.
"I thought," Jensen breathes against his skin, stuttering around a wealth of soft pleasure sounds as he increases his rhythm slightly, the short-shorn hairs on his cheek rasping at Jared's. "I used to think how you could have taken my heart that day. I had terrible dreams about it. It-" he breaks off to pant heavily, nipping at Jared's jaw, more playful than pain. "It took me far too long to realize that you already had it."
The thick length of heat dragging against Jared's belly blurts a tiny pool of slick, smearing it across his skin as Jensen continues to move. Jared's fingers flex uselessly, end up wrapped around the ropes holding him in place if only to have somewhere to funnel his energy. He could finish so easily, just a few hard, fast thrusts and he would spill deep inside of Jensen's body and he aches with how badly he wants that all of a sudden, how specifically, for it to be Jensen he fills. Jensen. Jensen.
He isn't certain how long he's been whispering the other man's name by the time the sound makes it into his consciousness. Jensen kisses the words away, lips wet and salty with sweat that Jared can't stop himself from lapping at. A sudden quirk of Jensen's hips stops him dead, completely unable to make his body respond as Jensen rides him a little harder but no faster, stringing Jared along.
Speech is still spilling from Jensen's lips, broken streams of ideas that hardly penetrate the fog of lust overwhelming Jared, bits about alliances and uniting the clans, how good they would be together, all they could accomplish. For the first time, possibly in his entire life, Jared genuinely can't find it in himself to care. In this moment, the people and the land and the feuds don't even exist, it's just Jensen and he's the only thing Jared wants; sleek and beautiful, body catching the light as he raises up to seat himself fully against Jared's hips once more.
Jensen's head drops back on his shoulders when he swivels his hips at the very bottom of the next thrust, Jared's own pushing up insistently, instinctually. If there was any chance at all of Jared pulling the stakes holding him out of the ground with raw power, he'd do it at that sight, something inside of him going positively rabid with the need to touch. Pleasure is shooting through him uncontrolled and uncontrollable, every part of him humming with it, so close to breaking.
The hot weight of Jensen's palm splays across his chest, pressing down at the center where Jared is nearly certain that his heart is about to tear through his ribcage with it's frantic drumming. Dark eyes - their black centers bleeding out to overtake the field of green - fasten on his own, hold Jared as surely as the bonds scraping his skin raw. There is a mania in them as well as a demand and after all of the years of dedication and obsession, he can't begin to imagine why it surprises him that they've ended up like this. There's never really been anyone else.
For all that it has been building inside of him like a gathering storm, his finish, when it comes, is staggering. Jensen is still moving over him steadily, skin pinked with exertion and breathing ragged, but his eyes are steady still when Jared's threaten to slam closed, forcing him to hold on and ride through it together. There are white sparks prickling at the edges of his vision, bursting throughout his body in waves as he slicks Jensen from the inside, and he is helpless to do anything but submit and watch as Jensen's fingers find his own length and tug at it in a rough flurry of motion. The pulsing kiss of wet fire against his skin hits him in ways he'd have never fathomed it could, something deep and connective, almost ceremonial, with Jensen above him, the face of bliss itself.
Jensen falls forward against him, mouth capturing Jared's own, hungry and uncoordinated. The world blurs in the wake of it, the wet slide of Jensen's tongue and the smoothness of his lips becoming the sum total of Jared's existence.
He is not aware until an indefinite amount of time later that his hands are free, and only then because he is nearly undone by the sensation of his fingers finding their way to the crevice where his soft, oversensitive length is still buried inside of Jensen's body. He gasps at the realization, pulling away from Jensen's slow devouring kisses to stare at him from too close up.
Something tight mars Jensen's features for a moment before melting into resolve as he brings his hand to rest beside Jared's head, the knife trapped beneath it for an instant before Jensen releases it altogether. Jared could grasp the handle easily from here, would hardly need any time at all to turn it on his lifelong enemy. True, his legs are still bound, but that could be quickly remedied if he had the blade in hand to fend Jensen off. Still, the other man makes no move to prevent him, merely lays against Jared's skin, body still held open around Jared's flesh as he watches him.
A choice then. After all of this, it's to be Jared's choice. Between the only life he has ever known and loved or a future beside the man who has always been his sworn foe.
It's hardly a choice at all.
Jared reaches out, fingers seeming fever-hot against the cool handle of the blade, and with a sharp heave, sends it skittering across the dust to the other side of the tent.
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating:NC-17 -- Wordcount: 4,075
Warnings: AU, bondage, brief knifeplay, dub-con, topping-from-the-bottom!Jen, captive!Jared and, despite all of the kink a big, schmoopy love story
Notes: My second blindfold fill, written for the prompt, “Jensen is a powerful warlord. Jared is the leader of a faction who opposed him. When Jensen crushes Jared's faction (and possibly beats Jared in a one-on-one duel), Jensen claims Jared as his personal prize. Jared is delivered to Jensen's private rooms freshly bathed, oiled up and expecting to be brutalized but determined to keep a stoic face about it. Imagine his surprise when not only is Jensen (fairly) gentle (for a warlord), but he also pushes Jared down onto the bed and rides him. Bonus points for carrying it further and having Jensen make Jared into his right hand man/personal bodyguard who "services" Jensen regularly.” This is the one that was guessed in the little challenge I ran a few days ago by my dear zuben_eschamali. And now that it's been calimed, I can tell you all how zuben so brilliantly guessed this one was mine - the same way I guessed which was zuben's: We both filled the same prompt! Go check out zuben's fantastic original fill here
Summary: It has been a long time since Jared was this close to Jensen without one or the other of them brandishing a weapon, even longer since he allowed himself to look at the man and really see him; not the Ackles clan personified or the creature who has haunted his every step in both name and deed like a stalking shadow, bent on proving him inferior, but the man - flesh and blood, just as mortal and fallible as Jared himself. Now that he has, he's not entirely certain that seeing it was a wise choice.
The ground beneath the pallet of furs Jared has been laid out on radiates the muted heat of the day into his skin, a token of how quickly Jensen's camp has been set up. A token that Jensen wasn't sure how this would end.
And yet it has, hasn't it? A whole life of plotting and striking against one another, losing and taking back hand-spans worth of territory, weapons of steel and words turned on each other with brutal efficiency to play out a generations-old feud, and Jared ends it like this. Laid out like downed game, stripped of his clothes and weapons, trussed to the ground by hemp rope and wooden stakes. It would have been better if Jensen had just killed him when he'd had the opportunity, but that would have been too easy, wouldn't it? The leader of the Ackles clan has never done anything quick and easy, not when slow and lingering is an option.
Jared's only solace is that his people have escaped under the distraction he provided, safe to run and gather themselves again, prepare to fight without a leader. It's a slim chance for them, but a chance nonetheless. Perhaps his sister will take her charge; she's always believed that there could be another way of life for them beyond this endless battle. Jared would never be so glad to have been proven wrong by her. But then he probably won't be around to see it if it happens, not unless Jensen decides to drag this out and make Jared his personal slave. Assuming Jared doesn’t find some way to end his own life first.
His musing are cut short by the hot sting of a cut blooming across his cheek, body jolting at the solid noise of a knife shunking into the ground beside his head. His knife. The long, bone-inset blade that was gifted to Jared on his fourteenth name-day. Out of the very corner of his eye he can see a hair-thin slice of his own blood marring the blade - a shallow cut then, just enough to toy with him. What else would Jensen do, after all?
"Jared," a deep voice purrs, casual as though the two of them are sitting down for a friendly discussion. As though the two of them would ever be capable of such a thing.
Jared does what he suspects is a somewhat less effective job of sounding at ease when he replies, "Jensen," in greeting.
He can hear the soft fall of the other man’s feet as he steps further into the tent, circling off to Jared's side. A simple turn of his head and he would be able to see the bane of his existence, but watching Jensen would be tantamount to admitting that he is unnerved - not that it isn't his right, under the circumstances. Still, he won't allow Jensen that victory. Ackles can do whatever he wishes to Jared's body, his spirit will not break.
He does his best to keep his eyes locked on the stretched-hide roof of the tent, but they skitter reflexively to the side when Jensen's hand is suddenly there plucking the knife from the soil. The view is nothing more than a flash of pale skin and malicious green eyes, and still too much. A lifetime spent watching Jensen's every move - from up close in their so-called trade ‘negotiations’ and afar in battle - analyzing and obsessing over each minute gesture has taught him precisely what the look in those eyes means. It's the same one a hawk gets before swooping for its prey.
"You know," Jensen begins conversationally. He's walking in Jared's line of sight now, circling down to stand between Jared's splayed legs. His body tries to revolt against the closeness of its own accord, but tugging on the ropes yields nothing more than chafed skin at his wrists and ankles. He doesn't want to look, but he can't keep his gaze away, not when Jensen's smirking at him like that from on high - as it seems he always has despite all of the years now that Jared has had to look downward to meet his eye - flipping Jared's blade through the air end over end before catching it in his wide palm again effortlessly. "I've always found your predilection for covering such bounty rather... overzealous."
Jared would very much like to pretend that he doesn't know what the older man means, but the way deep green eyes rake his exposed body leaves little to the question. Particularly not once Jensen goes to his own knees between the spread of Jared's thighs, callused fingers resting high on the inside of one leg. The muscles want to twitch under the caress - there's no other word for the possessive brush of fingertips - but Jared forces them still.
Jensen locks eyes with him, dark with a promise that makes Jared's breath go short. "But I must admit," he remarks, and Jared has to grind his teeth to stop himself from gasping at the sudden cool sensation of his own blade sliding below the few strips of wrapped cloth holding his length; the only clothing he'd been allowed to keep when Jensen's guards had divested him. "I am beginning to see the virtue in it."
With that the blade slides against his skin, angles, and Jared can feel the slight release of pressure as the fabric gives way. Jensen swiftly repeats the move on the other side and uses the point of the knife to draw back the covering to leave Jared fully bare. Above him, Jensen makes a deep sound that seems to stick halfway between a laugh and a moan, eyes for nothing but the soft swell Jared's cock.
"So much more entertaining this way," he murmurs, as if to himself. The tip of the blade drags lightly up the seam of Jared's sac, both ticklish and threatening in the same breath. He feels the hard internal pull as his body draws away from it, tightening in need for escape. This time Jensen truly does laugh, a disconcertingly low sound that leaves Jared twitching again, instantly hating both himself and Jensen a little more for the involuntary slip.
He's heard of things like this before - it's certainly no secret that the Ackles warriors have been known to take spear-brides, nor that their definition of bride has more to do with the position their chosen take in the 'marriage bed' than in what's to be found between their legs. It isn't even entirely a surprise that Jensen would wish to use him as such; the other man hasn't been subtle in his attentions since Jared began to grow into his full size and strength, and even Jared cannot deny that, were the situation reversed, a part of him would relish the absolute control over the man he has despised for so long.
Still the implication makes his stomach churn, a pitiful fear for his body when he has pitted it against steel and stone more times than he can count without so much as a second thought. He does all he can to keep the worry from showing on his face, though. Jensen will only find one kind of satisfaction in taking him.
Once more the sound of his knife sinking into dirt startles Jared, though this time the blade is standing farther away to his right, barely a finger span out of the reach of his bound hand. A taunt. Just like the one Jensen whispers against his ear when Jared's eyes seek the knife as though he might force it closer through sheer will.
"Do I have your attention now, my pet?"
Jared's blood boils with rage in answer and all of his intentions to deny Jensen a reaction are made ash in a moment as he turns his head up and snarls. They are almost impossibly close together, the tips of their noses brushing when Jensen turns his head a bit, back again as if the small contact has some purpose that Jared cannot discern.
Jensen has cleaned himself up since the fight; no doubt while Jared was being corralled in here like an animal. The scent of mild soap lingers beneath that of sweat and steel and horses, leather overlaid with blood; a life lived in the trappings of a warrior. It should not bring Jared the comfort that it does.
"Get on with it!" he lashes out, stomach pitching wildly with his confused emotions. Jensen suddenly seems far too close, far too intimate, and it's knotting Jared up in ways he's never had to cope with before.
"I wasn’t aware you were so eager," Jensen scoffs, one hand cupping boldly against Jared's groin, massaging the delicate, naked flesh that spasms once more under his touch and, contrary to all of Jared's wishes, begins to fill. "All you ever needed to do was say so, little one."
Jared growls in response to the false-endearment, an old one Jensen bestowed upon him when the slight difference in their ages seemed so much more pronounced; Jared small and reedy where Jensen was thick and already forming into manhood. They had hated one another long before then, an obligation borne in their blood, but Jared had never seethed against the future leader of his neighboring clan quite so fully as the first time Jensen called him that name.
Before he has a moment to think better of it, he's snapping back with, "Take what you want and be done or just kill me, Jensen," as though he has any say at all in the matter. "Whatever you're going to do, just do it! Get it over with!"
Jensen stills against him completely; the slow kneading motion of his hand coaxing Jared hard, the gentle rock of his hips that Jared hadn't even noticed until this moment, his very breath, all halted in the wake of Jared's shout. Jensen might well have turned to stone for all Jared knows, save for the look on his face - something unrecognizably akin to shock, or perhaps even hurt. In a blink it's gone, replaced by the banked, determined intensity that has made Jensen such a successful chieftain.
His hand - not the one holding Jared's now firm erection; no that one doesn't move a bit, of course - clamps tight to Jared's jaw, fingers pressing his cheek bruisingly against his own teeth. When Jensen speaks it is through a clenched jaw of his own; quiet and deadly serious.
"I have waited six years for this, boy, I will not be rushed now." His lips brush against Jared's at the words, the small space between their mouths growing humid and overwarm with breaths that come much too fast.
Jared can't think of single thing to say in response, can't even begin to make sense of it. Six years? Their clans have been brought up to fight one another, the imperative to snuff the other out ingrained from birth. Jensen's not old, but six years ago he would still have been a grown man, if a young one.
Jared remembers him like that; sharp-tongued and fiery, strong and proud and powerful to belie the fey softness he's never truly lost in all this time. Jared was still young and gangly then and he spent far more time than he'd ever care to admit working with sword and shield and his own muscles to try and become that man's equal when he felt so far behind.
He has no intent to ask it, but then inquisitiveness has always been a flaw of his and he finds, "Six years?" on his lips before he can stop the sound.
Jensen’s hold on his jaw loosens - loosens everywhere, in fact - as Jensen sits back, eyeing Jared for a moment longer before reaching down to strip away his own shirt and vest. His skin is pale all over, smattered with small pink battle scars and, from this close up, golden needle-prick freckles. It has been a long time since Jared was this close to Jensen without one or the other of them brandishing a weapon, even longer since he allowed himself to look at the man and really see him; not the Ackles clan personified or the creature who has haunted his every step in both name and deed like a stalking shadow, bent on proving him inferior, but the man - flesh and blood, just as mortal and fallible as Jared himself. Now that he has, he's not entirely certain that seeing it was a wise choice.
The Ackles’ have long favored the sort of clothing that Jared's own people consider scandalous; thin and skin-baring, both men and women donning long sheaves of cloth wound around their hips instead of the far more suitable and modest pants that the men of Jared's ilk wear. There have always been snickers and whispered suggestions for why, precisely, their men would choose to walk around in skirts, but Jared had honestly never suspected much truth to those rumors. At least not until Jensen moves to straddle Jared's hips, patterned cloth pulling tight over strong thighs and riding upward.
Jensen brings himself to rest on the wings of Jared's hip bones, the sudden hot meeting of flesh on bare flesh jarring. The pressure forces Jared's still full member against his belly, the sensation far too good for what little it is. Far too good when he can feel the rigid heat of Jensen's own interest flush against him.
Jared is, perhaps, slightly too wrapped up in the feeling - the danger of producing a child out of wedlock is far too great when his wedded hand might be needed in an alliance for him to allow himself too much leeway with his clan's women, and it has been a very, very long time since he granted himself even those liberties - because when Jensen speaks again, it takes him a moment to recall his circumstances.
"You remember this," Jensen asks as though it is a real question. His fingers trace the largest of the scars on his chest, a silvery-pink swath cutting along the right side of his collar bone and down to a slightly wider splotch over the center of his breastbone like the mark of an over-inked quill.
Jared couldn't forget that slash if he tried. He was the one who gave it to Jensen, the first time he ever matched the man - bested him - with a blade. The very knife sticking out of the ground a mere thought from the stretch of his fingertips, almost forgotten amongst everything else.
It was a day that will fester in the back of his mind for the rest of his life - however long that may be. The day he could have killed Jensen and failed through the weakness of his own will; too young and naive to plunge the blade in deep while he had the opportunity, left shaking and afraid like a child instead. He'd barely been sixteen, a different man in so many ways from who he is now, and yet in the dark of night he still can't find the certainty he ought to that, given the chance again, he wouldn't make the same choice. Six years and this man still makes him feel like a foolish little boy.
Six years.
Jared can feels the shock on his face when his eyes dart to Jensen's, but he can't help it, he weight of the confusing revelation far too much to conceal. Jensen's mouth softens at it, pulls at the edges in something that doesn't quite make a smile.
He's leaning forward again, bringing them together, flush from chest to hip, his hardness rubbing against Jared's in a rough, slow friction. Jared gasps from it because he can do nothing else, mouth open and wet when Jensen pushes against it with his own, stealing a brief kiss that does nothing at all to calm the swirling muddle in Jared's mind.
"Now tell me again," Jensen husks against the corner of Jared's mouth, "how I have so little honor that I would kill you like this, when I have so long owed you my life."
Truth told, Jared never thought of it that way, not for a single moment in all the thousands of times he's had that moment burning in his memory. He remembers Jensen's face, shocked and confused as he bled through his tunic onto the cold ground and sometimes... sometimes he imagines that there might have been something else there too. It is an old image, though, one that has lived long in his head and it's so very hard to trust it. Nonetheless, it had never once occurred to him that Jensen might owe anything to him, or that the other man might take it to be so.
He hasn't long to ponder the idea because Jensen is reaching beneath himself, shifting and touching and oh- oh Gods. Jared's erection is freed from between their bodies for hardly a moment before he feels a warm, slick press against the tip and it takes him much, much too long to realize what the sensation is, what it means. By the time he does Jensen is already wriggling back against him, the fat crown breaching him to push into slick, tight heat.
There are an infinite number of things that Jared should be worried about at the moment, but the one that his mind hangs on like a rusted nail is that Jensen has prepared himself for this, had intended it all along. Then Jared can't think very much at all because Jensen is bracing himself on an elbow on either side of Jared's head and rolling his body so that Jared slides almost out of him, slow as a leak of tree-sap midwinter.
He doesn't halt for a moment, constant lingering friction all around Jared as he is dragged in and out of Jensen's body. It's entirely too good for Jared to take; especially to take without moving, trapped and bound when his skin feels like it is crackling on the inside, as though there is something wild thrashing around inside of him. Pulling at his bonds does no good, his strength and size well accounted for, but he cannot make himself stop either, needs something he can't even name, can't even guess at.
This cannot be happening. Jensen is his enemy. Jensen is ruthless and vicious. Jensen is everything that he hates. Jensen is wrong and irredeemable and so very warm inside and smooth and clinging all around Jared in this wonderful, impossible way and he's making Jared lose his mind.
"I thought," Jensen breathes against his skin, stuttering around a wealth of soft pleasure sounds as he increases his rhythm slightly, the short-shorn hairs on his cheek rasping at Jared's. "I used to think how you could have taken my heart that day. I had terrible dreams about it. It-" he breaks off to pant heavily, nipping at Jared's jaw, more playful than pain. "It took me far too long to realize that you already had it."
The thick length of heat dragging against Jared's belly blurts a tiny pool of slick, smearing it across his skin as Jensen continues to move. Jared's fingers flex uselessly, end up wrapped around the ropes holding him in place if only to have somewhere to funnel his energy. He could finish so easily, just a few hard, fast thrusts and he would spill deep inside of Jensen's body and he aches with how badly he wants that all of a sudden, how specifically, for it to be Jensen he fills. Jensen. Jensen.
He isn't certain how long he's been whispering the other man's name by the time the sound makes it into his consciousness. Jensen kisses the words away, lips wet and salty with sweat that Jared can't stop himself from lapping at. A sudden quirk of Jensen's hips stops him dead, completely unable to make his body respond as Jensen rides him a little harder but no faster, stringing Jared along.
Speech is still spilling from Jensen's lips, broken streams of ideas that hardly penetrate the fog of lust overwhelming Jared, bits about alliances and uniting the clans, how good they would be together, all they could accomplish. For the first time, possibly in his entire life, Jared genuinely can't find it in himself to care. In this moment, the people and the land and the feuds don't even exist, it's just Jensen and he's the only thing Jared wants; sleek and beautiful, body catching the light as he raises up to seat himself fully against Jared's hips once more.
Jensen's head drops back on his shoulders when he swivels his hips at the very bottom of the next thrust, Jared's own pushing up insistently, instinctually. If there was any chance at all of Jared pulling the stakes holding him out of the ground with raw power, he'd do it at that sight, something inside of him going positively rabid with the need to touch. Pleasure is shooting through him uncontrolled and uncontrollable, every part of him humming with it, so close to breaking.
The hot weight of Jensen's palm splays across his chest, pressing down at the center where Jared is nearly certain that his heart is about to tear through his ribcage with it's frantic drumming. Dark eyes - their black centers bleeding out to overtake the field of green - fasten on his own, hold Jared as surely as the bonds scraping his skin raw. There is a mania in them as well as a demand and after all of the years of dedication and obsession, he can't begin to imagine why it surprises him that they've ended up like this. There's never really been anyone else.
For all that it has been building inside of him like a gathering storm, his finish, when it comes, is staggering. Jensen is still moving over him steadily, skin pinked with exertion and breathing ragged, but his eyes are steady still when Jared's threaten to slam closed, forcing him to hold on and ride through it together. There are white sparks prickling at the edges of his vision, bursting throughout his body in waves as he slicks Jensen from the inside, and he is helpless to do anything but submit and watch as Jensen's fingers find his own length and tug at it in a rough flurry of motion. The pulsing kiss of wet fire against his skin hits him in ways he'd have never fathomed it could, something deep and connective, almost ceremonial, with Jensen above him, the face of bliss itself.
Jensen falls forward against him, mouth capturing Jared's own, hungry and uncoordinated. The world blurs in the wake of it, the wet slide of Jensen's tongue and the smoothness of his lips becoming the sum total of Jared's existence.
He is not aware until an indefinite amount of time later that his hands are free, and only then because he is nearly undone by the sensation of his fingers finding their way to the crevice where his soft, oversensitive length is still buried inside of Jensen's body. He gasps at the realization, pulling away from Jensen's slow devouring kisses to stare at him from too close up.
Something tight mars Jensen's features for a moment before melting into resolve as he brings his hand to rest beside Jared's head, the knife trapped beneath it for an instant before Jensen releases it altogether. Jared could grasp the handle easily from here, would hardly need any time at all to turn it on his lifelong enemy. True, his legs are still bound, but that could be quickly remedied if he had the blade in hand to fend Jensen off. Still, the other man makes no move to prevent him, merely lays against Jared's skin, body still held open around Jared's flesh as he watches him.
A choice then. After all of this, it's to be Jared's choice. Between the only life he has ever known and loved or a future beside the man who has always been his sworn foe.
It's hardly a choice at all.
Jared reaches out, fingers seeming fever-hot against the cool handle of the blade, and with a sharp heave, sends it skittering across the dust to the other side of the tent.