SPN Fic: In Blood, We Trust (2/4)
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***
Strangely enough, the next hour or so flies by as he chats with Danneel and Chris and the other bartender, Jason. Unlike Jared, few vampires stay to talk once they discover Jensen’s not serving up any meals, but a couple of humans strike up conversation. He thought he’d be trying to convince every person he came across that intimate encounters, as such, with the non-human patrons are a bad idea. But now that he’s here, angry evangelizing against it seems somehow… rude. Because everyone Jensen meets just seems pretty laid back and cool.
That is, until he gets up to find the men’s room.
He spots a discreet sign that directs him down a long hall, much darker than the rest of the club. It’s wide enough not to feel claustrophobic, but it’s also dotted with couples doing their thing. It’s the closest Jensen’s been to the act of feeding-the muffled moans and whispers and other wet, unidentified noises-and he has to steel himself to keep walking steadily straight through the gauntlet.
He’s concentrating so hard on his goal of the little door at the hall’s end that he doesn’t see the hand that snakes out and grabs him, spinning him around to pin him up against the wall with an arm across his chest and a hand at his throat, one thumb pressed threateningly into the hollow of his jaw.
The vampire is dark-skinned, dark-eyed, and the smile that breaks over his face at the feeling of Jensen’s pulse rabbiting in his grip is terrifying. It’s exactly the nightmare he imagined it would be.
“Hello, beauty,” he says in a low voice, almost a purr. “Ready for a little playtime?”
Jensen tries to jerk away, but the hold on him is so unyielding he might as well be trying to break down the solid wall at his back. “Don’t,” he grinds out. “Back off. I’m not interested. Look, I’m wearing a damn sticker.”
“Are you now? Well, I think you’ll find it slipped off accidentally.” And Jensen can feel that thumb move to catch the sticker’s edge where it’s stuck to his skin, starting to peel it off. And an icy rush of horror sweeps through him as-fuck, oh fuck-two of the vampire’s teeth slowly elongate and sharpen to needle-like points. Instinctively, Jensen bucks like a rodeo bull, thrashing, he’s got to get away, no, fuck.
The vampire leans inexorably in.
Without warning, Jensen’s attacker is yanked away. Jared’s there, behind him, wrenching the arm that had been pinning Jensen up high behind the guy’s back, bouncing his face against the wall with a sickening thump. The other vampire swears, tries to swing around, clipping Jared in the face with his elbow, struggling until Jared murmurs, “Hold, Sterling.” And they both go still.
Jensen feels a thrill slalom down his spine not so unlike the one when he was first seized. But this time it isn’t fear, it’s something new entirely, something summoned by Jared’s soft commandment. Jensen doesn’t need to look to know, but he does anyway. Looks at Jared’s eyes to see them burning a sear amber, the color of fresh flame.
Jared presses in, his lips nearly touching the other vampire’s ear. Jensen’s barely close enough to hear what he says. “I don’t know if you’re operating as one of Worthy’s minions, or if you’re just a regular asshole all on your own, but hear me. This club is a safe space, and it will stay that way as long as I’m around. You won’t come back, Sterling, and you won’t harm any of the humans who frequent here, particularly this human.” He nods towards Jensen, and it’s as if a spotlight brushes across him, the abrupt brightness of Jared’s attention, there and gone.
The vampire, Sterling, sneers, but nods his head. And when Jared steps back, releasing him, he turns and strides down the hall toward the club proper without a backward glance.
They watch together until he turns the corner and disappears. Jensen finds himself trembling all over and he’s about two seconds away from heaving up everything in his stomach. Jared’s apparently not in much better shape, because once Sterling is out of sight, he sinks back against the wall, crumpling in on himself with a weary sigh. Jensen’s tempted to put a supportive hand on his shoulder, but that seems somewhat dangerous at the moment.
“You okay?” Jared asks him huskily.
“Nearly pissed myself-” Jensen replies, “-but otherwise, alright. You?”
“I’ve been better.” Jared slowly raises a hand to rub his face. “Takes a lot out of me to do that. Sterling’s much stronger than some of the others.”
“What did you do to him? And to that other, that other Kindred-” Jensen stumbles a bit over the term, “-who drained Mac’s friend last night?”
“I laid a geas on them. A command they can’t disobey.”
Jensen’s not sure what to say to that, so he puts his back to the wall and leans there next to Jared in silence. Eventually, though, he has to say it. “That’s pretty fucking badass.”
Jared huffs a laugh, but it comes out weak. Not sunny and bountiful like Jensen’s already become accustomed to.
A thought occurs to him, and he swallows down a barbed-wire knot of reservation before reaching out his hand toward Jared. “Your battery is running low, right? Why don’t you take some energy from me.”
Jared turns his head to look at Jensen, and the surprise written across his face is priceless. “What? No. You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. You were watching out for me, you saved me from-from what was about to happen.” He clenches his jaw to keep from showing any residual stress remembering that moment before Jared swooped to the rescue, that moment Sterling’s lips brushed the thin skin under his ear. And if his palms are still clammy, at least the hand he holds extended toward Jared is steady.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“It’s not about owing. It’s about helping.” Jensen gestures insistently, willing Jared to take him up on his offer before he loses his nerve.
Jared locks eyes with him as he slowly scrubs both hands up and down his jean-clad thighs. Then he reaches out and claps Jensen’s hand in his.
Jensen doesn’t feel anything. That is, Jared’s skin is warm and his hand is huge, practically engulfing Jensen’s in its careful grip in a way Jensen might find intriguing under different circumstances. But there’s no jolt of pain, no feeling of being drained or exhausted from whatever energy Jared is drawing from him. It feels like a regular handshake, just drawn out, nothing more.
But at the same time, there’s a definite change in Jared. Lines of strain around his eyes smooth out and the slumped curve of his spine straightens. It’s subtle, but to Jensen it seems almost like watching a balloon slowly filling up with helium. Amusement plays at the corners of Jared’s mouth as he finally releases Jensen’s hand with a tiny squeeze.
“Thanks,” he says simply.
“You’re welcome.” And Jensen’s torn between getting the hell out of this murky, ill-fated hallway and escaping back out into the familiar bustle of the club, but at the same time not wanting to quit whatever this is, this moment he’s having with Jared.
He opts to stay. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course,” Jared says.
“Does this kind of thing happen every night? Because I can probably get used to getting hit on constantly, but I’m not sure I can live with the whole jumped-in-dark-corners situation.”
“This isn’t how it usually is here. Not at all. It’s just, well, on the one hand, there’s always some trouble with a few Kindred. The ones who don’t like that Trust won’t allow them to just take what they want. Like Sterling, I think. But then there’s also a group who are actively trying to sabotage the club itself. They say it’s too dangerous, gathering Kindred all together out in the relative open like this. Or that it undermines their vision of the natural order, with Kindred as masters and humans as cattle.” Jared rolls his eyes. “Anyway, I’ve been able to make them toe the line so far, with the help of most of the other Kindred patrons. Typically they’re just a pain in my ass, not everyone else’s.”
“Okay, then,” Jensen nods.
“As for you getting hit on… see the thing is, people can sense, um, that you haven’t, haven’t, um-“ Jared kind of waves vaguely at his neck.
“Donated blood before?” Jensen says dryly.
“Right,” Jared replies. “And some Kindred, not everyone, but some, think the first taste of a human’s blood is particularly… invigorating.” His lips twitch like he’s trying not to laugh. “Think of it this way: Kindred look at you sitting at the bar and you’re like a 5-hour energy drink on a shelf full of bottled water.”
Jensen’s eyebrows shoot up. “Hello. Not a beverage here. A person.”
“It’s a simile, jerk.”
Jensen sighs. “So what you’re saying is, I’ve got ‘virgin’ written across my forehead and everyone’s lining up to pop my cherry?”
The grin Jared was holding back finally breaks free. “Afraid so.” But then his expression turns a bit more uncertain. “There might be a way I can give you some protection. I mean, more than just the club’s sticker system.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I can put a mark on you. This one’s invisible, only other Kindred can sense it. Some Kindred use it to identify significant others or-” he stumbles a bit, “-or simply to signal that the human has a protector. It would convince people that you’re already spoken for. I mean, just to keep them off your back.”
“What, this mark you’d put on me? It’s like staking some kind of claim?”
“No! Well, yes. Sort of.” Jared presses his lips into a narrow line, his brow furrowed. “But, you know, you could just take the sticker off and go out there,” he jabs a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the dance floor, “and find someone to pair up with. Have a good time. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about the ‘fresh blood’ thing anymore. Any Kindred you chose would make you feel fantastic. I mean, that’s why humans like you come here in the first place, right? To feel good?”
“That’s not what I came here for,” Jensen snaps. He thinks about Sterling pushing him up against the wall. About Katherine lying passed out on the ground at Jared’s feet. “I’m not getting bit voluntarily. No fucking way.” He shoves out his hand once again toward Jared. “Mark me up.”
Jared’s brow clears and he quickly reaches out for Jensen’s hand.
“How does this work anyway?” Jensen asks. Probably should have established that before he leaped at the offer.
“It’s an ancient ritual,” Jared replies solemnly. “One that takes a great deal of concentration.” He turns Jensen’s hand so that it’s palm-up and presses his finger to it, drawing a series of symbols. “Circle circle. Dot dot. Exclamation. Cootie shot.”
He glances up at Jensen through a stray fall of hair with a little smirk and twinkling eyes that flash briefly gold before turning right back to hazel.
“Damn it, man, if you’re just fooling around-” Jensen says, almost pulling his hand away. But then he feels a sharp tingle rising up through his arm, up to his shoulder, pins and needles, firefly bursts along his nerves that start slow but then rush through the rest of his body in the blink of an eye. Through his chest, gut, legs, toes. And then it’s gone.
“Wow.” That was… not what he expected. He places his free hand against the wall for support, his legs unsteady.
“It’s not permanent or anything,” Jared says reassuringly, “so just let me know if you want me to take it off, anytime, and I can-“
“Never mind that,” Jensen cuts him off, straightening and stepping back down the hall toward the main area. “Let’s go test out whether your little mark actually works.”
***
It does work, and Jensen spends the rest of the evening hassle-free. It feels good, really good; less like he’s a commodity, more like he belongs here.
In fact, he finds himself back at the club every night that week. Each evening when he gets home from work, his quiet apartment no longer feels like the refuge it did in the past; now it just feels lonely. So off to Trust he goes. And if that means by Wednesday he’s closing the door to his office and silencing his phone to grab a quick nap at his desk, well, it’s worth it to arrive back at that plain gray door each night.
He’s struck a grudging truce with the host, with Jensen making a game of being overly-polite and Adam making fun of him for choosing to keep wearing the red stickers. But, hey, it makes Jensen feel more secure.
It’s not like he’s taking some walk on the wild side. All he does is sit and watch. He drinks his beer and waits for Jared to make his rounds on the dance floor, eventually ending up next to Jensen at the bar.
And if he sometimes looks more closely into the shadows than he should at the entwined bodies there? If some nights he goes home and in his bed, in the silence, imagines Jared there with him, his hands on Jensen’s skin, his mouth on Jensen’s neck? Well, those red stickers make for a convenient barrier to keep those images safely at bay.
***
Saturday rolls around again and college football is on the screen above the bar, so of course Jensen and Chris get into an argument over whether Texas or Oklahoma are going to break the Top 25 rankings. This vamp named Jake who’s a Buckeyes fan jumps in, and so of course Felecia has to show up to defend the Tide and before you know it, a whole bunch of them are knee deep in passing yardage stats and Heisman prospects.
When Jared finally stops by, Jensen bows out of the debate, sliding down a few seats to get away from the worst of it and have Jared to himself for a minute.
“Any chance you’re into football?” he asks Jared.
“Not any of this college stuff,” Jared scoffs. “But I’ll be a Cowboys fan forever.”
“Alright!” Jensen grins and holds out a fist. “America’s team!”
Jared bumps knuckles. “You know they’re playing the Saints tomorrow? The line only has Dallas by two, so it should be a nailbiter.”
“Yeah, I’ll be camped out on my couch for sure.” And Jensen’s mouth runs along without him. “Too bad you don’t get out much, you could come over and watch with me!”
Jared goes strangely still for a moment, then mutters, staring intently down at the bar like the words he’s saying are written there, “Well, no. But you could come to my place?”
“Your place?” Jensen repeats. And the crazy thing is, Jensen’s never actually thought about where Jared goes when he’s not there. He’s always simply in the club when Jensen arrives, still there when he leaves.
“Yeah, I live upstairs. There’s an apartment on the second floor. You could-“ Jared trails off after a hasty glance at Jensen’s face. “Never mind. It’s okay if you don’t want to. It was a dumb idea. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“No, Jared,” he insists. “I’d like to. I was just surprised, is all. It’s a 4pm game, you know.”
“I know.” Jared throws him a blithe little look, always so amused when Jensen gets things wrong about the ways of Kindred. “I’ll just have to get up early.”
“Okay then,” Jensen says, still trying to wrap his head around the notion of a vampire’s apartment. Jared’s apartment. “Should I bring pizza?”
“That sounds great,” Jared replies. “It’s not like anyplace delivers out here.”
***
The next afternoon, Jensen shows up at Trust a few minutes before kickoff with his Dez Bryant jersey on and pizza in hand. In the daytime, even though the doors have been left open, no one’s there. No staff or clients, everything is empty and dark and still. His footsteps echo as he heads to the door behind the bar that opens to a series of offices and a set of narrow stairs at the end. Those he climbs with a mix of trepidation and curiosity. He figures this is the part of the horror movie where the audience is screaming at the screen: Why in the hell would you go up there?
But nothing he’s done in the past two weeks has made a lick of sense. So up he goes.
There’s only a single door at the end of the hall. Jensen walks up to it and knocks, tentative at first, but then giving some heft to the last couple of raps. Because there’s nothing to be worried about, right?
It opens and the welcome sight of Jared fills the doorway. His jersey matches Jensen’s; it’s also 88, but with old-school styling. “Hey! Great, you’re here! I wasn’t sure-but-yeah. Great. Cool.”
Jensen thinks it’s cute when Jared babbles. Plus, it has the added bonus of making all of that residual anxiety dissolve. “Don’t you have to invite me in?” he asks with a smirk.
Jared snorts. He steps aside to make way for Jensen to enter, rolling his eyes. “I’m pretty sure that goes the other way around. And, anyway, no.”
He wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting, but as he glances around the living room, he’s struck by how… how cozy it is. The walls are painted a warm golden-brown where they’re not lined with rows of overflowing bookshelves, hardbacks, paperbacks, a couple of shelves stuffed with what look like graphic novels. The furniture is all dark woods and soft, nubbly fabrics, and there’s a ruby-red oriental rug that looks too soft to step on. Little knick-knacks are scattered everywhere on low tables; an old-fashioned rolltop desk bristles with papers. He spies an artist’s easel sitting in one corner with half-finished works and blank canvases stacked around it, and the mental image springs up of Jared sitting there, wielding a brush, his hands covered in bright paint. The only odd thing is the bay of windows on the far wall, its panes completely sealed over in opaque paint.
Jared has followed him in, watching anxiously, practically wringing his hands. As if Jensen’s reaction to his home was of utmost importance.
“You know,” Jensen drawls, sticking with what works. “I was expecting a different look. Black, with maybe some red velvet curtains? And where’s the organ music?”
And, as intended, Jared relaxes, shoots back.,“I save that for the castle in Transylvania.”
“Must be a long way to fly with your little bat wings.”
“As if. I could never fly all that way in bat form.”
And the way Jared says it, so matter-of-fact, makes Jensen take the bait. “Okay, I give,” Jensen says, “Please tell me you can’t turn into a bat.”
“Of course I can’t turn into a bat,” Jared replies disdainfully.
“Well, excuse me. I saw you toss someone out of the club with the power of your mind, a bat’s not that much of a stretch.”
“Easier to imagine than organ music?”
“Almost.”
“Fine. Organ music in the club tomorrow night!”
Jensen’s laughing as he makes his way through an archway that separates the main living room from a big open kitchen and media area. It’s just as comfortably appointed as the front room-a kitchen island and cabinets of granite and wood and cool silver appliances, an overstuffed sectional couch arranged in front of a big screen-but what makes Jensen stop in his tracks is what’s laid out on the coffee table in front of the couch. Jared has covered pretty much every square inch in snacks: mini-sandwiches and tiny quiches, three kinds of chips with queso and guac and hummus and a plate vegetables trimmed in ornate shapes, wings, stuffed mushrooms, cheese sticks, bread sticks, and Jensen doesn’t even know what other kind of sticks there might be. It’s a truly preposterous amount of food.
“Just how many people did you invite, man?”
Jared buries his face in one hand. “I know. I know. It’s just-I don’t have people over very often. And by ‘very often,’ I mean ‘never ever.’” He peeks out at Jensen from between two fingers like a little boy. “I guess I got kind of carried away.”
“I guess you did.” Jensen grins and tosses the pizza box he’s still holding onto the kitchen island. “Not sure we’ll need any of this!”
He grabs himself a beer out of a bucket of ice sitting on the counter and takes it over to the couch. Jared’s messing with the television controller with one hand and wolfing down a handful of chips in the other.
“Why do you even eat?” Jensen asks. “Food, I mean. What’s the point?”
“Um, because it’s delicious?” Jared answers, shoving a whole brownie into his mouth. Jensen hadn’t even noticed the brownies. “It doesn’t sustain me like it did back when I was human, but I can still taste it. Like you drinking a Diet Coke, nutrition-wise. Except that this stuff tastes a lot better.”
Jensen has to agree after he samples some of the offerings, and they settle in to watch the Cowboys win the coin toss and elect to receive.
It’s fun watching with someone else, even if Jensen has to swat Jared with a pillow a couple of times when he gets worked up over a missed call or some blown coverage. Jared’s the kind of fan who’ll jump up on the couch and bounce in excitement if you let him. But when the Cowboys are only clinging to a one-point lead, Jensen’s not going to be patient with that kind of nonsense.
But by late in the fourth quarter, Romo has things under control-for once-with a three score advantage, and both of them are feeling good about the final outcome.
Jensen goes to twist the cap off another beer when his finger catches on the edge and tears a shallow cut in his skin. Normally it would be no big deal, but this is not a normal situation. He stiffens, then looks up at Jared who immediately jerks away and scrambles to the other end of the couch, eyes wide and hands digging into the leather armrest behind him.
“Sorry,” is all Jensen can think of to say.
“It’s okay,” Jared replies, but his eyes never waver from their lock on Jensen’s seeping finger.
Inanely, Jensen asks, “Do you have a bandaid?”
Jared huffs a laugh, because yeah, why would a vampire have bandaids? Except it comes out strained and his breathing is too and the sound causes the hair on Jensen’s neck to prickle.
This is it, he thinks. This is where Jared goes feral and takes me down. And the fucked up thing he discovers is that part of him wants to lay back on the couch and bare his throat in anticipation. Jesus.
“I can fix it,” Jared says. “Will you let me fix it?”
“What?”
“My-“ Jared stops to lick his lips, for fuck’s sake, but then continues on in a more detached, clinical tone, “-my saliva, the saliva of the Kindred, is a coagulant with rapid healing capacity. Without it, the people we feed on might bleed out and die from the kind of lacerations it is necessary to inflict in order to access their bloodstreams.”
“Jared,” Jensen says quietly, trying to stay cool. “Snap out of it.”
Jared ducks his head then, running a hand through his hair, tugging on it, wrapping it around his fingers like a lifeline. “Sorry,” it’s his turn to say stiffly. “Sorry. Seriously, I don’t mean to scare you.”
“Not scared, just questioning my sanity.” Jared glances back up at him and it’s clear he recalls the same comment from back when they first met. Jensen smiles. Jared smiles back. And just like that, the crazy tension is broken.
“You know, I can actually heal it up pretty easily.” The way Jared says it this time is rueful rather than desperate. It sets Jensen enough at ease that he simply nods his permission.
Jared moves slowly, like he wants to be sure not to alarm him. He brings a finger to his mouth and licks the tip. Jensen can’t help but notice how pink Jared’s tongue is, how the tip of his finger is glistening now, and his heart rate starts to rev, zero to sixty.
Jared scoots back closer on the couch, but only close enough that he can reach, a few feet of buffer still between them. He brushes his spit-slick finger gently along the side of Jensen’s, tracking slowly over the wound. Jensen stops breathing, stops thinking, his entire being narrowed down to focus on where they touch. God help him, all he wants is for Jared to put his finger back in his mouth and lick Jensen’s blood off of it. But Jared simply wipes his hand carelessly on his jeans.
Jensen looks down at his finger in time to see the edges of the scrape knit back together like magic. Well, it is a kind of magic, after all. His head is spinning and he thinks it might be a lack of oxygen, so he draws in a deep, shuddering breath.
“Thanks. That’s a pretty cool trick.” He sounds like he’s been swallowing swords.
“Yeah,” Jared replies. “I should’ve opened a clinic instead of a club.” He quirks his mouth in another smile and Jensen tries his best to smile back again naturally.
Something on the TV catches Jensen’s eye. He grasps eagerly at a change of subject. “Hey, looks like the game’s over.”
“Did we miss the post-game interviews?”
They scramble back into fan-mode, but Jensen only stays a few more minutes before he stands up and makes ready to head out.
Jared walks him to the door. “Thanks for coming over.”
“Sure, it was fun.” And Jensen means it. It was, all weirdness aside.
“Will you be downstairs later tonight?” Jared asks.
“When am I not?” Jensen responds jokingly, and at this point, it hardly seems strange to him anymore that he’d be out every single night.
Jared looks relieved. “See you later then.”
“Later,” Jensen says. The door shuts behind him, and as he heads back down the stairs he realizes he’s more confused than ever about what he’s doing there.
***
Jared catches back up with him a few hours later. They talk casually about the game with Jason and Chris, and Jensen teases him again about the mountains of food, but neither of them brings up what happened there at the end of the afternoon. Which is good. There’s no need to. Jensen’s just relieved that there’s no strain between them. Not that there should be, not that he can’t help thinking about, replaying over and over, what happened. No, it was just an aberration, and Jared’s clearly over it, so Jensen resolves that he is too. And that’s that.
***
| Part 3 |