Sky Pictures (1 of 2, Jared/Jensen)
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, AU RPS
Warnings: Mention of drug and alcohol abuse and general Jared-whumping.
Pairing: Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles
PoV: Jared’s
Word Count: 5,683
Disclaimer: Not real, not for profit, not mine.
Feedback: More than welcomed.
Summary: Jared has fallen on hard times and it’s a long, difficult road to better things.
Dedication: This is written for raphaha. She was kind enough to donate to Sweet Charity and the Writers' Strike fund in return for my writing her a fic. She asked for a J2 and gave me a variety of prompts. For those not familiar, Jared and Jensen are the stars of the TV show Supernatural. They are incredibly pretty and talented. Please see the evidence for teh pretty here and here. Jared is the taller one, Jensen is the older one.
This is my first fic outside LotR fandom, although The Deal drew extensively on Supernatural canon - scary to be out in new territory like this!
It is also raphaha‘s birthday today so I post this fic half as her auction fic and half in honour of her special day. The next part will be up within the week.
Author's Note: For those of you who don't come from places with cash deposit schemes on containers, you just need to know that in a lot of places in the US and Canada every time you buy a drink in a container you pay a deposit. If you take the cans or bottles back to a recycling center you get the deposit back.
Please note: the links to the various stones mentioned seem to have died. I will endeavour to fix this soonish. August 2013.
Part One
This was pretty much Jared's favourite time of day. He paused for a second to watch the first lemon opal light begin to bounce and sparkle on the glass skyscrapers across the bridge from where Jared was on the hill. Everything looked fresh and new on a morning like this. The air was cold, but crisp and clean. The sky only held the hazy hues for perhaps half an hour before the literally harsh light of day took over and tightened all the edges and lines into something too tight and brittle for Jared's liking.
An early rising flock of starlings swooped above him and he craned his neck back to watch their intricate patterns. There were a great deal of birds in the city, but Jared liked the flocking birds the most. Each bird had his or her place. They had their wing mate to their left and right. They knew who was in front and who was behind. Never alone. Always with someone right there. He wasn't sure, but he figured that if a starling went missing, the wing mates would realise immediately. The missing member would be... missed. Perhaps only for a fleeting moment before the flock closed in and filled the space left behind. Perhaps only for the barest flutter of strong wings but still, he thought that was better than nothing.
As he watched the birds swoop and spin he caught sight of a picture. It happened sometimes, like when you watch clouds long enough and you can see shapes in them. Sometimes the birds made their own pictures. For a blissful moment in the soft morning air an elegant bird made up of a thousand tiny cousins plummeted towards earth, its delicate neck holding firm against the wind rushing past it, wings stretched in perfect diving position against the warm golden-blue of the sky. Jared's lips parted in wonder and then the formation broke into a dozen smaller bundles of chirping life.
There was a faint ache in Jared’s hand and his long fingers curled around the space where a paint brush would fit. The birds would have made a beautiful painting. In another life. In a life where he still had canvases and paints and...
A scuttle by his feet brought him back to himself and he gave a cautious look down. One of the many problems with dumpster diving was that humans weren't the only animals foraging in the trash. Jared so did not need a rat bite to go with his other various aches, pains and sores. Another rustle from the back of the dumpster meant there was more than one in there with him. Time to leave. That was another reason he liked this time of day. You could see what you were doing. When he started 'work' every day he couldn't see much and so finding juice boxes, drinks cans and bottles was more a case of feeling in the dark. At dawn you could kick through the contents and the chances of cuts, bites and so on were vastly reduced. Jared was nothing if not practical. Dawn was his friend for more than just the free spectacle.
He cast his eyes across the mess of rotting food, wrappings and bones, checking carefully. Satisfied there were no remaining drinks containers he hoisted himself up onto the corner, grimacing as the sharp metal edge dug into his palms and then his thighs through the worn cotton of his too old jeans. He swung himself out, dropping down just next to his cart. His cart was nearly full. One more apartment building and he'd call it a day and go to the line up at the recycling centre.
The next building was one of his favourites; he visited it every day. It was a small co-op, a three storey, red brick heritage building that was obviously cared for by the residents. There were window boxes and flowers planted on the verge that ran round it and the steps were always swept and clean. The really great thing about it was that the residents often left their drinks containers in a plastic box next to the dumpster. Jared appreciated that. Everyone in the city knew that the homeless dove the dumpsters to find the returnables. Going through the recycling for the stuff people were too busy to be bothered to return wasn't too bad, not like going through the trash for the stuff people couldn't even be bothered to recycle. At this co-op they put out the stuff worth something in a whole separate box - washed and everything. Sometimes there was food too. Folks going on holiday or on a business trip he imagined, food that would go bad before they got back. He thought it was considerate of them not to throw it in the garbage, even though someone would find it in there anyway.
He wasn't the only person who knew about the co-op, but most of the others liked to stay closer to downtown where panhandling was more productive and there were more fast-food outlets, more thrown away food. It was also further to the needle-exchange and the free clinics up here, but Jared liked to start the day outside downtown. He liked to see the sun come up. He had long enough legs that they needed a proper stretch every day. And besides, he got to see the birds clearer up here.
It was a nice neighbourhood. In that other life Jared thought about sometimes he would want to live somewhere like this. It wasn't a majorly rich area or anything, but there were coffee shops and bookstores. Vintage clothing places nestled next to craft supply stores and cafes. Ethnic supermarkets and health food places as well as dollar stores and a community center. Only one liquor store too - Jared liked that. He saw too many people drinking too much downtown. He had been one of them not so long ago. Rounding the corner to the back of the co-op he smiled. The box was there, full of empty bottles and a bag full of bread and some apples. Jared bent to pick the glass out; he straightened with an armful of translucent cash. Beer cans were better because they were worth more, but there were never any beer cans from the co-op. Mainly just juice and milk containers. Jared figured they must be pretty healthy living types.
He flinched as he heard the back door of the block open and someone walk down the stairs but Jared didn't turn, just continued in his task of loading his shopping cart and thought that it was definitely time to head back downtown. Dawn was over and so was the safety of the night. He had been on the streets a long time, but not long enough that he didn't feel a rush of dirty shame when a normal person saw him... 'making his living'. The person, whoever it was, paused in their walk to the alley. Jared practically threw the last things into the cart, grabbed the bag of food and pushed off, heading away from the normal person with shame crawling over his skin like rats over garbage. Behind him he thought he heard a quiet, "G'mornin", but he didn't turn back. People generally didn't say good morning to homeless guys taking their trash away.
The line up at the recycling place was long, and it was still two hours until it opened. He took his place and hunkered down against the wall of the store. The food was tucked in the top of his pack, he didn't want to open it in front of the others. He hadn't eaten for two days and while normally he'd share, he was too hungry for that today. The food looked pretty fresh, the apple skins weren't even wrinkled yet. Normal people bought too much. He couldn't really fathom just throwing out food like that, even if you were going away for a weekend or something. He couldn't fathom it, even though he knew he had done it himself. Before. A couple of the others said morning to him as they arrived in the line behind him. He nodded back, polite but not overly welcoming.
Jared kept himself to himself these days. There had been a time when he'd spent all his time with the others, mainly up in the park or under the freeway, depending on the weather. Drunk or high depending on what was available. Then a guy who worked at one of the shelters had offered him a place on a programme; some rehabilitation for the homeless thing. Jared had looked down at himself. Inhaled. Smelled the booze and the rankness of his life all over himself.
“You're young, you could change you know. You must want out of this life, don't you?” The charity guy had looked at him earnestly. Jared had considered explaining that a lot of the time he didn't want out of the life at all. His life was a blank. He was a blank. He was a hole in the air in a doorway or on a street corner that people looked through, and over, and around. No one saw him, no one wanted to and that was what he liked about "this life". Instead, Jared inhaled the dankness of "this life" once more and simply said, “Yes. What do I have to do?”
The programme, a month long residential, had been alright. The first day they had taken all his own clothes away and asked him to shower with foul soap that they said was designed to kill bed bugs and ticks and fleas. They had shaved his head and beard - also to de-louse him. They gave him new second-hand clothes, the jeans he still wore. It was a no drugs-no alcohol facility and Jared was not prepared for what coming down would feel like.
The second night he had crawled to the door, shaking, crying and begging to be let back out. A girl with determined eyes that seemed to whorl from green to grey to blue like fluorite had sat next to him the hall and stroked his shorn head as he pleaded to be set free. She smelled like the little white sheets you put in the drier to make your clothes soft and she was the first person to touch him with gentleness for two years. She murmured that addiction wasn't freedom and asked him to try to stay. He stopped asking to be let out and lay still, concentrating on every touch of her fingers on his skull.
He said that he would try.
The detox had taken about a week and Jared had vomited bile the colour of pyromorphite for five days straight.
The seventh day he was well enough to investigate the common room. Some people were watching TV, playing board games. They all had the wasted look that he also wore. Too thin, too tired, too alone. All with too little hair, even the women. There was an art corner and Jared had used the first paint brush he had held for two years. The girl with the fluorite eyes always came to look at what he made and smiled in pleasure at the birds on his pages. He really thought she genuinely liked them.
On the twelfth day there was a fire. The facility closed and Jared was back out on the street with new second-hand clothes, a haircut and a promise made to a pretty girl with a soft touch to try.
That was two months ago. Jared knew he had become obsessed with dumpster diving but he had a theory. If he could just save enough money, he could get some decent clothes. With some decent clothes and some more money he could get a week at the travellers' hostel. If he got a week at the hostel he would have an address and he could maybe get a job. The girl had given him her card, said she would write a reference. And then maybe he could get a second week. And then maybe he could find somewhere to live.
Before the 12 Days of Rehab, as Jared referred to it to himself, a job had seemed too remote a possibility to even think about. He still wasn't sure what had made the difference, but he knew he didn't want to be sharing dumpster space with rodents much longer. Hence the zeal for making what cash he could. Jared reckoned he needed $300, a small fortune. He kept himself to himself for two reasons. He didn't want to risk using again, and he couldn't risk anyone finding out about the plastic bag of cash he had tied to his belt loop and tucked on the inside of his jeans. It was uncomfortable and his skin was rubbed raw in a circle around his waist where he moved the loop it was tied to everyday but it had to be kept safe and besides, the pain from the weeping skin reminded him that he had tangible hope.
He was done at the recycling center by 9.30am and he tucked the $11 plus change he'd managed to accrue with that night's labour into a pocket. At $0.05 a container clearing over ten bucks was what he considered a very good night. Sometimes he made less than $5. He didn't need to lock himself in a public toilet to count it to know - if he could make $11 a night for the next two nights, he'd have his $300.
It was another four nights' work before he was able to walk to the Wal-Mart thirty blocks past the co-op's neighbourhood. He went to the McDonald's nearby first and ate a $1 burger and used the washroom. He scrubbed his hands and his face, hoping that he'd be clean enough to get past the door greeters. It worked. It felt uncomfortable being in the store. Jared had noticed that since he had been at the facility more of himself had come back. He saw pictures more, remembered to look at the sky. Less esoterically, he knew that he had boycotted places like McDonalds or Wal-Mart... before... but he rationalised to himself that really, beggars couldn't be choosers.
Jared tried on three pairs of jeans, careful to make sure the changing room door was closed tight and that he leaned against it the whole time so no one could get in. He was careful to keep his shirt tugged down so the new denim didn’t touch his broken, raw skin. All three pairs were not really long enough but one was better than the others so he took them. Jared bought the pair of jeans, two cotton short sleeved shirts (one green, one blue), a pack of two white t-shirts, a pack of underwear and a pack of socks. He found a pair of trainers in the sale goods, presumably on sale because it had been a long time since the Wal-Mart had had any shoppers with feet as big as his, a thin but inexpensive towel and a cheap backpack.
In the pharmacy he spent an age trying to decide if some antiseptic cream was justified. He bought the smallest tube he could find, along with a pack of razors, a sponge, generic soap, a large nail brush and a toothbrush. No toothpaste or shaving foam, he'd use the soap to start with. He tried to think if there was anything else he needed but couldn't think of a thing.
When he was in the changing rooms he had untied the plastic bag and taken out $50. He hoped that he'd done his math right and that it wouldn't cost more. He was unaccustomed to the feeling that rose in his chest when he counted out the dollar bills and change to a kind faced woman at the checkout. Outside, he thought about it for a minute and then realised what he was feeling was a soft swell of pride. The feeling lasted the entire forty block walk to the hostel downtown.
Another dollar burger bought him a trip to another washroom and he changed into his new things. He checked over his old clothes carefully, making sure no bed bugs were in the seams or hiding anywhere that they could transfer over to the new things. To be on the safe side he put them in the Wal-Mart bag and tied a double knot before putting that bag in his backpack. The new clothes were crisp and felt strange against his skin. He looked in the mirror and for a second he thought he saw himself.
He hefted the pack and headed down the street to the hostel, hand in his pocket, cash firmly clenched in his fist.
The hostel was full. “No room at all,” the kid at the front desk said, and blew a bubble the exact shade of rhodochrosite. “You from out of town?” Jared stared at the desk, shocked.
“Kinda, yeah.” Jared turned to go. Turned back. Shook his head in confusion. Not once had the thought crossed his mind that there wouldn't be a room. He did not know what to do with this. About this.
Jared's vision swam. He had his new things and he was going to have to go back out on the street. He would have to get changed again, straight away. He knew the front desk guy was looking at him but couldn’t look back. Jared had stopped looking people in the eye a long time ago. Except the girl who had helped. He could hear the guy chewing on his gum, loud smacking noises in the quiet.
“You really need somewhere to stay huh?”
“Kinda, yeah.”
“Well, you could go down the East Side. There are flop houses and shit down there - it's where the homeless dudes go. It'll be cheap but mangy.”
It would have been funny if it hadn’t been, well, Jared’s life that the kid was talking about. He was right though, that was how Jared felt right then, cheap and mangy. He nodded and made to leave. “Yeah. I know where you mean. Thanks.”
“Or, if you want, you can hang out here. Sometimes people who book don't show up. If they're not here by 6pm we give their rooms away first come first served. You can chill in the lobby. Read the papers, whatever. Free coffee over there. It‘s a four hour wait but then you‘ll be first in line if something comes free.”
“Wait here?”
The gum cracked and the kid shrugged. “Sure. You don’t look like trouble. You’re not trouble are you?”
Jared shook his head, “No sir, not me. Not trouble at all.”
“Well then. The coffee sucks but knock yourself out.”
With that the guy turned to deal with a girl waiting in line and they started talking about phone cards and dialling codes and Jared shifted awkwardly, turned to look at the lobby with its low chairs and half read newspapers and the coffee. He could wait. He had nothing waiting for him but his old clothes and the starlings on the hill tomorrow morning.
“Oh, dude!” Jared jumped at the shout, looked back at the desk.
“Me?” He must have done something that had shown he was one of the mangy homeless guys and he was going to be thrown out. His face flushed and he began to back towards the door.
“Yeah, forgot to say. There are some muffins over there too, left over from breakfast. Help yourself if you want,” and with that the guy went back to discussing the right amount of zeros to put in front of a number to call Korea.
Jared hoisted the pack more firmly onto his shoulder and took the few steps needed to take him in amongst the chairs. A couple of younger guys looked up at him and nodded in acknowledgement before turning their attention back to a city map and guide book.
The chairs were low and not very comfortable. He started off sitting on the edge, his pack clutched to his chest, but after an hour he’d had to move because his back was killing him. He ventured over to the coffee and took one single muffin. It tasted good, really sweet. It made his hands shake.
At 6pm the kid called him over and checked him in to a dorm room. Jared paid for four nights and listened carefully to the rules and regulations. He didn’t want to mess this up, he had worked too hard to risk that.
The room had two sets of bunk beds in it. Jared had been assigned a top bunk, which was okay. The other residents’ belongings were all over the place. He didn’t understand that. Just leaving their stuff lying about? Anyone could take it. Jared took his pack with him to the shower room and spent nearly an hour under the hot water, scrubbing himself with the nailbrush until he was covered with bright red lines from the bristles. The water ran grey from his body, an occasional thread of red twisting down the drain when he caught the sores around his waist with the brush by accident.
Jared towelled himself off, patting gently at the sores before covering them with antiseptic cream. He paused before getting dressed. He was exhausted, yet he felt that he should be out straight away, looking for the job that was the point of all this. He should be looking straight away. He stared at his pack and then his vision swam and he yawned so wide his jaw cracked.
This decided him. A fresh pair of shorts and a t-shirt and he padded back to the dorm room, climbed into the bunk and tried to arrange his long limbs in the sleep sack. It wasn’t easy, and it felt strange to be in a bed again, but eventually he managed to twist himself into a comfortable position with his arms threaded through the shoulder straps of his pack so no one could take it without him knowing. Eventually, he slept.
It was a jerky sleep. His dreams were of birds with plumage the colours of fluorite stones that swooped and called to him overhead. He flinched awake every time one of his roommates came in, clutching his things, arms tense until the person settled in their own bunk. He gasped awake from a dream of rats crawling over him, nibbling at his fingers, trying to get into the pack to steal his hard won clothes and soap. He looked around the dim room, realising that dawn was coming. Time to get up. Jared was almost relieved at the prospect of getting back out on the streets. He was desperate for something familiar and so full light saw him back in the neighbourhood on the hill standing in the alley by the co-op.
There was a box of returnables by the dumpster and his fingers itched to pick them up. He looked down at them, admired the way the sun bounced off the glass, turning it into something more precious than just an old pickle jar. A rush of sound overhead and he turned to see the starlings make their sky pictures. Their tiny forms coalesced into a question mark and Jared nodded his agreement. A day of uncertainty. A day when he was neither homeless nor homed. A day of questions.
He wanted to practice being a normal person and normal people ordered coffee and read the paper in the morning so he went to the coffee shop on the corner. The girl taking the orders smiled at him, ran her eyes over him from top to toe and her smile grew both bigger and more genuine. Jared didn’t notice any of this. He was too busy reading the menu and trying to make sense of all the options.
“Morning! What can I get you?”
“I… I just want a coffee. Please.”
“Sure! An American?”
The question startled him. Why did that matter? “Yeah, I am.”
Laughter. “No, I mean an American coffee? Just regular coffee right?”
“Oh yeah, yeah. Just a regular coffee.” He reminded himself that he had done this before. That there had been a time when ordering a coffee was something he had not had to think about at all.
“Regular, medium or large?”
“I said regular. “
“Yeah, but I mean size. Regular, medium or large?”
“A small?”
“Okay, a regular. Caf or de-caf?”
“Caf.” Jared was starting to feel hot, prickly heat running over his skin.
“Extra shot?”
“What? I mean, no, just a coffee. Please, just a coffee.” His fingers clenched around the dollar bills in his pocket. Why was this so difficult? Normal people did it all the time.
“To go?”
Jared wanted to say yes, wanted desperately to say yes so he could take the a cardboard cup and find a low tree and sit beneath it, safe and quiet, but he was practising being normal. Normal people could sit in.
“No, to drink here, thank you.”
“Okay then, that’ll be two bucks.”
His hand shook as he pulled the money out and counted off two dollars and passed it over.
“Thank you and your drink will be at the end of the counter.”
Jared could not move away fast enough. He waited at the end of the bar, took his coffee and found a seat at a table in the corner by a window. His heart was clattering in his chest and it made him think that maybe a de-caf would have been a better idea. The coffee was good, which was something at least. He breathed himself calm and began to plan his day.
Downtown had more places that might be hiring. Fast-food restaurants and bars and the like. Downtown made sense but it came with so much noise and stress. So many people. It was closed in too, the tall buildings blocking out the sky, blocking out the birds. He looked out the window at the neighbourhood’s main street. It wouldn’t hurt to try here; he could always try downtown tomorrow.
By the time the stores started opening at 10am Jared had already been up and down the ten blocks that made up the centre of the neighbourhood and had found three places that had signs in the window looking for help.
It took him nearly another hour to get the nerve up to go in the first one, a bakery. When the manager found he had no experience and no résumé she shook her head and said no and wished him luck. The second place was a diner and that went better until the man in charge asked where he lived. Jared said he lived at the hostel and the guy’s eyes narrowed a little and he said they were looking for people with a bit more ‘permanence’. Too many people just up and left, which was why they were hiring in the first place.
The third place scared Jared a little. He looked at the window display, studying it. The things in it made him feel a little shaky, a little sick. He had left the third place until last for a reason. He knew he could work there. He knew he could do a good job. The third place had always made him feel this way. Jared had often pushed his cart past this store, stopping to study the contents of the window. It reminded him of the him from before, and that person was a stranger to him now. Jared walked away.
He walked in a circle up and down the ten blocks again, eyes flicking to the storefront when he passed it on the other side of the street.
According to the clock over the drugstore it was 1.30pm when he bought his first food of the day - a late lunch special from a bakery; a bagel and a soda for $2.99. He felt guilty spending so much on himself, five bucks already. That was a night’s dumpster diving right there. He took the food and sat on a bench opposite the store, wincing as his clothing rubbed against the sores around his waist. Jared chewed slowly and considered not going into the store. He’d already bummed out twice, probably would again. Maybe just the fast food places downtown would employ someone like him. He watched as people went in the store at pretty regular intervals, coming out ten minutes or so later with a smile and paper bags of varying sizes. Sometimes they had whole boxes of things. The door had a bell that jangled every time. Not unpleasantly, just a light dancing sound.
At 2.30pm a guy came out, stuck a sign on the door and locked it. He headed off down the street and Jared thought he could hear him whistling as he strode along with a bounce in his stride . Well, that was that. It was closed so there was no chance of getting a job now. Still, Jared wondered what the new sign said. He finished the last of his bagel and sipped the soda. He really did like that store. He really liked what it sold.
The exact contents of the sign were to remain a mystery as within 15 minutes the guy was back, juggling what appeared to be exactly the same lunch special as Jared had bought as he unlocked the door and took down the note. It made him smile, that he had something in common with the guy minding the store. Maybe he should go in after all. After all, a guy who liked a turkey cheese bagel and cream soda for lunch seemed pretty approachable.
The bell jangled as Jared opened the door. It was an old building and he had to duck his head slightly to get in under the low frame. He closed the door behind him, careful not to bang it, and turned to look around. For all he had looked in the window, he had never been inside before. It was never open when he was in the neighbourhood with his cart. The place was surprisingly bright, clean white walls and a dozen aisles of supplies.
The smell of oil paint and pastels washed over him. The wood of the brushes and easels and the clean dry flavour of fabric and paper. One wall was nearly full of stretched canvas - all sizes. He walked over and picked up a smaller one, held it near his face and breathed in. A rush of emotion threatened and Jared clamped down on it, forced it back.
A deep voice with a southern slide to it spoke behind him. “Aft’noon. Time for a new canvas?”
“Err, no, not really. I was just looking. Well actually, I was wonderin’ about the job?” He put the canvas back down, gently ran a palm along the top edge before turning round to face the man talking to him.
“Oh yeah? Well that’s good news to me.” The guy was unwrapping his bagel, smoothing the greaseproof paper out and tucking a stray piece of cheese back into place. Then he looked up.
Two things happened in quick succession.
First, Jared fell into the greenest eyes he’d ever seen. They caught him before he could remember to look down so as not to have to look directly at the man. They reminded him of tourmaline, only they weren’t hard like tourmaline, although they sparkled just as much even behind the glasses the man wore. He couldn’t help but glance towards the paints and back, wondering which combination would make the perfect match for the colour nature had painted on this man’s eyes.
Then the man’s eyes widened and his generous lips parted in shock. This made no sense to Jared, none at all. He looked over his own shoulder to see if someone had done something behind him. Jared knew he hadn’t done anything but put the canvas back and turn around so it surely wasn’t him that had made the guy freeze in place like that.
“I don’t believe it… You’re the dumpster guy.”
Wish as he might, Jared could not persuade the ground to open up and swallow him down whole. He was frozen in place, shame showing itself as a flush over his face.
“You’re him, but you’re… different. What…?”
Jared forced himself to step backwards, he had to get out. Fast. He had no idea how this guy knew who he was but he didn’t want to find out. All of the effort to try and not be a dumpster guy any more and here it was just thrown at him on the first day of trying to be normal. He had been an idiot to think he could stop being a dumpster guy. So stupid. He really had to get out.
“No, you don’t have to go. Wait.” The man with tourmaline eyes was sliding off his stool, rounding the corner of the counter, coming towards him. Jared panicked, took another step back and misjudged the distance. He bumped into a pile of canvases and they toppled over. He whirled around to try and catch them but it was too late. They crashed to the floor, blocking his escape route through the front door. He pressed himself against the space on the wall where they had been piled up, eyes darting for another door, some way to get out. His breathing was loud, sounded harsh in his ears and then the soft, southern tones reached him again.
“Hey, it’s okay. Really, it’s okay. I can just pick those up. Nothing’s broken. Look, it’s alright.”
Jared flinched as he felt a hand on his arm. He looked down to see the man was right there in front of him, right there with his crystal eyes and he was holding him in place and there was no way to get out.
He was trapped.
To be continued… Part Two