Fire In The Hole 4/6
FIRE IN THE HOLE 4/6
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: NC-17
Words: 5,067
Beta: candygramme
Disclaimer: There is absolutely no truth to this and I am not earning a penny.
Warnings: violence, adult, language, political themes, homophobia
Summary: At seventeen and growing up in a white supremacist camp, Jared's life is going nowhere fast. He doesn't feel like he belongs, but sees no way out - until the arrival of a new member shakes things up in the paramilitary group. Jared doesn't know whether he should be intrigued or afraid of Jensen Ackles, but when he gets caught in the power play around him coming to a head, he's left with little choice in the matter.
ART POST . STORY MASTERPOST
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Part Four
The Sheriff's office was empty but for JD sitting in his comfortable old desk chair. The desk was full of open folders and pictures, cases that he had compiled over the years that all tied back to the Brotherhood. Some of them had been solved, but most remained open due to a lack of evidence, or - more often than not - due to missing witness cooperation. People were afraid, and Jeffrey couldn't blame them.
Next to them sat a stack of folders containing the known members of the organization. He had made notes on yellow post-its on them whenever he suspected any of those men to have participated in criminal activity. Most of these folders had at least some yellow sticking out of them, some were full of them even. He grabbed a plain one lying on top of the stack and flipped it open: Jared Tristan Padalecki, aged 17.
JD didn't know much about this kid. The boy hardly ever came into town, and when he did it was on the heels of his father, Jake, who had quite a few post-its on his own file. Jake was not a nice man. He'd only joined the militia a little over three years ago, but his record dated back before that. He was noisy and most of the time drunk when JD came across him, but so far his son hadn't seemed to take after him. Jared wasn't loud or cocky. To date, he had been a blank page in Jeff's mural of the Brotherhood of Faithful Americans, and JD had wanted to give the boy the benefit of the doubt... until he turned up as Jensen Ackles' wingman.
Frowning at the dated picture of Jared's old school records he wondered if he had been wrong about the kid.
The phone rang and Jeff jumped in his seat before picking up the receiver with a sigh and a glance at the clock. This was his office line, not the emergency call line to the operator who would radio the night shift if need be. It was late for office calls.
“Morgan.”
“Sheriff Morgan, this is FBI special agent Smith. I got the message you left with the bureau... I didn't think I'd still catch you this late.”
“Well you did, agent. Thanks for getting back to me,” JD answered, trying to figure out the age of the woman on the other end of the line.
“You said that this was remotely connected to the Texan separatist case?” She didn't seem hung up on niceties, and Jeff was fine with that. It was late after all.
“It is. There's a white nationalist group in my jurisdiction called the Brotherhood of Faithful Americans. They've been a problem for a while now, but until now I had been hoping that they weren't organizing in a terrorist fashion.”
The woman sighed humming in understanding. “We always hope. But if you give them enough time alone with their crazy, they will snap one day or another.” There was a bitterness in her voice that suddenly made JD's guess on her age jump up by ten years.
“Believe me, if I could have put them all away, I would have done so a long time ago. But the reason I called was that I have a new face down here, someone who was involved with your players.” Pulling Ackles' file in front of him, he flipped it open looking at the mugshot of a young man with short hair and handsome features.
“Oh? What's the name, Sheriff?”
“Jensen Ackles.”
There was silence for a few long seconds before Smith spoke again. “Yes, he was a person of interest in this case.”
“You wouldn't happen to have some warrant on him unfiled yet, so I can bag him up and FedEx him to you, agent Smith?”
The woman chuckled. “Sadly no. We hoped to grab him in the live bust, but he left a week earlier to go to New Mexico. There was speculation that he was trying to buy guns or explosives, but he seemed to be clever enough to call off any crooked business when his friends got into the orange jumpers. We tried to connect him to our case but there was no evidence that he had any active knowledge of the guns or the bomb plans.”
JD glared at the file in front of him making notes. “But there have been bomb charges before.”
“Yes. But they had to be dropped because of a mess-up in the chain of evidence.” She said it in an almost mechanical way as if she had repeated the expression far too often. “Without the evidence there was no way of pinning anything like that to him, and there was no real bomb at that stage, just the intent.”
“Do you think he'd be able to build one if he wanted to?” Jeff's fingers drummed against the table steadily becoming faster.
“Definitely. It was part of his military training.”
“Well, my day is getting better by the minute.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Sheriff?” Agent Smith seemed quite eager to finish up the call, and a glance at the time made JD agree with her. So he thanked her for her help before hanging up.
Glaring one last time at Jensen Ackles' picture, Jeff started tidying up his desk.
- -
Jared looked at the fire they had built. The day was over quicker than he thought it would be. Usually field trips of any kind would drag on for an incredibly torturous amount of time. They hadn't done anything unusual though. Between gun training and trudging through the woods looking for something to shoot at, Jared had somehow lost track of time.
The activities themselves did not warrant such a reaction from him, so there was only one explanation why he would enjoy this enough to have time fly by: Jensen.
He watched as Jensen built a fire and lit it in about half the time it would take Jared, while the sun started to sink behind the horizon. They hadn't killed anything today, but Jensen was humming calmly as he got out some rations from their packs.
“Sorry I'm so slow at learning, Jensen... we didn't shoot anything today.”
The man snorted out a laugh while opening a can. “I didn't plan on shooting anything today, Jay. This is supposed to be a learning experience. We'll take our time.”
“Why?” He didn't want to question Jensen all the time. But his insecurity came out loud and clear.
“Because time is a good thing and essential to the evolution of beings.”
It was Jared's time to snort now. “I'm not sure if that's deep or just cheesy.” His mouth snapped shut immediately when he realised what he’d just said, but Jensen only chuckled.
“Probably both.” He winked at Jared before going back to preparing their dinner. It didn't take long before they both had plates with food in hand and were sitting cross-legged around the fire, chewing silently. Jared's eyes flickered upwards regularly to look at Jensen's face. When Jared had first seen him, he'd thought the delicacy of Jensen's features would be a sign of weakness. He couldn't have been more wrong. This was probably the best looking man Jared had ever seen... and he was his only friend.
A small smile crept onto Jared's face, and, if Jensen noticed, he didn't seem to think anything of it.
- -
“Have you always been such a quiet guy?” There was the shuffle of boots on leaves followed by movement on Jared's right side as Jensen dropped to the ground next to him. He sat close enough for their shoulders to touch, and Jared didn't pull away. The fire was burning low by then, and the sun had sunk beneath the horizon. The warmth of Jensen sitting so close was a welcome addition to the heat of the fire warming his knees.
Jared smiled considering the question. “No. I used to annoy the crap out of my mother by talking all the time.”
It seemed so far away now, almost like a different life. Jared had learned to be quiet pretty quickly, once it was just him and his father. Now, it was almost a struggle to remember how to be chatty any more.
“Where is she?”
“She left a few years ago... took my siblings with her.”
He knew that Jensen was frowning, even though he didn't look at the man, instead watching the flames dance low over glowing ambers. It was odd to know these kinds of things about somebody he’d only met such a short while ago. Still, he'd probably spent more time with Jensen in the last weeks than he had with anybody over the last years.
“She didn't take you with her?”
“No. I wanted her to but... no.” He didn't mention his theory that it was due to his resemblance to his father. He couldn't admit to such a thing. He knew what Jensen thought of his dad, and he didn't want that seed to be planted in the man's mind. He probably didn't give Jensen enough credit though.
“That sucks.”
Jared nodded quietly before turning his head to see that Jensen, indeed, was frowning. “Do you have siblings?”
“No.” The orange and red light of the fire danced over Jensen's features and made dark shadows fall across the sharp edges of his jaw. “I guess that made it easier for me to leave when I did.”
He was probably right about that. Jared found his mind going down a dangerous road that he hadn't allowed himself to explore for a long time. “I wonder what they look like now.”
“What are their names?”
“Sophia and Melanie... they're twins,” Jared answered trying to remember the girl's faces the way they had been six years before. “I haven’t seen them since they were four. They wouldn't even recognize me anymore.”
He sniffed, rubbing his eyes to hide the wetness collecting there. It wouldn't be a good idea to cry, not even in front of Jensen. But obviously he'd betrayed himself anyway, because there was an arm around his shoulder providing gentle pressure.
“Maybe you'll meet them again when you're an adult.”
Jared looked at Jensen sitting so close. Their faces were only a few inches apart from one another like that. “How?” he asked feeling his mouth go dry. The play of light and shadow on Jensen's face was mesmerizing.
“Good things happen sometimes, Jared.”
He wanted to believe that. He wanted to believe so badly. There was a desperation inside of him that was almost painful, and Jensen was the only thing he could hold on to that moment.
Before he could think about it he leaned forward. It was his first kiss, the first time he'd ever acted on the knowledge he'd been hiding from everybody, sometimes even himself, for what felt like eternity. Jensen's lips were soft and warm, and Jared wanted it to never end.
But it did, quicker than he'd wanted to believe, or maybe time just flew by, and it was indeed a lot longer than he thought. In any case it wasn't Jared breaking the kiss. Two hands on his shoulders pushed him away, and it felt like a slap. For a second Jared was frozen in surprise... then he was petrified with fear.
Jensen's head was turned away, but Jared expected the man's face to be a grimace of anger. “Oh my god,” he heard himself whisper as the understanding of what he'd just done came over him. He scrambled to get to his feet, needing to get as far away as he could.
Like a snake striking out from high grass, Jensen's hand snapped out and grabbed Jared's wrist in a vice like grip, trying to pull the teen back down, but Jared planted his feet in a fight to pull away. It hurt, but it was nothing against what would happen if he failed.
Strong enough to keep his hold on Jared, Jensen got to his feet swiftly. It brought back the memories of how easily Jensen had knocked Jared's father out.
“Stop it, Jared!” The words were quiet, but they cracked like a whip in Jared's ears.
“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! I don't know what I was thinking. I'm.. I...” He didn't know what to say, didn't have any way of explaining this idiocy away, so he was stammering helplessly, until Jensen grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a sharp shake.
“Stop!”
He did. Within a second, Jared froze like a deer in the headlights of Jensen's rage. Only when he looked at the man's face, there was no rage there. Jensen looked... sad.
“I'm not going to hurt you, Jared. I'm not angry.”
This didn't make sense. Jared knew firsthand what the Brothers thought about these kinds of things. Jensen should be livid. It was perplexing to say the least, so Jared just blinked silently.
Jensen huffed out a loud sigh, his fingers easing up a little on Jared's hurting wrist. “I'm not angry. But I need you to understand what you just did. This cannot happen, Jay. If anybody in the Brotherhood would know about this, about you, they'd hurt you. Maybe they would kill you.”
Swallowing Jared nodded. He knew that. On an intellectual level, he'd always known. Still he had done it. A cold shudder ran down his spine as he imagined his father's reaction. He looked to the ground feeling ashamed and afraid.
“I won't tell them, Jared.” Jensen let go of his aching wrist to take his chin into a similarly tight grip forcing Jared to look up at him. “But never do this again, not while you're living in this community.”
Jared wanted to note that there was no way for him to not live there. His father wouldn't let him go. Although he always dreamed of running away once he turned eighteen. Maybe he would. It was only a few more months until his birthday. Maybe he would.
“Do you understand, Jared? If you fuck this up, it might not be just your ass on the line.”
Jared nodded obediently and was rewarded by Jensen letting him go. He couldn't look at the older man anymore, and his eyes dropped to the ground once more, followed by his body as the fear and tension weighed him down.
Of course Jensen was right. If anybody had seen them Jensen could be in trouble as well. Maybe that was the only reason Jensen didn't tell. He'd really fucked up.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered once more.
“Go to sleep, Jay. Tomorrow morning we'll have forgotten about all of this.”
- -
True to his words Jensen was acting like nothing had happened by the time the sun came back up the next morning. Jared wasn't that good at concealing his nervousness and fear, but he did his best. The best way to do so was to concentrate on the hunting lessons.
Jared's hands trembled a little as he looked along the barrel of the rifle. His heart was thumping to his ears.
“Breathe calmly,” a voice whispered next to him. “Take aim... and pull the trigger.”
He did all those things as instructed and still jumped at the loud banging of the shot as it unloaded from the barrel with deafening volume. He should have been prepared for it from the many training shots he'd fired, but somehow he wasn't. He was so surprised by it that he thought he pulled the shot god-knew-where.
“Yes!” Jensen's hand clapped onto his shoulder before he hastened past him. He blinked.
“I... I hit it?”
He hurried after Jensen and almost landed face down on the forest floor as he tripped over a root. By the time he caught Jensen he could see the deer on the ground. There was blood smearing its flank where Jared must have hit it. But the killing blow had been a cut throat from Jensen's knife.
“That was a great shot, Jay.”
Jared stared at the dead animal for a while and had to swallow down the bad taste of bile rising at the back of his throat.
“You look a little green there, kiddo. Do you want me to do the carving?” Jensen asked with furrowed brows.
“Y-Yeah.”
Nodding Jensen turned his knife towards the deer's body and Jared quickly turned away. When he'd pulled the trigger, he didn't think he'd hit. He had never killed anything before.
- -
“Are you okay?”
Jared looked over his shoulder to find Jensen there with his sleeves rolled up. He must have washed his hands somehow because his arms were clean, not blood smeared as Jared had expected them to be.
“I... yeah. First time I ever killed anything.”
Jensen just nodded. “It's easier with beer cans.”
It really was, and Jared was grateful that Jensen didn't give him any spiel about being a real man.
“Let's head back, okay? Wouldn't want to waste the good meat,” Jensen simply said, and Jared agreed quickly.
- -
By the time they trudged out of the woods Jared was almost shaking from nerves. He knew that Jensen said he wouldn't tell anyone. But there was still the fear that maybe he'd been lying. Part of Jared didn't believe that, wanted to have somebody on his side for once. But Jensen wasn't really on his side, was he? He was one of the Brothers.
Yet, when Conner, a man in his thirties with already receding hair and a face that didn't make him look a hair more intelligent that he was came over to inspect their prey, Jensen didn't let on any of the things that had happened. Instead he praised Jared's aim that had brought down the deer.
“Nice one. Didn't think you'd have it in you, kid.”
Conner clapped Jared on the shoulder, making the teen highly uncomfortable. He wasn't used to positive feedback from any of the men in the community, so he just nodded at Conner with a vague smile until the man finally walked away again.
“Let's get this thing inside and cut up. There's a freezer waiting for it.”
Jared looked east where he could see his father's cabin standing quite a bit down the road. His stomach was queasy.
“If you want to go back, I'll let you. You're an adult in my book, Jared. But I won't kick you off the couch if you want to stay a little longer.”
Jensen had offered to let him stay before they left for the hunting trip. But Jared was surprised the offer still stood after... everything. He looked at the man, eyes searching for a sign that Jensen was gunning for him. He didn't find anything.
“Really? I didn't think you'd still want me there.”
“You thought wrong.” Shouldering the tied up deer, Jensen started walking towards his cabin that lay on the opposite side of the road from Jared's old home. “You coming?”
He was torn for a moment between the evil he knew, and the uncertainty that was going with Jensen. Then he turned and followed the young man without looking back.
- -
Jensen had removed the majority of the deer's guts before they had started their trek back, but he still had to skin the dead animal and carve it into reasonable sized pieces. Jared was tasked with wrapping the chunks of meat he was given and writing the current date and the type of meat onto the packages before putting them in the freezer.
It took the better part of an hour, and they worked silently. In the beginning Jared wished he'd have rubber gloves or something, but after a while he got used to the sticky feeling on his hands and the metallic smell of cold blood. It only turned his stomach twice, and he managed not to throw up.
“Done,” Jensen said as he put down the knife and handed Jared the last piece. There was little left but a head, some bone and some squishy innards that Jared really didn't think anybody would ever want to eat. His taste for meat had been reduced significantly over the past day.
Jared finished packaging the last piece of deer before he went to wash his hands with more soap than he ever used before, while Jensen dealt with the left over carcass.
There was the loud rapping sound of someone knocking, and Jared quickly dried his hands before turning around the corner to see who it was. Part of him was afraid that his father had heard about his return and was still sober enough to come here. He was disappointed in that respect when he could see Clay standing in the room.
“... going forward with that plan.”
Jensen nodded as he wiped his still bloody hands against his already dirty jeans. These would have to soak before washing.
“Jay, can you go outside and chop some wood? I need to talk to Clay for a moment.”
Suddenly noticing that he was interrupting what was probably a discussion of illegal Brotherhood business, Jared nodded enthusiastically before hurrying from the room.
“I thought you were gonna make him a man already,” Clay grunted with narrowed eyes as he watched Jared go. The possible double meaning of the words made Jared shudder.
“He still got a lot to learn... Besides, if not for a lucky break and some good timing, I'd be facing the walls of a prison cell for the better part of the next couple of decades. So excuse me for being careful.”
The door fell closed behind Jared, and he walked towards the chopping block that was set up in the back yard. He started humming under his breath to turn out even the possibility of overhearing the conversation inside the cabin as he began grabbing large pieces of wood and placed them one after the other on the block before cutting them down to usable size with the sharp blade of the axe Jensen had left stuck in the wood of the sawed-off tree that made up the cutting block.
The steady chop of wood splitting at the impact of the axe's heavy steel head was a slow staccato underneath his hummed song, interrupting its flow whenever he wouldn't hit the wood just right, and it refused to split perfectly. Sometimes the axehead would get stuck in a chunk of wood, and Jared sighed, wrangling the wood-leaden axe to smash it onto the block once more.
He soon started to work up a sweat, but he kept chopping well past the point of having enough firewood for one fire. He figured that as long as Jensen and Clay could hear him swinging the axe outside, they knew that he wasn't trying to eavesdrop. If they thought he'd overheard things the best case scenario would be that he might be included in any plans. Jared wasn't really a fan of that idea, although he liked the worst case scenarios running through his head even less.
Bending down Jared picked up the latest fruits of his work and tossed them into the wheelbarrow he used to store the chopped wood. There was the sound of hinges in need of oiling, and Jared looked up to see Clay exiting the house with only a glance spared in his direction. Breathing out a relieved sigh, Jared straightened again while running his sleeve over his forehead to mop up some of the sweat he'd built up during his workout.
“That wood's gonna last for the rest of the week.”
Jared gave Jensen a sheepish smile over his wheelbarrow full of firewood. Looking at the amount of it, he really had been motivated.
- -
Dinner in the community hall was an awkward thing. Half of the men were scowling at him, and most of the others ignored him as usual. But there were some who seemed to think that shooting something had somehow redeemed him in their eyes, and they tried to strike up conversation. Jared wasn't good with conversation, especially not with people who had been terrible to him for years. By the time they left, Jared was sighing with relief as he ducked away, intent on not even noticing his father so he wouldn't have to see the fury on the man's face.
“I'm gonna go to town tomorrow,” Jensen noted as they walked back towards his cabin. Jared nodded in acknowledgement.
“Do you want me to tag along?” He remembered the one time Jensen had made him tag along and wait in the car. Jared wasn't very enthusiastic at the thought of turning accomplice to anything the Brothers did. But he would appreciate the chance of seeing civilization again.
“Not necessarily. But you can drop me off and then go roam around town for a bit if you want... just don't forget to pick me up again later.”
He watched as Jensen bounded up the three steps to the porch in one long step, hands buried deep in his jeans pockets. Jensen had good balance. Jared felt lanky and uncoordinated most of the time - he was still growing even though he already had at least two inches on Jensen - and could only envy that.
For a moment he considered Jensen's proposal as he followed him into the cabin. Jared usually wasn't allowed to go around town by himself. Oftentimes this camp felt a lot like a prison to him and the thought of getting to have a few hours to himself out in the real world was enticing.
“Sure. Sounds good.”
- -
It was somewhat unfair in Jared's eyes to be judged by association. But he could understand. The people in town didn't know him. All they knew was that he was one of them, the scary militia people who lived in a camp in the woods, who had hillbilly trucks and more rifles than any person could need and thought that this was their country and all the colored people, the liberals, the Jews and the gays were their enemy.
Jared understood. That didn't mean that it didn't sting when the young African-American cashier at the 7-Eleven didn't look him in the eye and handed him the change like he were a leper she wouldn't want to touch. Jared smiled at her trying to look non-threatening and left quickly. He ignored the looks and decided to enjoy his day out.
It was easy to waste away a few hours just by walking around and seeing all the places in town he'd never really been to, or if he had been then without the chance to really take a good look at things. He felt almost like a tourist, and by the time he was almost due to pick up Jensen again, he was grinning ear to ear.
That grin froze when he saw the sheriff standing by their truck. Jared swallowed and tried not to look intimidated as he walked up to the man.
“Sheriff,” he greeted him with a nod trying to not give the man any reason to think he was up to something.
“It's Jared, right?”
Jared nodded and buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans so he wouldn’t fidget and give away his unease.
The sheriff was probably a little younger than Jared's dad but not as tall. He wore a short beard of browns and grays and a pair of old-school sunglasses on top of his beige and brown uniform.
“What happened to your face, son?”
Jared's eyes probably went wide with surprise and his mouth opened and closed for a moment as he realized that the bruises and scrapes from the altercation with his father would stand out like sores in this town. It had been a few days, and the red and blue had turned into greens and yellows, but the remnants of his black eye and split lip were still obvious, in contrast to the rest of his skin.
“I- nothing, sir.”
The older man pulled his sunglasses off to look at Jared with raised eyebrows that showed unmistakably that he thought Jared was lying. “You've been hanging around that new guy, right? Did he do that?”
The mere indication of Jensen attacking him made Jared snort. “No.”
“Then who? Clay? Your father?”
Jared must have tensed at the mention of his father, and he only noticed it when he could feel his teeth aching from the way his jaw was clenching incredibly hard. The sheriff nodded with a frown, obviously seeing Jared's body betraying him.
“I could help you, you know?” The man said in a low volume as if he were afraid to be overheard. “You're not even eighteen yet, Jared. If they hurt you, I can get you out of there.”
For a second Jared was surprised that the sheriff seemed to be so well informed about him. He hadn’t thought the man would be interested in some kid enough to know his first name, not to mention his age. It made Jared feel uneasy, wondering what the sheriff's agenda was, and what he might want in exchange for helping Jared. He'd probably ask Jared to give away incriminating information on the Brotherhood. If they found out he'd been even just talking to the man, Jared could get in big trouble.
It took a lot of restraint to let go of the idea of getting help from this man. “I don't know what you're talking about... I have to pick up my friend now.”
He quickly stepped around the sheriff to get into the truck.
“If you change your mind, you'll know where to find me.”
Jared nodded as he put the vehicle in reverse and pulled out of the lot.
NEXT CHAPTER >>
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: NC-17
Words: 5,067
Beta: candygramme
Disclaimer: There is absolutely no truth to this and I am not earning a penny.
Warnings: violence, adult, language, political themes, homophobia
Summary: At seventeen and growing up in a white supremacist camp, Jared's life is going nowhere fast. He doesn't feel like he belongs, but sees no way out - until the arrival of a new member shakes things up in the paramilitary group. Jared doesn't know whether he should be intrigued or afraid of Jensen Ackles, but when he gets caught in the power play around him coming to a head, he's left with little choice in the matter.
ART POST . STORY MASTERPOST
<< PREVIOUS CHAPTER
Part Four
The Sheriff's office was empty but for JD sitting in his comfortable old desk chair. The desk was full of open folders and pictures, cases that he had compiled over the years that all tied back to the Brotherhood. Some of them had been solved, but most remained open due to a lack of evidence, or - more often than not - due to missing witness cooperation. People were afraid, and Jeffrey couldn't blame them.
Next to them sat a stack of folders containing the known members of the organization. He had made notes on yellow post-its on them whenever he suspected any of those men to have participated in criminal activity. Most of these folders had at least some yellow sticking out of them, some were full of them even. He grabbed a plain one lying on top of the stack and flipped it open: Jared Tristan Padalecki, aged 17.
JD didn't know much about this kid. The boy hardly ever came into town, and when he did it was on the heels of his father, Jake, who had quite a few post-its on his own file. Jake was not a nice man. He'd only joined the militia a little over three years ago, but his record dated back before that. He was noisy and most of the time drunk when JD came across him, but so far his son hadn't seemed to take after him. Jared wasn't loud or cocky. To date, he had been a blank page in Jeff's mural of the Brotherhood of Faithful Americans, and JD had wanted to give the boy the benefit of the doubt... until he turned up as Jensen Ackles' wingman.
Frowning at the dated picture of Jared's old school records he wondered if he had been wrong about the kid.
The phone rang and Jeff jumped in his seat before picking up the receiver with a sigh and a glance at the clock. This was his office line, not the emergency call line to the operator who would radio the night shift if need be. It was late for office calls.
“Morgan.”
“Sheriff Morgan, this is FBI special agent Smith. I got the message you left with the bureau... I didn't think I'd still catch you this late.”
“Well you did, agent. Thanks for getting back to me,” JD answered, trying to figure out the age of the woman on the other end of the line.
“You said that this was remotely connected to the Texan separatist case?” She didn't seem hung up on niceties, and Jeff was fine with that. It was late after all.
“It is. There's a white nationalist group in my jurisdiction called the Brotherhood of Faithful Americans. They've been a problem for a while now, but until now I had been hoping that they weren't organizing in a terrorist fashion.”
The woman sighed humming in understanding. “We always hope. But if you give them enough time alone with their crazy, they will snap one day or another.” There was a bitterness in her voice that suddenly made JD's guess on her age jump up by ten years.
“Believe me, if I could have put them all away, I would have done so a long time ago. But the reason I called was that I have a new face down here, someone who was involved with your players.” Pulling Ackles' file in front of him, he flipped it open looking at the mugshot of a young man with short hair and handsome features.
“Oh? What's the name, Sheriff?”
“Jensen Ackles.”
There was silence for a few long seconds before Smith spoke again. “Yes, he was a person of interest in this case.”
“You wouldn't happen to have some warrant on him unfiled yet, so I can bag him up and FedEx him to you, agent Smith?”
The woman chuckled. “Sadly no. We hoped to grab him in the live bust, but he left a week earlier to go to New Mexico. There was speculation that he was trying to buy guns or explosives, but he seemed to be clever enough to call off any crooked business when his friends got into the orange jumpers. We tried to connect him to our case but there was no evidence that he had any active knowledge of the guns or the bomb plans.”
JD glared at the file in front of him making notes. “But there have been bomb charges before.”
“Yes. But they had to be dropped because of a mess-up in the chain of evidence.” She said it in an almost mechanical way as if she had repeated the expression far too often. “Without the evidence there was no way of pinning anything like that to him, and there was no real bomb at that stage, just the intent.”
“Do you think he'd be able to build one if he wanted to?” Jeff's fingers drummed against the table steadily becoming faster.
“Definitely. It was part of his military training.”
“Well, my day is getting better by the minute.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Sheriff?” Agent Smith seemed quite eager to finish up the call, and a glance at the time made JD agree with her. So he thanked her for her help before hanging up.
Glaring one last time at Jensen Ackles' picture, Jeff started tidying up his desk.
- -
Jared looked at the fire they had built. The day was over quicker than he thought it would be. Usually field trips of any kind would drag on for an incredibly torturous amount of time. They hadn't done anything unusual though. Between gun training and trudging through the woods looking for something to shoot at, Jared had somehow lost track of time.
The activities themselves did not warrant such a reaction from him, so there was only one explanation why he would enjoy this enough to have time fly by: Jensen.
He watched as Jensen built a fire and lit it in about half the time it would take Jared, while the sun started to sink behind the horizon. They hadn't killed anything today, but Jensen was humming calmly as he got out some rations from their packs.
“Sorry I'm so slow at learning, Jensen... we didn't shoot anything today.”
The man snorted out a laugh while opening a can. “I didn't plan on shooting anything today, Jay. This is supposed to be a learning experience. We'll take our time.”
“Why?” He didn't want to question Jensen all the time. But his insecurity came out loud and clear.
“Because time is a good thing and essential to the evolution of beings.”
It was Jared's time to snort now. “I'm not sure if that's deep or just cheesy.” His mouth snapped shut immediately when he realised what he’d just said, but Jensen only chuckled.
“Probably both.” He winked at Jared before going back to preparing their dinner. It didn't take long before they both had plates with food in hand and were sitting cross-legged around the fire, chewing silently. Jared's eyes flickered upwards regularly to look at Jensen's face. When Jared had first seen him, he'd thought the delicacy of Jensen's features would be a sign of weakness. He couldn't have been more wrong. This was probably the best looking man Jared had ever seen... and he was his only friend.
A small smile crept onto Jared's face, and, if Jensen noticed, he didn't seem to think anything of it.
- -
“Have you always been such a quiet guy?” There was the shuffle of boots on leaves followed by movement on Jared's right side as Jensen dropped to the ground next to him. He sat close enough for their shoulders to touch, and Jared didn't pull away. The fire was burning low by then, and the sun had sunk beneath the horizon. The warmth of Jensen sitting so close was a welcome addition to the heat of the fire warming his knees.
Jared smiled considering the question. “No. I used to annoy the crap out of my mother by talking all the time.”
It seemed so far away now, almost like a different life. Jared had learned to be quiet pretty quickly, once it was just him and his father. Now, it was almost a struggle to remember how to be chatty any more.
“Where is she?”
“She left a few years ago... took my siblings with her.”
He knew that Jensen was frowning, even though he didn't look at the man, instead watching the flames dance low over glowing ambers. It was odd to know these kinds of things about somebody he’d only met such a short while ago. Still, he'd probably spent more time with Jensen in the last weeks than he had with anybody over the last years.
“She didn't take you with her?”
“No. I wanted her to but... no.” He didn't mention his theory that it was due to his resemblance to his father. He couldn't admit to such a thing. He knew what Jensen thought of his dad, and he didn't want that seed to be planted in the man's mind. He probably didn't give Jensen enough credit though.
“That sucks.”
Jared nodded quietly before turning his head to see that Jensen, indeed, was frowning. “Do you have siblings?”
“No.” The orange and red light of the fire danced over Jensen's features and made dark shadows fall across the sharp edges of his jaw. “I guess that made it easier for me to leave when I did.”
He was probably right about that. Jared found his mind going down a dangerous road that he hadn't allowed himself to explore for a long time. “I wonder what they look like now.”
“What are their names?”
“Sophia and Melanie... they're twins,” Jared answered trying to remember the girl's faces the way they had been six years before. “I haven’t seen them since they were four. They wouldn't even recognize me anymore.”
He sniffed, rubbing his eyes to hide the wetness collecting there. It wouldn't be a good idea to cry, not even in front of Jensen. But obviously he'd betrayed himself anyway, because there was an arm around his shoulder providing gentle pressure.
“Maybe you'll meet them again when you're an adult.”
Jared looked at Jensen sitting so close. Their faces were only a few inches apart from one another like that. “How?” he asked feeling his mouth go dry. The play of light and shadow on Jensen's face was mesmerizing.
“Good things happen sometimes, Jared.”
He wanted to believe that. He wanted to believe so badly. There was a desperation inside of him that was almost painful, and Jensen was the only thing he could hold on to that moment.
Before he could think about it he leaned forward. It was his first kiss, the first time he'd ever acted on the knowledge he'd been hiding from everybody, sometimes even himself, for what felt like eternity. Jensen's lips were soft and warm, and Jared wanted it to never end.
But it did, quicker than he'd wanted to believe, or maybe time just flew by, and it was indeed a lot longer than he thought. In any case it wasn't Jared breaking the kiss. Two hands on his shoulders pushed him away, and it felt like a slap. For a second Jared was frozen in surprise... then he was petrified with fear.
Jensen's head was turned away, but Jared expected the man's face to be a grimace of anger. “Oh my god,” he heard himself whisper as the understanding of what he'd just done came over him. He scrambled to get to his feet, needing to get as far away as he could.
Like a snake striking out from high grass, Jensen's hand snapped out and grabbed Jared's wrist in a vice like grip, trying to pull the teen back down, but Jared planted his feet in a fight to pull away. It hurt, but it was nothing against what would happen if he failed.
Strong enough to keep his hold on Jared, Jensen got to his feet swiftly. It brought back the memories of how easily Jensen had knocked Jared's father out.
“Stop it, Jared!” The words were quiet, but they cracked like a whip in Jared's ears.
“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! I don't know what I was thinking. I'm.. I...” He didn't know what to say, didn't have any way of explaining this idiocy away, so he was stammering helplessly, until Jensen grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a sharp shake.
“Stop!”
He did. Within a second, Jared froze like a deer in the headlights of Jensen's rage. Only when he looked at the man's face, there was no rage there. Jensen looked... sad.
“I'm not going to hurt you, Jared. I'm not angry.”
This didn't make sense. Jared knew firsthand what the Brothers thought about these kinds of things. Jensen should be livid. It was perplexing to say the least, so Jared just blinked silently.
Jensen huffed out a loud sigh, his fingers easing up a little on Jared's hurting wrist. “I'm not angry. But I need you to understand what you just did. This cannot happen, Jay. If anybody in the Brotherhood would know about this, about you, they'd hurt you. Maybe they would kill you.”
Swallowing Jared nodded. He knew that. On an intellectual level, he'd always known. Still he had done it. A cold shudder ran down his spine as he imagined his father's reaction. He looked to the ground feeling ashamed and afraid.
“I won't tell them, Jared.” Jensen let go of his aching wrist to take his chin into a similarly tight grip forcing Jared to look up at him. “But never do this again, not while you're living in this community.”
Jared wanted to note that there was no way for him to not live there. His father wouldn't let him go. Although he always dreamed of running away once he turned eighteen. Maybe he would. It was only a few more months until his birthday. Maybe he would.
“Do you understand, Jared? If you fuck this up, it might not be just your ass on the line.”
Jared nodded obediently and was rewarded by Jensen letting him go. He couldn't look at the older man anymore, and his eyes dropped to the ground once more, followed by his body as the fear and tension weighed him down.
Of course Jensen was right. If anybody had seen them Jensen could be in trouble as well. Maybe that was the only reason Jensen didn't tell. He'd really fucked up.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered once more.
“Go to sleep, Jay. Tomorrow morning we'll have forgotten about all of this.”
- -
True to his words Jensen was acting like nothing had happened by the time the sun came back up the next morning. Jared wasn't that good at concealing his nervousness and fear, but he did his best. The best way to do so was to concentrate on the hunting lessons.
Jared's hands trembled a little as he looked along the barrel of the rifle. His heart was thumping to his ears.
“Breathe calmly,” a voice whispered next to him. “Take aim... and pull the trigger.”
He did all those things as instructed and still jumped at the loud banging of the shot as it unloaded from the barrel with deafening volume. He should have been prepared for it from the many training shots he'd fired, but somehow he wasn't. He was so surprised by it that he thought he pulled the shot god-knew-where.
“Yes!” Jensen's hand clapped onto his shoulder before he hastened past him. He blinked.
“I... I hit it?”
He hurried after Jensen and almost landed face down on the forest floor as he tripped over a root. By the time he caught Jensen he could see the deer on the ground. There was blood smearing its flank where Jared must have hit it. But the killing blow had been a cut throat from Jensen's knife.
“That was a great shot, Jay.”
Jared stared at the dead animal for a while and had to swallow down the bad taste of bile rising at the back of his throat.
“You look a little green there, kiddo. Do you want me to do the carving?” Jensen asked with furrowed brows.
“Y-Yeah.”
Nodding Jensen turned his knife towards the deer's body and Jared quickly turned away. When he'd pulled the trigger, he didn't think he'd hit. He had never killed anything before.
- -
“Are you okay?”
Jared looked over his shoulder to find Jensen there with his sleeves rolled up. He must have washed his hands somehow because his arms were clean, not blood smeared as Jared had expected them to be.
“I... yeah. First time I ever killed anything.”
Jensen just nodded. “It's easier with beer cans.”
It really was, and Jared was grateful that Jensen didn't give him any spiel about being a real man.
“Let's head back, okay? Wouldn't want to waste the good meat,” Jensen simply said, and Jared agreed quickly.
- -
By the time they trudged out of the woods Jared was almost shaking from nerves. He knew that Jensen said he wouldn't tell anyone. But there was still the fear that maybe he'd been lying. Part of Jared didn't believe that, wanted to have somebody on his side for once. But Jensen wasn't really on his side, was he? He was one of the Brothers.
Yet, when Conner, a man in his thirties with already receding hair and a face that didn't make him look a hair more intelligent that he was came over to inspect their prey, Jensen didn't let on any of the things that had happened. Instead he praised Jared's aim that had brought down the deer.
“Nice one. Didn't think you'd have it in you, kid.”
Conner clapped Jared on the shoulder, making the teen highly uncomfortable. He wasn't used to positive feedback from any of the men in the community, so he just nodded at Conner with a vague smile until the man finally walked away again.
“Let's get this thing inside and cut up. There's a freezer waiting for it.”
Jared looked east where he could see his father's cabin standing quite a bit down the road. His stomach was queasy.
“If you want to go back, I'll let you. You're an adult in my book, Jared. But I won't kick you off the couch if you want to stay a little longer.”
Jensen had offered to let him stay before they left for the hunting trip. But Jared was surprised the offer still stood after... everything. He looked at the man, eyes searching for a sign that Jensen was gunning for him. He didn't find anything.
“Really? I didn't think you'd still want me there.”
“You thought wrong.” Shouldering the tied up deer, Jensen started walking towards his cabin that lay on the opposite side of the road from Jared's old home. “You coming?”
He was torn for a moment between the evil he knew, and the uncertainty that was going with Jensen. Then he turned and followed the young man without looking back.
- -
Jensen had removed the majority of the deer's guts before they had started their trek back, but he still had to skin the dead animal and carve it into reasonable sized pieces. Jared was tasked with wrapping the chunks of meat he was given and writing the current date and the type of meat onto the packages before putting them in the freezer.
It took the better part of an hour, and they worked silently. In the beginning Jared wished he'd have rubber gloves or something, but after a while he got used to the sticky feeling on his hands and the metallic smell of cold blood. It only turned his stomach twice, and he managed not to throw up.
“Done,” Jensen said as he put down the knife and handed Jared the last piece. There was little left but a head, some bone and some squishy innards that Jared really didn't think anybody would ever want to eat. His taste for meat had been reduced significantly over the past day.
Jared finished packaging the last piece of deer before he went to wash his hands with more soap than he ever used before, while Jensen dealt with the left over carcass.
There was the loud rapping sound of someone knocking, and Jared quickly dried his hands before turning around the corner to see who it was. Part of him was afraid that his father had heard about his return and was still sober enough to come here. He was disappointed in that respect when he could see Clay standing in the room.
“... going forward with that plan.”
Jensen nodded as he wiped his still bloody hands against his already dirty jeans. These would have to soak before washing.
“Jay, can you go outside and chop some wood? I need to talk to Clay for a moment.”
Suddenly noticing that he was interrupting what was probably a discussion of illegal Brotherhood business, Jared nodded enthusiastically before hurrying from the room.
“I thought you were gonna make him a man already,” Clay grunted with narrowed eyes as he watched Jared go. The possible double meaning of the words made Jared shudder.
“He still got a lot to learn... Besides, if not for a lucky break and some good timing, I'd be facing the walls of a prison cell for the better part of the next couple of decades. So excuse me for being careful.”
The door fell closed behind Jared, and he walked towards the chopping block that was set up in the back yard. He started humming under his breath to turn out even the possibility of overhearing the conversation inside the cabin as he began grabbing large pieces of wood and placed them one after the other on the block before cutting them down to usable size with the sharp blade of the axe Jensen had left stuck in the wood of the sawed-off tree that made up the cutting block.
The steady chop of wood splitting at the impact of the axe's heavy steel head was a slow staccato underneath his hummed song, interrupting its flow whenever he wouldn't hit the wood just right, and it refused to split perfectly. Sometimes the axehead would get stuck in a chunk of wood, and Jared sighed, wrangling the wood-leaden axe to smash it onto the block once more.
He soon started to work up a sweat, but he kept chopping well past the point of having enough firewood for one fire. He figured that as long as Jensen and Clay could hear him swinging the axe outside, they knew that he wasn't trying to eavesdrop. If they thought he'd overheard things the best case scenario would be that he might be included in any plans. Jared wasn't really a fan of that idea, although he liked the worst case scenarios running through his head even less.
Bending down Jared picked up the latest fruits of his work and tossed them into the wheelbarrow he used to store the chopped wood. There was the sound of hinges in need of oiling, and Jared looked up to see Clay exiting the house with only a glance spared in his direction. Breathing out a relieved sigh, Jared straightened again while running his sleeve over his forehead to mop up some of the sweat he'd built up during his workout.
“That wood's gonna last for the rest of the week.”
Jared gave Jensen a sheepish smile over his wheelbarrow full of firewood. Looking at the amount of it, he really had been motivated.
- -
Dinner in the community hall was an awkward thing. Half of the men were scowling at him, and most of the others ignored him as usual. But there were some who seemed to think that shooting something had somehow redeemed him in their eyes, and they tried to strike up conversation. Jared wasn't good with conversation, especially not with people who had been terrible to him for years. By the time they left, Jared was sighing with relief as he ducked away, intent on not even noticing his father so he wouldn't have to see the fury on the man's face.
“I'm gonna go to town tomorrow,” Jensen noted as they walked back towards his cabin. Jared nodded in acknowledgement.
“Do you want me to tag along?” He remembered the one time Jensen had made him tag along and wait in the car. Jared wasn't very enthusiastic at the thought of turning accomplice to anything the Brothers did. But he would appreciate the chance of seeing civilization again.
“Not necessarily. But you can drop me off and then go roam around town for a bit if you want... just don't forget to pick me up again later.”
He watched as Jensen bounded up the three steps to the porch in one long step, hands buried deep in his jeans pockets. Jensen had good balance. Jared felt lanky and uncoordinated most of the time - he was still growing even though he already had at least two inches on Jensen - and could only envy that.
For a moment he considered Jensen's proposal as he followed him into the cabin. Jared usually wasn't allowed to go around town by himself. Oftentimes this camp felt a lot like a prison to him and the thought of getting to have a few hours to himself out in the real world was enticing.
“Sure. Sounds good.”
- -
It was somewhat unfair in Jared's eyes to be judged by association. But he could understand. The people in town didn't know him. All they knew was that he was one of them, the scary militia people who lived in a camp in the woods, who had hillbilly trucks and more rifles than any person could need and thought that this was their country and all the colored people, the liberals, the Jews and the gays were their enemy.
Jared understood. That didn't mean that it didn't sting when the young African-American cashier at the 7-Eleven didn't look him in the eye and handed him the change like he were a leper she wouldn't want to touch. Jared smiled at her trying to look non-threatening and left quickly. He ignored the looks and decided to enjoy his day out.
It was easy to waste away a few hours just by walking around and seeing all the places in town he'd never really been to, or if he had been then without the chance to really take a good look at things. He felt almost like a tourist, and by the time he was almost due to pick up Jensen again, he was grinning ear to ear.
That grin froze when he saw the sheriff standing by their truck. Jared swallowed and tried not to look intimidated as he walked up to the man.
“Sheriff,” he greeted him with a nod trying to not give the man any reason to think he was up to something.
“It's Jared, right?”
Jared nodded and buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans so he wouldn’t fidget and give away his unease.
The sheriff was probably a little younger than Jared's dad but not as tall. He wore a short beard of browns and grays and a pair of old-school sunglasses on top of his beige and brown uniform.
“What happened to your face, son?”
Jared's eyes probably went wide with surprise and his mouth opened and closed for a moment as he realized that the bruises and scrapes from the altercation with his father would stand out like sores in this town. It had been a few days, and the red and blue had turned into greens and yellows, but the remnants of his black eye and split lip were still obvious, in contrast to the rest of his skin.
“I- nothing, sir.”
The older man pulled his sunglasses off to look at Jared with raised eyebrows that showed unmistakably that he thought Jared was lying. “You've been hanging around that new guy, right? Did he do that?”
The mere indication of Jensen attacking him made Jared snort. “No.”
“Then who? Clay? Your father?”
Jared must have tensed at the mention of his father, and he only noticed it when he could feel his teeth aching from the way his jaw was clenching incredibly hard. The sheriff nodded with a frown, obviously seeing Jared's body betraying him.
“I could help you, you know?” The man said in a low volume as if he were afraid to be overheard. “You're not even eighteen yet, Jared. If they hurt you, I can get you out of there.”
For a second Jared was surprised that the sheriff seemed to be so well informed about him. He hadn’t thought the man would be interested in some kid enough to know his first name, not to mention his age. It made Jared feel uneasy, wondering what the sheriff's agenda was, and what he might want in exchange for helping Jared. He'd probably ask Jared to give away incriminating information on the Brotherhood. If they found out he'd been even just talking to the man, Jared could get in big trouble.
It took a lot of restraint to let go of the idea of getting help from this man. “I don't know what you're talking about... I have to pick up my friend now.”
He quickly stepped around the sheriff to get into the truck.
“If you change your mind, you'll know where to find me.”
Jared nodded as he put the vehicle in reverse and pulled out of the lot.
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