We Were Here (Part II cont') [5/8]
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Sonya worked from home most days of the week. Apparently being an editor/columnist allowed for that. It became apparent early on that she scheduled the days she had to go in around Logan’s night shifts so that the boys were never left in the home alone, whether that was because she didn’t trust them or because she was concerned for them, Jensen couldn’t decide.
“Chicken or pork?”
Jensen glanced up from the foam puzzle he was doing with Michelle. Logan stood facing him from behind the counter that separated the living from the living room, holding one of each item in each hand. He was wearing Sonya’s Kiss the Cook apron and looked a little lost. “Chicken,” Jensen said finally. “Jay likes chicken.”
Logan nodded and tried to stuff the pork back into the freezer, only done with some manoeuvring when a bag of frozen peas fell out, followed by a box of frozen pizzas. Jensen checked his smile, hid it under his scowl before levering himself from his position and wandered over to the freezer that was still toppling items merrily on Logan’s flustered form. Jared smiled behind his messy bangs and used his thumb to smudge the graphite lines of Ariel’s hair.
“Thanks man,” Logan said, when Jensen caught a renegade bag of perogies that were aiming for Logan’s head. “Sonya seems to have developed a hording problem when it comes to food.”
“Yeah well,” Jensen said, smirking only when Logan’s back turned. “She knows me. Gotta keep me eating so I don’t put my mouth to better work.” His eyes fluttered down to rest teasingly on Logan’s crotch then flickered heatedly back up. Logan sputtered and flushed from the tip of his ears right to the bit of chest exposed in the open V of his shirt. He twisted away and abruptly deposited a pair of peppers in his hands.
“Cut these,” was all he said, keeping his head down.
In the living room, Jared glanced up with a small scowl on his face, his pencil poised but currently unmoving. His eyes darted briefly to Logan, who was resolutely ignoring Jensen’s presence, and then back to bore disappointedly into Jensen.
Jensen smiled apologetically. “Hey buddy, strips or squares tonight?” he called above the quiet music currently playing from the little stereo. Jared continued to scowl but grudgingly raised one finger. “Ok, pal. Strips it is then.” He tried to say it brightly around the guilt burning at the back of his throat. Jared just deepened his scowl for a second, then returned to sketching the lines of the sea witch’s hair with hard presses of his pencil that tore at the paper mercilessly.
Sonya came swooping home when Jensen was adding the mushrooms to the pan of frying vegetables. She descended on Michelle and Jared, now dancing around the living room, and scooped them both into her arms to pepper them with kisses. Michelle screeched delightedly. Jared just held still and smiled softly, and gave her a fleeting hug when she finally put him back down.
“Hey baby,” she murmured against Logan’s back, and then pressed a brief kiss to Jensen’s forehead, much to his utter mortification. “What are you making?”
Logan rolled his shoulders. “Chicken parmesan. As per Jared’s request.” Sonya laughed and muttered something that sounded like 'via Jensen'. “And Jensen’s making some fried veggie thing. What’s it called?”
Jensen shrugged. He’d just been chopping and tossing in the pan, not really caring how it turned out. As long as it had grease and tomatoes and peppers Jared would like it and everyone else could just plug their noses and suffer for all Jensen cared.
“And the kids have been good? No problems?”
Logan’s eyes flashed over at Jensen, dark and unreadable. “Nah,” he said at last, using his dimples as backup in case Sonya didn’t believe him. “Perfect angels, all of them. Now your freezer is another story. Attacking an unarmed man, Sonya, I think you need to teach it some manners.”
The familiar nausea of guilt crept into Jensen's stomach as Logan bantered with Sonya, their voices fading to a happy buzz under the sizzle of the onions popping in the pan. Fuck. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t know what they expected from him. He didn’t know what to give them. He just didn’t understand. The onions were staining his vision with wet tears, or at least that’s what he kept telling himself when he slammed his hand down on the counter.
“Fuck!”
The room stilled. Even Michelle stopped flailing her arms in time to the Jungle Book song currently playing. The world wavered behind the tears and Jensen stubbornly stirred his part of the meal, ignoring everything else, ignoring the soft pad-pad noise of Jared’s socks as he made his way across the tiled floor. It was only when the warm weight of Jared’s arms encircled his waist that he let out a shaky breath and sighed. Jared mimicked him and buried his face in the space just below Jensen’s shoulder blades. Jensen let him cling there until it was time to set the table, and even then when Jared slipped past him to lay out the forks, Jensen caught his wrist and pressed it gently to his lips.
~*~
“You’ll like this one,” Jeff grinned when he tossed the video on the table. Jensen jerked and snapped his eyes up.
Sonya and Logan were kissing Jared and Michelle goodbye at the door and doing their last check for keys and wallets.
“Dude dresses up like an old maid. Not much to look at in the way of beautiful women, but it’s funny as hell.”
“Hph,” said Jensen and returned to the comic book he was reading. He heard the door click closed as Sonya and Logan disappeared for their date. There was scuffling as Jared presumably bundled Michelle into his arms and made his way to the couch.
“Look dude,” Jeff said. “I don’t want to get stuck watching that singing, dancing…flying fairy tale crap those two enjoy so much.” His grin was wide, open. His left eye dropped in a knowing wink. “And as much as you love the kid, I know you don’t want to either. So what do you say man. Mrs. Doubtfire or Lady and the Tramp? Again.”
“Jay ain’t gonna like if it’s got no singing,” he said at last, but Jeff knew a victory when it was won. He waved his hand dismissively and sauntered over to the couch.
“Jared, go play pal,” Jeff said easily, sinking into the cushions at the opposite end and tossing a blue plastic tube at him. “The TV isn’t good for your brain anyway.”
Jensen laughed and nodded encouragingly when Jared turned his wide eyes his direction. “It’s ok buddy. Why don’t you take Michelle and go play for a while?” Jared slithered off the couch, still holding the tube Jeff had tossed him, and went to stand next to Jensen’s chair. He darted his gaze at Jeff to make sure he was properly engrossed with setting up the tape in the VCR before he leaned forward and dropped a chaste kiss on Jensen’s lips.
“Yeah man, right back at you.” Jensen said, catching the back of Jared’s neck and pulling him in for one more. “Now go play.”
Jared giggled and pinched Jensen’s thigh before he danced away from his playful swat and disappeared down the hall. When Jensen turned to see if Jeff was ready to watch that movie, he found him staring over the back of the couch. The grin was gone but it quickly came back up to hide the surprise etched across those rugged features.
“Get your ass over here,” Jeff said easily. “And you’re holding the friggin’ baby if she cries. I’m no good at that kind of thing.”
Jensen laughed and curled around Michelle on the couch.
The movie was actually pretty good. Jeff bitched the entire time about the decided lack of boobs, but he was laughing and teasing. He even took Michelle partway through and cooed at her until she giggled and grabbed at the stubble painting his chin. Jensen melted into the couch. Jeff didn’t expect anything from him but a half-hearted laugh at some of his jokes and Jensen found himself giving more than that. He mimicked the way Jeff sprawled all over the couch. He splayed his legs wide and sunk back against the corner, letting his arm hang loosely over the side. He laughed when Jeff let that open, deep guffaw slide from his throat, laughed with him. The hundredth time Jeff mentioned the hottie shortage, Jensen quirked his lips into a half smile.
“I don’t know man. That Stu guy is pretty fucking hot.” He dropped his head back and howled with laughter when Jeff floundered for the first time all night.
“You little shit,” Jeff laughed, leaning over and grinding his palm against Jensen’s hair until it stood all over the place. “The world should be glad I only swing one way.”
“Why, so you can’t damage everyone with your enormous fucking head?”
Jeff grinned but didn’t retort. He just dug his toes teasingly under Jensen’s thigh and then returned to the movie.
They were starting on Jeff’s second pick of the night - The Lost Boys - when Jared finally emerged from whatever it was he was doing. Jensen didn’t raise his eyes from the screen when Jared pressed his hot skin along Jensen’s side. There was just something extremely amusing about bad 80s hair that he couldn’t pull himself away. It wasn’t until Jeff choked and flailed so hard that he knocked himself off the couch that Jensen disengaged from the movie.
“Dude, what are you…? But I gave you pogs…? What…?”
Jensen stared at Jeff’s horrified expression. His eyes were almost comically wide, a perfect match for his hanging mouth. Jared made little snuffling noises along Jensen’s jaw, the kind he made before he fell into sleep, and suddenly Jensen was aware that he was touching more skin than Jared’s T-shirt should have allowed.
With his own wide-eyed expression, he dropped his gaze from Jeff’s mix of shock and horror to the top of Jared’s head, which sported the biggest flower barrette he’d ever seen. Beneath that, Jared’s bare shoulders supported delicate purple straps that flowed down into two lacy cups that covered his chest. Holy fuck, Jared had gotten into Sonya’s underwear drawer.
Jensen’s fingers twitched where they rested on the curve of Jared’s spine, just above the waistband of a pair of green sweats. Logan’s sweatpants: His jogging pants, ugly as sin but a nice brilliant emerald in colour. In the hand Jared hadn’t wrapped around Jensen’s arm he held the plastic Sebastian wind-up toy Sonya had brought home earlier that day as a peace offering.
“Jay?”
Jared raised his head and smiled sleepily at Jensen.
“Are you dressed up like Ariel?”
Jared nodded.
“Oh my god.”
~*~
Sonya thought it was hilarious. So did Logan for that matter. Jeff promised he was never babysitting again.
“You don’t mean that, Jeff,” Sonya said when her laughing finally died down.
Jeff glanced down the hall to where Jensen had tucked Jared into bed an hour earlier. “Oh I mean it, Sonny. Never again. I gave him a whole set of NHL hockey pogs. Complete with a metal slammer. Kids love those stupid things. And what does he do? He dressed up like a mermaid!”
Sonya laughed him out the door.
~*~
“We’ve been married for four years,” Logan said conversationally, as he worked the small splinter from Jared’s palm. Jensen sat frozen in his chair, one hand gripping the edge of the table, the other at the mercy of Jared’s clenching fingers. “I actually asked her to marry me in my squad car, if you can believe it. She made me do it again over dinner that night.” He laughed gently and rubbed his thumb over Jared’s wrist when he gave a little whimper. “Almost done, champ,” he whispered.
“She said the first time wasn’t romantic enough. My Sonya knows what she wants and she gets it.” Jensen wasn’t really listening to Logan’s gentle drone. He was planning ways to kill the wooden jungle gym that had caused the pained look on Jared’s face. He knew where the Porter’s kept their matches, but he didn’t think Sonya would appreciate it much if her husband had to arrest him for arson.
“Just like the wedding,” Logan continued, swabbing the slightly bleeding wound with a sterilized cotton ball. “We were told the venue we wanted was too expensive.” He gave a short laugh. “She talked the guy down to half price. I would not want to be one of her writers. Ok, there you go champ, all finished.”
Jared stared down at the Band-Aid and chewed on his lip. Jensen leaned his forehead against Jared’s temple and kissed his ear gently. “You want to go back and play a little more buddy?” Jared shook his head and turned to nuzzle into Jensen’s neck.
“K, I gotta get ready for work. Sonya’s got an issue deadline coming up so try to be good for her tonight guys.”
“When are we ever not good?” Jensen asked, still pressed against Jared’s side. “You know us, Officer Porter. No tricks on school nights.”
Logan choked. He closed his eyes briefly, as though he was trying not to say something harsh. When he finally opened them again, the corners drooped down, defeated.
“Just, eat your vegetables and no cussing in front of the baby.”
Jensen gave him a wan smile and carried Jared to the living room where he popped the Little Mermaid into the VCR and fast-forwarded to the crab’s stupid song about being Under the Sea.
~*~
At first he wasn’t sure he was awake. The only light filtering in between the slats in the blinds was from the streetlamps below. A small glow filled the space beneath the closed bedroom door, telling him that someone was still up, but without the light on, he couldn’t tell what the wall clock said, and he wasn’t sure exactly how late it was. Late enough, he decided, when he realized the traffic below their open window was almost non-existent.
“I am not!” came Sonya’s voice, a harsh whisper from down the hall. It must have been what woke him up. Quietly extracting himself from Jared’s tentacle-like hold, he slipped from the bed and pressed his ear to the door.
“I just don’t think you’re seeing the whole situation here, darling.” That was Logan. His voice was gentle, like usual, and calm. Jensen imagined it was the way he talked to skittish teenage girls who were threatening to throw themselves off the roofs of tall buildings.
“You don’t think they’re just as much victims here?” Sonya whispered back, although her voice was slowly breaking the threshold into normal speech volume. “He was just a little boy. Hardly older than Jared is now. Scared. Alone. You can’t tell me this is what he wanted, what he…”
“Sonny, no one’s saying that.” Jeff. Huh. What was he doing there? “We just think you’re getting too attached to him - to both of them. You can’t keep them here forever. We have to go through the proper legal channels.”
“And send him back to that place? You can’t make me.”
“Baby,” Logan again. “You know as well as I do that the chance of keeping either of them decreases each day we don’t follow regulations. We need to prove we’re responsible if we want to even stand a chance.”
Jensen felt a damp sweat creep up his neck. He had guessed they were talking about him and Jared before, but what he was hearing didn’t compute. He hugged his arm tighter to his chest to alleviate some of the ache in his healing collarbone. The voice continued, oblivious to their silent observer.
“And if child services says I’m not good enough because of Michael?”
Someone shushed her gently and Jensen heard a chair scrape across the floor.
“Michael wasn’t your fault. Sonny, how many times do I have to tell you?” Jeff’s usual brash, jovial voice almost sounded broken. It was suddenly easy to picture him with tears on his face instead of his familiar cocky smile. “It was an accident. A fucking accident. Don’t bring that into this. If you can’t get past a childhood hurt…”
Sonya exploded. “It wasn’t a childhood hurt. We were sixteen. I was old enough to know better. Fuck Jeff, fucking hell.” Her voice dropped to something that Jensen couldn’t hear and then rose again, clouded with pain. “I can’t fail them because of what happened to him. I just can’t.”
There was silence for a while and Jensen wondered if that was all he was going to get from that. He almost turned and crept back to bed when Logan’s voice drifted down the hall again.
“Sonya, baby, you’ve already done more for them than anyone else has in this whole world.”
“But it’s not enough. You didn’t see him that night, or when I found them. I can’t even imagine everything they…” Sonya trailed off and Jensen heard rustling in the emptiness left by her voice. “He’s so broken. He’s had so much taken from him, stolen from him. I just want to give it all back to him.”
“I know you do, babe, but sometimes it’s not up to us to fix the world…”
“You don’t understand!” Sonya yelped, interrupting harshly. “His eyes. They’re blank. It’s like…It’s like he has only two things on his mind. Survival and Jared.” She laughed although it sounded wry and bitter. “Not in that order, of course. When Jared’s there, his eyes have life, his face has life. Child services will separate them and I can’t let that happen. Not when his whole existence hangs on that balance.”
Jensen felt his stomach clench painfully. He felt the tears he heard on Sonya’s voice flow down his own face as he turned and watched the shadowy lump that was Jared. Easy breaths filled the room, in and out, like a heartbeat pounding out his life’s purpose. He wasn’t empty. He had Jared. And Sonya knew that.
The voices had started again but Jensen didn’t want to listen anymore: couldn’t. He slowly, painfully, made his way back across the toy and clothes-strewn floor. His feet felt each thread of the carpet as if they were spikes, his skin picked up the tiny currents of air moving each time Jared took a breath. His brain whirred and clicked and tried to make things come into better focus. Instead things just blurred further and the usually soft sheets scraped against his bare torso and caught against the hair on his legs. Jared’s body was too hot when it instinctually sought to curl around Jensen. A lone car traveled the road beneath their window.
He wanted desperately to see the clock hidden by shadows. He wanted to know how many minutes, hours, days, he lay there struggling to breathe. What felt like weeks later, the door clicked open and the light spilled in from the hallway. Sonya’s form settled on the bed next to Jensen and her cool hands whispered across the skin of his forehead. He kept his eyes closed, tried to breath like he was sleeping. When her lips landed on the skin of his temple he almost gave up the game. He wanted to cry. He wanted to wrap himself around her and just let loose a torrent of tears that would drown everyone in the room. Instead he waited while she stroked her thumb across his cheekbone.
“Good night, sweet child,” she whispered finally, before sliding across the room to leave and finally taking the light away with her when she closed the door.
~*~
Jensen glanced up from where John Cusack’s character was drawing a pregnant math figure on the chalkboard just in time to see Sonya shrugging her purse strap over her shoulder. Jared snickered from his place against Jensen’s side, laughing at some joke that should have gone over his head, but didn’t. Baby Michelle sighed from her little child-sized Barbie rocker. She still smelled like sleep from when she’d woken up half an hour earlier, though thankfully Sonya and Jared had changed her diaper so it wasn’t an unpleasant odour.
“We’re going out?”
Sonya paused. Her keys were already in her hand, the car key already separated from the rest. On her feet, she’d already donned what Logan referred to as her “no shit shoes” for when she was going to take on some surely store clerk who botched an important order, or when the building administrator refused to fix the elevator.
“Um, no. You just relax. I’ll be back to make supper. An hour maybe? If you could pull the salmon out of the freezer, that’d be great.”
Jensen frowned.
“But Logan’s gone and...”
“No, Jen, it’s ok honey.”
Jared twisted in his seat, digging his elbow into Jensen’s side momentarily, lightly catching on one of the stubbornly remaining bruises.
“You too, sweetie,” she said when Jared’s shaggy hair poked above the back of the couch. The sunlight caught on the tangled mess, snagging and glinting irregularly. He really needed to learn to brush properly and regularly, Jensen thought passingly.
“I can get them ready,” Jensen offered, motioning at Jared and Michelle, but Sonya just waved her hand dismissively.
“You know Logan’s work number if you need him. Call Jeff if you can’t reach Logan. I’ll bring home some veggies to have with supper.”
With that, she slipped from the door, sealing off her promise to return with a soft click of the door. Jared, like always, scampered to slide the deadbolt in place and to check that the little lock button on the doorknob was still depressed before returning to his warmed spot at Jensen’s side. Michelle sighed happily, once more. On screen, John Cusack did something else amusing and disastrous.
“Huh,” said Jensen, to no one.
~*~
Jared was going to bed by himself with a lot less fuss now. Jensen swept his mouth over Jared’s cheek. “Night, buddy,” he whispered at Jared’s drooping eyes. “I’ll join you in a couple hours, k?” Jared nodded once and didn’t even try to catch Jensen’s wrist as he moved away from the bed. Pausing to flick the nightlight on, Jensen made his way through the mess on their floor and silently crept from the room.
“He was tired,” Sonya murmured, coming out of her own room and leaving the door open a little so they could hear if Michelle woke up.
“Yeah. Long day.”
Sonya nodded. “He’s sleeping then?”
“Yeah.”
“Jensen,” Sonya said softly before trailing off. Jensen waited while she passed her hand over her eyes, seeming to collect herself. “Jen, Logan and I need to talk with you. Can we do that?”
The bottom of his stomach fell out. This was it. It was finally over. He wanted to plead with her to let them stay just a little longer, or even just keep Jared even if they didn’t want him. Instead he just nodded silently, fighting to breathe against the sudden dryness in his mouth.
“Come with me honey,” she whispered leading him into the kitchen. Logan waited at the table. Rigid - he looked so rigid and tense. “Have a seat.” Then, as though catching the terror in his eyes, she smiled softly. “Relax Jen. It’s not so bad.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered toward his toes without sitting down. There was nothing there to blame for the tears that formed behind his eyes. There was nothing to excuse the pounding of his heart. “I’ll be better, I can be better.”
Sonya’s hand was firm on his shoulder as she pressed him into the chair. She took the one beside him. “Jensen, it’s not bad, I promise.”
“I’ll…I’ll stop hitting on Logan,” he pleaded, still refusing to meet their eyes. “Or at least, I’ll try. I don’t mean to do it, I just…I’ll be better. Just don’t…don’t kick us out yet, please.”
Sonya’s hand cupped his chin and pulled gently until he was staring at the blue of her eyes.
“We’re not kicking you out.”
The pounding of his heart kicked up a little more. The blood rushed so fiercely in his ears he could hardly hear the clock tick-ticking by the window. “You’re not?”
She rested her palm along his cheek. He imagined the freckles on the back of her hand sliding across and joining those that scattered across his nose, mixing and branding him, claiming and restoring him.
“No, baby. You’re welcome here as long as you want.”
“But Jensen, we do need to talk to you.”
Jensen turned out of Sonya’s tender hold and stared at Logan who was fidgeting in his chair.
“I don’t imagine you’re very familiar with the process of foster care and whatnot…”
“NO!” Jensen yelped and scrambled out of his chair so fast it fell over. “Don’t send me back there! God, please, no, please. I…I can’t!”
Sonya was on him in a second, pulling him to her chest and holding him while he shook. Her fingers rubbed at his scalp and played through his hair, her voice whispered soothing noises of comfort. “Shh, baby. You don’t have to go. You can stay right here with us, shh.”
Jensen clung tightly, clung until the blood was forced out of his fingers and he was sure he’d bruised Sonya’s thin arms. Still, she rocked him gently, like he did to Jared after a nightmare.
“Can you sit now?” Jensen nodded and let Sonya set him back in the newly righted chair. She grasped his hand and held him firmly, warmly. “We’re not sending you back, but we had to apply to be your guardians.” Jensen nodded again, dumbly.
“Now you, you’re a ward of the state. That basically means no one expects you to come home. Pending approval of our application, we’ll be your legal guardians until you turn 18.”
Jensen turned misty eyes at Sonya and trembled. “You want me?”
“Yeah, sweetheart, we do.”
Logan cleared his throat, causing Jensen to turn and finally look at him. His dark eyes looked pained. His hands were folded on the table, his fingernails ragged and short where he’d been picking at them.
“Jensen,” he said. Jensen waited for him to continue. “Jared’s not a ward of the state.”
A lifetime filled the silence that followed. Everything slowed then stopped. It was as though a huge vacuum got flipped on and sucked everything - even the light and hope - from the little kitchen. Then, with a snap, everything started again, too fast, too loud. Jared wasn’t a ward of the state. Someone expected him to come home.
“What…what does that mean for him?” Jensen pushed through his dry lips, choking down the sob that lodged in his throat. “Does that…Is he going away?”
Logan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Jared’s step-dad, Greg Thomson, is coming to get him tomorrow afternoon.”
Jensen stood. There were lights popping in his eyes, shadows filing across the lines of his vision. Tomorrow afternoon. Jared was leaving with someone. His step-dad.
“It’s good Jensen,” Logan said, finally standing and following him as he backed away. “This is a good thing. Jared can go back with his family who loves him.”
“I love him.”
“I know, we all do, but he belongs with his family.”
Jensen’s back hit the counter. His fingers landed on the cool marble, sending more shocks of sensation up his arm to confuse him even more.
“How long have you known?” he asked. “God, how long have you fucking kept this from us?”
Sonya came forward, but he flinched away when her arms came up to comfort him.
“How long did you fucking know you were taking him from me?” he screamed. The world disappeared behind a wet veil. He couldn’t breathe anymore. He felt something warm splash down his cheeks and over his lips. When he licked them he tasted salt. Tears. He was crying. “HOW FUCKING LONG?”
Sonya’s arms wrapped firmly around him before he could push her away.
“Child services just called us today. I promise we didn’t know.”
“You said we could stay here!” he sobbed. “You said you wanted us. Lies. All fucking lies!” He flung himself from her hold, knocking himself down in the process. The fall jarred his collarbone, sending a fresh wave of pain washing over him, but he hardly noticed. Scrambling from his untidy sprawl on the floor, he backed away panting raggedly.
“You said…you said…” he gasped between sobs. “Lies…you…” He turned and ran all the way down the short hallway and threw himself in the bed, not caring if he woke up Jared, not caring if Jared saw him crying. He fell asleep with Jared’s soft lips chasing after his tears and gentle stroking fingers trembling in time with each shaking breath.
~*~
Jeff was there when Jensen woke up, sitting backwards on a kitchen chair he had obviously dragged into the bedroom.
“Morning, sunshine,” he said with only a faint glimmer of his usual smile. “Heard you had a rough night. I’d give you my hangover remedy but I don’t think that’s your problem.”
Jensen scowled and felt beside him for Jared. He wasn’t there.
“Sonya’s in the kitchen explaining to him,” Jeff said when Jensen bolted upright. “Hold your horses, man. He doesn’t need you barging out there acting all upset.”
“Oh yeah,” hissed Jensen. “What does he need? Let me guess. Another carton of pogs. Maybe NFL this time, huh?”
Jeff laughed gruffly. He folded his hands on the back of the chair and rested his chin on them. He looked almost young like that, like someone much closer to Jensen’s age. “What he doesn’t need is a drama queen going in there and making him even more frightened than he’s going to be.”
Jensen froze. “What?”
“You don’t think he’s scared? The poor guy’s probably shitless.” Jeff rolled his chin until his head was tipped a little, like a questioning puppy. “He needs you to be brave and tell him he’s going to be alright. He doesn’t need you to make leaving here any harder than it already is.”
Jensen closed his eyes.
“Why are you here?”
Jeff smiled lazily. “To make sure you don’t go postal. To talk some sense into you. Not to tell you about the prefect pair of legs on Cindy Crawford. Yeah, there’s the smile I knew you were hiding.”
“Dude,” Jensen complained but the smile had broken the cloud. He climbed stiffly from the bed, and made his way to the chest of drawers where he and Jared had been keeping their growing collection of clothes. He hadn’t undressed the previous night and didn’t want to send Jared off looking all crumpled. He was trading his jeans for a clean pair when a shuffle at the door brought his attention around.
Jared stood there, clutching the same green “I ♥ U” teddy from the hospital. His eyes were red-rimmed and wide. His face was streaked with tears. Without saying a word, he crossed the room and buried his face in Jensen’s chest.
“Hey buddy,” Jensen cooed, briefly meeting Jeff’s eyes over Jared’s floppy hair. “Hey, it’s ok. It’ll be alright. I’ll call you and send you letters, ok?” Jared just sniffled. His hands bunched the fabric of Jensen’s shirt until it was just as wrinkled as the one he’d just taken off. “Hey, I’ll still be here. It’s not like you’re going across the ocean.”
The soft whimper shattered Jensen’s heart. The desperately clinging fingers destroyed his resolve. Jeff nodded once and slid out the door. They were alone.
“Jared, look at me pal.”
Jared’s eyes were dead when he raised his head. His cheeks were flushed from crying, and his nose was running. Jensen didn’t care. He bent down and pressed his lips firmly against Jared’s, once, twice, and then lingered, letting their breaths mix in the space between them.
“It’ll be alright. You’ll take your new pencils with you, and your movies. And you can call me anytime you want, k Jay?” He wasn’t ready for this and he didn’t want it. There were a hundred other things he’d rather be doing. “You’ll be ok, man. No more tears, ok? Be brave, for me?”
Jared sniffled once more, wiped his nose in Jensen’s shirt and finally took a step back. His eyes had gone cold, hard. Determined. It was the same terrifying look Jensen had seen when Jared had insisted Jensen show him all the tricks of their trade. It made his blood run cold.
~*~
It wasn’t like the time had gone unusually fast, it was just that Jensen didn’t want two o’clock to arrive at all. They’d spent most of the morning packing the few things Jared had. Sonya had managed to get them out shopping a few times and Jared had an adequate wardrobe of new clothes but it still wasn’t very large. Everything, including the movies, the drawing supplies and a few of the toys, fit neatly in one of the Porter’s larger suitcases. It was sitting at the door now, waiting beside Jared’s jacket and his shoes, mocking Jensen with the inevitability of time. As much as he wished for the clock to stop, it invariably moved forward, ticking away the seconds until there was nothing left but Jared’s sweaty hand in his palm and a few stubborn tears clinging at his eyelashes.
Sonya was sitting at the kitchen table with Jeff, both silent. Logan was pacing in front of the window, pausing at each turn to stroke Michelle’s cheek and to glance at the boys wrapped up in each other on the couch. Time moved sickeningly onward.
~*~
The buzzer rang at exactly four minutes past two. Sonya moved sluggishly to buzz him through the lobby doors, hesitating before pushing the button. No take backs. No pretending it wasn’t happening. It took approximately three minutes to take the elevator to the fifth floor and walk down the hall to their unit. Jensen closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing.
~*~
Greg Thomson wasn’t a tall man, nor was he short - perfectly set in the middle of the road. His eyes were average, his hair had just the right amount of grey for a man his age. His suit was drab, plain, but not shabby. There was absolutely nothing about him that stood out.
“Come on Jared. Let’s go home,” he said in his perfectly ordinary nothing-special voice. Jared held out for eight seconds and then he started screaming.
~*~
It wasn’t like Jensen hadn’t heard Jared’s voice before. He made happy little murmurs and frightened whimpers. He hummed his contentment and sighed his annoyance. He laughed and grunted and sobbed. In general, he could be quite noisy even without the aid of words. Nothing Jensen had ever heard prepared him for the raw sounds ripping from Jared’s throat as he shrieked through the fresh tears. He didn’t even breathe. One wail bled right into the next until his face was purple and Jensen’s arms were running with blood from where Jared was digging in his nails.
“Jared, Jesus Christ!”
Greg’s voice barely rose above the horrible screeching noises currently wrenching through the room. It did little to placate the tremors that wracked Jared’s frail little body. Jensen felt each one tear through him, each one hurting worse that the steel-toed kicks he’d once endured.
“Jared!” Logan was plucking gently yet urgently at Jared’s fingers, prying his nails from Jensen’s skin. Each time he managed to pull one hand off, the other clamped down twice as hard. His body was rigid, taut, like the strings on Jeff’s guitar, ready to snap if pulled any tighter.
“Baby, you need to calm down,” Sonya tried. She was kneeling in front of them, trying to capture his face, but he kept turning away from her, staining Jensen’s shirt and gasping through that wretched scream that threatened to destroy Jensen.
“Jared, stop it right now.”
Greg made a move as though to take Jared’s arm and suddenly Jeff was there, all six foot something of him, pressing the smaller man into the door. Logan managed to pry one of Jared’s arms off and Jensen finally clutched the fragile wrist, preventing him from clutching on again.
“Jared, buddy. It’s ok. What’s wrong? You have to tell me. I don’t know. I just don’t…Talk to me, tell me what’s wrong, please.”
Sonya eased the other hand off Jensen. Trails of blood oozed from the half circles carved in his arm but all his attention was on Jared who struggled fiercely in Sonya’s arms. The scream doubled as she handed him over to Logan who held him tightly, carried him to the door. It was Jeff who grabbed Jared’s things and all but shunted Greg out the door to follow them to the car.
No one noticed when the struggles to break free turned into a desperate reaching motion. No one noticed when the screams turned into hiccupping sobs. No one noticed when Jared’s tear-swollen mouth formed what suspiciously looked like a name. No one noticed but Jensen.
Part III
Go back
Sonya worked from home most days of the week. Apparently being an editor/columnist allowed for that. It became apparent early on that she scheduled the days she had to go in around Logan’s night shifts so that the boys were never left in the home alone, whether that was because she didn’t trust them or because she was concerned for them, Jensen couldn’t decide.
“Chicken or pork?”
Jensen glanced up from the foam puzzle he was doing with Michelle. Logan stood facing him from behind the counter that separated the living from the living room, holding one of each item in each hand. He was wearing Sonya’s Kiss the Cook apron and looked a little lost. “Chicken,” Jensen said finally. “Jay likes chicken.”
Logan nodded and tried to stuff the pork back into the freezer, only done with some manoeuvring when a bag of frozen peas fell out, followed by a box of frozen pizzas. Jensen checked his smile, hid it under his scowl before levering himself from his position and wandered over to the freezer that was still toppling items merrily on Logan’s flustered form. Jared smiled behind his messy bangs and used his thumb to smudge the graphite lines of Ariel’s hair.
“Thanks man,” Logan said, when Jensen caught a renegade bag of perogies that were aiming for Logan’s head. “Sonya seems to have developed a hording problem when it comes to food.”
“Yeah well,” Jensen said, smirking only when Logan’s back turned. “She knows me. Gotta keep me eating so I don’t put my mouth to better work.” His eyes fluttered down to rest teasingly on Logan’s crotch then flickered heatedly back up. Logan sputtered and flushed from the tip of his ears right to the bit of chest exposed in the open V of his shirt. He twisted away and abruptly deposited a pair of peppers in his hands.
“Cut these,” was all he said, keeping his head down.
In the living room, Jared glanced up with a small scowl on his face, his pencil poised but currently unmoving. His eyes darted briefly to Logan, who was resolutely ignoring Jensen’s presence, and then back to bore disappointedly into Jensen.
Jensen smiled apologetically. “Hey buddy, strips or squares tonight?” he called above the quiet music currently playing from the little stereo. Jared continued to scowl but grudgingly raised one finger. “Ok, pal. Strips it is then.” He tried to say it brightly around the guilt burning at the back of his throat. Jared just deepened his scowl for a second, then returned to sketching the lines of the sea witch’s hair with hard presses of his pencil that tore at the paper mercilessly.
Sonya came swooping home when Jensen was adding the mushrooms to the pan of frying vegetables. She descended on Michelle and Jared, now dancing around the living room, and scooped them both into her arms to pepper them with kisses. Michelle screeched delightedly. Jared just held still and smiled softly, and gave her a fleeting hug when she finally put him back down.
“Hey baby,” she murmured against Logan’s back, and then pressed a brief kiss to Jensen’s forehead, much to his utter mortification. “What are you making?”
Logan rolled his shoulders. “Chicken parmesan. As per Jared’s request.” Sonya laughed and muttered something that sounded like 'via Jensen'. “And Jensen’s making some fried veggie thing. What’s it called?”
Jensen shrugged. He’d just been chopping and tossing in the pan, not really caring how it turned out. As long as it had grease and tomatoes and peppers Jared would like it and everyone else could just plug their noses and suffer for all Jensen cared.
“And the kids have been good? No problems?”
Logan’s eyes flashed over at Jensen, dark and unreadable. “Nah,” he said at last, using his dimples as backup in case Sonya didn’t believe him. “Perfect angels, all of them. Now your freezer is another story. Attacking an unarmed man, Sonya, I think you need to teach it some manners.”
The familiar nausea of guilt crept into Jensen's stomach as Logan bantered with Sonya, their voices fading to a happy buzz under the sizzle of the onions popping in the pan. Fuck. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t know what they expected from him. He didn’t know what to give them. He just didn’t understand. The onions were staining his vision with wet tears, or at least that’s what he kept telling himself when he slammed his hand down on the counter.
“Fuck!”
The room stilled. Even Michelle stopped flailing her arms in time to the Jungle Book song currently playing. The world wavered behind the tears and Jensen stubbornly stirred his part of the meal, ignoring everything else, ignoring the soft pad-pad noise of Jared’s socks as he made his way across the tiled floor. It was only when the warm weight of Jared’s arms encircled his waist that he let out a shaky breath and sighed. Jared mimicked him and buried his face in the space just below Jensen’s shoulder blades. Jensen let him cling there until it was time to set the table, and even then when Jared slipped past him to lay out the forks, Jensen caught his wrist and pressed it gently to his lips.
~*~
“You’ll like this one,” Jeff grinned when he tossed the video on the table. Jensen jerked and snapped his eyes up.
Sonya and Logan were kissing Jared and Michelle goodbye at the door and doing their last check for keys and wallets.
“Dude dresses up like an old maid. Not much to look at in the way of beautiful women, but it’s funny as hell.”
“Hph,” said Jensen and returned to the comic book he was reading. He heard the door click closed as Sonya and Logan disappeared for their date. There was scuffling as Jared presumably bundled Michelle into his arms and made his way to the couch.
“Look dude,” Jeff said. “I don’t want to get stuck watching that singing, dancing…flying fairy tale crap those two enjoy so much.” His grin was wide, open. His left eye dropped in a knowing wink. “And as much as you love the kid, I know you don’t want to either. So what do you say man. Mrs. Doubtfire or Lady and the Tramp? Again.”
“Jay ain’t gonna like if it’s got no singing,” he said at last, but Jeff knew a victory when it was won. He waved his hand dismissively and sauntered over to the couch.
“Jared, go play pal,” Jeff said easily, sinking into the cushions at the opposite end and tossing a blue plastic tube at him. “The TV isn’t good for your brain anyway.”
Jensen laughed and nodded encouragingly when Jared turned his wide eyes his direction. “It’s ok buddy. Why don’t you take Michelle and go play for a while?” Jared slithered off the couch, still holding the tube Jeff had tossed him, and went to stand next to Jensen’s chair. He darted his gaze at Jeff to make sure he was properly engrossed with setting up the tape in the VCR before he leaned forward and dropped a chaste kiss on Jensen’s lips.
“Yeah man, right back at you.” Jensen said, catching the back of Jared’s neck and pulling him in for one more. “Now go play.”
Jared giggled and pinched Jensen’s thigh before he danced away from his playful swat and disappeared down the hall. When Jensen turned to see if Jeff was ready to watch that movie, he found him staring over the back of the couch. The grin was gone but it quickly came back up to hide the surprise etched across those rugged features.
“Get your ass over here,” Jeff said easily. “And you’re holding the friggin’ baby if she cries. I’m no good at that kind of thing.”
Jensen laughed and curled around Michelle on the couch.
The movie was actually pretty good. Jeff bitched the entire time about the decided lack of boobs, but he was laughing and teasing. He even took Michelle partway through and cooed at her until she giggled and grabbed at the stubble painting his chin. Jensen melted into the couch. Jeff didn’t expect anything from him but a half-hearted laugh at some of his jokes and Jensen found himself giving more than that. He mimicked the way Jeff sprawled all over the couch. He splayed his legs wide and sunk back against the corner, letting his arm hang loosely over the side. He laughed when Jeff let that open, deep guffaw slide from his throat, laughed with him. The hundredth time Jeff mentioned the hottie shortage, Jensen quirked his lips into a half smile.
“I don’t know man. That Stu guy is pretty fucking hot.” He dropped his head back and howled with laughter when Jeff floundered for the first time all night.
“You little shit,” Jeff laughed, leaning over and grinding his palm against Jensen’s hair until it stood all over the place. “The world should be glad I only swing one way.”
“Why, so you can’t damage everyone with your enormous fucking head?”
Jeff grinned but didn’t retort. He just dug his toes teasingly under Jensen’s thigh and then returned to the movie.
They were starting on Jeff’s second pick of the night - The Lost Boys - when Jared finally emerged from whatever it was he was doing. Jensen didn’t raise his eyes from the screen when Jared pressed his hot skin along Jensen’s side. There was just something extremely amusing about bad 80s hair that he couldn’t pull himself away. It wasn’t until Jeff choked and flailed so hard that he knocked himself off the couch that Jensen disengaged from the movie.
“Dude, what are you…? But I gave you pogs…? What…?”
Jensen stared at Jeff’s horrified expression. His eyes were almost comically wide, a perfect match for his hanging mouth. Jared made little snuffling noises along Jensen’s jaw, the kind he made before he fell into sleep, and suddenly Jensen was aware that he was touching more skin than Jared’s T-shirt should have allowed.
With his own wide-eyed expression, he dropped his gaze from Jeff’s mix of shock and horror to the top of Jared’s head, which sported the biggest flower barrette he’d ever seen. Beneath that, Jared’s bare shoulders supported delicate purple straps that flowed down into two lacy cups that covered his chest. Holy fuck, Jared had gotten into Sonya’s underwear drawer.
Jensen’s fingers twitched where they rested on the curve of Jared’s spine, just above the waistband of a pair of green sweats. Logan’s sweatpants: His jogging pants, ugly as sin but a nice brilliant emerald in colour. In the hand Jared hadn’t wrapped around Jensen’s arm he held the plastic Sebastian wind-up toy Sonya had brought home earlier that day as a peace offering.
“Jay?”
Jared raised his head and smiled sleepily at Jensen.
“Are you dressed up like Ariel?”
Jared nodded.
“Oh my god.”
~*~
Sonya thought it was hilarious. So did Logan for that matter. Jeff promised he was never babysitting again.
“You don’t mean that, Jeff,” Sonya said when her laughing finally died down.
Jeff glanced down the hall to where Jensen had tucked Jared into bed an hour earlier. “Oh I mean it, Sonny. Never again. I gave him a whole set of NHL hockey pogs. Complete with a metal slammer. Kids love those stupid things. And what does he do? He dressed up like a mermaid!”
Sonya laughed him out the door.
~*~
“We’ve been married for four years,” Logan said conversationally, as he worked the small splinter from Jared’s palm. Jensen sat frozen in his chair, one hand gripping the edge of the table, the other at the mercy of Jared’s clenching fingers. “I actually asked her to marry me in my squad car, if you can believe it. She made me do it again over dinner that night.” He laughed gently and rubbed his thumb over Jared’s wrist when he gave a little whimper. “Almost done, champ,” he whispered.
“She said the first time wasn’t romantic enough. My Sonya knows what she wants and she gets it.” Jensen wasn’t really listening to Logan’s gentle drone. He was planning ways to kill the wooden jungle gym that had caused the pained look on Jared’s face. He knew where the Porter’s kept their matches, but he didn’t think Sonya would appreciate it much if her husband had to arrest him for arson.
“Just like the wedding,” Logan continued, swabbing the slightly bleeding wound with a sterilized cotton ball. “We were told the venue we wanted was too expensive.” He gave a short laugh. “She talked the guy down to half price. I would not want to be one of her writers. Ok, there you go champ, all finished.”
Jared stared down at the Band-Aid and chewed on his lip. Jensen leaned his forehead against Jared’s temple and kissed his ear gently. “You want to go back and play a little more buddy?” Jared shook his head and turned to nuzzle into Jensen’s neck.
“K, I gotta get ready for work. Sonya’s got an issue deadline coming up so try to be good for her tonight guys.”
“When are we ever not good?” Jensen asked, still pressed against Jared’s side. “You know us, Officer Porter. No tricks on school nights.”
Logan choked. He closed his eyes briefly, as though he was trying not to say something harsh. When he finally opened them again, the corners drooped down, defeated.
“Just, eat your vegetables and no cussing in front of the baby.”
Jensen gave him a wan smile and carried Jared to the living room where he popped the Little Mermaid into the VCR and fast-forwarded to the crab’s stupid song about being Under the Sea.
~*~
At first he wasn’t sure he was awake. The only light filtering in between the slats in the blinds was from the streetlamps below. A small glow filled the space beneath the closed bedroom door, telling him that someone was still up, but without the light on, he couldn’t tell what the wall clock said, and he wasn’t sure exactly how late it was. Late enough, he decided, when he realized the traffic below their open window was almost non-existent.
“I am not!” came Sonya’s voice, a harsh whisper from down the hall. It must have been what woke him up. Quietly extracting himself from Jared’s tentacle-like hold, he slipped from the bed and pressed his ear to the door.
“I just don’t think you’re seeing the whole situation here, darling.” That was Logan. His voice was gentle, like usual, and calm. Jensen imagined it was the way he talked to skittish teenage girls who were threatening to throw themselves off the roofs of tall buildings.
“You don’t think they’re just as much victims here?” Sonya whispered back, although her voice was slowly breaking the threshold into normal speech volume. “He was just a little boy. Hardly older than Jared is now. Scared. Alone. You can’t tell me this is what he wanted, what he…”
“Sonny, no one’s saying that.” Jeff. Huh. What was he doing there? “We just think you’re getting too attached to him - to both of them. You can’t keep them here forever. We have to go through the proper legal channels.”
“And send him back to that place? You can’t make me.”
“Baby,” Logan again. “You know as well as I do that the chance of keeping either of them decreases each day we don’t follow regulations. We need to prove we’re responsible if we want to even stand a chance.”
Jensen felt a damp sweat creep up his neck. He had guessed they were talking about him and Jared before, but what he was hearing didn’t compute. He hugged his arm tighter to his chest to alleviate some of the ache in his healing collarbone. The voice continued, oblivious to their silent observer.
“And if child services says I’m not good enough because of Michael?”
Someone shushed her gently and Jensen heard a chair scrape across the floor.
“Michael wasn’t your fault. Sonny, how many times do I have to tell you?” Jeff’s usual brash, jovial voice almost sounded broken. It was suddenly easy to picture him with tears on his face instead of his familiar cocky smile. “It was an accident. A fucking accident. Don’t bring that into this. If you can’t get past a childhood hurt…”
Sonya exploded. “It wasn’t a childhood hurt. We were sixteen. I was old enough to know better. Fuck Jeff, fucking hell.” Her voice dropped to something that Jensen couldn’t hear and then rose again, clouded with pain. “I can’t fail them because of what happened to him. I just can’t.”
There was silence for a while and Jensen wondered if that was all he was going to get from that. He almost turned and crept back to bed when Logan’s voice drifted down the hall again.
“Sonya, baby, you’ve already done more for them than anyone else has in this whole world.”
“But it’s not enough. You didn’t see him that night, or when I found them. I can’t even imagine everything they…” Sonya trailed off and Jensen heard rustling in the emptiness left by her voice. “He’s so broken. He’s had so much taken from him, stolen from him. I just want to give it all back to him.”
“I know you do, babe, but sometimes it’s not up to us to fix the world…”
“You don’t understand!” Sonya yelped, interrupting harshly. “His eyes. They’re blank. It’s like…It’s like he has only two things on his mind. Survival and Jared.” She laughed although it sounded wry and bitter. “Not in that order, of course. When Jared’s there, his eyes have life, his face has life. Child services will separate them and I can’t let that happen. Not when his whole existence hangs on that balance.”
Jensen felt his stomach clench painfully. He felt the tears he heard on Sonya’s voice flow down his own face as he turned and watched the shadowy lump that was Jared. Easy breaths filled the room, in and out, like a heartbeat pounding out his life’s purpose. He wasn’t empty. He had Jared. And Sonya knew that.
The voices had started again but Jensen didn’t want to listen anymore: couldn’t. He slowly, painfully, made his way back across the toy and clothes-strewn floor. His feet felt each thread of the carpet as if they were spikes, his skin picked up the tiny currents of air moving each time Jared took a breath. His brain whirred and clicked and tried to make things come into better focus. Instead things just blurred further and the usually soft sheets scraped against his bare torso and caught against the hair on his legs. Jared’s body was too hot when it instinctually sought to curl around Jensen. A lone car traveled the road beneath their window.
He wanted desperately to see the clock hidden by shadows. He wanted to know how many minutes, hours, days, he lay there struggling to breathe. What felt like weeks later, the door clicked open and the light spilled in from the hallway. Sonya’s form settled on the bed next to Jensen and her cool hands whispered across the skin of his forehead. He kept his eyes closed, tried to breath like he was sleeping. When her lips landed on the skin of his temple he almost gave up the game. He wanted to cry. He wanted to wrap himself around her and just let loose a torrent of tears that would drown everyone in the room. Instead he waited while she stroked her thumb across his cheekbone.
“Good night, sweet child,” she whispered finally, before sliding across the room to leave and finally taking the light away with her when she closed the door.
~*~
Jensen glanced up from where John Cusack’s character was drawing a pregnant math figure on the chalkboard just in time to see Sonya shrugging her purse strap over her shoulder. Jared snickered from his place against Jensen’s side, laughing at some joke that should have gone over his head, but didn’t. Baby Michelle sighed from her little child-sized Barbie rocker. She still smelled like sleep from when she’d woken up half an hour earlier, though thankfully Sonya and Jared had changed her diaper so it wasn’t an unpleasant odour.
“We’re going out?”
Sonya paused. Her keys were already in her hand, the car key already separated from the rest. On her feet, she’d already donned what Logan referred to as her “no shit shoes” for when she was going to take on some surely store clerk who botched an important order, or when the building administrator refused to fix the elevator.
“Um, no. You just relax. I’ll be back to make supper. An hour maybe? If you could pull the salmon out of the freezer, that’d be great.”
Jensen frowned.
“But Logan’s gone and...”
“No, Jen, it’s ok honey.”
Jared twisted in his seat, digging his elbow into Jensen’s side momentarily, lightly catching on one of the stubbornly remaining bruises.
“You too, sweetie,” she said when Jared’s shaggy hair poked above the back of the couch. The sunlight caught on the tangled mess, snagging and glinting irregularly. He really needed to learn to brush properly and regularly, Jensen thought passingly.
“I can get them ready,” Jensen offered, motioning at Jared and Michelle, but Sonya just waved her hand dismissively.
“You know Logan’s work number if you need him. Call Jeff if you can’t reach Logan. I’ll bring home some veggies to have with supper.”
With that, she slipped from the door, sealing off her promise to return with a soft click of the door. Jared, like always, scampered to slide the deadbolt in place and to check that the little lock button on the doorknob was still depressed before returning to his warmed spot at Jensen’s side. Michelle sighed happily, once more. On screen, John Cusack did something else amusing and disastrous.
“Huh,” said Jensen, to no one.
~*~
Jared was going to bed by himself with a lot less fuss now. Jensen swept his mouth over Jared’s cheek. “Night, buddy,” he whispered at Jared’s drooping eyes. “I’ll join you in a couple hours, k?” Jared nodded once and didn’t even try to catch Jensen’s wrist as he moved away from the bed. Pausing to flick the nightlight on, Jensen made his way through the mess on their floor and silently crept from the room.
“He was tired,” Sonya murmured, coming out of her own room and leaving the door open a little so they could hear if Michelle woke up.
“Yeah. Long day.”
Sonya nodded. “He’s sleeping then?”
“Yeah.”
“Jensen,” Sonya said softly before trailing off. Jensen waited while she passed her hand over her eyes, seeming to collect herself. “Jen, Logan and I need to talk with you. Can we do that?”
The bottom of his stomach fell out. This was it. It was finally over. He wanted to plead with her to let them stay just a little longer, or even just keep Jared even if they didn’t want him. Instead he just nodded silently, fighting to breathe against the sudden dryness in his mouth.
“Come with me honey,” she whispered leading him into the kitchen. Logan waited at the table. Rigid - he looked so rigid and tense. “Have a seat.” Then, as though catching the terror in his eyes, she smiled softly. “Relax Jen. It’s not so bad.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered toward his toes without sitting down. There was nothing there to blame for the tears that formed behind his eyes. There was nothing to excuse the pounding of his heart. “I’ll be better, I can be better.”
Sonya’s hand was firm on his shoulder as she pressed him into the chair. She took the one beside him. “Jensen, it’s not bad, I promise.”
“I’ll…I’ll stop hitting on Logan,” he pleaded, still refusing to meet their eyes. “Or at least, I’ll try. I don’t mean to do it, I just…I’ll be better. Just don’t…don’t kick us out yet, please.”
Sonya’s hand cupped his chin and pulled gently until he was staring at the blue of her eyes.
“We’re not kicking you out.”
The pounding of his heart kicked up a little more. The blood rushed so fiercely in his ears he could hardly hear the clock tick-ticking by the window. “You’re not?”
She rested her palm along his cheek. He imagined the freckles on the back of her hand sliding across and joining those that scattered across his nose, mixing and branding him, claiming and restoring him.
“No, baby. You’re welcome here as long as you want.”
“But Jensen, we do need to talk to you.”
Jensen turned out of Sonya’s tender hold and stared at Logan who was fidgeting in his chair.
“I don’t imagine you’re very familiar with the process of foster care and whatnot…”
“NO!” Jensen yelped and scrambled out of his chair so fast it fell over. “Don’t send me back there! God, please, no, please. I…I can’t!”
Sonya was on him in a second, pulling him to her chest and holding him while he shook. Her fingers rubbed at his scalp and played through his hair, her voice whispered soothing noises of comfort. “Shh, baby. You don’t have to go. You can stay right here with us, shh.”
Jensen clung tightly, clung until the blood was forced out of his fingers and he was sure he’d bruised Sonya’s thin arms. Still, she rocked him gently, like he did to Jared after a nightmare.
“Can you sit now?” Jensen nodded and let Sonya set him back in the newly righted chair. She grasped his hand and held him firmly, warmly. “We’re not sending you back, but we had to apply to be your guardians.” Jensen nodded again, dumbly.
“Now you, you’re a ward of the state. That basically means no one expects you to come home. Pending approval of our application, we’ll be your legal guardians until you turn 18.”
Jensen turned misty eyes at Sonya and trembled. “You want me?”
“Yeah, sweetheart, we do.”
Logan cleared his throat, causing Jensen to turn and finally look at him. His dark eyes looked pained. His hands were folded on the table, his fingernails ragged and short where he’d been picking at them.
“Jensen,” he said. Jensen waited for him to continue. “Jared’s not a ward of the state.”
A lifetime filled the silence that followed. Everything slowed then stopped. It was as though a huge vacuum got flipped on and sucked everything - even the light and hope - from the little kitchen. Then, with a snap, everything started again, too fast, too loud. Jared wasn’t a ward of the state. Someone expected him to come home.
“What…what does that mean for him?” Jensen pushed through his dry lips, choking down the sob that lodged in his throat. “Does that…Is he going away?”
Logan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Jared’s step-dad, Greg Thomson, is coming to get him tomorrow afternoon.”
Jensen stood. There were lights popping in his eyes, shadows filing across the lines of his vision. Tomorrow afternoon. Jared was leaving with someone. His step-dad.
“It’s good Jensen,” Logan said, finally standing and following him as he backed away. “This is a good thing. Jared can go back with his family who loves him.”
“I love him.”
“I know, we all do, but he belongs with his family.”
Jensen’s back hit the counter. His fingers landed on the cool marble, sending more shocks of sensation up his arm to confuse him even more.
“How long have you known?” he asked. “God, how long have you fucking kept this from us?”
Sonya came forward, but he flinched away when her arms came up to comfort him.
“How long did you fucking know you were taking him from me?” he screamed. The world disappeared behind a wet veil. He couldn’t breathe anymore. He felt something warm splash down his cheeks and over his lips. When he licked them he tasted salt. Tears. He was crying. “HOW FUCKING LONG?”
Sonya’s arms wrapped firmly around him before he could push her away.
“Child services just called us today. I promise we didn’t know.”
“You said we could stay here!” he sobbed. “You said you wanted us. Lies. All fucking lies!” He flung himself from her hold, knocking himself down in the process. The fall jarred his collarbone, sending a fresh wave of pain washing over him, but he hardly noticed. Scrambling from his untidy sprawl on the floor, he backed away panting raggedly.
“You said…you said…” he gasped between sobs. “Lies…you…” He turned and ran all the way down the short hallway and threw himself in the bed, not caring if he woke up Jared, not caring if Jared saw him crying. He fell asleep with Jared’s soft lips chasing after his tears and gentle stroking fingers trembling in time with each shaking breath.
~*~
Jeff was there when Jensen woke up, sitting backwards on a kitchen chair he had obviously dragged into the bedroom.
“Morning, sunshine,” he said with only a faint glimmer of his usual smile. “Heard you had a rough night. I’d give you my hangover remedy but I don’t think that’s your problem.”
Jensen scowled and felt beside him for Jared. He wasn’t there.
“Sonya’s in the kitchen explaining to him,” Jeff said when Jensen bolted upright. “Hold your horses, man. He doesn’t need you barging out there acting all upset.”
“Oh yeah,” hissed Jensen. “What does he need? Let me guess. Another carton of pogs. Maybe NFL this time, huh?”
Jeff laughed gruffly. He folded his hands on the back of the chair and rested his chin on them. He looked almost young like that, like someone much closer to Jensen’s age. “What he doesn’t need is a drama queen going in there and making him even more frightened than he’s going to be.”
Jensen froze. “What?”
“You don’t think he’s scared? The poor guy’s probably shitless.” Jeff rolled his chin until his head was tipped a little, like a questioning puppy. “He needs you to be brave and tell him he’s going to be alright. He doesn’t need you to make leaving here any harder than it already is.”
Jensen closed his eyes.
“Why are you here?”
Jeff smiled lazily. “To make sure you don’t go postal. To talk some sense into you. Not to tell you about the prefect pair of legs on Cindy Crawford. Yeah, there’s the smile I knew you were hiding.”
“Dude,” Jensen complained but the smile had broken the cloud. He climbed stiffly from the bed, and made his way to the chest of drawers where he and Jared had been keeping their growing collection of clothes. He hadn’t undressed the previous night and didn’t want to send Jared off looking all crumpled. He was trading his jeans for a clean pair when a shuffle at the door brought his attention around.
Jared stood there, clutching the same green “I ♥ U” teddy from the hospital. His eyes were red-rimmed and wide. His face was streaked with tears. Without saying a word, he crossed the room and buried his face in Jensen’s chest.
“Hey buddy,” Jensen cooed, briefly meeting Jeff’s eyes over Jared’s floppy hair. “Hey, it’s ok. It’ll be alright. I’ll call you and send you letters, ok?” Jared just sniffled. His hands bunched the fabric of Jensen’s shirt until it was just as wrinkled as the one he’d just taken off. “Hey, I’ll still be here. It’s not like you’re going across the ocean.”
The soft whimper shattered Jensen’s heart. The desperately clinging fingers destroyed his resolve. Jeff nodded once and slid out the door. They were alone.
“Jared, look at me pal.”
Jared’s eyes were dead when he raised his head. His cheeks were flushed from crying, and his nose was running. Jensen didn’t care. He bent down and pressed his lips firmly against Jared’s, once, twice, and then lingered, letting their breaths mix in the space between them.
“It’ll be alright. You’ll take your new pencils with you, and your movies. And you can call me anytime you want, k Jay?” He wasn’t ready for this and he didn’t want it. There were a hundred other things he’d rather be doing. “You’ll be ok, man. No more tears, ok? Be brave, for me?”
Jared sniffled once more, wiped his nose in Jensen’s shirt and finally took a step back. His eyes had gone cold, hard. Determined. It was the same terrifying look Jensen had seen when Jared had insisted Jensen show him all the tricks of their trade. It made his blood run cold.
~*~
It wasn’t like the time had gone unusually fast, it was just that Jensen didn’t want two o’clock to arrive at all. They’d spent most of the morning packing the few things Jared had. Sonya had managed to get them out shopping a few times and Jared had an adequate wardrobe of new clothes but it still wasn’t very large. Everything, including the movies, the drawing supplies and a few of the toys, fit neatly in one of the Porter’s larger suitcases. It was sitting at the door now, waiting beside Jared’s jacket and his shoes, mocking Jensen with the inevitability of time. As much as he wished for the clock to stop, it invariably moved forward, ticking away the seconds until there was nothing left but Jared’s sweaty hand in his palm and a few stubborn tears clinging at his eyelashes.
Sonya was sitting at the kitchen table with Jeff, both silent. Logan was pacing in front of the window, pausing at each turn to stroke Michelle’s cheek and to glance at the boys wrapped up in each other on the couch. Time moved sickeningly onward.
~*~
The buzzer rang at exactly four minutes past two. Sonya moved sluggishly to buzz him through the lobby doors, hesitating before pushing the button. No take backs. No pretending it wasn’t happening. It took approximately three minutes to take the elevator to the fifth floor and walk down the hall to their unit. Jensen closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing.
~*~
Greg Thomson wasn’t a tall man, nor was he short - perfectly set in the middle of the road. His eyes were average, his hair had just the right amount of grey for a man his age. His suit was drab, plain, but not shabby. There was absolutely nothing about him that stood out.
“Come on Jared. Let’s go home,” he said in his perfectly ordinary nothing-special voice. Jared held out for eight seconds and then he started screaming.
~*~
It wasn’t like Jensen hadn’t heard Jared’s voice before. He made happy little murmurs and frightened whimpers. He hummed his contentment and sighed his annoyance. He laughed and grunted and sobbed. In general, he could be quite noisy even without the aid of words. Nothing Jensen had ever heard prepared him for the raw sounds ripping from Jared’s throat as he shrieked through the fresh tears. He didn’t even breathe. One wail bled right into the next until his face was purple and Jensen’s arms were running with blood from where Jared was digging in his nails.
“Jared, Jesus Christ!”
Greg’s voice barely rose above the horrible screeching noises currently wrenching through the room. It did little to placate the tremors that wracked Jared’s frail little body. Jensen felt each one tear through him, each one hurting worse that the steel-toed kicks he’d once endured.
“Jared!” Logan was plucking gently yet urgently at Jared’s fingers, prying his nails from Jensen’s skin. Each time he managed to pull one hand off, the other clamped down twice as hard. His body was rigid, taut, like the strings on Jeff’s guitar, ready to snap if pulled any tighter.
“Baby, you need to calm down,” Sonya tried. She was kneeling in front of them, trying to capture his face, but he kept turning away from her, staining Jensen’s shirt and gasping through that wretched scream that threatened to destroy Jensen.
“Jared, stop it right now.”
Greg made a move as though to take Jared’s arm and suddenly Jeff was there, all six foot something of him, pressing the smaller man into the door. Logan managed to pry one of Jared’s arms off and Jensen finally clutched the fragile wrist, preventing him from clutching on again.
“Jared, buddy. It’s ok. What’s wrong? You have to tell me. I don’t know. I just don’t…Talk to me, tell me what’s wrong, please.”
Sonya eased the other hand off Jensen. Trails of blood oozed from the half circles carved in his arm but all his attention was on Jared who struggled fiercely in Sonya’s arms. The scream doubled as she handed him over to Logan who held him tightly, carried him to the door. It was Jeff who grabbed Jared’s things and all but shunted Greg out the door to follow them to the car.
No one noticed when the struggles to break free turned into a desperate reaching motion. No one noticed when the screams turned into hiccupping sobs. No one noticed when Jared’s tear-swollen mouth formed what suspiciously looked like a name. No one noticed but Jensen.
Part III