[Fic] That Place on the Corner [Part One]
That Place on the Corner
Part One - In the Beginning There Was Darkness
» Pairings/Characters: J2M (J2 only in this installment)
» Warnings/Tropes: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Magical Realism, Vampires and Werewolves and Faeries oh my
» Rating: PG-13
» Wordcount: ~9,400 words
Wherein Jensen Ackles inherits a house, and several other strange things besides.
This was originally the first chapter of a failed bigbang. It's dawned on me since that it's the most hugely boring thing I have ever written ever, and so of course I made it into it's own little story, like a concentrated shot of boredom. You're welcome.
"Hey, ladies! Pack it in!"
Jensen blinks away the sting of sweat from his eyes and sands carefully into the scalloped edges of the latticework crown-piece, smoothing the way for the north-west wardstone.
Under his boots, the ladder shakes and wobbles, and he steadies himself with practiced ease.
"I said pack it in! I ain't getting any younger here!"
The rest of JD's crew ignore the contractor, too. Guy's a lazy little fuck and probably salaried, whereas they get paid on project completion, and 5:25pm is way too early to be leaving a site with a deadline as tight as this one.
This ward, the last one, hums gently in his left hand, the sticker reading '2nd north-facing gable, 1½" socket' still affixed to its carved face. The witch they have on retainer is good at what she does but fickle and careless as a cat, and she'd dropped off the stones they'd ordered for Wednesday just this morning. She'd left strict instructions to get them in by nightfall. Jensen's not actually certified to do ward installation, and doesn't know why nightfall is such a big deal, but he's been busting ass since noon to get all eight in place and the moron with the bullhorn can kiss his ass.
When he judges the divot he's made is ready, Jensen presses the stone into it and feels the wards come up, a tingling buzz like static electricity crawling up his arm from where his fingertips touch granite. Jesus, finally.
"Hey! Jen!"
"Just gimme a sec!" he calls back, annoyed, and gets the wood glue from his belt. While he's still up here, there's a plastic finishing piece that goes on over the stone. They'll need it when they start painting the whole thing out next week.
Someone kicks the ladder and Jensen grabs the top rung for dear life, whipping around to glare down at- Oh. JD grins up at him.
"Come on down, Ackles," his boss coaxes, waving an envelope. "I swear I can make it worth your while." A member of the bricking team wolf-whistles.
"Yessir," Jensen answers sheepishly, and puts a clamp in place of glue.
When he's safely on the ground, JD hands over the paycheck with a sincere, "I'm sorry it can't be more, son, but you know what this market's like."
"Yes, Mr. Morgan, thank you." He does know. Jensen has gone from working full-time to part-time to only sporadically for Morgan Renovators, as the recession catches up with them all. These days he barely breaks three hundred bucks a week, but at least he's making money- and getting paid off-book, so he doesn't have to worry about the taxes.
"You take care of yourself, alright? I'll let you know Sunday if I need you Monday."
Looking at JD's face, Jensen won't be holding his breath for that call. "Thank you, sir. You have a nice weekend."
"You too," the man says, and starts off towards the line of crew members loading the trailers.
Jensen's battered Chevy, affectionately dubbed the Minnow due to her unsavory history as a Katrina reclamation, has been sitting in the bright April sunshine since seven in the morning, and slipping inside her is like descending into an outer ring of Hell. Jensen's rolling the windows down as soon as the engine catches, and peeling away from the curb before he's even gotten his seatbelt buckled.
Moving east on the Thorton expressway, the tight focus that kept him going through the week drains away and his shoulders sag wearily. Rushhour traffic comes to a standstill and he lets his head fall to the steering wheel, staring blankly at the instrument panel.
It'll be okay. He has a couple thousand saved up to make it through this next stretch of underemployment, however long it might be. He might get lucky and JD might find him something sooner rather than later. He can't count on it, though, and he'll have to ask for extra hours at the Italian place where he works weekends. The pay is shit but he can usually make it up in tips. He hates it, though. By nature he's kind of painfully shy, and being forced to flirt for a fatter paycheck is physically painful sometimes.
Thank God he doesn't have rent to pay anymore; he'd been barely treading water before JD had bumped him down to 'special' (read 'mostly unnecessary') contractor, but after, Jensen had let his lease expire and gone to his brother for help. Joshua, big-hearted humanitarian that he was, gave Jensen an air mattress and ten square feet of unfinished basement floor to call his own.
Jensen's grateful, though, don't get him wrong. Josh could've just slammed the door in his face.
An hour and a half later, traffic finally breaks up and Jensen sleep-walks through buying dinner (an egg salad sandwich just over the pull date and iced tea) at the tiny Rainbow Foods on the corner. The cashier's new, some kind of pictsie, and when he gives him-her?- a tight smile and exact change, she ignores him in favor of picking old scales off her wing.
He parks the Minnow on the street in front of his parents' old ranch, now Josh's, and heaves himself up and out of her like an old man. Friday nights are always like that- like his body saves up the whole week's worth of pain and soreness and only lets it go once the weekend has started. He never had much of a social life, even in college, but he hasn't had a night out in months.
The sun glints off a piece of glass and catches his eye. A thin grey face is peering out from the dim interior of a brick ranch across the street, storm door propped open, and Jensen lifts his hand in a wave. It's answered by a jerky come-hither motion, and Jensen sighs and shuts the Minnow's door.
"Hi, Mr. Heyerdahl," he calls, once he's within speaking distance.
"Jensen, hello," the drow says, voice high and hoarse. "I hope you're feeling well?"
"Yessir," he answers, coming to a stop a step below the stoop. "And yourself?"
The drow shrugs, squinting badly even in the lowering light of evening. He won't venture any further out of doors while the sun was still visible, his eyes better adjusted for living in caves than two-story colonials.
Jensen's been a little afraid of Heyerdahl since he was a kid, for no reason that doesn't sound like specism when he says it out loud. Still, isn't it normal to be leery of someone who only comes out at night and always stares just a little too long?
"Jensen," the drow says. "Please look at my air conditioner? Before you leave, I want to make sure it will last the summer." Their neighborhood is an aging one, most of the occupants in their fifties and above, and Jensen does a lot of unpaid handyman's work when he has the time. He doesn't go to church anymore, so he figures he has to get his brownie points in somewhere.
"Well, sure," Jensen says, pulling off his ballcap to run a hand through his sweat-damp hair. "But I just got home, Mr. Heyedahl, I'm not going anywhere."
"Before you leave," the drow repeats doggedly. "Tomorrow."
"I should be able to do that, yeah," Jensen says cautiously. "Not a problem."
"I appreciate it," the drow says. "Your brother wants to tell you something."
With that odd statement, Heyerdahl pulls the storm door closed, leaving Jensen staring at drawn curtains and the generic fire prevention charms stamped into the lintel. Classic drow conversation: cursory and cryptic.
Josh is sitting at the kitchen table and sorting through mail when Jensen staggers in, easing himself into the seat across from his brother.
"Hey," he says belatedly, after the awkward silence has gone on a beat too long.
"Uncle Jim's dead," his brother answers after a distracted pause, frowning briefly at a bill before adding it to a stack at his elbow.
"... oh," Jensen says, dumbfounded. "Ah. Grandma's brother Jim?" He hasn't seen him in years, can barely recall his face now. Uncle Jim is a craggy grey-haired phantom made of tobacco smoke and the sour smell of stale beer.
Josh shrugs. "The one up in Chicago."
"Yeah," Jensen says slowly. "Uncle Jim. Huh." If his brain was firing on more than two cylinders, maybe it'd be sadder. As it is, all he can think of is the fruit cocktail and marshmallow salad Mom always made for funerals and how much he wishes he had some now, after a week's worth of nothing but fast food and gas station sandwiches.
Josh nudges a thick, cream-colored envelope across the table, never looking up from the coupon books. "Think he forgot about MacKenzie, or maybe he just never knew she existed. He left us both some government bonds and gave you his house."
"House?" Jensen repeats dumbly. There are photographs poking out of the envelope, and he pulls them out further.
"It's a shitheap," Joshua says, and the photos certainly don't contradict him. It's a narrow old thing, built in maybe the twenty or thirties, and looks as though it hasn't been painted or cleaned in all those long years. Jensen sees several broken panes in the front windows and a yard that's mostly old bricks and crabgrass.
"I talked to some real estate agents in the area who said they'd take it off your hands for fifty thousand. The land's worth that much, at least."
Wheels are trying to turn in Jensen's head, doing their damnest to churn out something like an idea. "I could fix it up," he says hesitantly, testing how it sounds out loud. "Might be worth more then."
"Bad investment," Joshua says dismissively, as if that were that, and stands to throw away the junk adverts.
"Josh-" Jensen turns in his chair to keep his brother in sight. "I've got the experience, and we both know I sure as hell have the free time."
His brother dumps the stack in the trash and turns to face him, arms crossed over his chest. He's wearing AMU sweats, holes at the collar and the cuffs. "And I suppose all that free time will pay for the estate tax? And buy you all the, I don't know, hammers and drywall you need?"
"I'll get the money," Jensen insists, the wheels slowly gathering momentum. "It's coming to us free and clear, right? That means whatever we make above fifty thousand is pure profit."
Josh, stooping to open the liquor cabinet, grumbles, "If you can get that kind of money, you should be paying me rent."
"I'll use those bonds, maybe get a loan," Jensen temporizes, not really hearing his brother anymore as he fans the photos out over the table. "It's gotta be worth two hundred thousand at least, properly done."
"Whatever," Josh says, having clearly lost interest in the subject. "It's your house. Your taxes."
"It is, isn't it?" Jensen asks wonderingly, looking at the faded siding and weathered wooden railings with a dawning sense of awe.
Josh snorts derisively, and turns the lights out on Jensen as he leaves for the den.
Despite being twenty-four and ostensibly an independent adult, Jensen has never really had anything that was entirely his.
As the middle child, the younger brother, his room had always been their room, the same with his clothes, and his dog, his first car, his first crush- all shared, all communal. He'd even gone to the same college as Joshua, before Mom's hospital bills got too high. Joshua graduated, worked for a bank, got married, got divorced. Jensen dropped out and went to work for Morgan Renovations, Joshua's old summer job. Hell, Jensen hadn't even made it a full year renting his first apartment before he'd had to move back home.
Maybe that's why, despite being stupid-tired and utterly exhausted in every possible way, Jensen calls in sick to the restaurant and spends the night staring into the damp darkness of the basement, fantasizing about horsehair plaster and knob-and-spool wiring.
Dawn finds him gritty-eyed and stiff, folding clothes into a duffel bag while he studies an old 1997 Road Atlas, laid open to Greater Chicagoland. Fifteen hours, almost a thousand miles. His last paycheck from JD should be just enough to cover gas.
If he never goes above fifty-five, he might even be able to swing some powdered doughnuts.
Jensen leaves a note on Mr. Heyerdahl's door to say his conditioning unit is fine, and makes another stop at Rainbow Foods. He pets and plies the Minnow with the promise of a thorough wash and detailing if she can just give him twenty miles a gallon on the highway. Twenty. That's all he's asking for.
The temperature has already risen into the eighties by the time Jensen gets on the road. It's one of those blindly bright, clear days, sky rolling on mile after cloudless mile above him, road straight as an arrow and dry as a bone. It's a good day for traveling.
He makes great time across eastern Texas and Arkansas, hardly touches the pedal on the gentle sloping curves leading down into the river valley around Little Rock. The last time he'd driven out this way the fields had been sear and brown in winter's tight grip, but now the corn's knee-high and the soybeans not far behind. He rolls the windows down and lets the wind blow briskly through the cab, bringing with it the earthy green smell of farm country and ditchside honeysuckle.
He cruises into Memphis late in the afternoon. There's a tiny little diner and gas station courting the edge of the highway like certain disaster, and he decides to stop, stretch his legs for a bit. Best to fill up on the cheap stuff while he can get it; the Minnow isn't even trying to earning her wash.
While the truck eats his money, Jensen leans on the hood and looks around, taking in the drooping petunias and flaking paint of the window boxes, the specials painted in the window and the neon glowing dimly even in the bright sunshine.
The place seems strangely busy, until he sees a Greyhound lumber by and realizes the drab-looking coffin of a building next door is actually a bus depot. There are duffel bags thrown willy-nilly by the curb and a group of guys a couple dozen strong play-wrestling out in the grassy strip between the highway and the pumps. They're big boys, maybe a football or basketball team out on the road, although it's a little out of season for either. Their laughter comes in loud and raucous over the dull roar of the highway.
Jensen spaces out a little while the tank fills, listening to the muted honkytonk playing over the speakers and thinking about the house. His house. His very own house. He shouldn't get ahead of himself, no knowing what condition it's actually in, but surely it's harmless to daydream a little.
He's thinking about cross-hatched brick facing when a hand lands on his arm, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. He whirls to face the man suddenly looming at his shoulder.
"Whoa, sorry dude, didn't mean to scare you," the guy says, although the grin tugging at his mouth suggests his apology is less than sincere. "Really, sorry," he says again, and thrusts out a hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Jared."
Jensen straightens, self-consciously flexing his shoulders and rocking up on the balls of his feet. It's no use; 'Jared' is taller and broader, built like the proverbial brick shithouse, and when Jensen manners kick in and he finally takes the offered hand, Jared's grip is bone-crushing.
"You too," Jensen says automatically, and takes back his hand back as soon as he can. There's something strange about Jared's direct, unwavering stare, narrowed eyes and the tilt of his head. His gaze holds an animal interest, not I wonder if I could take this guy but I wonder how he'd taste. It's not a look Jensen gets from many men, or women for that matter.
"I was just going to ask," Jared continues, tucking his hands into his pockets and smiling again, easy and leonine. "Any chance you're headed out of town? More than fifty miles out?"
The pieces start to add up, and Jensen tenses.
Jared sees his expression shift and says hurriedly, "It doesn't have to be to any specific place. Just as far as you're willing."
That big group out on the grass makes more sense now. Jensen must have seen this one on TLC or the Discovery Channel a few thousand times: "Following the tradition of thousands of years, in the spring, the young and unattached males are expunged from the safety of the pack and into the wider world: a mass diaspora such as is unequaled by any other supernatural race."
"I charge for gas," Jensen says, half-hoping it will deter the were.
"No, that's totally fine," Jared says earnestly, reaching for his wallet. "Look, I have money-"
"Holy shit!" gets surprised out of Jensen at the sight of the fat wad of cash in Jared's hand. Whatever his species, the kid's got some serious money; Jensen sees at least half an inch of crisp, fresh-from-the-bank c-notes and glances around warily. Weres are cocky bastards, Jensen's worked with enough of them to know that, but there's confident and then there's just plain stupid. This little diner, nestled in the junction of I-40 and I-55, isn't in the roughest part of town, but there's plenty of rough waiting for an idiot flashing that kind of dough.
"Put that away," he snaps, looking back at Jared. "Just- get in the truck, before you get us both jumped."
"Really? Awesome!" Jared says. He sounds even younger now, though he can't be under eighteen. There are laws about turning kids out the house, laws that apply even to supes.
Jensen grabs his receipt and slumps back in the driver's seat, watching through the windshield as Jared trots back to the group rolling around in the grass. There's a lot of unnecessary whoops and backslaps and tackling hugs, and Jensen seriously debates putting the Minnow in gear and flooring it out of the gas station. Weres might be fast, but they weren't that fast. Probably.
Eventually, Jared seems to recall that yes, he does have somewhere he needs to be and grabs one of the many duffel bags littering the grassy slope. He lopes back to the Minnow and gives Jensen a bright, happy grin as he slides into the passenger's seat. "So. Where are we going?"
Chicago is apparently an acceptable destination, although Jared wonders out loud whether he's brought enough warm clothes, and if it snows in April in Chicago. It does in Milwaukee, he has cousins there. Has Jensen ever been to Milwaukee? There's an art gallery with wings on it.
Jensen gives noncomittal grunts where appropriate, and points the Minnow north on I-55.
Jared fills the awkward silence like he doesn't notice it's there, and Jensen learns in short order that Jared is twenty, from San Antonio, the second son of a full-were couple. He was attending Rice as a full-time student when his alpha decided that the pack males needed thinning.
"I mean, it's not like it was in the old days," he says, catching Jensen's expression. "We weren't chased out or anything. And the pack hasn't had a cull since the eighties, it was definitely time."
"So, what, he just... ordered you to leave?" Jensen asks, curious despite himself.
"Well, yeah," Jared says. He takes a huge bite of beef jerky and chews, well on his way through a second bag. For his foray into the wider world, the were has apparently packed several pounds salted meat products and very little else.
"And you just left?"
"He's the alpha," Jared says, as if it explains everything. Maybe to weres, it does.
Jared is a fidgety passenger, not even making it ten miles before he's playing with the radio, running his seat back as far as it will go and bracing his long legs against the dash with a petulant sigh.
"You can try out the back if you'd like," Jensen offers, watching as Jared twists himself into stranger and stranger positions to fit all his long limbs in a pattern of his liking.
"No," the were says instantly, turning his face up to Jensen's from where he'd had it pressed into the door panel. "I'd rather be up here with you."
Jensen's not sure how he's supposed to take that, so he lets it lie and returns his attention to the road.
Beside him, Jared pulls out a phone that looks like it could land a space shuttle, and squirms around under the pull of the seatbelt until he's on his stomach, seat back fully down and legs kicking lazily in the air.
"You're gonna die if we crash," Jensen tells him, speeding up to pass a semi.
Jared snorts and curls onto his side, aiming the phone in Jensen's direction. It makes a shutter sound. At Jensen's questioning glance, Jared says, "My sister wanted a picture of you to compare to the FBI's Most Wanted posters."
Jensen sputters out an honest laugh and Jared grins at him, all dimples and teeth that gleam in the slanting evening sun.
Jared eats, fiddles with his phone, eats some more, tells Jensen genuinely terrible puns ("Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars!"), unfolds and refolds all Jensen's maps, eats, and digs through the mess of papers Uncle Jim's lawyer had prepared on the house.
"13 Maundy Street, Veles Hills, Illinois," he reads, flipping through the pages. "Built in 1927. Hey, it used to be a boarding house! I'd like to smell that."
Jensen gives him a sideways glance, but Jared is completely engrossed in the documents and deeds and doesn't notice. He's quiet long enough that Jensen turns on the radio, but then his eyes snap up and he declares, "I love this song!" 13 Maundy Street is apparently forgotten.
The were sings along with Elvis and Cash and Brooks, right up until the sun dips below the horizon. Then he crashes so hard that Jensen's tempted to check for a pulse, the stillness of his sleeping body a shock after so many hours of restless hyperactivity in the passenger's seat.
Jensen does eventually pull over, when his eyes gave gone gummy and the yellow lines are starting to blur. There's a rest stop and weigh station just off the highway in Marion, Illinois, with a couple Mac trucks already parked in the overnight section.
Jared's first words when Jensen hesitantly prods him awake are, "I'm hungry."
Jensen knows that there are some things supes do that normal humans just don't get, aren't wired for, the kind of thing they bring up and emphasize on CNN whenever Genetic Diversity Month rolls around, or the supernatural rights struggle is in the news. As a human who's lived in mostly-human communities for all of his life, the things he knows about werekind are, for the greater part, based purely off of rumor and after-school specials.
One: the were prefer closer and more frequent physical contact, not only with members of their immediate family but also friends and friendly acquaintances. Their body language is often much more explicit as a result. See: Jared, half-asleep, shuffling out of the truck and directly into Jensen's personal space, leaning the full weight on his body on him and rubbing his face over Jensen's cheek with a huge sigh.
Two: the were possess a faster, more carnivorously-based metabolism than that of humans. This results in several basic anatomical differences, including a higher average body temperature and greater muscle density. See: Jared eating roughly half his body weight in steak (shitty steak, yes, but still the most expensive item on the menu at Denny's), sitting on Jensen's side of the booth with his leg tucked under Jensen's calf, skin fever-warm against the underside of Jensen's knee.
Three: the were, as their greatest distinguishing feature from humans and even other supernatural races, are in possession of a dual nature. In addition to full moons, their more instinctually-driven half is also likely to manifest in times of stress and fear, as well as under the influence of drugs or in otherwise altered states of consciousness. See: Jared, eyes barely open, herding Jensen back to the truck with gentle nudges and soft, encouraging noises. Jensen manages to settle the were down in the passenger's seat, and takes the cramped back for himself. He wakes up thirty minutes later completely covered in a head-to-toe Jared quilt.
He'd fallen asleep curled awkwardly on his stomach, and Jared has buried his face between his shoulder blades and thrown a leg over his knees. The were's hands have made themselves comfortable splayed against his sides and stomach, and Jesus, Jensen hasn't cuddled this close with anyone since... well. Anyone.
When he tries to ease his way out from under Jared, though, the were gives a chastising growl and nips him on the back of the neck, hard enough to sting.
He doesn't try again.
In the morning, Jared just stares in blank incomprehension while Jensen tries to explain why he is so uncomfortable with the fact that he's just woken up with another man's morning wood poking him in the ass.
"I'm sorry, I guess?" Jared says, kneeling on the seat above him. His hair is in wild disarray and somehow he's managed to get completely naked, when Jensen distinctly remembers pulling off his shoes and nothing else the night before. Jensen's happy for the kid, he really is, but he needs to put that thing away before it pokes someone's eye out.
"It's just not-usually-people don't do this," Jensen says a little hysterically, hands folded on his chest because there is literally nowhere else safe. "But no harm, no foul." Because sports metaphors will somehow make all of this, waking up wrapped around Jared with the were's big, warm hands in really nonplatonic and unmentionable places, somehow less excruciatingly awkward.
Understanding seems to dawn, and Jared's face goes sheepish. "Oh, man, I think I just broke almost every rule in the handbook," he says, sitting back so that he's straddling Jensen's waist. He's really fucking heavy, and warm, and Jensen's own morning wood is enjoying the heat and friction a little too much.
"There's a handbook?" Jensen asks, pulling his arms in tighter. "No, don't tell me, just get off. Me. Get off me. We need to get moving, got another long day on the road ahead of us," he babbles as Jared shifts against him.
They do eventually get moving, and Jared treats him to beseeching looks and puppy-dog (puppy-were?) eyes until Jensen promises that no, he's not angry, and that he still likes Jared plenty. He buys Jared an ice-cream cone from a roadside stand to make the assurance stick, and Jared is bouncing off the upholstery again in no time.
"Okay, this is going to sound really bad," Jared says, during a lull in conversation. Alan Jackson is on the radio, singing about tall tall trees and all the waters in the seas. "But I don't think I ever caught your name?"
Jensen makes the merge onto 159th Street and throws an arch look at his passenger. "I'm offended, Jared. Very, very offended."
Jared starts to smile, then frowns. "You are joking, right? That was a joke?"
Jensen sighs. "That was sarcasm, yes. My name's Jensen. Jensen Ackles."
"Jensen Ackles," Jared repeats slowly, lingering over it like he's tasting something unexpectedly delicious. He grins. "Nice to meet you, Jensen."
They've entered the outer suburbs of Chicago and it's noticeably cooler now, the wind brisk and damp with the threat of rain. The sky is an even, dull grey, the sun a flat disc barely brighter in the west.
Jared pulls out his ridiculous phone and they find the closest Metra stop, Veles Hills, where the were can take a train into the city proper and from there, anywhere in the continental United States. Hell, with the amount of cash in his wallet he could catch a plane to Bermuda.
"Thanks for the ride, Jensen," Jared says. He'd gotten steadily quieter the closer they get to the commuter station, and now he's glancing between Jensen and the Metra platform like the train is a chopping block. Jensen guesses it's one thing to skip town with a big group of friends and another to be so far from home, completely on your own in an unfamiliar place. Poor kid.
"Here," he says, and digs out a pen and the Denny's receipt from last night. "This is my cell number," he explains as he writes across the back of it. "And this-" Here, he has to refer to the legal papers stuffed haphazardly back into their envelope, slotted in between the center console and the driver's seat. "This is the address of the place where I'll be staying. Just…" he trails off, looking at Jared's subdued, nervous face. "If you get into trouble, call me, okay?"
"Thanks! I mean, I will," the were says, painfully earnest. He tucks the receipt carefully into his front pocket.
Jensen waits for the door to open, but Jared's still sitting with his hand over the handle, looking at him with a question in his eyes. "Jared?" he prompts.
"Do humans hug? Can I hug you?" Jared asks, a little plaintive.
"Men shake hands," Jensen says firmly, and puts his out for Jared to take. The were does, reluctantly.
It's started to rain, and as Jared climbs out of the cab his cotton tee speckles with damp patches. He throws one last anxious look at Jensen, who gives him a big thumbs-up and a, "Go get 'em, tiger."
"Wolf, actually," Jared says, and looks down. "Jensen..."
"Yeah?"
"... Thanks," Jared says finally, lifting his eyes almost shyly. "For everything. "
He slams the door then, and runs for the terminal in long bounding steps. Jensen goggles at the smooth bunch and release of muscle when the were clears the tall fence surrounding the platform in one jump, effortless as an Olympic hurdler.
Jared disappears from view, and Jensen pulls the Minnow around, fully intending to leave the parking lot and continue on his way before he loses the light completely.
Instead, he finds himself idling in the shadow of a big oak tree tossing its branches in the wind, until the next commuter train comes roaring down the tracks. Jared's bag is a bright splash of color against the grey gloom as he boards.
According to the directions Jensen copied from Joshua's computer, Uncle Jim's house is in the city suburb of Veles Hills, just off 111th street and some miles outside of the town proper, on the edge of a forest preserve. It sits on a big corner lot, right at the entrance to a series of twisting, twining streets Jensen assumes is a neighborhood.
111th starts off as a broad four-lane highway, well lit and lined on either side with tidy storefronts and manicured lawns. As he drives west, the grass grows longer and the buildings less frequent, until he's driving through a tunnel of trees, branches a darker shade of black against the cloudy night.
"Must've missed the turnoff," he mutters out loud. The rain is really coming down now, the dense pounding noise of it drowning out the Minnow's engine and the radio. Every now and then lightning glimmers in the distance, flickering in the crowns of the trees like will o' wisps.
Jensen's decided to do a u-turn at the next turnoff when a dull yellow sign appears on the shoulder. He has to slow to read it, water streaming down his windshield faster than the wipers can clear it.
"Maundy Road, half a mile," he mutters as he crawls past. "Jesus, I thought this place was supposed to be next to the forest, not in it."
Without the sign, he might not have even noticed the street. It looks more like a private driveway, green crowding in from all sides of the asphalt. There's a faded sign all but swallowed by vines; the only thing Jensen can make out is a standard protection glyph, seven-point star stamped deep into the wood.
The only reason Jensen sees the house at all is because there's a brick mailbox parked at the edge of seemingly impenetrable undergrowth. The drive is gravel and hasn't been redone in years, possibly decades; weeds are edging in from the margins and have taken it almost completely over. It crunches unpleasantly under the Minnow's wheels when he turns onto the drive and slowly presses forward.
The Minnow rolls into a clearing, coming to a stop about fifteen feet in. Jensen lets it, staring up at the building illuminated in his highbeams.
It's Jim's house alright, under a fine patina of overgrown ivy. It looms above him, somehow much larger than the photos has made it look: a full three stories with peaked attic gables and strange intricate moldings around the porch railings and doorframes. The windows are blind and dark, the brick chipped and crumbling under the determined assault of the vines.
"Guess the gardeners have had the last century off, yeah?" Jensen says to himself, mostly to try to shake off the creepy feeling the place is giving him. "Wonder where I can get a machete in Veles Hills, Illinois."
He turns off the engine. The Minnow's dash lights come on, turning the windshield opaque and hiding the house from view. He fumbles around the console for the envelope the lawyer sent him, and tips it over. The keys spill out on his palm, the one for the front door still shiny and brassy. He doubts it's ever been used, and spares a moment to pray it actually works before shrugging on his jacket and braving the rainy night.
When he left Dallas, it'd been a balmy 85 degrees and sunny. This feels like maybe half that, and the wind whipping water into his face and down his collar isn't helping. He grabs his bags out of the back and locks the doors. He doesn't think the deer are going to break into his truck, but you never know. According to Mapquest, there's a whole neighborhood back here somewhere; maybe this is the forest preserve's version of the south side.
He uses the glow from his phone to navigate across the drive and onto the front walk. Getting onto the porch is a challenge, some of the steps sinking alarmingly as his weight settles on them. He hops awkwardly onto the landing and almost screams when a rusty old porch swing emerges suddenly from the darkness.
There's a screen door that's more hole than mesh, and a reassuringly new-looking charm-chain attached to its handle. He tucks the phone under his chin and shuffles through the documents, pausing when he finds the page he's looking for. "Oka-ay," he says slowly, scanning the paragraphs. "I just-?" He looks back at the chain, and gingerly reaches out to touch the cold metal. "Uh, hi there. My name is Jensen Ackles?"
There's a fluttery sensation like a tiny heartbeat against his finger, and the chain slithers away, falling into a heap that he jumps back from. The charms wink in the coils like captive stars, and he carefully nudges it to the side with the toe of his boot.
Opening the actual door is harder. It's a fight to get the damned key in the lock, let alone turn it, and Jensen wonders as his fingers strain how the hell the old man got in and out. No way the lock got this stiff in just a few weeks.
The door is old, maybe as old as the house, and stubborn with it, but Jensen's wet and cold and he's been driving for two days straight; no goddamn door is going to keep him from a change of clothes and if the gods are smiling, a freaking bed. Any apprehension vanishes in the face of sheer frustration; once the key has turned as far as it can, he puts his shoulder to the wood and shoves.
Later, he'll remember the whisper, breathed right against his ear as a hand slid up to cup his jaw, thumb pressed to the corner of his mouth. "Be still and I won't hurt you," was all it said, but Jensen's body goes lax and fluid as his mind shuts down.
Seven little words, not even a curse, and he's already under by the time he hits the floor.
"You realize, Misha, we could just eat him," comes a voice from Jensen's left. It's male, British, and speculative in a way Jensen really doesn't like.
"We are not eating the burglar, Seb," says a voice on his right; apparently, Misha. Objectively it's quite a nice voice, pleasantly low and polished, but just the tone sets off an involuntary slackness in Jensen's muscles; that'd be the one who whammied him, then.
Jensen's face aches like he might have fallen flat on it. He suspects that is exactly what happened. He's sitting upright, arms bound behind him and legs similarly immobilized.
"We can't exactly claim self-defense when he's unarmed and tied to a chair," Misha's saying, and Jensen agrees wholeheartedly.
"Yes, that, what he said," he tries to say, but it comes out more like "Uff, vah, uffiheh" around the makeshift gag shoved into his mouth. From the flavor, he suspects it's a dirty sock. He really doesn't want to know what they used as a blindfold.
Something strikes the chair and Jensen skids across the floor, startling a yelp out of him.
"Shut up," comes Misha's voice. "You're just lucky I have a conscience, and that you didn't try break in four doors down. The Ferrises definitely would have eaten you."
Jesus, what kind of neighborhood is this? The smell of damp and dust is strong, and Jensen shivers as his soaked clothes slowly leach the heat from his body.
"We could untie him, let him run a little," the first voice, Seb, mutters.
"Sebastian!"
"What?" Sebastian says defensively. "Are you telling me you don't want to, even a little? He smells absolutely mouthwatering." There's a note of greedy longing there that makes Jensen extremely uncomfortable; his sister sounds a lot like that when Belgian chocolate is involved.
Misha huffs out a laugh. "He smells like the dumpsters outside McDonald's on a hot day. You've been living on supplements too long."
Sebastian makes an unhappy, hungry sound. "Dear God, you're not lying. Even the rats in your basement are starting to look appetizing."
"Sebastian," Misha complains, and suddenly Jensen and the chair are hoisted into the air as easily as if they were a Styrofoam sculpture: Man, Captured by Opportunistic Cannibals and Their (Thank Fucking God) More Sensible Friends.
"Hmm. You know, under the beef jerky and Cheeto dust, he does smell pretty good," gets breathed into the side of his neck, Jensen can't quite swallow a yelp as a cool tongue flicks out and tastes the thin skin just behind his ear.
Goddamn it.
Whoever's lifted him is now walking with him, and it's not the weirdest thing he's ever felt but it's damn close. Jensen's not a small guy, but these guys put him out of commission in two seconds flat and they're supporting his weight like it's nothing. He wonders if he should be screaming.
"So we can eat him?" Sebastian asks hopefully, from his right this time. It sounds like he's walking beside them, which means that Misha is carrying Jensen all by himself. Christ.
"No," Misha says firmly. "Open the door and I'll put him outside. Let the human police deal with him."
"Fine," Sebastian grumbles, and the low drone of rain gets suddenly louder. "But you owe me lu- bloody hell!"
"Uh," comes a third voice, and Jensen's never been so pathetically grateful to hear someone in his life. He says "Oh fank goh," through the sock.
Sebastian says, "Who the fuck are you?"
"I'm- no, who are you? Why is Jensen-? What the hell," Jared says, voice getting louder with each word. "Put him down!"
"Like hell we will," Sebastian starts, and Jared growls, "Put him down."
Whoa. He's never heard Jared sound like this, like something murderous and barely contained, and Jensen knows the rumbling threat isn't directed at him, but his hindbrain hears predator and his body goes stiff with terror.
"Calm down there, puppy," Misha says coolly. He lowers Jensen down, and they must be at the porch; raindrops start rewetting his hair, running down his neck. "We caught your friend trespassing."
"How can he be trespassing in his own house?" Jared snarls, an edge of belligerence bleeding into the promise of violence. He's crowding in close enough that Jensen can feel that insane body heat radiating off him.
"Because this is not his house," Misha says slowly, as though talking to a developmentally disabled child.
Jared's continuing to inch forward, and he leans into Jensen, pressed against his legs where they're tied to the chair legs. Jensen can feel a strange vibrating tension in him. "His uncle died and left it to him. He has the deed and everything!"
There's a long silence. Rain falls on Jensen's face and soaks in over his eyes where the blindfold rests.
"Well, that would explain why he has keys," Sebastian says thoughtfully.
Jared unties him-well, rips all the ropes off the chair with a force that leaves Jensen's skin smarting- and the sock comes out of his mouth. He takes the blindfold off himself and wobbles to a standing position, Jared all but shaking with leashed anger beside him.
"Sorry about that," Misha says, and Jensen turns to look at him.
He's fairly tall but more slight than Jensen expected, for someone able to pick up and carry a grown man without even breathing hard. His arms are folded across his chest and his eyes are clear all the way to the bottom, some indeterminate light color in the dark front hallway. Sebastian is a barely-there presence behind him, indistinct in a way that makes Jensen think if he looks away, the man will fade completely from view.
He has the thought, suddenly, that he's very possibly the only human present, and shivers.
"We-ell," Sebastian says, breaking another lengthening silence. "I'll just leave you three to it, shall I?"
"That's probably best, yes," Misha agrees, not taking his eyes away from Jared's.
Sebastian leans forward into the light, and winks at them. "Then perhaps I'll see you for dinner some time?" he says, and gives a sardonic laugh. "Au revoir, mes petits."
A soft sound like leaves falling and there are suddenly only three people standing on the porch. Jared makes a sharp noise that sounds uncomfortably like a bark and jerks his head around to follow-something-as it disappears into the night.
Misha stares a little longer, long enough that Jensen's wondering if he intends to let them in the house at all, or if he'll have to spend another night in the Minnow and talk to Jim's lawyer in the morning.
"You don't look anything like Jim," he says finally, tilting his head slowly sideways. "But I suppose, if you're lying, you realize now that you won't live to regret it."
"Uh," Jensen says, and swallows. "Good thing I'm not lying." Beside him, Jared shifts closer, all but standing on Jensen's foot.
"Excellent," the man purrs. "With that understanding, then, please, come inside. Your puppy can come too," he adds with a slight grin, and disappears just as silently and swiftly as Sebastian had.
After a brief and totally justifiable hesitation, Jensen stumbles forward into the dark. Jared doesn't let him go two steps before he's pressed to his side, exactly (although Jensen would never say it out loud) like a nervous dog. Jensen lets him, even lets him lead once he realizes he has no prayer of following Misha on his own. He can't see a fucking thing, his eyes straining pointlessly in the pitch-black darkness. Why did they even bother blindfolding him?
A match flares and Misha's face is momentarily illuminated before the light drops to a fat pillar candle, set in the middle of a table. The wick catches and the unrelieved blackness of the room abates.
Misha sprawls back against a very stiff, very sad-looking sofa in what might be the living room. Or the family room. Formal dining room. It's impossible to tell under the sheer bulk of things, all manner of things, pots and books and paintings and vases rising in unsteady stacks from floor to ceiling. Jensen edges carefully around the piles, Jared's clinging not helping a bit, and has to clear away a cuckoo clock and a small collection of military dress uniforms before he can sit down, the loveseat under him every bit as sad as the sofa under Misha.
"So, first things first. Sorry about your uncle," Misha says, leaning over to set something in front of Jensen. It's still quite dark in the room, and Jensen has to pick the object up before he realizes it's an empty bell jar.
"Great-uncle, actually," Jensen says, and then, because his momma raised him to be polite, adds a grudging, "Th-thank you." The house is cold, barely warmer than the chilly April night outside. It creaks and whistles in the wind, and the candle on the table flickers in a sudden draft. Jensen feels around until he finds a ragged old afghan, and wraps it around himself. He immediately wishes he had ten more just like it, and shivers harder.
Misha sets a glass out for himself and a third for Jared, who's still glowering daggers at the man from the floor next to Jensen's leg. He's radiating enough heat that Jensen briefly entertains the idea asking him to join him under the afghan. Jared wouldn't think it was weird. Jared didn't think naked spooning with strangers was weird.
Misha leans down to fumble around the floor and under the coffee table between them, making a noise of triumph before drawing out a half-empty bottle. "I propose a drink to his memory," he says, and tips a few fingers of liquid- by the smell, a very alcoholic liquid-into Jensen's jar. He offers the same to Jared, and the were gives a sharply negative jerk of his head, body tensed and eyes hanging unblinkingly on Misha's every move. He's still strangely menacing despite his dripping clothes and sodden hair, crouched as if ready to go for the man's throat at the slightest provocation. Jensen doesn't know whether to feel flattered or disturbed.
"Relax, puppy," Misha says as he sits back, setting the bottle on the cushion next to him. "I don't mean you or your friend any harm, I swear. Sebastian might be a bloodthirsty bastard but I'm just a big old pussycat."
"My name is Jared," the were snarls.
Misha tilts his head. "Lovely to meet you. Misha Collins, entirely at your service, Jared-?"
"Padalecki," the were allows reluctantly.
"Jensen Ackles," Jensen offers when Misha's eyes turn to him. The man raises an eyebrow.
"Not Beaver?" he asks curiously.
Jensen shakes his head and pulls the afghan more tightly around him. Jared's breath is fogging in the room, and Jensen's not at all surprised. "Jim was my mother's uncle, so, no."
"I see." Misha takes a sip, and grimaces. "I was the one who found him, you know," he says, frowning at his glass and holding it up to the candlelight. "Three weeks after the fact. God-awful mess. Shot to death, right where Padapuppy's sitting."
Jared jerks upright and Misha smiles. It might be Jensen's imagination, but the man's grin seems almost as toothy as Jared's.
The were subsides with a scowl. "He did not."
Misha lays a hand over his heart. "Why would I lie?"
"I would smell it," Jared insists, and Misha shakes his head and sighs.
"I think he might have preferred getting shot, honestly. He'd been in and out of the hospital for a few months, a slow fade and all that." Misha's lips flatten into a line. "We didn't see each other all that often- only knew he'd died when that shark lawyer of his popped around to tell me there was a new owner. Oh, it wasn't like that," Misha says when he looks up, sees Jensen's face. "We weren't friends, really."
"What were you then?" Jensen asks, feeling like he has no foothold in this conversation at all. "Why are you here?"
Misha curls his legs under him and curves his hands around his glass, pose loose and face enigmatic as a cat's. "I rent a room from him," he explains, and points in a generally upwards direction. "He was looking to make some extra money and I was looking for a landlord who didn't give a fuck- and really, I've never seen a man who gave less of a fuck than Jim Beaver."
It feels like Misha's deliberately skirting around something, and Jensen presses, "Didn't give a fuck about what?"
"Jensen," Jared grinds out, his eyes throwing back eerie gold and green in the candlelight. "He's a vampire."
Oh. Well.
"A vampire?" Jensen echos weakly, because there's knowing that a shifter or were might go for you in dark alley, and then there's drinking hooch with someone who's entire diet consists solely of people.
"A vampire who lives off of iron shakes and donations, not virgin sacrifices," Misha says smoothly, eying Jared with annoyance. "Anyway, I'd think a were would be the last one to protest other peoples' eating habits."
Misha doesn't looking particularly vampiric. He's dressed in track pants and a long-sleeved shirt rolled up at the elbows, feet bare, hair standing up in tufts from his head. But Jensen remembers the whisper, and how it dropped him like a puppet with cut strings. His body is still shaking off the lethargy.
His distrust must show in his expression, and Misha's mouth twists down. "Iron shakes and donations," he repeats firmly, and lifts his glass in salute. "Occasionally, rotgut whiskey as well. I mean you no harm, Jensen Ackles."
The solemn way Misha says his name makes Jensen remember there are witches who can curse you just by knowing it, and he's briefly glad his middle name hasn't entered the conversation.
He looks down at the table, at the pieces of fine china and toy train parts scattered across it. Misha is watching him closely over the rim of his glass.
"Why exactly are you here, Jensen ?" the vampire asks, abruptly. "Will you live here? Sell the house? Raze it to the ground?"
Instead of answering, Jensen takes another sip of whiskey, and looks around at the dark, crowded room. "This place seems hardly livable," he says. "Does the electricity even work? The heating?"
"Don't know," Misha admits. "I don't need it, so I never really noticed if Jim used them. My room is... isolated from the rest of the house."
"Isolated?"
Misha gestures with his glass. "The stairs fell down a few decades ago. I usually just-" he makes a face and a grabbing motion with his free hand. "-climb the side of the building."
"What, really?" Jensen asks, and then holds up a hand. "No, I believe you." Vampires can't really turn into bats, that one was debunked sometime in the eighteenth century, but they don't need to be bats to fly.
"About the house," Jensen says slowly, setting the bell jar on the table. "I haven't made any decisions." He thinks of the pages on pages of hand-drawn notes in the Minnow's back seat, the research, the diagrams. "And it's too late to be making any tonight." Right now he's just too tired, and more than a little hungry, body still riding the thin, miserable line between being cold and freezing to death. In daylight, he'd be able to make a proper sweep of the house and evaluate its condition.
"Really? It's middle of the morning for me," Misha says, and stands. Against Jensen's leg, Jared tenses, and Jensen wonders where he finds the energy. Now that his life isn't being directly threatened, it's hard to even keep his eyes open.
"And, as it's morning, I propose we adjourn to the kitchen for some breakfast," the vampire says, leaning down to grab the candle. "Follow me, please."
The vampire moves towards a blank black doorway in the far wall with long, sure steps, and disappears into the gloom before Jensen can say more than, "Wait, what?"
Slowly, Jensen rises to follow him. Jared can't scramble up to plaster himself against Jensen fast enough, and the body heat is so welcome Jensen doesn't try to pull away.
They arrive in the kitchen, down at the end of a long narrow hallway lined with closed doors, in time to see Misha experimentally twist a knob and six-inch flames erupt from the stovetop.
"Gentlemen, we have fire," he announces cheerfully, and leaves the burner on as he goes to search through the cabinets and drawers.
And in the space of an hour, Jensen goes from being a vampire's dinner to that vampire serving him dinner, baked beans and sausages and a dense pile of instant mashed potatoes. Misha sits back and watches expectantly until he eats every bit of it, and seems genuinely pleased. There's always the possibility that he's trying to poison them, but at this point his body is far from caring. It helps that Jared, after several suspicious sniffs, eats three times as much of everything, especially the sausages.
"So. I propose that we rejoin this conversation at a later date," Misha says, after the slurping and chewing noises from the were's side of the table have died down. "From the look of things, you're ready to keel over and Padapuppy isn't doing much better." The nickname gathers no glare, further proof enough of Misha's statement.
"But, honestly, I have no idea if there are usable beds on this house," he continues, watching with evident amusement as Jared falls asleep in his beans. "Apart from mine, of course, but I don't think we know each other well enough for that." He taps his fingers to his mouth, consideringly. "I suppose you can sleep on the couches?"
"Blankets," Jensen mumbles, because they're important, and being warm and dry is rapidly becoming the only thing he wants from life.
"You can always huddle together for warmth," Misha suggests, with such absolute sincerity he has to be mocking them.
Jared slides Jensen a sleepy, hopeful look under his lashes, and Jensen barely stops himself from heaving a huge sigh. "Dry clothes. And towels," he insists. And then, in case people weren't paying attention before, "Blankets."
He has to go back out to the Minnow to get dry clothes, the towels are unbelievably ratty, and the blankets smell a bit of cat, but they're there and he's finally getting some feeling back into his toes, stretched out across the loveseat. Jared, muscles straining against Jensen's extra sleep pants and spare tee, has very reluctantly taken the sad sofa, casting reproachful glances at Jensen as he settles down underneath his own mound of miscellaneous sheets and bedding.
"Hey, Jay?" Jensen asks, hanging on the very verge of sleep.
"Yeah?" the were says, hopefully. Like Jensen will have perhaps changed his mind about their sleeping arrangements despite the last ten refusals.
"Why'dya come here?"
Silence from the sofa.
"I mean, 'm grateful an' all," Jensen continues, curling into himself a little tighter. "Saved my bacon. But I thought you were going into Chicago, or something?"
"I, er," Jared starts, stops. "I got mugged."
Jensen's eyes blink open in the dark. "Wha?"
"Mugged," Jared says again, embarrassment coloring the words. "I think it was a troll?"
"A troll," Jensen repeats.
"It was really big. And sort of rocky-looking."
"A troll," Jensen says. "Mugged you."
"It might have been something else," Jared mumbles. " It took my wallet and my phone, so I couldn't call you. I rode the train back, and a nice lady took me as far as Mandy Street."
"Maundy," Jensen corrects sleepily. "Well. 'M glad you made it."
A pause. "Me too," said very quietly.
"Hn?"
"Nothing," the were says. "Go to sleep."
Part One - In the Beginning There Was Darkness
» Pairings/Characters: J2M (J2 only in this installment)
» Warnings/Tropes: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Magical Realism, Vampires and Werewolves and Faeries oh my
» Rating: PG-13
» Wordcount: ~9,400 words
Wherein Jensen Ackles inherits a house, and several other strange things besides.
This was originally the first chapter of a failed bigbang. It's dawned on me since that it's the most hugely boring thing I have ever written ever, and so of course I made it into it's own little story, like a concentrated shot of boredom. You're welcome.
"Hey, ladies! Pack it in!"
Jensen blinks away the sting of sweat from his eyes and sands carefully into the scalloped edges of the latticework crown-piece, smoothing the way for the north-west wardstone.
Under his boots, the ladder shakes and wobbles, and he steadies himself with practiced ease.
"I said pack it in! I ain't getting any younger here!"
The rest of JD's crew ignore the contractor, too. Guy's a lazy little fuck and probably salaried, whereas they get paid on project completion, and 5:25pm is way too early to be leaving a site with a deadline as tight as this one.
This ward, the last one, hums gently in his left hand, the sticker reading '2nd north-facing gable, 1½" socket' still affixed to its carved face. The witch they have on retainer is good at what she does but fickle and careless as a cat, and she'd dropped off the stones they'd ordered for Wednesday just this morning. She'd left strict instructions to get them in by nightfall. Jensen's not actually certified to do ward installation, and doesn't know why nightfall is such a big deal, but he's been busting ass since noon to get all eight in place and the moron with the bullhorn can kiss his ass.
When he judges the divot he's made is ready, Jensen presses the stone into it and feels the wards come up, a tingling buzz like static electricity crawling up his arm from where his fingertips touch granite. Jesus, finally.
"Hey! Jen!"
"Just gimme a sec!" he calls back, annoyed, and gets the wood glue from his belt. While he's still up here, there's a plastic finishing piece that goes on over the stone. They'll need it when they start painting the whole thing out next week.
Someone kicks the ladder and Jensen grabs the top rung for dear life, whipping around to glare down at- Oh. JD grins up at him.
"Come on down, Ackles," his boss coaxes, waving an envelope. "I swear I can make it worth your while." A member of the bricking team wolf-whistles.
"Yessir," Jensen answers sheepishly, and puts a clamp in place of glue.
When he's safely on the ground, JD hands over the paycheck with a sincere, "I'm sorry it can't be more, son, but you know what this market's like."
"Yes, Mr. Morgan, thank you." He does know. Jensen has gone from working full-time to part-time to only sporadically for Morgan Renovators, as the recession catches up with them all. These days he barely breaks three hundred bucks a week, but at least he's making money- and getting paid off-book, so he doesn't have to worry about the taxes.
"You take care of yourself, alright? I'll let you know Sunday if I need you Monday."
Looking at JD's face, Jensen won't be holding his breath for that call. "Thank you, sir. You have a nice weekend."
"You too," the man says, and starts off towards the line of crew members loading the trailers.
Jensen's battered Chevy, affectionately dubbed the Minnow due to her unsavory history as a Katrina reclamation, has been sitting in the bright April sunshine since seven in the morning, and slipping inside her is like descending into an outer ring of Hell. Jensen's rolling the windows down as soon as the engine catches, and peeling away from the curb before he's even gotten his seatbelt buckled.
Moving east on the Thorton expressway, the tight focus that kept him going through the week drains away and his shoulders sag wearily. Rushhour traffic comes to a standstill and he lets his head fall to the steering wheel, staring blankly at the instrument panel.
It'll be okay. He has a couple thousand saved up to make it through this next stretch of underemployment, however long it might be. He might get lucky and JD might find him something sooner rather than later. He can't count on it, though, and he'll have to ask for extra hours at the Italian place where he works weekends. The pay is shit but he can usually make it up in tips. He hates it, though. By nature he's kind of painfully shy, and being forced to flirt for a fatter paycheck is physically painful sometimes.
Thank God he doesn't have rent to pay anymore; he'd been barely treading water before JD had bumped him down to 'special' (read 'mostly unnecessary') contractor, but after, Jensen had let his lease expire and gone to his brother for help. Joshua, big-hearted humanitarian that he was, gave Jensen an air mattress and ten square feet of unfinished basement floor to call his own.
Jensen's grateful, though, don't get him wrong. Josh could've just slammed the door in his face.
An hour and a half later, traffic finally breaks up and Jensen sleep-walks through buying dinner (an egg salad sandwich just over the pull date and iced tea) at the tiny Rainbow Foods on the corner. The cashier's new, some kind of pictsie, and when he gives him-her?- a tight smile and exact change, she ignores him in favor of picking old scales off her wing.
He parks the Minnow on the street in front of his parents' old ranch, now Josh's, and heaves himself up and out of her like an old man. Friday nights are always like that- like his body saves up the whole week's worth of pain and soreness and only lets it go once the weekend has started. He never had much of a social life, even in college, but he hasn't had a night out in months.
The sun glints off a piece of glass and catches his eye. A thin grey face is peering out from the dim interior of a brick ranch across the street, storm door propped open, and Jensen lifts his hand in a wave. It's answered by a jerky come-hither motion, and Jensen sighs and shuts the Minnow's door.
"Hi, Mr. Heyerdahl," he calls, once he's within speaking distance.
"Jensen, hello," the drow says, voice high and hoarse. "I hope you're feeling well?"
"Yessir," he answers, coming to a stop a step below the stoop. "And yourself?"
The drow shrugs, squinting badly even in the lowering light of evening. He won't venture any further out of doors while the sun was still visible, his eyes better adjusted for living in caves than two-story colonials.
Jensen's been a little afraid of Heyerdahl since he was a kid, for no reason that doesn't sound like specism when he says it out loud. Still, isn't it normal to be leery of someone who only comes out at night and always stares just a little too long?
"Jensen," the drow says. "Please look at my air conditioner? Before you leave, I want to make sure it will last the summer." Their neighborhood is an aging one, most of the occupants in their fifties and above, and Jensen does a lot of unpaid handyman's work when he has the time. He doesn't go to church anymore, so he figures he has to get his brownie points in somewhere.
"Well, sure," Jensen says, pulling off his ballcap to run a hand through his sweat-damp hair. "But I just got home, Mr. Heyedahl, I'm not going anywhere."
"Before you leave," the drow repeats doggedly. "Tomorrow."
"I should be able to do that, yeah," Jensen says cautiously. "Not a problem."
"I appreciate it," the drow says. "Your brother wants to tell you something."
With that odd statement, Heyerdahl pulls the storm door closed, leaving Jensen staring at drawn curtains and the generic fire prevention charms stamped into the lintel. Classic drow conversation: cursory and cryptic.
Josh is sitting at the kitchen table and sorting through mail when Jensen staggers in, easing himself into the seat across from his brother.
"Hey," he says belatedly, after the awkward silence has gone on a beat too long.
"Uncle Jim's dead," his brother answers after a distracted pause, frowning briefly at a bill before adding it to a stack at his elbow.
"... oh," Jensen says, dumbfounded. "Ah. Grandma's brother Jim?" He hasn't seen him in years, can barely recall his face now. Uncle Jim is a craggy grey-haired phantom made of tobacco smoke and the sour smell of stale beer.
Josh shrugs. "The one up in Chicago."
"Yeah," Jensen says slowly. "Uncle Jim. Huh." If his brain was firing on more than two cylinders, maybe it'd be sadder. As it is, all he can think of is the fruit cocktail and marshmallow salad Mom always made for funerals and how much he wishes he had some now, after a week's worth of nothing but fast food and gas station sandwiches.
Josh nudges a thick, cream-colored envelope across the table, never looking up from the coupon books. "Think he forgot about MacKenzie, or maybe he just never knew she existed. He left us both some government bonds and gave you his house."
"House?" Jensen repeats dumbly. There are photographs poking out of the envelope, and he pulls them out further.
"It's a shitheap," Joshua says, and the photos certainly don't contradict him. It's a narrow old thing, built in maybe the twenty or thirties, and looks as though it hasn't been painted or cleaned in all those long years. Jensen sees several broken panes in the front windows and a yard that's mostly old bricks and crabgrass.
"I talked to some real estate agents in the area who said they'd take it off your hands for fifty thousand. The land's worth that much, at least."
Wheels are trying to turn in Jensen's head, doing their damnest to churn out something like an idea. "I could fix it up," he says hesitantly, testing how it sounds out loud. "Might be worth more then."
"Bad investment," Joshua says dismissively, as if that were that, and stands to throw away the junk adverts.
"Josh-" Jensen turns in his chair to keep his brother in sight. "I've got the experience, and we both know I sure as hell have the free time."
His brother dumps the stack in the trash and turns to face him, arms crossed over his chest. He's wearing AMU sweats, holes at the collar and the cuffs. "And I suppose all that free time will pay for the estate tax? And buy you all the, I don't know, hammers and drywall you need?"
"I'll get the money," Jensen insists, the wheels slowly gathering momentum. "It's coming to us free and clear, right? That means whatever we make above fifty thousand is pure profit."
Josh, stooping to open the liquor cabinet, grumbles, "If you can get that kind of money, you should be paying me rent."
"I'll use those bonds, maybe get a loan," Jensen temporizes, not really hearing his brother anymore as he fans the photos out over the table. "It's gotta be worth two hundred thousand at least, properly done."
"Whatever," Josh says, having clearly lost interest in the subject. "It's your house. Your taxes."
"It is, isn't it?" Jensen asks wonderingly, looking at the faded siding and weathered wooden railings with a dawning sense of awe.
Josh snorts derisively, and turns the lights out on Jensen as he leaves for the den.
Despite being twenty-four and ostensibly an independent adult, Jensen has never really had anything that was entirely his.
As the middle child, the younger brother, his room had always been their room, the same with his clothes, and his dog, his first car, his first crush- all shared, all communal. He'd even gone to the same college as Joshua, before Mom's hospital bills got too high. Joshua graduated, worked for a bank, got married, got divorced. Jensen dropped out and went to work for Morgan Renovations, Joshua's old summer job. Hell, Jensen hadn't even made it a full year renting his first apartment before he'd had to move back home.
Maybe that's why, despite being stupid-tired and utterly exhausted in every possible way, Jensen calls in sick to the restaurant and spends the night staring into the damp darkness of the basement, fantasizing about horsehair plaster and knob-and-spool wiring.
Dawn finds him gritty-eyed and stiff, folding clothes into a duffel bag while he studies an old 1997 Road Atlas, laid open to Greater Chicagoland. Fifteen hours, almost a thousand miles. His last paycheck from JD should be just enough to cover gas.
If he never goes above fifty-five, he might even be able to swing some powdered doughnuts.
Jensen leaves a note on Mr. Heyerdahl's door to say his conditioning unit is fine, and makes another stop at Rainbow Foods. He pets and plies the Minnow with the promise of a thorough wash and detailing if she can just give him twenty miles a gallon on the highway. Twenty. That's all he's asking for.
The temperature has already risen into the eighties by the time Jensen gets on the road. It's one of those blindly bright, clear days, sky rolling on mile after cloudless mile above him, road straight as an arrow and dry as a bone. It's a good day for traveling.
He makes great time across eastern Texas and Arkansas, hardly touches the pedal on the gentle sloping curves leading down into the river valley around Little Rock. The last time he'd driven out this way the fields had been sear and brown in winter's tight grip, but now the corn's knee-high and the soybeans not far behind. He rolls the windows down and lets the wind blow briskly through the cab, bringing with it the earthy green smell of farm country and ditchside honeysuckle.
He cruises into Memphis late in the afternoon. There's a tiny little diner and gas station courting the edge of the highway like certain disaster, and he decides to stop, stretch his legs for a bit. Best to fill up on the cheap stuff while he can get it; the Minnow isn't even trying to earning her wash.
While the truck eats his money, Jensen leans on the hood and looks around, taking in the drooping petunias and flaking paint of the window boxes, the specials painted in the window and the neon glowing dimly even in the bright sunshine.
The place seems strangely busy, until he sees a Greyhound lumber by and realizes the drab-looking coffin of a building next door is actually a bus depot. There are duffel bags thrown willy-nilly by the curb and a group of guys a couple dozen strong play-wrestling out in the grassy strip between the highway and the pumps. They're big boys, maybe a football or basketball team out on the road, although it's a little out of season for either. Their laughter comes in loud and raucous over the dull roar of the highway.
Jensen spaces out a little while the tank fills, listening to the muted honkytonk playing over the speakers and thinking about the house. His house. His very own house. He shouldn't get ahead of himself, no knowing what condition it's actually in, but surely it's harmless to daydream a little.
He's thinking about cross-hatched brick facing when a hand lands on his arm, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. He whirls to face the man suddenly looming at his shoulder.
"Whoa, sorry dude, didn't mean to scare you," the guy says, although the grin tugging at his mouth suggests his apology is less than sincere. "Really, sorry," he says again, and thrusts out a hand. "Nice to meet you. I'm Jared."
Jensen straightens, self-consciously flexing his shoulders and rocking up on the balls of his feet. It's no use; 'Jared' is taller and broader, built like the proverbial brick shithouse, and when Jensen manners kick in and he finally takes the offered hand, Jared's grip is bone-crushing.
"You too," Jensen says automatically, and takes back his hand back as soon as he can. There's something strange about Jared's direct, unwavering stare, narrowed eyes and the tilt of his head. His gaze holds an animal interest, not I wonder if I could take this guy but I wonder how he'd taste. It's not a look Jensen gets from many men, or women for that matter.
"I was just going to ask," Jared continues, tucking his hands into his pockets and smiling again, easy and leonine. "Any chance you're headed out of town? More than fifty miles out?"
The pieces start to add up, and Jensen tenses.
Jared sees his expression shift and says hurriedly, "It doesn't have to be to any specific place. Just as far as you're willing."
That big group out on the grass makes more sense now. Jensen must have seen this one on TLC or the Discovery Channel a few thousand times: "Following the tradition of thousands of years, in the spring, the young and unattached males are expunged from the safety of the pack and into the wider world: a mass diaspora such as is unequaled by any other supernatural race."
"I charge for gas," Jensen says, half-hoping it will deter the were.
"No, that's totally fine," Jared says earnestly, reaching for his wallet. "Look, I have money-"
"Holy shit!" gets surprised out of Jensen at the sight of the fat wad of cash in Jared's hand. Whatever his species, the kid's got some serious money; Jensen sees at least half an inch of crisp, fresh-from-the-bank c-notes and glances around warily. Weres are cocky bastards, Jensen's worked with enough of them to know that, but there's confident and then there's just plain stupid. This little diner, nestled in the junction of I-40 and I-55, isn't in the roughest part of town, but there's plenty of rough waiting for an idiot flashing that kind of dough.
"Put that away," he snaps, looking back at Jared. "Just- get in the truck, before you get us both jumped."
"Really? Awesome!" Jared says. He sounds even younger now, though he can't be under eighteen. There are laws about turning kids out the house, laws that apply even to supes.
Jensen grabs his receipt and slumps back in the driver's seat, watching through the windshield as Jared trots back to the group rolling around in the grass. There's a lot of unnecessary whoops and backslaps and tackling hugs, and Jensen seriously debates putting the Minnow in gear and flooring it out of the gas station. Weres might be fast, but they weren't that fast. Probably.
Eventually, Jared seems to recall that yes, he does have somewhere he needs to be and grabs one of the many duffel bags littering the grassy slope. He lopes back to the Minnow and gives Jensen a bright, happy grin as he slides into the passenger's seat. "So. Where are we going?"
Chicago is apparently an acceptable destination, although Jared wonders out loud whether he's brought enough warm clothes, and if it snows in April in Chicago. It does in Milwaukee, he has cousins there. Has Jensen ever been to Milwaukee? There's an art gallery with wings on it.
Jensen gives noncomittal grunts where appropriate, and points the Minnow north on I-55.
Jared fills the awkward silence like he doesn't notice it's there, and Jensen learns in short order that Jared is twenty, from San Antonio, the second son of a full-were couple. He was attending Rice as a full-time student when his alpha decided that the pack males needed thinning.
"I mean, it's not like it was in the old days," he says, catching Jensen's expression. "We weren't chased out or anything. And the pack hasn't had a cull since the eighties, it was definitely time."
"So, what, he just... ordered you to leave?" Jensen asks, curious despite himself.
"Well, yeah," Jared says. He takes a huge bite of beef jerky and chews, well on his way through a second bag. For his foray into the wider world, the were has apparently packed several pounds salted meat products and very little else.
"And you just left?"
"He's the alpha," Jared says, as if it explains everything. Maybe to weres, it does.
Jared is a fidgety passenger, not even making it ten miles before he's playing with the radio, running his seat back as far as it will go and bracing his long legs against the dash with a petulant sigh.
"You can try out the back if you'd like," Jensen offers, watching as Jared twists himself into stranger and stranger positions to fit all his long limbs in a pattern of his liking.
"No," the were says instantly, turning his face up to Jensen's from where he'd had it pressed into the door panel. "I'd rather be up here with you."
Jensen's not sure how he's supposed to take that, so he lets it lie and returns his attention to the road.
Beside him, Jared pulls out a phone that looks like it could land a space shuttle, and squirms around under the pull of the seatbelt until he's on his stomach, seat back fully down and legs kicking lazily in the air.
"You're gonna die if we crash," Jensen tells him, speeding up to pass a semi.
Jared snorts and curls onto his side, aiming the phone in Jensen's direction. It makes a shutter sound. At Jensen's questioning glance, Jared says, "My sister wanted a picture of you to compare to the FBI's Most Wanted posters."
Jensen sputters out an honest laugh and Jared grins at him, all dimples and teeth that gleam in the slanting evening sun.
Jared eats, fiddles with his phone, eats some more, tells Jensen genuinely terrible puns ("Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars!"), unfolds and refolds all Jensen's maps, eats, and digs through the mess of papers Uncle Jim's lawyer had prepared on the house.
"13 Maundy Street, Veles Hills, Illinois," he reads, flipping through the pages. "Built in 1927. Hey, it used to be a boarding house! I'd like to smell that."
Jensen gives him a sideways glance, but Jared is completely engrossed in the documents and deeds and doesn't notice. He's quiet long enough that Jensen turns on the radio, but then his eyes snap up and he declares, "I love this song!" 13 Maundy Street is apparently forgotten.
The were sings along with Elvis and Cash and Brooks, right up until the sun dips below the horizon. Then he crashes so hard that Jensen's tempted to check for a pulse, the stillness of his sleeping body a shock after so many hours of restless hyperactivity in the passenger's seat.
Jensen does eventually pull over, when his eyes gave gone gummy and the yellow lines are starting to blur. There's a rest stop and weigh station just off the highway in Marion, Illinois, with a couple Mac trucks already parked in the overnight section.
Jared's first words when Jensen hesitantly prods him awake are, "I'm hungry."
Jensen knows that there are some things supes do that normal humans just don't get, aren't wired for, the kind of thing they bring up and emphasize on CNN whenever Genetic Diversity Month rolls around, or the supernatural rights struggle is in the news. As a human who's lived in mostly-human communities for all of his life, the things he knows about werekind are, for the greater part, based purely off of rumor and after-school specials.
One: the were prefer closer and more frequent physical contact, not only with members of their immediate family but also friends and friendly acquaintances. Their body language is often much more explicit as a result. See: Jared, half-asleep, shuffling out of the truck and directly into Jensen's personal space, leaning the full weight on his body on him and rubbing his face over Jensen's cheek with a huge sigh.
Two: the were possess a faster, more carnivorously-based metabolism than that of humans. This results in several basic anatomical differences, including a higher average body temperature and greater muscle density. See: Jared eating roughly half his body weight in steak (shitty steak, yes, but still the most expensive item on the menu at Denny's), sitting on Jensen's side of the booth with his leg tucked under Jensen's calf, skin fever-warm against the underside of Jensen's knee.
Three: the were, as their greatest distinguishing feature from humans and even other supernatural races, are in possession of a dual nature. In addition to full moons, their more instinctually-driven half is also likely to manifest in times of stress and fear, as well as under the influence of drugs or in otherwise altered states of consciousness. See: Jared, eyes barely open, herding Jensen back to the truck with gentle nudges and soft, encouraging noises. Jensen manages to settle the were down in the passenger's seat, and takes the cramped back for himself. He wakes up thirty minutes later completely covered in a head-to-toe Jared quilt.
He'd fallen asleep curled awkwardly on his stomach, and Jared has buried his face between his shoulder blades and thrown a leg over his knees. The were's hands have made themselves comfortable splayed against his sides and stomach, and Jesus, Jensen hasn't cuddled this close with anyone since... well. Anyone.
When he tries to ease his way out from under Jared, though, the were gives a chastising growl and nips him on the back of the neck, hard enough to sting.
He doesn't try again.
In the morning, Jared just stares in blank incomprehension while Jensen tries to explain why he is so uncomfortable with the fact that he's just woken up with another man's morning wood poking him in the ass.
"I'm sorry, I guess?" Jared says, kneeling on the seat above him. His hair is in wild disarray and somehow he's managed to get completely naked, when Jensen distinctly remembers pulling off his shoes and nothing else the night before. Jensen's happy for the kid, he really is, but he needs to put that thing away before it pokes someone's eye out.
"It's just not-usually-people don't do this," Jensen says a little hysterically, hands folded on his chest because there is literally nowhere else safe. "But no harm, no foul." Because sports metaphors will somehow make all of this, waking up wrapped around Jared with the were's big, warm hands in really nonplatonic and unmentionable places, somehow less excruciatingly awkward.
Understanding seems to dawn, and Jared's face goes sheepish. "Oh, man, I think I just broke almost every rule in the handbook," he says, sitting back so that he's straddling Jensen's waist. He's really fucking heavy, and warm, and Jensen's own morning wood is enjoying the heat and friction a little too much.
"There's a handbook?" Jensen asks, pulling his arms in tighter. "No, don't tell me, just get off. Me. Get off me. We need to get moving, got another long day on the road ahead of us," he babbles as Jared shifts against him.
They do eventually get moving, and Jared treats him to beseeching looks and puppy-dog (puppy-were?) eyes until Jensen promises that no, he's not angry, and that he still likes Jared plenty. He buys Jared an ice-cream cone from a roadside stand to make the assurance stick, and Jared is bouncing off the upholstery again in no time.
"Okay, this is going to sound really bad," Jared says, during a lull in conversation. Alan Jackson is on the radio, singing about tall tall trees and all the waters in the seas. "But I don't think I ever caught your name?"
Jensen makes the merge onto 159th Street and throws an arch look at his passenger. "I'm offended, Jared. Very, very offended."
Jared starts to smile, then frowns. "You are joking, right? That was a joke?"
Jensen sighs. "That was sarcasm, yes. My name's Jensen. Jensen Ackles."
"Jensen Ackles," Jared repeats slowly, lingering over it like he's tasting something unexpectedly delicious. He grins. "Nice to meet you, Jensen."
They've entered the outer suburbs of Chicago and it's noticeably cooler now, the wind brisk and damp with the threat of rain. The sky is an even, dull grey, the sun a flat disc barely brighter in the west.
Jared pulls out his ridiculous phone and they find the closest Metra stop, Veles Hills, where the were can take a train into the city proper and from there, anywhere in the continental United States. Hell, with the amount of cash in his wallet he could catch a plane to Bermuda.
"Thanks for the ride, Jensen," Jared says. He'd gotten steadily quieter the closer they get to the commuter station, and now he's glancing between Jensen and the Metra platform like the train is a chopping block. Jensen guesses it's one thing to skip town with a big group of friends and another to be so far from home, completely on your own in an unfamiliar place. Poor kid.
"Here," he says, and digs out a pen and the Denny's receipt from last night. "This is my cell number," he explains as he writes across the back of it. "And this-" Here, he has to refer to the legal papers stuffed haphazardly back into their envelope, slotted in between the center console and the driver's seat. "This is the address of the place where I'll be staying. Just…" he trails off, looking at Jared's subdued, nervous face. "If you get into trouble, call me, okay?"
"Thanks! I mean, I will," the were says, painfully earnest. He tucks the receipt carefully into his front pocket.
Jensen waits for the door to open, but Jared's still sitting with his hand over the handle, looking at him with a question in his eyes. "Jared?" he prompts.
"Do humans hug? Can I hug you?" Jared asks, a little plaintive.
"Men shake hands," Jensen says firmly, and puts his out for Jared to take. The were does, reluctantly.
It's started to rain, and as Jared climbs out of the cab his cotton tee speckles with damp patches. He throws one last anxious look at Jensen, who gives him a big thumbs-up and a, "Go get 'em, tiger."
"Wolf, actually," Jared says, and looks down. "Jensen..."
"Yeah?"
"... Thanks," Jared says finally, lifting his eyes almost shyly. "For everything. "
He slams the door then, and runs for the terminal in long bounding steps. Jensen goggles at the smooth bunch and release of muscle when the were clears the tall fence surrounding the platform in one jump, effortless as an Olympic hurdler.
Jared disappears from view, and Jensen pulls the Minnow around, fully intending to leave the parking lot and continue on his way before he loses the light completely.
Instead, he finds himself idling in the shadow of a big oak tree tossing its branches in the wind, until the next commuter train comes roaring down the tracks. Jared's bag is a bright splash of color against the grey gloom as he boards.
According to the directions Jensen copied from Joshua's computer, Uncle Jim's house is in the city suburb of Veles Hills, just off 111th street and some miles outside of the town proper, on the edge of a forest preserve. It sits on a big corner lot, right at the entrance to a series of twisting, twining streets Jensen assumes is a neighborhood.
111th starts off as a broad four-lane highway, well lit and lined on either side with tidy storefronts and manicured lawns. As he drives west, the grass grows longer and the buildings less frequent, until he's driving through a tunnel of trees, branches a darker shade of black against the cloudy night.
"Must've missed the turnoff," he mutters out loud. The rain is really coming down now, the dense pounding noise of it drowning out the Minnow's engine and the radio. Every now and then lightning glimmers in the distance, flickering in the crowns of the trees like will o' wisps.
Jensen's decided to do a u-turn at the next turnoff when a dull yellow sign appears on the shoulder. He has to slow to read it, water streaming down his windshield faster than the wipers can clear it.
"Maundy Road, half a mile," he mutters as he crawls past. "Jesus, I thought this place was supposed to be next to the forest, not in it."
Without the sign, he might not have even noticed the street. It looks more like a private driveway, green crowding in from all sides of the asphalt. There's a faded sign all but swallowed by vines; the only thing Jensen can make out is a standard protection glyph, seven-point star stamped deep into the wood.
The only reason Jensen sees the house at all is because there's a brick mailbox parked at the edge of seemingly impenetrable undergrowth. The drive is gravel and hasn't been redone in years, possibly decades; weeds are edging in from the margins and have taken it almost completely over. It crunches unpleasantly under the Minnow's wheels when he turns onto the drive and slowly presses forward.
The Minnow rolls into a clearing, coming to a stop about fifteen feet in. Jensen lets it, staring up at the building illuminated in his highbeams.
It's Jim's house alright, under a fine patina of overgrown ivy. It looms above him, somehow much larger than the photos has made it look: a full three stories with peaked attic gables and strange intricate moldings around the porch railings and doorframes. The windows are blind and dark, the brick chipped and crumbling under the determined assault of the vines.
"Guess the gardeners have had the last century off, yeah?" Jensen says to himself, mostly to try to shake off the creepy feeling the place is giving him. "Wonder where I can get a machete in Veles Hills, Illinois."
He turns off the engine. The Minnow's dash lights come on, turning the windshield opaque and hiding the house from view. He fumbles around the console for the envelope the lawyer sent him, and tips it over. The keys spill out on his palm, the one for the front door still shiny and brassy. He doubts it's ever been used, and spares a moment to pray it actually works before shrugging on his jacket and braving the rainy night.
When he left Dallas, it'd been a balmy 85 degrees and sunny. This feels like maybe half that, and the wind whipping water into his face and down his collar isn't helping. He grabs his bags out of the back and locks the doors. He doesn't think the deer are going to break into his truck, but you never know. According to Mapquest, there's a whole neighborhood back here somewhere; maybe this is the forest preserve's version of the south side.
He uses the glow from his phone to navigate across the drive and onto the front walk. Getting onto the porch is a challenge, some of the steps sinking alarmingly as his weight settles on them. He hops awkwardly onto the landing and almost screams when a rusty old porch swing emerges suddenly from the darkness.
There's a screen door that's more hole than mesh, and a reassuringly new-looking charm-chain attached to its handle. He tucks the phone under his chin and shuffles through the documents, pausing when he finds the page he's looking for. "Oka-ay," he says slowly, scanning the paragraphs. "I just-?" He looks back at the chain, and gingerly reaches out to touch the cold metal. "Uh, hi there. My name is Jensen Ackles?"
There's a fluttery sensation like a tiny heartbeat against his finger, and the chain slithers away, falling into a heap that he jumps back from. The charms wink in the coils like captive stars, and he carefully nudges it to the side with the toe of his boot.
Opening the actual door is harder. It's a fight to get the damned key in the lock, let alone turn it, and Jensen wonders as his fingers strain how the hell the old man got in and out. No way the lock got this stiff in just a few weeks.
The door is old, maybe as old as the house, and stubborn with it, but Jensen's wet and cold and he's been driving for two days straight; no goddamn door is going to keep him from a change of clothes and if the gods are smiling, a freaking bed. Any apprehension vanishes in the face of sheer frustration; once the key has turned as far as it can, he puts his shoulder to the wood and shoves.
Later, he'll remember the whisper, breathed right against his ear as a hand slid up to cup his jaw, thumb pressed to the corner of his mouth. "Be still and I won't hurt you," was all it said, but Jensen's body goes lax and fluid as his mind shuts down.
Seven little words, not even a curse, and he's already under by the time he hits the floor.
"You realize, Misha, we could just eat him," comes a voice from Jensen's left. It's male, British, and speculative in a way Jensen really doesn't like.
"We are not eating the burglar, Seb," says a voice on his right; apparently, Misha. Objectively it's quite a nice voice, pleasantly low and polished, but just the tone sets off an involuntary slackness in Jensen's muscles; that'd be the one who whammied him, then.
Jensen's face aches like he might have fallen flat on it. He suspects that is exactly what happened. He's sitting upright, arms bound behind him and legs similarly immobilized.
"We can't exactly claim self-defense when he's unarmed and tied to a chair," Misha's saying, and Jensen agrees wholeheartedly.
"Yes, that, what he said," he tries to say, but it comes out more like "Uff, vah, uffiheh" around the makeshift gag shoved into his mouth. From the flavor, he suspects it's a dirty sock. He really doesn't want to know what they used as a blindfold.
Something strikes the chair and Jensen skids across the floor, startling a yelp out of him.
"Shut up," comes Misha's voice. "You're just lucky I have a conscience, and that you didn't try break in four doors down. The Ferrises definitely would have eaten you."
Jesus, what kind of neighborhood is this? The smell of damp and dust is strong, and Jensen shivers as his soaked clothes slowly leach the heat from his body.
"We could untie him, let him run a little," the first voice, Seb, mutters.
"Sebastian!"
"What?" Sebastian says defensively. "Are you telling me you don't want to, even a little? He smells absolutely mouthwatering." There's a note of greedy longing there that makes Jensen extremely uncomfortable; his sister sounds a lot like that when Belgian chocolate is involved.
Misha huffs out a laugh. "He smells like the dumpsters outside McDonald's on a hot day. You've been living on supplements too long."
Sebastian makes an unhappy, hungry sound. "Dear God, you're not lying. Even the rats in your basement are starting to look appetizing."
"Sebastian," Misha complains, and suddenly Jensen and the chair are hoisted into the air as easily as if they were a Styrofoam sculpture: Man, Captured by Opportunistic Cannibals and Their (Thank Fucking God) More Sensible Friends.
"Hmm. You know, under the beef jerky and Cheeto dust, he does smell pretty good," gets breathed into the side of his neck, Jensen can't quite swallow a yelp as a cool tongue flicks out and tastes the thin skin just behind his ear.
Goddamn it.
Whoever's lifted him is now walking with him, and it's not the weirdest thing he's ever felt but it's damn close. Jensen's not a small guy, but these guys put him out of commission in two seconds flat and they're supporting his weight like it's nothing. He wonders if he should be screaming.
"So we can eat him?" Sebastian asks hopefully, from his right this time. It sounds like he's walking beside them, which means that Misha is carrying Jensen all by himself. Christ.
"No," Misha says firmly. "Open the door and I'll put him outside. Let the human police deal with him."
"Fine," Sebastian grumbles, and the low drone of rain gets suddenly louder. "But you owe me lu- bloody hell!"
"Uh," comes a third voice, and Jensen's never been so pathetically grateful to hear someone in his life. He says "Oh fank goh," through the sock.
Sebastian says, "Who the fuck are you?"
"I'm- no, who are you? Why is Jensen-? What the hell," Jared says, voice getting louder with each word. "Put him down!"
"Like hell we will," Sebastian starts, and Jared growls, "Put him down."
Whoa. He's never heard Jared sound like this, like something murderous and barely contained, and Jensen knows the rumbling threat isn't directed at him, but his hindbrain hears predator and his body goes stiff with terror.
"Calm down there, puppy," Misha says coolly. He lowers Jensen down, and they must be at the porch; raindrops start rewetting his hair, running down his neck. "We caught your friend trespassing."
"How can he be trespassing in his own house?" Jared snarls, an edge of belligerence bleeding into the promise of violence. He's crowding in close enough that Jensen can feel that insane body heat radiating off him.
"Because this is not his house," Misha says slowly, as though talking to a developmentally disabled child.
Jared's continuing to inch forward, and he leans into Jensen, pressed against his legs where they're tied to the chair legs. Jensen can feel a strange vibrating tension in him. "His uncle died and left it to him. He has the deed and everything!"
There's a long silence. Rain falls on Jensen's face and soaks in over his eyes where the blindfold rests.
"Well, that would explain why he has keys," Sebastian says thoughtfully.
Jared unties him-well, rips all the ropes off the chair with a force that leaves Jensen's skin smarting- and the sock comes out of his mouth. He takes the blindfold off himself and wobbles to a standing position, Jared all but shaking with leashed anger beside him.
"Sorry about that," Misha says, and Jensen turns to look at him.
He's fairly tall but more slight than Jensen expected, for someone able to pick up and carry a grown man without even breathing hard. His arms are folded across his chest and his eyes are clear all the way to the bottom, some indeterminate light color in the dark front hallway. Sebastian is a barely-there presence behind him, indistinct in a way that makes Jensen think if he looks away, the man will fade completely from view.
He has the thought, suddenly, that he's very possibly the only human present, and shivers.
"We-ell," Sebastian says, breaking another lengthening silence. "I'll just leave you three to it, shall I?"
"That's probably best, yes," Misha agrees, not taking his eyes away from Jared's.
Sebastian leans forward into the light, and winks at them. "Then perhaps I'll see you for dinner some time?" he says, and gives a sardonic laugh. "Au revoir, mes petits."
A soft sound like leaves falling and there are suddenly only three people standing on the porch. Jared makes a sharp noise that sounds uncomfortably like a bark and jerks his head around to follow-something-as it disappears into the night.
Misha stares a little longer, long enough that Jensen's wondering if he intends to let them in the house at all, or if he'll have to spend another night in the Minnow and talk to Jim's lawyer in the morning.
"You don't look anything like Jim," he says finally, tilting his head slowly sideways. "But I suppose, if you're lying, you realize now that you won't live to regret it."
"Uh," Jensen says, and swallows. "Good thing I'm not lying." Beside him, Jared shifts closer, all but standing on Jensen's foot.
"Excellent," the man purrs. "With that understanding, then, please, come inside. Your puppy can come too," he adds with a slight grin, and disappears just as silently and swiftly as Sebastian had.
After a brief and totally justifiable hesitation, Jensen stumbles forward into the dark. Jared doesn't let him go two steps before he's pressed to his side, exactly (although Jensen would never say it out loud) like a nervous dog. Jensen lets him, even lets him lead once he realizes he has no prayer of following Misha on his own. He can't see a fucking thing, his eyes straining pointlessly in the pitch-black darkness. Why did they even bother blindfolding him?
A match flares and Misha's face is momentarily illuminated before the light drops to a fat pillar candle, set in the middle of a table. The wick catches and the unrelieved blackness of the room abates.
Misha sprawls back against a very stiff, very sad-looking sofa in what might be the living room. Or the family room. Formal dining room. It's impossible to tell under the sheer bulk of things, all manner of things, pots and books and paintings and vases rising in unsteady stacks from floor to ceiling. Jensen edges carefully around the piles, Jared's clinging not helping a bit, and has to clear away a cuckoo clock and a small collection of military dress uniforms before he can sit down, the loveseat under him every bit as sad as the sofa under Misha.
"So, first things first. Sorry about your uncle," Misha says, leaning over to set something in front of Jensen. It's still quite dark in the room, and Jensen has to pick the object up before he realizes it's an empty bell jar.
"Great-uncle, actually," Jensen says, and then, because his momma raised him to be polite, adds a grudging, "Th-thank you." The house is cold, barely warmer than the chilly April night outside. It creaks and whistles in the wind, and the candle on the table flickers in a sudden draft. Jensen feels around until he finds a ragged old afghan, and wraps it around himself. He immediately wishes he had ten more just like it, and shivers harder.
Misha sets a glass out for himself and a third for Jared, who's still glowering daggers at the man from the floor next to Jensen's leg. He's radiating enough heat that Jensen briefly entertains the idea asking him to join him under the afghan. Jared wouldn't think it was weird. Jared didn't think naked spooning with strangers was weird.
Misha leans down to fumble around the floor and under the coffee table between them, making a noise of triumph before drawing out a half-empty bottle. "I propose a drink to his memory," he says, and tips a few fingers of liquid- by the smell, a very alcoholic liquid-into Jensen's jar. He offers the same to Jared, and the were gives a sharply negative jerk of his head, body tensed and eyes hanging unblinkingly on Misha's every move. He's still strangely menacing despite his dripping clothes and sodden hair, crouched as if ready to go for the man's throat at the slightest provocation. Jensen doesn't know whether to feel flattered or disturbed.
"Relax, puppy," Misha says as he sits back, setting the bottle on the cushion next to him. "I don't mean you or your friend any harm, I swear. Sebastian might be a bloodthirsty bastard but I'm just a big old pussycat."
"My name is Jared," the were snarls.
Misha tilts his head. "Lovely to meet you. Misha Collins, entirely at your service, Jared-?"
"Padalecki," the were allows reluctantly.
"Jensen Ackles," Jensen offers when Misha's eyes turn to him. The man raises an eyebrow.
"Not Beaver?" he asks curiously.
Jensen shakes his head and pulls the afghan more tightly around him. Jared's breath is fogging in the room, and Jensen's not at all surprised. "Jim was my mother's uncle, so, no."
"I see." Misha takes a sip, and grimaces. "I was the one who found him, you know," he says, frowning at his glass and holding it up to the candlelight. "Three weeks after the fact. God-awful mess. Shot to death, right where Padapuppy's sitting."
Jared jerks upright and Misha smiles. It might be Jensen's imagination, but the man's grin seems almost as toothy as Jared's.
The were subsides with a scowl. "He did not."
Misha lays a hand over his heart. "Why would I lie?"
"I would smell it," Jared insists, and Misha shakes his head and sighs.
"I think he might have preferred getting shot, honestly. He'd been in and out of the hospital for a few months, a slow fade and all that." Misha's lips flatten into a line. "We didn't see each other all that often- only knew he'd died when that shark lawyer of his popped around to tell me there was a new owner. Oh, it wasn't like that," Misha says when he looks up, sees Jensen's face. "We weren't friends, really."
"What were you then?" Jensen asks, feeling like he has no foothold in this conversation at all. "Why are you here?"
Misha curls his legs under him and curves his hands around his glass, pose loose and face enigmatic as a cat's. "I rent a room from him," he explains, and points in a generally upwards direction. "He was looking to make some extra money and I was looking for a landlord who didn't give a fuck- and really, I've never seen a man who gave less of a fuck than Jim Beaver."
It feels like Misha's deliberately skirting around something, and Jensen presses, "Didn't give a fuck about what?"
"Jensen," Jared grinds out, his eyes throwing back eerie gold and green in the candlelight. "He's a vampire."
Oh. Well.
"A vampire?" Jensen echos weakly, because there's knowing that a shifter or were might go for you in dark alley, and then there's drinking hooch with someone who's entire diet consists solely of people.
"A vampire who lives off of iron shakes and donations, not virgin sacrifices," Misha says smoothly, eying Jared with annoyance. "Anyway, I'd think a were would be the last one to protest other peoples' eating habits."
Misha doesn't looking particularly vampiric. He's dressed in track pants and a long-sleeved shirt rolled up at the elbows, feet bare, hair standing up in tufts from his head. But Jensen remembers the whisper, and how it dropped him like a puppet with cut strings. His body is still shaking off the lethargy.
His distrust must show in his expression, and Misha's mouth twists down. "Iron shakes and donations," he repeats firmly, and lifts his glass in salute. "Occasionally, rotgut whiskey as well. I mean you no harm, Jensen Ackles."
The solemn way Misha says his name makes Jensen remember there are witches who can curse you just by knowing it, and he's briefly glad his middle name hasn't entered the conversation.
He looks down at the table, at the pieces of fine china and toy train parts scattered across it. Misha is watching him closely over the rim of his glass.
"Why exactly are you here, Jensen ?" the vampire asks, abruptly. "Will you live here? Sell the house? Raze it to the ground?"
Instead of answering, Jensen takes another sip of whiskey, and looks around at the dark, crowded room. "This place seems hardly livable," he says. "Does the electricity even work? The heating?"
"Don't know," Misha admits. "I don't need it, so I never really noticed if Jim used them. My room is... isolated from the rest of the house."
"Isolated?"
Misha gestures with his glass. "The stairs fell down a few decades ago. I usually just-" he makes a face and a grabbing motion with his free hand. "-climb the side of the building."
"What, really?" Jensen asks, and then holds up a hand. "No, I believe you." Vampires can't really turn into bats, that one was debunked sometime in the eighteenth century, but they don't need to be bats to fly.
"About the house," Jensen says slowly, setting the bell jar on the table. "I haven't made any decisions." He thinks of the pages on pages of hand-drawn notes in the Minnow's back seat, the research, the diagrams. "And it's too late to be making any tonight." Right now he's just too tired, and more than a little hungry, body still riding the thin, miserable line between being cold and freezing to death. In daylight, he'd be able to make a proper sweep of the house and evaluate its condition.
"Really? It's middle of the morning for me," Misha says, and stands. Against Jensen's leg, Jared tenses, and Jensen wonders where he finds the energy. Now that his life isn't being directly threatened, it's hard to even keep his eyes open.
"And, as it's morning, I propose we adjourn to the kitchen for some breakfast," the vampire says, leaning down to grab the candle. "Follow me, please."
The vampire moves towards a blank black doorway in the far wall with long, sure steps, and disappears into the gloom before Jensen can say more than, "Wait, what?"
Slowly, Jensen rises to follow him. Jared can't scramble up to plaster himself against Jensen fast enough, and the body heat is so welcome Jensen doesn't try to pull away.
They arrive in the kitchen, down at the end of a long narrow hallway lined with closed doors, in time to see Misha experimentally twist a knob and six-inch flames erupt from the stovetop.
"Gentlemen, we have fire," he announces cheerfully, and leaves the burner on as he goes to search through the cabinets and drawers.
And in the space of an hour, Jensen goes from being a vampire's dinner to that vampire serving him dinner, baked beans and sausages and a dense pile of instant mashed potatoes. Misha sits back and watches expectantly until he eats every bit of it, and seems genuinely pleased. There's always the possibility that he's trying to poison them, but at this point his body is far from caring. It helps that Jared, after several suspicious sniffs, eats three times as much of everything, especially the sausages.
"So. I propose that we rejoin this conversation at a later date," Misha says, after the slurping and chewing noises from the were's side of the table have died down. "From the look of things, you're ready to keel over and Padapuppy isn't doing much better." The nickname gathers no glare, further proof enough of Misha's statement.
"But, honestly, I have no idea if there are usable beds on this house," he continues, watching with evident amusement as Jared falls asleep in his beans. "Apart from mine, of course, but I don't think we know each other well enough for that." He taps his fingers to his mouth, consideringly. "I suppose you can sleep on the couches?"
"Blankets," Jensen mumbles, because they're important, and being warm and dry is rapidly becoming the only thing he wants from life.
"You can always huddle together for warmth," Misha suggests, with such absolute sincerity he has to be mocking them.
Jared slides Jensen a sleepy, hopeful look under his lashes, and Jensen barely stops himself from heaving a huge sigh. "Dry clothes. And towels," he insists. And then, in case people weren't paying attention before, "Blankets."
He has to go back out to the Minnow to get dry clothes, the towels are unbelievably ratty, and the blankets smell a bit of cat, but they're there and he's finally getting some feeling back into his toes, stretched out across the loveseat. Jared, muscles straining against Jensen's extra sleep pants and spare tee, has very reluctantly taken the sad sofa, casting reproachful glances at Jensen as he settles down underneath his own mound of miscellaneous sheets and bedding.
"Hey, Jay?" Jensen asks, hanging on the very verge of sleep.
"Yeah?" the were says, hopefully. Like Jensen will have perhaps changed his mind about their sleeping arrangements despite the last ten refusals.
"Why'dya come here?"
Silence from the sofa.
"I mean, 'm grateful an' all," Jensen continues, curling into himself a little tighter. "Saved my bacon. But I thought you were going into Chicago, or something?"
"I, er," Jared starts, stops. "I got mugged."
Jensen's eyes blink open in the dark. "Wha?"
"Mugged," Jared says again, embarrassment coloring the words. "I think it was a troll?"
"A troll," Jensen repeats.
"It was really big. And sort of rocky-looking."
"A troll," Jensen says. "Mugged you."
"It might have been something else," Jared mumbles. " It took my wallet and my phone, so I couldn't call you. I rode the train back, and a nice lady took me as far as Mandy Street."
"Maundy," Jensen corrects sleepily. "Well. 'M glad you made it."
A pause. "Me too," said very quietly.
"Hn?"
"Nothing," the were says. "Go to sleep."