Fic: BigBang 2010 - The Lord Moves In Mysterious Ways (6/7+Epilogue)
Title: The Lord Moves In Mysterious Ways
Author: mpregloveranon
Betas: munibunny & sexytexanjra
Artist: vamptastica
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, (Steve/Chris as minor characters)
Raiting: NC-17
Warnings: AU, Mpreg, mentions of abuse and prostitution, character death (none of the boys! - SPOILERS: miscarriage and viewing of the deceased child as well as emotional aftermath of the loss), H/C, angst, some swearing
Disclaimer: I just own a kinky imagination. Every event in this story is purely fictional and I don’t intend to step on anyone’s toes or make money with this.
Summary: Jensen is a young priest who has a special place in his heart for street kids. One day he finds Jared, a teenaged hooker, wandering the streets in some state of shock, and decides to help him. Jensen takes Jared in and finds out the kid is pregnant, which only increases his determination to help the troubled teen. A tragic event only brings them closer to each other and Jensen is forced to make a decision: Love or Faith.
Special thanks:
@ sexytexanjra: Thank you so much for all your help and support! You know that I wouldn’t be posting this if it wasn’t for you and I can’t thank you enough for that. You managed to bring back my excitement for the whole BigBang experience and I’m so happy for all the suggestions you’ve made and that you’ve listened to me rant about everything and nothing for the past few months. :D I’m so glad that we’ve become friend and that I have found someone with such similar tastes when it comes to fanfic. ;)
@munibunny: I’m so happy that Ange pointed me in your direction and that you accepted to beta my first BigBang fic! You helped me so much with the grammar stuff and all your plot-related suggestions. :D Thank you so much for that!
@vamptastica: I love the artpost you’ve put together for my fic! When I first saw that you had picked my fic to do the art for it I went to check out your work and was really excited but you’ve definitely exceeded my expectations! Thank you for all the goodies you’ve made and that you went through the trouble of finding the right pictures to make priest!Jensen manips for the fic. :D The pics really captured the mood of the fic.
@everyone else: This is my very first BigBang fic and I really hope that you enjoy the read. Please let me know what you think about it. Suggestions and constructive criticism are also welcome but please don't flame. ;)
Previous Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5
~o~ Chapter 6 ~o~
The next couple of weeks were really hectic and hard on Jensen, but Jared seemed to be getting better everyday and that gave the older man the strength to keep going.
Jensen had waited a few more days before he had called Father Morgan again and told him about his decision. The next day, his mentor knocked on the door to talk to him in person and get an impression of the kid Jensen had been talking about. Jared had been more than a little reluctant to meet the older cleric but had joined both priests to humor Jensen. Jeff, as the man insisted on being called, had been surprisingly nice and open-minded, though.
After a few minutes of polite small talk Jeff had gone down to business and started talking about the necessary steps Jensen would need to take in order to be defrocked. He offered to talk to the bishop of the diocese on Jensen’s behalf and then be present during the actual procedure to support Jensen. Jeff then went on about all the functions which Jensen would be relieved of and explained how Jensen would need to find a new place to stay, as well as a job to provide for all the mundane things that he had more or less taken for granted before.
Listening to all that had given Jared an insight on how much exactly Jensen was willing to give up for him. He felt overwhelmed and kind of guilty for it but every time Jensen’s eyes gazed in his direction there was a small but genuine smile on the older man’s face and that reassured Jared again.
In the end, Jeff had told Jensen that he approved of the way he had handled everything and hugged him tight, whispering a deep-felt “I’ll always be there if you ever need me, son” to him. Jared had been really moved by the affectionate display already and when Jeff had pulled him into a tight hug as well and said that he would pray for them both, the young man had completely lost it and started to cry.
After that talk with Jeff, there had been a lot of paperwork for Jensen and him and Jared had started to pack the few personal items in the apartment. Chris and Steve had walked in on them as they were stuffing Jensen’s kitchen utensils into one of the moving boxes. As expected, Chris had taken Jensen aside and given him a piece of his mind while Steve stayed in the living-room with Jared, trying to make some small talk. Understanding that Jensen’s mind had already been set and that there was no turning back at that point, both his childhood friends had decided to help him out and found a small, cheap apartment for him and Jared.
Jared had just finished putting the last clothes into the new dresser, which they had bought from the money Jensen had put aside, when the older man came into the room.
“My shift at the clinic starts in half an hour. Do you want to tag along, Jay?” Jensen asked excitedly. Steve had given Jensen a job at the front desk of the clinic and today was his first day of work. “Steve says it’s okay and I wouldn’t mind the company,” he admitted, looking a bit nervous.
Grabbing the now empty cardboard box, which had contained Jensen’s and his wardrobe, Jared grinned. “I have nothing else to do.”
“Great.” Jensen smiled back gratefully. “Chris says that a monkey could do the front desk job and I hope he’s right.” He was very happy about the job and really didn’t want to mess up on his first day. Jensen was good with people but he had never worked as anything other than a priest and the front desk of a clinic sounded like a big challenge.
“You can do it,” Jared assured him and laid a hand on his arm. They were still sharing a bed but, even if Jensen was now free to do anything he wanted, they were still taking everything very slowly. They had kissed a few times but mostly at night when Jared woke up in tears or when Jensen felt like his whole world was crashing down on him. They were both still struggling to deal with their new situation and their losses, and therefore, were only making small progress with their potential relationship.
The warm weight of Jared’s hand on his arm felt good. “Okay.” He nodded and tried to pull himself together. “Let’s go then. If we hurry, we can still buy a box of doughnuts on the way to the clinic,” Jensen suggested, knowing how much Jared liked sweets and happy to see that the kid was finally putting on some much needed weight.
“Okay, let me just get my sweater,” Jared replied, already searching through their dresser and making Jensen smile at his enthusiasm.
Twenty-five minutes later, they were standing in front of the automatic doors of the clinic with a big box of jelly filled doughnuts and two cups of hot chocolate when Jared froze in place.
“Come on, Jay, I’m supposed to meet up with Steve in five.” He turned around and saw how pale Jared suddenly was. “Are you okay, Jared?” Balancing the food and drinks in one hand, he gently cupped the younger man’s face.
Jared’s eyes were wide and sad. “I just realized… I haven’t been here since… you know…” he stuttered, beginning to shiver from nerves.
“Hey…” Jensen quickly brushed his lips against Jared’s and searched for eye contact. “It’s okay. If you don’t feel up to coming with me, I can call you a cab and you can go back home. I can bring dinner when I come back.”
“No, it’s okay. Just give me a minute.” Jared leaned into the soft touch and waited for his heartbeat to slow down again.
Jensen stroked Jared’s cheekbone with his thumb. “Yeah, okay. I’m ready when you are,” he promised and smiled when Jared lowered his head in search for another kiss. Jensen sealed his lips to Jared’s in a soft, loving but still very chaste kiss. “I’m here.”
They stood in silence for a minute or two before Jared nodded in determination. “Let’s go inside.”
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Chris greeted them as they stepped into the waiting area. He took one of the styrofoam cups out of the carrying tray and took a greedy sip before grimacing. “What the fuck’s that?”
Grinning gleefully, Jensen took the cup back. “That’s what you get for stealing my lunch.” His smile grew even wider when he heard Jared chuckle right next to him. “So where’s my office?”
Chris rolled his eyes. “Right there. You’re our new front desk lady, Jen. Congrats!” He steered Jensen and Jared to the front desk in the still empty waiting room.
“What happened to the old one?” Jensen asked out of curiosity and because he needed to know if someone had been fired in order to get him a job.
“Maternity leave,” Chris answered and felt like an obnoxious asshole, when he saw all color drain out of Jared’s face. “I’m sorry,” he quickly apologized, just as Jensen stepped between them and dragged the lanky kid into his arms.
“Come here and sit down for a moment, Jay,” Jensen whispered calmly and led the teen behind the desk, all the time touching his arm and stroking his back. “Can you bring us some water, Chris?”
The paramedic ran off towards the doctors’ lounge to get a bottle of water, leaving both men alone for a moment.
Jensen crouched down in front of Jared and laid a hand on his knee. “The offer is still open… I can call you a cab if this is too much for you, Jay. When I get home after the shift, we can watch a movie and eat some takeout.”
“Wanna stay here and keep you company,” the teen declared in a low voice but met Jensen’s worried eyes and even gave him a weak smile. “I have to… you know… get over it.”
Stroking the hair out of Jared’s eyes, Jensen leaned forward and kissed his temple softly. “Okay, but if you decide you’ve had enough, you’ll tell me, okay?” He waited for a nod and smiled back when he got one. The look Jared gave him, almost made Jensen spill a totally inappropriate declaration of love. The more time he spent with Jared, the more sure he was about his feeling for him, but Jensen knew that rushing things would be a bad idea because they were both still not ready for it, yet. “Alright, then let’s see if Chris can give me a quick instruction,” he changed the subject, stood up and gave his new working place a quick once over. There was a computer, a desk lamp and several boxes with papers and forms stacked on one side of the large desk, and to his right side there was a huge filling cabinet. “Wow, maybe I should have mentioned that I’m not the most organized person when Steve offered me the job…” he mumbled half to himself.
“I can help you with organizing the filing system,” Jared offered out of the blue, surprising the older man.
Jensen had just pulled one of the drawers open and flipped through the chaos of files. “That would be great because this looks like it’s never been alphabetized.” He pushed the drawer closed again and sank down into the second chair as Chris approached them with two bottles of water in hand.
“There you go.” Chris set the drinks on the counter. “If you need anything else, feel free to raid the doctor’s lounge.”
“Thanks.” Jensen nodded and stared into the still empty room. “Is it always this quiet here?”
Chris snorted a laugh. “You wish! It usually starts getting really busy around midday and it gets worse until midnight. Between three and ten in the morning it usually is quiet though.”
“Great. So what exactly do I have to do?” Jensen asked, pointing at his new desk and the room in general.
“Well, you have to get anybody, who walks in those doors, to fill out a form, for starters,” Chris offered. “When it gets busy you might need to decide who needs to see a doctor first and who can still wait. General rule: anyone who’s not responsive or bleeding heavily goes first. Sick kids come next, unless they belong to the first category or have swallowed something that might be poisonous. Drunks get a basket and usually can wait, if they’re not aggressive.” He saw the worried look on his friend’s face. “I’ll come and show you the ropes when my shift’s over at 2pm. Until then, you should be fine.”
“Okay,” Jensen agreed, still nervous but a bit more assured by Chris’s offer to come back and help him out and by Jared’s warm hand resting on his thigh.
“Oh, and Steve said that the files need to be organized…” the medic smirked before turning around. “I gotta go now.”
Jared leaned his head against Jensen’s shoulder and watched the blond man run out the automatic doors towards an ambulance, which had pulled up in front of the clinic.
Jensen looked at the digital clock on the far wall of the waiting room which read 9:07 am. “Are you tired?”
“I’m fine,” Jared replied and sat up straighter again. “Let’s start with the filing work,” he suggested and earned a happy grin from Jensen.
The following month went by fairly uneventful. Jensen’s working hours were from 9 am to 7 pm, so he and Jared had spent most of their days at the clinic, slowly getting into the job. Steve had noticed that Jared had not only been tagging along to sit around but was actually helping out with all the paper work, so he had taken him aside one day and talked to him. Unfortunately, Jared was still reluctant to show anyone his ID, afraid that he might be sent back to his father, if the man had ever reported him missing, so Steve couldn’t put him on the payroll for another few months until he turned eighteen and would be free to make his own decisions without any fears.
“Get your jacket, Jay, we can head home,” Jensen said, waving to Greg Thompson, one of the two guys who split the nightshifts between them, as he walked passed the front desk to get himself his usual coffee out of the doctor’s lounge before starting his shift.
Jared nodded and stood up from his chair, stuffing the file he had been holding into the right folder and shoving the drawer shut. “Can we maybe get some pizza on the way home?” he asked, looking around for his jacket, just as a man in his late fifties ran through the automatic doors crying out for help.
“Sir, what…” Jensen started asking but the man cut him off.
“I was closing my shop right across the street and I found her in the alley by the dumpsters. Help me get her in here,” he quickly explained and ran back outside, leading the way for Jensen and Jared.
Jensen indeed spotted her first. She didn’t look older than maybe fifteen under all the dirty and ragged clothes and then there was the blood, flowing steadily out of the inside of her right elbow, down her arm and spreading into a dark red, growing stain on the thin t-shirt she was wearing. At the sight of the all that blood and the strong metallic tang that seemed to hang in the air, Jensen just froze in shock. It felt like he was back in his bedroom, looking at Jared lying in his own blood.
“Shit!” Jared cursed, seeing the girl and instantly running towards her, already peeling off the soft cotton shirt he was wearing over his long-sleeved t-shirt. Falling to his knees next to the apparently unconscious girl, he slapped her face, trying to get her alert, before he wrapped his shirt around the deep, lethal cut on her thin, bare arm to stem the blood flow.
The shop owner was standing a few feet behind them, talking about how he had been taking out the trash when he had found her lying there and that he wasn’t sure if she was dead, when her purple eyelids weakly started to flutter.
“Hey… C’mon open your eyes,” Jared started encouraging her, bending her wounded arm towards her chest to put more pressure on the wound. He turned around, looking at Jensen, who was ghastly pale and still frozen in place. “Jen! Jensen!” Jared shouted at the older man and felt a small wave of relief wash over him, when green eyes finally focused on him. “Get Steve out of exam 3!” he ordered quickly and turned his gaze back at the girl when Jensen finally took off across the street. “I’m Jared. We’re gonna get you help,” he told her in a warm voice, pulling her frail body into his lap as best as he could, while still applying pressure on the bleeding wound.
“He said he was… positive…” she slurred as her eyes started closing again.
Gently shaking her to make her stay conscious, Jared tried to keep her talking. “What’s your name? Can you tell me your name?”
There was a long pause, filled only by the wheezing sound of her breathing and the old man behind them, mumbling something to himself. “Su… Suzie…”
“Okay, Suzie…” He pulled her trembling body closer to himself and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “It’s gonna be okay.” The sound of wheels, rattling against the uneven pavement caught Jared’s attention and he looked up to see Steve and one of the orderlies approaching them with a gurney.
“Jared, we can take it from here,” Steve told him and started lifting his new patient out of the young men’s arms and onto the gurney with the orderly’s help.
“She said she might be HIV positive,” Jared informed his friend as he stood up again and followed them back into the clinic. Right behind the door he saw Jensen, still looking a bit distressed and dazed.
As soon as his eyes set on Jared, Jensen was shaken out of his stupor and hastily closed the distance between them, pulling Jared into a bone-crushing embrace. “I’m sorry for what happened out there,” he murmured into the teen’s ear, finally letting go of him and looking a bit embarrassed.
With a small smile on his lips, Jared nodded. “It’s okay. Steve is taking care of her now… I’m just gonna wash up a bit and we can leave.” He looked down at himself and was relieved when he saw that he hadn’t gotten any blood on his clothes because riding the bus home while looking like he’d butchered someone would certainly be uncomfortable. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Do you maybe wanna talk about what’s bothering you, Jay?” Jensen hesitantly asked after watching Jared nibbling at the same slice of pizza for ten minutes. He had noticed that Jared had been awfully quiet on their way home but didn’t want to call him on it at first.
Jared looked up from his food and shook his head weakly. “There’s not much to say…” he answered solemnly, clearly not in the right mood for conversation.
Jensen gave him a small smile. “Okay, but if you change your mind, you know I’m right here.” He didn’t want to push Jared but he was concerned with his behavior. The uncomfortable silence and the avoiding answer reminded him of Jared, when he had first met him almost two months ago. Jensen had been so proud and happy about the progress they both had made that he didn’t want to go back there.
Nodding once more, Jared took another bite from his pizza and lowered his gaze to the carpeted floor. After a few minutes of silence, he spoke up again, sounding unsure and young. “Do you think I can call Steve and ask him if she pulled through?”
Sad, hazel eyes searched Jensen’s face. “Yeah, of course you can ask him,” Jensen replied, already grabbing for the phone on the side table next to the sofa.
“I guess it all just threw me off balance…” Jared started talking almost to himself, no longer looking at Jensen. “She was scared that some guy might have infected her…”
Listening intently to Jared’s low voice, Jensen gently laid a hand on his thigh in silent comfort, showing him that he would listen to him without judging.
“She didn’t see any other option than to… I kinda… I know exactly how she feels…” He exhaled audibly but lifted his gaze to look once more at Jensen with somber eyes. “I know how it feels to have to search for a reason to keep going… every single day… even though things don’t seem to be getting any better... To feel like a complete failure and…”
“Stop,” Jensen cut him off, looking close to tears but trying to keep his feelings in check. “You are not a failure, Jared!” He cupped the younger man’s cheek gently and had to swallow a few times at the raw hurt he saw in his hazel eyes. “You went through a lot of bad things but you’re still here… You’re still alive and able to feel compassion for other people. You’re not a failure, Jay, you are wonderful. You’re special.” Jensen finished his little speech with a light blush on his cheeks.
Jared smiled weakly. “I just don’t feel special at all,” he muttered desolately.
There was silence for a few seconds, even though it felt like hours to Jensen but when he finally spoke up again his voice was low but steady.
“I love you.”
He immediately regretted saying those words because Jared was staring at him in utter shock, unblinking and frozen in place. Jensen’s thoughts were racing, trying to figure out what he should do to control the damage he had done with his impulsive declaration. He closed his eyes and tried to swallow his emotions down before talking again.
“I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that and I… I’m not expecting you to say it back or anything…” he broke off, searching for the right words to explain himself but Jared nodded in agreement.
“Thank you,” he simply replied, not elaborating further.
Those two words calmed the older man’s nerves instantly and he smiled shyly at Jared, who had turned his life upside down in such a short period of time. After a short pause, he held up the phone that lay forgotten on the sofa cushion next to him. “You wanted to call Steve.”
“Yeah,” Jared confirmed, accepting the phone and starting to dial their friend’s cell number. As soon as he heard the first ring, he reached for Jensen’s hand, entwining their fingers unconsciously and Jensen knew that everything between them was still okay.
Chapter 7