World Goes 'Round By Misunderstanding - Jared/Jensen NC-17 - 2/3
Back to Part 1
****
If there was ever a moment where Jared could’ve stopped this, it’s been set alight and turned to ash by now.
The sight of Jensen spread open around him, so trusting and needy and beautiful as he thrashes his head and takes it, like he never wants anything that isn’t Jared’s cock in him, is almost enough to distract from the hot, wet grip of his ass as he flutters and squeezes so tight it’s almost painful.
Fuck, Jensen’s supposed to be the one in heat, here.
He’s trying to stay still and give Jensen time to adjust, but he can’t help the twitching forward motion of his hips as he fills Jensen up over and over, grinding against him like he can get any deeper than he is already.
It’s not even the physical stuff, which is a stupid thought to have when he’s got this stunning, lithe beta fucking back onto his dick, but it’s the truth. Jensen is his; every poorly-repressed possessive thought he’s ever had about this boy is stampeding through his mind; how much he wants to keep Jensen here, like this; flushed and glassy-eyed and stuffed full, how badly he wants to make him laugh and see those lines that crease the skin next to his eyes when he smiles, how much he wants to protect him and shelter him and love him.
It’s that last part that makes him twitch inside the grip of his beta’s channel, makes him fuck forward hard to hear the noises he can push from the boy‘s perfect mouth; the knowledge that Jensen wants him, chose him when he could’ve gotten any alpha he wanted. He’s not thinking anything but Jensen over and over, like the haze of oestrus from the beta is travelling into him through every point of contact.
He leans his weight down enough that the beta’s stone-hard, leaking, fucking pretty dick is trapped between them, feel of the head catching and trailing slick-shiny precome over his stomach each time he pulls back. He’s gonna make Jensen come again; knot him tight and fill him up and mate him.
The m-word is what finally sets him off. He shoves forward hard as his knot starts to swell, soothing nonsense spilling from his lips as Jensen whimpers at the too-full push against his insides. He’s trying to hold still, make it easier, but fuck nothing has ever felt so good around his knot, nothing has ever spoken to that stereotypical alpha part of his brain that wants to claim and take and keep.
Jensen makes a murdered groan as he comes to the feel of Jared marking him up from the inside; muscles clenching and squeezing, milking Jared for everything he’s got as he creams the beta so fucking deep he’d be surprised if the boy couldn’t taste it.
****
It hurts a little when Jared finally pounds into him and Jensen feels the knot at the base of his cock catch against his hole, but fuck if that sharp note of pain doesn’t make it better.
The first warm-wet rush of come right over that awesome spot inside him is what makes him come the second time; white flashes in his vision as he shoots over the skin of his chest; hot mess sticking between them as Jared rocks gently buried inside him, filling him so completely Jensen can’t imagine wanting anything else for the rest of his life.
The itchy too-tight feeling of his skin is gone, something soothing and warm falling over him as Jared kisses him again; soft press of lips and swipe of tongues as he licks Jensen’s mouth open and fills him even more.
He feels content in a way he never has; like he’s been struggling against a current for years and has only now figured out how to swim, to keep his head above water and actually breathe. He wants to sleep for days and kiss for hours and keep Jared right here over him, body warm and sheltering and stuffing him full.
“So good, Jared. S’perfect.” Has to say something, feels like he’s gonna burst if he doesn’t. His voice is no less wrecked than before, but it’s less obvious with how the words are breathed against Jared’s skin, where their sweat-damp foreheads are pressed together, and Jared makes a deep humming noise in reply that Jensen feels right down to his bone marrow.
Jared’s still coming in small bursts, and Jensen can feel the heat of it inside him counteracting the insistent need of his cycle.
He’s thrumming with aftershocks and post-orgasmic exhaustion, and despite how badly he wants to feel every second of this, he can’t help the heavy weight of his eyelids as they slide shut, breath shuddering from his lungs in relief as he falls asleep in the arms of his mate.
The next thing he feels is his body shaking on the bed as someone grips his shoulder.
Through the sore feeling in his limbs and the fucked-out buzz in his head, he vaguely realises that the voice calling out his name belong to his dad.
The only way that makes sense is if he’s just had the most photorealistic wet dream of his entire life.
But when he opens his eyes, he’s not in his room; he’s still in Jared’s. The sheets are up over his waist, and he doesn’t feel wet and gross like he’d expected, but that doesn’t explain what the everloving fuck his dad is doing in here right now.
“Get your clothes, we’re going home.” All he says once he registers that Jensen is conscious; voice flat and no real emotion in the words at all. Then he’s standing away from the bed, eyes everywhere but actually on Jensen, turning and practically stomping from the room.
Jensen is kinda glad for the slowly returning burn of his heat when every cell and organ in his body goes ice-cold.
Jared isn’t anywhere in the room.
Getting dressed in just his shirt and sweatpants, he crumples the still-damp shorts into a pocket, and tries to quell the panic building in his chest and the vague, unjustified sense of shame in his gut.
He heads downstairs into the long hallway, not registering the details of Jared’s place any more than he had on the way in, albeit for much less pleasant reasons this time.
His parents are standing awkwardly by the door, and a glance to one side shows Jared in the living room, standing rigid as a statue and facing the windows, features in profile and set in stone. In all the time Jensen has known Jared, he’s never seen him this tense.
His insides get colder.
For all that the walk to Jared’s house had seemed like a split-second; the walk back takes about a thousand years. His parents silently keep pace with him; flanking him like he’s gonna make a run for it. He’s doing his absolute best to hide the limp in his gait, but it’s not easy, and worse is the helpless and painful sense of loss sitting on his shoulders and in his stomach like solid lead; the stinging in his eyes and the clogging in his sinuses.
It’s possible that he’s completely fucked up his life, here.
His parents don’t say one word to him as they go inside and he absently follows them to the kitchen. They don’t look at him, don’t yell, don’t even bother telling him how obviously disappointed or disgusted they are.
At least they aren’t calling the cops. Yet.
He trails out of the room and goes upstairs to shower; where at least the hiss of running water covers the sound of him sobbing as the pain bends him in two and he curls over on himself; and the tears on his face could just as easily be spray from the showerhead.
He leaves his clothes on the bathroom floor, can’t bring himself to do anything with them. Should probably just throw them out. Burn them, maybe; some kinda twisted poetic justice.
Going into his room, he notices the window is still open; chill in the air and breeze ruffling the curtains. He shuts it, and stands there just staring out at the house across the street, can vaguely make out Jared’s towering form still exactly where they’d left him in his living room.
He falls into bed and tries to sleep; ends up mashing his face into the pillow as he soaks it with the salt water from his eyes and the saliva from his mouth as he bites down on it to keep from screaming.
The fuck has he gone and done?
His heat lasts two more days; mercifully cut short because of the mating - the sex - but still enough to make him hard and slick from the inside. He ignores it. Can’t stand the thought of touching himself; knows he couldn’t summon a single thought that wouldn’t involve Jared if he tried to relieve the urge.
When it’s over; he spends an hour talking himself into, and then out of going to see Jared, to try and...Well he doesn’t know, really. Explain himself? Demand an explanation for calling his parents? Beg forgiveness? Beg for something else that he apparently has no right to?
He finally waits until the following Saturday, when Jared takes his dogs for their morning run before he goes to talk to him; figures that’ll at least cut down on the odds of getting a door slammed in his face.
He still throws up beforehand.
He isn’t sneaking up on Jared, exactly, but the alpha runs with earphones in, so Jensen still ends up startling him when he turns onto the street and sees him standing there.
The look on his face is some dreadful mixture of awkwardness and fear, maybe irritation; all things Jared has never directed at him.
He might throw up again.
“J-Jensen. Are you. What do you want?” Face cycling through too many expressions to keep track of; starts with concern and goes rapidly downhill.
“I wanted. I needed to talk to you. About the. About-” Bumbling suddenly cut off.
“Look, Jensen, I get it, but. This isn’t a good idea, okay? Go home.” Lines of tension on his forehead, crease between his eyebrows as he talks, like he’s getting a headache.
“But I-”
“Go home, Jensen, please. I can’t talk to you right now, okay?” Pleading on his face, desperation in his voice, and Jensen’s legs are useless weights that anchor him to the sidewalk as Jared moves carefully around him in a wide berth and jogs up to his house.
He’s inside and gone from view before Jensen can process any of what just happened.
Oh he’s definitely gonna throw up again.
****
Jared falls back against the closed door with a sigh and the feel of a pounding headache about to start as he clenches his eyes shut. The dogs give a faint whine like they know something’s wrong, but he can’t make his voice work to comfort them, thoughts full of self-recrimination; whether at letting it actually come to this, or at doing the awful and sensible thing in calling Jensen‘s parents, he isn't sure.
He knows he has to do this. It’s the only way him and Jensen will have even the slightest chance at what he knows would be something incredible; something permanent.
That doesn’t make the sick feeling go away, though; image of Jensen - his mate - looking so lost and alone as he’d stuttered through his attempt to talk to him.
Jared had wanted so badly to just wrap his arms around him, tuck his head under his chin and feel the tenseness go out of his body, but he can’t.
He made a promise, a deal; and thoughts of police reports and potential jail time aside, he can’t lose Jensen.
That’s gonna be his new mantra, he thinks.
****
It goes on for weeks, which then turn into a month, which becomes two months, and is almost three before Jensen can manage to catch his breath.
Jared still won’t talk to him.
Jensen stopped trying to make him a while ago.
He gets it now; that he pretty much date-raped Jared with heat pheromones and needy whining; and if he wasn’t throwing up almost every morning anyway; that thought’d probably get him going again. He still has these stupid, unrequited feelings for the alpha, which aren’t helped by the fevered dreams he keeps having of Jared spreading him out on cool sheets and sliding deep into him; missing piece that slots into place, completes him.
Those dreams are probably what’s making him sick, he thinks.
His parents are talking to him, at least, but it’s still strained and a little awkward whenever the conversation dies down; like they aren’t sure how to deal with him anymore.
He hasn’t felt like himself in months; ever since that last heat ended. His appetite is all over the place; starving one minute and queasy at the mere mention of food the next. He’s been woken up with heartburn twice in the last week, and he’s got all this nervous energy he can’t seem to get rid of.
He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor of Chris’ bedroom, watching his friend tune his guitar as he jiggles his foot against the carpet and tries to ignore the familiar hint of nausea in his belly that never seems to go away completely.
“Dude, what’s with you lately? You’re all…” He makes a vague waving motion at Jensen‘s jittery leg. “Every time I see you it’s like you’re either gonna hurl or shake apart.” He actually looks a little worried, and Jensen feels like an ass for not really talking to Chris much, lately.
He hasn’t really been talking to anyone, lately.
“I’ve been. Christ I dunno, man. I’ve felt like crap ever since the whole mess with Jared. Throwing up and not sleeping. S’probably just stress or somethin’.” Sighing as he runs a hand over his face, frown line getting deeper between Chris’ sharp blue eyes.
“Jen, I. I don’t wanna pry here, but. When you and Jared.” Crude hand gesture that would’ve made Jensen laugh if his guts weren’t doing summersaults somewhere near his feet. “Were you, y’know. Safe?” Takes Jensen a minute to figure out what that non-wordy question was supposed to mean, and then he can feel the blood leave his face as his eyes widen and he goes cold all over.
“Aw hell, Jen.” All Chris says at whatever is showing in Jensen’s expression, face twisting in sympathy, and Jensen can’t speak, can’t think.
He’s such a fucking idiot.
Taking a goddamn pregnancy test in his best friends bathroom, while said friend leans against the door outside, is probably the most surreal thing he's ever done.
That feeling only gets worse when the test comes up positive.
He walks home that evening like a zombie; barely getting inside before the curfew his parents imposed on him (once they could bring themselves to actually look at him again).
He somehow gets up the stairs and into his room, lets his chin drop to his chest as he stands among all the memories and knick knacks of his childhood.
The childhood he isn’t even finished with yet.
He’s a fucking kid, for Christ’s sake. How’s he gonna have a baby? Raise a baby, another person?
It just doesn’t seem real. It can’t be. He isn’t ready for this.
What can he do?
Well, he knows what he could do, but there’s no way in hell he can make himself do it. He does biology at school; he’s read every scrap of reliable information online, he knows male abortion is a lot more risky; and even if it weren’t, there’s some deep-seated impulse in the back of his mind telling him that he can’t.
The thought of his parents finding out makes him wanna tear his hair out. He can’t hide this. He’s at least eleven weeks along; he’s already showing enough signs that Chris put it together in all of five minutes, his parents are bound to notice sooner or later.
They’ll make him give it up.
A small sound gets ripped from him with that thought; wet and broken and startlingly loud in the otherwise silent room.
They’re gonna take his baby away from him.
He shouldn’t be thinking like this; like it’s already a person that he knows and is gonna keep and raise and lo-
He shouldn’t be thinking like this.
He can’t help it.
He’s pacing now, hands gripping at his hair but not tugging it out - yet - trying to sort out any of the million terrifying possibilities in his head that all end the same way.
He can’t let them take his baby.
His feet stall mid-stride across the carpet. The thought just rose up and bobbed to the surface; buoy in water, and now he can’t shake free of it.
He can’t let them take his baby.
Not letting himself really consider the consequences of what he’s about to do; he pulls the old gym bag from under his bed, starts haphazardly throwing clothes into it; random stuff from his drawers and the back of his closet; doesn't know what he's gonna need. He forces the zipper shut, looks around the room, feeling like it’ll be the last time, and heads for the stupid window again.
His parents were gonna put a lock on it, but something about the way his whole body’d crumpled when they'd said it must've sparked some small amount of pity, since it grudgingly slides open when he shoves it upwards into the frame.
He climbs halfway down the tree, lets his bag fall to the ground with a muffled thump on the grass, and drops down next to it.
He’s not sure where he’s going this time, but he at least has to try and talk to Jared first.
It’s his baby too, after all.
He drops the bag at the bottom of the steps, walks up them to Jared’s front door; memories of last time running like a home movie in his head. He finally forces his arm up and knocks on the wood, then again when there’s no response other than the sound of barking dogs.
He knows Jared’s home; the lights are on, muffled sounds of television coming from inside somewhere.
“Jared?” Voice so pathetic he winces. “Jared I. I need to talk to you, okay? Please?” Last word broken as he tries not to start crying again. No answer. “Please Jared, it’s really important.” Forehead dropping to the door, tingle-itch of a tear down one cheek, backs of his eyes stinging.
No answer. The dogs are quiet, now.
He lets out a sigh that makes him feel so much older than sixteen, then heads down the steps and hefts his bag; stupid random-ass thought about how pregnant people aren’t supposed to do heavy lifting causing an almost-hysterical sob to burst free. He looks between his house and Jared’s; practically different worlds; and he doesn’t belong in either of them, anymore.
Just shoving one foot in front of other, he moves down the street; whole life in a ragged duffle, no destination and not a whole lotta hope.
****
Jared is standing in his hallway for what feels like the hundredth time in the last two months; bent over at the waist with one hand on his thigh and another on the wall as he heaves in air through his nose, and tries not to fling the door open and run after Jensen.
Christ, but the way his mate’d sounded had made Jared feel like he’d been stabbed; sharp pain digging into his chest and stealing his breath, every nerve and muscle in his body screaming at him to fix whatever had Jensen that upset.
Except he knows why, and there’s nothing he can do that won’t destroy whatever they have for good.
He can’t talk to Jensen. If he has to look him in his endless green eyes, tries to say anything to him; then Jared’s gonna lose whatever thin strands of control he’s barely holding onto, and the whole thing will fall apart; and then Jensen’s parents will never let him near his mate again.
That reminder doesn’t help right now. Not in the slightest.
He understands the need Jensen feels to close the gap between them; and maybe the pop psychology’s right and beta’s do feel things deeper than alphas or whatever; but why can’t he just wait - painful as it is, and fuck it’s so goddamn painful - until they can actually be together, properly and without interference. This yoyo act is just slowly killing them both.
He’s trying not to hate Jensen’s parents for this, he really is. That isn’t helping either.
He’s under no delusion that Jensen isn’t too young for this right now; he’s sixteen years to Jared’s twenty-eight, of course he’s too fucking young, made all the worse by the fact that their first time together had been during Jensen’s heat. But he loves Jensen, loves him with a frightening kind of intensity that he honestly didn’t know he was capable of; and hearing him so obviously hurting over their separation makes him feel like a failure as an alpha; as a man, as a mate, with everything he is.
As much as he wants to hate Jensen’s parents for insisting on this; to just shove all of the blame off on them, he knows this is his fault, not theirs, and certainly not Jensen’s. He chose to let Jensen in that night, to bind them together, and then call his parents when he’d realised what he’d let himself do.
He remembers being a teenager himself; remembers his dad sitting him down when he’d first popped his knot at fifteen, and explaining that being someone’s mate was the greatest thing an alpha could ever do for another person; that giving someone that deep, primal connection was a privilege to be cherished; not a right to be demanded or abused.
He looks at what he’s done to the most beautiful, kind and sweet young man he’s ever known, and thinks his dad would probably be pretty fucking ashamed of him. He can’t say he’d disagree with him, either.
He pulls his hand back and slams it into the wall, hard enough it cracks the drywall and nearly breaks his knuckles. It doesn’t help, but the pain is something to focus on, at least.
He goes to bed and tries not to replay the sounds of Jensen crying against his front door; the utter lack of anything even resembling happiness or contentment in the beta‘s voice. He tries not to play out imaginary scenarios where he’d opened the door like the desperate, fucking shamefully selfish bastard that he is and pulled Jensen to him and done whatever it would’ve taken to soothe him. He just tries not to think at all.
Seems he’s failing on a lotta fronts, these days.
He doesn’t get another visit from Jensen for three days, and while that’s not really a long time; the finality of the way Jensen had left; how broken he’d sounded; makes him feel every minute passing, like he’s watching sand trickle slowly through an hourglass.
That’s when the cops show up.
The banging from downstairs drags him out of bed on yet another sleepless night, doesn’t stop until he opens the door in confusion at the red-blue-red-blue flashing against the curtains.
“Mr Padalecki?” Says the blue uniform standing on his front step; features washed-out by the flashlight being shone in his eyes and the lights of the patrol car idling on the street.
“Uh, yeah. Can I help you?” Brain not really operating; late hour combined with weeks of not sleeping enough.
“Do you have a Jensen Ackles here with you?” Way it’s asked says the guy kinda has opinion on the answer already, but Jared can’t care about that with the way his heart has stopped dead.
“W-What? No I. I haven’t seen him in days. You’re telling me he’s missing?” Stepping probably too-far into the cop's personal space, but if something’s happened to Jensen, or. Fuck if he’s done something to himself…That’d be it, his life, everything, over.
“Do you have any knowledge of his whereabouts, sir?” Cop apparently not buying the very real concern.
“No! What’s happened? Fuck, what is going on?!” Probably not the best idea to yell at the guy with the gun and handcuffs but seriously fuck it.
“His parents reported him missing from their home. The window in his room was opened from the inside, and there are clothes gone from his closet. We're thinking he's a runaway. They suggested that you might have some idea of his whereabouts.” More than suggestion in that last part, and Jared can only imagine what Jensen’s parents would have to say about him, but that’s not important right now.
“I haven’t seen him.” Panic-fuelled adrenaline waking him all the way. Something in the frantic way he’s turning on the spot and grabbing at his bed-mussed hair must finally sink in; because the cop lowers his flashlight, and gives him an assessing look.
“Do you know anywhere he might’ve gone?” Jared freezes tries to search his brain for anything helpful.
“I. Fuck. No, I don’t know. I’m helping you look for him.” Last part said almost to himself as he grabs his keys from the bowl on the side-table, heedless of the sleep shirt and drawstring pants he’s wearing, the slap of his bare feet on the concrete as he darts around the cop and down the steps to his truck.
“Sir, I’m afraid I can’t allow that. This is technically a missing-child case; police only.” Something like pity and maybe even apology in the guy’s voice now.
Fuck. That.
“I’m helping. I’m not just gonna. He’s. I have to.” Last thing he says before he climbs into the truck and slams the door, ignores the protests of the officer standing by his house; heads off with a screech of tires and the roar of the engine.
He’s gonna find his mate.
****
Jensen’s life has pretty much been a sliding scale of crappy experiences lately; but sleeping on a park bench is still another low he’d never expected to feel before his seventeenth birthday.
At least summers in Texas make for warm nights; even if they don’t soften the benches any.
He’s down to about forty bucks hidden in his sock; all he’s got left for food and water before he’ll have to burn whatever rags of pride he’s got wrapped around himself and head for a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen.
He’s a pregnant teenager running away from home; at least the fact that he’s a guy takes some of the edge off the cliché.
He knows his parents will have realised he’s gone by now, mutual avoidance or no. But he didn’t take his cell phone; has no I.D., credit cards or anything that can trace his address, so it’s not likely he’ll get picked up and taken back unless he gets busted for vagrancy or something and just tells them where he lives. Where he used to live.
At least jail cells probably have beds.
He’s trying to ignore the mess he’s made of his life; trying to remember it’s not just his life anymore; that there are two of them in this, now.
At least he’s not technically all by himself.
“What’re we gonna do, huh kiddo?” Words said softly and maybe a little defeated as he lies back on the bench and looks at all the stars above his head; stunning swirls and patterns of white shining through, like holes in a black cloth; hands resting gently on his belly and rubbing softly, like an apology. No answer from the child inside him.
“Yeah, I dunno either.”
****
Jared is driving for twenty minutes, brain working furiously, before he suddenly flashes back to a warm evening nearly a year ago; when he'd run into Jensen in the park a few miles from their street, carrying a one-man tent and a huge, padded bag with parts of a telescope in it.
“I love looking at the stars." He’d told Jared, breathtaking little smile on his face. "Something about how small looking at them makes you feel; like nothing can really be that bad if there’s so much else out there, y’know?” Tone full of wonder and face creasing with his smile.
It was one of countless moments when Jared had desperately wanted to kiss him, or hold him; or just say something that would keep Jensen looking at him, talking to him with that light shining in his eyes.
The park.
He swerves in a one-eighty on the - thankfully deserted - road, changing direction from going to Chris Kane’s house to the big open field he‘d been jogging in that day.
Jensen’s there, he can feel it.
He goes probably twice the speed limit getting there, and his truck spins in a wide, sluggish arch as he stabs his foot down onto the break pedal, comes to a halt by the tall wooden fence that surrounds the park. He leaves the key in the ignition, doesn’t even shut the door; just gets out and runs into the darkness; moving quickly along the winding footpath as the grey spots clear from his eyes, night vision slowly improving.
He’s most of the way around the edge of the place, now; knots of anxiety in his stomach getting tighter over the idea that maybe Jensen isn’t here.
Then he does a double-take at the big shadow of a pair of legs, sticking out over the end of one of the wooden benches that lies next to the path. His heart skips, and his breath comes out in a rushed, serrated noise that sounds suspiciously like a name.
Jensen.
“Jensen!” Echoed from his mouth as he runs over to the slumped form on the seat, relief bursting behind his breastbone like fireworks, or balloons filled with colour.
He gets to the bench; hand reaching out as the guy turns over, and.
It’s not Jensen.
Even in the near-complete blackness of the unlit footpath, he can tell it isn’t the young beta; it’s just a homeless guy; smelling like booze and looking at least thirty-five years too old to be the boy he‘s looking for; tattered beanie covering a greasy mop of hair, unkempt beard hiding a lined and weary set of facial features.
“Whadda you wan’?” Mumbled and slurred with sleep and the influence of alcohol, stench of it hitting Jared like a slap to the face.
“Have you seen a boy? A teenager? Tall; blonde hair, green eyes?” Desperately shaking the bum by the shoulder, trying to keep him focused and prevent him from turning away.
“Nah, man. Nobody here like that.” Annoyance in the tone as he swipes at Jared’s arm, forcing him to let go and take a step back as the man rolls over on his makeshift bed.
He was wrong.
Jensen isn’t here.
He shoves down the panic and the helpless, cold fear he can feel creeping up from somewhere below his lungs; tries to stop his brain playing those three words over and over like a broken record.
Jensen isn’t here. But he’s gotta be somewhere.
He’s back in his truck and speeding onto the road again as soon as he can make his legs work, replaying every encounter he and Jensen have ever had, looking for some clue or idea as to where the boy would go that he'd think no one would check.
Then he almost bashes his head against the steering wheel as he remembers that there’s another park not far from here, smaller and not as popularly used.
Another line of rubber layered onto the ground behind his wheels, and he's flooring it this time.
Jensen has to be there.
Because Jared is all out of ideas.
****
Having given up on sleep, what with the way bench is making him periodically numb and achy all over; Jensen is now trying to name every constellation he knows.
He knows them all, so it’s taking a while. Which is exactly the point.
Out of nowhere, he’s almost blinded by a sunrise of headlamps that scrolls across the bench and burns his eyes, pupils contracting painfully even as he squints.
He sits up, thinking of running from what he’s guessing is either the police or a park ranger or something, when the engine-noise cuts off and a familiar voice rings out in the still, night air.
“Jensen?!” Fuck that’s Jared’s voice. What’s he doing here?
“Jensen, oh thank God.” Before he can get a word out, he’s being hauled to his feet and wrapped in the tightest embrace of his life; strong arms pulling him into the alpha’s broad chest, and he can’t help the way he instinctually relaxes as the scent of his mate surrounds him like warm fog, arms coming up around Jared like they‘re on strings pulled from above.
“Jesus Jensen, d’you have any idea how scared I was?” He’s got some idea from the way Jared is shaking like a leaf and his voice is trembling, words muffled against Jensen’s hair but still sounding like he’s about to cry.
Jensen knows just how he feels.
Jared pulls back, hands on Jensen’s waist as his eyes look him over, checking for something.
“Are you okay?” Voice still wet and a little cracked, and Jensen can see the dampness in his eyes where they’re twinkling in the light from Jared’s truck, can just make out the lines of his body shuddering with every breath.
Jensen isn’t sure how to answer him; question leading to all kinds of admissions he isn‘t prepared to face, right now.
“Why are you here?” Question answered with a question, and if he’d managed to sleep for more than two hours at a time since he packed his life into a bag and aimed himself nowhere, he’d probably be a little proud of himself.
“W-Why am I here?” Yet another question, asked on shaky breath and said like it’s not the most ludicrous thing ever; coming to the rescue of the guy who drugged him up and slutted into his bed.
“I’m here for you, Jensen. I came to find you.” Eyes boring him from the semi-dark, and his brain just can’t latch on to what’s happening here.
“You. Why?” Genuine bafflement in the way he asks, honestly doesn’t know. Must’ve been the wrong thing to say though, from the way Jared lets out a broken noise like he’s been punched. Or maybe gutted.
“Because you ran away, Jensen, fuck. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t come after you? I was. You can’t just. Fuck.” Head jerking to the side like he’s trying to shake the words loose, hands tightening briefly where they‘re resting on Jensen‘s upper arms.
“But I. After what I did, why would you?” Softer spoken, but no less confused.
“What you did?” Frowning so deep Jensen can actually see it even with the tiny amount of light, and it’s either ridiculous or maybe helpful to be having this conversation in an empty park in the middle of the night.
“I. Christ Jared, I practically raped you.” Voice breaking and full of disgrace; first time he’s actually said the words aloud, even to himself. Jared convulses all over like he’s been electrocuted, mouth working soundlessly.
“You. What?!” Word bursting out of him, mostly air and shock.
“I. C’mon, Jared, I was in heat, you got pulled into what I. It was my fault, I know. I’m sorry.” Didn’t mean to say that last part, but apparently it’s been percolating somewhere, judging from the way it wrenches out of him on a sob.
“What?” Question pretty much all breath that time, hands running up his neck and cupping Jensen’s face. “Jensen, you. No, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t have to let you in, I let it happen because I. Because I wanted it. You.” Almost-sadness creeps in as he finishes, helpless up-down move of his shoulders, and Jensen is just so tired and confused and maybe thinks he’s dreaming all of this.
“Y-You wanted it?” Can’t help parroting the words, like they’ll make more sense if he says them. Another noise, like a sob smashed to bits comes from Jared’s mouth, and shit Jensen just can’t seem to stop hurting him.
“Of course I did. I still do. Why d’you think I made that stupid deal with your parents, huh?” Small huffed laugh with zero humour in it, and Jensen really has no clue what he’s talking about.
Something of that must be in evidence on his face, from the way Jared steps closer; even though there’s barely any space between them already.
“You. You do know about the agreement, right?” Edge of worry back in his voice, along with something else, and all Jensen can do is shake his head.
“Di-Didn’t they tell you?” That something else apparently anger, though it doesn’t seem to be directed at him. Christ, he’s still about nine steps behind in this conversation.
He just shakes his head, movement stalled by Jared's hands still on his face; but words have only served to make the disorientation worse since Jared showed up.
“Sonova-They. That’s why you-Fuck!” Startling Jensen with the sudden curse he spits like it’s a foul taste in his mouth. The motion seems to remind him they’re practically nose-to-nose, and he steps back, lets his arms fall to his sides as he visibly tries to calm down.
Jensen would just like to know what the fuck’s going on.
Part 3