fic: Command Me to Be Well
Title: Command Me to Be Well
Genre: J2 AU
Rating: nc-17
Word Count: 5,300
Notes: a gift for blackrabbit42 for spn_j2_xmas. this is dreadfully late, love, mea culpa. mea maxima culpa. you are one of my most cherished fandom friends, and it's been my complete honor to write for you. i took a few of your preferences, your prompt one last, one very last time, then subsequently bent everything beyond recognition. warnings for underage, religious subject matter, and institutional homophobia. thanks also to tebtosca, the terriblest of terrible mods.
Summary: Vacation bible camp. That's what Jared calls it whenever one of his classmates asks what he's doing over summer break, because conversion therapy just doesn't have a nice ring to it.
It's the tiniest thing, nestled in Jared's laptop, hidden between his tenth grade biography on Benjamin Franklin and a book report on one of the shorter Steinbecks. A photograph of two boys. They're high up, straddling a thick tree branch, thighs overlapping and hands sweetly on each others hips. They're all Chuck Taylors and loose-necked t-shirts, holes in the knees of their jeans, not unlike Jared. Their heads are tilted just right, an inch away from kissing.
Not unlike Jared at all.
Jared had found it then secreted it away, heart pounding like he'd been getting away with something, saving it for a rainy day and for those late nights when a specific sort of loneliness elbows its way inside.
It's everything Jared wants, and somehow better than the darker, dirtier things he keeps locked in the attic room inside his head. Sugary and innocent in unreal black and white. Sinful and damning in the eyes of his father, who, on one fine sunny day in the early summer, destroyed Jared's laptop and Jared's respect for him right along with it. His heart too, but he'll never admit to that and anyway, he'd been in the process of building a new one. One that cared less and didn't have to bother with the truth all that much.
~*~*~*~
Vacation bible camp. That's what he calls it whenever one of his classmates asks what he's doing over summer break, rolls his eyes and shrugs off their companionable, vaguely pained sympathy. He signs their yearbooks, wishes everyone a really great summer.
~*~*~*~
Yesterday's rain has turned the dirt road to slop, miles of potholes that the family sedan bounces over, fishtails around. Jared's in the back seat, chewing on a pencil eraser because he's run out of fingernails, his neatly folded crossword puzzle forgotten in his lap. He's counting miles, planning some obscure escape, trying to remember everything he ever learned about how to survive in the woods. Something about following streams and not eating mushrooms.
His father prattles on about pine trees and the fresh, clean smell of the air up here, family camping trips when he himself was a boy, and Jared's ears keep popping from the elevation.
It's less of a camp and more like a small compound, a series of buildings huddled around a bigger one in the middle. Quaintly rustic and very well-kept with church money, wooden crosses hammered over all the doors. In a couple of weeks, he's supposed to emerge from this place a brand new boy, free of perversion and the snares of the devil. After that, he'll go to a church appointed counselor a few times a month, sorta like a booster shot.
A man waits for them at the doorway of the main building. He ambles over to meet them as they pile out of the car and shakes everyone's hand in turn. His name is Steve, no last name, no reverend tagged to the front of it, just Steve. Jared thinks he looks more like a lumberjack than a man of the cloth, plaid flannel rolled up to his elbows and work boots below his baggy jeans. There's something about him that reminds Jared of one of the guidance counselors at school, the guy who keeps chocolate bars and a pack of Marlboros in his top desk drawer and wants to be everyone's best friend.
The heels of his mother's good Sunday shoes are sinking into the mud. She's dabbing uselessly at her eyes with the corners of her handkerchief. It's only for show. Her eyes are dry. They stay that way as Jared gets ushered off, taken into a huge hollow rec room, stripped of his phone and the few pulpy sci-fi novels he'd been looking forward to reading, then handed a questionnaire.
On paper he admits that he's a virgin, that he's had impure thoughts but hasn't acted on them, hasn't ever been abused by any older relative. He answers a dozen other questions equally as leading and every bit as jacked up before Steve comes to collect him and take him to his office. Then it's ten minutes of sitting there, alternatively staring at the guy page through it all and staring at the wall behind Steve's head. His framed certificate of ordination looks fake, like it's something he printed from the internet, the psychology degree hanging beside it only a little less so.
Jared's silent, wrapped up in a feeling of dull, pissed off embarrassment, jumps a mile when Steve clears his throat and tells him there's hope, that he's been created in god's image and there's always hope.
Jared doesn't have much use for a god who would make him this way, then tell him it's wrong and leave him to it.
~*~*~*~
The rec room is slightly less empty than earlier, a few men are hunched over their own paperwork, dutifully ignoring each other in a way that can only mean they're hyperaware of their neighbors. In the far corner, another guy is half turned away, Jared's suitcase at his feet and Jared's backpack slouching from his shoulder. He's idly wiping dust from a shelf that houses what looks like about twenty identical copies of King James' take on the bible.
He's tall, a few years older than Jared, wide shoulders and narrow hips under the flannel and jeans that Jared's starting to discover is the standard uniform around this place, and when Steve introduces him as patient zero, his very first success story, the guy shrugs.
"Or y'know, you could just call me Jensen," he says. He holds out his hand and grins, a smile so open and free and Jared's stomach jumps, feels as if it's trying to switch places with his lungs or perhaps his heart. Before Jared can get his tongue to move, Jensen hefts his suitcase and goes on, "C'mon, let's get you oriented."
Their first stop is Jared's room, the last cabin in a long, adjoining row of them. Jensen kicks the door wide, holds it open for Jared to pass through. The place is basic. Wooden floors and wooden walls, a couple of beds and a few drawers to put his stuff, but the mattresses look soft and there's a warm cedar smell to it.
"Enough to make a monk feel right at home," Jared says, and gets a thrill when Jensen chuckles, low and hoarse.
"Mine isn't much better. I do have a radio though, and a shower." Hiking a thumb over his shoulder, Jensen says, "Your showers are out there."
"Am I gonna have a roommate?"
With a shake of his head, Jensen tells him, "You've got this place all to yourself. This is a small group. Most people come up for the shorter retreats, only have time to pray the gay away on the weekends."
Jared's breath catches and the look he gives Jensen is sharp. He'd thought he'd be spending the start of his summer vacation surrounded by a group of the devoutly penitent, listening to a lot of fire and brimstone talk. He never expected to meet someone like this, a person so real and so grounded.
"Hey," Jensen says, "I might spend a lot of my time miles away from civilization, but I do have at least a working knowledge of it."
Jensen points out the kitchen and the dining hall as they crunch down gravel pathways, shows him the chapel with its small, windowless offshoot for solitary prayer. Jensen's cabin is separate from the rest, unattached, and he makes Jared promise to come knocking if he needs something, any hour of the day or night.
"This program works on a sponsor system," Jensen explains, "and Steve decided you'd be stuck with me. We're pretty close in age, so…"
They circle back around, close to Jared's bunk and Jared's having trouble really paying attention, more fixed on the comfortable, measured sound of Jensen's voice than what he's actually saying, stuck on the slow roll of Jensen's hips as he walks. There are a dozens of things that up to this point have been entirely theoretical in Jared's mind which are now taking on a more solid shape, putting down roots. He wants to cup Jensen's hip bones in the palms of his hands and feel them shift, test how far his fingers can reach around Jensen's wrists, learn what his skin smells like.
Jared's starting to wonder if this is some sorta trick, if Jensen's something that the man who runs this joint is doing to him on purpose. A glass of cold water poured a fraction outside the reach of a person who has spent a week in the desert. Six-feet-some-odd of temptation wrapped into faded blue jeans, a pretty pink mouth and eyes so brightly green they hardly seem real. Something in him wants to believe that if it is a trick, then Jensen isn't in on it, that they're both being duped.
A path wanders down to a wooden stairway and Jensen stops there, leans against the railing. He crosses his ankles and stretches his arms above his head to work the kinks out of his back, and he has to know how that makes him look. He has to.
"There's a small lake down there, a little boathouse too with like, three canoes in it," Jensen says. "It's about eight thousand steps to climb down, feels like twice that on the way back up, so you have to be really committed to the cause."
Jared squints down, tries to peer through the trees and believes his catches a glimmer, the reflection of sunlight on water. "Is it worth it?"
"Later in the summer it might be. Right now it's too cold to go swimming, unless you want your balls to crawl up so far into your body that it'll take a highly skilled team and a medical miracle to get them back out again."
It startles a laugh out of Jared, one that he tries to hide behind his hand. It's the first time he's laughed since he stepped into this mess weeks ago. A weight that he didn't realize he'd been carrying suddenly feels like it's been scooped out, replaced by something lighter, happier.
Jensen tugs at Jared's elbow until he drops his hand from his mouth. His expression is serious, but there's a gentle curve to his mouth, a grin waiting to happen. "Don't ever hide your smile. Hide the other stuff if you need to, but not that. You've got a wonderful smile."
~*~*~*~
The program is run like a boot camp, strict and regimented and Jared half expects to wake up to a bugle belting out Revielle at six in the morning outside his bedroom door. What he gets instead is Jensen, thumping against his mattress, looking way too chipper and talking way too fast for Jared's muzzy ears to keep up.
There are morning prayers before breakfast, a series of pamphlets that Jensen pushes across the table as Jared trudges through his oatmeal. A late morning sermon delivered by Lumberjack Steve and then time set aside for solitary reflection, and then more praying. There's guided bible study, free time--although everyone's strongly encouraged to spend it watching movies in the rec room carefully chosen to reinforce the wholesome joys of heterosexual relationships--followed by more praying. Jensen joins him for evening prayers, touches Jared's shoulder and settles down close enough that Jared can feel the warmth that bleeds from his skin.
Jared learns that it's taboo to call what they're doing here 'conversion therapy.' Reparative therapy is the preferred way to tag it, although he doesn't like that any better, hasn't ever thought of himself as broken. He doesn't need anyone to put him back together.
Everyone's dragged into group therapy at some point every day. The first one is sex ed, evangelical style and Jared is mortified the entire time, generally queasy and leaves the session knowing more about gay sex than he did when he'd walked in.
Throughout all of this, Jensen is a constant presence. A dozen times the first few days Jared feels the prickle of eyes on the back of his neck and turns to find Jensen quickly looking away, unobtrusively always there, full of small touches and throwaway glances. Ready to answer a question or offer encouragement. Walking past Jared at the supper table, Jensen absently reaches out and tousles Jared's hair. Any other time Jared would be annoyed. He isn't.
~*~*~*~
If the days are long, then the nights are even longer. Jared's sent to his crackerbox of a room by ten, always spends an hour watching the ceiling and sinking into homesickness. Not for his folks, but for his music and books, and for the illusion of privacy that a locked door provides.
Tonight it's worse. A steady rain has settled in, and Jared usually likes that, the sound of it hitting the roof like a tranquilizer that knocks him out cold, but tonight it's making him anxious, has put an itch under his skin.
He's hardly thinking about anything at all as he swings his legs out of bed, pulls on a pair of shorts and slides into his shoes, and makes the quick dash to Jensen's cabin. There's a dim light filtered through the curtains at Jensen's windows, a line of it under the door. Jared pauses, shifts his weight and pushes his wet, stringy hair out of his eyes, almost turns tail then finally knocks.
"Hey. Hey," Jensen says when he swings open his door and pulls Jared inside.
A pair of shorts cling crookedly on Jensen's hips and he's wearing a t-shirt that says New York City on the chest in worn lettering, just like those classic pictures of John Lennon. His hair is sticking up in soft swirls and spikes, less purposeful than normal and more sloppy, like he's been unthinkingly shoving his hand through it. He's so beautiful and unguarded and Jared's drenched and dripping onto the floor, puddles in his shoes, standing there like ten kinds of fool, like one of those sappy rom-coms that play on endless loop in the main building.
Jensen doesn't ask any questions, doesn't pry, only disappears into his bathroom and comes back a second later with a towel, then hands Jared a dry pair of shorts and a shirt. He sits on his bed and politely stares at the floor as Jared changes, scuffs the towel over his hair and brushes it back with his fingers.
The room isn't much different from Jared's, but it has a lived in quality to it. A woven rag rug that Jared's careful to avoid dripping on. A quilt folded on the foot of the bed that looks to have been made by somebody's grandmother. A chipped army footlocker that Jensen uses for a bedside table, and on top of it, one of Jared's sci-fi novels, resting open and upside down to save the page.
Jensen catches him looking at it and makes a snorting sound. "I snagged it the other day. Was gonna give it back to you, but then I cracked it open, got sucked into it."
Jared shakes his head to show it's no big deal, smiles to show his appreciation. "Is it any good?"
"So far, yeah." Jensen slides backward on the bed, puts his spine to the corner and pats the mattress in open invitation.
"Couldn't sleep," Jared tells him as he settles in, draws a knee up under his chin and lets his other leg dangle from the edge of the bed.
"Figured." Nudging Jared's hip with his foot, Jensen continues, "You don't talk a lot in group. You don't talk at all."
"Don't have a lot to say," Jared mutters and finishes it off with a shrug. He listens a lot to the other men, most of them several years older than him and hell-bent on making this thing work, always has a persistent knot of regret and pity resting like a stone in his stomach.
"Would it be easier if you said it to me? Just me?" Jensen leans forward, touches the small of Jared's back, so easy and intimate and Jared has to force himself to not lean into it.
"I don't know."
"I've never done this before," Jensen confesses, a rough, quiet sound in his voice. "I'm usually the go-fer. Organize the paperwork and open the mail. Make sure the table is set for the meals, that all of the cabins have clean sheets, that sorta thing. You're my first, and I really wanna do right by you." He chuckles, self-deprecating. "And I probably shouldn't have told you any of that."
"I"m glad that you did," Jared insists, and dares to rub his finger against Jensen's bare ankle. "Can I…?" He turns off the light, throws the room into inky black and squirms until he's resting on his side, gripping the edge of the bed.
It's easier this way, two kids whispering secrets in the dark. He tells Jensen about the first time he knew, about heart-pounding junior high crushes. He talks about small towns and god-fearing families and at some point Jensen moves, lays down behind him and presses his knuckles into Jared's shoulder. Jensen hums sometimes, lets Jared know he's still with him without ever interrupting. Finally Jared explains the thing that got him here, those sixty-four kilobytes hidden on his hard drive.
"It was the smallest fucking thing," Jared finishes. "But you probably already knew about that."
"I did," Jensen admits. "It's good to hear it from you, though."
"How about you?" Jared asks. There's nothing he doesn't want to know about Jensen, not one single thing, and it hits Jared then, this sensation of falling and falling and falling. He's never been in love before, but he thinks it feels a lot like this.
"Another night, maybe," Jensen says.
"Fair is fair. I showed you mine," Jared points out and Jensen makes a tired, muffled sound. "Cliff notes version."
Behind him, Jensen shifts and his breath falls warm on the back of Jared's neck as he starts speaking. "I was about your age when my parents found out. It...didn't go too well. I left in a real big hurry, sorta lived here and there for a while." There's a lot of stuff that Jensen isn't saying, but Jared lets it slide, reads between the lines. "Anyway, Steve used to volunteer at this shelter and I would sometimes go there to get something to eat. Y'know, like a hot meal with a side of hallelujah. He took me in, gave me a job."
Now it's Jared's turn to hum, let Jensen know that he gets it. "You're paying him back."
"More like paying it forward," Jensen corrects. He squeezes Jared's shoulder, keeps his hand there. "You can stay if you want."
"Okay. Thanks."
Another quick squeeze and Jensen says, "Nothing to it."
Jared stays awake for a very long time, listens to Jensen's breath as it grows deeper and evens out. Jensen's feet twitch and inch up against his and Jared discovers that Jensen has icecubes for toes. He files that information away, saves it for later.
~*~*~*~
It's lazy armchair psychology, the idea that Jared's gay because of some sorta deep-seated problems with his parents, an absent, distant father and an overbearing mother. The activity planned for today is supposed to wage a direct attack on that. The sponsors are all sitting on the floor, legs crossed, and Steve directs them to crawl into their laps like some live action version of the Pieta, pretend that the sponsors are their fathers and spill their guts.
Jensen looks a little awkward and embarrassed, pink at the tips of his ears, but he holds his arms out to Jared, shifts and squirms as they figure out a way to do this that won't make Jensen's legs numb within seconds. It gets real weird, real quick. Some of the participants are crying, others are yelling, one of them starts kicking and thrashing.
Jensen ignores all of it and focuses solely on Jared, reinforces his hold around Jared's chest and whispers, "Is there anything you want to say to me?"
There's a strange charge to the air that Jared can't quite get over, and he wishes like crazy that they were back in Jensen's room, in his bed with the lights out and the covers pulled up to their chins.
"Jensen," Jared says, sure to put emphasis on the name, wants Jensen to know that he's talking to him and not some simulation of his father. "Jensen. I'm a little scared."
"It's okay. I got you." He tugs Jared closer to him. "What is it?"
"I'm scared that all of this might work."
~*~*~*~
It's hot and the sky is bright white, like the sun has bleached it of all color. Jared's behind the cabins, splitting firewood for a winter that seems about a thousand years away. Mindless, manual labor that might reinforce his manhood or something. Blisters are forming on his palms from the axe handle and there's a new stitch in his side, the muscles in his arms are sore from being twisted in unfamiliar directions and it all feels good. Tiring but good.
Jensen turns the corner and begins to stack the split wood, silent until Jared finishes, leans up against the cabin wall and catches his breath.
"About earlier today," Jensen starts, crowding in close. "You don't have to be scared. There's nothing wrong with you."
A ribbon of heat unwinds low in Jared's guts and it has nothing to do with the sun baking down on his shoulders. "How do you know?"
"I just know. There's nothing wrong with you," Jensen repeats. "Not one single thing."
Jensen kisses him then, deep and terrifyingly perfect, slips his tongue inside and slides it along Jared's, soft and curious. He knits their fingers together and drags their hands up between their chests, holds on so tight as he angles in and sucks on Jared's bottom lip, sets his teeth to it for a second.
It's dizzying, overwhelming. Jared's knees are weak, threaten to give out on him and they might still, but it's okay. Jensen has him, keeps him upright and pinned between the cabin and Jensen's body, not going anywhere as Jensen kisses along the upswing of Jared's jaw then drags back to his mouth again. Jensen uses his hold on Jared's hands to wind Jared's arms around his neck and presses in even closer, and now Jared can recognize the line of Jensen's cock alongside his, growing hotter and harder by the second.
Panting, they break apart. Jared's mouth tingles, feels numb and maybe a little swollen, and going by the way Jensen touches his mouth, he feels it too.
"You okay?" Jensen says, taking a stumbling step backward.
"I'm good." Jared's voice cracks a little and he chooses to ignore it.
"Good. I'll...see you at supper." He starts to turn away then spins back. "Fuck. Fuck," he whispers, fits his palms to Jared's cheeks and kisses him, three soft, chaste presses of his lips. "I think I'm crazy about you. No. I know it. I know it."
~*~*~*~
Jared still kneels down in the chapel three times a day. A bible is open in front of him but he doesn't read it, can't be bothered with prayer. He daydreams about Jensen. Jensen's smart hands and the way he tastes. The heat of his skin and all the dirty-beautiful things he does with his tongue. When the hour is up, Jared says his amens and he means them.
It's hiding in plain sight. Jensen had set the tone the day Jared had shown up. All his careless touches linger longer now, his glances heavier and more heated. When no one is looking, Jensen follows him into the tiny room intended for solitary prayer and sinks to his knees in front of Jared, drags Jared's shorts down and takes him into his mouth. Sucks him off neat and tidy, staring up at Jared's face the entire time through damp, stuck-together lashes as if that's the whole point. He comes all over his own hand, groans when Jared kneels down with him, licks his own taste out of Jensen's mouth then cleans Jensen's hand off with his tongue.
There's a looming deadline, a countdown clock ticking away that neither of them wants to think about or look at too closely. Everything they do together a revelation, every touch or smile or stupid, lovestruck stolen second is happening for the very first, very last time and it terrifies Jared, thrills him just as much.
~*~*~*~
"C'mon, Jensen. Please," Jared grits out from behind his teeth. They're in Jensen's bed and behind a locked door. "I want you in me. Need it." It's the one thing Jensen hasn't given him. He's given Jared his hand and his mouth, his heart over and over. If he's going to be forced to hide, he needs to know what he's giving up. A perverse idea, sure, about as backward and illogical as it gets and it's stuck in Jared's head. Not going anywhere.
Jensen's sucking a mark on Jared's hip, easily hidden and a centimeter from the last one that's now faded to a purpling gray. It's one of Jensen's favorite spots and more than once Jared's entertained the notion of tattooing it there, keeping it forever. Jensen moans against Jared's skin, tries to distract him by nuzzling at Jared's balls, kissing the inside of his thighs.
Instead, Jared drags him upward, licks into his mouth as he wraps his legs around Jensen's hips, pushes up and up until Jensen's dick is nudging between the cheeks of his ass.
"I want it to be you," Jared tells him.
Jensen looks at him closely, and Jared thinks that he's never seen anything more beautiful. That nothing and no one could ever come close. The black of Jensen's blown pupils beating out all of the green, a deep flush painting his cheeks red, that little quirk in his nose that Jared wants to spend the rest of his life kissing.
"I trust you," Jared says, and puts all the force he has behind it, feels Jensen's whole body shiver in response.
"Fuck, Jared. Yeah." There's a breathy quality to his voice that Jared hasn't heard before and it makes him warm all over, a heat that radiates all the way into his bones. It stays with him as Jensen slips from the bed and goes into the bathroom. There's the sound of rifling and something hits the floor and then Jensen's back, popping open a tiny bottle of lube with his teeth and slicking up his fingers, throwing a condom on the bed to land beside Jared's hip. He kneels on the bed drops a kiss on Jared's knee, incongruously innocent compared to the wide sprawl of Jared's legs, the way Jared can't seem to hold still, keeps moving his hips and fucking up into thin air.
Jensen urges Jared's thigh up, wordlessly tells Jared to hold it that way and runs his slick fingers along the crack of Jared's ass. "Gonna get you ready. Want it to be good, kiddo."
Jared breathes out an unsteady "Yeah," and spreads himself wider, pays no attention to the pang of Jensen's chilly fingers and the banging drumbeat of his heart. Almost comes straight up off the bed the instant Jensen dips one finger tip inside of him and can't actually imagine what Jensen's dick is gonna be like. Still wants to find out.
"You okay?" Jensen asks withdrawing his finger, a wicked twist to his lips. He rubs a soothing hand along Jared's stomach, traces figure-eights onto his skin.
"Fucking fantastic," Jared says. "Do it again."
It's better next time. Jared knows what to expect, breathes slow through his mouth as Jensen slips his finger in, drizzles more lube directly onto Jared's rim and gets Jared sloppier and wetter. The burning stretch is only beginning to fade when Jensen goes for a second finger, bites and sucks at the spot on Jared's hip to distract him from the new intrusion.
"Mine," Jensen's saying over and over, mumbling against Jared's skin. "No one's ever...can't believe you're fucking letting me." He adds a third finger, sits back to watch them work in and out of Jared's body.
Jared's cock has gone soft as Jensen opened him up, nestled in the cut of his hip and Jensen strokes him hard again, dives back down to suck him off as he fingers Jared deeper and deeper. Sensation floods all over Jared's body and it only takes a few long, pulling sucks to make Jared come, his back losing contact with the bed as Jensen gags around him, struggles to keep up.
"Shit," Jared gasps. "Sorry. Sorry."
That wicked smile is back on Jensen's face. "Just took the edge off, that's all." He takes his fingers back, leaves behind an enormous, hollow feeling and Jared can hardly think, only knows that he needs to be full. Jensen makes a play for the condom and Jared grabs it instead, holds it out of reach.
"Just you," Jared says. "Nothing else."
Jensen's mouth falls open and his breath leaves his body in one big whoosh. "You have no idea what you do to me. Goddamn."
This time it's Jared who pops open the lube, pours too much of it onto his palm and slicks Jensen's cock up, so hot and hard against his hand, flushed as red as Jensen's cheeks, his pretty, pretty mouth.
With trembling arms, Jensen holds himself above Jared, lets Jared guide him inside. The periphery of Jared's vision blanks out as Jensen pushes in, wills himself to relax, can feel his body giving in brand new ways, swallowing up Jensen's dick. Jensen looks startled, amazed, kinda fucking lost as he slowly sinks into Jared, his body shaky with the strain of taking it slow. Jared sets his heels to the back of Jensen's thighs and pulls him in flush, forces him in those last couple of inches and holds him there.
Jensen tips his hips back just a little, drives forward again and pushes a sigh out of Jared, then another one as he speeds up. It's good, really fucking good, Jensen moving inside of him and on top of him, the fullness that comes with Jensen buried so deeply in his ass
"Nothing better than this. Than you. Nothing," Jensen whispers, dazed. His arms give out and his blankets Jared's chest with his own, hips still pumping only shallower now, as if he needs to be as far inside of Jared as possible, like even the few inches it takes to thrust is too far apart.
Jared feels Jensen strain massively inside of him, his fingers digging into Jared's shoulders and his face pressed sweaty and hot against the side of Jared's neck as he comes, wet and slick and leaking from the spot where they're joined. Jared swears his heart skips a beat, his lungs forget how to breathe. His ass burns and his muscles ache and he never wants any of it to end. Not one single thing.
Long minutes pass, and Jensen starts to peel away. Jared stops him, holds him close and kisses him, runs his fingers through Jensen's sweaty hair. Jensen smiles down at him, indescribably happy and Jared's heart begins to beat again.
Finally, Jared says, "Are you gonna stay here?"
Jensen's smile doesn't falter. Not even a little. "We can make it if we run. I've done it before."
--end
Genre: J2 AU
Rating: nc-17
Word Count: 5,300
Notes: a gift for blackrabbit42 for spn_j2_xmas. this is dreadfully late, love, mea culpa. mea maxima culpa. you are one of my most cherished fandom friends, and it's been my complete honor to write for you. i took a few of your preferences, your prompt one last, one very last time, then subsequently bent everything beyond recognition. warnings for underage, religious subject matter, and institutional homophobia. thanks also to tebtosca, the terriblest of terrible mods.
Summary: Vacation bible camp. That's what Jared calls it whenever one of his classmates asks what he's doing over summer break, because conversion therapy just doesn't have a nice ring to it.
It's the tiniest thing, nestled in Jared's laptop, hidden between his tenth grade biography on Benjamin Franklin and a book report on one of the shorter Steinbecks. A photograph of two boys. They're high up, straddling a thick tree branch, thighs overlapping and hands sweetly on each others hips. They're all Chuck Taylors and loose-necked t-shirts, holes in the knees of their jeans, not unlike Jared. Their heads are tilted just right, an inch away from kissing.
Not unlike Jared at all.
Jared had found it then secreted it away, heart pounding like he'd been getting away with something, saving it for a rainy day and for those late nights when a specific sort of loneliness elbows its way inside.
It's everything Jared wants, and somehow better than the darker, dirtier things he keeps locked in the attic room inside his head. Sugary and innocent in unreal black and white. Sinful and damning in the eyes of his father, who, on one fine sunny day in the early summer, destroyed Jared's laptop and Jared's respect for him right along with it. His heart too, but he'll never admit to that and anyway, he'd been in the process of building a new one. One that cared less and didn't have to bother with the truth all that much.
~*~*~*~
Vacation bible camp. That's what he calls it whenever one of his classmates asks what he's doing over summer break, rolls his eyes and shrugs off their companionable, vaguely pained sympathy. He signs their yearbooks, wishes everyone a really great summer.
~*~*~*~
Yesterday's rain has turned the dirt road to slop, miles of potholes that the family sedan bounces over, fishtails around. Jared's in the back seat, chewing on a pencil eraser because he's run out of fingernails, his neatly folded crossword puzzle forgotten in his lap. He's counting miles, planning some obscure escape, trying to remember everything he ever learned about how to survive in the woods. Something about following streams and not eating mushrooms.
His father prattles on about pine trees and the fresh, clean smell of the air up here, family camping trips when he himself was a boy, and Jared's ears keep popping from the elevation.
It's less of a camp and more like a small compound, a series of buildings huddled around a bigger one in the middle. Quaintly rustic and very well-kept with church money, wooden crosses hammered over all the doors. In a couple of weeks, he's supposed to emerge from this place a brand new boy, free of perversion and the snares of the devil. After that, he'll go to a church appointed counselor a few times a month, sorta like a booster shot.
A man waits for them at the doorway of the main building. He ambles over to meet them as they pile out of the car and shakes everyone's hand in turn. His name is Steve, no last name, no reverend tagged to the front of it, just Steve. Jared thinks he looks more like a lumberjack than a man of the cloth, plaid flannel rolled up to his elbows and work boots below his baggy jeans. There's something about him that reminds Jared of one of the guidance counselors at school, the guy who keeps chocolate bars and a pack of Marlboros in his top desk drawer and wants to be everyone's best friend.
The heels of his mother's good Sunday shoes are sinking into the mud. She's dabbing uselessly at her eyes with the corners of her handkerchief. It's only for show. Her eyes are dry. They stay that way as Jared gets ushered off, taken into a huge hollow rec room, stripped of his phone and the few pulpy sci-fi novels he'd been looking forward to reading, then handed a questionnaire.
On paper he admits that he's a virgin, that he's had impure thoughts but hasn't acted on them, hasn't ever been abused by any older relative. He answers a dozen other questions equally as leading and every bit as jacked up before Steve comes to collect him and take him to his office. Then it's ten minutes of sitting there, alternatively staring at the guy page through it all and staring at the wall behind Steve's head. His framed certificate of ordination looks fake, like it's something he printed from the internet, the psychology degree hanging beside it only a little less so.
Jared's silent, wrapped up in a feeling of dull, pissed off embarrassment, jumps a mile when Steve clears his throat and tells him there's hope, that he's been created in god's image and there's always hope.
Jared doesn't have much use for a god who would make him this way, then tell him it's wrong and leave him to it.
~*~*~*~
The rec room is slightly less empty than earlier, a few men are hunched over their own paperwork, dutifully ignoring each other in a way that can only mean they're hyperaware of their neighbors. In the far corner, another guy is half turned away, Jared's suitcase at his feet and Jared's backpack slouching from his shoulder. He's idly wiping dust from a shelf that houses what looks like about twenty identical copies of King James' take on the bible.
He's tall, a few years older than Jared, wide shoulders and narrow hips under the flannel and jeans that Jared's starting to discover is the standard uniform around this place, and when Steve introduces him as patient zero, his very first success story, the guy shrugs.
"Or y'know, you could just call me Jensen," he says. He holds out his hand and grins, a smile so open and free and Jared's stomach jumps, feels as if it's trying to switch places with his lungs or perhaps his heart. Before Jared can get his tongue to move, Jensen hefts his suitcase and goes on, "C'mon, let's get you oriented."
Their first stop is Jared's room, the last cabin in a long, adjoining row of them. Jensen kicks the door wide, holds it open for Jared to pass through. The place is basic. Wooden floors and wooden walls, a couple of beds and a few drawers to put his stuff, but the mattresses look soft and there's a warm cedar smell to it.
"Enough to make a monk feel right at home," Jared says, and gets a thrill when Jensen chuckles, low and hoarse.
"Mine isn't much better. I do have a radio though, and a shower." Hiking a thumb over his shoulder, Jensen says, "Your showers are out there."
"Am I gonna have a roommate?"
With a shake of his head, Jensen tells him, "You've got this place all to yourself. This is a small group. Most people come up for the shorter retreats, only have time to pray the gay away on the weekends."
Jared's breath catches and the look he gives Jensen is sharp. He'd thought he'd be spending the start of his summer vacation surrounded by a group of the devoutly penitent, listening to a lot of fire and brimstone talk. He never expected to meet someone like this, a person so real and so grounded.
"Hey," Jensen says, "I might spend a lot of my time miles away from civilization, but I do have at least a working knowledge of it."
Jensen points out the kitchen and the dining hall as they crunch down gravel pathways, shows him the chapel with its small, windowless offshoot for solitary prayer. Jensen's cabin is separate from the rest, unattached, and he makes Jared promise to come knocking if he needs something, any hour of the day or night.
"This program works on a sponsor system," Jensen explains, "and Steve decided you'd be stuck with me. We're pretty close in age, so…"
They circle back around, close to Jared's bunk and Jared's having trouble really paying attention, more fixed on the comfortable, measured sound of Jensen's voice than what he's actually saying, stuck on the slow roll of Jensen's hips as he walks. There are a dozens of things that up to this point have been entirely theoretical in Jared's mind which are now taking on a more solid shape, putting down roots. He wants to cup Jensen's hip bones in the palms of his hands and feel them shift, test how far his fingers can reach around Jensen's wrists, learn what his skin smells like.
Jared's starting to wonder if this is some sorta trick, if Jensen's something that the man who runs this joint is doing to him on purpose. A glass of cold water poured a fraction outside the reach of a person who has spent a week in the desert. Six-feet-some-odd of temptation wrapped into faded blue jeans, a pretty pink mouth and eyes so brightly green they hardly seem real. Something in him wants to believe that if it is a trick, then Jensen isn't in on it, that they're both being duped.
A path wanders down to a wooden stairway and Jensen stops there, leans against the railing. He crosses his ankles and stretches his arms above his head to work the kinks out of his back, and he has to know how that makes him look. He has to.
"There's a small lake down there, a little boathouse too with like, three canoes in it," Jensen says. "It's about eight thousand steps to climb down, feels like twice that on the way back up, so you have to be really committed to the cause."
Jared squints down, tries to peer through the trees and believes his catches a glimmer, the reflection of sunlight on water. "Is it worth it?"
"Later in the summer it might be. Right now it's too cold to go swimming, unless you want your balls to crawl up so far into your body that it'll take a highly skilled team and a medical miracle to get them back out again."
It startles a laugh out of Jared, one that he tries to hide behind his hand. It's the first time he's laughed since he stepped into this mess weeks ago. A weight that he didn't realize he'd been carrying suddenly feels like it's been scooped out, replaced by something lighter, happier.
Jensen tugs at Jared's elbow until he drops his hand from his mouth. His expression is serious, but there's a gentle curve to his mouth, a grin waiting to happen. "Don't ever hide your smile. Hide the other stuff if you need to, but not that. You've got a wonderful smile."
~*~*~*~
The program is run like a boot camp, strict and regimented and Jared half expects to wake up to a bugle belting out Revielle at six in the morning outside his bedroom door. What he gets instead is Jensen, thumping against his mattress, looking way too chipper and talking way too fast for Jared's muzzy ears to keep up.
There are morning prayers before breakfast, a series of pamphlets that Jensen pushes across the table as Jared trudges through his oatmeal. A late morning sermon delivered by Lumberjack Steve and then time set aside for solitary reflection, and then more praying. There's guided bible study, free time--although everyone's strongly encouraged to spend it watching movies in the rec room carefully chosen to reinforce the wholesome joys of heterosexual relationships--followed by more praying. Jensen joins him for evening prayers, touches Jared's shoulder and settles down close enough that Jared can feel the warmth that bleeds from his skin.
Jared learns that it's taboo to call what they're doing here 'conversion therapy.' Reparative therapy is the preferred way to tag it, although he doesn't like that any better, hasn't ever thought of himself as broken. He doesn't need anyone to put him back together.
Everyone's dragged into group therapy at some point every day. The first one is sex ed, evangelical style and Jared is mortified the entire time, generally queasy and leaves the session knowing more about gay sex than he did when he'd walked in.
Throughout all of this, Jensen is a constant presence. A dozen times the first few days Jared feels the prickle of eyes on the back of his neck and turns to find Jensen quickly looking away, unobtrusively always there, full of small touches and throwaway glances. Ready to answer a question or offer encouragement. Walking past Jared at the supper table, Jensen absently reaches out and tousles Jared's hair. Any other time Jared would be annoyed. He isn't.
~*~*~*~
If the days are long, then the nights are even longer. Jared's sent to his crackerbox of a room by ten, always spends an hour watching the ceiling and sinking into homesickness. Not for his folks, but for his music and books, and for the illusion of privacy that a locked door provides.
Tonight it's worse. A steady rain has settled in, and Jared usually likes that, the sound of it hitting the roof like a tranquilizer that knocks him out cold, but tonight it's making him anxious, has put an itch under his skin.
He's hardly thinking about anything at all as he swings his legs out of bed, pulls on a pair of shorts and slides into his shoes, and makes the quick dash to Jensen's cabin. There's a dim light filtered through the curtains at Jensen's windows, a line of it under the door. Jared pauses, shifts his weight and pushes his wet, stringy hair out of his eyes, almost turns tail then finally knocks.
"Hey. Hey," Jensen says when he swings open his door and pulls Jared inside.
A pair of shorts cling crookedly on Jensen's hips and he's wearing a t-shirt that says New York City on the chest in worn lettering, just like those classic pictures of John Lennon. His hair is sticking up in soft swirls and spikes, less purposeful than normal and more sloppy, like he's been unthinkingly shoving his hand through it. He's so beautiful and unguarded and Jared's drenched and dripping onto the floor, puddles in his shoes, standing there like ten kinds of fool, like one of those sappy rom-coms that play on endless loop in the main building.
Jensen doesn't ask any questions, doesn't pry, only disappears into his bathroom and comes back a second later with a towel, then hands Jared a dry pair of shorts and a shirt. He sits on his bed and politely stares at the floor as Jared changes, scuffs the towel over his hair and brushes it back with his fingers.
The room isn't much different from Jared's, but it has a lived in quality to it. A woven rag rug that Jared's careful to avoid dripping on. A quilt folded on the foot of the bed that looks to have been made by somebody's grandmother. A chipped army footlocker that Jensen uses for a bedside table, and on top of it, one of Jared's sci-fi novels, resting open and upside down to save the page.
Jensen catches him looking at it and makes a snorting sound. "I snagged it the other day. Was gonna give it back to you, but then I cracked it open, got sucked into it."
Jared shakes his head to show it's no big deal, smiles to show his appreciation. "Is it any good?"
"So far, yeah." Jensen slides backward on the bed, puts his spine to the corner and pats the mattress in open invitation.
"Couldn't sleep," Jared tells him as he settles in, draws a knee up under his chin and lets his other leg dangle from the edge of the bed.
"Figured." Nudging Jared's hip with his foot, Jensen continues, "You don't talk a lot in group. You don't talk at all."
"Don't have a lot to say," Jared mutters and finishes it off with a shrug. He listens a lot to the other men, most of them several years older than him and hell-bent on making this thing work, always has a persistent knot of regret and pity resting like a stone in his stomach.
"Would it be easier if you said it to me? Just me?" Jensen leans forward, touches the small of Jared's back, so easy and intimate and Jared has to force himself to not lean into it.
"I don't know."
"I've never done this before," Jensen confesses, a rough, quiet sound in his voice. "I'm usually the go-fer. Organize the paperwork and open the mail. Make sure the table is set for the meals, that all of the cabins have clean sheets, that sorta thing. You're my first, and I really wanna do right by you." He chuckles, self-deprecating. "And I probably shouldn't have told you any of that."
"I"m glad that you did," Jared insists, and dares to rub his finger against Jensen's bare ankle. "Can I…?" He turns off the light, throws the room into inky black and squirms until he's resting on his side, gripping the edge of the bed.
It's easier this way, two kids whispering secrets in the dark. He tells Jensen about the first time he knew, about heart-pounding junior high crushes. He talks about small towns and god-fearing families and at some point Jensen moves, lays down behind him and presses his knuckles into Jared's shoulder. Jensen hums sometimes, lets Jared know he's still with him without ever interrupting. Finally Jared explains the thing that got him here, those sixty-four kilobytes hidden on his hard drive.
"It was the smallest fucking thing," Jared finishes. "But you probably already knew about that."
"I did," Jensen admits. "It's good to hear it from you, though."
"How about you?" Jared asks. There's nothing he doesn't want to know about Jensen, not one single thing, and it hits Jared then, this sensation of falling and falling and falling. He's never been in love before, but he thinks it feels a lot like this.
"Another night, maybe," Jensen says.
"Fair is fair. I showed you mine," Jared points out and Jensen makes a tired, muffled sound. "Cliff notes version."
Behind him, Jensen shifts and his breath falls warm on the back of Jared's neck as he starts speaking. "I was about your age when my parents found out. It...didn't go too well. I left in a real big hurry, sorta lived here and there for a while." There's a lot of stuff that Jensen isn't saying, but Jared lets it slide, reads between the lines. "Anyway, Steve used to volunteer at this shelter and I would sometimes go there to get something to eat. Y'know, like a hot meal with a side of hallelujah. He took me in, gave me a job."
Now it's Jared's turn to hum, let Jensen know that he gets it. "You're paying him back."
"More like paying it forward," Jensen corrects. He squeezes Jared's shoulder, keeps his hand there. "You can stay if you want."
"Okay. Thanks."
Another quick squeeze and Jensen says, "Nothing to it."
Jared stays awake for a very long time, listens to Jensen's breath as it grows deeper and evens out. Jensen's feet twitch and inch up against his and Jared discovers that Jensen has icecubes for toes. He files that information away, saves it for later.
~*~*~*~
It's lazy armchair psychology, the idea that Jared's gay because of some sorta deep-seated problems with his parents, an absent, distant father and an overbearing mother. The activity planned for today is supposed to wage a direct attack on that. The sponsors are all sitting on the floor, legs crossed, and Steve directs them to crawl into their laps like some live action version of the Pieta, pretend that the sponsors are their fathers and spill their guts.
Jensen looks a little awkward and embarrassed, pink at the tips of his ears, but he holds his arms out to Jared, shifts and squirms as they figure out a way to do this that won't make Jensen's legs numb within seconds. It gets real weird, real quick. Some of the participants are crying, others are yelling, one of them starts kicking and thrashing.
Jensen ignores all of it and focuses solely on Jared, reinforces his hold around Jared's chest and whispers, "Is there anything you want to say to me?"
There's a strange charge to the air that Jared can't quite get over, and he wishes like crazy that they were back in Jensen's room, in his bed with the lights out and the covers pulled up to their chins.
"Jensen," Jared says, sure to put emphasis on the name, wants Jensen to know that he's talking to him and not some simulation of his father. "Jensen. I'm a little scared."
"It's okay. I got you." He tugs Jared closer to him. "What is it?"
"I'm scared that all of this might work."
~*~*~*~
It's hot and the sky is bright white, like the sun has bleached it of all color. Jared's behind the cabins, splitting firewood for a winter that seems about a thousand years away. Mindless, manual labor that might reinforce his manhood or something. Blisters are forming on his palms from the axe handle and there's a new stitch in his side, the muscles in his arms are sore from being twisted in unfamiliar directions and it all feels good. Tiring but good.
Jensen turns the corner and begins to stack the split wood, silent until Jared finishes, leans up against the cabin wall and catches his breath.
"About earlier today," Jensen starts, crowding in close. "You don't have to be scared. There's nothing wrong with you."
A ribbon of heat unwinds low in Jared's guts and it has nothing to do with the sun baking down on his shoulders. "How do you know?"
"I just know. There's nothing wrong with you," Jensen repeats. "Not one single thing."
Jensen kisses him then, deep and terrifyingly perfect, slips his tongue inside and slides it along Jared's, soft and curious. He knits their fingers together and drags their hands up between their chests, holds on so tight as he angles in and sucks on Jared's bottom lip, sets his teeth to it for a second.
It's dizzying, overwhelming. Jared's knees are weak, threaten to give out on him and they might still, but it's okay. Jensen has him, keeps him upright and pinned between the cabin and Jensen's body, not going anywhere as Jensen kisses along the upswing of Jared's jaw then drags back to his mouth again. Jensen uses his hold on Jared's hands to wind Jared's arms around his neck and presses in even closer, and now Jared can recognize the line of Jensen's cock alongside his, growing hotter and harder by the second.
Panting, they break apart. Jared's mouth tingles, feels numb and maybe a little swollen, and going by the way Jensen touches his mouth, he feels it too.
"You okay?" Jensen says, taking a stumbling step backward.
"I'm good." Jared's voice cracks a little and he chooses to ignore it.
"Good. I'll...see you at supper." He starts to turn away then spins back. "Fuck. Fuck," he whispers, fits his palms to Jared's cheeks and kisses him, three soft, chaste presses of his lips. "I think I'm crazy about you. No. I know it. I know it."
~*~*~*~
Jared still kneels down in the chapel three times a day. A bible is open in front of him but he doesn't read it, can't be bothered with prayer. He daydreams about Jensen. Jensen's smart hands and the way he tastes. The heat of his skin and all the dirty-beautiful things he does with his tongue. When the hour is up, Jared says his amens and he means them.
It's hiding in plain sight. Jensen had set the tone the day Jared had shown up. All his careless touches linger longer now, his glances heavier and more heated. When no one is looking, Jensen follows him into the tiny room intended for solitary prayer and sinks to his knees in front of Jared, drags Jared's shorts down and takes him into his mouth. Sucks him off neat and tidy, staring up at Jared's face the entire time through damp, stuck-together lashes as if that's the whole point. He comes all over his own hand, groans when Jared kneels down with him, licks his own taste out of Jensen's mouth then cleans Jensen's hand off with his tongue.
There's a looming deadline, a countdown clock ticking away that neither of them wants to think about or look at too closely. Everything they do together a revelation, every touch or smile or stupid, lovestruck stolen second is happening for the very first, very last time and it terrifies Jared, thrills him just as much.
~*~*~*~
"C'mon, Jensen. Please," Jared grits out from behind his teeth. They're in Jensen's bed and behind a locked door. "I want you in me. Need it." It's the one thing Jensen hasn't given him. He's given Jared his hand and his mouth, his heart over and over. If he's going to be forced to hide, he needs to know what he's giving up. A perverse idea, sure, about as backward and illogical as it gets and it's stuck in Jared's head. Not going anywhere.
Jensen's sucking a mark on Jared's hip, easily hidden and a centimeter from the last one that's now faded to a purpling gray. It's one of Jensen's favorite spots and more than once Jared's entertained the notion of tattooing it there, keeping it forever. Jensen moans against Jared's skin, tries to distract him by nuzzling at Jared's balls, kissing the inside of his thighs.
Instead, Jared drags him upward, licks into his mouth as he wraps his legs around Jensen's hips, pushes up and up until Jensen's dick is nudging between the cheeks of his ass.
"I want it to be you," Jared tells him.
Jensen looks at him closely, and Jared thinks that he's never seen anything more beautiful. That nothing and no one could ever come close. The black of Jensen's blown pupils beating out all of the green, a deep flush painting his cheeks red, that little quirk in his nose that Jared wants to spend the rest of his life kissing.
"I trust you," Jared says, and puts all the force he has behind it, feels Jensen's whole body shiver in response.
"Fuck, Jared. Yeah." There's a breathy quality to his voice that Jared hasn't heard before and it makes him warm all over, a heat that radiates all the way into his bones. It stays with him as Jensen slips from the bed and goes into the bathroom. There's the sound of rifling and something hits the floor and then Jensen's back, popping open a tiny bottle of lube with his teeth and slicking up his fingers, throwing a condom on the bed to land beside Jared's hip. He kneels on the bed drops a kiss on Jared's knee, incongruously innocent compared to the wide sprawl of Jared's legs, the way Jared can't seem to hold still, keeps moving his hips and fucking up into thin air.
Jensen urges Jared's thigh up, wordlessly tells Jared to hold it that way and runs his slick fingers along the crack of Jared's ass. "Gonna get you ready. Want it to be good, kiddo."
Jared breathes out an unsteady "Yeah," and spreads himself wider, pays no attention to the pang of Jensen's chilly fingers and the banging drumbeat of his heart. Almost comes straight up off the bed the instant Jensen dips one finger tip inside of him and can't actually imagine what Jensen's dick is gonna be like. Still wants to find out.
"You okay?" Jensen asks withdrawing his finger, a wicked twist to his lips. He rubs a soothing hand along Jared's stomach, traces figure-eights onto his skin.
"Fucking fantastic," Jared says. "Do it again."
It's better next time. Jared knows what to expect, breathes slow through his mouth as Jensen slips his finger in, drizzles more lube directly onto Jared's rim and gets Jared sloppier and wetter. The burning stretch is only beginning to fade when Jensen goes for a second finger, bites and sucks at the spot on Jared's hip to distract him from the new intrusion.
"Mine," Jensen's saying over and over, mumbling against Jared's skin. "No one's ever...can't believe you're fucking letting me." He adds a third finger, sits back to watch them work in and out of Jared's body.
Jared's cock has gone soft as Jensen opened him up, nestled in the cut of his hip and Jensen strokes him hard again, dives back down to suck him off as he fingers Jared deeper and deeper. Sensation floods all over Jared's body and it only takes a few long, pulling sucks to make Jared come, his back losing contact with the bed as Jensen gags around him, struggles to keep up.
"Shit," Jared gasps. "Sorry. Sorry."
That wicked smile is back on Jensen's face. "Just took the edge off, that's all." He takes his fingers back, leaves behind an enormous, hollow feeling and Jared can hardly think, only knows that he needs to be full. Jensen makes a play for the condom and Jared grabs it instead, holds it out of reach.
"Just you," Jared says. "Nothing else."
Jensen's mouth falls open and his breath leaves his body in one big whoosh. "You have no idea what you do to me. Goddamn."
This time it's Jared who pops open the lube, pours too much of it onto his palm and slicks Jensen's cock up, so hot and hard against his hand, flushed as red as Jensen's cheeks, his pretty, pretty mouth.
With trembling arms, Jensen holds himself above Jared, lets Jared guide him inside. The periphery of Jared's vision blanks out as Jensen pushes in, wills himself to relax, can feel his body giving in brand new ways, swallowing up Jensen's dick. Jensen looks startled, amazed, kinda fucking lost as he slowly sinks into Jared, his body shaky with the strain of taking it slow. Jared sets his heels to the back of Jensen's thighs and pulls him in flush, forces him in those last couple of inches and holds him there.
Jensen tips his hips back just a little, drives forward again and pushes a sigh out of Jared, then another one as he speeds up. It's good, really fucking good, Jensen moving inside of him and on top of him, the fullness that comes with Jensen buried so deeply in his ass
"Nothing better than this. Than you. Nothing," Jensen whispers, dazed. His arms give out and his blankets Jared's chest with his own, hips still pumping only shallower now, as if he needs to be as far inside of Jared as possible, like even the few inches it takes to thrust is too far apart.
Jared feels Jensen strain massively inside of him, his fingers digging into Jared's shoulders and his face pressed sweaty and hot against the side of Jared's neck as he comes, wet and slick and leaking from the spot where they're joined. Jared swears his heart skips a beat, his lungs forget how to breathe. His ass burns and his muscles ache and he never wants any of it to end. Not one single thing.
Long minutes pass, and Jensen starts to peel away. Jared stops him, holds him close and kisses him, runs his fingers through Jensen's sweaty hair. Jensen smiles down at him, indescribably happy and Jared's heart begins to beat again.
Finally, Jared says, "Are you gonna stay here?"
Jensen's smile doesn't falter. Not even a little. "We can make it if we run. I've done it before."
--end