ReverseBang: Believe In Nothing But (Jared/Jensen, NC-17, 2/2)
Title: Believe In Nothing But
Rating: NC-17
Genre/Pairing: RPF, AU, Action/Suspense, Jared/Jensen
Wordcount: 19k
Warnings: Violence, Kidnapping
See Part 1 for full headers and author's notes.
Being shot at had more than scared Jared. After the crack of the shot being fired, he’d been sure he was done. It had fucking terrified him. But the realization that he isn’t hit, that he’s still alive, now that? That is a rush. The dose of adrenaline lifts him, pushing him to match Jensen's pace as they sprint across the parking lot.
Jared reaches the building first, sliding against the wall for some cover as shots fire behind them. Jensen yells at him to keep going so he runs, sticking near the wall and weaving around empty granite planters. More shots, much closer this time, and he spares a second to glance back. Jensen is running more in the open, along the flatter pavement, firing that gun he took from the man he killed (killed, holy shit) back at their pursuers in rapid bursts.
The wall beside them starts to curve, with weird, pointless outcroppings poking into their path. It probably looks very nice and artistic from a distance but really not helpful now. Jared pushes harder, panting for breath as he pounds ahead, scouting where they’re going. There’s a gap farther up, a tiny path between two separate buildings he sees as he pulls closer. Beyond it, the next building takes a sharp turn in.
“Here!” He veers into the gap, stopping to make sure Jensen follows. Maybe those guys will think they took the turn up ahead.
Jensen flies into the space, careening off a wall even as he waves Jared on. It’s wide enough for them to run side by side, with plain doors dotting both sides. One rattles as Jensen tries the knob on the way by.
“Locked!”
“Should we-?” Jared slows down to try another door.
“No! No time, we can’t try every one. Keep going.” Jensen has him by the arm again, pulling him forward. A quick look back over Jensen’s head shows Jared they’re not being followed yet, their detour must have been missed.
The little alley ends abruptly, spitting them out into the much darker backside of the building. Garbage dumpsters and silent shipping trucks line the wall. It’s slower going, but they make it to the end of the building before there’s any hint of their persuers.
Voices from behind send them into hiding against the side of a dumpster, bodies frozen and breath held. The sound of cursing reaches their ears, but the voices come no closer. Then, faintly, one of them suggests checking the doors.
Beside him, Jensen slumps against the bin. “Thank fuck.” Jared watches in confusion as he eases the dumpster lid up, gingerly sliding the gun he took on top of some oily looking cardboard. Noticing Jared’s puzzled look, he shrugs. “Empty, but I didn’t want to leave it for them to find. Come on, the car’s just at the next place up.”
With one last sprint they’re across the lot and throwing themselves into the car, engine revving and tires squealing as they drive off. Twisting in the passenger’s seat, Jared catches sight of their followers, two distant figures waving their arms in agitated gestures. “Haha! Suck it, you kidnapping dillholes!” He turns back and falls against the seat in a panting slump, grinning hard.
There’s a pregnant pause from Jensen.
“...dillholes?”
“Shut up.”
They share a tentative smile, a familiar intimacy that’s comforting despite the situation.
“Where we going?” It’s still ‘we’, even now. Might not be the best thing for him, but Jared knows that hasn’t changed.
A distracted frown pulls a line between Jensen’s eyebrows. “No idea.”
“I’ve still got the keys to my uncle’s lake house from that house-sitting thing. If we need to ‘hide out’ or something.”
Jensen gives him a long look before turning back to the road, tongue flicking out. He looks nervous, suddenly. “Yeah. That’s- that’ll work. I can drop you off there, should be safe for a while.”
“Drop me off?” Affronted, he shifts to face Jensen. He doesn’t seriously think Jared’s going to agree to that, does he? “You’re not leaving me there.”
Lips pursed, Jensen glares at the passing street lights. “You realize you just got shot at, right? And kidnapped? Knocked out?” The look he shoots Jared is almost accusing as they slow down to take a corner. “You are not having the most rational reaction here.”
Jared glares back. “Well I’m sorry I’m not having a fucking breakdown, I guess I- JEN!”
The other car comes out of nowhere, no bright flash of headlights to warn them before it’s broadsiding them, slamming against the driver-side door with a bone-jarring grind of metal on metal that sends Jensen’s body smashing against Jared.
It’s over before he can blink, leaving behind an impression of sound and movement, pain and body-clenching fear, a burst of confusion as the world lurches around them. Whoever said time slows down during car crashes was full of shit.
After, though? Yeah, time slows to a crawl. Even turning his head is like moving through molasses, everything thick and muffled so Jared doesn’t feel the hands on him until a sharp strike stings his cheek.
“Jared!”
The world starts to speed up as the pain of the slap brings him back, head pounding. Jensen is beside him, wide eyed and frantic, like maybe he’s repeated Jared’s name a few times already. He flinches as Jensen brings his hand up again. “I’m here! I’m here... holy fuck, Jen, a car hit us!” He doesn’t miss the relief that fills Jensen’s expression, or the way he stops trembling like a wire ready to snap.
“Yeah, I know, I always take you to the best shows, huh?” They’re still upright, thankfully, but Jensen’s side of the car is bent in and crumpled, crushed enough that the idea of how bad it could have been steals Jared’s breath away. With some jostling, Jensen works Jared's seat belt loose. “Come on, if you can move we gotta get out of here.”
The door on his side still opens, but Jared almost hits the ground when they stumble out, muscles like water. Nothing seems broken, but his whole body feels like it’s been punched.
The sudden bang and ricochet of a bullet has them both diving down behind the car, hands tight in each other’s coats. From the other side, a voice yells.
“I don’t suppose I got either one of you, did I!” It’s Sheppard. Naturally.
Back pressed to the frame of the car, Jensen slides over and peers around the edge. Nervous, Jared inches up behind him, just in time to catch him as another bullet fires and he throws himself backwards.
“Shit, shit, bugger! Go on, poke your pretty face out again!”
Jensen keeps his voice quiet. “He’s stuck, I think. Looks all caught up in the airbag or something. I think we can make a run for it.”
“A run for it?” Jared lowers his voice at Jensen’s protesting frown. “Jen, I’m not even sure I can stand up right now. And he has a gun. I mean, you know, maybe this is all just nostalgic for you, but gun.”
Sheppard calls out again. “Oh, come on! Come out, I promise not to shoot you, we can just talk! I know you’re back there still!” They can hear rattles and bangs from Sheppard’s side of the crash, and more irritated curses.
On their side, Jensen rests a hand on Jared’s shoulder, calming him. “You’ll stand up just fine and you’ll run like the fucking wind. Trust me, okay? And he’s really wedged in there. I don’t think his aim is gonna reach much past a few feet on either side. So. Count of three.”
“Jen, wait.”
“One.”
“Jen.”
“Two.”
“Jensen.”
The hand on Jared’s shoulder is suddenly behind his head, pulling him forward and down. Jensen’s lips press against his forehead in a crushed kiss that muffles the next word.
“Three!”
Jensen moves first, twisting up and away in a way that might be graceful under other circumstances, boots pounding over the pavement. Jared is slower, shock and fear holding him back for the space of a few heartbeats. But then he’s moving and it’s amazing how much distance they eat up in a few seconds. Sheppard fires more shots behind them, but Jensen was right, they go wide.
With no idea where they’re going and no idea if Jensen knows either, Jared follows blindly. Behind him, he hears more voices join Sheppard’s, the other two hired guns finally catching up. He can barely make out the yells but the snatch of conversation he does catch (’not me, you idiots, them, that way!’) can’t be good.
Breathless, he calls out. “Jensen?”
“I know, I heard them, here!” Veering off, Jensen cuts between buildings and leads them to a high chain-link fence blocked with a padlocked gate. A multi-story building looms beyond the fence with a poorly lit sign on the side that reads ‘JM Metalworks’.
With a lift from Jensen’s cupped hands, Jared is up and over the gate in a flash, hitting the gravel heavy on the other side. Jensen climbs up after him, more nimble on the metal links and lighter on his feet when he lands beside Jared in a defensive crouch.
They race towards the building and up to a low window. Jamming the brass knuckles onto his fingers again, Jensen pulls the arm of his coat up over them for padding and punches the glass out of an already cracked and dirty pane, unlatching the window from the inside. It’s a tight squeeze, but they make it through.
Inside, the shapes of huge machines crowd the floor and fill the space with shadows, breaking up the dim, dirty light from the few hanging bulbs that are still lit. They slip through the shadows, footsteps cautious over electrical cords and around stands of hanging, metal sheets. There’s an area under a set of stairs, open, but mostly blocked from view by rows of surplus rebar. They sneak into it and crouch down against the back wall, finally catching their breath.
After a long stretch of silence, Jared risks a tense whisper. “Think we’re safe here?”
Jensen spares him a quick look, otherwise mostly alert and intent on the space outside their hiding spot. “Maybe. They’ll probably know we went to ground someplace near by, but not exactly where.”
More silence. He knows it’s not the time or place for it, but now that they’ve got two seconds to rub together without having to run from anything, Jared has to ask.
“So?”
Jensen glances at him again, distracted. “What?”
“Do we have time now?”
“Time for-? Oh.” Jensen stills with realization and gives Jared his full attention. “Here?”
Jared’s shoes scuff lightly against the floor as he sits down, knees pulled up in front of him. “Well, I’d play something on my phone for entertainment but I think they stole it.” He offers a smirk, but sobers quickly. “Yeah, here. I wanna know. And what if we don’t get another chance?”
A little manipulative, yes, but it certainly stops Jensen short. He joins Jared on the floor, close enough to the opening that he can still keep an eye on their surroundings between giving Jared uneasy, considering looks. His voice is hesitant when it finally comes. “What do you want to know?”
Jared shrugs, face open. “Everything.”
“Funny.”
Jensen’s voice is sarcastic, but Jared can hear the tension underneath it, the uncertainty. He reaches over, curling one hand around Jensen’s hunched shoulder. “It’s okay, just... start at the beginning.”
With low, halting words, Jensen lays out the life Jared never knew he had. How he got started young, how his parents had died and how he’d gone to a city to live with his grandparents. How they raised him just about as badly as they’d raised his mom and how he’d done just about anything to make sure he didn’t have to go back there each night. He’d started out just hanging around the wrong kind of people, idolizing their freedom, but eventually he joined a gang that became more than just a bunch of thieves and druggies under one name.
“What do you mean ‘more than’?”
“Uh, you know, a real organized crime deal. They were- the people at the top, they wished real hard they were some Hollywood style mafia or something. They started wearing suits all the time, meeting in restaurants, called themselves ‘The Chain’. Real smug motherfuckers.”
He goes on, words coming faster now that they’re coming at all. Jared’s not sure he could stop him now if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t, not even a little bit. He can’t believe how Jensen hid all this for so long, but finally hearing it all, it’s like the last wall between them coming down.
Jensen goes on, telling him about how it was good for a while, everything he thought he wanted. But then it got bad.
“It was just... everything.” Jensen pulls his knees up, head bent low. “They started in on some deep shit. I mean... I’m not excusing the stuff I did, but this was bad. Kidnapping and prostitution and the really heavy drugs and just cold murder and... I had to get out, one way or another.”
Those last words put a shiver up Jared’s spine and he’s curious, so curious about what the ‘another way’ was, but he’s afraid he’d be right about the answer. “You didn’t kill people?”
“I-” It almost looks like a reflex, how Jensen’s eyes flinch shut. He leans his head back against the wall behind them, expression fading to a troubled frown.
“... Jen?”
His eyes are distant when they open again, his voice toneless. “Sorry, just... running through all the excuses in my head to see which one I should tell you. Some of them are almost true, too.” His eyes close again, slow like window shades. “Yeah. I did.”
And what the hell does Jared say to that? Not that he hadn’t suspected the answer. Hell, Jensen had killed at least one person just tonight, though that person had been shooting at them at the time. From the far off, haunted look on Jensen’s face, Jared figures that wasn’t always the case. He’s mustering up something to say when Jensen shakes his head a little and fills the silence himself.
“Anyway. So. One day, I found out that one of my buddies there was a plant. Like an actual undercover cop, if you can believe that. Crazy fuck, called himself Misha, and I swear he enjoyed it, you know? Even on top of being undercover, it was like he couldn’t breath right unless he was bullshitting someone. Hell, first two months I knew him, I thought he was Russian.”
Jared smothers a laugh in his hand. It’s wild, how different Jensen is when he’s coming clean like this. That last bit was an honest to God anecdote and he can’t think of the last time Jensen told one of those.
“Misha got me in touch with his contact, a guy named Jim Beaver. And Jim got me out. It was during a drug thing. We had the stuff, the other guys had the money. I told Jim everything about it and he fixed it so I could run while they raided the place. Fixed it so I got away with the cash, too.” Jensen shrugs, the corners of his lips tugging down. “That’s part of what they’re after. That money. I don’t know, I guess Jim figured he was doing me a favor, but I left most of it with him. Kept enough to buy myself a new life but... I just... I didn’t like having it.” There must be some kind of confusion on Jared’s face because when Jensen looks over, he laughs bitterly. “I know, right? Who knew you could grow a fucking conscience.”
Jensen lapses into silence then, body hunched and turned away from Jared in a way that drives an ache deep into his chest. It’s not everything, but Jensen’s told him enough that most of the anger in him is flushed out and replaced with sympathy. Especially knowing that Jensen told him not so Jared would feel sorry for him, but because he thought Jared deserved to know. Even if it ended everything they had.
Stupid bastard.
Twisting to the side, Jared curls his hand behind Jensen’s neck, thumb running over the soft skin under his ear as he leans in. The touch brings Jensen’s attention to him just in time for their mouths to meet in a soft kiss. With an astonished hum, Jensen pulls back. His eyes, so close, are wide and soft. Jared opens his mouth to reassure him, but Jensen is pulling him back in again before he can make a sound, both hands reaching up to slide under the base of his skull. His fingers thread in through the hair at the nape of Jared’s neck, tangle and hold as he presses their mouths together, tongue pushing in against Jared’s. Their lips cling as they pull away, panting into each other’s mouths.
Jensen has that wide, deep look again. Jared would call it wonder if the thought didn’t make him feel like squirming in embarrassment. “What was that for?”
See? Stupid bastard. “You, dumb ass.” That needy, curious look doesn’t fade, though, so Jared elaborates. “Because I love you.”
Jensen looks gobsmacked for a second before he turns away again, trying to pass it off with a strained smile. “Still?” It’s supposed to be jokey, Jared’s sure, but it comes out sort of broken instead.
“Dude. It’s been less than a day since the last time I said that. You think it’s just gonna stop? Poof?”
Hesitantly, slow, like he’s giving something up, Jensen slides along the wall until his head rests against Jared’s shoulder. Sighing, he turns his face and lets Jared’s shirt muffle him. “...best thing that ever happened to me.”
Well, there’s only one answer to that. “Same here.”
Apparently Jensen doesn’t agree, though. He gives another bitter laugh, head shaking against Jared’s shoulder.
“It’s true.” Jared settles his hand on Jensen's knee, squeezing once. “Who you were for them, it doesn’t change who you are for me.” He hadn’t really had a chance to think about it yet, but now, saying it, it is true. Whatever Jensen did back then, he was always this underneath, Jared’s sure of it.
“Tha-” Whatever Jensen was going to say is lost as his body jerks upright, going stiff.
“Jen?” Jared cuts off, stilled by Jensen’s whispered hiss and a tight, warning hand on his thigh. He must have heard something. Jensen's hand goes tight on his leg again, but he doesn’t need the signal, he hears the distant scuffling this time. Damn! They’d been here so long he thought they were in the clear.
Jensen eases his grip and moves away from Jared, quiet as a mouse. He crawls toward a haphazard pile of metal bars shoved under the lowest part of the stairs, probably rejects from the stands of rebar. They scrape against the floor as he grabs two of the shorter bars, hopefully not loud enough to give them away, one for himself and the other extended to Jared. He does have a gun still, Jared's pretty sure, but maybe this is better for the element of surprise or something. That and a tiny, metal lined cubbyhole with only one exit probably isn’t the best place to be trapped in a gun fight.
Armed, crouched against the wall, and as ready as they’re going to get, they wait.
The sound of footsteps gets closer and closer until, just past the nearest hulking piece of machinery, two figures come in to view in one of the dirty yellow pools of light. On Jensen’s wave, Jared follows him out of the little space, both of them crouching low behind the machine. Jared’s sweaty grip on the rod tightens as Jensen sneaks some little piece of metal off the surface; a nut or a screw or something, and throws it into the distance. The two men both turn to the noise and then there’s no time to be sure of anything. Jensen is sprinting around the machine and Jared can only follow.
The first one, longer hair, blue shirt, goes down under the combined force of Jensen’s swing and body, both of them careening into a nearby workbench. His own target, blond, dark coat, turns to him with a surprised gasp. Jared’s already swinging the bar, aiming for the guy’s head, but he catches him in the shoulder instead. Good thing, too. The guy had already been raising his pistol and the strike to his shoulder fucks up his aim; his shot fires wide.
”Jared?”
“I’m good!” He answers Jensen’s panicked yell, but can’t spare a glance for him. His next swing is on target, connecting to the guy’s hands with a crunch, breaking his grip so the gun goes flying. With a pained, frustrated yell, his opponent dives for it. Jared gets to it before him, swinging the piece of rebar like a golf club and sending the gun skittering into the darkness. He follows up with a hard knee into the guy’s side, making him stagger in the other direction while Jared raises his weapon to try for another hit. He never finishes the swing, though, stopped by the reverberating bang of another gunshot behind them.
With a jerking, instinctual spin, he turns around, body locking with fear, heart trying to cram itself into his throat. Jen.
But Jensen is fine, for a certain definition of it. Not shot any way. He’s struggling with the other guy, shoved up against one of the larger machines bolted to the floor. There’s a gun on the floor beside them; it must be Jensen’s since the guy he’s fighting has his own gun in his hand, pushed to one side in Jensen's straining grip. Jensen has his knife in his other hand, blade trembling as the man shoves it away. They grapple and kick at each other, trying to find a weakness without giving one up. A quick glance and a widening of Jensen’s eyes is all the warning Jared has before the guy he’d been fighting tackles Jared from the side, taking easy advantage of his distraction.
They go down with matching yells, rolling over the floor. Jared loses his grip on the bar as it catches between them, loses his grip on reality for a second as a fist punches into his temple and his vision greys out. His legs wrap around the guy’s waist, muscle memory from a year or so of high school wrestling giving him some control over the fight and enough leverage to flip them over. On top now, head still spinning, Jared slams his elbow into the guy’s chin, snapping his head back. It makes a satisfying crack when his skull collides with the hard concrete floor. He spares a second to look up, searching out Jensen.
It’s not good.
Jensen and the guy he’s fighting are still pressed against the side of that machine, but now the knife and the gun are nowhere in sight. Instead, two hands are wrapped around Jensen's throat, squeezing. Red faced, Jensen struggles, clawing at the hands while his eyes roll back in his head. He needs help. Now.
With a roar, Jared throws himself to the side, pulling the man under him into a violent roll. The momentum gives him enough power to heave the man into a stand of tools, knocking the whole thing down in a rattling clamour. Jared is on his feet in a flash, racing towards Jensen. He wraps his arm around the neck of the man attacking Jensen and grabs a handful of his hair, yanking him back in a choke-hold. The man lets go with a yell and falls back against Jared’s chest, knocking them both off balance. They fall to the floor, Jared hitting it flat. The impact knocks his breath out of him and something hard digs sharp pain into his spine; they must have landed on some of the tools he knocked down. It all leaves him dazed, helpless to block a hard elbow ramming into his cheekbone. He cries out as stars burst in his skull, arms falling loose with the pain.
Free, the man on top of him crawls away, moving toward Jensen’s crumpled, coughing form. No, not toward Jensen, toward the discarded knife between them. Shit! Head still swimming, Jared fights to clear the fog in his head, but it’s like moving through water, everything slow and distorted. He thinks he yells out but neither of them react and then it’s too late, the guy has Jensen’s knife in his hand and he’s staggering to his feet.
Jensen, breath still ragged in his abused throat, finally comes out of it enough to spot the guy coming at him. He starts crawling away, making for his own fallen pistol. But it’s too far, the guy will be on him before he gets to it. Jared forces himself to his hands and knees but he’s not going to be fast enough either, he can’t make it, he can’t stop-
A gleam by his knee catches his eye. Not a tool, a gun. He was laying on a gun.
The shot fires and the recoil is kicking through his arm before he even realises he’s picked it up. Ten feet away, the man drops to his knees with a wet gasp, blood blooming through the back of his shirt. He falls forward over Jensen’s legs, gasps again, and goes still, knife slipping out of his lax grip.
The tip of the gun weaves down and Jared brings it up again with a jerk, aiming at the empty space where the man had been standing, breath coming in hard through his nose. He got him. He got him. He...
Suddenly, Jensen seems to spasm and Jared has the fleeting certainty that the guy still did it somehow, still hurt him. But Jensen is yelling, lifting something in his hand and then something screams past Jared’s ear and drowns out the world with concussive shock, spinning him to one side on reflex. Behind him, the other man, the one he threw into the tool rack, staggers back a step. Blood drips from a crushed, ragged hole in his cheek and his gun, aimed at Jared’s back seconds before, drops from nerveless fingers. He crumples to the floor with a puzzled frown, dead before he hits the ground.
The blood pooling under the man’s head grows as Jared stares in shock, hypnotized by the even spread of it and the strange, rushing sensation in his head, like a roaring wind.
Hands wrap around his trembling wrists some time later, shocking Jared. He starts, pulling his gun back up with a gasp.
“Whoa! It’s okay, it’s just me.” It’s Jensen, pushing his wrists back down. It takes his mind a few seconds to catch up with reality and let his arms go limp. His whole body goes slack, hard tension rushing out until the only thing holding him up is Jensen’s grip and the shaking aftershocks of adrenaline.
Holy shit.
Flexing stiff fingers, Jared eases his cramped grip on the gun and slides it into his pocket with a grimace. It’s a miracle he didn’t shoot himself, or Jensen, or- “I shot someone.” He sounds amazed more than anything else, which is pretty accurate.
“I know, I know you did.” Jensen’s hand moves from Jared’s wrists to his face, skims just below a painful spot on his cheek and down his neck in a reassuring caress. “You had to. You did good.” He pulls Jared to him, forehead to forehead, his hoarse voice filling the space between them. “Holy shit, Jared. You okay?”
Jared nods, and it’s as true as it needs to be. He’s more okay than he should be, probably. Jensen, on the other hand... “You’re hurt.” Wide bruises are already forming on his throat, dark on irritated red. His eyebrow is split and swollen, and blood oozes from a ragged cut on his forehead. Jared touches careful fingers to it, tracing the wound. He looks... alive.
Jensen’s cheek quirks up in half a smile. “It’s fine, don’t-” He stops, pulling away with an alert lift to his head. “Shit.”
Sirens wail in the distance, getting louder with each second. All the tension that had been draining away comes back with a rush. “Do we have to run?” He knows the answer before he’s even done asking, considering the mess around them. And back at that place they locked him up in. And the car.
“Yeah” Jensen nods, pulling him to his feet. “Just one more time, I promise. And then we can figure out... I don’t know, something.”
The window works as well for an exit as it did for an entrance and then they’re out and running. Back over the fence as the sirens get closer, over the gravel lot and around the corner of the next building just before red and blue flashes start to light up the area. They move as fast as they can make themselves, sprinting past walls and jumping over concrete barriers, skidding down the high banks of a city street and across, up the other side in a scramble. On the other side, the industrial buildings make way for more of a downtown area; dark windowed stores and run-down office buildings mixed in with the sickly neon of old dive bars.
They slow down to a jog, cutting across streets and between buildings, running until, finally, Jared can’t go on. From the heaving of his lungs to the aching of his muscles, the pounding in his head and the overload of information, it’s all just too much. He stops abruptly in the middle of an alley, barely lit by dim streetlights from either end, and leans against the nearest wall, panting for breath.
Jensen pulls up short a few feet away, turning back. “Jared?”
He holds up a hand from his forward slump, waving away the concern in Jensen's voice. “Sorry, just need a sec. Gotta pull myself together.”
Jensen falls quiet as Jared’s breathing starts to slow and the throb in his skull eases off. Then slow footsteps approach him, a supportive hand curling over his shoulder. “You know you had to, right? He was gonna kill us, you had to shoot him.”
What... oh. Jared straightens up, shoving sweaty bangs out of his face. “No, not- I mean yeah, that sucked.” Definitely sucked, but it’s going to have to be something he deals with later. “It’s just... the crash and the running and my head. Had to stop for a minute.”
“Oh!” Jensen looks relieved for a split second before his face clouds over with worry and irritation. “You said you were okay.” Strong hands are on Jared before he can blink, turning him by the jaw while Jensen lifts up on his toes for a closer look.
“I am. I’m okay, I just needed- ow!” Jared tries to fend him off, but it’s a losing battle as Jensen pokes around the goose egg on his head, knocking Jared’s hands away when he tries to protect himself. “Ow, will you-” His hands get pushed back again and Jared lets them fall to his sides in surrender. “You could at least be a little more careful if you think it’s that bad, damn.”
“Just shut up for a minute and let me see.” Jensen frowns in concentration, feeling around the tender skin under Jared’s hair. There’s not exactly huge amounts of light here, so Jared’s not even sure there’s much point to it, but he keeps still under Jensen’s fingers all the same, head lowered. After a few more pokes and prods, admittedly gentler this time, Jensen’s hands slide around to the front of Jared’s face, thumbs pulling down on the delicate skin under his eyes to open them wider.
Blinking reflexively against the stretch, Jared stares in bewilderment as Jensen peers into his eyes, turning his head this way and that. An amused grin threatens to break free. “Do you even know what you’re looking for, Doctor Back-alley?” He rolls his eyes and reaches up to pull at Jensen’s wrists, shaking his head as Jensen lets go with a huffy sigh. “Jen, I swear, I’m okay. Not great, but I’ll be fine.”
Jensen looks away with a bullish frown. “Yeah, alright. Fine.”
He says it, but Jared’s pretty sure Jensen’s far from fine. He seems restless, twitchy, and angrier than the exchange really calls for. Maybe it’s worry, maybe it’s all the action finally catching up with him, everything hitting home at once and leaving him spinning. Whatever it is that has Jensen grumbling and running a frustrated hand through his hair, it pulls at Jared, compels him to reach out and wrap his hand around Jensen’s wrist again.
“Hey.” His voice soft and low, he squeezes Jensen’s wrist once, reassuring. “Really. I’m good.” Jensen looks up again, something lost and scared hiding deep in his eyes. Jared smiles. “You did it, okay? You got me.”
Jensen sucks in a breath and nods on the exhale, looking more embarrassed than anything else now, in the face of Jared’s sincerity. But he loses that lost look at least, all that Jared wanted in the first place. He knows he can get more, though, because whatever Jensen might think, Jared still knows him better than anything. He pulls Jensen’s hand to his chest, clutching it tightly in two fists, torso heaving like something out of a romance novel. Breathless, he bats his eyelashes. “You’re my hero!”
With a barking laugh, Jensen yanks his hand away. “Jesus Christ.” He’s still laughing, that wide mouthed, full body laugh that Jared likes best. “I fucking hate you sometimes, I really do.”
Swooping in for a quick kiss, Jared smiles against his lips. Because yeah, he just wanted to get Jensen laughing, but he kinda meant it, too. Sinking down a little more, he presses his mouth to Jensen’s again, slower this time, sweeter. Sweet enough that it’s a surprise when Jensen surges up against him.
It’s sort of a weird place to be making out, and Jared’s head still hurts, but not enough to protest anything. He opens easily to Jensen’s tongue, falling back against the brick wall with a muffled ‘oof’. Jensen’s hands wind their way into the front Jared’s coat, twisting it as they kiss against the dirty wall. Sounds rise up from his throat, not whimpers but nearly; needy, airy noises that Jared answers by sliding his hands up, large palms fitting neatly under Jensen's jaw as he pulls them closer together.
A few long, slow moments later, Jensen pulls away with a wet noise, breathing heavily. “This is-” He stops, swallowing the raspy sound out of his voice. “Worst idea ever.”
It really is, but even as Jared’s nodding his agreement, he’s pulling Jensen back in. After all, Jensen isn’t the only one whose night is finally catching up with them. But where that left Jensen twitchy and needing reassurance, it leaves Jared on a plateau of excitement and anxiety that really has nowhere else to go. Nowhere but here, with his hands slipping under Jensen’s shirt, following the soft but solid lines of his stomach, curving and gripping the warm indent of his waist.
They rock against the wall, mouths hard and soft in turn as they switch angles, lips and teeth and tongues working against each other. Jared gets a knee between Jensen's thighs and they haven’t been grinding on each other for twenty seconds before Jensen breaks and drops his hands down to Jared’s pants. It looks like a huge force of will, but Jensen manages to stop himself, thumb rubbing the button as he he looks up for confirmation.
Waves of need and desire flood Jared, memories flashing in his head of those hands on guns and knives and hardened into tight fists. It shouldn’t be hot, it shouldn’t make him want to bite and fuck and have, but it is and it does. Oh fuck, whatever, it’s not like they’re not already living out some action movie fantasy. Jared nods swiftly, leaning back against the wall again, open and inviting.
The sound of Jared’s zipper lowering seems loud even with their panting breaths and the distant din of the late night city. Jared’s gasp as Jensen’s hand finds his half-hard cock is even louder, head bumping against the wall as the shock of direct pleasure shoots through him.
“Shh, shh.” Jensen’s other hand comes up, cradling the back of Jared’s head where it hit against the rough brick. “Take it easy.” His voice is low and dark, husky as his hand works up and down Jared's cock, bringing him fully hard.
Jared grunts his acceptance, head tilted back and hips lifting into Jensen’s fist while he curves his hands over Jensen’s shoulders. Jensen’s free hand slips down from his head, flattening against his chest to hold him to the wall while Jensen’s grip tightens around his cock.
The pace is slow, but firm and steady enough to have Jared gasping and shuddering, fingers clawing into Jensen’s shoulders each time that tight friction reaches the tip of his cock and slides back down. Jensen is so concentrated on him, so focused that Jared doesn’t even realize what a state he’s in until one of his own rough gasps is met by an answering, guttural moan. The hand against Jared’s chest has twisted his shirt into a tight spiral, shaking with repressed need.
Fuck, they’ve been together so long, but Jared still can’t believe how much they affect each other.
His hands fly from Jensen’s shoulders to his waist, yanking his pants open with a litany of ‘come on, come on’ on his lips, freeing Jensen’s aching hard cock with a triumphant growl.
Gritting his teeth around a ragged cry, Jensen jerks in Jared’s fingers, crowding into him. “Jared, Jared, fuck.” It doesn’t take a second to line themselves up together, cocks sliding against each other between their hands.
They grind into each other, riding the kicks and shudders of pleasure, Jensen giving cut off moans with every breath, just on the edge of whimpers, and Jared wrapping an arm around his shoulder, grasping at him with clawed fingers while they move together.
“Oh my God, Jen.” Jared hits it first, that long, frozen second before the rush of orgasm. It comes over him in a wave, a gentle push more than a shove, that has him panting bone-deep breaths and spilling over Jensen’s fingers almost before he’s realized he’s coming. It’s a deep throb, driving his hips forward with slow, heavy force. Such a prolonged slide that he has time, even as his cock is jumping and pulsing against Jensen's, slicking them both up, he has time to ponder how this might be the smoothest, easiest orgasm he’s ever had.
Jensen follows not far behind, the slippery drag of Jared’s come helping to pull his orgasm out of him. It’s rougher for him, a wild, shaking, clutching crest that has him burying his face against Jared’s shoulder to muffle throaty yells. He heaves up against Jared in bone jarring thrusts, cock jerking so hard that the force of it leaves long streaks of come high into Jared’s shirt. At the end of it, he has both arms wrapped around Jared’s neck in a desperate grasp, pulling himself up into the dark, wet heat between them as his boots scuff against the cracked pavement.
After, they catch their breath as Jensen staggers to the side, leaning all his weight into the wall beside Jared. Hands sticky and clumsy, they tuck themselves back into their pants with weak matching sighs.
Jared lets his head fall to the side, peering at Jensen. “That was sort of, uh...”
A slow, easy smile splits Jensen’s lips. “Little weird, yeah.”
Jared slides against the wall until their shoulders bump together and shares a tired grin with Jensen. “Sort of awesome, too.” His smile softens as Jensen’s fingers brush against his, hanging between them, a subtle touch of affection in the darkness. “So. Wanna get out of here?”
“Mm.” Jensen’s head tips back against the wall, eyes turning to the thin strip of night sky above them. “We’ll have to go back to the apartment first, grab some stuff there quick and then head out of town. That’d be safest. Maybe stop by a-”
The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupts him, sending them both jumping away from the wall with an alarmed jolt.
“Thanks for taking that little break, guys. Not sure how hygienic it was, but thanks all the same. You would’ve completely lost me, otherwise.”
It’s Sheppard, of course it is, standing in the mouth of the alley with a pistol raised, silhouetted by the streetlight behind him.
Jared, stiff with shock and fear, stumbles to the other side of the alley as Jensen shoves him away. Sheppard’s aim stays trained on Jensen until Jensen moves for his own gun inside his jacket.
With a cluck of his tongue, Sheppard swings his aim over to Jared. “Stop moving or I’m going to do a very bad thing to your friend here, Jen.” Sheppard steps forward, eyes never leaving Jensen, aim steady on Jared’s frozen form. He looks winded and a little ragged, but calm. “You know, I was starting to think I was completely screwed, but looks like luck has smiled on me for once tonight. Weapons on the ground, please.” At Jensen’s hesitation, he takes another step toward Jared, weapon thrust forward threateningly. “I don’t think I’ll ask again.”
Jensen’s whole body sort of stutters, caught between wanting to protect Jared and not wanting to provoke Sheppard. “Okay! Okay, just... here.” He holds up his hands, palms out, before slowly pulling out his gun and skimming it across the ground to Sheppard.
Sheppard rolls his eyes. “All of them, Rambo. Why do you both keep acting like I’m an idiot? Yes, alright, getting trapped in my car wasn’t my best moment but come on!” He waves his gun at Jared, who starts back in fear. “All of them.”
Jensen adds his knife and the brass knuckles to the pile, tossing them over to Sheppard’s feet. “There. That’s it, okay? Can you point the gun at me now?”
“Nah.” Sheppard shrugs. “I sort of like the dynamic we have going here, it’s working quite well. What next?” He holds up a finger as if inspiration just struck him. “Oh! Right. The ultimatum part.” He points at Jensen. “You go with me, right now, and we leave your big man here all safe and cozy. Or you don’t and I shoot him. And then drag your weeping, heartsick form away with me or something, I don’t know.”
Jensen, his wary, neutral voice replaced with snarling anger, takes a step forward. “I’ll kill you if you do.”
Unaffected, Sheppard nods. “You’ll try, yes, but then it still remains that I’ll be the one with the gun.”
Suddenly, Jared remembers that he left that metalworks factory with something extra in his pocket, cursing himself for letting it slip his mind. They’re all too close, though, he’ll alert Sheppard no matter what he does. It’ll have to be quick.
In a flash, he yanks a dead man’s gun out of his pocket, fingers so tense around the grip that the barrel trembles where it aims at Sheppard’s head. “Not the only one.”
Jensen hisses out Jared’s name in alarm, too late to stop him. He looks more afraid now that he has all night, and Jared is sorry for it, but there didn’t seem to be much other choice.
Sheppard steps back quickly, nervous gaze flicking back and forth between them, aim steady at Jared. “Alright, okay, don’t be rash now.” He hold up a hand, placating. “This only evens us out a little.”
Jared stays silent, wrapping his other hand around the grip of the gun as well, trying to counter the tremble.
Sheppard’s polished shoes click on the ground as he takes another step back. “You know we don’t need you, right? He’s already here.” He nods sideways towards Jensen. “You could walk away right now and I swear on my mother, no one would come after you.” A sympathetic smile curves his lips. “You’ve really got nothing to do with this business, everyone knows that.”
Jared frowns, that hollow smile souring his stomach.
Whatever Sheppard sees on his face, he must take it as encouragement. He goes on, words fast and eager. “Don’t know why you’d stay, anyway. To protect a liar? And a murderer? He used to do this, you know.” He gestures with the gun like he’s trying to point out their whole situation. “Hunt down poor bastards who thought they could run away and hide. Last one before he tried it himself? I hear he shot him in the stomach and just waited. Probably took hours. You wanna risk your life on protecting that?”
A calm settles over Jared, then. A sort of warm blanket of confidence that slows his heart and eases the tension in his arms. Yes. He does.
The trembling of the gun stops and his aim goes solid as a rock.
“I don’t care and I’m not going anywhere. You said they just hired you so are you only here for the money or is it worth your life? Because I’ve got something worth dying for here and I will shoot you.”
It’s a stand-off, then. Jared’s hard gaze against Sheppard’s narrow, nervous, calculating eyes. He’s not sure if it will work, he meant every word but will Sheppard believe him? And backed into a corner, will he care? Jared’s never been shot before but he imagines the horrible, tearing shock that could come with it. Would he even know or would he be dead before it registered? He keeps his eyes steady on Sheppard, but suddenly all he wants to do is look at Jensen. Just to look at him. If he’s only going to see one more thing in his life, it might as well be worth it.
But then Sheppard looks down, and Jared knows he’s got him.
“Alright, okay.” Hands raising, Sheppard lets his gun dangle loose from his thumb. “You win.” The weapon lands on the cracked pavement next to Jensen's discarded ones, spinning past them. “Crazy buggers.”
Jared relaxes. Slightly. “Jen.” No answer. He stays on Sheppard, not trusting him an inch. “Jen?” When there’s still no answer, he spares a quick glance. Then another, longer one. Jensen is just... staring at him with a stunned sort of look on his face. Just staring. “Jensen.
Jensen snaps out of it with a start. “Sorry, uh, just... what?” Over to the side, Sheppard scoffs.
Jared fights down a smile. There’s a time and a place for getting butterflies over the way your boyfriend looks at you, and this is so not it. “What do we do now?”
“Oh! Uh, right.” Jensen gathers up the pile of weapons on the ground and spirits everything but his own gun away into his clothes. He glares at Sheppard. “On the ground, hands on your head.” Sheppard complies and Jensen steps up to his kneeling form.
For a moment, Jared thinks Jensen’s going to shoot him. So does Sheppard by the way he flinches in anticipation. Honestly, he’s pretty sure even Jensen thought he was going to shoot him, the hand not holding his gun contracting into an angry fist. But a few moments pass, the tension in the air eases, and Jensen moves behind Sheppard, crouching to give him a cursory pat-down.
“We need to find something to tie him with.” And that’s a definitive answer to the ‘are we going to shoot him’ question. Jared can’t help but feel relieved, no matter how bad an idea it might be to leave him here. He’s had about as much in-cold-blood as he can handle for one night. He casts around for something ropey while Jensen searches Sheppard for anything useful, coming away with his phone and wallet. They end up using some old plastic box ties to bind him to a ladder bolted into one of the brick walls, gagging him with a strip cut off Jared’s shirt.
When they’re done, Jensen stands in front of him, arms crossed. “Find a way to say no if they send you after us again, you know I’m not gonna make this choice next time.”
Sheppard mutters something belligerent into the wad of cloth, sneering around it. Jared can’t tell if he’s going to follow the advice, but there’s not much else they can do now, so it’ll have to do.
Moving away, they head toward the mouth of the alley, stopping together just outside the light from the street.
“So...” He could ask ‘what now’ again, but it seems pretty self evident.
Jensen frowns at the gun still in his hand, checking it over for.. whatever you check guns over for. Seriously, it’s a miracle Jared didn’t shoot himself. “Same plan, we go back to the apartment, grab what we can while we can and then blow town.”
“Can we call people after that? Just... friends and family, let ‘em know we’re okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.” Jensen looks up, apologetic. “It’s not- we’ll come back, I promise. This isn’t permanent. We’ll figure something out.”
“I know.” He smiles at Jensen, trying for sureness. Did he ask for his life to be completely turned around when he woke up this morning? Of course not. But whatever happens now, he’s in it to the end. “Let’s get out of here, okay?” He heads back the way they came but a hand around his wrist stops him short. Jensen, grip tight, wavers between earnestness and regret.
“Jared, I- “ He pauses, seeming to rethink what he was going to say. When it comes, his voice is rough. “Just... thanks.”
Jared smiles, small but genuine, as he steps back into Jensen’s space, leaning in for a quick, soft kiss. “Love you.”
Jensen’s face twists as they pull apart. “Aw man, not in front of the kidnapper!”
Well behind them, Sheppard gives an exasperated groan as Jared shoves at Jensen’s shoulder, laughing. He pulls his wrist through Jensen's grip, winding their fingers together and tugging him towards the alley’s exit with a grin. “Come on.”
“Where you headed?”
Jensen shrugs, squinting around at the dinky little gas station they’ve stopped at as he holds the phone to his ear. “Not sure.” They’ve been on the road for a few days now, driving a stolen, beat up little car that Jared made him promise they’d come back and pay for later. They’re heading north, mostly because there happens to be a lot of north. “Jared keeps suggesting that lake house but... I’ve already gotten him into this, we can’t give them any reason to look into his family, too.” On the other end of the phone, Jim grunts, sounding dubious. “Yeah, I know. But I’ve gotta do what I can. He’s already... I mean, I keep thinking he’ll be gone whenever I get out of the car you know?”
“I don’t know, doesn’t sound like he’s going anywhere to me. From what you’ve told me, anyway. At length.”
Jensen laughs, leaning against the car. “Fuck you, man.” Jared had been the one to do the supply run this time, leaving him alone at the pump, watching the numbers click by.
“Look.” Jim’s voice goes serious. “You’re gonna need help.”
“Jim.”
“No, shut up. You’re gonna need a hand in this and I happen to have a few. And you are gonna take them.”
“No, man, we can’t... “
Jim talks over him. “First thing, you’re gonna come here, stay out of sight for a few weeks at least. I’ve got an extra bed and some stupid bastard’s stolen drug money that I’m not using.”
It’s too much. “Jim.”
“You do it, or I have your mugshot up in every city, town, and slight widening of the road in America within the week.”
Guess he can’t argue with that. Still, it takes him a second to collect himself. “...thanks, Jim. I mean it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just keep heading the way you’re heading and I’ll call you in a few days with directions.”
“You know where we are?”
Jim snorts and Jensen can practically feel the smugness emanating down the phone-line. “Please. Who are you talking to?”
“Good point. I guess I’ll talk to you later then.” His only answer is the click of the line going dead. Nice guy, Jim, but not much for social graces. When he turns around again, Jared is walking up with a bulging plastic bag, giving him a wide grin.
“They had Twinkies!”
Jensen shakes his head, biting his lip in amusement. “Score.”
Jared gives him a quick nod of agreement before he climbs into the car, tossing the bag onto the console between the seats. Jensen joins him, settling into the driver’s seat. He turns his head to ask if Jared paid for the gas but stops, watching.
The photo in Jared’s hands is starting to look rough around the corners, probably from whatever pocket Jared had it squirreled away in. Jensen doesn’t remember just what had been going on when it was taken; it was a party at one of Jared’s friends places, but he doesn’t remember exactly what put that enraptured look on his face or the laughing grin on Jared’s. His voice comes out quiet. “You saved that from the warehouse, didn’t you?”
Jared smiles to himself, thumbs running along the edge of the photo. “Yup.”
They’d gone back to the apartment but had taken only the absolute essentials, in and gone in maybe fifteen minutes. Though probably closer to twenty five including the time it took to convince their neighbour to look after Barry for them while they took care of a ‘family emergency’. Still, no time for grabbing anything sentimental. A wave of guilt settles over him as he watches Jared’s fingers caress what is probably the only piece of their ‘old’ life that they’re going to have for a long time.
“You don’t-” His throat closes over his words, he swallows past it. “Jared, you don’t have to come. You don’t...we could figure something out, I could take you to the cops maybe.” Even as he says it, he knows what the answer will be. Knows he’s only asking because he already knows what the answer is. If he was any kind of man he would have driven off while Jared was in the store, left him safe behind. But he can’t. If it makes him a coward, then fine. The only way he’s letting go is if Jared lets go first.
With that small, inward smile still on his lips, Jared slides the picture back into his pocket. “No, I think I’m good where I am.”
Jensen shakes his head, but he still can’t fight the smirk that wants to come out. “You seriously don’t know what you’re getting into here.”
“I know. It’s kind of exciting.” Jared makes an exaggerated face at him, wide eyes and a little gasp of air.
Rolling his eyes, Jensen laughs. “You’ve got problems, you realize that right?”
“Yeah.” With the kind of sudden movement that could get a guy punched if he’s not careful, Jared stretches over the space between them. His aim is a little off, hitting the corner of Jensen’s mouth instead of the full on center, but the kiss is warm and firm. Decisive. “But I like ‘em.” He falls back into his seat, waving at the view out the window. “Come on, we’re burning daylight! We know where we’re going yet?”
Turning his head to hide an embarrassed but undeniably pleased flush at the kiss, Jensen nods. “We’re gonna go meet with a friend of mine, the one who helped me get out of all this in the first place. Well, try to get out.”
“Jim?”
“Yeah.” Jensen blinks, taken aback. He’s surprised Jared remembers, considering all the distractions they’d had when he told that story. “We’ll probably spend a while there, if you’re up for it.”
Jared shrugs. “Beats driving around in a car all day. My legs were not built for a compact.”
Jensen raises his eyebrows as he pulls out of the gas station, giving the cramped stretch of Jared’s legs a lascivious look. “I think we both know what your legs were built for, baby.”
Dragging the bag from the gas station into his lap with a snort, Jared digs through it before pulling out a candy bar. “Perv.”
“Every day.” Once they’re on the highway he peers over, trying to get a look in the bag. “You get my chips?”
“Oh my god, seriously? Every time!”
A little foil bag smacks Jensen in the face before he can duck away,. Another bag, twin to the first, crunches as it hits the side of his head. Beside him, Jared throws his now empty hands in the air.
“When have I ever forgotten your chips, man? God damn!”
Laughing, Jensen throws up an arm in protection. “There was that one time!”
He basks in the comfort of the playful, familiar argument as the miles roll away under their feet, disappearing behind them.
Rating: NC-17
Genre/Pairing: RPF, AU, Action/Suspense, Jared/Jensen
Wordcount: 19k
Warnings: Violence, Kidnapping
See Part 1 for full headers and author's notes.
Being shot at had more than scared Jared. After the crack of the shot being fired, he’d been sure he was done. It had fucking terrified him. But the realization that he isn’t hit, that he’s still alive, now that? That is a rush. The dose of adrenaline lifts him, pushing him to match Jensen's pace as they sprint across the parking lot.
Jared reaches the building first, sliding against the wall for some cover as shots fire behind them. Jensen yells at him to keep going so he runs, sticking near the wall and weaving around empty granite planters. More shots, much closer this time, and he spares a second to glance back. Jensen is running more in the open, along the flatter pavement, firing that gun he took from the man he killed (killed, holy shit) back at their pursuers in rapid bursts.
The wall beside them starts to curve, with weird, pointless outcroppings poking into their path. It probably looks very nice and artistic from a distance but really not helpful now. Jared pushes harder, panting for breath as he pounds ahead, scouting where they’re going. There’s a gap farther up, a tiny path between two separate buildings he sees as he pulls closer. Beyond it, the next building takes a sharp turn in.
“Here!” He veers into the gap, stopping to make sure Jensen follows. Maybe those guys will think they took the turn up ahead.
Jensen flies into the space, careening off a wall even as he waves Jared on. It’s wide enough for them to run side by side, with plain doors dotting both sides. One rattles as Jensen tries the knob on the way by.
“Locked!”
“Should we-?” Jared slows down to try another door.
“No! No time, we can’t try every one. Keep going.” Jensen has him by the arm again, pulling him forward. A quick look back over Jensen’s head shows Jared they’re not being followed yet, their detour must have been missed.
The little alley ends abruptly, spitting them out into the much darker backside of the building. Garbage dumpsters and silent shipping trucks line the wall. It’s slower going, but they make it to the end of the building before there’s any hint of their persuers.
Voices from behind send them into hiding against the side of a dumpster, bodies frozen and breath held. The sound of cursing reaches their ears, but the voices come no closer. Then, faintly, one of them suggests checking the doors.
Beside him, Jensen slumps against the bin. “Thank fuck.” Jared watches in confusion as he eases the dumpster lid up, gingerly sliding the gun he took on top of some oily looking cardboard. Noticing Jared’s puzzled look, he shrugs. “Empty, but I didn’t want to leave it for them to find. Come on, the car’s just at the next place up.”
With one last sprint they’re across the lot and throwing themselves into the car, engine revving and tires squealing as they drive off. Twisting in the passenger’s seat, Jared catches sight of their followers, two distant figures waving their arms in agitated gestures. “Haha! Suck it, you kidnapping dillholes!” He turns back and falls against the seat in a panting slump, grinning hard.
There’s a pregnant pause from Jensen.
“...dillholes?”
“Shut up.”
They share a tentative smile, a familiar intimacy that’s comforting despite the situation.
“Where we going?” It’s still ‘we’, even now. Might not be the best thing for him, but Jared knows that hasn’t changed.
A distracted frown pulls a line between Jensen’s eyebrows. “No idea.”
“I’ve still got the keys to my uncle’s lake house from that house-sitting thing. If we need to ‘hide out’ or something.”
Jensen gives him a long look before turning back to the road, tongue flicking out. He looks nervous, suddenly. “Yeah. That’s- that’ll work. I can drop you off there, should be safe for a while.”
“Drop me off?” Affronted, he shifts to face Jensen. He doesn’t seriously think Jared’s going to agree to that, does he? “You’re not leaving me there.”
Lips pursed, Jensen glares at the passing street lights. “You realize you just got shot at, right? And kidnapped? Knocked out?” The look he shoots Jared is almost accusing as they slow down to take a corner. “You are not having the most rational reaction here.”
Jared glares back. “Well I’m sorry I’m not having a fucking breakdown, I guess I- JEN!”
The other car comes out of nowhere, no bright flash of headlights to warn them before it’s broadsiding them, slamming against the driver-side door with a bone-jarring grind of metal on metal that sends Jensen’s body smashing against Jared.
It’s over before he can blink, leaving behind an impression of sound and movement, pain and body-clenching fear, a burst of confusion as the world lurches around them. Whoever said time slows down during car crashes was full of shit.
After, though? Yeah, time slows to a crawl. Even turning his head is like moving through molasses, everything thick and muffled so Jared doesn’t feel the hands on him until a sharp strike stings his cheek.
“Jared!”
The world starts to speed up as the pain of the slap brings him back, head pounding. Jensen is beside him, wide eyed and frantic, like maybe he’s repeated Jared’s name a few times already. He flinches as Jensen brings his hand up again. “I’m here! I’m here... holy fuck, Jen, a car hit us!” He doesn’t miss the relief that fills Jensen’s expression, or the way he stops trembling like a wire ready to snap.
“Yeah, I know, I always take you to the best shows, huh?” They’re still upright, thankfully, but Jensen’s side of the car is bent in and crumpled, crushed enough that the idea of how bad it could have been steals Jared’s breath away. With some jostling, Jensen works Jared's seat belt loose. “Come on, if you can move we gotta get out of here.”
The door on his side still opens, but Jared almost hits the ground when they stumble out, muscles like water. Nothing seems broken, but his whole body feels like it’s been punched.
The sudden bang and ricochet of a bullet has them both diving down behind the car, hands tight in each other’s coats. From the other side, a voice yells.
“I don’t suppose I got either one of you, did I!” It’s Sheppard. Naturally.
Back pressed to the frame of the car, Jensen slides over and peers around the edge. Nervous, Jared inches up behind him, just in time to catch him as another bullet fires and he throws himself backwards.
“Shit, shit, bugger! Go on, poke your pretty face out again!”
Jensen keeps his voice quiet. “He’s stuck, I think. Looks all caught up in the airbag or something. I think we can make a run for it.”
“A run for it?” Jared lowers his voice at Jensen’s protesting frown. “Jen, I’m not even sure I can stand up right now. And he has a gun. I mean, you know, maybe this is all just nostalgic for you, but gun.”
Sheppard calls out again. “Oh, come on! Come out, I promise not to shoot you, we can just talk! I know you’re back there still!” They can hear rattles and bangs from Sheppard’s side of the crash, and more irritated curses.
On their side, Jensen rests a hand on Jared’s shoulder, calming him. “You’ll stand up just fine and you’ll run like the fucking wind. Trust me, okay? And he’s really wedged in there. I don’t think his aim is gonna reach much past a few feet on either side. So. Count of three.”
“Jen, wait.”
“One.”
“Jen.”
“Two.”
“Jensen.”
The hand on Jared’s shoulder is suddenly behind his head, pulling him forward and down. Jensen’s lips press against his forehead in a crushed kiss that muffles the next word.
“Three!”
Jensen moves first, twisting up and away in a way that might be graceful under other circumstances, boots pounding over the pavement. Jared is slower, shock and fear holding him back for the space of a few heartbeats. But then he’s moving and it’s amazing how much distance they eat up in a few seconds. Sheppard fires more shots behind them, but Jensen was right, they go wide.
With no idea where they’re going and no idea if Jensen knows either, Jared follows blindly. Behind him, he hears more voices join Sheppard’s, the other two hired guns finally catching up. He can barely make out the yells but the snatch of conversation he does catch (’not me, you idiots, them, that way!’) can’t be good.
Breathless, he calls out. “Jensen?”
“I know, I heard them, here!” Veering off, Jensen cuts between buildings and leads them to a high chain-link fence blocked with a padlocked gate. A multi-story building looms beyond the fence with a poorly lit sign on the side that reads ‘JM Metalworks’.
With a lift from Jensen’s cupped hands, Jared is up and over the gate in a flash, hitting the gravel heavy on the other side. Jensen climbs up after him, more nimble on the metal links and lighter on his feet when he lands beside Jared in a defensive crouch.
They race towards the building and up to a low window. Jamming the brass knuckles onto his fingers again, Jensen pulls the arm of his coat up over them for padding and punches the glass out of an already cracked and dirty pane, unlatching the window from the inside. It’s a tight squeeze, but they make it through.
Inside, the shapes of huge machines crowd the floor and fill the space with shadows, breaking up the dim, dirty light from the few hanging bulbs that are still lit. They slip through the shadows, footsteps cautious over electrical cords and around stands of hanging, metal sheets. There’s an area under a set of stairs, open, but mostly blocked from view by rows of surplus rebar. They sneak into it and crouch down against the back wall, finally catching their breath.
After a long stretch of silence, Jared risks a tense whisper. “Think we’re safe here?”
Jensen spares him a quick look, otherwise mostly alert and intent on the space outside their hiding spot. “Maybe. They’ll probably know we went to ground someplace near by, but not exactly where.”
More silence. He knows it’s not the time or place for it, but now that they’ve got two seconds to rub together without having to run from anything, Jared has to ask.
“So?”
Jensen glances at him again, distracted. “What?”
“Do we have time now?”
“Time for-? Oh.” Jensen stills with realization and gives Jared his full attention. “Here?”
Jared’s shoes scuff lightly against the floor as he sits down, knees pulled up in front of him. “Well, I’d play something on my phone for entertainment but I think they stole it.” He offers a smirk, but sobers quickly. “Yeah, here. I wanna know. And what if we don’t get another chance?”
A little manipulative, yes, but it certainly stops Jensen short. He joins Jared on the floor, close enough to the opening that he can still keep an eye on their surroundings between giving Jared uneasy, considering looks. His voice is hesitant when it finally comes. “What do you want to know?”
Jared shrugs, face open. “Everything.”
“Funny.”
Jensen’s voice is sarcastic, but Jared can hear the tension underneath it, the uncertainty. He reaches over, curling one hand around Jensen’s hunched shoulder. “It’s okay, just... start at the beginning.”
With low, halting words, Jensen lays out the life Jared never knew he had. How he got started young, how his parents had died and how he’d gone to a city to live with his grandparents. How they raised him just about as badly as they’d raised his mom and how he’d done just about anything to make sure he didn’t have to go back there each night. He’d started out just hanging around the wrong kind of people, idolizing their freedom, but eventually he joined a gang that became more than just a bunch of thieves and druggies under one name.
“What do you mean ‘more than’?”
“Uh, you know, a real organized crime deal. They were- the people at the top, they wished real hard they were some Hollywood style mafia or something. They started wearing suits all the time, meeting in restaurants, called themselves ‘The Chain’. Real smug motherfuckers.”
He goes on, words coming faster now that they’re coming at all. Jared’s not sure he could stop him now if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t, not even a little bit. He can’t believe how Jensen hid all this for so long, but finally hearing it all, it’s like the last wall between them coming down.
Jensen goes on, telling him about how it was good for a while, everything he thought he wanted. But then it got bad.
“It was just... everything.” Jensen pulls his knees up, head bent low. “They started in on some deep shit. I mean... I’m not excusing the stuff I did, but this was bad. Kidnapping and prostitution and the really heavy drugs and just cold murder and... I had to get out, one way or another.”
Those last words put a shiver up Jared’s spine and he’s curious, so curious about what the ‘another way’ was, but he’s afraid he’d be right about the answer. “You didn’t kill people?”
“I-” It almost looks like a reflex, how Jensen’s eyes flinch shut. He leans his head back against the wall behind them, expression fading to a troubled frown.
“... Jen?”
His eyes are distant when they open again, his voice toneless. “Sorry, just... running through all the excuses in my head to see which one I should tell you. Some of them are almost true, too.” His eyes close again, slow like window shades. “Yeah. I did.”
And what the hell does Jared say to that? Not that he hadn’t suspected the answer. Hell, Jensen had killed at least one person just tonight, though that person had been shooting at them at the time. From the far off, haunted look on Jensen’s face, Jared figures that wasn’t always the case. He’s mustering up something to say when Jensen shakes his head a little and fills the silence himself.
“Anyway. So. One day, I found out that one of my buddies there was a plant. Like an actual undercover cop, if you can believe that. Crazy fuck, called himself Misha, and I swear he enjoyed it, you know? Even on top of being undercover, it was like he couldn’t breath right unless he was bullshitting someone. Hell, first two months I knew him, I thought he was Russian.”
Jared smothers a laugh in his hand. It’s wild, how different Jensen is when he’s coming clean like this. That last bit was an honest to God anecdote and he can’t think of the last time Jensen told one of those.
“Misha got me in touch with his contact, a guy named Jim Beaver. And Jim got me out. It was during a drug thing. We had the stuff, the other guys had the money. I told Jim everything about it and he fixed it so I could run while they raided the place. Fixed it so I got away with the cash, too.” Jensen shrugs, the corners of his lips tugging down. “That’s part of what they’re after. That money. I don’t know, I guess Jim figured he was doing me a favor, but I left most of it with him. Kept enough to buy myself a new life but... I just... I didn’t like having it.” There must be some kind of confusion on Jared’s face because when Jensen looks over, he laughs bitterly. “I know, right? Who knew you could grow a fucking conscience.”
Jensen lapses into silence then, body hunched and turned away from Jared in a way that drives an ache deep into his chest. It’s not everything, but Jensen’s told him enough that most of the anger in him is flushed out and replaced with sympathy. Especially knowing that Jensen told him not so Jared would feel sorry for him, but because he thought Jared deserved to know. Even if it ended everything they had.
Stupid bastard.
Twisting to the side, Jared curls his hand behind Jensen’s neck, thumb running over the soft skin under his ear as he leans in. The touch brings Jensen’s attention to him just in time for their mouths to meet in a soft kiss. With an astonished hum, Jensen pulls back. His eyes, so close, are wide and soft. Jared opens his mouth to reassure him, but Jensen is pulling him back in again before he can make a sound, both hands reaching up to slide under the base of his skull. His fingers thread in through the hair at the nape of Jared’s neck, tangle and hold as he presses their mouths together, tongue pushing in against Jared’s. Their lips cling as they pull away, panting into each other’s mouths.
Jensen has that wide, deep look again. Jared would call it wonder if the thought didn’t make him feel like squirming in embarrassment. “What was that for?”
See? Stupid bastard. “You, dumb ass.” That needy, curious look doesn’t fade, though, so Jared elaborates. “Because I love you.”
Jensen looks gobsmacked for a second before he turns away again, trying to pass it off with a strained smile. “Still?” It’s supposed to be jokey, Jared’s sure, but it comes out sort of broken instead.
“Dude. It’s been less than a day since the last time I said that. You think it’s just gonna stop? Poof?”
Hesitantly, slow, like he’s giving something up, Jensen slides along the wall until his head rests against Jared’s shoulder. Sighing, he turns his face and lets Jared’s shirt muffle him. “...best thing that ever happened to me.”
Well, there’s only one answer to that. “Same here.”
Apparently Jensen doesn’t agree, though. He gives another bitter laugh, head shaking against Jared’s shoulder.
“It’s true.” Jared settles his hand on Jensen's knee, squeezing once. “Who you were for them, it doesn’t change who you are for me.” He hadn’t really had a chance to think about it yet, but now, saying it, it is true. Whatever Jensen did back then, he was always this underneath, Jared’s sure of it.
“Tha-” Whatever Jensen was going to say is lost as his body jerks upright, going stiff.
“Jen?” Jared cuts off, stilled by Jensen’s whispered hiss and a tight, warning hand on his thigh. He must have heard something. Jensen's hand goes tight on his leg again, but he doesn’t need the signal, he hears the distant scuffling this time. Damn! They’d been here so long he thought they were in the clear.
Jensen eases his grip and moves away from Jared, quiet as a mouse. He crawls toward a haphazard pile of metal bars shoved under the lowest part of the stairs, probably rejects from the stands of rebar. They scrape against the floor as he grabs two of the shorter bars, hopefully not loud enough to give them away, one for himself and the other extended to Jared. He does have a gun still, Jared's pretty sure, but maybe this is better for the element of surprise or something. That and a tiny, metal lined cubbyhole with only one exit probably isn’t the best place to be trapped in a gun fight.
Armed, crouched against the wall, and as ready as they’re going to get, they wait.
The sound of footsteps gets closer and closer until, just past the nearest hulking piece of machinery, two figures come in to view in one of the dirty yellow pools of light. On Jensen’s wave, Jared follows him out of the little space, both of them crouching low behind the machine. Jared’s sweaty grip on the rod tightens as Jensen sneaks some little piece of metal off the surface; a nut or a screw or something, and throws it into the distance. The two men both turn to the noise and then there’s no time to be sure of anything. Jensen is sprinting around the machine and Jared can only follow.
The first one, longer hair, blue shirt, goes down under the combined force of Jensen’s swing and body, both of them careening into a nearby workbench. His own target, blond, dark coat, turns to him with a surprised gasp. Jared’s already swinging the bar, aiming for the guy’s head, but he catches him in the shoulder instead. Good thing, too. The guy had already been raising his pistol and the strike to his shoulder fucks up his aim; his shot fires wide.
”Jared?”
“I’m good!” He answers Jensen’s panicked yell, but can’t spare a glance for him. His next swing is on target, connecting to the guy’s hands with a crunch, breaking his grip so the gun goes flying. With a pained, frustrated yell, his opponent dives for it. Jared gets to it before him, swinging the piece of rebar like a golf club and sending the gun skittering into the darkness. He follows up with a hard knee into the guy’s side, making him stagger in the other direction while Jared raises his weapon to try for another hit. He never finishes the swing, though, stopped by the reverberating bang of another gunshot behind them.
With a jerking, instinctual spin, he turns around, body locking with fear, heart trying to cram itself into his throat. Jen.
But Jensen is fine, for a certain definition of it. Not shot any way. He’s struggling with the other guy, shoved up against one of the larger machines bolted to the floor. There’s a gun on the floor beside them; it must be Jensen’s since the guy he’s fighting has his own gun in his hand, pushed to one side in Jensen's straining grip. Jensen has his knife in his other hand, blade trembling as the man shoves it away. They grapple and kick at each other, trying to find a weakness without giving one up. A quick glance and a widening of Jensen’s eyes is all the warning Jared has before the guy he’d been fighting tackles Jared from the side, taking easy advantage of his distraction.
They go down with matching yells, rolling over the floor. Jared loses his grip on the bar as it catches between them, loses his grip on reality for a second as a fist punches into his temple and his vision greys out. His legs wrap around the guy’s waist, muscle memory from a year or so of high school wrestling giving him some control over the fight and enough leverage to flip them over. On top now, head still spinning, Jared slams his elbow into the guy’s chin, snapping his head back. It makes a satisfying crack when his skull collides with the hard concrete floor. He spares a second to look up, searching out Jensen.
It’s not good.
Jensen and the guy he’s fighting are still pressed against the side of that machine, but now the knife and the gun are nowhere in sight. Instead, two hands are wrapped around Jensen's throat, squeezing. Red faced, Jensen struggles, clawing at the hands while his eyes roll back in his head. He needs help. Now.
With a roar, Jared throws himself to the side, pulling the man under him into a violent roll. The momentum gives him enough power to heave the man into a stand of tools, knocking the whole thing down in a rattling clamour. Jared is on his feet in a flash, racing towards Jensen. He wraps his arm around the neck of the man attacking Jensen and grabs a handful of his hair, yanking him back in a choke-hold. The man lets go with a yell and falls back against Jared’s chest, knocking them both off balance. They fall to the floor, Jared hitting it flat. The impact knocks his breath out of him and something hard digs sharp pain into his spine; they must have landed on some of the tools he knocked down. It all leaves him dazed, helpless to block a hard elbow ramming into his cheekbone. He cries out as stars burst in his skull, arms falling loose with the pain.
Free, the man on top of him crawls away, moving toward Jensen’s crumpled, coughing form. No, not toward Jensen, toward the discarded knife between them. Shit! Head still swimming, Jared fights to clear the fog in his head, but it’s like moving through water, everything slow and distorted. He thinks he yells out but neither of them react and then it’s too late, the guy has Jensen’s knife in his hand and he’s staggering to his feet.
Jensen, breath still ragged in his abused throat, finally comes out of it enough to spot the guy coming at him. He starts crawling away, making for his own fallen pistol. But it’s too far, the guy will be on him before he gets to it. Jared forces himself to his hands and knees but he’s not going to be fast enough either, he can’t make it, he can’t stop-
A gleam by his knee catches his eye. Not a tool, a gun. He was laying on a gun.
The shot fires and the recoil is kicking through his arm before he even realises he’s picked it up. Ten feet away, the man drops to his knees with a wet gasp, blood blooming through the back of his shirt. He falls forward over Jensen’s legs, gasps again, and goes still, knife slipping out of his lax grip.
The tip of the gun weaves down and Jared brings it up again with a jerk, aiming at the empty space where the man had been standing, breath coming in hard through his nose. He got him. He got him. He...
Suddenly, Jensen seems to spasm and Jared has the fleeting certainty that the guy still did it somehow, still hurt him. But Jensen is yelling, lifting something in his hand and then something screams past Jared’s ear and drowns out the world with concussive shock, spinning him to one side on reflex. Behind him, the other man, the one he threw into the tool rack, staggers back a step. Blood drips from a crushed, ragged hole in his cheek and his gun, aimed at Jared’s back seconds before, drops from nerveless fingers. He crumples to the floor with a puzzled frown, dead before he hits the ground.
The blood pooling under the man’s head grows as Jared stares in shock, hypnotized by the even spread of it and the strange, rushing sensation in his head, like a roaring wind.
Hands wrap around his trembling wrists some time later, shocking Jared. He starts, pulling his gun back up with a gasp.
“Whoa! It’s okay, it’s just me.” It’s Jensen, pushing his wrists back down. It takes his mind a few seconds to catch up with reality and let his arms go limp. His whole body goes slack, hard tension rushing out until the only thing holding him up is Jensen’s grip and the shaking aftershocks of adrenaline.
Holy shit.
Flexing stiff fingers, Jared eases his cramped grip on the gun and slides it into his pocket with a grimace. It’s a miracle he didn’t shoot himself, or Jensen, or- “I shot someone.” He sounds amazed more than anything else, which is pretty accurate.
“I know, I know you did.” Jensen’s hand moves from Jared’s wrists to his face, skims just below a painful spot on his cheek and down his neck in a reassuring caress. “You had to. You did good.” He pulls Jared to him, forehead to forehead, his hoarse voice filling the space between them. “Holy shit, Jared. You okay?”
Jared nods, and it’s as true as it needs to be. He’s more okay than he should be, probably. Jensen, on the other hand... “You’re hurt.” Wide bruises are already forming on his throat, dark on irritated red. His eyebrow is split and swollen, and blood oozes from a ragged cut on his forehead. Jared touches careful fingers to it, tracing the wound. He looks... alive.
Jensen’s cheek quirks up in half a smile. “It’s fine, don’t-” He stops, pulling away with an alert lift to his head. “Shit.”
Sirens wail in the distance, getting louder with each second. All the tension that had been draining away comes back with a rush. “Do we have to run?” He knows the answer before he’s even done asking, considering the mess around them. And back at that place they locked him up in. And the car.
“Yeah” Jensen nods, pulling him to his feet. “Just one more time, I promise. And then we can figure out... I don’t know, something.”
The window works as well for an exit as it did for an entrance and then they’re out and running. Back over the fence as the sirens get closer, over the gravel lot and around the corner of the next building just before red and blue flashes start to light up the area. They move as fast as they can make themselves, sprinting past walls and jumping over concrete barriers, skidding down the high banks of a city street and across, up the other side in a scramble. On the other side, the industrial buildings make way for more of a downtown area; dark windowed stores and run-down office buildings mixed in with the sickly neon of old dive bars.
They slow down to a jog, cutting across streets and between buildings, running until, finally, Jared can’t go on. From the heaving of his lungs to the aching of his muscles, the pounding in his head and the overload of information, it’s all just too much. He stops abruptly in the middle of an alley, barely lit by dim streetlights from either end, and leans against the nearest wall, panting for breath.
Jensen pulls up short a few feet away, turning back. “Jared?”
He holds up a hand from his forward slump, waving away the concern in Jensen's voice. “Sorry, just need a sec. Gotta pull myself together.”
Jensen falls quiet as Jared’s breathing starts to slow and the throb in his skull eases off. Then slow footsteps approach him, a supportive hand curling over his shoulder. “You know you had to, right? He was gonna kill us, you had to shoot him.”
What... oh. Jared straightens up, shoving sweaty bangs out of his face. “No, not- I mean yeah, that sucked.” Definitely sucked, but it’s going to have to be something he deals with later. “It’s just... the crash and the running and my head. Had to stop for a minute.”
“Oh!” Jensen looks relieved for a split second before his face clouds over with worry and irritation. “You said you were okay.” Strong hands are on Jared before he can blink, turning him by the jaw while Jensen lifts up on his toes for a closer look.
“I am. I’m okay, I just needed- ow!” Jared tries to fend him off, but it’s a losing battle as Jensen pokes around the goose egg on his head, knocking Jared’s hands away when he tries to protect himself. “Ow, will you-” His hands get pushed back again and Jared lets them fall to his sides in surrender. “You could at least be a little more careful if you think it’s that bad, damn.”
“Just shut up for a minute and let me see.” Jensen frowns in concentration, feeling around the tender skin under Jared’s hair. There’s not exactly huge amounts of light here, so Jared’s not even sure there’s much point to it, but he keeps still under Jensen’s fingers all the same, head lowered. After a few more pokes and prods, admittedly gentler this time, Jensen’s hands slide around to the front of Jared’s face, thumbs pulling down on the delicate skin under his eyes to open them wider.
Blinking reflexively against the stretch, Jared stares in bewilderment as Jensen peers into his eyes, turning his head this way and that. An amused grin threatens to break free. “Do you even know what you’re looking for, Doctor Back-alley?” He rolls his eyes and reaches up to pull at Jensen’s wrists, shaking his head as Jensen lets go with a huffy sigh. “Jen, I swear, I’m okay. Not great, but I’ll be fine.”
Jensen looks away with a bullish frown. “Yeah, alright. Fine.”
He says it, but Jared’s pretty sure Jensen’s far from fine. He seems restless, twitchy, and angrier than the exchange really calls for. Maybe it’s worry, maybe it’s all the action finally catching up with him, everything hitting home at once and leaving him spinning. Whatever it is that has Jensen grumbling and running a frustrated hand through his hair, it pulls at Jared, compels him to reach out and wrap his hand around Jensen’s wrist again.
“Hey.” His voice soft and low, he squeezes Jensen’s wrist once, reassuring. “Really. I’m good.” Jensen looks up again, something lost and scared hiding deep in his eyes. Jared smiles. “You did it, okay? You got me.”
Jensen sucks in a breath and nods on the exhale, looking more embarrassed than anything else now, in the face of Jared’s sincerity. But he loses that lost look at least, all that Jared wanted in the first place. He knows he can get more, though, because whatever Jensen might think, Jared still knows him better than anything. He pulls Jensen’s hand to his chest, clutching it tightly in two fists, torso heaving like something out of a romance novel. Breathless, he bats his eyelashes. “You’re my hero!”
With a barking laugh, Jensen yanks his hand away. “Jesus Christ.” He’s still laughing, that wide mouthed, full body laugh that Jared likes best. “I fucking hate you sometimes, I really do.”
Swooping in for a quick kiss, Jared smiles against his lips. Because yeah, he just wanted to get Jensen laughing, but he kinda meant it, too. Sinking down a little more, he presses his mouth to Jensen’s again, slower this time, sweeter. Sweet enough that it’s a surprise when Jensen surges up against him.
It’s sort of a weird place to be making out, and Jared’s head still hurts, but not enough to protest anything. He opens easily to Jensen’s tongue, falling back against the brick wall with a muffled ‘oof’. Jensen’s hands wind their way into the front Jared’s coat, twisting it as they kiss against the dirty wall. Sounds rise up from his throat, not whimpers but nearly; needy, airy noises that Jared answers by sliding his hands up, large palms fitting neatly under Jensen's jaw as he pulls them closer together.
A few long, slow moments later, Jensen pulls away with a wet noise, breathing heavily. “This is-” He stops, swallowing the raspy sound out of his voice. “Worst idea ever.”
It really is, but even as Jared’s nodding his agreement, he’s pulling Jensen back in. After all, Jensen isn’t the only one whose night is finally catching up with them. But where that left Jensen twitchy and needing reassurance, it leaves Jared on a plateau of excitement and anxiety that really has nowhere else to go. Nowhere but here, with his hands slipping under Jensen’s shirt, following the soft but solid lines of his stomach, curving and gripping the warm indent of his waist.
They rock against the wall, mouths hard and soft in turn as they switch angles, lips and teeth and tongues working against each other. Jared gets a knee between Jensen's thighs and they haven’t been grinding on each other for twenty seconds before Jensen breaks and drops his hands down to Jared’s pants. It looks like a huge force of will, but Jensen manages to stop himself, thumb rubbing the button as he he looks up for confirmation.
Waves of need and desire flood Jared, memories flashing in his head of those hands on guns and knives and hardened into tight fists. It shouldn’t be hot, it shouldn’t make him want to bite and fuck and have, but it is and it does. Oh fuck, whatever, it’s not like they’re not already living out some action movie fantasy. Jared nods swiftly, leaning back against the wall again, open and inviting.
The sound of Jared’s zipper lowering seems loud even with their panting breaths and the distant din of the late night city. Jared’s gasp as Jensen’s hand finds his half-hard cock is even louder, head bumping against the wall as the shock of direct pleasure shoots through him.
“Shh, shh.” Jensen’s other hand comes up, cradling the back of Jared’s head where it hit against the rough brick. “Take it easy.” His voice is low and dark, husky as his hand works up and down Jared's cock, bringing him fully hard.
Jared grunts his acceptance, head tilted back and hips lifting into Jensen’s fist while he curves his hands over Jensen’s shoulders. Jensen’s free hand slips down from his head, flattening against his chest to hold him to the wall while Jensen’s grip tightens around his cock.
The pace is slow, but firm and steady enough to have Jared gasping and shuddering, fingers clawing into Jensen’s shoulders each time that tight friction reaches the tip of his cock and slides back down. Jensen is so concentrated on him, so focused that Jared doesn’t even realize what a state he’s in until one of his own rough gasps is met by an answering, guttural moan. The hand against Jared’s chest has twisted his shirt into a tight spiral, shaking with repressed need.
Fuck, they’ve been together so long, but Jared still can’t believe how much they affect each other.
His hands fly from Jensen’s shoulders to his waist, yanking his pants open with a litany of ‘come on, come on’ on his lips, freeing Jensen’s aching hard cock with a triumphant growl.
Gritting his teeth around a ragged cry, Jensen jerks in Jared’s fingers, crowding into him. “Jared, Jared, fuck.” It doesn’t take a second to line themselves up together, cocks sliding against each other between their hands.
They grind into each other, riding the kicks and shudders of pleasure, Jensen giving cut off moans with every breath, just on the edge of whimpers, and Jared wrapping an arm around his shoulder, grasping at him with clawed fingers while they move together.
“Oh my God, Jen.” Jared hits it first, that long, frozen second before the rush of orgasm. It comes over him in a wave, a gentle push more than a shove, that has him panting bone-deep breaths and spilling over Jensen’s fingers almost before he’s realized he’s coming. It’s a deep throb, driving his hips forward with slow, heavy force. Such a prolonged slide that he has time, even as his cock is jumping and pulsing against Jensen's, slicking them both up, he has time to ponder how this might be the smoothest, easiest orgasm he’s ever had.
Jensen follows not far behind, the slippery drag of Jared’s come helping to pull his orgasm out of him. It’s rougher for him, a wild, shaking, clutching crest that has him burying his face against Jared’s shoulder to muffle throaty yells. He heaves up against Jared in bone jarring thrusts, cock jerking so hard that the force of it leaves long streaks of come high into Jared’s shirt. At the end of it, he has both arms wrapped around Jared’s neck in a desperate grasp, pulling himself up into the dark, wet heat between them as his boots scuff against the cracked pavement.
After, they catch their breath as Jensen staggers to the side, leaning all his weight into the wall beside Jared. Hands sticky and clumsy, they tuck themselves back into their pants with weak matching sighs.
Jared lets his head fall to the side, peering at Jensen. “That was sort of, uh...”
A slow, easy smile splits Jensen’s lips. “Little weird, yeah.”
Jared slides against the wall until their shoulders bump together and shares a tired grin with Jensen. “Sort of awesome, too.” His smile softens as Jensen’s fingers brush against his, hanging between them, a subtle touch of affection in the darkness. “So. Wanna get out of here?”
“Mm.” Jensen’s head tips back against the wall, eyes turning to the thin strip of night sky above them. “We’ll have to go back to the apartment first, grab some stuff there quick and then head out of town. That’d be safest. Maybe stop by a-”
The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupts him, sending them both jumping away from the wall with an alarmed jolt.
“Thanks for taking that little break, guys. Not sure how hygienic it was, but thanks all the same. You would’ve completely lost me, otherwise.”
It’s Sheppard, of course it is, standing in the mouth of the alley with a pistol raised, silhouetted by the streetlight behind him.
Jared, stiff with shock and fear, stumbles to the other side of the alley as Jensen shoves him away. Sheppard’s aim stays trained on Jensen until Jensen moves for his own gun inside his jacket.
With a cluck of his tongue, Sheppard swings his aim over to Jared. “Stop moving or I’m going to do a very bad thing to your friend here, Jen.” Sheppard steps forward, eyes never leaving Jensen, aim steady on Jared’s frozen form. He looks winded and a little ragged, but calm. “You know, I was starting to think I was completely screwed, but looks like luck has smiled on me for once tonight. Weapons on the ground, please.” At Jensen’s hesitation, he takes another step toward Jared, weapon thrust forward threateningly. “I don’t think I’ll ask again.”
Jensen’s whole body sort of stutters, caught between wanting to protect Jared and not wanting to provoke Sheppard. “Okay! Okay, just... here.” He holds up his hands, palms out, before slowly pulling out his gun and skimming it across the ground to Sheppard.
Sheppard rolls his eyes. “All of them, Rambo. Why do you both keep acting like I’m an idiot? Yes, alright, getting trapped in my car wasn’t my best moment but come on!” He waves his gun at Jared, who starts back in fear. “All of them.”
Jensen adds his knife and the brass knuckles to the pile, tossing them over to Sheppard’s feet. “There. That’s it, okay? Can you point the gun at me now?”
“Nah.” Sheppard shrugs. “I sort of like the dynamic we have going here, it’s working quite well. What next?” He holds up a finger as if inspiration just struck him. “Oh! Right. The ultimatum part.” He points at Jensen. “You go with me, right now, and we leave your big man here all safe and cozy. Or you don’t and I shoot him. And then drag your weeping, heartsick form away with me or something, I don’t know.”
Jensen, his wary, neutral voice replaced with snarling anger, takes a step forward. “I’ll kill you if you do.”
Unaffected, Sheppard nods. “You’ll try, yes, but then it still remains that I’ll be the one with the gun.”
Suddenly, Jared remembers that he left that metalworks factory with something extra in his pocket, cursing himself for letting it slip his mind. They’re all too close, though, he’ll alert Sheppard no matter what he does. It’ll have to be quick.
In a flash, he yanks a dead man’s gun out of his pocket, fingers so tense around the grip that the barrel trembles where it aims at Sheppard’s head. “Not the only one.”
Jensen hisses out Jared’s name in alarm, too late to stop him. He looks more afraid now that he has all night, and Jared is sorry for it, but there didn’t seem to be much other choice.
Sheppard steps back quickly, nervous gaze flicking back and forth between them, aim steady at Jared. “Alright, okay, don’t be rash now.” He hold up a hand, placating. “This only evens us out a little.”
Jared stays silent, wrapping his other hand around the grip of the gun as well, trying to counter the tremble.
Sheppard’s polished shoes click on the ground as he takes another step back. “You know we don’t need you, right? He’s already here.” He nods sideways towards Jensen. “You could walk away right now and I swear on my mother, no one would come after you.” A sympathetic smile curves his lips. “You’ve really got nothing to do with this business, everyone knows that.”
Jared frowns, that hollow smile souring his stomach.
Whatever Sheppard sees on his face, he must take it as encouragement. He goes on, words fast and eager. “Don’t know why you’d stay, anyway. To protect a liar? And a murderer? He used to do this, you know.” He gestures with the gun like he’s trying to point out their whole situation. “Hunt down poor bastards who thought they could run away and hide. Last one before he tried it himself? I hear he shot him in the stomach and just waited. Probably took hours. You wanna risk your life on protecting that?”
A calm settles over Jared, then. A sort of warm blanket of confidence that slows his heart and eases the tension in his arms. Yes. He does.
The trembling of the gun stops and his aim goes solid as a rock.
“I don’t care and I’m not going anywhere. You said they just hired you so are you only here for the money or is it worth your life? Because I’ve got something worth dying for here and I will shoot you.”
It’s a stand-off, then. Jared’s hard gaze against Sheppard’s narrow, nervous, calculating eyes. He’s not sure if it will work, he meant every word but will Sheppard believe him? And backed into a corner, will he care? Jared’s never been shot before but he imagines the horrible, tearing shock that could come with it. Would he even know or would he be dead before it registered? He keeps his eyes steady on Sheppard, but suddenly all he wants to do is look at Jensen. Just to look at him. If he’s only going to see one more thing in his life, it might as well be worth it.
But then Sheppard looks down, and Jared knows he’s got him.
“Alright, okay.” Hands raising, Sheppard lets his gun dangle loose from his thumb. “You win.” The weapon lands on the cracked pavement next to Jensen's discarded ones, spinning past them. “Crazy buggers.”
Jared relaxes. Slightly. “Jen.” No answer. He stays on Sheppard, not trusting him an inch. “Jen?” When there’s still no answer, he spares a quick glance. Then another, longer one. Jensen is just... staring at him with a stunned sort of look on his face. Just staring. “Jensen.
Jensen snaps out of it with a start. “Sorry, uh, just... what?” Over to the side, Sheppard scoffs.
Jared fights down a smile. There’s a time and a place for getting butterflies over the way your boyfriend looks at you, and this is so not it. “What do we do now?”
“Oh! Uh, right.” Jensen gathers up the pile of weapons on the ground and spirits everything but his own gun away into his clothes. He glares at Sheppard. “On the ground, hands on your head.” Sheppard complies and Jensen steps up to his kneeling form.
For a moment, Jared thinks Jensen’s going to shoot him. So does Sheppard by the way he flinches in anticipation. Honestly, he’s pretty sure even Jensen thought he was going to shoot him, the hand not holding his gun contracting into an angry fist. But a few moments pass, the tension in the air eases, and Jensen moves behind Sheppard, crouching to give him a cursory pat-down.
“We need to find something to tie him with.” And that’s a definitive answer to the ‘are we going to shoot him’ question. Jared can’t help but feel relieved, no matter how bad an idea it might be to leave him here. He’s had about as much in-cold-blood as he can handle for one night. He casts around for something ropey while Jensen searches Sheppard for anything useful, coming away with his phone and wallet. They end up using some old plastic box ties to bind him to a ladder bolted into one of the brick walls, gagging him with a strip cut off Jared’s shirt.
When they’re done, Jensen stands in front of him, arms crossed. “Find a way to say no if they send you after us again, you know I’m not gonna make this choice next time.”
Sheppard mutters something belligerent into the wad of cloth, sneering around it. Jared can’t tell if he’s going to follow the advice, but there’s not much else they can do now, so it’ll have to do.
Moving away, they head toward the mouth of the alley, stopping together just outside the light from the street.
“So...” He could ask ‘what now’ again, but it seems pretty self evident.
Jensen frowns at the gun still in his hand, checking it over for.. whatever you check guns over for. Seriously, it’s a miracle Jared didn’t shoot himself. “Same plan, we go back to the apartment, grab what we can while we can and then blow town.”
“Can we call people after that? Just... friends and family, let ‘em know we’re okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.” Jensen looks up, apologetic. “It’s not- we’ll come back, I promise. This isn’t permanent. We’ll figure something out.”
“I know.” He smiles at Jensen, trying for sureness. Did he ask for his life to be completely turned around when he woke up this morning? Of course not. But whatever happens now, he’s in it to the end. “Let’s get out of here, okay?” He heads back the way they came but a hand around his wrist stops him short. Jensen, grip tight, wavers between earnestness and regret.
“Jared, I- “ He pauses, seeming to rethink what he was going to say. When it comes, his voice is rough. “Just... thanks.”
Jared smiles, small but genuine, as he steps back into Jensen’s space, leaning in for a quick, soft kiss. “Love you.”
Jensen’s face twists as they pull apart. “Aw man, not in front of the kidnapper!”
Well behind them, Sheppard gives an exasperated groan as Jared shoves at Jensen’s shoulder, laughing. He pulls his wrist through Jensen's grip, winding their fingers together and tugging him towards the alley’s exit with a grin. “Come on.”
“Where you headed?”
Jensen shrugs, squinting around at the dinky little gas station they’ve stopped at as he holds the phone to his ear. “Not sure.” They’ve been on the road for a few days now, driving a stolen, beat up little car that Jared made him promise they’d come back and pay for later. They’re heading north, mostly because there happens to be a lot of north. “Jared keeps suggesting that lake house but... I’ve already gotten him into this, we can’t give them any reason to look into his family, too.” On the other end of the phone, Jim grunts, sounding dubious. “Yeah, I know. But I’ve gotta do what I can. He’s already... I mean, I keep thinking he’ll be gone whenever I get out of the car you know?”
“I don’t know, doesn’t sound like he’s going anywhere to me. From what you’ve told me, anyway. At length.”
Jensen laughs, leaning against the car. “Fuck you, man.” Jared had been the one to do the supply run this time, leaving him alone at the pump, watching the numbers click by.
“Look.” Jim’s voice goes serious. “You’re gonna need help.”
“Jim.”
“No, shut up. You’re gonna need a hand in this and I happen to have a few. And you are gonna take them.”
“No, man, we can’t... “
Jim talks over him. “First thing, you’re gonna come here, stay out of sight for a few weeks at least. I’ve got an extra bed and some stupid bastard’s stolen drug money that I’m not using.”
It’s too much. “Jim.”
“You do it, or I have your mugshot up in every city, town, and slight widening of the road in America within the week.”
Guess he can’t argue with that. Still, it takes him a second to collect himself. “...thanks, Jim. I mean it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Just keep heading the way you’re heading and I’ll call you in a few days with directions.”
“You know where we are?”
Jim snorts and Jensen can practically feel the smugness emanating down the phone-line. “Please. Who are you talking to?”
“Good point. I guess I’ll talk to you later then.” His only answer is the click of the line going dead. Nice guy, Jim, but not much for social graces. When he turns around again, Jared is walking up with a bulging plastic bag, giving him a wide grin.
“They had Twinkies!”
Jensen shakes his head, biting his lip in amusement. “Score.”
Jared gives him a quick nod of agreement before he climbs into the car, tossing the bag onto the console between the seats. Jensen joins him, settling into the driver’s seat. He turns his head to ask if Jared paid for the gas but stops, watching.
The photo in Jared’s hands is starting to look rough around the corners, probably from whatever pocket Jared had it squirreled away in. Jensen doesn’t remember just what had been going on when it was taken; it was a party at one of Jared’s friends places, but he doesn’t remember exactly what put that enraptured look on his face or the laughing grin on Jared’s. His voice comes out quiet. “You saved that from the warehouse, didn’t you?”
Jared smiles to himself, thumbs running along the edge of the photo. “Yup.”
They’d gone back to the apartment but had taken only the absolute essentials, in and gone in maybe fifteen minutes. Though probably closer to twenty five including the time it took to convince their neighbour to look after Barry for them while they took care of a ‘family emergency’. Still, no time for grabbing anything sentimental. A wave of guilt settles over him as he watches Jared’s fingers caress what is probably the only piece of their ‘old’ life that they’re going to have for a long time.
“You don’t-” His throat closes over his words, he swallows past it. “Jared, you don’t have to come. You don’t...we could figure something out, I could take you to the cops maybe.” Even as he says it, he knows what the answer will be. Knows he’s only asking because he already knows what the answer is. If he was any kind of man he would have driven off while Jared was in the store, left him safe behind. But he can’t. If it makes him a coward, then fine. The only way he’s letting go is if Jared lets go first.
With that small, inward smile still on his lips, Jared slides the picture back into his pocket. “No, I think I’m good where I am.”
Jensen shakes his head, but he still can’t fight the smirk that wants to come out. “You seriously don’t know what you’re getting into here.”
“I know. It’s kind of exciting.” Jared makes an exaggerated face at him, wide eyes and a little gasp of air.
Rolling his eyes, Jensen laughs. “You’ve got problems, you realize that right?”
“Yeah.” With the kind of sudden movement that could get a guy punched if he’s not careful, Jared stretches over the space between them. His aim is a little off, hitting the corner of Jensen’s mouth instead of the full on center, but the kiss is warm and firm. Decisive. “But I like ‘em.” He falls back into his seat, waving at the view out the window. “Come on, we’re burning daylight! We know where we’re going yet?”
Turning his head to hide an embarrassed but undeniably pleased flush at the kiss, Jensen nods. “We’re gonna go meet with a friend of mine, the one who helped me get out of all this in the first place. Well, try to get out.”
“Jim?”
“Yeah.” Jensen blinks, taken aback. He’s surprised Jared remembers, considering all the distractions they’d had when he told that story. “We’ll probably spend a while there, if you’re up for it.”
Jared shrugs. “Beats driving around in a car all day. My legs were not built for a compact.”
Jensen raises his eyebrows as he pulls out of the gas station, giving the cramped stretch of Jared’s legs a lascivious look. “I think we both know what your legs were built for, baby.”
Dragging the bag from the gas station into his lap with a snort, Jared digs through it before pulling out a candy bar. “Perv.”
“Every day.” Once they’re on the highway he peers over, trying to get a look in the bag. “You get my chips?”
“Oh my god, seriously? Every time!”
A little foil bag smacks Jensen in the face before he can duck away,. Another bag, twin to the first, crunches as it hits the side of his head. Beside him, Jared throws his now empty hands in the air.
“When have I ever forgotten your chips, man? God damn!”
Laughing, Jensen throws up an arm in protection. “There was that one time!”
He basks in the comfort of the playful, familiar argument as the miles roll away under their feet, disappearing behind them.