Fic: Missing Piece of the Puzzle 5/7, Jared/Jensen/Genevieve, NC-17
Title: Missing Piece of the Puzzle
Fandom: Supernatural RPF
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki/Genevieve Cortese
Chapter: 5/7
Length 4444
Rating NC-17
Warnings/Kinks dub-con, mpreg, dystopia, sort of slave fic
Summary In a world where women can no longer have children, genetically engineered Omegas fill this function- if you can pay the price (and live with the consequences.) Jared and Gen are happily married, and buying Omega Jensen Ackles for the birth of their child seems like the perfect solution. The only downside is that Omegas can't survive the birth of a child- and that by design they degenerate after a certain age. Not that Omegas know this.
Notes Based on this prompt. With thanks once again to tipsykitty for her time and edit!
Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4
The thing about contracts, Jared very quickly discovered, is that they're near impossible to understand if you're just skimming through. He didn't have a clue about most of the legalese used in them, and couldn't help thinking that lawyers had devised some impenetrable language precisely to keep themselves in jobs. Some bits of it seemed to make sense if he squinted but then with three additional clauses they stopped making sense almost entirely. He tried to take it a paragraph at a time, but kept getting bogged down in the details of what was being said when he just wanted the bigger picture. All he could tell for certain after dipping in and out was that in a very real way they'd rented Jensen rather than bought him. When his contract was terminated, his remains would be retained by the Farm, though of course Jared and Gen between them would have full control and ownership of any issue produced by Jensen, a phrase that sent a surge of uneasiness through Jared. It's a baby, he thought, you can't own a baby. He was so absorbed in reading his way through the codicils at the end that he didn't notice the cup of coffee appearing to his right, and when he finally looked up and saw it, it had long gone cold. He made a face at it and made his way into the kitchen to make another one.
When he was done with that he wandered into the study to see how Gen and Jensen were doing respectively and with careless ease insinuated himself into the group and tried not to think about the contract. He shoved the contract and all of the uneasiness he felt to one side, sure that he was overreacting, that so much time spent making shit up for the vids was warping his ability to tell what was normal and what was odd. He didn't completely stop thinking about it; sometimes at night as Gen lay tucked into the curve of his arm, and Jensen was a heavy weight on his legs, he let his mind wander back to the contract, but there was nothing he could do to change it anyway, so he let it go for now.
Jared could pinpoint exactly the day, even the moment, when it all went wrong. He and Gen had slept late, and Jensen had been up long before them, making breakfast and then disappearing somewhere. Jared hadn't thought anything of it, and had launched straight into work. It wasn’t until hours later that he surfaced to get a cup of coffee.
Gen, buried deep in her work, barely glanced up, and Jensen had disappeared somewhere. Remembering what had happened last time Jensen had vanished like this, Jared set off to search for him again. They were just starting to find some sense of equilibrium again after first the disturbance and then the clinic visit; he didn't want a repeat of whatever had caused Jensen to break down last time. He needn't have worried about another bout of crying though, Jensen was in his own room, stretched out on the bed, hands pillowed under his head as he stared up at the ceiling. His face was blank and slack as though he were thinking very, very hard about something, and Jared took advantage of the opportunity to lean down and kiss him hard enough to wipe that look off his face.
Jensen responded as enthusiastically as usual, and his hands went straight to Jared's zipper in a motion that felt so practiced that Jared's libido wilted noticeably, though he couldn’t have said why.
"We don't have to fuck every time I kiss you, you know," Jared said, and looked at Jensen for a response. Jensen's eyes were politely inquiring as though he didn't quite believe that, but he didn't push the point- that wasn't what he did. Instead he took his hands away from Jared's crotch as easily as he'd put them there, eyes flicking back to the ceiling as though there was something terribly fascinating there. Jared wondered for a second if this was what Jensen looked like on down-time and hell, he hadn't thought his dick could get any less interested. He stood back up unsure of what he felt or why, just knowing that right now there was nothing that Jensen could do right, and that it was his fault, not Jensen's.
Jensen wasn't moving and when Jared stroked his arm affectionately, briefly, he moved it away like he didn't even want to be touched. It took a while for Jared to process exactly what he was feeling, but mostly it was shock- Jensen had never done this before- intermixed with concern for Jensen, and underneath it all an unpleasant sensation of indignation. He was not sure why he was as horrified as he was at that. Surely he had a perfect right to be annoyed, even to be angry? This was not part of the contract, this was not what they'd signed up for. A little bit of him was thinking that Jensen didn't get to be standoffish and cold. He took his hand away anyway, sickened a little by himself. Surely he had some self control?
Jensen flicked his eyes back to him. "Can I do anything for you?" he asked, and began sitting up with intent as though it didn't matter what he did, just that he did something, and Jared felt a twist of irritation run through him as he pressed Jensen back down- it was harder than he'd expected, Jared was bigger but Jensen was deceptively, surprisingly strong, and he didn't go back down until he'd untensed himself and sank back. He was looking at Jared properly now, and he didn't look like Jensen- his eyes were narrowed as though he were looking past Jared's skin, past his face into his mind, and Jared felt the strangest urge to cover himself as though that could possibly help. "Well, if I can't do anything for you," Jensen said, and Jared wasn't sure if there was the slightest, tiniest hint of exasperation in that tone, and that twist of irritation grew stronger, squirmed its way through him until it was practically all he felt. Damn Jensen, always so reasonable, so inhuman, so ready and willing to oblige when that wasn't what Jared wanted at all. Not that he could articulate precisely what he wanted from Jensen, who wasn't Gen and wasn't equipped to provide him with the same sort of things.
Something hard poked him in the thigh as he shifted, and when he fumbled his hand under the cover he withdrew the book that he'd meant to throw away. The one he'd found under Jensen's bed- If This Is A Man- the time he'd found Jensen crying in the garden, the one and only time Jensen had slipped up so completely, shown anything beyond the standard pre-programmed love he came equipped with. He looked up with a question on his lips- why had Jensen kept it with him when it had upset him so much? and wasn't prepared for the flash of panic that had swept Jensen's eyes, and like a monkey's paw, the wish he'd expressed so silently a few minutes before was being granted in precisely the way he didn't want. He wanted a Jensen who was less Jensen-like and more at the same time, and here he was being granted that but with an extra bonus of fear.
When he looked up Gen was standing by the door, and Jared looked at her, raising his eyebrows. She nodded him out, and explained in a whisper that Jensen thought he might be having a bit of a delayed reaction to the shots- apparently they could cause nausea as the body adjusted, and Jared accepted it, felt guilty for pressing. "Should we phone the clinic?" he asked, and she thought about it.
"No," she decided in the end, "that should be a last resort I think. Jensen said he should feel better by the evening. He's almost over it he thinks.” Jared accepted that though something didn't quite ring true to him about the whole thing. Jensen had never been ill a day in his life, and he hadn’t looked ill, just tired and worn out.
Try as he might, he couldn't put a finger on it though, had to give up though it niggled away in the back of his mind, relentlessly tapping his brain as though he was missing the obvious. Jensen was better by the evening though- crisis over, bright big smile back on his face and sincere apologies spilling out all over. He sat with them as usual, watched them eat their food, quietly got drinks and cleared the plates, and always, always there was an abstracted quality to him, like he was a million miles away. In deference to his queasy stomach, they didn't have sex that night. Jensen lay there with them still and warm and heavy, breathing quietly and evenly as always, until Jared didn't know how he knew the other man wasn't asleep.
A day later it was like nothing had happened. Jensen was smiling and as talkative as he ever was again, trundling round the house fixing up odds and ends where he found them. When he'd done everything he could he lapsed back into general usefulness until Jared had a great idea. This house was older than the average and although they'd had the general computer system built into the house there were still failures and flaws that most places wouldn't have- which most of their friends couldn't believe they managed to live with- failing air conditioning, periodic fluctuations in signal all of which added to the charm for Jared and Gen. It'd belonged to his parents before him, and Jared had never changed much about it- his mother had had excellent taste so they’d left a lot of things as they’d been when they’d moved in. That included his mother’s workroom.
Jared had thought he was getting the hang of what Jensen was, but it was still with surprise that he realised just how interested Jensen was in the mains powered laser metal cutters, bangle machine and assorted other wood turning machinery that his mother had used for creating jewelry and art pieces. As a kid, he'd watched fascinated for hours as she'd shaped little twists of metal into jewelry, and embedded semi-precious gems into them before selling them as one-off originals. It had been an expensive pursuit and not something Jared had ever been interested in doing himself. By the time his parents had chosen to move closer to the city and leave the house to Jared, his mom had made the transition to the fine line lasers that were much more wieldy and had a great deal more safety catches than the old fashioned machinery.
He hadn't even been into the garage subsection that held those tools for what felt like years, but after he discussed it with Gen she'd thought it was a brilliant idea. "Fantastic," she said with genuine enthusiasm. "He really seems to like making and fixing things so that's a great idea. Do we need any stuff?"
"Nope," Jared said, "the machines are in great working order, and there are bits and pieces of scrap left over. If he enjoys it then we can buy him some more, I bet my mom still has contacts." He patted the woodturning machine. "I can't believe how old this stuff is," he said with a smile, and called Jensen in. Jared had been absolutely right- Jensen's face lit up at the sight- things to fix and then things to make, and he slipped away to spend most of his time in there. The only bad thing was, that the machines were power drains which put pressure on the main core and resulted in occasional blowouts of light and heat. The first time it happened Jensen had come as close as he could to a refusal to continue, citing that he was putting them at risk. Gen had settled that one with a kiss and a request for a bracelet which Jensen had laughingly acquiesced to.
He spent most of his time on the bracelet at first, beginning with neat, lifeless drawings, unskilled and untutored, and his first attempts were disasters- square and clunky, the easiest shapes to both draw and create. As time went by and he learned to handle the machines better though (and to offer his sketches for consideration) he learnt to turn out nice little pieces. Jared wasn’t exactly an expert on jewelry but he could see the difference between Jensen's careful little designs, and his mother's careless ease with her tools and her vision, and unbidden he remembered once again only an Omega like a defensive little nudge popping up whenever he thought about Jensen too much.
Jared took to popping in to check on Jensen from time to time, once or twice bringing him his silver sealed bags of food so he could break without disrupting his concentration. He couldn't ever remember being quite this happy or this productive; he'd finished all three of his contracts and only had to wait for the credit to come in now. Gen was flying as well within her own sphere- the world was so much smaller now, so many fewer people than the past that it was harder to make a splash but everything was on the move upwards, and Jared was basking a little bit, which really was his first mistake.
This particular afternoon was no different- Gen was in the study, conferencing in with the VP, Jensen was practicing his fine motor skills in the garage and Jared was taking it easy, when he noticed the light flickering. Clearly the power drain from the machines was taking its toll, and he popped along to tell Jensen to ease off on the usage, only to find the machine off, and a flushed and sweaty Jensen crawling out of a hole in the wall. "What are you doing?" Jared asked, offering a hand which Jensen used to pull himself upright.
"I've fiddled with the mainframe before," Jensen said ruefully, "I thought I could make it more efficient, stop the power draining so quickly," he nodded to the floor where an ancient manual was spread open, "but there was nothing I could do. I'm really sorry if it disrupted anything.
Jared shrugged it off. "Nothing important," he said, "just me being lazy," and Jensen gave a laugh at that, his eyes still sliding away from Jared as though to focus on something else, his face still fading red, and though he didn't say anything to Jensen, he voiced it to Gen later that night, when he was sure they were alone.
"Do you think Jensen could be ready?" he asked, and bit his lip as the words fell like bricks. "He seemed really weird earlier, all hot and flushed and like he'd been sick, and, well, it has been several months since the checkup.”
"Is that even possible?" Gen asked and if he hadn't known her so well even Jared might have missed the hunted look that flashed across her face. "You’re not supposed to be able to tell someone is pregnant until later. Besides, he takes a pregnancy test every week just in case, and he hasn’t even begun the regime at the clinic." There was something even he couldn’t read in her voice. "If he's pregnant then we’re going to have to back there and work on that DNA manipulation they were talking about."
Jared cuddled her closer against him. "None of that matters," he said and kissed the top of her head, "I mean we don’t even know if he is yet," and although neither of them had wanted it to happen this way or this soon, he felt a curl of excitement trickle through him at the thought. A few months from now, they might have their baby. And Jensen…. Jensen would be gone. Even in the privacy of his own mind he couldn't think more harshly than that. The platitudes the clinic had offered them skittered across his thoughts, gone, terminated, finished. Done with, and even in the depths of his happiness he felt a coldness. All the temporary joy had fled Gen as well now, and she was holding onto him less in a hug and more a grip of iron like she couldn't let him go.
"Don't say it," he said quietly, "please don't say it Gen. We're not even sure yet after all. I'm just going off Jensen not looking in top shape. He might just be ill or something." Even as he said it though, he was sure that he was wrong, a flash of intuition hitting him hard. This was happening. Jensen was pregnant.
There was a whole box of pregnancy tests; Jensen took one every week just in case. If he was confirmed pregnant then they could look into gene transference, making sure some of Gen's genetic traits got into the mix. Just a standard blood test and then they’d know. Jared had never inquired too closely into the exact mechanics of an Omega's body- that came far too close to the faintly taboo sounding 'medicine,' but he knew enough that a blood test would be preferable. All Omegas, male and female, ended up on the operating table so he wasn't even sure how the functions matched up.
Anyway, that wasn't what they were doing at least not at this moment. They sat with Jensen in absolute silence, waiting for the slow beep that would indicate whether he was expecting the baby or not, Gen curled up next to Jensen, Jared watching them both, not even sure any more which result he wanted the most. It took only a few seconds for the blood analysis to be completed and for the sound to inform them all that Jensen was pregnant.
Jensen's face was blank and unreadable, nothing of the joy that Jared had expected from everything the Clinic had said- that Omegas wanted their children, wanted nothing more than to have that child for their owners. Jared didn't know how to react, not when he wasn't even certain that he was happy himself, and in the end when Jensen dashed to the toilet to throw up, Jared didn't follow him. Instead he and Gen sat staring at each other, at a loss for words, as they listened to Jensen's footsteps recede.
When Jensen came back, he was calm, still not smiling, though he managed a weak twitch of the lips. "I'm really sorry," he said, "it was just a shock, I have no idea why that happened." He sat back down like they hadn't just discovered the best news to be expected, at least from Jensen's viewpoint. "I'm so excited about the baby," he said, and resurrected the same weak smile that he'd given them a few minutes before, eminently unconvincing though nobody felt up to challenging it at that moment in time.
Jared stared at his hands and let silence fall once again in the room, everything he could think to say, dying in his mouth, tasting of lies and defeat.
"I should sleep in the other room tonight," Jensen said quietly, though he didn't say 'my room'. "I wouldn't want to be sick on you after all," and though he tried to pass it off as a joke it didn't sound like it. Jared and Gen agreed automatically, and he shuffled off, leaving them to lie next to each other in a bed that seemed too empty.
s
Jared stared at the ceiling in the dark, and tried not to think of anything, until Gen whispered something into his neck. "Jared," she said softly and he didn't reply, pretended that he was asleep. Some things he didn't want to hear. She tucked her mouth up to his ear, and said what he'd been dreading. "I think he knows." No need to ask who or what. The idea was ridiculous of course, there was no way that Jensen could know, and yet Jared couldn't quite convince himself of that. What other reason could there be for Jensen to be so distraught over the news? As much as he tried to argue against it, it was the obvious solution.
"Gen," he said and he was not even sure what was in his own voice- entreaty maybe. There was no denial though, because in that second everything was clear, every single thing snapped back into place, everything made sense. Piece by piece it fell into position. "That night he was ill," Jared said, thinking out loud, words not keeping up with his brain but doing the best they could. "He wasn't sick."
"He just didn't want to look at us." Gen was up, off him immediately, wrenching open the bathroom, being sick like those words had had a direct line to her stomach. Because it was right there in front of them. All of the justifications that they'd placated themselves with for so long, none of them were worth shit when held up against the reality of Jensen knowing. They'd been free to have their doubts, been free to feel distressed at the impending death of someonw not just something that they'd realized was worth more than a pet, but they hadn't done a single thing about it because it wasn't real. Wasn't present in their thoughts that this was a game with a zero sum outcome for Jensen. But the thought of Jensen knowing of his own death, his preplanned death that was not possible to avert, brought reality home to them. Jared's legs felt weak, too weak to walk on, and there was a bottomless pit inside of him, falling in on itself and he thought detachedly that he might be close to fainting.
Then Gen was crawling back on the bed, wet and disheveled, hair sticking to her face. "Jared," she repeated and he realized she'd said it more than once. "Jared, we have to do something."
"There's nothing we can do," he said numbly, "we signed his death warrant the first time we had sex with him." But it's not the sex he's thinking of. It's the semen. Crawling inside Jensen, knocking him up, fucking up his cells until they're beyond repair, until he dies. "We can't do anything Gen," and he'd never felt so helpless at any point in his life. They could take Jensen away, but where? Europe had been a no-go zone for fifty, sixty years now, the border controls too stringent to ever hope to fool. Even the package tours there that had been operative when Jared was a kid no longer ran, a state almost of cold war existing between them; no trade, nothing, not since they’d closed their doors.
The Federated States of Africa were a better bet, since the US still had trade links open with them, and judging from the restrained reports that still got a tiny bit of news coverage it seemed to be the place where the wheels were moving in terms of innovative medicine. Getting a passport and a visa there would be gold dust though.
But the more he turned over the options in his mind the more futile it all seemed. The timebomb wasn't where they lived, it wasn't the clinic visit that loomed inevitably in their future. It was in Jensen's blood, inevitable and horrific, flooding through his veins, a death sentence writ large. Wherever they went, the sharp ugly truth followed them, that in a little under nine months Jensen would be dead, possibly even less if something went wrong. There was nothing they could do to stop it, to change the path which lay clear and straight before them.
The helplessness was more than he could take and he buried his head in his hands, unable even to take comfort in Gen being close when he saw how agonized she was as well. "There must be something," she said numbly. "There must be something that can stop this from going ahead," but the words were thin and hopeless, as empty and futile as anything else that they could say. Jared considered waking Jensen up, telling him that they knew he knew, but recoiled from the idea with an almost physical repulsion at the thought.
"No," he said quietly, but it wasn't the no of denial. It was the instinctive response of not wanting it to be true. "Gen," he said, "we fucked up." His eyes felt too dry and hot to cry.
There was nothing else to do but to lie there and stare blankly into the darkness, the soft hum of everyday life around them a soothing familiar lullaby that Jensen had no part or place in, not anymore. Jared tried to think about what had happened, but his mind skittered away from it, as though it was too big to take in, too impossible to think of, too painful to grasp hold of. Every time he thought he had a grip on it, their callousness rose up to choke him, and even now part of him was desperately fighting back against the thought, desperately trying to reassert everything that they'd been told.
Omegas weren't human, the cold bit of his mind reminded him. Why else would they be bought and sold like stock market options? If they were human this would never have happened. It was impossible to think that it could have and therefore it couldn’t have. They were conveniences and Gen and he were overreacting, being dramatic over something the rest of the world thought was entirely natural. Yet against all those reasonable points, he had only one solid thing to stand against them. The heaving sickness inside him at the thought of Jensen knowing. The absolute bleak certainty that they had done something wrong, that didn't come from his brain or even his heart, but straight from his gut. The roiling protest inside him at the thought of Jensen, Jensen who could read and understand, make jewelry, laugh, fuck them both with perfect impunity, mend the flickering light system without a murmur and feel sorrow for people who'd been dead for centuries; the Jensen they'd come to know, learning that he'd been bought not for love, not for family, but as a disposable object to be used and thrown, a chrysalis and not a butterfly. That he would die, and as far as he knew, they'd never mourn him. Never remember him.
Chapter six here
Fandom: Supernatural RPF
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki/Genevieve Cortese
Chapter: 5/7
Length 4444
Rating NC-17
Warnings/Kinks dub-con, mpreg, dystopia, sort of slave fic
Summary In a world where women can no longer have children, genetically engineered Omegas fill this function- if you can pay the price (and live with the consequences.) Jared and Gen are happily married, and buying Omega Jensen Ackles for the birth of their child seems like the perfect solution. The only downside is that Omegas can't survive the birth of a child- and that by design they degenerate after a certain age. Not that Omegas know this.
Notes Based on this prompt. With thanks once again to tipsykitty for her time and edit!
Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4
The thing about contracts, Jared very quickly discovered, is that they're near impossible to understand if you're just skimming through. He didn't have a clue about most of the legalese used in them, and couldn't help thinking that lawyers had devised some impenetrable language precisely to keep themselves in jobs. Some bits of it seemed to make sense if he squinted but then with three additional clauses they stopped making sense almost entirely. He tried to take it a paragraph at a time, but kept getting bogged down in the details of what was being said when he just wanted the bigger picture. All he could tell for certain after dipping in and out was that in a very real way they'd rented Jensen rather than bought him. When his contract was terminated, his remains would be retained by the Farm, though of course Jared and Gen between them would have full control and ownership of any issue produced by Jensen, a phrase that sent a surge of uneasiness through Jared. It's a baby, he thought, you can't own a baby. He was so absorbed in reading his way through the codicils at the end that he didn't notice the cup of coffee appearing to his right, and when he finally looked up and saw it, it had long gone cold. He made a face at it and made his way into the kitchen to make another one.
When he was done with that he wandered into the study to see how Gen and Jensen were doing respectively and with careless ease insinuated himself into the group and tried not to think about the contract. He shoved the contract and all of the uneasiness he felt to one side, sure that he was overreacting, that so much time spent making shit up for the vids was warping his ability to tell what was normal and what was odd. He didn't completely stop thinking about it; sometimes at night as Gen lay tucked into the curve of his arm, and Jensen was a heavy weight on his legs, he let his mind wander back to the contract, but there was nothing he could do to change it anyway, so he let it go for now.
Jared could pinpoint exactly the day, even the moment, when it all went wrong. He and Gen had slept late, and Jensen had been up long before them, making breakfast and then disappearing somewhere. Jared hadn't thought anything of it, and had launched straight into work. It wasn’t until hours later that he surfaced to get a cup of coffee.
Gen, buried deep in her work, barely glanced up, and Jensen had disappeared somewhere. Remembering what had happened last time Jensen had vanished like this, Jared set off to search for him again. They were just starting to find some sense of equilibrium again after first the disturbance and then the clinic visit; he didn't want a repeat of whatever had caused Jensen to break down last time. He needn't have worried about another bout of crying though, Jensen was in his own room, stretched out on the bed, hands pillowed under his head as he stared up at the ceiling. His face was blank and slack as though he were thinking very, very hard about something, and Jared took advantage of the opportunity to lean down and kiss him hard enough to wipe that look off his face.
Jensen responded as enthusiastically as usual, and his hands went straight to Jared's zipper in a motion that felt so practiced that Jared's libido wilted noticeably, though he couldn’t have said why.
"We don't have to fuck every time I kiss you, you know," Jared said, and looked at Jensen for a response. Jensen's eyes were politely inquiring as though he didn't quite believe that, but he didn't push the point- that wasn't what he did. Instead he took his hands away from Jared's crotch as easily as he'd put them there, eyes flicking back to the ceiling as though there was something terribly fascinating there. Jared wondered for a second if this was what Jensen looked like on down-time and hell, he hadn't thought his dick could get any less interested. He stood back up unsure of what he felt or why, just knowing that right now there was nothing that Jensen could do right, and that it was his fault, not Jensen's.
Jensen wasn't moving and when Jared stroked his arm affectionately, briefly, he moved it away like he didn't even want to be touched. It took a while for Jared to process exactly what he was feeling, but mostly it was shock- Jensen had never done this before- intermixed with concern for Jensen, and underneath it all an unpleasant sensation of indignation. He was not sure why he was as horrified as he was at that. Surely he had a perfect right to be annoyed, even to be angry? This was not part of the contract, this was not what they'd signed up for. A little bit of him was thinking that Jensen didn't get to be standoffish and cold. He took his hand away anyway, sickened a little by himself. Surely he had some self control?
Jensen flicked his eyes back to him. "Can I do anything for you?" he asked, and began sitting up with intent as though it didn't matter what he did, just that he did something, and Jared felt a twist of irritation run through him as he pressed Jensen back down- it was harder than he'd expected, Jared was bigger but Jensen was deceptively, surprisingly strong, and he didn't go back down until he'd untensed himself and sank back. He was looking at Jared properly now, and he didn't look like Jensen- his eyes were narrowed as though he were looking past Jared's skin, past his face into his mind, and Jared felt the strangest urge to cover himself as though that could possibly help. "Well, if I can't do anything for you," Jensen said, and Jared wasn't sure if there was the slightest, tiniest hint of exasperation in that tone, and that twist of irritation grew stronger, squirmed its way through him until it was practically all he felt. Damn Jensen, always so reasonable, so inhuman, so ready and willing to oblige when that wasn't what Jared wanted at all. Not that he could articulate precisely what he wanted from Jensen, who wasn't Gen and wasn't equipped to provide him with the same sort of things.
Something hard poked him in the thigh as he shifted, and when he fumbled his hand under the cover he withdrew the book that he'd meant to throw away. The one he'd found under Jensen's bed- If This Is A Man- the time he'd found Jensen crying in the garden, the one and only time Jensen had slipped up so completely, shown anything beyond the standard pre-programmed love he came equipped with. He looked up with a question on his lips- why had Jensen kept it with him when it had upset him so much? and wasn't prepared for the flash of panic that had swept Jensen's eyes, and like a monkey's paw, the wish he'd expressed so silently a few minutes before was being granted in precisely the way he didn't want. He wanted a Jensen who was less Jensen-like and more at the same time, and here he was being granted that but with an extra bonus of fear.
When he looked up Gen was standing by the door, and Jared looked at her, raising his eyebrows. She nodded him out, and explained in a whisper that Jensen thought he might be having a bit of a delayed reaction to the shots- apparently they could cause nausea as the body adjusted, and Jared accepted it, felt guilty for pressing. "Should we phone the clinic?" he asked, and she thought about it.
"No," she decided in the end, "that should be a last resort I think. Jensen said he should feel better by the evening. He's almost over it he thinks.” Jared accepted that though something didn't quite ring true to him about the whole thing. Jensen had never been ill a day in his life, and he hadn’t looked ill, just tired and worn out.
Try as he might, he couldn't put a finger on it though, had to give up though it niggled away in the back of his mind, relentlessly tapping his brain as though he was missing the obvious. Jensen was better by the evening though- crisis over, bright big smile back on his face and sincere apologies spilling out all over. He sat with them as usual, watched them eat their food, quietly got drinks and cleared the plates, and always, always there was an abstracted quality to him, like he was a million miles away. In deference to his queasy stomach, they didn't have sex that night. Jensen lay there with them still and warm and heavy, breathing quietly and evenly as always, until Jared didn't know how he knew the other man wasn't asleep.
A day later it was like nothing had happened. Jensen was smiling and as talkative as he ever was again, trundling round the house fixing up odds and ends where he found them. When he'd done everything he could he lapsed back into general usefulness until Jared had a great idea. This house was older than the average and although they'd had the general computer system built into the house there were still failures and flaws that most places wouldn't have- which most of their friends couldn't believe they managed to live with- failing air conditioning, periodic fluctuations in signal all of which added to the charm for Jared and Gen. It'd belonged to his parents before him, and Jared had never changed much about it- his mother had had excellent taste so they’d left a lot of things as they’d been when they’d moved in. That included his mother’s workroom.
Jared had thought he was getting the hang of what Jensen was, but it was still with surprise that he realised just how interested Jensen was in the mains powered laser metal cutters, bangle machine and assorted other wood turning machinery that his mother had used for creating jewelry and art pieces. As a kid, he'd watched fascinated for hours as she'd shaped little twists of metal into jewelry, and embedded semi-precious gems into them before selling them as one-off originals. It had been an expensive pursuit and not something Jared had ever been interested in doing himself. By the time his parents had chosen to move closer to the city and leave the house to Jared, his mom had made the transition to the fine line lasers that were much more wieldy and had a great deal more safety catches than the old fashioned machinery.
He hadn't even been into the garage subsection that held those tools for what felt like years, but after he discussed it with Gen she'd thought it was a brilliant idea. "Fantastic," she said with genuine enthusiasm. "He really seems to like making and fixing things so that's a great idea. Do we need any stuff?"
"Nope," Jared said, "the machines are in great working order, and there are bits and pieces of scrap left over. If he enjoys it then we can buy him some more, I bet my mom still has contacts." He patted the woodturning machine. "I can't believe how old this stuff is," he said with a smile, and called Jensen in. Jared had been absolutely right- Jensen's face lit up at the sight- things to fix and then things to make, and he slipped away to spend most of his time in there. The only bad thing was, that the machines were power drains which put pressure on the main core and resulted in occasional blowouts of light and heat. The first time it happened Jensen had come as close as he could to a refusal to continue, citing that he was putting them at risk. Gen had settled that one with a kiss and a request for a bracelet which Jensen had laughingly acquiesced to.
He spent most of his time on the bracelet at first, beginning with neat, lifeless drawings, unskilled and untutored, and his first attempts were disasters- square and clunky, the easiest shapes to both draw and create. As time went by and he learned to handle the machines better though (and to offer his sketches for consideration) he learnt to turn out nice little pieces. Jared wasn’t exactly an expert on jewelry but he could see the difference between Jensen's careful little designs, and his mother's careless ease with her tools and her vision, and unbidden he remembered once again only an Omega like a defensive little nudge popping up whenever he thought about Jensen too much.
Jared took to popping in to check on Jensen from time to time, once or twice bringing him his silver sealed bags of food so he could break without disrupting his concentration. He couldn't ever remember being quite this happy or this productive; he'd finished all three of his contracts and only had to wait for the credit to come in now. Gen was flying as well within her own sphere- the world was so much smaller now, so many fewer people than the past that it was harder to make a splash but everything was on the move upwards, and Jared was basking a little bit, which really was his first mistake.
This particular afternoon was no different- Gen was in the study, conferencing in with the VP, Jensen was practicing his fine motor skills in the garage and Jared was taking it easy, when he noticed the light flickering. Clearly the power drain from the machines was taking its toll, and he popped along to tell Jensen to ease off on the usage, only to find the machine off, and a flushed and sweaty Jensen crawling out of a hole in the wall. "What are you doing?" Jared asked, offering a hand which Jensen used to pull himself upright.
"I've fiddled with the mainframe before," Jensen said ruefully, "I thought I could make it more efficient, stop the power draining so quickly," he nodded to the floor where an ancient manual was spread open, "but there was nothing I could do. I'm really sorry if it disrupted anything.
Jared shrugged it off. "Nothing important," he said, "just me being lazy," and Jensen gave a laugh at that, his eyes still sliding away from Jared as though to focus on something else, his face still fading red, and though he didn't say anything to Jensen, he voiced it to Gen later that night, when he was sure they were alone.
"Do you think Jensen could be ready?" he asked, and bit his lip as the words fell like bricks. "He seemed really weird earlier, all hot and flushed and like he'd been sick, and, well, it has been several months since the checkup.”
"Is that even possible?" Gen asked and if he hadn't known her so well even Jared might have missed the hunted look that flashed across her face. "You’re not supposed to be able to tell someone is pregnant until later. Besides, he takes a pregnancy test every week just in case, and he hasn’t even begun the regime at the clinic." There was something even he couldn’t read in her voice. "If he's pregnant then we’re going to have to back there and work on that DNA manipulation they were talking about."
Jared cuddled her closer against him. "None of that matters," he said and kissed the top of her head, "I mean we don’t even know if he is yet," and although neither of them had wanted it to happen this way or this soon, he felt a curl of excitement trickle through him at the thought. A few months from now, they might have their baby. And Jensen…. Jensen would be gone. Even in the privacy of his own mind he couldn't think more harshly than that. The platitudes the clinic had offered them skittered across his thoughts, gone, terminated, finished. Done with, and even in the depths of his happiness he felt a coldness. All the temporary joy had fled Gen as well now, and she was holding onto him less in a hug and more a grip of iron like she couldn't let him go.
"Don't say it," he said quietly, "please don't say it Gen. We're not even sure yet after all. I'm just going off Jensen not looking in top shape. He might just be ill or something." Even as he said it though, he was sure that he was wrong, a flash of intuition hitting him hard. This was happening. Jensen was pregnant.
There was a whole box of pregnancy tests; Jensen took one every week just in case. If he was confirmed pregnant then they could look into gene transference, making sure some of Gen's genetic traits got into the mix. Just a standard blood test and then they’d know. Jared had never inquired too closely into the exact mechanics of an Omega's body- that came far too close to the faintly taboo sounding 'medicine,' but he knew enough that a blood test would be preferable. All Omegas, male and female, ended up on the operating table so he wasn't even sure how the functions matched up.
Anyway, that wasn't what they were doing at least not at this moment. They sat with Jensen in absolute silence, waiting for the slow beep that would indicate whether he was expecting the baby or not, Gen curled up next to Jensen, Jared watching them both, not even sure any more which result he wanted the most. It took only a few seconds for the blood analysis to be completed and for the sound to inform them all that Jensen was pregnant.
Jensen's face was blank and unreadable, nothing of the joy that Jared had expected from everything the Clinic had said- that Omegas wanted their children, wanted nothing more than to have that child for their owners. Jared didn't know how to react, not when he wasn't even certain that he was happy himself, and in the end when Jensen dashed to the toilet to throw up, Jared didn't follow him. Instead he and Gen sat staring at each other, at a loss for words, as they listened to Jensen's footsteps recede.
When Jensen came back, he was calm, still not smiling, though he managed a weak twitch of the lips. "I'm really sorry," he said, "it was just a shock, I have no idea why that happened." He sat back down like they hadn't just discovered the best news to be expected, at least from Jensen's viewpoint. "I'm so excited about the baby," he said, and resurrected the same weak smile that he'd given them a few minutes before, eminently unconvincing though nobody felt up to challenging it at that moment in time.
Jared stared at his hands and let silence fall once again in the room, everything he could think to say, dying in his mouth, tasting of lies and defeat.
"I should sleep in the other room tonight," Jensen said quietly, though he didn't say 'my room'. "I wouldn't want to be sick on you after all," and though he tried to pass it off as a joke it didn't sound like it. Jared and Gen agreed automatically, and he shuffled off, leaving them to lie next to each other in a bed that seemed too empty.
s
Jared stared at the ceiling in the dark, and tried not to think of anything, until Gen whispered something into his neck. "Jared," she said softly and he didn't reply, pretended that he was asleep. Some things he didn't want to hear. She tucked her mouth up to his ear, and said what he'd been dreading. "I think he knows." No need to ask who or what. The idea was ridiculous of course, there was no way that Jensen could know, and yet Jared couldn't quite convince himself of that. What other reason could there be for Jensen to be so distraught over the news? As much as he tried to argue against it, it was the obvious solution.
"Gen," he said and he was not even sure what was in his own voice- entreaty maybe. There was no denial though, because in that second everything was clear, every single thing snapped back into place, everything made sense. Piece by piece it fell into position. "That night he was ill," Jared said, thinking out loud, words not keeping up with his brain but doing the best they could. "He wasn't sick."
"He just didn't want to look at us." Gen was up, off him immediately, wrenching open the bathroom, being sick like those words had had a direct line to her stomach. Because it was right there in front of them. All of the justifications that they'd placated themselves with for so long, none of them were worth shit when held up against the reality of Jensen knowing. They'd been free to have their doubts, been free to feel distressed at the impending death of someonw not just something that they'd realized was worth more than a pet, but they hadn't done a single thing about it because it wasn't real. Wasn't present in their thoughts that this was a game with a zero sum outcome for Jensen. But the thought of Jensen knowing of his own death, his preplanned death that was not possible to avert, brought reality home to them. Jared's legs felt weak, too weak to walk on, and there was a bottomless pit inside of him, falling in on itself and he thought detachedly that he might be close to fainting.
Then Gen was crawling back on the bed, wet and disheveled, hair sticking to her face. "Jared," she repeated and he realized she'd said it more than once. "Jared, we have to do something."
"There's nothing we can do," he said numbly, "we signed his death warrant the first time we had sex with him." But it's not the sex he's thinking of. It's the semen. Crawling inside Jensen, knocking him up, fucking up his cells until they're beyond repair, until he dies. "We can't do anything Gen," and he'd never felt so helpless at any point in his life. They could take Jensen away, but where? Europe had been a no-go zone for fifty, sixty years now, the border controls too stringent to ever hope to fool. Even the package tours there that had been operative when Jared was a kid no longer ran, a state almost of cold war existing between them; no trade, nothing, not since they’d closed their doors.
The Federated States of Africa were a better bet, since the US still had trade links open with them, and judging from the restrained reports that still got a tiny bit of news coverage it seemed to be the place where the wheels were moving in terms of innovative medicine. Getting a passport and a visa there would be gold dust though.
But the more he turned over the options in his mind the more futile it all seemed. The timebomb wasn't where they lived, it wasn't the clinic visit that loomed inevitably in their future. It was in Jensen's blood, inevitable and horrific, flooding through his veins, a death sentence writ large. Wherever they went, the sharp ugly truth followed them, that in a little under nine months Jensen would be dead, possibly even less if something went wrong. There was nothing they could do to stop it, to change the path which lay clear and straight before them.
The helplessness was more than he could take and he buried his head in his hands, unable even to take comfort in Gen being close when he saw how agonized she was as well. "There must be something," she said numbly. "There must be something that can stop this from going ahead," but the words were thin and hopeless, as empty and futile as anything else that they could say. Jared considered waking Jensen up, telling him that they knew he knew, but recoiled from the idea with an almost physical repulsion at the thought.
"No," he said quietly, but it wasn't the no of denial. It was the instinctive response of not wanting it to be true. "Gen," he said, "we fucked up." His eyes felt too dry and hot to cry.
There was nothing else to do but to lie there and stare blankly into the darkness, the soft hum of everyday life around them a soothing familiar lullaby that Jensen had no part or place in, not anymore. Jared tried to think about what had happened, but his mind skittered away from it, as though it was too big to take in, too impossible to think of, too painful to grasp hold of. Every time he thought he had a grip on it, their callousness rose up to choke him, and even now part of him was desperately fighting back against the thought, desperately trying to reassert everything that they'd been told.
Omegas weren't human, the cold bit of his mind reminded him. Why else would they be bought and sold like stock market options? If they were human this would never have happened. It was impossible to think that it could have and therefore it couldn’t have. They were conveniences and Gen and he were overreacting, being dramatic over something the rest of the world thought was entirely natural. Yet against all those reasonable points, he had only one solid thing to stand against them. The heaving sickness inside him at the thought of Jensen knowing. The absolute bleak certainty that they had done something wrong, that didn't come from his brain or even his heart, but straight from his gut. The roiling protest inside him at the thought of Jensen, Jensen who could read and understand, make jewelry, laugh, fuck them both with perfect impunity, mend the flickering light system without a murmur and feel sorrow for people who'd been dead for centuries; the Jensen they'd come to know, learning that he'd been bought not for love, not for family, but as a disposable object to be used and thrown, a chrysalis and not a butterfly. That he would die, and as far as he knew, they'd never mourn him. Never remember him.
Chapter six here