Home Invasion
Title: Home Invasion
Fandom: SPN RPS
Characters/Pairings: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Word Count: 8,271
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: bottom!Jared, violence, blood
Notes: wind_storms wanted a J2 version of The Strangers for Halloween. This is what I came up with. Thanks to her for the idea, the beta, and the cheerleading!
Summary: When Jensen has the day off alone, a stranger knocks at his and Jared's front door. What seems to be just a wrong address becomes a situation that Jensen may not survive.
AO3 Link: I'm finally on AO3! This is my first post there: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16322597
The morning is cold, but they haven’t yet turned the heat on in their Vancouver home. It’s that pleasant, fall kind of cold, where it’s more enjoyable than uncomfortable, at least for Jared. Then again, he guesses he’s not the best judge of what temperatures might be acceptable for most people.
Still, nothing feels better to him than the welcome crisp coolness of the air when he moves out from under the sheets, followed by the hot beat of the shower as it rolls over his skin. It helps that he’s still loose and relaxed after a night of slow, lazy sex that left him in a deep sleep. Satisfied is the word he means to use when he thinks about how he feels this morning. He’s never been more satisfied. Even just the image of Jensen perfectly, peacefully asleep in bed as Jared got up to get ready for work makes him feel warm and fresh.
He’s the one who has to be on set today, and he hadn’t wanted to disturb Jensen when he’d gotten out of bed. But he hears the shower door open when he’s facing into the spray, and he smiles. Jensen’s arms are around him almost immediately, body pressed up against Jared’s backside. He’s hard, warm flesh slipping along the crack of Jared’s ass, and Jared chuckles.
“Last night wasn’t enough for you, huh?”
Jensen grunts, pre-coffee and clearly not awake enough for verbal communication, just for the primal need to be inside Jared, which Jared is happy to oblige. He’s got Jensen’s hands feeling up his abs, one traveling down to Jared’s crotch. Another grunt, the tone of this one pleased to find Jared half-hard, Jensen’s hand quickly getting him all the way there.
Jared hums in appreciation, part of him wanting to turn and kiss Jensen, but the other part of him hyper-focused on the way Jensen’s dick is pressing against him. This isn’t the night before, with slow, lingering tongues and touches, whispered words between them. This…This is want.
He spreads his legs a little and bends, the way he does sometimes to make his height a little less noticeable, only the intent here is easy access, with Jensen pushing him forward a little further. Jared’s hands reach out to the shower wall beyond the spray, steadying himself. He feels Jensen’s hands on his ass, spreading him, the head of Jensen’s dick slipping against the rim. Then it’s replaced by fingers, one probing inside, and Jared groans.
“Do it.”
Jensen doesn’t listen, not immediately, still pushing his finger, then two fingers, in and out, stroking, making sure Jared is still wet and ready from the night before. He knows he is, knows how they left each other sated and messy, and that he’s still sticky from the remnants of Jensen’s come. He lets out a moan of both pleasure and frustration, hard and wanting Jensen to just get on with it, and Jensen finally listens, pulling his fingers out and slowly pushing his dick inside.
“Oh…”
It sounds stupid, but Jared swears it always takes his breath away, feeling that thick head open him up, that long, slow slide in. He grabs his own dick, knowing this will be quick for both of them, Jensen sucking in a breath behind him. He can feel one of Jensen’s hands on his hip, knows the other is guiding himself inside, feels the brush of Jensen’s fingers against his balls before that guiding hand moves to Jared’s opposite hip and he’s clenching around Jensen’s full length.
Jensen starts thrusting almost immediately, making Jared lose his breath again, one hand on his dick, the other still trying to keep steady on the wall as his feet try to keep from slipping on the shower floor. He closes his eyes, starts stroking himself as Jensen’s fingers dig into his hip bones, pulling him back into his thrusts. He feels the steam around them, the hot water pelting his back, and God Jensen’s thick and warm inside him as his fingers pass over the head of his dick, smoothing pre-come down the shaft. He hears his own ragged breaths, his pleasured and needy cries when Jensen shoves in deep and hits all the right spots, the ambient noise of the shower, and Jensen’s feverish grunts and groans, only one thing on his mind, one need working his hips roughly back and forth.
It is over quickly, but that doesn’t make it any less pleasurable and satisfying than the night before, Jared moaning loudly as he shoots over his hand, onto the shower. He clenches and shakes in Jensen’s grasp, Jensen riding him through it all, even as he grows sensitive. He opens his eyes, sees some of his come washing away, some sticking on the shower floor. Just as Jared’s starting to feel boneless and overused, Jensen’s grip tightens to pleasure-pain, and he makes a guttural noise in the back of his throat. He shoves in deep again, making Jared gasp, eyes fluttering closed as Jensen stays there and grinds, coming inside of him. There’s a bit of an oversensitive whimper behind him, and Jensen quickly pulls out, leaving Jared suddenly empty and panting.
He’s still shaking as Jensen helps him straighten up, steadies him, kisses the space between his shoulder blades. Jensen’s fingers smooth down his back, and he moans a little when one slips inside of him again, but this time it’s easy and caring, helping to clean him up and clean him out.
Jensen washes him then, pressing a kiss to Jared’s lips when he finally turns Jared around to face him. It’s all so soft and gentle, and Jared soaks up the attention, wondering as he sometimes does how he’s been so lucky to be so loved by this man. Jensen’s hands on his body are everything he needs. He’s usually the tactile one, the one who has to show everyone how he feels about them through touch, so much so that he sometimes worries he might unintentionally overstep his bounds. But Jensen’s recently learned better just how to reciprocate it and does so to the fullest extent. For Jared, this kind of closeness is the heart of their relationship.
When they’re done cleaning up and drying off, Jensen actually goes back to bed. They don’t even really speak, but they don’t have to. Jared dresses himself, smiling fondly at Jensen once again melting into the mattress, the sheets. This is what he loves to come home to.
****
Jensen yawns, walking around the house naked, like he usually does on days off, because why bother with clothes? Especially when the air is nice and crisp. It’s still hot and humid as hell at their home back in Austin. This? This is enjoyable, as much as he loves it there. He’ll love it more once Vancouver is even colder and troubled with snow.
He grabs a beer from the fridge. It’s not quite five o’clock yet, but who cares? He cracks it open and takes a swig, enjoying the cool feel of that, too. Today is a day he feels extremely satisfied.
Sex with Jared has always been good. His relationship with Jared has always been good. Hell, both have always been near perfect. But their busy lives had recently put them through a bit of a rough patch. One of those “why don’t you touch me anymore” things, or “you always say you’re too tired”. Jensen had thought that sort of thing was restricted to straight couples, but it had happened to them before they’d even realized it, being worked a bit ragged. He’s always known that Jared needs touch to survive, which isn’t to say that Jared’s needy, just that it’s the kind of attention that helps keep him grounded. The truth is, Jensen had never realized just how much he needed touch until Jared came along. He’d been frustrated with himself for letting that slip away because of their grueling schedule. Today, he’s happy to be back on track. And so, so satisfied, in every sense of the word.
He flinches when there’s a knock at the door. That’s an odd sound. Nobody ever knocks on their door, or if they do, it’s someone who’s already contacted them to say they’re stopping by. Jensen’s startled, if only because this is such an uncommon occurrence. And it’s a little unwelcome, if he’s honest, standing there with a beer in his hand and his dick out. He isn’t expecting anybody today. It makes his insides twist, just a little, some slight feeling of fear that something isn’t right here.
The knock comes again, more insistent this time, and Jensen leaves the beer on the kitchen table and heads into the living room where he’d left his phone, noting first that he has no notifications from anybody intending to come over, and secondly opening up the app to check their security cameras. He’s surprised to see that it’s just a rather young girl at their front door he doesn’t recognize, and his first dreaded thought is that a fan finally found them. Not that he’s got any problem with the fans, but a breach of privacy like this is one he’d hoped they wouldn’t have to deal with. One thing he definitely can’t do is deal with this naked.
He could just not answer the door, but as he watches the screen, she knocks again, once more, loud and insistent, and he wonders if maybe she needs help, though her expression doesn’t seem panicked. But why else would she knock like that?
Jensen curses and tosses the phone onto the couch, running up to the bedroom and quickly throwing on a t-shirt and some sweatpants. He pauses to think about deodorant, then figures he’s clean enough and this won’t take long anyway, and runs back down the stairs to the front door, just as there’s another knock.
“Hi, can I help you?” Jensen asks as he opens the door, tone soft and open, because now that he’s faced with her she does look incredibly young and quite a bit lost.
Her eyes dart back and forth, and despite how vulnerable she seems, he still stands in the doorway so that she can’t see inside their home. “Is Mallory here?”
Jensen leans forward a bit, cocking his head and waiting for her words to process, because her voice is so slight that he’d barely even heard her. He feels again as if something is wrong. “No, honey, I think you have the wrong house. I’m sorry. Can you tell me which address you were looking for? Or maybe who? Maybe it’s a house nearby.”
She shakes her head and backs away, a little hesitant and jerky, and there’s still something strange about this entire interaction. Before Jensen can say anything more, the girl has turned and raced off.
“Wait!”
He calls after her, but it’s no use. She ignores him completely. He stands there for a moment, a little stunned by the encounter and wondering what to do next. Should he go after her? If so, he’s got to go grab his keys and his phone, and time is already ticking away. As he’s debating it, she’s gone from his sight, and he curses again, hoping that no harm comes to her because of his own indecision, even if she was a little off-putting.
He goes back into the house, closing and locking the door. He moves forward and then stops, standing in the middle of the living room, feeling just…unsettled. He glances over at his phone on the couch and wonders if he should call the police. Maybe the non-emergency number? But to tell them what? That someone had the wrong address? And even if his intentions of making sure the girl’s okay are good, he’s sure he’d come off as the bitchy celebrity who doesn’t want “normal” people on his lawn. They don’t get much publicity, as they keep a low profile, but he can see bad publicity coming from that, if it ever got out that big, rich, white male Jensen Ackles called the cops on a helpless girl for coming near his property. It’s probably best to just forget about it.
For a moment, he thinks of tossing his clothes off again, but now he feels shaken out of his carefree day off, feeling as if he has to be at least semi-ready for something to happen again. He sighs and picks his phone up off the couch, flopping down onto it just before he realizes that he left his beer in the kitchen. Another sigh as he gets back up, phone left on the coffee table while he goes to retrieve his beer.
The kitchen is empty. It’s empty of everything, including his beer, and while Jensen knows he doesn’t have the most fantastic memory, he’s sure that he’d left his beer on the kitchen table. He stands there, going back over events in his head, wondering if he’s losing it and maybe he did carry it with him somewhere else. But surely he didn’t have it sloshing all over the place when he ran up the stairs to the bedroom?
Confused, he walks back into the living room. His beer is right there on the coffee table. It seems strange…off somehow, like he couldn’t have put it there. He glances around, as if something else in the room or house will jog his memory, but there’s nothing. This is where he must have left it.
He sits down on the couch, grabbing for his beer and the TV remote, keeping the volume low as he mindlessly clicks through the channels. He’s not even sure he wants to watch TV, but right now he just needs to keep his brain occupied. It’s a few minutes before he wonders what Jared’s up to on set, and he goes to grab his phone…which is nowhere in sight.
Frozen now, Jensen frantically thinks back to when he thought he’d misplaced his beer, and this time he knows for sure that he’d left his phone on the coffee table. He pictures himself coming back into the room after grabbing his beer out of the kitchen, and realizes the phone was gone from the table even then. Something is wrong.
Jensen quickly turns the TV off and jumps to his feet, head swiveling to take in the parts of the house he can see, body tensed and ready to move. He’s not alone. Part of him tries to still be rational and tell him that he’s just being paranoid, but that sense of someone else in the house grows stronger the longer he stands there. He looks over towards the front door, where the keypad is for the security system…and sees that the faceplate and keypad are missing, wires exposed. The security system is useless. Now is when he needs to call the police, but of course now is when he doesn’t have his phone. Now would also be a good time to have their dogs around, but they’d left them to be taken care of at their home in Austin, especially since Jared refused to board them on a plane.
He hears a distant noise and hones in on it, heart beating fast. It’s hard to make out, but he thinks it’s buzzing. Could it be his phone vibrating? If so, where?
Slowly, he moves away from the couch, trying to get a sense for where the noise is coming from. His fear goes up a notch when he realizes it’s upstairs. He shouldn’t go up there alone. Or, well…he shouldn’t go up there bare-handed, even if he is confident in his fighting skills after all these years as Dean. He thinks about the knives in the kitchen and starts to make his way over there, eyes on the stairs the whole time. But the clinking sound of silverware stops him in his tracks, and his breath catches as his neck makes a sharp turn so he can look in the direction of the kitchen. Maybe the kitchen is out, then. Maybe he has to go upstairs. Neither option is looking good right now.
There is another option that hits him suddenly. He could just go out the front door. He’d end up locked out of his own home, but he could go straight to a neighbor and call for help. He feels stupid for not thinking of it sooner, instead of just focusing on other rooms in the house that’s clearly been invaded. He looks quickly between the stairs and the direction of the kitchen again, still tensed and hoping that no one suddenly rushes him from either point. He backs toward the front door slowly, doing his best to not make a sound, which is easy enough in bare feet. He knows not to turn his back on the house until the last second, keeps going over and over in his head how quickly he’ll have to unlock, open the door and run out once he does. He waits until his back is up against the wood.
The pounding knock that hits the door just as his back does makes him jump and cry out, flash of fear and instinct making him push away from and then turn towards the door, as if the wood itself is trying to attack him. He gasps, getting his breath back, recovering from the shock, and then twisting to face the house again, realizing too late that he’d turned his back on the person (people?) already in here.
But there’s no one there. There’s another knock at the door, and Jensen’s blood runs cold. He knows now that this is even worse than he originally thought. This isn’t just one thief or person with malicious intent. This is a plot…a group of people who are cornering him and trying to render him defenseless. What he doesn’t know is why, but that doesn’t matter right now. Right now, he needs to be sharp.
“Is Mallory home?”
The girl’s voice comes through the door, strong this time, sure of herself and with a touch of knowing evil that sends a shiver up Jensen’s spine. He should have called the cops when she’d first showed up. He should have just followed his instincts and taken the chance. Now he’s fucking trapped.
The buzzing noise starts again, and it both scares and encourages Jensen, because if he can get to his phone, he can get help. The only problem is that it has to be a trap. Someone else took his phone upstairs and is trying to lure him up there. But he’s not sure what other choice he has. The back door is through the kitchen, where someone else has access to multiple weapons, whether they’re sharp or can be used to bludgeon him to death. He could take his chances trying to fight that off bare-handed, maybe disarm the other person, but…the phone trick may still be the safer bet. The stranger upstairs could also have a weapon. It’s impossible to know. But Jensen has to go with what he knows for sure, and he knows for sure that the person in the kitchen is armed.
It troubles him to go up the stairs at all, but knowing that someone is above him and has the upper hand makes it worse. He’ll have to go slowly and keep his eyes up and over, hoping to eliminate any blind spot he might have if he were to go up the stairs normally. He’ll also have to somehow keep an eye on anybody who might come out and rush the stairs from the kitchen. He swallows. Fuck, this isn’t where he wants to be right now. Just this morning he was showering with Jared, loved and sated, happy in their renewed relationship. This makes it feel like he never woke up when he went back to bed as Jared left for work. This is a nightmare.
The buzzing gets louder as he forces himself to move up the stairs, back to the wall, watching above him as he occasionally glances back down. He doesn’t hear anything else, no other movement. It makes him feel too loud, even though he knows that in reality, he’s barely making a sound. It makes him feel too vulnerable.
He gets to the top of the stairs with no incident, and the buzzing keeps up. He realizes then that even the buzzing sound is wrong. It’s constant, not like the stop-start of a phone ring, or texts, or any other kind of notification. Fuck, he’s made a mistake. He holds his breath, scanning the hallway, what he can see of the open rooms for any sign of an attacker. He sees none. He glances back down the stairs. Nothing. He feels like he’s going insane. He feels like screaming, but he knows that will get him killed faster than anything.
With no other moves to make, he still heads for the buzzing noise. It’s in the bedroom, where he’d run earlier to throw his clothes on. He enters the room, searching for both an attacker and the source of the noise. He doesn’t see a person, but he does see one of his and Jared’s sex toys plugged in and buzzing away on the nightstand, and he feels like throwing up. It’s like this is all some sort of sick joke. He wishes it was. He wishes this was some sort of elaborate prank, but not many people prank him and Jared, and nobody he knows would do this.
He has another thought then, and it scares him even more. He still doesn’t know why these people are here, but is the vibrator a sign of their intent? What kind of violence are they looking for?
He’s not sure what to do now. His phone is still nowhere in sight. He’s afraid of the noise of the vibrator hindering him from hearing one of the strangers in the house, but he also knows that if he turns it off, that will bring them straight to him.
Jensen’s ears perk up when he hears something else, and he goes completely still. It’s a voice. A moan? He steps back into the hallway, and he nearly collapses when he recognizes the voice as Jared’s. He feels himself go ghost-white, and his legs feel like jelly as he lurches towards the guest room, feeling dizzy when his brain tries to remind him to keep aware of his surroundings, but he doesn’t care. If anything happens to Jared, he doesn’t care if he dies. He doesn’t stop to reason, to know that Jared left for work and hasn’t even come home yet.
He halts when he gets into the guest room, eyes darting around, looking for Jared. It takes him a moment to catch up to what’s happening, and he eventually sees the phone on the bed. His phone. There’s something on the screen, and as he gets closer, his face reddens. He can still hear Jared, can see him now, too, because his phone is playing a video they took the other night in bed. He hears the pleasure in Jared’s voice now, flushing even more as it gets louder, knowing that someone else set this up. He can’t do anything but stand there as the video continues, and the volume increases, the sound of Jared coming as Jensen fucks him filling the room. When it’s over and the video stops, the silence is oppressive.
Jensen feels grossly violated, feels humiliated, and feels helpless to defend Jared from the same treatment. It’s not that he’s ashamed of anything about their relationship. It’s that some strangers broke into their house and watched their private sex video. For all he knows, they took it and shared it with the world. All he can think about in that moment is Jared, and he feels terrible for letting this happen. He feels a pain that can only come from heartbreak, and a lump in his throat, but he tells himself that the absolute worst thing he can do right now is wallow in this and cry. His home is still unsafe, he tells himself, but it’s still so hard to get moving again after that.
The phone, his brain finally tells him, and he moves for it, knowing that even if it just made him feel so violated, it’s still his one chance for help.
The blow to his right shoulder is swift and hard, and he shouts in both surprise and pain, knocked down to the floor. He’s gasping and grabbing at his shoulder with his left hand, even as he scrambles to move onto his back to face his attacker and try to push his feet back under him. The hulking figure is a man with a dirty white sack over his face, cut eyeholes too dark to see through now that it’s dusk, some slapdash line of a mouth drawn on it in black. Fear is too weak of a word for what Jensen feels now, especially now that he let himself be caught off guard. The man is holding a bat, though at the moment it’s just casually hung at his side as he stares at Jensen, seemingly indifferent, which Jensen thinks is almost worse than someone visibly angry or hopped up on something.
He has to move. He knows he has to move, but why is it so hard to move when you need it the most? He just manages to roll aside when the man swings the bat down at him. He hears the bat collide with the floor, too close, and what starts in a crawl ends with him running out of the room to get some distance between them. He heads past the open bedroom to the staircase, only to stop as he gets to the top step. Halfway down is a woman in a plastic smiling doll mask. Behind her, back down on the first floor near the door, is another. Both are holding knives.
Jensen’s head jerks up when he senses movement from the other end of the hall and sees the man with the bat step out of the guest room. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” he shouts, and everyone is still for a moment while they all stare at him, the three of them calm and unmoving while his chest visibly heaves and his eyes dart back and forth in panic. His best option now is to just try to bulldoze through the woman on the stairs, avoiding her knife, and then hopefully overpowering the other one by the door while two attackers are left behind him. It’s odd that part of him is still put off by hitting and hurting a woman, but he’s clearly been left with no choice, and God, he doesn’t want to die here. Not like this.
That’s when the front door opens.
****
Jared approaches the house with a bit of a smirk, noting that it’s beginning to get dark, but there are no lights on. Jensen must have had one of his lazy days. That’s good, he deserves it. He enters the house and flicks on the living room lights.
“Jen, I’m ho-”
He stops mid-sentence, freezing in his tracks when a figure in front of him whirls around, and it’s a girl in a plastic doll mask. It takes a split-second for his brain to register what’s happening, and another to realize she’s holding a knife. His reaction time is just quick enough to punch her directly in the center of the mask as she raises her knife-arm. It was quick, a bodily impulse without any real thought, and it’s a hard hit, laying her out on the floor.
There’s the briefest of pauses then, that odd feeling where something intense is happening, and what takes only a fraction of a second seems longer, because your brain is registering everything so quickly. A slow-motion fraction of a second where Jared sees another woman on the stairs turn to face him, another knife, Jensen behind her looking absolutely panicked, and then another glance of the girl on the floor. He manages to think about how fucked up it is, that they’re clearly being attacked, but there’s still this apology on the tip of his tongue, this urge that he has to fight to not drop down beside her and say oh my God, I’m so sorry, are you alright??
Then Jared’s focus is back on the stairs, and before he can get out a warning, another figure appears behind Jensen, this one a man with a dirty sack covering his face. The man’s carrying a bat, but he doesn’t use it. He just shoves at Jensen, and when the woman on the stairs catches a hint of Jared’s reaction, she turns back to face the stairs and catches Jensen as he falls forward.
But she doesn’t just catch him. She stumbles back as well, but neither of them fall completely, Jensen still struggling to maintain his own balance as he moves into her, and she’s quick with her knife, shoving it up into Jensen’s left side, Jensen crying out in shock and pain.
“NO!”
The rest of the world goes quiet, and Jared swears he replays that moment a thousand times before he even springs into action, wanting to erase it, rewind it, start this all over and prevent it from happening, because this can’t happen to Jensen, it can’t.
He’s halfway up the stairs before he even realizes he’s moving, just as the woman is pulling the knife back out of Jensen’s body, and he grabs her and tosses her back down the stairs. It’s another thing that feels so fucking strange, normally repulsed by using his size and strength over others like this, disgusted by tossing a woman aside like a ragdoll, but these are not normal circumstances. Jensen’s gripping his side and is still managing to stay mostly upright on his own, but Jared can tell he’s just fighting, wanting to survive this.
“Go!” is all Jared manages to get out when the man behind Jensen swings his bat, and he surges past Jensen to reach out and grab it, ending up against the wall with the momentum of the swing, but keeping it from doing much damage as Jensen stumbles to the bottom of the stairs, gasping and finally crumpling to the floor, still holding his side.
Jared shoves forward, then pulls back with everything he has, pulling the man off balance and twisting to send him crashing down the stairs, Jared nearly toppling with him, but he lets go of the bat and manages to catch himself, hands on the wall. He looks down at the scene below him, and the man is now prone on the last few steps, Jensen curled up at the foot of the stairs, one of the women getting to her feet beyond him. Jared can tell she’s going to head for Jensen with the knife, and he rushes down, yanking the bat out of the man’s hands, stepping over him, and swinging the bat into the woman just as she starts to lurch forward.
He turns back around quickly, the man now moving to get back to his feet, and Jared reaches in his pocket and pulls out his cell phone, tossing it to Jensen. “Call 911!” Jared’s now frantically looking around him, noting that all three attackers are still somehow up and moving or coming to. He grabs the man’s arm and pulls him off the stairs and away from Jensen. “Come on, asshole!”
Jared backs up to Jensen, keeping him behind him, protecting him, holding the bat steady as the three masked figures stare at him. The women are both back to standing, if hunched over and obviously wounded.
“Help us…”
He hears Jensen’s plea to 911 just before they rush towards him, and he starts swinging madly, but this time the man grabs and halts the bat just like he did on the stairs. While they struggle over the weapon, Jared’s kicking out at the woman trying to skirt his side, bypass him and get to Jensen, trying to attack where they’re most vulnerable. At the moment, with the stair railing, there isn’t enough room for the second woman to try to make her way around the other side, and Jared’s trying his best to keep it that way, but he can’t keep this struggle up forever.
He finally goes for the cheap shot, a knee to the man’s crotch first, then he shoves the bat they’re both holding up into the man’s face, hearing his nose crunch under the sack. He kicks him back and away, but immediately behind the man comes one of the women, knife raised. She manages to slash at his arm before he can swing the bat into her, and Jared’s not even sure if this is the same woman he’d hit already, but he doesn’t care, not now. It’s in this moment that he realizes, while he’s still at least somewhat trying to avoid it, if it means protecting Jensen? He’ll kill her. He’ll kill them all. The fear of that registers somewhere in the back of his brain, but he can’t focus on that now.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” Jared shouts, grip adjusting the bat, ready for another swing. None of them answer, they just stand or sit there, staring, hardly making a sound aside from the recovering breath of the one he’d just hit.
When the sirens start, Jared expects them all to take off. But that’s when the second woman raises her knife…and throws it. It hits Jared just between the shoulder and neck, the pain a flash of red in his vision as he drops the bat and drops to his knees, hands reaching up to the wound, the knife sticking out of it, unsteady. He chokes on a cry of pain, can’t make much of a sound, and his hands fumble, trying to keep the knife steady, to not cause more damage. He can feel the blood on his hands, and he knows this is bad, that the knife is in a dangerous spot, and he could bleed out.
The man steps towards him, and Jared’s breathing goes ragged as his legs scramble to push him back along the floor. His movement stops when he feels something behind him, and he realizes that it’s Jensen. His eyes well up, but he tries not to cry, not to sob, an attempt to keep himself steady and not injure himself further, even though he’s sure that they’re both going to die now, and that he failed to protect Jensen. He feels so stupid. As he’d stood there with the bat, he kept thinking all he had to do was keep them back far enough until help arrived. It never occurred to him that their knives could be thrown.
“Please…” It’s Jensen’s voice behind them, weak and small, but speaking for them both. “Why?”
One of the women steps forward. “Because you were home,” says the calm, muffled voice from behind the mask.
Jared can hear Jensen sob behind him, feels one of Jensen’s bloodied hands reach around him and cover his heart. “Jared,” he whispers, saying it with the same heartbreak and guilt that Jared feels, and he wishes he could do more, say more. “I love you.”
It’s goodbye, and Jared can’t stop the tears from slipping down his cheeks as he grows more lightheaded and tired, hands slipping in his blood. It’s already soaked the front of his shirt, and he can feel the warmth of Jensen’s blood where their bodies are touching, clothes sticking. There’s too much, and he can’t look, both because he’s afraid of what he’ll see, and because he can’t move his neck to do so.
When the door is broken open, it’s not yet enough for Jared to feel relieved or safe. He’s aware of it, but still scared, still convinced that he and Jensen are dying. For a moment, he thinks their attackers will act quickly and kill them before the cops can get to them, but the cops are faster, thank God, though the attackers turn on them, too. The sound of gunshots filling their home is a shock, but a welcome one, in this situation. Feeling Jensen’s hand grow weaker on his chest, beginning to slip away, Jared’s almost glad to hear their bodies hit the floor.
There’s an ambulance there already, and Jared realizes Jensen not only told them enough to get one here, but left the phone on speaker, so they could hear what was happening. As panicked as he is about his own survival, he wants to protest when they start loading him onto a stretcher, wants to tell them to take Jensen first, to help him, please. But they’re careful in moving him, and he knows he can’t move much himself. He’s glad to have someone else to help stabilize the knife. It hits him then, how little strength he has left in his body, and it’s a fight to stay awake like they tell him to. He gets some comfort out of hearing them talking to Jensen, too, noting that they’d put them in the same ambulance. At least he knows that Jensen is nearby, that he’s being helped, and that he’s still awake, too.
It scares him when they’re separated in the hospital, but he doesn’t have much time to think about it, rushed to where he’s sedated and finally sinks into a deep sleep.
****
Jensen lays next to Jared in bed, wide awake. He feels Jared shift and turn towards him, Jared’s breath on his neck.
“Can I hold you?”
He closes his eyes, part of him hating how tentative Jared’s request is, the other appreciating it.
“Of course.”
Jared’s arms wrap around him, and Jensen breathes in the warmth, the love. They’d just gotten over their rough patch prior to the attack, and now Jensen is back to being less physical, less accessible. But this time, Jared is patient and understanding, and Jensen knows that Jared thinks he just has some sort of PTSD from the attack. And maybe he does. But there are details that Jensen had left out of the story he told the cops, and the one he told Jared. Feeling Jared’s soothing breaths behind him, Jensen wonders if maybe now it’s time to tell him why he’s been so fucking jumpy lately, and so paranoid every time he gets a notification on his phone.
“Are you still awake?” he asks, and Jared hums against him. “There’s something I need to tell you. About that day.”
Jared shifts behind him again, holding him a little closer. “I’m listening.”
Jensen hesitates. It’s harder to talk about this than he thought it would be, even though he’s avoided it just for that reason. “The things they did…It wasn’t just weird little mind games. It was…sexual.”
He feels Jared go completely rigid behind him, can practically smell Jared’s instant fury, and he knows Jared’s getting the wrong idea. “Did they…hurt you?” Jared’s voice is tight and barely restrained, breaking a little on that word.
“No,” Jensen emphasizes, turning in Jared’s arms. “No, it’s nothing like that.” He looks in Jared’s eyes, sees the relief there.
“Then what do you mean?”
Jensen sighs, looking away. “They did things, like…left one of our toys on the nightstand. I heard it, thought it was my phone.” He doesn’t mention that one of the cops did find it still vibrating around, chasing down the noise, but that he thankfully unplugged it, stashed it away, and kept it quiet. “I got rid of it. I can’t…” He doesn’t need to say anymore. There’s obviously no way either of them could ever get any pleasure out of it again. “And then, they…they made me think that you were here.”
Jared’s head tilts on the pillow. “What? How?”
This is the part that Jensen almost can’t bear to tell him, a bitter taste rising in the back of his throat. “They used the video that we took before, on my phone, when we were…” He pauses, his chest feeling tight, and he sees when the realization hits Jared. “I heard this…moaning. And at first I thought they hurt you, but then…”
There’s silence, and Jensen starts breathing faster, starts wondering what Jared’s thinking, if he’s making things worse by making Jared feel just as violated and humiliated as he did, but Jared has to know. “I’m sorry. I’ve been losing my mind, wondering if they did anything with it, if you’ll suddenly wake up to some sex video of ours all over the internet, us in tabloids and whatever else, everyone after us for comments, and all of this becoming so much more than just some insane break-in.” He’s talking too fast, a lump forming in his throat. “I checked my phone, I didn’t see it sent to anyone, but who knows if they just deleted things. I’m so sorry, Jared, I just let you get exposed like that. I should’ve done more, should’ve been more aware. I don’t know how I didn’t hear anything or notice that I wasn’t alone in the house sooner. I shouldn’t have just left things sitting around like that.”
“Hey. Hey.” Jared stops him, hand tight on his shoulder. “Jensen. You were in your own home. Why would I expect you to keep better track of your shit in your own home? Look at me.” Jensen does, with effort. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t hurt me. None of this is your fault. Okay?”
He takes a moment, calming down, trying to see if this makes him feel any better. It does, but not fully. He looks back at Jared. “Same goes for you, right?”
And Jared falters. It’s a little bit of a cheap shot, and Jensen feels bad for bringing it up, but he also sees the understanding there. He knows that Jared’s been beating himself up over not getting home sooner, not protecting Jensen enough. He’s said some of the same things to Jared, telling him that he did nothing wrong and not to blame himself, but it’s easier said than done. It does soothe things, to know that they neither of them blames the other for what happened, but it’s hard to shrug that guilt and trauma off yourself.
“Yeah,” Jared says, in a tone that says that he gets it, and he feels the same way Jensen does. He reaches up and smooths Jensen’s hair back, strokes the side of his face. “I’m here if you need me.”
“I know,” Jensen says, turning in to Jared’s touch. “Me too.”
****
Jared can’t lie and say that what Jensen told him didn’t freak him out. He started feeling the same way Jensen had, constantly nervous that their video would show up somewhere in the news. But over time, that fear has started to fade away. It seems like they both realize that their attackers had no intention of ever making anything public, but that’s almost worse. It means they were just doing it for the sake of doing it, for the sake of fucking with Jensen. It’s sick and twisted, and part of Jared wants to move, but part of him doesn’t want those people to win. They’ve gotten a new security system to replace the one that their attackers were able to bypass, and Jared checks it multiple times every night. He’s also managed to have the dogs driven up to them while they’re filming, both of them deciding to spend less time flying back and forth between Vancouver and Austin while the show runs. It adds a layer of protection and comfort, even if they still can’t fully get over what happened.
The first time one of them has a day off again, there’s a weight to the air around them. This time, Jensen has to go in, while Jared stays behind. Jensen almost convinces Jared to come to set with him anyway, just to be safe. But Jared doesn’t want anyone to see that they’re scared, that they were so rattled by the whole thing that they can’t go back to their normal lives. He’s still shaken when Jensen leaves the house, still paranoid and constantly checking the security, the cameras, alerted to every sound. A few times he wonders if he was stupid to let his pride get in the way of his own safety. He finds that he’s glad that their attackers are dead. God only knows how he and Jensen would ever get back to normal if they were still out there, or alive, to be faced in some long court process, always wondering if they’d ever be free again. But the day passes by without incident, even if Jensen is still so panicked that he’s screwing up takes and texting Jared constantly, which is one way to make sure Jared keeps his phone on him.
When Jensen comes home, Jared greets him at the door. Jensen’s wrapped around him instantly, a hug so tight that Jared can barely breathe, and it almost hurts, but he returns it in kind. He rubs Jensen’s back, tries to soothe the hitching breaths there.
Then Jensen’s pulling back, cupping Jared’s face, and kissing him like his life depends on it, and maybe today it does. It takes Jared by surprise, but he welcomes it, his heart skipping at the feel of Jensen’s mouth on his again. He opens up, lets Jensen inside, stealing his breath. Suddenly it’s frantic, and Jensen’s pushing him back towards the stairs, pushing his hands up under Jared’s shirt, and Jared manages to break contact and turn to head up the stairs, Jensen’s hand gripped tightly in his own.
Jensen’s on him as soon as they’re in the bedroom, and Jared loves it, feeling heady and drunk as he’s pushed back onto the bed, Jensen making quick work of their clothes, hand generously working Jared’s dick as he fumbles for the lube in the nightstand.
In all honesty, Jared could come just like this, feeling Jensen’s hands on him again, but Jensen stops before that can happen, slicking up his fingers and pressing one inside Jared. Jensen’s lips and tongue are all over Jared’s body as he fingers him open, and Jared clenches and squirms, hips lifting off the bed. It’s so much stimulation all at once, but all he wants is more.
When Jensen finally thrusts inside of him, Jared arches and shivers, and Jensen’s arms wrap around him, holding him close as they grind together. Jared wraps his legs around Jensen, and they fit together so perfectly, Jensen pushing in a little deeper with each thrust, making those needy little sounds that have Jared spilling pre-come over his belly, knowing it’s his body that makes Jensen feel that good, that high, that strung-out.
In the middle of it all, Jensen moves for Jared’s neck, a spot where he would normally suck and bite, trying to draw moans out of Jared. But this time, it’s a soft touch of lips against the scar left by the knife that almost killed him, and Jared still moans and grips Jensen’s shoulders, tightens his legs around him, urging him to go deeper. He throws his head back when he feels Jensen’s balls against his ass, cock warm and thick inside of him, Jensen’s tongue licking up his throat and over his chin to kiss him again. He tries to get a hand down between them to jerk himself off, but Jensen’s shoving in and coming first, the kiss broken as he buries his face in Jared’s neck and whimpers, a few more hard thrusts before the tension leaves his body and he slips out, immediately moving down to take Jared’s dick in his mouth.
Even before the attack, as much as their sex life was active, Jensen hadn’t blown him in a while, and Jared moans in appreciation and thrusts up through Jensen’s lips, against his tongue. Jensen tries to hold him in place, hands on Jared’s hips, and Jared looks down to watch, gets a hand on the back of Jensen’s head to hold and guide, fingers playing in Jensen’s hair.
He watches as Jensen’s head bobs up and down, then pulls off, one hand moving to the base of Jared’s dick, stroking it a few times as he licks just under the head, then goes back down, hand moving to cup and massage Jared’s balls.
Jared lets his head drop back on the pillow, eyes rolling closed as his chest heaves and his body jerks. Jensen grabs his hips and holds on, swallowing rapidly as Jared comes down his throat, sobbing with the release and the warm, wet feel of Jensen’s tongue moving on each spurt.
Jensen sucks him until he goes soft, then gently lets him slip free, spent and sated. For a moment, Jensen stays collapsed on Jared’s lower half, but then he slowly drags himself back up next to Jared, flopping on the pillows beside him.
“I love you,” Jensen says as his eyes are closing, and Jared cuddles up close, tucking his head under Jensen’s chin.
“I love you, too.”
It feels like a victory, like they’ve gotten past that physical barrier forced on them by their attackers, and while they may still have a long way to go, Jared knows that they’re going to be alright.