fic: Love Like Gasoline (J2 AU) 2/2
Love Like Gasoline
J2 AU
Part Two!
The house is dark and quiet except for a light on in the kitchen. There's a plate of cookies on the table with a note that says "Have some cookies. Love, Mom", and on the counter are two small loaves of something wrapped in tinfoil, with Post-its reading "Don't eat this" and "Don't eat this either" stuck to them. The kitchen smells faintly of banana bread.
"Stress baking," Jared says sagely, opening the fridge and taking out the milk. He pours himself a glass, sits down, and pulls the plate of cookies towards himself. He bites into one, chews, swallows, and says "A couple years."
"A couple years what?" Jensen asks.
"Since I put together my own crew. We've only been together a couple years, I mean. I did some work for some guys before that, just building up my skills, getting my name out there. And then I figured it was time to lead myself." He shrugs.
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why? We need the money. The house needs work, Mom's car is a piece of shit but she can't get to the diner without it and we can't afford to replace it, Jeff doesn't want anything to do with us, Megan fucked off to her commune, you... whatever you did - I'm the only one left to take care of things. What if something happens? You know the diner doesn't pay anything. It's up to me." He finishes the cookie, brushes crumbs off the table. "Why'd you do it? Don't tell me it wasn't for the money."
"It wasn't." Jared doesn't look convinced. "Well, the money was nice, but I did it for the cars. I mean, I'll never be rich enough to own a Porsche or a MacLaren, but I could boost one, open it up on the freeway, and just... take off. For a few hours I could have something amazing, something I'd never have a chance at otherwise. I could be fast. I could get away, I could be free." He sighs. "And I could go to jail. I was so close to getting caught, that's why I left. I realized I was a bad fucking influence, and I didn't want you to follow me to jail." He sighs again. "And yesterday I rescued you from Sheppard's god-damn crusher. You could've been killed. What were you thinking?"
"I missed you," Jared says, his voice quieter now, like he's confessing a secret. "You just took off and no one would tell me where you were. You were like my big brother - you were my family - and you just abandoned me. And I thought, I dunno, I'd do what you did, I'd get really good at boosting cars, make a name for myself, run my own crew, and maybe you'd know, and... you'd come back." He's looking at his hands holding his glass, rather than at Jensen. Jensen wants him to look up. "And if you didn't, ok, I'd just... I'd be you, and it would almost be like you were here." He swallows the rest of his milk.
"Jay...."
"You left me." Now Jared does look up, and he looks angry. "I loved you and - " He stops abruptly.
"I'm sorry. Your mom asked me to go. I didn't argue. I thought it was best. I was afraid of getting caught, I was afraid you'd go with me, I don't know. I was trying to protect you, keep you out of it. And you did it anyway." He picks up a cookie, breaks it in half, drops both halves on the table. He doesn't know what to say or do or even think. He was wrong to leave, he knows that now, and he can fix Jared's deal with Sheppard, but how can he make up for the six years he was gone?
"Why couldn't you tell me where you were? Why didn't you ever call?"
"I didn't want anyone to know where I was. I thought there was a warrant out for my arrest. The cops knew me. I couldn't risk it."
"Coward."
"Yeah." Jensen picks up one of the cookie halves and eats it. Peanutbutter. He always did love Mrs P's peanutbutter cookies. "If I'd stayed here, I would've gone to jail, but you wouldn't have gotten into trouble. I shoulda stayed."
"Yeah. You should have."
"I don't know how to make it up to you, after this thing is over."
"I do. You can stay."
Jensen eats the other half of his cookie. Jared is watching him, looking calm.
You were a kid when I left, Jensen thinks. Twenty years old, and you were a kid.
Well, one good thing came out of the six years he was gone - it gave Jared a chance to screw up, but it also gave him a chance to grow up. Maybe he doesn't need anyone to look after him and protect him any more.
But just this one time, Jensen will.
"Ok," Jensen says. "I'll stay. Your mom'll be thrilled."
Jared's whole face lights up when he grins, the same as when he was seven, fourteen, twenty, and Jensen is so inexplicably relieved that his chest hurts.
And then he realizes that it isn't relief, it's love. The reason he left, the reason he came back, the reason he started stealing cars in the first place.
The reason he's going to stay.
Everything suddenly seems so very easy - it's only Wednesday and in the past day and a half he's gotten a crew together, scouted fifty cars, made a plan to take them, settled into Mrs P's house, had Jared forgive him for leaving, and just generally slotted right back into the space he left. The only speedbump is the appearance of Detective Morgan and his pretty partner, and if everyone keeps their heads down and their eyes open, the good detective's attention might stay focused on him. Which means he'll have to be extra careful, now that he's promised to stick around when this is all over.
He yawns. He needs to go to bed. And Jared is still half-grinning at him with the same expression Mrs P used to turn on them when they'd done something ridiculous in the way of boys playing around. It's affectionate and full of love and to see it on Jared's face is familiar and strange at the same time.
"I need to go to bed," Jensen says, unnecessarily. "We have a lot to do tomorrow. A lot to plan."
"A lot to steal," Jared adds.
"That too." He stands up. "Don't finish the cookies."
He's almost asleep when Jared tiptoes into the bedroom, clearly trying to be quiet, and if Jensen wasn't so tired and if he didn't have so many things to think about, he might actually laugh at the sight of Jared very carefully making his way across the messy floor. And then Jared crawls into bed with him, making the mattress dip and the frame creak, and Jensen whispers "What are you doing? You're not gonna fit."
"Sure I will," Jared whispers back, managing to fit his body against Jensen's in such a way that the mattress can just hold both of them.
"Are you worried about tomorrow? About Sheppard?" Jensen can't think of another reason Jared might need to share a bed.
"No."
"Then what - ?"
"I just. I missed you. The whole time you were gone." His voice sounds young, but the length and solidity of his body pressed against Jensen are anything but. There's no softness anywhere on him, save for his hair tickling Jensen's cheek. It's intimate and comforting and if Jared was anyone else Jensen might think this was a come-on.
"Go to sleep," he says.
"Ok."
Jared is asleep almost instantly. It takes Jensen a little longer, but not much. In the morning Jared wakes him up by half shoving him off the bed, and for an hour or so they revert to being teenagers, pushing and shoving and throwing clothes at each other (sometimes clean clothes, sometimes not) and snapping towels and stealing each other's breakfasts and just goofing off.
They eventually end up at Jim's, for lack of any better ideas, hanging around the office and the back of the garage while legitimate mechanics perform legitimate work on people's legitimately-owned cars. Jensen wonders what these men know about their boss' previous life, or his current side project, or if they're all reformed crooks too.
Slowly some of the rest of their combined crew trickles in, and Jim is talking to Chris and Aldis, and Lindberg and Frederick are arguing about philosophy, of all things, and Jared is whipping Murray's ass at poker when one of Jim's mechanics comes back to where they are, whispers in Jim's ear, and disappears again.
"Cover that," Jim tells Chris, pointing to the blackboard. Chris and Aldis spin it around so the list of cars is turned to the wall and the outward-facing side just shows what looks like a complicated repair schedule. Frederick flips papers around on the desk to cover anything incriminating. Jared pushes the box of walkie-talkies into a cupboard.
"Beaver!" someone calls out cheerfully, and Detectives Morgan and Harris come into view. Chris shoots Jensen a look - Why didn't you tell me he was on to you? - and Jim focuses on Morgan.
"Detective Morgan," he says. "What brings you to my garage? Need a tune-up?"
"Just checking up on Mr Ackles here." He waves in Jensen's direction. Everyone's eyes follow his arm. Jensen wants to shrink into the floor. "Making sure he's keeping his nose clean, that's all. What's this?" He gestures to the blackboard. "Looks like you're keeping busy." Morgan keeps walking around, checking things out, glancing at everyone, clearly taking notes. Harris follows him, smiling brightly. She winks at Chris. He just looks suspicious.
"Lots of restoration," Jim says. "Making the old young again."
"Nice work if you can get it," Morgan comments. He runs his hand over the hood of an old Cadillac. Jensen wonders what he's thinking, if the game is up, the job over, and if it is, could they give up Sheppard in exchange for their freedom? Would Morgan take that?
Another pass around this part of the garage, another thoughtful look at the schedule on the blackboard, a leer from Murray and a laughing comment from Harris in return, and Morgan says "Well, if I inherit my dad's Plymouth and it needs some work, I know where to bring it. You have a good day."
He and Harris let themselves out, and no sooner are they gone than Chris rounds on Jensen and demands to know how the detective knew he was here, and why didn't he say anything?
"You can't protect us," Frederick says. "Not any more."
"What does he know?" Jared asks.
"I don't know," Jensen sighs. "I didn't think he'd follow me here."
"Well, that was a stupid-ass thing to think," Jim says. "But it's pointless now. He knows something's up or he wouldn't have come here. There a warrant out on you?"
"Not that I know of. He would've arrested me the first time he saw me, if there was."
"The first time?" Aldis repeats.
"Yeah. Guys, I'm sorry. I kinda hoped this wouldn't come up. He can't keep eyes on all fifty cars, and he can't keep eyes on all of us all the time. We just have to be really, really careful." He remembers that when Morgan saw him yesterday, he mentioned Jared's criminal career and Sheppard's criminal business. They'll have to be more than careful. They'll have to be lucky.
By eight-thirty everyone has gathered in Jim's office and been brought up to speed. Gabe remembered to bring his police scanner but still seems a little panicked at the idea of cops on their trail. Alona seems a little excited. Jim makes it very clear that he's not going to bail anyone of out jail if they get caught.
"Don't lose your GPS," Lindberg says. "I got a good deal. I programmed the drop-off to be ‘home' so you don't get lost. Don't fuck with it."
"We have twelve hours," Jensen tells everyone. "Keep your heads down, eyes on the prize, whatever motivational speech works for you. If you see anything out of the ordinary, you walk away. It is not worth getting busted. Any problems, call in. You make a delivery, call in. Keep in touch but don't be stupid. Got it?" Nods all around. "Any questions?"
"What if we get hungry?" Alona asks.
"Suffer," Chris says, at the same time Aldis suggests she pick up some snacks for the road.
"Don't go through a drive-through with a stolen car," Kevin says. "That's kind of basic."
"Or a plate-glass window," Murray tells Jared, who makes a bitchface.
In Jim's office, in the back of a bottom cabinet, is a shoebox, and in that shoebox are the tricks of Jensen's trade - a roll of tools, a small flashlight, a St Jude medal on a chain that his mother gave him when the rest of his family moved away from LA - and now, with the roll in a jacket pocket, the flashlight in another pocket, and St Jude under his shirt, he feels ready. He feels like himself, as good a car boost as he ever was. No rust on him, just the love of a good car and the anticipation of a good challenge.
And the security of Jared's safety.
"Frederick?" Jensen says. "A little prayer, if you please?"
Jensen is the one from the religious family, but Frederick is the one with the sense of ritual.
"Hands," Aldis says, holding his out to Alona on one side and Chris on the other. Lindberg pulls off his knit cap. Jensen bows his head, and feels Jared's hand on his arm.
"O Christopher," Frederick says, "patron saint of drivers, guide our hands on the wheel and our tires on the road. With your blessing, doors will open for us, engines will turn over, alarms will turn off, and prying eyes will be averted. May the GPS not lead us astray, and may your guidance bring us and our ladies safely home."
"And may Morgan stay off our asses," Chris adds.
"And may Morgan and his pretty partner stay off our asses. Amen."
Jensen looks up. Murray looks supremely unimpressed, but everyone else just looks ready.
"Let's do this," Jensen says. "Time to roll."
And they're out.
The first stop is a dealership warehouse for Emily, Louise, Melanie, Tanya, and Grace, and it is a piece of cake. Five down, forty-five to go.
Jensen drives himself and Jared to their next mark - Delilah, a 1962 Aston Martin DB1 - and once they've popped the door and cranked the engine, Jensen leaves Jared to the delivery and heads off on his own.
He feels like this is the culmination of every illegal thing he's ever done - this feeling of power and control, the knowledge that he has orchestrated the theft of fifty cars in twelve hours, he has brought together a crew with more combined years of experience than he can count on his hands and feet, he has pointed all these people in the right direction and let them go.
And he is once again doing the only thing he has ever been good at, the only career he has ever loved. He is back in business, and he is happy.
St Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes, rests against his sternum, under his t-shirt. A bad joke on his mother's part, an assumption, a presumed future. But his mother was wrong, and his cause is not hopeless. He is not hopeless. He is going to clear Jared's debt with Sheppard. He is going to save Jared's life, and maybe win back his own.
It's an amazing feeling.
He meets up with Jared at the wharf where Sheppard is taking delivery of all his cars, and then they head out again. They listen to chatter over the walkie-talkie, Jared plays with his portable GPS, Jensen turns on the radio and then turns it back off. They talk some, they watch the road a lot. Jensen counts off cars in his head as delivery reports trickle in.
Amanda. Isabelle. Constance. Traci. Virginia.
He and Jared break into Penelope, a silver 1971 Volvo P1800 SE - the Saint's car, he can hear Frederick telling them - and Jared kindly lets Jensen drive off in her, for the simple reason that Jared is bigger than she is, and he doesn't want to try and fold himself into her front seat.
And still Jensen listens to the names spilling from the walkie-talkie, each one another step towards his final goal.
Rosemary. Fleur. Karen. Cassie. Elizabeth.
His crew sounds excited too, and competent, and on the ball. He picks his people well, and so does Jared.
"Teresa was a hoot and a half." Alona. "She had steer horns!"
"Natalie's home, more's the pity." Aldis.
"Had fun with Tricia, on my way to fetch Julia." Chris.
Alice. Lindsey. Sandra. Rebecca.
He and Jared are back together, Jared having reluctantly dropped off Deirdre (a pink 1956 Ford Thunderbird), and they're on their way to collect Ellen. It's quiet in the car, this one a nondescript Mercury borrowed from one of Sheppard's guys so they can get from place to place without drawing attention. Every so often Jensen glances over at Jared, and when he does, Jared is smiling. Jensen feels both serene and excited, as if he's found the zen of car theft.
The silence is broken by Gabe's voice panicking over the walkie-talkie - "OH MY GOD THERE'S A BABY IN HERE OH SHIT OH SHIT GUYS WHAT DO I DO??" followed almost immediately by Kevin calmly suggesting he shut the fuck up so as not to wake it.
Jared is clearly about to make another suggestion - what, Jensen has no idea - when Gabe says "Wait, it's just a car seat, thank god." He sounds relieved. Jared looks at Jensen and rolls his eyes. If Jensen could, he'd reach through the walkie-talkie and smack Gabe upside the head.
Half an hour later Gabe has delivered the car - Shannon, a 2010 Lincoln Navigator - and Jared and Jensen turn onto Ellen's street and cruise up to her neighbor's driveway. There's a minivan on the far driveway that Jensen doesn't remember being there last night.
"Just wait for me to get in," he tells Jared, and slides out of the car. He walks across the grass to Ellen. Her key is in his pocket - Chris' friend Steve, who works at a dealership, got them duplicate keys for the Benzes - he knows how to disable her alarm, block her tracking software, and reset his GPS, but something doesn't feel right. The van is bothering him. Why would someone in this high-rent neighborhood have such an ordinary, boring, domestic minivan?
He's almost to Ellen's door when the hinky feeling becomes too much. He feels eyes on him, and they're not friendly eyes. He turns around and goes back to Jared and the car.
"I think that van was in a different driveway yesterday," Jared says, as Jensen gets in the passenger side.
That explains the hinky feeling. And the unfriendly strangers' eyes.
"Shit. It's Morgan. We gotta go."
As Jared pulls out of the driveway and takes off, Jensen turns on the walkie-talkie and makes the announcement he was hoping he'd never have to make - "The ladies have stalkers. Stop what you're doing and walk away. I repeat - walk away. Tell me you get it."
Everyone checks in except for Frederick, so Jensen calls his cell phone, repeats the message, and then tells Jared to drive faster.
There is (unsurprisingly) a significant amount of chaos in Jim's garage, and everyone is talking at once.
"This is your fucking fault," Murray tells Jensen, as he and Jared walk in. "That cop wants your ass."
"What happened, Jen?" Chris asks. "Did he get the list or was this a lucky guess?"
"There wasn't any chatter on the scanner," Lindberg says.
"He couldn't have seen the blackboard," Aldis says.
"And the desk was too messy to get anything from," Frederick adds.
"Did you guys have a blackboard?" Chris asks Jared, waving at Jim's board with half the cars crossed off. "With the list on it. Would the cops have found it?"
"Yeah, but we used a blacklight," Gabe says, sounding proud, "and broke all the bulbs before we took off."
"That there's our problem," Jim says. "That's how Morgan knows - must've figured that out and run a light over your board. He's got the same list we do, he'll be watching the same cars we are."
"Shit," Jensen mutters. But he should have known something like this would happen the second he stepped out of Mrs P's diner and ran into Detective Morgan on the sidewalk.
But how did Morgan know to watch Ellen? The 2009 Mercedes SL is a common enough car in LA. Why not Tricia, the '71 DeTomaso Pantera that Chris brought in? How many of those can there possibly be in Los Angeles? Or Penelope, the little silver Volvo? He would have known if someone was tailing him when he took her. Why Ellen?
"Chris," he says slowly, thoughtfully, "what are the chances the cops got to Steve?"
"Son of a bitch," Chris swears, and his reaction answers Jensen's question as much as any words could. "He told me he was clean."
"Guess not," Murray says.
"So what now? All the Mercedes are off the table."
"I can find a couple more," Lindberg offers, already starting to type on his laptop.
"No, we need the keys."
"We already boosted them," Alona says, "but the city impounded them. But we still have the keys." She points to Jared. "You have them."
"I. Yeah," he says, "I brought them here." He walks over to the counter and starts rummaging through the stuff on it until he comes up with a gray envelope and pulls three Mercedes key fobs out of it. "But the cars are in the impound lot."
"So we'll get them out of the impound lot." She grins like it's the simplest solution possible.
"It's city impound," Aldis reminds her. "Cops. Security. Fences. And did I mention the cops?"
"Car thieves." She points to herself and then Murray, Jared, Gabe. She's still grinning. "B&E, baby."
"No," Jensen says. "It's too risky. We don't have time."
"And finding three replacement cars is quicker?" Kevin asks. "We just need a distraction and we can steal them out from under the city's nose."
"We need those exact cars, Jen," Jared says. He points to the blackboard with one of the Mercedes keys. Jennifer. Alexa. Ellen. Two 2010s, one 2009. The key in Jared's hand unlocks an impounded car, evidence for a criminal investigation, and for all that Jensen wishes there was a better, easier way around this, he has to admit that Alona and Kevin and Jared are right - they need those three Mercedes, and if anyone can sneak onto the lot, find them, and drive them out, it's the people now standing in Jim's office.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, isn't that what they say? They're already looking at twenty-seven counts of grand theft auto, why not add breaking and entering and stealing police evidence to the list? The longer they stand around arguing, the faster time ticks down, the closer the deadline gets, and the more likely it becomes that Sheppard loses his cars and breaks the deal and Jensen doesn't want to think too closely about what happens after that.
"Ok," he says. "Alona, Kevin, Murray, Chris. Be quick, and be careful."
"You know what you're doing?" Jim asks him quietly, after the four have left.
"Does it matter? We've got twenty-three more cars and a little less than six hours to bring them in. That's what counts. I gotta go."
And once again he and Jared set out on their quest.
"I'm sorry," Jared says after about fifteen minutes.
"For what?"
"Fucking up."
"It's not your fault Steve rolled over for the cops."
"No, but.... I'm sorry you had to come back just to save my ass."
I came back for my guilt, Jensen thinks. To atone for my sins. "And I'm sorry for running off six years ago. We both screwed up, we'll both fix it. You were determined to do this with me, remember? But you picked some good people for your crew."
"I did, didn't I." Now he sounds pleased with himself, and when Jensen glances over, Jared's grinning.
Kevin reports in after the three Mercedes are safely away from the impound lot, and again when they're delivered. Jensen breathes out his relief, and the litany of girls' names continues over the walkie-talkie, the cars and his crew's truncated conversations and every so often a police report courtesy of Gabe's scanner.
Stella. Nadine. Wendy. Denise.
"Ashley's home. My girlfriend woulda loved her." Kevin.
"Brought Lila in, and Erin's on her way." Frederick.
"Dropping off Maddy right now. Madeleine, sorry. She looks like a Maddy." Gabe.
Susan. Patricia. Bernadette. Mary.
The sun is rising at his back as Jensen drives Catherine (a 1957 convertible Chevy Bel Air painted turquoise blue) towards the wharf, and he hears Aldis report in - "Just dropped off Leah, she was a pleasure" - mentally ticks the gullwing Mercedes off the list, and allows himself to think that maybe they can actually accomplish this. It might be the biggest concentrated boost LA has ever seen. In some circles, he can be famous.
And he can make it up to Jared for leaving him.
Now that he has some breathing room, some time to think, Jensen can't get Jared's face last night out of his mind - his hurt face and his angry words, the admission that he started stealing cars to bring Jensen back, the way he said "I missed you" and "You left me" and "I loved you".
I loved you too, Jensen thinks. I always have. I still do.
They're so close to being finished, so close to delivering all of Sheppard's cars, so close to sewing up this mess and setting things right. And after nine o'clock, after the last car is brought in, who knows. Jensen will stay in Los Angeles, move back into Jared's mother's house, pick up where he left off. Maybe he'll actually stay on the right side of the law this time.
He counts off names as they're announced over the walkie-talkie, and he wonders if he even knows how to go straight with so much temptation around him, and if he really can be happy doing it. Because it was always the cars that kept him going, and only the cars that held the opportunities he wanted. One of the reasons he left LA was to get away from them.
Leslie. Jessica. Kimberley. Deborah. Diane.
And then there's only one. Eleanor. His albatross. Once almost his doom, hopefully today his salvation.
He has about an hour to get her to Sheppard, and he runs his hand over her hood and up her windshield and across her roof, as if she were a woman he's trying to seduce. There are objectively more stylish cars in existence, but there is only one Eleanor.
She is forty-four years old, sleek and black and three thousand pounds of Detroit steel and automotive muscle, and she is the most beautiful thing Jensen has ever seen.
"It's up to us now," he murmurs, carefully sliding his slim jim down inside the door and popping the lock. Eleanor's engine rumbles when he hotwires it, and he cruises out of the garage where her owner kept her and onto the street.
And as soon as he turns a corner, a black sedan, an undercover cop car, pulls in right behind him, a light starts flashing, and he curses.
"C'mon, baby," he says encouragingly, taking off down the street and rocketing around another corner, through a stop sign, an intersection, and a light, barely missing a delivery truck and a guy on a motorcycle.
And Morgan, the son of a bitch, is right behind him, stuck to his ass like he's glued there.
Jensen ignores the GPS trying to correct his trajectory and slips back six years, eight, ten, when he was younger and more reckless and knew these streets by heart. He learned to navigate by hazy landmark and by feel back then, driving at night and in the wee hours before dawn, the dead hours before the city and its people were fully awake. The years peel back like he was never gone, and his hands rest easy on Eleanor's steering wheel and gearshift, and his foot is heavy on the gas and quick on the clutch, and he takes every opening presented to him and makes them when they're not, and he's gone.
And Morgan follows.
Jensen maneuvers around four-doors and zippy little sportscars and semis, and he's sorely tempted to ram the wandering SUVs driven by assholes chattering on their cell phones.
"Get off your fucking phone and pay attention!" he yells at the window, as if that would do any good.
No matter. Eleanor is strong and fast and the first and last thing Jensen ever wanted from a car was speed, ever since he and Jared first became friends and Jared's dad was still alive and used to take them to the speedway to watch the drag races. Eleanor is fast and Jensen is deep into a driver's mindset, concentrating on the road ahead of him and the vehicles around him, cars and vans and buses and motorcycles and the occasional idiot on a bike.
He has never been so glad that LA is a driving city and not a walking one. Cars get out of your way. Pedestrians don't.
"Got chatter on the scanner," Lindberg says suddenly over the walkie-talkie. "Jensen. They're on to you."
"No fucking shit," he answers. "You all stay put. I'm gonna shake this guy."
Two police cruisers pull out of a cross street just ahead of him, and he hauls on the wheel, does a 180 - no doubt scaring the crap out of the person in a Jeep who just barely misses hitting him - and zips past Morgan who is now going in the wrong direction. Jensen waves.
The cruisers and their sirens manage to stay behind him until he loses them down an alley, shooting out into the street mere seconds in front of a bus. He can hear tires screeching and horns blaring as he speeds off.
The water is somewhere ahead of him, with Sheppard's shipping containers and the forty-nine cars Jensen and his crew have already successfully delivered.
It's a shame he has to turn Eleanor over to the asshole, but Jared's life is more than worth it.
And to have this one last chance to drive her, to feel the rumble of her engine and the tightness of her suspension and the responsiveness in her steering - to hear the wind rushing past him and see the asphalt unfolding beneath him - Jensen doesn't think he's ever felt so complete, so in charge, in his life.
He registers the appearance of another cop car, the sound of another siren, but even as his heart rate speeds up a touch and his hand tightens on the wheel, he isn't worried. Eleanor will see him through.
He turns north, west, trying to shake the cops, but a truck pulls out of nowhere and in trying to avoid it, Jensen scrapes against it and half-knocks the driver's side mirror off the door.
"Shit, shit," he swears. "I'm so sorry, Eleanor. I'll get it fixed, I promise."
The cop car is still behind him, and as he's worrying about the side mirror another cruiser appears and he no longer has time to think. He has to move.
He leans on the horn as he blows through a red light, both cruisers screaming behind him, and now he can see Morgan's car is back, and he has to get out of here.
He needs the freeway - no. It's Friday morning in Los Angeles. It's rush hour. He's not that stupid.
Well. He gave up six years of crime-free living for fifty cars and a British car thief who threatened to kill Jared's mom. Maybe he is that stupid.
Jensen can hear time ticking away, the minutes running down until his intelligence or lack of it won't matter. He doesn't have time to get Eleanor to the wharf - he'll have to take her to Sheppard's warehouse, the place Chris took him to meet the guy when Sheppard had Jared in the crusher.
There's traffic up ahead, an accident. He can't go around it and he's not going to get off the road and Morgan and his two - wait, three - buddies are too close behind him and he's losing time.
Traffic is light and cruising right along in the opposite direction. Jensen glances behind him, crosses himself, shifts gears, and swerves across the low concrete barrier. Horns blare and tires screech as cars get out of his way. He hauls ass the wrong way down the road, zooming past the accident, past cop cars and an ambulance and all the people backed up, and as soon as he's on the other side of it he swerves back into the right lane, scraping past a couple of cars where the opening isn’t quite big enough, and keeps going.
Thank you, Eleanor. That's why I always loved you best.
His heart is racing and the St Jude medallion is sticking to him with sweat and he's moving and he's moving and he's running out of time.
And then he's out of time.
And then he's driving into Sheppard's yard, pulling up in front of the warehouse, getting out of the car, and Sheppard's goons are trying to tell him he's late, no deal, and he's walking towards the warehouse and he thinks if he can just get inside, these guys won't shoot him, and if he can find Sheppard, they'll talk this over, and the deal will be done and he can settle Jared's debt and go home.
He can hear another car arriving behind him, but then he's in the door and he hasn't gone very far before Sheppard is right there.
"You're late," he says.
"Maybe your watch is fast," is Jensen's reply. His tone is cocky but inside he's trying not to panic.
"My watch is not fast. You are late. I said nine, it's no longer nine. We don't have a deal."
"What's five minutes between friends?"
"Are we friends now?" Sheppard walks to the door, peers out, and adds "I note some damage to the last car. So not only are you late, you've brought me damaged merchandise. And you've made it more difficult for me to get it to my buyer." He shuts the door and starts walking away. His phone beeps and he holds up a finger to indicate Just a second, we'll continue when I'm done, and says "What?" into it, and then "Where's Pellegrino?" and then the warehouse door bangs open and Jensen is almost relieved to see Morgan framed by the morning sunlight.
"Mr Ackles," he says. "What a surprise."
Sheppard stares for a minute and then takes off. And Jensen follows, because he is an idiot and he needs to see this finished.
He can hear Morgan calling for backup and yelling at him and Sheppard to stop, and when Sheppard does finally stop and turn he's holding a handgun and Jensen throws himself out of the way so as not to get shot.
Sheppard runs up some stairs towards a catwalk. Jensen thinks he can see an office up there and screw this, he's getting the hell out of here and will fix things later, but Morgan grabs his shoulder, points at the stairs, and says "You go this way, I'll go that way, we'll catch him in the middle."
Morgan gives him a push and Jensen is so startled that he goes.
There is indeed an office at the top of the stairs, a room with doors on opposite walls, and Sheppard is rifling through a desk and shouting into his phone. His back is to Jensen. Jensen looks around for a weapon, something, anything, but the closest thing to hand that he might remotely be able to use is a straight-back wooden chair. He remembers that Sheppard has a thing for old furniture.
Just then Morgan appears in the far doorway of the room, and Sheppard looks up, sees him, and shoots at him. The shot knocks out a window instead.
"Sheppard!" Jensen yells, picking up the chair. He needs to be a distraction - he doesn't bear Morgan any love and never has, but he can't watch Sheppard kill him. When Sheppard turns, Jensen smashes the chair against the wall, breaking it into pieces. Sheppard howls and runs at him, and now Jensen grabs a leg from the busted chair and swings at Sheppard like he's holding a baseball bat.
You were going to kill me, he thinks. You tried to kill Jared and you threatened his mom.
He catches Sheppard on the arm, Sheppard points the gun at him, and he trips over himself trying to get out of the way. Morgan is running towards them, Sheppard is pushing past Jensen out of the office, Jensen is getting to his feet and following.
"Ackles!" Morgan yells behind him. Jensen takes another swing with the chair leg, this time catching Sheppard across the back of his shoulders. Morgan fires over their heads, causing Jensen to duck and Sheppard to stumble towards the stairs, where he loses his balance and pitches face-first straight down.
Jensen stares. He didn't want to kill Sheppard, just stop him from shooting anyone. And maybe beat him up a little for his threats and attempted murder. He can hear Morgan walking up behind him, and turns his head to see Morgan staring as well.
"Huh," Morgan says. "I guess that's the end of my investigation. Well, no, we've still got his guys to talk to and all those cars as evidence. Look at all this paperwork." He pulls out a phone, punches in a number, says "Harris. Hey. We need a body bag in here." He looks at Jensen. "Just me and Sheppard. I'll wait." He disconnects the call. "Why are you still here?" he asks Jensen. "Go on, get. I'm giving you a second chance. Don't fuck it up." He points meaningfully towards the front of the warehouse.
And Jensen gets.
A couple days later he and Jared and the rest of his crew are back at Jim's, but this time to kick back and celebrate rather than plot and plan a crime. They're all in the back yard where Jim keeps his grill, eating and drinking and talking and laughing and arguing. Aldis keeps trying to offer Chris assistance and suggestions as he's grilling, and it's making Chris cranky because he hates people telling him how to cook. Jared is sitting to Jensen's left, calling for another burger and telling Lindberg to stop hogging the Doritos, and on his other side Kevin and Jim are discussing how best to introduce Kevin's girlfriend's daughter and Jim's daughter to each other. Frederick is apparently trying to educate Murray and Gabe on something, Jensen can't hear what, and Murray is clearly having none of it. And Alona, who disappeared a few minutes ago, now returns with more beer and the radio from Jim's office.
"Do I need to I plug this in?" she asks.
"Hasn't run off a battery since before you could walk," Jim says. "I don't know if there's an outlet out here that works, though."
"I'll test ‘em when I find ‘em. Where do I look?"
Finding a working outlet for the radio in a convenient enough place that they don't need to also find an extension cord apparently takes the entire crew, minus Chris who refuses to leave the grill under the suspicion that Aldis will take his place.
Frederick eventually digs up an extension cord anyway and plugs the radio into an outlet inside the garage. Bickering naturally ensues over what station to listen to. And yet when Jensen looks around at these people who helped him when he needed it, who are now arguing with each other over such a trivial thing, he feels lucky and grateful and very, very happy.
Everything will be ok. He kept his ass and Jared's out of jail so Mrs P doesn't have to disown either of them, and he got Morgan off his case, and he's back where he belongs.
And he made some new friends, and he can always use more friends.
"Oh, hey," Jared says to him, "I got you a present."
"Yeah? What? Why?"
"Because." Jared shrugs. "I wanted to." He pushes himself away from the table and stands up. Surprisingly, Jim does the same.
"Come inside, boys and girl," Jim says, waving everyone inside.
They follow him and Jared to the back of the garage where there's a car covered with a tarp.
"Here," Jared says, handing Jensen a keyring with a brass J and two keys hanging from it. One of them is a house key, identical to the one Jensen has kept in his wallet all these years, and he knows it opens the front door of Mrs P's house. His house too, now. The other is a car key.
Jim and Jared both yank the tarp off with a flourish, and underneath is Eleanor.
Her side mirror has been temporarily fixed, but she's dusty and scratched and has a ding over the left rear wheel and she could use a fresh coat of paint and no doubt a major tune-up. But none of that matters, because she's still right there in front of him, solid and real and apparently all his.
"How'd you..." he stammers, at a loss.
"You're not the only one who knows how to cut a deal," Jared says, grinning. "Are you gonna stand there or are you gonna take her out?"
"I don't... I can't...."
"Don't say you don't deserve her," Chris snorts.
"Man, if you don't take that car, I will," Murray says. Frederick smacks him on the side of the head. "What?"
Jim opens the driver's-side door and Jensen slides in.
He runs his hand across the dashboard. "Hello, gorgeous," he murmurs.
"She is, isn't she," Jared says, climbing in the passenger seat.
She's not the only one, Jensen wants to say, but before he can even open his mouth, Jared kisses him. Someone whistles, Jensen has no idea who, and he can feel Jared grinning against his lips.
"Come on," Jensen says, "let's go for a ride."
Extras!
J2 AU
Part Two!
The house is dark and quiet except for a light on in the kitchen. There's a plate of cookies on the table with a note that says "Have some cookies. Love, Mom", and on the counter are two small loaves of something wrapped in tinfoil, with Post-its reading "Don't eat this" and "Don't eat this either" stuck to them. The kitchen smells faintly of banana bread.
"Stress baking," Jared says sagely, opening the fridge and taking out the milk. He pours himself a glass, sits down, and pulls the plate of cookies towards himself. He bites into one, chews, swallows, and says "A couple years."
"A couple years what?" Jensen asks.
"Since I put together my own crew. We've only been together a couple years, I mean. I did some work for some guys before that, just building up my skills, getting my name out there. And then I figured it was time to lead myself." He shrugs.
"Why?"
"What do you mean, why? We need the money. The house needs work, Mom's car is a piece of shit but she can't get to the diner without it and we can't afford to replace it, Jeff doesn't want anything to do with us, Megan fucked off to her commune, you... whatever you did - I'm the only one left to take care of things. What if something happens? You know the diner doesn't pay anything. It's up to me." He finishes the cookie, brushes crumbs off the table. "Why'd you do it? Don't tell me it wasn't for the money."
"It wasn't." Jared doesn't look convinced. "Well, the money was nice, but I did it for the cars. I mean, I'll never be rich enough to own a Porsche or a MacLaren, but I could boost one, open it up on the freeway, and just... take off. For a few hours I could have something amazing, something I'd never have a chance at otherwise. I could be fast. I could get away, I could be free." He sighs. "And I could go to jail. I was so close to getting caught, that's why I left. I realized I was a bad fucking influence, and I didn't want you to follow me to jail." He sighs again. "And yesterday I rescued you from Sheppard's god-damn crusher. You could've been killed. What were you thinking?"
"I missed you," Jared says, his voice quieter now, like he's confessing a secret. "You just took off and no one would tell me where you were. You were like my big brother - you were my family - and you just abandoned me. And I thought, I dunno, I'd do what you did, I'd get really good at boosting cars, make a name for myself, run my own crew, and maybe you'd know, and... you'd come back." He's looking at his hands holding his glass, rather than at Jensen. Jensen wants him to look up. "And if you didn't, ok, I'd just... I'd be you, and it would almost be like you were here." He swallows the rest of his milk.
"Jay...."
"You left me." Now Jared does look up, and he looks angry. "I loved you and - " He stops abruptly.
"I'm sorry. Your mom asked me to go. I didn't argue. I thought it was best. I was afraid of getting caught, I was afraid you'd go with me, I don't know. I was trying to protect you, keep you out of it. And you did it anyway." He picks up a cookie, breaks it in half, drops both halves on the table. He doesn't know what to say or do or even think. He was wrong to leave, he knows that now, and he can fix Jared's deal with Sheppard, but how can he make up for the six years he was gone?
"Why couldn't you tell me where you were? Why didn't you ever call?"
"I didn't want anyone to know where I was. I thought there was a warrant out for my arrest. The cops knew me. I couldn't risk it."
"Coward."
"Yeah." Jensen picks up one of the cookie halves and eats it. Peanutbutter. He always did love Mrs P's peanutbutter cookies. "If I'd stayed here, I would've gone to jail, but you wouldn't have gotten into trouble. I shoulda stayed."
"Yeah. You should have."
"I don't know how to make it up to you, after this thing is over."
"I do. You can stay."
Jensen eats the other half of his cookie. Jared is watching him, looking calm.
You were a kid when I left, Jensen thinks. Twenty years old, and you were a kid.
Well, one good thing came out of the six years he was gone - it gave Jared a chance to screw up, but it also gave him a chance to grow up. Maybe he doesn't need anyone to look after him and protect him any more.
But just this one time, Jensen will.
"Ok," Jensen says. "I'll stay. Your mom'll be thrilled."
Jared's whole face lights up when he grins, the same as when he was seven, fourteen, twenty, and Jensen is so inexplicably relieved that his chest hurts.
And then he realizes that it isn't relief, it's love. The reason he left, the reason he came back, the reason he started stealing cars in the first place.
The reason he's going to stay.
Everything suddenly seems so very easy - it's only Wednesday and in the past day and a half he's gotten a crew together, scouted fifty cars, made a plan to take them, settled into Mrs P's house, had Jared forgive him for leaving, and just generally slotted right back into the space he left. The only speedbump is the appearance of Detective Morgan and his pretty partner, and if everyone keeps their heads down and their eyes open, the good detective's attention might stay focused on him. Which means he'll have to be extra careful, now that he's promised to stick around when this is all over.
He yawns. He needs to go to bed. And Jared is still half-grinning at him with the same expression Mrs P used to turn on them when they'd done something ridiculous in the way of boys playing around. It's affectionate and full of love and to see it on Jared's face is familiar and strange at the same time.
"I need to go to bed," Jensen says, unnecessarily. "We have a lot to do tomorrow. A lot to plan."
"A lot to steal," Jared adds.
"That too." He stands up. "Don't finish the cookies."
He's almost asleep when Jared tiptoes into the bedroom, clearly trying to be quiet, and if Jensen wasn't so tired and if he didn't have so many things to think about, he might actually laugh at the sight of Jared very carefully making his way across the messy floor. And then Jared crawls into bed with him, making the mattress dip and the frame creak, and Jensen whispers "What are you doing? You're not gonna fit."
"Sure I will," Jared whispers back, managing to fit his body against Jensen's in such a way that the mattress can just hold both of them.
"Are you worried about tomorrow? About Sheppard?" Jensen can't think of another reason Jared might need to share a bed.
"No."
"Then what - ?"
"I just. I missed you. The whole time you were gone." His voice sounds young, but the length and solidity of his body pressed against Jensen are anything but. There's no softness anywhere on him, save for his hair tickling Jensen's cheek. It's intimate and comforting and if Jared was anyone else Jensen might think this was a come-on.
"Go to sleep," he says.
"Ok."
Jared is asleep almost instantly. It takes Jensen a little longer, but not much. In the morning Jared wakes him up by half shoving him off the bed, and for an hour or so they revert to being teenagers, pushing and shoving and throwing clothes at each other (sometimes clean clothes, sometimes not) and snapping towels and stealing each other's breakfasts and just goofing off.
They eventually end up at Jim's, for lack of any better ideas, hanging around the office and the back of the garage while legitimate mechanics perform legitimate work on people's legitimately-owned cars. Jensen wonders what these men know about their boss' previous life, or his current side project, or if they're all reformed crooks too.
Slowly some of the rest of their combined crew trickles in, and Jim is talking to Chris and Aldis, and Lindberg and Frederick are arguing about philosophy, of all things, and Jared is whipping Murray's ass at poker when one of Jim's mechanics comes back to where they are, whispers in Jim's ear, and disappears again.
"Cover that," Jim tells Chris, pointing to the blackboard. Chris and Aldis spin it around so the list of cars is turned to the wall and the outward-facing side just shows what looks like a complicated repair schedule. Frederick flips papers around on the desk to cover anything incriminating. Jared pushes the box of walkie-talkies into a cupboard.
"Beaver!" someone calls out cheerfully, and Detectives Morgan and Harris come into view. Chris shoots Jensen a look - Why didn't you tell me he was on to you? - and Jim focuses on Morgan.
"Detective Morgan," he says. "What brings you to my garage? Need a tune-up?"
"Just checking up on Mr Ackles here." He waves in Jensen's direction. Everyone's eyes follow his arm. Jensen wants to shrink into the floor. "Making sure he's keeping his nose clean, that's all. What's this?" He gestures to the blackboard. "Looks like you're keeping busy." Morgan keeps walking around, checking things out, glancing at everyone, clearly taking notes. Harris follows him, smiling brightly. She winks at Chris. He just looks suspicious.
"Lots of restoration," Jim says. "Making the old young again."
"Nice work if you can get it," Morgan comments. He runs his hand over the hood of an old Cadillac. Jensen wonders what he's thinking, if the game is up, the job over, and if it is, could they give up Sheppard in exchange for their freedom? Would Morgan take that?
Another pass around this part of the garage, another thoughtful look at the schedule on the blackboard, a leer from Murray and a laughing comment from Harris in return, and Morgan says "Well, if I inherit my dad's Plymouth and it needs some work, I know where to bring it. You have a good day."
He and Harris let themselves out, and no sooner are they gone than Chris rounds on Jensen and demands to know how the detective knew he was here, and why didn't he say anything?
"You can't protect us," Frederick says. "Not any more."
"What does he know?" Jared asks.
"I don't know," Jensen sighs. "I didn't think he'd follow me here."
"Well, that was a stupid-ass thing to think," Jim says. "But it's pointless now. He knows something's up or he wouldn't have come here. There a warrant out on you?"
"Not that I know of. He would've arrested me the first time he saw me, if there was."
"The first time?" Aldis repeats.
"Yeah. Guys, I'm sorry. I kinda hoped this wouldn't come up. He can't keep eyes on all fifty cars, and he can't keep eyes on all of us all the time. We just have to be really, really careful." He remembers that when Morgan saw him yesterday, he mentioned Jared's criminal career and Sheppard's criminal business. They'll have to be more than careful. They'll have to be lucky.
By eight-thirty everyone has gathered in Jim's office and been brought up to speed. Gabe remembered to bring his police scanner but still seems a little panicked at the idea of cops on their trail. Alona seems a little excited. Jim makes it very clear that he's not going to bail anyone of out jail if they get caught.
"Don't lose your GPS," Lindberg says. "I got a good deal. I programmed the drop-off to be ‘home' so you don't get lost. Don't fuck with it."
"We have twelve hours," Jensen tells everyone. "Keep your heads down, eyes on the prize, whatever motivational speech works for you. If you see anything out of the ordinary, you walk away. It is not worth getting busted. Any problems, call in. You make a delivery, call in. Keep in touch but don't be stupid. Got it?" Nods all around. "Any questions?"
"What if we get hungry?" Alona asks.
"Suffer," Chris says, at the same time Aldis suggests she pick up some snacks for the road.
"Don't go through a drive-through with a stolen car," Kevin says. "That's kind of basic."
"Or a plate-glass window," Murray tells Jared, who makes a bitchface.
In Jim's office, in the back of a bottom cabinet, is a shoebox, and in that shoebox are the tricks of Jensen's trade - a roll of tools, a small flashlight, a St Jude medal on a chain that his mother gave him when the rest of his family moved away from LA - and now, with the roll in a jacket pocket, the flashlight in another pocket, and St Jude under his shirt, he feels ready. He feels like himself, as good a car boost as he ever was. No rust on him, just the love of a good car and the anticipation of a good challenge.
And the security of Jared's safety.
"Frederick?" Jensen says. "A little prayer, if you please?"
Jensen is the one from the religious family, but Frederick is the one with the sense of ritual.
"Hands," Aldis says, holding his out to Alona on one side and Chris on the other. Lindberg pulls off his knit cap. Jensen bows his head, and feels Jared's hand on his arm.
"O Christopher," Frederick says, "patron saint of drivers, guide our hands on the wheel and our tires on the road. With your blessing, doors will open for us, engines will turn over, alarms will turn off, and prying eyes will be averted. May the GPS not lead us astray, and may your guidance bring us and our ladies safely home."
"And may Morgan stay off our asses," Chris adds.
"And may Morgan and his pretty partner stay off our asses. Amen."
Jensen looks up. Murray looks supremely unimpressed, but everyone else just looks ready.
"Let's do this," Jensen says. "Time to roll."
And they're out.
The first stop is a dealership warehouse for Emily, Louise, Melanie, Tanya, and Grace, and it is a piece of cake. Five down, forty-five to go.
Jensen drives himself and Jared to their next mark - Delilah, a 1962 Aston Martin DB1 - and once they've popped the door and cranked the engine, Jensen leaves Jared to the delivery and heads off on his own.
He feels like this is the culmination of every illegal thing he's ever done - this feeling of power and control, the knowledge that he has orchestrated the theft of fifty cars in twelve hours, he has brought together a crew with more combined years of experience than he can count on his hands and feet, he has pointed all these people in the right direction and let them go.
And he is once again doing the only thing he has ever been good at, the only career he has ever loved. He is back in business, and he is happy.
St Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes, rests against his sternum, under his t-shirt. A bad joke on his mother's part, an assumption, a presumed future. But his mother was wrong, and his cause is not hopeless. He is not hopeless. He is going to clear Jared's debt with Sheppard. He is going to save Jared's life, and maybe win back his own.
It's an amazing feeling.
He meets up with Jared at the wharf where Sheppard is taking delivery of all his cars, and then they head out again. They listen to chatter over the walkie-talkie, Jared plays with his portable GPS, Jensen turns on the radio and then turns it back off. They talk some, they watch the road a lot. Jensen counts off cars in his head as delivery reports trickle in.
Amanda. Isabelle. Constance. Traci. Virginia.
He and Jared break into Penelope, a silver 1971 Volvo P1800 SE - the Saint's car, he can hear Frederick telling them - and Jared kindly lets Jensen drive off in her, for the simple reason that Jared is bigger than she is, and he doesn't want to try and fold himself into her front seat.
And still Jensen listens to the names spilling from the walkie-talkie, each one another step towards his final goal.
Rosemary. Fleur. Karen. Cassie. Elizabeth.
His crew sounds excited too, and competent, and on the ball. He picks his people well, and so does Jared.
"Teresa was a hoot and a half." Alona. "She had steer horns!"
"Natalie's home, more's the pity." Aldis.
"Had fun with Tricia, on my way to fetch Julia." Chris.
Alice. Lindsey. Sandra. Rebecca.
He and Jared are back together, Jared having reluctantly dropped off Deirdre (a pink 1956 Ford Thunderbird), and they're on their way to collect Ellen. It's quiet in the car, this one a nondescript Mercury borrowed from one of Sheppard's guys so they can get from place to place without drawing attention. Every so often Jensen glances over at Jared, and when he does, Jared is smiling. Jensen feels both serene and excited, as if he's found the zen of car theft.
The silence is broken by Gabe's voice panicking over the walkie-talkie - "OH MY GOD THERE'S A BABY IN HERE OH SHIT OH SHIT GUYS WHAT DO I DO??" followed almost immediately by Kevin calmly suggesting he shut the fuck up so as not to wake it.
Jared is clearly about to make another suggestion - what, Jensen has no idea - when Gabe says "Wait, it's just a car seat, thank god." He sounds relieved. Jared looks at Jensen and rolls his eyes. If Jensen could, he'd reach through the walkie-talkie and smack Gabe upside the head.
Half an hour later Gabe has delivered the car - Shannon, a 2010 Lincoln Navigator - and Jared and Jensen turn onto Ellen's street and cruise up to her neighbor's driveway. There's a minivan on the far driveway that Jensen doesn't remember being there last night.
"Just wait for me to get in," he tells Jared, and slides out of the car. He walks across the grass to Ellen. Her key is in his pocket - Chris' friend Steve, who works at a dealership, got them duplicate keys for the Benzes - he knows how to disable her alarm, block her tracking software, and reset his GPS, but something doesn't feel right. The van is bothering him. Why would someone in this high-rent neighborhood have such an ordinary, boring, domestic minivan?
He's almost to Ellen's door when the hinky feeling becomes too much. He feels eyes on him, and they're not friendly eyes. He turns around and goes back to Jared and the car.
"I think that van was in a different driveway yesterday," Jared says, as Jensen gets in the passenger side.
That explains the hinky feeling. And the unfriendly strangers' eyes.
"Shit. It's Morgan. We gotta go."
As Jared pulls out of the driveway and takes off, Jensen turns on the walkie-talkie and makes the announcement he was hoping he'd never have to make - "The ladies have stalkers. Stop what you're doing and walk away. I repeat - walk away. Tell me you get it."
Everyone checks in except for Frederick, so Jensen calls his cell phone, repeats the message, and then tells Jared to drive faster.
There is (unsurprisingly) a significant amount of chaos in Jim's garage, and everyone is talking at once.
"This is your fucking fault," Murray tells Jensen, as he and Jared walk in. "That cop wants your ass."
"What happened, Jen?" Chris asks. "Did he get the list or was this a lucky guess?"
"There wasn't any chatter on the scanner," Lindberg says.
"He couldn't have seen the blackboard," Aldis says.
"And the desk was too messy to get anything from," Frederick adds.
"Did you guys have a blackboard?" Chris asks Jared, waving at Jim's board with half the cars crossed off. "With the list on it. Would the cops have found it?"
"Yeah, but we used a blacklight," Gabe says, sounding proud, "and broke all the bulbs before we took off."
"That there's our problem," Jim says. "That's how Morgan knows - must've figured that out and run a light over your board. He's got the same list we do, he'll be watching the same cars we are."
"Shit," Jensen mutters. But he should have known something like this would happen the second he stepped out of Mrs P's diner and ran into Detective Morgan on the sidewalk.
But how did Morgan know to watch Ellen? The 2009 Mercedes SL is a common enough car in LA. Why not Tricia, the '71 DeTomaso Pantera that Chris brought in? How many of those can there possibly be in Los Angeles? Or Penelope, the little silver Volvo? He would have known if someone was tailing him when he took her. Why Ellen?
"Chris," he says slowly, thoughtfully, "what are the chances the cops got to Steve?"
"Son of a bitch," Chris swears, and his reaction answers Jensen's question as much as any words could. "He told me he was clean."
"Guess not," Murray says.
"So what now? All the Mercedes are off the table."
"I can find a couple more," Lindberg offers, already starting to type on his laptop.
"No, we need the keys."
"We already boosted them," Alona says, "but the city impounded them. But we still have the keys." She points to Jared. "You have them."
"I. Yeah," he says, "I brought them here." He walks over to the counter and starts rummaging through the stuff on it until he comes up with a gray envelope and pulls three Mercedes key fobs out of it. "But the cars are in the impound lot."
"So we'll get them out of the impound lot." She grins like it's the simplest solution possible.
"It's city impound," Aldis reminds her. "Cops. Security. Fences. And did I mention the cops?"
"Car thieves." She points to herself and then Murray, Jared, Gabe. She's still grinning. "B&E, baby."
"No," Jensen says. "It's too risky. We don't have time."
"And finding three replacement cars is quicker?" Kevin asks. "We just need a distraction and we can steal them out from under the city's nose."
"We need those exact cars, Jen," Jared says. He points to the blackboard with one of the Mercedes keys. Jennifer. Alexa. Ellen. Two 2010s, one 2009. The key in Jared's hand unlocks an impounded car, evidence for a criminal investigation, and for all that Jensen wishes there was a better, easier way around this, he has to admit that Alona and Kevin and Jared are right - they need those three Mercedes, and if anyone can sneak onto the lot, find them, and drive them out, it's the people now standing in Jim's office.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, isn't that what they say? They're already looking at twenty-seven counts of grand theft auto, why not add breaking and entering and stealing police evidence to the list? The longer they stand around arguing, the faster time ticks down, the closer the deadline gets, and the more likely it becomes that Sheppard loses his cars and breaks the deal and Jensen doesn't want to think too closely about what happens after that.
"Ok," he says. "Alona, Kevin, Murray, Chris. Be quick, and be careful."
"You know what you're doing?" Jim asks him quietly, after the four have left.
"Does it matter? We've got twenty-three more cars and a little less than six hours to bring them in. That's what counts. I gotta go."
And once again he and Jared set out on their quest.
"I'm sorry," Jared says after about fifteen minutes.
"For what?"
"Fucking up."
"It's not your fault Steve rolled over for the cops."
"No, but.... I'm sorry you had to come back just to save my ass."
I came back for my guilt, Jensen thinks. To atone for my sins. "And I'm sorry for running off six years ago. We both screwed up, we'll both fix it. You were determined to do this with me, remember? But you picked some good people for your crew."
"I did, didn't I." Now he sounds pleased with himself, and when Jensen glances over, Jared's grinning.
Kevin reports in after the three Mercedes are safely away from the impound lot, and again when they're delivered. Jensen breathes out his relief, and the litany of girls' names continues over the walkie-talkie, the cars and his crew's truncated conversations and every so often a police report courtesy of Gabe's scanner.
Stella. Nadine. Wendy. Denise.
"Ashley's home. My girlfriend woulda loved her." Kevin.
"Brought Lila in, and Erin's on her way." Frederick.
"Dropping off Maddy right now. Madeleine, sorry. She looks like a Maddy." Gabe.
Susan. Patricia. Bernadette. Mary.
The sun is rising at his back as Jensen drives Catherine (a 1957 convertible Chevy Bel Air painted turquoise blue) towards the wharf, and he hears Aldis report in - "Just dropped off Leah, she was a pleasure" - mentally ticks the gullwing Mercedes off the list, and allows himself to think that maybe they can actually accomplish this. It might be the biggest concentrated boost LA has ever seen. In some circles, he can be famous.
And he can make it up to Jared for leaving him.
Now that he has some breathing room, some time to think, Jensen can't get Jared's face last night out of his mind - his hurt face and his angry words, the admission that he started stealing cars to bring Jensen back, the way he said "I missed you" and "You left me" and "I loved you".
I loved you too, Jensen thinks. I always have. I still do.
They're so close to being finished, so close to delivering all of Sheppard's cars, so close to sewing up this mess and setting things right. And after nine o'clock, after the last car is brought in, who knows. Jensen will stay in Los Angeles, move back into Jared's mother's house, pick up where he left off. Maybe he'll actually stay on the right side of the law this time.
He counts off names as they're announced over the walkie-talkie, and he wonders if he even knows how to go straight with so much temptation around him, and if he really can be happy doing it. Because it was always the cars that kept him going, and only the cars that held the opportunities he wanted. One of the reasons he left LA was to get away from them.
Leslie. Jessica. Kimberley. Deborah. Diane.
And then there's only one. Eleanor. His albatross. Once almost his doom, hopefully today his salvation.
He has about an hour to get her to Sheppard, and he runs his hand over her hood and up her windshield and across her roof, as if she were a woman he's trying to seduce. There are objectively more stylish cars in existence, but there is only one Eleanor.
She is forty-four years old, sleek and black and three thousand pounds of Detroit steel and automotive muscle, and she is the most beautiful thing Jensen has ever seen.
"It's up to us now," he murmurs, carefully sliding his slim jim down inside the door and popping the lock. Eleanor's engine rumbles when he hotwires it, and he cruises out of the garage where her owner kept her and onto the street.
And as soon as he turns a corner, a black sedan, an undercover cop car, pulls in right behind him, a light starts flashing, and he curses.
"C'mon, baby," he says encouragingly, taking off down the street and rocketing around another corner, through a stop sign, an intersection, and a light, barely missing a delivery truck and a guy on a motorcycle.
And Morgan, the son of a bitch, is right behind him, stuck to his ass like he's glued there.
Jensen ignores the GPS trying to correct his trajectory and slips back six years, eight, ten, when he was younger and more reckless and knew these streets by heart. He learned to navigate by hazy landmark and by feel back then, driving at night and in the wee hours before dawn, the dead hours before the city and its people were fully awake. The years peel back like he was never gone, and his hands rest easy on Eleanor's steering wheel and gearshift, and his foot is heavy on the gas and quick on the clutch, and he takes every opening presented to him and makes them when they're not, and he's gone.
And Morgan follows.
Jensen maneuvers around four-doors and zippy little sportscars and semis, and he's sorely tempted to ram the wandering SUVs driven by assholes chattering on their cell phones.
"Get off your fucking phone and pay attention!" he yells at the window, as if that would do any good.
No matter. Eleanor is strong and fast and the first and last thing Jensen ever wanted from a car was speed, ever since he and Jared first became friends and Jared's dad was still alive and used to take them to the speedway to watch the drag races. Eleanor is fast and Jensen is deep into a driver's mindset, concentrating on the road ahead of him and the vehicles around him, cars and vans and buses and motorcycles and the occasional idiot on a bike.
He has never been so glad that LA is a driving city and not a walking one. Cars get out of your way. Pedestrians don't.
"Got chatter on the scanner," Lindberg says suddenly over the walkie-talkie. "Jensen. They're on to you."
"No fucking shit," he answers. "You all stay put. I'm gonna shake this guy."
Two police cruisers pull out of a cross street just ahead of him, and he hauls on the wheel, does a 180 - no doubt scaring the crap out of the person in a Jeep who just barely misses hitting him - and zips past Morgan who is now going in the wrong direction. Jensen waves.
The cruisers and their sirens manage to stay behind him until he loses them down an alley, shooting out into the street mere seconds in front of a bus. He can hear tires screeching and horns blaring as he speeds off.
The water is somewhere ahead of him, with Sheppard's shipping containers and the forty-nine cars Jensen and his crew have already successfully delivered.
It's a shame he has to turn Eleanor over to the asshole, but Jared's life is more than worth it.
And to have this one last chance to drive her, to feel the rumble of her engine and the tightness of her suspension and the responsiveness in her steering - to hear the wind rushing past him and see the asphalt unfolding beneath him - Jensen doesn't think he's ever felt so complete, so in charge, in his life.
He registers the appearance of another cop car, the sound of another siren, but even as his heart rate speeds up a touch and his hand tightens on the wheel, he isn't worried. Eleanor will see him through.
He turns north, west, trying to shake the cops, but a truck pulls out of nowhere and in trying to avoid it, Jensen scrapes against it and half-knocks the driver's side mirror off the door.
"Shit, shit," he swears. "I'm so sorry, Eleanor. I'll get it fixed, I promise."
The cop car is still behind him, and as he's worrying about the side mirror another cruiser appears and he no longer has time to think. He has to move.
He leans on the horn as he blows through a red light, both cruisers screaming behind him, and now he can see Morgan's car is back, and he has to get out of here.
He needs the freeway - no. It's Friday morning in Los Angeles. It's rush hour. He's not that stupid.
Well. He gave up six years of crime-free living for fifty cars and a British car thief who threatened to kill Jared's mom. Maybe he is that stupid.
Jensen can hear time ticking away, the minutes running down until his intelligence or lack of it won't matter. He doesn't have time to get Eleanor to the wharf - he'll have to take her to Sheppard's warehouse, the place Chris took him to meet the guy when Sheppard had Jared in the crusher.
There's traffic up ahead, an accident. He can't go around it and he's not going to get off the road and Morgan and his two - wait, three - buddies are too close behind him and he's losing time.
Traffic is light and cruising right along in the opposite direction. Jensen glances behind him, crosses himself, shifts gears, and swerves across the low concrete barrier. Horns blare and tires screech as cars get out of his way. He hauls ass the wrong way down the road, zooming past the accident, past cop cars and an ambulance and all the people backed up, and as soon as he's on the other side of it he swerves back into the right lane, scraping past a couple of cars where the opening isn’t quite big enough, and keeps going.
Thank you, Eleanor. That's why I always loved you best.
His heart is racing and the St Jude medallion is sticking to him with sweat and he's moving and he's moving and he's running out of time.
And then he's out of time.
And then he's driving into Sheppard's yard, pulling up in front of the warehouse, getting out of the car, and Sheppard's goons are trying to tell him he's late, no deal, and he's walking towards the warehouse and he thinks if he can just get inside, these guys won't shoot him, and if he can find Sheppard, they'll talk this over, and the deal will be done and he can settle Jared's debt and go home.
He can hear another car arriving behind him, but then he's in the door and he hasn't gone very far before Sheppard is right there.
"You're late," he says.
"Maybe your watch is fast," is Jensen's reply. His tone is cocky but inside he's trying not to panic.
"My watch is not fast. You are late. I said nine, it's no longer nine. We don't have a deal."
"What's five minutes between friends?"
"Are we friends now?" Sheppard walks to the door, peers out, and adds "I note some damage to the last car. So not only are you late, you've brought me damaged merchandise. And you've made it more difficult for me to get it to my buyer." He shuts the door and starts walking away. His phone beeps and he holds up a finger to indicate Just a second, we'll continue when I'm done, and says "What?" into it, and then "Where's Pellegrino?" and then the warehouse door bangs open and Jensen is almost relieved to see Morgan framed by the morning sunlight.
"Mr Ackles," he says. "What a surprise."
Sheppard stares for a minute and then takes off. And Jensen follows, because he is an idiot and he needs to see this finished.
He can hear Morgan calling for backup and yelling at him and Sheppard to stop, and when Sheppard does finally stop and turn he's holding a handgun and Jensen throws himself out of the way so as not to get shot.
Sheppard runs up some stairs towards a catwalk. Jensen thinks he can see an office up there and screw this, he's getting the hell out of here and will fix things later, but Morgan grabs his shoulder, points at the stairs, and says "You go this way, I'll go that way, we'll catch him in the middle."
Morgan gives him a push and Jensen is so startled that he goes.
There is indeed an office at the top of the stairs, a room with doors on opposite walls, and Sheppard is rifling through a desk and shouting into his phone. His back is to Jensen. Jensen looks around for a weapon, something, anything, but the closest thing to hand that he might remotely be able to use is a straight-back wooden chair. He remembers that Sheppard has a thing for old furniture.
Just then Morgan appears in the far doorway of the room, and Sheppard looks up, sees him, and shoots at him. The shot knocks out a window instead.
"Sheppard!" Jensen yells, picking up the chair. He needs to be a distraction - he doesn't bear Morgan any love and never has, but he can't watch Sheppard kill him. When Sheppard turns, Jensen smashes the chair against the wall, breaking it into pieces. Sheppard howls and runs at him, and now Jensen grabs a leg from the busted chair and swings at Sheppard like he's holding a baseball bat.
You were going to kill me, he thinks. You tried to kill Jared and you threatened his mom.
He catches Sheppard on the arm, Sheppard points the gun at him, and he trips over himself trying to get out of the way. Morgan is running towards them, Sheppard is pushing past Jensen out of the office, Jensen is getting to his feet and following.
"Ackles!" Morgan yells behind him. Jensen takes another swing with the chair leg, this time catching Sheppard across the back of his shoulders. Morgan fires over their heads, causing Jensen to duck and Sheppard to stumble towards the stairs, where he loses his balance and pitches face-first straight down.
Jensen stares. He didn't want to kill Sheppard, just stop him from shooting anyone. And maybe beat him up a little for his threats and attempted murder. He can hear Morgan walking up behind him, and turns his head to see Morgan staring as well.
"Huh," Morgan says. "I guess that's the end of my investigation. Well, no, we've still got his guys to talk to and all those cars as evidence. Look at all this paperwork." He pulls out a phone, punches in a number, says "Harris. Hey. We need a body bag in here." He looks at Jensen. "Just me and Sheppard. I'll wait." He disconnects the call. "Why are you still here?" he asks Jensen. "Go on, get. I'm giving you a second chance. Don't fuck it up." He points meaningfully towards the front of the warehouse.
And Jensen gets.
A couple days later he and Jared and the rest of his crew are back at Jim's, but this time to kick back and celebrate rather than plot and plan a crime. They're all in the back yard where Jim keeps his grill, eating and drinking and talking and laughing and arguing. Aldis keeps trying to offer Chris assistance and suggestions as he's grilling, and it's making Chris cranky because he hates people telling him how to cook. Jared is sitting to Jensen's left, calling for another burger and telling Lindberg to stop hogging the Doritos, and on his other side Kevin and Jim are discussing how best to introduce Kevin's girlfriend's daughter and Jim's daughter to each other. Frederick is apparently trying to educate Murray and Gabe on something, Jensen can't hear what, and Murray is clearly having none of it. And Alona, who disappeared a few minutes ago, now returns with more beer and the radio from Jim's office.
"Do I need to I plug this in?" she asks.
"Hasn't run off a battery since before you could walk," Jim says. "I don't know if there's an outlet out here that works, though."
"I'll test ‘em when I find ‘em. Where do I look?"
Finding a working outlet for the radio in a convenient enough place that they don't need to also find an extension cord apparently takes the entire crew, minus Chris who refuses to leave the grill under the suspicion that Aldis will take his place.
Frederick eventually digs up an extension cord anyway and plugs the radio into an outlet inside the garage. Bickering naturally ensues over what station to listen to. And yet when Jensen looks around at these people who helped him when he needed it, who are now arguing with each other over such a trivial thing, he feels lucky and grateful and very, very happy.
Everything will be ok. He kept his ass and Jared's out of jail so Mrs P doesn't have to disown either of them, and he got Morgan off his case, and he's back where he belongs.
And he made some new friends, and he can always use more friends.
"Oh, hey," Jared says to him, "I got you a present."
"Yeah? What? Why?"
"Because." Jared shrugs. "I wanted to." He pushes himself away from the table and stands up. Surprisingly, Jim does the same.
"Come inside, boys and girl," Jim says, waving everyone inside.
They follow him and Jared to the back of the garage where there's a car covered with a tarp.
"Here," Jared says, handing Jensen a keyring with a brass J and two keys hanging from it. One of them is a house key, identical to the one Jensen has kept in his wallet all these years, and he knows it opens the front door of Mrs P's house. His house too, now. The other is a car key.
Jim and Jared both yank the tarp off with a flourish, and underneath is Eleanor.
Her side mirror has been temporarily fixed, but she's dusty and scratched and has a ding over the left rear wheel and she could use a fresh coat of paint and no doubt a major tune-up. But none of that matters, because she's still right there in front of him, solid and real and apparently all his.
"How'd you..." he stammers, at a loss.
"You're not the only one who knows how to cut a deal," Jared says, grinning. "Are you gonna stand there or are you gonna take her out?"
"I don't... I can't...."
"Don't say you don't deserve her," Chris snorts.
"Man, if you don't take that car, I will," Murray says. Frederick smacks him on the side of the head. "What?"
Jim opens the driver's-side door and Jensen slides in.
He runs his hand across the dashboard. "Hello, gorgeous," he murmurs.
"She is, isn't she," Jared says, climbing in the passenger seat.
She's not the only one, Jensen wants to say, but before he can even open his mouth, Jared kisses him. Someone whistles, Jensen has no idea who, and he can feel Jared grinning against his lips.
"Come on," Jensen says, "let's go for a ride."
Extras!