Empty Spaces Chapter Three
Author’s notes: The first part of this chapter contain triggers: there is a dub-con/almost non-con situation. For those of you who find this chapter hard to read, I found it hard to wrote. It's the worst. Things get to the comfort side of h/c afterward.
Chapter 3
The fingers run over his back. It’s like a slow torture. Eric’s naked body covers his. He whispers in his ear: “You’ll never do it again, don’t you, love?”
“No. I’m sorry,” Jensen hears himself say.
His voice is dull, monotone, like it’s not really his.
He’s here and he’s not. The pain is a dull throb somewhere but so, so far away. His left arm is the only thing keeping him in the here and now, it seems. Even stuck in a thick bandage and resting on a pillow, it’s hot and sensitive. The muscle twitches randomly. It hurts.
He wonders if he should ask for more drugs. Doesn’t have the energy to do so. Eric is so heavy…
Eric’s fingers are in his ass, opening the muscle. He doesn’t take his time. It should hurt but as everything else, it’s a distant, almost insignificant feeling.
Eric pushes into him, fast. Jensen closes his eyes and gives himself up completely. His boyfriend says how much he loves him, how much he worries about him, again and again.
“Why?” He asks. “Am I not enough for you?”
It goes on like this and Jensen’s mind drifts off. Jared is smiling at him, telling him some story about a client who called his service asking how to use a staple.
There’s a twitch deep in his asshole, followed by the wet sensation of Eric emptying himself.
He pants hard and fast in Jensen’s neck, then starts kissing it, making a trail with his lips to his right shoulder where he sucks on the skin.
Jensen wants it to be over. He wants to sleep. Get off me, he pleads silently because his mouth is too numb now, he can’t say anything.
The sucking shifts into a bite. Eric’s teeth sink into his skin. A high-pitched moan is pushed out of Jensen’s lungs. A tongue licks the blood on his skin.
“Love you so much. I’ll never let you go, my sweet little whore.”
::: :::
He wakes up in a gasp and his body jerks painfully, protesting at the sudden movement.
The living room is dark. Eric must have gone to bed some time ago. Jensen can hear him, snoring on the second floor. Their room is right over his head and there is this soft vibration going through the floor.
He’s safe. For the time being.
Jensen rises on his elbows, wincing. His stomach and chest hurt like hell. He knows he’s probably already covered in bruises. Nothing new there.
His stomach churns when he tries to sit too abruptly and he closes his eyes, taking deep breaths and waiting for the nausea to subside. The last remaining effects of the drugs Eric gave him are vanishing quickly. It’s always like a fall, Jensen’s senses coming back to life, and it’s never pleasant.
The anxiety is building quickly in his chest. There is nothing he can do about it, nothing he can think of to calm himself down. His head is pulsing in pain, a dull throb that’s irradiating from the nasty cut over his left eyebrow. He softly presses around the butterfly strips, feeling the skin swollen and hot. There’s a thin line of dried blood below it.
Lowering his fingers, Jensen pushes on the bump burning hot right on the bridge of his nose. It hurts when he breathes through it. It’s not as swollen as it could have been because Eric took care of it with some ice. “Not broken, stop whimpering like a little girl,” he had cooed.
Jensen flexes his left wrist. It doesn’t hurt as much as he thought it would. The elastic brace is still snuggly tied around it.
Come on, you’re okay, he thinks. You’ve had worse. Come on, no need to panic.
But he does, of course he does. He won’t see Jared again. He won’t go back to work. Eric has been very clear. Jensen can’t be trusted.
Burning tears are filling from his eyes. He tries to swallow back a sob. He doesn’t want Eric to wake up. Please God don’t let him wake up.
Jensen’s scared of getting up, doesn’t know if he can. He was so out of it last night when Eric…
Oh. Yeah. When Eric made love to him. Jensen swallows back the acrid mouthful of saliva burning his throat. He can feel it in his ass, knows he probably bled a little. His sphincter is swollen and sensitive. Jensen shifts, trying to find a more comfortable position.
You moron, an annoying voice in his head mocks. There is no comfortable position for you right now. He beat you until you begged him to stop, he drugged you and then he fucked you when you were barely conscious. Oh, wait, isn’t what a rape is called?
Jensen hates those surges of lucidity that always come after one of Eric’s anger fit. He hates being able to see it for what it really is. That’s what the withdrawal does to him, when the pills can’t numb the pain anymore, when he feels raw and exposed to whom he really is.
What happened is his own fault. He never should have befriended Jared. He hid things from his boyfriend and now he’s paying the consequences, that’s all there is to it.
You went for a walk with a guy. Think it’s a good reason for having your head knocked up against a wall? For being yelled at, threatened, beaten until nothing made sense anymore?
Eric loves him.
Yeah, right. That’s what love is about. Jesus, Jensen, that’s really the life you want?
Eric saved him. Eric is the only one he has, the reason there is a roof over his head. Jensen can’t even obey the very simple rules established between them.
You keep telling yourself this, you go on. The truth is one day he’s gonna kill you. Eric’s gonna kill you and you know it -maybe even wished for it at some level in that crazy brain of yours.
“Shut up, Chris,” Jensen rasps, unable to control the violent shivers that are wracking his body. He’s breathing too hard, too fast, he’s crying and if he keeps up with it there is no way Eric is going to keep on sleeping.
Jensen slowly drags himself up. It’s not pleasant. It hurts so bad. He’s so tired of everything hurting all the time.
He needs to go to the bathroom because there, between the thick walls, Eric won’t hear him.
Jensen sways on his feet and starts walking slowly, moaning as low as he can, and clenching his teeth to hold everything in. He passes through the kitchen illuminated by the soft light of the moon. Something catches his eyes: Eric’s cell phone is on the counter on its charge.
Call Jared. You memorized his phone number by heart so that Eric wouldn't find it.
The simple thought of making such a bald move after what he’s been through is so frightening it makes it impossible to breathe for long seconds. Still, Jensen stretches his right hand and grabs the phone. It almost slips through his fingers, making his heart skip a beat. He holds onto it and makes his way slowly to the bathroom.
He closes the door behind him and turns on the lights. His eyes hurt and he wipes at them, trying once again to hold back his tears.
Now that he’s in some kind of shelter, a place where he doesn’t have to keep quiet and be still, he can’t stop. Holding on to the phone like a life line, he slides on the floor and burst out crying out loud. The voice in his head that knows damn well how horrible his life really is is yelling now. Get some help, get some help before it’s too late.
“So tired,” Jensen hiccups, “so tired, mom please, come and get me please…”
And isn’t he pathetic? Crying for a woman he hasn’t seen in fifteen years because the soft memories associated to her refuse to die. Mom’s soft touches and voice, mom rocking him to sleep and telling him stories and calling him his little sun. “My sweet little sun shining so bright for mommy.” She would say, stroking Jensen’s blond hair.
He grimaces and sniffs the clear snot dripping down his nose, tickling his swollen, cut upper lip. “So tired, so tired, I don’t… I can’t…”
Can’t take it anymore.
::: :::
Jared doesn’t even stir when his phone starts to ring. It’s not his usual morning ring, he thinks vaguely, trying to grab it on the nightstand without opening his eyes.
Yeah, definitely not his morning wake up call. Genevieve set it for him: Wagner’s overture, like at the beginning of Apocalypse Now. She thought she was being funny.
“Who’s freaking calling,” Jared rasps, still barely awake.
His eyes, open to slits, catch the bright numbers of his watch sitting next to his phone. It’s one in the morning.
That can’t be good, Jared thinks vaguely before grabbing his cell and answering.
There is nothing at first, and Jared is too freaking tired to be patient.
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“… Jared.”
The whisper is almost inaudible but Jared recognizes it immediately. He sits in bed abruptly.
“Jensen, what’s going on?”
“Can’t… I’m…” Jensen hiccups at the other end of the line and hell, he sounds exactly like the first time Jared heard him, when he thought he was calling the Suicide Help Center.
“Whoa. Hey, it’s okay, tell me what’s going on? Where are you?”
“H-huh-home. I’m… shit. Can’t take it anymore, Jared, m’sorry I…”
“No no no, nothing to be sorry for. Tell me what happened, are you safe?” Jared asks in a hurry. He’s already out of bed, trying to put his jeans back on without letting go of the phone.
“M’in the bathroom… He… He’s sleeping,” Jensen blurts out.
“Eric? Your boyfriend?” Jared freezes on his spot. “Jensen, did he do something to you?”
There is a shuddering breath at the other hand of the line. “I…”
“Jensen. You can tell me. I know something’s going on. I know, do you understand?”
Please understand, Jared prays, grabbing his discarded shirt on the floor. Please.
“The s-s-scarf,” Jensen breathes out. “Forgot to give it back to you. He… he whu-was so mad and I’m so tired of this, Jared, I can’t-“
“He hurt you?”
“I… it’s, I’m not supposed to I… lied to him I wasn’t-“
The panic is rising in Jensen’s voice at an exponential rate. Jared walks out of his room, hits the door frame with his shoulder, but doesn’t even slow down.
“Jensen, listen to me: I’m coming to get you.”
“No, Jared, you can’t-“
“Hey, there is no discussion here. You don’t have to endure this, there is no reason for you to endure this.”
“He’s… he won’t let you-“ Jensen murmurs, exhaling loudly. “P-p-please don’t-“
“Stay where you are. Can you tell if he’s still asleep?”
“Don’t know.”
Jared has his boots on and his jacket more or less in place. He searches for his keys on the table near the entry.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m coming.”
“Jared don’t-“
“You stay in the bathroom until I get there. Lock yourself in. Can you see the street from there?”
“No!”
“Okay, I’ll use my horn and I’ll wait for you near the door.”
“God, Jared, I c-c-can’t-“
“Yes you can. Listen to me Jen, I’ll be there soon and you won’t have anything to fear from him, I’ll be there. I’m getting to my car right now.”
Jensen tries to say something but it gets lost in a mess of moans and hysterical sobs. Jared swallows back his own emotions and opens his car door in the cold night. Let him be alright, he thinks. Let him be okay when I get there.
“Jensen?”
“…”
“Jensen, are you still there?”
“He won’t let me go,” Jensen declares matter-of-factly.
“We’ll see about this. You did the right thing, calling me.”
Damn, stupid scarf, is all that goes through Jared’s head as he starts driving on the desert streets.
::: :::
Jared doesn’t think he ever found himself in this kind of situation. It takes him all but five minutes to reach Exeter Road. When he’s there, he turns off the lights of his car. Like he’s in some kind of action movie, like anything in real life bears even the slightest resemblance to a Hollywood flick. He laughs at himself, out of nervousness more than anything else, and slows down.
He doesn’t know what to expect. Suspecting that Jensen is suffering from some kind of abuse and being thrown in the middle of a domestic violence situation are two separate things. It’s the freaking middle of the night and everything seems so surreal that for one second, it almost seems plausible that he’s still asleep and going through one of his fucked up never ending dreams.
“This is so messed up,” he murmurs, stopping and cutting the car’s engine two houses away from Jensen’s place.
Then, the surreal sensation he’s been riding since he hung up and left his apartment gets wiped out when he sees a silhouette standing outside near the door.
Jensen.
Jared gets out of his car and walks up directly to him, accelerating as he gets closer to have a better look at his friend.
“Jesus, Jensen,” he whispers.
He’s standing outside in his freaking boxers and t-shirt. He doesn’t wear any shoes, just old wool socks. He’s shivering so badly Jared can hear his teeth chattering. Jensen tenses when Jared approaches, his eyes wide with fear.
“God, what did he do to you?” Jared can’t help but ask, taking in some blooming purple bruises on Jensen’s white legs, and a badly swollen knee. He keeps his left arm protectively against himself. It’s wrapped in some kind of bandage and cradled with his right arm.
The face is the worst, probably because the turmoil of emotions affecting Jensen is perfectly visible on it. His hair is plastered on his head, he’s got a wound on his forehead, a small cut on the bridge of his nose, the whole area red and swollen. His upper lip is jutting out sporting a large cut. It’s of a nasty bluish color.
“You have to g-ghu-go,” Jensen whispers.
“What? No, come on, you’re coming with me.”
“I can’t. I can’t, Jared. It’s alright, I over reacted.”
Jared stares at him in disbelief. “Jensen. It’s freezing and you’re standing outside in your boxers. You’re… God, the asshole just beat the crap out of you. Jensen, you aren't thinking clearly right now. Come on, you come with me, I’m not leaving you here.”
“You don’t understand,” Jensen cuts. “I don’t want him to hurt you, I can’t… I think he’s still sleeping. He won’t know what I did and-“
“No. Stop this. I’m not scared.” Jared takes a step forward and grabs Jensen’s right arm softly but firmly.
That’s when the door opens besides them.
Time freezes as Jared takes in the man standing there, wearing one of those douche silk pajama with long sleeves and complicated circular pattern. Dr. Eric Johnson. He’s got a thin, pointy face and blond hair, a little longer on the side and front. It looks ridiculously shiny and healthy.
That’s him? Jared thinks confusedly. This normal-looking kind of douchey thirty something man? He’s the one responsible for Jensen’s current state?
Then he meets the guy’s eyes; a hardened, blue stare, and he starts to understand as a smile creeps up Johnson’s face. This is a man who’s so confident in himself, so high on his own power -let it be the one to terrorize a wrecked and distressed young man- he doesn’t even doubt the events are going to turn in his favor.
“Jensen, come back inside,” he says simply.
Jensen frees himself from Jared’s grip and lowers his head. His breathing is harsh and shallow, he’s shaking stronger than ever.
“Eric, look,” he rasps.
“Shut up and get in.”
It takes one look from Jensen, one of pure terror, to put Jared back into action.
“He’s coming with me,” he states as calmly as he can.
Eric Johnson lowers his eyes and laughs. “I don’t think so, sir, whoever you might be, you should turn back and go. Jensen made a mistake.”
Jensen can’t seem to be able to bear the tension anymore, trapped between the two men. Jared sees his eyes going glassy before they roll back in there socket. In slow motion, Jensen starts to sway on his feet, his upper body balancing dangerously from left to right.
“Sick,” he mumbles, and he would have fell on the hard concrete if it had only been for Eric who’s staring coldly at him.
But Jared is ready. He grabs him by the waist and holds him up. Jensen’s not unconscious, not really, but he’s not really there either. Even in this state, he practically melts in Jared’s embrace and a pitiful whimper escape his lips.
“Take him inside. He needs rest. He fell down the stairs earlier this evening. I’m a doctor I know how to care for him,” Johnson says matter-of-factly.
“You back off and leave us alone,” Jared answers, trying to maintain his apparent calmness.
Jensen’s body is shivering between his arms. Without thinking any further, Jared slides one arm under the young man’s knees and picks him up. Jensen actually tries to help, wrapping his arms around his neck in a weak grip.
“Do I need to call the cops?” Johnson asks.
There is a hint of incertitude in his still smiling face.
Jared knows he can look impressive: he’s six-five and even if he hadn’t worked out in a year, he’s still quite large. He never felt the need to use his physic at his advantage -god knows he’s known to be as sweet and inoffensive as he’s well built- but now he gives everything he has, holding Jensen against himself like he’s weighting nothing despite the strain in his back and arms.
“You won’t do anything,” Jared states, lowering and slowing down his voice. “You and I both know it. You don’t want to make a scene to the neighbors and you’ll never risk calling the cops. Who’d believe the fucking lame stair excuse anyway?”
“You don’t know anything about him,” Eric snarls.
“Well, I know enough about you, you sick fuck.”
Taking a deep breath, Jared turns his back to Johnson and makes his way back to his car, walking surely but slowly, praying to seem as confident and determined as he wants the man to believe he is.
He doesn’t hear anything behind him. When he’s near his car and has to turn back to settle Jensen in the passenger seat, the house’s door is closed and the lights are off.
“I’m taking you at my place, Jensen, everything is going to be okay.”
Jensen blinks dully at him. He’s still in a semi awake state. He tries to help when Jared sits him, muffling involuntary groans and moans of pain. When he’s leaning back against the seat, Jared takes off his jacket and covers him with it. Jensen blinks again but this time, he tries to come back to himself.
“Jared?”
“Yeah.”
“Where…?”
“You’re in my car. Wait a second.”
Jared quickly closes the door and goes to sits behind the wheel. He starts the engine and turns the heater to the max.
“It’s going to get warm soon,” he whispers.
Jensen’s eyes remain on him as he shifts in first and starts driving. The rush of adrenaline Jared’s been riding for the last half hour is slowly receding and his hands are shaking on the wheel while a film of sweat forms on his forehead.
“We’re okay,” he tries to convince himself.
As soon as he’s far enough from Jensen’s house, though, he slows the car down and park to the side of the street.
“Jensen?”
Jensen nods softly. He isn’t shaking so bad anymore. A streetlight coming through the window is illuminating his face. It makes the skin whiter, makes the wounds jutting out in an almost grotesque way.
Jared tries to keep his anger at bay. It’s not what Jensen needs right now.
“Listen, Jensen. I… I don’t know what to do. I think you’d be better in a hospital-“
“No please,” Jensen cuts in a raw, broken voice. “No, don’t, I can’t…”
Tears start sliding down his cheeks. Jared rubs his arm in what he hopes is a soothing gesture.
“Just tell me where Eric is working and we’ll go someplace else.”
Jensen keeps shaking his head. “No, no, if you want to… Just … I can… Just drop me off and-“
“Drop you off? Where? Do you have family or friends you didn’t tell me about?”
“You don’t have to take me to the hospital,” Jensen says quickly. “It’s alright if you don’t want me at your place I can…”
Jensen grabs the door’s handle and starts fidgeting with it. It takes Jared a long second to catch up, but when he does, he’s immediately grabbing Jensen’s face between his hands, as delicately as he can, hushing him.
“Hey, stop. Stop, Jen. Listen to me: I don’t want to drop you off anywhere. If we’re going to the hospital, I’ll stay with you, I promise. We have to get you checked out. We have to call the police.”
“No, no please, not now I can’t,” Jensen protests, lowering his eyes. “I can’t, Jared, m’so tired, so freaking tired I-“
“Hey. Okay. Alright. We’ll go straight back to my place,” Jared coaxes, because hell if he’ll be responsible for upsetting Jensen even more than he already is. “Got it? No hospitals, no cops, just you and me, alright?”
Jensen nods and relaxes a little.
“It’s over, Jensen,” Jared adds, getting the car back into gear. “You won’t ever have to go back to him.”
Jensen doesn’t answer. He closes his swollen eyelids and lean back against the seat, sighting. Something shifts in his painful, tensed features. He doesn’t look peaceful -far from it, but still, there is a hint of relief softening them.
Chapter 4
--- ---