The Moon Is New - Part Four
Jensen's been pulled up on his elbow, watching a strip of sunshine fragment and shift over Jared's face, for close to fifteen minutes before his mind clicks fully into accord with his body, consciousness breaking over him in a rousing chorus of what the hell?
He has to laugh at himself, as he rubs a hand over his face and rolls onto his back, because any other way lies madness.
"You," he mutters under his breath, "are an idiot, Ackles." He shifts, lacing his fingers behind his head, not at all for the purpose of propping himself at an angle from which Jared can still be plainly seen. Not at all. He ought to leave, really. It's near eight in the morning, he has to see a man about a dog at nine-thirty on the other side of town, and moreover, if he were in any way himself, he'd have been up and out of this bed approximately five seconds after he woke to find he'd somehow fallen asleep in it.
The problem is that, today, he has absolutely no desire to. And on the level below that, the problem is that he didn't fall asleep here all anyhow or by accident, but deliberately, deliciously, spooned up around the curve of Jared's body because he wanted to.
The problem, clearly, is that Jensen has lost his mind somewhere horribly sentimental, such as in the dip of Jared's spine or that deep green at the edges of his irises, and he doesn't even care. That, and the fact that he isn't running like crazy right now, are the most horrifying part of all.
It isn't that Jensen is convinced that everybody, without exception, exists solely to inflict pain on everybody else. He felt like that once, maybe, straight out of Texas and all screwed-up inside, but he's met enough solid, dependable people since then -- people who love him to death and beyond, whether he deserves it or not -- to know that it's bullshit. Misha, for a start, would kill for him, and Jensen's always known it. But the simple, clinical realisation that an old self-preservation instinct is baseless doesn't wipe the instinct out altogether, much as it ought to. It only transmutes it into something else, translated to context -- a sense, for example, that Jensen shouldn't get into anything serious because he moves around so much; that involving anyone in a steady relationship that's necessarily illegal will only put them in danger of arrest, and Jensen wouldn't want to put anyone he loves through any of that shit, now, would he?
It's all true, of course, and up until now it's been a perfectly serviceable understanding to live by. The only difficulty is that he's never actually had anyone like that before -- someone he thinks about when he isn't with them; someone whose face he would know anywhere and whose soft sleepy sounds make his chest clench painfully, adoring -- and it's weirdly more challenging to uphold his self-imposed rules when they're no longer hypothetical.
Well, fuck.
It'll be an issue before long. He's gone long enough already without having to make any extensive runs to know his luck can't continue for more than another few weeks. New York is his base, but it isn't his home, and he isn't sure Jared's sufficiently aware of this not to be hurt when Jensen has to leave it for three weeks, six, nine. Leave him. The thought already results in a dull sort of ache in Jensen's chest, as if someone were attempting, very surreptitiously, to scrape out his heart with a spoon, and he's only stayed over once. God, he should stop this now, before it goes any further. He should get up, leave, and not come back until they've both of them cooled off and Jared's taken the hint of his distance for what it is: an end to this.
Except that...he doesn't want to. He toys idly, experimentally, with the thought of doing just that -- of getting up and leaving right now -- and the dull ache splinters, intensifies in a way that doesn't seem as if it'd be the kind to crest and fade quickly, like the afterburn of a bandage. It feels like the kind that, if picked at, torn at, would leave an open wound, and Jensen isn't ready for that. Not if, as an attempt to prevent worse pain in the future, it's an idea already cancelled out into redundancy by the pain it would cause now, the stupid, immoderate, gut-wrenching unhappiness.
Jensen could do that and hurt them both for sure, or he could leave it, and hope, and have the hurt be a possibility instead of certain fact.
Jensen's never exactly been the hoping type, but when Jared shifts, rolls over and blinks up at him, rubbing the back of his hand across his sleepy smile, he thinks maybe he could think about changing that.
In any event, Jensen -- or, more accurately, Jensen's cock -- decides that allowing himself to be lured in by Jared's sunwarmed languid morning face, his long golden limbs and his warm wide mouth, is far preferable either to initiating a traumatic breakup or attempting to evade Jared's long-armed grasp. When he slides a hand down Jared's spine into the shadowed place between his legs and finds him still wet and open from the night before, this conviction swiftly becomes strong enough to wipe everything else from his mind.
He's late to his nine-thirty assignation, but he gets there well-fucked and glowing, and right now that kind of feels like the main thing.
Misha's speakeasy hasn't always been Misha's. Six years ago, it was owned by a grizzled ex-seaman fortuitously named Captain Morgan, but a police raid and subsequent prison sentence swiftly put paid to his career in the illegal alcohol-joint business. Misha was something of a drifter at the time, waiting tables here and there as he endeavoured to write his Great American Novel, and a chance wind had blown him into Morgan's. It was only by chance, too, that he'd been away on the night of the raid, leaving him to pick up the pieces after the incident.
Raids are pretty damn common in the City, and everybody knows it. The thing is, most folks also know that so long as you keep your ass covered, forge links with the right people, you can keep at the most profitable business in town, law or no law. Captain Morgan was a Navy man, choking on honour. Misha, on the other hand, has and had no such scruples, and once he'd lied his way into ownership of the joint on the promise of turning it into an upstanding establishment, he immediately set about making the right acquaintances within various local crime rings. Sebastian -- who swiftly became a decently close friend of Misha's -- was one of them. Pellegrino was another. Between them and their tricks -- mislabelling bottles deliberately, keeping good hours and being sure never to let the place get overfull -- Misha's managed to evade the clutches of the law ever since.
When Jensen slips into the back street and sees no light leaking out through the tiny basement windows, hears no convivial blend of chatter and jazz through the thin panels of the door, he's immediately wary. Misha doesn't close up unannounced unless something has gone wrong, and even if Jensen's pretty well aware that Misha can hold his own -- and has been happily doing so for the better part of a decade -- the fact still remains that darkness means danger.
He pats his pockets cursorily. It isn't as if he generally walks the streets of New York with gin in his pockets, not being an alcoholic by any standard, but when you cart the stuff about for a living, sometimes one or two drops of it get left behind. In hip flasks. Today, though, he seems to be clean.
"Hello?" He leans on the door, but, as half-expected, it doesn't yield to his pressure. Jensen pauses, thinks a minute. On the one hand, the continued silence is ominous; but on the other -- well. He's seen more than one raided joint in his vast experience, and it's not like any policeman he's ever known to politely close and lock the door of a busted establishment behind him. If there was a raid on the horizon, then it never got to Misha. Perhaps he'll have more luck at the front door.
The door into the upstairs apartment is a couple of minutes' walk away, down the narrow alley and around the corner on the main street. There are no lights, as far as Jensen can see, in the apartment windows either, and his stomach turns uncomfortably. Misha can take care of himself, he knows, but Jared --
He shakes the thought away and puts his fist to use on the door. "Hey! Anyone home?" The flat sounds of his pounding echo in the empty street.
"Planning on waking the whole block?" says a voice, and Jensen barely resists leaping bodily into the air. He's got the ears of a fox, often been told so, but that voice came from nowhere, and he doesn't enjoy the way his heart is racing with the sheer unexpectedness of it.
"Jesus Christ, Jared!" He presses a hand to his chest as if to steady himself, and peers up. Above him, he can just see Jared's head and shoulders silhouetted against the faint pale outline of the window, arms crossed casually on the lower edge of the frame. "You guys had that window oiled into silence or something?"
Jared laughs, shakes his head. "Window was open already," he explains. "You want to come in?"
It's on the tip of Jensen's tongue to demand to know what the hell is going on, where everyone is, why the house is in darkness, but he knows better than to pose such questions from the middle of a public street. So he shrugs and calls up, "Yes -- come down?"
"Coming," Jared tells him, voice giving nothing away, and then he closes the window and disappears.
It's not a large apartment, and Jensen hasn't long to wait before Jared's pulling the door open and ushering him inside. Jensen goes without comment or hesitation, eager to get into a safe place so as to assure himself that nothing catastrophic has happened, although Jared's air of nonchalance seems to suggest not. The moment the door closes behind them, Jensen opens his mouth to start on his questions, and Jared, apparently, completely misinterprets his intentions, because the next second he has his arms full of teenage boy and Jared's lips mouthing at his own. It's not exactly the worst case of misinterpretation he's ever experienced -- which has a lot to do with the fact that he goes along with it happily for a few seconds, because Jared's mouth is so warm and so damn clever -- but still, there'll be time for that later. After his curiosity has been satisfied.
"Hey," he protests, when Jared shows signs of pushing this straight into deep, tonguing kisses without pause for conversation, "whoa there, soldier." With some difficulty, he succeeds in getting his forearm between them, flattening his palm against Jared's collarbone and shoving him back a few inches. "What the hell's going on around here? You guys aren't open why, again?"
Jared's sigh is deeply put-upon, as if he can't for the life of him understand why they have to have this conversation now when they could be making out like sixteen-year-olds instead. Which, on one level, is certainly deeply flattering, but Jensen can't see himself falling into it the way he wants until his anxiety has been quelled. Not unless Jared tries really hard, anyway. He raises his eyebrows pointedly, arm still braced and unmoving, until Jared licks his lips -- Jensen tries very hard not to follow the movement of his tongue with his eyes -- and shrugs.
"Didn't get raided," he says, "if that's what you're worried about. But Seb tipped Misha off that there were some pretty huge organised raids planned for tonight and tomorrow, so he figured it might be a good idea to sink the liquor and close up for the duration." He shrugs. "And that place two blocks over has definitely been raided -- we heard the ruckus from here. So obviously the reports were accurate."
"Seb's reports are pretty damn nearly always accurate," Jensen says, pensively, brow furrowing a little as he processes the information. "Tonight and tomorrow? So where are Matt and Misha?"
"Sinking the liquor," Jared reiterates, patiently. "They left me here in case the police decide to drop by anyway, to explain that we ain't nothing but good God-fearing procurers of tea and cakes, but if they do come, there'll be nothing for them to find, so they can't arrest me."
Jensen nods slowly. Liquor-sinking isn't something Jensen's seen done by anyone but Misha, but once Misha explained it to him it seemed too logical and sensible not to be practised by other landlords in other establishments, even if Jensen had never come across it before. Effectively, the process entails putting all the liquor bottles into big burlap sacks, tying the ends off, and sinking them in the river, with the tails of the ropes moored to the bank as if the sacks were boats; or, if the river is too turbulent, they can be sunk in the sewer, at appropriately little-used points. After the danger has passed, Misha, along with whomever he's managed to rope into helping him, will haul the liquor back up, no harm, no foul. It makes sense, though, to sink the stuff in lots in various different places, just in case one lot is discovered and confiscated by police. No sense in setting yourself up to lose everything in one fell swoop, after all. Accordingly, the process can sometimes take all night -- as can the subsequent recovery.
Sometimes Misha really can be a genius. A genius who will probably be away for at least the next several hours, which thought appeals to Jensen a whole lot more than it maybe should. He turns it over in his mind a little, grin spreading slow over his face as he focuses his full attention back on Jared. "You here alone all night, then, huh?"
Jared is a smart kid, and he picks up on even the subtlest of mood-shifts quickly. This one is not a subtle shift at all, and Jared's grinning back, dark and heated, before Jensen's even done speaking. "Most of it, probably," he says, soft and dry. His lower body is still close enough to Jensen's that its heat radiates through their clothes, and he presses closer now, hand curling up around Jensen's neck. "Why? Were you planning on taking advantage of it?"
Jensen's plans, half-formed as they were, definitely involved actually ascending the narrow flight of stairs between apartment and street before any sort of move was made; he is quite certain on that point. Stairs are uncomfortable things to fuck on, as he knows from one backache-inducing experience. His plans, though, hadn't made any allowance for how hot that look could be on Jared's face, for the firm shove of his thigh up against Jensen's crotch, or the way he leans in to rub his mouth damp along the line of Jensen's jaw. He meant to wait, but when Jared behaves like this, he has nobody to blame but himself when Jensen surges back suddenly against him, arms crossing over his back, palms sliding down to grip his ass and haul him in. He has nobody to blame but himself for the way the wall feels, cold and hard against his back when Jensen lifts him bodily, shoves him back against the plaster. Jared's big, but he's growing, still, and for now, Jensen is bigger.
"Shit," Jared breathes, as if that fact had escaped him. "Jensen --"
Jensen cuts him off mid-breath, the greater part of Jared's weight supported on his bracing thigh as he leans in to kiss him, filthy-deep and hard, all want and no finesse. It's intended as a promise, as something for Jared to remember him by in the too-long time it'll take them to get upstairs, but it's difficult not to let himself get lost in it when Jared moans in his throat and kisses back. God, he kisses hard, hands groping frantically, and it's all Jensen can do to keep from rocking his hips in tandem with Jared's, from rutting against him here until they come. Hell, Jared would probably let him -- but Jared isn't running this goddamn show, however strongly he may feel otherwise right now. Other people don't get to run shows they want Jensen to star in, not even when those people have succeeded in twisting Jensen up in ways he'd almost forgotten were possible.
It almost hurts to break away, step back, but it will be worth it for the skin-on-skin payoff, the look on Jared's face when he's arched up over him, candlelight licking him everywhere. Jensen knows what he wants, sees it like an image rendered on canvas, and it isn't something he can get in a darkened hallway. He grins back at Jared, wet-mouthed and panting; cards his fingers through Jared's hair and tugs. "Upstairs," he says, voice rough and curt. "Want you to ride me. And I think we could find a better place for that than here."
The dark cast overtaking the green in Jared's eyes is enough to sustain him on the journey upstairs, the sheer heat in that look setting the base of Jensen's spine prickling with sweat. The little choked-off sound Jared makes in the back of his throat; the way he stumbles after Jensen like a man gone blind; the way he seems to have lost all his smart-alec words from earlier. All of it, everything about it is hot, and Jensen suddenly wants with all the force that's in him.
Jared's bedroom is dimly lit by a low-burning lamp on the side table when they reach it, and Jared's lust-dark eyes look better still in its light, the black cast gold, unearthly and leonine. Jensen shucks his overcoat immediately, deposits his fedora on the nearest bedpost, but his eyes are unwavering on Jared's as he strips: jacket next, then collar and tie, then the buttons of his shirt. For a long, long second, Jared only stares, and Jensen feels an indistinct glow of pride in his chest that he could make Jared look like that, that he could hold him rapt and in thrall this way. Then Jared shakes himself, the doe-eyed expression shifting into something more characteristically shrewd, and Jared's stripping, too, as he stares back at Jensen, peeling his suspenders down off his shoulders, leaving them to dangle uselessly from his pants.
After that, the game is on.
Jensen can strip with the best of them, can undress even more quickly than he can get dressed again, but today he has shoes to contend with, so Jared, barefoot, can't help but win. Still, Jensen thinks, as he kicks off his undershorts, it isn't as if he's really losing, here, with Jared kneeing up onto the end of the bed in nothing but his candle-kissed skin. Jared smiling at him, all coltish seventeen-year-old grace, breaths coming as short and shallow as Jensen's in the air that's swiftly heating around them. Jensen's achingly hard by the time he's on the bed himself, and the way Jared's eyes rake over him as he unfolds onto his back is enough to make his cock leap against his stomach.
"See something you like?" he teases, voice hot and soft.
Jared has the grace to blush, but he isn't embarrassed, crawling forward immediately on his hands and knees until his thighs bracket Jensen's, his eyes frank and fixed on Jensen's body. "Yeah," he says; sits back on his heels so the curve of his backside is flush against the muscle of Jensen's thighs. "Pretty sure I want the lot."
His voice is rough, unvarnished, and it flips something in Jensen, makes his hips hitch upward as his eyes clench shut, if only for a moment's breathless respite. "Oh," he says, one long arm fumbling for the lotion he knows is on the nightstand, "I think that can be arranged." It's cold on his fingers, not exactly ideal for the purpose, but it'll do, and Jensen has no intention of making, of letting Jared wait, not when he's putting on an act like this. If any of it even is an act. Jensen's skin trembles hotly at the thought. "Up," he gets out, short and commanding, the palm of his dry hand making sharp, smacking contact with the round swell of Jared's ass. "On your knees. Hold onto the headboard."
Jared may not have done anything like this before, but the boy is nothing if not a fast learner. Jensen's mouth goes dry at the sight of him unfurling, the long muscles pulling in his arms and legs as he sucks in a breath and goes to his knees, stretching up and over Jensen's head to steady himself. When Jensen's fingers crook up between his legs, part his thighs and press up into him, it's even hotter, the way he shoves down against the invading fingers, the way he keens softly in his throat as he moves. Jensen feels himself hardening impossibly, drooling precome in a slick puddle on his belly by the time he's gotten two fingers in and working. Jared's groaning, rolling his hips, and shit, it's barely enough preparation, but Jensen doesn't know if he can wait much longer. His pelvis bucks frenetically, incrementally, as he works, free hand clenched in the meat of Jared's thigh, and any more of this and it'll be too much. Jared, in this position, will be able to set his own pace, and that, Jensen decides, will have to be that.
He withdraws his fingers, slides his hands around Jared's neat waist to steady him by the backside, and Jared moans soft at the shift, hips working anxiously at the sudden emptiness. "Jensen," he grits out, "Jen --" and Jensen has to swallow hard against a rush of want like nausea.
"Yeah," he soothes, careful and soft, as if reassuring an anxious horse. His hands make long strokes on Jared's skin, firm and hard, slow and capable. "Come on, sweetheart." He slides a hand down and around, grips the base of his cock and positions it, stiff and nudging at Jared where he's open. "Come on," he manages, "I got you."
Jared sucks in a deep breath, a last, long quiet like the calm before a storm. And then he's descending, all the air punched out of him in a high, tense moan as he shoves himself downward onto Jensen's cock, sheathes it inch after glistening inch without a pause for breath. He's, shit, he's so tight, Jensen's seeing stars before he's halfway down; knows he should look away and save himself the anxiety of being shoved so close to the edge so soon, but everything in him is transfixed by the sight, his cock disappearing into Jared as he pushes so relentlessly downward. "Christ, Jared," he murmurs, hardly even aware he's speaking, "Doing so good, baby. Doing so good."
He's so captivated by the sight of it, by the sheer, unmitigated goodness of Jared's descent, that it's almost a shock when Jared's final push leaves him heavy on Jensen's thighs; when he sucks in a breath and starts to move. Jensen moans in his throat, the sound wrenched out of him by some combination of surprise and pure, blinding heat as he rolls his hips unconsciously up into Jared, as Jared clenches around him and begins to rock back. Jared's still stretched out forward, clinging to the headboard, and in this position Jensen can see every muscle, every shift and strain, every flicker of his pulse. "God," Jensen groans, hands sliding up again to cradle Jared's hips, "shit, Jared. Like that, like that," and Jared only whimpers and rocks back harder, back arching gloriously, every inch of him glistening gold.
Time blurs like this, runs together like wax. By the time Jared's arms give out, give way, his hands slipping down to anchor flat against Jensen's chest, Jensen's half-delirious with the pleasure of it, and Jared is half-liquid with desperation, crying out sharply with every pulse of Jensen's hips. It's harder, in this new position, to find leverage, but in truth, there is barely any need for it, every roll of Jensen's pelvis rubbing his cock against the place inside that makes Jared shiver and moan, every clench of Jared's muscles pulling Jensen closer to the brink. Jared's twitching between them, cock jutting out hard and leaking between their bodies, and there's something fascinating in the way it jumps with their thrusts, precome pearling out of the slit in pulses.
"Shit," Jared's keening, "shit, shit," and Jensen knows how he feels, fingers clenched tightly enough in the flesh of Jared's backside that he fully expects to find bruises there in the morning. He clenches his toes, shoves down against the mattress, and fuck, that's it, Jared's back snapping tight as his cock fattens impossibly, as the first slick of whiteness comes spurting out of it.
"Fuck," Jensen spits, rocking faster, fucking him through it as his muscles tense up, "Jared, shit, don't even know what you look like --" but Jared's only whimpering and shivering as he comes, thick and copious all over Jensen's stomach. He's trembling everywhere, arms and thighs and knees, and he slumps on Jensen almost immediately he's done, but that's okay; Jensen's okay. The sounds Jared's making into the crook of his neck would have done for him even without the sudden tightening of his muscles, the final frantic motions of his hips.
"God," Jensen breathes; fucks up and comes, fingers digging fierce into Jared's back. His hips shift reflexively, stroke after stroke, even once his shoulders have collapsed onto the bed, eyes squeezed shut as he fights for breath. Jared is a dead weight on top of him, panting warm and damp against his throat, and Jensen has always hated dead weight. Jensen ordinarily leaves a grace period of fifteen seconds before he worms his way out from under his partner, unpeeling himself before their skin sticks together.
Jared is a mess, tacky-wet against him, sluice of come congealing between their bellies. It's going to be disgusting in a minute or so, so much mess and sweat and evidence, so much of it real and undeniable.
Jared's still shivering with the force of his release, and his spine shifts interestingly beneath Jensen's palms as he strokes it. "Hey," Jensen says, "Hey. Ssh, sweetheart."
The mess between their bellies is wet and unappealing, but Jared's fucked-out weight is almost enough to make up for it. Jensen decides that clean-up can wait ten minutes without dire consequences befalling them, and slides a hand up Jared's back to comb his fingers through his hair.
They go on like that for weeks. Jensen can't remember when time last slipped through his fingers like this, like water, like the sun-shimmer silk of Jared's hair, like the cries Jensen cannot smother entirely. Like this, time meanders, and every passing day brings Jared closer.
He was on guard, at first, even after everything -- after his debates and decisions and anxieties, he'd ended on a clear, strong note of better keep an eye on things. Except that, six weeks later, his eyes are on nothing but the way Jared laughs when he comes, the way his tongue pokes out between his teeth when he grins at Jensen sidelong in the sun. Everything has narrowed, beyond the humdrum of his job-that-isn't-a-job, beyond the danger, to this place in which there is only this: Jared's youth and his cleverness and his innocence like air. It has been so long since Jensen was innocent that he thought he would never recoup it again, except through the destruction of it in others. In Jared, he has no desire to destroy it. In Jared, the sense of it only seems to grow, this bright untouchable thing that years on the street never managed to eradicate. After all that, really, it should come as no surprise that Jensen hasn't accidentally fucked it out of him, for all Jared throws himself into it with abandon. Sex is an unusually happy thing with Jared. Jensen's never felt that before, except, on some level, with Misha, and even then, never like this.
Never with all these feelings filling him up so tight and full that his blood seems shoved right up against the fragile container of his skin, barely strong enough; all these things he never meant to feel, but which, by now, he couldn't undo. Doesn't even want to. It's a bind, but for a long time, he doesn't feel it as one.
What it all comes down to, in the end, is money. So what's new? There isn't a human being on this earth who isn't in bondage of some kind to at least one other person, and Jensen is a valuable link in a chain that can't just keep moving without his input. He's a big cog, but he's a cog, and that means turning when required to. There isn't any question of retiring from this business, after all, and Jensen would be ridiculous for even thinking of doing so. It's the only thing that's ever made him feel himself, that's dragged him up by his bootstraps to a point where, although nobody could call him respectable, he is certainly affluent, and respected by those who matter.
Jensen is a rum-runner: that is what he is, and while minor runs and operations are all very well for long stints, eventually, there comes a time when it's his turn to make the long journey to Havana in search of fresh blood. Where the blood is crates and crates of alcohol, hauled home via Canada since the waterways became almost impassable at the Rum Line. Jensen knows his turn is coming, and ordinarily he'd have been almost excited, feet itching restlessly with his habitual wanderlust.
Jared, apparently, has killed that a little, even if he hasn't managed to kill Jared's innocence. Jim, to whom Jensen answers directly, almost certainly would not give the tiniest damn if Jensen offered that as any kind of excuse. They rule themselves, but there are responsibilities. They look after each other because nobody else will, and Jensen has always been a man of his word, a twisted kind of honour never letting him escape it.
When Jim says, "Jensen -- we're low," he is resigned. It's a long trip, but he'll have to go.
He doesn't want to tell Jared. He'll have to, he knows that, but some cowardly part of him kind of wants to slip off like a thief in the night, spare himself the goodbye and let Jared find out from Misha or someone that Jensen's just off again on one of his trips, that he'll be back sooner or later, turning up like the bad penny he's always been. Jensen will always turn up, and that was always enough for Misha, when they were -- whatever they were. Except Jensen never had such difficulty tearing himself from Misha's side, and never such difficulty, either, in showing up and putting the situation to him straight.
He wants to slip off unannounced because he doesn't want to have to see the look on Jared's face, the disappointment or, worse, the casual acquiescence that might break Jensen's heart. If Jared is unhappy, it will be awful; if he is unconcerned, it will be worse. On the other hand, though, there is a very large part of Jensen that knows he will regret it on every level if he leaves for the rumlands without something to send him on his way, a last long kiss descending into more, the warm weight of Jared under him on the bed, or the solid pressure of his thighs straddling Jensen's. He wants that last contact without the wrench of the goodbye, he realises, and he'd curse his mind for its contrariness, were it not for the fact that, actually, his subconscious isn't divided at all. In his heart, he doesn't want to leave at all, and there are no two ways about it.
He wishes he could just dismiss his responsibilities, stay and damn the consequences, but he can't; for a hundred thousand reasons, he can't. Jensen has to step up and take it like a man. Undoubtedly it'll make him feel better about it in the end, when it all comes crashing down, to know he didn't actually sacrifice his career to this thing like an idiot.
This is what he tells himself, at any rate, as he raps on the door of Misha's apartment his last night in New York. It will have to be enough.
Jared has never been the sort of kid who's invited into other people's houses, unless those other people are, like Misha, collectors of waifs and strays, their homes warm and comfortable but never especially impressive or out of the ordinary. He can count on one hand the number of personal residences he's ever been permitted to view from close quarters, and two of those belonged to family members, back when Jared actually had some family to speak of. He has a new family now, this rag-tag band of the lost and outcast, and he loves them, but they aren't exactly respectable. Jared's become so used to the smoke and whisky smell of the bar that he's almost forgotten that houses exist that don't smell like that, that aren't a set of rooms above a den of vice. Matt lived in a boarding house before he lived here, sawdust on the floors and whores in the ground floor rooms, and Jared's general assumption has always been that Jensen lived somewhere like that, somewhere Jared shouldn't go.
Which is why he is almost as shocked by Jensen's suggestion that they go back to his place as he is by the place itself when it rises up grandly in front of them, all smooth-fronted brick and brass, an elevator with an attendant. The attendant has a coat with gleaming gold buttons, and Jared is temporarily speechless.
Jensen nudges him in the shoulder, smile curling his lips. "What's the matter? Never seen an elevator before?"
"Shut up," Jared mutters, half-embarrassed, but he studies the dial above the elevator door with interest, all the same, when the motors start whirring, propelling them up through the shaft.
Jared's not stupid, in any sense of the word. He knows, pretty much, how elevators work, a complex intersection of cogs and gears lifting them up through the wonder of engineering. Still, any technology sufficiently complicated can feel like magic when one's experience of it is limited, and Jared closes his eyes, the better to feel the way his stomach dips, the way the elevator pulls on him from the inside. When they stop, the boy saying softly, "Fourth floor, Mr Ackles," Jared's almost disappointed, jolted forward a little so he almost stumbles. Jensen is there, though, to catch him, hooking an arm through his.
"Thanks, Sam," Jensen says, easy and gentle, and then some money changes hands, a flash of silver. When they step out of the elevator, Jared can't help but turn back to watch the boy pull the outer doors closed so that the inner ones can slide shut after them, mechanism well-oiled and almost soundless. It's almost fascinating enough to distract from the fact that Jensen's behaviour is somehow -- off, in a way Jared cannot place. Almost, but not quite.
"Here," Jensen says, hand skating down over the crook of Jared's arm until their fingers lace together. And that, that right there, is an excellent example of how bizarrely Jensen is acting today. He's been oddly clingy since the moment he picked Jared up, even while his attitude is distracted, distant, as if something's bothering him. Jared's fingers clench reflexively, a little anxiously, in Jensen's, not entirely sure that they should do this here. Already, he is wondering what the elevator boy must have thought, Jensen in his pin-striped suit, riding up in the elevator with a kid who still pretty much looks like a newsie, albeit a cleaner one than the standard. The last thing they need is to encounter some businessman on the landing, hands inarguably entwined. Carefully, he begins to pull away, but Jensen resists, clamping his fingers more tightly around Jared's.
"Don't worry," he assures, as if he knows what Jared is thinking. Jensen so very frequently does. "Nobody else on this floor. This is us, right here." And he indicates a door to his left, the nameplate empty -- and Jared can guess why that might be -- but the number gleaming respectably on its pin. When Jensen pushes it open, after a brief fumble of keys, it's all Jared can do not to let out a lewd whistle of appreciation. Keeping his mouth from falling open is entirely beyond his capabilities just at the moment.
"Man," he says, voice breaking with incredulity, "you never told me you were such a swell, Jensen."
Jensen's laughter at that brings him a little closer to the Jensen Jared knows, white teeth flashing, his eyes sea-green and pleased. "I'm a rum-runner, Jay. I'm not in it for the philanthropic aspects."
"Sure you are," Jared teases, shoving the door closed behind him almost out of instinct. Floor to themselves or not, he never touches Jensen in a strange place without caution and closed doors, and this is a very strange place. "I bet the regulars at Misha's think you're a real fine philanthropist."
Jensen snorts, but he takes advantage of their newly acquired privacy to pull Jared towards him all the same, hands warm on his waist through the thin linen shirt. "The regulars here don't know where my money comes from, that's for sure." His hands inch a little higher, incremental, almost surreptitious, and Jared laughs; leans in and rubs his mouth against the sharp line of Jensen's jaw.
"So you thought you'd just come home with some boy and hope nobody noticed? They probably thought I was a hooker."
He isn't expecting the sharp turn of Jensen's head, the way his mouth presses, rough and sudden, against Jared's own, still parted on a laugh. It's a short kiss, but hard, Jensen's tongue pushing in past his teeth, making a claiming sweep over his soft palate. "You're not some boy," Jensen says, when he pulls back, and there's an odd note in his voice, one Jared can't remember ever having heard there before. "Nobody saw us but the elevator boy, and even if they did, I don't care what they thought, okay? You're nobody's hooker."
The rasp in Jensen's voice takes Jared aback, setting his stomach clenching in sympathy, although he hardly knows what Jensen is getting so worked up about. "No," he says, immediate, eyebrows drawing together. "No, Jen, I'm not." Jensen's hands are moving frenetically over his back, now, hauling Jared in, restless, and Jared facilitates, shifts closer until light couldn't pass between them. "I'm just me. Just yours."
It's instinctive, this overflow of feeling that Jared has usually been so careful to keep from voicing, and for a moment after the words escape him, he's afraid he's ventured too far. Jensen stiffens a little against him, fingers digging into flesh, and Jared holds his breath, anxious. After a second, though, Jensen subsides, grip slackening again. He nods a little, pulls back, presses a kiss to Jared's mouth. "Well," he says, and it isn't an acknowledgement, isn't a great declaration of love, but it's not a rejection, either, and Jared will take it. Jensen says things he doesn't mean and bottles in things he does; Jared's known him long enough to be sure of it.
"Well," he parrots, mouth quirking a little. "You gonna give me the grand tour, or what?"
It's the excuse Jensen needs to restabilise himself, which is why Jared offers it and why, too, Jensen takes it, face sliding easily back into the familiar expression of quiet amusement as he shakes the dust of the odd moment from his shoulders. "Sure thing." He grins, takes Jared's hand, and that -- okay, that's still kind of strange, but Jared finds that he likes it too much to make inquiries about it. Better just to enjoy the warmth of Jensen's palm against his and say nothing.
The apartment is certainly a thing of unanticipated beauty. There is nothing to separate the living area from the hall outside -- indeed, there is nothing to break up the high-ceilinged vastness of the main room, the lounge, with its deep, dark leather furnishings, leading straight into an open space in which a dining table and chairs hold pride of place. Jared runs his fingers along the overstuffed arm of one of the sofas, his eyes following their path in unabashed awe. Jensen laughs; echoes the trailing motion down the length of Jared's upper spine. "You like that, huh?"
Jared shrugs one shoulder. "Maybe," he says, drawing the word out, singsong. He is under no illusions at all as to the fact that his nonchalance is entirely unconvincing, but that doesn't matter. Jensen is still smiling.
"Maybe I'll fuck you on it." His tone is mild, disaffected, but the slow drag of his fingers down to the small of Jared's back, curling in the waistband of his pants, tells a different story, and Jared shivers across the whole breadth of his shoulders.
"Mess it up," he manages, in warning, but the image is flashing all the same through his mind: Jensen, sprawled in the depths of that couch with his thighs spread wide, pants unbuttoned, but otherwise still pristine and perfect in his shirt and tie and suit. Himself, straddling him naked, one hand braced on the back of the sofa to modulate his thrusts down onto Jensen's cock.
The thought makes his skin flush, hot and everywhere, but Jensen is laughing already, pulling away towards the dining table. Jensen can play him like a fiddle when he wants to, always, and the worst part is that Jared can't often bring himself to mind. Jensen doesn't even have to speak when they pass the table, one arched eyebrow sufficient to indicate to Jared all the filthy uses Jensen could think of for it. It's a horrible talent, really, such a power of suggestion, but Jared is too warm and breathless at the plethora of ideas to complain. This is Jensen's home, with all his things in it, and Jared wants nothing so badly as to have Jensen fuck him in every place he can think of, until the apartment is so full of Jared that Jensen will never be able to put him fully out of his mind again.
The fervour of his feelings is so intense that Jared is momentarily taken aback, pauses to recollect himself as Jensen throws open a door beyond the crockery sideboard (which, seriously, who has a sideboard? It's the stupidest thing to be impressed by, but Jared can't help it. Sideboards are for swells).
Jensen is impatient ahead of him, though, one hand on his hip, the expression of mild exasperation on his face suggesting that there's something good behind the door, and he can't understand why Jared would want to miss it. "Hey," Jensen says, confirming Jared's suppositions, "do you want to see this, or not?"
"Should I?" It's probably time to get over the sideboard. Jared tosses Jensen a grin, catching the tip of his tongue between his teeth the way he knows makes Jensen flush and grin right back. It's manipulation, that look, but Jensen's no stranger to that. Jared's fairly certain he can take it. "What's in there?"
"Come and see," Jensen insists, a note of impatience ringing out clear through his evasiveness, and Jared frowns a little, curious. He circumnavigates the pointed edge of the table with great care, having no particular desire to pick up a spectacular bruise in his haste, but his interest is aroused, for sure. Jensen's apartment is, to Jared's eyes, nothing short of magnificent, but the majority of all that is out here in the overstuffed couches and the vast darkwood dining set -- which Jared privately doubts Jensen gets much use out of. He can't imagine that whatever's behind the door can be more interesting than all that leather and mahogany with its piny, polished scents; can't imagine that --
"...oh."
"Right?" Jensen's grinning broadly now, delighted with himself, no doubt because Jared assuredly resembles some sort of mentally defective guppy, gaping like this, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed in the doorway. "Now aren't you glad you came?"
It takes Jared a second's fevered blinking to summon the composure to make an indistinct sound of concurrence. As life-altering experiences go, he wouldn't have expected 'witnessing the glory of Jensen Ackles's bathroom' to be near the top of any list for sheer impressiveness, but apparently he would have been wrong. At Misha's, the bathroom, even the one in the upstairs apartment, is a dingy little room with a strong smell of disinfectant, generally best used and then vacated as quickly as possible for one's own personal comfort. This room, Jensen's bathroom, is palatial. There's no other word for it. The fixtures gleam like fresh, polished silver on the pedestal sink; the claw-footed bath is deep and broad enough to take three people if they squished up small. Jared has never been overcome with lust towards a bathroom before, but apparently there's a first time for everything.
"See something you like?" Jensen's voice is sly and low, in every way the voice Jared associates with him from the early days of their acquaintance, so many levels of seduction in it. Jared would look at him, really he would, but he's rather more concerned than he should be with cataloguing the rows of little bottles soldiering along the windowsill, the depth of the bathtub, the goddamn clawed feet like something out of an Arthurian legend -- or so Jared imagines. Maybe everyone in this building has a bath like that, like something in which they could sail away to Avalon, if circumstances demanded it.
"Look at your damn bath," Jared manages, after a second, the words bursting out of him like a cork from a bottle, and Jensen throws back his head and laughs, steps closer to sling an arm around Jared's shoulders. Jared slumps down a little, making it easier. He knows it makes Jensen feel a little weird, sometimes, to have to reach up to Jared the way he does, and the last thing Jared wants is for Jensen to be uncomfortable. Easier to let himself meld into him, instead, until everything fits too seamlessly to possibly be pulled apart again.
"You want in it?" Jensen suggests, mildly. His hand slips lower, smoothing over the muscles in Jared's back, the line of his shoulder blade. Palms the small of his back and finds the space of skin where his shirt has come away from his pants; slips in and around to grip his hipbone. The implications in the touch are not chaste ones, and Jared turns into it impatiently, sparks leaping up under his skin.
"Gonna get in it with me?" Jensen's jaw is right there, smooth and well-cut, and Jared can't help but run his tongue along it, up into the soft place behind Jensen's ear that makes his breath come quick, as it does even now, Jensen hissing a breath and tightening his grip on Jared.
"Clothes," he says, succinct and dark and firm. Jared doesn't need to be told twice.
By the time he's scrambled out of everything, the bath is at least a quarter of the way full, which is a feat in itself, given that Jensen has only just snapped the faucets on. At Misha's, filling the bath is like percolating extremely poorly ground coffee, the water level rising in tiny increments. Here, the water gushes easy and casual from the mouths of the taps, and even as he watches, Jensen leans over and picks up one of his bottles at random, pouring the pale liquid into the water until bubbles rise up in the tub in its wake.
"What?" Jensen demands, following the line of Jared's gaze. "Don't give me that. Bubble baths are a manly indulgence." His jacket is thrown over the back of the chair that stands just inside the door; his tie, shirt and suit pants swiftly follow it, and Jared just stands still and watches as Jensen's skin is slowly revealed, his fingers flying easy and deft over all his buttons and hooks.
"Hey," he protests, as Jensen steps out of his underwear, "I'm not complaining." Interesting, Jared thinks, that Jensen's perfectionism only goes so far. His suit and shirt he sets neatly aside, but the undershirt and shorts do not get the same treatment, kicked aside with un-Jensen-like carelessness once their wearer has abandoned them. He's noticed this before, this tendency of Jensen's towards meticulous precision and guardedness on the outer layers of things, something closer to softness when the armour has been stripped away, but it always fascinated him. Everything Jensen does fascinates him.
"Better not complain," Jensen shoots back, but his tone is mild, and Jared can't help but notice that he's stepping into the bath at the end where the faucets are, sinking carefully into the water and deliberately leaving the smooth side of the tub for Jared. And that's all Jensen, too, all that consideration falsely announced with curtness. Jared fights down a swell of something warm in his chest, and climbs into the proffered space.
The first thing Jared registers is that it really is an enormous tub. Jensen is a big man, and Jared, while not so broad yet, is going to be even bigger, if his height is anything to go by, but the bath takes them without complaint, Jared's knees splaying easily either side of Jensen's until Jensen laughs and pushes one of his legs between, making a complicated interlace of ankles and thighs, skin and bone. The water laps up all around them, gently shifting with their movements against the sides of the tub as Jared has seen it slap the sides of ships, and he feels perfect. Jensen is smiling at him, no doubt amused by his reaction, but Jared doesn't care. He brings his ankles together either side of Jensen's calf and squeezes, half-comfort, half-warning.
"Good?" Jensen asks, grinning. His eyes glint a deep gold-green in the yellow light of the electric lamp, and he slides his foot up the inside of Jared's leg, over the soft crook of his knee, the smooth skin of his inner thigh. There is neither comfort in it, nor warning. It is unmistakably seductive, and Jared shivers a little.
"Yeah," he manages. The ceramic rim of the bath had felt very cold at first, when he spread out his arms along it, but it is warm now under his warm skin, and he presses down against it, arches up, chest broad and spread. Jensen only smiles and shifts his foot a little further, until there can be no mistake at all, the arch of it brushing the soft weight of Jared's balls beneath the warm mass of water. Jared bites his lip on a grin and lifts his pelvis, demanding, and Jensen takes the hint and moves, pressing the sole of his foot flat to Jared's cock, a firm steady pressure.
"So you like my apartment, huh?" Jensen's voice is low and teasing, but any pretensions at nonchalance are belied by the hot flush prickling up along his throat, a familiar pinkness that is nothing to do with the warm water. Jared whimpers a little, more to encourage him than out of instinct, and rocks his hips so the water splashes up against the sides of the bath in little tidal waves.
"Like you," he counters. Jensen laughs a little, presses harder with his foot, and that's it, that's all Jared can take. It's good, but it isn't enough, and Jensen is too far away. He sits up, stretches forward to hook his hands under Jensen's armpits, tugging him forward. "Jen, c'mon."
Jensen comes easily, to Jared's mild surprise; rises up on his knees like a god from the waves and crawls forward over Jared until he is, effectively, straddling Jared's lap, knees just squeezing in either side of Jared's hips. Jensen doesn't tend to climb him like this -- this, if anything, is Jared's deal -- but Jared can't deny that he likes it, the firm warm weight of Jensen's ass against his cock, the warm heat of Jensen, muted by the water, bumping Jared's stomach. Jared slides both hands up his back, curiously frictionless, now; cups the nape of Jensen's neck and pulls, and Jensen gives in to that, too, mouth parting immediately for Jared's, licking over his tongue.
"Shit," Jared murmurs when Jensen presses down; bucks up instinctively, sloshing a cascade of water over the side of the bath. "Shit, I'm --"
"Don't worry about it," Jensen tells him, soft against his mouth, and pulls him back again, hands lacing into his wet hair.
There's still something -- off about him, something unhinged and intense and claustrophobic, but his mouth is insistent, his hands, and so Jared goes with it, lets Jensen rock down against him, bite at the swell of his lip. The heat in his stomach builds lush and gradual, but it is building, banking up with every rock of their hips, every shift. It isn't until the sudden crash of water jolts him out of the trance Jensen's mouth has lulled him into that Jared recognises quite how far it's gone, how purposefully they're shifting against each other, water sloshing violently around them like high seas in a storm.
"Jen," he mutters, breaking away, and Jensen half-laughs, taking stock of the situation as if he's only just noticed it.
"Uh," he says, pulling back a little to shove the hair off his forehead with wet fingers. "Shall we take this elsewhere?"
He looks, Jared thinks, supremely beautiful like this, water-slick and bright-eyed and hot. Jared wants to go on kissing him forever; wants to sink under the water with him and never come back up, and that's -- that is probably not good. What's worse is that he doesn't even care.
"Sure," he says, reaching up to smooth Jensen's hair himself, flattening it slick against his skull; combing it forward again until it spikes under his fingers. "Okay. Yeah."
part 5