ladyjanelly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladyjanelly) wrote2008-01-22 12:57 pm
ladyjanelly) wrote2008-01-22 12:57 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: In From the Cold Ch 7/? J2 rated-R
Jensen searches
Jared finds
Or maybe it's the other way around
Beta and Bunny from Embroiderama
===========
The glowing numbers on Jared’s bedside clock say 9:47 when he wakes up. In the blacked-out darkness of his room he experiences the familiar disorientation of not being sure if it means morning or night. His sleep-addled brain decides on PM. He couldn’t have slept all the way through morning, twenty hours or more.
A couple of months ago he would have been starting his day--night--whatever with Darren, Jared getting ready for working in the clinic and Darren for his bartending job on the strip. He had friends then, Darren's friends yeah, but people to hang out with.
He thinks about that in the shower, how few people he spends time with these days. All the people he knew before Darren are headed for bed about now. Normal people, normal lives, normal schedules. The thought of going back to school has its temptations. He’s talked to George about it though and the chances of staying at this clinic and working a day shift are really slim. He considered taking just one class or something, but it would be like a normal person getting up at three in the morning to go to school and he’s not sure he can take it.
After he gets dressed, Jared pokes around the apartment. With the little things he packed up for Jensen, his kitchen seems sort of empty and he needs more toilet paper.
The twenty-four hour grocery’s lights cast a sickly glow over the store. Jared finds himself buying more pre-packaged things than he would in a normal week, small items in single servings along with his staples of black beans, rice, peanut butter, jelly and two loaves of bread. He knows he’s thinking about Jensen, knows he’s stocking up and that he’s not going to be the one eating half of what he puts in the cart.
The sky opens up as Jared walks to his car, great fat drops falling straight down. It feels like ice slithering down the back of his neck and he can’t even imagine having nowhere to go in this crap, not even a car to get into. He takes the long way home, circling a few blocks around the clinic and crisscrossing the neighborhood between there and his apartment. There aren’t many homeless visible on the streets though, and the few that are all look the same, faceless bundles of rags tucked into the nooks and crannies of a building.
He’s got no hope of finding Jensen from his car and very little even if he went out on foot. He still worries as he heads back home. Getting Jensen into a shelter has to be a priority. Whatever luck has kept the man from a hundred different ways to die so far can’t hold out forever. If he thought Jensen would stay he’d offer his own couch, but the way he bugged out before Jared woke up last time is a pretty clear sign of how uncomfortable he is with the idea.
Jared hits the phone book after the groceries are put away. He lists out city programs and government assistance. Longer-term options than he had considered that first night. He’ll find something, damn it. He compiles a list of everyone he knows who might have a lead on a safe place for Jensen so he can start making calls when the rest of the world wakes up.
========
The dawn never comes for Jensen. The world outside the pipe he sleeps in goes from dark to grey and the misting rain muffles the sounds of life. He sleeps through the break of day and doesn’t wake up until footsteps tromp through the wet gravel outside.
Jensen looks up and a young man in a hard hat looks down. “Hey, man,” the construction worker says and looks back over his shoulder. His eyes aren’t hard. “Hey, you can’t be here. You gotta go. Vaminos.” A warning, not a threat.
With one hand Jensen grabs the strap of the bag Jared gave him and the other takes the little wire man he made for Jared in return. He scrambles out of the pipe on the far end from the younger man and runs. He splashes through a deep puddle and the cold of it cuts like stepping through a sheet of glass. The chill of it soaks his shoes, his socks, the cuffs of his jeans.
He runs until his ribs burn and his head aches and the bruise on his collarbone throbs with every step. He stops then and hides and waits for one of the construction men to follow him but nobody does.
He sits for a while there and gets his breath back. He thinks about where he is and how far to the clinic where Jared might be later when the sun goes down and how far to Jared’s place and how tricky maybe to find it. He eats one of the bars Jared gave him and drinks a water and decides that if he’s careful he can try to find Jared’s place and if he can’t he’ll know how to get back again this time. He’ll try to find Jared all day and if he can’t then he’ll go to the clinic.
Armed with a plan and some food in his stomach he gathers his treasures and starts to walk. He tries to pay attention to the sidewalk and remember when he went this way the other way looking for Jeff. Concentrating is hard in the face of so much to look at and so much to see. The world is washed clean by the rain and he keeps stopping to pick things up, nails with potential, a pretty beaded thing that a girl would wear in her hair, metal circles that might go with other things to make a new and beautiful thing.
He loses the way a few times and the buildings beside the road get too big or too shiny or too little to be where he needs to be and he has to turn around. He’s stronger than the last time he walked from Jared’s place though and not so afraid of never being found again.
He sees Jared’s car before he recognizes the building. He had been too tired when he went in to see it and too in a hurry when he left to pay attention. He knows the car though and he stops for a minute to run his hand over the metal and look inside and see the place where Jared let him sleep.
Getting inside the building is easy. The knob doesn’t even have to turn to open the big door. The little metal notch beside the knob where the lock is supposed to hold tight and safe is all bent like it was broken a long time ago and the door opens when he pulls. Inside a hall goes off to the side and stairs go up. He knows Jared is up and starts to climb. He tries to remember how far it was but he’s not sure.
He walks and all the halls and all the doors look the same. One door is all the same but different too and Jensen doesn’t know why but he knows Jared’s place is there. He turns the knob but it doesn’t open and he doesn’t see a button to push like Jeff did at the clinic. He sits down against the door and closes his eyes. Jared will come in or Jared will go out and Jensen will be found and that is enough for him to stay out in the hallway. He feels exposed and unhidden but tired too and the hall is warmer than outside.
Jared will come, he thinks to himself and even in his head the words are soft and full of comfort. Jared will come, he thinks until he sleeps.
-------
The world falls away and Jensen cries out in terror. For half a second he knows he fell asleep in a dumpster even though Jeff says never to and he’s being dumped and he’ll be crushed and killed and Jeff will be so mad at him.
Then he feels himself hit denim-covered legs and he can see battered black boots and rough wood floor under them and he looks up as Jared’s crouching down.
“Bent over backwards to roll in the coal,” Jensen babbles as hands reach for him. He scrambles back even as he knows this is Jared and Jared won’t hurt him his fear screams to look away and be too loud and not make sense so he’ll be alone again.
Jared doesn’t chase and that makes it so much easier for Jensen to stop when he hits the far wall of the hall to stop and breathe and not fall any more.
“Hey,” Jared says, looking at Jensen from where he squats in his doorway. “Hey, you okay now?” He backs into the apartment and smiles soft at Jensen. “You want to come in?”
Jensen does, he wants. He swallows down big gulps of air until his heart has no room to beat so hard and frantic on the inside of his chest. He doesn’t need to be afraid. He can see the words in Jared’s eyes even if Jared doesn’t say them. It’s okay. You’re safe.
Jensen stands and then looks around. His bag is there, and the wire man he made for Jared. His heart starts pounding again as he straightens the sculpture’s foot where it bent a little.
“Here.” It’s not the word he had meant to say but it’ll do. He thrusts the gift towards his friend with the same force he thrusts the words from his throat. “Jared. Here. For you.”
And Jared just takes the little man and stares at Jensen, his lips doing this funny twitch and his eyes all glittery. “That’s great Jensen, that’s--” He looks down into his hands and looks at the present for the first time.
Jared looks from the gift to Jensen with something unreadable in his eyes, something that puts a shiver through Jensen that isn’t fear.
“This is awesome,” Jared says in a way that Jensen believes him. He hadn’t realized up to that point that it might not be, that Jared might not like it and the relief makes him dizzy. Jared reaches out and puts his hand on Jensen's good shoulder up close by his neck where Jensen can feel how warm it is through his shirt.
“Come on in, where’d you find this?”
Jensen lets that warm hand guide him into Jared’s place. He feels his throat catch at the question and close hard against the go-away words that want to come out in his confusion.
“It was--” he says and makes a gesture with his hand. “It was.”
Jared smiles and it makes Jensen feel warmer than the heater does. “Complicated, huh?” But Jared doesn’t seem to want an answer to that and it’s all okay.
Jared puts Jensen in one of the chairs by the table and Jensen goes with it because Jared makes it so easy. “Hungry?” Jared asks, and he watches until Jensen nods.
Jared puts the wire man on the middle of the table and then starts making food again. Jensen stays in the chair while he eats this time and he thinks maybe Jared likes it when he does.
“What say we get those wet shoes off, huh?” Jared asks when Jensen has eaten as much as he can. It hadn’t occurred to Jensen, but now that Jared mentions it his toes are all squelchy with the gauze still between them and the wet socks all sloppy.
He can take them off himself. Jared sets up a heater to dry them and gets Jensen new socks and a towel to dry off the damp edges of his jeans. While Jensen's socks are off already Jared puts on his plastic gloves and cleans Jensen's toes again and puts new gauze and ointment between them. It’s so nice, being touched. Jensen's forehead itches where the stitches are and Jared sits down beside him in a chair and re-cleans and bandages that too and doesn’t mind when Jensen leans into Jared’s touch a little more than he has to.
Jared sighs and Jensen wonders if he’s done something wrong, but Jared’s still close to him, still touching him.
“Look,” Jared says, “I’ve got to head to work. Your shoes are still wet, do you want to stay? You could. I won’t be back for hours. You’d have the place all to yourself.”
“It’s warm here,” Jared says and he says it like he needs this to be okay again. Jensen reaches out and touches his sleeve and Jared closes his eyes. “I just don’t want to have to worry about you.”
“No,” Jensen says with the word feeling strange in his mouth. Jared starts to look sad and Jensen shakes his head. “No worry.” That’s…not quite right. “Don’t worry.” He tries again and Jared’s smile comes back.
“You don’t have to stay all night if you don’t want to, but you can,” Jared tells him. “And eat whatever you want, okay?” He bustles around the room opening little doors and putting things on the table and Jensen isn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“You’re safe here,” Jared says again and touches Jensen's shoulder. “Okay?”
It feels just like when Jeff puts Jensen somewhere warm and safe for the night only bigger and with food.
“Here,” Jensen says with no question in the word. His lips try to quirk again, crooked and strange and this time he lets them.
=============
Jared finds
Or maybe it's the other way around
Beta and Bunny from Embroiderama
===========
The glowing numbers on Jared’s bedside clock say 9:47 when he wakes up. In the blacked-out darkness of his room he experiences the familiar disorientation of not being sure if it means morning or night. His sleep-addled brain decides on PM. He couldn’t have slept all the way through morning, twenty hours or more.
A couple of months ago he would have been starting his day--night--whatever with Darren, Jared getting ready for working in the clinic and Darren for his bartending job on the strip. He had friends then, Darren's friends yeah, but people to hang out with.
He thinks about that in the shower, how few people he spends time with these days. All the people he knew before Darren are headed for bed about now. Normal people, normal lives, normal schedules. The thought of going back to school has its temptations. He’s talked to George about it though and the chances of staying at this clinic and working a day shift are really slim. He considered taking just one class or something, but it would be like a normal person getting up at three in the morning to go to school and he’s not sure he can take it.
After he gets dressed, Jared pokes around the apartment. With the little things he packed up for Jensen, his kitchen seems sort of empty and he needs more toilet paper.
The twenty-four hour grocery’s lights cast a sickly glow over the store. Jared finds himself buying more pre-packaged things than he would in a normal week, small items in single servings along with his staples of black beans, rice, peanut butter, jelly and two loaves of bread. He knows he’s thinking about Jensen, knows he’s stocking up and that he’s not going to be the one eating half of what he puts in the cart.
The sky opens up as Jared walks to his car, great fat drops falling straight down. It feels like ice slithering down the back of his neck and he can’t even imagine having nowhere to go in this crap, not even a car to get into. He takes the long way home, circling a few blocks around the clinic and crisscrossing the neighborhood between there and his apartment. There aren’t many homeless visible on the streets though, and the few that are all look the same, faceless bundles of rags tucked into the nooks and crannies of a building.
He’s got no hope of finding Jensen from his car and very little even if he went out on foot. He still worries as he heads back home. Getting Jensen into a shelter has to be a priority. Whatever luck has kept the man from a hundred different ways to die so far can’t hold out forever. If he thought Jensen would stay he’d offer his own couch, but the way he bugged out before Jared woke up last time is a pretty clear sign of how uncomfortable he is with the idea.
Jared hits the phone book after the groceries are put away. He lists out city programs and government assistance. Longer-term options than he had considered that first night. He’ll find something, damn it. He compiles a list of everyone he knows who might have a lead on a safe place for Jensen so he can start making calls when the rest of the world wakes up.
========
The dawn never comes for Jensen. The world outside the pipe he sleeps in goes from dark to grey and the misting rain muffles the sounds of life. He sleeps through the break of day and doesn’t wake up until footsteps tromp through the wet gravel outside.
Jensen looks up and a young man in a hard hat looks down. “Hey, man,” the construction worker says and looks back over his shoulder. His eyes aren’t hard. “Hey, you can’t be here. You gotta go. Vaminos.” A warning, not a threat.
With one hand Jensen grabs the strap of the bag Jared gave him and the other takes the little wire man he made for Jared in return. He scrambles out of the pipe on the far end from the younger man and runs. He splashes through a deep puddle and the cold of it cuts like stepping through a sheet of glass. The chill of it soaks his shoes, his socks, the cuffs of his jeans.
He runs until his ribs burn and his head aches and the bruise on his collarbone throbs with every step. He stops then and hides and waits for one of the construction men to follow him but nobody does.
He sits for a while there and gets his breath back. He thinks about where he is and how far to the clinic where Jared might be later when the sun goes down and how far to Jared’s place and how tricky maybe to find it. He eats one of the bars Jared gave him and drinks a water and decides that if he’s careful he can try to find Jared’s place and if he can’t he’ll know how to get back again this time. He’ll try to find Jared all day and if he can’t then he’ll go to the clinic.
Armed with a plan and some food in his stomach he gathers his treasures and starts to walk. He tries to pay attention to the sidewalk and remember when he went this way the other way looking for Jeff. Concentrating is hard in the face of so much to look at and so much to see. The world is washed clean by the rain and he keeps stopping to pick things up, nails with potential, a pretty beaded thing that a girl would wear in her hair, metal circles that might go with other things to make a new and beautiful thing.
He loses the way a few times and the buildings beside the road get too big or too shiny or too little to be where he needs to be and he has to turn around. He’s stronger than the last time he walked from Jared’s place though and not so afraid of never being found again.
He sees Jared’s car before he recognizes the building. He had been too tired when he went in to see it and too in a hurry when he left to pay attention. He knows the car though and he stops for a minute to run his hand over the metal and look inside and see the place where Jared let him sleep.
Getting inside the building is easy. The knob doesn’t even have to turn to open the big door. The little metal notch beside the knob where the lock is supposed to hold tight and safe is all bent like it was broken a long time ago and the door opens when he pulls. Inside a hall goes off to the side and stairs go up. He knows Jared is up and starts to climb. He tries to remember how far it was but he’s not sure.
He walks and all the halls and all the doors look the same. One door is all the same but different too and Jensen doesn’t know why but he knows Jared’s place is there. He turns the knob but it doesn’t open and he doesn’t see a button to push like Jeff did at the clinic. He sits down against the door and closes his eyes. Jared will come in or Jared will go out and Jensen will be found and that is enough for him to stay out in the hallway. He feels exposed and unhidden but tired too and the hall is warmer than outside.
Jared will come, he thinks to himself and even in his head the words are soft and full of comfort. Jared will come, he thinks until he sleeps.
-------
The world falls away and Jensen cries out in terror. For half a second he knows he fell asleep in a dumpster even though Jeff says never to and he’s being dumped and he’ll be crushed and killed and Jeff will be so mad at him.
Then he feels himself hit denim-covered legs and he can see battered black boots and rough wood floor under them and he looks up as Jared’s crouching down.
“Bent over backwards to roll in the coal,” Jensen babbles as hands reach for him. He scrambles back even as he knows this is Jared and Jared won’t hurt him his fear screams to look away and be too loud and not make sense so he’ll be alone again.
Jared doesn’t chase and that makes it so much easier for Jensen to stop when he hits the far wall of the hall to stop and breathe and not fall any more.
“Hey,” Jared says, looking at Jensen from where he squats in his doorway. “Hey, you okay now?” He backs into the apartment and smiles soft at Jensen. “You want to come in?”
Jensen does, he wants. He swallows down big gulps of air until his heart has no room to beat so hard and frantic on the inside of his chest. He doesn’t need to be afraid. He can see the words in Jared’s eyes even if Jared doesn’t say them. It’s okay. You’re safe.
Jensen stands and then looks around. His bag is there, and the wire man he made for Jared. His heart starts pounding again as he straightens the sculpture’s foot where it bent a little.
“Here.” It’s not the word he had meant to say but it’ll do. He thrusts the gift towards his friend with the same force he thrusts the words from his throat. “Jared. Here. For you.”
And Jared just takes the little man and stares at Jensen, his lips doing this funny twitch and his eyes all glittery. “That’s great Jensen, that’s--” He looks down into his hands and looks at the present for the first time.
Jared looks from the gift to Jensen with something unreadable in his eyes, something that puts a shiver through Jensen that isn’t fear.
“This is awesome,” Jared says in a way that Jensen believes him. He hadn’t realized up to that point that it might not be, that Jared might not like it and the relief makes him dizzy. Jared reaches out and puts his hand on Jensen's good shoulder up close by his neck where Jensen can feel how warm it is through his shirt.
“Come on in, where’d you find this?”
Jensen lets that warm hand guide him into Jared’s place. He feels his throat catch at the question and close hard against the go-away words that want to come out in his confusion.
“It was--” he says and makes a gesture with his hand. “It was.”
Jared smiles and it makes Jensen feel warmer than the heater does. “Complicated, huh?” But Jared doesn’t seem to want an answer to that and it’s all okay.
Jared puts Jensen in one of the chairs by the table and Jensen goes with it because Jared makes it so easy. “Hungry?” Jared asks, and he watches until Jensen nods.
Jared puts the wire man on the middle of the table and then starts making food again. Jensen stays in the chair while he eats this time and he thinks maybe Jared likes it when he does.
“What say we get those wet shoes off, huh?” Jared asks when Jensen has eaten as much as he can. It hadn’t occurred to Jensen, but now that Jared mentions it his toes are all squelchy with the gauze still between them and the wet socks all sloppy.
He can take them off himself. Jared sets up a heater to dry them and gets Jensen new socks and a towel to dry off the damp edges of his jeans. While Jensen's socks are off already Jared puts on his plastic gloves and cleans Jensen's toes again and puts new gauze and ointment between them. It’s so nice, being touched. Jensen's forehead itches where the stitches are and Jared sits down beside him in a chair and re-cleans and bandages that too and doesn’t mind when Jensen leans into Jared’s touch a little more than he has to.
Jared sighs and Jensen wonders if he’s done something wrong, but Jared’s still close to him, still touching him.
“Look,” Jared says, “I’ve got to head to work. Your shoes are still wet, do you want to stay? You could. I won’t be back for hours. You’d have the place all to yourself.”
“It’s warm here,” Jared says and he says it like he needs this to be okay again. Jensen reaches out and touches his sleeve and Jared closes his eyes. “I just don’t want to have to worry about you.”
“No,” Jensen says with the word feeling strange in his mouth. Jared starts to look sad and Jensen shakes his head. “No worry.” That’s…not quite right. “Don’t worry.” He tries again and Jared’s smile comes back.
“You don’t have to stay all night if you don’t want to, but you can,” Jared tells him. “And eat whatever you want, okay?” He bustles around the room opening little doors and putting things on the table and Jensen isn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“You’re safe here,” Jared says again and touches Jensen's shoulder. “Okay?”
It feels just like when Jeff puts Jensen somewhere warm and safe for the night only bigger and with food.
“Here,” Jensen says with no question in the word. His lips try to quirk again, crooked and strange and this time he lets them.
=============