ladyjanelly | Fic: "In From the Cold" J2 AU rated-R Ch. 10/?

Jeff and Jared bond with each other.

Jensen bonds with himself.

Beta and Bunny by Embroiderama

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Jensen watches Jared. He watches him cook and wash the dishes and get clothes out of his room. He would watch him in the shower but Jared closes the door and leaves Jensen waiting outside while the water runs and Jared makes swishy noises in it. Jensen listens to the patter of the drops and the way they break like rain in a hard wind. Unsteady. Beautifully unsteady.

The water stops. He listens to the quiet and tries to imagine the towel on Jared’s skin, and is all his skin as soft and pretty and smooth as it looks? Thinking about Jared’s skin puts a shiver through Jensen to his toes and back up again. He thinks about his hand on Jared’s skin. Touching his face and breathing his smell.

Jared opens the door wearing different clothes and gives Jensen a look that Jensen doesn’t understand. “Hey, help yourself to the bathroom while I’m gone. If you want a shower or whatever. Just don’t let the tub overflow.”

He shows Jensen the knobs and what they do and how to turn them to get hot or cold or on or off. Jared turns to the sink while Jensen tries out the knobs. There are smaller knobs on the sink and Jensen watches as Jared turns those. He has a little bar he holds in his hand that has another piece that goes across the top. Jared gets white foam stuff from a can and puts it on his face and then pulls the tool across his chin. The foam goes away and the short hairs Jared had on his face go with it.

After that Jared talks about work again but before he leaves he gives Jensen a bag from a store. “I got you some things,” Jared says like he’s nervous and Jensen doesn’t know why he would be. “There’s um, some tools in the bag, and clothes for you to change into on the couch.”

Jensen reaches into the bag and draws out the new gifts. More nice things. More useful things and he’ll never keep up but he doesn’t really mind because he can try forever this way. The tools feel good in his hands and he likes the weight of them and the strength.

“You are. Nice,” Jensen says and Jared smiles until the dimples show by his mouth and his eyes dance, and Jensen would give anything to see that smile forever. Jared starts to step away but Jensen reaches out and holds the end of his sleeve.

He wants to say something else. He needs to tell Jared. He needs Jared to understand. An empty spot gapes where the words should be in his head and no matter how hard he digs for them he finds nothing but a black void.

“Hey,” Jared says all gentle and quiet. His hand touches Jensen's bearded jaw and his thumb strokes over Jensen's cheekbone. “Hey. It’s okay.” And it is and Jensen feels the tension of not finding those words start to leech out of him. It’s okay and Jared will come home and Jensen can sleep safe and warm until then.

Jared hugs him then, all slow and careful like Jensen will break and it feels good and strong and close and Jared smells like Jared and clean.

After Jared leaves Jensen sits down with his new tools and his new clothes and smiles again at how good Jared is to him.

The night is still early. Jensen doesn’t have to find a safe and warm spot to sleep. He doesn’t have to stay there even when he’s not tired yet so nobody else takes it. He walks around Jared’s place for a while and explores the cabinets in the kitchen again and the big empty side of the biggest room where wires lay on the floor but look dusty and old. He goes back to the bathroom and considers the tub. Jared said he could. Jared maybe said he should?

Either way Jensen remembers how nice the bath felt the first night he came to Jared’s place and how warm and encompassing it had been. He slides his clothes off and unwraps the bandages from between his toes. His shoulder still hurts but not so bad as it had before.

While the water runs Jensen looks down at himself. He only remembers being all the way naked twice--the first time in Jared’s bathroom and now this time. His body seems odd and alien. He traces a hand down his side and watches how the skin slides under it and how it wrinkles and gives and stretches. His skin glows so white and the dark reddish color of the curly hairs by his thing seem even darker against it. He touches his own arm and the skin inside his elbow is very soft like he imagined Jared’s would be. He found a feather once and carried it for days and he thinks that would be how Jared’s skin must feel. Soft.

He runs both hands over his chest and feels the slim muscle there. Jared would be bigger he thinks. Stronger. The little dark parts--the nipples--they tingle when he touches them and he does it again to see if it will be just once. It feels good to be touched. Not as good as Jared’s touches but different, too. He smoothes his hands down his stomach and on either side of his thing and it starts to wake up starts to grow. It’s grown before but never when he was alone and naked and in a room that smells like Jared’s wet hair. His knees feel wobbly and he folds the toilet lid down and sits there. The porcelain is cold on his butt and on his shoulder blades but he leans back and spreads his legs and touches his thing with his hands.

The very tip leaks moisture. Not pee but something slow and slick and thicker and Jensen slides his finger through it, slides it around over his skin. It makes him shake and ache and want. He’s never done this before, never touched in the way that made him tremble.

He wonders if Jared does this and how he smells when he does and how he looks and how he feels. His hips jump at the thought and his head goes white and his body goes white and his vision goes white and he almost falls off the toilet. When he’s done and it’s over and he’s sprawling there panting he looks down and white is on his stomach and he smiles.

He’s almost done with his bath before the ache in his head starts to whisper again, starts to push and whine and scrape and he has to wrap up in the towel and blanket and lay on the couch until it goes quiet again.

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The first one comes in an hour after Jared clocks in at work--a woman in her fifties with scraggly hair and too many layers of clothing. The shirts and scarves and skirts don’t hide the blood that drips from her nose and mouth or the trail she leaves on the linoleum. An old man brings her in but his babbling and shaking don’t help with the diagnosis. The desk girl calls 911 while George and Jared get the woman up on a gurney. This--this is beyond the clinic’s capability and Jared feels a tremor of terror.

“Can you hear me?” he asks as George gets the charcoal ready to pump into her. When the woman nods he asks his question.

“Bread,” she croaks through the blood, “I ate the bread in the dumpster.”

“I’m sorry,” Jared tells her and touches her hair with his gloved hand. “What’s your name, ma’am? Is there anybody we can call?”

“Hettie,” she says and coughs, “Hettie Hall.” She gags and chokes and they do CPR until the wagon comes but it was already too late when she walked in the door.

“I gotta go,” Jared says before the flashing lights have faded. George looks at him like he’s gone nuts.

“Somebody put poison out--to kill rats or to kill people. Either way I’ve got to get the word out before someone else finds that bread.”

George sighs but Jared can see that he’s already planning how to replace Jared for this shift. They both know that rat poison is easy to tell from food. If it wasn’t in pellets or bricks then somebody is poisoning the homeless on purpose.

“Go on then. I’ll call the cops and you tell as many as you can.” He hesitates, then “Your guy out there? The one you let sleep in your car?”

Jared shakes his head. “Home safe.” And god, he hopes he’s right and Jensen didn’t get restless feet again.

Jared’s night stretches like a nightmare of running and praying and being too late. He finds a body at Sixth and Warren and calls it in. He orders every person he finds to not eat found food because of the poison but he can’t be sure how many believe him or how many think he’s a new crazy. Some stare at him or through him and you can’t warn people who aren’t in your world.

He looks for Jensen in every silhouette passing by and every sleeping ball of humanity on the sidewalk. He doesn’t know if he’s happy or terrified that he hasn’t found his friend.

He asks for Jeff at every fire-can and flop-pad and group-huddle he sees but hours pass before he hears the older man’s voice echoing down an alley crying, “Hold on damn it, just hold on!”

Jared runs up out of breath and finds Jeff cradling a skinny little baby-hooker in his arms. She’s all banged up knees and sweet round face and just starting to blossom under her skimpy clothes and harsh makeup. Must have been cold and starving and too late in the night to hope for another trick. Not too proud to dumpster dive and it cost her life.

Jared feels his head start to close up with tears and his chest clench around the strain of running and the breaking of his heart. “Jeff,” he calls while he still can, “We have to get the word out. Somebody poisoned the food. This many, I think it was on purpose.” Jeff looks up and his eyes are shattered and tears track down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Jared says over and over. “I’m sorry but we have to move. I have to call her in.”

Jeff stands and lays the girl down. So tiny. So frail. He crosses her arms and closes her bleeding eyes and looks like he wants to wipe the blood from her magenta lips.

Jared makes the call and they move again, looking in dumpsters in the area and warning whoever they can. The poison could be anywhere. It could have been hours, maybe a day ago that it was ingested. Dawn comes and with it the garbage trucks and some small measure of relief. Whatever poison lingers there now will be swept away and unless fresh death is laid out during the day the threat could be over.

“Jensen safe with you?” Jeff asks when they meet up after taking separate sides of the street.

Jared nods. “Yeah. He was when I left last night.” Exhaustion weighs down his limbs and worry over Jensen has never left him, even though Jensen was probably the least endangered of all the street people Jared knew. “I need to check in at work and then I’ll go home. I’m gonna try talking him into staying indoors for a few days.”

Jeff nods and Jared never really thought of him as old before but the night has lined his face deeper than the weather or poverty had.

Jared digs in his pockets and passes over a twenty. “Get yourself something to eat,” he says, “Something safe. I mean it. You’re no good to anybody if this shit gets you too.”

Jeff nods and Jared wouldn’t be surprised if the money went to buying a butt-load of cheap food for as many as Jeff could afford to feed. Fair enough though--it’s Jeff’s money to spend now.

“Get out of here,” Jeff says and Jared stumbles back towards the clinic.

He misses Jensen so much he aches with it.

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