ladyjanelly | Fic: "In From the Cold" J2 AU rated-R Ch. 11/?

Aftermath

Jensen is bored
Jared gets a call
Jeff deals.

My thanks to Embroiderama for the beta

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Jared takes the stairs two at a time with his bag from work banging against his shoulder with every upward surge. His muscles ache and his lungs burn and he can’t stop running until he sees Jensen and knows he hasn’t eaten rat poison. He just about busts the door down getting the key in the lock and rushing in. The Gatorade bottle that was perched on the doorknob bounces off the door and goes clattering off towards the far wall.

Jensen comes up to his feet wide-eyed with fear and Jared realizes that bursting in on a person used to living with the uncertainty of street existence may not have been the best plan of his life.

“I’m sorry,” he starts, but he can’t stop himself from crossing the room even as Jensen shies away from him. “It’s okay,” he tries again and slows his advance. When Jensen stops retreating he reaches to pluck at Jensen's sleeve like Jensen does his. Jensen doesn’t struggle and less white shows around his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes as he gathers Jensen up against his chest. “Bad things happened at work today and I was scared for you.”

Jensen smells like shampoo and Jared’s laundry detergent. He’s wearing the new-used clothes Jared bought him and Jared feels the anxiety grounding out of both of them as Jensen hugs him back.

“I have to know,” Jared says. “You have to tell me. Did you eat any food I didn’t give you? Since we first met, did you eat anything out of a dumpster?”

“Eat?” Jensen says and his face twists into a mask of distress and confusion. “It was. Days was. I. Ate many days.”

Jared flinches because he’s just upsetting Jensen and not getting an answer.

“It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” He moves Jensen to sit in one of the kitchen chairs. He crouches in front of Jensen and looks up at him.

“Are you bleeding anywhere? Your nose or in your mouth? Are you coughing?” He pulls on gloves and gets out the ENT light. He shines it up Jensen's nose and in his ears and examines his gums and everything looks normal.

“Was there any blood in the bathwater?” he asks and he can hear his voice grow calmer. “Maybe in the toilet?”

Jensen shakes his head and Jared holds both Jensen's hands in both of his for a moment while he thanks whatever saint watches over those who can’t watch over themselves.

“It’ll be okay,” he says as he pulls off the gloves and he’s not sure if he’s reassuring himself or Jensen or both. If Jensen only got a shadow of the poison that the ones who died ate, it could be days or weeks before the anticoagulant starts breaking down the tiniest blood vessels and he begins showing symptoms.

“It’ll be okay,” Jensen parrots back at him and Jared believes it for the first time.

Jared takes a deep breath. “I have to go back to work soon.” He looks up into Jensen's eyes and Jensen glances away like he isn’t used to such direct attention. “I need to ask you a favor.”

Jensen tips his head and Jared can see him waiting to hear it. “I need you to stay here for a while. Bad things are happening on the streets. I told Jeff I’d keep you safe. Can you do that for us? Can you stay here?”

Jensen looks pained at that and Jared has to admit that he wouldn’t like to spend a week locked in his own apartment. He’s home so little that he never bothered to replace the television that Darren took or buy more CDs. He doesn’t expect to be living here long enough to make the comfort or attractiveness of the place a priority.

“When I come home again, and after I sleep, we can go out together, okay? And maybe things will quiet down and I can drive you to Jeff to hang out during the day. It might not be for too long at all.”

Jensen nods and looks at the floor and Jared’s heart breaks with the resignation he sees on the other man’s face.

“If you have to go out,” he says even softer, “If you can’t wait for me to come home to go with you, please, please don’t eat anything that I didn’t give you, okay? Promise me that?”

And Jensen mouths the word ‘promise’ and Jared is grateful for even that small thing. He pulls Jensen in and rests their foreheads together and draws what strength he can from the contact.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers and Jensen squeezes his hand tighter. “I’m sorry but I have to go back to work now. A lot of people are really sick. I want you to stay here so you don’t get sick too, okay?”

He gets that half-hearted little nod again and thinks that’s as good as he can hope for.

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Boredom is a new thing for Jensen. Jared leaves him. Again. And he is all alone in Jared’s place and the sun is up and he should be walking and moving and searching and doing something. Jared’s talk about bad things happening outside worries him. He thinks of Jeff and Angie and Karen and all the kids and all the old people and Whiskey Dan and the people who are even less here than Jensen. He wonders who watches them and how they can be safe too.

He walks all over the apartment and opens all the cabinet doors and tries to sleep for a while but it’s no good. He takes another bath and tries to touch himself happy again but he worries about Jared and all the people who aren’t safe at Jared’s place with food and warmth and a bathtub and his thing won’t work.

When he gets out of the tub he notices the mirror by the sink and the man who moves around in there. He knows the man is him but he never saw him before or he did but he didn’t really look. He stares for a long time at the stranger in the glass. His eyes are green and he has tiny dark flecks on his pale skin. Jensen touches his eyebrow and the man touches his and they are the same person and it makes him shiver how weird it is to have an outside person.

He pulls his hair back and touches his face. He tilts his head to the side and tries to see what the other angles of him look like. He scratches the mustache under his nose and the beard along his jaw and tries to think who he’d be without those and if he was smooth like Jared. Would he know that guy or is his face a stranger under a stranger under a stranger.

Jared cuts his face hair off and Jensen is bored except for the worrying and he has a lot of face hair to cut. He starts with the foamy stuff and the tool Jared used but it stops working after one stroke and he thinks maybe he broke it. He washes it and sees the hair is stuck to it so he wipes it off with his thumb.

The blood wells up like it was always there before Jensen even fills the prick. He fears for a moment, fear bright as the red on his skin, before he remembers Jared was worried about nose blood and ear blood and toilet blood but not thumb blood. He sucks the cut into his mouth but it tastes like chemicals like weird flavors he never had before and he spits the taste out. He washes the thumb and washes his face and thinks more about the how of this.

The little blade-thing didn’t get stuck on Jared’s hairs so it must be that Jensen's are too long and too many. He goes out into the other room and gets the tools Jared gave him. One is a bright-sharp blade and he smiles because he knows it can cut any hair.

He goes back to the mirror. He pulls the hairs away from his face with one hand and saws so slow with the other. The hairs come off and he wiggles them off his fingers. He knows the blade will cut him sharp so he goes careful and takes off only tiny bits each time. Once he pulls too hard and a tiny piece of him comes off with the hair and it bleeds.

He doesn’t know how long he works but when enough hairs are gone he can look at the mirror and see the new stranger under the old one. He doesn’t know this man either and he feels sad for him all lost and nobody knows him not even him and thinking those ways makes his head hurt.

Not thinking about the man only the beard he gets the foam stuff again and Jared’s blade with the plastic around it and runs it over his jaw. The foam burns and the blade scrapes but it feels clean too. He tries to remember the days before but he only knows a hurt and a fear and a sorrow and he wonders if sorrows can fly like sparrows or swallows and he likes that idea of them fluttering away with soft wings.

When the last of the foam is gone and his face is as smooth as he ever remembers he stares for a long time at his own face and tries to remember the man who looks back at him.

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Jared’s phone rings on his way back to the clinic. For an irrational second he thinks Jensen's calling him, but he doesn’t have a land line at the apartment and he hasn’t given Jensen the number and he’s pretty sure it wouldn’t occur to Jensen to pick up a phone.

“Hello?” he answers as he threads his way through traffic.

“Jared Padalecki?” the voice on the other end asks. “This is detective Hanson. I understand you reported two deaths last night and were involved with the treatment of a third person who is now also deceased?”

“Um, yeah, that’s correct.” And okay, maybe some of Jeff’s paranoia has rubbed off on him because getting a call from the cops on his way to work freaks him out.

“I was wondering if you can come down to the station this morning and give a statement.”

Jared doesn’t think he saw anything that the cops wouldn’t have found when they got to the scenes but he’s not gonna argue that over the phone.

“Sure, yeah. Uh, now?”

“That would be fine, Mr. Padalecki.”

Jared tries not to get more nervous as he calls the clinic and lets them know he won’t make it in. Everybody who can be on shift is needed today and he’ll go in as soon as he’s done with the cops. George says nobody else died at the clinic, and that Jared’s impromptu public service announcements the previous night about anticoagulant poisonings have sent a dozen people in with early symptoms at the treatable stage.

The police station is every bad cop show Jared’s seen growing up. Crowded with detectives and uniforms and suspects and frightened people. Controlled chaos and it reminds him of the clinic on a bad day.

Detective Hanson is a big guy, salt and pepper hair and a jaw like a sledge hammer and Jared manages to not make a 21 Jump Street joke. Hanson leads him to a small room that smells like a gym locker.

Jared’s half expecting some good cop-bad cop or a hardcore interrogation. Instead, Hanson seems bored as he gets the facts, the where and when and what. Suspicious activity and anything noteworthy. He asks Jared about the rat population and hell if Jared ever paid attention to any of that. He says he’ll ask some of the street people he knows but he never mentions Jeff’s name and sure as hell not Jensen's.

From the questions Hanson asks it doesn’t sound like he has any leads and Jared’s not surprised. The only people who might have seen something aren’t the type to talk to the police. Jared gets the feeling more people died than the three he saw and he wonders how many.

Jared feels useless when he leaves and promises himself that he’ll ask Jeff if he has anything Jared can give the cops anonymously.

He gets to the clinic around eleven in the morning. Arriving at work three hours after he’s usually done for the day and after a full shift and a quick run home and hours spent giving his statement sucks big-time.

The line of patients stretches out the front door and halfway around the building. It looks more like a soup line than a shot-line and Jared’s never seen it like this. A new illness--say a vicious flu virus--wouldn’t get this kind of response. Poisoning though? Everybody reacts when they think they’ve been poisoned and everyone on the street could have been. Fear whispers down the line--and anger. Already those borderline mental cases are mumbling to themselves or ranting at the world and a fight in line could break out with one wrong word. George sends Jared down to pull any obvious priorities up to the front and Jared’s half afraid and half relieved when he sees Jeff Morgan walking up to join the line with a tiny bird-like woman.

Jared heads over. They make sure the woman is settled in line and he draws Jeff to the side. “You okay yourself?” Jared asks and Jeff runs a hand over his stubbled face.

“I’m alright,” he says, “Just tired. Not more tired than I should be though.”

“I need your help,” Jared says without shame. “This crowd could turn ugly but if we call the cops down to manage things people will leave without getting treated.”

Jeff looks over the line and Jared goes on. “We need somebody to keep it calmed down, somebody the people respect and trust.”

Jeff arches an eyebrow. “Me?”

“Yeah. Nobody else would be able to manage it.”

He can see Jeff calculating in his head, probably weighing the people who are hiding with their illness like wounded cats and the folks in line who might leave before they get treated if things get crazy or the cops show up.

“Couple hours,” Jeff promises. “We’ll see how it goes after that.”

“Thanks,” says Jared and he’s already planning how to talk George out of some petty cash or make it up to Jeff out of his own paycheck.

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