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ladyjanellyThis is now the longest fic I've ever worked on. I've been working on it less than two months. This blows my mind.
Anyway,
Time passes.
============
Jared follows the muffled bripp of his phone to the bathroom and from there to the bottom of the laundry pile. It must have rung while Jared was sleeping and only Jensen would banish a noisy electronic like that without worrying about what the incoming call was for.
The caller ID says “work” and Jared flips it open with a quiver of worry in his guts.
“Yeah?”
“Hey,” says Becky, the girl who works with the morning doctor. “Just letting you know we got some volunteers from County General. Med students getting chemical warfare extra credit or something. You’re off tonight and all day tomorrow. Be back Thursday at your usual time.”
Jared laughs. “You have no idea what a happy man that makes me.” A thought occurs to him. “Hey, when George comes in can you have him call me? I need to get some changes in my schedule. Cut back on the overtime.”
Becky is quiet for half a beat and her voice worried when it comes back. “You okay? I know it was rough out there the past couple days…”
“It’s not that,” Jared tells her, “I’ve just got some stuff I need to do.” He looks over to where Jensen is restacking the canned goods into a structurally improbable shape. “I’m spending too much time on the job and not enough where I need to be right now.”
“I’ll tell him,” Becky says and she sounds soft and not-so-worried. “You go be where you gotta be.”
Jared hangs up the phone. Where he needs to be is out with Jensen keeping the other man from going stir-crazy locked in this rat hole of an apartment.
-----
Jared is beginning to think that Jensen-watching is his favorite new hobby. He really shouldn’t find it all that fascinating to watch the guy pick through piles of trash and put miscellaneous crap into his backpack. The way Jensen looks at things and weighs them in his hands and holds them up to the sunlight is like watching backstage at a magic show. He wonders what Jensen thinks and what he sees. He wonders who Jensen is and what he was before all this.
Sometimes Jensen tries to explain. “For the eyes,” he says and shows Jared a piece of plexiglass that’s long and square. Or, “Reinforcing the structural integrity.” Which makes Jared laugh and shake his head because he has no clue how Jensen could use a tangle of floppy speaker-wires to accomplish that but he believes it anyway.
Jensen looks like hell with his scraggly little bits of beard left and the scrapes on his chin that Jared put ointment on and the few spots where he’s smoothly shaven looking like patches of scar. Jared still feels his own face light up when Jensen finds something that makes him smile or go quiet with wonder. He feels whole. More than he ever did with his ex. More whole than he is as a workaholic EMT or overly-dedicated clinic tech.
Jared does his own share of garbage-picking while they’re out. He finds a table with no legs and leans it up against a wall so he can come back later with the car. If Jensen is going to stay and not go crazy with boredom he’ll need space and surfaces and places to put the things he hasn’t worked into one of his sculptures yet and areas to keep the things that are done so they won’t get bumped or keep Jared from using the necessary parts of his apartment.
The part of the oversize living room where Darren and his band used to practice their music is big enough and Jared thinks he should be able to clean the wires and junk that Darren left and get an area set up for Jensen in a few hours. He likes the thought. Giving Jensen more than just a place to crash. Giving him a home and room where he can create and belong.
---------
They work and play and build side by side. Jared can’t find a base for Jensen's table and Jensen convinces him to hang it from the ceiling with cables that Jensen had found earlier. They make a run to the store for hardware and cheap-ass shelves and underwear for Jensen since it seems like a kind of creepy thing for Jared to keep loaning him.
Going to the store is strange. Jensen gets attention. A stock boy frowns at the way he touches things. Everything. Shiny and new and different and Jared can understand Jensen's need to touch. He gives the guy a “You got a problem” glare and jut of his chin and tries not to feel so damn triumphant when he disappears behind a display and doesn’t reappear.
In such a mundane setting Jensen's differences really show. The way he moves and the way he interacts with the physical components of the store. He shies away from the other customers and when the clerk in menswear asks if he can help them Jensen shifts from pretending to be invisible to bright and alert and too-there.
“My heart is a car and the road never ends.” He declares in a voice too loud to pass as casual conversation. He looks manic for a second with his wide eyes and the weird tilt to his head.
Jared soothes Jensen with a hand on his shoulder and tells the clerk they’re fine. Jensen really does look fine as he turns off the defensive craziness like a switch.
“Talked to me,” Jensen whispers as Jared finds the right size underwear and they leave that department. He sounds halfway between puzzled and offended.
“I talk to you,” Jared says to see what Jensen will think of that.
“My Jared.” There’s no question at all in that reply and Jared almost laughs.
They’ll need to work on this more. How to talk to non-threatening strangers. But not now. Not on Jensen's reward day for staying in the apartment for so long and keeping himself safe when Jared couldn’t be there. Jared thinks he’ll ease into it. Show Jensen with small examples that all strangers aren’t trouble.
------
Jared turns in around seven at night--halfway between Jensen's day-schedule and his own vampiric hours. He thinks it’s a good plan to let Jensen have the couch back to himself. His own space in Jared’s home--consistent and his alone. When he wakes up and feels restless around three AM he finds Jensen sleeping propped in the corner between the bathroom door and Jared’s room like a neglected puppy and “abandoning Jensen to sleep alone” goes on the list of things Jared’s fucked up and won’t do again if he can help it.
It breaks his heart that Jensen would be so obviously miserable without him and even more so that Jensen wouldn’t try to wake him up to fix it.
Jared wakes Jensen with soft words and calming touches along his shoulders and helps him to his feet. “Come on,” he says as Jensen blinks at him in confusion. Jensen is too tired to protest and Jared leads him into the bedroom and puts him in bed.
All that space is weird. He can tell by the way Jensen squirms to get comfortable and finally curls himself tight on the very edge. He looks like he belongs there in Jared’s bed and Jared tries not to think like a villain as he stretches himself out on the other side on top of the blankets. All is quiet for a little while and then comes a shuffle from Jensen's side and then another. Jensen presses his back to Jared’s side and sighs and sleeps.
----------
His first day back on the job Jared calls Detective Hanson, just to see if any progress has been made on the case. He gets some schmuck instead who tells him the case has been determined a case of accidental ingestion of dangerous substances. Nobody’s fault. If people want to break the law and trespass in private dumpsters it’s impossible to protect them all.
Jared snaps his phone closed on the man’s explanation and is glad he didn’t go down to the station. He isn’t a man given to outbursts of anger but he would've had to do something else or say something else if he was there and at his size angry and loud means threatening and next thing he knew he’d be in cuffs.
George and one of the volunteers are working with Jared and when lunch comes he steps out front to eat his sandwiches under the sky. Jeff waits for him across the street and Jared moseys over. He hands Jeff one of the sandwiches and Jeff pulls an apple and knife from one of his pockets and gives Jared half an apple.
Jared bites in without worrying if the knife is clean or what dumpster Jeff got the imperfect fruit from. He trusts the man to not feed him anything unsafe.
“Jensen's still good,” Jared offers when Jeff doesn’t start a conversation. He grins as he chews. “I came home and he’d half-shaven his beard off.”
Jeff unwraps the sandwich and takes a hearty bite.
“He’s opening up,” Jared continues. “Not so much in words, but he’s been building these crazy sculptures. Like stuff I can’t even wrap my head around. And he took care of me. When I came home and crashed. Made me eat and put me to bed on the couch.
“He won’t--he won’t let me sleep alone anymore. I mean he will, but he sleeps against the wall by the door if I don’t let him in.”
He can feel Jeff’s gaze on him.
“You gonna hit me now?” Jared asks and he’s half kidding.
Jeff is quiet for a long time then shakes his head. “Sounds like whatever you’re doing it’s working for him. Take care of him. I mean that. You make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”
“I’d rather hurt myself.” The truth was never so simple before. He thinks Jensen's good for him, too. Simple.
------------
It takes a few days for the scrapes and scratches from Jensen's experiment in shaving to heal and Jared checks them every day to make sure infection doesn’t set in.
“So,” he says one night when he finishes getting ready for work with time to spare. He looks over to where Jensen's working on some strange teepee looking thing that he’s weaving strong with thin wire. “The beard. You want to grow it out again or shave it all the way off?”
“Off,” Jensen replies without hesitation. “Itches."
“You mind if I do it for you this first time and show you how and you can do it from now on?”
“You,” Jensen says and gets up from where he was working.
In the bathroom there’s a little shuffling for logistics sake. Jared needs Jensen still and eye-level. He ends up closing the door and leaning Jensen against it. He tries not to notice how trusting the other man is, how easy and pliant. God, he could do anything and he doesn’t think Jensen would stop him and the weight of that trust presses down on him like Jeff’s hand clamped around the back of his neck. He can not--will not--betray that trust.
He touches Jensen's face with the cool shaving cream. Jensen smiles and then closes his eyes at the pure relaxing pleasure of being touched. Jared takes his time getting a smooth even coat over every bit of beard he’s going to take off. The razor comes next. Sharp and new fresh out of the package. Jared takes small parts of the beard off and washes the hair from the blades often. Jensen's breathing comes slow and steady and half-asleep as Jared tips his head from one side to the other.
“I need you to do this.” Jensen opens his eyes to see and Jared demonstrates the face he wants. Upper lip stretched down so he can get at Jensen's mustache and Jensen complies. Makes the stretched-left and stretched-right so Jared can get under the curve of his jaw. Tips his head far back so Jared can shave his throat down.
Jensen's Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and Jared’s breath catches in his throat. Jensen looks so good. Smells so good.
He catches himself staring and Jensen staring back. He pulls himself away and turns back to the sink to wet a towel to wipe away the last of the foam. Jensen reaches out and rests his hand on Jared’s hip just above the waistband of his jeans. His thumb ghosts over the front of Jared’s hipbone and Jared has to pull away or do something he shouldn’t.
“It’s okay,” he says when Jensen looks confused and hurt. “It’s okay.”
He draws Jensen's fingers to his lips and presses a kiss across his knuckles.
“Yours,” Jensen says and Jared can see him struggle for the right words. His brows pinch together. “Mine.”
Jared sighs and tries to put things as honestly as he knows how.
“Jensen. You’re changing so much right now. I don’t want to take from you something I shouldn’t. I don’t want to do something we can’t undo.”
Jensen won’t look at him and Jared thinks he’s made him angry and Jared can’t take that.
“I’m sorry,” he says and draws Jensen against his chest and Jensen lets him. He feels the other man’s wiry body relax by inches as they rock gently together. “Yours,” he whispers and kisses the top of Jensen's head. “I just want you to know yourself better before you’re sure you want to be mine.”
They stand together there in the bathroom. It feels peaceful. Jensen tips his head and touches his lips to the corner of Jared’s mouth. Just a press and not a real kiss but Jared knows he can’t take advantage of this innocence.
“I need to go to work,” he says as he eases Jensen back and squeezes his shoulders. “I’ll be home by morning, okay?”
Jensen nods and still won’t look at him but Jared thinks he’s confused and thoughtful instead of angry.
==========
Anyway,
Time passes.
============
Jared follows the muffled bripp of his phone to the bathroom and from there to the bottom of the laundry pile. It must have rung while Jared was sleeping and only Jensen would banish a noisy electronic like that without worrying about what the incoming call was for.
The caller ID says “work” and Jared flips it open with a quiver of worry in his guts.
“Yeah?”
“Hey,” says Becky, the girl who works with the morning doctor. “Just letting you know we got some volunteers from County General. Med students getting chemical warfare extra credit or something. You’re off tonight and all day tomorrow. Be back Thursday at your usual time.”
Jared laughs. “You have no idea what a happy man that makes me.” A thought occurs to him. “Hey, when George comes in can you have him call me? I need to get some changes in my schedule. Cut back on the overtime.”
Becky is quiet for half a beat and her voice worried when it comes back. “You okay? I know it was rough out there the past couple days…”
“It’s not that,” Jared tells her, “I’ve just got some stuff I need to do.” He looks over to where Jensen is restacking the canned goods into a structurally improbable shape. “I’m spending too much time on the job and not enough where I need to be right now.”
“I’ll tell him,” Becky says and she sounds soft and not-so-worried. “You go be where you gotta be.”
Jared hangs up the phone. Where he needs to be is out with Jensen keeping the other man from going stir-crazy locked in this rat hole of an apartment.
-----
Jared is beginning to think that Jensen-watching is his favorite new hobby. He really shouldn’t find it all that fascinating to watch the guy pick through piles of trash and put miscellaneous crap into his backpack. The way Jensen looks at things and weighs them in his hands and holds them up to the sunlight is like watching backstage at a magic show. He wonders what Jensen thinks and what he sees. He wonders who Jensen is and what he was before all this.
Sometimes Jensen tries to explain. “For the eyes,” he says and shows Jared a piece of plexiglass that’s long and square. Or, “Reinforcing the structural integrity.” Which makes Jared laugh and shake his head because he has no clue how Jensen could use a tangle of floppy speaker-wires to accomplish that but he believes it anyway.
Jensen looks like hell with his scraggly little bits of beard left and the scrapes on his chin that Jared put ointment on and the few spots where he’s smoothly shaven looking like patches of scar. Jared still feels his own face light up when Jensen finds something that makes him smile or go quiet with wonder. He feels whole. More than he ever did with his ex. More whole than he is as a workaholic EMT or overly-dedicated clinic tech.
Jared does his own share of garbage-picking while they’re out. He finds a table with no legs and leans it up against a wall so he can come back later with the car. If Jensen is going to stay and not go crazy with boredom he’ll need space and surfaces and places to put the things he hasn’t worked into one of his sculptures yet and areas to keep the things that are done so they won’t get bumped or keep Jared from using the necessary parts of his apartment.
The part of the oversize living room where Darren and his band used to practice their music is big enough and Jared thinks he should be able to clean the wires and junk that Darren left and get an area set up for Jensen in a few hours. He likes the thought. Giving Jensen more than just a place to crash. Giving him a home and room where he can create and belong.
---------
They work and play and build side by side. Jared can’t find a base for Jensen's table and Jensen convinces him to hang it from the ceiling with cables that Jensen had found earlier. They make a run to the store for hardware and cheap-ass shelves and underwear for Jensen since it seems like a kind of creepy thing for Jared to keep loaning him.
Going to the store is strange. Jensen gets attention. A stock boy frowns at the way he touches things. Everything. Shiny and new and different and Jared can understand Jensen's need to touch. He gives the guy a “You got a problem” glare and jut of his chin and tries not to feel so damn triumphant when he disappears behind a display and doesn’t reappear.
In such a mundane setting Jensen's differences really show. The way he moves and the way he interacts with the physical components of the store. He shies away from the other customers and when the clerk in menswear asks if he can help them Jensen shifts from pretending to be invisible to bright and alert and too-there.
“My heart is a car and the road never ends.” He declares in a voice too loud to pass as casual conversation. He looks manic for a second with his wide eyes and the weird tilt to his head.
Jared soothes Jensen with a hand on his shoulder and tells the clerk they’re fine. Jensen really does look fine as he turns off the defensive craziness like a switch.
“Talked to me,” Jensen whispers as Jared finds the right size underwear and they leave that department. He sounds halfway between puzzled and offended.
“I talk to you,” Jared says to see what Jensen will think of that.
“My Jared.” There’s no question at all in that reply and Jared almost laughs.
They’ll need to work on this more. How to talk to non-threatening strangers. But not now. Not on Jensen's reward day for staying in the apartment for so long and keeping himself safe when Jared couldn’t be there. Jared thinks he’ll ease into it. Show Jensen with small examples that all strangers aren’t trouble.
------
Jared turns in around seven at night--halfway between Jensen's day-schedule and his own vampiric hours. He thinks it’s a good plan to let Jensen have the couch back to himself. His own space in Jared’s home--consistent and his alone. When he wakes up and feels restless around three AM he finds Jensen sleeping propped in the corner between the bathroom door and Jared’s room like a neglected puppy and “abandoning Jensen to sleep alone” goes on the list of things Jared’s fucked up and won’t do again if he can help it.
It breaks his heart that Jensen would be so obviously miserable without him and even more so that Jensen wouldn’t try to wake him up to fix it.
Jared wakes Jensen with soft words and calming touches along his shoulders and helps him to his feet. “Come on,” he says as Jensen blinks at him in confusion. Jensen is too tired to protest and Jared leads him into the bedroom and puts him in bed.
All that space is weird. He can tell by the way Jensen squirms to get comfortable and finally curls himself tight on the very edge. He looks like he belongs there in Jared’s bed and Jared tries not to think like a villain as he stretches himself out on the other side on top of the blankets. All is quiet for a little while and then comes a shuffle from Jensen's side and then another. Jensen presses his back to Jared’s side and sighs and sleeps.
----------
His first day back on the job Jared calls Detective Hanson, just to see if any progress has been made on the case. He gets some schmuck instead who tells him the case has been determined a case of accidental ingestion of dangerous substances. Nobody’s fault. If people want to break the law and trespass in private dumpsters it’s impossible to protect them all.
Jared snaps his phone closed on the man’s explanation and is glad he didn’t go down to the station. He isn’t a man given to outbursts of anger but he would've had to do something else or say something else if he was there and at his size angry and loud means threatening and next thing he knew he’d be in cuffs.
George and one of the volunteers are working with Jared and when lunch comes he steps out front to eat his sandwiches under the sky. Jeff waits for him across the street and Jared moseys over. He hands Jeff one of the sandwiches and Jeff pulls an apple and knife from one of his pockets and gives Jared half an apple.
Jared bites in without worrying if the knife is clean or what dumpster Jeff got the imperfect fruit from. He trusts the man to not feed him anything unsafe.
“Jensen's still good,” Jared offers when Jeff doesn’t start a conversation. He grins as he chews. “I came home and he’d half-shaven his beard off.”
Jeff unwraps the sandwich and takes a hearty bite.
“He’s opening up,” Jared continues. “Not so much in words, but he’s been building these crazy sculptures. Like stuff I can’t even wrap my head around. And he took care of me. When I came home and crashed. Made me eat and put me to bed on the couch.
“He won’t--he won’t let me sleep alone anymore. I mean he will, but he sleeps against the wall by the door if I don’t let him in.”
He can feel Jeff’s gaze on him.
“You gonna hit me now?” Jared asks and he’s half kidding.
Jeff is quiet for a long time then shakes his head. “Sounds like whatever you’re doing it’s working for him. Take care of him. I mean that. You make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”
“I’d rather hurt myself.” The truth was never so simple before. He thinks Jensen's good for him, too. Simple.
------------
It takes a few days for the scrapes and scratches from Jensen's experiment in shaving to heal and Jared checks them every day to make sure infection doesn’t set in.
“So,” he says one night when he finishes getting ready for work with time to spare. He looks over to where Jensen's working on some strange teepee looking thing that he’s weaving strong with thin wire. “The beard. You want to grow it out again or shave it all the way off?”
“Off,” Jensen replies without hesitation. “Itches."
“You mind if I do it for you this first time and show you how and you can do it from now on?”
“You,” Jensen says and gets up from where he was working.
In the bathroom there’s a little shuffling for logistics sake. Jared needs Jensen still and eye-level. He ends up closing the door and leaning Jensen against it. He tries not to notice how trusting the other man is, how easy and pliant. God, he could do anything and he doesn’t think Jensen would stop him and the weight of that trust presses down on him like Jeff’s hand clamped around the back of his neck. He can not--will not--betray that trust.
He touches Jensen's face with the cool shaving cream. Jensen smiles and then closes his eyes at the pure relaxing pleasure of being touched. Jared takes his time getting a smooth even coat over every bit of beard he’s going to take off. The razor comes next. Sharp and new fresh out of the package. Jared takes small parts of the beard off and washes the hair from the blades often. Jensen's breathing comes slow and steady and half-asleep as Jared tips his head from one side to the other.
“I need you to do this.” Jensen opens his eyes to see and Jared demonstrates the face he wants. Upper lip stretched down so he can get at Jensen's mustache and Jensen complies. Makes the stretched-left and stretched-right so Jared can get under the curve of his jaw. Tips his head far back so Jared can shave his throat down.
Jensen's Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and Jared’s breath catches in his throat. Jensen looks so good. Smells so good.
He catches himself staring and Jensen staring back. He pulls himself away and turns back to the sink to wet a towel to wipe away the last of the foam. Jensen reaches out and rests his hand on Jared’s hip just above the waistband of his jeans. His thumb ghosts over the front of Jared’s hipbone and Jared has to pull away or do something he shouldn’t.
“It’s okay,” he says when Jensen looks confused and hurt. “It’s okay.”
He draws Jensen's fingers to his lips and presses a kiss across his knuckles.
“Yours,” Jensen says and Jared can see him struggle for the right words. His brows pinch together. “Mine.”
Jared sighs and tries to put things as honestly as he knows how.
“Jensen. You’re changing so much right now. I don’t want to take from you something I shouldn’t. I don’t want to do something we can’t undo.”
Jensen won’t look at him and Jared thinks he’s made him angry and Jared can’t take that.
“I’m sorry,” he says and draws Jensen against his chest and Jensen lets him. He feels the other man’s wiry body relax by inches as they rock gently together. “Yours,” he whispers and kisses the top of Jensen's head. “I just want you to know yourself better before you’re sure you want to be mine.”
They stand together there in the bathroom. It feels peaceful. Jensen tips his head and touches his lips to the corner of Jared’s mouth. Just a press and not a real kiss but Jared knows he can’t take advantage of this innocence.
“I need to go to work,” he says as he eases Jensen back and squeezes his shoulders. “I’ll be home by morning, okay?”
Jensen nods and still won’t look at him but Jared thinks he’s confused and thoughtful instead of angry.
==========
