ladyjanelly | Fic: "In From the Cold" J2 AU rated-R Ch. 14/?

Beta and Bunny by Embroiderama, without whom this would never have been

Jared vs the man
Jeff vs the streets
Jensen vs the mirror

Also--Thank you all for your wonderful comments and stuff. You've really helped to keep me focused and rolling with this fic. You are all awesome.

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The third time Jared calls Hanson he actually gets the man on the phone.

“Can I come and talk to you?” he asks and he’s sure he has his temper under control this time.

“Mister Padalecki, the case has been determined to be an accidental incident. I’m not sure what else we could have to talk about.”

“Please,” says Jared. “It’s important.”

Hanson agrees after some grumbling and Jared goes down to meet him after work. He brings along a box of rat pellets and another of poison blocks.

“This wasn’t an accident,” he tries to tell the man. “Somebody wanted them dead. I had patients from different neighborhoods, different territories.” He opens the boxes and rattles the content around and congratulates himself on having the strength of will not to pour them out on the man’s desk. “People don’t eat this stuff by accident. Exterminators don’t put pure poison on foodstuffs. Maybe peanut-butter smeared on the ground or something but not loaves of bread. Do you know how little it takes to kill a rat and how much to kill multiple people?”

Hanson’s eyes go hard and Jared feels a jab of worry. “Tell me, Mister Padalecki. You feel like a hero when a big crisis like this hits your area? That overtime cash must have come in handy. You spend it on underage hookers?”

Jared’s been threatened a few times in his life but never so blatantly. He stares at the guy and Hanson stares back.

“You really want to push this?” the cop asks and Jared knows he can’t. Not that he has a lot of secrets in his life and there's nothing he’s done wrong but he sure as hell doesn’t want this guy following him home and messing around with Jensen's safety.

“No,” he says and the words grate on his throat on the way out. “No, never mind.”

He turns and goes but he doesn’t feel safe. Won’t for days. Son of a bitch.

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Jensen wakes up and Jared is wrapped around him with his arm so tight on Jensen's ribs that it holds the breath in him. It feels good, like being kept and cherished. He realizes it has been days and days since he was afraid or hungry or cold. Even when he goes outside with Jared the world is different. The wind is soft and doesn’t cut him with icy teeth and the trees all have tips of glow-bright green or fuzzy white or buds that Jared says will be flowers.

Jensen is happy but he doesn’t think just being inside makes him that way. Inside and fed and warm don’t make happy. He feels like the pieces of him are more together and the headaches come not-so-often. He makes things and the busyness is quiet. He lives with Jared and he doesn’t know anybody else that lives inside but he doesn’t think he would be happy with anybody else so that’s okay.

Days off are the best. When Jared doesn’t have to go to work and they walk and talk and go to the store. On payday Jared buys him new shoes and three kinds of shampoo for the way they smell and pajamas, even if Jensen thinks he doesn’t need pajamas. Jensen didn’t understand before that jobs had paydays and paydays paid for things but he does now. Jared explained it and Jensen thinks maybe one day he’ll have a job. For fairness.

Jared doesn’t like it when the paper comes off the food cans. Jensen tries to tell him how better they are shiny with lines and how it creates visual unity but the words don’t come out right. The food inside is the same but Jared says that sometimes people want to find what they want to eat and Jensen never thought of that before. Choosing. Jared is smart though and he puts the name of the food on the top with a marker and then Jensen can throw away the stuck-on papers and the cans are good again.

Jensen watches Jared and he likes when Jared watches him. Sometimes when they are close he sees a look in Jared’s eyes like he wants to hold Jensen and bite him and burn him up with happiness. He always says sorry when Jensen sees him looking like that and Jensen figures maybe it’s bad to feel that way. Like the touching and hurting that Jeff asked about together. He isn’t sure how it could be hurtful to touch each other because it feels nice to touch himself and it feels nice when Jared holds him.

Jared brings Jensen things. He brings a book with squares on the pages. Jared explains that the first five boxes are in order and the bottom three are ones that might go in the last empty spot and Jensen has to pick the one that makes sense. To take his time and think which ones should go next. Jared checks if he picked right or wrong and almost none are wrong and Jared hugs him and tells him he’s awesome.

Jared asks Jensen if he can read one day when they write on the cans. Jensen feels the shapes squirming in his brain just out of reach of being things he knows and he shakes his head. Jared sits down with him and tells him the letters as he writes them and then the words they make. He brings books another day and they sit together and Jensen works really hard to remember and to learn again. Even when he knows the words he has hard times saying them on the outside but he tries.

He likes it when Jared smiles and if he knew how to make it be forever of Jared smiling he would.

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Jared drives Jensen to stay with Jeff some days while Jared sleeps. Not because he keeps Jared awake but so he can find things to make with when Jared doesn’t have days off and so he can see the sun and be outside. He wants to ask Jeff about touching Jared. Why it would be wrong or hurt or be bad but he can’t find the words.

They walk all around and bring things to people who need it like food and bottles of water and diapers and clothes and a crutch. Everybody is more quiet than Jensen remembers. Jeff says people died. Cinnamon Girl and Hettie, Tom Tom and Eli White, Junkie-Sean and a boy that even Jeff didn’t know the name of. More people got sick from bad food and Jensen is glad he wasn’t outside on those dangerous days but he’s sorry because he was hiding instead of helping anybody.

Jensen helps Jeff carry the things people need but he has his back pack and he stops sometimes and picks things up for later. They help people get to the shelters or the soup kitchens or the clinic. Jensen finds a pile of rolls of old carpet that is thick and soft and he cuts pieces off as big as a person and rolls them up and he and Jeff carry them down to the place under the bridge for people to sleep on.

They come back after that and Jensen sees the sign on the street as they walk by. The name is his name that Jared taught him to write and the surprise stops him to stare. Jeff stops beside him and sees what Jensen looks at and makes a face all surprised and guilty at the same time.

“I am a road?” Even Jensen can tell those words sound silly.

“We didn’t have anything to call you,” Jeff says in his “making friends” voice. “If you’ve got something you’d like better…” He trails off as Jensen shakes his head. He can’t remember when Jeff started calling him his name and he sure doesn’t remember a name he had before that. The mirror man is nobody. A ghost of no remembrance. Jensen shivers as he thinks about being a different guy and he doesn’t know who that guy was. He wonders if anybody else has ever been new like he is. Unfitting in their skin like he would be unfitting in that man’s life.

He can’t imagine anything worse than not being himself. He wonders if the mirror man thought the same way.

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Jared brings Jensen down to the clinic one day in the day and takes the stitches out of his head. It itches more than hurts but Jensen is still glad that Jared does it instead of anybody else.

After, Jared gives him a book of blank paper and some pens and pencils. Jensen draws lines on the paper. Mostly straight. Lines beside each other up or sideways. Lines that come to points or corners or angles. Horizontal members and supporting--supporting somethings. A few pages have ellipses over the lines all stacked on top of each other and tied into straight columns by the hard lines.

Jared asks him what he draws and what it means but Jensen doesn’t know either. When the book is full on all the pages he glues pieces of cord in the cracks between the pages until the book is splayed open like a flying bird and he ties it from the ceiling over the table to look up at sometimes when he works on new things.

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Jared is special. Jensen has no doubt about the truth of that. He is strong and gentle and bright like the sun. He is the warm day after the cold and Jensen feels like he could just be by Jared and never feel hungry again. He thinks of Jared every time he touches himself in the bathtub and the one time he does it in the bed after Jared goes to work.

He wants to show Jared right touches. Good touches, but Jared shies away from it if Jensen is fast and hungry. He has to go slow. Slip into Jared’s space and make sure to never hurt him and never scare him.

He begins a campaign of good touches. Hands on Jared in all the small ways. His hips or his hands or his hair or his neck. Touches with parts other than hands--sliding their legs together in the bed or leaning shoulder to shoulder when they walk or eat or read the learning-book together on the couch.

When Jensen touches low Jared will hiss and squirm and stop Jensen's hand. “I can’t,” he’ll say, or “I don’t want to hurt you.” Sometimes he says, “Oh god you don’t know how much I want to…” but he stops Jensen's hand anyway.

“You want,” Jensen tries to explain to him one night in their bed.

“That doesn’t make it right,” Jared says and rests his forehead on Jensen's and closes his eyes.

“I want.”

Jared sighs and Jensen rubs his cheek against Jared’s.

“I can’t…” and Jared sounds so trapped and scared and torn Jensen has to pet him and whisper soft words of not worrying and being okay and he touches Jared so gently until he goes asleep.

When Jared wakes up Jensen wakes up too and follows him in the kitchen and they make breakfast together even though the sun has gone down. Jared asks him, “Are you okay?” four times while they cook and eat and Jared gets dressed. Every time Jensen says yes. It is hard to think of the way to put his words and be here-now-happy at the same time but he doesn’t say that to Jared.

When Jared goes in the bathroom to brush his teeth, Jensen goes with him. He catches Jared’s hand before he can get to the toothpaste and Jared looks at him funny and worried and Jensen kisses his fingers to show it’s not a bad thing. He turns Jared towards the mirror and stands in front of him and wraps Jared’s arms around his body and holds them tight to his chest.

“I know I want,” Jensen says. “I know me. I know you.” He gestures towards the faces looking back out of the mirror and back to their real selves. “You and you. Me and not-me.” The words aren’t coming out like he wants but he hopes Jared understands. “I know me. He is nowhere now.” Jared’s arms tighten around him and he can see Jared frowning as he tries to get it.

“He is not. Not here. Not loving you. Not yours. Not me.”

Jensen's nose burns like smoke is in it and his eyes start to be watery and he wipes at them.

“You are his?”

Jared buries his face in the crook of Jensen's shoulder and shakes his head.

“Don’t be scared,” Jensen whispers and squirms around in Jared’s arms and ducks under his bowed head and nudges their lips together.

Jared’s lips slide on his and Jared’s tongue touches his lips and Jensen does the same. Jared tastes like Jared and toast and jelly and he holds still and lets Jensen flick his way over Jared’s lips. It is more good than Jensen ever thought and it makes his thing hard but he doesn’t want to scare Jared again so he makes sure not to rub against him.

When he pulls back to see Jared is smiling but his eyes are wet and Jensen hopes he is happy.

“See?” Jensen asks and smiles back. “Didn’t hurt me. Knew that. Knew for me the good.”

He steps away to show Jared that was enough and maybe because he doesn’t know what the next thing to do would be and he doesn’t want to mess it up when it is right between them.

“It can be good,” Jensen promises. “It can be slow.”

“Okay,” says Jared and his hand goes around the back of Jensen's head and he pulls them together and kisses Jensen like fire and water and storms over the city before he pushes him back and laughs and shakes his head.

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.” And Jared adjusts himself in his pants like his thing is excited and says he has to leave for work even though the clock says it isn’t time yet.

Jensen watches him go and smiles and knows he won just a little bit.
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