![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyjanellyJeff? Still Badass.
Jared is a saint.
Jensen is unpredictable.
Beta and Bunny by Embroiderama
=========
Finding the guy takes Jeff a month or more. Watching. Talking to people who were poisoned and others who knew them. Figuring out who had a hate-on big enough to want folks dead.
He ends up with a list of six. Owners of buildings or small businesses. The dude who keeps petitioning the city to build a shelter out in the country and bus the homeless out to somewhere too far to walk back from if they didn’t like it. The lady who calls the cops three times a week on the kids who sleep on her stoop.
He can feel parts of his brain he hasn’t used in ages waking up. His old skills of observation and interrogation and pattern-finding reawaken to this new purpose. He watches the people on his list. Checks their garbage. Looks for odd packages being brought in or going out.
He assesses the threats each may pose and calculates his windows of opportunity. The first four locations he breaks into have tissue-paper for security. Deadbolts on the doors but a window unlocked around back or on the second floor. Maybe a sliding glass door that he can lift off the tracks and circumvent the bar keeping it closed. Nothing difficult for a man who has seen hundreds of B&Es in his day. Heart pounding and the smell of his own panic in his nose he searches for some sign or proof. The fear wells up and he locks it away in a cell of stone. The mission is everything.
The fifth--a mid-renovation storefront on the strip--has security with a capital S. Metal grates over the windows and welded-on padlock latches on steel doors. Jeff watches his mark going in and out with his hardware and supplies. Broad daylight is too risky and the guy never comes or leaves at night.
Jeff goes to the store next door and buys a soda for the privilege of using their men’s room. He pulls his gloves on even though the weather is too warm for them now. The ceiling is hung tiles and he climbs from the back of the toilet up into the crawl-space. He has to move carefully to keep from falling through but he smiles as he sees the spaces are open up top. Nothing at all between him and his suspect but another layer of acoustic tile.
He hides up there for hours until the construction noises below stop for the day. The drop to the floor is longer than he would have hoped for and he isn’t as young as he used to be. The fall twists his knee and ankle but he shakes it off as he walks around searching the place.
Hidden between some buckets of spackling compound he finds what he’s looking for. Eight boxes with the skull and crossbones on the side. Long chemical name he doesn’t recognize but he knows what the hell WARNING! POISON! means and this has to be his guy.
Still, never pays to be impatient or jump to conclusions. He finds a yard-long wooden rod that fits nice in his hand. Thinks it was probably a closet rod at one time. Heavy enough to do the job and already on-site.
He waits. Sitting most of the time but walking enough to keep that knee limber.
He guesses it must be just past ten in the morning when he hears keys outside the door. He pulls the brim of his hat low over his eyes and moves into position.
=============
Jared is a man desperately in need of someone to talk to. He can’t talk to Jensen because Jensen is the topic at hand. He can’t talk to George because as his boss George doesn’t officially know about Jensen and it doesn’t help anything to keep challenging that willing ignorance.
Frightening as the concept is, Jeff seems like his best bet. Somebody who knows Jensen and can give an honest evaluation of his progress and capabilities. Jeff, of course, decides that this is the one night not to come by for their Tuesday late-night lunches. Jared hates him a little for that.
Jared is a man with a problem. He thought about all that Jensen had said or tried to say as he drove into work. As far as Jared can figure it boils down to this: Jensen doesn’t feel like the man in the mirror has any relevance to his present self. And Jared can either wait for that man who may be dead and gone or he can love the Jensen here and now and that should include some physical lovin’ because the Jensen of here and now is horny.
Jared thinks the problem over all night at work. What to do and how to make sure Jensen doesn’t get hurt in the process. In a way he’s almost glad the winter lull is over and patients come in at all hours. Having George there all night keeps him from totally brooding about his issues and having people to treat distracts him from thoughts of Jensen at home spread out on the bed--their bed--in nothing but a bow. Twelve hours thinking about that would give him a medical condition of his own.
There’s nothing like a teenager injured in a knife fight to take the glow off of a sexy image and after that an immigrant mother’s concern for her baby’s life overwhelms her fear of INS and she brings in a two year old with a raging fever and Jared has his hands and mind full with cooling packs and thermometers and the sound of sobbing prayers in Spanish behind him.
By sunrise he nearly forgets his relationship issues and his worry about what kept Jeff. He is turning the key in the door when he remembers and sudden worry clenches his guts because what if Jensen wants too much too fast? What if Jared isn’t strong enough to resist and take things at the right speed for Jensen? What if he does something that hurts all the wonderful progress Jensen has made in his life these past few months?
Jared takes a deep breath and turns the knob. The Gatorade bottle on the other side falls in its comforting predictability and Jensen looks up from where he sits fully dressed and working on a new project.
“Come see,” he says in his happiest voice and Jared doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed to not be pressured into awkward eager sex the minute he walks in the door.
He goes though, to see whatever has Jensen so happy. The thing on the table has to be the ugliest blob of crap Jensen's ever made. Jared circles it twice and looks for any redeeming beauty in it but all he can see are random bundles of garbage and wire and paper and cardboard all glued or taped or tied together.
“It’s um…I don’t get it?”
And Jensen grins like that was the point. “Here.” He pushes Jared to sit on the couch and starts turning off lights and pulling the blackout blinds over the windows. When only the one bare bulb by the table is still lit Jared sees it. The shadows of the ugly thing on the wall. Stretched and distorted they have become people. A couple. Two men embracing.
“God,” Jared breathes. “It’s beautiful.” And more than that it shows a complexity of thought he can’t even imagine. To build it for the shadow of one light in one place. He wonders if it would work at all if the light was an inch off or the table an inch higher and he doesn’t think so.
Jensen comes over and sits beside him with his knees curled up to his chest. He leans against Jared’s shoulder and closes his eyes and says “Yes,” like he’s not talking about the sculpture at all.
Jared runs his fingers through Jensen's hair and he’s happy to be home and happy that Jensen's happy and whatever happens with them they’ll work it out together.
=======
Getting a confession is easy, Jeff thinks. Make a man more afraid of what will come if he lies than if he tells the truth and the words spill out. Let him think the truth won’t hurt him. Beat a confession out of a man and it won’t stand up in court. Let him think you want to see him in jail. Let him think you already dialed 911 and just want someone else to hear him admit what he’s done. Let him think there are witnesses.
The man would rather spill words than blood. What sane person wouldn’t? He gives dates and places. Where and when he put poison out for people. Hettie and Cinnamon Girl. Tom Tom and Junkie Sean. Eli White and some poor runaway. Dead for property values and his kids’ college funds and decent neighborhoods for decent people.
Jeff hits him then. Gloves doing nothing to pad the impact that runs up to his shoulder. That he feels all the way down to his sprained knee. Hits him until the chair he’s tied to falls over and Jeff gasps for air like his first day at boot camp.
“You die here,” Jeff tells him and opens one of the boxes. Hard fingers crush in at the corners of the man’s jaw and Jeff tips the white powder into his mouth. The guy chokes on the dryness of it. Coughs as it takes the moisture out of his throat and dusts his lungs.
Jeff stands back and watches the man squirm. Slows his breathing. Feels the weight of what he’s done and righteous violence never felt so good before.
He makes one last check of the scene. No fingerprints. No footprints. Not so much as a drop of his blood or sweat. Clean as a CSI’s nightmare.
Beside the door he opens the bastard’s fancy little phone and dials 911. Death would be an easy way out. Let him try to explain the poison and why he was beaten. Let him try to feel safe again when every shadow and every shuffling street person could be his attacker come back to finish the job. Jeff knows fear. How to make a victim slow to recover and never to forget.
Jeff slips out the door and down the alleyway and nobody looks at him at all.
Hours later he sits on a rooftop and the enormity of what he’s done hits him. Inside. The small places and crawling through the ceiling. He didn’t even think of it at the time. Mission overtook fear and he just did it.
He shakes and vomits and thinks of his wife’s hand cool on his forehead and how he misses her and all the mistakes he’s made.
Jared is a saint.
Jensen is unpredictable.
Beta and Bunny by Embroiderama
=========
Finding the guy takes Jeff a month or more. Watching. Talking to people who were poisoned and others who knew them. Figuring out who had a hate-on big enough to want folks dead.
He ends up with a list of six. Owners of buildings or small businesses. The dude who keeps petitioning the city to build a shelter out in the country and bus the homeless out to somewhere too far to walk back from if they didn’t like it. The lady who calls the cops three times a week on the kids who sleep on her stoop.
He can feel parts of his brain he hasn’t used in ages waking up. His old skills of observation and interrogation and pattern-finding reawaken to this new purpose. He watches the people on his list. Checks their garbage. Looks for odd packages being brought in or going out.
He assesses the threats each may pose and calculates his windows of opportunity. The first four locations he breaks into have tissue-paper for security. Deadbolts on the doors but a window unlocked around back or on the second floor. Maybe a sliding glass door that he can lift off the tracks and circumvent the bar keeping it closed. Nothing difficult for a man who has seen hundreds of B&Es in his day. Heart pounding and the smell of his own panic in his nose he searches for some sign or proof. The fear wells up and he locks it away in a cell of stone. The mission is everything.
The fifth--a mid-renovation storefront on the strip--has security with a capital S. Metal grates over the windows and welded-on padlock latches on steel doors. Jeff watches his mark going in and out with his hardware and supplies. Broad daylight is too risky and the guy never comes or leaves at night.
Jeff goes to the store next door and buys a soda for the privilege of using their men’s room. He pulls his gloves on even though the weather is too warm for them now. The ceiling is hung tiles and he climbs from the back of the toilet up into the crawl-space. He has to move carefully to keep from falling through but he smiles as he sees the spaces are open up top. Nothing at all between him and his suspect but another layer of acoustic tile.
He hides up there for hours until the construction noises below stop for the day. The drop to the floor is longer than he would have hoped for and he isn’t as young as he used to be. The fall twists his knee and ankle but he shakes it off as he walks around searching the place.
Hidden between some buckets of spackling compound he finds what he’s looking for. Eight boxes with the skull and crossbones on the side. Long chemical name he doesn’t recognize but he knows what the hell WARNING! POISON! means and this has to be his guy.
Still, never pays to be impatient or jump to conclusions. He finds a yard-long wooden rod that fits nice in his hand. Thinks it was probably a closet rod at one time. Heavy enough to do the job and already on-site.
He waits. Sitting most of the time but walking enough to keep that knee limber.
He guesses it must be just past ten in the morning when he hears keys outside the door. He pulls the brim of his hat low over his eyes and moves into position.
=============
Jared is a man desperately in need of someone to talk to. He can’t talk to Jensen because Jensen is the topic at hand. He can’t talk to George because as his boss George doesn’t officially know about Jensen and it doesn’t help anything to keep challenging that willing ignorance.
Frightening as the concept is, Jeff seems like his best bet. Somebody who knows Jensen and can give an honest evaluation of his progress and capabilities. Jeff, of course, decides that this is the one night not to come by for their Tuesday late-night lunches. Jared hates him a little for that.
Jared is a man with a problem. He thought about all that Jensen had said or tried to say as he drove into work. As far as Jared can figure it boils down to this: Jensen doesn’t feel like the man in the mirror has any relevance to his present self. And Jared can either wait for that man who may be dead and gone or he can love the Jensen here and now and that should include some physical lovin’ because the Jensen of here and now is horny.
Jared thinks the problem over all night at work. What to do and how to make sure Jensen doesn’t get hurt in the process. In a way he’s almost glad the winter lull is over and patients come in at all hours. Having George there all night keeps him from totally brooding about his issues and having people to treat distracts him from thoughts of Jensen at home spread out on the bed--their bed--in nothing but a bow. Twelve hours thinking about that would give him a medical condition of his own.
There’s nothing like a teenager injured in a knife fight to take the glow off of a sexy image and after that an immigrant mother’s concern for her baby’s life overwhelms her fear of INS and she brings in a two year old with a raging fever and Jared has his hands and mind full with cooling packs and thermometers and the sound of sobbing prayers in Spanish behind him.
By sunrise he nearly forgets his relationship issues and his worry about what kept Jeff. He is turning the key in the door when he remembers and sudden worry clenches his guts because what if Jensen wants too much too fast? What if Jared isn’t strong enough to resist and take things at the right speed for Jensen? What if he does something that hurts all the wonderful progress Jensen has made in his life these past few months?
Jared takes a deep breath and turns the knob. The Gatorade bottle on the other side falls in its comforting predictability and Jensen looks up from where he sits fully dressed and working on a new project.
“Come see,” he says in his happiest voice and Jared doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed to not be pressured into awkward eager sex the minute he walks in the door.
He goes though, to see whatever has Jensen so happy. The thing on the table has to be the ugliest blob of crap Jensen's ever made. Jared circles it twice and looks for any redeeming beauty in it but all he can see are random bundles of garbage and wire and paper and cardboard all glued or taped or tied together.
“It’s um…I don’t get it?”
And Jensen grins like that was the point. “Here.” He pushes Jared to sit on the couch and starts turning off lights and pulling the blackout blinds over the windows. When only the one bare bulb by the table is still lit Jared sees it. The shadows of the ugly thing on the wall. Stretched and distorted they have become people. A couple. Two men embracing.
“God,” Jared breathes. “It’s beautiful.” And more than that it shows a complexity of thought he can’t even imagine. To build it for the shadow of one light in one place. He wonders if it would work at all if the light was an inch off or the table an inch higher and he doesn’t think so.
Jensen comes over and sits beside him with his knees curled up to his chest. He leans against Jared’s shoulder and closes his eyes and says “Yes,” like he’s not talking about the sculpture at all.
Jared runs his fingers through Jensen's hair and he’s happy to be home and happy that Jensen's happy and whatever happens with them they’ll work it out together.
=======
Getting a confession is easy, Jeff thinks. Make a man more afraid of what will come if he lies than if he tells the truth and the words spill out. Let him think the truth won’t hurt him. Beat a confession out of a man and it won’t stand up in court. Let him think you want to see him in jail. Let him think you already dialed 911 and just want someone else to hear him admit what he’s done. Let him think there are witnesses.
The man would rather spill words than blood. What sane person wouldn’t? He gives dates and places. Where and when he put poison out for people. Hettie and Cinnamon Girl. Tom Tom and Junkie Sean. Eli White and some poor runaway. Dead for property values and his kids’ college funds and decent neighborhoods for decent people.
Jeff hits him then. Gloves doing nothing to pad the impact that runs up to his shoulder. That he feels all the way down to his sprained knee. Hits him until the chair he’s tied to falls over and Jeff gasps for air like his first day at boot camp.
“You die here,” Jeff tells him and opens one of the boxes. Hard fingers crush in at the corners of the man’s jaw and Jeff tips the white powder into his mouth. The guy chokes on the dryness of it. Coughs as it takes the moisture out of his throat and dusts his lungs.
Jeff stands back and watches the man squirm. Slows his breathing. Feels the weight of what he’s done and righteous violence never felt so good before.
He makes one last check of the scene. No fingerprints. No footprints. Not so much as a drop of his blood or sweat. Clean as a CSI’s nightmare.
Beside the door he opens the bastard’s fancy little phone and dials 911. Death would be an easy way out. Let him try to explain the poison and why he was beaten. Let him try to feel safe again when every shadow and every shuffling street person could be his attacker come back to finish the job. Jeff knows fear. How to make a victim slow to recover and never to forget.
Jeff slips out the door and down the alleyway and nobody looks at him at all.
Hours later he sits on a rooftop and the enormity of what he’s done hits him. Inside. The small places and crawling through the ceiling. He didn’t even think of it at the time. Mission overtook fear and he just did it.
He shakes and vomits and thinks of his wife’s hand cool on his forehead and how he misses her and all the mistakes he’s made.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 07:53 pm (UTC)And good for Jensen, showing Jared in his own way exactly what he wants, without the pressure.
You know, you could re-write this as an OF and get it published.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 07:57 pm (UTC)Jared's confusion comes across really well, his fear about what to do for the best for him and Jensen. I love the description of the light sculpture Jensen makes and how it almost helps Jared to start to realise that they can work it out together.
Also love the moments of humour, about Jensen of here and now being horny, and how Jared doesn't quite know how to react when he first sees the sculpture.
So much love for this story.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:11 pm (UTC)Way to get your point across, Jensen.
I hope Jared doesn't get into trouble over what Jeff did somehow. Since he seems to be the only one officially interested in the case of the poisonings, which that creepy police officer knows about.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:23 pm (UTC)Thank you for another enthralling installment--I love these boys!
*\o/*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:25 pm (UTC)I think that's my favourite of Jensen's sculptures for more or less the same reason's as Jared - the complexity behind the design.
And Jeff - I'm kinda relieved that he didn't kill the guy, socialist little leftie that I am, but I can understand the why and how too given his background. And because of that I find the last few lines of this chapter particularly facinating because of what they suggest Jeff's possible opinion/inner conflict of his past and previous job may be.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:30 pm (UTC)And I absolutely love how talented Jensen is.
And poor Jared really is a saint. *g*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:41 pm (UTC)I love Jared's confusion, his dilemma. He's had tremendous will power but now he needs to accept that Jensen's his ... for now, and hopefully, for always.
And then there's Jeff - oh Jeff. What has he done? I don't really care about the poisoning of that murderer, he deserved it, I'm more concerned about hos these actions will effect him ... maybe, just maybe, he'll try to find himself again ... but then that is a wish and not necessarily an option.
Great update.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 08:43 pm (UTC)But oh MY the boys need to make out already!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:12 pm (UTC)I LOVE the J2 in this, but it was SO awesome to also get an insight into Jeff's day. Seriously, that dude's like a homeless Batman or something.
I love you, I love your fic, I love you and your fic!!!!!!!
*madly applauds*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:18 pm (UTC)I loved the sculpture, what jensen is saying with it, and everything about him and Jared.
This would work as an OF but imho Jensen must be male-- otherwise the suspension of disbelief that a female wouldn't have been hurt badly on the street is too much to get over. And the power differential between Jared and jensen is already so great, making the gender difference would be overwhelming. and that's just my opinion, and I know you didn't ask, btu I was reading the comments above.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:23 pm (UTC)^_^ But it's soooo goood. And I'm so in love with Jensen. I want to know what happened to him, how he got there, why no one's looked for him. And I love how things weren't rushed between Jensen and Jared. 15 chapters and all they've done is kiss. I love that sort of development with a fic.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:24 pm (UTC)I love what you're doing with Jensen and Jared; the slow build-up, the frustration, the want, the companionship, the love... it's brilliant.
As for Jeff, wow I ached for him.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:48 pm (UTC)I personally hate that most of America is homophobic. I really REALLY hate it. I personally adore the budding gay relationship between Jared and Jensen. I guess it depends what sort of audience one would target for a book. If you want a broad audience, pretty much any publisher will insist on a "safe" couple (i.e. straight.) If you don't mind selling less books, but making a better statement, keep the gay relationship.
As someone who works in the entertainment field I'm used to looking at those really tough moral decisions. "Do I do this play that supports a political belief I'm against? Or do I pay the rent?" Unfortunately any forays into the entertainment business is full of choices like these. Jobs are hard to come by and sometimes you compromise your morals in order to pay for meals. (And for the record, I ended up doing the play but only because they cast me as the lesbian pro-choice roommate of the main character. Sure, the play was primarily pro-life, but that one character gave a glimpse of the oppositions view point. I probably wouldn't have done the play if they cast me in any other role.)
Anyway, just my opinion. And I know it'll be an unpopular one because even I don't like it.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:49 pm (UTC)...Jensen/Jared nakkid time just around the corner, huh? :)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 10:15 pm (UTC)Oh Jensen's artistry ♥♥♥
You ♥♥♥♥♥
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 10:25 pm (UTC)I love that Jeff seems to be gowing through his own evolution parallel to Jensen and that he might someday find a way to function in the world again if he can overcome his fears.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-27 10:26 pm (UTC)