dugindeep | [BB 2013] Your Signal In the Distance (3/3) (Reply)

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In the morning, Worthy calls Jensen to the suspect’s apartment, just to cover the bases. It’s a more of an exception than a rule, in cases like this, but Jensen fulfills the duty and shows up to the apartment complex he feels like he knows front to back with all the time he’s spent there in the past week or so.

It’s a two-bedroom apartment that features a disrupted bedroom where hardly a thing is in place. The covers hang at one corner and the pillows are tossed against the wall. Most of the dresser is in a state of disarray with drawers open and some clothing tossed about. Worse yet, is the mess of a closet that appears as though it’s bursting at the seams, with one sliding door off the bottom track.

Jensen glances around then gives Worthy a straight look. “Did your guys get a bit excited in here?”

Worthy tips his head with a small frown. “It was like this when we walked in.”

“Yesterday…” Jensen drifts off.

“Yeah, yesterday,” Worthy sighs. “We walked into this, but the damned scene doesn’t match the profile. Misha tried to do his work.” After a long, weary sigh, he shakes his head. “He’s no you.”

No one is, Jensen thinks darkly, nowhere near pleased that this is the situation their case is in. He recalls the clean surfaces of the rooms he’d passed on his way into the large bedroom: the living room sharply clean; kitchen spotless, nearly sparkling with not a dish in sight; and bathroom perfectly in order. He turns towards the door to judge the state of the hallway carpeting, and he has to say that it’s nicely kept compared to this bedroom.

“I don’t really know—” Jensen stops there, unsure of what he really doesn’t know, or what he wants to say. He doesn’t understand why this room is such a hazard compared to the rest of the apartment, why a suspect who was so meticulous in stalking and attacking their victim with precise knife techniques would keep such a messy room, why he’s here to read anything, why he can’t even pick a single feeling up in this room if … “If this is really our guy,” he says slowly.

Worthy sighs, more tired than annoyed. “That’s what your partner said.”

Jensen searches the room without moving an item, logging how everything is so disorganized that it would take days to sort through any evidence or make sense of what each piece could mean to their suspect. Worthy leaves Jensen to it so he can confer with his guys in the living room. In even near-silence, nothing makes sense in this room.

From what Jensen had experienced of the murders, and what Worthy’s people had developed in a suspect profile, Jensen would assume their guy had such an exacting personality that he would refold gum wrappers instead of wadding them up and chucking them in the vicinity of the garbage can in the corner. But it’s the latter that’s obvious in this room, along with a handful of pop cans on the nightstand, all with different levels of liquid, unmatched socks rolled together in the open top drawer, and a mad array of papers across the desk.

This can’t be their murder, and yet the hairs on the back of Jensen’s neck stand at attention and his fingers tingle when he inspects the desktop.

Carefully, not wanting to disrupt the scene, Jensen uses a pen from his suit pocket to nudge items across the desk to see half-written notes with addresses and times; Jensen recognizes some as local restaurants and bars. The same name is on everything, so there’s no mistaking Jeremy Wilkins lives here, along with a few slit envelopes addressed to Wilkins that share the return address for a local singles group. He opens the nightstand’s top drawer, yet isn’t satisfied with anything he finds—old receipts, a dead watch, a half-used bottle of lube.

“Gross,” Jensen mumbles.

“Did you find his porno stash?”

Jensen spins to see Jared in the hallway with his hands tucked into slacks. That would explain Jensen’s nerves going haywire. Maybe. “That might be more terrifying.” He considers cracking a joke about what he’s found, but instead stares at Jared. “What’re you doing here?”

It comes out sharper than he’d planned, obvious by the way Jared mentally flinches and Jensen feels that flare of discomfort from across the room.

“Worthy called me,” Jared replies, eyes slanting away to check out the room. “Said I might be of some use here. But maybe not.” Following a quick huff, Jared turns towards the hall. “I’ll go see where they need me.”

Jensen curses at himself for once again pushing—shoving—Jared away, but he’s certain it’s the best course of action at this time, the only way to preserve himself. He focuses back on the bedroom and looks through as much of the closet as possible without moving too much. He checks the open dresser drawers, beneath the bed, and finally the garbage can.

“Jackpot.”

It’s a mere whisper and a drawn-out breath when he sees a few singles pages in the waste basket that had been read, refolded, and discarded. Using his pen, Jensen shuffles through the pages that all call back to the same singles group from the envelope on the desk. At the top of one sheet is Ellen Thompson, 28 followed by a brief description of her professional life and a headshot.

Jensen uses a fresh napkin off the nightstand to pluck the paper from the garbage can and heads to the living room, which is now empty. Odd, certainly, but not all too surprising when he then hears a group of loud neighbors joined in the lobby begging for information.

He leaves the paper in the apartment then he joins Worthy and the other detectives in the hallway. As he steps closer, a burst of heat runs down the front of his body, which he blames on Jared standing nearby. Within seconds, that heat prickles up his spine and stiffens his neck with quick sparks of tension.

Closing his eyes, he turns away from the melee and steadies his breathing, listens to his quickening heartbeat. He tries to pull himself together before this connection surges beyond just mere trouble and into another run of incapacitation.

The heat blazes into flames licking up his legs and down his arms so his fingers twitch and his eyes slip closed. When he catches his breath and looks around, he finds Jared watching him closely and worry flickers above all other concerns. Which troubles him, making it difficult handle the battling emotions. Then he feels spikes of shame prick his right arm, so he looks that way. The shame slowly transitions to just a shade of concern until it grows and finally consumes Jensen with complete satisfaction and excitable impatience.

Jensen goes dizzy, even stumbling on his feet with the pressure changes within. The longer he stays put, staring down an empty hallway, more exhilaration glides out from beneath his skin and leaves him full of confusion—for and about himself, because he can then sense Jared stepping closer.

He shakes Jared off; he needs the space to breathe, to see, and know what he’s truly experiencing without Jared muddling everything up. He moves down the hallway, away from the crowd. More importantly, he puts space between them and keeps moving. Without a second of thought, he takes the side exit and heads left when those notes of eagerness he’d felt in the hallway prick his skin again.

A clear vision of Jared appears in his mind, clouds his sight. It’s chaos in his brain to sort through the anger he can tell is a completely different from either he or Jared. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he sees Jared following him and then he’s overtaken by aggression of a third man appearing from the side of the building.

Turning too quickly towards the threat, Jensen stumbles with his hands dragging along the brick building, cutting his palms open in jagged lines. As he fights to gain a better stance, he hears the quick snap of the man knocking Jared with an elbow to the head, witnesses Jared’s head cock back at a sickening rate and angle. Contrary to how quickly the blow was made, it seems slow as mud to watch Jared’s body fall and hit the ground.

Blood pools and slides down between Jensen’s knuckles and across the pads of his fingers, but that doesn’t stop him from drawing his field weapon from the holster at the back of his belt. He steadily aims at a carbon copy of the man who’s sitting behind bars at the precinct.

It all slots into place. Twins who live together—this must be the clean freak who tidies the entire apartment while the other tears his room apart and is mistaken for trouble.

Then the images flood Jensen’s mind, like snapshots clicking through a viewer, and he sees how this brother—Jesse—had combed through the dating profiles found among the mess of his brother’s desk and garbage can. How he stalked the few he felt connections with, just long looks at bright eyes in those headshots. The obsession runs through Jensen’s body, turning his blood feverish with want and the need to control these emotions.

Jensen blinks through the ambush until he can focus his eyes and realizes Jared is on the ground, Jared’s grogginess and pain flashing through Jensen as well. Jared shifts to his side and looks up, and suddenly Jensen’s chest clenches with Jared’s fear, his panic and need to reach for his gun but unable to as the suspect closes in on him.

Jared doesn’t move, seems to struggle with any effort to rise, and when Jesse lifts his hand, Jared falls back to the ground with a painful whimper.

“Stop!” Jensen shouts, tucking his blood-wet fingers around the trigger, for the if and when of using it. His voice is tight when he tries to speak again. “Stop right there. Put your hands up.”

Jesse’s head is still tilted down towards Jared, but he slowly gazes up from beneath heavy, haunted eyelids and Jensen instantly reads the man’s wicked wishes to kill them both curl around his brain, stiffening his muscles. Jensen quickly realizes that they’re facing a telepath, and now the way he must have controlled his victims explains how the crime scenes were relatively clean considering the amount of anger trailing around.

Jensen blinks hard and tries to see through the tension wrapping around his muscles and blurring his vision. He can still sense Jared’s dread at being unable to move, for following Jensen here out of pure curiosity, and Jensen would curse Jared out for it as well. He’s now too focused, though, on pushing back on the killer’s telepathy—his binding—as white-hot power weakens Jensen’s joints.

His arm begins to drop, so he lifts it firmly only to feel as though his shoulder is melting beneath his shirt and he’s lost all strength to level his weapon. He’s shocked with ice to realize that he’s no longer picking up on Jared, that Jared’s motionless on the ground and losing his last few breaths.

Jensen drags his arm up with his other hand as a guide, locks his shoulder and his elbow, then sucks in a hard breath and tugs his finger tight against the trigger. The shock of the weapon’s kickback makes his arm feel more useless than before.

As the shot echoes in the air, Jesse falls like an empty sack to the ground and Jensen can breathe again.

He drops his gun and falls to Jared’s side, feels for a heartbeat that barely flickers beneath the surface, hears shallow breathing that’s enough to keep Jared alive. His only use at this moment is to yell for Misha and hope that his partner can save another life.

“I’m not a doctor,” Misha says from behind Jensen.

It should not make him flinch; he began picking up Misha’s calmness within a month of working together, and it should have been more obvious when Jensen felt the care and peace surround him just moments ago. He blamed it more on the worry coursing his veins as he stared at Jared in a hospital bed, had figured the few times he touched Jared’s pale cheek, dry hand, or sweaty hair had been the reason he was feeling settled here.

“I can’t work miracles.”

Jensen barely looks over his shoulder, but still rolls his eyes. “It’s kind of in your job description.”

“You can’t blame me that he’s not waking up ye—”

“He will,” Jensen mumbles over Misha.

“And you can’t blame yourself.”

Jensen doesn’t think he would. At least, he’d like to think he’d look for a better outlet to that kind of torment and turn his bitterness on Jesse Wilkins’ case and any dangerous telepath he might encounter for years to come.

“It’d be the same thing,” Misha says quietly. “Transference of your pain against others.”

“He’ll wake up soon,” Jensen replies. He must, he thinks.

For decades, especially following the incident with Mackenzie … Jensen had always wished he was more powerful, that he could control his powers and manipulate others. Except when his own powers ran afoul and he knew that if he couldn’t regulate the influx, there was no way he’d manage the outflow either.

Still, once he loses Misha’s touch at the back of his mind, when he’s left alone with Jared, he reaches for Jared’s face. He combs hair away and runs his thumb over Jared’s forehead, just above the gash that Wilkins had left with his elbow, now butterfly-bandaged shut.

Jensen wishes as hard as he did on that rainy day in a hot summer back in his childhood that he could extend those catching emotions through his hands to help. But he knows it’s a lost cause no matter how many times he touches Jared’s temple, jaw, or shoulder.

“It was raining like hell,” he murmurs, barely realizing he’s speaking aloud, yet appreciating the silence to release his secret. “She just got her permit and begged me to take her out. There’s only so much crabby-sister whining a guy can take, ya know?” Jensen awkwardly chuckles and shuffles to lean against the side of the bed. He looks down to his fingers dragging over the tough knuckles of Jared’s limp hand. “I kept telling her how to be careful in the storm and she was getting so annoyed with me, just bitching and moaning in return. I couldn’t stop feeling that from her—especially her. Our grandma said we were connected, that we were sired, but we hardly believed it. I didn’t want to really believe what I was. I just wanted to be normal. We all did.

“But still, I had this … thing … inside me. This ball of emotion that tied me up every time someone was sad or angry or upset. And there she was, yelling at me, telling me anything and everything she could. My anger just doubled, hell it probably tripled with her, and next I knew, we were screaming at one another until suddenly, she drove right into a tree.”

The room remains still and Jensen lets the quiet drag on for an unquestionable time. Long enough that he accepts the judgment that Jared would surely have for him if he were awake.

Jensen closes his eyes against the wide, sad eyes he figures Jared would showcase, and he winces against the long-ago memory.

“I couldn’t save her … but I could kill her. She was an Empath, too, with absorption. When she wanted it, she could just draw on me. But that was the worst time to do it.”

He releases a long breath, focusing on the dizziness overtaking him because it distracts him from the words falling from his lips. Allows him to slide his fingers beneath Jared’s hand, seeking the warmth of his palm and the light pulse thumping beneath the skin.

“She grabbed my arm like a vice lock. She was trying to pull my energy to save herself. Instead … she just felt my pain over the accident. Over her. And it amplified between us until she couldn’t contain it anymore. Until she couldn’t handle it.”

Jensen swallows, tongue smacking within his dry mouth. He’s sure he’s done with the memory, images and heat and terror flying through him, figure eights surrounding him with far too much for him to pick out. He bites down on his lower lip when there’s a twitch of Jared’s hand against his. Bites hard enough so there’s a jab of pain that’s real and not some faint reflection he sees on a regular basis.

“Then?”

He glances down to Jared’s eyes barely open and waiting.

“Then what?” Jared asks again on a rough whisper.

Weak fingers scratch against the bandage keeping Jensen’s palms neat, and Jensen sharply remembers the ragged bricks breaking his skin and the wet grip of his gun as he had aimed at Jesse Wilkins.

It’s a crushing memory, nerves twisting in his neck and down his spine, and Jensen flinches to pull his hand out from Jared’s. “She died,” he admits quietly, eyes barely meeting Jared’s. He blinks away impending tears and braves a smile, shrugging off the real pain with ignorance. “’Cause I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t stop pulling in her pain and she was trying to sift through that to get to something more solid that could build her back up.”

“No,” Jared insists, though his voice is still gravelly and soft. “It’s not—”

“Either way,” Jensen says airily. He steps a full foot from the bed and clenches his jaw. “That’s why. Figured you deserved to know the truth.”

Jared’s eyes shine in sympathy, and that emotion wafts over Jensen, makes him want to fall to his knees and give in to the anguish. But he won’t, not even when Jared asks, “Why?”

Jensen clears his throat and fakes the assured, distant façade he’s put up for Jared since they met in Baron’s. “You almost died following me around, trying to find out.”

“You know that’s not—”

“Mr. Padalecki?” a man in pale blue scrubs asks upon entry.

“That’s my cue,” Jensen mumbles, stepping back, but Jared calls out to him.

“No, Jensen, wait.” Jared clears his throat, works past the roughness. “What about the guy who came at me?”

Jensen’s memory picks through the scene once more, and he distinctly relives the pressure of his finger on the trigger. “He was our guy, the murder. Not Jeremy, but Jesse.” Jared’s eyes widen and Jensen nods. “Twin brother who shared the apartment.” Liked sharing all things apparently, Jensen thinks darkly.

“Did you get him?”

Jesse’s up on the fourth floor with a nasty chest wound and a long list of crimes awaiting him in court, including Use of Telepathy for Violence and Assaulting an Officer; both will make him a danger to himself and others, and keep him from being able to barter much with the District Attorney on the main counts of First Degree Murder. Jensen doesn’t bother expressing much more with the doctor still standing at the ready to see his patient, to heal Jared, which is more important at this point.

Giving way to the doctor, Jensen slips back and nods to them both. He then offers Jared one final word. “Just focus on you. Leave yourself in good hands.”

He figures it’s vague enough to serve as encouragement to heal and yet layered with the real meaning. To not bother with Jensen and his burden.

The next morning, Jensen wakes on the couch with a crick in his neck, Crazyface standing on his chest and staring at him. He’s confused about his location until yesterday’s events fit back together in his memory, especially the moments with Jared, which still concern him no matter how strongly he pushes them away. He’s feeling more affected by having such a strong link with a Null than the fact that it’s Jared.

He’s grateful the case is over and they remain in separate divisions. Still, Jensen checks his phone then texts Misha to say he’s staying in today unless something big pops up. He heads to the bedroom, strips down to his undershirt and boxers, and drops face-first to the mattress.

He focuses on the coolness of the soft, cotton sheets against his skin and the gentle breeze coming in through the cracked window above his bed. The chirping of birds outside his window fade away until his brain is set in total silence and he can methodically layer brick after brick to create a new layer of protection for his brain. He’d always imagined his past defenses as clear shields that allow him to lessen the threats, but now he needs reinforced masonry to lock everyone out.

Being a shit doesn’t get him far in any relationship of any kind, but he’s seeking self-preservation at this point and there are plenty of renovations to be made upstairs.

Weeks later, word around the precinct says Jared’s recovered with lingering headaches. He’s back on the job following a week’s paid time off, and Jensen and Misha are already drifting around other cases.

Resolutely avoiding serious conversations with his partner keeps Jensen at a safe distance while it creates an unknown tension between them. It takes time to wither away, to bring them back to the ease of their partnership, but with time, Jensen feels good.

Perhaps, not quite good, but more normal—as normal as he can get. His mind is so perfectly compartmentalized that he remains stoic in the face of screaming toddlers in the grocery store, or a man and woman fighting over a massive fender bender at a major downtown intersection, or even when he passes by Baron’s on a final leg of errands one quiet weekend.

There’s the fuzzy memory of Jared on that first night, the heat in his eyes, how it had billowed over Jensen as they stood inches from another in silent appreciation. But that image quickly fizzles in favor of the countless hours they’d spent side by side, working the Thompson case.

Jensen neatly closes those memories and moves forward with determination to maintain his walls.

A full month since the case was closed, the afternoon is bright with the sun high in the sky and not a cloud in sight. Families are joined at the park down the street from his place, kids riding bikes up and down the sidewalk, and a dog a few doors down won’t stop howling at the squirrel running along the front porch.

Still, the world feels quiet, lonely even. Jensen sits in an armchair in his living room, stares out the large picture window, and watches life go on outdoors. His hand dangles over the side of the chair, fingers tapping at the lip of a beer bottle, but he doesn’t drink. His cat—Crazyface, his mind laughs at him—rubs against the back of his hand with her furry tail flicking each of his knuckles. She leans up with her paws on the arm of the chair and meows curiously.

He pets her face and watches her green eyes slide shut in pleasure. Her purring echoes against his palm when rubbing against her jaw and she leans even further into the touch. She’s warm with soft hair that caresses his fingers with each stroke, but he feels nothing more than that. There is no radiating comfort or adoration to ease him.

Suddenly, Jensen wonders just how tall his walls are now, how thick the brick and stone, to keep his own pet out of his mind. There’s a minor bit of worry at the thought, but then he’s left hollow and aimless.

She jumps up to the chair and settles on the arm so he can continue petting her, and he does. There’s still no shared feeling or recognition of her need of continued attention.

“You’ve been here almost a year, you know that?” he asks her. He pauses for a response and laughs at himself when he realizes he’s done it. The noise echoes in the living room, yet it seems to brighten the area with a short burst of color. “It’s probably about time I give you a real name, wouldn’t you say?”

She rubs her head more steadily against his hand and purrs louder, which he takes as her agreement.

“Angel?” he offers. When she tips her head up so he can scrub at her neck, he figures she’s not happy with that. “Brownie?” She moves away from him his fingers and he opens his hand in apology. “Okay, no Brownie, even if you look like one,” he mumbles.

Jensen runs through a long list of possibilities—both human and sugary nicknames—and none feel right. He drifts off to the day they found her huddled inside a shoe box beneath a kitchen table littered with weeks-old mail. She’d meowed and scurried away from just about anyone else on the scene until Jensen leaned down to check for other items down on the ground. She finally stood up, walked up to him, and rubbed her head against his shin.

He can still remember Misha’s tiny smile as he murmured, “Looks like you finally found yourself a friend.”

“Thought Misha was your only friend,” the suit on the case had laughed.

“Only because they pay me.”

Jensen had rolled his eyes and focused on the then-kitten instead of letting anyone in the room know he was bothered by the jokes. All these months later and the idea still stings somewhere in the far reaches of his mind.

He slouches down in the chair and she takes the opportunity to crawl onto his chest, turn in a circle, then plop down on his stomach with her head resting on her paws.

Jensen leans his head against the back of the chair and closes his eyes with the gentle weight and warmth of the cat lulling him into a late-afternoon nap.

Just as the elevator doors are closing on the first floor, Jensen hears someone call out to hold it. He quickly punches the door open button and holds it until there are now two in the car.

“Thanks so much,” comes out in a rush when a plain clothes officer leans on the back wall.

Jensen’s about to wave it off, but he realizes it’s Jared. He must be working on the streets with his jeans, button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and showing off his tanned and taut arms, and his hair softly tucked behind his ears in a more easy-going style than the days he was suited up to play official detective.

Jared seems a bit spooked to be standing in such close quarters, so Jensen forces a smile on his face. The edges of his mind are seeking out the familiar sense of Jared’s earnest personality, but nothing is there aside from Jared’s careful glance.

“So, what have you been up to?” Jared asks, sounding more polite than actually caring to know.

“Nothing really.” Jensen nods and watches the numbers change as they pass the second floor.
“How’re you?”

“Good. Everything’s good.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

The elevator coasts to a stop at the third floor and Jared steps towards the doors just as they open.

“I lied,” Jensen says suddenly then frowns because he hadn’t planned to say anything else. Except he has this need to feel something, and for the week they’d spent together, Jared made Jensen experience a breadth of emotions he’d long forgotten.

Jared leans against the open door to keep the elevator put. “Lied about what?”

“About the nothing. That I haven’t been up to anything,” he mumbles. When Jared continues to stare, Jensen swears the temperature in the elevator has gone up a good ten or twenty degrees. The air is stuffy and he’s now pulling at the edge of his collar for relief. “I, uh, I named my cat.”

“Okay.” After a tense silence, Jared asks, “And what made you do that?”

Jensen shrugs. “Someone told me I suck at making connections. I thought that was a decent place to start.”

“Yeah,” he replies slowly. “I guess you gotta start somewhere.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“So, she’s not just Crazyface now?”

“No, she’s not. I mean, she’s still crazy, yeah,” he chuckles. “But I’m not calling her that anymore. I named her Miranda.”

Jared stares for a few long moments then slowly lifts one eyebrow. “You named your cat Miranda? Like the rights?”

“It seemed kind of fitting,” he defends, brusquely.

“It is,” Jared agrees. Then he begins to smile, a truthful, fulfilling curl of his lips that strikes Jensen in the pit of his stomach. That reaction is just as surprising as Jared openly regarding him here.

Somehow, Jensen believes this isn’t any sort of siring, no magic involved here. Just good old fashioned interest. There’s a slice of excitement thrumming through his bones that reminds him of that first time they met, of the first time they really laid eyes on one another.

They share a kind look until the elevator alarm rings with the doors still held open. Jared steps away from the doors, letting them slide a few inches before putting his hand between the doors again.

Jared motions towards Jensen and gently offers, “You look a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

“You, too.” Jensen lets a smile break through on his face, tipping up on one side with his eyes warm on Jared with honest attention.

Tipping his head in slight confusion, maybe in surprised interest, Jared watches Jensen as far as he can until the elevator doors completely close and the car crawls up two more floors.

By the time Jensen gets to SIU, his desk phone is ringing with Jared on the other end.

“You know,” Jared says immediately, “I never thanked you for letting me follow you on the Thompson case. And for saving my life. And visiting me in the hospital.”

Jensen almost smiles as he sits down; his colleagues are around and he doesn’t need to give them anything to bug him about. He slips his controlled, blasé persona into place. “Well, you survived, so that’s more than enough for my conscience.”

“Seems like the occasion deserve more than that.”

“Are you going to give me a plaque or something?”

“Was thinking a purple heart. Valor in the line of duty and all that.”

“Valor for putting up with you?” Jensen says flatly, but he’s pretty sure Jared gets the joke with his soft chuckle.

“It could’ve been worse. You’ve never met my partner.”

“Maybe he deserves a medal for putting up with you full time.”

“This is not how you make real connections, Jensen,” Jared mocks.

Jensen nods and leans back in his chair. “Noted and filed for another day.”

As Jared goes on with a random observation about the lack of sun lately, Jensen thinks it’s a new start.

It takes a week.

When Jensen leaves work on a relatively quiet Thursday, Jared is sitting in the lobby of the police station. Jensen knows that thick brick circling his brain is keeping out any irrational emotions, so the honest-to-goodness smile to grace his face is shocking. And possibly embarrassing, except that Jared is smiling back.

“I was thinking, now that we’re both back in one piece, I could pay you back,” Jared says when he stands.

Jensen leans against the back of a row of chairs and shrugs. “You don’t have to, really.”

“So you’re not interested in another burger as big as your head?”

Jensen looks away from Jared’s smirk. “I’m not interested in two days of heartburn.”

Still, Jared convinces Jensen to a different bar and grill where they share appetizers and pitchers of beer. Halfway through the first pitcher, the conversation is still a bit awkward with Jensen trying to keep himself open, all while feeling the need to fence himself in no matter how intent he is to change.

Two decades of segmenting himself from human emotions, from developing relationships or connections aside from those forced by his job, haven’t led to anything more than a quiet apartment and a cat he named only a week ago.

Jared must notice the effort Jensen’s put into making even non-verbal responses, because he eyes Jensen for a while after he refills their glasses. He chews on the last bit of a breaded mushroom and makes a thoughtful noise.

“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but why did you agree to come here?”

Jensen takes the time to drink as he considers how to respond. The best answer seems to be the most straight forward one. “Because you asked.”

It’s a surprise that Jared doesn’t seem satisfied by that. He shifts in his seat and bites his lower lip as he watches his thumb coast over the rim of his pint glass.

Suddenly, Jensen dearly misses the cracks that Jared would slip through; if only he knew what Jared was thinking—feeling—at this very moment, then Jensen could find the right words to ease the moment. Somewhere deep inside, Jensen is scared by the way his body is leaning closer, reaching for Jared, yet it’s completely thrilling to feel like everyone else in the world— those who don’t know any better and have to feel with their hands first.

Jensen clears his throat then takes a long, deep breath to steady himself. He opens his mouth and just lets it run off without him for a while, hoping some combination of the oncoming words work out. “I’ve lived a long time shutting people off, keeping them out. After … after my sister … it’s been what felt right the whole time. Nothing else made sense but to protect myself when there’s always too much there to rush up on me that I can’t control.

“But finally, I got to the end of my rope and I’m kind of tired of working so hard to stop it all. I’m not letting everything in. It’s almost the opposite. I’m not really letting anything in at all. After that night, with Wilkins, I built … I don’t know, like, Fort Knox in my brain. But at least I’m not ignoring it anymore.”

Jared blinks at Jensen and flicks a few fingers out. “I don’t … I don’t really understand.”

Jensen bitterly laughs at himself. He’s a foolish bastard for allowing himself to let all of that out, even if Jared is completely lost. Jensen has always been an asshole for self-preservation; it only seems fitting that when he attempts the exact opposite, he crashes and burns so spectacularly.

“I want to, though,” Jared says with his brows furrow. “It seems like I really should. And like you want me to.”

Jensen nods with a small frown, because he’s uncertain how to tread forward. “It feels like it’s important that you do.”

Jared slides forward in his seat to lean more heavily on the table. He taps his fingers at the wood top of the bar table and Jensen realizes their hands are a bare inch apart. “So, with all the armor and barricades going on, can you actually still feel anything? Or is it all a relative concept?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you were hurt, in the ER,” Jared says with a quick glance up to Jensen’s eyes. “You said that we were sired together, but that would be impossible if you were all jammed up.”

“Pretty much,” he admits quietly.

“Which you did on purpose. And yet, we’re here, now. So, I guess my question still remains.” Jared locks right onto Jensen’s eyes. “Why did you agree to come here tonight?”

The longer they maintain eye contact, the more something stirs inside Jensen. It’s not a cognitive thing, nothing like all the times he’d felt Jared’s senses overtaking him. It’s more subtle this time, a soft wave in his stomach, a hiccup in his heart, a tick in his jaw. None of them are a thing he’s experienced before, which makes him believe this is heading exactly where he was hoping: towards a natural connection.

“Because I want to be.”

“You sure about that?” Jared begins to smirk then pats Jensen’s hand with his pinky. “You say it aloud and you can’t take it back.”

“I’m sure I can just go into hiding,” Jensen replies dryly, bringing his beer up to his mouth to sip.

“I know where you work. And live. Plus, I’m a detective.”

Tipping his head, Jensen regards Jared. “Yeah, I remember. A pretty good one, too.”

It’s a slower walk to the bedroom than the night they met, but the intentions are all the same. This time, however, they undress a bit carefully with the lights still on, and hands touch bare skin in more of a caress than a needy clutch. And unlike before, Jensen lets Jared touch his mouth, allows deep, wet, long kisses as Jared hovers over him on the bed.

Jensen keeps his eyes closed tight as his mind spins with every sweep of Jared’s tongue against his own. He rolls his body up to Jared’s to bring heated skin together, and Jared moans into Jensen’s mouth. The vibrations run over Jensen’s tongue and make him shiver, which draws a delighted hum from Jared as he deepens the kiss.

The connection is as profound as the night they met, and Jensen’s grateful to experience it purely. To know what it really is and what it means. That he really is connected to Jared on a human level and not some empathic perception that twists truths within Jensen’s own mind.

He can feel himself plummeting with the overload of emotions, at the flood of tingles and quick breaths and warm hands all over his skin. Distantly, in the furthest reaches of his mind that remain unprotected, he thinks he could free fall here, and he almost trusts that he’ll be caught.

Jared cups Jensen’s face as he pulls back. Murmurs, “Jensen, look at me.”

Slowly, Jensen dares to open his eyes and is mesmerized to see clearly into Jared without any lingering pull to detail everything on Jared’s mind. Still, it’s easy to sense that thread of their connection tying them together, and Jensen is all at once afraid and grateful that this is where they stand together.

“Are you okay?” Jared asks quietly. Jensen silently nods and Jared appears confused. “You look spooked.”

“It’s just new,” he admits. Jared begins to slip back, but Jensen slides his arms around Jared’s neck to pull him back in. “After the shit we’ve started, no way are you bailing on me now.”

Jared lightly chuckles, but still asks, “You sure?”

Jensen skims his hands down Jared’s back and tugs him down so their hips are flush, so his dick rubs alongside Jared’s. “What do you think?”

With a smirk, Jared reaches between them and strokes their cocks together, forcing Jensen to arch his back when shivers run up his chest and make his breath catch. “I think I remember a guy who was incredibly bossy about being fucked.”

“That guy’s still here somewhere.”

“I hope so,” Jared grows. He drags his teeth up the column of Jensen’s throat and lightly bites at the corner of Jensen’s jaw. “Though I gotta say that I kind of like the new guy hanging around, too.”

Jensen runs his hands up Jared’s sides, squeezes along his ribs on the way back down. He hitches his hips up as Jared’s hand strokes them together more steadily. With a deep hum, Jensen kicks his head back into the mattress. “That feels good.”

Jared drags his hand over Jensen’s balls, and teases one gentle finger at Jensen’s hole. He smiles at Jensen’s quick breath, and kisses along Jensen’s jaw.

Soon enough, Jared is pushing in, filling Jensen on his cock and pumping his hips in a steady rhythm. It seems even sooner when Jensen goes dizzy, panting harshly against Jared’s mouth, and feeling his orgasm sneak up on him.

“Is that good, too?” Jared asks with a smirk.

“Amazing,” Jensen breathes out, finally letting himself go.

“I’ll make you feel even better,” Jared murmurs against Jensen’s cheek.

Just as Jensen’s orgasm builds, he hears a click. Not any real, audible click, but one that he knows is his not-so-impenetrable walls slipping just a fraction for Jared.

He both appreciates and fears the real implications of letting Jared in like this, for completely giving himself over to new possibilities.

Before he can think too much on it, Jared kisses him hard, tongue plunging deep into Jensen’s mouth, and they’re both coming shortly thereafter.

Jensen feels faintly rude to be thankful that Jared is fairly quick with pulling out, getting rid of the condom, and collapsing back into bed. Jared’s eyes slide shut while a small smile graces his smooth face, and Jensen counts the seconds until Jared is completely out.

He doesn’t log how long it takes him to get to sleep, but he’s sure it’s countless minutes spent staring at the ceiling as he argues with himself whether to push that wall back into place or leave it be.

Just an hour later, Jensen slips out of bed and pulls on a pair of pajama pants. Sleep isn’t friendly, nor is his own brain.

Worry overcomes him, concern for what happens now that he’s opened up to Jared and is seeking out this possibility. On the other hand, he’s certain it’s about time he experiences other people in more acceptable situations—less on the crime scene and more on his personal time.

He considers making coffee, but knows that’ll keep him up and restless for hours more. He thinks about tea, yet isn’t up for making noise and waking Jared with the whistling kettle.

For a short while, he just leans against the kitchen counter and stares into the dark living room. He shuffles his feet, moves them a few times to watch the edges of his pants swish around.

Tension eases away and he chuckles at himself for the wasteful moment, until he feels an undercurrent of something else more amused—something warm and interested. Once he mentally picks at it, he recognizes the soft heat as Jared.

He’s smiling before he realizes it.

By the time he makes it to the bedroom doorway, he’s certain he has to let himself off the hook. There’s no point in worry when Jared’s already too stubborn to mind Jensen’s defenses, and especially when Jared is far too amusing to watch as he starts a stare-down with Miranda, who’s now perched at the edge of the bed nearest Jared.

The moon slants in through the window just like that first night they were in here, but everything else is so different. True, Jared’s muscles are still beautiful in the moonlight, and the room is still dark and smells of them, but it’s better for all that’s changed.

Jensen watches over Jared’s shoulder as Miranda tips her head one way then the other, Jared following suit. He leans against the doorjamb and listens as Jared quietly warns her.

“Now, you’ve already got one offense against you … a young girl like you doesn’t need to start a rap sheet.”

Jensen bites his lower lip to keep from laughing, or even just smiling too hard. He’s afraid he’ll hurt something, actually.

“I’m willing to forget the last crime, I won’t press any charges.” Jared sounds surprising serious as he’s lying there naked, only one sheet covering him up to his hip, and pointing a finger at a cat.

Miranda isn’t intimidated and continues to stand at attention to stare at Jared in return.

“You got it? No charges, so long as you get back on the straight and narrow. You up for it, girl? Living an honest life?”

In response, Miranda steps forward until she’s able to curl up next to Jared’s other arm, which is pressed into the mattress so he can lean his head against his hand. She lets out a soft mew and Jared quickly rubs behind her ears then down to her belly.

Jensen knows from experience that it’s her favorite move.

“That’s good,” Jared murmurs. “Because I kinda like your daddy, and it would suck if we didn’t have some kind of deal here, ya know?” After more petting, Jared admits, “I would hate that my finally winning him over was ruined because you can’t appreciate a guest in your castle every once in a while.”

Suddenly, Miranda sits up and looks over Jared’s shoulder to Jensen. Jared twists back and makes a face, mostly in embarrassment.

“You are busted, man,” Jensen says with a shake of his head.

“I’m just making sure she understands the ground rules,” Jared quickly defends.

Jensen lifts an eyebrow as he crosses his arms at his chest and his feet at the ankles. “You were giving my cat the Scared Straight speech.”

“After last time? Scratching over my neck?” Jared winces in memory. “She totally deserves it.”

Jensen smirks and nods towards Miranda. “And those belly rubs? She deserve all those, too?”

Jared chuckles softly and hangs his head in guilt. “I’m a sucker, what can I say?”

Biting the corner of his mouth, cutting off a smile, Jensen nears the bed and settles facing the headboard with a great angle to watch Jared still pet Miranda and to hear her soft purring of satisfaction. “Then I guess we’ve got another thing in common. Because I’ve suddenly turned into one myself.”

Jared shifts a little towards Jensen and his hand brushes Jensen’s knee as he goes. Heat spreads through Jensen’s joint and down his shin, but it’s finally welcomed.

“Is that so?” Jared asks.

Jensen slowly nods, even as he considers making a joke. He decides that honesty and openness is good these days. “I can still feel you.”

Jared first seems hotly into that idea, yet the longer they stare at one another, his interest flips into confusion. “How? I thought you built like … iron walls or something.”

Jensen shrugs then runs his index finger alongside Jared’s. The zing of connection is instantaneous this time, a nice flicker that he’s actually seeking out to test the strength. It’s nowhere near what he remembers of Mackenzie and their youth, but it’s there all the same.

“I guess you’re just that relentless,” Jensen says. “Or impossible to ignore.” He shrugs again and lets Jared thread their fingers together, watches theier knuckles bump against each other and feels a soft pop in his chest every time they do. “Either way, I felt it slip earlier.”

“Are you gonna, you know?” Jared asks while gesturing their hands together,” Put it back up?”

Hope blooms in his chest and he quickly sifts through Jared’s feelings to recognize that it’s really all his own—that it’s Jensen who is aspiring for the better here. “What’s the point?” He softly smiles and squeezes their fingers together. “It’d just erase all that’s happened here, between us.”

“Then I guess we’ve got something to celebrate,” Jared murmurs, just before leaning up to kiss Jensen.

“And what’s that?”

“You’ve made yourself a real connection.”

Jensen feels a muscle twitch in his cheek, making his smile shaky. But he knows Jared’s right.

Not just correct, but right.