An Eye for the Future (Part Two)

[dugindeep]

Coming in and out of consciousness, Jensen hears a mix of voices battling over one another for attention. He hears Padalecki among them, but can’t make out the words. He can feel hands wrapped around his arms and legs, lifting him around until he’s set on a hard carpeted floor, then an engine revs and they’re moving. A low hum makes him think of a car, but he’s further confused when there are no more voices.

He opens his eyes only briefly, unable to handle seeing any light. He’s on his back with a car roof above, all dark interior and sleek lines. He blinks at flashes of light still seared into his brain from the spot light at the theater and barely makes out the face of Padalecki drawing nearer. Hair falls down around his cheeks and light halos his head. Jensen slowly reaches out, wondering if this is heaven, if he’s finally done with whatever journey he’s been on these last fifteen years of helping people.

His fingers just barely touch Padalecki’s face, which is soft and warm and pink, like a cherub. It figures, Jensen thinks, that someone as rich and charitable as Jared Padalecki would be an angel. That maybe Jensen coming here was the fruitful conclusion to his own life of trying to help others remain safe.

“Jensen,” the man says lightly, then repeats it more forcefully. “Jensen, are you with me?”

“I’m with you,” Jensen whispers, “In heaven.”

Padalecki taps Jensen’s cheek hard enough to disrupt the fever dream overtaking him. “We’re not in heaven. Listen, okay? We’re in my limo and we’re getting you to the hospital.”

The words make sense in the way that they’re sounds that Jensen has heard before, while the meaning is totally lost on him. “Did we die? Did I fail?”

Padalecki’s brow furrows. “Fail at what?”

“The gun. Shooting you.”

“You didn’t shoot me, Jensen.”

“I saw it. You were there.” Jensen’s brain twists around what all he wants to say and he’s growing more frustrated that Padalecki can’t just understand it all. “Saving you. The gun. Shots. I was saving you.”

Now Padalecki’s hand touches with care, fingers tracing Jensen’s cheek. “I know, bud. And you did.”

“Mr. Padalecki!” the driver yells.

“What’s wrong?” he asks with panic.

“We’re being followed.”

The limo takes a sudden right turn, yanking the back end of the vehicle around. Padalecki slips and tumbles beside Jensen, which ends up saving his life again when a bullet fires through the back window and into the roof.

“Aldis! Airport!” Padalecki shouts.

“Flying?” Jensen asks, gathering a bit more of consciousness with the car’s frantic moves.

“We’re getting out of here. We’ll go to my cabin.” Then Padalecki smiles sweetly and Jensen wonders when this whole mess became something more romantic because he thinks about kissing that beautiful rosy mouth. “I’m gonna save you now.”






When Jensen wakes, it’s in a lushly comfortable bed with a pillow top mattress, luxury 1,000-thread count sheets, and a plush comforter wrapped around him like a burrito. The walls are dark facets of wood, along with the ceiling, truly like a log cabin from the olden days. The room is impeccably decorated with a rustic armoire and dresser set as well as a number of paintings expertly framed up on the walls.

Jensen shifts up to sit and immediately cries in pain. His leg throbs, somewhere around his calf, keeping him from moving much more than a few inches. The pillows cushion him as he settles back into a partial seated angle. He looks to the closed door, also deeply stained wood to match the rest of the room, and while it all feels warm and comfortable, he’s a bit frantic over what parts of his memory have escaped him.

He remembers being at the Tri-Labs event and racing around for Padalecki, remembers pushing through people to get to him, and the bright white spotlight. Suddenly he remembers being hauled into a limousine and taking away … his heartbeat quickens and he considers the possibility he’s been kidnapped. Trapped up in some faraway cabin in the middle of the woods where no one will hear him scream for help. As if Padalecki’s people consider him a threat and instead of dealing with the authorities, they’ll clean this mess up far away from civilization.

He imagines his brain is like a complicated jigsaw puzzle with random spots left empty along with a few hundred pieces floating around to be put back into place. Only, he can’t even tell what the pieces are, or how much he’s really missing.

A door opens and closes somewhere out beyond this room and Jensen sits still, trying his hardest to listen for any further noises.

Soft music wafts through the door, some kind of old school rhythm and blues. Maybe Motown or something. Jensen finds it oddly discomforting in the middle of being held prisoner.

A bright humming joins the melody of a soulful, weathered voice of the song. Footsteps up and down the hallway, and a shadow appears at the slit between the door and the floor. The music fades away and Jensen twists his hands into the blankets, awaiting this next threat. Just as a drum and bass beat carry in the next song, the door swings open and Jensen screams in fright.

Padalecki releases a high-pitched squeal as he drops a tray with a glass tumbler and plate shattering on the hard wood floor.

“Oh Jesus,” they say in tandem while staring at one another.

“You scared the crap out of me!” Jared insists with a high laugh.

“You scared me!” Jensen shuffles a few inches back on the mattress, wincing against the pain in his leg, and carefully watches Padalecki as he bends over to use the tray as a broom and sweep the glass away from the doorway. “What the hell is going on?!”

“I was bringing you breakfast, but now I’ll have to do it all over again.”

“No!” Jensen insists sharply. “What is going on … where are we? Why am I locked up in this room?”

Padalecki looks up and purses his lips in disappointment. He sets the tray against the wall and tiptoes into the room, bare feet avoiding any stray shards of glass. Jensen notes that the tall frame is clothed in a soft cotton tee, worn out Cowboys logo across the chest, and a pair of yoga pants. His hair is wet like he’s fresh from a shower, and suddenly Jensen wonders what kind of state he’s in himself.

After all, the techno wizard is dressed down while looking utterly soft and delicious. Jared Padalecki has secured the top billing of the world’s most eligible bachelors, even after coming out, and now the way he’s casually sauntering to the bed makes Jensen think of an entirely different situation where they could enjoy one another … No! his brain shouts. He’s being held hostage in this place and needs to know what the fuck is happening …

The mattress bends with Padalecki’s weight as he sits beside Jensen, resting a warm hand on his knee. Apparently with comfort, just like his voice. “Jensen, you’re okay. You’re safe here.”

Jensen searches the man’s eyes for any sign of betrayal, to tell him this anything but safe, or even to remind Jensen of what all has happened since the theater. A few of those jigsaw puzzles drift into view and he remembers hearing his name on those lips after the gunshots. The way Padalecki had said his name was layered with wonder and care.

“Where is here?” Jensen asks slowly.

“Here is my cabin in the backwoods of Texas. You wouldn’t know the town, so I won’t bother with the goofy pronunciation.”

Now he’s smiling, and it should comfort Jensen, yet it just makes him more wary of the missing pieces of his memory. “Literally a cabin, I see,” he replies while glancing around the room.

“My grandfather built it from the ground up.”

Jensen mumbles, “Of course he did,” to himself then gathers up a large breath to steady himself for his next question. He even shifts his leg when he realizes Padalecki’s hand is still resting on it. “Why are we here at your cabin?”

He looks at his hand and slowly pulls it back. “Yes, right, well, after you were shot, we had to—”

Terror rips through Jensen’s body, followed by a shock of pain in his leg. “I was shot?”

With a shaky smile, Padalecki nods. “Yeah, after you tackled me, the gunman kept firing and got you in the leg. My doctors assure that it mostly tore through muscle. The fibrous fuse went off without a hitch and you could be up and around in a few days. Maybe a week. In the meantime, the tramadol should manage most of your pain.”

So many more questions fire through Jensen’s mind. First, he’s terrified by the idea of a gunman, inferring that it was a man with full intent and a number of bullets. Then he wonders how long he’s been out that multiple doctors have seen him without him being aware of it, and what the living hell is a fibrous fuse. Not to mention whatever tramadol is, and perhaps that’s creating this whole messed up scene for him.

Shit, maybe Dr. Cortese was onto something with the drug thing.

“Look, I know this is all a lot, and I’m sure you have a lot of questions that deserve answers.” Padalecki nods with a smile, as if encouraging Jensen to do the same. It works; Jensen blames it on whatever drugs they’ve given him. “At the same time, I have many things to ask you, but I really think you getting rest is the best prescription.”

Jensen considers a dozen different response, ranging from outrage and fight to silence and sleep. He settles a bit further right on the spectrum and nods a little. “Okay. Yeah. And … uh, thank you?”

Padalecki rubs at Jensen’s shoulder with a warm look. “You’re very welcome, Jensen.”

“How do you …” He suddenly remembers the way he tackled Padalecki to the ground, how the man immediately spoke to him like they had a long-buried history and knew each other long before any of Jensen’s life fell into being a good Samartian. He swallows against the tension that makes him fear the answer. “How do you know my name?”

Blinking, he seems to take his time to consider the response. “You don’t remember, do you? Back in our twenties? At the Air Foundation?”

Now Jensen’s jigsaw puzzle expands with even larger black holes. In his twenties, Jensen graduated college, had a string of terrible relationships that meant he floated from one guy to the next, he started his career at a distribution warehouse then later moved around to competitors before settling at his current position. From his research on Padalecki, he knows the virtuoso was already running his own social media and technology conglomerates. There’s no way their paths ever crossed.

The movement is so tiny on Padalecki’s face, but Jensen has been watching him carefully and spots the grimace immediately. “I’ll have to find some of my books. We can look over them together when you’re better.”

As the man rises, Jensen grips his wrist to keep him in place. “No, I want to know now.”

Padalecki turns his arm to hold Jensen’s wrist in return. He gives a small squeeze and tries to smile. “No, I think you’d rather not. Not until you’re well.” He slips a few feet away then motions at the bedside cabinet. “There’s water and such here if you are still having pain. And a bell in case you need … anything else. I’ll bring you up another plate for breakfast once it’s done.”

“Wait, no, I just …” Jensen’s words hang in the now empty room when Padalecki leaves without a second glance and shuts the door behind him. His mind races through any possible situation that makes sense and he comes up empty on what type of history they would have had.

Back in their twenties? Padalecki was surely implying some kind of connection with the word their, and Air Foundation … Jensen has no idea what that could be.

His phone, he needs his phone to search this all and find out where the hell this story starts. He reaches for his pockets and finds that he’s in pajama pants, blue and green flannel. They’re not his, and he feels a blush come over him at the idea that Padalecki undressed him from his jeans then helped him into these pants. Maybe the doctors did it … however many there were. Which is a terrifying thought as well, to wonder how many people have been standing over him while he was unconscious and unaware of whatever they did to him.

On the nightstand is the promised glass of water and Jensen gulps it down quickly while trying to calm his rising anxiety. There! His phone! Sitting at a perfect line with the cabinet’s corner. He grabs it, whining with the pain of his sudden movement, and then curses when he finds that it’s completely dead. How long has he been out that his phone’s battery is completely drained?

Jensen slides up into a seated position despite the aches of his leg then flips the blankets back to inspect his injury. He fights against the soreness that makes itself known with painful throbs up his leg and slides the flannel pant leg up before he stares for long moments.

A thick blue band circles his lower leg for the entire length of his calf, snug to the skin. Something akin to an adhesive gauze, but with finer strands and a tight weave. Jensen runs his fingers around the bandaging to feel for any bumps or even a dip in the fabric from where the bullet went in and out. Everything seems perfectly shaped, even at the most sensitive areas on either side of his calf. Thumbing around the wounds doesn’t give him any more answers, but it does twist his stomach with the sharp pains every time he touches his leg.

He grows lightheaded as his stomach rolls with a new wave of nausea, so he slowly lays back in bed and breathes steadily through his nose.

“Fuck,” he curses before looking towards the door when he hears a new song start up beyond the room. A cha-cha slide kind of beat with a playful piano. Definitely Motown with the gravelly voice calling out about his baby and then Jensen thinks he knows this song. And not just in the way of having a deep music catalog, more like he knows this song from a tucked-away memory he should remember.

Want a love I can see
The kind of love you can give to me
The kind of kisses to make, make me melt
The kind of love that can really be felt

It’s a playful beat and he finds his fingers tapping along like they know the song better than he does. He’s further frustrated by the moment when the song fades into the next and there’s a tightness in his chest like he’s forgotten to breathe while the music distracted him.

He blinks away a light fog building along with a solid ache in the center of his forehead. That’s when the other items on the bedside cabinet come into view … his watch, the solid silver ring he’s worn on his right hand for longer than he can remember, and a small saucer with two pills. The saucer also holds a tiny yellow Post-It with block letters: TAKE 2 FOR PAIN. He’s grateful there’s just enough water left to take them. Even if he worries he’s in some Alice in Wonderland nightmare and the pills will do more harm than good. He figures he’s got no better options at the moment.






He sleeps like he’s dead, waking up with his body twisted at the waist and an arm trapped beneath his side. His bum leg remains mostly in place as the rest of him apparently required his typical beauty rest position of sleeping on his side, all tucked up in on himself. With one slight move, his neck pinches and he realizes he’s not even on the pillow. In fact, his head is leaning over the edge of the mattress and he’s staring at the burnt lines of wood grain.

Within seconds, the lines start to weave back and forth, slithering like snakes within the cherry wood. Jensen blinks away the sight, but those damned lines keep slinking along the floor. He’s partly mesmerized while mostly afraid of getting out of bed, even when he now feels the intense pressure of his bladder begging to be relieved.

Using the bedside stand for leverage, he manages to get out of bed and stand on his good leg. He favors his bad one, but it doesn’t matter because soon enough it gives way and he falls to the ground in a graceless slump. The noise echoes in the room and he grits his teeth against the pain. Not to mention the embarrassment and fear that Padalecki will to find him helplessly stuck on the floor with hundreds of snakes and eels swimming around him.

He scoots closer to the door, blood pumping fast to the anxiety of the floor continuing to move beneath him, and finally manages to yank the knob to the right and pull the door open.

“You need help,” Padalecki says, standing at the doorway with a sad crease to his face.

Jensen notices it’s not really a question so he doesn’t fight it. “Bathroom,” he responds plainly.

“Okay, up with you.” It seems to take no effort whatsoever for Padelecki to pull Jensen up to stand on his good leg, bearing most of the weight against his chest (which Jensen tries to ignore, because damn, it’s tight and sculpted) with his arms wound beneath Jensen’s shoulders.

And shit, Jensen also attempts to ignore the warmth surrounding him or the wide palms spreading over his collarbone as Jared helps him stumble to the bathroom.

Padalecki even stays in the room, keeping Jensen upright in front of the toilet, but at least dips his head down against Jensen’s neck. He inhales quickly then breathes down Jensen’s back, sending another wave of tingles through Jensen’s veins. “Sorry. I’m doing my best for privacy.”

Jensen does his best not to piss all over himself, because dear Lord that would probably be the only thing to make this whole situation even worse. “There’re no snakes in here,” he says before thinking through what that would really mean.

Padalecki leans around to look at Jensen. “Yeah, no snakes,” he says slowly.

“There’re snakes in my bedroom. But like, not really there. I saw them on the floor.”

Lifting his eyebrows, he watches Jensen before smiling with a sudden realization. “Probably the tramadol. Can cause some fuzzy visions and weirdo dreams.”

Sounds my entire life, Jensen thinks.

Once he’s done, Padalecki spins them back through the doorway and down the hallway. Jensen can’t ignore the humiliation of being a grown man in his thirties yet requiring help to take a piss and be put back to bed. Especially when he doesn’t even know Padalecki … even when Padalecki surely remembers him.

As Padalecki gets him tucked back in, Jensen watches the man’s profile, doing his best pinpoint long ago memories tied to the slope of his nose, those thin pink lips, or the sharp lines of his jaw and cheeks. Nothing rings a bell.

When he’s set in bed, Padalecki shifts to look at him and they’re mere inches away as Jensen remains seated against the log frame serving as a headboard. Jensen catches how Padalecki seems to search his face much the way Jensen had just done to him. Then their eyes meet and a shock runs from Jensen’s stomach down to his toes.

“What’s wrong?” Padalecki asks as Jensen flinches from the sharp current.

In lieu of answering, Jensen searches for his own needs. “What is your name?”

“What?”

“You helped me in the bathroom. I should know your name.”

“Jared.” He smiles a little. “But I figured you knew that.”

Jensen frowns. “I don’t remember.”

“No, I mean because … I’m, you know …” Jared pauses then shakes his head with an awkward laugh. “No, nevermind. I just thought that …”

There are so many open wedges to fill in Jensen’s puzzle that he wants to just keep asking every question possible. “You thought what?”

He wavers in responding, slipping back from the bed and keeping his head down, hair shielding his face. “Just, because, I’m, you know. Jared Padalecki.”

Jensen stares because Jared isn’t exactly being humble yet he’s not the boisterous, smooth, and confident virtuoso seen in the media and at his big product events. Not only is Jensen’s current state a complete puzzle, so is Jared Padalecki. And Jensen suddenly wants to dive into that mystery. “What am I doing here?”

“You’re resting up until you’re able to walk again,” Jared replies while gesturing at Jensen’s leg.

With a sideways, critical look, he asks, “Are you keeping me hostage?”

“I … no?” Jared huffs and shakes his head. “Am I supposed to be?”

Jensen regrets the question given Jared’s response, yet he still wonders what the hell is going on with being swept away to this place. “It feels like a very hostage-y position to be in. Someone claims they know you, you don’t know them, and all the while, they’re keeping you locked up in their cabin.”

“You’re not locked up. You opened the door yourself.”

“And you’re giving me drugs that are driving me nuts!”

“It’s just a side effect. It’s not done on purpose.”

Jensen, shut up, he tells himself, recognizing how ridiculous he sounds. Petty and judgmental, really. “Still, I’m stuck in this room with some kind of leechy thing on my leg and – ”

“It’s a fibrous fuse.”

“Okay, and what the hell is a fibrous fuse?”

“It’s a … well, it’s a thing …” With a haughty sigh, Jared flips his hands in the air as he fails to explain. “That is fusing the fibrous tissues of your muscles back together.”

He stares again, because that’s not really an answer. “A thing?”

Jared nods like Jensen should get it. Like he’s a child. Though, compared to Jared’s mental capacity, perhaps Jensen really is.

“A thing,” he repeats, lacking a better response.

“It’s very modern technology. Very hard to explain.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s very new.”

Jensen narrows his eyes despite his sudden want to laugh at how petulant Jared is becoming. “You say very a lot.”

Jared is still incredibly nervous, which makes Jensen run through a new bout of anxiety about the whole situation. “Look, I have a lot of companies that do a lot of different things. Tri-Labs is just one piece of the portfolio. Some of the other stuff, it’s under the radar. No one knows about it.”

“Is it illegal?”

“What?” Jared huffs again. He seems to do that a lot. “No.”

Jensen digs deeper into the possibilities. “Are you working for the government?”

“No!”

What could be worse, Jensen wonders. “Foreign governments?”

“Jesus. No. It’s medical research. But it’s all experimental, high-tech kind of research that stays on the down low.”

“Like some kind of evil genius.” That seems more on the nose.

“No, I’m not an evil genius. I’m a ver—” Jared stalls, giving Jensen a pert, pissy smile, then redirects his words. “I’m an exceptionally charitable man. I give millions each year to a number of charities … educational foundations, international welfare, and then run my medical research in the hopes of merging it all together.”

Jensen wonders how the popularity of Jared’s technological revolution fits into all of this. “But then Tri-Labs?”

Jared shrugs. “It pays for all the real stuff I want to do. Like back at ... ” He glances away and lowers his voice, disappointed for a bit. “At Air Foundation. We do a lot of great things.”

“That no one knows about?” Jensen fills in, still skeptical of Jared’s explanation.

“No. No one does. It’s big stuff,” and here Jared eases up on being so defensive and slides into something more comfortable and proud, “like really big stuff that could transform the health and technology industries.”

Jensen shakes his head, still utterly confused. “Then why doesn’t anyone know about it?”

Now he chuckles, back to amused and easy. “Some of it, it’s so far beyond what people can realize, what they would accept. And other parts, well, it’s just all too expensive to make a reality.”

“Like this fuse thing.”

“Exactly like the fuse thing.” Jared smiles a little.

Jensen feels as if he’s made some headway in this conversation and perhaps he’s bought himself a bit of good will. So in the small silence signaling the end of this particular line of questioning, Jensen reaches for his cell and motions with it. “Any chance your fancy technology includes a charger?”

Immediately, Jared’s face falls and his voice becomes tight. “That’s probably a bad idea.”

He watches intently to read whatever he can from Jared’s suspicious eyes. “Why is that?”

“If they’re still after us … if they’re tracking your phone …”

“Who’s they?”

“The ones shooting at us.”

“At you,” he reminds Jared. Maybe to also reinforce the idea that Jensen is in no trouble. Well, beyond whatever is happening in this cabin.

Jared crosses his arms at his chest and takes a few steps in different directions, like he’s idling in place, seeking a chance to run. “We don’t know that yet.”

“What the hell is going on? You say I’m not being held here, but you won’t let me even charge my phone? My family, friends, hell even work is probably all upset about my being gone for …” Jensen catches his breath and moves in irritation of his status. “How long have I been here?”

“A few days.”

“How many is a few?”

“Maybe five.”

Jensen’s heart stops before he’s overcome with rage. “That’s a lot more than a few!”

“You had to stay under while the fuse started up!” Jared defends immediately. “There’s no way you’d be able to handle the pain at the start.”

“And how long was I under for? And don’t say a few days.”

“Like two?”

Jensen side eyes Jared and bites the inside of his lip to control his anger. He’s not mad at Jared, so much as pissed off about the whole situation. He recognizes Jared has done more than enough to keep them both safe thus far. If he wasn’t helping Jensen, things would likely be much worse right now.

Jared sighs and his look is sad yet caring as he watches Jensen calm down. “I’m so sorry about the situation. I didn’t ask to be shot at any more than you asked to be hit. We’re both in a rough situation right now and I’m doing my best to keep us under the radar.”

With a small nod, Jensen tries to smile to assure Jared it’s not personal. “And I appreciate that. Just, you have to understand how this is from my side.”

“I know, I know,” Jared insists with a smile and nod. “And I’m trying to help you out as much as I can.” After a moment he takes a deep breath, gearing up for something important, it seems. “What about a J-pad for now? It’s not on the network, to avoid giving away our location, but it has games and a few movies?”

Jensen matches Jared’s smile, the corner tipping up with amusement. “That’d be better, yeah.”

Jared rushes from the room without another word and returns in record time with a tablet. He taps in his own password then hands it over with a flourish, like Vanna White presenting letters. Jensen thinks this model is a bit more attractive, a flash of warmth shocking him again.

“Thank you,” Jensen says then suddenly blurts, “For everything. For coming here and the bathroom and the tablet. Thank you.”

A wink is the only answer Jared offers before leaving the room with the door closing for Jensen’s privacy. Or maybe Jared’s as well.

Either way, Jensen’s glad to at least waste some time on Solitaire and Bejeweled in between his tramadol-induced hallucinations and naps. Now if only he could manage to piss without assistance, things would really be looking up.






Jensen is stuck in a dream that’s like an out of body experience; he's escaped his physical form and is witnessing the whole thing from the upper balcony. He's laid out in a hospital bed with a flurry of technicians moving around him yet his eyes are closed and his body completely still. He can't tell what they've done to him, what kind of procedures have been laid upon him, or what kind of pain he’ll feel when they're done. But he can tell that the medical team is excited for what the results will be.

Then Jared appears. He walks into the room with the same green garb that all the rest wear in the sterile environment. He moves closer to Jensen, hovering over his head. All the while, everyone around them keep bustling like they're on a schedule that Jared cares not to keep.

When he dips in closely to speak, Jensen, the one of the edge witnessing the scene, doesn't expect to hear a sound. Yet he receives every word clearly.

“This is amazing Jensen. You are incredible. Everything will be fine. You will be fine.”

Jared kisses Jensen's forehead, rubbing his thumb over Jensen's brow. He stares down at Jensen like some pure gem found in the wild. As if Jensen is some new found artifact for Jared to curate. From where he stands, Jensen witnesses the admiration and Jared's eyes, the care in his soft smile.

Jensen's unsure of what it means, but there's a small burst of warmth in his own belly as he continues to watch Jared stand guard over his unmoving body, fingers gently splayed over the temples, mouth coming down to sweetly kiss his head.






Surging forward, Jensen bursts from the dream to stare at the dark wood walls. His leg twinges, though far better off than it was yesterday, so he leans forward to inspect the band still tightly wound around his calf.

He has no clue what he’s looking for, though it seems to be the same as the first day he saw it. There are no seams on the wrap and he can’t get any leverage on the tight weave of the rubber to see beneath it.

Frustration overcomes him from so many angles. He still doesn’t understand why he’s stuck here at the cabin. What kind of threat they’re hiding from. And add on all of Jared’s oddness over technology and medical research, including Jensen’s leg. Not to mention the ridiculous notion that they knew each other somewhere back in time … something related to the Air Foundation. Whatever that is …

Now Jensen has to deal with the cumbersome feelings of warmth and charm from his dream. No matter how much he tries to twist his heart into disliking Jared for this whole mess, he has to appreciate all that has been done in Jensen’s favor. In any other scenario, the billionaire tech virtuoso would likely have locked Jensen up after tackling him at that event. Or left him behind as more shots came their way.

Instead, Jared brought Jensen with and scurried away to where they would both be safe, hidden away from all that Jensen knows. Still, this is a bit annoying,yet Jensen starts to think maybe this whole situation is for the best.

With his first attempt to stand today, Jensen finds himself steady on both feet, if not just a bit hesitant. There’s still the burn at the entry and exit wounds, now dulled over with time and healing, he assumes. So he tests a first step on his left leg and wobbles with enough pain to remind him he was shot. “Jesus Christ!” he shouts before he gets himself together and attempts a slower, softer step. Carrying a little extra weight on his right side, while barely balancing anything on the ball of his left foot, Jensen manages a more useful and less painful step forward.

Jared shoves the door open with worry streaked across his face, causing Jensen to take a few quick steps back. “Are you okay?” Jared asks as Jensen cries out in pain with the hurried movements then settles back down on the bed. “You shouldn’t be up walking by yourself!” he insists as he comes to help him sit more comfortably on the bed with his left knee bent carefully.

“I was testing a theory,” Jensen offers, hoping to temper Jared’s own frustration with him. After all, the last Jensen saw of that handsome face, it was caring so gently of Jensen in that dreamy surgical unit, soft flushed lips setting to beautifully on Jensen’s forehead.

Jensen shakes his head to get out of that moment, because it was all a dream. Nothing to transfer over to real life … right?

“And what was that?” Jared asks with a crooked, annoyed smile. “That you can manage to walk by yourself just days after getting shot?”

He bites the corner of his mouth. “I was hoping?”

“Without crutches or a cane?”

Glancing around the room, Jensen sees the same dresser, bed, field and farm décor, and night stand he’s been staring at for the last three days. “And do you have any of those things?”

“Of course I do. All you had to do was ask.” Seconds later, Jared is gone from the room and Jensen is left staring at the open doorway wondering why in the world Jared would have medical equipment in his family’s cabin. Yet, here Jared appears with a classy cane, all black with a blue bejeweled handle for Jensen to settle his hand over. “Once more with feeling, eh?”

Doing his best to ignore how closely Jared watches, Jensen pushes into the cane as he stands, feeling the jewel’s edges mark deeply in his skin. It helps, surely, but now he’s left staring at the diamond patterns in his palm.

Jared reaches out with his thumb running along the lines and inspecting Jensen’s hand. “I hadn’t thought about that. But we can get you something for it.”

“More fusion technology?” Jensen asks with a raised eyebrow.

The corner of Jared’s mouth picks up. “I was thinking a glove.”

“Smart ass,” he fires back without thinking. Then looks away when Jared winks at him, trying his best to ignore the quick flash of excitement in his chest.

“Are you hungry? I was about to make lunch.”

On cue, Jensen’s stomach gurgles with a deep ache of emptiness. “Is it already too late for breakfast?”

Jared steps alongside Jensen with his arm hanging in the air behind Jensen’s back. His head is down, watching Jensen’s steps, as he answers with great cheer, “It’s never too late for breakfast, so long as you wait for it.”

Jensen stops at the doorway and stares at Jared. “What in the world?”

“Oh,” Jared chuckles. “Just a thing my gramma used to say. Like, she’d make us breakfast whenever we wanted, as long as we were willing to wait for her to cook it all up. Pancakes, sausage, bacon, stuffed French toast, hash browns, biscuits, sometimes frittatas or omelets made to order. It was always her favorite to cook for the kids.”

Suddenly Jared looks away and licks his lips, as if clearing that whole conversation away. Jensen understands, can read the slight shade of embarrassment for letting a story get away from him. He thinks it’s actually kind of nice to hear something more from Jared than cryptic, elusive answers.

“Well, if there’s anything close to that on the menu, I can wait,” Jensen assures him. “So long as there’s coffee to start.”

“There’s always coffee, you can trust me on that one.”

Jared leads them into the hallway and soon to the long stairwell that lines one side of the lower level, which is wholly surprising to Jensen. He’d thought he was in the one room of a small, lonely cabin, but there is a whole other level to this place that’s fully equipped with stylish furniture – leather couches and arm chairs surrounding a heavy wooden coffee, then accented by glass side tables. The living area is lit by a fancy twelve-tier chandelier of wrought iron posts pointing LED bulbs in different directions. The kitchen is all stainless steel except for the grey marble island that stretches most of the room, and the dining room features sixteen wooden frame chairs with deep indigo fabrics on the back and seat.

Jensen stalls at the stairwell with one hand gripping the cane and the other the banister as he checks out the space again. He blinks a few times, just in case he’s still dreaming. He now sees a loft area to his right with a full wrap-around balcony above the lower level and more doors leads to more rooms, a half dozen he counts quickly.

“What’s wrong?” Jared asks with a hand around Jensen’s elbow. “Too much, too soon? Should we go back to the room?”

“I thought we were at a cabin?”

“Yeah, my family’s cabin.”

“This is not a cabin.” Jensen clears his throat. “This is some sort of mansion. You said your grandpa built this place?”

Jared covers his mouth then tucks hair behind his ear. “Well, I mean, I’ve done some upgrades since then.”

Now he laughs. “Some.”

“You wanna eat or just stand here for a while?”

Jensen turns to Jared with narrowed eyes, yet finds himself smirking at the humor instead of snipping back. “Yeah, I could definitely eat.”

Jared helps him down the stairs and to the dining area. He pulls out a chair on the long side, nearest to the open kitchen, and nudges the next chair open for Jensen’s leg to rest. Now Jensen is left to watch Jared cook them both breakfast It’s a relief that he can enjoy the scene with a fresh cup of coffee, rich and dark like all the high-end stuff is. A mellow mix of rhythm and blues music fills the air from a nearby speaker and Jared bobs along to the beat, which makes Jensen smile at the open, calm moment. It’s also a great sight of Jared’s back as he mans the stove for eggs and hash browns, muscles bunching beneath the thin grey t-shirt, shoulders wide and broad.

Jensen slowly sips at his coffee, the mug up close to his mouth, as he admires the smooth lines down to Jared’s hips along with the roundness of his ass in those yoga pants. For a long while now, he’s mocked the yogi lifestyle that Danneel adopted a few years ago, especially the pants that he likened to pajamas for public appearances. Now, he’s quite grateful for the thin material draping down Jared’s ass and legs.

Jared clears his throat and Jensen has to look up to realize he’s been caught checking Jared out. And also had missed the question.

He also clears his throat and pulls the coffee down to hold in his lap. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Bacon or sausage?”

“Sausage,” he answers immediately, then hides his face behind his mug again, his cheeks heating up at the thought of another meat.

Jensen busies himself with admiring the woodwork throughout the room as Jared finishes cooking. The table is constructed of slats of oak, edges sanded down yet uneven to express the hard work put in by hand. Maybe another thing Jared’s grandfather made. Old photos weathered by age are framed and on the wall displaying a growing family enjoying a large acreage of land.

He’s taken out of his visual tour of the dining room when Jared joins him, grabbing a chair next to where Jensen’s leg is elevated. “That’s the family,” Jared offers, nodding towards the wall of photos.

“Big family,” Jensen points out. A couple portraits show a few dozen folks and Jensen wonders what it’s like to grow up with lots of folks around. He has a brother and sister he sees at the holidays, and his parents lead a fairly solitary life in retirement.

Jared hums as he finishes chewing his recent forkful, wipes his mouth with a cloth napkin. “Yeah, my parents had a lot of siblings, who also had a lot of kids, which meant a lot of cousins. Once year, we’d all come down here for a family weekend.”

It’s refreshing to have an actual conversation, especially after being cooped up in that room for the last few days. Jensen appreciates this unguarded version of Jared up close, so he continues to ask questions while ignoring his food. “Is that why you had to expand the place?”

“Oh, no, I did that years later.” Jared pauses in thought, drawing inward at the memories of building on top of a family landmark. He glances at Jensen, sharing a smile, before opening back up again. “We’d bring tents and sleeping bags, and just spread out on the land beyond the forest. It’d be one hell of a camping trip, and then you could come back to the house to shower, eat real food, play games, whatever. A lot of great memories in this place.”

“It must be great to settle here now then? In between all the bustle of your life?” Jensen steals a mouthful of eggs and immediately moans at the fresh, bright flavor of real scrambled eggs. Seasoning dots the next bite, telling him that there’s more magic to the eggs than just a caring hand. “Oh my god, these are fantastic.”

Jared laughs. “There’s always something about eating food someone else cooked for you.”

Jensen scoops hash browns into his mouth and moans again when a mix of onions, peppers, and cheese join the potatoes to truly please his taste buds. “Oh, man, you could say that again.”

“There’s always something about eating food someone else cooked for you.”

They both laugh and Jensen can’t ignore the small sprinkling of affection for Jared’s lively smile and his rosy cheeks that tell Jensen the man’s just as delighted to joke with Jensen.

“But yeah,” Jared says, answering Jensen’s initial question, “It’s nice to escape somewhere quiet in the downtime. Not many can get a hold of me here.”

Jensen widens his eyes and waits to take another bite. “I’m surprised the whole place isn’t a giant communications hub with all the stuff you can do.”

“When I come here, I pretty much don’t want anyone to find me. No use in giving them a signal to track.”

Taking in the lower level again, something occurs to Jensen. “You don’t even have a TV in here.” A moment later, he fills in, “Because there’s no cable or internet.”

Jared nods while playing with the food on his plate, like he’s avoiding the conversation. He still admits, “When I come here, it’s just to escape. I can get a hold of anything in the world in a second. Doesn’t mean I always want that.”

“Huh.” Jensen goes in for the last bite of his eggs, only know realizing he’d gobbled them down so quickly. “Didn’t think someone like you would have layers.”

“Someone like me?” Jared repeats, more of a statement than a question.

Slowly, he faces Jared and thinks through the real intention behind his statement. “Just, someone who has the world at their fingertips … who can have anything in the world in one second,” Jensen reminds Jared of his own comment, “I just wouldn’t imagine they’d be real grounded.”

“I have a lot more going on than most people realize. More than they could understand.”

The way he stares directly into Jensen’s eyes makes Jensen think that most people is really just one person: Jensen. Which makes him ask, “Is that something to do with whatever happened between us in the past?”

“So we’re past the flirting and right into the serious stuff, huh?”

Jensen’s quieted by the sweet disappointment in Jared’s voice, tempered by the light flush on his cheeks for having referred to their conversation as flirting. Jensen finds himself focusing on his coffee rather than really address that because … yeah, surely flirting with someone as good looking at Jared, as kind and good-humored, is a luxury. But Jensen still has all those missing puzzle pieces to get into place.

Neither of them finish their food, now focused on the room Jared leads them to in the back hall of the cabin. He remains quiet the whole way, also when he places his palm on a small screen next to the door frame to open the door. Once a soft voice announces unlocked, he steps in. He waits for Jensen, who’s moving slowly with the cane, to join him in what looks like the very communications hub Jensen had joked about just minutes ago. One wall is full of four giant TV screens, another has a rack of smaller monitors and keyboards mounted just below them, while the other two sides of the room display a mix of haphazardly packed bookshelves and tables scattered with half-constructed electronics. The room is lit by a soft hue from the ceiling fixtures, while the room lacks any windows.

Jensen figures this is another place where Jared can escape without anyone finding him thanks to the hand print security, keeping any one out. This is where Jared can work on a number of his secret projects, tinker around with electronics, and keep his restless hands busy, he tells Jensen. Yet Jensen can’t really pay much attention when one screen lights up with a picture of them together, just like Jared said, back in the early twenties. Jensen thinks he’s probably 23 and Jared looks impossibly young, dressed in green scrubs just like his dream.

There’s something off about the picture, though, and Jensen steps up closer to the screen as he’s struck with how flat his eyes are, how he doesn’t seem to look at the camera even as he smiles. His hand comes up to the screen with fingers touching his own face. He flinches back when the image flickers and then zooms in. Jared comes closer and uses his fingers to adjust the frame on the photo, making Jensen realize it’s a smart TV with touch technology while Jared shifts the photo to the top corner then taps a few folders on screen to bring more items into view.

There’s too much to absorb at once, yet Jensen tries to look at every piece. X-rays and MRI scans in one corner, a medical report below it, a cross section of an eye from some medical publication next to close-ups of what Jensen is assuming is his own green eyes.

None of it makes any difference in Jensen’s empty memories and he’s left listening to Jared explain it himself.

“If we go all the way to the beginning …” Jared takes a deep breath and continues, “you always had really poor eyesight, wore extensive prescription eye wear. Through college, it degraded at a rapid rate.”

“I wore glasses, yeah,” he says absently. “But then I had Lasik.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Jensen looks at Jared, wide eyed with his heart pumping, and he has no clue what’s happening now. Instead of just puzzle pieces missing from his past, Jensen now imagines the whole slate being wiped clear. “I did. I went to a doctor in Riverside who did Lasik and then I was fine. I was 25.”

Jared swallows, Adam’s apple hard in his throat. “You were 25. That part is right. But your parents brought you in because you’d gone blind soon after college and the Air Foundation helped you regain your sight.”

He blinks with the inability to comprehend this new version of his life that doesn’t match anything he remembers from that time period.

With a few more taps on the screen, Jared brings up more images to overlap the old ones, and display another cross section of an eyeball with an oblong object placed between the eyeball and the optic nerve. He uses his pinky to reference different areas as he explains, “You’d always been nearsighted. Images were cast behind your retina. Over time, the vitreous body,” here he motions at the main fleshy part of the eye behind the lens, “had degenerated, essentially depleting the whole space and leaving it open within your eyeball. We had to reconstruct the body then inserted an optic splint to keep the shape of your eyeball intact.”

Jensen stares at Jared, complete gob smacked by the whole story. He considers it the tallest of tall tales, and yet all that Jared has explained sounds legitimate in a medical sense.

Jared is watching him back with his eyelids halfway down and mouth turned down in sadness. “I’m so sorry you had to find out this way. I know it’s crazy, but I have to say you were one of our most successful cases.”

“A case,” Jensen repeats hollowly. “Like just a file on the shelf. A silly experiment.”

Jared sets his hands on Jensen’s shoulders and draws closer. “It wasn’t an experiment. We definitely knew what we were doing, had done it a dozen times before. Yours was just most accelerated instances we’d seen. And within days, with a few small tweaks, you regained full eyesight. Now you have twenty-twenty vision.”

Jensen falls into a pit of despair as he grasps for any signs that this is absolutely not true. He thinks of his parents having kept something like this from him for over a decade, imagines people poking around inside his eyes with unknown medical technology, hates having nothing to hold onto to ground the mix of disbelief and wonder at the concept that he had once had lacked any ability see.

“Are you okay?” Jared squeezes his shoulders and dips in closer to search Jensen’s face.

Before he can speak, he feels that familiar haze sweep over him and he grips tightly at the jeweled head of the cane. His eyesight glazes over and Jared’s face is a fuzzy mess of lines and shades of brown and creamy skin.

Jensen has his first vision since being here. Through a fit of anxiety, he is grabbing Jared around the neck to kiss him, reaches far into Jared’s mouth to work through the flurry of emotions racking his brain, then the scene stutters to show them in bed, bare skin sliding together, Jared’s hands gripping tight to Jensen’s thighs as they rock against one another.

Jensen blinks and shakes his head out of the vision so he’s left staring at Jared, who is watching closely with worry.

“Jensen, you okay?” Jared repeats.

He breathes deeply and furrows his brow with apprehension for his question. “What are the side effects?”

“Side effects of what?”

There’s a war brewing between wanting to know everything and wanting to ignore anything. He begins to sweat as his skin heats up at both the images he’d just witnessed and at the possibility that his visions are somehow attached to this. They started in his mid-twenties. This strangely concocted procedure happened around the same time. “Side effects of the surgery. Of the splint and whatever else you did in there.”

“Besides sight?” Jared replies with a confused shake of his head.

Jensen turns to the screen again and examines the after graphic, of his eyeball compressed from the original image, with the split filling what previously had been empty space. “Why is it like that? Why is it all pushed forward?”

Jared points at the scan again to describe the differences between images. “When you’re nearsighted, an image is projected in the middle of the vitreous body, when it should be further back here along the retina. So we pushed the body forward to ensure the focal point was always meeting the retina. Like making sure you were seeing things before you used to.”

“You moved it forward,” he mumbles as a few things align in his brain. “I see things before I should.”

“Yeah, you do.” Jared wraps his hand around Jensen’s elbow, sending a tendril of comfort through Jensen’s body. “It’s the science behind the eye.”

Jensen steps forward to better study the image of his fixed eye. Jared’s hand slides away from Jensen’s arm, and strangely enough, he misses the warm touch. “Where did your magic technology come in?”

“In the vitreous body. The way it was rebuilt.”

“Which was?”

“Something akin to cauterizing. We shut off the areas that were disintegrating, had to stop them from continuing to fall apart.”

“And then?” Jensen prompts when Jared falls silent.

“What is this all about?” Jared asks with a huff.

For the first time in his life, Jensen is completely at ease to tell his story. Just like Jared, he starts at the beginning. “Somewhere around age 25, I discovered that I could see the future …”