"but a wolf to those he does not know"

[kellifer]

Title: but a wolf to those he does not know
Rating/Warning: PG (Language / Adult themes)
Wordcount: 5,700
Fandom: SPN
By: kellifer_fic
Category: Jared/Jensen - spn_j2_xmas fic
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Prompt: Werewolf J2

Jensen feels strange approaching someone’s home but he’d heard the capital ‘S’ when he’d been Summoned so he didn’t quibble with the location. He’s been to Jeff’s house before but not on official business and not for a long time. He is reminded of how long when Jeff’s wife Beth answers the door, Beth who’d been pregnant the last time Jensen had seen her and now had an actual person peeking out from behind her.

“That is not Amber,” Jensen says. “Last time I was here Amber was this big.” Jensen holds his index and thumb about an inch apart and he hears the small girl giggle before ducking more securely behind her mother’s jean-clad leg.

“Jensen!” Beth exclaims and she sounds warm and surprised, reaching forward to reel Jensen in for a hug. He allows the embrace but pulls back first, holding Beth at arm’s length to look at her face. She’s not looking concerned, just smiling with a little confusion and Jensen lets go a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Beth’s smile morphs into something a little more gentle when she notices Jensen’s tension. “Oh honey, you wouldn’t be coming to his house for that,” she says. “I would only worry if he called you out to an abandoned warehouse somewhere.”

“I don’t know,” Jensen says with a small shrug. “He sounded pretty pissed.”

“So he should,” Beth says and now Jensen can hear the mother in her. “He had to talk the Elders down from calling Judgement.”

“What’s down from Judgement?” Jensen asks slowly.

“Amends.”

Jensen pulls a face and Beth grabs him by the collar before he can escape, hauling him inside. She’s deceptively strong for her small frame and Jensen stumbles a little, partly pulled off his feet. “Is it too late to ask for Judgement?” he complains as Beth laughs, half-dragging him down the hallway of her small house, Amber skipping behind them.

They reach what looks like a blank wall at the end of the hall and Beth shoves Jensen in front of her. He closes his eyes because he hates Hidden Rooms. There’s an unpleasant tingle that skates over his skin and then he’s standing in a small space, crammed with books, mismatched furniture and a large desk that takes pride of place in the centre. Sitting at the desk is an older man with grey-streaked hair and a hardened face. He looks up at Jensen’s ungainly entrance and rolls his eyes.

“Anyone would think you were a Non the way you act sometimes,” Jeff says, putting a hand up and waving it in the vague direction of the only two chairs in the room that aren’t behind the desk. Jensen perches on the edge of the closest one and winces when one side of his ass immediately feels damp through his jeans. You never know who or what has been sitting in a chair before you, especially when you’re in the Night Manager’s personal office.

“That’s the point, right?” Jensen says, trying to recover. “Blend in?”

“There’s blending in and then there’s being an idiot,” Jeff grumbles and Jensen winces. He’s not sure what kind of Amends he’s due for but it’s definitely not pleasant if Jeff’s current mood is anything to go by.

“So, Amber’s gotten big,” Jensen comments, hoping to steer Jeff into a more pleasant topic of conversation and therefore by extension make him less murderous but Jensen can see immediately that he’s badly misjudged. Jeff’s expression, although Jensen could’ve sworn it wasn’t possible before seeing it happen, grows darker.

“She’s been tested,” he grits out and Jensen watches Jeff rub a hand over his face, suddenly looking more tired and less thunderous. “She’s a Non.”

“That’s...” Jensen flails an uncertain hand, not sure what the appropriate response is. It can go either way. “Damn near impossible given the two of... you,” Jensen finishes, gesturing at Jeff and then at the wall behind him where he’d been tossed through by Beth.

“I know,” Jeff says. “Apparently it’s a blessing,” he adds, the last word sounding more like a curse than anything. “I don’t see how considering as soon as my kid turns eight years old we lose her.”

“Surely there’s something you can do,” Jensen says and stills when Jeff snaps a firm gaze at him.

“She gets Placed,” he says slowly, tone allowing no argument. “That’s the Law.”

“Have you met the family?” Jensen asks.

“Beth has. She says they’re nice. I guess that’s something.”

“It’s not really,” Jensen says and feels like he’s said the right thing probably for the first time that day because Jeff offers him a sad smile.

“It’s really not,” he agrees but then he visibly straightens and his face goes neutral as he shuffles around on his desk and comes up with a folder. “Now, let’s deal with the fact that you are an unbelievable pain in my ass at the moment.”

“We could reschedule,” Jensen offers, not holding out much hope and Jeff snorts.

“The sooner I get you off my desk the better. I had the Elders wanting Judgement you know.”

“I know,” Jensen says, sheepish. “Beth told me.”

“So you know I pulled in some major favors to get that down to Amends.”

“You really shouldn’t have,” Jensen says morosely.

“Oh believe me, I know,” Jeff grumbles and flicks the folder at Jensen who catches it. “But guess what? None of us get what we want in this life so you get the shitty assignments until the Elders think you’ve been punished enough for what you managed.”

“What’s the deal?” Jensen asks, flipping open the folder. A photo that had been paperclipped to the front page inside slides out and Jensen stoops to retrieve it. It’s a shot of a guy, taken from a distance, obviously without his knowledge. He’s probably all of twenty years old, walking across what looks like either a park or a college campus, messenger bag slung across his shoulder. He’s looking at a phone in his hand, smiling to himself, hair falling over his eyes.

He looks like a good kid and Jensen gets a Very Bad Feeling.

“Unauthorised Bite,” Jeff says.

“This kid?” Jensen asks but Jeff shakes his head.

“Nah, that’s the victim.”

“I’m going after the biter?”

“You wish,” Jeff says. “You get to babysit.”

“You’re kidding,” Jensen says slowly, frowning. “He hasn’t been tested?’

“Got bitten on the last night of the moon. We won’t know if he’s infected until he changes the first time, you know it doesn’t show up in the blood till then.”

“I have to watch him for three weeks?” Jensen asks, incredulous and Jeff shakes his head.

“I said babysit,” Jeff repeats. “You gotta stash him somewhere safe till we know for sure.”

“I gotta kidnap some kid off the street? Do I tell him why?” Jensen asks. When he’d gotten up that morning, he hadn’t realised his day was going to go so spectacularly badly.

“Tell him whatever you want. If he tests Non then Kane is going to wipe him anyway,” Jeff says with an uninterested shrug.

“So he’s either going to disappear from his life for three weeks with no recollection of where he’s been or his life as he knows it is pretty much over,” Jensen says. “And I get to be the guy that does that to him.”

“You didn’t bite him,” Jeff points out gently. “I know it’s awful but it’s a lot better than the alternative.” Jeff stands and Jensen takes that as a not-so-subtle hint to follow suit. He lets himself be ushered towards the wall he entered by, holding the folder against his chest. “Kid’s either not going to remember you or you’re just the messenger.”

“That whole don’t shoot the messenger thing never works out,” Jensen says and with a sigh adds, “I never forgave my dad for being the one to tell me...”

“Do this, get square with the Elders and keep your nose clean,” Jeff instructs and gives Jensen a much gentler push out of the room than he’d received from Jeff’s wife on the way in.

*

Jensen doesn’t have to snatch the kid off the street as it turns out. Instead, he gets back to his apartment to find him already tied to a chair Jensen has never seen before that’s been bolted to the floor.

There goes his security deposit.

“Heard you were a little squeamish about kidnapping,” he hears a voice from behind and Jensen grimaces, hackles rising. He turns to find Chad, one of the few Others he interacts with on a fairly regular basis that he can’t stand.

Plus, vampire. He’s been insufferable ever since the Twilight craze started.

“Did you have to wreck my floor?” Jensen asks peevishly, going over to the guy and trying to subtly check for puncture wounds around the neck region. He’s got bandaging on his forearm but Jensen’s pretty sure that’s for the Were bite.

“I didn’t touch him,” Chad snaps when he sees what Jensen’s doing. “Other than tossing him in the back of a van of course. Should’a seen his face when I picked him up considering, y’know.” Chad passes a hand over his head and then one over the space beside him a fair bit higher to indicate the obvious disparity in their heights.

“Why is he unconscious then?” Jensen asks, raising an eyebrow.

“That was me, sorry.” Milo appears from behind Chad’s shoulder and talk about people Jensen can’t stand. Milo just flat out gives him the creeps and considering the company he’s forced to keep with his job, that’s saying something. He has one unique thing about him that Jensen also envies which Jensen has to admit is partly responsible for his dislike.

Milo can pass for normal all the time.

“What’d you do?” Jensen demands.

“Just told him to sleep. He was panicking, going to hurt himself. He’ll wake up naturally in about an hour, feeling well rested.” Milo snorts indelicately. “That is until he remembers being kidnapped.”

Jensen swallows and with some difficulty says, “Thanks, I owe you-” He’s about to say one but it’s a rookie mistake to make such a general comment, especially around someone like Milo. The widening of Chad’s eyes and the dawning glee on Milo’s face tip him off in time to amend, “-a drink for this.” He watches Milo’s face turn down in a disappointed frown and strangely, Chad look relieved.

Maybe Chad isn’t such an unbearable douchebag after all.

“Whatever,” Chad says. “Later masturbator.”

Jensen rolls his eyes. He shouldn’t be so quick to revise his opinion.

*

Jensen reads the file again while the kid is still out. Jared Padalecki, and what a mouthful that is. Apart from his name, approximate height, weight and any other facts that could have been gleaned from hacking medical files and school records, there’s precious little information. Jensen looks at the photo again, notices this time that Jared is wearing baggy clothes and slouching, probably used to trying to look smaller than he is. The way he fills out the chair, even slumped, Jensen can tell he’s gotta have a couple of inches on him at least and be fairly impressively broad.

He’s smiling in the photo and Jensen feels something hurt in his chest because it’s an easy smile, a carefree smile.

Jensen’s pretty sure he’s not going to see it for the entire short time they spend together which is a pity because goddamn, it’s also a nice smile.

*

Jared comes awake all at once, yelling and flailing. Jensen’s just lucky he’s living in an apartment entirely populated by Others. Screaming and yelling are pretty much a fact of life and everyone minds their own business.

Jensen waits patiently until Jared spots him and then there’s some pretty colorful yelling at him, Jensen just sits on the couch opposite the chair Jared’s lashed to until he realises he isn’t going to get anywhere swearing at his captor. When he finally asks what’s going on without expletives and at a much lower decibel level, Jensen decides to put him out of his misery.

“I’m going to show you something that you’re not going to like very much,” Jensen begins to explain, watching Jared’s face shift through a number of expressions, anger and fear being the most obvious. “It’s going to make what I tell you after it a lot more believable.”

“If it’s your dick, you can go screw yourself,” Jared snarls but his eyes widen when Jensen stands and starts stripping off.

“You’re not going to believe it now, but maybe in a little while you will believe how sorry I am about this,” Jensen says. He stops short of stripping off his boxers, knowing the kid’s been traumatised enough for one day and he’s willing to sacrifice a pair of shorts.

Jensen hates shifting, always has. Jensen is so tightly buttoned down in his normal life and it’s such a derailment of that that he does it as little as possible. He knows Weres that live most of their lives shifted and those that spend as much time as their cover lives allow shifted as well. Jensen’s only met a small handful, his mother among them, who felt like he did, wishing for a way to stop.

Jensen doesn’t look Jared in the eye when he shifts. He knows what he’s going to see and he’d rather go without it. His bones break and reknit, limbs elongate and turn on themselves.

Claws, fur, teeth.

Jensen stays shifted for maybe five seconds before he shifts back, making sure to turn his back and yank his jeans on as fast as possible when he’s done. He turns back around and Jared’s staring at him like he knew he would be, looking a little green which is also a common reaction. “You gonna throw up?” Jensen asks, gesturing at the bathroom.

Jared just blinks at him dumbly for a few seconds before he says, “No... I... no.” Jensen watches him swallow hard, open his mouth, close it again, open it, close. Finally he works himself up to saying something else and he manages, “What the hell?”

“You’re taking this pretty well, considering,” Jensen says, trying out a small, tight smile. Most people first time will scream, cry, sometimes throw up. Jensen hasn’t had to shift in front of other people before but he’s seen it done to the uninitiated and Jared’s the calmest reaction he’s ever seen.

“Thanks?” Jared says and it sounds like a question. “I guess I-” At that moment, Jared’s eyes roll back up in his head and he passes out.

Jensen nods to himself. Fainting also sometimes happens.

*

Jensen’s a little uncomfortable with how comfortable he thinks he could get with Jared in his house. Especially sleep-rumpled, half-dressed Jared who is standing at his kitchen island, rubbing his stomach and with an epic case of bed hair.

He’s reading the back of the Count Chocula box with a frown like it’s actually offending him. Jensen clears his throat and Jared looks up and smiles sheepishly. “Hey, sorry, did I wake you?” he asks. “I’ve been kind of restless.”

“No, it’s fine,” Jensen says even though he usually doesn’t see this side of midday. He tugs self-consciously at his own sleep shirt, suddenly aware that he’s got last night’s Chinese on it and a big rip in the hem. He keeps forgetting he has a guest.

After the initial fainting, Jared had gone back to taking things extremely well. “It explains a lot and I actually don’t feel so crazy,” Jared had said. He’d been assured that the bite he’d suffered had been some kind of wild dog but, “It hadn’t looked like any kind of dog, man,” Jared had added with a shake of his head and another chuckle that had started sounding a little hysterical.

Jensen had untied Jared and shown him the spare room.

That had been three days ago.

“Hey Lord Prissy Pants, why are you dodging my - hel-lo,” a woman’s voice calls and Jensen groans as he turns around and finds Ramona of all people standing in his kitchen doorway. “Where have you been hiding him?”

“What did I say about polite people knocking?” Jensen grits between his teeth and Ramona just flashes her teeth at him and tries to dodge around him. Jensen sidesteps with her so that he stays between Jared and Ramona.

“Knockings for boring people,” Ramona complains, going up on her toes so she can look over Jensen’s shoulder. “I repeat, where have you been hiding tall, shaggy and cute-a-licious?”

“Hi,” Jared pipes up, looking uncertain and crossing his arms over his bare chest a little self consciously. “I’m Jared.”

“You’re Jared?” Ramona asks and then leans back so she can raise an eyebrow at Jensen. “That’s Jared?”

“Can you stop saying my name like that?” Jared asks, now starting to sound more than a little uncertain.

“How do you know about Jared?” Jensen asks, hooking a hand under Ramona’s chin and bringing her interested gaze back to him.

“I hear things,” Ramona says airily. “Walls have ears.”

“Especially when you can walk right through them, right?” Jensen huffs and Ramona shrugs.

“You can do that?” Jared asks, concern dropping away in the path of his natural curiosity which Jensen has been discovering is large and all encompassing.

“I’m a Shade, it’s my thing,” Ramona says and then looks between the two of them, smirking. “Wow, I didn’t know the Elders were this vindictive.”

“Yeah, that’s quite enough,” Jensen says, turning Ramona about by her shoulders and frogmarching her into the living room. “You should probably get dressed,” he throws over his shoulder at Jared. “I think Ramona’s had enough of a free peep show today.”

“Spoil sport,” Ramona complains, but goes willingly, which is the only way she ever goes. If she didn’t want to be moved Jensen knows he would be pushing on nothing but air at the moment. She spins on him as soon as they’re out of Jared’s earshot and smacks Jensen on the arm. “That’s Jared?”

“Stop saying his name like that,” Jensen says with a roll of his eyes. “I know it probably looks-”

“Like the Elders are a bunch of bitches,” Ramona says, putting a hand to her mouth and chewing her nail which is always a dead giveway for when she really wants to out and out grin but knows she shouldn’t. “I mean, they could’ve done this by accident but they couldn’t have picked anyone more your type if they tried and you haven’t exactly-”

“I’m not going to do anything, Jesus,” Jensen says, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Maybe not intentionally but if that boy so much as works up a light sweat you’re going to be humping his leg.”

“Always so charming,” Jensen snorts.

“He looks like someone who sweats, alot.” Ramona hikes her arms up and makes like a body builder, a small, twig-like bodybuilder. “All man-ly.”

“I’m on Amends, alright?” Jensen snaps and Ramona blinks at him.

“Wow, I thought you were going to get Judgement for sure after what you did,” Ramona says.

“Me too,” Jensen agrees and they both flop down on his couch, Ramona tossing her legs up into Jensen’s lap. “I just gotta keep Jared out of the way until we know for sure, one way or the other,” he explains and Ramona nods but then screws up her face.

“You might want to keep him way off the radar,” Ramona says. “I heard Zeke and his boys are trying to set up another fighting ring and they’re... recruiting.”

“You’re kidding,” Jensen says, feeling disgust well in him. Fighting rings crop up every now and again in Other society, usually with Weres. Most of the time the Weres are feral, tortured for long enough that they stay shifted out of self preservation and forget how to be human.

It’s one of Jensen’s fears, another reason he hates to shift himself.

He always worries he’ll forget who he is.

“Jared’s young enough and wow, can you imagine what kind of a bruiser he’d be when he shifted?” Ramona muses and Jensen can, is the problem. He can see how Jared would be a target for an illegal bite if this was the motivation. “I guess the good news is that most of Zeke’s boys are turned, not Naturals. He has a better chance of not being infected.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Jensen agrees.

*

Jensen’s loathe to leave Jared alone, but between the two of them, they clean the house out of food in short order. Jensen can’t even order takeout because it’s a bit of a risk getting it delivered to his building.

Delivery boys often disappear.

Jensen knows Jared understands the seriousness of their situation, but he’s still a little surprised and mostly relieved to find Jared still in his apartment when he returns, loaded down with bags.

He’s less impressed to find Jared sitting on the floor of the living room with Chad, playing Mario Kart. “Wassup?” Chad calls, mouth full of sour gummy worms. Chad can eat normal food for appearances sake, but he doesn’t need to and he certainly doesn’t need to be a pig.

“What are you doing here?” Jensen snaps because even though he doesn’t think Chad’s a particularly evil guy, he’s certainly opportunistic and might be someone willing to sell Jared out to anyone looking for him for a little compensation. He’d half been thinking about moving Jared somewhere other than his apartment purely because Chad and Milo knew where he was and who he was.

“But honey,” Chad says, hitting pause on their game and holding the controller against his chest. “I never get to see our little girl since the separation.”

“Man, shut up,” Jared laughs, elbowing Chad in the side and Jensen winces because Jared’s been completely pleasant, even smiled a few times but he hasn’t actually laughed before and Jensen likes it, likes the way Jared just throws his head back and lets go.

“Seriously Chad, give me a reason not to throw you out on your skinny ass.” Jensen feels his skin prickle and tries to get a hold of his breathing. He feels... he feels territorial and that’s not good. It’s the start of something definitely not good.

Jared’s looking between them and the humor has dropped off his face. Jensen sees the moment it dawns on Jared that he might have made a bad decision. “Sorry, I didn’t... he said he was a friend of yours and I didn’t-”

“You didn’t think!” Jensen snarls, turning on Jared. “Goddamit, it could’ve been anyone. There might be people looking for you, people that will hurt you. Can that filter through your thick skull? I set up protections in this place and you just let someone in?”

Chad stands and even though he’s slight, he’s not a pushover by any stretch of the imagination. He puts himself deliberately between Jensen and Jared and waves a hand in front of Jensen’s face. “Hey man, calm the fuck down alright?” he says. “It’s just me, I didn’t hurt him. You’re starting to look a little... unsettled and I’m guessing that’s not a good, healthy look for any of us if you do.”

Jensen takes a long breath, then another one and instead of Jared’s scent, which he realises had gotten into his nose and he hadn’t even fucking noticed, he gets saturated with Chad instead which makes him snap out of it. There’s an underlying wrong to Chad, a not human that means Jensen is able to get a hold of himself.

“Sorry, I...” Jensen apologizes and Jared stands up, smiling tentatively.

“No, I’m sorry. We didn’t have the stranger danger talk before you left. I should have asked for a secret password or something.”

Jensen just looks at Jared for a moment before he finally breaks and laughs himself. Chad shrugs and sits back down to his game, shaking his head. “Is this a gay thing?” he asks. “Because if it is I’m out.”

“No one asked you to be in,” Jensen points out, raising a foot to kick at Chad’s legs but Chad scoots out of the way, fast and narrows his eyes.

“Why are you here?” Jensen asks again, much more calmly this time.

“Ramona asked me to duck in. She’s worried because she heard Zeke’s looking for someone that matches your teacup poodle’s description.”

“Christ,” Jensen groans, rubbing at his eye with the heel of his hand.

“Wait, seriously? People are looking for me?”

“Not exactly people,” Chad says, mouth full again of gummy worms.

“We think you were bitten on purpose,” Jensen explains and Jared just looks at him, blank faced. “Every now and again illegal fighting rings are started up. They’re underground, big money, don’t last very long. They use... ferals to fight.”

“Ferals?”

“New Weres,” Jensen says.

He glances at Chad but Chad’s pointedly ignoring them. Even still, Jensen doesn’t really want to have this conversation with Mario Kart as the soundtrack. He reaches across and grabs Jared’s wrist, tugs him down the hallway and into his room. He closes the door as soon as Jared’s through and on the other side and leans against it. Jared looks around, curious again but Jensen can see him fight the urge to poke about, comment on the stuffed elephant that’s sitting on a bookcase and the ancient typewriter that’s on the desk.

“Sometimes new Weres can’t handle the change,” Jensen says when Jared finally settles on a corner of Jensen’s bed and looks at him expectantly. “It’s a pretty damn scary and awful experience your first time and if you don’t have any kind of support then you can think you’re going crazy, some do go crazy.”

“It sounds like you’re describing something you haven’t experienced personally,” Jared says slowly and Jensen nods.

“I’m what’s known as a Natural,” he says. “I was born this way. My mom and dad were both Weres, their parents before them. I don’t know how far either line goes back but it’s pretty far on both sides. It was different for me because I’ve always been this way, my body was built for this. For a human it’s a whole other thing.”

“You’re starting to scare me,” Jared says with a nervous little chuckle. “Looking at you, I thought all this might not be so bad whichever way it turned out.”

“I’m not really a... great example,” Jensen says. “I never really embraced this part of myself, I don’t really like it. I make it more difficult for myself than I should. The more you fight the change, especially a Natural, the more you’re likely to...”

“Wolf out without meaning to?” Jared asks and Jensen grins at him.

“Yeah, pretty much exactly.”

“Anyway, you get in with the wrong people and they’ll torture you, make sure you end up a Feral. You’ll shift to stop the pain and you’ll stay shifted so long you won’t remember any other way to be. They want animals in the fighting rings, not people.”

“Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen then, deal?” Jared proposes, rubbing his hands briskly on his legs and standing, holding out a hand and looking braver than he obviously feels.

Jensen smiles anyway because he knows that’s what Jared needs. “Deal,” he says and grips Jared’s hand in his own.

*

When Jared’s crashed later, Jensen finds Chad still in the living room but watching Naked News. Jensen rolls his eyes but still nudges Chad where he’s reclined on the floor with a foot.

“Hey, thanks for coming over to watch him. You didn’t have to.”

“I did actually,” Chad says. “That Ramona is one scary-ass chick.”

“You didn’t have to,” Jensen repeats, “but I’m glad you did.”

Chad shrugs, his shoulders scraping on the carpet. “Whatever.”

*

Three weeks passes both too quickly and also infinitely slow. Jensen is forced to retreat from the apartment more than once, especially when Jared starts going for runs in the morning and comes back sweaty and glorious. Chad is always standing outside in the hallway whenever Jensen has to make himself scarce, usually eating something and he only ever raises an eyebrow when ushered inside.

At the end of the three weeks, on the first moon night, Ramona, Chad, Jensen and Chad all lug sleeping bags up onto the apartment’s roof and watch the stars. They do that for four nights, because not all Weres are cliche enough to have their first change on the first night of the full moon.

Jared remains Jared and Jensen’s torn between being relieved and being disappointed.

“You could run for it,” Ramona suggests, standing in Jensen’s kitchen. Jeff had called and said he was sending Kane over since Jared had proved to be one of the lucky ones.

“They could try again,” Jensen had argued. “Maybe he should stay here for a while.”

“I’ve already assigned someone else to watch him, more inconspicuously,” Jeff says and there’s gentle understanding in his tone. “Should I have given you the don’t get attached to the pet you’re going to have to give back talk?”

“No,” Jensen had snapped mulishly and now they’re waiting for Kane, who would make Jared forget everything that had happened, everyone. He would be found by his friends and family, a coma patient who no one had been able to identify until he had woken up.

All neat and tidy.

“This sucks,” Ramona says.

“What did you do anyway?” Jared asks from the doorway and Ramona grins and steps backwards, disappearing through the kitchen wall. Jared doesn’t even look because he’d gotten used to it after making Ramona repeat the trick over and over two weeks in. “To get lumped with me.”

“How did you know I did something?” Jensen asks and then snorts and holds up a hand. “Never mind, I assume Chad.”

“You assume correct,” Jared says, comes over to stand by Jensen’s side and jostles elbows with him. “So, what did you do?”

“Saved a little kid,” Jensen says, feeling a blush heat his cheeks. “Got hit by a truck doing it and there was a lot of... cleanup.”

“What’s that mean?” Jared asks.

“Staying under the radar is one of our Laws,” Jensen says. “When you get hit by a truck in the middle of a busy intersection in the middle of the day and get up and brush yourself off, it’s not good. Especially in this day and age where everyone has a camera in their phone.”

“There was footage?” Jared asks, eyes wide and amazed.

“Made it onto the evening news after it made it onto YouTube,” Jensen says and when Jared blinks at him he says, “You never saw it, right?”

“No,” Jared says but his forehead is scrunched up, mouth turned down in a frown. “But now that you say it I...I think...”

“You probably did,” Jensen says. “They had to pull out the big guns, change reality for that one. Only a few select people remember it and they burned a lot of magic doing it. I thought I was going to up for Judgement.”

“What does that mean?” Jared asks.

Jensen looks at Jared, grimaces and runs a finger across his throat. Jared shivers. “Why’d they go with this?”

“Probably to teach me a very valuable lesson and punish me at the same time,” Jensen says. “Dangle something I want in front of me and then take it away.”

“Something you want?” Jared asks, turning so he’s facing Jensen and has a hip against the kitchen counter. His smile is slow and lazy but also heated and Jensen swallows.

“You’re about thirty minutes away from not remembering who I am,” Jensen points out.

“We have thirty minutes,” Jared points out right back and Jensen lets himself be dragged to his room, Jared grinning in a way that Jensen wishes he had time to get used to.

*

Jensen is sitting on his couch when Kane drops down beside him. Jensen doesn’t remember leaving his bedroom. The last thing he remembers is Jared underneath him, marked and panting and fisting the sheets.

“You’re early,” Jensen says and Kane smiles, but it’s a gentle one.

“Thought you might’ve tried to run for it, son,” he says and Jensen slumps further in the couch.

“I was being noble,” Jensen says. “Jared doesn’t need to be on the Elders' shit list.”

“I thought you might’ve been being selfish, not letting Jared choose what he wants, choosing for him because you think you know what’s best.”

“This is sounding strangely like a pep talk,” Jensen says, risking a glance at Kane. You have to be careful looking at the guy because he can change your world and you won’t ever know different.

“Is it now?” Kane says. “Look, it’s more than my life’s worth to not do what I was instructed, but I might’ve left a loop hole.”

Jensen turns fully to look at Kane then, everything be damned. “What?”

“He doesn’t remember the last few weeks, anything that happened to him. If and when he bumps into a certain green-eyed stranger maybe in about a year when the Elders have better things to think about and enough time has passed for them not to be royally pissed anymore, at school though, the guy’s going to seem so familiar that the boy’s going to just want to get to know him better.”

“You’re joking,” Jensen says slowly.

“I don’t joke,” Kane says. “Wasn’t my idea either.”

“Jeff?”

“I didn’t say that,” Kane says, but he’s smirking.

Ramona and Chad tumble into the room, Ramona landing a punch on Kane’s arm as she drops into his lap. “You’re a bastard!” she grumbles.

“You tried to tackle me on the way in,” Kane points out. “It was very sweet but a little misguided.”

“I wanted to say goodbye to Jared,” she pouts and Kane flicks a glance in Jensen’s direction.

“You might see him again, some day,” Kane says and Ramona goggles at them both.

Jensen just smiles.