Black Cat Mercantile by deadlybride

Category: Supernatural RPF

Genre: Alternate Universe, Class Differences, M/M, Psychic Abilities, Slight D/s Elements, Urban Fantasy

Language: English

Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki

Status: Completed

Published: 2019-06-26

Updated: 2019-06-26

Packaged: 2021-05-02 22:41:27

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Chapters: 1

Words: 45,946

Publisher: archiveofourown.org

Summary:

Searching for materials for a new sculpture he's planning, Jared gets sent to a magical salvage shop in a bad part of town. The proprietor's got a great artistic eye, a criminal conviction, and an attitude that could earn him a punch to the face. Jared finds himself coming back, anyway.

Black Cat Mercantile

Author's Note:

Written for the 2019 SPN/J2 Big Bang. Many thanks to my lovely artist and to my beta buds, who let me hem and haw at them at length before the thing was done.

Please take a visit to the SPN/J2 Big Bang comm here, and check out the masterpost of art here.

The shop's a ways off the main road. Jared parks on Fortview as soon as he finds a spot that isn't taken up by convolution-spaces and walks past an antiques store, the brunch place Morgan's always telling him to try, the tattooist's with the huge wrights' W in the window, his hands in his pockets. Warm day, until the chilly wind starts blowing. This trip wasn't his first choice, or his second or third for that matter, and he doesn't have a lot of hope but Carlos says sometimes he'll find something truly unusual here and so Jared's trying. He needs thrice-worked material and it's been impossible to find, anywhere else. No one has any appreciation for old things, anymore.

A shortcut through an alley and onto the next street of narrow houses, and then the next. Jared walks past a couple holding hands and a quick thrum of his second eyes over them confirms that they're nulls, if the way they drop their heads as he approaches wasn't enough. He smiles, anyway. They edge out of his path and he murmurs thanks, since it never hurts to be nice. This far from the main road, mages probably don't make many appearances—yet another weirdness for this supposed shop, even if he's got Carlos's recommendation under his belt.

Once he's finally there, it's not exactly impressive. A narrow house on a street of narrow houses, in a null neighborhood looking sad and drab and grey. There is at least parking available on the empty street—if he'd known that he could've avoided the increasingly depressing alley.

Sign's a little ratty and that's got to be on purpose, since any wright could smarten it up with a moment's work. The tree sulking up out of the crumbling ring in the sidewalk looks like it's been pissed on by every dog in this neighborhood for the last twenty years, and that's something Jared can do something about, at least in his small way, but his mama drilled into his head to ask before stumbling into doing. He pats the tree in sympathy and holds off, and pulls open the ardglass door, putting a finger to the surface for a second to feel the quality. It hums under his skin, not so much that it hurts. Very good work, and finally a sign that, maybe, this isn't a prank.

The store hasn't been magnified in any way—but the townhouse it's sitting in is deep and so the store is too, aisles formed by tall old bookshelves. Real wood, too, Jared thinks, not wright-made or manufactured. Interesting. No bell, but a voice calls out from somewhere in the back for him to "Look around, I'm back here if you need something."

Gruff and male, and reflexively Jared sends out a tendril of sight but of course he's shielded. Hard to find someone who isn't. "Actually," Jared says, into the lamplit depths, "I'm looking for something special. You have much in the way of arded copper, gold, that kind of thing?"

No answer, not right away, and Jared starts to make his way toward the back. God, there is interesting shit on these shelves. Jared peers down into a strange vase labeled BEST NOT TO TOUCH, and he does run his finger along a row of elderly leather spines, volumes two through fourteen of an encyclopedia of famous ardwork by old masters, and he comes around the shelf to find an endcap of surprisingly modern honey salves by, oh! "Hey, I know her!" he says. "You're carrying Molly's stuff, that's awesome."

"Yeah, awesome," the guy says, and Jared turns to find—ah, wow.

"Wow," Jared says, out loud, and the guy frowns at him and even that is attractive. He's on the stool behind the broad counter, a laptop open in front of him, and his eyes are just— "You wanted arded metal?" the guy says, and Jared closes his mouth and tries not to actually drool on the very, very pretty stranger.

"I'm a sculptor," Jared says, after a second. He remembers to smile and hopes he doesn't look like a total dork. Eyes, lips, curve of his jaw as he turns back to the computer to look at something, and who cares as long as it gives Jared another minute of—oh, god, staring. He clears his throat. "Yeah, um, just trying to put together something interesting for my new project."

The guy frowns down at his laptop, not looking up. "Fascinating," he says, in a tone that says it's anything but, and Jared blinks and comes out of his haze enough to realize, oh, this vision is—an asshole. Huh. "Look in aisle four to see if there's anything you want. I put a lot of the metalwork there."

Dismissed, just like that. Jared blinks and takes a step back, bumps into the display of Molly's lotions with a rattle, and the guy sighs like he's just incredibly put-upon and starts typing something. Wow, okay.

Aisle four actually has so much that Jared wants he could drool for other reasons. There's ardwork here, definitely, and some of it worked over twice so the base metal has morphed and bled into new material—gold blackened and fractured like glass, iron with violet swirling through it like smoke. On the floor next to the bottom shelf there's a big shape covered with a dropcloth, and when Jared tugs it off—oh, hell yes. The top half of a broken automaton, old-fashioned and gorgeous. He runs his fingers over it, then crouches and leans his forehead against the cool glass face and feels the enchantment nearly wound-down inside it, an old heart that's forgotten how to beat. A bit of intelligence imbued, a long time ago by someone with a colder touch than Jared likes to think he has, and it's warped the copper to a blistered black-green over time. Thrice-worked, for sure, and beautiful, if Jared can afford it.

There's other stuff here too, though, iron goblets and silver filigreed firelighters and old-fashioned junk of all sorts, oh man. Sort of thing that itches at Jared's fingers to work it into something new. The automaton pulls at Jared, though, its simple holed-out eyes and the solemn slit of mouth, its empty hands outstretched. An idea starts to form in the back of his mind. A man, green-gold, in a room full of light. He picks up one of the firelighters and turns it over and over in his hands. The time worked into the metal is long burnt-out, but the metal itself still carries that trace of ardwork and he can turn it to his own purposes.

Beautiful-and-grumpy's still typing when Jared comes back around the corner. "What are you asking, for the automaton?" he says. Might as well get straight to the point, and something that good will never go for cash.

The guy shrugs and taps something on the keyboard before he looks up. "Depends on what you offer."

"Uh, a hearty thanks?" Jared says, and he's surprised to see the corners of that pretty mouth twitch up. Not humorless, then. Jared smiles back, reflexive, and shrugs. "I guess you're not looking for material."

"I've got more than enough junk," he says, leaning back on his chair. He's not slender but he's not bulky, either, just wearing a baseball shirt and jeans. Jared still would really, really like to get his hands on him. "Been burned enough on people trying to pass off void-made crap as artisanal, anyway, so I'll pass."

Jared blinks at the slur, turned over again. Only his racist uncle Ted ever refers to nulls as voids anymore. "Wow," he says, under his breath, and the guy's eyes narrow, considering him. He wants the automaton, badly, but handling this prick might be more than he wants to deal with.

He's silent long enough that the prick in question folds his arms over his chest. "What's your knack?" he says, finally. "Maybe we can work out a trade."

"Haruspex," Jared says, short. He ignores the immediate frown and puts the firelighter on the counter, and shoves his hands into his pockets. "Since you obviously don't want that, I'm a clockwise, so I can work with vitality, too."

"If I ever get a boo-boo I'm sure that'd come in handy," the guy says, but he's looking at Jared with a new interest despite the frown. He's even less open than most people and so Jared can't sense a thing from him—probably the leather and silver necklaces around his creamy throat distributing the null-like impassivity. "Vitality, hm? That why you're a giant?"

Jared huffs. "That's all home-grown, sorry. Why, you want an upgrade?"

Ruder than Jared meant it to be—the guy blinks, and then his lips curve up in an actual smile. "I'm all good, trust me," he says, with a drag of his so-pretty eyes straight down Jared's body, and it's really unfair that he's that affecting when he's so damn unfriendly, because Jared's cheeks prickle with heat even as he rolls his eyes.

"You're not as hot as you think you are," he says, and the guy actually laughs, like he's glad Jared's poking back, and this is not at all how Jared wanted to spend his afternoon but—well, the problem of course is that this jerk has to know exactly how hot he is, and he has something Jared wants very badly now indeed, and Jared has never, ever been the type to not get what he wants, eventually, one way or another. He sighs and looks away, at the display full of clocks that won't be nearly so gorgeously disappointing as this clerk. That's when he sees the official sign on the wall next to the counter, affixed with what looks like cheap government ardwork. WARNING, it says, and below, Intercessory Violation, Second Degree. Deals may not to be made without permission from Intercessory Office.

There's more below, small print about fines to be assessed, consequences for contravening the order, and Jared's flushed cheeks are for a different reason, now. When he turns his head, the guy's watching him, not smiling anymore. He's not pissed-looking, or embarrassed, but he's uncrossed his arms and has laid his hands flat on the counter like he's braced for something. Posted violation, that's—that's more than just tricking some idiot. Harm was done.

The guy's still watching him, isn't speaking. Jared steps closer and sees the signature lines—some official from the office, and then the name of the violator. "Jensen Ackles?" he reads, eyes on the loopy writing. Classy signature. "That's you?"

"You really are a haruspex," he says, but it's not nearly as sharp as it could be. Jared runs his hand through his hair. No wonder, then, this shop on a shitty side-street, in a neighborhood where no one else would live among the nulls. Whatever he did wasn't enough that he'd be executed, though it was enough for a semi-public shaming. No wonder this place doesn't have any advertising.

"I'd take up farming," Jared says, honestly, and Ackles—Jensen—huffs, and lifts his chin. No, not embarrassed, but there's something resigned around his eyes. Intercessors live their lives making deals, extracting trust, a give-and-take with the patterns the world operates under. Jared's only known a few well, and none of them were ever cruel with it but it was just—part of who they were. Jared tries to imagine having to be careful, all the time. Bad enough that most people hide from his knack, not wanting their private thoughts rummaged through—he gets that, that's understandable, but at least he can still feel the world, all around him. Never able to be the full breadth of who he is without fear that whoever he was talking to would run off to the knackers and report him, and knowing that a second violation would be prison, or worse. What a misery. Like having his right arm strapped down, desperate to be used and cramping with it.

"My name's Jared," he says, a decision unfolded in the back of his head without his say-so. He takes a deep breath, but—well, his mama taught him to be kind, too, damn her. "I'd like to have that old automaton, if I can earn it somehow. What do you think?"

Jensen looks at him, and stays sitting on the stool, and his expression doesn't much change. "I'm not sure you've got anything I need," he says. His eyes go all over Jared's face, like he's trying to work something out. He takes a breath, and bites his lips between his teeth for a few seconds. "You let me know if that changes, though."

A chink, a window. That's all Jared's ever needed. "Sounds good, Jensen," he says, leaning way too hard into friendly, and Jensen rolls his eyes, a little less tense. "I'll take this, though, if I can," and Jensen touches the dead lamplighter and names a too-high price, though at least it's in cash this time. Jared hands over his card and Jensen takes it and doesn't touch him, and Jared looks at the slightly crooked slope of his nose where maybe once it was broken and wasn't fixed and wants to reach over the counter and touch that skin. To know it.

"Here," Jensen says, handing the card back, and Jared picks up the lamplighter and holds it absently under his arm. No thanks, or a have a nice day. So much for Texas manners. He frowns at Jared, like he's still thinking something over.

"Is there actually a cat?" Jared says.

Jensen huffs. "Yeah, somewhere. She's a pain in the ass."

"Fits in, then," Jared says, and grins at Jensen when his eyebrows go high. "I'll be back for that automaton."

"Sure you will," Jensen says, turning to his laptop in effective dismissal, and Jared finds himself still grinning when he's out on the cracked sidewalk. He flips the lamplighter in the air and catches it, and then, screw it, he wraps an arm around the tree and looks into its woody heart and coaxes it, whispers a tiny jolt of extra life into it and when he turns up his face the leaves are already greener. He hopes it pisses Jensen off, just a little, and he kisses the bark of the tree and heads back for his car. Carlos's going to get so much shit for the kind of shop he recommends, but Jared finds himself not actually minding, that much.

*

The maker-space Jared works in isn't very convenient to his house. Last commission he worked was for a convolutor from the state government, old and prone to far-seeing in the middle of a conversation. It was a beautiful piece, salvaged ardglass and iron as a cascade of birds, and Jared had imbued it with his own ardwork to radiate a sense of calm. As payment the convolutor offered to co-locate a studio of Jared's own into his house, but convenient as it would be, solitary work has never been his thing. He took a folded door that would open into his parents' garage instead, and kept the half-hour drive over the bridge roofing a null neighborhood and through an ugly industrial park to the warehouse by the river where he and Carlos and Robert and Ambika jostle for space.

Raining, autumn creeping over the city despite summer's best efforts, and the water drums companionably on the metal roof high above while Jared slices apart the rescued firelighter with his diamond-bladed saw. Ambika and Carlos have mostly stopped making fun, or offering to help—the whole point of Jared's pieces is that they're handmade from salvaged work, not a wright's quick alteration. Robert gets it, at least. He's over on the far side of the warehouse under the windows, coaxing his new-made dogwood vine to grow in and out of an iron headboard. The flowers keep dying, but Robert's patient and breathes them back to life every time.

The filigree on the firelighter is beautiful, though Jared's disappointed to see that the main chunk of the thing was clearly factory-made, one of those places where wrights guide nulls into churning out hundreds of copies a day. Strange piece, now that he's broken it open. The enchantments must have been applied after the fact—he holds it in both hands and feels down deep, and there is still the faintest linger of a thought he can catch, of a time delay, but a spark-spell too, and the flavors are different. Two or more people working together, Jared's favorite, and that explains the blistering on the inside, the silver scorched with old power. These must have been expensive, when they were new, just for the level of work layered on top of the factory build, and Jensen had six of them on that shelf. Where does he find them? Who's willing to sell to him?

Jared spends the morning shaping the firelighter pieces into the shape of a rhododendron, peeling it open and forcing the filigree to twist in and out of the silver petals. He's just letting it cool when Carlos comes in with a travel-tray of coffee, and Jared shoves his goggles up into his hair and grabs a cup and they've barely got the good mornings out before Jared has to ask: "Where the hell did you find that guy?"

"What guy?" Carlos says. He plumps down on his workbench, narrowly missing the spikes of his most recent build, and manages to immediately spill coffee on his jeans.

"Black Cat," Jared says, while Carlos curses and runs his hand over the stain, blurring it away. "Jensen Ackles, proprietor and jerkass."

Carlos lets out an oho, resting his cup on his belly. "So you went! Find anything good?"

"Yeah—yeah, I mean, it's great, I couldn't believe people weren't swarming the place," Jared says. He sits on Ambika's table, since she's not around to yell at him for it, swirling his coffee around his cup. "And then I met the guy who runs it. Seriously, have you talked to him?"

"Sure, I've talked to him." Carlos takes a gulp of his coffee, grimaces and sticks a finger in it, probably sweetening it up. "Good guy, knows his stuff." Jared's face must be showing everything he thinks about that, because Carlos snorts, swirling his finger around the cup. "Not saying he doesn't have his moments. Great eye, though. Or—are you talking about the violation? Just because the guy made a mistake, means he doesn't get to run a shop?"

"No, course not," Jared says. He sucks the inside of his cheek.

Carlos sucks his finger clean and gestures for Jared's cup. Jared hands it over, and watches Carlos repeat the swirling—with a not-spitty finger, at least. When he gives the cup back it's milky, and sweet when Jared takes a sip. "Better?" Carlos says, as though he doesn't know, and then nods. "So, he's not the sunniest of customers. I don't know how he gets most of that merchandise, but I've made a few trades with him before. Think he sells a little to nulls just to keep the bills paid. Nice, though. Intercessor who legally can't fuck you over. Bet he gets a lot of shit, but it keeps things above-board. And if he's got the good stuff, then isn't that what matters?"

Jared goes for a walk, later, in the rain-fresh cool afternoon. The river's chugging slowly along as always, and there are a few boats out. He sits on a low branch from one of the messy sprawling oaks off the bank and stretches his legs out. That idea keeps tugging at his mind. Green and gold, and an extended hand, and—he can't decide on the bit of life to thread through it but he wants this, he wants to make it. He will.

His parents are in France this month and so he can't come home, but he sends his mom a text that says Visit? and she texts back after just a few minutes with a smiling face, and so he pictures her actual smile and touches his chest and races across—a continent, an ocean, and finds her mind in less than a minute despite the distance. Warm and happy to hear from him, and he gets a waterfall of instant impressions—the pain au chocolat she's having instead of dinner, which she'd scold him for, the cheat—and the chilly late evening, and Dad there reading, and flickers of the nulls they've helped today, and her unfamiliar strong sense of vitality, her knack he's only adjacent to, and her worry that he's okay because she always worries, and a question about his day. She reaches out and holds Dad's hand and Dad looks up and smiles at her, at Jared, and it's an easy simple surge of love that throbs all the way through them. Both of them tired, though, from the day, and Jared knows it can make them headachy if he pushes too much through, and so he just offers up an image of the silver flower, ribboned with old magic on his workbench, and he says clearly through the connection happy birthday and feels his mom's burst of simple pleasure, and then does what he can to replicate a hug and withdraws, careful, slipping his mind back into the shell of only his body, opening his eyes to the river and the physical, a good ache in him like after a long, satisfying run. Rare enough that he gets to really use his knack to its full potential and he's lucky that his family indulges him as much as they do. Sometimes, when he's feeling sorry for himself, he wishes he'd been born a pure vitalist, just like them—but even if most people wear shield-charms or wall themselves off, the pleasure of actually using his mind when he can is so good that he can't really imagine never having it.

He's just sitting there in the tree, daydreaming, and he's turning his phone over and over between his hands. He chews the inside of his lip and then flips it over, runs a search and finds a list of articles, old news, a link to the Intercessory Office site where they list offenders—but, no. No. He turns off his phone and shoves it into his pocket. That's not fair. He's going to make friends with the asshat, and he'll learn what happened that way. His curiosity's piqued, but he's never liked cheating. It makes winning so much less fun.

*

A week later when Jared visits again, and this time he takes two cups of coffee—Carlos-sweetened, for his, but he leaves the other black just in case—and he parks on the street in front of some null's battered uncared-for house and takes a second to inspect the tree, before he goes inside. It's doing better, a little stronger. If he really wanted to do it some good he'd bring Robert out here, but Robert would probably try to start coaxing it to grow exotic invented flowers and shade the wood to purple. Artists can't do anything straightforward.

The ardglass tingles familiarly at him when he opens the door, and this time Jensen's voice comes from the right-hand side of the store. "Welcome," he calls out, very unwelcoming, and Jared grins. "If you're selling take a seat; if you're buying then, whatever, look around."

"What if I'm just offering?" Jared says, poking his head down the book-case aisles. He finds Jensen crouching among a pile of books in the almost-last row, where he twists around and looks actually surprised to see Jared. He's also wearing a well-washed t-shirt that's gapping at the back, and a thin stripe of creamy skin is peeking out between the shirt and the line of, oh, black briefs Jared can nearly see, and when Jensen clears his throat Jared jerks his eyes up to where they're supposed to be. There's a frown, but it's not too bad, and Jared grins in a way he knows is kinda annoying and carefully waggles his coffee carrier. "It was amazing, I went and got coffee from this local roaster, wright friend of mine, and you know what, she just gave me two somehow. Isn't that amazing?"

"I'm stunned," Jensen says, flat. "I'm also working."

"Oh, me too," Jared says. He waves his free hand around at the, wow, actually very cool rack of odd woods in random splits and shapes. "Looking for inspiration. If you don't want the coffee I guess I can just, uh, pour it out in the street?"

"Let's not go crazy, here." Jensen unfolds from his crouch. He never stood up on Jared's last visit and he's tall—not as tall as Jared, of course, but just a half-head shorter. That's a nice surprise. Jared holds out the coffee carrier and Jensen looks at it, then at him, and then carefully lifts out the cup and pops off the lid. The face he makes when he breathes in the steam is—Jared shifts his weight and flips the carrier to tuck under his arm, and tries not to look too obviously like a voyeur while Jensen takes a sip, while he licks his lips, after. "Mm," he hums, like it's involuntary, and then he fixes Jared with a look. "You trying to buy that piece with coffee? Not going to be enough, no matter how good the roast is."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Jared says. "Just wanted to share." A silence, then, while Jensen looks at him, coffee between them, and then there's a little nudge against Jared's ankle and he looks down to find a cat. "Oh! Hi, there, you must be the proprietor. What's your name?"

"Doesn't have one," Jensen says, and sighs when Jared crouches and extends his fingers for sniffs. The cat's not actually all black; she has patches of grey-white at her nose and on two feet, and she's delicate as she inspects his offered fingers and then bumps her head against them, inviting scratches. Her fur actually sheds, which is a surprise—everyone Jared knows has switched to the shed-free breeds that became the trend with vitalists when Jared was a kid. Jensen sighs again. "If you're not shopping, you should go."

"Can't go now, how can I abandon Miss Cat," Jared says, looking up and pushing his hair back out of his face, and Jensen rolls his eyes.

"Pain in the ass," he says, and it's really a coin-flip whether he's referring to Jared or to the cat, now purring loudly and twining figure-eights around Jared's ankles, which is making petting her pretty difficult. "Whatever. Cat, you're responsible. Let me know if you actually want to buy something."

"Will do," Jared says, purposefully cheerful, and Jensen crouches down again and starts filing the books. He does pause first, to take a sip of the coffee, and Jared grins at the cat and sits down cross-legged in the aisle, lets her put her paws on his knee and scritches in slow drags under her little jaw. He floats a gentle touch against her tiny mind and she's just in a haze of pleasure, but there is a faint spark of added intelligence, and she's much, much older than she should be. Someone has worked on her, sometime. Jared wonders if she was a trade, or a gift, or something Jensen asked for.

They drink their coffee and Jared becomes best friends with the cat, and he's mostly quiet to match Jensen's stony silence, but once Jensen's finished his shelving and moved off into the back, Jared starts talking. "Do you ever wish you had a name?" he says to her. She purrs. "Rebecca? Jane? Spot?" She sinks her claws into his leg and starts kneading and he hisses, and apologizes, and carefully pulls her off when he stands. She struggles and so he puts her down, and she bolts off into the shadows somewhere. "Bye, Miss Cat," he says, and comes around the corner to look at Jensen, working on his computer again. "She thinks you should pet her more."

"You did not read a cat's mind," Jensen says, not looking up. He flips a notebook open next to the computer and starts jotting down numbers, it looks like. On the counter he doesn't have much, though it looks like there are items with active enchantments behind the foggy glass. An arded crystal of some kind sits as ugly decoration at one end, and Jared's frowning at it, trying to figure out if it serves some function other than being cheesy as hell, when he notices the little stack of business cards. Jackpot.

"So, you like your coffee black?" Jared says, coming up close. Easy enough to slide his hand over and steal a card. "I shouldn't accidentally order a latte or hot chocolate or anything?"

"Only amateurs drink it doctored up," Jensen says, and then, "but no, you shouldn't accidentally order anything. Buy something already or go. You've already put cat hair all over aisle two."

"To be fair, that was the cat," Jared says. Jensen sighs. "I know, I shouldn't snitch. But here, I will buy something, I'll get some of this—uh, hand salve made by my friend Molly."

Jensen drops his head, shakes it, and then jots a few numbers off to the side on his notebook. Maybe he's doing accounting—very badly, by the looks of things. He accepts Jared's card and runs it, and hands it back with: "Congratulations, clockwise-boy, please enjoy the lotion you don't need."

He has freckles on his knuckles. Jared could lick him. "Maybe it's a gift," he says.

Jensen rolls his eyes and says, "I don't know how to get it through your head that I don't care, but can you just trust that I don't?" Jared shrugs, pressing his lips together so as not to smile too wide, and Jensen groans. "Fantastic. Okay, shop closed. Good night, goodbye."

It's barely noon and Jared could argue, but he doesn't want to push his luck much further. "Thanks for the salve," he says, while Jensen's ushering him down the middle aisle, and when he's on the other side of the door and the ardglass is bleeding to impenetrable black he shouts through it, "I still don't have my material!" and hears, muffled, are you kidding me, and he grins and pats the door and doesn't even mind the warning tingle from the anti-theft enchantment. He wonders if it'll be too obvious if he makes the sculpture's eyes from bottle-green glass, flecks of life peeking through their hard exterior. Something to think about, either way.

*

The shop doesn't actually have hours listed online; just a plain page, saying that it's a shop of curiosities for buying and selling, with a picture of the sign and the address. Jared, however, now has the business card, which doesn't actually list Jensen's name—black plain print on cream, made apparently by a null-style machine, with the shop name and a phone number. Jared waits a few days before texting: Is this the owner?

Three hours and lunch pass and Jared's working on a spun-glass cradle of leaves to set his rhododendron in when his phone beeps, in his pocket. He can't pick it up right away, has to get the leaves set and ready to cool, and when he does pick it up: Yes, and that's it. Well, perfect.

How are you doing on coffee? he texts back, and there's another long pause before he gets are you KIDDING me, and oh boy, now the game is on.

He doesn't blow up his phone or anything—they do both have things to do, after all—but he starts texting little observations about his day. Ardglass leaves coming along well, he says, and Raining again. Can't we get a kineticist to bring out the sunshine? No response, usually, although once when he's complaining that his favorite chicken wing place closed Jensen texts back, interrupting him, You eat like a child, and Jared grins down at his phone wide and long enough that Ambika says, "You're getting your feelings all over the room, giraffe," and oh, whoops, even though they're wearing their usual shielding charms she and Carlos are both blushed-up pink and grinning too, and Jared has to reel himself back in, apologizing. At least they're used to him, and don't mind. He used to get in trouble for that all the time in school.

Next time Jared visits he comes with a beanie crammed over his head and a coat since it's so chilly, and he is actually in need of some more glass, and he's thinking of trying to incorporate some of that odd twisted-up wood. Jensen doesn't greet him, that time, and it's because he's with a customer. A surprise, almost—but then, that's stupid, of course. Shop has to stay open somehow. He goes to the aisle with the wood, finds a set of zebra-striped planks and a pile of balusters that seem like a wright's splice between—what, oak and a strand of honeysuckle, from the scent rising permanently from the grain? Jared carefully runs his fingers over it and searches with that faint bleeding edge where his knack reaches once-living matter, and with the whole rest of his mind that isn't occupied he eavesdrops on the conversation up at the counter.

Sounds like a disagreement, and not a particularly polite one. "Five grand actually is what I told you," Jensen's saying, with an edge of condescension. "If you're already experiencing dementia, I recommend a visit to your local haruspex."

Jared bites his lower lip. The other guy literally growls, exasperated. "The quality clearly exceeds that valuation," he says. Raspy-voiced irritability. "There are still spirits clinging in the bells, look for yourself!"

"Which you can't identify, nor can you confirm their strength," Jensen says, slow enough that he has to be annoying the guy on purpose. "Which means I have to get a somnambulist's assessment myself, which costs my time, not to mention actual cost—which means, actually, five grand might be a little too much. Maybe I should lower my offer."

Good to know Jensen's like this with everybody. Jared's still torn on whether to find the assholery entertaining or just wrong, but at least it isn't being pointed at him this time. He picks up a few of the odd spliced pieces and walks around by way of the front of the store to grab up another one of those silver lamplighters, and to visit the automaton he's still trying figure out an angle for. At the back, the seller's been silent for a second, but while Jared's moving around, trying to be quiet, the guy says, "You know, it's too bad the knackers just neutered you—they could've cut out your tongue and we all would've been better off."

Jared stops in his tracks, his hand on the smooth wood of the closest bookshelf. Real venom, there. Before he can go up, say something, Jensen snorts. "You're the one trying to haggle with a void, champ. Go uptown and ask Rodriguez what he'll pay for your shady estate-sale find. Five grand or stop wasting my time."

Flat and direct. Jared comes around the corner of the aisle, wondering if he's going to get in a fight with some asshole he hasn't even seen, but there's a smack like a hand on wood and the man says, "Fine," and Jensen says, "I'm so happy we could come to an agreement," with sarcasm dripping off of it, and Jared drops his forehead against the high shelf and thinks about how amazing it is that Jensen's nose hasn't been broken about fifty times, while there's the faint chime of a card being swiped and a transaction transferred, and then the heavy tread of the guy as he stomps out of the store. He breathes out, slow, and when he comes out at the end of the aisle Jensen's typing unconcernedly at his laptop, a strange rod with bells attached all down the length laid on the counter beside him.

"Do you actually try to get in fights?" he says.

Jensen doesn't jump, but he stops typing for a second. "Why am I not surprised," he says, as though to himself, and then starts up again.

"Seriously," Jared says. He comes and leans his hip against the counter, lamplighter in one hand and the cool wood tucked under his arm, watching Jensen's profile. "Is it, like, a pastime? Who can be the bigger jerk?"

Dark in here, just the usual handful of floating lamps falling from the ceiling and the high windows letting in only the dregs of grey light that can creep through the clouds. Jensen's eyes are in shadow, his jaw a sharp line. "Pricks deserve prickishness in kind," he says, fingers moving steady and easy. They're pretty to watch, pale in motion. Does he ever leave the shop? "Not that I was being anything but fair. Not, also, that you actually know me, at all, Jared."

Jared's attention jumps from his hands to his face, still set in that faint frown of concentration. He realizes, too late, that he's stretching out his knack, trying to leach feeling or familiarity or something at least from Jensen's stoicism. Acting like they're already something, like he has permission that was never granted. "No," Jared says, acknowledges, and Jensen does actually stop typing at that and looks up, over the top of his computer and out into the middle distance. He's let his stubble grow out a little, almost to a beard, and it doesn't take away at all from how—beautiful he is, even with the tightness around his eyes that could be, Jared realizes, for any reason at all. "Sorry. I'm—I can be a lot."

"You don't say," Jensen mutters. He scratches under his jaw, a dry raspy noise that's very immediate in the quiet of the shop, and shakes his head. "Whatever. Are you buying something or loitering?"

"No reason it can't be both," Jared says, but he puts his purchases on the counter, and Jensen marks them down in his notebook and pressed a few buttons on his laptop, and takes Jared's card, and then when he hands it back Jared says, "Hey," and Jensen looks up and looks him in the eye. He looks—well, Jared doesn't know, does he. Jared chews the inside of his cheek for a few seconds and discards the first thing he wants to say, and says instead: "I still want that automaton."

Jensen's eyelids flicker, like that was unexpected. He taps two fingers on the counter, a slow rhythm. "You haven't offered a trade," he says, finally.

"I'll come up with something," Jared says, and he says it like a promise but he's not sure Jensen hears it that way. It wasn't a no. That means he still has time.

The cat jumps up on the counter. "Hello, Miss Cat," Jared says, and extends his fingers for a sniff and to provide a strong rub along her small cheekbone. Jensen rolls his eyes. "I think she likes me more than that other guy."

"Excrement generally isn't very popular, no," Jensen says—not as acerbic as he could be, Jared thinks, and he looks at the cat with his mouth pressed in a tight line before he says, "All right, no more fondling, out, out, you're done," and Jared goes without protesting, letting the door close behind him and holding the knob for a while, looking out at the iron sky. The tree flickers with life but so little else does. A null-child sits on the stoop of a rowhouse on the other side of the street, playing with a dolly, her clothes tattered. Jared bites his tongue and sends out a wave of deliberate gentle happiness her way, and her small giggle peals across the empty street. Makes things a little less depressing. He stashes his purchases in the trunk of his car and rather than drive home he sets off for a jog, no destination in mind. Brainstorming to be done, and he always thinks better in motion.

*

More texts, in between: safe things like the weather, and food, and music, and his projects. Jensen doesn't respond. He's waiting on the automaton to really start the new sculpture, but he has begun work on a base. Robert confirms his suspicions about the honey-oak, and Jared sets it aside and thinks about a brittle spine, seeping sweetness through the body of a thing. He has once-arded copper that blistered to a deep purple, the burnish peeking through only past the damage some old kineticist did to it, and he starts to form that into a set of two steps, that a man could begin walking up, toward some unknown goal. Easy, really, to form meaning out of matter. Ambika's work sometimes takes Jared's breath away with the metaphor worked into every piece. It's all material, though, as her knack dictates. Jared's the one who can force feeling to bleed out of the art, a sight that will arrest the mind, that will hum through any viewer. He beats the copper into the right shape with the forge, the strength of his arms and back, and he thinks.

After a week of silence he finally makes up his mind. What time do you close? he texts, and Jensen responds pretty quickly: When I want to. Jared rolls his eyes, sitting on the hood of his car, and says, Okay, when TODAY and earns Seven for his trouble. He puts the phone down next to him. Surprise to get an answer at all, much less one with specificity. Despite the pulling tug of his curiosity he still hasn't opened that browser tab, on his phone—the one from the Intercessory Office. He's tried to imagine the situation reversed; the Office of Haruspexy clamping his mind down to the narrow confines most people blunder around with and someone coming and knowing everything about him, his past, and him unable to hold his privacy around himself like a cloak. Such a basic thing, robbed away, and Jensen looking at him and thinking, a void. No.

He works through that afternoon, more flowers for the wreath he's decided to construct for his mother. When his watch chimes at him he neatens everything away, at least as much as he ever bothers to neaten things away, and drives home through the dimming streets, and takes a shower, and he hesitates for a minute in front of his closet, dripping on the tile, before he shakes his head and just chooses something. He may not know Jensen, but from everything he's seen he can't imagine that the man would care what Jared wears, either way. Jeans and boots, and a sweater because it's getting cooler all the time. After the vote a few years ago allowing the kineticists to build their little microclimate around Austin, autumn's been picture-perfect, but Jared misses the warmth from when he was a kid. He's not built for greeting-card weather.

Street's leaf-strewn and tumbledown as always, though there are more nulls on the sidewalks. A couple of kids on bikes screech to a stop when his car pulls around the corner and he waves, smiles. They might see it or not, and so he pulses out a wave of it's okay, simple reassurance in a blunt streak through the air. They're still watching him when he parks, when he runs his fingers through his hair and checks his reflection in the dim glass of the rear window—go, he pushes, if they're just going to spy after all, and they both hop onto their bikes and scatter and leave him looking up at the cracked lettering in the sign. The tree feels happy to see him, anyway. He might have put a little too much of his knack into it, but it's nice to get the little welcome. About the only one he'll probably get.

Five to seven when he pushes open the door, and no customers. The cat's curled up on a—what?—rack of skulls that's been moved closer to the door. "I'm closing, pick something or get out," comes Jensen's voice from the front. Jared ignores him for a second, delivering a polite ear-scratch and receiving a rumbly purr in response, and then he takes a deep breath and calls back, "You know, it's amazing that you don't get better customer reviews."

A pause, and Jared taps the cat on her nose and gets a blink for it, and then shoves his hands into his pockets and walks up the center aisle past the, hm, rearranged books and a new line of scrolls, maybe maps or something weirder, bolts and bolts of cloth, and comes out into the broad empty space in front of the counter to find Jensen not typing and no laptop in front of him at all, for once, standing up and looking right at Jared. "I'm not looking for any reviews, better or not," Jensen says.

"Just as well," Jared says. "They would suck."

The corners of Jensen's mouth curl, just slightly, again. He's in another baseball shirt, blue-and-black sleeved this time, showing off his shoulders, with a logo Jared doesn't recognize washed-out over his heart. Must be an antique, or null-made, that it can wear in that way. Black jeans, and those same necklaces tucked under his shirt, and rings added this time, too. His beard's been shaved, just a bit of stubble golden over his jaw.

He's letting Jared look at him, and Jared realizes it only a little too late. When he jerks his eyes up to meet Jensen's they're considering, no sourness around his soft mouth. "I could make you a seeing-mirror," Jared says, like the pause wasn't there. Jensen frowns. "For the front of the store. You'd know who was coming in, as soon as they passed the doorway, and then you'd know who you were shouting at. Could be a decent trade, for the automaton."

Jensen tilts his head. "Not a bad offer. Does assume that I care who I'm shouting at, though."

"Hm, true," Jared says. He leans his hip against the counter, keeping his face serious. "Indiscriminate shouting is the best kind. I'll have to think of something else."

"Guess so," Jensen says, and Jared doesn't know what mood he's caught Jensen in but—there's a crinkle to his eyes, real smile-lines allowed to form without a vitalist's intervention. Not the sort of man Jared would've thought could have formed smile-lines on his own and that's just—proof, again, of all the things Jared doesn't know. The clocks all over the wall click and start chiming, slow mysterious noises—one of them made by a haruspex, Jared's attention snapping to it as it whispers the time directly into his head—and Jensen says, "Oh, look at that. Closing time, unless you're buying something."

"Let me buy you a drink," Jared says. Jensen lifts his chin, looks at him unsurprised. Closing time wasn't exactly the most subtle question. "Maybe several."

"A trade that won't get you your automaton, either," Jensen says. He smooths his hand over the counter, his eyes dropping. "Not my kind of trade."

It takes Jared a second, before his cheeks prickle hot. The government sign of warning looms in his periphery and he wonders, for a stomach-tilting second, was that the kind of deal—but, no. "I was thinking just that we'd sit at the same table, maybe," he says, shoving away those sorts of thoughts. Jensen looks up at him, his expression hard to read. "Maybe even speak, together. You know. Like a conversation. Maybe ask each other questions. Maybe answer them. That sort of thing."

"Presumptuous," Jensen says, but he reaches over and flips his notebook closed, and presses a switch on the wall that makes the hanging lamps above dim so that it's hard for Jared to see anything beyond blurred shapes. In the dark, there's a scuff, and bootheels on the wooden floor, and then there's a warm presence right at Jared's side. He breathes in and smells oud, honey. "Speaking, sure. Answers aren't included."

"Fair enough," Jared says, and follows Jensen's shape out of the store onto the almost-dark street, and waits while Jensen taps the door and smokes the ardglass to impenetrable black, and then Jensen turns around and looks up at him and Jared says, "Where to?"

Jensen's pick isn't a place Jared's been before. He gets into Jared's car without indicating that they might travel separate—and makes no mention of the old-fashioned feel of the ride, other than flicking on the radio when they get in. The bar's closer to Jared's side of town, away from the null-neighborhoods, though it isn't trendy feeling. A mix of horses and cars on the street Jared turns down, and when he finds a place to park his car a woman snaps into existence in a convolution-space—but someone turns up on a null-style bicycle, too. Jensen gets out before Jared's turned off the engine and he scrambles to catch up, following him into the dim interior: half-full, everburning candles on the tables, music low and easy to talk over. Jensen walks right up to the bar and the tender's a null, an attractive woman who smiles at Jensen like he's familiar, and Jensen says, "Scotch and soda, and whatever he's having."

"Strawberry daiquiri," Jared says, handing over his card, and it's mostly to make Jensen's eyebrows pop high but hey, once he has it in hand, sue him. It's good.

Jensen picks a table by the wall and sits down with his back to the room, so Jared's left with the booth-side. With the candlelight, no people around, it's private, intimate. He watches Jensen's eyelids dip at the first taste of his drink. "Long day?" he says.

"They're all exactly the same length," Jensen says, glass held close to his lips, but he looks at Jared over the top of it, warm flicker to his eyes, and this is going—okay. It's okay.

A gallon of scotch would probably be required to make Jensen chatty, and Jared's not expecting that. "How many questions do you think I get to ask?" he says.

Jensen's lips press together, tiny dimples appearing—dimples! Jared had no idea. "Depends," he says, and tips back another swallow, "on how many drinks you buy. One to one is my standard, on trades."

"Harsh," Jared says, swirling his straw around in his daiquiri. Jensen puts his glass down, folds his arms on the table. "Okay, then, here goes: what's your favorite kind of sandwich?"

He's rewarded with Jensen's mouth parting in surprise. "That's very personal," he says, after a second, and Jared grins at him. And Carlos says he's unsubtle. Jensen's eyes narrow, but he shakes his head and answers, after a second. "Banh mi. Interrogator."

"I'm horrible," Jared agrees, easily. "Good choice, by the way—I love those, had one when we went to Hanoi a few years ago and it just blew my socks off. My go-to is still a prime dip, though. Au jus? To die for."

Jensen's eyebrows are high again. "To die for," he echoes, dry, and Jared nods and warms to his subject. He can fill the space, if Jensen won't, or doesn't want to, and this is something he's good at. If he can't work his way into someone's mind then he'll get to know them the slow way.

He expounds on sandwiches, and then a null comes over and Jensen orders a bourbon with ginger ale as his second drink, and Jared picks a pink martini to continue his theme, and then he asks Jensen another deeply probing question, do you hate it when songs get stuck in your head, and he can see the moment when Jensen's shoulders relax, even if he rolls his eyes, his expression stuck perhaps permanently in 'you're an idiot'. That's perfect. This is meant to be easy. Dates shouldn't hurt.

Even with Jensen's non-answers, even with the absurd lightness of the conversation, he does start to see peeks and cracks. There's a sense of humor there, dry and sharp as it is, lurking behind all the animosity. He tells Jared in no uncertain terms that his response to question three (old fashioned for Jensen, grasshopper for Jared, if you could only eat celery or bananas for the rest of your life, what would you pick) is absurd, because color is no way to pick a food to eat, and his tongue's a little looser with the drinks, a real smile peeking through as Jared insists that celery has no purpose, ever, for anything, and that it stinks to boot.

On the sidewalk, after, they've clearly missed a spattering of evening rain. The street gleams. A kinetic-built car rolls by, silently pushed by power and no engine, and Jared admires the sleek bullet-shape of it in the streetlamps, and enjoys more the warmth of Jensen, close against his side. Smoking, mixed tobacco and clove from the smell of it, his shoulder tucked in against Jared's from the chill in the air.

"Should've worn a sweater," Jared says, for something to say. Like he minds.

Jensen shrugs, and blows out a long plume of perfumey smoke. He licks his lips and the shine is just—Jared swallows, and Jensen doesn't look up at him when he says, even, "Are you going to take me to your place?"

Jared watches him take another drag off the cigarette. The wanting in his belly pulses, his blood hot in his throat and the tips of his fingers. He wants to touch, everywhere. "If I can," he says. "If you want me to."

That pretty mouth quirks, and his eyes jump over to watch another convolutor appear on the sidewalk with that faint dissonance of displaced air. "Hmm," he says, and puts out the cherry of the cigarette on his boot sole, and flicks it into the gutter to be taken up by the streetcleaners. He slides his hand up underneath Jared's sweater, cold and unexpected on his bare stomach, and looks up at him from very, very close. Jared puts a thumb on his chin, drags along the prickle of his jaw. That green's even prettier, this near. His mouth pulls up at the corners, a quickly flattened smile. God. Jared could fuck him right here on the sidewalk.

Less than ten minutes, to Jared's house. It's decent, with money never a problem, but he doesn't bother with a tour. "Coffee?" he says, on the off-chance, the lights glowing on at his presence, and Jensen snorts and tugs him away from closing the door and drags him down and kisses him. Oh, good. Jared's terrible at making coffee.

Jensen's mouth tastes like whiskey, and the clove-smoke smell of that cigarette, and soon that's licked away and he's just—him, what Jared's been wondering about. Plush mouth, precise and almost dainty. Jared pushes him up against the wall, careful with his hands asking permission, and Jensen makes a small noise into his mouth and gets his fingers under Jared's sweater again, stroking his stomach, his sides, clenching a little at his back when Jared's teeth close over his bottom lip, a small suck. When Jared pulls back, Jensen's eyes are heavy, his mouth red-wet, and he presses his lips together and presses his hips forward against Jared's at the same time and—yes, good, that's all Jared needed to know.

Upstairs, tugging Jensen along behind by the hand, a huff of laughter—into his bedroom, more or less clean, and then down to the mattress, custom-built for him by Carlos, perfect pressure but enough give to sink into. He kisses Jensen for a while there, leaning over him on one elbow and taking his time, his mouth still just—a revelation, especially for how he groans when Jared presses it open, his hand curling tight in Jared's hair. He pulls at Jared's sweater and Jared backs up, pulls it off, and the hovering lights are bright enough to see how Jensen's lips quirk. "Good enough?" Jared says, flexing his pecs just to make Jensen roll his eyes, and then he tugs the hem of Jensen's shirt and waits while Jensen carefully lifts it off over his head, cautious to make sure his necklaces stay in place. More creamy golden skin, freckles at the tops of his shoulders, and even if the warding-ardwork tingles oddly against Jared's hand he doesn't care, he pulls Jensen in by the back of his neck and gets him on top, spreading out across his bed with this beautiful strange man in his lap, putting his hands anywhere he thinks they'll get a reaction.

His nipples are a little sensitive—more so when Jared's kissing him, his breath coming quick between their lips, his hips curling in. In return Jared's treated to a run of teeth against his throat, his collarbone, his chest, and biting isn't necessarily his thing but Jensen peeks up with his mouth set sharp against Jared's ribs and he finds out very quickly that it's not not his thing, either. A touch at his belt and he nods and Jensen opens it, and then his jeans, and he leans in to kiss Jared as his palm covers the rigid line of Jared's dick—oh and the warmth of it, solid and unteasing, and he squeezes Jensen's ass with both hands, his thighs, gulps air as Jensen's grip firms up. He says, whispers, what do you like, and Jensen pulls back and blinks at him, and then smiles, lips wet-red and filthy, and oh, man. Jared is in trouble, here.

Naked, Jensen's that same cream-gold all over. No sunlight touching his skin, unless he's getting a vitalist to smear the damage away. Jared doubts it. Dick pretty as the rest of him, gingery hair trimmed close, and Jared would suck it only Jensen's dragging him on top, kisses him again plush-velvet and crazy making with how they're pressing in against each other. "Home-grown, my ass," Jensen mumbles, clasping Jared's dick underhand, and Jared smiles down at him, smug and happy. Jensen rolls his eyes and squeezes, distracting, and then he rolls over, crumpled close movement Jared has to accommodate between his arms, and he presses his ass back against where Jared's heavy and aching and looks over his shoulder, intent all over his face. Jared has slick in his drawer, and he whispers can I and Jensen nods and he puts his thumb to Jensen's asshole and feels the hot animal throb of his flesh and forces it to relax, his knack reaching in and making Jensen ready for him, and then it's only a smear of wet to make it easier and slipping his arm around under Jensen's arm and kneeing his thighs further apart, and then he pushes, in, close-clasping heat that grips around his gut and makes it hard for a second even to think. Jensen's back heaves against Jared's chest and he forces his eyes open, his hips snug against that plush ass. A small gulping-air sound and Jensen clutches his hand around Jared's, and Jared settles a knee on the outside of Jensen's and lets their thighs press together and then pulls out, grinds back in again, slow as he can manage, crushing him flat into the bed, his forehead against the soft-sweaty back of Jensen's skull, smelling him all sweet-musk and oil—and Jensen makes one of those small noises again, buries his head in his arm, says muffled down against his own skin, more, go, go on, and it sounds good, turned on, wanting, and so he grips Jensen's hip to keep him in one spot and then churns his dick inside and it's good, they're good to go, oh—god, the clutching pull of him—and Jensen tips his ass up into it and groans and breathes and yeah, okay. Okay.

He fucks Jensen like that until he thinks his nuts are going to actually pop, sweat pouring down his back and slicking them together, his mouth all over Jensen's pretty shoulders, his neck. When he can't stand it another second he pulls out and Jensen groans, no, and Jared shakes his head even if Jensen can't see it and then picks his hips up, makes Jensen drag up his knees and lift up his ass and Jensen does it, thighs shaking, blushy-red streaked all over under his white, and Jared takes his hips in both hands and shoves in again, hard enough all at once that Jensen lurches, makes a choked ugh sound in his throat, but he reaches back and claps a hand around Jared's hip and he knows it's okay, his mind blurred almost to nothing, just the focus of Jensen's body, his own, his snapping hips and the deep needing chest-noises Jensen makes, and driving him into the bed with his shoulder mashed down into the mattress and his face visible just as the sooty wet line of his eyelashes and the furious-red ear and the blush of his cheek and his mouth, god, wet and open, groaning—Jared leans forward and puts his fingers to the plush curve of that lip and Jensen's eye slits open, his tongue flashes out and gets skin, a wet immediacy that tips Jared over into—oh—and he's coming then, curled over and flinching with it, his thighs crushed in against Jensen's, unloading, there, there. Perfect.

His brain logs out, for precious untold seconds. Somewhere he hears, fuck, and soft slick against his own skin, and he comes back into this universe to find Jensen licking at his finger, sucking it into his mouth, and then even as Jared's balls pulse shocked-wild into what feels like the pit of his stomach Jensen's teeth drag against his skin and he says, "Suck me," easy demand. Jared pushes up on wobbly hands and his dick leaves, oh, the heat below, and Jensen turns over between his knees and his eyes and lips and cockhead are all the same wet dark, flush all over and wet on his belly from how much he leaked, from how much Jared made him leak. He reaches up and puts his hands in Jared's hair and he looks at Jared with a kind of—he doesn't know, he doesn't know that look but he wants it on him all the time, and he curls down and puts his mouth on Jensen's pretty leaking dick and takes the wet salty heft of it down as far as he can, pushing his lips open and sliding fat over his tongue, and it's the sweaty curve of his hips, his thighs, cupping his balls warm and close, sucking hard, and two hands gripping tight in his hair and his hips crushing up, and up, and then—"Oh!" up above and him unloading onto Jared's tongue, tugging Jared's hair like he's not going to swallow it, perfect bitter-salt slick against his palate, lifting up to suckle the head, to smear his lips against the damp softness of it, to open his eyes at last and see Jensen staring down at him like he's somehow a surprise, to lick his mouth, to smile, wide and self-satisfied.

"Fucker," Jensen says. His thighs are still twitching, his dick wet and urgent and not soft at all, laying against his belly.

Jared kisses the dark flesh, drags his lips down to the warm tender package of his balls. One thigh drags up, cringing, but Jared's soft with it, knows that oversensitive lurch too well. Doesn't stop him from gently slurping one nut into his mouth, a suckle that makes Jensen's breath freeze, and restart only when Jared lets go. "Rude," he says, dragging his jaw against silky inner thigh. Jensen's pulled up on his elbows, watching black-eyed. "Who taught you manners."

He gets an eyeroll, for that. Jensen's chest is still heaving. "That," Jensen says, "is none of your business," but he reaches out a hand and pushes his fingers through Jared's bangs, pushes them back from his face, tender. His lips are bitten, so dark it looks like they hurt. Jared smiles at him, and Jensen rolls his eyes, but he drags his fingers around Jared's ear and gently rubs the lobe, and then tugs, and Jared dutifully crawls up to be kissed. He keeps his mouth closed at first, to be polite, but Jensen presses his chin down and licks inside and tastes himself, heavy and soft. Fuck, he's hot. The hottest Jared's ever had, and he hasn't exactly been batting below .500 in his life.

Jensen pulls back after a while, hums, licks his lips and bites them between his teeth, like he's savoring it. His eyes are on Jared's mouth, his fingers resting almost delicate against his bare chest. "Is a glass of water something you have here?" he says, after maybe a minute's looking. "Or do your guests just think wet thoughts?"

Jared laughs, sees the small dimples peek up in Jensen's cheeks. "I could make you think you were swimming in a clear reservoir," Jared says. "Would that work?"

"Just a glass, fool," Jensen says, stretching out on the bed, and Jared kisses him again on the bump in his throat and then slides off the bed, does as he's told. He pisses first, holds his dick and mentally congratulates them both on a job well done, and when he returns to the bed with two glasses as requested, Jensen's curled up on his side, pillows piled up behind him like he's a pasha, twining his double-necklaces around and around on two fingers.

"Can I ask a question without a trade?" Jared says, sitting halfway on the side of the mattress. He hands over the glass, and Jensen gulps down half of it without answering. He watches while those plush lips are licked again, white teeth dragging over the lower, before Jensen's eyes open again and he looks at Jared, waiting. "Why two?"

"Two what," Jensen says.

"Two of the wards." Jared reaches out, slips two fingers up over Jensen's where they're still twined around the warding necklaces. They buzz unkindly against his skin, more so when he hooks his fingers underneath, and he lets go when Jensen's eyelids dip. "One works."

One always does. Jared's wondered, before. If he were stronger, and could push past the muffling barriers on everyone's heads, the unending hall of knowledge where every door is closed to him—but he can't, and he knows it. Lingering emotion has to be enough, unless someone battens themselves down until they're unreadable as cold iron. Jensen resettles the chains, so the clasps sit where they should at the back of his neck, the medallions dangling between the soft line of his pecs. "If possible," Jensen says, after a pause, "I prefer to leave very little to chance."

"Wouldn't think chance is something you'd have to worry about," Jared says.

Another pause. Jensen runs his thumb over the rim of his glass. It occurs to Jared, too late, that he doesn't know what the terms of the parole were; what was Jensen left with, when the Intercessory Office was done with him.

Still: "Not usually," Jensen says, reaching over and putting his glass on the bedside table without looking. "Nevertheless. Doesn't hurt to be cautious, does it?"

Jared glugs down most of his own glass, and leans over Jensen ridiculously close to put it down. "I don't know," he says, hovering an inch away from Jensen's body. When he pulls back, not very far at all, Jensen's raising his eyebrows. "Caution isn't really my bag, you know?"

"I'm shocked," Jensen says, dry as dry, and Jared grins at him and pushes in and Jensen sighs before he kisses back, but he kisses back. That's the main thing, as far as Jared's concerned.

There's a frozen pizza in Jared's fridge, which is about the only semi-decent thing he's sure about in the kitchen. The oven is something Ambika tweaked for him and it heats fast, and it's not long before they're splitting the pizza, leaning naked over his kitchen island, the sports news on in the background and Jared complaining about the Rangers' pitching staff. Jensen eats, and he drinks the beer Jared gives him, and then he disappears to the bathroom. Gives Jared the chance to quietly celebrate, leaning over his own kitchen island with his forehead balanced on his fists.

He's cleaned up the mess and he's watching the football highlights with most of an undrunk beer balanced on his belly when Jensen reappears. "Hey," Jared says, and Jensen's mouth quirks, for some reason. "What, was that funny?"

"Yes," Jensen says, "you're ridiculous," and then he crawls into Jared's lap on the couch and kisses Jared long, slow, taking his own sweet damn time about it. Jared wraps an arm around his waist, holds his beer awkwardly out to the side until Jensen takes it out of his hand and puts it on the coffee table behind him, and turns off the television so it's silent but for their breath. His fingers are cold when they come back to Jared's jaw, but that's just—better, somehow. Every single thing Jensen does, it just—gets Jared, where he lives. Like something crawling inside his skin and taking residence, setting up house and intending never to leave, and Jared's okay with that. Eager for it, even.

Jensen sinks down between Jared's knees and sucks him, for a while. His mouth is as exactly perfect as Jared hoped it would be. Velvet unhurried heat, his thumbs rubbing maddening circles into the inside of Jared's thighs until those two square inches feel so oversensitized they could catch fire—and when Jensen finally picks up his head, breathing heavy, Jared's almost vibrating, he's so ready to blow. "Can you hold on," Jensen says, throaty-sore, and Jared licks his lips and nods, stupid but hopeful, and Jensen smiles at him—really, wide and broad, no smirk or shadow to it that Jared can see—and he pushes up and swings his knees to the side of Jared's hips, whispers down against his ear you need to open me up again, and Jared shudders and sends his knack into Jensen's body and makes him relaxed enough to take a fist—and Jensen groans, kisses his temple, grabs Jared's wet dick and slips it inside. So soft, worked open, ready. Jared grips him tight, watches him fuck himself. Steady, slow churning of his hips, his elbows braced on the back of the couch on either side of Jared's head—his mouth brushing Jared's mouth, breathing his air, telling him wait, wait for me—and Jared hauls himself in, holds on, his body humming but held under the thumb of his barest control—and when Jensen comes it's so worth it. Clutching up around him, spilling over his belly, a rumbling soft noise trapped in his chest. His thighs squeeze around Jared's hips, until he relaxes with a sigh, and then he—he kisses Jared, once, and lifts up and slams his hips down, slapping flesh, and Jared fucks up into him and it isn't soft, not at all, everything coiled up in Jared unleashing there, hot unthinking, until his balls remember what they've been wanting for so long and unload, clutching up and spilling, Jared's grip on Jensen's ass and hip hurting-tight. He doesn't know how it feels for Jensen, and doesn't care until too late. He lets go, hands aching, and Jensen picks his head up and brushes his nose against Jared's, and kisses him again before he lifts off. Jared takes the brutal air, his dick flopping back up against his stomach, and then chases the soft warm space with two fingers, watching Jensen's face. His tongue between his teeth, his eyes sunk closed. He's so wet, from Jared and the slick before. Fuck, he feels good. Jared twists his fingers, inside, and Jensen's eyes open and meet Jared's, and Jared tugs out and smears the wet along Jensen's ass as he holds it, keeps him close to be kissed, lazy. Undone. This is the best Jared's felt in a long, long time.

When they pull apart, Jensen looks at him, running a thumb back and forth over his cheekbone. He gets a small smile. He doesn't realize until later how small it is. Jensen brushes a kiss over his forehead, and when he stands up his thighs wobble for a second but he steadies himself, a hand tucked up behind to hold in the mess. "Be back," he says, and Jared dozes while Jensen freshens himself up. He tips sideways on the couch, and doesn't know how much time has passed before he wakes up again, and it's four in the morning, and Jensen's gone. Gone, and no note, nothing to say he was even here, except for the lazy fucked-out drain in Jared's balls and the taste that's still lingering in the back of his throat.

He sits up with a start, heart pounding for some reason, whatever dream woke him up forgotten in the face of the absence—and then, of course, there's nothing to do but wash up, and wonder. It was so good. He hopes it was the same, for Jensen, but there's an empty spot in his bed, where he was really wishing, imagining… There's no way he can face having it only once. If he's lucky, if he plays it right, maybe he'll get what he wants. He's not as sure, now, as he was when he first walked into the shop.

*

A full day, he waits. When he comes into the workshop, Robert looks up from the plants he's slowly manipulating into glass and smiles at him. "Good date?" he says, and Jared shrugs, tries to smile back.

They go out that night, him and Robert and Ambika, a club near Ambika's loft that usually has good people and decent music, but mostly has a roving colocated window that this week is enchanted to look out over the Alps. Nice little change of scenery. Jared bundles up, sweater and hat and scarf, and envies how Ambika can just think warm thoughts and be fine. Damn kineticists. She's dressed up tonight, her bare arms gleaming like amber in the firelight from the big ski-lodge hearth, and when they open up the window to start a snowball fight she sneaks up behind Jared and stuffs snow down the back of his sweater until he squeals and gives up—and submits with relative grace to being carried like a potato sack away from the Alpine snow, though she gives Jared the finger when he drops her onto the huge sofa.

"You're not the one with an asscrack full of snow!" he says.

"You're a baby," she says, pinning her hair back. A brush of her fingers and it's as smooth and gleaming as it was when they started the night. "A very, very tall baby."

"Lucky baby," Robert says, curled up in the corner of the sofa. He accepts a drink from one of the waitresses and smiles at Jared. "Though I haven't heard any details."

"Details? What are you, my mom?" Robert shrugs and Jared shakes his head, turns his back to the fire and lets it steam his sweater toward dry. They've all been friends for a while, since college, and he sees them almost every day, but he doesn't quite know how to talk to them about Jensen. Only Carlos knows him, really, and Carlos isn't here—off with his wife, cozy at home, while everyone picks on Jared.

"I hope he's—he's?—very sexy, for all this air of mystery," Ambika says. "Who was that girl you dated, that we all hated? She had the big nose."

"You're a snob," Jared says, and Ambika shrugs. "Minnie. And she didn't have a big nose, she just didn't get corrected like everyone else, and that's interesting. Remember that, interesting?"

She blows a raspberry. "Interesting is for art. Perfect is fine for people, and mighty Minnie didn't have enough conversational skills to add up to something even close to interesting for as much time as I had to listen to her squeak about—what was it, still life?"

"Okay, she wasn't literally a mouse," Jared says, but it's true that Minnie wasn't the greatest, pretty as she was. A landscape painter from one of Jared's art classes who asked him out, and he was nice about it and then kept dating her for… yeah, too long. It's easy to get comfortable with easy.

Ambika raises her eyebrows, and then pops up and runs her hand over his back, pulling the water out to be tossed into the fire, spattering it into steam and leaving his sweater totally dry. He sighs, shoulders relaxing out of their chilly hunch. "See? You're so mean, and then you realize that being nice is better."

"Just stops you from giving us that sad puppy look," Ambika says. She sights across the crowd, most of them still wet and grinning from the snowball fight, and grins. "Mm, and speaking of perfect," she says, and scoots across the floor to—ah, yes. Tall dark and handsome, beautiful and rich, Ambika's very boring type.

"Well, we've lost her," Robert says. He pulls the star anise out of his cocktail and turns it over and over between his fingers, and tips his head back against the sofa when Jared slumps down next to him. "Poor Jared. Not so lucky, after all?"

"I don't know," he says. "Seemed like it was going okay, took him home and everything. He bailed though, didn't say goodbye."

"Maybe he had work to get to?" Robert says, and when Jared shakes his head Robert shrugs, small. "There are a dozen more reasons it could be, no need to bore us both listing them out. Point being, you don't know, unless you ask. Did you ask?" Jared sucks the inside of his cheek, and Robert pushes his shoulder—he's so small he couldn't budge Jared if he tried a full tackle, but Jared topples obligingly over anyway. "Well, why do we mope, giraffe? So sure he couldn't stand your loving attentions?"

Jared prods Robert's leg with his boot, then turns over onto his back, dropping his feet into Robert's lap—gets a smack on the shin, but Robert leaves them there, because he's the best. "Just—I don't know." He tucks an arm behind his head, looks down the length of himself at where Robert's looking at him with at least a little sympathy. "He's—well, he's not perfect, let's say that. I can't get a read on him."

Robert hmms, and between his fingers the star anise trembles and then starts to bloom, white petals unfurling out of the dried husk, green leaves spilling forth until there's a pretty living plant filling Robert's palm. He leans over and puts it on Jared's belly, and Jared touches the petals, the tiny golden-green center. It won't last, not without real roots, but it's beautiful, for now.

"You're the smartest person I know, but you are very dumb sometimes, Jared," Robert says. "But then, all men are mysteries. That's why I stick to plants."

"I know," Jared says. "Probably the right move, on your part."

Robert pats his shin, and then flicks his fingers for a waitress, and she arrives with another full glass, which Robert holds up in a little toast. "To Jared," he says, "and his ability to actually ask a boy if he likes him and not dissolve into a swirl of self-doubt, because he is actually quite clever, and handsome, and even not so annoying, if he puts his mind to it."

"Wow, thanks," Jared says, but he's finally smiling, and Robert nods, and sips at his drink, turning comfortably back to the fire. Jared drags himself upright, pushes a hand through his hair. Ambika is, yes, dancing with the pretty man near the bar, her shoulders pressed up against his chest and his mouth brushing her ear, smiling. She never has a crisis of confidence, ever, as far as Jared can tell. He tries to imagine taking Jensen dancing, and absolutely can't picture it. Jensen in this kind of club, surrounded by mages, music, chattering careless kids Jared's age, fresh out of college and the entire world just waiting for the taking. Nothing to worry them beyond what could be fun, what to do tonight. Tomorrow something that's to be thought of tomorrow. Yeah, no. Not Jensen's scene, and that at least Jared is sure about.

Robert's little plant sits still on his lap, and he holds it careful in his palm. It'll die, tonight probably, unless. "Hey," he says, and Robert blinks at him. "Can you do me a favor?"

Ambika's successfully dragged over with her boy to transmute a whiskey glass into a pot, and Jared's beanie gets shredded and turned into soil, and Robert puts the little anise in place and rubs its leaves between his thumb and forefinger and it grows roots, punching below the surface of the dirt. Ephemeral one second, mature the next. "What's it for?" Ambika says, her fingers tucked into the boy's back pocket, paying attention for the moment. Easy lust is bleeding out of her past her warding tattoo—Mr. Perfect is definitely getting laid tonight.

"Get back to dancing," Jared says, shooing her away, and he kisses Robert on the cheek and gets swatted, and then he leaves the club for the much-less-chilly autumn night outside, and pulls open his phone, and texts, I had fun, and then immediately after, have you ever had a snowball fight? Pro-tip, don't wear anything other than coveralls, I have snow places snow should never be. He doesn't get a response and he doesn't expect one, so that's okay. He holds the anise against his chest and a gentle licorice-y smell floats up. Not sweet, maybe, not a typical flower, but still good. A couple edges past him into the club, the girl smiling invitingly at him as they go, and he smiles back but he heads for his car, done for the night. There's something to think about and, like Robert said, he's not dumb. He should act like it.

His parents are still in France—or Spain, now, from the quick meet they manage. Still on their half-vacation, half-birthday trip, half-mission of mercy. They're talented people, they can manage three halves. While he's pushed into his dad's head he's shown images of sick wards, a little null girl born blind who smiles shocked into his dad's face when she's healed, and it's enough to make him cry, but his dad feels nothing but the joy in it. Mom worries about the political situation back home but he tries to think reassuring thoughts and she's soothed, has to be, because she's unshielded whenever they visit. Whatever happens will happen—not like they can have much effect on it, and anyway, it's her birthday trip. She shouldn't worry.

He doesn't tell them about Jensen, practiced enough now to shield his own private thoughts from theirs when they merge. Not like he's gotten any word back, anyway. When he texts he keeps it light, as always: the football, a picture of a sandwich he ate that was truly divine, whining about a headache he gets after casting his mind out to talk with Molly on her trip to Portland, and by the way has Jensen sold more of her lotion? No answer. He tries not to read too much into it. Even on the end of Jared's dick, Jensen didn't much talk. He certainly isn't going to be chatty over text, when he never has been before.

Five days is about as long as he can stand to wait. First day of November and the trees have obediently turned to red and amber and gold, the shell of perfect weather settling firm over the city. When he parks in front of the store, the little tree hasn't quite gotten the memo, its leaves still dark green, glossy. Happy to see him, as always, and he wraps his arm around the trunk and takes a little reassurance from it. Made himself a friend. Always used to get in trouble for that, back in primary school, but plants and animals were always fair game. Maybe it's dorky, but he'll take what allies he can get.

He plucks a leaf from the tree—it's glad to give it—and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger while he pushes open the door. The ardglass doesn't shut against him, or spark into pain, so that at least is a good sign. Talking, up front; Jensen's with a customer, or a seller, or someone. The skulls have moved, again, to the other side of the door, and now there's a huge vase. Where does all this crap even come from, Jared wonders, and goes to wait in one of the aisles.

"How much can you get me?" Jensen's saying, not nearly as sharp as he usually sounds, and a woman responds, soft, "Two pounds, sir? I think." Jared inspects the shelves. A literal bucket, thin hammered tin, full of pair after pair of antique scissors. A row of broken pocket-watches, one of them pulled apart so the gears balance impossibly in the air above. A kineticist's ardwork, still functioning, even if the actual timepiece doesn't. Little sculptures, old work: a goat, a cat, a scorpion, a winged man. Each of them some old, battered ard, of one kind or another. Jared holds the scorpion in his hand and sends his mind into it, to try to see what the working was, and all he can catch is an echo of—worry. From whoever sold it, or the maker? He doesn't know. He puts it down with its fellows. Appropriate, unfortunately, either way.

"Thank you," the woman says, and Jared tunes back in to hear quick light feet leaving the store, and the door swinging shut behind her.

"Did I hear someone come in?" Jensen calls out.

Jared takes a deep breath. He looks—well, he looks about as good as he always looks. Nothing to be worried about, and yet here he is. He leaves the elderly sculptures and walks down the aisle, steps out into the open space before the counter and meets Jensen's eyes.

"Jared," Jensen says. Surprise—real, vivid for a second, obvious enough in his face even if the emotions are strangled to silence behind his wards. A blink, and then Jensen drops his eyes to the pile of—rice? What? "Slumming it still? Uptown surely has anything else you'd need."

Jensen busies himself with bundling the rice up—it sits on a big cloth, and he ties it up into a knot, practiced like this is something he does all the time. "What's with the rice?" Jared says.

"It's a grain," Jensen says, not looking up, "that many people, of many persuasions, choose to eat."

He stows it behind the counter, and starts writing something in his notebook. That's the end of that, apparently. Jared chews the inside of his lip, and comes closer, puts a hand on the smooth wood of the counter. Jensen looks—the same. Less than a week, of course he does. Another baseball shirt, this one thin overwashed white with black sleeves, and whatever logo long since faded away. Jared wants to lean over, touch him, and doesn't dare to.

"You didn't let me drive you home," Jared says. Truth. Might as well. Banter gets tiring, after a while.

In the notebook, Jensen underlines something and then puts his pen down. "Taxi service wasn't part of the deal," he says, and looks up. He isn't frowning, but he is squinting at Jared like he's a problem to be solved. "Wasn't expecting more."

"You haven't answered my texts," Jared says, and Jensen says, "I don't," and that's true.

A nudge against Jared's shin. He looks down, and there's the cat. She makes a small mrr sound and then puts her paw on Jared's knee, demanding, and so he scoops her up and holds her against his chest, scritching under her chin. Purring, immediately, and he keeps his focus on her eyes going squinty and content. "Well, I had fun," Jared says. "The other night. Wanted to make you breakfast. Well—not breakfast, other than, you know, toast. Maybe coffee, although you probably would think my coffee sucked."

"Probably," Jensen says. The cat shakes her head and squirms, ready to be done, so Jared puts her on the counter. She goes over and sniffs at Jensen, and then headbutts his elbow, but he doesn't unfold his arms and so she hops down, disappears into the shadows back there. "Do you want the automaton?" Jensen says, abruptly.

Jared raises his eyebrows. "Uh, yes?"

"Now, I mean. I'll give it to you, you can take it. For your—sculpture."

His first instinct, stupidly, is to say yes. He bites back on it, and it's followed by the immediate pang in the base of his belly that he tries not to give in to. People are always telling him that he's meant to be smart—he breathes in, and looks at Jensen, and thinks through it first. "I'm supposed to make a trade," Jared says, after a pause that was maybe too long. "We haven't agreed on one, yet. Have we? So how can I take it?"

Jensen puts his hands on the counter, shoulders square. "You're very…" He licks his lips and doesn't finish it.

Past few days, he's let his beard grow out a little more, and Jared wants to lean over the counter and kiss him, feel it against his skin. "Adorable," Jared suggests, and Jensen rolls his eyes, his shoulders relaxing a little. "Handsome. Tenacious."

"The last one, I'll agree to," Jensen says, sitting down and opening up his laptop, and he's pretending to ignore Jared now but—well, he isn't actually ignoring him, not totally, is he. "So do you have a decent trade, yet?"

Jared's grinning, and he knows it's probably wide and annoying, and he doesn't care. "Not yet," he says, and Jensen flicks a quick glance his way, lips pressed together. Not quite a smile. "But I'm working on it. I guess I can keep coming by?"

Already typing, focused, Jensen says, "I don't see how I can stop you," and Jared doesn't jump up and click his heels but, well, it's a near thing.

*

When he leaves that day Jared feels like a spring, tight-coiled, ready to burst at any moment. Jensen tosses him out, of course he does, but an open door is all Jared needs. He goes back to the workshop and Carlos is there, with Robert, and Robert says, "How did it go?" and Jared scoops Robert up to sit on his shoulder and crows, "He likes me," loud enough that Carlos wrinkles his nose. Robert only pats Jared's head and smiles.

A few days pass—Jared keeps up his texts, spaced out so as to keep himself in Jensen's thoughts. He sends a picture of his mother's wreath, now finished: the rescued firelighters turned into perfect flowers, green ardglass and matte silver ribbon dipping in and around each iron-hard blossom. A response, finally, to that one: At least my product isn't being wasted, which—a response and no insult, that's practically a glowing review, as far as he can tell. He shares the text with Carlos, who pats him on the shoulder. "See? Good guy." Jared's still not sure that's totally true, but he sets that particular message to never delete, anyway.

Though his parents are still in Spain, his mother sets him up with a meeting with the city council—something he doesn't realize is on the books until she calls him on his cell in the morning, Austin time, and he wakes up to learn that he's expected in chambers at eleven. He covers his face with both hands and she doesn't need to be connected to his mind to know what he's thinking, for which he gets a, "Darling, you'll go, please be good—" and so he goes, of course. Disappointing his mother is something he tries not to do. Mrs. Wu, the city's official Horologer, and his mother's best friend from college, would like a sculpture. "Something," she says, slowly, as she says all things slowly, "with… purpose. For the new square at the university, that we'll be dedicating to the veterans of the last Anglican war."

"Yes, ma'am," Jared says, because what else can he say. He's been in and out of council chambers all his life and, even if they're set up like a cozy drawing room, just like one of the ones in his parents' house, they're never exactly comfortable. Despite his mother's description, it's not a full council meeting. At Wu's side on the lounger sit the new Cynosure, a clear-eyed man who doesn't look directly at Jared the whole time, and the Intercessor, who's cleaning her nails and gives Jared a smile. He's not sure where the rest are, and doesn't ask. He's met the Intercessor before—Mrs. Contreras, who's held the office for twenty years or more. A friend of his father's. He wonders—was it her, who laid down the decision for whatever happened to Jensen, or did it not even pass her desk? He doesn't ask—it isn't for him to ask—and a flick of Wu's fingers later, he's allowed to go. When he leaves the chamber he finds that it's still exactly eleven in the morning. Meetings with horologers are always extra-strange.

On his next visit to Jensen's shop he's on a more purposeful errand. Another customer, at the front, and Jared goes to the aisle with the old woods and starts gathering armfuls. He'll need Carlos's help, but he has an idea already. Official art for political purposes—he knows Wu's taste, she's predictable, and it's a commission that'll be easy, at least, considering he had no choice whether or not to take it.

He brings his big pile to the front once the other man has gone, and Jensen blinks at him. "Starting a carpentry business?"

"Commemorating the dead," Jared says, and when Jensen frowns he waves a hand. "Don't worry about it." Jensen starts counting the long pieces, ticking them off in his notebook. Mahogany, Jared thinks, balusters that can be shaped to his purpose, and blackened oak, like something that's been through a fire blast. He hands over his card and watches Jensen running it, the idea still pulling at his mind, but Jensen's clean-shaven and his mouth is right there, pretty as can be, and he's distracted into being present in real life. "Hey," he says, and Jensen grunts. "That's, like, your second customer in a week. Did you put out a big ad or something?"

"Do you picture the shop sitting idle every time it's not graced with your presence?" Jensen says, and when he hands Jared's card back Jared shrugs, and gets a roll of those eyes as a reward. He grins, and Jensen sighs. "Nulls come in, trade found pieces. Most of it is shit, but sometimes it's something I can actually sell. There. An answer, be happy."

"I'm thrilled," Jared says, and he sort of is. Jensen talking to him and it's not an extraction. That's plenty to be happy about. It's late afternoon, the gloomy day seeping in through the high windows, Jensen illuminated gold under the floating lamps. He has work to do—no matter that he got the commission out of nepotism, they'll expect results soon—but he doesn't have to get to it right away. "Do you think you're going to get more customers?"

"With my luck?" Jensen says, and then looks up and looks at Jared's face, and for a second he bites his tongue between his teeth.

"You can make your own luck, can't you?" Jared says. He leans on the counter, smiles. "I was just thinking. I wanted to kiss you, is all."

"Oh, is that all," Jensen says. Jared nods, and Jensen sucks his bottom lip for a distracting, gut-warming moment. His weight sways forward, his hips against the curved wooden counter edge, and he's close enough that Jared can smell him. Oud, but that edge of sweet, too. He holds out his hand and Jared takes it, and then lets himself be tugged over the width of the counter, meeting Jensen's mouth soft and steady, not tentative at all. A scrape of teeth and a wet, toe-curling suck, and it's over too soon—Jensen's nose brushes his, and he hangs there for a second breathing him before Jensen pulls away entirely, licking his lips. "Mm. Don't you have something to work on?"

"Yeah," Jared breathes. Bitter-coffee taste under his tongue. Somehow good. He rubs his mouth and takes a breath. "Can I take you out tonight?"

"No," Jensen says. He sits down, opens up his laptop. "I have class." What—class? A dozen questions bubble to Jared's lips but Jensen gives him a quick, quelling look, and then drops his eyes to the pile of wood on the counter. "You need to actually take your purchases before I restock them."

"Right," Jared says—"Right." He gathers up his armloads, this new tidbit of actual information still all over the top his mind, and then Jensen says, flat, "Tomorrow, at eight. I'll be at that bar."

"So will I," Jared says, and Jensen nods, and—well, that's that.

He goes that night and starts work on the commission. The space they're setting aside for the memorial, Jared knows it—his dad's a history buff, he'd worked with the council on putting the memorial together in the first place. It's actually for the second Anglican war, and even if it was before Jared's time, before his parents' even, he's heard the stories and he knows the hurt. When he was little he'd had to go on those tours through null hospitals with his parents, had sat through conversations his dad had with veterans. Fighting was a pretext—mages on either side shaped the battle through a contest of wills. Even so, the nulls were the pawns, and they made meaning out of the lives lost, the friends saved. That night, he starts assembling his idea: a rearing charger, body shaped out of strong arded wood, space visible through the slats of its ribs, the shape of it barely picked out of the air. Carlos will be able to work the wood to something that won't ever rot, impervious as gold. Not gold, though—even if it can't rot, Jared wants something the termites could take. He never liked war stories.

He stays up late with that, and sleeps late, and works on it again late into the day, carving and shaping, getting it right. It's cold in the workshop and the mood he's in doesn't help. He layers purpose into the wood, latching onto those distant long-ago parts of it that are still living and urging them into—yes, a goal to achieve, a fight to win. Over at his table, Carlos works steadily on his own project, head down and not chatty, and Jared realizes only too late that he's broadcasting across the whole room. Wu's going to get her money's worth, that's for sure. He apologizes to Carlos, either way, and Carlos stretches out his hands and looks down at the crystal he's been working on transmuting for the past couple of weeks and says, "Shit, Jared. I guess I can't complain."

Only half an hour until he's meant to be at the bar—no time to get home, no time to shower. Race across town, and Jensen still beats him there, a handful of minutes before eight o'clock, jeans hugging that perfect ass and a loose plaid shirt hanging off his shoulders, sitting at the bar with a glass of whiskey in hand. "Are those woodchips in your hair?" he says, squinting at Jared, and Jared shakes his head like a dog and with a lash straight from his mind he has the bartender make him anything with fizz, because he doesn't want to waste a second on talking when he can kiss Jensen, without asking, the sense of a good day's work rolling smooth under his skin.

Jensen licks into his mouth, his hand slipping under Jared's shirt to feel the sweat on his back. The glass settles down on the counter with a clink. Yeah. This is a good day. "Don't make fun of my woodchips," Jared says, when he pulls back. "This is a new look. All the cool kids are doing it."

"Would you say," Jensen says, wiping his fingers on Jared's t-shirt, "that you identify as a cool kid?" He frowns, then, noticing the glass. "How old are you?"

Jared negotiates, a question for a question. Second date, more or less, they could actually know a thing or two about each other. Jensen's twenty-eight—four years on Jared, and somehow Jared thought he was older. He isn't as… light, tonight. The dimples Jared was so pleased to discover, they don't peek up as easily, though he's easier to talk to. Twenty-eight, and going to school, online and in the evenings. Law school. Not at all what Jared expected.

"Property law," Jensen says. "Specifically."

Written deals, since he can't make the kind that latch onto the soul. Makes sense, in its way. The question blooms up in Jared's head again—what happened? Easy to ask, but Jensen's looking away, at the array of bottles behind the bar, his nose and lips limned blue and the line of his eyelashes black and thick, and Jared thinks, not easy to answer, still. Not easy to ask and live with the consequences of asking.

He takes Jensen home again, and sucks his dick as slow and teasing as he can, stretched out on his bed, taking his time. Jensen touches his ears, his shoulders, tucks his hair back from his face and holds on and watches, and towards the end when his thighs are shaking Jared looks up, catches a glimpse of his expression, and that's—yeah. Yeah, that's what he was hoping for.

He showers, finally getting the grit of wood-carving off his skin, and when he's standing there under the spray there's a shuffle behind the glass—Jensen, coming in, pissing. "C'mere," Jared says, over the spray after the toilet flushes. A pause, but Jensen appears in the shower doorway, and Jared draws him under the warm fall of water and smiles at the uncomfortable little squinch to his face. No one can handle a properly hot shower. He turns the knob down, even if he does like to see that scorched-pink tone on Jensen's shoulders, and in return he's kissed, soft and thorough, and gets to press his mouth on the wet gleaming smooth of Jensen's skin. His neck, his collarbone. Jensen curls his hand around the weight of Jared's dick, nudges his nose against underside of Jared's jaw. Soft, quiet. No sandpaper to him, not like this. When he turns off the shower Jensen shivers, cool air touching all the places he's wet, and Jared pulls him close, keeps him warm. Back in bed, they screw on their sides, Jared tucked up close against Jensen's back, holding him by the belly, Jensen's face turned down into the pillow all the way through to the end. That's okay, because it leaves his pinked ear and his throat for Jared to bite, to breathe against. When they're both done Jared touches his chin, and Jensen ducks his head and kisses the tips of Jared's fingers, and they fall asleep there, without much moving.

When he wakes up Jared's disoriented, hazy. Didn't realize how tired he was. He touches his watch and the time arrives in his head—early morning, far too early. As he opens his eyes he remembers, and then he's sure, sinking, that of course—but, no. Jensen's getting back onto the bed, still naked, body all white in the moonlight drifting in over the tumble-wrecked sheets. "You should have curtains," he says, throaty with his voice disused, and Jared watches him curl up against the pillows, just a foot away.

"I like the sun," Jared mumbles, and for some reason that makes Jensen's tiny dimples appear. He sleeps more, and wakes up to lips against his temple, and turns it into a real, sour, uncoordinated morning kiss before Jensen murmurs, "Take me home," and Jared nods, but first he holds Jensen long and warm, his hard bones and his soft places, perfect. The sun's just barely creeping over the horizon, staining the wall above his bed to grey-gold, and Jensen's eyes when he pulls back are grey, too, and hard to see.

He doesn't know where to go, when they get in the car. "The store," Jensen says, like he's dim, and—of course. Of course, Jensen lives above the store, in the sad null neighborhood. No traffic, this early, though there are more nulls out and about, on their bicycles, a few in elderly trucks, carriages pulled by horses they couldn't afford to own. Working for their mage masters, mostly, though Jared wonders now if some of them are scavengers, or farmers. Looking for what they can sell to Jensen, and to others like him. He really doesn't spend much time on this side of town.

"Property law," he says, and Jensen grunts. "Not, uh, criminal?"

"Not much law involved there," Jensen says, acid, and Jared chews the inside of his lip. True, and not something he ever really thought about, much. Criminals were people who did bad things, and so bad things happened to them. If you didn't want something bad to happen to you, you didn't do something bad. Easy, or at least it seemed that way. Swift and simple justice. Jensen drags a hand over his face and sighs. "I need coffee," he mumbles.

They're already pulling up to the curb in front of the store. "We can get some," Jared offers, idling, but Jensen shakes his head, swinging open the passenger door. The morning reaches in, crisp and cold. Jared brushes a touch over his wrist and Jensen looks at him, unreadable. Those necklaces are pulled out, warded charms swinging over his plain black tee. Jared dredges up a smile, even if it's far too early. "Don't stab a customer, okay."

"That," says Jensen, slowly, "depends entirely on the kind of customer who comes in."

Jared huffs, and then there on the sidewalk there's—his mind reaches out—a null, a girl, teenager, holding a box in her arms, nervous. She looks cold. He reaches in without effort and sees. "Are you in the market for… brass doorknobs?" Jared says. She's hoping to get a good price, to turn it into food—wonders, what the car is doing here, what a mage is doing here.

Jensen glances out the open door, then looks back to Jared. "Never know," Jensen says, and gets out without saying goodbye. Jared sits there on the curb, and watches the girl duck her head as Jensen walks up to the door without looking at her, the ardglass smoking back to clear at Jensen's touch. She sends a nervous look to the car and follows Jensen inside, and Jared slouches down in his seat, following the traces of her simple thoughts as she puts the box on the counter. Stolen, all of it, from abandoned houses and rotted out neighborhoods, and she's not expecting much but maybe, they say that this mage sometimes listens—this void—

He swallows and pulls back, blinking quick to make the regular physical world settle right all around him. On the sidewalk, the tree's going red at the edges, but it's still holding onto the cheerful vivid life he poured into it. Too far away for it to know him, to touch it and say hello, but that's all right. It's making its little part of the world better, all the same.

*

The horse comes along quickly. Jared's working fast, the idea high and vivid and easy, almost, to pick out of the wood. He uses copper wire to string the pieces together and soon he has the shape of it, the horse rearing up, its hooves at eye-height ready to crash down on some unsuspecting soul beneath them. The head's tilted high, the mane caught in a non-existent breeze, and he inserts a curved slice of copper where the eye would be. It glints in the lamplight—and he blinks and realizes only then that it's past midnight and he's alone, the others long gone home and his eyes itching and gritty with the want to sleep. He steps back from the piece, where it's taken over the center of the warehouse floor, and circles it, checking its angles. Imagines it on the plinth, in the center of the square. The strong spine, the bones, the flared nostrils. The gaps between, and the obvious splicing-together with inadequate metal. The tilt of the head, it looks—hopeful, almost. Hope isn't the point. He's tired, and his hands are sore, nicked up from the carving. He takes a deep breath, and reaches down inside himself for his knack, the places where the life bubbles up in him—and then his skin tingles, the cuts on his hands healing, and the rising blister from holding the straight gouge for so long just smoothing right away, and then he passes his fingers over his eyes and breathes out and feels fresh as a new day, his eyes ready, his shoulders free from the ache of long effort. He'll pay for it later, maybe, but for now—he just wants to work.

He does pay for it: he works through that night, and the dawn, and ignores Ambika and Robert when they come in, and it's not until later that afternoon that it all catches up and he barely makes it over to pass out on the chaise Ambika set up on the far wall. He sleeps hard and dreamless and barely moving, and doesn't wake up again until there's a flick to his forehead. Carlos, sitting on the chaise next to him, coffee waving under his nose. "Hey, earth to giraffe," Carlos says, and Jared blinks gummily at him and doesn't even know what day it is, for a minute. Carlos shakes his head. "Figured. You know, dregging it isn't exactly the healthiest thing in the world? I feel sure Mommy or Daddy would've said something like that, sometime."

"Fuck off," Jared rasps, and immediately feels bad even though Carlos just smiles at him. "Sorry."

"See, what did I say about dregging it," Carlos says. "Means all that sunshine gets cloudy. Come on, drink your coffee. You even eat anything?"

Jared accepts the help to lever himself up to ninety degrees, and then takes the coffee in a two-handed grip. He's a little—okay, a lot shaky. He doesn't, usually. Draining all his knack out to work himself to the last gasp, he hasn't done that since college, with exams creeping up. Different from just staying up late: it's peak performance, right up until the body and mind and soul all team up and say, no more, and that way lies unconsciousness. "I was on a roll," he says, though, and that's true. The piece is done. His part, anyway.

"Sure," Carlos says. "Okay. We're going to get you some tacos and you're gonna sit here for a minute until you can drive without passing out again, and then you're going to sleep for like—a day. Two."

"You're no fun," Jared says, but he touches his watch and finds out that it's eleven in the morning, on Friday, and that's about fifteen hours from when he thought it would be, so. Okay, so maybe Carlos has a point.

Robert's dispatched for food and they have a little lunch, all together on the workshop floor. They haven't spent as much time together, lately. Ambika's putting together a new perfect bit of latticework for her garden at home and she's planning a trip to Moscow; her current boy, Mr. Perfect, is a convolutor who can long-distance, no problem, and she's going to take advantage while they're still in what she calls the 'fun' stage. Carlos's wife is still hugely pregnant; they're having twins, natural, and the vitalist they're using says everything's going perfectly. Robert's still just Robert, calm and easy and happy with his plants, and boring, and content with it. He pets Jared's hair back and pulses a little bit of ease into his drained muscles, but Jared really won't feel better until he's had a day of real rest, unless a cynosure appears to dump magic directly into his knack.

The food helps, and the conversation, and the simple sitting in the warm spot on the wooden floor where the slatted sun comes in through the windows. The horse looms, but Jared doesn't feel quite as gripped by it now. He's poured a lot of himself into it. Purpose. Maybe that will be the name, too.

Carlos knows the material he wants; they worked on a sample, a few days back, and now that the piece is all done Jared's ready for Carlos to make it impervious. "I'll get you a cut of the commission," Jared says, and Carlos waves his hand, but either way Jared'll make sure Wu knows he had some help. A word in with the council, that'll be worth more than any money could be.

Speaking of a word in—Jared heads home, and it's not until he's in his driveway that he realizes, oh, he hasn't talked to his parents since he started the project. He sends a text, thank you, got the commission, what are you doing? Talk?, and it's an uncharacteristic hour before he gets a curt response, Quick, now, and even if he's already stripped down to his boxers in bed he closes his eyes, turns his face up to the bright light filtering in through his uncurtained windows and sends his mind—out, away, racing across ocean and sky through the net of interconnected foggy minds until he finds those two familiar bright sparks. No matter how tired he is, no matter how drilled down to dregs, this is a muscle it's easy to flex.

Worry, though—worry, and stress. He frowns, pulses worry back, and there's his mom, leaning against a countertop in… the ambassador's house, Venezia now, a laptop open in front of her, absently holding his dad's hand. Politics, comes the immediate flood of thoughts, and he gets a jumble of impressions, both of them scattered and struggling to focus. Politics. They aren't councilors—neither of them, and they've taken pains to ensure it stays that way—but their family has always been connected, and they're friends with a few different factions, and neutrality is friendly but hard to maintain, in troubled times. Mom doesn't want him to fret, and of course that's impossible, now. Dad looks up at her and sees Jared straight through her eyes, and says aloud, there, are you drained? and then, of course, the subject is changed to whether he's okay, and eating right, and sleeping enough, and why did he go so hard on the commission, he didn't have to!

They're good at changing subjects. So much that was hard, that didn't get talked about. They arrange things so life is easy for him, and Jared's grateful but sometimes it feels like a too-heavy blanket wrapped hard around his shoulders. Warm, but smothering too. Art wasn't their first choice for their son, but when he loved it they wouldn't force it away from him, and now he gets commissions from people who would never have heard of him otherwise, who could choose any great wright or kineticist. Politicians, philanthropists, great mages who move in great circles, positioning Jared to take up a life like theirs. Not immediately, and nothing demanded, but the expectation is clear for whenever he's ready. He really does have a hard time disappointing them.

They're worried, now. Fretting, like they never want him to do. He sends assurances back, pushing through strong enough that their stress is banked down, but then the weariness crashes over him like getting dragged beneath churning surf. His touch against his mom flickers, and she thinks, in very deliberate shouty words even though he's told her she doesn't need to: I! Love! You! It comes accompanied with the feeling so warm and complicated and true that tears spring to his eyes. He's too drained, the emotion washing through him.

His mind slips away and he crashes back into his bed, warm and cocooned in exhaustion, and he passes out again there. Dreams this time, since he's had some time to recover. Not much he remembers. A horse, stalking through dusty trash-strewn streets. Emptiness. When he wakes up, it's daylight again, another day passed, and he's starving and his mind's working right. He pisses what feels like two gallons and takes a shower, and he's drinking coffee and eating hasty toast and jam in his kitchen when he turns on the news and finds out that there's been a coup, and the President is dead.

He sits down, watches the coverage. Spotty, carefully neutral. The President is dead; long live the President. Jared never met the last one; the new one, it's someone he's heard his parents talk about, at parties. An intercessor, again, because seems like for the last hundred years it's always been an intercessor, or a cynosure. Make a deal that fate literally can't resist or overpower the balance of things with the sheer force of magic—either way, a wright certainly won't be the leader of the Federated States. Nor a vitalist, nor anything else that deals in the here-and-now. Jared watches the spokesperson for the new President stand forth and give a smooth, easy speech about how the country needs a new direction, and of course all will have a voice at the table in the new regime. Jared's only seen three of these in his lifetime, and even so they're starting to get a samey feel.

He texts his dad: okay? He's cleaned up breakfast and is on to a last cup of coffee before he gets back: headed to Washington. Okay. Love.

His dad's bad at texting. Even so. Jared takes a deep breath and knows that his parents wouldn't want him to worry, and knows too: the family might be connected, but prime vitalists are an important piece of international relations, especially such well-meaning ones, and at worst one of them might be named an ambassador to somewhere. They're no danger to a new regime, no matter their power in their field. It's okay, and it always will be. Even if that was a lie his parents told him when he was little, he believes it still. It always has been and he doesn't see any reason to hope it might be otherwise. What would be the point?

The sun's shining. A crisp day, moving into winter. The bubble of perfect weather over the city brings with it a soft breeze, promise of chilly rain. He looks out on his neglected yard: the pool dusted with little islands of shed leaves, steaming in the cool air, and the benches around the fire pit, and the glowing fairy-lights waiting for a party to gleam over. He hasn't had one in a while, and there are some friends he hasn't caught up with—Molly, back from Portland now, and Travis and Ernesto, and the crew he'd play no-knack baseball with, sometimes. He could have a party, pretend it was a coup party, but he'd want to invite Jensen and he knows Jensen wouldn't come.

He fumbles in the pocket of his sweatpants, pulls out his phone again. Happy regime change, he sends. Somehow he doubts Jensen's much of a true patriot. Doubtful that anyone's monitoring his texts—the wrights layered up mobile communications with privacy protections that could make a haruspex's head explode—but he still feels a little daring, either way. He shoves his phone away, leans against the patio railing and breathes in the crisp autumn day, and he's surprised when there's a soft beep from his pocket.

Thought you might have had your thumbs cut off, he reads. Phone was so blissfully silent.

Jared grins, holds his phone to his mouth. Aww, you missed me, I'm so touched! he sends back, and immediately the response comes, Don't flatter yourself, I just don't want to lose a customer, and he laughs, trouble forgotten. Jensen, looking forward to his texts. He feels like he won a medal.

Carlos is still working on transmuting the wood. It's slow, deliberate work, making sure every piece matches, especially since Jared split it into so many. He tells Jared to stay away, since he needs to concentrate and not have Jared biting his nails over his shoulder, and so Jared goes over to the store, and lets Jensen bitch at him, glowing the whole time. The cat comes and snuggles on him, and Jared sits on the counter in the cool golden-lit interior and pets her ears, and sunnily ignores Jensen's complaining until he goes sullen and just works on his homework. Homework—that's what he's been typing away at, all these weeks and months. Jared gets to know that, now.

Jensen tries to throw him out, at closing time. He comes around and stands in front of Jared and frowns, and he says, "Seriously, I have class in an hour, go," and Jared spreads his legs and waggles his eyebrows, and Jensen sighs and steps forward and—yes. They make out, lazily, Jensen's face tilted up and his woodsmell drugging Jared, until Jared slips off the counter and gets his hands on Jensen's hips and presses him back against the display of spiritsilks that whisper dangerous against his knuckles, his cheek. Jensen makes a tiny sound in the back of his throat, curls his hand in Jared's collar, pulls his soft pretty mouth away. "I said to go," he murmurs.

Jared brushes their noses together, slips his hand up Jensen's back. "Do you want to come by?" he says. He's been having this idea: Jensen, and his pool, and the always-perfect water slipping between their bodies. "I've got whiskey at my house. I definitely remember that being good for after class."

Warm fingers settle at the base of Jared's throat, pushing, and he pulls back enough that he can actually see Jensen's face. "Some of us study," he says. "I don't know if that's something you ever did, maybe it's a novel concept."

Jared grins at him. "You should just try being smart, it helps," he says, and Jensen rolls his eyes and really shoves him, then, and Jared obligingly stumbles back.

"You must have an extremely important flower to make," Jensen says, lips shining. "Go, get out, shop's closed."

With a blown kiss, Jared goes, and doesn't know how to fill his evening, after. He drives through the dark city, crosses the river. A boat race is going on, floating lanterns pouring gold and green and pink over the slow rush of the water. He could go to the workshop but there's nothing he can do, if Carlos isn't done, and if Carlos is still working then he's still not welcome there. At home he goes inside, stands in his darkened kitchen, taps his nails on the table—and a beep, from his pocket. He grins, opens it up all ready with a quip about needing help with homework, but it's not Jensen.

Haven't seen you, want to grab a drink? Molly, back from Portland. Jared's already smiling when he texts back, come get me, I'm at home, and he opens the door and it's not five seconds before the air shudders and on the little paver he has set aside for convolution there she is, blond hair piled up on top of her head and smiling hard enough that her eyes turn into half-moons, and he holds out his arms and she hugs him so hard his bones creak.

"Molly hugs are the best hugs, did you know that?" he says, muffled against her hair. "You should really patent them."

"I tried!" she says, and finally pulls back. Happy miss Molly. They've been friends since they were about ten and Molly accidentally teleported right into the gardens at Jared's parents' house, and in all the time he's known her she hasn't been far from smiling. "Oh man," she says, tugging on the ends of his hair. He hasn't had it cut in a while. "This is great, you look ridiculous. Drink?"

"If you're driving," he says, and she wraps an arm around his waist and tugs him to stand on the paver, and the air goes slippery and insubstantial in that weird way he's still never used to, and between one breath and the next they're on a slick pavement somewhere it's raining, even if the raindrops are hitting an invisible shield and can't actually strike skin. He blinks, shivers, looks around. "Where's this?"

"Just New Orleans, there's this great bartender here, makes the best cocktails," she says, and tugs him along behind her on the pavement. His stomach slowly rolls over and rights itself, his body reorienting from being tugged five hundred miles through invisible space in about a second. The convolution-space is on a quiet side-street, and they come out to a bright-lit boulevard, restaurants and shops all jostling close together, people spilling all over the pavement, horses and carriages plowing their way through the crowd. He stretches out his mind and most of the people on foot are nulls, though there are some mages as shielded bright spots dotted here and there. Molly's shielding is light, just a necklace that stops him seeing her surface level thoughts, but her emotions are right there and she's just as happy to see him as she seemed. He squeezes her hand, unaccountably grateful, and she gives him a quick smile over her shoulder, moving effortlessly through the crowd without needing to look, and then—they've arrived.

A huge space, once they're inside; the building's been expanded, or the doorway's colocated on another place. Sleek decor, gorgeous arded metal on the ceiling, original art on the walls, and Jared's distracted on his way to the bar by a sculpted tree. He hovers a hand over it and feels the make—no emotion dumped in other than pride, the ard-made silver worked by a kineticist and superbly graceful, the branches stretching up until it looks like it's holding up the ceiling. "Jared!" Molly calls, and she's grinning when he finally makes it up to sit next to her. "Knew you'd like it here. That tree's just up your street, isn't it?"

It is, and it's giving him ideas, itching at his fingers. The bartender arrives and there's a flurry of kissed cheeks, it's been too longs, because of course he knows Molly and of course he loves her. A mage, not a null—not often to see a mage working in service, though of course it turns out that he owns the bar. Molly asks him to surprise them both and then turns her full attention on Jared, fully present, as always. Biggest thing he's envied, with Molly; she can be anywhere, but she always chooses to be exactly where she is. "All right, then," she says, "fill me in, tell me everything."

Three months, it isn't forever. She's been traveling, though, zipping along convolution-paths across the country, and beyond it. Portland for a month, and somewhere in Alaska, and for fun she free-teleported to the Arctic and stood on the northern pole where the convolution map narrows to a single point. "It's bloody cold," she says, like it's a secret, and giggles her silverbell giggle when he groans. In return he tells her about the commission, about his recent project for his mother's birthday, about his parents' healer mission to Europe. They talk a little about the coup, more quietly, and she's just as nonplussed by the whole thing as he is. England has no such issues, the royal family well-entrenched. "His majesty has been on the throne for one hundred-fifty years, last June," she says, with a shrug. "You lot have quite a bit more excitement, but it all seems to work out to the same result."

"The more things change," he says, and she toasts her glass to him. They really are fantastic cocktails.

"However," she says, putting her drink down, leaning forward. "I did ask about you, not the work, not the mum and dad. Still cheerful? Still breaking hearts?"

He hesitates, and her eyebrows climb into her bangs. "No," he says, but she's already caught him. "Just, uh. So, your skincare stuff." It's a random hobby that she makes them at all, though they're high quality. She calls them her cocktail bill lotions. "I saw them for sale, at this shop. Black Cat Mercantile?"

"What were you doing there?" she says, almost incredulous. "Nulltown isn't nearly your neck of the woods."

"Looking for something to salvage," he says, waving a hand. "So, you know it? The proprietor, and all."

"Ackles? Yes, of course. Complete arsehole." She says it smiling, though. "Don't you want to just smash his face in?"

Jared grimaces. "I mean, he's not that bad," he says, and then she really has caught him.

"You're joking," she says, and then immediately: "You're not joking! Jensen Ackles?"

"Shout a little more, I don't think they heard you back in Austin," Jared says, twirling the slice of candied ginger in his glass. Figures, even Molly doesn't like him.

She tucks her hand into his elbow, squeezes. "Now, now. I'm proud of him." Jared frowns. "Jared, I've met him about five times and barely got his name out of him, and I think he'd rather set me on fire than shake my hand. He's dealing with you and you've—yes, you had to've. You're getting off with Jensen Ackles and neither of you has died. What a step forward!"

"I mean, I guess," he says. The barback—a null—comes and whisks their glasses away. Jared draws patterns in the tiny ring of condensation left behind. "It's not like—I mean, we're not, you know."

Molly frowns back at him, ducks her head to catch Jared's eye. "Are you," she says, and stops. Jared works all the time with his friends at the workshop, but they met in college. Molly's known him more than half his life, teleported to see him whenever she felt like it, and then when her parents moved to New York she was over even more often. She's no haruspex but she can read Jared's face better than about anyone, even his mama. "Jared. So, more than just a bit of fun, then?"

He rubs his hand over his jaw. Two new cocktails appear in front of them, Molly's bartender friend silently making it happen. Sour cherries floating suspended in Jared's, little drops of vivid color. "Fun is, uh. Well, that's one word for it."

"Hmm," Molly says. She tugs at Jared's elbow, and makes him swivel on his stool so they're facing each other, their knees touching. Molly's about his height, one of the few unaltered women he's met who can meet his eyes without craning. She looks at him straight on, squinting. "I'll say this, because you know you should always do as I say, in all things, always." He rolls his eyes, and she smiles, a little. "I think that if you're chasing something that's a challenge, then challenges are fine. You always liked puzzles, and you've never had enough. But if you're chasing the challenge for the challenge, and not for what's behind it, then that's… a cruelty, and my friend Jared isn't cruel." He sits up straight, brittle shock cracking up the middle of his back. She pats his knee, before he can say anything. "Not saying that's what you're doing, or not on purpose. But he's—I don’t know him. I don't know if many people do, considering that he seems to enjoy being a right prick. But I think if a hedgehog gives up its spikes and it's dropped, the next thing that comes along will eat it right up. Not exactly a kindness, there."

She picks up her drink. It's something violently green to match the silky romper thing she's wearing, gold glinting in it when it catches the light. Jared chews the inside of his cheek, watches her take a sip. "What the hell kind of analogy is that," he says, finally, and she snorts, leaning into the curved back of her chair. He twiddles the cherry garnish in his own drink. They're stabbed onto a perfectly gleaming sliver of ard-made gold. Jared tries to imagine bringing Jensen here, and it's—well, it's an image. "I don't mind the spikes," he says. He tugs one of the cherries off and pops it into his mouth, and it's a burst of clean sour brightness, tingling with magic.

Molly smiles at him, happy half-moons again. "Then we'll say not a word more about it," she says. "Until you let us all go out to dinner, some time, and I'll get to convince him to put my product somewhere anyone might actually buy it."

"Hey," Jared says, "I bought one!"—and then it's easier, and they talk about other things, and they take a walk through the rain-fresh bourbon night before she whisks him west back to Austin, and kisses his cheeks before she disappears away again, and he's alone at home, with things to think about.

He lays awake for a while. He dated, among the pool of his parents' friends' children when he was still just getting tutoring, and then at college. If someone were to ask if he were inexperienced he'd laugh, but this is—Molly's right. His girlfriends, his boyfriends, they've been easy, dalliances that never really went anywhere and never meant anything. His parents' decision to stay as neutral as possible with politics meant that Jared was never promised to anyone, but he's never felt like he had a full choice, either. There's a dynasty behind him, over his shoulder, and he's had a life of clean easy sailing but that's not all he is, and not who he's expected to be in the end. When he eventually chooses, it will be his own choice, but there's more to it than that. It's not fair to pretend like it's otherwise. If he doesn't mean it, if he isn't willing to really go all in—he can have easy, any day. If he wants more…

When he wakes up, it feels like he didn't sleep at all. He blinks confused into the tangle of sheets, dawn peeking up over the horizon, the new day seeping into his room. Takes him a second to realize that his phone's flashing, a notification waiting, and he rubs his hand over his face and thumbs it open, and sees a text from Jensen. Jensen, texting first. Talk about a de-spiking. He opens up the message, and reads it, and feels the bottom drop out of his stomach.

*

He drags on clothes he barely notices, crams a beanie over the wreck of his hair. Early morning and there's no one in his way and he drives way too fast across town, his knack reaching ahead and shoving nulls out of the way, sending them scrambling for the sidewalks. There, the sad grey neighborhood, and he screeches to a halt at the curb under the healthy spreading branches of the tree, and when he gets out—yeah, the door's smashed out, ardglass all over the sidewalk glinting in the early light. Nulls, peeking around stoops and standing in doorways, arms folded, talking quiet among themselves. Silent, when Jared looks around, and the little girl who lives across the street stares big-eyed over the pavement.

He calls out, when he gets inside. "Jared?" Jensen's voice says, from somewhere, like he's actually surprised. Nothing too damaged at first, other than the door. Jared goes up to the front and Jensen's standing under the wall of clocks, in jeans and a t-shirt and with a startled, open expression on his face, and Jared comes over and takes him in a hug, ignoring how stiff Jensen goes at first, holding him warm and safe.

"Are you trying to smother me?" Jensen mumbles, and Jared squeezes him tighter for half a second before he lets go.

"You're hurt?" Jared tips his face up and Jensen swats his hand away, shaking his head. Jared catches his hand, holds it, and Jensen's face twists but he doesn't fight. A moment of closed eyes and searching through their connected skin and Jared can't feel any hurt, or at least not any hurt that's physical. He wants to sit right down, there on the floor, but there's—glass. Jared blinks, refocuses on things that aren't Jensen, for a second. The clocks, a bunch of them smashed, glass littered down on the hardwood. The display of lotions pushed over. Random destruction, so pointless it's like a movie. The text just said, I had a break-in, and Jared imagined—worse than this, but also not.

"Why didn't you call me?" Jared says. "A text?"

Jensen sighs, picks up the broom leaning against the bookcase. "Wish I hadn't sent that," he mutters. Louder, he says, over the scrape of glass on wood: "What would you have done? Annoyed the robbers?"

"I'd—I don’t know, I'd have been here earlier." He twists his hands together, feels useless. Then: "Robbers? More than one?"

"Yes, Jared, more than one." He crouches, gathers the glass up into a dustpan. He's acting calm, just irritated, but his ears are flushed red. "You didn't need to come over here, it's not a big deal."

Not a big deal. Jared's never—he's heard about robberies, he's known that that's something that happens, with nulls and with really poor mages, people who can't ward their homes, their spaces, but he's never seen it in person. He rubs his face, tries to think. "Hang on," he says, as Jensen dumps glass into the trashcan. "Don't you need to—like, keep the evidence clean, or something? What happens when the police come?"

"Why would the police come," Jensen says, not looking up, and Jared blinks and says, "Because I called them," and Jensen drops the dustpan.

"Who asked you to do that?" Jensen says, and he's—that's shock, but he's angry too, and Jared shakes his head, confused. "Why on earth—how would the police help?"

"You had a break-in," Jared says, exaggerated. Jensen's jaw clenches. "Jensen, that's not—the police will help, they'll catch the guys. You freaked me out, what was I supposed to do?"

Jensen stoops and picks up the dropped dustpan, and crunches across the remaining glass to slam it onto the counter. "You're so—" he starts, but bites it off. He blows out a breath, sharp, and braces his hands against the counter. "You told them where it was, where I am?" Jared nods when Jensen looks back over. "Great. Well, we're in for a wait, then."

Jared doesn't know what he means, but it turns out he's right. With a thought, while he was driving over, Jared pulsed a message across the city to the Office of Haruspexy, and the officer on duty was open to broadcasts just like he'd been taught when he was little. He thought the place, and the situation, and the officer took it in and send the message to the police just like she was supposed to, and what Jared imagined was—well, a movie. The detectives coming in, and an investigation, and figuring out what happened, and saving the day. When it was just a text Jared imagined—terrible things. Jensen hurt, Jensen hiding from bad people, Jensen stuck in the trunk of a car, Jensen dying. He raced over and he thought, maybe, he'd barely beat the police there, that they'd show up guns blazing.

Instead, he's faced with Jensen. Sullen, unhappy, typing. "Working on my paper," he says, hard, when Jared touches his shoulder, and it's so whipcrack vicious that it's like everything between them that has happened hasn't happened. Jensen doesn't ask him to leave, at least; he's just pretending like Jared isn't there at all.

He goes and sits on a chair that he's pretty sure isn't cursed, dragged out of aisle four to wait in the open doorway of the shop. No sign of the cat, and he hopes that she's okay. He props his elbows on his knees, leans forward. He fucked up, but he's not sure how.

The police finally show up. It's well past ten o'clock, hours after Jared sent out his plea. The car pulls up behind Jared's and two men get out, unhurried—a quick glance with his mind tells Jared they're a kineticist and another haruspex, though they're both warded up so high that beyond that he gets nothing.

"Where have you been?" Jared says, standing up. "I called—shit, three hours ago."

The haruspex raises his eyebrows and looks at his partner. "Attitude?" he says, and the partner snorts. Behind them, the nulls that were still hanging around disappear like rats when the light's turned on, vanishing as silent as though a convolutor banished them from the scene. The police are in suits, decent cuts, and they each have their badges in the breast pocket, the sigil of Austin engraved above their crisp all-caps names. Fordham's the haruspex; the other is Cox. They look at Jared's car, look him up and down. Fordham says, "Get inside, kid," and when Jared plants his hands on his hips and stares at him, Cox rolls his eyes and flicks his fingers and Jared staggers back from the invisible shove. Like the air slapped him, and it hurts.

He holds his hand to his chest, backs up. "What?" he says. No one's used their magic against him since schoolboy fights, playground scuffles when the kinetic kids wouldn't fight fair. He was pissed, but now he's—this is nothing, nothing like what he thought.

"What's a mage doing calling in from a null shithole?" Fordham says, looking Jared up and down. He's about a foot shorter than Jared and twenty years older, and wearing an expression like Jared's something to be scraped off his shoe.

From the front of the store, Jensen's voice: "It's my shithole," he says, somewhere, and the two cops immediately head through the aisles, Jared trailing behind them. Jensen's standing in front of the counter, head up and his expression placid, his hands open and conspicuously held out by his hips. "He thought he was being helpful."

Fordham tilts his head. Jared looks over the top of it, watching Jensen's face. "Name," Fordham says, no-nonsense, and Jensen reels it off obediently. "Ackles. You're a violator."

"Yes, sir," Jensen says, "on the wall, as ordered."

Cox goes to read the posting, and snorts when he's done. "No wonder. Surprised you haven't been knocked over before. Void running a store full of ardwork?"

Jared feels himself flinch, the slur hitting between his shoulder blades every time. Jensen's calm as a lake. "I've been robbed before," he says. What? "Sorry for the call, sir. No need to waste your time."

Over on the other side of the counter, Cox turns his head, eyebrows raised. Fordham goes and leans next to where Jensen's standing. "You think you get to tell us what to do with our time? Already called us out. You trying to hide something? Ill-gotten goods, maybe."

"No," Jensen says, and a second too late: "Sir."

Another snort from Cox, and he goes and looks at the broken clocks on the wall. "So," Fordham says. "Violation. Not exactly the best relationship with the law already, and I guess you know what that means. If you're found to be doing something wrong." Jensen closes his eyes. First giveaway, this whole time, and Fordham smiles like he's won a hand at cards. They're—messing with him, messing with both of them, and Jared doesn't know what to do. "Good, then. Wards off, now."

Jared blinks. No one just asks a mage for that, ever. "Hang on," he says, and Jensen fixes him with a look that snaps his jaw shut. Fordham doesn't give him a second's attention.

Cox is just messing around, now, disappeared somewhere in the aisles. There's a crash, something being knocked over, and Jared wants to go over and break the guy's damn hand. He stays where he is, and watches Jensen reach up and tug his necklaces out from under his t-shirt, and then he pulls them off over his head and puts them on the counter, a silvery puddle of chains, and Jared has to grip the shelf he's standing next to, the wave of unfettered emotion is so vivid.

Fordham grabs Jensen's wrist, closes his eyes. Amateur, Jared realizes, through the rush. A haruspex, but not a decent one, because Jared's washed in it and he's ten feet away.

Resentment and anger and fear, tangled sour in the air, and the sullen hatred of what's happening, and the simple shock of no—that's first, and Jared gulps breath, looks at Jensen's face, a placid mask as though that would be enough to hide—and there's more, there's the tiny warmth he feels toward Jared, but it's buried because—and then, there, the thread of memory. Fordham's yanking at it, cruel, so clumsy it must be painful, but it shoves everything else out of the way: Jensen waking up, late night, and two men—two men. The cat hid. They knocked, they wanted to sell—they were afraid, or pretended to be afraid, and Jensen let them in, they had with them: books, a box of books, and when Jensen had already let them in they—they summoned, a baseball bat and then one had a knife. A convolutor, one of them. Mages. Jensen's heart hammered in his throat and he thought he was going to throw up and at the same time it was calm, so calm. They started to break things. They wanted anything valuable. Money, he had, and they took it, and they made him open the safe under the counter, and there was the piece he'd been saving for a day when he thought he'd either want to kill himself finally or sell it to keep a roof over his head and food in his stomach. Raw ardcrystal the size of a bowling ball, summoned by a cynosure, magic throbbing inside it enough to power a mage for three hundred years, and he didn't know, he didn't know how they knew, how they could possibly, unless it was just that shopkeepers had safes and these two snarling fuckers just guessed lucky. The baseball bat held under his chin, and then touched to the side of his skull, an invitation to batting practice. Batting practice. They think they're clever. He looks at them and says the things he has to say, that he won't call the cops, that he won't do anything, and they taunt and destroy and hoot on their way out, and shatter the door as they're leaving for good measure, and there the strength goes out of his legs and he sits on the floor behind the counter and he thinks, the cat. The cat, she'll get out. He has to go and put something in front of the door, close the bedroom, because the cat'll get out—

"Where'd you get it?" Fordham says, out loud. Jared sways, takes what feels like his first full breath in an hour. "The ardcrystal. No way you can afford that. You make a deal?"

"I can't make deals," Jensen says. His voice is raw, thin. "The Intercessory Office's ruling was extremely specific."

"You're not neuter," Fordham says. Jared blinks at Jensen, his heartbeat still thudding too high in his throat. The echo of the old panic, it's sizzling under Jared's skin, and he wipes his face where the tears leaked—but he looks, because he can look, and—no, Jensen's thinking it now, his knack is—it's there, it's right there. Jared shakes his head, bewildered, and for a second he's sitting right behind Jensen's eyes, and he blinks and sees himself: tall, wet-faced, too young, and then Jensen realizes what's happening and shame and humiliation rise up so quick and fast in their twinned bodies that Jared physically steps back, snaps his mind back to where it's supposed to be.

"No," Jensen says. His face is still schooled into quiet.

"So, did you make a deal? You re-violate?" Something else crashes, and Cox comes out from the other side of the store, idly spinning a circle of miniature figurines in a figure eight above his hand. Jensen's silent and Fordham shakes his head. "I could pull it out of you, idiot, you think you're getting away with something here? I don't know why the Intercessor didn't just lobotomize your insolent ass. Shove you off to the farms with the rest of the voids and be done with it."

"Stop it," Jared says.

Fordham turns at looks at him, and looks at Cox. "That's right, your little boyfriend here," he says. "What's your deal, again?"

"I called." Jared wipes his face again, his chest trembling. He wants to punch the little fucker and knows that'll do nothing. "I thought you'd—help. There was a crime here, Jensen's the victim."

"Jensen is a criminal," Cox says, and lets the figurines clatter to the floor. Most of them are metal; the one porcelain piece breaks, a little deer crumbled to pieces.

"Drop your wards, kid, let's see what you've got to say," Fordham says, and Jared forces his jaw to unclench. His face feels hot. He takes a deep breath and reaches inside, to the place where he's always been a fortress, and lowers his guard. It should be an easing, a muscle long-held in position finally getting to relax, and he's only done this with a few people. For this prick, it feels like an assault.

Fordham's mind is clumsy, brutish. He crashes against Jared's consciousness and Jared huffs, eases things so he won't end up with blood on his hands. Welcoming, making the approach smooth even if he's sure all his violent thoughts are right up against the surface. He can't believe his parents ever told him that the police were there to help.

Fordham yanks back. His face is an open well of surprise, echoing back between them. His own wards suck. "Padalecki?" he says, a burst of air.

Cox and Jensen are staring at him too. He folds his arms over his chest. "Yeah," he says. He wishes he'd never gotten out of bed this morning. "Jared Padalecki."

A fumble and Fordham's panic leaches out into the air, grabbing at Cox and Jared and slamming right into Jensen, unprotected. Jared takes a chance and presses a buffering shield between the man and Jensen, and watches Jensen's nostrils flare, his eyes flickering. "I'm, uh," Fordham says, "I'm, I didn't realize."

Miserable, Jared nods. Cox runs a hand over his hair, exchanges a look with Fordham. Jensen doesn't move, but he's watching Jared now, and Jared tries to keep his mind entirely inside his own head. It's already not fair. No need to make it worse.

"I didn't realize that—um, that the Padaleckis' son was friends with—" and Jared doesn't need to be inside the man's head to know the words he's fumbling.

"I called," Jared interrupts, trying to keep his voice even. "There was a break-in. I thought you might investigate. Maybe try to catch the guys. Get Jensen's property back."

Beat of silence. Cox scratches his beard, awkward. "We'll investigate," he says, and his mouth twists. "But, uh, if the property was—that is, if the stolen items weren't properly gained in the first place, then we can't return them."

"Under the laws of the Dominion of Austin," Jensen starts, quietly. His eyes are on the floor, his hands still open and relaxed. "Items owned by a mage at the age of majority, who are not themselves chattel or neuter, will be considered the property of that mage if they have been in the mage's possession for a year, for items of neutral worth, or five years if they are of great worth." He reels it off, neutral and calm, until he looks up and finally meets Fordham's eyes. "I had it seven years. It was mine."

"We'll look," Fordham says. Not to Jensen, but to Jared. "We'll—yes, we'll start an investigation. I have their faces and we'll get the horologer down here, track their movements. We'll get this fixed."

Jared doesn't have it in him to say thanks. "Okay," he says, and feels like he could cry all over again, for real this time and not just mirrored too-intense emotion.

They're professional, now. Pretending like they weren't cruel, weren't awful, weren't going to call the knackers on Jensen, get his tongue cut out or get him neutered, or executed. They have to take over the store for evidence, though, and they'll get their colleagues here right away—and would the two of them, please, we don't want to inconvenience—the investigation will take a few hours, would they mind terribly—

Jensen goes into the back, and there's the creak of stairs. Cox is on the phone, talking fast and low to whoever's on the other end. Probably making sure that people actually come, even though it's this neighborhood. Fordham's writing something down in a notebook, on the counter, trying to ignore Jared. The back of his neck is bright red, blushing.

Jared crouches, carefully picks up all the pieces of the little porcelain deer. It wasn't arded, just simple art. Something someone was careful with, that they had to try for. The door opens again, and there's Jensen, in a cheap thin coat and with a scarf around his neck. Jared drops the pieces into his own coat pocket and stands up.

"Mr. Ackles," Fordham says. He holds out the two ward necklaces, dangling from his finger at arm's length.

Jensen's mouth twists, a little bitter curl. "Thank you," he says, arctic, and lifts them both over his head. He pauses, letting them settle. "Please don't go into my room, upstairs. I don't want the cat to get out."

They'll obey. They're too afraid of the call Jared could make, and that's just—

He follows Jensen out of the store. The glass crackles under their shoes. Jared picks up a piece, turns it over between his fingers. Shattered, the magic's leaking out of it fast, and the glass is twisting and transforming right in front of him. Old ardwork, just what he's always looking for. He doesn't want to collect this, though.

He's never seen Jensen in real, open daylight. His hair's lighter than Jared realized. "Can I—" Jared starts, and then doesn't know what to say.

"Can I stay with you?" Jensen says. He's holding the ward-charms, rubbing them between thumb and forefinger. His eyes are distant, thoughtful. "I don't have anywhere else."

"Yeah," Jared says, aching. "Yeah, of course you—of course. Come on."

*

The car. Driving. Out of the sad streets, and past midday business, the streets crowded. Over the river, and Jared could take Jensen home, could try to put him on Jared's couch where they've been so close and go down to his knees and say—sorry, sorry, that he's so sorry he can hardly breathe with it, but. Jensen's silent, looking out the window and still holding his wards, and Jared can imagine the empty quiet that would meet them inside his house, and right at that moment he can't face it.

The drive to the warehouse isn't that long, though it feels long. The bridge, and the industrial park. The river, winding lazy, and the trees bare now with winter. He parks, turns off the car. Richard's here, but there's no sign of Carlos or Ambika, and Jared looks at the big metal-clad building and reaches across and takes Jensen's hand, very carefully. Jensen lets him take it, and Jared squeezes, soft, wishes there were something he could do that would matter. There's a blank wall where Jensen's mind could be and Jared's glad of it, for once. "This is where I work," he says, instead of anything else he could say. "Hang here for a while? We'll get food."

"Sure," Jensen says, eyes down, and Jared takes a deep breath and gets out of the car, leads the way inside.

The horse. He forgot, in all the craziness. Carlos finished, and the wood's gleaming now in that way of all ardwork but it still looks like wood, the grain visible, the suggestion of impermanence. Perfect. Jensen follows along behind him, his boots thudding louder than Jared's sneakers, and Jared shrugs. "This is it," he says, lamely. Jensen looks around, a little knot between his eyebrows.

"You just missed Ambika," comes Robert's voice, floating along from his sunny end of the warehouse. He's buried inside what looks like a twisted, overlarge bonsai, although the tiny leaves are sprouting from gold branches. "She's gone out for coffee."

"Sweet, okay," Jared mutters, and flips open his phone, texts: hey—can you bring back two more coffees, and any kind of lunch if you can swing it, emergency status. He rubs his forehead with the back of his hand, clears his throat. "Hey, Robert, come meet someone."

Curls appear above the tree, and then Robert's eyes peek up. "Oh!" he says, and stands up straight. "A friend?"

Jared looks at Jensen. His face is still a mask. "Yeah," he says, and Jensen at least looks back at him. "Yeah, Robert, this is Jensen. He's hanging out today, hope you don't mind."

"Of course not," says Robert, coming around the pile of odd-end metal and half-alive plants. He holds out a soil-covered hand, and Jensen takes it, after a beat. "Sorry, dirt."

"I've had worse," Jensen says, neutral, and Robert smiles at him like a ray of gentle of sunshine. "You're—"

"A wright, counterclockwise," Robert says. He waves a hand behind him. "Working on a project for some rich girl's birthday party. Want to see?"

Jensen walks over without another word, but he goes. Robert looks at Jared, a question in his eyes, and Jared can only shrug, and so Robert follows Jensen, talking now about his process, about the commission, "You see, the live oak wasn't ideal, but I integrated the sap-lines into—"

Jared's phone beeps, in his hand. emergency?? He texts back: bad morning. Please be nice, if you can.

Robert's chatting placidly away to Jensen, who seems to be too shaken-up or unhappy or something to be an asshole, and Jared takes the opportunity to go over to his workbench and sit down a little out of the way and bury his head in his hands, breathing slow and calming. He wraps his fingers behind his neck, presses back, forces his knack in to unkink the brutally tense muscles in his shoulders, around his spine. The lash-mark where Cox hit him hurts a little, but when he thinks his way around the spot there's not a real bruise—it's magic, and he can't fix that. He sniffs, sits up. Jensen's leaning over another of Robert's projects—looks like the ironwood he's forcing to grow, and he seems to be asking questions, maybe really interested. Okay. Well, this could be worse.

Ambika shows up twenty minutes later with a bag of sandwiches under her arm and a tray of coffees floating in the air in front of her, and her mouth goes round when she sees Jensen but some of Jared's misery must have bled through, because she doesn't make a fuss. She hands out coffees, leaves the food on Carlos's empty workbench, says, "Nice to meet you," bland to meet Jensen's blankness, and goes over to the elaborate conceptual piece she's working on. Jared's phone beeps again while he's stirring sugar into his coffee, over at their half-assed little kitchenette. Pretty, not so perfect? I better get the story next time. Good luck.

Jensen's sitting and eating; Jared tugs another stool over, and takes a random sandwich from the bag. Iberico ham, some kind of cheese. Fine. He wolfs down half of it way too fast, and sips at the coffee to slow himself down. He chews on the inside of his lip, and sighs. "Thanks," he says.

"I haven't done anything," Jensen says.

Jared shakes his head. He turns on his stool, lets their knees press together. For some reason Jensen lets him. "You're here," Jared says, and Jensen's eyes lift up from his coffee and really meet Jared's, for the first time in a while, and oh man. He looks so tired. "Can I—" Jared says, and huffs. "Man. Can I do something? Can I boost your energy, or something?"

Jensen lifts one shoulder. "Coffee's fine." He's blank, all expression stripped off his face. Like he was with the cops, like there's still something that might be danger, here. Jared doesn't know what to do, what to give him.

"Okay." He swallows, and touches Jensen's wrist, where it peeks out of the cuff of his inadequate coat. Well. Jensen's here, and he chose to be. Jared's going to have to take that as given. He tries a smile, rubbing his thumb along the small knob of bone. "Okay. Let me give you a tour."

Jensen doesn't smile back, but he comes along when Jared tugs him to his feet, and he stays close while Jared walks him around. The warehouse is a good size, though as a bunch of sculptors they're always taking up too much space. Carlos's projects, transmutations of matter, deceptively simple shapes. Ambika's wild perfect abstractions. Robert's work he's already seen, and then it's Jared's corner. The steps he's made, and the copper base. "I still need this automaton," he says, fingers pressed lightly against Jensen's back. Holding on. "There's this jerky shopkeep who's making me rack my brains to come up with a trade for it."

Still no smile, but Jensen gives him a sidelong look. Jared flattens his hand on the low curve of his spine and tucks Jensen's shoulder in against his chest, pointing, making shapes in the air. "A man," he says, "stepping up, with a clockwork heart, and bones of sweetwood." He's thinking, now, about changing the base—steps, but the metal blending and melding with the legs. Pulling himself out, or being sucked down. Visual metaphors.

"Why sculpture?" Jensen says. Jared blinks, looks down at him. He's fiddling with one of the leftover silver petals from the rhododendrons Jared made, rubbing his thumb over the old factory-made filigree. "It's not your knack. You could've been—a shrink, a doctor. Something that would've used your skills."

"You don't think I have skills? I'm hurt." Jensen drops the petal with a clank, folds his arms over his chest. Jared shrugs. "I went to college, and I took a bunch of different classes. I did the required work for haruspexy, and some vitalist classes too, but I liked art. It's a challenge, you know? Making people see the meaning I want them to see, even if I can't force it into their heads."

Jensen gives him another look, more searching that time, and then slides his eyes over to the horse, standing proud in the middle of the floor. "That's yours," he says, not asking.

All that wood, of course he recognizes it. This angle, they're looking at it side-on, and through the open ribs Jared watches Robert pull new growth up through the golden branches of his bonsai, the sun flooding through the big open window. It's a preview of what people will see, when they look at it in the square. The monument to war, but also the world moving past it. "It's for the Anglican War Memorial," Jared says. He drags his beanie off his head, scrubs at his scalp. No point avoiding it, anymore. "I got the commission from the council, after a recommendation from my parents. I've done some work for the government before, so."

Under his hand, he feels Jensen take a deep breath. "The Padalecki family," he says. At least he doesn't sound angry. "You never wanted to mention that?"

"You never asked," Jared says, which is true. A couple of hookups, a couple of dates, and they never talked about anything more difficult than sandwich toppings. "I don't like bringing it up, it makes people…" He shakes his head. "They talk to the name, not to me. I want people to deal with me, not Mom or Dad."

Jensen snorts. "I bet," he says. "Mom and Dad are about the most famous philanthropists in the country, but better to keep that quiet, hm?" He steps away, picks up one of the big shards of ardglass, smoked and wavering the light. "Wasn't your dad an ambassador, or some other thing?"

"A couple of other things," Jared says. He sits down, folds his elbows on the high surface of the table. Jensen's twirling the glass between his fingers, watching the shadow on the ground shift into too many colors. He keeps not looking at Jared, his expression hardly changing. "It shouldn't change how people treat me. Or anyone else, for that matter."

Jensen tests the edge of the glass with his finger, his lashes hiding his eyes. "Shouldn't doesn't matter," he says. "It changes, and then, lo, the world works. Like a magic trick."

He says it softly, a bitter curl to his mouth. Jared feels himself color up, heat surging to his cheeks. Jensen drops the glass back on the table and braces his hands behind him. "So," Jensen says. "You have work to do?"

"I'm done with the commission," Jared says. "Everything else can wait." Jensen nods, and his cheek sucks in on one side, his eyes drifting back to the horse dominating the center of the room. A moment, and Jared wants to touch him, but thinks better of it. He takes a deep breath. "Jensen. What do you want me to do?"

A blink, when Jensen turns back. Like that wasn't at all expected. "I want—I don't want you to do anything," he says. He pulls his lip between his teeth, though, and when he releases it it's with a sigh. "I just want to sleep. Just— sleep."

That's something Jared can manage. "Okay," he says, and stands up, and waves goodbye to Robert, and to Ambika's back. She's engrossed, carving shapes into raw silver, and won't be surfacing for a while. He touches Jensen's elbow and Jensen follows, quiet, to the car. Then it's just—driving, back across the city. His house, big and bright in the daylight, and inside, and up the stairs. Jensen's shoulders slump when he sees the bed, like it's the first thing he hasn't had to defend against all day. Jared pulls the thin coat off his shoulders, careful, and watches him tug off his boots and unzip out of his jeans. In his t-shirt and briefs he's so, so white, the day filling up the room so bright there's hardly any shadows. He crawls onto the bed and lays face-down. A second's hesitation and Jared kicks off his shoes, and he lays down, too, on his side, and makes a shadow out of himself. Jensen tips his head closer, his arm bent up between them. His curled knuckles touch Jared's chest, a brief warm touch that Jensen doesn't shy away from, and so Jared closes his eyes, and lays there with him. He doesn't mean to sleep, but he does.

*

Jared dreams of the store. He's sitting at the counter, where Jensen usually sits, and he looks out on the big crowded banks of the aisles and becomes aware only slowly that the whole place is on fire. Smoke fills up the ceiling, the lamps and walls shrouded behind thick choking black. He tries to stand up and he can't, because his feet are held to the floor with iron clamps, and the stool wraps around his legs, and an iron band of kineticist force holds him back, and he can't yell for help because his throat is stopped by some invisible hand. He watches helpless, panic filling him up on the inside, and wakes up totally bewildered, his heart thudding too hard, and Jensen's leaning over him, a hand on his chest, saying, "Jared, it's a dream."

He blinks, and tears fill up his eyes but they don't fall. Jensen's blurry for a second, either way. He scrubs a hand over his face and breathes deep, and when he looks again Jensen's just—still. A thought and he touches his wrist—late afternoon, mirrored in the low golden light painting Jensen to softer colors. His eyes aren't quite so green, like this. His skin less worrying. "How'd you know," he says, and his voice comes out all cracked and strange.

"You were making noise," Jensen says. His shoulder's popped high where he's leaning his weight into the bed; he tips his head against it, drags his hand down Jared's chest to his abs. He leans down, and his eyes are on Jared's mouth, and Jared takes a breath but Jensen's kissing him, already, licking inside, demanding. He sucks at Jared's lip, sharp teeth and then soft, plush tongue. Jared kisses back, of course he does, but he has to put a hand on Jensen's jaw, pulls away.

"Hey," he says, "I—I wanted to say—" he starts, and he's just fumbling, trying for something he doesn't even know how to express, and Jensen shakes his head, grabs Jared's hand, tight and a little painful, and he says, "No," sharp, and barely softer: "I don't want to talk. I don't want to think right now."

His other hand slips down from Jared's stomach to the bulge of his dick, trapped inside his jeans, and squeezes there. Only two real nights together and he knows just the right grip—Jared nods, his gut twisting hot already, and Jensen leans down again, knocks his mouth wide open and fucks his tongue in like he means it—wet, filthy, and it clears everything else out of Jared's head, just like it was meant to.

They strip fast, and there's no foreplay. Jensen falls onto his back and says, his hands tight in Jared's hair, "Don't make it easy," his eyes spread-black fixed on Jared's face, and so with his knack he barely eases the way. It's a fight, his dick knocking open a space, Jensen's body bruise-tight around him and so good he has to squeeze everything down to make sure he doesn't come just like that—and fucking him is slow, painful almost, his thighs clutched around Jared's hips and his fingers knotting and pulling in Jared's hair and his back arching, his head thrown back. Exquisite. The lines of him, the pull of muscle. The bones, vivid under his skin, the sudden startle-up of his ribs, his collarbone there for Jared to sink his teeth into. Jared buries his face down against the sharp stubbled line of his jaw and fucks in, hard, like he clearly wants, and the first time Jensen comes it's a complete surprise—his body ripples, squeezes brutal and fierce and demanding around Jared—and Jared could give up there, he could slam home and pour himself out—but Jensen gasps and clutches at him and whispers, barely voiced, don’t you dare—keep going, damn you, keep—and so Jared rises up on his knees, tips Jensen back against the bed, grabs his hips in both hands and fucks harder, selfish, pushing further than he should, reaching inside himself and holding off, and watching Jensen's face flush and the sweat break out all over, his mouth open and groaning loud and his face turned hot against the pillow, his thighs knocked open and his dick thick and wanting still against his already-wet stomach, and he looks down between them at himself breaking Jensen open, the roughness of it, the way it must hurt but Jensen's hands are only grasping at his hips, urging him on—and he leans back down, cups his hand under Jensen's back to keep him in place and demands his mouth, kisses him clumsy and breathless and curls his hips in so tight and relentless that Jensen comes a second time with a hurt soft sound like he's been punched—and his face relaxes, soft and broken-open, and that means Jared can let go, finally.

After, Jared feels a little like his spine has been removed. The pillow's too hot. Body wrung out, and their legs still knocked together, his dick softening against Jensen's hip. Used up.

He turns his head, dragging himself out of the sleepy achy haze. In the mess of rucked-up sheets and pillows Jensen's still flushed, his hair darker with the sweat, streaked-up with mess, his lips bitten and full with blood. Jared touches him there, soft as he can, the plump of the bottom lip denting damp under his finger. He rubs, careful, and Jensen catches his hand, and only then do his eyes slit open, long black eyelashes parting slow and damp. Held, a moment, and then Jared touches the silver chains of the wards, Jensen's hand still heavy on his wrist. Tingle sizzling under his skin, but they're holding.

"I'm sorry," Jared says. "About before, in your head."

A sigh. Jensen keeps hold of him, but his head tips away on the pillow, so Jared can mostly just see his cheekbone, his jaw. His ear, and the freckles scattered faint inside it, even if he apparently never goes out in the sunlight. "You're smoother than that haruspex," he says. "Not the cleanest I've had, but that fuck might've actually, truly, been the worst."

Jared opens his mouth to ask when else Jensen would've ever taken his wards off, and luckily his brain catches up and stops him making a complete fool of himself. "He shouldn't have," is all he says, and Jensen snorts.

"Shouldn't," he says, and rolls his head back, and when he does there's a small wry twist to his mouth. "We already discussed shouldn't, Jared."

"Yeah," Jared says, and falls onto his back, rubbing his hands over his face, scrubbing into his hair. "Man, look, I'm—I don't know. I'm sorry, about all of it."

"I know you are," Jensen says, and the bed shifts as he sits up. A pause, and he stands, and when Jared looks again he's rummaging in his coat pocket on the floor, and he comes up with a battered silver case. In the window seat he lights up, sliding the big pane open to let the smoke escape, and he looks out over the city. The house is on a hill, with a good view, and it's why Jared had the house oriented this direction. Early morning light floods into the room and wakes him up naturally, but at this time of day the city just becomes a flood of gold, the river peeking through the buildings in spots of sudden glimmer.

Jared watches Jensen. He's unselfconscious. Hasn't cleaned up, either, his belly shining, and between his legs must be a glossy mess. Jared hopes it doesn't hurt, even if maybe—maybe Jensen wanted it to. Hard to tell. He turns onto his side, watches the plume of smoke leave his lips. Jensen rubs the soft leaves of the anise Jared brought home to sit in the window and his face gives nothing away, a blank like it so often is with strangers. The thing is that it would be easy to believe, that he's some immobile bit of unarded marble, unfeeling, except that no one is, truly, and more than that: Jared knows, now. He's been inside. He knows for sure.

Something else he knows, too. "You lied to me," Jared says. He tries to say it light. Jensen's eyes turn his way, and he ashes out the window onto the cobblestones below. "You've still got your knack."

"No," Jensen says, "I don't." He drags his knee up, resting one arm on it. His fingers dangle, lax. "Nor, I have to say, did I lie. What you infer is your business."

Jared props his head up on his hand, rolling his eyes, and Jensen raises his eyebrows back at him. "What you imply is yours," he says, with a little tartness, and Jensen presses his lips together but those two tiny dimples appear. Feeling, finally. He does like it when Jared snaps back. Jared smiles at him, as much as he can, but this been nagging at him as much as all the rest of it. "So—you weren't cut off."

"I was," Jensen says, and holds up a finger. "Hold on. I was. No deals can be made, and re-violation is punishable by—many, many terrible things. I committed a crime, and this is the punishment."

Jared sits up, frowning. "But—so there isn't any… I don't know, surveillance? A cynosure didn't tag you, to check your magic?" Jensen shrugs, and Jared runs his hand through his hair. "So—the only way anyone would know, the only—as long as no one found out, you could make a deal. Not to mention, luck, fate, all that stuff you weirdos do."

"Weirdos?" Jensen says, one corner of his mouth turning up.

"We're esoterics, we're weirdos, just accept it." Carlos says it often enough. Jensen huffs, shaking his head. Jared wraps his arms around his knees, watching Jensen's smile curve his perfect mouth. One day, maybe, he'll ask. If he can sculpt a bust. Try to capture—even a fraction, a morsel. He presses his lips together, shrugs. "I don’t know. You could still be yourself. I just—I can't imagine it."

Jensen blinks, and his lips part—startled, for a second, before his mouth goes wry, and he takes another drag from his cigarette, blows smoke out the window over the slowly darkening city. Late in the season, it'll be sunset soon. "I know you can't," he says. "Because you trust people, Jared." He licks his lips, shrugs. "I could make a deal. I could trade with some down on his luck mage that comes in to the shop, and force him to treat with me honestly, not passing off junk as treasure. A deal that's easy, one for one, where no one could ever get hurt—and the second, the very second someone went running off to the knackers, let something slip, I'm dead. Or worse." He shakes his head, rolling the white tube of the cigarette between two fingers. "Magic isn't worth that."

"But it's part of you," Jared says. Jensen's eyes slide back up to him. "I can't understand it."

Jensen's head tilts. "Can't you? Haruspex, in a world of shields. Only children and nulls can't block you, right? All these minds, these feelings, that you could take and know and own, except that the moat's full of snapping sharks and the doors are closed." Jared stares at him, and Jensen raises his eyebrows. "So. Power, a mage's birthright, and you can't use it. You can imagine it. You just don't want to."

It's not the same. With shields off Jared can think his way halfway across the planet, and no law stops him. Jensen… law aside, his knack is right there, waiting for him, and he could use it any time he wanted. Make luck turn his way with a thought. Make two thieves become doomed to a horrible fate. Apparently, though, he won't.

Jared knows, without ever having to experience the same thing, he wouldn't have the same willpower. As a kid he was in and out of his friends' heads every other minute; with nulls it's second nature. He tries to imagine committing some crime, and being told he wasn't even allowed to heal, even the minor things he can heal, and he knows: he'd do it, regardless. He looks at Jensen and thinks, how?, but then he frowns, again. "I never asked. Clockwise?"

Another flick of ash, out the window. The cigarette's nearly burned down. "Counter," Jensen says, tipping his head back against the bare wall. White on white—his hair, his mouth, his eyelashes standing out, everything washed to the same color in the setting sun. He really needs to get outside more. "But I'm as close to true as makes no difference. Time wasn't ever something I could really manage."

Pure intercessor. Cut off, then. By law, but also by choice: to trust no one. Or to never get close enough to anyone else to trust them. Jared opens his mouth, but that question—he's not ready to ask it. He watches, silent, while Jensen takes one last drag off his cigarette and then flicks the butt down to the cobbles. The gardening service will take care of it.

"You've never asked," Jensen says, smoke purling up out of his mouth. He doesn't look at Jared, his eyes steady on the city. In this light the sun glances across them and they're almost impossible to see. "That is, you never asked about what happened. What I—the reason, for the violation."

Jared gets up, and comes and sits on the other half of the window seat. The cushions sink beneath his weight, but Jensen doesn't move. He circles a hand around Jensen's ankle and Jensen doesn't pull away. Little victories. He rubs his thumb in the sparse faint hair, and shrugs, deliberate, knowing Jensen will see it. "Nope," he says.

"I suppose anyone could look it up," Jensen says, almost under his breath, and Jared shakes his head, squeezes the bone under his hand, says again: "Nope."

That, finally, earns him a direct look. Jensen frowns, shakes his head, and Jared leans in. "I can prove it, if you want," he says. "Take off those wards and I can let you right in and you can see for yourself. Or you can make me promise."

Jensen only scoffs. "Doesn't matter," he says, eyes cutting away.

Liar, Jared thinks, and doesn't say. He wants to hug Jensen for it, and doesn't do that, either.

A shower, shared, and then ordered-in ramen from the place with the perfect tonkatsu broth, and Jared wolfs all of his and then most of Jensen's when he pushes it away. "You eat ridiculously," Jensen says, and Jared slurps a noodle up and then gives him a big toothy smile, and earns his eyeroll, and then leans in and gets a savory-salty kiss. Jensen's soft, clean, well-fucked and -fed, in Jared's borrowed pajama pants and a sweater Jared hopes never to get back. It starts to snow, when the last whisper of sunset fades from the sky. Snowglobe weather, all fake, but it's beautiful. He turns on the lights over the pool and they watch the flakes drift prettily down until they hit the steaming surface. Not the night to drag Jensen into the water, but one day, Jared thinks. Soon, maybe.

There's a call, from Cox, while they're in the middle of Jensen complaining about the kung-fu movie Jared put on. "They're kineticists," Jensen's bitching, watching the women float over the high canopies of the forest, "why on earth would they bother with kicking each other," and Jared's grinning when his phone rings.

All evidence has been taken and noted, Cox says, bland but respectful. Jared puts the phone on speaker and the voice is tinny, small between them on the sofa. Our department horologer rewound the incident and we found the suspects. The crystal has to be logged in our records, but we'll deliver it back to Mr. Ackles tomorrow morning.

Jensen frowns, his head shaking just the tiniest bit. Jared says, "I'll come pick it up, actually." Jensen blinks at him. "If that's okay."

Of course, Mr. Padalecki. Have a good night.

The call goes dead. "Don't tell me what to do," Jared mutters, and Jensen snorts and then actually laughs, even if it's short. "Hey, he hit me."

"Welcome to my world," Jensen says, wry, and then he leans over and kisses Jared, soft and brief. When he sits back he's got the smallest smile on. "Thank you."

"I didn't do anything," Jared says. His face is warm. Affection, easy, that feels—new.

"No, you didn't. You're actually quite useless." Jensen leans his elbow on the back of the sofa. His eyes crinkle just a little, around the corners. Crow's feet. Another not-perfect detail.

For the first time in years Jared wants to pull out a sketchpad, like this is his terrible freshman composition class all over again. Sculpture was always more his thing, to shape the art into being with his own hands. How delicate, to get that in clay. Worth the time, maybe.

Jensen sets his bare foot against Jared's thigh, pushes. "Daydreamer," he says, not unkind. "You're very young, Jared."

The small smile is smaller. Jared lets himself be pushed, tips back into the corner of the couch. "I'm—what, four years younger than you? Yeah, you're ancient."

"Yeah," Jensen says, and the smile's all the way gone.

Jared squirms, gets his legs on either side of Jensen's ass so he's at least laid out flat. He holds out a hand, and after a second Jensen takes it, and he tugs, and Jensen sighs but he rolls forward, lays himself down between Jared's legs, heavy on top of him but not too heavy. Jared lifts his knee up by Jensen's hip, stops him rolling off, and runs his fingers through the short soft hair.

"Why'd you text me?" he says. Very close, Jensen's eyebrows furrow. "This morning."

The knot clears, and Jensen's eyes drop to Jared's mouth. He's warm, heavy as a falling night, his lips pink and full and right there, even as he presses them together, maybe trying to come up with some decent quip, something that won't be real. Jared slides his hand over his neck, rubs the velvety line where his hair stops, and then hooks his thumb under the silver chains. It stings, prickling, but Jensen's eyes jump up to meet his. "I don't know," Jensen says, and even if it's nothing it sounds—true. Like he really doesn't.

Maybe Jared's young, maybe he doesn't know, all the way, how the world really works. He looks at Jensen. His eyes in this light, with the muted TV flickering against the side of his face and the kitchen light shining golden on his ear, snow outside—they're the most unreal, clear thing Jared's ever seen. He slips his fingers under the stinging line of the arded chains and finds the two charms, heavy with magic, straining away from what Jared is. Double-layered protection, like almost no one bothers with, and he thought it was overkill when he first saw. Jensen lets him touch, relaxed on top of him, waiting. Not trying to get away, not hiding. Jared thinks, maybe, he understands this. "Okay," he says, letting Jensen get away with what Jared's pretty sure is a lie, and watches the tiny soft changes in Jensen's expression, and thinks suddenly: oh.

Jensen's eyes move over his face, and he pets Jared's hair back behind his ear, thumb moving easy. Gentle. Jared's chest is caught up in the ache of this surprising sudden feeling and that doesn't help, not a bit. "I can go home, now," he says, and there's a few seconds where Jared has no idea what he's talking about until facts and normal reality reassert themselves. "Cops are gone. The cat'll be wondering where I am."

"She's probably moved on," Jared says, and Jensen huffs, drags himself upright. "She's smart. Probably getting some other mage to bring her—whatever, mice. What do you feed her, anyway?"

"Stupid customers," Jensen says, slapping Jared's thigh before he stands up, and he stretches, Jared's too-long sweater swinging around his hips. For the space of a heady wild thought Jared wants to yank him back down to the couch and pin him down and stop him from leaving, but that's—

He sits up. "Guess you want a ride home, huh." He manages to say it like his heart isn't turning goofy somersaults in his chest. Not the day to have a revelation. At least, not out loud.

Jensen shrugs. "I could walk," he says, as though there's any possibility that Jared would ever let that happen, and Jared swats his ass right back, and then gets up, and pretends he's not in love, and takes him home.

*

The warded ardglass door is long-gone, all of the glass swept up and neatly disposed of. An officer around Jared's age sits on air against the storefront, looking bored, until Jared's car pulls up and he stands and tries to look like he's being useful. Jensen sighs, rolls his eyes, and he doesn't kiss Jared when he gets out but he touches his knee, a quick glance that makes Jared's stomach roll happily like it's a first date all over again. They've put up a plain wooden door, cheap and pointless, but it's something. Jensen says something Jared can't hear to the officer and then sweeps inside, shutting the replacement tight behind him; the dude shifts awkwardly, trying to look impressive, and Jared drives away. Has to believe that Jensen's in safe hands, if not kind ones. They're still too worried about Jared calling his parents and all that charitable funding evaporating into insubstantial air.

He's too wired up to sleep. He goes to the empty warehouse, kills time with the new idea in his head: welding, shaping from memory, distracting himself, filling his mind with making instead of things he doesn't know what to do with. Some of those old boyfriends and girlfriends, he loved them, but he loved them in the way he that he loved all his friends—loyal, and always happy to see them, but they didn't move into his head. They didn't take up a space in him, real estate he didn't even know he had. Like a colocation, one heartbeat taken up in two chests. He welds a smooth join between two pieces of the copper-iron alloy Carlos left in the scrap chest, and he keeps his eyes on the place where the metal bleeds together and becomes one strong thing, and he tries to stop himself from imagining crazy, overly hopeful things—but he's never been very good at that.

In the morning, he goes to the police office. It isn't far from the city council chamber, although Jared knows there are colocated doors popped up over half the city. Funny, how that didn't make them show up at Jensen's store any sooner. Neither Cox nor Fordham are there to greet him; he's met by a lieutenant, an intercessor herself with cloud-white hair and a sharp, calculating eye, who tells him how sorry she is for the trouble, that the officers in question have been disciplined.

"I'm just here to pick up my friend's property," Jared says, trying to be polite, and she looks at him for a few seconds too long before she puts on a smile. Her office is spare, clean and cold, and sitting in front of her he feels like he's part of an interrogation. "I really don't want this to be a big deal."

"Nor do we," she says, smoothly, and from behind her desk she picks up a clean glass box. Inside it, the ardcrystal. Jared hasn't seen too many of these. It's a color he doesn't know how to describe, something like a purplish-blue, but it shades to things he can't see with his kind of eyes.

"It's a remarkable specimen," she says. "If it hadn't been claimed we would have delivered it to the Cynosure. Crack it, and your friend could achieve an incredible feat."

"No, he can't," Jared says, standing up. "That would be against his violation order."

He picks up the box, and she smiles at him again, nods. "Of course," she says. "Oh, well."

She escorts him out personally. In the hall there's a line of moving photographs, images of the people who have managed to escape the city's justice, with information—a cynosure, a haruspex, two somnambulists who dove into the space behind the world to walk with spirits and avoid capture. There aren't many. Mage justice is quick, and effective, when it wants to be. Those two robbers never had a chance, once the mechanisms started grinding their way.

"What happened?" Jared says. She's already shaken his hand, but she turns back, politely blank. "To the guys you caught."

"Ah," she says. "The one was a haruspex who shielded their intent from the door; he has been eliminated. The other, with the bat, was a very weak mage, barely identifiable. He's been neutered and given to the farms." She smiles and shrugs. "I suppose you will want to tell your friend. No more worries from that quarter. Please, give our regards to his Excellency your father, and to Lady Padalecki too."

She disappears back into the halls. Jared stands blinking in the cold sunshine on the steps. A valet brings his car back and jumps out onto the curb, bowing his head and twisting his hands together. Eliminated. Okay.

Back at the store, a long drive across the city from where the main office is. The tree's gone ruddy orange-red, quick as that, to match the insistence of the weather system. Somehow Jensen's gotten rid of the guard. Jared holds the glass box against his hip and the raw magic pulsing inside the ardcrystal hums against his skin, his mindsense sharpened and flicking through the nulls in the dumpy houses around without his say-so. tired hurt sad hopeful hungry hungry laughing—he shakes his head, closes the wooden door behind himself and drags himself back inside the confines of his own skull.

"Hello?" Jensen's voice says, quick and tense, and Jared says, "It's me," immediately. He shouldn't have sent the guard away.

There's been some clean-up. He walks up through the center aisle and the broken things are gone, and on the wall the shattered clocks have been taken down, stacked and waiting for disposal along the baseboard. Jensen's leaning a broom up against the wall, and he looks right at glass box when he turns around and the relief on his face is obvious, his shoulders slumping, and Jared puts it on the counter so it's not shoving up against his magic anymore and strides the three steps across the floorboards to take Jensen's face in his hands and bend down and catch his mouth, quick but soft. Jensen sways in against him, his lips startled-parted, but he lays his hand on Jared's stomach, lets Jared kiss him.

When Jared pulls back he holds Jensen's face for another few seconds, looking down at him. He gets a frown for it, though at least Jensen doesn't yank away. He runs his fingers over the soft hair above his ear, where the guy had held the bat, and he realizes then that he doesn't care. Eliminated or not, the knackers stripping the guts of magic out of him or not. Jensen squeezes his hip, lifts up and kisses him quick on the corner of his mouth, and his ears are pink but he says, dry, "Miss me?" and Jared has to grin, has to step back and pretend like he's not a snarled knot on the inside, has to say, "Nah," like it's nothing, and Jensen rolls his eyes and smacks his hip, and Jared steps away and lets Jensen go and inspect the box. It's nothing, except how it's everything. He digs his knuckles into his eyes, tries to get it together. He's nearly there. Not yet.

Jensen lifts the crystal out of the case, handling it with the ease of long familiarity. "Everything okay?" Jared says, to have something to say, but to be sure, too.

"Perfect," Jensen says, running his fingers along the grooves. "I thought—I don't know. I didn't think they'd give it back." He sets it down in the case, closes the lid, leaning over it protectively.

"I told you," Jared says, and Jensen gives him a sidelong annoyed look. Well, Jared did. He comes and leans against the counter, looking down at the strange echoing light of it. Does it feel the same way to Jensen that it does to Jared—like he could crack it and own the world, if he wanted? "How'd you get it, anyway?"

A pause. Jensen's teeth settle in his lip. "You don't have to tell me," Jared says, too late, and Jensen sighs, says, "I don't have to do anything," sharp, and doesn't look at Jared despite that.

The cat appears on the counter, jumping up from the back-office shadows, and chirps at Jared. He holds out his knuckles and she comes and headbutts them immediately, eyes squinting shut, a rumbly purr vibrating her little body, and he sets to giving her good satisfying scratches, doing Jensen the service of not staring even though he absolutely, absolutely wants to.

Purring, and fur going everywhere, black-and-white hair all over the glossy counter. Jared focuses on this immediate job, and when the cat flops over onto her side to offer her belly Jensen says, "Oh, you slut." Then he says, quiet, "It was a gift, from my father." Jared keeps his eyes on the cat, flicking his fingers over her soft tummy. She bats at them, claws hidden. "When I opened the shop. Collateral."

"Big gift," Jared says, lightly, and that's all he says. First time Jensen's ever mentioned family. More mysteries. They're for another day.

He takes the clock-pieces away with him, to be added to the scrap bin at the warehouse. When he gets there, Carlos and Ambika are both there, drinking coffee and examining his newest project. "Are you making a rectangle, giraffe?" Ambika says, but Carlos frowns at Jared, says, "What happened?"

"A bunch of stuff," Jared says, and sits down on his workbench. Carlos touches his shoulder, and Ambika runs her hand through his hair. He smiles at them, and it feels wobbly. Been a long two days. With all that, though, it's—not bad. He's okay. The sun's shining, and little snow-piles are shored up against the huge glass windows, and he has friends and family who love him, and he has something else, too, maybe. He takes a deep breath. "Can I get your help with something? I'll trade you a story."

It doesn't even take them a day. Jared's never made an ardglass door before, but with their help it's easy. Ambika smooths the welds into a solid, unbreakable piece, and Carlos and Jared find a slab of glass that'll suit. With it slotted into place Jared places his hands flat against the surface and thinks, and he tells the glass: to recognize its master, and not to admit enemies, and to know itself, and the intent slots easy in between the molecules. Ready, then, for a spirit of service to be coaxed into it, and Ambika calls a somnambulist friend to get it done. When Richard arrives they're nearly finished, and he hugs Jared around the waist and says, "But it should feel like you," and Jared bites the inside of his cheek and touches the glass, arded now, full of magic and breathing intent and ready, and he thinks, keep him safe, and the door prickles against his skin, sharp and hurting almost but also—it has some of his feeling in it, now, and it will always want nothing more than that.

Ambika kisses his cheek. "Silly romantic," she says, but affectionately.

With a borrowed truck he takes the thing to the store, and Jensen meets him outside and stares at it, his expression not changing.

Jared fidgets, on the sidewalk. "You needed a new one," he says.

"I know I did," Jensen says. It's freezing out here and he's not wearing his terrible coat, and Jared wants to make himself a windbreak, scoop Jensen up and hold him, but he doesn't. He's never had to think about money. When he looked up ardglass doors the price didn't seem that big of a deal to him, but Molly's eyes popped wide. Thrice-worked, artisan-made. Making it felt like—so little for him to do, but it was something for him to do.

Jensen turns to him, standing out there on the sidewalk. Sun's setting and nulls are coming home from wherever they go, on bikes and on foot, a van trundling by. Jared feels exposed, but not to them. Jensen's frowning, his cheek sucked in on one side. "I can't take it," he says.

"Why not?" Jared says. He folds his arms over his chest, shrugs. Fuck, it's cold. "I want to give it to you."

"I can't. Jared, it's—it's too much, that's not fair." Jensen shakes his head, takes a deep breath. "It's a trade. For the automaton, for your sculpture. A real trade, items of—almost comparable worth. I'll take it for that."

Jared reaches out and takes Jensen's hand. It's freezing, but his fingers curl into Jared's grip, easy enough. "Okay," Jared says, nodding. Jensen's expression shifts, a flicker of relief. Ridiculous how it makes Jared's stomach do a slow somersault. "If that's how I can get you to take it. A trade."

Jensen nods, blowing out a short quick breath that fogs the air, and Jared stops pretending, tugs him in and folds his arms around his shoulders, letting his coat wrap around them both. "Jeez," he mumbles, against the top of Jensen's head, "remind me to return that thing I got for your birthday."

"You don't know my birthday," Jensen says, tucked into his chest. He shivers, turns his head against Jared's throat. Jared's going to find it out, and he's going to give Jensen a coat that's worth a damn. Maybe he can offer a blowjob in exchange for Jensen actually taking it. For now—

Jared installs the door. It's not hard, although Jensen tells him he's doing it wrong about fifty different ways. When Jensen touches the glass Jared holds his hand and he tells the door who owns it, and there's a faint sense from the spirit and the imbued ard that it thinks he's foolish. It knows. It really is Jensen's door. Jensen's brow furrows, and he looks at Jared, and the glass swirls to smoked-dark privacy, a deep purple instead of black, and with it locked Jensen pushes Jared up against it and kisses him wide open, perfect, lips and teeth distracting and gorgeous, and Jared gets one hand on his ass and one on his head and takes it, gladly.

When Jensen pulls back, Jared's stiff in his jeans and he wants nothing more than to fuck him, right there on the floor between the relocated rolled-up rugs and the rack of skulls, the floating lamps glowing on his skin. Up close, Jensen's eyes are on Jared's mouth, and he blinks slow, biting his own red lips. "I have class," he murmurs, and tips his face up, his nose brushing Jared's. "You have to go."

His dick's pressed up against Jared's hip, his hands on Jared's stomach. He's beginning to think Jensen has a thing for his abs. "If you want me to go, I'll go," Jared says, and watches from dizzyingly near as Jensen's eyes slide up to meet his. A thumb at the corner of Jensen's mouth, he can feel it when it twitches, wanting to smile. How is he going to manage, like this. How is he supposed to handle going home, when everything he wants is right here.

*

With the Anglican memorial opening with the beginning of the new year, Jared buffs and polishes the sculpture, not that it really needs it. Two convolutors from the council office arrive at the warehouse to transport it. They're careful, as they drape a silk cloth over the mane, the back, and Jared could tell them that it'd take a cannon-shot to break the thing but it's kind of nice that they're taking the trouble. They stand at the head and tail and the room for a moment hums, noise from nowhere crackling into the open air, and then there's a snap and whoomph and they and the horse are gone, an emptiness left in the space where they were until the connection closes and it's just a normal space of blank floor.

He goes and stands in the middle of it, sighing, and Carlos claps him on the shoulder. "Cheer up, bud," he says. "Think of the commission coming your way."

"Easy for you to say." Jared rubs his hands over his face. He sort of hates finishing a big piece, every time—something he loved and it's gone—but this is worse. "You don't have to go to the ceremony."

"Nope," Carlos says, grinning. "Why do you think I didn't ask you to put my name on it?"

Jared shoves him, and he goes easy, chortly laughter taking him back over to his own workbench. He's good at parties with people his own age, and he can handle being a good son at the sort of galas his parents have. Being the center of attention at an art opening—especially a political one—it's not something he's looking forward to.

That night, Jensen isn't remotely sympathetic, not that Jared was really expecting it. "You move in these circles, you get what you deserve," he says, while exercising full control over Jared's kitchen. It turns out he can cook. He stirs rice, samples the broth in the curry he's making, in the wok Jared didn't even know he had. "Mm. Anyway. You took the commission; you must have known what it entailed."

"Yeah," Jared says, but that doesn't stop him from feeling sulky about it. He didn't have a choice about the commission, not really, not that anyone who wasn't him would be at all understanding. When in his life has he been able to say no to his parents? Never. If he's really honest, he didn't even want to say no, but—the offer was an obligation, either way. He shouldn't be such a kid about the whole thing. It will be good exposure, for his own work. If only it weren't exposing in a bunch of other ways, too.

Jensen turns the heat off under the wok, apparently satisfied, and drains the rice off into another surprise colander. The people who stocked Jared's kitchen were a lot more thorough than he ever realized. A bite of the rice and Jensen nods, and he puts down his spoon and then comes and leans his full weight on Jared where he's propped against the counter. Jared takes it with an oof, wrapping his arms around Jensen's waist. "It's a beautiful sculpture," he says, direct, tipped back so he can look into Jared's face. Jared blinks. "You idiot. It wasn't his Excellency and her Ladyship who made the damn horse. You did it yourself. Don't whine about being lauded for something you've done well."

"You're so sweet to me," Jared says, flat, and Jensen's mouth quirks. He leans up and kisses Jared, warm and spiced, and then ducks away to sprinkle cilantro on the curry.

"Bowls," he says, and Jared obediently goes and finds them. This, here with Jensen, it's starting to get comfortable, at last. He tries to enjoy it when he's in it; it's a buffer, against how much he worries over it when he's not.

Jensen doesn't have it quite right, though. It's not praise Jared's worried about.

The invitation to the opening allows for a plus one. Jared imagines it, for an insane minute of picturing how wrong so very many things could go. Maybe that's not fair, maybe everyone involved would be perfectly polite—but somehow he doubts it.

The day is cold, snow having sifted down again overnight, and no clouds mar the huge blue dome of the sky. Freezing weather. His mother told him he could wear jeans, and he pairs that with boots and a sweater and his best-looking coat, and he forgoes his usual beanie because he can imagine the look on her face if he showed up without having combed his hair.

Below the belltower, the great lawn stretches green and perfect between the beautiful arches that line the mall. The ceremony will start when the Horologer wills it; Jared's supposed to be there early, though, and he parks the car and walks it with plenty of time to spare, his hands in his coat pockets tucked against the too-cold wind. The gardens are shielded from it, hybrid rose-vines climbing the smooth façade of the Somnambulist College, the petals golden and glowing and unharmed by the riming frost. Jared could be so lucky.

The square is bustling, with nulls mostly, although mages are starting to gather. Students, and of course the historians from Horology, and a fair few somnambulists too. Jared's caught by one of Mrs. Wu's assistants, a pretty girl his own age who seems to be present in the here-and-now, and hustles him over to the stage. "I'm so excited that the work will be displayed for everyone to see," she says, chirpy as a little bird. "Beautiful stuff, I can't wait for everyone else to see it."

He smiles, and it's easy to be nice to her, but his palms are starting to sweat. "Could I get a glass of water?" he says, and she squeezes his arm and snaps her fingers, and a null appears just like that, offering a glass on a tray with a little bow. He thanks the man, but he doubts it's heard, and he isn't going to stir a single atom outside his own brain in this crowd. Water, that's the ticket. He gulps it down and sits out of the way, and Miss Assistant pats his shoulder and then heads off to whatever else she's meant to be doing.

It's a wait, while more people arrive. A small bar, coffee and cocoa and real drinks too, and Jared wants a cocoa very badly but he's not meant to move from his spot. Now the real players are appearing—he recognizes people from parties, galas, council meetings. That woman whose son he dated; a vitalist friend of his parents' who tried unsubtly to get Jared to apprentice with him. With the important people comes a shimmery dome of warmth that settles over the square, creating the feel of being near a hearth with cold still nippy enough at the ears and nose that one appreciates it. Jared's shoulders relax slightly, but only slightly. Oh, man, he wishes he had a friend with him.

"Sweetheart," he hears, and it takes him half a second before he rockets to his feet, and turns, and—

"Mama," he says, and his mother's beaming at him, and his dad a step just behind her. He's enveloped in a huge Mom-style bear hug, and when she lets go Dad's just behind her, squeezing so hard Jared has to gulp air, and when they pull apart he still can't quite believe it.

"You—but you're in Washington," he says, stupid and shocked.

Mom touches his cheek, smiling wide. "Baby, we weren't going to miss your opening," she says.

"Especially for such an important event," Dad says, tucking Jared's hair behind his ear, and Jared leans against his shoulder, feeling about ten years old. They're—so much, so good.

"I missed you," he says, quiet inside the little triangle they've made, and Mom squeezes his hand, leans in and kisses his cheek. He has, more than he realized.

A null comes up and offers a tray with her head bowed. All together, Jared knows they make an imposing trio. Dad's his height and Mom's just a few inches shorter, and the two of them just—radiate, their magic palpable to anyone with an ounce of sensitivity. A cynosure probably sees them as little floating suns. Both older than they should be, and they've carried their silver hair for thirty years but their faces are unlined, their eyes and hearts full of snapping energy.

Between them Jared always feels small, but also like nothing in the world can touch him. True on a number of levels. More than ever, he realizes that now. Dad dips his head and murmurs thanks to the null, picks up glasses of champagne for himself and Mom, and the null blinks at him before she scurries off. Dad smiles after her, and when he turns his head she's dropped from his consideration and his full focus is on Jared again, and he doesn't seem to notice how many of the others here are looking their way. Or he does, and doesn't care—or he does, and knows the power it brings. Jared doesn't know, he realizes, and to cover the strange feeling in his belly he squeezes his mom's hand and says, "Tell me stories," and his mom laughs and does, and he focuses on being glad to see them, glad they came.

A bell chimes in the clocktower and Wu is suddenly there. Right on time, or making the time, as always. She claps her hands once, and the ceremony begins. Chairs materialize out of the grass, solid and comfortable, and of course as the artist Jared's in the first row, his parents beside him in places of honor as befit their station. They never ask for it, but it's given.

He tunes out most of the historical context—he knows it, from his dad and from visiting wards and from school, and he doesn't need to hear it again. Mages, fighting. The great Anglican war, when England and the Federated States split in the first place, redux; a null rebellion in the north quelled; the Kanien'kehaka mages agreeing at last to aid the Federation and pushing the king's nulls back. When Jared was little he lapped it up. Now it just feels sad. Where he is, he can't see anything; he closes his eyes and reaches a narrow controlled tendril of thought out to one of the nulls standing ready to fetch and carry, and slips behind his eyes, and checks out the crowd. There he is, with his parents, and the council beside them, and so many faces he recognizes in the ranked seats all around. Professors behind donors, as usual, and students behind them, and there—Jared grins, and accidentally makes the null smile with him, because that's—Molly, looking about as bored as he is, and beside her Carlos and Ambika and Robert, all dressed up warm and paying mostly-close attention, here when they said they wouldn't be caught dead—

The null strains, noticing the intrusion, afraid—Jared soothes him and pulls back, leaving calm in his wake, and he's just in time, too. Wu finishes her history and there's a shimmer in the air before the stage, and with a snap—the sculpture appears, gleaming in the sunlight. Oh—it works. Jared lets out a slow breath. It works really well. The hollow spaces inside are full of blue-grey sky, and the joins are obvious and awkward between the smooth, perfect wooden bones. The eye catches sunlight. Gorgeous, imposing in its circle of stone. Frail, too. Exactly what Jared wanted.

The crowd murmurs, but it's not done just yet. Wu nods at Jared and he stands up, a hundred eyes pinned to his back. He walks over and places his hand on the center of the horse's chest, right at his own head height, and closes his eyes and thinks, purpose, and broadcasts the feeling across the square—need, and urgency, and demand, and bitter unrelenting resolve. A rustle, the crowd sitting up straight, breathing in as one. Most of them are shielded, but the emotion will sneak in, and the longer they look at the sculpture—he did good work, here. Jensen's right. He can be proud of it. Maybe it'll even push the university's researchers to finish papers on time.

After the presentation the crowd shifts and surges, professors cozying up to donors for schmoozing, students hovering on the outskirts of conversation with fox-ears, soaking up everything they can. Jared speaks with Mrs. Wu, with the rest of the councilors who came, pricklingly aware of his parents beaming at his back—and then, of course, there's a steady stream of near-supplicants who eddy up to try to speak to them, thinking maybe to gain favor, or notice, or maybe just to soak in a little of their radiating warmth. Jared can't blame them, really.

Off to the side, his friends are holding drinks, chatting. When he manages to slip away from what's become the receiving line, he's met with a little round of applause, and Ambika flutters a cloud of gold confetti over his head, sparkling down on his hair and shoulders out of nowhere. "Okay, okay," Jared says, but he's grinning.

Molly gives him a big Molly squeeze. "It's beautiful, you absolute swot," she says, beaming at him. She beckons a waiter and presses champagne into his hand. "Of course it is, you overachiever."

"He's very clever," Robert says, warm and cheerful, and Carlos scrubs his hand through Jared's hair and makes the confetti puff off, though he's sure he'll be glittery for the rest of the week. He can't mind, too much. They came.

They're having an old-fashioned ribbing round—Jared's accomplishments being talked about in absurd, overblown terms, just like they used to during gallery openings during their art class days (Molly missed those, but immediately joins in and is, of course, a natural)—and Ambika's saying, "Plus, of course, I heard that the sculpture will cause the Emperor of Japan to gift the Chrysanthemum Throne directly to the Padalecki family!" when Carlos and Robert both blink, surprised, their focus shifting away.

"What a coup that would be!" Jared's mother says, and Jared turns around to find his parents have come up behind them, and he receives kisses from first Mom and then Dad. "Molly, good to see you again, dear."

"Hallo, Lady P," Molly says, kissing her cheeks, and getting a hug from Dad in her turn. They've always liked Molly, and Molly likes them right back. Everyone does.

The rest of Jared's friends are more awkward; they've met his parents at a few of those same gallery openings, but they don't move in the same circles. Of course they haven't talked about it, because Jared would never ask, but he knows just from their handful of years of friendship that Ambika and Robert come from middling families, and Carlos's parents were nearly asthenic; he was a surprise, with his low-grade abilities. Nothing to be ashamed of, but Jared knows there's a contrast here that gets highlighted, when the great umbrella of his family's power starts to open and shade everyone under it.

His parents direct gentle smiles over his friends, and they each nod in turn, though Carlos actually bobs into a small bow. Jared bites his tongue, and then just to say something blurts out, "Dad, did I tell you that Molly went up to the northern pole of convolution?" and his dad, of course, is immediately interested. He's been there himself, just for fun, and to the weaker magnetic pole as well, and Ambika cautiously ventures that she plans to visit the magnetic pole, herself, after her visit to Moscow. Slowly, a conversation starts, though it's stilted still on the part of his friends. Jared's parents are magnificent, awesome, terrific—and imposing, and intense, and so much he knows it's hard for most people to handle them. Molly has no issue—Molly's apparently afraid of nothing, so far as Jared's been able to tell—but Jared has wondered, sometimes, if it's because she's just at ease anywhere, or if it's because of her own remarkable power. How to separate one from the other? Impossible to, really, and Jared knows that his mother has long hoped that he and Molly would marry, one day. And why: because of who Molly is, or because of what she can do? He can't know, and he's not sure he could tell the difference even he had a window right into his parents' heads.

Eventually, his dad's eyes unfocus, and he says, smoothly, "I'm sorry, kids—I have a meeting in Washington, soon, we'll have to get back." It's graceful, provides a decent excuse for Jared's friends to make their goodbyes, bowing to his parents and saying they'll see Jared later (more big hugs, from Molly), and then he's alone with them, his mother picking a few pieces of gold out of his hair, his dad smiling at him.

"You did very well today, baby," Mom says, and she means it, and Jared knows it's true. He ducks his head, biting his lips between his teeth. "I'm very proud of you."

Dad squeezes his shoulder. "We both are. I know the council was very impressed, too. You'll have a space there, one day, if you want it."

Jared sighs. "Dad," he says, but it's no use. His dad holds up his hands, like who, me?, smiling. There's not any real pressure for him to fight against, no hint of coercion. Just loving hope, and expectation, and how can he resent that? "I'm good with what I do, you know."

"Of course," Mom says, touching his cheek. "We just want you to be happy. You have so much potential, Jared. You deserve everything."

She believes it, and from the look on Dad's face, he does too. Jared licks his lips and, for a split second, wants to tell them about Jensen. This amazing, amazing thing. It just fell in his lap, no legacy or influence involved, and he thinks maybe, if he doesn't screw it up, that'll be everything. That he could be really happy, making his art and living in his house and having just this one person who maybe cared about him just for him, who needed him and who he needed right back, and that that's all his life could be: small, and precious, and all his.

The Intercessor comes up to them then, and his dad's attention shifts. Jared presses his lips together. "A beautiful monument," Mrs. Contreras says, and his mom pats his hand, beaming. "We're lucky that the Padaleckis maintain their great work in the Dominion of Austin."

Jared presses his lips together, and forces a smile to come out, dimples and all. Dad falls immediately into conversation with her, quietly discussing the coup and the fallout that might ripple toward the Dominion and Texas Territory in general. Mom keeps hold of Jared's hand, and with a gentle squeeze he turns his attention her way, meets her clear, curious eyes.

"Everything's all right, isn't it?" she says.

A thing he loves about his parents: when they ask how he is, they actually, always want to know. It doesn't mean that Jared always, necessarily, wants to tell them.

Things are all right. In the end, they always are. Jared smiles at her, kisses her cheek. "Everything's great, Mama," he says, and keeps his secret, right under his heart, a little longer.

*

When Jared was little he used to get in trouble all the time for his power. Instinct just led to him automatically reaching out, making friends. Null servants did anything he wanted, and when he was in a mood his teachers would have to make sure they were double-warded or he'd get out of lessons to go playing out in the sunshiny day. His parents brought in a special tutor to help him wind together his own wards, as both of them could barely touch the magic of the mind; he found out, later, that it was the Haruspex for Texas Territory, a friend of theirs who went on to work for one of the administrations that later fell. He took to it easily, because he took to everything easily. If someone was open he could just pull knowledge and experience and memory right out of their head, and the Haruspex opened herself wide. He remembers her smile, but mainly he remembers that first open, easy dip into a well of power. A mage's mind, crackling with the thing that made them what they were, that separated mage from null, vivacity from dullness. He sank into her and knew her, every part, and it was like—nothing else. When he had to build up his wards, create a barrier for his mind to keep himself and everyone else safe, he almost wanted to cry. You'll get it again, Jared, she said, or perhaps she only thought it, twined together as they were. It's a gift given in trust; never forget it.

His parents let him fully enter, and he's always loved it. With friends, he's been allowed to dip in, to call, and emotions still rise and cloud the air he walks through, with most people not good enough to keep him out. That door never fully opens, though. He can live with it, most of the time. That memory, of the parlor, the sun warm on his cheek and on hers and feeling them both simultaneously—the pleasure of the back-and-forth snap of joined thought, tugging from one mind to another, the open knowing between them—he thinks about it, more often than he should. He wonders.

A month of the new year has drifted by, cold and snowy. Ambika's off in Moscow, and Molly's traveling again, and Dad's been named the official ambassador to United Italy. One night when the snow's barely flaking down, Jared comes and picks up Jensen and they walk the university campus, lit gold with the lamps and barely populated, the students all out at bars or holed up studying. Jensen bitches about the cold, and bitches about his day, and bitches about the students they pass, and bitches about his new class on magical property, but he doesn't bitch about Jared. When they get to the square with Jared's sculpture, Jensen goes quiet, and looks. The horse is frosted with a light glaze of snow and it's lit from below, severe white light this time that shows off the bare vulnerable-seeming bones in the cold. The feeling Jared poured in lingers all over the square, but of course Jared isn't affected by his own ardwork and Jensen—he closes his hand over his wards, leans slightly into Jared's side. "I should get a plaque here, somewhere," he says, quietly. "That's all my material."

Jared snorts, wraps his arm around Jensen's shoulders. "I'll tell anyone who asks about the great shop I source my stuff from," he promises. "If you actually want more rich art-kid customers."

Jensen's nose wrinkles. "Good point," he says. "Those are the worst."

His hand slips into Jared's pocket, tucking into the warm, and Jared dips down the few inches and presses his lips to the top of Jensen's head. He gets a surprised look for it, Jensen frowning for real, but he doesn't care. Anyway, he brought a secret weapon—in his other pocket is an arded heatflask full of hot toddy, and he drags Jensen to sit with him on the plinth with the sculpture behind them and gets him just a little tipsy, enough that he laughs at Jared's stupid story about Robert accidentally growing a live oak straight through his car, and then Jared takes him home and spreads him out in bed and kisses the cold tip of his nose and keeps him smiling, as long as possible.

Another commission offer arrives, this time with no intervention from his parents—a cynosure from another great family, who saw the sculpture of birds Jared made for that state-government convolutor and wants something similar for his own home to ease out gentle happiness into the minds of visitors. Jared's considering it, though birds again will feel samey. He comes to the store while Jensen's dealing with another furtive null seller, and walks the aisles thinking. Happiness. He's fiddling with the spiritsilks, an idea starting to bubble up in the back of his head, when Jensen finishes up with the little worried man and says, "Your door always tells me when it's you, come out."

Jared smiles, putting down the skein of silk, and comes around the high shelf to find Jensen leaning on his elbows on the counter, calm as can be. "It's your door," Jared says, and Jensen shrugs. The cat's curled up into a neat ball, a little void of black; Jared comes and strokes one finger down the puffy line of her spine, gets a chirp and a flick of tail.

Jensen's watching him, steady, and Jared feels his heart balloon up in his chest and start to beat, solid, right at the base of his throat. Feels too big for him, times like this. Just being here, just standing in the same space, in the cool dusty air, that's—so much more than he can handle.

"You have class tonight?" Jared says. Jensen shakes his head no; he knew it. "So. What are you doing?"

A snort, and Jensen stands up, stretching his shoulders. "Playing coy isn't really required, anymore, Jared," he says. "You've done your worst, I'm easy now."

"Never easy," Jared says, but Jensen's smiling, just a little. It's not easy.

They go out for a drink, and then a second one. Jensen listens to his ideas for the commission, tells him about some materials he could maybe sort through back at the shop. In return, he listens to a less-grumpy description of his current professor. The law course is taught through the university, but it's not one that any of Jared's friends would've taken—night classes, taken one at a time, aimed at students with very little magic and therefore very little money or influence. There are even a few nulls in the course who either saved up or were sent by their employers, which Jensen shrugs over. "Us voids, sticking together," he says, and at this point Jared doesn't quite flinch, but he presses his shoulder against Jensen's where they sit at the bar.

Outside, it's snowing again. A frosty night, the street gleaming. Jensen shivers into his cheap coat and Jared cups a hand over the back of his neck, tries to help warm him up. "Let me take you back to the store," he says. Jensen frowns, head dipping, and Jared clarifies. "I mean—let's stay at your place, tonight. If that's okay."

Jensen looks at him. A snowflake catches on his eyebrow and Jared kisses it off, and gets batted at for the trouble. "You want to?" Jensen says, almost wary, but he's still looking up into Jared's face, and he's still frowning, but not like he's upset.

So, back to the store, and the tree sturdy above the sidewalk, dark red leaves refusing to fall even if they're weighed down with the snow. Jared touches the bark and goodwill surges against him. It's a nice tree. He follows Jensen back into the dark store, into the cone of amber from a single light hovering near the ceiling, and then for the first time he goes behind the counter, and through the piled-up boxes and files to the door hidden in the shadows, which springs open at Jensen's touch. He hesitates for a second, and looks at Jared almost uncertain, like he never is. Jared touches his hip, smiling, and Jensen rolls his eyes at him but he disappears through the door. Never in his life has Jared met someone who hated assurance as much as this guy.

It's a narrow stairwell, books and random hard-to-see objects piled in the corners of each riser. Dusty, too, and dim, and the door at the top's mostly closed past Jensen's shoulder, a line of light barely peeking out. There's a meow, somewhere, and Jensen shakes his head, shoving the door open. "Cat, you ate already, don't lie," he says, and shrugs off his coat and throws it onto an overstuffed armchair, and moves off into the apartment while Jared stands blinking, taking it in.

Downstairs is all too much stuff in not enough space; the antiques and ardwork and random material all jostle for space on shelves organized according to whatever whim Jensen seems to be feeling that day, the walls covered in maps and clocks—fewer clocks, now—and art. Busy, overwhelming. Up here, it's like Jensen just got tired when he was moving in and didn't bother to finish. The room's smallish, the armchair filling up the corner next to the doorway and seeming to be a general junk-pile, coat and boots and bag. Another chair, next to an unexpected cold fireplace, and a little table stacked with what looks like school books and work, and a kitchenette tucked into the back corner, with an elderly green fridge Jensen's leaning into, and from which he pulls two beers.

Jared takes one, watches Jensen toss the caps into the sink. "How long have you lived here?" he says, and Jensen quirks an eyebrow at him, but answers: "Seven years."

It doesn't look like a place someone intends to stay. No art, no posters. The cat curls up on the chair in front of the fireplace, tucking her tail in under her chin, and Jared chews the inside of his lip, wondering.

"Want the number of my decorator?" Jensen says, sarcastically bright.

Jared rolls his eyes, puts down his beer on the narrow slice of kitchen counter. "Four walls and a roof and heat, I've seen worse," Jared says. "So you're not into knick-knacks, I guess. Guess I might have made a mistake with this, then."

He slips out of his coat and drapes it carefully over the back of the wooden chair at the table. From the pocket, he pulls out his present, if he can call it that. The little deer statue that the cops broke, now repaired, its fractured porcelain fixed together with liquid onyx Carlos made for him. He sets it gently on the table, and when he looks up Jensen seems genuinely surprised. "Host gift," Jared says, shrugging, and Jensen comes over and touches the tiny head, the gleaming black lines where the antlers had to be held so-carefully in place.

"You didn't have to," Jensen says.

"I don't have to do anything," Jared say, pert echo of Jensen. "I wanted to. That's all."

Jensen licks his lips, presses them together. Nods, and picks the little statue up to be placed on the empty mantle. Looks lonely there, in this place totally bare of ornament, but it fits, too. White and black, broken but mended. Jensen looks at it, and then comes back to Jared and lifts up on his toes and kisses him, both hands on Jared's chest, his mouth—so good. Jared cups his head, wraps him in close. Keeps the kiss slow, shallow, because he wants tonight to last.

Behind the kitchen is the bedroom, and there at least is a single sign of indulgence, with the bed filling up nearly all the useable space, and when Jared falls onto it it's like a cloud. He spreads out his arms, sinks down. Jensen stands between his knees, looking down at him and not really smiling even if his eyes are soft. Jared tips his knee in, nudges Jensen's thigh, holds out his hand, and after a second Jensen takes it and climbs on, settling down on Jared's lap, both of them fully clothed and Jensen so warm in the room's chill. One lamp, which Jensen clicks his fingers to turn on, and then there's a pearly white glow in the room so Jared can see the damp dark pink of Jensen's mouth, the dark sweep of his lashes. Jensen bites his lip, peek of perfect white teeth, and runs his fingers through Jared's hair, tucking it back behind his ear. Jared lays there quiet and lets him do it, his hands comfortable on Jensen's thighs, rubbing circles in the worn-soft denim. Works up the courage, finally, to say, "Let me ask you a question."

Jensen raises his eyebrows. "Can't stop you from asking."

Jared huffs. God, he's difficult. He wants to grab Jensen's hand, but doesn't—keeps his hands light on Jensen's thighs, keeps himself flat, keeps his voice easy. "Two ward-charms, right? Would you ever consider taking one of them off?"

Knot of a frown, and his hand slips away from where he's been playing with the ends of Jared's hair to rest on his chest, knuckles curled over his heart. "Why would I take them off?"

"Just one," Jared says. He reaches up and touches the charms, quick, brief little stings against his fingertips. "One's enough to keep me from your thoughts. With two I can't—feel you, and you can't feel me."

Jensen's head tilts. In the soft white light he's high-contrast, though his eyes are caught in shadow. "I can feel you fine," he says, after a moment, his weight shifting over Jared's hips, and Jared doesn't mind that one bit but he shakes his head.

"You know what I mean," he says, and when Jensen rolls his eyes Jared does cover his hand, folding his fingers around the fist Jensen's making. "Hey. I know we—we screw around, and it's great, I love it. But this is part of me, too. Can't have the mage without the magic."

"You already got inside my head," Jensen says. He's frowning, but he doesn't snatch his hand away from Jared's, doesn't climb off. "Wasn't that enough?"

Jared can't help but smile at that. He lets go of Jensen's hand, runs his fingers up his arm and touches his chin where the stubble's coming in sharp and thick, the lovely line of his jaw. "This is how I know you aren't a haruspex," he says. Like once could ever be enough. "That was an accident, anyway. Shitty situation and it was too much, too fast. Normal circumstances, I'd never go in without your permission. Promise."

Jensen flinches, subtle enough that Jared might not have noticed if he didn't have hands on his skin. "You can't promise me," he says, and looks away.

It takes Jared about half a second to realize what he means, and to his credit he doesn't blurt out the first thing he thinks. The idea hangs there, fragile as a soap-bubble, and Jared takes a deep breath and then cups his hands at the small of Jensen's back and sits up. Jensen grabs his shoulders, but Jared wasn't going to let him fall—he tips up his head and kisses Jensen's mouth once, and when he pulls back Jensen's eyes are on him. "I could," Jared says. "Promise you. I could. I trust you."

Even if he doesn't physically move away, Jensen straightens up, his hands on Jared's shoulders very stiff, digging in. "You trust me," he says, after a long held moment, and it's dry but not a full desert. "You know that's not the problem."

"I know," Jared says, even if it stings a little. "But whatever happened before—whatever you did, or someone else did, it's not going to happen with us."

Jensen's eyes are narrow, his mouth unsmiling, but Jared's being honest and he hopes Jensen can see that. Whatever crime happened, it was when Jensen was younger than Jared is now, and Jared's realized he… doesn't care. He closed the tab on his phone, to the Intercessor's Office site. Whatever happened, it happened, and Jensen's who he is now because of it, and Jared's this deep anyway. If he finds out it'll be because Jensen tells him. He's not worried about it, either way.

"You don't have to take my word for it," Jared says, when Jensen's only silent. He reaches up and touches one of the charms—cold, dead-feeling, even as it stings at his flesh. "That wouldn't be fair, anyway, would it?"

"Don't joke," Jensen says. Jared wasn't, really, but he lets Jensen catch his hand, and doesn't protest when he squeezes it, almost too hard. "You know what would happen if someone found out. It'd be crazy for me to take the risk."

"I know it would," Jared says. He tries to smile, and maybe he doesn't do too well at it because Jensen's expression flickers, a frown knotting up. "It's a lot to ask."

Maybe a stupid idea. He tries to pack away the disappointment. Harder, when Jensen only stares at him for a handful of seconds and then, slowly, shifts backward off of his lap, and stands up. Jared misses his warmth immediately, and tips his head back on his shoulders to try to hide whatever his face might be doing. The big windows in the ceiling are half-covered with makeshift sheet-curtains, but he can see the snow gathering up against the panes. A cold night, freezing.

The emotion doesn't come through like a burst, not a splash of water to the face. A tendril of worry coils in his belly, and it's so close to his own feelings that he almost doesn't notice it at first. The tiny spike of fear, though, that's not his, and he sits up straight to find Jensen standing very stiff, one arm crossed over his chest with one of the wards dangling from his fist. "Hey," Jared says, reaching out, and Jensen lets him have the other hand, and there's a warm surge of affection, even if it's tinged with trepidation. No surface thoughts, and Jared doesn't care, doesn't need them, because when he stands up and touches Jensen's cheek he finally opens his eyes, and he's almost resigned, now, and embarrassed somehow, too, and Jared says, "There's nothing to be embarrassed about," and he means it to reassure but it comes out half-laughing because, oh, that's—this is Jensen, this is what he is.

"Nothing to be embarrassed about," Jensen says, flat. "You basically asked me to strip for you, asshole."

Jared shakes his head, can't stop smiling. "And you'd have nothing to be embarrassed about with that, either," he says, and Jensen shoves his shoulder, the necklace swinging between them. The little rush of annoyance and frustration washes away that lingering bitter fear, and Jared will take that trade. He cups Jensen's jaw, even if it's clenched, and says, "Anyway, you're crazy if you think I wouldn't get naked too, if I asked you to strip," and closes his eyes for the second it takes to crack open his own wards, and keeps them closed to give Jensen the moment of physical privacy he thinks he needs. Silly, when everything worth knowing is right there between them.

He doesn't project, any more than he usually would, any more than he does on instinct when he's working, or thinking, or just being. He leans in, listens to the soft deep breath Jensen sucks in, and their noses brush while the understanding fills Jensen from the inside. His feelings, leached into the air, rebounding and magnified against their skin, their minds separated still but by only the thinnest membrane.

When he opens his eyes, Jensen's staring at him, close and cracked-open. Jared can't know his thoughts, can't dip into his memories or slip inside him, but that shock's clear enough, and would be even if Jensen were still the smooth cold metal that the double-warding forced him to. He curls a grip into Jared's shirt, around his forearm, lips parted on an almost-word before he presses them closed, swallows. "You—" he starts, but shakes his head, his eyelids falling half-shut.

"Too much?" Jared says. He doesn't know many people who close themselves off as completely as Jensen had, maybe it's an overload. Not hard, to draw himself back inside a little, but Jensen shakes his head again and steps in closer. His head tucks in under Jared's jaw and he wraps his arm around Jared's waist and Jared unfurls himself, his heart soaring high enough that Jensen makes a little punched sound in the back of his throat.

"It is too much," Jensen says, but it's soft, and he finds Jared's hand and holds it. Jared closes his eyes, feels what matters. Jensen's shock has been muted, bewilderment now and that tinge when something hits so big and unexpected that it's scary, even though it's something that shouldn't be scary. Buried underneath is the worry, and an edge of disbelief.

"It's true," Jared says, tipping his head against the soft warmth of Jensen's hair. Oh, Jared does love him, and the surge of it echoes forward into Jensen's chest and rebounds between them.

Jensen squeezes his hand, shudders. "I know it's true," he says, with a shiver through it that's nevertheless disbelieving, and then he steps back, untangles himself from Jared totally. "It's been—months. That's ridiculous, it's too soon." All Jared can do is shrug, because—it's true, and they both know it, they have the proof of it tangled up between them. It is too soon, but it's more than Jared's felt for anyone. He doesn't see the point in pretending things are otherwise.

Jensen shakes his head, staring. His eyes are wide, clear green in the pearled light, and he looks unblinking at Jared for a long too-charged moment before he licks his lips, and his jaw firms.

"Promise me something," he says, and Jared's stomach jolts.

The worry's banked down, a wild reckless wave filling the air. Jared sucks in a breath. "Keep it off," he says. "When it's you and me, keep it off."

Jensen's eyes flicker, and he shakes his head, but slow. "You can't make a deal without collateral."

His voice has gone firm, low, and Jared's no cynosure but with emotion leaping between them he can sense the power, revving like an engine waking up. "I'll do anything you want," Jared says. A tingle prickles up the back of his neck, spreading over the back of his skull. "Anything."

Jensen smiles. "You're bad at trade," he says, and it could almost be kind if it weren't for the raw hunger that just leapt to life in his gut. Jared sways toward Jensen and stops at the hand held up between them. "I'll keep the second ward off, until midnight," Jensen says, the words precise and clear. "Until midnight, you'll do anything I want." Jared nods hurriedly, and Jensen's lips quirk. "I promise you."

The words rise to Jared's lips without him thinking. "I promise you," he echoes, and Jensen reaches out and clasps his hand, and a shiver-shock spikes up Jared's spine and goosebumps rise over his shoulders and arms and thighs, shuddering through him at the same time the magic does. Oh—oh, it's strange, and wonderful, and scary all at once. He's made deals with intercessors before, a few times, but always stupid kid stuff—give me the answers to the exam and I'll, or college games of truth or dare sealed with an intercessor's oath to ensure no one chickened out. Nothing before has felt like this, like an impersonal hand reaching into his chest and binding his soul with unyielding silk rope.

Clasped, impotent, Jared stands frozen while Jensen hangs the necklace with his ward-charm on the doorknob, the silver swinging bright against the battered wood. "Jared," he says, back turned, and it skitters over Jared's nerves, makes him shudder in anticipation of command. When Jensen looks, there's a rueful tip to his mouth, and affection's creeping up again past the rash audacity. "You're very young."

Jared nods, and Jensen shakes his head. "I want you to speak to me freely," he says, looking into Jared's eyes, and a weighted knot Jared didn't even realize was there dissolves from his tongue. "You shouldn't make deals if you don't know how to negotiate."

"I trust you," Jared says, and Jensen stares at him and from inside there's a pure wash of pleasure, embarrassment, shame. "I wish you would accept it."

A little pause, and Jensen shrugs. "Maybe a deal for another time," he says, and ignores the jolt of hope that inspires in Jared's belly. "You know how this works, don't you? You keep your side and I keep mine, and the magic lives. I put on the necklace again before the promised time and you're free; you do as I tell you, and I can't put it on. It goes both ways, unless one of us breaks it." Jared nods, mouth dry. It's late, but not too late, and hours still to go. Jensen's mouth tilts, not quite a smile. "Not that you can break it, unless I want you to. Don't worry, I didn't set forfeits. It's safe. Tell me how kind I am."

"You're so kind," Jared says, mouth moving before the decision has time to arrive in his head. He blinks, and Jensen takes a step closer, runs his fingers through Jared's hair before he tucks it behind his ear. "Do you want me to keep giving you compliments? I'm cool with that."

Jensen rolls his eyes. "It doesn't matter if you are or not," he says, tugging lightly on the ends of Jared's hair. "You're mine."

"Yes," Jared says, and Jensen tips his head up and looks at him, and he must be able to feel the eagerness in Jared's belly, the honesty, the want. The dizzy certainty, honing the world down to Jensen and what he wants and only that. Everything else seems distant, unreal. Unimportant. "This feels—I've never felt this."

Jensen's mouth curves, and he leans in and kisses Jared, and Jared—Jared knows, and his hands lift to cup Jensen's face, held delicate as porcelain, and he licks soft at the plush curve of the lower lip and then drags his teeth over that same spot, and Jensen's pleasure seeps up between them all warmth and goodness, a throb that echoes in Jared's own belly. The oath-magic washes in over Jared and he does what Jensen wants, because that was the promise he made and every cell in him, blood and bone, yearns to fulfill it. Jensen's power, unveiled at last, sweeping in and asserting a deal struck and kept.

When Jensen pulls back from Jared's mouth his cheeks are flushed, his ears pink and his lips wet, and Jared breathes deep and waits for orders, waits to be told. Jensen's want for him is plain and warm as a noon summer sun, the emotion pouring over Jared, and this is everything. "You're happy," Jensen says, soft, and Jared doesn't have to nod because Jensen feels it just as sure as Jared does.

With the room full of their feelings the obedience seems like hardly a blip. Jensen says, "Take off your clothes," and Jared does, stripping to bare skin, his body flushing and eager and the room cold because of it. Jensen's eyes drop to his dick, straining, and he sits on the edge of the bed and says, "Let me see what you like," and that could be interpretable except that the knowledge of Jensen's will slips in under his skin and he wraps a hand around himself, cups his balls in his other hand, jerks his dick in the slow teasing twist he likes to start with, slipping his foreskin up to kiss the head. He watches Jensen's lips part, his thighs tipping open, and when Jensen says come here Jared knows to drop to his knees, the floorboards rough against his skin but—they don't matter, that doesn't matter, because Jensen wants him to shuffle in close, wants his hands, wants to lean in and crane his head back and kiss his mouth, and Jared lets him, Jared welcomes it, open, drinking in the way the want has deepened to lust, to urgency.

He takes off Jensen's clothes because Jensen wants it, and presses Jensen's thighs wide open and high because Jensen wants it, and licks into him strong and steady until Jensen's leaking all over his stomach and Jared's jaw hurts, his tongue sore, and then because Jensen wants it he crawls up onto the bed and his knees pop and he scoops Jensen's hips into his hands and fucks into him, and he knows to do it slow, to keep his hips angled just like that, to not stop, to not stop. It hurts in some deep way, but Jensen likes it like that, likes the edge of hurting after all that soft, and the black tense something that emerges under the aching want would pause Jared, except that Jensen wants it and so he does as he's told, doesn't stop. Jensen shudders, and Jared feels the moment that Jensen notices Jared's worry but all it does is make Jensen's eyes close, his thighs clutching around Jared's ribs, and so Jared fucks him harder, his own body's needs set aside for as long as Jensen wants him.

His balls ache and he's soaked with sweat when Jensen stops him, and with a thought he pulls out, stands shivering while Jensen pulls up on his elbows, looks at him. He's panting and the only thing he's feeling is want, but it's Jensen's want for Jared, focused and intense, and Jared's dick jerks where it's hanging straight out from his body. "I'm going to fuck you," Jensen says, blurred like his lips are numb, and the desire is incoherent for a moment until Jared understands, and it's like he's been grabbed by the spinal cord. "Make me wet," Jensen says, and Jared bends over him and sucks in his straining dick, already sticky with precome, full and hot and salt and perfect in Jared's mouth, and he could do this forever, forever, knowing how much Jensen loves it, that he's making Jensen feel these things, that it's good for him—but Jensen's will shifts and so Jared pulls off, gasping, and crawls forward, hovering on all fours above Jensen on the bed.

"Do you like it?" Jensen says, and of course Jared knows what he means, and he wants to answer true but all he can do is shrug, because—because it hasn't been good, it's not what he prefers, but if Jensen likes it then Jared likes it, and that's the truest thing Jared knows right now. A little bump of affection and Jensen runs his hands through Jared's hair. What he wants is—is Jared to relax himself, to make himself open enough to be sure it doesn't hurt, and Jared closes his eyes and reaches inside and does it, feels his muscle give way under the will that's Jensen's before it's his. Jensen pets the side of his head, and what he wants then is for Jared to sit back, and find the wet thickness of Jensen's dick, and press it against himself, and he wants Jared to know that right now it doesn't matter if Jared wants it, not at all.

Jared blinks, tries to focus. Jensen's looking right up at him, his face patchy-flushed, sweat dampening his hair to dark. The emotion blurs, shifts, complex and urgent—the need to come, the affection, but also a clear understanding that Jared will obey, no matter what. "You understand?" Jensen says. Jared nods, dumb, holding Jensen's dick pressed up against his body. That Jensen will do this because he can. That Jared's desire doesn't matter. That this is the terms of their deal and Jared cannot break it and neither can Jensen, and that tingling prickle rushes over his scalp, his brain and body locked into the covenant between them, and Jensen nods at him and so Jared sinks down onto his dick and the immediate jolt of sensation in Jensen's gut rebounds into Jared's and makes his own dick spit wet, even if he's been told he's not allowed to come. Stickily broken-open, the slide easy because Jensen demanded that it be easy. Jensen leans up, kisses Jared's gaspy open mouth, presses a hand flat on his chest. His eyes are dark, the pupils spread, and he doesn't say anything because he doesn't have to. Jared gulps air, lifts up, sinks down. Fucks himself while Jensen lays back against the pillow, and keeps his eyes open for Jensen to watch.

By the time Jensen comes, Jared aches. Felt like minutes, or hours, wrapped up in doing what was wanted. Subsumed. He holds in place while Jensen jerks under him, hands tight on Jared's hips, and the clench and twist and jolting uncoil of orgasm slams into Jared's open mind like a ton weight. A whine leaves his throat, something he can't help, and Jensen's eyes open and he pants out, "Go on," and Jared knows what he means and lifts off and scrambles backward on shaky legs and pushes Jensen's thighs apart and fucks in, fast and efficient and with his own body feeling as wet-open as Jensen's, the sensation Jensen's feeling mirrored in his own body, and Jensen's lax and satisfied and pleased and proud and oh, he wants Jared to come, he wants him to finish inside, because he loves that feeling and he craves it and he knows Jared will do what he's told because he's good, he's so good—

He shakes, after. Jensen holds him, and kisses his forehead, and tells him, "Stay on the bed," and the command slips in against his bones as implacable as lead and so he lies where he's left. Listens to Jensen's feet against the wooden floor, the sound of him pissing, the sound of a sink running. Steps again, a cloth cold with water swabbed over his stomach, in the crack of his ass, over his thighs. He's leaking, a little. Unfamiliar enough to be strange, feeling himself soft and open. Jensen's fingers dip in and the sensation tingles up through Jared's stomach, but Jensen's gentle about it, and pulls out after a few seconds to pat his ass. He's still feeling good, satisfied, and so Jared is too, locked in.

Jensen sets their abandoned beers on the bedside table and lays down, and he holds out his hand to Jared and Jared curls in close, immediately, finding warm soft skin and doing his best to fuse with it. He's shushed, like a little kid, and Jensen pushes him back just a touch but Jared isn't allowed to resist. Their heads end up on the same pillow, the white lamp haloing Jensen's mussed hair to a blonder shade, the superfine hair on his ears blurring to a rime of light. Jared's shoulders and back are cold, but holding Jensen is warm, and Jensen's thoughts are too, and his eyes, steady on Jared's face. He doesn't want anything from Jared now but this, and so Jared lies quiet, tired. Full.

"You're happy," Jensen says, an echo, very quiet, and Jared nods. Jensen must be able to feel it, true even if it's tempered with the exhaustion of a good fuck, the magic-soreness of forcing his body to perform. Jensen pets along the line of Jared's throat with two fingers, finding the hollow at the base where the sweat's still wet. "You're mine, for a while longer."

"I know," Jared says, shifting so his thigh slides against Jensen's. He can't feel anything but the security of it, the safety. Knowing, until the clocks strike midnight, that Jensen wants him. He was pretty sure, before, and now any doubt is wiped clean.

"Jay," Jensen whispers, with a frisson of tenderness that brings heat to Jared's eyes. He blinks, the light fracturing, and Jensen huffs and smears his thumb under the line of Jared's lashes. "That was—maybe I shouldn't have. Your half of the deal, you might as well have made me a haruspex. I could make you do anything. Hurt yourself. Hurt me. You shouldn't be so sanguine."

The words are still quiet, but sharper, like they're intended to hurt. They might have, if the ward were still around Jensen's neck. If he was closed to Jared, and Jared to him. As is, all Jared feels is the delicate achy worry, affection seeping up in his chest until it nearly closes his throat. "You wouldn't," Jared says, shrugging one shoulder. He knows it.

Jensen's mouth is flat, those tiny dimples denting in with the faintest frustration. "You're—" he starts, and stares at Jared, and doesn't finish. He sighs, instead, and leans in and kisses Jared's cheek, and what he's feeling for Jared isn't love, but maybe it isn't all that far from it.

The minutes tick by toward midnight. Jensen tugs Jared a little more upright and they drink their beers, their shoulders tucked in against each other, Jensen's cold feet on Jared's calves. When Jensen shivers Jared tugs up the blanket, because Jensen wanted it even if he wouldn't say so, and Jensen rolls his eyes but tucks in against Jared's chest, traces nonsense patterns in the tender ticklish flesh of his side. For his own part, Jared breathes slow and steady, and doesn't sleep because he wants to absorb every second of this while he has it. He's lucky—Jensen doesn't want him to sleep, either.

He rubs his thumb back and forth over the blanket, wrapped over Jensen's shoulder. It's thin, cheap null-made fabric, but with their bodyheat it's warm enough. He wonders about the nights Jensen sleeps here alone. Something of his worry must creep out, enough for Jensen to feel it, because he gets a tiny pinch to the side. "I don't know how you deal with this from other people," Jensen mutters, against Jared's chest.

He smiles, presses his mouth to the top of Jensen's head. The deal doesn't twinge, doesn't flex, and so he knows that Jensen doesn't want him to pull his wards back together, doesn't want to deny him. Lucky.

Jensen feels he has to pee, at some point, and sends him to the bathroom. It's tiny, a cramped little shower and a tiny sink, and no mirror for Jared to see himself in and know how goofy he looks. He washes his hands, splashes water on his face, and when he comes back the lamp's been dimmed and all that's lighting the bed is the faint light from the main room, the moon shining past the banked-up snow.

"Come here," Jensen says, and so of course Jared does, and slides into the bed and the nest of heat and the shock of contact, the feelings he can leach from across the apartment doubling in intensity. Now, knowing him, Jared could find him anywhere, could reach halfway across the planet and comb through the interconnected net of minds and find the one that mattered.

Nearly midnight, and Jensen's hard to see now, his face hidden in the dim. Jared leaves his hand on his chest, feels the solid rise of his breath. His heart, beating slow. The trickle of uncertainty, carving through the contentment. "Almost time," Jensen says, and Jared sighs.

In the dark, there's a soft touch to his eyebrow, to the corner of his mouth, to his chin. "I want you to tell me the truth," Jensen says, and the command in it latches an invisible hand around Jared's throat. "You can feel it. Both of us. You know, that I don't—"

He stops like he was interrupted, but of course Jared couldn't do that. "I know," he says, when Jensen's silent, and he says, too, "It's okay."

The affection is real. The care is real. Jensen's warm with him, when he's so cold with everyone else. When he refuses to deal with everyone else. Jared's an exception. Jared feels it, acutely, and Jensen knows it.

Jensen's heart aches, and Jared dips and kisses his finger, and that at least makes Jensen huff a little humorless laugh. "I'm not sure I've ever—" Jensen starts, and then says, "Well. Once. A long time ago. I probably need practice."

Another story Jared doesn't know, and the curiosity leaps in him before it's smothered by Jensen not wanting him to ask. Of course, he wouldn't ask. "I can wait," Jared says, and it's true, because it has to be true. Jensen knows that, too.

"Even if something better comes along?" Jensen says. It's soft, a little bitter, to match what swirls through below the words. "Jared Padalecki. Bumming around with a void isn't the life you're meant to have."

"No," Jared says, because it's true and because he has to, and he feels Jensen's surprise even despite it. Silly to pretend, though. "Meant to shouldn't matter. I want to live the life I want."

Muddled, and maybe Jensen doesn't know what he means. It's hard to pin down the feeling into words, but because he was commanded to tell the truth it is true, and he knows the feeling is what's more important, anyway. He's feeling it clearly, now, the deal stripping away all his expectations and worries, his fears, his entangled obligation and muddied thought. Jensen wants the truth from him, and the truth is this: that he's going to choose Jensen. The life he has, whatever way it comes to him, whatever his parents try to give or his position tries to dictate, it's going to include Jensen. One way or another. He sighs, the resolution settling down inside him like ard-cast, heavy, indisputable gold. It's remarkable, how freeing it is.

Jensen raises up on his elbow, and Jared can still barely see him but he knows he's getting stared at. In the store below, the few remaining clocks start to chime, and that means it's midnight. Jared takes in a breath, and when he lets it out again he can feel the deal resolving itself, the compulsion laid on by his collateral dissolving away. His limbs suddenly feel like his own, his brain spinning up and running at its normal speed—and the knowledge of Jensen's desire slips away, until they're mostly-separate again, but for the emotion hovering in the air.

"Could you close your wards, please," Jensen says, unusually polite, and Jared chews the inside of his cheek but does—reassembled and airtight in a moment. He slides out of the bed and fetches Jensen's necklace, too, bringing it back so Jensen can wall himself off again. It's amazing, how much he doesn't want him to, but the deal's over. Least he can do is respect the boundaries Jensen wants.

Jensen hesitates, though, the swinging silver charm catching what's left of the light. "Maybe," he says. "When we're alone. I could keep it off, for a little while."

"Only if you want to," Jared says. Admirable restraint he's showing, not to leap up and cheer, but Jensen huffs without him having to say another word. So, maybe he's obvious even with his wards closed.

He does lift it over his head, and Jared knows when the ward locks into place because the emotion snaps out of the air, in an instant. Back is the cool façade, no feeling seeping out, so they might as well be two nulls left to grope and stumble through the dark, never knowing for certain what's real and what's not. "Sometimes, maybe," Jensen says, and his hand finds Jared's arm in the shadows and pulls, and Jared dutifully sinks back down into the cloud of the bed, Jensen tipping into him with his head tucked against Jared's shoulder. "You'll have to work for it."

"I will," Jared says. Maybe he'll ask for the same promise, again. Jensen liked it, more than Jared could understand in the sway of it. Fair enough; Jared liked it too.

Quiet, for a minute. The door gets nudged, and there's the cat, swarming up onto the bed, nudging Jared's ankle. She makes a little chirpy sound, and turns a circle, and forms a ball up against the side of his calf. Now he won't be able to move. No problem there.

"How do you know?" Jensen says, when Jared's about to drift to sleep. He raises a hand to the back of Jensen's soft head, hmming a question. "You're so sure. Why do you think it'll work?"

Jared runs a thumb along the silky shell of his ear. "'Cause," he mumbles, circling toward sleep. "Things end up okay. Might as well believe it, 'cause otherwise, what's the point?"

Silence, then, other than the sound of their breathing, Jensen's coming in warm slow puffs against Jared's pec. A little sift of wind against the eaves, snow shushing over the big windows. The cat starts up a rumbly purr, vibrating Jared's calf through the thin blanket, and Jensen's hand settles over the center of Jared's chest. A warm, solid weight, reassuring as a promise. Like a deal being made, and Jared hopes it's as unbreakable. He covers Jensen's hand and tips his face into the pillow. Cold outside, and cozy within, and everything he wants right here. He knows things are going to be okay; they already, so wonderfully, are.

*

Jared's working on the sculpture of the man. He has the steps, and he's working on the legs that will be fused into them. It needs a melted effect, so it looks as though the man's being held down by the stairs—or that he's pulling himself out. They'll be solid, made of a material he and Carlos are developing. Looks like lead, dull and strong, but light enough Jared can toss one of the pieces into the air with one hand. He can usually catch it.

He's pulled apart the automaton, has seen how it worked. A silly butler-bot, inhabited by a spirit long-gone—cold intelligence to mind it, and a heart of cogs and ardglass and blackened copper, which he thinks he'll be able to get working again. On a long day-and-night's work, he pulls off the shield-plates that formed the skin and shell and engineers a skeleton of silver to connect to the legs, an open cage that will hold up the shoulders and head and heart. At the center he works in the sweetwood spine, the honeysuckle scent clinging to his hands. It's much stronger than it looks. It'll be an anchor, for the rest.

Jensen comes by the studio one night, when Jared's been working late. Jared makes him an espresso, from the machine that appeared as soon as it became clear that he might stop by at all, and Jensen sits on Jared's work table and lets him talk about the sculpture. He hums approval at the mix of old and new, is less than impressed at the new metal; he does look actually interested in the heart, starting to come back together, and touches the automaton's glass face, looking thoughtful.

"Do you have a name for it?" he says, his coffee balanced against his chest.

"The automaton's name is Morris," Jared says, and ignores Jensen's raised eyebrows with now-practiced ease. "Don’t let the mean man hurt your feelings, bud, you're a star." He takes the glass face and leaves it out of reach, and puts himself between Jensen's knees instead, taking his waist in both hands. "The sculpture—no, not yet. I'm still thinking."

"You're getting grease on my shirt, is what you're doing," Jensen says, sour, and Jared ignores him and leans in and kisses his coffee-stained surly mouth, and it's kinda vile, soft, exquisite.

A tiny sound, deep in Jensen's chest, and Jared pulls back, smiles at how Jensen's eyes have fallen shut, the frown wiped clean off. "There's still a lot left to do. It's just for me, so no specs I need to follow. I'm thinking—maybe no face, and no casing, either. So there'll be the bones, and the reaching arms, and the heart, and in shell of the head a burning light, that won't go ever out."

Jensen's eyes slide open, and his mouth quirks wryly. "Metaphors."

Jared shrugs. "That's what art's for," he says, and Jensen huffs, shakes his head. His face turns away, and Jared watches his profile in the sunset light. On the table, in among all his tumbled tools and materials, the cogs and spare filigree and carved pieces of wood, sits the little flowerpot, where the anise flower's still a tender, white bloom. Jared brought it from home and he's been taking care of it, without the benefit of Robert's magic—watering it gently, making sure it has sun. He's going to shape a new pot for it, once he's done with the current project. Gold and green, he thinks. Something special.

Jensen touches the little firework of white petals, gentle. "Are you going to fill in emotion?" he says. "Like with the others?"

A beat, while Jensen doesn't look up. Jared slips a finger under one of his necklaces, tugs just enough to get his attention despite the sting. Jensen's eyelids dip, but his face turns, and Jared ducks in and kisses him again, a slow soft press, lingering. "Guess which one," he says, lips moving against Jensen's skin. Jensen smiles, meets Jared's eyes, and doesn't have to.

Author's Note:

posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog

Table of Contents

Title Page

Black Cat Mercantile