Chapter 14: Past the Garden Shed and Straight Ahead (J2, NC-17)

[lucifersprize]

Fic title: Past the Garden Shed and Straight Ahead
Artist name: amberdreams
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: past domestic abuse, sexual language, non explicit sex, cussing, Chad

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***

This was a stupid plan. It was the stupidest thing he had ever done in a long history of stupid.

It had taken the best part of a week to make a plan and Jensen had punched the air with a happy yell of “We’re finishing the quest! I’m going to get a date!” when Felicia and Jared told him.

Felicia reminded him that a date would only happen if Jared’s faerie granted him freedom. It didn’t dull his enthusiasm.

Another week after that, with precious quest supplies sourced and in place, she waved them off with some sort of incantation and a cloud of incense.

So now, here he was, sitting awkwardly in the front seat of Jensen’s unicorn, with his useless leg balanced precariously over the handbrake, the keys in his hand, squinting in the mirrors and all around. He was the lamest look out for the stupidest crime in history.

He could just make out the faint beam of Jensen’s flashlight in the garden of the senior’s complex which had been built on his childhood home. It seemed to be heading back to him. Maybe his heart could stop racing when they finally returned from their fledgling heist. His attention turned back to the road as a car approached slowly, and drew close. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.” He flashed the Impala’s headlights once and the flashlight clicked off. A security guard leaned out of his window and scrutinised him. Jared tried to rein in his terror to play the frustrated invalid.

“You okay there? This is private property.”

Jared rolled his eyes dramatically. “I’m sorry officer. My partner was so busy fussing over getting me fixed up in the car that we forgot his wallet at Aunty Alice’s.” He gestured weakly in the general direction of the apartment complex and huffed, “And yet he says that she is losing her marbles. She’s probably in her pajamas by now, my ankle is killing me and I really don’t need this. I mean, we could have come back tomorrow, I said we...”

The guard looked fed up, he wasn’t paid to hear anybody’s life story. “Next time, tell your partner to use the visitor parking lot, or you’ll get a ticket.”

He looked suitably contrite, “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. He’s such an airhead, I said he should…,”

The patrol car sped away. He collapsed back into its leather seat until he could stop shaking. He was a landscaper, he was sure he could have completed this task in daylight, with some gossip to ease his mission, but no, a quest is all about ‘intent’ and Jensen decided that some night time trespassing was called for.

A dog started to bark. It got louder and somewhat snarlier. Uh-oh. He could just make Jensen out now, sprinting like his life depended on it, and maybe it did because, snapping at his heels, was an impressive looking Doberman. He flung a bag from the other side of the security fence and then launched himself up the chain-link to vault over the top. He landed it perfectly, every muscle flexed in the process. A perfect telemark landing. Jared wanted to ravish him right there, in the Impala. He remembered why he had agreed to all of this.

“Move, move, move,” hissed an out of breath Jensen, stashing his bag in the back seat.

He struggled to lift his leg off the handbrake and sit back in the passenger seat, dropping the keys in the footwell in the process.

Jensen stooped to retrieve them. He tutted, “Some getaway driver, you are!”

“Not my idea!” he sniped back, trying to get comfortable. "Why'd you have to provoke a dog?"

“It’s not a quest without mortal danger, remember?”

The Doberman redoubled it’s howl and salivated over the fence as it tried to bite through. Lights began to show in several windows.

“Crap!” complained Jensen, before finally slamming his door and peeling away from the complex with the Impala at full throttle.

“Subtle!” commented Jared.

“I got the loot!” Jensen pointed at the back seat.

Jared closed his eyes and shook his head, “Are we sure this proxy idea will work? It should be me in mortal danger.”

“Hang on you’re about to be.”

The speedometer needle climbed around the dial at an alarming rate and lamp posts passed in a blur.

“The unicorn is galloping! Gotta be back for the witching hour,” Jensen whooped.

He was enjoying this way too much. “Not looking for a witch,” he murmured, under his breath.

“Same difference, Jay. You heard what my sister had to say. “

Back at Jensen’s house, Jared bitched as he pulled on an itchy red tee shirt and some tight fitting blue pants they had obtained from goodwill. The outfit was accompanied by a black cap and canvas deck shoes. He had drawn the line at cutting his hair, but he shaved and then gelled it neatly. It was as close as he could get to what he was wearing the day his father died and it was hellish uncomfortable. Jensen couldn’t look at him but he could tell he was stifling giggles because his shoulders were heaving.

The only thing missing was flowers.

“You looking for these?” Jensen handed him a crushed bunch of daisies that he had picked from the lawn at the senior’s complex.

Jared tried to make a slit in the stem of one, to start a daisy chain but crushed it entirely. He tried another but the task was too fiddly. “Oh god, this used to be so easy, why can’t I do it?”

“Well, you grew up to be a yeti, with yeti sized fingers? Hang on.” He fished in his pocket and produced a utility knife. “Here, use the tip. Hurry up.”

“I’m trying,” he snapped back.

When he finally had a messy daisy bracelet around his wrist, they laid out everything they would need to finish the quest. Jensen unpacked his loot with pride, “I managed to find thyme, sage, mint, parsley and borage in some old biddy’s pots,” he held up bunches of rooted herbs.

Jared covered his face with his hand in despair, “You dug up some old person’s decorative pots?”

“Eh, they’ll think it was the dog. That dog totally deserves what it gets,” was his nonchalant reply. He held up a sorry scrap of a stem with a single flower, “Lemon verbena was a bitch to find. Nobody was growing it. I thought it was important, based on what your mother said. I found this at the wild edge of the complex. It might actually be descended from your original patch. That has to make it more potent, right?”

He didn’t have time to wonder how anybody located a wild seedling, in the dark of an unfamiliar place. He held out a plant pot to Jensen, who tipped the bag upside down and poured in the remaining item, several handfuls of soil. Jared packed the soil around the herbs until they were safely planted. Together they looked at a jam jar of water that Felicia had supposedly charged with moon energy. Jared took it, unscrewed the lid and poured it on his miniature herb garden.

With phase one - the journey for knowledge, and phase two - the dangerous acquisition of artefacts, achieved, they were ready for phase three of his quest.  It felt anticlimactic.

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