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Once they drop off Jeremy and Misha, Jeff's easy good mood evaporates slowly, like oil soaking into wood. He doesn't straighten from his loose slouch in the passenger seat, but the smile, the manicness, fade, replaced by quiet distance. He'd wanted to drive, but Jensen thought Jeff had a little too much beer and pot for that and Jeff hadn't fought him when Jensen took the keys.
As the car gets quiet around them, Jensen wonders if it was Jeff acknowledging the point or whether it was one of Jeff's obscure forms of guilt, giving Jensen what he wanted. The thought made Jensen's hands tighten on the steering wheel, the same frustrated not-anger that he'd felt at the party fluttering around hotly in his chest.
He knows it's his task to fill the silence, to make pleasing small talk, to coax Jeff back from somber to silly. A part of him wants to do exactly that; to watch Jeff's eyes crinkle, to hear his giggle, both charming and odd from a man his size and age. But all of Jensen's extensive training seems to have deserted him and his words with it.
"Did you have a good time?" As a conversational gambit, it's feeble and amateurish and Jensen cringes at how bad it is but it's the only thing he can come up with.
Jeff is staring out the passenger side window, scratching idly at his jaw. At Jensen's question, he grunts noncommittally, a sound Jensen doesn't know whether to interpret as agreement or objection.
He guesses it doesn't really matter; the encounter with Lord Cruise sits in the middle of it all like a lump of indigestible gristle and no amount of Master Ferguson's charm or booze or weed is likely to make it more palatable.
Traffic is unfairly, uncharacteristically light, an insufficient distraction…not that he could justify his failures of the evening with any sort of distraction. But maybe he could stop thinking about them so much. "I'm sorry," Jensen says again.
Jeff shifts in the seat, reaching out to pat and then squeeze Jensen's thigh. "I told you, I'm not angry with you."
You should be. "I know," Jensen says instead. But, though the fear still strikes him at odd and random moments, it isn't Jeff's anger he's afraid of. Not really. He doesn't fully know what it is he's afraid of. Maybe just being what Lord Cruise said he is: substandard goods. "I know," he says a second time, the only coherent thing he can say.
"How are you doing?" Jeff's voice is scratchier than it was a moment ago, but his hand is still a solid weight on Jensen's leg, the stroke of his thumb against Jensen's slacks—and the flesh and bone underneath—a steady, regular beat.
Jensen shrugs. "Fine." He doesn't look at Jeff as he says it, but he doesn't have to.
They drive the rest of the way home without another word between them and, if it's no less awkward than before, it's no more awkward, either.
No one's waiting up for them when they get home, though there's a lightning flicker of the TV in Sam's room as they pull up to the house. Jensen leaves Jeff rummaging in the fridge and goes upstairs to check on Bodhi.
Jensen's original thought, that there's no one still up waiting for them, is dispelled when he finds Joe in Bodhi's room, reading in a rocking chair while Bodhi sleeps. When Jensen fills the doorway, Joe looks up, unhurried, unsurprised. "Didn't want him to wake alone," Joe says, putting his book aside.
Jensen nods, understanding as soon as he'd realized there was someone other than Jeff's son in the room. Bodhi still ends up in Jeff's bed with them more often than not, in the hollow hours between midnight and dawn. Jensen's had to be more creative in ensuring Jeff still has a fulfilling sex life, but not as weird as Jensen had been afraid it would be and both Jeff and Bodhi seem to want him there.
Jensen flicks a hand toward the paperback Joe had put aside on the dresser. "Why romances?" Joe reads more than any slave Jensen's ever met. During the day, it's usually the dark leather volumes by great thinkers that Jeff either inherited or some interior decorator thought were essential for the proper manly image…or sometimes it's Jeff's actually read collection of hard boiled noir mysteries or Kane's dog-eared Westerns or the jumble of Palahniuk, Welsh and Ellis that no one will cop to owning. But at night, it's routinely romances, the heroes either steroidal or lithely muscular, depending on which variety he's reading, the heroines either frothily heaving or sleekly, smugly sexy.
Joe picks up the book again and contemplates the cover. Two men this time, both of them half-naked and tanned, smiling only for each other with no eye for the tropical beach spread behind their wide, almost-touching shoulders. "Everything else reminds me of Mick," Joe says finally, meeting Jensen's gaze with calm factuality.
"Hey, the kid still sleeping?" The sound of Jeff's voice, in what Jeff thinks passes for a whisper and right behind Jensen, makes Jensen jump. Jeff's fingers flatten across Jensen's scapula. "Didn't mean to scare you."
Jensen shakes his head. "No, I…" He trails off, too tired and too…something to figure out or explain how I didn't know you were there is different from being frightened. Jeff's cradling a bowl full of de-stemmed grapes in his free arm; he scoops one from the bowl and presses it gently to Jensen's mouth. Jensen tastes the salt and weed resin on Jeff's fingers before he bites down and lets the grape burst sweetly over his tongue.
"He keeps throwing the covers off," Joe observes, getting up from the rocking chair and tucking his book into the back pocket of his jeans, "but he's slept pretty good. Maybe he'll make it through the night."
"Thanks, Joe." Jeff clasps Joe's shoulder briefly before going to Bodhi's bedside.
The bed's too big for such a little boy, Jensen muses, and not for the first time. Bodhi always looks a little lost amid the fluffy covers and moreso when he's sleeping, just the fluff of his hair and the slightest moony sliver of his face to show where he is, adrift in an ocean of bright blue and green. Or maybe Jensen's just projecting his own unhappiness of that first year in Lord Cruise's house, sleeping on his own, sleeping alone.
Lost in his thoughts and watching Jeff as he tucks Bodhi in more securely amid the quilts, it takes Jensen a moment to realize Joe's still standing there in the hallway.
"Everything okay?"
Joe still looks so much like a stringy teenager that its easy to forget—until he's standing right next to you—that he's just as tall as Jensen or Jeff. That he's a man and not just a too-old-for-his-age boy. "Thought I should ask you that question," Joe says easily.
Jensen glances at Jeff before looking back to Joe. He's not one for sharing confidences—for needing to—but, maybe because of Joe's admission about Master Rourke, Jensen says briefly, "Lord Cruise was at the party."
"Oh." Joe nods and, like Jensen, his gaze flicks to Jeff. "How's he handling it?"
The question, innocuous as it is, slides some invisible weight from Jensen's shoulders. Joe is the first and only person to not ask him how he's doing, like some fragile and withering flower. "I don't know yet."
"Ah." Joe's mouth twitches, an expression that could be smile or grimace, as he squeezes Jensen's shoulder briefly. The short silence between them is comfortable, almost familiar. Then Joe leans closer, as if imparting secrets and says, "I'll make you a deal. I won't have bad dreams tonight if you won't."
"Deal." Jensen's voice comes out more hoarse—scraped—than the whisper he intended.
Joe smiles, enigmatic as a sphinx, and pats Jensen's shoulder again before fading down the hallway.
"I think we should go, while the going's good," Jeff says, again from too close without Jensen's awareness. Jensen sidles sideways a step before catching himself and holding still.
You can be angry, Misha had said. You can love him and be angry.
And Jensen's reply: It's not anger. I don't know what it is.
"Let me undress you."
Jeff's hesitation is momentary, his shoulders rolling and fingers shaking out as if they have a cramp. "Yeah, sure."
Jeff's already lost his jacket somewhere—probably the kitchen—and loosened his tie, rucked up the sleeves. It's anyone's guess where his cufflinks—antique, hand carved mother-of-pearl that had belonged to his great-grandfather—have gotten to. Jensen bites back a sigh, and sheds his own jacket and tie, rolling up his sleeves.
Jeff's arms and shoulders are tight, tense, as Jensen rolls down Jeff's sleeves and tugs his tie—a black on black stripe, because Jeff wouldn't even consider anything more colorful and just getting him into the tie had been struggle enough—all the way free.
"Here's the thing, Jensen." As Jensen pops his collar to lift the tie over Jeff's head, Jeff's fingers close lightly over the point of Jensen's chin, holding his face still for their eyes to clash and tangle. "Indira…and hell, Cate's been telling me this for years…but Indira says that the key to a good Dom/sub relationship—and Cate would probably expand that to say any relationship…"
"Jeff."
"Communication," Jeff spits out, finally. "I really, really need to work on my communication."
Jensen doesn't mean to snort, he truly doesn't, but he can't help it, his body jerking as if with a cramp as the snort cascades into laughter. "I'm sorry," Jensen apologizes, one hand covering his mouth and the other held out in supplication, but the effect is probably ruined by the giggles bubbling through the words. Jensen's more than a little horrified with himself, but if anything it just makes him laugh harder. "I'm so sorry."
"Yeah, yeah." Jeff's tone is sour, but the one-sided curl of his mouth is indulgent as he finishes unbuttoning his shirt. Jeff wads it up into a ball and tosses it carelessly in the direction of the laundry bin in an underhand release.
As Jensen winds down, one hand braced on Jeff's dressing table to hold himself upright, Jeff sits on the bed's edge, still in his undershirt and trousers. "C'mere." Jeff scratches the air in Jensen's general direction.
Though it probably wasn't Jeff's intention, Jensen goes to his knees in front of him. His back and shoulders have been in knots all night, so it's probably not as graceful as it should be, a throb of dull pain transecting his spine.
Still, the familiar position settles some still fluttery part of him, air flowing clean and clear into his starving lungs. He's tried to be what Jeff wants of him all night, buoyed by the skin-warmed clasp of his new collar around neck, but this, this is when he feels most right, the most Jensen, something he doesn't even know how to change, much as he's tried.
He also tries not to think about what that means for his and Jeff's future.
"Look, I don't want to make a big deal out of this, especially if it's not a big deal," Jeff says finally. His big hand finds and cups the side of Jensen's face and Jensen leans into the touch as shamelessly as Pickles. Wanting. Wanting so much.
The touch turns to a caress, the caress to a kiss. Jeff's mouth starts off light, so gentle it almost tickles, and it's Jensen who leans into it, chasing deeper contact, inviting Jeff's tongue into his mouth and sighing with greedy satisfaction when Jeff obliges him.
"Mmm. Much as I'd love to take this further—a lot further—we still need to talk this out, Jensen." Jeff sets Jensen back on his knees. "I don’t know what happened tonight… Okay, no, I'm starting in the wrong place. You know what I think of Cruise." Jeff's palm splays across Jensen's cheek again, holding him still so Jeff's eyes can try to bore holes through Jensen's skull. "But I know…"
Jensen steels himself for what Jeff knows, for the reconstitution of whatever he'd been to Lord Cruise, and vice versa, through a stranger's eyes, a stranger's perceptions.
Not that Jeff is exactly a stranger, at this point.
"…he was your first," Jeff says, with a lot more kindness in his voice than Jensen expects. Which is unfair and Jensen really needs to stop thinking of Jeff as some kind of inexplicable idiot savant. "And whatever I think and whatever you think and…and however that might change as time goes by, you're never going to be able to untangle that completely: your first. And that's okay."
Completely out of the blue, Jensen's eyes prickle, hot and somehow painful—not that he's going to cry—and it takes everything he has not to look away from Jeff's face.
"And it's probably going to be like this anytime we run across one of the people who owned you before…before me." The sun and smile lines at the corners of Jeff's eyes gully briefly deeper, the corner of his mouth turning up in that same aw, shucks smile. Or a good imitation of it, anyway; Jensen could be imagining it, but it seems a little brittle at the edges. "But however angry I get…it's because of you, not at you."
Jensen tries to nod, but there's still Jeff's hand on his face, so he makes a quiet noise in his throat instead. "I know that."
"But I feel like I should still say it. I'm not angry at you. I'm never angry at you. But the other half of it is…" Jeff breaks off and then sighs. "I want to be everything for you, Jensen. Whatever you need me to be. And I thought I was over my fantasies of white knighthood, but I guess not, because sometimes—a lot of the time—that’s what I want to be for you.
"And I get that's not always going to be possible and maybe I'm a little too stoned right now to be having this conversation with you, but I mean it. I meant what I said today, with the collar and this—" He jingles his bracelet. "And I mean it. I want to give you everything. Everything you want, everything you need. But I don't always know what the fuck that is. And I'm trying, but I'm still going to need your help. 'Cause I feel like you need something, something from me that I'm just not giving and I don't know what the hell it is. I don't know what it did to you, seeing that guy. That guy you used to love, hell, maybe that guy you still love, I don't know."
Jensen opens his mouth to protest, even if he’s not totally sure how he feels about Lord Cruise anymore, but Jeff’s thumb touches Jensen’s mouth, stroking it shut.
"Wait." Jeff shakes his head. "I just… I can see something going on with you. And I just…I don't know what you need from me right now, whether you need me to be your master, or to just back the fuck off, whether you want me to touch you or leave you alone…" Another shake, this one angrier than the first. "But it breaks my heart to think I'm already failing you so early in the game, sweetheart." Jeff's voice breaks, just a little.
"You’re not," Jensen insists, even against the pressure of Jeff’s thumb on his lips.
"What do you need from me?"
Jensen starts to shake his head and catches himself. "I don't know."
Jeff sighs. "Jensen—"
"No! That's not…" He gropes for the words he means, the ones that he can nearly see written across Jeff's face every time they try and have a conversation about Jensen. "That's not a slave answer," he offers finally, which still isn't quite right, but he knows Jeff will understand the gist. "It's my answer, the only answer I have. I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with me." Jeff's face twitches and Jensen amends, "I don't know what's making me feel the way I feel."
Jensen watches Jeff consider that, weigh it against whatever he thinks, or whatever Cate's told him or some combination of the two…before Jeff nods slowly. "Okay." He blows a breath out and settles his weight back on the mattress, releasing Jensen from his touch as he scrubs his palms down his thighs. "Okay."
Again Jensen has the teetering sense of his life spooling away from him, going in directions he doesn't understand and isn't wholly sure he wants.
Except that he knows he wants Jeff.
He wants Jeff and he wants Jeff to love him, to love him back. He wants to fill up the gaping, bleeding, somehow invisible to everyone but him hole in Jeff's life, or be swallowed trying. Jensen wants that, as much as he wants anything in this life, as much as he ever has, as much as he's wanted good and perfect and safe.
"Seeing Lord Cruise again…" For a lightning split second, Jensen mouth and mind frame the words Thomas, Tom and he wonders if things would've been any different if Lord Thomas Mapother Cruise had been the type of man to allow his slave to use his given name. If Cruise had been more like Jeff. It's the first time the comparison has ever gone that way and Jensen grinds his knuckles against the ache in his temples.
"You ever have a feeling—" Jensen starts, but it collapses as fast as he tries to construct it. "It was like a dream and a nightmare at the same time."
"A dream I think I get," Jeff says, still in that half-speed, careful tone, "but why a nightmare?"
The smile that springs to Jensen's mouth is sudden, startling somehow. "Because the thought of the two of you together was probably the most terrifying thing I could think of, up 'til that moment."
Jeff lets out a little bark of surprise and laughter combined, scratching with two fingers where his mouth, mustache and beard meet. "And here I tried to be on my very best behavior."
"Oh, you were," Jensen hastens to assure him. It was still a nightmare. "And…I worried about that, sure, but it wasn't just that. It's also…being different. Not seeing him for years and years and then he sees me and I'm different. Different from who I was when I was his."
"Well, Jensen. You were a kid when he owned you. Not a whole lot older than Bodhi, when he bought you." The weight of Jeff's hand as it finds and squeezes Jensen's shoulder is grounding, steadying.
"No, I know." Behind his back, Jensen's hands clasp each other. "But it's not just being older. It's not being better."
"I think you're better."
"I.." Jensen hesitates over the admission, but he's already crossed so many other lines today. "I think so, too." If it's not wholly the truth, it's as close to it as he can come, as close as Jeff will understand. "But. Lord Cruise wouldn't think so. And…and it's not just that he wouldn't approve. It's that he wouldn't understand. Why this is better. Why I'm better." Another pause to sort through the evening's events and memories even older than that, through feelings he's never tried to understand, let alone put words to.
"He looks at me and he thinks I'm broken," Jensen says. Though the hair-fine scar on his chin hasn't bothered him in years, Jensen can feel it all over again, more clearly than the brand on the nape of his neck or the collar around his throat. "If he knew…if he knew how different I am, how much I've changed… What's worse than broken?"
"I don't know," Jeff shakes his head, thumb tracing Jensen's throat, "but whatever it is, you're not that, either."
"It wouldn't stop him from thinking it, though."
"No," Jeff agrees. "Probably not."
"And…in all these years, I've never had to question that. Lord Cruise, he trained me, made me and everything he taught me was always correct. Always." Too late, it occurs to Jensen that the end of this train of thought ventures into some questionably wise territory.
"Until me."
"Until you." Jensen dips his head on his neck and has to fight to bend no further. "I want to change," he insists raggedly, "I do. I'm trying."
"Jensen, you don't have to reassure me on that score."
Jensen's lips twist. "But I feel like I should still say it."
The warmth of Jeff's smile falls over Jensen like a ray of sunlight, not needing to be seen to be felt. "If you were someone else, I'd say you were getting smart with me. If you were someone else. But not my prim and proper Jensen. Whaddya say, sweetheart? Are you getting smart with me?"
"I'm trying to be smarter." Jensen's smile is unsteady because he's still unsteady. "I still don’t feel very smart."
Jeff mutters, "Jesus Christ, Jensen," before he tugs Jensen's chin up and kisses him, hard, urgent pressure that makes Jensen tighten his thighs and tense his abs just to stay upright. Jeff only leaves him suspended for a few seconds though, before growling, "C'mere," and dragging Jensen close with both hands.
Jensen's ability to think through Jeff's kisses hasn't improved over time; he has no idea how long he clings to Jeff, letting Jeff plunder his mouth, kissing greedily back in return, his mind a blissful blank.
The sharp tugging on his shoulder brings Jensen tumbling abruptly back into his too-busy brain.
"I can't sleep," Bodhi complains, in direct contravention of what Jensen had seen with his own two eyes not twenty minutes ago. As Jeff and Jensen reluctantly separate, Bodhi climbs into Jensen's lap, slinging his arms around Jensen's neck in what Kane nicknamed his Kung-Fu Grip. Bodhi's face grinds damply into Jensen's collarbone. "C'n I sleep with you?"
Jensen glances at Jeff. Jeff isn't looking at Bodhi, really, tracing his spit-shined bottom lip with the side of his thumb. The green in his eyes is completely gone, smelted down to tawny brown and hot gold and Jensen freezes under that gaze. It doesn't last, though; Jeff's expression softens and Jensen breathes again. "Yeah, sure, buddy. C'mon."
Jeff reaches for Bodhi but Bodhi, with typical perversity just makes a sullen noise of denial and clutches tighter to Jensen's neck.
Jeff snorts, rolling his eyes and his smile widening before he nods at Jensen. "You got him?"
"Yeah, I got him." Jensen rolls back onto his heels and then stands, only a little wobbly for the unfamiliar weight of a child. He's getting better for practice, that's for sure. Once he's standing, Jensen pauses.
"Let me." Jeff's fingers slink into the waistband of Jensen's trousers, unclipping the clasp and slipping the button. Jensen's conscious of Bodhi's soft, snuffling breaths against his throat and the pressure of Jeff's knuckles against his belly, points of sensation he can't reconcile. The trousers slither down Jensen's legs and, with Jeff's urging hand against his hip, Jensen steps out of them.
"It's nice to turn the tables on you sometimes," Jeff murmurs, smirking as he unbuttons Jensen's shirt, never looking away from Jensen's face. "We'll have to try this again, when we don't have company."
Jensen says nothing, concentrating on not dropping Bodhi as Jeff strips Jensen's shirt from one arm and then the other.
"You all right in the undershirt and boxers?"
"Yeah." They're both sleeping in clothes more often, thanks to their night visitor. It takes some creative bending, but Jensen eases himself and Bodhi onto the mattress without too much jostling. Already mostly asleep again, Bodhi whimpers softly in his throat as Jensen settles prone, trying to burrow deeper into Jensen's chest.
"You know, this wasn't how I thought tonight was going to go," Jeff comments, skinning out of his own remaining clothes—except underwear—and climbing into the other side of the bed.
Jensen smiles lazily. "I know how you thought tonight would go."
Jeff shakes his head before reaching back to snap off the bedside light. "See, there you go again, being smart. You've changed, man, you've changed." In the new dark, his fingers stroke across Jensen's cheek. "I like it."
Jensen's smile widens.
"But, that's not what I meant."
"I know."
"I wanted tonight to be good. To be great."
It occurs to Jensen that, even without his scar to muddy matters, even if Cruise had been willing to keep him this long past his sell-by date, no stretch of his imagination can paint his former master into this moment. Can't conceive of this moment existing between Cruise and anyone, let alone an aging, damaged body-slave. Lord Cruise's definitions of 'good' and 'great' had never included Jensen, except as a potential pitfall.
Not that Cruise is wrong to think that way, but it takes a special sort of kindness for Jeff to care this much to include him. To make him part of the family and trust him to protect and care for his only son.
The trembly fluttering inside him has stopped.
"It was a great night," Jensen says, taking Jeff's wrist and turning his head to smudge his mouth into Jeff's cupped palm. "It was everything I wanted."