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'Ok,' announces Jared through a mouthful of apple. 'I'm pretty sure I've got it.'
'Got what?' asks Aldis, looking up from his Air Safety 101 textbook. 'And hi to you too.'
Jared vaults over the back of Aldis's couch, one big palm covering his mouth while he chews and swallows vigorously.
'Why Jensen's being so weird. There's only one thing it can really be, right? It's the mind-reading thing.'
'Mmm,' says Aldis noncommittally.
'I mean, we were fine until my power came along, and then suddenly – weirdsville. He won't talk to me, he won't look at me, he can barely stand to be in the same room as me. He's started skipping every class we have together. He doesn't let me pick him up for school any more. But when I text him or talk to him online he's totally normal. So it's gotta be a proximity thing, you know? He's not mad at me, he just doesn't want me to read his mind. Right?'
Aldis's eyes have wandered back to his textbook. 'Uhuh,' he grunts, reaching out blindly for one of Jared's gummi bears.
'Hey, dickwad! Pay attention, this is important.'
'Jared, stop being such a fuckbucket,' says Aldis distractedly. 'If I don't memorise this frankly horrifyingly list of fuckin' arm signals and shit by tomorrow, I'm gonna fail my flying test and I'll be stuck on the bus with you for another year. Go talk to Jensen.'
'He won't talk to me, Aldis, that's the whole point. What I'm tryna say is, he's obviously got some kind of secret! Something he doesn't want us to know! Or...me, anyway. I'm fuckin' worried, man.' Jared rakes his fingers through his hair and sighs. 'I mean seriously, what would he not want me to know? I'm his best friend, and...What if it's something real bad? What? What are you looking at me like that for?'
Aldis is staring at Jared as if he's got several heads.
'Jay-red,' he says, enunciating clearly as if talking to a small child, 'Go. Talk. To Jensen.'
'I can't....wait, you fucker, do you know? Do you know what it is?'
'You're actually the dumbest person I've ever met. Talk to Jensen! Now!'
'Aldis, I swear to fuckin' god, don't make me read your mind.'
'Jared, I swear to fuckin' god, if you do I'll drop you from ten thousand feet.'
'Just...' Jared exhales and starts shoving his books into his bag. 'Just....is it bad? Aldis, please, you gotta tell me if it's bad.'
Aldis stares consideringly at Jared, who suddenly feels like a thief in a spotlight. He's aware that he's not looking his best, wild-eyed and disheveled, face creased with worry and frustration.
'Nah,' Aldis says at last. 'I don't think it's bad.'
Jensen isn't home when Jared arrives, which works out perfectly, because Jared just has a quick chat with Donna and then runs upstairs to wait in Jensen's room.
When Jensen walks in it's obvious that Donna kept her side of the deal and didn't warn him that Jared was here, because he stamps in with his usual easy swagger, shrugging his athletics jacket off and pulling out his earbuds; Jared feels the same bloom of warmth in his chest he always feels when Jensen enters a room, that cinnamon-hot feeling making his head a little lighter, his heart a little fast. Then Jensen sees Jared, sprawled on the bed grinning at him, turns white and drops his satchel on the floor. He stares at Jared, spooked as a wild horse, for a couple of beats, and then makes a break for the door. Jared's too fast, though, dives after him and uses his greater weight and height to yank Jensen backwards and throw himself in front of the door.
'Hey,' says Jared, a little breathless, swiping hair out of his eyes with a forearm.
'Dude,' snaps Jensen, regarding him warily and keeping his distance. 'Let me out.'
'I will, when you tell me why you're being so weird and avoiding me.'
'I'm not,' says Jensen, backing up towards the window.
'You are. You don't want me to read your mind because there's something you want to keep a secret from me, right?'
'No.'
'Oh yeah? Then why are refusing to be in the same room as me? You won't even look at me, Jensen! And Aldis seems to know what it's about, and probably the others too, and it seems like I'm the only fuckin' person who doesn't. And here I thought I was your best friend. So tell, me, Jen, because I'm lost. Why me? What have I done? What have I done to you?'
For another few moments, Jensen looks ready to bolt. Jared can tell he's seriously considering the window; his healing would kick in within a few minutes if he broke anything, so he might just be crazy enough to try it. Then he gives in. His whole body slumps a little, defeat in every muscle, and he walks towards Jared like a condemned man approaching the noose.
'Here' he says, softly, taking Jared's hands. Jared's pulse jumps. He's not sure when it started doing that, but it's been a while. 'I can't...you have to....look.' He lifts Jared's hands towards his temples, presses them to the sides of his face, bows his head a little. Putting his head on the chopping block, thinks Jared. For a moment he stands there, nonplussed, and then he realises what Jensen's offering.
'Jen? Are you...'
'Just fucking do it, Jared,' growls Jensen. Jared has never heard him like this, never seen him like this, and it's terrifying.
'Okay,' he whispers, and opens Jensen's head up.
That's how he thinks of it, to himself. Every mind reader is different, and Jared's pretty new at this, but to him it's not like burrowing into someone's mind and extracting thoughts. It's closing his eyes and taking it all away, the hair and bones and skin, the mental barriers people keep wrapped tightly around it all, and letting the person's mind spill out and fill the whole room. Letting it wash over him, emotions and impressions and colours and music and pure sensation, until he can begin to understand it and even piece together specific thought trains or memories.
Opening Jensen's mind is....amazing.
Sometimes, when Jensen leaves clothes at Jared's house, a hoodie or a scarf or the jeans that Jared always borrows even though they're a little short now, Jared piles them up in his bed and uses them as a pillow. He doesn't know why, only that when he closes his eyes and breathes in, he can smell Jensen. Just Jensen, all the things that make up his familiar warm scent. It's like being surrounded by essence of Jensen, inundated with it, and it feels like sleeping in the warm sun.
Opening Jensen's mind is like that, a million times over. He's flooded with Jensen, his mind, his soul, his consciousness, everything that makes up who he is, and at first all Jared can do is bask in it, breathe it in, because it's pure and familiar and intoxicating. He distantly hears himself let out a little blissful moan, but he forgets it, because images and impressions are starting to form around him in the golden maelstrom of Jensen's mind. He begins to find things – the shape of Jensen's house, an impression of leaves over water, a soft breath of dust and leather in the sun, a thick cascade of memories with the distinctive echo of busy corridors that Jared can tell would include everything since they started school, if he unpacked it. A hundred summer days. A bruise of purple rage with a fleeting glimpse of Mr. Murphy the soccer coach over it; a bad call last week, Jared knows. A song, not quite smoothed out into notes Jared can hear yet, something about Star Trek. Jared's own face, strange from below.
Jared learns the shape of Jensen's thoughts, how to translate them into something he can understand. It's not hard. Jensen's mind isn't the same as his own, but it feels familiar, like Jensen's kitchen drawers or which pockets he keeps things in in his backpack. Jensen has a very visual mind, which Jared always finds easy, so he lets the images sharpen into focus around him and follows one to the other.
School. Aldis shaking his head, Sandy laughing. Jared reading Sandy's mind for the first time, triumphantly yelling 'Purple rhinoceros!' and punching the air. Jared pretending to dance with broken arms and legs. Jared loping ahead of him towards his old truck. Jared singing and pounding the steering wheel, Jensen's laughter, struggle for air. Jared asleep on Jensen's bed, mouth open, soft snores; Jensen laboriously placing cheetos on his nose, chin and forehead. Jared drunk, hanging out of the passenger side of his own truck, whooping at the stars. Jared throwing up. Jared asleep again. All the time that familiar feeling is building and building in Jared's chest, that glowing honey-feeling like a fluttering bird in his lungs, blossoming stronger and hotter until he's not sure how much longer he'll be able to stay here. Jared charging out of the lake, dripping in the sunshine, tackling Jensen into the water. Jared's weight on Jensen's chest, holding him down. Jared peeling his shirt off after practise, baring his teeth at Jensen and laughing. Jared in his winter coat wrapping his arms tight around Jensen and holding him hard against his body. Jared's face up close, mole and freckles and changeable eyes. Jared moaning and biting at Jensen's neck. Jared under Jensen on his bed, breathless and dark-eyed. Jared pushing Jensen up against his bedroom door, lifting him off the ground, growling into Jensen's mouth and biting at his lips. Jared unbuttoning his jeans and sliding a hand inside.
Jared feels as if his chest is going to burst, as if his veins are on fire, this mingled agony and delight. He realises that the images are being torn away from him, that Jensen is fighting it now, doesn't want him to see where this particular train of thought goes. He wants to follow, wants so badly to bury himself in these things that never happened and stay there, but Jensen feels bad and afraid, so he makes himself pull back, close himself off to Jensen's mind. It feels like being shut out in the cold. As he comes back to himself he realises that he's pulled Jensen further in towards his chest, and that Jensen is shaking in his arms. He also understands, when he heaves in a shaky breath and sniffs, that there are tears streaming down his face. He wants to go back into Jensen's mind and stay there forever. The huge terrible bird is still in his chest, beating at his ribcage for some kind of relief.
Jensen lifts his head, wipes a hand across his face and straightens up. His eyes are red and his face is pale. His beauty cuts Jared like a knife.
''That,' Jensen says. His voice sounds rough and unused. Jared has no idea how long he was in Jensen's mind. 'That's what you've done to me.'
Jared still has tears running down his face. He doesn't care.
'I didn't know,' he manages, voice shaky and faint. 'I didn't...I didn't know.'
'Well. Now you do.'
Jared reaches out, runs his thumbs over Jensen's face, unconsciously trying to recapture something of what it was like to be inside Jensen, to be surrounded by him. Jensen flinches away and Jared grabs onto him more firmly.
'Jensen,' he says weakly, a smile beginning to break through, 'there is no power on this earth that will make me let go of you right now, so don't even try.'
A muscle works in Jensen's jaw, but he doesn't say anything, just stares at the ground.
'I didn't know what it meant,' Jared repeats. 'The way I....the feeling in my chest every time you came in a room. Every time you touched me. Whenever you were anywhere near....I thought it was just. You. I mean....it is you, but....I understand, now, is all I'm saying. I'm sorry it took me so long.'
Jensen looks up and meets Jared's eyes. Jared sobs in a hitching breath and kisses him, and there it is, again, golden light and the bird in his chest soaring and uncaged.