WELL.
Hi, here I am again! Almost a year after the second chapter OTL
I honestly did not mean to take this long with this, but my life pretty much just exploded with stuff, which meant tiredness and a consequent Block. But now things are looking up, and what’s better, my sister and I just recently played through Heavy Rain again, which meant lots of blayden feels!
So here’s to you especially, @paperpug: finally chapter three!
Oh, and be warned: here there be NSFW, oops.
(how is it almost 2AM again as I post this thing)
Also at AO3!
“So how was your day?” Blake quips tiredly with a sarcastic grin, arm lifted in invitation as Jayden, fresh from a long, hot shower, slumps down next to him on the couch with a bone-weary sigh. The hands of the clock on the wall have long since passed midnight.
Jayden snorts out a helpless laugh at that as he burrows gratefully under Blake’s arm. “Oh, excellent”, he says with exaggerated glee. “Only got nearly killed twice.”
Blake huffs a small laugh of his own, but it’s accompanied with long, evaluative look at the agent. “Jesus, you look like you just lost a fight against a shredder”, he says, reaching out to touch his fingers over the mess of criss-crossing cuts on Jayden’s bare arms.
“Implying I didn’t”, Jayden quips, eyes following Blake’s fingers for a few seconds before lifting them to aim a self-deprecating quirk of lips at his partner.
“Crazy asshole”, Blake mutters with a incredulous shake of his head, and Jayden could swear he hears a great deal more than just a tired barb in the tone. Blake’s hand is still resting on his arm, on the wounds that have for now stopped bleeding but will likely hurt for a long time. He distantly wonders if they will scar.
“Blake…” he starts, softly, finding the older lieutenant’s eyes still on him in the darkness of the room. But whatever he had been thinking of saying gets lost when Blake suddenly uses the hand on Jayden’s arm as gentle leverage to pull the agent tightly against himself, claiming his lips in a fierce kiss.
“You crazy fucking idiot…” Blake is saying into the kiss, voice heated between nips and small bites, and all Jayden can do is make an incoherent, surprised groan in reply as he answers the kiss with equal heat.
Blake’s hands are surprisingly gentle and careful despite the intensity of his kiss as he slides them over Jayden’s wounded skin, one finding its way under the hem of the agent’s worn t-shirt to caress the delicate muscles of his abdomen, while the other moves to tangle in the short strands of hair at the back of his head.
“Blake…” Jayden gasps again, his stomach muscles jumping and quivering under the heated touch. The wounds no longer so much hurt as they do tingle, sending warmth gathering low in his abdomen. He is loosely aware that he should be worried about the bleeding starting up again, but it is becoming harder and harder by the second to care as he clings to Blake’s shoulders, trying to push himself more into the touch.
The position is awkward, though, for the both of them, having to angle their necks and bodies to reach each other. With an impatient groan, Jayden starts to shift, turning to lift himself to stand on his knees on the couch at the same time as Blake moves, too, with an equally impatient growl as he rights himself to lean over Jayden, urging him to lie back with his own weight and the hand still supported at the back of the agent’s neck.
The new position puts Blake’s knee deliciously between Jayden’s legs and the agent lets out a breathy moan of approval, pressing himself against the pressure while gratefully lowering himself down onto his back – until the movement chafes against the raw, angry burn on his shoulder, causing a sharp, pained hiss to escape into the kiss as his whole body tenses for a second.
“Shit”, Blake curses pointedly, immediately breaking the kiss to pull back. “Let me see that.”
“No, it’s fine”, Jayden grounds out through clenched teeth, still clinging to Blake and not letting him back away. “It’s fine, I just forgot about it. It’ll be fine. Just…don’t…” he pleads through a sigh before aiming a look at Blake. “I don’t want to think about it, Carter. So…please…”
Blake gives Jayden an unconvinced look, like for once in his life he actually stops to take note that something might not be a good idea, but he’s never been able to resist the agent like this; voice breathy, face and body flushed with arousal and lips kiss-swollen…
“Fuck, Norm”, he curses emphatically, dropping his head to rest his forehead next to Jayden’s. “You’re something else, you know that.”
Jayden releases a small, breathless laugh at that – the sound shooting straight between Blake’s legs – before canting his hips up, fingers squeezing around Blake’s shoulders almost desperately in a voiceless plea.
“Okay, okay, I gotcha”, Blake murmurs into the skin between Jayden’s neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply at the intoxicating scent there. “But you stop me if it hurts, you hear?”
Jayden’s only response is an almost violent shake of his head, and then a relieved, high-pitched groan when Blake’s hand, the one not drawing nonsensical, teasing patterns across his abdomen, dives under his waistband to cup the already prominent hardness there.
Blake almost, almost makes a witty comment about how much Jayden apparently really doesn’t want to think about the burn right now, but the keening, breathy noises the agent keeps making, his hands fisting and un-fisting desperately into the fabric of the arm rest above his head as if he doesn’t quite know what to do with them, the way his back bows beautifully off the couch when Blake moves his hand just so… The thought is gone from his head, forgotten, faster than it can properly even form.
Jayden’s (or are they Blake’s? Neither is sure at this point) loose, well-worn sweatpants slide off delightfully easily, falling away with just the barest urging and a miniscule lift of Jayden’s hips, followed shortly by his underwear. The sight of the agent’s bare, shredded thighs stops Blake short for a moment, until Jayden’s hands at his own waistband snaps him out of his second-guessing.
“Ignore it… Ignore it…”, Jayden is whispering repeatedly, urgently, naked hips lifting sensuously, almost frantically in search of contact.
He’d have to be crazy, Blake thinks, to refuse that command.
After that it’s just breathless, aching moans and grunts of exertion as Blake claims Jayden’s body, thoroughly while still as carefully as he can despite the agent’s demand for otherwise. Though using spit is hardly ideal, it’s all they have, Jayden refusing to even consider unlocking his legs from around Blake’s waist for retrieving something more suitable. “Don’t… don’t…” is all he says, despite the pained clench of his teeth as Blake pushes in.
It doesn’t take long for the expression to fade, though, as Blake sets a steady, deep but unhurried rhythm, one hand wrapped around Jayden, moving in time with his thrusts. Soon the agent’s lips get uncoordinated under his, open in a litany of keening gasps as his body tightens and then locks up, legs squeezing desperately around Blake’s waist and his toes curling as he releases stickily between their bodies.
As if just the sensation of Jayden’s body constricting around him wasn’t enough for Blake, the downright sinful sounds the agent makes as he comes are the final push his mind and body needs, following Jayden with a hard bite to his shoulder.
It’s a long while before either of them can move, the ticking of the clock on the wall the only sound in the room besides their laboured breaths, Jayden’s still a little high-pitched and distracting.
“You’re a menace, Jayden”, Blake finally says, pressing his lips against the bite mark he just left. It’ll bruise handsomely later, they both know from experience.
Jayden only smiles indulgently at that, his body so high on endorphins he can’t really manage anything more coherent.
Blake finally pulls away with a hiss from them both, lifting himself up to sit on his knees above Jayden, giving the agent a long look, although there is a grin playing at the corner of his mouth. “You good?”
Jayden nods, shifting to start getting up when Blake’s sudden snort of a laugh stops him.
“Do you even know how fucking hilarious you look right now, ass-naked in your socks like that?” the older lieutenant chuckles, eyebrow cocked in pointed amusement.
“Bite me, Carter”, Jayden retorts, reaching over to grab and then smack Blake with one of the decorative pillows.
“I was under the assumption that I just did”, Blake drawls with his trademark assholeish smirk while pointing at Jayden’s neck. “But hey, if you want more…”
Jayden only shakes his head with a laugh, before finally starting to pull himself up, a little self-conscious despite himself – until the movement again aggravates his burn wound, making him hunch over himself with a hissed “fuck”.
“Okay, you’re letting me see that, whether you like it or not”, Blake says, now no-nonsense as he moves to manoeuvre the agent around enough to peel his shirt off and get a look at the back of his shoulder blade.
“How bad is it?” Jayden asks, slightly dejectedly and perhaps with a small amount of dread in his tone after Blake is quiet for a long moment.
“Fucking hell, Norman”, is Blake’s answer, voice disbelieving and what sounds a little like genuine upset. “It’s fucking nasty, is what it is. You need to go—“
“No”, Jayden interrupts him before Blake can finish. “I’m not going to the hospital. I can’t. We can’t afford a delay like that, not when it could mean Shaun Mars’s life.”
“You…stubborn fucking asshole”, Blake curses with conviction behind him before reaching out to grab Jayden by shoulder and turn him around until they’re face to face. “Look at yourself, Norman! You’re beat to hell and back, and that’s a fucking third degree burn on you. What the hell else is it gonna take?”
“I came here to catch the killer, Blake, and I can’t do it from a hospital, not when these trials—“
“Bullshit”, it’s Blake’s turn to interrupt. “You think I’ll hesitate to forcefully drag you over there myself if that’s what it takes?”
“No, but I’d fight you every step of the way.” Jayden’s voice is serious, he means what he just said, even if there’s a carefully amused little quirk of a smile playing at the corner of his lips.
“Goddamn fucking FBI”, Blake curses, throwing his hands up in an annoyed ‘I give up’ gesture. “But if that shit gets infected…”
“I know”, Jayden says softly with an agreeing, disarming smile, starting to reach for his clothing before leaning over a little hesitantly to brush his lips over Blake’s. “Help me bandage it?”
Some time later, Jayden, shoulder now wrapped, is back under Blake’s arm on the couch. He’s just about to nod off – he doesn’t even know what time it is anymore – when Blake suddenly speaks up.
“Hey? Ever considered the possibility that Mars himself might be the killer?”
“Not really, no”, Jayden answers, voice and accent thick with impending sleep. “Although I know you have.” There is no mistaking the amusement in his tone.
“And how the hell would you know that?” There’s mock-affront in Blake’s own tone now.
Jayden chuckles, shifting enough to turn his face up towards his partner’s. “Because I know you.”
It’s hard to tell in the darkness of the room, but Jayden could swear he sees Blake’s eyes flash and darken in that familiar way. “Oh yeah?” There is no mistaking the challengingly teasing voice.
“Yeah”, Jayden fires back with a playful tone of his own, before straightening up under the lieutenant’s arm enough to initiate a slow, lazy contact of mouths.
Before either of them runs the risk of getting too much into it, though, Blake pulls back, and, gathering Jayden up close under his arm, stands up from the couch. “Come on, you. We need at least a few hours before we go chasing after the next one.”
*
Blake blinks awake after what feels like a useless 20-minute nap. The room is veiled in a bleak half-light that can barely even be called that, accompanied by the ceaseless sound of rainfall. Fucking figures. Grumpily, the older lieutenant rubs at his eyes that feel like they’re full of sand, before glancing to the side as the distinctly human-shaped mass of covers by his side shifts and lets out what sound like a grumble. Amused, Blake cocks an eyebrow in surprise. In all their time together, he can’t recall a single time that Jayden has out-slept him, no matter how early he was set to rise.
“Hey, agent Early Bird!” he calls while prodding the lump of bedding in the general direction of its side, chuckling unrepentantly when it twitches and mumbles something unintelligent back at him. “Time to go out and catch some bad guys!”
There is a massive sigh, inflating the entire mass of covers, followed by another mumble, before Jayden’s head sticks out from somewhere under it.
It would take a saint to hold back the bark of laughter that escapes Blake then. “Holy fuck, I stand corrected. Agent Bed-Head.”
Jayden makes a grimace, half-heartedly tossing his pillow at Blake. “I hate you.”
“Sure”, Blake grins, tossing the pillow right back before getting out bed, forcefully ruffling Jayden’s hair as he passes. “You wanna do the third trial or not, bed bug?”
Heading to the bathroom, Blake swears he hears the ‘not’ echoing in the agent’s head for a miniscule instant as he flops back down on the bed with a tired sigh, before the sound of someone rolling out of bed and shuffling stiffly down the hallway follow after him.
The humour in Blake’s face dies away as soon as Jayden’s form is bathed in the brightness of the bathroom. The shining fluorescent light is definitely unkind and unforgiving, highlighting all the cuts and bruises on the agent’s body; Jayden looks, if possible, even worse than last night.
“Jesus, Norm”, Blake huffs with a shake of his head.
Jayden makes a helpless expression though the mirror, followed by an equally helpless – and stiff – shrug.
The action only serves to bring Blake’s attention to his shoulder. “How’s the burn?”
“I don’t want to look?” Jayden offers as a way of an answer, the ‘and I don’t want you to look, either’ clear in his tone.
“Like fuck you don’t.” Blake’s voice is no-nonsense as he moves to grab Jayden’s shirt to pull it off, only have his wrists grabbed and halted by slim hands.
“Carter, please. It’s fine. Just…leave it.”
Blake pulls at his hands stubbornly, only to have Jayden give him an equally unrelenting look in return.
“I swear to –“ Blake curses in a once-in-a-lifetime admittance of defeat, yanking his hands free and sidestepping around Jayden to grab his toothbrush like it has offended him. “You are the most stubborn asshole I’ve ever met, you know that.”
Jayden only chuckles in amusement at that, biting down on the comment he himself could make about stubborn assholes.
*
‘ARE YOU PREPARED TO MAKE A SACRIFICE TO SAVE YOUR SON? 9711 MARBLE STREET’
The words stare up at Jayden from the unfolded piece of green paper as Blake pulls up the at the designated address. The streets are almost silent around them, probably due to the ridiculously early morning. The digital clock on the dashboard doesn’t even read 8 AM yet.
“I don’t like the smell of this one”, Blake is saying, face a mask of suspicious distaste. “This place is dump.”
Jayden hums a worried affirmation under his breath, though frankly he’s more concerned about the word ‘sacrifice’. The wounds on his body suddenly throb uncomfortably.
“Well, we aren’t gonna solve anything sitting out here”, Blake eventually huffs, moving to get out of the car with a final look at Jayden. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go”, Jayden nods somewhat jerkily, following Blake out of the car.
The interior of the building is, to both of their surprise, in an even worse shape than the outside, everything charred and sooty as if after a fire. Jayden’s nose wrinkles at the dank smell of it.
“Charming little place”, he finds himself quipping dryly as he scuffs his foot against the grimy floor.
Blake huffs a laugh at that as he leads them up a beat-down staircase, motes of ashy dust floating in the stale air.
“Maybe these are more to your liking, then”, he grins in jest at the green porcelain lizards suddenly lying strewn about the floor. “Look new, at least.”
Jayden, head cocked in what Blake calls his ‘thinking pose’, crouches down next to one to examine it. “They are new. But why would there—“ The lizard he picks up suddenly rattles in his hand as if containing something, prompting the two the share a mirrored look of surprise.
“Smash it?” Blake offers helpfully.
Unable to think of a better solution, Jayden only shrugs before hitting the object hard against the concrete floor, shattering it. Among the pieces of porcelain a key clatters out.
Both of their heads shoot up simultaneously, scanning the hallway for a door – and as luck would have it, there it is, at the far end, with a large green painting of a lizard plastered on it.
With a shared look of caution, they head for the door, guns drawn before Jayden fits the key in its hole.
The doors swings open with a tired creak as they step through it in unison, revealing a mostly empty room, charred and dilapidated as the rest of the building, soot floating lazily in the air.
Relaxing their aim a little, they give the place a cursory check, but find it deserted except for a few pieces of furniture – most notable being a table in the middle of the room with what looks like a GPS sitting on it.
They share another look, before Blake makes a single-shoulder shrug. “Guess that’s what we came for.”
It doesn’t exactly reassure Jayden as he steps up to the table and cautiously reaches to press the button that looks like ‘play’ on the touch screen.
The GPS flares to life, a red light in the upper right corner lighting up as the screen shows a video of themselves standing in front of the device.
“Are you prepared to suffer to save your son?” a familiar female voice speaks up emotionlessly. “You have five minutes to cut off the last section of one of your fingers in front of the camera. If you succeed, you will get your reward.”
Jayden feels the air punch out of his lungs as he watches the timer start counting down from five minutes as soon as the female voice has stopped talking. Next to him, he feels Blake stiffen and a sideways glance reveals a muscle twitching at the side of the lieutenant’s jaw from where he’s biting down on his teeth too hard.
For a precious amount of seconds they only stand in stunned silence, Jayden trying to find something to say, but finding nothing comes out when he opens his mouth, closes it and then opens it again uselessly. Belatedly it makes him feel like a goldfish and he clamps his mouth shut with an almost audible snap.
It isn’t until then that his eyes land on the uncomfortably sharp-looking knife on the table, and his insides twist as bile threatens to rise up to his throat. No fucking way, and he isn’t sure if the thought comes from himself or from Blake.
But at the same time his mind flashes back to the image of young Shaun Mars, so young, slowly drowning in a well full of rain water as he tries to desperately to call out for his father to rescue him. He can almost taste the despair radiating from the child and his insides twist again. What is a piece of a finger compared to that…?
Slowly, as if almost unaware he’s doing it, Jayden finds himself bringing his left hand up, turning it around and looking at it evaluatively. He could. After everything he’s already done, maybe –
Blake’s hand is suddenly there, snatching and holding Jayden’s away from him in a firm, determined, warm grip, causing Jayden’s thought process to grind into a screaming halt. It is almost dangerously close to holding hands, a line in affectionate gestures neither of them has yet to even come close to crossing, despite everything. It makes Jayden look up from his contemplation, eyes wide, to find Blake giving him a hard look.
“Don’t. Don’t you even fucking think about it”, he’s saying as his fingers squeeze even harder around Jayden’s hand. It makes the agent’s breath grow shorter, and not simply from the sting of pressure.
“I already bandaged you once within the last 24 hours. Don’t make me do it again.” The words might sound selfish to someone else, but Jayden thinks he hears volumes of something completely else in the tone of Blake’s voice. It’s not his own discomfort the older cop is worried about.
“But—“ Jayden starts, only to have Blake bulldoze right over him.
“If you say ‘Shaun Mars’, so help me, I’m going to shoot you myself and hide the body.”
Jayden can’t help it: he laughs at that. It’s edgy and perhaps slightly hysterical and definitely inappropriate, but it bursts out of him before he can do anything to stop it. He can feel Blake giving him an odd, mildly concerned lift of an eyebrow, as well as a slight sense of pressure of wetness in the corner of his own eyes, but damned if he’s going to try to analyze either of those right now.
Or the fact that they are, for all intents and purposes, still holding hands, Blake’s a protective vice-like grip around his. As if for as long he’s holding Jayden’s hand captive, the agent won’t be able to do anything to it.
“Fuck, Jayden, we aren’t going to start mutilating ourselves for this shit! There’s gotta be a better way”, Blake is saying, obviously not releasing their hands until he’s driven his point home to Jayden.
Jayden wants to argue, he really does, wants to go with the feeling that says he has to do whatever it takes to save this child – it’s a piece of finger for a life – but suddenly he’s tired. His wounds, his burned shoulder, his whole body suddenly aches, and for the first time he sees the situation, the tableau they’re locked in, for the madness that it is.
“Blake…” he starts to say, voice weary as he sags against the older cop. He doesn’t have the strength to first make this decision and then argue about it.
“You have 20 seconds left”, a voice suddenly echoes in the room, startling them both and interrupting whatever it was Jayden was about to say.
Attempting to pull his hand away, Jayden gives Blake an almost haunted look.
“I’m not gonna let you”, Blake says in answer, his grip holding fast despite Jayden’s attempts. “I watched you crawl into that pipe and come out almost dead. This time I’m not gonna let you.”
“You have 10 seconds.”
“Blake…”
“9…”
“No.”
“8…”
“One of us has to!”
“7…”
“6…”
“5…”
“Blake!”
“4…”
“Dammit, Norman, I said no!”
“3…”
All Jayden has is a look. “Blake, please, if we don’t—“
“2…”
Blake’s answer is stubborn squeeze of Jayden’s hand. “We’ll find another way. It isn’t worth this!”
“1…”
Jayden has just time enough to swallow around what would have probably been a ‘yes, it is’ before the voice on the GPS declares: “You’ve run out of time. You’ve failed.”
Jayden’s jaw clenches, his hand giving a twitch where it’s still being held by Blake’s. He can almost feel Shaun’s life slipping away from him.
“Hey”, Blake is saying, releasing – finally – Jayden’s hand and grasping him by the chin to force the agent to look at him. “We’ll find another way. We’ll get to him. Just…not like this.”
Jayden lets out a sigh, unable to stop his eyes from wandering to the fingers of his left hand. Well, it’s a lost opportunity now.
“The next one”, he says. “We have to do the next one, no matter what, Blake. I’m not gonna let Shaun Mars die.”
Blake shoots him a meaningful look at the mention of the name, but for once doesn’t push the issue further. “C’mon”, he only says, tugging Jayden along by the arm, though it doesn’t escape Jayden’s notice that Blake’s hand rests considerably closer to the his than it has before.
