They were some pretty nice legs. Jared could tell because they were wearing tights and a thigh-length tunic top. The rest of the person came into view, and he shut his eyes for a second and bounced the side of his head softly against the floor. It was the bartender. She was still cute as hell, but the effect was kind of ruined by her narrowed eyes.
"I never thought I'd see you two again, after you killed my sister," she said, and sat casually on the cellar step.
In the midst of struggling to sit upright, Jared threw a glance at Jensen, who shook his head a tiny bit. Wasn't kicking loose anything in his memory either, then. The bartender, who Jared supposed he should start thinking of as their captor, caught the byplay and when she spoke again her voice was noticeably colder. "Oh, right. Why should you bother to remember? She was just a monster."
Jared winced. Before he could come up with a reply, Jensen said, "Look, I'm...we aren't who you think we are." She snorted. "No, really," Jensen persisted, sitting up straight. "You think we're the Winchesters, but we're not. We're really not. The reason we don't remember you or your sister is because we've never met you."
The bartender gave him a supremely unimpressed look. "Really, that's what you're going with? 'We just happen to look exactly like the guys who killed your sister, we aren't really them.'" She leaned forward, her hands flat on her knees, and said brightly, "Or is it amnesia? I always think amnesia storylines are fun."
"Look, lady, do you think I'd be trying such a stupid-ass story if it wasn't true?" Jensen demanded. He undercut the effect just a little by slipping into Dean's voice and Jared closed his eyes and sucked air through his teeth.
"Jen, uh…" Jared said, and Jensen shook his head.
"Yeah, sorry. That's what we're going with because it's true, OK? We're not the Winchesters."
"And yet you know exactly who I think you are," the bartender said.
"We're actors," Jared said. "We play them." He didn't try to put sincerity into his voice; it would come off fake.
"Actors," she said. "Actors." She stood up and crossed the few feet of distance to him, and wound her hand into the collar of his shirt. She didn't look strong enough to haul him to his knees, but she did it, and Jared could hear the cloth protesting at the strain. But I like this shirt, he thought inanely, as the bartender leaned down, her teeth bared. He didn't think it was his imagination that they looked sharper than they should have, and her eyes were washing over with white. "So you were just acting when you killed her? When you ripped her guts out?"
He didn't see the blow coming, stunning and out of nowhere, and barely heard Jensen barking, "Leave him alone!"
The bartender ignored it and snarled, "Well let's see how you like acting your death scenes in the morning!" She didn't so much let him go as shove him down, and Jared just went with it, clutching the handcuff key for what he suspected might actually be dear life.
He was too busy hurting to pay attention to the sound of her leaving, up the stairs again under Jensen saying, "Jay, Jay are you all right? Jay!" The door at the top of the steps slammed. Jared groaned and rolled to his side.
"Jay?"
"Jesus fucking Christ, how does Sam do this all the time?" Jared muttered. His stomach roiled and swung and he desperately hoped he wasn't going to be sick because smelling like puke till he could get back to Sam's duffel bag would just be the cherry on top of this shit sundae.
Jensen didn't say anything for a second, and Jared pried his eyes open. Jensen looked worried.
"Maybe actors wasn't the way to go," Jared said.
Jensen smiled a ghost of a smile. "You think?"
"OK, I'm just gonna...I need a sec because if I drop this key we're so screwed," Jared said.
"Yeah," Jensen said. "It can't be that late yet, we have a little time."
Jared nodded and closed his eyes again and started counting to 300, doing the long yoga breaths Misha had taught him. By 250 he felt better but he finished the count.
He didn't really want to try to sit up again but a little bit of experimentation demonstrated that he needed more mobility than having one arm trapped against the floor could provide, so Jared worked his way up to sitting again. An awkward interval ensued, during which he cursed never having gone through an escape artist phase as a kid and Jensen occasionally made comments he clearly thought were helpful, but finally Jared got the key into the lock and turned it. The bracelet popped open and he yanked his hand free. His shoulders were horrifically stiff, unsurprisingly, which was something they never really showed on screen. A minute later they were both loose and they took a minute to stretch.
Though finished, the basement was one largish room except for a door that, when opened, proved to lead to a utility closet that would have been uncomfortably cramped to stand in with the door closed. There were high, small painted-over windows at what Jared assumed was ground level, and he turned to see Jensen looking at the stairs with a longing expression.
"We can't go up that way," Jared said, trying for firm. "For all we know she's sitting up there watching the door."
Jensen grimaced. "I know, but I'm not sure either of us can make it out those windows."
"If the other choice is whatever she's got planned, I'll make it," Jared said, though he had his doubts too.
The one stroke of luck in the whole situation was that their captor had forgotten to remove the toolbox that sat in the back corner of the utility closet, or perhaps she'd been confident of the ability of the handcuffs to hold them—which, Jared had to admit, would have been a valid assumption if they hadn't been wearing the Winchesters' clothes. The toolbox yielded screwdrivers, a hammer, and one of those flat, flimsy paint scrapers that came in very handy once Jensen knocked the hinge pins out of one of the windows.
Taking the whole window out was quieter, made more space, and left no interesting shards of glass in the frame to worry about, but it took longer; Jared could see Jensen getting tenser with every passing minute and he knew perfectly well that he wasn't doing any better.
Finally they were standing there looking at the empty window frame and the ratty armchair they'd positioned beneath it.
"This is gonna suck," Jensen said, stripping off his jacket—Jared and Misha had dubbed it Dean's Badass Coat because it was the one Costume tended to put on him when he was being particularly effective—and overshirt. Jared could see the sense in reducing bulk, but he had a feeling they were both going to lose skin.
They put their extra shirts and the loose window outside and then Jensen said, "OK, you first" at the same moment Jared started, "You should go…"
They both stopped and stared. Jensen recovered first. "After you, Alphonse," he said, his tight tone at odds with the jocular words.
"Don't be stupid," Jared said. "You first."
"Jay—"
"I'm more likely to get stuck and we both know it," Jared persisted, trying not to get mad.
"Jared."
"Damn it, Jen, now is not the time to get all size-queen."
"You think I don't know you and Genevieve are trying to have a kid?" Jensen said, his voice barely controlled.
"Yeah, because Misha won't be fucking devastated if you get your dumb ass killed," Jared retorted. "You. Go. First."
Jensen stared at him for a few seconds longer, the muscle in his jaw ticking like it only ever did when he was too pissed to talk, and finally said, "Fine," and turned to the window.
Instead of trying to go head-first Jensen stuck one hand out, which Jared saw the logic of immediately; both of them were likely to find their shoulders to be the literal sticking point and this way Jen's would be at a slant. Of course it also meant that he only had one hand outside to work with. It was awkward and slow, not helped by the fact that they didn't dare talk very loud, and at one point Jensen got hung up for most of a minute, unable to get any good purchase; finally Jared grabbed him by the knees and pushed. Once his second arm scraped through the empty frame, though, Jensen pulled his legs outside quickly. There was a second of rearranging and then his pale face appeared in the window. "OK, go for it," he said. "I'll pull."
Jared led with a hand too, and immediately realized it wasn't going to help much, but there wasn't anything else to do so he kept going until he stuck for the first time.
"I never thought I'd regret bulking up for this season," he said as the pressure started to get painful.
"Yeah, I haven't had this much fun since we filmed digging out of the grave," Jensen said lightly. It was impressively convincing. "Come on, whatcha waiting for?"
"I think one of my shirt buttons is catching."
Jensen nodded and crammed himself down into the space next to the siding. "Which?"
"Left pocket," Jared said. His body blocked all the light from the basement itself, so they were working with a trickle from around the side, probably a porch light, and the waning quarter moon—which was, he noted uneasily, well up.
Jensen wormed his hand in between the damp ground and Jared's body to where the pocket was. After a second of weird-feeling movement, the button popped past the frame. That got him another inch or so of progress before he stuck again.
"What is is this time?"
Jared looked up and met Jen's eyes as well as he could. "I think I'm just too big."
"Don't be an idiot," Jensen said.
"Jen—man, it's past midnight already. You need to start running."
"Shut up and push, asshole," Jensen said.
"Jensen," Jared started.
"I'm not leaving. You think Dean'll fuck me up if I screw up his car, imagine what he'll do if I screw up his brother. So push, or we both die, got it?"
Jared blinked. Jensen stared at him, his jaw set.
"Grab my collar and pull," Jared said, and set his feet as well as he could on the armchair. As Jensen moved to get a hold, he flattened his own hand on the wall next to the window. "OK, on three."
Jensen had a bad hold. Jared had bad leverage against the wall, and his feet left the armchair at exactly the point where the extra help would have been really useful. The edges of the frame dug into him painfully and there was one point where he was sure, absolutely sure that he was stuck, he wasn't going anywhere, the bartender was going to have to slit his throat as he lay there trapped. And then the widest part of his ribcage scraped through and he was free. Jared dragged himself away from the house and collapsed onto his back, breathing heavily because he could and rubbing at the probably-permanent impression that a button had left on his sternum. Near his feet he could hear Jensen messing around with the window and putting Dean's overshirt and jacket back on.
"Jesus," Jared said to the sky.
"Nope, just a local field rep," Jensen said, and at the old joke—and the relief in his voice—Jared had to smother wild laughter with both hands. Jensen made the mistake of catching his eye and then he was laughing too. They sat there for a couple of minutes, choking on the noise, until Jared got enough of a handle on himself to say, "OK, up, we have to get moving."
Fortunately all the windows facing the side of the house they'd broken out on were dark. They headed straight away for about fifty yards before starting to circle to find the driveway, which led to two-lane blacktop.
"Any clue which way to town?" Jared asked.
"I'm gonna go with heading for the lights we can see," Jensen answered dryly, and Jared turned his head to see Jen was right; the house was up a long, shallow slope from what sure looked like a town. It looked like a really long walk, but what else did they have to do with their time? There was a ditch along the road for concealment if they heard a car behind them, so they walked on the pavement, Jensen with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets because it was chilly in the desert at night.
Maybe fifteen minutes after they started walking, Jared stopped in his tracks. Caught by surprise, Jensen took another two steps before he stopped and turned.
"What, Jay? We are not going back, I don't care what you dropped."
"It didn't even occur to me to pray to Castiel," Jared said, and almost broke up laughing again at the expression of complete amazement that covered Jensen's face.
