Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Relationships:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Collections:
Sinful Desire
Stats:
Published:
2009-04-18
Completed:
2009-04-25
Words:
7,132
Chapters:
4/4
Comments:
3
Kudos:
10
Bookmarks:
4
Hits:
288

Flotsam

Summary:

On the run from his abusive boyfriend, Jensen finds more help than he knows how to handle

Notes:

Note from the Sinful Desire archivists: this story was originally archived at Sinful-Desire.org. To preserve the archive, we began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2016. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on Sinful Desire collection profile.

Author's notes: I messed with Jensen and Jared's ages. This story starts in March 2005 and they are both 23, though Jensen is still older.
Warning: There is no Sam/Dean in this story, sorry
Warning: Kids

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Jensen goes down under the second blow. His head clunks against the hard edge of the coffee table and the room goes fuzzy round the edges. He stays down, curling his arms to protect his battered face. Patrick sometimes looses interest at this point in the proceedings, but Jensen isn’t wasting the effort of hoping for that, because it won’t make any difference in the long run.

 

He brings his knees up to his chest in time to catch two snap kicks on the shins instead of the ribs. It still hurts but at least nothing breaks. Patrick’s hands grab him roughly, shaking him loose from his defensive huddle. He can’t help the whimper that escapes from between his clenched teeth.

 

The high-pitched shriek startles them both. The coffee table jars Jensen’s back as Patrick drops him. Fighting up into a half-sitting position, he stares at the door in disbelief.

 

Minna’s standing there, four foot nothing in her pjs and bare feet, pale and terrified. She looks so small and Jensen’s whole heart seizes up with fear and love.

 

“No,” Minna yells again. “You leave my Daddy alone.” She rushes Patrick then, pummelling at him with tiny fists. The incredulity fades from Patrick’s handsome face and, with slow inevitability, is replaced by cold fury.

 

“What the fuck did you say?”

 

Snatching her up, he bats her across the room as easily as a kitten. Minna slams into the wall, sliding down to spill across the floor.

 

Jensen stares at her crumpled body and for a second he can’t move, can’t breathe.

 

Patrick stalks towards her,

 

“You dare call that whore Daddy!”

 

Jensen barely registers the familiar insult, caught up in the horror at seeing Patrick turn on Minna. He’d always believed Patrick’s daughter was safe from the man. That the tie of blood would keep her safe.

 

“You little bitch,” growls Patrick. His breath gurgles low in his throat and hisses out between his teeth.

 

Jensen’s hand goes unconsciously to his bruised jaw. That’s one of Patrick’s tells. It’s the one that means things about to get really, really bad.

 

Something inside him breaks. So loudly he can’t believe Patrick didn’t hear.

 

Jensen’s love for Patrick, the reasons he stayed, everything holding him back, it all just cracks and falls away. Jensen stares across the room at a man he barely recognises. A man who is about to hurt his Minna.

 

The solid silver candlestick from the coffee table is in his hand. Gripping its comforting weight in both hands, he swings it like he’s aiming for a homerun. It smacks into Patrick’s back and he bellows with outrage.

 

Spitting out half-formed words, Patrick turns on him. His rage-warped face looks so ugly that Jensen briefly wonders why he ever thought the man was attractive. He smashes the candlestick into Patrick’s jaw, hard, and watches with satisfaction as the man collapses like a felled tree.

 

Abandoning candlestick and Patrick, Jensen drops to his knees at Minna’s side. He brushes her white face with shaking fingers, pressing gently against her neck, praying for a pulse.

 

Minna’s eye slit open, her face taut with fear. Then her eyes widen, lighting with recognition, and she flings herself at him.

 

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” she gasps, little girl fingers scrabbling for purchase against his shirt.

 

“Shush, shush, it’s okay, Minna mine,” he soothes. Hauling her up, he struggles to his feet. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he reassures, even though he knows he’s lying.

 

Minna sobs against his chest, silently because that’s the way Patrick’s trained them both. Jensen wonders how he managed to convince himself she would be okay as long as Patrick never touched her. It’s not okay. It’s never going to be okay.

 

Panic spirals around him, but Minna’s too tight grip on the collar of his shirt hauls him back. He glances around. They can’t stay here, in this silent house, where antique furniture and elegant knick-knacks stare down at them through the gloom with lofty disapproval.

 

Patrick always fits into these high-class surroundings, even when his custom-fitted suits are dirty with Jensen’s blood. By comparison Jensen is just a scruffy nobody. Patrick has all his friends convinced Jensen is a brainless twink with a drug problem. There isn’t a soul who’ll listen to him if he accuses Patrick of abuse.

 

Well, Chris and Steve would, Jensen almost smiles at the thought of his two best, last, friends. He hasn’t seen them since their final big fight. They’d been nagging him again to leave Patrick, and yeah, Jensen hasn’t seen them since.

 

He could go to them now, he knows. No matter how pissed they are at him, they’d still take him in. But Minna is Patrick’s biological child, no blood relation to Jensen at all.

 

He can’t expect Chris and Steve to hide a stolen child. Jensen’s on his own.

 

“We have to get out of here.”

 

“Yes please,” agrees Minna. She’s trembling, her whole body tight with the effort of holding herself back to barely perceptible shivers. If Jensen wasn’t holding her in his arms, he would never have noticed. Sick with guilt, he wonders how long he hasn’t been noticing. His mind replays the image of her body striking the wall and he has to swallow hard.

 

“You’re alright?” he checks belatedly, “you didn’t hit your head, did you?” He runs his right hand gently though her tangled hair, relaxing when he can’t find any sign of a bump.

 

With a deep breath he pulls his brain back into gear. He’ll only get one chance at this. He has to get it right. Minna’s relying on him.

 

He realizes he can’t remember deciding to take Minna with him, that he just automatically included her too. It occurs to him he should check Minna wants to stay with him.

 

“Minna mine, do you want to come with me? I’m not sure where we’re going. We’ll have to hide, maybe for a long time.” He resists the urge to swear out loud at his pathetic mess of an explanation. But how the fuck is he supposed to explain things to Minna? She’s only seven. Jensen’s the one who picks her up from school, cooks her dinner, talks to her... loves her.

 

How’s he supposed to explain he’s not her real Daddy when he doesn’t even believe it himself.

 

“Stay with Daddy,” says Minna, nestling her head into the curve of his neck. Jensen settles her more firmly in his arms and brushes a kiss against her hair.

 

He’s going to need clothes, for him and Minna, money, and Patrick’s car keys. Anything else he’ll worry about later.

 

From the kitchen he grabs the three canvas shopping bags and the cash Patrick left him for housekeeping. He has a heap of jeans and tees, they’re from before-Patrick and he never quite got around to throwing them out, tucked away in the second drawer of the wardrobe in the spare room. He shoves them into one of the shoppers.

 

The wad of cash he has stashed there, that he painstakingly saved from the housekeeping without ever really thinking about it, he wedges safely into the very bottom of the bag.

 

Ransacking Minna’s wardrobe, he throws in her plainer skirts and tops along with the jeans and sneakers they never let Patrick find out about. Minna makes a desperate sound and grabs for her scrapbooks so he snatches them up too.

 

Yanking the coverlet from the bed, he wraps it around her to keep her warm, scoops up her jacket, detours back to the spare room for his own, and then goes back again to grab his glasses.

 

Bags over one shoulder, he stops long enough to snag Patrick’s wallet and keys from the dish on the table in the bedroom, before racing out the door.

 

He doesn’t put Minna down once.