[FIC] Gazes Into You - 2/27

[alexisjane]

<<<<< Chapter One / Masterpost

Chapter Two

Jensen slipped his hand around the mug without looking away from the screen and was surprised to find it was cold. He was even more surprised when he looked at the clock. Three hours had slipped by since he sat down at the computer ready to work with the fresh steaming coffee in his hand. Apparently, time flies when you’re having fun...or trawling through hours of illegally obtained security footage.

He stood, having to slow his initial movement as his muscles cramped from inactivity. His lower back was seized tight and it took a moment for him to persuade it to unlock before he could get upright. He was usually methodical with his exercise, never missing a day’s workout, a habit he picked up during his rehab. The physio had been brutal but he'd kept up the routine long after he was healed. A few days of inactivity shouldn't have made so much difference but sitting motionless in the broken down office chair were definitely taking it's toll. His hips ached and his chest too. But then that probably didn't have anything to do with sitting in one position for too long. His toes complained with cold when he started to ease himself toward the kitchen, mug cradled in one hand, notebook in the other.

It wasn't like he had far to go from the office to the kitchen – the apartment was fairly big given how little he had paid for a place on the Upper East Side, even if he was a sneeze away from Harlem – but by the time he was bending over the coffeemaker, his limbs felt limbered once more. He slid the jug out from its place and shuffled to the sink. Squinting at the bright sunlight reflecting off the zinc back-splash behind the sink, he closed his eyes and relied on the sound of the water to know when the jug was full. Too much screen-time made his eyes sensitive. He changed the filter, and grimaced at the horrible packaging of the coffee – some fancy Ethiopian blend that had come in the gift basket from Jeff last Christmas – but used it anyway. He really needed to go to the store and stock the cupboards if he was resorting to this. It was getting desperate.

He leant on the counter, arms bracketing the notebook, rereading his scrawl while the coffee machine whirred at his elbow.

There wasn't much. Caucasian male, early to mid-twenties, at least 6' 3", 200 pounds give or take. He had a mole on his left cheek, a tattoo on his right forearm and he was left-handed.

Is left-handed.

The coffee machine beeped and Jensen stood, reaching for his mug. His chest was still aching. He rubbed his fingertips hard on either side of the scar, an old habit that wouldn't die. If you keep scratching it won't get better. The ache was usually worse when he was tired. He had finally slept. It had taken two Ambien and most of a fifth of whiskey, and he'd slept for fifteen hours. But at least he had slept. He just wished the dull throb of his scar would realize that.

When he had eventually managed to pry his eyes open that morning, he had forced himself to stand under an icy shower to cement the process, otherwise it would have been too easy to try to catch up on all the sleepless nights from the previous week. He'd eaten the last bagel dry at the kitchen counter while he brewed the first coffee of the day, then sat straight down at the computer to get to work. He’d been in law enforcement long enough to know that if this was a missing person's case, too much time had passed already. Every moment counted.

He trawled through the footage, scouring every frame looking for clues, any sort of insight that might bring him closer to finding out who this guy was.

Is.

He'd cobbled together a vague timeline of events that might mean something, but it felt like he was clutching at straws.

March 20th - the kid got a haircut.

February 16th - he first rode the new bike, even though the last of the snow was still melting on the curbside.

It seemed like he was a no show on Tuesdays and Sundays and something had happened before Christmas that had him maudlin to the point that even the bike seemed sad as he chained it to the lamppost, sighing. It was frustrating. All these random pieces of information added up to pretty much nothing. Jensen knew there was more to find, more to see but he felt like he was wasting time, just sitting there, waiting for a clue to fall in his lap.

When Jensen had called up his boss the day after he'd walked out – spinning a tale that he was ill and needed a couple of weeks off, which was only half a lie, he genuinely felt like shit – he told himself it was crazy. Literally yelled at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, berating himself for doing something so profoundly irrational.

He didn't even know this kid; he was literally a stranger. But Jensen had a bad feeling, deep down in his gut. And as he watched the tapes back to back, he silently apologized to himself because his gut had never been wrong before. And it wasn't now. He just knew it, like he knew his own name.

Before, when he had watched the blurry images, he had one hand on his dick and the thought of what the guy might taste like in his mouth. In the cold hard light of day, using his cop's eyes, he could see it. The kid was happy go lucky, chirpy in fact, almost everyday until two weeks before he disappeared. Then his demeanor changed. He looked worried, sullen and on a couple of occasions, scared, looking over his shoulder, head down, scuttling away. Until that last night. Whatever had been wrong seemed to have been resolved. He was back to his old smiley self. Happy. Relaxed. Vulnerable.

Jensen scrubbed his hands over his face. He kept telling himself that this wasn't his fault, wasn't his responsibility, that the kid had probably won an all expenses paid vacation and was in all likelihood sunning himself on a beach in Maui, getting his cock sucked by some bronzed waitress. Except he couldn't shake the feeling that something was really wrong.

The fresh smell of the coffee started reviving him even as he poured it. He sipped tentatively at the mug so it wouldn't spill as he walked, and headed purposefully back to the office. He didn't sit, just bent over the back of the office chair to grab the mouse, and clicked on a folder marked “capture”. The folder sprang open, covering the screen and a pang of guilt – or maybe shame – slapped Jensen in the face. Most of the time, he didn't really think about what he was doing. It wasn't personal. This kid had been a means to an end; just a pretty face to get him off, and nothing more. He didn't know anything about him and didn't want to.

But now...now that Jensen was forcing himself to go out of his way to get to know the object of his lust, the reality what he had done was almost too much to handle. Watching someone from the shadows, recording them...and then this.

The open folder filled his screen with frames captured from the videos. Screen shots of the kid's open mouth, a hint of skin between his jacket and his pants, his shoulders flexing underneath his too tight shirt; any and everything that Jensen might need to fuel his fantasies. He felt a hot blush rise to his cheeks, huffing out a laugh that he should feel so embarrassed in the privacy of his own home.

Scrolling through the pictures, he found the one he was looking for – full face, not too pixelated – and right-clicked. The printer sprang to life, and Jensen slowly sipped at his coffee, listening to the squeak-hum of the inkjet, as the kids face slowly emerged, and he wondered how the hell he was actually going to do this.

~•~

Although he'd worked security at the insurance company for about a year, Jensen hadn't actually explored the surrounding neighborhood at all. He decided to take a cab rather than drive, since parking in Midtown that time of day would be near impossible. Then, armed with the kid's picture and printed out map of the area, he headed towards his place of work. The city planners had definitely had eclectic on their minds when they were dishing out trading licenses for the these few blocks were a weird mixture of corporate offices; lawyers, a publisher, employment agency; interspersed with coffee shops, bookstores and even a thrift store.

Jensen walked down the street in the direction that the kid normally came from. He'd wanted to go right up to the lamppost, put his hands on it, as if he would somehow be able to feel the kid, but he didn't want to risk being seen, or worse still, caught on camera. Apart from anything else, he was on sick leave. Hanging around outside your place of work might give the game away.

He crossed the busy street, thankful that there were enough people wandering around that he could find some camouflage in them. The sun was out, making it the first really warm day in April that hadn't been dogged by showers, and it was close enough to lunchtime that, although the sidewalk wasn't packed, people certainly weren't hiding from bad weather, and instead were making their lunch breaks last.

When he found himself directly across the street from the place where the kid chained his bike, he slowed. He thought about stopping but even with his cap pulled low, he didn't want to risk someone recognizing him. Switching from a suit to jeans and t-shirt might work for Batman and Bruce Wayne but he didn't think he could pull it off.

In his head, he could see the echo of the kid, bending to lock the chain, stretching, mouthing a few words of whatever song was blasting through his earbuds as he pulled his messenger bag over his head, and then striding off down the road. Jensen walked on, imagining the kid on the other side of the street from his position of safety, until he came to the corner.

Jensen stopped and considered his options. To his left and straight ahead, the streets weren't quite as busy as most of the buildings seemed to be offices. The right turn, however, was humming with people and more importantly, seemed to be the better bet in terms of destination for a twenty year old to be heading in the evening. Unless he was working cleaning offices overnight but Jensen felt there were better leads to follow first. He crossed back over the street and wandered down the tree-lined row of shops and cafés.

As a beat cop he'd spent hours and hours canvassing neighborhoods for information. There was nothing nostalgic about it. Going door to door, asking the same questions over and over – it was the job but oh God, it had been soul destroying.

And of course, this time he had no uniform or badge to give anyone reason to help, not that they ever really did much of that anyway, back in the day. The cover story he had come up with seemed to be convincing enough, and although he reached the end of the block without learning anything, no one seemed suspicious of his motives. Or at least, no-one called him out on it.

By the time Jensen reached the coffee-shop on the corner, he was hot. He could feel the sweat patches sticking his shirt to his back between his shoulder blades, all too clearly remembering another reason why he always hated this part of the job. Food and drink seemed like a really good way to get off the street for a while, so he pushed in through the double doors of the café to blessed air conditioning and the smell of sweet rolls and cappuccinos. The shop was light and airy, the furniture was light wood and metal legs, blackboards on the walls covered with menus written in curly writing and whimsical sketches of sandwiches and cake with cherries on top, and some folky guitar music coming from behind the counter.

He went up and ordered coffee and a calzone, and pulled the papers from his pocket while the hot water spat from the machine like an angry dragon. When the barista slid his coffee over to him and asked if there was anything else, he smoothed the crumpled paper out on the counter in front of her.

"Maybe. I'm looking for this guy. I lost my wallet a couple of weeks ago and he handed it in. I put out a reward but he didn't leave his name. I figured maybe he worked around here. I really owe him..."

The blonde glanced at the printout and shrugged. "Nope. Sorry." She looked sympathetic but her attention was already drifting to the customer behind him. "Someone will bring your food right over."

Jensen dropped into the seat by the window, close to the door out of habit. He put the papers in front of him and started crossing out the stores he'd visited on the map. When his food arrived, he had drifted off into his head, staring out the window, wondering what in the hell he was doing. The waitress hovered the plate in front of him so he could move the papers before she put it down. He apologized, making space by scrabbling the bits of paper together.

"Why do you have that picture?" The waitress's accent was thick, pure Jersey. She put down the plate, and then pointed to the printout in Jensen's hand when he didn't answer.

Jensen shook away the funk in his head and said, "I'm looking for him."

The brunette frowned. "Does he owe you money?"

"Actually, I owe him." Jensen smiled, and hoped he looked trustworthy. "He helped me out...it’s a long story. Do you know him?"

She paused and for the first time in a long while, Jensen missed the weight of his badge in his pocket. "Jay. His name is Jay. He works over at the Tornado, it's a bar just over the way there." She gestured out the window and Jensen's eyes followed. "Although I haven't seen him in a while. Maybe he quit."

Jensen nodded thoughtfully, although on the inside he was felt like screaming. He responded with a quiet, "Thanks," and really meant it. The waitress nodded and drifted away.

Jensen just wanted to run right over there but he knew he needed to think before he went barging into where the kid, where Jay, worked. The old cover story probably wouldn't work there but now he had the kid's name he could work a new angle, maybe. He forced down his food and tried to think about his approach to making some headway finding the kid, and not allow himself to lapse into a daydream about finally having a name to call out when he came.

Masterpost / Chapter Three >>>>>