Broken Wings - Jared/Chris BigBang Fic (10/10)
Chapter Ten
It was another lazy day in bed, the two men completely naked under the warm sheets, sharing each other’s warmth and exchanging loving kisses every now and again. “Tell me about this one,” Chris had asked, his fingers gently stroking the only tattoo on Jared’s right leg. Jared looked down at the raven, its beady eyes staring back, and then looked back up at Chris, whose eyes only showed love. Kissing the man before him, he took a deep breath and launched into the story of how he got his first tattoo, and the meaning behind it. Chris would be the only person other than himself to know the full meaning behind his tattoo, but Jared was okay with that. He loved this man more than anything.
Jared had only been out of the hospital for a few weeks after the car accident that took his ability to walk when he saw it. He barely left the house anymore or talked to anyone. He’d lie in bed nearly the whole day and just sleep, ignoring everyone’s attempts to get him up and out of his room. But one day, Jensen had had enough of Jared’s behavior and forced the young teen out of bed, into the shower (with assistance), and got him ready to leave the house, Jared just making it difficult by not doing anything at all to help his best friend.
Jensen pushed Jared’s wheelchair around the block a few times before Jared started opening up, talking to Jensen about how he was feeling, and eventually, the two of them stopped at a local park and talked until well past the sun setting. Jared admitted that he felt like his whole world had just been turned upside-down and that he no longer knew what he was going to do.
“It will take time,” Jensen reasoned, pushing some of his own long hair out of his face.
“I just don’t know how much longer I can feel like this for. It feels like it’s killing me inside,” Jared admitted.
“It might take a while, Jared. No one can ever really say, but it will get better. You will learn how to deal with this and with people; it won’t always be this bad. I think... maybe you have to do something for yourself, on your own, prove to yourself that you can still do whatever you want without everyone else telling you that you can’t,” Jensen thought, his logic making perfect sense to Jared.
Jared sat in his wheelchair, idly playing with his wheels. Jensen was right. He had to do something for himself, and prove to his family, friends and everyone else at school, that he was still very independent and didn’t need any sympathy. He just had no idea what to do.
“Come on, let’s go home. Your mom is probably worried sick about us,” Jensen said, standing up and moving behind Jared ready to push him.
Jared pushed himself away from Jensen. “I got it,” he said, he and Jensen both knew that his mother would just be worrying about him right now and that before the accident she wouldn’t have cared one bit if he was out late with his friends.
“Sure thing, Jared,” Jensen allowed, only helping slightly when it came to a steep hill.
From that moment on, Jared never allowed anyone to push his chair for him. He slowly built up the muscles in his arms and was eventually able to maneuver himself up and down small flights of stairs without any assistance. However, it didn’t feel like it was enough. Jared still felt like everyone was seeing him as the invalid, the guy who was trying but couldn’t do things for himself.
About a week after his conversation with Jensen, Jared was making his way down one of the main streets, passing a small tattoo parlor on his way to pick up some more art supplies. He passed the store with barely a glance inside, but his mind kept pulling him back there, even while he was making his purchases. On his way back home, he passed the store once again, but this time, he actually entered.
The smallish room was covered from top to bottom with different tattoo stencils and designs. Photos and artworks from the artists were also all proudly put on display. There was one long desk sitting in the middle of the store with some benches on the side and a backroom where he could hear a tattoo gun working.
“Can I help you there with anything, kid?” a voice asked, snapping Jared out of his thoughts.
Jared turned his head and met the eyes of a big, bald man with tattoos covering every inch of visible skin, even some of his face and his skull had been inked. “I think I want a tattoo...” Jared said, not even knowing where the thought had come from.
“Well, you came to the right place, son. Know what you want?” the bald man asked.
“Not really, give me a sec...” Jared said, pulling his sketch book and pencil out from the backpack attached to his wheelchair and immediately starting to draw.
He didn’t have a reference for what he was drawing, just an image in his head that wanted to be on paper. The old guy came out from behind the counter and leaned over Jared’s shoulder, watching the quick pencil movements as the image soon took form, silently scrutinizing his work.
“Do you think you can do this?” Jared asked after a few minutes, turning his chair around and holding up his sketch pad for the guy to see.
“It’s a bit rough, but you sure do have some talent there, kid. Let me smooth out the lines and make sure your anatomy is correct then you’re good to go. The name’s Harv,” he introduced himself as. “Is it a crow?” he asked, opening up a book on birds and flicking through some pages.
“No... A raven, definitely a raven,” Jared answered, seeing Harv look up once, nodding before returning to the book.
About five minutes later and Harv lifted up a new sketch, pretty much the same as what Jared had drawn, just the lines were a lot cleaner and the proportions more equal. Jared looked it over, inspecting the drawing before him carefully.
“Is that what you were thinking of?” the guy asked.
“I love it. Do you think we could do it now?” Jared asked, his eyes barely even straying from the raven.
“I don’t usually tattoo people anymore, but I’ll cut you a deal. You come back tomorrow and let me see how you’d do working here, and I’ll do you that tattoo...” he bargained.
Jared looked up, meeting the big man’s eyes, searching for any sign that this was just another joke. “Are you serious?” he asked, his hands shaking.
“You bet your ass I am. I think you got some amazing talent there, kid. I could definitely use an eye like yours in the store, but you’d be starting off small, cleaning our stations and keeping the store clean too, probably taking bookings and what not, but I’ll teach you how to tattoo eventually, if that’s what you want,” Harv offered sincerely.
“Yeah, man, hell yeah!” Jared smiled for the first time. He hadn’t really ever thought about becoming a tattoo artist before, but it seemed to make perfect sense now, like the job was made for him, and he couldn’t think of a reason to say no.
“Great! Now, where do you want to get this done?”
“My leg, right here,” Jared said, rubbing his hand over his left thigh.
“Sure thing, come this way, and we’ll get started then.”
Jared rolled himself over to situate himself in front of the tattoo chair, “Do you need me on that chair or is here fine?” Jared asked.
“Up here would be easier on my back...” Jared nodded and used his arms to get him up onto the chair with barely any effort, “Now, I’d say this might hurt a little but I’m guessing you won’t feel it right?” Harv asked.
“Won’t feel a thing, I won’t even move around at all,” Jared joked for the first time, not feeling insecure about being a paraplegic.
Harv laughed with Jared, calming himself down before asking Jared to remove his jeans and then applying the stencil to the cleaned skin. Upon Jared’s approval of the placement and size, Harv got underway, talking to Jared about his career and Jared’s schooling as well as many other things. Before Jared knew it, Harv was stretching his back out and wiping away the excess ink from around Jared’s new tattoo.
“You’re all done, kid. What do you think?” he asked.
“I love it, seriously, it’s perfect!” Jared praised, the tattoo turning out much better then he ever thought possible.
Jared never really did see what the fuss was about with tattoos, never understood the art or saw the detail behind many pieces, but seeing his own, he came to understand that it really was just another median for artworks, one that would be carried around by the person for everyone to see rather than just in some old gallery. This is how Jared wanted his art to be seen.
“So you gonna tell me the meaning behind this little beauty?” he asked after wrapping the piece up and explaining to Jared the proper care.
“Maybe one day,” Jared answered with a grin. He never told Harv what it meant to him.
Jared was still high off of the endorphins that were coursing through his body as he left the tattoo parlor, promising Harv that he’d be back the next day after school to start working. He glided home at a fast pace, not caring about the risky moves he was making with his chair. For the first time since the accident, Jared actually felt free. He finally felt like he owned his body again and could control whatever happened to it.
He was greeted at the front door of his house by Jensen, who was looking extremely worried about something. As soon as Jensen spotted Jared, he immediately rushed over and crouched down in front of him, his eyes searching all over Jared’s body for any sign of injury.
“Are you alright, Jay?” Jensen asked in a rush. “Your mom called me and said you hadn’t come home and thought you were with me. No one knew where you were!” Jensen said.
“I’m fine, no... I’m better than fine! I feel great, man!” Jared smiled, only slightly annoyed that his family had been worried about him being out for longer than normal. Before the accident, his parent’s wouldn’t have given it another thought that Jared hadn’t come home at the right time, just thinking that he had gotten caught up in something. Now, they assumed something bad had happened to him all the time.
“Jay? What’s going on, man? Where were you? What did you do?” Jensen asked, not giving Jared any time to answer the first question before firing off another.
“Nothing’s going on. You wouldn’t believe where I’ve been and what just happened to me, man, but it was awesome,” Jared replied, his smile widening at the fact that within a matter of hours he had not only gotten a tattoo and a job, but a possible career, and the sense of freedom and control, he couldn’t believe it.
“Talk to me, Jared. Tell me what you did,” Jensen all but ordered, placing his hand over Jared’s thighs for leverage. “What’s this?” he asked, feeling the tattoo’s wrapping under Jared’s jeans.
“It’s where I got my tattoo done,” Jared said nonchalant, so innocently that Jensen thought Jared was joking.
“Stop playing around, Jared. Your mom was so worried about you. Did you get hurt? Show me!” Jensen retaliated, worried himself.
“Not out here, man!” Jared laughed, pushing past Jensen and up the ramp into his house, not waiting to see if Jensen was following, because he knew he would.
Jared made it to his room, avoiding everyone in his family, not wanting to deal with them just yet. Jensen was proving to be hard enough as it was, and he wasn’t ready to show his parents his new tattoo just yet. He shimmied out of his jeans until they were resting just around his knees and carefully unwrapped the gauze from around his thigh, revealing the red and abused skin underneath.
“Oh, Jared...” Jensen gasped when his eyes finally landed on the tattoo.
“Do you like it?” Jared asked.
Jensen nodded his head before leaning closer to examine it. It really was an extremely well done piece of art. There was a slight blue tinge to the feathers, and the eyes seemed to be almost piercing your soul. “It’s amazing, Jay. Where did you get it done?” he asked.
Jared went on to explain how he was passing by and went in on impulse, finally leaving the store with not only the tattoo but everything else, too. Jensen listened to Jared carefully, his face revealing nothing about what he was thinking, waiting for Jared to finish speaking before he started.
“That is so not what I meant when I said you had to find a way to take back control of your body, you know that right?” he joked, loving the sound of Jared’s laughter ringing out loudly. “When your parent’s find out about this, there is no way you are pinning it on me!” he added, the smile never leaving his lips. Jared agreed wholeheartedly.
When it finally did come time for Jared to face his family, he became nervous over what the repercussions of his actions would be. His family was very open and modern with their ideas and values, but none of their kids had come home with a tattoo before or even gave mention to the idea of ever getting one. His mother screeched at the sight, fussing over Jared while his father stood stock still. Jared’s siblings were intrigued by it and scrutinized the work before both admitting they thought it was cool. And he hadn’t even told them about his apprenticeship yet.
Later on that night, when Jared’s family had calmed down enough and had mostly accepted the idea of Jared working in a tattoo parlor and having a tattoo, Jared lay in bed with Jensen lying beside him.
“Will you at least tell me why the crow?” Jensen asked.
“It’s not a crow; it’s a raven. And maybe, one day I’ll tell you...” Jared replied, leaving it at that. Jensen continued to ask him for months after that, but Jared never budged on the answer.
“So what does it mean?” Chris asked, his fingers still caressing the small bird.
“To me, it will always remind myself of the fact that I control what happens to my body, that I can control my body. It also means that even though people will always see what they want to see, like a crow instead of a raven, I will always know what it is, so I will know that while people always see some guy in a wheelchair, I will remember that I am Jared. And also... see how the wing is kind of stretched out? It’s ‘cause even though my wings may be broken... I know I’m still free...”
They didn’t need to say anything else. Chris didn’t joke about how ‘girly’ the conversation had become or give mention to the fact that he understood what Jared meant. The words just weren’t needed.
He didn’t ask about the other raven tattoo that had been recently added to Jared’s tattoo collection, the only other tattoo on Jared’s legs, because he already knew what it meant. New beginnings and second chances, being able to soar higher than thought possible and doing it all together. Chris knew what Jared was saying instinctually; they were in it together. And when he came home with another tribal on his other shoulder, this time of a bird, Jared also knew that Chris agreed.
-end.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
And that is it!! Another BigBang done and dusted!! Yay!! PLEASE let me know what you thought! I’m real nervous about this one and of course there was a lot of work put into this! My blood, sweat and tears people!!! Hehe
Much love people, thank you for reading and I hope you liked it!
xxx
Back to the Masterpost
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~