Death Becomes Me 3/6 SPN RPS
Title: Death Becomes Me Chapter 3 of 6
Rating: R
Pairing: Jared/Jensen pre-slash
Word count: 1878 (this part)
Summary: Ever wonder what it would be like to wake up dead? Jensen doesn’t have to wonder. He is finding his own death very inconvenient.
Warnings: This is a death fic, but with a twist. Not sure if you can read it? Drop me an e-mail.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them. I just borrow them for torturing purposes.
Jensen was reluctant, but eventually he told the Millers about his two visits with Jared and how the man had freaked out. Blamed him for dying. "And that's the funny thing," Jensen concluded, "I don't know how I died. But I do know that I would never think of offing myself."
A couple more people had stopped by to listen to his tale, shocked that he had been seen by someone from ‘The Old World’. Most had dismissed him and left again, shaking their heads at the ‘new guy’.
"I can hear him." He gestured to his head with a wave of his finger. For the most part, he could tune out the other voices. But not Jared's. "I'm gonna try to talk to him again tonight, but I don't know what to say."
Katrina patted his leg. She was one of the few who had stayed. She looked to be in her 30s, a soft cherry red glow barely visible surrounded her, her long yellow curls making it tint orange. She had wandered over when she had heard Jensen's exclamations of 'He saw me!' and had to see what had happened. No one had minded when she stayed. "Apologize to him," she advised.
"For what?"
"If he blames you for dying, say you're sorry."
Jensen played with his fork, tapping it against the empty plate. "Is there any way I can find out what happened to me?"
Abby said, "You're not strong enough to be able to look into the past. Yet. Maybe you can ask Jared what happened?"
"I really don't think that would be a good idea." But inside, Jensen knew that might be the only way he would get some quick answers.
***
This time, Jensen found the door to Jared's bedroom closed. He groaned, not happy about having to go through two doors in one night. Abby found his annoyance hilarious. "Doesn't it feel weird to you?"
Abby just shrugged and walked through the door.
Jensen glared as her arm reappeared, beckoning him with a crooked finger to join her. Just as he was taking a deep breath, Abby's hand grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him through to the other side. He stumbled and caught himself before he fell on his ass, then looked over at the bed to see Jared watching with wide eyes, back against the bed's backboard, book resting against his triangled legs.
"God damn it." Jared sounded like he was in pain. He let go of his book and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
"You're awake this time." Jensen stated the obvious.
"Apparently not." Jared didn't look at him, keeping his eyes buried behind his hands. "Now go away."
"No. I want to talk to you."
"Fine, but I ain't listening." Jared lifted the covers to lie down, still not looking in Jensen's direction.
"Jared--"
"Go. Away!" As an ending exclamation, Jared hurled the book.
Jensen braced for impact, too shocked to attempt to move. The book sailed through him, flapping pages tickling against his spine, before smacking against the wall and falling with a dull thud on the carpeting. "Dude, don't you ever throw something at me again or I am going to haunt your ass for the rest of your life!" He shuddered, still feeling where the book had violated him.
Jared had taken up his deer-in-the-headlights look again, eyes darting between Jensen and the poor abused book on the floor. "Why are you doing this to me, man?"
"I miss you. And...I'm sorry," he added, remembering what Katrina had told him.
Jared scoffed. "Too fucking late for that."
"Hey," Jensen raised his hands, trying to calm Jared, and himself, down. "I didn't do it on purpose."
"You didn't?" Jared fully sat up, turning to glare. "So the gun just happened to slip?"
"Gun? What the hell are you talking about?"
Jared's eyes watered, nose crinkling, and teeth biting at his lower lip. "Go haunt someone else."
Jensen felt his concentration slip and closed his eyes for a moment to steady himself, overcome with his own emotions. "Jared, you have to believe me." He tried his damnedest not to beg.
"What's my favorite color?"
"Dude, are you insane? How is this supposed to prove I am not a figment of your imagination?"
Jared shrugged, looking away.
"Fine. Pink."
Jared jerked his head back to look at Jensen.
"Of course your subconscious is going to answer truthfully. Me on the other hand..." Jensen felt the now-familiar feeling run through him. "Shit. I gotta go."
"What?"
"I'll be back tomorrow, I promise. And Jared? Please leave the door open for me?"
***
When Jensen opened his eyes, Katrina and the Millers stood nearby, eagerly waiting to find out what had happened. Jensen took a deep breath. "I think he believed me," he said while breathing out. He felt a little queasy, but this time it was like he was recovering from the flu, not dying from it.
"Did he say what happened?" Katrina asked.
"Something about a gun...I think he thinks I killed myself."
"Why would you want to do that?" Abby asked. She had watched the exchange from the sidelines, but had just as many questions as the others.
"I didn't."
"You weren't feeling depressed?"
Jensen shook his head so furiously that he almost gave himself whiplash. "Everyone gets down sometimes, but to off myself? No friggin' way!"
"If you don't remember how you died, maybe there's more you're forgetting," Sandra added with a shrug.
Jensen glared at her.
"Just a suggestion." Sandra looked away, a hurt look on her face.
"Sorry. This is just so...frustrating!" He flopped backward and pillowed his arms under his head. He looked forward for morning so all the white surrounding him could be painted and come to life. "Sorry," he repeated. He wished he were strong enough so he could go back and see what had happened. A day? A week?
"So tell us some about this coworker," Katrina asked.
Jensen didn’t feel like talking about Jared. But once he started, he couldn’t seem to stop. He told the small group of how they’d met, at an audition for the same role. The show’s producers had liked them both so much that Jared had been cast as the younger brother and they had quickly became fast friends and a pair of regular pranksters. Everyone was in hysterics when Jensen told of how they both had been pranked with a pair of binoculars and black paint.
Words slowly trickling to a stop and Jensen felt loneliness wash over him, and a pain that he shouldn’t be able to still feel. “God, I miss him.” Not liking the funk he was finding himself in, he tried to change the subject: “So what do you all do for fun around here? Besides listening to the wanton wishes of a dead man?”
“Talk and wait for day. Less boring than it sounds like,” Sandra said. “So many of you young people seem to have forgotten the art of conversing.”
“You, on the other hand, nope.” Katrina nudged him playfully.
Jensen matched her over the top grin with one of his own, letting it slip away into a glare, trying to keep the corners of his mouth from quirking upward.
***
Jensen lay back on the soft grass and closed his eyes. He didn’t feel tired, but damn he missed sleeping. He let his mind drift, soothed by the gentle breeze, warm sun and energy flowing into him.
Shrieking and giggling got his attention and he opened his eyes in time to see a young girl, no more than five, jump over him. Then he got a feeling of déjà vu when the same girl jumped over him a second later. A glitch in the Matrix? He sat up. Twins. And they were looping around a tree and charging back toward him for another jump. He laid back down to let them, then sat up at the last second to grab the second girl mid-leap.
The girl yelped with surprise and squirmed in his grasp, barely able to struggle because of all her giggles. Jensen let her down again and she ran off to resume chasing after her sister. “So young,” he commented to Katrina.
She looked up from her daisy chain and he nodded toward the girls. “Yeah. They don’t talk much, so no one knows what their story is.” She plucked another daisy from the grass, another growing to replace it.
Jensen shook his head. “Wow.” He wished he could say more, to vocalize how sad it made him feel...or how sad it was supposed to make him feel, but what could he say? For all he knew, the little girls didn’t even realize that they were dead. If so, then they had it the best out of all of them. No pretending, no yearning for lost friends or loved ones, missing them not because they were dead, but because they were still alive. “What’s your story?” he asked her.
Katrina seemed surprised. “Mine is hardly interesting.”
“Try me.”
She huffed out a small laugh. “What year is this?”
“2010.”
“It happened 44 years ago, as I was giving birth to my 2nd child. My husband named her after me. Trina.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve been dead longer than I’d been alive.” She shrugged away his concern.
Dead longer than alive. The thought made Jensen ache in ways he didn’t think he still could. How could he manage that long without driving himself crazy?
Sandra and Brent settled down next to him and Jensen blinked his attention back to the present. They motioned Katrina and Abby to scoot closer. Sandra began by clearing her throat. “How badly do you want to see how you died?”
Jensen, shocked speechless, had to make several attempts to talk before he was able to ask, “But I thought I wasn’t strong enough.”
“You aren’t.” Abby’s voice sounded defensive, but curious, and they all looked to the Millers to find out what was up.
“We’ve been asking around,” Sandra continued, “and several people have taken notice. They find it strange, but they’re willing to help you.”
“Strange?”
“It’s unheard of for people to want to revisit their deaths,” Katrina supplied. “Most of us already know what killed us, and the rest don’t care or don’t mind waiting until they can see for themselves. And, like you, we are curious.”
“And how would this helping thing work?”
“Like how we gave you back energy, only on a larger scale,” Brett said kindly, reminding Jensen of a grandfather he’d barely had a chance to know. “That is why you will need more help than just us.”
“Ye--” Jensen had to clear his throat, “yes, that would be awesome! When?”
“Tomorrow, halfway between night and sunrise would be best. They are going to take it easy today and tonight so their energy is good and they can spend the latter half of the day regaining it.”
Abby turned her attention to Jensen. “You won’t be able to see Jared tonight.”
Jensen wanted to argue, or at least beg a little, but he knew it would be pointless. “Okay,” he finally said, agreeing to her tiny demand.
Chapter 4
Rating: R
Pairing: Jared/Jensen pre-slash
Word count: 1878 (this part)
Summary: Ever wonder what it would be like to wake up dead? Jensen doesn’t have to wonder. He is finding his own death very inconvenient.
Warnings: This is a death fic, but with a twist. Not sure if you can read it? Drop me an e-mail.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them. I just borrow them for torturing purposes.
Jensen was reluctant, but eventually he told the Millers about his two visits with Jared and how the man had freaked out. Blamed him for dying. "And that's the funny thing," Jensen concluded, "I don't know how I died. But I do know that I would never think of offing myself."
A couple more people had stopped by to listen to his tale, shocked that he had been seen by someone from ‘The Old World’. Most had dismissed him and left again, shaking their heads at the ‘new guy’.
"I can hear him." He gestured to his head with a wave of his finger. For the most part, he could tune out the other voices. But not Jared's. "I'm gonna try to talk to him again tonight, but I don't know what to say."
Katrina patted his leg. She was one of the few who had stayed. She looked to be in her 30s, a soft cherry red glow barely visible surrounded her, her long yellow curls making it tint orange. She had wandered over when she had heard Jensen's exclamations of 'He saw me!' and had to see what had happened. No one had minded when she stayed. "Apologize to him," she advised.
"For what?"
"If he blames you for dying, say you're sorry."
Jensen played with his fork, tapping it against the empty plate. "Is there any way I can find out what happened to me?"
Abby said, "You're not strong enough to be able to look into the past. Yet. Maybe you can ask Jared what happened?"
"I really don't think that would be a good idea." But inside, Jensen knew that might be the only way he would get some quick answers.
***
This time, Jensen found the door to Jared's bedroom closed. He groaned, not happy about having to go through two doors in one night. Abby found his annoyance hilarious. "Doesn't it feel weird to you?"
Abby just shrugged and walked through the door.
Jensen glared as her arm reappeared, beckoning him with a crooked finger to join her. Just as he was taking a deep breath, Abby's hand grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him through to the other side. He stumbled and caught himself before he fell on his ass, then looked over at the bed to see Jared watching with wide eyes, back against the bed's backboard, book resting against his triangled legs.
"God damn it." Jared sounded like he was in pain. He let go of his book and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.
"You're awake this time." Jensen stated the obvious.
"Apparently not." Jared didn't look at him, keeping his eyes buried behind his hands. "Now go away."
"No. I want to talk to you."
"Fine, but I ain't listening." Jared lifted the covers to lie down, still not looking in Jensen's direction.
"Jared--"
"Go. Away!" As an ending exclamation, Jared hurled the book.
Jensen braced for impact, too shocked to attempt to move. The book sailed through him, flapping pages tickling against his spine, before smacking against the wall and falling with a dull thud on the carpeting. "Dude, don't you ever throw something at me again or I am going to haunt your ass for the rest of your life!" He shuddered, still feeling where the book had violated him.
Jared had taken up his deer-in-the-headlights look again, eyes darting between Jensen and the poor abused book on the floor. "Why are you doing this to me, man?"
"I miss you. And...I'm sorry," he added, remembering what Katrina had told him.
Jared scoffed. "Too fucking late for that."
"Hey," Jensen raised his hands, trying to calm Jared, and himself, down. "I didn't do it on purpose."
"You didn't?" Jared fully sat up, turning to glare. "So the gun just happened to slip?"
"Gun? What the hell are you talking about?"
Jared's eyes watered, nose crinkling, and teeth biting at his lower lip. "Go haunt someone else."
Jensen felt his concentration slip and closed his eyes for a moment to steady himself, overcome with his own emotions. "Jared, you have to believe me." He tried his damnedest not to beg.
"What's my favorite color?"
"Dude, are you insane? How is this supposed to prove I am not a figment of your imagination?"
Jared shrugged, looking away.
"Fine. Pink."
Jared jerked his head back to look at Jensen.
"Of course your subconscious is going to answer truthfully. Me on the other hand..." Jensen felt the now-familiar feeling run through him. "Shit. I gotta go."
"What?"
"I'll be back tomorrow, I promise. And Jared? Please leave the door open for me?"
***
When Jensen opened his eyes, Katrina and the Millers stood nearby, eagerly waiting to find out what had happened. Jensen took a deep breath. "I think he believed me," he said while breathing out. He felt a little queasy, but this time it was like he was recovering from the flu, not dying from it.
"Did he say what happened?" Katrina asked.
"Something about a gun...I think he thinks I killed myself."
"Why would you want to do that?" Abby asked. She had watched the exchange from the sidelines, but had just as many questions as the others.
"I didn't."
"You weren't feeling depressed?"
Jensen shook his head so furiously that he almost gave himself whiplash. "Everyone gets down sometimes, but to off myself? No friggin' way!"
"If you don't remember how you died, maybe there's more you're forgetting," Sandra added with a shrug.
Jensen glared at her.
"Just a suggestion." Sandra looked away, a hurt look on her face.
"Sorry. This is just so...frustrating!" He flopped backward and pillowed his arms under his head. He looked forward for morning so all the white surrounding him could be painted and come to life. "Sorry," he repeated. He wished he were strong enough so he could go back and see what had happened. A day? A week?
"So tell us some about this coworker," Katrina asked.
Jensen didn’t feel like talking about Jared. But once he started, he couldn’t seem to stop. He told the small group of how they’d met, at an audition for the same role. The show’s producers had liked them both so much that Jared had been cast as the younger brother and they had quickly became fast friends and a pair of regular pranksters. Everyone was in hysterics when Jensen told of how they both had been pranked with a pair of binoculars and black paint.
Words slowly trickling to a stop and Jensen felt loneliness wash over him, and a pain that he shouldn’t be able to still feel. “God, I miss him.” Not liking the funk he was finding himself in, he tried to change the subject: “So what do you all do for fun around here? Besides listening to the wanton wishes of a dead man?”
“Talk and wait for day. Less boring than it sounds like,” Sandra said. “So many of you young people seem to have forgotten the art of conversing.”
“You, on the other hand, nope.” Katrina nudged him playfully.
Jensen matched her over the top grin with one of his own, letting it slip away into a glare, trying to keep the corners of his mouth from quirking upward.
***
Jensen lay back on the soft grass and closed his eyes. He didn’t feel tired, but damn he missed sleeping. He let his mind drift, soothed by the gentle breeze, warm sun and energy flowing into him.
Shrieking and giggling got his attention and he opened his eyes in time to see a young girl, no more than five, jump over him. Then he got a feeling of déjà vu when the same girl jumped over him a second later. A glitch in the Matrix? He sat up. Twins. And they were looping around a tree and charging back toward him for another jump. He laid back down to let them, then sat up at the last second to grab the second girl mid-leap.
The girl yelped with surprise and squirmed in his grasp, barely able to struggle because of all her giggles. Jensen let her down again and she ran off to resume chasing after her sister. “So young,” he commented to Katrina.
She looked up from her daisy chain and he nodded toward the girls. “Yeah. They don’t talk much, so no one knows what their story is.” She plucked another daisy from the grass, another growing to replace it.
Jensen shook his head. “Wow.” He wished he could say more, to vocalize how sad it made him feel...or how sad it was supposed to make him feel, but what could he say? For all he knew, the little girls didn’t even realize that they were dead. If so, then they had it the best out of all of them. No pretending, no yearning for lost friends or loved ones, missing them not because they were dead, but because they were still alive. “What’s your story?” he asked her.
Katrina seemed surprised. “Mine is hardly interesting.”
“Try me.”
She huffed out a small laugh. “What year is this?”
“2010.”
“It happened 44 years ago, as I was giving birth to my 2nd child. My husband named her after me. Trina.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ve been dead longer than I’d been alive.” She shrugged away his concern.
Dead longer than alive. The thought made Jensen ache in ways he didn’t think he still could. How could he manage that long without driving himself crazy?
Sandra and Brent settled down next to him and Jensen blinked his attention back to the present. They motioned Katrina and Abby to scoot closer. Sandra began by clearing her throat. “How badly do you want to see how you died?”
Jensen, shocked speechless, had to make several attempts to talk before he was able to ask, “But I thought I wasn’t strong enough.”
“You aren’t.” Abby’s voice sounded defensive, but curious, and they all looked to the Millers to find out what was up.
“We’ve been asking around,” Sandra continued, “and several people have taken notice. They find it strange, but they’re willing to help you.”
“Strange?”
“It’s unheard of for people to want to revisit their deaths,” Katrina supplied. “Most of us already know what killed us, and the rest don’t care or don’t mind waiting until they can see for themselves. And, like you, we are curious.”
“And how would this helping thing work?”
“Like how we gave you back energy, only on a larger scale,” Brett said kindly, reminding Jensen of a grandfather he’d barely had a chance to know. “That is why you will need more help than just us.”
“Ye--” Jensen had to clear his throat, “yes, that would be awesome! When?”
“Tomorrow, halfway between night and sunrise would be best. They are going to take it easy today and tonight so their energy is good and they can spend the latter half of the day regaining it.”
Abby turned her attention to Jensen. “You won’t be able to see Jared tonight.”
Jensen wanted to argue, or at least beg a little, but he knew it would be pointless. “Okay,” he finally said, agreeing to her tiny demand.
Chapter 4