Rule 26 (7 of ?, j2 au)
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Rule 26 (7/?)
(J2 au, one fleeting mention of previous underage non-con)
Perverse masochism made Jared watch Nigellus 8 burn. Beneath his feet, the ship vibrated in rhythmic pulses as it added its weaponry to the assault. Blasts of energy from the rest of the fleet streaked past the ship, and the planet's surface was a shifting sea of fire.
Jared watched until his own eyes burned from not blinking and his legs were too weary to hold him up any longer.
When he turned away, his vision swam, dusted with particles of light.
Jeff was gone already, and Jared's mind fitted that to the obvious conclusion that he had gone to Doctor Nekrotik, and then couldn't let go of the idea that Jared should go to Doctor Nekrotik too. He didn't have any hopes of killing him, or making him explain. He was simply curious to see how he was functioning, to see how someone who destroyed planets spent the rest of their day.
Nobody tried to stop him leaving, or hindered him as he passed through the corridors. The soldiers recognized him as part of Doctor Nekrotik's retinue, even if his role remained unspecified.
It took Jared a while to find Doctor Nekrotik's lab, though not long enough for him to grow impatient with the search. It was possible that impatience was incompatible with everything else he was feeling. He'd gone far beyond the point of frustration.
At some point during his exploration, the vibration of weapon-fire underfoot stopped. Jared paused a moment, waited for it to start up again. But there was only the serene hum of the ship's engines.
The number of security doors increased the closer Jared drew to Doctor Nekrotik's lab, though none of them were locked. Along both sides of a shallow upwards ramp, he found a series of small rooms that were similar to Wisdom's med-lab. They were clinically clean and stocked with alien silver instruments and cabinets of narrow glass tubes.
In one room, there was an examination chair, which was tilted back under a large, overhead lamp. Jared flicked a switch and the light burned on, silent and blinding. He looked the chair over, touched the thick metal cuffs that hung open at wrist and ankle and head.
Another room had a wall taken up entirely with a holoscreen image of star charts. The picture flickered rapidly through a succession of galaxy sectors, planets and asteroids and dustfields highlighted in different, glowing colors, none of which meant anything to Jared. On a table pushed to the side was a stack of datapads. Jared picked up the top one, then put it right back down when he realized the text was nothing but scientific formulae.
The ramp continued to rise upwards, and as Jared followed it, he heard their voices.
"…be the end, but it's not. It was just starting," Jensen was saying, clear without the dampening hum of the mask. He sighed, then said, "How many?"
"Made it, or didn't?" said Jeff.
"Didn't."
"We estimate about forty thousand."
Silence then, unbroken even by breathing or the creak of Jeff's armor.
Jared finished his ascent, and came to a circular platform that ran along the edge of Jensen's lab. From his vantage point up high, he could see Jensen, unmasked and sitting on a stool, with one hand raised to cradle his head. Jeff was leaning against the counter beside him, watching him. Around them was assorted scientific debris: datapads and papers, tools and instruments. The crown jewels from Nigellus 8 were on a worktop, surrounding by a small heap of diamonds that Jensen had already stripped from the scepter and pushed aside.
Jensen took his hand away from his brow and glanced aimlessly around the lab. "Where are the refugees going? Do they even have a destination in mind?"
"Right now, they're just running. Kane's shepherding them out of the fallout zone. We're moving up behind them to keep them going."
"Okay," said Jensen. He nodded, and got to his feet. Crossing to a terminal, he brought something up on the screen, though, from his angle, Jared couldn't see what exactly. "Company Corp's got a base on Logis, which is a week's journey from here. Planet's otherwise uninhabited, climatically a few degrees colder than Nigellus 8 but comparable in most other aspects. We send them there, we can funnel aid through Company Corp."
He looked up at Jeff, clearly asking for his approval.
"So you're gonna make everything okay, now, huh?" Jared called down. He jerked his head at the crown jewels. "You having some buyer's remorse? I guess so long as you find somewhere to dump the survivors, it doesn't matter that you wiped out their planet. Hell, I bet nobody'll even miss those forty thousand folks you murdered."
Jensen wasn't looking back at him, wouldn't. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor even as Jared made his way down the spiral towards them. Jeff was watching him, though, ready to put himself between Jared and Jensen if Jared got too close.
"What you're doing now, it means jackshit," Jared told Jensen. "You know that, right? Don't kid yourself into thinking you're anything less than a bona-fide monster. You're -"
Jensen's gaze snapped up to him, and Jared felt an instinctive, unexpected thrill of fear at the venomous look in his eyes.
"You know what, Jared? Normally I'm more than willing to listen to you hate on me, but I've got three ships full of people whose issues with me are a little more pressing. So why don't you save it all up, and when I've got an afternoon free, you can list your complaints in full." He flashed Jared an unfriendly smile. "We'll make a date of it, how 'bout that? Right now though, you are gonna have to get in line."
That was new. Jared blinked, temporarily knocked into silence. It was angry and snarky, not the clipped, irritable tones that Jensen adopted when he was masked up and not getting his own way.
Jared glanced at Jeff, but he hadn't straightened into the tighter, military stance he had the last time a mood-swing had hit Jensen. He was still propped up against the counter, just watching. Then his gaze shifted to just beyond Jared, and Jared turned to see Wisdom approaching.
"You forgot your pills," said Wisdom evenly, holding his hand out to Jensen.
It took a moment for Jensen to tear his seething glare off Jared. He took the two small capsules Wisdom was offering him and swallowed them down dry.
"Thanks," he muttered.
Wisdom waved a hand dismissively. "Just doing my job," he said. He eyed Jared curiously, considered him in context of Jensen's expression, then glanced at Jeff, one eyebrow raised.
"You mind Jared hanging out with you, just 'til Cassidy's finished? She won't be long," said Jeff. "We're kind of in the middle of something here, and I think Jensen's finding Jared a little distracting." He added a lazy grin at Jared, like that would make it less insulting to be passed off like a toddler in need of a sitter.
Wisdom frowned, and heaved a sigh. "C'mon, kid," he said.
Grudgingly, Jared followed him back to the med-lab, and Wisdom left him alone and didn't try to make conversation.
"So," said Jared finally, perching himself on a counter while Wisdom settled at his desk, "all that stuff about Ayeyah's garden and the Brother-King, that just interesting cultural information to you?"
Wisdom glanced up from the stack of datapads in front of him. "I appreciate a good story as much as the next man. Doesn't make me a believer."
"Do you even care that all those people are dead?" Jared demanded, his voice hard.
This time, Wisdom didn't bother looking up. "If you're going to be taking everything to its illogical conclusion, I'm going to bow out of this conversation right now."
Jared pushed himself back to his feet, stalked towards the door, then spun back around. His hands flittered restlessly over the countertop of medical instruments, then lifted away before the urge to throw something overtook him.
"If you've got something to say, say it," said Wisdom. "Much healthier for you than all this twisting and turning like a cat in a cage."
Instantly, Jared was the other side of Wisdom's table, his hands braced his against it on either side as he ducked down to catch Wisdom's gaze. "How can you justify this to yourself? How can you be so damn fond of him when he does… this? You're not a bad person, you're not. So how can you…?"
Wisdom sighed, though his nimble fingers didn't stop shuffling through the datapads. "Oh, kid, if I could, I'd let you walk a mile in my shoes. But even then, I'm pretty sure you'd just wanna come moan at me about how much my shoes pinch."
"That's not an answer."
The corner of Wisdom's mouth quirked enigmatically. "It's all the answer you're gonna get." He lifted his eyes finally to meet Jared's. "Jared, I'm sympathetic to your situation. Right now, I think we can all agree that your life is not the envy of anyone. But I'm not the one auditioning to be your boyfriend. I don't have the time or the inclination to explain myself to you. I have crises enough to deal with. You want answers, you're gonna have to figure them out for yourself."
Jared drew back, unable to take his eyes off Wisdom, his lips a twist of bitter disappointment. Wisdom held his gaze a moment longer, then returned to his datapads.
They hung that way until Cassidy came in. Jared searched her face and demeanor for some sign of distress. But if she'd ever been shaken by the order to destroy Nigellus 8, she was already over it.
Surrounded by this many apparently reasonable people who didn't have a problem with the wholesale murder of innocents, it was almost tempting to believe that Jared was the one not thinking straight.
Cassidy sketched a beckoning gesture at Jared. "Come on, best place for you is in your quarters."
Jared allowed her to lead him out, casting a quick look back at Wisdom as he passed through the door.
The initial, bustling activity in the corridors when they'd boarded had settled into the daily grind of soldiers and crew going about their duties. He cast Cassidy a sidelong look, and hoped to notice red-rimmed eyes or a wobble in her stride.
"You're not my type," she said, eyes still straight ahead.
"You're not mine," he said.
She gave him a quick, bladed smile. "So stop examining me."
Jared shrugged and looked away from her. "I was kinda hoping you'd be more upset about the planetary destruction that happened back there."
"You think I need to weep a little on your big strong shoulder?" she asked.
"You sure I'm not your type?" said Jared. "Starting to sound like maybe I am."
Jared's quarters were pretty much what he'd expected for a room on board a ship: compact and bare, though still more spacious than his place on Stantone. The inclusion of a small holoscreen on the wall offered the prospect of at least some entertainment, except Jared really wasn't in the mood to watch a movie.
"I wanna know why you serve him," he said, without preamble.
Cassidy sat down on the end of the bed, legs neatly crossed and hands planted on the mattress to keep her steady as she leaned back. "Are you conducting a survey? Would you like me to hand out a questionnaire among the troops?"
Jared looked at her and waited, jaw firmed defiantly and arms folded across his chest.
Clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth, Cassidy's eyes narrowed and she looked away from him, her attitude that of housecat's contemptuous resignation to its master's dictates.
She pushed to her feet, and made a slow circuit of the room, her fingertips brushing the wall.
"The new channels are already saying that Nigellus 8 was pursuing illegal weapons research, that they were weeks away from launching a rebellion against Doctor Nekrotik." She shrugged, drawing her fingernail down the line between two wall panels. "Sure, we know it's bullshit, but most people are happy to believe what they're told if it means they get to carry on enjoying the easy life that Doctor Nekrotik's technology makes possible."
Jared started to shake his head, but she cut over him swiftly. "Would you really care so very much if you'd found refuge on a nice planet, where you could study and get a job and marry a nice girl, instead of on a pit like Xas 12?"
"Yeah, I would," Jared said instantly.
Cassidy's expression called him a liar if she didn't come right out with it. She rolled her eyes and went back to her path around the room when Jared didn't falter.
"Well, you're not like most folks then," she said. "Doctor Nekrotik doesn't spend his days blowing up planets. He's pretty hands-off mostly. And everyone can follow orders and happily believe that it's not their problem."
"Until it's them he's blowing up," said Jared. As he studied her, it occurred to him that she'd brought them away from his original question, and, moreover, that she'd probably done it deliberately.
"You know Nigellus 8 was innocent. But you followed orders. Why?"
She turned enough to lay her back flat against the wall. Her look was derisive and pitying at once. "It never occurred to you that saying 'no' to Doctor Nekrotik is the same as asking to be killed in strange and interesting ways?" Her lips bent into a smile as she looked Jared over speculatively. "Well, maybe it didn't to you. But not all of us are as hot and muscular as you are."
"So it's just fear. I'm on a ship full of cowards. Is that it? Wisdom's a coward. So's Jeff, and Kane. So are you. You're all just fucking cowards."
Cassidy's eyes flashed dangerously, and if Jared hadn't been too pushed way too far lately, he might have questioned the wisdom of calling an armed and trained soldier a coward. She took a couple of steps towards Jared, then caught herself, and slowed.
"No. You're a fucking moron." She took a breath, calming herself even while she looked at Jared like she was still entertaining vivid thoughts of hurting him. She gave him a brittle smile. "I followed his orders because that's what we do. We serve. We're loyal. We're loyal, right up until we die, and if he believed in an afterlife, we'd be loyal through that too. We're incredibly loyal."
Never far from anger these days, Jared's upper lip curled into an instinctive snarl. "That's not good enough."
"It's all you're getting," Cassidy threw back. She flicked the holoscreen on. Jared had expected to see the destruction of Nigellus 8, but instead a glossy travelogue was extolling the delightful beaches of Graderia. "Stay here, find yourself some sports or porn to watch. I'll have call for someone to bring you lunch later."
"Why the hell would I wanna watch sports or porn right now?" Jared demanded. "Forty thousand people just burned to death! I don't wanna watch the holoscreen!"
"Then you don't mind if I catch up on the game," said Cassidy. "Normally, I couldn't care less, but my homeplanet's team's playing and I've got a bet going with a tech agent on the Baraxius."
She put the holoscreen on a sports channel and sat cross-legged on the desk to watch. Jared toyed with the idea of turning off the holoscreen, just to spite her, but it seemed a massively pathetic payback when so many people were dead.
So instead, he just stood there, useless and unmoving.
After a few moments, Cassidy's gaze flicked towards him then back to the holoscreen. "You never thought about joining up yourself?" she said. "I don't mean now, obviously, think he's got other plans for you. But when you were a kid? Doctor Nekrotik's fleet is the best course for getting off a planet, and you must have been looking for a way off. I mean, c'mon, you were living on Xas 12. Who wouldn't want to get outta there?"
It wasn't as completely off-base as Jared would have liked. He knew of plenty of people willingly serving in Doctor Nekrotik's army who'd had their homeworld's attacked, even destroyed, by him. Even two of the refugees who'd fled with Jared had signed up. Jared had hated them, even if he'd resentfully understood why they'd done it.
He used to dream of getting out of Stantone. It was dangerous as it was dirty, and Jared's survival instinct got a regular workout just getting through each day. He'd grown up big enough that he wasn't an obvious target for muggers, but there were still sonsofbitches out there stupid enough and desperate enough to try now and then. And when he was younger, it wasn't just his money and clothes people had tried to take.
It was home, all the same, but living in Stantone had been pretty damn ugly. And maybe once, just once, while blitzed out of his mind on Chad's attempt at homemade beer, Jared had let the idea turn over in his head.
"I'd have eaten my own blaster before I signed up," he said firmly. "I can't be part of what he's doing. Not any of it."
Cassidy nodded, like she thought this was reasonable. "Well, at least this way you get to see the galaxy without having to compromise your principles." She cocked her head at him, her eyes glittering. "Aren't you lucky?"
"You ever regret signing up?" said Jared.
Cassidy's gaze slid away from him. A smile formed on her lips, small and misshapen.
"Only when they give me really hot guys with really bad attitudes to babysit," she said, and turned up the volume on the holoscreen.
That was apparently the end of the conversation. Cassidy watched the game, throwing in occasional commentary, which mostly revealed she didn't know all that much about how the game was played, while Jared leaned against the wall and tried to find a state of equilibrium.
When the comm.device at her wrist trilled, Cassidy rolled her eyes and lifted it to her ear.
"Yes, ma'am," she said, after a moment. "I'll be right there."
Casting one last longing look at the holoscreen, Cassidy jumped to her feet and headed to the door. "Duty calls. But don't worry, I won't be long." Halfway out of the room, she paused and looked back at Jared. "I'm gonna lock the door, not because I don't trust you, but because… I don't trust you." She nodded towards the holoscreen. "Don't let anyone score while I'm gone."
The door locked behind her with an audible clunk. The rhythmic tap of Cassidy's boots receded. Jared gave it a couple of moments, then dropped to a crouch to examine the lock on the door.
A life of petty terrorism offered the chance to learn all kinds of useful skills. The lock on the door was exactly the kind you'd expect to find on a personal cabin. As such, it was not nearly the same grade as the locks on the cells in the Stantone Detention Center, which Jared had broken out of, not once, but twice.
Escape took him dismantling the holoscreen off the wall to remove a pin and twist of metal from its bracket, but it got Jared out of the room.
It was a petty victory, all things considered, and Jared couldn't feel even faintly pleased with himself. Two things remained to him: kill Doctor Nekrotik, and escape. He wasn't going to sit around and wait for Tom to find him, but he was fast coming to the conclusion that killing Doctor Nekrotik wasn't something he could do alone.
Escape it was then, and there was really only one way off a ship.
He didn't know what he expected to find in the shuttle-pod bay, but Fate had apparently chosen that moment to smile upon him once more. All of the usual security protocols and system locks were in place, except on one pod. One pod was unlocked. The log marked it as undergoing maintenance, which was so non-specific it could have meant the pod was a deathtrap, or simply having a standard tune-up.
Dodging around the few guards in place, Jared entered the pod's open launch pad. While Jared was by no means an expert mechanic in spacecraft, he was good with surface flyers, and it was enough to give him a reasonable idea of where to look. He studied the exterior and interior, pulled off the central control panel to take a look inside, even ran through the first couple of steps of the launch process on the pod's computer to see if he ran into any glitches.
Nothing was glaringly, obviously wrong.
Jared took a step back to consider his options.
There was staying, watching Doctor Nekrotik murder more people and waiting for his attention to finally turn to whatever it was he wanted from Jared.
And there was going, in a shuttle-pod that might very well explode within three minutes of passing through the airlock.
Jared started the pod launch procedure.
"Jared?"
Jensen was standing just behind him. He'd stripped off his long overcoat, and was wearing only a plain black jumpsuit, his boots and, as ever, his plastic gloves. He looked tired, and uncomfortable in Jared's presence.
He raised an eyebrow at the pod bay, smiling slightly. "Why am I not surprised to find you checking out the escape pods?"
It didn't seem to have registered with Jensen that the pod Jared was working on was unsecured. Bastard apparently thought Jared was just standing around, looking wistful and thinking about escape, not that he was just a few seconds away from it.
"I don't have anything to say to you," said Jared, turning back to the console and going at it a little faster.
"No, but I need to apologize," Jensen said. He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes lowered. "You were right. What I'm doing now can't make up for what I did back there. Nothing can make up for that. And those things I said to you, I had no right. After everything, all the people I've hurt, the least I can do is - "
He turned slowly, confused, to watch the inner airlock door seal shut. Jared swung himself in through the top of the pod.
"Jared?" he said. "Jared, what are you doing?"
The inside of the pod was nothing much beyond a hollowed out metallic sphere. It was going to be a bumpy ride. Jared flicked on internal controls, and hit the command for the pod to seal itself.
Instead, white sparks crackled and spat at the pod bay's outer airlock door. The airlock began to open. Again, Jared hit the command for the pod to close up. The pod hatch didn't even shiver.
It looked like Jared had discovered the pod's malfunction.
"Jared!" Jensen shouted. "What the hell are you playing at?"
And then Jared realized. Sure, he was going to get yanked right out of the pod and flung into open space. Sure, he was going to asphyxiate in a very short amount of time.
But there was a real good chance that so would Doctor Nekrotik.
Jared scrambled back out of the pod, and barreled towards Jensen, who was halfway through climbing in after him. Electrical sparks lit up the pod bay in hot, irregular blasts while the gap in the airlock door grew wider and wider.
The tug of space rushing in came on sudden and hard. Jared's body wasn't under his own control anymore. His lungs squeezed close painfully. He could see the massive, lost blackness of space beyond the airlock, no stars or planets, just nothingness.
Jensen flung a hand out to the airlock door, and Jared didn't know what fancy crystal-magic trick he was going to pull but he wasn't going to let it happen. Doctor Nekrotik was going out the airlock if Jared had to take him there himself.
He swung his fist hard, caught Jensen right across the jaw, and the motion sent them both tumbling out of the airlock.
:::
Space was big and beautiful, and so quiet.
Jared really enjoyed looking at it, even through the agonizing pain of dying.
His body rolled over and over in lazy pirouettes, and everywhere was only stars and blackness. He was so tiny out here, his existence put into doubt by just how insignificant he was. Everything was distant, and when Jared died, they'd be just as distant. Maybe in hundreds of years, his corpse would finally drift far enough to bump into something. Maybe not. Maybe he'd simply float in the nothingness forever.
Even the closest star was just a pinprick.
Fingers dug into Jared's shoulder, and Jared was swung around to see Jensen looking right back at him. Jensen's eyes were the only color left in the whole universe, blazing green in the darkness.
Jared tried to grin, to let him know he'd won, while the pressure grew inside his head.
Jensen's hand cupped his cheek, drew him in close, his gaze searching Jared's eyes intently.
And then Jensen pressed his lips to Jared's.
Jensen's mouth was soft and hot. His tongue teased Jared's lips apart, smoothed along the shape of Jared's mouth. His hand tightened on Jared's face, and their bodies brushed together as Jensen pulled himself in close to Jared, and Jensen breathed.
For an instant, it felt worse than dying, and then - then so much better than anything else Jared had ever felt in his whole life. Sensation coursed through him, tingling in his fingertips and snapping his spine straight, waking up every cell of his body. It was a shot of pure energy. He was brighter than the stars and the universe was spinning just for him.
Instinctively, he clutched Jensen closer, gripped Jensen by the back of his head, his arm pressed to Jensen's back, and angled Jensen's mouth where he wanted it under his own. He kissed him greedily, all need and desire, and Jensen hung on and let Jared take what he wanted.
They were still moving, twisting through the void, and all Jared could think about was his mouth on Jensen's, the heat and hardness of Jensen's body crushed in his arms, long after the initial vibration of energy had faded away. He was pretty sure he could happily spend the rest of his life lost in space, so long as he never had to stop kissing Jensen.
Jensen's hand shifted on Jared's face, fingertips tangling deeper in his hair, and Jared felt the graze of latex on his skin. He remembered the black gloves Jensen was wearing, and then the mask that accompanied them so often, and then what exactly Jensen was, and why he couldn't be kissing him.
He tried to push Jensen away, and the sight of Jensen's brutalized, pretty mouth made him angry and hot.
The image of Jensen sprawled out on the bed under him came back to Jared, how beautiful he'd been, and how insufferable. Jared wanted to think that Jensen had played with his head again to make Jared kiss him, but there were no holes in his memory - he remembered it (Jensen's lips, his body) in too much vivid detail. Jensen had kissed him first, but Jared had taken it over. Jared had grabbed hold of Jensen and taken his mouth, and he'd done it because he'd wanted to.
This time was all on him.
Maybe he could blame it on being on the edge of death, except, apart from having no air in his lungs, Jared was fit and healthy. So was Jensen. They were floating around in empty space, Jensen still clinging hold of Jared's arm, and neither of them was dying.
Jensen frowned at Jared's rejection, then the lines of his face went hard, and his grip on Jared's arm tightened. Furiously, Jared tried again to shake him off but Jensen wouldn't let him, was too busy turning them around, his gaze pointed out to the stars. His eyes locked onto something, their bodies still so close that Jared felt the flex of Jensen's muscles, and then they were moving.
It was a little what Jared had always imagined swimming would feel like. In Stantone, clean water was for drinking, or possibly washing in. You didn't get expanses of water big enough to swim in, certainly none that wouldn't give you a toxic rash.
But the combination of weightlessness and directed motion sounded a lot like swimming to Jared. Maybe with the tide right behind you.
It was a smooth push, gathering speed and strength, and propelling Jared and Jensen through the stars. Up ahead, Jared kept expecting to see the Medaeus. He'd lost sight of the ship in the first few seconds of flying out the airlock. It had been in flight, traveling at phenomenal speed, and so Jared wasn't at all surprised to have been left behind so soon. He was curious to see whether Jensen could really catch up with it.
But the Medaeus didn't seem to be the destination Jensen had in mind.
Instead, they seemed to be drawing closer and closer to a tiny, gray planet. It spread out in front of them, looking less and less tiny, and Jared was fascinated by the details that appeared on the surface the nearer they got. Grayness gave way to texture and shade.
They plunged into the mist of the planet's outer atmosphere, and it hit them as a sudden shock of coldness. Air swept into Jared's lungs again, making him gasp and choke. The flight was no longer smooth; their bodies shook and juddered. Jared's teeth rattled in his mouth, and his bones bounced around painfully inside his skin.
An instinctive fear of falling kept Jared from fighting when Jensen wrapped himself around him. In the midst of everything else that was happening, Jared noticed the soft scrape of Jensen's stubble dusted cheek against his own. Jensen's eyes were closed, his face slack and peaceful, almost like he was sleeping, like Jared could steal a kiss from him without letting Jensen know.
The atmosphere thickened again, space's darkness giving way to a rapid dawn. Jensen's body twitched intriguingly against Jared's, and their descent hit a jolt, like a cord snapping tight, then steadied once more.
Beneath them, the ground was still very gray and scattered with jagged edges that Jared couldn't make out. Way off to the side, Jared could see a cluster of roofs, shining dully in the sunlight. He tried to estimate where they would land, how close to civilization, but his vision was wobbling, the speed at which he was traveling ripping the air from his throat again, and it was all he could do to hang on to Jensen.
They were still coming down fast, too fast, and Jared reminded himself that Jensen was a scientist and an engineer, and therefore had a good grasp of physics and the damage that could be done to the human body by smashing it into the ground at high speed. Jared had felt vulnerable before in his life, but never so breakable. And Jensen, the guy he was clinging to, felt even smaller, like Jared could snap him right in two if he handled him too roughly.
He wondered if his hands were leaving bruises on Jensen's body.
As the earth raced up to meet them, Jared reflexively hunched his shoulders, gritted his teeth and braced for impact. His fingers dug so deep into Jensen he could swear he felt bone.
Everything spun dizzyingly, too big and too close, and then the air slammed out of Jared's lungs, his body exploded into hot pain, and the world switched off.
:::
The suns were like motes of dust in the sky. Jared blinked and watched them spin and dance, and finally sink into a single point of light. A shadow fell across his chest, thin and black and sharp, like a broken finger. He turned his head enough to see a piece of metal debris, rusted around the rivets that ran along its length.
Jensen's head was on his belly, his weight slung partly over Jared's thighs. He was still unconscious, but stirred when Jared shifted his knee. While Jensen gradually came awake, Jared ran through everything that hurt.
His body felt like one big bruise, and one brutal headache was just beginning to make itself known to him. There was blood in his mouth, and Jared worried about that, until he discovered he'd bitten the inside of his cheek.
All in all, he'd taken worse in bar fights. Not bad for a guy who fell out of a spaceship.
Jensen tried to push himself into a sitting position, and thoughtlessly planted his hand in Jared's lap in order to do it. Jared grunted, and Jensen flushed and pulled away, muttering, "Sorry."
Not particularly carefully, Jared shoved Jensen off of him, and managed to get to his feet. He expected there to be dizziness and swaying and possibly dropping back into unconsciousness. Instead, he was a little wobbly, and his head took a moment to adjust to the new position, but otherwise, he just felt mildly drunk.
"I think you should sit back down," said Jensen. "It's gonna take a while for-"
"Go to hell, you're supposed to be dead," Jared told him shortly.
They were surrounded by wrecked metal. Most of it was rusted and old, but there were a few pieces that still dazzled in the sun. At first, Jared thought it was a crash-site, then he saw how far it spread, onwards and outwards, and he shivered.
The roofs that he'd seen on the way down were nowhere in sight. In fact, there were no other signs of life.
"Where the hell have you landed us?" Jared said.
"Closest planet capable of supporting human life," said Jensen. "Please, would you sit back down before you fall down?"
"I'm totally fine," Jared said, spinning around to face him. He promptly lost his balance and went down hard.
He laid there, facedown in the dust and dirt, and tried to figure out why his chest hurt and why it was suddenly hard to breathe again. He fumbled under his body, and his fingertips touched something hot and wet, and then metal. The metal went right into his chest, and when Jared wriggled, he was pretty sure the metal was sticking out of his back.
He went abruptly cold, and shaking took over his body. He was pretty sure death was coming back for a second attempt on him.
"Oh, for crying out loud," Jensen muttered irritably, somewhere close by. "How many times a day am I supposed to save your life?"
Jared would have told him not to bother, but was preoccupied with passing out again.
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