Rule 26 (8 of ?, j2 au)
I'm afraid this is not a very nice chapter. Please bear with me?
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Rule 26 (8/?)
(J2 au)
When Jared came around, the only sign that he'd ever been impaled that remained was a bloody-tipped piece of metal lying beside him, and a hole in the front and back of his jumpsuit.
He fingered the frayed ends of the hole on his chest, and raised an eyebrow at Jensen. "You couldn't have fixed that too?"
Jensen was sitting on his ass in the dirt still, shoulders slumped forward. The back of his neck was wet with sweat. He looked over at Jared and grinned.
"Wanted to leave you a little something to remember the experience by," he said. His grin faded slowly as he went on looking at Jared, but that was apparently it for conversation.
Jared wasn't complaining. Any time he could ignore Jensen was just fine by him. He stood up, and scanned the horizon. There was civilization somewhere; he just had to figure out in which direction. But the wreckage-strewn wasteland stretched out all around him, equally unpromising wherever he looked.
He glanced back at Jensen, who was still just sitting there.
"Can't you use your magic to get us outta here?" he said.
Jensen didn't look at him, but Jared didn't miss the roll of his eyes. "It's not magic," he said. "Unless you call everything you don't understand magic, in which case, I can show you a really neat trick called 'long division' later. It's applied crystal manipulation. It's physics and math. It's not magic."
"Whatever. Can you use it to get us outta here?"
Jensen gave him a scathing look. "You're healed, buddy. Your feet work just fine. Walk."
Jared gritted his teeth. "Yeah, genius, but in what direction?"
Wobbling slightly, Jensen got to his feet. He turned in a slow circle to examine their surroundings, just as Jared had done. Then he pointed.
"That way," he said.
There was nothing distinctive about the section of horizon at which he was pointing. Jared hesitated. Anyone else, he'd ask them if they were sure. But Jensen was the guy who'd human comet-ed them through open space down to a relatively safe landing.
Jared started walking.
He didn't look back when, a second later, he heard Jensen behind him.
The day was hot and the air was uncomfortably dry. It wasn't long before Jared's jumpsuit was sticking to him. Jared counted his steps, rather than let his mind keep trying to mention how thirsty he was, let alone how tired. He'd reached one thousand steps a couple of times over, gone back to 'one' each time.
He didn't think Jensen was doing much better, although as Jensen couldn't match Jared's stride, he hung too far back for Jared to actually get a good look at him. Jensen was moving slower than Jared had expected, and his breathing was heavier.
Jared would have made a pointed comment about too much time spent in labs and not enough on the running machine, except he remembered the photos of Doctor Nekrotik on the front line of the battle when the Jateeri made their brief rebellion last year. Nobody could say the guy lived a sedentary lifestyle.
Unwillingly feeling a pang of concern he couldn't stamp down, Jared paused, and turned to allow Jensen to catch up. He frowned at the state of him. Jensen was white beneath a sheet of sweat. His eyes were dull and ringed with shadow. However, he was trudging a steady path through the metal debris, and he raised his eyebrows when he saw Jared waiting.
"How much still to go?" said Jared.
"Little way yet," Jensen said, gaze flicking back to the horizon.
Again, Jared wasn't completely convinced. He looked Jensen over, particularly noted how Jensen didn't look back at him. His lips drew into a thin line.
"You don't have the first fucking clue where we're going, do you?" Jared said. His voice was low, almost soft, but Jensen reflexively turned his face farther away from him.
A parched breeze drifted by them, and, somewhere close by, broken metal creaked. Jensen swallowed hard, then sighed.
"Do you?" Jared said again.
"No," Jensen agreed instantly, like he'd only been waiting for Jared to push.
Jared's patience was unraveling fast. They'd been walking for goddamn miles, and for all he knew, it was in the wrong goddamn direction. He was finding it hard to catch his breath. Rage, coupled with growing dehydration, made his head throb so heavily he could barely see straight.
"You know, if you'd wanted to kill me, you could'a just dropped me on my head when we fell out the airlock," he said, surprised by the evenness of his voice.
"You mean, when you pushed me out of the airlock?" said Jensen.
Jared blinked. "You wanna argue about that now? Now? When we're stranded in a fucking desert because you fucking said you knew where we were going?" That came out less even.
"Don't you think it's a little bit relevant that we wouldn't even be here if you hadn't tried to murder me?" Jensen snapped. "Again."
It missed the point so epically that Jared couldn't bear to even look at Jensen. He flung his arms up in disgust, and took a few steps away from him. But the same sense of injustice that made him want to give up, wouldn't allow him to let it go. He spun back towards Jensen.
"This is your fault!" he shouted. "This has been your fault from the fucking start! It's real simple, don't blow up planets and people won't want to throw you out of airlocks! Easy! Instead, I'm gonna die in a godforsaken wasteland, because you can fly us through open space but you can't find a fucking town to land us in!"
"Because flying through open space was so damn easy!" Jensen shouted back. He stalked forward, getting in Jared's face like he was building up to punching him. "And so was holding our bodies intact while traveling at phenomenal speed and then crash-landing! And then you falling on a fucking spike, which I have to fucking mend as well? Easy, right? All so fucking easy! Just like magic! Except it's not, and I don't have unlimited power, Jared! I'm all out, okay?"
He cut off. The fury on his face abruptly turned to wretchedness. He was still in Jared's space, breathing hard. "Empty," he said finally.
The sun was starting to sink in the sky, but Jared didn't notice it for the sheer desolation in Jensen's eyes.
"What are you talking about?" he said.
Jensen swiped a hand over his face. He wavered slightly as he backed away from Jared.
"This is a dead planet." His gaze flickered back to Jared before Jared could protest. "Oh, there's life here, sure, but it's…" He swallowed and visibly tried to pull himself together. "Remember what I said about crystals? Being everywhere? Well, they're not here. Not in any meaningful amount. There are places like this in the galaxy, but they're rare. Really rare. They have a trace presence of crystal in the atmosphere and earth, but it's like the difference between a glass of water and an ocean. There's no crystal here for me."
The pallor of Jensen's skin, his obvious sickliness, took on cold significance. Jared saw Jensen see the sudden realization on Jared's face, and the lines of his body went stiff and hunched.
Jensen was powerless.
"Maybe you can understand," Jensen said slowly, "why I didn't come right out and tell you. Guess it's too late for that now." He lifted one shoulder in a desultory shrug. "Congratulations, Jared. You were right, you get to kill Doctor Nekrotik."
Jared stared at him some more. The sound of his heart beating was all there was to fill him up.
Dusk coming on had brought the breeze with it, and the air moved around them both. The scattered wreckage threw a strange arrangement of shadows over the ground, made the planet seem busy and full where there was only nothingness.
Jensen tilted a look in Jared's direction. The sidelong glance from under lowered eyelashes should have seemed flirtatious, but the light in his eyes was too bitter. "Lost your nerve?" he said.
"I'm thinking," Jared snapped.
He took a heavy breath, then bent down and hefted a thick piece of metal in his hands. One good swing with it, and he could shatter Jensen's skull. He flexed his fingers around the metal, swiped his thumb through the flaking rust, red-brown as dried blood.
He looked back at Jensen. The rise and fall of Jensen's chest was coming faster, but he held Jared's gaze in challenge. In the colorless light of the planet's setting sun, the shadows around his over-bright eyes sunk even blacker, Jensen looked about as crazy as Jared had ever seen him.
"Imma watch you do it," Jensen said on a breath. "Imma let you, but you're gonna have to do it with my eyes on you."
Muscles bunching, Jared pulled the metal bar back over his shoulder.
One good swing, and Jensen would be bleeding out at Jared's feet.
In his head, Jared dragged up every bad memory he had of the night his homeworld burned. He remembered his mom sweeping him out of bed in the darkness, and he remembered the alien orange-blue glow of the fire as they fled down the street to the shuttle port. He'd seen people burning, people he knew. He remembered his little sister crying, her hand sweaty in his as he clung onto her through the crush of the crowds around them.
And then coming to Stantone, where they had nothing, and Jared's dad had never again asked Jared what he wanted to be when he grew up, because they all knew that Jared would never be a teacher or an engineer, only a beggar and a thief.
The sun brushed against the horizon, then sank below it.
Jared let his arm drop.
A small sigh shook out of Jensen. His shoulders dropped, and his eyes fluttered shut.
"Don't get too comfortable," Jared said. "I got a hang-up about killing in cold blood, but I'll get over it, and soon."
Jensen ducked his head in a nod, flashing Jared a barbed smile. "I'll live every minute like it's my last," he promised.
:::
It was dark and they were lost, and Jensen was having increasing trouble staying on his feet. The first two times he fell down, Jared left him to get himself back on his feet. The third time, it didn't look like Jensen was getting back up. Unable to decide whether he was more pissed with Jensen for being weak, or himself for not being able to ignore it, Jared strode back to him, grabbed him under the arm, and ungently hauled him upright.
"I was getting there," Jensen growled, but the effect was diminished by his inability to focus on Jared.
Jared rolled his eyes, let go of him, then grabbed him again when Jensen swayed dangerously.
"Just walk," he said, letting go of him.
They didn't even manage another half a mile before Jensen dropped again.
The wind was fast and stinging. In the dark, all Jared could make out of the path ahead was a forest of twisted metal. Night was cool at least, though Jared's mouth was cracked and dry.
A little way in front, Jared could see the bulk of a large curve of metal, which he figured was the best shelter they were likely to find tonight. Ignoring the unpleasant reality of their situation - that they were possibly heading farther and farther into wilderness - Jared decided that they'd done as much walking as was reasonable for one day.
Maybe Jensen would be stronger once he'd had some rest, and would be able to get them out of here. Jared slipped his arm around Jensen's shoulders and took his weight. Jensen's head lolled into the crook of Jared's neck. Maybe he should kill Jensen before he had chance to recover.
All but carrying Jensen, Jared got them to the shelter, which turned out to be the ripped out bridge of a small shuttle. He dumped Jensen, who was disturbingly still, on a passenger seat that was mostly intact. Then, having to do everything mostly by feel rather than sight, Jared searched the shuttle's remains for possible supplies to scavenge.
Behind a small panel in the far corner, Jared found the shuttle's emergency stash of fluids and basic rations, all with their sterilization seals unbroken.
He also found a skeleton. The bones were humanoid, still solid and hard. Jared traced his hands over them cautiously, and the back of his neck prickled when he realized that some of the bones were missing.
He cast an uneasy look back over his shoulder. The wind whipped around him, toying with his hair, and Jensen was corpse-quiet in the chair Jared had left him in. There were no lights in the distance, no faraway noise of civilization, only the quietly creaking, wrecked metal of the mass graveyard of ships.
Quickly gathering the supplies up, Jared settled back close to Jensen. The first tube of fluids, he drank himself. The smart part of his brain kept reminding him to drink it slowly, so as not to have to puke it back up in five minutes, but the thirsty, 'been scorched in a goddamn wasteland all day' part shouted loudest.
Then, Jared broke open another tube, and leaned over Jensen. Jensen's eyes were closed, and his breathing was labored and thick. His complexion was ghostly, still shining with sweat.
His body was cold.
Jared curled his fingers around Jensen's jaw and tilted his mouth open. "Here," he said, pushing the tube to his lips. "C'mon, drink."
Jensen didn't drink so much as Jared poured fluid down his throat, but at least he swallowed. He sagged as soon as Jared let go of him, and it was only the rasp of his breathing that told Jared he was still alive.
Curling his arms around his knees, Jared sat on the ground at Jensen's feet, and waited for him to stop breathing. He intended only to doze, to rest his eyes - because that skeleton over there hadn't ditched its own bones - but he was too tired to fight sleep when it came.
:::
It was silent when Jared woke. The sun was a tiny pinprick just at the edge of the buckled metal rim of the shuttle wreckage. There were no clouds in the milky yellow sky. And all across the landscape, the scattered metal glittered in the dawn like the ocean surface.
The silence registered again with Jared.
He twisted around where he sat, and his muscles cramped and ached. Jensen was still slumped in the chair, head bowed so low his chin touched his chest. Hand moving ever so slowly, Jared reached out and curled his fingertips in to touch Jensen's throat.
His skin was icy, and Jared drew a quick, shaky breath and pressed his fingers down harder.
There it was, a shallow pulse. It surely couldn't be much longer.
The noise Jensen made was barely even a breath, the tiniest grunt that Jared wasn't even sure he'd really heard until Jensen's eyes flickered open. His gaze was muzzy, and missed Jared completely.
"'m'I awake?" he murmured. "Where's Jeff?"
At that moment, the angle of the sun flooded the shuttle with light, and it seemed to Jared then that everything was very clear. Everything was picked out in perfect, serene detail. There was peace, and it all came from this blasted shuttle on a planet on which nobody would ever think to look, where Doctor Nekrotik was dying.
Jared couldn't tell himself that if he stayed with Jensen now, if somehow they got out of this, other planets wouldn't burn. It didn't matter how frail Jensen was in this second, because as soon as he was powered up again, the killing would start again.
If Jared had had a choice, he would have picked killing Doctor Nekrotik in some act of glorious assassination. Jensen would have been wearing the mask and in the middle of yet one more atrocity, and Jared could have felt noble when he killed him.
He wouldn't have picked this.
Jared licked his lips. "He's coming," he said. "Jeff's on his way." His stomach turned over sickeningly and the words came out shivering and light. "Listen, Jensen, I'm just gonna scout around a little. I think I see some buildings up ahead. You just stay here, sleep. I'll be back soon."
As Jared walked away, it didn't matter how many times he told himself that he'd just killed Doctor Nekrotik, that it had to be done for the good of the galaxy. He still felt like a murderer.
:::
It wasn't like Jared could have got Jensen this far anyway. The sun was baking down already and it wasn't even high in the sky yet. Jared was having enough trouble keeping his own feet coming down one in front of the other, without having to carry Jensen as well.
Besides, even if he had managed to get Jensen to civilization, and even if said civilization had a doctor or healer, what could they do for Jensen? Jensen needed crystals. The crystals were what kept the withered, centuries-old heart in his chest beating and Jensen had already said there were no crystals here.
Furthermore, how was keeping Jensen's heart beating a good thing? Jensen would have got well again, and got himself off the planet, and by the end of the week, a couple of thousand people would be dead.
Jared hadn't had any choice but to leave Jensen. And why was he even still thinking about this?
He knew why he was thinking about this. He was thinking about it because he wasn't like Doctor Nekrotik. When people died, Jared gave a damn. Jared wished he could not care - because it was Doctor Nekrotik for crying out loud, and there wasn't a person in the galaxy who deserved death more than him - but Jared cared when he killed people. Even if said 'people' was Doctor Nekrotik, who Jared had only been able to push out of an airlock because he'd come to apologize to Jared for shouting at him.
Could he vomit when his body was already dried out?
It had just been sheer bad luck, that Jared's opportunity to rid the galaxy of its monstrous dictator had come when Doctor Nekrotik was acting all human. And vulnerable.
Perhaps it was how the scales were going to balance out, Jared thought, dimly watching the horizon tilt unevenly in front of him. Perhaps Jared got a pass for killing Jensen, which had to be done because he was evil, but the universe wanted to make sure he felt really guilty about it all the same.
And he did feel guilty. Because in any other circumstances, maybe Jared wouldn't have wanted to walk away from Jensen.
Something on the ground made him stumble, and looking down to see what it was was a mistake because Jared was on his knees before he could catch himself.
With clumsy hands, he fumbled for the last tube of fluids. This was probably the stupidest way anyone had ever died.
Metal clattered behind him, and Jared looked back over his shoulder, ready to tell Jensen that if Jared was going to feel so bad about killing him, the least he could do was stay dead. The air swam with heat, leaving nothing but six large shapes in the distance.
Then the figures drew close enough for Jared to make out men, riding some kind of low, four-legged beasts.
Jared pushed himself to his feet and turned to face them. He'd lived too long in Stantone to view strangers as anything other than a potential threat, but the same survival instinct that was telling him that, was reminding him that in the condition he was in, any sign of life was a good sign.
"Hey there, friend," one of the riders called out, in broken Trade dialect. "Hold up."
When he came in closer, Jared saw there was something wrong with the man's face. With his hands too, where they were knotted around the reins of the beast he was riding. His eyes were too far apart, and his chin was flat, smoothed into his neck. Two of his fingers on one hand were distinctly thicker than all the rest. His companions were also misshapen, the proportions of their bodies subtly off in unsettling ways.
But the man was smiling, as were his friends, and it wasn't like Jared could turn down help because the person offering it was ugly, or, indeed, for any reason at all.
"Your ship come down around here?" said the man, lifting one hand to shield his eyes as he scanned their surroundings.
"Something like," said Jared warily.
The beasts the men were riding had leathery, mottled hide, though their heads were long and equine. The joints of their legs bent at such a sharp angle their bellies weren't high off the ground. They blinked their watery, black eyes at Jared.
"Were there other survivors?" the man asked. "We have a healer at our post."
Jared bit his tongue, and mutely shook his head.
The man nodded. "Just you then? I'm sorry." He didn't look sorry. He was still smiling, showing Jared cracked teeth and yellowing gums.
Eyes still on Jared, the man tensed to dismount, and some blind instinct told Jared to run. It didn't do much good. The leather-horses ran him down before he could get far, circling him while their riders laughed. Finding himself surrounded, Jared snatched up a strip of metal to hold them at bay. They still laughed, and Jared guessed, considering there were six of them versus one dead on his feet him, he couldn't fault their sense of humor.
"Don't fight," the leader said. "We don't want to damage you. You get damaged, we lose profits."
Slavers, then. Vultures.
Jared would have spat at their feet if he'd had saliva enough.
"Better warn you right now," he said, "I haven't been in a real cooperative mood lately."
He lifted the metal bar, ready to swing. His gaze caught on the bundle slung over the back of one of the leather-horses. He'd barely noticed it before, seen it only as a sack of supplies. But the chase had unsettled it, and hanging slack from under a filthy blanket was one black-gloved hand.
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Rule 26 (8/?)
(J2 au)
When Jared came around, the only sign that he'd ever been impaled that remained was a bloody-tipped piece of metal lying beside him, and a hole in the front and back of his jumpsuit.
He fingered the frayed ends of the hole on his chest, and raised an eyebrow at Jensen. "You couldn't have fixed that too?"
Jensen was sitting on his ass in the dirt still, shoulders slumped forward. The back of his neck was wet with sweat. He looked over at Jared and grinned.
"Wanted to leave you a little something to remember the experience by," he said. His grin faded slowly as he went on looking at Jared, but that was apparently it for conversation.
Jared wasn't complaining. Any time he could ignore Jensen was just fine by him. He stood up, and scanned the horizon. There was civilization somewhere; he just had to figure out in which direction. But the wreckage-strewn wasteland stretched out all around him, equally unpromising wherever he looked.
He glanced back at Jensen, who was still just sitting there.
"Can't you use your magic to get us outta here?" he said.
Jensen didn't look at him, but Jared didn't miss the roll of his eyes. "It's not magic," he said. "Unless you call everything you don't understand magic, in which case, I can show you a really neat trick called 'long division' later. It's applied crystal manipulation. It's physics and math. It's not magic."
"Whatever. Can you use it to get us outta here?"
Jensen gave him a scathing look. "You're healed, buddy. Your feet work just fine. Walk."
Jared gritted his teeth. "Yeah, genius, but in what direction?"
Wobbling slightly, Jensen got to his feet. He turned in a slow circle to examine their surroundings, just as Jared had done. Then he pointed.
"That way," he said.
There was nothing distinctive about the section of horizon at which he was pointing. Jared hesitated. Anyone else, he'd ask them if they were sure. But Jensen was the guy who'd human comet-ed them through open space down to a relatively safe landing.
Jared started walking.
He didn't look back when, a second later, he heard Jensen behind him.
The day was hot and the air was uncomfortably dry. It wasn't long before Jared's jumpsuit was sticking to him. Jared counted his steps, rather than let his mind keep trying to mention how thirsty he was, let alone how tired. He'd reached one thousand steps a couple of times over, gone back to 'one' each time.
He didn't think Jensen was doing much better, although as Jensen couldn't match Jared's stride, he hung too far back for Jared to actually get a good look at him. Jensen was moving slower than Jared had expected, and his breathing was heavier.
Jared would have made a pointed comment about too much time spent in labs and not enough on the running machine, except he remembered the photos of Doctor Nekrotik on the front line of the battle when the Jateeri made their brief rebellion last year. Nobody could say the guy lived a sedentary lifestyle.
Unwillingly feeling a pang of concern he couldn't stamp down, Jared paused, and turned to allow Jensen to catch up. He frowned at the state of him. Jensen was white beneath a sheet of sweat. His eyes were dull and ringed with shadow. However, he was trudging a steady path through the metal debris, and he raised his eyebrows when he saw Jared waiting.
"How much still to go?" said Jared.
"Little way yet," Jensen said, gaze flicking back to the horizon.
Again, Jared wasn't completely convinced. He looked Jensen over, particularly noted how Jensen didn't look back at him. His lips drew into a thin line.
"You don't have the first fucking clue where we're going, do you?" Jared said. His voice was low, almost soft, but Jensen reflexively turned his face farther away from him.
A parched breeze drifted by them, and, somewhere close by, broken metal creaked. Jensen swallowed hard, then sighed.
"Do you?" Jared said again.
"No," Jensen agreed instantly, like he'd only been waiting for Jared to push.
Jared's patience was unraveling fast. They'd been walking for goddamn miles, and for all he knew, it was in the wrong goddamn direction. He was finding it hard to catch his breath. Rage, coupled with growing dehydration, made his head throb so heavily he could barely see straight.
"You know, if you'd wanted to kill me, you could'a just dropped me on my head when we fell out the airlock," he said, surprised by the evenness of his voice.
"You mean, when you pushed me out of the airlock?" said Jensen.
Jared blinked. "You wanna argue about that now? Now? When we're stranded in a fucking desert because you fucking said you knew where we were going?" That came out less even.
"Don't you think it's a little bit relevant that we wouldn't even be here if you hadn't tried to murder me?" Jensen snapped. "Again."
It missed the point so epically that Jared couldn't bear to even look at Jensen. He flung his arms up in disgust, and took a few steps away from him. But the same sense of injustice that made him want to give up, wouldn't allow him to let it go. He spun back towards Jensen.
"This is your fault!" he shouted. "This has been your fault from the fucking start! It's real simple, don't blow up planets and people won't want to throw you out of airlocks! Easy! Instead, I'm gonna die in a godforsaken wasteland, because you can fly us through open space but you can't find a fucking town to land us in!"
"Because flying through open space was so damn easy!" Jensen shouted back. He stalked forward, getting in Jared's face like he was building up to punching him. "And so was holding our bodies intact while traveling at phenomenal speed and then crash-landing! And then you falling on a fucking spike, which I have to fucking mend as well? Easy, right? All so fucking easy! Just like magic! Except it's not, and I don't have unlimited power, Jared! I'm all out, okay?"
He cut off. The fury on his face abruptly turned to wretchedness. He was still in Jared's space, breathing hard. "Empty," he said finally.
The sun was starting to sink in the sky, but Jared didn't notice it for the sheer desolation in Jensen's eyes.
"What are you talking about?" he said.
Jensen swiped a hand over his face. He wavered slightly as he backed away from Jared.
"This is a dead planet." His gaze flickered back to Jared before Jared could protest. "Oh, there's life here, sure, but it's…" He swallowed and visibly tried to pull himself together. "Remember what I said about crystals? Being everywhere? Well, they're not here. Not in any meaningful amount. There are places like this in the galaxy, but they're rare. Really rare. They have a trace presence of crystal in the atmosphere and earth, but it's like the difference between a glass of water and an ocean. There's no crystal here for me."
The pallor of Jensen's skin, his obvious sickliness, took on cold significance. Jared saw Jensen see the sudden realization on Jared's face, and the lines of his body went stiff and hunched.
Jensen was powerless.
"Maybe you can understand," Jensen said slowly, "why I didn't come right out and tell you. Guess it's too late for that now." He lifted one shoulder in a desultory shrug. "Congratulations, Jared. You were right, you get to kill Doctor Nekrotik."
Jared stared at him some more. The sound of his heart beating was all there was to fill him up.
Dusk coming on had brought the breeze with it, and the air moved around them both. The scattered wreckage threw a strange arrangement of shadows over the ground, made the planet seem busy and full where there was only nothingness.
Jensen tilted a look in Jared's direction. The sidelong glance from under lowered eyelashes should have seemed flirtatious, but the light in his eyes was too bitter. "Lost your nerve?" he said.
"I'm thinking," Jared snapped.
He took a heavy breath, then bent down and hefted a thick piece of metal in his hands. One good swing with it, and he could shatter Jensen's skull. He flexed his fingers around the metal, swiped his thumb through the flaking rust, red-brown as dried blood.
He looked back at Jensen. The rise and fall of Jensen's chest was coming faster, but he held Jared's gaze in challenge. In the colorless light of the planet's setting sun, the shadows around his over-bright eyes sunk even blacker, Jensen looked about as crazy as Jared had ever seen him.
"Imma watch you do it," Jensen said on a breath. "Imma let you, but you're gonna have to do it with my eyes on you."
Muscles bunching, Jared pulled the metal bar back over his shoulder.
One good swing, and Jensen would be bleeding out at Jared's feet.
In his head, Jared dragged up every bad memory he had of the night his homeworld burned. He remembered his mom sweeping him out of bed in the darkness, and he remembered the alien orange-blue glow of the fire as they fled down the street to the shuttle port. He'd seen people burning, people he knew. He remembered his little sister crying, her hand sweaty in his as he clung onto her through the crush of the crowds around them.
And then coming to Stantone, where they had nothing, and Jared's dad had never again asked Jared what he wanted to be when he grew up, because they all knew that Jared would never be a teacher or an engineer, only a beggar and a thief.
The sun brushed against the horizon, then sank below it.
Jared let his arm drop.
A small sigh shook out of Jensen. His shoulders dropped, and his eyes fluttered shut.
"Don't get too comfortable," Jared said. "I got a hang-up about killing in cold blood, but I'll get over it, and soon."
Jensen ducked his head in a nod, flashing Jared a barbed smile. "I'll live every minute like it's my last," he promised.
:::
It was dark and they were lost, and Jensen was having increasing trouble staying on his feet. The first two times he fell down, Jared left him to get himself back on his feet. The third time, it didn't look like Jensen was getting back up. Unable to decide whether he was more pissed with Jensen for being weak, or himself for not being able to ignore it, Jared strode back to him, grabbed him under the arm, and ungently hauled him upright.
"I was getting there," Jensen growled, but the effect was diminished by his inability to focus on Jared.
Jared rolled his eyes, let go of him, then grabbed him again when Jensen swayed dangerously.
"Just walk," he said, letting go of him.
They didn't even manage another half a mile before Jensen dropped again.
The wind was fast and stinging. In the dark, all Jared could make out of the path ahead was a forest of twisted metal. Night was cool at least, though Jared's mouth was cracked and dry.
A little way in front, Jared could see the bulk of a large curve of metal, which he figured was the best shelter they were likely to find tonight. Ignoring the unpleasant reality of their situation - that they were possibly heading farther and farther into wilderness - Jared decided that they'd done as much walking as was reasonable for one day.
Maybe Jensen would be stronger once he'd had some rest, and would be able to get them out of here. Jared slipped his arm around Jensen's shoulders and took his weight. Jensen's head lolled into the crook of Jared's neck. Maybe he should kill Jensen before he had chance to recover.
All but carrying Jensen, Jared got them to the shelter, which turned out to be the ripped out bridge of a small shuttle. He dumped Jensen, who was disturbingly still, on a passenger seat that was mostly intact. Then, having to do everything mostly by feel rather than sight, Jared searched the shuttle's remains for possible supplies to scavenge.
Behind a small panel in the far corner, Jared found the shuttle's emergency stash of fluids and basic rations, all with their sterilization seals unbroken.
He also found a skeleton. The bones were humanoid, still solid and hard. Jared traced his hands over them cautiously, and the back of his neck prickled when he realized that some of the bones were missing.
He cast an uneasy look back over his shoulder. The wind whipped around him, toying with his hair, and Jensen was corpse-quiet in the chair Jared had left him in. There were no lights in the distance, no faraway noise of civilization, only the quietly creaking, wrecked metal of the mass graveyard of ships.
Quickly gathering the supplies up, Jared settled back close to Jensen. The first tube of fluids, he drank himself. The smart part of his brain kept reminding him to drink it slowly, so as not to have to puke it back up in five minutes, but the thirsty, 'been scorched in a goddamn wasteland all day' part shouted loudest.
Then, Jared broke open another tube, and leaned over Jensen. Jensen's eyes were closed, and his breathing was labored and thick. His complexion was ghostly, still shining with sweat.
His body was cold.
Jared curled his fingers around Jensen's jaw and tilted his mouth open. "Here," he said, pushing the tube to his lips. "C'mon, drink."
Jensen didn't drink so much as Jared poured fluid down his throat, but at least he swallowed. He sagged as soon as Jared let go of him, and it was only the rasp of his breathing that told Jared he was still alive.
Curling his arms around his knees, Jared sat on the ground at Jensen's feet, and waited for him to stop breathing. He intended only to doze, to rest his eyes - because that skeleton over there hadn't ditched its own bones - but he was too tired to fight sleep when it came.
:::
It was silent when Jared woke. The sun was a tiny pinprick just at the edge of the buckled metal rim of the shuttle wreckage. There were no clouds in the milky yellow sky. And all across the landscape, the scattered metal glittered in the dawn like the ocean surface.
The silence registered again with Jared.
He twisted around where he sat, and his muscles cramped and ached. Jensen was still slumped in the chair, head bowed so low his chin touched his chest. Hand moving ever so slowly, Jared reached out and curled his fingertips in to touch Jensen's throat.
His skin was icy, and Jared drew a quick, shaky breath and pressed his fingers down harder.
There it was, a shallow pulse. It surely couldn't be much longer.
The noise Jensen made was barely even a breath, the tiniest grunt that Jared wasn't even sure he'd really heard until Jensen's eyes flickered open. His gaze was muzzy, and missed Jared completely.
"'m'I awake?" he murmured. "Where's Jeff?"
At that moment, the angle of the sun flooded the shuttle with light, and it seemed to Jared then that everything was very clear. Everything was picked out in perfect, serene detail. There was peace, and it all came from this blasted shuttle on a planet on which nobody would ever think to look, where Doctor Nekrotik was dying.
Jared couldn't tell himself that if he stayed with Jensen now, if somehow they got out of this, other planets wouldn't burn. It didn't matter how frail Jensen was in this second, because as soon as he was powered up again, the killing would start again.
If Jared had had a choice, he would have picked killing Doctor Nekrotik in some act of glorious assassination. Jensen would have been wearing the mask and in the middle of yet one more atrocity, and Jared could have felt noble when he killed him.
He wouldn't have picked this.
Jared licked his lips. "He's coming," he said. "Jeff's on his way." His stomach turned over sickeningly and the words came out shivering and light. "Listen, Jensen, I'm just gonna scout around a little. I think I see some buildings up ahead. You just stay here, sleep. I'll be back soon."
As Jared walked away, it didn't matter how many times he told himself that he'd just killed Doctor Nekrotik, that it had to be done for the good of the galaxy. He still felt like a murderer.
:::
It wasn't like Jared could have got Jensen this far anyway. The sun was baking down already and it wasn't even high in the sky yet. Jared was having enough trouble keeping his own feet coming down one in front of the other, without having to carry Jensen as well.
Besides, even if he had managed to get Jensen to civilization, and even if said civilization had a doctor or healer, what could they do for Jensen? Jensen needed crystals. The crystals were what kept the withered, centuries-old heart in his chest beating and Jensen had already said there were no crystals here.
Furthermore, how was keeping Jensen's heart beating a good thing? Jensen would have got well again, and got himself off the planet, and by the end of the week, a couple of thousand people would be dead.
Jared hadn't had any choice but to leave Jensen. And why was he even still thinking about this?
He knew why he was thinking about this. He was thinking about it because he wasn't like Doctor Nekrotik. When people died, Jared gave a damn. Jared wished he could not care - because it was Doctor Nekrotik for crying out loud, and there wasn't a person in the galaxy who deserved death more than him - but Jared cared when he killed people. Even if said 'people' was Doctor Nekrotik, who Jared had only been able to push out of an airlock because he'd come to apologize to Jared for shouting at him.
Could he vomit when his body was already dried out?
It had just been sheer bad luck, that Jared's opportunity to rid the galaxy of its monstrous dictator had come when Doctor Nekrotik was acting all human. And vulnerable.
Perhaps it was how the scales were going to balance out, Jared thought, dimly watching the horizon tilt unevenly in front of him. Perhaps Jared got a pass for killing Jensen, which had to be done because he was evil, but the universe wanted to make sure he felt really guilty about it all the same.
And he did feel guilty. Because in any other circumstances, maybe Jared wouldn't have wanted to walk away from Jensen.
Something on the ground made him stumble, and looking down to see what it was was a mistake because Jared was on his knees before he could catch himself.
With clumsy hands, he fumbled for the last tube of fluids. This was probably the stupidest way anyone had ever died.
Metal clattered behind him, and Jared looked back over his shoulder, ready to tell Jensen that if Jared was going to feel so bad about killing him, the least he could do was stay dead. The air swam with heat, leaving nothing but six large shapes in the distance.
Then the figures drew close enough for Jared to make out men, riding some kind of low, four-legged beasts.
Jared pushed himself to his feet and turned to face them. He'd lived too long in Stantone to view strangers as anything other than a potential threat, but the same survival instinct that was telling him that, was reminding him that in the condition he was in, any sign of life was a good sign.
"Hey there, friend," one of the riders called out, in broken Trade dialect. "Hold up."
When he came in closer, Jared saw there was something wrong with the man's face. With his hands too, where they were knotted around the reins of the beast he was riding. His eyes were too far apart, and his chin was flat, smoothed into his neck. Two of his fingers on one hand were distinctly thicker than all the rest. His companions were also misshapen, the proportions of their bodies subtly off in unsettling ways.
But the man was smiling, as were his friends, and it wasn't like Jared could turn down help because the person offering it was ugly, or, indeed, for any reason at all.
"Your ship come down around here?" said the man, lifting one hand to shield his eyes as he scanned their surroundings.
"Something like," said Jared warily.
The beasts the men were riding had leathery, mottled hide, though their heads were long and equine. The joints of their legs bent at such a sharp angle their bellies weren't high off the ground. They blinked their watery, black eyes at Jared.
"Were there other survivors?" the man asked. "We have a healer at our post."
Jared bit his tongue, and mutely shook his head.
The man nodded. "Just you then? I'm sorry." He didn't look sorry. He was still smiling, showing Jared cracked teeth and yellowing gums.
Eyes still on Jared, the man tensed to dismount, and some blind instinct told Jared to run. It didn't do much good. The leather-horses ran him down before he could get far, circling him while their riders laughed. Finding himself surrounded, Jared snatched up a strip of metal to hold them at bay. They still laughed, and Jared guessed, considering there were six of them versus one dead on his feet him, he couldn't fault their sense of humor.
"Don't fight," the leader said. "We don't want to damage you. You get damaged, we lose profits."
Slavers, then. Vultures.
Jared would have spat at their feet if he'd had saliva enough.
"Better warn you right now," he said, "I haven't been in a real cooperative mood lately."
He lifted the metal bar, ready to swing. His gaze caught on the bundle slung over the back of one of the leather-horses. He'd barely noticed it before, seen it only as a sack of supplies. But the chase had unsettled it, and hanging slack from under a filthy blanket was one black-gloved hand.
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