Jared Padalecki and the Faith of the Feathered Serpent (Chapter Four)
Title: Jared Padalecki and the Faith of the Feathered Serpent
Author: hunters_retreat
Fandom: J2 (CWRPS)
Pairings: Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles
Summary: They were legend, the Egyptologist with a love of mysteries and the General with a love of adventure. Over the years they'd faced everything Egypt had to offer, never backing down and never giving in, until they'd tamed her secrets. What happens when they find themselves leaving their home for the wonders of the new world in search of a missing colleague? What happens when Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are surrounded by jungles and ruins and find the faith of the fallen serpent?
Jensen sat at the front edge of the small boat, watching the shores as they passed slowly by. Alligators infested the waters, but none seemed willing to move from their resting spots along the banks. The scene was too familiar for Jared, the images bringing forth a cleared memory of his vision. He didn’t say anything to Jensen, but he didn’t need to. Jensen was always on his guard when they were away from home. Jim teased that not even in Cairo was Jensen completely at ease. So long as Jared was on the streets where someone might hurt him, Jensen was ready to fight. Jared didn’t know for sure if he was right or not. It was a rather pleasant thought though, the idea that his lover was always looking out for him. Jared might be the bigger of the two men, but Jensen was the fighter to Jared’s scholar. He’d learned a little of fighting over time, Jensen teaching him what he could as Jared’s time allowed it. It appeased his sense of symmetry, this knowledge that Jensen had started out as a simple scribe once upon a time as well.
Their guide was silent now, though he’d been more than willing to talk to Jared once he’d managed to figure out the local dialect. There were still a few words that threw him, things that were original to this place and time, but he’d managed to stumble through just fine.
Jared shifted slowly in the boat, moving forward to sit next to Jensen. “What did you learn earlier?” he asked. The sound of the motor behind them gave them a little privacy from their guide and Jensen looked over the landscape one last time before turning his green eyes to Jared.
“You saw that?”
Jared smiled, knowing that he’d surprised Jensen. Jared knew he had a tendency to get caught up in his work to the point that nothing else existed. Jensen had never quite figured out that he was the one exception to that though. Jared always looked up when Jensen was near, instinct telling him when the man was close. His eyes tracked him through crowded streets and found him in rooms filled with museum patrons.
Jensen shook his head and smiled back at him. “The locals are all pretty spooked. There have always been missing people, the jungle gets some, some just run away trying to find something better, but in the last six months a lot more people have gone missing than usual. It’s not just the teenagers and the fringe element anymore either. People with families and stable lives are gone. One of the women I talked to said that her sister lives in a village twenty miles south of her and the same thing was happening there.”
“I don’t like the sound of this.”
“And yet here we are, sitting in a boat leading us deeper into the jungle,” Jensen teased. As much as they both wanted to keep the other safe, it was always tempered with the need to explore, the desire to learn something new and exciting. As Jared watched Jensen’s smile, he realized it’d been too long for the both of them.
“I’m sure we could talk our guide into turning around if you can’t handle it,” Jared faked his concern.
“As if you could turn around right now Jared,” Jensen looked back to the river and took in a deep breath before releasing it, the set of his shoulders relaxing slightly as he did so. “It’s beautiful here.”
“Deadly.”
“When isn’t it?” Jensen smiled at him and the darkness was there again, making Jared wonder if his lover was seeing the here and now, or if his mind was looking back across the ancient Nile.
The trip lasted almost three hours thanks to the small motor on their guide’s boat, but it allowed Jared the time to categorize things in his head, to look at what was before them and notice the difference between book and reality, to learn a world that was foreign to him outside of heated debates with his friend.
When they finally stepped off the boat, their guide let him know he’d be back the next day to check on them. It was a good arrangement, giving Jensen and Jared the freedom to work the site with the knowledge that they could go home in the morning should they need it.
Jensen already had their packs out of the boat and had his around his shoulders, ready to start up the path, his eyes taking in the jungle around them but always flickering back to Jared and the guide.
When the guide left, Jared came up and grabbed his pack, the lighter of the two which Jensen would surely tease him about even though he was the one that packed them.
“Let’s see what we can find, shall we?”
Up the path a short way they found themselves walking through stone hallways. There were so many things he wanted to say about the beauty of the site, about the world they’d just stepped into but there were no words to do it justice. The splendor of the lush jungle as it overtook a culture’s legacy was too immense for anything he could say.
Jensen found a single word that seemed to fit the moment though. “Damn,” the expletive was breathless with Jensen’s awe and admiration.
Jared smiled at his lover’s back and continued along the path. He wanted to climb to the top of the Acropolis, to see the amazing works that he knew Chris had begun to uncover here, but he pushed down his own impatience and tried to take inventory of their location instead.
“What do you need me to do Jared?” Jensen asked as they looked out across the first plaza, steps leading up and buildings in all directions around them.
His words brought Jared away from the scenery. The light of the jungle made Jensen’s eyes glow and he let out a shuddered breath, his hands itching to touch, to press Jensen against the walls of the stone city and never come up for air. Jensen seemed to sense something in his eyes because his own grew darker in response. Jensen took a step back though, keeping the distance they both knew they needed to keep at that moment.
Jared cleared his throat and looked away for a moment before trusting himself to look at Jensen again. “There should be some evidence that Chris was here. We should start in the plaza and work our way out until we find something.”
Jensen nodded, but it was the General behind his eyes. The General wasn’t a separate part of Jensen as much as he was a mantel to put on when his emotions were too close to the surface and he needed to keep the distance, or when the past came crashing in and he needed to remove himself from the here and now. He became more formal and he touched Jared less when he was like that, but it was still his lover and the passion and compassion that drew him to Jensen had all started with the man before him.
“He wouldn’t have set up a base here in the plaza,” Jensen said, knowing from experience how archeologists worked a site. “I’ll take a look at the most promising positions if you want to start looking in here. If you need to go up the stairs, let me know though.”
Jared nodded, taking the rebuke for what it was. “Yes sir, General sir,” he saw the smirk on his lover’s lips and knew that he’d managed to get through the stone wall no matter how hard Jensen was fighting it just then.
He didn’t push it anymore than that though. They had work to do. If something had happened to Chris while he was at the site, he needed to figure it out before any more time passed.
Jensen followed him up the stairs and Jared was beginning to wish they’d started at the top and worked their way down. After a long day of searching, walking up the stone stairs to the highest tips of the jungle canopy seemed more than his legs could take. Jensen didn’t say anything, but stayed a step behind him, as if ready to catch him should he fall. “Damn fool,” Jared murmured to himself. If he fell back on Jensen and he did try to catch him, it’d just result in them both falling down the stairs. If he were less sure of himself, Jared might take it as an insult, but that was just Jensen though.
“You think Chris really left something up here?”
“No, but its worth looking at anyway.”
They’d found the place where Chris had set up camp and he was grateful that they had physical proof that his friend had been there. It wasn’t something anyone else would have noticed, but Chris had taught Jared how to set up a camp and he had strong beliefs about how to do it. The position of everything in the camp screamed Chris to him, even if it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else.
Even without Jensen’s confirmation though, he’d known that Chris hadn’t been there in a while. He regretted the time he’d taken to get there now, time that should have been spent looking for Chris instead of convincing himself that he was okay.
“Tell me we’re almost at the top,” Jensen pleaded from behind him and Jared couldn’t help but smile.
“Yeah, just a few more steps, we’ll have a quick look around, and then we can climb back down.”
Jensen groaned as Jared hit the last step and then he was turning, taking in the spectacular sight around him. The jungle canopy spread out under his eyes, the river they’d taken earlier almost covered from sight except for a bend that showed it in view.
Jensen took a moment to look, but then the other man was trudging inside the building, leaving Jared to soak in the panorama. As much as he loved the sands of Egypt, he could see how Chris had been captivated by the wild nature of the world stretching out around him.
“Jared, I need you.”
Jensen’s tone pulled Jared into the highest building before he could think about what he was doing. When he walked in, Jensen was crouching at the back of the building, pointing towards a corner where an old shrine sat. On top of it were bowls of different sizes, cups as well. He looked at the intricate faces on the bowls and noticed that a few of them had burn marks and ash inside.
“God bowls,” Jared said softly. Jensen didn’t ask, but Jared could feel his impatience. “The faces on the bowls are depictions of their gods. They used them to give offerings and sacrifice.”
“Why the ash? What are they burning?” Jensen asked, standing up behind Jared as they looked down together.
“They didn’t burn much for the gods; mostly they gave specially prepared breads or drinks. This,” he said, indicating the other bowls, “means they were burning paper.”
“What was on the paper then?”
“Blood. They were participating in a blood letting ceremony. They cut themselves and then caught the blood on the paper, burning that for their gods.”
“Jared, you remember when I told you not to touch the sarcophagus in the General’s tomb?”
“Yeah…”
“Remember how monumentally bad that turned out when you did?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking over his shoulder to see Jensen’s face, pale and concerned as he looked down at the bowls. Opening the sarcophagus had unleashed a monster on the world, one that had stalked Jensen from the afterlife.
“I’ve got that feeling again. Don’t touch the bowls.”
Jared nodded. “Alright. Let’s… let’s get out of here.” Jensen smirked but didn’t move away from the bowls until Jared was in the doorway.
They made their way back down slowly, and Jared knew that Jensen didn’t want to stay up there any longer than he did. Whatever he’d thought to find in the ruins, active blood letting ceremonies weren’t a part of it. He had the answers he’d come for, Chris had been there but he was long gone. He had his friend’s notes and he could reason out where he might have gotten into trouble. In the morning, they’d crawl back on that boat and head back to the hotel. It was the smart thing to do. Really, it was.
That night they camped at Chris’s camp site. Jensen didn’t like the idea, pointing out that whatever happened to Chris might have happened right at that spot, but Jared won the argument when he reminded Jensen that it was already half set up and the best possible location to see the ruins if anything was happening.
They lit a fire to heat their provisions but they made sure it was small enough not to collect too many unfriendly eyes, should anyone be looking. The forest canopy itself was good at containing their location. They agreed to let it die down to a small fire during the night to keep predators away more than anything.
“Any ideas?” Jared asked Jensen as they sat together, backs against a large log, listening to the night around them.
Jensen let his head fall back against the wood. As much as Jared wanted to pull his lover’s arms around him, to kiss away the day’s weariness, they weren’t safe where they were. He comforted himself instead by pressing his shoulder to Jensen’s.
The Green-Eyed looked over at him but Jared could tell his mind was on the day’s work and the information they’d gathered.
“No one saw him at the hotel so nothing happened to him there. I’d wager once he came to this site, he didn’t set foot back in the city.”
Jared agreed with him but he didn’t speak. He knew Jensen had more to say so he kept quiet, watching him and filing away what he had to say in the back of his mind.
“The camp site doesn’t seem to have been disturbed too much. There’s no sign that there was a struggle here. If someone came here for him, then they took him willingly. Even if they were trying to use force, it doesn’t seem like Chris would go willingly from what you’ve said of him. I don’t think this was about the site. I think whatever Chris was looking into with those missing persons, that’s why he’s gone. You said he was visiting those villages. I bet you anything he got caught up in something there or along the way.”
Jared nodded. “I have his journal here. We can try to track him to the villages, see where he might have been seen or maybe he talked to someone who knew where he was headed next.”
“So in the morning we’ll ask the guide to get us more provisions and we’ll start off when he comes back with them,” Jensen said, settling more solidly against the log now that they had a plan.
Jared looked over at him and shook his head, a small smile on his face. “Just like that?”
“Was there supposed to be something else?”
Jared laughed. “No I suppose not.”
He set his legs out to one side of the fire and accidently knocked into one of the logs that had been set by some previous crew in a circle around the fire. Behind it there was a small clatter and Jared reached back to see what it was.
“Jared, don’t-”
It was too late. He’d reached his hand around the back of the log and found the small ceramic bowl sitting there. His fingers closed on it and brought if out before he realized it was a god bowl. He looked over at Jensen and opened his mouth but it was too late. Everything was fading around him, leaving him in the dark of the jungle, alone.
Author: hunters_retreat
Fandom: J2 (CWRPS)
Pairings: Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles
Summary: They were legend, the Egyptologist with a love of mysteries and the General with a love of adventure. Over the years they'd faced everything Egypt had to offer, never backing down and never giving in, until they'd tamed her secrets. What happens when they find themselves leaving their home for the wonders of the new world in search of a missing colleague? What happens when Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are surrounded by jungles and ruins and find the faith of the fallen serpent?
Jensen sat at the front edge of the small boat, watching the shores as they passed slowly by. Alligators infested the waters, but none seemed willing to move from their resting spots along the banks. The scene was too familiar for Jared, the images bringing forth a cleared memory of his vision. He didn’t say anything to Jensen, but he didn’t need to. Jensen was always on his guard when they were away from home. Jim teased that not even in Cairo was Jensen completely at ease. So long as Jared was on the streets where someone might hurt him, Jensen was ready to fight. Jared didn’t know for sure if he was right or not. It was a rather pleasant thought though, the idea that his lover was always looking out for him. Jared might be the bigger of the two men, but Jensen was the fighter to Jared’s scholar. He’d learned a little of fighting over time, Jensen teaching him what he could as Jared’s time allowed it. It appeased his sense of symmetry, this knowledge that Jensen had started out as a simple scribe once upon a time as well.
Their guide was silent now, though he’d been more than willing to talk to Jared once he’d managed to figure out the local dialect. There were still a few words that threw him, things that were original to this place and time, but he’d managed to stumble through just fine.
Jared shifted slowly in the boat, moving forward to sit next to Jensen. “What did you learn earlier?” he asked. The sound of the motor behind them gave them a little privacy from their guide and Jensen looked over the landscape one last time before turning his green eyes to Jared.
“You saw that?”
Jared smiled, knowing that he’d surprised Jensen. Jared knew he had a tendency to get caught up in his work to the point that nothing else existed. Jensen had never quite figured out that he was the one exception to that though. Jared always looked up when Jensen was near, instinct telling him when the man was close. His eyes tracked him through crowded streets and found him in rooms filled with museum patrons.
Jensen shook his head and smiled back at him. “The locals are all pretty spooked. There have always been missing people, the jungle gets some, some just run away trying to find something better, but in the last six months a lot more people have gone missing than usual. It’s not just the teenagers and the fringe element anymore either. People with families and stable lives are gone. One of the women I talked to said that her sister lives in a village twenty miles south of her and the same thing was happening there.”
“I don’t like the sound of this.”
“And yet here we are, sitting in a boat leading us deeper into the jungle,” Jensen teased. As much as they both wanted to keep the other safe, it was always tempered with the need to explore, the desire to learn something new and exciting. As Jared watched Jensen’s smile, he realized it’d been too long for the both of them.
“I’m sure we could talk our guide into turning around if you can’t handle it,” Jared faked his concern.
“As if you could turn around right now Jared,” Jensen looked back to the river and took in a deep breath before releasing it, the set of his shoulders relaxing slightly as he did so. “It’s beautiful here.”
“Deadly.”
“When isn’t it?” Jensen smiled at him and the darkness was there again, making Jared wonder if his lover was seeing the here and now, or if his mind was looking back across the ancient Nile.
The trip lasted almost three hours thanks to the small motor on their guide’s boat, but it allowed Jared the time to categorize things in his head, to look at what was before them and notice the difference between book and reality, to learn a world that was foreign to him outside of heated debates with his friend.
When they finally stepped off the boat, their guide let him know he’d be back the next day to check on them. It was a good arrangement, giving Jensen and Jared the freedom to work the site with the knowledge that they could go home in the morning should they need it.
Jensen already had their packs out of the boat and had his around his shoulders, ready to start up the path, his eyes taking in the jungle around them but always flickering back to Jared and the guide.
When the guide left, Jared came up and grabbed his pack, the lighter of the two which Jensen would surely tease him about even though he was the one that packed them.
“Let’s see what we can find, shall we?”
Up the path a short way they found themselves walking through stone hallways. There were so many things he wanted to say about the beauty of the site, about the world they’d just stepped into but there were no words to do it justice. The splendor of the lush jungle as it overtook a culture’s legacy was too immense for anything he could say.
Jensen found a single word that seemed to fit the moment though. “Damn,” the expletive was breathless with Jensen’s awe and admiration.
Jared smiled at his lover’s back and continued along the path. He wanted to climb to the top of the Acropolis, to see the amazing works that he knew Chris had begun to uncover here, but he pushed down his own impatience and tried to take inventory of their location instead.
“What do you need me to do Jared?” Jensen asked as they looked out across the first plaza, steps leading up and buildings in all directions around them.
His words brought Jared away from the scenery. The light of the jungle made Jensen’s eyes glow and he let out a shuddered breath, his hands itching to touch, to press Jensen against the walls of the stone city and never come up for air. Jensen seemed to sense something in his eyes because his own grew darker in response. Jensen took a step back though, keeping the distance they both knew they needed to keep at that moment.
Jared cleared his throat and looked away for a moment before trusting himself to look at Jensen again. “There should be some evidence that Chris was here. We should start in the plaza and work our way out until we find something.”
Jensen nodded, but it was the General behind his eyes. The General wasn’t a separate part of Jensen as much as he was a mantel to put on when his emotions were too close to the surface and he needed to keep the distance, or when the past came crashing in and he needed to remove himself from the here and now. He became more formal and he touched Jared less when he was like that, but it was still his lover and the passion and compassion that drew him to Jensen had all started with the man before him.
“He wouldn’t have set up a base here in the plaza,” Jensen said, knowing from experience how archeologists worked a site. “I’ll take a look at the most promising positions if you want to start looking in here. If you need to go up the stairs, let me know though.”
Jared nodded, taking the rebuke for what it was. “Yes sir, General sir,” he saw the smirk on his lover’s lips and knew that he’d managed to get through the stone wall no matter how hard Jensen was fighting it just then.
He didn’t push it anymore than that though. They had work to do. If something had happened to Chris while he was at the site, he needed to figure it out before any more time passed.
Jensen followed him up the stairs and Jared was beginning to wish they’d started at the top and worked their way down. After a long day of searching, walking up the stone stairs to the highest tips of the jungle canopy seemed more than his legs could take. Jensen didn’t say anything, but stayed a step behind him, as if ready to catch him should he fall. “Damn fool,” Jared murmured to himself. If he fell back on Jensen and he did try to catch him, it’d just result in them both falling down the stairs. If he were less sure of himself, Jared might take it as an insult, but that was just Jensen though.
“You think Chris really left something up here?”
“No, but its worth looking at anyway.”
They’d found the place where Chris had set up camp and he was grateful that they had physical proof that his friend had been there. It wasn’t something anyone else would have noticed, but Chris had taught Jared how to set up a camp and he had strong beliefs about how to do it. The position of everything in the camp screamed Chris to him, even if it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else.
Even without Jensen’s confirmation though, he’d known that Chris hadn’t been there in a while. He regretted the time he’d taken to get there now, time that should have been spent looking for Chris instead of convincing himself that he was okay.
“Tell me we’re almost at the top,” Jensen pleaded from behind him and Jared couldn’t help but smile.
“Yeah, just a few more steps, we’ll have a quick look around, and then we can climb back down.”
Jensen groaned as Jared hit the last step and then he was turning, taking in the spectacular sight around him. The jungle canopy spread out under his eyes, the river they’d taken earlier almost covered from sight except for a bend that showed it in view.
Jensen took a moment to look, but then the other man was trudging inside the building, leaving Jared to soak in the panorama. As much as he loved the sands of Egypt, he could see how Chris had been captivated by the wild nature of the world stretching out around him.
“Jared, I need you.”
Jensen’s tone pulled Jared into the highest building before he could think about what he was doing. When he walked in, Jensen was crouching at the back of the building, pointing towards a corner where an old shrine sat. On top of it were bowls of different sizes, cups as well. He looked at the intricate faces on the bowls and noticed that a few of them had burn marks and ash inside.
“God bowls,” Jared said softly. Jensen didn’t ask, but Jared could feel his impatience. “The faces on the bowls are depictions of their gods. They used them to give offerings and sacrifice.”
“Why the ash? What are they burning?” Jensen asked, standing up behind Jared as they looked down together.
“They didn’t burn much for the gods; mostly they gave specially prepared breads or drinks. This,” he said, indicating the other bowls, “means they were burning paper.”
“What was on the paper then?”
“Blood. They were participating in a blood letting ceremony. They cut themselves and then caught the blood on the paper, burning that for their gods.”
“Jared, you remember when I told you not to touch the sarcophagus in the General’s tomb?”
“Yeah…”
“Remember how monumentally bad that turned out when you did?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking over his shoulder to see Jensen’s face, pale and concerned as he looked down at the bowls. Opening the sarcophagus had unleashed a monster on the world, one that had stalked Jensen from the afterlife.
“I’ve got that feeling again. Don’t touch the bowls.”
Jared nodded. “Alright. Let’s… let’s get out of here.” Jensen smirked but didn’t move away from the bowls until Jared was in the doorway.
They made their way back down slowly, and Jared knew that Jensen didn’t want to stay up there any longer than he did. Whatever he’d thought to find in the ruins, active blood letting ceremonies weren’t a part of it. He had the answers he’d come for, Chris had been there but he was long gone. He had his friend’s notes and he could reason out where he might have gotten into trouble. In the morning, they’d crawl back on that boat and head back to the hotel. It was the smart thing to do. Really, it was.
That night they camped at Chris’s camp site. Jensen didn’t like the idea, pointing out that whatever happened to Chris might have happened right at that spot, but Jared won the argument when he reminded Jensen that it was already half set up and the best possible location to see the ruins if anything was happening.
They lit a fire to heat their provisions but they made sure it was small enough not to collect too many unfriendly eyes, should anyone be looking. The forest canopy itself was good at containing their location. They agreed to let it die down to a small fire during the night to keep predators away more than anything.
“Any ideas?” Jared asked Jensen as they sat together, backs against a large log, listening to the night around them.
Jensen let his head fall back against the wood. As much as Jared wanted to pull his lover’s arms around him, to kiss away the day’s weariness, they weren’t safe where they were. He comforted himself instead by pressing his shoulder to Jensen’s.
The Green-Eyed looked over at him but Jared could tell his mind was on the day’s work and the information they’d gathered.
“No one saw him at the hotel so nothing happened to him there. I’d wager once he came to this site, he didn’t set foot back in the city.”
Jared agreed with him but he didn’t speak. He knew Jensen had more to say so he kept quiet, watching him and filing away what he had to say in the back of his mind.
“The camp site doesn’t seem to have been disturbed too much. There’s no sign that there was a struggle here. If someone came here for him, then they took him willingly. Even if they were trying to use force, it doesn’t seem like Chris would go willingly from what you’ve said of him. I don’t think this was about the site. I think whatever Chris was looking into with those missing persons, that’s why he’s gone. You said he was visiting those villages. I bet you anything he got caught up in something there or along the way.”
Jared nodded. “I have his journal here. We can try to track him to the villages, see where he might have been seen or maybe he talked to someone who knew where he was headed next.”
“So in the morning we’ll ask the guide to get us more provisions and we’ll start off when he comes back with them,” Jensen said, settling more solidly against the log now that they had a plan.
Jared looked over at him and shook his head, a small smile on his face. “Just like that?”
“Was there supposed to be something else?”
Jared laughed. “No I suppose not.”
He set his legs out to one side of the fire and accidently knocked into one of the logs that had been set by some previous crew in a circle around the fire. Behind it there was a small clatter and Jared reached back to see what it was.
“Jared, don’t-”
It was too late. He’d reached his hand around the back of the log and found the small ceramic bowl sitting there. His fingers closed on it and brought if out before he realized it was a god bowl. He looked over at Jensen and opened his mouth but it was too late. Everything was fading around him, leaving him in the dark of the jungle, alone.