Need 1/1 (Sin-Verse part 4)
Need
Pairing: J2
Rating: R
Words: 2,000
Disclaimer: Pure and utter fiction... again!
Warnings: religious themes, priest!Jensen/KightTemplar!Jared, mild gore, blood, blasphemy
Summary: It took him a few seconds to recognize Jared and when he did his breath caught in his chest and a dark cloud formed that made the world grow cold and hard. [Sequel to Sin, Guilt and Belief]
The long black robes weren’t meant for running, neither were the heavy chain and cross that were now jingling back and forth, up and down, beating against his chest almost as fast as the heart inside it. The heavy cloth tried to tangle around his legs but he didn’t pay it any heed. Cloth and chain could not bind him, not that day.
The heavy oaken doors slammed open harder than was dignified for the holy place they guarded from the dirt and sin of the outside world and he stumbled more than walked down the large stone steps. He didn’t even look at where his feet were leading him as his gaze was completely fixed on the small crowd that had already gathered around the dozen horses that had just arrived.
He pushed past a young servant boy who was wearing garb similar to the one who had come to fetch him. He could hear horses braying and snorting uncomfortably. They were all properly bread war horses, stallions that had learned to follow a rider’s lead even facing a screaming horde. Their nervous noises made Jensen’s blood run cold as he came to a halt next to the bishop in his expensive red robes who had sent for him.
He was panting as sweat trickled down his spine but he couldn’t stop his heart from racing even as his feet had. His eyes were jumping from man to man trying to see the one he had been called for. It took him a few seconds to recognize Jared and when he did his breath caught in his chest and a dark cloud formed that made the world grow cold and hard.
Jared was still on his horse, slumped down as if he had fallen asleep in the saddle, if it weren’t for the blood that soaked his formerly white tunic almost completely hiding the large Holy Cross on it. Most of it looked old and crusted, already turned brown. But some was still fresh enough that Jensen could smell it and it made him feel sick and nervous just like the horses were. He rushed forward putting his hand onto Jared’s where it was limply resting on the saddle. The skin was cold and slick with sweat. There was a sickly smell in the air, putrid and sweet like a festered wound and a sheet after a feverish night. It was what Jensen imagined Hell smelled like.
“Jared?” There was no answer and his hand started trembling as he was pushed aside.
He hadn’t noticed this before but there were ropes circling the knight’s legs and waist. They had probably been the only thing keeping him in the saddle on the long and hard ride from whatever battlefield he came from. Jensen couldn’t remember where Jared and the other Knights Templar had been riding to when they left a few weeks earlier. Most of the time plan and reality weren’t a match anyway and he couldn’t find the strength to care which heathen’s sword had cut the man down. It wasn’t his concern. Jared was.
He watched as a couple of men garbed in the same tunics and armor as Jared pulled him off his horse and the animal danced away shaking its head nervously at the smell of Death rearing his head.
It was then that Jensen started praying. Which prayer it was, he couldn’t even say. His lips were moving their own account forming words they knew well while his feet were following the knights carrying their comrade to one of the houses outside the sanctuary that was used as barracks.
They took him to the first empty room with a cot in it and threw the limp body onto it less carefully that Jensen would have wanted. Jared whimpered a little, legs moving weakly as lids fluttered over eyes that didn’t focus on anything.
The tunic and armor was pulled off with quick hands that told Jensen that this wasn’t the first time and revealed the bleeding mess that was Jared’s body. The priest’s hands flew to his mouth that went dry and sour at the same time. There was blood everywhere and something yellow and foul crusting the edges of open flesh that stretched across Jared’s side. He couldn’t say if this had been done by an axe or a sword but he could feel something wet run down his cheeks. If those were tears or sweat, he couldn’t tell.
He had never seen something like this on a living person. The coppery tang of blood made him feel sick and he wanted to leave but he couldn’t make his feet move. Instead he prayed again, louder, stronger and much more desperate.
+
His knees were sore and his calves and feet had fallen asleep a while ago but Jensen couldn’t make himself change positions. He knew that he had given Jared the blessing for the sick at least half a dozen times already. But he did it again anyway.
“Pax huic domui et omnibus habitantibus in ea.”
The smell of olibanum and candles made the air stuffy but they took away some of the sickly smell that had haunted Jensen even as he had left the room that morning to get new oil for the blessing.
“Pax et benedictio Dei Patris omnipotentis, et Filius, et Spiritus Sancti,”
The door opened with a creaking sound but Jensen didn’t even turn around. People kept sticking their heads inside, always asking if there was anything he needed when in reality they just wanted to know if the knight was dead already.
“…descendat super nos et super domum istam et super omnes habitantes et convenientes in ea.”
“Father, you should get some rest. It’s late. You’ve been in here all day,” the voice of a boy said quietly as if he was afraid to wake the dead.
“And I will be here every day and every night until…” He stopped himself looking at Jared’s pale face and the sweat that collected in the dip of his neck. He suddenly realized that he had forgotten where he stopped his blessing and blinked. He’d have to start again. “… until he is better…” his nose was itching and even with all the incents there was still was feverish, sweet smell. “… or until he is past the darkness… in peace with our Lord.” The words sounded as foul to his ears as the smell was to his nose but he said them anyway.
The door closed again and Jensen took a deep breath that exited his lungs with a sigh. Where was he?
“Pax huic domui et omnibus habitantibus in ea.”
+
“You’re still here.” The words were raw and raspy and Jensen jumped at a voice as dry as a skeleton. He couldn’t remember when he had fallen asleep. It had been days and he hadn’t left that foul smelling room even when weariness took him.
He looked up and would have fallen down from surprise hadn’t he been sitting in the ground already when he saw a pair of red rimmed eyes study him from a terribly pale face.
“Jared, you’re…”
“Still here, too, unless this is Heaven.” He attempted to sit up but pain seemed to shoot through him that made a pained groan rise in his chest as he sank back again. “No, this hurts to much for Heaven.”
“You’re still in this world. For a while I thought that God wanted you with him.” His hands clenched around the black fabric of his robes where they lay over his lap.
“When I felt that sword pierce through my side I thought that God was punishing me, throwing me into Hell’s pit without the chance of another confession,” Jared murmured, his voice sounding hoarse and ending in a weak coughing fit.
Jensen quickly filled a glass and pressed it against the knight’s lips watching him take several large gulps before coughing again as he swallowed a little too much at once. They both knew what Jared was talking about. Jensen had repented a lot for those confessions. He shifted a little uneasily at the memory and felt his robes pull on some old scabs on his back. There were no fresh crusts because he had spent days sitting by Jared’s sickbed.
“He didn’t. I prayed for you and he listened.”
“You changed his mind.” There was a mild smile on Jared’s face.
Jensen looked down at his hands feeling relieved and weighed-down at the same time. “You should rest. I will get you some sustenance.” He quickly got up and left the room on legs that were weak-kneed and prickling.
+
“Why did you do it?”
Jared still looked like a ghost of himself. He was pale and his cheeks were hollow. But he had found the strength to sit up while Jensen changed the bandages. The deep wounds on Jared’s side were jagged edged with rough sutures the barber had punched through the red and swollen skin. The pus that had mixed with his blood had subsided and Jensen dared to hope that some of the redness had gone as well. They had taken fire to the wound before stitching it shut again a few days into Jared’s stay at the barracks. That had most likely saved his life.
Jensen looked up at Jared. “What do you mean?” He dabbed a wet cloth against red skin to wash away the last of the bloody crusts.
“Why did you save me?” Jared asked quietly. “We both know that all this is my fault. I’m the sinner and I’m pulling you into the darkness with me. Why save me?”
“You’re my responsibility… and I didn’t want you to die.”
“Why?”
He didn’t know. The moment he had heard that the knight was injured, Jensen hadn’t even blinked. There was no active decision, no question in his mind, his soul, that he had to do all there was to protect Jared. He knew that what Jared did - what they both did - was wrong and that he would go to Hell for all of his sins. But somehow that didn’t matter.
“I don’t know what you want to hear.” He looked Jared straight in the eye as he knelt before the injured knight, their faces only half a foot apart. As he realized the proximity, he swallowed.
“Nothing.” It was a strange answer and Jensen would have questioned it if there wasn’t a hand on the back of his head pulling him forward. His eyes went wide and his spine ran hot as Jared pressed their lips together. He went completely quiet as if petrified as he didn’t know what to do. They had done much worse things before, but never like this: face to face, honest, slow and… soft.
The priest’s eyes slid shut and it was like giving up, like giving in. His shoulders relaxed and he let himself feel everything for the first time. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was surprised that he wasn’t afraid.
When Jared pulled him in close he didn’t fight back and their bodies started pushing against each other until… Jared flinched and pulled back quickly. The knight’s face was pained and his hand was pressing tenderly against the half-healed wounds. The moment the priest’s eyes skimmed down to the puckered, burned and stitched skin, he realized what he had just done and pushed himself to his feet quickly. He turned his back to the knight as he started washing his hands in a basin by the door more thoroughly that he ever had before.
Jared cleared his throat, obviously aware of the meaningful silence. “I need to thank you for saving my life, Jensen.”
“No. It was God who saved you, not me,” he answered. After all he hadn’t had a choice. Who other than God could be responsible for that?
“I don’t need God anymore. All I need is you.” The words were whispered rather than spoken in these walls that would not take kindly to such heresy.
Jensen kept washing his hands as calmly as he could pretending he hadn’t heard, pretending that he didn’t feel a happy flutter in his heart and a cold pit in his stomach.
*
Pairing: J2
Rating: R
Words: 2,000
Disclaimer: Pure and utter fiction... again!
Warnings: religious themes, priest!Jensen/KightTemplar!Jared, mild gore, blood, blasphemy
Summary: It took him a few seconds to recognize Jared and when he did his breath caught in his chest and a dark cloud formed that made the world grow cold and hard. [Sequel to Sin, Guilt and Belief]
The long black robes weren’t meant for running, neither were the heavy chain and cross that were now jingling back and forth, up and down, beating against his chest almost as fast as the heart inside it. The heavy cloth tried to tangle around his legs but he didn’t pay it any heed. Cloth and chain could not bind him, not that day.
The heavy oaken doors slammed open harder than was dignified for the holy place they guarded from the dirt and sin of the outside world and he stumbled more than walked down the large stone steps. He didn’t even look at where his feet were leading him as his gaze was completely fixed on the small crowd that had already gathered around the dozen horses that had just arrived.
He pushed past a young servant boy who was wearing garb similar to the one who had come to fetch him. He could hear horses braying and snorting uncomfortably. They were all properly bread war horses, stallions that had learned to follow a rider’s lead even facing a screaming horde. Their nervous noises made Jensen’s blood run cold as he came to a halt next to the bishop in his expensive red robes who had sent for him.
He was panting as sweat trickled down his spine but he couldn’t stop his heart from racing even as his feet had. His eyes were jumping from man to man trying to see the one he had been called for. It took him a few seconds to recognize Jared and when he did his breath caught in his chest and a dark cloud formed that made the world grow cold and hard.
Jared was still on his horse, slumped down as if he had fallen asleep in the saddle, if it weren’t for the blood that soaked his formerly white tunic almost completely hiding the large Holy Cross on it. Most of it looked old and crusted, already turned brown. But some was still fresh enough that Jensen could smell it and it made him feel sick and nervous just like the horses were. He rushed forward putting his hand onto Jared’s where it was limply resting on the saddle. The skin was cold and slick with sweat. There was a sickly smell in the air, putrid and sweet like a festered wound and a sheet after a feverish night. It was what Jensen imagined Hell smelled like.
“Jared?” There was no answer and his hand started trembling as he was pushed aside.
He hadn’t noticed this before but there were ropes circling the knight’s legs and waist. They had probably been the only thing keeping him in the saddle on the long and hard ride from whatever battlefield he came from. Jensen couldn’t remember where Jared and the other Knights Templar had been riding to when they left a few weeks earlier. Most of the time plan and reality weren’t a match anyway and he couldn’t find the strength to care which heathen’s sword had cut the man down. It wasn’t his concern. Jared was.
He watched as a couple of men garbed in the same tunics and armor as Jared pulled him off his horse and the animal danced away shaking its head nervously at the smell of Death rearing his head.
It was then that Jensen started praying. Which prayer it was, he couldn’t even say. His lips were moving their own account forming words they knew well while his feet were following the knights carrying their comrade to one of the houses outside the sanctuary that was used as barracks.
They took him to the first empty room with a cot in it and threw the limp body onto it less carefully that Jensen would have wanted. Jared whimpered a little, legs moving weakly as lids fluttered over eyes that didn’t focus on anything.
The tunic and armor was pulled off with quick hands that told Jensen that this wasn’t the first time and revealed the bleeding mess that was Jared’s body. The priest’s hands flew to his mouth that went dry and sour at the same time. There was blood everywhere and something yellow and foul crusting the edges of open flesh that stretched across Jared’s side. He couldn’t say if this had been done by an axe or a sword but he could feel something wet run down his cheeks. If those were tears or sweat, he couldn’t tell.
He had never seen something like this on a living person. The coppery tang of blood made him feel sick and he wanted to leave but he couldn’t make his feet move. Instead he prayed again, louder, stronger and much more desperate.
+
His knees were sore and his calves and feet had fallen asleep a while ago but Jensen couldn’t make himself change positions. He knew that he had given Jared the blessing for the sick at least half a dozen times already. But he did it again anyway.
“Pax huic domui et omnibus habitantibus in ea.”
The smell of olibanum and candles made the air stuffy but they took away some of the sickly smell that had haunted Jensen even as he had left the room that morning to get new oil for the blessing.
“Pax et benedictio Dei Patris omnipotentis, et Filius, et Spiritus Sancti,”
The door opened with a creaking sound but Jensen didn’t even turn around. People kept sticking their heads inside, always asking if there was anything he needed when in reality they just wanted to know if the knight was dead already.
“…descendat super nos et super domum istam et super omnes habitantes et convenientes in ea.”
“Father, you should get some rest. It’s late. You’ve been in here all day,” the voice of a boy said quietly as if he was afraid to wake the dead.
“And I will be here every day and every night until…” He stopped himself looking at Jared’s pale face and the sweat that collected in the dip of his neck. He suddenly realized that he had forgotten where he stopped his blessing and blinked. He’d have to start again. “… until he is better…” his nose was itching and even with all the incents there was still was feverish, sweet smell. “… or until he is past the darkness… in peace with our Lord.” The words sounded as foul to his ears as the smell was to his nose but he said them anyway.
The door closed again and Jensen took a deep breath that exited his lungs with a sigh. Where was he?
“Pax huic domui et omnibus habitantibus in ea.”
+
“You’re still here.” The words were raw and raspy and Jensen jumped at a voice as dry as a skeleton. He couldn’t remember when he had fallen asleep. It had been days and he hadn’t left that foul smelling room even when weariness took him.
He looked up and would have fallen down from surprise hadn’t he been sitting in the ground already when he saw a pair of red rimmed eyes study him from a terribly pale face.
“Jared, you’re…”
“Still here, too, unless this is Heaven.” He attempted to sit up but pain seemed to shoot through him that made a pained groan rise in his chest as he sank back again. “No, this hurts to much for Heaven.”
“You’re still in this world. For a while I thought that God wanted you with him.” His hands clenched around the black fabric of his robes where they lay over his lap.
“When I felt that sword pierce through my side I thought that God was punishing me, throwing me into Hell’s pit without the chance of another confession,” Jared murmured, his voice sounding hoarse and ending in a weak coughing fit.
Jensen quickly filled a glass and pressed it against the knight’s lips watching him take several large gulps before coughing again as he swallowed a little too much at once. They both knew what Jared was talking about. Jensen had repented a lot for those confessions. He shifted a little uneasily at the memory and felt his robes pull on some old scabs on his back. There were no fresh crusts because he had spent days sitting by Jared’s sickbed.
“He didn’t. I prayed for you and he listened.”
“You changed his mind.” There was a mild smile on Jared’s face.
Jensen looked down at his hands feeling relieved and weighed-down at the same time. “You should rest. I will get you some sustenance.” He quickly got up and left the room on legs that were weak-kneed and prickling.
+
“Why did you do it?”
Jared still looked like a ghost of himself. He was pale and his cheeks were hollow. But he had found the strength to sit up while Jensen changed the bandages. The deep wounds on Jared’s side were jagged edged with rough sutures the barber had punched through the red and swollen skin. The pus that had mixed with his blood had subsided and Jensen dared to hope that some of the redness had gone as well. They had taken fire to the wound before stitching it shut again a few days into Jared’s stay at the barracks. That had most likely saved his life.
Jensen looked up at Jared. “What do you mean?” He dabbed a wet cloth against red skin to wash away the last of the bloody crusts.
“Why did you save me?” Jared asked quietly. “We both know that all this is my fault. I’m the sinner and I’m pulling you into the darkness with me. Why save me?”
“You’re my responsibility… and I didn’t want you to die.”
“Why?”
He didn’t know. The moment he had heard that the knight was injured, Jensen hadn’t even blinked. There was no active decision, no question in his mind, his soul, that he had to do all there was to protect Jared. He knew that what Jared did - what they both did - was wrong and that he would go to Hell for all of his sins. But somehow that didn’t matter.
“I don’t know what you want to hear.” He looked Jared straight in the eye as he knelt before the injured knight, their faces only half a foot apart. As he realized the proximity, he swallowed.
“Nothing.” It was a strange answer and Jensen would have questioned it if there wasn’t a hand on the back of his head pulling him forward. His eyes went wide and his spine ran hot as Jared pressed their lips together. He went completely quiet as if petrified as he didn’t know what to do. They had done much worse things before, but never like this: face to face, honest, slow and… soft.
The priest’s eyes slid shut and it was like giving up, like giving in. His shoulders relaxed and he let himself feel everything for the first time. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was surprised that he wasn’t afraid.
When Jared pulled him in close he didn’t fight back and their bodies started pushing against each other until… Jared flinched and pulled back quickly. The knight’s face was pained and his hand was pressing tenderly against the half-healed wounds. The moment the priest’s eyes skimmed down to the puckered, burned and stitched skin, he realized what he had just done and pushed himself to his feet quickly. He turned his back to the knight as he started washing his hands in a basin by the door more thoroughly that he ever had before.
Jared cleared his throat, obviously aware of the meaningful silence. “I need to thank you for saving my life, Jensen.”
“No. It was God who saved you, not me,” he answered. After all he hadn’t had a choice. Who other than God could be responsible for that?
“I don’t need God anymore. All I need is you.” The words were whispered rather than spoken in these walls that would not take kindly to such heresy.
Jensen kept washing his hands as calmly as he could pretending he hadn’t heard, pretending that he didn’t feel a happy flutter in his heart and a cold pit in his stomach.
*