AU FIC: Comfort In Your Skin 6/?
Title: Comfort In Your Skin
Author: jeyhawk
Pairings/Characters: Jared/Jensen, Michael Rosenbaum, Tom Welling, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and others.
Rating: Overall NC17
Category: Romance, Angst, AU
Summary: Jared and Jensen negotiates the boundaries of their new relationship.
Disclaimer: I don't know them, own them or make any money from them. This is just a bunch of inventive lies.
Warnings: Dark themes (rape, abuse, self harm)! All in the past but they inpact the present.
Betas: ejayye and ames1010! You rock ladies!
Notes: This is the second installment in the Emo!Jared verse, following directly after Settling Into Now. Emo!Jared is back in business! ;0P
Chapter Specific Note: Sorry for keeping you waiting. Didn't mean to. :0(
Your handy guide to the emo!jared verse
Banner by the lovely titheniel
Chapter Six
The first thing Jared had done when stepping off the plane was to turn his cell phone on, and the relief he’d felt when he’d found two voicemails from Jensen and three text messages had been instant and powerful enough to make him weak at the knees.
Logically he had known Jensen was only in a bad mood. The plane, however, had given him way too much time to think, his mind doing 300 mph as he dreamt up worst case scenarios. All Jensen’s messages said the same thing - “I’m sorry, I already miss you, I hope your dad is fine, CALL ME” - but when Jared tried Jensen’s cell, it had been turned off again.
So he’d left yet another message telling him the flight had been fine and that he didn’t really know anything yet. He’d promised to call later and hung up, feeling empty and drained. Was it so bad that he’d just wanted to hear Jensen’s voice?
He’d taken a cab to the hospital, answering the driver’s questions so curtly that the poor guy had finally left him alone with his thoughts. His palms were sweating and his heart was beating at triple its normal speed as he’d stared unseeingly out the window.
What would he do if his father died? What would his mom do? Would he have to move back home to help his mother out, dropping out of school and saying goodbye to Jensen, Mike and Tom? The mere thought made him nauseous, and as the cab slowed to a stop in front of the hospital, he wanted to tell the driver to take him for a ride and dump him anywhere. Anywhere but there.
He’d called Jensen again after the cab had taken off, leaving a jumbled message of half-said sentences as he put off walking in through the hospital’s revolving doors for as long as he could. He felt like shit for being so selfish, though, dumping his panic and fear on Jensen’s voicemail, and so when the message service cut him off he’d resolutely turned the phone off and pushed it down into his pocket. It had been time to face his fears.
An hour later he was sitting by his father’s bed in the ICU, silently praying to a God he no longer believed in to let his father be okay. The doctors had done all they could. Now they had to wait for him to wake up to be able to assess the damage caused by the head injury.
At the moment his father was heavily sedated, his face looking deathly pale against the white hospital linen. A tube had been shoved down his throat and he was connected to a respirator that was drawing carefully monitored breaths for him. Various tubes and cables connected him to a cluster of machines set up around the bed, keeping his every move under careful surveillance.
A kind nurse named Amy had just been in to check on his vital stats and had reassured them that it looked worse than it was. At the moment he was given strong medications to stop the swelling of the brain, but was stable and there was no reason he wouldn’t eventually wake up.
Except for the head injury, he was in good condition and had all the chances in the world to make a full, or near full, recovery. Jared wished he could believe in it; believe in the experience and confidence he saw in the nurse’s hazel gaze, but since when did his family get it easy? His mother kept glancing at him with her red-rimmed eyes, waiting for him to lose it. He avoided returning her look.
After the initial long hug and her telling him what had happened, they had hardly exchanged a word. Their cold fingers interlaced on his father’s stomach, eyes skittering over machines which measured his life in beeps and lines. It was so unfair, Jared thought. His father had slipped on olive oil spilled between the aisles at a supermarket. The elder man had fallen so badly that he’d cracked the back of his skull, hair thin cracks spreading all the way to his forehead. Luckily, the bone hadn’t splintered so they didn’t have to worry about bone fragments, but the swelling of the brain could cause just as much damage if they were unlucky.
Nurse Amy had reiterated the doctors’ prognosis that it might take days for his father to wake up, even weeks, and Jared didn’t know if he would be able to wait that long. He already felt jittery all over and the hospital smell made him feel ill himself. His mother seemed to be noticing this discomfort and shot him even more of those worried looks that he was trying to avoid. He didn’t want to have any kind of conversation about his emotional status; he just wanted his dad to be okay.
“Have you talked to your friends?” His mom suddenly asked, nearly making Jared crawl out of his skin.
He turned to look at her and found a look in her eyes that he couldn’t really place. His mom was so much stronger than she at first appeared to be. At only 5’3” with long dark hair and light brown eyes, the hand resting in his was barely bigger than his palm. And yet there was still an air of silent strength about her - strength he supposed had been hard earned.
“Not really… I… Left a message for Jen… His phone was turned off,” Jared half mumbled, feeling very small under her scrutinizing look. He’d only been at the university for a few months, so how was it that it suddenly felt he didn’t even know his own mom anymore?
“Jen… That’s Jensen, right?”
“Yeah.” Hearing his mother talk about Jensen made him feel nervous. He wanted to tell her everything, he wanted to tell his dad everything, but this didn’t feel like the time or the place.
“Your dad and I have been talking a lot since you moved out… We’ve been going to this family counsellor - Amanda.”
Jared swallowed, panic welling up inside of him. “You’re not getting divorced, are you?” He croaked.
His mother almost laughed, a smile gracing her lips as she shook her head. “No, sweetie, of course not.” She squeezed his hand in reassurance. “It was just that for the last few years, ever since we got you back, our entire lives have been built up around you. And letting you go was the hardest thing we’ve ever done.”
Jared blinked. He’d never even thought about how his leaving would affect his parents. “I’m sorry,” he said, really looking at her for the first time since he arrived, realizing how much weight that had dropped off her already thin frame and how pale she looked.
“Don’t be,” his mother said softly. “Amanda helped us realize that it was the best thing for all of us. Together we got stuck in the same old pattern and were unable to break out of our assigned roles. I never realized how much we victimized you and made you feel guilty… If I could go back and change…”
“No, Mom,” Jared said, something unravelling within him. “You did good by me… I couldn’t wish for better parents. No family should have to go through what we did and... And I’m grateful.”
Tears welled up in his mother’s eyes and Jared realized he had never thanked her before, had never been strong enough to do it. They had all changed and now they had to find new ground to stand on, but it would be all right in the end. At times he’d almost hated his parents for nearly suffocating him with their care, but he was their only child. How else would they have reacted?
“I would like to meet your boyfriend some day,” she said. “And thank him for taking such good care of you.”
“Yeah, he’s been… Mom?!?”
She smiled through her tears. “I knew I was right about Jensen, just knew it.”
Jared actually chuckled, glancing at his father’s pale face and the machinery surrounding him, thinking it was a mightily weird place to come out to his parents. In his mind he went through every conversation he’d had with his mom since meeting Jensen, trying to figure out when he’d said too much, but pulled up a blank. He’d been careful to talk just as much about Mike, Tom, Chad, Sophia and Alison as about Jensen.
“How did you know?” he asked, his heart still trembling a little nervously.
“Mother’s intuition,” she said with another smile, using her free hand to wipe the tears from her eyes with a tissue. “There was always something in your voice when you talked about him.”
Jared swallowed. “And you’re okay with it? You don’t think it’s… wrong?”
“I’ve had time to think it through and we spoke to Amanda about it, at length…”
“Wait,” Jared licked his lips uncertainly. “Dad knows.”
“Yes he does… He’s not very happy about it and I think he still hopes that I’m wrong, but he’s accepted it and to answer your question, no, Jared, I don’t think it’s wrong. It seems that he makes you happy and all I… we ever wanted was for you to be happy.”
Jared's smile trembled at the edges and he squeezed his mother’s hand. He hadn’t even realized how much of his discomfort came from thinking about telling his parents about Jensen. The fact that they already knew lifted a stone from his chest and suddenly he was able to believe that maybe things would really work out for the best.
They spent another hour sitting there, watching his father while Jared told his mother everything about Jensen, Mike and Tom and living on campus. The constant flow of words made the waiting feel a little easier and even just talking about his friends put him in a happier frame of mind. Besides, it felt as if he and his mother were getting to know each other all over again and it was a nice feeling, if only his father would wake up to share it with them.
There was a polite knock on the door and Nurse Amy stuck her head in, smiling at the scene Jared and his mother made.
“There’s someone here to see you, Mr. Padalecki,” she said, looking at Jared.
“Please call me Jared,” he mumbled as he exchanged a confused look with his mother. Luckily his mother appeared to be as surprised as him, because his first thought had been that his mom had called a counsellor for him.
“Well, Jared, your guest is waiting outside. I couldn’t let him into the ICU when he wasn’t immediate family.”
“He…” Jared swallowed, refusing to get his hopes up. “I’ll be right back, Mom,” he said as he got up from the chair.
“Take your time, sweetie,” she answered with a smile.
Jared smiled back before following Nurse Amy out into the corridor. She pointed out the way for him and he took off, his heart beating triple time again. Could it be Jensen? But why would he fly all the way to Texas when he had classes and shit to attend? Jared hesitated for the longest of whiles with his hand on the frosted glass doors that lead out of the ICU. If it wasn’t Jensen, who was it and what did that person have to say to him? There really was only one way to find out, so he pushed the door open.
Chapter Seven
Author: jeyhawk
Pairings/Characters: Jared/Jensen, Michael Rosenbaum, Tom Welling, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and others.
Rating: Overall NC17
Category: Romance, Angst, AU
Summary: Jared and Jensen negotiates the boundaries of their new relationship.
Disclaimer: I don't know them, own them or make any money from them. This is just a bunch of inventive lies.
Warnings: Dark themes (rape, abuse, self harm)! All in the past but they inpact the present.
Betas: ejayye and ames1010! You rock ladies!
Notes: This is the second installment in the Emo!Jared verse, following directly after Settling Into Now. Emo!Jared is back in business! ;0P
Chapter Specific Note: Sorry for keeping you waiting. Didn't mean to. :0(
Your handy guide to the emo!jared verse
Banner by the lovely titheniel
Chapter Six
The first thing Jared had done when stepping off the plane was to turn his cell phone on, and the relief he’d felt when he’d found two voicemails from Jensen and three text messages had been instant and powerful enough to make him weak at the knees.
Logically he had known Jensen was only in a bad mood. The plane, however, had given him way too much time to think, his mind doing 300 mph as he dreamt up worst case scenarios. All Jensen’s messages said the same thing - “I’m sorry, I already miss you, I hope your dad is fine, CALL ME” - but when Jared tried Jensen’s cell, it had been turned off again.
So he’d left yet another message telling him the flight had been fine and that he didn’t really know anything yet. He’d promised to call later and hung up, feeling empty and drained. Was it so bad that he’d just wanted to hear Jensen’s voice?
He’d taken a cab to the hospital, answering the driver’s questions so curtly that the poor guy had finally left him alone with his thoughts. His palms were sweating and his heart was beating at triple its normal speed as he’d stared unseeingly out the window.
What would he do if his father died? What would his mom do? Would he have to move back home to help his mother out, dropping out of school and saying goodbye to Jensen, Mike and Tom? The mere thought made him nauseous, and as the cab slowed to a stop in front of the hospital, he wanted to tell the driver to take him for a ride and dump him anywhere. Anywhere but there.
He’d called Jensen again after the cab had taken off, leaving a jumbled message of half-said sentences as he put off walking in through the hospital’s revolving doors for as long as he could. He felt like shit for being so selfish, though, dumping his panic and fear on Jensen’s voicemail, and so when the message service cut him off he’d resolutely turned the phone off and pushed it down into his pocket. It had been time to face his fears.
An hour later he was sitting by his father’s bed in the ICU, silently praying to a God he no longer believed in to let his father be okay. The doctors had done all they could. Now they had to wait for him to wake up to be able to assess the damage caused by the head injury.
At the moment his father was heavily sedated, his face looking deathly pale against the white hospital linen. A tube had been shoved down his throat and he was connected to a respirator that was drawing carefully monitored breaths for him. Various tubes and cables connected him to a cluster of machines set up around the bed, keeping his every move under careful surveillance.
A kind nurse named Amy had just been in to check on his vital stats and had reassured them that it looked worse than it was. At the moment he was given strong medications to stop the swelling of the brain, but was stable and there was no reason he wouldn’t eventually wake up.
Except for the head injury, he was in good condition and had all the chances in the world to make a full, or near full, recovery. Jared wished he could believe in it; believe in the experience and confidence he saw in the nurse’s hazel gaze, but since when did his family get it easy? His mother kept glancing at him with her red-rimmed eyes, waiting for him to lose it. He avoided returning her look.
After the initial long hug and her telling him what had happened, they had hardly exchanged a word. Their cold fingers interlaced on his father’s stomach, eyes skittering over machines which measured his life in beeps and lines. It was so unfair, Jared thought. His father had slipped on olive oil spilled between the aisles at a supermarket. The elder man had fallen so badly that he’d cracked the back of his skull, hair thin cracks spreading all the way to his forehead. Luckily, the bone hadn’t splintered so they didn’t have to worry about bone fragments, but the swelling of the brain could cause just as much damage if they were unlucky.
Nurse Amy had reiterated the doctors’ prognosis that it might take days for his father to wake up, even weeks, and Jared didn’t know if he would be able to wait that long. He already felt jittery all over and the hospital smell made him feel ill himself. His mother seemed to be noticing this discomfort and shot him even more of those worried looks that he was trying to avoid. He didn’t want to have any kind of conversation about his emotional status; he just wanted his dad to be okay.
“Have you talked to your friends?” His mom suddenly asked, nearly making Jared crawl out of his skin.
He turned to look at her and found a look in her eyes that he couldn’t really place. His mom was so much stronger than she at first appeared to be. At only 5’3” with long dark hair and light brown eyes, the hand resting in his was barely bigger than his palm. And yet there was still an air of silent strength about her - strength he supposed had been hard earned.
“Not really… I… Left a message for Jen… His phone was turned off,” Jared half mumbled, feeling very small under her scrutinizing look. He’d only been at the university for a few months, so how was it that it suddenly felt he didn’t even know his own mom anymore?
“Jen… That’s Jensen, right?”
“Yeah.” Hearing his mother talk about Jensen made him feel nervous. He wanted to tell her everything, he wanted to tell his dad everything, but this didn’t feel like the time or the place.
“Your dad and I have been talking a lot since you moved out… We’ve been going to this family counsellor - Amanda.”
Jared swallowed, panic welling up inside of him. “You’re not getting divorced, are you?” He croaked.
His mother almost laughed, a smile gracing her lips as she shook her head. “No, sweetie, of course not.” She squeezed his hand in reassurance. “It was just that for the last few years, ever since we got you back, our entire lives have been built up around you. And letting you go was the hardest thing we’ve ever done.”
Jared blinked. He’d never even thought about how his leaving would affect his parents. “I’m sorry,” he said, really looking at her for the first time since he arrived, realizing how much weight that had dropped off her already thin frame and how pale she looked.
“Don’t be,” his mother said softly. “Amanda helped us realize that it was the best thing for all of us. Together we got stuck in the same old pattern and were unable to break out of our assigned roles. I never realized how much we victimized you and made you feel guilty… If I could go back and change…”
“No, Mom,” Jared said, something unravelling within him. “You did good by me… I couldn’t wish for better parents. No family should have to go through what we did and... And I’m grateful.”
Tears welled up in his mother’s eyes and Jared realized he had never thanked her before, had never been strong enough to do it. They had all changed and now they had to find new ground to stand on, but it would be all right in the end. At times he’d almost hated his parents for nearly suffocating him with their care, but he was their only child. How else would they have reacted?
“I would like to meet your boyfriend some day,” she said. “And thank him for taking such good care of you.”
“Yeah, he’s been… Mom?!?”
She smiled through her tears. “I knew I was right about Jensen, just knew it.”
Jared actually chuckled, glancing at his father’s pale face and the machinery surrounding him, thinking it was a mightily weird place to come out to his parents. In his mind he went through every conversation he’d had with his mom since meeting Jensen, trying to figure out when he’d said too much, but pulled up a blank. He’d been careful to talk just as much about Mike, Tom, Chad, Sophia and Alison as about Jensen.
“How did you know?” he asked, his heart still trembling a little nervously.
“Mother’s intuition,” she said with another smile, using her free hand to wipe the tears from her eyes with a tissue. “There was always something in your voice when you talked about him.”
Jared swallowed. “And you’re okay with it? You don’t think it’s… wrong?”
“I’ve had time to think it through and we spoke to Amanda about it, at length…”
“Wait,” Jared licked his lips uncertainly. “Dad knows.”
“Yes he does… He’s not very happy about it and I think he still hopes that I’m wrong, but he’s accepted it and to answer your question, no, Jared, I don’t think it’s wrong. It seems that he makes you happy and all I… we ever wanted was for you to be happy.”
Jared's smile trembled at the edges and he squeezed his mother’s hand. He hadn’t even realized how much of his discomfort came from thinking about telling his parents about Jensen. The fact that they already knew lifted a stone from his chest and suddenly he was able to believe that maybe things would really work out for the best.
They spent another hour sitting there, watching his father while Jared told his mother everything about Jensen, Mike and Tom and living on campus. The constant flow of words made the waiting feel a little easier and even just talking about his friends put him in a happier frame of mind. Besides, it felt as if he and his mother were getting to know each other all over again and it was a nice feeling, if only his father would wake up to share it with them.
There was a polite knock on the door and Nurse Amy stuck her head in, smiling at the scene Jared and his mother made.
“There’s someone here to see you, Mr. Padalecki,” she said, looking at Jared.
“Please call me Jared,” he mumbled as he exchanged a confused look with his mother. Luckily his mother appeared to be as surprised as him, because his first thought had been that his mom had called a counsellor for him.
“Well, Jared, your guest is waiting outside. I couldn’t let him into the ICU when he wasn’t immediate family.”
“He…” Jared swallowed, refusing to get his hopes up. “I’ll be right back, Mom,” he said as he got up from the chair.
“Take your time, sweetie,” she answered with a smile.
Jared smiled back before following Nurse Amy out into the corridor. She pointed out the way for him and he took off, his heart beating triple time again. Could it be Jensen? But why would he fly all the way to Texas when he had classes and shit to attend? Jared hesitated for the longest of whiles with his hand on the frosted glass doors that lead out of the ICU. If it wasn’t Jensen, who was it and what did that person have to say to him? There really was only one way to find out, so he pushed the door open.
Chapter Seven