[RPF]: Just Don't Mention the "D" Word. Part Two

[lemanya]

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Death is terrifying because it is so ordinary. It happens all the time.
~ Susan Cheever

For a job that consists primarily of watching someone else take a soul and send it straight on to an afterlife, there is a shitload of paperwork required. First there’s the info on the soul they’re gonna get, then there’s the transfer papers for the soul that’s sent along to the processing center (and there’s seriously a processing center for souls), and then there’s the daily report each reaper has to submit that gives a rundown of the day’s progress. Jared seriously never wants to be Jeff, since he’s the one that has to handle it all. Neither does he want to be Katie, who, as receptionist, mediates it all to Jeff while also running the ice-cream section of the building. It seems like the only person who doesn’t hate the paperwork (apart from Katie, who fucking revels in her job) is Jensen, who diligently isolates himself at one of the corner tables of the lounge or the library after each shift and writes up pages and pages on how his reaps went.

Jared doesn’t know how he manages that much. Sure, Jared isn’t doing any reaping himself yet, so he doesn’t have much to say in his own reports, but even Danneel and Misha’s reports are only a page and a half at most, if something goes wrong. Chad’s reports don’t count since he usually hands in a napkin with a list of names ticked off. Jensen though, Jensen writes fucking theses on his day, and Jared can’t help but be paranoid that those reports include comments about Jared. Speaking of which:

‘I don’t think Jensen likes me very much.’

He wants to say that he has a lot to base that statement on, but unfortunately, all he’s got is that Jensen basically ignores the fact that Jared’s even there, until he suddenly and tersely gives him information. Generally it’s info on the poor soul they’re collecting, since the actual reaping involves a brush of Jensen’s hand against some part of their skin. And it has to be skin.

There was one memorable reap where they dude they were after was bundled up in full on snow gear, with gloves and a ski mask in the middle of main street, and Jared didn’t know how they were supposed to be able to touch him without being highly inappropriate, even if they were invisible. Jared had asked if they couldn’t just wait until the guy breathed his last before nabbing the soul. Jensen had scowled.

‘Well, you could, if you wanted to be cruel,’ he said.

‘How so?’

‘Did you feel any pain when you di- moved into motel eternity?’ Jensen asked. Jared was thrown for a moment because Jensen was the first experienced reaper that had slipped and nearly said that word.

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘That’s because Sandy reaped your soul before the event occurred. If she hadn’t, it would have been very painful. It’s a courtesy to them. They’re leaving their world, their life, the least we can do is make it peaceful.’

‘What about if they’re in a car accident, or stuck crushed under something and it’s painful… or a heart attack. Is it that they got uncaring reapers?’

Jensen was silent for a moment. ‘Sometimes,’ he said quietly, ‘but usually it’s that we can’t get to them before that happens, and we can only take away that pain after they’ve already experienced it.’

‘So what do you do if you can’t get close enough to the skin?’

Jensen had closed his eyes then and said, ‘Occasionally you have to make it happen,’ and the next thing Jared knew, the guy’s phone beeped with an incoming text. He removed a glove because pressing buttons, even on those fancy touch screens is a bitch with something covering your hands, and Jensen used that moment and moved in, trailed his fingers along the guy’s thumb.

And then they had waited.

‘He likes you, don’t worry.’ Danneel’s voice brings him back. They’re on the couches in the lounge, Danneel lying sideways and flicking through a gossip magazine while Jared pretends to not be watching Jensen.

‘But how do you know?’ Jared says. ‘He’s so quiet, and professional, and when he does talk it’s like he really doesn’t want to be. For all I know he’s over there right now, writing up how annoying I am and that I won’t be good at reaping. Or maybe he’s not writing the report at all, and is just printing out I hate Jared Padalecki over and over again.’

Danneel snorts.

‘I’m serious, Danni.’

‘I know, which is why it’s so funny.’ She sits up. ‘I know that he doesn’t not like you because he hasn’t mentioned you.’

‘At all? But that could mean that he’s secretly hating me.’

‘Jensen makes his displeasure known, believe me. He’s a bit special in that department, doesn’t really talk about what he does like, but makes it well known if something’s annoying him. Not being mentioned means he has nothing negative to say about you, which, while it’s true that it doesn’t mean he does like you, certainly means that he doesn’t not like you.’

And okay, once you get past the double negatives, it makes sense.

‘Besides, he told me this morning that he thinks you’re doing very well. Said you’re attentive and professional and good company.’

Jared looks at her. ‘Well you could have said that first.’

So okay, maybe Jensen likes him, as much as Jensen can seem to like anybody (except Kane, who Jensen seems to like a lot, and Danneel, who, though not in that same category as Christian Kane, certainly seems to have a special place in Jensen’s life. He’d be suspicious of a relationship if he didn’t already know that Danneel prefers boobs, no penis, and Katie, who despite her groping and flirting when he met her, returns the preference) but Jared kind of wants Jensen to like like him, for lack of a more mature term.

It’s only been three days, but Jared’s attraction has grown into a full blown crush on Jensen. It’s more than just his looks, too. Jensen’s intelligent, highly so, and has a dry wit that seems embarrass him when it slips out. Jared just last night accidentally walked in on Jensen and Chris talking in the library, and hid before they could spot him, because Jensen uninhibited is stunning, his smile and laugh lighting him up, and he’s hilarious when he lets go and lets that humor out. Jared had spent a good half an hour with his hand over his mouth stifling his own laughter.

But when Jensen is around others, and even more so when he puts on that robe and holds his scythe, he’s distant and quiet, almost cold and unfailingly professional. He attempts to become as invisible as the uniform makes him to the living, both of which Jared found out on his first day out.

Jensen had been waiting in the kitchen, coffee mug firmly planted in hand when Jared got downstairs on his very first reaping day, although just about everybody told him he wasn’t going to be doing any reaping himself. But he didn’t want to call it his observation day, so reaping day it was. Jared had deliberated for a solid forty-six minutes over what to wear, which was possible only because he and Sandy had gone shopping the previous day. Jared didn’t want to spend the rest of eternity in the clothes that he had bit the biscuit in, and besides, he was corporeal now, which meant dirt and sweat and smells, so new clothes (and food) sounded good.

Jared had eventually settled on slacks and a plain white shirt, and after much umming and ahhing, grabbed a tie as well. Sandy said that most reapers generally had the same kind of clothes they used as unofficial work clothes (and yes, that included the pink heels she was wearing the day she reaped Jared) so he felt justified in choosing something that looked serious, but was comfortable. It worried him a little that what he had settled on was remarkably similar to what he wore for work when he was alive, but figured that at least it gave him a professional air.

He decided to wear the sneakers with the rainbow laces for sentimentality’s sake.

Jensen was dressed in the same kind of clothes that Jared had first seen him in, black slacks and a plain white t-shirt, and Jared had half a mind to go back upstairs and change into a tank, just to level the playing field a little. Jensen waited until Jared finished his own coffee and then stood, waved at him to follow.

At the series of hooks and cupboards by the door to the ice-cream shop, Jensen paused at his own, the one that said ‘JensenJennybean ;)’.

‘Chris thinks he’s hilarious,’ Jensen said, ‘but he’s not. He’s an asshole,’ and pointed to the hook one spot down, which read ‘KaneAsshole’. Jared laughed and Jensen gave him a small smile.

‘So, these robes aren’t worn for dramatic effect, regardless of the effect they do have when the soul finally sees you. These robes actually keep us hidden- as soon as we put them on, no one alive can see us.’

‘That explains why we could go shopping and talk to people, but why nobody was paying attention to Sandy when she reaped me.’

‘Exactly. Basically, the robes protect us from prying eyes, nosy neighbors that might call cops on the weird loiterers, and anybody who would call the cops on somebody carrying a giant blade.’ Jensen’s mouth curved in a smirk. ‘It has happened, and it’s not a conversation you really want to have with law enforcement. The scythe is, unfortunately, important though, so we need the magic invisibility cloaks.’

Jared had laughed at that but asked, ‘What does the scythe do?’

‘It holds the souls until they can be processed.’

Jensen had put on the robe by now and removed his scythe from the cupboard. Jared could see a ‘J’ imprinted on the blade, like Sandy’s had an ‘S’.

‘They’re personalized?’

Jensen nodded. ‘It helps with the processing. It’s like an identification key, or a barcode, lets the processing center know which reaper picked up the soul so that they can match it to who it’s supposed to be.’

‘Does it get confusing to know which one’s yours, like, when I get mine, they’ll both have Js on them?’

‘Only in appearances. A scythe learns you, and you learn it. If you were to pick up mine, you’d feel instantly that it didn’t belong to you. It would feel wrong to hold it.’

‘That’s… pretty cool,’ Jared had said.

‘I suppose, I never thought about it that way.’

‘Well, trust me, it is. And hey, do I get a magic invisibility cloak or something too- I’m not going out there when I can be seen, am I? I don’t want the cops called because people think I’m a nut job because I’m talking to myself.’

Jensen shook his head, and walked further down the line to where an empty and unnamed hook stood. ‘No robe, not yet. It’s like the scythe or the knuckles- it’s a mark of your position. Until then, you get to wear this-’ He opened the cupboard with a flourish and pulled out a pin in the shape of an ice-cream. ‘Just attach it anywhere, it’ll work the same way.’

Jared took it and pinned it to the base of his tie.

‘And this,’ Jensen handed over what looked like a miniature version of a scythe, ‘is yours too. It won’t do much, but you will need to get used to carrying it around, and it’ll help if we end up with a wayward soul that’ll try to run away. In that case, just swing the scythe in a motion toward you, it’ll bring the soul back to where you’re standing.

‘So, are you ready?’

‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ Jared replied.

‘Good, because we have to be on the other side of town in thirteen minutes.’

Jared's musing is broken when Chad flops down next to him.

‘So, what are you guys going as to Sandy’s party?’ he asks. ‘Are you going to put on something sexy for me, Harris?’

Danneel rolls her eyes. ‘Hardly, but if you must know, both Katie and I are going as librarians.’

‘Sexy librarians?’ Chad says.

‘Maybe,’ Danneel answers. ‘But not for you.’

‘Why are you both going as the same thing?’ Jared asks.

‘We both wanted to see the other in pencil skirts and glasses, and because we couldn’t decide who in fact was going to miss out, we both decided to do it.’

‘Man, lesbian librarians. Are we sure it’s Halloween, cause it sounds like Christmas.’

Jared laughs. ‘You know, Chad, “lesbian” means not into men, so even if you were happy to just watch, you do realise that they’re not, so it’s never gonna happen.’

Chad waves a hand. ‘Details,’ he says, ‘and I’m cool for it to never happen. As long as I get to see the outfits as they’ll be appearing in my fantasies, I’m good.’

Jared thinks that might be the most respectable thing Chad’s said all week. Danneel looks like she agrees. ‘And what about you, Jared? What are you wearing?’

‘A man-thong, I hope,’ Misha says as he joins them. ‘That’d be Christmas, my birthday and Vicki’s birthday all in one.’

‘Well, sorry to disappoint,’ Jared says wryly, ‘but I’m going as a fireman.’

Misha nods. ‘Next best thing. Don’t worry, I’m no longer crushed by your choice against the man-thong.’

Danneel throws a pillow at him.

Misha and Vicki are the only couple to be living together, though rumor has it that Tom’s apartment has been unlived-in for a while now. Not even Danneel and Katie (who lives in the apartment opposite Jensen) have gone that far. The empty apartment, which happens to be opposite Chad on the second floor, has been converted into a gym, which Jared made use of last night, and will most likely be using often, considering how much of a high he runs on after being with Jensen all day. It’s not the most adrenaline-pumping job, but Jensen’s presence is filling in the blanks.

Speaking of, he looks back over to the corner where Jensen was to find him gone, probably upstairs to get ready, since there’s only an hour to go before Sandy’s party is due to start. At least, Jared’s hoping he’s getting ready, and not sequestered away and planning on skipping out on the party. Chris- who told Jared that being called Kane was weird and impersonal- had assured them that he would make sure Jensen was there no matter what, but Jared knows what Jensen’s like when he gets stubborn.

Part of him wants Jensen to come because he wants to see Jensen mingle with other people a little more. From what Jared can tell, just about everybody likes Jensen, they’re just awkward around him and a little afraid because he’s really grumpy pre-and-in-between-coffee. Jensen comes across as a little uptight; he’s hard to talk to, prefers very little, if any, company, and when he does make small talk, it’s stilted and he has a habit of insulting people, and though it’s obvious he doesn’t mean to, he also doesn’t notice when he’s done so.

The other part of Jared just wants to see Jensen in a costume, get that prickly personality into a fun-loving outfit and show everybody that yes, Jensen can be cool too.

He has his fingers crossed for a positive outcome.



Thankfully, not least to Jared’s intervention, Chad is not dressed as the grim reaper. Jared somehow managed to convince Chad that being a ghostbuster would get the ladies’ attention, and it has, just not in the way that Jared had led Chad to believe, if the laughing is any indication. To be fair, Chad does look ridiculous, because he took the whole ghostbuster thing to heart and initiates conversation by head bopping and singing who you gonna call? which makes him look a little like a demented musical turkey.

Sandy’s party, on the other hand, is spectacular. She’s gone full out Halloween decorations, and the entire place smells like spiced pumpkin, because she’s been baking all day. She’s dressed as a leprechaun, and when Jared walked in the door she handed him a chocolate coin. Jared hasn’t celebrated Halloween since he was seventeen and had to take his sister around the neighborhood, so to do so again, even if it is just sitting around and chatting with a beer rather than trick-or-treating, is pretty exciting.

He finds Danneel and Katie in the kitchen, dressed in matching skirts and glasses, and their shirts are just on the tight side of small, pulling across their chests. It’s distracting, which, judging by their smirks, is exactly what they were going for. Jared puts his beer in Sandy’s fridge and winks at the girls, but has to double back into the kitchen when he spots Genevieve looking around the room intently. She’s dressed in something that resembles Princess Leia’s gold bikini, but with even less cloth.

‘Avoiding someone there, cowboy?’ Danneel’s tone is wry and knowing.

‘Not a cowboy, clearly,’ Jared replies as he gestures to his outfit.

‘Oh we can see that,’ Katie says, ‘it’s very obvious.’ She leers and wiggles her eyebrows, ‘You’ll have to show me your hose later.’

Jared laughs. Katie’s flirting is harmless, mostly. She’s pretty whipped for Danneel, and told Jared that she only flirts with Jared because he’s big, manly and studly, and her flirting gets Danneel hot. Danneel had shrugged and said, ‘The sex is brilliant after she gets turned on by you.’

‘I’ll show you anything you want, baby,’ Jared tells her, and she fake swoons into Danneel. At that point, Misha, in an Adam costume, finds them. Thankfully, it’s a little more than just a fig leaf, even if most of him is skin. Jared idly wonders if Vicki’s in an Eve costume, thinks for a moment that it’s really cute, in that weird couple way, but gets sidetracked completely by Jensen in the next room, dressed in tight black jeans and a black t-shirt, eyes done over in kohl and several of Chris’ bracelets on his arms. Jared forgets to breathe for a moment, and it’s not until Misha steps into his line of sight and claps his hands in Jared’s face that Jared realizes he’s been staring, mouth open. Misha looks highly amused, and when Jared turns to the girls, he sees that they’re trying not to laugh.

‘Oh shut up, all of you,’ he says.

Unfortunately, his defiant stalk out of the kitchen puts him right into Genevieve’s arms (yes, literally) as she accosts him just past the doorway, and he has to spend the next twenty minutes trying to keep her hands off his body. He’s only had that one experience in the library with Genevieve’s hands, but he thinks that she really needs to train them not to wander so much.

‘Wanna get out of here?’ she purrs (freaking purrs) into his shoulder, since she can’t reach his ear. ‘We could put these costumes to use. I’ll be the poor princess tied up and you can be my dashing rescuer. Firemen really are today’s heroes. And you know, this princess would be ever so grateful for your assistance…’

Whoa.

Jared looks up and away, swallowing hard for a very different reason than Genevieve was probably intending, only to catch sight of Jensen looking at them, somewhat amused, but with a frown tugging at his mouth. Jared realizes that the way Genevieve’s pressed up against him with her hands where they are- Jared takes a moment to remove them, again- that they probably look quite intimate. He gets the amusement in Jensen’s expression, but doesn’t get why it also seems to be bothering him. Jensen nods at him when he sees Jared watching, and turns back towards where Chris is sitting (rather closely) with Sandy.

‘Oh, nah.’ Jared tries to make his voice as casual as he can. ‘I’m having fun, you know? Wouldn’t want to leave to early, we might miss something worth good blackmail points.’

There’s silence as Genevieve stares at him, and then she relaxes, attempting to snuggle in closer. Her hands move southward again.

‘So hey, I totally need another beer,’ Jared lies, and manages to extricate himself from her grasp, heading back to the kitchen. Genevieve has a pout on, but Jared would totally prefer dealing with Danneel and Katie’s mocking, which they deliver when he gets back to them.



He’s trying to work up the courage to talk to Jensen. It shouldn’t be that difficult, they’ve spent the last two days together, plus the afternoon the previous day when Jared did, in fact, have questions, mostly because that manual reads like it was written in the 1800s. But Jensen’s been sitting on the couch for the past couple of hours, steadily drinking beer, talking occasionally, and looking like he’s ready to leave. Jared’s been downing his own beer in an attempt to build up resolve, but his new immortal body isn’t getting drunk any time soon. All he knows is that he feels pleasantly buzzed, and his plastic fireman’s hat was last seen on Katie.

‘Jared, man,’ a voice says, and Jared turns to see Mike (dressed impressively as a rotting zombie) swaying up to him. ‘How’s it going, dude, how’s your first week been?’

‘Good,’ Jared says, ‘I’m having fun. So far.’

‘Cool man, cool.’ Mike grins at him, ‘So hey, how’s uh, things with Jensen panning out?’ He wiggles his eyebrows.

‘So far so good,’ Jared says honestly. He can’t really say things are amazing, because they’re not, but Jensen’s pretty awesome at the job, and apart from his no nonsense attitude (which Jared is slowly breaking, thank you very much) it’s damn fucking good working with Jensen.

Mike nods like this make sense. ‘You’re good for him,’ he says, ‘we’re kind of lucky to have you.’

‘Yeah?’ Jared hasn’t noticed any change in Jensen’s behavior, but then again, he didn’t really see what Jensen was like before Jared started with him. He has noticed (in the three or four days Jared’s been here) that Jensen’s smiling just a little more on their shifts, but it’s never just in general, always in response to a joke or comment Jared’s made, and it’s never big, and always strained in that way that says Jensen’s trying not to smile, because he’s not used to it.

‘Mhmm.’ Mike’s nodding is moving into bobble head territory and Jared has to wonder if he’s beginning to get dizzy. ‘He was a seriously grumpy bastard just last week. But these past couple of days, he hasn’t yelled or glared at anyone. Hell, he came tonight, which he hasn’t done in a few years, and he’s even talking!’

They both look at Jensen, who’s sipping his beer and looking sideways at a guy named Jake babbling his head off. Jensen’s scowl gets more pronounced as they watch.

‘Well, talking a lot more than usual,’ Mike says.

‘I’m just gonna- go save him, or stop him from committing murder,’ Jared says, and Mike waves him off with a smile.

Jared walks straight up to the couch where Jake and Jensen are and manages to squeeze himself in the space between them. Jake doesn’t stop talking, even as he shifts sideways to accommodate Jared, too caught up in a story involving raccoons and a butterfly net.

‘Hey,’ Jared says to Jensen, letting Jake keep going, ‘figured I should come over here since it looked like you were about to splice Jake in half with your scythe.’

Jensen smiles at that, a real one, and Jared reckons he must be drunker than he looks. ‘Yeah,’ he says, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. He meets Jared’s eyes. ‘He’d probably talk all through it though.’

Jared tips his head back and laughs. ‘That he would.’ They both look at Jake, who’s moved on to the time he snuck into the White House during Lincoln’s presidency and rearranged the oval office. Apparently, it was the week before he- Jake that is, not Lincoln- was reformatted by God.

‘I reckon if we left, he’d never know,’ Jared says, and Jensen smirks. In a moment of semi-drunken ingenuity, Jared takes Jensen’s hand and launches them both up off the couch. Jensen’s hand (in his, holy shit in his) tenses for a moment, then relaxes.

They make a dash for the kitchen, only for Jared to see Genevieve and quickly adjust course. Not knowing where else to go, he half runs, half drags Jensen out of Sandy’s apartment. Jared reluctantly lets go of Jensen’s hand once they’re in the hallway.

They lean against the wall in silence. It’s not awkward.

‘You look good,’ Jared says, his throat going dry. It’s true, but he means more to the comment and he’s nervous that Jensen will read into that. He might have just held Jensen’s hand, but he could still ruin their burgeoning friendship.

‘Thanks,’ Jensen says, almost shyly. ‘Uh, you do too.’

‘Yeah?’ Jared says, and grins, flexing a little as he strikes a bodybuilder pose. Jensen laughs, full out, and Jared thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s seen in his life, let alone his afterlife.

‘Hey, how about we get away from the mess in there and have a beer somewhere quieter?’ Jared asks.

‘Genevieve won’t be missing you?’

‘Why should she?’ Jared asks. Jensen’s quiet for a long moment, just looking at Jared.

‘Sure,’ he says eventually, ‘although I don’t know how much quieter it’ll be, since you rival Jake on your best of days.’

Jared gasps dramatically, ‘I do not,’ he says indignantly, ‘and I only tell you things that are true.’

‘Liar,’ Jensen says, ‘you told me yesterday that you don’t condition your hair, but Katie asked me this morning if I knew where you were so that she could give you “that fruity stuff” you liked.’ He crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow at Jared.

‘Yes, well, I get a lot of compliments on my hair. I’m pretty sure Jake just makes shit up. I would never make shit up, I only tell stories that are plausible. Like, this one time, right back in high school, I broke into the principal’s office and took this big plastic fish that he prized and was hanging on the wall behind his desk, and he freaked out the next day and ordered a full school locker search, though they didn’t find the fish because I’d taken it home with me, had to walk ten blocks with this thing that was like, heavy duty plastic and weighed something like 40 pounds, and-’

‘You can stop now,’ Jensen says.

‘But I didn’t tell you why I took the fish,’ Jared says. ‘See, there was this troll, and-’

Jensen laughs and walks away toward the elevators.

‘But wait! I didn’t get to the fairy princess!’ Jared calls, and runs after Jensen when the elevator doors start to close.

Though they only end up on Jensen’s couch playing video games (of which, to Jared’s surprise, Jensen has a highly impressive collection of), but it’s the best Halloween ever.



He should have known the high wouldn’t have lasted. It’s been nearly two months of what Jared can only call fun, even when wandering around with a grumpy guy dressed head to toe in black and carrying a tall blade. He even had the chance not too long ago to use his own mini-scythe, when the business dude they reaped from an eighteen story balcony fall refused to accept he’d never finish the deal he was in the middle of when he fell. As the guy took off running, Jensen had just pointed and said, well, go get him and it took four blocks of Jared running before he remembered to swing his blade. The soul was yanked backwards into the air, limbs stretched out in front, and was zapped straight into the point of Jared’s scythe. Needless to say, it was about the coolest thing ever, and he’s been waiting for another runaway soul ever since.

Jared had started off this day by finally labeling his hook and cupboard, choosing Jare and hoping it would be enough to stop others scribbling on it. He had met up and chatted with Tom while he was at it, who had a bottle of something foul-smelling and a rag and was trying to remove his own superman graffiti, scribbled on last night by Chris. It’s apparently a bit of a running joke- Tom finds superman written on his nametag, he goes and scrubs it off, and by the end of the week, someone writes it on again. This has apparently being going on for the last hundred years or so.

The rest of the morning had gone well, too- guy in the park had a heart attack, little old man passed peacefully in his afternoon nap (Jared was jealous of that one), and a woman driving too fast ran a red light (Jensen had reaped her before she got into the car).

Jared had needed to remove the ice-cream pin in order to get them lunch from a hot dog stand by the park, and they studiously avoided the bench the heart attack had happened on and sat enjoying the sunshine. It’s when they finish that Jensen lets out a sigh.

‘Our next one’s on the other side of town,’ he says, his usually even tone more measured than normal. He’s playing with a necklace that he normally keeps in his pocket. Jared’s only seen it a couple of times, usually when Jensen thinks Jared isn’t watching. Jensen twists the cord round his fingers, watches the beads press into his skin.

‘Oh? Okay, soon? Should we get going?’

‘Yeah, probably,’ Jensen says, ‘but we can afford a few more minutes. You should enjoy the day while you can.’

Jared looks at Jensen, slumped on the bench and alternating between running his fingertips over the runes on his knuckles and the necklace. The scythe sits between them, glinting brightly, holding those three souls they’d already collected. Jared’s own mini-version lies across his lap.

‘You okay?’ Jared asks.

‘Yeah,’ Jensen coughs, ‘why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Because, dude, you actually told me to enjoy my day.’

That gets a smile from Jensen, even if it is weak. He looks up, meets Jared’s eyes.

‘I am a bit of a grump, aren’t I? You do this job long enough, and all you can see is how it absolutely sucks.’

He breathes in deep, lets it out slow. Jared fights the urge to reach over and hold Jensen’s hand.

‘Come on,’ Jensen says, standing and grabbing the scythe. He puts the necklace back into the pocket in his robe, ‘let’s go meet Clara.’

Clara turns out to be seven years old, with big blue eyes and long dark hair and a bruise lining her cheek. Jared’s stomach sinks when he sees her, walking down her street towards her house. She hesitates when she gets to the driveway, eyes going big and frightened at the sight of the truck sitting there.

‘Clara was off from school on a “sick day”.’ Jensen’s mouth twists. ‘But the only food in her house is moldy bread and her father’s whiskey, so she used her own savings to go down the street for a sandwich because her dad was supposed to be at work.’ He steps forward and brushes his fingers over the bruise. She shivers at that and Jared knows Jensen’s got the soul.

Whatever happens from here on out, it won’t hurt her.

Clara steels herself and goes inside. Jared’s not stupid enough to ask if they can’t just leave her, let her live, because he knows that Jensen would tell him that it’s her time, just like Jared’s time came in that alleyway outside his apartment.

Instead, he asks, ‘Can we be with her?’

Jensen looks at him. ‘Yeah, I reckon we can.’

The rest of the day is somber. Since Clara was the last soul for the day, they headed back to the ice-cream shop in silence. Katie handed them a scoop of chocolate each and smiled sadly at them as they went through the back door. After Jensen removes his robe he turns and leans the scythe into the opposite wall, just as he’s done every time before. There’s a crack there that the tip fits into, and small pulses of light burn bright in the J etched there, before they leach out of the blade and into the crack.

The last light is brighter than the others, and a pale blue color where the others are white.

Clara hadn’t cried, had held her ground and let it happen, and when she hit the wall too hard Jensen darted forward and took her hand, pulled her out and let her body fall to the floor. She had blinked up at them, said thank you, and they walked with her in the sun until she was tired and ready to go.

‘Don’t worry,’ Jensen says, placing his scythe back in his cupboard, ‘Katie already told me he doesn’t survive the week.’

Jared hoped they’d be the ones to reap him.



They weren’t, but it was Chad, whose napkin at the end of the day had ‘couldn’t get to him before the pain set in’ next to Clara’s father’s name, and he makes sure to show both Jared and Jensen before he hands it in to Jeff. Jensen reaches out and pats Chad on the shoulder a couple of times, and then heads towards the ice-cream hallway.

‘Dude,’ Chad says, ‘did he really just touch me?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ Jared says. ‘Clara really got to him, you know?’

‘Well yeah, they do that sometimes, and I know despite how much he acts like it that he’s not really a robot, but dude, he actually reached out and touched me.’

Jared laughs. Chad turns to him wide-eyed.

‘You’re made of magic.’

Jared just laughs even harder. When Jared gets to the robe hooks, still laughing, Jensen looks at him, confused, before shaking his head and smirking in amusement.

They’re on a night run, which they’ve only done a couple of times together, but it’s fast becoming Jared’s favorite shift time, because he mostly plays in the shadows and tries to make Jensen loosen up. Tonight, he’s humming the Pink Panther theme as he dashes between the light of the streetlamps. Every time he looks back at Jensen, sitting on a park bench outside their next soul’s home, he sings a little louder, because it’s making Jensen whip between scowling at him for being so unprofessional and laughing.

‘Duh dun de daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, deh dun duh da,’ Jared sings, coming up behind Jensen and flipping Jensen’s hood up over his head. Jensen huffs and leaves it. Jared has a moment where he thinks it’s abnormal for him to think that Jensen looks abnormally cute in the reaper gear, sitting leisurely on a park bench in the middle of the night and huffing.

‘You know,’ Jensen says, ‘we are on the job.’

‘Oh pish posh,’ Jared says, ‘we’re waiting for our job to come home, and it’s-’ he checks his watch- ‘one-seventeen in the morning, so I really don’t think there’s going to be much that would cause us to miss the job coming home, unless they had like, teleportation powers and just beamed straight into their living room. Man, that’d be cool, you’d never have to bother with stairs again. I’d never have had to bother with stairs, but then I never would have fell down the stairs, and I never would have met Sandy, or Danneel, Chad, Katie, Misha, you…’

‘I’m sure you would have done something else, probably stupid, like teleported yourself into a kiln instead. You’d have ended up with us regardless.’

‘You think so?’ Jared asks.

‘I know so,’ Jensen says, ‘you- sampled the french onion soup with the salmonella spoon- when you did because Fate said you would. How you came to us was completely spontaneous, but you were meant to be no more on that day, at that time. You were also meant to be a reaper.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Of course, otherwise,’ he pauses, ‘you never would have tripped on your shoelace.’

‘Huh,’ Jared says, ‘so, the reaper before me moving on, they-’

‘Adrianne was meant to be a reaper as well. And she moved on so you could take her place.’

‘That is… hard to get your head around. And kind of a bummer, you know, that like, when my time comes to move on, I have to move on.’

‘You don’t,’ Jensen says.

Jared blinks and looks at him. The hood’s still up and Jensen’s face is shrouded in shadow. ‘What? But you just said-’

‘I said the reaper before you, Adrianne, moved on so you could take her place. That doesn’t mean that she had to, nor does it mean that not doing so would have upset the cosmic balance of nature or anything. It simply meant that she was offered her eternal peace at the time when you were due to join us, and she chose to take it.

‘She could have said no, Jared, and all that would have needed to happen is that we find another room for you to stay in.’

‘I’ve never heard of anyone staying once their contract was up.’

‘Your contract can’t be up if it’s set for an indefinite amount of time,’ Jensen says, ‘and besides, moving on is just about balancing numbers in each unit. And there’s always a way to accommodate extra numbers. Your life is over, Jared, Fate doesn’t have a say anymore. You’ve reached your destiny.’

‘My destiny is in my afterlife?’

‘Why not? Life, after all, must eventually come to an end, and so Death himself exists, to take you, or make you, or send you on. Some people achieve great things in their life, like Mother Theresa, or Gandhi, or Martin Luther King. Others have a legacy after their life, like Van Gogh and Jesus Christ. You just get to stay around for your legacy.’

‘Is it a legacy if no one knows?’

‘We know. There needs to be an end to life in this world, Jared, and someone needs to be there to make sure it happens. We keep everything balanced and continuing on. We’re the biggest legacy that this world, and her people’s lives, will ever have.’

‘Okay,’ Jared says. ‘I can totally deal with that. But, if I was meant to be a reaper, what was with Jeff’s whole you can say no speech when I got here?’

‘Easy,’ Jensen says, shrugging, ‘you agreed, didn’t you? To stay? And you would have agreed, if you got the chance to choose again. The speech is just protocol, insurance even, to make you think it’s all your choice. Fact of the matter is, you never would have said no.’

Jared nods at that, because Jensen’s absolutely right. Maybe his life was meant to be that dull, because he’s meant to be this in his afterlife.

‘Still be cool if we had powers though.’

‘Who says we don’t?’ Jensen says, and the tone of his voice is wry. The hood tilts sideways, and Jared imagines Jensen smirking underneath it.

Jared gapes. ‘No way. I’ve never seen anyone- and I certainly can’t…’ He looks down at his hands, waves them around a bit. Jensen chuckles.

‘You’re two months into the job, of course you can’t do anything. It’s an experience thing. As for everyone else, with the exception of Jeff, they’re pretty young too, so even if they realized what they’re capable of, it’s unlikely they’ll have practiced or used it much.’

‘What are we capable of?’ Jared says.

‘Teleportation, for one. Much easier getting to jobs if you don’t have to wait for a bus, even if it is free, what with being invisible.’ Jared blinks and Jensen’s suddenly not there anymore, and he turns when he hears a cough behind him. Jensen’s across the street, standing in the doorway of the house belonging to the soul they’re waiting for.

‘There’s also super speed, for lack of a better term. Moving faster than the regular Joes helps in reaping.’ He steps out of the doorway and in less than a second, he’s back in front of Jared. It’s different from the teleportation because Jared can just see Jensen moving, like he’s not quite fast enough to be out of the range of the human eye, a blur of motion like something you’d catch in your peripheral vision. He looks frightening, the hood still over his head and scythe held upright, like the image personified, emerging swiftly and silently out of the shadows.

‘Can catch a soul easier if the body it’s in is in a rush. Most of us can do it almost immediately, including you, but you just haven’t realized because it’s so subtle. The older you are, the faster you become.’

Jared’s not stupid enough to ask how old Jensen is, even if he half means it as a joke. He remembers how Jensen reacted when Jared saw his knuckles for the first time, and he still sees how Jensen hides his hands when others go to look too closely.

‘There’s other, mostly useless, bits and pieces- like telepathy, messing with technology with your mind, very mild mind control… although, there’s this.’

He turns back to the house, his back to Jared. He transfers the scythe to his left hand so he can hold out his right, palm outward, toward the darkened doorway. The streetlamp behind throws eerie shadows in streaks along the house front, and Jared suddenly feels cold.

The temperature drops, Jared’s breath coming out in smoky puffs, and he shivers. He looks around when he realizes there are no more night sounds, no animals squeaking in the park behind them, no sounds of traffic along the freeway not too far away.

Everything’s gone quiet.

‘Watch,’ Jensen says, and twitches his fingers, curling and bending them. The shadows twist, streaks swirling and patterning, dancing on the brick. They melt into each other, break apart again, twist and turn and it’s almost like they’re breathing, heaving up and along and into themselves until it’s a seething mass of darkness.

The streetlight flickers, adding to the torment Jensen’s creating. When Jared looks down the street, none of the other lights are affected.

Jensen drops his hand and turns to Jared. The cold goes away, the light stops fluttering and the shadows settle.

‘Whoa,’ Jared breathes, then he throws his head back and cackles.

Under the hood, the yellow of the streetlight lights up Jensen’s grin.

All Jared can do is grin back.

They get back to what Jared affectionately calls The Hub, though Sandy insists it’s just HQ, in the early pre-dawn light. Jared stifles a yawn- officially as an immortal, he doesn’t need much sleep, but it’s been a few days and his night was long, and all he wants to do is fall asleep for a few hours, then wake up and slump on the couch with a bowl of sugared cereal and a B-grade movie.

If the way Jensen drags his palm over his face is any indication, he feels the same way.

No one else is around, save for Jeff, who’s just coming out of the elevator and making a beeline for the coffeepot, and Katie, emerging from Jeff’s office with a stack of papers as tall as her torso. She winks at Jared when he walks past, and he blows her a kiss.

Jensen fills a mug with coffee and heads toward the library, but waves Jared off when he goes to follow.

‘Don’t worry about a report, just go get some sleep. You can write it later, when you can keep your eyes open for more than ten seconds.’

Jared closes his eyes in a blink, and it takes longer than he expected for them to open again. ‘You may have a point,’ he says, though he thinks it’s a little slurred. Jensen points him in the direction of the elevator and gives him a push. ‘Thanks, man,’ Jared calls over his shoulder. ‘I’ll see you later, okay?’

‘Hey, Jared?’ Jensen calls, and Jared turns to face him. Jensen looks awkward. ‘I know I’m not the easiest person to be around,’ he says, and Jared wants to refute that. Jensen is a little prickly, but he’s very easy to be around, so long as he’s got coffee in his body. ‘And it’s been a while since I’ve trained anyone up, so I hope I’m doing an okay job of it, but you’re doing really well. Really,’ he adds, when Jared looks dubiously at him, ‘just, keep that bright, bubbly spark of yours going. This job… it takes its toll. All you see is life ending, and when it ends violently, it stays with you, changes you until you don’t remember who you are anymore.

‘I’m, well. I’m really glad you were assigned to me.’

Jared nods at him. ‘Me too, man, me too. Hey, you’re coming tomorrow night, right?’

‘Your first party as host? Because you somehow managed to swap out of your obligatory hosting in November and take December’s Christmas slot? That’s bound to have something go wrong with it- I wouldn’t dare miss it.’



So yeah, Jared managed to con Chad into taking November, which gave him more time to plan the party. Chad agreed, mainly because he was dreading having to do Christmas, but Jared’s plan was to basically hire the girls to do all the decorating. Between Sandy’s design eye, Katie’s ruthless efficiency and Danneel’s successful techniques (read: making him work downstairs in the ice-cream shop) in distracting Jared from involving himself and panicking, Jared’s apartment (after he successfully slept in and then slumped on the couch with sugared cereal and a B-grade movie) looks like the kind of Santa’s village you’d see in an IKEA magazine.

It looks, well, perfect- icicles and snowflakes hanging from furniture, mistletoe in nearly every doorway and fake snow (some kind of cotton wool) piled up in the corners and under the enormous tree which stretches to the ceiling, bedecked artfully in tinsel, baubles, and more fake snow (the canned kind this time). Jared has no idea how the girls managed to get it into his apartment since they’re probably smaller than it if they were standing on each other’s shoulders, not to mention a hundred times lighter than it, but here it is.

There’s also a bunch of food prepared, mostly courtesy of Sandy. In Jared’s defense, because as host he was supposed to supply food, he did go out and buy chips and a few dips and salsa, bags of candy and a stack of candy canes, but Sandy took one look at them and put them back in Jared’s pantry, said she’d get Chris to pick up better things. Jared hadn’t realized there was a frown on his face until she pulled the candy canes back out and told him to go spread them around the apartment.

From what he can tell, people are having fun, kicking back and relaxing and mingling… though Jared’s keeping an eye on Chad, making sure he doesn’t mingle too disastrously with the women. Danneel’s accosted Jeff over by Jared’s TV, where Jake and Misha are duelling it out in a Nintendo tournament of some kind.

Jared’s spent most of his evening dividing his time between chatting with people and keeping away from Genevieve whenever she’s near a doorway. He’s already kissed Katie (who kissed back rather enthusiastically), Vicki, Sandy and Misha (who also kissed back rather enthusiastically), and ended up with a shy peck on the cheek from Tom, while Mike leered at them. Jared had scrammed before Mike could step forward and show how it’s done.

His words, not Jared’s.

Anyway, while he’s okay with kissing Genevieve in the spirit of mistletoe and all that, he really doesn’t think she will be, and he doesn’t want to have to fight off rumors of their everlasting love, like a couple days ago, when Jake came up to him and congratulated him on proposing to Genevieve. Chris had burst out laughing at that, his hand slamming the table, while Chad had looked confused and Jensen flushed red.

It turned out to just be a mixed message, and Genevieve hadn’t mentioned proposing of any kind, but still, she seems to be under the illusion that she and Jared are having some kind of illicit affair. He really doesn’t know quite how she came to that conclusion.

All kisses aside, he deems his party a success. Everyone’s having fun, and he’s been congratulated on the fact that it’s his first- Jared found out last month at Chad’s that these parties can get a little wild, no matter how cultured they start out, and though he attributed last month more to Chad than anything else, apparently he skipped out way too early on Sandy’s Halloween party, where the stripping competition had to be cut short when a pumpkin was set alight.

The only thing that’d make Jared’s party the most amazing night to ever be had is the appearance of Jensen, but so far, it’s four hours in and Jensen is no-where to be seen. Jared tries hard to not let his heart sink, because Jensen said he’d be here, and he’s never gone back on his word in the two months Jared’s known him.

He’s in the kitchen grabbing another beer when Danneel sidles up next to him and takes a sip before he can.

‘And why do you look so glum?’ she says, and then adds, ‘No, wait, don’t tell me, I can guess it’s because the freckle-face hasn’t graced us with his presence.’ She’s grinning from behind the mouth of Jared’s beer bottle. ‘You know, I don’t know quite how you did it, but you really are good for him.’

‘Everybody’s been saying that.’

‘Everybody’s right. I mean, I’ve only known Jensen since 1912, but he’s always been sad. That’s where the grumpiness comes in, and the glaring and the intimidating silence. He’s been a reaper a long time, and he was sad.

‘But ever since you, he’s been different. I know, everybody’s said that too, and it’s because it’s true. Whether or not he’s talking more, and glaring less, the fact of the matter is-’ she shrugs her shoulders- ‘Jensen’s happy. For the first time in all the time I’ve known him, Jensen’s actually happy. And that? That’s all down to you.’

But then she raises an eyebrow. ‘And in any case you don’t got to be glum no more, boy, cause lookie who walked through your door,’ she drawls.

Jared turns so fast the room spins.

There, looking around the room, is Jensen, Chris right behind him, though it’s Chris who spots Jared first. He smirks, leans in to tell Jensen something that Jared can’t make out, and walks away and meets Sandy halfway across the room, where she flings herself into his arms. Chris dips her, kisses her, and Jared thinks he should starts paying a bit more attention to his friends’ lives if he hadn’t noticed that happening these past few weeks. Jensen shakes his head on a laugh and heads towards where Jared is.

He doesn’t look up until he’s halfway there, and smiles when he sees Jared. Jared makes a step toward him and they meet on the edge of the kitchen. Jensen shrugs.

‘Chris sent me to get us some beers,’ he says, ‘but hey, how are things going here?’

‘Good,’ Jared says, hoping it doesn’t come out too breathy, ‘yeah, no it’s good.’

‘No crashing and burning then. Shame, I was so looking forward to laughing at you.’ He’s grinning as he says it.

‘I’m too awesome to crash and burn.’ Jared laughs.

Jensen’s eyes widen suddenly and then he blushes.

‘What?’ Jared has to think back on why Jensen’s looking so- oh. Jensen points upward. Of course, they’re in a freaking doorway. Which means mistletoe, which means…

Jared’s heart starts trying to pound its way out of his chest.

‘Yeah,’ he says weakly, ‘Sandy’s idea. It’s, you know, it’s just tradition and- you don’t have to really-’

Jared’s cut off when Jensen surges up toward him and presses his mouth to Jared’s. His hands come up to rest tentatively on Jared’s biceps. It’s a blank sort of kiss- Jared hasn’t exactly frozen, and he’s returning the hesitant movements Jensen’s making, but really, they’re mostly just standing in a doorway with their mouths against each other, rather than, like, kissing. And oh boy, does Jared want to be kissing.

Jensen pulls back, and they stare at each other for a few moments.

‘So, I’m going to grab those beers now,’ Jensen says, and Jared nods, lets him walk past.

If you asked Jared what happened at the party that night, he wouldn’t be able to tell you, because he can’t remember anything else that happened.

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