Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky (Jensen/Jared RPS) -- 15/? (WIP)
Title: Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / OFC
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
I'm not going to say when or if the next chapter will be posted... I am writing on this, but really, it took on a mind/life of it's own, and it's sorta festering at upset!Jared and a Jensen who's entirely unsure what to do... So... read at your own risk. I would enjoy feedback, but I'll understand if you don't want to start reading a WIP with no end in sight or in the works. I really have no idea what's coming next here.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help.
Spoilers: Nothing to see here, folks...
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Chapter Fifteen: Home is not Always Where the Heart is
Rating: PG-13 for semi-adultness, themes
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, but not yet… I know, I know… you don’t believe me anymore, do you?
Word Count: 2,435
Home is Not Always Where the Heart is
He looks up at the sound of my voice, stops coughing for a minute before starting again, bringing his hand again to his mouth, heavy, rasping and wracking coughs that shake him physically, sound as though they’re painful, tearing from his throat. He pauses long enough to murmur, “You brought me to the hospital.” His voice is quiet, sounds like an accusation despite the lack of venom.
I step inside, close the door behind me to give us some privacy, and walk over, pulling the lone wooden chair from the wall to his bedside. I straddle the seat, folding my arms over the back. “You have pneumonia, Jared.” There’s little else I can say at this point, and at the same time, that seems to say it all.
He offers me a weak smile, lifts the IV line that runs into his arm, draining fluids from a bag hanging near the head of the bed. “Said I was dehydrated.” He says unnecessarily, probably to keep the silence from settling uncomfortably around us-it sounds forced and nervous from his quiet voice.
I nod, then, tentatively, figuring he wants to know when he can get out of here, say, “The doctor said… you could go home tomorrow.” It lets him know when he can leave the hospital, and it also acts as a gentle lead-in to the conversation that neither of us really want to have-about where ‘home’ is, and… well, everything, really.
There’s a clip on his finger, with a cord running to a machine that notes his vitals-heartbeat, pulse, other lines and numbers that I’m sure are important in some way. His temperature holds steady at 102.3.
He takes a deep breath, looks at me without saying anything, maybe waiting for me to continue, to see what I’m going to say before offering anything himself. When I say nothing, he looks out the window, and his voice, when it comes, is resigned and soft. “Where is home.”
“My apartment.” I say simply. The discussion has to happen, one way or another, about why he’s continued to leave, where else he’d go… everything that’s happened and specifically between us.
“Jens…”
“I’m not letting you stay at the trailers again, Jared! Or a hotel!” My voice rises, I can’t help it. I’m not exactly yelling, but my voice is louder than it was, louder than it usually is when talking to him. I take a breath, lower my voice. “Jare… you need...”
“You have no idea what I need.” His voice cuts in, hard and quiet from the bed, and when I look up, his eyes are a myriad of emotion that I can’t start to identify. For a minute I think he might continue, might elaborate on that last sentence, but he doesn’t. He purses his lips after taking a breath, turns back away from me, towards the windows, staring outside at the gray Vancouver sky.
“Jared…” When he turns to look at me, opens his mouth to say something, I reach out to put a finger to his lips. “Let me talk. Please.” Even though I have no idea what I’m going to say, I need him to be quiet so I can. I need him to hear me, I need him to understand that regardless of all that’s happened, I never stopped being his friend, and I never stopped caring about him. Admittedly, it took me a day or two to realize that, during which time I likely gave him more than enough reasons to think I did stop being his friend, and that I didn’t care anymore.
I take a breath, close my eyes, try to ignore the feel of his warm lips against my fingers, the warmth coming from his skin-a humid, hot heat that lingers and festers, too-warm and sickly in nature. I yank my fingers back from his mouth and open my eyes.
“Jare… I just…” I sigh. “You’re sick, and you need to rest… you have to let your body heal… And…”
“I don’t have to be at your place to…” He cuts in, voice a low monotone.
“You do… you’re not going to rest well at the trailers… and at least… I can stay with you at my apartment…” I sigh and look down at my hands, glance over my shoulder behind me at the door that remains closed. I turn my attention back to Jared. “Jare, I’m still your friend…” I whisper. “And… you’re sick.” I swallow. “I’d feel better if… you had someone with you… when they let you out of here…”
For some reason, that was both harder and easier than I thought it’d be.
Jared doesn’t speak for a few minutes, just looks at me as if considering, and then smiles, a slow, small smile that’s a mere shadow of the toothy and wide smiles I’m used to seeing from him, but it’s a smile nonetheless, and it warms my heart. Finally, he asks in a shaky, tentative voice, “…you’ll… take care of me?” And he sounds like a child, and all his mothers words from yesterday afternoon come rushing back to me, and I know that I want to take care of him.
I want to talk to him, get to know him better… I want to hear him tell some of the stories his mother only mentioned-want to hear them in his own words. I want to see him smile and watch him sleep, if only to know he is sleeping, want to know he’s resting and healing. I want to see him get better. I want to help, want to take care of him.
“Yes.” I keep it simple, and don’t elaborate on all that just flickered through my thoughts, because I’m not sure I want to give my thoughts voice. I’m not entirely sure I want to acknowledge them as my thoughts quite yet, because they raise other questions I’m not sure I want to answer, even to myself.
He nods. “So when can I get out of here?”
He starts coughing, body shaking with the effort, spits into a small plastic dish from the bedside service table and replaces it on the table. He moves slowly as he takes the cup of water and sips at it. His lips are slick with water when he puts the cup back next to the dish and leans back against the pillows with a sigh.
“Tomorrow…” I trail off when his eyes slide shut, and the word ‘tired’ escapes his lips in a barely audible exhalation of breath. If he’s not asleep, he’s close enough to, and he needs to rest, needs to sleep.
I push off the chair and turn it to the side so I can reach Jared, take his shoulders and gently slide him down so he’s lying on his back. I tug the blanket up to his shoulders, watch as his head tilts to one side and his lips part so he can breathe more easily.
A nurse comes in to change his iv drip, check his vitals, and give him an injection of antibiotics. She hands me the prescription and care sheet so I don’t have to pick it up at the nurse’s station in the morning before leaving with Jared, confirms with me that I’ll be able to take him home tomorrow after a quick examination by the doctor.
I sit back down as Jared sleeps, read the pamphlet, becoming more acquainted with the symptoms of pneumonia, all of which were there for Jared in one way or another, most still are. He shivers unknowingly beneath the covers and shifts position, settling again peacefully after the moment of unrest.
I’m asked to leave at seven, told I can come back to pick him up at lunchtime tomorrow. There are three messages in my voicemail when I finally get back to my car and check my phone, still in the center console where I’d left it earlier.
As I drive back to my apartment, I flip the phone to speaker, dial in to my voicemail to retrieve the new messages, which are no surprise-Eric, Jared’s mom, and Eric again.
Eric’s first message wants me to call as soon as possible to let him know what the hospital said about Jared, and what his status for filming tomorrow is. His second message, left about a half an hour ago, says he’s taking his wife to dinner, just call and leave him a message because he’s going to have his phone off for the evening.
I call Jared’s mom first, get his sister, Megan, who doesn’t bother asking how I’m doing and transfers me right to mom. “Mrs. Padalecki.”
“Jensen.” Her voice is soft, in that way all southern mothers’ voices are. I idly think that if she ever met my mom, they’d probably get along famously. Our fathers, maybe not quite so much, unless the Dallas Cowboys were playing-because every Cowboys fan gets along with another Cowboys fan, at least during game time. “So, did you meet up with my son?”
“On the set this morning.” I tell her. “I took him to Vancouver General. He has pneumonia.” I cut to the chase, no need to beat around the bush. She knew he was sick.
“Did ya’ll talk?”
“Not in the way you’re hoping… But he’s willing to stay at my place at least until he’s better.” I turn off at my exit with one hand, pick up the phone and take it off of speakerphone with the other, carefully cradling it between my shoulder and ear as I make the sharp turn onto the road that will take me home. “Doctors say they’ll release him tomorrow.”
“He’s still in the hospital?” She asks, and I’m glad it’s not Megan I’m talking to, or my ear would still reverberate in the morning with her shrill. His mother’s surprise is somewhat tinny enough, though it might just be the static that interrupted our connection making her sound that way.
“For observation… and to get some fluids in him. He was dehydrated.” Really no surprise when you think about it, with what he’d been eating (or not eating, as the case may be) and able to keep down (again, or not keep down… he’d been vomiting). He looked terrible when I’d driven him to the hospital, a little better when I’d left him asleep for the night.
“Does he need someone to take care of him when he’s released?” And I can hear it in her voice that she’s already mentally running down a checklist-buy plane tickets for the first available flight out to Vancouver… make arrangements for a place to stay in Vancouver… tell dad and Megan they’ll be fending for themselves for a few days-and it’s a sudden realization on my part that his mother didn’t dissuade his youthful dependence and has had no small hand in making him the way he is today. She confirms my suspicions in a hurried voice, “I can fly up tomorrow…”
I take a breath. “That’s not necessary. I can take care of him.”
I can, and I will. Eric will be none too happy about it, but until Jared’s back on his feet, so to speak, neither of us will be on set.
I can hear her puttering around in the background, figure she’s probably making arrangements to fly up and see her son despite my assurance that I can take care of him. “Really, Mrs. Padalecki. It’s no trouble, I can take care of him.” And that’s as much for Jared’s independence as it is truth and necessity-I need to be able to care for him alone, need to be able to have some time with him so we can try to fix what’s broken between us, mend our friendship.
I park at my apartment, get out of the car and head upstairs as she speaks hurriedly, assuring me she’ll stay at a hotel, she just wants to fly up and check on him. “Mrs. Padalecki.” I say firmly. “I will take care of Jared. There is no need for you to take time off from work or to spend all that money on a last-minute, first-available plane ticket. Jared will be fine.”
“You’ll make sure he rests?” Typical overprotective southern mother, she is.
“Yes.” I barely keep my voice from being a sigh as I lock the door behind me and head into the kitchen, check my supply of green tea bags-Jared, given a choice, prefers green tea with honey and lemon over black tea… though he prefers no honey or lemon at all-and grab myself a beer from the cooler. “I’ll take care of him.” I reassure her as I pop the top on the beer and take a gulp of the cold, calming suds.
“You’ll…”
“I’ll have him call you tomorrow. When I get him home.” I swallow more beer. “Listen, I really have to go… I have to call our director, let him know how Jared’s doing and talk shop.” Which means I’ll call and leave a message for Eric, since he’s wining and dining his wife, but it’s not an outright lie-I do have to call him and let him know about Jared.
“Of course. You take care, Jensen.”
“I will. You too, Mrs. Padalecki.” And I hang up before she can think of anything else to say. She does like to talk.
I call Eric, and as expected, get his voicemail. “Mr. Kripke. This is Jensen Ackles. Just calling to let you know that Jar…Mr. Padalecki…” It sounds strange, to call him Mr. Padalecki, and I wonder if Eric just expects that I’d call him Jared, wonder if I’m being far too professional for any of this, because we’ve all known each other for months now… “…is in the hospital… he has pneumonia.” I take a breath. “The doctor says he’ll be released tomorrow… I’m going to take him back to my place.” Another deep breath, because there’s no easy way around this one. “Neither of us will be on set tomorrow.”
And I pause. “I’ll call you tomorrow… just… wanted to let you know.”
I end the connection, turn off my phone and toss it next to my keys before stripping of my shirt while walking down the hallway to my bedroom, the bathroom…
I take a long, steaming shower before finally crawling into bed, not bothering to set the alarm, drifting to sleep after lying awake far too long for someone as tired as I thought myself to be.
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Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / OFC
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
I'm not going to say when or if the next chapter will be posted... I am writing on this, but really, it took on a mind/life of it's own, and it's sorta festering at upset!Jared and a Jensen who's entirely unsure what to do... So... read at your own risk. I would enjoy feedback, but I'll understand if you don't want to start reading a WIP with no end in sight or in the works. I really have no idea what's coming next here.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help.
Spoilers: Nothing to see here, folks...
-------------------------
Chapter Fifteen: Home is not Always Where the Heart is
Rating: PG-13 for semi-adultness, themes
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, but not yet… I know, I know… you don’t believe me anymore, do you?
Word Count: 2,435
Home is Not Always Where the Heart is
He looks up at the sound of my voice, stops coughing for a minute before starting again, bringing his hand again to his mouth, heavy, rasping and wracking coughs that shake him physically, sound as though they’re painful, tearing from his throat. He pauses long enough to murmur, “You brought me to the hospital.” His voice is quiet, sounds like an accusation despite the lack of venom.
I step inside, close the door behind me to give us some privacy, and walk over, pulling the lone wooden chair from the wall to his bedside. I straddle the seat, folding my arms over the back. “You have pneumonia, Jared.” There’s little else I can say at this point, and at the same time, that seems to say it all.
He offers me a weak smile, lifts the IV line that runs into his arm, draining fluids from a bag hanging near the head of the bed. “Said I was dehydrated.” He says unnecessarily, probably to keep the silence from settling uncomfortably around us-it sounds forced and nervous from his quiet voice.
I nod, then, tentatively, figuring he wants to know when he can get out of here, say, “The doctor said… you could go home tomorrow.” It lets him know when he can leave the hospital, and it also acts as a gentle lead-in to the conversation that neither of us really want to have-about where ‘home’ is, and… well, everything, really.
There’s a clip on his finger, with a cord running to a machine that notes his vitals-heartbeat, pulse, other lines and numbers that I’m sure are important in some way. His temperature holds steady at 102.3.
He takes a deep breath, looks at me without saying anything, maybe waiting for me to continue, to see what I’m going to say before offering anything himself. When I say nothing, he looks out the window, and his voice, when it comes, is resigned and soft. “Where is home.”
“My apartment.” I say simply. The discussion has to happen, one way or another, about why he’s continued to leave, where else he’d go… everything that’s happened and specifically between us.
“Jens…”
“I’m not letting you stay at the trailers again, Jared! Or a hotel!” My voice rises, I can’t help it. I’m not exactly yelling, but my voice is louder than it was, louder than it usually is when talking to him. I take a breath, lower my voice. “Jare… you need...”
“You have no idea what I need.” His voice cuts in, hard and quiet from the bed, and when I look up, his eyes are a myriad of emotion that I can’t start to identify. For a minute I think he might continue, might elaborate on that last sentence, but he doesn’t. He purses his lips after taking a breath, turns back away from me, towards the windows, staring outside at the gray Vancouver sky.
“Jared…” When he turns to look at me, opens his mouth to say something, I reach out to put a finger to his lips. “Let me talk. Please.” Even though I have no idea what I’m going to say, I need him to be quiet so I can. I need him to hear me, I need him to understand that regardless of all that’s happened, I never stopped being his friend, and I never stopped caring about him. Admittedly, it took me a day or two to realize that, during which time I likely gave him more than enough reasons to think I did stop being his friend, and that I didn’t care anymore.
I take a breath, close my eyes, try to ignore the feel of his warm lips against my fingers, the warmth coming from his skin-a humid, hot heat that lingers and festers, too-warm and sickly in nature. I yank my fingers back from his mouth and open my eyes.
“Jare… I just…” I sigh. “You’re sick, and you need to rest… you have to let your body heal… And…”
“I don’t have to be at your place to…” He cuts in, voice a low monotone.
“You do… you’re not going to rest well at the trailers… and at least… I can stay with you at my apartment…” I sigh and look down at my hands, glance over my shoulder behind me at the door that remains closed. I turn my attention back to Jared. “Jare, I’m still your friend…” I whisper. “And… you’re sick.” I swallow. “I’d feel better if… you had someone with you… when they let you out of here…”
For some reason, that was both harder and easier than I thought it’d be.
Jared doesn’t speak for a few minutes, just looks at me as if considering, and then smiles, a slow, small smile that’s a mere shadow of the toothy and wide smiles I’m used to seeing from him, but it’s a smile nonetheless, and it warms my heart. Finally, he asks in a shaky, tentative voice, “…you’ll… take care of me?” And he sounds like a child, and all his mothers words from yesterday afternoon come rushing back to me, and I know that I want to take care of him.
I want to talk to him, get to know him better… I want to hear him tell some of the stories his mother only mentioned-want to hear them in his own words. I want to see him smile and watch him sleep, if only to know he is sleeping, want to know he’s resting and healing. I want to see him get better. I want to help, want to take care of him.
“Yes.” I keep it simple, and don’t elaborate on all that just flickered through my thoughts, because I’m not sure I want to give my thoughts voice. I’m not entirely sure I want to acknowledge them as my thoughts quite yet, because they raise other questions I’m not sure I want to answer, even to myself.
He nods. “So when can I get out of here?”
He starts coughing, body shaking with the effort, spits into a small plastic dish from the bedside service table and replaces it on the table. He moves slowly as he takes the cup of water and sips at it. His lips are slick with water when he puts the cup back next to the dish and leans back against the pillows with a sigh.
“Tomorrow…” I trail off when his eyes slide shut, and the word ‘tired’ escapes his lips in a barely audible exhalation of breath. If he’s not asleep, he’s close enough to, and he needs to rest, needs to sleep.
I push off the chair and turn it to the side so I can reach Jared, take his shoulders and gently slide him down so he’s lying on his back. I tug the blanket up to his shoulders, watch as his head tilts to one side and his lips part so he can breathe more easily.
A nurse comes in to change his iv drip, check his vitals, and give him an injection of antibiotics. She hands me the prescription and care sheet so I don’t have to pick it up at the nurse’s station in the morning before leaving with Jared, confirms with me that I’ll be able to take him home tomorrow after a quick examination by the doctor.
I sit back down as Jared sleeps, read the pamphlet, becoming more acquainted with the symptoms of pneumonia, all of which were there for Jared in one way or another, most still are. He shivers unknowingly beneath the covers and shifts position, settling again peacefully after the moment of unrest.
I’m asked to leave at seven, told I can come back to pick him up at lunchtime tomorrow. There are three messages in my voicemail when I finally get back to my car and check my phone, still in the center console where I’d left it earlier.
As I drive back to my apartment, I flip the phone to speaker, dial in to my voicemail to retrieve the new messages, which are no surprise-Eric, Jared’s mom, and Eric again.
Eric’s first message wants me to call as soon as possible to let him know what the hospital said about Jared, and what his status for filming tomorrow is. His second message, left about a half an hour ago, says he’s taking his wife to dinner, just call and leave him a message because he’s going to have his phone off for the evening.
I call Jared’s mom first, get his sister, Megan, who doesn’t bother asking how I’m doing and transfers me right to mom. “Mrs. Padalecki.”
“Jensen.” Her voice is soft, in that way all southern mothers’ voices are. I idly think that if she ever met my mom, they’d probably get along famously. Our fathers, maybe not quite so much, unless the Dallas Cowboys were playing-because every Cowboys fan gets along with another Cowboys fan, at least during game time. “So, did you meet up with my son?”
“On the set this morning.” I tell her. “I took him to Vancouver General. He has pneumonia.” I cut to the chase, no need to beat around the bush. She knew he was sick.
“Did ya’ll talk?”
“Not in the way you’re hoping… But he’s willing to stay at my place at least until he’s better.” I turn off at my exit with one hand, pick up the phone and take it off of speakerphone with the other, carefully cradling it between my shoulder and ear as I make the sharp turn onto the road that will take me home. “Doctors say they’ll release him tomorrow.”
“He’s still in the hospital?” She asks, and I’m glad it’s not Megan I’m talking to, or my ear would still reverberate in the morning with her shrill. His mother’s surprise is somewhat tinny enough, though it might just be the static that interrupted our connection making her sound that way.
“For observation… and to get some fluids in him. He was dehydrated.” Really no surprise when you think about it, with what he’d been eating (or not eating, as the case may be) and able to keep down (again, or not keep down… he’d been vomiting). He looked terrible when I’d driven him to the hospital, a little better when I’d left him asleep for the night.
“Does he need someone to take care of him when he’s released?” And I can hear it in her voice that she’s already mentally running down a checklist-buy plane tickets for the first available flight out to Vancouver… make arrangements for a place to stay in Vancouver… tell dad and Megan they’ll be fending for themselves for a few days-and it’s a sudden realization on my part that his mother didn’t dissuade his youthful dependence and has had no small hand in making him the way he is today. She confirms my suspicions in a hurried voice, “I can fly up tomorrow…”
I take a breath. “That’s not necessary. I can take care of him.”
I can, and I will. Eric will be none too happy about it, but until Jared’s back on his feet, so to speak, neither of us will be on set.
I can hear her puttering around in the background, figure she’s probably making arrangements to fly up and see her son despite my assurance that I can take care of him. “Really, Mrs. Padalecki. It’s no trouble, I can take care of him.” And that’s as much for Jared’s independence as it is truth and necessity-I need to be able to care for him alone, need to be able to have some time with him so we can try to fix what’s broken between us, mend our friendship.
I park at my apartment, get out of the car and head upstairs as she speaks hurriedly, assuring me she’ll stay at a hotel, she just wants to fly up and check on him. “Mrs. Padalecki.” I say firmly. “I will take care of Jared. There is no need for you to take time off from work or to spend all that money on a last-minute, first-available plane ticket. Jared will be fine.”
“You’ll make sure he rests?” Typical overprotective southern mother, she is.
“Yes.” I barely keep my voice from being a sigh as I lock the door behind me and head into the kitchen, check my supply of green tea bags-Jared, given a choice, prefers green tea with honey and lemon over black tea… though he prefers no honey or lemon at all-and grab myself a beer from the cooler. “I’ll take care of him.” I reassure her as I pop the top on the beer and take a gulp of the cold, calming suds.
“You’ll…”
“I’ll have him call you tomorrow. When I get him home.” I swallow more beer. “Listen, I really have to go… I have to call our director, let him know how Jared’s doing and talk shop.” Which means I’ll call and leave a message for Eric, since he’s wining and dining his wife, but it’s not an outright lie-I do have to call him and let him know about Jared.
“Of course. You take care, Jensen.”
“I will. You too, Mrs. Padalecki.” And I hang up before she can think of anything else to say. She does like to talk.
I call Eric, and as expected, get his voicemail. “Mr. Kripke. This is Jensen Ackles. Just calling to let you know that Jar…Mr. Padalecki…” It sounds strange, to call him Mr. Padalecki, and I wonder if Eric just expects that I’d call him Jared, wonder if I’m being far too professional for any of this, because we’ve all known each other for months now… “…is in the hospital… he has pneumonia.” I take a breath. “The doctor says he’ll be released tomorrow… I’m going to take him back to my place.” Another deep breath, because there’s no easy way around this one. “Neither of us will be on set tomorrow.”
And I pause. “I’ll call you tomorrow… just… wanted to let you know.”
I end the connection, turn off my phone and toss it next to my keys before stripping of my shirt while walking down the hallway to my bedroom, the bathroom…
I take a long, steaming shower before finally crawling into bed, not bothering to set the alarm, drifting to sleep after lying awake far too long for someone as tired as I thought myself to be.
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