I refuse to associate myself with this level of madness
Something that caught my eye--- "Whenever I drive under a yellow light, I always kiss my finger and tap it on the roof of the car. And I do that when I get onto a plane as well!" -Jared Padalecki
One of these days, I am gonna write something long and heart-breaky and epic about that, and it will be my best work. For now, here's a little bit of my own personal brand of insanity. I only comfort myself thinking that since we're such a large fandom anyway, someone's probably ventured into this particular marshland before.
Title: Catharsis in Neverland
By: weekend_exile
Fandom: Supernatural RPS
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: Sheer strangeness of content; featuring imaginary Jensen. Next to nothing sexual, though.
Summary: AU. Jared would be ordinary, but for his dreams.
Jensen walks along the river and it slows down for him like a friend with a secret to tell. The huge gnarled oaks and the vines hanging off them, the leaves and bark that have no name and make what little sunlight that makes it through them look green, they all lean towards him, smitten by the graceful curve of his neck, the luminous green of his eyes.
The earth's soft here, alive and warm like a childhood memory of the richest of comfort. The soil crumbles underfoot, clinging longingly to the soft ridges and plains of Jensen's feet.
Jared wakes up with his phone blaring Foster the People.
*
Jared rubs the sleep out of his eyes and clings to the strap of his messenger bag. Heavy dampness in the air like melancholy given substance, the weather man on TV going on about rainshowers and biblical storms.
The queue moves up once, and he shuffles forward, sneakers making no impact on the floor. A woman orders a pumpkin latte and she sounds like she's trying very hard to sound enthusiastic.
Jared's still half-asleep, drifting vaguely as if unsure of which realm to settle in. The barista greets him with a questioning look and he recites his order, practiced monotone of the seasoned caffeine addict. In his head, Jensen's laughing at him, making faces and standing in the sunlight.
Jared drifts for a moment, then two. Jensen's standing in that spot the bulrushes used to grow. He was heartbroken when they'd died, when frosty fingertips had stroked over the trusting petals and they had curled in on themselves in grief. Jared stares unabashedly. Then the barista tells him his coffee's ready, her eyes holding a thin sheen of suspicion.
*
It begins raining somewhere in the middle of his walk downtown, the warning drizzle followed by the clouds pulling out all the stops, unrepentant and a flood descends from above.
Jared broke his umbrella last week, so there's nothing to it. He comes into work wet, his hair straggling in lumps and his clothes sticking uncomfortably to his skin.
*
He falls asleep at his desk.
Jensen's moved on to the garden now, the hushed sound of leaves falling with a lingering sigh. The trees look grief-stricken, mothers who buried all their children. Jensen's crying softly as he walks. Silent, so no one can hear, but Jared can. He hears the wrenched, choked-off little noises Jensen makes and he thrashes in his head.
He wakes up when a colleague slaps him across the head with a file. "Look alive, Padalecki."
*
Pasta for dinner, along with a red lumpy thing initially meant to be sauce. He pushes it around with his fork. His plate is a shade of off-white that makes him think of hospital rooms, the sharp tang of disinfectant.
He showers again afterward. His hair's still wet from his first, but he steps in anyway. Outside, the rain makes a monotonous rhythm against the ground, an unimpressed you again that sounds like first love gone wrong.
He jerks off with his mind a careless blank, not sifting through his memories for any particulars, just going with what came. He gets out of the shower and dries off listening to the sound of the rain, the towel rough and smooth in turns over the contours of his body.
*
He dreams of Jensen again, arms flung wide, laughing and joyous, standing in the middle of a waterfall. His heart aches.
Jensen looks straight at him, daring him. Jared already knows he has river stones in his pocket, a familiar weight as he walks around. Sometimes Jensen takes them out and plays with them absently, his hands unconsciously affectionate. He keeps looking at Jared as he does it, wide-eyed and a little curious.
Jensen's lips tracing the scars over his body, mapping him out, cities and open highways and the deep, deep blue of the sea. His tongue dips and circles and Jared holds back his shivers, holds back everything.
Thunder zips through the sky like judgement, and Jared's eyes snap open.
*
The next day's Friday, and Nate gets him shitfaced.
"Look at you, Padalecki," he keeps insisting. Jared wishes he could, just a little. Take a step outside of his own body and look, and think this is what I would see if I was a stranger.
Stupid childish things like that. Jensen would probably laugh.
"Dude, you should totally be out cruisin'" slurs Nate into Jared's shoulder. His breath's sticky warm, penetrating the thin fabric of Jared's T-shirt like rainwater. "'Cause if you don't get any play, what's that say 'bout guys like me?"
Jared shrugs. "It's not for me, man."
"What, pussy?" Nate looks stunned, like this is actually the most surprised he's ever been in his life. Then his face scrunches. "Oh, right, you're gay for your imaginary friend. Whoopee."
Jared slants a look around. It's loud, the club they're at; gyrating bodies and flashing neon, and everyone's got a point to prove. Everyone.
"Guess so," he says, in as light a tone as he can manage. "Listen, I gotta go."
Nate looks resigned, his eyes fixed on the ass of some redhead dancing nearby. The neon beams catch hold of her and it looks like she's bleeding, her head split open and brains spilling out. Jared decides not to tell Nate this. "Whatever, homo,- Nate says. "Why do I even bother, jeez."
Jared thumps him on the back and begins pushing his way through the crowd, Nate yelling something about him becoming a fucking recluse again. He's heard it before; it's something even Nate says without thought anymore, a statement of fact more than a warning against anything.
That's when something makes him pause.
The angle of the neck, the way of carrying himself. The wash of tacky lights over golden hair, golden flecks in green eyes.
The vision disappears as soon as he notices, making him wonder if he can keep it at the edge of his periphery long enough.
He fights his way outside, where it's raining already, raindrops hanging midair for a glorious second before they fell on the asphalt, ran down like playmates.
He begins walking home in the rain, his shoes getting wetter. Heavier. Dimly, he's aware of the figure tracing his steps in the shadows. He makes sure not to look.
Things that vanish when you make direct eye contact, like a trying to remember something that's meant to come naturally. Things like that can hurt you, in their lack of substance and strange allure. They can make you bleed.
Jared's been bleeding his entire life. Instead, he wonders what it's like to be burnt.
Jensen slips out of the cover of darkness once Jared reaches his house, and stands there, simply looking at him.
Jensen's gorgeous.
Jared's fingers twitch with the need to reach out and touch the pale smooth skin, the gold of the hair. He makes them close in on themselves instead, like a shutter being drawn over a view of the sea.
Jensen keeps looking at him, the rain glancing over his frame as he stands there. Then he smiles, the barest curve of his lips.
Jared grins back.
Jensen vanishes like a sigh, a candle being blown. Jared blinks a little, then passes on to the building.
That night, he doesn't dream at all.
*
Soft flap-flapping of straightened paper. The pen, precise, waiting for him to make sense of the expanse of whiteness.
Jensen, he writes, in steady handwriting that slants a little to the left, as if reluctant to reach the end of their destination. Aged eighteen years old.
Dreams don't grow up with you. Nightmares do. For fourteen years of his life, Jensen aged as he did, and he carried him around like a badge of honor, a cross painted crimson across his pale chest; this is what I have survived.
Now, Jensen's more of a visitor than anything else, a familiar face that slips in through the back door and nestles between the worn sighing cushions of the apartment. Jensen's the only thing he brought here with him, the only one to cross the state line. Jared thinks that means something.
Jensen used to scare the living shit out of him. Now, he thinks he'll probably miss him if he's gone.
*
The first time Jared saw Jensen, he was twelve years old.
He was wrapped in a blanket that did nothing to stop his toes from freezing off; his numb fingers wrapped around a cup of generic hospital coffee like a lifeline. People rushing by.
He’d been tall, even as a kid, tall and shy with hair flopping into his face. Brimming with potential, that sudden brightness of the eyes when one understands something.
Yes, Jared was something special. Too bad he was dying, too. Drowning in silence where there once was laughter.
And that’s where Jensen comes in.
*
Jared wakes up and the ghosts are crowding his room.
His dreams have been of Jensen for so long, he’d actually forgotten this one. Oh.
A little girl; no more than ten years old. She has a headband nestled in her curls, sky blue. He looks at her curiously, intently; he hasn't seen her in a very long time. She’s clutching a teddy bear, and no matter how much he tries, he can’t remember its name.
A boy, seventeen years old. That humorous twist of his mouth, the one that liked to tell scary stories before they went to bed when they were out camping.
And his parents. Sad-faced and aloof, looking down at him.
Directly behind them stands the thirteen-year-old version of himself, the one who didn't make it out of the car crash.
They crowd around his bed, jostling for space. The light from his digital clock glances over them, not catching the resonance of their disapproving faces.
Jared closes his eyes and thinks very hard of Jensen; when he opens them again, his family’s gone.
*
Snow-white sorrow, crystallizing in the air, melting away on his palms. Sadness is a song; a very specific rhythm and frequency that can shatter the whole world.
Quiet, now.
Jensen’s looking at him, green eyes questioning.
“Should I have died, back there?”
It’s not the first time Jared’s spoken. The wind rustles through the leaves, urgent replies to his question, but Jensen’s lips don’t move.
They’re in the middle of a lake. At least, Jensen’s there and Jared’s here, wherever here and there are. It’s all a matter of perspective.
Time and space skid past him in a soft whoosh, landing him on a highway, a hundred miles an hour. Backseat of the car, a cocoon of soft yellow light in this dark dark world. How many years ago, no one remembers. His little sister laughing.
Jared sighs. He knows how this story ends.
As the brakes screech, Jensen appears next to him. Jensen does that sometimes, weaves through the nightmares to be where Jared is.
Jensen reaches out and takes Jared’s hand just as the impact of the eighteen wheeler hits. His hand is cold, his skin thin and translucent.
Jared smiles.
One of these days, I am gonna write something long and heart-breaky and epic about that, and it will be my best work. For now, here's a little bit of my own personal brand of insanity. I only comfort myself thinking that since we're such a large fandom anyway, someone's probably ventured into this particular marshland before.
Title: Catharsis in Neverland
By: weekend_exile
Fandom: Supernatural RPS
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: Sheer strangeness of content; featuring imaginary Jensen. Next to nothing sexual, though.
Summary: AU. Jared would be ordinary, but for his dreams.
Jensen walks along the river and it slows down for him like a friend with a secret to tell. The huge gnarled oaks and the vines hanging off them, the leaves and bark that have no name and make what little sunlight that makes it through them look green, they all lean towards him, smitten by the graceful curve of his neck, the luminous green of his eyes.
The earth's soft here, alive and warm like a childhood memory of the richest of comfort. The soil crumbles underfoot, clinging longingly to the soft ridges and plains of Jensen's feet.
Jared wakes up with his phone blaring Foster the People.
*
Jared rubs the sleep out of his eyes and clings to the strap of his messenger bag. Heavy dampness in the air like melancholy given substance, the weather man on TV going on about rainshowers and biblical storms.
The queue moves up once, and he shuffles forward, sneakers making no impact on the floor. A woman orders a pumpkin latte and she sounds like she's trying very hard to sound enthusiastic.
Jared's still half-asleep, drifting vaguely as if unsure of which realm to settle in. The barista greets him with a questioning look and he recites his order, practiced monotone of the seasoned caffeine addict. In his head, Jensen's laughing at him, making faces and standing in the sunlight.
Jared drifts for a moment, then two. Jensen's standing in that spot the bulrushes used to grow. He was heartbroken when they'd died, when frosty fingertips had stroked over the trusting petals and they had curled in on themselves in grief. Jared stares unabashedly. Then the barista tells him his coffee's ready, her eyes holding a thin sheen of suspicion.
*
It begins raining somewhere in the middle of his walk downtown, the warning drizzle followed by the clouds pulling out all the stops, unrepentant and a flood descends from above.
Jared broke his umbrella last week, so there's nothing to it. He comes into work wet, his hair straggling in lumps and his clothes sticking uncomfortably to his skin.
*
He falls asleep at his desk.
Jensen's moved on to the garden now, the hushed sound of leaves falling with a lingering sigh. The trees look grief-stricken, mothers who buried all their children. Jensen's crying softly as he walks. Silent, so no one can hear, but Jared can. He hears the wrenched, choked-off little noises Jensen makes and he thrashes in his head.
He wakes up when a colleague slaps him across the head with a file. "Look alive, Padalecki."
*
Pasta for dinner, along with a red lumpy thing initially meant to be sauce. He pushes it around with his fork. His plate is a shade of off-white that makes him think of hospital rooms, the sharp tang of disinfectant.
He showers again afterward. His hair's still wet from his first, but he steps in anyway. Outside, the rain makes a monotonous rhythm against the ground, an unimpressed you again that sounds like first love gone wrong.
He jerks off with his mind a careless blank, not sifting through his memories for any particulars, just going with what came. He gets out of the shower and dries off listening to the sound of the rain, the towel rough and smooth in turns over the contours of his body.
*
He dreams of Jensen again, arms flung wide, laughing and joyous, standing in the middle of a waterfall. His heart aches.
Jensen looks straight at him, daring him. Jared already knows he has river stones in his pocket, a familiar weight as he walks around. Sometimes Jensen takes them out and plays with them absently, his hands unconsciously affectionate. He keeps looking at Jared as he does it, wide-eyed and a little curious.
Jensen's lips tracing the scars over his body, mapping him out, cities and open highways and the deep, deep blue of the sea. His tongue dips and circles and Jared holds back his shivers, holds back everything.
Thunder zips through the sky like judgement, and Jared's eyes snap open.
*
The next day's Friday, and Nate gets him shitfaced.
"Look at you, Padalecki," he keeps insisting. Jared wishes he could, just a little. Take a step outside of his own body and look, and think this is what I would see if I was a stranger.
Stupid childish things like that. Jensen would probably laugh.
"Dude, you should totally be out cruisin'" slurs Nate into Jared's shoulder. His breath's sticky warm, penetrating the thin fabric of Jared's T-shirt like rainwater. "'Cause if you don't get any play, what's that say 'bout guys like me?"
Jared shrugs. "It's not for me, man."
"What, pussy?" Nate looks stunned, like this is actually the most surprised he's ever been in his life. Then his face scrunches. "Oh, right, you're gay for your imaginary friend. Whoopee."
Jared slants a look around. It's loud, the club they're at; gyrating bodies and flashing neon, and everyone's got a point to prove. Everyone.
"Guess so," he says, in as light a tone as he can manage. "Listen, I gotta go."
Nate looks resigned, his eyes fixed on the ass of some redhead dancing nearby. The neon beams catch hold of her and it looks like she's bleeding, her head split open and brains spilling out. Jared decides not to tell Nate this. "Whatever, homo,- Nate says. "Why do I even bother, jeez."
Jared thumps him on the back and begins pushing his way through the crowd, Nate yelling something about him becoming a fucking recluse again. He's heard it before; it's something even Nate says without thought anymore, a statement of fact more than a warning against anything.
That's when something makes him pause.
The angle of the neck, the way of carrying himself. The wash of tacky lights over golden hair, golden flecks in green eyes.
The vision disappears as soon as he notices, making him wonder if he can keep it at the edge of his periphery long enough.
He fights his way outside, where it's raining already, raindrops hanging midair for a glorious second before they fell on the asphalt, ran down like playmates.
He begins walking home in the rain, his shoes getting wetter. Heavier. Dimly, he's aware of the figure tracing his steps in the shadows. He makes sure not to look.
Things that vanish when you make direct eye contact, like a trying to remember something that's meant to come naturally. Things like that can hurt you, in their lack of substance and strange allure. They can make you bleed.
Jared's been bleeding his entire life. Instead, he wonders what it's like to be burnt.
Jensen slips out of the cover of darkness once Jared reaches his house, and stands there, simply looking at him.
Jensen's gorgeous.
Jared's fingers twitch with the need to reach out and touch the pale smooth skin, the gold of the hair. He makes them close in on themselves instead, like a shutter being drawn over a view of the sea.
Jensen keeps looking at him, the rain glancing over his frame as he stands there. Then he smiles, the barest curve of his lips.
Jared grins back.
Jensen vanishes like a sigh, a candle being blown. Jared blinks a little, then passes on to the building.
That night, he doesn't dream at all.
*
Soft flap-flapping of straightened paper. The pen, precise, waiting for him to make sense of the expanse of whiteness.
Jensen, he writes, in steady handwriting that slants a little to the left, as if reluctant to reach the end of their destination. Aged eighteen years old.
Dreams don't grow up with you. Nightmares do. For fourteen years of his life, Jensen aged as he did, and he carried him around like a badge of honor, a cross painted crimson across his pale chest; this is what I have survived.
Now, Jensen's more of a visitor than anything else, a familiar face that slips in through the back door and nestles between the worn sighing cushions of the apartment. Jensen's the only thing he brought here with him, the only one to cross the state line. Jared thinks that means something.
Jensen used to scare the living shit out of him. Now, he thinks he'll probably miss him if he's gone.
*
The first time Jared saw Jensen, he was twelve years old.
He was wrapped in a blanket that did nothing to stop his toes from freezing off; his numb fingers wrapped around a cup of generic hospital coffee like a lifeline. People rushing by.
He’d been tall, even as a kid, tall and shy with hair flopping into his face. Brimming with potential, that sudden brightness of the eyes when one understands something.
Yes, Jared was something special. Too bad he was dying, too. Drowning in silence where there once was laughter.
And that’s where Jensen comes in.
*
Jared wakes up and the ghosts are crowding his room.
His dreams have been of Jensen for so long, he’d actually forgotten this one. Oh.
A little girl; no more than ten years old. She has a headband nestled in her curls, sky blue. He looks at her curiously, intently; he hasn't seen her in a very long time. She’s clutching a teddy bear, and no matter how much he tries, he can’t remember its name.
A boy, seventeen years old. That humorous twist of his mouth, the one that liked to tell scary stories before they went to bed when they were out camping.
And his parents. Sad-faced and aloof, looking down at him.
Directly behind them stands the thirteen-year-old version of himself, the one who didn't make it out of the car crash.
They crowd around his bed, jostling for space. The light from his digital clock glances over them, not catching the resonance of their disapproving faces.
Jared closes his eyes and thinks very hard of Jensen; when he opens them again, his family’s gone.
*
Snow-white sorrow, crystallizing in the air, melting away on his palms. Sadness is a song; a very specific rhythm and frequency that can shatter the whole world.
Quiet, now.
Jensen’s looking at him, green eyes questioning.
“Should I have died, back there?”
It’s not the first time Jared’s spoken. The wind rustles through the leaves, urgent replies to his question, but Jensen’s lips don’t move.
They’re in the middle of a lake. At least, Jensen’s there and Jared’s here, wherever here and there are. It’s all a matter of perspective.
Time and space skid past him in a soft whoosh, landing him on a highway, a hundred miles an hour. Backseat of the car, a cocoon of soft yellow light in this dark dark world. How many years ago, no one remembers. His little sister laughing.
Jared sighs. He knows how this story ends.
As the brakes screech, Jensen appears next to him. Jensen does that sometimes, weaves through the nightmares to be where Jared is.
Jensen reaches out and takes Jared’s hand just as the impact of the eighteen wheeler hits. His hand is cold, his skin thin and translucent.
Jared smiles.