(no subject)
Title: End of Our Days (3/3)
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG 13.
Notes: Apocalypse fic, part three of three (c'est fini!). Inspired by fryadvocate's venture into PostApoc and my sick love of the genre.
Feedback: Always appreciated!
[Part 1] [Part 2]
“Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.” Jensen murmurs, as soon as he gets Jared’s hand far enough away from the cut so that he can take a look at it. Jared laughs, and Jensen can’t be sure whether it’s because he knows Romeo and Juliet - knows high school drama - like the back of his hand too, or whether it’s because he’s bleeding out all over a Safeway floor and the sunlight streaming through the windows is starting to look like the wings of angels to him.
The blood drains from Jared’s face, and Jensen sees where it’s going as the soles of his shoes are soaked in red - the kind that he’s used to being covered in on set, although this isn’t of the corn syrup variety. He curves his fingers around the spot where he’s approximated that the wound is, against his better judgement and the voice that is curiously absent but that should be saying that he doesn’t know where Jared’s been, that this is how disease is passed, etc, etc.
Somehow, it doesn’t seem important now.
.
They move towards the truck, every molecule of Jensen’s being alert and ready to attack if necessary, even though the closest things he has to a weapon right now are Jared’s car keys and the fist that is connected to the arm that’s currently holding Jared together.
He’s keeping up a steady stream of chatter, trying to look Jared in the eye (and damn, is he tall), trying to keep an eye on where they’re headed and to quell his panic - their panic - and to keep breathing, and it’s a good thing that he’s a multitasker by nature. Jared wavers a little on his feet, and Jensen’s not sure that he can do this without Jared’s help - if he goes down, Jensen’s not sure that he can get him back up. He adjusts his grip, catching a whiff of Jared’s scent as he turns his head inwards - oddly like cherry Tootsie roll pop, but now tinged with something that he thinks is oddly metallic and entirely imagined.
When they reach the truck, sparkling like an oasis in the early afternoon light, he opens the passenger side door and helps Jared in before he realizes that he’s reached the end of his plan. This is it, where the road ends for now. Get Jared into the truck, and then….and then…the colour bars in his mind blip, promising that the station will be airing something again soon, but that for now it’s off the air.
He tucks the blanket from the kind-of-sort-of-not-really-a backseat around Jared’s ribs as tightly as he can, and nearly knocks his head on the roof of the truck when he realizes that his hands have been worrying a little too long at smooth, tan skin.
.
The ride home (when did Jared’s apartment come to be home?) takes an eternity, and if Harley notices the difference in Jared when they get upstairs, he doesn’t show it. He licks happily at his fingers (too white, hanging in midair as if only supported by the fact that they’re connected to his body), his tail thumping against Jared’s knees until Jensen can’t tell if they’re still shaking on their own or from the strain that the dog is putting on him.
He deposits Jared on the couch and checks the blanket. Even through it’s dark brown wool, he can tell that it’s been stained darker. He forces a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and squeezes Jared’s hand once before dropping it. “I’m going to go and get some water to clean this.”
Jared shakes his head vigorously, the first solid movement that he’s made in the last little while. A sharp glitter of panic dominates his hazy eyes. “Don’t leave me, Jenny,” he drawls, right arm reaching for Jensen even though it looks like it spends all of his energy in doing so. “Don’t leave,” he whimpers again.
Jensen takes the proffered hand and tucks it against Jared’s side again, leaning closer. “I’m not going far. Just to the kitchen, okay?”
“I don’t want to…” die. Be alone. Be without you. “…don’t leave me, Jensen.”
Jensen nods. “‘Course I’m not going to leave you. Just sit tight for a second. Look, I’ll talk to you the whole way.” He takes a step towards the kitchen, walking backwards so that his eyes don’t have to leave Jared’s quite yet. “You know, this whole haven’t-had-a-haircut-in-months thing is working out for you. I always liked your hair when it was longer like that.” He steps over the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, and Jared can’t see him anymore. He runs the water and speaks over it, getting a bowl from the cupboard. “Doesn’t look quite so good on me. My Mama’d hate it. Probably say I looked like a goddamned hippie or something.” He closes his eyes as he shuts off the tap, one second to collect himself before he’s back out on stage with this new happy-go-lucky character of his. He can’t believe that he didn’t even take any groceries in his haste to leave, and why didn’t he think to take the first aid kit from apartment 6B when he had the chance a few weeks ago?
“See?” he asks, walking back out to the living room and punctuating the phrase by waving his arms. “Back already.” He kneels beside the couch and lifts Jared’s shirt, hands jerking back at Jared’s sudden hiss of pain as blunt fingernails accidentally mirror the path of the knife. “Sorry,” he whispers, finally nudging his arms up and pulling the shirt off, throwing it haphazardly before wrapping the blanket around Jared’s shoulders. This earns him a weakened smile, and he knows that he’s not the only one pretending now.
He resists the urge to wince and look away as he examines the wound, tattered threads still clinging to it. The wound is gaping, and crusted in dried blood. It’s expansive, but luckily it doesn’t look that deep. Jensen isn’t sure how bad it is, and for the first time in his life he wishes that he’d taken sports medicine instead of going into acting after all. It looks bad enough, though.
“J,” he murmurs, and he hasn’t called him that since the first year on set. “I gotta present for you. But I have to go into the bedroom to get it, so give me a second.” He leaves without waiting for permission, fighting the urge to close the door behind him for a second to cling to his sanity. He’s got to be strong now, but with everything that they’ve been through, he can’t believe that this is it. That something so ordinary, so human could be the thing to take Jared from him.
He returns with a bottle of Tequila, pilfered from apartment 7E eleven days ago and hidden behind the stack of shoe boxes in the closet. No citrus or salt, but that can’t be helped now. He opens the bottle as he offers it to Jared, tipping a good solid shot into his mouth before waiting for him to drink it down.
Liquid courage.
.
“Jenny-Jen?” Jared questions, liquid limbs splayed across the couch and eyes unfocused with alcohol induced bliss. Jensen looks over from his spot on the floor, flipping through a copy of Maxim from June 2007. “Wouldn’t that be funny?”
“What, Jared?”
“If I died.” He frowns deeply for a moment, as if trying to force the thought to continue. “Like this, I mean.” He laughs then, high and almost hyen, like he used to do on Supernatural when Jensen would think he was faking it. “Survive the end of the world, and then,” he makes a jagged slashing motion in the air, pairing it with the sound of a whip at random. “Dead.” He laughs again.
Jensen shakes his head. “Not particularly, no.” Jared smiles then, showing all of his teeth like that was the answer he was looking for all along; a surprise ending that his brain hadn’t even thought to warn him was possible.
.
Jared sleeps, and so Jensen doesn’t. He listens to the melody of Jared’s breathing paired with the harmony of his own heart beating, and watches his chest rise and fall in whispered crescendos. He waits for the signs of fever, the signs of malady - anything that could indicate that it’s taking over.
None come, and as he’s wondering if there are even any signs at all, he is taken by a merciful sleep.
He wakes in the night to find that he is no longer in the arm chair by the bed, but has somehow moved to lay beside Jared. Jared watches with a detached quality, his eyes unfocused and his fingers clumsily moving through Jensen’s hair. He lies on his side, one hip jutting up and the makeshift bandage - no more than Jensen’s old straight shooter shirt - taped sloppily to bronzed skin so that ight shoo stares back at him whenever he looks.
“I had a dream,” Jared purrs in a voice thickened by a cocktail that’s one part sleep and two parts pain. “You were there.”
Jensen nods but Jared doesn’t say anything further, just leans closer and dusts Jensen’s shoulder with long eyelashes.
.
Jensen mixes a sedative in with Jared’s oatmeal - both gifts from the last apartment on the top floor - not procured initially because of Jensen’s wariness of the dogs that barked from within long after the old woman who lived there had died.
When Jared’s breathing evens out again and his eyelids flutter closed, he takes the bowl of half eaten oatmeal and places it on the bedside table, telling himself that it’s for the best.
He needs to get supplies.
He does not, however, begrudge himself the precaution of one of Jared’s expensive Japanese kitchen knives, tucked tightly inside the waistband of his jeans and boxers.
.
The eeriest part is that he’s almost gotten used to it.
He considers saying ‘hello, good morning, how are you?’ to the body that sits in the phone booth outside, it’s slackened face frozen in the look that one must get upon meeting their maker, but mutters crazy to himself before he keeps on walking.
He bypasses the truck with it’s bloodstained seats and walks the three blocks to the nearest Macs, the Sunshine Joe’s sign still vibrant in the window and the owl winking at him as if sharing in this giant, cosmic joke that he and Jared are trapped in. For once, he is grateful for the rain, but only because it’s not freezing rain or driving snow. December creeps ever closer, and he still feels the Toronto wind’s biting teeth nipping at his jaw whenever he thinks about his first Canadian vacation.
He enters the convenience store and calls out, wary of an encounter like yesterday’s. “Hello? I’ve got a knife…” He slides his hand against his hip unconsciously, as if checking to make sure that he’s speaking the truth.
Silence answers him.
He takes a blue basket and fills it with as much as he can carry, ignoring the please leave the baskets sign on his way out.
.
Christmas comes with fever and with a loss of consciousness. Jared moans and writhes in their bed, sheets tearing beneath the searching clutches of his feet and fingers as he battles a demon unknown.
Jensen waits and watches, little left to do. This is it, he thinks, and he wonders at the possibility of sucking some of the virus out of Jared’s body and into his own.
Somehow, he feels like the worst is over when Jared awakens again, a somnolent smile on his face; Jensen reminds himself to forget about the drug store down the street, the gun that he found in apartment 2C, and the way that leaning too far over the edge of Jared’s balcony might feel like flying, if only for a few seconds.
.
Life resumes, in whatever loose capacity that they've decided to frame it in this week.
The Xs on the calendar grow with each passing day, and with each set of intersected lines Jared becomes a little more like himself again. Seventeen Xs and he laughs, rich and deep like he used to, and Jensen thinks that if there were anymore world around to stop, it would spin out of control and halt on a dime just to hear the sound. Forty three Xs and he puts Harley on his leash and walks slowly and methodically up and down the stairwell, because he can.
When they run out of calendar to mark Xs on, they use the closet wall. Damage deposit be damned, Jared laughs, not adding that his landlord probably already is.
.
He strums Jared's guitar to keep busy, to keep his hands working and his skills up to par - as if he'll ever need them again.
He is in the middle of Lost Together by Blue Rodeo and he's thinking that it seems oddly fitting when he looks up and out the window to the dusk sky, carelessly painted in reds and pinks and golds. Jared sits behind him, newly awoken by the lulling hum of the repetitive E minor, dropping his chin to rest it between Jensen’s shoulders. “Do you remember the birds?” Jared asks, and Jensen twitches his head in response.
Jared is silent, and then he asks the question that Jensen had thought he’d long since abandoned. “Are we going to be alright?”
He asks it like Jensen’s answer is vital, like every molecule of his well being rests on a yes or a no. Jensen doesn’t answer, he’s too practical. A part of him still lives in day one, and he still knows: it’s just a matter of time.
.
Sometimes, when Jensen’s thinking too hard, he wonders if they’re not dead, too. If this isn’t the final scene in Titanic, and if Jared isn’t his Kate Winslet and this apartment with it’s messy sheets and empty cupboards his fucked up idea of paradise. But then Jared speaks, and warm breath dances across the nape of his neck while big hands fumble gracelessly for his own; and the world might have ended, but sometimes he thinks that they might just be a little bit in love now too, and maybe somehow, that’s reason enough to believe.
“Yeah, we’ll be alright,” he finally answers, squeezing Jared’s hand once with his strumming hand and never taking his eyes off the treacherous setting sun.
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG 13.
Notes: Apocalypse fic, part three of three (c'est fini!). Inspired by fryadvocate's venture into PostApoc and my sick love of the genre.
Feedback: Always appreciated!
[Part 1] [Part 2]
“Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch; marry, 'tis enough.” Jensen murmurs, as soon as he gets Jared’s hand far enough away from the cut so that he can take a look at it. Jared laughs, and Jensen can’t be sure whether it’s because he knows Romeo and Juliet - knows high school drama - like the back of his hand too, or whether it’s because he’s bleeding out all over a Safeway floor and the sunlight streaming through the windows is starting to look like the wings of angels to him.
The blood drains from Jared’s face, and Jensen sees where it’s going as the soles of his shoes are soaked in red - the kind that he’s used to being covered in on set, although this isn’t of the corn syrup variety. He curves his fingers around the spot where he’s approximated that the wound is, against his better judgement and the voice that is curiously absent but that should be saying that he doesn’t know where Jared’s been, that this is how disease is passed, etc, etc.
Somehow, it doesn’t seem important now.
.
They move towards the truck, every molecule of Jensen’s being alert and ready to attack if necessary, even though the closest things he has to a weapon right now are Jared’s car keys and the fist that is connected to the arm that’s currently holding Jared together.
He’s keeping up a steady stream of chatter, trying to look Jared in the eye (and damn, is he tall), trying to keep an eye on where they’re headed and to quell his panic - their panic - and to keep breathing, and it’s a good thing that he’s a multitasker by nature. Jared wavers a little on his feet, and Jensen’s not sure that he can do this without Jared’s help - if he goes down, Jensen’s not sure that he can get him back up. He adjusts his grip, catching a whiff of Jared’s scent as he turns his head inwards - oddly like cherry Tootsie roll pop, but now tinged with something that he thinks is oddly metallic and entirely imagined.
When they reach the truck, sparkling like an oasis in the early afternoon light, he opens the passenger side door and helps Jared in before he realizes that he’s reached the end of his plan. This is it, where the road ends for now. Get Jared into the truck, and then….and then…the colour bars in his mind blip, promising that the station will be airing something again soon, but that for now it’s off the air.
He tucks the blanket from the kind-of-sort-of-not-really-a backseat around Jared’s ribs as tightly as he can, and nearly knocks his head on the roof of the truck when he realizes that his hands have been worrying a little too long at smooth, tan skin.
.
The ride home (when did Jared’s apartment come to be home?) takes an eternity, and if Harley notices the difference in Jared when they get upstairs, he doesn’t show it. He licks happily at his fingers (too white, hanging in midair as if only supported by the fact that they’re connected to his body), his tail thumping against Jared’s knees until Jensen can’t tell if they’re still shaking on their own or from the strain that the dog is putting on him.
He deposits Jared on the couch and checks the blanket. Even through it’s dark brown wool, he can tell that it’s been stained darker. He forces a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes and squeezes Jared’s hand once before dropping it. “I’m going to go and get some water to clean this.”
Jared shakes his head vigorously, the first solid movement that he’s made in the last little while. A sharp glitter of panic dominates his hazy eyes. “Don’t leave me, Jenny,” he drawls, right arm reaching for Jensen even though it looks like it spends all of his energy in doing so. “Don’t leave,” he whimpers again.
Jensen takes the proffered hand and tucks it against Jared’s side again, leaning closer. “I’m not going far. Just to the kitchen, okay?”
“I don’t want to…” die. Be alone. Be without you. “…don’t leave me, Jensen.”
Jensen nods. “‘Course I’m not going to leave you. Just sit tight for a second. Look, I’ll talk to you the whole way.” He takes a step towards the kitchen, walking backwards so that his eyes don’t have to leave Jared’s quite yet. “You know, this whole haven’t-had-a-haircut-in-months thing is working out for you. I always liked your hair when it was longer like that.” He steps over the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, and Jared can’t see him anymore. He runs the water and speaks over it, getting a bowl from the cupboard. “Doesn’t look quite so good on me. My Mama’d hate it. Probably say I looked like a goddamned hippie or something.” He closes his eyes as he shuts off the tap, one second to collect himself before he’s back out on stage with this new happy-go-lucky character of his. He can’t believe that he didn’t even take any groceries in his haste to leave, and why didn’t he think to take the first aid kit from apartment 6B when he had the chance a few weeks ago?
“See?” he asks, walking back out to the living room and punctuating the phrase by waving his arms. “Back already.” He kneels beside the couch and lifts Jared’s shirt, hands jerking back at Jared’s sudden hiss of pain as blunt fingernails accidentally mirror the path of the knife. “Sorry,” he whispers, finally nudging his arms up and pulling the shirt off, throwing it haphazardly before wrapping the blanket around Jared’s shoulders. This earns him a weakened smile, and he knows that he’s not the only one pretending now.
He resists the urge to wince and look away as he examines the wound, tattered threads still clinging to it. The wound is gaping, and crusted in dried blood. It’s expansive, but luckily it doesn’t look that deep. Jensen isn’t sure how bad it is, and for the first time in his life he wishes that he’d taken sports medicine instead of going into acting after all. It looks bad enough, though.
“J,” he murmurs, and he hasn’t called him that since the first year on set. “I gotta present for you. But I have to go into the bedroom to get it, so give me a second.” He leaves without waiting for permission, fighting the urge to close the door behind him for a second to cling to his sanity. He’s got to be strong now, but with everything that they’ve been through, he can’t believe that this is it. That something so ordinary, so human could be the thing to take Jared from him.
He returns with a bottle of Tequila, pilfered from apartment 7E eleven days ago and hidden behind the stack of shoe boxes in the closet. No citrus or salt, but that can’t be helped now. He opens the bottle as he offers it to Jared, tipping a good solid shot into his mouth before waiting for him to drink it down.
Liquid courage.
.
“Jenny-Jen?” Jared questions, liquid limbs splayed across the couch and eyes unfocused with alcohol induced bliss. Jensen looks over from his spot on the floor, flipping through a copy of Maxim from June 2007. “Wouldn’t that be funny?”
“What, Jared?”
“If I died.” He frowns deeply for a moment, as if trying to force the thought to continue. “Like this, I mean.” He laughs then, high and almost hyen, like he used to do on Supernatural when Jensen would think he was faking it. “Survive the end of the world, and then,” he makes a jagged slashing motion in the air, pairing it with the sound of a whip at random. “Dead.” He laughs again.
Jensen shakes his head. “Not particularly, no.” Jared smiles then, showing all of his teeth like that was the answer he was looking for all along; a surprise ending that his brain hadn’t even thought to warn him was possible.
.
Jared sleeps, and so Jensen doesn’t. He listens to the melody of Jared’s breathing paired with the harmony of his own heart beating, and watches his chest rise and fall in whispered crescendos. He waits for the signs of fever, the signs of malady - anything that could indicate that it’s taking over.
None come, and as he’s wondering if there are even any signs at all, he is taken by a merciful sleep.
He wakes in the night to find that he is no longer in the arm chair by the bed, but has somehow moved to lay beside Jared. Jared watches with a detached quality, his eyes unfocused and his fingers clumsily moving through Jensen’s hair. He lies on his side, one hip jutting up and the makeshift bandage - no more than Jensen’s old straight shooter shirt - taped sloppily to bronzed skin so that ight shoo stares back at him whenever he looks.
“I had a dream,” Jared purrs in a voice thickened by a cocktail that’s one part sleep and two parts pain. “You were there.”
Jensen nods but Jared doesn’t say anything further, just leans closer and dusts Jensen’s shoulder with long eyelashes.
.
Jensen mixes a sedative in with Jared’s oatmeal - both gifts from the last apartment on the top floor - not procured initially because of Jensen’s wariness of the dogs that barked from within long after the old woman who lived there had died.
When Jared’s breathing evens out again and his eyelids flutter closed, he takes the bowl of half eaten oatmeal and places it on the bedside table, telling himself that it’s for the best.
He needs to get supplies.
He does not, however, begrudge himself the precaution of one of Jared’s expensive Japanese kitchen knives, tucked tightly inside the waistband of his jeans and boxers.
.
The eeriest part is that he’s almost gotten used to it.
He considers saying ‘hello, good morning, how are you?’ to the body that sits in the phone booth outside, it’s slackened face frozen in the look that one must get upon meeting their maker, but mutters crazy to himself before he keeps on walking.
He bypasses the truck with it’s bloodstained seats and walks the three blocks to the nearest Macs, the Sunshine Joe’s sign still vibrant in the window and the owl winking at him as if sharing in this giant, cosmic joke that he and Jared are trapped in. For once, he is grateful for the rain, but only because it’s not freezing rain or driving snow. December creeps ever closer, and he still feels the Toronto wind’s biting teeth nipping at his jaw whenever he thinks about his first Canadian vacation.
He enters the convenience store and calls out, wary of an encounter like yesterday’s. “Hello? I’ve got a knife…” He slides his hand against his hip unconsciously, as if checking to make sure that he’s speaking the truth.
Silence answers him.
He takes a blue basket and fills it with as much as he can carry, ignoring the please leave the baskets sign on his way out.
.
Christmas comes with fever and with a loss of consciousness. Jared moans and writhes in their bed, sheets tearing beneath the searching clutches of his feet and fingers as he battles a demon unknown.
Jensen waits and watches, little left to do. This is it, he thinks, and he wonders at the possibility of sucking some of the virus out of Jared’s body and into his own.
Somehow, he feels like the worst is over when Jared awakens again, a somnolent smile on his face; Jensen reminds himself to forget about the drug store down the street, the gun that he found in apartment 2C, and the way that leaning too far over the edge of Jared’s balcony might feel like flying, if only for a few seconds.
.
Life resumes, in whatever loose capacity that they've decided to frame it in this week.
The Xs on the calendar grow with each passing day, and with each set of intersected lines Jared becomes a little more like himself again. Seventeen Xs and he laughs, rich and deep like he used to, and Jensen thinks that if there were anymore world around to stop, it would spin out of control and halt on a dime just to hear the sound. Forty three Xs and he puts Harley on his leash and walks slowly and methodically up and down the stairwell, because he can.
When they run out of calendar to mark Xs on, they use the closet wall. Damage deposit be damned, Jared laughs, not adding that his landlord probably already is.
.
He strums Jared's guitar to keep busy, to keep his hands working and his skills up to par - as if he'll ever need them again.
He is in the middle of Lost Together by Blue Rodeo and he's thinking that it seems oddly fitting when he looks up and out the window to the dusk sky, carelessly painted in reds and pinks and golds. Jared sits behind him, newly awoken by the lulling hum of the repetitive E minor, dropping his chin to rest it between Jensen’s shoulders. “Do you remember the birds?” Jared asks, and Jensen twitches his head in response.
Jared is silent, and then he asks the question that Jensen had thought he’d long since abandoned. “Are we going to be alright?”
He asks it like Jensen’s answer is vital, like every molecule of his well being rests on a yes or a no. Jensen doesn’t answer, he’s too practical. A part of him still lives in day one, and he still knows: it’s just a matter of time.
.
Sometimes, when Jensen’s thinking too hard, he wonders if they’re not dead, too. If this isn’t the final scene in Titanic, and if Jared isn’t his Kate Winslet and this apartment with it’s messy sheets and empty cupboards his fucked up idea of paradise. But then Jared speaks, and warm breath dances across the nape of his neck while big hands fumble gracelessly for his own; and the world might have ended, but sometimes he thinks that they might just be a little bit in love now too, and maybe somehow, that’s reason enough to believe.
“Yeah, we’ll be alright,” he finally answers, squeezing Jared’s hand once with his strumming hand and never taking his eyes off the treacherous setting sun.