Fic: And There's That Pesky Thing Called Reality (1/5)
The horseman cracked a smile that showed yellow teeth and a blackened tongue. If Dean hadn’t already known he was facing Famine, he’d have sworn he was looking Death in the face.
“Oh, you can smirk and joke and lie to your brother, lie to yourself, but not to me. I can see inside you, Dean. I can see how broken you are. How defeated. You can’t win and you know it but you just keep fighting, just keep going through the motions. You’re not hungry, Dean, because inside you’re already dead.
Jared swallowed hard and glanced at the clock hanging on the wall in his kitchen. Shit, he really should have left already, but he had to get to the end of this chapter. This book wasn’t going the way he’d expected at all. It had started off so violently, with the couple tearing into and devouring each other, but then it had got kind of funny when Cupid showed up. This stuff at the end was just so dark, though, he wasn’t even sure he was enjoying reading it any more. Not because it wasn’t well written but because it was so damn painful. He could just imagine Dean there, alone and surrounded by his enemies as Famine tore into his soul. Dean would never admit it to anyone, of course, but Jared could tell he knew that Famine was right.
He sighed. He should really have come to expect the crushing angst by now. If there was one thing Joshua Mackenzie knew how to do well it was kick the shit out of his characters, emotionally as well as physically. Jared had found himself wondering more than once whether the author was some kind of sadist who got off on torturing his characters.
Just as his eyes drifted back to the page to find out how Dean was going to respond (Jared couldn’t quite decide whether it was going to be a single perfect tear or a serious ass-kicking) his phone chirped to tell him he had a text message.
Please tell me you’re right outside the door and you have coffee - Jeff
Jared’s eyes flitted back to the clock. Shit, he really was late, but he’d have time to make it to work and grab coffee on the way if he ran.
The book would have to wait.
“I owe you my firstborn,” Jeff smiled when Jared practically crashed into the library one minute before nine-thirty, miraculously managing not to spill either of the coffees he was carrying. “And congratulations for not being late. How far did you have to run today?”
“Pretty much all the way,” Jared panted as he collapsed into one of the chairs behind the counter. “And I had to call ahead with the coffee order so it would be ready when I got there.”
Jared actually didn’t think Jeff would have given a shit if he’d been late. The place wasn’t exactly swamped but he hated to take advantage of his boss’s laid back nature. Jeff was one of those sorts of guys who didn’t really give a crap what his employees got up to so long as the work got done. Jared’s job might be boring as hell but it could be a lot worse. Like the last place he’d worked at where his boss had timed how long he took to go to the bathroom and forced him to make up the lost minutes at the end of the week.
As soon as he had his breath back he shrugged out of his coat and gulped down his now lukewarm coffee. He had a stack of book orders to process and there was no time like the present.
“So, how’s the latest Mackenzie masterpiece?” Jeff asked during their morning break. There was the usual mocking tone to his voice that always accompanied these discussions. Jeff was an awesome boss, but he was kind of snooty when it came to books. He was of the opinion that a book wasn’t worth reading unless it had been at least shortlisted for some sort of literary award.
Jared shrugged. “It’s good. Nearly finished now, though.”
He tended to avoid these conversations because he knew when a battle was lost before it had even started. For a while he’d tried to convince Jeff to at least give Woman in White a try but there was only so much criticism of the genre he could listen to before he’d just stopped asking.
“Good,” Jeff beamed. “That means maybe you’ll actually have time for one of the many good books that I’ve loaned you recently.”
Jared ignored him and Jeff didn’t press the issue. It was a comfortable arrangement that they both found worked. Jeff considered that he’d won the argument and Jared got to spend the rest of his break in peace and not being lectured on the artistic merit of an author only ten people had even heard of.
Just after lunch Misha showed up and Jared was pretty relieved. There was only so much time in a day he could stomach listening to teenage girls giggling about Twilight. What made it worse was when they made some awkward (and sometimes just scarily forward) attempts to flirt with him. Apparently the Pride bracelet on his wrist meant nothing to them.
He figured he should be glad these girls were reading, even if it was Twilight, but really he wanted to give them all a copy of Fevre Dream if they were interested in vampire fiction and to point out that Edward Cullen really wasn’t perfect boyfriend material.
Misha was one of the regulars at the library, coming in at least once a week to check out something new. What Jared loved was the total randomness of Misha’s selections. It was always a mix of fiction and non-fiction. One week it was Jane Austen and tantric sex (not together, but that might have given Persuasion a whole new meaning) and the next week it was J.K. Rowling and carpentry. Jared still hadn’t really figured Misha out but it kept things interesting and he liked that.
Today it was Clive Barker and The Indigenous Species of Sri Lanka.
“Going on vacation?” Jared asked as he scanned the books in.
“Just got back,” Misha replied.
Now that he mentioned it, Jared did notice that Misha was looking a bit more tanned than usual.
“Although,” Misha continued, “it was touch and go for a while. Did a stint in prison for using an ecological preserve as a bombing range. It all turned out okay in the end, though, and I managed to escape.”
“Thank God,” Jared replied without missing a beat. He was pretty much used to Misha’s somewhat unique sense of humor now.
Jeff thought Misha was some sort of mentally disturbed compulsive liar, but Jared knew better. Misha just liked to make things interesting, and there was always a sparkle in his eyes when he started on one of his weird stories.
“So, I thought I’d do a bit of research on the friend who helped me escape,” Misha deadpanned. He pulled out his phone and showed Jared a picture of himself with a small monkey. There was always a kernel of truth to Misha’s stories, which just made them more fun.
“Maybe you could set up a wildlife sanctuary for him to say thanks,” Jared suggested with a smile. “Or, you know, at least plant a tree for him or something.”
“It’s a definite possibility,” Misha agreed. “See you next week.”
The rest of the day passed pretty quietly and while Jared listened to Mrs. Bowen talking endlessly about the birds that lived in her garden he thought about My Bloody Valentine and wondered how the book was going to end.
He almost tripped over Harley and Sadie, who launched themselves at him as soon as he opened the front door, tails wagging while they whimpered excitedly.
“Hey guys,” Jared laughed as he crouched down to rub Harley’s belly and scratch behind Sadie’s ears. “You two need to go out?”
As soon as they heard the O word the dogs scrambled back to their feet and raced to the back door, bouncing up and down as Jared walked over to them.
As soon as the door was open they charged outside to do their business. Anyone would think they’d been stuck inside for days instead of a few hours. He shook his head and left the door open as he headed into the kitchen to make himself some coffee. This was the part of the day he’d been looking forward to since he left for work that morning.
Harley and Sadie trotted back inside when he called them and after he’d treated them to a biscuit they quickly hopped onto the couch and went to sleep. They knew this was Jared’s quiet time and were happy to nap for the duration.
Jared folded himself into his favourite armchair. It had been a housewarming gift from his grandmother. Sometimes, even though she had been dead for five years and the chair had been in his house a lot longer than that, he still imagined he could smell her lavender perfume when he sat in it. The chair reminded him of when he’d been little and used to sit on her lap and listen to her read stories to him about knights and dragons.
He pulled out My Bloody Valentine from his bag. He was only a couple of chapters from the end now which meant that after today he’d have to find something else to read until the next book was published.
Best to savor these last few pages, then. He took a sip of his coffee and opened the book. Moments later he was back in Sam and Dean’s world and nothing else mattered.
It was quiet outside, with nothing around but the empty carcasses of dozens of cars. Like Dean they had been stripped of everything that had defined them, leaving rusted broken shells behind. That was all Dean was now, a shell of his former self. Famine had seen it and confirmed what Dean had felt for a long time.
There were thousands of stars littering the night sky, each of them a sun in its own right. Castiel had once used the existence of the stars as a reason to believe that God was out there. He’d told Dean there was too much natural beauty and wonder in the universe for God to not care about it. Dean had laughed at the time and made a joke, but right now his body ached with the sheer need for Castiel to be right.
They were screwed, he knew that, and with each passing day he wondered more and more why they were bothering to fight it at all. This thing, the freaking apocalypse, was huge. Bigger than all of them put together. Was it arrogant of them to think they could stop it on their own?
His brother was going through detox again and there wasn’t a damn thing Dean could do except listen to his screams. Castiel was getting more and more human by the day. They all knew it even if none of them would say it. Pretty soon he was going to be just a regular guy. Someone else depending on Dean for help that he didn’t think he could provide.
His eyes drifted upwards, to a Heaven he wasn’t sure existed and a God he was pretty damned certain wasn’t listening.
“Please. I ca-“ The word stuck in his throat. Even now, under the crushing weight of adversity, he couldn’t admit it out loud. “I need some help. Please.”
God wasn’t answering.
Jared closed the book slowly and put it down next to the chair.
Wow.
He took a deep breath and sat there for a minute, just listening to the steady ticking of the clock behind him. He always got too involved in these books. Not for the first time, Jared wished nothing more than for Dean Winchester to be real just so he could give the guy a damn hug. Not that he thought for one second that Dean would even remotely appreciate being glomped by a six foot five gay guy.
He shook his head and snorted softly as he imagined the look of horror on Dean’s face and glanced over at Harley and Sadie who were still sleeping on the couch. He needed to get out and brush the cobwebs away. Maybe a run would do him some good.
“You guys want to go to the park?”
Harley and Sadie’s heads shot up immediately and seconds later the excited barking started.
Jared took that as a yes.
He loved running almost as much as he loved immersing himself in the Supernatural books. There was just something about the air rushing past him and the sound of his own heart pounding in his chest that made him feel alive.
Harley and Sadie ran alongside him, happily chasing each other while Jared did a few circuits. It was a warm evening and he didn’t have any place to be so he’d slowed down to a jog and added a couple of extra laps to give Harley and Sadie some extra time.
There was a drinking fountain at one end of the park and he decided he’d stop when he got to it this time and head home for dinner. Alone, as usual.
Most of the time he didn’t mind. He kind of liked the quiet. Meal times were the worst, though. That was when he really wished he had someone to talk to.
It wasn’t that he had problems talking to people. He loved it, in fact. The best part of his job was talking to people about what they were reading and learning a bit more about them. The problem was he never seemed to connect to anyone. Like, he knew instinctively the right thing to say to people to keep the conversation going and sound interested in what they were saying, but he didn’t really have anything in common with any of them. His two main hobbies were working out and reading the Supernatural books, and he didn’t know anyone else who even liked them. Even Misha, whom Jared thought he could maybe be friends with if he saw him for more than ten minutes a week, was pretty far out of Jared’s zone.
Jeff was more like a father to him than anything, not that he’d ever tell him that of course. He valued his life.
“Come on,” he said, half to the dogs and half to himself. “Let’s go home.”
He clipped leashes on Harley and Sadie when they got outside the park. They didn’t like it and did their best to pull him along as soon as he let go of them. Jeff had told him that he needed to take them to obedience classes but Jared didn’t have the heart to do it. He hated the idea of punishing them if they did something wrong. Besides, they were well behaved for the most part and they didn’t bark or try to bite anyone.
They got to Jared’s street and started to walk back towards the house when Harley started to growl, which immediately set Sadie off too.
“Hey,” Jared warned, jiggling their leashes to get their attention. “Settle down.”
Harley barked, his hackles rising as he crouched down low. Sadie copied him.
“What’s gotten into you two?” Then he spotted Gus on the other side of the street.
Gus was the ginger tom that belonged to Jared’s neighbour. He was a vicious thing that always took a swipe at the dogs whenever they passed each other. Jared had wound up at the vet more than once to get bloody scratches on his babies fixed up.
Sadie growled again, low in her throat, and let out another bark.
“Easy, guys,” Jared soothed, crouching down between them and rubbing their heads. “You’re not going to let Mrs. Lassiter think you two are scared of a little kitty, are you?”
Apparently not. Harley and Sadie had evidently decided that there was safety in numbers and before Jared could stop them they charged, sending Gus scurrying for the safety of his house.
Unfortunately, Jared still had hold of their leashes and although he was strong and worked out every day, when two large dogs decided they wanted to move he had no choice but to be dragged along by their combined weight.
As they yanked him across the street, he heard the screech of brakes before he saw the car bearing down on him and he heard the thunk of it striking his body before he sailed backwards and landed in a heap.
Shit, I just got hit by a car.
That was pretty much his only thought before there was nothing.
Part 2