Fic: In a Mirror Distorted and Indistinct. RPS. Jensen/Jared. NC-17. Prologue
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Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue | Author’s notes | Soundtrack
Prologue
1992
A couple of months after Jensen’s fourteenth birthday, he got hit by a car as he was walking home from school.
A drunk driver lost control of his speeding BMW and it swerved across the street, bounced off a garbage truck and was finally tossed over the sidewalk where it pinned Jensen between the fender and a concrete wall. The car crushed his right leg, with the sharp edge of the twisted fender slicing into his thigh and breaking the femur in two places. The only thing keeping him from bleeding out on the spot was the fact that he was pinned so tight the circulation was cut off. It took close to an hour before the paramedics were able to get him lose, during which time he lay slumped over the crunched hood, silently watching everyone around him panic.
Or so he’s told later. Truth is Jensen doesn’t really remember much of the accident, or the next couple of days for that matter. From what he’s told it’s just as well. It’s a miracle, the doctors say, that he didn’t lose his leg, let alone his life. Never seen anything like it, they claim and shake their head in amazement. Flat-lined twice on the operating table and each time they thought they’d lost him, but at the last moment he bounced right back.
Jensen’s mother - weighted down by guilt that she didn’t go pick her son up that day, even if he’s been walking home alone for the last three years - takes it to heart, thanking the Lord every day and twice on Sundays for saving her precious boy.
Jensen can’t help thinking that if God really was taking time off from his busy schedule to drop by Richardson, Texas, he could have shown up a bit sooner and made sure the damn car never hit him. Not that he’ll ever tell his mom that.
He spends the whole summer in the hospital with his leg in traction, bored out of his skull. Nothing to do but sleep, read, watch TV and eat. His mom keeps bringing him cakes and candy and whatever snacks he asks for, fussing over him endlessly. She comes by every day, sometimes with his dad but only occasionally with his baby sister. She’s only seven and the hospital scares her. He’d much rather have Josh for company but his lucky bastard of a brother is spending the whole summer at a ranch with his friends. He sends Jensen letters, telling him what a great time he’s having, swimming in the lake and kicking up dirt in the warm Texas summer.
Jensen kinda hates him.
His only bright spots are the times spent with the physical therapist twice a week. Which is kinda screwed up considering it’s painful and exhausting, but at least it’s someone to talk to who isn’t his mother.
Jason is cool. That’s the only word for it. He has deep brown eyes and bright blond hair that’s masterfully coiffed to look like he just woke up. He has rows of thin silver rings piercing his ears, a stud in his eyebrow and a black inked tattoo that covers most of his neck and travels all the way down to his wrist.
He smells like sandalwood and cigarettes and Jensen feels his stomach flutter every time Jason lays a warm hand on his mangled leg.
Jason is fun too. He talks about music and sports and he never once treats Jensen like a kid. He says ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ and lots of other words that Jensen would never dare to repeat in front of his parents, but he secretly loves the way they sound rolling off Jason’s tongue.
The day Jensen finally gets out of the traction Jason takes him on a ride in the wheelchair, out of the hospital and down to the park across the street. They sit on the grass, basking in the sun, drinking Coke and watching the ducks swim on the small pond. Right there and then Jensen decides that this is what he wants to do when he grows up. Help people get better, just like Jason does. He glances over at Jason and takes a deep breath, face blushing when he shares his decision, expecting Jason to laugh. But he just gives Jensen a smile and says, “Cool.”
Jensen also wants to tell him he’s gonna get himself some piercings and a tattoo but he thinks better of it and they sit in comfortable silence for the next half hour until it’s time for Jensen to get back to his room.
He returns to school that fall, looking sickly pale, twenty pounds overweight, and walking around with a limp that kills any hope of staying underneath the radar like usual. Doesn’t take long before he’s being shoved against the lockers and called names that make his eyes sting and his limp grow worse with every step. The months wear on and contrary to his mother’s predictions, ignoring his tormentors doesn’t make them lose interest and move on. If anything it only makes them more determined.
They call him Gimpy and Porky. They steal and break his glasses. They kick away his cane. They punch him in the stomach and laugh when he pukes all over himself.
The first month he spends most of recess hiding in the restrooms, staring at himself in the mirror and wondering why, why is this happening, what did he do to deserve this? By the third month he’s stopped asking. They’ve told him enough times now that he knows why.
Slowly his limp starts getting better and the Texas sun puts color and freckles back on his face but he’s still overweight and his mother’s cooking does nothing to help. His feeble attempts at dieting have her doubling his portions with a sigh.
“You got to eat, Jensen. You need your strength, honey, or you’ll never get better.”
Her eyes shine with love and concern and Jensen guiltily finishes his plate, feeling sick to his stomach with every bite. After dinner he limps up to his room and sits on the bed, staring into space. Seems his heart is growing heavier in sync with his body because he’s never felt as miserable. Everything is wrong and no one even notices. They don’t see him. They don’t listen. No one does anymore.
The first few weeks after being released from the hospital, he sometimes went back there at weekends, hanging around outside the large building, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jason. There were butterflies in his stomach that made no sense and he couldn’t really explain why he didn’t just walk inside and ask for the man. Then one day Jensen finally saw Jason come out through one of the service doors but he wasn’t alone. In fact, he was pushing a voluptuous blonde in a wheelchair, out into the garden, down to their spot. Jason smiled at her and she giggled, batting her eyes and pushing her generous chest so far forward it was a wonder the wheelchair didn’t tip over. Jensen watched them settle down on a blanket, overlooking the small pond. His eyes stung. When Jason looked quickly around and then leaned over to kiss the girl on the lips, Jensen hurried out of there as fast as he could, limping stupidly like the gimp he was.
He never went back.
Now he spends his weekends in bed, curled up under the covers. He can’t sleep but he just can’t find any reason to get up either. When his mother asks what’s wrong he says he’s tired, that his leg hurts, and she backs out of the room looking sad and guilty. Half an hour later she brings him a tall glass of milk and a large plate of cookies. He smiles weakly and waits until she’s closed the door behind her before reaching for the plate. Only one, he thinks but soon there’s nothing left and he’s got milk dribbling down his chin. His stomach is hurting and he’d cry if it did any good. Instead he just pulls the covers over his head and waits for his mom to call him down for dinner.
Christmas Day he fakes being sick to get out of going to church. He doesn’t fit into his suit anyway and what would it matter? It's obvious God isn’t listening. His father looks relieved and even his mother only makes a weak attempt at changing his mind. He watches them from his window as they walk down the path and to the car, the image of the perfect family now that they’re rid off him. They wish it was always like this, he knows. He disgusts them. So weak. So pathetic. So fucking fat.
It takes his little sister’s pleading eyes to get him to agree to even come down for dinner. Everyone keeps staring at him at the table, he can feel it even if he hardly looks up from his plate. The food gets stuck in his throat and he can’t breathe. Grandma Ackles mutters something about lazy kids and his cheeks flush red with shame. As soon as he’s swallowed the last bit of dessert he disappears upstairs and buries his nose in a book while eating candy canes and washing them down with root beer. No one comes looking for him.
One night he’s lying staring up at the ceiling when his heart starts speeding up and his head gets dizzy. He thinks he might be having a heart attack. He’s having trouble breathing, there are spots of lights dancing before his eyes and he can feel himself slowly passing out. When he wakes up a few hours later he feels slightly disappointed.
The medical books at the library call it a panic attack, judging by the symptoms, but Jensen can’t help wondering, if he was panicking, why did he feel so calm when he thought he was dying?
The next time it happens he waits for that feeling to return, fingers clutching at the sheets and tears in his eyes shifting the room out of focus as he gasps for breath but now he knows what’s really happening it doesn’t work the same way. Figures.
He spends his fifteenth birthday sitting on the bathroom floor with his back up against the locked door, watching blood drip down his arms as the thin red lines from his dad’s old fashioned razor mock him with their shallowness. Even this he can’t do right. He concludes that maybe he doesn’t really want to die, but he does want to feel and apart from the slight burn from the cuts there’s nothing.
When his mom shouts up the stairs, telling him to “Come on down, hon, the cake’s ready,” he wipes his arms and the floor clean with wet toilet paper and then pulls the sleeves of his new starched shirt as far down as they will go. He walks down and into a kitchen that’s filled with smiling clueless faces and he smiles back, thinking ‘Not one of you can see me. Not one of you know who I am.’
He doesn’t touch the razor again for a long time even though every time he sees it lying on the bathroom shelf his wrists itch and the urge is so strong he has to dig his fingernails into the palms of his hands, just to keep from reaching out for it.
He withstands it for two whole months and when he finally gives in it’s as unsatisfying as he remembered. But then he tries to cut deeper and finally he feels it. Pain. Physical pain. And for a short moment it drowns out the other pain, the worse pain, the pain that never ever goes away. But it’s just for a moment and then it’s back, the same as before. Even worse because now he’s got one more thing to be ashamed of.
He’s at the end of his rope, hanging on for the simple reason that falling has no guarantee of ending anything, and whatever his mom says, things can always get worse.
His bullies catch him on the way home one day at the end of the school year, and this time he doesn’t even fight back, just lets them beat him down and kick him until they get bored and leave him lying in the dirt, his face bloody and his clothes torn. He doesn’t get up, just lies there, eyes closed, and waits. After an hour of nothing he stumbles to his feet and limps home. Whatever he was waiting for, it didn’t come and it never will. Seems God has abandoned him once and for all, and really, Jensen can’t blame Him. Why would God care about someone like him?
When he finally gets home he stands in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror. His bruised cheeks are round, his torn t-shirt strained over the slight boobs on his chest. His stomach feels bloated, the skin stretched uncomfortably around his belly. The disgust he feels for himself is so overwhelming he can’t stand it anymore.
He flips open the toilet, drops to his knees and puts a finger down his throat.
It takes him two months to lose the extra pounds. Another two to lose its equivalent but no matter how he tries that’s as low as he’ll go. As he gets lighter it gets easier to move around on his leg and it stops hurting as much. He takes long walks that with time turn into long runs. His route goes by a lake and each day he strips off his t-shirt and swims for twenty minutes before flopping down on the bank, basking in the sun, not caring if it burns his skin.
His mother only needs a little persuasion to hand over enough money so he can buy contact lenses. He tells her the glasses bother him when he’s running and she doesn’t question it, she’s just happy to see him looking healthy again.
He returns to school in the fall, looking tanned and muscled, eyes a sparkling green and smile so blinding no one ever tries to look behind it. His old tormentors had graduated in the spring and no one seems interested in picking up their torch now there’s nothing as obvious to tease him about.
He keeps a low profile but doesn’t isolate himself as he used to. He’s learned by now that being a loner is a sure way to draw unwanted attention to himself, something he’s desperate to avoid. So he smiles and laughs, although shyly, and makes sure to never look anyone in the eye, lest they see what’s really there. His reserved nature for some reason only makes the girls like him more, constantly trying to drag him out of his shell with smiles and giggles.
He never tells them they’re barking up the wrong tree. To be honest he’s not even sure what kind of tree he is. He only knows that in a forest of pines he seems to be the only one sporting apples.
But fruit or no fruit, it’s all about trying to fit in, to some extent at least, so he sleeps with a couple of girls, fucks them in their pink little-girl beds with Hello Kitty pillows and posters of Tom Cruise on the wall. If he happens to glance at the poster instead of the girl’s face as he shudders his release into her it’s nothing he wants to think about.
‘Queers,’ his father calls them, sneering at the word as if it hurts his tongue.
“Rights?” The newspaper crumples in his fist as he pushes the glasses up his nose in anger. “Lets see what rights they’ll have in Hell.”
Jensen’s mother shakes her head, briefly touching the cross hanging at the dip of her throat before continuing her knitting, the needles’ metallic clicking loud and accusing in Jensen’s ears. He buries his face in the book he’s reading, his stomach tight as a knot, his throat so dry he’s surprised they don’t notice his labored breathing.
Hell. In Hell.
But not him. Because he isn’t. He’s not. Not that. Not that. Whatever he is it’s not that.
Please, God, don’t let me be that. Please, please, please.
In his senior year he joins the drama club, more because he needs the credits than anything else, and to his surprise he finds that he likes it. Hell, he rules the fucking stage! Isn’t this what he does every day anyway? Pretend to be someone else? As he stands there, accepting the standing ovation with a small bow he looks into his father’s eyes and sees pride for the first time in years.
Strangely enough it only fills him with sudden and blind anger. This? This is what will make his dad proud? Logic tells him his father is just happy to see him following in his footsteps, being an actor himself, but the angry voice in his head that whispers that this is just another way of his dad not having to face up to his real son, cruelly overbears it.
So when the talent scout approaches him after the show and tries to convince him to try out Hollywood, Jensen ignores his father’s triumphant smile and says no. He’s good where he is, thank you very much. He’s already got his application for Texas Tech University filled out and has no interest in running off to Hollywood. His life is just the way it should be.
Never mind that every night he stares at himself in the mirror, Porky stares back, and Jensen pukes whatever dinner his mom had spent hours on cooking for him.
Part 1