fic: J2 (RPF); to dream you wide awake (2/4)
7,015 days, 12 hours, 47 minutes
It's hard to call it a routine when there aren't any concrete ways of marking the passage of time. Sure, they've got a watch with hands and a face and everything, but what do those numbers even mean? Jared looks at it constantly, which is something Jensen doesn't understand.
He had been working on the interiors of a row of café's and bookstores that he had built down in the city-the city, which is a conglomeration of places they've been to in the past, but looks it mostly European. There's quite a bit of Taiwan stuck in somewhere, which Jared had spent far too much time perfecting, and certain districts Jensen built with Buenos Aires in mind, but most of the streets wind narrow with shops and cobblestones like England and France. After his interiors were done Jensen had shuffled back onto their beach to find Jared knee-deep in what can only be described as a moat, and Jared had popped open the watch and accused Jensen of being gone for months.
And so that's the routine, if it can even be called that.
"I always wanted to be an architect," Jared had confessed, much earlier on.
"Yeah? You'd be great."
Jared had shrugged. "Maybe, but, you know. I like the dreams too much."
"Who says you can't be an architect and still dreamshare?"
Jared raised an eyebrow. "Would you take your architect into the dream and risk the layout being compromised?"
"Are you kidding me? Not a chance."
Jensen had dodged a well-aimed kick for his trouble.
Here, though, Jared can do anything he wants. Jensen hadn't been lying: he would be a great architect.
They're standing under the canopy of a cathedral that's so delicate Jensen's brain doesn't want to admit that it's real. Soundness of structure is no issue in limbo, and Jared apparently thinks that stained glass is both essential and capable of composing weight-bearing walls. Anything solid in the structure is a soft brick, crumbling at the edges; it looks as if Jared carved painted glass straight out of stone ruins.
Nothing is ancient here. There are no traces of age, or of people leaving their traces of life about the world. Jared would be able to tell with a glance at his watch how much time they have left, but for now Jensen is content to just wonder what their world will look like towards the end of it, whenever that comes: will it be something marked with people and movement, or something stale and crumbling?
The end of it. When they wake up. Maybe Jared will become an architect. He and Sandy would get along well.
The thought forces something loose in him.
Jensen thinks about his wants in abstract sort of way, like he's looking at himself through a film lens. There is the world, and the way people are; how they move in droves but for the most part stay in one place their whole lives; how they cling to one another and how Jensen is always the one who hangs back, watches the crowds from the corner. He wants good things for them, even if he doesn't want them for himself. Jensen has never wanted much.
Jared is inspecting one of the columns in the long row, looking at his own work in awe. Jensen will look at the things he himself creates most of the time and wonder if they can't be better, what he could have done differently; Jared sees his work as having become exactly it was supposed to be, flaws and all.
Jared catches him looking and smiles, a little twitch of the lips that acts more like a head nod than anything, just a hey.
No, Jensen has never wanted much. But he's beginning to suspect that he just never really knew what wanting meant, before.
"Jay."
"Hmm?"
"You asked me once," Jensen says, craning his neck up to see into the stained-glass rafters, "why dreamshare disappointed me." Jared doesn't say anything for long enough that Jensen has to look back at him, make sure he's listening. He is, hands in his pockets, waiting. "You never asked me why I keep coming back."
"Why's that?" Jared comes back to his side, standing too close, like always.
"People. They're all different, they all want different things. They say deep down, we're all the same."
"Are we?"
Jensen shakes his head. "Look around you, man. This isn't my cathedral. I couldn't ever have created this."
Jared gives him a withering look, but concedes. "What's your point?"
"Think about it: the dreams are the same. We're all building from the same stuff. People are supposed to be different. People don't connect with each other because they are the same, the connect because they can relate. I go into a dream, and I know what to expect, because the architect has taught it to me, or I know what the dreamer is supposed to be dreaming about. But the mark? Is always unpredictable. Look at what Cassidy was hiding."
Something shifts in Jared's expression. He chews the corner of his lip. "Maybe people aren't as easy to understand as you think, Jen."
"What?"
"I just... look, I'm not trying to argue, but maybe people can be just as unpredictable outside of dreamshare as the marks are."
Jensen shakes his head. "No. No, Jared, don't. We have to-figure it out. Know ourselves. Otherwise-"
"Do you really know yourself, Jensen?"
Jensen stares. The silence between them is heavy, but he doesn't know what he's supposed to say.
"Don't," he hedges. "Don't ask me that."
Instead of backing down and letting it drop, Jared moves closer, hovering. "Why not? Isn't that what you just said? You like the dreams because they're absolute. The world isn't made up of extremes, Jensen. You don't get to pick which end of the spectrum you're on. You don't get to just change who you are because you don't like the way your story is going."
"I didn't-what are you saying? That I should have been a victim or circumstance? I should have kept on being that kid who got his parents killed?"
He wants to not have said that. He shouldn't have, he really shouldn't have said that. Jared says nothing for the longest time.
"Who were you, Jen? Why didn't you realize that the kid you were was stolen from you, not hidden?"
"I never thought it mattered." His voice is so small. Jensen grinds on his teeth in frustration.
"You never thought... you mattered?"
"No, I-" Jensen doesn't want to be having this conversation anymore. "I was different. I don't know, I don't know if it was the trauma that had anything to do with it, but I couldn't change who I was. I could hide it, though. God, could I hide it."
Jared puts a hand on his shoulder then and he almost flinches away, but it's just a reassuring touch, Jared's large palm kneading the muscle. "D'you-?" he chances a look at Jared's face; his mouth is set and his eyes are wide, encouraging. "Do you know what I'm saying?"
Jared opens his mouth, takes a deep breath, and closes it again. He shakes his head apologetically. "Does this have anything to do with... please, don't take this the wrong way, but you couldn't be that kid anymore so I have to wonder. Does this have anything to do with you being gay?"
"No," Jensen says. He shakes his head. "I mean, yes."
Jared's hand slides from his shoulder and trails away down Jensen's arm; he squeezes Jensen's wrist lightly and lets go, taking a step back. Giving him room to breathe. Jensen's stomach is doing some low, lazy flop, folding into itself.
"Its... being gay, it's just something that's there. One of the things I'm not allowed to be."
Jared's quiet, chewing it over. "Why not?"
"I can't. I have to be...somebody else. I'm not like other people."
"So?"
"So? So who am I supposed to be, huh? Whoever that kid was that walked into that house, he isn't me anymore."
"But he can be."
Jensen rubs a hand over his mouth, turning away.
"You can be!" Jared insists. "What, do you think that burying that kid is going to erase what happened? It's going to make what happened in there to you not matter anymore? Because you're wrong, Jen. Dammit, you're wrong. You know why you can't be like other people? Because you're trying so damn hard to be someone you're not! You can't jump into people's dreams and figure out what you are supposed to think. It doesn't work that way. God, I could kill them!"
Jensen is gaping at Jared openly now. He's never seen this kind of anger from him. It seems like too much for him, makes him grim and sad in a way Jensen never expected to see Jared look, and if he's being honest, he never wants to see that again.
Jared is thrown momentarily into thoughts beyond them, some vague anger directed at the men that not even Jensen has hated before-there was never room between the shock, the grief, to upheaval of his life into something dull and hidden. And just as quickly as his anger came, it's gone again, and Jared takes the two quick steps back to Jensen, reaching out this time to put a hand on the side of Jensen's neck, thumb brushing at the hinge of his jaw. "You don't have to hide from them, Jen. I've told you before that it's just us here, and I don't want to spend this dream with whatever shell of a person you think you are. I want you. Just you."
Jensen vaguely expects himself to be sick at the thought, but something about the way Jared says that makes it so easy. He feels himself relax, his mind letting go of something he has held onto for far too long, the shield he shrouds himself under. He hears himself say "Okay," and then his eyes drop to Jared's mouth; he drags them back up to Jared's eyes. They look sad. Jensen reaches a hand between them, tugs at the buttons on Jared's shirt, and Jared falls forward, catching Jensen's mouth in a kiss.
It's soft-enough space for Jensen to back out; patient, gentle. But Jensen's no longer in the mood for gentle; there's something insistent pounding through him and he kisses back roughly, forcing Jared to take a step back, then another, until Jared tightens his grip on Jensen's hip and tugs his fingers into Jensen's hair. They bite at each other, neither one bothering to smooth over the sting, and Jared is giving back as much as he's taking, feeding into the obliterating feeling that has taken Jensen over.
He's aware of the way he keeps pushing, one of Jensen's hands around the wings of Jared's ribcage rough and unyielding despite the way Jared leans into him. He makes a noise like a growl and Jensen swallows it, tongue insistent against Jared's. He has to pull back for air and the fresh oxygen is dizzying, bright like the first burst of sunlight over the horizon.
Jared lets go of him pointedly, curving his body back and away but his feet stay in place-Jensen still has one hand wrapped in the front of Jared's shirt. He loosens his fingers but Jared's hands dart out to cover Jensen's before he can pull it away, and Jared just holds their fists between them, waiting for their pulses to slow.
"It'll be okay, Jen," he says, voice heavy. "We'll be okay."
"Yeah." Jensen's voice is just as thick; he swallows, letting Jared's grip center him. "Yeah."
7,002 days, 11 hours, 2 minutes
They spend a lot less time building things after that. In fact they don't spend a lot of time doing much of anything other than this:
They're on the beach, as they so often are. Limbo is a wide open space, distance enough that they could spend lifetimes here and never meet, never even cross paths if they didn't want to. But it's this stretch of sand they end up on together, again and again.
They can't forget themselves. I they force themselves to heed a schedule, make themselves an end for their days, then it's harder to get swept away until they forget that this isn't the way the world has always been. Jared will meet Jensen here and hand over his totem, the watch that is rapidly becoming just as much a part of Jensen as it is a part of Jared, a part of limbo itself and a reminder of its impermanence.
And every time Jensen reads it, he feels it: time is ticking.
Creation, as it turns out, is exhausting. Jared unceremoniously shoves the pocket watch into Jensen's hands when he shows up and then flops directly onto the sand, no room for a hello. Jensen's lips twitch up in a smile, quickly noting the time on the watch's countdown and joining Jared, the warmth of the sand beneath him and the sun above him, flaring red beneath his eyelids.
Jensen feels acutely aware of his body as his breathing slows, heart beating its own rhythm. The tide laps coolly underneath their bodies, steady, gentle. The sun warms his skin, skin that feels both stretched too tightly and loose at the same time. Jared's presence at his side is nearly as comforting as the warmth-natural. Jensen doesn't shy away, just lets the moment sink and sink.
He shifts his sun-weary arm about as much as it's willing to go, which is hardly a centimeter, and so when his fingers brush the back of Jared's hand, he touch is light, fragile. It feels just as natural as lying here does, and so his mind is pleasantly blank when he finally rolls himself onto his side, raises up and spreads out until he's got one hand on either side of Jared's head, hovering like he belongs there.
Jared blinks up at him, a lazy smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Jensen pitches himself forward and eases down, fitting his mouth to Jared's like it's just right, just what he needs to be doing right now, all other thoughts sleeping, out of focus, somewhere in the back of his head. The sun beats against his back, the kiss salty, languid. Jared parts his lips on a sigh. His tongue is just as warm and wet as everything else, the water still climbing up the beach to wash under Jensen's knees, unnoticed.
Jared slides a hand up the slick skin of Jensen's back, large and comforting. Jensen can't suppress a shiver at the unexpected feeling of being safe, protected. He pulls back and Jared follows, catching Jensen's upper lip between his own for the barest of seconds, nudging gently with his nose. "Alright?" he says, and Jensen opens his eyes.
"Yeah." He shifts back anyway, dropping his forehead sideways onto his outstretched bicep.
"Takes a bit of getting used to."
"That's the thing," Jensen says from the shelter of his arm, a wry twist to his lips. "It doesn't."
Jared's grin is wide like a Cheshire cat, but his eyes are happy, thumb stroking in small circles where his hand still rests on Jensen's lower back. Jensen finds himself matching the grin, pulling back to shove Jared's shoulder into the sand.
"Don't look so smug."
Jared flips them before he even knows what he's doing, but there he is, Jensen beneath him with his chest heaving and his eyes wide and dark. Jared doesn't move, and they aren't touching anywhere but the skin of Jared's knees where they are brushing up against Jensen's hips.
"Well then," Jensen remarks dryly, and Jared kisses him.
Jensen is lost to the heat and slide of lips and tongue, the kiss lazy and long. Jared nips and Jensen makes a low noise of approval. He can feel Jared's smile in his wide kiss. The sand shifts around his back, or maybe the sand shifts just to accommodate him, it's hard to tell, it doesn't really matter. There's not much that matters right now, only the comfortable space between him and the looming weight of Jared's body (one arm that sinks into the sand next to Jensen's shoulder, the upwards slope of Jared's back, the tilt of his hips), only the places where they touch and the places that they don't. Jensen lifts his fingers to feel along the edge of Jared's jaw as it moves, hit tongue slick on roof of Jensen's mouth.
"Jared," he says when they break for air, only because they need to fill their lungs, "this is a dream."
"I know. I know."
Jensen's sudden urgency breaks the carefree laziness of the atmosphere, sharp and crisp in comparison. "Hey, don't let me forget, okay? Keep reminding me."
"I won't let you forget."
"Good. Because we have to wake up. If we don't, we never will."
"I know," Jared repeats, and lets his arm collapse so that he lies still and close against Jensen's side. "We won't forget. Besides, we have plenty of time."
"We do now. What about later?"
"Then we'll be prepared."
Jensen's breath is shallow, and he lies there sucking air in and out while Jared presses hisses to his jaw, slides a hand across his stomach. Later. It's a dangerous road he's on: he wants this to be real so badly that he can hardly recognize himself. Jensen has never wanted anything that he can't have, because he's never given in to the desire.
Jared hooks a leg over one of Jensen's and pulls himself back across Jensen's body, slow and deliberate so that Jensen can feel every pull of muscle, every small push of Jared's hip against his thigh, and then he stops thinking about it.
They lay like that. Jared makes tiny shifts under his weight every now and then. The sun beats down on them, thin sheen of sweat but that doesn't bother Jensen. He draws purposeless patterns in the sand until the tide rolls in, nudging at their feet. There's a tide, Jensen thinks sluggishly.
Jared stretches his arms above his head, pulling his muscles loose and Jensen rolls off to the side, mostly to catch his breath, trying not to think too hard about the way Jared pulled and loosened under him. The sun was starting to dip, and Jensen realized it was the first time he'd really seen the day change. He was suddenly very tired, and looked at Jared sharply.
"Dude. You're not forgetting, are you?"
"What? Nah." Jared smiles sleepily. "I just need something telling me time is passing, you know? Something that's not numbers and dials."
Jensen nods absently. It does feel like they've been living the longest day, and maybe it's the sun's influence but suddenly he just wants a bed, soft sheets, ocean breeze. He gets to his feet and brushes off sand, reaches out to help Jared up.
"I don't know about you, but I'm beat. What do you think will happen if we sleep?"
"Dunno," Jared says, cocking his head slightly to the side. "We're at the lowest level, so I think ...we'll sleep. Can't go any further, right?"
Jensen thinks about. He thinks about lying right back down on the sand and sleeping there, and his eyelids feel heavy with it. This is dangerous, he knows. The body works on its biological clock, but the mind doesn't need sleep the way the body does; it just needs dreams.
"Lets try it," he says, in spite of his worries. He's looking at Jared and thinking about what he wants, and whether or not it's something he can keep. He isn't sure. But right now he's being offered the chance of waking up in a real bed-something permanent, not the myriad hotel beds he ends up in in reality, the endless parade of unfamiliar sheets. He doesn't just want a bed. He wants a warm body, and nowhere to be.
Jared smiles unabashedly in a way that makes his cheeks look actually ridiculous, because how can somebody's dimples be that deep, and Jensen rolls his eyes. "C'mon, Jay. Bedtime."
A bed, sure, but not just that. For once, Jensen wants a home.
6,998 days, 6 hours, 53 minutes
Jensen can't pinpoint the moment when Jared's presence had gone from being a gentle constant tug on his subconscious to being a great heaving magnetism, but maybe it has something to do with collaborating this closely on the house. That, or the way being around Jared usually becomes being surrounded by Jared, as in hands everywhere and no space between them.
All he's trying to do is decorate. Honestly.
They're arguing about wall color-never mind the fact that it is a more domestic task than all of the domestic moments of Jensen's life put together-and Jared says, "You're driving me crazy."
"What? Come on, it's just a house. We can change it if you don't like it. When can make two rooms that are exactly the same but for different wall colors, if blue offends you."
"No, Jensen," Jared says, and it's disarming, the way Jared can be laughing at him open and easy, but the touch of fingertips to Jensen's sides make Jensen jump like a Jared is a live wire. "You're driving me crazy," he says again, but in a way that makes Jensen shiver.
"Oh," he says, and then backs Jared into the very blue wall and begins pressing open-mouthed kisses onto his throat.
"No, see this is making it worse," Jared says. Jensen presses his thigh in between Jared's, just to prove a point.
Not that Jared had needed the bait. He pulls Jensen's head up and kisses him proper, which quickly becomes improper, because there is a lot more teeth involved than all that.
Eventually they pull back just far enough to catch their breath and end up breathing in each other's. Everything slows down as the adrenaline winds away; a minute goes by and Jensen lets his fingertips slip just under the hem of Jared's shirt, trying to ground himself, failing. Jared catches Jensen's lower lip gently between his own, so different from the touches of a minute ago, and then his tongue smoothes out over the swell of Jensen's lip before he bites down, just the barest pressure of teeth, holding there.
Something about it is so reverent that Jensen can't help the curl of warmth in his belly. He presses his own tongue at the juncture of Jared's teeth until he opens, and then it's a slow burn between them that Jensen can't even pretend to ignore, doesn't want to; would never. Not this, the way Jared's skin feels against his palms as he lifts the other man's shirt over his head, or the way Jared's hands bracket Jensen's face once they're free, fingers curling in the short strands. Jensen keeps his own hands at the waistband of Jared's jeans, afraid to lose this rhythm, the voice in the back of his head that usually tells him he should stop telling him instead to just wait, just wait for now because they have plenty of time.
Jared's meeting Jensen's tongue with every pull, every slide, following his lead in a way that is maddening; Jensen's head is spinning in a way that kissing nobody ever has. He loops his fingers over the top of the waistband of Jared's jeans and pulls until their hips are flush, and the pressure makes Jared gasp, drop his mouth down to nip at the place where Jensen's neck curves into his shoulder. It makes Jensen wonder what else he can make Jared do, so he rolls his hips up and god, that-Jared meets the next push of Jensen's hips with his own and Jensen can feel the length of him, already hard. He braces his hands on the wall to bracket Jared's head, leans back just long enough to look, pupils blown, watching Jared and rolling his hips with intent. There's a flare of self-conscious fear but it flickers out quickly as Jensen decides he doesn't care; he wants Jared to look, even as he knows there's no going back from this.
Trying to keep his fingers still and sure, Jensen lets go of Jared's waistband and thumbs the button of his jeans open, fumbles only slightly with the zipper when Jared's eyes flicker. Jared fists his hands in the back of Jensen's shirt, hisses just slightly when Jensen's knuckles brush at him through his boxers. Jensen kisses him to distract himself, pushes the denim aside so that he can dip his fingers under the cotton. Jared makes a pleased sort of whimper into Jensen's mouth when he brushes over the tip of his cock, and it's encouragement enough that Jensen reaches down further, taking the heavy weight of him into his palm.
Jared gasps in air and the warmth of his mouth is suddenly gone. "Jensen," he says, eyes squeezed shut as he turns his head away, and Jensen is too abjectly fascinated with the way Jared's jaw clenches when he pulls his hand up over his length that he almost misses the fact that Jared's trying to pull away.
"'S okay, isn't it?" he breathes out in a rush, panic edging out over the tightness in his voice.
"Yeah, it's..." Jared pulls a shoulder back and wraps his fingers gently around Jensen's now-loose grip, careful not to put any more pressure on himself than is necessary-"God, it's more than okay, but I..."
"But what?" Jensen's starting to think maybe he's going about this all wrong, maybe he fucked up or Jared changed his mind about him, stupid fears that he knows are just anxiety talking but they keep on bursting in his mind anyway. Jared must pick up on it in the tone of his voice, because he finally looks back, a tiny bit more rationality in his eyes than before.
"If we're going to do this, we can't-I don't want us to do this halfway. I want..."
Jared lifts their hands away slowly, presses them onto the soft vee of skin below his waist, chest expanding as he holds his breath.
"What?"
"I want you, Jen. Not just... I don't want this to just be sex, okay?"
Jensen relaxes, lets Jared hold his hand where it is pressed between them. He lifts his free hand from Jared's jeans and rests it alongside his hip, rubs circles with his thumb. "I never thought it was," he confesses.
Jared brightens. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Neither of them say anything for a long moment, and then Jared lets go of Jensen's hand, grips the bottom of Jensen's shirt and lifts it, off over his head, his arms, and Jensen watches Jared's eyes slip back down over his body, both terrified and thrilled at what he sees in them. Jared leans back in to press his mouth to the spot his teeth had been earlier, there on Jensen's shoulder, and Jensen can't help the small shiver that works its way down his back. Jared rocks his hips forward and the pressure on his dick has Jensen's head swimming again. His hands slip around to Jared's lower back and they can't keep this up; Jensen doesn't want to, too many layers between them for it to be anything more than rubbing off.
Jensen takes a deep breath and reaches up, buries a hand in Jared's hair and presses his shoulders up into Jared's; it takes moving his other hand around to Jared's stomach for him to notice, to relent and lean away, Jensen going with him, slipping his hand up over Jared's chest and around this neck so that he has both hands in his hair. Jensen pulls Jared's mouth to his and hopes he has his balance, or that Jared has Jensen's balance, and somehow he knits together the strength of mind to change things. The wall they were leaned against is gone suddenly; the two of them stumble just slightly and readjust their weight; Jared pulling back to laugh at Jensen's ingenuity and Jensen's quirking a smile back at him, leaning in to kiss that mouth, feel the new pulse between them.
And then there's suddenly a bed, at which Jared pulls away from Jensen to raise his eyebrows, but Jensen is already attempting to suck at Jared's jaw and clamber onto the bed at the same time, which is rather distracting.
The thing about it is, once Jensen's mind starts skipping logistics-changing the dream based on a thought instead of going through the motions-it's hard to go back. He's struggling to keep his mind on where he is now instead of where he wants to be, but the end result is that neither of them have to bother with zippers and buttons, and before he realizes what has happened, Jensen has Jared's heaving chest under his hands.
"C'mon. C'mon c'mon," Jared is panting. Jensen rubs a hand down his thigh.
"I don't," he starts, "ah," and then Jared smiles, something far too calm for the way Jensen's heart is going, and says, "here."
"Oh," Jensen says, when Jared's fingers slip-catch his own, and then "oh,“ when Jared slides them between his legs, head tipping back in a groan.
"This is kind of ridiculous," Jensen murmurs, only paying half-attention to what he's saying as he watches his fingers disappear into Jared, who laughs incredulously, and then hisses.
"My dream too," Jared says, and the catch in his voice does things to Jensen he wouldn't expect from this conversation. "I can skip the lube if I damn well please." Jensen watches as the push and pull of his fingers makes Jared clench his jaw, breathing out in shudders until his hips buck up, seemingly of their own accord. "Jen," he says, fumbling with his hand until his fingers graze at Jensen's wrist. "Okay, okay."
Jensen isn't sure what to do with his hands, one of them tangling wetly with Jared's fingers as they slide off his wrist, wind themselves into the sheets. He's nervous now for the first time, and Jensen doesn't know why, but he feels somehow that he has to make up for it. Jensen hooks a hand under Jared's knee and he lifts them, head back on the pillow but he's meeting Jensen's eyes, something in them that Jensen can't read-maybe awe, maybe just finally, what took us so long?
Jensen presses in slowly, biting the insides of his cheeks at the pressure. Jared stretches and keens, his shoulders arching off the bed in a way that makes Jensen want to touch; when he leans forward enough to press his teeth to Jared's collarbone his vision sparks.
He rocks back slightly and is rewarded with Jared's hands scrabbling on his back, one hand snaking up to grip sharply at Jensen's hair. Jensen's heart seems to be beating big and slow, the heat around him blending pleasure into pain when Jared begins to move when he moves.
"Fuck, Jared I... fuck," is all he can say, and so he tucks his head into Jared's shoulder and lets his attention narrow down to all the places they're touching, inside and out, wondering too: what took us this long, what took me so long.
And then Jared shifts his hips in a way that has Jensen's vision going again, and after that the whole rhythm is off in the best of ways, Jared's fingers still tangling in his hair. Jensen pulls back to look Jared in the eye, both of them losing focus, and so he wraps a hand around Jared's cock and Jared's whole body tightens underneath him right before he comes. It's Jared's free hand, sliding distractedly down Jensen's ribcage while Jared is coming down, that sends Jensen following after.
He tries to think when it's over but he finds it difficult, dangerous. Jared's body is relaxing around him and Jensen takes it as a cue, hopes that he's not too heavy when he lets his body fall. For a long while the only sound is their breathing, those sounds too winding down until Jensen's body, paradoxically, begins to demand sleep.
"Jay," he says in what doesn't even sound like his own voice, but Jared quietly hmm?s in response.
"It's all in our heads."
Jensen waits, but finally Jared's silence has him pulling back, gently shifting his weight so that he's holding himself up, watching Jared's face for a response. He hadn't meant it as a question, but suddenly it was, and suddenly Jared's answer meant everything.
"Yes," Jared finally says. He slides his free hand up Jensen's chest, cups it around the nape of his neck, thumb settling over Jensen's jaw. "But what isn't?"
June 21, 2010
New York City
It's different, out here. Being in limbo had felt a little bit like... well, like living in a utopia. Sure, utopias don't actually exist-which is why, Jensen thinks, everything went to hell so easily. There's something to be said about sharing a subconscious. It's not like Jared was in his head every moment, crowding around in there or anything; it was more like this constant presence, same as waking up in the dark and knowing that if he turns over there's going to be a solid weight there, someone grounding him to the here and now.
Then there's the different ways he misses him. Before, it was about pushing away his memory completely, trying and failing to convince himself that nothing had actually happened; that limbo was going to slip away as easily as dreaming used to be before the dreamshare. Fleeting, snatches of visions transposed on the background of reality, gone just as soon as he stopped trying to hold on. He was wrong.
This is a new kind of loneliness. This is knowing exactly where Jared is and wanting to be there, unable to just will himself there with a half-formed thought like it had been in limbo. This was anticipation. He wants to call Jared's cell phone because he misses his voice, like a love-sick teenager. And maybe he was, maybe that's just what Jared brought out in him. He couldn't have noticed it in limbo. He didn't even know what he had given up, that day in the warehouse when he told Jared he couldn't do it, couldn't be that person. And that's the truth-Jensen is not who he was in limbo, and he never will be. He was just wrong about the changes. It's not being with Jared that terrifies him, it's losing Jared. It was always about losing him, or losing himself, giving up what he had been clinging to because without that identity, he was nothing. He was nobody. He was a queer kid whose parents were dead and nothing could change that, nothing could ever undo that. Jared helped him realize that erasing those parts of himself wasn't the answer. You can ignore something all you want, but that doesn't make it go away. That doesn't make it not true.
So what has to change is Jensen. He's the only one who can claim himself. It's easier to look at Jared and think I'm in love with him, that man over there, he's everything than it is to think I'm gay, but the first statement makes the second one true. It's not being gay that's the problem. The problem is that he can't ignore it, but he won't embrace it, either.
It's time to let that all fall away. To stop thinking about what's real and what isn't; who he is and who he thinks he is. There's truth, and there's deception. Jensen wants Jared, and it can be as simple as that, if he wants it to be.
And he does.
He wants it to be just that simple.
|||
The problem with this place-reality, Jensen has to keep reminding himself-is that it's exactly the same as it was before. It's like being thrown back into the worst days of his life, the old Jensen that he doesn't want to be anymore, trapped and terrified like a dog backed into a corner.
Dreaming is his only saving grace. He doesn't have to be himself at all, and each dreamscape feels like starting fresh. Only he keeps waking up.
It's dangerous, skipping from team to team. He's heard the stories about the fucked-up Chemists, dropping people into comas or worse, everyone trying to capitalize on sedative-enhanced dreams and the possibilities they offer. Six months ago Jensen was roped into trying inception, and that failed so spectacularly that he'd had to hide in Peru for six weeks, working the docks for money because it was too risky to try any of his bank accounts. Sweating under the sun had been good, clarifying, stretched his muscles until they burned and sleeping was almost good enough that he felt rested in the mornings, dreams or not. None of the guys he worked alongside knew who he was. Jensen spoke enough Spanish to get by, but there on the coast the language's subtle differences were enough so that he could keep up pleasantries with the guys, but neither party expected any more than that. It was nice. He could be himself, unchecked, in a way that he hadn't been since limbo. Since Jared.
He'd gone home to Danneel, searching for that comfort. It had taken him three days to realize that the tightness in her jaw when she spoke and the forced banter between them was because she had been terrified for him. Nobody he'd worked the inception job with could be tracked down and nobody else had seen him in two months, a fact that dawned like horror.
Two weeks later he proposed, and she'd clutched the ring in her palm so tightly the diamond made an imprint on her skin. "I thought you'd never ask, Ackles," she had said, and if there had been sadness in her voice rather than sarcasm, well, Jensen pretended he didn't hear it.
4,396 days, 2 hours, 19 minutes
Jared wanders among the stacks, each crisp spine lettered by subject, organized in the way only his head can understand. He'd built this place from the inside out, arched ceilings and elegant bookshelves, simplistic architecture. It's not the outside that counts, it's what he has filed away: things he knows; things he doesn't; half-formed thoughts and ideas that might never make sense, but he wants to be able to come back to them, just in case.
Pulling out a book labeled School-University-Architecture, Jared flips through to the fundamentals. He has every intention of breaking them all, sick of buildings that make sense. This same volume is shelved in Architecture-Education-Basics because just like everything else, there isn't a rhyme or reason to the way thoughts move. If being here has taught him anything, it's that thoughts can travel unpredictable as lightning, jumping from cloud to cloud. Math, physics; it's all just a way of making sense out of the chaos. None of that exists here, or at least it doesn't have to. Jared intends to take full advantage of that.
Reading the book is more a process of remembering things he already knows, so it doesn't take long to flip through it. He shelves it and winds his way back toward the exit. Down one row, across two more and Jared takes a detour, heading down another row of shelves instead of straight down the aisle. The books lined up here are a little worse for wear, creases in the spines and glossy letters worn down to a dull shine. He doesn't linger. Jared walks straight ahead, one hand trailing along the edges of the books as he goes, each one of them labeled Jensen, Jensen, Jensen.
It's about time he went home.
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The thoroughfare is abuzz on a day like this, everything more colorful and the air a little breezier. It's surprising how many flower carts there are-hyacinths in all sizes and colors seem to be the favorite. There are kids chasing each other around a fruit kiosk, apples bobbing in their cradles when the boy's shoulder clips it on the way past. Nobody bothers Jensen sitting at a sidewalk coffee shop, drinking something black and earthy.
He's trying to read the book on the table. It's one he swears he's never read before, but the plot sounds like something he might have read in high school. Maybe a little less boring. The main character is eerily similar to Jason Bourne back when Jason Bourne had no idea who he was, which is a little strange if he thinks about it. Probably why his mind has come up with this scene-looks like it could be anywhere outside of Paris, but that family over there is speaking German. Jensen sips his coffee. He's been here for three weeks, or whatever amounts to three weeks in here. He doesn't have Jared's watch.
Jensen doesn't feel the need to sleep when things get like this. Doesn't eat much either, come to think of it, and he can't remember ordering the coffee anyway. He's got to keep on reminding himself that this isn't reality, and the best way to do it is to ignore basic human needs.
He gives up on the book when he recognizes the plot of Fahrenheit 451 in there somewhere. It's too easy to remember these things; nothing ever sticks on the tip of his tongue. Everything is retrievable here. He can't make himself forget, and the words of novels or scenes in movies never really come as a surprise. Who knew the subconscious stored all that information? Jensen taps his fingers against the tabletop, wondering for the thousandth time whether or not he's going to remember any of this when he wakes up. Maybe it will all just slip away, stored so deep in his mind that he can't get it back, gone along with the memories of childhood or idle conversations with strangers.
Projections rove by in front of him, lingering like bumblebees at this vendor or that before ambling along to the next, and before he knows it Jensen's eyes are following a man through the crowd, shaggy brown hair and a quick smile. Jared passes him by and the kid from before barrels right into his legs, shouting a "Sorry mister!" before scuttling off. It's enough of a distraction that Jared looks up, sees Jensen sitting there and rolls his eyes, picking his way to the sidewalk. He slumps down in the empty chair across from Jensen and sighs.
"Took you long enough," Jensen says.
"Got distracted."
"Doing what? Building the city of Atlantis? Turning the house upside down? Making skyscrapers with no walls and a water slide down to the bottom?"
"You're funny. No, you're hilarious, dude, did anyone ever tell you that?" Jared snatches up the book Jensen had been reading, hiding his face behind it. Jensen can still see him smiling.
"Let's get out of here," he says.
Jared looks at him from over the top of the book. "Dude I just got here. I haven't eaten yet, I'm starving."
"No you're not."
"But I love this place! It has the best crumpets."
"Crumpets? Seriously? Yeah, no, we're leaving."
Jensen pushes his chair back and Jared follows, complaining about how he'd already eaten everything imaginable and so he demanded that Jensen give him some new memories of food to try, but Jensen ignores him to the point where Jared is just laughing, dodging children and dogs as they move through the crowds.
"You're ridiculous," Jensen says. Jared agrees easily, then settles into his long-strided walk alongside him. They could just go, all it takes is half a thought and they're home. Jensen wonders in an abstract sort of way how long they'd been gone this time-the longest he'd ever gone was seven months once, but Jared had obviously found something better to do. Or build, he should say. Jensen couldn't be his only project, surely.
In any case, they walk, because they can. Jared bumps gently into him while he sidesteps a fruit stand, and the next time he drifts close enough, Jensen reaches out to link their fingers. The crowd roves around them. They roam the busy streets-together, and completely alone.
3,452 days, 7 hours, 42 minutes
The house is alive with brightness. Sunlight floods through the rooms, illuminates the walls and floors and creates only the softest shadows; it breathes, vibrates; it's life and warmth and soft summer haze. Walls that should be strong and enforced are made of only glass, clear as absence.
At first, they only dreamed of perfect temperatures. Neither was ever too warm or too cold; even when Jensen dreamed of thrashing storms and bright, intense lightning, rain pounding hard against the roof and sliding down all of the window-walls, the temperature never changed.
Comfort is impossible without discomfort. Jensen longed for the glass to be cool under his palm as the rain slipped down in waves, catching on moonlight and casting the entire house in an under-water haze, and so it was. Nights became cool enough for them to wrap their bodies in soft comforters and blankets and each other, to warm their cold toes amongst soft sheets and warm calves. Days became hot enough that the ocean's call became a siren song, providing relief in the cool shallows.
The morning sunlight across the kitchen floor is just warm enough that the wood feels cold under their bare feet. Jensen rediscovers Jared's mouth, a cavern of warmth, and when Jared rests the heels of his hands atop Jensen's hips, the cold shock of fingertips settling against his ribs sends a shiver down Jensen's spine.
Every day-or whatever constitutes a day, here-they plan out their mornings, never minding that "morning" is arbitrary and sometimes they last for days. Sometimes they never get there at all. They go their separate ways, a thought here, and idea there, but they always return to each other. They often end up in the surf. There's a heady sense of potential there, embodied in the scent of sea salt on the air. The horizon stretches on and on. Jared wonders, sometimes, what's on the other side of the ocean. He could create it, he knows, whatever it is. But right now it's a blank canvas, both existing and not existing, and he likes it that way. It's not what it is that is important, but what it could be.
Jared knows exactly how limited their time will be, but he has no worries about running out. Waking up will be a change-unlike this place, it will be a challenge, and one that he's more than ready to face.
January 14, 2010
San Antonio, Texas
He's cramming groceries into the tiny trunk of the piece of shit Jared calls a car when his phone buzzes. It takes him a second to realize that it is his phone, because it hardly ever rings. Only two people have the number: work and Chad, neither of whom Jared wants to talk to right now.
He slams the trunk closed and fishes the phone out of his pocket, fingers knocking against the other glorified time piece there, but the pocket watch Jared ignores. The cell phone is displaying an unrecognized number.
"Hello?" he says, and a woman on the other line says, "Jared Padalecki?" and he fumbles with his keys.
"Uh, yeah. How did you get this number?"
Silence for a moment, and then, "It was... passed down to me. Mr. Padalecki, I need to speak with you in person if at all possible."
"Well that depends. I never share my presence with unnamed strangers that call me in parking lots, you know how it is."
"Danneel. Danneel Harris."
He nearly drops the phone.
And that is how, nearly a week later, Jared finds himself at a restaurant nice enough that he's had to tuck the tags back into his suit jacket so he can return it later and still make rent at the end of the month. The maître'd leads him to his table, set on the middle of the floor in a low-lighted dining room.
Amongst the din of forks against plates and the clink of wine glasses, Jared meets Danneel for the first time and thinks, oh.
She is, of course, lovely. She looks like she belongs here, one of those women who seem to just wake up every morning the picture of beauty. Jared had lived this lifestyle once well enough to blend in now, but he's actually nervous when he sits down, feeling completely out of his element.
"Ms. Harris," he says, extending a hand. "Pleased to meet you."
She smiles easily and returns his handshake. "Danneel, please."
He doesn't know what makes him say it, but as he sits down Jared flashes a smile and says, around the tightness in his throat, "Congratulations on your engagement."
Her smile, unexpectedly, turns sad. She reaches for the water glass in front of her and as she raises it to her lips, Jared notices that she isn't wearing a ring.
"I would thank you, but unfortunately the engagement has been called off."
Jared's gaping at her, he knows, but his head is spinning a little so he can't be held responsible for that. "I'm sorry to hear that," he says, quieting down the part of his brain that sounds like a thirteen year old girl and is most certainly not feeling lighthearted and optimistic.
Jensen's life does not concern Jared anymore. He should believe his own words.
"Mr. Padalecki-"
"Jared."
"-Jared. Please don't misunderstand me when I say this, but I am not sorry."
"Excuse me?"
Her hands fall to her lap. "I was the one that called it off."
Jared doesn't say anything.
"I wasn't going to marry that boy if it wasn't what he wanted. I've known for a long time that
it was never going to be me, and I can't pretend that marrying Jensen would be the best decision for us. That's why I'm here talking with you, Jared. He'll never let himself have what he wants, I'm sure you understand."
He does, but Jared's brain is so frantically playing catch-up that he can't even respond. All he comes up with is, in a voice much smaller than he intends, "You know. About the-dream. Me and Jensen."
"Don't be ridiculous," she says. "Of course I know."
The waiter interrupts her at that, filling first her wine glass and then his. Jared keeps his eyes on Danneel as she smoothes the napkin on her lap, the fall of her long hair nearly hiding the resigned expression on her face. Jared has always known that Jensen wouldn't love her without reason, but even still, he apparently didn't give her enough credit.
"He loves you, you know."
She nods. "He does. He would never do anything to hurt me, and he will never let me down. And I love him for it."
"But?"
"But he's miserable, Jared." She meets his eyes across the table, silent pleas that Jared can't commit to.
"Why're you telling me this?" He asks, quietly. He always did let the Texas drawl slip when under emotional stress.
"He's stubborn. I could tell him that I know, I could ask him to leave but he wouldn't. I left him, and he just blamed himself. But you," her voice breaks, and they both ignore it, "you could convince him to put his happiness first. You did it once."
Jared's already shaking his head. "That was different. That wasn't real, it was in our heads. If he's going to change his mind, he's going to do it on his own terms. I wouldn't ever force Jensen to do anything, even if it's in his best interest. Please, don't ask me to."
She nods, fingers skimming over the curve of her wine glass. "I think I know what he sees in you, Jared Padalecki."
He doesn't know what to say to that. He settles, finally, on "Likewise," earning him a wry smile. It's beautiful, and nearly as heartbreaking as the uncertainty he used to see in Jensen's eyes, at the beginning. Always standing in the way of his own happiness.
She kisses his cheek softly when they part. He feels it lingering on his skin all the way back to his apartment.
124 days, 18 hours, 3 minutes
Jensen is leaning over a steaming mug of coffee on the kitchen counter, damp-haired and damp-skinned from his shower when Jared returns from his morning run. The doorknob jitters before it opens and the door slams soundly shut, Jared's shoes hit the floor with a double thump and then he's there in the kitchen, louder and larger than life. He's still panting when he wraps his long arms in a loose circle around Jensen's waist, laughing a hot good morning into his shoulder.
"Get off me, you giant," Jensen starts, ducking away, "you're covered in sweat!"
But he's grinning and Jared laughs, shakes his sweaty hair like a dog and laughs louder when Jensen jumps out of the way. "What? You love it."
"I do not-" and he twists away from Jared's advances, his sweat-sticky arms. "Jared, you're disgusting, I just took a shower!" Jared grins wickedly and runs his hands through Jensen's clean hair before Jensen can get away, then scoots for the staircase when he starts batting him away with his hands, muttering nasty, mouth stretched into a grin as he says it.
"Funny," Jared calls as he goes, stepping backwards up the stairs, "you didn't seem to mind being all sweaty last night."
"Oh fuck you, man!"
Jared turns and jogs up the stairs, two at a time, laughing. He peels of his soaked-through shirt and lets it drop in a heap on the floor, pulling his keys and cell phone out of his pocket .
And there, oh-Jared's fingers wrap around the familiar metal casing of his pocket watch. He sets it gently on the dresser, the thrill of exercise still oddly thrumming through his veins. His heart is working too hard just for him to be standing there, breathing in and out, fingers tapping softly on the edge of the watch.
It tells him nineteen years and eight months gone. It tells him four months left. Jensen is shuffling around downstairs; Jared's heart is pumping thick blood through his body. He smiles, taps his finger on the face of the clock. Only four more months.
0 days, 0 hours, 15 minutes
"You know what I miss?"
"Hm?" Jensen says. He keeps his eyes trained on the skyline.
"Music."
Jensen raises an eyebrow. "We have music here, dude. Well, had."
"No! I mean, like," Jared waves his hands around vaguely, "new music. Stuff we didn't make up. I miss all that."
Jensen doesn't mention it, but Jared seems positively giddy about this whole waking up business. They're sitting on the highest skyscraper they thought was reasonable-which is pretty damn high, but warm, and they might be sitting in rickety lawn chairs at great heights but Jensen doesn't feel any danger.
He had wanted something quiet. Jared's constantly teasing him about being a homebody never made Jensen any less inclined to just explore the world right outside their windows. Jared, on the other hand, wanted skyscrapers. Jared wanted precarious buildings and impossible geometry. Right now, at this moment-he glances at the stopwatch sitting open between them, counting down their remaining twelve minutes-he wants whatever Jared wants.
"And movies. You know I haven't seen a play since I was researching a job, like, three months before all this? We should see something when we get back."
"We didn't go anywhere." Jensen smiles, keeping Jared in the corner of his vision.
"You know what I meant."
It was a pretty good idea, Jensen had to admit. Sitting up high, watching their creations all turn to rubble. Fitting, Jensen thinks. It's very fitting. He leans back in his chair and thinks about how much it's going to suck to have to worry about sunblock again.
"Jay?"
Jared slides down lower in his chair and matches Jensen's position, head lolling to the side to get a better look. "Yeah?" he answers, wearing his secret smile.
"Tell me this is a dream."
Jared's face softens in recognition. He reaches a hand out, just barely touching his fingertips to Jensen's jawline before letting it drop. "This is a dream," he obliges, but he's smiling, boyish, carelessly happy.
"Remember that, okay?" Jensen says quietly, trying to remember to look at the skyline-why had he looked away?-but unable to stop looking at Jared. It's like reading a dog-eared book with a sad ending and hoping that it changes, hoping that the bad guys don't get them or that the characters realize they're in love before it's too late to stop hurting each other: no amount of hoping will change that ending. No matter how hard your heart is beating in your throat when you turn the page; no matter how many times you close the book before it's over.
It always ends this way.
"Five minutes," Jared announces. He considers the pocket watch for a second, and then closes it very carefully.
Neither of them remembers who went under first. The split second it might take for one person to fall asleep sooner than another, for the drug to work its way through someone's veins, hardly ever matters. But time is so slow here. Milliseconds become seconds. That's time enough.
They sit in silence after that. Jensen tries to remember every detail, but like any other memory it's impossible to truly capture. This is what he's thinking when, far below, the ground rumbles and the skyscraper sways, and when he looks beside him, Jared is gone.
The buildings in the distance fall like dominoes. Jensen hears the shattering of glass and the screech of metal and is glad that he didn't have to see any of the places he held dear fall to pieces after all. Jared was right again.
The last thing he remembers about limbo is his surprise at noticing how little the horizon line actually changes-that mountain, this building, that copse of trees: they were all his, and they're still standing strong, even without Jared's vision holding them up.
As it turns out, waking up is exactly like falling asleep.
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