RPS FIC: Keepsake (1/3) J2 Ever After
Keepsake
SPN RPS: Jared/Jensen
Rating: R
19,943 words.
AU to the max. Written forj2_everafter. Thank you tolight_up for making this the most fun I've ever had writing fic, and todeirdre-c for making it the most rewarding. This would have been an incredibly different and lesser thing if it wasn't for you guys.
Based loosely on Disney/Pixar's Wall-E.
Jared is oriented to solve problems. He is solution-oriented.
He is not prone to damage. If an accident does occur, he has a healing protocol: a stream of glowing nanocytes that leave a patch, shiny and new. Very similar to a scar. Jared has three. One on his elbow. Another on his brow. One long one across his side. He rubs them, sometimes, when he's idle.
He collects Styrofoam. It's suited to his purposes. Extremely durable. He creates rafts from it, to float across bodies of water. He builds shelters with it. He breaks it open and examines the inside, the crumbs, little spheres all packed together. He listens to the noise his Swiss Army Knife makes when it punctures the surface and scrapes inside.
His knife is red; he likes that it has a corkscrew, and a bottle opener. He finds others, mostly in ruins. He hurries a little, towards them, and dusts them off, and unfolds them. He likes to see what they hide. Ruins are good for that in general. He likes to reconstruct things, to see how they might have functioned. If possible. Sometimes it's not possible.
He made the plumbing work once, in a small cabin at the edge of a lake, after working through twenty-six sunrises. He jumps when he turns on the faucet and it gurgles and spits out brown, sludgy liquid. He watches until it clears. Until it's recognizable as water. He smiles, so big that he notices.
He touches his face, with his hands. He feels along his upturned lips, his appled cheeks. He touches the skin bunching at his eyes. The wrinkles are soft and fine. He turns off the water and jogs out to the lake. It might be Lake Tahoe. He holds his expression.
He studies his reflection in the water. It's a nice smile, for one that came so spontaneously. He learned it well. The smile in the reflection grows.
Everything is very quiet. There is no wind. It is 42 degrees Fahrenheit here. The lake stretches and spills out in front of him, glassy blue.
Maybe this time. Jared stares at his reflection. He traces the scar along his right side with his left hand.
"Hello," he says.
The trees come right up to the shore. He can hear the water lap quietly at their trunks.
He leans forward. He touches his fingers to the water. He stays there, fingertip to fingertip with the man in the lake. Until he can't feel them anymore.
"Hello," he says. A little louder. It’s really been a long time.
****
Jared mostly stays up in mountains, or down in valleys. There are more things to look at. More that's unexpected in the places protected. The ruins, though, are usually at sea level, where the terrain is flat. These emptied-out places. No cover. Just baked earth, and white sky.
There are things to like here, too. He lies on his back, spread eagled on a brick of sand that extends for miles and miles. He can feel motes eddying over him, and he seals his eyes closed. He blows steadily out, through his nostrils, keeping them clear. He soaks in the sun. He pulses with it, charging.
He puts a hand out to his side, palm up. So someone could take it, if they wanted.
There's a landfill to his right. He will search through things thrown away, things abandoned. He likes to put them to use, if he can. If he can't--still, he likes to touch the things that have survived.
****
His standby sequence, lately, has been flawed. He doesn't go to black. Instead, he replays selective data in his memory.
It starts at the beginning.
Day zero was strange. He woke, in a bedroom he knew was his. There were pictures of him along the walls. Some even as a child. Awards he had won. The tall trophy, with a baseball player on top. He had won that three years, two months, and four days ago.
His whole family was in his bedroom. Mother, father, brother, sister. Two of them were on the verge of tears. That was to be expected.
The rest of the week went smoothly. He shoveled down his mother's cooking. He stole his brother's cigarettes. He grumbled good-naturedly at his sister's piano recital. He laughed at his dad's jokes, when everyone else groaned. It was going very well. Jared was proud.
His sister sat him down, on Sunday. It was late afternoon. The sun streamed through the window across from Jared, into his face. He didn't have to squint.
"You're really close," she said. She put a hand on his knee. "Really close to perfect."
Jared rebalanced his weight. "Thank you."
It took him a short while to realize she had begun to cry. When he did, he felt something dim, low in his torso. He put a hand over hers, but she only sobbed, gasps coming from somewhere deep, and suddenly, everything in that room, flooded with light, shadowed.
And that's how it is for a very long time. The harder he tries, the more his family falters. He doesn't know how to fix it. He tries very hard.
Everything is so dim.
****
Jared sifts through the landfill. He's at the peak. He repairs, and puts things whole. He keeps an eye out for the right part, or the right tool. There's something wrong with his optics. He would really like to put it right.
****
The landfill is an embarrassment of riches. He finds a pair of binoculars, and he scrapes the lenses free of caked-on dirt with his nails. He licks his thumb and swirls it in circles against the glass.
When he looks through them, he can see clear across. There's nothing in his way. He can see almost to the ocean. He laughs. He can see really, really far. Probably to Asia. He lowers the binoculars and whoops, so loud it's like he can see it, a visible noise that travels across cracked earth.
He runs down the slope of trash, scattering debris left and right. He stumbles, braces himself with one hand, and keeps running. He sprints as fast as he can, hard, hard, harder. Legs churning, arms pumping. He is ably made.
He skids to a stop. He fits the binoculars to his eyes. He looks for a long time. He sees a rock, there, sailing across the surface of rippling sand. He looks so long that night falls.
He realizes it slowly. Slow because he doesn't want to realize. It's not quite right. It's close, but not quite right. He can see further but not more clearly. He lowers the binoculars, then slides them, carefully, under the crook of his arm. It's not their fault. They can only do what they know. Probably he will carry the binoculars around for a while. He holds them up in front of him again, studies them. He adjusts the eyepieces, moving them up and down, leaves them drooped slightly. They look like eyes.
Yes. He'll hang onto them for a while.
****
He walks into the desert, and something falls from heaven. A sphere, extremely large and glowing blue. It arcs across the sky.
There's a sandstorm rising. Jared can see the foaming churn of it in the distance, dusty and brown. There are clouds behind it, bruised dark, stretched tight full of rain. Lightning strikes. It crackles in capillaried lines.
There's nowhere to run. The sand hits him like a wall. Everything is black. A pound of thunder, and a sheet of rain drops from above. It slams the sand to the ground. Jared opens his eyes.
The world is mud. It looks like a whole other planet.
The sphere hits the ground, bounces, bounces, rolls to a stop, miles away. The blue field around it flickers off.
Jared sits. He tucks his knees up to his chest, fits his head between them. He waits. He counts the color groupings in the last image of the landscape in his visual cortex. There are two. Black. Brown.
He counts the rain drops that land along his surface.
****
When the rain stops, the sky is a deep and dirty yellow.
The sphere blooms. Jared puts his binoculars to his eyes.
There's a man there! It--looks like a man. Jared adjusts the binoculars.
Yes. There are hands, five-fingered, dexterous. He wears a white space suit, flight-powered as evidenced by the wing emblem, 'E.V.E. Corps' emblazoned across the chest. 'Jensen' stenciled under it.
Jared is pinned down. He holds very, very still.
Behind his helmet, the man, Jensen, smiles. Jared mimics it.
Jensen stretches, twists at the waist. He bends over and touches his toes, and when he rises, he stretches his arms up over his head and floats up into the air. A slow, drifting ascent.
Jared pushes up onto his knees. He bites his lip. His hand comes up, reaching anxiously. He can barely make out Jensen's face anymore.
That might be a grin. Jensen pauses in the air, quavering, before plummeting towards the ground in a dive. He rolls at the last second, skimming the earth on his back, before pushing off with his heels, soaring, soaring.
The sky is twelve hues of yellow. The sun is a burning red. The earth around them is barren, and Jensen leaves no trail behind him, but for the echo of a joyful shout.
Jared sits back on his heels.
He feels lit up inside.
****
Jared is surprised by the sun setting. That it still sets.
Jensen had descended hours ago, started to walk steadily in Jared's direction. Jared is cross-legged on the high slope of a dune. Jensen is an estimated fifteen miles away.
Night is a black and rhythmic thing. Jensen flips on three lights. Two beams on either side of his head, one on his right palm. They cut swaths. Pebbles throw long, moving shadows.
Jared watches Jensen come towards him. It's too late to move when he remembers that he's naked, that nudity is not customary and may be off-putting. That he is only outfitted with two languages. That anyway, language is an evolving, idiosyncratic thing.
He touches the tip of his finger to the scar on his elbow. His brother had done that with a knife. He'd said, "If I cut you, do you not bleed?" He'd squeezed Jared's shoulder with his free hand, laughing. "That's a joke, Jaybird."
Jared is uncertain.
Light sweeps over him. In the 1.86 seconds it takes for his receptors to adjust, he hears a noise like the crack of a dead branch. The sand erupts in front of him. A molten glob hits Jared's thigh, sizzles.
Jared scrambles up, hands out. Everything he's carrying falls. "Wait! Wait," he says. "Please," he says.
Jensen closes the distance quickly, his armored arm raised, a weapon. "Down!" he shouts. "Get down! On your stomach, now!"
Jared drops without looking, lies with his left cheek on the ground. There's so much to process. His face is right next to the pock of the blast. It shines dimly, lined with sudden glass. He's on top of his binoculars. "I'm unarmed," Jared says. "I'm unarmed, my name is--"
"Quiet!"
Jared feels every footfall as Jensen circles his body.
"On your knees."
Jared rises in three fluid motions.
"Identify yourself." Jensen's face is lost in light.
"Prototype J, Resurrection Droid," Jared says, "Common designation ReD, model specification J-ReD 3268M, moniker Jared." He shakes his head and wets his lips. He brushes the clump of cooling sand off his thigh. Nanocytes hum, blue and white, converting into new skin and construction. He's going to run out soon, Jared notes. "My name is Jared."
Jensen drops his arm to his side. The lights dim and lower. His face is struck. He squints, studying Jared, his mouth hanging open. "Well, shit."
Jared smiles. "You're Jensen," he says, voice low. "Nice to meet you, Jensen."
"Well, shit," Jensen says.
****
Jared watches Jensen set up camp from a short distance. A silver cuff off Jensen's arm expands into a dome of matte gray fabric. Jensen traces an entrance onto the skin of the shelter with a fingertip, and it cuts away, hanging stiffly. He steps inside, and when he closes the flap, it leaves no seam.
It could be a stone, Jared thinks. Shaped and smoothed by wind-streaming sand. He curls his toes.
He doesn't stop himself; he walks to the shelter. He presses a palm to the place Jensen disappeared. It's cool and almost slick to the touch. Deceptively thin. He can hear Jensen's movements. They're quiet and sure. The shelter breathes with its inhabitant, a steady in and out.
He listens until all there is is breath.
Then: "How're you still tickin'?" Jensen's voice is muffled.
"I don't know."
Jared waits. There's no reply, though Jensen's respiration doesn't indicate a sleeping state.
"I'm sorry I don't have a better answer."
Jensen hums an acknowledgment. He says, suddenly, "I'm sorry you took damage, earlier. Meant to be a warning shot's all."
Jared shrugs. "I don't feel anything like pain, really."
"That right?" A shuffle. A yawn.
Jared lies out on the ground next to the shelter; a tangent to its circle.
"Still," Jensen says.
Jared presses the side of his pinky against the tent. "It's a mild sensation. Um. A lack, like I'm empty somewhere I'm not--supposed to be." Jared searches for words. "Besides, my self-repair systems are dope."
"Dope?"
"Oh. Dope. Slang. In this context, an adjective indicating agreeability and/or a state of excellence."
Silence.
Jared says, "It used to be--People used to say it."
"Man." Jared hears Jensen laugh. "Man. Were you ever built to last. Tickin' away here, all this time."
Jared smiles. "Not all of time," he says. "Just a long while."
There's no response. Jensen's breathing pattern elongates and sinks. He's sleeping.
Jared had stopped breathing a very long time ago; it's a play mechanism. But now. He listens carefully, to Jensen. He initiates, he breathes: In, one, two. Out, two, three, four.
Jensen's vocal tones fall, very roughly, between an E two octaves below middle C, to the D above. He clips his words, losing the consonants at their ends. Most notably, the letter 'g'. He laughs.
Jared lies awake. He listens. He looks. The earth and sky are scattered with grains: of sand, of starry light.
****
Jared had slipped into standby when his battery had run low. By the time he starts back up, it's morning. Jared takes in the sky. It's been morning for some time.
Jensen is a shadow, limned by the sun. The shelter is gone, a trinket on Jensen's wrist. He stands at ease, his jaw set and his arms crossed. "I didn't know how to wake you." He clears his throat. "If there's a button or something."
Jared stands, smiling. He tests his physical operations, rolling his shoulders, stretching his neck. "I respond to voice commands. You know. Just tell me to wake up." He tries for levity. "Move my ass, or something similar."
Jensen nods. He's not looking at Jared. He's scanning the expanse around them. Making plans. "I can't take you with me." Jensen's gaze meets his. "I have orders to follow. My time here isn't permanent. I will be leaving. And my pod," Jensen doesn't look down, "It's one-occupant."
"Okay," Jared says.
"Okay?"
Jared nods. There's nothing else to do.
Jensen unfolds his arms. "Alright." He strides across the sand, purposefully. The general direction of west.
Jared trails him. There is evidence of last night's storm, proof that it happened. Pools only an inch deep along the shallow curves of the desert. Mud, drying already.
Jensen leaves footprints and Jared avoids them carefully. He hopes they bake into the sand. The prints come closer and closer together. Jensen's shortening his stride. Jared looks up just as they come side to side.
Jensen walks at Jared's shoulder. He doesn't look anywhere but forward. They push west in silence.
Jared files the memory away. It's special. A thing to remember, when Jensen's gone. Jared glances over his shoulder. He really hopes the footprints last.
****
Later, Jensen says, "You can talk, you know." He still doesn't look at Jared. Eyes moving at steady ticks, back and forth across the terrain ahead.
"Oh." Jared licks his lips.
"Why do you do that?" Jensen asks immediately.
"Do what?"
Jensen flicks a gaze over. "Lick your lips." He demonstrates the quick swipe.
Jared pauses. He keeps his tongue behind his teeth. "Well." He plods steadily. "Chapstick got discontinued a while back. So."
"What's that."
Jared smiles. "Lip balm." He shakes his head. "The humor doesn't translate if you require an explanation."
The corner of Jensen's mouth turns up.
"Maybe if you had a broader base of knowledge." Jared's smile widens.
Jensen laughs, short and low. "Humor in that," he says.
"At your expense," Jared points out.
"Thanks," Jensen says dryly.
****
They don't speak much the next few hours. Mostly, Jared catalogues a thousand different things about Jensen. His height. An approximation of his weight. Measurements. That he favors his right side, and steps heavy on his heels. His heart rate is uncommonly low; beyond athletic and approaching bradychardia. Jared flags it.
The suit offers some obstacles. The viewing window in Jensen's helmet is a tight frame on his face. "What color is your hair?" Jared asks.
"Brown," Jensen replies.
"I'm not sure you have to wear the suit. Almost all of the radioactive isotopes have fully decayed, even in the empty places. Unless you’ve evolved significantly, you should be suited to the environment." Jared's brow wrinkles. "This is your planet."
"Not really. Not the way it is yours." Jensen sniffs. "How much distance we cover?"
"18.4 miles."
"Kilometers."
"Oh. 29.6"
"Right." Jensen stops. He looks up at the sun. "Okay." He sits, feet planted, knees up, arms hanging over the caps.
Jared sits next to Jensen. A little close, but Jared can't help it.
Jensen pats his chest--the suit--fondly. "It's good to me. Hydration, nutrition, temperature regulation, waste management." He waggles his eyebrows at the last. Then hangs his head between his knees, catching his breath.
"Like a womb," Jared says.
Jensen throws back his head and laughs. When he's done, he drops his head onto his shoulder, looks at Jared. It's the first time all day.
Jared touches the scar on his thigh. It's new.
"Man. You're all kinds of naked," Jensen says.
Jared hunches over his lap a little. "Looks that way."
"Nothin' to be shy about," Jensen says. "Guess they wouldn't have put anything on you that wasn't made to be seen."
Jared shrugs. He doesn't look at Jensen. His new scar is a blue yellow. "Guess not."
"Shit." Jensen whistles. "The things they could do, then. Look at you. The resources we must've had."
"Yeah." Jared stands, suddenly. Jensen is peering at him. Studying him. It's only fair, Jared tells himself. "Maybe we should--Do you still need to rest?"
"No." Jensen pushes up to his feet, but he doesn't start walking. "Hey," he says. "Something I said?"
"No."
Jensen nods. "Maybe," he supplies.
Jared looks at Jensen. Jensen's still studying him. He lets out a breath, smiles. "Maybe."
Jensen starts walking.
Jared falls in, lock-step.
"Apology number two," he says.
****
Jensen doesn't speak for the rest of the day. Jared thinks he might be angry. He's not quite sure. If he could get a clear look at Jensen's face--
It's dusk, and Jensen's not turning on his lights. Jared wants to mention it, but Jensen might have a reason for his actions, so he bites his tongue. When the sun sets, leaving the landscape gray, Jared clears his throat. Jensen ignores him; it's also possible that Jensen doesn't hear him.
The night slips in by gradients: dim, dimming, dark.
"Shit," Jensen says. "The fuck did it get black out."
"We're done for the day?"
"What's it look like?" Jensen grasps at his forearm, tugging at the shelter ring. He struggles with it.
"Why don't you turn on a light?" Jared asks.
"Just!" Jensen freezes. "Give me a second. This fucking thing won't--"
Jared steps in towards Jensen. He touches him. Hands closing around the plastic and cloth of Jensen's suit. Gripping the shape of Jensen's forearm. He pulls at the ring until it expands, coming loose, and slides it over Jensen's hand. He puts it in Jensen's palm, fingers at his pulse.
This is the closest I've come, Jared thinks.
Jensen nods at Jared. He sets the ring down, watches it grow. After he's inside, Jared sits with his back to the wall of it. He listens to the noise of the man inside.
"Thanks," Jensen says through the shelter wall. "Got all fumble-fingered."
"A lot of people were afraid of the dark."
"I'm not afraid of the fucking dark, alright."
"Okay." Jared leans his head back, tentatively. "But it'd be okay to be, you know? If you wanted to be."
Jensen's quiet for a while. "There's just no one fucking here," he finally says.
"Yeah," Jared says. "I know." He looks for the old constellations, takes in the ways they've stretched and skewed.
Jensen breaks the long-spinning silence. "I've been thinking. You shouldn't--No. Um." He clears his throat. "Just because someone's made, that doesn't mean they're not someone, you know?"
He waits for a reply but Jared doesn't have one.
"Okay, so. How long have you been around?"
Jared thinks, is surprised by his conclusion. "I don't know."
"Centuries, plural." Jensen sounds sure. "I promise you: No one built you for that."
"Lucky, I guess."
"Fuck. I'm not saying it right."
"Try again."
Jensen sighs. "You have--they look like scars."
"Yeah," Jared says. "Four."
"Twelve. Gotcha beat." A sound, like Jensen's turning over. "I like scars. They're your own, you know? Marks of a life you lived." He yawns. "Anyway. I think I made you feel like parts before. You're not parts."
Jared holds very still.
"Jesus." Jensen's mumbling. He sounds tired. "Gets so damn dark here. Enough to scare a guy."
Jared laughs. "Sure. Even the toughest guy in the whole damn town."
Jensen hums. He's drifting. "Must've been lonely," he says with his last, conscious breath.
Jared laces his fingers together. "It was." His legs are out in front of him, his back to a respirating wall. The night is blue and white. Only the shadows are black.
****
The days are long, and they only lengthen over time. The sun's high. You couldn't throw a thing that high.
"So," Jensen says.
"Yep."
"You don't talk as much as I thought you would." Jensen's plodding along.
Jared's gotten used to talking at the side of Jensen's head. "What should I say?"
"Dunno. Whatever you want."
"You could talk."
Jensen laughs. "Yeah. Probably."
Jared looks over at Jensen. He watches the momentum powering Jensen's body. The work of his neck, the swing of his arms. Torso and hips and legs, all striving towards something. "I'd like to know about you. Where you came from."
"Well. The starliner's carrying a pop' of--"
"No," Jared interrupts. "You."
"Huh." He cuts a glance at Jared. He wipes his helmet clean with his forearm. "Going crazy, to be honest. Lot of sand. Seein’ things."
"Mirages," Jared says. "Pools?"
"Yeah, sure. You see 'em too?"
"No." Jared sees dunes, and ribbons of colored sand. He sees a desert rippling, reformed by every new gust of wind. Jensen in the center of it all. "But it's normal to."
"Okay." Jensen sighs. "So what other words you got? Let me at 'em. What was that one before? Dope?"
Jared laughs. "Well. You seem like the kind of guy who might have said 'dude'. Bro. Broham, brother, homes, bud."
"Whoa. Lob 'em a few at a time." Jensen's smiling.
"Do people still say, uh. Any of those?"
Jensen shakes his head. "Brother-self comes close, maybe. But that's a little formal."
"Brother-self?"
Jensen nods. He touches a finger to the letters across his chest. "E.V.E. It's a clone corps."
Jared's surprised. "That's common practice, now?"
"I know, you believe it?" Jensen circles a finger, quick, around his face. "Six guys out there with this. It's a menace."
"Your brother-selves."
Jensen shrugs. "And you with the best of the bunch."
"No doubt."
"Hey, now. Careful going along with my ego like that."
Jared laughs. Jensen moves a little closer; Jared doesn't think it's conscious.
"Makes sense," Jensen mutters, quieter. "Why let good stock go to waste."
Their shoulders brush. "You're not parts," Jared says. Already a mantra. "You're more than your parts."
Jensen huffs. His lips are turned up. "That's a kind, wise thing to say."
Jared laughs. They walk in silence. He hums a tuneless song.
****
Jensen spends the sixteenth day marking out their time, calling out cadence. "Left. Left. Lefty, right, layo!
Jared obeys at first. Much later, he asks, politely, that Jensen consider giving his vocal chords a rest.
"Left," says Jensen.
"Shut it," Jared says. A last ditch effort. "Lest I shut it for you."
Jensen laughs. "Pushing luck, dude."
"Got it to spare."
Jensen appraises him. He opens his mouth.
Jared raises an eyebrow. "Gonna risk it?"
"Pain! In my gut; Pain! In my knees; Pain! In my shins; Mind over matter! If you--," says Jensen, propelling them forward at double-time.
Jared punches Jensen's deltoid at 8% of his force capacity. Just enough to be painful.
"Ow, fucker." Jensen grabs the spot. He shoves his shoulder into Jared. "Tin can's got an attitude."
"You're all about the thin ice today." Jared's been smiling for days. He's used to this, he realizes. Already, he's used to it. He takes in Jensen's smirk. It rises two millimeters higher on Jensen's left side. Not every time, but this time.
****
"Fuck! Motherfucking--" Heavy breaths. "Shitty fuck, goddamned hellhole!"
Jared's lain out next to the shelter. Hands under his head, ankles crossed. "Full moon, tonight," he says. Serene.
Jensen snorts. Hand slaps against the tent from the inside, right at Jared's head. "Fucker. There's nothing fucking here."
Jared recollects the phase of the moon when Jensen had arrived. "It's been almost a month," he says.
"Is there anything but fuckin' sand?"
"Actually." Jared turns his head, puts his ear to the ground. "There's an aquifer, pretty close to the surface here. It's fairly extensive."
"Can I see it? Does it look like fucking sand?"
"You're not your best at night," Jared notes.
"So what. I'm a grouchy sunuvabitch."
Jared scrapes off the crumby top layer of sand until he reaches red. "You want a story?"
"No. I'm thirty."
"You're like a baby," Jared says, aping surprise.
Jensen laughs. "Fuck off. I'm going to sleep."
"Good night, Jensen."
"Yeah," Jensen growls. "Night."
Jared stands. He digs, cutting lines and form into the earth.
****
"What the fuck is this?"
Jensen stands in his door, looking out. Jared surveys his work with Jensen. Geometric patterns spiral out from the center of the tent, in stenciled lines of rust and mineral-rich black. Dizzying in the heat shimmering off the earth.
"Jesus."
Jared picks at the sand under his fingernails. "It's a maze."
Jensen bobs his head. "I kinda have shit to do, brother."
Jared rolls his eyes.
"I saw that." Jensen's pointing. "I'm a bad influence on you."
Jared shrugs. He thinks the sand might be breeding under his nails. "It's a picture on the ground. No one's fencing you in."
Jensen clasps his hands behind his head, elbows winged out. He steps into the maze. "Waste of time," he says.
"You're gonna hurt my feelings," Jared says.
"You have feelings?" Jensen cocks his head at the ground. He strides quick along the lines, only stopping to make decisions at corners. He's assessing. He'll escape sooner than Jared had anticipated.
"Hilarious. Did they augment that gene in your test tube?"
"What you are," Jensen says. "Is a racist."
"You're not using that word right."
"Oh yeah? What about a little fuck you?"
Jared laughs. "Sure, I'll take some."
Jensen stops. He looks up. He stares at Jared. "You laugh a lot."
Jared shrugs. He falls onto his ass, sprawls back on his hands. "It's like I'm a real boy."
"Well." Jensen nods, smirking as he goes back to studying the maze. "That is a big boy dick there, swinging in the wind."
Jared tries not to move too quickly. So it doesn't look like he's covering himself up. He doesn't know why he's embarrassed.
Jensen laughs as he follows a path back behind the shelter. "Was that not a compliment back in the day? 'Cause guys sure like hearing that now."
Jared stretches his arms out in front of him. He sweeps his hands back and forth across the sand. "Dead end," he calls out.
"Shit," Jensen says.
****
The moon is a waning crescent. Jensen has been here a long time. Jared tries another maze, days later, but Jensen kicks through it.
"Sorry," he says, setting off.
He grunts at Jared's questions. Jared tries other things. Songs. He mimics the cadences Jensen had called earlier. He steers them, subtly towards landmarks. Towering rocks. Drifts of salt. Mesas.
At the last, Jared says, "Like someone took piano wire to a stone giant's throat."
"Is it me," Jensen says. "Or do you get weirder every day. Where's the robot-speak, dude."
"1000101."
Jensen clips the back of Jared's head. He blasts a hole into the side of the mesa, casually destructive.
Jared watches the dust billow. His throat feels tight. "You shouldn't do that," he says.
Jensen sighs, heavy.
****
It's the middle of the night. Jensen had fallen asleep hours ago. Jared sits, chin resting on one raised knee. He pats at the shelter. There's a strong wind, tonight. His hair's dancing.
He slaps the tent with his palm.
"Fucking what?" Jensen clears his throat, groggy.
"I know why I haven't asked," Jared says. "But why haven't you asked me?"
"What the fuck are you talking about? Is it morning?"
"Why haven't you asked me? Whatever you're looking for. I know this place. Better than any person's known it. If it's here, I know where it is."
Jensen sighs. "I'm going to sleep."
****
Jared starts up to the toe of a boot in his side. Jensen's ready to go. So they walk.
Last night's wind has wilted in the sun. It whips, low around their ankles.
"You asked me a question," says Jensen. He trudges toward the horizon. "If you weren't here it would be taking this long."
"Probably longer," Jared concedes. "You have a worryingly disproportionate reaction to boredom."
Jensen smiles wryly. "Take it as a sign of my youth."
Jared claps his hands together. "Done." He bumps Jensen's shoulder with his own, friendly. "Is it a security issue?"
Jensen shakes his head. "Be frank? I don't want to take the short way out. This wasn't meant to be a three-day mission. No one briefed me about the possibility of--whatever you are. Life. I wasn't meant for a guide."
"So what? You don't want to cheat? Because I admire the integrity, but you're taking it kind of far, don't you think?"
"It doesn't feel like cheating." Jensen's chin juts out. "Feels like theft."
Jared’s blinking falters. "Theft?"
Jensen growls, annoyed. "Fuck." He stops, grips Jared's shoulder to stop him too. "Look. This is how long it would take me if I were alone. This amount of time. A month, easy. I ask you to help me, and I'm gone in a few days." He cracks his jaw, his eyes at Jared's chin. "I don't want to take that from you. I want to let you have the time you would have had." He swears, embarrassed.
Jared's hands are shaking. Tiny tremors, undetectable to the human eye. He crosses his arms, hides them away. He could fly apart. He could freeze there. Anything could happen. He laughs shakily. "Like your company's so great."
Jensen lets out a surprised bark of laughter. He taps the glass of his viewing panel, smiling into the distance.
Jared turns it over in his mind. Jensen’s enduring this for me, he says to himself. He repeats it silently. He doesn't know how to absorb the thought. "Thank you," he says. It's not enough, he knows. He'll be grateful for a long time.
Jensen looks him in the eye. He nods. He takes a step away.
Jared grips Jensen's forearm. He studies Jensen's face. He looks tired. Pale. He's carving wrinkles into his forehead. Lines that won't go away. Jared's fingers twitch. "What are you looking for, Jensen?"
Jensen's chin rises. His eyes are clear and determined. He points at the E.V.E. painted across his chest. "V is for vegetation."
Jared memorizes everything. He lets himself hold Jensen's arm for too long.
*****
Jared points out a direction, a line straight through, northwest. "There's a cliff," he says. "You can't miss it. It's a solid border mark."
Jensen nods. "We can walk."
"No," Jared says. "It's five days, pushing hard. If you fly, you'll be there by sundown." He claps Jensen's shoulder. "Don't worry. I'm a strong runner."
Jensen's hesitation is brief and then it's gone. "Okay." He pushes up onto his toes and shoves off, hovering. Like he's let go of something heavy. He grins at Jared. "Keep an eye on me."
Jensen turns and blasts up into the sky, crowing. His arms are spread wide, and when his ascension starts to slow, he brings them in tight to his body, dips a shoulder and corkscrews his way up, rising higher.
Show off, Jared thinks. He leans his head back and back, smiling.
Jensen disappears into the sun, then tumbles down, head over heels, somersaulting as gravity clutches at his shoulders, then knees. The tumbling gets clumsier as his speed increases, hands and feet being forced apart.
Jared's smile fades. Terminal velocity, he notes. Pull up.
At this speed, Jensen will hit the ground in just under a minute. Jared squints. Jensen's eyes are closed. Jared starts to run. The suit shouldn't malfunction. It hasn't so much as hiccupped.
"Pull up," Jared says. He sprints. "Pull up!" It overloads his vocal capacity, unbidden frequencies keening.
Jensen's eyes snap open, his limbs furl out. Spread-eagled for a second before he twists, booming back along the ground towards Jared. He comes screaming past Jared, cutting a 'u' around his body before coming to a dead float in front of him. "Whooooo-ee!" Jensen whoops. He winks. "Good watching out."
"What the fuck were you thinking?" Jared shapes the word precisely, emphatically.
Jensen raises an eyebrow. "You swear like a goody-goody."
"You were forty seconds from death by impact. Seconds."
Jensen furrows his brow, confused. He shrugs. "Sure, if you'd let me down."
Jared gapes. "You're a fucking idiot."
Jensen winces. "Agh. It hurts to listen to you cuss. Try it like you're not a fifty-four year old woman."
Jared crosses his arms. "If not instantaneous, your death would have been extremely painful. Your internal organs would have burst on impact; the majority of your bones would have shattered. You'd be a bag of slurry."
"Anyway," Jensen says brightly. "Meet you there, yeah?" He soars off without waiting for an answer.
"I'm not so much as glancing your way, asshole," Jared mutters. He runs after Jensen. "Fuck," he says, more guttural. "Fuck." He makes a glottal stop.
****
When he reaches the top of the cliff, Jensen is under the shade of a tree. His hands are palm down on its trunk. He's almost still, just the steady pump of his heart, the pull of his lungs. The sun is setting, flooding the desert bed with a red and gleaming tide.
"I signaled my ship." Jensen doesn't turn. "It'll be a while, before."
Jared walks toward Jensen, every step light through concerted effort. He feels drained. Sustaining an elevated running speed had been difficult. Jared leans back against the tree, slips down so his knees are bent, sitting in an invisible chair. "Is it what you pictured?" he asks.
"I never thought about it." Jensen shakes his head. "We had a field manual, but I vaporized mine. Accident."
Jared laughs. He doesn't ask.
Jensen lets out a breath. He moves, mirrors Jared's position. He rests his hands on his thighs. He looks out, the glass of his helmet dark and reflective, tones of the sky.
A crisp wind stirs the leaves, just enough that Jared can almost smell them, a trace of resin. There's a storm coming, he thinks. This is the hush before.
"It's bigger than I'd pictured." Jensen's voice is low. "I don't know. Different kind of green." His head thunks against the trunk when he looks up into the crown of leaves. "It's all--" He draws a shape with his hands. "Bubbly."
Jared chuckles. "Sounds like you had some sort of an expectation. Unbubbly, for one."
Jensen grins. "Guess so. One of those things you didn't know you were waiting to find." He straightens suddenly, turns to stand in front of Jared. "Fuck, how are you doing this. My thighs are killing me."
Jared snickers. He bats the back of his hand against Jensen's stomach. "Not everything's a competition, Jensen. Sit like a normal person. Take in the view."
Jensen turns his head over his shoulder, looks out. He squints. "Yeah."
Jared looks up at Jensen. His jaw and profile. The light is so thick you could count the atoms in the air. The breeze is a touch at Jared's neck. He can smell the things that are growing; he can feel in his chest one, arresting thrum. Like someone had set something ringing.
He takes a long slow breath in. "It's a Texas madrone," he says. "See? The bark peels, exposing this trunk. When it's white like this, it's soft. Like leather. You could cut it now, and it would sustain that damage for its lifetime." Rise and fall. "Darkens over time. It gets this coral red color."
Jensen smiles down at him. "Why're you whispering?" he asks.
Part Two