As I Lay Dying - Part 1
<< Masterpost
The park is dimly lit by a street lamp a few yards down the path as Jensen heaves a deep sigh. Even at this late hour, New York stays true to its reputation as the city that never sleeps. Life is still buzzing and pulsing through Central Park at 10 p.m., the paths are crowded even though the sun has set over an hour ago. Gravel is scrunching under the feet of people strolling or hurrying by. They're businessmen on their way home after a long day of work, road workers wandering the park to collect the trash that hundreds, maybe thousands of people have brought to the green isle in the middle of one of the biggest cities of the world. There's a homeless guy sitting under a tree just another couple yards away, dozing in the warm autumn night with one hand still on the back of the dog by his side.
It's still somehow peaceful, and Jensen sighs again, wallowing in the fact that no one bothers him here. That he can just sit here by himself without needing to think about anything.
A leaf, autumn-red and dead, falls off the maple tree above him and gently glides down in the warm breeze. It lands in Jensen's lap, and he absent-mindedly picks it up, spins it in his fingers before he drops it to the ground.
Jensen is one of those businessmen on their way home, and he often stops to sit and think, especially when the weather is as warm as it is tonight.
It's one of the few things that not only gives him peace of mind, but helps him stay grounded. Makes him hope that he survives one more day. Hope is a huge word to use, one Jensen doesn't usually use anymore. It never gets better, he knows.
He leans forward and looks down to the ground. An empty bag of hard candy lies there, not yet picked up by the trash collector. A sudden breeze lets it tumble against Jensen's feet, and just as he feared, Jensen finds himself in another vision.
The bag gets ripped out of the hands of a young, scrawny boy no more than 10 years old and flies to the ground gracelessly. He looks after it in shock, traces the hand that comes up around him to another boy who's standing behind him and who whacked it out of the first boy’s grasp. He's bigger, bulkier, with wider shoulders, and he sneers at the smaller boy. “See, Porter, that's what you get for kissing Mr. Jones' ass. What're you saying, huh, now that he's not here to defend you?”
The bully shoves the smaller boy hard, pulls his school bag off his shoulders when he's face-down in the gravel. The calmness with which the boy - Porter - takes it makes Jensen think it's not the first time he’s been treated like this by the other boy. He just looks up and bites his bottom lip. His hands are buried in the gravel, the hard, sharp stones surely digging into his palms and hurting him. But he just waits it out, doesn't say a word.
The bully snorts out a harsh laugh, teasing him further. “You gonna cry and tell on me, huh? Or are you gonna go running home to your mommy?” He looks at the backpack in his hands before he throws it hard at Porter's head, who goes down with a whine. “Of course you won't, because you're a pussy,” the kid adds and reaches down for the bag of candy, opening it and, after taking a look around and making sure nobody's watching, shoves handfuls of the still-wrapped hard candy first in the back of Porter's slacks, and the rest into his mouth. The bigger boy exerts a lot of force and the poor Porter tries his damndest not to open his mouth, but the bully wins by sheer strength.
Jensen groans as the vision fades.
It still leaves a bad feeling in his gut, the visions always do, but he's had worse.
That's the problem about Central Park. Jensen loves it here, the fact that he can breathe freely in the crisp air under the trees, but there's so much history here. He lost count of how many times he's wandered along the pond and suddenly was overtaken by a vision of a girl getting dragged behind a bush, getting raped by two guys, or of a homeless guy being mugged and stabbed in his sleep.
His gift - yeah, right, gift, more like a fucking burden - started when he was a teenager, out of nowhere. He had managed to hide it from his family, too worried that they would make him see a shrink or think he was nuts. Not like a shrink could do shit about his fucking gift.
His first vision happened in a bus, back home in Texas. It was the first day of freshmen year as he took the school bus home from his high school in Richardson. His first ride on a school bus, to be exact. In retrospect, Jensen ponders, it might have been the excitement of the day, combined with puberty kicking in at the time, and whatever else it was that triggered post-cognition.
And without any warning, Jensen saw an angry father enter the nearly empty bus. Fuming with rage and apparent disappointment, the man grabbed his son by the collar of his shirt and slapped him across the cheek. One, two, three times. And hard. Jensen winced with every loud crack of the hand hitting the poor boy's cheek, wanted to shout at the man to stop beating up his kid, but he couldn't move a single muscle in his body. He was glued to the spot where he sat, or rather hovered over the scene. When he came to afterwards and realized that it had never happened, that the bus was still buzzing with the laughter of the other kids sitting around him and not one angry parent in sight, he realized he just had a vision. And it was far from the last one he'd ever have.
It's been like that ever since, only his visions have gradually become more and more violent.
On the best of days, Jensen sees a kid getting hard candy shoved down the back of his pants.
There were others, though. Worse days, way worse. Jensen still remembers his first vision of a murder vividly - the woman, in her early thirties, getting thrown to the ground by a masked attacker. She was dressed in a bright red coat that was probably fashionable in the 80s, her blonde hair permed. The attacker straddled her, ripped the obviously expensive jewelry from her neck and ears and fingers, dropped it into her handbag. She put up a fight, screamed for help, for the police, for anybody, and he kept shutting her up with a knife pressed against her throat. Hissing out one last time that if she wouldn't keep quiet he'd shut her up a different way, and she snapped her mouth shut at that. Next time he shuffled on top of her, searching her pockets for anything worth some money, she tried to kick him in the balls. The attempt went terribly wrong, and in the end, the guy had cut her throat with the sharp knife.
Jensen stood helplessly just a few feet away, invisible to them and unable to help as he watched her bleed out, the blood pulsing out from her slit throat in waves. He saw the light in her eyes dim, her eyelids falling shut while the thief ran away as fast as he could.
When he had come back to reality, the first thing he did was pour himself a glass of scotch out of his father's liquor cabinet. He had only been 17 then. And he felt like someone had just thrown him into a grinder and left him broken and beat-up. To say Jensen felt like shit was the understatement of the year.
But that vision also made another rule of his gift clear - he never knew when these things had happened. He was never able to help the police to find the criminals.
Snorting out a bitter laugh, Jensen pushes himself to his feet to wander the few remaining blocks to his apartment on the Upper West Side. He could always take the subway, but that is another part that makes his life, especially in New York, increasingly difficult. Almost every handle, every seat in the subway is tainted with one bad memory or the other, and Jensen has seen enough of it. Teenagers beating up a grown-up, but helpless, man. A masked, bulky guy closing his hand around the throat of a middle-aged woman, so she's unable to scream as he rips her purse from her hands. A kid getting his head whacked against a bar by some bullies so they can rip off his school bag and scatter its content all over the carriage.
So, if he has the time, he takes the hour home from work by foot instead of the subway. He walks up the straight line of 8th Avenue to Central Park West, hanging a left on 90th, eyes staring into space and unfocused, absently setting one foot in front of the other. The people he passes by mostly don't look at him, as if he wasn't there at all. Just like in his visions.
In the distance, Jensen can make out the lights of New Jersey, blinking over the Hudson River. However, New York's own street lamps and the bright lit windows of the skyscrapers are too bright to see anything but a hazy blur on the other side.
Jensen is usually not a very sociable person. He prefers to wallow in the solitude of his flat, but right now, he feels like he never has been lonelier.
The weight on his shoulders drags him down, and the familiar clench to his gut does nothing to lessen his misery. He can't even pinpoint what it is that crushes down on him with so much force - the fact that he hadn't had any serious emotional relationship ever, the fact that it looks like that won't change anytime soon, or the fact that he's still walking the streets here and not just jumping off a bridge into the East River and hoping that they just let him drown.
He really needs a drink.
With another heavy sigh, Jensen turns the corner into West End Avenue, manages the last few steps to his house. Not technically his house, he just owns a condo on the second floor. Jensen drags his feet tiredly up the stairs to the front door, and even unlocking it and making it up to his apartment seems like too much effort.
He could always head back. The Hudson is not far away. Neither is the East River.
But then again, there's a chance he survives the jump and is dragged from the water just to have to tell his parents and siblings what and why it happened.
Not that they know shit about Jensen's life. What could he possibly tell him when they call, from back home in Texas? That it takes every ounce of willpower he has to not end this endless downward spiral with a bullet through his head? Yeah, right, because that's what you tell your Mom on her Sunday call.
There are only a few things and a few people that still make Jensen carry on. His family is one of them, even if they're far away.
The first thing he does once he lets himself into his apartment is head for the bedroom. There's a bottle of Jack still on his bedside table, still more than half full - and isn't that just ironic - and Jensen plans on draining it tonight. Otherwise he won't be able to sleep his usual fitful three hours.
He doesn't switch on the light before he flops down on the desk chair, the bottle of bourbon already tipped up against his lips and taking a few generous drags. The burn of the alcohol down his throat is familiar, and brings him back to reality with a sudden rush. Coughing, Jensen puts the bottle onto the desktop.
Out of habit, Jensen then opens the top drawer of his desk, slides it all the way out and reaches for the object hidden underneath the papers. Cold, solid metal meets his fingers as they wrap around the handle, and a breath, strained and heavy, leaves Jensen as he lifts it. Weighs it in his hands, opens the magazine. It's a classic revolver, a Colt, given to him by his Dad when he moved to New York years ago. Jensen can still hear his voice in his head. “Gotta be able to protect yourself, son. It's a dangerous city.”
The city, though, has never been cruel to Jensen in any way.
Hell, if anyone saw him now, playing with the loaded magazine of the revolver, pondering to use it against the only and yet most powerful enemy he has ever faced - himself - he would probably get laughed at.
After all, he's got all a man can dream of. A degree in journalism with a portfolio so good that the New York Times hired him right out college. Chief editor of the city desk, and an occasional contributor to the op-ed section, known for his sharp, detailed choice of words and ruthless argumentation. Soon after his promotion from beat reporter to section chief, he was able to buy this apartment for himself.
The gun still waits in his desk every night when he comes home, waits for him to take it out and consider sticking it into his mouth deep against the back of his hard palette, and pull the trigger.
Jensen lets the magazine, six rounds of deadly metal, snap back into the gun.
Then he pulls back the hammer.
A low, soft meow makes him blink and snap. The brush of soft fur against his leg, circling it, a small paw coming up to rest against his shin. Like he's poking Jensen, asking what the fuck he's doing here.
Jensen huffs out a breath and lowers the gun, carefully moves the hammer back into its safety position. After putting the gun back into the drawer and closing it, Jensen picks up the cat.
“Hey, buddy,” he says weakly, notices how his voice breaks on the second word.
Deep green eyes watch him innocently, a tongue poking out to lick over tiny, sharp teeth. Jensen pets him, his hand running gently from the cat's head down his back and along his tail.
He has lost count of how many times Freckles has pulled him out his plans to commit suicide like this.
Jensen lets him curl up in his lap, but never stops caressing his soft, white fur. Freckles begins to purr in pleasure, and responds by driving his claws into Jensen's jeans, again and again.
Truth be told, if it wasn't for his furry companion, he would've long since been dead.
Misha named the cat and gave it to him nine years ago, shortly after they met. He probably already knew why back then, even if he didn't find out about the visions until a few months later.
Jensen takes another deep drag from the bottle, rests it against his thigh instead of placing it on the desktop. The alcohol already burns a little less on its way down to his stomach, and Jensen feels warmth spreading in his guts. He isn't hungry. He never is these days.
Yesterday, he had watched as a woman in her mid-twenties sprang from a bridge because her husband had left her. All the while, her younger sister was yelling at her from the other side of the railing, begging her with tears streaming down her face to not do it. Cried out that she was young and still had everything to live for. The woman shook her head at her sister, whispered “Sorry,” and let go, falling back towards the dark, cold waves of the East River. Jensen's vision was long enough for him to see how her head hit the socket of the bridge pier hard, bones cracking and blood spluttering everywhere before she was swallowed by the water.
Another few gulps of Jack.
How is he supposed to live like this? Why has he got such a useless, horrible gift? For what? And why him? Jensen has given up on getting an answer to these questions long ago.
Life is a bitch, that's the point. Life is cruel and painful. And people... people are the worst. After a good two decades of seeing people murder and mug and rape each other, Jensen has long since lost his belief in humanity. People disgust him. He doesn't want to have anything to do with anybody.
A look at his watch tells him it's already past 1 a.m. The bottle in his hands is almost empty and Freckles is still purring in his lap.
Jensen's mind spirals in the always similar musings of what-ifs. What if he grew up like a normal teenager? Sure, he would've still been the weird kid in high school that nobody talked to. But at least he'd have a life now. A happy life. Maybe even a boyfriend.
But Jensen's few trial runs at that have all failed spectacularly. He always tried to distance himself, so he wouldn't take down anyone with him. He never really got involved in a relationship, which doesn't mean he never made any effort in building up the relationship - he was just very careful about hiding the darker side of his life. More often than not, his potential boyfriends accused him of not trusting them, and every abortive pairing ended in yelling and fights and breaking up for good.
He also never dared to break the news of how much of a mental case he actually was to anybody - except for Misha, that is, but then again, Misha had more or less found out about it on his own. Anyone else had just wondered, sooner or later, why Jensen didn't want to take the subway to the mall or tensed in his seat at the cinema and spaced out for a minute, unresponsive to any words or shaking against his shoulder. A few freaked out and left him immediately, while another two or three actually kept pressing on, urging him to tell them. With the best intentions, of course. They all wanted to help him.
But Jensen was never brave or stupid enough to tell them the true reason. Tell them about the horrors he has to face every day.
What could they probably say? “Oh god, that's horrible, you poor guy-”? Jensen snorts out a bitter laugh. Yeah, because that sure helps a lot.
And there is no way a shrink could help him. Medication maybe? Right. Because he isn't already taking sleeping pills and painkillers like other people eat Skittles.
The nightmares also never stop, and while they never manage to get as realistic as his visions already are, they are still driving him crazy. He wakes up every night, despite taking more than twice the recommended dose of sleeping pills, drenched in sweat, panting desperately and trying to get that sensation off his chest that feels like a ton of bricks trying to crush his ribcage underneath.
Sometimes, it ends in a panic attack.
Jensen read a couple books about them as soon as he realized the nature of these attacks and is able to calm himself down, but it's often an hour-long process, and by the time he can breathe regularly again, it's morning. He drags his ass to work and writes dark columns about people and the world being horrible and corrupt or whatever is on his mind. And for some reason, the readers eat it up, demand even more.
Which is the only reason why he is still in this position, and he's lucky that he's apparently so talented. That's another point: If it wasn't for his work, he would've given up years ago. At least he manages to go to work every day, where he can put on the mask and play the role of the grumpy chief editor of his section. His inferiors respect him for his professionalism.
Outwardly, he can be the person they see.
Inside, he feels like crap.
Jensen usually keeps his drinking to the evening, when he's alone. He doesn't like people seeing him drink, it raises uncomfortable questions.
His bottle is empty.
Jensen rummages in the heap under the desk, because he's pretty sure that there's a bottle of vodka still around, and finds it after a few seconds.
Freckles meows unamused and snuggles his head against Jensen's belly.
It's Freckles and work and his family that keep him going. But his family is far away from here, living across the country. Freckles is the only one Jensen has got at the moment. And his parents... he just doesn't want to disappoint them for some reason. When he came out to them, they had a hard time adjusting to it, but eventually settled with the fact that Jensen would never give them grandchildren. Even their frequent inquiries about his love life, about a potential boyfriend, stopped after Jensen brushed them off every single time they asked. But his parents are still his parents. He is a family man, after all, even though he'll never have one of his own. He could never hurt his parents like that. They would be devastated would he kill himself. But, god, does he want to. He just wants it to be over. All of it.
If this is what his life is and always will be, then there's no need to drag anyone else down with him. Jensen can do this alone, doesn't need anyone, or so he tells himself. Outside of his workplace, he likes to keep conversation to a minimum anyway. He rather has his drink here, at home, instead of going to some bar to seem like your average alcoholic who fails at life in general and social contacts specifically.
And as long as he's at home, no one notices when he has a vision.
Although that rarely happens anymore these days, not in this apartment. Jensen bought the flat right after the house was completely renovated. There is little to no history to this apartment. Jensen checked who had lived here before - an old lady, alone, for the past 40 years - and had walked through the flat and found no unpleasant visions. Visions happen a lot on first visits, but Jensen also knows for a fact that they are never older than 1978, the year he was born.
The furniture and all the objects are without exceptions entirely new. Jensen bought them himself, made sure to touch them and check if there was anything bad coming along with them. The worst he got so far was the picture of a worker cutting his thumb on the carton box while wrapping it.
And isn't that something to get nightmares of.
Faking a smile, Jensen drinks the vodka straight from the bottle in long gulps. He knows his thoughts are circling again, knows this always leads to exactly nothing except more of his damn self-pity. Solution is a word his vocabulary doesn't include anymore.
His solution at the moment is alcohol, spending long nights on the internet just wasting time, and drag his ass to bed in the early morning. Yet, he always wakes up long before his alarm clock goes off.
Jensen lifts his hand from where he has absent-mindedly caressed Freckles' fur, and the cat meows in protest. All Jensen intended to do, though, was push the power button of his laptop, and after his hand settles back onto Freckles' neck, he resumes purring. His weight in Jensen's lap is comforting, as is the body heat seeping through Jensen's jeans.
Who would care for poor Freckles if he shot himself?
Misha would probably take him in, but... yeah, Misha would be pretty upset, too.
Mostly, Misha is the other only thing that still keeps him going.
Jensen opens his browser and starts idly rolling and skipping through news sites, checks his e-mail, does everything and nothing. Normal guys his age would watch porn, but Jensen hasn't had anything resembling something like libido in years. He couldn't even remember the last time he had jerked off, even if that still isn't as far away as the time he last got laid.
For a while, he had tried. Whenever he was riled up enough, Jensen would go out, pick some guy up at a gay bar, bring him back to his place and after a rough, impersonal fuck, he'd throw him out even before breakfast. If the sex had been good, he'd even call him a cab. But that was it. Practically a summary of his love life for the past ten years.
Jensen feels like a pathetic loser. And all just because of his curse.
When he looks at the clock for the next time, it's 2 a.m. Jensen sighs relieved. At least half the night is already taken care of. Freckles fell asleep on his lap an hour ago, wasn't even disturbed when Jensen put the empty bottle of vodka aside. Deciding that he'll try to sleep, Jensen gently lifts him from his lap and carries him over to his bed. The cat likes to sleep on top of the sheets at night, and Freckles is barely awake when Jensen puts him down. Just curls in on himself and falls back asleep.
For Jensen, it isn't so easy. Sighing again, he pops the button on his jeans and steps out of them. He feels pleasantly buzzed, the thrumming of the alcohol in his veins just right and making the world spin a little bit. After a short stop in the bathroom to take a leak and throw some sleeping pills into the mix of vodka and Jack, Jensen puts on some pajama bottoms and settles under the covers. Lies on his back and knows he won't sleep for the next hour, but if he wants to sleep at all, this is how it's gonna be.
His mind still races, minutes dragging by without Jensen noticing. The restlessness tugs at every muscle of his body, hurts almost physically, and it takes Jensen several breathing exercises to calm down and doze off.
He dreams of the woman on the bridge, her sister crying on the railing. After that, it's a blur, but the dream still remains vivid, unsettling.
Two hours later, Jensen shoots up into a sitting position, sweat dripping from his forehead, gasping for air. His chest feels constricted and anxiousness rises up. Its familiarity should shock him, but he's indeed so used to all that that he just tells himself to breathe slowly. And it works, at least a bit.
He lays down and simply rests after that. Knowing that he won't be able to fall asleep again, Jensen stares into space.
His life is useless. Completely and utterly useless. And a pain in the ass.
And despite how hard it hits him, Jensen is too emotionally drained and numbed that he can't even cry at this any more. That phase is over. In his mid-twenties, he had a couple of years where he cried himself to sleep like a little kid, trying desperately to make the visions and the imprint they left on his brain go away and just got to sleep.
But now, at age 34, he knows it's pointless.
At 5 o'clock, Jensen is almost glad that he can finally get up. It's still an hour before his alarm goes off, but he uses the time to change into sweatpants and an old, threadbare t-shirt to run a few rounds around the block. Pounding the pavement at least helps him getting his head clear.
His breakfast, as per usual, are painkillers against the hangover headache, washed down with two Alka-Seltzer in a glass of water. After a brief shower, Jensen dresses for work and downs his first cup of coffee in the kitchen. He finds a text on his phone as he sits at the kitchen isle. It's from Misha.
'Pick you up at 8?' it says.
A look at his clock tells him that the message has been sent just five minutes ago, and fires off a short 'Sure' before taking another sip of coffee.
He fills the thermos jug with the remaining coffee from the pot and takes it down to the street. Waiting at the side of the street is rarely a good idea, but before rush hour starts it's mostly bearable. With a weary sigh, Jensen leans against the lamp post in front of the house he's living in.
When a red, beat-up pick-up truck drives by, Jensen feels the back of his skull buzzing and immediately knows that a vision is coming. He barely has enough time to clutch his hand around the lamp post to keep standing.
A little boy, wearing a blue Superman t-shirt and jeans, playing on the sidewalk. Jensen already can guess where this is heading, but visions with children are just the worst. This boy is barely three years old. And he has a red ball in his hands, bounces it off the sidewalk as he jumps down the street, singing and mumbling under his breath and totally engrossed in a game only he knows.
The ball hits a packet of cigarettes on the path and rolls sideways, onto the street. The little boy runs after it so fast that the mother, walking a few feet behind him, only gets to shout out: “Mikey! No!” before it's too late.
The red pick-up truck, shiny and new at the time, rushes past and hits the small child dead-on with the left side of the hood. The impact is so heavy that Mikey flies across the street, already leaving a trail of blood on the pavement, and hits the edge of the sidewalk head first. The tiny skull shatters to pieces, blood and parts of his insides splattering on the sidewalk, and Jensen can only watch as the mother runs over and breaks down into tears. Uncontrollable sobs shake her body. Jensen feels himself shaken, too, sympathy for the poor woman who just lost her son clenching his heart painfully. A young life, wasted. This boy will never see his future, will never go to college, will never meet a man or woman and have a family-
Luckily, the picture starts to blur and morph back into reality. When Jensen blinks, it's Misha who stands in front of him. “Jensen?” he says softly, shaking his shoulder. “Are you with me?”
“Yeah,” Jensen croaks out.
“Was it that horrible this time?” he asks.
Jensen just presses a hand to his mouth in disgust. He feels sick to his stomach and knows it has nothing to do with the meds and the remaining alcohol in his system. "Is watching a 3-year-old get hit by a car and seeing his brains splatter all over the sidewalk enough for you?!" he asks back, harsher than intended.
Misha's brows draw together as he eyes Jensen carefully. “If I remember that correctly, the guy who ran over a little boy here in... was it 1993? Somewhere around that - The guy was arrested and did several years in prison for vehicular manslaughter. If that helps any.” The hand on Jensen's shoulder tightens, pats him encouragingly, and it helps enough to make him snap out of it. Getting lost in these kinds of visions is too easy.
“Thanks for picking me up,” Jensen says instead of going into detail. Truth is, he is relieved every time Misha can take him to work or back, because that means he doesn't need to take the subway.
“No problem,” Misha nods. “I hate to break it to you, though, that I'll have to work very late today and won't be able to take you home, too.”
Jensen swallows. He can do this. He totally can. “No problem,” he manages. And with that, he slumps into the passenger seat of Misha's police car, a turmoil of feelings still clenching his guts.
“Hey, you wanna stop by for dinner on Friday?” Misha asks, smiling lopsided at him.
“Yeah, sure,” Jensen shrugs. It's no use to decline any such offer from Misha. The guy knows him better than anyone and if it wasn't for him, Jensen would spend his evenings alone and sulking in his apartment anyway. Misha is the only one that drags him out so he at least gets to socialize with him and his lovely wife. Jensen doesn't know how much of it all Vicky actually knows, but he trusts her like he trusts Misha.
There have also been occasions where he totally refused to take only one step out of his home, and he ended up with Misha on his doorstep, pizza and beer in hand and not taking no for an answer. So if Misha asks him to come over for dinner, he better say yes and show up.
Truth be told, Misha is without doubt the best -- and only -- friend he's ever had.
When he glances sideways as Misha stops at a red traffic light, Jensen catches Misha's look. His brows are furrowed in worry, big blue eyes watching him carefully and with so much sympathy swirling in them that Jensen knows, without any words, that Misha understands. His best friend is an NYPD officer, after all. And the things you see as a NYPD officer are the aftermath of the stuff Jensen sees every day. So.
Misha understands, and the thought makes Jensen's lips curl up slightly.
When the dark-haired man obviously notices what's going on, he punches Jensen lightly on the shoulder. Says, “It's okay.”
“Is it ever?” Jensen replies with a bitter undertone.
Misha doesn't answer.
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