Living Dead Guy - Part 1
<< Masterpost
It isn't like Jared doesn't know he has a problem. A pretty serious one, sitting right beside him on the couch.
A body.
A dead, human body, his head rested against Jared's shoulder.
Holy shit, what had he been thinking?
Of course Jared knows exactly what he had been thinking. That doesn't mean he's not aware that it had been one hell of a crazy, reckless idea. Jared frowns as he studies the man's face yet again, so peaceful and relaxed.
The truth is: bodies have always fascinated Jared - hence his career choice. When they were lifeless and bare under his hands, waiting for him to cut them open, Jared always had the feeling that it was a story, a secret he was unfolding. A mystery he puzzled together one piece at a time. It was always exciting and Jared often felt how his heart seemingly wanted to pump out of his chest when he finally found what had caused the death of the human, be it a crushed larynx or a blood clot in the aorta.
Plus, Jared was kinda awkward around people who were still alive.
But this time, everything had been different -- from the moment the paramedic brought in the body with the words, “Dead guy. Doctor has yet to call it.” and left Jared standing there, staring at the body bag. Jared's shift had almost been over, and thank god for that because it had been 11 p.m. already, which left Jared pretty much alone at the morgue.
“How did he die?” Jared had asked, momentarily confused.
“My job or yours to find out?” the paramedic had snapped back. He had bags under his eyes and eyebrows knit into a deep frown - obviously exhausted. Then, his glare softened and his tone became placable. “Sorry, long day.”
Jared had only nodded, attempting to come up with some sympathy as to why the EMT had, against protocol, brought the guy in without having him checked by an emergency room doctor first.
“We found him twenty minutes ago, down by the river. We guessed he was still alive, so we got him out of the wet clothes and into a blanket and started the usual attempts at resuscitation, but there have been no vital signs since. No breath, no pulse, no heartbeat.”
“Did you find a wallet? Do we have a name?”
Wordlessly, the paramedic had handed a leather wallet and some other personal stuff to Jared. Then he had turned to the door and only tipped his fingers to his temple as a matter of saying goodbye.
“Get some sleep,” Jared had murmured under his breath, more to himself than to the guy who had just left. After putting car keys and a still-dripping wet cell phone down and opening the wallet, he had quickly found what he had been looking for: a driver’s license. Issued to one Jensen Ackles, born March 1st, 1978 in Dallas, Texas. The picture was a biometric one, but even though he stared blankly at the camera, it was evident how beautiful - there was no other word for it - the man had been before he died.
Jared had sighed then. What a pity, he had thought.
And of course Jared remembers the moment he had opened the body bag for the first time. The body-- the guy that lay in there, he was breathtakingly gorgeous, even more than Jared had expected from seeing the picture on his license. A short lift of his eyelids had shown deep, moss-green eyes. That had been the moment when Jared had realized that he should've called for a doctor by now to get the guy a death certificate. It was also the moment that Jared had looked into those big green eyes again and felt his stomach tingle.
For some reason, it instantly took hold of Jared. Whatever it was.
That feeling that this guy was - had been - didn't matter, that this guy was special.
If he had been alive, Jared possibly would have been too shy to even say hello. Because pretty guys? Not really interested in him. He had had to learn that the hard way.
Jared had stared at the dead body in front of him, and the urge to just relieve all the tension and stress he was carrying around because he had no one to talk to had become overwhelming. Before he had even realized what it was exactly that he was doing, he had lifted the guy - Jensen - up and after a peek into the empty hallway, had taken him to his car.
The ride home had been nothing but weird. When the guy on your passenger seat was falling from side to side lifelessly, but also looked like his face had been a masterpiece of artwork, carved out of marble or some shit, it was quite distracting.
But Jared managed to haul Jensen into his apartment and sat him down on the sofa. After shoving the body bag off of him, which left Jensen in a white blanket only, Jared flopped down beside him.
“You know,” Jared said quietly as he ran his hand over the short, dirty blonde hair that stood up in messy spikes. “I really want to know how you died.”
Of course Jensen didn't answer, and Jared's voice sounded rough and bounced off the walls of his apartment. Jared sighed. Then he got to his feet and fetched himself a beer from the fridge, drinking half of it in one go. God knew he needed some alcohol right now.
When Jared returned to the living room, Jensen was still sitting on the sofa where he left him, eyes closed and lifeless as ever. His lips were blue, and as soon as Jared had sat down again, he put his bottle of beer aside to trace his fingertips over them. Wondering what those lips would feel like if Jensen was alive, Jared took in the soft texture and tender flesh under his fingers. What would it be like to kiss Jensen? How would those lips feel wrapped around his--
Jared's train of thought came to a screeching halt then.
He was many things, but not necrophiliac.
But this guy-- Jensen, he was testing him.
“What I'd do to get a boyfriend like you,” Jared whispered, tipping Jensen's head towards him. His hair still smelled like the shampoo he had probably used this morning in the shower. “You're gorgeous. I hope someone told you that while you were still alive.”
Jared's fingers had taken on a life of their own, roaming over Jensen's beautiful face. Cheekbones, perfect skin, the curve of his eyebrows, long eyelashes on the eyelids that hid those wonderful green eyes.
“Instead I only get the kind of boyfriends who cheat on me or steal my money. I bet you're nowhere close to them. You look like a good guy,” fingers carded through the hair again as Jared began to tell his story. He took a deep gulp from his bottle. “My exes, you know, they were nuts. I don't know what it is that I'm doing wrong, why I'm constantly attracting the crazy ones. Like Katie, and Sandy. God-” he huffed and drained his bottle with the next drag.
After collecting himself, and getting another beer, Jared continued. “Sandy. The things I could tell you about her. Met her four years ago... Beautiful little thing, she was, and so funny and sweet. I wanted to marry her, even proposed when we were on holiday in Paris. Romantic dinner and all. Thought I could finally live a normal life. Hell did I know that she'd dump me two months later for another guy and take half of my furniture with her. Only left me the mortgage on the apartment.” The cold beer running down his throat was exactly what he needed right now to not go completely crazy. He was talking to a dead body here. A dead body. But Jensen listened, and that was all that mattered.
“The only one worse than her was probably Matt, busier with smoking pot all day than spending time with his boyfriend. After I stopped giving him money to buy dope he just stole it from me, and genius that I was, it took me two months to notice. And the shitload of one night stands in between... they've all left once I woke up the next morning. I think I'm an emotional retard or something, I can't hold people around me. The few that stayed were always gone after a week, when they're sure that I'm too much work.”
Wary of it all, Jared huffed and downed his beer. While going to the kitchen to get another one he decided that he might as well rip out the good stuff, so he wouldn't have to get a beer every few minutes. And yes, Jared fully intended to get wasted that night. A few steps took him to the liquor cabinet in his living room and a bottle of Jack. He didn't bother with a glass and instead drank straight from the bottle. The bourbon burned down his throat and into his stomach, warming him up from the inside. Jared coughed and cleared his throat.
His eyes were, once again, drawn to the dead man on his couch.
“Jensen,” Jared said, addressing him, testing how the unusual name rolled off his tongue. “Jensen,” he repeated, quieter. It had a nice ring to it. Jared could definitely imagine moaning that name in bed at night.
He drank from the bottle once again before sitting down and pulling Jensen over his lap, cradling him in his arms.
“God, Jensen. I wish we would've met while you were still alive. I wish I would've gotten to know you. Would've gotten to maybe even kiss you,” he rambled on, his voice a low rolling whisper, his fingers running over Jensen's lips once again. “So I wouldn't have to be so lonely anymore. Everyone leaves me or kicks me out of their lives. My parents did when I told them I had a boyfriend. Sandy did as soon as she found a better guy. But you... you would've kept me company, just like right now.”
Jared looked down at Jensen, studied his motionless face.
And all of a sudden, happiness was slowly seeping through him. Finally, finally somebody listened to him and his problems. It almost felt like Jensen cared, and the weight on Jared's shoulder lifted. Instead he was relieved and quite lightheaded. But then, that may have been the whiskey.
Speaking of which, Jared gulped down another long drag.
“I hate it, you know,” he resumed. Might as well tell Jensen everything. “My whole life. Since I told my parents about my first boyfriend, everything went down the crapper. First they kick me out because I dare to bring a boy home. Then I move up here to get some distance even though I loved living in Texas - I gave up my home just for that!” Jared was talking fast and shouting then, angry at how unfair the world was. He had to breathe in deeply and drink a sip to calm down again.
“I live my life and I try to get by as best as I can. I tried to meet people. Got to dating a few. And every single one of them turns out to be a stealing bitch or a cheating bastard. The world is such a sick place, man, most of the time I don't even know why I'd want to live here any more. But I digress...”
Jared trailed off, stared blankly into space.
After a few minutes of just sitting quietly and drinking occasionally, Jared took a deep breath. “I miss it so much, Jensen. Having someone in my life. I don't even have a friend I can talk to. I'm just that weird coroner that everyone thinks is scary and no one wants to be seen with. Even in college, where I thought I could finally find some freedom and have a little fun, I got to living with a homophobic asshole that bullied me my entire freshman year. And I was too afraid and shy to do anything to stop him.”
Jared shook his head, his lips drawn into a disgusted expression. “I didn't dare come out to anyone ever since. Not that I needed to.”
He lifted his thumb to run it over the stubble on Jensen's cheek. “I wonder if you have any idea what it's like. Are you gay, Jensen? You are so pretty,” he went on, and at the mental leaps and strange choice of words - because since when did he call guys pretty? - Jared finally noticed that the alcohol had kicked in. Good. The bottle of Jack was emptied by a third, it was about time.
But, yeah, Jensen was pretty.
Didn't frustrated straight girls always complain about the pretty guys always being gay?
“If you'd be gay, even I would get my shit together and hit on you so hard your head'd spin,” Jared slurred with a lopsided grin. And, well, because it didn't matter and Jensen was dead anyway, Jared lifted the thin, white blanket he was covered with to take a look at the merchandise.
He had to swallow.
Jensen's body was built, he surely was a guy who lived a healthy life, worked out a lot - and it showed. Toned skin stretched over hard, defined muscles, broad shoulders and a flat stomach. The sight involuntarily made Jared's mouth water, although he had to remind himself that he was looking at a dead body here.
And he was so not necrophiliac.
But if Jensen was alive, Jared would do his damnest to get him into his bed. Would take him apart, piece by piece, until he was a writhing mess under his hands, would make him come with just his mouth and fingers...
Jared tried to focus, tried to get the pictures out of his head, but not to much avail.
In the end, he shoved Jensen to the side so he sat upright again and went to the bathroom to jerk off into the toilet. It had been too long; and Jensen was just too damn hot. Jared finished quick and without much finesse, just wanting to get it out of his system.
Jensen would be there when he got back, anyway.
And even though Jared was well on the way to get completely shit-faced, he realized that he had to take back Jensen to the morgue at some point. Just... not yet, he decided. There was so much he still wanted to talk to Jensen about.
“Did you know,” Jared began once he was back in the living room and sitting beside Jensen with the whiskey bottle in hand, “that my first boyfriend tried to rape me?” Of course it was just a rhetorical question, and Jared knew he didn't need to follow any social protocol with a dead guy, but he still felt like he should. His fingers scratched along Jensen's scalp, the texture of his hair tickling the sensitive nerve endings. “He wanted me to bottom, and even thought I wasn't sure, I was dumb enough to give in. And when it wouldn't work, he tried to force himself onto me, even after I told him to stop. You can believe me when I say that I had a lot of trust issues after that. I didn't date guys for a year or so. And the ones that followed were only bottoms. I'd like to try it some day, you know. Bottoming. But only with someone I'd trust. And how should I find someone like that if every guy that crosses my path is worse than the one before him?”
Noticing that he had talked himself once again into a rage fit, Jared took a deep breath.
“And then came Sandy,” he said instead. “Right after I graduated from college and got my job at the morgue. You know, I met her by making out with one of her friends. One of her guy friends, to be exact, and she wasn't even fazed. And I thought I could have this perfectly normal life with a wife and a house and kids and a dog. I didn't have the problem of coming out or anything, just... everything would be alright. Alright my ass.”
Jensen's head had fallen back against the back rest and had lolled to the side, came to rest on Jared's shoulder. It was oddly comforting and calming to have his presence right here, in Jared's space, dead guy or not. And Jared was happy that he took Jensen with him, that he found someone to talk to. God knows it had been necessary.
And Jared drank some more, told Jensen about his exes, about Richard who had started off as the sweetest guy he'd ever met, but had turned out to having massive gambling problems. About Traci who had left her husband for Jared, but after three months, moving in, and a lot of fighting, decided to go back to him. About Gabriel, who had arrived in Jared's life - and his apartment - like a whirlwind, blew him right off his feet in two seconds flat, and left him emotionally exhausted after an on-again-off-again maybe-relationship half a year later.
Even about Misha.
Misha, the cute guy with the ruffled dark hair and stupidly blue eyes Jared had met during college. Met and fallen in love with and obsessed over, to be exact, for four years. He had followed him around wherever and whenever he could, or drove to his apartment and parked outside at o’ dark thirty in the morning, or wrote letters with his love confessions, just to rip them apart again. Needless to say, he never rang the doorbell or spoke to Misha directly.
“All I ever did in those years was hole up in my room and sulk and jerk off and sulk again,” Jared huffed, now obviously slurring even to his own ears. “In hindsight, I was a pathetic stalker. I wonder if he ever even noticed me.”
He had never told that story to anybody. It made him sound like a creep he really wasn't-- but who was he kidding, he just stole a dead body from a morgue.
Maybe he was a creep.
A stalker, a necrophiliac.
Not necrophiliac, Jared told himself. Just appreciating what he had here and definitely not taking advantage of it.
He wasn't that twisted.
And so Jared began to tell Jensen all the stories of Misha. How they'd met for the first time, even though Jared was sure that Misha would never recognize him again. How he had slowly but surely fallen in love with the crazy guy. And how Misha never, ever, even so much as given him a second glance. How crestfallen he'd been, how he had tried to get his attention, but every single try at conversation had fallen flat. How devastated he'd become.
“In the end, I even questioned if it was the right thing to do. Coming out to my parents, I mean. Now that I was out, I had a roommate that bullied me, I had fallen in love with someone who wouldn't know my first name if their life depended on it, and I was lonelier than ever. My brother and sister, though, they of course always had everything, because they're straight,” he sneered. And went right into a ramble about the reasons of why being a middle child sucked ass.
And Jensen looked like he understood each word.
It was 4.30 a.m. by the time Jared realized that he should really, really take Jensen back to the morgue. There would be questions if somebody noticed that the body was gone tomorrow, weekend or not. Jensen was dead and there was no need to deny it. Jared was supposed to get him a death certificate, contact his relatives and get in touch with the funeral home.
Instead, he was sitting with the body on a sofa at half past four in the morning and spilling his guts to him. And actually being happy about it.
It's not like he's ever claimed to be the most sane person in the world, but he's not completely crazy either.
So, it's about time that this stopped. Jared is drunk, right, but he isn't too drunk to get Jensen back to where he belongs. Jared is also pretty strong, and he carried Jensen in, so logic tells he can carry him out.
Although he has no idea how he should get Jensen into his car - or, more like how he would get his car to the morgue in his current state of intoxication - Jared gets up, eyes skipping over the empty bottle of Jack on the coffee table, but he decides not to care. He's gonna make it, somehow. Then he wraps his arms around Jensen's body and lifts him up.
Jared seriously underestimates Jensen's weight. He is a full grown and trained man, and if he would be able to stand he probably wouldn't be much shorter than Jared himself. Take in the fact that Jared is seriously plastered and it's not much of a surprise that Jared can’t lift him. The thin, white blanket slips down Jensen's naked frame, distracting Jared further because hey --
And before Jared can even blink, Jensen hits the ground hard, colliding with the cold hardwood of Jared's living room floor. The clash and bang is loud in Jared's ears and makes his head ring. Jensen falls onto his back, arms spread wide, the blanket ending up wrapped loosely around his narrow hips, barely covering his crotch.
Then he opens his eyes, sputters, and coughs.
Jared is struck dumb, staring down at the man at his feet.
Still choking and coughing, Jensen sits up and rubs his eyes. As he takes a look around, Jared tries to wrap his mind around that Jensen is not dead. Jensen is alive and breathing.
And currently in his home.
He is so fucking screwed right now. There is no way he will ever be able to explain this to anyone. Least of all Jensen.
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