Fic: To See The World in a Grain of Sand (Part 9)
Fic title: To See the World in a Grain of Sand
Author name: belledewinter
Artist name: beelikej
Genre: AU RPS Slash
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: R
Word count: Around 45.000
Fic Warnings: AU.
Summary: Steampunk AU. Heartbroken and eager to prove himself, Jensen Ackles makes a bet: that he will be able to go around the world in 80 days, no matter what obstacles one could find along the way.
With the aid of a man with many hidden talents who now acts as his valet and a young engineer with a dubious heritage and a disarming smile, Jensen embarks on the journey of a lifetime, not knowing that danger is always just one step behind him. Will he make it home in time?
Link to fic: Here.
Link to art: Here.
New York is, as Jensen expected, probably the busiest place he has ever seen.
The city is alive with all kinds of people coming and going. There are many accents in the air that he had never heard before, but he recognizes most of them as European, foods he had never tasted on sale at every café they see, and an air of something in the air that Jensen can’t help but think of as shiny and new.
The three of them sit at a table finishing a meal as they wait for the time to board a steamroller, watching people get on with their lives as busy as bees. Jared and Misha seem enchanted by the city and its activity, and Jensen would love to participate in their crowd seeing, if only he could take off his head the ticking of the clock that does not work anymore. He pushes one of his meatballs into Jared’s plate and amuses himself with watching his friends try to guess the nationality of those around them. Certainly, he had never seen a place more… varied in his life.
“You both seem so happy,” Jensen says, almost surprised.
“We’re almost home!” Jared quickly responds. “And I’m sure that we will be able to make it on time, now. What should we not be happy about, Jensen? You have won.”
“I have not won just yet, Jared.” Jensen says, chiding him without any venom. “I would love to think that we’ve got one foot home already, but I can’t shake the feeling that there is something about to happen to us before we reach London.”
“I really wish I could say I disagree,” Misha adds, which suprises Jensen. “There is still something we have not dealt with.”
“If you want dessert, I’m sure they can find something for you,” Jared teases.
Misha frowns at him. “It’s good to see that you are in such good spirits, Jared. But when has one of our destinations not given us any trouble?”
“Well,” Jared says, and seems to think for a second. His face relaxes when he looks at his friends. “Maybe now that we’ve left behind-“
“Now that you have left behind… who, exactly?” A voice creeps up behind them. Jensen had not known what he was forgetting until this moment, and it feels like a slap to the face. It’s Misha who turns first, fast as a whip and with pure rage in his eyes. “Oh, I knew I would be seeing you again, you little-“
Jensen’s heart sinks to his stomach. He turns to see Jared with his face pale. His lover has never seen him before, but Jensen’s sure he’ll know him on the spot. Tall, dark and with a smile on his face that’s anything but friendly, the three of them face Agent Welling. Jensen reaches out to grab Misha before he jumps the agent, and Jared falls speechless as Jensen does his best to keep his calm.
“Agent Welling. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
The agent smiles at Jensen almost sweetly. “I have to admit you have made a rather impressive escape, Lord Ackles. For an aristocrat, you seem to know rather well how to avoid falling into the hands of the Law.”
“I don’t know whose law,” Misha snaps.
“Collins,” the Agent calls. “I did not expect to see you again after you lost your ferry. It’s good to see you safe and sound.”
“Why are you still after Jensen, have you not understood that-“
“Misha, please,” Jared starts, trying to soothe his friend.
“Lord Ackles here has some business with the Law that the two of you can stay out of, if you please. My quarrel is with him only. So tell me, Lord Ackles, will you flee from the Law?”
Jensen considers his options. He has a few hours to spare, for sure. If he flees from the law, he will doubtlessly be arrested in his very home, and for such an offense, he is sure to be guilty of something. For whatever reason Welling attempts to arrest him for, he will not have any kind of proof. But as innocent as he is, he cannot let the Agent or anybody delay him more than what’s strictly necessary.
“I will go with you,” Jensen says, and to the horror of his friends, adds, “Only if you promise that, if you find me innocent, you will let me go and head to London before the day is over.”
The Agent seems to consider this, and finally nods. “Lord Ackles, you are officially arrested.”
Jared has never really wished harm on anybody who was not really working for it, and he had certainly never done it to an agent of the law. But after almost three hours of Jensen and Welling locked inside a hotel room for what the agent called, “questioning”, he’s climbing up the walls with frustration and does not know what to do.
Misha sits beside him, livid, and his anger does not seem to leave him for a second. Obviously, the last time he saw the Agent they did not part on very good terms. “How dare he,” he says. “He drugged me in an attempt to delay us. And I’m sure now that the accident in our steamboat to Bombay was his work as well. I can’t believe Jensen would let him take him in for questioning.”
“Jensen is innocent,” Jared quickly says. “And not following an Agent is a crime. There is nothing they can find on him that makes him guilty of anything, right?”
Misha shakes his head. “Welling knows Jensen is innocent, Jared. I’m sure of it. And I’m not sure if you have noticed, but the last ferry is about to leave. If this charade doesn’t finish soon, we will have to wait until tomorrow to part, and by then the smallest delay in our steamboat may make us not reach London until the twenty second of December. We will have lost.”
Jared looks out at the street and back at Misha. Losing is not an option when they are so close to home. “What was the room Welling locked him into, again?”
Misha smiles. “I like that kind of response better.”
Before they reach the room, they can already hear Jensen losing his calm. After such a long time, it’s only justifiable that his patience is running thin. He must have noticed the time too, somehow, though Jared doubts that Welling ever let him check it.
Jensen looks fairly surprised when between he and Misha they manage to knock bring down the door. But if Jensen is surprised, in that calm, serene way he has of noticing things, Welling seems about to lose his head right at that very second. “What the hell are you doing?” He asks, and there’s a slight note of hysteria in his voice.
“I’m sorry, Agent Welling, but we really don’t have another minute to spare,” Misha says, and looks at Jensen very pointedly. Welling, of course, quickly reaches over and grabs Jensen by the arm.
“I’m afraid we’re not done here just yet.”
Before Misha can even respond, Jensen sighs, brings up his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose as if in utter frustration, and it’s only a second later that Jared watches as Jensen takes a step back, breathes in, and punches Welling straight in the face. The man topples backwards and Jensen walks towards his companions with the utmost calm. “Shall we?”
A second later, all three of them are running, through the crowds and people, to the last ferry of the day. It seems to be about ready to leave. “Hold on!” Misha screams, but it’s clear they cannot hear him from so far. They run until Jared thinks his heart will come out through his mouth. They are not going to make it.
But Misha reaches the sailors just in time before the last one climbs aboard, and it’s only a few seconds later that Jared and Jensen reach him, and the three of them disappear inside. The last thing they see of New York is Welling, running towards them and watching, in anger, as the ferry takes off.
Most of their journey, Jensen feels breathless.
It doesn’t feel real, that they are finally on their way home. London, he thinks, will be very different when he steps back on it. He doesn’t know what he will do with his life, since there will be so very little of his previous, monotone, clockwork life that would satisfy him now. And for sure, a part of him still wants things done on time and in the best possible way. He doesn’t think that will ever change. But a part of him is ready for a new surprise every day, and that makes all the difference in the world.
Jared doesn’t want to talk about what he will do once they all get there. Jensen doesn’t want to ask if he thinks that he will go back to the workshop. If there is a way that Jensen can give him a better life, he will. But he would understand that Jared would want to do something with his life other than “stay”.
It’s Misha who checks every day and night on the captain of the steamboat and keeps track of the time. They should arrive just on the twenty first, a woman tells him. And as the days pass, the woman’s words seem to ring true. Finally, one night, they distantly see the London lights. The three of them smile and watch as the city approaches, inch by inch.
They hear the bells as they approach London, the docks so close that Jensen can almost touch them if he just reaches out. Midnight.
We’re late, Jensen thinks. We’re late.
The world seems to crumble around him all once the three of them reach Jensen’s house.
Jensen sits alone at his desk among his maps, and what he sees on his reflection when he ventures a look is a broken man.
So much work lost, so much that he should have done before they got to this point. Jensen wishes desperately that he had not wasted so much time, curses every delay, as small as it was. Wishes that there had been a way not to waste a single second in between their connections, that they had managed to not lose Misha. Thinks, only for a moment, of having chosen other companions, and quickly discards that thought because with anybody else, the trip would have been longer and unbearable
He had it all so planned out. How could this have happened? He thinks of details is search of something that tells him where he could have ever gone wrong. It does not matter if he really finds it now, but he has to find his mistake, ponders over his maps and wonders where the hell he made a mistake, even if by now there is no way to fix it.
Does it even matter?, he tells himself. He does not wish it had happened in any other way. He could never wish not to have made the bet, not to rid himself of Somerhalder forever. There is no way he would have ever chosen not to fall in love with Jared the way it happened - all over the world and with everything but time within reach. Not to know himself like he does now, like his life before this was nothing but an echo of what other people said. It’s all he can think of - that he traded one thing for the other, and that there really is nothing in the world he would have changed.
He will own up to his debt. Of course he will. And there will be thousands of places where he can go, still. Places where nobody will know who he is, and places where people will and they will let him live in peace. It does not matter where he goes, not really - because all he wishes he could do is stay with Jared, and at least that he has assured. I love you, he thinks, I love you like I never loved anything else in my life, damn the maps and the journey and the broken pocket watch, I cannot live without you and I won’t if I can help it.
He has this night, if not any other, before he loses everything he has and will have to be somebody other than Lord Ackles. He fully intends to save it, store every memory he makes deep inside his heart, and if there’s nothing else he has, he will still be proud to say that only for a while, he lived, and loved, and that at least for this there is nothing to regret.
When he reaches his room, Jared is already there.
He does not try to say anything, he offers no empty words or promises that things will be alright, because how is that going to be something that the boy even knows, how is it going to be something either of them could ever dream. The house is dark and quiet, but since for tonight it’s still his, Jensen fully intends on making the best out of it. His own bed had never even seemed complete before Jared was even in it, and he notices just now how empty, how really empty his life had been, filled to the brim with dusty maps and companies who felt not a thing for him.
You have the world, his father had said when he showed him the maps. He had not listened.
He has something else now - he has a boy with painted eyes and the brightest smile, all soft whispers and toned skin, and hands that roam over his body like they own it - and they do, Jensen would never say otherwise - , and when Jared just takes his shirt off with the utmost care, like it mattered, Jensen wants to throw him on the bed and ask him to be angry, to be with him in this, but he knows that the journey belonged to them both, that they have both lost, and that even if Jensen now thinks of all the things he will be rid of, they will not really matter anymore. Jensen is sorry - he’s sorry for all the things he told Jared he would be able to do if they won this stupid bet, for all those people he could save.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and it comes out broken. “I’m sorry we did not make it in time.”
Jared smiles just pressing the slightest kiss against his skin, a whisper on the side of his neck that seems to burn forever, “I thought you said it was the journey that counted,” Jared says, and Jensen feels his heart sink. Even though Jared knows perfectly well everything they both have lost, he still has the nerve, the heart, to tell him that.
“I don’t regret it, Jared”, Jensen says, and he makes sure that Jared is looking him in the eye when he says this, “I don’t regret a second with you - let’s leave, now, before anyone comes looking for us. We’ll be safe, and I doubt that anyone would come looking anyway, just another Lord who fled due to his debts, we can-“
Jared shushes him with a kiss before he says something he will regret. Jensen is a man of honor, isn’t he? He would never leave, and Jared would not let him, and Jensen loves him even more for that. “Do you want me, Jensen?”
And isn’t that the stupidest question Jensen has ever heard, with his clothes in disarray due to frustration and lust, and Jared standing in his room with his vest undone and a half-drunk glass of wine standing on the table like it was the most usual thing in the world that a man should come home after three months having travelled the world and would come home to find nothing.
“I want you more than I have wanted anything in my life,” Jensen says, and means it absolutely, because there is nothing else he has and there is nothing else he would regret losing, anyway. “I love you. I love you because you have given me a reason to keep living, truly living as a person and not clockwork. I love you because when I’m with you I don’t check my watch and thanks to you I stopped. Even if that made me lose this stupid bet, I would do it all over again, without looking at it once because it made me miss looking at you instead. I don’t regret leaving London, Jared, and I don’t regret returning because, no matter where we go from now on, if you’re with me, I have nothing to fear. Are you going to stay with me- ,” he asks, and at that his voice breaks, “Are you going to stay with me, or am I going to have to beg?”
Jared is looking at him like this is the first time that he sees Jensen, that he truly sees him for what he is. “I hope you know that leaving you was never an option for me.”
“Since when?” Jensen asks, “When was that?”
Jared wants to laugh, really wants to, but there is very little he can think of that isn’t the green on Jensen’s eyes or his warm skin under his fingertips. “When do you think? When I first saw you. The moment Misha said your name. I loved you probably even before I met you. You made me go to the home I thought I’d lost, and you made me find a new one. It will not matter to me if the journey ended here because you wanted it to, Jensen, for me it would have still been well worth it. If you don’t want me to go, I don’t go. I would never, and this is something you can be sure I mean - I love nothing in this world like I love you right now.”
Jensen leans into his warmth and kisses him. Not a tentative, a question, not something he does because he gets carried away and he will not know how to explain tomorrow. He kisses him deliberately, pushing him into the bed with all the strength he has left, lets Jared’s hands hold onto his sides as they sink into the bed biting and clawing at each other, desperate for it. Jared looks at him like he was a different person; looks at him like no one had looked at him before. I love you, he says, and he means it, but for Jensen those words had been so distant that the thought that someone may direct them at him seemed almost impossible.
Jared flips them over as soon as he loses his nerve for just a second and pins him to the bed - makes him stay still as he takes off what’s left of his clothes and straddles his hips, kisses his mouth with both hands on his face, with purpose, like this is everything he was ever born to do. It does not matter where they go now, or what they do, Jensen will never regret it if this is what he can have.
Jared dreams.
His mother is still clad in her bright, colorful gowns, her face serene and a smile fixed on her face. Jared reaches out to her, and this time she lets him embrace her. It feels so real that, if Jared hadn’t learned that it’s only in dreams that he can see her, it would be almost like she had never gone.
Jared thinks he speaks, tells her about Jensen and the world and what he has seen, tells her about the bet and the fact that now, they have lost. That he doesn’t mind going back to the workshop is he must because it doesn’t matter what happens now, he isn’t alone. He isn’t lost, and that will be enough to keep him going every day. That she will not have to worry. Jared isn’t sure, because he dreams, that all of this he has actually said, or if she already knew.
“Jared, my boy,” She says, and Jared wants for nothing more than to be sure that she would say that to him, right now, if she could. “You have found your way.”
There is a second where Jared panics. She says it like she were going to disappear. He cannot bear to watch her go again, he can’t. He holds onto the ghost of her mother, her hand, like it’s the last thing he’s ever going to do. “I don’t want you to go,” he says.
She smiles. “I am already gone, my dear. But you, you will be fine.”
She’s going to leave him. Jared wants to cry and hold her, and tell her all the things he could never tell her before she left. That maybe one day he will find his father, like she tried. That he will make sure to be the man she would have wanted him to be. She doesn’t let him, because she knows. Jared can tell that she’s already proud.
The last thing he’ll remember when he wakes will not be his mother or her goodbye, but an overwhelming sense of peace, of knowing where he wants to go next, and with whom. He’ll remember her last words to him as he sleeps. “You have come far.”
It’s morning when Misha comes barging in, pretty much kicking the door open in his rush.
“Wake up,” he says, to nobody in particular. There’s a newspaper and a letter in his hand that he waves in front of Jensen’s face. Jensen, who has never been a morning person in his life and who half did not expect to wake up at all this morning, because nothing in his life could have ever compared to last night in any possible way. Since he does not move to take it, Misha slams it right on his face.
Jared takes the newspaper and the letter, and looks at Misha like he’s completely lost.
“What’s happening?”
“Read it, go on. Right from the start,” Misha commands.
Jared looks at it, “There’s something about the Prime Minister and-“
“No.” Misha says pointedly. “Read it again, right from the start. You do know what the start is, don’t you, Jared?”
Jared looks at the page again, and his eyes widen in surprise.
“December 21st.”
Jensen blinks. “Excuse me?”
“December 21st,” Jared repeats. “Is this from today?”
“Just delivered,” Misha says, “We gained a day. And if there’s something more perfect that you could have read right this very second it would probably be something about Ian Somerhalder being eaten by a bear. “
There is a moment of silence before it sinks in. “We made it,” Jensen says, and untangles himself from Jared’s warm body like he cannot quite believe. We really made it.”
“And we have all of today to get to the club and wave that newspaper in Somerhalder’s face,” Misha states, flippantly. “Do go ahead and tell me we can get ready and go right now. Please. And that we’re all allowed in even though we’re not the usual guests, because if there’s something I don’t want to miss is how that man gets his fortune taken because he miscalculated how brave you were.”
Jensen is still incredulous. “This has to be a dream, I can’t- I thought-“
“There are more good news yet,” Misha says, and both Jared and Jensen make a face that makes Misha laugh. “Oh, it could possibly be whatever is in that letter that’s addressed at you, Jared, from last night - apparently Nemo managed to remember the man you remind him of.”
Jared smiles, but tries to fake being annoyed with what’s in his hand. “The letter is torn.”
“Oh, but you will love what is inside.”
It’s Jensen who opens it, in the end, since Jared’s hands can’t seem to stop shaking long enough to take the paper out. Nemo’s clear scrawl flourishes prettily over the white paper, a few words carefully placed stating his greeting and the fact that there seems to be a family who does know Aouda and the man she fell in love with. Someone who does not live in London at all. But in Africa.
The name carefully scrawled reads, “Greystoke.”
Jensen sits on at the club with Jared and Misha at his side, taking his tea with all the calm in the world while the other guests watch him in awe. The press is there, for sure, all of them gathered around the three of them, tossing about all kinds of questions and taking pictures that will make it to the morning paper. They will all be part of the news. Jensen Ackles’ worldwide race has been completed successfully.
“I want you to know I never doubted you,” Danneel tells Jensen, unnecessarily. Of course she hadn’t. When Jensen and his companions got to the club, the woman was already there and she’d been the one who had alerted the press.
Jensen smiles. “What if I hadn’t made it? Had you thought of that?”
“What if I had died during your journey?” She snaps, and steals Jensen’s biscuit. “Such faith in yourself you have.”
It makes the three men laugh. “It doesn’t matter,” Jared ends up saying, and Jensen knows that Danneel has to be reading on his face just what has happened to him during the journey. “The rest of us always had faith enough.”
And for those who didn’t, well.
Somerhalder’s picture in the paper the next morning is response enough.
Author name: belledewinter
Artist name: beelikej
Genre: AU RPS Slash
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: R
Word count: Around 45.000
Fic Warnings: AU.
Summary: Steampunk AU. Heartbroken and eager to prove himself, Jensen Ackles makes a bet: that he will be able to go around the world in 80 days, no matter what obstacles one could find along the way.
With the aid of a man with many hidden talents who now acts as his valet and a young engineer with a dubious heritage and a disarming smile, Jensen embarks on the journey of a lifetime, not knowing that danger is always just one step behind him. Will he make it home in time?
Link to fic: Here.
Link to art: Here.
New York is, as Jensen expected, probably the busiest place he has ever seen.
The city is alive with all kinds of people coming and going. There are many accents in the air that he had never heard before, but he recognizes most of them as European, foods he had never tasted on sale at every café they see, and an air of something in the air that Jensen can’t help but think of as shiny and new.
The three of them sit at a table finishing a meal as they wait for the time to board a steamroller, watching people get on with their lives as busy as bees. Jared and Misha seem enchanted by the city and its activity, and Jensen would love to participate in their crowd seeing, if only he could take off his head the ticking of the clock that does not work anymore. He pushes one of his meatballs into Jared’s plate and amuses himself with watching his friends try to guess the nationality of those around them. Certainly, he had never seen a place more… varied in his life.
“You both seem so happy,” Jensen says, almost surprised.
“We’re almost home!” Jared quickly responds. “And I’m sure that we will be able to make it on time, now. What should we not be happy about, Jensen? You have won.”
“I have not won just yet, Jared.” Jensen says, chiding him without any venom. “I would love to think that we’ve got one foot home already, but I can’t shake the feeling that there is something about to happen to us before we reach London.”
“I really wish I could say I disagree,” Misha adds, which suprises Jensen. “There is still something we have not dealt with.”
“If you want dessert, I’m sure they can find something for you,” Jared teases.
Misha frowns at him. “It’s good to see that you are in such good spirits, Jared. But when has one of our destinations not given us any trouble?”
“Well,” Jared says, and seems to think for a second. His face relaxes when he looks at his friends. “Maybe now that we’ve left behind-“
“Now that you have left behind… who, exactly?” A voice creeps up behind them. Jensen had not known what he was forgetting until this moment, and it feels like a slap to the face. It’s Misha who turns first, fast as a whip and with pure rage in his eyes. “Oh, I knew I would be seeing you again, you little-“
Jensen’s heart sinks to his stomach. He turns to see Jared with his face pale. His lover has never seen him before, but Jensen’s sure he’ll know him on the spot. Tall, dark and with a smile on his face that’s anything but friendly, the three of them face Agent Welling. Jensen reaches out to grab Misha before he jumps the agent, and Jared falls speechless as Jensen does his best to keep his calm.
“Agent Welling. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
The agent smiles at Jensen almost sweetly. “I have to admit you have made a rather impressive escape, Lord Ackles. For an aristocrat, you seem to know rather well how to avoid falling into the hands of the Law.”
“I don’t know whose law,” Misha snaps.
“Collins,” the Agent calls. “I did not expect to see you again after you lost your ferry. It’s good to see you safe and sound.”
“Why are you still after Jensen, have you not understood that-“
“Misha, please,” Jared starts, trying to soothe his friend.
“Lord Ackles here has some business with the Law that the two of you can stay out of, if you please. My quarrel is with him only. So tell me, Lord Ackles, will you flee from the Law?”
Jensen considers his options. He has a few hours to spare, for sure. If he flees from the law, he will doubtlessly be arrested in his very home, and for such an offense, he is sure to be guilty of something. For whatever reason Welling attempts to arrest him for, he will not have any kind of proof. But as innocent as he is, he cannot let the Agent or anybody delay him more than what’s strictly necessary.
“I will go with you,” Jensen says, and to the horror of his friends, adds, “Only if you promise that, if you find me innocent, you will let me go and head to London before the day is over.”
The Agent seems to consider this, and finally nods. “Lord Ackles, you are officially arrested.”
Jared has never really wished harm on anybody who was not really working for it, and he had certainly never done it to an agent of the law. But after almost three hours of Jensen and Welling locked inside a hotel room for what the agent called, “questioning”, he’s climbing up the walls with frustration and does not know what to do.
Misha sits beside him, livid, and his anger does not seem to leave him for a second. Obviously, the last time he saw the Agent they did not part on very good terms. “How dare he,” he says. “He drugged me in an attempt to delay us. And I’m sure now that the accident in our steamboat to Bombay was his work as well. I can’t believe Jensen would let him take him in for questioning.”
“Jensen is innocent,” Jared quickly says. “And not following an Agent is a crime. There is nothing they can find on him that makes him guilty of anything, right?”
Misha shakes his head. “Welling knows Jensen is innocent, Jared. I’m sure of it. And I’m not sure if you have noticed, but the last ferry is about to leave. If this charade doesn’t finish soon, we will have to wait until tomorrow to part, and by then the smallest delay in our steamboat may make us not reach London until the twenty second of December. We will have lost.”
Jared looks out at the street and back at Misha. Losing is not an option when they are so close to home. “What was the room Welling locked him into, again?”
Misha smiles. “I like that kind of response better.”
Before they reach the room, they can already hear Jensen losing his calm. After such a long time, it’s only justifiable that his patience is running thin. He must have noticed the time too, somehow, though Jared doubts that Welling ever let him check it.
Jensen looks fairly surprised when between he and Misha they manage to knock bring down the door. But if Jensen is surprised, in that calm, serene way he has of noticing things, Welling seems about to lose his head right at that very second. “What the hell are you doing?” He asks, and there’s a slight note of hysteria in his voice.
“I’m sorry, Agent Welling, but we really don’t have another minute to spare,” Misha says, and looks at Jensen very pointedly. Welling, of course, quickly reaches over and grabs Jensen by the arm.
“I’m afraid we’re not done here just yet.”
Before Misha can even respond, Jensen sighs, brings up his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose as if in utter frustration, and it’s only a second later that Jared watches as Jensen takes a step back, breathes in, and punches Welling straight in the face. The man topples backwards and Jensen walks towards his companions with the utmost calm. “Shall we?”
A second later, all three of them are running, through the crowds and people, to the last ferry of the day. It seems to be about ready to leave. “Hold on!” Misha screams, but it’s clear they cannot hear him from so far. They run until Jared thinks his heart will come out through his mouth. They are not going to make it.
But Misha reaches the sailors just in time before the last one climbs aboard, and it’s only a few seconds later that Jared and Jensen reach him, and the three of them disappear inside. The last thing they see of New York is Welling, running towards them and watching, in anger, as the ferry takes off.
Most of their journey, Jensen feels breathless.
It doesn’t feel real, that they are finally on their way home. London, he thinks, will be very different when he steps back on it. He doesn’t know what he will do with his life, since there will be so very little of his previous, monotone, clockwork life that would satisfy him now. And for sure, a part of him still wants things done on time and in the best possible way. He doesn’t think that will ever change. But a part of him is ready for a new surprise every day, and that makes all the difference in the world.
Jared doesn’t want to talk about what he will do once they all get there. Jensen doesn’t want to ask if he thinks that he will go back to the workshop. If there is a way that Jensen can give him a better life, he will. But he would understand that Jared would want to do something with his life other than “stay”.
It’s Misha who checks every day and night on the captain of the steamboat and keeps track of the time. They should arrive just on the twenty first, a woman tells him. And as the days pass, the woman’s words seem to ring true. Finally, one night, they distantly see the London lights. The three of them smile and watch as the city approaches, inch by inch.
They hear the bells as they approach London, the docks so close that Jensen can almost touch them if he just reaches out. Midnight.
We’re late, Jensen thinks. We’re late.
The world seems to crumble around him all once the three of them reach Jensen’s house.
Jensen sits alone at his desk among his maps, and what he sees on his reflection when he ventures a look is a broken man.
So much work lost, so much that he should have done before they got to this point. Jensen wishes desperately that he had not wasted so much time, curses every delay, as small as it was. Wishes that there had been a way not to waste a single second in between their connections, that they had managed to not lose Misha. Thinks, only for a moment, of having chosen other companions, and quickly discards that thought because with anybody else, the trip would have been longer and unbearable
He had it all so planned out. How could this have happened? He thinks of details is search of something that tells him where he could have ever gone wrong. It does not matter if he really finds it now, but he has to find his mistake, ponders over his maps and wonders where the hell he made a mistake, even if by now there is no way to fix it.
Does it even matter?, he tells himself. He does not wish it had happened in any other way. He could never wish not to have made the bet, not to rid himself of Somerhalder forever. There is no way he would have ever chosen not to fall in love with Jared the way it happened - all over the world and with everything but time within reach. Not to know himself like he does now, like his life before this was nothing but an echo of what other people said. It’s all he can think of - that he traded one thing for the other, and that there really is nothing in the world he would have changed.
He will own up to his debt. Of course he will. And there will be thousands of places where he can go, still. Places where nobody will know who he is, and places where people will and they will let him live in peace. It does not matter where he goes, not really - because all he wishes he could do is stay with Jared, and at least that he has assured. I love you, he thinks, I love you like I never loved anything else in my life, damn the maps and the journey and the broken pocket watch, I cannot live without you and I won’t if I can help it.
He has this night, if not any other, before he loses everything he has and will have to be somebody other than Lord Ackles. He fully intends to save it, store every memory he makes deep inside his heart, and if there’s nothing else he has, he will still be proud to say that only for a while, he lived, and loved, and that at least for this there is nothing to regret.
When he reaches his room, Jared is already there.
He does not try to say anything, he offers no empty words or promises that things will be alright, because how is that going to be something that the boy even knows, how is it going to be something either of them could ever dream. The house is dark and quiet, but since for tonight it’s still his, Jensen fully intends on making the best out of it. His own bed had never even seemed complete before Jared was even in it, and he notices just now how empty, how really empty his life had been, filled to the brim with dusty maps and companies who felt not a thing for him.
You have the world, his father had said when he showed him the maps. He had not listened.
He has something else now - he has a boy with painted eyes and the brightest smile, all soft whispers and toned skin, and hands that roam over his body like they own it - and they do, Jensen would never say otherwise - , and when Jared just takes his shirt off with the utmost care, like it mattered, Jensen wants to throw him on the bed and ask him to be angry, to be with him in this, but he knows that the journey belonged to them both, that they have both lost, and that even if Jensen now thinks of all the things he will be rid of, they will not really matter anymore. Jensen is sorry - he’s sorry for all the things he told Jared he would be able to do if they won this stupid bet, for all those people he could save.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and it comes out broken. “I’m sorry we did not make it in time.”
Jared smiles just pressing the slightest kiss against his skin, a whisper on the side of his neck that seems to burn forever, “I thought you said it was the journey that counted,” Jared says, and Jensen feels his heart sink. Even though Jared knows perfectly well everything they both have lost, he still has the nerve, the heart, to tell him that.
“I don’t regret it, Jared”, Jensen says, and he makes sure that Jared is looking him in the eye when he says this, “I don’t regret a second with you - let’s leave, now, before anyone comes looking for us. We’ll be safe, and I doubt that anyone would come looking anyway, just another Lord who fled due to his debts, we can-“
Jared shushes him with a kiss before he says something he will regret. Jensen is a man of honor, isn’t he? He would never leave, and Jared would not let him, and Jensen loves him even more for that. “Do you want me, Jensen?”
And isn’t that the stupidest question Jensen has ever heard, with his clothes in disarray due to frustration and lust, and Jared standing in his room with his vest undone and a half-drunk glass of wine standing on the table like it was the most usual thing in the world that a man should come home after three months having travelled the world and would come home to find nothing.
“I want you more than I have wanted anything in my life,” Jensen says, and means it absolutely, because there is nothing else he has and there is nothing else he would regret losing, anyway. “I love you. I love you because you have given me a reason to keep living, truly living as a person and not clockwork. I love you because when I’m with you I don’t check my watch and thanks to you I stopped. Even if that made me lose this stupid bet, I would do it all over again, without looking at it once because it made me miss looking at you instead. I don’t regret leaving London, Jared, and I don’t regret returning because, no matter where we go from now on, if you’re with me, I have nothing to fear. Are you going to stay with me- ,” he asks, and at that his voice breaks, “Are you going to stay with me, or am I going to have to beg?”
Jared is looking at him like this is the first time that he sees Jensen, that he truly sees him for what he is. “I hope you know that leaving you was never an option for me.”
“Since when?” Jensen asks, “When was that?”
Jared wants to laugh, really wants to, but there is very little he can think of that isn’t the green on Jensen’s eyes or his warm skin under his fingertips. “When do you think? When I first saw you. The moment Misha said your name. I loved you probably even before I met you. You made me go to the home I thought I’d lost, and you made me find a new one. It will not matter to me if the journey ended here because you wanted it to, Jensen, for me it would have still been well worth it. If you don’t want me to go, I don’t go. I would never, and this is something you can be sure I mean - I love nothing in this world like I love you right now.”
Jensen leans into his warmth and kisses him. Not a tentative, a question, not something he does because he gets carried away and he will not know how to explain tomorrow. He kisses him deliberately, pushing him into the bed with all the strength he has left, lets Jared’s hands hold onto his sides as they sink into the bed biting and clawing at each other, desperate for it. Jared looks at him like he was a different person; looks at him like no one had looked at him before. I love you, he says, and he means it, but for Jensen those words had been so distant that the thought that someone may direct them at him seemed almost impossible.
Jared flips them over as soon as he loses his nerve for just a second and pins him to the bed - makes him stay still as he takes off what’s left of his clothes and straddles his hips, kisses his mouth with both hands on his face, with purpose, like this is everything he was ever born to do. It does not matter where they go now, or what they do, Jensen will never regret it if this is what he can have.
Jared dreams.
His mother is still clad in her bright, colorful gowns, her face serene and a smile fixed on her face. Jared reaches out to her, and this time she lets him embrace her. It feels so real that, if Jared hadn’t learned that it’s only in dreams that he can see her, it would be almost like she had never gone.
Jared thinks he speaks, tells her about Jensen and the world and what he has seen, tells her about the bet and the fact that now, they have lost. That he doesn’t mind going back to the workshop is he must because it doesn’t matter what happens now, he isn’t alone. He isn’t lost, and that will be enough to keep him going every day. That she will not have to worry. Jared isn’t sure, because he dreams, that all of this he has actually said, or if she already knew.
“Jared, my boy,” She says, and Jared wants for nothing more than to be sure that she would say that to him, right now, if she could. “You have found your way.”
There is a second where Jared panics. She says it like she were going to disappear. He cannot bear to watch her go again, he can’t. He holds onto the ghost of her mother, her hand, like it’s the last thing he’s ever going to do. “I don’t want you to go,” he says.
She smiles. “I am already gone, my dear. But you, you will be fine.”
She’s going to leave him. Jared wants to cry and hold her, and tell her all the things he could never tell her before she left. That maybe one day he will find his father, like she tried. That he will make sure to be the man she would have wanted him to be. She doesn’t let him, because she knows. Jared can tell that she’s already proud.
The last thing he’ll remember when he wakes will not be his mother or her goodbye, but an overwhelming sense of peace, of knowing where he wants to go next, and with whom. He’ll remember her last words to him as he sleeps. “You have come far.”
It’s morning when Misha comes barging in, pretty much kicking the door open in his rush.
“Wake up,” he says, to nobody in particular. There’s a newspaper and a letter in his hand that he waves in front of Jensen’s face. Jensen, who has never been a morning person in his life and who half did not expect to wake up at all this morning, because nothing in his life could have ever compared to last night in any possible way. Since he does not move to take it, Misha slams it right on his face.
Jared takes the newspaper and the letter, and looks at Misha like he’s completely lost.
“What’s happening?”
“Read it, go on. Right from the start,” Misha commands.
Jared looks at it, “There’s something about the Prime Minister and-“
“No.” Misha says pointedly. “Read it again, right from the start. You do know what the start is, don’t you, Jared?”
Jared looks at the page again, and his eyes widen in surprise.
“December 21st.”
Jensen blinks. “Excuse me?”
“December 21st,” Jared repeats. “Is this from today?”
“Just delivered,” Misha says, “We gained a day. And if there’s something more perfect that you could have read right this very second it would probably be something about Ian Somerhalder being eaten by a bear. “
There is a moment of silence before it sinks in. “We made it,” Jensen says, and untangles himself from Jared’s warm body like he cannot quite believe. We really made it.”
“And we have all of today to get to the club and wave that newspaper in Somerhalder’s face,” Misha states, flippantly. “Do go ahead and tell me we can get ready and go right now. Please. And that we’re all allowed in even though we’re not the usual guests, because if there’s something I don’t want to miss is how that man gets his fortune taken because he miscalculated how brave you were.”
Jensen is still incredulous. “This has to be a dream, I can’t- I thought-“
“There are more good news yet,” Misha says, and both Jared and Jensen make a face that makes Misha laugh. “Oh, it could possibly be whatever is in that letter that’s addressed at you, Jared, from last night - apparently Nemo managed to remember the man you remind him of.”
Jared smiles, but tries to fake being annoyed with what’s in his hand. “The letter is torn.”
“Oh, but you will love what is inside.”
It’s Jensen who opens it, in the end, since Jared’s hands can’t seem to stop shaking long enough to take the paper out. Nemo’s clear scrawl flourishes prettily over the white paper, a few words carefully placed stating his greeting and the fact that there seems to be a family who does know Aouda and the man she fell in love with. Someone who does not live in London at all. But in Africa.
The name carefully scrawled reads, “Greystoke.”
Jensen sits on at the club with Jared and Misha at his side, taking his tea with all the calm in the world while the other guests watch him in awe. The press is there, for sure, all of them gathered around the three of them, tossing about all kinds of questions and taking pictures that will make it to the morning paper. They will all be part of the news. Jensen Ackles’ worldwide race has been completed successfully.
“I want you to know I never doubted you,” Danneel tells Jensen, unnecessarily. Of course she hadn’t. When Jensen and his companions got to the club, the woman was already there and she’d been the one who had alerted the press.
Jensen smiles. “What if I hadn’t made it? Had you thought of that?”
“What if I had died during your journey?” She snaps, and steals Jensen’s biscuit. “Such faith in yourself you have.”
It makes the three men laugh. “It doesn’t matter,” Jared ends up saying, and Jensen knows that Danneel has to be reading on his face just what has happened to him during the journey. “The rest of us always had faith enough.”
And for those who didn’t, well.
Somerhalder’s picture in the paper the next morning is response enough.