Life Force, 1/1, RPS, J2 non-AU, H/C, [PG-13]

[sandymg]

Title: Life Force
AO3 for e-reader downloads
Spanish translation by alfer6 (scroll down; immediately follows Death Trap)
Author: sandymg
Beta: borgmama1of5
Summary: It takes almost losing his life to make Jared take a stand to reclaim it. A sequel to Death Trap.
Wordcount: 2,400 - one-shot
Genre: RPS, J2 non-AU, H/C, Angst
Characters/Pairings: Jared/Jensen
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is fiction. No harm intended. No profit made.
A/N: This a sequel to Death Trap, which was written for the RPF Hurt/Comfort Meme at spn_hurtcomfort. It helps to read that story first, but it's not necessary.

Life Force
Jared doesn’t see Jensen.

He shakes his head side to side, searching frantically. Hands are pressing him down but they don’t understand. He doesn’t see Jensen.

“Mr. Padalecki. Please. Be still or you’ll pull out your IV. You’ve been in an auto accident. We’ll be at the hospital in a few minutes. Please …”

The water keeps rising.

Jensen is coughing, sputtering and Jared’s staring on the other side of the car window. Jared is outside.

“Jen. Jensen!” He thrashes more and the world spins wildly. The deer’s eyes glow gold in the pale light, shining out of the morning mist. Everything lurches as he swerves to avoid the animal and the divider jumps to meet them.

“Jensen …”

A distant voice says something. Jared doesn’t know why he feels heavy. His heart flutters thinking he’s back in the water. It is harder to think.

The world goes white.

Jared shudders awake. The first second brings a dim feeling of wrong. Pillow too hard. Bed too narrow. Blanket scratches.

Then it floods back.

The deer. Frantically turning the wheel. Spinning. Impact. The world upending again and again. Icy water and … Jensen’s still in the car … and the water’s seeping in, rising … oh god …

“Jensen!”

Jared looks around. He’s alone. He remembers trying to free Jen but the car is too crushed. He’s trapped. Help was coming. Help …

His hand finds a call button.

Heart pounding he waits.

They’d taken Jared away from the wreck. He hadn’t seen … oh god.

“Mr. Padalecki …”

A nurse enters and feels his pulse. She adjusts something on the pole next to him.

“Jensen?” Jared manages. He is too scared to say more. He can’t think that they hadn’t gotten to him in time. Memories rush.

Jensen’s hand comes up the window and their fingers meet behind the glass. Shattered green eyes are crying goodbye and I’m sorry.

“Mr. Ackles is being treated in another exam room. He’ll be fine-Mr. Padalecki? … ”

Jared swallows air as if drowning. His chest hitches and he turns his head into the flat, raspy pillow, sobbing in broken breaths as tears flow raggedly.

“Mr. Padalecki?” the nurse asks again, touching his arm.

He can’t stop. It’s too much. He almost lost … almost … A burst of energy ripples and he rises so quickly the nurse stumbles backward. The IV pole rattles as he swings his legs around. A strong arm is back on him, pushing him back.

“Mr. Padalecki, please. Let me get the doctor … you shouldn’t be up yet.”

“Jensen. Have to see …”

“Your friend will be fine. Please.”

He shakes out of her grip and pulls the pole along “No! I have to see him. Now.”

Another woman enters. She’s wearing a white coat and looks quickly between the nurse and Jared. “Jared. May I call you, Jared? Please. You need to get back in the bed.”

She’s got curly red hair, shoulder length, and a face full of freckles, and her blue eyes are meeting his with sympathy. But she’s not listening. Nobody is listening. He has to see Jensen.

“Please,” he begs. His eyes burn from the tears that won’t quit, he uses the hand not connected to tubes to swipe at them, but all it does is smear snot all over and make it hard to intake air.

Behind the glass, Jensen slips, goes under and Jared shouts at him to get up, because it can’t end like this, because he loves him. He’s begging Jensen to hold on, to fight, to love him back …

Hands are catching him again and guiding him back to the bed. “No! Goddammit … let me see him!”

“Jared. Please. You’re going to hurt yourself and that will only make things worse. Jensen is being treated. He’s in good hands, I promise. Give us a little while and we’ll let you go see him.”

“I was driving.”

“What?”

Jared’s voice is smoke over coals. “I was driving. I … there was a deer and I … “

“Jared, it’s okay. You’re both okay. We’ve alerted your families. They are flying up.”

He meets her eyes and tries not to shudder at her freckles. “One minute? Please. I just have to see him.”

“Ms. Cortese will be here soon, too. Please try to stay still. You were bleeding internally but it’s stopped. You won’t have to be here too long.”

Words are entering his consciousness in a backward manner, bobbing against his mind, like the car in the water.

“Genevieve is coming?”

The enormity of his fucked up life hits at once and he’s crying again, turning his face away from the freckle-faced doctor.

Jensen slips and goes under water and Jared’s world ends.

No! You do not get to leave me. Not when … I love you. I’ve loved you forever. Since day one.

Sounds outside the exam room catch his attention. He doesn’t want to see anyone other than Jensen. His heart pounds because he knows what it means. What his confession means. Because even if Jensen denies it all … Jared can no longer hide from this.

“Jared!”

The voice stops Jared short. He yanks the IV tube from his hand and blasts past the doctor and there’s blood but he doesn’t feel it, doesn’t know it, only knows that …

“Jensen.”

He falls onto his knees in front of the man in the wheelchair entering the room. The orderly pushing him jumps back from the force that is Jared Padalecki hugging the breath out of his best friend.

The nurse tries to approach but Jared hears the muffled voice of the doctor saying to leave them alone and he hears the door gently close.

Jared can’t let go. Can’t stop touching. The window between them was cold and impenetrable and he thought it would be the last thing he’d ever feel.

“I’m okay,” Jensen is murmuring into his ear.

Jared wants to believe this. But he can’t stop holding on … can’t let go.

Jensen rises and takes Jared up with him. “Don’t need this thing. They insisted. Wouldn’t let me come see you without it. Jared, I’m fine. Just the arm’s a little messed up.” Jensen looks down to his left arm, wrapped up in a sling.

Jared lets himself be led to the bed, sits next to Jensen, doesn’t let go.

“I’m sorry,” he utters between hitched breaths.

Jensen looks at him in momentary disbelief, then says firmly, “You have nothing to be sorry for, Jay. Weather was miserable. Deer came outta nowhere. If I was driving, we’d still have been in that ditch.”

Jared buries his face in Jensen’s neck, his arms squeezing harder again. “I couldn’t get you out. And the water wouldn’t stop and I was outside. Jen, I was outside.”

Jensen’s hand rubs his back gently. “It’s okay. They got me out. Took some scary looking contraption. But I’m fine.”

Jared sees Jensen’s eyes behind the muddy window. They glow with fright and sadness and are telling him goodbye.

“I almost … lost you. God, Jen. I love you.”

Jensen squeezes him back. “I know.”

Jared pulls back. He remembers Jensen saying it back. But Jensen thought he was dying. Was it real? Was he just saying it for Jared? Was anything Jensen agreed to the truth?

You hold on and you promise me … promise me when we get out of this you’ll let me kiss you.

“Jen,” Jared begins, eyes searching. “No. I don’t just love you like … “

“I don’t either.”

He doesn’t know who moved first. Only that lips he’s dreamt about for what feels like all his life are pressing into his. Rough and a little chapped and so fucking perfect he has a hysterical moment of believing they are both dead in heaven.

Jared moans and tilts his head and deepens the kiss because there’s absolutely no such thing as too close after almost having been permanently parted. He feels Jensen’s mouth open to him, feels the second the heat ups to passion and that’s it … decision made.

Jared Padalecki’s life is never going to be the same.

His tongue dancing with Jensen’s is not allowing Jared a great deal of rational thought. There’s fire and taste and wetness and sucking … Fuck. Nobody has ever kissed him like this. It’s like sex with just his mouth. He opens more and tries imitating the things Jen’s doing and wow why the hell didn’t they do this before? Jensen should have told him he had some sort of advanced degree in kissing.

Jensen is biting at Jared’s lower lip now, alternating licks and nips before plowing back inside in these firm, stabbing thrusts and suddenly Jared knows … knows exactly what fucking Jensen would be like and even the pain killers in his system can’t tamp his reaction.

They come apart for air and stare at each other shocked.

“Yeah,” Jensen says even though Jared hadn’t asked him anything.

“I love you,” Jared says again because he needs to say it into Jensen’s eyes without cold glass between them.

He sees it reflected back even before Jensen whispers, “I love you, too.”

Jared breathes again.

Jensen moves his head back. “They’re gonna come in any moment.”

Jared looks at him. Jensen is talking about so much more than the hospital staff. There’s Genevieve and Danneel and their parents. Eric and the crew. Their friends. Their entire lives.

He sees the fear in Jensen’s eyes.

“I lied.”

“What?” Apprehension flashes on Jensen’s face.

“In the car … when you were trapped. You said that if it didn’t go … if something happened to you … you made me promise I’d be okay. Do you remember that?”

Jensen nods. “I needed you to be okay.”

“I lied. I wouldn’t have been okay. I don’t … want to live without you. Maybe I would have had to …” his voice breaks and he’s crying again … He sucks in air and forces it through his clogged throat. “But you’re alive. Thank god. And I don’t have to.”

Jensen looks down. Jared tilts his head back up with his fingertip. “Look at me,” he commands. “I know this fucks up everything. But I’m not going to live without you.”

“Jay … “

“Please don’t ask me to.”

He pulls Jensen close and feels the tremors running through his friend. They are about to hurt so many people. And Jared thinks he should care about this. Should be shaking like Jensen is. But he’s not. Suddenly he’s calm and clear and certain.

Jared pulls back, stares into the green eyes that own his heart. His soul.  He relives that horrible moment when he thought his world was going to end as water swallowed up the life that meant more than his own. Eyes begging, Jared raises his hand, palm out, in the same gesture Jensen made against the car window.

An eternity passes as Jared waits.

Jensen slowly brings up his good hand and presses their palms together. Jared tries to read the swirls of emotions in Jensen’s eyes but seeing them so naked is new and it’s a language he needs to learn.

Jensen curves his fingers, weaving them with Jared’s. “Don’t go,” he says softly.

Jared hears the same words as they were spoken through glass. Tears he didn’t think he could possibly still cry stream again. Jensen separates their hands and wipes gently at Jared’s cheek. He mouths, “I love you,” into Jared’s lips before pressing them with his own.

Kissing Jensen is something that Jared knows will always be one of the highlights of his life. He turns into it, seeking more. For a split second he’s mad at himself for denying this for so long, until they both almost died. But negative emotions cannot be sustained when Jensen’s tongue is pulsing against his. It’s like he’s fucking his mouth and possessing it and cherishing it all at once and if this is what he can do with just his tongue … Jared presses closer because fuck they wasted way too much time.

Jensen pulls back with a gasp and a smile. “You are one fantastic kisser,” he says on a deep breath.

Jared laughs, high and slightly crazed.

“What? Did you not like the way I kiss?”

Jared laughs harder.

There’s a knock and Jensen pulls away. Jared looks toward the door with a frown.

The doctor returns. Jared realizes he never even caught her name. “She has freckles like you,” Jared whispers to Jensen as if this should mean something.

“Jared, there’s someone waiting to see you. Jensen, I need to take you back to your own examination room.” The doctor nods toward the discarded wheelchair and indicates that Jensen should get back in it.

“Who is here?” Jared asks although he already knows.

“Ms. Cortese. She’s … very anxious to see you.”

Jared nods, feels Jensen tense next to him. A hand touches his shoulder as Jensen stands. “I’ll let you get back to your life.”

Jared seizes the hand on his shoulder and pulls Jensen back toward him, unconcerned with the doctor’s presence. “No. You are my life,” he says into Jensen’s ear before letting him go.

Jensen stares at him long and hard. The language of those unshielded eyes is still new but it’s becoming more familiar by the minute. “Later,” Jensen says.

And Jared sees a promise.

It’s fucked up and they waited too long and made things about as impossible as you could short of them actually marrying other people. They will hurt good people, and some friends will become enemies, and their careers may be as wrecked as the car in the muck.

And if Jared’s thinking this, Jensen is thinking even worse possibilities.

Jensen touches his arm again and squeezes once before giving him a crooked smile that tells Jared the one thing he suddenly realizes he needed to know. Jensen believes it’s worth it. That Jared is worth it.

Jared smiles back, full and bright. His life will be a mess for a while.

But he will live.

fin

A/N: To help categorize, this story falls as J2 non-AU, but it is most certainly an alternate universe in which these two imaginary actors are in love.

Prequel called Death Trap is here.