Bleeding Out (SPN RPF)
Title: Bleeding Out
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2,100
Characters: Jensen, Jared, Kim Manners
Spoilers: season 4 of SPN
Note: First ever blindfold fill, gen and yet people still seemed to like it okay. The prompt was "character bleed - Jensen has a nightmare about hell." Written for blindfold_spn round 4.
"Hey, hey Jensen. Look at me, man."
And Jensen is, is looking at him, so he's not sure what Jared is going on about. Jensen's looking right at him so hard he's not even sure what he's seeing.
"Okay, okay. Good. Let's uh, let's..."
Jared's pinning one of Jensen's wrists to his side and it looks like it should probably hurt a little, from the grip he's got. Jensen's other hand is wrapped in Jared's shirt. Sam's shirt. He's not sure whether he's holding on or pushing away, so he lets go, his fingers uncurling from the fabric.
"You stealing clothes from set again, man?" Jensen says, and his voice comes out shredded.
Jared just blinks at him, and something in his face goes a little blanched. "Not exactly." He looks over Jensen's shoulder and nods to someone and that's when, that's when Jensen starts to think maybe they're not at home.
"Oh," Jensen says. "You gonna let go of me?"
Jared looks like he has to consider his options for a minute, and then he lets Jensen pull his wrist away. Jensen rubs at the pink finger marks Jared left on his skin -- he'd been holding on hard enough to bruise. Jared's sort of braced over him, and when Jensen glances up there's a headboard and Jared's hand planted flat on the wall above that. Faded, distressed wallpaper. He doesn't know where the set designers find that shit, or if they make it themselves, but they've outdone themselves this time. The pattern is a dizzying swirl of puce and magenta under the grime. Maybe they go into condemned buildings and buy up the crappy wallpaper. Or maybe it's some intern's job to paint this stuff and then smear shit on it to make it look filthy. Either way, someone's got a real eye toward the decrepit.
"Jensen," Jared says, and he's starting to sound strangled.
Jensen drags his attention away from the wallpaper and frowns. Jared's wearing his freaked out expression. Or maybe it's Sam's freaked out expression, and maybe Jensen's lost his place in the script. Fuck. "Uh, I got a little distracted," Jensen says, feeling out the words in his mouth. "Can we do another take?"
Jared shakes his head. "No, man, we're taking a break. Alright?"
"Okay," Jensen says. All at once it hits him that maybe he doesn't know what's going on. Confusion laps at his edges, makes everything a little fuzzy. He turns his head away from Jared only to find another face too close to him, too close and he didn't even know anyone else was there. He jerks away, bumping into Jared and Jared's hand grips his shoulder, shakes him a little. Or maybe Jared's hand is shaking. Or maybe it's Jensen that's shaking. He can't tell. He can't tell and this is, this is--
"We're calling it a day," Kim says, even and calm, and oh, yeah, of course. It's Kim, and he's kind of squatting a bit below Jensen's eye level and he isn't smiling but he doesn't seem too upset given that clearly Jensen fucked up the scene, whatever scene they were on when he lost track.
"Sorry," Jensen says, and Kim just gives him a tired smile.
"It's no problem, kid. We'll tackle it again tomorrow, okay?
He nods, because what else is he gonna do? He doesn't, he doesn't remember what scene they were even on right now, and Jared's not giving him any clues, and the set seems really quiet. Too quiet. Jensen takes a look beyond Kim and finds the place deserted. Which means. Which. He doesn't know what that means.
"Hey," Jared says. "We got the afternoon off, what're we doing wasting time here?" There's a false note in his voice and his eyes are a little too wide and there are too many teeth in his smile, but Jensen tries to match it anyway.
Kim stands up, gives them a little room, and when Jensen gets up from the bed everything tilts. Like he's looking out through a kaleidoscope.
He closes his eyes, trying to force everything go back to where it should be, and when he opens them again he's in the SUV.
"Hey," Jared says again, like it's the only word he knows how to say. Jared's in the seat next to him and it feels a little like maybe he's holding Jensen up.
Jensen tries to swallow and it's like he has no spit, bone dry. He feels slow and when he tries to look out the window everything outside is a nauseating blur.
When he can focus his eyes again, he sees the back of Clif's head in the driver's seat, and the shaggy head in the passenger seat is probably Kim. "Why's, uh. Why's Kim coming back with us?" Jensen asks Jared. The words don't come out quite right but Jared seems to follow well enough.
"Just getting a ride."
They're all treating him like he's sick, like maybe he passed out on set. Maybe he did, he can't really remember. His head feels weird and his vision's all wrong, everything he looks at kind of flat and too far away.
"Think I'm coming down with something," he says finally.
"Yeah," Jared says. "Maybe. Just take it easy."
By the time they get to the house Jensen's so utterly exhausted he can't keep his eyes open, can't keep himself upright. Like he's been doing shots all night only it's still daytime and he was just at work, so he probably wasn't drinking.
"It was the nightmare, right? We were filming the nightmare," he suddenly remembers, as Jared and Kim manhandle him down the hall towards his bedroom. "Dean was dreaming about hell."
"Don't worry about it," Kim says. "Just get some sleep, okay?"
They dump him on his bed and someone pulls off his -- Dean's -- boots, and he's still in makeup and it's itchy but he's too wiped to do anything about it. They close the door when they leave and he drifts off to the low rumble of voices from the living room.
The next morning it all feels unreal, but he's still wearing Dean's clothes and there's makeup on his pillowcase and ugh. Yeah. When he stumbles out into the kitchen it's barely dawn but Jared's already up, perched on a barstool drinking coffee with the brittle air of someone who's been too wired to sleep.
"So, um." Brilliant start to the day. Jensen gives Jared a sheepish shrug and grabs himself a mug of coffee.
"You wanna tell me what happened yesterday?" Jared asks.
Jensen shrugs again and wraps his hands around the hot ceramic of the mug. "Nothing. I just lost track of where we were in the scene."
Jared stares at him, and there's something like bewildered anger running under his expression. "Lost track... dude, you didn't know where you were. I don't even know if you knew *who* you were, for awhile there."
"I don't..." Jensen shakes his head. "Isn't that a little dramatic?"
Jared slams his mug down onto the marble of the kitchen island and that's when Jensen realizes he's not pissed at Jensen for fucking up the scene, he's freaking the fuck out.
"Kim was this close to calling the fucking paramedics, Jensen. You've got to. This has got to stop."
Now it's Jensen's turn to be bewildered, because he really has no fucking idea what Jared's even talking about. "What's got to stop. The paramedics? Jesus, Jared, I--"
"You don't even know what I'm talking about." Jared lets out a sharp laugh. "Of course you don't. Dean dreaming of hell? Dean was supposed to flip out, man. And you were like. Nailing that scene, everyone was just--" He broke off, like he had to look away, like he couldn't look at Jensen right then.
"Yeah, okay," Jensen said. He vaguely remembered how the scene was supposed to go. Dean sleeping on top of the covers again, Sam out with Ruby. Sam walking back into the motel room to find his brother in the middle of a screaming mimi of a nightmare, a full-on technicolor flashback to hell. Jensen had been trying to visualize it for the last few days, trying to figure out what that would feel like. Hell. It wouldn't be fire and brimstone, not the kind of Sunday-school crap he'd been fed as a kid. Hell for a guy like Dean Winchester? It would be--
"And then you didn't stop. You weren't screaming, you were just. Gone, man. Kim said he thought maybe you were having a panic attack, but my cousin gets those and she always knows, she knows where she is the whole time. You thought -- you thought you were there. I could see it in your eyes, you fucking thought you were in hell."
Jensen shakes his head. He doesn't. He doesn't remember any of that. It's too much of a cliche to be real. Right?
"Don't fucking tell me nothing happened," Jared growls. "I've never been that fucking scared in my life. Don't you dare try to--"
"Okay, I. Okay. I'm sorry, I just, I don't know what happened," Jensen says, holding up a hand. Jared deflates a little, shoulders curling inward, staring down at his coffee. He's a little grey and Jensen realizes with a jolt that he'd been out here all night, waiting for Jensen to lose his mind again.
"Kim wants to talk to you, man. They're cutting the scene."
Jensen flushes hard, feels his knuckles twinge where he's gripping the mug. Whatever had happened, it had been fucking unprofessional of him to lose it like that. In front of the whole crew.
"How long?"
Jared rubs his eyes. "How long what?"
"How long was I... you know. Out of it."
"I dunno man, we didn't catch on at first. Thought you were just really into the scene. But after we realized -- it was hard to -- I guess about fifteen or twenty minutes. Long enough for Kim to clear the set."
"Shit," Jensen sank onto a barstool, planted his elbows on the counter.
Across the counter, Jared shoots him a weary half smile. "Yeah. Look, I know, I know you haven't wanted to talk about this, but. You're just -- you're too close to him, man. You gotta get some distance."
Jensen wants to say he doesn't know *how,* that this is just how it is with Dean, but he swallows it down and nods. "Yeah. Okay."
"It's just. It's just that it's been getting worse. It's taking you longer to shake him off after scenes and now--"
"I got it, Jared." Jensen doesn't mean to snap, but he feels too tight with a helpless kind of fury at himself, at Dean. At how easy it is to slip into Dean's thoughts, into Dean's mannerisms, and how sometimes he looks in the mirror and doesn't remember who he's supposed to be.
"Do you?" Jared's mouth is a thin straight line. "I mean. Don't get me wrong, at first it was -- it was incredible. Acting against you? You make it so easy to believe what's going on is, you know. Real. But sometimes... for awhile now, we'll be in a scene and I'll only see him looking out at me, you know? And that's fucking scary."
“I know,” Jensen says, even though he really doesn’t. “I’ll. I’ll talk to Kim. See if he, you know, has any advice.”
Jared looks like he wants to take it further, like he wants to say something else, but he just sighs and nods. “Alright. Yeah. Just, you know, don’t do that again.”
“I won’t,” Jensen says, but he has no idea if it’s a lie or a hope or the truth.
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2,100
Characters: Jensen, Jared, Kim Manners
Spoilers: season 4 of SPN
Note: First ever blindfold fill, gen and yet people still seemed to like it okay. The prompt was "character bleed - Jensen has a nightmare about hell." Written for blindfold_spn round 4.
"Hey, hey Jensen. Look at me, man."
And Jensen is, is looking at him, so he's not sure what Jared is going on about. Jensen's looking right at him so hard he's not even sure what he's seeing.
"Okay, okay. Good. Let's uh, let's..."
Jared's pinning one of Jensen's wrists to his side and it looks like it should probably hurt a little, from the grip he's got. Jensen's other hand is wrapped in Jared's shirt. Sam's shirt. He's not sure whether he's holding on or pushing away, so he lets go, his fingers uncurling from the fabric.
"You stealing clothes from set again, man?" Jensen says, and his voice comes out shredded.
Jared just blinks at him, and something in his face goes a little blanched. "Not exactly." He looks over Jensen's shoulder and nods to someone and that's when, that's when Jensen starts to think maybe they're not at home.
"Oh," Jensen says. "You gonna let go of me?"
Jared looks like he has to consider his options for a minute, and then he lets Jensen pull his wrist away. Jensen rubs at the pink finger marks Jared left on his skin -- he'd been holding on hard enough to bruise. Jared's sort of braced over him, and when Jensen glances up there's a headboard and Jared's hand planted flat on the wall above that. Faded, distressed wallpaper. He doesn't know where the set designers find that shit, or if they make it themselves, but they've outdone themselves this time. The pattern is a dizzying swirl of puce and magenta under the grime. Maybe they go into condemned buildings and buy up the crappy wallpaper. Or maybe it's some intern's job to paint this stuff and then smear shit on it to make it look filthy. Either way, someone's got a real eye toward the decrepit.
"Jensen," Jared says, and he's starting to sound strangled.
Jensen drags his attention away from the wallpaper and frowns. Jared's wearing his freaked out expression. Or maybe it's Sam's freaked out expression, and maybe Jensen's lost his place in the script. Fuck. "Uh, I got a little distracted," Jensen says, feeling out the words in his mouth. "Can we do another take?"
Jared shakes his head. "No, man, we're taking a break. Alright?"
"Okay," Jensen says. All at once it hits him that maybe he doesn't know what's going on. Confusion laps at his edges, makes everything a little fuzzy. He turns his head away from Jared only to find another face too close to him, too close and he didn't even know anyone else was there. He jerks away, bumping into Jared and Jared's hand grips his shoulder, shakes him a little. Or maybe Jared's hand is shaking. Or maybe it's Jensen that's shaking. He can't tell. He can't tell and this is, this is--
"We're calling it a day," Kim says, even and calm, and oh, yeah, of course. It's Kim, and he's kind of squatting a bit below Jensen's eye level and he isn't smiling but he doesn't seem too upset given that clearly Jensen fucked up the scene, whatever scene they were on when he lost track.
"Sorry," Jensen says, and Kim just gives him a tired smile.
"It's no problem, kid. We'll tackle it again tomorrow, okay?
He nods, because what else is he gonna do? He doesn't, he doesn't remember what scene they were even on right now, and Jared's not giving him any clues, and the set seems really quiet. Too quiet. Jensen takes a look beyond Kim and finds the place deserted. Which means. Which. He doesn't know what that means.
"Hey," Jared says. "We got the afternoon off, what're we doing wasting time here?" There's a false note in his voice and his eyes are a little too wide and there are too many teeth in his smile, but Jensen tries to match it anyway.
Kim stands up, gives them a little room, and when Jensen gets up from the bed everything tilts. Like he's looking out through a kaleidoscope.
He closes his eyes, trying to force everything go back to where it should be, and when he opens them again he's in the SUV.
"Hey," Jared says again, like it's the only word he knows how to say. Jared's in the seat next to him and it feels a little like maybe he's holding Jensen up.
Jensen tries to swallow and it's like he has no spit, bone dry. He feels slow and when he tries to look out the window everything outside is a nauseating blur.
When he can focus his eyes again, he sees the back of Clif's head in the driver's seat, and the shaggy head in the passenger seat is probably Kim. "Why's, uh. Why's Kim coming back with us?" Jensen asks Jared. The words don't come out quite right but Jared seems to follow well enough.
"Just getting a ride."
They're all treating him like he's sick, like maybe he passed out on set. Maybe he did, he can't really remember. His head feels weird and his vision's all wrong, everything he looks at kind of flat and too far away.
"Think I'm coming down with something," he says finally.
"Yeah," Jared says. "Maybe. Just take it easy."
By the time they get to the house Jensen's so utterly exhausted he can't keep his eyes open, can't keep himself upright. Like he's been doing shots all night only it's still daytime and he was just at work, so he probably wasn't drinking.
"It was the nightmare, right? We were filming the nightmare," he suddenly remembers, as Jared and Kim manhandle him down the hall towards his bedroom. "Dean was dreaming about hell."
"Don't worry about it," Kim says. "Just get some sleep, okay?"
They dump him on his bed and someone pulls off his -- Dean's -- boots, and he's still in makeup and it's itchy but he's too wiped to do anything about it. They close the door when they leave and he drifts off to the low rumble of voices from the living room.
The next morning it all feels unreal, but he's still wearing Dean's clothes and there's makeup on his pillowcase and ugh. Yeah. When he stumbles out into the kitchen it's barely dawn but Jared's already up, perched on a barstool drinking coffee with the brittle air of someone who's been too wired to sleep.
"So, um." Brilliant start to the day. Jensen gives Jared a sheepish shrug and grabs himself a mug of coffee.
"You wanna tell me what happened yesterday?" Jared asks.
Jensen shrugs again and wraps his hands around the hot ceramic of the mug. "Nothing. I just lost track of where we were in the scene."
Jared stares at him, and there's something like bewildered anger running under his expression. "Lost track... dude, you didn't know where you were. I don't even know if you knew *who* you were, for awhile there."
"I don't..." Jensen shakes his head. "Isn't that a little dramatic?"
Jared slams his mug down onto the marble of the kitchen island and that's when Jensen realizes he's not pissed at Jensen for fucking up the scene, he's freaking the fuck out.
"Kim was this close to calling the fucking paramedics, Jensen. You've got to. This has got to stop."
Now it's Jensen's turn to be bewildered, because he really has no fucking idea what Jared's even talking about. "What's got to stop. The paramedics? Jesus, Jared, I--"
"You don't even know what I'm talking about." Jared lets out a sharp laugh. "Of course you don't. Dean dreaming of hell? Dean was supposed to flip out, man. And you were like. Nailing that scene, everyone was just--" He broke off, like he had to look away, like he couldn't look at Jensen right then.
"Yeah, okay," Jensen said. He vaguely remembered how the scene was supposed to go. Dean sleeping on top of the covers again, Sam out with Ruby. Sam walking back into the motel room to find his brother in the middle of a screaming mimi of a nightmare, a full-on technicolor flashback to hell. Jensen had been trying to visualize it for the last few days, trying to figure out what that would feel like. Hell. It wouldn't be fire and brimstone, not the kind of Sunday-school crap he'd been fed as a kid. Hell for a guy like Dean Winchester? It would be--
"And then you didn't stop. You weren't screaming, you were just. Gone, man. Kim said he thought maybe you were having a panic attack, but my cousin gets those and she always knows, she knows where she is the whole time. You thought -- you thought you were there. I could see it in your eyes, you fucking thought you were in hell."
Jensen shakes his head. He doesn't. He doesn't remember any of that. It's too much of a cliche to be real. Right?
"Don't fucking tell me nothing happened," Jared growls. "I've never been that fucking scared in my life. Don't you dare try to--"
"Okay, I. Okay. I'm sorry, I just, I don't know what happened," Jensen says, holding up a hand. Jared deflates a little, shoulders curling inward, staring down at his coffee. He's a little grey and Jensen realizes with a jolt that he'd been out here all night, waiting for Jensen to lose his mind again.
"Kim wants to talk to you, man. They're cutting the scene."
Jensen flushes hard, feels his knuckles twinge where he's gripping the mug. Whatever had happened, it had been fucking unprofessional of him to lose it like that. In front of the whole crew.
"How long?"
Jared rubs his eyes. "How long what?"
"How long was I... you know. Out of it."
"I dunno man, we didn't catch on at first. Thought you were just really into the scene. But after we realized -- it was hard to -- I guess about fifteen or twenty minutes. Long enough for Kim to clear the set."
"Shit," Jensen sank onto a barstool, planted his elbows on the counter.
Across the counter, Jared shoots him a weary half smile. "Yeah. Look, I know, I know you haven't wanted to talk about this, but. You're just -- you're too close to him, man. You gotta get some distance."
Jensen wants to say he doesn't know *how,* that this is just how it is with Dean, but he swallows it down and nods. "Yeah. Okay."
"It's just. It's just that it's been getting worse. It's taking you longer to shake him off after scenes and now--"
"I got it, Jared." Jensen doesn't mean to snap, but he feels too tight with a helpless kind of fury at himself, at Dean. At how easy it is to slip into Dean's thoughts, into Dean's mannerisms, and how sometimes he looks in the mirror and doesn't remember who he's supposed to be.
"Do you?" Jared's mouth is a thin straight line. "I mean. Don't get me wrong, at first it was -- it was incredible. Acting against you? You make it so easy to believe what's going on is, you know. Real. But sometimes... for awhile now, we'll be in a scene and I'll only see him looking out at me, you know? And that's fucking scary."
“I know,” Jensen says, even though he really doesn’t. “I’ll. I’ll talk to Kim. See if he, you know, has any advice.”
Jared looks like he wants to take it further, like he wants to say something else, but he just sighs and nods. “Alright. Yeah. Just, you know, don’t do that again.”
“I won’t,” Jensen says, but he has no idea if it’s a lie or a hope or the truth.