[fic] never let me go au
title: never let me go au (or i'm horrible with titles)
pairing: andrew garfield/jesse eisenberg
rating: pg-13
written for this prompt in the tsn_kinkmeme
What they never tell them, about the bracelets, is exactly how they apply them.
A woman with long fingers takes his hand and slides on the bracelet before turning it palm up. She presses her thumb to the middle of his palm, the pale digit sloppily outlining his life line as she says, “This is going to hurt a bit.”
From where he’s propped on the low silver table, the woman towers over him. He looks up to ask, what exactly does she mean, but the question becomes garbled in throat when she locks the bracelet shut. Like a flood of spiders, they come pouring out, slim metal legs with sharp ends for heads. Ends, like sharpened knives that burrow deep beneath his skin. He feels his own hand closing around her thumb and the woman, with her tight bun and her mouth twisted into an indestructible frown, presses down against his palm and tells him, “You have to keep breathing.”
He tries to inhale a sharp breath, but then his other hand jerks to grab at the edge of the table. The table that’s so clean and refined that his dull nails only slip and slid around it. He can feel the wires working their way around his veins, tapping into them, latching onto them, and pooling his mouth with a taste of metal. It’s an almost unbearable pain, Jesse’s skin flushing completely red as his eyes brim at the corners with hot tears. She tells him, “It’s almost finished,” and the bracelet jerks on its own accord.
With a quickness that’s completely silent, she drops his hand and slides to the right. Jesse grabs at his knees, leans over and vomits.
~*~
Andrew waits until Hailsham is nothing but a memory in their planned past, to press their bracelets together.
It happens in the backseat of the van that’s taking them to their temporary home. Despite the darkness that encompasses the entire vehicle, leaking in through the cracked windows and bathing the sleeping forms of almost everyone expect the other couple in the front seat, they can still make out their now pulsating and colored veins. With their foreheads pressed together, they watch, as Andrew bumps his bracelet into Jesse’s and his bracelet causes a jerking sensation beneath his skin, filling his veins with blue until they slowly drain back to green. He jerks his into Andrew’s and his veins cause his skin to run completely white before, like a sketch of a spindly tree, they fill back in with blue.
~*~
The only other time that he feels the bracelet is when they have to check in and out of the house.
The first time they waved them in front of the censor, it was as if someone had stabbed the end of a cigarette against his thin skin. It makes his shoulders jump and sometimes, Andrew has to grip onto the threshold of the door before he begins to move again. Jesse almost convinces Andrew to stop waving his arm, that he can vouch for him about coming back home, that the pain is not worth it, but one of the girl’s who they’re staying with - Emma, who’s been there for four months - shakes her head and says, “You have to,” to Andrew. Then, “He has to,” to Jesse. There’s no explanation, no horrid story to follow her warning, but the hollow look in her eyes tells them that she says is true. So they continue to swipe.
Soon, their bodies come to expect it and their minds stuff the pain away into the folder that also reminds them to breathe. It becomes a thoughtless task; the pain whittling away at their skin and their caution. Soon Andrew can wave his arm without missing a beat in conversation. Slowly, they check in, check out, weaving through the day, holding hands as they step out into the air, consciously waiting to die.
~*~
Andrew violently tugs at his scarf.
“It’s a sick game.”
The fabric keeps catching against the side of his neck, scrubbing at the skin and painting it a harsh pink.
Jesse scoffs.
“We’re just trying to have a little fun.”
He toes off his shoes, slowly and carefully, making sure that when the ghost of his feet are swimming against the soles, they stand perfectly together.
Andrew rolls his eyes.
“Your idea of fun - all of your ideas of fun - is attempting to guess after which donation you’re going to be forced into completion?”
His hand tightens around his scarf. He tugs and tugs and pulls, but the cheap fabric just keeps ruining the skin on his neck. Sliding and burning.
Jesse walks up behind him.
“It sounds stupid when you put it like that.”
His hands work open the knot that’s been tugged into the fabric. Like air, it falls from his neck, from his shoulders, to the floor.
Andrew wipes at his eyes.
“It sounds stupid no matter which way you put it. And it certainly isn’t funny.”
He turns around to face Jesse.
Jesse reaches up to wipe at an escaping tear.
“I don’t like to think about you completing…I don’t think like to think…”
Andrew shakes his head.
Jesse lets his arms fall around his waist.
“I wish there was a way we could stop it, you know? I wish there was a way we could live.”
~*~
The carer who’s assigned to Max, her name is Carey, and she comes to the house each morning to console Kate, who oftentimes locks herself in her bedroom and refuses to come out for even a cup of coffee. It’s the same routine every morning, Jesse and Andrew greet her as they walk out for their wanderings amongst the various isolated places surrounding the home and when they get back, she’s sitting on the couch, nursing a cup of untouched coffee, her eyes glazed over with a heavy, familiar, feeling of sorrow.
Like everyone else in the home, Andrew can’t bear to look at her. “Not yet,” he says. “Not when I have at least one more month until I have to see my own,” but Jesse sometimes sits with her.
Each time they happily sink in each other’s silence, stealing glances that warrant questions that neither of them are brave enough to ask. But before she leaves, Carey places the cup of coffee on the table and says, “I envy you. All of you. At least you know when you’re going to die. With me, it’s sort of like a waiting game. When there’s no certainty, you start to build up an unconscious hope. Almost as if you’re invincible, like death isn’t in the cards for you. But then there’s this sort of conscious knowing that you begin to forget and beat away. You know that one day, you’re going to be walking and you’re going to fall into an eternal ditch of darkness. That you didn’t even see coming, but. Your mind tricks you. Your mind doesn’t want to believe it, at least with all of you, there is no question about expectancy at all.”
~*~
Andrew gets called to donate a week before either of them expects it.
He’s always had this calendar. One that he had packed in the side-table drawer that showcased when he thought he would be called. When his own premeditated death date would near, and there were many of them, he would bury his face into Jesse’s neck and spend the night without sleep, shaking between his arms and wetting his skin and shoulders with tears. Jesse would rub at his back, whisper into the top of his hair that he was being ridiculous, that he wasn’t going to be called. He always kept his own tears at bay until Carey came to the house for him.
Andrew locks himself in the bedroom. He won’t even let Jesse in. His shoulder’s to the wooden door and Carey stands, almost helplessly in the hallway as Jesse looks to her and begs, “Please.” His voice breaks against his own will but he pays it no attention as he continues to speak despite himself. “Please,” he says, once more, “come back later. Come back tomorrow. He’s not going to leave today.”
Carey grips at the bag in her hand. Jesse knows that stuffed inside of it are sedatives to be stabbed into Andrew and he won’t stand by to watch that. He won’t let it happen. She pulls her bottom lip in-between her teeth before she lets out a heavy sigh and says, “I’ll tell them that he’s fallen ill. That should get you, four days, possibly a week, maximum.”
Jesse nods. He doesn’t even know he’s crying until he feels the tears dip into his mouth. “Thank you,” he says, nodding before he quickly turns away. He can’t bear to look at her either, standing there, in the hallway, being bathed in the light by the window like his own, personal, angel of death.
~*~
That night, Jesse locks the bedroom behind him. Andrew closes the windows. Jesse pushes the desk in front of the door. They don’t turn on the light and sleep bathed in complete darkness, wrapped in one another under the covers that are pulled up to their heads.
On a different night Jesse would look over to Andrew and grin and Andrew would lean in to kiss the corner of his mouth before launching into a tale about that one time, in the dorm, when Jesse snuck into Andrew’s bed and they laid there the whole night, wrapped up in one another, without anyone spotting or knowing. But tonight, the air is thick with Andrew’s sniffs and Jesse can’t let up on his hold around him, keeping him close enough that he can feel the blood boiling beneath him.
He can feel his words sliding across the planes of his skin as Andrew says, “I don’t want to complete, Jess…I can’t complete, I can’t…I can’t go through with any of it. Everyone knows…Everyone knows I won’t make it past the first operation, it's why I don't play, it's why...I don’t have the will, Jess. I don’t have the will.”
Jesse presses his mouth to the top of Andrew’s head. His teeth grit as he tries to keep himself from sobbing again. “You have the will. You have me. You can do it for me, Andrew, I know you can.”
Andrew tightens his hold of Jesse’s shirt. He sounds both ashamed and wrecked, broken down to absolutely nothing as he says, “I can’t, Jess. I really, really, can’t.”
~*~
What they never tell them about the bracelets is that it’s not just for checking in.
In the morning, Andrew wakes up to Jesse sitting atop two stuffed suitcases, twirling a ring of car keys on his fingers. They don’t have to exchange words for Andrew to know that he’s got an hour to get out of bed, and to get dressed, before everyone else in the home awakens. With the rumble of the engine and the putter of the wheels against the ground, they both silently hope that their faces will fade with the distance they put between them and, what will hopefully become, their past selves.
Two hours into the trip, they run out gas. They don’t know where they are or where they’re going, just that the sun is high and the road is without a path. There’s no gas station in sight and even if there was, they don’t have any money. Jesse sits in the driver’s seat and lets the car slowly die out as Andrew looks over at him and asks, “What do we do now?”
Jesse pops the lock of his door and opens it. He looks over at Andrew and he says, “We’re going to have to make a run for it.”
So they do. With their bags forgotten in the trunk of the car, Jesse wraps his fingers around Andrew’s and they both make their way, quickly, off the path of the road and into the wide-open field that awaits everything and nothing.
The last thing Jesse remembers is Andrew’s laugh. It mixes with the wind and floods his ears before spreading through his chest, igniting something inside of him that finally feels like freedom and relief. A split second of true happiness before that sparking begins at his wrist and there’s a shock of lightening that splits up his arm and against his bones. That’s the very last thing he remembers before he falls.
authors notes: so i didn't know where to put this because i didn't actually want to spoil the ending but i'm leaving it open to interpretation. you can think that they died or they were possibly just being tracked, causing them both to be knocked out. it's up to you dear readers!
pairing: andrew garfield/jesse eisenberg
rating: pg-13
written for this prompt in the tsn_kinkmeme
What they never tell them, about the bracelets, is exactly how they apply them.
A woman with long fingers takes his hand and slides on the bracelet before turning it palm up. She presses her thumb to the middle of his palm, the pale digit sloppily outlining his life line as she says, “This is going to hurt a bit.”
From where he’s propped on the low silver table, the woman towers over him. He looks up to ask, what exactly does she mean, but the question becomes garbled in throat when she locks the bracelet shut. Like a flood of spiders, they come pouring out, slim metal legs with sharp ends for heads. Ends, like sharpened knives that burrow deep beneath his skin. He feels his own hand closing around her thumb and the woman, with her tight bun and her mouth twisted into an indestructible frown, presses down against his palm and tells him, “You have to keep breathing.”
He tries to inhale a sharp breath, but then his other hand jerks to grab at the edge of the table. The table that’s so clean and refined that his dull nails only slip and slid around it. He can feel the wires working their way around his veins, tapping into them, latching onto them, and pooling his mouth with a taste of metal. It’s an almost unbearable pain, Jesse’s skin flushing completely red as his eyes brim at the corners with hot tears. She tells him, “It’s almost finished,” and the bracelet jerks on its own accord.
With a quickness that’s completely silent, she drops his hand and slides to the right. Jesse grabs at his knees, leans over and vomits.
~*~
Andrew waits until Hailsham is nothing but a memory in their planned past, to press their bracelets together.
It happens in the backseat of the van that’s taking them to their temporary home. Despite the darkness that encompasses the entire vehicle, leaking in through the cracked windows and bathing the sleeping forms of almost everyone expect the other couple in the front seat, they can still make out their now pulsating and colored veins. With their foreheads pressed together, they watch, as Andrew bumps his bracelet into Jesse’s and his bracelet causes a jerking sensation beneath his skin, filling his veins with blue until they slowly drain back to green. He jerks his into Andrew’s and his veins cause his skin to run completely white before, like a sketch of a spindly tree, they fill back in with blue.
~*~
The only other time that he feels the bracelet is when they have to check in and out of the house.
The first time they waved them in front of the censor, it was as if someone had stabbed the end of a cigarette against his thin skin. It makes his shoulders jump and sometimes, Andrew has to grip onto the threshold of the door before he begins to move again. Jesse almost convinces Andrew to stop waving his arm, that he can vouch for him about coming back home, that the pain is not worth it, but one of the girl’s who they’re staying with - Emma, who’s been there for four months - shakes her head and says, “You have to,” to Andrew. Then, “He has to,” to Jesse. There’s no explanation, no horrid story to follow her warning, but the hollow look in her eyes tells them that she says is true. So they continue to swipe.
Soon, their bodies come to expect it and their minds stuff the pain away into the folder that also reminds them to breathe. It becomes a thoughtless task; the pain whittling away at their skin and their caution. Soon Andrew can wave his arm without missing a beat in conversation. Slowly, they check in, check out, weaving through the day, holding hands as they step out into the air, consciously waiting to die.
~*~
Andrew violently tugs at his scarf.
“It’s a sick game.”
The fabric keeps catching against the side of his neck, scrubbing at the skin and painting it a harsh pink.
Jesse scoffs.
“We’re just trying to have a little fun.”
He toes off his shoes, slowly and carefully, making sure that when the ghost of his feet are swimming against the soles, they stand perfectly together.
Andrew rolls his eyes.
“Your idea of fun - all of your ideas of fun - is attempting to guess after which donation you’re going to be forced into completion?”
His hand tightens around his scarf. He tugs and tugs and pulls, but the cheap fabric just keeps ruining the skin on his neck. Sliding and burning.
Jesse walks up behind him.
“It sounds stupid when you put it like that.”
His hands work open the knot that’s been tugged into the fabric. Like air, it falls from his neck, from his shoulders, to the floor.
Andrew wipes at his eyes.
“It sounds stupid no matter which way you put it. And it certainly isn’t funny.”
He turns around to face Jesse.
Jesse reaches up to wipe at an escaping tear.
“I don’t like to think about you completing…I don’t think like to think…”
Andrew shakes his head.
Jesse lets his arms fall around his waist.
“I wish there was a way we could stop it, you know? I wish there was a way we could live.”
~*~
The carer who’s assigned to Max, her name is Carey, and she comes to the house each morning to console Kate, who oftentimes locks herself in her bedroom and refuses to come out for even a cup of coffee. It’s the same routine every morning, Jesse and Andrew greet her as they walk out for their wanderings amongst the various isolated places surrounding the home and when they get back, she’s sitting on the couch, nursing a cup of untouched coffee, her eyes glazed over with a heavy, familiar, feeling of sorrow.
Like everyone else in the home, Andrew can’t bear to look at her. “Not yet,” he says. “Not when I have at least one more month until I have to see my own,” but Jesse sometimes sits with her.
Each time they happily sink in each other’s silence, stealing glances that warrant questions that neither of them are brave enough to ask. But before she leaves, Carey places the cup of coffee on the table and says, “I envy you. All of you. At least you know when you’re going to die. With me, it’s sort of like a waiting game. When there’s no certainty, you start to build up an unconscious hope. Almost as if you’re invincible, like death isn’t in the cards for you. But then there’s this sort of conscious knowing that you begin to forget and beat away. You know that one day, you’re going to be walking and you’re going to fall into an eternal ditch of darkness. That you didn’t even see coming, but. Your mind tricks you. Your mind doesn’t want to believe it, at least with all of you, there is no question about expectancy at all.”
~*~
Andrew gets called to donate a week before either of them expects it.
He’s always had this calendar. One that he had packed in the side-table drawer that showcased when he thought he would be called. When his own premeditated death date would near, and there were many of them, he would bury his face into Jesse’s neck and spend the night without sleep, shaking between his arms and wetting his skin and shoulders with tears. Jesse would rub at his back, whisper into the top of his hair that he was being ridiculous, that he wasn’t going to be called. He always kept his own tears at bay until Carey came to the house for him.
Andrew locks himself in the bedroom. He won’t even let Jesse in. His shoulder’s to the wooden door and Carey stands, almost helplessly in the hallway as Jesse looks to her and begs, “Please.” His voice breaks against his own will but he pays it no attention as he continues to speak despite himself. “Please,” he says, once more, “come back later. Come back tomorrow. He’s not going to leave today.”
Carey grips at the bag in her hand. Jesse knows that stuffed inside of it are sedatives to be stabbed into Andrew and he won’t stand by to watch that. He won’t let it happen. She pulls her bottom lip in-between her teeth before she lets out a heavy sigh and says, “I’ll tell them that he’s fallen ill. That should get you, four days, possibly a week, maximum.”
Jesse nods. He doesn’t even know he’s crying until he feels the tears dip into his mouth. “Thank you,” he says, nodding before he quickly turns away. He can’t bear to look at her either, standing there, in the hallway, being bathed in the light by the window like his own, personal, angel of death.
~*~
That night, Jesse locks the bedroom behind him. Andrew closes the windows. Jesse pushes the desk in front of the door. They don’t turn on the light and sleep bathed in complete darkness, wrapped in one another under the covers that are pulled up to their heads.
On a different night Jesse would look over to Andrew and grin and Andrew would lean in to kiss the corner of his mouth before launching into a tale about that one time, in the dorm, when Jesse snuck into Andrew’s bed and they laid there the whole night, wrapped up in one another, without anyone spotting or knowing. But tonight, the air is thick with Andrew’s sniffs and Jesse can’t let up on his hold around him, keeping him close enough that he can feel the blood boiling beneath him.
He can feel his words sliding across the planes of his skin as Andrew says, “I don’t want to complete, Jess…I can’t complete, I can’t…I can’t go through with any of it. Everyone knows…Everyone knows I won’t make it past the first operation, it's why I don't play, it's why...I don’t have the will, Jess. I don’t have the will.”
Jesse presses his mouth to the top of Andrew’s head. His teeth grit as he tries to keep himself from sobbing again. “You have the will. You have me. You can do it for me, Andrew, I know you can.”
Andrew tightens his hold of Jesse’s shirt. He sounds both ashamed and wrecked, broken down to absolutely nothing as he says, “I can’t, Jess. I really, really, can’t.”
~*~
What they never tell them about the bracelets is that it’s not just for checking in.
In the morning, Andrew wakes up to Jesse sitting atop two stuffed suitcases, twirling a ring of car keys on his fingers. They don’t have to exchange words for Andrew to know that he’s got an hour to get out of bed, and to get dressed, before everyone else in the home awakens. With the rumble of the engine and the putter of the wheels against the ground, they both silently hope that their faces will fade with the distance they put between them and, what will hopefully become, their past selves.
Two hours into the trip, they run out gas. They don’t know where they are or where they’re going, just that the sun is high and the road is without a path. There’s no gas station in sight and even if there was, they don’t have any money. Jesse sits in the driver’s seat and lets the car slowly die out as Andrew looks over at him and asks, “What do we do now?”
Jesse pops the lock of his door and opens it. He looks over at Andrew and he says, “We’re going to have to make a run for it.”
So they do. With their bags forgotten in the trunk of the car, Jesse wraps his fingers around Andrew’s and they both make their way, quickly, off the path of the road and into the wide-open field that awaits everything and nothing.
The last thing Jesse remembers is Andrew’s laugh. It mixes with the wind and floods his ears before spreading through his chest, igniting something inside of him that finally feels like freedom and relief. A split second of true happiness before that sparking begins at his wrist and there’s a shock of lightening that splits up his arm and against his bones. That’s the very last thing he remembers before he falls.
authors notes: so i didn't know where to put this because i didn't actually want to spoil the ending but i'm leaving it open to interpretation. you can think that they died or they were possibly just being tracked, causing them both to be knocked out. it's up to you dear readers!