Death Becomes Me 1/6 SPN RPS J2 fic
Title: Death Becomes Me Chapter 1 of 6
Rating: R
Pairing: Jared/Jensen pre-slash
Word count: 2483 (this part)
Summary: Ever wonder what it would be like to wake up dead? Jensen doesn’t have to wonder. He is finding his own death very inconvenient.
Warnings: This is a death fic, but with a twist. Not sure if you can read it? Drop me an e-mail.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them. I just borrow them for torturing purposes.
Notes: I started this over a year ago. So happy to finally get to share it!
Chapter 1
Jensen first became aware of the noise. A loud and annoying jumble of sounds. Voices, he realized. He opened his eyes. Frowned. White. Everything was white. The sort of white you get when you close your eyes and stare up at the sun. He tried to take a step back, to escape the noise, the wail of voices, and that was when he realized he was standing. He woke up standing. “What the fuck?”
“You’ll get used to it,” a young female voice to his right said, voice sounding sad.
Jensen turned, but only met more white. It was unsettling. Even more unsettling when he looked down at his feet. Or where his feet should have been. White. Pure bleached white. He tried to remember what he had eaten before he went to bed, planning to swear it off if this was the result. He covered his ears, but the crying voices never subsided. He pressed harder, desperate to block them out as their goal seemed to be to drive him insane.
A laugh next to him, crystal clear even though he was trying to stuff his palms in his ears.
“What the hell’s so funny? And where am I?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“You died.”
***
And then Jensen woke up. Or at least he was supposed to wake up. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled. He really didn’t. Maybe all he needed to do was humor his subconscious for a little longer. The noise seemed to crescendo and he cringed. “Does death come with a mute button?”
Soft laughter.
“Where are you?”
“Where are you?” the voice repeated back at him.
“Come on, this isn’t funny.” It was, in fact, terrifying.
He thought he caught a flash of color and turned.
“What’s your name?” he asked, focusing on the dull yellow light no bigger than a golf ball. It was strange, but strange things happen all the time in dreams, right? Right?
“Abby.”
The color brightened slightly when she ‘spoke’ her name. Can you speak without a mouth?
“Yours is green, by the way,” she continued.
“I’m dead.” Jensen tried the words on for size. They left an odd feeling in him. He suddenly wanted to cry, to join the wailing voices that seemed locked in his head, but also felt calmer than he had in his...life... “What now?”
“What do you want?”
To not be dead. He hadn’t spoken the words aloud, but Abby giggled, her yellow rippling with tinges of orange.
“Okay, how ‘bout an explanation, then?” Spoken out loud, or to himself. Was there really a difference any more? “This doesn’t look like Heaven, and I’m positive that it isn’t warm enough to be Hell.” In fact, it wasn’t really much of anything. He wasn’t warm or cold or tired or angry or sad. He wanted to scream and cry and punch something, but that’s all they were: wants without the emotion behind them. He felt suffocated in a blanket of calm, not able to panic and thrash free of this odd prison.
Finally the light, Abby, seemed to take pity on him. She moved closer, then closer still, until the glow of her yellow seemed to wash over him. The white around him exploded into a shock of vivid colors, filling his senses and blocking the noise from his ears. Then he realized the colors for what they were--grass, trees. A yard. A swing set. After all the endless white, everything seemed brighter, like the contrast had been turned way up. Surreal and unreal and overwhelming. Then he saw it, a young girl, barely in her teens, sprawled out on the grass, a book in front of her, opened, pages flopping in the breeze, held open by a pair of fingers. “That was me.”
Jensen was surprised. It hadn’t yet occurred to him that Abby’s voice had once been a person. The scene played on.
“Abby!”
The girl lifted her head, then quickly stood, brushing the grass from her pink dress.
“Abby!”
“Coming, Mother!”
He noticed the vehicles in behind her as she picked up her book. The cars were all at least 50 years old. “When was this?” he whispered, afraid that the images could be startled away from him, leaving him surrounded by sterile white again.
“1968. I was fifteen,” she stated, matter-of-factly.
Jensen stared at the closed front door of Abby’s home.
“I’m still fifteen.”
“What....happened?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“I got sick. Real sick. I remember a lot of doctors, but in the end, there was nothing they could do.”
“You’ve been here for fifty years?”
“I guess. Time holds no meaning here.”
Jensen wondered how he had died. But then the images started to fade, and the noise returned with a vengeance, scattering his thoughts. “Damn it,” he swore. “Can’t you hear that?”
“You must have a lot of people who miss you.”
“Is that what that racket is?” He was only slightly relieved to know the source. Then he realized the wistfulness in her voice. “Don’t you?”
“It’s been fifty years. People forget. People die.”
“What’s the point in all of this?” He made a sweeping gesture with his green glow, too agitated to notice how cool it looked.
“What is the point of living?” Abby countered.
Jensen had no answer. “So,” he finally said, “what do you do around here?” He expected some stupid answer like ‘Do? Doing things have no meaning here.’
“We watch people.” Her color brightened at this topic.
“What? Like guardian angels and shit?”
“Not exactly. We can’t interfere.”
“Guardian angels sans guarding. Check. How do I do that?”
“We can only watch people who are thinking about us.”
“Then you...”
“I can relive my memories. Or,” suddenly her voice seemed shy, “I can watch through you.”
“And here I thought you were just being nice to me without an ulterior motive.”
“I’m sorry.” Her color started to fade and drift away from him.
“Wait, I’m not mad at you,” he called after her retreating yellow. “Don’t leave. You can look all you want. You just have to show me how.”
Her color brightened like the sun and Jensen’s brightened as well.
This must be what happiness feels like.
***
Jensen groaned, frustrated.
“Try again.”
He closed his mind to the whiteness, opened his ears to the noise. He could feel Abby, a warm presence in his head.
“So many voices.”
“Yeah. I’m an actor.” His concentration faltered when he realized he had spoken in the present tense.
“Ah,” she said, like his profession explained a lot. “Now focus.”
It was like trying to pick up a radio station that never seemed to come in quite clear, the other voices providing steady interference. Jensen struggled to find the one voice, to lock on the sound, even though it hurt him to hear the familiar voice in so much pain. Pain that he caused. By dying. Somehow.
Just as he was about ready to ask Abby if she knew what had happened to him, he felt the voice lock into place and, one by one, the other voices started to fall away. Jensen tried to picture a place, like Abby had shown him how to close to the destination of the voice he sought. In time, he could improve his accuracy.
Cold air on his face and he opened his eyes with a start. Nighttime. The shock of black instead of endless white startled him. Trees. Houses. Stars overhead. Grass under his feet. Feet! He took a moment to wiggle his toes in the grass, then he spun around and there was Abby, just as she had looked in her flashback.
And he had a body, too! Clothed except for his feet, in blue jeans and a plain white shirt. Jensen was staring at his hands when Abby nudged him, but when he turned to look at her, she stood half a dozen feet away. “Jensen,” she said softly, prodding with her voice this time.
“Right. This way.” His voice shook and his whole body seemed to quiver with excitement, fear, and a touch of insanity. They headed toward a house, the only one in sight, and walked up the three stairs leading to the porch. Jensen stopped at the door. “Can I---how do I?” He motioned at the door, hand poised as if to knock.
“Just walk.” She gave him a little push.
Jensen suddenly found himself in the middle of the door. Looking to his right he could see inside, his left he could see Abby, still on the porch, smirking at him. He pulled the rest of the way inside, blinking with surprise. He touched his nose, still able to feel the cold stripe of the inside of the door pressed down his face. “Dude,” he breathed.
Abby was looking all over at her surroundings, pivoting on her feet. “Wow,” she said, voice just as mystified as Jensen’s had been. “Did you live here?”
“I share...shared...it with a coworker.”
“What’s his name?”
Jensen was taken a little aback by her guess that he shared it with another guy, feeling a slight dig to his masculinity, but then he remembered the era she was born. Sharing with a girl would have been more of a taboo back then. Funny how things change. “Jared,” he answered.
Jensen took a few steps, his feet silent on the hardwood flooring. The soft glow of a nightlight could be seen coming from the kitchen. Jensen had demanded they have one since he could always hear Jared’s nightly routine of fumbling around in the kitchen. Jensen turned to go into his bedroom, hand automatically reaching for the switch but finding nothing there as his hand passed over the switch and into the wall. “Damn,” he swore, shaking away the cold feeling from his fingers. But then he looked around and his eyes rapidly adjusted to the lack of light. “Better than night vision goggles.”
“You’re stalling.” Abby didn’t look at him as she spoke, instead studying the photos on Jensen’s dresser. “Is Jared in one of these?”
“Look for the big goofy grin.” Jensen came up behind her, looking over her shoulder.
“He’s cute.” She leaned forward to stare more intently at the picture.
Jensen had to bite his lip to keep from agreeing. He had loved Jared for a long time. But now...now he would never get to tell him. Never get to kiss him for the first time, feel the large hands on his skin, mouth everywhere...at least he still had his fantasies. He focused on the picture, trying to distract his mind from the hot and heavy scene running through it, unsure if he could find a way to relieve the pressure in his balls later or not.
The photo had been taken at the end of season 3 during the wrap party. Both were slightly wasted but trying their best not to look it, leaning on each other to keep from falling over.
Jensen turned away from the photos. He knew all of them by heart. Would he actually get to see Jared tonight? One need replaced another. His hands felt clammy and he shoved them into his pockets. It felt weird to be nervous.
As if sensing his thoughts, Abby said, “You are more in tune with your former emotions when you are as your former self.”
“Great. I’m friends with a fortune cookie.” He smiled to show Abby he was joking, then took a deep breath. “He’s upstairs.”
The stairs made no sound. Not even the one that normally creaked loud enough to wake the....Not going there, Jensen thought.
The door into Jared’s bedroom stood slightly ajar, and Jensen was relieved to not have to go through it. The cold feeling of passing through something creeped him out. Moonlight shone through the window, bathing everything in a soft light. There, in a tangle of sheets and blankets in the center of the bed, lay Jared. Next to him sprawled Harley, one of his two large dogs, muzzle resting on his paws, facing Jared’s covered feet. Sadie, Jared’s other dog, was barely visible on the floor on the bed’s other side.
Jensen was about to take a step closer, when Harley raised his head and his ears and looked straight at him. He gave a whining ‘woof’, which got Sadie’s attention. She barked as she scrambled to her feet to see what the fuss was about.
“Can they see me?” Jensen backed up.
The body on the bed stirred as Harley stood and continued whining. “What the hell has gotten into you two?” Jared sat up, pushing for Harley to get off the bed. Then he looked to see what Harley was barking at.
“Oh my God,” Jensen breathed as Jared met his eyes from across the room.
“Jen?”
The white that swallowed him up blinded him and stole his breath away. “Shit! Oh my God!” He frantically looked around until he saw the yellow glow of Abby. “I need to go back. He saw me!”
“But that’s impossible.” Abby’s voice sounded shocked.
Jensen tried to calm down and focus himself inward, trying to latch onto the single screaming voice of Jared. He could hear it calling his name, but then something grabbed onto him, pulling him away. “Let me go back!” Jensen tried to pull free of Abby as her glow surrounded him.
“I don’t think that would be wise--”
“Let go!”
“You’ll burn yourself out!”
Jensen stopped struggling. “What?”
“It’s hard to explain...”
“So explain.”
“We get our energy from the sun, that is why we waited for nightfall, so my energy was fully charged to help you.”
“You mean I’m like a rechargeable battery?” Jensen groaned.
“What’s a rechargeable battery?”
Jensen was taken aback. “It-it’s a battery that you plug into electricity for a few hours, then you can use it again.”
“Something like that,” Abby said after a pause. “Burning out is bad.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound good.” He tried to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
“It isn’t. You can’t recharge in the other place, and if you burn out while over there...it is like dying all over again. You have connections into this place now. We all feel it when it happens.” Her yellow trembled in a shiver.
“So, what? I can only be over there for a few minutes?”
“You’ll get stronger.”
***
Being dead sucked.
“How am I gonna know when it’s night again?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“Well, how do you know?”
Abby brightened. “I just do.”
Jensen grumbled.
“Come, I want to introduce you to some friends.”
As she turned, Jensen thought he caught a shimmer of golden hair, a few shades darker than her yellow sphere.
“Wait, I think I can see you.”
Abby turned and Jensen could definitely see her smile. “See? You’re getting stronger already.”
Chapter 2
Rating: R
Pairing: Jared/Jensen pre-slash
Word count: 2483 (this part)
Summary: Ever wonder what it would be like to wake up dead? Jensen doesn’t have to wonder. He is finding his own death very inconvenient.
Warnings: This is a death fic, but with a twist. Not sure if you can read it? Drop me an e-mail.
Disclaimer: Don’t own them. I just borrow them for torturing purposes.
Notes: I started this over a year ago. So happy to finally get to share it!
Chapter 1
Jensen first became aware of the noise. A loud and annoying jumble of sounds. Voices, he realized. He opened his eyes. Frowned. White. Everything was white. The sort of white you get when you close your eyes and stare up at the sun. He tried to take a step back, to escape the noise, the wail of voices, and that was when he realized he was standing. He woke up standing. “What the fuck?”
“You’ll get used to it,” a young female voice to his right said, voice sounding sad.
Jensen turned, but only met more white. It was unsettling. Even more unsettling when he looked down at his feet. Or where his feet should have been. White. Pure bleached white. He tried to remember what he had eaten before he went to bed, planning to swear it off if this was the result. He covered his ears, but the crying voices never subsided. He pressed harder, desperate to block them out as their goal seemed to be to drive him insane.
A laugh next to him, crystal clear even though he was trying to stuff his palms in his ears.
“What the hell’s so funny? And where am I?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“You died.”
***
And then Jensen woke up. Or at least he was supposed to wake up. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled. He really didn’t. Maybe all he needed to do was humor his subconscious for a little longer. The noise seemed to crescendo and he cringed. “Does death come with a mute button?”
Soft laughter.
“Where are you?”
“Where are you?” the voice repeated back at him.
“Come on, this isn’t funny.” It was, in fact, terrifying.
He thought he caught a flash of color and turned.
“What’s your name?” he asked, focusing on the dull yellow light no bigger than a golf ball. It was strange, but strange things happen all the time in dreams, right? Right?
“Abby.”
The color brightened slightly when she ‘spoke’ her name. Can you speak without a mouth?
“Yours is green, by the way,” she continued.
“I’m dead.” Jensen tried the words on for size. They left an odd feeling in him. He suddenly wanted to cry, to join the wailing voices that seemed locked in his head, but also felt calmer than he had in his...life... “What now?”
“What do you want?”
To not be dead. He hadn’t spoken the words aloud, but Abby giggled, her yellow rippling with tinges of orange.
“Okay, how ‘bout an explanation, then?” Spoken out loud, or to himself. Was there really a difference any more? “This doesn’t look like Heaven, and I’m positive that it isn’t warm enough to be Hell.” In fact, it wasn’t really much of anything. He wasn’t warm or cold or tired or angry or sad. He wanted to scream and cry and punch something, but that’s all they were: wants without the emotion behind them. He felt suffocated in a blanket of calm, not able to panic and thrash free of this odd prison.
Finally the light, Abby, seemed to take pity on him. She moved closer, then closer still, until the glow of her yellow seemed to wash over him. The white around him exploded into a shock of vivid colors, filling his senses and blocking the noise from his ears. Then he realized the colors for what they were--grass, trees. A yard. A swing set. After all the endless white, everything seemed brighter, like the contrast had been turned way up. Surreal and unreal and overwhelming. Then he saw it, a young girl, barely in her teens, sprawled out on the grass, a book in front of her, opened, pages flopping in the breeze, held open by a pair of fingers. “That was me.”
Jensen was surprised. It hadn’t yet occurred to him that Abby’s voice had once been a person. The scene played on.
“Abby!”
The girl lifted her head, then quickly stood, brushing the grass from her pink dress.
“Abby!”
“Coming, Mother!”
He noticed the vehicles in behind her as she picked up her book. The cars were all at least 50 years old. “When was this?” he whispered, afraid that the images could be startled away from him, leaving him surrounded by sterile white again.
“1968. I was fifteen,” she stated, matter-of-factly.
Jensen stared at the closed front door of Abby’s home.
“I’m still fifteen.”
“What....happened?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“I got sick. Real sick. I remember a lot of doctors, but in the end, there was nothing they could do.”
“You’ve been here for fifty years?”
“I guess. Time holds no meaning here.”
Jensen wondered how he had died. But then the images started to fade, and the noise returned with a vengeance, scattering his thoughts. “Damn it,” he swore. “Can’t you hear that?”
“You must have a lot of people who miss you.”
“Is that what that racket is?” He was only slightly relieved to know the source. Then he realized the wistfulness in her voice. “Don’t you?”
“It’s been fifty years. People forget. People die.”
“What’s the point in all of this?” He made a sweeping gesture with his green glow, too agitated to notice how cool it looked.
“What is the point of living?” Abby countered.
Jensen had no answer. “So,” he finally said, “what do you do around here?” He expected some stupid answer like ‘Do? Doing things have no meaning here.’
“We watch people.” Her color brightened at this topic.
“What? Like guardian angels and shit?”
“Not exactly. We can’t interfere.”
“Guardian angels sans guarding. Check. How do I do that?”
“We can only watch people who are thinking about us.”
“Then you...”
“I can relive my memories. Or,” suddenly her voice seemed shy, “I can watch through you.”
“And here I thought you were just being nice to me without an ulterior motive.”
“I’m sorry.” Her color started to fade and drift away from him.
“Wait, I’m not mad at you,” he called after her retreating yellow. “Don’t leave. You can look all you want. You just have to show me how.”
Her color brightened like the sun and Jensen’s brightened as well.
This must be what happiness feels like.
***
Jensen groaned, frustrated.
“Try again.”
He closed his mind to the whiteness, opened his ears to the noise. He could feel Abby, a warm presence in his head.
“So many voices.”
“Yeah. I’m an actor.” His concentration faltered when he realized he had spoken in the present tense.
“Ah,” she said, like his profession explained a lot. “Now focus.”
It was like trying to pick up a radio station that never seemed to come in quite clear, the other voices providing steady interference. Jensen struggled to find the one voice, to lock on the sound, even though it hurt him to hear the familiar voice in so much pain. Pain that he caused. By dying. Somehow.
Just as he was about ready to ask Abby if she knew what had happened to him, he felt the voice lock into place and, one by one, the other voices started to fall away. Jensen tried to picture a place, like Abby had shown him how to close to the destination of the voice he sought. In time, he could improve his accuracy.
Cold air on his face and he opened his eyes with a start. Nighttime. The shock of black instead of endless white startled him. Trees. Houses. Stars overhead. Grass under his feet. Feet! He took a moment to wiggle his toes in the grass, then he spun around and there was Abby, just as she had looked in her flashback.
And he had a body, too! Clothed except for his feet, in blue jeans and a plain white shirt. Jensen was staring at his hands when Abby nudged him, but when he turned to look at her, she stood half a dozen feet away. “Jensen,” she said softly, prodding with her voice this time.
“Right. This way.” His voice shook and his whole body seemed to quiver with excitement, fear, and a touch of insanity. They headed toward a house, the only one in sight, and walked up the three stairs leading to the porch. Jensen stopped at the door. “Can I---how do I?” He motioned at the door, hand poised as if to knock.
“Just walk.” She gave him a little push.
Jensen suddenly found himself in the middle of the door. Looking to his right he could see inside, his left he could see Abby, still on the porch, smirking at him. He pulled the rest of the way inside, blinking with surprise. He touched his nose, still able to feel the cold stripe of the inside of the door pressed down his face. “Dude,” he breathed.
Abby was looking all over at her surroundings, pivoting on her feet. “Wow,” she said, voice just as mystified as Jensen’s had been. “Did you live here?”
“I share...shared...it with a coworker.”
“What’s his name?”
Jensen was taken a little aback by her guess that he shared it with another guy, feeling a slight dig to his masculinity, but then he remembered the era she was born. Sharing with a girl would have been more of a taboo back then. Funny how things change. “Jared,” he answered.
Jensen took a few steps, his feet silent on the hardwood flooring. The soft glow of a nightlight could be seen coming from the kitchen. Jensen had demanded they have one since he could always hear Jared’s nightly routine of fumbling around in the kitchen. Jensen turned to go into his bedroom, hand automatically reaching for the switch but finding nothing there as his hand passed over the switch and into the wall. “Damn,” he swore, shaking away the cold feeling from his fingers. But then he looked around and his eyes rapidly adjusted to the lack of light. “Better than night vision goggles.”
“You’re stalling.” Abby didn’t look at him as she spoke, instead studying the photos on Jensen’s dresser. “Is Jared in one of these?”
“Look for the big goofy grin.” Jensen came up behind her, looking over her shoulder.
“He’s cute.” She leaned forward to stare more intently at the picture.
Jensen had to bite his lip to keep from agreeing. He had loved Jared for a long time. But now...now he would never get to tell him. Never get to kiss him for the first time, feel the large hands on his skin, mouth everywhere...at least he still had his fantasies. He focused on the picture, trying to distract his mind from the hot and heavy scene running through it, unsure if he could find a way to relieve the pressure in his balls later or not.
The photo had been taken at the end of season 3 during the wrap party. Both were slightly wasted but trying their best not to look it, leaning on each other to keep from falling over.
Jensen turned away from the photos. He knew all of them by heart. Would he actually get to see Jared tonight? One need replaced another. His hands felt clammy and he shoved them into his pockets. It felt weird to be nervous.
As if sensing his thoughts, Abby said, “You are more in tune with your former emotions when you are as your former self.”
“Great. I’m friends with a fortune cookie.” He smiled to show Abby he was joking, then took a deep breath. “He’s upstairs.”
The stairs made no sound. Not even the one that normally creaked loud enough to wake the....Not going there, Jensen thought.
The door into Jared’s bedroom stood slightly ajar, and Jensen was relieved to not have to go through it. The cold feeling of passing through something creeped him out. Moonlight shone through the window, bathing everything in a soft light. There, in a tangle of sheets and blankets in the center of the bed, lay Jared. Next to him sprawled Harley, one of his two large dogs, muzzle resting on his paws, facing Jared’s covered feet. Sadie, Jared’s other dog, was barely visible on the floor on the bed’s other side.
Jensen was about to take a step closer, when Harley raised his head and his ears and looked straight at him. He gave a whining ‘woof’, which got Sadie’s attention. She barked as she scrambled to her feet to see what the fuss was about.
“Can they see me?” Jensen backed up.
The body on the bed stirred as Harley stood and continued whining. “What the hell has gotten into you two?” Jared sat up, pushing for Harley to get off the bed. Then he looked to see what Harley was barking at.
“Oh my God,” Jensen breathed as Jared met his eyes from across the room.
“Jen?”
The white that swallowed him up blinded him and stole his breath away. “Shit! Oh my God!” He frantically looked around until he saw the yellow glow of Abby. “I need to go back. He saw me!”
“But that’s impossible.” Abby’s voice sounded shocked.
Jensen tried to calm down and focus himself inward, trying to latch onto the single screaming voice of Jared. He could hear it calling his name, but then something grabbed onto him, pulling him away. “Let me go back!” Jensen tried to pull free of Abby as her glow surrounded him.
“I don’t think that would be wise--”
“Let go!”
“You’ll burn yourself out!”
Jensen stopped struggling. “What?”
“It’s hard to explain...”
“So explain.”
“We get our energy from the sun, that is why we waited for nightfall, so my energy was fully charged to help you.”
“You mean I’m like a rechargeable battery?” Jensen groaned.
“What’s a rechargeable battery?”
Jensen was taken aback. “It-it’s a battery that you plug into electricity for a few hours, then you can use it again.”
“Something like that,” Abby said after a pause. “Burning out is bad.”
“Well, it doesn’t sound good.” He tried to keep the sarcasm from his voice.
“It isn’t. You can’t recharge in the other place, and if you burn out while over there...it is like dying all over again. You have connections into this place now. We all feel it when it happens.” Her yellow trembled in a shiver.
“So, what? I can only be over there for a few minutes?”
“You’ll get stronger.”
***
Being dead sucked.
“How am I gonna know when it’s night again?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“Well, how do you know?”
Abby brightened. “I just do.”
Jensen grumbled.
“Come, I want to introduce you to some friends.”
As she turned, Jensen thought he caught a shimmer of golden hair, a few shades darker than her yellow sphere.
“Wait, I think I can see you.”
Abby turned and Jensen could definitely see her smile. “See? You’re getting stronger already.”
Chapter 2