What you got under your shirt (A cog in the murder-machine) 4/5
Title: What you got under your shirt (A cog in the murder-machine)(4/5)
Author: marlowe78
Rating: R for later-occurring violence
Characters: Jared, Jensen, OCs
Word count: This part 4.063, ~21.000 the whole story.
Warnings: Hello! Here we are in "later chapters". So... violence. Bloodshed. Terrified teenagers. Someone with guns in a Highschool. So if you might have been in such a situation (god, I hope not!) you might not want to continue.
Summary: Highschool-AU.
Jared Padalecki is one of the Golden Boys of Hilldale. He has all you need to be sixteen and is a nice guy on top. If there wouldn't be the mystery of his former best-friend Jensen, who transformed into some kind of Grim Reaper, his life would be boring in its' perfection.
Title is taken from "Teenagers", by My Chemical Romance
a/n: Close to the end. Here - as I said in the warnings - be violence. Lots of violence.
I've never been in such a situation, and I have no clue about the deep-set bravery people might develop in a tight fit. I'm kinda counting on this being, if not probable, then at least possible.
I'll be glad to hear your ideas on the subject, though. So drop me a line (or wait till Sunday and read the whole story in one go *shrug*)
Previous
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All his protests, all his trying to get his parents to listen had been in vain. Dad had left in a hassle, just time enough to scold Jared for waking up so late and looking ‘like death warmed over’ and his mom stuffed a buttered bread in his mouth and shoved him into the car with Megan. She said something about needing the Nissan today and didn’t listen, didn’t wait for Jay to get his cell-phone from his room. His idea to stop at a payphone was completely ignored and now he stood in the school-hall, shaking in fear and anticipation.
What to do, what could he do?
Oh, right. Find a teacher. Yes, he’d go to the principal, Mrs. Washington had to listen to him. She had to, it was a real threat, and even if it turned out to be all fake and not worth bothering, he’d at least finally done what was necessary, finally woken up enough to take responsibility for his knowledge.
Jay made his way to the teacher’s lounge, on rubbery legs, feeling like he was under water. Everything seemed to be muted, the kids around him didn’t register and their voices didn’t carry.
He was halfway at the lounge when he spotted Jensen.
His brain stopped processing for a minute. His friend - the maniac? - walked with sure steps, a hard, unreadable look on his face. He wore black jeans, his boots and his long coat. His hair looked dark blue in the harsh halogen-light of the corridor and his eyes were dark-rimmed as usual.
For the first time since finding the chat, Jared thought Jensen looked dangerous.
In the end, it was a split-second-decision. He couldn’t just stand by and let Jens walk away, carrying death with him. He called out.
“Jens!” To his surprise, Jensen stopped and turned around. Later, Jay would think it should have been a clue, but right now he was just glad that he got the maniac’s attention. Well, ‘glad’ wasn’t actually the word he’d use, but now that Jens ‘d turned… “Stop, don’t do this. Please.”
“Jay? What’s up?” Jensen stopped, took the ever-present ear-buds out and squinted a bit, taking in Jared’s appearance “You look sick, man. Shouldn’t you be in bed or somethin’?”
“Please, Jens. I know. Ok, I know. I should have… I shouldn’t have let it go so far, I know, but… Please, please, reconsider. Stop this, it’s not too late. Please!” Jay shook with the strain, with his fear and adrenalin, standing only a few feet apart from a madman with a gun - or worse, explosives. He nearly fainted when Jensen stepped closer, peering into his eyes. He got a good view of the golden-brownish specks in the green iris, the blackness of the pupils, the white of the eyeballs.
“Huh?”
Jared averted his gaze. Unconsciously mimicking a dog that tried to be as unthreatening as possible. “Jensen…”
“Jay, what’s wrong with ya? What should I reconsider, man?”
“Don’t… don’t use it. Please, I know you...I know how you feel. I read the chat. I’m ‘padfoot’.”
Jensen didn’t look pissed. Just puzzled.
“You’re a what now? What chat? Jay, I have no clue whatcha talkin’ ‘bout. Dude, you’re shaking - man, maybe you should go to the nurse? Jay?” Apparently, Jensen wanted him to spell it out. Ok, if that kept him from killing anyone - anyone but Jared himself, but hopefully anybody - he’d write it on the fucking walls. Jay took a deep breath, tried to calm down a bit, keeping his eyes carefully on Jensen’s studded dog-collar around the neck.
“I’m sorry. I read the chat, Miguel showed me. I… I thought you might be persuaded to… if you realized that your’re not alone, that there’re people who care, who would listen… I thought maybe I could prevent you from going all the way. I’d hoped… I’m sorry. But then Saturday, and I was such an ass. I shouldn’t have let you just stand there, shoulda talked to you. But I didn’t, and I’m sorry, and I… if you wanna kill someone, it should be just me, nobody else. I mean, I messed up, it’s my fault. I shoulda talked to somebody, getcha help or somethin’. I didn’t. So… please, don’t do this. Please, Jens. Please.”
-*-
Much, much later, when all that happened had time to settle down, time to go through Jared’s brain a second time and a third and get processed and analyzed, by himself and by the psychiatrist - that much later, Jay would be able to name the emotions that flickered over his friends face. Deep puzzlement, concern. A hint of fear and shock. The deep, deep hurt.
But right now, right there in the school’s corridor, only the anger registered.
-*-
“Wait. Waitwaitwaitwait. Jared, are you really tellin’ me what I think ya tellin’ me? You think I’m gonna shoot someone? And you’re tellin’ me that you thought so for all the time, that all your … your friendship… that’s all been a lie? That’s all just ‘cause you read some … some what, some chat? And now you think I’mma blow up the school, or somethin’?”
“It wasn’t a lie…” Jared tried to interject, tried so hard because it was true, it hadn’t been a lie, not really, not deep down. And he knew it was important to say it. But Jensen didn’t stop his tirade, didn’t listen in his outrage.
“How could you! How can you stand there, how could you hang out with me thinkin’ I’m some lunatic, thinkin’ I’ll hurt someone! How… why? Why, Jay?” This time, Jared heard the pain in his friend’s voice. It was clear and obvious. He looked up, finally meeting Jensen’s eyes - and he knew he’d made a mistake.
There wasn’t any homicidal madness in his friend. There hadn’t ever been. He’d spent so much time with him, talked to him. He knew, dammit, that Jensen wasn’t unstable, just like he knew that Jens didn’t steal stuff, didn’t torture kittens or grab babies from their cribs. He’d known all along, but he’d been blinded by the same things all the strangers, all the people he himself’d called superfluous and condescending assholes had been blinded by.
Black clothes, dark kohl and some silver clasps and buckles.
Jay felt his heart drop a mile deep, right into hell and through to the other side.
“Oh no…” he whispered, too low for anyone to hear, too low for Jensen to register. Jensen’s face fell when he realized himself what and why. He looked down on himself.
“It’s this, right?” he asked, grabbing his black shirt and shaking it a bit. His voice was small, hurt. “You said it doesn’t bother you, said that… But you’re just the same. Same as everybody.”
“ Jens… I’m… I… I’m sorry. I…”
“Right. ‘cause there can’t be anyone sane, walking around like me. I get it.” Jensen turned away, gripped his backpack with white knuckles and shook his head.
“No, Jensen… Please. Please, I’m sorry, please. But…Jensen! Stop, I’m beggin’ you, Jens!” His friend’d started to walk away. Jared tried to grab him, tried to stop him, needed him to stop because… because not only had he hurt Jensen… there was so much more. So much worse.
“No,” Jensen roared “let me go! You… you lying ass-“
A shot rang through the halls of Hilldale High, resonated in the ceiling and in the tube-lighting, rushing through the rooms and halls and corridors, eventually fading into nothing at the Arts and Drama-classroom.
-*-
Nobody who’d ever heard a real shot would think it was anything else, like a car or firework. The sound is different, the resonance and the vibrations tell your body that this? This was the real deal, the real danger. Real death.
Jensen stood stock-still, staring at his friend who was as frozen as himself. The minute it took for them to move was enough for all the kids around them, all the people who’d been walking by, joking, teasing, yelling - all those that were close to the teacher’s lounge when the door opened to realize what’d just happened.
A second shot. A sharp cry. Screaming.
-*-
That September-day was a lucky day for Mindy Ellerman. Her parents would tell her so, again and again and again until she believed it herself. They’d thank heaven and God and Allah and Shiva and every other deity that they could think of for the circumstances that allowed them to keep their only child.
But for a while, all Mindy would be able to say was that it was the day she dropped instinctively to her belly when she spotted the boy leaving the teacher’s lounge on stiff legs, wooden movements and cold, cruel determination on his face. That it was the day that from the new vantage-point, she had a clear view on the bloody mess that had once been swim-coach Lindman Johansson’s head.
Mindy would not speak again for two years. Even though she was lucky for dropping at once, lucky for not making a sound, she’d wish to have done differently. Done something to prevent her best friend, Laura Keller, fourteen-and-a-half, who loved puppies and kittens and liked P!nk better than Lady Gaga and who’d been walking beside Mindy, from dropping dead on top of her. Killed by a single shot to her chest.
-*-
That third shot finally woke up the stunned school. Bloodcurdling screams intermingled with shouts of pain when more shots rang out. Yelling and shoving, panic all over, pandemonium. Teenager’s kept pushing each other, trying to get away from the bullets, trying to run to safety. Some dragged their friends with them, some - to their everlasting shame and unrelenting guilt - shoved their friends away, out of the path to freedom, possibly into the path of death. Here and there a teacher tried to get some order in the chaos, sometimes successfully but often enough fighting against windmills. Because you can go to as many ‘terrorist and amok-related contingency-drills’ as you want, nothing can prepare you for watching your pupil drop unconscious, bleeding heavily in front of your feet.
And the boy with the gun kept walking, kept shooting everything that stood in his way. Teachers and students - it didn’t matter to him.
-*-
“Mark” Jared whispered, shock and horror nearly robbing his voice.
He didn’t see the blood around him, didn’t understand the sight right in front of his shoes - the sight of mute, frozen Mindy and dead, cooling Laura. The only thing on his mind was Mark drinking. Mark vomiting in front of his empty house. Mark slowly disintegrating those last weeks and nobody seeing, nobody understanding, nobody listening.
That split-minute would forever be in his mind. That sudden and deep realization of how wrong he’d been, what it had cost to err so tremendously would be what Jared thought of during his last breaths. When he died, surrounded by friends and family, Jared would say ‘I’m sorry, Mark’ and nobody would understand what he meant.
Nobody but one.
-*-
“Jay, Jay, come on, wake up. Jay!” Jensen, shaking him, pulled him back to the moment, to the chaos that surrounded the two friends. “Jay, come on, we need to get out. Jared!”
“Megan…” Mark had gone the way to the younger classes. He might not seek them out, but they were in the path of danger, right in the path of destruction that Jared on his high horse had opened up. Instead of going with the flow, Jay took two steps in the direction Mark had taken, not deterred by Jensen’s insistent yanks on his arm. “Megan’s that way!” he yelled and stopped walking, started running.
Distantly, his brain registered that heavy boots were following him but he didn’t consciously know it.
-*-
It wasn’t hard to figure out where Mark had been. Dead and wounded school-kids lined the corridors, whimpering teenagers and crying younger kids clinging to each other in fear even though they’d been lucky, been overlooked. Jared had slowed down but was still determined to stop Mark from killing Megan, no idea how but sure - certain - that he’d somehow manage. It was his sister, his little bratty sister. Nobody messed with his sister but Jared himself!
Now that the first shock, the first rush had passed, he knew Jensen was following behind, sometimes right next to him but often stopping, helping some kids to their feet, sending them along to the exits. He heard him talk, saying stuff like ‘this way, not so bad, it’s over, just get out, it’ll be fine, sweety’. Sometimes, he’d miss the solid thudthudclink close to him but always the boot-steps would return, his silent companion coming back to him, supporting him in his own madness.
It felt like they’d walked to New York, like miles and miles of death and pain but in reality, it was only a short way to the cafeteria, where a lot of kids usually started the day ‘cause it wasn’t cool to take a lunchbox with you when you turned fourteen.
Meg hadn’t been anywhere they’d passed, but now Jay’s trek ended.
Inside the wide, open cafeteria, Mark stood on a table, holding two guns out and keeping about ten kids of various age and the school-counselor at gunpoint. They didn’t dare to move, a whimpering boy and his crying, bleeding girlfriend proof enough what would happen if they tried to run.
“You bitch!” Mark screeched at Norma Jenkins, the counselor. “It’s all your fault! You stupid, ugly, ugly, disgusting whore!”
Jenkins was crying freely, terror marking her round but handsome features. She was about sixty and more the grandmotherly type. Jared had thought she was a bit too sweet for the job of counseling teenagers, too old-fashioned to keep up with pregnancies and modern-day views on sex. But he couldn’t imagine why she deserved Mark’s fury, for it seemed that she had been his goal all along.
“Mark, please. Please, p-p-please. I’m s-s-sorr-r-r-y…” she stuttered but Mark didn’t hear or didn’t care.
“I told you! I told ya, I trusted ya! But all you did, you selfish old bag of g-g-garbage…” It couldn’t be a good sign that Mark was stuttering, Jared thought. He and Jensen had crept closer, and Bill would later very sternly tell him how stupid, how dangerous, how absolutely, monumentally moronic that was, but right now he didn’t know that, didn’t really know why he was getting closer to the gun in the first place - what he’d do if his friend would suddenly spot them and open fire.
Jared would also wonder why Jensen was still behind him, even though his own sister, two years younger than Megan, was safely away in Hilldale Middle School. He didn’t know it then but later would recall that there wasn’t actually anything worth sticking his neck out for Jensen.
He’d get his ass kicked by Jens for saying it loud. Later, much later.
“You knew. You kne-knew and… and didn’t do anythin’. You …hick you hick old, stupid, dried-out hick old cow. I h-h-h-hate you. H-h-h-hate you hick all!”
“No”, Jared wanted to scream. “Stop, don’t”, he wanted to shout, stop his friend the second he realized that Mark would pull the trigger. He wanted to, nearly did so but a strong hand clasped over his mouth, muting his protest, and pulled him behind an overturned table close to the entrance. Jay didn’t struggle that much.
Mrs. Jenkins dropped like a bag of rice, shriveled bonelessly into a pile of human flesh and old-fashioned clothes onto the already bloodied tile-floor. The ringing of the shot resonated in the ceiling-tiles and lamps, only dimmed when a girl started to scream.
“No!”
“Mel, shut up!” another voice hissed and Jay, to his utter terror, spotted Melanie and Kevin, who’d been hiding together with Sally and Molly behind some tables in the corner.
Mark's gaze flicked to them, his grin wolfish, manic. It seemed that executing the counselor’d ripped the last shred of sanity from him. There was no sign of the scared, angry and pitiful kid anymore. Instead, all Jay could see was a cold, ruthless and determined killer. Now, he started to struggle, but Jens kept him confined in their corner with surprising strength.
“Farland." Mark sing-songed mockishly "You dick. You shoulda been dropped into a river after birth.” Astonishingly, Kevin didn’t back down when the gun was pointed at him. He set his jaw and stood tall - still half a head shorter than Mark himself - and shoved his twin-sister behind him.
“What… what’s wrong with ya, Mark?” It probably should have been a challenge, but Kevin sounded scared and small. Still, he kept his position in front of the girls who cowered shivering against the wall, except Mel who stood erect and fierce.
“Aww, what now? You wanna play ‘big man’? All hero-like?” The taller boy hissed at Kevin. “Yeah, right. You wanna be a hero so bad, I get you a heroes funeral!” He swung both guns to Kev’s head, not caring that most of the other kids took their chance and scrambled away, out of the room, and luckily not noticing that they did so because Jensen and Jared gestured them to do it while they themselves cautiously crept closer to danger.
Jay saw Kev shudder when both barrels pointed right to his eyes and even from some feet away he smelled the sharp tang of urine.
Mark scoffed, an arrogant chuckle accompanying his glance to Kevin’s crotch. “Thought so, big hero. Pisses his pants like a pansy.” He grabbed his former friend by the neck of his shirt, stuck one gun in his mouth - and Kevin crumbled to the floor, unconscious. Mark’s aim followed him down, the pistol still pointing to his head.
“No! You Bastard!”
“Mel!” a hiss from someone, maybe Sally, maybe Molly. Maybe even from Jay himself, he couldn’t tell.
“You asshole!” Mel yelled, terror pitching her voice into a pitiful squeak. “Don’t ya shoot my brother!”
And to add to Jared’s nightmares, she shoved Mark away from her twin.
-*-
Not only Mr. and Mrs. Ellerman would thank all heavens from this day on, forever silently celebrating the joy of not losing a child. Maybe Mark was too stunned to fire; maybe he was moved by the display of sibling-devotion. Maybe the gun jammed - we’ll never know. For whatever reason, he watched Melanie Farland drop to her knees and while he still kept one of his weapons on brother and sister for a moment, his second one found a different target.
“You!” he snarled, grabbed Sally by the hair and pulled her up and away from Molly, who was whimpering and praying, coiling into herself in her hiding-place. Which wasn’t hiding anyone anymore.
“You whore!” he spat at Sally, followed by a literal glob of saliva into her face. “You betraying, sneakin’, stinkin’ skank!” He pulled her pony-tail roughly until she screamed and had to stand on her toes. She whimpered, begging ‘please, please, please, oh please, oh Lord, please’ non-stop. Mark shook her, hard and brutal until he shoved her away from him.
“I sh- sh- should never ever laid a hand on ya, you ugly piece of cunt!” he yelled and to emphasize his point, kicked her in the belly. She coughed and wheezed in pain, dropped nearly on top of the Farlands where Mel grabbed her shoulder and tried to calm her down, tried to make her stop wailing in terror. The gun unerringly found Sally’s face and Mark’s arm stopped shaking, his face frozen in determination.
“Stop, Mark. Please, man, just stop.” Jared ignored Jensen’s frantic hisses, the tugging on his hand to please, get back down. “Stop, you don’t really wanna do this.” There was no explanation for this stupidity, for the strange bravery that’d spread through his guts, that made him stand up and call to his former pal. Jay stood tall and strong even though his insides were a pile of ice-cold goo. Trying to look as determined as Mark, he squared his jaw and kept his voice low and soothing and hopefully free of fear even though his limbs were shaking in terror.
“Jared? Ah, and how would you know how I feel? Huh? You di’n’t even listen when I wan’ed to tell ya, you have no fucking clue -” his voice pitched to a scream, a roar “- how I feel. You don’t kn-kn-know anything. Nobody knows a damn thing!”
For a split-second, Jay thought about telling Mark that he’d read the chat. A split-second, in which scenarios ran through his mind as to how that’d play out. Sadly, none of them ended with Mark dropping his pistols and giving up. So he didn’t.
“I should’ve listened, man, but I didn’t. I’m sorry, I w- am your friend. I should have, but I didn’t. But you don’t wanna kill anyone here, not really. Mark, I know you don’t want to kill anyone anymore.”
Mark turned his head, a strange, birdlike motion, like trying to see Jared’s point from a different angle. He shook his head and a sad, lonely look crossed his face.
“Sorry, Jared.” He looked back over at Sally. “But I do.”
And he shot the still whimpering girl point-blank in the head.
-*-
Mel screamed when the bullet exiting her friend’s head sprayed her brother, her face, her hair and the wall behind them with blood and tissue, grey, wiggly matter decorating everything and tastelessly clashing with Sally’s pink sweater. As sudden as she started the scream Mel stopped, shaking and staring in mute horror at her unconscious brother, who was covered in blood now, and the dead eyes of Sally McMillan, which she’d see in dreams to come for years and years, no matter how far she ran, no matter how much her parents paid for counseling.
“No!” Jay yelled and he lunged to get to his girlfriend, just as something - Jensen - kicked his legs away from under him and he dropped painfully to the floor, cracking his head on the hard linoleum. The shot, roughly aimed at his chest, went wide and hit something metallic far behind them.
“You were supposed to be my friend, you were supposed to listen!” Mark screeched, his voice breaking and varying between too loud to understand and too low. He stalked over with seemingly wooden legs, his pistols held in front of him in a sure grip. ‘I’m dead’ Jared thought. ‘I’m dead, and I don’t even know why.’
But the gun - both guns - didn’t point at his head. Instead, they were aimed at Jensen, who, like him, lay on his back from where he’d gotten Jared down and away from the lethal bullet. His friend was pale, shaking and maybe he too had wet his jeans. Jared wasn’t so certain that his own boxers were still clean either, terror shooting through his marrow, the belief that this was the end, that just before he died he’d be forced to watch all his friends be killed, watch his best friend be murdered only inches from him. He couldn’t move, didn’t actually want to die first, either, but he grabbed Jensen’s hand and squeezed, silently promising to be there, stay close, stick to him until it was over.
Only because they were so close, maybe only because he felt the vibrations through their clasped hands did he hear Jensen say ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ over and over. It didn’t really make any sense, because what the fuck was Jensen sorry for, what the hell could he’ve possibly done to cause Mark to flip - they hadn’t known each other except for swim-practice, and Jens had stopped swimming years ago.
“You… you! You took my friend away! Don’t try t’ deny it, it ‘as you. Suddenly Jay’s more int’rested in the freak, in the cocksucking little freak, the … the…. The … in you!” Mark shook with anger, with disgust, with pain and fear and terror, maybe, but with fury and madness winning over any sane emotion that might still be in the teen. “You’re the cause, you’re the reason! You witched him away from me and us. You’ll pay” he spat “for all that! You hi-hi-hideous freak!”
“No,” Jared whispered, but his voice didn’t carry farther than Jensen and the only response he got was a squeeze of his hand. ‘No no no no no’ he thought, ‘no no no not Jens, please, no’
Jared closed his eyes.
a/n: Whoops. Sorry. More tomorrow ;-)
Chapter 5
Author: marlowe78
Rating: R for later-occurring violence
Characters: Jared, Jensen, OCs
Word count: This part 4.063, ~21.000 the whole story.
Warnings: Hello! Here we are in "later chapters". So... violence. Bloodshed. Terrified teenagers. Someone with guns in a Highschool. So if you might have been in such a situation (god, I hope not!) you might not want to continue.
Summary: Highschool-AU.
Jared Padalecki is one of the Golden Boys of Hilldale. He has all you need to be sixteen and is a nice guy on top. If there wouldn't be the mystery of his former best-friend Jensen, who transformed into some kind of Grim Reaper, his life would be boring in its' perfection.
Title is taken from "Teenagers", by My Chemical Romance
a/n: Close to the end. Here - as I said in the warnings - be violence. Lots of violence.
I've never been in such a situation, and I have no clue about the deep-set bravery people might develop in a tight fit. I'm kinda counting on this being, if not probable, then at least possible.
I'll be glad to hear your ideas on the subject, though. So drop me a line (or wait till Sunday and read the whole story in one go *shrug*)
Previous
J2J2J2J2J2J2J2J2J2J2J2J2J2J2J2J2
All his protests, all his trying to get his parents to listen had been in vain. Dad had left in a hassle, just time enough to scold Jared for waking up so late and looking ‘like death warmed over’ and his mom stuffed a buttered bread in his mouth and shoved him into the car with Megan. She said something about needing the Nissan today and didn’t listen, didn’t wait for Jay to get his cell-phone from his room. His idea to stop at a payphone was completely ignored and now he stood in the school-hall, shaking in fear and anticipation.
What to do, what could he do?
Oh, right. Find a teacher. Yes, he’d go to the principal, Mrs. Washington had to listen to him. She had to, it was a real threat, and even if it turned out to be all fake and not worth bothering, he’d at least finally done what was necessary, finally woken up enough to take responsibility for his knowledge.
Jay made his way to the teacher’s lounge, on rubbery legs, feeling like he was under water. Everything seemed to be muted, the kids around him didn’t register and their voices didn’t carry.
He was halfway at the lounge when he spotted Jensen.
His brain stopped processing for a minute. His friend - the maniac? - walked with sure steps, a hard, unreadable look on his face. He wore black jeans, his boots and his long coat. His hair looked dark blue in the harsh halogen-light of the corridor and his eyes were dark-rimmed as usual.
For the first time since finding the chat, Jared thought Jensen looked dangerous.
In the end, it was a split-second-decision. He couldn’t just stand by and let Jens walk away, carrying death with him. He called out.
“Jens!” To his surprise, Jensen stopped and turned around. Later, Jay would think it should have been a clue, but right now he was just glad that he got the maniac’s attention. Well, ‘glad’ wasn’t actually the word he’d use, but now that Jens ‘d turned… “Stop, don’t do this. Please.”
“Jay? What’s up?” Jensen stopped, took the ever-present ear-buds out and squinted a bit, taking in Jared’s appearance “You look sick, man. Shouldn’t you be in bed or somethin’?”
“Please, Jens. I know. Ok, I know. I should have… I shouldn’t have let it go so far, I know, but… Please, please, reconsider. Stop this, it’s not too late. Please!” Jay shook with the strain, with his fear and adrenalin, standing only a few feet apart from a madman with a gun - or worse, explosives. He nearly fainted when Jensen stepped closer, peering into his eyes. He got a good view of the golden-brownish specks in the green iris, the blackness of the pupils, the white of the eyeballs.
“Huh?”
Jared averted his gaze. Unconsciously mimicking a dog that tried to be as unthreatening as possible. “Jensen…”
“Jay, what’s wrong with ya? What should I reconsider, man?”
“Don’t… don’t use it. Please, I know you...I know how you feel. I read the chat. I’m ‘padfoot’.”
Jensen didn’t look pissed. Just puzzled.
“You’re a what now? What chat? Jay, I have no clue whatcha talkin’ ‘bout. Dude, you’re shaking - man, maybe you should go to the nurse? Jay?” Apparently, Jensen wanted him to spell it out. Ok, if that kept him from killing anyone - anyone but Jared himself, but hopefully anybody - he’d write it on the fucking walls. Jay took a deep breath, tried to calm down a bit, keeping his eyes carefully on Jensen’s studded dog-collar around the neck.
“I’m sorry. I read the chat, Miguel showed me. I… I thought you might be persuaded to… if you realized that your’re not alone, that there’re people who care, who would listen… I thought maybe I could prevent you from going all the way. I’d hoped… I’m sorry. But then Saturday, and I was such an ass. I shouldn’t have let you just stand there, shoulda talked to you. But I didn’t, and I’m sorry, and I… if you wanna kill someone, it should be just me, nobody else. I mean, I messed up, it’s my fault. I shoulda talked to somebody, getcha help or somethin’. I didn’t. So… please, don’t do this. Please, Jens. Please.”
-*-
Much, much later, when all that happened had time to settle down, time to go through Jared’s brain a second time and a third and get processed and analyzed, by himself and by the psychiatrist - that much later, Jay would be able to name the emotions that flickered over his friends face. Deep puzzlement, concern. A hint of fear and shock. The deep, deep hurt.
But right now, right there in the school’s corridor, only the anger registered.
-*-
“Wait. Waitwaitwaitwait. Jared, are you really tellin’ me what I think ya tellin’ me? You think I’m gonna shoot someone? And you’re tellin’ me that you thought so for all the time, that all your … your friendship… that’s all been a lie? That’s all just ‘cause you read some … some what, some chat? And now you think I’mma blow up the school, or somethin’?”
“It wasn’t a lie…” Jared tried to interject, tried so hard because it was true, it hadn’t been a lie, not really, not deep down. And he knew it was important to say it. But Jensen didn’t stop his tirade, didn’t listen in his outrage.
“How could you! How can you stand there, how could you hang out with me thinkin’ I’m some lunatic, thinkin’ I’ll hurt someone! How… why? Why, Jay?” This time, Jared heard the pain in his friend’s voice. It was clear and obvious. He looked up, finally meeting Jensen’s eyes - and he knew he’d made a mistake.
There wasn’t any homicidal madness in his friend. There hadn’t ever been. He’d spent so much time with him, talked to him. He knew, dammit, that Jensen wasn’t unstable, just like he knew that Jens didn’t steal stuff, didn’t torture kittens or grab babies from their cribs. He’d known all along, but he’d been blinded by the same things all the strangers, all the people he himself’d called superfluous and condescending assholes had been blinded by.
Black clothes, dark kohl and some silver clasps and buckles.
Jay felt his heart drop a mile deep, right into hell and through to the other side.
“Oh no…” he whispered, too low for anyone to hear, too low for Jensen to register. Jensen’s face fell when he realized himself what and why. He looked down on himself.
“It’s this, right?” he asked, grabbing his black shirt and shaking it a bit. His voice was small, hurt. “You said it doesn’t bother you, said that… But you’re just the same. Same as everybody.”
“ Jens… I’m… I… I’m sorry. I…”
“Right. ‘cause there can’t be anyone sane, walking around like me. I get it.” Jensen turned away, gripped his backpack with white knuckles and shook his head.
“No, Jensen… Please. Please, I’m sorry, please. But…Jensen! Stop, I’m beggin’ you, Jens!” His friend’d started to walk away. Jared tried to grab him, tried to stop him, needed him to stop because… because not only had he hurt Jensen… there was so much more. So much worse.
“No,” Jensen roared “let me go! You… you lying ass-“
A shot rang through the halls of Hilldale High, resonated in the ceiling and in the tube-lighting, rushing through the rooms and halls and corridors, eventually fading into nothing at the Arts and Drama-classroom.
-*-
Nobody who’d ever heard a real shot would think it was anything else, like a car or firework. The sound is different, the resonance and the vibrations tell your body that this? This was the real deal, the real danger. Real death.
Jensen stood stock-still, staring at his friend who was as frozen as himself. The minute it took for them to move was enough for all the kids around them, all the people who’d been walking by, joking, teasing, yelling - all those that were close to the teacher’s lounge when the door opened to realize what’d just happened.
A second shot. A sharp cry. Screaming.
-*-
That September-day was a lucky day for Mindy Ellerman. Her parents would tell her so, again and again and again until she believed it herself. They’d thank heaven and God and Allah and Shiva and every other deity that they could think of for the circumstances that allowed them to keep their only child.
But for a while, all Mindy would be able to say was that it was the day she dropped instinctively to her belly when she spotted the boy leaving the teacher’s lounge on stiff legs, wooden movements and cold, cruel determination on his face. That it was the day that from the new vantage-point, she had a clear view on the bloody mess that had once been swim-coach Lindman Johansson’s head.
Mindy would not speak again for two years. Even though she was lucky for dropping at once, lucky for not making a sound, she’d wish to have done differently. Done something to prevent her best friend, Laura Keller, fourteen-and-a-half, who loved puppies and kittens and liked P!nk better than Lady Gaga and who’d been walking beside Mindy, from dropping dead on top of her. Killed by a single shot to her chest.
-*-
That third shot finally woke up the stunned school. Bloodcurdling screams intermingled with shouts of pain when more shots rang out. Yelling and shoving, panic all over, pandemonium. Teenager’s kept pushing each other, trying to get away from the bullets, trying to run to safety. Some dragged their friends with them, some - to their everlasting shame and unrelenting guilt - shoved their friends away, out of the path to freedom, possibly into the path of death. Here and there a teacher tried to get some order in the chaos, sometimes successfully but often enough fighting against windmills. Because you can go to as many ‘terrorist and amok-related contingency-drills’ as you want, nothing can prepare you for watching your pupil drop unconscious, bleeding heavily in front of your feet.
And the boy with the gun kept walking, kept shooting everything that stood in his way. Teachers and students - it didn’t matter to him.
-*-
“Mark” Jared whispered, shock and horror nearly robbing his voice.
He didn’t see the blood around him, didn’t understand the sight right in front of his shoes - the sight of mute, frozen Mindy and dead, cooling Laura. The only thing on his mind was Mark drinking. Mark vomiting in front of his empty house. Mark slowly disintegrating those last weeks and nobody seeing, nobody understanding, nobody listening.
That split-minute would forever be in his mind. That sudden and deep realization of how wrong he’d been, what it had cost to err so tremendously would be what Jared thought of during his last breaths. When he died, surrounded by friends and family, Jared would say ‘I’m sorry, Mark’ and nobody would understand what he meant.
Nobody but one.
-*-
“Jay, Jay, come on, wake up. Jay!” Jensen, shaking him, pulled him back to the moment, to the chaos that surrounded the two friends. “Jay, come on, we need to get out. Jared!”
“Megan…” Mark had gone the way to the younger classes. He might not seek them out, but they were in the path of danger, right in the path of destruction that Jared on his high horse had opened up. Instead of going with the flow, Jay took two steps in the direction Mark had taken, not deterred by Jensen’s insistent yanks on his arm. “Megan’s that way!” he yelled and stopped walking, started running.
Distantly, his brain registered that heavy boots were following him but he didn’t consciously know it.
-*-
It wasn’t hard to figure out where Mark had been. Dead and wounded school-kids lined the corridors, whimpering teenagers and crying younger kids clinging to each other in fear even though they’d been lucky, been overlooked. Jared had slowed down but was still determined to stop Mark from killing Megan, no idea how but sure - certain - that he’d somehow manage. It was his sister, his little bratty sister. Nobody messed with his sister but Jared himself!
Now that the first shock, the first rush had passed, he knew Jensen was following behind, sometimes right next to him but often stopping, helping some kids to their feet, sending them along to the exits. He heard him talk, saying stuff like ‘this way, not so bad, it’s over, just get out, it’ll be fine, sweety’. Sometimes, he’d miss the solid thudthudclink close to him but always the boot-steps would return, his silent companion coming back to him, supporting him in his own madness.
It felt like they’d walked to New York, like miles and miles of death and pain but in reality, it was only a short way to the cafeteria, where a lot of kids usually started the day ‘cause it wasn’t cool to take a lunchbox with you when you turned fourteen.
Meg hadn’t been anywhere they’d passed, but now Jay’s trek ended.
Inside the wide, open cafeteria, Mark stood on a table, holding two guns out and keeping about ten kids of various age and the school-counselor at gunpoint. They didn’t dare to move, a whimpering boy and his crying, bleeding girlfriend proof enough what would happen if they tried to run.
“You bitch!” Mark screeched at Norma Jenkins, the counselor. “It’s all your fault! You stupid, ugly, ugly, disgusting whore!”
Jenkins was crying freely, terror marking her round but handsome features. She was about sixty and more the grandmotherly type. Jared had thought she was a bit too sweet for the job of counseling teenagers, too old-fashioned to keep up with pregnancies and modern-day views on sex. But he couldn’t imagine why she deserved Mark’s fury, for it seemed that she had been his goal all along.
“Mark, please. Please, p-p-please. I’m s-s-sorr-r-r-y…” she stuttered but Mark didn’t hear or didn’t care.
“I told you! I told ya, I trusted ya! But all you did, you selfish old bag of g-g-garbage…” It couldn’t be a good sign that Mark was stuttering, Jared thought. He and Jensen had crept closer, and Bill would later very sternly tell him how stupid, how dangerous, how absolutely, monumentally moronic that was, but right now he didn’t know that, didn’t really know why he was getting closer to the gun in the first place - what he’d do if his friend would suddenly spot them and open fire.
Jared would also wonder why Jensen was still behind him, even though his own sister, two years younger than Megan, was safely away in Hilldale Middle School. He didn’t know it then but later would recall that there wasn’t actually anything worth sticking his neck out for Jensen.
He’d get his ass kicked by Jens for saying it loud. Later, much later.
“You knew. You kne-knew and… and didn’t do anythin’. You …hick you hick old, stupid, dried-out hick old cow. I h-h-h-hate you. H-h-h-hate you hick all!”
“No”, Jared wanted to scream. “Stop, don’t”, he wanted to shout, stop his friend the second he realized that Mark would pull the trigger. He wanted to, nearly did so but a strong hand clasped over his mouth, muting his protest, and pulled him behind an overturned table close to the entrance. Jay didn’t struggle that much.
Mrs. Jenkins dropped like a bag of rice, shriveled bonelessly into a pile of human flesh and old-fashioned clothes onto the already bloodied tile-floor. The ringing of the shot resonated in the ceiling-tiles and lamps, only dimmed when a girl started to scream.
“No!”
“Mel, shut up!” another voice hissed and Jay, to his utter terror, spotted Melanie and Kevin, who’d been hiding together with Sally and Molly behind some tables in the corner.
Mark's gaze flicked to them, his grin wolfish, manic. It seemed that executing the counselor’d ripped the last shred of sanity from him. There was no sign of the scared, angry and pitiful kid anymore. Instead, all Jay could see was a cold, ruthless and determined killer. Now, he started to struggle, but Jens kept him confined in their corner with surprising strength.
“Farland." Mark sing-songed mockishly "You dick. You shoulda been dropped into a river after birth.” Astonishingly, Kevin didn’t back down when the gun was pointed at him. He set his jaw and stood tall - still half a head shorter than Mark himself - and shoved his twin-sister behind him.
“What… what’s wrong with ya, Mark?” It probably should have been a challenge, but Kevin sounded scared and small. Still, he kept his position in front of the girls who cowered shivering against the wall, except Mel who stood erect and fierce.
“Aww, what now? You wanna play ‘big man’? All hero-like?” The taller boy hissed at Kevin. “Yeah, right. You wanna be a hero so bad, I get you a heroes funeral!” He swung both guns to Kev’s head, not caring that most of the other kids took their chance and scrambled away, out of the room, and luckily not noticing that they did so because Jensen and Jared gestured them to do it while they themselves cautiously crept closer to danger.
Jay saw Kev shudder when both barrels pointed right to his eyes and even from some feet away he smelled the sharp tang of urine.
Mark scoffed, an arrogant chuckle accompanying his glance to Kevin’s crotch. “Thought so, big hero. Pisses his pants like a pansy.” He grabbed his former friend by the neck of his shirt, stuck one gun in his mouth - and Kevin crumbled to the floor, unconscious. Mark’s aim followed him down, the pistol still pointing to his head.
“No! You Bastard!”
“Mel!” a hiss from someone, maybe Sally, maybe Molly. Maybe even from Jay himself, he couldn’t tell.
“You asshole!” Mel yelled, terror pitching her voice into a pitiful squeak. “Don’t ya shoot my brother!”
And to add to Jared’s nightmares, she shoved Mark away from her twin.
-*-
Not only Mr. and Mrs. Ellerman would thank all heavens from this day on, forever silently celebrating the joy of not losing a child. Maybe Mark was too stunned to fire; maybe he was moved by the display of sibling-devotion. Maybe the gun jammed - we’ll never know. For whatever reason, he watched Melanie Farland drop to her knees and while he still kept one of his weapons on brother and sister for a moment, his second one found a different target.
“You!” he snarled, grabbed Sally by the hair and pulled her up and away from Molly, who was whimpering and praying, coiling into herself in her hiding-place. Which wasn’t hiding anyone anymore.
“You whore!” he spat at Sally, followed by a literal glob of saliva into her face. “You betraying, sneakin’, stinkin’ skank!” He pulled her pony-tail roughly until she screamed and had to stand on her toes. She whimpered, begging ‘please, please, please, oh please, oh Lord, please’ non-stop. Mark shook her, hard and brutal until he shoved her away from him.
“I sh- sh- should never ever laid a hand on ya, you ugly piece of cunt!” he yelled and to emphasize his point, kicked her in the belly. She coughed and wheezed in pain, dropped nearly on top of the Farlands where Mel grabbed her shoulder and tried to calm her down, tried to make her stop wailing in terror. The gun unerringly found Sally’s face and Mark’s arm stopped shaking, his face frozen in determination.
“Stop, Mark. Please, man, just stop.” Jared ignored Jensen’s frantic hisses, the tugging on his hand to please, get back down. “Stop, you don’t really wanna do this.” There was no explanation for this stupidity, for the strange bravery that’d spread through his guts, that made him stand up and call to his former pal. Jay stood tall and strong even though his insides were a pile of ice-cold goo. Trying to look as determined as Mark, he squared his jaw and kept his voice low and soothing and hopefully free of fear even though his limbs were shaking in terror.
“Jared? Ah, and how would you know how I feel? Huh? You di’n’t even listen when I wan’ed to tell ya, you have no fucking clue -” his voice pitched to a scream, a roar “- how I feel. You don’t kn-kn-know anything. Nobody knows a damn thing!”
For a split-second, Jay thought about telling Mark that he’d read the chat. A split-second, in which scenarios ran through his mind as to how that’d play out. Sadly, none of them ended with Mark dropping his pistols and giving up. So he didn’t.
“I should’ve listened, man, but I didn’t. I’m sorry, I w- am your friend. I should have, but I didn’t. But you don’t wanna kill anyone here, not really. Mark, I know you don’t want to kill anyone anymore.”
Mark turned his head, a strange, birdlike motion, like trying to see Jared’s point from a different angle. He shook his head and a sad, lonely look crossed his face.
“Sorry, Jared.” He looked back over at Sally. “But I do.”
And he shot the still whimpering girl point-blank in the head.
-*-
Mel screamed when the bullet exiting her friend’s head sprayed her brother, her face, her hair and the wall behind them with blood and tissue, grey, wiggly matter decorating everything and tastelessly clashing with Sally’s pink sweater. As sudden as she started the scream Mel stopped, shaking and staring in mute horror at her unconscious brother, who was covered in blood now, and the dead eyes of Sally McMillan, which she’d see in dreams to come for years and years, no matter how far she ran, no matter how much her parents paid for counseling.
“No!” Jay yelled and he lunged to get to his girlfriend, just as something - Jensen - kicked his legs away from under him and he dropped painfully to the floor, cracking his head on the hard linoleum. The shot, roughly aimed at his chest, went wide and hit something metallic far behind them.
“You were supposed to be my friend, you were supposed to listen!” Mark screeched, his voice breaking and varying between too loud to understand and too low. He stalked over with seemingly wooden legs, his pistols held in front of him in a sure grip. ‘I’m dead’ Jared thought. ‘I’m dead, and I don’t even know why.’
But the gun - both guns - didn’t point at his head. Instead, they were aimed at Jensen, who, like him, lay on his back from where he’d gotten Jared down and away from the lethal bullet. His friend was pale, shaking and maybe he too had wet his jeans. Jared wasn’t so certain that his own boxers were still clean either, terror shooting through his marrow, the belief that this was the end, that just before he died he’d be forced to watch all his friends be killed, watch his best friend be murdered only inches from him. He couldn’t move, didn’t actually want to die first, either, but he grabbed Jensen’s hand and squeezed, silently promising to be there, stay close, stick to him until it was over.
Only because they were so close, maybe only because he felt the vibrations through their clasped hands did he hear Jensen say ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ over and over. It didn’t really make any sense, because what the fuck was Jensen sorry for, what the hell could he’ve possibly done to cause Mark to flip - they hadn’t known each other except for swim-practice, and Jens had stopped swimming years ago.
“You… you! You took my friend away! Don’t try t’ deny it, it ‘as you. Suddenly Jay’s more int’rested in the freak, in the cocksucking little freak, the … the…. The … in you!” Mark shook with anger, with disgust, with pain and fear and terror, maybe, but with fury and madness winning over any sane emotion that might still be in the teen. “You’re the cause, you’re the reason! You witched him away from me and us. You’ll pay” he spat “for all that! You hi-hi-hideous freak!”
“No,” Jared whispered, but his voice didn’t carry farther than Jensen and the only response he got was a squeeze of his hand. ‘No no no no no’ he thought, ‘no no no not Jens, please, no’
Jared closed his eyes.
a/n: Whoops. Sorry. More tomorrow ;-)
Chapter 5