Death Trap, 1/1, RPS, J2 nonAU, H/C, [PG]
Title: Death Trap
AO3 for e-reader downloads
Spanish translation by alfer6
Author: sandymg
Beta: borgmama1of5
Summary: Written for the RPF Hurt/Comfort Meme at spn_hurtcomfort. Prompt: The boys are driving somewhere and get into an accident - the car rolls and lands in a ditch filled with water. Jensen is trapped and Jared has to keep his head above water until help arrives. (Continues in Life Force.)
Wordcount: 2,200 - one-shot
Genre: RPS, J2 non-AU, H/C, Angst
Characters/Pairings: Jared/Jensen
Rating/Warnings: PG
Disclaimer: This is fiction. No harm intended. No profit made.
A/N: This story continues and concludes in Life Force.
Death Trap
It’s cold.
Jared is startled awake aware of the cold and the wet and a taste of copper. His adrenaline spikes and penetrates his frozen bones.
Ohgodohgodohgod.
It takes another second for the fear to break his paralysis.
Jensen.
Jared was driving. The deer … Remembers swerving, losing control, spinning …
Jared is in water, the SUV is … he turns his head frantically. Sees it behind him. Pushes himself to his feet. Turns around. Something drips in his eye. Wants to wipe it away but can’t steady himself to be able to do it.
The SUV is a scrunched can. He’s seen cars this smashed before up close - on sets. Never in real life.
Jared reaches the mangled driver’s door. He remembers the world tumbling madly … everything twisted and the air bags blocking his view and he couldn’t see Jensen. Has a flash of fumbling at his seat belt, pushing his way out. Then nothing.
“Jensen!”
A groan answers from inside the vehicle.
He hears himself shouting. Except it’s not a shout at all because his voice is as thin as glass. Transparent and sharp. Groaning. That’s good. That’s alive.
“Jensen!” he shouts louder. Pushes himself forward. He has to move. Has to be fast. Not slow like he is because the car is in the water and …
The air bag has deflated and Jared finally gets a glimpse of Jensen, still in his seat, seat belt in place. “Jen! Jen, can you hear me?”
Jared tries to reach around the mangled steering column. He can’t get past the broken steering wheel and deflated airbags.
“Jay … “
“Yeah. I’m here. Oh god. Are you okay?”
Jared pushes away his own pain, stretches his fingers to try to touch Jensen.
Can’t do it.
“Jensen - undo your seat belt.”
There is movement. Jared can see Jensen’s body fall forward with the release of the seatbelt. Jensen twists toward him.
Thank god, he can move. Seems okay.
“I’m coming ‘round to your side, get you out.”
Jared keeps a hand on the devastated front end to steady himself. The ooze pulls at his shoes, makes it hard to balance. He starts to tip and feels a burning slash on his palm as he grabs a sharp jagged edge to stop from falling.
He leaves bloody handprints across the folded, broken front.
Jared reaches the passenger door. His sliced hand shakes as he tries the door handle. Everything is bent. Nothing happens. He wipes at the mud on the window.
A bloody face is suddenly there. He can see Jensen push at the door from inside. The results are the same. It’s not budging.
“We need help,” Jared says, stating the obvious.
Jensen is scrambling for something inside the car. He holds up a cell phone. Jared manages a weak smile as Jensen dials. He doesn’t hear what Jensen says but Jensen puts the phone down and makes a thumbs up sign. Jared sighs. Help is coming. They will be okay.
“Jared!”
Jared looks back up. He’s not sure where he was looking before. He sunk down a bit leaning against the car. It’s so cold. Hard to think.
“Water.”
Jared knows every pitch to Jensen’s voice. Has memorized every timbre, every intonation, every note. He can tell Dean from Jensen, of course. He likes Jen’s voice better. He likes Jensen better.
Jensen’s voice sounds odd.
“Jay … I’ve gotta get outta here!”
Jared snaps to attention. He’s never heard that in Jensen’s voice before. Jared’s insides churn in a rolling mudslide as he identifies what he hears. Terror.
Work, he commands his legs, as he pushes himself up and steady. Move. Ignore how he hurts as he turns back to the bowed out-of-shape door.
Water is pouring into the vehicle from the bottom of the SUV. Jensen is twisted, his shoulder against the bucket seat. One knee is angled off the seat bottom. His other foot pushing against the floor. Jared stares dumbly through the window trying to clear his muffled head. Jensen’s trying to get purchase with his hand on the seat to pull himself higher. Only one arm. Jensen’s other arm is bent oddly. Bloody.
“Jensen,” Jared finally says. “Push the door again. Use your legs as leverage while I pull.”
They work in tandem.
But the car is too crushed. Jared yells, “What about the other side?”
Jensen struggles some, tries to contort his body around the mangled interior. Finally, he nods no. He isn’t getting out that way, either. Jared remembers the way the car’s steering column has turned in on itself and is pushed into the seat back, bottom.
Jared is turned around, still feeling the car’s mad, tumbled drop into the water. He is having trouble feeling his lower half. He knows he’s shaking but things are fuzzy, disconnected.
“Jared! You have to get out of the water. You’re freezing.”
Jensen’s voice has that odd, foreign pitch again. Jared decides he doesn’t like it. It scares him.
“What?” he asks. He heard the word ‘freezing’. Is Jensen cold? Jared needs to find a way to warm him up. Jensen’s always cold. When they sit on the couch Jared purposely moves closer, invades Jen’s space because he knows that he’s warmer than his costar. Jared likes that he can share his heat with Jensen. And it feels good in ways he doesn’t think about. Usually.
“Jay. Listen to me. Please. Get out of the water. Climb out and back to the road. Direct the cops here. Jared … please.”
Jared looks back in the car. Jensen’s knees are under water. The water is cold. That means Jensen is cold. Jared can’t have this.
“Jensen,” he says. But then stops because he has nothing else to offer. He feels his eyes burn and hot tears drip down his cheeks.
A hundred things he never said are running in Jared’s mind. And every one is punching another hole inside of him. Damn propriety and caution and fucking Hollywood and its blasted hypocrisies. Damn everything that stopped him from …
The water is higher now in the car, halfway up Jensen’s thigh. Jared tries to think. He’s in the water and it’s not over his own head. But Jensen’s head in the car is lower, the car sunk in whatever hellmuck they fell into. What if the water doesn’t stop rising?
Nononono.
“Jay. Go!”
What? He begins to understand what Jensen’s been saying. “No. I’m not leaving you. Never.”
Jared looks around. Where’s the damn help?
He turns back and Jensen is pressed right at the window. Eyes open wide and face set tight. Jared moves closer. Sees the water nipping Jensen’s waist. It’s at Jared’s chest. Which is level with Jensen’s head. Stop, he prays. God, please level off and stop.
Jensen’s good hand comes up and touches the window.
Jared immediately palms the glass and brings their hands together.
For a moment there is nothing but Jensen’s brilliant eyes absorbing Jared like he’s the answer to everything.
The water reaches Jensen’s upper torso and Jared feels a scream lodge in his throat. It grows inside him and chokes all breath.
Jensen moves his hand from the glass and tries again to lift himself higher by pushing off the seat. His hand slips and Jared hears a muffled curse and Jensen temporarily slips deeper in the frigid water. The planet stops rotating and Jared is enveloped in a silence that smothers his soul.
“Jay. ‘S cold.”
The soft words come through. Jared doesn’t know how. He thinks that silence helped because all he knows is what’s going on inside the car. There is nothing else.
“Help’s coming. You have to hold yourself up. Hold on, Jen.”
“Jared, get out of the water.”
Jared simply shakes no. He would rather die than leave. He would rather die than watch Jensen …
He can’t finish the thought.
The goddamn water is higher. It’s rippling around Jensen’s shoulders and Jared starts pounding on the glass. He knows he can’t break it with his fists. Knowing is irrelevant. He strikes the window repeatedly until blood trickles down both palms. Inside, Jensen is wriggling, trying to keep himself higher, but he keeps slipping.
Jared stares and sees the moment Jensen’s eyes lock on him.
Sees the fucking goodbye.
Jared explodes.
“No! You do not get to leave me. Do you hear me? No … no way. Not when … I love you. I’ve loved you forever. Since day one. Do you hear me? No fucking way. Hold on. Please … please hold on.”
Jared’s crying.
The water’s just covering Jensen’s shoulders. Jared brings his hand back to the window and splays his palm out. Jensen shifts, tries to move his injured hand but the grimace of pain shows how impossible that will be.
Jensen’s cheek touches the glass and Jared keeps his hand there and imagines that rough texture beneath his fingers. Stares at lips he’s wanted to kiss for years. The face of every fantasy he’s allowed himself whether alone. Or with others. Every single time.
Jensen slips again, his mouth, nose are deep in the icy water.
“No!” Jared clutches helplessly at the glass. “Jen. No. Get back up. Now. Get back up.”
Jensen struggles. He pulls out of the water. But it’s still rising. Hovering around Jensen’s collar bone. Jared has stared at that spot in the past. Wondering a million things. Never acting.
“Jared. I … “ Jared’s eyes are glued to the window. Jensen’s eyes are wet, puddles forming on his lower lids. “I love you, too.”
Jared isn’t sure of what he heard because that dang silence is rushing into his ears again. A cyclone of cotton trapping him inside. Except Jensen says it again and Jared hears it and his heart threatens to stop.
Because the only way Jensen would say that aloud is if he thought …
Jared is screaming. “If that’s true then you hold on. You hold on and you promise me … promise me,” he has no more breath to scream so he whispers, “when we get out of this you’ll let me kiss you.”
“What?” Jensen mouths.
“Kiss you,” Jared pleads. “I want to … I’ve wanted to for so long.” He knows his voice is gone. Broken. And tears are streaming down his face. “I love you so much. Don’t. Please … “
Jensen inches closer to the glass. Water is covering his Adam’s apple. He presses his lips to the glass and Jared is helpless but to move in and do the same. He closes his eyes and feels only cold smoothness and knows that if this ends here, like this, that a part of him will be forever lost.
“I do love you. Believe it, Jay. And if we get out of this I’ll kiss you until you forget how to talk. But … if … I don’t … promise me you’ll be okay. I need to know this. Have to know this.”
Jared stares into the scared eyes of the man he loves beyond all reason and lies.
“I promise. I … I’ll … oh god … Jen … “
Jared isn’t that good a liar.
Neither speaks anymore. Only looks. Jared is reliving every moment since he’s met Jensen wishing … he wonders if Jensen is doing the same.
The water sloshes Jensen’s chin and he spits it out as it gets in his mouth. Jensen closes his eyes a moment. When they reopen they lock on Jared. “Don’t go.”
The words are softly spoken but Jared’s heart hears them. “Not going anywhere.”
“I love you,” Jensen says again. “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry, too, Jared thinks. Sorry he was a coward. Lazy. Scared. Complacent. He’s so close to the window that his breath is fogging the glass. He wishes his air could penetrate. Wishes he could give up his own breath so that Jensen could live. Jensen coughs again as he swallows more water and Jared feels it in his own throat.
The noise doesn’t penetrate at first. That absolute silence is blocking it out. And nothing exists for Jared beyond Jensen’s eyes
“Jay?”
There are flashing lights and yelling voices and Jensen’s eyes are shining.
“Jay … I think … the water’s stopped rising.”
Jared stares at the water level. Jensen is right. It’s still level with his chin. It’s still freezing and Jensen is weak and the sooner they get him the hell out of there the better. But. Thank god, it’s not rising any more. Jared’s hand presses into the window. Jensen moves his hand off the seat and touches the glass.
A voice shouts to them.
“Over here!” Jared shouts back.
In another moment there will be a swarm of strangers who will save their lives.
Except, he’s just been given his life by the green eyes now smiling at him.
“You owe me one heckuva makeout session,” Jared says, voice breaking the silence of his mind.
Jensen’s hand presses into his against the glass in the split second before the rescue team surrounds them.
fin
Click here to continue to Life Force, which is the final installment.
A/N: To help categorize, this story falls as J2 non-AU, but it is most certainly an alternate universe in which these two imaginary actors are in love.
AO3 for e-reader downloads
Spanish translation by alfer6
Author: sandymg
Beta: borgmama1of5
Summary: Written for the RPF Hurt/Comfort Meme at spn_hurtcomfort. Prompt: The boys are driving somewhere and get into an accident - the car rolls and lands in a ditch filled with water. Jensen is trapped and Jared has to keep his head above water until help arrives. (Continues in Life Force.)
Wordcount: 2,200 - one-shot
Genre: RPS, J2 non-AU, H/C, Angst
Characters/Pairings: Jared/Jensen
Rating/Warnings: PG
Disclaimer: This is fiction. No harm intended. No profit made.
A/N: This story continues and concludes in Life Force.
Death Trap
It’s cold.
Jared is startled awake aware of the cold and the wet and a taste of copper. His adrenaline spikes and penetrates his frozen bones.
Ohgodohgodohgod.
It takes another second for the fear to break his paralysis.
Jensen.
Jared was driving. The deer … Remembers swerving, losing control, spinning …
Jared is in water, the SUV is … he turns his head frantically. Sees it behind him. Pushes himself to his feet. Turns around. Something drips in his eye. Wants to wipe it away but can’t steady himself to be able to do it.
The SUV is a scrunched can. He’s seen cars this smashed before up close - on sets. Never in real life.
Jared reaches the mangled driver’s door. He remembers the world tumbling madly … everything twisted and the air bags blocking his view and he couldn’t see Jensen. Has a flash of fumbling at his seat belt, pushing his way out. Then nothing.
“Jensen!”
A groan answers from inside the vehicle.
He hears himself shouting. Except it’s not a shout at all because his voice is as thin as glass. Transparent and sharp. Groaning. That’s good. That’s alive.
“Jensen!” he shouts louder. Pushes himself forward. He has to move. Has to be fast. Not slow like he is because the car is in the water and …
The air bag has deflated and Jared finally gets a glimpse of Jensen, still in his seat, seat belt in place. “Jen! Jen, can you hear me?”
Jared tries to reach around the mangled steering column. He can’t get past the broken steering wheel and deflated airbags.
“Jay … “
“Yeah. I’m here. Oh god. Are you okay?”
Jared pushes away his own pain, stretches his fingers to try to touch Jensen.
Can’t do it.
“Jensen - undo your seat belt.”
There is movement. Jared can see Jensen’s body fall forward with the release of the seatbelt. Jensen twists toward him.
Thank god, he can move. Seems okay.
“I’m coming ‘round to your side, get you out.”
Jared keeps a hand on the devastated front end to steady himself. The ooze pulls at his shoes, makes it hard to balance. He starts to tip and feels a burning slash on his palm as he grabs a sharp jagged edge to stop from falling.
He leaves bloody handprints across the folded, broken front.
Jared reaches the passenger door. His sliced hand shakes as he tries the door handle. Everything is bent. Nothing happens. He wipes at the mud on the window.
A bloody face is suddenly there. He can see Jensen push at the door from inside. The results are the same. It’s not budging.
“We need help,” Jared says, stating the obvious.
Jensen is scrambling for something inside the car. He holds up a cell phone. Jared manages a weak smile as Jensen dials. He doesn’t hear what Jensen says but Jensen puts the phone down and makes a thumbs up sign. Jared sighs. Help is coming. They will be okay.
“Jared!”
Jared looks back up. He’s not sure where he was looking before. He sunk down a bit leaning against the car. It’s so cold. Hard to think.
“Water.”
Jared knows every pitch to Jensen’s voice. Has memorized every timbre, every intonation, every note. He can tell Dean from Jensen, of course. He likes Jen’s voice better. He likes Jensen better.
Jensen’s voice sounds odd.
“Jay … I’ve gotta get outta here!”
Jared snaps to attention. He’s never heard that in Jensen’s voice before. Jared’s insides churn in a rolling mudslide as he identifies what he hears. Terror.
Work, he commands his legs, as he pushes himself up and steady. Move. Ignore how he hurts as he turns back to the bowed out-of-shape door.
Water is pouring into the vehicle from the bottom of the SUV. Jensen is twisted, his shoulder against the bucket seat. One knee is angled off the seat bottom. His other foot pushing against the floor. Jared stares dumbly through the window trying to clear his muffled head. Jensen’s trying to get purchase with his hand on the seat to pull himself higher. Only one arm. Jensen’s other arm is bent oddly. Bloody.
“Jensen,” Jared finally says. “Push the door again. Use your legs as leverage while I pull.”
They work in tandem.
But the car is too crushed. Jared yells, “What about the other side?”
Jensen struggles some, tries to contort his body around the mangled interior. Finally, he nods no. He isn’t getting out that way, either. Jared remembers the way the car’s steering column has turned in on itself and is pushed into the seat back, bottom.
Jared is turned around, still feeling the car’s mad, tumbled drop into the water. He is having trouble feeling his lower half. He knows he’s shaking but things are fuzzy, disconnected.
“Jared! You have to get out of the water. You’re freezing.”
Jensen’s voice has that odd, foreign pitch again. Jared decides he doesn’t like it. It scares him.
“What?” he asks. He heard the word ‘freezing’. Is Jensen cold? Jared needs to find a way to warm him up. Jensen’s always cold. When they sit on the couch Jared purposely moves closer, invades Jen’s space because he knows that he’s warmer than his costar. Jared likes that he can share his heat with Jensen. And it feels good in ways he doesn’t think about. Usually.
“Jay. Listen to me. Please. Get out of the water. Climb out and back to the road. Direct the cops here. Jared … please.”
Jared looks back in the car. Jensen’s knees are under water. The water is cold. That means Jensen is cold. Jared can’t have this.
“Jensen,” he says. But then stops because he has nothing else to offer. He feels his eyes burn and hot tears drip down his cheeks.
A hundred things he never said are running in Jared’s mind. And every one is punching another hole inside of him. Damn propriety and caution and fucking Hollywood and its blasted hypocrisies. Damn everything that stopped him from …
The water is higher now in the car, halfway up Jensen’s thigh. Jared tries to think. He’s in the water and it’s not over his own head. But Jensen’s head in the car is lower, the car sunk in whatever hellmuck they fell into. What if the water doesn’t stop rising?
Nononono.
“Jay. Go!”
What? He begins to understand what Jensen’s been saying. “No. I’m not leaving you. Never.”
Jared looks around. Where’s the damn help?
He turns back and Jensen is pressed right at the window. Eyes open wide and face set tight. Jared moves closer. Sees the water nipping Jensen’s waist. It’s at Jared’s chest. Which is level with Jensen’s head. Stop, he prays. God, please level off and stop.
Jensen’s good hand comes up and touches the window.
Jared immediately palms the glass and brings their hands together.
For a moment there is nothing but Jensen’s brilliant eyes absorbing Jared like he’s the answer to everything.
The water reaches Jensen’s upper torso and Jared feels a scream lodge in his throat. It grows inside him and chokes all breath.
Jensen moves his hand from the glass and tries again to lift himself higher by pushing off the seat. His hand slips and Jared hears a muffled curse and Jensen temporarily slips deeper in the frigid water. The planet stops rotating and Jared is enveloped in a silence that smothers his soul.
“Jay. ‘S cold.”
The soft words come through. Jared doesn’t know how. He thinks that silence helped because all he knows is what’s going on inside the car. There is nothing else.
“Help’s coming. You have to hold yourself up. Hold on, Jen.”
“Jared, get out of the water.”
Jared simply shakes no. He would rather die than leave. He would rather die than watch Jensen …
He can’t finish the thought.
The goddamn water is higher. It’s rippling around Jensen’s shoulders and Jared starts pounding on the glass. He knows he can’t break it with his fists. Knowing is irrelevant. He strikes the window repeatedly until blood trickles down both palms. Inside, Jensen is wriggling, trying to keep himself higher, but he keeps slipping.
Jared stares and sees the moment Jensen’s eyes lock on him.
Sees the fucking goodbye.
Jared explodes.
“No! You do not get to leave me. Do you hear me? No … no way. Not when … I love you. I’ve loved you forever. Since day one. Do you hear me? No fucking way. Hold on. Please … please hold on.”
Jared’s crying.
The water’s just covering Jensen’s shoulders. Jared brings his hand back to the window and splays his palm out. Jensen shifts, tries to move his injured hand but the grimace of pain shows how impossible that will be.
Jensen’s cheek touches the glass and Jared keeps his hand there and imagines that rough texture beneath his fingers. Stares at lips he’s wanted to kiss for years. The face of every fantasy he’s allowed himself whether alone. Or with others. Every single time.
Jensen slips again, his mouth, nose are deep in the icy water.
“No!” Jared clutches helplessly at the glass. “Jen. No. Get back up. Now. Get back up.”
Jensen struggles. He pulls out of the water. But it’s still rising. Hovering around Jensen’s collar bone. Jared has stared at that spot in the past. Wondering a million things. Never acting.
“Jared. I … “ Jared’s eyes are glued to the window. Jensen’s eyes are wet, puddles forming on his lower lids. “I love you, too.”
Jared isn’t sure of what he heard because that dang silence is rushing into his ears again. A cyclone of cotton trapping him inside. Except Jensen says it again and Jared hears it and his heart threatens to stop.
Because the only way Jensen would say that aloud is if he thought …
Jared is screaming. “If that’s true then you hold on. You hold on and you promise me … promise me,” he has no more breath to scream so he whispers, “when we get out of this you’ll let me kiss you.”
“What?” Jensen mouths.
“Kiss you,” Jared pleads. “I want to … I’ve wanted to for so long.” He knows his voice is gone. Broken. And tears are streaming down his face. “I love you so much. Don’t. Please … “
Jensen inches closer to the glass. Water is covering his Adam’s apple. He presses his lips to the glass and Jared is helpless but to move in and do the same. He closes his eyes and feels only cold smoothness and knows that if this ends here, like this, that a part of him will be forever lost.
“I do love you. Believe it, Jay. And if we get out of this I’ll kiss you until you forget how to talk. But … if … I don’t … promise me you’ll be okay. I need to know this. Have to know this.”
Jared stares into the scared eyes of the man he loves beyond all reason and lies.
“I promise. I … I’ll … oh god … Jen … “
Jared isn’t that good a liar.
Neither speaks anymore. Only looks. Jared is reliving every moment since he’s met Jensen wishing … he wonders if Jensen is doing the same.
The water sloshes Jensen’s chin and he spits it out as it gets in his mouth. Jensen closes his eyes a moment. When they reopen they lock on Jared. “Don’t go.”
The words are softly spoken but Jared’s heart hears them. “Not going anywhere.”
“I love you,” Jensen says again. “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry, too, Jared thinks. Sorry he was a coward. Lazy. Scared. Complacent. He’s so close to the window that his breath is fogging the glass. He wishes his air could penetrate. Wishes he could give up his own breath so that Jensen could live. Jensen coughs again as he swallows more water and Jared feels it in his own throat.
The noise doesn’t penetrate at first. That absolute silence is blocking it out. And nothing exists for Jared beyond Jensen’s eyes
“Jay?”
There are flashing lights and yelling voices and Jensen’s eyes are shining.
“Jay … I think … the water’s stopped rising.”
Jared stares at the water level. Jensen is right. It’s still level with his chin. It’s still freezing and Jensen is weak and the sooner they get him the hell out of there the better. But. Thank god, it’s not rising any more. Jared’s hand presses into the window. Jensen moves his hand off the seat and touches the glass.
A voice shouts to them.
“Over here!” Jared shouts back.
In another moment there will be a swarm of strangers who will save their lives.
Except, he’s just been given his life by the green eyes now smiling at him.
“You owe me one heckuva makeout session,” Jared says, voice breaking the silence of his mind.
Jensen’s hand presses into his against the glass in the split second before the rescue team surrounds them.
fin
Click here to continue to Life Force, which is the final installment.
A/N: To help categorize, this story falls as J2 non-AU, but it is most certainly an alternate universe in which these two imaginary actors are in love.