Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky (Jensen/Jared RPS) -- 48/51
Title: Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / Luanne (OFC); Jared Padalecki/Pete (OMC); Jared/Eric Kripke/JDM; stated Jared/Sandy; stated Jared/Rebecca (OFC) and stated Jared/Ryan (OMC)
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help. Things go (rapidly) downhill from there... then fester... then get better?
Come on! Hop in the handbasket! There be room here for everyone!
Spoilers: Overall there’s really nothing to see here… there are a few very vague spoilers for “Bugs” and some minor spoilers for “Faith”, “Bloody Mary” and "Shadow".
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Chapter Forty-Eight: Still Tired in the Morning
Rating: NC-17; m/m slash, graphic, sexual violence, rape, horror, use of prescription medication (other than the Xanax)
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, some Jared/JDM
Word Count: 3,020
Chapter Forty-Eight: Still Tired in the Morning
He leads me into the cabin, closes the door behind us, and I’m instantly enveloped in warmth. The fire burns brightly in the fireplace-he’s added logs, and it warms the whole cabin now. I can feel my body slowly defrosting.
Dinner is set out on the coffee table, and there are several flannel blankets thrown on the couch. I let Jared lead me to the couch, and we sit down together to eat. It smells delicious, but I can’t get more than a few bites down before my stomach starts turning-likely because it’s not used to having food in it. Jared convinces me to eat a few more bites, whispering soft words of encouragement, telling me I need to eat, need to give my body what it needs-food, and then rest.
His whispering is breath against the back of my neck after I can’t take another bite, his hands are warm on my shoulders. “Shhhh.” He murmurs into the nape of my neck, pressing his lips to the sweat-slicked skin. “Close your eyes.”
Fear slides over me as I do as he asks, closing my eyes until I see darkness on the insides of my eyelids. His hands begin a slow, gentle rubbing up and down my arms, shoulders to elbows and back again, the friction warming, his touch soothing. “Relax…” He whispers into my neck. “Rest now…”
I do, slowly, leaning into him, drawing strength from him. I hear his voice, telling me to lie down, and I’m dimly aware of him guiding me down until I’m prone on the couch. He covers me with the blankets, tucks a pillow beneath my head.
“Try to sleep, Jen…” He whispers.
I won’t sleep, but I do keep my eyes closed, remain on the couch, just listening as Jared cleans up our dishes, washes them, puts them away.
Ultimately, I do nod off, too exhausted and bone-weary to deny my body the sleep it needs, even though I know nightmares loom large on the horizon.
The weekend passes without incident. I manage to convince Jared that I don’t need the Xanax, and I flat-out refuse to take the Lunesta, insisting that I am, and will be, okay. Two panic attacks and three restless nights later, I find myself back in Vancouver, ready to go back to work, Jared at my side.
Things are vastly improved between Jared and me. We’re even sharing a bed at night now, though our intimacy hasn’t yet progressed beyond some deep kissing, heavy petting and sleeping curled in each other’s arms. I still have nightmares, but they’re not as bad as they once were. I still spend most of my nights awake-at least that way I don’t disturb Jared with my dreams, or when I wake up in a cold sweat, panting.
On set, Cindy spends a long time on my makeup, trying to hide the circles beneath my eyes and the slowly manifesting weight loss where its visible in the new hollows of my cheeks and sunkenness of my eyes. They can’t hide the haunted expression my eyes hold, and that job falls to Jared, who never fails to banish my demons with stolen kisses when no one’s looking and a hand on my arm between takes.
But my appearance is staring to raise questions, and first it’s Luanne who takes the blame-small waisted and buxom Luanne, who can’t get enough of me. Then it’s “are you sick?”, which Jared latches onto with offers to take me to the hospital-something he’s been trying to convince me to let him do for almost a week now.
It’s a joke when Jeff says that maybe we’re rehearsing for when the Winchester boys wind up in bed together out of a spell or demon’s idea of a sick prank. I manage to cover the look of horror that’s certainly in my eyes with a laugh. Jared just looks like he’s been punched in the stomach.
Neither of us an be sure when or how it goes from being a joke to one of the stage hands sidling up close to Jared, hissing that it’s “not so funny when it’s the truth, is it?”
Jared just stares at him, slack-jawed.
“Close your mouth, pretty boy, or I’ll put it to work, y’hear?” He thrusts his hips pointedly at Jared.
I’m not sure what happens next or how it all goes so bad so quickly. It all seems to happen at once. Another member of the crew comes up behind Jared, presses tight against him and whispers dirty things in his ear, grips his arms when he starts struggling. I’m suddenly right there, physically tearing the man from Jared, yelling to leave him alone and threatening him. He’s a stage hand. Jared’s one of the stars of the show.
Jeff’s saying something about how it was only a joke, but maybe there was more to it than he thought. He leans in close to Jared, close enough so I can hear him whisper secretively “Hey… though… if you swing like that… it’s cool… maybe you and I could…” He arches his eyebrows suggestively. “…you know… get it on sometime… if you’re into that sort of thing, of course.”
Jared shakes his head ‘no’, which leads to Jeff taking the back of his neck and yanking it back. “Or I could just… take what I want.” He kicks behind Jared’s knees, forcing the taller man down, holds his head back with a fistful of hair, and uses his other hand to quickly undo his belt buckle. He unbuttons and unzips, a maniacal grin across his mouth and gleam in his eyes. Jared shimmies backwards on his knees, and I can see tears streaming down his cheeks as he holds up his hands to press against Jeff’s thighs. “No… no… please, no…”
And I want to help him, I’m trying to reach him, but I’m suddenly so far away, running and running and never able to reach him. I reach his side just as Jeff swats his hands away roughly and steps in, shoving his pants down with one hand, freeing his cock and shoving it, limp, into Jared’s mouth.
I try to grab him, pull him off of Jared, but my hand goes through him, like I’m a ghost. I can’t touch him. Can’t get a grip on him. I flail wildly as Jeff fucks Jared’s mouth, clawing desperately at him, screaming for him to stop.
“No! Stop!” My hand passes through Jeff’s arm yet again. “No! Jared!” I reach for Jared instead, trying a different tactic-I’ll pull him away rather than Jeff. Anything to stop this. “Jared!” I cry his name as I reach for him, half expecting that my fingers will pass through him as well, and it’s hope when they don’t. I get a grip on his arm, reach out with my other hand to grip his other arm, pull him back as I step behind him, set my feet.
I yank back hard, and he slides off of Jeff’s cock, lands hard against me, and my arms go around him instinctively. “Jared… Jared… Jared…” I murmur his name, one hand in his hair, the other on his back, holding him close.
“Jared… Jared… Jared…”
“Shhh… Jenny, I’m here…” He whispers, and I shake my head, wondering why he’s comforting me while I’m comforting him.
I set him away from me, expecting to see pain-filled eyes overflowing with tears, shocked when I see clear eyes filled with worry instead. “Jen?” He asks plaintively, his eyes searching mine for an answer I’m afraid I don’t have, and for reassurance I can’t give.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, suck in rapid breaths to calm my heart. “Jare?” I reach out to touch his face. “Jare… you’re …”
“I’m fine.” His hand comes up to cover mine. “Jenny… it was just a dream…just a dream Jenny...”
“But you… hurt you… and… I tried… I tried… I couldn’t save you.” I whisper sadly.
“Just a dream, Jen… Just a dream.” He soothes. “I’m right here… I’m fine… whatever it was… it never happened, Jen… was just a dream …”
I nod frantically, backing away from him and drawing my arms in close to my chest, hands fisted and close to my chin. My knees come up to my chest as well as I sit, heels pulled onto the sofa. “Just a dream…” I echo hollowly.
Jared takes my wrists and tugs them towards him. “C’mon, Jenny… C’mon… Come back to me…” He whispers. “It was just a dream.” He repeats. “Just. A. Dream.”
“Some of it is stuff that’s happened…” I whisper. “Just… putting images to what you told me about… what happened to you after your prom.” This one particularly wasn’t about that, but I’ve had them too, often recently. “Jare...” I hate seeing him like that, beaten and broken, and the images of him lying in a hospital bed, unmoving just about kill me.
He moves to sit next to me, and pulls me into his arms. “Jen… it’s in the past… it’s over and it’s done… and they put the guys who did it to me in jail… and…”
“And?” I prompt, lifting my head from where it’s come to rest comfortably on his shoulder to look sidelong at him.
“It’s over, Jenny.” He stares into space, and if I hadn’t already suspected that he wasn’t completely past what had been done to him, I would now. As it is, this confirms my suspicions.
“Not for you it isn’t.” I whisper, as gently as possible.
He turns his head to look at me, says more firmly that it’s over. “It is, Jen. It’s over and it’s in the past. And it can’t hurt me anymore.” There’s a distance in his voice that isn’t usually there when he’s talking to me. “…and it shouldn’t hurt you, either… I didn’t tell you about it so you’d have nightmares.” He whispers. “I didn’t mean for you to hurt…”
He doesn’t like talking about it. I feel even more privileged that he’s told me the whole story, as cut-and-dry and as bluntly as he did. I understand why he did. “You just needed it off your chest.” He needed to let go of that pain. “You needed to get it out… to let it go.”
He nods slowly.
Very quietly, he says, “I dream about it enough for the both of us, Jen.” And he gets up to go to the stove. “Let it go…”
I turn to look over the back of the couch as he makes hot chamomile tea for both of us, follow him with my eyes, turning neck and body around as he walks back around the sofa with two steaming mugs.
“Drink.” He hands me one and takes a sip from the other, slurping at the hot liquid loudly, the cup clinking against the coaster on the table when he puts it down.
I’m about to ask him what parts of it he dreams about, what parts he relives, when he kisses me, square on the mouth, and hard. When he pulls away, he glances down, and whispers, “I can’t talk about them yet, Jen.”
“Jare… if it interferes with your ability to have a relationship…”
He smiles. “I’m okay with you… …and Jen… you have nightmares of your own to deal with.”
“Touche.” I lie back against the couch after drinking the rest of my tea, feeling it warm my throat and my stomach, and I’m all too aware of Jared watching as my eyes slowly slip closed only to jerk open seconds later, time and time again. “What?”
“Jen.” He sighs, exasperation evident in his tone.
“Jare… I can’t.” The nightmares come too fast, and they’re too painful. I’m still reeling from the one where it was me hurting Jared. I can’t deal with another one. My stomach’s still turning from the last one, and I’m surprised I managed to hold on to dinner through the images of being unable to save Jared from being forced to use his mouth to get our co-star off. Thinking about it now just makes the twisting in my stomach worse, and I wrap an arm around my midsection, swallowing the first light wave of nausea.
Jared notices my discomfort, and almost immediately he has one hand on my shirt, resting gently over my stomach. He doesn’t press, just lets his hand lie there. His other hand comes around me, pulling me forward, into him. I let him.
He helps me to stand, and guides me to my bed. It’s dark outside, pitch black almost, save for moonlight dancing off the silver and diamonds in the snow, and I stare out the small square window, quadrants of glass pane shadowed and made foggy by spreading spiderwebs of frost. Jared presses on my shoulder, his other hand still resting on my abdomen, lowering me into a sitting position on my bed.
“Jare… I’m not going to sleep.” I stare blankly at the milky-foggy window, at the shimmers of light outside. He moves near me, reaches across to the bedside table and the drawer there, then sits up straight again.
His fingers come to my lips, his other hand rests on the back of my neck. I know even before I feel the tips of his fingers pressing at my lips, trying to gain access to my mouth, what he’s doing. “No, Jare.” I push at his hands weakly and turn my head to the side.
The downside to eating little and throwing up, and lack of sleep is weakness. My entire body is sore, and I have no strength. Jared uses one hand to push me to my elbows on the mattress, and in one movement, is on his knees on the mattress, straddling me. He presses his hips hard to mine to limit my movement, and unless I want to choke on the water he’s holding, I have to use my elbows to keep myself propped up.
His fingers push roughly into my mouth. “Sorry, Jen.” He says, replacing his fingers with the lip of the glass and pouring. Water dribbles into my mouth and down the sides of my face. His hand clamps over my mouth. “Swallow.”
After a brief struggle, I swallow, and Jared moves off of me. “Jared, you fucker!” I move my hand to my mouth, not averse to sticking my fingers down my throat-anything to get this drug out of me. I don’t want to sleep, I don’t-can’t-handle the nightmares I know will come. I have to at least be able to wake up.
I’m near panicking, my heart rate is up and I’m breathing heavy. Jared catches my wrist as it moves with my hand to my mouth. “No, Jen.” He says, staring at me. “No!” And instead of fighting me when I start struggling with him, he pulls me into his arms. “Sleep, Jenny…” He croons. “Jenny… Jenny…”
I whisper things I can’t understand but that sound broken into his neck, finally giving into the exhaustion and the slow lulling effect of the sleeping pill on my system, leaning into Jared’s warmth. I do understand the words that come then, a soft plea I’ll deny any knowledge of upon waking. “Jare… please… you did this to me… don’t leave me...”
His hand strokes my hair. “I’ll be right here, Jen…” He whispers. “Shhh… I’ll be right here with you…”
I remember drifting off into sleep, my body near-collapsing in Jared’s arms, falling limp against him. I don’t remember him moving me, settling me beneath the covers, but when I wake up screaming the first time, that’s where I am-curled on my side beneath the covers.
It’s actually Jared who wakes me, gently shaking my shoulder, pulling me from the depths of a nightmare that I couldn’t tear myself from (I blame the Lunesta for that). His hands soothe away the tremors, warm my chilled skin. His words reassure me, and his kisses settle me, help me relax until once again I’m in dreamland.
I dream of all my nightmares in one, where I’m being taunted, by my mother, my father,… my grandmother is mortified and wants to perform old Catholic rituals of cleansing on me, to rid me of the demon she claims has made me sick, as if being bisexual (I view myself the same way Jared views himself-that is, I view myself that way if I’m honest about it-I have to.) is an illness that can be cured.
“No… no…” I twitch and toss and turn in my sleep, and it’s Jared who runs his hands along my body, easing me back into peaceful sleep and erasing the nightmare.
The nightmares surprisingly aren’t as bad as they have been. They’re similar to the dreams I’ve had with the exception of the first one, and through them all, I’m aware of, on a subconscious/conscious level, Jared’s constant presence.
I wake in the morning feeling rested but still tired, and I know it’ll be another few nights of sleep like this last one that I need before I feel back to par. I’ve been too long without sleep, without rest. My body feels more tired now, more achy after a night of rest than before when I hadn’t slept in days. Maybe because it knows what it’s missing.
I yawn, and move to sit up, pushing at covers, and-an arm? I turn, and realize I’m not alone in bed. Jared’s lying there next to me, long arms and legs and body curled around me, one arm flung over my waist. He’s still asleep, and when I move, he shifts, tugs at me with the arm that’s around my waist, and murmurs things I can’t understand completely. Things like “Shhh…” and “…I’m here, it’s alright…”, and “…go back to sleep, Jenny…”
They melt my heart, and for the first time I wonder what I ever did to deserve his friendship, much less his trust.
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Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / Luanne (OFC); Jared Padalecki/Pete (OMC); Jared/Eric Kripke/JDM; stated Jared/Sandy; stated Jared/Rebecca (OFC) and stated Jared/Ryan (OMC)
POV: Jensen Ackles
Author's Notes: It’s fiction. That means it’s not real, folks. Jensen and Jared are real people. So is Eric Kripke. The show “Supernatural” is a real TV show on the WB11. If anything else in this is real, I wasn’t aware of it.
Summary: Jared’s girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help. Things go (rapidly) downhill from there... then fester... then get better?
Come on! Hop in the handbasket! There be room here for everyone!
Spoilers: Overall there’s really nothing to see here… there are a few very vague spoilers for “Bugs” and some minor spoilers for “Faith”, “Bloody Mary” and "Shadow".
-------------------------
Chapter Forty-Eight: Still Tired in the Morning
Rating: NC-17; m/m slash, graphic, sexual violence, rape, horror, use of prescription medication (other than the Xanax)
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, some Jared/JDM
Word Count: 3,020
Chapter Forty-Eight: Still Tired in the Morning
He leads me into the cabin, closes the door behind us, and I’m instantly enveloped in warmth. The fire burns brightly in the fireplace-he’s added logs, and it warms the whole cabin now. I can feel my body slowly defrosting.
Dinner is set out on the coffee table, and there are several flannel blankets thrown on the couch. I let Jared lead me to the couch, and we sit down together to eat. It smells delicious, but I can’t get more than a few bites down before my stomach starts turning-likely because it’s not used to having food in it. Jared convinces me to eat a few more bites, whispering soft words of encouragement, telling me I need to eat, need to give my body what it needs-food, and then rest.
His whispering is breath against the back of my neck after I can’t take another bite, his hands are warm on my shoulders. “Shhhh.” He murmurs into the nape of my neck, pressing his lips to the sweat-slicked skin. “Close your eyes.”
Fear slides over me as I do as he asks, closing my eyes until I see darkness on the insides of my eyelids. His hands begin a slow, gentle rubbing up and down my arms, shoulders to elbows and back again, the friction warming, his touch soothing. “Relax…” He whispers into my neck. “Rest now…”
I do, slowly, leaning into him, drawing strength from him. I hear his voice, telling me to lie down, and I’m dimly aware of him guiding me down until I’m prone on the couch. He covers me with the blankets, tucks a pillow beneath my head.
“Try to sleep, Jen…” He whispers.
I won’t sleep, but I do keep my eyes closed, remain on the couch, just listening as Jared cleans up our dishes, washes them, puts them away.
Ultimately, I do nod off, too exhausted and bone-weary to deny my body the sleep it needs, even though I know nightmares loom large on the horizon.
The weekend passes without incident. I manage to convince Jared that I don’t need the Xanax, and I flat-out refuse to take the Lunesta, insisting that I am, and will be, okay. Two panic attacks and three restless nights later, I find myself back in Vancouver, ready to go back to work, Jared at my side.
Things are vastly improved between Jared and me. We’re even sharing a bed at night now, though our intimacy hasn’t yet progressed beyond some deep kissing, heavy petting and sleeping curled in each other’s arms. I still have nightmares, but they’re not as bad as they once were. I still spend most of my nights awake-at least that way I don’t disturb Jared with my dreams, or when I wake up in a cold sweat, panting.
On set, Cindy spends a long time on my makeup, trying to hide the circles beneath my eyes and the slowly manifesting weight loss where its visible in the new hollows of my cheeks and sunkenness of my eyes. They can’t hide the haunted expression my eyes hold, and that job falls to Jared, who never fails to banish my demons with stolen kisses when no one’s looking and a hand on my arm between takes.
But my appearance is staring to raise questions, and first it’s Luanne who takes the blame-small waisted and buxom Luanne, who can’t get enough of me. Then it’s “are you sick?”, which Jared latches onto with offers to take me to the hospital-something he’s been trying to convince me to let him do for almost a week now.
It’s a joke when Jeff says that maybe we’re rehearsing for when the Winchester boys wind up in bed together out of a spell or demon’s idea of a sick prank. I manage to cover the look of horror that’s certainly in my eyes with a laugh. Jared just looks like he’s been punched in the stomach.
Neither of us an be sure when or how it goes from being a joke to one of the stage hands sidling up close to Jared, hissing that it’s “not so funny when it’s the truth, is it?”
Jared just stares at him, slack-jawed.
“Close your mouth, pretty boy, or I’ll put it to work, y’hear?” He thrusts his hips pointedly at Jared.
I’m not sure what happens next or how it all goes so bad so quickly. It all seems to happen at once. Another member of the crew comes up behind Jared, presses tight against him and whispers dirty things in his ear, grips his arms when he starts struggling. I’m suddenly right there, physically tearing the man from Jared, yelling to leave him alone and threatening him. He’s a stage hand. Jared’s one of the stars of the show.
Jeff’s saying something about how it was only a joke, but maybe there was more to it than he thought. He leans in close to Jared, close enough so I can hear him whisper secretively “Hey… though… if you swing like that… it’s cool… maybe you and I could…” He arches his eyebrows suggestively. “…you know… get it on sometime… if you’re into that sort of thing, of course.”
Jared shakes his head ‘no’, which leads to Jeff taking the back of his neck and yanking it back. “Or I could just… take what I want.” He kicks behind Jared’s knees, forcing the taller man down, holds his head back with a fistful of hair, and uses his other hand to quickly undo his belt buckle. He unbuttons and unzips, a maniacal grin across his mouth and gleam in his eyes. Jared shimmies backwards on his knees, and I can see tears streaming down his cheeks as he holds up his hands to press against Jeff’s thighs. “No… no… please, no…”
And I want to help him, I’m trying to reach him, but I’m suddenly so far away, running and running and never able to reach him. I reach his side just as Jeff swats his hands away roughly and steps in, shoving his pants down with one hand, freeing his cock and shoving it, limp, into Jared’s mouth.
I try to grab him, pull him off of Jared, but my hand goes through him, like I’m a ghost. I can’t touch him. Can’t get a grip on him. I flail wildly as Jeff fucks Jared’s mouth, clawing desperately at him, screaming for him to stop.
“No! Stop!” My hand passes through Jeff’s arm yet again. “No! Jared!” I reach for Jared instead, trying a different tactic-I’ll pull him away rather than Jeff. Anything to stop this. “Jared!” I cry his name as I reach for him, half expecting that my fingers will pass through him as well, and it’s hope when they don’t. I get a grip on his arm, reach out with my other hand to grip his other arm, pull him back as I step behind him, set my feet.
I yank back hard, and he slides off of Jeff’s cock, lands hard against me, and my arms go around him instinctively. “Jared… Jared… Jared…” I murmur his name, one hand in his hair, the other on his back, holding him close.
“Jared… Jared… Jared…”
“Shhh… Jenny, I’m here…” He whispers, and I shake my head, wondering why he’s comforting me while I’m comforting him.
I set him away from me, expecting to see pain-filled eyes overflowing with tears, shocked when I see clear eyes filled with worry instead. “Jen?” He asks plaintively, his eyes searching mine for an answer I’m afraid I don’t have, and for reassurance I can’t give.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, suck in rapid breaths to calm my heart. “Jare?” I reach out to touch his face. “Jare… you’re …”
“I’m fine.” His hand comes up to cover mine. “Jenny… it was just a dream…just a dream Jenny...”
“But you… hurt you… and… I tried… I tried… I couldn’t save you.” I whisper sadly.
“Just a dream, Jen… Just a dream.” He soothes. “I’m right here… I’m fine… whatever it was… it never happened, Jen… was just a dream …”
I nod frantically, backing away from him and drawing my arms in close to my chest, hands fisted and close to my chin. My knees come up to my chest as well as I sit, heels pulled onto the sofa. “Just a dream…” I echo hollowly.
Jared takes my wrists and tugs them towards him. “C’mon, Jenny… C’mon… Come back to me…” He whispers. “It was just a dream.” He repeats. “Just. A. Dream.”
“Some of it is stuff that’s happened…” I whisper. “Just… putting images to what you told me about… what happened to you after your prom.” This one particularly wasn’t about that, but I’ve had them too, often recently. “Jare...” I hate seeing him like that, beaten and broken, and the images of him lying in a hospital bed, unmoving just about kill me.
He moves to sit next to me, and pulls me into his arms. “Jen… it’s in the past… it’s over and it’s done… and they put the guys who did it to me in jail… and…”
“And?” I prompt, lifting my head from where it’s come to rest comfortably on his shoulder to look sidelong at him.
“It’s over, Jenny.” He stares into space, and if I hadn’t already suspected that he wasn’t completely past what had been done to him, I would now. As it is, this confirms my suspicions.
“Not for you it isn’t.” I whisper, as gently as possible.
He turns his head to look at me, says more firmly that it’s over. “It is, Jen. It’s over and it’s in the past. And it can’t hurt me anymore.” There’s a distance in his voice that isn’t usually there when he’s talking to me. “…and it shouldn’t hurt you, either… I didn’t tell you about it so you’d have nightmares.” He whispers. “I didn’t mean for you to hurt…”
He doesn’t like talking about it. I feel even more privileged that he’s told me the whole story, as cut-and-dry and as bluntly as he did. I understand why he did. “You just needed it off your chest.” He needed to let go of that pain. “You needed to get it out… to let it go.”
He nods slowly.
Very quietly, he says, “I dream about it enough for the both of us, Jen.” And he gets up to go to the stove. “Let it go…”
I turn to look over the back of the couch as he makes hot chamomile tea for both of us, follow him with my eyes, turning neck and body around as he walks back around the sofa with two steaming mugs.
“Drink.” He hands me one and takes a sip from the other, slurping at the hot liquid loudly, the cup clinking against the coaster on the table when he puts it down.
I’m about to ask him what parts of it he dreams about, what parts he relives, when he kisses me, square on the mouth, and hard. When he pulls away, he glances down, and whispers, “I can’t talk about them yet, Jen.”
“Jare… if it interferes with your ability to have a relationship…”
He smiles. “I’m okay with you… …and Jen… you have nightmares of your own to deal with.”
“Touche.” I lie back against the couch after drinking the rest of my tea, feeling it warm my throat and my stomach, and I’m all too aware of Jared watching as my eyes slowly slip closed only to jerk open seconds later, time and time again. “What?”
“Jen.” He sighs, exasperation evident in his tone.
“Jare… I can’t.” The nightmares come too fast, and they’re too painful. I’m still reeling from the one where it was me hurting Jared. I can’t deal with another one. My stomach’s still turning from the last one, and I’m surprised I managed to hold on to dinner through the images of being unable to save Jared from being forced to use his mouth to get our co-star off. Thinking about it now just makes the twisting in my stomach worse, and I wrap an arm around my midsection, swallowing the first light wave of nausea.
Jared notices my discomfort, and almost immediately he has one hand on my shirt, resting gently over my stomach. He doesn’t press, just lets his hand lie there. His other hand comes around me, pulling me forward, into him. I let him.
He helps me to stand, and guides me to my bed. It’s dark outside, pitch black almost, save for moonlight dancing off the silver and diamonds in the snow, and I stare out the small square window, quadrants of glass pane shadowed and made foggy by spreading spiderwebs of frost. Jared presses on my shoulder, his other hand still resting on my abdomen, lowering me into a sitting position on my bed.
“Jare… I’m not going to sleep.” I stare blankly at the milky-foggy window, at the shimmers of light outside. He moves near me, reaches across to the bedside table and the drawer there, then sits up straight again.
His fingers come to my lips, his other hand rests on the back of my neck. I know even before I feel the tips of his fingers pressing at my lips, trying to gain access to my mouth, what he’s doing. “No, Jare.” I push at his hands weakly and turn my head to the side.
The downside to eating little and throwing up, and lack of sleep is weakness. My entire body is sore, and I have no strength. Jared uses one hand to push me to my elbows on the mattress, and in one movement, is on his knees on the mattress, straddling me. He presses his hips hard to mine to limit my movement, and unless I want to choke on the water he’s holding, I have to use my elbows to keep myself propped up.
His fingers push roughly into my mouth. “Sorry, Jen.” He says, replacing his fingers with the lip of the glass and pouring. Water dribbles into my mouth and down the sides of my face. His hand clamps over my mouth. “Swallow.”
After a brief struggle, I swallow, and Jared moves off of me. “Jared, you fucker!” I move my hand to my mouth, not averse to sticking my fingers down my throat-anything to get this drug out of me. I don’t want to sleep, I don’t-can’t-handle the nightmares I know will come. I have to at least be able to wake up.
I’m near panicking, my heart rate is up and I’m breathing heavy. Jared catches my wrist as it moves with my hand to my mouth. “No, Jen.” He says, staring at me. “No!” And instead of fighting me when I start struggling with him, he pulls me into his arms. “Sleep, Jenny…” He croons. “Jenny… Jenny…”
I whisper things I can’t understand but that sound broken into his neck, finally giving into the exhaustion and the slow lulling effect of the sleeping pill on my system, leaning into Jared’s warmth. I do understand the words that come then, a soft plea I’ll deny any knowledge of upon waking. “Jare… please… you did this to me… don’t leave me...”
His hand strokes my hair. “I’ll be right here, Jen…” He whispers. “Shhh… I’ll be right here with you…”
I remember drifting off into sleep, my body near-collapsing in Jared’s arms, falling limp against him. I don’t remember him moving me, settling me beneath the covers, but when I wake up screaming the first time, that’s where I am-curled on my side beneath the covers.
It’s actually Jared who wakes me, gently shaking my shoulder, pulling me from the depths of a nightmare that I couldn’t tear myself from (I blame the Lunesta for that). His hands soothe away the tremors, warm my chilled skin. His words reassure me, and his kisses settle me, help me relax until once again I’m in dreamland.
I dream of all my nightmares in one, where I’m being taunted, by my mother, my father,… my grandmother is mortified and wants to perform old Catholic rituals of cleansing on me, to rid me of the demon she claims has made me sick, as if being bisexual (I view myself the same way Jared views himself-that is, I view myself that way if I’m honest about it-I have to.) is an illness that can be cured.
“No… no…” I twitch and toss and turn in my sleep, and it’s Jared who runs his hands along my body, easing me back into peaceful sleep and erasing the nightmare.
The nightmares surprisingly aren’t as bad as they have been. They’re similar to the dreams I’ve had with the exception of the first one, and through them all, I’m aware of, on a subconscious/conscious level, Jared’s constant presence.
I wake in the morning feeling rested but still tired, and I know it’ll be another few nights of sleep like this last one that I need before I feel back to par. I’ve been too long without sleep, without rest. My body feels more tired now, more achy after a night of rest than before when I hadn’t slept in days. Maybe because it knows what it’s missing.
I yawn, and move to sit up, pushing at covers, and-an arm? I turn, and realize I’m not alone in bed. Jared’s lying there next to me, long arms and legs and body curled around me, one arm flung over my waist. He’s still asleep, and when I move, he shifts, tugs at me with the arm that’s around my waist, and murmurs things I can’t understand completely. Things like “Shhh…” and “…I’m here, it’s alright…”, and “…go back to sleep, Jenny…”
They melt my heart, and for the first time I wonder what I ever did to deserve his friendship, much less his trust.
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