Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky (Jensen/Jared RPS) -- 4/? (WIP)
Title: Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki
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.
I'm not going to say when or if the next chapter will be posted... I am writing on this, but really, it took on a mind/life of it's own, and it's sorta festering at upset!Jared and a Jensen who's entirely unsure what to do... So... read at your own risk. I would enjoy feedback, but I'll understand if you don't want to start reading a WIP with no end in sight or in the works. I really have no idea what's coming next here.
Summary: Jared's breaking down. Jensen tries to help.
Spoilers: none
-------------------------
Chapter Four: Not so Calm Before the Storm
Rating: R for language and presence of alcohol and bitchiness/snarkiness… and for the evil cliffhanger!
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, but we’re still not there yet
Word Count: 2,544
Not so Calm Before the Storm
I’m in bed when I hear the key scraping against the metal doorknob that night, followed by the slow closing of the door, the squeak of hinges. Jared’s trying to be quiet, and in so trying is only making more noise. I smile, roll over and punch my pillow a few times, burying my face in the soft cotton and try to sleep.
Jared stumbles up the hall in the dark, and I’m about to yell out that I’m awake, that its okay, but it’s then that I hear a loud crash, and a painful yelp, followed by Jared’s voice. “Fuck!”
I’m out of bed in an instant, clad in gray cotton boxer briefs and nothing else. I flip on the light as I hurry towards the hallway to find Jared pushing himself up off the floor, a grimace crossing his face. He fell over my vacuum cleaner.
“Why didn’t you turn a light on, Jare?” I offer him a hand which he looks at for a minute, raising clear and light blue-green eyes to mine for just a moment… For the first time in the last few days, they’re filled with something other than loss and shadow, but before I can identify the emotions there, the shades come down and he looks away. He ignores my hand, casts an angry glare up at me (all other emotion has flickered and faded away in that instant he looked away) as he makes his own way to his feet.
“Jesus, Jensen!” He growls. “Ya gotta leave the damn vacuum in the middle of the freakin’ hallway?”
“Language, language!” I say jokingly, holding my palm up to him to fend him off.
“Yeah I took the fuckin’ Lord’s name in vain. Sorry there, Choir boy.” Jared mutters under his breath. He shoves past me and walks into the guest bedroom, slamming the door behind him, leaving me there alone, eyebrows raised in silent shock.
It’s late. Nearly midnight. We have an early day ahead of us-Kripke wants us there at six to film an outdoor scene in the morning cold and dew to catch a certain feeling. To make it up to us, he says we can finish at three and we don’t have to come in the day after until noon. I stand in the hallway in debate with myself about having it out with him now, or waiting until after filming tomorrow, when we’ll have a bit more time.
Ten minutes later I figure it doesn’t matter, that I’ve waited too long to do anything tonight, because anything I say to him will have already lost its effect thanks to the passing of time between his outburst and it being said. I turn off the light and retreat to my room, curling up under a quilt my grandmother made for me and fall into a restless sleep.
/ / /
In the morning, I get coffee after showering. Jared doesn’t drink his, chooses to drink the sludge from the grease hall when we arrive on location. He showers in his trailer, takes longer than usual, and when he finally emerges from the on-the-spot shelter, it appears the shower’s done little to improve his disposition. He’s still as dour as the weather.
We don’t speak to each other until we’re in character, crawling in the mud, under heavy and cold Vancouver rain. I think that the sun should be coming up, but with the cloud cover as it is, I doubt we’ll see sun all day. “Dean?”
“Yeah, Sammy?” I grunt, digging fingertips into the ground for a better grip and nearly cursing when they slide unhindered through soft and soaked topsoil.
“I hate you.”
And it seems to be the way things are going this morning.
Kripke’s in a bad mood, Cindy didn’t get enough sleep because her kids were sick last night, and the camera crews are stoically monosyllabic as always. The weather isn’t helping anyone’s mood, my own included.
After two hours, Eric’s forced to move us indoors, where we stay until three, not breaking for lunch, filming scenes that weren’t supposed to go until Thursday and Friday. Jared and I ad-lib half the lines, and by the time Kripke and the rest of the crew are ready call it quits, are so firmly entrenched in the characters of Sam and Dean, that they take advantage and film clear through until six at night.
The only good thing to come out of the day is the fact that we don’t have scenes to film on Thursday or Friday now, and Kripke’s given us the days off. We’re ahead of schedule. That, and the weather shows no signs of letting up, so outdoor scenes scheduled for tomorrow have to be put off as well. “See you boys Saturday.” He tells us on leaving.
Jared again showers in his trailer, and when I come by to see if he wants to grab pizza and some beers on the way home, see he’s already started drinking, and is settled in a tee and his boxers. The space heater is turned up high to ward against the drafts, and there’s a pail sitting by the door to collect drips from a small leak in the ceiling.
He doesn’t look at me when I open the door and let myself in, and doesn’t say anything either. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he didn’t know I was there.
We haven’t spoken all day.
“Come on, Jare.”
He’s quiet for so long that I think he’s forgotten I’m there. I try again. “Jare… come on. Talk to me.”
Again, a loaded silence falls between us, and I wonder what I’ve done to warrant the silent treatment, but finally, his voice cuts across the room that’s still cold despite the loud humming and rattling of the heater. “Nuthin’ to say.”
“Right.” I sit on the counter, cross my arms over my chest, and stare at him as he drains the rest of his beer from the longneck bottle.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, Jensen.” He mutters finally, and stands, retrieving another beer from the small fridge and pops the top in one fluid movement. He throws his arms out at his sides, still holding the beer in one hand, and stands over me. “What! For Chrissakes, Jensen, what the fuck do you want me to say? I mean… really, what the fuck do you want from me!”
I shove at him. “For one, I want this…” I reach to take the beer from his hand. “… to stop.”
We stare at each other in a silent challenge. I’ll kick his ass if he reaches for the beer and he knows it, so we stand there and stare each other down for what seems an eternity until Jared does like he usually does, and bows to my will. His eyes lower, and he takes a step back out of my personal space.
“Come to dinner. Eat something.” I start. “And then… talk to me. Fucking talk to me, Jare… tell me what the fuck this…” I wave my arm at the inside of his set trailer-turned-residence. “…is all about.” I can’t help the language. Sometimes it seems the only way to get through to him.
It works.
Jared takes a jacket from the nail by the door after putting on the pants I shove at him, and an umbrella as he unplugs the heater and follows me outside. We walk to my car-a 2005 Mustang-good American muscle-and slide in. His car, a secondhand pickup truck with Texas plates still, and gunrack in the rear window, is parked in a mud slick off to the side of the parking lot. I’m sure his cowboy hat is on the passenger seat, and I’ve told him a thousand times if I’ve told him once, the only thing missing is the gun itself. He always laughs and tells me he’s got a shotgun in Texas just waiting to take its rightful place.
He doesn’t laugh today.
We toss our umbrellas on the floor of the small back seat, and I gun the engine as lightning flashes over the distant white-capped mountains. Thunder follows, seven or eight seconds later and I can see fast-moving clouds in the sky despite the darkness and late hour. It’s coming down the coast from the North, fast. We’re in for a hell of a storm tonight.
“Jensen?” He asks quietly. “Just get us there in one piece.” He sighs when I glare at him.
“When am I not careful?” I laugh. I do drive carefully-the weather appears to be the cause of several accidents on the freeway already, and we don’t need to be another statistic resultant of slippery asphalt and fast cars.
The rain’s coming down almost hard enough where the wipers can’t clear the windshield of water fast enough by the time we hit the outskirts of town, ten minutes from my apartment and twenty from any of the halfway decent diners that are situated closer to center city. Traffic slows to a crawl, and Jared reaches his long arms out to tap his fingers on the dash in time to the music.
“Diner or just want to head home?” I ask.
His head snaps towards me, his eyes wide.
“My apartment.” I clarify, realizing what I’d said-he doesn’t think of my apartment as ‘home’ yet-and he visibly relaxes.
“We could pick up food and go to your place.” He says quietly, agreeably. “Or… hit a diner. You’re driving.”
I glance at him, give thought to stopping at the Diamond Dragon Chinese Restaurant or Rudy’s Pizzeria for take-out, but drive past both before I make up my mind.
“Whatever, man.” Jared re-iterates softly, his Texas drawl becoming slightly more pronounced, and he rubs at his dark-rimmed eyes.
I turn my attention back to the road, go to the nearest diner, which is ten highway minutes from my house in good weather and park in the closest available spot to the door. Jared and I hurry inside, where he gets a table, and I go to the bathroom. I finish up to find him seated, hunkered down in a rear corner booth, hair plastered to his temples, staring blankly at a menu.
I sit across from him, glad to see we’re the only two in the section, and we have relative privacy. Rain spatters the window, lightning illuminates the parking lot beyond the pane of glass-flashes of light that are few and far between. Jared orders a side-sized bowl of their pasta salad and cheese fries which I doubt he’ll eat all of. I order their special-broiled chicken breast with lemon-garlic oven roasted potatoes. It comes with a side of soup and breadsticks. We both get coffee.
Jared eats one of my breadsticks-picks it apart and leaves nearly half in crumbs that settle on the plate in front of him and on his lap. I manage to get more in my mouth than he does, but my pants sport their fair share of crackered remains as well. I dust them onto the floor.
“So spill, Jare.” I say around a mouthful of escarole soup.
He stares at me. Says nothing.
Our food arrives.
“Jared, start talking.” This time around breaths of air taken in to cool a chunk of potato. Jared’s picking idly at the fries, dragging them through pools of what I swear is heated Cheez Whiz, but not eating them. He takes a few bites of the salad, washes it down with a large gulp of coffee. I watch.
Finally, Jared finds his voice. “What? You want me to apologize for last night? Fine. I’m sorry, man, okay?” But he sounds anything but. “We cool?”
“It’s not about last night, Jared. I want to know what’s wrong.”
“Noth…”
“Bullshit. You don’t sleep, you barely eat, you’ve been drinking on set, you’ve flubbed lines, and you’re irritable, which isn’t like you.”
“Sandy. Broke. Up. With. Me.”
Spoken pointedly, as if that’s supposed to magically explain away his behavior lately. It does, to a point. It explains the drinking and the sleeplessness… that I can attest to, because I’ve been through the same. The flubbed lines-that was me reaching-they could be a result of anything, really. Any actor in the business will tell you. We’ve all flubbed lines at times, and it could be exhaustion, lack of concentration, hunger, whatever… sometimes we just don’t like the lines, so what better way to change them?
“That doesn’t explain why you’re being a little bitch with me, Jared.”
“You left your vacuum cleaner in the middle of the hallway and I tripped. On. It.” He says petulantly, biting into a french fry.
I don’t mention that he could have turned on the light.
He won’t talk if he doesn’t want to. Fortunately (or not), I’m equally as stubborn. We could go back and forth like this all night.
The waitress comes to re-fill our coffee mugs, and lightning shatters the darkened sky beyond our window. The thunder again follows, more closely this time as the storm moves in. I pour sugar in my coffee, Jared drinks his black and bitter. We are silent.
Ten minutes later, we both throw money on the table, enough to cover our respective portions of the bill and a generous tip. Neither of us care to see the bill, so we leave. Jared’s hair had just dried from the earlier exposure.
I start up the car without comment from Jared, who stares out the passenger window, the same faraway look in his eyes as his character Sam has half the time. I drive slower than before-the roads are slick and this car’s not the greatest in the rain. The windshield wipers work furiously against the torrential downpour, and don’t do nearly enough to improve visibility, which is nil.
We do make it back to my apartment complex in one piece-both of us do-and still haven’t spoken to each other since leaving the diner.
Jared makes himself scarce after retrieving a Molson from my icebox, and I sit on my bed, staring at my new cell phone in my hand, staring at Sandy’s number on the LCD display, finger hovering over the green ‘call’ button to the right, weighing things in my mind.
“Hello? Jensen?” Her voice is sharp as glass, bitter as ever. I don’t answer her, and I’m about to hang up when her voice softens around the edges just a little. “Jensen?”
I stare at the phone in my hand, debate answering her, wonder why I ever pressed the button to call her in the first place.
Static from the storm, followed by her voice again, harsh and grating across the jumbled wireless connection. “So you know? Did he tell you, Jensen? Do you understand?” Her voice is low and forced calm and taunting all in one. She sounds evil.
Her next words all blur together and the only thing that really comes through loud and clear, harsh and as sharp as ever, is “…did he tell you how it was always your name he screamed when he came?”
I don’t say anything. I can’t. She hangs up.
-------------------------
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki
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.
I'm not going to say when or if the next chapter will be posted... I am writing on this, but really, it took on a mind/life of it's own, and it's sorta festering at upset!Jared and a Jensen who's entirely unsure what to do... So... read at your own risk. I would enjoy feedback, but I'll understand if you don't want to start reading a WIP with no end in sight or in the works. I really have no idea what's coming next here.
Summary: Jared's breaking down. Jensen tries to help.
Spoilers: none
-------------------------
Chapter Four: Not so Calm Before the Storm
Rating: R for language and presence of alcohol and bitchiness/snarkiness… and for the evil cliffhanger!
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, but we’re still not there yet
Word Count: 2,544
Not so Calm Before the Storm
I’m in bed when I hear the key scraping against the metal doorknob that night, followed by the slow closing of the door, the squeak of hinges. Jared’s trying to be quiet, and in so trying is only making more noise. I smile, roll over and punch my pillow a few times, burying my face in the soft cotton and try to sleep.
Jared stumbles up the hall in the dark, and I’m about to yell out that I’m awake, that its okay, but it’s then that I hear a loud crash, and a painful yelp, followed by Jared’s voice. “Fuck!”
I’m out of bed in an instant, clad in gray cotton boxer briefs and nothing else. I flip on the light as I hurry towards the hallway to find Jared pushing himself up off the floor, a grimace crossing his face. He fell over my vacuum cleaner.
“Why didn’t you turn a light on, Jare?” I offer him a hand which he looks at for a minute, raising clear and light blue-green eyes to mine for just a moment… For the first time in the last few days, they’re filled with something other than loss and shadow, but before I can identify the emotions there, the shades come down and he looks away. He ignores my hand, casts an angry glare up at me (all other emotion has flickered and faded away in that instant he looked away) as he makes his own way to his feet.
“Jesus, Jensen!” He growls. “Ya gotta leave the damn vacuum in the middle of the freakin’ hallway?”
“Language, language!” I say jokingly, holding my palm up to him to fend him off.
“Yeah I took the fuckin’ Lord’s name in vain. Sorry there, Choir boy.” Jared mutters under his breath. He shoves past me and walks into the guest bedroom, slamming the door behind him, leaving me there alone, eyebrows raised in silent shock.
It’s late. Nearly midnight. We have an early day ahead of us-Kripke wants us there at six to film an outdoor scene in the morning cold and dew to catch a certain feeling. To make it up to us, he says we can finish at three and we don’t have to come in the day after until noon. I stand in the hallway in debate with myself about having it out with him now, or waiting until after filming tomorrow, when we’ll have a bit more time.
Ten minutes later I figure it doesn’t matter, that I’ve waited too long to do anything tonight, because anything I say to him will have already lost its effect thanks to the passing of time between his outburst and it being said. I turn off the light and retreat to my room, curling up under a quilt my grandmother made for me and fall into a restless sleep.
/ / /
In the morning, I get coffee after showering. Jared doesn’t drink his, chooses to drink the sludge from the grease hall when we arrive on location. He showers in his trailer, takes longer than usual, and when he finally emerges from the on-the-spot shelter, it appears the shower’s done little to improve his disposition. He’s still as dour as the weather.
We don’t speak to each other until we’re in character, crawling in the mud, under heavy and cold Vancouver rain. I think that the sun should be coming up, but with the cloud cover as it is, I doubt we’ll see sun all day. “Dean?”
“Yeah, Sammy?” I grunt, digging fingertips into the ground for a better grip and nearly cursing when they slide unhindered through soft and soaked topsoil.
“I hate you.”
And it seems to be the way things are going this morning.
Kripke’s in a bad mood, Cindy didn’t get enough sleep because her kids were sick last night, and the camera crews are stoically monosyllabic as always. The weather isn’t helping anyone’s mood, my own included.
After two hours, Eric’s forced to move us indoors, where we stay until three, not breaking for lunch, filming scenes that weren’t supposed to go until Thursday and Friday. Jared and I ad-lib half the lines, and by the time Kripke and the rest of the crew are ready call it quits, are so firmly entrenched in the characters of Sam and Dean, that they take advantage and film clear through until six at night.
The only good thing to come out of the day is the fact that we don’t have scenes to film on Thursday or Friday now, and Kripke’s given us the days off. We’re ahead of schedule. That, and the weather shows no signs of letting up, so outdoor scenes scheduled for tomorrow have to be put off as well. “See you boys Saturday.” He tells us on leaving.
Jared again showers in his trailer, and when I come by to see if he wants to grab pizza and some beers on the way home, see he’s already started drinking, and is settled in a tee and his boxers. The space heater is turned up high to ward against the drafts, and there’s a pail sitting by the door to collect drips from a small leak in the ceiling.
He doesn’t look at me when I open the door and let myself in, and doesn’t say anything either. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he didn’t know I was there.
We haven’t spoken all day.
“Come on, Jare.”
He’s quiet for so long that I think he’s forgotten I’m there. I try again. “Jare… come on. Talk to me.”
Again, a loaded silence falls between us, and I wonder what I’ve done to warrant the silent treatment, but finally, his voice cuts across the room that’s still cold despite the loud humming and rattling of the heater. “Nuthin’ to say.”
“Right.” I sit on the counter, cross my arms over my chest, and stare at him as he drains the rest of his beer from the longneck bottle.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, Jensen.” He mutters finally, and stands, retrieving another beer from the small fridge and pops the top in one fluid movement. He throws his arms out at his sides, still holding the beer in one hand, and stands over me. “What! For Chrissakes, Jensen, what the fuck do you want me to say? I mean… really, what the fuck do you want from me!”
I shove at him. “For one, I want this…” I reach to take the beer from his hand. “… to stop.”
We stare at each other in a silent challenge. I’ll kick his ass if he reaches for the beer and he knows it, so we stand there and stare each other down for what seems an eternity until Jared does like he usually does, and bows to my will. His eyes lower, and he takes a step back out of my personal space.
“Come to dinner. Eat something.” I start. “And then… talk to me. Fucking talk to me, Jare… tell me what the fuck this…” I wave my arm at the inside of his set trailer-turned-residence. “…is all about.” I can’t help the language. Sometimes it seems the only way to get through to him.
It works.
Jared takes a jacket from the nail by the door after putting on the pants I shove at him, and an umbrella as he unplugs the heater and follows me outside. We walk to my car-a 2005 Mustang-good American muscle-and slide in. His car, a secondhand pickup truck with Texas plates still, and gunrack in the rear window, is parked in a mud slick off to the side of the parking lot. I’m sure his cowboy hat is on the passenger seat, and I’ve told him a thousand times if I’ve told him once, the only thing missing is the gun itself. He always laughs and tells me he’s got a shotgun in Texas just waiting to take its rightful place.
He doesn’t laugh today.
We toss our umbrellas on the floor of the small back seat, and I gun the engine as lightning flashes over the distant white-capped mountains. Thunder follows, seven or eight seconds later and I can see fast-moving clouds in the sky despite the darkness and late hour. It’s coming down the coast from the North, fast. We’re in for a hell of a storm tonight.
“Jensen?” He asks quietly. “Just get us there in one piece.” He sighs when I glare at him.
“When am I not careful?” I laugh. I do drive carefully-the weather appears to be the cause of several accidents on the freeway already, and we don’t need to be another statistic resultant of slippery asphalt and fast cars.
The rain’s coming down almost hard enough where the wipers can’t clear the windshield of water fast enough by the time we hit the outskirts of town, ten minutes from my apartment and twenty from any of the halfway decent diners that are situated closer to center city. Traffic slows to a crawl, and Jared reaches his long arms out to tap his fingers on the dash in time to the music.
“Diner or just want to head home?” I ask.
His head snaps towards me, his eyes wide.
“My apartment.” I clarify, realizing what I’d said-he doesn’t think of my apartment as ‘home’ yet-and he visibly relaxes.
“We could pick up food and go to your place.” He says quietly, agreeably. “Or… hit a diner. You’re driving.”
I glance at him, give thought to stopping at the Diamond Dragon Chinese Restaurant or Rudy’s Pizzeria for take-out, but drive past both before I make up my mind.
“Whatever, man.” Jared re-iterates softly, his Texas drawl becoming slightly more pronounced, and he rubs at his dark-rimmed eyes.
I turn my attention back to the road, go to the nearest diner, which is ten highway minutes from my house in good weather and park in the closest available spot to the door. Jared and I hurry inside, where he gets a table, and I go to the bathroom. I finish up to find him seated, hunkered down in a rear corner booth, hair plastered to his temples, staring blankly at a menu.
I sit across from him, glad to see we’re the only two in the section, and we have relative privacy. Rain spatters the window, lightning illuminates the parking lot beyond the pane of glass-flashes of light that are few and far between. Jared orders a side-sized bowl of their pasta salad and cheese fries which I doubt he’ll eat all of. I order their special-broiled chicken breast with lemon-garlic oven roasted potatoes. It comes with a side of soup and breadsticks. We both get coffee.
Jared eats one of my breadsticks-picks it apart and leaves nearly half in crumbs that settle on the plate in front of him and on his lap. I manage to get more in my mouth than he does, but my pants sport their fair share of crackered remains as well. I dust them onto the floor.
“So spill, Jare.” I say around a mouthful of escarole soup.
He stares at me. Says nothing.
Our food arrives.
“Jared, start talking.” This time around breaths of air taken in to cool a chunk of potato. Jared’s picking idly at the fries, dragging them through pools of what I swear is heated Cheez Whiz, but not eating them. He takes a few bites of the salad, washes it down with a large gulp of coffee. I watch.
Finally, Jared finds his voice. “What? You want me to apologize for last night? Fine. I’m sorry, man, okay?” But he sounds anything but. “We cool?”
“It’s not about last night, Jared. I want to know what’s wrong.”
“Noth…”
“Bullshit. You don’t sleep, you barely eat, you’ve been drinking on set, you’ve flubbed lines, and you’re irritable, which isn’t like you.”
“Sandy. Broke. Up. With. Me.”
Spoken pointedly, as if that’s supposed to magically explain away his behavior lately. It does, to a point. It explains the drinking and the sleeplessness… that I can attest to, because I’ve been through the same. The flubbed lines-that was me reaching-they could be a result of anything, really. Any actor in the business will tell you. We’ve all flubbed lines at times, and it could be exhaustion, lack of concentration, hunger, whatever… sometimes we just don’t like the lines, so what better way to change them?
“That doesn’t explain why you’re being a little bitch with me, Jared.”
“You left your vacuum cleaner in the middle of the hallway and I tripped. On. It.” He says petulantly, biting into a french fry.
I don’t mention that he could have turned on the light.
He won’t talk if he doesn’t want to. Fortunately (or not), I’m equally as stubborn. We could go back and forth like this all night.
The waitress comes to re-fill our coffee mugs, and lightning shatters the darkened sky beyond our window. The thunder again follows, more closely this time as the storm moves in. I pour sugar in my coffee, Jared drinks his black and bitter. We are silent.
Ten minutes later, we both throw money on the table, enough to cover our respective portions of the bill and a generous tip. Neither of us care to see the bill, so we leave. Jared’s hair had just dried from the earlier exposure.
I start up the car without comment from Jared, who stares out the passenger window, the same faraway look in his eyes as his character Sam has half the time. I drive slower than before-the roads are slick and this car’s not the greatest in the rain. The windshield wipers work furiously against the torrential downpour, and don’t do nearly enough to improve visibility, which is nil.
We do make it back to my apartment complex in one piece-both of us do-and still haven’t spoken to each other since leaving the diner.
Jared makes himself scarce after retrieving a Molson from my icebox, and I sit on my bed, staring at my new cell phone in my hand, staring at Sandy’s number on the LCD display, finger hovering over the green ‘call’ button to the right, weighing things in my mind.
“Hello? Jensen?” Her voice is sharp as glass, bitter as ever. I don’t answer her, and I’m about to hang up when her voice softens around the edges just a little. “Jensen?”
I stare at the phone in my hand, debate answering her, wonder why I ever pressed the button to call her in the first place.
Static from the storm, followed by her voice again, harsh and grating across the jumbled wireless connection. “So you know? Did he tell you, Jensen? Do you understand?” Her voice is low and forced calm and taunting all in one. She sounds evil.
Her next words all blur together and the only thing that really comes through loud and clear, harsh and as sharp as ever, is “…did he tell you how it was always your name he screamed when he came?”
I don’t say anything. I can’t. She hangs up.
-------------------------