Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky (Jensen/Jared RPS) -- 17/? (WIP)
Title: Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky
Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / OFC
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 girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help.
Spoilers: Nothing to see here, folks...
...posted for the lovely lady_shain
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Chapter Seventeen For better, Worse and Indifferent
Rating: R for some language, adult content, and roughshod treatment of emotions
Pairing: Jensen/Jared… again, not yet, but we’re getting more closer!
Word Count: 2,544
Jared sighs heavily, leans back against the cushions of the sofa and sips at the tea, which still gives off tendrils of steam into the air of my apartment. “Please, Jensen.” He whispers, and he sounds almost like he’s begging. “Please… haven’t you humiliated me enough? Please…” He sighs again. “I’ll stay here… until I’m better… just… please. No more lying about… wanting me here… still being my friend… caring… I can’t, Jensen.” And as he takes another sip of tea, erupts in a bout of coughing.
I take the teacup from him, place it back on the coffee table, and reach out to rub comforting circles on his back as his shoulders shake and his body trembles. When the coughing doesn’t subside right away, I rest my right hand on his chest, gently lifting him so he sits upright, opening his airway and lungs so it’s hopefully easier for him to breathe. “Just breathe, Jare…” I soothe, still rubbing circles on his back.
He stiffens under my touch as the coughs lessen in intensity, and he takes several deep breaths that still hitch as he exhales, but makes no move to pull away from me. I again whisper for him to breathes, relieved when he does.
“I’m okay, Jensen.”
“Jare… you’re not.” He’s not. We’re not. And while there are medications for him, and rest and chicken soup and green tea with honey and lemon, there aren’t such remedies for us. I let my hands slide from his body though, breaking contact, and I take a deep breath, lean forward, elbows on my knees. I really don’t know what I’m going to say, or where I’m going to start-I just know that I have to say something, and I have to start somewhere.
And I can only hope he believes me.
“Jared… believe me… please...” I take another breath. This isn’t going to be easy. “Jare…”
“Just spit it out, Jensen.” He says, almost harshly.
“I…” I break off, afraid I’ll start stuttering if I try to talk now, and all I hear is the ticking of the clock in my ears, precious seconds and minutes ticking by, because I need to say this before I go pick up his medication, if only so I’ll know if I have to take him with me or not. Two deep breaths later, I’m no calmer than I was before, and I sigh. I can’t possibly make things worse by saying this, and if he leaves after he’s feeling better, it’s nothing I didn’t see coming, and nothing I don’t deserve.
So I spit it out, and it still doesn’t come out like I’d planned or hoped. “I do want you here… I want to take care of you… I was just… shocked, Jared… who wouldn’t be after hearing that? I… I never stopped caring about you… you’re still my friend, and…” I duck my head, unable to look at him, not wanting to see whatever flashes across his face. “I hate seeing you like this…”
If I’d been acting it might have sounded better. As it is, my voice is strangled and uncomfortable from my throat, and the words are foreign to my lips and tongue. If Jared understood any of it, he’s a better man than I.
“That was terrible, Jensen. Dean could have done better.” His voice is dry and emotionless, flat and low, and he’s probably right.
“Then just stay… So I don’t have to talk?” I leave the ‘so I can show you’ out.
When he doesn’t answer, merely leans back against the soft cushions of the sofa, I follow him in silence, and I know there has to be something else I can say, but I don’t know what, and I don’t know how. Not to mention I don’t have the words.
After a long moment of silence, Jared coughs again, but not as violently or for as long a time as before. He takes a tissue and wipes at his mouth, and I know he spit up more… phlegm, blood… I hope not blood, though the doctor said it wasn’t uncommon in cases as severe as Jared’s, and so long as it wasn’t often or just blood he was coughing up, I shouldn’t have to bring him back in to the hospital.
He drops the used tissue onto the table after folding it over several times, still says nothing, and it’s again me who speaks first, breaks the silence. “Please, Jare… Stay… Let me…”
“I said I’d stay.” He says finally. “I’ve got nowhere else to go, Jensen.” His voice is low and controlled, soft and final, letting me know the conversation is over without coming right out and saying it in so many words.
And it’s a double-edged sword, because while I’m glad he’s staying, his reasoning still hurts. I nod slowly, push off my knees and stand up. I think to offer him something, but if he needs anything he can ask me. We haven’t resolved anything, and I get the distinct feeling that things aren’t any better between us-but I have nothing but faith now, and I have to believe that if he’ll stay, things are better than they were and they’ll get better than they are now.
He sips at the rest of the tea slowly, gets up afterwards and makes his way slowly to the guest room. I watch him as he goes, how he pushes up from the sofa, painstakingly slowly, and moves down the hallway, hand trailing on the wall the entire way to the guest room. The doctor said the illness would sap his strength, and with Jared’s dehydration and lack of sustenance, he’d be weak for some time as he recuperated, so I expected it-but seeing it still tears at my heart.
I don’t make a move towards him to help, though.
My cell phone rings-it’s Eric. “You said you were going to call.” He says, accusingly, but there’s an undercurrent of concern, and after a pause wherein I don’t reply, he offers, “Jared’s out of the hospital? He doing okay?”
“He’s resting.” I say tentatively, peering down the hallway, to see that Jared’s disappeared into the guest room. “Doctor says he’ll be out of commission a week minimum…”
“So I’ll see both of you in a week?” He questions, then, more firmly, “Don’t you get sick too, Jensen. I can’t afford to lose too much time off of schedule.”
“…he’s not doing too well, Eric.” I say softly. “A week… is hopeful.” I know that despite the fact Eric will say we’re far behind schedule, we’re not that far behind, though with the current days we missed thanks to the weather that might be wishful thinking on my part. Missing this time for Jared means the airing dates for new episodes will probably get changed-pushed back two weeks, maybe three.
“Well, take the week and call me Sunday.” He hangs up, leaving me nodding in thoughtful silence as I check the time-I should be getting to the pharmacy shortly.
I check on Jared before leaving, find him sitting in the armchair of the guest room-his room-and reading one of the books I’d picked up from Sandy’s this morning. He glances up at me. “You got the rest of my stuff.”
I nod. “Figured…”
“Thanks.” He cuts me off. “But it’s just more stuff I have to move later.” He turns his attention back to the book, and that comment makes up my mind for me-he’s coming with me to the pharmacy. He may be weak and sick, and may have said he’d stay here, but that doesn’t mean I trust him at his word.
“Come on.” I hand him a heavy coat.
“What’s this?” He looks at me but makes no move to take the coat from me, turns the page in his book and marks it with a piece of scrap paper.
“A coat. You’re coming with me to the pharmacy to pick up your prescriptions.” I thrust the coat in his direction again, and this time he takes it from my hand, but doesn’t move to get up from the chair or put it on.
“You can’t do that?” He asks, seeming more puzzled than anything else.
I’m about to say ‘I can’t have you running off again’, but the truth is I don’t want him to. Thing is, while the truth is probably something he’ll react to better, it’s also a lot harder for me to say to him. I take a breath. “I don’t… want you to… you know…”
“Disappear on you?” He asks. “Where am I gonna go, Jensen?”
I bite back the ‘you’ve run off without a thought to that and your health before’, and settle for grumbling, “Put the coat on, Jared.”
I’m in the living room with my leather jacket on as he begins his slow walk up the hallway in my big and bulky coat. He looks smaller and thinner and more fragile than usual bundled in it. I want him tucked in bed, reading, with a cup of tea-but I can’t leave him alone for fear he might not be here when I get back, so bed isn’t really an option. Second to that, on seeing him trudging up the hallway, the want is to go to him and help him, but something holds me back, and I settle for the more ‘guy-friend’ thing to do, and force a joking sound into my voice as I tell him, “Come on, Jared. They close in a half hour.”
Hurt flashes in his eyes as he stops in his tracks, and just stares at me. He’s really having trouble walking-they may have gotten nutrients and fluids in him at the hospital, but he’s no stronger than he was when I brought him in-and for a minute I think he might ask for my help, but he sets his mouth in a thin line, pushes his body from the wall and makes it up the hall and to my front door without a word, without help of any kind.
He shrugs off my hand as I reach out to take his arm to steady him on the stairs, setting us both off-balance, and onto our asses. We’re lucky we don’t fall down any further than we do, lucky that neither of us sustain injury beyond the bruising to our egos.
“Are you trying to kill us both?” I snap at him, hauling him to his feet.
He just looks at me, and the emptiness that hides behind the shimmer of glass in his eyes is the first thing I notice, followed by the trembling of his lower lip as he gnaws at it.
“Oh please, you’re not gonna cry are you?” I roll my eyes. I can’t take much more of this emo crap from him. I know he’s sick, and I know he’s not quite as ignorant of his emotions as I am, but this is getting ridiculous. I’ve tried talking to him, he doesn’t even want to listen to me.
I’m not helping matters.
And I know I’m not helping, but I still can’t bring myself to stop what I’m doing and/or saying. I tighten my already firm grip on the bunched, thick material of the coat around his upper arms, slam him into the wall, pressing closer until we’re face-to-face. “Listen to me, Jared. You’re sick.” And I start dragging him back into my apartment, down the hall to the guest bedroom as I continue talking. “You need to rest.” I’m not gentle with him as I maneuver both of us through the bedroom door.
On reaching the bedroom, I strip him of the coat, all the while still talking-mostly nonsense but I’d like to think I make a few good points. “You’re going to stay here and rest. Don’t fucking move from that bed.” I shove him back onto the bed, and I’m about to add that he’d better be there when I get back, but he looks so heartbroken and… alone… that I actually feel sorry for him, want to take back what I’ve just said and done-but I can’t. He didn’t deserve that from me, but I don’t know how else to be.
Admittedly I’m concerned… I’m worried. He’s my friend, I care about him… he needs so much I can’t give him. I’m afraid of not being able to give him even part of what he needs. And I don’t understand what I feel-not really… I’m having a hard enough time acknowledging what I’m feeling to myself… putting it into words or acting on it… I wouldn’t know how to start. So I cover it up with anger… because I don’t know how to act, don’t know what to say.
How I’ve made it to twenty-seven in Hollywood as an actor sometimes eludes me.
I sigh as he fumbles with his shoes, and as he manages to kick them from his feet, I stalk out of the room, down the hall and back out the front door. I have to make it to the pharmacy before it closes-in twenty minutes.
I leave Jared. He’d damn well better still be there when I get back.
I race to the drugstore, make it there in record time after pushing the Mustang to her limits, weaving in and out of traffic.
“Thought you weren’t going to make it, Mr. Ackles.” The pharmacist looks at me as I hand over the two prescriptions the hospital gave me.
I smile, one of Dean’s thousand-watt smiles, and take out my wallet. “Hit a little traffic.” I tell him as he hands me some information sheets about how to take the medication (take with food it if upsets your stomach, which I personally find amusing considering the circumstances) and what side effects you might experience-all the typical, run-of-the-mill side effects you see with any prescription medication, including headache and drowsiness.
I pay for the medication, nod and say a quick ‘thanks’ to the pharmacist, who’s closing out the register as I leave.
I drive a little more carefully on the way home, but still make the tires squeal as I turn into my development and park. I sigh as I reach my apartment, pause with the key in the lock, and stop before unlocking the door, knowing I need to say something to Jared, but not knowing what.
I tuck my keys back in my pocket and sink down to sit on the top step, feet on the step below, and rest my head in my hands after placing the bag of prescription drugs on the floor next to me. Biting my lip, I sigh, a long, deep release of breath I’ve been holding for far too long, and stare up at the ceiling before looking back down at my feet, folding my hands in front of me as it hits me like a freight train.
I’m afraid. And that’s really what this all comes down to. Fear. Of my emotions, of how they’ll affect my image if I show them or even accept them… of what it might mean to accept them… of change.
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Characters/Pairing: Jensen Ackles / Jared Padalecki; Jensen Ackles / OFC
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 girl (Sandra) breaks up with him. Jensen tries to help.
Spoilers: Nothing to see here, folks...
...posted for the lovely lady_shain
-------------------------
Chapter Seventeen For better, Worse and Indifferent
Rating: R for some language, adult content, and roughshod treatment of emotions
Pairing: Jensen/Jared… again, not yet, but we’re getting more closer!
Word Count: 2,544
Jared sighs heavily, leans back against the cushions of the sofa and sips at the tea, which still gives off tendrils of steam into the air of my apartment. “Please, Jensen.” He whispers, and he sounds almost like he’s begging. “Please… haven’t you humiliated me enough? Please…” He sighs again. “I’ll stay here… until I’m better… just… please. No more lying about… wanting me here… still being my friend… caring… I can’t, Jensen.” And as he takes another sip of tea, erupts in a bout of coughing.
I take the teacup from him, place it back on the coffee table, and reach out to rub comforting circles on his back as his shoulders shake and his body trembles. When the coughing doesn’t subside right away, I rest my right hand on his chest, gently lifting him so he sits upright, opening his airway and lungs so it’s hopefully easier for him to breathe. “Just breathe, Jare…” I soothe, still rubbing circles on his back.
He stiffens under my touch as the coughs lessen in intensity, and he takes several deep breaths that still hitch as he exhales, but makes no move to pull away from me. I again whisper for him to breathes, relieved when he does.
“I’m okay, Jensen.”
“Jare… you’re not.” He’s not. We’re not. And while there are medications for him, and rest and chicken soup and green tea with honey and lemon, there aren’t such remedies for us. I let my hands slide from his body though, breaking contact, and I take a deep breath, lean forward, elbows on my knees. I really don’t know what I’m going to say, or where I’m going to start-I just know that I have to say something, and I have to start somewhere.
And I can only hope he believes me.
“Jared… believe me… please...” I take another breath. This isn’t going to be easy. “Jare…”
“Just spit it out, Jensen.” He says, almost harshly.
“I…” I break off, afraid I’ll start stuttering if I try to talk now, and all I hear is the ticking of the clock in my ears, precious seconds and minutes ticking by, because I need to say this before I go pick up his medication, if only so I’ll know if I have to take him with me or not. Two deep breaths later, I’m no calmer than I was before, and I sigh. I can’t possibly make things worse by saying this, and if he leaves after he’s feeling better, it’s nothing I didn’t see coming, and nothing I don’t deserve.
So I spit it out, and it still doesn’t come out like I’d planned or hoped. “I do want you here… I want to take care of you… I was just… shocked, Jared… who wouldn’t be after hearing that? I… I never stopped caring about you… you’re still my friend, and…” I duck my head, unable to look at him, not wanting to see whatever flashes across his face. “I hate seeing you like this…”
If I’d been acting it might have sounded better. As it is, my voice is strangled and uncomfortable from my throat, and the words are foreign to my lips and tongue. If Jared understood any of it, he’s a better man than I.
“That was terrible, Jensen. Dean could have done better.” His voice is dry and emotionless, flat and low, and he’s probably right.
“Then just stay… So I don’t have to talk?” I leave the ‘so I can show you’ out.
When he doesn’t answer, merely leans back against the soft cushions of the sofa, I follow him in silence, and I know there has to be something else I can say, but I don’t know what, and I don’t know how. Not to mention I don’t have the words.
After a long moment of silence, Jared coughs again, but not as violently or for as long a time as before. He takes a tissue and wipes at his mouth, and I know he spit up more… phlegm, blood… I hope not blood, though the doctor said it wasn’t uncommon in cases as severe as Jared’s, and so long as it wasn’t often or just blood he was coughing up, I shouldn’t have to bring him back in to the hospital.
He drops the used tissue onto the table after folding it over several times, still says nothing, and it’s again me who speaks first, breaks the silence. “Please, Jare… Stay… Let me…”
“I said I’d stay.” He says finally. “I’ve got nowhere else to go, Jensen.” His voice is low and controlled, soft and final, letting me know the conversation is over without coming right out and saying it in so many words.
And it’s a double-edged sword, because while I’m glad he’s staying, his reasoning still hurts. I nod slowly, push off my knees and stand up. I think to offer him something, but if he needs anything he can ask me. We haven’t resolved anything, and I get the distinct feeling that things aren’t any better between us-but I have nothing but faith now, and I have to believe that if he’ll stay, things are better than they were and they’ll get better than they are now.
He sips at the rest of the tea slowly, gets up afterwards and makes his way slowly to the guest room. I watch him as he goes, how he pushes up from the sofa, painstakingly slowly, and moves down the hallway, hand trailing on the wall the entire way to the guest room. The doctor said the illness would sap his strength, and with Jared’s dehydration and lack of sustenance, he’d be weak for some time as he recuperated, so I expected it-but seeing it still tears at my heart.
I don’t make a move towards him to help, though.
My cell phone rings-it’s Eric. “You said you were going to call.” He says, accusingly, but there’s an undercurrent of concern, and after a pause wherein I don’t reply, he offers, “Jared’s out of the hospital? He doing okay?”
“He’s resting.” I say tentatively, peering down the hallway, to see that Jared’s disappeared into the guest room. “Doctor says he’ll be out of commission a week minimum…”
“So I’ll see both of you in a week?” He questions, then, more firmly, “Don’t you get sick too, Jensen. I can’t afford to lose too much time off of schedule.”
“…he’s not doing too well, Eric.” I say softly. “A week… is hopeful.” I know that despite the fact Eric will say we’re far behind schedule, we’re not that far behind, though with the current days we missed thanks to the weather that might be wishful thinking on my part. Missing this time for Jared means the airing dates for new episodes will probably get changed-pushed back two weeks, maybe three.
“Well, take the week and call me Sunday.” He hangs up, leaving me nodding in thoughtful silence as I check the time-I should be getting to the pharmacy shortly.
I check on Jared before leaving, find him sitting in the armchair of the guest room-his room-and reading one of the books I’d picked up from Sandy’s this morning. He glances up at me. “You got the rest of my stuff.”
I nod. “Figured…”
“Thanks.” He cuts me off. “But it’s just more stuff I have to move later.” He turns his attention back to the book, and that comment makes up my mind for me-he’s coming with me to the pharmacy. He may be weak and sick, and may have said he’d stay here, but that doesn’t mean I trust him at his word.
“Come on.” I hand him a heavy coat.
“What’s this?” He looks at me but makes no move to take the coat from me, turns the page in his book and marks it with a piece of scrap paper.
“A coat. You’re coming with me to the pharmacy to pick up your prescriptions.” I thrust the coat in his direction again, and this time he takes it from my hand, but doesn’t move to get up from the chair or put it on.
“You can’t do that?” He asks, seeming more puzzled than anything else.
I’m about to say ‘I can’t have you running off again’, but the truth is I don’t want him to. Thing is, while the truth is probably something he’ll react to better, it’s also a lot harder for me to say to him. I take a breath. “I don’t… want you to… you know…”
“Disappear on you?” He asks. “Where am I gonna go, Jensen?”
I bite back the ‘you’ve run off without a thought to that and your health before’, and settle for grumbling, “Put the coat on, Jared.”
I’m in the living room with my leather jacket on as he begins his slow walk up the hallway in my big and bulky coat. He looks smaller and thinner and more fragile than usual bundled in it. I want him tucked in bed, reading, with a cup of tea-but I can’t leave him alone for fear he might not be here when I get back, so bed isn’t really an option. Second to that, on seeing him trudging up the hallway, the want is to go to him and help him, but something holds me back, and I settle for the more ‘guy-friend’ thing to do, and force a joking sound into my voice as I tell him, “Come on, Jared. They close in a half hour.”
Hurt flashes in his eyes as he stops in his tracks, and just stares at me. He’s really having trouble walking-they may have gotten nutrients and fluids in him at the hospital, but he’s no stronger than he was when I brought him in-and for a minute I think he might ask for my help, but he sets his mouth in a thin line, pushes his body from the wall and makes it up the hall and to my front door without a word, without help of any kind.
He shrugs off my hand as I reach out to take his arm to steady him on the stairs, setting us both off-balance, and onto our asses. We’re lucky we don’t fall down any further than we do, lucky that neither of us sustain injury beyond the bruising to our egos.
“Are you trying to kill us both?” I snap at him, hauling him to his feet.
He just looks at me, and the emptiness that hides behind the shimmer of glass in his eyes is the first thing I notice, followed by the trembling of his lower lip as he gnaws at it.
“Oh please, you’re not gonna cry are you?” I roll my eyes. I can’t take much more of this emo crap from him. I know he’s sick, and I know he’s not quite as ignorant of his emotions as I am, but this is getting ridiculous. I’ve tried talking to him, he doesn’t even want to listen to me.
I’m not helping matters.
And I know I’m not helping, but I still can’t bring myself to stop what I’m doing and/or saying. I tighten my already firm grip on the bunched, thick material of the coat around his upper arms, slam him into the wall, pressing closer until we’re face-to-face. “Listen to me, Jared. You’re sick.” And I start dragging him back into my apartment, down the hall to the guest bedroom as I continue talking. “You need to rest.” I’m not gentle with him as I maneuver both of us through the bedroom door.
On reaching the bedroom, I strip him of the coat, all the while still talking-mostly nonsense but I’d like to think I make a few good points. “You’re going to stay here and rest. Don’t fucking move from that bed.” I shove him back onto the bed, and I’m about to add that he’d better be there when I get back, but he looks so heartbroken and… alone… that I actually feel sorry for him, want to take back what I’ve just said and done-but I can’t. He didn’t deserve that from me, but I don’t know how else to be.
Admittedly I’m concerned… I’m worried. He’s my friend, I care about him… he needs so much I can’t give him. I’m afraid of not being able to give him even part of what he needs. And I don’t understand what I feel-not really… I’m having a hard enough time acknowledging what I’m feeling to myself… putting it into words or acting on it… I wouldn’t know how to start. So I cover it up with anger… because I don’t know how to act, don’t know what to say.
How I’ve made it to twenty-seven in Hollywood as an actor sometimes eludes me.
I sigh as he fumbles with his shoes, and as he manages to kick them from his feet, I stalk out of the room, down the hall and back out the front door. I have to make it to the pharmacy before it closes-in twenty minutes.
I leave Jared. He’d damn well better still be there when I get back.
I race to the drugstore, make it there in record time after pushing the Mustang to her limits, weaving in and out of traffic.
“Thought you weren’t going to make it, Mr. Ackles.” The pharmacist looks at me as I hand over the two prescriptions the hospital gave me.
I smile, one of Dean’s thousand-watt smiles, and take out my wallet. “Hit a little traffic.” I tell him as he hands me some information sheets about how to take the medication (take with food it if upsets your stomach, which I personally find amusing considering the circumstances) and what side effects you might experience-all the typical, run-of-the-mill side effects you see with any prescription medication, including headache and drowsiness.
I pay for the medication, nod and say a quick ‘thanks’ to the pharmacist, who’s closing out the register as I leave.
I drive a little more carefully on the way home, but still make the tires squeal as I turn into my development and park. I sigh as I reach my apartment, pause with the key in the lock, and stop before unlocking the door, knowing I need to say something to Jared, but not knowing what.
I tuck my keys back in my pocket and sink down to sit on the top step, feet on the step below, and rest my head in my hands after placing the bag of prescription drugs on the floor next to me. Biting my lip, I sigh, a long, deep release of breath I’ve been holding for far too long, and stare up at the ceiling before looking back down at my feet, folding my hands in front of me as it hits me like a freight train.
I’m afraid. And that’s really what this all comes down to. Fear. Of my emotions, of how they’ll affect my image if I show them or even accept them… of what it might mean to accept them… of change.
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