Early Mornings and Late Nights Under Overcast Sky (Jensen/Jared RPS) -- 41/? (WIP)
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-One: On the Road Again
Rating: Very Hard R / NC-17 for graphic m/m sexual imagery
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Word Count: 2,620
Chapter Forty-One: On the Road Again
The first thing I’m aware of is that I’m warm. After that, I become aware of something in my hair-something that’s moving... gentle and soothing -Jared’s fingers. There’s a heavy pressure on my chest, that’s not constricting, somehow warm and comforting. I feel safe, secure.
I murmur something, shift position-that’s when I realize I’m covered with something soft and smooth, and that my head and neck are supported by-cradled in-something. A pillow… or Jared’s lap. His fingers move incessantly along my scalp, and I can hear his voice whispering things that lull me back to peaceful darkness. They’re not words, but they don’t have to be.
Jared’s lips press gentle kisses to my forehead when I murmur incoherently, he tells me to go back to sleep, that everything’s okay. I don’t listen to him, and open my eyes.
I’m in my trailer, staring at the ceiling. There’s a small light on the counter that casts enough light to illuminate the inside of the trailer, enough for me to see.
I’m lying on the mattress/cot/bed, my head resting in Jared’s lap. His left hand is on my head, fingers combing through my hair, his right arm rests atop a blanket, across my chest. There’s a blanket/comforter wrapped around me, and through the window I can see that it’s pitch-black outside.
I blink, take in my surroundings, and turn my gaze to Jared, who’s looking down at me like an angel, dark hair flopping in his face, his eyes. He smiles. “Morning, sunshine.” He says quietly.
“Morning…” I whisper, struggling up to my elbows. The blanket falls around my torso, baring my shoulders. The air is cool. I stare out the window into the blackness. It’s dark as coal outside.
Jared pushes at my bare shoulders, urging me to lie back down. I do, and he settles the blankets over me again. I’m naked, save a pair of boxer shorts and the covers, I realize.
“How long… how long was I out?”
“Asleep, I think…” Jared corrects, checking his watch. “Five or six hours. It’s a little after two.”
He says it casually, but realization hits me like a ton of bricks. I slept. Without nightmares. For six hours. Give or take. I almost feel rested. I lie there in relative shock, silent for a while.
“Jenny?” Jared’s back to petting my hair. “You okay?”
“What… what happened?” I ask. I don’t remember much. I think back, and I’m able to remember bits and pieces of getting back to the trailer after Eric stopped filming for the day… showering. Cold water. Warm hands and strong arms. “Jare?” I question.
“I came in here when you didn’t answer my knock right away after I heard you calling my name… found you on the floor of the shower. The water was cold… I guess you’d been in the shower a while… You whispered my name once or twice, but you were pretty out of it.” Jared remembers, fingers still working patterns through my hair. His other arm is still warm and heavy over my chest. I still feel safe.
I make a small noise of contentedness as Jared continues. “I turned the water off… dried you off best I could and got you into bed… you’re pretty heavy dead weight.” He says lightly. “I found two blankets in the crate on the floor... didn’t want to wake you, so I um… climbed into bed with you.” He blushes. “You didn’t wake up until now…”
I nod, staring still at the ceiling, then glance at Jared, who’s staring straight ahead. “No nightmares…” I whisper. “Not since… since you pulled me from the shower… I vaguely remember...” I’m struck by the magnitude of that-the time I spent sleeping with my head in Jared’s lap, I didn’t have a nightmare. Maybe I was just that exhausted. I refuse to believe that it was Jared who kept the nightmares at bay.
His fingers tighten in my hair. “What…” He whispers. “What do you remember?”
I think, try to remember, but I just get images, fleeting feelings. “Not… not much.” I whisper dully, still thinking back. “Why?”
“The way you said my name… like you were scared, you were screaming my name, Jen… and when I found you on the floor of the shower you were just repeating my name. Over and over and over again.” His hand fists over my heart, his other tenses against my head, knots in my hair but not to the point of pain. “I told you… it was me… that I was there… and it was like you weren’t really there.” He stares over me at the wall, whispers brokenly. “You just kept saying my name.”
It’s sudden, how everything floods back to me in that instant. I go from lying relaxed, and warm, safe, and knowing Jared’s safe, to barely able to breathe in the span of seconds. My eyes go wide, and I start shaking. Cold seeps into my body, my bones, despite the blankets and the warm weight of Jared’s arm across my chest.
I sit up, have to know that he’s okay.
For that one second, fear grips me, tightens its icy and skeletal fingers around my heart, and squeezes. For that one second, I’m back on the floor of the shower, seeing my (best) friend broken and degraded and hurt… raped and beaten… and unable to do anything to help him.
Color leaves my face as the breath leaves my body, and Jared follows me as I sit up like a shot-with his arm around my chest, I nearly take him with me. I can feel him, pressing close to my back. His presence is comforting. “Jenny…” He whispers.
I take a deep breath, and reach with my left hand up to where his arm still crosses my chest, grip his forearm tightly. “Jared…”
“What do you remember?” he asks.
“Everything.” I turn to look at him, reach with my right hand to cup his cheek, lean in to rest my forehead on his. I’m careful to breathe, maintain a careful control of my heart rate. I can feel panic inside, and I refuse to give in to it. I know I’ll have an attack if I keep thinking about that dream, that nightmare, so I shove the memories away, forcibly push the images of Jared, bloody and crying for help I can’t give from my mind.
“Tell me?”
I shake my head. “Maybe later…” I whisper, and draw away from him. God… God but I want to kiss him… I keep my eyes closed as I pull back, to keep from seeing his mouth, soft and surely pouting with my reply to his gentle request.
“I’m hungry…” I mumble, releasing his arm and opening my eyes to stare down at the rumpled blankets.
“I’m tired.” Jared replies, sagging against the wall.
“You haven’t slept?” I ask. I’m somewhat surprised. I thought maybe he’d slept while I was. Then again, maybe not.
“No… been sitting here with you.” He smiles down at me. “Come on… we’ll get a little something to eat and head home…”
“What about that cabin?” I ask him suddenly, surprising myself.
“We could leave tomorrow morning.” He says, somewhat surprised maybe that I brought it up, or that I want to go.
“Can we go now?”
“We have to pack…”
I’m feeling too warm and cozy to argue, so I smile up at him, my best Jensen Ackles ‘please you know you’ll do anything for me’ smile. “We can pack… get sandwiches and eat on the drive… sleep late… It’ll be a beautiful drive, Jare… through the woods late at night with nothing but the stars above us… no other cars on the road…”
“We won’t get there until…” He looks at his watch again. “Almost five. It’s a two hour drive at best.” He says.
“So we’ll sleep late… come on… if we move fast I bet we can make it by four-thirty…” I’m in the mood to go, comfortable with him, and if we don’t leave tonight, I’m afraid we won’t leave at all… I somehow know that if we don’t go up there now, I’ll think of any excuse in the world not to go tomorrow, or Friday, or Saturday…
Jared smiles. “Okay.” He sighs, like he’s giving in to a little kid. “Come on… let’s go… We’ll pack fast, and get sandwiches at the deli.”
There’s a twenty-four hour deli at the foot of the mountains that Jared and I found when we went camping at the cabin/campground a couple months ago with Jeff and Tom and Chad. It was a boys weekend. Porn and beer and hot dogs and foul language. The sandwiches from the deli were great. Jared had gotten a BLT, I’d gotten one of their foot-long heros with turkey and salami and ham and cheese… Jeff had the tuna salad and Tom and Chad got a huge Styrofoam dish of fries each to go with their ham and pepperoni heros. We ended up sharing everything so we could sample it all, and we stopped there on the way home too.
It’s about an hour from the campgrounds, meaning it’s about an hour from my apartment. I hope I make it. I can hear my stomach rumbling now. After a granola bar and coffee, I’m starved. Especially since I threw up dinner from the night before at four o’clock this morning.
I’m up and pulling on the sweats I’d worn in as Jared folds up the blankets, grabs our jackets and turns off the light. We stumble our way down the steps in the dark, and our teeth are chattering as we make our way to the car. Jared’s got my keys still, and I go to the passenger side almost out of habit now.
Jared breaks the speed limit going back to my apartment. This late at night-early in the morning-we make it back to my apartment within ten minutes and are packed and ready to go by two forty-five.
Jared again takes the wheel, guides us down the abandoned highway at speeds I’d dare not travel during the light of day, much less at three in the morning. He controls the car with an ease I’ll never have, changing lanes, shifting gears until we’re gliding along in fourth, and he opens the moonroof. It’s cold air, but refreshing and crisp all the same, and I find myself at ease.
We buy a foot long ham, salami and provolone hero, with lettuce, tomato, oil and vinegar… the works. We eat it outside, at the splintered and worn-down picnic table outside the deli with a couple of diet cokes.
“Jensen?” Jared breaks the peaceful silence in which we eat, speaking my name in what’s barely more than a whisper. It still sounds like a scream against the dead of night.
I look up at him from over the sandwich, mid-bite. “Mmmm?”
He swallows, sips his coke. “Will you tell me one day?” He asks. “About your nightmares? The one tonight?”
He doesn’t have to tell me in so many words that it really threw him for a loop-freaked him out-scared him. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his tone, his tentative words. “Scared you…” I whisper.
He nods.
We finish eating in silence, the only light coming from the moon and the windows of the small deli behind us. I can hear the sound of the television the deli owner’s watching drifting through the rickety screened storm door. The weatherman’s predicting heavy storms the next couple of days-thunderstorms, rain in the city and surrounding areas, which means possible snow high in the mountains where we’re headed.
I buy two more bottles of diet coke, and a couple packages of twix for the ride, as well as one more sandwich for the two of us to share tomorrow before heading out of the deli to where Jared’s revving the engine. I slide into the passenger seat after tossing the bag of food and snacks into the back seat, buckle in, and Jared takes off up the winding road that leads to the campground.
Half-way up the mountain, we can see frost on the ground, the air grows colder, and Jared closes the moonroof, turns the heat on inside the car. I’m glad we packed woolen sweaters and hoodies, jeans and insulated Timberlands. Gladder still the cabins have fireplaces, Shetland blankets and all the amenities of home-like hot water and electricity.
We haven’t spoken a word to each other since I’d whispered “Scared you…” after he asked about my nightmare.
I turn to him in the car, note his hands, still loosely holding the wheel at ten and two, eyes carefully fixed on the serpentine roadway in front of him, the only light he has coming from the halogen bulbs of the headlights. The moon is nearly obscured by trees that haven’t yet lost their leaves. “It was you…” I murmur quietly.
“Huh?” He jerks his head towards me suddenly, a glance before returning his attention to the road, swerving to avoid a dead raccoon and several fallen boulders on the right side.
“My nightmare.” I clarify, staring out the passenger window, acutely aware of the squinty-eyed glances he casts in my direction despite not seeing them. “From tonight… when you found me in the shower… …it was you… about you…”
His knuckles whiten as he squeezes around the steering wheel, carefully guiding the car around hairpin turns, steady and in control even at sixty in the dark. “I figured that part out all by myself, Jensen.” He says tersely, but not harshly. There’s no disdain in his voice whatsoever. It’s surprisingly soft for the words he speaks.
I rest my elbow on the armrest on the door after checking to make sure it’s locked, let my fingers trace my lips as I continue to stare out the window into nothingness. “They were hurting you.” I talk quietly into my fingers, which makes the words a little softer, a little more slurred, but still audible and understandable.
His head snaps around to me, and I see it, but he’s back concentrating on the road, jaw set, lips in a thin line before I can get a good enough look to make out the expression in his eyes.
I watch him, moisten my lips and bite on my lower one lightly. “They were hurting you…” I break off. I can’t get past those words. My breath is coming faster and I’m starting to shake. This isn’t good. “…they… they were hurting you…”
The images come back, an onslaught on my mind… Jared on his knees… Jared with his hands bound behind his back, wrists rubbed raw from the rope… Jared screaming… Jared crying… forced to suck Jeff off... Jared with white strands of cum coating his face, dripping with the tears that won’t stop… kicked and bent over, fucked-raped-by Eric… treated just like those kids treated him in highschool after his prom… Degraded and humiliated… left bloody and crying for help I couldn’t give him… red blood mixing with the water swirling down the drain.
“…they were hurting you…” I manage before lapsing into sobs that are broken only by my own shaking shoulders and erratic breathing. I can feel dinner crawling up the back of my throat. It tasted a lot better going down. I swallow hard, close my eyes and try to block out the images.
I’m barely aware of the lurch the car takes as Jared wrenches the wheel hard to the right and slams on the brakes.
“Jensen!”
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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".
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Chapter Forty-One: On the Road Again
Rating: Very Hard R / NC-17 for graphic m/m sexual imagery
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Word Count: 2,620
Chapter Forty-One: On the Road Again
The first thing I’m aware of is that I’m warm. After that, I become aware of something in my hair-something that’s moving... gentle and soothing -Jared’s fingers. There’s a heavy pressure on my chest, that’s not constricting, somehow warm and comforting. I feel safe, secure.
I murmur something, shift position-that’s when I realize I’m covered with something soft and smooth, and that my head and neck are supported by-cradled in-something. A pillow… or Jared’s lap. His fingers move incessantly along my scalp, and I can hear his voice whispering things that lull me back to peaceful darkness. They’re not words, but they don’t have to be.
Jared’s lips press gentle kisses to my forehead when I murmur incoherently, he tells me to go back to sleep, that everything’s okay. I don’t listen to him, and open my eyes.
I’m in my trailer, staring at the ceiling. There’s a small light on the counter that casts enough light to illuminate the inside of the trailer, enough for me to see.
I’m lying on the mattress/cot/bed, my head resting in Jared’s lap. His left hand is on my head, fingers combing through my hair, his right arm rests atop a blanket, across my chest. There’s a blanket/comforter wrapped around me, and through the window I can see that it’s pitch-black outside.
I blink, take in my surroundings, and turn my gaze to Jared, who’s looking down at me like an angel, dark hair flopping in his face, his eyes. He smiles. “Morning, sunshine.” He says quietly.
“Morning…” I whisper, struggling up to my elbows. The blanket falls around my torso, baring my shoulders. The air is cool. I stare out the window into the blackness. It’s dark as coal outside.
Jared pushes at my bare shoulders, urging me to lie back down. I do, and he settles the blankets over me again. I’m naked, save a pair of boxer shorts and the covers, I realize.
“How long… how long was I out?”
“Asleep, I think…” Jared corrects, checking his watch. “Five or six hours. It’s a little after two.”
He says it casually, but realization hits me like a ton of bricks. I slept. Without nightmares. For six hours. Give or take. I almost feel rested. I lie there in relative shock, silent for a while.
“Jenny?” Jared’s back to petting my hair. “You okay?”
“What… what happened?” I ask. I don’t remember much. I think back, and I’m able to remember bits and pieces of getting back to the trailer after Eric stopped filming for the day… showering. Cold water. Warm hands and strong arms. “Jare?” I question.
“I came in here when you didn’t answer my knock right away after I heard you calling my name… found you on the floor of the shower. The water was cold… I guess you’d been in the shower a while… You whispered my name once or twice, but you were pretty out of it.” Jared remembers, fingers still working patterns through my hair. His other arm is still warm and heavy over my chest. I still feel safe.
I make a small noise of contentedness as Jared continues. “I turned the water off… dried you off best I could and got you into bed… you’re pretty heavy dead weight.” He says lightly. “I found two blankets in the crate on the floor... didn’t want to wake you, so I um… climbed into bed with you.” He blushes. “You didn’t wake up until now…”
I nod, staring still at the ceiling, then glance at Jared, who’s staring straight ahead. “No nightmares…” I whisper. “Not since… since you pulled me from the shower… I vaguely remember...” I’m struck by the magnitude of that-the time I spent sleeping with my head in Jared’s lap, I didn’t have a nightmare. Maybe I was just that exhausted. I refuse to believe that it was Jared who kept the nightmares at bay.
His fingers tighten in my hair. “What…” He whispers. “What do you remember?”
I think, try to remember, but I just get images, fleeting feelings. “Not… not much.” I whisper dully, still thinking back. “Why?”
“The way you said my name… like you were scared, you were screaming my name, Jen… and when I found you on the floor of the shower you were just repeating my name. Over and over and over again.” His hand fists over my heart, his other tenses against my head, knots in my hair but not to the point of pain. “I told you… it was me… that I was there… and it was like you weren’t really there.” He stares over me at the wall, whispers brokenly. “You just kept saying my name.”
It’s sudden, how everything floods back to me in that instant. I go from lying relaxed, and warm, safe, and knowing Jared’s safe, to barely able to breathe in the span of seconds. My eyes go wide, and I start shaking. Cold seeps into my body, my bones, despite the blankets and the warm weight of Jared’s arm across my chest.
I sit up, have to know that he’s okay.
For that one second, fear grips me, tightens its icy and skeletal fingers around my heart, and squeezes. For that one second, I’m back on the floor of the shower, seeing my (best) friend broken and degraded and hurt… raped and beaten… and unable to do anything to help him.
Color leaves my face as the breath leaves my body, and Jared follows me as I sit up like a shot-with his arm around my chest, I nearly take him with me. I can feel him, pressing close to my back. His presence is comforting. “Jenny…” He whispers.
I take a deep breath, and reach with my left hand up to where his arm still crosses my chest, grip his forearm tightly. “Jared…”
“What do you remember?” he asks.
“Everything.” I turn to look at him, reach with my right hand to cup his cheek, lean in to rest my forehead on his. I’m careful to breathe, maintain a careful control of my heart rate. I can feel panic inside, and I refuse to give in to it. I know I’ll have an attack if I keep thinking about that dream, that nightmare, so I shove the memories away, forcibly push the images of Jared, bloody and crying for help I can’t give from my mind.
“Tell me?”
I shake my head. “Maybe later…” I whisper, and draw away from him. God… God but I want to kiss him… I keep my eyes closed as I pull back, to keep from seeing his mouth, soft and surely pouting with my reply to his gentle request.
“I’m hungry…” I mumble, releasing his arm and opening my eyes to stare down at the rumpled blankets.
“I’m tired.” Jared replies, sagging against the wall.
“You haven’t slept?” I ask. I’m somewhat surprised. I thought maybe he’d slept while I was. Then again, maybe not.
“No… been sitting here with you.” He smiles down at me. “Come on… we’ll get a little something to eat and head home…”
“What about that cabin?” I ask him suddenly, surprising myself.
“We could leave tomorrow morning.” He says, somewhat surprised maybe that I brought it up, or that I want to go.
“Can we go now?”
“We have to pack…”
I’m feeling too warm and cozy to argue, so I smile up at him, my best Jensen Ackles ‘please you know you’ll do anything for me’ smile. “We can pack… get sandwiches and eat on the drive… sleep late… It’ll be a beautiful drive, Jare… through the woods late at night with nothing but the stars above us… no other cars on the road…”
“We won’t get there until…” He looks at his watch again. “Almost five. It’s a two hour drive at best.” He says.
“So we’ll sleep late… come on… if we move fast I bet we can make it by four-thirty…” I’m in the mood to go, comfortable with him, and if we don’t leave tonight, I’m afraid we won’t leave at all… I somehow know that if we don’t go up there now, I’ll think of any excuse in the world not to go tomorrow, or Friday, or Saturday…
Jared smiles. “Okay.” He sighs, like he’s giving in to a little kid. “Come on… let’s go… We’ll pack fast, and get sandwiches at the deli.”
There’s a twenty-four hour deli at the foot of the mountains that Jared and I found when we went camping at the cabin/campground a couple months ago with Jeff and Tom and Chad. It was a boys weekend. Porn and beer and hot dogs and foul language. The sandwiches from the deli were great. Jared had gotten a BLT, I’d gotten one of their foot-long heros with turkey and salami and ham and cheese… Jeff had the tuna salad and Tom and Chad got a huge Styrofoam dish of fries each to go with their ham and pepperoni heros. We ended up sharing everything so we could sample it all, and we stopped there on the way home too.
It’s about an hour from the campgrounds, meaning it’s about an hour from my apartment. I hope I make it. I can hear my stomach rumbling now. After a granola bar and coffee, I’m starved. Especially since I threw up dinner from the night before at four o’clock this morning.
I’m up and pulling on the sweats I’d worn in as Jared folds up the blankets, grabs our jackets and turns off the light. We stumble our way down the steps in the dark, and our teeth are chattering as we make our way to the car. Jared’s got my keys still, and I go to the passenger side almost out of habit now.
Jared breaks the speed limit going back to my apartment. This late at night-early in the morning-we make it back to my apartment within ten minutes and are packed and ready to go by two forty-five.
Jared again takes the wheel, guides us down the abandoned highway at speeds I’d dare not travel during the light of day, much less at three in the morning. He controls the car with an ease I’ll never have, changing lanes, shifting gears until we’re gliding along in fourth, and he opens the moonroof. It’s cold air, but refreshing and crisp all the same, and I find myself at ease.
We buy a foot long ham, salami and provolone hero, with lettuce, tomato, oil and vinegar… the works. We eat it outside, at the splintered and worn-down picnic table outside the deli with a couple of diet cokes.
“Jensen?” Jared breaks the peaceful silence in which we eat, speaking my name in what’s barely more than a whisper. It still sounds like a scream against the dead of night.
I look up at him from over the sandwich, mid-bite. “Mmmm?”
He swallows, sips his coke. “Will you tell me one day?” He asks. “About your nightmares? The one tonight?”
He doesn’t have to tell me in so many words that it really threw him for a loop-freaked him out-scared him. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his tone, his tentative words. “Scared you…” I whisper.
He nods.
We finish eating in silence, the only light coming from the moon and the windows of the small deli behind us. I can hear the sound of the television the deli owner’s watching drifting through the rickety screened storm door. The weatherman’s predicting heavy storms the next couple of days-thunderstorms, rain in the city and surrounding areas, which means possible snow high in the mountains where we’re headed.
I buy two more bottles of diet coke, and a couple packages of twix for the ride, as well as one more sandwich for the two of us to share tomorrow before heading out of the deli to where Jared’s revving the engine. I slide into the passenger seat after tossing the bag of food and snacks into the back seat, buckle in, and Jared takes off up the winding road that leads to the campground.
Half-way up the mountain, we can see frost on the ground, the air grows colder, and Jared closes the moonroof, turns the heat on inside the car. I’m glad we packed woolen sweaters and hoodies, jeans and insulated Timberlands. Gladder still the cabins have fireplaces, Shetland blankets and all the amenities of home-like hot water and electricity.
We haven’t spoken a word to each other since I’d whispered “Scared you…” after he asked about my nightmare.
I turn to him in the car, note his hands, still loosely holding the wheel at ten and two, eyes carefully fixed on the serpentine roadway in front of him, the only light he has coming from the halogen bulbs of the headlights. The moon is nearly obscured by trees that haven’t yet lost their leaves. “It was you…” I murmur quietly.
“Huh?” He jerks his head towards me suddenly, a glance before returning his attention to the road, swerving to avoid a dead raccoon and several fallen boulders on the right side.
“My nightmare.” I clarify, staring out the passenger window, acutely aware of the squinty-eyed glances he casts in my direction despite not seeing them. “From tonight… when you found me in the shower… …it was you… about you…”
His knuckles whiten as he squeezes around the steering wheel, carefully guiding the car around hairpin turns, steady and in control even at sixty in the dark. “I figured that part out all by myself, Jensen.” He says tersely, but not harshly. There’s no disdain in his voice whatsoever. It’s surprisingly soft for the words he speaks.
I rest my elbow on the armrest on the door after checking to make sure it’s locked, let my fingers trace my lips as I continue to stare out the window into nothingness. “They were hurting you.” I talk quietly into my fingers, which makes the words a little softer, a little more slurred, but still audible and understandable.
His head snaps around to me, and I see it, but he’s back concentrating on the road, jaw set, lips in a thin line before I can get a good enough look to make out the expression in his eyes.
I watch him, moisten my lips and bite on my lower one lightly. “They were hurting you…” I break off. I can’t get past those words. My breath is coming faster and I’m starting to shake. This isn’t good. “…they… they were hurting you…”
The images come back, an onslaught on my mind… Jared on his knees… Jared with his hands bound behind his back, wrists rubbed raw from the rope… Jared screaming… Jared crying… forced to suck Jeff off... Jared with white strands of cum coating his face, dripping with the tears that won’t stop… kicked and bent over, fucked-raped-by Eric… treated just like those kids treated him in highschool after his prom… Degraded and humiliated… left bloody and crying for help I couldn’t give him… red blood mixing with the water swirling down the drain.
“…they were hurting you…” I manage before lapsing into sobs that are broken only by my own shaking shoulders and erratic breathing. I can feel dinner crawling up the back of my throat. It tasted a lot better going down. I swallow hard, close my eyes and try to block out the images.
I’m barely aware of the lurch the car takes as Jared wrenches the wheel hard to the right and slams on the brakes.
“Jensen!”
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