Assemblage - Part Five - Big Bang 2010
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Jensen knocks on Jared’s dorm room door on a Wednesday afternoon in early October. He has just gotten out of his last class for the day, and earlier this morning he and Jared had agreed to meet here to study, then go out for dinner.
He stands in the hall waiting for Jared to answer. When he gets no reply, he knocks a little louder, just in case Jared has headphones on or something. Still no reply. He knows that they were meeting here. Jared had been super enthusiastic about the translating he had gotten done so far, and wanted to show it to Jensen. He puts his hand on the door handle to Jared’s room and gives it a jiggle. The door is unlocked, and opens easily. Jensen pushes open the door and calls into Jared’s room.
“Jay? The door was unlocked. Couldn’t you hear me knocking?” Jensen looks around the room. Jared is very clearly not here. There isn’t anywhere for someone his size to hide in this room. He pulls the door shut behind him and sits down on the bed, intent on waiting for Jared to return. He probably just went down the hall or something. I mean, why else would he leave his door unlocked. He’ll be right back. Jensen curls up against the wall and pulls his ecology textbook out and starts reading.
Over half an hour later, Jensen starts to worry. Ok, even going down to the cafeteria and getting sidetracked by meeting people you know wouldn’t take this long. He pulls out his cell phone and dials Jared’s number. He can hear Jared’s phone ringing from its spot on Jared’s desk. Ok, that’s even weirder. Jared doesn’t go anywhere without his phone. Jensen hangs up and walks over to Jared’s desk. He analyses the surface contents. Underneath Jared’s phone is his wallet. His keys are sitting next to them. Which indicates that he wasn’t actually planning on leaving his room. Maybe he went to the bathroom? Jensen leaves Jared’s room, leaving the door unlocked, and goes to check out the bathroom. There’s no one in there, and no one in the shower’s either. And now it’s getting weirder. Jensen goes back to Jared’s dorm room and takes a look around.
Ok, his computer is still on, but on standby. Lights were on when I came in the room. His shoes and jacket were by the door. Jensen jiggles the mouse for Jared’s computer. The only window open contains his email, unread messages having accumulated from about noon onwards. That’s weird, but I’m sure he hasn’t gone far. Maybe he’s just in someone’s room or the common room talking and lost track of time. Jensen sits back down on the bed and resumes studying, working out the speech he’s going to give Jared in the back of his mind as he does so.
Another hour passes, and still no Jared. Getting impatient, Jensen stands up again and looks over the rest of Jared’s desk. Right in the centre is the artifact that Jared was assigned for their archaeology class. It’s sitting on top of the textbook Jared was using for translating, and his scrawled translation is open next to the book. Jensen starts to read what Jared has translated so far:
keeper of the dark... preserved for time... with the right blend (?) darkness will eat you up/consume (?); here symbols seem to be confusing; possibly mean a couple of things. the symbols under the indentations/keys seem to mean some sort of code. Buttons move when pushed. Most of the script seems to be a warning of some sort, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense when translated into English. It just repeats on and on that you will be eaten. But it doesn’t say by what.
Jensen feels the hair on the back of his neck start to prickle. He’s got a bad feeling about this. Holy crap. That can’t be good. All of those words just translate as ‘bad, bad, holy fuck this is bad’. This can’t mean that Jared disappeared. Like, vanished into thin air, disappeared. Why does it have to be now? I settle into a healthy relationship, think I’m falling in love, and THIS happens? What did I ever do to the fates to deserve this? What the hell am I gonna do? He pulls his cell phone out again and calls Mike.
“What did you do?” Jensen yells into the phone as soon as Mike picks up. “You made my boyfriend disappear!”
“What? What the hell are you talking about, Jensen? I haven’t seen Jared since class this morning, and I don’t think I’ve talked to him at any length since Friday’s lab. I definitely don’t think I said anything to scare him away.”
“No. Disappear as in ‘poof’ disappear. I’m in his dorm room. We were supposed to meet here two hours ago, but he’s just gone. Keys, wallet, cell phone still on his desk. His artifact right smack dab in the centre, and it looks like he was translating it when he disappeared.”
“Jensen. People don’t just ‘poof’ disappear. He probably just went to get food or something. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
“Mike, just get your ass over here and take a look. Please? It will make me feel better and I won’t kill you when I see you next for making my boyfriend disappear”
“Alright, fine. What’s Jared’s dorm number?” Mike sighs into the phone.
Jensen gives him directions and hangs up. He begins to pace up and down Jared’s room, hoping that Jared will just arrive back to his dorm and this will all be a sick delusion created by his overactive imagination.
Mike arrives ten minutes later and knocks on the dorm room door. Jensen opens it and gives his friend a pleading look.
“Ok, show me what you think means Jared has disappeared into thin air.” Mike greets him, getting straight to the matter at hand. Jensen leads him over to the desk and points to the translation and the reference book laying open on the surface of the desk.
“This is what he has so far.” Jensen tells Mike. Mike reads through the translation, then the reference book beside it.
“But this isn’t right. The school database says that Jared’s artifact is Minoan. Not Anglo-Saxon futhorc. I gave it to Jared because it was Minoan. Your statue is Minoan, too, but from an earlier time period. I figured it would give you a chance to work together. Common topic and all. This is bad. This is potentially really bad.”
“Mike, you are not being really reassuring right now. What do you mean, ‘really bad’?”
“You may not want to know.”
“I want to know.” Jensen growls out. “What happened to Jared?”
“Um, well that I don’t know. But if he translated this right, he was probably consumed by darkness? Oh, god, this is really bad. I got one of my students consumed by darkness.” The panic in Mike’s voice does little to reassure Jensen.
“How do we fix this? There must be a way to fix this!”
“I don’t know! I don’t know how to translate runes! Hell, I don’t know how to translate Minoan. I don’t even know if there is a known translation for the Minoan’s written language. I’m pretty sure we know enough to say ‘hey look, that’s Minoan. I wonder what it says.’ I figured I had enough time to learn or check out books before Jared’s assignment was due! I don’t know anything about the mythology or whatever behind this artifact if it’s actually Anglo-Saxon.”
“What are we gonna do? We can’t leave Jared potentially ‘consumed by darkness.’”
“Let’s just, carefully take all of this stuff to Misha and see what he says. He knows more about early Britain than I do. And if not, he may know someone we can ask. At the very least, he needs to know that one of his students may have been trapped by an assignment he handed out. The Dean doesn’t look very favourably on that.”
They gather up Jared’s notebook, reference book, and using a t-shirt to touch the artifact (just in case the ‘consumed by darkness’ aspect was touch related) all up in Jensen’s bag, and go off to find Dr. Collins.
Mike knocks on Misha’s office door.
“What’s that noise? I keep hearing it, where does it come from?” Jensen can hear Misha saying from inside his office.
“It’s me, Dr. Collins” Mike calls through the door. “Can I come in?”
“Yes, of course.” Is the reply from behind the door.
Before Mike opens the door, Jensen catches his eye and asks “This is the man that’s gonna help us?”
“Hey, the man is brilliant. Just, really strange. All anthropologists are.”
“I guess you have a point. You have to be the strangest person I know.”
“Exactly.” Mike takes no offense to Jensen’s comment, in fact he seems rather proud of it. He pulls open the door and waits for Jensen to enter the room, then steps in after him.
“Hey Misha” Mike begins. “We may have a little problem. Well, more like a big problem. You remember that Minoan fertility scroll?”
Jensen covers his eyes with his right hand. Of course Mike would give Jared a fertility scroll and me a fertility statue. This was probably his way to make sure we had sex.
Misha nods. “Yes, the one from the Anderson collection. I remember it.”
“Turns out it may not be Minoan. Jensen, show him what Jared found.” Jensen pulls out Jared’s work and the reference book, but leaves the scroll in his backpack.
“Where is Jared, anyways?” Misha asks as he starts going over Jared’s notes. “It was assigned to him, not Jensen. Did you find his notes or something? Is that why you’re here?” Misha starts to read Jared’s translation. “Oh. Never mind. This is why you’re here. Well.” He looks up to Mike and Jensen. “Did Jared disappear?”
“Um, well no one saw him disappear. He just hasn’t been back to his dorm in a while, and it doesn’t look like he was planning to leave or anything.” Jensen replied.
“I see.” Misha said with a low voice. He goes back to the reference book, flipping from page to page, reading quickly.
Jensen shifts uncomfortably after a few minutes of waiting. “So, was Jared ‘consumed by darkness’?”
“It appears that he was.” Misha responds without looking up.
Jensen waits a couple of seconds just in case Misha has more to say. When it becomes apparent that no more details are forthcoming he asks “So, can we get him back?”
Misha looks up and looks at Jensen, then at Mike. “You have the artifact with you?”
“Yeah” Jensen replies “it’s in my bag” He moves to pull it out, but Misha waves at him quickly.
“No! No, it’s best to leave it in there for the time being. It may pull us in, too, and then who would know to look for us as well? If I’m reading this correctly, the scroll is actually a trap or holding cell of sorts. Jared is likely inside it. I think I know who can help us.” He stands up and moves towards the door, Jared’s books in hand. He leaves the room.
Jensen looks over at Mike. “Are we supposed to follow?”
Mike nods. “I think so.”
They leave the room and turn left to follow after Misha. They finally catch up to him after travelling down a few corridors and down a level in the building. He stops in front of another office and knocks.
“Jim, good, you’re in” Misha greets the bearded man when he answers his office door. “I have a bit of a problem.” Misha turns towards Mike and Jensen. “Do you both know Dr. Beaver? He teaches history, amongst other things, here.”
“Misha, come on in. Nice to meet you, boys” Jim nods to Jensen and Mike as they all crowd into Jim’s office. Jim closes the door.
“Misha, what are you doing with that book?” Jim asks as soon as the door is closed.
“It seems one of my students has disappeared.” Misha begins. “You know the Anderson collection?”
“I’ve heard of it. Minoan, right? I’ve never studied it. What does that have to do with that book? Or your student’s disappearance?” Jim gestures towards the book Misha is holding again.
“It appears that not all of the artifacts in the Anderson collection are actually Minoan. One in particular seems to be of Anglo-Saxon origin. It seems to have sucked him up.”’
“Ah.” Replies Jim. “So you came to see me.”
“You are well known for your expertise in these matters, yes. So I came to see you.” Misha replied. “We brought the artifact. Can you bring him back?”
“Let me see the scroll.” Jim replies. Jensen hands over the bag. Jim nods in thanks and takes the bag from him. He reaches inside and pulls out the t-shirt wrapped scroll. He unwraps the scroll and starts to turn it over in his hands. Mike, Misha and Jensen all take a step back from Jim.
Jim looks up at them “It won’t suck you in unless you press the buttons in a certain order. There’s no reason to be cautious. We just have to figure out which combination will release the prisoner of the device. It’s unlikely that there is anything else trapped inside. These things are designed for single occupancy.” Jim goes back to reading the runes on the scroll, writing stuff down into his open notebook as he does so.
“I hate these damn things.” Jim says after a few minutes of translating. “They show up all over the damn place. It probably was buried as part of the Anderson assemblage. The Minoans probably traded it in from Northern Europe with the intention to trap a demon or something. Not that demons exist or anything, but the magic used to bind someone inside this device does. I swear they were designed just to drive future researchers insane and trap unsuspecting students within.” Jim keeps mumbling under his breath as he fiddles with the artifact in his hands.
“So, you’ve seen one of these before?” Misha enquires.
“Yeah, a couple. Never had to free anyone from one before. Most people heed the warnings written on the shaft.” he pauses. “I think I got it.”
“You think you’ve got it, or you know you’ve got it?” Jensen asks and takes another step back. He all of a sudden is very glad that he is a biology student.
“We’ll find out in a second.” Jim replies and places his fingers along four of the buttons running up the shaft. He presses down. There is a blinding flash of white light. Jensen averts his eyes, and when he looks up, Jared is standing with them in the office, looking very, very confused.
“Um, what’s going on?” He turns around, looking around him. “Where am I? Wasn’t I just in my dorm?”
Jensen breathes out a sigh of relief. He’s never been so glad to see Jared, alive and intact. And it seems like Jared has no recollection of the past few hours.
“Welcome back, Jared. You were trapped within your scroll.” Misha replies in explanation to Jared’s questions. Judging by the expression on Jared’s face, his explanation doesn’t answer any of Jared’s questions, but formulates more in his mind. “It seems that the scroll was catalogued wrong. We did not know that it was a magical holding cell when we assigned it to you. You and Jensen both get 100% on your assignments for the trouble this has all caused. You both did an excellent job researching.”
Jared just nods in response and glances towards Jensen and Mike. Jensen can see the questions in his eyes, and hopes that his answering smile says I’ll explain it all later. You’re not gonna believe this instead of holy fuck what the hell just happened and why can’t I have a normal life. Jared just keeps nodding, and says “Um, Ok.”
“Well, this has been a blast, but I betcha Jared wants to rest” Mike chimes in. “Jensen, why don’t you take Jared back to his dorm room, fill him in on the events of this afternoon, and Misha, Jim and I will figure out what to do with the scroll, and maybe go over the rest of the Anderson collection to see if any other students may end up trapped.”
“Yeah” Jensen nods “I think that sounds like a good idea.” He grabs Jared by the sleeve and pulls him out of the room. Once they are out in the hall, and the door is shut behind them, Jensen pulls Jared into his arms and gives him a kiss on the lips. “Man” he says as he pulls away. “You are not gonna believe what happened. I’ll explain back at the dorm. This isn’t really the place for it.”
“Ok” Jared nods and agrees. He steps in place next to Jensen and they walk back to Jared’s dorm.
“So” Jared starts a little while later, after Jensen had described everything to the best of his ability. “I got trapped in a little bronze tube. For the afternoon. And you had to take me, inside the artifact, to a history teacher named Jim in order to get me out again.”
“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” Jensen replied and snuggles in closer to Jared’s chest. As soon as they had made it back to Jared’s room, Jensen had pushed Jared down onto his bed and insisted on snuggling with him while he explained the events of the afternoon. He didn’t want to let Jared go, just in case doing so meant he disappeared again. He had experienced enough drama for one day, thank you very much.
Jared chuckles and kisses Jensen softly on the top of his head. “Sounds like you had quite the afternoon. Miss me?”
“I did. I mean, it was just the afternoon. I can survive an afternoon without your presence. It was the potential that it could be much longer than an afternoon, potentially even forever, that got to me. And not knowing if you had just wandered away in the real world, or if you could inconceivably be trapped in a scroll. If you had asked yesterday which one I thought was more likely, no offence, but I would have said that you walking away and leaving me was much more likely than some magical scroll sucking you up.”
“Yet, here we are.” Jared replies with a wry grin, no offence taken.
“Here we are. I’m really, stupidly, glad that it was the scroll thing. If you have to leave me, I think I’m more comfortable with you accidentally leaving me, than you leaving on purpose.”
“First off, who wouldn’t prefer it that way. Secondly, why would I dump you, only to leave you in my own dorm room? That just doesn’t make sense.”
“Hey, you were gone. I was panicking. I think you should count your lucky stars I stayed. It made sense at the time. And it all worked out. Just do me a favour? If you stay in archaeology? You stay away from bronze tubes that warn you about being trapped inside forever.”
“Hey, at least you know what to do next time.”
“Not funny. Promise me.”
“I promise.” Jared squeezed his arms around Jensen, holding him tight. “You really did freak that I was gone, didn’t you?”
“You have no idea. I think I scared Mike. Don’t be surprised if he avoids us for a while. I may have threatened some parts of Mike that Tom really enjoys too, so Tom may also keep his distance, just to show solidarity.”
Jared chuckles.
“So, you really didn’t notice anything while you were in there? You aren’t just saying that to make me feel better about the whole ordeal?”
“Nope. One moment, sitting in my dorm room. The next moment, standing in Dr. Beaver’s office with you all staring at me like I had grown horns or something.”
“Huh. Strange. I’m a little relieved that we made it out to the other side relatively unscathed. I mean, the excitement keeps things interesting, I suppose. I never really craved excitement before, though.”
“I don’t know, I was content with the level of excitement before I got trapped in a scroll.”
“You know, I feel the same way. It’s weird how ancient curses can make you enjoy the comforts of daily life.” Jensen yawns and closes his eyes, comforted by Jared’s warm body surrounding him, and the sound of Jared’s heartbeat below him.
“Tired baby?” Jared asks. “You’ve had a busy day. Get some sleep.”
Jensen mumbles and shifts until he’s comfortable. “K, but don’t go anywhere while I sleep.”
“I won’t. I’m tired, too. Sleep well.”
Jensen falls asleep warm, happy and content. They have time now to explore where this is going, and he’s looking forward to the opportunity to experience it all, good and bad, and hopefully with an absence of cursed objects.
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Jensen knocks on Jared’s dorm room door on a Wednesday afternoon in early October. He has just gotten out of his last class for the day, and earlier this morning he and Jared had agreed to meet here to study, then go out for dinner.
He stands in the hall waiting for Jared to answer. When he gets no reply, he knocks a little louder, just in case Jared has headphones on or something. Still no reply. He knows that they were meeting here. Jared had been super enthusiastic about the translating he had gotten done so far, and wanted to show it to Jensen. He puts his hand on the door handle to Jared’s room and gives it a jiggle. The door is unlocked, and opens easily. Jensen pushes open the door and calls into Jared’s room.
“Jay? The door was unlocked. Couldn’t you hear me knocking?” Jensen looks around the room. Jared is very clearly not here. There isn’t anywhere for someone his size to hide in this room. He pulls the door shut behind him and sits down on the bed, intent on waiting for Jared to return. He probably just went down the hall or something. I mean, why else would he leave his door unlocked. He’ll be right back. Jensen curls up against the wall and pulls his ecology textbook out and starts reading.
Over half an hour later, Jensen starts to worry. Ok, even going down to the cafeteria and getting sidetracked by meeting people you know wouldn’t take this long. He pulls out his cell phone and dials Jared’s number. He can hear Jared’s phone ringing from its spot on Jared’s desk. Ok, that’s even weirder. Jared doesn’t go anywhere without his phone. Jensen hangs up and walks over to Jared’s desk. He analyses the surface contents. Underneath Jared’s phone is his wallet. His keys are sitting next to them. Which indicates that he wasn’t actually planning on leaving his room. Maybe he went to the bathroom? Jensen leaves Jared’s room, leaving the door unlocked, and goes to check out the bathroom. There’s no one in there, and no one in the shower’s either. And now it’s getting weirder. Jensen goes back to Jared’s dorm room and takes a look around.
Ok, his computer is still on, but on standby. Lights were on when I came in the room. His shoes and jacket were by the door. Jensen jiggles the mouse for Jared’s computer. The only window open contains his email, unread messages having accumulated from about noon onwards. That’s weird, but I’m sure he hasn’t gone far. Maybe he’s just in someone’s room or the common room talking and lost track of time. Jensen sits back down on the bed and resumes studying, working out the speech he’s going to give Jared in the back of his mind as he does so.
Another hour passes, and still no Jared. Getting impatient, Jensen stands up again and looks over the rest of Jared’s desk. Right in the centre is the artifact that Jared was assigned for their archaeology class. It’s sitting on top of the textbook Jared was using for translating, and his scrawled translation is open next to the book. Jensen starts to read what Jared has translated so far:
keeper of the dark... preserved for time... with the right blend (?) darkness will eat you up/consume (?); here symbols seem to be confusing; possibly mean a couple of things. the symbols under the indentations/keys seem to mean some sort of code. Buttons move when pushed. Most of the script seems to be a warning of some sort, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense when translated into English. It just repeats on and on that you will be eaten. But it doesn’t say by what.
Jensen feels the hair on the back of his neck start to prickle. He’s got a bad feeling about this. Holy crap. That can’t be good. All of those words just translate as ‘bad, bad, holy fuck this is bad’. This can’t mean that Jared disappeared. Like, vanished into thin air, disappeared. Why does it have to be now? I settle into a healthy relationship, think I’m falling in love, and THIS happens? What did I ever do to the fates to deserve this? What the hell am I gonna do? He pulls his cell phone out again and calls Mike.
“What did you do?” Jensen yells into the phone as soon as Mike picks up. “You made my boyfriend disappear!”
“What? What the hell are you talking about, Jensen? I haven’t seen Jared since class this morning, and I don’t think I’ve talked to him at any length since Friday’s lab. I definitely don’t think I said anything to scare him away.”
“No. Disappear as in ‘poof’ disappear. I’m in his dorm room. We were supposed to meet here two hours ago, but he’s just gone. Keys, wallet, cell phone still on his desk. His artifact right smack dab in the centre, and it looks like he was translating it when he disappeared.”
“Jensen. People don’t just ‘poof’ disappear. He probably just went to get food or something. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”
“Mike, just get your ass over here and take a look. Please? It will make me feel better and I won’t kill you when I see you next for making my boyfriend disappear”
“Alright, fine. What’s Jared’s dorm number?” Mike sighs into the phone.
Jensen gives him directions and hangs up. He begins to pace up and down Jared’s room, hoping that Jared will just arrive back to his dorm and this will all be a sick delusion created by his overactive imagination.
Mike arrives ten minutes later and knocks on the dorm room door. Jensen opens it and gives his friend a pleading look.
“Ok, show me what you think means Jared has disappeared into thin air.” Mike greets him, getting straight to the matter at hand. Jensen leads him over to the desk and points to the translation and the reference book laying open on the surface of the desk.
“This is what he has so far.” Jensen tells Mike. Mike reads through the translation, then the reference book beside it.
“But this isn’t right. The school database says that Jared’s artifact is Minoan. Not Anglo-Saxon futhorc. I gave it to Jared because it was Minoan. Your statue is Minoan, too, but from an earlier time period. I figured it would give you a chance to work together. Common topic and all. This is bad. This is potentially really bad.”
“Mike, you are not being really reassuring right now. What do you mean, ‘really bad’?”
“You may not want to know.”
“I want to know.” Jensen growls out. “What happened to Jared?”
“Um, well that I don’t know. But if he translated this right, he was probably consumed by darkness? Oh, god, this is really bad. I got one of my students consumed by darkness.” The panic in Mike’s voice does little to reassure Jensen.
“How do we fix this? There must be a way to fix this!”
“I don’t know! I don’t know how to translate runes! Hell, I don’t know how to translate Minoan. I don’t even know if there is a known translation for the Minoan’s written language. I’m pretty sure we know enough to say ‘hey look, that’s Minoan. I wonder what it says.’ I figured I had enough time to learn or check out books before Jared’s assignment was due! I don’t know anything about the mythology or whatever behind this artifact if it’s actually Anglo-Saxon.”
“What are we gonna do? We can’t leave Jared potentially ‘consumed by darkness.’”
“Let’s just, carefully take all of this stuff to Misha and see what he says. He knows more about early Britain than I do. And if not, he may know someone we can ask. At the very least, he needs to know that one of his students may have been trapped by an assignment he handed out. The Dean doesn’t look very favourably on that.”
They gather up Jared’s notebook, reference book, and using a t-shirt to touch the artifact (just in case the ‘consumed by darkness’ aspect was touch related) all up in Jensen’s bag, and go off to find Dr. Collins.
Mike knocks on Misha’s office door.
“What’s that noise? I keep hearing it, where does it come from?” Jensen can hear Misha saying from inside his office.
“It’s me, Dr. Collins” Mike calls through the door. “Can I come in?”
“Yes, of course.” Is the reply from behind the door.
Before Mike opens the door, Jensen catches his eye and asks “This is the man that’s gonna help us?”
“Hey, the man is brilliant. Just, really strange. All anthropologists are.”
“I guess you have a point. You have to be the strangest person I know.”
“Exactly.” Mike takes no offense to Jensen’s comment, in fact he seems rather proud of it. He pulls open the door and waits for Jensen to enter the room, then steps in after him.
“Hey Misha” Mike begins. “We may have a little problem. Well, more like a big problem. You remember that Minoan fertility scroll?”
Jensen covers his eyes with his right hand. Of course Mike would give Jared a fertility scroll and me a fertility statue. This was probably his way to make sure we had sex.
Misha nods. “Yes, the one from the Anderson collection. I remember it.”
“Turns out it may not be Minoan. Jensen, show him what Jared found.” Jensen pulls out Jared’s work and the reference book, but leaves the scroll in his backpack.
“Where is Jared, anyways?” Misha asks as he starts going over Jared’s notes. “It was assigned to him, not Jensen. Did you find his notes or something? Is that why you’re here?” Misha starts to read Jared’s translation. “Oh. Never mind. This is why you’re here. Well.” He looks up to Mike and Jensen. “Did Jared disappear?”
“Um, well no one saw him disappear. He just hasn’t been back to his dorm in a while, and it doesn’t look like he was planning to leave or anything.” Jensen replied.
“I see.” Misha said with a low voice. He goes back to the reference book, flipping from page to page, reading quickly.
Jensen shifts uncomfortably after a few minutes of waiting. “So, was Jared ‘consumed by darkness’?”
“It appears that he was.” Misha responds without looking up.
Jensen waits a couple of seconds just in case Misha has more to say. When it becomes apparent that no more details are forthcoming he asks “So, can we get him back?”
Misha looks up and looks at Jensen, then at Mike. “You have the artifact with you?”
“Yeah” Jensen replies “it’s in my bag” He moves to pull it out, but Misha waves at him quickly.
“No! No, it’s best to leave it in there for the time being. It may pull us in, too, and then who would know to look for us as well? If I’m reading this correctly, the scroll is actually a trap or holding cell of sorts. Jared is likely inside it. I think I know who can help us.” He stands up and moves towards the door, Jared’s books in hand. He leaves the room.
Jensen looks over at Mike. “Are we supposed to follow?”
Mike nods. “I think so.”
They leave the room and turn left to follow after Misha. They finally catch up to him after travelling down a few corridors and down a level in the building. He stops in front of another office and knocks.
“Jim, good, you’re in” Misha greets the bearded man when he answers his office door. “I have a bit of a problem.” Misha turns towards Mike and Jensen. “Do you both know Dr. Beaver? He teaches history, amongst other things, here.”
“Misha, come on in. Nice to meet you, boys” Jim nods to Jensen and Mike as they all crowd into Jim’s office. Jim closes the door.
“Misha, what are you doing with that book?” Jim asks as soon as the door is closed.
“It seems one of my students has disappeared.” Misha begins. “You know the Anderson collection?”
“I’ve heard of it. Minoan, right? I’ve never studied it. What does that have to do with that book? Or your student’s disappearance?” Jim gestures towards the book Misha is holding again.
“It appears that not all of the artifacts in the Anderson collection are actually Minoan. One in particular seems to be of Anglo-Saxon origin. It seems to have sucked him up.”’
“Ah.” Replies Jim. “So you came to see me.”
“You are well known for your expertise in these matters, yes. So I came to see you.” Misha replied. “We brought the artifact. Can you bring him back?”
“Let me see the scroll.” Jim replies. Jensen hands over the bag. Jim nods in thanks and takes the bag from him. He reaches inside and pulls out the t-shirt wrapped scroll. He unwraps the scroll and starts to turn it over in his hands. Mike, Misha and Jensen all take a step back from Jim.
Jim looks up at them “It won’t suck you in unless you press the buttons in a certain order. There’s no reason to be cautious. We just have to figure out which combination will release the prisoner of the device. It’s unlikely that there is anything else trapped inside. These things are designed for single occupancy.” Jim goes back to reading the runes on the scroll, writing stuff down into his open notebook as he does so.
“I hate these damn things.” Jim says after a few minutes of translating. “They show up all over the damn place. It probably was buried as part of the Anderson assemblage. The Minoans probably traded it in from Northern Europe with the intention to trap a demon or something. Not that demons exist or anything, but the magic used to bind someone inside this device does. I swear they were designed just to drive future researchers insane and trap unsuspecting students within.” Jim keeps mumbling under his breath as he fiddles with the artifact in his hands.
“So, you’ve seen one of these before?” Misha enquires.
“Yeah, a couple. Never had to free anyone from one before. Most people heed the warnings written on the shaft.” he pauses. “I think I got it.”
“You think you’ve got it, or you know you’ve got it?” Jensen asks and takes another step back. He all of a sudden is very glad that he is a biology student.
“We’ll find out in a second.” Jim replies and places his fingers along four of the buttons running up the shaft. He presses down. There is a blinding flash of white light. Jensen averts his eyes, and when he looks up, Jared is standing with them in the office, looking very, very confused.
“Um, what’s going on?” He turns around, looking around him. “Where am I? Wasn’t I just in my dorm?”
Jensen breathes out a sigh of relief. He’s never been so glad to see Jared, alive and intact. And it seems like Jared has no recollection of the past few hours.
“Welcome back, Jared. You were trapped within your scroll.” Misha replies in explanation to Jared’s questions. Judging by the expression on Jared’s face, his explanation doesn’t answer any of Jared’s questions, but formulates more in his mind. “It seems that the scroll was catalogued wrong. We did not know that it was a magical holding cell when we assigned it to you. You and Jensen both get 100% on your assignments for the trouble this has all caused. You both did an excellent job researching.”
Jared just nods in response and glances towards Jensen and Mike. Jensen can see the questions in his eyes, and hopes that his answering smile says I’ll explain it all later. You’re not gonna believe this instead of holy fuck what the hell just happened and why can’t I have a normal life. Jared just keeps nodding, and says “Um, Ok.”
“Well, this has been a blast, but I betcha Jared wants to rest” Mike chimes in. “Jensen, why don’t you take Jared back to his dorm room, fill him in on the events of this afternoon, and Misha, Jim and I will figure out what to do with the scroll, and maybe go over the rest of the Anderson collection to see if any other students may end up trapped.”
“Yeah” Jensen nods “I think that sounds like a good idea.” He grabs Jared by the sleeve and pulls him out of the room. Once they are out in the hall, and the door is shut behind them, Jensen pulls Jared into his arms and gives him a kiss on the lips. “Man” he says as he pulls away. “You are not gonna believe what happened. I’ll explain back at the dorm. This isn’t really the place for it.”
“Ok” Jared nods and agrees. He steps in place next to Jensen and they walk back to Jared’s dorm.
“So” Jared starts a little while later, after Jensen had described everything to the best of his ability. “I got trapped in a little bronze tube. For the afternoon. And you had to take me, inside the artifact, to a history teacher named Jim in order to get me out again.”
“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” Jensen replied and snuggles in closer to Jared’s chest. As soon as they had made it back to Jared’s room, Jensen had pushed Jared down onto his bed and insisted on snuggling with him while he explained the events of the afternoon. He didn’t want to let Jared go, just in case doing so meant he disappeared again. He had experienced enough drama for one day, thank you very much.
Jared chuckles and kisses Jensen softly on the top of his head. “Sounds like you had quite the afternoon. Miss me?”
“I did. I mean, it was just the afternoon. I can survive an afternoon without your presence. It was the potential that it could be much longer than an afternoon, potentially even forever, that got to me. And not knowing if you had just wandered away in the real world, or if you could inconceivably be trapped in a scroll. If you had asked yesterday which one I thought was more likely, no offence, but I would have said that you walking away and leaving me was much more likely than some magical scroll sucking you up.”
“Yet, here we are.” Jared replies with a wry grin, no offence taken.
“Here we are. I’m really, stupidly, glad that it was the scroll thing. If you have to leave me, I think I’m more comfortable with you accidentally leaving me, than you leaving on purpose.”
“First off, who wouldn’t prefer it that way. Secondly, why would I dump you, only to leave you in my own dorm room? That just doesn’t make sense.”
“Hey, you were gone. I was panicking. I think you should count your lucky stars I stayed. It made sense at the time. And it all worked out. Just do me a favour? If you stay in archaeology? You stay away from bronze tubes that warn you about being trapped inside forever.”
“Hey, at least you know what to do next time.”
“Not funny. Promise me.”
“I promise.” Jared squeezed his arms around Jensen, holding him tight. “You really did freak that I was gone, didn’t you?”
“You have no idea. I think I scared Mike. Don’t be surprised if he avoids us for a while. I may have threatened some parts of Mike that Tom really enjoys too, so Tom may also keep his distance, just to show solidarity.”
Jared chuckles.
“So, you really didn’t notice anything while you were in there? You aren’t just saying that to make me feel better about the whole ordeal?”
“Nope. One moment, sitting in my dorm room. The next moment, standing in Dr. Beaver’s office with you all staring at me like I had grown horns or something.”
“Huh. Strange. I’m a little relieved that we made it out to the other side relatively unscathed. I mean, the excitement keeps things interesting, I suppose. I never really craved excitement before, though.”
“I don’t know, I was content with the level of excitement before I got trapped in a scroll.”
“You know, I feel the same way. It’s weird how ancient curses can make you enjoy the comforts of daily life.” Jensen yawns and closes his eyes, comforted by Jared’s warm body surrounding him, and the sound of Jared’s heartbeat below him.
“Tired baby?” Jared asks. “You’ve had a busy day. Get some sleep.”
Jensen mumbles and shifts until he’s comfortable. “K, but don’t go anywhere while I sleep.”
“I won’t. I’m tired, too. Sleep well.”
Jensen falls asleep warm, happy and content. They have time now to explore where this is going, and he’s looking forward to the opportunity to experience it all, good and bad, and hopefully with an absence of cursed objects.
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