(no subject)
Title: End of Our Days (1/3)
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG 13, for language and allusions to sex.
Notes: Apocalypse fic, part one of three. Inspired by fryadvocate's venture into PostApoc and my sick love of the genre.
Feedback: Always appreciated!
The last morning
Jensen wakes to the shrill scream of a siren - no, wait - his alarm clock. The angry red numbers are showing 4:45 (yes, a.m., his tired muscles remind him), and that means that he’s hit the snooze button approximately three times, doesn’t have time for breakfast or coffee that doesn’t come from the Tim Hortons drivethru, and should be expecting a call from set in fifteen minutes.
He crawls out of bed and ruffles his already ruffled hair, forgoing the morning jog that he vowed halfway through first season to take daily due to all of the shirtless scenes. He clicks his tongue for the cat - a little black prima donna, Pandora - but breakfast apparently isn’t worth her time at this early hour and she continues to lay motionless on the windowsill.
A quick shower, and he counts down from five hundred to one to monitor the time, as anal-retentive as he is. At fifty-four he gets out, with fifty-three numbers left to get dressed in. At minus seventeen, he’s heading out the door, fumbling for his cell phone and dialing Eric’s.
No answer. He guesses he’s not the only one who slept in today.
.
If he worked any other job, Jensen might find this odd. He drives his newly leased 2003 Porsche Boxter - the one that Jared is always making fun of, because it’s a handful of years old now - through the empty streets, but then again, it is five a.m. He doesn’t think much of it, doesn’t think much of the silence that would be painfully apparent if it weren’t for the sound of Steve Carlson’s voice coming loud and clear through his stereo system.
He pulls into the parking lot of the studio, and doesn’t recognize any of the cars that are there. He frowns as he checks the clock, and just for a minute wonders if Jared’s figured out a way to fuck with him by changing the time in his place, his car and on his wristwatch.
Not possible. The boy’s pretty, not bright.
He sighs as he gets out of his car, adjusting his jeans so that they fall properly on his hips and sauntering towards the building, where there is hopefully coffee brewing.
.
The studio is oddly empty, and Jensen arches one nearly perfect eyebrow in disbelief before calling out. “Hello?” His voice echoes in the empty hall, and he cringes as he unwittingly answers himself.
He waits for an outside answer that doesn’t come, trying to figure out what X and Y equal if A and B are his stupidity and that feeling of unease that’s gnawing at his stomach. “Okay guys, this isn’t funny anymore!” he shouts to no one in particular, half expecting Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind a box of lighting or sound equipment, laughing as he shouts “YOU’VE BEEN PUNK’D, BITCH!”
He’s fucking creeped out. As if working on Supernatural wasn’t scary enough in itself sometimes, now they’ve gone and pulled the prank of all pranks on him, and Jared knows that stuff like this freaks Jensen out, has known ever since they watched 28 Days Later together.
He does the zipper on his hooded sweatshirt up further unknowingly, as if it’ll help shake the chill that he’s feeling.
.
It’s not five minutes later that a door opens and quickly bangs shut again, and Jensen whirls around the sound stage he’s currently searching through as he tries to find the source of the noise.
He feels like Theseus in the Labyrinth, like maybe that could have been the sound of the man-eating Minotaur or something. “Joke’s up!” he shouts out on a whim, in part simply to hear something, anything. He knows that he’s getting worked up and that he’s going to hear about this later, but judging by the way that his hands are shaking, this is really scaring him. “I heard you!”
The sound of footsteps hastens towards him, and the shadows give way to a tall figure. The negative space that had been there just seconds before is replaced with cubic inches of Jared Padalecki, everything in place right down to the splayed hair around his face. “Jen,” he breathes, as if he’s relieved. “Thank god you’re here.”
Jensen blinks at him a few times before shrugging nonchalantly, as if his heart still isn’t pounding it’s way through the layers of bone, muscle and flesh in his chest. “They move shooting today?” he asks, and it seems so obvious that he feels idiotic. Of course. That’s what he gets for being late.
Jared frowns, bottomless and arduous like the weight of the world is resting on his shoulders. “Nah, man. I just got here. Where is everyone?”
Jensen mirrors Jared’s frown, and his acting coach would be proud.
.
The light bulb above his head flickers and shatters as he understands, the realization dawning like the sun over the Hollywood hills. Jared is an actor; they’re still getting him. Right. He draws in a deep breath and maintains the Jared-imposed calm that he’s clinging to. He can’t keep the cocky edge out of his voice, though, so proud that he’s figured this out: “You put them up to this, or did they put you up to it?”
Jared’s puppyish frown deepens, entering an entirely new territory of convincing. He cocks his head to the right and watches Jensen through sparse lashes, like Jensen is a Rubik's cube and Jared really does have Sam’s telekinetic powers.
The fear in his voice is tangible when he speaks again. “Jen. This isn’t funny anymore. I know you’re a good actor and all, and you ain’t gotta prove it anymore. You got me,” he pauses to gulp in a lungful of air, as if this is more of a strain than their fight scenes or something. “Alrighty. I’m freakin’ out, ‘kay? I said it. This ain’t cool, ya know.” It’s the twang that convinces Jensen, the fear that sends Jared back to the basics that freezer burns the inside of his stomach.
.
Jensen is always the voice of reason.
“Bet you Kripke’s taping us right now. This’ll make one hell of a blooper reel.” Jared nods like he’s trying his darnedest to pretend that he agrees, but he’s never been all that convincing. The end of his sentence is punctuated with two sharp beeps - Jared’s phone, signaling a text message. He smiles a little as he looks down at his caller ID screen, and Jensen stands on his tiptoes to read over his shoulder.
~*~ SANDY ~*~ it reads in big letters, and Jensen doesn’t need to see Jared’s face to know that he’s smiling even wider, he can tell just from the shape that his jaw takes. He also doesn’t need to ask to know that Sandy added her own name to the phone book, or at least he hopes that he doesn’t. Jared flips his phone open and then makes a soft noise, something that’s somewhere between surprise and dread.
Call me. I love you so much, okay?
Jensen shouldn’t still be reading this, and he definitely shouldn’t want to use the pad of his thumb to smooth away the worry lines between Jared’s eyebrows.
Jared dials Sandra and then waits.
.
Three hours, twenty three minutes
He finally gets through on the ninth try, when his phone manages to grab both a signal and dial tone, a small miracle with the way that things have been going.
Their speech is hurried, and Jensen can hear her voice, lucid through the phone’s speakers, even as Jared clutches it tightly to his ear like every syllable she’s uttering is to be cherished and revered. She starts to cry halfway through, loud, shuddering sobs that are remarkably clear even across the bad connection. He speaks to her in hushed tones until the phone cuts out, and he hits redial over and over and over again to no avail.
“Drug trip?” Jensen asks, with a little too much hope. Sandy is an LA party girl, and so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. It’s better than the other option here; especially considering this would be the longest episode of Punk’d in the history of ever. Jared shrugs, one big shoulder up and then quickly down as the air is filled with a tinny version of the James Bond theme - Jensen’s phone.
He picks up the blocked number, and it’s Kripke, of all people. He sounds stressed out, like he does when an episode is down to the wire and he’s just not happy with what the writers have done to his characters. “Jensen?” he asks, as if it’s going to be someone else on Jensen’s cell phone. “I just wanted to…you know…say thank you. I’ve been trying to call Jared and his phone is dead or something, but you know, I guess that’s bound to happen now. Just, thank you.”
Jensen frowns until his eyebrows nearly touch together, and he swallows before he speaks. “For what?”
“The show. Everything.” is all that he gets as an answer, but it’s not enough.
“…What’s happening, man?” he puzzles, listening as Eric starts to spew off what has to be the plot of an upcoming episode. The blood drains from Jensen’s face as he realizes that Kripke’s dead serious, and then he speaks the four words with an uncharacteristic lack of emotion that scares Jared.
Turn on the radio.
.
Three hours, seventeen minutes
Jared’s truck is closest. A quad cab Dodge Ram, fully loaded and so new that it still smells like whatever the dealership puts inside them to make you want to buy it. Jensen wipes the dirt off his sneakers before he gets in, habitually. Jared is far less graceful, diving across the seat as soon as he gets the door open and jamming the keys in the ignition to start the engine. Our Lady Peace starts playing; The World on a String from Healthy in Paranoid Times, and Jensen silently curses Jared for being such an enabler for the band. The damn CD is in his stereo at home, too. Jared scowls as if he’s heard Jensen and flips from CD to tuner, getting static that jars Jensen so badly that he has to bite down on his lip to muffle the noise he makes.
He seeks through the stations until the digital numbers finally stop on 1130 AM, all news radio.
A monotonous voice fills the emptiness inside of the truck, forty five words that repeat in a seemingly endless loop. They listen to it eleven times before Jared slams his hand down on the button and shuts it off, letting his forehead drop to the steering wheel.
“Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord's wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth.”
“Zephaniah 1:18,” Jared finally murmurs, and Jensen doesn’t ask how he knows that.
.
Three hours, six minutes
They look at each other for a moment, fate finally sinking in. Jensen’s never imagined the end of the world before, but if he had, he certainly wouldn’t have thought that he’d meet it with Jared Padalecki as company. He was supposed to get married, have kids - settle down, like his Mama’s always hoping for.
His Mama. He tries the number again, just wanting to hear her voice. Somehow, that’ll make it all better, he’s sure of it. More dead air. “I can’t get a fucking signal,” he mutters, leaning over to look at the indicator on Jared’s phone. “You either.”
They find another radio station, so quiet through the static that Jensen has to press his ear against the speaker to hear it. They catch fragmented words, like gossip in a game of Telephone. Disease. Virus. Terrorism. Three hours. Scientist. Apocalypse. Prayer. Goodbye.
“How do we know that it’s real?” Jared asks, words leaping and bounding from his throat without provocation. “I mean, couldn’t it just be like that War of the Worlds hoax?” He looks so hopeful that Jensen is hesitant to even answer his question.
“We don’t. But it’s all that we’ve got to go on, isn’t it?” Jensen finally retorts, and Jared nods resignedly. A few minutes later, he speaks again. “Well, I guess this is probably the end,” he says, and he means to laugh afterwards but somehow it’s lost in translation and becomes the sound of a heart breaking.
.
Two hours, fifty nine minutes
They can’t spend the indefinite amount of time that they have left in Jared’s truck, and so they go back to Jared’s apartment. He wants to be with the dogs, anyhow. Jensen thinks of his cat and feels a pang of guilt in his stomach - no last meal - but he’s not about to give up staying with another human being for it.
“Three hours, you think?” Jared drawls, and Jensen watches out the window as they roll past nothing. It’s not like the movies at all. People aren’t trying to escape, save a few scattered cars on the expressway; there are no riots or looting sprees. Everything is just silent, devoid of community and commotion.
“I don’t know,” Jensen says quietly. “It was hard to hear.” He wrestles with the thin ribbon of hope that is fighting its way into words, and then hope wins and he speaks them. “But how would anyone know that anyway, right?”
This time, Jared doesn’t answer.
.
Two hours, twenty two minutes
The dogs yap happily on the other side of the door and Jared sighs in relief. He opens it and they pour out into the hallway, jumping and scratching at Jensen as they propel themselves with wagging tails.
Jared uses his big hands to push them back inside, and they both think the same thing without saying it. The virus hasn’t gotten them yet, at very least.
Jensen sits on Jared’s couch, like this is any of the hundreds of times that he’s been here before now. Jared presses play on his answer machine and one message plays, Kripke again. Jared pretends that he has something in his eye when he wipes at it, and offers Jensen a beer.
He takes it and wrinkles his nose at the Kokanee when Jared brings it, their tradition - wussy Canadian beer.
.
Two hours, eighteen minutes
They dial and redial on their phones, like they're trying to win a radio contest or something. Jensen wants to get a hold of someone in his family -- anyone. Jared is simply trying to reach his little sister, already having given up on his parents' house.
The lines just aren't connecting anymore and Jensen is the first to give up, throwing his phone hard against the wall before he even realizes that it's left his hand.
.
One hour, thirty six minutes
They play PS2 while they pretend that they’re not waiting, and Jared kicks Jensen’s ass at GoldenEye twice before they give up.
Jared flops back on the couch and scratches one of the dog’s ears, and after all this time Jensen still can’t tell the damn things apart. He guesses that he’ll never have to worry about it now, anyhow.
“You want anything to eat?” Jared asks, thinking about gummi bears and how calories don’t matter anymore, and neither does eating until you make yourself feel sick because he already feels it anyhow. Jensen shakes his head, no thanks. “Okay.”
“Jared?” Jensen asks, nearly calling him Sam because this feels so much like a damn script. “I need to know something.”
Jared looks over at him with those bottle green eyes, and he figures that this is the perfect opportunity. It really is now or never, and for some reason he doesn’t want to die without knowing it.
“You…you care about me, right?” The words hang in the air for a moment, and Jensen already wishes that he hadn’t said them.
Jared blinks incredulously. “Well, yeah. ‘Course I do, Jen.”
Jensen lowers his eyes, and tries again. “No, I mean…you know. Care about me.” There’s a certain sort of desperation there, something that Jensen’s bottled since the first months of working together, when he met Sandra and after he’d lost Joanna.
Jared smiles softly, almost wistfully. “Answer still stands.”
.
One hour, thirty minutes
“Whatcha wanna do?” Jared asks to fill the silence between them. Jensen cocks an eyebrow like it’s the stupidest question in the world, but then he grins.
“Your call.” It’s meant to be filled with Deanish obscenity, but it falls flat and clings to something a little like hope.
Jared grins his trademark good ol’ boy grin and retorts, and yeah, now he decides to be a smart ass. “We could watch a movie. Read the newspaper. Surf the Internet. Play Scattergories?”
“We could make up for a lot of lost time.” Jensen says, and Sandra feels like a lifetime away, so Jared nods.
.
One hour, twenty five minutes
It’s awkward and clumsy, but most of all, it’s desperate.
Jared’s lips just miss Jensen’s and land askew on the corner of his mouth; Jensen trips on the foot of the bed when they finally get there and knocks them both down, landing on Jared with a chorus of apologies.
Items of clothing are stripped and thrown, and beyond the realm of things that should be happening at the moment, Jared makes Jensen wait while he changes from regular sheets to red silk ones. He grins. “If this is going to be the last time? It’s going to be frickin’ good.” Somehow, the end of the world is negated by the promise of sex, if only for a few moments.
When Jared reaches for the lube and condoms in the bedside table drawer, Jensen grabs his wrist. “Fuck that,” he whispers, knocking the condoms out of Jared’s hand. “It’s the end of the world.”
Somehow, it’s funny in how unfunny it is, and they both end up laughing.
.
Sixteen minutes
They lie tangled up together, talking to keep their eyes off the clock. “We could sleep.” Jared says pointedly, but they’re both too nervous to even consider it.
Jensen leans in and begins to trace Jared with his tongue instead, starting with his shoulders and collarbone and working his way down.
.
Two minutes, nineteen seconds
“I love you,” Jared gasps out as he comes, fingers of one hand twisted in the sheets and that of the other clawing in Jensen’s hair.
Jensen doesn’t really believe him, but it’s nice to hear it, anyhow.
.
Forty seven seconds
Jensen keeps vigil over the clock, like it’s a macabre version of the New Year’s Eve celebrations that he watched on TV when he was little, waiting for the ball to drop.
Only this time, it’s a bomb and not a ball, and they’re all afraid of the pyrotechnics that will inevitably follow.
.
Nine seconds
“Maybe nothing’s gonna happen,” Jared says, when he’s finally caught up to his breath and tackled it.
“Maybe,” Jensen agrees, and he shifts his eyes from the glowing green numbers of the clock to Jared’s shining green eyes, instead.
.
Zero minutes, zero seconds.
The noise reminds Jensen of the read-along books that he had when he was growing up, and the chime that meant you had to turn the page. The sky darkens ominously, but Jensen’s head is buried in the crook of Jared’s shoulder and all he sees is skin.
Then, there is nothing.
[part 2]
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG 13, for language and allusions to sex.
Notes: Apocalypse fic, part one of three. Inspired by fryadvocate's venture into PostApoc and my sick love of the genre.
Feedback: Always appreciated!
The last morning
Jensen wakes to the shrill scream of a siren - no, wait - his alarm clock. The angry red numbers are showing 4:45 (yes, a.m., his tired muscles remind him), and that means that he’s hit the snooze button approximately three times, doesn’t have time for breakfast or coffee that doesn’t come from the Tim Hortons drivethru, and should be expecting a call from set in fifteen minutes.
He crawls out of bed and ruffles his already ruffled hair, forgoing the morning jog that he vowed halfway through first season to take daily due to all of the shirtless scenes. He clicks his tongue for the cat - a little black prima donna, Pandora - but breakfast apparently isn’t worth her time at this early hour and she continues to lay motionless on the windowsill.
A quick shower, and he counts down from five hundred to one to monitor the time, as anal-retentive as he is. At fifty-four he gets out, with fifty-three numbers left to get dressed in. At minus seventeen, he’s heading out the door, fumbling for his cell phone and dialing Eric’s.
No answer. He guesses he’s not the only one who slept in today.
.
If he worked any other job, Jensen might find this odd. He drives his newly leased 2003 Porsche Boxter - the one that Jared is always making fun of, because it’s a handful of years old now - through the empty streets, but then again, it is five a.m. He doesn’t think much of it, doesn’t think much of the silence that would be painfully apparent if it weren’t for the sound of Steve Carlson’s voice coming loud and clear through his stereo system.
He pulls into the parking lot of the studio, and doesn’t recognize any of the cars that are there. He frowns as he checks the clock, and just for a minute wonders if Jared’s figured out a way to fuck with him by changing the time in his place, his car and on his wristwatch.
Not possible. The boy’s pretty, not bright.
He sighs as he gets out of his car, adjusting his jeans so that they fall properly on his hips and sauntering towards the building, where there is hopefully coffee brewing.
.
The studio is oddly empty, and Jensen arches one nearly perfect eyebrow in disbelief before calling out. “Hello?” His voice echoes in the empty hall, and he cringes as he unwittingly answers himself.
He waits for an outside answer that doesn’t come, trying to figure out what X and Y equal if A and B are his stupidity and that feeling of unease that’s gnawing at his stomach. “Okay guys, this isn’t funny anymore!” he shouts to no one in particular, half expecting Ashton Kutcher to jump out from behind a box of lighting or sound equipment, laughing as he shouts “YOU’VE BEEN PUNK’D, BITCH!”
He’s fucking creeped out. As if working on Supernatural wasn’t scary enough in itself sometimes, now they’ve gone and pulled the prank of all pranks on him, and Jared knows that stuff like this freaks Jensen out, has known ever since they watched 28 Days Later together.
He does the zipper on his hooded sweatshirt up further unknowingly, as if it’ll help shake the chill that he’s feeling.
.
It’s not five minutes later that a door opens and quickly bangs shut again, and Jensen whirls around the sound stage he’s currently searching through as he tries to find the source of the noise.
He feels like Theseus in the Labyrinth, like maybe that could have been the sound of the man-eating Minotaur or something. “Joke’s up!” he shouts out on a whim, in part simply to hear something, anything. He knows that he’s getting worked up and that he’s going to hear about this later, but judging by the way that his hands are shaking, this is really scaring him. “I heard you!”
The sound of footsteps hastens towards him, and the shadows give way to a tall figure. The negative space that had been there just seconds before is replaced with cubic inches of Jared Padalecki, everything in place right down to the splayed hair around his face. “Jen,” he breathes, as if he’s relieved. “Thank god you’re here.”
Jensen blinks at him a few times before shrugging nonchalantly, as if his heart still isn’t pounding it’s way through the layers of bone, muscle and flesh in his chest. “They move shooting today?” he asks, and it seems so obvious that he feels idiotic. Of course. That’s what he gets for being late.
Jared frowns, bottomless and arduous like the weight of the world is resting on his shoulders. “Nah, man. I just got here. Where is everyone?”
Jensen mirrors Jared’s frown, and his acting coach would be proud.
.
The light bulb above his head flickers and shatters as he understands, the realization dawning like the sun over the Hollywood hills. Jared is an actor; they’re still getting him. Right. He draws in a deep breath and maintains the Jared-imposed calm that he’s clinging to. He can’t keep the cocky edge out of his voice, though, so proud that he’s figured this out: “You put them up to this, or did they put you up to it?”
Jared’s puppyish frown deepens, entering an entirely new territory of convincing. He cocks his head to the right and watches Jensen through sparse lashes, like Jensen is a Rubik's cube and Jared really does have Sam’s telekinetic powers.
The fear in his voice is tangible when he speaks again. “Jen. This isn’t funny anymore. I know you’re a good actor and all, and you ain’t gotta prove it anymore. You got me,” he pauses to gulp in a lungful of air, as if this is more of a strain than their fight scenes or something. “Alrighty. I’m freakin’ out, ‘kay? I said it. This ain’t cool, ya know.” It’s the twang that convinces Jensen, the fear that sends Jared back to the basics that freezer burns the inside of his stomach.
.
Jensen is always the voice of reason.
“Bet you Kripke’s taping us right now. This’ll make one hell of a blooper reel.” Jared nods like he’s trying his darnedest to pretend that he agrees, but he’s never been all that convincing. The end of his sentence is punctuated with two sharp beeps - Jared’s phone, signaling a text message. He smiles a little as he looks down at his caller ID screen, and Jensen stands on his tiptoes to read over his shoulder.
~*~ SANDY ~*~ it reads in big letters, and Jensen doesn’t need to see Jared’s face to know that he’s smiling even wider, he can tell just from the shape that his jaw takes. He also doesn’t need to ask to know that Sandy added her own name to the phone book, or at least he hopes that he doesn’t. Jared flips his phone open and then makes a soft noise, something that’s somewhere between surprise and dread.
Call me. I love you so much, okay?
Jensen shouldn’t still be reading this, and he definitely shouldn’t want to use the pad of his thumb to smooth away the worry lines between Jared’s eyebrows.
Jared dials Sandra and then waits.
.
Three hours, twenty three minutes
He finally gets through on the ninth try, when his phone manages to grab both a signal and dial tone, a small miracle with the way that things have been going.
Their speech is hurried, and Jensen can hear her voice, lucid through the phone’s speakers, even as Jared clutches it tightly to his ear like every syllable she’s uttering is to be cherished and revered. She starts to cry halfway through, loud, shuddering sobs that are remarkably clear even across the bad connection. He speaks to her in hushed tones until the phone cuts out, and he hits redial over and over and over again to no avail.
“Drug trip?” Jensen asks, with a little too much hope. Sandy is an LA party girl, and so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. It’s better than the other option here; especially considering this would be the longest episode of Punk’d in the history of ever. Jared shrugs, one big shoulder up and then quickly down as the air is filled with a tinny version of the James Bond theme - Jensen’s phone.
He picks up the blocked number, and it’s Kripke, of all people. He sounds stressed out, like he does when an episode is down to the wire and he’s just not happy with what the writers have done to his characters. “Jensen?” he asks, as if it’s going to be someone else on Jensen’s cell phone. “I just wanted to…you know…say thank you. I’ve been trying to call Jared and his phone is dead or something, but you know, I guess that’s bound to happen now. Just, thank you.”
Jensen frowns until his eyebrows nearly touch together, and he swallows before he speaks. “For what?”
“The show. Everything.” is all that he gets as an answer, but it’s not enough.
“…What’s happening, man?” he puzzles, listening as Eric starts to spew off what has to be the plot of an upcoming episode. The blood drains from Jensen’s face as he realizes that Kripke’s dead serious, and then he speaks the four words with an uncharacteristic lack of emotion that scares Jared.
Turn on the radio.
.
Three hours, seventeen minutes
Jared’s truck is closest. A quad cab Dodge Ram, fully loaded and so new that it still smells like whatever the dealership puts inside them to make you want to buy it. Jensen wipes the dirt off his sneakers before he gets in, habitually. Jared is far less graceful, diving across the seat as soon as he gets the door open and jamming the keys in the ignition to start the engine. Our Lady Peace starts playing; The World on a String from Healthy in Paranoid Times, and Jensen silently curses Jared for being such an enabler for the band. The damn CD is in his stereo at home, too. Jared scowls as if he’s heard Jensen and flips from CD to tuner, getting static that jars Jensen so badly that he has to bite down on his lip to muffle the noise he makes.
He seeks through the stations until the digital numbers finally stop on 1130 AM, all news radio.
A monotonous voice fills the emptiness inside of the truck, forty five words that repeat in a seemingly endless loop. They listen to it eleven times before Jared slams his hand down on the button and shuts it off, letting his forehead drop to the steering wheel.
“Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord's wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth.”
“Zephaniah 1:18,” Jared finally murmurs, and Jensen doesn’t ask how he knows that.
.
Three hours, six minutes
They look at each other for a moment, fate finally sinking in. Jensen’s never imagined the end of the world before, but if he had, he certainly wouldn’t have thought that he’d meet it with Jared Padalecki as company. He was supposed to get married, have kids - settle down, like his Mama’s always hoping for.
His Mama. He tries the number again, just wanting to hear her voice. Somehow, that’ll make it all better, he’s sure of it. More dead air. “I can’t get a fucking signal,” he mutters, leaning over to look at the indicator on Jared’s phone. “You either.”
They find another radio station, so quiet through the static that Jensen has to press his ear against the speaker to hear it. They catch fragmented words, like gossip in a game of Telephone. Disease. Virus. Terrorism. Three hours. Scientist. Apocalypse. Prayer. Goodbye.
“How do we know that it’s real?” Jared asks, words leaping and bounding from his throat without provocation. “I mean, couldn’t it just be like that War of the Worlds hoax?” He looks so hopeful that Jensen is hesitant to even answer his question.
“We don’t. But it’s all that we’ve got to go on, isn’t it?” Jensen finally retorts, and Jared nods resignedly. A few minutes later, he speaks again. “Well, I guess this is probably the end,” he says, and he means to laugh afterwards but somehow it’s lost in translation and becomes the sound of a heart breaking.
.
Two hours, fifty nine minutes
They can’t spend the indefinite amount of time that they have left in Jared’s truck, and so they go back to Jared’s apartment. He wants to be with the dogs, anyhow. Jensen thinks of his cat and feels a pang of guilt in his stomach - no last meal - but he’s not about to give up staying with another human being for it.
“Three hours, you think?” Jared drawls, and Jensen watches out the window as they roll past nothing. It’s not like the movies at all. People aren’t trying to escape, save a few scattered cars on the expressway; there are no riots or looting sprees. Everything is just silent, devoid of community and commotion.
“I don’t know,” Jensen says quietly. “It was hard to hear.” He wrestles with the thin ribbon of hope that is fighting its way into words, and then hope wins and he speaks them. “But how would anyone know that anyway, right?”
This time, Jared doesn’t answer.
.
Two hours, twenty two minutes
The dogs yap happily on the other side of the door and Jared sighs in relief. He opens it and they pour out into the hallway, jumping and scratching at Jensen as they propel themselves with wagging tails.
Jared uses his big hands to push them back inside, and they both think the same thing without saying it. The virus hasn’t gotten them yet, at very least.
Jensen sits on Jared’s couch, like this is any of the hundreds of times that he’s been here before now. Jared presses play on his answer machine and one message plays, Kripke again. Jared pretends that he has something in his eye when he wipes at it, and offers Jensen a beer.
He takes it and wrinkles his nose at the Kokanee when Jared brings it, their tradition - wussy Canadian beer.
.
Two hours, eighteen minutes
They dial and redial on their phones, like they're trying to win a radio contest or something. Jensen wants to get a hold of someone in his family -- anyone. Jared is simply trying to reach his little sister, already having given up on his parents' house.
The lines just aren't connecting anymore and Jensen is the first to give up, throwing his phone hard against the wall before he even realizes that it's left his hand.
.
One hour, thirty six minutes
They play PS2 while they pretend that they’re not waiting, and Jared kicks Jensen’s ass at GoldenEye twice before they give up.
Jared flops back on the couch and scratches one of the dog’s ears, and after all this time Jensen still can’t tell the damn things apart. He guesses that he’ll never have to worry about it now, anyhow.
“You want anything to eat?” Jared asks, thinking about gummi bears and how calories don’t matter anymore, and neither does eating until you make yourself feel sick because he already feels it anyhow. Jensen shakes his head, no thanks. “Okay.”
“Jared?” Jensen asks, nearly calling him Sam because this feels so much like a damn script. “I need to know something.”
Jared looks over at him with those bottle green eyes, and he figures that this is the perfect opportunity. It really is now or never, and for some reason he doesn’t want to die without knowing it.
“You…you care about me, right?” The words hang in the air for a moment, and Jensen already wishes that he hadn’t said them.
Jared blinks incredulously. “Well, yeah. ‘Course I do, Jen.”
Jensen lowers his eyes, and tries again. “No, I mean…you know. Care about me.” There’s a certain sort of desperation there, something that Jensen’s bottled since the first months of working together, when he met Sandra and after he’d lost Joanna.
Jared smiles softly, almost wistfully. “Answer still stands.”
.
One hour, thirty minutes
“Whatcha wanna do?” Jared asks to fill the silence between them. Jensen cocks an eyebrow like it’s the stupidest question in the world, but then he grins.
“Your call.” It’s meant to be filled with Deanish obscenity, but it falls flat and clings to something a little like hope.
Jared grins his trademark good ol’ boy grin and retorts, and yeah, now he decides to be a smart ass. “We could watch a movie. Read the newspaper. Surf the Internet. Play Scattergories?”
“We could make up for a lot of lost time.” Jensen says, and Sandra feels like a lifetime away, so Jared nods.
.
One hour, twenty five minutes
It’s awkward and clumsy, but most of all, it’s desperate.
Jared’s lips just miss Jensen’s and land askew on the corner of his mouth; Jensen trips on the foot of the bed when they finally get there and knocks them both down, landing on Jared with a chorus of apologies.
Items of clothing are stripped and thrown, and beyond the realm of things that should be happening at the moment, Jared makes Jensen wait while he changes from regular sheets to red silk ones. He grins. “If this is going to be the last time? It’s going to be frickin’ good.” Somehow, the end of the world is negated by the promise of sex, if only for a few moments.
When Jared reaches for the lube and condoms in the bedside table drawer, Jensen grabs his wrist. “Fuck that,” he whispers, knocking the condoms out of Jared’s hand. “It’s the end of the world.”
Somehow, it’s funny in how unfunny it is, and they both end up laughing.
.
Sixteen minutes
They lie tangled up together, talking to keep their eyes off the clock. “We could sleep.” Jared says pointedly, but they’re both too nervous to even consider it.
Jensen leans in and begins to trace Jared with his tongue instead, starting with his shoulders and collarbone and working his way down.
.
Two minutes, nineteen seconds
“I love you,” Jared gasps out as he comes, fingers of one hand twisted in the sheets and that of the other clawing in Jensen’s hair.
Jensen doesn’t really believe him, but it’s nice to hear it, anyhow.
.
Forty seven seconds
Jensen keeps vigil over the clock, like it’s a macabre version of the New Year’s Eve celebrations that he watched on TV when he was little, waiting for the ball to drop.
Only this time, it’s a bomb and not a ball, and they’re all afraid of the pyrotechnics that will inevitably follow.
.
Nine seconds
“Maybe nothing’s gonna happen,” Jared says, when he’s finally caught up to his breath and tackled it.
“Maybe,” Jensen agrees, and he shifts his eyes from the glowing green numbers of the clock to Jared’s shining green eyes, instead.
.
Zero minutes, zero seconds.
The noise reminds Jensen of the read-along books that he had when he was growing up, and the chime that meant you had to turn the page. The sky darkens ominously, but Jensen’s head is buried in the crook of Jared’s shoulder and all he sees is skin.
Then, there is nothing.
[part 2]