![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Whooooooooo! I swear i'm not dragging this out on purpose. Thank you again, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkhavens for your always-excellent beta. I made a small edit in the previous chapter to fix a continuity error.
And so - here we go!
Also on AO3.
But if you come to a road where danger
Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,
Be good to the lad that loves you true
And the soul that was born to die for you,
And whistle and I'll be there.
'Shake Hands' - A.E. Housman
Jared took the shot about as well as Jensen expected - he really was a greenie about needles - and then just sat there, looking wan and little sick, his fingers shaking on the stick of the bright-pink sucker Doc had given him. She appeared to have an endless supply of the damn things, and she seemed to think they were a cure-all. She'd handed it over with a little pat on his shoulder and a tremulous smile; told him they'd start seeing some kind of reaction in about thirty-six hours.
What kind of reaction, she didn't say. Jensen thought that non-answer was pretty fucked, but he guessed she didn't really know. Jensen figured her saying nothing, though, would just make Jared that much twitchier than he already was.
Jensen left him sitting in Doc's station and took a shower, sluicing off the dregs of antiseptic gel and sweat, scrubbing his fingers through his hair and down over the tender-hot lines of the refreshed tattoo. The twisting, curling lines wound around his knuckles and over the backs of his hands, around and around his wrists, forearms, biceps. Jensen kept seeing them, so vivid and fresh, out of the corner of his eyes. Kept kicking back to grey cold ache hunger, static-hiss flashbacks that he drove away with a sharp shake of his head.
They'd done a psych-suppressant, when he'd got 'volunteered' for the ArchANGELs. Before that, he'd spent eight months mostly in solitary, screaming himself awake; a trail of injured guards and prisoners in his wake, and three dead pusher-jocks, whose only crime had been being drunk and unruly, and loud. They'd been so fucking loud....
Jensen shook his head again and shut off the shower. He turned on the 'cycler and let it pull most of the water-mist out, until he was dry enough for the thin towel, followed by the fresh clothes he'd laid ready on the stainless cabinet sink. He stared at himself in the mirror film that had been stuck crookedly onto the wall, tracing the tattoo with his gaze, lingering on Tiamat, on Sariel.
These things, he had to remember. These things had built him. Glorianna, and Tiamat, the 'net, his Angels. The blood on his hands, that had soaked clear to the bone. These were his things, good or bad. He could not let them go; could not pretend they were not there, behind him, insubstantial witnesses to all that he had done, and would ever do. Bookkeepers of all his red-tinged debt.
And now himself was in Jared, that first, possibly fatal, injection of poison into the Company's stranglehold 'net. Lethal cancer to their invasive symbiot. Maybe it would be...enough. Jensen dressed in his layers, feeling it like the armor he would never again wear, his barrier against the world. Or maybe theirs against him. He could, after all, cope with his ghosts. The world...probably could not. Jensen looped his scarf around his throat and then shoved the sink cabinet up into the wall and his towel down the laundry chute.
Then he went out to wait, and watch, and hope Jared hadn't been infected with the bad as well as the good.
Jensen's tattoo seemed to heal overnight, which Jared thought was unfair. Even with his own 'net, he'd never healed like that from the various scrapes and burns and hurts he'd accidentally inflicted on himself over the years. The difference, he supposed, between ANGEL and ArchANGEL, and tried not to dwell too much on what that meant, if you teased it out to the very end.
(Would Jensen go on healing forever? Would he never age - never change - never end? Was he the new face of power, in the 'verse - eternal life for those that could pay? Jared hoped fervently that it wasn't so, because just imagining some of the Company living for eternity made him want to puke. Or become a mass murderer.)
And while Jensen healed, Jared felt...off. He ignored it, at first. Psychosomatic, he figured, strung out as he was on nerves and caffeine and too much down-time. Doc said he couldn't go work, in case something…. Well, in case, and that certainly didn't help.
But Jared didn't want details, either. Couldn't stand the thought of some template in his head, a checklist he was either going down, tick by tick, or utterly failing to meet at all. Both would be bad; both would make him crazier. Not for the first time, he wished he'd had someone on Carousel - other than the inevitable prostitutes - to just lay down with. Fuck and cuddle and share skin with.
For the very first time, though, the thought flashed through his mind that he wouldn't mind Jensen in that role - of bedmate, not prostitute, but still…. Jensen had been too sick, too hurt, too wrong, for Jared to even entertain that notion, but now that he was...himself (was he?), it didn't seem like such a bad, or far-fetched, idea. But Jared shoved it away, anyway, because he was not feeling up to anything like that. He felt….
Jared sat on the edge of his bunk, deep into a Carousel night, four days in, and tried very hard not to panic. He'd gone to sleep with a headache, a little fever, waking a time or two, aching and stiff all over, weak when he'd turned himself under the covers, shivering.
And now…. Now, his headache was close to skull-splitting, and he was huddled down on himself, shaking so hard with chills his teeth were chattering. It was hard for him to drag enough air in to fill his lungs, hard for him to swallow, and his whole body felt limp and over-stretched and just…weak. Just sitting there was making his heart pound.
Jared took a couple of hitching, too-shallow breaths and stretched his feet out toward the floor. It was going to be cold, he knew it, and he was already flinching from the contact when he realized his left foot - leg - was hanging crookedly, twisting inward. Jared stared at it in the dim safe-light, fighting nausea. It was like...it was just like….
"No," Jared whispered. "No, no, no, oh, fuck no, no…." There was a noise next door, through the thin wall that separated his cubby of a room from Jensen's, and Jared clamped his jaw shut. Closing his eyes, he breathed steadily and then pushed off the bunk. He had to get to Doc, he had to- Doc would know...fuck, please.
His feet hit the floor, instant shock of cold to his bare skin, and then his legs just...crumpled. Jared flailed, trying to grab the edge of the bunk, but his hands slid off, useless, and he hit hard - knees, hip, elbowshoulderchin. Something went crunch and Jared tasted blood.
Then his door was shoved open, muscle overriding the slower hydraulic that tried to slide it away into the wall at a reasonable pace. Jensen slammed it back, making something else go crunch, and then hiss, and then he was crouching down beside Jared, his hands hovering, not quite touching. His face was pale and his hair sleep-tangled as he breathed in sharply.
"Ss- Jared, status!" Jensen rapped out, and Jared flinched from the barely-controlled panic in Jensen's voice, trying hard to squash his own rising hysteria.
"I'm f-fine," Jared said, and realized that he'd bitten his tongue. He swallowed, grimacing at the taste of blood, and tried to push himself up from his sprawl.
"Don't, don't! Fuck, you sh-shouldn't move, don't m-move-" Jensen said, his hands fluttering, skimming the air an inch away from Jared's skin.
"I said I'm...fine. I jus' f-feel weak, jus' a li-li...ul…li..ul...f-fuck, no-" Jared pushed his forehead hard into his wrists, eyes shut, the cold of the floor seeping through his sleep-shirt and pants, tremors running through him, locking his muscles tight into body-wracking spasms that made him ache.
Just the fever, just the fever, that's all, all....
"I'm getting Doc," Jensen said abruptly, and Jared heard him move, heard him slap his palm down on the call button, waking the channel-specific com that connected their web of purloined bunks and labs and treatment rooms. The chills eased and Jared took in a shaking breath - another - trying to sit up but only sliding on the tile floor with a pathetic scrabble of clawed hands.
Jared heard someone muttering, sleep-rough voice and static. "Just get the fuck in here," Jensen snapped, and hit the panel hard enough to make Jared wince; a flat, cracking thump that had to have hurt something, plex or bone.
"I don' need- Jus' wanna go back...'oo…." Jared stopped talking, clamping his jaw against the chills and the fucking words. Words he couldn't get out, that fucking t sound, that had been the first to go, when he couldn't get his tongue to lift up right. When he was little. When he was sick.
Jensen was back on the floor, crouching down so low his feet were flat, his knees practically up around his ears, arms tucked down between, his eyes absolutely huge in the dim, red-orange light. "Ss-sam, I'm sorry, the doc's coming, they're- they're coming-"
"Jared. I'm Jared. Hear me?"
Jensen nodded frantically, but Jared doubted he really understood. Another wave of chills rolled through him, locking him into a painful, juddering arch. His breath was wheezing now, a whistle in his throat that hurt.
And then Doc was there, snapping on the overhead light and all but blinding him, ordering Jensen out of the way, her med-kit rattling down beside Jared as one of the Jo boys appeared in the doorway, half dressed, his eyes red-rimmed. Doc ran her scanner over Jared, stylus clicking against the glassine screen, her gaze flicking rapidly from it to Jared and back, and then she dug a bubble-pack of derms out of her kit and smoothed one, two, three on Jared's throat, all in a row.
A minute later, Jared went limp on the floor, warmth rolling through him, a blissful drowsiness, and he was barely aware of the Jo and Jensen snuggling him into his blanket and lifting him. He blinked and blinked again and then once more, only, that time, his eyes stayed shut, and everything. Just. Stopped.
Jared was aware, in a hazy way, of people talking; of little beeps and the hissing of a respirator; of little aches all over him; stickiness; a distant throb in his groin and another in his forearm. Am I sick? he thought, and his heart tried to race, the fear tried to come, but warmth kept pushing through him, like water or hands, smoothing him down, over and over. There were voices, but they blurred, sometimes louder, sometimes softer. He could only hear some of the words, and none of them made any sense.
Need to...feed the fish...is it a school day? he said. Thought he said. He wasn't...sure.
"...taking it apart. It has to...everything out...proteins, here, and...limbic system...days…."
"...he going...what about...kill…?"
"...just wait...it's...worry, okay?"
"You're going to be fine, Jared," Doc said, emerging from the bright, fuzzy light that seemed to be all Jared could see. "You're doing great."
"It hur...ss," Jared said, his throat like broken glass, and someone touched him, a cool hand on his cheek, cupping his jaw, turning his head, ever so carefully...Jensen.
Jensen with a cup, and a little sponge on a stick. He rubbed the cool, wet sponge on Jared's lips, inside his mouth, over his tongue. Some of the water trickled down his throat, and Jared tried to swallow and coughed instead.
"Sorry, m'sorry, I'll just-"
"S'goo...d," Jared whispered, and he didn't realize he was crying until Jensen wiped his face, smearing moisture over his cheekbones. He was just so…tired. So damn tired. He looked away from Jensen's drawn, pale face and swore he could see, in the shadows of the room, the dull glitter of the 'skele he used to wear, glassine scaffold that had carried him, stilt-limbed, across the fields at Kin-Gin. "Go 'way," Jared whispered, the tears quick and warm on his cheeks, and then the warmth came back again, so heavy, so complete, and folded him under.
He was glad to go.
Jensen couldn't stand to see Jared in the bed, lying on the gurney like Jensen'd lain, not all that long ago, with the same tubes and wires, same static-sticky generation web keeping slack muscles jumping, little electro-shock impulses to make them tighten and relax, over and over, so they wouldn't atrophy.
It made it seem like Jared was actually awake, sometimes, and sometimes like he was bleeding out, little after-shocks and nerve-twitches of a dying man, and neither were true, and Jensen hated all of it.
So he ran, instead. HE pounded the heavy bag and resistance wall in the gym, climbed the rungs and lifted the grav-weight and did everything he could to exhaust himself. And when he wasn't doing that, he was walking the station. Up to Carousel and down to the Axis Mundi, mapping it all over again, relearning the systems and cycles and timing of every patrol, every shift, every delivery and routine dock.
He saw Tick-Tock again, just the once, but Tick-Tock wouldn't let him fight - said it wasn't worth what the shetani would do to him, he said, if he allowed it. Jensen snarled at him, furious, but the man wasn't budging and it wouldn't be fair to him, anyway, so….
Jensen considered getting a job - taking Jared's place, maybe, on a skimmer crew - but he didn't really have the skills for that; didn't really have any skills worth a shit, out here, in the wide World. He could strip down and clean and repair most any weapon, and could do the same for his armor. He could do some field medico work, and he could plan a fucking surgical strike, if anyone wanted to take out Alverez, maybe, or one of the other mines; could run down and board a pirate, maybe.
But nothing that mattered, in the World. Another thing the Company hadn't bothered with, hadn't counted on him needing. Hadn't cared to dwell on, so secure they were in the knowledge that their useless castoffs would die, and not be a bother to anyone, anymore.
So for two weeks he tried to keep himself moving, moving, moving. Not thinking. Ate and drank and showered mechanically, just maintenance. Lay down to sleep when he couldn't keep his eyes open, anymore, and more often than not was awake again in a few hours, sitting in the dimness of his bunk, his shinies in his hands, hypnotic spark and flash, swaying slightly to and fro while he listened to the machines that kept Jared alive. Listened to the faltering, labouring heartbeat he could hear under all of the other noise.
Just waited, for Jared to wake up.
Jared woke up all at once, it seemed. Going from a light, restless sleep to awake, jerking on the bed, trying to sit up and failing. Jensen scraped the mouthful of tank-meat and 'ponic veggie stew off his fork and into his mouth, chewing hard. He swallowed too soon and had to gulp a mouthful of water while Jared moved in an uncoordinated flail on the bed, looking around and blinking. Doc was right there, too, grinning at him, scanner glasses scrolling pale-blue lines, fast as thought, in front of her eyes as she stared at him.
Her stylus clicked and chimed on the glassine face of her transcriber, seemingly independent of any direction from her brain. Then she slipped it into its clip and slid the glasses down her nose a little, looking over the top of them at Jared. Her hair was a vivid, electric blue - it was stress relief, she said, to fuck with her look - and it made the green-vine tattoos on her jaw and throat seem to almost vibrate in brilliant contrast.
"And he wakes. Hey, Jared."
"Doc-" Jared said, or tried to; his voice was nothing but a scraped-down whisper, and it looked like it hurt coming out. Jensen all but leapt from his chair to Jared's side, lifting the little wand from the water tank and holding it just right to Jared's lips. Jared sipped slowly, tiny sips, over and over, until he finally sighed and sank back a half-inch, relieved, or so Jensen hoped.
Doc glanced over from her perusal of the telemetry machine, after making a minor adjustment. "All good?"
"Better," Jared said. He smiled slightly at her; smiled a little wider at Jensen, who just hovered there, utterly unsure of what to do with himself. He wanted to touch, and didn't have the faintest idea if that would be at all welcome, so he pulled the sleeves of his sweater down over his knuckles and rubbed them together, like he used to do on the Tiamat, grounding out the jittery energy he didn't have a place for.
Jared tried to move on the bed, tried to sit up higher, and Jensen reached for him before stopping himself. Jared pushed without any effect for a moment, and then sighed, falling back.
"It's...been a while?"
"Two weeks, about," Doc said, and Jared's eyes went wide, his mouth turning down a little.
"No wonder I feel like shit."
"Are you in pain?" Doc asked, and Jared frowned a little, thinking.
"I- No? No, I'm really not. I should be, but I'm just...not. Just tired. Everything feels...heavy."
"That's great. Okay." Doc pulled her stool up close to the gurney and Jensen stepped back, intending to go into the corner of the room, to just lean there and listen. But Jared put out a thin, shaking hand, just catching the hem of Jensen's sweater.
"Stay, okay? Will you?" His dark eyes were shadowed, sunk a little into his face, but he looked...hopeful, and pleading, so Jensen shrugged and settled against the side of the gurney. Jared didn't let go.
"So you know the Company - your old 'net - it didn't cure you, not really."
"Yeah," Jared said, and Jensen remembered the vid Jared had shown him, remembered Jared saying he could go back to that, if he lost the 'net, if the Company took it away.
"Right. The 'net they implanted gave you a kind of...superstructure, over your own. It repaired damaged nerves and muscle tissue, organs - it suppressed all the symptoms. It even grew you some new stuff, made your bones better, that kind of thing. But the Grimes was always there, dormant, and if you'd stopped with the boosters and regenerations, or the stabilizers I was giving you…."
"Back to the 'skele," Jared whispered, and his fingers clutched convulsively at Jensen's sweater-hem. Jensen risked a tentative pat on them, and Jared looked up, smiling weakly at him. Old fear was in his gaze.
"He knows that shit," Jensen said, looking at Doc. "Just...tell him."
"Okay. So, it worked, Jared. Jensen's cells, the cells from his 'net, they killed yours. Wiped it out. But that set the Grimes loose. And...well, we figured it might take a year, if you ever lost your 'net, but...something the Company did...it was like the storm, in Jensen. Your Grimes...it's called metastasis. It spread exponentially."
"You were really fucked up," Jensen said, and Jared snorted softly,, but his fingers didn't let go of Jensen's sweater.
"I felt like I did...when I was a kid. Fever and...just weak. Couldn't move things right, couldn't...couldn't talk. I thought it was...coming back because…. I thought it killed my 'net and I was....was going to-" Jared stopped, jaw clenching, breathing a little too fast, and one of the monitors was chirring softly, gentle warning.
"It did. It was," Doc said. Jared shuddered, and Jensen snarled silently at her, making her flinch back.
"Don't say that," Jensen hissed, and Doc shoved her hand back through her hair, the stylus tangling in it for a moment.
"It's true. It's what happened. The point is, you fixed it, Jensen. Or...the vaccine did. Your cells, your 'net. That's mostly why you've been so sick, Jared. The Grimes was attacking every cell in your body, and the vaccine was fighting back. Destroying it, system by system. It won, Jared. The vaccine won."
"My hero," Jared said, and he looked up at Jensen and smiled, wide enough to show his dimples. But his eyes were still bleak.
Jensen leaned in a little closer, into the thick scent of disinfectant and sweat and illness. Jared needed a shower. "Don't think about it," he whispered, and Jared laughed this time, but it sounded too choked and ragged, too close to a sob. "That's what I do. I just...don't think about...things," Jensen said. He leaned back, shooting a look at Doc, and she sighed.
"Yeah, okay, we'll do details later. Just- Jared, you need to understand, it worked. The vaccine killed your crippled 'net, and then it killed the Grimes, and then it...implanted itself. Budded you a new 'net. It's still growing, it's not done yet."
Doc hopped up and did something with her stylus and one of the machines, and a holo faded in from thin air, Jared's body overlaid with a fine web of lines, filaments of blue and gold and silver-white. They were everywhere.
"Is that…? Damn. Damn, look at it," Jared said, and he lifted one hand, just a few inches, turning it a little, watching the lines move as he flexed his fingers.
"Yeah. It's fixing everything, it's putting you where you should be, like the Grimes never existed. Like you were never sick. And...I don't think you ever will be, again," Doc added, and Jared let his hand drop. Jensen just stared at the lines, at Jared's 'net. Jensen's, in a way.
It looked like a scan from when he was on Tiamat. Every six months or so, they'd all get a scan, get an adjustment to their go-packs and down-packs and everyday drugs. Keeping them fit, Morgan had said. Keeping them crippled, Jensen figured now. Making sure no 'net was doing what Jensen's had.
Making sure no Angel could fly without the Company's wings.
"I don't mind that. Wait. Do you mean…? What do you mean?"
"I mean, it seems like your 'net - and Jensen's, too - it's going to keep you from ever getting sick again. From anything. No colds, no infections, no nothing."
"Really? Was that-? Did yours always do that?" Jared asked, turning his head on the pillow to look at Jensen, and Jensen shrugged, nodded.
"We never did get sick, any of us. And we got shore leave, got fucked up a lot, but..nobody ever was sick the next day. Figured...figured they didn't want us on down time. In case. Didn't want us on any slack, and- We had to be ready, to go. Any time." In fact, the only time Jensen could remember anybody being sick was when Morgan would withhold the daily dose. Punishment for some infraction, usually just a couple days.
But they were...really fucking bad days, and most people kept to the rules, rather than go through that. Jensen shivered and huddled into his sweater a little more, shying away from those memories. More things he wanted to forget. More things he was bound to carry, for ever and all.
"Looks like you'll probably heal faster, too, maybe move a little faster; better hearing, perfect eyesight. Not like Jensen. We don't have all the things they had, stem cells and the nanobot implants, but...you're gonna be one tough bitch, Jared."
"Already was," Jared said, and this time his laugh was more real, his eyes happier, despite the circles under them. Jensen felt his shoulders unknot a little, seeing that, and smiled himself, wracking his brain for something clever to say, something encouraging. Before he could find the right words, though, there were pounding footsteps in the hall and the Jo boys burst in, geared up - armored jackets and weapons in holsters, bags dangling from fists - keyed up. No, worse than that. Scared.
Jensen felt himself pushing away from the gurney, back straight, breathing deep. Fight-flight-move. Like before a mission, like when a go-pack hit. Adrenaline, endorphins, excitement. "Report," Jensen snapped, and one of the Jo boys straightened, reflexive habit.
"Trouble. We got- fucking trouble," Jo One panted, and Jo Two was still moving, going down on one knee by a cabinet and yanking it open, starting to shovel its contents into a second, empty bag he'd pulled from the first.
"Company worm," Jo One said. "Found out you'd disappeared off their radar. They got into one of our side servers. Got enough info to get suspicious, and our listener out at Reveille, he just heard...they're moving on us. On Axis." He licked his lips and shot a look at his brother, who nodded. "They scrambled a troopship and they'll be here in...five days, maybe less."
Jensen felt that like a slap, and he took an involuntary step forward. "Whu-what ship. Who?"
"Jesus, who cares? We got to go," the other Jo boy said, and Jensen was for one moment just standing, and the next he was moving, moving Jo One with him, hard, a fast shove backward and into a wall, bang, Jensen's fist in his jacket. He could hear the other Jo and Doc yelling, tinny and muffled behind him.
"Who?"
Jo struggled against Jensen's hold for a moment and then slumped, looking freaked out. "T-Tiamat. They're sending the Tiamat."
Jensen just stood there, staring at him, until Jo Two put hands on him and shouted in his ear. Gradually, Jensen realized he was holding Jo One up off his feet, at least a foot off the floor, crushing him up against the wall. Jensen let him go with a little gasp after air, moving away as Jo Two moved in, checking his brother for injury.
Tiamat. She would be here. They would be. His Angels. Five, Sinna, Jinx. Oh fuck, Kane. All of them. Jensen…wanted. Wanted them. To see, to touch. To feel, but that was gone, now, burned out of him, lost forever. He clenched his hands into fists and kept himself, just, from punching the wall.
"Jensen," Jared said, low but urgent - pleading - and Jensen turned slowly to look at him. Jared's cheeks had two spots of hectic color in them, and he was sitting up a little, Doc at his side. "They- They're not gonna stop just 'cause it's you. They can't. And we- We gotta be gone, Jensen. Before they get here."
"But they're mine," Jensen said, and his voice was too small, too thin. Too young. He wrapped his arms around himself, feeling adult muscle and bone, adult shape. He was not six. He was not twelve, or even fourteen, and seeing the last of the sets from Glorianna dying, succumbing to disease or despair. He was Quemuel, he was an ArchANGEL, even if his wings had been clipped.
"I know, Jensen. But," Jared lifted a thin hand to push at his hair, grimacing, no doubt, at the feel of it, and Jensen took a step back to him. And then another, until he was opposite Doc, and close to Jared's side, staring down at the rumpled covers over Jared's chest. "You know, it's not the same, anymore. You and them. You know that," Jared said, so soft, and Jensen drew in a hard, sharp gasp of air, lifting his head.
"I...have to see them," Jensen said, quiet. Steady. Looking Jared in the eyes. "I have to. And then we can- We'll go. They'll let me."
"Jensen, you don't know that."
"Yeah, I do,” Jensen said, and reached out, gently - slowly - to touch Jared's cheek. He looked up at Doc, and then at the Jo boys, who were both looking furious and a little freaked. "I'm staying," Jensen said.
He let his hand drop from Jared's cheek, and strode away from the gurney, intending to go...somewhere, anywhere else, so he could think. Somewhere he could get small and quiet and still, and let his thoughts unsnarl. As he went through the doorway, he could hear the Jo boys’ voices rising, irritated; he could hear Doc, talking fast, but nothing from Jared.
And then.
Then there was the faintest of tugs. A touch along his mind, down his nerve-endings. A whisper, that said don't go. A pull of need, light as a whisper, and Jensen stopped dead in the hallway, closed his eyes tight and curled his hands around his skull, curling over himself, breathing too hard, too fast.
Pushing out, hard as he could, reaching. Question question question, in synch with the pound of his heart.
Jensen?, a pulse of wonder and light, and Jensen spun on his toes, staggered and righted himself and ran, shoulder catching the doorjamb so he was jarred sideways, stumbling and catching himself and then thump into the foot of Jared's gurney.
Into Jared, formless warmth and wonder and awe, and it was the 'net, it was, Jared to Jensen, Jensen to Jared. Jensen's hand closed on Jared's blanketed ankle, and the link flared bright, so bright, a flash of actinic fire in Jensen's brain that surged and settled and faded, down to a pale, glimmering pulse of heatless light. Connection, link, family. Jared.
"Jensen," Jared whispered, and Jensen didn't know he was crying until he tasted salt.
Part 14 here.
darkhavens for your always-excellent beta. I made a small edit in the previous chapter to fix a continuity error.And so - here we go!
Also on AO3.
But if you come to a road where danger
Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,
Be good to the lad that loves you true
And the soul that was born to die for you,
And whistle and I'll be there.
'Shake Hands' - A.E. Housman
Jared took the shot about as well as Jensen expected - he really was a greenie about needles - and then just sat there, looking wan and little sick, his fingers shaking on the stick of the bright-pink sucker Doc had given him. She appeared to have an endless supply of the damn things, and she seemed to think they were a cure-all. She'd handed it over with a little pat on his shoulder and a tremulous smile; told him they'd start seeing some kind of reaction in about thirty-six hours.
What kind of reaction, she didn't say. Jensen thought that non-answer was pretty fucked, but he guessed she didn't really know. Jensen figured her saying nothing, though, would just make Jared that much twitchier than he already was.
Jensen left him sitting in Doc's station and took a shower, sluicing off the dregs of antiseptic gel and sweat, scrubbing his fingers through his hair and down over the tender-hot lines of the refreshed tattoo. The twisting, curling lines wound around his knuckles and over the backs of his hands, around and around his wrists, forearms, biceps. Jensen kept seeing them, so vivid and fresh, out of the corner of his eyes. Kept kicking back to grey cold ache hunger, static-hiss flashbacks that he drove away with a sharp shake of his head.
They'd done a psych-suppressant, when he'd got 'volunteered' for the ArchANGELs. Before that, he'd spent eight months mostly in solitary, screaming himself awake; a trail of injured guards and prisoners in his wake, and three dead pusher-jocks, whose only crime had been being drunk and unruly, and loud. They'd been so fucking loud....
Jensen shook his head again and shut off the shower. He turned on the 'cycler and let it pull most of the water-mist out, until he was dry enough for the thin towel, followed by the fresh clothes he'd laid ready on the stainless cabinet sink. He stared at himself in the mirror film that had been stuck crookedly onto the wall, tracing the tattoo with his gaze, lingering on Tiamat, on Sariel.
These things, he had to remember. These things had built him. Glorianna, and Tiamat, the 'net, his Angels. The blood on his hands, that had soaked clear to the bone. These were his things, good or bad. He could not let them go; could not pretend they were not there, behind him, insubstantial witnesses to all that he had done, and would ever do. Bookkeepers of all his red-tinged debt.
And now himself was in Jared, that first, possibly fatal, injection of poison into the Company's stranglehold 'net. Lethal cancer to their invasive symbiot. Maybe it would be...enough. Jensen dressed in his layers, feeling it like the armor he would never again wear, his barrier against the world. Or maybe theirs against him. He could, after all, cope with his ghosts. The world...probably could not. Jensen looped his scarf around his throat and then shoved the sink cabinet up into the wall and his towel down the laundry chute.
Then he went out to wait, and watch, and hope Jared hadn't been infected with the bad as well as the good.
Jensen's tattoo seemed to heal overnight, which Jared thought was unfair. Even with his own 'net, he'd never healed like that from the various scrapes and burns and hurts he'd accidentally inflicted on himself over the years. The difference, he supposed, between ANGEL and ArchANGEL, and tried not to dwell too much on what that meant, if you teased it out to the very end.
(Would Jensen go on healing forever? Would he never age - never change - never end? Was he the new face of power, in the 'verse - eternal life for those that could pay? Jared hoped fervently that it wasn't so, because just imagining some of the Company living for eternity made him want to puke. Or become a mass murderer.)
And while Jensen healed, Jared felt...off. He ignored it, at first. Psychosomatic, he figured, strung out as he was on nerves and caffeine and too much down-time. Doc said he couldn't go work, in case something…. Well, in case, and that certainly didn't help.
But Jared didn't want details, either. Couldn't stand the thought of some template in his head, a checklist he was either going down, tick by tick, or utterly failing to meet at all. Both would be bad; both would make him crazier. Not for the first time, he wished he'd had someone on Carousel - other than the inevitable prostitutes - to just lay down with. Fuck and cuddle and share skin with.
For the very first time, though, the thought flashed through his mind that he wouldn't mind Jensen in that role - of bedmate, not prostitute, but still…. Jensen had been too sick, too hurt, too wrong, for Jared to even entertain that notion, but now that he was...himself (was he?), it didn't seem like such a bad, or far-fetched, idea. But Jared shoved it away, anyway, because he was not feeling up to anything like that. He felt….
Jared sat on the edge of his bunk, deep into a Carousel night, four days in, and tried very hard not to panic. He'd gone to sleep with a headache, a little fever, waking a time or two, aching and stiff all over, weak when he'd turned himself under the covers, shivering.
And now…. Now, his headache was close to skull-splitting, and he was huddled down on himself, shaking so hard with chills his teeth were chattering. It was hard for him to drag enough air in to fill his lungs, hard for him to swallow, and his whole body felt limp and over-stretched and just…weak. Just sitting there was making his heart pound.
Jared took a couple of hitching, too-shallow breaths and stretched his feet out toward the floor. It was going to be cold, he knew it, and he was already flinching from the contact when he realized his left foot - leg - was hanging crookedly, twisting inward. Jared stared at it in the dim safe-light, fighting nausea. It was like...it was just like….
"No," Jared whispered. "No, no, no, oh, fuck no, no…." There was a noise next door, through the thin wall that separated his cubby of a room from Jensen's, and Jared clamped his jaw shut. Closing his eyes, he breathed steadily and then pushed off the bunk. He had to get to Doc, he had to- Doc would know...fuck, please.
His feet hit the floor, instant shock of cold to his bare skin, and then his legs just...crumpled. Jared flailed, trying to grab the edge of the bunk, but his hands slid off, useless, and he hit hard - knees, hip, elbowshoulderchin. Something went crunch and Jared tasted blood.
Then his door was shoved open, muscle overriding the slower hydraulic that tried to slide it away into the wall at a reasonable pace. Jensen slammed it back, making something else go crunch, and then hiss, and then he was crouching down beside Jared, his hands hovering, not quite touching. His face was pale and his hair sleep-tangled as he breathed in sharply.
"Ss- Jared, status!" Jensen rapped out, and Jared flinched from the barely-controlled panic in Jensen's voice, trying hard to squash his own rising hysteria.
"I'm f-fine," Jared said, and realized that he'd bitten his tongue. He swallowed, grimacing at the taste of blood, and tried to push himself up from his sprawl.
"Don't, don't! Fuck, you sh-shouldn't move, don't m-move-" Jensen said, his hands fluttering, skimming the air an inch away from Jared's skin.
"I said I'm...fine. I jus' f-feel weak, jus' a li-li...ul…li..ul...f-fuck, no-" Jared pushed his forehead hard into his wrists, eyes shut, the cold of the floor seeping through his sleep-shirt and pants, tremors running through him, locking his muscles tight into body-wracking spasms that made him ache.
Just the fever, just the fever, that's all, all....
"I'm getting Doc," Jensen said abruptly, and Jared heard him move, heard him slap his palm down on the call button, waking the channel-specific com that connected their web of purloined bunks and labs and treatment rooms. The chills eased and Jared took in a shaking breath - another - trying to sit up but only sliding on the tile floor with a pathetic scrabble of clawed hands.
Jared heard someone muttering, sleep-rough voice and static. "Just get the fuck in here," Jensen snapped, and hit the panel hard enough to make Jared wince; a flat, cracking thump that had to have hurt something, plex or bone.
"I don' need- Jus' wanna go back...'oo…." Jared stopped talking, clamping his jaw against the chills and the fucking words. Words he couldn't get out, that fucking t sound, that had been the first to go, when he couldn't get his tongue to lift up right. When he was little. When he was sick.
Jensen was back on the floor, crouching down so low his feet were flat, his knees practically up around his ears, arms tucked down between, his eyes absolutely huge in the dim, red-orange light. "Ss-sam, I'm sorry, the doc's coming, they're- they're coming-"
"Jared. I'm Jared. Hear me?"
Jensen nodded frantically, but Jared doubted he really understood. Another wave of chills rolled through him, locking him into a painful, juddering arch. His breath was wheezing now, a whistle in his throat that hurt.
And then Doc was there, snapping on the overhead light and all but blinding him, ordering Jensen out of the way, her med-kit rattling down beside Jared as one of the Jo boys appeared in the doorway, half dressed, his eyes red-rimmed. Doc ran her scanner over Jared, stylus clicking against the glassine screen, her gaze flicking rapidly from it to Jared and back, and then she dug a bubble-pack of derms out of her kit and smoothed one, two, three on Jared's throat, all in a row.
A minute later, Jared went limp on the floor, warmth rolling through him, a blissful drowsiness, and he was barely aware of the Jo and Jensen snuggling him into his blanket and lifting him. He blinked and blinked again and then once more, only, that time, his eyes stayed shut, and everything. Just. Stopped.
Jared was aware, in a hazy way, of people talking; of little beeps and the hissing of a respirator; of little aches all over him; stickiness; a distant throb in his groin and another in his forearm. Am I sick? he thought, and his heart tried to race, the fear tried to come, but warmth kept pushing through him, like water or hands, smoothing him down, over and over. There were voices, but they blurred, sometimes louder, sometimes softer. He could only hear some of the words, and none of them made any sense.
Need to...feed the fish...is it a school day? he said. Thought he said. He wasn't...sure.
"...taking it apart. It has to...everything out...proteins, here, and...limbic system...days…."
"...he going...what about...kill…?"
"...just wait...it's...worry, okay?"
"You're going to be fine, Jared," Doc said, emerging from the bright, fuzzy light that seemed to be all Jared could see. "You're doing great."
"It hur...ss," Jared said, his throat like broken glass, and someone touched him, a cool hand on his cheek, cupping his jaw, turning his head, ever so carefully...Jensen.
Jensen with a cup, and a little sponge on a stick. He rubbed the cool, wet sponge on Jared's lips, inside his mouth, over his tongue. Some of the water trickled down his throat, and Jared tried to swallow and coughed instead.
"Sorry, m'sorry, I'll just-"
"S'goo...d," Jared whispered, and he didn't realize he was crying until Jensen wiped his face, smearing moisture over his cheekbones. He was just so…tired. So damn tired. He looked away from Jensen's drawn, pale face and swore he could see, in the shadows of the room, the dull glitter of the 'skele he used to wear, glassine scaffold that had carried him, stilt-limbed, across the fields at Kin-Gin. "Go 'way," Jared whispered, the tears quick and warm on his cheeks, and then the warmth came back again, so heavy, so complete, and folded him under.
He was glad to go.
Jensen couldn't stand to see Jared in the bed, lying on the gurney like Jensen'd lain, not all that long ago, with the same tubes and wires, same static-sticky generation web keeping slack muscles jumping, little electro-shock impulses to make them tighten and relax, over and over, so they wouldn't atrophy.
It made it seem like Jared was actually awake, sometimes, and sometimes like he was bleeding out, little after-shocks and nerve-twitches of a dying man, and neither were true, and Jensen hated all of it.
So he ran, instead. HE pounded the heavy bag and resistance wall in the gym, climbed the rungs and lifted the grav-weight and did everything he could to exhaust himself. And when he wasn't doing that, he was walking the station. Up to Carousel and down to the Axis Mundi, mapping it all over again, relearning the systems and cycles and timing of every patrol, every shift, every delivery and routine dock.
He saw Tick-Tock again, just the once, but Tick-Tock wouldn't let him fight - said it wasn't worth what the shetani would do to him, he said, if he allowed it. Jensen snarled at him, furious, but the man wasn't budging and it wouldn't be fair to him, anyway, so….
Jensen considered getting a job - taking Jared's place, maybe, on a skimmer crew - but he didn't really have the skills for that; didn't really have any skills worth a shit, out here, in the wide World. He could strip down and clean and repair most any weapon, and could do the same for his armor. He could do some field medico work, and he could plan a fucking surgical strike, if anyone wanted to take out Alverez, maybe, or one of the other mines; could run down and board a pirate, maybe.
But nothing that mattered, in the World. Another thing the Company hadn't bothered with, hadn't counted on him needing. Hadn't cared to dwell on, so secure they were in the knowledge that their useless castoffs would die, and not be a bother to anyone, anymore.
So for two weeks he tried to keep himself moving, moving, moving. Not thinking. Ate and drank and showered mechanically, just maintenance. Lay down to sleep when he couldn't keep his eyes open, anymore, and more often than not was awake again in a few hours, sitting in the dimness of his bunk, his shinies in his hands, hypnotic spark and flash, swaying slightly to and fro while he listened to the machines that kept Jared alive. Listened to the faltering, labouring heartbeat he could hear under all of the other noise.
Just waited, for Jared to wake up.
Jared woke up all at once, it seemed. Going from a light, restless sleep to awake, jerking on the bed, trying to sit up and failing. Jensen scraped the mouthful of tank-meat and 'ponic veggie stew off his fork and into his mouth, chewing hard. He swallowed too soon and had to gulp a mouthful of water while Jared moved in an uncoordinated flail on the bed, looking around and blinking. Doc was right there, too, grinning at him, scanner glasses scrolling pale-blue lines, fast as thought, in front of her eyes as she stared at him.
Her stylus clicked and chimed on the glassine face of her transcriber, seemingly independent of any direction from her brain. Then she slipped it into its clip and slid the glasses down her nose a little, looking over the top of them at Jared. Her hair was a vivid, electric blue - it was stress relief, she said, to fuck with her look - and it made the green-vine tattoos on her jaw and throat seem to almost vibrate in brilliant contrast.
"And he wakes. Hey, Jared."
"Doc-" Jared said, or tried to; his voice was nothing but a scraped-down whisper, and it looked like it hurt coming out. Jensen all but leapt from his chair to Jared's side, lifting the little wand from the water tank and holding it just right to Jared's lips. Jared sipped slowly, tiny sips, over and over, until he finally sighed and sank back a half-inch, relieved, or so Jensen hoped.
Doc glanced over from her perusal of the telemetry machine, after making a minor adjustment. "All good?"
"Better," Jared said. He smiled slightly at her; smiled a little wider at Jensen, who just hovered there, utterly unsure of what to do with himself. He wanted to touch, and didn't have the faintest idea if that would be at all welcome, so he pulled the sleeves of his sweater down over his knuckles and rubbed them together, like he used to do on the Tiamat, grounding out the jittery energy he didn't have a place for.
Jared tried to move on the bed, tried to sit up higher, and Jensen reached for him before stopping himself. Jared pushed without any effect for a moment, and then sighed, falling back.
"It's...been a while?"
"Two weeks, about," Doc said, and Jared's eyes went wide, his mouth turning down a little.
"No wonder I feel like shit."
"Are you in pain?" Doc asked, and Jared frowned a little, thinking.
"I- No? No, I'm really not. I should be, but I'm just...not. Just tired. Everything feels...heavy."
"That's great. Okay." Doc pulled her stool up close to the gurney and Jensen stepped back, intending to go into the corner of the room, to just lean there and listen. But Jared put out a thin, shaking hand, just catching the hem of Jensen's sweater.
"Stay, okay? Will you?" His dark eyes were shadowed, sunk a little into his face, but he looked...hopeful, and pleading, so Jensen shrugged and settled against the side of the gurney. Jared didn't let go.
"So you know the Company - your old 'net - it didn't cure you, not really."
"Yeah," Jared said, and Jensen remembered the vid Jared had shown him, remembered Jared saying he could go back to that, if he lost the 'net, if the Company took it away.
"Right. The 'net they implanted gave you a kind of...superstructure, over your own. It repaired damaged nerves and muscle tissue, organs - it suppressed all the symptoms. It even grew you some new stuff, made your bones better, that kind of thing. But the Grimes was always there, dormant, and if you'd stopped with the boosters and regenerations, or the stabilizers I was giving you…."
"Back to the 'skele," Jared whispered, and his fingers clutched convulsively at Jensen's sweater-hem. Jensen risked a tentative pat on them, and Jared looked up, smiling weakly at him. Old fear was in his gaze.
"He knows that shit," Jensen said, looking at Doc. "Just...tell him."
"Okay. So, it worked, Jared. Jensen's cells, the cells from his 'net, they killed yours. Wiped it out. But that set the Grimes loose. And...well, we figured it might take a year, if you ever lost your 'net, but...something the Company did...it was like the storm, in Jensen. Your Grimes...it's called metastasis. It spread exponentially."
"You were really fucked up," Jensen said, and Jared snorted softly,, but his fingers didn't let go of Jensen's sweater.
"I felt like I did...when I was a kid. Fever and...just weak. Couldn't move things right, couldn't...couldn't talk. I thought it was...coming back because…. I thought it killed my 'net and I was....was going to-" Jared stopped, jaw clenching, breathing a little too fast, and one of the monitors was chirring softly, gentle warning.
"It did. It was," Doc said. Jared shuddered, and Jensen snarled silently at her, making her flinch back.
"Don't say that," Jensen hissed, and Doc shoved her hand back through her hair, the stylus tangling in it for a moment.
"It's true. It's what happened. The point is, you fixed it, Jensen. Or...the vaccine did. Your cells, your 'net. That's mostly why you've been so sick, Jared. The Grimes was attacking every cell in your body, and the vaccine was fighting back. Destroying it, system by system. It won, Jared. The vaccine won."
"My hero," Jared said, and he looked up at Jensen and smiled, wide enough to show his dimples. But his eyes were still bleak.
Jensen leaned in a little closer, into the thick scent of disinfectant and sweat and illness. Jared needed a shower. "Don't think about it," he whispered, and Jared laughed this time, but it sounded too choked and ragged, too close to a sob. "That's what I do. I just...don't think about...things," Jensen said. He leaned back, shooting a look at Doc, and she sighed.
"Yeah, okay, we'll do details later. Just- Jared, you need to understand, it worked. The vaccine killed your crippled 'net, and then it killed the Grimes, and then it...implanted itself. Budded you a new 'net. It's still growing, it's not done yet."
Doc hopped up and did something with her stylus and one of the machines, and a holo faded in from thin air, Jared's body overlaid with a fine web of lines, filaments of blue and gold and silver-white. They were everywhere.
"Is that…? Damn. Damn, look at it," Jared said, and he lifted one hand, just a few inches, turning it a little, watching the lines move as he flexed his fingers.
"Yeah. It's fixing everything, it's putting you where you should be, like the Grimes never existed. Like you were never sick. And...I don't think you ever will be, again," Doc added, and Jared let his hand drop. Jensen just stared at the lines, at Jared's 'net. Jensen's, in a way.
It looked like a scan from when he was on Tiamat. Every six months or so, they'd all get a scan, get an adjustment to their go-packs and down-packs and everyday drugs. Keeping them fit, Morgan had said. Keeping them crippled, Jensen figured now. Making sure no 'net was doing what Jensen's had.
Making sure no Angel could fly without the Company's wings.
"I don't mind that. Wait. Do you mean…? What do you mean?"
"I mean, it seems like your 'net - and Jensen's, too - it's going to keep you from ever getting sick again. From anything. No colds, no infections, no nothing."
"Really? Was that-? Did yours always do that?" Jared asked, turning his head on the pillow to look at Jensen, and Jensen shrugged, nodded.
"We never did get sick, any of us. And we got shore leave, got fucked up a lot, but..nobody ever was sick the next day. Figured...figured they didn't want us on down time. In case. Didn't want us on any slack, and- We had to be ready, to go. Any time." In fact, the only time Jensen could remember anybody being sick was when Morgan would withhold the daily dose. Punishment for some infraction, usually just a couple days.
But they were...really fucking bad days, and most people kept to the rules, rather than go through that. Jensen shivered and huddled into his sweater a little more, shying away from those memories. More things he wanted to forget. More things he was bound to carry, for ever and all.
"Looks like you'll probably heal faster, too, maybe move a little faster; better hearing, perfect eyesight. Not like Jensen. We don't have all the things they had, stem cells and the nanobot implants, but...you're gonna be one tough bitch, Jared."
"Already was," Jared said, and this time his laugh was more real, his eyes happier, despite the circles under them. Jensen felt his shoulders unknot a little, seeing that, and smiled himself, wracking his brain for something clever to say, something encouraging. Before he could find the right words, though, there were pounding footsteps in the hall and the Jo boys burst in, geared up - armored jackets and weapons in holsters, bags dangling from fists - keyed up. No, worse than that. Scared.
Jensen felt himself pushing away from the gurney, back straight, breathing deep. Fight-flight-move. Like before a mission, like when a go-pack hit. Adrenaline, endorphins, excitement. "Report," Jensen snapped, and one of the Jo boys straightened, reflexive habit.
"Trouble. We got- fucking trouble," Jo One panted, and Jo Two was still moving, going down on one knee by a cabinet and yanking it open, starting to shovel its contents into a second, empty bag he'd pulled from the first.
"Company worm," Jo One said. "Found out you'd disappeared off their radar. They got into one of our side servers. Got enough info to get suspicious, and our listener out at Reveille, he just heard...they're moving on us. On Axis." He licked his lips and shot a look at his brother, who nodded. "They scrambled a troopship and they'll be here in...five days, maybe less."
Jensen felt that like a slap, and he took an involuntary step forward. "Whu-what ship. Who?"
"Jesus, who cares? We got to go," the other Jo boy said, and Jensen was for one moment just standing, and the next he was moving, moving Jo One with him, hard, a fast shove backward and into a wall, bang, Jensen's fist in his jacket. He could hear the other Jo and Doc yelling, tinny and muffled behind him.
"Who?"
Jo struggled against Jensen's hold for a moment and then slumped, looking freaked out. "T-Tiamat. They're sending the Tiamat."
Jensen just stood there, staring at him, until Jo Two put hands on him and shouted in his ear. Gradually, Jensen realized he was holding Jo One up off his feet, at least a foot off the floor, crushing him up against the wall. Jensen let him go with a little gasp after air, moving away as Jo Two moved in, checking his brother for injury.
Tiamat. She would be here. They would be. His Angels. Five, Sinna, Jinx. Oh fuck, Kane. All of them. Jensen…wanted. Wanted them. To see, to touch. To feel, but that was gone, now, burned out of him, lost forever. He clenched his hands into fists and kept himself, just, from punching the wall.
"Jensen," Jared said, low but urgent - pleading - and Jensen turned slowly to look at him. Jared's cheeks had two spots of hectic color in them, and he was sitting up a little, Doc at his side. "They- They're not gonna stop just 'cause it's you. They can't. And we- We gotta be gone, Jensen. Before they get here."
"But they're mine," Jensen said, and his voice was too small, too thin. Too young. He wrapped his arms around himself, feeling adult muscle and bone, adult shape. He was not six. He was not twelve, or even fourteen, and seeing the last of the sets from Glorianna dying, succumbing to disease or despair. He was Quemuel, he was an ArchANGEL, even if his wings had been clipped.
"I know, Jensen. But," Jared lifted a thin hand to push at his hair, grimacing, no doubt, at the feel of it, and Jensen took a step back to him. And then another, until he was opposite Doc, and close to Jared's side, staring down at the rumpled covers over Jared's chest. "You know, it's not the same, anymore. You and them. You know that," Jared said, so soft, and Jensen drew in a hard, sharp gasp of air, lifting his head.
"I...have to see them," Jensen said, quiet. Steady. Looking Jared in the eyes. "I have to. And then we can- We'll go. They'll let me."
"Jensen, you don't know that."
"Yeah, I do,” Jensen said, and reached out, gently - slowly - to touch Jared's cheek. He looked up at Doc, and then at the Jo boys, who were both looking furious and a little freaked. "I'm staying," Jensen said.
He let his hand drop from Jared's cheek, and strode away from the gurney, intending to go...somewhere, anywhere else, so he could think. Somewhere he could get small and quiet and still, and let his thoughts unsnarl. As he went through the doorway, he could hear the Jo boys’ voices rising, irritated; he could hear Doc, talking fast, but nothing from Jared.
And then.
Then there was the faintest of tugs. A touch along his mind, down his nerve-endings. A whisper, that said don't go. A pull of need, light as a whisper, and Jensen stopped dead in the hallway, closed his eyes tight and curled his hands around his skull, curling over himself, breathing too hard, too fast.
Pushing out, hard as he could, reaching. Question question question, in synch with the pound of his heart.
Jensen?, a pulse of wonder and light, and Jensen spun on his toes, staggered and righted himself and ran, shoulder catching the doorjamb so he was jarred sideways, stumbling and catching himself and then thump into the foot of Jared's gurney.
Into Jared, formless warmth and wonder and awe, and it was the 'net, it was, Jared to Jensen, Jensen to Jared. Jensen's hand closed on Jared's blanketed ankle, and the link flared bright, so bright, a flash of actinic fire in Jensen's brain that surged and settled and faded, down to a pale, glimmering pulse of heatless light. Connection, link, family. Jared.
"Jensen," Jared whispered, and Jensen didn't know he was crying until he tasted salt.
Part 14 here.
Tags: