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Hello, lovelies! Finally, some new stuff, eh? I'm really very pleased and grateful that you all are still reading and not getting horribly annoyed and impatient with my slow progress. Thank you!
As always,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkhavens did the final poke, prod and tidy, polishing to perfection. What would I do without her? :)
And, on a random, fandom note.... I caved and watched the season 10 promo for Show.
HOMFG!!!!!!!!
That is all.
Now, onto the show!
Which is also on AO3.
Warning: There is talk of and a desire for death/suicide in this chapter.
When the green field comes off like a lid
Revealing what was much better hid:
Unpleasant. - W.H. Auden, ‘The Two’
There was heat where heat should never be, and Jensen hugged his arms around his ribs, crouched down in an alcove that was supposed to hold an emergency evac suit. The suit was gone, though, and whatever had caused the Glorianna to buck and shudder like a wrestler breaking a hold was still happening. Metal groaned and pinged all around, the lights flickering and finally going out, emergency spots coming on after a long, breathless moment of utter, abyssal black. Warning klaxons were wailing, deafening, only adding to the overall terror.
Jensen whimpered, curling down tighter, his small-for-seven-years body making itself as little - as compact - as possible as he listened to distant shouting, to screams. He’d been on his way to the game room, to play Star Chaser with- Jensen’s breath caught in horror and he forced himself up, out of his huddle, out of the alcove. He had to get there, had to! What if the game room was damaged, what if there were people...?
He staggered down one corridor and then the next, stopped for a breathless moment in front of the lift doors, but then darted aside to the emergency tube, the laddered climb that would take him up the two levels he needed to go. Gravity behaved strangely, sometimes almost dragging him off the hand-holds, sometimes almost floating him up. He took advantage, pushing fast, scrambling and kicking and then running, as fast as he could. He skidded around a corner and fell flat on his ass before rapidly backpedalling. The corridor was a jumble of broken light panels and debris, ceiling tiles and a jagged hole where sparking circuitry and wires had spilled out. Jensen gaped at the destruction as he scrambled to his feet, coughing in the eddies of acrid smoke.
Just there, just past, was the game room, and he had to, he had to…. Jensen crept forward, placing his feet just so, aware now of a curious noise, a sort of hissing, rushing noise that he’d never heard before. And heat, too much of it - it should never be this hot, they’d never get things cooled down, panels would warp, electronics would fry. The klaxon was muted here, half the speakers gone, the others sounding garbled, the sound coming out tinny and flat.
Jensen heard a noise, choked and awful, and he flung himself forward the last few feet to hang in the doorway of the game room. Whatever had happened was worse here, there was fire, open flame, and he stared in horror. A fire extinguisher was lying half-buried beneath a shattered game console, and Jensen stepped towards it, into the room, blinking against the smoke and coughing, leaning and reaching and screaming, nearly hysterical.
When something wet and rough clamped around his shin, he kicked out, hard, as he twisted and fell back, only then looking to see just what it was. Something black and red, oozing and cracked, some thing - some one. A hand spasmed weakly on the half-melted carpet, and Jensen was panting now, panting and coughing, his eyes watering, up on his knees and trying to see…. He saw.
A hand. An arm. A twisted mess of burnt wires and burnt coverall, burnt skin sloughing away from a shoulder, a neck, more wire….
“Jeeeen...sss… Jeen…”
The face was barely recognizable, soot and wire and raggedly scorched hair, a cut that was sheeting blood down a high cheekbone, one eye half-shut, swollen, but Jensen knew.
“Sam! Sam, oh no, Sam-”
“Hhh….” Sam mumbled, his burnt hand digging aimlessly at the floor, his gaze barely focused. His clothes were scorched, hanging raggedly off most of him, his skin was, and he was half-buried in the rubble of a collapsed wall, twisted up in wire and insulation, and there was fire, more fire, coming down from the ceiling, something burning through.
Jensen crouched over Sam, hands hovering but not daring to touch, no, he couldn’t, he would hurt Sam, to touch, he needed... someone, medico, doctor, he needed-
“Juh-Jenssen...haa..lp, haa...muh..muh….” Sam’s lips were black and red, blood and char, his eyelashes were gone, and his eyebrows. But it was him, it was Sam, one of the Olders. Jensen’s especial friend, his Star Chaser captain, he was Jensen’s, he was teaching Jensen about the babies, he was a womb-tech and he was going to show Jensen, going to show-
“Pleeessss….” Sam’s voice was an agonized rasp, raw and broken, and his useless hand was clawing at the carpet, at Jensen, skin falling away in blackened crusts, leaving streaks of scarlet on Jensen’s leg. Jensen jerked away, stood up and backed away, tears making him all but blind, the smoky air like acid in his throat, constricting his lungs. The fire was making a noise, a kind of hissing roar, and the heat was searing Jensen’s skin. He felt a sudden wash of coolness down his legs, bladder letting go. Oh, Sam would never let him live that down, so scared like a baby, wetting himself. Sam would never... Sam.
“I’ll- I’ll get Turvey, I’ll get the doc! Sam, I-I’ll be back, I’ll be back!”
And Jensen turned and ran. Ran, hard as he could. Ran, from the lump of charred flesh and melted wire and oozing blood. Ran, stumbling and crying and coughing, seeking cooler air, light, quiet. Burrowed into the first place he found, a little store closet, all cool white linens and regular light, the klaxons muted there. He only came back to himself - to something like awareness - when the section seals went. Thundering clangs rang all through the ship as they sealed off the damaged parts, the parts on fire, venting it all, opening emergency hatches to let oxygen and smoke and flame plume out into space and die, a brief, bright burst of light in the forever black.
After, Jensen dreamed of Sam out there, flung into darkness, hurt and alone, drifting forever. Lost, abandoned. Jensen never said his name again.
Jensen surfaced like a swimmer held down too long, gasping for air, an ugly whoop through a throat already raw. There were lights - noise - a cacophony of beeps, voices shouting. And pain, pain twisting him like a rag, breaking his bones. He screamed and fought - bucking against restraints and hands and the weight of memory he couldn’t bear; sobbed in ugly, pathetic relief when something cold burned up his vein and he was sucked back down into nothing.
When he came up again, hours later - just skimming the surface - he could smell soap and coffee and that fuck-awful quick-seal stuff hospitals used to knit together little cuts and things. Familiar smells, familiar sounds. The steady metronome of the monitors, the faint whisper-hum of ventilation fans and, he could swear, the bone-deep, near-silent roar of the tremendous engines, the ship’s heartbeat echoing his own. Jensen sighed, not even bothering to open his eyes.
Ship, he was on the ship, he was in medical on the Tiamet. Fucking morphadine nightmares, that’s all - sometimes he reacted to that shit - rather have the stuff Jinx cooked up, or that tech down in the engine room, skinny woman with a bird tattoo across her shoulders, rainbow wings…. Jensen breathed in and out and in, and let himself drift back to sleep.
And woke screaming, retching, trying to get away, but there were restraints on his arms and his legs, and this was not the Tiamet, this was not home, this was- this was- somewhere, fuck, he didn’t know, he didn’t know where he was, he hurt, everywhere, so fucking bad, and why couldn’t they give him meds, why couldn’t they just knock him out already, again, please, please-
Jensen twisted on the gurney, sweating and shaking, feeling as if his body were being wrung like a cloth, over and over. He was so hot he swore he could smell himself cooking, and the next moment he was shivering in an icy sweat. And they wouldn’t help, they wouldn’t let him go, they wouldn’t fix it, and he wasn’t an Angel anymore, and he couldn’t fly anymore, and he was going to die, he was going to die, he was so sick of waking up sick, waking up hurting, waking up.....
“Jensen, please don’t say that, please? You’re going to feel better, I promise you, you will.”
“L-l-lying, fucking….luh-lying, kill me, juss-usst kill muh-me, do it, no-ot sscared, I’m not suh-suh...sscared.”
There was a hand on him, on his forearm, squeezing. Something damp touched his face, wiping delicately and leaving a cool trail, clearing his eyes and moistening his lips. Jensen squinted at whoever it was, head pounding in the glare of the lights, dazzled and aching.
“I’m not going to kill you,” they said. Someone said, Company accent overlaid with something else, some colonial world, a little burr and twang to the voice, soothing. The cloth wiped again, gently, and Jensen twitched aside from it.
“Let m-me go. Let m-me luh-loose. I need - nuh-need...I g-g-gotta...guh-go.”
“No. I’m sorry, but...you’re sick, Jensen,” the voice said, and Jensen jerked violently, his heart ratcheting up, his breath catching. “What- what’s wrong?”
“Who are you?,” Jensen growled, arching and twisting against the restraints. He ignored the pain, forcing his body to move, forcing his eyes open, blinking over and over until his vision cleared a little bit, the light dimmer now (was it later? was it down time?), easier on his brain.
“I’m- You don’t know me. I’m Jared.” A shadow shifted - moved closer - and Jensen lifted his head, squinting hard. The figure swam into focus. Brown hair, dark eyes, station-pale skin. Worn collar of a sweater, smudges under the eyes like bruises. “You’re in- You’ve been sick. But you’re getting better, I swear, and you- you’re gonna feel okay real soon, so please, Jensen, please stop. You’re hurting yourself.”
Jensen’s gaze wandered, down his own body. Bloody wrists, and bruises, one centered around an iv needle that was huge and purple-black and swollen, ugly. His arms were thin - thinner - and he could feel hair around his mouth, on his neck, fuck!
“How- how long have you… How luh-long have you k-kept me here? What the f-fuck are you duh-doing? Tell me!” Jensen shouted, when the person - man - hesitated. And that made his throat hurt, lancing fire all along vocal cords that were still fucked up from too much screaming, too many days and nights, too many tubes down his throat so he could breathe, eat, wake up again, again, again.
“Jen- Jensen! Please, c’mon, stop, okay? Please stop!” The man was on his feet - tall, he was tall, looming over Jensen - and Jensen shut his mouth with a snap, cutting off the ugly, raw noise that was coming out of him, independent of his brain.
“Let me go!”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.” The man leaned in a little, turning to look at something - monitor, tube, who knew - and the light slid over his face, his throat, and Jensen felt the air punch out of him. Felt his belly knot in terror and longing.
“Ooh...oh no, no, please, no, I’m sorry, I tried, I was scared, I was too - ss-suh-scared, Sam, please don’t be muh-mad at me, don’t be mad at meee….” Jensen realized, dimly, horrified, that he was crying, and the man (Sam, it’s Sam, no, no, no) hushed him softly, long fingers lacing with Jensen’s and squeezing, the cloth wiping his face again, wiping the tears, pushing Jensen’s hair back.
“Who do you think I am? Jensen? Tell me, please, tell me. I’m Jared, okay? I’m not- We never met before, okay? Please tell me...who Sam is.”
Jensen sobbed at the name, his whole body coiling up tight and then snapping rigid, straining up in a painful, impossible arc. He gritted his teeth, sharp jab of pain in his jaw, fists locked shut, nails digging in. He could feel the muscles in his forearm around the iv needle, the dull burn and the deeper, harder ache of the bruise there, and his head hurt so bad, so bad, hammer-blows from the inside, cracking him open, and if he could just let it out, let the pressure out, it would be better, it would stop, he just had to-
Something gave way with a low tearing noise, and for a moment Jensen thought it was his arm, his ribs, but then his hand came up, clawing, the remains of the restraint shredding around his wrist. He doubled his fist up again and brought it down, hard, on his face, temple - anywhere, anything - and (Sam) the man was shouting, and another voice and the machines were screaming, and Jensen was pretty sure he was screaming he just couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t wake up anymore, he just could not…wake up…anymore.
Jared staggered into the observation room once they’d finally got Jensen stable again - under again, restrained again. He had a split lip and maybe a black eye coming, and he was sick to his stomach, Jensen’s voice still ringing in his head. Jensen begging Jared to kill him, to let him die, that he was sorry... Fuck.
Jared stumbled into the toilet and turned the water on in the tiny sink - splashed his face two or three times with cold water and then just leaned there, shaking. He looked up, finally, to see eyes red from too-little sleep, a swelling lip and stubble, his hair hanging wet over his forehead, his whole face just...tired. God, he was tired. After a moment, he slurped up a handful of cold water, then shut off the tap and staggered into the observation room. Fuck, what had he gotten himself into? Jensen was….
Jensen was barely there - barely aware, down in the bottom of some horrible pit of memory and trauma that Jared couldn’t even begin to fathom. How in hell was he going to help? Could he help at all? It seemed like his very presence put Jensen into a tailspin and what the fuck was that all about?
Jared rubbed his hands over his face and winced, then dragged them back through his hair before sighing, staring up at the ceiling and gathering himself and every scrap of courage and energy he had left.
And then he sat up, and got a dataspot going, and started to pull everything the Devils had on the Glorianna, on Jensen, on what had happened. They’d infiltrated Company databases and stolen Company secrets and wormed their way into the smallest, darkest, deepest-buried Company morgue-files. Whatever was there, in Jensen’s past - they had it in black and white, and Jared had to have it, too.
A half-hour later, he had one of the first-ever things. Vid from the Sally Belle, when her crew had found the Glorianna. Suit-cam vid, it was flat and grainy, showing a ship’s lock and then an emergency access tube. The vid was shaky and whatever enhancement had been run on it had made it weird, the edges jumpy and pixelated, the colors - what little there were - bleached out and muddy. Jared skipped the vid forward in little jumps, not really knowing what he’d see. He lingered for a long moment in the room with the tiny skeletons, the curls of soot and fire-damage that licked around the walls. Then he skipped ahead again, swallowing, heart pounding.
Suddenly, the picture was jarred, jerking sideways, a garbled and tinny shouting coming from the suited figures. And then Jared saw them. Children - a dozen, maybe more - naked and filthy and somehow just not right. Too small, too thin, moving in an odd, jerky way, as if their limbs weren’t quite connected. Howling, an unbelievably terrifying noise, guttural and raw, and Jared jerked upright in his chair when he recognized it. It was the same noise Jensen had been making in the corridor - the same noise as he’d battered himself bloody, his wild, animal gaze fixed on Jared’s face.
One kid stepped forward, away from the rest - a kid just as skinny and dirty, but with some kind of wire or tape wrapped around his arms, up across his shoulders and around his throat. A kid who spoke - or tried to - and Jared punched up the commentary, pushing the ear bead in a little more securely.
”First contact with subject, Jensen AKLS927,” the voice said, emotionless, and Jared leaned forward, his breathing coming a little harder. The kid was gesturing, mouthing some word, distorted all out of sense. The vid froze for a moment, and a frame of the kid’s face suddenly magnified and then moved to the side as the vid resumed in the background, and Jared looked at the magnified, cleaned up image and saw...Jensen’s eyes. Those same green eyes, same long lashes. Saw a skeletal face and stained teeth and filthy hanks of matted hair that hung down from a shaved, nicked scalp. Saw madness, illness - death, arrested and altered and turned into the man who was lying unconscious in the next room. From a dying orphan to a lethal Angel - and his eyes were exactly the same.
Jared thought they had found survivors on a derelict ship. Kids and their guardians, eking out some kind of life, purposeful, if not perfect. Not that, not - He glanced at the screen again and saw the womb-tanks - the bodies - and that was it, that was fucking enough. His hand slapped down on the dataspot, ending the vid, and he resisted the urge to pick it up and hurl it across the room.
Jared pushed himself up and out of the chair and across the room. Without him realizing, the Jo boys were both there, Jo One on the cot, Jo Two in a chair, reading a dataspot.
“I’m- I’m gonna go...I gotta walk, I gotta...just...do something.” Jo Two nodded, silent, and Jared stalked out of the room, turned deliberately from Jensen’s door and strode away, heading out - up - to Carousel, to lights and noise and color, to bodies and music and noise. To something - anything - that would distract him from the images playing and replaying behind his eyes.
The corridors - the screaming - the boy and the man...full circle and full stop.
Part nine
As always,
darkhavens did the final poke, prod and tidy, polishing to perfection. What would I do without her? :)And, on a random, fandom note.... I caved and watched the season 10 promo for Show.
HOMFG!!!!!!!!
That is all.
Now, onto the show!
Which is also on AO3.
Warning: There is talk of and a desire for death/suicide in this chapter.
When the green field comes off like a lid
Revealing what was much better hid:
Unpleasant. - W.H. Auden, ‘The Two’
There was heat where heat should never be, and Jensen hugged his arms around his ribs, crouched down in an alcove that was supposed to hold an emergency evac suit. The suit was gone, though, and whatever had caused the Glorianna to buck and shudder like a wrestler breaking a hold was still happening. Metal groaned and pinged all around, the lights flickering and finally going out, emergency spots coming on after a long, breathless moment of utter, abyssal black. Warning klaxons were wailing, deafening, only adding to the overall terror.
Jensen whimpered, curling down tighter, his small-for-seven-years body making itself as little - as compact - as possible as he listened to distant shouting, to screams. He’d been on his way to the game room, to play Star Chaser with- Jensen’s breath caught in horror and he forced himself up, out of his huddle, out of the alcove. He had to get there, had to! What if the game room was damaged, what if there were people...?
He staggered down one corridor and then the next, stopped for a breathless moment in front of the lift doors, but then darted aside to the emergency tube, the laddered climb that would take him up the two levels he needed to go. Gravity behaved strangely, sometimes almost dragging him off the hand-holds, sometimes almost floating him up. He took advantage, pushing fast, scrambling and kicking and then running, as fast as he could. He skidded around a corner and fell flat on his ass before rapidly backpedalling. The corridor was a jumble of broken light panels and debris, ceiling tiles and a jagged hole where sparking circuitry and wires had spilled out. Jensen gaped at the destruction as he scrambled to his feet, coughing in the eddies of acrid smoke.
Just there, just past, was the game room, and he had to, he had to…. Jensen crept forward, placing his feet just so, aware now of a curious noise, a sort of hissing, rushing noise that he’d never heard before. And heat, too much of it - it should never be this hot, they’d never get things cooled down, panels would warp, electronics would fry. The klaxon was muted here, half the speakers gone, the others sounding garbled, the sound coming out tinny and flat.
Jensen heard a noise, choked and awful, and he flung himself forward the last few feet to hang in the doorway of the game room. Whatever had happened was worse here, there was fire, open flame, and he stared in horror. A fire extinguisher was lying half-buried beneath a shattered game console, and Jensen stepped towards it, into the room, blinking against the smoke and coughing, leaning and reaching and screaming, nearly hysterical.
When something wet and rough clamped around his shin, he kicked out, hard, as he twisted and fell back, only then looking to see just what it was. Something black and red, oozing and cracked, some thing - some one. A hand spasmed weakly on the half-melted carpet, and Jensen was panting now, panting and coughing, his eyes watering, up on his knees and trying to see…. He saw.
A hand. An arm. A twisted mess of burnt wires and burnt coverall, burnt skin sloughing away from a shoulder, a neck, more wire….
“Jeeeen...sss… Jeen…”
The face was barely recognizable, soot and wire and raggedly scorched hair, a cut that was sheeting blood down a high cheekbone, one eye half-shut, swollen, but Jensen knew.
“Sam! Sam, oh no, Sam-”
“Hhh….” Sam mumbled, his burnt hand digging aimlessly at the floor, his gaze barely focused. His clothes were scorched, hanging raggedly off most of him, his skin was, and he was half-buried in the rubble of a collapsed wall, twisted up in wire and insulation, and there was fire, more fire, coming down from the ceiling, something burning through.
Jensen crouched over Sam, hands hovering but not daring to touch, no, he couldn’t, he would hurt Sam, to touch, he needed... someone, medico, doctor, he needed-
“Juh-Jenssen...haa..lp, haa...muh..muh….” Sam’s lips were black and red, blood and char, his eyelashes were gone, and his eyebrows. But it was him, it was Sam, one of the Olders. Jensen’s especial friend, his Star Chaser captain, he was Jensen’s, he was teaching Jensen about the babies, he was a womb-tech and he was going to show Jensen, going to show-
“Pleeessss….” Sam’s voice was an agonized rasp, raw and broken, and his useless hand was clawing at the carpet, at Jensen, skin falling away in blackened crusts, leaving streaks of scarlet on Jensen’s leg. Jensen jerked away, stood up and backed away, tears making him all but blind, the smoky air like acid in his throat, constricting his lungs. The fire was making a noise, a kind of hissing roar, and the heat was searing Jensen’s skin. He felt a sudden wash of coolness down his legs, bladder letting go. Oh, Sam would never let him live that down, so scared like a baby, wetting himself. Sam would never... Sam.
“I’ll- I’ll get Turvey, I’ll get the doc! Sam, I-I’ll be back, I’ll be back!”
And Jensen turned and ran. Ran, hard as he could. Ran, from the lump of charred flesh and melted wire and oozing blood. Ran, stumbling and crying and coughing, seeking cooler air, light, quiet. Burrowed into the first place he found, a little store closet, all cool white linens and regular light, the klaxons muted there. He only came back to himself - to something like awareness - when the section seals went. Thundering clangs rang all through the ship as they sealed off the damaged parts, the parts on fire, venting it all, opening emergency hatches to let oxygen and smoke and flame plume out into space and die, a brief, bright burst of light in the forever black.
After, Jensen dreamed of Sam out there, flung into darkness, hurt and alone, drifting forever. Lost, abandoned. Jensen never said his name again.
Jensen surfaced like a swimmer held down too long, gasping for air, an ugly whoop through a throat already raw. There were lights - noise - a cacophony of beeps, voices shouting. And pain, pain twisting him like a rag, breaking his bones. He screamed and fought - bucking against restraints and hands and the weight of memory he couldn’t bear; sobbed in ugly, pathetic relief when something cold burned up his vein and he was sucked back down into nothing.
When he came up again, hours later - just skimming the surface - he could smell soap and coffee and that fuck-awful quick-seal stuff hospitals used to knit together little cuts and things. Familiar smells, familiar sounds. The steady metronome of the monitors, the faint whisper-hum of ventilation fans and, he could swear, the bone-deep, near-silent roar of the tremendous engines, the ship’s heartbeat echoing his own. Jensen sighed, not even bothering to open his eyes.
Ship, he was on the ship, he was in medical on the Tiamet. Fucking morphadine nightmares, that’s all - sometimes he reacted to that shit - rather have the stuff Jinx cooked up, or that tech down in the engine room, skinny woman with a bird tattoo across her shoulders, rainbow wings…. Jensen breathed in and out and in, and let himself drift back to sleep.
And woke screaming, retching, trying to get away, but there were restraints on his arms and his legs, and this was not the Tiamet, this was not home, this was- this was- somewhere, fuck, he didn’t know, he didn’t know where he was, he hurt, everywhere, so fucking bad, and why couldn’t they give him meds, why couldn’t they just knock him out already, again, please, please-
Jensen twisted on the gurney, sweating and shaking, feeling as if his body were being wrung like a cloth, over and over. He was so hot he swore he could smell himself cooking, and the next moment he was shivering in an icy sweat. And they wouldn’t help, they wouldn’t let him go, they wouldn’t fix it, and he wasn’t an Angel anymore, and he couldn’t fly anymore, and he was going to die, he was going to die, he was so sick of waking up sick, waking up hurting, waking up.....
“Jensen, please don’t say that, please? You’re going to feel better, I promise you, you will.”
“L-l-lying, fucking….luh-lying, kill me, juss-usst kill muh-me, do it, no-ot sscared, I’m not suh-suh...sscared.”
There was a hand on him, on his forearm, squeezing. Something damp touched his face, wiping delicately and leaving a cool trail, clearing his eyes and moistening his lips. Jensen squinted at whoever it was, head pounding in the glare of the lights, dazzled and aching.
“I’m not going to kill you,” they said. Someone said, Company accent overlaid with something else, some colonial world, a little burr and twang to the voice, soothing. The cloth wiped again, gently, and Jensen twitched aside from it.
“Let m-me go. Let m-me luh-loose. I need - nuh-need...I g-g-gotta...guh-go.”
“No. I’m sorry, but...you’re sick, Jensen,” the voice said, and Jensen jerked violently, his heart ratcheting up, his breath catching. “What- what’s wrong?”
“Who are you?,” Jensen growled, arching and twisting against the restraints. He ignored the pain, forcing his body to move, forcing his eyes open, blinking over and over until his vision cleared a little bit, the light dimmer now (was it later? was it down time?), easier on his brain.
“I’m- You don’t know me. I’m Jared.” A shadow shifted - moved closer - and Jensen lifted his head, squinting hard. The figure swam into focus. Brown hair, dark eyes, station-pale skin. Worn collar of a sweater, smudges under the eyes like bruises. “You’re in- You’ve been sick. But you’re getting better, I swear, and you- you’re gonna feel okay real soon, so please, Jensen, please stop. You’re hurting yourself.”
Jensen’s gaze wandered, down his own body. Bloody wrists, and bruises, one centered around an iv needle that was huge and purple-black and swollen, ugly. His arms were thin - thinner - and he could feel hair around his mouth, on his neck, fuck!
“How- how long have you… How luh-long have you k-kept me here? What the f-fuck are you duh-doing? Tell me!” Jensen shouted, when the person - man - hesitated. And that made his throat hurt, lancing fire all along vocal cords that were still fucked up from too much screaming, too many days and nights, too many tubes down his throat so he could breathe, eat, wake up again, again, again.
“Jen- Jensen! Please, c’mon, stop, okay? Please stop!” The man was on his feet - tall, he was tall, looming over Jensen - and Jensen shut his mouth with a snap, cutting off the ugly, raw noise that was coming out of him, independent of his brain.
“Let me go!”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.” The man leaned in a little, turning to look at something - monitor, tube, who knew - and the light slid over his face, his throat, and Jensen felt the air punch out of him. Felt his belly knot in terror and longing.
“Ooh...oh no, no, please, no, I’m sorry, I tried, I was scared, I was too - ss-suh-scared, Sam, please don’t be muh-mad at me, don’t be mad at meee….” Jensen realized, dimly, horrified, that he was crying, and the man (Sam, it’s Sam, no, no, no) hushed him softly, long fingers lacing with Jensen’s and squeezing, the cloth wiping his face again, wiping the tears, pushing Jensen’s hair back.
“Who do you think I am? Jensen? Tell me, please, tell me. I’m Jared, okay? I’m not- We never met before, okay? Please tell me...who Sam is.”
Jensen sobbed at the name, his whole body coiling up tight and then snapping rigid, straining up in a painful, impossible arc. He gritted his teeth, sharp jab of pain in his jaw, fists locked shut, nails digging in. He could feel the muscles in his forearm around the iv needle, the dull burn and the deeper, harder ache of the bruise there, and his head hurt so bad, so bad, hammer-blows from the inside, cracking him open, and if he could just let it out, let the pressure out, it would be better, it would stop, he just had to-
Something gave way with a low tearing noise, and for a moment Jensen thought it was his arm, his ribs, but then his hand came up, clawing, the remains of the restraint shredding around his wrist. He doubled his fist up again and brought it down, hard, on his face, temple - anywhere, anything - and (Sam) the man was shouting, and another voice and the machines were screaming, and Jensen was pretty sure he was screaming he just couldn’t do this, he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t wake up anymore, he just could not…wake up…anymore.
Jared staggered into the observation room once they’d finally got Jensen stable again - under again, restrained again. He had a split lip and maybe a black eye coming, and he was sick to his stomach, Jensen’s voice still ringing in his head. Jensen begging Jared to kill him, to let him die, that he was sorry... Fuck.
Jared stumbled into the toilet and turned the water on in the tiny sink - splashed his face two or three times with cold water and then just leaned there, shaking. He looked up, finally, to see eyes red from too-little sleep, a swelling lip and stubble, his hair hanging wet over his forehead, his whole face just...tired. God, he was tired. After a moment, he slurped up a handful of cold water, then shut off the tap and staggered into the observation room. Fuck, what had he gotten himself into? Jensen was….
Jensen was barely there - barely aware, down in the bottom of some horrible pit of memory and trauma that Jared couldn’t even begin to fathom. How in hell was he going to help? Could he help at all? It seemed like his very presence put Jensen into a tailspin and what the fuck was that all about?
Jared rubbed his hands over his face and winced, then dragged them back through his hair before sighing, staring up at the ceiling and gathering himself and every scrap of courage and energy he had left.
And then he sat up, and got a dataspot going, and started to pull everything the Devils had on the Glorianna, on Jensen, on what had happened. They’d infiltrated Company databases and stolen Company secrets and wormed their way into the smallest, darkest, deepest-buried Company morgue-files. Whatever was there, in Jensen’s past - they had it in black and white, and Jared had to have it, too.
A half-hour later, he had one of the first-ever things. Vid from the Sally Belle, when her crew had found the Glorianna. Suit-cam vid, it was flat and grainy, showing a ship’s lock and then an emergency access tube. The vid was shaky and whatever enhancement had been run on it had made it weird, the edges jumpy and pixelated, the colors - what little there were - bleached out and muddy. Jared skipped the vid forward in little jumps, not really knowing what he’d see. He lingered for a long moment in the room with the tiny skeletons, the curls of soot and fire-damage that licked around the walls. Then he skipped ahead again, swallowing, heart pounding.
Suddenly, the picture was jarred, jerking sideways, a garbled and tinny shouting coming from the suited figures. And then Jared saw them. Children - a dozen, maybe more - naked and filthy and somehow just not right. Too small, too thin, moving in an odd, jerky way, as if their limbs weren’t quite connected. Howling, an unbelievably terrifying noise, guttural and raw, and Jared jerked upright in his chair when he recognized it. It was the same noise Jensen had been making in the corridor - the same noise as he’d battered himself bloody, his wild, animal gaze fixed on Jared’s face.
One kid stepped forward, away from the rest - a kid just as skinny and dirty, but with some kind of wire or tape wrapped around his arms, up across his shoulders and around his throat. A kid who spoke - or tried to - and Jared punched up the commentary, pushing the ear bead in a little more securely.
”First contact with subject, Jensen AKLS927,” the voice said, emotionless, and Jared leaned forward, his breathing coming a little harder. The kid was gesturing, mouthing some word, distorted all out of sense. The vid froze for a moment, and a frame of the kid’s face suddenly magnified and then moved to the side as the vid resumed in the background, and Jared looked at the magnified, cleaned up image and saw...Jensen’s eyes. Those same green eyes, same long lashes. Saw a skeletal face and stained teeth and filthy hanks of matted hair that hung down from a shaved, nicked scalp. Saw madness, illness - death, arrested and altered and turned into the man who was lying unconscious in the next room. From a dying orphan to a lethal Angel - and his eyes were exactly the same.
Jared thought they had found survivors on a derelict ship. Kids and their guardians, eking out some kind of life, purposeful, if not perfect. Not that, not - He glanced at the screen again and saw the womb-tanks - the bodies - and that was it, that was fucking enough. His hand slapped down on the dataspot, ending the vid, and he resisted the urge to pick it up and hurl it across the room.
Jared pushed himself up and out of the chair and across the room. Without him realizing, the Jo boys were both there, Jo One on the cot, Jo Two in a chair, reading a dataspot.
“I’m- I’m gonna go...I gotta walk, I gotta...just...do something.” Jo Two nodded, silent, and Jared stalked out of the room, turned deliberately from Jensen’s door and strode away, heading out - up - to Carousel, to lights and noise and color, to bodies and music and noise. To something - anything - that would distract him from the images playing and replaying behind his eyes.
The corridors - the screaming - the boy and the man...full circle and full stop.
Part nine
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