ht_murray | White Ladder, SN RPS, JA/JP, NC-17, 3/5, for reel

Title:White Ladder, for

reel_spn Part 3/5
Author:

tru_faith_lost
Movie Adapted: Ghost
Genre: Slash, RPS
Characters/Pairings:Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Rating:NC-17
Word Count:5977, this part.
Warning this part: In this chapter, Jensen's mother is a tad, well, a lot, insensitive. I don't believe she's like that at all. I just needed a trigger for what follows. Remember, this is AU.

Part One Part Two

Chapter Three--My, oh My

Somehow, Jensen makes it through the funeral without breaking down--probably because so many people have come around to hold him up—all of Jared’s family, his Mama and Daddy, though they’re barely standing themselves. He lets them. He's not strong enough to offer anything in return, not really thinking or doing anything that someone else suggest and arrange.

What on earth is going on with my head? You know I used to be so sure.

Since that night, (however many days or nights ago that's been) he doesn't eat until someone puts a spoon in his hand, a plate in his lap. He doesn't drink until someone hands him a glass and then a straw, when his arm is too heavy to lift. He doesn't sleep without the help of the little yellow pills his mama got the doctor to give him. But he also doesn't break down, doesn't cry, doesn't rant, rave, or wail.

Apparently, no one has suggested it.

Chad doesn't need permission. He loses it during the viewing and has to be dragged out of the funeral parlor, screaming, "Don't you do this to me, Padalecki! Don't you dare! I can't!"

Everyone goes back to the apartment after the graveside service. Chad isn't one of them, but that whole scene is a disaster, even without him. Sadie and Harley won't stop barking and have to be locked in the master bathroom for the entire afternoon.

Jensen knows he ought to take offense. The dogs shouldn't be locked away. It's their house, and they loved Jared, too. But when people look at him to get them under control, he doesn't know what to do, the same way he hadn't known what to do when Jerry asked him to play a song at the funeral.

He can barely remember to breathe.

I look around these days. I'm not so sure. No, no, no.

He was glad, at the funeral, when Chris played the song instead, and he's glad, now, when his mama takes charge of the dogs. He doesn't agree with her actions, but at least someone can still do something.

He just bites his lip, lets the cold window glass press into his forehead while people cry, and talk, eat, and…function behind him. He hates them a little just for breathing the air in Jared’s house when Jared can’t.

My, oh my, you know it just don't stop. It's in my mind, I wanna tear it up. I've tried to fight it, tried to turn it off. But it's not enough.

Everyone's here. Everyone, to see how Jared lived before he died. Some have flown across the country, some halfway around the world, to see the last place Jared Padalecki called home, smell the last traces of sugar-sweet, brush fingers through the dust on the mantle and know that some of it is Jared.

Eric and Kim come together, stick close to each other, because they're not used to being in a death scene that they don't get to end by yelling, "Cut!" Half the CW crew crams into the apartment that once seemed too big, and fill it to the rafters with memories, tears, and hugs, none of which Jensen's willing to accept. Something's so wrong about Michael Rosenbaum sitting silent, with red-rimmed eyes while Tom Welling gets shit-faced in the corner, that Jensen thinks he had one too many little yellow pills last night.

He's never seen all of their friends in one place before, and it's...uncomfortable. Sure, everyone's respectful. They don't ask about (bleedingchokingsobbingdying)...it. Hell, most of the vital information's already aired on the Eleven O'Clock News, along with the name of Jared's killer who was caught three blocks away from the scene trying to trade a stolen handgun for crack. So, no one asks about that.

What they do ask is almost worse. They ask how Jen is doing, and don't accept 'not' as an answer. They ask if he needs anything, and don't believe him when he shakes his head. They ask about the pictures on the mantle. Where was this? When? You looked so happy, what were you doing? Where did Jared get that shirt? Is he grabbing your ass?

Those are his memories, all he has left, and he doesn't want to share. He wishes they wouldn’t ask.

They ask about the guitar pick in the gold-leaf frame with, "The Key to Jensen's Heart," written in scrawling calligraphy behind it. They don't believe him when he says they found it. Alexis says it seems like just the kind of thing Jared would plant in order to spare Jensen the humiliation of having to accept some emo girlie gift. Jared had done that a lot.

Jensen hates that he hadn't even thought of that, hates that he believed Jared's line about omens and luck charms, believed in alternate endings and keys to the future. Jen wishes Jared had never made him believe. Turns out, he was right not to.

He doesn’t look at the pick in its expensive frame the rest of the afternoon. As luck charms go, that one's obviously broken. He doesn't feel bad about stuffing it in a drawer the minute everyone leaves.

My, my, oh my.

#

"Dude, you're cutting off the circulation in my legs. Get your heavy ass off."

"'ts not the circulation in your legs I care about," Jared says with a leer, settling even heavier into Jensen’s lap. "And make me."

Jen bucks his hips but can't unseat the long-legged ass that's planted over his thighs. He's just thankful the couch they're sitting on is soft and absorbs most of their weight like an air mattress on a lake. His eyes widen as Jared raises himself up a little and starts to dig through the pockets of his jeans.

"Noooo. Not again, Jay." He's pretty sure he's whining, but really, this is ridiculous, and the fact that he’s powerless to do a damned thing about it like a girl, justifies a little whining, in his humble opinion. "C'mon, man. It's embarrassing as hell."

Sadie's lying on the end of the couch, oblivious, with her head on her paws. Jared just says, "Psst," nods his head toward the stairs, and she scrams out of sight. "There." Jared settles back over Jensen's lap. "Now no one can see us." He leans into Jen's face, close enough to touch noses. "It's just you and me, baby. Now, c'mon. Pucker up."

Jen can never resist when Jared's in his face like this, all dopey with too-close, and too-hot, and too-fucking-horny. He loves the way Jay's eyes cross just a little in the split second before they kiss, knows they both look stupid as inbred hillbillies like that, and doesn't care. Some expressions only a lover ever sees, and that's how Jensen knows this is love. He'd have shut his eyes by now, if this were anything less. But that dazed expression is Jared's 'get anything I want outta Jensen free' card, and Padalecki friggin' knows it.

Jensen's head lolls back on the top of the couch as he groans with resignation. "Fine. It just better not be watermelon again. That shit tastes like ass."

Jared shifts and pulls the cap off the tube of flavored lip balm in his hand. "Since when do you have a problem with ass? And it's not watermelon. I promise. Now, close your eyes."

Jensen feigns another sigh and shuts his eyes, but he hooks his fingers in Jared's belt loops as he does, just to make sure Jared finishes what he starts.

Jared smears the lip balm over Jensen's lips, entirely too thick, because the goop is half melted from being in his pocket all day.

"Now, guess..."

Jensen opens his eyes, swirls his tongue over his lips experimentally, and makes a smacking sound with his mouth. "Is that?...honey?"

"Damn straight," Jared grins. He leans forward, pink tip of his tongue just poking out from between his lips and just inhales deeply, tasting the sweet that's warming in the air between them. He licks over Jensen's mouth once and lets his eyes fall shut with a sigh. "Gotta have a little sugar with my spice."

"So..." Jen ducks his chin slightly and tucks the bridge of his nose into the divot under Jared's, sucks in the honey-coated breath mingling between them and licks over Jared’s ‘us’ flavored lips. "...I'm spicy, then?"

Jared doesn't answer, just swallows Jensen's mouth whole.

Turns out, more than just Jensen's lips taste good with honey. It takes the whole tube to try the rest.

#

On the edge of his mind's shadow, there's a soft plunk, and a long, slow roll, like the first drips of coffee falling into a decanter before dawn. Jensen's eyes snap open, a gasp on his lips, though he can't tell if it's fear, lust, or just surprise pressing the pillow over his face. He lays still, heart pounding in his chest as his surroundings start to come into focus--the thick weave of Jared's favorite Domenico Vacca shirt twisted in a knot against his chest, the crinkle of yellow paper in his fist. He remembers and wishes he didn’t.

Boxes of Jared stand cockeyed in uneven stacks around him, all the things Jensen's managed to bring himself to put away.

Jared had done a lot of living in his short (way too short) life. He had a lot of stuff, most of which was just that, stuff, easily piled into boxes and shoved aside. Sorting all of it had taken Jen most of the morning and left him with just the things Jensen had lived in with him. Jared's shirts; his favorite one commandeered from a photo shoot in which Jensen wore one just like it. Of course, that one ended up missing several buttons by the end of the day. Jared's cologne; better than coffee to get Jensen going in the morning. Jared's friggin' mint-flavored dental floss, his toothbrush, the Walt Disney World beach towel he uses(used) after he showered because regular bath towels weren't big enough or colorful enough for all that muscle, sinew, and...hair.

Everything left was Jared--him, his, used to be a part of us. Now there's no theirs, no ours, no his, no us. There's just I, me, mine, sometimes even you, when the second person is less lonely than the first.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." His mom's standing by the piano with a plastic tote full of cleaning supplies. Busy work is her Mama brand of therapy. "It's a shame, too. You seemed to be having a nice dream."

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but hell, does anyone? It does explain his mostly horizontal position on the window seat in the corner behind the piano. They'd piled the boxes there, out of the way, since there was no music in the apartment anymore, not ever.

Donna stoops and picks something up off the floor. "I think you dropped this."

As he reaches for the item, the envelope that he'd fallen asleep on crinkles, and he knows, without seeing, what's in his mother's hand. Apparently, they make a wedding cake flavored lip creme. Hell, he wouldn't put it past Jared to have had it made special.

It had probably cost a couple bucks, tops, but Jared had paid it. Sometime in those last hours of those last days, Jared had fished around in his wallet for a couple of crinkly ones, probably given the clerk a shrug and a smirk when he asked her to break a hundred, then shoved a tube of lip balm in his pocket like men bought Lip Smackers everyday.

Jensen takes it from her hand like it’s precious. It had been in Jared's pocket, then in the Personal Effects envelope that lies crumpled on the cushion beneath Jen, and now, it's in Jensen's hand, will be in Jensen's pocket. Jared never got to taste it.

"Thanks." He can't help but smile a little at the feel of the plastic in his hand.

"What?" His mama asks, a hint of relief and amusement in her voice. He knows it's been awhile since he's smiled even a little.

"'ts nothing," he dismisses.

She sets the tote down on the piano top with a decisive clunk and steps in front of her son, raises his chin with her hand as though he's ten years old and tugging at her shirt sleeve. "No, honey, it isn't," she coos. "I know a spark when I see it. Tell your mama what had you smiling like that."

Jensen turns his head out of her hand and coughs a little. "It's just...Jared. He really liked this stuff."

"He did? Why? Did he have dry lips?" A shiver goes down his spine all the way to his feet like the boom of Jared's laughter. Jen can't count the number of times Jared's sudden, riotous cackling had caused him to drop or spill the drink in his hand. He braces for the overzealous smack of one of those giant hands in the center of his back.

"Dry lips? No..." Jensen blushes, lets himself imagine Jared nudging his shoulder to tease. "He, um, he liked it when I wore it."

A beat, and the laughter stops, all the life gone out of the room the way it had out of Jared.

Jensen knows he said something wrong the second his mama turns on her heel and busies her hands by fumbling with dustrags and spray.

"That's nice, honey. I'm glad you have those memories."

Something white hot flares up in his chest and sinks down through his gut like heartburn in reciprocal, melts into places only Jared's ever touched. Jensen doesn't know why, Jared's kind of blurred the lines of appropriate in a blissfully ignorant, sucking the marrow out of life through a pixie stick kind of way, but for some reason, Jen feels like he should apologize.

Only when his mother doesn't smile and pat him on the shoulder does he realize he'd expected her to. It's what Jared would have done, what Jared had always done to say, 'it doesn't matter what people think, so long as I've got you.'

For a few heavy seconds, there's no sound in the room at all except the crinkle of paper as Jen shifts uncomfortably over the sat-upon envelope. When his mama speaks again, there's far less coaxing in her voice and more suggestion.

"I'm glad you're coming to stay with us, Jensen. It'll be good for you to get back to your roots. Rebuild from the foundation up. Make new memories."

Jensen doesn't get the implication right off. He's still a little slow on the uptake. Words like 'Jared', 'dead', 'gone', and 'alone' pop into his thoughts randomly and out of context.

"You remember Carrie Lang, don't you, dear?"

He doesn't switch mental gears all that quickly, but he answers. "Yeah. She was in my class, I think, or a year behind. I can't really remember."

"When Daddy called this morning, he said she asked about you in church yesterday. Heard you were going through a patch. Wanted to know how you were. Nice of her.” When Jensen doesn’t reply, he can see her debating whether to continue, words warring on the tip of her tongue like a toe dipping into too-cold water. “Pretty girl, don't you think?"

The gears finally shift, and Jensen wonders why he hadn’t seen that coming. Something stirs beneath the crushing numb within him, but he doesn’t want a discussion, not about this, so he just states the obvious.

"Mom, I'm gay." He feels guilty for saying it, though it isn't anything she hasn't heard before. His mother's not insensitive, just ignorant sometimes in a decidedly not blissful way, well, not blissful for him.

The pretense of a smile disappears as suddenly as it had appeared, and Jensen recognizes the sadness and disapproval that take its place all too well, even though his mama only spares him a sidelong glance.

"So you've said, honey. Jared was a handsome boy, very charming. I can see how you ..."

"Don't." He stands abruptly, sets the plastic tube of lip balm down on the piano top with a decisive thwack, and leaves it standing on end, vibrating like a tuning fork as it finds its balance. There's no anger in the gesture, no malintent, just a glaring finality that makes Donna cringe. "What are you doing, Mom?"

"I'm...cleaning, honey, so the apartment will be in order when you come back to Texas with me. I don't want you to be worried about anything here while you're home."

"I'm not worried, Mom." This bullshit is the farthest thing from his mind.

"I know you aren't." He doesn't miss the slight accusation in her voice. "Honestly, how two men can set up house and not hire a housekeeper is beyond me. A house needs a woman's touch. Just look at this piano. It's filthy." Her hands tremble as much as her voice as she applies a little more elbow grease to the spot she's been wiping for the last several minutes. "Smudges...all...over it..." She huffs.

As she says it, she removes the J2 from the center of Jared's heart with one swipe of her dusting cloth. Nothing but a feather duster has ever touched that. She polishes out the smeared hand print through the arrow with the next.

"People were looking at it after the funeral, you know. Jensen, honey, I was so embarrassed for you."

Seems these days I don't feel anything, unless it cuts me right down to the bone.

Jensen feels like the windows have flown open behind him. Cold fingers latch onto the notches in his spine. His voice, when he speaks is just a whisper.

"Embarrassed for me, or embarrassed for you?"

She keeps polishing. If anything, she scrubs harder, obviously avoiding his question. He takes her silence as answer enough, reads the duck in her gaze as punctuation. "Get out."

She nods curtly and gathers up her sprays and bottles. "Of course, honey. I'll be in the kitchen..."

"No. Get. Out. Take your things and go back home to Daddy." He takes a breath, consciously pulls the teeth out of his phrasing. "Please, Mama. Just go."

"But I thought..." There's a quiver in her voice, a whine, and since when did his mama start begging him? He wonders if she even heard him swallow his anger and his pride for her benefit. Of course she hadn’t. She wasn't listening, and he feels like he's ten years old again, carefully recounting every detail of his day with excitement, knows now that the smile she gave him then was as empty as the one she gives him now.

Just fucking perfect.

"I know what you thought." Anger laces the words, a hiss he seldom hears in his own voice. Something else makes his chin quiver, his lips unruly around the choked words. "You thought you could come here and steer me back on the narrow path. You thought Jared was just this charming queer boy who led me into temptation, and now that he's finally out of the picture..." He takes a shuddering breath and looks around him at what's left of 'us'. "You thought we'd just take Jared and stuff him into boxes and put him away, like locking his dogs in the bathroom. Then, you thought I'd just go back to dating girls and making grandkids for you.”

He pauses, takes another shuddering breath. “So, this thing where you come and stay with me for a couple weeks and take me home? What is that? You catching me on the rebound? Setting me straight before I jump into bed with some other guy who tells me I'm gay?"

He gives her a moment to deny the accusation, watches the tears well up in her eyes, and her throat tighten around words that only meet her eyes. She takes long enough for him to know that he's right.

"I'm sorry. That's not gonna happen, Mama."

"Baby, I..."

"Don't call me that! I'm not your baby anymore, and I don't need you to wipe my nose, or kiss my owies. I don't need you to run my life. I can make my own decisions. I chose Jared, and now I'm dealing with that. But I'm not going to deal with it by pretending it wasn't real. Just because you're here and he's not doesn't make him gone. He was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I won't do that. If you can't handle that, after all this time, then you need to go." A beat. "No. You know what? Just go. I need you to not be here right now."

He doesn't remember ever talking to his mother like that. He thinks Jared may have said some similar things to his parents, back when they were just coming out, but Jared had always had a way of talking without talking back. Jen had never learned that. Now, he feels like he's cut off his one good arm.

Donna, of course, does what every overprotective mother would do when her son cuts the apron strings. She cries.

Fuck! He hates it when his mama cries. And this is so fucking not about her! She's not allowed to be hurt. She's supposed to make the hurt go away.

Over her shoulder, Jensen can see the mantle, the picture of Jared in his pink-striped shirt, with his arms wrapped around Jensen, can hear his father, 'put your arms around him, son.'

Fucking called him Son! Made them believe that the two of them finally belonged, were welcome, accepted...

Jen's hands tremble violently. He reaches for something, anything to make them stop, and finds the can of furniture polish which only falls over with a clunk on the piano top. Blood pounds in his ears so loudly he doesn't think, definitely not about throwing things, but he does. He flings the can of Pledge across the room and takes out half the frames on the mantle. They shatter into shards that slide across the hardwood. Fragments of broken glass reflect torn, crumpled pictures and spears of cold, stark light from the steel-grey sky outside, his life in a mirrorball, shattered in the middle of an empty dance floor.

Doesn't matter. No one's dancing.

"I said, get out!"

She does, whimpering and wiping at her eyes, with only the clothes on her back and her purse. When the door closes, he calls the doorman, tells him to hail her a cab, offers him a hundred dollar tip to give her a tissue, but he still locks the door behind her. If she can have selective hearing, then he can pretend he doesn't hear her crying in the hallway for fifteen minutes before pushing the button for the elevator.

#

Jensen watches the taxi pull away from the curb through his loft window, and before he turns completely around, he's aware everything that's been in place to hold him up since Jared died is gone. He feels himself start to lean like a stilthouse after a landslide, swears the ground is moving beneath him.

A tremor starts somewhere behind his stomach, and it isn't hunger. He's the coldest he's ever been, and his whole body aches from shivers that squeeze and pull every muscle, alternately wringing then stretching. Something forces its way to the surface, like vomit, only he hasn't eaten, has nothing to expel. Instead, he’s writhing and burning, choking as if whatever's there has been lodged in his throat for a long time, and his gag reflex has only now kicked in.

His fingers curl into claws. Whatever's here is primal, needs to scratch, to bite. It’s visceral like rough sex that aches for a week afterward.

His foot, blindly lurching because he doesn't have anywhere to go and just can't fucking stand still, crunches over broken glass. Between his shoes, Jared's smiling face glimmers under crystal shards.

"What the fuck are you smiling about?" The words rend their way out of him, drag droplets of spit with them that shower down over the broken pictures of his life. "You think that's funny, don't you? I threw my own mother out! What's so fucking funny about that?"

He doesn't know where the anger comes from, but it comes, complete with blown out pupils and foaming at the mouth, so overpowering that his breath actually rasps and gurgles because he doesn't have the control to swallow.

"Is this funny?" He asks, raising the tattered pieces of photo paper to eye level as though the face could magically become a body. He turns the knobs on the gas fire starter until the fireplace lights with a whoosh, blue flames licking around char that slowly grows orange.

He's hypnotized by the play of feather-light touches over nearly petrified wood for a few seconds, paralyzed at the sudden loss of suggestion and guidance that have been a constant for days, then tosses the picture inside. "There! Now I threw your ass out, too. Should’ve done it a long time ago, spared us all a lot of trouble!"

He whirls around, and there's the rest of Jared stacked within reach.

"Here! Take all your shit while you're at it!"

It takes him fifteen minutes to unpack what it took him all morning to sort and box. He lurches from carton to carton like a blinded drunkard and tears at them with his fingernails until they're bloody. When he gouges a big enough hole in the top to get a hand inside, he drags out clothes and books, trophies and awards, throws them all in the fireplace, then heaves the box across the room and tears into the next carton.

"Fucking son of bitch! I told you! I told you this was going to happen. It always fucking happens!"

He doesn't feel the tears streaming down his face as he sobs his accusation. Doesn't feel anything except hurt, hurt, hurt. Screaming and ranting is just better than rocking in a corner somehow, and he can't stop it, doesn't want to.

"You couldn't just take 'no' for an answer, could you?!"

#

"Stay."

It's long fingers over rib bones, settling at his waist and turning him away from the edge of the bed that stop Jensen--nothing to do with actually wanting to stay. He's read Tex enough times to know he's one that leaves. Too bad the book never explained why.

"I have to get home."

"No you don't. You just have to leave." Jared sits up, drags the sheets with him and wraps Jen up in skin, and sex, and Jared. "You can sleep here. I don't bite. Neither do the dogs, well, Harley does, but only if I tell him to."

Jensen can't help the small defeated chuckle that bubbles out of his chest. "It's not that..."

"Jen, we've been coming back here every night for two months. I think it's time to stop pretending it ends at sunrise."

"We can't."

"I can. I know I can." He slides down off the bed, kneels between Jen's feet on the floor, and rubs his hands lazily over Jensen's thighs. "All I need is right here, Jensen Ackles. Waking up in my own bed with all of this wrapped around me...?" He sinks to the floor, lets his head fall against Jen's leg and rocks the opposite knee back and forth nervously with one hand on the kneecap. Jensen can't help but thread his fingers in Jared's hair. "It's all I think about."

"I know." Jen hears Jared's breath hitch at the revelation. It's not just pillow talk or promises in the dark. It's the truth, because he never could lie to Jared, except when the lie is something he believes himself, and Jared knows it. "I know, Jay. I think about it, too, but I'm not good at relationships. You deserve someone who is."

"I don't want someone else." Jared's voice is petulant, now, and Jensen can't tell if he's being played or not, doesn't really care, because if someone's going to force the issue between them, it has to be Jared. Even Jensen knows they can't go on like this forever. Something has to change.

Jared shifts his head off Jensen's leg and turns to look up into Jen's eyes. "It doesn't have to be about a relationship, you know. It can still just be about sex, if that's what you want." There's an impish grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. A little bit of dried kiss-spit glistens on his chin and makes him too damned cute for words.

"How is me staying the night, every night, just about sex?"

Jared raises up on his knees again, wraps his arms around Jensen's waist and the rucked-up sheet he's swathed in. "It's about sex at night." He kisses Jensen's kneecap. "And sex in the morning." He kisses Jensen's hip. Jen feels his stomach quiver as Jared's lips ghost over it to his belly button. "It's about sex in the shower." Jen arches and sucks in a breath as Jared laves his navel with that long Padalicki tongue. "It's about sex before breakfast." A kiss to the sternum. "And sex after breakfast." Kiss to the left pec. "Sex before work." Kiss to the right. "Sex during..."

By then, Jared's over Jen's clavicle and has his teeth gently fastened onto the jawbone under his chin as he gazes intently into Jensen's eyes. Jen knows his own stare must be glassy and blown as his breath heaves. There's a whine of protest in his chest, but Jared just bites a little harder, makes Jen wince, then draws back. He stares into Jensen’s eyes, blows a piece of hair off his forehead that’s blocking his view.

"Fuck, Jen. Just stay because I love you."

Jared's lips fasten over his before Jensen can say anything, and by the time he can remember what he was going to say, it's morning. The sun's streaming in orange patterns over the tanned lines of Jared's chest as Jay whuffles soft snores into Jensen's hair. Jen turns into the lips, brushes a soft kiss over them, and closes his eyes before he remembers to answer.

"Back at ya."

#

Jen's about to yell at the dogs when he realizes he's the one making the keening, whimpering sound he hears over the rustle of clothes and cardboard, the sizzle and pop of plastic crackling in the fire. He realizes it about the time the whine becomes a hacking cough. His eyes burn and water with tears that aren't just grief.

Fucking flu is closed. They almost never burn actual wood in the damned thing. He squints his eyes and fumbles over the stone hearth until he finds the lever. He opens it and feels a draft tug at his pant legs as the smoke starts to draw up the chimney. It's not nearly fast enough, though. Both dogs are hacking and digging at the bottom of the apartment door, trying to shove their noses into the fresher air on the other side.

Jensen staggers to the front window. It's the same one they hauled the piano through, and it swings outward into open air, no storm window behind it, as of yet. He thrusts his head out, takes a few whooping breaths. The press of the window ledge across his chest is less painful, somehow, than the pain inside.

It's windy at the top of the building. Cloud breath funnels down between the towering skyscrapers that line the street. His face freezes under several days of unshaven scruff.

Jen drops his head, and the smoke-tears in his eyes magnify everything, make the ground seem closer. He remembers the day they lifted the piano through this window, the way he'd almost fallen out, fallen into Jared's arms instead. The wind sucks the breath from his lungs in sobs that he tells himself are just coughs caused by the smoke. But the smoke has long since cleared, and the street still looks too close, swims before him like a mirage oasis dancing in the desert. He wonders--if he reaches now, will Jared catch him?

The part of his brain that's still just Jensen Ackles says, no. No, Jared won't catch him, because Jared's dead, and there's no such things as ghosts. Jared can't catch him. But the part of his brain that was 'us' feels the pressure ease across his chest as he leans further out the window and tells himself it's the hand of God his mama always said was guiding him. Who's he to go against the hand of God?

He's already got one leg up on the ledge when a searing pain grips the other. He falls back inside with a thunk onto the cold floor and looks up to see Harley releasing a bite-hold on his calf.

"What the fuck?" He's not even thinking about the window anymore. The thunk against the hardwood seems to have knocked the tears out of his eyes enough for everything to swim back into focus. Harley bit him! Harley doesn't bite.

...only if I tell him to.

Jensen sits with a start, crabwalks through the pile of scattered clothes and shredded cardboard until he's flat against the wall. A few feet away, Sadie whines in the back of her throat, her mouth open, and her whole body wagging in front of her tail. She's making that sound that Jared always said was, "Dada," the one she only made when Jared first came through the door after a long day at work.

Harley barks beside him, breaking into a higher octave at the end, with a confused yip, the way a puppy barks when the ball it's chasing makes it halfway up an incline and then starts to roll back, chasing the puppy instead. Jensen follows both dogs' gaze upward to the edge of the piano.

It's a mess, just like the rest of the apartment; pieces of Jared flung every which way, sprawled over the top like the floor of a teenager's bedroom, and yet, balanced precariously on its narrow base, the tube of lip balm stands like the Statue of Liberty's torch. It seems just a curious coincidence until the thing friggin' moves.

While Jensen's gaze fixes firmly on the container, the plastic vibrates, just a shiver at first, then actually wobbles back and forth. Both dogs bark frantically, and as he hauls on their collars, the lip creme falls over and rolls to the floor. Jensen's no physicist, but the tube rolls much farther than seems possible using just the momentum of the fall. It sounds like a roulette ball, spinning round and round, long after the wheel itself has stopped, and comes to an abrupt halt at the base of his guitar stand.

Jensen stares at the thing lying there until the silence left in the wake of its display becomes too loud, choking the skeptical whispers of disbelief that tickle the hairs on the back of his neck. He speaks, if only to make the quiet shut the fuck up.

"J-Jay?"

It isn't the sudden rush of ache and loss, or the tickle of things he just doesn’t believe in clawing to the surface of his mind. It’s not the fact that no one's got their windows open in January, and it’s fucking cold enough to make him ache in his bones. It's not even the fact that a second ago, he’d been planning to "fall" out.

It's the fogged up glass and the J2 heart on the pane that makes Jensen heave his guts out onto the floor.

Part Four

P.S. If y'all have a minute and are interested in seeing a fic awards comm, Please check Ten Commandments Post

And if you could take the POLL, would make us squee.