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ht_murrayTitle:White Ladder, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
reel_spn Part 4/5, aka "Bridge Chapter Over Troubled Waters"
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
tru_faith_lost
Movie Adapted: Ghost
Genre: Slash, RPS
Characters/Pairings:Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki(mostly Chris and Chad in this chapter)
Rating:NC-17
Word Count:5,109, this part.
Warnings: Graphic m/m sex and language. Plus, well there's a reason it's called, Ghost and not something like "Significant Other."
Warning this part: Yes, it's the evil bridge chapter from hell. Gotta burn the bridge to get to the yummy sexin in the next chap. Apologies to all...Also, I went with Chris growing up or at least visiting a ranch when he was a boy. No idea if that's true, remember, this is AU...
Part One| Part Two|Part Three
Chapter Four—The Other Side
Chris' fist aches from pounding, but not half as much as his head pounds from listening, ears straining intently for a response that never comes.
"Jen, open the fucking door! I gave the doorman a twenty spot to ring me in, since your lazy ass wouldn't answer the buzz, and I ain't leaving 'til you pay me back!" Idle threats are apparently the cloak a desperate man wears over his fears.
He's so gonna use that in one of his songs if he ever gets past this friggin' door and finds out that Jensen is not lying dead on the floor or some shit.
Fucking Chad! Chris doesn’t know where Murray’s getting his intel, but the dude’s going to have airport security doing a cavity search on his ass if he’s scaring the shit out of Chris for no reason.
He thinks Chad might be onto something, though. Jen’s taking way too long to answer, and if the doorman hadn’t admitted to hailing Donna a cab, Chris would think Jen had gone home to Texas with his Mama. Last he’d heard, that was the plan.
"Dude! I know you're in there. Chad called me from the airport. He's on his way here as we speak. So, if you don't let me in, I can't call and tell him not to come." He pauses, breath heaving from his lungs as he rests his head against the door. "C'mon, dude, I know you don't want Chad over here. You think he won't bring the gay joke-of-the-day and a can of fart spray? Seriously..."
Seriously, who does he think he's kidding?
His head thunk-thunks against the door in exasperation while he shakes some sensation back into his battered knuckles. "Jeeeennnn." It comes out like the bray of a donkey left alone in the back pasture, and he doesn't even care that he won't be able to sing for a month after this.
A shadow moves just under the door, and Chris almost collapses with relief until a whuffling snort sneezes through the crack, followed by a soft whimper. It's one of the dogs. Sadie, he thinks, since Harley's never seemed to spare him so much as a half-hearted tail wag. He's about to tell her to go get Jensen, like she's Lassie and he's friggin' Timmy, when he realizes he doesn't just hear the dog breathing under the door.
He can see it.
Each huff and whimper reaches out to the toe of his boot like the fingers of a ghost twining in lover's hair. The cuff of his pant leg ruffles lazily in a gust of icy wind.
What was it Chad had said about the window?
"J.R., you open this door right the fuck now!" He doesn't even care anymore about niceties or disturbing the neighbors. Let them call the police, the fire department, the fucking SWAT team. At least one of the sons of bitches has to know how to open a friggin' door. That's his best friend in there, and damn if he's gonna let him...do whatever the hell it is that Chad seems to think he's doing. God, this is so fucked up.
"Jeeeen!" A heavy boot to the door punctuates the guttural growl in his throat. "Jennnnyyy!" Another kick. Sure, Jensen hates to be called Jenny, but he's not answering anything else.
Chris half expects the elevator to spring open and one of New York City's finest to press a gun to his back, and he's pretty sure he wouldn't stop even then. All he sees is red, feels pounding, kicking, throbbing, in his bones, his joints, his fucking heart. But the door doesn't budge. It's ancient, solid wood with a dead bolt that goes a good two inches into the frame. You don't move into the loft of an upper Manhattan apartment building and then welch on security. Charlie, the doorman, obviously doesn't count for squat.
He rails on the door for what feels like hours, but his stamina's for shit these days, too many hours behind a guitar and a microphone, too few at the gym, and it's probably only a minute before he collapses against the frame. He leans against hardwood and slides to the floor, regrets it immediately as the cold draft from the other side freezes the streams of sweat rolling down his back. Chris arches away reflexively like the cold air is a tazer, and when he does, the heels of his hands press into the floor on either side of himself.
At first, he thinks the cold nudge against the back of his hand is just the dog’s nose, but something presses beneath his palm, bites with metal teeth into the soft skin, colder somehow than it should be. Sucking in a breath, Chris jerks his hand away and looks down. He doesn't know what he expects to see--a roach, some kind of fang-bearing spider, something malicious. Not a key.
But it is a key. The key. It has to be. He scrambles to his feet, drags the bit of metal up into his hand before rising, and only pauses for a second to close his eyes and pray silently before sliding it into the lock.
If he says 'hallelujah, amen' when it opens, his feet have become supersonic, because he's already too far into the room to hear his own voice.
"Jen!"
His breath billows out around him like white satin sheets, sliding over, around, and through his hair into the hallway. The long, sheer curtains that hang over the bank of windows on the side of the loft waft inward and float over the piano in the corner, transposing dim sunbeams in the overcast sky. The air is thin and brittle with a stench of something bitter, hot, and wet. It's stale, has permeated the entire space, unlike the metallic tang beneath, still warm in Chris' nostrils.
The cold hits his lungs and tickles into the hidden spaces like the filaments on a snowflake, and he coughs over raw, roughened vocal chords. He barely registers the mess in the apartment through the squint of his eyes and stumbles toward the couch where both dogs cower and quiver on the throw rug beside it.
The lamp from the endtable lies in pieces on the floor, its shards mixed with the remnants of what looks to have been a bottle of tequila and what used to be inside the bottle. As Chris draws closer to the back of the sofa, he can just make out one of Jensen's stocking clad feet splayed over the arm rest on the end. A few steps more reveal the frosted tips of Jensen's hair peeking over the cushions as Jen sits, propped cockeyed on the other side, his head braced in the crook between the back and the arm of the sofa.
Chris scrambles around to the front, expecting to find Jensen passed out after the long minutes of silence. But Jensen isn't passed out. He sits, eyes wide and glassy, gaze fixed on the window. With a shiver, whether of relief or impending dread, Chris isn’t sure, he goes to the window, pretends not to see the yellow puddle of vomit on the floor as he pulls it closed and fastens the latch.
"What're you trying to do, Jen? Freeze yourself to death?" The words die on his lips when the cold breeze is cut off, and his warm breath fogs up the glass. A heart materializes in the fog like the reflection of clouds in a lake when the sun breaks through. J2 is smeared in the middle, a tilt to the ‘J’ that looks eerily like Jared’s handwriting. He doesn't have to turn around to know that Jen's eyes are looking right through him at the very same thing. Chris feels the heat of the gaze. Hell, just heat. It's the first he's realized that Jensen's breath isn't rising above his head like Chris' has since he entered the loft.
Chris backs away from the window, watches the fog spread over the entire bank, steam rolling up from behind him like mist off a river in early fall. By the time he's back at Jensen's side, he isn't cold at all. He doesn't think it was ever cold where Jensen is. Something...someone's kept him warm and cocooned inside a bubble, a baby wrapped in layers of receiving blankets.
The only sound in the room is the thud of Chris' heart inside his rib-cage, a timpani solo that vibrates between his diaphragm and his eardrums. "Jen?"
Snapping from his reverie, Chris kneels beside the couch, stifles a grunt of pain as his knee grinds into some broken glass on the floor. He reaches for the edge of the throw rug to toss it and the glass aside and notices dark smears on the edge of the couch cushions. Dark red smears.
"Jen, Jen, Jen," he chants, snapping in his fingers in front of Jensen's face. "Jen, c'mon, dude. What'd you do? Fuck!" Jen doesn't answer, doesn't even fucking blink, and Chris bites back the urge to slap him, if not to snap him out of it, then for scaring the shit out of his best friend.
Jen moves, almost imperceptibly, just a minute shift in his posture from left to right as Chris gets in his face. Chris recognizes the gesture from the countless video game and pizza parties they've had together over the years. It's a 'dude, you make a better door than a window' dodge.
"No. N-n-no, you look at me, you son of a bitch." It's supposed to sound menacing, at the very least intimidating, but there's enough rise at the end of the statement to make it sound like a plea.
Desperate, Chris grabs the nearest ankle and jerks until both of Jensen's feet are on the floor beside him. He threads his hands around behind Jen's head and physically turns his face until their eyes meet.
"Look at me, Jen. Is this blood? Are you bleeding? Where do you hurt?"
Jen blinks then. His eyelashes are heavy and clumped together, dark with grief over red rims and sunken sockets. Chris' fingers scrape over the days-old stubble that line Jen's jaw as a great heaving sob bubbles out of Jensen's chest. That's all. Just one sob of heavy, alcohol-laden, puke breath, then Jen swallows it back down, goes back to just blinking.
Chris lets his eyes travel down Jen's neck, looking for the injury he's sure is there. More deep maroon stains streak over the front of Jensen's shirt, none of it fresh. Jen shakes in Chris' grasp, little tremors that vibrate like a cheap motel bed, either on the verge of breaking down, or beyond his body's capacity to continue. In his lap, Jensen's hands clench compulsively. Fresh blood squeezes between his fingers and runs over his knuckles.
Chris slides his hands down Jen's shoulders to his forearms, half expects Jensen’s head to loll back when it's released, but it stays balanced weakly over his neck, wobbles slightly with the motion of the cushions beneath him.
"What is this? What'd you do, man?" Chris gently pries apart the sticky fingers, looking for the source of the blood. "Jen, lemme see."
At first, he doesn't recognize the guitar pick. Last he'd seen it, the pick was under the glass frame above the mantle. Of course, there's nothing on the mantle now. The tiny piece of painted bone, dubbed the key to Jensen's heart, is just a bloody, triangular blade in Jensen's clenched hands. A dozen cuts streak over Jen's palms, at least half of those look deep enough to need stitches.
"Shit, dude," Chris sighs sympathetically. "This is a mess, you know that?"
Jen's chest starts to heave again, and Chris looks up beneath the dripping eyelashes again, finds his gaze returned for the first time since he arrived.
Jensen blinks slowly, sheds one heavy drop from the corner of each eye before opening them again with a shuddering sigh. He holds the guitar pick up between his thumb and forefinger the way Jared had held it up for him the day they moved in, when each of them kissed it for good luck.
His eyes fixed on Chris’, Jen takes a choked breath, mouth moving with what looks like profound effort. "My heart bleeds..."
Chris takes the pick without a word and presses his own hands over the gashes in Jensen’s.
#
Tommy Spence was a hemophiliac. Not that Chris had known what that was when he was ten and lived half a mile down the road from Tommy. Chris' then best friend probably should have told him the whole blood brothers thing was a bad idea. Instead, it had been Tommy's screaming mother who'd made that all too clear after the boys staggered into the kitchen wearing red t-shirts when they'd left in white.
That had been less blood than this, Chris thinks, and he doesn't know if it's worse there's so much or that Jen doesn’t seem to notice what he's done to himself.
Chris pours peroxide over the open cuts, winces and hisses sympathetically as the wounds foam over, pink and fizzy. His hand tightens around Jensen's wrists, expecting him to pull away, but Jen doesn't even blink. Chris knows it hurts, can't imagine anything painful enough to make someone numb to that, but Jensen doesn't flinch.
At the funeral, Jensen's eyes had been wild and lost, like the eyes of calves on dehorning day when the headgate closes on them for the first time. Jared's death, hell, watching Jared die, couldn't have burned any less than that electric dehorning iron, couldn't have suffocated any less than those long-ago clouds of black, roiling smoke that had buckled the calves' knees and rolled their eyes in their heads.
The ironic thing about that, is intense enough pain has a way of overriding the source. Chris remembers all too well the daily walks through the herd in the weeks that followed dehorning to look for bleeding wounds where the scabs had been rubbed off. Daddy always said they had to check because the iron had killed the nerves, and the calves couldn't feel if there were maggots festering in the wounds. If they found an infected wound, they cleaned it, and the calves usually blinked up at them blankly, just the way Jen is looking at him now.
Chris clenches his jaw and looks away. Fuck! He wishes Jen would...hell, he doesn't know, groan, grunt, yell, cuss. He wishes Jen would smack him upside the head and give him the chance to turn the other cheek. He deserves that much for what he's done.
This is all his fault.
#
If Grady's back is a little too bony when Chris smacks him on the shoulder and says, "Let me buy you a drink, friend," then Chris doesn't notice. If there's a little too much sweat on the dude's brow, too much shift in his gaze, Chris doesn't pay it much mind. He's too busy watching Jared trip over his words and his feet, while he's supposed to be dancing with Jensen.
The next Bond he is not. Chris swirls the whiskey in his glass and figures that's why Jared's always so damned goofy...or is it Pluto?...well, always such a big, dopey, cartoon puppy dog. Everything Jared thinks or feels is so friggin' obvious, the only way not to offend half the people he meets is to paint his actions with a smile that leaves no doubt the foot in his mouth has gummi bear flavored toe jam under the nails.
Chris feels for the kid. It takes a lot to make Jared squirm, but then, a little bit of self-consciousness might not kill him. Jen was bound to rub off on...was bound to, uh, bestow some of his personality on Jared. It goes both ways, though. He guesses that's how it's supposed to work, what makes Jensen and Jared work so well.
Chris watches them dance for awhile. Jen normally wouldn't, but he's still giddy people liked his song. It's a good thing, too, because Jen's just high enough, at the moment, to miss the fact that Jared's dancing even more erratically than usual. If that's even possible.
The bartender slides two fresh glasses up on the counter. Gary, or what the fuck ever his name is, reaches for his glass hesitantly, but Chris claps a hand on his shoulder again, says, "Drink up, my man." He hikes his glass up in a toast. "To my best friend, Jensen, and the dopey-assed kid that just bought him a fifty-thousand dollar ring. May Jared grow the balls to give him the damned thing before he kills someone with all that nervous energy." He wiggles his eyebrows and his hips clumsily, mocking Jared's clumsy dance moves, and Grady laughs nervously, eyes wide.
Chuckling, Chris leans in and whispers, "But not a word about it, dude. Supposed to be a surprise, ya know?"
"Yeah, man, yeah." Grady's hands shake a little as he raises his glass to his lips.
Chris' second set starts a few minutes later, and he doesn't think about what's his name again until Jensen wipes a trembling, blood-streaked hand across his forehead and whispers, "Grady," to the officers on the scene.
After that, Chris never forgets him, never forgets his name's not Gary.
#
Chris wonders just how much booze had been in the now-empty Tequila bottle before it ended up smashed on the floor as Jensen's eyes start to slide shut over the vapor cloud he's blowing in Chris' face. He's stopped gripping Jen's wrists so tightly, since the only movement Jensen makes outside the half-hitched sobs in his chest are barely noticeable tremors of physical and emotional exhaustion that ripple just below the surface. With Chris' head now blocking Jen's line of sight to the window that's held him enrapt for fuck only knows how long, Chris feels Jen start to succumb to the bone-weariness, catches his best friend's head on his shoulder like a parent would catch a child as it cries itself to sleep.
With Jen sleeping, maybe passed out, his pulse just strong enough that Chris isn't worried about blood loss, the cuts in his hands are dealt with hastily. Thick white bandages wrap around gauze padding and turn red slowly enough to satisfy Chris that the bleeding has stopped before he ties them off.
Not until the wounds are patched and Jensen has been laid back on the couch to sleep does Chris get a good look at the carnage around him. His eyes sweep over the broken glass, the sprawl of clothing and books across the floor and furniture, the dark smudge of soot on the ceiling and walls. He runs his hands through his hair, the rolled up sleeves of his button-down shirt pulling at his biceps, and wills away the nausea that festers at the base of his throat like sludge in a septic cistern.
"Fuck, Jen, I'm so sorry."
#
Lucky for Chris, there's a bottle of something strong enough to scald the hair off a hog carcass on top of the fridge. He knows from experience that's where Jen keeps the good stuff, even if the liquor in the racks above the kitchen island is technically more expensive. Texas boys have a different value system, comes from growing up in a whole other country.
He uses the good, rot-gut burn to kill some of the overactive nerves in his guilty stomach before he starts to clean up the mess. He loses himself in deliberately pointless thoughts that keep his mind from drifting anywhere near speculation on how the place got trashed in the first place. He’s known Jen a long time. Jensen Ackles doesn’t just fly off the handle, doesn’t ever think what he feels is important enough to cause a scene. Scenes are saved for the paying customers, and no one was here but Jen.
Chris empties the last of the broken glass from the floor into the trashcan and takes another hit off the bottle to chase away the guilt monster while he tries to shake the eerie chill he hasn’t been able to shake since entering the apartment. He’s looking for the thermostat to crank up the heat, fingers lingering in confusion over the control box for the door buzzer when the friggin’ thing squawks at him and nearly makes him break another glass.
Biting back a curse, he pushes the intercom button. “Yeah?”
#
“I can’t do this, man,” Chad says as he ducks his gaze. The words are semi-slurred, somewhere between buzzed and had a few too many, maybe only one sheet to the wind, if three is completely trashed. Anyway, he’s gone enough not to realize he’s still go the mike keyed.
Jared knocks his hand away from the intercom button, more to see if he still can than anything.
“Look, man, I’m sorry.” Jared doesn’t want to do this to his friend. He’s not the guy that uses peoples’ deep, dark secrets to manipulate them and get what he needs. But Jared’s not exactly sure what he is anymore, just that Jensen’s in trouble, and he needs to fix that before he can move on. Chad’s the only one that can help.
"Chad?"
For a second there's nothing, just more nervous shuffling of Chad’s feet, one of those, 'forgot my line' moments. Chad was probably expecting Jen to answer, had a smart-assed spiel planned in his head to counteract the nervousness that always twangs in the air between Jen and himself.
Jared had joked once that Chad was jealous Jared ended up with Jensen. He’s still not sure Jensen ever got that it was a joke and was supposed to be flattered that he won. Instead, Jen had looked a whole lot like he’d just found out his ex had been diagnosed with an STD.
Right now, Chad looks a whole lot like the STD.
Jared waves his hand in front of Chad’s face, doesn’t get too close, because the thought of his hand actually going through still freaks him out way more than it should, and he’s saving his energy. “C’mon. Answer him. We need to get up there.”
“Is Jen okay?” Chad finally asks.
"He’s been better. Are you drunk?" Chris’ disdain would be a lot more effective if he didn’t sound half a sheet to the wind himself. Jared just makes out what has to be the sound of Chris beating his head against the wall. Lord knows, Chad’s probably the last one Kane wants to deal with just then. Chad’s not too excited about the whole thing himself, judging by the way his hand once more lingers too long on the button, postponing the inevitable. A car horn blares as Chad finally releases the key, and Jared know Chris has to have gotten an earful.
They can almost hear Chris scrub at the ringing in his ears as he answers. "Get your ass up here, fucktard.”
#
“The fuck you still doing here?” Chris asks as he opens the door. “I thought you had a plane to catch.”
Jared can’t tell if that's a laugh or a stifled sob Chad makes in reply. "They wouldn't let me on the plane. Said I needed to sober up first. I think they thought I was talking to myself..." He looks at Jared accusingly, then ducks his eyes and buries his chin in his chest, fidgets as though waiting for an invitation inside.
Jared brushes past Chris into the apartment, makes his way over to the couch where Jensen is sleeping without looking up. After waiting a second, then coughing awkwardly into his shirt, Chad follows.
Jared sits beside Jensen on the couch, brushes fingers over his sleeping face, and cringes inwardly at the red stains on his white-wrapped hands. Jay wants to take both those hands in his and kiss away the hurt, but he knows the hurt isn’t under those bandages, and he’s no angel. All he can do is what he’s been doing, sit and wait for the cavalry to arrive.
How fucked up is it that Chad Michael Murray is the cavalry?
Chad stands and stares at Jen with his hands shoved into the pockets of his baggy jeans.
“It wasn’t his fault, “Jared says. “Tell him.” He knows he’s asking a lot. “Chad, tell him it wasn’t his fault.” Sadie sidles up to Chad and leans against his thigh as Chris starts to slink up to the counter for another drink.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Chris’ glass thunks against the marble top, Chad’s words hitting their mark. “The fuck do you know about it?” Chris growls. He abandons the glass and takes a hit of whiskey right out of the bottle.
Jared recognizes the sound Chad makes this time as amusement frosted with relief. At least Jay had been right about where Chris’ head is at. It gives Chad enough credibility and courage to go on.
“Dude,” Chad chuckles, “you think you’re the only one who knew what Jared was planning that night? Since when could Jay ever keep a secret? Hell, he even called me before they left the house that night. The only person who didn’t know about Jensen’s ring was Jensen. Anyone could’ve jumped them in that alley.”
The only sound in the room is the slosh of the whiskey.
Chad swallows, rubs his hand through his hair and offers, “Shit, Jared was practically handing out invitations in the men’s room while you were coercing Jen up on the stage. He was so happy. Nervous, but happy. I don’t think Jen knows how happy he made Jay.”
Jared feels Chad’s eyes on him as he traces the line of Jensen’s lips with his thumb.
Chris digests the monologue. “So, Grady…?”
“Had probably been sitting at the bar working up his courage all night, just waiting for them to leave so he could make his move.”
“How do you know? You were in L.A. I just talked to the cops before I came over. Grady hasn’t admitted to anything.”
A beat. Chad takes a breath and lets it out slowly. It's more restraint than Jared has ever known Chad to show, and Jay’s sorry that what happened to him seems to have sucked the life out of everyone around him.
Jared turns, puts a hand on Chad’s elbow. “Go ahead. Tell him.”
"My uncle Jack had this old dog named Bowser.” Chad whispers into his shirt. “Dad said he was obsessed with Sha Na Na, whatever the fuck that was.” A weak laugh. “Uncle Jack was a dick. Didn't really give a fuck about anything but that old dog. "
"Anyway, I was pretty sure my uncle didn't even know I existed until he showed up at my school that day. I was just messing around in the yard, shooting hoops with some of the guys. I turned around, and there he was at the fence. Scared the living crap out of me." A breathy chuckle crackles out of his throat. "I thought something had happened to my parents, ya know? People showing up out of the blue like that, or calling, usually means bad news."
Chris ducks away, and Jared feels a stab of guilt in knowing Christian had been the one to call everyone, after…
"So, I talked to him, and he said he was going away for awhile. Would I take care of Bowser? What was I supposed to say?"
Jared nudges Chad. “Dude, cut to the chase. I know it’s hard, but…”
"Shut up, would you? I’m doing what you asked, now just let me do it my way, all right?"
"I didn't say anything," Chris interjects.
"I wasn’t talking to you."
About then, Chris seems to decide that maybe Chad is four sheets to the wind, and starts to walk away. "Dude, you're drunk. Why don’t you go sleep it off?”
"Please. There's a point to this, I swear. You just gotta let me do it my way." Chad says it without a 'fuck' or a 'bitch', asserting that if this is a joke, there's no punchline.
"Fine...just...okay. I'm listening."
Another brief pause and a long draw of breath. "My uncle was dead when I got to his house after school that day. I found him in his chair with an old episode of "Bonanza" blaring on the television and Bowser lying at his feet with his bowl between his teeth."
"So, it was suicide? He planned it, and that's why he asked you?"
"No...he'd been dead for days."
Chris’ silence speaks for him. Really, what's anyone supposed to say to that?
"I know, man," Chad chuckles dryly. “I know it sounds crazy. What the fuck, right? I mean, I'm way better looking than Haley Joel Osment.” There’s no laughter in the words this time. Chad rubs his palms over the sides of his jeans. “That's why I only ever told one other person. I'm pretty sure that's how he knew to..."
"Murray." The growl is back in Chris’ voice. "You tell me that you see Jared, and I'm not just going to hail you a cab back to the airport. I'm gonna call airport security, tell 'em you've got a bomb shoved up your ass, and go down there myself to make sure they find one." Chris shakes his head, paces a few steps and stops. “Seriously, what the fuck are you thinking? Jen’s a mess! You can’t just come in here spouting some hoodoo shit like that!”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“This is where Jared is.”
A caterpillar wearing golf shoes makes its way up Jared’s neck and starts to pull at the hairs in the crown of his head one at a time. It doesn’t take a physical body to feel the tension in the air, nor actual eyes to see the clench in Chris’ jaw and fists.
Jay leaps out of the way as Chad steps back out of Chris’ reach, because as cool as that movie was, Jared’s not about to play Patrick Swayze to Chad’s Whoopi Goldberg and find out what really is going on in that boy’s head (or his pants, for that matter.)
By the time Jared makes it to the corner of the room and Jensen’s guitar, Chris is in Murray’s face enough to throw Chad off his balance. They’re both falling backward onto the couch when Jared picks up the guitar. No one but Jared hears it rattle.
Part Five
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.
reel_spn Part 4/5, aka "Bridge Chapter Over Troubled Waters"Author:
tru_faith_lostMovie Adapted: Ghost
Genre: Slash, RPS
Characters/Pairings:Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki(mostly Chris and Chad in this chapter)
Rating:NC-17
Word Count:5,109, this part.
Warnings: Graphic m/m sex and language. Plus, well there's a reason it's called, Ghost and not something like "Significant Other."
Warning this part: Yes, it's the evil bridge chapter from hell. Gotta burn the bridge to get to the yummy sexin in the next chap. Apologies to all...Also, I went with Chris growing up or at least visiting a ranch when he was a boy. No idea if that's true, remember, this is AU...
Part One| Part Two|Part Three
Chapter Four—The Other Side
Chris' fist aches from pounding, but not half as much as his head pounds from listening, ears straining intently for a response that never comes.
"Jen, open the fucking door! I gave the doorman a twenty spot to ring me in, since your lazy ass wouldn't answer the buzz, and I ain't leaving 'til you pay me back!" Idle threats are apparently the cloak a desperate man wears over his fears.
He's so gonna use that in one of his songs if he ever gets past this friggin' door and finds out that Jensen is not lying dead on the floor or some shit.
Fucking Chad! Chris doesn’t know where Murray’s getting his intel, but the dude’s going to have airport security doing a cavity search on his ass if he’s scaring the shit out of Chris for no reason.
He thinks Chad might be onto something, though. Jen’s taking way too long to answer, and if the doorman hadn’t admitted to hailing Donna a cab, Chris would think Jen had gone home to Texas with his Mama. Last he’d heard, that was the plan.
"Dude! I know you're in there. Chad called me from the airport. He's on his way here as we speak. So, if you don't let me in, I can't call and tell him not to come." He pauses, breath heaving from his lungs as he rests his head against the door. "C'mon, dude, I know you don't want Chad over here. You think he won't bring the gay joke-of-the-day and a can of fart spray? Seriously..."
Seriously, who does he think he's kidding?
His head thunk-thunks against the door in exasperation while he shakes some sensation back into his battered knuckles. "Jeeeennnn." It comes out like the bray of a donkey left alone in the back pasture, and he doesn't even care that he won't be able to sing for a month after this.
A shadow moves just under the door, and Chris almost collapses with relief until a whuffling snort sneezes through the crack, followed by a soft whimper. It's one of the dogs. Sadie, he thinks, since Harley's never seemed to spare him so much as a half-hearted tail wag. He's about to tell her to go get Jensen, like she's Lassie and he's friggin' Timmy, when he realizes he doesn't just hear the dog breathing under the door.
He can see it.
Each huff and whimper reaches out to the toe of his boot like the fingers of a ghost twining in lover's hair. The cuff of his pant leg ruffles lazily in a gust of icy wind.
What was it Chad had said about the window?
"J.R., you open this door right the fuck now!" He doesn't even care anymore about niceties or disturbing the neighbors. Let them call the police, the fire department, the fucking SWAT team. At least one of the sons of bitches has to know how to open a friggin' door. That's his best friend in there, and damn if he's gonna let him...do whatever the hell it is that Chad seems to think he's doing. God, this is so fucked up.
"Jeeeen!" A heavy boot to the door punctuates the guttural growl in his throat. "Jennnnyyy!" Another kick. Sure, Jensen hates to be called Jenny, but he's not answering anything else.
Chris half expects the elevator to spring open and one of New York City's finest to press a gun to his back, and he's pretty sure he wouldn't stop even then. All he sees is red, feels pounding, kicking, throbbing, in his bones, his joints, his fucking heart. But the door doesn't budge. It's ancient, solid wood with a dead bolt that goes a good two inches into the frame. You don't move into the loft of an upper Manhattan apartment building and then welch on security. Charlie, the doorman, obviously doesn't count for squat.
He rails on the door for what feels like hours, but his stamina's for shit these days, too many hours behind a guitar and a microphone, too few at the gym, and it's probably only a minute before he collapses against the frame. He leans against hardwood and slides to the floor, regrets it immediately as the cold draft from the other side freezes the streams of sweat rolling down his back. Chris arches away reflexively like the cold air is a tazer, and when he does, the heels of his hands press into the floor on either side of himself.
At first, he thinks the cold nudge against the back of his hand is just the dog’s nose, but something presses beneath his palm, bites with metal teeth into the soft skin, colder somehow than it should be. Sucking in a breath, Chris jerks his hand away and looks down. He doesn't know what he expects to see--a roach, some kind of fang-bearing spider, something malicious. Not a key.
But it is a key. The key. It has to be. He scrambles to his feet, drags the bit of metal up into his hand before rising, and only pauses for a second to close his eyes and pray silently before sliding it into the lock.
If he says 'hallelujah, amen' when it opens, his feet have become supersonic, because he's already too far into the room to hear his own voice.
"Jen!"
His breath billows out around him like white satin sheets, sliding over, around, and through his hair into the hallway. The long, sheer curtains that hang over the bank of windows on the side of the loft waft inward and float over the piano in the corner, transposing dim sunbeams in the overcast sky. The air is thin and brittle with a stench of something bitter, hot, and wet. It's stale, has permeated the entire space, unlike the metallic tang beneath, still warm in Chris' nostrils.
The cold hits his lungs and tickles into the hidden spaces like the filaments on a snowflake, and he coughs over raw, roughened vocal chords. He barely registers the mess in the apartment through the squint of his eyes and stumbles toward the couch where both dogs cower and quiver on the throw rug beside it.
The lamp from the endtable lies in pieces on the floor, its shards mixed with the remnants of what looks to have been a bottle of tequila and what used to be inside the bottle. As Chris draws closer to the back of the sofa, he can just make out one of Jensen's stocking clad feet splayed over the arm rest on the end. A few steps more reveal the frosted tips of Jensen's hair peeking over the cushions as Jen sits, propped cockeyed on the other side, his head braced in the crook between the back and the arm of the sofa.
Chris scrambles around to the front, expecting to find Jensen passed out after the long minutes of silence. But Jensen isn't passed out. He sits, eyes wide and glassy, gaze fixed on the window. With a shiver, whether of relief or impending dread, Chris isn’t sure, he goes to the window, pretends not to see the yellow puddle of vomit on the floor as he pulls it closed and fastens the latch.
"What're you trying to do, Jen? Freeze yourself to death?" The words die on his lips when the cold breeze is cut off, and his warm breath fogs up the glass. A heart materializes in the fog like the reflection of clouds in a lake when the sun breaks through. J2 is smeared in the middle, a tilt to the ‘J’ that looks eerily like Jared’s handwriting. He doesn't have to turn around to know that Jen's eyes are looking right through him at the very same thing. Chris feels the heat of the gaze. Hell, just heat. It's the first he's realized that Jensen's breath isn't rising above his head like Chris' has since he entered the loft.
Chris backs away from the window, watches the fog spread over the entire bank, steam rolling up from behind him like mist off a river in early fall. By the time he's back at Jensen's side, he isn't cold at all. He doesn't think it was ever cold where Jensen is. Something...someone's kept him warm and cocooned inside a bubble, a baby wrapped in layers of receiving blankets.
The only sound in the room is the thud of Chris' heart inside his rib-cage, a timpani solo that vibrates between his diaphragm and his eardrums. "Jen?"
Snapping from his reverie, Chris kneels beside the couch, stifles a grunt of pain as his knee grinds into some broken glass on the floor. He reaches for the edge of the throw rug to toss it and the glass aside and notices dark smears on the edge of the couch cushions. Dark red smears.
"Jen, Jen, Jen," he chants, snapping in his fingers in front of Jensen's face. "Jen, c'mon, dude. What'd you do? Fuck!" Jen doesn't answer, doesn't even fucking blink, and Chris bites back the urge to slap him, if not to snap him out of it, then for scaring the shit out of his best friend.
Jen moves, almost imperceptibly, just a minute shift in his posture from left to right as Chris gets in his face. Chris recognizes the gesture from the countless video game and pizza parties they've had together over the years. It's a 'dude, you make a better door than a window' dodge.
"No. N-n-no, you look at me, you son of a bitch." It's supposed to sound menacing, at the very least intimidating, but there's enough rise at the end of the statement to make it sound like a plea.
Desperate, Chris grabs the nearest ankle and jerks until both of Jensen's feet are on the floor beside him. He threads his hands around behind Jen's head and physically turns his face until their eyes meet.
"Look at me, Jen. Is this blood? Are you bleeding? Where do you hurt?"
Jen blinks then. His eyelashes are heavy and clumped together, dark with grief over red rims and sunken sockets. Chris' fingers scrape over the days-old stubble that line Jen's jaw as a great heaving sob bubbles out of Jensen's chest. That's all. Just one sob of heavy, alcohol-laden, puke breath, then Jen swallows it back down, goes back to just blinking.
Chris lets his eyes travel down Jen's neck, looking for the injury he's sure is there. More deep maroon stains streak over the front of Jensen's shirt, none of it fresh. Jen shakes in Chris' grasp, little tremors that vibrate like a cheap motel bed, either on the verge of breaking down, or beyond his body's capacity to continue. In his lap, Jensen's hands clench compulsively. Fresh blood squeezes between his fingers and runs over his knuckles.
Chris slides his hands down Jen's shoulders to his forearms, half expects Jensen’s head to loll back when it's released, but it stays balanced weakly over his neck, wobbles slightly with the motion of the cushions beneath him.
"What is this? What'd you do, man?" Chris gently pries apart the sticky fingers, looking for the source of the blood. "Jen, lemme see."
At first, he doesn't recognize the guitar pick. Last he'd seen it, the pick was under the glass frame above the mantle. Of course, there's nothing on the mantle now. The tiny piece of painted bone, dubbed the key to Jensen's heart, is just a bloody, triangular blade in Jensen's clenched hands. A dozen cuts streak over Jen's palms, at least half of those look deep enough to need stitches.
"Shit, dude," Chris sighs sympathetically. "This is a mess, you know that?"
Jen's chest starts to heave again, and Chris looks up beneath the dripping eyelashes again, finds his gaze returned for the first time since he arrived.
Jensen blinks slowly, sheds one heavy drop from the corner of each eye before opening them again with a shuddering sigh. He holds the guitar pick up between his thumb and forefinger the way Jared had held it up for him the day they moved in, when each of them kissed it for good luck.
His eyes fixed on Chris’, Jen takes a choked breath, mouth moving with what looks like profound effort. "My heart bleeds..."
Chris takes the pick without a word and presses his own hands over the gashes in Jensen’s.
#
Tommy Spence was a hemophiliac. Not that Chris had known what that was when he was ten and lived half a mile down the road from Tommy. Chris' then best friend probably should have told him the whole blood brothers thing was a bad idea. Instead, it had been Tommy's screaming mother who'd made that all too clear after the boys staggered into the kitchen wearing red t-shirts when they'd left in white.
That had been less blood than this, Chris thinks, and he doesn't know if it's worse there's so much or that Jen doesn’t seem to notice what he's done to himself.
Chris pours peroxide over the open cuts, winces and hisses sympathetically as the wounds foam over, pink and fizzy. His hand tightens around Jensen's wrists, expecting him to pull away, but Jen doesn't even blink. Chris knows it hurts, can't imagine anything painful enough to make someone numb to that, but Jensen doesn't flinch.
At the funeral, Jensen's eyes had been wild and lost, like the eyes of calves on dehorning day when the headgate closes on them for the first time. Jared's death, hell, watching Jared die, couldn't have burned any less than that electric dehorning iron, couldn't have suffocated any less than those long-ago clouds of black, roiling smoke that had buckled the calves' knees and rolled their eyes in their heads.
The ironic thing about that, is intense enough pain has a way of overriding the source. Chris remembers all too well the daily walks through the herd in the weeks that followed dehorning to look for bleeding wounds where the scabs had been rubbed off. Daddy always said they had to check because the iron had killed the nerves, and the calves couldn't feel if there were maggots festering in the wounds. If they found an infected wound, they cleaned it, and the calves usually blinked up at them blankly, just the way Jen is looking at him now.
Chris clenches his jaw and looks away. Fuck! He wishes Jen would...hell, he doesn't know, groan, grunt, yell, cuss. He wishes Jen would smack him upside the head and give him the chance to turn the other cheek. He deserves that much for what he's done.
This is all his fault.
#
If Grady's back is a little too bony when Chris smacks him on the shoulder and says, "Let me buy you a drink, friend," then Chris doesn't notice. If there's a little too much sweat on the dude's brow, too much shift in his gaze, Chris doesn't pay it much mind. He's too busy watching Jared trip over his words and his feet, while he's supposed to be dancing with Jensen.
The next Bond he is not. Chris swirls the whiskey in his glass and figures that's why Jared's always so damned goofy...or is it Pluto?...well, always such a big, dopey, cartoon puppy dog. Everything Jared thinks or feels is so friggin' obvious, the only way not to offend half the people he meets is to paint his actions with a smile that leaves no doubt the foot in his mouth has gummi bear flavored toe jam under the nails.
Chris feels for the kid. It takes a lot to make Jared squirm, but then, a little bit of self-consciousness might not kill him. Jen was bound to rub off on...was bound to, uh, bestow some of his personality on Jared. It goes both ways, though. He guesses that's how it's supposed to work, what makes Jensen and Jared work so well.
Chris watches them dance for awhile. Jen normally wouldn't, but he's still giddy people liked his song. It's a good thing, too, because Jen's just high enough, at the moment, to miss the fact that Jared's dancing even more erratically than usual. If that's even possible.
The bartender slides two fresh glasses up on the counter. Gary, or what the fuck ever his name is, reaches for his glass hesitantly, but Chris claps a hand on his shoulder again, says, "Drink up, my man." He hikes his glass up in a toast. "To my best friend, Jensen, and the dopey-assed kid that just bought him a fifty-thousand dollar ring. May Jared grow the balls to give him the damned thing before he kills someone with all that nervous energy." He wiggles his eyebrows and his hips clumsily, mocking Jared's clumsy dance moves, and Grady laughs nervously, eyes wide.
Chuckling, Chris leans in and whispers, "But not a word about it, dude. Supposed to be a surprise, ya know?"
"Yeah, man, yeah." Grady's hands shake a little as he raises his glass to his lips.
Chris' second set starts a few minutes later, and he doesn't think about what's his name again until Jensen wipes a trembling, blood-streaked hand across his forehead and whispers, "Grady," to the officers on the scene.
After that, Chris never forgets him, never forgets his name's not Gary.
#
Chris wonders just how much booze had been in the now-empty Tequila bottle before it ended up smashed on the floor as Jensen's eyes start to slide shut over the vapor cloud he's blowing in Chris' face. He's stopped gripping Jen's wrists so tightly, since the only movement Jensen makes outside the half-hitched sobs in his chest are barely noticeable tremors of physical and emotional exhaustion that ripple just below the surface. With Chris' head now blocking Jen's line of sight to the window that's held him enrapt for fuck only knows how long, Chris feels Jen start to succumb to the bone-weariness, catches his best friend's head on his shoulder like a parent would catch a child as it cries itself to sleep.
With Jen sleeping, maybe passed out, his pulse just strong enough that Chris isn't worried about blood loss, the cuts in his hands are dealt with hastily. Thick white bandages wrap around gauze padding and turn red slowly enough to satisfy Chris that the bleeding has stopped before he ties them off.
Not until the wounds are patched and Jensen has been laid back on the couch to sleep does Chris get a good look at the carnage around him. His eyes sweep over the broken glass, the sprawl of clothing and books across the floor and furniture, the dark smudge of soot on the ceiling and walls. He runs his hands through his hair, the rolled up sleeves of his button-down shirt pulling at his biceps, and wills away the nausea that festers at the base of his throat like sludge in a septic cistern.
"Fuck, Jen, I'm so sorry."
#
Lucky for Chris, there's a bottle of something strong enough to scald the hair off a hog carcass on top of the fridge. He knows from experience that's where Jen keeps the good stuff, even if the liquor in the racks above the kitchen island is technically more expensive. Texas boys have a different value system, comes from growing up in a whole other country.
He uses the good, rot-gut burn to kill some of the overactive nerves in his guilty stomach before he starts to clean up the mess. He loses himself in deliberately pointless thoughts that keep his mind from drifting anywhere near speculation on how the place got trashed in the first place. He’s known Jen a long time. Jensen Ackles doesn’t just fly off the handle, doesn’t ever think what he feels is important enough to cause a scene. Scenes are saved for the paying customers, and no one was here but Jen.
Chris empties the last of the broken glass from the floor into the trashcan and takes another hit off the bottle to chase away the guilt monster while he tries to shake the eerie chill he hasn’t been able to shake since entering the apartment. He’s looking for the thermostat to crank up the heat, fingers lingering in confusion over the control box for the door buzzer when the friggin’ thing squawks at him and nearly makes him break another glass.
Biting back a curse, he pushes the intercom button. “Yeah?”
#
“I can’t do this, man,” Chad says as he ducks his gaze. The words are semi-slurred, somewhere between buzzed and had a few too many, maybe only one sheet to the wind, if three is completely trashed. Anyway, he’s gone enough not to realize he’s still go the mike keyed.
Jared knocks his hand away from the intercom button, more to see if he still can than anything.
“Look, man, I’m sorry.” Jared doesn’t want to do this to his friend. He’s not the guy that uses peoples’ deep, dark secrets to manipulate them and get what he needs. But Jared’s not exactly sure what he is anymore, just that Jensen’s in trouble, and he needs to fix that before he can move on. Chad’s the only one that can help.
"Chad?"
For a second there's nothing, just more nervous shuffling of Chad’s feet, one of those, 'forgot my line' moments. Chad was probably expecting Jen to answer, had a smart-assed spiel planned in his head to counteract the nervousness that always twangs in the air between Jen and himself.
Jared had joked once that Chad was jealous Jared ended up with Jensen. He’s still not sure Jensen ever got that it was a joke and was supposed to be flattered that he won. Instead, Jen had looked a whole lot like he’d just found out his ex had been diagnosed with an STD.
Right now, Chad looks a whole lot like the STD.
Jared waves his hand in front of Chad’s face, doesn’t get too close, because the thought of his hand actually going through still freaks him out way more than it should, and he’s saving his energy. “C’mon. Answer him. We need to get up there.”
“Is Jen okay?” Chad finally asks.
"He’s been better. Are you drunk?" Chris’ disdain would be a lot more effective if he didn’t sound half a sheet to the wind himself. Jared just makes out what has to be the sound of Chris beating his head against the wall. Lord knows, Chad’s probably the last one Kane wants to deal with just then. Chad’s not too excited about the whole thing himself, judging by the way his hand once more lingers too long on the button, postponing the inevitable. A car horn blares as Chad finally releases the key, and Jared know Chris has to have gotten an earful.
They can almost hear Chris scrub at the ringing in his ears as he answers. "Get your ass up here, fucktard.”
#
“The fuck you still doing here?” Chris asks as he opens the door. “I thought you had a plane to catch.”
Jared can’t tell if that's a laugh or a stifled sob Chad makes in reply. "They wouldn't let me on the plane. Said I needed to sober up first. I think they thought I was talking to myself..." He looks at Jared accusingly, then ducks his eyes and buries his chin in his chest, fidgets as though waiting for an invitation inside.
Jared brushes past Chris into the apartment, makes his way over to the couch where Jensen is sleeping without looking up. After waiting a second, then coughing awkwardly into his shirt, Chad follows.
Jared sits beside Jensen on the couch, brushes fingers over his sleeping face, and cringes inwardly at the red stains on his white-wrapped hands. Jay wants to take both those hands in his and kiss away the hurt, but he knows the hurt isn’t under those bandages, and he’s no angel. All he can do is what he’s been doing, sit and wait for the cavalry to arrive.
How fucked up is it that Chad Michael Murray is the cavalry?
Chad stands and stares at Jen with his hands shoved into the pockets of his baggy jeans.
“It wasn’t his fault, “Jared says. “Tell him.” He knows he’s asking a lot. “Chad, tell him it wasn’t his fault.” Sadie sidles up to Chad and leans against his thigh as Chris starts to slink up to the counter for another drink.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Chris’ glass thunks against the marble top, Chad’s words hitting their mark. “The fuck do you know about it?” Chris growls. He abandons the glass and takes a hit of whiskey right out of the bottle.
Jared recognizes the sound Chad makes this time as amusement frosted with relief. At least Jay had been right about where Chris’ head is at. It gives Chad enough credibility and courage to go on.
“Dude,” Chad chuckles, “you think you’re the only one who knew what Jared was planning that night? Since when could Jay ever keep a secret? Hell, he even called me before they left the house that night. The only person who didn’t know about Jensen’s ring was Jensen. Anyone could’ve jumped them in that alley.”
The only sound in the room is the slosh of the whiskey.
Chad swallows, rubs his hand through his hair and offers, “Shit, Jared was practically handing out invitations in the men’s room while you were coercing Jen up on the stage. He was so happy. Nervous, but happy. I don’t think Jen knows how happy he made Jay.”
Jared feels Chad’s eyes on him as he traces the line of Jensen’s lips with his thumb.
Chris digests the monologue. “So, Grady…?”
“Had probably been sitting at the bar working up his courage all night, just waiting for them to leave so he could make his move.”
“How do you know? You were in L.A. I just talked to the cops before I came over. Grady hasn’t admitted to anything.”
A beat. Chad takes a breath and lets it out slowly. It's more restraint than Jared has ever known Chad to show, and Jay’s sorry that what happened to him seems to have sucked the life out of everyone around him.
Jared turns, puts a hand on Chad’s elbow. “Go ahead. Tell him.”
"My uncle Jack had this old dog named Bowser.” Chad whispers into his shirt. “Dad said he was obsessed with Sha Na Na, whatever the fuck that was.” A weak laugh. “Uncle Jack was a dick. Didn't really give a fuck about anything but that old dog. "
"Anyway, I was pretty sure my uncle didn't even know I existed until he showed up at my school that day. I was just messing around in the yard, shooting hoops with some of the guys. I turned around, and there he was at the fence. Scared the living crap out of me." A breathy chuckle crackles out of his throat. "I thought something had happened to my parents, ya know? People showing up out of the blue like that, or calling, usually means bad news."
Chris ducks away, and Jared feels a stab of guilt in knowing Christian had been the one to call everyone, after…
"So, I talked to him, and he said he was going away for awhile. Would I take care of Bowser? What was I supposed to say?"
Jared nudges Chad. “Dude, cut to the chase. I know it’s hard, but…”
"Shut up, would you? I’m doing what you asked, now just let me do it my way, all right?"
"I didn't say anything," Chris interjects.
"I wasn’t talking to you."
About then, Chris seems to decide that maybe Chad is four sheets to the wind, and starts to walk away. "Dude, you're drunk. Why don’t you go sleep it off?”
"Please. There's a point to this, I swear. You just gotta let me do it my way." Chad says it without a 'fuck' or a 'bitch', asserting that if this is a joke, there's no punchline.
"Fine...just...okay. I'm listening."
Another brief pause and a long draw of breath. "My uncle was dead when I got to his house after school that day. I found him in his chair with an old episode of "Bonanza" blaring on the television and Bowser lying at his feet with his bowl between his teeth."
"So, it was suicide? He planned it, and that's why he asked you?"
"No...he'd been dead for days."
Chris’ silence speaks for him. Really, what's anyone supposed to say to that?
"I know, man," Chad chuckles dryly. “I know it sounds crazy. What the fuck, right? I mean, I'm way better looking than Haley Joel Osment.” There’s no laughter in the words this time. Chad rubs his palms over the sides of his jeans. “That's why I only ever told one other person. I'm pretty sure that's how he knew to..."
"Murray." The growl is back in Chris’ voice. "You tell me that you see Jared, and I'm not just going to hail you a cab back to the airport. I'm gonna call airport security, tell 'em you've got a bomb shoved up your ass, and go down there myself to make sure they find one." Chris shakes his head, paces a few steps and stops. “Seriously, what the fuck are you thinking? Jen’s a mess! You can’t just come in here spouting some hoodoo shit like that!”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“This is where Jared is.”
A caterpillar wearing golf shoes makes its way up Jared’s neck and starts to pull at the hairs in the crown of his head one at a time. It doesn’t take a physical body to feel the tension in the air, nor actual eyes to see the clench in Chris’ jaw and fists.
Jay leaps out of the way as Chad steps back out of Chris’ reach, because as cool as that movie was, Jared’s not about to play Patrick Swayze to Chad’s Whoopi Goldberg and find out what really is going on in that boy’s head (or his pants, for that matter.)
By the time Jared makes it to the corner of the room and Jensen’s guitar, Chris is in Murray’s face enough to throw Chad off his balance. They’re both falling backward onto the couch when Jared picks up the guitar. No one but Jared hears it rattle.
Part Five
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.
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Date: 2007-08-01 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 02:33 am (UTC)