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amberdreamsBack to Part 1
Hanging out with Paddy over the next week was at once exhilarating and frustrating, exhausting and fun. Paddy’s friends hadn’t been exaggerating. The big guy really did think he was a chivalrous knight whose main role in life was to save people from the evils that were out there. Paddy’s definition of people included animals, hence his volunteering work at the shelter. Bernie Shaw, who ran the shelter and was its resident veterinarian, and Genevieve, who was the mainstay of the administration, repaid Paddy’s work with the animals with meals, and occasionally gifts of clothing, and most importantly as far as Paddy was concerned, books.
Paddy seemed to make friends wherever they went, and Jensen could see why. It was hard not to love him, with his open smiles and open heart. It was like Paddy had over written whatever was there before, scraped Jared Padalecki’s parchment nearly clean and added words of his own – like naiveté, courage, loyalty, honesty.
Jensen didn’t really know what he was doing, trying to make friends with this strange and wonderful guy, but somehow it didn’t really matter. He enjoyed listened to Paddy telling his wild tales, most of which centred around how he’d found the Grail and rescued her from the Red Knight, and how she was being kept safe in Redwings, guarded by Bernie and Gen, and Paddy too, of course. Paddy explained that she had cured Jensen’s injuries with her magical healing powers, and that everything evil in the world wanted to feed on her powers and suck her dry. The worst of these evils was the Red Knight.
When Paddy talked about the Red Knight he would become very agitated, and after a while Jensen realised that somehow or other Paddy’s memories of the night Henry Watson had smashed Jared Padalecki’s life to pieces had become personified in this dreadful nightmare foe.
The more they talked, the more Jensen thought that Paddy’s finding of the stray dog after he had awoken from his catatonia had been a life saver, and that maybe Paddy was right. The Grail did have a kind of magic.
And if she did, Jensen thought she had imbued her rescuer with some of her fairy dust, because Jensen found himself unable to resist Paddy’s charm. He trailed after the amiable, hirsute giant when he told Jensen they were on a heroic quest, even when that quest consisted of nothing more than finding a nest of new born kittens and taking them and their half-starved, wholly feral mother back to Redwings for Bernie to tend, and the only heroism seemed to be trying not to flinch too much when the female cat’s claws raked his arm. He laid on Venice Beach with a naked Paddy pointing out his own invented constellations in the star spangled night skies, trying not to stare at Paddy’s own constellations of dark moles and dark chest hair instead of the million year old stars. He drew the line at taking his own clothes off, even though Paddy insisted baring your body to the view of the heavens was an essential part of the whole experience.
Paddy introduced Jensen to a miscellany of quirky folk who he called his Round Table – fellow knights of the Grail, who were all homeless and broken people sleeping in cardboard constructions under road viaducts, in warehouse doorways, and gathering down on the deserted beaches round Hermosa, Dockweiler or Venice late at night.
Jensen and Paddy walked for miles, around areas of Los Angeles Jensen never knew existed. It was a world had spent his life averting his gaze from.
The Round Table didn’t care that Jensen didn’t really fit. He was Paddy’s friend, and that was good enough. He was accepted without question, handed the bottle wrapped in brown paper that Paddy never touched, offered a seat near the fire. Welcomed.
There was Muriel, who was sometimes Misha, depending on whether his inner drag queen was ascendant or not. Misha was a skinny, nervous creature, who barely came up to Jensen’s shoulder, but when he was Muriel, whether plainly dressed or resplendent in feather boa and satin gown, somehow he was glorious. Then there was Rocky, an ex boxer and ex soldier, whose friends had clearly lacked the imagination to give him a more original nickname, and who could no longer recall what his real name might have been. And last among the regulars was Lance, who until Jensen appeared on the scene, had been Paddy’s right hand man, and who consequently viewed the newcomer with a barely concealed resentment.
On the second of their visits to the motley little band of misfits’ campfire down on Dockweiler, after one too many swigs at the latest anonymous bottle that was being shared, Jensen rashly mentioned that he’d once played in Steve’s band. Misha shrieked in delight.
“Darling! Muriel sings too! You must play for us!”
Jensen protested in vain. He was mobbed; leaned on, metaphorically and literally, cajoled and wooed until he finally gave in. So it was that the next night when the Round Table met on Dockweiler Beach, ironically not far from the site of Jensen’s assault and rescue, Jensen brought his guitar. He sat on the sand with Paddy pressed up so close Jensen could feel the body heat radiating off him. Surrounded by eager eyes glinting in the firelight, and he played song after song. He began by playing a couple of covers, opening with Crosby’s melancholy Somehow She knew, then, as he let the tension in his shoulders loosen, he moved to something more upbeat – This Room by Riley Smith, another musician friend of his, because the lyrics seemed appropriate. His small audience were very appreciative, and his confidence grew. He threw in a couple of numbers penned by Steve for his old college band, then finished with one of his own that he’d written for Steve a couple of years ago.
Jensen felt more relaxed than he had done for years, possibly ever, so when Muriel clamoured for accompaniment he happily strummed the chords while she belted out a couple of big musical numbers, which were surprisingly good. Jensen had ensured that the bottle being passed around tonight was not rotgut by raiding his own stash, and the expensive 30-year-old malt was slipping down his throat like honey. Not even Paddy’s truly appalling rendition of Pearl Jam’s Just Breathe could affect the mellow warmth that wrapped around Jensen like a blanket. Synchronising with someone so chronically out of tune was a challenge, but Jensen was too caught up in the lyrics, and the way Paddy stared into his eyes as if the whole song really meant something, to worry about something as trivial as harmony.
When Jensen gently stilled the strings and looked around, he was surprised to see that he and Paddy were alone. At some point during the last song the others had just slipped away, fading into the night like a dream. He laid his guitar down on the sand with the exaggerated care of the very drunk.
Jensen chuckled and waved his arm expansively at the empty beach.
“Look, Paddy, you scared everyone off with your terrible singing!”
Paddy just grinned at Jensen, grabbed his flapping hand and hauled him up. Jensen wavered on his feet, grateful there was something firm and warm to lean on. He must have been drunker than he’d thought, because it took him several seconds to register that this comfortable bulwark was actually Paddy, who had wrapped those long arms of his round Jensen and was pressed up against Jensen’s front like the world’s most awesomely muscled hot water bottle. Jensen tipped his head back to find Paddy’s nose almost touching his own. The taller man’s messy whiskers were tickling Jensen’s chin, and it was so very easy to just close that tiny gap between them and press his lips to Paddy’s.
Paddy gave a small gasp, then he was kissing Jensen back with an enthusiasm that left Jensen so weak and dizzy it felt as though Paddy’s arms around him was the only thing holding him up. Which was probably true. Paddy’s tongue sliding into his mouth chased all rational thought clean out of Jensen’s head and his whole body was aflame where he was pressed up against Paddy’s male firmness, so totally alien and yet completely familiar. It wasn’t until Paddy’s hand moved down Jensen’s body and touched Jensen’s hard leaking cock that some semblance of reason returned, and with it a freak-out of the first magnitude.
Because this was Paddy. Not Jared. Paddy was beautiful, and Jensen couldn’t believe he was even thinking that about another man, but more important than that was the fact that Paddy was broken, and that was Jensen’s fault.
Jensen broke away and staggered backwards. He needed distance. Space between them.
“M’sorry, I can’t do this, it’s not right.”
Paddy looked as if Jensen had kicked him in the gut, which just made Jensen feel even worse.
“But. I thought you liked me,” Paddy said. Jensen winced.
“I do like you. I like you a lot. But you know nothing about me, and if you did, well. I’ve done some terrible things and I don’t want… I don’t want to hurt you again.”
Jensen turned and walked quickly away, trying not to hear Paddy’s puzzled question that followed him up the beach.
“I don’t understand, Jack. You never hurt me before, how could you hurt me again?”
0x0x0x0
Jensen didn’t seek out Paddy for a couple of days. Instead he hung around Riot Records openly drinking too much and annoying the hell out of Steve. So much so that on the Wednesday night, gig night, Steve insisted Jensen come along, even if he wasn’t going to play.
“I don’t know what happened, why you aren’t seeing your boyfriend any more, but you’ve been moping around for the last two days, Jen, and I’m sick of it. You are coming out tonight and you can leave that damn bottle behind and stick to beer for a few hours at least.”
“He’s not my boyfriend, dammit,” Jensen muttered, but he let Steve bully him into a shower, clean clothes and out of the apartment. He didn’t let Steve see the hip flask he slipped into his pocket, and conspicuously ordered bottled beer at the club. Steve sat Jensen at a table near the stage, and Jensen knew it was so his friend could keep an eye on him. It was kind of comforting, in a way. Jensen sat back in his chair and sang along quietly until Steve went off script half way through the first set.
“We don’t usually do covers,” Steve was saying, and Jensen started paying attention, because Steve was staring straight at him. “But we’re making an exception tonight. This one has a special meaning for me, because it expresses exactly how I feel about a good friend of mine. So here is our version of Elbow’s Some Riot.”
Melancholy chords on the keyboards, and then Steve was singing, slow and sad.
A friend of mine grows his very own brambles
They twist all around him 'til he can't move
Beautiful, quivering, chivalrous shambles
What is my friend trying to prove?
The bruise turns a tall, gentle boy to a terrible totem
And the kids gather round trying to see what's inside
I think when he's drinking he's drowning some riot
What is my friend trying to hide?
Cause it's breaking my heart, it's breaking my heart
And it's breaking my heart to pull out the rain
Brother of mine, don't run with those fuckers
When will my friend start singing again?
When will my friend start singing again?
Jensen paled. The air felt close and it was getting hard to breathe with Steve singing those words, each one aimed like an arrow at Jensen’s heart. It hurt twofold. Because where Steve was singing about him, Jensen heard Jared. Paddy. Jared.
He shouldn’t have run away; why was he always running away? His chair tipped over as he got up, but he didn’t notice. He saw the anxious look on Steve’s face as he turned to leave, but he couldn’t stop to explain. He had to get out. He needed to see Paddy.
Outside the club, he hadn’t run two steps before he crashed into someone and fell headlong with a cry of frustration and pain. He crashed to the sidewalk, jarring his healing ribs. The person who he’d knocked over squealed and Jensen suddenly had a face full of a nearly hysterical Muriel. Or Misha. It was hard to tell today. There was lipstick smeared across his lips, and his mascara had run, but he was wearing his more conventional male garb, so Jensen guessed this was more Misha than Muriel. Not that it really mattered.
“Jack! Thank goodness I’ve found you! We’ve been going frantic, the Round Table has been looking all over town for you, it’s so terrible, you have to come right away!”
Jensen got to his feet holding his tender side and then bent down to help Misha up.
“Whoa, slow down there, buddy,” Jensen said, concerned that Misha was going to hyperventilate before he’d managed to tell Jensen what was the matter. “How about you take a deep breath then tell me what’s wrong.”
It was Paddy. Of course. As if Jensen hadn’t messed up enough already.
Paddy had walked home alone that night after Jensen had left him at the beach, Misha explained. Muriel had been on her way to her cardboard residence under the viaduct when she’d been set upon by the same two vigilantes who’d attacked Jensen. As luck or fate would have it, Paddy had passed that way and naturally he had leapt to Muriel’s rescue just as he had before to Jensen’s. Except this time, three other guys joined the two teenagers. Outnumbered, Paddy had fought like a lion, but ultimately, he had gone down, albeit still swinging. Muriel’s recollections were a little foggy, and under the sodium glow of the streetlights Jensen could now see the bruising on Misha’s face that was evidence of the beating. But, Misha said, Muriel did remember that the police had come in time to save both their lives, and the paramedics had said that Paddy’s physical injuries were not that severe.
“Physical injuries? You mean he was harmed in some other way?” Jensen had a very bad feeling about this.
“Just as the cops were arriving, Paddy started screaming. It was horrible. I’ve never heard anything like it. It was worse than pain, Jack. Paddy was terrified. He said the Red Knight had come for him.” Misha’s voice was shaking, and tears were filling his eyes, and all Jensen could do was stand there, every muscle frozen with dread. Because he’d witnessed something like this once himself. He’d stayed late at the Marigold Mansions den one time, and they had both fallen asleep surrounded by candle flames. When Jensen woke in the middle of the night, all bar one of the candles had burnt out, and in the flickering darkness, Paddy had been clutching at him and screaming, eyes wide but unseeing. It had not taken Jensen many minutes to wake Paddy, but every second had been a moment too long. That time Jensen had been there to bring Paddy back to himself. This time, Muriel had been too hurt and scared to help, and the cops had been strangers.
Paddy was in hospital in a catatonic state. None of the companions of the Round Table, nor Bernie nor Genevieve nor Will had been able to rouse him.
“Just like before,” Jensen said to himself. “Shit.”
Misha clutched Jensen’s hand and wouldn’t let go, all the way to the hospital. Jensen didn’t mind, even welcomed the pressure that anchored him, stopped him feeling like he would just float away in a haze of fear. The mismatched pair drew some strange looks on the bus but neither of them noticed.
At the hospital Jensen pulled out all the stops to get the nurse on reception to allow them both in to see Jared. He had to play the hardest part of his acting life, blatantly flirting with her and playing on her unprofessional fangirling over Eric in Days of Our Lives, as if nothing else but her excitement at meeting a TV star mattered for those brief moments. Misha let go of his hand then, but Jensen was concentrating and didn’t register the little man’s changed expression until they were walking down the corridor to Jared’s room. His fingertips were touching the aluminium door handle when Misha grabbed Jensen’s sleeve.
“Wait.”
Jensen turned and looked down impatiently. He just wanted to see Jared. Paddy. He didn’t have time for this, what ever this was.
“You told us, you told Paddy, that your name was Jack. That nurse said different. Said you were famous. Why have you been lying to us?”
Oh. That. Jensen sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. His hand dropped away from Jared’s door. Misha was right, it was time for the truth.
“I wasn’t lying. No, wait!” He interrupted himself when Misha grimaced and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Jack is a nickname some of my friends use, but my full name is Jensen Ackles. You probably won’t have heard of me because I’m not really that famous, I’ve just done a couple of TV shows, nothing mainstream.”
But Misha was nodding, his expression set, and Jensen’s heart sank even further when Misha confirmed it. “Oh, I’ve heard of you alright. You were in the news a couple of years ago, weren’t you? I may not be up to date with everything, or watch television, but I see newspapers,” Misha said.
“And I take it you know who Paddy is, then?”
“We all know. Paddy knows too, sometimes, but we don’t talk about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it.” Jensen heard the unspoken – and if he remembered who he was, we’d lose him - and understood it because he felt the same. If Jared were to remember himself, would he want anything to do with the man who was at least partly responsible for his condition and the loss of the woman he loved? Would Jared Padalecki want to kiss Jensen Ackles, not Jack? He didn’t think so, and realised now this was part of the reason he hadn’t tried to push anything with Paddy. He was afraid of losing the friendship that had been growing between them. Well now it looked like he might have lost both the chance of a friend and gaining his redemption too, if they couldn’t find a way to wake Paddy.
Misha was staring at him as is he was waiting for an answer, and Jensen realised the little man must have asked him something while he was wool gathering.
“Sorry, what did you say?” Jensen asked, more than half expecting Misha to tell him to fuck off and leave Paddy alone, so he nearly had to ask Misha to repeat it again as the words sank in.
“I said, you do realise that none of this is your fault, don’t you?”
Jensen swallowed hard, opened his mouth but found he couldn’t speak. He knew it was his fault. Henry Watson had been obsessed with Jensen, not with Buster Grimes, and Jensen had come across him before, knew what he was like. He should never have allowed the DJ to speak to Watson like that, should never have allowed the radio station to take Watson’s call, should never have gone into the LA Lights studio in the first place …There was a whole causal chain of events that screamed at Jensen every day that he could have prevented that slaughter. If only.
If only he’d done something differently. If only he’d been a better man.
Misha was staring at him still, pinning Jensen to the wall with nothing more than the intensity of his blue eyes. He should have looked ridiculous, with the black mascara following the dried tear tracks down his cheeks, and the too bright red of the poorly applied lipstick still adhering to his bite-roughened lips, but Jensen couldn’t tear his gaze away.
“What happened to those people, the actions that Henry Watson took? They were not your doing, you could not have stopped them. Those of us that live on the streets, we all have our reasons for being here. We… I understand Watson. I read a lot about him, a week, two weeks after it happened. He was broken too, in ways that he couldn’t see. Then a month or so after that, Jared turned up one night, lost and lonely, standing in the shadows just at the edges of one of our campfires.
I recognised him from the pictures in the papers, but more than that, I recognised that look. So we took him under our wing, and he returned the favour, started looking after us. We are all damaged, Jensen. Every human being carries a little bit of damage, but some of us are more ruined than the rest. We each find our own way of escaping from whatever it was that hurt us. Some of us, we can never find our ways back, but Lance, Rocky and me, we all hoped you and Jared would do that for each other. Bring each other back.”
“Wait, are you saying you knew who I was all along? All of you knew?”
Misha shrugged. “Sure. Like I said, I read the news. I might be crazy but I’m not stupid.”
Misha took his hand again, gently this time, and it was forgiveness and a benediction. Misha led Jensen into Jared’s room, gave him a pat on the back.
“Go on, Jensen. Bring him back.”
0x0x0x0
But Jensen couldn’t.
He couldn’t bring either Jared or Paddy back.
He sat for hours that turned into days - talking, talking, even singing sometimes, until he was drooping from exhaustion in the hard plastic chair, still holding Jared’s limp hand, desperate for the slightest flicker to show that the unconscious man knew he was there.
Jensen still had plenty of money, and he was now rediscovering the power and influence a little bit of fame and notoriety conveys. He exploited both ruthlessly, ensuring Jared stayed in a private room and that his friends were allowed access night and day, in spite of the disreputable appearance of some of them. So Jared’s room filled up with the conventional flowers and food courtesy of Steve and Chris and Will Turrell; while Lance brought a rusty bit of metal he swore was a sword, Rocky brought his battered old boxing gloves because, he explained, they were imbued with good fortune. He’d never lost a fight wearing those gloves, and damned if Jared (or Paddy) was losing this one. The gloves were hung from the TV monitor in spite of the duty nurse’s tuts of disapproval. Misha brought a silver charm in the shape of an angel’s wing, which he fastened around Jared’s neck, without ever explaining its significance, while Muriel brought her best feather boa and festooned the TV set with it, even though as she pointed out, the purple clashed terribly with the red of Rocky’s gloves.
But it wasn’t until Bernie and Gen arrived with a huge get well card inscribed with their own best wishes and the paw prints of all Paddy’s beloved canine friends that Jensen realised he had been missing the most obvious thing.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Jensen’s yell silenced the room. They had a full house today, only Chris and Will were missing, so to get total silence was quite an achievement. Jensen was half way out of the door before anyone reacted. Predictably it was Steve who grabbed Jensen’s arm and stopped him leaving.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going? Who’s stupid?”
Jensen clutched at Steve’s plaid shirt, a wild look in his eye.
“Me! I’m so stupid! It was staring me in the face all this time but I just didn’t think… We need the Grail. Paddy believes she has healing powers, if anything can bring him back, it’s her.”
Steve looked blank because Jensen had failed to tell his friend about the magical dog, but Genevieve clapped her hands, and Misha nodded his approval. Lance was on his feet and virtually bounded to Jensen’s side. If he’d been a dog Jensen could swear his tail would have been wagging up a storm.
“Honour guard!” Lance said, with a grin that got even wider when Gen’s tiny form slipped under his arm. “Make that two,” she said. Luckily for Gen, Lance had been sleeping at the shelter for the past couple of nights and therefore smelled more of disinfectant than the streets, or being positioned that close to his armpit might have been hazardous. As it was, Jensen thought with some surprise, they actually made a cute couple.
With Genevieve and her keys, extracting the Grail from Redwings was simple. It was getting the dog into the hospital that proved challenging. For once, Jensen’s charm failed him, and the Honour Guard and their charge found themselves outside in the parking lot without a plan, having been turfed out by security twice. The guard on the main doors was now lurking in reception, clearly keeping an eye on them after having caught them trying a flanking move on their second attempt.
Jensen beckoned to Gen and Lance and they moved out of sight to confer. Clearly they needed some new tactics. The Grail was unruffled by all this human agitating and took it all in her stride. She sat down with a huge contented sigh and leaned happily against Jensen’s leg, which was when the idea came to him.
“What we need is a good distraction. Now I know that receptionist is a big Days fan, and what guy is blind to the charms of a hot chick, especially a famous hot chick, even in LA?” Gen looked as if she was about to list a few of her gayest friends who would be immune, so Jensen rushed on. “What we need are reinforcements.”
While Gen explained to Lance that Days meant Days of Our Lives and then had to further clarify that it was a TV show, Jensen got out his cell phone and started ringing round. Two hours later, and the DOL cast had come up trumps. Franco and Carrie, aka actors Christie and Victor, arrived in the parking lot and Jensen briefed them hurriedly.
“So, you want us to provide a diversion while you smuggle a miracle hound in to save your boyfriend? You’re as crazy as ever, Ackles!” Victor laughed and gave Jensen a continental style hug with the kissy-cheek thing, just because he knew how much the Texas in Jensen was allergic to that sort of thing. Smug Italian bastard. Christie just smiled and asked for her ‘lines’.
When they were all set, Victor and Christie strolled into the hospital and Jensen and the Honour Guard didn’t have long to wait for a minor freak out to ensue. Joan, the receptionist, shrieked in excitement, and within less than a minute, Joan had set off a chain reaction in the waiting room. Jensen cautiously stuck his head round the doorway and almost clapped like Genevieve when he saw Christie hanging onto the security guy, begging him to protect her from the lovely fans. Jensen waved to Lance and Gen and the three of them slipped past the chaos like three ninjas and their dog. Taking the stairs instead of the lift, Lance and Gen and the Grail sneaked in the back door to Jared’s corridor, while Jensen carried out the frontal assault from the lift on Sarah, who was probably the biggest Dark Angel Alec fan this side of the ocean. By the time Jensen had extricated himself from Sarah’s adoring clutches, the Grail was safely ensconced in Jared’s room, and the sense of anticipation was palpable.
The small room was getting hot and stuffy with so many people packed into such a small space. Misha, Rocky, Lance, Gen, Bernie, Will, who’d arrived in the interim while Operation Grail was taking place, they were all there. Even Steve had stuck around to see the Grail perform her miracle. Jensen looked around for the dog, and found her looking a bit cowed, virtually hiding under Jared’s bed.
“So how’s this going to work then, Jen?”
Jensen stared at Jared, too still and too pale in his hospital gown, dark hair spread on the white pillow case, hands folded on his chest, with only the IV drip and the too-slow rise and fall of his ribs indicating that Jensen wasn’t looking at a corpse laid out for viewing at a wake. One of the nurses had even shaved off the beard when Jared had first arrived, before Jensen had even known his friend had collapsed. It had been quite a shock to walk in and see that face for the first time. It was all too familiar from photographs but completely unfamiliar from real life, because that clean-shaven look belonged to Jared Padalecki, not Paddy.
“Jen? Are you okay, buddy?” Steve asked, putting a hand on Jensen’s shoulder.
Someone had decided to take the initiative while Jensen stood in frozen indecision, and had taken one of Jared’s hands and dangled it off the edge of the bed. Gen coaxed the Grail out from her hiding place and Jared’s lax fingers tangled in the golden dog’s curly mane. The room went quiet as everyone held their breath.
The seconds ticked by, then a minute, two minutes, five. Nothing happened. The Grail snuffled and then lay down, breaking contact with Jared.
Everyone collectively exhaled apart from Jensen, who felt there wasn’t enough air in the world to keep him breathing right now. If this failed… if the Grail magic didn’t work… He didn’t know what he was going to do. Something in his expression must have given away how badly he was freaking out, because Misha, now most definitely in Muriel-mode, stepped in and took charge.
“Everybody out! Come on, let’s leave our boys alone, give them some breathing space.”
Muriel gathered everyone and rounded them up like a glamorous sheepdog, ignoring the few feeble protests with a wave of her hand. “How can they work magic while we’re all gawking like guppies?” One by one she ushered all their friends out of the door.
“Besides,” she flung over her shoulder at Jensen as she exited stage right. “You need someone to keep a look out and make sure you aren’t interrupted. We’ll be right out here waiting, darling.” She said, and gave Jensen the thumbs up before closing the door with a click that sounded like an affirmation.
In the silence that followed, Jensen looked down at the Grail, lying at his feet, and she gazed back at him, big brown eyes hopeful. She wagged her tail. He swallowed past the lump in his throat.
“Okay, girl. Let’s do this.”
0x0x0x0
Trapped. He can hear the hoof beats behind him, a galloping rhythm matching his racing heart. There’s no way out.
He’s been running for hours… maybe days, he doesn’t really know any more. All he knows is that it hurts, and that he wants it to end.
But it never ends, because here he is again. Where the running always takes him, no matter which direction or how far he flees. He always ends up here.
Soft candlelight and white table cloths, music playing in the background and Aisling sitting opposite him, her dark eyes sparkling with life and laughter. She’s so beautiful. He wants to reach out and touch her cheek, to tell her how much he loves her, misses her, wants her, but he can’t because he knows what comes next.
Screeching; cracking; shattered glass everywhere, glittering in the sodium glow of the streetlights that are suddenly illuminating the room because the whole front of the restaurant has gone and in its place is a mass of chrome and black metal and a spear coming straight through Aisling’s chest to pierce his own heart. He hangs onto her bleeding broken body until the shouting paramedics tear his hands away.
The Dark Knight in the dark night shattering his life, his love, his everything, over and over again.
Except this time is different.
Jared looks up and instead of Aisling, it is Jack who’s sitting there, holding his hand across the table. Jack has a serious expression; he’s not smiling like Aisling usually does, but he is kind of glowing, his skin looks golden and his eyes glint green. Jared should be worrying about the Black Knight coming, but somehow, the pressure of Jack’s hand holding on tight is banishing the fear. Then Jared realises where the light is coming from, and all his muscles relax.
The Grail is sitting next to them, blazing like a small, furry sun, bathing them both with a warmth that feels like summer. The dog seems to feel Jared’s gaze and looks up, mouth open in a panting grin, and wags her tail with vigour. Jared reaches out with his free hand – no way is he ever letting go of Jack’s – and lets his fingers tangle in her silky soft curls.
Grail-light surrounds and shields him, and this time when the Black Knight comes, Jared sees the headlights and the fender. He recognises the pickup truck and the thin-faced man behind the wheel who is wearing the truck like armour. He understands Aisling’s death and he is finally able to let her go.
He opens his eyes.
0x0x0x0
Epilogue – 6 months later
“This works better if you let your skin breathe, you know.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Your reputation isn’t the one that’ll be ruined when the media catch me in the buff on a beach in the middle of the night. You aren’t an internationally famous musician and voice-over artist.”
“Neither are you,” Jared laughs, leaning over and giving Jensen’s rather fetching Hawaiian print board shorts a hefty tug that leaves Jensen yelping as his bits get caught in the elastic on their way down.
“Hey, hey! Watch the merchandise!”
Jared lies back, pillowing his head on his arms and smiling appreciatively. “Oh I am watching, don’t worry. I wouldn’t miss a view like this for anything.”
“Yeah well, I’m surprised you can still see certain parts of me, it’s fucking freezing out here, man.”
Grail checks out Jensen’s junk and thinks it doesn’t look too shrivelled to her. Evidently he’s exaggerating, as usual. Jensen lowers himself a little gingerly onto the sand next to Jared, clearly feeling wary of getting sand into cracks and crannies it really should never go. Grail’s tail thumps once, approving, as Jensen stretches out and finally allows himself to unwind. Both her boys are here with her, and all is right with the world.
“Anyhow, I thought we were here to look at the stars, not admire my naked butt.”
“I don’t have a problem with doing both,” Jared says, his smile unruffled by Jensen’s grumping.
Grail is just settling herself down along Jared’s warm back when Jensen tenses and props himself on one elbow. This one thinks too much, in her opinion.
“What do you mean I’m not an internationally renowned musician? I’ll have you know Grail Warriors’ last Stageit concert was attended by fans from at least 15 different countries!”
Jared turns his head to stare up into Jensen’s face where it looms palely over him and the Grail like an indignant moon. “You are quite right, I take it all back. No doubt there is a posse of paparazzi hiding behind that sand dune, just waiting for a real photo opportunity. I mean, catching Jensen Ackles, lead guitarist of Steve Carlson’s band, voice-over star of numerous video games and former television star, in flagrante with Jared Padalecki, animal shelter worker and ex-crazy hobo doctor of literature, well, that could make their careers… oomph!”
Jensen must decide the only way to silence a Padalecki in full flow is to stopper his mouth with a kiss. It seems to be working. Certainly parts of Jared’s anatomy appear to appreciate the diversion. His dick is now pointing skyward at the stars - a reminder of their original intent that strangely neither man was interested in pursuing right now. These humans are very easily distracted, Grail thought.
It would appear that stargazing isn’t the only pastime that benefits from getting naked and letting your skin breathe. The Grail rested her golden head on her front paws and grinned.
The End
Author's note:
I moved the setting to LA to fit with Jensen's occupation, and because I wanted to have scenes on a beach (don't know why!). If by any chance you haven't yet seen the original film, watch it. It is such a beautiful story, I hope I have done it a little bit of justice with this retelling.
While writing I had certain songs in mind so here's a playlist to accompany the fic:
Fanmix - playlist
Elbow – Some Riot
David Crosby – Somehow She Knew
Riley Smith – This Room
Pearl Jam – Just Breathe
Steve Carlson - Don’t Go
Steve Carlson – Out Here Alone
Stackridge – The Road to Venezuela
Hanging out with Paddy over the next week was at once exhilarating and frustrating, exhausting and fun. Paddy’s friends hadn’t been exaggerating. The big guy really did think he was a chivalrous knight whose main role in life was to save people from the evils that were out there. Paddy’s definition of people included animals, hence his volunteering work at the shelter. Bernie Shaw, who ran the shelter and was its resident veterinarian, and Genevieve, who was the mainstay of the administration, repaid Paddy’s work with the animals with meals, and occasionally gifts of clothing, and most importantly as far as Paddy was concerned, books.
Paddy seemed to make friends wherever they went, and Jensen could see why. It was hard not to love him, with his open smiles and open heart. It was like Paddy had over written whatever was there before, scraped Jared Padalecki’s parchment nearly clean and added words of his own – like naiveté, courage, loyalty, honesty.
Jensen didn’t really know what he was doing, trying to make friends with this strange and wonderful guy, but somehow it didn’t really matter. He enjoyed listened to Paddy telling his wild tales, most of which centred around how he’d found the Grail and rescued her from the Red Knight, and how she was being kept safe in Redwings, guarded by Bernie and Gen, and Paddy too, of course. Paddy explained that she had cured Jensen’s injuries with her magical healing powers, and that everything evil in the world wanted to feed on her powers and suck her dry. The worst of these evils was the Red Knight.
When Paddy talked about the Red Knight he would become very agitated, and after a while Jensen realised that somehow or other Paddy’s memories of the night Henry Watson had smashed Jared Padalecki’s life to pieces had become personified in this dreadful nightmare foe.
The more they talked, the more Jensen thought that Paddy’s finding of the stray dog after he had awoken from his catatonia had been a life saver, and that maybe Paddy was right. The Grail did have a kind of magic.
And if she did, Jensen thought she had imbued her rescuer with some of her fairy dust, because Jensen found himself unable to resist Paddy’s charm. He trailed after the amiable, hirsute giant when he told Jensen they were on a heroic quest, even when that quest consisted of nothing more than finding a nest of new born kittens and taking them and their half-starved, wholly feral mother back to Redwings for Bernie to tend, and the only heroism seemed to be trying not to flinch too much when the female cat’s claws raked his arm. He laid on Venice Beach with a naked Paddy pointing out his own invented constellations in the star spangled night skies, trying not to stare at Paddy’s own constellations of dark moles and dark chest hair instead of the million year old stars. He drew the line at taking his own clothes off, even though Paddy insisted baring your body to the view of the heavens was an essential part of the whole experience.
Paddy introduced Jensen to a miscellany of quirky folk who he called his Round Table – fellow knights of the Grail, who were all homeless and broken people sleeping in cardboard constructions under road viaducts, in warehouse doorways, and gathering down on the deserted beaches round Hermosa, Dockweiler or Venice late at night.
Jensen and Paddy walked for miles, around areas of Los Angeles Jensen never knew existed. It was a world had spent his life averting his gaze from.
The Round Table didn’t care that Jensen didn’t really fit. He was Paddy’s friend, and that was good enough. He was accepted without question, handed the bottle wrapped in brown paper that Paddy never touched, offered a seat near the fire. Welcomed.
There was Muriel, who was sometimes Misha, depending on whether his inner drag queen was ascendant or not. Misha was a skinny, nervous creature, who barely came up to Jensen’s shoulder, but when he was Muriel, whether plainly dressed or resplendent in feather boa and satin gown, somehow he was glorious. Then there was Rocky, an ex boxer and ex soldier, whose friends had clearly lacked the imagination to give him a more original nickname, and who could no longer recall what his real name might have been. And last among the regulars was Lance, who until Jensen appeared on the scene, had been Paddy’s right hand man, and who consequently viewed the newcomer with a barely concealed resentment.
On the second of their visits to the motley little band of misfits’ campfire down on Dockweiler, after one too many swigs at the latest anonymous bottle that was being shared, Jensen rashly mentioned that he’d once played in Steve’s band. Misha shrieked in delight.
“Darling! Muriel sings too! You must play for us!”
Jensen protested in vain. He was mobbed; leaned on, metaphorically and literally, cajoled and wooed until he finally gave in. So it was that the next night when the Round Table met on Dockweiler Beach, ironically not far from the site of Jensen’s assault and rescue, Jensen brought his guitar. He sat on the sand with Paddy pressed up so close Jensen could feel the body heat radiating off him. Surrounded by eager eyes glinting in the firelight, and he played song after song. He began by playing a couple of covers, opening with Crosby’s melancholy Somehow She knew, then, as he let the tension in his shoulders loosen, he moved to something more upbeat – This Room by Riley Smith, another musician friend of his, because the lyrics seemed appropriate. His small audience were very appreciative, and his confidence grew. He threw in a couple of numbers penned by Steve for his old college band, then finished with one of his own that he’d written for Steve a couple of years ago.
Jensen felt more relaxed than he had done for years, possibly ever, so when Muriel clamoured for accompaniment he happily strummed the chords while she belted out a couple of big musical numbers, which were surprisingly good. Jensen had ensured that the bottle being passed around tonight was not rotgut by raiding his own stash, and the expensive 30-year-old malt was slipping down his throat like honey. Not even Paddy’s truly appalling rendition of Pearl Jam’s Just Breathe could affect the mellow warmth that wrapped around Jensen like a blanket. Synchronising with someone so chronically out of tune was a challenge, but Jensen was too caught up in the lyrics, and the way Paddy stared into his eyes as if the whole song really meant something, to worry about something as trivial as harmony.
When Jensen gently stilled the strings and looked around, he was surprised to see that he and Paddy were alone. At some point during the last song the others had just slipped away, fading into the night like a dream. He laid his guitar down on the sand with the exaggerated care of the very drunk.
Jensen chuckled and waved his arm expansively at the empty beach.
“Look, Paddy, you scared everyone off with your terrible singing!”
Paddy just grinned at Jensen, grabbed his flapping hand and hauled him up. Jensen wavered on his feet, grateful there was something firm and warm to lean on. He must have been drunker than he’d thought, because it took him several seconds to register that this comfortable bulwark was actually Paddy, who had wrapped those long arms of his round Jensen and was pressed up against Jensen’s front like the world’s most awesomely muscled hot water bottle. Jensen tipped his head back to find Paddy’s nose almost touching his own. The taller man’s messy whiskers were tickling Jensen’s chin, and it was so very easy to just close that tiny gap between them and press his lips to Paddy’s.
Paddy gave a small gasp, then he was kissing Jensen back with an enthusiasm that left Jensen so weak and dizzy it felt as though Paddy’s arms around him was the only thing holding him up. Which was probably true. Paddy’s tongue sliding into his mouth chased all rational thought clean out of Jensen’s head and his whole body was aflame where he was pressed up against Paddy’s male firmness, so totally alien and yet completely familiar. It wasn’t until Paddy’s hand moved down Jensen’s body and touched Jensen’s hard leaking cock that some semblance of reason returned, and with it a freak-out of the first magnitude.
Because this was Paddy. Not Jared. Paddy was beautiful, and Jensen couldn’t believe he was even thinking that about another man, but more important than that was the fact that Paddy was broken, and that was Jensen’s fault.
Jensen broke away and staggered backwards. He needed distance. Space between them.
“M’sorry, I can’t do this, it’s not right.”
Paddy looked as if Jensen had kicked him in the gut, which just made Jensen feel even worse.
“But. I thought you liked me,” Paddy said. Jensen winced.
“I do like you. I like you a lot. But you know nothing about me, and if you did, well. I’ve done some terrible things and I don’t want… I don’t want to hurt you again.”
Jensen turned and walked quickly away, trying not to hear Paddy’s puzzled question that followed him up the beach.
“I don’t understand, Jack. You never hurt me before, how could you hurt me again?”
0x0x0x0
Jensen didn’t seek out Paddy for a couple of days. Instead he hung around Riot Records openly drinking too much and annoying the hell out of Steve. So much so that on the Wednesday night, gig night, Steve insisted Jensen come along, even if he wasn’t going to play.
“I don’t know what happened, why you aren’t seeing your boyfriend any more, but you’ve been moping around for the last two days, Jen, and I’m sick of it. You are coming out tonight and you can leave that damn bottle behind and stick to beer for a few hours at least.”
“He’s not my boyfriend, dammit,” Jensen muttered, but he let Steve bully him into a shower, clean clothes and out of the apartment. He didn’t let Steve see the hip flask he slipped into his pocket, and conspicuously ordered bottled beer at the club. Steve sat Jensen at a table near the stage, and Jensen knew it was so his friend could keep an eye on him. It was kind of comforting, in a way. Jensen sat back in his chair and sang along quietly until Steve went off script half way through the first set.
“We don’t usually do covers,” Steve was saying, and Jensen started paying attention, because Steve was staring straight at him. “But we’re making an exception tonight. This one has a special meaning for me, because it expresses exactly how I feel about a good friend of mine. So here is our version of Elbow’s Some Riot.”
Melancholy chords on the keyboards, and then Steve was singing, slow and sad.
A friend of mine grows his very own brambles
They twist all around him 'til he can't move
Beautiful, quivering, chivalrous shambles
What is my friend trying to prove?
The bruise turns a tall, gentle boy to a terrible totem
And the kids gather round trying to see what's inside
I think when he's drinking he's drowning some riot
What is my friend trying to hide?
Cause it's breaking my heart, it's breaking my heart
And it's breaking my heart to pull out the rain
Brother of mine, don't run with those fuckers
When will my friend start singing again?
When will my friend start singing again?
Jensen paled. The air felt close and it was getting hard to breathe with Steve singing those words, each one aimed like an arrow at Jensen’s heart. It hurt twofold. Because where Steve was singing about him, Jensen heard Jared. Paddy. Jared.
He shouldn’t have run away; why was he always running away? His chair tipped over as he got up, but he didn’t notice. He saw the anxious look on Steve’s face as he turned to leave, but he couldn’t stop to explain. He had to get out. He needed to see Paddy.
Outside the club, he hadn’t run two steps before he crashed into someone and fell headlong with a cry of frustration and pain. He crashed to the sidewalk, jarring his healing ribs. The person who he’d knocked over squealed and Jensen suddenly had a face full of a nearly hysterical Muriel. Or Misha. It was hard to tell today. There was lipstick smeared across his lips, and his mascara had run, but he was wearing his more conventional male garb, so Jensen guessed this was more Misha than Muriel. Not that it really mattered.
“Jack! Thank goodness I’ve found you! We’ve been going frantic, the Round Table has been looking all over town for you, it’s so terrible, you have to come right away!”
Jensen got to his feet holding his tender side and then bent down to help Misha up.
“Whoa, slow down there, buddy,” Jensen said, concerned that Misha was going to hyperventilate before he’d managed to tell Jensen what was the matter. “How about you take a deep breath then tell me what’s wrong.”
It was Paddy. Of course. As if Jensen hadn’t messed up enough already.
Paddy had walked home alone that night after Jensen had left him at the beach, Misha explained. Muriel had been on her way to her cardboard residence under the viaduct when she’d been set upon by the same two vigilantes who’d attacked Jensen. As luck or fate would have it, Paddy had passed that way and naturally he had leapt to Muriel’s rescue just as he had before to Jensen’s. Except this time, three other guys joined the two teenagers. Outnumbered, Paddy had fought like a lion, but ultimately, he had gone down, albeit still swinging. Muriel’s recollections were a little foggy, and under the sodium glow of the streetlights Jensen could now see the bruising on Misha’s face that was evidence of the beating. But, Misha said, Muriel did remember that the police had come in time to save both their lives, and the paramedics had said that Paddy’s physical injuries were not that severe.
“Physical injuries? You mean he was harmed in some other way?” Jensen had a very bad feeling about this.
“Just as the cops were arriving, Paddy started screaming. It was horrible. I’ve never heard anything like it. It was worse than pain, Jack. Paddy was terrified. He said the Red Knight had come for him.” Misha’s voice was shaking, and tears were filling his eyes, and all Jensen could do was stand there, every muscle frozen with dread. Because he’d witnessed something like this once himself. He’d stayed late at the Marigold Mansions den one time, and they had both fallen asleep surrounded by candle flames. When Jensen woke in the middle of the night, all bar one of the candles had burnt out, and in the flickering darkness, Paddy had been clutching at him and screaming, eyes wide but unseeing. It had not taken Jensen many minutes to wake Paddy, but every second had been a moment too long. That time Jensen had been there to bring Paddy back to himself. This time, Muriel had been too hurt and scared to help, and the cops had been strangers.
Paddy was in hospital in a catatonic state. None of the companions of the Round Table, nor Bernie nor Genevieve nor Will had been able to rouse him.
“Just like before,” Jensen said to himself. “Shit.”
Misha clutched Jensen’s hand and wouldn’t let go, all the way to the hospital. Jensen didn’t mind, even welcomed the pressure that anchored him, stopped him feeling like he would just float away in a haze of fear. The mismatched pair drew some strange looks on the bus but neither of them noticed.
At the hospital Jensen pulled out all the stops to get the nurse on reception to allow them both in to see Jared. He had to play the hardest part of his acting life, blatantly flirting with her and playing on her unprofessional fangirling over Eric in Days of Our Lives, as if nothing else but her excitement at meeting a TV star mattered for those brief moments. Misha let go of his hand then, but Jensen was concentrating and didn’t register the little man’s changed expression until they were walking down the corridor to Jared’s room. His fingertips were touching the aluminium door handle when Misha grabbed Jensen’s sleeve.
“Wait.”
Jensen turned and looked down impatiently. He just wanted to see Jared. Paddy. He didn’t have time for this, what ever this was.
“You told us, you told Paddy, that your name was Jack. That nurse said different. Said you were famous. Why have you been lying to us?”
Oh. That. Jensen sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. His hand dropped away from Jared’s door. Misha was right, it was time for the truth.
“I wasn’t lying. No, wait!” He interrupted himself when Misha grimaced and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Jack is a nickname some of my friends use, but my full name is Jensen Ackles. You probably won’t have heard of me because I’m not really that famous, I’ve just done a couple of TV shows, nothing mainstream.”
But Misha was nodding, his expression set, and Jensen’s heart sank even further when Misha confirmed it. “Oh, I’ve heard of you alright. You were in the news a couple of years ago, weren’t you? I may not be up to date with everything, or watch television, but I see newspapers,” Misha said.
“And I take it you know who Paddy is, then?”
“We all know. Paddy knows too, sometimes, but we don’t talk about it. He doesn’t want to talk about it.” Jensen heard the unspoken – and if he remembered who he was, we’d lose him - and understood it because he felt the same. If Jared were to remember himself, would he want anything to do with the man who was at least partly responsible for his condition and the loss of the woman he loved? Would Jared Padalecki want to kiss Jensen Ackles, not Jack? He didn’t think so, and realised now this was part of the reason he hadn’t tried to push anything with Paddy. He was afraid of losing the friendship that had been growing between them. Well now it looked like he might have lost both the chance of a friend and gaining his redemption too, if they couldn’t find a way to wake Paddy.
Misha was staring at him as is he was waiting for an answer, and Jensen realised the little man must have asked him something while he was wool gathering.
“Sorry, what did you say?” Jensen asked, more than half expecting Misha to tell him to fuck off and leave Paddy alone, so he nearly had to ask Misha to repeat it again as the words sank in.
“I said, you do realise that none of this is your fault, don’t you?”
Jensen swallowed hard, opened his mouth but found he couldn’t speak. He knew it was his fault. Henry Watson had been obsessed with Jensen, not with Buster Grimes, and Jensen had come across him before, knew what he was like. He should never have allowed the DJ to speak to Watson like that, should never have allowed the radio station to take Watson’s call, should never have gone into the LA Lights studio in the first place …There was a whole causal chain of events that screamed at Jensen every day that he could have prevented that slaughter. If only.
If only he’d done something differently. If only he’d been a better man.
Misha was staring at him still, pinning Jensen to the wall with nothing more than the intensity of his blue eyes. He should have looked ridiculous, with the black mascara following the dried tear tracks down his cheeks, and the too bright red of the poorly applied lipstick still adhering to his bite-roughened lips, but Jensen couldn’t tear his gaze away.
“What happened to those people, the actions that Henry Watson took? They were not your doing, you could not have stopped them. Those of us that live on the streets, we all have our reasons for being here. We… I understand Watson. I read a lot about him, a week, two weeks after it happened. He was broken too, in ways that he couldn’t see. Then a month or so after that, Jared turned up one night, lost and lonely, standing in the shadows just at the edges of one of our campfires.
I recognised him from the pictures in the papers, but more than that, I recognised that look. So we took him under our wing, and he returned the favour, started looking after us. We are all damaged, Jensen. Every human being carries a little bit of damage, but some of us are more ruined than the rest. We each find our own way of escaping from whatever it was that hurt us. Some of us, we can never find our ways back, but Lance, Rocky and me, we all hoped you and Jared would do that for each other. Bring each other back.”
“Wait, are you saying you knew who I was all along? All of you knew?”
Misha shrugged. “Sure. Like I said, I read the news. I might be crazy but I’m not stupid.”
Misha took his hand again, gently this time, and it was forgiveness and a benediction. Misha led Jensen into Jared’s room, gave him a pat on the back.
“Go on, Jensen. Bring him back.”
0x0x0x0
But Jensen couldn’t.
He couldn’t bring either Jared or Paddy back.
He sat for hours that turned into days - talking, talking, even singing sometimes, until he was drooping from exhaustion in the hard plastic chair, still holding Jared’s limp hand, desperate for the slightest flicker to show that the unconscious man knew he was there.
Jensen still had plenty of money, and he was now rediscovering the power and influence a little bit of fame and notoriety conveys. He exploited both ruthlessly, ensuring Jared stayed in a private room and that his friends were allowed access night and day, in spite of the disreputable appearance of some of them. So Jared’s room filled up with the conventional flowers and food courtesy of Steve and Chris and Will Turrell; while Lance brought a rusty bit of metal he swore was a sword, Rocky brought his battered old boxing gloves because, he explained, they were imbued with good fortune. He’d never lost a fight wearing those gloves, and damned if Jared (or Paddy) was losing this one. The gloves were hung from the TV monitor in spite of the duty nurse’s tuts of disapproval. Misha brought a silver charm in the shape of an angel’s wing, which he fastened around Jared’s neck, without ever explaining its significance, while Muriel brought her best feather boa and festooned the TV set with it, even though as she pointed out, the purple clashed terribly with the red of Rocky’s gloves.
But it wasn’t until Bernie and Gen arrived with a huge get well card inscribed with their own best wishes and the paw prints of all Paddy’s beloved canine friends that Jensen realised he had been missing the most obvious thing.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Jensen’s yell silenced the room. They had a full house today, only Chris and Will were missing, so to get total silence was quite an achievement. Jensen was half way out of the door before anyone reacted. Predictably it was Steve who grabbed Jensen’s arm and stopped him leaving.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going? Who’s stupid?”
Jensen clutched at Steve’s plaid shirt, a wild look in his eye.
“Me! I’m so stupid! It was staring me in the face all this time but I just didn’t think… We need the Grail. Paddy believes she has healing powers, if anything can bring him back, it’s her.”
Steve looked blank because Jensen had failed to tell his friend about the magical dog, but Genevieve clapped her hands, and Misha nodded his approval. Lance was on his feet and virtually bounded to Jensen’s side. If he’d been a dog Jensen could swear his tail would have been wagging up a storm.
“Honour guard!” Lance said, with a grin that got even wider when Gen’s tiny form slipped under his arm. “Make that two,” she said. Luckily for Gen, Lance had been sleeping at the shelter for the past couple of nights and therefore smelled more of disinfectant than the streets, or being positioned that close to his armpit might have been hazardous. As it was, Jensen thought with some surprise, they actually made a cute couple.
With Genevieve and her keys, extracting the Grail from Redwings was simple. It was getting the dog into the hospital that proved challenging. For once, Jensen’s charm failed him, and the Honour Guard and their charge found themselves outside in the parking lot without a plan, having been turfed out by security twice. The guard on the main doors was now lurking in reception, clearly keeping an eye on them after having caught them trying a flanking move on their second attempt.
Jensen beckoned to Gen and Lance and they moved out of sight to confer. Clearly they needed some new tactics. The Grail was unruffled by all this human agitating and took it all in her stride. She sat down with a huge contented sigh and leaned happily against Jensen’s leg, which was when the idea came to him.
“What we need is a good distraction. Now I know that receptionist is a big Days fan, and what guy is blind to the charms of a hot chick, especially a famous hot chick, even in LA?” Gen looked as if she was about to list a few of her gayest friends who would be immune, so Jensen rushed on. “What we need are reinforcements.”
While Gen explained to Lance that Days meant Days of Our Lives and then had to further clarify that it was a TV show, Jensen got out his cell phone and started ringing round. Two hours later, and the DOL cast had come up trumps. Franco and Carrie, aka actors Christie and Victor, arrived in the parking lot and Jensen briefed them hurriedly.
“So, you want us to provide a diversion while you smuggle a miracle hound in to save your boyfriend? You’re as crazy as ever, Ackles!” Victor laughed and gave Jensen a continental style hug with the kissy-cheek thing, just because he knew how much the Texas in Jensen was allergic to that sort of thing. Smug Italian bastard. Christie just smiled and asked for her ‘lines’.
When they were all set, Victor and Christie strolled into the hospital and Jensen and the Honour Guard didn’t have long to wait for a minor freak out to ensue. Joan, the receptionist, shrieked in excitement, and within less than a minute, Joan had set off a chain reaction in the waiting room. Jensen cautiously stuck his head round the doorway and almost clapped like Genevieve when he saw Christie hanging onto the security guy, begging him to protect her from the lovely fans. Jensen waved to Lance and Gen and the three of them slipped past the chaos like three ninjas and their dog. Taking the stairs instead of the lift, Lance and Gen and the Grail sneaked in the back door to Jared’s corridor, while Jensen carried out the frontal assault from the lift on Sarah, who was probably the biggest Dark Angel Alec fan this side of the ocean. By the time Jensen had extricated himself from Sarah’s adoring clutches, the Grail was safely ensconced in Jared’s room, and the sense of anticipation was palpable.
The small room was getting hot and stuffy with so many people packed into such a small space. Misha, Rocky, Lance, Gen, Bernie, Will, who’d arrived in the interim while Operation Grail was taking place, they were all there. Even Steve had stuck around to see the Grail perform her miracle. Jensen looked around for the dog, and found her looking a bit cowed, virtually hiding under Jared’s bed.
“So how’s this going to work then, Jen?”
Jensen stared at Jared, too still and too pale in his hospital gown, dark hair spread on the white pillow case, hands folded on his chest, with only the IV drip and the too-slow rise and fall of his ribs indicating that Jensen wasn’t looking at a corpse laid out for viewing at a wake. One of the nurses had even shaved off the beard when Jared had first arrived, before Jensen had even known his friend had collapsed. It had been quite a shock to walk in and see that face for the first time. It was all too familiar from photographs but completely unfamiliar from real life, because that clean-shaven look belonged to Jared Padalecki, not Paddy.
“Jen? Are you okay, buddy?” Steve asked, putting a hand on Jensen’s shoulder.
Someone had decided to take the initiative while Jensen stood in frozen indecision, and had taken one of Jared’s hands and dangled it off the edge of the bed. Gen coaxed the Grail out from her hiding place and Jared’s lax fingers tangled in the golden dog’s curly mane. The room went quiet as everyone held their breath.
The seconds ticked by, then a minute, two minutes, five. Nothing happened. The Grail snuffled and then lay down, breaking contact with Jared.
Everyone collectively exhaled apart from Jensen, who felt there wasn’t enough air in the world to keep him breathing right now. If this failed… if the Grail magic didn’t work… He didn’t know what he was going to do. Something in his expression must have given away how badly he was freaking out, because Misha, now most definitely in Muriel-mode, stepped in and took charge.
“Everybody out! Come on, let’s leave our boys alone, give them some breathing space.”
Muriel gathered everyone and rounded them up like a glamorous sheepdog, ignoring the few feeble protests with a wave of her hand. “How can they work magic while we’re all gawking like guppies?” One by one she ushered all their friends out of the door.
“Besides,” she flung over her shoulder at Jensen as she exited stage right. “You need someone to keep a look out and make sure you aren’t interrupted. We’ll be right out here waiting, darling.” She said, and gave Jensen the thumbs up before closing the door with a click that sounded like an affirmation.
In the silence that followed, Jensen looked down at the Grail, lying at his feet, and she gazed back at him, big brown eyes hopeful. She wagged her tail. He swallowed past the lump in his throat.
“Okay, girl. Let’s do this.”
0x0x0x0
Trapped. He can hear the hoof beats behind him, a galloping rhythm matching his racing heart. There’s no way out.
He’s been running for hours… maybe days, he doesn’t really know any more. All he knows is that it hurts, and that he wants it to end.
But it never ends, because here he is again. Where the running always takes him, no matter which direction or how far he flees. He always ends up here.
Soft candlelight and white table cloths, music playing in the background and Aisling sitting opposite him, her dark eyes sparkling with life and laughter. She’s so beautiful. He wants to reach out and touch her cheek, to tell her how much he loves her, misses her, wants her, but he can’t because he knows what comes next.
Screeching; cracking; shattered glass everywhere, glittering in the sodium glow of the streetlights that are suddenly illuminating the room because the whole front of the restaurant has gone and in its place is a mass of chrome and black metal and a spear coming straight through Aisling’s chest to pierce his own heart. He hangs onto her bleeding broken body until the shouting paramedics tear his hands away.
The Dark Knight in the dark night shattering his life, his love, his everything, over and over again.
Except this time is different.
Jared looks up and instead of Aisling, it is Jack who’s sitting there, holding his hand across the table. Jack has a serious expression; he’s not smiling like Aisling usually does, but he is kind of glowing, his skin looks golden and his eyes glint green. Jared should be worrying about the Black Knight coming, but somehow, the pressure of Jack’s hand holding on tight is banishing the fear. Then Jared realises where the light is coming from, and all his muscles relax.
The Grail is sitting next to them, blazing like a small, furry sun, bathing them both with a warmth that feels like summer. The dog seems to feel Jared’s gaze and looks up, mouth open in a panting grin, and wags her tail with vigour. Jared reaches out with his free hand – no way is he ever letting go of Jack’s – and lets his fingers tangle in her silky soft curls.
Grail-light surrounds and shields him, and this time when the Black Knight comes, Jared sees the headlights and the fender. He recognises the pickup truck and the thin-faced man behind the wheel who is wearing the truck like armour. He understands Aisling’s death and he is finally able to let her go.
He opens his eyes.
0x0x0x0
Epilogue – 6 months later
“This works better if you let your skin breathe, you know.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Your reputation isn’t the one that’ll be ruined when the media catch me in the buff on a beach in the middle of the night. You aren’t an internationally famous musician and voice-over artist.”
“Neither are you,” Jared laughs, leaning over and giving Jensen’s rather fetching Hawaiian print board shorts a hefty tug that leaves Jensen yelping as his bits get caught in the elastic on their way down.
“Hey, hey! Watch the merchandise!”
Jared lies back, pillowing his head on his arms and smiling appreciatively. “Oh I am watching, don’t worry. I wouldn’t miss a view like this for anything.”
“Yeah well, I’m surprised you can still see certain parts of me, it’s fucking freezing out here, man.”
Grail checks out Jensen’s junk and thinks it doesn’t look too shrivelled to her. Evidently he’s exaggerating, as usual. Jensen lowers himself a little gingerly onto the sand next to Jared, clearly feeling wary of getting sand into cracks and crannies it really should never go. Grail’s tail thumps once, approving, as Jensen stretches out and finally allows himself to unwind. Both her boys are here with her, and all is right with the world.
“Anyhow, I thought we were here to look at the stars, not admire my naked butt.”
“I don’t have a problem with doing both,” Jared says, his smile unruffled by Jensen’s grumping.
Grail is just settling herself down along Jared’s warm back when Jensen tenses and props himself on one elbow. This one thinks too much, in her opinion.
“What do you mean I’m not an internationally renowned musician? I’ll have you know Grail Warriors’ last Stageit concert was attended by fans from at least 15 different countries!”
Jared turns his head to stare up into Jensen’s face where it looms palely over him and the Grail like an indignant moon. “You are quite right, I take it all back. No doubt there is a posse of paparazzi hiding behind that sand dune, just waiting for a real photo opportunity. I mean, catching Jensen Ackles, lead guitarist of Steve Carlson’s band, voice-over star of numerous video games and former television star, in flagrante with Jared Padalecki, animal shelter worker and ex-crazy hobo doctor of literature, well, that could make their careers… oomph!”
Jensen must decide the only way to silence a Padalecki in full flow is to stopper his mouth with a kiss. It seems to be working. Certainly parts of Jared’s anatomy appear to appreciate the diversion. His dick is now pointing skyward at the stars - a reminder of their original intent that strangely neither man was interested in pursuing right now. These humans are very easily distracted, Grail thought.
It would appear that stargazing isn’t the only pastime that benefits from getting naked and letting your skin breathe. The Grail rested her golden head on her front paws and grinned.
The End
Author's note:
I moved the setting to LA to fit with Jensen's occupation, and because I wanted to have scenes on a beach (don't know why!). If by any chance you haven't yet seen the original film, watch it. It is such a beautiful story, I hope I have done it a little bit of justice with this retelling.
While writing I had certain songs in mind so here's a playlist to accompany the fic:
Fanmix - playlist
Elbow – Some Riot
David Crosby – Somehow She Knew
Riley Smith – This Room
Pearl Jam – Just Breathe
Steve Carlson - Don’t Go
Steve Carlson – Out Here Alone
Stackridge – The Road to Venezuela