Roll the Dice - Chapter 4 (5/9)

[mangacat201]

Chapter three

Jared drew a sharp breath, thrown into awareness from one second to the next even if the clingy webs of forced relaxation still clung to his muscles like molasses. For that very moment, everything hung in balance and he wondered how long he’d been gone this time since the weight dragging down his limbs still felt so heavy even though his mind was wide awake. It wouldn’t have been as long as the first time though, which had been long enough to get some of his extremities replaced apparently and that thought made a cascade of images shudder down in front of his mind’s eye, everything distorted and out of place and unbelievable, what the flying fuck had they done to him?

The thundering beat of his heart rushed in his ears, strong and steady despite the panic rising inside, choking him up as he wondered just how much of him was still him after all. Suddenly the walls felt like they were moving in around him, and the quiet, incessant beeping of the machine attached to his body roared like a cacophony of madness around him. He needed to get out, fricking out of here and fast. And then Jared beat his protesting, drug-sluggish muscles into submission by sheer power of will, and got his legs to move, sliding down from the side of the bed with a dull thud. Setting his bare feet down onto the ground felt like walking on a live wire, as if a million nerve endings lit up at the same time and he barely stifled a scream. Still, Jared breathed past the sensation that was almost but not quite like pain and levered himself up to stand on his own two feet, shaky and unstable like a newborn colt, but upright and prepared to shake the tangles of his mechanical guardians loose and run as far as he possibly could.

Jensen let himself get dragged out of sleep reluctantly, aches and cramped muscles, and then the nature of the alarm penetrated his mind, and he was up in a flash, every personal consideration forgotten. He barely took the time to throw a random lab coat over his bare, bandaged chest, and the loose sweat pants before he ran out toward the lab like the fiends of hell were on his heels, the ringing of a flatline roaring in his ears. He was one of the first people to arrive besides the night guard, barely aware of the people pouring in after him, but when Jensen barrelled through the doors of the lab, half out of his mind when he went through the identification to open the lock, he found quite a different situation than what he’d expecting. Instead of lying in the bed with cardiac arrest, Jay had obviously stripped off all the monitoring equipment attached to his body and was standing next to the bed on quite unsteady legs, but obviously determined to up and leave on his own recognizance.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t just pull of the equipment like tha…”

“Watch me.”

“What’s going on here?”

The lab-tech who had been on watch duty for the night shot Jensen a desperately grateful look when he hastened up them, staying still and indecisive like a hunter who unexpectedly finds the wild boar he’s been tracking turning around and panting an couple of feet from his position. Jensen had no idea how people supposed that he’d have a better chance at getting Jay to budge if he didn’t want to – the guy was built like a fricking redwood even without the extras, no kidding – but he was the team leader and in a position of authority. Technically.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t feel entirely the same way about the stand-off he had run into headfirst just now. What he knew for sure was that he couldn’t let the situation escalate like it had last time to the point of having Jay medically subdued again, not before he’d found out what had actually triggered the major episode from before. That didn’t mean that all the other people in the room were with the program though. Especially since the bottom kind of fell out of Jensen’s stomach for a multitude of reasons when Jay looked up and focused all his attention on him, eyes blazing with a simmering fury.

“You.”

Jensen’s breath caught in his throat, apprehension rising in him when Jay advanced on him with a looming presence he seriously shouldn’t be able to pull off just like that. Still, he had to man up and get this mess under control fast.

“I need you to get back onto the bed and let me reset your monitoring systems, now.”

Jensen fancied that he saw a minute flinch at the harsh sound of his voice, but the instruction didn’t stop Jay in his tracks for more than a split second, on the contrary, it seemed to make him even madder. He advanced on Jensen with a fervor that made him take an involuntary step back, even though he mentally berated himself for it on the spot.

“I don’t think so. I think that you and me, we have some things to talk about and then I’m going to go discharge myself.”

“I can’t do that, there’s too many…”

“The hell you can’t. As far as I can tell you’ve made me fit to walk through a wall, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do if you want to make that bet.”

Jensen opened his mouth to come up with some kind of rebuke, but before he had the chance to say anything, Jay’s right hand closed around his neck like a vice and lifted him clear off the floor. Fighting for breath all of a sudden, he barely had time to register Jay’s hissed words:

“And don’t think I’m dumb enough to let your underlings get the drop on me again. That’s right, shorty, I see you there creeping in. Here’s what’s going to happen: you put that syringe down and gather up everyone in this room, and then you get out of here and close the door. And don’t even think of calling the cavalry, because I’m quite easily distracted right now, and if I’m startled I might forget myself and grip a little harder than I actually intend to.”

Everything hung in stasis for a moment as Jensen scrambled against the tight grip, realizing for the first time that Jay wasn’t only his patient and possibly the key to an extraordinary scientific break-through, but also a highly trained soldier and a very dangerous man. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the thrill that raced through him at the feel of the inhumanly strong fingers closing around his neck, and the agony his abused ribs inflicted on him with his troubled breathing.

“Didn’t you hear me? You don’t get the fuck out of here right now, he dies. Don’t try my patience.”

When Jensen opened his eyes again, he saw Chris in his line of sight and tried to convey to him with a minute nod and the expression of his face that he was alright and could handle himself. Chris hesitated of course, unwilling to abandon him in this unpredictable and unstable situation, but Jensen’s pained gasp from a slight increase of pressure finally made him move as well. When the swish of the doors sounded behind his back and Jensen heard the security system engage to lock up the lab, he made himself meet Jay’s stare head on. This was just between them right now.

When he was sure that everyone had actually left, and they’d locked up the place after themselves, Jared finally allowed himself to relax for a second. This situation had spiralled out of control so fast that it was giving him whiplash, but he wasn’t going to back down anymore. Still, the moment of silence and receding tension made him actually realize that he was dangling a man from his neck with his feet three inches into the air, and it was as much like a punch in the gut as his ultra vision had been the night before.

“Oh shit, I didn’t…”

Abruptly, he let go, and the doctor landed on unsteady feet, clutching an arm around his torso as he stumbled, and Jared wondered for a fleeting moment… but determination and rage clouded his mind to anything but what he wanted to know. The doctor looked up to him, wheezing for breath and set out to say something.

“Jay, I’m sorry for…”

“I don’t want to hear any of your fucking excuses. What I want is for you to tell me what exactly happened to me out there in the desert, and what you did to me, and I want it right the fuck now.”

Despite the fact that he’d let the man down so he could talk, Jared still advanced with heavy steps, crowding the slightly smaller man back with all the intimidation he could muster.

“You… uhm, you were brought here with polytraumatic injuries, in severe haemodynamic shock due to massive blood loss sustained in the initial trauma. There was an acute problem with pulmonary decompensation due to a lung artery embolism with necrotic lung tissue caused by metallic shrapnel perforation during transport. Additionally, internal injuries entailed grade III haemorrhagic renal failure, with hyperpotassimia and billirubinaemia, which resulted in cardial discompensation with absolute arrhythmia…” Jensen was babbling like a loon, and he knew it, especially since Jay was unlikely to get half the medical mumbo-jumbo, but putting diagnostics together like that had always calmed him down in stressful times, and his mouth was just running away with him at the moment.

“…while the extremities presented a particular challenge with a grade III open comminuted fracture of the femur with rupture trauma to the abductor group and the patellar tendon, as well as spontaneous supracondylar humeral amputation, due to disruption trauma. The most tricky parts were the head trauma where we could observe a penetration trauma of the bulbus of an eye with retinal dislocation, and tympanic pressure trauma with dislocation of the stapes in one ear. To save your life, we were given directive to apply a highly advanced, experimental procedure combining nano- and microrobotics with biocompatible polymer structures, artificially developed biointrinsic neuronal support structures for vital enhancement and replacement systems of the human body.”

Jay looked at him incredulously for a moment, but then his gaze darkened again and he crowded them into the wall, planting his hand firmly next to Jensen’s head and leaning in closely. Jensen felt his breath brush over his cheek, shivering with something between panic and arousal at the sensation while he followed Jay’s eyes flitting over his face, assessing – he felt weighted, measured and found wanting in a way he had never experienced before.

“Are you trying to make me madder?”

Jensen stared back into those vivid eyes just a couple of inches from his own, the right one just a little bit off in colour, too luminous, the fraction of a second too fast when focusing, an imitation of life. He managed to shake his head slightly, not daring to break contact on his own.

“Try. Again.”

Jensen bit his lips slightly, wetting them in an attempt to find enough of a distraction to order his thoughts, noticing the way Jay’s eyes followed the movement for a split second before focusing up again. The tension between them suddenly felt fundamentally altered, but Jensen couldn’t really make sense of the why and how. Still, Jensen started talking quietly, almost a whisper, trying to keep Jay near, make him understand.

“When they brought you here, you were in bad shape. They’d barely managed to keep you alive during transport. The shell that exploded next to you blasted shrapnel into just about every part of your body, causing grievous internal injuries in addition to the damage from the initial explosion. When you arrived here, one of the metal pieces had worked itself up into your chest cavity and pierced one of your lungs, deflating it, flooding it with blood.”

Jensen lifted his hand in a moment of temporary insanity and stretched his shaking fingers until they made contact with Jay’s flushed skin, healed almost seamlessly where there should have been raised and knotted scars. The muscles jumped under his touch, and Jay’s eyes widened minutely, but Jensen never let his gaze waver, never stopped talking as his fingers slid feather-light over the pebbled skin.

“We had to replace it so that you’d be able to breathe again, and we could gain time to work on your failing kidneys and heart, which couldn’t take the strain of blood loss combined with the traumatic injuries anymore. We were able to save one of the kidneys and outfit your heart with a compatible support structure that helps the muscle do its work and compensates for any extra capacity that the other systems need.”

Jensen’s finger tips slid up over the left pectoral muscle, pressing down slightly until the strong, regular beat travelled up through his skin and into his core like an electrical shock, words suddenly fleeting and secondary to the strange spark between them, yet he went on, almost whispering.

“When we got the internal injuries under control, we set the shattered bones in your leg, and repaired the muscle damage and the shredded ligaments so that you’re able to walk again, almost lost you again then and there, no idea why we didn’t.”

He inched his hand a little higher again, light brushes as if to calm a skittish animal even though he knew that if he broke the spell with one foolish move, it would be his hide.

Still, a shiver ran down Jensen’s spine, the whisper of a thrill that captured a feeling that had nothing to do with fear and everything with intuition.

“Next was your right arm, which was torn off above the elbow in the initial blast, so I had to design a full scale replacement according to your records and proportions. And last, the replacement of your shredded eardrum, and the reconstruction of your left eye, which was pierced by a piece of shrapnel.”

His fingers had made their way up to Jay’s cheek, the lightest of touches against the thin, sensitive skin at the corner of his eye. Jensen watched everything sink in, realization dawning slowly, followed by awe, and dread and downright terror. Whispered words that were barely loud enough to reach Jensen’s ears.

“What have you done to me?”

Jensen looked at him for a heartbeat, so close that their breaths mingled, before tilting his head up and answering, “I brought you to life.”

Then he leaned in across that last inch, eyes sliding shut while the soft brush of lips, shuddering breath on heated skin made the world grind to halt around him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jared was paralysed by shock, words crashing into him along with sensations that didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. Like the soft press of lips on his, chaste, no more than a fleeting touch, but yet so out of the blue, completely ridiculous in their current position that it left him speechless. A deep smothering ache settled underneath his breastbone, spreading out in an agonizing sense of loss. He found himself trying to keep his body in check, holding back from chasing after the kiss for another one when they separated with the next exhale of breath.

Somewhere deep, deep down a portion of his mind was sitting back with hysterical laughter about the irony of it all, all the anger and fear, bleak emotional exhaustion and the overpowering need to feel close to another human being that he hadn’t experienced in years. For a moment, he could do nothing but breathe through the turmoil, trying to come to terms with the fact that he was only half there anymore, but still kicking, still wanting… wanting…

“Jay?”

His heart did a curious little hiccup at the sound of the word, missing a beat, before it started again at a much faster pace. He looked down at his chest as if he was trying to look directly at it through skin and flesh and bone, feeling his heartbeat pump blood through his veins like an echo inside his body, something foreign and unnatural crawling under his skin, and suddenly the rage was back.

His hand snapped up as an afterthought, curling his fingers tight around the hand on his face, grinding the delicate bones of the wrist together, until he felt a spasm of pain that put distance between them. Looming over the wide-eyed doctor, Jared took in the sharp, shallow breaths, sweat beading on the split brow that seeped into the blood crusted strips of skin and tried to figure out what this man’s agenda was. He couldn’t really get past the one consuming thought in his mind.

“You made a monster out of me.”

The words punched all the air right out of Jensen’s lungs, not only because of their meaning, but also the vitriol with which they were uttered. He didn’t really know what to do with the hatred that began to gather in Jay’s eyes. He was still reeling from his unbelievable feat of stupidity of a minute ago, but the words ripped a wound in a place inside him that he hadn’t thought could be touched.

Shouldn’t have been touched, given there was nothing between them to build his feelings on but the illusion of a person and wishful thinking.

That didn’t change the fact though that he felt unable to breathe.

That he felt locked inside this impossible situation with no way out, pinned by a searching stare that seemed to be able to figure him out as little as he could the other way around.

Before he could even begin to make head or tail of it though, his eyes caught on the red dot that slid over the skin on Jay’s temple with only a split second to process what was happening, realization racing through him almost as fast as a gunshot, but the instinctive reaction of his body seemed to have been enough to alert Jay.

Jared probably would have missed it if not for his whole attention being concentrated on the man in front of him. The minute twitch of the doctor’s eyes to the side, and the tension that suddenly seemed to lock all the muscles in his body. And then it was there, loud in his ears, but familiar, because he had done it often enough himself, the click and flip of a bullet sliding into the chamber, scraping at the walls, and he was moving before the pull of the trigger was complete. Jared ignored the painful, deafening noise of the discharged bullet and the beginning of a fearful scream, because only his response time stood between him and certain death at that moment.

Jensen screamed when he witnessed the bullet speeding past Jay’s head, ruffling his hair, but instinct, or adrenaline or sheer madness made him use the taller man’s momentum to spin them around, until his body was between Jay and the tac team that had obviously crept into the lab while they had been busy hashing it out amongst themselves. He was terrifyingly conscious of the half a dozen laser beams that were most likely trained on his back, waiting for a clear shot. His heartbeat thundered in his ears while he tried to figure out how to dissolve that situation without anyone dying. He needed a second to think.

“HOLD YOUR FIRE.”

To Jay, who was crouching just a couple of feet away he whispered ‘stay down’ and when the man made a move to case the surroundings and maybe make a run for it, he hissed desperately: “They got a kill order on you, so stay the fuck down, and do exactly as I say.”

“Prof. Ackles, you’re going to need to step away immediately.”

“I said, hold your fire.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that, we have amber alert and authorization to immediately terminate the subject.” The unspoken question about why Jensen had put himself in the line of fire when he was supposed to be in grave danger was hanging heavy in the air.

“Look, I’m going to turn around slowly, and then we can talk about this face to face, alright, Major Lehne?”

“That’s not…”

Jensen send Jay another look that hopefully conveyed how much he needed him to stay put right now, before turning around with his hands spread open to the side.

Jared felt his blood rush through his veins, and his heart thundered in his ears so loudly that he didn’t even hear what was said once the doctor had turned his back to talk to the soldiers surrounding them. Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, he had just dodged a bullet. Literally.

All thoughts ground to halt around him, centred on that one, mind boggling fact, stopping the emotional rollercoaster he’d found himself on since he woke up dead in his tracks. The ache was creeping back into his head slowly, and he knew that it was only a matter of seconds before his world tilted again into that strange perception that made his whole body feel unfamiliar to him, fragmented, alien.

He fought against the sensation with everything in him, eyes squeezed shut, nostrils flaring, but it didn’t help, only made his hearing more acute “Major I can assure you that the subject is contained…” and he wanted to slap his hands over his ears, drown it out, drown it all out…

“MAKE IT STOP”

The scream rang in Jensen’s ears and stopped the words that he’d prepared to say dead, before they could leave his lips. He could practically feel the laser-beams that were still trained on his body quiver, and he thanked all the gods who were listening that none of Alpha response team had a happy trigger finger. His first instinct was to turn around and take care of his patient, but he couldn’t do that before he was sure that team would actually stand down if he did. Major Lehne was a loyal and seasoned officer, and, baring a few minor incidents, Jensen hadn’t needed his immediate assistance till now, but he knew that the man was determined to follow his orders, no matter what the cost might be. However, even he and his men weren’t immune to witnessing a comrade’s distress, and when Jensen saw a glimpse of compassion and conflict in their eyes, he knew he had to take his chance now or never.

“Major, I’m going to need you and your men to help me get him back into bed and set up the monitoring equipment.”

Jensen had used his best commanding authority voice, before he resolutely turned around and finally got a read on what state Jay was in, and what had prompted the sudden outburst. He had his suspicions, but finding the man with his hands pressed against his ears and tangled into his hair, eyes racing erratically under the closed lids like he was in REM, but breathing harshly and labored, still hit him like a punch in the gut. When he laid his hands on Jay’s shoulders however, the man’s eyes suddenly opened and fixed him with the most disconcerting stare Jensen had ever encountered. The pupil of the undamaged eye was blown wide and unseeing, while the iris of the other one was so prominent that Jensen was able to make out the discolouration due to the fast acting circuitry that was hidden behind the shield. He felt like he was being focused, measured… assessed.

‘And oh my god, what if Jay can’t…’

“It’s alright, Jay, you’re going to be fine, remember. I’m here to help you, Jay, can you help me get you up and over to the bed? That’s it, Jay, that’s going to be a lot more comfortable than the cold hard floor.”

Jensen babbled on whatever came to his mind while he moved to put his hands around Jay’s left arm very slowly. He knew that if he couldn’t get the man to cooperate, there was no way he was going to get him off the floor, but before he could finish that thought, Major Lehne had knelt down next to him, carefully mirroring his movements. He looked at the head of security gratefully, before he turned his head and noticed that the rest of the team was still alert with their rifles turned on them as they worked to get Jay to stand up. Jensen knew that if the man acted out now, it was over, so he kept the steady stream of calming words going.

“That’s it, Jay, that’s the way to go.”

The whisper was too quiet for him to hear at first, but when he saw Jay’s lips move he strained to understand what the man was saying.

“…red… my… me… my name is Jared. My name is Jared. My name is Jared.”

Chapter Five