ladyjanelly | Fic: Rollerball (J2, NC-17, 6/6)

Title:Rollerball
Author:Ladyjanelly
Movie Adapted: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246894/
Genre: CW RPS
Characters/Pairings:Jared/Jensen
Rating:NC-17
Word Count: 10,202
Warnings: violence
Notes/Credits: Thanks to Jellicle for looking over this for me and giving me hand-holding and feed-back.

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended; fair use only. Not created for profit.

Ackles plays the game. He scores points. He fights hard and he doesn’t quit.

His face is bloody and his arm hangs limp.

Jared’s heart bleeds for him.

If he wasn’t waiting, if he didn’t have hope, he’d put up the fight now, make Brotski shoot him in the head, make Brotski kill him before Jensen tortures himself to death on the track instead of after.

There’s a disruption at the door; a shotgun goes off in the small space, deafening Jared for a second. The guard falls back, shirt and flesh in tatters. In Brotski’s moment of confusion, Jared twists the gun away from him and snaps his elbow the wrong way in one sharp motion.

Brotski’s screaming and holding his arm to himself, and Jared thinks of Jensen, walking around with a fucking broken collar bone for two weeks. The gun’s a good weight in Jared’s hand and he hits Brotski in the face with it, hits him until he’s not moving anymore.

Jared stares down at what he’s done for long moments. Then he looks to the door and god-damn if there’s anything better than a familiar face.

“C’mon,” he says, “We gotta get down there. They’re killin’ him.”

------

Jensen plays the game. He scores points. He fights hard and he doesn’t quit. He’s not sure where his helmet has gone. He hopes they find it to bury him in.

Every punch he takes, every fall to the unforgiving floor of the track is another breath for Jared, another moment of life. When he can, when he’s not busy getting the shit kicked out of him, Jensen looks up at the owner’s box and sees Jared there with the gun pointed at him.

On the next pass, Jared’s gone. Brotski’s gone. There’s nothing but a dull chant of the crowd, “Tejas! Tejas!” Spanish for Texas, and he’s not sure why that’s the cry the crowd has picked up, and he really needs to find Jared, but the gap the players came in through was filled by a piece of wall at the beginning of the match, bolted into place to provide a smooth surface to skate against.

Jared’s disappearance gives him a second wind--more like a fourth or fifth if he’s being honest with himself, but who’s counting? He slides between opponent and friend alike. Nobody swings at him. Around the back pass, there’s a shape at the top of the plexi-glass wall, a hand reaching down for him. He stumbles and almost falls. Jared. Jesus, Jared’s out, Jared’s there.

He’s too far past by the time he gathers his senses, and he makes a second loop around. Nobody stops him, nobody reaches for him.

There’s silence, like the entire crowd took a collective breath, and then his hand catches around Jared’s wrist, and Jared’s fingers close around his and the crowd roars its approval.

For one sickening moment, it feels like Jared’s tilting into the ring, but then he catches his balance and Jensen's being lifted up, out of the track, over the wall. A spike of fear stabs through his heart at the thought. The crowd is like an angry sea, eager to crush him, drown him, tear him against the reef.

“Tejas! Tejas!” they chant.

“I’ve got you,” Jared promises.

“Go and be safe,” Costas urges. The big guy bends down, grabs Jensen around the knees and lifts him up to Jared.

The fight’s gone out of him and Jensen lets himself be lifted. He can’t struggle as he’s handed down on the other side. Jared and another tall guy cradle him between them and the crowd parts just enough to let them past. The noise has fallen to a breeze-like murmur. The fingertips of hundreds of strangers trail over his body as he’s carried out the door to a waiting pickup truck.

--------

The world moves under Jensen, an unsteady bump and rattle that makes him think again of the ocean, of being carried away, churned under. Fear of the mob makes him open his eyes, and he sees a canvas stretched a few feet over his face. A filthy mattress is under him, and the walls of a pickup truck bed to either side. Looking down by his feet, he can see the lights of the city growing smaller in the distance.

Even in the shadow of the tarp and the breeze from their travel, the dry heat swirls around him, feeling like home.

Jared is beside him, stretched out asleep. His face has been cleaned up but the cut over his eye is crusted black with dried blood. He looks to be at peace. His broad hand is splayed out on Jensen's stomach, holding him down, keeping him safe.

It’s enough. Jensen lets himself fade out again, the trails of his thoughts dissipating like smoke.

The next time Jensen is really aware, he’s waking up in a hotel room. He has vague recollections of the time between the truck and now--switching vehicles, taking pills, Jared holding him down while somebody else does something really shitty to Jensen's bad shoulder.

He remembers tears, and he opens his eyes, searching for Jared.

“Hey,” Jared murmurs, low and calming. A strong hand rests on Jensen's chest. “Don’t move if you don’t have to. It’s okay. We’re safe now.”

Jensen blinks up, catching sight of three other men in the room.

“Who--” he asks, his voice dry and gritty. “How--”

Jared grins, this big beaming smile that Jensen's never seen on him before. “This is my brother Jeff, and his friends Alan and Frank.” The guys nod their greetings. Jared shrugs, sheepish. “I thought we needed a plan B.”

“Yeah,” says Jensen, because obviously his plan sucked. “You got caught.” He wishes he was making more sense, but his thoughts won’t organize themselves into anything like logic.

Jared gets up and brings him a small cup of water before he answers. “Misha. She told Brotski about the drugs, about the cash.”

And probably caused the wreck on the track on purpose.

Jensen closes his eyes, processing that. He knows he should be angry but he doesn’t have the energy for it.

“Where are we?” He’s already starting to plan the next steps. “Brotski--”

“Brotski’s dead,” Jared says, and he doesn’t sound sorry at all. “We’re halfway to San Antonio. Figured we’d stay here a day and let you get some strength back. Alan set your shoulder, but it’s not gonna be a fun drive.”

“Okay,” says Jensen, because Jared seems to be waiting for some sort of answer.

“I gave them the money,” Jared confesses. “Instead of buying a car or something.”

Jensen's amazed that even now, Jared’s worried about seeming like he ripped Jensen off. “It’s okay,” he says again, and covers Jared’s hand with his good one.

Jared lays his long body out beside Jensen, and it seems so strange to be resting like this in front of Jared’s brother and his friends, but unless somebody’s throwing punches Jensen can’t bring himself to care.

-------

San Antonio

Jared’s glad to see his family welcome Jensen in with open arms. He’s the guy who brought their son home, the hero. Jared laughs at that and says he did at least half the rescuing but he knows they couldn’t have done it without each other.

Nobody says anything when they share a room, share a bed. Not even Jensen, thank god. Jared never planned on having anything to do with the guy when it was all over, but those last two weeks had changed him, changed them.

Jensen “Not-The-Hawk” Ackles is a different man, quiet, introspective, polite. Jared takes the weeks of Jensen's recuperation to get to know him, to talk about life in Texas and growing up and who they are. Jensen tells him the story of how the skate-punk he’d been was seduced by the bright lights and big paychecks, how he’d loved it until he realized he couldn’t leave the game alive. Jared tells Jensen how he got stuck in Europe in the crash, the things he did to keep off the streets.

Jensen doesn’t ask for much, for anything really, so when he wants a ride to the bank, Jared borrows a car and drives him himself. Jensen's inside for a long time, and when he comes out, he presses an envelope into Jared’s hand.

“This is for you,” he says, his eyes staring out the passenger side window.

Jared opens the flap with numb fingers. Inside, in Euros, is enough cash to pay for that college education he would have been getting if everything hadn’t gone wrong with the world.

It feels like goodbye.

“Jensen, man--I can’t take this,” he says, even as he knows what it can do for him, for his family.

Jensen shrugs and looks down at his hands. “You deserve it. You kept me sane when I would have lost my mind. You gave me something to live for. You don’t--you don’t have to pretend anymore.”

Jared blinks. “Pretend? What the hell?” He restrains himself from shaking Jensen by his shoulders. He wants to smack him, but Jensen looks too beaten already, so he gently turns the other man’s face to look at him.

“I love you, you asshole. Jesus.” He leans in and brushes their lips together. Jensen's breath hitches and he shivers. Then he’s kissing Jared back and it’s more than Jared ever thought it would be.