So...even though Reuben doesn't die in this AU, I really don't think Jesse would come out of the whole thing mentally okay (plus unnecessary angst seems to be my modus operandi ;-;), but I hope it makes for decent reading :)
Breathing Space (...oh, that's a terrible pun-)
July 20 - Reuben Lives AU
(the title says it all: Reuben is alive after Episode 4.)
Jesse's been snug under Axel's arm for the better part of five hours now, sore and shocked, exhausted in every sense of the word, but miraculously alive.
But they're yet to drift off to sleep like all of their friends seem to have managed to do. They're yet to stop the slight shaking that's been left in their limbs. And they're yet to so much as consider loosening the iron grip they have on the little pig nestled in their trembling arms.
They just hope that nobody will be stupid enough to suggest it, or to try and prise their hold loose.
As long as Reuben is there, then it means he's safe. The closer and tighter Jesse holds him, the more secure he is and that way he won't slip through their hands, he won't plummet down, down, down out of reach, out of sight, jagged purple and grey and black won't reverberate with that panic-stricken squeal that pierces Jesse like an ice-cold shard of raw pain, not again-
A strange, shuddery sort of gasp escapes from Jesse's mouth, but they're quick to stifle it against the top of their little pig's head. Their friends don't need Jesse disturbing them, not after sticking by Jesse's side through so much.
How they all ended up squished so closely together in this cuddle pile of sorts in the first place is a bit of a blur in Jesse's mixed-up mind, much like most of what's taken place tonight. Even now, Jesse can only really recall bits and pieces of it. They gently rest their chin atop Reuben's head and let their aching eyes fall shut, trying to disentangle the convolution of half-formed thoughts enough to make some sense of it all.
Petra's happy exclamation that she finally remembered (Jesse tries to push aside the whisper at the back of their mind that she must also remember how badly Jesse let her down back in Gabriel's bunker)...Ivor returning with no Soren in sight, casting his eyes over each haggard face in the worn-out group as though he was checking something and then muttering something about going to find Gabriel and Magnus...the two remaining Order members rushing to help the people spilling out from under wreckage, people, living people with a mottled greyness to their skins and a haunted sort of emptiness to their eyes, but alive, alive, instead of being frozen to craggy walls and mouldering into blackness in their last moments of helpless fear with sunken, staring purple eyes that hold a similar yet very different sort of emptiness like all of those-
No, don't think about it. Don't think about how that could've been Petra or Gabriel. Don't think about how it would've been you if Reuben hadn't been there.
Jesse squeezes their eyes shut even more tightly, forcing themselves to stir up more memories.
Like Lukas making sure that they were all okay – as much so as they could expect to be, at least – before parting company with them to go in search of the Ocelots.
Olivia pausing in hugging an unsteady Jesse long enough to point out that they all desperately needed to rest.
Axel gently tugging Jesse and Reuben against his right side, Petra leaning into his left, Olivia shuffling close and winding her arm around Jesse's, resting her warm hand on top of their own, which was tight around the shivering, dripping little pig whose pink face was half-hidden in his human's chest.
Reuben gives a sudden twitch in his sleep, violently enough to jolt Jesse out of their patchwork recollections. They instinctively run the fingers of the hand that Olivia's not holding over his little head, hoping that, wherever Reuben is in his dreams, the gesture will be enough to let him know that Jesse has him safe, to remind him that Jesse hasn't planned on letting him out of their arms even once since the discovery that he'd landed in the water rather than colliding with solid ground.
Before that realisation, though...Jesse can still hear the drawn-out scream of anguish and rage and hatred that rips through their lungs and out of their throat and rings high and clear in their ears and yet it somehow doesn't quite register in Jesse's head that it's their scream...and then the squeal that fades into silence...
Jesse's eyes snap wide open, a chill running over their skin and deep through their bones. Reuben's here, he's here, they're all here, they're all fine.
(Fine. Such a relative word.)
And Jesse's going to prove it to themselves. Prove that everything's okay again. Make everything be okay again if they have to. So they let their head drop against Axel's chest (the boy apparently senses the movement, because he shifts the position of his arm to accommodate it) and place a protective hand onto Reuben's chest so as to track the steady rise and fall of it. Just to be completely sure.
Somehow or other, sooner or later, Jesse's going to fix whatever needs to be.
But for now, they sit and they breathe.
Could you tell that I wasn't really sure where I was going with this? (Narrator: everyone could, in fact, tell.) I hope you guys liked it, though.