Comrades and Brothers
Part 5
"Hey, hey, Ackles. Look behind you, man." And Jensen saw Jared point to something behind him, something menacing and terrifying and not human, 'cos that growl, low and close, so close it made a shiver run down Jensen's spine, the growl was definitely not human, couldn't be.
He whirled around, heart beating, thrumming, low and fast, guts aching, something like flight or fight coming up to take over his brain and made his eyes dart past Jared, to the warehouse, to the gates, to beyond it, somewhere, anywhere. Reflexively he took a step back, hands coming out placating in the air, the thing in front of them kneeling on all fours, barking and growling like some bizarre half breed of a man and beast, something straight out of a B level horror flick.
"N-nice doggy thing," Jensen stuttered, deep out of his element.
The hell was Bobby Singer hunting again? This was definitely not a freaking werewolf, unless the real world had some grossly misconception of them. He backed up another step into Jared and felt him shift slightly from behind him, put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, or at least attempted to be reassuring because Jensen was not reassured in the least.
"I, uh, think we need to get out of here," Jared said lowly into his ear.
Jensen didn't even acknowledge that with a scowl. He took a couple more slow steps back, pulling Jared with him as the human slash monster dog made more snarling noises and met their strides. "You think?"
The monster lunged just as Jared shoved past him and shouted, "RUN!"
Like Jensen needed to be twice. Seriously. Jensen scrambled out of the way of the monster's lunge and heard a loud CLANK as it clamped its jaws around the chained fence instead of a limb. He shuddered as he got up to his feet and ran like hell after Jared who was already at the warehouse, tugging free the old iron door. He motioned for Jensen to come over, flailing his hands like some weird distress signal.
"This is your fault," Jensen panted, doubled over trying to catch his breath once they were safely inside, the door shut and locked, incase…incase the monster could pick locks or some other weird shit, because Supernatural had always been bizarre like that. He jabbed a finger into Jared's arm for good measure. "Your fault."
Jared rolled his eyes and shoved his hands into his jeans, scuffed his shoes into the pavement, looking every bit a sullen teenager. Jensen stared at him for a moment, then said loudly, "You're ridiculous, you know. This whole thing is ridiculous."
"Yeah, whatever."
"I'm serious here, Padalecki. That…that thing out there, it wasn't some regular Joe guy, it wasn't some dog, hell, I don't even know what it was! And it fucking freaks me out and it's out there, still. It's trying to get in. Can't you hear it? Trying to claw its way in?" Jensen knew a freak out when he heard it, knew one when he could freaking feel it, but even putting a label on what was happening to him right then didn't help any, didn't make the situation any less freaky. It just kind of made him want to freak out even more. When he looked back at Jared, he saw that he was chewing nervously on his bottom lip. Yeah. Jensen wasn't the only one that was having his own break down, he wasn't alone, he still had Jared, and somehow even with that knowledge, it didn't make him feel better any.
"Yeah, I can hear it." Jared had been quiet for so long that when he did manage to talk, his voice low like a whisper, Jensen jumped. Jared's eyes were wide, his lips parted slightly, tongue darted out to lick away the dryness he felt. He looked imploringly at Jensen. "What do we do?"
What could they do? They were weaponless. They were trapped. And even if they weren't either of those things, Jensen never shot off a gun before, and he knew from the looks of that thing there was not a chance in hell he could manage to outrun it long enough to climb into someone's car and try to jumpstart it. Besides he didn't know how to do that either. Good god they were hopeless. They were going to die here, before they could go back home.
He slumped to the floor with a feeling a newer level, a deeper level of hopelessness take over him. He looked up to an equally exhausted Jared and said, "We, uh, I guess we just wait here and hope it gets or bored or Jim finds us or something. What can we even do, man?" It was an honest question and he tried not to put some desperation in it, even if that was how he felt right now.
Jared sighed and scratched the side of his face. "I wish either of us brought our cell phones."
Jensen snorted. Yeah he had left his back in the trailer. No one took their phones with them on set anymore, except Misha, because he was just a freak like that, always had to have it out and ready in case something extra funny happened and it needed to be filmed for Twitter or Youtube or whatever.
"So we're just waiting to get eaten," Jared huffed out a laugh as he crouched next to Jensen. "Awesome."
"Like I said before, this is your fault," Jensen said, because it totally was. It was Jared's idea to come here and get eaten and that was that, Jensen wasn't budging on that.
Jared's only response was a snort. "Right. My fault," he drawled. He stood up suddenly so he was towering over Jensen. Jensen looked up at him, squinted. "You didn't have to agree you know. You could've stayed all happy and safe back in the stupid motel! But you came, Ackles, you fucking came against your 'good' judgment." He put air quotes on good like he didn't believe Jensen had actually thought that which was absolutely ridiculous and made Jensen mad, made him stand up so he was eye level with the son of bitch trying to pick a fight with him, of all the fucking times and places to do it in too.
"Seriously, Padalecki, you really want to do this now?" Jensen asked in a low voice, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, itching, burning to do something.
"Seriously, Ackles, you really want to do this now?" Jared mocked, his own voice dropping an octave in a somewhat bad parody of Jensen. "Bet you really wanna take a swing at me now, right? 'Cos you're always right, that it, Ackles? You're the better actor, the better friend, the better everything, am I right?" He took a swing at Jensen, missed when Jensen quickly ducked to the ground and got up with a sway, Jared laughed. "Give it up for the great Jensen Ackles, ladies and gent!" Jared gave a mock bow.
Jensen stared at him, at a loss of what to say to all that. "Dude, what the hell is your problem?" The jackass had tried to fucking punch him for Pete's sake.
"My problem? What's yours? Don't fucking play dumb!" Jared shouted, angry. "Ever since the first day you've been on your damn horse, Ackles, acting all high and mighty, like the world ain't worth two cents of your time!" He finally got a punch in as Jensen stood in front of him, immobile, frozen, his expression a mix of disbelief and bewilderment, Jared's fist connected with his stomach and suddenly Jensen was doubling over, gasping, panting, lungs suddenly not taking in enough air. Jared just stood where he was, angry and panting.
They stood there, the two of them, neither sure what exactly happened a few minutes ago. Finally, Jared slid back to the ground, a huff of laughter coming from his throat, he shook his head as he looked up at Jensen with an apology in his eyes, like he didn't understand why he went ape shit, why he punched Jensen in the fucking guts. "I'm sorry, man," he offered and hung his head. "I dunno what came over me."
Jensen felt a bubble of hysterical laughter try to escape and swallowed it down like some bad beer. He licked his lips, said, "I'm sorry too. It's not really your fault. You were just trying to do the right thing here." He hesitated before putting a comforting hand on Jared's shoulder, patted him awkwardly. "If it was me deciding stuff, we'd still be stuck out in the middle of nowhere. Probably have starved by now." He remembered the food at the motel, didn't have much to eat except one lousy sandwich and a granola bar since they got here, his stomach growled. "For fuck's sake."
Jared just made another huffing sound before rising to his feet. "Okay, okay, we need to get it together." He dusted his pants off for a while, like he didn't know what else to do with his hands and he needed to do something. Jensen watched him in silence. Finally Jared stopped, turned to face him. "So that, that thing back there. What did Cas call it? Ru something, Rugu, something, I don't know."
Jensen thought about it for moment, then snapped his fingers together. "Rugaru, he called it a Rugaru." He paused and made a face. "When we get back, remind me to strangle the guy that came up with that."
Jared rubbed his face, laughed, and said, "Yeah, okay. I'll definitely remind you." He gave a slight shudder. "Rugaru, right. Now I remember. Okay, man. You remember doing an episode on that?"
"Uh, well, the name sounds familiar, sorta." Jensen was at a loss. He wished he remembered why it was familiar. Damn it.
Jared's face was already scrunched up in concentration when he looked back. "That's what I thought too, that it sounds familiar." Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "Yeah. That's it. Season four, man."
Jensen screwed his face in confusion, the fuck did season four have to do with it? "When I came back from the dead?" he asked incredulously, unsure where Jared was going with this.
Jared sighed and shook his head. "No, no. After you came back, one of our cases. The one with that one guy turning into a Rugaru, you know the guy chowing on food all the time?"
Oh. Oh that, now Jensen remembered. It took a moment for it to really sink in and once it had, Jensen felt his legs turn to Jell-O, pure, floppy Jell-O. Oh god they were in damn trouble now. He stared up at Jared with wide eyes, croaked out, "Yeah."
We're going to die here, Jensen thought for the third time within an hour. They were going to either starve or get eaten. He darted wide eyes to the door, couldn't help himself, heard the snarl coming from outside and quickly looked away again. Jared was off his ass searching the room for the hundredth time, hoping he had missed something that could take out the thing on the other side. He came back empty handed as usual, sat back in the middle with Jensen, looked down at his hands.
According to what Jensen remembered, the only way to kill a Rugaru was to take it out with fire. Fucking fire. Like Jensen came with a lighter and matches in his pockets like some cigarette addict. Jared made them both dump out all the contents from their pockets anyway, incase either of us brought one to the set for whatever reason and forgot, he shrugged after he said that. When Jensen scowled at him and pulled out lint and more lint, Jared simply said, "I wouldn't have judged you even if you did turn out to be a secret addict."
Yeah. Whatever. Jensen hadn't missed the slight disappointment in his eyes when they both turned out to be clean, he wanted to catch Jensen with something, some dark secret, maybe something illegal, something good to blackmail his co-star with later. Jensen couldn't help the irritated twitch of his eye at the thought. There was a monster, a fucking monster, sitting right outside the door waiting for them to get bored and let it in and Jared fucking Padalecki was looking for something blackmail Jensen with. How much more childish could you possibly get than that?
"So I've got nothing, you've got nothing, there's nothing in this place to kill that thing outside," Jared said leaning his head against a couple cardboard boxes, he had both arms behind his head casually, his legs crossed at the ankles.
Jensen rubbed the heel of a palm to his forehead. "Yeah," he said tiredly, "that pretty much sums up our situation." Hopeless and dead.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. "How about we just knock it out and run? Get to a car, or a payphone, call Bobby maybe and see where he's at. Maybe he'll come and help us kill this thing." They had been tossing ideas back and forth, well, Jared had been, Jensen was content to tell him why each of his idea was plain idiotic and would just get them both killed faster.
"First of all, what are we gonna use to knock the sucker out with? And secondly, what good is a car if neither of us know how to hotwire a car? Bobby's just gonna chew our head off while the thing's out, by the time he decides to save our skin, it'll be up and about, and you know what happens then? We're dead, dog chow, buddy!" He paused in his rant as he thought about it some more, brows furrowed, Jensen snapped his fingers. "Dude, forget Bobby, call Misha, Cas, whatever. The angel dude. Call him."
Jared stared at him for a moment and Jensen snapped his fingers again, in his face. Jared frowned, shook his head. "Naw, can't. I tried already. Wouldn't answer." Jensen sent him an incredulous look to which Jared just shrugged. "Told you already, 'angel business', civil war, you know."
"Oh. Right." Jensen shook his head, cursed under his breath. Fucking angel war story line, go figure.
"Anyway," Jared said, getting up to his feet suddenly, "dude I can so hotwire a car." He turned a shark like grin down to Jensen, flashed white pearls and all.
Jensen gaped at him as he shot up to his feet just as Jared picked up a discarded pipe line. He looked from the pipe line to Jared. Jared's grin turned smug, pointed up to the ceiling and Jensen followed his gaze. "You gotta be kidding me," he said with a groan. "You don't suppose there'd be any more of those things just lying around?"
Jared shook his head as he slung the pipe over one broad shoulder, "Naw, seems like you're gonna have to get behind me, princess." Oh for the love of…
Jensen scowled, punched Jared in the arm as he barked a laugh. "For fuck's sake, Padalecki. Give me the damn thing."
"No way." He tried to duck out of reach as Jensen took hold of the end of the pipe. "Get off. Dude, fucking get off." Jared tried to shake Jensen off but he wouldn't let go, he kicked his foot and managed to snag the fabric of his tee shirt with his sneaker, it collided sharply into Jensen's stomach. The wind was knocked out of him, but still Jensen managed to hang on, struggling to push Jared's sneaker away at the same time.
"Give me it, Padalecki," he gasped out, managed to shove Jared's foot off. He tugged at the pipe but Jared just pulled it back with a strength of a bull that sent Jensen stumbling back into the pile of cardboard boxes. He landed on his ass with a thud. "Ugh…Jesus, man, could you throw me a little harder? I think I broke my hip bone or something."
"Hey, it's not my fault. I told you to let go," Jared said indignantly.
Jensen let out a pitiful groan and managed to get back to his feet, a trembling hand rubbing the side of his hip. "Whatever. Like I wanted to risk my life to play Clark Kent anyway," he grumbled.
Jared snorted as they made their way over to the door. "If I'm Superman, does that make you that lame ass bitch, Lois Lane?"
Jensen wasn't going to dignify that with an answer. Instead he turned to face Jared once they got to the door, cocked his head to the side a little, "Ready?" He watched Jared's grip on the pipe tighten, saw the almost imperceptible nod, that small jerk of the head. He took a deep breath in, steeled himself for what was waiting for them just on the other side of the door and let Jared swing the door open, the pipe poised over his shoulder like he was getting ready to swing a baseball bat.
A gust of wind rushed up his face, made him shiver, wished he took his jacket with him. It was late afternoon, the sun was still high in the sky, and Jensen had to squint to see anything in the light. The warehouse had been pretty dark with its one or two flickering light bulbs so it took a moment for the two of them to adjust to the sudden onslaught of sunlight. One thing was crystal clear though, the monster, the Rugaru, was gone, apparently monsters got bored or tired waiting for their meals to come out. Still Jensen tensed as he looked around again. There was no way either of them were going to drop their guard just yet. If you watched any horror movie, you'd know the people to do so were always eaten in the end.
"What do you think, Lois? We in the all clear?" Jared's voice jerked Jensen back a step.
Ignoring the name Jared called him, Jensen leaned out the doorway casually, peering outside. He shrugged, "Doesn't look like it's here still. Only one way to find out if you ask me."
"Right. Come on then." Jared picked up the lead again as he took a hesitant step over the open doorway, to the outside. He looked around cautiously as he took a couple more steps out into the open, looked back at Jensen with a lopsided grin when he noticed Jensen was still standing unsure by the door, one foot inside, the other out. "Come on, jerk. You were right—"
Something dark and fast darted out from the shadows of the fence. Jared must have heard it the same time Jensen saw it because just like that he cut himself off and spun around in a fast circle just as the shadow collided with him, sending him spiraling down to land on his back with a surprised cry. Jensen had no idea what the hell was happening. He scrambled out of the warehouse and saw the Rugaru snarling and drooling all over Jared, Jared trying to fend it off with the pipe but it seemed more like the Rugaru was pinning him down with it, its human hands pushing it to his stomach, the long sharp nails, claws digging holes into Jared's shirt. Jensen stood, frozen, immobile at the horrific image before him. He watched Jared struggle weakly against the weight of the Rugaru on him, legs trying to kick out at anything they could.
Jensen jerked back in surprised horror when the Rugaru suddenly darted its monstrous head forward and bit into Jared's right shoulder, a pained cry torn out of him. Jared flailed even more, his body seemed to convulse as the monster clamped harder on the shoulder, Jensen could see saliva coming from its mouth to drip a little on Jared, the beginning of yellow colored teeth.
He wasn't sure what he was thinking at this point, maybe he hadn't been thinking at all, but when he heard another hoarse cry come from Jared, he found himself taking a couple steps forward, heard himself say, "J-Jared?"
The Rugaru's head snapped up to look at him. Jensen could see the face clearly now, a surprisingly human face, hazel eyes, small nose, a snarling mouth, teeth that looked like they hadn't been brushed for weeks, unwashed hair, human. Jared's head lolled to the side. Jensen wondered if he was imagining the accusation in his eyes as he stared at him, why aren't you doing anything? Why are you just standing there like a wuss while I'm lying here dying? No. Jared wasn't going to die. He couldn't. Jensen's eyes darted to the mess of blood that was Jared's shoulder. It was a lot of blood oozing out but surely not enough…not enough for…
He didn't get the chance to finish that train of thought though because the monster leapt. Oh god I'm gonna die right here. He squeezed his eyes closed and waited.
And waited…and waited…and waited. Nothing had happened. He was still in one piece. Then suddenly he heard a high pitched whine, it almost knocked him flat on his ass. Jensen opened his eyes to see the thing being torched. Bobby Singer was holding a blow torch to it, a grim, determined look on his face. Then he turned slightly, saw Jared lying in a mess of his own blood, the pipe still on his stomach, his face took on a kind of grimace. Then he noticed Jensen just standing a few feet away, frozen in place with fear and shock. Jensen gulped when Bobby's face twisted into this kind of pissed off look.