dime_liora | A Ghost in Your Garden Epilogue

All the lights are on in the house, and when the group of them trudge into the kitchen through the back door there is a group of ghosts waiting on the other side. Jeff is missing, as is Sam and Jim. He sees Chad in the back, a Pabst in his hand and a goofy smile on his face. Samantha and Lauren are holding hands by the stove, eyes big and focused on them. Charles and Adrianne are by the door, and they move forward as one and both wrap their arms around Jared in a huge hug that should put a smile on his face.

Jared stands in the kitchen like a stone statue though, face blank and eyes traveling around to see the remaining ghosts. Jensen wonders if some of the missing ones are simply around, because he didn’t always see them around anyway. There were even supposed to be ghosts he had yet to meet, and maybe they’re all wherever they go when they don’t feel like interacting with living people. Or their fellow dead people.

Or something.

Misha toes his shoes off next to the door, and then steps into the middle of the room and looks around at the group of them.

“Can anyone tell me the nearest closet with a towel? I’m starting to chafe.”

The silence is broken by Adrianne breaking out into laughter, one hand covering her mouth and eyes sparkling. Charles falls in with her a moment later, and then Chad is laughing too. Jensen watches Aldis, caught up in the sweep of either joy or hysteria and Samantha covering her mouth delicately. Lauren smiles, but she’s looking at Jared now as if his response is the one that will lead her.

And why that would be a surprise Jensen doesn’t know. But he can’t tell what Jared’s response is. Big hands are covering his face and his shoulders are shaking. Jensen can’t take the wait anymore. All his good intentions about giving Jared space die in the tension of the moment.

He steps forward, Adrianne and Charles falling aside, and carefully removes Jared’s hands. There are tears in his eyes, but his lips are turned upwards. Dimples, chin trembling, and shoulders still hitching slightly.

Jared takes him in for a long time before reaching out and grabbing Jensen’s face. His fingertips stroke along Jensen’s wet temples, and then he leans in and kisses him. His lips are still cool, still firm, and slick with rainwater. The kiss is amazing though. Quite possibly the best kiss Jensen has ever received, and he randomly remembers that cold hands mean a warm heart and Jared pulls them tight together and continues to kiss him.

He gets lost in it, only remembers that they have an audience when Charles lets out a little celebratory whoop and slaps Jensen on the back. Which pushes him more firmly into Jared’s chest, and then Jensen finds he’s being lifted up off the floor and carried out of the room. There’s enough time to look over Jared’s shoulder and wave, and then they’re headed up the stairs and towards the bedroom.

No words are spoken, lips too busy kissing, as Jared undresses Jensen and then leads him into the bathroom. His eyes slip closed, and Jensen lets Jared take over as the shower springs to life and Jensen hears the wet thump of Jared’s soaked clothes hitting the floor. Then they’re surrounded by steam and warmth and Jared is pressing Jensen back into the tiles of the standup shower as hot water pelts them.

It’s perfect, and Jensen lets Jared keep the lead and simply relaxes into the big hands that disappeared for a moment and then returned covered in soap suds, working over his skin to remove the mud and ease the muscle tension from the night.

And then Jared’s hands move, and one is wrapped around Jensen’s half hard cock and the other is kneading his right ass cheek and working slowly towards the center. Jensen moans into Jared’s mouth, knees wobbling a bit and Jared’s hips pinning him firmly into the wall to keep him up.

One finger presses against his hole, circles gently, and Jensen’s fully hard in Jared’s loose grip before it even begins to work his way in. He’s not going to last long, and he knows it, and that’s ok. And then Jared’s finger is in him, it’s clever mate working patterns and circles in the sensitive skin around his hole and his other hand tightening down and going in firm and increasingly fast strokes.

The whole time Jared manages to keep their lips locked together. Tongue pushing into Jensen’s mouth and wet hair brushing Jensen’s face. Jensen moans, jerking forward into Jared’s hand, and then Jared surprises him by sliding in the second finger quickly, and then twisting both of them to press down on his prostate while his hand twists on the head of Jensen’s dick.

And that’s it, Jensen comes, arms wrapping around Jared’s shoulders and mouth open in one long sound that he can’t control at all. He rides out the high of it, lips pressed to the skin of Jared’s face instead of his actual mouth, and then his eyes can open and he can make eye contact.

Jared’s smiling again, eyes no longer sparkling with tears, and Jensen wants to ask so many things and can only seem to verbalize one.

“My turn?”

There’s a shake of Jared’s head, minute but there, and then Jared presses a soft kiss to his forehead and maneuvers him so that he’s in front of the water’s spray and taking the brunt of it.

“We gotta get all this mud off you man. You ain’t going to bed like that.”

He tries not to be hurt, not to read too much into it, but considering the last few hours there’s too much between them not to.

“Jared are- do you not want- you have to help me out here man.”

Those hands, warmed by the water Jensen thinks because they feel good on the chillier patches of skin that water isn’t hitting, work the soap lather in small circles. Jared’s lips press against the base of his neck and then they move while he speaks.

“Jensen, I’m not gonna lie and say I just- I knew Sierra for a long time and I liked her. Knowing what I know now doesn’t mean I don’t. I don’t even know if she knew she was doing it. There’s a big hole there, because I probably never will. And I’d like to. I’d like to know if we were friends because she made us be or because I chose to be. I’d like to know if she killed those people consciously. I don’t know if I spent the last hundred years comforting and talking to a monster, or a confused little girl. But that doesn’t change the fact that I know you risked your life for us not once but twice. That you saved a lot of miserable people today and set them free. So we’re ok. I’m not necessarily fine yet, but we’re ok. So shut up and let me wash you.”

And that’s enough. That’s good enough. Jared will have to work through the rest of it, and Jensen can only help him so much. But Jared will be there, and Jensen will too. They have time, and that means everything.

If there’s anything Jensen has learned from all of this, it’s that there’s time. That what you do in this life is only a part of the story, an important part, but just part. He believes that just like Charles and Adrianne or Lauren and Samantha he and Jared can be together just as long as they want.

That death, in the end, takes nothing away. Not if you know how to live.

----

Jensen comes homes form the grocery store, wiping sweat from his forehead before the strong dip in temperature makes it cool and sticky. He can hear noises coming from the back of the house, and he wonders for a moment if this is going to be an issue. His arms are full of groceries, and on a hopeful lark he calls out not expecting anyone to come. Except Charles pops into existence beside him and eyes the bags before shifting a number of them off Jensen’s arms and into his own.

“You get the corn starch Jensen?”

“No, I took a four page list to the grocery store and left out the one item that got repeated eight times in three different hand-writings.”

Charles gives him a dry look before heading for the kitchen. When Jensen walks in there are three ghosts standing in front of the ultra-modern stove Jensen had installed and arguing viciously with each other. He drops his bags on the counter and watches with a certain sense of bitterness as Charles easily lowers his own load and rejoins the group.

“No, look, the light’s on so it’s good to go.” Adrianne’s mouth is pursed and her finger is pointed accusingly.

“It’s the pre-heating light you daft specter. It doesn’t mean it’s ready it means it’s getting ready.” Lauren wipes hair from her forehead and shoots Jensen a small smile before turning back to the fight.

“Ladies, ladies, it’s obvious that this is a problem best solved by semantics. There ain’t really any such thing as heating or pre-heating. It’s hot or it isn’t. Just put the pan on.” Chad’s eyes sparkle, hand wrapped around a Pabst can that Jensen has no doubt is empty and simply a prop to keep him feeling comfortable and normal.

He rounds the island and looks at the stove speculatively for a moment, aware that all the eyes have now landed on him to settle the disagreement and proclaim an arbitrary winner. He hears the door swing open and then shut and hopes it’s Jared.

“Ok. So that light means. Uh. You know I think it would be best if all of you read the instructions again. Get a little refresher course on how to use the new stove.”

Arms wrap around him, cool and solid, and Jensen leans back into the solid bulk of his dead boyfriend.

“That means Jen ain’t got no idea what that light means, but he doesn’t want to admit he’s as technologically illiterate as a bunch of old, dead spooks.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t use that vulgar term to describe us Jared. There are so many more dignified ways to phrase our condition.” Lauren sniffs once and then turns to rummage in the cabinet for the instruction booklet that the group of them have read a combined billion times and Jensen has glanced at once.

Despite the level of fighting and the potential for explosions it’s still a big relief to have so many potential cooks cohabitating with him.

Lips brush his ear, and Jared’s hands settle firmly over his stomach.

“It go ok? You don’t seem as shaky this time.”

Once upon a time Jensen would have resented the question. He would get defensive at the possibility that he couldn’t function long enough to travel six miles to a grocery store and pick up the necessities for a household of essentially one. Although often the ghosts make enough for everyone to have a token portion that goes somewhere Jensen doesn’t want to consider.

But not now. He’s not whole, not yet, but there’s a level of comfort he’s achieved that lets him look at his broken parts and see them as another obstacle to simply overcome. Death is not a mystery to him anymore. He doesn’t have to agonize over the fate of the boy that hit him.

Jensen knows that there’s more, and that sometimes that more can be downright heavenly even if it’s earthbound.

“Yeah. It went fine Jay. Just fine.”

There’s a little noise, Jensen knows it means Jared is smiling, and those cool lips settle on the back of his neck and send a shiver down his spine.

Maybe Chris and Aldis will come over tomorrow, and maybe they’ll all hang out in the living room and watch movies or play one of ridiculously overcomplicated group games that Chad found once he mastered Google far beyond any hope of user quality Jensen could ever aspire to.

Whatever happens next though, Jensen knows that his new family will be there, and that he never has to worry about losing them. There’s a future, all the way to the grave and beyond, and Jensen knows what it’s going to be. Can love without fear of losing, and live without the constant terror of nothingness.

“Lauren get the extinguisher the grease is on fire!”

Well. Mostly without fear.

"And that, as they say, is that...Death, after all, is the house we all finally come home to. Rest assured of that. See every ghost story might begin with a house and a tragedy, but they don't always end the same."-Janet Morello Haunt

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From:

paperbackwriter.livejournal.com

Oh God, that was just wonderful! I only meant to read the first part but I got totally sucked into it!
I've not seen the show but I'm definitely going to watch it now if it's anything like that : )
Oh, I can't make a proper sentence...I loved the characters, the way you introduced the ghostness, the secret room, the twist on the bad guy, Misha is just fantastic, I love the way you've written the J's and the bit with Chad and the toilet roll and the beer! Just brilliant.
The whole thing is just brilliant!
Once you've recovered a bit, I'm gonna start bugging you for timestamps...just so you know : )
Thank you so much for this : ) x

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These fragments I have shored against my ruins.

A Ghost in Your Garden Epilogue

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