The first time Jared killed a man had been a little over a year ago. He'd been short, built, a fitness instructor who liked to see teenage girls bleeding at his feet. Jared had hit him with a crowbar, so hard and so fast that brain had splattered on the bricks at the far side of the alley. After that it had been pretty easy to just go on from there.

A priest with a taste for little boys, garroted with his own Rosary, the drug dealer who accidentally injected enough Heroin into his system to bring down half of Cambodia, the mugger who slit his throat with his own knife.

The drunk driver run over with his own car.

He'd admit he has a taste for the irony, and his actions, through far from righteous, were fueled by a faith in something beyond the eyes of men. He thought about the merit of evil, and where his actions fell, eyes looking away into the distance as Lucian the pimp twitched at his feet, bleeding to death from the place where his dick had once been. When Jared looked back, the sea of serene calmness still washing over him in waves, he could see the white of Lucian's eyes. It was done then.

He'd left it late today, the sun was already tipping the horizon in the east and he could smell sizzling bacon even over the copper of Lucian's blood. The pimp had put up more of a fight that Jared expected, and his knuckles throbbed as the skin began to swell.

Leaving the body where it lay, Jared dropped the bloody weapon he had used into the sealable plastic bag, ripped the joint together at the top, and left it sitting neatly on Lucian's chest. The area would be swimming with kids in a few hours, pre-teens on their way to the local school. He didn't want them being the first to find the scum, so he put a call through to the local PD. One less parasite left in the world.

Jackie was at his usual spot, same place every morning for the past thirty three years. Jared had grown up on his corn-dogs, and greeted the old timer like the friend he was. A toothy grin was his first interaction of the day, Jackie's ugly, blotchy face so different to the face he saw when he closed his eyes.

"Jesus wept, son. You look like the Ten Plagues made you their private crapper." Jackie could never be considered anything but as blunt as a rusty razor, but his food was good, swimming in grease and salt, just what Jared needed first thing in the morning. He handed over three bucks and got a large dog and the biggest bucket of coffee Jackie had going.

"Just the first three, man. How's Lilly?" Jackie's granddaughter was Jared's age and as big as a house with triplets. Last he'd heard, she'd been confined to bed-rest.

"A fucking nightmare." Jackie laughed, his watery blue eyes twinkling fondly. "She and her momma are at each other's throats day and goddamn night. Thank fuck for work, no?" Jared laughed and nodded, thinking of Lucian for the very last time. Yeah, thank fuck for work.

Jackie gave him a free refill of Joe before he left, jogging across the park and stopping at the tiny little flower stall on the edge of the main gates. Helena had been in the park almost as long as Jackie, and should Jared's humble opinion be asked, there were no better flowers in all of the city.

"Sweetheart, do ya even know what a bed is?" She asked, her accent even thicker than Jackie's. She reminded Jared of his momma, even looked a little bit like her.

"No, ma'am." He smiled, enduring the motherly petting with a fond smile. She shook her head and tutted lightly before reaching into the back of her stall and withdrawing a freshly cut bunch of yellow tulips.

"Lord knows why you don't try a little variety." She sighed, wrapping the flowers in brown paper. "I know you like tulips, but how about some nice Hibiscus?" She had said the same thing every morning for thirteen months, and Jared had always responded the same way.

"I like tulips." He shrugged, and paid five dollars for the bunch. She waved him off, and Jared continued his path. The same steps, the same people, the same way, for three hundred and ninety seven days.

The hospice was all the way across town, but Jared liked the walk. It cleared his head. People he never would know reminding him that life did actually continue, even if he wasn't quite a part of it. The trip took close to forty minutes on foot, and he always stopped by the river and read the morning's paper on the way.

The doors opened to visitors at nine. Jared was always waiting at five to.

He knew all the staff by name now, first and last, and could probably list the closest relations of each, from the receptionist Sally- Frank, Marvin and little Lucy, to the student nurse Kimber -Frank, Jared had had pulled out each of his teeth one night when Kimber had come in to work, battered face and bite marks on her tiny throat. They knew his name, they knew who he belonged to, what number to call him in an emergency, and that was it.

Sally looked up, small smile on her tied face. They were understaffed and underfunded, and Jared felt for them all. "Good morning Jared. Your boy had a good night last night." She said, knowing it would brighten his day, and it did. Jared smiled back, honest and calm, and clutched the tulips tighter in his hand.

He'd walked the same corridor four hundred and seven times. He knew how many steps it took to reach his destination, and how many cracks there were in the paint work. There was a new one this morning, stretching barely an inch towards the floor from beneath the service ward chart. It was still quiet, but the few faces he saw all greeted him by name, a doctor snagging his elbow and giving him the same news he had heard four hundred times. No change.

Jensen's room was the twelfth, on the left, and it was bright and warm, the sun already streaming through the large window on the far wall. Several vases were filled with tulips, all different colors, and Jared carefully unwrapped his latest offering and arranged them with the royal blue ones he had brought in yesterday. He dropped the brown paper in the trash, straightened the vase, and then circled around the bed.

"Morning baby." He kissed warm lips and brushed soft hair from a pale forehead. Jensen would be horrified if he were awake, a year inside leaving his skin the color of alabaster, his freckles dotted on with marker pen. Besides them monitors beeped low and steady, reassuring in their presence the way Jared had once been terrified by them. "Sally said you slept well. That's good." He lifted Jensen's hand in his, warm skin curled against his own. His fingers traced patterns on Jensen's palm skirting the small puncture wounds that had healed over long ago. They had settled into a routine after only a few weeks, when the bruises had still been fresh and ugly. Jared read the sports section and the cartoons from the paper, then any articles that might amuse him. Nothing violent, nothing depressing, only entertainment. He made it last an hour, peppering the articles with his own comments, and then settled back into the chair next to the bed, Jensen's hand still warm in his, and pulled a book from the inside of his jacket. They read lots together. This was the seventieth book so far.

"Quatre Vents had been a small village, scarcely larger than Hookton, with a gaunt, barn-like church, a cluster of cottages were cows and people has shared the same thatched roofs, a watermill, and some outlaying farms crouched in sheltered valleys."



"Son of a bitch!" Jared screamed louder than he had ever thought possible, his knuckles popping as bone fractured beneath his first, blood spraying in messy geysers across his hands and face. "Evil. Scum. Fucking pervert." Each word embodied with a blow, until Harry StClair stopped whimpering beneath him, his face caved in, bloody and wet. Not his first kill, not even close, but his bruised and broken lips looked so much like Jensen's that he had to stop, his stomach rolling violently. He lurched back, scrambling across asphalt, scuffing skin and jeans in his attempt to put some distance between himself and the pile of flesh he had tenderized with his fists.

He ran home, not seeing anyone in the early hours, and stumbled, shaking, up to his apartment. The door banged open, rattling the sideboard, and he winced, already sorry for his outburst. "God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He said, nose tight and eyes itching. He ran his hand under the cold tap in the kitchen sink, then climbed, fully clothed, into the shower.

By the time he emerged, his skin had wrinkled like a prune, and the water had run cold. He dumped his clothes in the hamper, climbed into a pair of battered sweatpants and a UBC sweater, and crawled to the bed. The sheets were cool, colder than the shower, and Jared's face crumpled along with his heart. He'd forgotten what it was like not to never feel the cold.

Sinking down into the pillows, he waited, relaxing only when warm, strong arms curled around his waist. "Easy." Jensen whispered, voice as warming as his soft flutter of breath. "You're going to kill yourself this way." He scolded sadly. Jared relaxed back into his arms, clinging to the fingers that stroked soothingly under his sweater.

"Don't leave me. Please don't leave." Jared wasn't above begging, his mind awash with the sound of Jensen's voice, and the solid presence of his body.

Soft, gentle lips kissed behind his ear. "I'm right here." Jensen promised. Jared believed him, but when he woke four hours later, the bed was still cold.



Jensen had picked the apartment. In all honesty, Jared hadn't been that bothered where they ended up, too preoccupied with the what to be all that concerned with the where or the how's. Jensen always worried about that, the bills, the rent, their jobs. He handled it all. Jared cooked dinner, and they watched movies on the couch, curled up under the blanket grandma Ackles had knitted them, limbs entwined. They ate ice cream and cookies, spoons passing to and fro, kisses in between, and Jensen always fell asleep before the credits rolled, no matter what they watched. On Sundays they decorated, paint often covering more skin than it did walls, until three months later they had a home that was theirs, blue and white, shells and stamps, big candles and heavy throws. Peaceful and calming, just like Jensen's smile.

Jared worked full time at the school, teaching chemistry and physics to high schoolers who thought they could get into his pants, whilst Jensen spent hours bent over his desk, building scale models of the buildings he designed. He made other things too, little wooden toys they gave to their family, wood stops and a paperweight shaped like a double helix for Christmas their first year together.

In the evenings they talked about everything and nothing, and in the mornings they hid under the sheets and counted the places that could make each other laugh.

They had made love in every room, even the shower, with Jensen on his knees, water cascading across his skin, his lips stretched wide. The kitchen too, Jared wrapped around him, the counter sharp against his hips as he held Jensen on the granite surface and rocked into him, slow and gentle.

Jared still remembered the look on Jensen's face when he had baked cookies on the same surface the next day.



Violet tulips this time, coffee bitter in his throat. The ducks in the river fought over the corndog he hadn't been able to swallow, and in the paper he read about Charlotte Monique, the mother who had poisoned her son with rat killer - free thanks to contamination of evidence. He separated the sports section and the cartoons. There was nothing he would read to Jensen today.

Instead he spoke about the weather, and played Christian's new album for him. "There's a dedication to you in the cover." He told Jensen, stroking his brow and kissing his cheek.

That night he walked right past the police squad guarding the Monique place and slipped hydrochloric acid in Charlotte's bubble bath.



They had been set to take a vacation, maybe head up to LA and see Chris and Steve play. Jensen had been at the school that day, bringing Jared the books he had left behind on the kitchen counter in his hurry to beat rush hour traffic. They'd kissed in the staff parking lot whilst the student's poured through the gates, and Jensen had smiled so wide Jared had thought it must have hurt.

"Don't be late tonight. I have a surprise for you." Jensen had teased.

Only Jared had been late, and Jensen had never come home. Not the surprise he had expected.



Christian was waiting outside their apartment on the evening of day four hundred and thirty nine. He had scowled and strutted, smacked Jared around the head and stared wide eyed when he'd passed out cold in the hall.



Jeremy Kyle had been tougher than he looked, and used to the type of fighting Jared had hit him with. Instead of the knife sliding through skin and muscle like butter, it had raked across Jared's stomach like he was a Zen sand garden. He'd broken Kyle's knee cap then taken the knife to his balls like he had done with Lucian. Rapists, that was all they deserved.

The wound had been forgotten about. He bought Jensen periwinkle tulips and downed the Joe Jackie had thrust his way. Started reading the first Lord of the Rings books and eaten in a diner before heading home and finding Kane there.

When he woke up, he was in their bed. It was warm, he was warm, and Chris' hand was tight on his arm. Neat little black stitches held him together and kept his insides in. "You stupid, fucked up son of a bitch." Chris said, eyes sad and dark. "If he saw you now it'd break his heart."

Jared didn't listen. Jensen was asleep besides him, warm and soft, and he could think of nothing he wanted more than to curl up beside him and die.



He'd found the men who had done it easy as pie. They gloated, laughed, toasted each other about the fag they had taught a lesson to as if it were a sport worth congratulating each other over. Jared had listened to it all, matching each word with a black mark on Jensen's battered body, and when they were done, he didn't bother with knives or cars, chemicals or drugs. He simply waited until they had stumbled back to the shit heap they called a den, locked the door on them and set match to gasoline.



Sally was waiting for him at the door at five to nine, and Jared already knew. He hadn't brought any tulips that day.

Jensen's doctor took him aside. "We knew this was a possibility." He said, gentle as a lamb, and Jared nodded. "The seizure was just the last in a long line of complications. It would be a kindness-" He trailed off, and Jared nodded again.

There was a new fracture in the plaster, and three hundred and nine tiles lined up in his path. It was day four hundred and forty nine, and there were flowers of every color lined up under the window.

The monitors continued to beep, slow and calming, and Jensen lay still, eyes closed as if he were sleeping. For the first time, Jared unhooked the wires curled around his still body and lifted him up into his arms. He'd lost so much weight, so fragile and small. Jensen had never been fragile, never been small, and for the first time Jared wondered if he might have been spending all his time with an impostor.

The doctor hovered in the doorway, watching quietly, and Jared stayed still, his arms around Jensen's body, cradling him close.

His breathing stopped when Jensen's did, and he would have given anything for it never to have started again.



Jared came home, bleeding from the head. He hadn't even been looking tonight. Jensen sighed and crossed the kitchen, fingers gentle as they probed the wound. "That's enough now. Stop." He pleaded.

So Jared stopped, let Jensen lead him back to bed, and fell asleep in the warmth of his arms.