Archive of Our Own ^beta

Title: The Shower
second story in the "On the 5th day of March" 'verse.

Author and artist: bflyw
Beta: fufaraw

Summary: Jared is having a CVS episode, and Jensen is right there with him.
Word count: 2.850

THE SHOWER

Hot water, just short of scalding, cascades down his abdomen to be soaked up by the boxers he is still wearing. The fabric, saturated now, cannot hold on to the water anymore, and it runs down his thighs and finishes its way toward the drain. He leans back and rests his head on Jensen’s shoulder, his hair slightly wet, and his upper body shivering in the cold air. He moans and Jensen tightens his grip, giving him an extra squeeze as if to say I’m still here. It’s not the most comfortable position in the world, and lying down as he usually does might probably be better, but it’s still the way he prefers it.

Jensen wraps his arms around him, keeping the touch light. His finger tips brush Jared’s right wrist, and though his hand resting there bears none of the weight, Jared still feels like it’s helping him to hold up the shower head. He can feel the weight of it pulling toward the ground, and his lack of energy is tangible. He lifts the handle higher and turns the head toward his belly. The water pours out in one hard stream, warm and comforting, like an antidote to the icing flames in his abdomen. Burning acid and what feels like a rotating coil of barbed wires eats at his stomach, and there is nothing he can do about it. The nausea is overwhelming, the pain unmatchable. He wants to cry, he wants to yell and scream, but it would be pointless. He has been here many times before, thinking that he cannot do this anymore, that this is the last time, that if he has one more episode, it will be the last.

And yet, every time he has risen to his feet and stumbled toward an unknown future. He has collected the remains of himself and done the best he can. Every episode leaves him a little more fatigued than the last, and every reserve of energy he loses brings him one step closer to depression.

CVS is a devil.

It’s not that he doesn’t have supportive people around him, who all want to do what they can to make him feel better. He has a family who would sacrifice a lot for his wellbeing. But there is only so much people can do for him, when medical science doesn't even know the answers. They can walk beside him, but when he stares CVS in the face, when he is at the core of the despair that comes with this condition, he is alone. When the pain is eating him from the inside, when all he can do is lie writhing in pain, there is no one there to hold his hand. They are there when he talks about it later, they are there when they discuss how to help him to not limit himself by this condition. But in the darkest of days, when he wants nothing but to give up, that is when he is the only one left fighting.

But today is different.

He kept Jensen on the outside for a long time. He used to lock himself in the bathroom to be sick on his own. If he was able to, and he usually was, he would send Jensen home while he stayed alone in his apartment. He used to make sure that they always stayed at his place if he knew there was a chance he might be sick, so that he could kick Jensen out should an episode occur.

The first few times it happened, Jensen tried to protest. He offered to bring water, hold his hair back when he threw up, wrapping him up in towels, cooking him food, but every time he was told, in not such a friendly manner, to get the hell away.

And every time Jensen had a crying and apologetic Jared on the phone the next day.

After a while, Jensen stopped protesting.

And after a while, he also stopped listening.

Jared might not have known how to accept help, but Jensen wanted, and maybe even needed, to help him.

The 6th time Jared told him to go to hell, Jensen responded by making sure that when he left the apartment, there were 2 sandwiches, with a healthy amount of meat, and a bottle of soda in the kitchen for when the episode was over and Jared needed to get some energy back.

The next day, instead of a simple apology, he received thanks on the phone.

A few days later, Jensen even locked himself into the apartment with the key Jared had given him the week before, and left food he’d taken home from work, after covering for Jared that day.

4 weeks after that, the episodes stopped.

8 weeks later, he started getting his strength back, and after 4 more weeks he felt that Jensen finally could see who he really was. For the first time, he was a person not limited by his disease. They started to plan dates where Jared didn’t have to worry about where the closest rest room was, just in case an episode started. They started to go on dates where how to get to and from wasn’t such an issue anymore, because just getting there wouldn’t take all of Jared’s energy. And they could even have dates after a day of work now, because work hadn’t taken all the strength Jared had in him that day.

Jared didn’t miss a single lecture at school or a day at work, and his dream of a future was re-kindled.

About a year after the last episode, they decided to move in together. Jensen had the largest apartment, the one that would fit two, but Jared had the shower. The shower with capital S. This shower was a deciding factor when he moved in, and he could not live in an apartment where he could not lie down in the shower. Jensen had a corner shower enclosure.

He’d been in remission for more than a year, and maybe was it forever this time, but he could not give up his shower. Jensen was frustrated by Jared’s insistence, and Jared was annoyed by Jensen’s ignorance. He was hurt by Jensen’s lack of compassion for his imminent fear of the CVS-monster rearing it’s ugly head again. They didn’t see eye to eye, because could a shower really be such a big deal? It would take them more than 4 months of active search before they found a house that suited them both, and they both were willing to give up their apartments for. It had two baths; one ensuite with a Jacuzzi, and a guest bathroom with severe upgrading needs. They gave the guest bathroom a small sink and a large shower, and renamed it Jared’s bath.

Jared’s bath was unused for more than 5 months.

The first time he had another episode it started early morning. He was scheduled to open Miranda’s, and Jensen could sleep in for once. The moment he opened his eyes, he recognized the unmistakable taste of rotten eggs, and the nausea closed in on him like an iron mask, suffocating him immediately.

That’s when he noticed that the 20 steps from his bed to Jared’s bath was about 10 steps too far. The first round of vomiting had to be done in the ensuite before he was able to stumble to his own bath in time for the next round to start.

That morning he begged Jensen's forgiveness for waking him, and for asking him to cover for him at work. There were only two hours left till closing by the time he was well enough to release Jensen from his duties.

After seven weeks, there was no more going to work after the episode ended. Jared was exhausted.
Six months later, Jensen is supporting him in the shower.

Jensen gets it now, what the deal is about the shower.

The first few times after the episodes started again, Jared was back to locking the door. But a few weeks in, when Jensen still hadn’t run after hearing him retch horrendously time and again, he trusted Jensen enough to keep the door unlocked. Jensen never tried to help him while vomiting.

One day when Jared came into his bath, an inflatable mattress was filled with air and was leaned up against the wall. It turned out to be useless, as it covered the drain and flooded the floor. A few days later, Jensen showed him a new inflatable mattress, this time with a pillow section they could chose not to inflate. The next time he was sick, he laid on softer material.

This morning, when Jared woke up, the piercing pain that had wakened him was stabbing through his abdomen and back, and when he sat up, the awful taste of sulphur hit. He grabbed his medication and ran to the bathroom. It wasn’t until after he’d finished vomiting, swallowed down his medication, and crawled into the shower that Jensen gently knocked on the door and came into the room. Jared, wrapped up in pain and the intense hope the medication would take effect before he had to vomit again, and afraid at the same time that he would throw up the medication and miss his chance of getting any relief today, barely acknowledged Jensen's presence.

Jensen removes his clothes and opens the shower door to step in. Jared looks up at him, unable to speak and hoping Jensen can read the question on his face.

“Let me sit behind you and hold you,” Jensen says, and waits for Jared to react. Jared’s brain is fried by pain and it takes a while before the words sink in.

“How?” he says.

“Sit up, here, let me help you,” Jensen says, and Jared does as he says. Jensen grabs hold of the mattress, and Jared moves enough for Jensen to scoot it away from underneath him. He inflates the pillow section with help of the air pump now constantly placed underneath the sink, and puts it back in the shower. Instead of lying the whole mattress flat, he bends the pillow section up against the wall, and sits down at that end. He opens his legs and invites Jared to sit between them. Jared crawls back and stretches out to grab the boxers he'd left dropped on the floor.

“You don’t need your boxers,” Jensen says.

“Yes I do,” he answers, pulling them up, one leg at a time, needing to feel a little less exposed. The water bounces on the wall from where he dropped the showerhead to grab his shorts.

“Fuck, that's warm,” Jensen exclaims when the water hits his skin.

“Sorry,” Jared mutters.

“C’mere,” Jensen says and pulls Jared toward him.

He lets himself be pulled into Jensen’s embrace, but waits to lean back until Jensen has found a good position to sit. Jensen grabs a few extra towels to roll up as support behind his back and head, and to use as buffer for the water that is too hot for his feet. “How can you stand water that warm ?” Jensen asks, and Jared just mutters that he needs it. The warmer the better, even though he can’t stand these temperatures when he’s well. He knows Jensen has seen the blood lesions the water usually causes, but at this point, he can't care less about those.

He rests into Jensen’s hold and Jensen’s right hand gently rubs up and down his arm, stopping right above his wrist. With his finger tips, he gently touch the hand holding the shower head. Jared reach for his other hand, stretching their arms out and holding onto Jensen’s hand the way he would clutch a chair’s armrest, holding on for life. He concentrates on breathing, counting to ten on each inhale and exhale, focusing on trying to keeping a steady pace.

He has no idea how long he does this, but after a while, he starts to relax.

Leaning against Jensen, Jared can feel himself falling asleep. The pain ebbs with the water, and the medication is starting to kick in. Leaning his head to the side, it falls flat against Jensen’s shoulder, and he lets himself go.

Jared wakes up by Jensen carefully nudging his shoulder. “Let’s get you to bed, Jay,” he says and stretches to take the shower head from Jared. The water is lukewarm by now, and his upper body is cold. Judging by the temperature of the water, he guesses they’ve been in the shower close to an hour, and he fleetly wonders how Jensen must feel. “Yeah,” Jared says and carefully turns around on all fours. The air mattress is slippery, and he’s not very well coordinated when pumped up on all these painkillers, and is also so very tired. “Let me help you,” Jensen says and takes Jared’s arm to help him to his feet. He doesn’t know when Jensen managed to get out of the shower, but somehow he’s already up on his feet and out. “Thank you,” Jared says. He gratefully wraps the towel Jensen holds out for him around himself, and walks as fast as he can toward the bedroom. Jensen was kind enough to turn on the floor heating in the hallway before he came into the bathroom, and though it hasn't
managed to really heat up the room, it does at least prevent the worst drafts as he pads barefoot across the slate tiles.

Reaching the bedroom, he goes straight to the bed and crawls into it on all fours. “Take off your wet boxers,” Jensen says, and he is barely aware enough to register that he’s still wearing dripping wet shorts.

Once the garment is off, he crawls under the blankets. “How many hot water bottles do you want?” Jensen asks, and Jared answers, “Three.” One for his back, one for his belly and one for underneath his butt. The last one is not for pain, but to keep heat at other parts of the body which feel cold by comparison when he puts so much heat on his upper body. He’s halfway under again when Jensen returns with the bottles, and he accepts all the help he can get placing them where he most needs them. As soon as he's satisfied, he closes his eyes and lets himself fall back into sleep.

He’s nudged awake by Jensen telling him to take more medication, and as soon as he has swallowed it down, he feels the bed shift as Jensen gets under the covers with him. The hot water bottles stick to his body, too warm now. He pulls them away from his sticky skin, and rolls onto his side to wrap himself around Jensen.

The next time he wakes up it’s evening, and Jensen is sitting in the bed next to him. He has a plate with two turkey sandwiches and a bottle of Coke ready to drink. Jared sits up, and the world goes gray for a minute, nausea rises, but this time it's due to lack of energy. “Soda, fast,” he says, and grabs the bottle Jensen holds for him. He swallows it down, hardly breathing at all, and not until the bottle is empty does he lower it. He waits for the sugar to kick in and the world to come back into focus.

“Man, that was good,” he smiles at Jensen.

“Better now?”

“Better,” Jared nods. He takes the offered plate and practically inhales the sandwiches.

“Was this a hard one?” Jensen asks.

“Could've been worse,” he says, and Jensen looks at him questiongly.

“That looked pretty hard to me,” Jensen says.

“It was, at first,” Jared says, “but only for about an hour. The abort meds worked well, and the process of aborting was better than ever. Thank you!” He doesn’t know how to really explain, not with food stuffed in his mouth, and still groggy after the attack. He’ll get time to thank Jensen better, later.

“You’re welcome,” Jensen says.

He eats the rest of the food and his body is getting back to normal, only leaving him feeling like he’s been hit by a truck. He yawns, and laughs a little that he can be so tired after sleeping away the day.

“Why don’t you go watch some TV and rest, and I’ll clean up your bathroom,” Jensen says and reaches for his plate.

“No,” Jared says.

“Don’t be silly, I don’t mind,” Jensen says, and moves to leave. Jared grabs him by his wrist and insists, “No, please!” Let me keep some dignity unspoken, but obviously heard.

Jensen stares at him a long time, before he nods in understanding and gently says, “okay.”