FIC: Faith in Dusk

[nilchance]

Title: Faith in Dusk
Author: nilchance
Rating: Adult
Pairing: CWRPS, JA/JDM.
A/N: Part of the mpreg verse, a step sideways to follow Zach and Jensen's conversation outside. Many thanks to poisontaster for the look-through.



This assignment is not going as planned. It's fucked from beginning to end, and Jensen doesn't know what to do about it.

Jensen hears the door open behind him but doesn't look back. He keeps walking towards the shore, the lake water lapping steadily towards Jeff's house. It's cool outside, the chill cutting straight into his bones and up the bare soles of his feet. He can smell Jeff on these borrowed clothes, the warm smoke scent of him like an embrace. It settles the heat, a reminder that Jensen will be fucked to sleep again tonight.

The water will be colder. He can keep walking into it, until his feet don't touch ground, until it closes over his head...

"76!" A hand snags him by the shoulder, pulling him to a stop. 34 hauls him around and into a hug, which is almost as jarring as the sight of him here. What the hell is he doing here? "Jensen," 34 breathes into his hair, a secret name that makes Jensen shiver. "You look like shit."

Jensen huffs out a laugh and knots his hands in 34's shirt. They shouldn't touch, not according to the guards and the doctors, but they had in the long nights of confinement. If Jensen's pheromones get on 34, well. 34 is immune.

"You're alive," Jensen says. His voice scratches in his throat, raw. "I thought you were-- they said you died."

34's grip tightens a little before deliberately easing up. 34 takes a step back, studying Jensen with an intensity that he wants to shy away from. Jensen knows what he looks like. He's been cleared for breeding service after the miscarriage, but that's a far cry from being pretty.

"I was sterilized," 34 says. "Close enough for them. It's Zach now, by the way."

Zach. Jensen can't imagine that, having your own name all the time. There are so many questions, four years yawning between them. Zach looks... good. Whole. His hair's grown out from the ragged CFC buzzcut, and there's a soft curve to his body now: muscle from regular exercise and fat from unrestricted eating. No scrubs, he's in his own clothes, with a leather band around his wrist and a ring on his finger. Jensen cases the jewelry absently, something to steal and bargain with the guards, and is ashamed to realize he's doing it.

Zach looks human.

"Hi," Jensen says, suddenly and stupidly awkward.

But Zach grins, like that's a perfectly acceptable thing to say, and nudges him. "Hi."

Someone like Jeff, someone who means well, might shove Jensen back at the house for his own good. He's barefoot, it's cold out. But Zach glances at the wide open sky, nods like they just had a whole conversation and starts walking towards the lake. It's too good to be outside to go back in where there are walls, and beds, and Jeff. Unsupervised. It's been so long since Jensen was last near open water.

There's a wooden dock stretching over the water, a rickety old rowboat tied to it. The water slaps against the wood as they get close. They're out of sight of the house, Jensen realizes with a thrill of adrenaline. Too far. He starts to back up, but Zach touches his arm, tactile reassurance. Steadying. "Jeff doesn't care."

Jeff cares too much, Jensen wants to snap, but he keeps it to himself. "What are you doing here, Zach?"

"That's... complicated." Zach looks out over the water. "I'm friends with Jeff."

"Friends." It comes out hard, a scoff. Jensen puts a hand over his scar, rubbing at the ache. "Breeders don't have those."

"Yeah? So what are we?"

Jensen doesn't have an answer. They were together; 76 and 34, matched set, both started too young and both headed fast for the Termination Committee. They couldn't protect each other. Only comfort in the dark, when the heat got too sharp or the nights too long, reaching out through the bars of a cage.

"I got out," Zach says finally. "I stopped being useful to them and so they gave me to my donor. Jeremy. He's good to me."

Jensen flexes his fingers against the scar. He remembers when Zach was 34, when Zach ripped open his stitches and tried to pull out the uterus that marked him as a breeder. He remembers holding Zach together until the doctors got there, and so he means it when he says, "I'm glad. You deserve--"

"They let me keep the baby."

His heart stutters. Jensen stops where he is, staring out over the lake. Four children now, four babies torn out and lost, returning back to his cage to be stitched up and fattened up until he can survive another round. The CFC never forfeits resources, but Zach...

"How?" Jensen asks. He feels numb, his mind sloshing around in his skull.

Zach laughs, bitter dark sound. At least that never goes away. "I nearly had to die. Jeremy threatened to go public. They told us to lay low and if we ever fucked up, they take her."

"Her."

"Our girl. Maggie. She's four. Little hellion's going to be president." Zach touches him, the play of his fingers along Jensen's shoulder like stroking guitar strings. If it was Jeff, Jensen would be writhing. It's good to be touched without triggering the heat. When Jensen sighs and rolls his shoulders back into the touch, Zach gathers him up close. Tucks him against his chest. His voice rumbles under Jensen's ear. "How many has it been now, Jensen? Three kids?"

Jensen closes his eyes. "Four births, four losses."

Zach pauses, his fingers resting against Jensen's spine. He knows what that means. "Jesus."

"Yeah," Jensen sighs. There's nothing else to really say.

The puzzle is beginning to make sense now. Jeff is friends with Jeremy, who angered the CFC. And so they gave Jensen to Jeff, this kind man who's too good for an aging breeder who's set to be terminated. Jeff isn't Jensen's punishment; it's the other way around.

They gave Jensen to Jeff so Jeff could get him pregnant one last time. Jeff's a tall man, the kind who makes big babies that tear right through a breeder's thinning womb.

They did this so Jeff could watch him die.