Title: Our Parts are Slightly Used
Author name: kelleigh
Artist name: lylithj2
Genre: J2 RPS AU
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Rating: NC17
Word count: 50,400
Warnings: Scarred/Disabled Character, PTSD, Memories of combat violence. Elements of H/C.

Summary: After three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Jared has come home to Texas, working a steady job as a security guard and trying to patch himself back together. His dreams are less than kind, but he copes for the sake of those who never made it back. Jared's not expecting to meet someone like Jensen Ackles - a Dallas businessman with confidence and charisma in spades. They connect over coffee breaks and high-spirited basketball games with Jared's vet buddies, and what begins as friendship quickly deepens into a defining romance. Although Jared's willing to share his physical scars with Jensen, the burden of hiding his emotional wounds weighs heavily on both of them. As Jensen scrambles to put a name to his boyfriend's symptoms, Jared struggles each and every day, and neither of them sees the storm on the horizon until it's too late.

Check out lylithj2's art MASTER POST and leave her some love! ♥
Written for the 2013 spn_j2_bigbang



Part One | Part Two | Part Three
Part Four (a) | Part Four (b) | Part Five

Multiple text-only formats available at the AO3.
PDF with art available at MediaFire thanks to abeautifullie3.
Please let me know if you download the story ♥



notes. This is not a story about war. At its core, it's a story about a relationship growing under tremendous pressure. I purposely left out detailed descriptions of enemy combatants and the language I know most soldiers to use (I have cousins who are the poster boys for gung-ho), because none of it would add to the story I was trying to tell.

I began writing this at least three years ago. At this point, I can’t even remember what the original idea was. It lingered on my hard drive for a long time, pulled out each Big Bang season before being replaced on the shelf in favor of another idea. But I never gave up. This year, I was determined to bring it to the light of day! But I’d started it so far in the past that it needed major updating. Basically, I started writing this before anyone had heard of The Voice (and I eventually changed my original character, Blake, into a young mullet-less Blake Shelton), and before the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That event changed so much about this story. Cindy Sampson was still relevant in Supernatural, but I’d come to enjoy her character so much that I had to keep her around.

thanks. First of all, I want to thank lylithj2 for choosing my story! You were a blast to work with right from the get-go, and your enthusiasm kept me going all the way up to the end. I'm floored with everything you were able to make, from those AMAZING dog tags to my icons and everything in between.

HUGE thank you’s to akadougal and electricalgwen for the beta work! I was a procrastinating procrastinator (and I have a pen to prove it!) with this story, but y’all stepped up at the last minute to bail me out, and I am so grateful! Thank you both for what you’ve done to make this story readable and so much more complete!

Thanks to ldyghst for helping me with my artist summary during claims. Without your feedback, I wouldn't have been paired with my artist :) And finally, THANK YOU to everyone who provided feedback on this story while it was being written over the last few years. passing_through, dugindeep, matalinolukaret, secretlytodream...your encouragement throughout this very long process made the story possible. ♥ ♥ ♥

As always, thanks to the spn_j2_bigbang mods for putting this together again!