On the Street Where You Live [Jared/Jensen, PG-13]
See, there was this picture of Jared, and then there was this picture of a Girl Scout cookie, and then this silliness happened.
On the Street Where You Live [Jared/Jensen, PG-13 for language]
J2 AU. Five times Jared sells Girl Scout cookies. In which Jared is not slick and Jensen is hot but also not slick and cookies are bought and sold.
On the Street Where You Live
It’s guilt that’s got Jared out here. Guilt and his baby sister and more guilt. And also, the universe hates him.
He chooses houses based on a very complex system that Meggie explains not once, not twice, but three times, in ever increasing detail.
It has to do with cars in the driveway and lights in the windows and Jared listens because he figures knowing how to tell when someone’s home will give him all the information he needs to know when someone’s not home, which is what’s really important, here.
He’s wrong, as it turns out.
It’s the fifth house on the sixth street over, because Meg’s already covered most of the neighborhood, and the driveway’s empty, the lights are off, the windows are shut, and there’s no way in hell anyone’s home.
He knocks really quietly anyway, just in case.
While he counts down from ten, just so he can say that he waited, he scribbles the address down for Meg. He’s blowing past seven on his way to six and double checking the house number when the door snaps open.
“Shit,” Jared blurts, startled. “No one’s supposed to be home!”
“Well, then you’re in luck,” the door opener says as he steps outside and locks the door behind him. He’s got an iPod strapped to one arm and he tucks his house key in behind it. “See ya.”
Jared watches him jog away until he looks more like a fuzzy dot than a really hot guy with eyes as green as the boxes of Thin Mints that are currently ruining Jared’s afternoon.
*
The next time Jared goes out to sell Girl Scout cookies, it’s less about guilt and more about knocking on a certain door six blocks over, five houses down.
When he gets there, there’s a truck in the driveway and some lights on downstairs. He rings the bell, then knocks, too, just to be sure, and then he waits. He counts down from ten, and back up and then down again, and after what seems like an unreasonably long time, he runs a hand up through his hair and then tugs his favorite brown sweater down where it rides up in the front.
He heads home the way he came, reads down the list of cookie buyers and pencils in his own name at the bottom as he walks. Buying a few boxes of Samoas is probably the least he can do if he’s not actually going to sell any.
Footsteps on the pavement catch his attention as he’s writing his address in on the order form, and he looks up to see a guy-the guy- slowing abruptly from a jog to a walk right in front of him.
“Hey,” the guy says, sounding startled and just slightly out of breath. He pulls his earphones out and twists them around his hand. “You still, uh. Looking for empty houses?”
Jared shakes his head. “Nah, I’m just-well, I’m. I’m kinda selling Girl Scout cookies, actually,” he says, which is somewhat less smooth and charming than he’d planned, in that it’s less caring big brother and more complete freak of nature.
He adds to the picture by waving the order form in the air for a second, and then he shoves it down by his side.
“Aren’t you a little old for that?” the guy says, and a little smirking smile quirks his mouth up at the corners in a way that’s kind of unfairly adorable.
Jared responds with, “I accidentally fell on my sister,” because his mouth is clearly the opposite of adorable.
He turns his head away and clears his throat, and then the guy clears his own throat and says, “Yeah, I can see how that’d do some damage.”
“Broken ankle,” Jared says, and he licks his lips and tries to compose himself into the irresistible guy he walked the six blocks over here to be, the charming, considerate guy who’s perfectly okay with making an ass out of himself by selling Girl Scout cookies for his bedridden baby sister as long as it makes her happy.
It’s mostly true, except for the perfectly okay with part, and he crosses out the 2 he wrote next to his name in the Samoas column and makes it a 6.
“She’s twenty boxes off her goal still,” he says, shrugging, “so. Y’know, here I am.”
The guy grins and says, “Hey I got a kid sister too, man, I know how it is,” before popping his earphones back in and jogging on.
*
The third time Jared sells Girl Scout cookies, he actually sells some. This is because he carries Megan and her big-ass cast piggyback all the way, and she’s pretty irresistible normally, so broken and hanging pathetically onto her big brother’s neck? No one stands a chance.
She pouts herself thirty boxes over her goal before the pout becomes real. Which actually gets her a few even bigger sales before everything goes horribly wrong.
They’re across the street from his house when it happens.
Jared knows it’s just the broken ankle talking, but what it sounds like is a little girl screaming bloody murder about all the ways Jared’s fucked her over-yes, fucked her over-and it’s like she’s three again instead of thirteen and nothing will shut her up.
The guy’s home, of course. Jared knows this because he’s staring at the house, hoping to God that it’s free of really hot guys, so he sees the guy look out the window to check out what all the noise is about.
By the time the guy comes out his front door, Jared’s already offered to buy Megan a lifetime supply of Tagalongs, plus the iPod she’s been begging for, and she’s still screaming.
The guy’s jogging by the time he hits the end of the driveway, and he looks just as good in old jeans and a t-shirt as he does in his jogging clothes. Meg stops yelling for a second to follow Jared’s line of vision, and then she buries her face in Jared’s shoulder as the guy crosses the road. It’s almost like she’s embarrassed, only Jared refuses to acknowledge that she’s old enough to look at boys that way, so he chooses to believe the guy has some sort of magical powers instead. Jared’s about to thank him for showing up and saving the day when he says, “What the hell are you doing out here, man?”
It all goes downhill from there.
First, there’s a lecture on broken bones and casts while the guy loads Megan into his truck, and Jared blames all the technical terms he doesn’t understand for why he just gets in some stranger’s car, with his baby sister, no less, and by the time they’re on the road, the topic of the very one-sided conversation is physical therapy.
Somewhere around block three, this transitions into brotherly responsibility, and Jared endures three solid blocks on everything from not encouraging kids to curse to not taking rides from strangers.
When they get to Jared’s house, he gets Meg out and slams the door behind him without looking back.
*
The fourth time Jared sells Girl Scout cookies doesn’t count because they pretty much sell themselves. The doorbell rings twice before he can get to the door, and when he opens it, the guy’s standing there, kind of sweaty, a little flushed and ridiculously gorgeous.
Which doesn’t matter in the least, seeing as he’s a complete asshole.
“I, uh. I was thinking I wanna buy some Girl Scout cookies,” he says, fiddling with the iPod strapped to his arm and grimacing. “Also, I’m kind of an asshole. And a physical therapy major, so. You know, broken bones and stuff. It’s kind of my area.”
Jared grabs Meg’s order form and a pen off the table and hands it over. The guy-Jensen, as it turns out-fills in his information and his order, nine inexplicable boxes of Trefoils, and while he writes, he says, “I didn’t mean to be so-well, y’know. It’s just, my baby sister had a really bad break once, and it never really healed right, so.” He shrugs land looks up at Jared for a split second. “I’m an asshole, basically.”
Jared grabs the order form back when Jensen’s done, and he feels just a little bit bad when he practically slams the door in the guy’s face.
*
The fifth time Jared sells Girl Scout cookies is with his daughter, seventeen years later, but before that, he takes up jogging, mostly in a six block loop that begins and ends at his front door.
Jensen, as it turns out, jogs the same six block loop, only he starts and ends at his own front door, and as long as Jared doesn’t think about it too much, it makes perfect sense for them to fall in and jog together.
“I’m a fucking awesome brother, you know,” Jared huffs as they come up on his house. It’s the first thing either of them’s said in the week they’ve been meeting like this.
“Dude, you sold Girl Scout cookies,” Jensen says, grinning a little. “That’s above and beyond.”
“And you are an asshole,” Jared adds.
“Agreed,” Jensen says.
Jared slows down to a walk in front of his house. He says, “Hey,” and Jensen walks with him. “So, my name’s Jared,” he says.
“Jensen,” Jensen says, and when he sticks out his hand, Jared shakes it for a second and then takes a step in so their clasped hands swing easily between them.
“You wanna come inside, Jensen?” Jared asks. “Meggie’s got a cast you can sign, and you haven’t had a Do-si-do ‘til you’ve tried it straight outta the freezer.”
He starts toward the door without waiting for Jensen’s answer, but he doesn’t let go of Jensen’s hand, so he’s pretty sure Jensen doesn’t have any choice but to come with him.
###
On the Street Where You Live [Jared/Jensen, PG-13 for language]
J2 AU. Five times Jared sells Girl Scout cookies. In which Jared is not slick and Jensen is hot but also not slick and cookies are bought and sold.
On the Street Where You Live
It’s guilt that’s got Jared out here. Guilt and his baby sister and more guilt. And also, the universe hates him.
He chooses houses based on a very complex system that Meggie explains not once, not twice, but three times, in ever increasing detail.
It has to do with cars in the driveway and lights in the windows and Jared listens because he figures knowing how to tell when someone’s home will give him all the information he needs to know when someone’s not home, which is what’s really important, here.
He’s wrong, as it turns out.
It’s the fifth house on the sixth street over, because Meg’s already covered most of the neighborhood, and the driveway’s empty, the lights are off, the windows are shut, and there’s no way in hell anyone’s home.
He knocks really quietly anyway, just in case.
While he counts down from ten, just so he can say that he waited, he scribbles the address down for Meg. He’s blowing past seven on his way to six and double checking the house number when the door snaps open.
“Shit,” Jared blurts, startled. “No one’s supposed to be home!”
“Well, then you’re in luck,” the door opener says as he steps outside and locks the door behind him. He’s got an iPod strapped to one arm and he tucks his house key in behind it. “See ya.”
Jared watches him jog away until he looks more like a fuzzy dot than a really hot guy with eyes as green as the boxes of Thin Mints that are currently ruining Jared’s afternoon.
*
The next time Jared goes out to sell Girl Scout cookies, it’s less about guilt and more about knocking on a certain door six blocks over, five houses down.
When he gets there, there’s a truck in the driveway and some lights on downstairs. He rings the bell, then knocks, too, just to be sure, and then he waits. He counts down from ten, and back up and then down again, and after what seems like an unreasonably long time, he runs a hand up through his hair and then tugs his favorite brown sweater down where it rides up in the front.
He heads home the way he came, reads down the list of cookie buyers and pencils in his own name at the bottom as he walks. Buying a few boxes of Samoas is probably the least he can do if he’s not actually going to sell any.
Footsteps on the pavement catch his attention as he’s writing his address in on the order form, and he looks up to see a guy-the guy- slowing abruptly from a jog to a walk right in front of him.
“Hey,” the guy says, sounding startled and just slightly out of breath. He pulls his earphones out and twists them around his hand. “You still, uh. Looking for empty houses?”
Jared shakes his head. “Nah, I’m just-well, I’m. I’m kinda selling Girl Scout cookies, actually,” he says, which is somewhat less smooth and charming than he’d planned, in that it’s less caring big brother and more complete freak of nature.
He adds to the picture by waving the order form in the air for a second, and then he shoves it down by his side.
“Aren’t you a little old for that?” the guy says, and a little smirking smile quirks his mouth up at the corners in a way that’s kind of unfairly adorable.
Jared responds with, “I accidentally fell on my sister,” because his mouth is clearly the opposite of adorable.
He turns his head away and clears his throat, and then the guy clears his own throat and says, “Yeah, I can see how that’d do some damage.”
“Broken ankle,” Jared says, and he licks his lips and tries to compose himself into the irresistible guy he walked the six blocks over here to be, the charming, considerate guy who’s perfectly okay with making an ass out of himself by selling Girl Scout cookies for his bedridden baby sister as long as it makes her happy.
It’s mostly true, except for the perfectly okay with part, and he crosses out the 2 he wrote next to his name in the Samoas column and makes it a 6.
“She’s twenty boxes off her goal still,” he says, shrugging, “so. Y’know, here I am.”
The guy grins and says, “Hey I got a kid sister too, man, I know how it is,” before popping his earphones back in and jogging on.
*
The third time Jared sells Girl Scout cookies, he actually sells some. This is because he carries Megan and her big-ass cast piggyback all the way, and she’s pretty irresistible normally, so broken and hanging pathetically onto her big brother’s neck? No one stands a chance.
She pouts herself thirty boxes over her goal before the pout becomes real. Which actually gets her a few even bigger sales before everything goes horribly wrong.
They’re across the street from his house when it happens.
Jared knows it’s just the broken ankle talking, but what it sounds like is a little girl screaming bloody murder about all the ways Jared’s fucked her over-yes, fucked her over-and it’s like she’s three again instead of thirteen and nothing will shut her up.
The guy’s home, of course. Jared knows this because he’s staring at the house, hoping to God that it’s free of really hot guys, so he sees the guy look out the window to check out what all the noise is about.
By the time the guy comes out his front door, Jared’s already offered to buy Megan a lifetime supply of Tagalongs, plus the iPod she’s been begging for, and she’s still screaming.
The guy’s jogging by the time he hits the end of the driveway, and he looks just as good in old jeans and a t-shirt as he does in his jogging clothes. Meg stops yelling for a second to follow Jared’s line of vision, and then she buries her face in Jared’s shoulder as the guy crosses the road. It’s almost like she’s embarrassed, only Jared refuses to acknowledge that she’s old enough to look at boys that way, so he chooses to believe the guy has some sort of magical powers instead. Jared’s about to thank him for showing up and saving the day when he says, “What the hell are you doing out here, man?”
It all goes downhill from there.
First, there’s a lecture on broken bones and casts while the guy loads Megan into his truck, and Jared blames all the technical terms he doesn’t understand for why he just gets in some stranger’s car, with his baby sister, no less, and by the time they’re on the road, the topic of the very one-sided conversation is physical therapy.
Somewhere around block three, this transitions into brotherly responsibility, and Jared endures three solid blocks on everything from not encouraging kids to curse to not taking rides from strangers.
When they get to Jared’s house, he gets Meg out and slams the door behind him without looking back.
*
The fourth time Jared sells Girl Scout cookies doesn’t count because they pretty much sell themselves. The doorbell rings twice before he can get to the door, and when he opens it, the guy’s standing there, kind of sweaty, a little flushed and ridiculously gorgeous.
Which doesn’t matter in the least, seeing as he’s a complete asshole.
“I, uh. I was thinking I wanna buy some Girl Scout cookies,” he says, fiddling with the iPod strapped to his arm and grimacing. “Also, I’m kind of an asshole. And a physical therapy major, so. You know, broken bones and stuff. It’s kind of my area.”
Jared grabs Meg’s order form and a pen off the table and hands it over. The guy-Jensen, as it turns out-fills in his information and his order, nine inexplicable boxes of Trefoils, and while he writes, he says, “I didn’t mean to be so-well, y’know. It’s just, my baby sister had a really bad break once, and it never really healed right, so.” He shrugs land looks up at Jared for a split second. “I’m an asshole, basically.”
Jared grabs the order form back when Jensen’s done, and he feels just a little bit bad when he practically slams the door in the guy’s face.
*
The fifth time Jared sells Girl Scout cookies is with his daughter, seventeen years later, but before that, he takes up jogging, mostly in a six block loop that begins and ends at his front door.
Jensen, as it turns out, jogs the same six block loop, only he starts and ends at his own front door, and as long as Jared doesn’t think about it too much, it makes perfect sense for them to fall in and jog together.
“I’m a fucking awesome brother, you know,” Jared huffs as they come up on his house. It’s the first thing either of them’s said in the week they’ve been meeting like this.
“Dude, you sold Girl Scout cookies,” Jensen says, grinning a little. “That’s above and beyond.”
“And you are an asshole,” Jared adds.
“Agreed,” Jensen says.
Jared slows down to a walk in front of his house. He says, “Hey,” and Jensen walks with him. “So, my name’s Jared,” he says.
“Jensen,” Jensen says, and when he sticks out his hand, Jared shakes it for a second and then takes a step in so their clasped hands swing easily between them.
“You wanna come inside, Jensen?” Jared asks. “Meggie’s got a cast you can sign, and you haven’t had a Do-si-do ‘til you’ve tried it straight outta the freezer.”
He starts toward the door without waiting for Jensen’s answer, but he doesn’t let go of Jensen’s hand, so he’s pretty sure Jensen doesn’t have any choice but to come with him.
###