J2 Fic. 'Friends Who Listen'
Title: ‘Friends Who Listen’
Author: Blueeyedliz
Rating: PG/13
Word Count: 4,416
Summary: Misha Collins runs a support group for troubled souls called ‘Friends Who Listen’. It is not and nor has it ever been a dating agency so someone really needs to break the news to Jared and Jensen. Jared has an addictive personality and a drink problem, Jensen is neurotic and has a Chad problem and this....this is a story about first times and finding love in unexpected places.
Warnings: Poor attempts at humor, schmoop and excessive Chad.
Disclaimer: I don’t own a thing.
Big thanks to Heatherofthenight & Scarlettraven9 for their mad ninja beta skills. I’ve played since then so any and all remaining mistakes are my own.
“Friends Who Listen”
It’s Saturday and Jensen likes Saturdays.
Saturday means sleeping in until late, meatloaf for dinner and kicking back in the evening to watch football on cable. Jensen likes all of those things but not necessarily in that order. He’s not one to brag but his homemade meatloaf is really good.
Saturday also means it’s his weekly therapy group session.
Jensen counts cracks in the sidewalk as he walks in the direction of the familiar grey stone columns which mark the entrance to the Madison Square Presbyterian Church. There are twenty-seven cracks on the sun-baked asphalt and Jensen manages to avoid stepping on any of them.
It’s barely past lunch-time but already it’s sizzling hot and everything around him is drenched in soft muted golds and yellows. The dry Texas heat is causing sweat to bead on his neck and trickle down the back of his t-shirt.
It’s a relief to get inside the cool old building. He follows several winding corridors until he’s inside the main hall where there are seven high-backed plastic chairs ready and waiting in a small semi-circle.
As always Chad is sitting in the chair nearest the door and as always he’s dressed in a pair of creased striped pyjama pants matched with a faded blue Abercrombie sweater. Chad doesn’t believe in wearing anything other than his most comfortable clothes on the weekends.
Chad has what looks like two or three dried cornflakes stuck in his hair, it seems as though he’s dunked his hand into his cereal bowl at breakfast and rubbed the resulting mush through his short blonde spikes and while Jensen can’t stop himself from staring, he’s doesn’t say anything about it because Jensen was raised to be well-mannered and Chad is kind of bizarre. For all Jensen knows, Chad put them there on purpose.
Chad glances up with a sardonic grin and a casual ‘wazzup dawg’ on his lips when Jensen walks over. Jensen frowns and wishes Chad would stop fantasising that he’s from the ghetto. Chad grew up in Elmwood Village, Buffalo which is ranked the third best neighborhood in America according to the APA. It’s exactly like the time when Chad rented “8 Mile” from Netflix, started wearing a grey hoodie everywhere and would only communicate with Jensen by way of piss-poor attempts at rhymes. What the fuck does rhyme with Budweiser anyway? Jensen doesn’t know but what he does know is that he never wants to hear Chad call him Jensen-iser ever again.
As Jensen sits down in his usual seat next to Chad, Chad leans over and prods him with his elbow, nodding his head towards the window. Jensen turns his head to look at whatever’s grabbed Chad’s interest-there’s probably a cat sitting on the windowsill licking its balls or something-but when Jensen looks, there’s a guy he’s never seen before standing there. Tall as a motherfucker, broad palms leaning against the glass, he’s staring at the world outside as though it’s a place he’d much rather be.
“Fresh meat.” Chad whispers, conspiratorially cupping his hand around his mouth and being totally obvious about it.
Jensen rolls his bottom lip between his teeth and continues to gawp at the newbie. “So, who is he?”
Jensen’s eyes are taking their sweet time lingering over the guy’s well-built body. Finally they zero in on the guy’s profile...jeez, he’s seriously good looking, even if his eyes are half-hidden behind messy dark hair. Jensen’s mouth is suddenly dry and he busies himself with the task of unzipping his bag, pulling out his notebook and sorting through his pens. It’s Saturday and Saturday means he needs his blue pen.
Jensen’s only ever batted for one team and as he contemplates the wonders of the new guy, the way his dick suddenly twitches against his thigh reminds him that it’s been a long time since he last hit a home run.
“I haven’t talked to him yet,” says Chad, lifting up his sweater to pick fluff from his bellybutton, much to Jensen’s revulsion. “Misha brought him in and introduced him as Jared Pada-something but he’s been standing there quiet as you please ever since. He’s starting to creep me out.”
“Shut up, he’s probably just shy.”
“Or he might be freaking out about wasting a perfectly good Saturday morning sitting around discussing his life problems with our merry little band of screw-ups.” Chad gestures vaguely at the other men who have started to arrive one by one, immediately gravitating towards their own seats.
Jensen looks around at the rest of the men assembled together in the small room. Mike rubbing a hand back and forth over his bald head, Tommy absorbed in a game on his PSP and Gabe fastening and then unfastening the buttons on his jacket.
They are undoubtedly an unusual bunch, outcasts from normal society...but then new guy has got to be here for a reason.
Jensen straights in his seat as Misha finally arrives, he’s suddenly very curious to know newbie’s-Jared’s- story.
~0~
When Misha enters, Jared seems to come out of whatever daze he’s in and breaks away from the window. With his hands wedged deep in his pockets and a definite slouch to his shoulders he approaches the circle of chairs, taking the only available seat, next to Misha and directly across from Jensen.
Jensen doesn’t know where to look because staring is just plain rude but he can’t help the way his eyeballs move upwards from the floor like they’re under some sort of gravitational pull. What’s really screwing him over is the way the lettering on Jared’s t-shirt is stretched right out of shape by the muscles on his broad chest. That, right there, is downright cruel. Jensen can’t focus on his group session with that in front of him.
His gaze hits Jared’s face just in time to watch the younger man flicking his long hair away from his forehead and Jensen’s stomach performs an instant triple somersault, a definite 9.9 on the scoreboard. Jared has hazel eyes. They’re tip-tilted and yet still beautiful, deeply intense and...staring right back at him with a clearly bemused expression.
Jensen coughs, loudly, and hurriedly pretends to write something in his notebook. It evidently doesn’t work as a cover-up tactic because he hears Chad snort in amusement and whisper something which sounds painfully like busted.
~0~
Misha opens the session with a prayer asking for God’s strength and guidance, and then he begins his regular spiel about how everyone needs to open up their hearts and love one another more. It’s Misha’s usual happy hippy John and Yoko bull which Jensen zones out because he hears it every Saturday given that he’s been coming to these meetings for almost six months now.
Jensen’s not sardonic by nature. He believes in trying to be a good person and he believes in God, too, he just doesn’t know whether or not God should waste his time caring a crap about a group of misfits with damn awful social skills. That’s why they’re all here after all. Not because of something important. They’re not trying to find a cure for cancer or gathering to discuss how to prevent famine in the third world. It’s because none of them can function like a normal human being when they’re out in public. Jensen opens his notebook, bites the end of his pen and then jots down ‘donate old clothes to Samaritans’ on the first clean page. He can always use the extra good karma points.
“Everyone this is Jared, he’ll be joining our group from now on.” Misha’s face lights up as he rests his hand on Jared’s shoulder.
Jensen’s focus abruptly finds its way back to the session but he has a strange knotted feeling in his gut which is making him wish Misha would move his hand away; Misha’s thumb is brushing precariously close to the exposed sliver of smooth tanned skin at Jared’s collarbone. “Jared? Why don’t you tell everyone about yourself?”
Jared looks totally uncomfortable, his swallows loudly, eyes shifting nervously from one face to the next. “I’m Jared. I’m a graphic designer, born and raised in San Antonio and I’m an alcoholic.”
Chad hoots with laughter and claps his hands like a demented performing sea lion, he’s clearly tickled. “Nice one, dude.”
Jared’s brows knit together. “No, really. I am an alcoholic....”
“Oh, s-sorry.” Chad pulls an appropriately guilty expression and slides down low in his seat.
Jensen can feel his eyes growing wide. This is something new to their group. Mike has issues communicating with his parents, Tom can’t seem to help coming across as aggressive even though he’s the world’s biggest teddy bear, Gabe is scared of everything to the point of almost never leaving his house, Jensen’s OCD effects what boxers he wears on different days of the week to the exact amount of times he brushes his teeth (thirty times bottom set, thirty-two times top) and Chad is, well Chad is Chad.
Turns out Jared has real problems.
Jared clears his throat, “I mean, I’m a recovering alcoholic. I’ve done enough recovery steps by now to have made up my own modern interpretive dance. I’m just-I guess I’m just struggling to fit back into my life.”
Jared seems to be relaxing the more he talks, given that he’s now moved to sit with his arm slung casually over the back of his chair and his long legs are starting to stretch out, eating up more floor space than should be humanly possible. “My fiancée left me last year and I became this whole other person. Someone I didn’t even like, someone who drank too much and could never be bothered to walk his dogs or take a shower. Anyway, my little sister practically moved into my place and wouldn’t leave until I got my sorry ass off the couch and agreed to get some help. She all but dragged me off to rehab for my drinking and then put my name down for this group.”
There’s general stunned silence for a few minutes before Misha stands up and thanks Jared for his openness. Then he smoothly moves on to Gabe and the next thirty minutes are spent listening to how using a microwave too often can fry your brain and how it’s much more beneficial to your health to sterilise all your drinking water.
~0~
When the session is over, as a rule, everyone usually hangs back to shoot the shit for awhile before heading home but Jared picks up his coat and walks straight for the exit. Good thing Jensen won medals running track at high school.
“Hey,” Jensen says, not even in the slightest bit out of breath from his short sprint across the room. “You’re coming back next week, right? We didn’t scare you off or anything?”
“No...I mean, yes. Yes, I’m coming back.” Jared still looks uncertain and Jensen’s suddenly afraid that he’s lying, that he might walk out the door and never come back. And Jensen would never get the chance to get to know him properly.
Jensen realizes then that Jared’s still standing there, propping up the doorframe, his coat in his hands. “So...” He says hurriedly, rubbing at his chin with earnest. “Want to go grab a drink?” Jensen struggles to get the words out, this is hard for him. After group, he likes to go home in time to start getting dinner ready before Chad comes over to shoot some hoops in his backyard-and generally drink all his beer and eat all his Pop-Tarts and Cheetos.
Jared eyebrows shoot up to meet his hairline. “Uhm, recovering alcoholic here.” He says raising a hand in the air before returning it to hang by his side.
Shit. Jensen winces. “Coffee.” He declares, satisfied with his speedy recovery. “I meant coffee, you can drink coffee? Not Irish coffee obviously but...”
“Yeah, I can drink de-caf coffee.” Jared replies, somewhat cautious, like maybe he’s not too sure about whether he can drink coffee or maybe whether he wants to go get one with Jensen.
Jensen doesn’t give him the time to make his mind up either way. “Excellent, I’ll just get my jacket.”
~0~
“Every time I buy a box of donuts I can’t eat just one, I have to eat the entire box.”
Jared frowns over the top of his Starbucks and takes another large bite of the muffin in front of him. He’s obviously wondering what Jensen’s point is. “Yeah? That isn’t so bad.”
“What about if you had to eat the ones with sprinkles first, then the glazed ones, then the ones filled with iced custard and you just kept eating even though you were full to the point of being ready to puke?”
“Oh.” Jared tugs at his lips with his thumb and forefinger. “I used to drink until I puked.” He says quietly, shrugging his shoulders.
“My point is that I’m neurotic and somewhat obsessive compulsive and...I just wanted to warn you beforehand.”
Jared nods, “clearly, you’re a real catch.”
“Now you’re making fun of me?”
Jared shakes his head. “Recovering alcoholic,” he says, “I’m not perfect. In fact, I’m pretty far removed from perfect. My sister, Megan, says I’ve got more issues than the National Enquirer. ”
Jensen smiles, Jared’s easy acceptance in the face of Jensen’s neuroses is heart-warming. Most people would have made their excuses and run away by now-hell, most of them would have probably forgone the making up excuses part. “Misha’s a good guy and I think the group really does help people. If you can get over the name. I mean, ‘Friends Who Listen’ is a lame name for a support group, right? Who has friends who don’t listen? They wouldn’t be your friend if they didn’t listen to you. Unless you’re friends with Van Gogh. Then I guess the whole one ear thing might make it a little more difficult.” Jensen’s babbling. He’s fully aware that he’s babbling but he’s helpless to do anything about it. He babbles when he gets nervous. Jared makes him very nervous.
“Why did you want to warn me?”
“What?”
“You said you wanted to warn me beforehand?”
“Oh. I just meant if you’re going to be one of the group, I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each-other.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary a bad thing.” Jared says simply, wiping away a thin line of creamy froth from his top lip with his arm.
Jensen’s smile is wide enough to split his face in two. This is going way better than he’d anticipated especially if he’s correct in thinking that Jared is flirting with him and not just being polite. Yet, Jensen can’t help being a tad disappointed by the latest turn of events... he would really have loved to have licked that froth away from Jared’s mouth.
~0~
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