Fic: Horns, Hooves and Holidays
In the spirit of giving, I signed up as a pinch-hitter for the SPN/J2 Xmas Exchange, and was recruited to write a gift for zubeneschamali, whose likes included "unusual werecreatures" and "holiday schmoop". This fic is the result! Happy holidays to all!
Title: Horns, Hooves and Holidays
Gifter: casey679
Pairing/Characters: Jensen/Jared
Word count/Medium: 3047
Rating: Teen
Warnings: A very wee amount of blood.
Summary: It's a hell of a way to start off the day before Christmas, Jensen thinks. He'd had vague plans for a lazy blowjob in bed and helping Jared with chores around the ranch before heading over to the main house to enjoy the huge Padalecki pre-Christmas brunch that he's heard so much about it. Not… this. "It's really not as bad as it looks," Jared says defensively.
It's a hell of a way to start off Christmas Eve morning, Jensen thinks.
He'd had vague plans for a lazy blowjob in bed and helping Jared with chores around the ranch before heading over to the main house to enjoy the huge Padalecki pre-Christmas brunch that he's heard so much about it. Not… this.
"It's really not as bad as it looks," Jared says defensively.
Jensen narrows his eyes, wishing he'd thought to throw on a heavier coat before racing outside into the falling snow. "Oh good. Because where I'm standing, it looks like my boyfriend has somehow gotten himself strung up - face down and buck naked, I might add - on the bottom of a barbed wire fence, which has somehow embedded itself in his back. But since it's not as bad as it looks, I'll just turn around and go back inside."
Jared seems to shrink in on himself a bit with embarrassment. "Would you believe me if I said there's a perfectly rational explanation for this?"
For someone who is currently in danger of having his family jewels get frostbite, Jared seems far less freaked out than he should be. Then again, Jensen is currently freaking out enough for the both of them.
"No."
It's got to be the cold, Jensen decides; the cold must have numbed Jared's ability to feel pain somehow, even though he actually looks remarkably flushed for someone having been out in the snow for at least-
"How long have you been stuck out here?"
"I don't know," Jared says, his half-shrug turning into a wince as his skin tugs at the wires. "Half an hour before you came out maybe? I think?"
"You think?" Jensen squats down and looked at the ugly bits of metal, and is inordinately glad that he hasn't had anything heavier than coffee in his stomach. Somehow, the barbs and bits of wire are half-sunk under Jared's skin, like someone has somehow surgically implanted them there. Which is impossible.
It's strange, because there's a lot of blood - enough to have dripped down off his back and onto the snow, a splattering of red-and white that is decidedly not the festive decorations he'd had in mind. The worrisome thing - the one of many worrisome things - is that It's way more blood than you'd expect for such surprisingly small entry wounds.
Entry wounds, Jensen thinks, what the fuck. What he says aloud is, "I'm going to go call an ambulance. I don't want to risk moving you like this."
No!" Jared says anxiously, grabbing at his boot - the only part of Jensen currently close enough for him to reach. "Don't call anyone. It really isn't that bad."
Jensen starts to yank his foot away and then thinks better of it. "Stop moving, you're going to make it worse-"
Jared wraps his fingers firmly around Jensen's ankle. "Look, there's a simple, and stupid, explanation for all of this, and I promise I'll give it to you. Just don't call the ambulance." He tries to twist his head up to look at Jensen, but only succeeds in digging the wire in further. "I just - ah! - just - ow! - there's a pair of wire cutters in the - ack! shit! - in the garage." He pants for a minute, like he didn't just start shredding his back more with his flailing. "I just need you to snip the wires so I can get out from under here and stand up, and then I can explain everything."
"Seriously?!" Jensen's voice cracks on the end.
"Yeah," Jared says slowly, like he isn't currently impaled under a fence and Jensen is the irrational one. "Seriously." And then he gets a weird, sheepish look on his face. "Would it help if I told you this wasn't the first time?"
Jensen only realizes his mouth has been hanging open when the sheer ludicrousness of that statement makes it snap shut, and you know what? If his boyfriend is enough of a lunatic to think- well. If he can't be bothered to worry about himself, Jensen certainly can't be, either.
He focuses his haughtiest, most annoyed gaze on the ridiculous idiot with whom he has somehow managed to fall in love and says, sternly, "No. No, it does not help at all."
He does, however, fetch the wire cutters.
* * *
As it turns out, "it's not as bad as it looks" and "this isn't the first time" aren't the stupidest things to come out of his boyfriend's mouth that morning.
Per Jared's request, and against his better judgment, Jensen clips the barbed wire to either side of Jared's back and carefully lifts up the other wires so Jared can crawl out from underneath it and stagger to his feet. And then he just… watches Jensen, like Jensen's the one who's unstable.
Although, he's not wrong. Jensen is absolutely about to lose it, but he's pretty sure he's entitled. "So wait, that's it? We're just gonna ignore the fact that you're standing out here in your birthday suit with a chunk of metal in your back?"
And that's when Jared says it.
He looks at Jensen kind of out of the corner of his eyes with an expression that says he knows Jensen isn't going to like what comes next. And then says the absolute dumbest, least helpful thing that anyone in the history of ever has said, the god emperor of stupid things that have ever come out of Jared's mouth:
"Don't freak out."
And then Jared reaches back behind himself, grabs the severed fence wires in his hands and yanks the goddamn barbs out of his back.
There's a horrible ripping, squelching sound. Blood splatters against the snowy ground. Jared drops the wire, which is covered in- in- Jensen's mind refuses to comprehend. And then he lurches forward and hugs Jensen, as if he didn't just fucking maim himself like it was no big deal.
Jensen isn't too proud to admit that there's a moment where he thinks he might faint, where his pulse is pounding, and everything feels like it's going in slow motion. But then he remembers that Jared might be bleeding out, and that's all it takes. He promises his brain that he'll let it gibber all it wants later on if it will only focus on what's important right now.
"Jared, oh my god, what the fuck." He's aware he's babbling. He's fucking entitled. "We've gotta get you inside- is there a first-aid kit in the bathroom? There's got to be, right? This is a ranch, of course accidents happen, there's always a first aid kit-"
"Jensen," Jared says, stepping back and shrugging his shoulders like he's stretching out a sore muscle and not reopening the holes the barbed wire must have left in his back. "It's okay, I promise. I don't need a first aid kit. Look, see-"
And he turns around, and shows off a perfectly muscled, perfectly uninjured back with nothing other than some blood trails to show that anything ever happened.
Jensen puts his hand out unthinkingly, lets his fingers trail over uninjured skin. They come back sticky and red from the spaces where the holes from the barbed wire should have been, revealing unblemished skin underneath.
He might be freaking out a bit now, despite Jared's admonition. Honestly, he can't tell. Nothing makes sense anymore. He looks down at the incriminating barbed wire on the ground, and then back at Jared. Then he opens his mouth, and no sound comes out.
"See? I told you it would be fine." Jared turns around again, smile fading at whatever he sees in Jensen's expression. He tilts his head and runs his fingers through his bangs, scratching his head absently as he thinks.
"You must be freezing. Do you want cocoa?" he says abruptly, and Jensen giggles, because sure, that's a perfectly normal thing to say to someone who is fully dressed while you're standing around starkers in the snow doing impossible things. Then he nods, because yes, he could use some fucking cocoa. Chocolate, he remembers, is good for warding off shock, which is something he might in fact be experiencing.
"Let's get you inside and warmed up," Jared says, taking him by the elbow and steering him back inside the house. He pushes him gently down onto the couch and piles three blankets on top of him. "You just sit there and relax. I'll call mom and tell her we're going to be late, and be right back with the cocoa." Which is not what Jensen wants to hear, because Mama Padalecki's love for her family may be infinite, but the amount of food she makes for brunch is not.
"This explanation had better be worth missing her blueberry pancakes." Jensen reminds himself for the umpteenth time that morning that he loves and trusts Jared, so wanting to kill him is counterproductive. "I'll never forgive you otherwise!"
Jared has the nerve to be honest-to-god cheerful as he retreats to the kitchen, saying, "It'll all be okay!"
This situation is insane. His boyfriend is insane. Which is undoubtedly why all Jensen can think of to yell back is the equally insane and inane, "And put some pants on while you're at it!"
* * *
Given the remarkably weird and upsetting way that Jensen's day had begun and the incredibly weird and inept way that Jared had reacted to it so far, Jensen really shouldn't be surprised when his boyfriend - still barefoot, but at least now properly attired in jeans and a t-shirt - sits down across from him and launches into the world's most enigmatic explanation.
"Did you know," Jared says earnestly, "that the prong buck is the only antelope native to North America, especially Texas and the Southwest? Well, er, not really an antelope, it's a little closer to a giraffe, or maybe an okapi. But the point is the same."
Jensen pauses.
"What." It's not a question so much as just the sound one makes when one's boyfriend decides to start off his explanation of why he ended up nude and entangled in a barbed wire fence with a demonstration of his mastery of Strange Mammal Facts.
"Prong bucks," Jared says, like repeating it will somehow make it make more sense. "You know, prairie antelopes… pronghorns… American antelopes?"
"Oh, I know what a pronghorn is," Jensen says finally, once he can manage to find his equilibrium. He's a Texan; of course he does. "I'm just failing to see the point."
"I'm getting to that," Jared says.
"Not fast enough," Jensen counters, cutting off whatever Jared was about to say next. He leans back, spreading his arms across the back of the couch like he couldn't care less what the explanation is. It's a lie.
"The point is," Jared says, with a little bit of an edge that belies his calm exterior, "that prong bucks are built for speed. Not jumping. Put 'em on flat ground, they can outrun a cheetah. Vertical… not so much."
Jensen's still got no clue where Jared's going with this, but he'll play along. "Guess they're lucky there are no cheetahs in San Antonio, then."
"Heh." Jared laughs. "Maybe so." He inhales, holds his breath, and then exhales nervously. "Okay. So." Another deep breath. "Prong bucks are really fucking common around here, right? So there's a lot of them, but there's also a lot of genetic diversity, such as, uh, latent traits that can stay dormant for generations."
"Such as running around nude in the middle of the night in December?"
"Such as antilocaprinthropy." It sounds like a disease, AN-til-oh-CAH-prin-thrope-ee.
Jensen rubs his forehead then, feeling a headache coming on. "Antilo-whata-whaty?"
Jared coughs awkwardly. "Antilocaprinthropy. It, uh, runs in my family."
"I thought we were talking about antelopes."
Jared rubs the back of his neck. It makes his white t-shirt ride up just the tiniest bit above his waist, not that he deserves to experience any of Jensen's appreciation, no matter how appealing that thin sliver of skin it reveals is.
"We are. Kinda." He leans forward. "I'm an antilocaprinthrope."
"Gesundheit."
"No, for real." And then he does that thing where he scoots forward until he's on the very edge of his seat, all wide puppy eyes and earnest expression. "It runs in my family, but it skipped a couple generations. Surprised the hell out of my mom, though."
Jensen sips his cocoa and then places it neatly down on a coaster on the coffee table, pointedly looking away from the puppy eyes. "Translate that from science nerd to English."
Jared sits back and scratches his head. "I'm a… were-antelope."
It's not Jensen's fault that he falls off of the couch laughing. "Look, it's okay to just admit it was some kind of kinky, Jay. I'm not gonna judge - okay, maybe a little, but- you don't have to make up something ridiculous-" He giggles again when he realizes he's wedged himself in between the coffee table and the couch. There's no easy way for him to get up without spilling his drink, so he lifts his arm for a hand-up instead. "Help me up here."
The laughter chokes off in his throat, however, when Jared grasps his hand obligingly and pulls him to his feet, because his goofy and gangly, six-foot-five-tall boyfriend is probably now closer to seven-foot-tall… if you include the pair of six-inch pronged antlers emerging from his forehead, and the hooves that are now peeking out from the bottom of his jeans.
It's… a little weird, he's not gonna lie. The horns are hot, but the hooves are… not a dealbreaker, the hooves in particular are just funny, and… definitely a little weird, he decides, realizing that he might be hyperventilating a little.
He wheezes for a moment until he can finally catch his breath. Then he looks up at Jared and shakes his head. "Antilocaprinthrope, huh?"
Jared nods his head bashfully. "Yeah." He ducks his head down lower, rubbing it. "There's nothing particularly special about it - I mean, other than the antlers, and the hooves," Jared says. "And we heal really fast, too."
"When you're not strung up on barbed wire," Jensen says, a little waspishly. He'd been worried, damn it all.
Jared smiles and ducks his head agai. "That does tend to make a difference."
They are very nice horns, Jensen decides, doing his best to stay cross at Jared and not think about dirty jokes about handlebars.
He fails, pretty spectacularly, but it's a hell of a thought.
"So…" Jensen says finally. He runs a hand up over the sharp little pronged bend in Jared's antlers. It feels real - solid, connected. Then he steps back and crosses his arms. "Are all antilocaprinthropes nudists, or is that just you?"
Jared blushes. "Uh, no, but when I go full 'lope, the clothes don't come with me."
"Full lope?"
"You know, like a wolf, except less, uh," there's that bashful look again, "less cool."
"So this," Jensen waves at Jared's everything, "this is, what, half lope?"
Jared smiles. "Mostly." At Jensen's look, he leans his head back to look behind him. "There's a, a tail, too, but you can't see it."
A tail. Heaven help him.
Jensen sits down on the couch, aiming for casual but probably failing. It's not every day your boyfriend's big secret actually turns out to actually be big instead of something pedestrian like they're cheating on you… which, honestly, says something a little unfortunate about Jensen's choice of boyfriend before Jared, but he's not going to examine that too closely.
"So last night was, what, your regular full-lope evening constitutional, and you just somehow forgot the fence was there?"
"Not exactly." Jared sits down next to him, hooves suddenly shifting back into feet, which he tucks up under him. He leaves the horns, probably because he's noticed Jensen can't stop looking at them, and slings an arm around Jensen's shoulder. "Mom's been catching some signs of a mountain lion slinking around - most of 'em know to avoid our ranch, but sometimes one of the cubs that just turned adult gets some ideas. But they know I can kick their ass, so mostly I just have to mark up the territory to let them know where they're not wanted. I just hadn't refreshed them recently."
"Aaaaand…" Jensen looks at him expectantly.
Jared looks down. "So I figured I'd just slip out early while you were still sleeping and zoom back before you woke up - it doesn't take me that long to hit all ten acres, and it's really fun, you know, just tearing the ground up at full speed. I saw the fence, but I didn't feel like slowing down and-" he mumbles something.
"What was that?" Jensen says pointedly.
"Itseemedlikeagoodideaatthetime," Jared spits out, cheeks bright red.
"Even though you said it wasn't the first time?"
Okay, Jensen's maybe enjoying grinding this point home a bit more than he should.
"It always seems like a good idea at the time," Jared finally admits sheepishly. "Going full lope, you're a little closer to the animal brain. But it's always like it's the first time - you think, 'I can take that' and then suddenly you're hung up on barbed wire, and your skin's healing up faster than you can get the tangles out, so you shift back because you think thumbs might help, but they never do, and then you're stuck waiting until your boyfriend shows up looking for you." He smiles at Jensen. "Actually, that part's new. Usually it's mom. It's nicer when it's you, I think."
Jensen snorts and leans into Jared's shoulder. "Oh wow, I'm flattered." He swats at his shoulder affectionately.
"I was going to tell you about it all tonight, you know," Jared says. "I really didn't plan on just springing it on you like this."
"Oh no," Jensen says, "this is way better."
"Yeah?"
"Oh yeah. I'm gonna get so much mileage telling this story." He waves a hand in the air. "Much funnier than embarrassing baby photos."
"You wouldn't dare!" Jared squawks.
"Oh," Jensen snuggles in closer. "Watch me." He makes grabby hands at the cocoa mug until Jared leans forward to fetch it for him. "Hey, do I get riding privileges?"
"Anytime you want, baby."
Jensen sips his hot cocoa contentedly. "Damn straight."
~fin~
Title: Horns, Hooves and Holidays
Gifter: casey679
Pairing/Characters: Jensen/Jared
Word count/Medium: 3047
Rating: Teen
Warnings: A very wee amount of blood.
Summary: It's a hell of a way to start off the day before Christmas, Jensen thinks. He'd had vague plans for a lazy blowjob in bed and helping Jared with chores around the ranch before heading over to the main house to enjoy the huge Padalecki pre-Christmas brunch that he's heard so much about it. Not… this. "It's really not as bad as it looks," Jared says defensively.
It's a hell of a way to start off Christmas Eve morning, Jensen thinks.
He'd had vague plans for a lazy blowjob in bed and helping Jared with chores around the ranch before heading over to the main house to enjoy the huge Padalecki pre-Christmas brunch that he's heard so much about it. Not… this.
"It's really not as bad as it looks," Jared says defensively.
Jensen narrows his eyes, wishing he'd thought to throw on a heavier coat before racing outside into the falling snow. "Oh good. Because where I'm standing, it looks like my boyfriend has somehow gotten himself strung up - face down and buck naked, I might add - on the bottom of a barbed wire fence, which has somehow embedded itself in his back. But since it's not as bad as it looks, I'll just turn around and go back inside."
Jared seems to shrink in on himself a bit with embarrassment. "Would you believe me if I said there's a perfectly rational explanation for this?"
For someone who is currently in danger of having his family jewels get frostbite, Jared seems far less freaked out than he should be. Then again, Jensen is currently freaking out enough for the both of them.
"No."
It's got to be the cold, Jensen decides; the cold must have numbed Jared's ability to feel pain somehow, even though he actually looks remarkably flushed for someone having been out in the snow for at least-
"How long have you been stuck out here?"
"I don't know," Jared says, his half-shrug turning into a wince as his skin tugs at the wires. "Half an hour before you came out maybe? I think?"
"You think?" Jensen squats down and looked at the ugly bits of metal, and is inordinately glad that he hasn't had anything heavier than coffee in his stomach. Somehow, the barbs and bits of wire are half-sunk under Jared's skin, like someone has somehow surgically implanted them there. Which is impossible.
It's strange, because there's a lot of blood - enough to have dripped down off his back and onto the snow, a splattering of red-and white that is decidedly not the festive decorations he'd had in mind. The worrisome thing - the one of many worrisome things - is that It's way more blood than you'd expect for such surprisingly small entry wounds.
Entry wounds, Jensen thinks, what the fuck. What he says aloud is, "I'm going to go call an ambulance. I don't want to risk moving you like this."
No!" Jared says anxiously, grabbing at his boot - the only part of Jensen currently close enough for him to reach. "Don't call anyone. It really isn't that bad."
Jensen starts to yank his foot away and then thinks better of it. "Stop moving, you're going to make it worse-"
Jared wraps his fingers firmly around Jensen's ankle. "Look, there's a simple, and stupid, explanation for all of this, and I promise I'll give it to you. Just don't call the ambulance." He tries to twist his head up to look at Jensen, but only succeeds in digging the wire in further. "I just - ah! - just - ow! - there's a pair of wire cutters in the - ack! shit! - in the garage." He pants for a minute, like he didn't just start shredding his back more with his flailing. "I just need you to snip the wires so I can get out from under here and stand up, and then I can explain everything."
"Seriously?!" Jensen's voice cracks on the end.
"Yeah," Jared says slowly, like he isn't currently impaled under a fence and Jensen is the irrational one. "Seriously." And then he gets a weird, sheepish look on his face. "Would it help if I told you this wasn't the first time?"
Jensen only realizes his mouth has been hanging open when the sheer ludicrousness of that statement makes it snap shut, and you know what? If his boyfriend is enough of a lunatic to think- well. If he can't be bothered to worry about himself, Jensen certainly can't be, either.
He focuses his haughtiest, most annoyed gaze on the ridiculous idiot with whom he has somehow managed to fall in love and says, sternly, "No. No, it does not help at all."
He does, however, fetch the wire cutters.
* * *
As it turns out, "it's not as bad as it looks" and "this isn't the first time" aren't the stupidest things to come out of his boyfriend's mouth that morning.
Per Jared's request, and against his better judgment, Jensen clips the barbed wire to either side of Jared's back and carefully lifts up the other wires so Jared can crawl out from underneath it and stagger to his feet. And then he just… watches Jensen, like Jensen's the one who's unstable.
Although, he's not wrong. Jensen is absolutely about to lose it, but he's pretty sure he's entitled. "So wait, that's it? We're just gonna ignore the fact that you're standing out here in your birthday suit with a chunk of metal in your back?"
And that's when Jared says it.
He looks at Jensen kind of out of the corner of his eyes with an expression that says he knows Jensen isn't going to like what comes next. And then says the absolute dumbest, least helpful thing that anyone in the history of ever has said, the god emperor of stupid things that have ever come out of Jared's mouth:
"Don't freak out."
And then Jared reaches back behind himself, grabs the severed fence wires in his hands and yanks the goddamn barbs out of his back.
There's a horrible ripping, squelching sound. Blood splatters against the snowy ground. Jared drops the wire, which is covered in- in- Jensen's mind refuses to comprehend. And then he lurches forward and hugs Jensen, as if he didn't just fucking maim himself like it was no big deal.
Jensen isn't too proud to admit that there's a moment where he thinks he might faint, where his pulse is pounding, and everything feels like it's going in slow motion. But then he remembers that Jared might be bleeding out, and that's all it takes. He promises his brain that he'll let it gibber all it wants later on if it will only focus on what's important right now.
"Jared, oh my god, what the fuck." He's aware he's babbling. He's fucking entitled. "We've gotta get you inside- is there a first-aid kit in the bathroom? There's got to be, right? This is a ranch, of course accidents happen, there's always a first aid kit-"
"Jensen," Jared says, stepping back and shrugging his shoulders like he's stretching out a sore muscle and not reopening the holes the barbed wire must have left in his back. "It's okay, I promise. I don't need a first aid kit. Look, see-"
And he turns around, and shows off a perfectly muscled, perfectly uninjured back with nothing other than some blood trails to show that anything ever happened.
Jensen puts his hand out unthinkingly, lets his fingers trail over uninjured skin. They come back sticky and red from the spaces where the holes from the barbed wire should have been, revealing unblemished skin underneath.
He might be freaking out a bit now, despite Jared's admonition. Honestly, he can't tell. Nothing makes sense anymore. He looks down at the incriminating barbed wire on the ground, and then back at Jared. Then he opens his mouth, and no sound comes out.
"See? I told you it would be fine." Jared turns around again, smile fading at whatever he sees in Jensen's expression. He tilts his head and runs his fingers through his bangs, scratching his head absently as he thinks.
"You must be freezing. Do you want cocoa?" he says abruptly, and Jensen giggles, because sure, that's a perfectly normal thing to say to someone who is fully dressed while you're standing around starkers in the snow doing impossible things. Then he nods, because yes, he could use some fucking cocoa. Chocolate, he remembers, is good for warding off shock, which is something he might in fact be experiencing.
"Let's get you inside and warmed up," Jared says, taking him by the elbow and steering him back inside the house. He pushes him gently down onto the couch and piles three blankets on top of him. "You just sit there and relax. I'll call mom and tell her we're going to be late, and be right back with the cocoa." Which is not what Jensen wants to hear, because Mama Padalecki's love for her family may be infinite, but the amount of food she makes for brunch is not.
"This explanation had better be worth missing her blueberry pancakes." Jensen reminds himself for the umpteenth time that morning that he loves and trusts Jared, so wanting to kill him is counterproductive. "I'll never forgive you otherwise!"
Jared has the nerve to be honest-to-god cheerful as he retreats to the kitchen, saying, "It'll all be okay!"
This situation is insane. His boyfriend is insane. Which is undoubtedly why all Jensen can think of to yell back is the equally insane and inane, "And put some pants on while you're at it!"
* * *
Given the remarkably weird and upsetting way that Jensen's day had begun and the incredibly weird and inept way that Jared had reacted to it so far, Jensen really shouldn't be surprised when his boyfriend - still barefoot, but at least now properly attired in jeans and a t-shirt - sits down across from him and launches into the world's most enigmatic explanation.
"Did you know," Jared says earnestly, "that the prong buck is the only antelope native to North America, especially Texas and the Southwest? Well, er, not really an antelope, it's a little closer to a giraffe, or maybe an okapi. But the point is the same."
Jensen pauses.
"What." It's not a question so much as just the sound one makes when one's boyfriend decides to start off his explanation of why he ended up nude and entangled in a barbed wire fence with a demonstration of his mastery of Strange Mammal Facts.
"Prong bucks," Jared says, like repeating it will somehow make it make more sense. "You know, prairie antelopes… pronghorns… American antelopes?"
"Oh, I know what a pronghorn is," Jensen says finally, once he can manage to find his equilibrium. He's a Texan; of course he does. "I'm just failing to see the point."
"I'm getting to that," Jared says.
"Not fast enough," Jensen counters, cutting off whatever Jared was about to say next. He leans back, spreading his arms across the back of the couch like he couldn't care less what the explanation is. It's a lie.
"The point is," Jared says, with a little bit of an edge that belies his calm exterior, "that prong bucks are built for speed. Not jumping. Put 'em on flat ground, they can outrun a cheetah. Vertical… not so much."
Jensen's still got no clue where Jared's going with this, but he'll play along. "Guess they're lucky there are no cheetahs in San Antonio, then."
"Heh." Jared laughs. "Maybe so." He inhales, holds his breath, and then exhales nervously. "Okay. So." Another deep breath. "Prong bucks are really fucking common around here, right? So there's a lot of them, but there's also a lot of genetic diversity, such as, uh, latent traits that can stay dormant for generations."
"Such as running around nude in the middle of the night in December?"
"Such as antilocaprinthropy." It sounds like a disease, AN-til-oh-CAH-prin-thrope-ee.
Jensen rubs his forehead then, feeling a headache coming on. "Antilo-whata-whaty?"
Jared coughs awkwardly. "Antilocaprinthropy. It, uh, runs in my family."
"I thought we were talking about antelopes."
Jared rubs the back of his neck. It makes his white t-shirt ride up just the tiniest bit above his waist, not that he deserves to experience any of Jensen's appreciation, no matter how appealing that thin sliver of skin it reveals is.
"We are. Kinda." He leans forward. "I'm an antilocaprinthrope."
"Gesundheit."
"No, for real." And then he does that thing where he scoots forward until he's on the very edge of his seat, all wide puppy eyes and earnest expression. "It runs in my family, but it skipped a couple generations. Surprised the hell out of my mom, though."
Jensen sips his cocoa and then places it neatly down on a coaster on the coffee table, pointedly looking away from the puppy eyes. "Translate that from science nerd to English."
Jared sits back and scratches his head. "I'm a… were-antelope."
It's not Jensen's fault that he falls off of the couch laughing. "Look, it's okay to just admit it was some kind of kinky, Jay. I'm not gonna judge - okay, maybe a little, but- you don't have to make up something ridiculous-" He giggles again when he realizes he's wedged himself in between the coffee table and the couch. There's no easy way for him to get up without spilling his drink, so he lifts his arm for a hand-up instead. "Help me up here."
The laughter chokes off in his throat, however, when Jared grasps his hand obligingly and pulls him to his feet, because his goofy and gangly, six-foot-five-tall boyfriend is probably now closer to seven-foot-tall… if you include the pair of six-inch pronged antlers emerging from his forehead, and the hooves that are now peeking out from the bottom of his jeans.
It's… a little weird, he's not gonna lie. The horns are hot, but the hooves are… not a dealbreaker, the hooves in particular are just funny, and… definitely a little weird, he decides, realizing that he might be hyperventilating a little.
He wheezes for a moment until he can finally catch his breath. Then he looks up at Jared and shakes his head. "Antilocaprinthrope, huh?"
Jared nods his head bashfully. "Yeah." He ducks his head down lower, rubbing it. "There's nothing particularly special about it - I mean, other than the antlers, and the hooves," Jared says. "And we heal really fast, too."
"When you're not strung up on barbed wire," Jensen says, a little waspishly. He'd been worried, damn it all.
Jared smiles and ducks his head agai. "That does tend to make a difference."
They are very nice horns, Jensen decides, doing his best to stay cross at Jared and not think about dirty jokes about handlebars.
He fails, pretty spectacularly, but it's a hell of a thought.
"So…" Jensen says finally. He runs a hand up over the sharp little pronged bend in Jared's antlers. It feels real - solid, connected. Then he steps back and crosses his arms. "Are all antilocaprinthropes nudists, or is that just you?"
Jared blushes. "Uh, no, but when I go full 'lope, the clothes don't come with me."
"Full lope?"
"You know, like a wolf, except less, uh," there's that bashful look again, "less cool."
"So this," Jensen waves at Jared's everything, "this is, what, half lope?"
Jared smiles. "Mostly." At Jensen's look, he leans his head back to look behind him. "There's a, a tail, too, but you can't see it."
A tail. Heaven help him.
Jensen sits down on the couch, aiming for casual but probably failing. It's not every day your boyfriend's big secret actually turns out to actually be big instead of something pedestrian like they're cheating on you… which, honestly, says something a little unfortunate about Jensen's choice of boyfriend before Jared, but he's not going to examine that too closely.
"So last night was, what, your regular full-lope evening constitutional, and you just somehow forgot the fence was there?"
"Not exactly." Jared sits down next to him, hooves suddenly shifting back into feet, which he tucks up under him. He leaves the horns, probably because he's noticed Jensen can't stop looking at them, and slings an arm around Jensen's shoulder. "Mom's been catching some signs of a mountain lion slinking around - most of 'em know to avoid our ranch, but sometimes one of the cubs that just turned adult gets some ideas. But they know I can kick their ass, so mostly I just have to mark up the territory to let them know where they're not wanted. I just hadn't refreshed them recently."
"Aaaaand…" Jensen looks at him expectantly.
Jared looks down. "So I figured I'd just slip out early while you were still sleeping and zoom back before you woke up - it doesn't take me that long to hit all ten acres, and it's really fun, you know, just tearing the ground up at full speed. I saw the fence, but I didn't feel like slowing down and-" he mumbles something.
"What was that?" Jensen says pointedly.
"Itseemedlikeagoodideaatthetime," Jared spits out, cheeks bright red.
"Even though you said it wasn't the first time?"
Okay, Jensen's maybe enjoying grinding this point home a bit more than he should.
"It always seems like a good idea at the time," Jared finally admits sheepishly. "Going full lope, you're a little closer to the animal brain. But it's always like it's the first time - you think, 'I can take that' and then suddenly you're hung up on barbed wire, and your skin's healing up faster than you can get the tangles out, so you shift back because you think thumbs might help, but they never do, and then you're stuck waiting until your boyfriend shows up looking for you." He smiles at Jensen. "Actually, that part's new. Usually it's mom. It's nicer when it's you, I think."
Jensen snorts and leans into Jared's shoulder. "Oh wow, I'm flattered." He swats at his shoulder affectionately.
"I was going to tell you about it all tonight, you know," Jared says. "I really didn't plan on just springing it on you like this."
"Oh no," Jensen says, "this is way better."
"Yeah?"
"Oh yeah. I'm gonna get so much mileage telling this story." He waves a hand in the air. "Much funnier than embarrassing baby photos."
"You wouldn't dare!" Jared squawks.
"Oh," Jensen snuggles in closer. "Watch me." He makes grabby hands at the cocoa mug until Jared leans forward to fetch it for him. "Hey, do I get riding privileges?"
"Anytime you want, baby."
Jensen sips his hot cocoa contentedly. "Damn straight."
~fin~