This Tangled Shape (7/?)
Title: This Tangled Shape (7/?)
Author: Danse Amore
Wordcount: this part: 2458, Overall: 14,556 so far.
Rating: R eventually
Pairings: Jared/Jensen, Chris/Steve, Chad/Sophia, Sandy/??, Misha/OFC
Disclaimer: Don't own. Not real. I don't make any money.
Warnings/Spoilers: Um, language, I guess?
Summary: College AU. Jared meets a superhero.
Notes: The beginning of this repeats the end of the last section. Sorry, it feels like cheating, but since this is a WIP this happens....the scene just wasn't over.
Jensen tapped the pencil against his upper lip, looking out across the class.
Steve was late.
He'd hoped to catch him before class, see what he thought about last night. He wanted to know whether Chris was setting himself up for heartbreak, or whether it could actually become something - god, he hoped it was the latter. Chris thought he didn't notice - the little signs, the slight turn of bitterness at the edges of his smile, the extra seconds he held in the smoke of his cigarette before blowing it out in a taunting swirl - but he did. He noticed them, and he noticed as they increased in frequency. Chris was lonely.
Steve hurried in, taking a seat at the back. Jensen sat up and tried to catch his eyes, but he focused immediately on Kripke - almost to a fault, as if he was trying not to look at Jensen. He radiated less sorrow then before, or so it seemed, but even more confusion. Jensen couldn't tell whether that was bad, or good.
He would try to catch him after class - maybe talk to him about joining the band. It was obvious Chris wanted that - they'd spoken about it briefly the night before, and with how highly Chris spoke of the kid's skills, they both doubted Misha would have a problem with it. Besides, it was a good conversation starter for talking about Chris in specific.
When the end of class came around, however, his attention was caught by a shaggy head lurking too-high outside the door. He peered to see - and a wide, unmistakable grin appeared below the hair. Jensen could do nothing but grin back. Jared.
Steve, pale and silent, slipped away.
Jensen found his way over to the giant. "Hey, Jared. What're you doing here?"
"Well, um." Jared ducked his head, which brought it about level with Jensen's, and cleared his throat. "You said we should finish our conversation, but we never - I didn't have your phone number, or anything, and I knew Steve had class today and he said you were assisting during last week's so I thought - "
Jensen felt his grin grow wider as he followed Jared's sentence out in front of his words. If he waited for all the diversions, he might have been there all day. "Are you free now? We could do lunch." He cast a quick glimpse Kripke's way, but the man just waved him off.
"Uh, yeah!" Said Jared, surprised, and for a flash of a second Jensen was worried, but then the other man grinned sideways at him and they started down the hall. "You know..." Jared commented. "It's not often that I have people who want to hear me talk. They're usually begging me to stop by now." There was a question somewhere in there, in glances and inflections.
Jensen shrugged. "You're interesting." He said, and it was an understatement. "Doesn't Sandy listen to you?"
Jared shrugged back, and Jensen grinned at the mirroring of his gesture. "She knows it all already." His mouth twisted like he wanted to say more, but for once he didn't, silent until they got outside. Then his smile was back, although Jensen couldn't see why. The sky was overcast, not quite reaching rain, just...grey. He raised an eyebrow at Jared.
"It's windy." Said Jared, as if that should have been obvious. "I love the wind. I feel like I should be able to be caught up in it and tossed from place to place, person to person, seeing things I've never seen before. I'd like to. See things, I mean."
Jensen blinked. It was windy - pleasantly so. It stirred the hair off his neck, where the heat of the classroom had plastered it, and brought interesting smells and sounds with it. "Yeah." He said quietly. "Me too."
They didn't go to the dining hall, out of silent, mutual disgust, instead opting for a small cafe right off campus. It was mostly empty - a little too late for the breakfast hours that businessmen kept and a little too early for those most college students did.
Once they'd ordered, Jensen sat a little at a loss for what to say. Sure, he could start where he'd left off - but with the whole Sandy ordeal he didn't really remember where they had left off. And it seemed a little odd, to just dive back into Jared's memories like that.
"We should get her a girlfriend." Said Jared, out of the blue, solving Jensen's problem.
"What?" He asked, bewildered.
"Sandy, I mean."
Jensen frowned. But they'd been talking about her with this Matt guy..."I thought she was straight?"
Jared laughed, a loud affair that involved him throwing his head back to reveal a neck entirely too distracting. "Oh, she is." He assured Jensen. "I didn't mean, like, a romantic girlfriend. I meant, like, a..." He paused, and the twisted one wrist out and adopted a fluttery, lispy sort of expression. "...a 'hey girlfrieeeend!" kind of girlfriend."
Jensen choked back a laugh. "That was the gayest thing I have ever seen. And I regularly sleep with men."
Jared gave a little bow, folding himself forward in his chair, and Jensen continued, "So. You think she needs a girlfriend, and no I will not...intone it like you did, trust me, you don't want to see that. Why?"
"Well, I was thinking. About what you asked. And about why Sandy doesn't listen to me. I think maybe it's because I know it all. I know Matt, I know her parents...she can't get it out without me assuming things already, because I know things already. Right? And so we need someone with new perspective, and hell no is it going to be Chad. And she doesn't have very many female friends here...and they tell each other shit like that, right?"
Jensen raised his eyebrow. "The hell you looking at me for, dude?"
Jared blushed adorably. "Sorry. Sorry! But my point is, if she gets it out once, maybe she can figure it out, get it straight enough in her head to tell me."
Why do you need to know? Jensen almost asked, but this wasn't his fucking psychology class, and he didn't want to scare Jared away. Instead he settled for, "That's a lot to think about in the...what, ten minutes it took to get here?"
Jared just smiled, and said, "I guess the wind makes me thinks new things, too," and it was exactly the sort of nonsense that made perfect sense to Jensen. He watched as the waitress brought their food, leaning over farther than was strictly necessary and giving a flirty little smile at Jared as she set it down. Jared didn't even seem to notice, giving her a preoccupied sort of smile. Jensen raised an eyebrow at her when she glanced at him, and she tossed her head with a little frown and left.
"I guess there's Adrienne..." mused Jensen, secretly smiling as Jared's attention snapped immediately to him. "She's pretty chill. Haven't seen her in a while, but I'm sure she'll be at our next show."
Jared stopped with his straw halfway to his mouth. "Of course." He set his drink down carefully. "You're not a superhero, you're a rock star."
Jensen blinked at him. "Well, I wouldn't say I was a star..."
"No, no, it makes perfect sense! The jacket, the motorcycle, the hair...the VOICE. You sing, don't you? I bet you sing amazingly. I wish I could sing. I'm pretty terrible at it."
"I know." Jensen grinned. "I heard you, remember?"
Jared ducked his head, his lips twitching in embarrassment. "Right. In the tree."
"I was going to ask you to join my band, you know, that day." Jensen's word's came slowly as he tried to feel out where this conversation would go. He liked to be able to predict, to think ahead. Of course, he was soon finding that with Jared that was impossible.
Jared laughed, clapping his hands. "You're kidding."
He shook his head. "Nope."
"Why?" Jared asked, his expression so comically incredulous that Jensen began laughing, too, long and outright, and then they were laughing at each other and then at themselves and then just laughing together, the sunlight bright through the window. The waitress glared from across the room.
Jared, Jensen discovered, was someone who could laugh forever, so he manned up and decided to stop first. Breathing deeply and trying to get himself under control, he said teasingly, "Well, how else was I supposed to make sure that I would talk to you again?"
Jared's laughter faded into a huge grin, and Jensen swallowed. He picked up his barely-touched sandwich and took a bite.
"You wanted to?" Jared bit his lip.
Jensen nodded, mouth full.
"Me, too." Jared raised his eyes to Jensen's. "I'm glad Sandy took things into her own hands." And speaking of hands, he lifted one of his, his eyes stuck on Jensen's mouth. "You've got...here." He swiped a thumb across Jensen's lower lip, coming away with a smudge of white across it. "Mayo." He said, and licked it off, business-like.
Jensen looked at him, mouth dry. Could anyone flirt so obliviously? "Thank you." He said softly, and Jared nodded. He popped the last bits of his sandwich into his mouth and continued to clean his hands off with clever tongue and lips. Jensen busied himself with his own sandwich, trying to keep his mind off of how that tongue and those lips might feel against his own. "You should come to our next show. Bring Sandy, and we'll hang out with Adrienne and see if they click. Oh, and if you see Steve, can you ask him to call me? I was going to talk to him today, but..." He trailed off, the unspoken but then I saw you hanging in the air between them.
Jared grinned, hearing it. "Sure. What about?
"Well, you can't sing, and we're still down a band member...and Steve managed to convince Chris of his talent. If he can do that, Misha and I'll be blown away, I'm sure."
Jared nodded, then paused. "What about Jason?"
"Jason? The guy who's party we were at?"
"Jason. Steve's on-again, off-again serious boyfriend. They play together. I remember the first party of Jason's I went to, they were up on stage, and..."
For the first time, Jensen found himself tuning out Jared's words. Damn. Steve was taken, and Chris would be crushed. Not only that...but the boyfriend was a musician, and Steve played with him, which probably meant he wouldn't go for the band - or if he would, they'd have to deal with the jealousies...Jesus. This was not good.
He realized that Jared had stopped talking when his intense stare at his sandwich was interrupted by a huge, long-fingered hand. "Hey." Jared said, waving it around under his nose. "You okay?"
Jensen blinked and shook his head to clear it. "Yeah. Sorry, Jared. It's just...Chris really likes Steve, and it's...I dunno. I was just...wishing he could have someone, for once."
"Chris?"
Jensen blinked again. "Damn, I really haven't gotten a word in edgewise, have I?" He realized he knew so much about the adorable, gorgeous guy across from him, from his first gay crush to the kind of weather he liked, and he hadn't even told Jared about his best friend.
"Christian Kane. He's the guitarist of my band, and probably the person that knows me best in the whole world." Definitely the person that knows me best. "He's been my best friend for a long time. He's kind of an asshole, and he gets antisocial when he's writing music, but I...he's been there, yeah? Through everything. Even that time I got so drunk I made out with a chick I thought was a dude."
Jared laughed. "Most people have that story the other way around, man."
"Most people don't have a best friend who then pulled down the poor girl's pants and shouted, "See? SEE?!" She was traumatized."
"Yeah, but she got to make out with you, so it wasn't a total loss. Oh man, I remember this one time, Sandy tried to convince me that I'd gotten drunk and proposed to Chad, only she forgot to tell Chad it was a trick and we both had been really drunk..."
They traded stories for nearly another hour. The waitress glared so hard Jensen thought her eyes might fall out, but he just smirked back. Eventually Jared realized what time it was and got up to run off to class. He stood for a moment, looking at Jensen as if waiting, and after a moment Jensen stood up, too, not really sure what was expected of him. As soon as he was up, though, Jared leaned over and pulled him into a tight hug. He smelled of shampoo and dust and very slightly of sweat, and Jensen hugged him back. "Thanks for listening." Jared murmured, his breath warm on Jensen's ear, and Jensen nodded and reluctantly pulled away.
He gave Jared his number (to give to Steve, but also just to have) and left, heading back to the apartment. He didn't like to be the bearer of bad news, but better to get it over with.
Chris was on the phone when he got there, with Misha, he gathered after a moment.
"Yeah," He was saying, "I really think he'd be perfect. You should see his style, man. It's crazy. I dunno, I don't really have the words. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully we'll see." He turned, and Jensen raised a hand in greeting. "Here's Jen now. Yeah, I'll call you when I know." He hung up, and looked at Jen eagerly. "Well? Did you talk to him?"
Jensen shook his head, and winced when Chris' face fell - just a tiny bit, imperceptible unless you really knew the guy. "Chris..." he started, hesitantly, leaning on the back of the couch. "Steve has a boyfriend. I don't know what he might have told you - and apparently they're pretty on-again off-again, but...they are serious."
There was a slight pause as Chris just looked at him, frozen, and then he relaxed and said, "You mean Jason, right?"
Jensen nodded, "How did you - "
"Oh, Steve told me all about Jason." There was a bitter, angry twist to Chris' mouth. "Trust me. They're off, and they're gonna stay that way."
**
Steve swallowed. He raised a hand, lowered it again, and then raised it, knocking once, quickly.
Jason opened the door. He looked like hell, circles under his eyes, unshaven, but he was still impossibly beautiful. He stood, shocked for a moment, before his easy smile took over his face again, tinged with relief. "Steve."
Steve took a deep breath. "Jason. We...can I come in? We need to talk."
Author: Danse Amore
Wordcount: this part: 2458, Overall: 14,556 so far.
Rating: R eventually
Pairings: Jared/Jensen, Chris/Steve, Chad/Sophia, Sandy/??, Misha/OFC
Disclaimer: Don't own. Not real. I don't make any money.
Warnings/Spoilers: Um, language, I guess?
Summary: College AU. Jared meets a superhero.
Notes: The beginning of this repeats the end of the last section. Sorry, it feels like cheating, but since this is a WIP this happens....the scene just wasn't over.
Jensen tapped the pencil against his upper lip, looking out across the class.
Steve was late.
He'd hoped to catch him before class, see what he thought about last night. He wanted to know whether Chris was setting himself up for heartbreak, or whether it could actually become something - god, he hoped it was the latter. Chris thought he didn't notice - the little signs, the slight turn of bitterness at the edges of his smile, the extra seconds he held in the smoke of his cigarette before blowing it out in a taunting swirl - but he did. He noticed them, and he noticed as they increased in frequency. Chris was lonely.
Steve hurried in, taking a seat at the back. Jensen sat up and tried to catch his eyes, but he focused immediately on Kripke - almost to a fault, as if he was trying not to look at Jensen. He radiated less sorrow then before, or so it seemed, but even more confusion. Jensen couldn't tell whether that was bad, or good.
He would try to catch him after class - maybe talk to him about joining the band. It was obvious Chris wanted that - they'd spoken about it briefly the night before, and with how highly Chris spoke of the kid's skills, they both doubted Misha would have a problem with it. Besides, it was a good conversation starter for talking about Chris in specific.
When the end of class came around, however, his attention was caught by a shaggy head lurking too-high outside the door. He peered to see - and a wide, unmistakable grin appeared below the hair. Jensen could do nothing but grin back. Jared.
Steve, pale and silent, slipped away.
Jensen found his way over to the giant. "Hey, Jared. What're you doing here?"
"Well, um." Jared ducked his head, which brought it about level with Jensen's, and cleared his throat. "You said we should finish our conversation, but we never - I didn't have your phone number, or anything, and I knew Steve had class today and he said you were assisting during last week's so I thought - "
Jensen felt his grin grow wider as he followed Jared's sentence out in front of his words. If he waited for all the diversions, he might have been there all day. "Are you free now? We could do lunch." He cast a quick glimpse Kripke's way, but the man just waved him off.
"Uh, yeah!" Said Jared, surprised, and for a flash of a second Jensen was worried, but then the other man grinned sideways at him and they started down the hall. "You know..." Jared commented. "It's not often that I have people who want to hear me talk. They're usually begging me to stop by now." There was a question somewhere in there, in glances and inflections.
Jensen shrugged. "You're interesting." He said, and it was an understatement. "Doesn't Sandy listen to you?"
Jared shrugged back, and Jensen grinned at the mirroring of his gesture. "She knows it all already." His mouth twisted like he wanted to say more, but for once he didn't, silent until they got outside. Then his smile was back, although Jensen couldn't see why. The sky was overcast, not quite reaching rain, just...grey. He raised an eyebrow at Jared.
"It's windy." Said Jared, as if that should have been obvious. "I love the wind. I feel like I should be able to be caught up in it and tossed from place to place, person to person, seeing things I've never seen before. I'd like to. See things, I mean."
Jensen blinked. It was windy - pleasantly so. It stirred the hair off his neck, where the heat of the classroom had plastered it, and brought interesting smells and sounds with it. "Yeah." He said quietly. "Me too."
They didn't go to the dining hall, out of silent, mutual disgust, instead opting for a small cafe right off campus. It was mostly empty - a little too late for the breakfast hours that businessmen kept and a little too early for those most college students did.
Once they'd ordered, Jensen sat a little at a loss for what to say. Sure, he could start where he'd left off - but with the whole Sandy ordeal he didn't really remember where they had left off. And it seemed a little odd, to just dive back into Jared's memories like that.
"We should get her a girlfriend." Said Jared, out of the blue, solving Jensen's problem.
"What?" He asked, bewildered.
"Sandy, I mean."
Jensen frowned. But they'd been talking about her with this Matt guy..."I thought she was straight?"
Jared laughed, a loud affair that involved him throwing his head back to reveal a neck entirely too distracting. "Oh, she is." He assured Jensen. "I didn't mean, like, a romantic girlfriend. I meant, like, a..." He paused, and the twisted one wrist out and adopted a fluttery, lispy sort of expression. "...a 'hey girlfrieeeend!" kind of girlfriend."
Jensen choked back a laugh. "That was the gayest thing I have ever seen. And I regularly sleep with men."
Jared gave a little bow, folding himself forward in his chair, and Jensen continued, "So. You think she needs a girlfriend, and no I will not...intone it like you did, trust me, you don't want to see that. Why?"
"Well, I was thinking. About what you asked. And about why Sandy doesn't listen to me. I think maybe it's because I know it all. I know Matt, I know her parents...she can't get it out without me assuming things already, because I know things already. Right? And so we need someone with new perspective, and hell no is it going to be Chad. And she doesn't have very many female friends here...and they tell each other shit like that, right?"
Jensen raised his eyebrow. "The hell you looking at me for, dude?"
Jared blushed adorably. "Sorry. Sorry! But my point is, if she gets it out once, maybe she can figure it out, get it straight enough in her head to tell me."
Why do you need to know? Jensen almost asked, but this wasn't his fucking psychology class, and he didn't want to scare Jared away. Instead he settled for, "That's a lot to think about in the...what, ten minutes it took to get here?"
Jared just smiled, and said, "I guess the wind makes me thinks new things, too," and it was exactly the sort of nonsense that made perfect sense to Jensen. He watched as the waitress brought their food, leaning over farther than was strictly necessary and giving a flirty little smile at Jared as she set it down. Jared didn't even seem to notice, giving her a preoccupied sort of smile. Jensen raised an eyebrow at her when she glanced at him, and she tossed her head with a little frown and left.
"I guess there's Adrienne..." mused Jensen, secretly smiling as Jared's attention snapped immediately to him. "She's pretty chill. Haven't seen her in a while, but I'm sure she'll be at our next show."
Jared stopped with his straw halfway to his mouth. "Of course." He set his drink down carefully. "You're not a superhero, you're a rock star."
Jensen blinked at him. "Well, I wouldn't say I was a star..."
"No, no, it makes perfect sense! The jacket, the motorcycle, the hair...the VOICE. You sing, don't you? I bet you sing amazingly. I wish I could sing. I'm pretty terrible at it."
"I know." Jensen grinned. "I heard you, remember?"
Jared ducked his head, his lips twitching in embarrassment. "Right. In the tree."
"I was going to ask you to join my band, you know, that day." Jensen's word's came slowly as he tried to feel out where this conversation would go. He liked to be able to predict, to think ahead. Of course, he was soon finding that with Jared that was impossible.
Jared laughed, clapping his hands. "You're kidding."
He shook his head. "Nope."
"Why?" Jared asked, his expression so comically incredulous that Jensen began laughing, too, long and outright, and then they were laughing at each other and then at themselves and then just laughing together, the sunlight bright through the window. The waitress glared from across the room.
Jared, Jensen discovered, was someone who could laugh forever, so he manned up and decided to stop first. Breathing deeply and trying to get himself under control, he said teasingly, "Well, how else was I supposed to make sure that I would talk to you again?"
Jared's laughter faded into a huge grin, and Jensen swallowed. He picked up his barely-touched sandwich and took a bite.
"You wanted to?" Jared bit his lip.
Jensen nodded, mouth full.
"Me, too." Jared raised his eyes to Jensen's. "I'm glad Sandy took things into her own hands." And speaking of hands, he lifted one of his, his eyes stuck on Jensen's mouth. "You've got...here." He swiped a thumb across Jensen's lower lip, coming away with a smudge of white across it. "Mayo." He said, and licked it off, business-like.
Jensen looked at him, mouth dry. Could anyone flirt so obliviously? "Thank you." He said softly, and Jared nodded. He popped the last bits of his sandwich into his mouth and continued to clean his hands off with clever tongue and lips. Jensen busied himself with his own sandwich, trying to keep his mind off of how that tongue and those lips might feel against his own. "You should come to our next show. Bring Sandy, and we'll hang out with Adrienne and see if they click. Oh, and if you see Steve, can you ask him to call me? I was going to talk to him today, but..." He trailed off, the unspoken but then I saw you hanging in the air between them.
Jared grinned, hearing it. "Sure. What about?
"Well, you can't sing, and we're still down a band member...and Steve managed to convince Chris of his talent. If he can do that, Misha and I'll be blown away, I'm sure."
Jared nodded, then paused. "What about Jason?"
"Jason? The guy who's party we were at?"
"Jason. Steve's on-again, off-again serious boyfriend. They play together. I remember the first party of Jason's I went to, they were up on stage, and..."
For the first time, Jensen found himself tuning out Jared's words. Damn. Steve was taken, and Chris would be crushed. Not only that...but the boyfriend was a musician, and Steve played with him, which probably meant he wouldn't go for the band - or if he would, they'd have to deal with the jealousies...Jesus. This was not good.
He realized that Jared had stopped talking when his intense stare at his sandwich was interrupted by a huge, long-fingered hand. "Hey." Jared said, waving it around under his nose. "You okay?"
Jensen blinked and shook his head to clear it. "Yeah. Sorry, Jared. It's just...Chris really likes Steve, and it's...I dunno. I was just...wishing he could have someone, for once."
"Chris?"
Jensen blinked again. "Damn, I really haven't gotten a word in edgewise, have I?" He realized he knew so much about the adorable, gorgeous guy across from him, from his first gay crush to the kind of weather he liked, and he hadn't even told Jared about his best friend.
"Christian Kane. He's the guitarist of my band, and probably the person that knows me best in the whole world." Definitely the person that knows me best. "He's been my best friend for a long time. He's kind of an asshole, and he gets antisocial when he's writing music, but I...he's been there, yeah? Through everything. Even that time I got so drunk I made out with a chick I thought was a dude."
Jared laughed. "Most people have that story the other way around, man."
"Most people don't have a best friend who then pulled down the poor girl's pants and shouted, "See? SEE?!" She was traumatized."
"Yeah, but she got to make out with you, so it wasn't a total loss. Oh man, I remember this one time, Sandy tried to convince me that I'd gotten drunk and proposed to Chad, only she forgot to tell Chad it was a trick and we both had been really drunk..."
They traded stories for nearly another hour. The waitress glared so hard Jensen thought her eyes might fall out, but he just smirked back. Eventually Jared realized what time it was and got up to run off to class. He stood for a moment, looking at Jensen as if waiting, and after a moment Jensen stood up, too, not really sure what was expected of him. As soon as he was up, though, Jared leaned over and pulled him into a tight hug. He smelled of shampoo and dust and very slightly of sweat, and Jensen hugged him back. "Thanks for listening." Jared murmured, his breath warm on Jensen's ear, and Jensen nodded and reluctantly pulled away.
He gave Jared his number (to give to Steve, but also just to have) and left, heading back to the apartment. He didn't like to be the bearer of bad news, but better to get it over with.
Chris was on the phone when he got there, with Misha, he gathered after a moment.
"Yeah," He was saying, "I really think he'd be perfect. You should see his style, man. It's crazy. I dunno, I don't really have the words. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hopefully we'll see." He turned, and Jensen raised a hand in greeting. "Here's Jen now. Yeah, I'll call you when I know." He hung up, and looked at Jen eagerly. "Well? Did you talk to him?"
Jensen shook his head, and winced when Chris' face fell - just a tiny bit, imperceptible unless you really knew the guy. "Chris..." he started, hesitantly, leaning on the back of the couch. "Steve has a boyfriend. I don't know what he might have told you - and apparently they're pretty on-again off-again, but...they are serious."
There was a slight pause as Chris just looked at him, frozen, and then he relaxed and said, "You mean Jason, right?"
Jensen nodded, "How did you - "
"Oh, Steve told me all about Jason." There was a bitter, angry twist to Chris' mouth. "Trust me. They're off, and they're gonna stay that way."
**
Steve swallowed. He raised a hand, lowered it again, and then raised it, knocking once, quickly.
Jason opened the door. He looked like hell, circles under his eyes, unshaven, but he was still impossibly beautiful. He stood, shocked for a moment, before his easy smile took over his face again, tinged with relief. "Steve."
Steve took a deep breath. "Jason. We...can I come in? We need to talk."