New J2 story: natural progression
This is the first of the short story requests you guys made last week in response to this post. Altogether I ended up with over 40 requests (!!), and needless to say, I can't write that many. *g* But I will be posting several this week, I hope.
First up: For winterweathered and essene, who both requested something where Jensen says he's moving out. (To which I say, ha! As if he would do such a thing! And that is how stories are born.) J2, PG, about 1,800 words. Many thanks to luzdeestrellas, teand, and nu_breed for beta.
Natural Progression
by Destina
Jared notices the ring one morning while Jensen's buttering a piece of toast over the sink. It catches the light, diamonds flashing with the motion of Jensen's hand. Jared pours himself a cup of coffee and leans against the counter. "That's new," he says.
"Huh?" Jensen turns a sleepy face toward Jared, blinks at him with barely-awake confusion while Jared sips his coffee to hide his smile.
"The ring." Jared sets his mug down and pours Jensen a cup of his own, pushes it closer to the sink.
"Oh." Jensen looks away and goes back to buttering the toast, but not like he wants to eat it. More like he wants to punish it. Flecks of burnt brown bread scatter off under the fast scrapes of his knife. "Yeah. Danneel gave it to me last weekend."
Jared shifts his bare feet on the cool tiles and sips some more coffee while he examines the ring from a safe distance. It's not what he thinks of as Jensen's style. It's flashier, more ostentatious than Jared would have picked for him. Jensen tends to like simple things, tokens of meaning.
"You trade her for it?"
"What, give her a ring back?" Jensen takes a bite of his toast and sets the greasy knife in the sink. "No." He munches his toast without any further commentary, but Jared notices the set of his jaw, the way tension settles in his shoulders. Jared nods, as if Jensen answered him anyway, and sits down at the kitchen table, unfurls the morning paper. He pushes the sports section to the other side and starts scanning the headlines.
Jensen sits down across from him and passes Jared a plate with a plain bagel on it, toasted the way Jared likes it. Jam's on the table, a spoon beside it. Jared reads, and eats his bagel, and tries not to notice how Jensen fusses with the ring every time he moves his hand.
**
A couple weeks later, Jared flies down to LA with Jensen for the weekend. He's got an appointment with a guy who might turn out to be his new agent, and Jensen's going to see some buddies playing in a local band. They go their separate ways on Saturday, but Jared has a key to Jensen's house, and he lets himself in at 2AM, half-drunk and hungry.
Jensen's asleep on the living room floor in front of the TV, his usual place, red floor pillows haphazard under his head and arms. Danneel's dog Icarus is a fluffy lump on Jensen's torso, a spill of white hair over Jensen's dark T-shirt. No Danneel, though. It's weird, but she's barely been around for weeks. She drops the dog off when Jensen's home, though. The little hairy thing is attached to his master.
As soon as he finds the remote, Jared switches off the TV and sits down on the floor, within petting distance of Icarus. He misses Harley and Sadie. It's hard to leave them. Icarus raises his head and allows Jared to pet him, almost like he can tell. He probably can, with that weird dog-sense they all have.
He's been petting the dog for a long time before he notices Jensen's awake, and watching him. Jared gives him a tired smile, but he doesn't take his hand off the dog's head. Jensen reaches up and strokes his hand across Icarus's back, counterpoint to Jared's rough scratching behind his ears.
The room is dark and quiet, and the motion is soothing. Jared's stomach has stopped rumbling for cheeseburgers he's not going to give it, and he's half asleep just sitting there when Jensen says, "Been thinking about taking Icarus up with us. That be okay with you?"
"Sure." Jared's fingers bump Jensen's once, and then again, colliding gently in the tangle of fur.
"Danneel's got a movie, so she won't be able to take care of him." Something's funny about the way Jensen says it, but Jared leaves it alone. This is one topic he's learned not to step into.
"Harley loves trying to eat your dog. It'll be cool."
"He's not really my dog." Of course, the fact that Icarus is sleeping on top of him puts the lie to that statement, but Jared doesn't call him on it. Or say he thinks Icarus is more Jensen's than Danneel's, anyway. He just leaves it alone.
"I'm going to bed," he says instead, and hauls his ass up off the floor. Jensen nods, gives him a little smile.
Jensen's still sleeping on the floor when Jared comes out of the guest room in the morning, and he's curled around the dog in a way that makes him seem young. His shirt has hiked up in the back, exposing goose-pimpled skin in the chilly morning. Jared pulls Jensen's shirt down, careful not to wake him, and puts a throw across his bare feet. Then he settles down on the couch and watches Jensen and the dog for a while. Icarus watches him back, his chin on Jensen's shoulder.
**
A month goes by, and Jared comes back from a Sunday morning run to find Jensen sitting on the couch, an open U-Haul box by his feet. The box has been around, up to Canada with Jensen and then passed around among friends, battered and torn between a dozen different moves. This time, it has some of Jensen's books in it.
Jared doesn't ask. He looks at the box, and then he looks at Jensen, waiting.
"I think maybe I should get my own place," Jensen says, rubbing the edges of his left ear until he runs out of words. "Start looking for something, you know."
Jared really doesn't know, but he thinks he has some idea, and his idea centers around Danneel, and the argument she and Jensen had the night before. Jared couldn't hear most of it, but the parts he did hear sent his blood pressure up. "You want to move out?"
"Might be better to have my own place."
It's not an answer to Jared's question. It's not anything, really, not a statement of intent or even a preference. It's just something Jared thinks maybe Jensen heard from Danneel once or twice or ten times a day, and it bothers him, because Jensen moving in with Jared was the best thing to happen to either of them all year.
Trouble is, Danneel knows it.
Sadie and Harley streak by without warning, Icarus in pursuit. Jared glances up at them, and then around the living room, a space filled with Jensen's things. Once he puts them all in boxes, the place is going to look lopsided with all the empty nooks.
Words have to be chosen carefully, now, so Jared picks them over, selects a few that come close to what he means. "Anything I can do to help?"
"Steal some of my boxes back from Rosenbaum?" Jensen pushes the box away from him with his bare toes and settles back on the couch. Jared nods, thinking of the stacks of boxes tied together in Mike's basement. It'll take maybe twenty boxes to pack Jensen up and out of his space, easy as you please. It took him ten to move in.
"Sure."
He knows the conversation's over when Jensen goes back to not looking at him.
**
The box sits in the same spot for six weeks. Nothing new goes into it, and nothing comes back out of it.
Icarus chews off the corner and then pukes it up in Jensen's shoe.
Jared likes to think of it as a message sent on his behalf, and he thinks maybe he's growing to love that girly little dog of Jensen's.
**
Jensen takes to leaving his phone in the living room when he goes to bed at night, so Jared convinces himself it's community property and flips it open one morning on his way down to the gym. Sixteen missed calls from Danneel in the last four days. No calls made in return.
He puts the phone back where he found it. There's a thought taking shape in the back of his brain, but he wants a little more time to mull it over.
**
Two days later--after shooting a tense scene during which Jensen squishes mud in Jared's face and then laughs so hard he snorts mud up his nose and chokes--Jared's pretty sure he's done mulling. He takes a shower in his trailer, thinking about the way Jensen couldn't stop laughing even when he was coughing up mud, and how he leaned into Jared when Jared pounded on his back to keep him from passing out, and how that was the best moment of Jared's entire day.
When he's all warm and clean, he puts on a hoodie and some jeans and heads over to Jensen's trailer, knocks once, and lets himself in. Jensen's in clean old jeans and a standard black T-shirt, though his hair isn't dry, but he grins at Jared the moment he sees him.
"You back for round two?" he asks.
Jared throws his hands up in mock horror. Jensen laughs quietly while Jared reaches behind him and locks the trailer door. They have five, maybe ten minutes before they have to be in makeup for the night scenes.
When Jensen stops laughing and pays attention to Jared's face, his expression changes. "What's up?"
"I missed my cue, didn't I?" Jared asks softly.
"When, in the fight scene?" Jensen's look of total confusion isn't quite what Jared was going for.
He shakes his head. "When you said you were moving out."
This is the part where Jensen could say What are you talking about?, and that's how Jared will know he's got it wrong. But Jensen doesn't say that. He just does that thing where he doesn't look at Jared. He's perfected it the last few weeks.
Jared's not having that anymore.
Jensen's within arm's reach, so Jared reaches for him, tugs at his T-shirt until Jensen gives and steps toward him. Jared's braced against the door, so he lets Jensen's weight fall against him, loops an arm around Jensen's waist; he gets a hand up to brush his thumb across the stubborn line of Jensen's jaw. "I'm slow sometimes," he says, the best apology he knows how to give, before he kisses Jensen, a slow kiss of thorough exploration.
The look of startled pleasure on Jensen's face is sort of comical, and makes Jared want to kiss him until he shivers and gasps and throws himself naked at Jared. He's dwelling on that pleasant idea when Jensen says, "Um...I'm gonna be keeping the dog."
"Yeah?" Jared laughs a little, and puts his lips to Jensen's ear to whisper, "Well, I'm keeping you."
end
First up: For winterweathered and essene, who both requested something where Jensen says he's moving out. (To which I say, ha! As if he would do such a thing! And that is how stories are born.) J2, PG, about 1,800 words. Many thanks to luzdeestrellas, teand, and nu_breed for beta.
Natural Progression
by Destina
Jared notices the ring one morning while Jensen's buttering a piece of toast over the sink. It catches the light, diamonds flashing with the motion of Jensen's hand. Jared pours himself a cup of coffee and leans against the counter. "That's new," he says.
"Huh?" Jensen turns a sleepy face toward Jared, blinks at him with barely-awake confusion while Jared sips his coffee to hide his smile.
"The ring." Jared sets his mug down and pours Jensen a cup of his own, pushes it closer to the sink.
"Oh." Jensen looks away and goes back to buttering the toast, but not like he wants to eat it. More like he wants to punish it. Flecks of burnt brown bread scatter off under the fast scrapes of his knife. "Yeah. Danneel gave it to me last weekend."
Jared shifts his bare feet on the cool tiles and sips some more coffee while he examines the ring from a safe distance. It's not what he thinks of as Jensen's style. It's flashier, more ostentatious than Jared would have picked for him. Jensen tends to like simple things, tokens of meaning.
"You trade her for it?"
"What, give her a ring back?" Jensen takes a bite of his toast and sets the greasy knife in the sink. "No." He munches his toast without any further commentary, but Jared notices the set of his jaw, the way tension settles in his shoulders. Jared nods, as if Jensen answered him anyway, and sits down at the kitchen table, unfurls the morning paper. He pushes the sports section to the other side and starts scanning the headlines.
Jensen sits down across from him and passes Jared a plate with a plain bagel on it, toasted the way Jared likes it. Jam's on the table, a spoon beside it. Jared reads, and eats his bagel, and tries not to notice how Jensen fusses with the ring every time he moves his hand.
**
A couple weeks later, Jared flies down to LA with Jensen for the weekend. He's got an appointment with a guy who might turn out to be his new agent, and Jensen's going to see some buddies playing in a local band. They go their separate ways on Saturday, but Jared has a key to Jensen's house, and he lets himself in at 2AM, half-drunk and hungry.
Jensen's asleep on the living room floor in front of the TV, his usual place, red floor pillows haphazard under his head and arms. Danneel's dog Icarus is a fluffy lump on Jensen's torso, a spill of white hair over Jensen's dark T-shirt. No Danneel, though. It's weird, but she's barely been around for weeks. She drops the dog off when Jensen's home, though. The little hairy thing is attached to his master.
As soon as he finds the remote, Jared switches off the TV and sits down on the floor, within petting distance of Icarus. He misses Harley and Sadie. It's hard to leave them. Icarus raises his head and allows Jared to pet him, almost like he can tell. He probably can, with that weird dog-sense they all have.
He's been petting the dog for a long time before he notices Jensen's awake, and watching him. Jared gives him a tired smile, but he doesn't take his hand off the dog's head. Jensen reaches up and strokes his hand across Icarus's back, counterpoint to Jared's rough scratching behind his ears.
The room is dark and quiet, and the motion is soothing. Jared's stomach has stopped rumbling for cheeseburgers he's not going to give it, and he's half asleep just sitting there when Jensen says, "Been thinking about taking Icarus up with us. That be okay with you?"
"Sure." Jared's fingers bump Jensen's once, and then again, colliding gently in the tangle of fur.
"Danneel's got a movie, so she won't be able to take care of him." Something's funny about the way Jensen says it, but Jared leaves it alone. This is one topic he's learned not to step into.
"Harley loves trying to eat your dog. It'll be cool."
"He's not really my dog." Of course, the fact that Icarus is sleeping on top of him puts the lie to that statement, but Jared doesn't call him on it. Or say he thinks Icarus is more Jensen's than Danneel's, anyway. He just leaves it alone.
"I'm going to bed," he says instead, and hauls his ass up off the floor. Jensen nods, gives him a little smile.
Jensen's still sleeping on the floor when Jared comes out of the guest room in the morning, and he's curled around the dog in a way that makes him seem young. His shirt has hiked up in the back, exposing goose-pimpled skin in the chilly morning. Jared pulls Jensen's shirt down, careful not to wake him, and puts a throw across his bare feet. Then he settles down on the couch and watches Jensen and the dog for a while. Icarus watches him back, his chin on Jensen's shoulder.
**
A month goes by, and Jared comes back from a Sunday morning run to find Jensen sitting on the couch, an open U-Haul box by his feet. The box has been around, up to Canada with Jensen and then passed around among friends, battered and torn between a dozen different moves. This time, it has some of Jensen's books in it.
Jared doesn't ask. He looks at the box, and then he looks at Jensen, waiting.
"I think maybe I should get my own place," Jensen says, rubbing the edges of his left ear until he runs out of words. "Start looking for something, you know."
Jared really doesn't know, but he thinks he has some idea, and his idea centers around Danneel, and the argument she and Jensen had the night before. Jared couldn't hear most of it, but the parts he did hear sent his blood pressure up. "You want to move out?"
"Might be better to have my own place."
It's not an answer to Jared's question. It's not anything, really, not a statement of intent or even a preference. It's just something Jared thinks maybe Jensen heard from Danneel once or twice or ten times a day, and it bothers him, because Jensen moving in with Jared was the best thing to happen to either of them all year.
Trouble is, Danneel knows it.
Sadie and Harley streak by without warning, Icarus in pursuit. Jared glances up at them, and then around the living room, a space filled with Jensen's things. Once he puts them all in boxes, the place is going to look lopsided with all the empty nooks.
Words have to be chosen carefully, now, so Jared picks them over, selects a few that come close to what he means. "Anything I can do to help?"
"Steal some of my boxes back from Rosenbaum?" Jensen pushes the box away from him with his bare toes and settles back on the couch. Jared nods, thinking of the stacks of boxes tied together in Mike's basement. It'll take maybe twenty boxes to pack Jensen up and out of his space, easy as you please. It took him ten to move in.
"Sure."
He knows the conversation's over when Jensen goes back to not looking at him.
**
The box sits in the same spot for six weeks. Nothing new goes into it, and nothing comes back out of it.
Icarus chews off the corner and then pukes it up in Jensen's shoe.
Jared likes to think of it as a message sent on his behalf, and he thinks maybe he's growing to love that girly little dog of Jensen's.
**
Jensen takes to leaving his phone in the living room when he goes to bed at night, so Jared convinces himself it's community property and flips it open one morning on his way down to the gym. Sixteen missed calls from Danneel in the last four days. No calls made in return.
He puts the phone back where he found it. There's a thought taking shape in the back of his brain, but he wants a little more time to mull it over.
**
Two days later--after shooting a tense scene during which Jensen squishes mud in Jared's face and then laughs so hard he snorts mud up his nose and chokes--Jared's pretty sure he's done mulling. He takes a shower in his trailer, thinking about the way Jensen couldn't stop laughing even when he was coughing up mud, and how he leaned into Jared when Jared pounded on his back to keep him from passing out, and how that was the best moment of Jared's entire day.
When he's all warm and clean, he puts on a hoodie and some jeans and heads over to Jensen's trailer, knocks once, and lets himself in. Jensen's in clean old jeans and a standard black T-shirt, though his hair isn't dry, but he grins at Jared the moment he sees him.
"You back for round two?" he asks.
Jared throws his hands up in mock horror. Jensen laughs quietly while Jared reaches behind him and locks the trailer door. They have five, maybe ten minutes before they have to be in makeup for the night scenes.
When Jensen stops laughing and pays attention to Jared's face, his expression changes. "What's up?"
"I missed my cue, didn't I?" Jared asks softly.
"When, in the fight scene?" Jensen's look of total confusion isn't quite what Jared was going for.
He shakes his head. "When you said you were moving out."
This is the part where Jensen could say What are you talking about?, and that's how Jared will know he's got it wrong. But Jensen doesn't say that. He just does that thing where he doesn't look at Jared. He's perfected it the last few weeks.
Jared's not having that anymore.
Jensen's within arm's reach, so Jared reaches for him, tugs at his T-shirt until Jensen gives and steps toward him. Jared's braced against the door, so he lets Jensen's weight fall against him, loops an arm around Jensen's waist; he gets a hand up to brush his thumb across the stubborn line of Jensen's jaw. "I'm slow sometimes," he says, the best apology he knows how to give, before he kisses Jensen, a slow kiss of thorough exploration.
The look of startled pleasure on Jensen's face is sort of comical, and makes Jared want to kiss him until he shivers and gasps and throws himself naked at Jared. He's dwelling on that pleasant idea when Jensen says, "Um...I'm gonna be keeping the dog."
"Yeah?" Jared laughs a little, and puts his lips to Jensen's ear to whisper, "Well, I'm keeping you."
end