fic: If You Care To Stay, J2 AU, NC-17, 2/2.
Part One / Soundtrack
Fourteen hours later, Jensen is about ready to stab his own brain out with a fondue fork for being so right all the time.
Misha's show was pretty standard fare for him (if cross-dressing and performing the Faye Dunaway incest revelation scene from Chinatown can ever be called standard). At its fullest, the small, dank theatre held maybe a hundred and fifty people, but that's not counting those who left during intermission, or the half dozen who didn't even make it that far. Misha didn't seem to notice, though, taking three curtain calls and then dragging Jensen backstage to his dressing room to immediately watch the tape of his performance.
They cracked open the bottle of scotch Jensen brought as a gift, and before the end of the first monologue (can it technically be called a monologue when Misha's having an imaginary conversation with his penis?) Misha's tongue was down Jensen's throat, hand down the front of his pants. Flashback.
“Yeah, you like that?” Misha said. He pulled open the button of Jensen's jeans, yanked the zipper down. “Just like old times, huh? Except with no mindgames. You wanna fuck me? Want me on my hands and knees, Jen?”
And God, but Jensen did. Or rather, his dick did. And his hands, his arms, his hips, his thighs, his mouth. His brain, though, was acting up again, and forcing his mouth to speak.
“What mindgames?”
“Oh, you know,” Misha said, managing to shrug using only his eyebrows while both hands were otherwise occupied. “All that boyfriend stuff, all the labels. We can finally be free of that.”
Jensen tried to kiss him, to shut him up before he said something that would derail the forthcoming sex and possibly crush Jensen's heart into a pulp even more than it already had been.
“It's just like I said in my show,” Misha said. “Gotta serve the cock. Give it what it wants. Give into its power. It's all part of our inherent maleness, Jensen. Who are we to fight nature?”
So the result wasn't exactly heartbreak, but sort of a mild, incredulous disgust. Same general outcome, though, which was that Jensen came to his senses. He ended up walking back to the apartment, keyed up, horny and sad, having de-gifted Misha's bottle of scotch and ingested most of it.
How he managed to unlock the door and make it to the couch, he doesn't know, but that's where he wakes up, face down, dangling hand still wrapped around the neck of the empty bottle. The inside of his mouth tastes like dried up old garbage, and his head seems to have lost cabin pressure, the contents threatening to squeeze out any and all available openings. And this is before he's even opened his eyes, which he's pretty sure is going to kill him, so he puts it off as long as he can.
Eventually, though, his own body betrays him, bladder uncomfortably full to the point of pain, and Jensen rolls off the couch and bolts for the sweet relief of the bathroom, blinking at the bright white light bouncing off the toilet. He pisses with his eyes closed, not even caring that he's probably splattering all over the place, and stumbles back to the couch in squinty half-blindness, bumping hard into the coffee table and feeling something shift.
There's a faint crinkle of paper and a whiff of salt and grease that has him considering the trip back to the bathroom very carefully. When he's fairly sure his stomach has stopped lurching, he drags himself back to the couch and forces his eyes to stay open.
There's a McDonald's bag on the table, transparent with grease and staining a dark rectangle into the wood. Next to it is a familiar folded-over piece of notebook paper. It takes him quite a while to focus on the text, even though the letters seem printed deliberately larger than usual.
Dear Friday,
Rough night?
Grabbed you some aspirin and some McD's breakfast. Hangovers are why the Egg McMuffin was invented, so I'm telling you right now not to bother lecturing me about saturated fats or culinary sacrilege or whatever is it I'm sure you're thinking. I had them add an extra sausage patty, so it's double the salt and grease. Enjoy!
Oh, also, remember: puke early, puke often. That's what my brother always says. Although I don't know that it's such great advice. Especially not the “puke often” part. Anyway, don't worry about the apartment, we'll just say you owe me a day and I'll claim it whenever.
It was nice to finally see you, even if you were unconscious and drooling (yep, drooling, haha!) at the time.
Talk to you soon,
Saturday
PS - Checkmate.
Jensen glances over at the chessboard, bemused. His king is being threatened from all sides. Chad was here, and only a little while ago. Hell, the Egg McMuffin's still on the warm side. He pulls open the bag, gets a whiff of grease and cheese before closing it again, swallowing down bitterness. He'll work his way up to eating it.
His cell phone shows five missed calls from Dean & DeLuca. It's ten thirty, which means his usual Saturday morning shift ends in half an hour. Jensen groans and leans his head back against the arm of the couch, carefully. He's probably fired, but it's hard to care about that right now. He's got a blanket, which he's pretty sure wasn't here when he passed out last night, and some aspirin, and the day to himself. He curls up, pulls the blanket over his head and closes his eyes, breathing deep.
*
“So you met the guy, then?” Chad says, ducking behind a hay bale.
Jared follows him. They're playing paintball. Chad's idea. They've become friends, sort of. Hey, it gets Jared out of Sandy's house for a few hours.
“No. Yes. Sort of.” Jared pauses, thoughtful. “I didn't meet him. I saw him.”
“Stalking? Kinky.”
Jared shrugs, slips his finger on and off the trigger, muzzle pointed straight in the air. There's the ratchety sound of someone else's gun going off. Elsewhere, some kid is swearing a blue streak at his dad.
“It's not stalking. I went in there and he was still there. He was sleeping. I left.”
“And then, after you rubbed one out...?” Chad says, and makes a swirly “go on” motion with his free hand.
Jared sighs. He wishes he'd never brought it up. He figured it would be good to talk about the Jensen thing with someone he just met, someone who didn't already have an image in their mind of who Jared Padalecki was and wasn't. But now he's just embarrassed, and Chad's prodding isn't helping.
“Just. I just thought it would be different if I actually saw him, you know? I thought I'd sort of come to my senses, and the, uh. The feelings would go away.”
Chad looks pained.
“I'm not having this conversation with you,” he says. “Not in the sacred arena of paintball. Not anywhere.”
“What? Why?”
Chad rolls his eyes. It looks really funny from behind his goggles.
“OK, fine. You're gay. End of conversation.”
He leans out to the side of the hay bale and fires six times in quick succession. By the time Jared processes Chad's words and stands, it's all over. They've won.
*
When Chad gets home, Sophia meets him at the door, arms folded tight across her chest.
“What's her name?” she says.
Chad's only taken aback for a second. Then he grins and tells the truth.
“Jared.”
Sophia huffs and glares.
“Fine. Don't tell me,” she says, and stomps off in the direction of the bedroom.
Chad follows, shaking his head. At least she's still stomping in the right direction.
*
It takes Jensen about 12 hours to recover. In those 12 hours, he pukes, reads the note from Mr. Saturday about five more times, pukes again, chokes down almost a whole Egg McMuffin, watches a bunch of cartoons and then heads home, where Chris takes one look at him, crosses his arms, smirks and says, “What's his name?”
“What? Who? What?” Jensen says, his throat feeling oddly constricted.
Chris laughs, fishing around in the fridge for a couple of beers.
“Your face, dude.”
“My face is fine! There's no name. There's no guy to name.”
Chris's eyes narrow. He opens his own beer but doesn't hand over the second bottle.
“You didn't... with...?” he says, and jerks his head towards the back bedroom.
“No. No. God. No.” Jensen pauses, cringing. “Well. Almost.”
“Ugh, Jenny, why?” Chris says, still withholding beer. “I can barely stand him when he's fucking chicks. Stick his dick up a guy and he's ten times as obnoxious.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jensen says. “The power of the almighty cock.”
Chris snorts, finally handing over the bottle.
“He acts like he's the only guy ever to have a dick.”
“Yeah, he fucks like it, too.”
Chris laughs, but then he punches Jensen in the arm, hard. His hand tingles.
“So what the hell's wrong with you? Quit following him around like a puppy, doing him favours all the time!”
“I'm not,” Jensen says. “Not anymore, anyway.”
“Not til next time, huh?” Chris says, and knocks the butt of his bottle against the sore spot on Jensen's arm that Jensen is stubbornly not rubbing.
Jensen rolls his eyes but chooses not to comment. He goes to sleep that night three feet away from an anonymous snoring lump in the other bed, thinking he's going to have to spend more time alone if he's ever going to get good at it.
The next morning, he wakes up from a dream in which he's relentlessly chasing a faceless, nameless man through the rooms of the downtown apartment. Every new room, the guy leaves something behind - a watch, a shirt, an overcoat. Jensen collects it all, but it slows him down, and every new piece steals more of his attention, until he's so distracted he forgets the point of his pursuit. He wakes up with relentless morning wood and a kind of fluttery feeling in his stomach.
That's about when he decides he has to meet this Chad guy.
He spends all Sunday vibrating, trying to distract himself with a new pork marinade he's working on. Monday's shift at D & D goes by in a nervous blur. Danneel asks him three times if he's started taking any new medication she should know about. The day's end won't come fast enough, and then when it does he realizes he has no idea what he's planning to do. Just burst into the place? Make up some story? Wear tight jeans and come on strong? He'd have to buy some, it's not like he's got time to go home and change. Actually, he thinks he's maybe got a pair in the apartment, which would be awkward. “Do you mind if I come in, change my pants and then attempt to seduce you?” No, definitely not doing that.
He ends up standing in the hallway, staring at the apartment door for about five minutes before screwing up his courage and knocking. Nothing happens. There's the faint sound of music from inside the apartment, so he knocks louder. The music might be Chumbawumba. He really hopes not.
“Who is it?” someone yells from behind the door.
Jensen watches the peephole go dark. He smiles, tries not to look too awkward.
“Jensen,” he says. “I kinda live here?”
There's the sound of the chain sliding off the door and then it swings open, revealing a guy with spiky blond hair and a few days' worth of stubble. He's wearing loose-fitting grey sweats and a stained white t-shirt.
“Right. Come in.”
He does, and finds that indeed, Chumbawumba is blaring from the stereo.
“Chad, right?”
“That's me,” the guy says. “What can I do for you?”
Jensen shrugs and fails at coming up with a good excuse for his presence. Finally, he says, “I was just in the neighbourhood.”
“Oh,” Chad says. “You want some pizza? I'm about to win the Star Cup on Mirror Mode, so, you know, just hang out for a while. It'll be, like, ten minutes. I'm gonna cream these fuckers.”
So Chad plays Mario Kart, and Jensen sits at the other end of the couch and watches. He doesn't eat the pizza - it's cold and looks like it's been sitting on the coffee table in its open box for hours. He hopes Chad doesn't take it personally. There's also a half-empty bowl of Froot Loops sitting on the floor at Chad's feet, halfway under the couch. If this is how the guy usually feeds himself, then it's no wonder he's so appreciative of Jensen's leftovers.
Chad grunts a lot and yells at the TV. He seems to forget Jensen's there, except for between the races. Jensen tunes out the nineties mix blaring from the stereo and waits.
And waits.
Chad comes in third and starts over. Jensen waits some more. The stereo switches to Nickelback.
When Chad comes in third again, Jensen says, “I thought maybe we could talk.”
“Sure,” Chad says, starting a new game. “Shoot.”
“Could you turn the Wii off, actually? And the music?”
Chad looks a little annoyed, but he powers down the console and stereo and puts his feet up on the coffee table. Jensen clears his throat.
“I wanted to thank you for the stuff you left here the other day,” he begins. It's hard, face to face for the first time. He already feels so close to the guy but he's spoken barely ten words to him. He chuckles, thinks about Chad's goofy hangover advice. “Really came in handy.”
“Yeah?” Chad says, looking pleased, but slightly unsettled. “Nice. I guess, you know, what's mine is yours, and all that stuff.”
“I wouldn't normally do this, but I... I feel really close to you.”
Chad's eyebrows are doing this strange caterpillar mating ritual on his forehead.
“Yeah,” he says awkwardly. “Well. Uh. We do share a bathroom.”
“Among other things,” Jensen says, and smiles. He expected Chad to smile back, but the guy just looks a little bemused and uncomfortable. Maybe he's shy, Jensen thinks. Or maybe Jensen's just been reading the whole situation wrong. “Is this okay?”
Chad frowns, eyes flicking back to the blank TV for a second.
“Is what okay?”
Jensen moves closer, finds his hand reaching for Chad's upper arm. When he makes contact, thumb rubbing the inside of Chad's elbow, Chad just stares at his fingers.
“You know. This.”
“You're trying to seduce me,” Chad says slowly.
Jensen laughs, nervous. “You make it sound so sleazy.”
“Dude, you're trying to - It is sleazy!” Chad's suddenly agitated. He gets to his feet, paces until he's marching around behind the couch, Jensen's head spinning with the effort of following his quick movements. “I don't even know you! It's sleazy as hell and you know what? I'm normally way into sleazy. But not when it involves some other guy's dick getting anywhere near mine! Ugh, what the fuck? That's so gay.”
Jensen's face is so hot it feels like it should be melting off, Raiders style.
“Shit, I thought...”
“You thought wrong, brother.”
Chad's eyes are wild, but his voice is somber, stern.
“Shit, I'm sorry,” Jensen says, heart sinking. He buries his face in his hands. “Really, really sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. It just seemed like we had some sort of a connection. I guess maybe I read a little too much into it.”
“What, from jerking it to the same porno mags?” Chad says. “News flash: you're gay! Why the hell are you looking at my old Hustlers? To feel closer to me?” He looks a little nauseated. “Is that why you spent all that time cozying up to Jared, too? To get to me? That's cold, dude.”
“Huh?” Jensen says. He gets to his feet, although he's pretty sure Chad won't be making sense from that angle, either. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know, the gooey little love notes you two leave all over the apartment.”
“Me and Jared?” Jensen says, thinking of dirty socks and too much hair gel. This cannot be happening.
Chad seems to calm down some. He stops pacing and sits on the arm of the couch.
“Yeah, dumbass. The guy's a friend of mine. And he's kinda really into you, so you turning out to be some pervy gay stalker who's obsessed with me? That's gonna kill him.”
“Wait, what?” Jensen says. “I don't understand. Jared's the one who's been leaving me notes?”
Chad leans back then, arms crossed, and smiles.
“Oh, this is good. You thought... Oh, this is priceless.”
“You haven't been playing chess with me?”
Chad scoffs, like it's ridiculous.
Jensen's whole worldview feels malleable, impermanent. It's dizzying, and he's glad he's in the apartment for it. The place is grounding to him. He goes into the kitchen, takes a few deep breaths. Chad follows, rooting through the fridge.
“Me and Jared switched our days. I guess my assistant never bothered to tell you.”
“Uh-huh?” Jensen's voice is squeaky, thin.
“I gave him two of my days for two of his so I could go to this church thing and make my fiancée happy. We've been following a different schedule this whole time.”
Chad emerges from the fridge with his hand immersed in a jar of pickles and a childish, gleeful look on his face.
“You have a fiancée?” Jensen says, incredulous.
“Why does everyone always say that?” Chad wonders aloud, sucking on pickle juice halfway down his arm. When he starts licking himself, Jensen shudders and looks away. He pictures the schedule he knows and tries to work through the changes.
“So Jared has Saturdays. And... Thursdays?”
“Bingo.”
“And you're the one with the vintage porn and the black leather bean bag chair.”
“Hells yeah,” Chad says. “That thing is swingin'.”
Jensen's head is spinning. He can't believe what just almost happened. He was ready to mindlessly throw himself at this slob, no questions asked. What if he really has been reading the signs wrong, and this Jared person reacts the same way? Worse: what if the Jared he knows is only one small facet of a person Jensen won't end up liking that much? It's like he's learned nothing from his repeated Misha encounters, still ready and willing to jump in and get his heart chewed up and spit out by whoever happens to be available for the task.
“I gotta sit down,” Jensen says.
Chad must have seen the look on his face, because he's already getting the Jack Daniels down from the liquor shelf.
*
Jared is having a shitty week. It starts when he goes into the toy store on Monday to find that they've closed. They won't be needing his services anymore, and can't afford to settle his back pay. Then Sandy goes on a date with some guy named Stuart who picks her up at her place and insists on coming inside and shaking Jared's hand. He's one of those guys who has a Blackberry clipped to his belt and wears a polo shirt tucked into his pants. Jared hates him on sight, but Sandy seems to like him, because she doesn't come home until eight the next morning.
Then Jared shows up for the Madden tournament he and Chad had planned to find Chad's fiancée hanging out in the apartment. She's wearing lounge pants, her hair in a messy bun, and she's probably the second most beautiful girl Jared's ever seen. She and Chad are in the middle of a game, the Buffalo Bills losing spectacularly to the Green Bay Packers, and they're roughhousing and calling each other names.
It's all very sweet. It maybe breaks his heart a little.
They tell him to stick around, and Chad looks like he wants to tell him something, shrugs helplessly and explains that Sophia followed him here, discovered his secret hang-out. Jared doesn't stay long. Just long enough to admit to Chad that without a steady income, he's going to have to back out of the apartment arrangement at the end of the month and go back to sleeping on Sandy's couch full-time.
On Thursday there's no note from Jensen, and no food. Not that he was expecting anything, but it seems strange, no contact whatsoever. And Jensen's food always makes him feel better, warms him from the inside in a way nothing else ever has. He could really use some of that right about now.
On Friday, just after he leaves the apartment, Sandy calls him in tears and says she wants to try getting back together. Her fling with Stuart has made her realize what's important in life, and she'd like to meet up tonight and talk about giving their relationship another try. They make reservations at an Italian place uptown and Jared spends the day wandering around, looking for Help Wanted signs and trying not to think too hard about the sense of wrongness churning around in his belly.
He's in an upscale part of town, thinking about grabbing a little lunch, when he looks through a random window and spots Jensen. At least, he's pretty sure it's Jensen - it's hard to be 100% certain because this guy is wearing an apron, standing up and talking, while he's only ever seen Jensen asleep.
Jared backs up, checks out the marquee. It makes sense that Jensen would work here, even though they've never discussed their jobs.
He watches through the window for a while, as Jensen doles out advice, measures, cuts and wraps various cheeses. He looks good, Jared thinks. He looks like he knows what he's talking about.
It's a little startling when Jared catches sight of his own reflection in the window and realizes he's smiling this wide, helpless smile. He feels kind of ridiculous, and that's all it takes to send him inside, taking his place in line behind a slightly confused old lady. He listens as Jensen patiently guides her to the camembert and explains the difference between two wheels of identical-looking cheese. There's not a doubt left in him now: this is Jensen, his Jensen. He doesn't even care how that sounds, already so possessive without even officially meeting the guy.
“Hey,” Jensen's saying. “Can I help you?”
The old lady's paid and gone. Jared's alone with him.
“Yeah,” Jared says, feeling a hint of that smile tugging at his cheeks, threatening to give him away. “What... what would you recommend?”
“Depends what you want it for,” Jensen says, his clear eyes searching Jared's face.
“Just to eat,” Jared says lamely. “Just for me, you know. What's something you like?”
“Really?” Jensen says. He looks flustered, spends a couple of second stammering before answering. “I, uh, there's a Dutch six year-old gouda I really like, but it's not all that expensive.”
“Cool, I'll have some of that.”
Jensen looks confused. “You don't want to see something more upscale?”
“Nah, I'll take your word for it.”
“How much do you want?”
“Surprise me.”
Jensen looks at him, then, really looks. And then he grins, bright and sweet. Jared watches his hands as he handles the knife, sinking it into a large orange wheel of cheese and slicing off a generous amount.
“It's great with beer,” he tells Jared. “Like a dark lager. Or a light red wine. But you look like more of a beer guy.”
“You got me,” Jared says. He's pretty sure Jensen is supposed to turn around now, use the table behind him to wrap Jared's purchase. But instead he just fidgets a little, eyes locked with Jared's, small smile still on his lips.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“Nah,” Jared says, smiling back. Something warm and intimate passes between them. At least, Jared thinks it does. “I'm good.”
“Excuse me, do you two mind batting your eyelashes at each other some other time?” someone says behind him.
Jared turns around and his jaw drops. Gordon Ramsay is standing there in jeans and a t-shirt, looking annoyed as hell. It's an expression Jared is very familiar with from the many episodes of Hell's Kitchen they have on the Tivo in the apartment.
“Uh...” he says.
“Some of us actually care about good taste,” Ramsay says, eyeing the cheese that Jensen is now wrapping. His face is full of contempt. He's betting the guy will be spending a lot of money here, and giving Jensen a hell of a hard time while doing so.
Jensen rings Jared up, eyes downcast, avoiding both his gaze and Gordon's.
“Eleven fifty.”
Jared hands over the cash and gets out of the way as Ramsay starts to explain the meal he's planning. Jensen casts one last look his way, and then turns his full attention to his customer.
It's a fitting goodbye, Jared thinks, his heart feeling sluggish and too full.
*
Jensen comes back to the apartment on Friday itching to tell Jared all about his encounter with Gordon Ramsay. The guy's even more of a douchebag in person. It's really quite something, and Jared would love to know this, he's sure, but he can't quite bring himself to write the note. It's for his own good, he knows. He's going to try being alone, and that means no more notes, no more flirting. He needs to cool things down.
Naturally, once he makes that realization, he gets jittery and takes to the kitchen to calm his nerves. He starts working on a variation on Tarte Tatin he's had on his mind for the past few weeks, substituting apples for pears and perfecting the sweetness and firmness of the fruit with multiple attempts.
He makes it halfway through the second pie before his mind even attempts to wander back into dangerous territory. There was a guy. Before Gordon Ramsay attempted to break his spirit with demands for cheese that could pay its own way through college. And Jensen flirted. Harmless, sure, but this whole week he's been contemplating celibacy, and those thoughts just flew right out of his head when that guy smiled at him.
He's weak. And he can't tell what's worse, the fact that he was so easily charmed despite his resolve to give up men, or the fact that he's feeling guilty now. Guilty, because that guy wasn't Jared.
Yeah, Jensen's pretty much screwed.
His second tart comes out perfect. He makes a third anyway.
*
Sandy looks beautiful. She smiles when she sees him, soft and sweet, and the vulnerability evident in her eyes even across the crowded restaurant makes his chest feel tight.
“I thought you were ditching me,” she says. “It's eight fifteen.”
“Sorry.”
He sits quickly, feeling conspicuous and awkward. Ruggiero's is crowded, loud. Everywhere he looks, diners are cutting into chicken breasts and slurping wine. Their waiter rushes over, impatient, and Jared places an order and immediately forgets what it was. Sandy orders the mushroom ravioli with extra garlic bread. The girl can really eat, none of that dainty pecking most girls do, and Jared remembers that's one of the many things he loved about her. He smiles, feeling wistful, and she smiles back.
“What?”
“Nothing. You look nice.”
“You too,” she says, even though he doesn't, really. He's wearing the same old street clothes he's had on all day. Jensen saw him in these clothes.
Their drinks come. Jared pours his beer into a chilled glass, stares at the wet marks his fingers leave on the frosted surface. He doesn't look up when he speaks.
“I don't know if I can do this, now.”
If Sandy's taken aback, she doesn't show it.
“What's the problem?” she says, sounding strangely more like a plumber than a girlfriend. Ready and willing to plug up their leaks, make the two of them watertight again.
“Uh,” Jared says. He clears his throat, sips his beer. Clears his throat again. “Well. For one thing, I might be gay. Ish. Maybe.”
“Oh,” Sandy says. This is probably not how she was expecting this conversation to go, and she's looking a little lost, but she's not enraged, so he figures this is going well. Hell, he had no idea what he was about to say, and he's the one whose mouth it came barrelling out of.
“There's this guy, and I... I thought I could just walk away, but now I'm realizing... I don't think I can. And that means something. He means something. To me. I don't know what yet, but...”
“I don't understand,” Sandy says. “Who is this guy? When did you meet him?”
Jared's a little sheepish. He realizes how this sounds, he does.
“I kinda haven't yet. Not officially, anyway. But I... I know him.”
Their waiter fakes them out, swoops by their table with heaped plates.
“Go,” Sandy says. She's got this sad little smile on her face. “You're twitching out of your chair.”
“What about the food?”
“I'll switch it to take out.”
It's strange, Jared thinks, how she's suddenly looking at him, really looking, in a way she hasn't since they first started dating.
“Sandy...”
“Jared, go,” she says again. “Go meet your man.”
And she shoos him fondly, gets up to find their waiter.
So he goes.
He's not particularly quiet when he lets himself in. He doesn't call out, or anything, but he kicks off his shoes, drops his keys on the sideboard, his jacket on a chair. He can hear Jensen in the kitchen, humming to himself. The place smells amazing, fruity and buttery.
Jensen's back is to the door, both hands in the sink, scrubbing hardened caramel from a saucepan. Jared leans in the doorframe and watches him for a while. He's got a smudged white apron tied around his waist, and streaks of flour all over his grey t-shirt. He's still humming, muttering actual lyrics here and there, little phrases and random single words. Jared vaguely recognizes the melody as a Stones song.
He holds his breath, imagines he's invisible. He could stand here and watch all day.
Jensen runs the pan under the tape and finally turns, reaching for the fridge handle, where a dishrag hangs limply. He doesn't jump, exactly, when he sees Jared. Just freezes mid-step, water dribbling onto the tiled floor.
“Hey,” Jared says.
He steps forward, pulls the dishrag free and takes the pan from Jensen. He was planning on drying the dish, introducing himself properly, but then he catches sight of Jensen, how there's this white streak, flour or confectioner's sugar, running from the collar of his shirt, up his neck to his jaw. Once he's noticed it, he somehow can't stop himself from kissing it, just advancing on Jensen and pressing his lips to the guy's neck. It's not flour but sugar, melting in the warmth of his mouth, and Jared follows the trail down to the hollow of Jensen's throat, until all he tastes is the salt of skin. Then he steps back, breathless.
Jensen just stares. He's wiggling his fingers slightly, like they've gone numb and he wants to make sure they're still attached.
Jared dries the saucepan thoroughly and sets it on the counter.
“Please tell me you're Jared,” Jensen says. His tone is mostly teasing, but it's tired, too, shaky, and Jared knows better than to jerk him around.
“Yeah,” Jared says. “That's my name.”
“Thank God,” Jensen breathes, stepping close again, backing Jared against the counter. He stretches upwards a tiny bit to kiss Jared, a proper kiss this time, lips parted slightly, moving languidly against Jared's, stubble of his chin scratching at Jared's skin.
They fit. Jared hadn't really thought about that. When he first saw Jensen, walked in on him curled into a fitful ball on the couch, he was caught off-guard by his desire to touch. But he's never thought about it in terms of size, compatibility. Jensen is solid against him. When he touches Jared's shirt, he leaves warm, wet fingerprints.
It grows in intensity, gets frantic when Jared starts kissing back, his hands roaming, one to the back of Jensen's head and one slipping in under his apron strings. Jared's breathless, mind racing, and for some reason he feels a pressing need to explain himself more, which is really hard to do when his mouth is otherwise occupied. He speaks in bursts between hurried kisses.
“I know how it seems, but - you should know that I'm not - God, I'm not stalking you or anything. It probably looks that way. The truth is I was just walking around - you know, thinking about lunch and I - mmm - there you were in a window. And I thought wow, what the hell are the odds, you know?”
Jensen kisses him a while longer before pulling back, just enough that he can look Jared in the eye, his rapid breath warm and regular on Jared's chin.
“What'd you do with the cheese?”
Jared grins, sheepish.
“It's in my jacket pocket.”
Jensen kisses him again, deep. Jared moans when he pulls away.
“Bring it over.”
“What? Why?”
Jared feels a bewildered smile tugging at his cheeks. He leans in, touches his forehead to Jensen's and they stand there, breathing each other's air for a few seconds before Jensen answers.
“Cause I'm gonna cook you dinner,” he says. Jared wants to laugh, because it sounds like a line, but the way Jensen says it is sweet.
So Jensen cooks him dinner, and Jared helps, which in this case means he gets to pound a bunch of herbs and spices into a pulp with a mortar and pestle, and stir what Jensen tells him to stir. The rest of the time, Jared sits up on the counter next to the fridge and watches while Jensen slices and braises and sears, and just generally creates a feast out of thin air.
They talk. Jensen tells him about his cramped bohemian living situation and about touring with his friend's band last summer. Jared makes dumb cheese puns and Jensen's generous enough to laugh. They touch casually, Jensen's hand on Jared's thigh as he walks to the fridge to rummage through the produce drawer. Jared tugging on the front of Jensen's apron, pulling him in for a quick kiss (he lets him go after a few seconds, before anything can catch fire).
“I was supposed to give this up, you know,” Jensen says without turning away from what he's doing at the stove.
“What?”
“I don't know,” Jensen says. He's blushing a little, Jared thinks. “Sex? Love? Men?”
“So what happened?”
“I don't know,” Jensen says again. He turns and gives Jared this smirk. It's really quite amazing. “I guess I'm weak.”
“Lucky for me.”
They eat at the table. It's maybe the first time Jared's bothered to sit there since he moved into the apartment - usually he just munches on Jensen's leftovers out of the container, sprawled on the couch in front of the TV. It's nice. There's good beer, and steak, and this salad with grilled plums and nuts and the cheese Jensen sold him. It's delicious, and Jared keeps telling Jensen that, because everytime he does, the guy's face gets a little redder. He has freckles that stand out on his cheeks and ears when he blushes. Jared maybe wants to keep making him blush forever.
The conversation slows a bit as they really dig into the meal. Their gazes keep meeting across the table, and every time they do, Jared's stomach does this funny little flip. His mind keeps wandering. He wants so much, all at once. To touch Jensen's body. To kiss him again. To find the perfect thing to say to make those faint lines at the corners of his eyes crinkle, the way he's seen them to a few times now. He wants to take him into the bedroom (their bedroom, technically) and strip all the clothes off him, taste every inch of his skin. Jared's mouth waters. He takes another bite of food and tries to be patient.
*
It's not the sex that blows Jensen away so much as what comes directly afterwards.
Okay, yes, the sex is awesome. Even on full stomachs, when they should be feeling slow and sleepy.
Jensen's on his back, Jared naked above him, kissing him, Jared's body bracketing his. It's their first time together, and Jared's first time with a man at all, information he practically had to wring from the guy, so Jensen's trying to take it slow, but Jared's having none of it. He wraps Jensen's cock in one huge spit-slick hand, works him nice and rough, persistent, until Jensen's whimpering for him to stop or else he's going to come way too early. Jared lets go then, leans forward on one elbow and kisses Jensen, hot and dirty, his tongue immediately coming into play, thrusting into Jensen's mouth about the same time he starts fingering Jensen's ass.
It's too much, and Jensen, so close already, comes hard, all over himself and Jared. It's almost painful without anything touching his dick, and he wraps his hand around himself, strokes himself through it, shuddery and groaning, Jared's fingers still pressing into him. Jesus, it feels like it lasts forever.
“You good?” Jared whispers into his ear.
He's done, limbs liquid. He nods, not trusting his voice just yet.
“I want -” Jared says. “God, I want to fuck you. Want to be in you, Jensen, please.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, his voice almost hoarse. “I want it too.”
It's only after Jared reaches blindly into the bedside table for the lube and condoms that it occurs to Jensen that Jared knew where they were, could find Jensen's supplies without even looking. Jared lives here too, knows every nook and cranny.
Jared lubes up his fingers, slowly spreads Jensen open. Jensen's pliant and sleepy, watching him through a euphoric haze as he finishes up, wipes his hand on the foot of the bed before tearing into the condom and rolling it on. If Jensen could save just one image from tonight, this would be it: Jared kneeling in front of him, breathless, his face flushed and joyful, eager, and his dick standing up against his stomach, its distinct shape, curved slightly to the right.
He wants to know everything there is to know about Jared's dick. Every little flaw and freckle. He wants to know everything there is to know about Jared, and that doesn't scare him nearly as much as it probably should.
When Jared pushes inside him, it's dull, aching pressure mixed with spent arousal, and Jensen bucks his hips to take him further in. He locks his arms around Jared's neck, and Jared starts moving without being told, slow and careful at first, then harder, quicker. The bedframe knocks repeatedly against the wall like some sort of movie cliche, and Jensen can't find it in himself to care that their upstairs and downstairs neighbours can hear.
He feels it building inside him again, unexpectedly quick and intense, and he closes his eyes against the rush of feeling, but forces them open again when Jared grunts out, “Fuck, Jensen, I'm gonna...” His movements become frantic, but his face still has this open fondness to it, his eyes flitting from Jensen's face to the place where their bodies join. When he comes, he cries out, hides his face against Jensen's chest. He takes Jensen along for the ride, the pulsing and trembling of Jared's cock still buried deep inside him more than enough to set Jensen off again. Fuck, he didn't know that was possible.
They lie there, catching their breath together. Jared's warm and slightly sweaty, and Jensen has a strange urge to ruffle his hair. After a minute of stillness, he does, and Jared laughs but doesn't pull away just yet.
After they've cleaned up a bit, bumbled around each other in the bathroom, which was varying degrees of awkward, they head back to bed for the night.
Jared says, “I'm not going to have to fight you for the left side, am I?”
“No,” Jensen says. “I like the right.”
They fit, just like that, Jensen on his stomach, face turned toward Jared's, and Jared curled on his side, a single hand resting on the small of Jensen's back. He feels Jared's breath on his cheek, doesn't open his eyes. Jared's thumb rubs along his spine. He wonders, half-asleep, if it makes any sense at all that he and Jared have been sleeping here, alternate sides of the bed on alternate nights, their positions, their bodies, so suited to each other. Or if it's just a question of probability, a fifty-fifty shot between left and right. Random, meaningless coincidence.
What he says, thoughts scrambling to the outer surface of sleep where he can still communicate, although fuzzily, is, “I hope it's fate.”
Jared doesn't ask. Jared doesn't say anything, just kisses him, his mouth and then, weirdly, the end of his nose. That's all Jensen remembers before falling asleep.
*
Sophia frowns when she hears two distinct voices, but Chad just shrugs and swings the door open.
Jared and Jensen are both in the kitchen, and Chad has a brief, stupid thought that they must have made friends, before he notices that they're collectively wearing a lot less clothing than friends generally do around each other. Well, that, and they're acting like a couple of lovestruck teenagers. They're giggling. And Chad is pretty sure Jensen's naked under his apron, silently wills the guy not to turn around and confirm his theory.
Jared sees them first, looks up from where Jensen is attempting to feed him a strip of bacon dipped in something gooey.
“Hey, it's the landlord,” he says, and snatches the bite of food from Jensen's fingers while the guy's distracted.
“Oh, hey,” Sophia says. “Good thing you're both here.” She looks pleased at the sight of them. Maybe turned on, it's hard to tell. Chad's slightly deficient in the mindreading department, but it's okay. She'll forgive him later when he asks her all about it. “Chad's got something to tell you.”
Jensen turns back to the stove, where a ridiculous amount of food is crackling and sizzling. Chad winces pre-emptively, but relaxes when he realizes there are boxers under the apron after all.
“What's up?” Jared says.
“I gotta sell the place,” Chad says. “Sorry, guys, but I don't really have a use for it anymore.”
“We can't really afford it anyway,” Sophia adds. “We just decided we're going to start trying to get pregnant.”
Chad shoots her a quick, embarrassed look. There's just something highly uncomfortable in talking about that kind of gross, girly stuff with two gay dudes. They don't seem to think so, though. Jared rushes over to hug them both. Chad makes a conscious effort not to flinch away from the embrace, instead pats Jared awkwardly on the back. When they part, Jensen's watching them, looking extremely amused.
“You guys want some breakfast?” he offers.
“Totally,” Sophia says, pulling a chair up to the table before Chad even has the chance to react. He follows suit, claiming the seat next to her, and in seconds he's met with a plateful of meat and eggs, and some kind of spicy, creamy sauce.
“So, this might be a little early to ask,” Jensen says, hand drifting across Jared's shoulders as he squeezes behind him to find his own seat. “But what are you thinking for an asking price? Two hundred? Two fifty?”
Jared's eyes narrow to slits, and he sets an elbow on the table, turns to fully face Jensen, but Jensen ignores him. His gaze flits from Sophia to Chad, and back again.
“I got it for one eighty,” Chad says. “Was thinking of starting somewhere around two thirty, but I already made back some of my down payment in rent, so if you're interested, you know, you're a friend. I might be able to cut you a deal.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, eyes coming to rest on Jared, small smile lighting up his face. Something passes between them, tangible. “I'm gonna have to go visit a bank, but yeah - definitely interested. I'm not ready to let this place go.”
Chad has plenty of time to avert his eyes before they kiss. He doesn't, though. It's kind of fascinating.
Sophia makes a happy noise beside him, leans her head on his shoulder. Chad relaxes into the touch, switches the fork to his other hand so he can lace their fingers together under the table.
END.
Part One / Soundtrack
Fourteen hours later, Jensen is about ready to stab his own brain out with a fondue fork for being so right all the time.
Misha's show was pretty standard fare for him (if cross-dressing and performing the Faye Dunaway incest revelation scene from Chinatown can ever be called standard). At its fullest, the small, dank theatre held maybe a hundred and fifty people, but that's not counting those who left during intermission, or the half dozen who didn't even make it that far. Misha didn't seem to notice, though, taking three curtain calls and then dragging Jensen backstage to his dressing room to immediately watch the tape of his performance.
They cracked open the bottle of scotch Jensen brought as a gift, and before the end of the first monologue (can it technically be called a monologue when Misha's having an imaginary conversation with his penis?) Misha's tongue was down Jensen's throat, hand down the front of his pants. Flashback.
“Yeah, you like that?” Misha said. He pulled open the button of Jensen's jeans, yanked the zipper down. “Just like old times, huh? Except with no mindgames. You wanna fuck me? Want me on my hands and knees, Jen?”
And God, but Jensen did. Or rather, his dick did. And his hands, his arms, his hips, his thighs, his mouth. His brain, though, was acting up again, and forcing his mouth to speak.
“What mindgames?”
“Oh, you know,” Misha said, managing to shrug using only his eyebrows while both hands were otherwise occupied. “All that boyfriend stuff, all the labels. We can finally be free of that.”
Jensen tried to kiss him, to shut him up before he said something that would derail the forthcoming sex and possibly crush Jensen's heart into a pulp even more than it already had been.
“It's just like I said in my show,” Misha said. “Gotta serve the cock. Give it what it wants. Give into its power. It's all part of our inherent maleness, Jensen. Who are we to fight nature?”
So the result wasn't exactly heartbreak, but sort of a mild, incredulous disgust. Same general outcome, though, which was that Jensen came to his senses. He ended up walking back to the apartment, keyed up, horny and sad, having de-gifted Misha's bottle of scotch and ingested most of it.
How he managed to unlock the door and make it to the couch, he doesn't know, but that's where he wakes up, face down, dangling hand still wrapped around the neck of the empty bottle. The inside of his mouth tastes like dried up old garbage, and his head seems to have lost cabin pressure, the contents threatening to squeeze out any and all available openings. And this is before he's even opened his eyes, which he's pretty sure is going to kill him, so he puts it off as long as he can.
Eventually, though, his own body betrays him, bladder uncomfortably full to the point of pain, and Jensen rolls off the couch and bolts for the sweet relief of the bathroom, blinking at the bright white light bouncing off the toilet. He pisses with his eyes closed, not even caring that he's probably splattering all over the place, and stumbles back to the couch in squinty half-blindness, bumping hard into the coffee table and feeling something shift.
There's a faint crinkle of paper and a whiff of salt and grease that has him considering the trip back to the bathroom very carefully. When he's fairly sure his stomach has stopped lurching, he drags himself back to the couch and forces his eyes to stay open.
There's a McDonald's bag on the table, transparent with grease and staining a dark rectangle into the wood. Next to it is a familiar folded-over piece of notebook paper. It takes him quite a while to focus on the text, even though the letters seem printed deliberately larger than usual.
Dear Friday,
Rough night?
Grabbed you some aspirin and some McD's breakfast. Hangovers are why the Egg McMuffin was invented, so I'm telling you right now not to bother lecturing me about saturated fats or culinary sacrilege or whatever is it I'm sure you're thinking. I had them add an extra sausage patty, so it's double the salt and grease. Enjoy!
Oh, also, remember: puke early, puke often. That's what my brother always says. Although I don't know that it's such great advice. Especially not the “puke often” part. Anyway, don't worry about the apartment, we'll just say you owe me a day and I'll claim it whenever.
It was nice to finally see you, even if you were unconscious and drooling (yep, drooling, haha!) at the time.
Talk to you soon,
Saturday
PS - Checkmate.
Jensen glances over at the chessboard, bemused. His king is being threatened from all sides. Chad was here, and only a little while ago. Hell, the Egg McMuffin's still on the warm side. He pulls open the bag, gets a whiff of grease and cheese before closing it again, swallowing down bitterness. He'll work his way up to eating it.
His cell phone shows five missed calls from Dean & DeLuca. It's ten thirty, which means his usual Saturday morning shift ends in half an hour. Jensen groans and leans his head back against the arm of the couch, carefully. He's probably fired, but it's hard to care about that right now. He's got a blanket, which he's pretty sure wasn't here when he passed out last night, and some aspirin, and the day to himself. He curls up, pulls the blanket over his head and closes his eyes, breathing deep.
*
“So you met the guy, then?” Chad says, ducking behind a hay bale.
Jared follows him. They're playing paintball. Chad's idea. They've become friends, sort of. Hey, it gets Jared out of Sandy's house for a few hours.
“No. Yes. Sort of.” Jared pauses, thoughtful. “I didn't meet him. I saw him.”
“Stalking? Kinky.”
Jared shrugs, slips his finger on and off the trigger, muzzle pointed straight in the air. There's the ratchety sound of someone else's gun going off. Elsewhere, some kid is swearing a blue streak at his dad.
“It's not stalking. I went in there and he was still there. He was sleeping. I left.”
“And then, after you rubbed one out...?” Chad says, and makes a swirly “go on” motion with his free hand.
Jared sighs. He wishes he'd never brought it up. He figured it would be good to talk about the Jensen thing with someone he just met, someone who didn't already have an image in their mind of who Jared Padalecki was and wasn't. But now he's just embarrassed, and Chad's prodding isn't helping.
“Just. I just thought it would be different if I actually saw him, you know? I thought I'd sort of come to my senses, and the, uh. The feelings would go away.”
Chad looks pained.
“I'm not having this conversation with you,” he says. “Not in the sacred arena of paintball. Not anywhere.”
“What? Why?”
Chad rolls his eyes. It looks really funny from behind his goggles.
“OK, fine. You're gay. End of conversation.”
He leans out to the side of the hay bale and fires six times in quick succession. By the time Jared processes Chad's words and stands, it's all over. They've won.
*
When Chad gets home, Sophia meets him at the door, arms folded tight across her chest.
“What's her name?” she says.
Chad's only taken aback for a second. Then he grins and tells the truth.
“Jared.”
Sophia huffs and glares.
“Fine. Don't tell me,” she says, and stomps off in the direction of the bedroom.
Chad follows, shaking his head. At least she's still stomping in the right direction.
*
It takes Jensen about 12 hours to recover. In those 12 hours, he pukes, reads the note from Mr. Saturday about five more times, pukes again, chokes down almost a whole Egg McMuffin, watches a bunch of cartoons and then heads home, where Chris takes one look at him, crosses his arms, smirks and says, “What's his name?”
“What? Who? What?” Jensen says, his throat feeling oddly constricted.
Chris laughs, fishing around in the fridge for a couple of beers.
“Your face, dude.”
“My face is fine! There's no name. There's no guy to name.”
Chris's eyes narrow. He opens his own beer but doesn't hand over the second bottle.
“You didn't... with...?” he says, and jerks his head towards the back bedroom.
“No. No. God. No.” Jensen pauses, cringing. “Well. Almost.”
“Ugh, Jenny, why?” Chris says, still withholding beer. “I can barely stand him when he's fucking chicks. Stick his dick up a guy and he's ten times as obnoxious.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jensen says. “The power of the almighty cock.”
Chris snorts, finally handing over the bottle.
“He acts like he's the only guy ever to have a dick.”
“Yeah, he fucks like it, too.”
Chris laughs, but then he punches Jensen in the arm, hard. His hand tingles.
“So what the hell's wrong with you? Quit following him around like a puppy, doing him favours all the time!”
“I'm not,” Jensen says. “Not anymore, anyway.”
“Not til next time, huh?” Chris says, and knocks the butt of his bottle against the sore spot on Jensen's arm that Jensen is stubbornly not rubbing.
Jensen rolls his eyes but chooses not to comment. He goes to sleep that night three feet away from an anonymous snoring lump in the other bed, thinking he's going to have to spend more time alone if he's ever going to get good at it.
The next morning, he wakes up from a dream in which he's relentlessly chasing a faceless, nameless man through the rooms of the downtown apartment. Every new room, the guy leaves something behind - a watch, a shirt, an overcoat. Jensen collects it all, but it slows him down, and every new piece steals more of his attention, until he's so distracted he forgets the point of his pursuit. He wakes up with relentless morning wood and a kind of fluttery feeling in his stomach.
That's about when he decides he has to meet this Chad guy.
He spends all Sunday vibrating, trying to distract himself with a new pork marinade he's working on. Monday's shift at D & D goes by in a nervous blur. Danneel asks him three times if he's started taking any new medication she should know about. The day's end won't come fast enough, and then when it does he realizes he has no idea what he's planning to do. Just burst into the place? Make up some story? Wear tight jeans and come on strong? He'd have to buy some, it's not like he's got time to go home and change. Actually, he thinks he's maybe got a pair in the apartment, which would be awkward. “Do you mind if I come in, change my pants and then attempt to seduce you?” No, definitely not doing that.
He ends up standing in the hallway, staring at the apartment door for about five minutes before screwing up his courage and knocking. Nothing happens. There's the faint sound of music from inside the apartment, so he knocks louder. The music might be Chumbawumba. He really hopes not.
“Who is it?” someone yells from behind the door.
Jensen watches the peephole go dark. He smiles, tries not to look too awkward.
“Jensen,” he says. “I kinda live here?”
There's the sound of the chain sliding off the door and then it swings open, revealing a guy with spiky blond hair and a few days' worth of stubble. He's wearing loose-fitting grey sweats and a stained white t-shirt.
“Right. Come in.”
He does, and finds that indeed, Chumbawumba is blaring from the stereo.
“Chad, right?”
“That's me,” the guy says. “What can I do for you?”
Jensen shrugs and fails at coming up with a good excuse for his presence. Finally, he says, “I was just in the neighbourhood.”
“Oh,” Chad says. “You want some pizza? I'm about to win the Star Cup on Mirror Mode, so, you know, just hang out for a while. It'll be, like, ten minutes. I'm gonna cream these fuckers.”
So Chad plays Mario Kart, and Jensen sits at the other end of the couch and watches. He doesn't eat the pizza - it's cold and looks like it's been sitting on the coffee table in its open box for hours. He hopes Chad doesn't take it personally. There's also a half-empty bowl of Froot Loops sitting on the floor at Chad's feet, halfway under the couch. If this is how the guy usually feeds himself, then it's no wonder he's so appreciative of Jensen's leftovers.
Chad grunts a lot and yells at the TV. He seems to forget Jensen's there, except for between the races. Jensen tunes out the nineties mix blaring from the stereo and waits.
And waits.
Chad comes in third and starts over. Jensen waits some more. The stereo switches to Nickelback.
When Chad comes in third again, Jensen says, “I thought maybe we could talk.”
“Sure,” Chad says, starting a new game. “Shoot.”
“Could you turn the Wii off, actually? And the music?”
Chad looks a little annoyed, but he powers down the console and stereo and puts his feet up on the coffee table. Jensen clears his throat.
“I wanted to thank you for the stuff you left here the other day,” he begins. It's hard, face to face for the first time. He already feels so close to the guy but he's spoken barely ten words to him. He chuckles, thinks about Chad's goofy hangover advice. “Really came in handy.”
“Yeah?” Chad says, looking pleased, but slightly unsettled. “Nice. I guess, you know, what's mine is yours, and all that stuff.”
“I wouldn't normally do this, but I... I feel really close to you.”
Chad's eyebrows are doing this strange caterpillar mating ritual on his forehead.
“Yeah,” he says awkwardly. “Well. Uh. We do share a bathroom.”
“Among other things,” Jensen says, and smiles. He expected Chad to smile back, but the guy just looks a little bemused and uncomfortable. Maybe he's shy, Jensen thinks. Or maybe Jensen's just been reading the whole situation wrong. “Is this okay?”
Chad frowns, eyes flicking back to the blank TV for a second.
“Is what okay?”
Jensen moves closer, finds his hand reaching for Chad's upper arm. When he makes contact, thumb rubbing the inside of Chad's elbow, Chad just stares at his fingers.
“You know. This.”
“You're trying to seduce me,” Chad says slowly.
Jensen laughs, nervous. “You make it sound so sleazy.”
“Dude, you're trying to - It is sleazy!” Chad's suddenly agitated. He gets to his feet, paces until he's marching around behind the couch, Jensen's head spinning with the effort of following his quick movements. “I don't even know you! It's sleazy as hell and you know what? I'm normally way into sleazy. But not when it involves some other guy's dick getting anywhere near mine! Ugh, what the fuck? That's so gay.”
Jensen's face is so hot it feels like it should be melting off, Raiders style.
“Shit, I thought...”
“You thought wrong, brother.”
Chad's eyes are wild, but his voice is somber, stern.
“Shit, I'm sorry,” Jensen says, heart sinking. He buries his face in his hands. “Really, really sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. It just seemed like we had some sort of a connection. I guess maybe I read a little too much into it.”
“What, from jerking it to the same porno mags?” Chad says. “News flash: you're gay! Why the hell are you looking at my old Hustlers? To feel closer to me?” He looks a little nauseated. “Is that why you spent all that time cozying up to Jared, too? To get to me? That's cold, dude.”
“Huh?” Jensen says. He gets to his feet, although he's pretty sure Chad won't be making sense from that angle, either. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know, the gooey little love notes you two leave all over the apartment.”
“Me and Jared?” Jensen says, thinking of dirty socks and too much hair gel. This cannot be happening.
Chad seems to calm down some. He stops pacing and sits on the arm of the couch.
“Yeah, dumbass. The guy's a friend of mine. And he's kinda really into you, so you turning out to be some pervy gay stalker who's obsessed with me? That's gonna kill him.”
“Wait, what?” Jensen says. “I don't understand. Jared's the one who's been leaving me notes?”
Chad leans back then, arms crossed, and smiles.
“Oh, this is good. You thought... Oh, this is priceless.”
“You haven't been playing chess with me?”
Chad scoffs, like it's ridiculous.
Jensen's whole worldview feels malleable, impermanent. It's dizzying, and he's glad he's in the apartment for it. The place is grounding to him. He goes into the kitchen, takes a few deep breaths. Chad follows, rooting through the fridge.
“Me and Jared switched our days. I guess my assistant never bothered to tell you.”
“Uh-huh?” Jensen's voice is squeaky, thin.
“I gave him two of my days for two of his so I could go to this church thing and make my fiancée happy. We've been following a different schedule this whole time.”
Chad emerges from the fridge with his hand immersed in a jar of pickles and a childish, gleeful look on his face.
“You have a fiancée?” Jensen says, incredulous.
“Why does everyone always say that?” Chad wonders aloud, sucking on pickle juice halfway down his arm. When he starts licking himself, Jensen shudders and looks away. He pictures the schedule he knows and tries to work through the changes.
“So Jared has Saturdays. And... Thursdays?”
“Bingo.”
“And you're the one with the vintage porn and the black leather bean bag chair.”
“Hells yeah,” Chad says. “That thing is swingin'.”
Jensen's head is spinning. He can't believe what just almost happened. He was ready to mindlessly throw himself at this slob, no questions asked. What if he really has been reading the signs wrong, and this Jared person reacts the same way? Worse: what if the Jared he knows is only one small facet of a person Jensen won't end up liking that much? It's like he's learned nothing from his repeated Misha encounters, still ready and willing to jump in and get his heart chewed up and spit out by whoever happens to be available for the task.
“I gotta sit down,” Jensen says.
Chad must have seen the look on his face, because he's already getting the Jack Daniels down from the liquor shelf.
*
Jared is having a shitty week. It starts when he goes into the toy store on Monday to find that they've closed. They won't be needing his services anymore, and can't afford to settle his back pay. Then Sandy goes on a date with some guy named Stuart who picks her up at her place and insists on coming inside and shaking Jared's hand. He's one of those guys who has a Blackberry clipped to his belt and wears a polo shirt tucked into his pants. Jared hates him on sight, but Sandy seems to like him, because she doesn't come home until eight the next morning.
Then Jared shows up for the Madden tournament he and Chad had planned to find Chad's fiancée hanging out in the apartment. She's wearing lounge pants, her hair in a messy bun, and she's probably the second most beautiful girl Jared's ever seen. She and Chad are in the middle of a game, the Buffalo Bills losing spectacularly to the Green Bay Packers, and they're roughhousing and calling each other names.
It's all very sweet. It maybe breaks his heart a little.
They tell him to stick around, and Chad looks like he wants to tell him something, shrugs helplessly and explains that Sophia followed him here, discovered his secret hang-out. Jared doesn't stay long. Just long enough to admit to Chad that without a steady income, he's going to have to back out of the apartment arrangement at the end of the month and go back to sleeping on Sandy's couch full-time.
On Thursday there's no note from Jensen, and no food. Not that he was expecting anything, but it seems strange, no contact whatsoever. And Jensen's food always makes him feel better, warms him from the inside in a way nothing else ever has. He could really use some of that right about now.
On Friday, just after he leaves the apartment, Sandy calls him in tears and says she wants to try getting back together. Her fling with Stuart has made her realize what's important in life, and she'd like to meet up tonight and talk about giving their relationship another try. They make reservations at an Italian place uptown and Jared spends the day wandering around, looking for Help Wanted signs and trying not to think too hard about the sense of wrongness churning around in his belly.
He's in an upscale part of town, thinking about grabbing a little lunch, when he looks through a random window and spots Jensen. At least, he's pretty sure it's Jensen - it's hard to be 100% certain because this guy is wearing an apron, standing up and talking, while he's only ever seen Jensen asleep.
Jared backs up, checks out the marquee. It makes sense that Jensen would work here, even though they've never discussed their jobs.
He watches through the window for a while, as Jensen doles out advice, measures, cuts and wraps various cheeses. He looks good, Jared thinks. He looks like he knows what he's talking about.
It's a little startling when Jared catches sight of his own reflection in the window and realizes he's smiling this wide, helpless smile. He feels kind of ridiculous, and that's all it takes to send him inside, taking his place in line behind a slightly confused old lady. He listens as Jensen patiently guides her to the camembert and explains the difference between two wheels of identical-looking cheese. There's not a doubt left in him now: this is Jensen, his Jensen. He doesn't even care how that sounds, already so possessive without even officially meeting the guy.
“Hey,” Jensen's saying. “Can I help you?”
The old lady's paid and gone. Jared's alone with him.
“Yeah,” Jared says, feeling a hint of that smile tugging at his cheeks, threatening to give him away. “What... what would you recommend?”
“Depends what you want it for,” Jensen says, his clear eyes searching Jared's face.
“Just to eat,” Jared says lamely. “Just for me, you know. What's something you like?”
“Really?” Jensen says. He looks flustered, spends a couple of second stammering before answering. “I, uh, there's a Dutch six year-old gouda I really like, but it's not all that expensive.”
“Cool, I'll have some of that.”
Jensen looks confused. “You don't want to see something more upscale?”
“Nah, I'll take your word for it.”
“How much do you want?”
“Surprise me.”
Jensen looks at him, then, really looks. And then he grins, bright and sweet. Jared watches his hands as he handles the knife, sinking it into a large orange wheel of cheese and slicing off a generous amount.
“It's great with beer,” he tells Jared. “Like a dark lager. Or a light red wine. But you look like more of a beer guy.”
“You got me,” Jared says. He's pretty sure Jensen is supposed to turn around now, use the table behind him to wrap Jared's purchase. But instead he just fidgets a little, eyes locked with Jared's, small smile still on his lips.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“Nah,” Jared says, smiling back. Something warm and intimate passes between them. At least, Jared thinks it does. “I'm good.”
“Excuse me, do you two mind batting your eyelashes at each other some other time?” someone says behind him.
Jared turns around and his jaw drops. Gordon Ramsay is standing there in jeans and a t-shirt, looking annoyed as hell. It's an expression Jared is very familiar with from the many episodes of Hell's Kitchen they have on the Tivo in the apartment.
“Uh...” he says.
“Some of us actually care about good taste,” Ramsay says, eyeing the cheese that Jensen is now wrapping. His face is full of contempt. He's betting the guy will be spending a lot of money here, and giving Jensen a hell of a hard time while doing so.
Jensen rings Jared up, eyes downcast, avoiding both his gaze and Gordon's.
“Eleven fifty.”
Jared hands over the cash and gets out of the way as Ramsay starts to explain the meal he's planning. Jensen casts one last look his way, and then turns his full attention to his customer.
It's a fitting goodbye, Jared thinks, his heart feeling sluggish and too full.
*
Jensen comes back to the apartment on Friday itching to tell Jared all about his encounter with Gordon Ramsay. The guy's even more of a douchebag in person. It's really quite something, and Jared would love to know this, he's sure, but he can't quite bring himself to write the note. It's for his own good, he knows. He's going to try being alone, and that means no more notes, no more flirting. He needs to cool things down.
Naturally, once he makes that realization, he gets jittery and takes to the kitchen to calm his nerves. He starts working on a variation on Tarte Tatin he's had on his mind for the past few weeks, substituting apples for pears and perfecting the sweetness and firmness of the fruit with multiple attempts.
He makes it halfway through the second pie before his mind even attempts to wander back into dangerous territory. There was a guy. Before Gordon Ramsay attempted to break his spirit with demands for cheese that could pay its own way through college. And Jensen flirted. Harmless, sure, but this whole week he's been contemplating celibacy, and those thoughts just flew right out of his head when that guy smiled at him.
He's weak. And he can't tell what's worse, the fact that he was so easily charmed despite his resolve to give up men, or the fact that he's feeling guilty now. Guilty, because that guy wasn't Jared.
Yeah, Jensen's pretty much screwed.
His second tart comes out perfect. He makes a third anyway.
*
Sandy looks beautiful. She smiles when she sees him, soft and sweet, and the vulnerability evident in her eyes even across the crowded restaurant makes his chest feel tight.
“I thought you were ditching me,” she says. “It's eight fifteen.”
“Sorry.”
He sits quickly, feeling conspicuous and awkward. Ruggiero's is crowded, loud. Everywhere he looks, diners are cutting into chicken breasts and slurping wine. Their waiter rushes over, impatient, and Jared places an order and immediately forgets what it was. Sandy orders the mushroom ravioli with extra garlic bread. The girl can really eat, none of that dainty pecking most girls do, and Jared remembers that's one of the many things he loved about her. He smiles, feeling wistful, and she smiles back.
“What?”
“Nothing. You look nice.”
“You too,” she says, even though he doesn't, really. He's wearing the same old street clothes he's had on all day. Jensen saw him in these clothes.
Their drinks come. Jared pours his beer into a chilled glass, stares at the wet marks his fingers leave on the frosted surface. He doesn't look up when he speaks.
“I don't know if I can do this, now.”
If Sandy's taken aback, she doesn't show it.
“What's the problem?” she says, sounding strangely more like a plumber than a girlfriend. Ready and willing to plug up their leaks, make the two of them watertight again.
“Uh,” Jared says. He clears his throat, sips his beer. Clears his throat again. “Well. For one thing, I might be gay. Ish. Maybe.”
“Oh,” Sandy says. This is probably not how she was expecting this conversation to go, and she's looking a little lost, but she's not enraged, so he figures this is going well. Hell, he had no idea what he was about to say, and he's the one whose mouth it came barrelling out of.
“There's this guy, and I... I thought I could just walk away, but now I'm realizing... I don't think I can. And that means something. He means something. To me. I don't know what yet, but...”
“I don't understand,” Sandy says. “Who is this guy? When did you meet him?”
Jared's a little sheepish. He realizes how this sounds, he does.
“I kinda haven't yet. Not officially, anyway. But I... I know him.”
Their waiter fakes them out, swoops by their table with heaped plates.
“Go,” Sandy says. She's got this sad little smile on her face. “You're twitching out of your chair.”
“What about the food?”
“I'll switch it to take out.”
It's strange, Jared thinks, how she's suddenly looking at him, really looking, in a way she hasn't since they first started dating.
“Sandy...”
“Jared, go,” she says again. “Go meet your man.”
And she shoos him fondly, gets up to find their waiter.
So he goes.
He's not particularly quiet when he lets himself in. He doesn't call out, or anything, but he kicks off his shoes, drops his keys on the sideboard, his jacket on a chair. He can hear Jensen in the kitchen, humming to himself. The place smells amazing, fruity and buttery.
Jensen's back is to the door, both hands in the sink, scrubbing hardened caramel from a saucepan. Jared leans in the doorframe and watches him for a while. He's got a smudged white apron tied around his waist, and streaks of flour all over his grey t-shirt. He's still humming, muttering actual lyrics here and there, little phrases and random single words. Jared vaguely recognizes the melody as a Stones song.
He holds his breath, imagines he's invisible. He could stand here and watch all day.
Jensen runs the pan under the tape and finally turns, reaching for the fridge handle, where a dishrag hangs limply. He doesn't jump, exactly, when he sees Jared. Just freezes mid-step, water dribbling onto the tiled floor.
“Hey,” Jared says.
He steps forward, pulls the dishrag free and takes the pan from Jensen. He was planning on drying the dish, introducing himself properly, but then he catches sight of Jensen, how there's this white streak, flour or confectioner's sugar, running from the collar of his shirt, up his neck to his jaw. Once he's noticed it, he somehow can't stop himself from kissing it, just advancing on Jensen and pressing his lips to the guy's neck. It's not flour but sugar, melting in the warmth of his mouth, and Jared follows the trail down to the hollow of Jensen's throat, until all he tastes is the salt of skin. Then he steps back, breathless.
Jensen just stares. He's wiggling his fingers slightly, like they've gone numb and he wants to make sure they're still attached.
Jared dries the saucepan thoroughly and sets it on the counter.
“Please tell me you're Jared,” Jensen says. His tone is mostly teasing, but it's tired, too, shaky, and Jared knows better than to jerk him around.
“Yeah,” Jared says. “That's my name.”
“Thank God,” Jensen breathes, stepping close again, backing Jared against the counter. He stretches upwards a tiny bit to kiss Jared, a proper kiss this time, lips parted slightly, moving languidly against Jared's, stubble of his chin scratching at Jared's skin.
They fit. Jared hadn't really thought about that. When he first saw Jensen, walked in on him curled into a fitful ball on the couch, he was caught off-guard by his desire to touch. But he's never thought about it in terms of size, compatibility. Jensen is solid against him. When he touches Jared's shirt, he leaves warm, wet fingerprints.
It grows in intensity, gets frantic when Jared starts kissing back, his hands roaming, one to the back of Jensen's head and one slipping in under his apron strings. Jared's breathless, mind racing, and for some reason he feels a pressing need to explain himself more, which is really hard to do when his mouth is otherwise occupied. He speaks in bursts between hurried kisses.
“I know how it seems, but - you should know that I'm not - God, I'm not stalking you or anything. It probably looks that way. The truth is I was just walking around - you know, thinking about lunch and I - mmm - there you were in a window. And I thought wow, what the hell are the odds, you know?”
Jensen kisses him a while longer before pulling back, just enough that he can look Jared in the eye, his rapid breath warm and regular on Jared's chin.
“What'd you do with the cheese?”
Jared grins, sheepish.
“It's in my jacket pocket.”
Jensen kisses him again, deep. Jared moans when he pulls away.
“Bring it over.”
“What? Why?”
Jared feels a bewildered smile tugging at his cheeks. He leans in, touches his forehead to Jensen's and they stand there, breathing each other's air for a few seconds before Jensen answers.
“Cause I'm gonna cook you dinner,” he says. Jared wants to laugh, because it sounds like a line, but the way Jensen says it is sweet.
So Jensen cooks him dinner, and Jared helps, which in this case means he gets to pound a bunch of herbs and spices into a pulp with a mortar and pestle, and stir what Jensen tells him to stir. The rest of the time, Jared sits up on the counter next to the fridge and watches while Jensen slices and braises and sears, and just generally creates a feast out of thin air.
They talk. Jensen tells him about his cramped bohemian living situation and about touring with his friend's band last summer. Jared makes dumb cheese puns and Jensen's generous enough to laugh. They touch casually, Jensen's hand on Jared's thigh as he walks to the fridge to rummage through the produce drawer. Jared tugging on the front of Jensen's apron, pulling him in for a quick kiss (he lets him go after a few seconds, before anything can catch fire).
“I was supposed to give this up, you know,” Jensen says without turning away from what he's doing at the stove.
“What?”
“I don't know,” Jensen says. He's blushing a little, Jared thinks. “Sex? Love? Men?”
“So what happened?”
“I don't know,” Jensen says again. He turns and gives Jared this smirk. It's really quite amazing. “I guess I'm weak.”
“Lucky for me.”
They eat at the table. It's maybe the first time Jared's bothered to sit there since he moved into the apartment - usually he just munches on Jensen's leftovers out of the container, sprawled on the couch in front of the TV. It's nice. There's good beer, and steak, and this salad with grilled plums and nuts and the cheese Jensen sold him. It's delicious, and Jared keeps telling Jensen that, because everytime he does, the guy's face gets a little redder. He has freckles that stand out on his cheeks and ears when he blushes. Jared maybe wants to keep making him blush forever.
The conversation slows a bit as they really dig into the meal. Their gazes keep meeting across the table, and every time they do, Jared's stomach does this funny little flip. His mind keeps wandering. He wants so much, all at once. To touch Jensen's body. To kiss him again. To find the perfect thing to say to make those faint lines at the corners of his eyes crinkle, the way he's seen them to a few times now. He wants to take him into the bedroom (their bedroom, technically) and strip all the clothes off him, taste every inch of his skin. Jared's mouth waters. He takes another bite of food and tries to be patient.
*
It's not the sex that blows Jensen away so much as what comes directly afterwards.
Okay, yes, the sex is awesome. Even on full stomachs, when they should be feeling slow and sleepy.
Jensen's on his back, Jared naked above him, kissing him, Jared's body bracketing his. It's their first time together, and Jared's first time with a man at all, information he practically had to wring from the guy, so Jensen's trying to take it slow, but Jared's having none of it. He wraps Jensen's cock in one huge spit-slick hand, works him nice and rough, persistent, until Jensen's whimpering for him to stop or else he's going to come way too early. Jared lets go then, leans forward on one elbow and kisses Jensen, hot and dirty, his tongue immediately coming into play, thrusting into Jensen's mouth about the same time he starts fingering Jensen's ass.
It's too much, and Jensen, so close already, comes hard, all over himself and Jared. It's almost painful without anything touching his dick, and he wraps his hand around himself, strokes himself through it, shuddery and groaning, Jared's fingers still pressing into him. Jesus, it feels like it lasts forever.
“You good?” Jared whispers into his ear.
He's done, limbs liquid. He nods, not trusting his voice just yet.
“I want -” Jared says. “God, I want to fuck you. Want to be in you, Jensen, please.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, his voice almost hoarse. “I want it too.”
It's only after Jared reaches blindly into the bedside table for the lube and condoms that it occurs to Jensen that Jared knew where they were, could find Jensen's supplies without even looking. Jared lives here too, knows every nook and cranny.
Jared lubes up his fingers, slowly spreads Jensen open. Jensen's pliant and sleepy, watching him through a euphoric haze as he finishes up, wipes his hand on the foot of the bed before tearing into the condom and rolling it on. If Jensen could save just one image from tonight, this would be it: Jared kneeling in front of him, breathless, his face flushed and joyful, eager, and his dick standing up against his stomach, its distinct shape, curved slightly to the right.
He wants to know everything there is to know about Jared's dick. Every little flaw and freckle. He wants to know everything there is to know about Jared, and that doesn't scare him nearly as much as it probably should.
When Jared pushes inside him, it's dull, aching pressure mixed with spent arousal, and Jensen bucks his hips to take him further in. He locks his arms around Jared's neck, and Jared starts moving without being told, slow and careful at first, then harder, quicker. The bedframe knocks repeatedly against the wall like some sort of movie cliche, and Jensen can't find it in himself to care that their upstairs and downstairs neighbours can hear.
He feels it building inside him again, unexpectedly quick and intense, and he closes his eyes against the rush of feeling, but forces them open again when Jared grunts out, “Fuck, Jensen, I'm gonna...” His movements become frantic, but his face still has this open fondness to it, his eyes flitting from Jensen's face to the place where their bodies join. When he comes, he cries out, hides his face against Jensen's chest. He takes Jensen along for the ride, the pulsing and trembling of Jared's cock still buried deep inside him more than enough to set Jensen off again. Fuck, he didn't know that was possible.
They lie there, catching their breath together. Jared's warm and slightly sweaty, and Jensen has a strange urge to ruffle his hair. After a minute of stillness, he does, and Jared laughs but doesn't pull away just yet.
After they've cleaned up a bit, bumbled around each other in the bathroom, which was varying degrees of awkward, they head back to bed for the night.
Jared says, “I'm not going to have to fight you for the left side, am I?”
“No,” Jensen says. “I like the right.”
They fit, just like that, Jensen on his stomach, face turned toward Jared's, and Jared curled on his side, a single hand resting on the small of Jensen's back. He feels Jared's breath on his cheek, doesn't open his eyes. Jared's thumb rubs along his spine. He wonders, half-asleep, if it makes any sense at all that he and Jared have been sleeping here, alternate sides of the bed on alternate nights, their positions, their bodies, so suited to each other. Or if it's just a question of probability, a fifty-fifty shot between left and right. Random, meaningless coincidence.
What he says, thoughts scrambling to the outer surface of sleep where he can still communicate, although fuzzily, is, “I hope it's fate.”
Jared doesn't ask. Jared doesn't say anything, just kisses him, his mouth and then, weirdly, the end of his nose. That's all Jensen remembers before falling asleep.
*
Sophia frowns when she hears two distinct voices, but Chad just shrugs and swings the door open.
Jared and Jensen are both in the kitchen, and Chad has a brief, stupid thought that they must have made friends, before he notices that they're collectively wearing a lot less clothing than friends generally do around each other. Well, that, and they're acting like a couple of lovestruck teenagers. They're giggling. And Chad is pretty sure Jensen's naked under his apron, silently wills the guy not to turn around and confirm his theory.
Jared sees them first, looks up from where Jensen is attempting to feed him a strip of bacon dipped in something gooey.
“Hey, it's the landlord,” he says, and snatches the bite of food from Jensen's fingers while the guy's distracted.
“Oh, hey,” Sophia says. “Good thing you're both here.” She looks pleased at the sight of them. Maybe turned on, it's hard to tell. Chad's slightly deficient in the mindreading department, but it's okay. She'll forgive him later when he asks her all about it. “Chad's got something to tell you.”
Jensen turns back to the stove, where a ridiculous amount of food is crackling and sizzling. Chad winces pre-emptively, but relaxes when he realizes there are boxers under the apron after all.
“What's up?” Jared says.
“I gotta sell the place,” Chad says. “Sorry, guys, but I don't really have a use for it anymore.”
“We can't really afford it anyway,” Sophia adds. “We just decided we're going to start trying to get pregnant.”
Chad shoots her a quick, embarrassed look. There's just something highly uncomfortable in talking about that kind of gross, girly stuff with two gay dudes. They don't seem to think so, though. Jared rushes over to hug them both. Chad makes a conscious effort not to flinch away from the embrace, instead pats Jared awkwardly on the back. When they part, Jensen's watching them, looking extremely amused.
“You guys want some breakfast?” he offers.
“Totally,” Sophia says, pulling a chair up to the table before Chad even has the chance to react. He follows suit, claiming the seat next to her, and in seconds he's met with a plateful of meat and eggs, and some kind of spicy, creamy sauce.
“So, this might be a little early to ask,” Jensen says, hand drifting across Jared's shoulders as he squeezes behind him to find his own seat. “But what are you thinking for an asking price? Two hundred? Two fifty?”
Jared's eyes narrow to slits, and he sets an elbow on the table, turns to fully face Jensen, but Jensen ignores him. His gaze flits from Sophia to Chad, and back again.
“I got it for one eighty,” Chad says. “Was thinking of starting somewhere around two thirty, but I already made back some of my down payment in rent, so if you're interested, you know, you're a friend. I might be able to cut you a deal.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, eyes coming to rest on Jared, small smile lighting up his face. Something passes between them, tangible. “I'm gonna have to go visit a bank, but yeah - definitely interested. I'm not ready to let this place go.”
Chad has plenty of time to avert his eyes before they kiss. He doesn't, though. It's kind of fascinating.
Sophia makes a happy noise beside him, leans her head on his shoulder. Chad relaxes into the touch, switches the fork to his other hand so he can lace their fingers together under the table.
END.
Part One / Soundtrack