The Third Third 3/10+
Title: The Third Third 3/10+
Author:
insane_songbird
Pairing: J2
Rating: R
Words: ~4300
Warnings: Violence (Hello, it’s Ice Hockey!), Language, NC17 later-on (that means sex, people!)
Disclaimer: Slavery is bad... It’s a lie, all of it.
Summary: Being a Texas boy Jared Padalecki couldn’t care less about ice hockey. So Jared is slightly lost, when his new roommate Chad is the biggest fan on campus. But when he gets to tutor the most infamous player of the college team, things start to get downright scary. Jensen Ackles has a reputation for aggression control problems and Jared has no idea how to get through the semester without either falling for the handsome man or ending up in a fistfight he’d be sure to lose.
All Parts
Candy, kitty, Ema, Rhiannon, Deanna... you all know who you are and what you did for this fic... I can't link you hear because it ruins my cut. Love you all! *hugs*
previous part
Part Three
“Jared?”
Jared was sitting at lunch stuffing his face with mashed potatoes when he heard a rather roughened up voice behind him. He swallowed - so he wouldn’t look like a complete idiot - and turned around with big eyes and a questioning look. His eyes got even bigger when he saw that the rough voice Jared couldn’t help but find sexy in the too-much-whiskey-on-a-Sunday kind of way belonged to Jensen who surprisingly flopped down rather unceremoniously on the empty chair next to Jared.
Jared couldn’t help his gaze wandering to the colorful bruise that spread across Jensen’s jaw on the left. It was still startlingly visible through the designer stubble of a couple unshaven days - which looked sightly unruly and made Jared’s mouth run dry. God, he seriously needed to get laid, before he made a move on Jensen in his hormone-driven state and found himself in the hospital or worse.
Jensen frowned at him for a moment before understanding flashed through his eyes, and he traced his fingers across the purple and green beneath his short facial hair. “We had our game… It got a little heated to the end.”
“Yeah, I saw it.” Jared answered instinctively without thinking too much and earned himself another frown.
“You did?”
Jared shrugged hoping to god that he didn’t blush like he thought he did. “I told you; my roommate is the head of the fan club… he wouldn’t let me skip it.”
Jensen squinted for a moment as though he was arranging his thoughts. “Murray, right?”
Jared nodded mutely, unsure of what to say to this disturbingly normal conversation. Maybe Jensen was having one of his manic days.
“The guy is completely crazy… but he’s fun.”
With that Jensen started to dig around his shoulder bag leaving Jared to mutter, “If that’s what you wanna call it.”
Jensen actually cracked him a small, one-sided smile, sparing the bruised part of his face the movement. Jared watched fascinated as Jensen rummaged around an obviously disorganized bag, trailing his tongue across his lower lip. He found himself staring at those lips, and his inner Neanderthal fully approved.
Jensen smiled again as he pulled a stack of paper out of his bag. He leafed through it for a second before nodding to himself and holding it out for Jared to take. Jared only stared at the sportsman's outstretched hand for a long second. Then his momma’s mental imprint whipped his ass, and he kick-started his motor cortex. He took the papers with a frown. “Thanks, what is this?”
Jensen threw the flap back over his bag and set it down at his feet. “It’s the essays you asked for. Five pages on every chapter… though I had to do six on the second and seven on the last one, or I wouldn’t have mentioned everything important.”
Jared was stunned for a moment, his eyebrows rising to his hairline. When Jensen looked at him expectantly with an expression that said “Well?” Jared looked at the stack of papers in his hand and started flipping through them. There really were four essays with at least five pages each written in narrow but tidy handwriting, each essay clipped together in the corner.
“Thanks…errr.” Jared cursed himself for being such an eloquent person at times like this. “I didn’t really expect them until Friday.”
Jensen shrugged and leaned sideways against the table. “You said you needed to make sure that they were sufficient, or we would do double lessons. I thought you'd want to read them through before the actual date, so you could haul my ass in for a double lesson if necessary.”
“Oh…” Jared’s mind hat stuttered to a halt at Jensen using the word ‘date’. Oh god, he was so screwed to hell. “Thanks, that’s great. I didn’t think you’d have time to do them before the game, and then after the whole fistfight thing I thought you'd have anything but my assignment on your mind.” It seemed like Jared’s dread towards their lesson involving all kinds of scenarios where Jensen had not done the assignment and Jared was forced to get into another fight with the man were void, and he felt some of the tension slipping off.
The sides of Jensen’s eyes creased as he smiled - a gesture that went directly to parts of Jared that he so tried to keep out of this conversation. “I think you have to go to more games, Jared. You’ll see that this kind of thing isn't too uncommon. If I stopped working whenever I had a little brawl on the ice, I’d not pass a single class… Oh and if you’re wondering… That,” Jensen tapped the papers in Jared’s hands, “Really is my handwriting. Actually, I wrote the whole thing. All by myself.”
Jared swallowed hard at the reminder of his accusations and eyed the grin that was still spreading across the unbruised half of Jensen’s face with an uneasy feeling. Jensen was still mad at him. This proved it, and the fact that he could still be civil to Jared scared him even more than the latent aggressively grumpy version of the man. Holy shit! He wanted to apologize, but as he opened his mouth Jensen had already strapped his bag over his shoulder and waved at him with a “Friday!” as he took off to god knew where.
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When Jensen walked away leaving Jared to the rest of his lunch, he couldn’t help but grin. It looked like he had caught the other man completely off guard, and Jensen enjoyed that with wicked satisfaction. Jared looked like he knew he had been a prick, and Jensen hoped for a better attitude for their next lesson. He knew the essays he had written were good enough to satisfy his tutor, and even though he had pored over them all night the surprised look on Jared’s face had been totally worth it.
At one point in their little chat, Jared had even blushed, and Jensen thought that looked absolutely adorable. If the guy weren’t such an elitist prick, Jensen might even have found him cute.
“He’s cute.” Jensen’s head snapped up to see Chris and Steve standing before him.
“What?”
“I see that grin on your face, man. You think it; I just say the words.”
Jensen killed Chris twice over with his eyes, but Chris obviously didn’t care. “You’re not even gay, Chris. How would you know who’s cute?”
Chris exchanged a knowing smile with Steve. “I might be straight, but I’m not blind. I know he’s hot stuff… and I know you’re hot stuff.” A grin spread on both their faces before Chris continued. “And even if I couldn’t decide on that, I saw how you were totally flirting with him, and he blushed like a girl, so I think I’m on the safe side here.”
Jensen scowled at him. “I wasn’t flirting.”
Steve nodded slowly. “Well your body sure as hell was.”
God damn his body. Jensen should be saving all his flirting powers for someone who was actually worth the shot, but whenever someone like that came around he was completely useless in the flirt-department. “Jared is out of question, guys.”
“And why would that be?” Steve asked, quirking an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Because we don’t even get along. He thinks I’m stupid, and I have to say that for a guy with the reputation as the polite geeky type he can be a goddamn prick… and, besides, he isn’t gay.”
When Chris started laughing, Jensen wanted to slap him over the head. “Man, and they say your kind has something called a gay-dar? You so have to get yours fixed, Jen.” He stepped into Jensen’s personal space, curled one arm around his shoulder and turned him slightly to bring his eyes back to Jared, who wasn’t sitting on his own anymore since Chad and Sophia had joined him over the last minutes. “I hate to break it to you, but that boy is as gay as they come.”
Jensen eyed the group for a moment, but there was just no big rainbow neon sign starting to flash at Jared’s back. Jensen unwound himself from Chris’ hold and started walking away, but his two teammates followed at his heels. “He’s not gay, Chris. He’s from Texas for god’s sake.”
“How would you know that?” Steve asked, frowning. “I thought you didn’t do small talk.”
Jensen pinched the bridge of his nose as an enormous headache started to unfurl behind his eyes. “We don’t. But I have ears, you know? He’s got the Texas drawl.”
Jensen was sure that if he’d just turn around he’d see an ‘I knew it’ grin on Steve’s face.
“You’re from Texas, Jen!” Chris sped up and walked in front of him with his back in the direction he was headed. Thankfully the corridors were rather empty due to lunch hour.
“Yeah, well. I’m not average, am I, Kane?”
“Maybe he ain’t either?” A predatory smile spread over Chris’ lips. “I could ask Murray about him being ‘average’… roommates definitely know such things.”
Steve’s laugh made Jensen’s death glare even less effective than it already was when trained at Chris.
“I’m not gonna hit on Jared! He’s a dick.”
The groan that came from Jensen’s best friend was tinged with annoyance. “Jensen, he HAS a dick, and that’s all you need right now. You don’t have to marry the guy! Just get out there again and show us that it was fucking worth it! I mean when was the last time you got laid?”
Jensen’s mouth opened and closed again in uncomfortable disbelief.
“Exactly. He’s tall, handsome and playing in your league. All you need to do is grow a pair and make a move. He’ll melt. I mean it, Jen, I'm straight, Steve’s straight, but even we know you’re pretty.”
Jensen stopped dead, and Steve bumped into him as he did not stop in time. “I’m not pretty.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Chris rolled his eyes and nodded at Steve to tag along as he continued his way down the corridor.
“I mean it, Chris!” Jensen growled loudly after his retreating friend. “I’m not pretty.”
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Maybe Jared's hopes that he didn't have to dread the upcoming tutoring session with Jensen had been a little precipitate. And maybe “maybe” was an understatement, when Jared found himself questioning his mental health. He could feel paranoia creeping up on him, ready to tackle him from behind.
Ever since that strangely normal conversation - with the less than promising end, where Jensen had made damn sure Jared would not forget that his little outburst of academic suspicion was anything but forgiven - Jared seemed to run into Jensen almost daily as the week proceeded. Jensen on his part gave Jared a smile, which, under normal circumstances would have made Jared’s stomach flip, but in the light of their anything but friendly relationship - and how could that word used todescribe something going on between Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles be anything but disturbing? - it made Jared's stomach churn in uneasy anticipation.
That smile meant that Jensen had to have something up his sleeve, and Jared really did not like that idea. That’s how Jared found his mind humming the funeral march as he walked down the hall towards tutoring lesson on Friday.
As he entered, Jensen was already there, giving him another of those frighteningly normal smiles, and a greeting that was tinged with more of a Texan accent than the other man usually let show. Jared had started wondering if he was actually imagining half of those things when he noticed Jensen’s eyes glide over him in an anything but secretive checking-Jared-out move.
Oh God. The pieces fell into place, and Jared wanted to slap his hand to his forehead for being so slow on the uptake. Dread had invited his cousin, panic, for a little party in Jared’s head, but he forced down the need to run away screaming. Instead he returned the greeting and settled down in the chair opposite Jensen. That look had sealed off what Jared had done a pretty good job of ignoring. The possibility of Jensen finding out Jared was gay was something the taller man had not considered. But now it was screaming in his face.
Jensen knew, and now Jared wanted to faint. He had exprected Jensen’s reaction to be more impulsive, more crude. But Jensen had seemingly worked off the need for immediate destruction during the game not even a week back. Now that his aggressions were fed for a day or three he could make Jared squirm.
For a moment Jared tried to contemplate how Jensen knew, and it hit him with painful clarity. Jared had hoped the other man was too busy not biting his head off to notice Jared blush during their last conversation, but obviously those hopes were futile. That’s where the seed of suspicion had been sowed, and it didn’t take a lot of digging to find someone who knew about Jared’s preference for guys. It wasn’t like he kept it a secret. Right now he wished he was more of a pansy and not the out and proud type he usually was content to be.
But Jensen wasn’t checking him out in the gay-dar kind of way. Jensen was sizing him up, and Jared knew that although he was of quite considerable size, Jensen considered him to be a bug when compared to himself.
Jensen gave him a long look. “Jared?”
Jared’s eyes snapped back to focus, and he looked at the slightly bored looking Jensen. “Sorry. Errr…” Jared made a quick job of organizing his thoughts, shoving the panicky voice that was screaming ‘WOLF!’ at the top of its lungs, into a drawer of his mental closet and getting into professional mode. He dug out the papers Jensen had handed him on that fateful Monday. “I read through your essays, and they were quite good, so I think we might just go over the main topic for a few minutes before starting out on the next chapter today.
When he looked back at his student, he saw a shit-eating grin on Jensen’s face. To Jared it was like looking into the fanged maw of a hyena. Predatory.
“Told you I knew the subject.”
Jared swallowed. It was the first rule when facing a predator not to show any fear. He could not be intimidated by Jensen - or at least he couldn’t act as intimidated as he was - or he would be puppy chow before the day was over. That’s how Jared decided to go ahead with his former agenda of pushing Jensen at the academic level, because that was the only level he’d ever dare to try pushing Jensen. “Well, it would be helpful and a lot less annoying if you would actually show me the knowledge you have, so I don’t have to chew up things for you that you already know. That would be more comfortable for both of us.”
Jensen seemed to contemplate that for a moment, and Jared steeled himself, waiting for a bad reaction of any kind. But all he got was a nod and a shrug. “I think I could do that.”
Jared thanked God for small wonders and nodded as well.
They started the lesson, and Jared had to admit that Jensen surprised him with the amount of words he could actually put in order to build coherent sentences. Jared made him sum up the essentials of his essays before they moved on to the next chapter, and Jensen turned out to be less of an idiot than Jared had presumed.
That was right out scary. A psycho killer with a hockey stick and a bad attitude was bad enough. But Jensen was edging closer and closer towards the Hannibal Lector category of psychopaths in Jared’s mind. Jensen was clever, and that meant he was even more dangerous than Jared had already dreaded. He had been sure Jensen had a plan, long before he found out the guy had the brains to plot out something really devious.
It was about two thirds of the way into their lesson when this plan smacked Jared in the face, and the young man was suddenly frightened by just how calculating Jensen actually was.
When Jensen gave Jared a slightly shy looking smile, his head ducked, and his green eyes fixed on Jared’s, it was the most cruel thing Jared had ever seen. Jensen was flirting with him, or at least he was acting it out real good. Jensen rubbed the back of his neck, tilting his head to one side, and it was incredibly hot. At one point Jensen’s knee even touched Jared’s, and it was hell.
Jared knew exactly what Jensen was doing then. He was leading him on. When Jensen had found out Jared was gay, he had dreamed up the one plan that was sure to get Jared down real good. Jensen was flirting with Jared, using his hotness - that was a given, because how could Jared deny that fact? - shamelessly. Jensen knew exactly what he looked like, and he was playing his cards really well. Jared was pretty sure how the plan would proceed. Jensen wanted Jared to jump on him, so he had a reason to put him down real hard and then blame it on Jared for actually trying to corrupt someone as obviously straight as Jensen. Nobody would hold it against Jensen if he kicked Jared’s ass to the moon after being attacked by a queer, and, to dot the Is and cross the Ts, Jared would be heartbroken.
Yes, that was the plan. But even though it was a damn good one, Jared had seen through it, and he would not fall for Jensen’s wicked ways… even if his balls would probably drop off from how blue they'd started to turn around Jensen. This was psychological warfare, and Jensen was probably a master.
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Jensen wanted to slam his head against the wall. He had made a complete idiot of himself in his tutoring session with Jared. Jensen wasn’t a big flirter. He didn’t feel comfortable with flaunting himself in people’s faces, and back in Texas he would never have dared to actually hit on a guy as obviously as that. Maybe that was part of why his love life was hardly existent, but, after the fiasco he had just lived through, he decided that he was not going to attempt flirting again any time soon.
Jensen had been obvious, (painfully so, if you asked him) and Jared had literally spit it back in his face. Over the last few days Jensen had been looking for the signs in Jared, while giving the man his most open and honest smile, whenever they met in the corridors or in the library. When Jared had only responded with weak smiles or the odd scowl, Jensen should have known it was a bad idea.
But the signs had been there, and Jensen was almost sure by now that Jared was indeed gay. ‘Sure’ meaning sixty percent, so there was a forty percent possibility that he had just barked up the very wrong tree, and Jensen felt like throwing up at the thought. But he settled for blaming Chris instead. Jensen had taken his friend’s advice into serious consideration, and Jared could not have made his disinterest in Jensen more obvious if he had laughed at him.
Since Jensen had decided to let the wish be the father of the thought for a while and decide that Jared was gay, (or at least bi because that raised his statistics to a less pathetic seventy percent.) he had discovered the explanation as to why Jared had been such a prick to Jensen, despite the nice, patient reputation the tall man seemed to have. It was Jared’s way of making things clear from the start. Everyone on campus knew Jensen was interested in men only, and Jared’s unfriendliness had been his way of killing any possible crush Jensen might get over the tall, handsome man.
Jared’s show of arrogance at their first meeting wasn’t on a simply intellectual level. Jensen knew that Jared wouldn’t ever consider dating a hockey player, gay or not. He felt anger boil up in him over the presumption that now faced him, and not just from the sport’s side. No, he wasn’t a gay man’s wet dream. He spent his days bashing people’s heads in on the ice. He was crude, (and people thought hockey players had an average IQ of sixty thanks to all the bumps to their heads.) and he was bulky. Of course Jared would prefer some cute law student or whatever. It made Jensen taste bitterness on his tongue, and he wanted to swallow it down and tell Jared where to shove his fucking superiority complex, but he couldn’t find the energy.
This was awful. Jensen hadn’t been thrilled by the absence of any love life over the past year. But now he felt the blanket of carelessness he had covered all his frustrations with burst into flames, and it was all Jared’s fault. How much he hated that superficial dick for throwing it all back in his face.
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Jared was glad that the next game the college hockey team was to play would be held in Boston, and he had an excuse to stay home and study for a test he had to take the coming Monday, while Chad and the die-hard fans accompanied the team.
They lost, and Jared had to listen to Chad’s rant about how Boston sucked for over an hour. Obviously Boston was one of the best college hockey-teams in existence - if not the best - and Jared thought that fact should soothe Chad, but obviously it didn’t. After listening to his bitching for another half an hour, during which Chad also started retelling some seemingly brilliant moves Tom Welling had performed on the ice, Jared took a deep breath and mustered up his courage for the one question he actually cared about. “So, how about Jensen? D’he kill anyone?”
Chad halted for a second before starting to laugh. “You don’t think I’d tell you a detail as significant as that? No. He behaved. Well… it was business as usual - shoving and being shoved. Nothing too spectacular besides the usual tackles against the boards.”
Jared nodded. Just the usual violence then.
Jared didn’t see much more than far away glances of Jensen’s back until Friday, when he entered the study to find his student already there as usual, but this time Jensen’s head rested on his arms, his body folded on top of the table, back rising lowly. Jared cleared his throat loudly and dropped his backpack next to Jensen’s head with a loud thump.
The other man jerked awake, his back straightening as he shot back up. He stifled a yawn while blinking in Jared’s general direction. “Thanks for the nice wake up call.” His voice was rough with sleep.
Jared shrugged and sat down, watching as Jensen rubbed his hand over his eyes and blinked once more, before picking something up off the table that Jared hadn’t seen before. He watched as Jensen slid his glasses onto his nose, his eyes finally focusing on Jared.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses.” The startled comment was out before Jared’s brain functions could reboot.
Jensen shrugged, averting his gaze. “I usually wear contacts. But my eyes water from the cold, so I left them out today.”
At that Jared did a double take at the hockey player, and on second glance he saw what had been concealed by the appearance of the glasses up to that moment. Jensen did indeed look sick. His freckles stood out on pale skin, while his nose and eyes were slightly reddened. His hair was unruly from being huddled into his arms earlier, and there was a wet gleam to the green irises. “Errm, if you’re sick, we can cancel today’s lesson.”
Jensen shook his head and straightened his spine before pushing his thin rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “That would mean I had to write a paper about today’s topic, and I’d rather have you chew it up for an hour than have to read it up myself and write about it… if you don't mind?” Jensen’s voice sounded rough, and Jared wondered if he had caught the cold from spending so much time on the ice rink. Jensen shot him a look that couldn’t really count as pleading but still invoked Jared’s inner puppy to make him take pity on a sick man.
He sighed, nodding, and dove into the topic, content to have Jensen stare at him all the while, answering retorical questions with shakes and nods of his head and not saying another word.
While Jared talked, all the while under the scrutiny of Jensen’s eyes behind those glasses, he wondered if Jensen had deliberately decided to wear his glasses during their session. Jared had to admit that he found them pretty attractive on the handsome face. They took the edge off Jensen’s butch, jock appearance and made him look more like he was into reading books rather than breaking bones while wearing skates. Jared wondered if Jensen was really just sick and couldn’t handle his contacts right now, or if he wasn’t as ill as he claimed but thought that it would help his sympathies with Jared, especially if he showed him what a yummy geek was hidden beneath his rough shell.
Jared didn’t want to falsely suspect Jensen, but after the impeccable plot work the other man had already
pulled against Jared, he sure as hell wouldn’t put it past him.
...next part...
Feed me with FEEDBACK please! Don't let this poor girl starve!
Author:
insane_songbird
Pairing: J2
Rating: R
Words: ~4300
Warnings: Violence (Hello, it’s Ice Hockey!), Language, NC17 later-on (that means sex, people!)
Disclaimer: Slavery is bad... It’s a lie, all of it.
Summary: Being a Texas boy Jared Padalecki couldn’t care less about ice hockey. So Jared is slightly lost, when his new roommate Chad is the biggest fan on campus. But when he gets to tutor the most infamous player of the college team, things start to get downright scary. Jensen Ackles has a reputation for aggression control problems and Jared has no idea how to get through the semester without either falling for the handsome man or ending up in a fistfight he’d be sure to lose.
All Parts
Candy, kitty, Ema, Rhiannon, Deanna... you all know who you are and what you did for this fic... I can't link you hear because it ruins my cut. Love you all! *hugs*
previous part
Part Three
“Jared?”
Jared was sitting at lunch stuffing his face with mashed potatoes when he heard a rather roughened up voice behind him. He swallowed - so he wouldn’t look like a complete idiot - and turned around with big eyes and a questioning look. His eyes got even bigger when he saw that the rough voice Jared couldn’t help but find sexy in the too-much-whiskey-on-a-Sunday kind of way belonged to Jensen who surprisingly flopped down rather unceremoniously on the empty chair next to Jared.
Jared couldn’t help his gaze wandering to the colorful bruise that spread across Jensen’s jaw on the left. It was still startlingly visible through the designer stubble of a couple unshaven days - which looked sightly unruly and made Jared’s mouth run dry. God, he seriously needed to get laid, before he made a move on Jensen in his hormone-driven state and found himself in the hospital or worse.
Jensen frowned at him for a moment before understanding flashed through his eyes, and he traced his fingers across the purple and green beneath his short facial hair. “We had our game… It got a little heated to the end.”
“Yeah, I saw it.” Jared answered instinctively without thinking too much and earned himself another frown.
“You did?”
Jared shrugged hoping to god that he didn’t blush like he thought he did. “I told you; my roommate is the head of the fan club… he wouldn’t let me skip it.”
Jensen squinted for a moment as though he was arranging his thoughts. “Murray, right?”
Jared nodded mutely, unsure of what to say to this disturbingly normal conversation. Maybe Jensen was having one of his manic days.
“The guy is completely crazy… but he’s fun.”
With that Jensen started to dig around his shoulder bag leaving Jared to mutter, “If that’s what you wanna call it.”
Jensen actually cracked him a small, one-sided smile, sparing the bruised part of his face the movement. Jared watched fascinated as Jensen rummaged around an obviously disorganized bag, trailing his tongue across his lower lip. He found himself staring at those lips, and his inner Neanderthal fully approved.
Jensen smiled again as he pulled a stack of paper out of his bag. He leafed through it for a second before nodding to himself and holding it out for Jared to take. Jared only stared at the sportsman's outstretched hand for a long second. Then his momma’s mental imprint whipped his ass, and he kick-started his motor cortex. He took the papers with a frown. “Thanks, what is this?”
Jensen threw the flap back over his bag and set it down at his feet. “It’s the essays you asked for. Five pages on every chapter… though I had to do six on the second and seven on the last one, or I wouldn’t have mentioned everything important.”
Jared was stunned for a moment, his eyebrows rising to his hairline. When Jensen looked at him expectantly with an expression that said “Well?” Jared looked at the stack of papers in his hand and started flipping through them. There really were four essays with at least five pages each written in narrow but tidy handwriting, each essay clipped together in the corner.
“Thanks…errr.” Jared cursed himself for being such an eloquent person at times like this. “I didn’t really expect them until Friday.”
Jensen shrugged and leaned sideways against the table. “You said you needed to make sure that they were sufficient, or we would do double lessons. I thought you'd want to read them through before the actual date, so you could haul my ass in for a double lesson if necessary.”
“Oh…” Jared’s mind hat stuttered to a halt at Jensen using the word ‘date’. Oh god, he was so screwed to hell. “Thanks, that’s great. I didn’t think you’d have time to do them before the game, and then after the whole fistfight thing I thought you'd have anything but my assignment on your mind.” It seemed like Jared’s dread towards their lesson involving all kinds of scenarios where Jensen had not done the assignment and Jared was forced to get into another fight with the man were void, and he felt some of the tension slipping off.
The sides of Jensen’s eyes creased as he smiled - a gesture that went directly to parts of Jared that he so tried to keep out of this conversation. “I think you have to go to more games, Jared. You’ll see that this kind of thing isn't too uncommon. If I stopped working whenever I had a little brawl on the ice, I’d not pass a single class… Oh and if you’re wondering… That,” Jensen tapped the papers in Jared’s hands, “Really is my handwriting. Actually, I wrote the whole thing. All by myself.”
Jared swallowed hard at the reminder of his accusations and eyed the grin that was still spreading across the unbruised half of Jensen’s face with an uneasy feeling. Jensen was still mad at him. This proved it, and the fact that he could still be civil to Jared scared him even more than the latent aggressively grumpy version of the man. Holy shit! He wanted to apologize, but as he opened his mouth Jensen had already strapped his bag over his shoulder and waved at him with a “Friday!” as he took off to god knew where.
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When Jensen walked away leaving Jared to the rest of his lunch, he couldn’t help but grin. It looked like he had caught the other man completely off guard, and Jensen enjoyed that with wicked satisfaction. Jared looked like he knew he had been a prick, and Jensen hoped for a better attitude for their next lesson. He knew the essays he had written were good enough to satisfy his tutor, and even though he had pored over them all night the surprised look on Jared’s face had been totally worth it.
At one point in their little chat, Jared had even blushed, and Jensen thought that looked absolutely adorable. If the guy weren’t such an elitist prick, Jensen might even have found him cute.
“He’s cute.” Jensen’s head snapped up to see Chris and Steve standing before him.
“What?”
“I see that grin on your face, man. You think it; I just say the words.”
Jensen killed Chris twice over with his eyes, but Chris obviously didn’t care. “You’re not even gay, Chris. How would you know who’s cute?”
Chris exchanged a knowing smile with Steve. “I might be straight, but I’m not blind. I know he’s hot stuff… and I know you’re hot stuff.” A grin spread on both their faces before Chris continued. “And even if I couldn’t decide on that, I saw how you were totally flirting with him, and he blushed like a girl, so I think I’m on the safe side here.”
Jensen scowled at him. “I wasn’t flirting.”
Steve nodded slowly. “Well your body sure as hell was.”
God damn his body. Jensen should be saving all his flirting powers for someone who was actually worth the shot, but whenever someone like that came around he was completely useless in the flirt-department. “Jared is out of question, guys.”
“And why would that be?” Steve asked, quirking an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Because we don’t even get along. He thinks I’m stupid, and I have to say that for a guy with the reputation as the polite geeky type he can be a goddamn prick… and, besides, he isn’t gay.”
When Chris started laughing, Jensen wanted to slap him over the head. “Man, and they say your kind has something called a gay-dar? You so have to get yours fixed, Jen.” He stepped into Jensen’s personal space, curled one arm around his shoulder and turned him slightly to bring his eyes back to Jared, who wasn’t sitting on his own anymore since Chad and Sophia had joined him over the last minutes. “I hate to break it to you, but that boy is as gay as they come.”
Jensen eyed the group for a moment, but there was just no big rainbow neon sign starting to flash at Jared’s back. Jensen unwound himself from Chris’ hold and started walking away, but his two teammates followed at his heels. “He’s not gay, Chris. He’s from Texas for god’s sake.”
“How would you know that?” Steve asked, frowning. “I thought you didn’t do small talk.”
Jensen pinched the bridge of his nose as an enormous headache started to unfurl behind his eyes. “We don’t. But I have ears, you know? He’s got the Texas drawl.”
Jensen was sure that if he’d just turn around he’d see an ‘I knew it’ grin on Steve’s face.
“You’re from Texas, Jen!” Chris sped up and walked in front of him with his back in the direction he was headed. Thankfully the corridors were rather empty due to lunch hour.
“Yeah, well. I’m not average, am I, Kane?”
“Maybe he ain’t either?” A predatory smile spread over Chris’ lips. “I could ask Murray about him being ‘average’… roommates definitely know such things.”
Steve’s laugh made Jensen’s death glare even less effective than it already was when trained at Chris.
“I’m not gonna hit on Jared! He’s a dick.”
The groan that came from Jensen’s best friend was tinged with annoyance. “Jensen, he HAS a dick, and that’s all you need right now. You don’t have to marry the guy! Just get out there again and show us that it was fucking worth it! I mean when was the last time you got laid?”
Jensen’s mouth opened and closed again in uncomfortable disbelief.
“Exactly. He’s tall, handsome and playing in your league. All you need to do is grow a pair and make a move. He’ll melt. I mean it, Jen, I'm straight, Steve’s straight, but even we know you’re pretty.”
Jensen stopped dead, and Steve bumped into him as he did not stop in time. “I’m not pretty.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Chris rolled his eyes and nodded at Steve to tag along as he continued his way down the corridor.
“I mean it, Chris!” Jensen growled loudly after his retreating friend. “I’m not pretty.”
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Maybe Jared's hopes that he didn't have to dread the upcoming tutoring session with Jensen had been a little precipitate. And maybe “maybe” was an understatement, when Jared found himself questioning his mental health. He could feel paranoia creeping up on him, ready to tackle him from behind.
Ever since that strangely normal conversation - with the less than promising end, where Jensen had made damn sure Jared would not forget that his little outburst of academic suspicion was anything but forgiven - Jared seemed to run into Jensen almost daily as the week proceeded. Jensen on his part gave Jared a smile, which, under normal circumstances would have made Jared’s stomach flip, but in the light of their anything but friendly relationship - and how could that word used todescribe something going on between Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles be anything but disturbing? - it made Jared's stomach churn in uneasy anticipation.
That smile meant that Jensen had to have something up his sleeve, and Jared really did not like that idea. That’s how Jared found his mind humming the funeral march as he walked down the hall towards tutoring lesson on Friday.
As he entered, Jensen was already there, giving him another of those frighteningly normal smiles, and a greeting that was tinged with more of a Texan accent than the other man usually let show. Jared had started wondering if he was actually imagining half of those things when he noticed Jensen’s eyes glide over him in an anything but secretive checking-Jared-out move.
Oh God. The pieces fell into place, and Jared wanted to slap his hand to his forehead for being so slow on the uptake. Dread had invited his cousin, panic, for a little party in Jared’s head, but he forced down the need to run away screaming. Instead he returned the greeting and settled down in the chair opposite Jensen. That look had sealed off what Jared had done a pretty good job of ignoring. The possibility of Jensen finding out Jared was gay was something the taller man had not considered. But now it was screaming in his face.
Jensen knew, and now Jared wanted to faint. He had exprected Jensen’s reaction to be more impulsive, more crude. But Jensen had seemingly worked off the need for immediate destruction during the game not even a week back. Now that his aggressions were fed for a day or three he could make Jared squirm.
For a moment Jared tried to contemplate how Jensen knew, and it hit him with painful clarity. Jared had hoped the other man was too busy not biting his head off to notice Jared blush during their last conversation, but obviously those hopes were futile. That’s where the seed of suspicion had been sowed, and it didn’t take a lot of digging to find someone who knew about Jared’s preference for guys. It wasn’t like he kept it a secret. Right now he wished he was more of a pansy and not the out and proud type he usually was content to be.
But Jensen wasn’t checking him out in the gay-dar kind of way. Jensen was sizing him up, and Jared knew that although he was of quite considerable size, Jensen considered him to be a bug when compared to himself.
Jensen gave him a long look. “Jared?”
Jared’s eyes snapped back to focus, and he looked at the slightly bored looking Jensen. “Sorry. Errr…” Jared made a quick job of organizing his thoughts, shoving the panicky voice that was screaming ‘WOLF!’ at the top of its lungs, into a drawer of his mental closet and getting into professional mode. He dug out the papers Jensen had handed him on that fateful Monday. “I read through your essays, and they were quite good, so I think we might just go over the main topic for a few minutes before starting out on the next chapter today.
When he looked back at his student, he saw a shit-eating grin on Jensen’s face. To Jared it was like looking into the fanged maw of a hyena. Predatory.
“Told you I knew the subject.”
Jared swallowed. It was the first rule when facing a predator not to show any fear. He could not be intimidated by Jensen - or at least he couldn’t act as intimidated as he was - or he would be puppy chow before the day was over. That’s how Jared decided to go ahead with his former agenda of pushing Jensen at the academic level, because that was the only level he’d ever dare to try pushing Jensen. “Well, it would be helpful and a lot less annoying if you would actually show me the knowledge you have, so I don’t have to chew up things for you that you already know. That would be more comfortable for both of us.”
Jensen seemed to contemplate that for a moment, and Jared steeled himself, waiting for a bad reaction of any kind. But all he got was a nod and a shrug. “I think I could do that.”
Jared thanked God for small wonders and nodded as well.
They started the lesson, and Jared had to admit that Jensen surprised him with the amount of words he could actually put in order to build coherent sentences. Jared made him sum up the essentials of his essays before they moved on to the next chapter, and Jensen turned out to be less of an idiot than Jared had presumed.
That was right out scary. A psycho killer with a hockey stick and a bad attitude was bad enough. But Jensen was edging closer and closer towards the Hannibal Lector category of psychopaths in Jared’s mind. Jensen was clever, and that meant he was even more dangerous than Jared had already dreaded. He had been sure Jensen had a plan, long before he found out the guy had the brains to plot out something really devious.
It was about two thirds of the way into their lesson when this plan smacked Jared in the face, and the young man was suddenly frightened by just how calculating Jensen actually was.
When Jensen gave Jared a slightly shy looking smile, his head ducked, and his green eyes fixed on Jared’s, it was the most cruel thing Jared had ever seen. Jensen was flirting with him, or at least he was acting it out real good. Jensen rubbed the back of his neck, tilting his head to one side, and it was incredibly hot. At one point Jensen’s knee even touched Jared’s, and it was hell.
Jared knew exactly what Jensen was doing then. He was leading him on. When Jensen had found out Jared was gay, he had dreamed up the one plan that was sure to get Jared down real good. Jensen was flirting with Jared, using his hotness - that was a given, because how could Jared deny that fact? - shamelessly. Jensen knew exactly what he looked like, and he was playing his cards really well. Jared was pretty sure how the plan would proceed. Jensen wanted Jared to jump on him, so he had a reason to put him down real hard and then blame it on Jared for actually trying to corrupt someone as obviously straight as Jensen. Nobody would hold it against Jensen if he kicked Jared’s ass to the moon after being attacked by a queer, and, to dot the Is and cross the Ts, Jared would be heartbroken.
Yes, that was the plan. But even though it was a damn good one, Jared had seen through it, and he would not fall for Jensen’s wicked ways… even if his balls would probably drop off from how blue they'd started to turn around Jensen. This was psychological warfare, and Jensen was probably a master.
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Jensen wanted to slam his head against the wall. He had made a complete idiot of himself in his tutoring session with Jared. Jensen wasn’t a big flirter. He didn’t feel comfortable with flaunting himself in people’s faces, and back in Texas he would never have dared to actually hit on a guy as obviously as that. Maybe that was part of why his love life was hardly existent, but, after the fiasco he had just lived through, he decided that he was not going to attempt flirting again any time soon.
Jensen had been obvious, (painfully so, if you asked him) and Jared had literally spit it back in his face. Over the last few days Jensen had been looking for the signs in Jared, while giving the man his most open and honest smile, whenever they met in the corridors or in the library. When Jared had only responded with weak smiles or the odd scowl, Jensen should have known it was a bad idea.
But the signs had been there, and Jensen was almost sure by now that Jared was indeed gay. ‘Sure’ meaning sixty percent, so there was a forty percent possibility that he had just barked up the very wrong tree, and Jensen felt like throwing up at the thought. But he settled for blaming Chris instead. Jensen had taken his friend’s advice into serious consideration, and Jared could not have made his disinterest in Jensen more obvious if he had laughed at him.
Since Jensen had decided to let the wish be the father of the thought for a while and decide that Jared was gay, (or at least bi because that raised his statistics to a less pathetic seventy percent.) he had discovered the explanation as to why Jared had been such a prick to Jensen, despite the nice, patient reputation the tall man seemed to have. It was Jared’s way of making things clear from the start. Everyone on campus knew Jensen was interested in men only, and Jared’s unfriendliness had been his way of killing any possible crush Jensen might get over the tall, handsome man.
Jared’s show of arrogance at their first meeting wasn’t on a simply intellectual level. Jensen knew that Jared wouldn’t ever consider dating a hockey player, gay or not. He felt anger boil up in him over the presumption that now faced him, and not just from the sport’s side. No, he wasn’t a gay man’s wet dream. He spent his days bashing people’s heads in on the ice. He was crude, (and people thought hockey players had an average IQ of sixty thanks to all the bumps to their heads.) and he was bulky. Of course Jared would prefer some cute law student or whatever. It made Jensen taste bitterness on his tongue, and he wanted to swallow it down and tell Jared where to shove his fucking superiority complex, but he couldn’t find the energy.
This was awful. Jensen hadn’t been thrilled by the absence of any love life over the past year. But now he felt the blanket of carelessness he had covered all his frustrations with burst into flames, and it was all Jared’s fault. How much he hated that superficial dick for throwing it all back in his face.
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Jared was glad that the next game the college hockey team was to play would be held in Boston, and he had an excuse to stay home and study for a test he had to take the coming Monday, while Chad and the die-hard fans accompanied the team.
They lost, and Jared had to listen to Chad’s rant about how Boston sucked for over an hour. Obviously Boston was one of the best college hockey-teams in existence - if not the best - and Jared thought that fact should soothe Chad, but obviously it didn’t. After listening to his bitching for another half an hour, during which Chad also started retelling some seemingly brilliant moves Tom Welling had performed on the ice, Jared took a deep breath and mustered up his courage for the one question he actually cared about. “So, how about Jensen? D’he kill anyone?”
Chad halted for a second before starting to laugh. “You don’t think I’d tell you a detail as significant as that? No. He behaved. Well… it was business as usual - shoving and being shoved. Nothing too spectacular besides the usual tackles against the boards.”
Jared nodded. Just the usual violence then.
Jared didn’t see much more than far away glances of Jensen’s back until Friday, when he entered the study to find his student already there as usual, but this time Jensen’s head rested on his arms, his body folded on top of the table, back rising lowly. Jared cleared his throat loudly and dropped his backpack next to Jensen’s head with a loud thump.
The other man jerked awake, his back straightening as he shot back up. He stifled a yawn while blinking in Jared’s general direction. “Thanks for the nice wake up call.” His voice was rough with sleep.
Jared shrugged and sat down, watching as Jensen rubbed his hand over his eyes and blinked once more, before picking something up off the table that Jared hadn’t seen before. He watched as Jensen slid his glasses onto his nose, his eyes finally focusing on Jared.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses.” The startled comment was out before Jared’s brain functions could reboot.
Jensen shrugged, averting his gaze. “I usually wear contacts. But my eyes water from the cold, so I left them out today.”
At that Jared did a double take at the hockey player, and on second glance he saw what had been concealed by the appearance of the glasses up to that moment. Jensen did indeed look sick. His freckles stood out on pale skin, while his nose and eyes were slightly reddened. His hair was unruly from being huddled into his arms earlier, and there was a wet gleam to the green irises. “Errm, if you’re sick, we can cancel today’s lesson.”
Jensen shook his head and straightened his spine before pushing his thin rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “That would mean I had to write a paper about today’s topic, and I’d rather have you chew it up for an hour than have to read it up myself and write about it… if you don't mind?” Jensen’s voice sounded rough, and Jared wondered if he had caught the cold from spending so much time on the ice rink. Jensen shot him a look that couldn’t really count as pleading but still invoked Jared’s inner puppy to make him take pity on a sick man.
He sighed, nodding, and dove into the topic, content to have Jensen stare at him all the while, answering retorical questions with shakes and nods of his head and not saying another word.
While Jared talked, all the while under the scrutiny of Jensen’s eyes behind those glasses, he wondered if Jensen had deliberately decided to wear his glasses during their session. Jared had to admit that he found them pretty attractive on the handsome face. They took the edge off Jensen’s butch, jock appearance and made him look more like he was into reading books rather than breaking bones while wearing skates. Jared wondered if Jensen was really just sick and couldn’t handle his contacts right now, or if he wasn’t as ill as he claimed but thought that it would help his sympathies with Jared, especially if he showed him what a yummy geek was hidden beneath his rough shell.
Jared didn’t want to falsely suspect Jensen, but after the impeccable plot work the other man had already
pulled against Jared, he sure as hell wouldn’t put it past him.
...next part...
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