Protège-moi De Mes Dèsirs
Fandom: Supernatural RPS
Characters: Jensen/Jared (Jensen/Danneel, Jared/Genevieve)
Summary: Jus in Bello Con II (April 2011)
Set after You Wanna Know, Know That It Doesn't Hurt Me?, part of the Change of Season 'verse
Wordcount: 3,280
Disclaimer: F.I.C.T.I.O.N.
Beta (and big thanks to) whitereflection
Feedback is appreciated
A/N: So, I wanted the boys to get 'a little closer', but not too soon, so I went for JIB II, because I also liked having the image of Rome in the background. I don't know where Jensen lives now, I'm just fairly sure that it's not with Jared anymore. Also, I hope the boys are happily married and still as good and close friends as they used to be.
I liked this fic last week, today not so much.
Title from Placebo (Protect Me From What I Want)
Art by Viv foreverbm Thank you!
Previous Parts:
If You Deny This, Then It's Your Fault
Change of Season, Love Can Die
It Seemed a Place for Us to Dream
Careful Not to Fall, Have to Climb Your Wall
You Wanna Know, Know That It Doesn't Hurt Me?
Protège-moi De Mes Dèsirs
The knock on the door is soft and quiet, nearly completely lost in the screaming echoing from outside, and if Jared wasn't just walking near it, heading out of the bathroom and towards the bedroom, he would have definitely missed it.
“Jensen... hey!” He smiles at the mess of visibly wet, spiked hair that greets him as he opens the door, then winces at the tone of his voice. It's loud. Too loud, and too surprised and nervous. Both emotions are as equally inappropriate because it's Jensen, his Jensen, and the last thing he should feel around him is surprise and nervousness. And still it's there, because it is Jensen.
They used to be close. Even closer than the people around them assumed, differently closer. That close. They used to fall asleep in the same bed or right on Jared's large couch, curled against each other, and wake up naked, in a tangle of limbs. They used to be practically inseparable. Now they barely find the time to talk between takes and during lunch breaks.
When the lights on the set fade, Jared goes back to his wife and their two furry babies, who still - just like Jared - stop from time to time, linger at the end of the hall, staring at the now closed door of the empty room that Jensen had abandoned a couple of months ago. There's nothing in there now. And won't be. It will always be Jensen's, even when he'll never return there. It's a piece of their past, of them. Like a box of old, faded photographs and dust-covered memories.
Jensen is back at the hotel where he used to stay during season one and two, alleging that it's fine, that he actually likes it there and that it's not worthy renting a house or just an apartment because of a TV show that is slowly coming to an end anyway. And because Danneel's more often in L.A. than in Canada.
Jensen's often alone, too often, Jared thinks, or with Misha, which - honestly - scares Jared even a bit more than Jensen's solitude.
They're drifting apart and they both know that. Step by step, day by day the abyss between them stretches, and one day there will be nothing to bring them back together. Jared hates it, he does, but he also thinks that Jensen's running away from him, from them, on purpose. And he doesn't know how to make him stop. Doesn't know if he can.
“I don't... really know what I'm doing here,” Jensen mumbles, without as much as glancing up. He just stands there, unsure, looking like he really doesn't know, can't even remember knocking.
Jared thinks that if Jensen knew why he's there, he wouldn't be there.
“Do you really need a reason?” Jared asks, making Jensen finally look up from the ruby colored carpet-runner and the untied lace on one of his Converse shoes. “You wanna come in?”
Jensen nods, shortly, then pauses again. “You're alone?”
“Yeah.” Jared steps aside to let Jensen in, but the other man doesn't move forward, just shifts his weight from one foot to the other and rounds his shoulders, shoving his hands into the pockets of his fashionably torn jeans. He doesn't look like his 33-year-old self, he looks like he's 16, nervous and shy and so fucking beautiful. “I think my wife has kidnapped your wife for some shopping.”
“I think she's kidnapped half of the female guests.”
Jared grins and jerks his head towards the room behind him. “Come in.”
“I'm not--I don't think I should.”
“C'mon,” Jared smiles encouragingly. “It's just me.”
“Yeah, Jared, that is... kinda the whole point.”
Jensen's answer is somewhat unexpected, even though it shouldn't be. Jared can't even remember the last time they were alone together, without the guys from the cast or the crew or hundreds of screaming fans. He wonders if they still know how to be together like friends.
His shoulder propped up against the doorjamb of the large open door leading to the terrace, Jared watches Jensen settled on the threshold, just a few steps from him.
He doesn't talk, hasn't said anything besides “Yeah” and “Thanks” when Jared offered him soda and then handed Jensen the chilled bottle.
He can be quiet, Jared knows that well. Contrary to him, Jensen can sit still for hours, saying nothing.
But today his silence is disturbing, not calming or peaceful at all. It's like he wants, needs to say something, but doesn't know how or whether he should.
Finally, Jared decides that he can't take it anymore. Watching Jensen watching the sunset and nursing his drink, rolling the bottle mindlessly between his long, slender fingers, might be fascinating, sometimes even enough, but not today.
“So... how's married life for you?” Jared asks, regretting the question the second the words leave his mouth, because Jensen jerks, startled by them or Jared's voice, Jared's not really sure.
“Great. We're great,” Jensen says, sure and confident, if maybe a bit too fast. “We're great, you know, it's great. It's really--”
“Great,” Jared supplies dully.
“Yeah, we're--” Jensen trails off, defeated by his honesty and tired of pretending. He sets his bottle slowly on the step beside him and sighs, shaking his head. “You were right. We're not happy.”
It's like a time bomb going off. “Jensen...”
“She says she is... but she's not. She can't be.”
“Why not? She's got you... I don't think she needs that much more.”
Jensen grimaces and snorts humorlessly, “Right, 'cause I'm a real goldmine.”
I would be happy. Jared thinks. I know it now. “You're more.”
Jensen either can't hear him, or simply doesn't want to.
Jared knows how much Danneel loves Jensen. She has loved him for so long, since when they had been still only friends. It's truly not that difficult. On the contrary, actually. Falling in love with Jensen is, unfortunately, way too easy -- which makes it all that much harder to give up on him then.
Jared's sure that Danneel's clinging to him now, and will try to accept and forgive a few things that other people wouldn't. Like she has always done.
“She's the best,” Jensen goes on, staring blankly somewhere out at the sultry streets of The Eternal City. His voice is rough and quiet, and Jared has to strain his ears to hear him at all. “She's doing everything she can. And more. And it still isn't enough. Never will be. I love her, so much. She's wonderful, Jay, but... I don't know... It's like something's missing.”
The heat, Jared thinks. The need. The lust that had brought them together back then. It wasn't love, that came later, it was want and loneliness. And the sense of safety and understanding.
Jensen's eyes move from whatever he was watching outside and slide to his arms dropped on his knees, his fingers encircling the simple golden ring on his left hand. It's a nervous habit of his, twisting the ring mindlessly around, this way, then the other. It makes Jared remember his own wedding ring, silver and just as simple as Jensen's, but all of a sudden heavy, feeling almost like a burden.
“She deserves more than I can give her. More than I am.”
Listening to Jensen, Jared realizes that he knows the song. Too well. Every word of the lyrics, so many times played in his head. The soundtrack of his married life. Great composition and theme, perfectly synchronized instruments and players, but the main tone, the most important part, completely out of sync.
“She loves you, Jensen,” he says, struggling not to wonder why he's trying to assure Jensen of the rightness of his marriage, when - not that deep down - he still wants Jensen only for himself.
He took the first step, he will never deny that, he took the leap and he had been looking before that, but maybe not everywhere. He clearly missed something, a couple of seeming trifles that came out only when it was too late to take a step back. Like Jensen's broken heart and their shattered friendship that seemed to be so strong once, unbreakable.
“She waited for you for years,” Jared smiles, conciliatory. “I'm fairly sure she can handle a few bumps on the way.”
“Bumps, Jared?” Jensen echoes tonelessly when he looks up at Jared, his eyes sad and so deep Jared could drown in them. “That's a pretty rough road we're walking.”
“But that's how it is,” Jared objects as he leans down to set his empty bottle on the wooden floor, before he rests his back against the jamb. “With everything. Life's that--” He stops when he realizes that Jensen's not listening. Apparently lost in thoughts, Jensen stares at him blankly. Through him.
“I miss you,” he says then, so softly that Jared doesn't really hear the words as much as he reads them off Jensen's lips. The honesty in his voice and gaze is so raw, so unexpected, that every word Jared was about to say dies on his tongue. Had the soda still been in his hand, he would have dropped it.
“Jensen.” He doesn't think, he just moves forward, stepping closer right when Jensen leaps to his feet, startled, terrified. He looks like he wasn't expecting those words either.
“I-I sh-should go.”
“Jensen.” Jared reaches out, grabbing a tail of Jensen's plaid shirt and halting him when he tries to squeeze around him. “Jen... please.”
He sounds weak even to his own ears. Pathetic. Aching for contact and full of want that's rushing through his veins like a poison. He doesn't even know what he's asking for. A few more minutes. Eternity. For the something glowing in Jensen's eyes he so unsuccessfully tries to hide. Jensen is the poison. Toxic. Addictive.
Without the quick, rhythmic movements of his chest, Jared would worry that Jensen's been turned to stone. He doesn't say anything, doesn't try to run away again, just stares up at Jared, green eyes panicked, yet reflecting the same need Jared knows Jensen can read in his gaze.
“Don't go.” Jared shakes his head, grabbing the other hem of Jensen's button-down to pull him closer.
Jensen sighs as he steps up to Jared, half reluctant and half determined, his breath hot and heavy on Jared's mouth, making his lips tingle. The pads of his fingers are chilly on Jared's cheek, soft against his rough stubble, and Jared wonders whether Jensen's feet are also cold.
They used to be, no matter the season. Even in the middle of summer, the most scorching heat in Texas, Jensen's toes would be like icicles. Jared always thought it was some kind of error in Jensen's otherwise pretty much perfect DNA.
Jensen's lips now, though, they're warm. Burning. They're smooth and moist and slightly parted beneath Jared's.
Jared doesn't even know who erased the distance between them first, probably him. Maybe Jensen. Maybe they both moved forward at the same time. But he doesn't really care. Because, somehow they have, and now there are Jensen's hands resting on Jared's waist, unsure and almost shy as though he's forgotten how to touch him.
It has been a while, after all. The last time Jared felt Jensen's plump, plush lips under his was about a year ago. Jensen had started to run from him then, and he was moving away. He had moved away and something had moved away with him. The lightness and easiness that was so typical for their friendship and the beginning of their relationship. Something that was so crucial for them. That was simply them. Jared was obviously too naive thinking that they could just keep on walking the same road or patch up what was broken with a band-aid and go on. Jensen isn't a torn photograph, he doesn't work that way.
Fingers curling around the nape of Jensen's neck and slipping up into his short hair, Jared pulls from the doorjamb and surges forward, pushing Jensen against the one opposite.
Jensen lets out this hitched, surprised gasp when his back hits the hard wood behind, but it turns into a moan when Jared's tongue slides past his lips, chasing Jensen's and the heat of his mouth. He tastes like bitter coffee and peppermint chewing gum, and like everything that Jared shouldn't remember. Or want.
He does want, though. He wants a lot. And judging by the way Jensen's fingers clutch the cotton of his T-shirt, keeping him close and trying to draw him even nearer, how hard and hot he is against Jared's thigh, Jared's not completely alone in that. It's not good. And decidedly not right, but it doesn't feel wrong. Not now, not in this moment.
The kiss is needy and impatient. Jared's unbuttoning Jensen's shirt before he's even aware that his hands are moving again, seeking soft, warm skin, and Jensen's hips are making tormentingly slow, deliberate circles against Jared's. When his teeth graze Jared's bottom lip, just at the edge of painful, craving and teasing, Jared's brain completely shuts off. He forgets that he's married, that they both are. Forgets all the vows he'd made, everything he'd sworn, he just wants. Jensen. Naked. Wants to touch him, feel him, sink into him and pretend that he still has the right to.
They're heading there, fast, Jared knows. And he wishes it was so easy, wants it to happen, probably as much as he, somewhere in the back of his mind, doesn't. It's like a train wreck. A horrible crash that's approaching, inevitable, fatal, and disastrous, but no one's clear-minded enough to pull the emergency brake.
Jensen is. He's always been a better driver. But who knew he can drive a derailed train.
He breaks the kiss, making Jared blindly follow his mouth an inch before he realizes that Jensen's gone, for good and not just to tease him.
He waits for Jensen to open his eyes, liquid dark and unfocused, and meet his own, wanting to say something, so much, maybe apologize, but unable to find the right words. Any words. Because Jensen's gazing up at him, breathless and sort of shocked and lost, looking like the utter personification of guilt.
He stammers out Jared's name, then blushes when even the next words come out stuttered and incoherent and entirely not like he'd want them to. “I-I c-can't. We... No. This-- ” Failing at words, Jensen shakes his head vigorously and slithers out of Jared's arms, taking a few steps sideways. Only two, three, but it seems to leave between them a chasm the size of Grand Canyon.
Letting out a deep, frustrated sigh, Jared turns around and leans against the door, crossing his arms over his chest. Slightly amused, he watches Jensen pacing the terrace, walking there then back, all the while trying to button up his shirt again. His fingers tremble and they appear especially clumsy, and Jared knows that Jensen would have absolutely no problem with such a simple task if he wasn't so freaked out.
“I-I sh-shouldn't have c-come,” Jensen mutters, fighting with the too small buttons and even smaller holes. “I shouldn't have... No. No. What the hell was I thinking?”
It's a rhetorical question, but Jared can't help answering. “Maybe you weren't,” he suggests, his voice cold and sharp, making Jensen stop in his tracks. “Maybe you, for once in your lifetime, just weren't thinking and did what you wanted to do.”
“You say it like it's a good thing,” Jensen returns, eyebrow arched in disbelief. “All...” he pauses, then waves his hands around eloquently. “This.”
“I didn't say that.”
“Good.”
“I'm just... I am just wondering how long you think we can go on like this. Pretend and act when we're not alone and avoid each other like the plague when we are.”
Jensen doesn't reply, just looks down at the floor and shrugs, but it's clearer than any words he could come up with.
“Jensen.” Jared tries after a moment, but Jensen isn't listening, he evidently just wants out, and now. Jared stops him just when Jensen's about to flee out of there again, grabbing his elbow and holding tight, and pulls him back to himself. “Jen, stay. Please... We can just sit down for a while, have beer. We could watch some movies... Or we can go out, see the city. Stop running away from me.”
“I tried, you know?” Jensen reminds, looking down at Jared's fingers curled around his arm like he didn't know them. Like they were some alien artifacts. “I tried to stop... And look how well that went.”
“That's because you were away for too long. But maybe if you stopped running... Maybe we could find a way back. Maybe we could-- God damn it, Jensen, I need you around! I can't-- This is crazy! You've taken away my best friend and he... He should know that I miss him.”
Jensen pries Jared's fingers open and pushes him away, gently and like he doesn't really want to. “He misses you, too,” he says softly. “He just... He just doesn't know how to be only a friend again... Not-not yet. I am... I'm sorry, Jared. I'll see you in the morning.”
He turns to leave, but Jared stops him again, tugging at the hem of Jensen's shirt. “Jensen, wait, you... You have it buttoned wrong.”
Jensen stops, confused, watching as Jared steps closer again and sets his fingers on the shirt Jensen's buttoned just a moment ago.
Jared's hands are shaking as they work their way down, undoing one button after another and revealing the smooth, lightly freckled skin beneath. He can feel the heat radiating off Jensen, his smell, the something that's drawing him in like a drug, and he bites his lip to hurt, to keep himself from crossing the fragile barriers of a friendship again. He can sense Jensen's eyes on him, regarding him and what he does, and he lets out a breath of relief when the last button slips through the hole. There are two more, but Jared leaves them undone. Just because he likes it that way. Finally done, he slides his hands up Jensen's chest, muscled and firm, feels the rapid hammering of Jensen's heart beneath his palms.
“Jen, it was just a kiss. Stop freaking out.”
Jensen scowls, “I'm not--”
“You are.”
Jensen doesn't try to protest any further, instead he looks up, “Would you have stopped it, if I didn't?” he asks.
Jared freezes, looking into Jensen's eyes that study him with such intensity it makes his skin crawl, itch.
“No,” he answers eventually, truthfully, scaring even himself. He knows that saying 'yes' would be nothing but a lie. He didn't have the strength to stop it. He wanted to, but didn't. As much as he'd never been strong enough to make the thing between them real, he's not strong enough to let Jensen go now. He still wants. He's still aching for him.
Jensen seems to be both relieved that he's not alone in that, and terrified that it's the both of them and that it can happen again, any time.
“And you want me to stop freaking out?” he wonders, stepping back. “It wasn't just a kiss. It was a kiss. And I wanted... more. Want more. Want you... I am married and I love her, but I can't stop thinking about you. Can't stop wanting you... So, no, Jared... I can't stop running.”
With that, Jensen turns and heads for the door, walking fast and determined, and giving Jared no chance to stop him again. Jared doesn't even try to halt him this time though, too surprised to manage more than, “Jensen”.