Absolute Beginners // epilogue
"Hot guy,” Jared whistles appreciatively before hugging Jensen and kissing him hello.
“Hey! What happened to fidelity and ‘thou shall have no other gods before me’, you rotten thing?” Jensen complains, elbowing Jared, who winces theatrically and closes the door behind them.
“What? I’m just practicing. Another month and I’ll be the perfect gay man. Who was that guy?”
“New tenant.”
Jared goes still, frowning and stepping back when Jensen tries to pull him into the bedroom to turn their hello kiss into an extended make-out session.
“‘New tenant’ as in ‘previous tenant’?”
“What? I don’t under-,” Jensen wonders. “No! Damn, Jared, of course not. I wouldn’t--. Fuck, how can you even think that I’d do something like that?”
“You did it before?” Jared asks uncertainly, feeling like a complete ass when he sees the hurt in Jensen’s eyes.
“Yeah, well, that was before you were my boyf-- Before we started having sex.”
“Boyfriend, huh?” Jared smiles smugly.
“Whatever.” Jensen huffs and ditches Jared in the hallway, heading for the (still) nearly empty living room.
“You totally wanted to say we’re boyfriends,” Jared catcalls and runs after Jensen, twirling him around and kissing him passionately when he catches up.
Managing to roll his eyes before kissing his ‘whatever’ back, Jensen remembers his original plan and grabs Jared’s lapels to shove him in the direction of the bedroom, stumbling and laughing on the way until Jared’s calves hit the edge of the bed and both men land in a heap.
They are impatient and greedy, the last days of filming the fifth season leaving little time to spend together. Even when they could, they were often so worn out that their raging hormones had to surrender to a desperate need for sleep.
Jared’s so damn needy now that he’s afraid of hurting Jensen when he rips his shirt off. A seam tears audibly. Jared ignores it and finally pulls the offending garment over Jensen’s head instead of opening every single, uncooperative button.
“Greedy again,” Jensen laughs, but does the same with Jared’s shirt, then opens his own jeans to speed things up, Jared mirroring his actions while kissing a damp trail down Jensen’s neck.
Once they’re both naked, clothes strewn across the bed and floor, Jared grabs Jensen’s legs, hiking both of them up the bed until Jensen’s lying stretched out on his back. He settles between his lover’s thighs, licking up his hard cock. Jensen groans, hiding his eyes behind his forearm.
Not in the mood for games, Jared swallows Jensen down immediately, his gag reflex used to the intrusion by now because, damn, did he enjoy the lessons Jensen gave him.
Tongue laving the throbbing vein at the underside of Jensen’s shaft in a slow trail, Jared draws a gravelly moan from Jensen’s throat every time he sucks. It’s hunger and need and, in a tiny, ugly corner of his mind, a competition to do it better than Jensen’s previous playmates, even though he knows that he’s taking on professionals.
Mercifully, the guy he saw leaving the apartment wasn’t a hooker but--
Jared’s releases Jensen’s cock with a loud, obscene pop. “The new tenant?”
“Huh?” Jensen gasps, removing his forearm from his eyes and looking back and forth between his damply glistening hard-on and Jared’s mouth. There is far too much space between the two of them.
“Can we talk about this later, maybe? I’m kind of feeling neglected right now.”
“Oh. Oh!” Jared exclaims sheepishly and goes back to work, only to stop again a moment later. This time, he goes on stroking Jensen with his hand to stifle any further protest.
“You’re moving out? Where will you live, I mean after the movie, when we’re back in Vancouver?”
“With somebody who doesn’t suck me off like a starving man only to jack me tantalizingly slowly afterwards until my fucking brain explodes, maybe?”
“Jeez, you’re touchy when you want to get off.”
“Jay, please,” Jensen whines, and Jared has to take mercy on him, moving up a gear to get Jensen off and ready to talk. Fingers, tongue and throat work him simultaneously until Jensen tenses, his back arching off the bed slightly, and spurts warm ropes of come into Jared’s mouth.
Jared swallows it all, then licks Jensen’s softening dick clean, once again surprised how easy the whole sex thing turned out to be. ‘Same equipment after all.’ Obviously, Ezrah knew what she was talking about. (Besides, the only thing Jensen had done to him with his fist so far was boxing him amicably, so no worries there, either).
“So,” Jared says after kissing his way up Jensen’s relaxed body and settling beside him, legs entangled with Jensen’s and his head braced on one hand, looking down at his blissfully dozing best friend-turned-lover, “you gonna be homeless next time we’re here.”
“Looks like,” Jensen answers, his eyes closed and still breathing heavily.
“Unless--,” Jared begins.
“I find a hotel I can stay at, right.”
“Or--.” He drags the vocal out until it’s more of a question.
“A new apartment.”
“Ooor--.” Long ‘o’ again.
“I’ll sleep under a bridge and make friends with a rat called Arty.”
“Oooooor--.” Very, very long ‘o’.
“Somebody could ask me if I wanted to be their roommate.”
“Or--,”
Jensen opens his eyes, trying to hide his surprise. “Or what?”
“Someone could be crazy enough to ask you to move in with him.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Nope.”
Sighing warily, Jensen concedes, “Fine, some crazy person could ask me to move in with him.”
“So, will you?”
“Nobody asked.”
Huffing and laughing all at once, Jared throws himself at Jensen, tickling and groping him until they’re engaged in a mock fight that ends with Jensen on top, hovering over Jared and pinning his wrists to the headboard.
“I want to spend my life with you,” Jensen says, all of a sudden.
“Me too,” Jared whispers, and feels his heart becoming a cloud of cotton candy, light as a feather in his chest.
“There’s something else.” Letting go and stretching himself out beside Jared, Jensen stares straight at the ceiling, building up his courage. It takes him some time.
“You’re creeping me out, Jen.”
“It’s nothing bad, I just-- I called the Coen brothers today and told them-- It. That I’m gay and that I’ve got somebody.”
“What did they say?”
“That there’d be no time left to spend with their wives if every gay actor they work with felt the need to call and tell them. They don’t care who I sleep with as long as I do my job. I mean, the part’s not exactly Romeo, the character doesn’t even have a love interest other than world domination, so they probably can afford to be cool about it.”
Jared stares at him wide-eyed, but when the astonishment on his face makes room for wild enthusiasm, Jensen cuts him off.
“That doesn’t mean I want to come out in public, Jay. But if it happens - and I don’t want it to happen, just so we’re clear - it happens. I don’t want to live in fear for the rest of my life. And I want this-- Fuck, this relationship to work, even if I don’t like the career consequences. I won’t be able to give you everything at once ‘cause this whole relationship thing’s new to me, and adding the gay thing… I’ll need time, Jay. But if you want me, I’ll try as hard as I can.”
Jared answers with a kiss, deep and tender, taking Jensen in his arms and pressing their bodies together, warm skin against warm skin.
It’s one of their last nights in Vancouver, the flight to L.A. scheduled for the upcoming Saturday - a day Jared was actually dreading, even though he knew that they’d be in the same city for the following weeks. Moreover, their respective projects weren’t too far apart to see each other regularly, if they wanted to - He just wasn’t sure if Jensen would want to.
“I can feel you grinning against my neck,” Jensen laughs quietly when Jared nuzzles him. “It’s this goofy Cheshire grin that swallows your whole face until all that’s left are those monster-dimples of yours.”
“Aww, don’t be nasty, boyfriend, you know you love ‘em.”
“True.”
“And that’s because you love me.”
“That must be it,” Jensen says and then, after a brief silence, his arms tense around Jared, “So?”
“So?”
“You wanna give it a try? Committed relationship, future, white picket fence, yadda yadda yadda? With me, I mean? Despite the not coming out thing and me being an absolute beginner with this whole relationship business ‘n’ all.”
Jared bites Jensen’s neck gently but not too tenderly, just the way he knows will make Jensen groan with pleasure, then braces his head on his hand again.
“What part of ‘boyfriend’ and ‘please move in with me’ didn’t you get, huh?” he asks softly and then, mockingly, “Don’t make me fetch the Froot Loops again.”
Blushing, Jensen begins to mumble something, lips forming a pout. Jared shuts him up with a kiss.
“That was a yes. Got it?”
Frowning, Jensen considers the question. “No, I think you have to show me again.”
So Jared does, his lips a big, happy smile against Jensen’s mouth, their future a world full of open doors.
THE END