Part 3 - Screw You, We're From Texas
*Sometimes we’re sloppy, we’re always loud. Tonight we’re just ornery and locked in the pocket.*
Turns out, Jared isn’t completely useless.
Yes, he’s messy, and no, he can’t cook. Doesn’t know jack shit about cars, either. But he’s good at some things Jensen’s not so good at, like computers and electronics. It’s starting to come in handy.
Jared installed the automatic timer on the pool pump and the new digital thermostat. He set the whole house up with wireless internet and worked some magic so Jensen’s old desktop in the back bedroom and his new laptop can talk to each other, share files, everything. He programmed the new TiVo system, which Jensen had almost thrown against the wall in frustration before handing it over to Jared, and he re-wired some of the original 1920’s sockets in the downstairs bathroom and kitchen to GFCI.
Jensen could have done that last one himself, in his sleep, but it seems to make Jared happy when Jensen lets him help around the house, so he threw the kid a bone. He sounds pretty proud of himself when he calls Jensen downstairs to show him how they can run the blender and the microwave at the same time now, without tripping the breaker for the whole front part of the house.
“Dude, we should totally go out tonight.”
Jared’s pushing chop on the blender, then stop. Chop, then stop, grinning like a lunatic, voice raised over the cacophony of the microwave and blender noise and pointing at the overhead light, which isn’t so much as flickering.
“Right?”
Jensen hasn’t been out, like to a bar, at night, with no purpose other than just to hang out and have a good time, since…well, it’s been years. He goes out for a drink or two sometimes, with teammates after a softball or volleyball game at the SSC, for happy hour with his co-workers once in awhile, but just out, at night? For the sake of going out? It’s been so long he can’t really even remember the last time.
“Dude, I think my going out days are over. I’m old y’know.”
Jared looks at him skeptically.
“You’re like, twenty-five.”
“Twenty-six.”
“Whatever. You’re not old. Not even close to old. There is no way your going out days can be over at twenty-six, dude. Just no way.”
= = = = =
No matter what anyone says, being drunk is fun. Smoking is also fun, even if it kills you slowly, or whatever. Jensen really couldn’t give a fuck right now.
He’s turned into a fucking lightweight, that’s the first thing he thinks when he stands up from his barstool after two Jack and Coke’s and two beers and feels that muzzy rush through his head and limbs that he hasn’t felt in forever. Two beers and two drinks, and he’s got to concentrate not to sway on his feet? Ridiculous. He thinks about Greg Martinez, how disappointed he’d be in his protégé. He’ll give Jensen so much shit if he ever finds out what Jensen’s been reduced to.
Jensen makes it to the bathroom and back, only to find Jared isn’t where he left him.
At least, he’s pretty sure this is where he left him. Honestly, he can’t be positive, but then he realizes what’s going on.
Two guys are in between him and Jared, got him backed up to the bar, one with a finger in Jared’s chest, leaning drunkenly. Jensen can hear Jared’s voice, low and calm, dude you got it all wrong and we were just talking, I’ve got a girlfriend, man. He sees who must be the girl in question pleading with one of the guys, trying to pull him away, but Jensen can’t hear what she’s saying.
Then the guy shoves the girl off his arm and she stumbles back over a barstool, trips and lands on her ass on the floor.
Jensen hears Jared’s surprised Hey!, sees him push the guy back, away from the girl, and immediately knows how this is gonna play out. Jensen’s seen a drunken bar fight or two in his day, and he’s got his arm around the drunk guy’s waist from behind, other arm up around his shoulder, before the guy can make the move on Jared that Jensen knows is coming. The element of surprise, of course, doesn’t last long, and it isn’t five seconds before Jensen, Jared, their two new friends and a couple of other guys who don’t take kindly to a man pushing a woman down in a bar are all rolling around on the dusty floor, punching and kicking and scrapping until the bouncers make it through the packed house and get them all in choke holds.
The two trouble makers are hauled out the back, and the rest of them are less-than-politely asked to leave.
“You sure you’re okay?” Jared gasps at the girl. “Got a ride and everything?”
And she just nods through her tears and sniffs sorry.
Out on the street, Jensen can see his breath in the cold night air of late October, can feel the headache coming on, taste the blood in the back of his throat. He should feel worse, should feel fucking awful, but his blood is pumping, adrenaline rushing, and if he’s honest with himself, he hasn’t had this much fun since he left Lubbock more than three years ago.
He looks at Jared, nose and knuckles all busted up, and starts howling. Jared looks back like maybe Jensen’s had his brains scrambled, but only for a minute before he starts laughing too.
“Dude! What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know! The girl just asked me if I’d order her drink, cause that bartender chick wouldn’t even look her way.”
Jensen spits blood onto the sidewalk, feels the ache in his ribs when he coughs and has to lean against the building for a minute to catch his breath.
“So you weren’t even flirting? Honestly?”
“All I was doing was ordering her damn drink! Now if the girl was flirting with me, I can’t help that.”
Jensen snorts, watches Jared adjust his nose with a sickening crack.
“And was she flirting with you?”
Jared’s grin is grotesque, teeth outlined in smeared maroon.
“Dude, totally. I mean look at me.”
Jensen rolls his eyes, digs his fingers into the side of his ribcage and grimaces.
“I’m lookin’ at you,” he shrugs, “not seein’ the appeal.”
Jared just laughs, slings his arm around Jensen’s neck. They keep walking, limping and wheezing their way up 6th to Red River, then all the way to 10th before they finally make it to the car.
= = = = =
Jensen hears the stairs creaking, looks up to see Jared’s head pop up over the railing, eyes wide.
“Fuck! Man, I thought there was an intruder or something. What the hell are you doing up here, trying to scare the shit out of me?”
Jared’s in his work clothes, still interning Tuesdays and Fridays at Motorola even though school has started back up; hair actually combed and pink dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck, sleeves rolled up, khakis and shoes with no laces. It’s so the opposite of how Jared usually looks, all beat up jeans and too-small freebie t-shirts with holes and hair going every which way, fraying cargo shorts and worn out sneakers and faded hoodies, it makes Jensen laugh every time. Jared looks like a freakishly overgrown kid playing dress-up.
“Sorry, dude. Would have told you this morning but I didn’t see you.”
“Uh, there’s this thing called the phone? You should try using it sometime. I almost shot you.”
“You don’t have a gun.”
“I would have shot you. If I had a gun.”
“Fine, okay,” Jensen grins, holds up his hands, the international symbol for surrender. “In future, you’ll be informed of any changes to the schedule before they happen.”
Jared shrugs, grins back.
“That’s all I’m sayin’.”
Jensen’s travel calendar is prominently displayed on the front of the fridge, held in place by a red and black magnet featuring the double-T logo of Texas Tech University. Except on the days when Jared replaces it with an obnoxiously large orange magnet shaped like a longhorn head, and moves Jensen’s double-T around to the side of the fridge, way down at the bottom. Jensen just switches it back when he notices, then Jared changes it again when he notices Jensen’s noticed.
They don’t ever mention it out loud; it’s a silent battle of wills.
Regardless, the calendar is neatly color-coded, work travel highlighted in blue and personal travel in green, and this weekend was green, which pretty much always means the same thing - Jensen’s going to Galveston. It’s there so Jensen sees it every morning, so it’s embedded in his brain, because it’s easy to forget sometimes if he’s coming or going. But, it’s also so Jared knows when Jensen will be home and when he won’t, when Jared needs to take care of watering the lawn and paying the pool guy, and when he doesn’t.
Especially in the fall, when the team is traveling a lot for tournaments, and in the spring when they have conference match play, the green weekends are pretty few and far between. It’s almost unheard of for Jensen to change his personal plans; it’s pretty much understood that any weekend he’s not working he’ll be on a plane or in the car to either Galveston or Dallas, so he can understand Jared’s surprise at finding him home tonight when the calendar is clearly marked in green.
They walk down to Posse East for cheeseburgers and onion rings and beer, watch some mid-major Friday Night Football on the big screens.
“So what’s with you staying home, anyway? Amy have something come up?”
“Nah just, you know. Still got bruises.”
Jensen swore Jared to secrecy on the whole drunken bar-room brawl situation; it’s not that he wants to lie to Amy, it’s just that she’d worry, and there’s nothing to worry about. It was a one-time thing, not like he’s gonna make a habit of it, and he’s fine, it was just a busted lip and a black eye, a few sore ribs.
Jared examines his face, takes Jensen’s chin in his hand and tips it up toward the light, frowns.
“I don’t see any, man. Think you’re good.”
Jensen taps his side, where someone’s boot heel left a purple-black horseshoe with green and yellow fingers snaking out from it, wrapping around Jensen’s middle. Jared just grins.
“How’s Amy gonna know about that? I thought you two didn’t -“
He wiggles his eyebrows, smirking, and Jensen can feel his face go hot. He’s not sure how he managed to divulge that particular piece of extremely personal information to Jared, but there’s something about the kid that makes him talk, when Jensen is anything but a talker. It’s disconcerting. And it’s not that he’s embarrassed or ashamed of his relationship, he actually is really proud of Amy and her dedication to her beliefs, her dedication to living God’s word and the way she helps him do the same, and honestly Jensen doesn’t mind the lack of sex. Not usually, at least.
Still. He doesn’t go around talking about it. It’s no one’s business but his and Amy’s.
He shakes his head, rolls his eyes at Jared.
“Just because-” Jensen stops, sighs. “It’s not like we never mess around.”
Jared keeps smirking at him, shoves an onion ring in his mouth.
“Uh huh.”
Jensen turns his beer up, anything to end this conversation. The truth is they do mess around, some, but not that much. Not the kind of messing around where his shirt might ever come off, or God forbid, hers. The truth is she really never would have known, the bruise on his face and cut on his lip, the scuffs on his knuckles have healed by now, and there was really no good reason not to drive down tonight like he’d planned.
The thing is, he just didn’t feel like it. He just kind of felt like spending the weekend around the house, relaxing and hanging out and not spending four hours each way in the car, for once. And sure, he might feel a little guilty for lying to Amy, telling her he felt a cold coming on, but he’s not gonna feel guilty about that.
“Gabby’s still freaking about that test on Monday, didn’t want me to come up and distract her.” Jared shrugs and stuffs the last of his burger into his mouth. “So here I am.”
He sucks the grease off his fingers and pushes his food away, sighing and patting his belly. Jensen snorts at him.
“Classy.”
Jared just grins.
“Long as we got nowhere to be, I say we get another beer.”
*I figured this was somethin’ I could win, cause the devil was on my side.*
It was only supposed to be a few friends over for beers, something to do on a freezing cold, wet weekend with winter storm advisories keeping Jensen from going to Galveston and Gabby from coming down like they’d planned. Then those friends brought their friends and suddenly it was a full-fledged house party. In the middle of an ice storm. The thing is, it wasn’t supposed to get that bad, and drunk people don’t care about things like weather, so no one really even noticed until well after midnight, and by then, everyone still standing was stuck. No way were Jensen and Jared letting anyone out of the house to drive, not on the ice, not after drinking, wasn’t happening.
Chris and Kelly disappeared without anyone noticing, while everyone else was out on the porch breaking icicles off the eves, watching the moon shine off the silvery ground with the kind of wonder that only children of the South can muster up over an inch and a half of snow and ice. After that, Jared went to take a piss, thinking how glad he was Gabby decided not to risk driving down. He felt a little dizzy and wandered across to his room, just to take a little nap, a little rest before he rallied.
He wakes up spread eagled on his bed, shivering, with Jensen standing over him. The house is quiet and dark.
“My bed got hijacked.”
“Huh?”
“Your friends took my bed.”
“Huh?”
“Well they’re not my friends anymore, not after this.”
“Chris and Kell?”
“Who the fuck else?”
“Yeah.”
“The rest of those assholes took every other couch and bed and blanket in the damn house while I was cleaning up after their sorry asses. And now you have to scoot over because your bed is stupidly huge and you have to share.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.”
Jared scoots, kicks, squirms, trying to get his shoes off and his frozen feet under the covers while simultaneously making room for Jensen, but he’s lying on the comforter and he’s tangled and drunk and confused. Then he feels Jen’s hand on his back, pushing while the comforter is pulled loose from under Jared’s shoulder.
“There, spaz.”
The bed dips and Jensen flops in next to him, face up.
Jared is cold, and Jensen is warm, and so close, and Jared wants to be closer. He burrows under the sheets and blankets, slides up against Jensen, so warm, presses his cold nose against Jensen’s shoulder and hmmms in satisfaction. Jensen doesn’t protest, doesn’t even move, just breathes a deep sigh.
= = = = =
When Jared lurches awake, he feels queasy and disoriented and the clock says 4:42. It takes him a minute to figure out if that’s a.m or p.m., a minute more to recognize that’s Jensen half underneath him in his bed, and even longer to realize that the sticky-stiff pull in his shorts when he moves his leg is exactly what he’s thinking it cannot fucking possibly be.
His crotch is still pressed firmly against Jensen’s hip, his thigh pushed snugly in between Jensen’s legs, and it’s all starting to come back to him now. The cold, the warmth, the slow slide into heat, the lazy rub and press of bodies, the low groans and the easy feeling of familiarity, the complete lack of urgency, the long slow build and the sleepy, sated comedown, breathing against Jensen’s neck, Jen’s hand wide and warm on the back of his t-shirt.
Jared tries not to move the bed too much, sneaks across the hall to take a piss and splashes water on his face, takes his wash cloth from the bar at the back of the shower and cleans himself up as much as he can; it’s a little late at this point. Two glasses of water and four Advil later he slides back into bed and turns his back to Jensen’s sleeping form, carefully keeping a respectable space between them.
Then something in his sleep and booze-addled brain tells him it might be his only chance, so he scoots back until he makes contact, until the heat of Jen’s shoulder and arm press against his back, then he sleeps.
= = = = =
“Hey, when you guys are done spooning, the inmates are about to riot for their fuckin’ breakfast.”
Jared opens one eye at the sound of Jimbo’s voice at the door, tries to get his bearings. He’s aware of Jensen behind him, feels that they’re back to back now, pressed tight together, and he wonders when that happened.
“You hear me, assholes? We want bacon!”
“Make it yourself, bitches.”
Jensen’s voice is low, filled with grit and gravel. When he grumbles, Jared feels it against his back.
“You’re the ones running this hotel, dude. I know you don’t want to leave your cozy little love nest, but come on. Bacon!”
“Awww, look at them. So sweet.”
Jared closes his eyes and grits his teeth. Now Vic’s here too. They’re never, ever going to let him go back to sleep.
“Ain’t it? You almost hate to wake them.”
“Yeah, almost. Except.”
“Except, bacon.”
“Bacon, bitches! Come on!”
Jensen groans, and Jared feels it go right through him. Again. It sort of makes his breath catch.
“Fine, we’re coming.”
“Yes!”
Jimbo and Vic high five, and take off down the hall celebrating their bacon victory.
“Speak for yourself,” Jared’s protesting, pulling the covers up over his face as he feels Jensen start to move and wondering why things aren’t weirder. Wondering if maybe Jensen just doesn’t remember, then wondering why that thought makes him feel queasy all over again.
“Wrong, my man. Most of these dickwads are your friend anyway.”
“I beg to differ.”
“The truth hurts sometimes.”
“You’ve hung out with them on plenty of occasions when I wasn’t even around. That means you have to claim them, too. Quit blaming them on me.”
The bed sags then rebounds as Jensen rolls out, then a pillow flies at Jared’s head.
“Whatever, dude. You’re still frying the bacon.”
= = = = =
They go through all the bacon, all the waffle mix and some of the pancake mix too, all the syrup and most of the honey and jelly, and finish off the milk, the OJ, and the Cranapple Lite that Jared makes fun of Jensen for buying.
They sit around bagging on each other and watching SportsCenter replay ad nauseum, going stir crazy and annoying Kelly and Lisa with their belching and farting and wrestling until finally around two o’clock a big chunk of ice falls off the house and onto the front steps with a loud crack, fracturing the thick, solid sheet of the bottom step. They boil water and pour it over the steps and down the front walk, stomping the breaking ice into slush with their boots, and everybody helps scrape windows and kick ice formations away from tires until it’s all clear. Everyone heads off, leaving Jared standing with Jensen in the front yard, feeling just like his mom and dad look when he and Jeff and Megan all drive away from the house after Christmas.
He’s afraid this is going to be it: when the awkwardness sets in. They shower and change, finally, clean up the house, take the trash out to the alley and wind up in a snowball fight, wind up making an anatomically correct snowman out of the sticky, icy mess that’s left in the yard. They spend an inordinate amount of time and effort finding just the right branch to use for his right arm, so that it can support the empty beer bottle they dug out of the trash. Jensen smokes half a cigarette and stubs it out, carefully implants it at the corner of Frosty’s bottle cap mouth. They take pictures with the new digital camera Jared got for Christmas, carry wet firewood in from the pile next to the shed and spend an hour coughing at the smoking wood, poking at the logs, arranging and rearranging them and arguing about the merits of twigs versus newspaper to use for kindling. By five o’clock the temperature is back to freezing, and they’re holed up in front of the fire watching the TNT All-Star pre-game show, laughing at Charles Barkley, eating the grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup that Jensen made, drinking Irish coffee.
Jared’s still waiting for the awkwardness to start.
Instead it all feels normal, comfortable. Domestic, intimate even. And maybe, maybe even just a little bit.
Familial.
Jared can count on one hand the number of snow days the San Antonio Independent School District granted during his tenure as a student, but he remembers them all vividly, the feeling of being suspended in time, his mom and dad and brother and sister all home, no one running off anywhere, no chores to be done or projects to be worked on. They’d play games, watch movies, all eat lunch together around the dinner table like they never did, not even on the weekends. It was like the whole world shut down, and everyone he loved most was right there with him, safe inside their house with the fire blazing and the smell of his mom’s peanut butter chocolate chip cookies baking.
That’s what this feels like, inside the warm cocoon of the house with Jensen, just the two of them, and Jared thinks again that Jensen must not remember last night at all. Because maybe he hasn’t known Jensen that long, but he knows him about as well as he’s ever known anyone, and if Jen remembered, Jared is sure he’d be freaking out, holed up in his freezing cold attic room all by himself, probably praying for absolution. If he remembered, he’d be avoiding Jared at all costs, not cooking him dinner and helping him sculpt a disproportionately large snowman dick.
By the time he’s done with his coffee, Jared has convinced himself maybe he just dreamed the whole thing. He was pretty drunk.
= = = = =
Jared is only vaguely aware of the lights going out, of the TV turning off. He’s warm and comfy, stretched out on the couch, and he didn’t even make it to the end of the game, has no idea if the West pulled it out over the East.
“Bedtime, J-man.”
Jensen’s hand is on his head, just for a minute, that much he’s aware of, and his eyes flutter open.
“Yeah.”
“You better move to the bed, or you’re gonna regret it in the morning.”
Jared yawns, nods.
“Yeah.”
“Not very convincing, dude.”
“I’m going,” Jared’s eyes close as he says it. “In just a minute.”
He hears Jensen’s sigh as if from far away, hears the creak of the stairs as Jensen heads to bed, thinks need to get up, need to get up, but loses the string, lets it slip away until he’s floating in nothing, then somebody crashes cymbals over his head and he sits up with a start.
“What the fuck?”
Jensen is stomping out of the laundry room, look of disgust on his face. Jared vaguely registers that the cymbal crash was really the lid of the washing machine slamming closed.
“Your friends, man.”
“My friends again? What’d they do now?”
“The degree of bodily fluids that are on my sheets, not to mention my fucking comforter. It’s disturbing, seriously.”
“I can’t believe Kelly participated in anything like that.”
“I don’t even want to think about it. Also? There’s vomit on my pillowcase.”
“Gross.”
“You’re telling me! Fuck, I should have thought to check earlier. Like, every shred of bedding in the fucking place is defiled.”
“By my asshole friends.”
Jared manages a cheeky, if sleepy, grin, and Jensen grins back.
“Exactly. So move your ass off that couch, it just became my bed.”
Jared shakes his head, waves a hand as he’s reclining back into his previous position.
“Take mine, I’m already here.”
He can’t remember if Jensen argues or not, he’s already on the way out.
= = = = =
His feet are propped up on the arm of the couch, inclined so high that they’re tingling, losing feeling, and his neck is aching from being pressed into a 90 degree angle for he can’t even say how long.
Also, he’s freezing again.
He’s not thinking about anything, not thinking about Jensen being in his bed or what happened last time they slept there together, all he’s thinking is he needs to stretch out, he needs his pillow and his warm down comforter, and when he finds Jensen there he just shoves him til he rolls over, and slides in next to him.
Jensen snuffles and sighs.
“Couch not so great after all hmmm…”
“Short. Cold.”
“No shit.”
Jared scoots instinctively closer to Jensen’s heat, sluggish and sleepy. Then he feels Jen scoot too, realizes through a cloud of brain fog that Jensen is moving slowly, almost imperceptibly, but he’s moving toward Jared. Suddenly a jolt of adrenaline spikes his blood, and Jared’s wide awake, hyper aware of Jensen coming closer, able to pinpoint exactly when and where their bodies make contact. It’s like déjà vu, Jensen on his back, Jared curled on his side, Jensen’s arm and shoulder against his chest, Jared’s knee pushed into Jensen’s leg, only this time there’s a voice in Jared’s head that he hears clearly, and it’s chanting yes, more, closer.
He sneaks an eye open, and sees that Jensen’s are closed. He watches closely, watches for signs, watches Jensen’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows and thinks it seems suspicious, then he notices the white knuckle grip Jensen’s opposite hand has on the comforter, and Jared can’t help it, he grins a little, bends his neck a little and lets his forehead roll against Jen’s shoulder.
Jensen is awake, pretending to sleep. He knows. He fucking remembers, Jared is almost positive now.
Jared’s fingers are shaking, just a little, when he spreads them over Jen’s chest. He can feel the rapid flutter of the muscles under his hand, but Jen doesn’t move, doesn’t open his eyes.
Jared slides his leg up and over, holding his breath as it comes to rest between Jensen’s, thigh pressed to crotch, and still Jensen doesn’t move.
Jared’s pretty sure, but he’s not totally sure, and he can’t believe any of this; he has to ask.
“Okay?”
He whispers it low, barely audible, into Jen’s neck.
Jensen sucks in a breath, and Jared is sure he’s about to bolt, sure that he’s just ruined a friendship that, if not his oldest and dearest, has quickly become his favorite, and possibly best.
Instead Jen jerks his head, barely; once down, once up, and breathes out slow.
“Okay,” he whispers, without opening his eyes.
It’s not much, but it’s enough.
*They just want everybody to leave ‘em alone while they drink their whiskey
and roll their own, and they like their music with a little bit of Southern sound.*
Jensen hangs up the phone as he’s walking into the training room.
“Boyfriend?”
Randy grins at him, and Jensen raises an eyebrow.
“Huh?”
“Your boyfriend?”
Jensen just stares blankly.
“Your hetero life partner? Jared?”
“What about him?”
Randy gestures with his hands in made-up sign-language, and speaks slowly like maybe Jensen is impaired in some way.
“Was. That. Him. On. The. Phone?”
It was, actually, but Jensen suddenly doesn’t feel like saying so.
“Amy.”
Randy looks like he’s already bored of this conversation. He just shrugs.
“Can you finish those purchase orders I left for you before you go?”
“You bet man.”
“Okay, I’m outta here. Call me if you guys decide to go out, I could go for a drink.”
Jensen doesn’t even bother to answer.
And okay, maybe it’s not the first time some jackass friend of theirs has called Jared his boyfriend; that’s not even the point. The point is why Randy would assume any time he’s on the phone that it’s Jared, and also assume that whatever he’s doing tonight, he’s doing it with Jared. They’re not attached at the hip; it’s not like they do everything together.
Not everything.
But Jensen isn’t stupid, he’s not even in denial; he knows, okay. He knows that when Vic was his roommate, they were friends, good friends - they hung out, they got along, but. It wasn’t like it is with Jared.
And that’s not even counting the other thing that’s been going on with Jared, which is just. Yeah.
Jensen doesn’t know what to make of that.
The thing that freaks him out most is that he’s not really freaking out, and the only thing he’s feeling guilty about is not really feeling guilty.
It’s not like that time in college, with that guy, the incident that Jensen has spent years trying never to think of, the memory that still makes his stomach churn if it accidentally crosses his mind. Jared, the things they do - it feels nothing, nothing like that.
With Jared it doesn’t feel threatening, or uncomfortable; it’s not so aggressive, not nearly so. Blatant. With Jared it’s just something that happens sometimes. They don’t plan it, they don’t talk about it, they don’t worry about it. Jensen’s crazy busy with work, Jared’s got school and his internship to keep up with, they both have girlfriends who live far away, they both need to blow off some steam once in awhile. Sometimes they play video games, sometimes they have a few drinks, sometimes they smoke a little weed, and sometimes they do that.
Jensen knows sin is sin and there’s no explaining it away. He believes it’s simple, right is right and wrong is wrong, knows it like he knows the sky is blue, but he also knows he does things he shouldn’t every single day without having a breakdown over it. Every time he tells his mom he has to go when he really just wants to get back to his video game, every month he watches the HBO which magically appears on his channel list with no charge on his cable bill, those are sins too, technically; lying, stealing, and he knows how weak he is, doesn’t need any reminders. The nature of human beings is to sin, it’s built right in, it’s expected, and when he prays at night, he has no problem believing his transgressions are forgiven. Even the ones with Jared, somehow, don’t seem particularly more or less shameful than any of the other questionable moral decisions he makes on a daily basis.
Not that Jensen has spent that much time thinking about it.
= = = = =
Jensen looks up when the door slams, sees Jared kicking his shoes off in the front hall. He plunks his messenger bag down on the dining room table where Jensen’s looking at some MRI results. Beale’s elbow still isn’t looking great, and frankly Jensen’s at a loss for where to go next with his treatment. He scrubs his hand over the back of his head and scowls at the image in front of him.
“You look stressed.”
Jared’s digging through his bag.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Jensen doesn’t look up.
“Remember when I said my friend Sanjiv had some really good shit?”
A pungent baggie of dark green bud lands under Jensen’s nose, right on top of the scan. When he looks up, Jared’s untucking his work shirt, big grin on his face, dimples out in full force.
“Doesn’t Motorola have a policy about illegal drug trafficking on company grounds?”
Jared ignores him.
“I’m thinking we grill some steaks, smoke a little, maybe some Madden later?”
Jared’s already backing out of the dining room, unbuttoning his shirt as he goes, calling back at Jensen as he ducks into his bedroom.
“Fire up the grill, I’ll be out in a few.”
Jensen’s exhausted, had been thinking about pouring himself a bowl of cereal and heading upstairs, calling it a night.
But.
He sniffs at the baggie, turns it over in his hands and figures Jared’s idea sounds okay, too.
He lights the grill, lets it heat up. Leaves the patio doors open to let in some of the fresh April air, defrosts some steaks and massages some Grub Rub into them, then heads back out. Jared’s already at the picnic table on the deck, rolling up a jay. Jensen smells it when Jared sparks up behind him.
“Fuck, that’s good.”
Jensen grins at Jared’s choked voice.
“Well quit hoggin’ it. Selfish.”
They pass it back and forth while the steaks sizzle, Jared puts some Vaughan Brothers on the cd player they keep on the picnic table, then stands up. He steals the jay from between Jensen’s lips, takes one more long hit, then hands it back.
“We still have that Texas Toast in the freezer, right?”
“Think so.” Jensen shrugs. “I’m not the one who eats it 6 pieces at a time.”
“I’m a growing boy, don’t hate.”
Jared wanders inside and leaves Jensen to stare up at the sky and smoke. He loves this time of year, loves how the time change makes the evenings feel longer, like there’s more time after work to relax and hang out. He breathes deep, smells the weed and the steaks and the chlorine from the pool, the grass turning green, bluebonnets growing in the corners of the yard, and this day feels so much better all of a sudden.
Jared brings out salad and bread and plates and knives and forks and beer. Jensen’s pretty impressed; usually Jared’s just in charge of the beer, at most. They finish eating and go lay in the lounge chairs by the pool with their beer, finish the jay as the sun finally sets. Jared gets giggly, like he always does when he’s blazed, his eyes heavy-lidded as he laughs at nothing, scrutinizing Jensen’s face.
“Your face looks funny when you’re high.”
“Back at ya champ.”
“Still looks better than when you’re stressed, though.”
Jensen snorts.
“Thanks. Or something.”
Jensen’s phone rings, Amy’s smiling face popping up on the display, but he’s too relaxed, too high to talk to her. He lets the voicemail pick it up.
= = = = =
Jared’s wearing his new Ginobili jersey, still beating his thunder sticks together and grinning like a kid.
“Dude! How glad am I that we came to game 2 and not game 1?”
“I’m guessing pretty glad.”
“All that bullshit about how we can’t hang with the Nuggets, man. No way. No way.”
They head out of the SBC Center and back toward the car, Jensen letting Jared ramble on. It was actually a shitty game, 30 point wins tend to be pretty boring even if it’s your team doing the winning, but Jared didn’t seem to notice. When the Spurs won their division and got the second seed in the West, then went out and lost game 1 of their first round play-off series, Jensen though Jared might actually cry. He felt like he had to buy the tickets for tonight, just to keep the kid off suicide watch.
It’s not like Jensen’s rolling in the dough, exactly, but compared to Jared he’s Bill fucking Gates. So he bought the tickets, told Jared to consider it a late Christmas present, early birthday present, whatever, but just shut up about it. So maybe he’s not a Spurs fan, that’s okay. He figures they can go to another game when the Spurs and Mavs meet in the Conference Finals.
They stop at Whataburger in San Marcos for taquitos, don’t get back home until after one a.m. Jensen’s already changed his clothes, brushed his teeth, is just about to slide into bed when Jared calls up the stairs.
“Hey, Jen? You wanna watch the highlights from the other games? I recorded Inside the NBA on my TV.”
Jensen stops cold halfway between his bathroom and his bed, has to think for a minute before he answers.
Jared’s got a dinosaur of a TV that sits on his dresser, and he records all the Spurs games on his VCR so they don’t interrupt anything they’ve got programmed on the TiVo. Eighty-two games a year, there are bound to be conflicts, but when they watch games together, they’ve always watched on the big screen in the living room.
The first time Jared said he was gonna watch in his room, Jensen didn’t think much of it. It took a few more games, took Jensen wandering in and sitting down on Jared’s bed, grumbling what the hell are you doing in here then getting sucked into the game without realizing Jared never really answered; it took lounging on the bed, yelling at the TV like usual, took Jared turning the TV off as soon as the buzzer sounded, raising up on his elbow next to Jensen and looking down at him before Jensen realized. Took Jared’s breath on his neck and thigh pressing down between Jensen’s legs, his hand fisted in Jensen’s t-shirt and groin pressed tight up against Jensen’s hip, rutting and pushing, for Jensen to understand; this is what Jared wanted all along.
Jensen scrubs his hand over the back of his hair and screws his eyes shut, trying to think. He doesn’t want to take too long to answer, that would make it weird. Then again, the fact that he knows what Jared really means and it’s got nothing to do with watching play-off highlights, that’s already pretty fucking weird, so.
He takes a deep breath, looks at his bed. He should just go to sleep, he really should.
“Jen? You hear me, man?”
Jared’s voice is all bravado, but Jensen can hear the uncertainty underneath, and it makes his chest tighten up, makes something in him want to reassure the kid.
“Yeah, yeah I heard you.” He swallows past the lump in his throat. “Be right down.”
PART 2 < > PART 4
| MASTER POST | PART 3 LYRIC CREDITS |