fic.
Happy schmoopy snowy Jsquared for ink_stain, who deserves a hundred times more. Thanks to sevenfists for her keen beta-fu.
Inspired by this.
Hollywood North
Jensen/Jared, R, 1224 words.
The white stuff, it's coming down all over. More of it than usual, earlier than it's supposed to. The city is panicking. People here only just put away their hiking shorts. It's a little bit like the end of the world, or at the very least a whole lot like a frozen Pompeii. Vancouver is immobile under twelve inches of snow.
Jensen doesn't mind the snow so much. He likes the hats.
Jared, however, fucking adores the stuff. Like he's from the moon rather than Texas, where people have heard of snow before. On TV, at least. Fluffy things wafting down from the sky and coating everything out of doors, it all rings a bell. But Jared looks like he thinks it's a present for him. Jensen thinks he heard Jared tell Jeannie he went sledding. And Jensen wouldn't be at all surprised if he found Jared rolling around in his yard with the dogs, giant limbs wheeling around, the world's tallest six-year-old.
That's pretty much the state Jared appears in, shortly before lunch that Sunday. Jared stands on Jensen's porch, stuffed into a puffy parka and Kodiak boots. His hat has earflaps, and a rim of faux-fur hemming the edge. Jensen wants to punch him in the neck. But there's a scarf there, wound twice.
Jared's grinning, the glint in his eyes maniacal. He waves a mitten in Jensen's general direction, conveying some kind of invitation. "Come play!
Jensen scratches at his crotch through his sweatpants and shivers in his t-shirt, standing barefoot in his entryway. He peers over Jared's shoulder, at the monochrome landscape beyond. "Dude, I'm not leaving the house till I have to. It's the fucking ice age out there."
"It's winter! It's Canada! You love Canada," Jared points out reasonably.
Jensen does. He loves the smiling girls and the varied terrain and having doors held open for him by strangers and practically legal marijuana and the Calgary Stampede and microbreweries and Tim Hortons coffee and The New Pornographers. He even likes the crisp mornings when he needs to be on set at three fucking a.m. These calls (early- or late-? he's never sure what to call them) are made bearable by the smiling PAs handing him his double-double without expecting him to take his earbuds out. He likes "The Bleeding Heart Show" first thing in the morning, or anything off Trouble at the Henhouse. Peter-the-AD, who learns him in the kind of Canuck emo rock Jared makes fun of him for, updates Jensen's iPod without telling him. He even likes that.
What he doesn't like is freezing his balls off in his foyer.
"Get in. If you sit still long enough for me to wake up, I'll go for a walk with you."
"All right, grandpa," Jared snorts, but waddles in anyway, elbowing the door closed behind him. Jensen crosses his arms over his chest for warmth and stands on his cold hardwood floor watching Jared shed the eighteen layers he's wrapped himself in.
Jared drinks all of Jensen's coffee and eats all Jensen's toast and takes up all the room on Jensen's couch. He not only changes the channel the TV was on, but also the programming on Jensen's universal remote, and the clock on Jensen's DVR. He's going for the cordless' speed dial buttons when Jensen plucks the phone out of his hands.
"Jared, I swear to god."
"Language, son," Jared warns, sounding like someone's daddy. But he's already up, lured by new things: he pokes at the CDs stacked on the shelf, tips books by their spine, socked feet shuffling on the carpet. Jensen can't do more than watch him from the sofa and try to absorb whatever warmth he can from his coffee. He was planning on waking up, but Jared really just makes Jensen wants to go back to bed. Jensen scratches at the scruff on his cheek and thinks about fluffy pillows and soft, clean sheets. A different kind of white expanse he'd like to play in.
Jensen's yanked out of his reverie by Jared looming over him. He hadn't noticed Jared's wearing some sort of thermal undershirt with--god--ponies on it. How do you miss that? Jensen needs more coffee. And a hot PA, smiling at him.
Jared's snapping his fingers. "You're plenty awake. Let's go."
Jensen has a nephew, all of five, who bosses him around like this. He should be horrified that Jared gets away with it more than Matthew does.
It's high noon and Jensen's sweating in his own parka, the one he stole from his trailer three days ago, when the sky had started falling apart on them. He forgot his sunglasses in the house because in his head, snow does not equal sunshine. Mistake. Jared grins at him from behind his Ray Bans, looking like a giant green Michelin Man. His hiking boots crunch through the layercake of snow and ice on the sidewalk.
The line at Tim Horton's is too long, so they get mochas from Starbucks a block down, and two Nanaimo bars. Jared eats his in one bite.
Jensen has no idea what kind of mojo Jared's working, but they kill an afternoon in Yaletown, walking around, stopping to feed Jared on the hour. By the time they stumble back home, Jensen can't feel his toes. The smile he can feel on his face tugs at his skin, stiffened by the cold. Jared's yammering on about the gifts he's buying everyone he's ever met, down to the key grips hired last week. Jensen asks for a plasma TV and a reindeer. He feels a little drunk on snow and sun and the cold kiss of coastal wind.
Things tingle when they thaw. It's warmer naked in bed under the duvet than bundled by the heater in the livingroom. The insides of Jared's thighs are cold against Jensen's hip, but the soft skin behind his ears warms Jensen's fingertips. Jared grins up at him against a backdrop of white cotton, his cheeks pink, his hair hopelessly dishevelled by the earflapped hat.
His mouth, when Jensen kisses it, tastes like peppermint and snowdays.