Timstamps: Rose-verse, Mad World, and Hot Stuff
Timestamps!
I'd say these all came out PG-13, because apparently when Jensen's sexually frustrated my Big Bang, NO ONE GETS ANY SEX. (Until his needs are met.)
**
10 years after the events of A Rose in Another Man's Garden/ The Edible Man, for arabella_hope
Sam/Dean, Dean/Cake
902 words
The bottom level has nine of them, the next one eight, seven, six, skips five right over to four, three, two, and one on the very top. Dean skews his head to one side, trying to do the math before he realizes there's no point in making sure it's correct, because it's Sam, and of course he'd do it just right.
"Forty cupcakes," Dean says.
"Happy Birthday," Sam says, blowing one of those unraveling noisemakers and angling himself just so it flicks Dean's nose.
Dean brushes him away and goes back to staring at the tower. "How the fuck am I supposed to eat forty cupcakes, Sam?"
"You don't have to eat them all, Dean."
"So you want me to waste cupcakes?"
"I might want you to say 'Wow, Sam you must have outdid yourself baking for nineteen hours straight. Thanks.'"
Dean takes a deep breath and steps forward, grabbing the top one and starting to peel the wrapper off. "I could've eaten forty cupcakes by myself when I was younger."
"I know, I know. And now you'd just go into a diabetic coma," Sam says, taking a red velvet one for himself. "So don't even think about it. We'll give the rest away to whoever wants them. Leave them on the neighbor's porch."
"Throw 'em at the kids playing that crap they call music all night long."
Sam rolls his eyes, feeling as young as he was when Dean was the kid keeping everyone in the motel up late blasting Zepp. "It's a jazz band, Dean. Just a bunch of old guys in their seventies playing Miles Davis at 9pm. Not really a cause for alarm."
"Nineteen hours, huh?" Dean says, only it comes out muffled because his mouth's pulled wide and stuffed full of cupcake and he spits crumbs down the front of his shirt and Sam thinks he looks just as young as the year he ate all thirty-two of the cupcakes Sam made just to prove he could.
"Yeah," finished with the red velvet and wiping cream cheese frosting off the side of his mouth onto his thumb which Dean takes, bringing it to his lips and sucking-licking it off.
A callous-rough hand holding a rough wrist, skin starting to bunch at the bones and sinews of their arms and hands. Lives lived and left wrinkled and worn out, not like the rocks Sam used to roll down hills until they came out smooth while Dean lay in the grass with his walkman on, making pornographic images out of fluffy white clouds to amuse himself.
"Thank you, Sam," Dean says softly as Sam's hand comes to rest on his face, rubbing the tuft of gray hair starting to creep up farther along Dean's sideburns.
He loves those gray hairs, kisses them every night before they go to bed. Dean grumbles at him and Sam tells him how beautiful he looks when he gets old and wrinkled and gray.
You're a fucking miracle, Dean. I want you old and senile and alive for as long as you'll let me, Sam tells him.
Dean clears his throat. "Thank you for nineteen hours and forty cupcakes that I will not try and eat by myself. But you might want to lock them in the ice-box in the garage just to be safe."
"Thank you for having another birthday," Sam says and Dean grunts.
"Stop giving me those watery eyes and the 'oh Dean, you survived another year! I never thought I'd see you ever live this long, blah blah,' it's fucking lame, Sammy. I'm getting tired of it, and-" Dean presses his mouth shut.
Sam crooks his head to the side, laughs quietly. "You just started writing a letter in your head, didn't you?"
"Maybe," Dean says, narrowing his eyes.
"You're like the angry old guy on the typewriter in the cartoons."
"Hold on, I'm composing. And I'm writing the post-script. It involves me telling you to suck my dick. I do hope you'll RSVP."
**
Sam knows that deep down Dean's eternally stuck on that hill, back flat on the grass and Sam by his side, slings an arm around him and tells him dirty jokes. And after Dean nods off, he keeps on talking. Whispering poems and epics to Sam while he sleeps, completely unaware of his neverending soliloquy.
The sound of Dean's voice lulling him to rest.
**
44 days after Mad World, for regala_electra
J2 Alice in Wonderland AU
2,507 words
'Twas another day in CWonderland like any other day. The mome-raths were skittering about and the jub-jub birds were singing their warbling song and the Cat was on the prowl.
However, for this poor lonely Cheshire fellow, there was not much to prowl about for, ever since him. He remembers Jared fondly, his unexpected arrival exactly one month and two weeks ago, wearing that blue and white dress with the black Maryjanes and the floppy white bow in his too-messy hair. And the broad shoulders the Cat could have really sunk his claws into.
"Climbed him like a tree I could've," the Cat says to himself as he leaps into the branches and looks down at Tulgey wood with a sneer. All the creatures of CWonderland run away from him without so much as a hello or how-do. Even those-
The Cat smiles, the Twellings have managed to get themselves lost in a corner of the wood, fighting and honking amongst each other, and the Cat easily drops down on the ground in front of them.
"Hello!" he greets them both, teeth flashed and like clockwork one Twelling leaps into the other's arms, both quaking in fear.
"Ch-Ch-Cheshire Cat!"
"Lads," the Cat says, "I've been listening to you for quite sometime. Speaking of that-that beach of yours. Where on one side there is the sun, and the other side the moon." The Cat steps forward, gesturing with his cane. "I've been looking for a change of scenery, care to send me along my way?"
"Send you…" one Twelling begins.
"…away to the ocean?" the other finishes. And they share a smile.
**
The Cat sniffs the salt-water air and smells… dinner. Slinks his way right into the caucus race, the birds and fishes and lobsters circling their maestro, the Dodo bird.
What follows are a few choice words and a bet that he can't swallow a minnow whole, and suddenly the Cheshire Cat is once again the cause of fear and trembling among the smaller, lesser creatures of CWonderland.
"Perhaps," the Cat says kicking sand up into the air, "it's simply my destiny to be feared and isolated from the rest of the world as I know it. Perhaps it's better that way. Though, I must admit, it does at times get lo-low!" the Cat shouts as he falls to the sand, having kicked a pile of sand away and tripping on the rock buried beneath.
The Cat turns around to get a better look at the stone in his path, one that's not really a stone at all. "Oh, I see now." The Cat picks up the large, empty turtle shell, dusting more sand off of its edges. "Perhaps if you were a bit deeper, I could boat you out to see. Find a place I might fare better. Hum," the Cat says and turns it over, dropping it back to the sand. "But it's not really my color."
**
Night envelops the beach in shadow and flickering firelights as the creatures of sea and sky clump together in their respective camps. Cooking food and throwing water and dust into the fire so they can tell their stories and give speeches with atmosphere. The Cat sniffs, deciding he should definitely go steal food from the Dodo's campsite. The creature makes the most entertaining noises.
The Cheshire Cat crawls along the rocky ridges, moving closer and closer to his intended prey, when he's broken from his reverie by a mewling sound, and a sniffle. It quirks his ear just so as to be…
Familiar.
The Cat follows the noise, scaling down the rocks on the other side of the campsite and moving further and further out towards the raging sea. Winds blowing faster and faster, threatening to knock him right into the water and the Cat crouches down low and anchors himself to a crag, sinking his claws in deep.
When the wind settles, the Cat moves forward again, one of the dark, rock-like shapes starting to take on form and movement. Soon he realizes he's upon a creature he's never seen before. Neither fish nor fowl nor wholly man. But man it is, and man with his head in his hands, body shaking.
"Curiouser, and curiouser," the Cat says, clicking his tongue. And the creature turns to face him.
The Cat's eyes go wide, the luminescence almost shining right into the man's face. And the face so familiar!
His face. Only younger, with a messy fringe almost covering his eyes and what appear to be flippers where his hands should jut out and gray-blue skin.
"I can't find my shell!" the creature moans and grabs onto the Cat's torso, holding tight and warm. "The duchess took it, she wants to make me into soup!!"
"Do I?" the Cat asks, peeling himself off the creature. "Do I know you?"
"I've never-never seen you before," he stutters.
"Weren't you wearing a dress the last time I saw you," the Cat asks, swinging his cane and the-the whatever-it-is falls to it's knees, sobbing.
"No, but I was wearing my shell! And I can't-I don't know where she put it and I need it back! What kind of mock turtle am I without my-my-my shell!? Why I'm nothing but mock!" it says, spitting the last word out onto the ground with disdain.
"Mock… Turtle…" The Cheshire Cat runs the idea through the clockwork of his mind, the gears and chasms and little whirly-clacking devices that keep the tempo steady. And even those that don't.
The Mock Turtle stands up again, breathing heavy and wiping the sand off his paws. "So, who are you?"
The Cheshire Cat turns his head. "I know where your shell is. It's buried not far from here, come on." The Cat turns and starts walking back towards the beach.
The Mock Turtle stammers behind him, but starts to follow along. "I know who you are now! You're my new best friend!"
"Watch your step," the Cat answers, thinking only of tracking down that lump among the many other lumps of sand he'd come across.
"How can you see in this pitch-dark?" the Mock Turtle asks and the Cheshire Cat answers simply turning his head and flashing his eyes like jewels that catch and reflect the sheen of the tiniest star, magnifying it.
"Ohhh," the Mock Turtle says, then unveiling to him a smile that could light the entire beach on it's own.
**
What the Cheshire Cat hadn't considered when the Mock Turtle proclaimed him his new best friend it meant they would be joined permanently. The Cat couldn't even pull his disappearing act on him without the Mock Turtle popping up wherever he was an hour later. Usually out of breath from running.
The Mock Turtle had a little bit of bloodhound in that mix of creatures he was composed of, the Cat could swear it.
Even when the Cat returned to the thick, dark woods of the CWonderland forests, the Mock Turtle was never far behind, trying to paw his way up the trees to sit with the Cat, until eventually he'd grow weary of the Mock Turtle falling over and over again that he'd just drop to the forest floor and sit with him against the tree trunk.
And the Mock Turtle never stopped talking. Constant stream of consciousness flowed out from him, sometimes he'd recite his favorite poems, or he'd talk about the time he saw the Dodo fly out to sea on wax wings and then he'd get into history, and all the sciences he could relate, and when the Cat would ask him where he learned his lessons, he'd say "In the school, of course!" The Cat wondered if the Mock Turtle meant a school of academics, or a school of fish. But he never asked him, because then the Mock Turtle would hold out a paw, asking him to dance.
It would have been rude to refuse, the Cheshire Cat thought, before joining him for a Waltz outside the Palace of Hearts, the music from the Queen's cotillion playing softly in the distance. For an amphibian, the Mock Turtle handled himself quite well on dry land, the Cheshire Cat would note.
The Mock Turtle would only ever leave his side to rehydrate. And then return to him from whatever lake or pond he was able to find, head dripping wet, and he'd pick up right where he left off, in the middle of whatever joke, or anecdote or story.
When the Cheshire Cat brought him to see the Hatter's tea party, and his presence sent their hosts running in all sorts of directions, the Mock Turtle finally asks him the question he'd been waiting to hear.
"Why are they afraid of you?"
The Cheshire Cat sips his tea. "Don’t know, but everybody is. They say I'm unbalanced. Unpredictable. Undesirable company."
"Why, I'm not afraid of you at all, Cat, and may I tell you why?"
The Cat puts his cup down on the saucer. "Yes?"
"For one, you are rather balanced. The things I see you do in trees, the acrobatics and the way you use the cane as an extension of yourself, all on legs that are kind of bowed in the middle, have you ever noticed?"
The Cat sneers. "Go on."
"Anyway, so you do have quite a bit of balance. And I find you predictable, in that I know you will never become boring. And that I can rely on you to come to protect me if the Duchess ever comes back for my shell. And I can usually predict that if you're not in a tree, basking in the sun, or bedeviling someone lost in the woods, you'll be back at my side soon enough. So I never worry I would lose you and be alone again."
The Cat nods, "I suppose so."
"And the final lie they tell about you, Jensen, is that you would ever for a moment be undesirable. Because what I desire is your company, above and beyond anything else."
**
"You said my name that time," Jensen interrupts.
"I did what?" Jared asks, looking up from his notes. Jensen presses his nose like a button, and Jared tries to flick his hand away.
"You said my name on the last line."
Jared returns to his place, "Damn it, I thought I'd caught them all." Jensen's fingers are now slowly working his tie out of his vest, and drawing the knot of it down.
"You have such a wild imagination, Jared. Why would you ever imagine yourself as a giant sea turtle-"
"Mock Turtle," Jared corrects.
"-sorry, Mock Turtle, who runs at the mouth, is half bloodhound and is afraid of having his shell stolen by some terrible Duchess. Unless that last part is supposed to be symbolic of the male castration fear. In which case, ew."
"Jensen!" Jared laughs. "It's not that deep, it's just a silly story based on this dream I had."
"Ah yes, the return of yours truly as the Cheshire Cat, was it? In all his sexy, powerful, and quasi-feline glory?" Jensen asks, sitting up from his position with his head in Jared's lap, he tangles their legs together and Jared's nose brushes his, touches the rim of his glasses.
"Yeah, only he was-" Jared bites his lip. "He was lonely. He wanted someone that wasn't afraid of him. So I just," Jared shrugs. "Thought up a friend for him, I guess?"
"Sounds to me like they're more than friends."
"Why Jensen Ackles, are you suggesting something-untoward-about fictional characters!" Jared says, with fake incredulousness.
Jensen kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him a few more times for good measure as Jared lets himself be moved back into the soft grass beneath them, and tastes Jensen's tongue against his.
**
Somewhere, in the corner of his subconscious, the Cheshire Cat raises his cup of tea to the Mock Turtle, the clockwork of his mind clicking in all the right directions.
"If it is my company you desire, than far be it from me to deny the request I know I could oblige you from now on. And let me say this as a promise to you, my dearest friend;"
"You mean?"
"I'll always join your dance."
**
4 months after Hot Stuff for beckaandzac
J2 AU, Pastry Chef!Jared and Food Critic!Jensen
1,230 words
"I hate it when you do that," Jared says to Jensen when he catches him licking the powdered sugar off his dessert before eating it, again.
"Everyone's a critic," Jensen says, and runs his tongue around the ball-shaped pastry.
"It's disgusting."
"It's delicious," Jensen corrects and then pops the whole thing in his mouth, much to Jared's surprise because when Jensen bites down on it his eyes bug out and he mumbles "Cold!"
After spitting the rest of it into a napkin, and Jared calming down the rest of the patrons, assuring them that he's not choking, just an idiot.
"Why the hell would you do that if you didn't know there was ice-cream inside it?"
"I thought it was a zeppole!" Jensen says, poking at the others left on his plate, slicing them open with his fork and carefully tasting the cinnamon ice-cream without the shell.
"No, it's profiteroles. I wouldn't serve you carnival food, Jensen."
"I eat a lot of things that look the same, I get confused," Jensen explains. "And haven't you heard? Street fair foods are the new designer cupcakes."
Jared rolls his eyes. "I refuse to have a deep fryer in my kitchen."
"Too much fat?"
"Too much temptation to deep fry anything and then eat it. I went through that in culinary school. Until my roommate deep-fried my shoelaces and told me they were spaghetti," Jared says spearing one of the profiteroles off Jensen's plate and taking a bite.
"I licked the sugar off of that one too," Jensen says.
"I know." Jared winks at him. "So what do you think?"
"It's okay," Jensen says.
"Just, 'okay'?"
Jensen shrugs. "It's cream puffs with cinnamon ice-cream and powdered sugar? Not exactly a revolution."
Jared swirls the melted ice cream around Jensen's plate with his finger. "Huh," he says, sucking his finger clean and then returning to swoop around Jensen's plate again
"Now that is disgusting. Stop that," Jensen says stirring his coffee. "Anyway, I think the French desserts are starting to fall kind of flat. Maybe you should try something more along the lines of Latin or Mediterranean."
"What if I added some warm apple crumble on the side?"
Jensen shrugs.
"Oh come on, you can't shut me out like that! Do you think it's worth a shot at the City Kitchen dessert-off?"
"I'm supposed to be objective. I can't tell you if I think something is worth trying or not lest I give you an unfair advantage at the tasting next week! I could lose my job, Jared."
Jared pauses. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Jensen sighs. "Go down to Astridology on second avenue. Order the dessert sampler."
"So you're saying, it's been done."
"I'm saying nothing. Send Katie there, though. She's a good mole."
Jared blinks. "You're using the baristas in elaborate sting operations, aren't you? Is that why you still food blog from here?"
"Nothing!"
**
"Astrid's got cream puffs coming out of her ears. Big ones, small ones, deep-fried ones and chocolate-kahlua cream ones. Also they've already got a spin on apple pie using profiteroles," Katie tells him the next day.
"See, we've got them covering cream puffs, and downtown Kiko's is doing candy sushi," Jensen says, crossing them off the map he's tacked up on the kitchen wall. He's converted it into a new base of operations, right under Jared's nose. The recipes Jared had put on his bulletin board to try, he's already crossed out. "Maude's has the homemade donuts and jellies, and on the West Side it's French and Italian fusion. You're not going to stand out from there unless you go Mediterranean, Jared are you listening?"
"I like marzipan," Jared says, flipping through his cookbook.
"Jared, do you really think marzipan is going to win it for you?"
"Did you really think that I wouldn't have found out that you had to recuse yourself from participating in the open because I was already signed up as a contestant, and you're probably just using me to try and vicariously win it with your insider information? Which is kind of ironic because that's exactly what you were telling me not to try and do in the first place. When all I was really asking, was for your opinion on my profiteroles. Which I agree, I tried them, they sucked. The powdered sugar was the only decent part; which is why I assume you licked that off first. Next time, just give me your honest opinion."
Katie backs slowly out of the room, mumbling something about getting back to the customers.
Jensen shoves his hands in his pockets, walks over to sit across from Jared as he flips through the book.
"Well," Jensen starts, but Jared interrupts.
"I really like marzipan, you know? I like playing with things you can mold and color and make shapes out of. And I like the idea of adding it to something that needs almonds instead of almonds, but I haven't figured out what, yet."
"I'm sorry, Jared. I just didn't-"
"If you are at all worried that the crux of our relationship rests entirely on whether or not you always have something nice to say about what I make for you, then you and I should have a serious talk. About how not-starstruck I am by you anymore, and how if you slam my food, I know I can just slam you back." Jared looks up from the book right at Jensen. "Hard."
Jensen rests his head in his hands, looking at Jared from over the rim of his glasses. His shoe bumps up against Jared's leg. "You should do marzipan."
"You think?"
"Yeah. Just don't ask me to try it. I hate that shit."
I'd say these all came out PG-13, because apparently when Jensen's sexually frustrated my Big Bang, NO ONE GETS ANY SEX. (Until his needs are met.)
**
10 years after the events of A Rose in Another Man's Garden/ The Edible Man, for arabella_hope
Sam/Dean, Dean/Cake
902 words
The bottom level has nine of them, the next one eight, seven, six, skips five right over to four, three, two, and one on the very top. Dean skews his head to one side, trying to do the math before he realizes there's no point in making sure it's correct, because it's Sam, and of course he'd do it just right.
"Forty cupcakes," Dean says.
"Happy Birthday," Sam says, blowing one of those unraveling noisemakers and angling himself just so it flicks Dean's nose.
Dean brushes him away and goes back to staring at the tower. "How the fuck am I supposed to eat forty cupcakes, Sam?"
"You don't have to eat them all, Dean."
"So you want me to waste cupcakes?"
"I might want you to say 'Wow, Sam you must have outdid yourself baking for nineteen hours straight. Thanks.'"
Dean takes a deep breath and steps forward, grabbing the top one and starting to peel the wrapper off. "I could've eaten forty cupcakes by myself when I was younger."
"I know, I know. And now you'd just go into a diabetic coma," Sam says, taking a red velvet one for himself. "So don't even think about it. We'll give the rest away to whoever wants them. Leave them on the neighbor's porch."
"Throw 'em at the kids playing that crap they call music all night long."
Sam rolls his eyes, feeling as young as he was when Dean was the kid keeping everyone in the motel up late blasting Zepp. "It's a jazz band, Dean. Just a bunch of old guys in their seventies playing Miles Davis at 9pm. Not really a cause for alarm."
"Nineteen hours, huh?" Dean says, only it comes out muffled because his mouth's pulled wide and stuffed full of cupcake and he spits crumbs down the front of his shirt and Sam thinks he looks just as young as the year he ate all thirty-two of the cupcakes Sam made just to prove he could.
"Yeah," finished with the red velvet and wiping cream cheese frosting off the side of his mouth onto his thumb which Dean takes, bringing it to his lips and sucking-licking it off.
A callous-rough hand holding a rough wrist, skin starting to bunch at the bones and sinews of their arms and hands. Lives lived and left wrinkled and worn out, not like the rocks Sam used to roll down hills until they came out smooth while Dean lay in the grass with his walkman on, making pornographic images out of fluffy white clouds to amuse himself.
"Thank you, Sam," Dean says softly as Sam's hand comes to rest on his face, rubbing the tuft of gray hair starting to creep up farther along Dean's sideburns.
He loves those gray hairs, kisses them every night before they go to bed. Dean grumbles at him and Sam tells him how beautiful he looks when he gets old and wrinkled and gray.
You're a fucking miracle, Dean. I want you old and senile and alive for as long as you'll let me, Sam tells him.
Dean clears his throat. "Thank you for nineteen hours and forty cupcakes that I will not try and eat by myself. But you might want to lock them in the ice-box in the garage just to be safe."
"Thank you for having another birthday," Sam says and Dean grunts.
"Stop giving me those watery eyes and the 'oh Dean, you survived another year! I never thought I'd see you ever live this long, blah blah,' it's fucking lame, Sammy. I'm getting tired of it, and-" Dean presses his mouth shut.
Sam crooks his head to the side, laughs quietly. "You just started writing a letter in your head, didn't you?"
"Maybe," Dean says, narrowing his eyes.
"You're like the angry old guy on the typewriter in the cartoons."
"Hold on, I'm composing. And I'm writing the post-script. It involves me telling you to suck my dick. I do hope you'll RSVP."
**
Sam knows that deep down Dean's eternally stuck on that hill, back flat on the grass and Sam by his side, slings an arm around him and tells him dirty jokes. And after Dean nods off, he keeps on talking. Whispering poems and epics to Sam while he sleeps, completely unaware of his neverending soliloquy.
The sound of Dean's voice lulling him to rest.
**
44 days after Mad World, for regala_electra
J2 Alice in Wonderland AU
2,507 words
'Twas another day in CWonderland like any other day. The mome-raths were skittering about and the jub-jub birds were singing their warbling song and the Cat was on the prowl.
However, for this poor lonely Cheshire fellow, there was not much to prowl about for, ever since him. He remembers Jared fondly, his unexpected arrival exactly one month and two weeks ago, wearing that blue and white dress with the black Maryjanes and the floppy white bow in his too-messy hair. And the broad shoulders the Cat could have really sunk his claws into.
"Climbed him like a tree I could've," the Cat says to himself as he leaps into the branches and looks down at Tulgey wood with a sneer. All the creatures of CWonderland run away from him without so much as a hello or how-do. Even those-
The Cat smiles, the Twellings have managed to get themselves lost in a corner of the wood, fighting and honking amongst each other, and the Cat easily drops down on the ground in front of them.
"Hello!" he greets them both, teeth flashed and like clockwork one Twelling leaps into the other's arms, both quaking in fear.
"Ch-Ch-Cheshire Cat!"
"Lads," the Cat says, "I've been listening to you for quite sometime. Speaking of that-that beach of yours. Where on one side there is the sun, and the other side the moon." The Cat steps forward, gesturing with his cane. "I've been looking for a change of scenery, care to send me along my way?"
"Send you…" one Twelling begins.
"…away to the ocean?" the other finishes. And they share a smile.
**
The Cat sniffs the salt-water air and smells… dinner. Slinks his way right into the caucus race, the birds and fishes and lobsters circling their maestro, the Dodo bird.
What follows are a few choice words and a bet that he can't swallow a minnow whole, and suddenly the Cheshire Cat is once again the cause of fear and trembling among the smaller, lesser creatures of CWonderland.
"Perhaps," the Cat says kicking sand up into the air, "it's simply my destiny to be feared and isolated from the rest of the world as I know it. Perhaps it's better that way. Though, I must admit, it does at times get lo-low!" the Cat shouts as he falls to the sand, having kicked a pile of sand away and tripping on the rock buried beneath.
The Cat turns around to get a better look at the stone in his path, one that's not really a stone at all. "Oh, I see now." The Cat picks up the large, empty turtle shell, dusting more sand off of its edges. "Perhaps if you were a bit deeper, I could boat you out to see. Find a place I might fare better. Hum," the Cat says and turns it over, dropping it back to the sand. "But it's not really my color."
**
Night envelops the beach in shadow and flickering firelights as the creatures of sea and sky clump together in their respective camps. Cooking food and throwing water and dust into the fire so they can tell their stories and give speeches with atmosphere. The Cat sniffs, deciding he should definitely go steal food from the Dodo's campsite. The creature makes the most entertaining noises.
The Cheshire Cat crawls along the rocky ridges, moving closer and closer to his intended prey, when he's broken from his reverie by a mewling sound, and a sniffle. It quirks his ear just so as to be…
Familiar.
The Cat follows the noise, scaling down the rocks on the other side of the campsite and moving further and further out towards the raging sea. Winds blowing faster and faster, threatening to knock him right into the water and the Cat crouches down low and anchors himself to a crag, sinking his claws in deep.
When the wind settles, the Cat moves forward again, one of the dark, rock-like shapes starting to take on form and movement. Soon he realizes he's upon a creature he's never seen before. Neither fish nor fowl nor wholly man. But man it is, and man with his head in his hands, body shaking.
"Curiouser, and curiouser," the Cat says, clicking his tongue. And the creature turns to face him.
The Cat's eyes go wide, the luminescence almost shining right into the man's face. And the face so familiar!
His face. Only younger, with a messy fringe almost covering his eyes and what appear to be flippers where his hands should jut out and gray-blue skin.
"I can't find my shell!" the creature moans and grabs onto the Cat's torso, holding tight and warm. "The duchess took it, she wants to make me into soup!!"
"Do I?" the Cat asks, peeling himself off the creature. "Do I know you?"
"I've never-never seen you before," he stutters.
"Weren't you wearing a dress the last time I saw you," the Cat asks, swinging his cane and the-the whatever-it-is falls to it's knees, sobbing.
"No, but I was wearing my shell! And I can't-I don't know where she put it and I need it back! What kind of mock turtle am I without my-my-my shell!? Why I'm nothing but mock!" it says, spitting the last word out onto the ground with disdain.
"Mock… Turtle…" The Cheshire Cat runs the idea through the clockwork of his mind, the gears and chasms and little whirly-clacking devices that keep the tempo steady. And even those that don't.
The Mock Turtle stands up again, breathing heavy and wiping the sand off his paws. "So, who are you?"
The Cheshire Cat turns his head. "I know where your shell is. It's buried not far from here, come on." The Cat turns and starts walking back towards the beach.
The Mock Turtle stammers behind him, but starts to follow along. "I know who you are now! You're my new best friend!"
"Watch your step," the Cat answers, thinking only of tracking down that lump among the many other lumps of sand he'd come across.
"How can you see in this pitch-dark?" the Mock Turtle asks and the Cheshire Cat answers simply turning his head and flashing his eyes like jewels that catch and reflect the sheen of the tiniest star, magnifying it.
"Ohhh," the Mock Turtle says, then unveiling to him a smile that could light the entire beach on it's own.
**
What the Cheshire Cat hadn't considered when the Mock Turtle proclaimed him his new best friend it meant they would be joined permanently. The Cat couldn't even pull his disappearing act on him without the Mock Turtle popping up wherever he was an hour later. Usually out of breath from running.
The Mock Turtle had a little bit of bloodhound in that mix of creatures he was composed of, the Cat could swear it.
Even when the Cat returned to the thick, dark woods of the CWonderland forests, the Mock Turtle was never far behind, trying to paw his way up the trees to sit with the Cat, until eventually he'd grow weary of the Mock Turtle falling over and over again that he'd just drop to the forest floor and sit with him against the tree trunk.
And the Mock Turtle never stopped talking. Constant stream of consciousness flowed out from him, sometimes he'd recite his favorite poems, or he'd talk about the time he saw the Dodo fly out to sea on wax wings and then he'd get into history, and all the sciences he could relate, and when the Cat would ask him where he learned his lessons, he'd say "In the school, of course!" The Cat wondered if the Mock Turtle meant a school of academics, or a school of fish. But he never asked him, because then the Mock Turtle would hold out a paw, asking him to dance.
It would have been rude to refuse, the Cheshire Cat thought, before joining him for a Waltz outside the Palace of Hearts, the music from the Queen's cotillion playing softly in the distance. For an amphibian, the Mock Turtle handled himself quite well on dry land, the Cheshire Cat would note.
The Mock Turtle would only ever leave his side to rehydrate. And then return to him from whatever lake or pond he was able to find, head dripping wet, and he'd pick up right where he left off, in the middle of whatever joke, or anecdote or story.
When the Cheshire Cat brought him to see the Hatter's tea party, and his presence sent their hosts running in all sorts of directions, the Mock Turtle finally asks him the question he'd been waiting to hear.
"Why are they afraid of you?"
The Cheshire Cat sips his tea. "Don’t know, but everybody is. They say I'm unbalanced. Unpredictable. Undesirable company."
"Why, I'm not afraid of you at all, Cat, and may I tell you why?"
The Cat puts his cup down on the saucer. "Yes?"
"For one, you are rather balanced. The things I see you do in trees, the acrobatics and the way you use the cane as an extension of yourself, all on legs that are kind of bowed in the middle, have you ever noticed?"
The Cat sneers. "Go on."
"Anyway, so you do have quite a bit of balance. And I find you predictable, in that I know you will never become boring. And that I can rely on you to come to protect me if the Duchess ever comes back for my shell. And I can usually predict that if you're not in a tree, basking in the sun, or bedeviling someone lost in the woods, you'll be back at my side soon enough. So I never worry I would lose you and be alone again."
The Cat nods, "I suppose so."
"And the final lie they tell about you, Jensen, is that you would ever for a moment be undesirable. Because what I desire is your company, above and beyond anything else."
**
"You said my name that time," Jensen interrupts.
"I did what?" Jared asks, looking up from his notes. Jensen presses his nose like a button, and Jared tries to flick his hand away.
"You said my name on the last line."
Jared returns to his place, "Damn it, I thought I'd caught them all." Jensen's fingers are now slowly working his tie out of his vest, and drawing the knot of it down.
"You have such a wild imagination, Jared. Why would you ever imagine yourself as a giant sea turtle-"
"Mock Turtle," Jared corrects.
"-sorry, Mock Turtle, who runs at the mouth, is half bloodhound and is afraid of having his shell stolen by some terrible Duchess. Unless that last part is supposed to be symbolic of the male castration fear. In which case, ew."
"Jensen!" Jared laughs. "It's not that deep, it's just a silly story based on this dream I had."
"Ah yes, the return of yours truly as the Cheshire Cat, was it? In all his sexy, powerful, and quasi-feline glory?" Jensen asks, sitting up from his position with his head in Jared's lap, he tangles their legs together and Jared's nose brushes his, touches the rim of his glasses.
"Yeah, only he was-" Jared bites his lip. "He was lonely. He wanted someone that wasn't afraid of him. So I just," Jared shrugs. "Thought up a friend for him, I guess?"
"Sounds to me like they're more than friends."
"Why Jensen Ackles, are you suggesting something-untoward-about fictional characters!" Jared says, with fake incredulousness.
Jensen kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him a few more times for good measure as Jared lets himself be moved back into the soft grass beneath them, and tastes Jensen's tongue against his.
**
Somewhere, in the corner of his subconscious, the Cheshire Cat raises his cup of tea to the Mock Turtle, the clockwork of his mind clicking in all the right directions.
"If it is my company you desire, than far be it from me to deny the request I know I could oblige you from now on. And let me say this as a promise to you, my dearest friend;"
"You mean?"
"I'll always join your dance."
**
4 months after Hot Stuff for beckaandzac
J2 AU, Pastry Chef!Jared and Food Critic!Jensen
1,230 words
"I hate it when you do that," Jared says to Jensen when he catches him licking the powdered sugar off his dessert before eating it, again.
"Everyone's a critic," Jensen says, and runs his tongue around the ball-shaped pastry.
"It's disgusting."
"It's delicious," Jensen corrects and then pops the whole thing in his mouth, much to Jared's surprise because when Jensen bites down on it his eyes bug out and he mumbles "Cold!"
After spitting the rest of it into a napkin, and Jared calming down the rest of the patrons, assuring them that he's not choking, just an idiot.
"Why the hell would you do that if you didn't know there was ice-cream inside it?"
"I thought it was a zeppole!" Jensen says, poking at the others left on his plate, slicing them open with his fork and carefully tasting the cinnamon ice-cream without the shell.
"No, it's profiteroles. I wouldn't serve you carnival food, Jensen."
"I eat a lot of things that look the same, I get confused," Jensen explains. "And haven't you heard? Street fair foods are the new designer cupcakes."
Jared rolls his eyes. "I refuse to have a deep fryer in my kitchen."
"Too much fat?"
"Too much temptation to deep fry anything and then eat it. I went through that in culinary school. Until my roommate deep-fried my shoelaces and told me they were spaghetti," Jared says spearing one of the profiteroles off Jensen's plate and taking a bite.
"I licked the sugar off of that one too," Jensen says.
"I know." Jared winks at him. "So what do you think?"
"It's okay," Jensen says.
"Just, 'okay'?"
Jensen shrugs. "It's cream puffs with cinnamon ice-cream and powdered sugar? Not exactly a revolution."
Jared swirls the melted ice cream around Jensen's plate with his finger. "Huh," he says, sucking his finger clean and then returning to swoop around Jensen's plate again
"Now that is disgusting. Stop that," Jensen says stirring his coffee. "Anyway, I think the French desserts are starting to fall kind of flat. Maybe you should try something more along the lines of Latin or Mediterranean."
"What if I added some warm apple crumble on the side?"
Jensen shrugs.
"Oh come on, you can't shut me out like that! Do you think it's worth a shot at the City Kitchen dessert-off?"
"I'm supposed to be objective. I can't tell you if I think something is worth trying or not lest I give you an unfair advantage at the tasting next week! I could lose my job, Jared."
Jared pauses. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Jensen sighs. "Go down to Astridology on second avenue. Order the dessert sampler."
"So you're saying, it's been done."
"I'm saying nothing. Send Katie there, though. She's a good mole."
Jared blinks. "You're using the baristas in elaborate sting operations, aren't you? Is that why you still food blog from here?"
"Nothing!"
**
"Astrid's got cream puffs coming out of her ears. Big ones, small ones, deep-fried ones and chocolate-kahlua cream ones. Also they've already got a spin on apple pie using profiteroles," Katie tells him the next day.
"See, we've got them covering cream puffs, and downtown Kiko's is doing candy sushi," Jensen says, crossing them off the map he's tacked up on the kitchen wall. He's converted it into a new base of operations, right under Jared's nose. The recipes Jared had put on his bulletin board to try, he's already crossed out. "Maude's has the homemade donuts and jellies, and on the West Side it's French and Italian fusion. You're not going to stand out from there unless you go Mediterranean, Jared are you listening?"
"I like marzipan," Jared says, flipping through his cookbook.
"Jared, do you really think marzipan is going to win it for you?"
"Did you really think that I wouldn't have found out that you had to recuse yourself from participating in the open because I was already signed up as a contestant, and you're probably just using me to try and vicariously win it with your insider information? Which is kind of ironic because that's exactly what you were telling me not to try and do in the first place. When all I was really asking, was for your opinion on my profiteroles. Which I agree, I tried them, they sucked. The powdered sugar was the only decent part; which is why I assume you licked that off first. Next time, just give me your honest opinion."
Katie backs slowly out of the room, mumbling something about getting back to the customers.
Jensen shoves his hands in his pockets, walks over to sit across from Jared as he flips through the book.
"Well," Jensen starts, but Jared interrupts.
"I really like marzipan, you know? I like playing with things you can mold and color and make shapes out of. And I like the idea of adding it to something that needs almonds instead of almonds, but I haven't figured out what, yet."
"I'm sorry, Jared. I just didn't-"
"If you are at all worried that the crux of our relationship rests entirely on whether or not you always have something nice to say about what I make for you, then you and I should have a serious talk. About how not-starstruck I am by you anymore, and how if you slam my food, I know I can just slam you back." Jared looks up from the book right at Jensen. "Hard."
Jensen rests his head in his hands, looking at Jared from over the rim of his glasses. His shoe bumps up against Jared's leg. "You should do marzipan."
"You think?"
"Yeah. Just don't ask me to try it. I hate that shit."