[wbrps] we're counting the seconds, J2, hard R.
Title: We're counting the seconds [and we’re coming in second].
Pairing: Jared/Jensen.
Rating: hard R.
Summary: Supernatural’s over, and so is their easy, certain relationship. Jared flies over to see Jensen, they hole themselves in for a weekend, and we see snapshots of how it is [isn’t?] now.
AN: ANGST. ~1,600 words. Many thanks to sunnny for being overemotional emotionally invested.
&
:01
Jared fills the doorway, pizza box balanced on one hand and keys jangling in the other. Six months and as many days later; half a year and too fucking long, but they can do this. Stand and smile and shoulder up close. Together, in the flesh, [skin, bone and matter, not phones, wires and dial tones] as if they never stopped.
“Move it or lose it,” Jared tells Jensen, pushing through, stepping in and belonging again.
Jensen closes the door with his foot, jokes, “I thought I could smell something.”
:14
With the night half gone, all that's left is remnants: credits of the movie rolling, two empty beers abandoned and the boys, Jared and Jensen, sitting on the couch with their knees touching. Their faces turned, and staring. Time disappears, and they don’t move.
“You sure you’ve got the whole weekend?” Jared asks, a hand moving out to grab unconsciously at the loose hem of Jensen’s tee. It’s soft and clean and bright. It’s brand new.
“Three nights, two days, six hours and roughly -”
Jared smacks at him with a lazy hand, “Alright, alright, kiss my ass. You’re a big important movie actor now, gotta make sure.”
“So what does that make you?”
“An unimportant movie actor?”
It’s dark outside, and Jensen’s eyes go darker. His hand finds Jared’s knee, fists the denim of his jeans and pulls a little. “You’re not unimportant anything.”
:19
It’s love making as they knew it, once, different round the edges. They’re the same slow, jagged sketch but they’re brushed by a new hand. Jared’s softer angles, now, Jensen’s sharper; Jared’s greeting change, age, and Jensen’s defying. Their legs, feet toes kick the sheets out until there’s nothing. Two naked bodies pressed so close skin suffocates, struggling for more contact.
“This okay?” Jensen grunts, slowly slipping his fingers out. “You ready?”
“Fuck, Jensen.” Jared’s just limbs and skin and aching cock, bucking toward Jensen, one leg already twisted up around him, anticipating. “Always - yes, yes, ready.”
Jensen whispers, “Ssh, ssh, ssh, ssh,” as he moulds in close, not to quiet Jared, to quiet his unease. He has a hand up in Jared’s hair to anchor himself and then that’s it, nothing left; just a slow, rough-sailing sink into Jared, all the way. Their breathing breaks open, their words topple out, can’t hold onto or control them. Push and pull and please and everything.
It's not true, dying a happy man; but the world could end and they wouldn't know.
:25
A little and enough light shines out from the en-suite bathroom, later, after. They’ve stopped to recapture their breath. Jared’s flat on his back and Jensen’s flopped down atop him, their arms splayed out to the side and their hands, fingers, clasped loosely together. Jared’s wearing a black bracelet, Jensen’s wearing a watch.
“I saw Tom, last weekend,” Jensen says, his cheek pressed against Jared’s chest, his already warn-out-voice garbled. “They’re making Smallville: The Movie.”
“Jesus.” Jared’s laughter tickles their stomachs together. “I suppose anything’s better than The Fog 2.”
From the bedside table, a mobile phone chimes; a perfunctory tone, it isn’t Jared’s. Jensen groans, reluctantly rolls over, stretches big to reach it. When he does, he sits up straightest, turns his back and mutters, “Hey, babe,” with a hand still wedged in Jared’s skin. “No, I can’t, I’m with - I’ve got an old friend visiting.”
Water trickles down the shower plug, their skin catches, rustles, and Jensen’s tired, empty voice is saying, yeah, babe, I’ll see ya then. Still, there’s no sound.
:33
There’s a recipe fresh from the printer propped up on the windowsill [Double Chocolate-Chip Cookies with Chocolate Cream Centres] and Jared’s half naked on the bench beside it, his bare heels hitting the cabinet door with a thump-a-thump, thump-a-thump. The kitchen’s wall-to-wall with ingredients and cooking utensils, the ovens on, the clock reads 9:12.
“Fuck.” Jensen sighs and shakes his head, but he’s grinning big enough to rival all that. “I don’t think I’ve eaten this much sugar in the last year combined.”
“Jensen, Jensen, Jensen,” Jared mocks, leaning toward the chocolate chips and pulling a face when Jensen stops him. “What’s become of you?”
“Health?”
“You’d rather be healthy than try to mainline ten boxes of Oreos in two minutes?”
Jensen looks over, a slow, understanding smile brightening his features. He says, “I threw up for a week,” but says it with all the fondness in the world.
“Exactly. So don’t say I don’t help you keep your figure.”
:41
“ … a fucking email once a month and a phone call that’s always cut short!”
Monopoly is strewn across the bedroom floor, forgotten, thimble at the doorway where Jensen is [caught]. Half in, half out, and isn’t that how it’s always been, anyway?
“I’ve been busy, we’ve been busy!”
“Busy? Jesus Christ, Jared, we used to work twenty hour days and still make time for each other.”
Jared scoffs. A too loud, listen-to-this scoff that says the whole thing is fucking ridiculous. His hands fall from his hips, he shakes his head, he turns his shoulder. Away. “Well I’m not living next door anymore, Jensen. I can’t stroll over in my nightgown and have a cup of tea for fucks sake.”
“Fuck off then,” Jensen spits, and he’s turning, walking, heading straight down the hallway for the front door because he’s getting good at this now. They used to be best friends, now they’re disappointing. They do it well. “Take your stupid ass back where you came from.”
He only gets half way before Jared has him smack against the wall, hissing, “I’m already back, asshole,” a world of anger hitting Jensen and yet something, at the edges, is a soft, gentle sorry. “ I’m right here. I came back and you’re wasting it.”
They’re here again. In one of two tinny, little trailers, shouting and pushing and hating because it’s easy, easier than saying, this is it, it’s done. We can get angry, and scared, and fret; or we can take this last second, and we can use it.
They kiss because they can, because Jared didn’t come here to change it.
He - they can’t. Won’t.
:46
Two chairs, a sofa and the TV Unit are pushed out and away, the boys at the centre of the living room. Jensen’s standing in front of a big, yellow square [marked along the wall with tape]; an old blue and purple soccer ball is tucked under his arm. His boxers ride low, hipbones peek out.
“You wanna ask those mammoth feet of yours to stop breaking my shit?”
Jared laughs, crouched and swaying, impatient to restart. “Nobody likes a sore loser, Dean.”
“Loser? It’s 12-4,” Jensen points to himself and Jared respectively, ignoring Jared when he says,
“12 - 5,”
“ - and I’m pretty sure, when God was out, blessing all the children with hand-eye co-ordination? I’m pretty sure you were sick that day. Loser.”
With a wicked grin, two slow strides [two and a half strides, maybe, as far as he can] he’s crowding Jensen’s space and groping the hard plane of his lower belly. Flat palm, flat and feather-light, focused palm. “You sound like you’ve had enough.”
Jensen gulps. “Do you have any other ideas?”
If Jared wasn’t there, before, he is now; right in and pushed in and pulling Jensen forward and kissing. They’re kissing so long the ball has dropped, dribbling to a stop at their feet. They’re kissing so long Jensen’s forgotten how to move, can’t hardly stop Jared when he leans down for the ball, kicking it effortless with a smack into the square.
“You fuckin’ little-”
Jared’s racing toward the bedroom cackling. “Little nothing.”
:56
The bed cover’s fresh out of the box; blue and green and yellow snowflakes, splashed against a field of white. Kaleidoscopes. They’re buried in the middle, underneath, cover pushed to tent out around them. Jensen’s hands are clasped up above his head; one of Jared’s is twisted around his wrists to keep them there. It’s not like Jensen’s fighting.
“I don’t know this one, what’s this one,” Jared’s saying, a brush, brush, brush of fingers along a scar below Jensen’s nipple.
“That’s an actor forgetting to act,” Jensen says, bending his knee, accommodating Jared.
“Blade?”
Jensen blushes, tilts his head up to avoid eye contact and sighs, “Fingernail,” as if he expects what follows. He expects Jared will laugh, expects he will feel both their bodies shake with it, expects he’ll curl in closer and remember. Jensen adds, “A dude’s fingernail,” just to feel him laugh [be happy] a little while longer.
“You know I’m gonna want to hear these stories, right?” Jared says, and his fingers are already brushing down again, old and new lines to explore, discover, a new being to covet.
“Yeah.”
:01
At the front door, two sets of shoes, skewiff and abandoned. They’ve left no mark, no dust or dirt trail, no trace. In the kitchen, dishes. Empty pizza, noodle, pancake-mix boxes and a bottle of Pepto Bismol unused, used only in jest. The hallways lined with now crooked photos; smiling, happy, once-were faces.
Turning the corner, and the living room: dozens of botched and broken paper aeroplanes. There’s wires and chords and game consoles twisted around each other, food crumbs and empty bottles of beer. The TV’s still on, long forgotten, old ladies play lawn bowls on mute.
At the bedroom door Jared has his jeans half way up his thighs, frozen, because Jensen’s woken up. Jensen’s said, “I guess it’s only fair you get to sneak out this time.”
“I’ve called a cab,” Jared tells him, false indifference, like reading it out loud from a text book. He doesn’t turn back, just pulls up his pants, his fly and buttons because all that is easy. Behind him - Jensen, small, naked, alone - that’s too hard. “It’ll be here any minute.”
“Yeah. Okay. Good.”
Jared sighs, slumps, says, “Jensen - ” that way. The way one word sounds like a thousand, thousands of words they should probably use instead.
Jensen’s quick, “I’ll talk to you soon,” says it all, anyway.
“Yeah. You will.”
He goes - through the paper aeroplanes, past the photos and pulling on his shoes.
He leaves and the house is empty. Only the mess is left.
Pairing: Jared/Jensen.
Rating: hard R.
Summary: Supernatural’s over, and so is their easy, certain relationship. Jared flies over to see Jensen, they hole themselves in for a weekend, and we see snapshots of how it is [isn’t?] now.
AN: ANGST. ~1,600 words. Many thanks to sunnny for being overemotional emotionally invested.
&
:01
Jared fills the doorway, pizza box balanced on one hand and keys jangling in the other. Six months and as many days later; half a year and too fucking long, but they can do this. Stand and smile and shoulder up close. Together, in the flesh, [skin, bone and matter, not phones, wires and dial tones] as if they never stopped.
“Move it or lose it,” Jared tells Jensen, pushing through, stepping in and belonging again.
Jensen closes the door with his foot, jokes, “I thought I could smell something.”
:14
With the night half gone, all that's left is remnants: credits of the movie rolling, two empty beers abandoned and the boys, Jared and Jensen, sitting on the couch with their knees touching. Their faces turned, and staring. Time disappears, and they don’t move.
“You sure you’ve got the whole weekend?” Jared asks, a hand moving out to grab unconsciously at the loose hem of Jensen’s tee. It’s soft and clean and bright. It’s brand new.
“Three nights, two days, six hours and roughly -”
Jared smacks at him with a lazy hand, “Alright, alright, kiss my ass. You’re a big important movie actor now, gotta make sure.”
“So what does that make you?”
“An unimportant movie actor?”
It’s dark outside, and Jensen’s eyes go darker. His hand finds Jared’s knee, fists the denim of his jeans and pulls a little. “You’re not unimportant anything.”
:19
It’s love making as they knew it, once, different round the edges. They’re the same slow, jagged sketch but they’re brushed by a new hand. Jared’s softer angles, now, Jensen’s sharper; Jared’s greeting change, age, and Jensen’s defying. Their legs, feet toes kick the sheets out until there’s nothing. Two naked bodies pressed so close skin suffocates, struggling for more contact.
“This okay?” Jensen grunts, slowly slipping his fingers out. “You ready?”
“Fuck, Jensen.” Jared’s just limbs and skin and aching cock, bucking toward Jensen, one leg already twisted up around him, anticipating. “Always - yes, yes, ready.”
Jensen whispers, “Ssh, ssh, ssh, ssh,” as he moulds in close, not to quiet Jared, to quiet his unease. He has a hand up in Jared’s hair to anchor himself and then that’s it, nothing left; just a slow, rough-sailing sink into Jared, all the way. Their breathing breaks open, their words topple out, can’t hold onto or control them. Push and pull and please and everything.
It's not true, dying a happy man; but the world could end and they wouldn't know.
:25
A little and enough light shines out from the en-suite bathroom, later, after. They’ve stopped to recapture their breath. Jared’s flat on his back and Jensen’s flopped down atop him, their arms splayed out to the side and their hands, fingers, clasped loosely together. Jared’s wearing a black bracelet, Jensen’s wearing a watch.
“I saw Tom, last weekend,” Jensen says, his cheek pressed against Jared’s chest, his already warn-out-voice garbled. “They’re making Smallville: The Movie.”
“Jesus.” Jared’s laughter tickles their stomachs together. “I suppose anything’s better than The Fog 2.”
From the bedside table, a mobile phone chimes; a perfunctory tone, it isn’t Jared’s. Jensen groans, reluctantly rolls over, stretches big to reach it. When he does, he sits up straightest, turns his back and mutters, “Hey, babe,” with a hand still wedged in Jared’s skin. “No, I can’t, I’m with - I’ve got an old friend visiting.”
Water trickles down the shower plug, their skin catches, rustles, and Jensen’s tired, empty voice is saying, yeah, babe, I’ll see ya then. Still, there’s no sound.
:33
There’s a recipe fresh from the printer propped up on the windowsill [Double Chocolate-Chip Cookies with Chocolate Cream Centres] and Jared’s half naked on the bench beside it, his bare heels hitting the cabinet door with a thump-a-thump, thump-a-thump. The kitchen’s wall-to-wall with ingredients and cooking utensils, the ovens on, the clock reads 9:12.
“Fuck.” Jensen sighs and shakes his head, but he’s grinning big enough to rival all that. “I don’t think I’ve eaten this much sugar in the last year combined.”
“Jensen, Jensen, Jensen,” Jared mocks, leaning toward the chocolate chips and pulling a face when Jensen stops him. “What’s become of you?”
“Health?”
“You’d rather be healthy than try to mainline ten boxes of Oreos in two minutes?”
Jensen looks over, a slow, understanding smile brightening his features. He says, “I threw up for a week,” but says it with all the fondness in the world.
“Exactly. So don’t say I don’t help you keep your figure.”
:41
“ … a fucking email once a month and a phone call that’s always cut short!”
Monopoly is strewn across the bedroom floor, forgotten, thimble at the doorway where Jensen is [caught]. Half in, half out, and isn’t that how it’s always been, anyway?
“I’ve been busy, we’ve been busy!”
“Busy? Jesus Christ, Jared, we used to work twenty hour days and still make time for each other.”
Jared scoffs. A too loud, listen-to-this scoff that says the whole thing is fucking ridiculous. His hands fall from his hips, he shakes his head, he turns his shoulder. Away. “Well I’m not living next door anymore, Jensen. I can’t stroll over in my nightgown and have a cup of tea for fucks sake.”
“Fuck off then,” Jensen spits, and he’s turning, walking, heading straight down the hallway for the front door because he’s getting good at this now. They used to be best friends, now they’re disappointing. They do it well. “Take your stupid ass back where you came from.”
He only gets half way before Jared has him smack against the wall, hissing, “I’m already back, asshole,” a world of anger hitting Jensen and yet something, at the edges, is a soft, gentle sorry. “ I’m right here. I came back and you’re wasting it.”
They’re here again. In one of two tinny, little trailers, shouting and pushing and hating because it’s easy, easier than saying, this is it, it’s done. We can get angry, and scared, and fret; or we can take this last second, and we can use it.
They kiss because they can, because Jared didn’t come here to change it.
He - they can’t. Won’t.
:46
Two chairs, a sofa and the TV Unit are pushed out and away, the boys at the centre of the living room. Jensen’s standing in front of a big, yellow square [marked along the wall with tape]; an old blue and purple soccer ball is tucked under his arm. His boxers ride low, hipbones peek out.
“You wanna ask those mammoth feet of yours to stop breaking my shit?”
Jared laughs, crouched and swaying, impatient to restart. “Nobody likes a sore loser, Dean.”
“Loser? It’s 12-4,” Jensen points to himself and Jared respectively, ignoring Jared when he says,
“12 - 5,”
“ - and I’m pretty sure, when God was out, blessing all the children with hand-eye co-ordination? I’m pretty sure you were sick that day. Loser.”
With a wicked grin, two slow strides [two and a half strides, maybe, as far as he can] he’s crowding Jensen’s space and groping the hard plane of his lower belly. Flat palm, flat and feather-light, focused palm. “You sound like you’ve had enough.”
Jensen gulps. “Do you have any other ideas?”
If Jared wasn’t there, before, he is now; right in and pushed in and pulling Jensen forward and kissing. They’re kissing so long the ball has dropped, dribbling to a stop at their feet. They’re kissing so long Jensen’s forgotten how to move, can’t hardly stop Jared when he leans down for the ball, kicking it effortless with a smack into the square.
“You fuckin’ little-”
Jared’s racing toward the bedroom cackling. “Little nothing.”
:56
The bed cover’s fresh out of the box; blue and green and yellow snowflakes, splashed against a field of white. Kaleidoscopes. They’re buried in the middle, underneath, cover pushed to tent out around them. Jensen’s hands are clasped up above his head; one of Jared’s is twisted around his wrists to keep them there. It’s not like Jensen’s fighting.
“I don’t know this one, what’s this one,” Jared’s saying, a brush, brush, brush of fingers along a scar below Jensen’s nipple.
“That’s an actor forgetting to act,” Jensen says, bending his knee, accommodating Jared.
“Blade?”
Jensen blushes, tilts his head up to avoid eye contact and sighs, “Fingernail,” as if he expects what follows. He expects Jared will laugh, expects he will feel both their bodies shake with it, expects he’ll curl in closer and remember. Jensen adds, “A dude’s fingernail,” just to feel him laugh [be happy] a little while longer.
“You know I’m gonna want to hear these stories, right?” Jared says, and his fingers are already brushing down again, old and new lines to explore, discover, a new being to covet.
“Yeah.”
:01
At the front door, two sets of shoes, skewiff and abandoned. They’ve left no mark, no dust or dirt trail, no trace. In the kitchen, dishes. Empty pizza, noodle, pancake-mix boxes and a bottle of Pepto Bismol unused, used only in jest. The hallways lined with now crooked photos; smiling, happy, once-were faces.
Turning the corner, and the living room: dozens of botched and broken paper aeroplanes. There’s wires and chords and game consoles twisted around each other, food crumbs and empty bottles of beer. The TV’s still on, long forgotten, old ladies play lawn bowls on mute.
At the bedroom door Jared has his jeans half way up his thighs, frozen, because Jensen’s woken up. Jensen’s said, “I guess it’s only fair you get to sneak out this time.”
“I’ve called a cab,” Jared tells him, false indifference, like reading it out loud from a text book. He doesn’t turn back, just pulls up his pants, his fly and buttons because all that is easy. Behind him - Jensen, small, naked, alone - that’s too hard. “It’ll be here any minute.”
“Yeah. Okay. Good.”
Jared sighs, slumps, says, “Jensen - ” that way. The way one word sounds like a thousand, thousands of words they should probably use instead.
Jensen’s quick, “I’ll talk to you soon,” says it all, anyway.
“Yeah. You will.”
He goes - through the paper aeroplanes, past the photos and pulling on his shoes.
He leaves and the house is empty. Only the mess is left.