All That Glitters - Part 2
Long days were spent in the California sunshine running around the neighborhood, the beaches and hills beyond their lavish homes. They came across other kids, every now and then, but had no time for them. They were totally insular and they liked it that way.
Jensen thought about Gen and Jared in ways he didn’t really understand or rather didn’t have the vocabulary for. He thought of himself as the elder statesmen of their crew. Being older, he was the one who introduced them to new things and told him about stuff he heard his brother or parents talking about. But he also knew when to protect them. They were his property, to guide, to encourage and to watch out for.
Genevieve was smart and calculating in a way that surprised Jensen, but she was also grounded. She loved horses and would drag them to her riding practice and events, every chance she got. Jensen and Jared would never admit it, but they liked it. They liked watching her up on those huge animals, legs barely settled into the stirrups with total command of the animal. She was graceful and patient. Seeing her ride and being around the stables was so different from their regular play, where she would be the first to tease either boy for being too chicken to jump off a boulder or chant Bloody Mary in the bathroom mirror until someone inevitably screamed and ran out.
Jensen already new Jared was made of sunshine and all the good stuff. After that first day on the Big Slide, all he could do was watch and marvel at the sheer force that was Jared. He was boisterous and funny, ready for any challenge, and he always wanted more. His face was always split into the biggest smiles, deep dimples that just screamed fun and love and yes.
Sometimes Jensen thought Jared was going to outpace him. A few years later he did.
He marveled at these kids, his best friends, his other halves…er thirds.
Even when Jensen went to junior high and the other two were still in elementary school, they never lost each other. Doting on each other when sick or sad or just because. Standing up for each other if someone tried to bully one of them; they made it clear that if you mess with one, two others were coming for you. The bumps and bruises of life were treated with hugs, jokes, candy, followed up with by puppy pile, movies and video games. The occasional kiss thrown in, when extra medicine was required.
Jared’s best traits grew with him, his goofiness, sweetness and smarts. Sometimes when Jensen was doing Intro to Algebra homework Jared would look on and see where Jensen was missing something and correct his math. Of course, when he wanted to ignore his own homework he’d pout and use that face that reminded Jensen of a lost puppy.
Gen would snort, not even looking up from her notebook as she was drawing, and stating matter of fact. “Don’t buy it Jen, you know what’s gonna happen.”
Yeah, he knew, but he smiled back just the same and gave in, like he always did.
They loved each other.
They loved each other when Jared’s parents would fight and he’d cry. Gen would rub his back to soothe him and Jensen would dry the tears and try to think of something cool to distract him.
They loved each other when Gen’s older brother died and she wouldn’t leave her room, they just curled up together on her bed not saying a word all day.
They loved each other when Jensen got his first black eye after some jerk on the opposing soccer team called him a “pretty pretty girl” too many times and Jensen flew at him in a rage. The kid got one lucky hit before the coaches pried them apart. Genevieve kept changing his ice pack and Jared kept going on about how much Jensen kicked the guy’s ass, air boxing for effect.
“Besides,” Jared said, jumping up on Jensen’s bed, while he inspected the even more pronounced fullness of Jensen’s bottom lip with a magnifying glass “if anyone has earned the right to call you pretty, it’s us.”
Gen started laughing as soon Jensen swung for Jared’s head and Jared tried to hide behind her, only to fall off then end of the bed with a thud.
Twenty minutes later out of breath, they made for the kitchen to eat all the ice cream the Ackles had.
Before they knew it, Gen had boobs and other curves, Jared’s voice was cracking and his clothes were shrinking rapidly. It was also when Jensen realized he liked boys, one boy in particular.
Jensen didn’t know what to do, this was never something he’d really thought of before and it was Jared, his best friend, practically a brother. As far as Jensen was concerned there was never a time that Jared wasn’t in his life.
Jared was his life.
Feeling his face flush a deep red and swallowing a squawk Jensen cleared his throat. “You want me to what?”
“I want you kiss me.” Jared repeated, his head lolling on Jensen’s shoulder. “My first kiss, Jensen, I want it to be you, please?”
It had been a quiet afternoon, just the two of them on the sofa in the Great Room, watching Terminator for the eighth millionth time, and waiting for Gen to get back from riding.
“Jared I… why me?” His shock barely covering the fact that it’s everything Jensen’s wanted for months, years even, and now, it wasn’t only being handed to him on a silver platter, but Jared was practically begging him as well.
It had been going on for weeks now, Jared’s been even more touchy feely than usual, which for Jared, was over the top. Jensen couldn’t deny he liked it, but at the same time it was also like borderline slow death by water torture. With every lingering touch, every brush of Jared’s silky hair against his neck, soft whispers pressed to the shell of his ear, bump and graze of limbs; Jensen had had a constant semi-hard-on and there was nothing he could do about it. Jared was his best friend, the center of his world, the string that tugged at his heart. Not to mention the fact that Jensen himself was a teenager growing into his new body and every square inch was buzzing with hormones desperate to be sated. But Jared was still a child, by years anyway, the one he played with, guided, watched over, protected, the one who knew him better than anyone. He could hurt Jared, hurt them both, or all three of them, he can’t do it.
“Please Jen,” Jared begged, burrowing his head further in to the crook of Jensen’s neck, purring lips warm and ghosting over the sensitive skin under Jensen’s jaw. “Teach me? Make sure I do it right and everything?”
Jensen shifts on the sofa to pull away but Jared uses the movement to his advantage and slides a leg over Jensen’s thigh, straddling his lap. He tries to slow his breath but Jared is right there pressing their foreheads together and squirming.
“Why aren’t you asking Genevieve?” Jensen pleads. “She’s a girl, that’s what you want, right?”
“Nuh uh, you.” Jared pleads in return, trying to wrap his arms around Jensen’s shoulders.
He grips Jared’s arms to still his movement. “Are you sure?”
Jared nods again. “I swear I am.”
Jensen swallows hard, it’s both thrilling and terrifying, everything so right and so wrong, and he hates himself so much because wants it all. “Just, just once, ok?”
Jared’s mouth splits into a smile that’s almost predatory.
Jensen licks his lips and Jared mirrors the action. He tilts Jared’s head just a bit, stroking a thumb across Jared’s cheekbone and Jared turns into the touch. Jared’s gaze is steady and electric. He’s so beautiful and strong; it amazes Jensen and scares him a little too. “Just one.”
“Just one.” Jared whispers.
Jensen pulls him in and brings their lips together, soft and still, mouths pressed together warm and sweet. He just starts to notice that neither is breathing, then Jared starts to laugh, restrained giggles spilling from the corners of his mouth until he can’t keep it in and longer and sits up, booming laughter filling the air. That same bright sound that Jensen loves, but this time it hurts.
Jensen can feel the sting of blush crawling up his face. Fuck, he knows he shouldn’t have done this. It was a mistake. He should have known better, been stronger. He goes to swipe his hand across his face and his mouth, but Jared takes hold of his wrist.
“We need a do over.” Jared isn’t laughing anymore, his face soft again. “This time we need to breathe.”
Jensen can feel sweat dripping down his back. His brain screaming no, no, no, just as much as it’s screaming yes, yes, yes.
He wraps his arms around Jared’s waist and draws him back in. It starts just as it had the first time, soft, timid, perfect .Then as Jensen’s tilting his head and pushing in a little more Jared’s mouth parts slightly. Jensen returns to movement. They take turns deepening the kiss, mirroring each other’s movements with new kisses until their tongues are mapping each other’s and all hesitancy is gone. What’s probably only a minute or two feels like forever and it isn’t perfect, it’s amazing.
Jared drops pulls back and drops his head to Jensen’s chest, Jensen’s drops his to the back of the sofa, both heaving and sucking oxygen in to their lungs.
“You’re always the best teacher, Jen… always.” Jared pants.
Jensen doesn’t know how to feel because that was the worst and best damn thing ever.
After that it was a series of firsts.
Gen’s first date:
Jared scoffs. “That’s not a name that’s a law firm.”
“Well it doesn’t matter, he was a jerk and I’m never doing that again!” Gen all but yells.
“Was it really that bad?” Jensen presses as she rips off the floral sundress dress that they all went bought for her to wear and changes into her jeans and a white tank top; Jared trying to stifle his laughter in the mound of pillows on the other end of her bed.
She growls at them both and throws a heeled shoe at Jared’s head that Jensen catches before it can do any damage. “Yes, Jensen it was that bad.”
“But you still got a free meal right?” Jared flings a scrunchy that Gen picks up off the floor and pulls around a ponytail on her head.
“I don’t need free food that badly.” She sneers, shoving the dress into the bottom of her laundry basket.
“Maybe you’ll feel better if you just tell us what happened.” Jensen says reaching for a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos off her nightstand. “Go on, purge.”
She rolls her eyes, walks over and Jensen lets out a “hey” as she smacks the back of his hand, takes the bag from him and starts to chomp on chips herself.
“Gavin Beckwith Simmons is a preppy douche who thinks he can do whatever he wants just because his father produces movies and his family is from Philadelphia.” She sits at the foot of the bed; legs crisscrossed and keeps eating and yelling. “I can’t believe I accepted a date from him in the first place.”
Jared tries to go for the bag but she pulls the bag to her chest. “Get your own, Hoover.” She glares. “So his brother drops us off at Third Street Promenade and we walk over to Cheesecake Factory and he won’t shut up about the new movie his dad is making with Keanu Reeves on a bus, like who cares. He just keeps going on about him and his family and how much the car is he’s getting when he turns sixteen, blah blah blah.” She’s still chewing and talking so fast it’s like she’s running a race. “I’m half way through my Navajo Chicken sandwich when he finally says something to me.” She shoves two more chips into her mouth and crunches hard.
“And you know what he says?” She looks pointedly at them both, neither responds.
“Wow, you have a really big appetite for someone so small; most girls only get a salad. And he looks at me like I’m eating the entire table. I’m not Jared for crying out loud!” She scoffs.
“HEY!” Jared protests, but then shrugs thinking she’s right.
“Yeah.” Gen points. “So after that I make a point of getting desert because he can’t shut up about how much money his family has and I’m clearly a pig.” She gets up, tossing the now empty bag in the waste basket and wipes her hands on the bath towel handing from the door knob. “Then, when I think he’s finally going to shut up because the movie is about to start he keeps talking telling all kinds of movie tidbits from the previews we’re watching and slowly puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me in. Let me tell you the amount of Drakkar Noir he was wearing made me want to vomit up my whole meal.”
She keeps talking as she walks into to her attached bathroom and turns on the sink, returning a few moments later with a wash cloth, cleaning the make-up off her face. Her breathing is slowing down and she’s starting to quiet. Jensen looks at Jared quickly and back at her, his brow furrowing.
“What happened Gen?” Jared says, his voice worried now.
She pulls on a lose thread from the hem of her shirt and winds it around the tip of her index, blood locked in the tip turning deep purple until she lets it unravel and looks up at them . “He tried to make me give him a handjob. He said that’s what all the girls give him for having such a great time.”
Jensen and Jared are both blanching, not knowing what to say, tongues caught in their throats.
“He tried to stuff my hand down his pants.” She continues. “He had my other arm gripped so tight I thought he was going to crush it.” Her voice wavers a bit but then she takes a deep breath and it rises again, strong. “So I let him…then squeezed his nuts as hard as I could and screamed STRANGER DANGER, STRANGER DANGER and ran out with him on the floor grabbing his crotch in pain. I’m getting Oreos.” And she walked out of the room, easy as that.
A few minutes later Jared and Jensen are standing in the kitchen arms wrapped her, letting her cry.
The following Wednesday, Gavin Beckwith Simmons is sent home from the Nurse’s Office because his balls were on fire after gym.
Jensen made sure to toss the plastic gloves and tube of liniment, trainers gave to the arthritic old horses, he and Jared had procured from the stables.
Jared’s first girlfriend was no prize either but she came and went so quickly they had barely remembered her name a few months later.
Jensen’s first blow job was mind blowing, even if both of them had been virgins. Chris had been the only other kid in school that was openly gay at the time, so it made sense for them to practice on each other after lacrosse. And while he liked Chris as a friend and they got off together, a lot, a tiny little niggling voice in Jensen’s head would pretend late at night that it was Jared’s mouth or Jared’s hands that had given him those orgasms.
All that normal kid stuff.
It wasn’t until Jensen was into his freshman year of high school and Jared and Gen were still back in middle school that it really started to change. The high school was a few miles from the middle school which had shared the same campus as the elementary school. They were separated and they hated it. Jensen came home later than they did. He had more homework and was going to join the soccer team. Gen was riding more and Jared decided to give drama club a try. They could really only be together on the weekends, even though they still tried to a few three way calls during the week. Saturday afternoon to Sunday night was when they all felt safe and secure again.
Jensen startles and looks up, the nurse on duty just woke him to tell him he can go rest in the room they’ve moved Genevieve into. He looks at his watch, it’s four am. In this case they were going to overlook the standard Visiting Hours protocol.
He walks down the hall following her to Gen’s room, his pulse quickens, waking him further with each step. He doesn’t know how he’s going to react. He’s already exhausted and these memories flooding him are making him incredibly sentimental and soft. He doesn’t want to see his best friend broken. He also doesn’t want to upset her any more than she probably already is if she‘s awake. Right now she needs more rest than he does.
The nurse leads him into the room and goes to check her vitals and repositions a light blanket over her small frame a little better.
“You can rest here until she wakes up.” She whispers, pointing Jensen to a recliner chair in the corner.
“Thank you.”
He looks down at Gen. Her glossy brown hair swept under the gauze wrapped around her head, trying to cover a deep gash above her right eye. Her upper lip is swollen and the side of her face covered in mottled bruises. Jensen thinks halfheartedly that under any other circumstances she’d proudly claim the crown of best pair of kissers between them. Jensen had always thought the crown was hers anyway, despite what they all say about his mouth. She’s as pale as the bed sheets and it makes the marks at her throat and collar bone stand out, a vulgar unrightful claim . A sling holds her arm across her stomach and he’s sure the rest of her body tells the other part of events that brought him here.
“Oh god, Peanut, I’m here now.” The whisper is barely audible, even to his ears. He lets his fingers graze the back of her knuckles, which also bear marks. He smiles for the briefest moment. “That’s my girl.”
He’s going to kill whoever did this to her. It’s a promise.
The nurse leaves him a blanket on the chair but he stays sitting on the edge of her bed.
He may not have been there when he should have, but he’s here now and he isn’t leaving her again.
“Come on man. Just take a hit. It’ll make the pain go away, I swear!” Chad insisted.
He wasn’t scared, he wasn’t, but this was opening a door he was at best, skeptical of.
As children of wealthy parents, all too often adults weren’t really paying attention to their kids other than to make sure they had plenty of clothes, cars, cash, all things their hearts desired, and a kitchen stocked with plenty of food readily available for teenage appetites prepared by a housekeeper, private chef or a good catering company. As opposed to the children of poor families who were called names like Latch Key kids and were pitied and ridiculed for not having everything the wealthy kids so often took for granted. Their lack of supervision wasn’t about parents who lived the Jet Set lifestyle; rather it was out of necessity. The parents of the lesser households both worked one if not two jobs and single parents had it even worse; trying to do as much for their children as they could. In a way these kids worked too, it couldn’t have been easy trying to learn, grow and befriend people when you were constantly surrounded by so much affluence that was not yours to partake in.
They never teased the kids that were on academic scholarship at their elite schools. The ones who ate everything on their lunch tray, even the gray meatloaf, because it may have been the only real meal of substance they had that day. They never made a point of befriending any of these kids, they knew it was better for them that way, but they were kind and tried to be helpful when they could. Rich kids were the worst kind of social snobs, teenagers with too much money, freedom and attitude at their disposal. Of course Jensen, Jared and Gen were rich kids too and they had all those things, but they didn’t like it when one of ‘their kind’ pushed, tripped or shouted obscenities at the poor kids. The fault wasn’t theirs. So when it was necessary they would stand up for them.
Jensen had pushed Mike Rosenbaum hard against the lockers after Rosey had tried to stuff Andrew Gallagher into the trash can in the quad. It took no more than a couple of minutes before the fight that ensued was broken up by a teacher and one of the school Proctors. But Jensen had been taken to the nurse anyway. It wasn’t that he didn’t or couldn’t fight back but someone in Rosey’s posse had grabbed him from behind and swiped his leg sending him to the ground after a he got a few punches in.
Rosenbaum took to opportunity to kick Jensen in the stomach twice when he was down. “Mind your own business faggot.” He sneered.
Jensen took every ounce of strength he could muster through winded gasps and kicked Rosenbaums knee as hard as he could toppling the asshole onto the ground himself. “You’re trash Rosenbaum.”
He stood up slowly still holding his stomach and was about to kick him again when it was busted up.
“Mister Ackles?” Mr. Sawyer demanded, having grabbed Jensen by the shoulder.
Danneel Harris had all but hollered over the noise of the audience. “Rosenbaum had it coming to him, sir!” Her mouth was perfectly pink and puckered into a satisfied smirk.
When Jensen slowly made his way out of the nurse’s office she was waiting. Danneel was what most guys his age considered a wet dream. Long legs and raven hair, she was pretty, headstrong and knew how to work Victoria’s Secret to her advantage. Jensen wasn’t interested. Ugly names aside, Mike wasn’t lying, Jensen was gay and he had no problem with anyone knowing it. His family and friends were supportive and it was LA, land of liberals.
“Come on, I’ll get you an ice pack for your hand and a little something else for the rest.” She cooed, sliding her arm under his.
Danneel was a sophomore and already had her license and a car, it wasn’t out of the ordinary. She drove him back to her house in a candle apple red BMW sport with the top down, despite his protestations and just wanting to go back to class.
As they were pulling out of the school parking lot, Chad Murray knocked on the car window making Jensen jump and his stomach muscles spasm again, he felt nauseous.
“Get your ass in here!” Danneel cheered.
Chad jumped into the back seat like he was Bo or Luke Duke, just not as hot in Jensen’s opinion.
“What’s going on youngsters?” He pushed up between the seats, hands slapping out a rhythm on the center console.
“Well Ackles here kicked Rosey’s much deserving ass and we were just going to celebrate with some crushed ice and a little muscle relaxant.” Danneel winked at him.
“Sweet, that douche had it coming.” Chad whooped. “Give me five dude.”
Jensen returned the gesture and they were on their way. She turned the music up so loud, there was no point in talking. Danneel had made a few gestures to Chad, who was rubbing a bar of wax on the underside of his skateboard and he gave a thumbs up and shouted ‘fuck yeah’ over the din of the radio.
Jensen didn’t know what was going on, for sure, but he was starting to see where it could be going.
Danneel lived in a postmodern Frank Gehry designed house in Venice Beach. It was all gray metal, hard edges and filled with harder art. It was so counter to the remnants of Louisiana lilt her voice still carried, but who was he to judge, he wasn’t a native Angeleno either.
At the top of the metal staircase was an enormous painting of a half-naked woman with cold eyes and a red lips. Jensen recognized the artist, Nagel; his brother had a print in his bedroom. The woman seemed almost familiar and he wanted to look at it closer, trying not leer at her exposed breast.
“Ugh. My mother, he was a fan.” Danneel dismisses it and coaxes Jensen to her room.
Chad is already sitting on her bed pulling things out of a small bag inside his backpack.
There are clothes of all manner and color strewn around the wall to wall pink room. The walls, bedding, chairs, and rugs were all the same shade of Pepto-Bismol pink. There were a couple of glossy black end tables and dozens of glossy black frames, filled with pictures of Danneel. There were baby pictures, birthday pictures, candid’s, posed, some of Danneel with a few actors and musicians he recognized, and even a few that appeared to be in a club or a bar. Over the bed are four large framed copies of the exact same image of Danneel, each with a different color and style of Andy Warhol pop art. There’s an obnoxious chair in the shape of a giant hand facing the balcony. The ocean breeze is drifting through gauzy white curtains just inside the sliding windows, filling his lungs with the heady scent of sea water and the promise of summer.
“Have a seat dude, promise we won’t bite.” Chad says laying out rolling papers, a grinder and a bag of weed. “This stuff’ll fix you right up.”
Jensen’s older brother Josh and Jeff Padalecki smoke when their parents are away. So wasn’t the first time Jensen had seen the stuff, but he’s never actually smoked it before. It had never been offered before now.
Looking for a suitable pace to sit, Danneel comes into the room just then and tells him to sit up on her bed and she hands Chad then him a cold beer and a large ice pack. He’s had alcohol before, a few times, another perk of minimal supervision. Lucy, the Ackles housekeeper, doesn’t really pay attention to what the kids do as long as the rest of the house stays clean for Mrs. Ackles.
Jensen hesitates for a second, because getting semi drunk at home with Gen and Jared is not the same thing as having a beer at a stranger’s house during the school week, much less during school hours. But she nudges the sweating bottle towards him again and he figures one can’t hurt.
“So Jensen, how did it feel to hit that sonuvabitch?” Danneel’s eyes glimmer with glee and venom.
“Fine I guess.” He takes a long pull from the bottle and chokes a little, clutching his stomach to mask the screwed up pucker on his face from the bitter liquid.
“Fine…fine, he says.” Danneel drapes herself across the bed like the diva in training she clearly is, her head coming to rest on Jensen’s thigh.
Jensen is about to elaborate a little bit more, for her benefit, but then and small crank and inhale sounds, Chad is inhales deep, then holds the joint out to Danneel.
“Guest’s first. Where are your manners, Chadly?” She sits up then and takes the proffered cigarette and hands it to Jensen.
He remembers how Josh did it and tries not to look too innocent. But he sucks at it a little too hard and immediately starts to choke and cough the smoke back out.
Chad laughs and Danneel glares at him and then smoothes her hand in circles over Jensen’s back.
“It’s ok. We all did it the first time.” She takes the still lit joint from Jensen and smokes it while continuing to rub his back, then hands it back to Murray.
They pass it around again and then Jensen feels it. His world shifts into a lower gear, not quite hazy, like when you sleep too long while taking a nap in the sun, but then when his eyes adjust everything around him seems sharper. Jensen looks around and tries to process the events of the last two hours and how he skipped school and ended up here. After he thinks he may have also had a few life epiphanies.
When he gets home hours later, he eats whatever he can find in the fridge he calls Jared to tell him all about it.
“Jensen?” It’s a cracked whisper but he knows that voice anywhere. “Jen?”
Jensen pops out of the chair and rushes to her side, holding onto her free hand. “Hey, Peanut.”
“You haven’t called me that in years.” She says, still groggy, her eyelids heavy with pain killers and sedation.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. But I’m here now.” Jensen kisses her forehead.
She tries to adjust herself on the hospital bed and grimaces in pain. There are tubes and IV’s everywhere and it’s too much. She lets go and collapses back onto the bed.
Jensen holds onto her good hand, refusing to let go and tries with the other to readjust her pillow and blankets. “Better?”
“Mmm hmm.” It’s barely a sound and she nods slightly.
He strokes her hair away from her face and just watches as she comes to. He sees the moment in her face when everything comes back. She takes deep gulps of air, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
She looks him in the eyes and he tries, really tries, to give her a brave face, but this is Gen and all the emotions racing through both of them break his heart. His effort to stone his features and give her a smile fails miserably. She’s always been able to read him.
They are both crying, for so many reasons, not just the one that reunited them.
“I’m so so sorry.” He repeats over and over again.
They hold onto each other as tightly as they can, given her shoulder in the sling and all the tubes and IV’s strewn about.
They stay like that for several minutes, the breaths and tears slowly abating, and then Jensen pulls back just enough to look her in the eyes. Jensen wants to ask the question, who? But it’s also the last thing he wants to do. They share a wordless conversation. He won’t push, not yet. She’ll tell him when she’s ready to tell him, or anyone for that matter.
He cups her cheek softly and lets her cry again. His does the same, eyes burning from the salt and grittiness of his contacts.
It’s awhile before the crying stops again.
Gen takes a deep breath and Jensen can feel her steel herself.
“Do they have any decent coffee in this place?” She says, wiping her face in the crook of Jensen’s shoulder.
“I won’t lie. But I’ll see if they can get you some tea. That ok?” He pulls back; thumb stroking under her unbruised eye.
“Yeah, that’d be good.” She sniffles again. “I’m glad you’re home Chief.”
Jensen gives her a wan smile and steps towards the door.
It takes him less than two minute but feels like he has to rush back to her side, especially now that she’s awake. “The nurse is going to get us some tea.”
They fall into a comfortable silence. Then Jensen gets up to get two washcloths from the bathroom and runs them under warm water. He sits on the edge of the bed softly and slowly wipes away dried tears and traces of blood around her face where he can.
“That feels good, thank you.” She whispers after a few minutes through a small yawn.
“If you’re nice to me, maybe I’ll rub your feet too.” He smiles and squeezes her leg lightly.
“Rub my feet Ackles.” She demands, a pretty pout on her mouth, that’s the Gen he knows.
The nurse comes in with two cups of tea and sets them on the tray table next to the bed.
“How are you doing Miss Cortese?” She asks as she checks Gen’s vitals.
“I feel as good as I look I’m sure.” Gen says, voice steady but eyes wavering.
“Well Doctor Kincaid will be in shortly to talk to you.” The nurse looks at her with kind eyes as she pumps up the blood pressure cuff and counts. “Let him know if you’re in any excessive pain.”
She’s writing her findings on Gen’s chart and Gen gives Jensen a ‘duh” look. Jensen can read that as ‘Fuck yeah I’m in excessive pain, just look at me’.
He settles down by her feet and starts to rub her left foot first. She moans with pleasure when he works his knuckle into the arch of her foot.
“That’s what you get for wearing such high heels.” He teases, grinding it in a little deeper and flexing her toes back.
“But they are so pretty.” She giggles. “Besides, if you assholes weren’t so tall I wouldn’t have too.”
Jensen starts to laugh and say something but he sees her eyes suddenly darken and she looks towards the window. He keeps rubbing her feet and doesn’t say a word. When she finally looks back at him the look she gives says ‘not yet, ok’. He starts on her right foot.
She finishes her tea and starts do doze so Jensen wraps the sheets and blanket back under her feet and tucks them in around her legs.
“I’m gonna let you get some more sleep and I’ll be back soon, ok.” Jensen says, just above a whisper she just nods, her eyes closed. He bends down and gives her a kiss on the cheek. “Helps make you heal quicker.”
Her eyes open then, dark and watery, but she doesn’t say anything.
He squeezes her hand one more time. “I love you.”
“Me too.” She closes her eyes to sleep.
He’s going to let her rest and come back in a few hours, her parents should be here by then.
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