Title: Many a Slip
Fandom: Franklin & Bash
Pairing: Jared/Peter (minor Peter/Janie)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A slip of the tongue in bed shakes everything up. (For
this prompt at the F&B Kink Meme.
Author's Note: My first F&B fic! :D
It could have been worse, is what Peter chooses to focus on. He could have screamed out the wrong name before Janie reached her own climax... Peter knows from experience what a mood-killer that can be.
They could've been more than just exes, and sometimes friends, with the ocassional benefits. Then there would have been questions related to whether or not Peter had cheated on her with the owner of the name in question...
And it's not like there aren't enough of those already.
When Peter's orgasm hits, he buries his face in the soft curve of Janie's shoulder, and cries out without thought.
The thinking starts immediately after.
Lying breathless, on their backs, Janie starts the fight. "Holy shit!" becomes "Are you two- Did you two-" becomes "Peter! Say something, goddamn it!" while Peter's mind just races.
"I-"
"You've started sleeping with Jared?"
"No! No, we've never-"
"You screamed his name during sex, Peter! It's a little late to play the 'we're just really comfortable in our friendship' card. Bros don't call out for each other when they come!"
Peter is still reeling when the fight ends moments later - him stumbling into his clothes, Janie pushing him ever closer to the front door. His most articulate contribution to their discussion is the raspy plea he tosses back as Janie throws him his shoes.
"Don't tell him!" Peter begs, just before Janie's door slams shut.
Her angry shout of "I won't!" through the hardwood is less than reassuring.
Peter sits in his car for about forty-five minutes before he recovers enough to remember how to operate it. Then he drives home, to continue freaking out.
OoO
The fallout from that one, fateful slip of the tongue is profound - but, thankfully, private. Or as private as personal matters can get for Peter, who shares everything with Jared - and, to a lesser degree, Carmen and Pindi.
Peter manages to come to terms with what happened at Janie's... and why it happened... without raising too many alarms. He fields first playful and then increasingly concerned questions about his subdued mood; he avoids confirming or denying Jared's speculations about how his brief quasi-"reconciliation" with Janie ended.
He does not - does not - obsess over all of the little things that used to strike Peter, on some level, as big things but that he never thought about because he didn't know why he can't look away whenever Jared doesn't dry his hair well enough after a shower... or why he spends laundry day half-hard whenever something of Jared's ends up in his wash.
The firm picks up a few high priority cases, which is both a blessing and a curse for Peter. A blessing because it provides Peter with nights of demanding, (distracting) often solitary work...
And a curse because it means that Peter isn't home the night that Janie stops by.
But Jared is.
He's waiting for Peter when Peter gets home. The second he opens his mouth to speak, Peter guesses what he's going to say and begins deflecting attempts to villify Janie and/or cheer Peter up.
Jared stops him mid-sentence.
"-ocus on the Billings case, so-"
"I know what happened!"
It takes Peter a moment to get Jared's meaning. The thought of Jared finding out that Peter thinks about him while having sex (even subconsciously) is so terrifying, Peter's never gotten so far as to guess what Jared's face might look like if he knew... But he might have expected a little less calm sympathy. A little more "freaked-the-fuck-out".
"Wha-"
"With Janie..." Jared clarifies quietly. Still looking surprisingly neutral. Suprisingly... not repulsed. "I know what happened with Janie."
OoO
Peter, walking past the couch with file folders in hand, plops unceremoniously down. His files spill onto the fortuitously clean coffee table in front of him.
"You... You do? How- She told you?"
"She left you a message after she left. And I... might have called your voicemail and listened to it. Peter! You've been moping around here for weeks!"
"Dude, that is not cool... And it hasn't been that-"
"It has. And I'm tired of watching you hurt, man. You're not talking. Janie stopped by, acting even... Janie-er than usual, and I just. I had to know-"
"Jared-" Peter isn't sure what element of this situation is harder to wrap his mind around. The fact that Janie was catty enough to air out their differences in a voicemail... Or that Jared is sitting down beside Peter on the couch. Just as close as he might have before... everything.
"Look, this isn't a big deal."
"Not a- How is this not a big deal?"
"It happens, man! It's happened to me. I never told you about it, but-"
As soon as Peter's responded to that, he will know he's made a horrible misstep. He can sense it even while the words are coming out of his mouth - can see Jared's face go blank and his eyes widen into disks, and what Peter's saying is, "You've called out my name during sex?"
A total, and sickening, silence falls over the both of them and too late Peter realizes that - had he not worked quite so many demanding, solitary nights in a row - he might have thought to confirm exactly what Jared thinks Janie said in her message. Also, Peter realizes that Jared's answer would probably be very far from the truth, judging by the heavy way Jared falls back against the couch cushions and gapes at Peter, like a fish.
"You... called out... my name. During..."
"Sex. Yes." Talking about it becomes surprisingly easy once it occurs to Peter that he has already fucked things up past all endurance. He can't feel his own lips... And his voice has taken on a sort of stunned monotone- But at least his lips are moving and he's not panicking, like he'd like to do.
"With-"
"Janie. Right."
"And- Dude..."
At least, Peter's not panicking... until he suddenly is. Jared blinks. His mouth opens again and Peter is off the couch like a shot.
"So. Yeah. Janie was... understandably... Pissed about that. And I've been having a kind of crisis about it. But it's all cool!" Peter rambles. "It's cool... Because I'm going to- I'm going to go back to the office. And work. And sleep, maybe. There in the office. Until realizing that I'm sort of in love with my male best friend becomes less awkward."
"Peter!"
Peter doesn't even have to think about it. He doesn't have to search for his keys or consider grabbing his toothbrush on the way out the door. His 'fight or flight' response is kind of awesome that way. He just jets out of the room and out of the house, trusting that the jangle in his pocket is indeed his car keys .
And luckily too frantic to worry whether the fact that Jared doesn't rise to try and stop him is a good thing or a bad thing.
OoO
As it turns out, Peter doesn't sleep at the office. He paces until he's exhausted, calling himself every word for 'stupid' that he knows, and then lies down on the pool table as if to try and sleep, only to close his eyes and hear the door open and close.
Familiar footsteps cross the floor and Peter is seriously beginning to hate his life when he opens his eyes and sees Jared standing over him.
Peter is too tired to get up and run again... Not that he hasn't exhausted the feasible options for where to run to. And at this angle, Peter can stare at Jared's chin or his tie instead of looking him in the eyes, so he just holds still while Jared says, "Did you mean it?" His voice sounds absolutely serious.
It's a rare but not unheard of mode of discussion for them.
Peter keeps his tone serious, also, as he says, "Afraid so."
"Afraid-" Jared raises his hands and flusters like he does when he's really frustrated. "Is that why you've been walking around like somebody shot your dog all this week? Is it really that awful that you might have feelings for me?" Peter watches Jared's tie bob as he swallows.
"I've always had-"
"More than those kinds of feelings-feelings."
"It is when I'm the only one who's got them," Peter says quietly. There's a reason they rarely do the 'serious talk' thing.
It sucks.
Feeling the way he does sucks. "And somebody did shoot my dog once, remember?" Peter jokes, knowing that the teasing tone he's going for is falling flat, but unable to fix it. " I hate that metaphor. And I can't believe you forgot about Ruffles."
"It's more of a simile... And of course I remember Ruffles! But we were, like, nine when that happened, man. Who says you're the only one?"
Jared slips it in there - just like that. The question to answer all of Peter's other questions - such as: how the hell do they move on from a mess like this?
Answer: maybe this doesn't have to be a mess.
"What?" Peter is shocked enough that he forgets to avoid Jared's eyes. And once he meets them he can't pull back. Jared doesn't look freaked out or disappointed or uncomfortable or anything that Peter had feared. He looks confused (understandable), excited, and... hopeful?
The implications of that- They take Peter's fucking breath away. He licks his lips, and only realizes it when he notices Jared noticing, his eyes following the movements of Peter's mouth before lifting again.
"Holy shit..." Peter breathes. He doesn't know what his face looks like as he makes his second life-changing realization in one week. But whatever it looks like, Jared apparently takes it as an answer of his own.
He steps closer to the pool table, his face directly above Peter's now. Had Peter been exhausted before? His body is thrumming with so much adrenaline all of a sudden... It woozily occurs to him, as Jared places tentative hands on his shoulders, that Jared can see the anxious energy about to vibrate Peter straight off of the table and is trying to steady him.
"You know, when I said it's happened to me... I didn't know it was one of our names we were talking about," Jared says, in a voice Peter isn't sure he's ever heard before... Reverant. In awe, maybe.
And, of course, because it's Jared, the next thing he says is cheeky, said with a tremulous but daring grin. He skips over all of the (unnecessary) declarations and clarifications and skips right to: "Wanna make an honest man out of me?"
Because it's Peter, he swallows the little, triumphant cheer he wants to shout and responds, "You want to have screamed out your name during sex, too?"
Jared laughs. And because they're both grown, reasonably successful men, they won't call what happens next a 'Spiderman kiss'.
But because they're both dorks, they'll totally think of it that way.
And later (much later, as far as anyone who would be scandalized by the thought of Peter and Jared having sex on a pool table in their office is concerned...) Peter will, indeed, make Jared scream out one of their names.
(And, yes, it will be Peter's.)
[end.]