Cornerstone Chapter One
Title: Cornerstone
Author: nikki5124
Pairings/Characters: Jared/Jensen
Rating: ranging from PG - NC 17
Category: AU
Word Count: alot lol
Summary: college au..what happens when jared, jensen, chad, tom, and mike all get assigned to do the group project from hell
Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't be on lj. I would be in my bed...naked
“Chad! Stop primping in the mirror and lets go or we’re gonna be late,” Jared yelled at the bathroom door, followed by an exasperated look at his watch. “Dude, class seriously starts in like 20 minutes and we still have to make it over there and go through parking hell!”
Chad stuck his head out the door with his patented smirk, “Hey, you can‘t rush perfection, okay? It takes time to look as good as I do.”
Taking a deep breath, Jared quickly went through a list of reasons for why he was even friends with Chad in order to keep from slugging that look off his face.
It was a rather short list, and it wasn’t working.
Spinning on his heels, Jared went downstairs to the kitchen, desperately needing a sweet fix to temper his mood.
Fucking Chad.
This semester was already starting out great for Jared. Everything kicked off with him getting fired from his job at Tech World, after being caught helping Chad steal boxes-yes boxes, that Chad just had to have in order to move in with him. And now he was now stuck shelving books at the University library, surrounded by the good and crazies who are so pale they look like they must deathly allergic to the sun, get their daily work out playing dance dance revolution, worship the works of Nietzsche, and are constantly ranting about the validity of Jedi as a religion.
He’d accepted the job because he was desperate for the cash, but now he was starting to reevaluate the importance of being able to pay his bills over being able to keep his sanity. On top of all that, he still had soccer practice, not to mention the team he coached on the weekends at the boys club, tutoring two days a week at the math lab, and 16 credit hours of fun filled business classes.
Oh well, he just had to suck it up and pray that his last two years flew a little more quickly than his first two. With a little organization, which, thankfully, was a habit now gained out of necessity, he should be able to stay on top of everything. But first thing first…
“CHAD!!!”
“You have 30 seconds, Princess, or I swear I’m leavin' your ass,” Jared hollered while stacking four Reese’s peanut butter cups on top of each other and shoving them into his mouth. “5...4..3...”
Jogging down the steps, Chad flipped up his collar of his pink lacoste shirt and slipped on his sunglasses, giving Jared the smirk. “Yo, chill, Padalecki. I’m ready whenever you are.” Snatching the last peanut butter cup out of Jared’s hand, he then headed out the door.
A couple of deep breaths and a quick prayer later, Jared grabbed his bag with his laptop and followed suit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eighteen minutes later, Jared found himself cursing Chad’s existence, as he circled around the business parking garage for the 12th time. Glancing over, he noticed Chad frantically rummaging through his backpack. “What are you looking for?”
“My chap stick. Damn, I think I left it in the bathroom when you were rushing me. Great, now my lips are gonna be chapped!”
Opening his mouth to say something along the lines of Chad having a vagina, Jared was quickly distracted as a white Nissan backed out of the space in front of him. Whipping in, he barely had the car turned off before he was all but jogging towards the business building
“Hey, slow down Carl Lewis! We’re already late. Plus it's only the first day, aka, Professor hands out the syllabus, we scope out the ladies, and then we get the hell out,” Chad called out as he found himself sprinting to keep up with Jared’s giraffe like legs.
“Um…did you even look at your schedule?”
The blank look on Chad’s faced was answer enough.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. We got Cornerstone with Dr. Rubin…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stumbling into class, Jared shot what had to be his 34th glare in Chad’s direction, only to find that it was completely wasted, seeing as how Chad was busy making bedroom eyes at a slightly horrified blonde in the front row. Not that Jared could blame her, Chad’s bedroom eyes were terrifying.
Grabbing Chad by his ridiculous upturned collar, Jared shot an apologetic look at the professor and made his way to two seats in the middle of the room.
Chad flopped down in his seat and immediately started scanning the room.“Dude, this class is gonna be awesome. Have you checked out the chicks? There is some prime punani and The Chad will not be wasting it!”
Deciding that now would be the best time to start ignoring The Chad, Jared slouched down lower into his chair and started glancing through the class syllabus. Damn. This class was really not a joke. According to the syllabus they had to break into groups of five to complete a huge community service project, take three exams, write a proposal, and do two group presentations. This had to be a joke. A quick look around at the mix of despair and panic on everyone else’s faces let him know that it was for real. All self pity was put to a stop as the door to the class banged open.
And this is the part where Jared Padalecki, 53 other students, and one professor all simultaneously creamed their pants.
Okay…not really. But close enough.
Standing in the doorway was a guy who looked as if he could very well lead his own sexual revolution. Six feet tall with lean muscles and a 'just fuck me already' expression that Jared suddenly felt the undeniable urge to stand up and volunteer for. His nonchalant attitude and obliviousness to the attention he was getting only made him that much hotter, if that was even possible.
After a quick and uninterested survey of the room, Walking Sex went over and dropped down into a seat in the front row. As his legs fell open in an obscene manner, Jared’s brain automatically checked out from reality and went immediately into x-rated fantasy land. You know the one.
Rapidly fanning herself with some papers, Professor Rubin tried to regain some control over the class. “Okay, guys, I’m going to now break you into, uh, groups of five. Once you get into your group you need to make a contact sheet with all of you names and contact info, come up with a group name, decide on a group leader, and set up a weekly meeting time where you will be getting together outside of class. Any questions?”
Hearing that the professor was picking their groups snapped Jared out his own version of Midnight in Paris, tentatively titled Midnight in Jared, and into a flurry of panic. With his luck, he would either end up in a group where he ended up doing all of the work or in a group who fought over every single detail. And wouldn’t that just be the cherry on top of his crap day.
“Group seven. Jared Pada...Pada…”
“Padalecki,” Jared replied automatically.
“Sorry, Padalecki. Michael Rosenbaum, Chad Michael Murray, Jensen Ackles, and Tom Welling.”
Oh, thank God, at least he was with Chad. Wait, did he really just think that?
With a mental face palm, Jared gathered up his laptop, and slapped Chad on the back of the head in order to get his attention away from the frightened girl next to him, earning him a look of gratitude. He then tried to make his way through the shuffling crowd towards the two guys who he assumed were in his group by the way that they had given each other five when the names were called.
The shorter guy sporting the buzz cut looked directly at Jared yelling, “Hey, Hagrid, down here!” Earning him a slap to the shoulder from his friend. For whatever reason this just sent him into a fit of laughter that Jared couldn’t help but join in on, especially after noticing Chad bent over howling beside him.
And just like that, the awkward getting to know you phase had officially passed.
Mike and Tom turned out to be best friends who couldn’t have been more opposite if they tried. Mike is a total clown whose sharp sense of humor and brutal honesty would have had people hating his guts if they weren’t too busy laughing their asses off. Tom, on the other hand, is the quiet type with an easy smile that you knew could be trusted.
After a quick round of introductions, Jared is nearly falling out his chair as Mike tells them the story of how he shaved his head in order to play the part of Rameses in the school’s production of the "Ten Commandments" , only to lose the part after he and the director had creative differences concerning Mike’s belief that the production should be both modernized, and set in Brooklyn; with the addition of musical numbers inspired by both "Hair" and "Jesus Christ Superstar"--natch. The fact that the entire idea was ludicrous and failed to make sense outside the confines of Mike’s mind doesn’t deter Jared from laughing so hard that he almost pees himself while neglecting to notice that someone was now standing directly behind him. All of which came to a startling halt as a slightly amused voice interrupted the group's shenanigans.
“Um…hey. I’m Jensen. Jensen Ackles. Is this group seven?”
Whipping around, Jared found himself staring directly at Walking Sex and into the greenest eyes he had ever seen. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that he was expected to talk, but the only thing that came to mind was the fact that he wanted to lick those freckles, among other things. After desperately searching for anything to say, he finally gave up and settled on a small grunt and what he hoped was a smile, although he highly doubted it by the look of confusion on Jensen’s face.
Thankfully, Chad was as oblivious as always, “Yeah, yo, this is group number seven. I’m Chad, this is my boy Jared, and this is Tom and Mike.”
“Cool,” Jensen said, as he flipped around the nearest chair and sat down.
An awkward moment of silence ensued as everyone adjusted to the sudden change in the dynamic. That is of course until Jensen raised a very sexy, sardonic eyebrow and asked, “ So, where exactly does the song Aquarius fit in with divine plagues and 40 years in the desert?”
That was all it took to get Mike going, once again having them all on the floor. Including Jared, who figured out that he could breathe and have coherent thoughts so long as he didn’t look directly into the light.
Ten minutes later, Jared looked up at the clock and saw that they only had about five minutes left in class and they still hadn’t gotten anything done. Pulling out his laptop and some notebook paper, Jared quickly went through the list of stuff they needed to complete.
“Okay, so we still need to fill out this contact sheet, set up a meeting time, come up with a group name, and decide on a team leader.” Grabbing a piece of notebook paper, Jared writes down his name and contact info and passes it around. “ I think we should come up with a group name first, since that’s gonna be the hardest to do. Any ideas?”
Of course Chad has one. “What about the O.G.’s aka the Original Gangstas?”
Following this, there is an unspoken agreement to collectively ignore Chad from this point on.
“What about One Heart?” Tom said with an earnest expression lighting up his face. “Think about it. We’re coming together to do something good for the community and our slogan could be Five People One Heart. Oh, and we could even use that song We Can by Leann Rimes as our theme song. It would be perfect!”
Stunned into silence and half terrified that Tom is about to break into song, Jared, Chad, and Jensen all frantically search for a way to turn Tom’s suggestion down without hurting his feelings.
Mike has no such reservations.
“Um…TAMMY, how about no? My penis is offended that you would even say some shit like that, as yours would be if only it hadn’t run off somewhere between One Heart and Leann Rimes.”
Trying to head off any argument, Jared asked, “Okay, how about Team Excellence?”
Looking around to gauge everyone’s reactions, Jared made the mistake of catching Jensen’s eye. Startled, he found himself choking on his own spit and launching into a massive coughing fit that has Chad, oh so helpfully, pounding away on his back.
Trying to get control of himself, Jared vaguely heard the all around veto of his suggestion and quickly decided that his safest bet was to sit quietly, keeping his eyes trained solely on his desk while silently wishing that he was Marty McFly.
A few seconds later, Jared had the makings of a headache and had now reached the conclusion that he was being a complete douche. Jensen might be hot, but he was still just a guy. And not only that, but Jared was going to have to work with him for the rest of the semester and if he couldn’t even look at the guy without convulsing, this semester was going to be incredibly long and awkward.
Shifting nervously in his seat, Jared slowly looked in the general direction of Jensen’s face, “Um…so…uh…Jensen. Do you, um, have any ideas?”
O-kay, not quite how it sounded in his head, but it’ll do.
“Not really,” Jensen answered, barely looking up from the drawing he’s now working on. “I mean, I don’t think Rubin really cares about the name so we should just pick whatever.”
O-kay..
“Well the syllabus says that we should pick a name that truly represents what our group is all about and yet it needs to be professional enough since we’ll be working with other community service organizations around town,” Jared said, thinking out loud. “Hold on, I think I have an idea.”
Opening up his laptop, Jared quickly found his notes from last semester's marketing management class.
“So, I like the whole One Heart idea in that our group name should be centered around us working together to do something positive in the community, only I think it needs to be a little less...uh…you know...”
“Gay?” Chad and Mike both supplied.
“Whatever,” Jared answered, searching through the information in front of him. “I got it. Synergy. I learned about it in Man 3330.”
Pointedly ignoring the three disbelieving stares and one blank one from Chad, Jared rushed on, “Synergy is from the Greek word synergos, meaning to work together. It’s when two or more forces work together and the end product is greater than the sum of what their individual efforts would have been.”
And this is where one blank stare became four.
“Dude, who are you?” Mike blurted out with an incredulous look on his face. “No one remembers that shit. It’s one of those things where you learn it for the exam and then promptly forget it the second the professors calls pencils down.”
Jared shrugged, feeling as if he had just waved his freak flag. Jared had always been an overachiever when it came to school. He couldn’t help it. Ever since he was eight, he would sit in his dad’s study soaking up any and all information he could find. Somewhere along the way he had started to believe that if he had all the information then he would never be caught unprepared again. But that was a line of thought that he really couldn’t deal with right now.
“I like it.”
Snapping his head up, and for the third time this morning, possibly giving himself whiplash, Jared found Jensen staring at him with a look that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
For a moment, Jared was thrown into the middle of a Danielle Steele novel, complete with heart palpitations and shallow breathing, not to mention the fading of everything around him and what he thought might be accompaniment from a cello, or at least something from the strings family.
All of which lasted for about two seconds before Chad hollered out “ Yeah, that’s my boy! He’s one of them smarty art boys! He could kill you with his brain!”
Jared threw back his head and laughed.
How could you not?
Looking back over to Jensen, he saw him once again directing all of his attention to the drawing in front of him.
Unconsciously, Jared tried to lean closer to get a better look, only to be interrupted as Prof. Rubin announced the end of class and asked everyone to turn in their contact sheet.
“Make sure that on the contact sheet you have put down your team name and have clearly labeled the team leader. And don’t forget to schedule a time to meet outside of class. As you can see on the syllabus, there is a group assignment due at the beginning of next class.”
Scanning over the contact sheet, Jared made sure that everyone was on it before writing down the group name at the top of the page. “ Who wants to be group leader?”
“Uh, not I,” Mike answered as he grabbed his bag and stood up. “ Jared, I’ve known you for almost an hour now and I can tell that you’re a good honest man who will lead our group to an A in this class, therefore, I nominate you to be our fearless leader. All opposed say nay!”
Jared rolled his eyes, “You’re an idiot. Fine. I’ll send out an email tonight with everyone’s contact info and we can decide on a time to meet. Sound good?”
Finally in agreeance, everybody grabbed their stuff and started to file out the door.
Throwing his bag over his shoulder, Chad turned towards Jared, "I'm gonna head over to the student union and get a smoothie, you want one?"
"Yeah, I want a pineapple surf with a energy enhancer. I'll get the car and I'll pick you up over by the union."
Having caught the eyes of a semi-pretty red head, Chad was already half way out the door, "I got ya." Jared had to give it to him, Chad was nothing if not consistent.
After dropping the paper off on the Professor’s desk, Jared turned and ran right into Walking Sex, um, Jensen.
“Hey!” Jared shouted, mentally kicking himself in the ass for his lack of anything resembling cool. God, at this point he would even have taken normal.
Jensen just looked at him, once again raising that damn lickable eyebrow-and when the hell had eyebrows become lickable anyway?
“You okay?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Nothing, you dropped this,” Jensen said, the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips as he handed over Jared’s pen.
Blinking stupidly, Jared tried to figure what he was supposed to do next.
Full out grinning at this point, Jensen asked, “Um...do you want it?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Jared responded, grabbing the pen and praying that he wasn’t blushing like a 12 year old girl at a Justin Timberlake concert.
“No worries. I’ll see you around, Jay,” Jensen said as he walked out the door.
Jared couldn't help but smile as he got a good look at Jensen's backside in those jeans. Shaking his head, he was halfway to his car when he realized he was still smiling.
Author: nikki5124
Pairings/Characters: Jared/Jensen
Rating: ranging from PG - NC 17
Category: AU
Word Count: alot lol
Summary: college au..what happens when jared, jensen, chad, tom, and mike all get assigned to do the group project from hell
Disclaimer: If I owned them, I wouldn't be on lj. I would be in my bed...naked
“Chad! Stop primping in the mirror and lets go or we’re gonna be late,” Jared yelled at the bathroom door, followed by an exasperated look at his watch. “Dude, class seriously starts in like 20 minutes and we still have to make it over there and go through parking hell!”
Chad stuck his head out the door with his patented smirk, “Hey, you can‘t rush perfection, okay? It takes time to look as good as I do.”
Taking a deep breath, Jared quickly went through a list of reasons for why he was even friends with Chad in order to keep from slugging that look off his face.
It was a rather short list, and it wasn’t working.
Spinning on his heels, Jared went downstairs to the kitchen, desperately needing a sweet fix to temper his mood.
Fucking Chad.
This semester was already starting out great for Jared. Everything kicked off with him getting fired from his job at Tech World, after being caught helping Chad steal boxes-yes boxes, that Chad just had to have in order to move in with him. And now he was now stuck shelving books at the University library, surrounded by the good and crazies who are so pale they look like they must deathly allergic to the sun, get their daily work out playing dance dance revolution, worship the works of Nietzsche, and are constantly ranting about the validity of Jedi as a religion.
He’d accepted the job because he was desperate for the cash, but now he was starting to reevaluate the importance of being able to pay his bills over being able to keep his sanity. On top of all that, he still had soccer practice, not to mention the team he coached on the weekends at the boys club, tutoring two days a week at the math lab, and 16 credit hours of fun filled business classes.
Oh well, he just had to suck it up and pray that his last two years flew a little more quickly than his first two. With a little organization, which, thankfully, was a habit now gained out of necessity, he should be able to stay on top of everything. But first thing first…
“CHAD!!!”
“You have 30 seconds, Princess, or I swear I’m leavin' your ass,” Jared hollered while stacking four Reese’s peanut butter cups on top of each other and shoving them into his mouth. “5...4..3...”
Jogging down the steps, Chad flipped up his collar of his pink lacoste shirt and slipped on his sunglasses, giving Jared the smirk. “Yo, chill, Padalecki. I’m ready whenever you are.” Snatching the last peanut butter cup out of Jared’s hand, he then headed out the door.
A couple of deep breaths and a quick prayer later, Jared grabbed his bag with his laptop and followed suit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eighteen minutes later, Jared found himself cursing Chad’s existence, as he circled around the business parking garage for the 12th time. Glancing over, he noticed Chad frantically rummaging through his backpack. “What are you looking for?”
“My chap stick. Damn, I think I left it in the bathroom when you were rushing me. Great, now my lips are gonna be chapped!”
Opening his mouth to say something along the lines of Chad having a vagina, Jared was quickly distracted as a white Nissan backed out of the space in front of him. Whipping in, he barely had the car turned off before he was all but jogging towards the business building
“Hey, slow down Carl Lewis! We’re already late. Plus it's only the first day, aka, Professor hands out the syllabus, we scope out the ladies, and then we get the hell out,” Chad called out as he found himself sprinting to keep up with Jared’s giraffe like legs.
“Um…did you even look at your schedule?”
The blank look on Chad’s faced was answer enough.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. We got Cornerstone with Dr. Rubin…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stumbling into class, Jared shot what had to be his 34th glare in Chad’s direction, only to find that it was completely wasted, seeing as how Chad was busy making bedroom eyes at a slightly horrified blonde in the front row. Not that Jared could blame her, Chad’s bedroom eyes were terrifying.
Grabbing Chad by his ridiculous upturned collar, Jared shot an apologetic look at the professor and made his way to two seats in the middle of the room.
Chad flopped down in his seat and immediately started scanning the room.“Dude, this class is gonna be awesome. Have you checked out the chicks? There is some prime punani and The Chad will not be wasting it!”
Deciding that now would be the best time to start ignoring The Chad, Jared slouched down lower into his chair and started glancing through the class syllabus. Damn. This class was really not a joke. According to the syllabus they had to break into groups of five to complete a huge community service project, take three exams, write a proposal, and do two group presentations. This had to be a joke. A quick look around at the mix of despair and panic on everyone else’s faces let him know that it was for real. All self pity was put to a stop as the door to the class banged open.
And this is the part where Jared Padalecki, 53 other students, and one professor all simultaneously creamed their pants.
Okay…not really. But close enough.
Standing in the doorway was a guy who looked as if he could very well lead his own sexual revolution. Six feet tall with lean muscles and a 'just fuck me already' expression that Jared suddenly felt the undeniable urge to stand up and volunteer for. His nonchalant attitude and obliviousness to the attention he was getting only made him that much hotter, if that was even possible.
After a quick and uninterested survey of the room, Walking Sex went over and dropped down into a seat in the front row. As his legs fell open in an obscene manner, Jared’s brain automatically checked out from reality and went immediately into x-rated fantasy land. You know the one.
Rapidly fanning herself with some papers, Professor Rubin tried to regain some control over the class. “Okay, guys, I’m going to now break you into, uh, groups of five. Once you get into your group you need to make a contact sheet with all of you names and contact info, come up with a group name, decide on a group leader, and set up a weekly meeting time where you will be getting together outside of class. Any questions?”
Hearing that the professor was picking their groups snapped Jared out his own version of Midnight in Paris, tentatively titled Midnight in Jared, and into a flurry of panic. With his luck, he would either end up in a group where he ended up doing all of the work or in a group who fought over every single detail. And wouldn’t that just be the cherry on top of his crap day.
“Group seven. Jared Pada...Pada…”
“Padalecki,” Jared replied automatically.
“Sorry, Padalecki. Michael Rosenbaum, Chad Michael Murray, Jensen Ackles, and Tom Welling.”
Oh, thank God, at least he was with Chad. Wait, did he really just think that?
With a mental face palm, Jared gathered up his laptop, and slapped Chad on the back of the head in order to get his attention away from the frightened girl next to him, earning him a look of gratitude. He then tried to make his way through the shuffling crowd towards the two guys who he assumed were in his group by the way that they had given each other five when the names were called.
The shorter guy sporting the buzz cut looked directly at Jared yelling, “Hey, Hagrid, down here!” Earning him a slap to the shoulder from his friend. For whatever reason this just sent him into a fit of laughter that Jared couldn’t help but join in on, especially after noticing Chad bent over howling beside him.
And just like that, the awkward getting to know you phase had officially passed.
Mike and Tom turned out to be best friends who couldn’t have been more opposite if they tried. Mike is a total clown whose sharp sense of humor and brutal honesty would have had people hating his guts if they weren’t too busy laughing their asses off. Tom, on the other hand, is the quiet type with an easy smile that you knew could be trusted.
After a quick round of introductions, Jared is nearly falling out his chair as Mike tells them the story of how he shaved his head in order to play the part of Rameses in the school’s production of the "Ten Commandments" , only to lose the part after he and the director had creative differences concerning Mike’s belief that the production should be both modernized, and set in Brooklyn; with the addition of musical numbers inspired by both "Hair" and "Jesus Christ Superstar"--natch. The fact that the entire idea was ludicrous and failed to make sense outside the confines of Mike’s mind doesn’t deter Jared from laughing so hard that he almost pees himself while neglecting to notice that someone was now standing directly behind him. All of which came to a startling halt as a slightly amused voice interrupted the group's shenanigans.
“Um…hey. I’m Jensen. Jensen Ackles. Is this group seven?”
Whipping around, Jared found himself staring directly at Walking Sex and into the greenest eyes he had ever seen. Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that he was expected to talk, but the only thing that came to mind was the fact that he wanted to lick those freckles, among other things. After desperately searching for anything to say, he finally gave up and settled on a small grunt and what he hoped was a smile, although he highly doubted it by the look of confusion on Jensen’s face.
Thankfully, Chad was as oblivious as always, “Yeah, yo, this is group number seven. I’m Chad, this is my boy Jared, and this is Tom and Mike.”
“Cool,” Jensen said, as he flipped around the nearest chair and sat down.
An awkward moment of silence ensued as everyone adjusted to the sudden change in the dynamic. That is of course until Jensen raised a very sexy, sardonic eyebrow and asked, “ So, where exactly does the song Aquarius fit in with divine plagues and 40 years in the desert?”
That was all it took to get Mike going, once again having them all on the floor. Including Jared, who figured out that he could breathe and have coherent thoughts so long as he didn’t look directly into the light.
Ten minutes later, Jared looked up at the clock and saw that they only had about five minutes left in class and they still hadn’t gotten anything done. Pulling out his laptop and some notebook paper, Jared quickly went through the list of stuff they needed to complete.
“Okay, so we still need to fill out this contact sheet, set up a meeting time, come up with a group name, and decide on a team leader.” Grabbing a piece of notebook paper, Jared writes down his name and contact info and passes it around. “ I think we should come up with a group name first, since that’s gonna be the hardest to do. Any ideas?”
Of course Chad has one. “What about the O.G.’s aka the Original Gangstas?”
Following this, there is an unspoken agreement to collectively ignore Chad from this point on.
“What about One Heart?” Tom said with an earnest expression lighting up his face. “Think about it. We’re coming together to do something good for the community and our slogan could be Five People One Heart. Oh, and we could even use that song We Can by Leann Rimes as our theme song. It would be perfect!”
Stunned into silence and half terrified that Tom is about to break into song, Jared, Chad, and Jensen all frantically search for a way to turn Tom’s suggestion down without hurting his feelings.
Mike has no such reservations.
“Um…TAMMY, how about no? My penis is offended that you would even say some shit like that, as yours would be if only it hadn’t run off somewhere between One Heart and Leann Rimes.”
Trying to head off any argument, Jared asked, “Okay, how about Team Excellence?”
Looking around to gauge everyone’s reactions, Jared made the mistake of catching Jensen’s eye. Startled, he found himself choking on his own spit and launching into a massive coughing fit that has Chad, oh so helpfully, pounding away on his back.
Trying to get control of himself, Jared vaguely heard the all around veto of his suggestion and quickly decided that his safest bet was to sit quietly, keeping his eyes trained solely on his desk while silently wishing that he was Marty McFly.
A few seconds later, Jared had the makings of a headache and had now reached the conclusion that he was being a complete douche. Jensen might be hot, but he was still just a guy. And not only that, but Jared was going to have to work with him for the rest of the semester and if he couldn’t even look at the guy without convulsing, this semester was going to be incredibly long and awkward.
Shifting nervously in his seat, Jared slowly looked in the general direction of Jensen’s face, “Um…so…uh…Jensen. Do you, um, have any ideas?”
O-kay, not quite how it sounded in his head, but it’ll do.
“Not really,” Jensen answered, barely looking up from the drawing he’s now working on. “I mean, I don’t think Rubin really cares about the name so we should just pick whatever.”
O-kay..
“Well the syllabus says that we should pick a name that truly represents what our group is all about and yet it needs to be professional enough since we’ll be working with other community service organizations around town,” Jared said, thinking out loud. “Hold on, I think I have an idea.”
Opening up his laptop, Jared quickly found his notes from last semester's marketing management class.
“So, I like the whole One Heart idea in that our group name should be centered around us working together to do something positive in the community, only I think it needs to be a little less...uh…you know...”
“Gay?” Chad and Mike both supplied.
“Whatever,” Jared answered, searching through the information in front of him. “I got it. Synergy. I learned about it in Man 3330.”
Pointedly ignoring the three disbelieving stares and one blank one from Chad, Jared rushed on, “Synergy is from the Greek word synergos, meaning to work together. It’s when two or more forces work together and the end product is greater than the sum of what their individual efforts would have been.”
And this is where one blank stare became four.
“Dude, who are you?” Mike blurted out with an incredulous look on his face. “No one remembers that shit. It’s one of those things where you learn it for the exam and then promptly forget it the second the professors calls pencils down.”
Jared shrugged, feeling as if he had just waved his freak flag. Jared had always been an overachiever when it came to school. He couldn’t help it. Ever since he was eight, he would sit in his dad’s study soaking up any and all information he could find. Somewhere along the way he had started to believe that if he had all the information then he would never be caught unprepared again. But that was a line of thought that he really couldn’t deal with right now.
“I like it.”
Snapping his head up, and for the third time this morning, possibly giving himself whiplash, Jared found Jensen staring at him with a look that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
For a moment, Jared was thrown into the middle of a Danielle Steele novel, complete with heart palpitations and shallow breathing, not to mention the fading of everything around him and what he thought might be accompaniment from a cello, or at least something from the strings family.
All of which lasted for about two seconds before Chad hollered out “ Yeah, that’s my boy! He’s one of them smarty art boys! He could kill you with his brain!”
Jared threw back his head and laughed.
How could you not?
Looking back over to Jensen, he saw him once again directing all of his attention to the drawing in front of him.
Unconsciously, Jared tried to lean closer to get a better look, only to be interrupted as Prof. Rubin announced the end of class and asked everyone to turn in their contact sheet.
“Make sure that on the contact sheet you have put down your team name and have clearly labeled the team leader. And don’t forget to schedule a time to meet outside of class. As you can see on the syllabus, there is a group assignment due at the beginning of next class.”
Scanning over the contact sheet, Jared made sure that everyone was on it before writing down the group name at the top of the page. “ Who wants to be group leader?”
“Uh, not I,” Mike answered as he grabbed his bag and stood up. “ Jared, I’ve known you for almost an hour now and I can tell that you’re a good honest man who will lead our group to an A in this class, therefore, I nominate you to be our fearless leader. All opposed say nay!”
Jared rolled his eyes, “You’re an idiot. Fine. I’ll send out an email tonight with everyone’s contact info and we can decide on a time to meet. Sound good?”
Finally in agreeance, everybody grabbed their stuff and started to file out the door.
Throwing his bag over his shoulder, Chad turned towards Jared, "I'm gonna head over to the student union and get a smoothie, you want one?"
"Yeah, I want a pineapple surf with a energy enhancer. I'll get the car and I'll pick you up over by the union."
Having caught the eyes of a semi-pretty red head, Chad was already half way out the door, "I got ya." Jared had to give it to him, Chad was nothing if not consistent.
After dropping the paper off on the Professor’s desk, Jared turned and ran right into Walking Sex, um, Jensen.
“Hey!” Jared shouted, mentally kicking himself in the ass for his lack of anything resembling cool. God, at this point he would even have taken normal.
Jensen just looked at him, once again raising that damn lickable eyebrow-and when the hell had eyebrows become lickable anyway?
“You okay?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Nothing, you dropped this,” Jensen said, the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips as he handed over Jared’s pen.
Blinking stupidly, Jared tried to figure what he was supposed to do next.
Full out grinning at this point, Jensen asked, “Um...do you want it?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Jared responded, grabbing the pen and praying that he wasn’t blushing like a 12 year old girl at a Justin Timberlake concert.
“No worries. I’ll see you around, Jay,” Jensen said as he walked out the door.
Jared couldn't help but smile as he got a good look at Jensen's backside in those jeans. Shaking his head, he was halfway to his car when he realized he was still smiling.