Fic: Make this House a Home, J2
My fluffandfold fic. Ever so slightly late... *cough*
It's Supernatural RPS.
Title: Make this House a Home
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Rating: NC-17 (at the end)
Summary: Jensen doesn’t think moving into Jared’s apartment is such a good idea. (Or, why ‘The Odd Couple’ would have been a different movie with pretty boys and butt-sex)
Word Count: 6,698
Disclaimer: Sad as I am to say it, the boy’s don’t belong to me and they’re probably not doing this in real life. Spoilsports.
A/N: For the fluffandfold prompt “Jensen's apartment in Vancouver burns down, mold is discovered, there's a water leak, something that would require Jensen to move out at least for a while. He wants to move to a hotel, but Jared won't have it, since he just bought a house and there's enough space for the two of them”.
(Gah. I’m late posting this. And this isn’t as fluffy as I wanted it. And I couldn’t get the porn to work with the main bit so I had to add it as an epilogue. And it feels a bit disjointed to me. Gah. I fail at life and deserve to have small, very hard stale buns thrown at me by tiny angry monkeys.)
This was a bad idea.
Well, of course, he’d kinda had an inkling it was a bad idea from the start, that was why he’d protested so much about it when it had been proposed. But he hadn’t realised quite how truly immense his fuck-up was until after the deed was done.
And fate or god (or however the hell it was that was currently laughing their ass of at just how stupid Jensen Ackles could be) hadn’t been backwards about coming forwards with the reminder - no, the proof - that this was, officially, a very bad idea.
Said proof being offered that very first, hungover morning - signed, sealed and delivered you might say - in the form of one Jared Padalecki, wearing only boxers and (for some reason) a single sock.
He just stood there in the kitchen; drinking milk like he was a normal guy instead of a should-be-illegal pornographic display.
Throat working as he drank from the carton, drawing your eye down, down to miles and miles - hell, a whole damn Texas-sized state’s worth of smooth, honey coloured, delectable, delicious skin; highlighted rather than interrupted by those low-slung black boxers (not forgetting the sock. Which was both fuzzy and pink).
And his hair was sticking up all over and he had pillow creases on his cheek still and when he saw Jensen in the doorway he’d blinked at him for a moment before his face lit up as bright as anything, better than the best sunrise ever and he bounded across the room to squish Jensen to his chest with one arm and slur all sleepy-growly into the side of Jensen’s head
“S’good y’re here, man!” he pulled back to grin at Jensen “S’gonna be great being roomies together”
Then he bounced off to his bedroom like some freak genetic experiment that had crossed a yeti with Tigger, leaving Jensen blinking in the doorway.
Only now he had the sense memory of all of that golden skin pressed up against him, and how Jared smelled when he was warm and bare like that, and he was considerably more than half-hard and he realised with a slight dizzy feeling that he was probably going to have lots more opportunities to see Jared like this, be as close to Jared as this now that he’d moved in with the guy.
…and that given he was hugely, deeply, stonkingly in lust (and a bit in love) with his unwitting co-star already, and that he was sure being this close without being allowed to touch like he wanted was going to drive him batshit insane in very short order, moving in had been (as may have been mentioned before) a VERY Bad Idea.
He was so completely, totally screwed.
***
It was all Revenue Canada’s fault. That’s what he’d decided.
OK - so it was their fault in a very roundabout way.
It was their fault because they had unreasonably insisted that Jensen’s Vancouver landlord should not only have pay his taxes for this year but that he should also pay all of the past 10 years taxes as well, something that he had somehow neglected to do over said decade. Jensen could totally understand that. He was absent minded at times as well.
And yeah, normally he would be all for the guy getting dinned for the whole thing in one huge, vast, Supernatural-sized monster of a sum, because, hey - Jensen has to pay his taxes as well and it never sits right knowing that someone else is getting away with something you’re too chicken to do yourself.
But quite frankly, there were special circumstances at work in this case; like the fact that the appearance of this giant, slavering beast of a bill in his life had caused the landlord to decide that a holiday was in order. A short-notice holiday somewhere sunny that coincidently had no extradition deals, accompanied by all his cash and with no plans to come back.
A holiday that meant that all the landlords’ nice tenants, most importantly Jensen, were being kicked out of their apartments whilst the whole cluster-fuck of who owned the landlord’s properties was sorted out.
It was an insurance issue apparently. Personally, Jensen couldn’t give a fuck - for him it was a homelessness issue, or at least a ‘living out of a fucking suitcase in a hotel room’ issue and he’d been there, done that and had room service walk in on him jerking off to pay-per-view porn too many times and he didn’t want to have to do it again, thank you very much. He was getting too old for that shit. And slower at covering his groin up.
Besides, as he’d explained to Jared in the bar after the whole ‘nowhere to live’ thing had blown up, he’d liked his apartment. He’d loved his apartment. His apartment had been his friend.
“Jen, your apartment was an over priced shit hole that the guy could only rent out because it was in a trendy neighbourhood. Stuff always went wrong with everything and you complained about it all the time. It had mould in the bathroom”
“I liked the mould”
“You hated the mould and you had enough anti-fungal products in your cleaning cupboard to wipe out all the veruccas in the free world”
“I loved the mould. I was training it. I had named it George”
And ok, perhaps by this point Jensen had had a little too much to drink. Just a little.
Which was why he was mumbling about his love of mould into his beer instead of listening to what Jared was saying; which was, in turn, why he didn’t notice that Jared had circled back round to the point he had been trying to head off at the pass all day. When he tuned back in Jared was saying
“…and you know I’ve just bought my own place! I’ve got loads of room and I’m not hearing ‘no’ from you anymore man! - you’re staying with me until this is sorted and you’ve got your place back and you’re coming back with me tonight.”
And of course he was drunk enough that instead of saying ‘No - that’s quite alright Jared. I really would prefer to stay at a hotel. In fact, I insist’, all he did was say
“Yeah, ok. That sounds good”
It was all Revenue Canada’s fault.
***
So now he’s stuck.
Can’t back out of it now, can’t face Jared and look into that wide smiling, open face and tell him he’s gonna shit all over his hospitality and go to a hotel after all.
Can’t see how he’s going to survive this though. He’s already in Jared’s company almost all day on most days anyway and that was difficult enough sometimes. How was he going to cope now that they were living together? Now that he saw him first thing, last thing, always?
And fuck anyone that had ever said he wasn’t a good actor because he managed to laugh and joke around and be a best friend to Jay and even a good friend to Jay’s girlfriend for three years without ever showing that he wanted something more.
He’d been hugged and allowed himself to be clambered all over and petted and generally groped by the guy and he’d just rolled his eyes and smiled and never let on that what he really wanted to do was throw Jared down on the nearest flat surface and bury himself balls deep in the guy, or maybe burrow his way into Jay’s heart and never ever come out. And he knows that last one makes him such a big girl that he may as well borrow all of Jared’s pink shirts and change his name legally to Jenny, but damn it - this whole things going to be an emo-nightmare of temptation and angst for him anyway, isn’t it?
He might as well get in some practice.
***
Except it isn’t.
At least it’s not an emo-angst fest; he won’t comment on the temptation part.
In fact they seem to slide into living together like they’re remembering how to do it from some time before. Like riding a bike, he thinks as he and Jared move round the kitchen making dinner together, or even more natural; like breathing. Like he’s found the missing half that he needed to function properly.
But it’s not as if they’ve suddenly turned into Stepford wives. He and Jay are opposites in a lot of things; it’s just that these differences either compliment each other or don’t bother them.
For instance, while the subject of dinner is up, Jared had always been happy to have all his food messed up on the plate - hell, Jeff had often joked he might just as well put his meals through a blender and Jensen swore his co-star had actually half considered the idea a couple of times.
Jensen on the other hand, had been told by pretty much everyone that he was the fussiest man on earth when it came to how he ate - everything on the plate had to be separate and he ate in sequence; finishing one thing before starting on the next. Everyone else had always given him shit about it, but Jared just smiled fondly at him and made sure that Jensen’s potatoes weren’t touching the steak when he made Sunday lunch. In return Jensen didn’t comment on the happy little humming noise that Jay made when he was eating something really nice, which kinda made him sound like a contented (very large, hairy) bee.
Then there was the ‘Lark’/‘Night Owl’ difference. Because Jared not only got up ridiculously early, he was cheerful and alert as well whereas Jensen was…not a morning person. To put it mildly.
Jared had known that already from having to do early morning shoots, but he learned after the second day to give Jensen an industrial sized coffee and a good ten minutes if he wanted anything more intelligent than a blank stare and a grunt out of him. Jensen’s momma hadn’t learned that yet after thirty years of dealing with him.
So they sorted each others food right, Jared did their breakfast and poured coffee into Jensen in the morning and Jensen let out the dog’s and locked up last thing when Jared was dozing on the couch and mumbling about ‘N’t sleep, Jen. M’just restin’ f’sec’. Jensen usually managed to poke him in the direction of his bedroom before he started snoring.
And in between they worked together, went to bars together, watched the game and played PSP together, walked the dogs together. Jensen got used to the cartoons and Discovery Channel documentaries that Jared watched and Jared came to share Jensen’s obsession with ‘The Deadliest Catch’. It was 50-50 most days which bed the dogs chose to sleep on.
And Jensen liked it. He really, really did. He loves the dogs and the house and the whole fucking domesticity of the situation. He loves being at the market and getting texts saying ‘nd milk. & gt me candy bitch!’ when he’s already got semi skimmed and bags of gummies and sours in the basket. He loves that he’ll pull on a pair of sweats and realize when they trail past his feet that they’re Jared’s, and in his drawer because their clothes get washed together now and sometimes get mixed up.
He loves it all.
He loves Jared.
***
That’s the problem, isn’t it?
Because before he moved in he’d usually been able to kid himself that, yes - he loved Jared, but that was really just as a friend; that it was just the fact that he found the other man so madly attractive that was throwing him off.
But that’s not it. He still finds Jared attractive, yes - half of his stupor in the mornings these days is because the sight of a still-half-dressed Padalecki kinda short-circuits his brain. And then there’s the way he gets all animated when they’re talking over dinner, or the little wriggles he makes when he’s playing computer games, or the innocent light in his eyes when he’s watching some nature documentary, or his long-limbed, sprawling ownership of the couch when they come back drunk from the bar, or the way he smells, or the way he looks up slyly through his bangs before he says something cheeky, or - or -
OK. So pretty much anything that Jay does is sexy as far as Jensen’s concerned. In fact, his cock expresses interest so often that he’s going around with a semi on most of the time. Which can be more than a little distracting.
And actually, the real problem isn’t the wood he’s sporting or even that he’s finally stopped being a complete pussy and admitted that he loves Jared as more than a best friend; that he loves Jared more than anything. Something about the quiet routine they’ve had these past weeks means he’s able to cope with those moments when he looks at Jay and feels that hot tightness in his chest and throat - that onrush of longing and desire that nearly swamps him. He can cope with it.
What’s messing with his head is the hope.
Because he always knew that he didn’t have a chance. That was kind of the point - his love/lust was hopeless as well as epic because Jared was:
a) His best friend, and he didn’t want to mess that up;
b) Spoken for by the lucky bitch (or Sandy as most people knew her), and most importantly;
c) Very, very straight. Despite the love of pink and predilection for draping himself over Jensen at photo shoots.
But though ‘a’ is still correct, ‘b’ and amazingly enough ‘c’ have undergone some modification.
***
B - i.e. Sandy; well, Jensen had realized pretty soon after moving in that Jared’s relationship with Sandy wasn’t very smooth at the moment, and adding things up it probably hadn’t been for a while. After all, Jay had bought his house here in Vancouver as soon as they’d heard about the third season - which meant he’d been living up here for months now and Jensen knew Jared had been back down to LA only twice, and one of those was spent finalizing the sale of his place there.
Sandy had flown up for a weekend exactly once during that time.
Jensen had just assumed that Jay was talking to her on the phone a lot, but since he’d moved in he’d seen that the phone calls weren’t as frequent as he would have thought, and that Jared wasn’t as happy talking to Sandy as he was talking to, say, Jensen.
He didn’t ramble about anything and everything like he did with Jen, and as the year edged on the conversations seemed to get shorter and more awkward. Jensen even thought he heard Jared arguing with Sandy a couple of times but as Jay has started taking the phone into his bedroom when she calls so he’s not sure.
Then one day it’s Jensen that answers the phone.
Jared had actually just been on a visit out to LA to see Sandy and had been in a strange mood in the couple of days since he’d been come back. Quiet and very un-Jared like. But he seemed to have cheered up a bit and they’d spent the evening in the kitchen attempting to make sticky rice balls of all things and Jensen was cracking up at the expression on Jared’s face as he tried to get the glutinous rice to stick to itself and not his hands - it’s so funny to see him making Sam’s ‘bitch-face’ at food and Jen was still laughing as he picked up the phone
“Hi! Kinkade’s Sushi House - each morsel artistically handcrafted!”
Jared started to grin like a fool at him but stopped when he saw Jensen’s face
“Sandy? What? My what - what? Sandy, what’s my fault? I don’t understand what you… Sandy, are you drunk?!”
Jensen doesn’t get an answer because Jared had started wiping his hands at the first mention of Sandy’s name and his face was thunderous as he strode across and firmly plucked the phone out of Jensen’s hand. His expression was a strange mix of anger and apology and - was that fear?
He mouthed ‘Sorry man’ as he passed on his way out of the room, leaving Jensen standing by the centre island, slightly shocked, with Sandy’s incoherent, slurred stream of vitriol ringing in his ears
“Bastard! S’all your fault, s’ll gone you, you - perfect Jensen bastard Ackles fucking it all up…”
What the hell had she been ranting about? He and Sandy had never been super-best-friends or anything but he thought they’d got on well enough. He could hear the angry sound of Jared’s voice from down the hall; rising as his temper peaked and falling away again “…between US, Sandra! So don’t EVER speak to…” “NOT to blame…it was ME; I didn’t want…”
Jensen’s parents hadn’t fought much when he was a kid, but the sick, twisted feeling he got in his stomach then was a little like what he was feeling now, mixed with the hot, uncomfortable embarrassment he always felt when he saw people arguing.
He started to clear the food away. He doubted Jared would feel like carrying on with their sad, misshapen efforts now, and Jensen had lost his appetite.
He could see he’d made the right decision when Jared came into the living room nearly an hour later pale and tight-lipped. He didn’t even let his co-star finish his first sentence of “Jensen man…” before he was shaking his head and shoving a glass of whiskey into Jay’s hand. He didn’t think this was a moment for mere beer.
Jared caught his eye as he took the glass and Jensen tried to convey all the support he could without, you know, actually having to say anything supportive or emotional or at all contrary to the general Texan Code of Men that he still kinda subscribed to despite being, as Chris put it when Jensen came out to him, ‘so damn gay you could only be topped by a parade of gold-lame wearing ladyboys’ (though Jensen really doesn’t think he’s that obvious.)
Jared sat down next to Jensen on the couch and neither of them said a word for a couple of long, long minutes. Then Jared gulped his whiskey down in one and let out a deep sigh. His voice was quite conversational when he said
“Sandy and I broke up. That’s why I went down for the weekend. It’s been coming for a while and I thought she agreed with me at the time, but as you may have gathered she hasn’t taken it as well as I thought.”
He turned to Jensen and said sincerely
“I really hope she didn’t upset you, man. She was completely trashed and didn’t know what she was saying - she… she didn’t say anything in particular, did she?”
And there was that weird look of fear in Jared’s look again, and an anxious undertone to his voice and so instead of asking why exactly Sandy blamed him for her and Jared breaking up Jensen said
“No man, she was just talking wild. I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this Jay - and I’ve never really been the long term type myself so I haven’t got much advice to help you with. But I do have more whiskey”
And that was the Sandy thing done and dusted.
The only things of note were an intriguing apology text Sandy sent to Jensen a week afterwards that just said ‘I was a bitch. not yr fault he doesn’t like me like he does you. it just hurts. sorry.’, and an even more interesting drunken mumble from Jared that same night, after they’d finished the whiskey and moved onto the tequila.
“Dunno why yu aint had nuthin more long term Jen - guy’d be mad to let go a yu”
***
Which brought him back to item ‘c’ - Jared is very, very straight.
Except was he? Would a completely straight guy - even one who was totally non-homophobic - say something like that?
‘Cos Jay knew Jensen was gay. Jen had told him after the pilot when the first season was confirmed because, hey, if he was going to work with the guy he had a right to know and Jensen needed to know he would be cool about it. Jared had just rolled his eyes and replied ‘duh!’ when Jen had told him ‘I’m gay’ (that happened a lot actually. But Jensen still doesn’t agree with Chris that he’s that obvious)
So, even if Jared was comfortable enough in his sexuality to wear pink a hell of a lot, have more face products in his bathroom than Jensen did (and that was saying something) and feel no shame about practically dry humping his male co-star in public half the time, would a completely heterosexual man actually tell his gay best friend that a guy would ‘be mad to let him go’?
A guy might say something like that to reassure a female friend, but even if he did like a dick up him Jensen was SO not the girl in the Ackles-Padalecki partnership - Jared cried when he watched ‘Bambi’ for Christ’s sake - and even if a guy was saying it to a girl, it was the kind of thing you’d say to a someone who you wouldn’t mind being more than ‘just friends’ with.
The thing is Jensen isn’t sure; doesn’t know if this isn’t just Jared being Jared, with all the curve-ball approach to usual predictable human behavior that implies. So he doesn’t do anything about it that night (Jared had promptly passed out anyway, and even if he’d laid down, opened his legs and told Jensen to ride him hard, Jensen’d had half a bottle of whiskey and nearly the same of tequila by that point and didn’t think he could have got it up with a crane)
But the thought was planted in his head, and now he was starting to get a little obsessed trying to figure out if the odd things Jared had started saying and doing were just Jensen’s imagination, or if they were, as he was beginning to suspect (and fervently pray) a subtle form of flirtation.
Of course, the problem with the second option lay in that one word. Subtle. Because, see - subtlety wasn’t really an acknowledged entry in the Padalecki dictionary. Jared wouldn’t usually know subtle if it came wrapped in neon lights and accompanied by an air-horn. Which would kinda defeat the purpose of the word, Jensen admits.
But how they hell else can you explain what’s been happening the last couple of weeks?
***
It had started the week after that night of drinking (or Liver Death night as Jensen started thinking of it the next day). Actually, it started the same day that Sandy sent her intriguing text apology.
It had been a normal enough day of filming - shots in the Impala, Dean snarks with Sammy, get bruised and blooded up in makeup, get thrown into a wall - and there was nothing out of the ordinary but Jensen had been feeling strange all day, off balance, and it took him till half-way through the afternoon to realize why.
Jared hadn’t been touching him.
Or at least, Jared hadn’t been touching him like normal. Because usually he just draped himself over Jensen - all those publicity photos at events weren’t just a pose; they were actually fairly tame compared to some of the stuff Jared did on set. And that ass-slapping bit from Bugs had developed into a normal form of greeting by now.
But today… Today Jared hadn’t touched; hadn’t grabbed or groped. He had been standing close, close enough to feel body heat, close enough that Jensen could feel the hum of energy he gave out like a generator, but there was no contact.
He’d known that he liked Jared being touchy-feely, despite his public bitching about it sometimes - hell, he was so into the guy he may as well have had ‘Property of Padalecki’ stamped on his libido, of course he liked him touching him! But he didn’t get how reliant he was on it till it stopped. He found himself stepping closer to Jared, leaning into him, giving him the opportunity to close the gap between them but Jared still wouldn’t… he didn’t…
He wasn’t touching him!
And by the time they finished up just before eight in the evening Jensen was beginning to feel slightly sick with nerves. Then just as he was going up the stairs of his trailer Jared left the group of crew guys he’d been chatting with and jogged over calling out
“Hey Jen! Mikey’s in town - he just called to invite us out for a drink with him and Tom” he got up to the steps and corrected himself as he looked up at Jensen with a grin “Actually, what he said was ‘You’re meeting me and my bitch in the bar, bitches! No arguments!’ I said we’d go - that ok?”
Jensen was feeling tired and a bit strung out with the tension of the day, and he was in no mood to deal with the evil incarnate that was Michael Rosenbaum and all he wanted was to stretch out on the couch with a cold beer, but Jared was going and that was enough for him to say
“Yeah - I’ll just change and clean up and meet you in ten, ok?”
And then - then Jared had smiled a warm, private smile at him and ghosted his hand down Jensen’s spine as he murmured
“Ok baby, see you in ten”
And then he lollopped back to the group, leaving Jensen a) rigid with shock that Jared had called him ‘baby’ in that soft, warm tone - the voice of a lover, and b) rigid in a different way in one particular part of his body.
That light, almost-not-there touch after a day of none had turned him on so fast he could hardly breathe and he was barely through the door of the trailer, fumbling clumsily with the door, before he was unzipping and pulling himself free and, after a pathetically small number of strokes, coming like a geyser.
Oh shit. Jared was going to be the death of him.
***
Oh shit. Never mind Jared! He’d just come all over Dean’s costume - Alison in wardrobe was going to murder him!
***
It had carried on when they got to the bar - Jared not touching him but giving him fleeting looks that in a normal situation Jensen would have called flirting. His smiles grew warmer as the evening went on, turning Jensen’s brain to mush and there was a terrifying few seconds at one point when Jared had turned to him at the bar and asked
“What you want, Jen?”
And the answer “You. Naked and spread out for me” was shouting in his head so much that for a moment he thought he’d said it. But then Jared hitched an eyebrow at him and said
“Come on bitch, decide!”
Ohthankthefuck, he hadn’t actually said it out loud.
Even more thankfully, it had turned out that Mikey and Tom had been out since ten that morning and even Mike, who Jensen sometimes swore had a regenerating liver, only had a few more rounds in him before it was time to pour him and the Man of Steel into a taxi and send them on their way.
“You want another Jen? Or shall we just go home?”
Jared smile was just his usual friendly one and Jensen decided he’d been wrong, just reading things wrong because he was tired, and he answered
“I’m really tired Jay, let’s just go back to your place, hey?”
For a second something flickered in Jared’s eyes that almost looked like hurt, but then he just grinned and said “Lightweight” before hailing another cab.
Jensen noticed Sandy’s text when they got back. Back to the house he was trying not to call home because that was too close to the truth of what he wanted. And despite his weariness he stayed awake for a long time trying to work out what it meant.
***
And then it just got worse. Jared teasing him with light touches, secret smiles and flirting looks, and at a party at Tom’s house he trapped Jensen between him and the counter by ‘reaching for a glass’ (when there were half a dozen clean ones on the table) and there was a blood-thrumming, heart stopping moment where Jensen thought he was going to kiss him.
But, strangely, he only did it while there were other people around. When they were alone on set or at ho… at Jared’s house, he was just the same as usual, friendly and puppyish - although he still wouldn’t touch Jensen like usual - and Jensen couldn’t work out if Jared was really flirting with him, or if this was just some twisted escalation of the prank war they’d been intermittently running since season one.
It was driving him mad. He wasn’t sleeping, he couldn’t eat properly because of the constant butterflies in his stomach and he was jerking off so much that he was feeling a bit raw, quite frankly.
He was going around in a daze most of the time and he was sure it was just a matter of time before he said something he couldn’t take back. Something that would change everything.
***
Then the writers’ strike hit and they completed their last bit of filming. The studio decided to arrange a whole sweep of interviews the day after they finish - trying to keep the interest in the show up - and as Jensen watched Jared horse around with one of the lighting guys while they’re on lunch break he decided that he would use the break to look for another place. He couldn’t stand this anymore. He needed some distance.
He’ll let Jared know after the publicity craps over with tomorrow. The guy’ll probably be delighted to get rid of Jen and his increasing bundle of neuroses. Maybe he’ll even go out and get laid once he’s not got a guest.
Jensen’s stomach cramped and he looked down at his quarter empty lunch carton and walked over to put it in the bin. He wasn’t hungry anymore.
***
It’s the last interview that does him in.
He can almost see it happening in slow motion like a car crash in his head; him and Jay and the girl who was from a small cult culture magazine from… Belgium or Holland or Luxembourg or something. Some tiny European country were they breed ‘em pale and blonde anyway; filming finished so late last night that it was actually early this morning and he’s so exhausted from that and so sleep-deprived and generally tired anyway he can’t recall which.
Jay was tired as well, but he’d reached the manic stage with it - almost acting like he was on speed, though the half-ton of sugar he’s ingested throughout the day can’t have helped and some new idiot of a PA has been giving him all the coffee he asked for.
Sometimes Jensen thinks Jay should come with instructions like a gremlin:
‘The Padalecki likes pink. Keep away from redneck bars or breakages may occur. Put away all surrounding delicate objects (including your heart). And remember, no matter how much he cries, no matter how much he begs, never EVER give him more than one cup of coffee’
Man’s been bouncing off the walls all fricking day.
So neither of them are quite in their right minds and when Jay started up Jensen could tell its going to be just like that damn Norwegian interview again and he knew he should be the sensible one and reign Jay in but he just hadn’t got the spare brain cells to deal at the moment and he was feeling a bit lacking in impulse control himself.
So when Jay started snickering when the interviewer mentions ‘brotherly love’ and talking about Sam and Dean’s ‘lurrve for each other’ in a deep Barry White voice he just opened his mouth and heard himself say
“Dude - you been bookmarking those Wincest stories again? That shit’s gonna give you ideas”
And then Jay had looked at him with hot eyes and such a dirty, dirty smile that it made Jen forget for a second that there was someone else in the room with them and he’d said in a soft voice
“Aw, you know I’m more of a Jsquared man myself, Jenny baby”
That. Is. It.
No more. Absolutely no fucking more of this flirting and smiling and dancing around each other shit! It’s not fair, and Jensen just can’t fucking take it anymore!
Something - a flare of anger or heat, or something - must have shown in his eyes for a moment there because Jared blinked and looked a bit taken aback; he also finally shut up for a moment, which meant Jensen could take over and get this interview done with as quickly as possible.
So he puts on the charm, getting the interviewer all flustered by using smiles that are all teeth and up-and-under looks and letting lazy Texas bleed through in his voice. He shuts Jared down, talks over him and goes full throttle - turns it up to 11. By the time they’ve finished and the woman’s walking dazedly out of the room he’d be surprised if her panties aren’t soaked.
Jensen gives the PA hovering near them a dazzlingly insincere smile and says sweetly “We’re done, right?” and then without waiting for an answer grabbed hold of Jared’s elbow and steered him into the empty green room. Once they’re in he slammed the door shut, locked it and shoved Jared none-too-gently a couple of steps back.
“What the fuck, man?!”
Jensen ignored Jared’s angry yelp and got right up into his face. He could feel himself trembling with tension and knew his face had gone pale with spots of high colour on his cheekbones.
This stops. This stops right now, damnit! He jabbed a finger into that wide, solid chest and hissed
“What the fuck? What the fuck?! I should be asking YOU that Jared!! This… this… All this goddamn… SHIT you keep pulling, making me crazy and, and - why, man?!”
Ok, that’s not the most eloquent Jensen’s ever been and that last bit sounded more like a wail than a shout, but he was so wound up he couldn’t think right. His jabbing finger had turned into a fist, with Jared’s shirt twisted inside it, and he was close enough to Jared that he had to tip his head to look those extra few inches up at him. Close enough that he could feel Jared was trembling as well.
Close enough that he can see the heat come into Jared’s eyes as he lifts his hands up - not to push him away, not to hit him, but to cover the fist Jensen’s still holding at his chest with one and to gently cup the side of Jensen’s face with the other.
Close enough that it only takes one (long, eternal) second for him to lean down and press his lips to Jensen’s.
***
Ohgod. Ohgodohgodohgod.
Jensen’s body seemed to be working on auto-pilot, arms wrapping round Jared’s back to drag him closer without any input from his brain. Which is good because all his brain is capable of coming up with at the moment is that repeated litany of
ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod.
Jared push-shuffled him back to press him against the door, never letting go of his mouth and Jesus, Jensen never wants him to. He’s thought about this a lot, how Jared would kiss, but this is better than any imagining; this strange mix of possession, ownership and tentativeness, caution. Jared was holding his face firmly in both hands now, angling his head with complete authority but licking and nuzzling into Jensen’s mouth with such careful concern.
It’s perfect. So perfect he can’t breathe and he has to steal Jared’s air - has to take that to survive and Jared gives it up. Gives it up with a moan of “Jesus, Jensen” as Jen nip’s at his lips and claws at his back because he can’t get close enough, damnit! And then -
The sudden rise of a voice just outside the door.
And it makes him realize exactly where it was they were again and although Jensen couldn’t quite believe he was doing it, he put his palms flat on Jared’s chest and gently pushed him back. This wasn’t right. They couldn’t finish it here and if they went any further he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Jared’s eyes stayed closed for a moment as a small frown crept onto his face; when he did open them they held a slightly dazed look from the kiss, which turned quickly to worry when it sunk in that Jensen was pushing him away.
“Jen... what is it? I thought you wanted…”
Jensen couldn’t bear hearing the edge of panic in Jared’s voice for even a second and he blurted out the plain truth before he could think
“I do want! I want this, I want you - God! I want you so badly! But… I want to wait till we’re home”
Jared’s slow smile was worth exposing his feelings for. His voice was soft
“Home. That’s the first time you’ve called it that, Jen”
And never mind making himself exposed, the absolute joy and happiness in the other man’s face and voice when he said that was enough for Jensen to lay his heart down at Jared’s feet.
“Home’s where ever you are, Jay”
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Jensen’s not religious. Never was much of a believer anyway and the whole ‘I Like Dick’ thing doesn’t tend to go down well with folk who love the Lord in Texas, but he did go to Sunday School for a while and more importantly, he did have his eccentric Great-Aunt Maddy who made him read her bible passages every time he went round.
So some of the words have stuck with him and have meaning for him, even though it might not be the meaning the Testament writers wanted, and they come back to him at the oddest times.
Like this, what he’s doing here; between Jared’s legs with his boyfriend all spread out warm and golden above him, easing him open with hands and fingers, pressing his mouth down to that spot, licking him undone - there is a passage that he always thinks about when he’s doing this:
‘oh my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs’
It doesn’t make much sense, but that’s what this taste is, he thinks, it’s the taste of something sacred; the absolute, the essence of someone, hidden in this private and secret place. Hidden so deep his tongue has to delve and dig, burrow and twist his way in. Make Jared wet with spit until he’s as slick as a girl, until he opens up before him.
‘let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely’
Oh, Jared’s voice when he does this. His cries and curses. The break in his voice when he says “Please, Jen! Come on, come ON, Jensen, ple-e-ease!”
His face when Jensen turns him over, red and flushed, hectic colour burning in his cheeks and fever brightening those wide, dark eyes. The soundless ‘O’ his mouth makes when Jensen slides his way into his body slow - so slow it’s like torture.
And when he starts to move, when he thrusts into that tight, willing hole, when he leans down to capture Jared’s mouth, his breathy pants and sobs, there is one more line that resonates; that sings through him as Jared arches up underneath him with a shout and white heat breaks and pours out as he joins him.
A line from Kings. ‘Come home with me’
It's Supernatural RPS.
Title: Make this House a Home
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Rating: NC-17 (at the end)
Summary: Jensen doesn’t think moving into Jared’s apartment is such a good idea. (Or, why ‘The Odd Couple’ would have been a different movie with pretty boys and butt-sex)
Word Count: 6,698
Disclaimer: Sad as I am to say it, the boy’s don’t belong to me and they’re probably not doing this in real life. Spoilsports.
A/N: For the fluffandfold prompt “Jensen's apartment in Vancouver burns down, mold is discovered, there's a water leak, something that would require Jensen to move out at least for a while. He wants to move to a hotel, but Jared won't have it, since he just bought a house and there's enough space for the two of them”.
(Gah. I’m late posting this. And this isn’t as fluffy as I wanted it. And I couldn’t get the porn to work with the main bit so I had to add it as an epilogue. And it feels a bit disjointed to me. Gah. I fail at life and deserve to have small, very hard stale buns thrown at me by tiny angry monkeys.)
This was a bad idea.
Well, of course, he’d kinda had an inkling it was a bad idea from the start, that was why he’d protested so much about it when it had been proposed. But he hadn’t realised quite how truly immense his fuck-up was until after the deed was done.
And fate or god (or however the hell it was that was currently laughing their ass of at just how stupid Jensen Ackles could be) hadn’t been backwards about coming forwards with the reminder - no, the proof - that this was, officially, a very bad idea.
Said proof being offered that very first, hungover morning - signed, sealed and delivered you might say - in the form of one Jared Padalecki, wearing only boxers and (for some reason) a single sock.
He just stood there in the kitchen; drinking milk like he was a normal guy instead of a should-be-illegal pornographic display.
Throat working as he drank from the carton, drawing your eye down, down to miles and miles - hell, a whole damn Texas-sized state’s worth of smooth, honey coloured, delectable, delicious skin; highlighted rather than interrupted by those low-slung black boxers (not forgetting the sock. Which was both fuzzy and pink).
And his hair was sticking up all over and he had pillow creases on his cheek still and when he saw Jensen in the doorway he’d blinked at him for a moment before his face lit up as bright as anything, better than the best sunrise ever and he bounded across the room to squish Jensen to his chest with one arm and slur all sleepy-growly into the side of Jensen’s head
“S’good y’re here, man!” he pulled back to grin at Jensen “S’gonna be great being roomies together”
Then he bounced off to his bedroom like some freak genetic experiment that had crossed a yeti with Tigger, leaving Jensen blinking in the doorway.
Only now he had the sense memory of all of that golden skin pressed up against him, and how Jared smelled when he was warm and bare like that, and he was considerably more than half-hard and he realised with a slight dizzy feeling that he was probably going to have lots more opportunities to see Jared like this, be as close to Jared as this now that he’d moved in with the guy.
…and that given he was hugely, deeply, stonkingly in lust (and a bit in love) with his unwitting co-star already, and that he was sure being this close without being allowed to touch like he wanted was going to drive him batshit insane in very short order, moving in had been (as may have been mentioned before) a VERY Bad Idea.
He was so completely, totally screwed.
***
It was all Revenue Canada’s fault. That’s what he’d decided.
OK - so it was their fault in a very roundabout way.
It was their fault because they had unreasonably insisted that Jensen’s Vancouver landlord should not only have pay his taxes for this year but that he should also pay all of the past 10 years taxes as well, something that he had somehow neglected to do over said decade. Jensen could totally understand that. He was absent minded at times as well.
And yeah, normally he would be all for the guy getting dinned for the whole thing in one huge, vast, Supernatural-sized monster of a sum, because, hey - Jensen has to pay his taxes as well and it never sits right knowing that someone else is getting away with something you’re too chicken to do yourself.
But quite frankly, there were special circumstances at work in this case; like the fact that the appearance of this giant, slavering beast of a bill in his life had caused the landlord to decide that a holiday was in order. A short-notice holiday somewhere sunny that coincidently had no extradition deals, accompanied by all his cash and with no plans to come back.
A holiday that meant that all the landlords’ nice tenants, most importantly Jensen, were being kicked out of their apartments whilst the whole cluster-fuck of who owned the landlord’s properties was sorted out.
It was an insurance issue apparently. Personally, Jensen couldn’t give a fuck - for him it was a homelessness issue, or at least a ‘living out of a fucking suitcase in a hotel room’ issue and he’d been there, done that and had room service walk in on him jerking off to pay-per-view porn too many times and he didn’t want to have to do it again, thank you very much. He was getting too old for that shit. And slower at covering his groin up.
Besides, as he’d explained to Jared in the bar after the whole ‘nowhere to live’ thing had blown up, he’d liked his apartment. He’d loved his apartment. His apartment had been his friend.
“Jen, your apartment was an over priced shit hole that the guy could only rent out because it was in a trendy neighbourhood. Stuff always went wrong with everything and you complained about it all the time. It had mould in the bathroom”
“I liked the mould”
“You hated the mould and you had enough anti-fungal products in your cleaning cupboard to wipe out all the veruccas in the free world”
“I loved the mould. I was training it. I had named it George”
And ok, perhaps by this point Jensen had had a little too much to drink. Just a little.
Which was why he was mumbling about his love of mould into his beer instead of listening to what Jared was saying; which was, in turn, why he didn’t notice that Jared had circled back round to the point he had been trying to head off at the pass all day. When he tuned back in Jared was saying
“…and you know I’ve just bought my own place! I’ve got loads of room and I’m not hearing ‘no’ from you anymore man! - you’re staying with me until this is sorted and you’ve got your place back and you’re coming back with me tonight.”
And of course he was drunk enough that instead of saying ‘No - that’s quite alright Jared. I really would prefer to stay at a hotel. In fact, I insist’, all he did was say
“Yeah, ok. That sounds good”
It was all Revenue Canada’s fault.
***
So now he’s stuck.
Can’t back out of it now, can’t face Jared and look into that wide smiling, open face and tell him he’s gonna shit all over his hospitality and go to a hotel after all.
Can’t see how he’s going to survive this though. He’s already in Jared’s company almost all day on most days anyway and that was difficult enough sometimes. How was he going to cope now that they were living together? Now that he saw him first thing, last thing, always?
And fuck anyone that had ever said he wasn’t a good actor because he managed to laugh and joke around and be a best friend to Jay and even a good friend to Jay’s girlfriend for three years without ever showing that he wanted something more.
He’d been hugged and allowed himself to be clambered all over and petted and generally groped by the guy and he’d just rolled his eyes and smiled and never let on that what he really wanted to do was throw Jared down on the nearest flat surface and bury himself balls deep in the guy, or maybe burrow his way into Jay’s heart and never ever come out. And he knows that last one makes him such a big girl that he may as well borrow all of Jared’s pink shirts and change his name legally to Jenny, but damn it - this whole things going to be an emo-nightmare of temptation and angst for him anyway, isn’t it?
He might as well get in some practice.
***
Except it isn’t.
At least it’s not an emo-angst fest; he won’t comment on the temptation part.
In fact they seem to slide into living together like they’re remembering how to do it from some time before. Like riding a bike, he thinks as he and Jared move round the kitchen making dinner together, or even more natural; like breathing. Like he’s found the missing half that he needed to function properly.
But it’s not as if they’ve suddenly turned into Stepford wives. He and Jay are opposites in a lot of things; it’s just that these differences either compliment each other or don’t bother them.
For instance, while the subject of dinner is up, Jared had always been happy to have all his food messed up on the plate - hell, Jeff had often joked he might just as well put his meals through a blender and Jensen swore his co-star had actually half considered the idea a couple of times.
Jensen on the other hand, had been told by pretty much everyone that he was the fussiest man on earth when it came to how he ate - everything on the plate had to be separate and he ate in sequence; finishing one thing before starting on the next. Everyone else had always given him shit about it, but Jared just smiled fondly at him and made sure that Jensen’s potatoes weren’t touching the steak when he made Sunday lunch. In return Jensen didn’t comment on the happy little humming noise that Jay made when he was eating something really nice, which kinda made him sound like a contented (very large, hairy) bee.
Then there was the ‘Lark’/‘Night Owl’ difference. Because Jared not only got up ridiculously early, he was cheerful and alert as well whereas Jensen was…not a morning person. To put it mildly.
Jared had known that already from having to do early morning shoots, but he learned after the second day to give Jensen an industrial sized coffee and a good ten minutes if he wanted anything more intelligent than a blank stare and a grunt out of him. Jensen’s momma hadn’t learned that yet after thirty years of dealing with him.
So they sorted each others food right, Jared did their breakfast and poured coffee into Jensen in the morning and Jensen let out the dog’s and locked up last thing when Jared was dozing on the couch and mumbling about ‘N’t sleep, Jen. M’just restin’ f’sec’. Jensen usually managed to poke him in the direction of his bedroom before he started snoring.
And in between they worked together, went to bars together, watched the game and played PSP together, walked the dogs together. Jensen got used to the cartoons and Discovery Channel documentaries that Jared watched and Jared came to share Jensen’s obsession with ‘The Deadliest Catch’. It was 50-50 most days which bed the dogs chose to sleep on.
And Jensen liked it. He really, really did. He loves the dogs and the house and the whole fucking domesticity of the situation. He loves being at the market and getting texts saying ‘nd milk. & gt me candy bitch!’ when he’s already got semi skimmed and bags of gummies and sours in the basket. He loves that he’ll pull on a pair of sweats and realize when they trail past his feet that they’re Jared’s, and in his drawer because their clothes get washed together now and sometimes get mixed up.
He loves it all.
He loves Jared.
***
That’s the problem, isn’t it?
Because before he moved in he’d usually been able to kid himself that, yes - he loved Jared, but that was really just as a friend; that it was just the fact that he found the other man so madly attractive that was throwing him off.
But that’s not it. He still finds Jared attractive, yes - half of his stupor in the mornings these days is because the sight of a still-half-dressed Padalecki kinda short-circuits his brain. And then there’s the way he gets all animated when they’re talking over dinner, or the little wriggles he makes when he’s playing computer games, or the innocent light in his eyes when he’s watching some nature documentary, or his long-limbed, sprawling ownership of the couch when they come back drunk from the bar, or the way he smells, or the way he looks up slyly through his bangs before he says something cheeky, or - or -
OK. So pretty much anything that Jay does is sexy as far as Jensen’s concerned. In fact, his cock expresses interest so often that he’s going around with a semi on most of the time. Which can be more than a little distracting.
And actually, the real problem isn’t the wood he’s sporting or even that he’s finally stopped being a complete pussy and admitted that he loves Jared as more than a best friend; that he loves Jared more than anything. Something about the quiet routine they’ve had these past weeks means he’s able to cope with those moments when he looks at Jay and feels that hot tightness in his chest and throat - that onrush of longing and desire that nearly swamps him. He can cope with it.
What’s messing with his head is the hope.
Because he always knew that he didn’t have a chance. That was kind of the point - his love/lust was hopeless as well as epic because Jared was:
a) His best friend, and he didn’t want to mess that up;
b) Spoken for by the lucky bitch (or Sandy as most people knew her), and most importantly;
c) Very, very straight. Despite the love of pink and predilection for draping himself over Jensen at photo shoots.
But though ‘a’ is still correct, ‘b’ and amazingly enough ‘c’ have undergone some modification.
***
B - i.e. Sandy; well, Jensen had realized pretty soon after moving in that Jared’s relationship with Sandy wasn’t very smooth at the moment, and adding things up it probably hadn’t been for a while. After all, Jay had bought his house here in Vancouver as soon as they’d heard about the third season - which meant he’d been living up here for months now and Jensen knew Jared had been back down to LA only twice, and one of those was spent finalizing the sale of his place there.
Sandy had flown up for a weekend exactly once during that time.
Jensen had just assumed that Jay was talking to her on the phone a lot, but since he’d moved in he’d seen that the phone calls weren’t as frequent as he would have thought, and that Jared wasn’t as happy talking to Sandy as he was talking to, say, Jensen.
He didn’t ramble about anything and everything like he did with Jen, and as the year edged on the conversations seemed to get shorter and more awkward. Jensen even thought he heard Jared arguing with Sandy a couple of times but as Jay has started taking the phone into his bedroom when she calls so he’s not sure.
Then one day it’s Jensen that answers the phone.
Jared had actually just been on a visit out to LA to see Sandy and had been in a strange mood in the couple of days since he’d been come back. Quiet and very un-Jared like. But he seemed to have cheered up a bit and they’d spent the evening in the kitchen attempting to make sticky rice balls of all things and Jensen was cracking up at the expression on Jared’s face as he tried to get the glutinous rice to stick to itself and not his hands - it’s so funny to see him making Sam’s ‘bitch-face’ at food and Jen was still laughing as he picked up the phone
“Hi! Kinkade’s Sushi House - each morsel artistically handcrafted!”
Jared started to grin like a fool at him but stopped when he saw Jensen’s face
“Sandy? What? My what - what? Sandy, what’s my fault? I don’t understand what you… Sandy, are you drunk?!”
Jensen doesn’t get an answer because Jared had started wiping his hands at the first mention of Sandy’s name and his face was thunderous as he strode across and firmly plucked the phone out of Jensen’s hand. His expression was a strange mix of anger and apology and - was that fear?
He mouthed ‘Sorry man’ as he passed on his way out of the room, leaving Jensen standing by the centre island, slightly shocked, with Sandy’s incoherent, slurred stream of vitriol ringing in his ears
“Bastard! S’all your fault, s’ll gone you, you - perfect Jensen bastard Ackles fucking it all up…”
What the hell had she been ranting about? He and Sandy had never been super-best-friends or anything but he thought they’d got on well enough. He could hear the angry sound of Jared’s voice from down the hall; rising as his temper peaked and falling away again “…between US, Sandra! So don’t EVER speak to…” “NOT to blame…it was ME; I didn’t want…”
Jensen’s parents hadn’t fought much when he was a kid, but the sick, twisted feeling he got in his stomach then was a little like what he was feeling now, mixed with the hot, uncomfortable embarrassment he always felt when he saw people arguing.
He started to clear the food away. He doubted Jared would feel like carrying on with their sad, misshapen efforts now, and Jensen had lost his appetite.
He could see he’d made the right decision when Jared came into the living room nearly an hour later pale and tight-lipped. He didn’t even let his co-star finish his first sentence of “Jensen man…” before he was shaking his head and shoving a glass of whiskey into Jay’s hand. He didn’t think this was a moment for mere beer.
Jared caught his eye as he took the glass and Jensen tried to convey all the support he could without, you know, actually having to say anything supportive or emotional or at all contrary to the general Texan Code of Men that he still kinda subscribed to despite being, as Chris put it when Jensen came out to him, ‘so damn gay you could only be topped by a parade of gold-lame wearing ladyboys’ (though Jensen really doesn’t think he’s that obvious.)
Jared sat down next to Jensen on the couch and neither of them said a word for a couple of long, long minutes. Then Jared gulped his whiskey down in one and let out a deep sigh. His voice was quite conversational when he said
“Sandy and I broke up. That’s why I went down for the weekend. It’s been coming for a while and I thought she agreed with me at the time, but as you may have gathered she hasn’t taken it as well as I thought.”
He turned to Jensen and said sincerely
“I really hope she didn’t upset you, man. She was completely trashed and didn’t know what she was saying - she… she didn’t say anything in particular, did she?”
And there was that weird look of fear in Jared’s look again, and an anxious undertone to his voice and so instead of asking why exactly Sandy blamed him for her and Jared breaking up Jensen said
“No man, she was just talking wild. I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this Jay - and I’ve never really been the long term type myself so I haven’t got much advice to help you with. But I do have more whiskey”
And that was the Sandy thing done and dusted.
The only things of note were an intriguing apology text Sandy sent to Jensen a week afterwards that just said ‘I was a bitch. not yr fault he doesn’t like me like he does you. it just hurts. sorry.’, and an even more interesting drunken mumble from Jared that same night, after they’d finished the whiskey and moved onto the tequila.
“Dunno why yu aint had nuthin more long term Jen - guy’d be mad to let go a yu”
***
Which brought him back to item ‘c’ - Jared is very, very straight.
Except was he? Would a completely straight guy - even one who was totally non-homophobic - say something like that?
‘Cos Jay knew Jensen was gay. Jen had told him after the pilot when the first season was confirmed because, hey, if he was going to work with the guy he had a right to know and Jensen needed to know he would be cool about it. Jared had just rolled his eyes and replied ‘duh!’ when Jen had told him ‘I’m gay’ (that happened a lot actually. But Jensen still doesn’t agree with Chris that he’s that obvious)
So, even if Jared was comfortable enough in his sexuality to wear pink a hell of a lot, have more face products in his bathroom than Jensen did (and that was saying something) and feel no shame about practically dry humping his male co-star in public half the time, would a completely heterosexual man actually tell his gay best friend that a guy would ‘be mad to let him go’?
A guy might say something like that to reassure a female friend, but even if he did like a dick up him Jensen was SO not the girl in the Ackles-Padalecki partnership - Jared cried when he watched ‘Bambi’ for Christ’s sake - and even if a guy was saying it to a girl, it was the kind of thing you’d say to a someone who you wouldn’t mind being more than ‘just friends’ with.
The thing is Jensen isn’t sure; doesn’t know if this isn’t just Jared being Jared, with all the curve-ball approach to usual predictable human behavior that implies. So he doesn’t do anything about it that night (Jared had promptly passed out anyway, and even if he’d laid down, opened his legs and told Jensen to ride him hard, Jensen’d had half a bottle of whiskey and nearly the same of tequila by that point and didn’t think he could have got it up with a crane)
But the thought was planted in his head, and now he was starting to get a little obsessed trying to figure out if the odd things Jared had started saying and doing were just Jensen’s imagination, or if they were, as he was beginning to suspect (and fervently pray) a subtle form of flirtation.
Of course, the problem with the second option lay in that one word. Subtle. Because, see - subtlety wasn’t really an acknowledged entry in the Padalecki dictionary. Jared wouldn’t usually know subtle if it came wrapped in neon lights and accompanied by an air-horn. Which would kinda defeat the purpose of the word, Jensen admits.
But how they hell else can you explain what’s been happening the last couple of weeks?
***
It had started the week after that night of drinking (or Liver Death night as Jensen started thinking of it the next day). Actually, it started the same day that Sandy sent her intriguing text apology.
It had been a normal enough day of filming - shots in the Impala, Dean snarks with Sammy, get bruised and blooded up in makeup, get thrown into a wall - and there was nothing out of the ordinary but Jensen had been feeling strange all day, off balance, and it took him till half-way through the afternoon to realize why.
Jared hadn’t been touching him.
Or at least, Jared hadn’t been touching him like normal. Because usually he just draped himself over Jensen - all those publicity photos at events weren’t just a pose; they were actually fairly tame compared to some of the stuff Jared did on set. And that ass-slapping bit from Bugs had developed into a normal form of greeting by now.
But today… Today Jared hadn’t touched; hadn’t grabbed or groped. He had been standing close, close enough to feel body heat, close enough that Jensen could feel the hum of energy he gave out like a generator, but there was no contact.
He’d known that he liked Jared being touchy-feely, despite his public bitching about it sometimes - hell, he was so into the guy he may as well have had ‘Property of Padalecki’ stamped on his libido, of course he liked him touching him! But he didn’t get how reliant he was on it till it stopped. He found himself stepping closer to Jared, leaning into him, giving him the opportunity to close the gap between them but Jared still wouldn’t… he didn’t…
He wasn’t touching him!
And by the time they finished up just before eight in the evening Jensen was beginning to feel slightly sick with nerves. Then just as he was going up the stairs of his trailer Jared left the group of crew guys he’d been chatting with and jogged over calling out
“Hey Jen! Mikey’s in town - he just called to invite us out for a drink with him and Tom” he got up to the steps and corrected himself as he looked up at Jensen with a grin “Actually, what he said was ‘You’re meeting me and my bitch in the bar, bitches! No arguments!’ I said we’d go - that ok?”
Jensen was feeling tired and a bit strung out with the tension of the day, and he was in no mood to deal with the evil incarnate that was Michael Rosenbaum and all he wanted was to stretch out on the couch with a cold beer, but Jared was going and that was enough for him to say
“Yeah - I’ll just change and clean up and meet you in ten, ok?”
And then - then Jared had smiled a warm, private smile at him and ghosted his hand down Jensen’s spine as he murmured
“Ok baby, see you in ten”
And then he lollopped back to the group, leaving Jensen a) rigid with shock that Jared had called him ‘baby’ in that soft, warm tone - the voice of a lover, and b) rigid in a different way in one particular part of his body.
That light, almost-not-there touch after a day of none had turned him on so fast he could hardly breathe and he was barely through the door of the trailer, fumbling clumsily with the door, before he was unzipping and pulling himself free and, after a pathetically small number of strokes, coming like a geyser.
Oh shit. Jared was going to be the death of him.
***
Oh shit. Never mind Jared! He’d just come all over Dean’s costume - Alison in wardrobe was going to murder him!
***
It had carried on when they got to the bar - Jared not touching him but giving him fleeting looks that in a normal situation Jensen would have called flirting. His smiles grew warmer as the evening went on, turning Jensen’s brain to mush and there was a terrifying few seconds at one point when Jared had turned to him at the bar and asked
“What you want, Jen?”
And the answer “You. Naked and spread out for me” was shouting in his head so much that for a moment he thought he’d said it. But then Jared hitched an eyebrow at him and said
“Come on bitch, decide!”
Ohthankthefuck, he hadn’t actually said it out loud.
Even more thankfully, it had turned out that Mikey and Tom had been out since ten that morning and even Mike, who Jensen sometimes swore had a regenerating liver, only had a few more rounds in him before it was time to pour him and the Man of Steel into a taxi and send them on their way.
“You want another Jen? Or shall we just go home?”
Jared smile was just his usual friendly one and Jensen decided he’d been wrong, just reading things wrong because he was tired, and he answered
“I’m really tired Jay, let’s just go back to your place, hey?”
For a second something flickered in Jared’s eyes that almost looked like hurt, but then he just grinned and said “Lightweight” before hailing another cab.
Jensen noticed Sandy’s text when they got back. Back to the house he was trying not to call home because that was too close to the truth of what he wanted. And despite his weariness he stayed awake for a long time trying to work out what it meant.
***
And then it just got worse. Jared teasing him with light touches, secret smiles and flirting looks, and at a party at Tom’s house he trapped Jensen between him and the counter by ‘reaching for a glass’ (when there were half a dozen clean ones on the table) and there was a blood-thrumming, heart stopping moment where Jensen thought he was going to kiss him.
But, strangely, he only did it while there were other people around. When they were alone on set or at ho… at Jared’s house, he was just the same as usual, friendly and puppyish - although he still wouldn’t touch Jensen like usual - and Jensen couldn’t work out if Jared was really flirting with him, or if this was just some twisted escalation of the prank war they’d been intermittently running since season one.
It was driving him mad. He wasn’t sleeping, he couldn’t eat properly because of the constant butterflies in his stomach and he was jerking off so much that he was feeling a bit raw, quite frankly.
He was going around in a daze most of the time and he was sure it was just a matter of time before he said something he couldn’t take back. Something that would change everything.
***
Then the writers’ strike hit and they completed their last bit of filming. The studio decided to arrange a whole sweep of interviews the day after they finish - trying to keep the interest in the show up - and as Jensen watched Jared horse around with one of the lighting guys while they’re on lunch break he decided that he would use the break to look for another place. He couldn’t stand this anymore. He needed some distance.
He’ll let Jared know after the publicity craps over with tomorrow. The guy’ll probably be delighted to get rid of Jen and his increasing bundle of neuroses. Maybe he’ll even go out and get laid once he’s not got a guest.
Jensen’s stomach cramped and he looked down at his quarter empty lunch carton and walked over to put it in the bin. He wasn’t hungry anymore.
***
It’s the last interview that does him in.
He can almost see it happening in slow motion like a car crash in his head; him and Jay and the girl who was from a small cult culture magazine from… Belgium or Holland or Luxembourg or something. Some tiny European country were they breed ‘em pale and blonde anyway; filming finished so late last night that it was actually early this morning and he’s so exhausted from that and so sleep-deprived and generally tired anyway he can’t recall which.
Jay was tired as well, but he’d reached the manic stage with it - almost acting like he was on speed, though the half-ton of sugar he’s ingested throughout the day can’t have helped and some new idiot of a PA has been giving him all the coffee he asked for.
Sometimes Jensen thinks Jay should come with instructions like a gremlin:
‘The Padalecki likes pink. Keep away from redneck bars or breakages may occur. Put away all surrounding delicate objects (including your heart). And remember, no matter how much he cries, no matter how much he begs, never EVER give him more than one cup of coffee’
Man’s been bouncing off the walls all fricking day.
So neither of them are quite in their right minds and when Jay started up Jensen could tell its going to be just like that damn Norwegian interview again and he knew he should be the sensible one and reign Jay in but he just hadn’t got the spare brain cells to deal at the moment and he was feeling a bit lacking in impulse control himself.
So when Jay started snickering when the interviewer mentions ‘brotherly love’ and talking about Sam and Dean’s ‘lurrve for each other’ in a deep Barry White voice he just opened his mouth and heard himself say
“Dude - you been bookmarking those Wincest stories again? That shit’s gonna give you ideas”
And then Jay had looked at him with hot eyes and such a dirty, dirty smile that it made Jen forget for a second that there was someone else in the room with them and he’d said in a soft voice
“Aw, you know I’m more of a Jsquared man myself, Jenny baby”
That. Is. It.
No more. Absolutely no fucking more of this flirting and smiling and dancing around each other shit! It’s not fair, and Jensen just can’t fucking take it anymore!
Something - a flare of anger or heat, or something - must have shown in his eyes for a moment there because Jared blinked and looked a bit taken aback; he also finally shut up for a moment, which meant Jensen could take over and get this interview done with as quickly as possible.
So he puts on the charm, getting the interviewer all flustered by using smiles that are all teeth and up-and-under looks and letting lazy Texas bleed through in his voice. He shuts Jared down, talks over him and goes full throttle - turns it up to 11. By the time they’ve finished and the woman’s walking dazedly out of the room he’d be surprised if her panties aren’t soaked.
Jensen gives the PA hovering near them a dazzlingly insincere smile and says sweetly “We’re done, right?” and then without waiting for an answer grabbed hold of Jared’s elbow and steered him into the empty green room. Once they’re in he slammed the door shut, locked it and shoved Jared none-too-gently a couple of steps back.
“What the fuck, man?!”
Jensen ignored Jared’s angry yelp and got right up into his face. He could feel himself trembling with tension and knew his face had gone pale with spots of high colour on his cheekbones.
This stops. This stops right now, damnit! He jabbed a finger into that wide, solid chest and hissed
“What the fuck? What the fuck?! I should be asking YOU that Jared!! This… this… All this goddamn… SHIT you keep pulling, making me crazy and, and - why, man?!”
Ok, that’s not the most eloquent Jensen’s ever been and that last bit sounded more like a wail than a shout, but he was so wound up he couldn’t think right. His jabbing finger had turned into a fist, with Jared’s shirt twisted inside it, and he was close enough to Jared that he had to tip his head to look those extra few inches up at him. Close enough that he could feel Jared was trembling as well.
Close enough that he can see the heat come into Jared’s eyes as he lifts his hands up - not to push him away, not to hit him, but to cover the fist Jensen’s still holding at his chest with one and to gently cup the side of Jensen’s face with the other.
Close enough that it only takes one (long, eternal) second for him to lean down and press his lips to Jensen’s.
***
Ohgod. Ohgodohgodohgod.
Jensen’s body seemed to be working on auto-pilot, arms wrapping round Jared’s back to drag him closer without any input from his brain. Which is good because all his brain is capable of coming up with at the moment is that repeated litany of
ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod.
Jared push-shuffled him back to press him against the door, never letting go of his mouth and Jesus, Jensen never wants him to. He’s thought about this a lot, how Jared would kiss, but this is better than any imagining; this strange mix of possession, ownership and tentativeness, caution. Jared was holding his face firmly in both hands now, angling his head with complete authority but licking and nuzzling into Jensen’s mouth with such careful concern.
It’s perfect. So perfect he can’t breathe and he has to steal Jared’s air - has to take that to survive and Jared gives it up. Gives it up with a moan of “Jesus, Jensen” as Jen nip’s at his lips and claws at his back because he can’t get close enough, damnit! And then -
The sudden rise of a voice just outside the door.
And it makes him realize exactly where it was they were again and although Jensen couldn’t quite believe he was doing it, he put his palms flat on Jared’s chest and gently pushed him back. This wasn’t right. They couldn’t finish it here and if they went any further he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Jared’s eyes stayed closed for a moment as a small frown crept onto his face; when he did open them they held a slightly dazed look from the kiss, which turned quickly to worry when it sunk in that Jensen was pushing him away.
“Jen... what is it? I thought you wanted…”
Jensen couldn’t bear hearing the edge of panic in Jared’s voice for even a second and he blurted out the plain truth before he could think
“I do want! I want this, I want you - God! I want you so badly! But… I want to wait till we’re home”
Jared’s slow smile was worth exposing his feelings for. His voice was soft
“Home. That’s the first time you’ve called it that, Jen”
And never mind making himself exposed, the absolute joy and happiness in the other man’s face and voice when he said that was enough for Jensen to lay his heart down at Jared’s feet.
“Home’s where ever you are, Jay”
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Jensen’s not religious. Never was much of a believer anyway and the whole ‘I Like Dick’ thing doesn’t tend to go down well with folk who love the Lord in Texas, but he did go to Sunday School for a while and more importantly, he did have his eccentric Great-Aunt Maddy who made him read her bible passages every time he went round.
So some of the words have stuck with him and have meaning for him, even though it might not be the meaning the Testament writers wanted, and they come back to him at the oddest times.
Like this, what he’s doing here; between Jared’s legs with his boyfriend all spread out warm and golden above him, easing him open with hands and fingers, pressing his mouth down to that spot, licking him undone - there is a passage that he always thinks about when he’s doing this:
‘oh my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs’
It doesn’t make much sense, but that’s what this taste is, he thinks, it’s the taste of something sacred; the absolute, the essence of someone, hidden in this private and secret place. Hidden so deep his tongue has to delve and dig, burrow and twist his way in. Make Jared wet with spit until he’s as slick as a girl, until he opens up before him.
‘let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely’
Oh, Jared’s voice when he does this. His cries and curses. The break in his voice when he says “Please, Jen! Come on, come ON, Jensen, ple-e-ease!”
His face when Jensen turns him over, red and flushed, hectic colour burning in his cheeks and fever brightening those wide, dark eyes. The soundless ‘O’ his mouth makes when Jensen slides his way into his body slow - so slow it’s like torture.
And when he starts to move, when he thrusts into that tight, willing hole, when he leans down to capture Jared’s mouth, his breathy pants and sobs, there is one more line that resonates; that sings through him as Jared arches up underneath him with a shout and white heat breaks and pours out as he joins him.
A line from Kings. ‘Come home with me’