Hey ho - another fandom, another fic.
This is my first rps and it stars the lovely boys from Supernatural - Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki.
It hasn’t gone quite as planned actually.
I intended it to be a short, smutty, Jensen centered PWP but despite my best efforts it is instead plot filled schmoop with Jared POV - it’s also the longest thing I’ve posted so far! I did manage to keep some sex in there, but only by the skin of my teeth.
I don’t know, you try to raise them right…
*shakes finger at fic and sends it to sit on the naughty step*
So, anyhoo, here we are; oddegg and overtaxed brain proudly present the fruit of their loins - posted in separate parts and then linked together, because it's too big and I can NOT get LJ to co-operate with linking the cuts. Bastards.
Title: My love is like a red, red rose - 6ft Texan
Author: oddegg
Rating: Adult (eventually)
Pairings: Jensen/Jared
Word count: 7,358
Summary: Jared likes Jensen. But Jensen’s shy, so Jared comes up with a cunning plan…
Spoilers: Does one for the gag reel count? Also mention of ‘Route 666’ and ‘Shadow’
Disclaimer: It’s all true and I own everything - I also have a troop of flying pigs to sell if you’re interested.
Notes: Two things. 1) There’s a longish A/N at the bottom with ref’s etc - ‘cos I’m an anal freak. 2) This was sparked off by keepaofthecheeze’s request (read - sqeeeeing squeal) for dork!Jensen and dea_liberty’s mention of poetry. Jensen’s not actually as much of a dork as I wanted but there IS poetry.
So here you go guys - this is yours and I lay it humbly before you. Or rather, I sidle up, mumble something whilst looking at my feet, then thrust the fic at you and run off, blushing madly (I think I’ve been spending too much time in shy!headspace)
x-posted at half a dozen places, slut that I am
Jared thinks Jensen is a great guy.
Thought so pretty much from the get-go, when they met up for their reading together and the dude had shook his hand and said, all serious
“Jensen, Jensen Ackles. I’ve seen your stuff - s’good man”
And then he’d actually, honest to god, blushed and rubbed the back of his neck like he’d just been caught out in something.
It had been so cute.
Though Jared doesn’t make a habit of thinking guys are cute. No.
So, yeah; Jensen’s a great guy. And it just gets better when they start working together and they become such good pals almost instantly - hanging out in each other’s trailers and after shoot’s, having all-out video game sessions and candy wars in makeup. Living in each other’s hip pockets.
(though Jared tries not to think about Jensen’s hip area at all ‘cos for something attached to a straight guy his dick seems to kinda get a bit too interested - and he doesn’t think those times in high school with Mark Jones count, so he is straight. Ish)
The guy’s great, and they’re pretty much best friends by the start of shooting the second episode.
**
But best friends or not, Jared can’t deny he’s a little bit of a dork as well.
**
I mean, the guy is an amazing actor, because Dean? Dean is generally the coolest dude on celluloid. The absolute shit, but Jensen? Christ, the guy reads books about science and ’the method’ on set. He likes doing his tax returns. He calls his momma every other day (not that there’s anything wrong with that. Jared loves his momma as well).
And he’s so earnest about everything. Early on Chad had came up for a visit and they and Tom and Mike had gone to see a local college basketball game and they’re just messing around during half time, trying to stop Mike from putting shit-knows-what in their drinks and steering Chad away from flirting with the obviously jail-bait age girls when Chad points to one of the cheerleaders and says
“Yo, dude’s - check it out”
And Jensen, he honest-to-god says, with this little serious frown
“Yes, her Herkle jump is quite good. Her technique for the Pike move could be better though”
Mike flat out starts laughing and even Tom gives a little snort like he wants to join in but he’s too nice. Chad just looks at Jensen incredulously and bursts out
“Could you BE any more of a dork, man? Wasn’t checking out the chick’s ‘Jerkle’ or whatever the fuck it was - I was checking out her rack”
And Jensen laugh’s along with them and says
“Yeah, I’m just messing with you man!”
But Jared notices the little start he gave and the way the base of his neck’s gone red, and the way his voice has gone a bit deeper and rougher - into Dean territory; which he’s starting to realise it only does when Jensen’s nervous or embarrassed, when he’s just acting cool.
He doesn’t laugh, and though he usually likes Chad, defends him when people call him a douche, just for a moment he hates the guy for making his Jen self conscious.
**
He’s not sure when Jensen became ‘his Jen’.
**
Though it might have been around the same time he started checking out the guy’s ass. And he should really stop doing that.
**
And then there’s the lame jokes he makes, especially when he’s drunk. The ones that are either something a five year old would laugh at (Jared likes those ones) or are something you’d only find funny if you’re a complete geek who’s really into obscure general knowledge. Like the time they’d been drinking shots round at Tom’s and Jensen had called Mikey
“A shining wit, as Reverend Spooner would put it”
He’d laughed like a drain for five minutes - and then had to explain ‘Spoonerism’s’ to the rest of them. He kinda has this snorty, giggly laugh when he’s drunk and if it goes on too long he gets hiccups and Jared thinks it’s adorable.
He’s really gotta stop thinking of his male co-star as ‘adorable’ as well. Adorable is for puppies and kittens and babies and shit, not 6ft, hard-muscled guys who do their own stunts, wear cowboy boots and drink beer and tequila shots. (And who sometimes fall asleep in your trailer and make these tiny snuffling noises and flutter their ridiculously long eyelashes when they’re dreaming and it’s just so ador - crap)
**
So he’s been… well, call it what it is - crushing on the guy for weeks and he’s been trying to ignore it, but then one day on set he rounds the corner of the wardrobe trailer and he sees Jen lying out on the old couch the girls keep there to sit and have a smoke. And the guy’s facing away from Jared, flat out on his back, feet up on one of the arms and he’s flexing his bare feet rhythmically and singing quietly to himself ‘…there’s a worm at the bottom of the garden…’, and Jared realises a few things all at once.
That Jensen Ackles - Mr cool-as-ice Dean Winchester - is singing the Wiggly Woo song to his own fucking toes.
That he has very long toes and elegant feet and Jared wants to lick them all over - and that thought’s like this pop into his head so often now he just can’t be bothered to deny them anymore.
That Jen is a complete, total, hopeless dork (with a nice singing voice).
That Jared not only doesn’t care about this but is stone cold, helplessly, head-over-heels in love with the guy.
He’s SO fucked.
**
Of course, once he actually admits to himself that he loves Jen like that as well as a best friend, it’s like his brain and body think they’ve been given permission to completely gang up on him and all he can notice is how gorgeous the guy is, how great pretty much every single thing he does is, and Jared seems to be spending half his time in a pink cloud of thoughts about some oh-so-adorable thing that Jen’s done and half of it sprouting wood ‘cos of catching sight of Jen changing, or stretching, or bending. Or doing pretty much anything.
He’s so glad that Sam Winchester goes for the baggy look. Though he might not have to if Dean Winchester didn’t wear jeans fucking tight enough that you could tell he dresses to the left.
Jared starts eating even more candy than usual just to keep his mouth occupied, so he wont say something he shouldn’t like ‘Your eyes are so beautiful’, or ‘I’m in love with you, man. Really, really in love’, or ‘Your ass looks amazing and I just want to fuck your mouth when you pout like that’. Things that might be a little startling coming out of the blue like that.
Of course the sugar rush from the candy means that he’s running around like a kid with ADHD all the time, and it also seems to mean he can’t keep his fucking hands of Jensen. Slinging his arm around him, draping himself over him, grabbing him during promo’s - it’s all he can do to stop himself just catching hold of the guy’s head and snogging the life out of him.
And Jen makes it harder. His fellow Texan’s not usually a touchy-feely person - he’s charming and everything, but still a bit reserved around a lot of people. Not around Jared though - oh no - horsing around and wrestling with him, patting his chest in photo shoots, jumping into his damn arms while they’re filming Dead in the Water - he’s really not making Jared’s life any easier, and it doesn’t help that he’s broken up with Sandy and he’s not getting any other sort of touching in his life.
Jared might have calmed down if he’d been able to carry on thinking Jensen was straight as well. Declaration’s of love are easier to keep behind your teeth if you think you might have your teeth punched out for uttering them.
But that had been blown out of the water when Jensen’s friend Chris Kane had come up for a visit. Chris had the sort of natural cool that made everyone want to hang out with him, but it seemed that when the guy got tanked up he wasn’t too subtle.
He’d been cracking sly jokes in the bar about Jensen checking out the barman’s ass, which Jared might have been able to put down as just friendly ribbing, but when they got back to Jen’s place Chris had cracked open the tequila and eventually said, squinting drunkenly at Jared
“Your new little brother’s cute, Jenny boy. But try to avoid tapping his ass, ok? You know that didn’t work out well with Matt on ‘Day’s’”
Then he’d passed out. Jensen had blushed under Jared’s questioning look and slurred something about Jared not having to worry, Jen didn’t try it on with straight guys.
Then he’d passed out as well.
Jared had left the two of them snoring on the sofa and staggered off into the night.
When he woke up the next day one thing managed to percolate through the hangover from hell. That Jensen wasn’t straight, and the reason he’d given for not trying to jump Jared was because he thought Jared was; not because he didn’t like him.
After the application of aspirin, coffee, a hot shower and something very greasy to eat to remedy the hangover, Jared had, after long thought (ok, two seconds after thinking ‘hot damn, I’ve got a chance!’), decided that he would have to show Jensen that Jared wasn’t as straight as all that and in fact, since Jen was so shy, it would probably be best for Jared to make the first move. Some sort of romantic gesture.
**
The problem was, having decided to go for it with Jensen, Jared realised something very important.
That he did not have the First - Fucking - Clue how to go about romancing a dude.
I mean, what did you do? He can hardly send the guy flowers and chocolate, and he didn’t think the ‘subtle, flirty touches’ recommended in that Cosmo article (hey - it was his sister’s and he was just reading it ‘cos it was there, ok?) would be noticed among all the unsubtle groping he already did.
Maybe he should do what you used to do when you fancied someone as a kid? Pull his hair and run away?
Luckily, before he actually resorted to that he decided to ask someone’s advice. Not so luckily, that person was Chad.
Jared was on the phone with his old friend, listening to a long and far, far too detailed description of Chad’s pick-up from the night before when he heard himself say
“I fancy Jensen and I don’t know how to tell him”
Chad had actually been more sympathetic than Jared would have expected.
“You’re what?! Dude! Hahahahahahahaaa. A hahahaaaa. Oh my fucking god - you gay douche-bag. Bwaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa - “
After Jared had slammed the phone down, and Chad had called him back -
“Bwahahahhaaaaaaaaaaa!!!” - to laugh some more at him, and Jared had hung up again, on the third call Chad had finally agreed between snorts to stop laughing at him, to not tell anyone else and to give him some advice. Advice that pretty much boiled down to
“Well, I’ve always thought the dude looks kinda girly - do girly shit for him”
Jared explained that he didn’t really think Jensen was a flowers and candy kind of guy and he couldn’t think of what else to do. He could practically hear Chad rolling his eyes on the other end.
“Whatever, dude - I don’t know. Offer him a foot-rub or something. Or a blow-job”
Jared hung up on him for the final time.
***
He was beginning to despair of coming up with something (and was in fact seriously considering the ‘pull his hair and run away’ scenario. Or the blow-job) when Megan unwittingly helped him out.
She’d been rambling on about her college friends while he held the phone to his ear with one shoulder and tried to rack up his score on Donkey Kong, when something she said clicked and he interrupted
“Wait. What did he do again?”
Her annoyed huff told him he was busted on the ‘not paying attention’ front but she repeated anyway
“Ally’s boyfriend won her over by leaving the trail of poems that he’d written all over campus and filling her room with roses”
“Do intellectual people like that then? Poetry? Do they find that romantic?”
“Well, duh! I think anyone would! God Jared, you really are hopeless! It’s a wonder you get any dates at all”
She continued in a thoughtful tone
“Perhaps girls just hope your dick’s going to be proportionate”
The conversation had then slid into him being shocked, appalled and disapproving - she was his baby sister and shouldn’t be thinking about male bits at all, thank you very much, never mind speculating about his - and Megan being exasperated, peeved and finally putting the phone down on him.
He was so telling Mom on her.
But first he had to find some poems (‘cos there’s no way he can write them himself - he may have the floppy hair but that doesn’t make him Byron) and he has to think of the best way to give them to Jen.
Because if he does it wrong he suspects Jen would just think he was fooling around or making fun - like the prank wars - and laugh it off or be annoyed. So he thought he should do it anonymously at first and then reveal it was him when Jen was hooked.
And to make sure his co-star didn’t automatically think of him in connection, he shouldn’t get the first ones at work. Nope, his apartment would be better, maybe even leave some at his favourite places to hang out. This would get the message across that someone who really knew him was behind it. Someone who knew what he liked, what he did. Where he lived.
Jared was such a genius and he was so going to get laid.
**
It took him about a week to research and choose the poems in between shooting. He could perhaps have asked his Mom for advice, English teacher an’ all, but she always wanted to know the details of everything and he kinda wanted to wait till things were - well, whatever they were going to be with Jen before he introduced the whole ‘think I’m a bit gay’ thing to his folks. Plus, she was still pissed at him for tattling on Megan, which Jared didn’t get at all.
So, he stuck with looking in the poetry books he bought and searching online and he even remembers a couple of nice ones from his own high school classes (‘cos he may have been the athletic joker at school, but he’d done his homework as well)
And if he took Chad’s advice and did a bit of online research into the mechanics of two guys getting it on then that was entirely his business; a weirdly fascinating business that was a strange mix of ‘urgh, gross’ and ‘oh, good Christ that’s hot’
(Jared thought he really shouldn’t be name-checking the Lord when he’s looking at pictures of butt-sex on the internet - though actually he found a poem where Jesus is homosexual himself. But he decided not to send it to Jensen - even if you are gay, there are lines a Texas boy has to draw and he thinks ‘Butt sex for Jesus’ is one of them)
But after a week he had all his poems, he knew where he was going to leave them and it was time to put the plan in motion.
Operation Romance (aka Get Jensen Nekkid + Kiss Him + Fuck Him 4Evermore) had begun.
**
He posted the first one to the apartment. Printed the envelope (Mr Jensen Ackles esq.) and sent it with just a print out of the poem, nothing else.
‘You are so very beautiful,
i cannot help admiring
your eyes so often sadnessful
and lips so kissinspiring’
He didn’t know if Jensen would think much of the first one; he must get so much fan mail and stuff from admirers that one more might not stand out. Jared found that thinking about other people liking Jen made his stomach hurt a bit.
Or maybe that was the candy overdose.
**
The next one was hand delivered, and marked very clearly as such.
'I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea...'
He knew Jensen must have received it, but he couldn’t see any sign of anything different that day at filming. And he was watching closely, as usual.
**
The third poem he left on the windshield of Jen’s car as it sat outside his apartment.
‘Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again.’
It reminded Jared of all the interesting dreams he’d been having recently about Jensen. Didn’t seem to have any effect on the guy though.
**
Jared thought he was rather clever with the next one. He managed to leave it on Jensen’s usual table in his favorite coffee shop just before Jen came in - and he got out without Jensen noticing him, not an easy feat for someone his size
‘Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove’
After this one… well, he wasn’t sure, but he thought Jensen was a bit quieter on set that day. Thoughtful. Jared thought he might be getting to him.
**
The fifth one he left taped to Jensen’s door within the apartment block. He had to get up bloody early to get it there and get back to his own place before the driver was due to pick him up.
'Probably it is too early in the morning;
probably you have not yet risen
and the curtains float
like sails against the window.’
Jared had been so tempted to go up and knock on Jen’s door himself when they picked him up next. But he restrained himself and merely contented himself with grinning at his co-star when he got in the car.
Jen was practically silent during the drive and seemed a bit twitchy. Yup, Jared thought he was getting the idea - he just had to wait for the other man’s shyness to subside a bit.
**
The next went on Jen’s windshield again, this time when it was parked on the film lot.
‘i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.’
Jensen went out to his car to get something during a break and must have seen it then, because he was definitely pre-occupied for the rest of the day, shooting glances everywhere but not looking at Jared. Almost jumping when Jared came up behind him and threw an arm around his shoulder.
And then, when they’d finished for the day, Jen had waited around for Jared and walked out to the parking lot with him, sticking close. He’d paused and looked around like he was checking they were alone before they got to his car and Jared had thought for a moment Jensen was going to say something - acknowledge what was going on. But then he’d just shot Jared a small smile and said
“Later dude. See you tomorrow”
**
The next day he’d left two; on the bed in Jen’s trailer during the break. Pretty sexy ones as well, because they’d just been filming ‘Route 666’ and even if there was a chick in the same scene quite frankly, after watching Jen without his shirt for hours - what felt like too long and not long enough at the same time - well, it had got Jared feeling a little antsy.
As well as hard enough to hammer fucking nails with his dick.
They were going out tonight; Chris and Steve had a gig in town and as they had the next two days free from shooting it was probably gonna be a late one.
Jared thought that once he’d had a couple of beers he might be able to tell Jen that he was the one leaving the poems. Not that he was nervous or anything.
( continued )