Some Things Stay the Same (3 of 3)
part two | master post
~~~
Jensen fell in love once. It happened on his eighteenth birthday and of all his memories, it's the one he grips the tightest.
They were sitting on the rooftop of the movie theater. It was made accessible by a fire escape at the back of the building rigged so the ladder stayed within reach. The view wasn't much but on a clear night, after the lights of the theater and the shopping center across the street were shut off, the moon and the stars seemed near and bright enough to light up the world.
Jared would point out the constellations, give each their proper name, one-by-one, so that Jensen could rename them.
He followed the line of Jared's finger and told him, "That's a little constellation I like to call The Cleveland Steamer."
"I don't know what that is but you're disgusting."
"You need to loosen up, kid." Jensen lit a cigarette and inhaled deep.
"Kid." Jared shook his head. He'd long given up on preaching the danger of cigarettes. "Like you're an old man or something."
"Eighteen now. Way too old to be hanging out with a runt like you."
"I'll be fifteen soon."
"In like four months."
"Whatever. Maybe you are an old man."
Jensen turned his head away to exhale smoke before looking over at his friend. He wasn't sure why he was choosing to spend his eighteenth birthday with a fucking fourteen-year-old who had to sneak out of his parents' house to join him, but there it was. Must have been bad taste. He thought of telling Jared as much but ended up saying instead, "Thanks for the Pulp Fiction poster."
Jared shrugged. "I knew you'd like it. When you move out of your parents' you can hang it up."
"Yeah, when me and Steve get our place in LA. It's gonna look awesome."
"Did your parents get you anything?"
Jensen puffed out a perfect smoke ring and watched it float away before answering. "Yeah. A George Foreman Grill."
It took Jared a beat to realize he was serious. "Oh my god, you got a George Foreman Grill for your eighteenth birthday?"
Jensen couldn't bite back a smirk; he'd been waiting for his moment to tell Jared, the only person who'd ever hear the story, the only one who'd appreciate the absurdity of it.
"It wasn't even supposed to be for me." Jensen widened his eyes. "My mom just ended up ordering like three of them from QVC so they gave me one of the left-overs."
Jared's voice was deeper by then but his laugh still had a boyish ring. He clapped his hand on Jensen's shoulder as they doubled over in laughter. "Oh my god," he choked out. "That's the saddest story I ever heard."
"My dad was so proud he remembered this year." Jensen just managed to spit out the words through his laughter.
"Fuck them," Jared said. "Won't be much longer now, anyway."
"Exactly."
Jensen leaned back to gaze up at the night sky, barely registered the rough surface of the roof that dug into his elbows. He looked over to Jared who was still suffering from occasional giggle-fits. It was contagious and Jensen found himself laughing again with him.
When they finally got control of themselves, Jared was still sitting ramrod straight, looking down at Jensen with bright big eyes and a bright big smile.
And Jensen looked at him and thought: Holy shit, he's gorgeous.
It wasn't just that, of course. The floppy hair and the body that was growing into itself, long and tan and lean. Clear eyes and dimpled grin, always true and completely contagious. Those weren't the reasons Jensen fell in love that night. Or maybe he just had the final, unavoidable realization that he'd already fallen. He never gave it much thought. It was simply that he didn't know and then he looked up at Jared and he did and it changed everything.
Everything about how he felt anyway. There was nothing to be done about it, no move he dared to make on Jared. Jared, all backlit by the stars and watching Jensen the way nobody else did. And Jensen thought the things that people think: he's mine, and I want him, just to kiss him, just to touch.
He felt it all in such a rush, a breathless twist of need and want and memory, the vision of a life, finally, just for himself. Not a nonsense dream he shared with Steve or the wish to be anywhere but where he was, but something real. Jared.
He stretched back along the rooftop and covered his eyes with his forearm.
"You okay?" Jared asked.
Jensen nodded yes, ground his cigarette into the cement next to him and wondered if anybody else in the history of the goddamn world had ever been stupid enough to fall in love with their way too young, way too good, and way too straight best friend.
McKinley High didn't see a lot of Jensen his senior year and he didn't end it with a diploma. Truth be told, he spent a good portion of his time drunk or high. The only question most days was whether he was hiding out with his buddies on school grounds or somewhere far away.
By the time he had his rooftop epiphany in the spring, he'd already been suspended twice. A third time would mean expulsion, a potential outcome Jensen didn't find terribly distressing. He wasn't exactly on the college-track so he didn't see how it mattered.
As usual, only Jared cared enough to give him the big speech. "You've got to graduate, Jensen. You're so close now." Jensen would ask "Why?" and "What's the use?" And Jared would reply, "Options." Then Jensen would call him a geek and a mama's boy and tell him to butt out. That's just how it went, same old same old.
In his last couple of months as a McKinley High Senior, after he'd turned eighteen, Jensen found himself more desperate to avoid the place than ever. Not that he and Jared ever hung out there anyway. Jared had always respected the rules. The geek freshman and the stoner senior did not socialize on school grounds.
But it got harder as time went on. He half-believed his feelings for Jared would fade away or at least become bearable, but even being in the same building started to feel like an itch that needed scratching. Jensen had nightmares about blurting it out in the hallway or across the cafeteria: Jared, I love you. I don't care about anything else; I can wait for you to grow up. I'll be whatever you need me to be.
When he started avoiding Jared after school - no more Nintendo at the Padaleckis', no more movies, and definitely no more rooftops - Jared jumped to the obvious conclusion that Jensen was done with the kid from down the street. Being Jared, he didn't walk away without getting a word in first.
"You want to go see something?" He asked one Saturday at the end of May. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of Jensen's house, his skateboard balanced on its end. If the pit-stains on his t-shirt were any indication, he'd been waiting there a while.
"Uh, no." Jensen meant the words to sound harsh and dismissive but he hated to see Jared cringe from them. "I'm playing with the big kids tonight, Jared. Why don't you just, you know…" he made a 'move along' gesture and walked away.
"So that's it?" Jared called after him. "You're just like, too embarrassed to hang out with me ever?"
"Too bored." Jensen unlocked his car door and slid inside, his heart dropped in his stomach like a stone.
"Yeah, because your stoner friends are so interesting." Jared came over to the door and leaned in.
"It was fun while it lasted, okay? I just don't have the time for you anymore."
"I wanted to-" Jared stopped and backed away. "Never mind."
"Wanted to what?"
"Jeff said you're not graduating."
"That's right. Waste of time."
"Are you going to LA?"
"Not yet." Probably never. Steve wasn't up for it and Jensen wasn't in the mood to go it alone. Best to stay close by for Mac's sake anyway.
"Well, then." Jared dropped his skateboard on its wheels to see-saw back and forth on it. "Just, you know, take care I guess."
Jensen laughed like it was funny for Jared to be concerned, like it didn't mean everything. "Always do."
"Okay." Jared dropped his foot to push himself off. "Bye."
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
"Just. I'm moving out soon. Some friends are renting out a basement apartment. In case you wondered where I went."
Jared's smile was small and tight. "I’m glad you're getting out," he said right before he skated away.
When he moved out of his parents' house, Jensen thought the worst of his problems would stay behind with them. No more junk piled up to the ceiling, he'd never live like that; no more glassy-eyed stares, no more of the same old excuses from his father. But while he was grateful to be out he couldn't bring himself to abandon Mac to it. He didn't even want to cut his parents out of his life altogether. For all their flaws, he could vaguely remember better times, when he was loved and cared for as a kid.
So he visited, took Mac out for pizza or to the mall, let her show off her big brother to her girlfriends. Mostly, he partied too much, spent half his days in a blissed-out haze. Skipped out on minimum-wage work and got blowjobs from questionable guys in back-alleys for the price of a kiss or a whispered promise no one intended to keep. He bummed off his friends until they weren't friends anymore and stole their girlfriends to prove he could, bounced checks and started fights.
There was nothing special about the degree of fucked-up Jensen was. At the end of the day, it was pretty standard loserdom as far as he could tell. The only thing he ever did right was to let Jared off the hook. That's what he believed straight up to the day Jared literally bumped into him at Ace Hardware, a day that didn't end with him changing his mind.
Jensen stumbled back when an oversized ball of energy took a sharp turn around the corner and careened into him, bike chain in hand.
"What the fu-?"
"Dude, I'm so sorry," then, "Jensen?"
Jensen turned and looked up, then up some more.
"Jared." Jensen backed away from the shelf and worked at playing cool.
"I haven't seen you in ages."
"Yeah, it's been a while." Three years by then but who was counting?
"I saw you going to visit your parents a couple of times, but I didn't figure I should bother you."
"I understand."
"I mean, I'm not mad or anything." Jared looked like a man in a way he hadn't before but he still bounced on the balls of his feet like a kid and Jensen felt himself give in to a wry grin. "I get why it would be pretty weird for you to hang out with a geeky kid back then. I got the cool end of that deal hanging out with you, you know? There was like no upside for you."
"I guess I was a dick about it when I left," Jensen admitted. "Sorry about that. You weren't that geeky."
"Oh, I was. Still am."
Jensen allowed himself a moment to take Jared in; he wore typical summer shorts and a t-shirt, long tan legs, maybe a little too close to skinny, smile as big as Texas.
"You don't look it."
Jared's skin might have gone a little pink, but he was always prone to that so maybe it wasn't a blush. Jensen couldn't say what was going on in Jared's head so he was surprised when Jared blurted, "Hey, I was thinking about going to see The Matrix. What do you think?"
"You're asking me to go to a movie?"
"Better than going alone, right?"
"Now?"
"Sure, there's gotta be a matinee around three, right?"
"You still hog the popcorn?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Fine then, it's a date." Jensen barreled over his use of the word 'date' as quickly as possible. "But you're paying for a large."
"Deal."
"Okay. Let's go."
Maybe he should have said no. Because he drove them out to Storey's Theater in his leased Chevy truck that was overdue for repossession, and they sat in the dark theater. That was the same. But it wasn't comfortable and he never figured out quite what he should say.
There was part of him that thought he should make a move, or flirt at least. Jared was a senior by then, just weeks from graduation, and old enough that it wouldn't be so creepy. Jensen felt his hands go clammy in a way they didn't for anyone else. But then he realized through his haze of indecision and the hangover headache he still carried from the night before that Jared couldn't seem to stop babbling about some girl named Sandy and how Sandy was the one and how he and Sandy were about to celebrate one year together. There was only so much, "Sandy thinks…" and "I wasn't going to try out for basketball, but Sandy said…" a man could take.
The movie was pretty cool or Jensen didn't know how he could have sat through two hours next to Jared - arms and fingers brushing, the smell of dried sweat and aftershave, so close in the cool darkness of the half-full theater - thinking that of course Jared had a girlfriend, and Jared had a fucking scholarship in Atlanta just waiting for him, and Jared's family was proud.
Once upon a time, he'd made Jared feel like some sort of charity case he didn't have time for, but it didn't take an Honor Student to realize Jensen wasn't good enough or smart enough or together enough for such a golden boy, especially one so earnestly hetero.
Years later, Jensen watched The Matrix on DVD and realized just how much of it didn't penetrate the first time around because of the thoughts swirling in his head, the gut-churning regret that he couldn't be what Jared wanted any more than he could change Jared's sexual orientation or the path he himself was on.
Whatever else was true or false, for everything he knew and all the things that made him go stupid, Jensen was reminded with stunning clarity that Jared deserved better than a loser like him.
When they met again two years later in the backroom of Mary's, Jensen and Jared screamed at each other more out of shock than anything else. Once that had passed and they sat outside on the curb to talk it out, they laughed over the situation the way they used to laugh over just about everything. Only this time it was because they were both gay when they thought of the other as the straightest guy to ever approach a vagina, and because of their shared history, and the embarrassment they both felt when Jared literally stumbled over Jensen getting sucked off by some stranger against the back wall of the club.
"My parents don't know yet," Jared told him. "About me being gay. I think I'm going to tell them before I head back to Atlanta."
"They're cool, man. They'll probably take some time but they'll be good with it."
"I don't know."
"You can always wait and tell them once you're out of college."
"I'm going to be in school forever." Jared's voice was drunkenly forlorn. "Goddamn medical school. I mean I'm still an undergrad and sometimes I think I won't be able to hack it, you know?"
"That's ridiculous."
"I don't know." Jared sounded skeptical. "I can be kind of flaky or whatever. Sometimes I think you have the right idea. You just skipped this bullshit and went straight to making your own way and using those looks of yours to get blowjobs in bars."
"That's what you think this is?" Jensen asked. "Skipping the bullshit?"
He didn't mention he was on probation at the time for possession, didn't mention that he was scared to death of paying the price for all the accumulated bullshit that made up his pathetic existence.
Jared shook his head. "I'm just saying I don't know if I'm cut out for medical school."
"You can do whatever you want, Jared." Jensen's voice sounded so sincere to his own ears he would have been embarrassed if he weren't so drunk. "You don't wanna be a loser like me."
Jared stared at him a while before saying, "You're not a loser." It was sweet but he didn't have all the facts. "Whatever's going on, you don't have to answer to anybody, you know? You can do whatever you want."
"Yeah," Jensen scoffed. "Nobody's holding me back but me."
"Don't laugh. It's true."
Jared leaned in close, over the trash of the sidewalk and the gutter under their legs, licked his lips and closed his eyes; it couldn't be more obvious that he was aiming for a kiss.
Jensen jerked back from it with a laugh. Sure, Jared leaning in to kiss him was pretty much everything he'd once hoped for, but Jared's rose-colored glasses were getting in the way of his judgment and Jensen's old need to do what was best for him, despite Jared's own worst instincts, kicked in with brutal force.
"You're drunk," he said.
Jared nodded and bent over to lay his head on his knees. "Yeah, I guess so."
That night, Jensen fell asleep on Chris's couch and thought: Maybe someday. Maybe someday, Jared will come back again, and I'll be ready.
~~~
Austin's a big city with a lot going on but Jared mostly sticks to the neighborhood. There's a rhythm to the place that's all its own and he doesn't feel like he's missing much by staying close to home.
He runs with the dogs in the mornings then showers and leaves for work, he hangs out with Jensen and wonders if it's too much. He talks to Genevieve on the phone at least twice a week. When he tells her about Jensen, she's more understanding than he thought she'd be, just tells him to be careful with his heart, at least until she can manage a trip out to meet the new guy for herself. But that's months away and Jared doesn't know if he can be careful that long. He's already in too deep and maybe that was inevitable.
Danneel challenges him to a game of pool one lazy weekday evening and gives him a pretty brutal ass-kicking. Jared's honest enough to admit she'd have won no matter what, but she has an unfair advantage that she reveals as he breaks.
"You know the first day after you showed up here, I thought this table seemed kind of wobbly," she says, so prim and proper butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. He sort of loses focus after that.
So, yeah. Jensen definitely told her about that first night. Jared decides not to hold it against him. Because Jared's awesome like that. He makes a point of telling Jensen as much when he comes back after the bar closes and pulls him in to kiss him dirty as they slow-dance around the tables.
"I'm supposed to be closing," Jensen protests.
"Mmm. Invite me over."
"You are over."
"No, to your house. I want to see it. You can rub aloe on my back and grill steak and stream a movie."
"You remember that, huh?"
"We have a binding verbal contract, Ackles. And I intend to-" he pulls Jensen in tighter. "Hold you to it."
"Okay, but I have it on good authority that your back is no longer in need of my tender care."
"Oh, you'll rub me down all right."
Jared maybe shouldn't be flirting so hard when he's still unsure about where they stand. There's a conversation hanging in the air, something not being said. Jensen can be cagey and Jared's a master of avoidance. He knows he runs a little hot and cold but he's determined to do better. It becomes truer every time they're together and he sees that look again in Jensen's eyes, something so raw and real Jared can't even begin to define it.
Turns out, Jensen knows his way around a grill. Jared pushes the plate away and salutes with his third Heineken. "I'm glad I invited myself over."
"Me, too. This is nice."
Jared looks around the open kitchen again. It's an older bungalow style home, several blocks from where they grew up but close enough that it feels like one of a hundred small houses that surrounded them back then. Jensen remodeled it himself and the care he took shows in the hardwood floors and the granite countertops, the oversized tub in the bathroom, and the simple décor of the two bedrooms. The place is spotless, almost too pristine, but Jared can't blame him for that.
"I'm impressed," he says, not for the first time.
"Thanks." Jensen glances at the back door that opens to the deck and clears his throat. "You know, it's been a while since I took on any big projects but I was thinking of building a fence out back."
It's thrown out too casually and when Jared realizes what Jensen really means, all he can do is try to play it off. "You thinking of getting a dog?"
Jensen meets his gaze and holds it. "No, just in case, you know."
Jared doesn't have much of a poker face. He's sure his rising sense of panic must be evident when Jensen drops his eyes to the table and takes a long draw off his beer, working his jaw as he swallows it down.
"In case what?"
But Jared knows the answer, he just can't believe it. Jensen can't be planning to build a fence under the assumption that Jared's dogs are going to need it, that Jared will move in. They've been doing this - whatever they're doing - for barely a month. It's too soon.
Jensen exhales a low, ragged huff of breath and stands to clear the table.
"So, you were going to tell me about your string of bad boyfriends," he says as he heads toward the sink.
"I was?"
"You said that you'd have to tell me about all your failed relationships someday."
"And that's today?"
"Yep."
So Jared leans back in his chair while he watches Jensen clean up in the kitchen. And he goes into the bad boyfriends spiel because he's not sure what else he can do. The tension between them draws tight but Jensen seems determined not to acknowledge it. Jared's not sure he wants to either.
Fortunately, he can recite the boyfriend chronicles without too much conscious thought. Serious boyfriend number one was Matt. He had dark hair and light eyes, a tight body that wouldn't quit. Jared was neck-deep in prep for the MCAT when they met and his nerves were so shot he couldn't think straight. Matt was a philosophy major who didn't particularly care about the stresses of med school. He wasn't terribly interested in Jared either, as it turned out, not beyond having a go-to guy for a good time in the sack.
But Jared thought he'd found the one. When he wasn't obsessing over medical terms, he was obsessing over Matt. He practically wrote sonnets to the guy's eyes, couldn't tell him enough how amazing he was. In retrospect, Jared thinks maybe he was clinging to someone who seemed easy when the rest of his life was pure anxiety. When Matt answered Jared's "I love you," with "That's sweet," it didn't even hurt his feelings. That probably should have clued him in.
Jared was tenacious. Chad would end that sentence with "a stalker," but Chad's an asshole. Whatever the case, Jared did win Matt over. And they were all right for a while.
One year later, Jared was totally consumed by med school, so consumed that he sort of didn't notice when Matt started seeing other people. Or he didn't want to, so he buried his head in his books only to look up one day to a 'Dear John' letter that hurt more than it should.
Boyfriend number two was less than two months later. Keith was older, a doctor already, and Jared barely had to stalk him at all. But Keith was settled and he wanted Jared to be settled, too. At the end of the day, Jared was young and pre-occupied and not at all ready for that.
Zach was next and as much as Jared hates to admit it, they started up before things with Keith were officially over. Zach was in the same program as Jared, along with Gen and Chad; they all worked the same long hours and shared the same dirty jokes and greasy food.
Looking back on it now, Jared likes to tell the story of him and Zach like it's an episode of Grey's Anatomy. When he switched to another hospital to finish out his residency, Zach drifted farther and farther away until he drifted off altogether. Jared's not clear on the details. He hooked up with Tom just weeks after he realized he'd lost Zach for good.
What's important to note, he tells Jensen, is that he got a bad reputation as a serial monogamist and when things ended with Tom, all he was left with was a promise to Genevieve, worn down from too many late night phone calls, that he'd be by himself for a while. He'd agreed happily right before he moved far, far away to start over.
And slept with Jensen not a month later.
"So that's how my willpower works, apparently," he finishes.
Jensen's settled back into the chair across from him. He's been listening the way he always does, like what Jared says matters. "For what it's worth," he says, "I don't think you overdid it in the relationship department."
"I guess I just expected too much," Jared says. "Like I kept pushing for more because I didn't want to be alone."
"Nobody wants to be alone."
"With Tom, I think I just finally felt-" Jared shrugs and looks away; he thinks maybe it's mean to lay this on Jensen even though Jensen's the one asking. Because it's Jensen who wants more now, Jared who's holding back.
"Felt what?"
"Abandoned." He huffs a derisive laugh. "I must sound like a real asshole."
"No." Jensen leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, letting his hands hang between splayed legs. "I'm sorry if I freaked you out before."
Jared thinks of telling Jensen that it's okay and he wasn't freaked. But that's an obvious lie. "What about you?" He asks instead. "Any bad boyfriend stories? Long lost loves of your life?"
Jensen's gaze skitters away to some point beyond Jared's shoulder. "Nah. Just guys I had fun with for a while."
"I'm sorry." Jared's not sure why he's apologizing. For being in a bad place maybe, for not understanding what Jensen wants, not really, or for not being able to give it to him. He just knows he hates the bruised look in Jensen's eyes, like there's an old hurt that still colors the surface.
Jensen suddenly stands up and says, "I'll walk you out."
Jared's not sure what's happened, but he goes with Jensen to the door, kisses him on the temple and says, "I'll see you later." That's all he knows to say.
"Did you know The Graveyard's up for sale?" Misha asks.
It's Thursday afternoon and Jared's on-call. He's hanging out at Delectus as part of his new and not-so-subtle Jensen-avoidance routine.
"I think Jensen mentioned the owners were considering it." Only in passing though. Jared feels a sudden stab of worry that Jensen might be out of a job, and worse, the place he loves like a second home.
"Don't worry about Jensen, darling." Sebastian leans over the counter that Misha's sitting cross-legged on. "Misha and I are buying it."
"Um, should I ask how you can afford it?" Jared looks around the empty shop and up at Misha.
"No," the two men answer at once.
"Never ask that." Sebastian seems more serious than usual and Jared gulps his agreement.
"Actually, we've asked Jensen if he'd like to come in as a partner," Misha says. "The way he runs that place, you'd think it's already his."
"That's great."
"He hasn't said yes."
"Why not?"
"Lord only knows." Sebastian curls his hand around Misha's ankle and moves his fingers under the cuff of his raggedy jeans. "We're offering him a hell of a deal. He can certainly afford it."
Misha looks at Jared with raised eyebrows, like maybe he's silently imploring him to do something about it. Jared shakes his head. Maybe he would say something but things with Jensen are almost comically uncomfortable now. The few times they've seen each other since that dinner at Jensen's they haven't even managed to meet each other's eyes, much less talk it out.
"I think Jensen's got issues," Misha says. "Childhood trauma or something."
Jared suppresses a surge of protectiveness that Misha's obviously working to provoke. "That's pretty presumptuous," he says mildly.
"All most of us know about anybody's life is what we presume," Misha tells him. "We didn't all know each other back in the day like you two."
"Maybe you should talk to him?" Sebastian says. "Convince him that he's the man and he's got what it takes. He can do it. Rah rah. All that."
"I doubt it would make a difference."
The skeptical look both men throw him over that one would be hard to ignore.
Jared does think about it. He wants to know where Jensen's head is with whatever's going on at The Graveyard, though he's scared to broach the more personal issues that have settled in like a stone between them.
He waits until late Saturday afternoon to go to The Graveyard. If he had more guts, he'd call and they'd meet somewhere private, or he'd go at a time that's not so busy. But he's feeling pretty cowardly these days, just wants to bury his head in the sand and forget that he wants Jensen so bad it hurts, forget that Jensen wants that too, but too fast, too much, too soon.
And there's the part of him that still thinks he's reading too much into it. He doesn't have the power to break Jensen's heart, only the bad habit of reading too much into things and reacting in pretty much the worst possible way.
Whatever the truth, he walks up to the bar while Jensen's obviously busy and says, "We need to talk."
Jensen cuts him an impatient glance and serves up a Tequila Sunrise to a tipsy middle-aged woman in a snug red dress. She's laughing too loud at something the man next to her says, trying too hard. And Jared's annoyed but he feels for her, too. Why does trying too hard have to be a bad thing?
"Jensen, come on," he says.
But Jensen's already distracted again, pouring a draft for someone, doing his bartender thing like it's a well-choreographed dance. He looks at Jared and raises his voice. "Now? What about?"
Jared takes a step back, but keeps his hands on the bar. "The guys told me about buying this place."
Jensen serves the beer and leans over to grant Jared his full attention. "You're asking me about that?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
Jared shrugs. "It sounds like a good opportunity?"
"Great. I'll take that into consideration."
"Are you mad at me, man?"
"No." Jensen shakes his head, but his voice is laced with low-grade bitterness that's hard to miss. "Why would I be? You're great. I'm great. I haven't decided about the bar yet."
Jared feels suddenly like he's run out of fuel. What the fuck did he expect, anyway? To have a say in Jensen's life?
He says, "Sorry," but Jensen's gone back over to serve some regulars at the other end of the bar. Jared takes the hint and walks away, passing Danneel as he steps outside.
Maybe she tries to say something to him, Jared doesn't know. All he can think is that he doesn't have a right to fuck with Jensen's life, doesn't have a right to assume that he is fucking with his life simply by showing up. He's never felt so uncomfortable around Jensen, not even back when they were young and Jensen stopped wanting to hang with the idiot kid down the street. That at least had made sense.
He's turned the corner to the side street when he hears Jensen call his name.
"I'm sorry," Jensen says as he hustles over to him. "It's not you, okay? It's me. Things are awkward; it's my fault."
"No. I'm bad at this." Jared squeezes his hands into his front pockets, suddenly chilled in the crisp October air. "You probably didn't even mean what I thought-"
"I did," Jensen interrupts. "The fence thing? I did, okay? It was my extremely clever way of broaching the topic of you moving in and it was too soon. I know that."
Jared shakes his head and looks beyond Jensen to the cross-street. People are starting to pour into the neighborhood for their Saturday night out, dinner and drinks, maybe take in a local band.
"It's just too fast for me," he says. "I mean, right now. With my history, I know that sounds like a cop-out."
"No. You don't have to tell me. I know."
"Why?" Jared asks. His voice is so low and unsure he almost can't hear himself. "Why would you even want me to?"
Jensen steps back and looks around. Somebody's laughing in the distance and there's music spilling out of the club next door.
But Jared's not listening; he's looking at Jensen and Jensen's looking anywhere but him. He seems so vulnerable, Jared thinks, in his stained bar shirt, running his hand through already mussed-up hair.
"Because I've always wanted you to…to what? I don't know." Jensen shakes his head and looks at Jared. "Be with me every day. Just be in my life and for it to not to be creepy. Always wanted to be good enough."
"Always?"
"Jared, god." Jensen steps in and surges up to kiss him, but he doesn't give Jared time to kiss back, just plants it there and backs away. "Since you were way too young for me to feel that way," he says.
Jared doesn't have any trouble hearing him but he finds it hard to compute. "What are you saying?"
"Remember the last time we talked?" Jensen asks. "Before you came back, I mean. Outside of Mary's?"
"I was pretty wasted but it'd be hard to forget."
"My life was shit." Jensen crosses his arms over his chest and dips his head to look up at Jared through his lashes. "I was on probation," he says. "I didn't have a job. The only friend I had left was Chris and he was running out of patience."
"I didn't know. I'm sorry."
"You tried to kiss me, remember?"
"Well, yeah." Jared smiles. "I'd just found out the guy I'd been crushing on since I was twelve was into guys."
Jensen's eyes go wide. "Crushing on?"
"Oh, come on. You had to know that."
"I didn't." Jensen reaches back to rub the back of his neck. "But I don't guess it would have changed anything."
"No." Jared feels a bittersweet rush of nostalgia. "I was just a stupid kid. Nothing would have happened."
Jensen takes Jared's hand. "Yeah, that's true. I mean, you were. Just a kid," he says. "But I fell in love with you and-"
"Love?"
"Yes."
"You fell in love with me?"
"Jared, yes." Jensen doesn't sound reluctant anymore; he doesn't hesitate when he says, "It was my eighteenth birthday when I figured it out. You probably don't even remember that night."
"On the roof of the theater?"
Jensen's smile is fond. "Yeah."
"Go on."
"What?"
Jared's going to say, tell me how you knew and when did you realize, and why didn't you do anything or tell me, but it all seems so obvious in a way, and painful, so he skips over it.
"Mary's," he says instead. "Outside of Mary's when I tried to kiss you and you pulled away."
"What about it?"
"That was the last time I talked to you. You were messed up. Then what?"
Jensen nods and pulls Jared with him when he steps back to lean against a wall. "After that, I just decided - this is it. Time to pull myself together." He moves his thumb over the thin skin of Jared's hand, tracing a vein. "I convinced Jim to hire me at the bar and I actually showed up, every day for every shift, and I got my GED, went to business classes at night, started to get my shit together."
Jared smiles his encouragement and steps in closer.
"I made new friends, lived a life. And I did all that for myself," Jensen says. "After a while, I wasn't thinking of you much, but you're the reason I started. Every good thing in my life from the time I met you was because of you one way or the other. Maybe I'm the one who sounds like an obsessive stalker, but it's the truth. I don't regret it."
"Me either, but Jensen." Jared unclasps his hand from Jensen's and steps back. "It's a lot to take in."
"I know." Jensen looks away. "I realize I just blew it, but I wanted you to know. I still feel that way." He stands up from the wall and squares his shoulders. "I love you. I think you're it for me. But whatever happens, just. Thank you for believing in me when nobody else did."
"Listen, it's not, you didn't-"
And even if Jensen didn't pick that moment to turn and walk away, didn't leave him without another word on a narrow side-street with the sun's light fading and the streetlights flickering on around him as strangers called out to each other in the distance, Jared's not sure how he'd finish that sentence. Maybe he'd say: You didn't blow it. I'm not freaked out.
But he is freaked; otherwise, he'd go after Jensen. And he doesn't, he stands right there instead, and wonders where they can possibly go from here.
Usually when Jared has an issue, he works it out with friends. Or he calls his brother. He's even been known to go to his parents for advice. Jensen is certainly an issue but each time Jared thinks of sharing what's happened between them with someone else, his gut clenches.
This isn't bragging about sex on a pool table or bitching about your latest break-up with your best friend. It's Jensen's business as much as it's his and Jared wants to protect that. He's not certain, but he thinks Jensen might be embarrassed to have Jared share it. So he doesn't.
He suffers in silence instead, becomes pretty committed to acting stoic for well over a week. Way down deep, it makes Jared feel like the hero of a romance novel, broody in a way that just isn't him. Not that he's ever read anything like that.
When Doctor Gamble tells him he seems a little off, Jared tells her the dogs are keeping him up at night because the cooler weather makes them frisky. Seb and Misha are blatant with their questions, which range from, "Did you talk to Jensen about The Graveyard deal?" To, "Please don't say there's some sort of sexual dysfunction going on; that would be too tragic for words." Jared graces them with his best Mona Lisa smile and says he really can't go into it.
Mostly, Jared doesn’t miss talking to Genevieve, or Chad, or any of his other friends back in Atlanta. He doesn’t feel a burning desire to spill his guts to Sebastian or Misha, or his colleagues at work, or to his family.
Jared misses Jensen. Everyone else takes a back seat. But it wouldn't be fair to seek him out, not when Jensen laid bare so much, not when Jared can't think of what to say to make it better.
At first, he thinks he's upset at Jensen for laying it all out there like that and making Jared responsible for his heart. But it's not long before he starts to think that Jensen maybe did the bravest thing he's ever seen. And he did it for Jared, for the boy he was then and the man he is now. Jared only wishes he knew what to do with it.
And then, one day, he wakes up and he does.
"Holy shit," he says out loud. The dogs yawn and look up at him from their place at the foot of the bed. "Holy shit."
Sadie rolls over and starts her morning stretch. He looks at the clock; it's a half hour before the alarm's due to go off.
"I'm in love with Jensen," he says. Truth be told, that isn't a huge revelation, and the dogs don't take it as such.
"I can do this," Jared tells them. "I can have this."
He'd like to think his sudden revelation is the result of all the soul-searching he's done, his heart and mind working together to finally clue him in that Jensen's the one and it's already too late to back down from that. But it's probably just as rash as every other choice he's made on a whim. None of those other choices brought him back home to Jensen though, so they can all go pound sand as far as Jared's concerned.
"Oh for fuck's sake, just do it. You're going to anyway."
Genevieve's voice is his head is the best thing ever.
Jared swings his feet around and bounces up off the bed so fast, he goes dizzy with it and has to sit back down. The dogs make their way up to him and he pets them without thinking. "Kids, don’t start making plans just yet," he tells him, "but there's a fenced-in back yard in your future."
Halloween is The Graveyard's biggest night of the year, busy enough that Jared knows he shouldn't interrupt Jensen's day. The clinic's busy too and he ends up working through lunch anyway. Life would be so much simpler if he could just act on his grand personal revelations the moment he has them.
But Jared's a responsible adult. A responsible adult without a Halloween costume. So he calls up to Delectus as his shift ends and they put him on speaker phone.
"It's a big night, guys."
"The biggest," Misha agrees. "Why?"
"It's Halloween."
"An event so radical it's been on the calendar for hundreds, possibly thousands, of years." Sebastian sounds bored but Jared knows better.
"I don't have a costume."
"And?"
"I need one. Preferably one that shows a lot of skin."
"You going to the big shin-dig at The Graveyard after all?" Misha asks.
"Darling, please don't say shin-dig."
"Yes," Jared tells him. "And I don't want to overstate things, but it's kind of a big deal. Huge."
Misha laughs. "You think pretty highly of yourself, don't you?"
"I was thinking I might oil up and go shirtless."
"Why didn’t you say so?" Misha asks, his voice suddenly sharp and interested. "What do you need?"
Four costume changes and nearly a bottle of baby oil later, Jared just can't bring himself to go with the shirtless thing. Maybe he's modest. Or maybe it's because it's cold out, but he makes sure to tell Sebastian and Misha, "As of tonight, this bod is property of Jensen Ackles and nobody else is getting a free show."
"You're just scared the baby oil will congeal on your manly chest hair," Misha says. The man has a point.
But they relent, and Jared ends up in a store-bought Thor costume, the only one they can find to fit him on such short notice. Sebastian manages to rustle it up after only a couple of phone calls and possibly a bribe or "an offer of sexual favors" that Jared doesn't want to think about.
The costume has lots of fabric and unnecessary padding and Jared starts to sweat about two seconds after he squirms into it. The big hammer is a nice accessory, though. He's sure they make quite a splash when they walk into The Graveyard, though the party's in full swing by then and the crush of people makes everything a bit of a blur. But there's no way Misha and Sebastian, resplendent in matching leather French Maid outfits, don't draw attention, especially escorted as they are by one Thor, God of Thunder.
Drinks flow freely in the loud bar, and there's much more of a club atmosphere than usual. Girls in slutty outfits are bobbing for apples in the corner and if he had gone shirtless, Jared wouldn’t be the only one there, of either gender, to do so.
In the midst of the chaos, it takes him a minute to find Jensen, who's walking from the back room to the bar with a case of champagne on his shoulder. He's got on zombie make-up and a bright yellow hazmat suit and Jared laughs at the sight of him.
"Oh, for Christ's sake." Sebastian raises his voice to be heard over the noise. "You are both extremely well-built men in the prime of life and yet you cover yourselves up like Mother Theresa."
"Frankly, it goes against everything Halloween stands for," Misha adds.
But Jared's barely paying attention. It occurs to him as he makes his way to the bar that this might not go well. The crowd's big and loud and it's obviously all Jensen and his staff can do to keep up. That's just too bad. Jensen's work is about to be interrupted and if that pisses him off, he'll have to take it up with Jared. Because Jared's ready, completely and irrevocably, to take it up with him.
By the time he reaches the bar and catches Jensen's eye, it's too late for anything else. The sight of Jared with his naughty French maids in tow surprises a laugh out of Jensen before his expression shifts to something more wary.
Jared leans over the bar and says the first thing that comes to mind. Maybe he should have planned this better, but he doesn't expect the blank reaction he gets in return. Then Jensen cups his hand to his ear and makes a stirring motion with his finger before reaching over to set out three draft beers for waiting customers.
So Jared yells this time, gets some lung power behind it. "Did I ever tell you I used to think you made me gay?"
Things go quiet and still around him for a moment and he's about to be pretty impressed he's managed to shut up the whole bar, but it's only the immediate vicinity and even there, things return to the previous insane noise level after barely a beat.
He has Jensen's attention though, and that's all that matters. Misha and Sebastian quickly take two bar seats that are freed up and Danneel stops to lean over the bar, laser-focused on Jared like she's ready to beat him to a pulp if need be.
Jensen stares at him for a second and shakes his head. So no, then. He hadn't realized Jared used to credit Jensen with his burgeoning homosexuality.
"You were so beautiful," Jared screams. "I mean, not girly. I know you hated it when people said you were pretty or whatever."
Jensen shakes his head and steps in closer, leaning over the bar to hear better. Close up, the zombie make up looks kind of caked on. Jared shakes off the stray observation.
"I don't think I was in love with you back then." Jared's still yelling to be heard, but not quite as loud. "I’m sorry."
"Don't be." Jensen raises his voice to match Jared's. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad."
"It's okay, though." Jared lets the rubber hammer slide out of his hands and grimaces when it bounces off his foot. "Because I'm in love with you now and that's not going away. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let some stupid shit like timing get in the way of the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"What?" But Jensen's eyes are dancing and Jared knows he heard. He just wants to hear it again. Which is fine because Jared wants to say it. Over and over.
"I have to warn you," Jared says, "I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work."
"What?" Jensen narrows his eyes and waves off a customer calling for a tequila shot. "Dude, that doesn't make any sense."
"Just shut up and say your line," Jared tells him.
He sees the moment it clicks and grins when Jensen rolls his eyes. "Why are you dressed like Thor if you're just going to come in here and quote Speed at me? It doesn't even apply."
"Speed?" Danneel says. "What the fuck?"
Misha shudders. "Let's just hope we don't have to suffer through the sequel."
Jared ignores them. "I'll dress up in a tight white t-shirt and a flak jacket for you some other time," he promises. "Just say your line."
Jensen laughs and pushes himself up to lean over the bar. "Okay," he quotes. "We'll have to base it on sex then."
"Whatever you say, ma'am."
"Man."
"Huh?"
"You should change it to 'whatever you say, man' or this memory is going to be weird."
"Fine," Jared says. "Bossy."
He leans in for a kiss, nothing over the top - they are in public after all, and the costume makeup doesn't taste great. But it's good enough despite all that, he barely notices the catcalls that erupt all around them. "Whatever you say, man."
~the end~