Fic: Later Days | cw rps | jensen/jared | adult
Later Days
Fandom: CW RPS
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Rating: Adult
Warnings: recreational drug use
Comments: So originally, I was writing this for spn_j2_bigbang. But then I lost my inspiration and, well, I couldn't write the story I was planning to write. More on that later. For now I need to thank wendy, babyofthegroup, and madame_d for their kind words, attempts to help, and helping me see that I don't owe anyone a love song story. Also thanks to llamabitchyo and kira_j for their input and for telling me this totally makes sense, even if it doesn't.
Most of you probably know that my friend danxsunday died about a month ago. I am not capable of going into all of that, of talking about it, but I think I should say that most of this was written in the haze of that terrible week he was in the hospital waiting to die. At this point, I can't tell if it's brilliant or terrible, and I honestly don't care. I wanted to write him the happy ending he never got. I wanted to write something that would help me feel closure. This didn't turn out to do either of those things and that's why I decided to bow out of Big Bang, finish the story in whatever way I could, and get it out into the world and out of my head for good.
Writing is about a mixture of catharsis and obsession for me. I get an idea and I can't let it go until it's out of my hands and into other people's heads. I wrote 8000 words of this fic in the two days after Dan died, and then it just--stopped. And when I read it back, when I let other people read it, they didn't know what to make of it. It makes sense to me. This is something you should know. As weird and disjointed as it might read, it makes complete and total sense to me. I don't know if it's possible for me to take the very clear picture of this story I have in my head and put it down on paper in a way that makes sense to other people. I tried to clean it up, added a lot of things to help the reader pick up what I'm putting down. I have no idea if my rewrites were successful.
Some people might wonder why I'm posting this if I'm so unsure of it. The truth is, I need it to be out of my control. Good or bad, once other people read it, I don't need to worry or think about it anymore. Catharsis, right? That said, I hope you enjoy it. I really love it, even if it's not perfect.
*
Later Days
He was six years old the day Jared discovered that the world didn't revolve around him.
It wasn't that he was dumb, because he wasn't. Everyone said he was one of the smartest boys they'd ever met, and he knew it inside, too; an innate sense of self-worth that came from understanding everything the first time and before all the other kids in his class. He was tall and strong and sharp; at recess they had races, him and the other boys while the girls watched from the brown grass in the center of the make-shift dirt track, and Jared always won, unless he decided to let one of the others win, just because he could. He didn't know about charm yet because that wouldn't come until later, the purposeful use of a smile or a touch, the way he'd tilt his head just so to expose the long line of his neck like a surrender--all these things would come later, but for now, when Jared was six and still learning, he knew that if he asked a certain way or smiled just so, things would happen the way he wanted them to.
Everything changed that day, though. Like a sudden shift, like when you're playing the spinning game, spinning round and round trying to be the last one standing and when you finally stop, everything swims three inches to the left. That's how Jared felt the day he figured out that the world did not revolve around him. Megan was almost four and she did whatever Jared said; she looked up at him with big eyes and he could get her to do whatever he wanted because that was just how he was, but she was a little kid and boring and there wasn't much Jared wanted her to do.
But sometimes he got bored. He got bored and he said, "Hey Meggie, I think you should eat this, doesn't it look yummy?" And Jared watched her eat the play-doh cookies one after the other, blue with magenta sprinkles on top and she cried a little and said, "Tastes bad, tastes bad," but Jared said, "Come on, Meg, just a little more." He wanted to see what would happen, is all. It was non-toxic, it said so on the canister, and he wasn't sure exactly what that meant but he knew it wouldn't hurt her, not really. Mostly, he just wanted to see if she'd do it.
Nothing happened and nothing happened until dinner that night, when Megan said, "My tummy hurts" and then spent the rest of the night vomiting. It was a swirl of pink and blue and brown, and his mom said, "What did you eat?" and Jared was so sure she wouldn't tell because he said not to, he said it was a secret and Megan always did what he said, but not this time.
Everyone yelled at him, which meant his mom and his dad and even Jeff looked kind of angry but probably just that no one was paying any attention to him as usual, and Megan cried and cried and said, "I didn't mean it." Jared didn't cry. It was a puzzle, he thought. A puzzle and the last piece just wouldn't fit in no matter which way he tried to push it. Mom was mad and Dad was very mad and they were both disappointed and Jared felt a weird sadness, like he lost something important, like maybe his new dirt bike got stolen or Bunny got lost and he couldn't find it. It was a sadness like that, but he didn't cry and he was only six; he was smart but he wouldn't really understand what this feeling was until much later, many years from now when he's standing in a bare room in Vancouver saying, "You don't have to go. You don't want to go. Why does anything need to change?" He will tilt his head just so and expose the long line of his throat like a surrender, and Jensen will look at him and say, "You can't stop things from changing, and you can't change the world."
But for now, when Jared was six years old and only just beginning, this was new, a dark discovery that he did not control everything and maybe he never did. His mouth tasted sour and gross and he thought this must be his punishment for something he couldn't even name.
The next day at the races, Jared lost to Bobby McNulty, and it wasn't even on purpose. He tasted the same sourness in his mouth that he did the night before and for second, he wanted to hit Bobby, he wanted to punish something because he lost, and it wasn't really about the race at all, it was about that sad feeling like something had been taken from him and he was never going to get it back. He wanted to hit Bobby but he smiled through the sourness instead, said, "Good race, good race," just like all the other times when he was the winner. He leaned over, hands on his knees and breath coming in soft pants, spat out the sour into the hard-packed dirt of the yard.
*
Jensen has only been in love twice before and he only ever admits to the second time because the first time he was sixteen and he fucked it up beyond the telling, so Jensen doesn't. The second time was Chris and Jensen thinks that didn't really count because nothing ever happened except Steve saying, "Man, you gotta get over this 'cause it ain't gonna happen," and Jensen spending the next three months drinking too much and trying not to think about it. If he didn't think about, he decided at the time, it would just fade away, and he was right. He still loves Chris but he's not in love with him, and he doesn't even flinch when Chris brings it up.
"You weren't ever really in love with me, though," Chris says. "I was just an easy target so you didn't have to consider a real relationship with someone who might actually love you back."
It's possible that Chris is right, but Jensen knows what love feels like, and he knows the exact moment that he officially falls in love with Jared. They're at a convention and Jensen can't even remember which city they're in at this point except that it's bitterly cold and he can hear the wind whistling against the windows of his hotel room at night. He thinks they're in Chicago, maybe; someplace cold and windy with a lake, anyway, and it could be anyplace in the Midwest but Jensen doesn't even want to leave his hotel room to find out. It's not like it matters, anyway.
Jensen isn't good at cons. He's not good with fans or people in general, but especially at cons. Jared just laughs and says, "Just be yourself, man. They already love you," but Jensen thinks sometimes that maybe that's the problem. He was in a soap so he knows how it goes. He knows people will love him because they think they know him; they'll do their research and haunt the fan forums and send him long letters about how much he means to them, these people that he's never met. Jensen can't be himself around these people; he doesn't want to be himself around them, because if they knew him, they'd know he's just some guy and he's not special and he's not important.
Besides, being himself is something he keeps for the people who matter.
So Jensen isn't good at cons, and when Jared knocks on his door that morning so they can walk down to the panel together, Jensen opens the door and looks at him and Jared just seems to know thatsomething's not right. He tilts his head to the side, glances at their network PR girl out of the corner of his eye. "Melinda, can you stay out here and watch the door for a minute? I gotta show Jensen something in private."
Melinda looks annoyed and starts to say something about being on time and their duty to the fans, but Jared just waves her off and steps into the room, shutting the door while she's still in mid-sentence. "I was saving this for after," Jared says, lips quirking upward in a little grin, "but I think you need it now." He pulls out a baggie and waves it in Jensen's face. Pre -rolled joints, so perfect they look factory-made, and Jensen knows it's a bad idea but one won't hurt. One will be just enough to get him through.
They sit on the floor facing the windows, backs leaning up against the bed and the curtains open wide, the city stretched out in front of them in a grey haze of early morning, lights just now coming on in offices while the orange street lights wink off as the watery sun rises. Jared's arm brushes against his when he passes Jensen the joint and he rests his hand on Jensen's knee, fingers spreading warm and wide over dark denim. Jensen takes a hit and closes his eyes, smiling a little when he feels Jared's hair slide across his neck as he rests his head on Jensen's shoulder.
They're going to be late, Jensen thinks, and he doesn't care. Jared's arm slides around Jensen's waist and Jensen thinks, this is what he wants. This is who he wants. Jensen's only been in love twice before, and only the once that he'll actually admit to anyone but himself, but he knows what this feeling is. He smiles to himself and thinks, third time's the charm.
*
Jared is in love with Sandy right up until the moment when he isn't, suddenly, and it's not like he plans it this way; he doesn't plan for it to come out at a convention, and on the phone that night Jensen says, "You can't give so much of yourself away, man. You just can't." Jared knows he's right. Jensen is usually right, but Jensen's the one with the fake girlfriend so Jared's pretty sure he doesn't really want to take relationship advice from Jensen.
It isn't something big. They don't have a fight and no one cheats on anyone else. He just looks at her, sitting on the bed in his hotel room in a t-shirt and boxer shorts, hair pulled back and legs crossed at the ankles in front of her while she watches the news and he thinks, this isn't the life he wants. He loves her but he's not in love with her, and he doesn't even know how long that's been going on but now that he does know, he has to say something. She smiles and he can't even look at her.
"I think we should break up," he says, and that's it.
Things go to shit later, of course. They always do because there's no such thing as an easy breakup or a clean getaway. But for now, Sandy just looks at him with sad eyes like she already knew and says, "I think you should sleep on the couch then."
Right away Jared feels like an asshole and he knows it's because he kind of is one. They were engaged and now they're breaking up, but neither of them had ever even tried to plan a wedding so he guesses they always sort of knew it wouldn't last. That doesn't make him any less of an asshole now, but he's not the only one, he thinks.
He takes a shower and stands there under the hot spray until it starts to turn lukewarm, letting the sound of water against tile drown out his thoughts with its constant, soothing buzz. He can hear her crying in the next room, even over the echoing sound of the water, but he just closes his eyes and tips his head back, hot water running down his cheeks and into his mouth, and he doesn't want to think about it.
And it's not like he expected it to stay a secret, because nothing ever really stays a secret no matter how hard you try, but he doesn't expect it to get out so quickly and he really doesn't expect to get questions about it from fans at a Q&A. It's not hard to say that he doesn't have hard feelings, things just didn't work out and he'll always care about her. He doesn't even need a PR girl for this shit because it's true. The hard part comes later, when he's back in Vancouver and he meets Jensen for a drink at the Backdoor and Jensen wants to talk about it because that's how Jensen is. Feelings and bullshit, and Jared knows that he's sincere about it but there really isn't anything to say.
"I just fell out of love with her, I guess," is what Jared tells him. Jensen's eyes darken and he bites his lip and Jared thinks he should know what that means, but he hasn't been paying attention to Jensen for long enough to read him yet.
"That's bullshit, and you know it," Jensen says. He pushes Jared's drink towards him like a hint. "There's always a reason. You gotta have a reason."
"Maybe." Jared takes a sip of his drink, then another. He's going to get drunk tonight. It's expected; he just broke up with a girl he's been dating since what feels like the beginning of time, so yeah, he should probably get wasted, that would be the appropriate response. "Maybe," Jared says again, staring down at the table, tracing the scars in the wood surface with his eyes, "Maybe I was never in love with her to begin with."
"You seriously don't feel anything?"
Jared shrugs. "It's sad, I guess. But mostly." He pauses, takes another drink, and looks at Jensen. "Mostly I just feel free. And maybe that makes me an asshole, but at least I'm honest."
*
When Jensen was sixteen, he fell in love with the boy next door.
It sounds stupid when he thinks about it now, the few times he lets himself think about it, but that's exactly how it was. He was sixteen and he was shy and weird and a little angry, too, and Seth was beautiful and he knew it. They were never friends, really, because it wasn't that sort of story. It wasn't My Girl and they hadn't known each other since birth or whatever. Seth's family moved into the house next door and a week later, he kissed Jensen sitting on the open back gate of Jensen's truck in the empty parking lot of the Baptist church where they were slowly but surely getting as drunk as possible on a six pack ofLonestar and a bottle of whiskey Seth stole from his dad's secret stash.
"He can't admit it's gone or he'll get in trouble with mom," Seth said, flashing a smile and handing Jensen the bottle. "Just do it. It's not gonna kill you."
When Seth kissed him, he tasted like beer and whiskey and orange fanta, which should've been gross but it wasn't because it was the first time Jensen kissed another guy so it was pretty fucking perfect instead. Because he knew what he liked and he knew he liked guys, but he could pretend enough with girls that it never mattered before, until that kiss and he knew. He knew he could pretend all he wanted but it was always going to matter, after this, and Jensen couldn't take it back. He didn't want to.
They were sixteen and they didn't take anything slow because it already felt like Jensen had been waiting his whole fucking life for this, for someone like him who just got it and didn't need an explanation and didn't blow him off and didn't tell him he was a freak who was going straight to hell, do not pass go, do not collect any heavenly reward. Not that Jensen ever came out to anyone before, but his mom seemed to know anyway and that was the worst. "I was thinking you might like to take Sally Davies to the football game on Friday night," she'd say with this look in her eyes, half-scared and half-angry. So Jensen was pretty sure she knew and it wasn't like she ever said anything, but she had a snide way of letting him know that she knew and she certainly didn't approve. She hated Seth but Seth's mother couldn't give a shit.
"She's hooked on 'ludes," Seth said when Jensen asked. They were in his mother's huge walk-in closet looking for the weed Seth was sure she was hiding somewhere.
"Your mom has some weird shit," Jensen said, watching as Seth pulled open drawer after drawer, fingers running lightly over scraps of silk and nylon in search for the elusive bag of weed. "I don't even know what some of this stuff is."
Seth just looked at him. "Yeah, I'm guessing you don't have a lot of experience with girl's underwear."
"I've had girlfriends before."
"How'd that work out for you?"
"Fuck you," Jensen said, and turned around to leave, but Seth grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back saying, "Don't be so fucking sensitive. It's not like I'm complaining."
Seth was his first blow job and his first time being fucked, but Jensen wasn't lying about having girlfriends so it wasn't like he was a virgin before Seth, either. They never said 'I love you' but Jensen wanted to, sometimes. When they were lying in Seth's bed, sweaty and sticky and tired and Jensen just wanted to do it all over again, Jensen would think, I love you, but he never said it. Seth would always watch him with dark eyes while he got dressed in the late afternoon sunshine and say, "Later days, Jen," and Jensen didn't know what that meant, exactly, but it felt like a promise.
And then summer was over and school started up. Jensen got a girlfriend and that was it. Seth seemed to get it without being told and neither of them were ready to be here and queer or whatever, and it ended. Jensen thought maybe later, when he was older, they might get back together. When they were ready for something as big as that. But Seth went to college on the east coast and his family moved to Houston and Jensen moved to LA and they never saw each other again.
But that was a long time ago, more than ten years ago and now Jensen hardly admits that summer ever happened, except when he's really drunk and then usually only to himself. Two months after Jared breaks up with Sandy, they're back in LA for the hiatus, back in LA at some party with a bunch of people Jensen doesn't know except Jared, and Jared says, "I didn't think it would hurt this much, is all."
Jared is very drunk and Jensen is even more drunk and that's the only reason Jensen tells him the story. "So," Jared says, leaning his head back against the couch and turning his head to look at Jensen through hazy eyes, "you think I fucked up? Is that why you're telling me this?"
"No," Jensen says. He looks at Jared, at the sharp line of his jaw and the way his hair angles perfectly over his eye to brush against his cheekbone. "Not everything is about you, asshole. I'm just saying, you know. Later days. Like, maybe I'll see you, maybe I won't. That's what it was like with you and Sandy, man. It was like later days."
"You're fucking drunk," Jared says, grinning a little. "And that's not what that means, anyway."
"It's not?"
"Not at all," Jared says, and brushes his thumb along the line of Jensen's cheek, just a whisper touch and then it's gone. "You had an eyelash," Jared says. "Make a wish."
*
Jared was special and he knew it from an early age, but at least since he was eleven and could consciously mark the knowledge. It wasn't arrogance if it was true, it was just a fact, like that the sky was blue and gravity was relative: Jared was special. It was something he'd known about himself since before he could remember and people were always telling him, too. He was talented, he was smart and special and he was going to do something amazing one day, whatever he put his mind to. Jared knew this was something that all parents told their children, but he could hear the difference when his said it to him. They told Jeff he was special, too, but Jared didn't think they really meant it. Not in the same way, anyhow.
At school, Jared got elected Most Popular Sixth Grader and he was the only one any of the seventh grade girls would dance with at the end of year dance. His friends said it was because he was tall, he was the only one taller than the girls and that was why, but Leigh Anne Conner told him, "You're different than the other boys, that's all. There's something different about you."
She didn't say 'special,' but Jared knew it just the same.
The summer was hot and golden that year with no rain in sight, and Jared spent most of his time with his friends at the dusty dirt and scrub grass field that called itself a baseball diamond just because someone laid down chalk lines and put up a fence. They used trash pulled out of the nearby dumpster as bases--cardboard boxes and a pillow gone too lumpy for use in the wash--and Jared ran and ran and ran. The air was thick with water off the river and it felt inescapable sometimes, a heavy weight around him that he couldn't shake off no matter what.
That was the first summer he went to acting camp. Just a day camp with the local theater company, nothing special or anything, but there was a boy there called Austin Grey and Jared hated him on sight. Austin was tall and smart and sharp. Austin already knew all about the silly drills and exercises the adults showed them, and he could already do it all perfectly. Austin had hair the color of wheat stalks and it didn't curl at all, not even with the humidity, not even with the heat, just lay perfectly across his forehead in a golden wave.
Austin was special, too, and Jared hated him. Jared knew this was a boy that would never do what Jared wanted; he would never recognize Jared for what he was and he would never acknowledge that they were the same. Jared was learning a lot at the camp, all about tricks for memorization and how to relax, how to let himself inhabit the head space of a character. He was learning a lot but he was angry all the time, too, and Austin's entire existence felt like a mockery to him. Like it was mocking him.
Austin cornered him in the bathroom on the last day of camp, fifteen minutes before their final performance in front of everybody. Parents and teachers and everyone from the camp, and even some of Jared's friends from school, too. Austin looked at him with cool blue eyes and said, "I know what you are." Not meanly, just like a fact--I know what you are.
Jared was smart. He knew he was smart but he had no idea what Austin Grey meant by that, except that it made him angry. Angrier than he already was, angrier than he'd ever been before. Austin tilted his head to the side just so, and Jared punched him in the face, just like that.
It wasn't a hard punch or anything and all it really did was glance off the sharp line of Austin's jaw, but his hand flew up to cover the dark red blotch blooming up on his cheek and Jared stared and stared because he'd never seen anything like that before. He'd never hit anyone before and he'd never seen anyone get hit, either. It wasn't the way his knuckles stung and throbbed or the idea of it all, but he suddenly felt sick instead of angry and Austin's eyes were as cool as ever, like he expected that to happen. Like that was what he came in here for in the first place.
They didn't tell what happened, but everyone could see it and Jared got in trouble anyway. His parents were so disappointed in him, and that was the worst part of all. The look in his dad's eyes when he said, "I never thought I'd have to tell you what's right," and his mom's fingers wrapped painfully tight around his arm that evening, standing on the welcome mat of Austin Grey's brick-faced house, apologizing in mumbles through a mesh screen door while Austin's mouth tilted upward in a small, secret smile. Jared never felt so low as this, and he knew then that this was what Austin really wanted. This low thing taking up residence in Jared's chest like the wet night air uncurling its fist inside him and spreading out fingers of doubt and fear and a certain wrongness Jared couldn't describe.
He hadn't really been sorry before, but suddenly he was. "I'm sorry," he said, and he thought that was maybe the first time he ever meant it.
*
They get together finally because they're both single and Jensen's been in love with Jared for almost a year and Chris says, "Look, the worst he can do is say no." Jensen thinks, no, the worst he can do is stop being friends, and sometimes he thinks Jared is an asshole but never like that and he's never a bad guy. He's never mean or cruel and Jensen knows Jared cares about him, at least. He knows that much.
Jared says no. He doesn't say the word because Jensen isn't that obvious, but he's just obvious enough for Jared to finally get the idea. He says no a couple times in that way that straight guys do, where they think it's not even in the realm of possibility but only because they never thought of it before. And then one night they're sitting in Jared's truck after the bar, warm air blasting from the vents because it's only September but it's already fucking cold as hell here, and Jared says, "This isn't a date," but then he leans over and kisses Jensen just the same, like he can't quite help it.
And the thing about Jared is, he's the worst kind of asshole because he gets everything he wants even when he doesn't think to ask for it, but he's so fucking likable that Jensen can't just hate him for it like a sane person would; he can't hate Jared not even a little. Jared kisses him like it's no big deal now that he's decided to just go ahead and do it. He kisses Jensen like it isn't a complete mindfuck, like it doesn't mean a damn thing even though they both know that's a lie.
Not that Jensen says anything. He pulls away slowly and only after Jared does, wiping his thumb over his bottom lip and not saying a damn word. Things will change or fall apart without his help, he thinks, and that's the difference between him and Jared right there: Jared gets what he wants without saying a word, and Jensen knows better than to even ask.
Jared says, "See you tomorrow," the same way he does every day, with the same exact tilt to his head and the same curve of his mouth. What he's really saying is, "Don't get any expectations." Jensen just shrugs and fumbles for the door handle, slides out of the car into the cold night air. He doesn't have expectations, he really doesn't, but he's not exactly surprised the next time Jared kisses him, either. It's a very careful balancing act. It'd be better if Jensen knew what he was fumbling around with in the first place.
Jared dates women after and between times with Jensen; a lot of women and it hurts a little despite the no expectations thing, because honestly no one ever entirely lacks expectations, even really low ones, but Chris just says, "He's coming back to you, though, right? That's what's important, man, and you just gotta let the rest of it go." Jensen can let it go. He gets it and it's not like he hasn't been there before, either. Letting go doesn't mean he's not disappointed, though.
And it's different than anything Jensen's done before because he's never been friends first, that's never been the more important thing between Jensen and the other people he's been with. Jared can be a dick sometimes and definitely a dick tease, but he's a good guy for the most part. He loves animals and he's nice to mostly everyone and he's charming and he's never once made an off-color remark about Jensen being gay, not even drunk, not even stoned. He's a dick but he's a good person, too, and he's Jensen's best friend after Chris. And Chris isn't around much so Jared is pretty much Jensen's best friend where it matters, so it's different but that doesn't mean it's bad. Just different and maybe even better, if Jared will ever admit it to himself.
Jensen thinks Jared will get there eventually. He just has to keep trying.
*
Girls like Jared and they always have. In high school his friends all went out for football because even JV got rally girls and everyone knew rally girls put out which was pretty much the entire point of high school to begin with, but Jared went out for plays instead. There were plenty of girls in the drama club and all the other guys were fags, so Jared really didn't need a rally girl who was only in it for status or whatever it is rally girls did it for, anyway. Jared didn't have to wait or beg or take some girl out to the movies and the Sonic and have his mom create some giant scary mum for Homecoming before the girl finally let him get to third, because girls liked him. Instead, Jared lost his virginity to Mindy James in the dressing room back stage after the final dress rehearsal for Our Town, and it was the single best experience of his life so far that didn't involve being on a stage.
Mindy was a senior and she said, "I can't believe I just did a sophomore, fuck. Fuck," while pulling her t-shirt back on and staring around the room like she was missing something and her eyes just couldn't seem to catch it. She didn't look at Jared at all. He pulled his pants up and that was it. He never even got to take his shirt off.
He said, "So um. Are we. Is this?"
"This never happened," Mindy said, very slowly, like Jared was five or something. "Okay? Never happened."
"Sure," Jared said, but he was smiling when he left because he just lost his virginity, and it was amazing.
So girls have always liked Jared but he's never really considered the possibility of guys before, until Jensen. It's not like he went into it thinking this would be where he'd end up, accidentally on dates with his best friend who, yeah, he knew was gay or at least not even remotely straight, but he never thought about like that before. Never thought of it as a possibility until the moment he was sitting in his truck with Jensen fidgeting in the passenger's seat and he realized that Jensen had thought about it.
And it's not like Jared is opposed to the idea, he just never really considered it before. But Jensen is Jensen and there's something about him that draws Jared in and keeps him coming back. A certain sincerity that Jared's never really had from another person before, because he's been in love and he thinks he probably was in love with Sandy, after all, but it was never pure, or something. That seems like a really dumb way to think about it because what Jensen does to him is really far from pure, but the look on Jensen's face the first time Jared fucks him, like he's been wiped clean--that means something, Jared thinks. He wants to make Jensen look like that all time.
Jared thinks of himself as being in the business of giving other people what they want, and no one deserves it more than Jensen. It's not egotistical if it's true, Jared thinks.
He's never done it with a guy before and Jensen is his first for a lot of things. First time kissing a guy that doesn't involve being thirteen and a spinning bottle, first blow job, and first time for this, too. Jensen says, "It's just like doing a girl, only better," and grins as he licks his way across Jared's chest. And it's weird but it's really fucking hot, too, especially when Jensen straddles him, strong thighs pressing warm and tight against Jared's hips as he fingers himself open. It's more hot than weird and it's pretty fucking weird, Jared thinks, but it's even hotter when Jared reaches down between them to feel where Jensen's fingers are sliding in and out of his own body. Jensen shivers and makes a low sound in his throat and Jared shivers too because he can feel it, can feel Jensen stretched around his own fingers and yeah, it's really fucking hot. Jensen pulls his hand away and reaches for Jared's dick, sliding down slow in stuttering little glides until all Jared can feel is Jensen all around him, hot and tight.
Sometimes giving other people what they want is satisfying, pleasing in the way that Jared likes control, likes knowing exactly what buttons to press and putting people together like pieces of a puzzle. This is something beyond that, though. It's not egotistical if it's true.
And that's when it happens--the look. Jensen opens his eyes and it's all Jared can see, clear and wide in a face wiped clean of anything else but this. Jared isn't in love but he wants to say it, even though everyone knows that it doesn't count if you say it during sex. And he knows it's not true, anyway. He cares, he cares more than he thought he would, but he's not in love yet and he doesn't know if he's even capable of that with Jensen. He's not going to rule it out, though, because he wants it to be true, and that has to mean something, he thinks. Maybe it's time for a change.
*
There was a brief window of time--maybe three months in the spring of 1998 when he was out of work and going on any audition he could find, living offramen and black beans and a gigantic plastic canister of couscous the guy who lived in his apartment before him left behind--that Jensen thought maybe he could actually do the whole straight thing. Not just as a stop-gap or a public face or to avoid his mom's obvious statements about how the best way to meet a girl was to go to church, but the real thing. Love and sex and marriage and kids. He wasn't in love with her; it was more like he didn't mind being with her and that was better than any other girl he'd tried dating before. But he didn't mind her or even resent her and the sex was actually good and Jensen thought, maybe he could actually do it. Maybe he could have normal after all.
And he was happy. Everything was easier with her just because she was a girl and he didn't have to hide and he could think about a possible future without also thinking about all the other shit that mostly wanting to fuck guys entailed. He could get married and have kids and yeah, he could do that with a guy, but not really, not the same way. Not legally and not naturally, and this wouldn't break his mother's heart, either.
He was happy and it was easy, being with her. She moved into his shitty apartment and they slept on his mattress on the scarred wood floor and she bought sheer white curtains to hang over their lone window on the east wall. She spent all herwaitressing tips on weed but Jensen was okay with that, because he had something he didn't have to hide and that was worth more than sobriety any day.
He was happy until the day he came home from an audition that he thought he actually had a good chance at and finally he might get to work again and he could relax for the first time in a while, maybe do some of the shit they always talked about doing like buying actual furniture and going out instead of staying in and getting high and fucking; he was happy until the day he came home and found her in bed with another guy. In their bed with another guy, or maybe it was just Jensen's bed now, but it was still another guy.
He looked at her, small and pale, starfished across the guy with a thin sheen of sweat between them and he wasn't even surprised. The cheating part, sure, that was a surprise because no one ever expects the Spanish inquisition, but he maybe knew all along that it could never work out because that wasn't the story his life was going to tell. He didn't get to have the dream. He wasn't going to find the girl and get married and have kids and be in a family and make his mom happy. That's not the way it worked.
People were always telling him that normal was relative and relationships weren't easy, but he never really believed them until he saw his girlfriend fucking another guy. He said, "When you're done with that, get your shit and get out," and he left. He didn't even slam the door on his way out because it wasn't like he was jealous or angry or whatever it was heshould've probably been feeling. It wasn't like that at all. It was more like resignation. Like he should've known nothing could be that easy.
But then he decided that he was just whining and went to get a coffee instead. People cheated and got cheated on everyday. It wasn't like he was special.
*
Jared doesn't even realize they're dating--actually dating, with feelings involved and all that shit and not just screwing around--until he finds himself on the phone to his mother trying to make a pumpkin pie out of fucking tofu because that's what Jensen likes; he likes organic shit that's good for you, he's always going on about toxin build up and the importance of non-fatty proteins and how vitamins should always be consumed via natural sources instead of in the handy pills Jared likes to take, "because that shit is filled with chemicals and when are people going to learn that you can't absorb calcium without fat?" And Jared wants to say never because he likes his pills and milk is only drinkable with and inch of chocolate syrup in the bottom of the glass, but he doesn't. Instead he listens like he cares and makes pie out of tofu and gets laughed at by his own mother when the pie turns out to be avomitty-looking mess because he used the wrong kind.
He's actually getting a blow job when he realized about the dating thing, though, but by then it's too late because the pie is ruined and his dick is already in Jensen's mouth and after that, it's really hard to concentrate on things that aren't orgasms.
Because the thing is, he's just having fun and he always thought that if he ever did decide to have some big gay adventure, it'd be with Chad. Chad is his best friend, people seem to find Chad attractive, and Jared loves him enough to think that other things might work out, too. He's known Chad forever and Chad makes sense in a way that Jensen doesn't, except he's never wanted to make a pie for Chad and he's never wanted to kiss Chad just to see what it's like. Chad isn't gay, either, so he never really considered the idea with any sort of depth before, but that doesn't change the fact that he always thought it would be Chad.
Chad wouldn't want more. He wouldn't have ended up dating Chad, and Jared's not sure if that's good or bad yet. He's not ever sure if he wants to find out.
Later, after everyone comes over for the orphans' Thanksgiving and there's eating and drinking and the pie has gone in the trash, Jared says, "So when did we start dating?"
Jensen's brushing his teeth and watching Jared strip off his t-shirt in the bathroom mirror, eyes carefully blank and expression closed tight in a way that says he's not going to give anything away so don't even try. He holds up a finger and Jared waits, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his bare chest while Jensen spits and rinses and spits again. Jensen turns around and looks at him across three feet of white tile and says, "Is that what this is?"
And the thing is, this shouldn't be Jared's call and not just because of the gay thing, although it's kind of important, the part where he's not actually gay. But he just got out of a relationship and yeah, he likes to fuck around and seeing whoever he wants is fun but it's confusing, too, because he used to be okay without connecting with actual people; he used to go through life and people and friends like he was above it all, and not in a way that he was better or something, because he's pretty fucking great but he wouldn't call himself better, but--more. More superficial and not enough to ever really care and definitely not enough to get hurt.
(Jared is aware that he's the type of guy who never gets close enough to get hurt and the only reason he can stay friends with all his exes is because he stopped caring before the end. Chad says that it's unhealthy, that people need to get hurt to gain emotional maturity or some shit, and Chad is generally a moron so Jared generally doesn't listen to him, which is maybe another reason why it didn't end up being Chad, but that sounds like something that could be true. At least, it could be true about Jared, who's gotten hurt but never by a girlfriend and never by someone he let inside. No one ever expects the Spanish inquisition.)
He's not ready to make that call but he knows what he wants just the same, and he tried to make pie out of tofu so he definitely knows that he cares. It might not be love but there's a huge 'yet' at the end of the sentence, and his mom is always saying if he never tries he'll never succeed. The downside that she never mentions is the whole part where he could fail miserably and he knows this is a completely bad idea because there is the whole gay thing, but.
"Yeah," Jared says, and covers the distance between them in two steps. His bare feet are cold against the tile and he curls his toes against the slick surface, but Jensen's hands are warm around his waist and his smile feels like sunshine on a cloudy day, which might be a cliche or maybe a song, but that doesn't mean it's not true, too.
*
Jensen figures there are really only two ways this thing with Jared can go, and both of them pretty much suck.
Option 1: Crash and Burn
Jensen likes to imagine Option 1 as an alternate universe in which he and Jared are ad execs in the early 1960s, a gay(er) version of Mad Men that's better because it's gay, but worse because it's even more fucking depressing than the actual version, and also neither of them are exactly Don Drapers, so.
So Jensen comes home from a long day at the office of his mid-level ad agency, steps through the front door to a house that's too bright and too dark at the same time. He's married to some beautiful, useless girl who wears her anxiety like a new dress she had sewn on just for that purpose. They have children because it's the fantasy, so of course they have children; beautiful, useless children who he loves but probably not as much as he should and secretly suspects that they aren't his anyway, because of the whole secretly gay thing. The house is perfect and clean and yellow with white trim; the wife is the same and sometimes they can go for days without saying more than "good morning" and "good night" to each other and his tie seems to tighten around his throat every time she speaks his name. This is the life he has built for himself, the life he works to preserve every day when he gets on the train into the city in the morning, reads his paper in the dining car with his breakfast of coffee and a cigarette, blends in with the sea of grey flannel suits streaming into glass-and-steel buildings with papers to sign and people to impress, swimming with the sharks and all that.
Jared's life is the same except marginally better because Jared still thinks he's in love with his wife and Jared still flirts with his secretary and thinks the account execs have the right idea about the war and that Kennedy fellow, but later, when all that falls apart because of one drunken night when they're stuck sharing a hotel room in LA on business, that's when Jared ends up just as miserable as Jensen.
They would call it an affair, which seems like an awfully romantic word to Jensen for what really amounts to cheating; a grand affair and they'd probably also use the word 'swell' a lot, because that's what people in the 60s did, and on nights when Jared goes home to his family--to his wife and kids and their suburban perfection--Jensen will feel even more like he's living a lie that he created and can't get himself out of. It's a feeling of desperation and loneliness and Jared would say, "But you're not alone. You've got me, don't you?" only he'd sound more like Gregory Peck and he'd probably have that weird accent that everyone in shows on Nick atNite seems to have, like they're from Cleavland via Boston and secretly want to be British. Like if you put Madonna and Jackie O in a blender.
And that's generally where Jensen stops with the whole fantasy thing because it's not even a good metaphor, really, and he didn't pay enough attention in history class to know if that's when San Fransisco became the big gay Mecca or what. Because the next part in the fantasy is more like, "Let's run away to California together, it'll be swell!" and then he's just having Brokeback flashbacks because in the end, one of them probably ends up dead. Jensen guesses that's the burn part of the fantasy, but the crash part is more like reality; the crash part is Jared laughing in his face and saying, "I'm not even gay."
Jared kind of says that on a weekly basis, though, so it's not like it would be something new.
Option 2: Fizzle Out
Option 2 doesn't have any fun, period television-based metaphors, but Jensen thinks it's the way things will probably go. Because the thing is, Jared really isn't gay. Jensen maybe tricked him a little into figuring out the joys of gay sex, but the likelihood of Jensen being the one guy that Jared could somehow fall in love with is just ridiculous. Jensen maybe had the one girl he thought he could be with; the one girl he was into enough that it felt like it might be in love someday before she went and fucked her pot dealer and stole his curtains when she left. But Jensen wanted it to be true more than it really was, he thinks, and that makes all the difference. Jared doesn't need it to be true at all.
Jensen can't let himself think that he's that person for Jared. He's done the fall-for-a-straight-guy thing before and it never works out, even when it does for a little while. In the end, it never works out. No one goes on gay vacation and just decides he likes the weather better so he might as well stay. Cabo is fun for a week or until someone overdoses on illegal Mexican prescription drugs, but then it's time to go home, back to reality.
So, Jensen figures, either way it'll end and either way it'll suck, but for now, everything is good and mostly perfect and Jensen is pretty happy. For now.
"Or," Jared says, leaning up on his elbow and tracing a crease in the sheets to the smooth line of Jensen's hip, "we could choose what's behind door number three, Bob."
"A brand new living room set complete with dust covers and matching love seat?" Jensen shivers a little at the slow, barely-there touch of Jared's fingers dragging lightly across his stomach.
"Or, you know, everything could work out awesome and we could live happily ever after." He slides his fingers down, down, until he can wrap them around Jensen's dick in a loose circle that feels like hell and perfect at the same time. Jared smiles and tightens his grip just so, until Jensen's hard and trying to fuck up into Jared's hand, but it's not tight enough, it's not enough, and Jensen needs--something, more, he definitely needs more.
"Don't--ah, no, keep doing that--just, no one lives happily ever after," Jensen says, and groans when Jared takes his hand away, resting it lightly on Jensen's thigh, index finger tapping out a quick, stuttering rhythm.
"Look," Jared says, "I get the whole Don Draper fantasy. He's not really my type, but I can maybe see where you're coming from. I mean, I get that you wanna bone him anyway, but no way would your wife be January Jones-level of hotness. Firstly."
"Firstly?" Jensen covers his eyes with his forearm and sighs. "Okay so, we're really talking about this?"
"Well I'm not jerking you off anymore, so clearly, we're gonna talk about this."
"Okay firstly, let's go back to how Don Draper isn't your type, because I'm pretty sure that says it all right there. What is your type, Jared? I'm not complaining, I'm definitely not complaining, but it's not like this is something you've done before, right?"
"I've never done this before. You're totally my gay de-virginizer. But that doesn't mean I'm just fucking around, either."
Jensen slides his arm over his head and gives Jared a look that he hopes conveys the full amount of doubt that he feels. "People aren't just gay for one person, Jared. It doesn't work like that."
"Look, all I know is me and my own special level of gay. Maybe I don't want to bone Don Draper, but I do want to suck your dick. I don't really know where that leaves us, but like. Does it even fucking matter? Can't you just let me suck you off and be happy with the fact that I want to do it?"
"I. Yes, okay. But that doesn't mean we get to choose door number three. Vacations end, that's the whole thing--nature--of vacations. They end and then everyone has to go back to work and real life and all that. So door number three isn't really--"
"Shut the fuck up," Jared says, leaning down to mouth his way up Jensen's dick, "and I'll give you a happy ending."
"That's not cheesy at all," Jensen says, smiling a little and then moaning a lot, because this is maybe Jared's first and only gay vacation, but he's staying for a while and it shows.
It's not a happy ending, Jensen thinks. They're maybe not in love, or, well, Jared isn't in love anyway, and there's still options 1 and 2 to worry about. Jared is still an arrogant asshole who can get everything he wants if he smiles the right way, and Jensen is still convinced he's going to get hurt in the end because that's the way his story usually goes. But that's kind of the point, too, because--
Because it's not a happy ending at all, if it's still only just the beginning.
Fandom: CW RPS
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Rating: Adult
Warnings: recreational drug use
Comments: So originally, I was writing this for spn_j2_bigbang. But then I lost my inspiration and, well, I couldn't write the story I was planning to write. More on that later. For now I need to thank wendy, babyofthegroup, and madame_d for their kind words, attempts to help, and helping me see that I don't owe anyone a love song story. Also thanks to llamabitchyo and kira_j for their input and for telling me this totally makes sense, even if it doesn't.
Most of you probably know that my friend danxsunday died about a month ago. I am not capable of going into all of that, of talking about it, but I think I should say that most of this was written in the haze of that terrible week he was in the hospital waiting to die. At this point, I can't tell if it's brilliant or terrible, and I honestly don't care. I wanted to write him the happy ending he never got. I wanted to write something that would help me feel closure. This didn't turn out to do either of those things and that's why I decided to bow out of Big Bang, finish the story in whatever way I could, and get it out into the world and out of my head for good.
Writing is about a mixture of catharsis and obsession for me. I get an idea and I can't let it go until it's out of my hands and into other people's heads. I wrote 8000 words of this fic in the two days after Dan died, and then it just--stopped. And when I read it back, when I let other people read it, they didn't know what to make of it. It makes sense to me. This is something you should know. As weird and disjointed as it might read, it makes complete and total sense to me. I don't know if it's possible for me to take the very clear picture of this story I have in my head and put it down on paper in a way that makes sense to other people. I tried to clean it up, added a lot of things to help the reader pick up what I'm putting down. I have no idea if my rewrites were successful.
Some people might wonder why I'm posting this if I'm so unsure of it. The truth is, I need it to be out of my control. Good or bad, once other people read it, I don't need to worry or think about it anymore. Catharsis, right? That said, I hope you enjoy it. I really love it, even if it's not perfect.
*
Later Days
He was six years old the day Jared discovered that the world didn't revolve around him.
It wasn't that he was dumb, because he wasn't. Everyone said he was one of the smartest boys they'd ever met, and he knew it inside, too; an innate sense of self-worth that came from understanding everything the first time and before all the other kids in his class. He was tall and strong and sharp; at recess they had races, him and the other boys while the girls watched from the brown grass in the center of the make-shift dirt track, and Jared always won, unless he decided to let one of the others win, just because he could. He didn't know about charm yet because that wouldn't come until later, the purposeful use of a smile or a touch, the way he'd tilt his head just so to expose the long line of his neck like a surrender--all these things would come later, but for now, when Jared was six and still learning, he knew that if he asked a certain way or smiled just so, things would happen the way he wanted them to.
Everything changed that day, though. Like a sudden shift, like when you're playing the spinning game, spinning round and round trying to be the last one standing and when you finally stop, everything swims three inches to the left. That's how Jared felt the day he figured out that the world did not revolve around him. Megan was almost four and she did whatever Jared said; she looked up at him with big eyes and he could get her to do whatever he wanted because that was just how he was, but she was a little kid and boring and there wasn't much Jared wanted her to do.
But sometimes he got bored. He got bored and he said, "Hey Meggie, I think you should eat this, doesn't it look yummy?" And Jared watched her eat the play-doh cookies one after the other, blue with magenta sprinkles on top and she cried a little and said, "Tastes bad, tastes bad," but Jared said, "Come on, Meg, just a little more." He wanted to see what would happen, is all. It was non-toxic, it said so on the canister, and he wasn't sure exactly what that meant but he knew it wouldn't hurt her, not really. Mostly, he just wanted to see if she'd do it.
Nothing happened and nothing happened until dinner that night, when Megan said, "My tummy hurts" and then spent the rest of the night vomiting. It was a swirl of pink and blue and brown, and his mom said, "What did you eat?" and Jared was so sure she wouldn't tell because he said not to, he said it was a secret and Megan always did what he said, but not this time.
Everyone yelled at him, which meant his mom and his dad and even Jeff looked kind of angry but probably just that no one was paying any attention to him as usual, and Megan cried and cried and said, "I didn't mean it." Jared didn't cry. It was a puzzle, he thought. A puzzle and the last piece just wouldn't fit in no matter which way he tried to push it. Mom was mad and Dad was very mad and they were both disappointed and Jared felt a weird sadness, like he lost something important, like maybe his new dirt bike got stolen or Bunny got lost and he couldn't find it. It was a sadness like that, but he didn't cry and he was only six; he was smart but he wouldn't really understand what this feeling was until much later, many years from now when he's standing in a bare room in Vancouver saying, "You don't have to go. You don't want to go. Why does anything need to change?" He will tilt his head just so and expose the long line of his throat like a surrender, and Jensen will look at him and say, "You can't stop things from changing, and you can't change the world."
But for now, when Jared was six years old and only just beginning, this was new, a dark discovery that he did not control everything and maybe he never did. His mouth tasted sour and gross and he thought this must be his punishment for something he couldn't even name.
The next day at the races, Jared lost to Bobby McNulty, and it wasn't even on purpose. He tasted the same sourness in his mouth that he did the night before and for second, he wanted to hit Bobby, he wanted to punish something because he lost, and it wasn't really about the race at all, it was about that sad feeling like something had been taken from him and he was never going to get it back. He wanted to hit Bobby but he smiled through the sourness instead, said, "Good race, good race," just like all the other times when he was the winner. He leaned over, hands on his knees and breath coming in soft pants, spat out the sour into the hard-packed dirt of the yard.
*
Jensen has only been in love twice before and he only ever admits to the second time because the first time he was sixteen and he fucked it up beyond the telling, so Jensen doesn't. The second time was Chris and Jensen thinks that didn't really count because nothing ever happened except Steve saying, "Man, you gotta get over this 'cause it ain't gonna happen," and Jensen spending the next three months drinking too much and trying not to think about it. If he didn't think about, he decided at the time, it would just fade away, and he was right. He still loves Chris but he's not in love with him, and he doesn't even flinch when Chris brings it up.
"You weren't ever really in love with me, though," Chris says. "I was just an easy target so you didn't have to consider a real relationship with someone who might actually love you back."
It's possible that Chris is right, but Jensen knows what love feels like, and he knows the exact moment that he officially falls in love with Jared. They're at a convention and Jensen can't even remember which city they're in at this point except that it's bitterly cold and he can hear the wind whistling against the windows of his hotel room at night. He thinks they're in Chicago, maybe; someplace cold and windy with a lake, anyway, and it could be anyplace in the Midwest but Jensen doesn't even want to leave his hotel room to find out. It's not like it matters, anyway.
Jensen isn't good at cons. He's not good with fans or people in general, but especially at cons. Jared just laughs and says, "Just be yourself, man. They already love you," but Jensen thinks sometimes that maybe that's the problem. He was in a soap so he knows how it goes. He knows people will love him because they think they know him; they'll do their research and haunt the fan forums and send him long letters about how much he means to them, these people that he's never met. Jensen can't be himself around these people; he doesn't want to be himself around them, because if they knew him, they'd know he's just some guy and he's not special and he's not important.
Besides, being himself is something he keeps for the people who matter.
So Jensen isn't good at cons, and when Jared knocks on his door that morning so they can walk down to the panel together, Jensen opens the door and looks at him and Jared just seems to know thatsomething's not right. He tilts his head to the side, glances at their network PR girl out of the corner of his eye. "Melinda, can you stay out here and watch the door for a minute? I gotta show Jensen something in private."
Melinda looks annoyed and starts to say something about being on time and their duty to the fans, but Jared just waves her off and steps into the room, shutting the door while she's still in mid-sentence. "I was saving this for after," Jared says, lips quirking upward in a little grin, "but I think you need it now." He pulls out a baggie and waves it in Jensen's face. Pre -rolled joints, so perfect they look factory-made, and Jensen knows it's a bad idea but one won't hurt. One will be just enough to get him through.
They sit on the floor facing the windows, backs leaning up against the bed and the curtains open wide, the city stretched out in front of them in a grey haze of early morning, lights just now coming on in offices while the orange street lights wink off as the watery sun rises. Jared's arm brushes against his when he passes Jensen the joint and he rests his hand on Jensen's knee, fingers spreading warm and wide over dark denim. Jensen takes a hit and closes his eyes, smiling a little when he feels Jared's hair slide across his neck as he rests his head on Jensen's shoulder.
They're going to be late, Jensen thinks, and he doesn't care. Jared's arm slides around Jensen's waist and Jensen thinks, this is what he wants. This is who he wants. Jensen's only been in love twice before, and only the once that he'll actually admit to anyone but himself, but he knows what this feeling is. He smiles to himself and thinks, third time's the charm.
*
Jared is in love with Sandy right up until the moment when he isn't, suddenly, and it's not like he plans it this way; he doesn't plan for it to come out at a convention, and on the phone that night Jensen says, "You can't give so much of yourself away, man. You just can't." Jared knows he's right. Jensen is usually right, but Jensen's the one with the fake girlfriend so Jared's pretty sure he doesn't really want to take relationship advice from Jensen.
It isn't something big. They don't have a fight and no one cheats on anyone else. He just looks at her, sitting on the bed in his hotel room in a t-shirt and boxer shorts, hair pulled back and legs crossed at the ankles in front of her while she watches the news and he thinks, this isn't the life he wants. He loves her but he's not in love with her, and he doesn't even know how long that's been going on but now that he does know, he has to say something. She smiles and he can't even look at her.
"I think we should break up," he says, and that's it.
Things go to shit later, of course. They always do because there's no such thing as an easy breakup or a clean getaway. But for now, Sandy just looks at him with sad eyes like she already knew and says, "I think you should sleep on the couch then."
Right away Jared feels like an asshole and he knows it's because he kind of is one. They were engaged and now they're breaking up, but neither of them had ever even tried to plan a wedding so he guesses they always sort of knew it wouldn't last. That doesn't make him any less of an asshole now, but he's not the only one, he thinks.
He takes a shower and stands there under the hot spray until it starts to turn lukewarm, letting the sound of water against tile drown out his thoughts with its constant, soothing buzz. He can hear her crying in the next room, even over the echoing sound of the water, but he just closes his eyes and tips his head back, hot water running down his cheeks and into his mouth, and he doesn't want to think about it.
And it's not like he expected it to stay a secret, because nothing ever really stays a secret no matter how hard you try, but he doesn't expect it to get out so quickly and he really doesn't expect to get questions about it from fans at a Q&A. It's not hard to say that he doesn't have hard feelings, things just didn't work out and he'll always care about her. He doesn't even need a PR girl for this shit because it's true. The hard part comes later, when he's back in Vancouver and he meets Jensen for a drink at the Backdoor and Jensen wants to talk about it because that's how Jensen is. Feelings and bullshit, and Jared knows that he's sincere about it but there really isn't anything to say.
"I just fell out of love with her, I guess," is what Jared tells him. Jensen's eyes darken and he bites his lip and Jared thinks he should know what that means, but he hasn't been paying attention to Jensen for long enough to read him yet.
"That's bullshit, and you know it," Jensen says. He pushes Jared's drink towards him like a hint. "There's always a reason. You gotta have a reason."
"Maybe." Jared takes a sip of his drink, then another. He's going to get drunk tonight. It's expected; he just broke up with a girl he's been dating since what feels like the beginning of time, so yeah, he should probably get wasted, that would be the appropriate response. "Maybe," Jared says again, staring down at the table, tracing the scars in the wood surface with his eyes, "Maybe I was never in love with her to begin with."
"You seriously don't feel anything?"
Jared shrugs. "It's sad, I guess. But mostly." He pauses, takes another drink, and looks at Jensen. "Mostly I just feel free. And maybe that makes me an asshole, but at least I'm honest."
*
When Jensen was sixteen, he fell in love with the boy next door.
It sounds stupid when he thinks about it now, the few times he lets himself think about it, but that's exactly how it was. He was sixteen and he was shy and weird and a little angry, too, and Seth was beautiful and he knew it. They were never friends, really, because it wasn't that sort of story. It wasn't My Girl and they hadn't known each other since birth or whatever. Seth's family moved into the house next door and a week later, he kissed Jensen sitting on the open back gate of Jensen's truck in the empty parking lot of the Baptist church where they were slowly but surely getting as drunk as possible on a six pack ofLonestar and a bottle of whiskey Seth stole from his dad's secret stash.
"He can't admit it's gone or he'll get in trouble with mom," Seth said, flashing a smile and handing Jensen the bottle. "Just do it. It's not gonna kill you."
When Seth kissed him, he tasted like beer and whiskey and orange fanta, which should've been gross but it wasn't because it was the first time Jensen kissed another guy so it was pretty fucking perfect instead. Because he knew what he liked and he knew he liked guys, but he could pretend enough with girls that it never mattered before, until that kiss and he knew. He knew he could pretend all he wanted but it was always going to matter, after this, and Jensen couldn't take it back. He didn't want to.
They were sixteen and they didn't take anything slow because it already felt like Jensen had been waiting his whole fucking life for this, for someone like him who just got it and didn't need an explanation and didn't blow him off and didn't tell him he was a freak who was going straight to hell, do not pass go, do not collect any heavenly reward. Not that Jensen ever came out to anyone before, but his mom seemed to know anyway and that was the worst. "I was thinking you might like to take Sally Davies to the football game on Friday night," she'd say with this look in her eyes, half-scared and half-angry. So Jensen was pretty sure she knew and it wasn't like she ever said anything, but she had a snide way of letting him know that she knew and she certainly didn't approve. She hated Seth but Seth's mother couldn't give a shit.
"She's hooked on 'ludes," Seth said when Jensen asked. They were in his mother's huge walk-in closet looking for the weed Seth was sure she was hiding somewhere.
"Your mom has some weird shit," Jensen said, watching as Seth pulled open drawer after drawer, fingers running lightly over scraps of silk and nylon in search for the elusive bag of weed. "I don't even know what some of this stuff is."
Seth just looked at him. "Yeah, I'm guessing you don't have a lot of experience with girl's underwear."
"I've had girlfriends before."
"How'd that work out for you?"
"Fuck you," Jensen said, and turned around to leave, but Seth grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back saying, "Don't be so fucking sensitive. It's not like I'm complaining."
Seth was his first blow job and his first time being fucked, but Jensen wasn't lying about having girlfriends so it wasn't like he was a virgin before Seth, either. They never said 'I love you' but Jensen wanted to, sometimes. When they were lying in Seth's bed, sweaty and sticky and tired and Jensen just wanted to do it all over again, Jensen would think, I love you, but he never said it. Seth would always watch him with dark eyes while he got dressed in the late afternoon sunshine and say, "Later days, Jen," and Jensen didn't know what that meant, exactly, but it felt like a promise.
And then summer was over and school started up. Jensen got a girlfriend and that was it. Seth seemed to get it without being told and neither of them were ready to be here and queer or whatever, and it ended. Jensen thought maybe later, when he was older, they might get back together. When they were ready for something as big as that. But Seth went to college on the east coast and his family moved to Houston and Jensen moved to LA and they never saw each other again.
But that was a long time ago, more than ten years ago and now Jensen hardly admits that summer ever happened, except when he's really drunk and then usually only to himself. Two months after Jared breaks up with Sandy, they're back in LA for the hiatus, back in LA at some party with a bunch of people Jensen doesn't know except Jared, and Jared says, "I didn't think it would hurt this much, is all."
Jared is very drunk and Jensen is even more drunk and that's the only reason Jensen tells him the story. "So," Jared says, leaning his head back against the couch and turning his head to look at Jensen through hazy eyes, "you think I fucked up? Is that why you're telling me this?"
"No," Jensen says. He looks at Jared, at the sharp line of his jaw and the way his hair angles perfectly over his eye to brush against his cheekbone. "Not everything is about you, asshole. I'm just saying, you know. Later days. Like, maybe I'll see you, maybe I won't. That's what it was like with you and Sandy, man. It was like later days."
"You're fucking drunk," Jared says, grinning a little. "And that's not what that means, anyway."
"It's not?"
"Not at all," Jared says, and brushes his thumb along the line of Jensen's cheek, just a whisper touch and then it's gone. "You had an eyelash," Jared says. "Make a wish."
*
Jared was special and he knew it from an early age, but at least since he was eleven and could consciously mark the knowledge. It wasn't arrogance if it was true, it was just a fact, like that the sky was blue and gravity was relative: Jared was special. It was something he'd known about himself since before he could remember and people were always telling him, too. He was talented, he was smart and special and he was going to do something amazing one day, whatever he put his mind to. Jared knew this was something that all parents told their children, but he could hear the difference when his said it to him. They told Jeff he was special, too, but Jared didn't think they really meant it. Not in the same way, anyhow.
At school, Jared got elected Most Popular Sixth Grader and he was the only one any of the seventh grade girls would dance with at the end of year dance. His friends said it was because he was tall, he was the only one taller than the girls and that was why, but Leigh Anne Conner told him, "You're different than the other boys, that's all. There's something different about you."
She didn't say 'special,' but Jared knew it just the same.
The summer was hot and golden that year with no rain in sight, and Jared spent most of his time with his friends at the dusty dirt and scrub grass field that called itself a baseball diamond just because someone laid down chalk lines and put up a fence. They used trash pulled out of the nearby dumpster as bases--cardboard boxes and a pillow gone too lumpy for use in the wash--and Jared ran and ran and ran. The air was thick with water off the river and it felt inescapable sometimes, a heavy weight around him that he couldn't shake off no matter what.
That was the first summer he went to acting camp. Just a day camp with the local theater company, nothing special or anything, but there was a boy there called Austin Grey and Jared hated him on sight. Austin was tall and smart and sharp. Austin already knew all about the silly drills and exercises the adults showed them, and he could already do it all perfectly. Austin had hair the color of wheat stalks and it didn't curl at all, not even with the humidity, not even with the heat, just lay perfectly across his forehead in a golden wave.
Austin was special, too, and Jared hated him. Jared knew this was a boy that would never do what Jared wanted; he would never recognize Jared for what he was and he would never acknowledge that they were the same. Jared was learning a lot at the camp, all about tricks for memorization and how to relax, how to let himself inhabit the head space of a character. He was learning a lot but he was angry all the time, too, and Austin's entire existence felt like a mockery to him. Like it was mocking him.
Austin cornered him in the bathroom on the last day of camp, fifteen minutes before their final performance in front of everybody. Parents and teachers and everyone from the camp, and even some of Jared's friends from school, too. Austin looked at him with cool blue eyes and said, "I know what you are." Not meanly, just like a fact--I know what you are.
Jared was smart. He knew he was smart but he had no idea what Austin Grey meant by that, except that it made him angry. Angrier than he already was, angrier than he'd ever been before. Austin tilted his head to the side just so, and Jared punched him in the face, just like that.
It wasn't a hard punch or anything and all it really did was glance off the sharp line of Austin's jaw, but his hand flew up to cover the dark red blotch blooming up on his cheek and Jared stared and stared because he'd never seen anything like that before. He'd never hit anyone before and he'd never seen anyone get hit, either. It wasn't the way his knuckles stung and throbbed or the idea of it all, but he suddenly felt sick instead of angry and Austin's eyes were as cool as ever, like he expected that to happen. Like that was what he came in here for in the first place.
They didn't tell what happened, but everyone could see it and Jared got in trouble anyway. His parents were so disappointed in him, and that was the worst part of all. The look in his dad's eyes when he said, "I never thought I'd have to tell you what's right," and his mom's fingers wrapped painfully tight around his arm that evening, standing on the welcome mat of Austin Grey's brick-faced house, apologizing in mumbles through a mesh screen door while Austin's mouth tilted upward in a small, secret smile. Jared never felt so low as this, and he knew then that this was what Austin really wanted. This low thing taking up residence in Jared's chest like the wet night air uncurling its fist inside him and spreading out fingers of doubt and fear and a certain wrongness Jared couldn't describe.
He hadn't really been sorry before, but suddenly he was. "I'm sorry," he said, and he thought that was maybe the first time he ever meant it.
*
They get together finally because they're both single and Jensen's been in love with Jared for almost a year and Chris says, "Look, the worst he can do is say no." Jensen thinks, no, the worst he can do is stop being friends, and sometimes he thinks Jared is an asshole but never like that and he's never a bad guy. He's never mean or cruel and Jensen knows Jared cares about him, at least. He knows that much.
Jared says no. He doesn't say the word because Jensen isn't that obvious, but he's just obvious enough for Jared to finally get the idea. He says no a couple times in that way that straight guys do, where they think it's not even in the realm of possibility but only because they never thought of it before. And then one night they're sitting in Jared's truck after the bar, warm air blasting from the vents because it's only September but it's already fucking cold as hell here, and Jared says, "This isn't a date," but then he leans over and kisses Jensen just the same, like he can't quite help it.
And the thing about Jared is, he's the worst kind of asshole because he gets everything he wants even when he doesn't think to ask for it, but he's so fucking likable that Jensen can't just hate him for it like a sane person would; he can't hate Jared not even a little. Jared kisses him like it's no big deal now that he's decided to just go ahead and do it. He kisses Jensen like it isn't a complete mindfuck, like it doesn't mean a damn thing even though they both know that's a lie.
Not that Jensen says anything. He pulls away slowly and only after Jared does, wiping his thumb over his bottom lip and not saying a damn word. Things will change or fall apart without his help, he thinks, and that's the difference between him and Jared right there: Jared gets what he wants without saying a word, and Jensen knows better than to even ask.
Jared says, "See you tomorrow," the same way he does every day, with the same exact tilt to his head and the same curve of his mouth. What he's really saying is, "Don't get any expectations." Jensen just shrugs and fumbles for the door handle, slides out of the car into the cold night air. He doesn't have expectations, he really doesn't, but he's not exactly surprised the next time Jared kisses him, either. It's a very careful balancing act. It'd be better if Jensen knew what he was fumbling around with in the first place.
Jared dates women after and between times with Jensen; a lot of women and it hurts a little despite the no expectations thing, because honestly no one ever entirely lacks expectations, even really low ones, but Chris just says, "He's coming back to you, though, right? That's what's important, man, and you just gotta let the rest of it go." Jensen can let it go. He gets it and it's not like he hasn't been there before, either. Letting go doesn't mean he's not disappointed, though.
And it's different than anything Jensen's done before because he's never been friends first, that's never been the more important thing between Jensen and the other people he's been with. Jared can be a dick sometimes and definitely a dick tease, but he's a good guy for the most part. He loves animals and he's nice to mostly everyone and he's charming and he's never once made an off-color remark about Jensen being gay, not even drunk, not even stoned. He's a dick but he's a good person, too, and he's Jensen's best friend after Chris. And Chris isn't around much so Jared is pretty much Jensen's best friend where it matters, so it's different but that doesn't mean it's bad. Just different and maybe even better, if Jared will ever admit it to himself.
Jensen thinks Jared will get there eventually. He just has to keep trying.
*
Girls like Jared and they always have. In high school his friends all went out for football because even JV got rally girls and everyone knew rally girls put out which was pretty much the entire point of high school to begin with, but Jared went out for plays instead. There were plenty of girls in the drama club and all the other guys were fags, so Jared really didn't need a rally girl who was only in it for status or whatever it is rally girls did it for, anyway. Jared didn't have to wait or beg or take some girl out to the movies and the Sonic and have his mom create some giant scary mum for Homecoming before the girl finally let him get to third, because girls liked him. Instead, Jared lost his virginity to Mindy James in the dressing room back stage after the final dress rehearsal for Our Town, and it was the single best experience of his life so far that didn't involve being on a stage.
Mindy was a senior and she said, "I can't believe I just did a sophomore, fuck. Fuck," while pulling her t-shirt back on and staring around the room like she was missing something and her eyes just couldn't seem to catch it. She didn't look at Jared at all. He pulled his pants up and that was it. He never even got to take his shirt off.
He said, "So um. Are we. Is this?"
"This never happened," Mindy said, very slowly, like Jared was five or something. "Okay? Never happened."
"Sure," Jared said, but he was smiling when he left because he just lost his virginity, and it was amazing.
So girls have always liked Jared but he's never really considered the possibility of guys before, until Jensen. It's not like he went into it thinking this would be where he'd end up, accidentally on dates with his best friend who, yeah, he knew was gay or at least not even remotely straight, but he never thought about like that before. Never thought of it as a possibility until the moment he was sitting in his truck with Jensen fidgeting in the passenger's seat and he realized that Jensen had thought about it.
And it's not like Jared is opposed to the idea, he just never really considered it before. But Jensen is Jensen and there's something about him that draws Jared in and keeps him coming back. A certain sincerity that Jared's never really had from another person before, because he's been in love and he thinks he probably was in love with Sandy, after all, but it was never pure, or something. That seems like a really dumb way to think about it because what Jensen does to him is really far from pure, but the look on Jensen's face the first time Jared fucks him, like he's been wiped clean--that means something, Jared thinks. He wants to make Jensen look like that all time.
Jared thinks of himself as being in the business of giving other people what they want, and no one deserves it more than Jensen. It's not egotistical if it's true, Jared thinks.
He's never done it with a guy before and Jensen is his first for a lot of things. First time kissing a guy that doesn't involve being thirteen and a spinning bottle, first blow job, and first time for this, too. Jensen says, "It's just like doing a girl, only better," and grins as he licks his way across Jared's chest. And it's weird but it's really fucking hot, too, especially when Jensen straddles him, strong thighs pressing warm and tight against Jared's hips as he fingers himself open. It's more hot than weird and it's pretty fucking weird, Jared thinks, but it's even hotter when Jared reaches down between them to feel where Jensen's fingers are sliding in and out of his own body. Jensen shivers and makes a low sound in his throat and Jared shivers too because he can feel it, can feel Jensen stretched around his own fingers and yeah, it's really fucking hot. Jensen pulls his hand away and reaches for Jared's dick, sliding down slow in stuttering little glides until all Jared can feel is Jensen all around him, hot and tight.
Sometimes giving other people what they want is satisfying, pleasing in the way that Jared likes control, likes knowing exactly what buttons to press and putting people together like pieces of a puzzle. This is something beyond that, though. It's not egotistical if it's true.
And that's when it happens--the look. Jensen opens his eyes and it's all Jared can see, clear and wide in a face wiped clean of anything else but this. Jared isn't in love but he wants to say it, even though everyone knows that it doesn't count if you say it during sex. And he knows it's not true, anyway. He cares, he cares more than he thought he would, but he's not in love yet and he doesn't know if he's even capable of that with Jensen. He's not going to rule it out, though, because he wants it to be true, and that has to mean something, he thinks. Maybe it's time for a change.
*
There was a brief window of time--maybe three months in the spring of 1998 when he was out of work and going on any audition he could find, living offramen and black beans and a gigantic plastic canister of couscous the guy who lived in his apartment before him left behind--that Jensen thought maybe he could actually do the whole straight thing. Not just as a stop-gap or a public face or to avoid his mom's obvious statements about how the best way to meet a girl was to go to church, but the real thing. Love and sex and marriage and kids. He wasn't in love with her; it was more like he didn't mind being with her and that was better than any other girl he'd tried dating before. But he didn't mind her or even resent her and the sex was actually good and Jensen thought, maybe he could actually do it. Maybe he could have normal after all.
And he was happy. Everything was easier with her just because she was a girl and he didn't have to hide and he could think about a possible future without also thinking about all the other shit that mostly wanting to fuck guys entailed. He could get married and have kids and yeah, he could do that with a guy, but not really, not the same way. Not legally and not naturally, and this wouldn't break his mother's heart, either.
He was happy and it was easy, being with her. She moved into his shitty apartment and they slept on his mattress on the scarred wood floor and she bought sheer white curtains to hang over their lone window on the east wall. She spent all herwaitressing tips on weed but Jensen was okay with that, because he had something he didn't have to hide and that was worth more than sobriety any day.
He was happy until the day he came home from an audition that he thought he actually had a good chance at and finally he might get to work again and he could relax for the first time in a while, maybe do some of the shit they always talked about doing like buying actual furniture and going out instead of staying in and getting high and fucking; he was happy until the day he came home and found her in bed with another guy. In their bed with another guy, or maybe it was just Jensen's bed now, but it was still another guy.
He looked at her, small and pale, starfished across the guy with a thin sheen of sweat between them and he wasn't even surprised. The cheating part, sure, that was a surprise because no one ever expects the Spanish inquisition, but he maybe knew all along that it could never work out because that wasn't the story his life was going to tell. He didn't get to have the dream. He wasn't going to find the girl and get married and have kids and be in a family and make his mom happy. That's not the way it worked.
People were always telling him that normal was relative and relationships weren't easy, but he never really believed them until he saw his girlfriend fucking another guy. He said, "When you're done with that, get your shit and get out," and he left. He didn't even slam the door on his way out because it wasn't like he was jealous or angry or whatever it was heshould've probably been feeling. It wasn't like that at all. It was more like resignation. Like he should've known nothing could be that easy.
But then he decided that he was just whining and went to get a coffee instead. People cheated and got cheated on everyday. It wasn't like he was special.
*
Jared doesn't even realize they're dating--actually dating, with feelings involved and all that shit and not just screwing around--until he finds himself on the phone to his mother trying to make a pumpkin pie out of fucking tofu because that's what Jensen likes; he likes organic shit that's good for you, he's always going on about toxin build up and the importance of non-fatty proteins and how vitamins should always be consumed via natural sources instead of in the handy pills Jared likes to take, "because that shit is filled with chemicals and when are people going to learn that you can't absorb calcium without fat?" And Jared wants to say never because he likes his pills and milk is only drinkable with and inch of chocolate syrup in the bottom of the glass, but he doesn't. Instead he listens like he cares and makes pie out of tofu and gets laughed at by his own mother when the pie turns out to be avomitty-looking mess because he used the wrong kind.
He's actually getting a blow job when he realized about the dating thing, though, but by then it's too late because the pie is ruined and his dick is already in Jensen's mouth and after that, it's really hard to concentrate on things that aren't orgasms.
Because the thing is, he's just having fun and he always thought that if he ever did decide to have some big gay adventure, it'd be with Chad. Chad is his best friend, people seem to find Chad attractive, and Jared loves him enough to think that other things might work out, too. He's known Chad forever and Chad makes sense in a way that Jensen doesn't, except he's never wanted to make a pie for Chad and he's never wanted to kiss Chad just to see what it's like. Chad isn't gay, either, so he never really considered the idea with any sort of depth before, but that doesn't change the fact that he always thought it would be Chad.
Chad wouldn't want more. He wouldn't have ended up dating Chad, and Jared's not sure if that's good or bad yet. He's not ever sure if he wants to find out.
Later, after everyone comes over for the orphans' Thanksgiving and there's eating and drinking and the pie has gone in the trash, Jared says, "So when did we start dating?"
Jensen's brushing his teeth and watching Jared strip off his t-shirt in the bathroom mirror, eyes carefully blank and expression closed tight in a way that says he's not going to give anything away so don't even try. He holds up a finger and Jared waits, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his bare chest while Jensen spits and rinses and spits again. Jensen turns around and looks at him across three feet of white tile and says, "Is that what this is?"
And the thing is, this shouldn't be Jared's call and not just because of the gay thing, although it's kind of important, the part where he's not actually gay. But he just got out of a relationship and yeah, he likes to fuck around and seeing whoever he wants is fun but it's confusing, too, because he used to be okay without connecting with actual people; he used to go through life and people and friends like he was above it all, and not in a way that he was better or something, because he's pretty fucking great but he wouldn't call himself better, but--more. More superficial and not enough to ever really care and definitely not enough to get hurt.
(Jared is aware that he's the type of guy who never gets close enough to get hurt and the only reason he can stay friends with all his exes is because he stopped caring before the end. Chad says that it's unhealthy, that people need to get hurt to gain emotional maturity or some shit, and Chad is generally a moron so Jared generally doesn't listen to him, which is maybe another reason why it didn't end up being Chad, but that sounds like something that could be true. At least, it could be true about Jared, who's gotten hurt but never by a girlfriend and never by someone he let inside. No one ever expects the Spanish inquisition.)
He's not ready to make that call but he knows what he wants just the same, and he tried to make pie out of tofu so he definitely knows that he cares. It might not be love but there's a huge 'yet' at the end of the sentence, and his mom is always saying if he never tries he'll never succeed. The downside that she never mentions is the whole part where he could fail miserably and he knows this is a completely bad idea because there is the whole gay thing, but.
"Yeah," Jared says, and covers the distance between them in two steps. His bare feet are cold against the tile and he curls his toes against the slick surface, but Jensen's hands are warm around his waist and his smile feels like sunshine on a cloudy day, which might be a cliche or maybe a song, but that doesn't mean it's not true, too.
*
Jensen figures there are really only two ways this thing with Jared can go, and both of them pretty much suck.
Option 1: Crash and Burn
Jensen likes to imagine Option 1 as an alternate universe in which he and Jared are ad execs in the early 1960s, a gay(er) version of Mad Men that's better because it's gay, but worse because it's even more fucking depressing than the actual version, and also neither of them are exactly Don Drapers, so.
So Jensen comes home from a long day at the office of his mid-level ad agency, steps through the front door to a house that's too bright and too dark at the same time. He's married to some beautiful, useless girl who wears her anxiety like a new dress she had sewn on just for that purpose. They have children because it's the fantasy, so of course they have children; beautiful, useless children who he loves but probably not as much as he should and secretly suspects that they aren't his anyway, because of the whole secretly gay thing. The house is perfect and clean and yellow with white trim; the wife is the same and sometimes they can go for days without saying more than "good morning" and "good night" to each other and his tie seems to tighten around his throat every time she speaks his name. This is the life he has built for himself, the life he works to preserve every day when he gets on the train into the city in the morning, reads his paper in the dining car with his breakfast of coffee and a cigarette, blends in with the sea of grey flannel suits streaming into glass-and-steel buildings with papers to sign and people to impress, swimming with the sharks and all that.
Jared's life is the same except marginally better because Jared still thinks he's in love with his wife and Jared still flirts with his secretary and thinks the account execs have the right idea about the war and that Kennedy fellow, but later, when all that falls apart because of one drunken night when they're stuck sharing a hotel room in LA on business, that's when Jared ends up just as miserable as Jensen.
They would call it an affair, which seems like an awfully romantic word to Jensen for what really amounts to cheating; a grand affair and they'd probably also use the word 'swell' a lot, because that's what people in the 60s did, and on nights when Jared goes home to his family--to his wife and kids and their suburban perfection--Jensen will feel even more like he's living a lie that he created and can't get himself out of. It's a feeling of desperation and loneliness and Jared would say, "But you're not alone. You've got me, don't you?" only he'd sound more like Gregory Peck and he'd probably have that weird accent that everyone in shows on Nick atNite seems to have, like they're from Cleavland via Boston and secretly want to be British. Like if you put Madonna and Jackie O in a blender.
And that's generally where Jensen stops with the whole fantasy thing because it's not even a good metaphor, really, and he didn't pay enough attention in history class to know if that's when San Fransisco became the big gay Mecca or what. Because the next part in the fantasy is more like, "Let's run away to California together, it'll be swell!" and then he's just having Brokeback flashbacks because in the end, one of them probably ends up dead. Jensen guesses that's the burn part of the fantasy, but the crash part is more like reality; the crash part is Jared laughing in his face and saying, "I'm not even gay."
Jared kind of says that on a weekly basis, though, so it's not like it would be something new.
Option 2: Fizzle Out
Option 2 doesn't have any fun, period television-based metaphors, but Jensen thinks it's the way things will probably go. Because the thing is, Jared really isn't gay. Jensen maybe tricked him a little into figuring out the joys of gay sex, but the likelihood of Jensen being the one guy that Jared could somehow fall in love with is just ridiculous. Jensen maybe had the one girl he thought he could be with; the one girl he was into enough that it felt like it might be in love someday before she went and fucked her pot dealer and stole his curtains when she left. But Jensen wanted it to be true more than it really was, he thinks, and that makes all the difference. Jared doesn't need it to be true at all.
Jensen can't let himself think that he's that person for Jared. He's done the fall-for-a-straight-guy thing before and it never works out, even when it does for a little while. In the end, it never works out. No one goes on gay vacation and just decides he likes the weather better so he might as well stay. Cabo is fun for a week or until someone overdoses on illegal Mexican prescription drugs, but then it's time to go home, back to reality.
So, Jensen figures, either way it'll end and either way it'll suck, but for now, everything is good and mostly perfect and Jensen is pretty happy. For now.
"Or," Jared says, leaning up on his elbow and tracing a crease in the sheets to the smooth line of Jensen's hip, "we could choose what's behind door number three, Bob."
"A brand new living room set complete with dust covers and matching love seat?" Jensen shivers a little at the slow, barely-there touch of Jared's fingers dragging lightly across his stomach.
"Or, you know, everything could work out awesome and we could live happily ever after." He slides his fingers down, down, until he can wrap them around Jensen's dick in a loose circle that feels like hell and perfect at the same time. Jared smiles and tightens his grip just so, until Jensen's hard and trying to fuck up into Jared's hand, but it's not tight enough, it's not enough, and Jensen needs--something, more, he definitely needs more.
"Don't--ah, no, keep doing that--just, no one lives happily ever after," Jensen says, and groans when Jared takes his hand away, resting it lightly on Jensen's thigh, index finger tapping out a quick, stuttering rhythm.
"Look," Jared says, "I get the whole Don Draper fantasy. He's not really my type, but I can maybe see where you're coming from. I mean, I get that you wanna bone him anyway, but no way would your wife be January Jones-level of hotness. Firstly."
"Firstly?" Jensen covers his eyes with his forearm and sighs. "Okay so, we're really talking about this?"
"Well I'm not jerking you off anymore, so clearly, we're gonna talk about this."
"Okay firstly, let's go back to how Don Draper isn't your type, because I'm pretty sure that says it all right there. What is your type, Jared? I'm not complaining, I'm definitely not complaining, but it's not like this is something you've done before, right?"
"I've never done this before. You're totally my gay de-virginizer. But that doesn't mean I'm just fucking around, either."
Jensen slides his arm over his head and gives Jared a look that he hopes conveys the full amount of doubt that he feels. "People aren't just gay for one person, Jared. It doesn't work like that."
"Look, all I know is me and my own special level of gay. Maybe I don't want to bone Don Draper, but I do want to suck your dick. I don't really know where that leaves us, but like. Does it even fucking matter? Can't you just let me suck you off and be happy with the fact that I want to do it?"
"I. Yes, okay. But that doesn't mean we get to choose door number three. Vacations end, that's the whole thing--nature--of vacations. They end and then everyone has to go back to work and real life and all that. So door number three isn't really--"
"Shut the fuck up," Jared says, leaning down to mouth his way up Jensen's dick, "and I'll give you a happy ending."
"That's not cheesy at all," Jensen says, smiling a little and then moaning a lot, because this is maybe Jared's first and only gay vacation, but he's staying for a while and it shows.
It's not a happy ending, Jensen thinks. They're maybe not in love, or, well, Jared isn't in love anyway, and there's still options 1 and 2 to worry about. Jared is still an arrogant asshole who can get everything he wants if he smiles the right way, and Jensen is still convinced he's going to get hurt in the end because that's the way his story usually goes. But that's kind of the point, too, because--
Because it's not a happy ending at all, if it's still only just the beginning.