(no subject)
Title: Quintessence
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, Jensen/OMCs
Rating: R
Summary: This is what makes him what he is.
Word Count: 3,860
Disclaimer: It’s all made up.
Note: Thank you, raynemaiden, for all your help.
Also at AO3.
i. fire
It's not fair.
It's not fair, this proximity sparking the air, eating up the oxygen. Jensen opens his mouth, fish-pursed, swollen but dry. So thirsty, so filled up with hunger, the want presses inside to outside like a reverse emptiness. Each follicle on his arm stands up like a filament, catching bright in the sun, goosebumps despite the radiating heat beating down on him, the heat radiating from beside him.
Jared. Jared could fuel him, a limitless reserve of energy flaring out, touching everyone.
Jared touches everyone, giving himself away so much, Jensen longs to janitor what he leaves behind, gather up with dustpan and broom all these castaway affections. Not everyone deserves them. Not everyone wants them. But Jensen does. And maybe he too is undeserving. But want wins out over deprecation.
They wait for the lighting to be reset, accommodate the sudden parting of clouds. But Jared hasn't moved, so Jensen doesn't move. They wait, knee almost to knee, elbow almost to elbow, in a field of sun-bleached stalks stiff and barely yielding beneath them, surrounding them, a forest of dried husks. Brittle but still resistant, the stalks shake and snap all around them under feet and repositioned equipment. Under their own hands too, the stalks shorten and subdivide, reduced to matchsticks. Jensen's collecting more than Jared, stockpiling against the burn in his throat, where the words flame up then extinguish themselves until he has nothing left to say, let alone the means to say it.
Talking is Jared's strength, and its absence weakens Jensen. There have been comfortable silences between them. But if this silence has any, its comfort is one-sided. Jensen requires the routine of Jared's blather, the reassuring buzz of it, insect drone and flapping hands, the occasional biting remark-usually at Jensen's expense-that Jensen brushes away, feigning irritation.
Undoubtedly, Jared is an irritant. But the kind that prickles your skin, light tickle, low throb, until you feel electric in the aftercurrent of his presence. Awake, alive, where Jensen didn't realize, up until that very point, he was asleep or deadened. Right now, Jensen longs for it as much as he dreads it. Because it's getting to be too much.
But he doesn't know which is worse: too much Jared or too much of this silence.
Jared answers the question for him: his hand stills Jensen's, circling his wrist and coaxing it out of reach of another stalk. When he drops Jensen's hand to his knee, the residual burn of his touch rings Jensen's wrist, spiraling up and in tighter and tighter coils. Too much of Jared is never enough. He wants more. He's grown feverish with want.
"It's not fair," he mutters but, caught in his dry throat, it croaks, sudden and loud.
Jared leans in. "What's not?" His voice is too soft, it barely cuts through the echo of Jensen's own in his ears.
Jensen shakes his head, eyes avoiding Jared's, feeling his gaze and not needing to see it. Not wanting to raise his head to meet him, knowing he can't take it further, meet him at mouth and forehead and chest and down. He can't go down that road. "Nothing," he dismisses.
But Jared says his name, calls out the lie. To which Jensen responds, always has to respond, reeled in to Jared, catch to fisher, sailor's ear to siren's song. He shivers against the resonance of Jared's voice, against the warmth of breath too close to his cheek.
He says, "This." Jensen's fingers extend, reaching for what's nearest. He risks revealing his eyes, knowing they always give him away, yet some part of him wanting them to say what is too much to say, wanting them to convince, to net Jared in with him, tumble them together into this cocoon he's unwittingly made. This snare of heat, so like a touch. It has its grip on Jensen.
He hooks his fingers into the crook of Jared's knee, parting cloth and flesh to make room for himself. He tugs, fitting their knees against each other. "This," he says.
Jared's tongue trips against his teeth like he's trying out words before he speaks, and Jensen almost retreats, not wanting to hear them, imagining what they'll be. But then Jared shifts, lining them up thigh to thigh, something in his eyes flickering. Slowly, his thumb trails the terrain of Jensen's knuckles.
It burns through him like brushfire.
There's nothing left, not one thing left of his resistance. He gives in, opening his lips for whatever may come.
And then the lighting guys are hollering and Phil's yelling and the cameras are rolling and they're waiting. "Whenever you're ready, boys."
ii. metal
When Jensen was eighteen, longing twisted with curiosity, stuck to his skin, stubborn like an itch. He scratched and scratched, came away with no relief. Away, in Los Angeles, it settled over him, a layer of grime, unseen but felt. He scrubbed at himself in cold showers, soapy hands scrambling to strip him of all that grit that weighed him down. But he always came out unclean.
He tried not touching himself for a week. He made it four days.
On the fifth day: another camera clicking, another flashbulb freezing him in place. Another proposition-not the first since he came to this city, nor the second. It was no longer worth counting.
The shoot was outside, in the open, but the sun didn’t reach him. A web of steel ensnared him, set in cool grays and cold blues, nothing but hard lines, sharp angles of metal pinching into his skin each time he changed position. He curled in on himself, like he was told, and the photographer crept closer.
The man adjusted the angle of Jensen’s head, thumb supporting his chin. Then there was warmth on his lips, trying to get inside. And he let it. Didn't jerk away like all the other times.
He called Jensen boy. He called him beautiful. He bent him over the scaffold and spread him wide for God and all His creation to see. Touching him tenderly, soothing and shushing unnecessarily through Jensen's quiet, he licked long lines between his legs, then shorter and shorter. Suddenly, he was inside Jensen. Hot, wet, muscle pushing against muscle. Jensen uncurled one hand from the metal piping, shaking from the strain, reached between his own legs and came before his fist had even completed the first stroke.
His name was David. But Jensen doesn't remember his last name, or the color of his eyes or the shape of his nose. Just dark hair, an infectious smile and strong hands, peeling him apart.
It wasn't his first time-quick touches in the locker room shower, that time Ty's parents went away leaving the key to the liquor cabinet so poorly hidden under an angel-shaped paperweight and that other time he stole some of Josh's stash, later sprawling, wasted on the couch, and Ty's fingers at his waist and his own in Ty's hair, holding, holding on.
But this was the first time he let it go, just let it go.
He knew what he was. He knows what he is.
Knowing doesn't make it any easier.
iii. air
What he knows now is that maybe there's the potential for some reciprocity with Jared. He thinks the first step was taken in the field, the glint of promise, pinprick on the horizon.
But that was days ago. Routine doesn't break easily, and they slip back into the pattern of playing their roles, on and off screen. Jensen tells himself he's too tired to push further, that Jared's too tired to have to juggle this possibility between them with the long hours of work and everything else that hardly fit into each day.
When the week's over, they go out for steaks-because it's Friday, because it's what they do. Jensen prepares himself for another meal of Jared talking with his mouth full, Jared chewing loudly, Jared kicking his feet out and into the table leg and into Jensen's leg, Jared waving his hands while he talks, a constant threat to every glass object on the tabletop. Jensen smiles in anticipation.
At the restaurant, Jared stays quiet. He asks what Jensen's decided on, orders his own meal, makes a comment about the typo on the beer and wine list. But otherwise he doesn't talk. It unnerves Jensen. He's suddenly back in the field, sitting among the stalks of wheat, want and need and apprehension circuiting through him so lightning quick he feels his whole body rock with it, pulse pushing through all the tissue and sinew, stuttering through his skin. Surely Jared must see. Surely by now he knows.
They eat their food in silence, nothing but the murmuring and scraping and clinking of the diners around them. All sound seems to cut off at their table. Everything diminishes. Jensen barely tastes his steak, is only mildly aware of the slide of it down his throat, pepper tickling him into a cough, his mouth drier after the alcohol.
Jared pushes a glass of water toward him and Jensen nods, clutching at it. His fingertips brush over Jared's and Jared lets go with a start, pulling back sharply, then hesitating, his hand hovering over the table before letting it fall.
The cough calms down after a few gulps of water and some dragged-in breaths. Jensen puts down the glass, eyes drawn to Jared's fingers where they're worrying the tablecloth into bunches and wrinkles.
"Sorry," he says. And it feels stupid, apologizing for the cough or apologizing for accidentally touching Jared. Jared, who's never flinched at touches before.
"No, it's," Jared says. "No." He stretches across the table, cloth rumpling in his wake. His hand wraps around Jensen's forearm. "You okay?"
Reflexively, Jensen says, "Yeah." He looks down at Jared's fingers as they squeeze around him, a firm pressure of reassurance. This is the part where he's supposed to let go, return to his own personal space. Even Jared, with all his people-touching, follows those rules. But his hand stays, stills. And then he loosens his hold. His fingers skate down the length of Jensen's arm. His thumb smoothes over the round of his wrist bone. Blood rushes to Jensen's face. He can feel the prickling of sweat at his temples, the back of his neck, the small of his back, beneath his arms, between his legs. His breaths quicken, each scraping shallow into his lungs. Such a simple touch, so tender, and he feels like he's coming undone.
"Jensen." Jared holds onto his arm, and it's like he's holding him together. For a moment, Jensen thinks maybe things need to fall apart before they can be put back together. They can do this. They can be something more than what they already are. Because they want it. Jared wants it just as much as him. There's no mistaking it anymore. He moves his other hand to place it over Jared's.
"And how is everything, sirs?"
Jensen snaps back in his chair, hands falling into his lap. "Fine," he says. "Great." His smile is too tight, he can see it on the waiter's face, mirroring, a near-grimace.
When the waiter leaves, Jensen glances at Jared. His arms are tucked into his sides, straight, pushing into the seat of the booth. The look in his eyes is unreadable.
"Jared, I-"
"Gotta use the bathroom. Be right back."
When Jared returns, the silence returns with him. It weighs everything down, until Jensen can longer look Jared in the eye, his tongue thick in his mouth, dense with words. His lips open to say something. But with too much to say, not knowing what to choose, he shuts his mouth.
He tries again when Jared drives him home, idling on the street. He wants to ask him in, should take the chance. Even for a beer-they've done that before, it doesn't have to mean anything. The expression on Jared's face is expectant. It makes Jensen's stomach flip, overwarm and off balance. He looks down, steadies himself against the open door, and looks back up. The words almost come out.
But, "You should get some rest," is what Jared says.
Jensen cuts himself off, says goodnight instead. He steals a glance at the receding tail lights, willing them back, wanting an opportunity to do it over. In hardly doing anything, he feels like he's destroying everything. Even when within reach, he won't let himself have what he wants. He's so used to the wanting, he could almost convince himself it's better than getting.
That night, Jensen doesn't jerk off with Jared's name on his lips, just like he doesn't drink himself to sleep.
iv. earth
Jared is good at numbers. He strategizes well enough to hustle games of chess. His poker face is only part of his prowess at Texas Hold‘em. Jensen would have no difficulty believing he counts cards. But Jensen's a pragmatist: he's the one who crunches numbers outside of the game, applies them to the real world. He calculates the worth of everything that goes into his work, everything that goes into his life outside of work. He figures the odds of risking his heart and risking his career are at least 10:1, not in his favor either way. He bets against himself, the ultimate gamble.
What he doesn't figure on is how hearts trump practicality.
His heart hammers in his chest all Sunday afternoon, waiting for Jared to arrive for the game. He assumes he'll still show, thinks he'd call if things had changed.
He busies himself with a load of laundry, sorting the lights from the darks and choosing the latter because he's almost out of jeans. There's a dark blue tee-once navy, now faded-ragged at the hem. It belonged to an ex, the first person who told Jensen he loved him. Jensen keeps it because he likes the tree design, likes the softness of the material, worn from use. He keeps it, not thinking of Ryan's clavicles peeking out the collar, or the joint of his elbow and how stray strings from the sleeve would catch in it, or the jut of his hipbones every time Jensen pushed the shirt up and kissed his way down those indentations. That's over. It's gone. Jensen keeps the shirt because it reminds him what it's like to be loved. Physical, tangible, there for everyone to see. He won't admit it, but he knows it's the truth.
The washing machine goes into its second rinse just as Jared knocks at the door.
When Jensen lets him in, Jared totes two cases of Coors Light and one family-sized bag of Doritos in with him.
"Burgers or dogs?" Jensen says.
"Pizza?"
They take five minutes figuring out the order, and it feels like any other Sunday, arguing over crusts and the ratio of pepperoni to sausage, Jensen threatening to add mushrooms, Jared plotting to bribe them into baking broccoli right into the dough. The game's Cowboys versus Packers, and there's no point even betting against each other this time when they're rooting for the same team.
Jared snatches Jensen's Lone Star beanie from the kitchen island and tugs it down over his mess of hair, like always, for good luck. Strands curl around his neck and ears. One lock curls into his eye and Jared blinks rapidly against the intrusion, raising his hand to his face. But Jensen gets there first, nudging it away from his eye and tucking it up under the plush knit. His fingers are already on Jared's temple when he realizes the intimacy of the gesture. He freezes, fractions away from running his fingers up into Jared’s hair or simply running. It could go either way. He doesn't know, so he looks up at Jared for a cue.
The sunlight through the window draws the blues and greens from Jared's eyes. It's misdirection. Suddenly, Jensen finds himself touching the corner of one lid. It opens wider against his touch. His mouth opens too, and Jensen's fingers trail down to it, following the slope of cheekbone.
Jared's throat clicks in a sharp swallow, and Jensen swallows too in response.
Dust motes hang in the shaft of sunlight. Everything feels suspended.
The buzzer goes off on the washer. Jensen jumps. He looks at his own hand, fingers hovering at the edge of Jared's mouth. "I should," he says, and turns and walks away.
He leans over the washing machine when he reaches it, grabbing onto the corners to ground himself. He lowers his head, and it hangs heavy between his shoulders. He should open the lid, get these wet clothes in the dryer, get this done, but the movement seems more trouble than it's worth.
Then Jared's behind him. He can feel his footfall through the floorboards.
"What are-" Jared begins, comes closer. "What is this?"
Jensen doesn't turn around. "I don't know."
"You know," Jared says, inching closer. Jensen feels his presence, warm through his clothes, warmer still on the backs of his arms, the nape of his neck. He shivers against the contrast of Jared's breath hitting his skin, cooling then heating. Jared curves his hand over Jensen's shoulder. For a moment, Jensen thinks he's going to pull him around. But then Jared steps in, practically draping himself over Jensen. His nose presses into the back of his head.
"What do you want, Jensen?" So much nearer, but his voice is quieter, a low whisper Jensen strains to hear over the thudding of his heart. More than that, he feels it, soft resonance shuddering along his scalp.
Not waiting long for an answer, Jared tentatively places his other hand on Jensen's waist, slipping around, fingers splaying wide over his abdomen. "This?" Releasing his grip on Jensen's shoulder, Jared shifts to hold Jensen with both arms, right hand coming up to cover his heart. "Is this what you want?" A kiss to the crook of his neck, and Jensen's biting his lip, eyes squeezed tight. Another beneath his ear, and again at the juncture of his jaw. "Because I want it too." With that, Jensen lets out the breath he's been holding. It burns his lungs, sends tremors down his arms, but Jared holds him through it. All limbs, rooting him.
Entwined like this, he almost forgets where Jared ends and he begins. But Jared says, "Look at me." And Jensen bends to the quiet plea in his voice, twists through the tangle of them together, not wanting to break free. Then they're face to face. Hands to chest and neck, and Jensen's not thinking about it, he's just reaching up, closing his lips over Jared's and sealing them together. Two to one.
The odds are against everyone. But when you've already fallen, there's no point in wagering on where you land.
v. water
They fall into bed. With it unmade and them half-undressed, they're caught up in folds and sleeves and caught up in each other. They wrap around like seaweed, pulling each other down.
Jared drowns out everything-the outside world, the noise in Jensen's head. His thoughts swim, swirl, whirlpool into Jared, Jared and more.
They crash, collide. Teeth clash, stomachs stick. Jared rolls down into Jensen, and Jensen rears up to meet him. All Jensen can feel is the pull of Jared. He follows. Lines them up better, and brings them closer. Groin to groin, chest to chest, thighs against thighs. It's not close enough. There's the separation of jeans, so they shuck these. There's the t-shirt pushed up under Jensen's armpits, so Jensen raises his arms and Jared takes it off him. They reduce themselves to skin and heat and sweat pooling, only shorts clinging to them, thin and taut, revealing them.
Jared slips his hand into the slit of Jensen's boxers, envelops him in a firm fist, palm damp and sliding easily.
Jensen arches, his stomach hollowing, his chest a shipwreck of ribs against which his heart beats out a rapid Morse rhythm. Jared's tongue taps against his, right there, responding to a question Jensen doesn't even have the words to ask. He grabs onto Jared, past the hem of his briefs and beneath them, cupping him, fingertips dipping into the crease. Jared moans, moves faster, and the bed creaks under them.
"Do you think it'll hold?"
Jared laughs into his neck. "We're gonna need a bigger bed."
Biting back his own smile proves pointless with Jared beaming down at him, dimpled and bright eyed, lit up like phosphorescence in the darkened room, the faintest light rippling through the blinds. Playing along, Jensen rolls his eyes anyway. Then waves a hand toward the beside table. While Jared shuffles through the drawer, Jensen strips himself down and burrows back into the bedcovers, limbs outstretched like a starfish. Climbing back onto the bed, Jared stops and stares. His hooded gaze trawls the lengths of Jensen, penetrating deeper than it should. Peeled back, exposing all the tender pink so long sheltered by hard-worn shell-this is what Jared does to him.
"Come here," he tells Jared, and strips him too, lines them up naked and nowhere to hide.
Side by side, they slip back into place, back into each other, fingers and tongues and legs slotting together, eyelashes catching when they kiss.
Unlocking their limbs, Jared hooks his thigh around Jensen's waist. It's unexpected, how he offers himself up to Jensen. He says yes before Jensen asks, guiding his hand between his legs, back into that crease and further. Jensen strokes the pad of his finger up and down, tail bone to perineum, circling then pushing in. Still resistant, despite the slick, so Jensen teases, unwinding Jared with twists and curls until he's two fingers in and two knuckles deep, flexing to find that place that will make Jared writhe and keen.
He's there, and Jared's impatient, urging him on, sheathing him in the latex, pulling him, pulling, saying, "Now, now. Right now."
His hand fits into the back of Jared's knee and lifts, opening him wider. Then Jensen sinks in with one long push. Jared surrounds him, overwhelms him with heat, more than enough to match his need. His hips stutter, stop, then start again. He touches Jared, bringing him along. Slow and steady, cresting like waves, these little pleasures overtake him, then break off, to build up again. He's so close-so close to Jared, close to coming inside him, close to coming apart and crashing as they rock against each other. And it's not fair that it's taken so long to get here, not fair that he's wasted so much time navigating chartless to find out now. That this. This is where he belongs.
"Come for me," he says, curling his tongue into the nautilus of Jared's ear.
And he does, dragging Jensen with him until he can't distinguish one moan from the other, can't divide the tremor of muscles between them, can't separate skin from skin.
Open-mouthed, Jensen gasps for air, caught up in Jared's arms, catching him too. And it's everything he is. This. Them. And nothing more.
Feedback is always appreciated, including concrit.
Pairing: Jensen/Jared, Jensen/OMCs
Rating: R
Summary: This is what makes him what he is.
Word Count: 3,860
Disclaimer: It’s all made up.
Note: Thank you, raynemaiden, for all your help.
Also at AO3.
i. fire
It's not fair.
It's not fair, this proximity sparking the air, eating up the oxygen. Jensen opens his mouth, fish-pursed, swollen but dry. So thirsty, so filled up with hunger, the want presses inside to outside like a reverse emptiness. Each follicle on his arm stands up like a filament, catching bright in the sun, goosebumps despite the radiating heat beating down on him, the heat radiating from beside him.
Jared. Jared could fuel him, a limitless reserve of energy flaring out, touching everyone.
Jared touches everyone, giving himself away so much, Jensen longs to janitor what he leaves behind, gather up with dustpan and broom all these castaway affections. Not everyone deserves them. Not everyone wants them. But Jensen does. And maybe he too is undeserving. But want wins out over deprecation.
They wait for the lighting to be reset, accommodate the sudden parting of clouds. But Jared hasn't moved, so Jensen doesn't move. They wait, knee almost to knee, elbow almost to elbow, in a field of sun-bleached stalks stiff and barely yielding beneath them, surrounding them, a forest of dried husks. Brittle but still resistant, the stalks shake and snap all around them under feet and repositioned equipment. Under their own hands too, the stalks shorten and subdivide, reduced to matchsticks. Jensen's collecting more than Jared, stockpiling against the burn in his throat, where the words flame up then extinguish themselves until he has nothing left to say, let alone the means to say it.
Talking is Jared's strength, and its absence weakens Jensen. There have been comfortable silences between them. But if this silence has any, its comfort is one-sided. Jensen requires the routine of Jared's blather, the reassuring buzz of it, insect drone and flapping hands, the occasional biting remark-usually at Jensen's expense-that Jensen brushes away, feigning irritation.
Undoubtedly, Jared is an irritant. But the kind that prickles your skin, light tickle, low throb, until you feel electric in the aftercurrent of his presence. Awake, alive, where Jensen didn't realize, up until that very point, he was asleep or deadened. Right now, Jensen longs for it as much as he dreads it. Because it's getting to be too much.
But he doesn't know which is worse: too much Jared or too much of this silence.
Jared answers the question for him: his hand stills Jensen's, circling his wrist and coaxing it out of reach of another stalk. When he drops Jensen's hand to his knee, the residual burn of his touch rings Jensen's wrist, spiraling up and in tighter and tighter coils. Too much of Jared is never enough. He wants more. He's grown feverish with want.
"It's not fair," he mutters but, caught in his dry throat, it croaks, sudden and loud.
Jared leans in. "What's not?" His voice is too soft, it barely cuts through the echo of Jensen's own in his ears.
Jensen shakes his head, eyes avoiding Jared's, feeling his gaze and not needing to see it. Not wanting to raise his head to meet him, knowing he can't take it further, meet him at mouth and forehead and chest and down. He can't go down that road. "Nothing," he dismisses.
But Jared says his name, calls out the lie. To which Jensen responds, always has to respond, reeled in to Jared, catch to fisher, sailor's ear to siren's song. He shivers against the resonance of Jared's voice, against the warmth of breath too close to his cheek.
He says, "This." Jensen's fingers extend, reaching for what's nearest. He risks revealing his eyes, knowing they always give him away, yet some part of him wanting them to say what is too much to say, wanting them to convince, to net Jared in with him, tumble them together into this cocoon he's unwittingly made. This snare of heat, so like a touch. It has its grip on Jensen.
He hooks his fingers into the crook of Jared's knee, parting cloth and flesh to make room for himself. He tugs, fitting their knees against each other. "This," he says.
Jared's tongue trips against his teeth like he's trying out words before he speaks, and Jensen almost retreats, not wanting to hear them, imagining what they'll be. But then Jared shifts, lining them up thigh to thigh, something in his eyes flickering. Slowly, his thumb trails the terrain of Jensen's knuckles.
It burns through him like brushfire.
There's nothing left, not one thing left of his resistance. He gives in, opening his lips for whatever may come.
And then the lighting guys are hollering and Phil's yelling and the cameras are rolling and they're waiting. "Whenever you're ready, boys."
ii. metal
When Jensen was eighteen, longing twisted with curiosity, stuck to his skin, stubborn like an itch. He scratched and scratched, came away with no relief. Away, in Los Angeles, it settled over him, a layer of grime, unseen but felt. He scrubbed at himself in cold showers, soapy hands scrambling to strip him of all that grit that weighed him down. But he always came out unclean.
He tried not touching himself for a week. He made it four days.
On the fifth day: another camera clicking, another flashbulb freezing him in place. Another proposition-not the first since he came to this city, nor the second. It was no longer worth counting.
The shoot was outside, in the open, but the sun didn’t reach him. A web of steel ensnared him, set in cool grays and cold blues, nothing but hard lines, sharp angles of metal pinching into his skin each time he changed position. He curled in on himself, like he was told, and the photographer crept closer.
The man adjusted the angle of Jensen’s head, thumb supporting his chin. Then there was warmth on his lips, trying to get inside. And he let it. Didn't jerk away like all the other times.
He called Jensen boy. He called him beautiful. He bent him over the scaffold and spread him wide for God and all His creation to see. Touching him tenderly, soothing and shushing unnecessarily through Jensen's quiet, he licked long lines between his legs, then shorter and shorter. Suddenly, he was inside Jensen. Hot, wet, muscle pushing against muscle. Jensen uncurled one hand from the metal piping, shaking from the strain, reached between his own legs and came before his fist had even completed the first stroke.
His name was David. But Jensen doesn't remember his last name, or the color of his eyes or the shape of his nose. Just dark hair, an infectious smile and strong hands, peeling him apart.
It wasn't his first time-quick touches in the locker room shower, that time Ty's parents went away leaving the key to the liquor cabinet so poorly hidden under an angel-shaped paperweight and that other time he stole some of Josh's stash, later sprawling, wasted on the couch, and Ty's fingers at his waist and his own in Ty's hair, holding, holding on.
But this was the first time he let it go, just let it go.
He knew what he was. He knows what he is.
Knowing doesn't make it any easier.
iii. air
What he knows now is that maybe there's the potential for some reciprocity with Jared. He thinks the first step was taken in the field, the glint of promise, pinprick on the horizon.
But that was days ago. Routine doesn't break easily, and they slip back into the pattern of playing their roles, on and off screen. Jensen tells himself he's too tired to push further, that Jared's too tired to have to juggle this possibility between them with the long hours of work and everything else that hardly fit into each day.
When the week's over, they go out for steaks-because it's Friday, because it's what they do. Jensen prepares himself for another meal of Jared talking with his mouth full, Jared chewing loudly, Jared kicking his feet out and into the table leg and into Jensen's leg, Jared waving his hands while he talks, a constant threat to every glass object on the tabletop. Jensen smiles in anticipation.
At the restaurant, Jared stays quiet. He asks what Jensen's decided on, orders his own meal, makes a comment about the typo on the beer and wine list. But otherwise he doesn't talk. It unnerves Jensen. He's suddenly back in the field, sitting among the stalks of wheat, want and need and apprehension circuiting through him so lightning quick he feels his whole body rock with it, pulse pushing through all the tissue and sinew, stuttering through his skin. Surely Jared must see. Surely by now he knows.
They eat their food in silence, nothing but the murmuring and scraping and clinking of the diners around them. All sound seems to cut off at their table. Everything diminishes. Jensen barely tastes his steak, is only mildly aware of the slide of it down his throat, pepper tickling him into a cough, his mouth drier after the alcohol.
Jared pushes a glass of water toward him and Jensen nods, clutching at it. His fingertips brush over Jared's and Jared lets go with a start, pulling back sharply, then hesitating, his hand hovering over the table before letting it fall.
The cough calms down after a few gulps of water and some dragged-in breaths. Jensen puts down the glass, eyes drawn to Jared's fingers where they're worrying the tablecloth into bunches and wrinkles.
"Sorry," he says. And it feels stupid, apologizing for the cough or apologizing for accidentally touching Jared. Jared, who's never flinched at touches before.
"No, it's," Jared says. "No." He stretches across the table, cloth rumpling in his wake. His hand wraps around Jensen's forearm. "You okay?"
Reflexively, Jensen says, "Yeah." He looks down at Jared's fingers as they squeeze around him, a firm pressure of reassurance. This is the part where he's supposed to let go, return to his own personal space. Even Jared, with all his people-touching, follows those rules. But his hand stays, stills. And then he loosens his hold. His fingers skate down the length of Jensen's arm. His thumb smoothes over the round of his wrist bone. Blood rushes to Jensen's face. He can feel the prickling of sweat at his temples, the back of his neck, the small of his back, beneath his arms, between his legs. His breaths quicken, each scraping shallow into his lungs. Such a simple touch, so tender, and he feels like he's coming undone.
"Jensen." Jared holds onto his arm, and it's like he's holding him together. For a moment, Jensen thinks maybe things need to fall apart before they can be put back together. They can do this. They can be something more than what they already are. Because they want it. Jared wants it just as much as him. There's no mistaking it anymore. He moves his other hand to place it over Jared's.
"And how is everything, sirs?"
Jensen snaps back in his chair, hands falling into his lap. "Fine," he says. "Great." His smile is too tight, he can see it on the waiter's face, mirroring, a near-grimace.
When the waiter leaves, Jensen glances at Jared. His arms are tucked into his sides, straight, pushing into the seat of the booth. The look in his eyes is unreadable.
"Jared, I-"
"Gotta use the bathroom. Be right back."
When Jared returns, the silence returns with him. It weighs everything down, until Jensen can longer look Jared in the eye, his tongue thick in his mouth, dense with words. His lips open to say something. But with too much to say, not knowing what to choose, he shuts his mouth.
He tries again when Jared drives him home, idling on the street. He wants to ask him in, should take the chance. Even for a beer-they've done that before, it doesn't have to mean anything. The expression on Jared's face is expectant. It makes Jensen's stomach flip, overwarm and off balance. He looks down, steadies himself against the open door, and looks back up. The words almost come out.
But, "You should get some rest," is what Jared says.
Jensen cuts himself off, says goodnight instead. He steals a glance at the receding tail lights, willing them back, wanting an opportunity to do it over. In hardly doing anything, he feels like he's destroying everything. Even when within reach, he won't let himself have what he wants. He's so used to the wanting, he could almost convince himself it's better than getting.
That night, Jensen doesn't jerk off with Jared's name on his lips, just like he doesn't drink himself to sleep.
iv. earth
Jared is good at numbers. He strategizes well enough to hustle games of chess. His poker face is only part of his prowess at Texas Hold‘em. Jensen would have no difficulty believing he counts cards. But Jensen's a pragmatist: he's the one who crunches numbers outside of the game, applies them to the real world. He calculates the worth of everything that goes into his work, everything that goes into his life outside of work. He figures the odds of risking his heart and risking his career are at least 10:1, not in his favor either way. He bets against himself, the ultimate gamble.
What he doesn't figure on is how hearts trump practicality.
His heart hammers in his chest all Sunday afternoon, waiting for Jared to arrive for the game. He assumes he'll still show, thinks he'd call if things had changed.
He busies himself with a load of laundry, sorting the lights from the darks and choosing the latter because he's almost out of jeans. There's a dark blue tee-once navy, now faded-ragged at the hem. It belonged to an ex, the first person who told Jensen he loved him. Jensen keeps it because he likes the tree design, likes the softness of the material, worn from use. He keeps it, not thinking of Ryan's clavicles peeking out the collar, or the joint of his elbow and how stray strings from the sleeve would catch in it, or the jut of his hipbones every time Jensen pushed the shirt up and kissed his way down those indentations. That's over. It's gone. Jensen keeps the shirt because it reminds him what it's like to be loved. Physical, tangible, there for everyone to see. He won't admit it, but he knows it's the truth.
The washing machine goes into its second rinse just as Jared knocks at the door.
When Jensen lets him in, Jared totes two cases of Coors Light and one family-sized bag of Doritos in with him.
"Burgers or dogs?" Jensen says.
"Pizza?"
They take five minutes figuring out the order, and it feels like any other Sunday, arguing over crusts and the ratio of pepperoni to sausage, Jensen threatening to add mushrooms, Jared plotting to bribe them into baking broccoli right into the dough. The game's Cowboys versus Packers, and there's no point even betting against each other this time when they're rooting for the same team.
Jared snatches Jensen's Lone Star beanie from the kitchen island and tugs it down over his mess of hair, like always, for good luck. Strands curl around his neck and ears. One lock curls into his eye and Jared blinks rapidly against the intrusion, raising his hand to his face. But Jensen gets there first, nudging it away from his eye and tucking it up under the plush knit. His fingers are already on Jared's temple when he realizes the intimacy of the gesture. He freezes, fractions away from running his fingers up into Jared’s hair or simply running. It could go either way. He doesn't know, so he looks up at Jared for a cue.
The sunlight through the window draws the blues and greens from Jared's eyes. It's misdirection. Suddenly, Jensen finds himself touching the corner of one lid. It opens wider against his touch. His mouth opens too, and Jensen's fingers trail down to it, following the slope of cheekbone.
Jared's throat clicks in a sharp swallow, and Jensen swallows too in response.
Dust motes hang in the shaft of sunlight. Everything feels suspended.
The buzzer goes off on the washer. Jensen jumps. He looks at his own hand, fingers hovering at the edge of Jared's mouth. "I should," he says, and turns and walks away.
He leans over the washing machine when he reaches it, grabbing onto the corners to ground himself. He lowers his head, and it hangs heavy between his shoulders. He should open the lid, get these wet clothes in the dryer, get this done, but the movement seems more trouble than it's worth.
Then Jared's behind him. He can feel his footfall through the floorboards.
"What are-" Jared begins, comes closer. "What is this?"
Jensen doesn't turn around. "I don't know."
"You know," Jared says, inching closer. Jensen feels his presence, warm through his clothes, warmer still on the backs of his arms, the nape of his neck. He shivers against the contrast of Jared's breath hitting his skin, cooling then heating. Jared curves his hand over Jensen's shoulder. For a moment, Jensen thinks he's going to pull him around. But then Jared steps in, practically draping himself over Jensen. His nose presses into the back of his head.
"What do you want, Jensen?" So much nearer, but his voice is quieter, a low whisper Jensen strains to hear over the thudding of his heart. More than that, he feels it, soft resonance shuddering along his scalp.
Not waiting long for an answer, Jared tentatively places his other hand on Jensen's waist, slipping around, fingers splaying wide over his abdomen. "This?" Releasing his grip on Jensen's shoulder, Jared shifts to hold Jensen with both arms, right hand coming up to cover his heart. "Is this what you want?" A kiss to the crook of his neck, and Jensen's biting his lip, eyes squeezed tight. Another beneath his ear, and again at the juncture of his jaw. "Because I want it too." With that, Jensen lets out the breath he's been holding. It burns his lungs, sends tremors down his arms, but Jared holds him through it. All limbs, rooting him.
Entwined like this, he almost forgets where Jared ends and he begins. But Jared says, "Look at me." And Jensen bends to the quiet plea in his voice, twists through the tangle of them together, not wanting to break free. Then they're face to face. Hands to chest and neck, and Jensen's not thinking about it, he's just reaching up, closing his lips over Jared's and sealing them together. Two to one.
The odds are against everyone. But when you've already fallen, there's no point in wagering on where you land.
v. water
They fall into bed. With it unmade and them half-undressed, they're caught up in folds and sleeves and caught up in each other. They wrap around like seaweed, pulling each other down.
Jared drowns out everything-the outside world, the noise in Jensen's head. His thoughts swim, swirl, whirlpool into Jared, Jared and more.
They crash, collide. Teeth clash, stomachs stick. Jared rolls down into Jensen, and Jensen rears up to meet him. All Jensen can feel is the pull of Jared. He follows. Lines them up better, and brings them closer. Groin to groin, chest to chest, thighs against thighs. It's not close enough. There's the separation of jeans, so they shuck these. There's the t-shirt pushed up under Jensen's armpits, so Jensen raises his arms and Jared takes it off him. They reduce themselves to skin and heat and sweat pooling, only shorts clinging to them, thin and taut, revealing them.
Jared slips his hand into the slit of Jensen's boxers, envelops him in a firm fist, palm damp and sliding easily.
Jensen arches, his stomach hollowing, his chest a shipwreck of ribs against which his heart beats out a rapid Morse rhythm. Jared's tongue taps against his, right there, responding to a question Jensen doesn't even have the words to ask. He grabs onto Jared, past the hem of his briefs and beneath them, cupping him, fingertips dipping into the crease. Jared moans, moves faster, and the bed creaks under them.
"Do you think it'll hold?"
Jared laughs into his neck. "We're gonna need a bigger bed."
Biting back his own smile proves pointless with Jared beaming down at him, dimpled and bright eyed, lit up like phosphorescence in the darkened room, the faintest light rippling through the blinds. Playing along, Jensen rolls his eyes anyway. Then waves a hand toward the beside table. While Jared shuffles through the drawer, Jensen strips himself down and burrows back into the bedcovers, limbs outstretched like a starfish. Climbing back onto the bed, Jared stops and stares. His hooded gaze trawls the lengths of Jensen, penetrating deeper than it should. Peeled back, exposing all the tender pink so long sheltered by hard-worn shell-this is what Jared does to him.
"Come here," he tells Jared, and strips him too, lines them up naked and nowhere to hide.
Side by side, they slip back into place, back into each other, fingers and tongues and legs slotting together, eyelashes catching when they kiss.
Unlocking their limbs, Jared hooks his thigh around Jensen's waist. It's unexpected, how he offers himself up to Jensen. He says yes before Jensen asks, guiding his hand between his legs, back into that crease and further. Jensen strokes the pad of his finger up and down, tail bone to perineum, circling then pushing in. Still resistant, despite the slick, so Jensen teases, unwinding Jared with twists and curls until he's two fingers in and two knuckles deep, flexing to find that place that will make Jared writhe and keen.
He's there, and Jared's impatient, urging him on, sheathing him in the latex, pulling him, pulling, saying, "Now, now. Right now."
His hand fits into the back of Jared's knee and lifts, opening him wider. Then Jensen sinks in with one long push. Jared surrounds him, overwhelms him with heat, more than enough to match his need. His hips stutter, stop, then start again. He touches Jared, bringing him along. Slow and steady, cresting like waves, these little pleasures overtake him, then break off, to build up again. He's so close-so close to Jared, close to coming inside him, close to coming apart and crashing as they rock against each other. And it's not fair that it's taken so long to get here, not fair that he's wasted so much time navigating chartless to find out now. That this. This is where he belongs.
"Come for me," he says, curling his tongue into the nautilus of Jared's ear.
And he does, dragging Jensen with him until he can't distinguish one moan from the other, can't divide the tremor of muscles between them, can't separate skin from skin.
Open-mouthed, Jensen gasps for air, caught up in Jared's arms, catching him too. And it's everything he is. This. Them. And nothing more.
Feedback is always appreciated, including concrit.