Sailing For Adventure on the Big Blue Wet Thing [PG13] Jared/Jensen
Title: Sailing For Adventure on the Big Blue Wet Thing
Author: queenklu
Beta by: the lovely dugindeep
Rating: ......PG13
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Word Count: 6ishK
Warnings/Summary: Muppets, crack, true love, and Chad. On the high seas.
A/N: *sigh* So. This is for j2_everafter, and the movie The Muppet Treasure Island. I do not know how I talk myself into these things. What was it, last year I turned Jared into an alien dog? And before that, Jensen was an animated rag doll. Wtf my life.
.
YES REALLY.
~~~~~
It’s a little bit like a teen RomCom, Jared thinks, or would think, if the words “teen” or “RomCom” had existed in 19th century England. As it is, Jared thinks, What a lovely boat, and, I wonder why I don’t have an accent? and generally other foolish things until he lays eyes on one Jensen Ackles, after which he thinks, Cor, blimey, and, I wonder if ‘Cor, blimey’ means what I think it means, i.e. Hot Damn.
(If this story had remained set in its proper place and time, Jared might now draw instant parallels between ‘Boy sees boy across a crowded galley, first boy thinks second boy is a stone fox, second boy thinks first boy is decent enough to shag, and they live happily ever after, trala,’ and things might have turned out a bit differently. Oh well.)
“’Allo!” Jared chirps, “This is a handy cove, and a pleasant sittyated grub-shop. Much company, mate?"
The man-who Jared does not know at this moment is the Master Ackles referred to above, who Jared only knows as the cleanest, best-looking bloke on the ship-wrinkles his nose and says, “What the hell is that accent? Australian?”
“Well…hot damn,” Jared blurts, and quickly sits himself down on a barrel of apples, near where his presumed native-countryman is peeling potatoes behind a high counter. “I thought I was the only one.”
He earns a level glare for his trouble. “Did you hear a single critter on deck with a British accent?”
“No,” Jared says, “but they’re critters.”
“Shit, seriously?” The man braces his hands on the counter; Jared is pretty sure he’s sitting on something. He tries to nod vigorously, but his new friend cuts him off. “You can’t find anyone else to be your mentor?”
“I haven’t seen any other humans on the ship,” Jared points out, heels kicking against the barrel beneath him. “I think it’s destiny.”
“I think you should take a long walk off a short plank.”
Jared sticks out his hand, eager to solidify their friendship. “I’m Jared.”
“Fuck off, Jared,” he says, but Jared decides he doesn’t mean it. The potatoes the man is boiling are steaming his face just a smidge, a faint reddening under the freckles scattered across his cheekbones, and Jared thinks he’s actually looking forward to this voyage for the first time since he signed on (and not just mentally skipping ahead to the payoff at the end of it). He keeps his hand outstretched until the other man has to take it, because really, this is how the story goes. “Jensen,” the man grudgingly admits, “I’m the ship’s cook.”
Jensen’s hand is steam-damp and warm, and Jared shakes it with everything he’s got. “Cabin boy,” he replies. “So you’ll see me all the time! Helping out and stuff. I think that’s how it works, anyway. I’ve never been on a boat before.”
“That’s just…awesome,” Jensen mutters, taking his fingers back bit by clasped-too-tight bit.
Jared gives him his biggest smile. The one with dimples and everything. It is awesome; he’s so glad Jensen agrees.
~*~
Captain Morgan, who is a frog (Jared doesn’t get it), expressly forbids every single crewman from uttering the phrase “Got a little Captain in you?” under penalty of hanging (Jared really doesn’t get it), though if Jared wants to give it a go, his captain’s quarters are always open (Jared gets that. A lot. And spends the rest of the first day hiding in the galley because ew, frog).
Anyway, Captain Morgan gets the boat underway in shippety-ship shape and whatnot, with the riggings furling and the sails sailing and it’s all really exciting until Jared realizes that in an entire hour they’ve gone maybe a hundred feet from shore.
“This is totally anticlimactic,” Jared informs Chad, who is a rat, and who agrees.
“Dude, tell me about it. I could swim to Barbados faster than this piece of shit could float.”
“That wasn’t family appropriate,” Jared warns, then sighs, “And for the last time, we aren’t going to Barbados.”
“Dammit,” Chad says, oblivious or unrepentant or both. “Key Largo? Monetgo? Baby, why don’t we go-”
“Down to Kokomo?” Jared cuts him off. “The joke got old, Chad, let it go.”
Chad squints. “I’m a rat. I got limited things to work with, here.” He sidles closer while Jared shows off his exemplary desk swabbing technique. “If you’d just tell me where we’re going…”
“Out to sea, man!” Jared snaps, elbow pressing just a little bit tighter to where the map is pinned under his shirt. “Lay off!”
“You’re the only one who got a good look at that map,” Chad reminds him, and Jared thinks this must be one of those Unwarranted Exposition Things his mother warned him about when becoming a main character. “You’re the one who talked the Captain into commissioning this ship. You’re one of maybe three people who know where we’re headed. In case you’ve forgotten in the two days since brigands busted the old Inn down, Eric “Baby Eater” Bones pressed the map into your hands seconds before he-”
“Chad, look,” Jared says, physically incapable of hearing another word, “You’re fairly ambiguous at the moment; you still have a choice between Amoral Sell-Out Douchebag Who Gets Rightfully Eaten By Sharks, and Plucky Comedic Sidekick Who Might Get A Girl By The End Of The Film If He Plays His Cards Right And She Isn’t Too Instrumental To The Plot. Which is it going to be?”
Chad’s beady eyes study Jared a moment, then his whiskers twitch in something like a nod. “I see your point.”
Which isn’t really an answer, but Jared decides to let it go. Right along with the fact he should point out there seem to be no women in this tale of high adventure. So far.
“Excuse me,” he says instead, passing off the mop, “I believe it’s time for another musical number full of comradeship and brotherhood.”
“No, it isn’t!” Jensen hollers up from the galley.
The sheep are already doing the Macarena, though, so his comment goes largely unnoticed.
~*~
“Jared,” Captain Morgan says immediately after the boat’s first official roll-call, “I’d like to see you in my quarters.”
“Oh, bollocks,” Jared mutters under his breath. Then, louder, in his real accent, “Don’t you think-isn’t it something you should tell your first mate, too, sir?” The Captain stares at Jared long enough that Jared actually has to consider his chances of being able to outrun an amphibian; conclusion: fairly decent, at least until he runs out of boat.
“Very well,” the Captain acquiesces, turning to holler out, “MR. BEAVER!”
Which will never not be funny. Jared can hear snickers rain down from the rigging like…bits of things that usually fall from riggings. (Seagull droppings?) Mr. Beaver-Jim, as Jared has started to call him, so as to avoid smacks upside the head for laughing at a superior officer-waddles over, his big, flat tail thumping agitatedly against the deck.
“What is this about?” The First Mate whistles every time he forces an ‘S’ between his too-big front teeth, and Chad actually quivers from the effort it’s taking not to laugh. He is so lucky he gets to stay on deck, he doesn’t even know.
“Just so you know,” Captain Morgan intones as he closes the door to his quarters behind them, still really rather close on Jared’s heels, “I have serious bad feelings about this crew.”
“…Oh,” Jared says when that appears to be all. “Well that’s. Yeah, definitely something that I have nothing to do with at all.”
Morgan’s eyeball-just the one-widens in a twitch. “I’m telling you, there’s something about them…”
“Could it be that they’re all animals, Sir?” Jim asks in an exceedingly bored tone of voice. “Or creatures of uncertain origin and makeup?”
“Make-up? Were they wearing-? Oh, see, that’s not very sailorly behavior right there.”
“I’ll put a stop to it, Sir,” says Jim, dry as a nautical metaphor isn’t. “Now, if that was all-”
There’s a knock on the door, and then Jensen pokes his head in. It’s a very nice head. Jared lights up like a starfish when he sees it, and not just because it means there’s one more person between being the last guy left with the Captain. “Did anyone order booze?” Jensen asks, and his expression is even vaguely more pleasant than Jared has seen it be before, even if it’s vaguely fake. Happy day!
“Booze is for pussies,” the Captain dismisses with an arch wave of his hand. “So give it to the rigging crew, I guess. I saw a nice tabby up there earlier.”
“That’s the ship’s cat,” Jim corrects mildly.
“No it isn’t,” Morgan says, sounding mildly alarmed. “I have that locked up with all the other kinky whips.”
“That’s a cat o’nine tails, sir.”
“I don’t care how many tails it has. What’s the craftsmanship? Does it leave a nice rosy glow?”
“Oh god,” Jared chokes out under his breath.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” Jensen cuts in, swaying just a little further into the room as he shuffles around awkwardly. “I’m so glad I came all this way…”
Jared leaps to his feet to follow without thinking, then stops. And stares. And realizes it doesn’t matter that he’s stopped or stared because Jensen is already walking-limping?-away from them without looking back, one hand fisted tight around a bottle and the other, well-
“Oh my god,” Jared gasps, “I didn’t know you only have one leg.”
Jensen turns slowly to face him in an awkward thumping circle, until he can see where Jared is holding the cabin door open so that everyone on the entire ship was able to hear what he just said aloud. “Wow,” Jensen drawls, eyebrows high, face blank, “way to be a complete dick about it.”
“I did-I didn’t mean-” Jared stammers uselessly, feeling seasick for the first time since they left port.
“Yeah, okay,” Jensen says, jaw wide with disbelief on every word. He doesn’t even come back with a scathing rejoinder meant to make the audience think about the emotional impact they have on the differently abled. Like Jared’s not even worth that.
“Awkward,” sings Jim-fuck it, Mr. Beaver.
“Have we sufficiently foreshadowed, do you think?” Captain Morgan asks into the growing silence. The general consensus of the table (Mr. Beaver) seems to be, “Oh, I should think so,” and so they are disbanded, Jared moving swiftly after Jensen’s retreating, hobbling, still very-nicely-arsed form.
(Because objectifying under duress is one of those defining characteristics of a hero, not because he particularly feels like it.)
~*~
“I made you this,” Jared blurts as soon as he’s able, dropping Jensen’s present onto the galley table and then shoving his hands behind his back, head down, in case Jensen wants to beat him with it.
Jensen just sighs and picks up the object with one hand. Jared still can’t believe he’d never seen Jensen out from behind his counter before, and maybe it’s that or maybe it’s because Jensen’s sitting down, but he looks…almost vulnerable. It’s a weird, queasy adjective that sits awkward in Jared’s stomach, and he isn’t quite sure why.
“Jared,” Jensen says, “what the hell is this?”
“It’s a rope doll,” Jared obediently supplies. “It’s a doll. Made out of…rope…”
Jensen’s thumb strokes across the doll’s belly as he looks it over, which reminds Jared that he never gave the doll any clothes, for he shivers slightly.
“One leg is shorter than the other,” Jensen points out, his expression something that Jared recognizes as one most often found on his mother’s face before Jared stopped bringing dead things in with the cat. And, well, before she was killed by falling into an unresolved plothole. Naturally.
“That was an accident,” Jared murmurs miserably. “I made it before I knew about your leg.”
Jensen lets the doll drop unceremoniously upon the table, completely uninterested in meeting Jared’s gaze. “You don’t have to be nice to the cripple,” he says, like it’s a thing he’s supposed to say rather than something he means. “I can tell it freaks you out.”
“It freaks me out because it’s a plot point,” Jared says, lips folding in on each other the instant the words fall out of his mouth. “Oh, shi-ver me timbers,” he mutters around the clench of them, and Jensen turns enough in his seat to stare up at him.
“Excuse me?”
“This guy…” Jared’s rolling his eyes, trying to brush it off as nonchalantly as he knows how. “He gave me a warning…thing…and…said something about a guy with one leg…whatever…”
Alright, so his nonchalance needs work.
Jensen’s still staring. “Do you know,” he demands, “how many men there are in the world with one leg? Like, just sailors, in this day and age, where amputation is the go-to cure all?”
“Do you know how many men with one leg are in this story?” Jared asks, begging Jensen to understand. “I mean, come on, Jensen, that’s some pretty hardcore evidence.”
Jensen pinches the bridge of his nose. “What did the first guy tell you the one-legged man was going to do?”
“Eh…well…brrr…nothing,” Jared shrugs off, smooth as an ocean current. “He just said-” Insert hand wave and tremulous spirit voice. “BEWAAAAAAARE.”
“Oh, well. That’s just.” Jensen’s voice sounds oddly strained. He’s obviously very impressed. “Great. That’s…great.”
“I thought so,” Jared agrees, shuffling awkwardly when Jensen just sighs and puts his head on the table, next to the rope doll’s outstretched arm. Jared sits tentatively, careful not to dislodge any of the dinner fixings Jensen has spread out around him.
“Hey, uh,” he starts, and Jensen raises his head, carefully, like it weighs a hundred pounds. “Can I help with anything? You know, to make up for being an insensitive-” He blushes, reconsidering his word-choice for the sake of a politically correct family audience. “-bummer face?”
Jensen groans, but he sits up rubbing his face, scruff bristling audibly against the rough skin of his palm. “Yeah, ‘bummer face,’ knock yourself out.”
Jared picks up an onion and a knife and gets to cutting, only to remember how violently he used to hate this chore back at the Inn. His eyes puff up with tears, his nose runs, and-and Jensen is laughing at him behind his wrist, even though the onion’s fumes aren’t being gentle with his eyes either.
“Shut up,” Jared mumbles, and promptly sneezes, barely into the crook of his elbow in time. Hygiene is an important skill.
“Oh my god,” Jensen snickers, giggles, even, Jared would have no compunction at this point in time to call it a giggle. “Your face.” Jared grumbles unintelligible (and completely PG-13 appropriate) curse words, to no avail. “It looks like someone stole your favorite teddy bear.”
“Be nice or I’ll take it back,” Jared sniffles, jutting his pink, snotty nose towards the rope doll before turning back to cutting.
Jensen stills a moment, and picks up the figurine again. “Was this yours?” he asks, sounding odd. The onions must be affecting his voice as well.
“I haven’t figured out if you’re a father figure yet or what,” Jared says instead of answering. “You don’t seem old enough.”
“…Thanks, I guess.”
“Don’t worry.” Jared gives him his second best (albeit watery) grin. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” Jensen says, but he doesn’t sound sure. Jared decides he’ll just have to be sure enough for both of them. For the good of the plot.
~*~
“I feel like what we need is a montage up in here,” Jared pants out, as slow as the blood pumping through his veins. The map, penned down on some sort of thick parchment, is sticking to his ribs beneath a shirt he would give anything to take off, as long as anything didn’t involve moving one inch.
“Don’t even speak. Too hot,” Chad grits out from where he’s sprawled on the deck beside them. All of the shaded areas are taken (forcibly) and while Jensen’s galley is dark it’s also fu-unpleasantly stifling.
“Who is this rat?” Jensen has every limb he still owns splayed out as far from his body as he can get it, and if Jared had any strength in him at all he might roll over and count Jensen’s growing number of freckles. Purely for scientific reasons.
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“That’s going on the cutting room floor, mister. He’s my BFF, I think,” Jared drawls out. “We’re like-this.” And he loops his finger with Jensen’s.
“Oh, no nonono, we are not like that.”
“Shut up, Chad,” Jared sighs, completely unconcerned.
Jensen clears his throat, but doesn’t reacquisition his finger. And Jared thinks that’s fine. “Uh. Um, what were you saying about a montage?”
“Never mind,” Jared mumbles. “Think we squeezed in a magical bonding moment instead.”
“Fuck everybody,” Chad grumbles, and someone-maybe Jensen-suggests throwing him overboard to cool down. Jared finds he is not in complete disagreement with this plan, for the sake of the National Film Rating Committee if nothing else.
Maybe Jensen makes a better BFF than Chad.
~*~
Only, well. Jensen starts pulling away after they get the wind back (not as funny as Chad thinks it is, which doesn’t stop him from making so many ‘breaking wind’ jokes even the Captain threatens to chuck him overboard). At first, Jared thinks it’s just that-Chad has a habit of driving people away-but even when he makes a point of coming to see Jensen alone, he barely gets more than the time of day. Jensen says he’s busy, but he won’t let Jared help. And when Jared does manage to wrangle himself some chore in the galley, Jensen won’t make eye contact or answer questions with more than a grunt.
“Did I do something wrong?” Jared asks, finally, uncomfortable ball of something sitting tight in his gut.
“Nope,” Jensen says, too quickly for it to be true.
Jared shifts his weight and tries his best not to feel like a child. “Maybe if you told me, I could-”
“Jared!” Jensen snaps, cutting him off. He runs a hand through his hair, sunlight catching the spikes and turning them gold. Jared’s mesmerized, for one split second. He’s never seen anyone so beautiful in his life.
“Listen,” Jensen starts, low, and Jared’s heart gives a sick jump-start as he tries to pay attention to what Jensen’s saying through a vast derailment of any sort of standard romantic plot. The guy doesn’t get the guy, obviously. It can’t be right. He’s screwed it up somehow, and when he tunes back in Jensen has this look on his face like he’s expecting an answer, and every moment more he has to wait looks like it’s killing him.
“I’m so sorry, could you say that again, I didn’t-” Jared fumbles.
“I asked,” Jensen says, his tone miraculously hollow, “how you felt about the captain.”
“What, you mean, do I like him, as in, like-like? As in-Ew, no.” Jared’s laugh is high and panicked, awful. “Please, he’s not even my species, and even-even if he were, I couldn’t-”
Jensen’s expression shuts down, which is doubly surprising seeing as Jared had considered it void of emotion to begin with. “Right,” Jensen whispers, and turns on his crutch to leave.
“W-Wait!” Jared stammers, rushing out in front of him, something Jensen hates. “I’m sorry, I just. Is that what you meant? I’m really, really confused.”
And he isn’t getting any less confused the longer Jensen’s sea-green eyes dig holes into his hull (he’s getting a hand of the lingo, really), he just. He wants to let Jensen lean on him instead of the crutch, which leaves a bruise deep enough under Jensen’s arm that it won’t ever go away. And that’s something, right? That can be enough without it breaking the thin line between Guy Love and, er, Guy Love. Right?
BROMANCE. That’s the word!
Jensen must see something in his expression that makes him stop, because Jared knows from experience that Jensen can take people out at the knee quicker than they know they’re being dropped. He keeps his face turned from Jared’s, though, keeps his eyes on the wall. “I just need to know,” he says, each word careful and deliberate. “When the time comes, if it’s down to me or him, who would you choose?”
“You, of course!” Jared says, and feels like a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. “Is that all? Of course I’d pick you!” All of this for some hypothetical battle to the death? Captain Morgan is a frog, you don’t have to be Mothra to beat a frog. (Whatever Mothra is.)
“Oh,” Jensen says, a little shaky on the exhale. “Okay.”
“Can I?” Jared asks, because he wants to hug him but he doesn’t want to send him toppling over. But Jensen doesn’t get it, blurts out, “I don’t-” so Jared just has to be careful, wrapping his arms tight around Jensen’s shoulders and stepping up flush against his chest. And Jared isn’t sure what’s happening here, doesn’t understand the shiver that runs through him at the feel of Jensen’s free arm sliding tentatively around his waist, but he likes it. It feels like the story is back on track again.
“Alright,” Jensen says, uncertainly hopeful and half-smiling for the first time in what has to be weeks. “Alright, so. You know we’re sailing for buried treasure?”
And everything goes spectacularly downhill from there.
~*~
“Um,” says Jared, “Maybe?”
Managing three syllables feels like a lot right now.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Jensen squeezes his arm with the one not being used to hold himself upright, and Jared wants to die a little. “I know the Captain wouldn’t hold secret meetings with just anyone. I know he took you into his confidence. But Jared, listen, this is important-Do you know where he’s locked up the treasure map?”
Jared feels like he’s going to be sick. Actually, physically, drank-bilge-water-and-started-hallucinating sick. The map is burning right through his skin into his flesh, and when he pulls away it’s so fast Jensen almost falls.
That’s unforgivable. But not quite as bad as what Jensen’s just done.
“You’re planning…a mutiny?” Jared gets out somehow. His voice feels like it’s at the bottom of the sea. And his insides are being stung by a hundred thousand anemones.
Because this-No one writes stories about bad people. No one.
“…Yes?” Jensen pulls the word out like taffy, waiting for it to break. His eyes are wide, gaze slightly askance, eyebrows furrowed-he has no idea how Jared hasn’t come to this conclusion on his own, apparently. Which is just…so not awesome, Jared doesn’t even know how to begin.
“So this,” Jared gets out somehow, even though he feels like he’s shaking apart, “All of this. Pretending to warm up to me, pretending to be my friend-all so you could get your hands on the treasure map?”
“Uh,” Jensen says, but it’s a pretty fucking telling Uh. It’s an Uh that means Where the hell did that come from? and Oh shit but most importantly Yes. It means Yes.
“IT’S MY MAP,” Jared screams, but considering how badly he wants to tear at his hair and stomp his foot he decides, screw it, he’s going to write this off as Fairly Mature. And the feeling of ugly triumph he gets at the expression on Jensen’s face? At least he doesn’t punch him.
“Your map?” Jensen seethes. He’s actually-Jared has never seen him this angry before. Not even when Chad drank a month’s supply of grog and got sick all over the steps leading to the galley. Not even when Captain Morgan tried to cop a feel of Jared’s ass. Jensen’s so furious he can’t even speak for a moment.
“You- Did you bleed for that map? Well? Did you watch your friends get butchered by the captain you trusted with your life, only to be kept around because someone had to pretty up the goddamned ship? Were you left for fucking dead, Jared, when a felled mast crushed your leg and left you trapped for days on end, after your last remaining shipmate stole the map and ran? No, fuck you, that’s not your fucking map, and stop making fucking censor bleeps, we’re not in a fucking kid’s movie.”
Jared hadn’t even realized he’d been doing the bleeps. He wants to cry, and he doesn’t even know who for.
“Right,” Jared forces out just before his throat closes up. He can’t look at Jensen, but everything else is blurry and hurts to look at, besides, so. He’s right back at the Inn when it was burning, smoke clawing at his eyes as his home went up in flames, ransacked by-pirates. Jensen is a pirate. Jared makes himself spell it all out in his head, nerve-pinching words pricking in his fingers as he slips a hand inside his shirt and drags out the map, dropping it at Jensen’s feet with a sick sort of thud.
“Try not to ruin too many more lives when you do it, then,” he says, words tumbling past his numb lips.
And then he climbs up into the crow’s nest, because Jensen can’t manage the rigging with one leg.
Jared just can’t dredge up the energy to be an archetype right now.
~*~
The mutiny goes smoothly, even for a mutiny. All it really takes is locking Captain Morgan in his own cabin with a key someone swiped from Mr. Beaver, who surrenders quite willingly once Jensen sits him down for a chat.
Chad finds Jared up in the nest at the first hint of trouble, probably looking for a great seat well out of the danger zone. He brought popcorn, so it’s a pretty fair guess.
“Soooo,” he drawls, brushing kernel fragments out of his whiskers. “Couldn’t help noticing he’s got the map, yo.”
“Shut up, Chad,” Jared grumbles into his knees. (Jared realizes that he’s acting like an asshole, really, but being a main character is supposed to be fucking character building, so he hadn’t thought he’d needed to worry about it. Just one more thing on the list he’s doing wrong.)
“Just sayin.” Chad shrugs. “He didn’t really need the map to mutiny, did he? Seems kind of weird that he’d wait this long.”
“Shut up, Chad.”
“At least tell me you got a blow job out of the deal. You being one of those homeless, orphaned vagrant types with no hope for survival unless you go into some sort of prostitution or-“
“I’ll find a way,” Jared sighs, lifting his head just enough to rub the heels of his hands over his eyes. “It’s fine, I’ll just. Maybe I’ll enlist. Become a sailor.”
The rat is silent for about five seconds, which just might be a record. “You know there aren’t usually this many musical numbers on normal ships, right?”
Jensen limps across the deck below them, wearing some sort of fancy pirate captain ensemble he procured from…somewhere. The Black Hole of Costume Design. Jared gets so caught up in wondering how Jensen can even see through the feathers laced into the brim of his hat that it takes Jared a moment to notice Jensen has his face turned up to look at him.
Jared’s back hits the mast hard enough to bruise when he yanks himself back out of sight, air coming tight and painful. “I fucking hate climactic emotional betrayal,” he spits, and Chad pats his ankle awkwardly.
“Dude,” the rat says, and then, quieter, “Dude.”
~*~
Chad goes down for dinner, which definitely Was Not Made By Jensen, who has spent most of the day looking broody and driven while standing at the ship’s helm. Actually, dinner might just be grog.
Jared’s never been a big fan of grog, plus he’s not nearly done with sulking, and he plans to stay up in the crow’s nest until Jensen sends someone up to drag him down and throw him in the brig. No matter how many times Jensen catches him watching and gives Jared a painfully awkward little wave.
He’s pretty sure he doesn’t deserve any sort of olive branch, which just makes it worse.
~*~
The entire ship is passed out drunk by two in the morning, a chorus of drunken snores rising up from the galley, and Jared is only a little worried he’ll somehow roll out of the crow’s nest while he sleeps-just worried enough that he can’t pry his fingers free of the mast long enough to think about closing his eyes. He’s swaying and exhausted and emotionally drained, which is his excuse for not noticing that Jensen is climbing the rigging like a moron until he’s halfway up.
“-know how fucking uncomfortable,” Jared hears drifting up from below, which is his first clue. When he sees what Jensen’s doing his stomach peels free of his body and drops with a soggy whump upon the gunnel. Jensen’s crutch is on the deck, abandoned, and he’s hauling himself up by his hands and the strength of his one good leg. “-couldn’t have picked any other spot on the damned ship-”
“What the hell are you doing?” Jared hisses, louder than a hiss has any right to be. He has one foot on the rigging before he knows he’s doing it, before Jensen’s voice hits him like a paddle to the back of the head.
“Don’t-You’ll shake it and I’ll fall,” Jensen grits out, speaking directly to the rope clutched white-knuckled in his grip.
“Then go down,” Jared orders, throat inexplicably tight. “For Christ’s sake, get back on the deck and I’ll come down, Jesus, Jensen.”
“Will you really?” Jensen pants out, something like a bitter grin tinting his words through the strain. “Because I’ll just go right back up if you’re lying. Tomorrow, maybe, but I’ll do it.”
“Get down,” Jared growls again, through his teeth this time. But Jensen goes.
It takes forever, a million aching seconds as Jensen holds himself up by his hands and lowers his body down until he finds a footing. Jared helps as best he can, trying not to let his raw panic shine through and failing pretty damn spectacularly.
It’s the year 2011 when Jensen makes it to the deck, by Jared’s count, and Jared has to take a moment and several deep breaths before he can trust himself to follow without crashing to his own death. He focuses on the rope under his feet and hands, counting rungs, tasting the salt air, so when a steadying hand settles on his calf, he just about jumps out of his skin.
“Easy, easy,” Jensen says over Jared’s startled cursing-and he does curse, fuck it, he’s been training himself to believe it’s okay-and Jensen…Jensen looks bigger, somehow, even after only a day spent watching him move around the ship from above. He looks smaller too, something human and pleading in his eyes as he offers Jared help down from the railing, shifting uneasily on his crutch.
Something moves under Jared’s feet when he hits the deck, like the first rolling steps he took on the ship before he got his sea legs. That’s his excuse for the way he sort of slips and pins Jensen in place, ropes at his back and Jared at his front, pressed so close there isn’t any room for Jensen to fall. The crutch tumbles from under Jensen’s arm and rolls just out of reach under Jensen’s narrow-eyed gaze.
“I guess you wanted to talk to me,” Jared says, surprised at how even his voice sounds.
Jensen’s eyebrows do something complicated and sarcastic. “What gave you that impression?”
“Oh, I dunno,” Jared says, “Must have something to do with the way you almost killed yourself to do it.”
His mouth quirks, and Jared really can’t help but watch it settle into a warmer kind of smile. When it disappears it’s so abrupt Jared’s eyes snap back to Jensen’s like a string just got pulled.
“Look,” Jensen says, staring off at an abstract point over Jared’s shoulder. “I…” His lips press together in an unhappy frown. “I’m sorry about your Inn.”
“What?” It’s so-not what Jared was expecting that he almost pulls back before he remembers Jensen would fall.
“A couple guys who owed me a favor, and…they were just supposed to search the place, not burn it to the ground. And I’m sorry I gave you the impression,” Jensen continues around a cringe, “that I only liked you because there was an advantage to being your-friend. I wouldn’t-”
“Wait,” Jared cuts in, “Is this the denouement? Are we denoue-ing already? We haven’t even reached the island, which would really be considered the cumulative-”
“That’s what I wanted-” Jensen starts talking over them, then cuts off with a huff. “Jared, can you please stop babbling about plot development for two seconds, here?” And the thing is, he doesn’t sound angry; he just calmly palms Jared’s shoulders where he’s holding on until Jared settles, and this. This is good. Jared doesn’t know where it’s going, but it feels nice. It feels really nice.
“I wanted to ask you,” Jensen says, looking smack dab into Jared’s eyes while he does it, “if you’d like to be part of the boarding party tomorrow. To go with me, and, you know, find the treasure.” He’s blushing in the dim light thrown by the moon and the few scattered lamps lit around the ship, and his freckles look like constellations. “If you want.”
“If I…” Jared trails off, feeling dizzy.
“And then maybe-I don’t know if you have places to be,” Jensen stammers, “like, Mr. Beaver, I promised we’d drop him off at a port where he could get a ship back to England where his little girl is waiting, and you could do the same, you know, but I hand-picked the rest of the crew-besides Chad, I think he followed you onboard-and we’re going to sail off and have adventures and…yeah. If you want to come.”
“You’d…really want me around?” Jared asks, voice slipping into octaves of uncertainty that make him wince, honestly.
Jensen sighs and ducks his head, accidentally knocking their heads together. “Ow. Just. Yeah? If you… I’d like that, yes.”
“…But you don’t even really like me,” Jared blurts. “You still make fun of me for thinking I had to have an accent-in a story set in 19th century England, I’m going to remind you again-and you hate that I’m tall and I fail at cutting onions and-”
“Jesus, Jared!” Jensen’s hands come up to catch his face and hold him still, even if it means Jensen wobbles precariously and Jared has to catch him around the waist to make sure he doesn’t fall. And Jensen kind of sighs, close enough Jared can taste it, and closes his eyes. “If I kiss you now, will you just shut up and believe me?”
Jared is nodding before the front of his brain can even process what it heard, but by then? It really doesn’t care, because Jensen’s mouth is against Jared’s. Jared wishes fervently for the Chinese to have surrendered their firework technology in a more timely fashion-and if he could be sure Jensen could stand on his own he might be tempted to leg-pop-but that’s a sort of dim concern. Jensen kisses like he needs Jared to keep from drowning, like a ship slicing through the waves, like…fuck it, Jared can’t think in nautical metaphors when Jensen’s licking into his mouth, nibbling at his lower lip until Jared gasps and shakes and swears and Jared-
Jared wants Jensen more than anything. And this is his goddamned movie.
Jared pulls back just enough to close his hands around Jensen’s wrists, pry them off Jared’s skin (even though it kills him, and if this doesn’t work Jared’s moving them somewhere lateral ASAP and just letting Jensen touch him forever) pushing them back until Jensen grabs the rigging with a surprised jerk, even though Jared is projecting with every cell in his body that he’d never let Jensen fall. His arms are bent on either side of his head, now, steadying, but Jensen still looks like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Er, so to speak.
“Can you hold yourself up like this?” Jared asks, voice a low, wrecked murmur.
A cross frown flits across Jensen’s face, but, “Yeah, of course, how long do you-Oh fuck-”
Jared’s knees sting a little from how hard he hit the deck, but mmmmmyes, and he nuzzles at the bulge in Jensen’s ridiculous velvety pirate captain pants and tries to brace Jensen as best he can. Jensen’s injured leg-Jared won’t call it his ‘stump,’ what an ugly word, it’s still Jensen’s thigh-pushes hesitantly against him and Jared thinks, yes, thinks, duh, thinks, Cor Blimey, and lifts that leg up over his shoulder, catching more of Jensen’s weight as his free hand works at the ties in Jensen’s trousers.
“What-” Jensen sound absolutely debauched, and Jared hasn’t even got with the bauching. It’s fantastic. “I thought-you were all about keeping this PG-13-”
“Wait for it,” Jared murmurs, right against Jensen’s hip as his fingers massage down Jensen’s leg. “Three…two…one…”
~*~ fade to black ~*~
“Move Captain to brig,” Jensen murmurs directly into the bare skin of Jared’s chest where he’s curled up, the two of them tangled together between the ship’s canons for some semblance of privacy. “Need whole room to fuck you.”
“That…barely makes sense,” Jared giggles a little helplessly. “You’re missing entire words.”
“Shut,” Jensen says. And doesn’t finish.
Jared gathers him even closer in his arms and presses his face to the salty sweet smell of Jensen’s neck. “Best plot climax ever,” he whispers, and lets the credits roll.
.
ETA: Oh my god, you guys, there is now a PODFIC by reena_jenkins . *________________* GO LEAVE HER SO MUCH LOVE.
Author: queenklu
Beta by: the lovely dugindeep
Rating: ......PG13
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Word Count: 6ishK
Warnings/Summary: Muppets, crack, true love, and Chad. On the high seas.
A/N: *sigh* So. This is for j2_everafter, and the movie The Muppet Treasure Island. I do not know how I talk myself into these things. What was it, last year I turned Jared into an alien dog? And before that, Jensen was an animated rag doll. Wtf my life.
.
YES REALLY.
~~~~~
It’s a little bit like a teen RomCom, Jared thinks, or would think, if the words “teen” or “RomCom” had existed in 19th century England. As it is, Jared thinks, What a lovely boat, and, I wonder why I don’t have an accent? and generally other foolish things until he lays eyes on one Jensen Ackles, after which he thinks, Cor, blimey, and, I wonder if ‘Cor, blimey’ means what I think it means, i.e. Hot Damn.
(If this story had remained set in its proper place and time, Jared might now draw instant parallels between ‘Boy sees boy across a crowded galley, first boy thinks second boy is a stone fox, second boy thinks first boy is decent enough to shag, and they live happily ever after, trala,’ and things might have turned out a bit differently. Oh well.)
“’Allo!” Jared chirps, “This is a handy cove, and a pleasant sittyated grub-shop. Much company, mate?"
The man-who Jared does not know at this moment is the Master Ackles referred to above, who Jared only knows as the cleanest, best-looking bloke on the ship-wrinkles his nose and says, “What the hell is that accent? Australian?”
“Well…hot damn,” Jared blurts, and quickly sits himself down on a barrel of apples, near where his presumed native-countryman is peeling potatoes behind a high counter. “I thought I was the only one.”
He earns a level glare for his trouble. “Did you hear a single critter on deck with a British accent?”
“No,” Jared says, “but they’re critters.”
“Shit, seriously?” The man braces his hands on the counter; Jared is pretty sure he’s sitting on something. He tries to nod vigorously, but his new friend cuts him off. “You can’t find anyone else to be your mentor?”
“I haven’t seen any other humans on the ship,” Jared points out, heels kicking against the barrel beneath him. “I think it’s destiny.”
“I think you should take a long walk off a short plank.”
Jared sticks out his hand, eager to solidify their friendship. “I’m Jared.”
“Fuck off, Jared,” he says, but Jared decides he doesn’t mean it. The potatoes the man is boiling are steaming his face just a smidge, a faint reddening under the freckles scattered across his cheekbones, and Jared thinks he’s actually looking forward to this voyage for the first time since he signed on (and not just mentally skipping ahead to the payoff at the end of it). He keeps his hand outstretched until the other man has to take it, because really, this is how the story goes. “Jensen,” the man grudgingly admits, “I’m the ship’s cook.”
Jensen’s hand is steam-damp and warm, and Jared shakes it with everything he’s got. “Cabin boy,” he replies. “So you’ll see me all the time! Helping out and stuff. I think that’s how it works, anyway. I’ve never been on a boat before.”
“That’s just…awesome,” Jensen mutters, taking his fingers back bit by clasped-too-tight bit.
Jared gives him his biggest smile. The one with dimples and everything. It is awesome; he’s so glad Jensen agrees.
~*~
Captain Morgan, who is a frog (Jared doesn’t get it), expressly forbids every single crewman from uttering the phrase “Got a little Captain in you?” under penalty of hanging (Jared really doesn’t get it), though if Jared wants to give it a go, his captain’s quarters are always open (Jared gets that. A lot. And spends the rest of the first day hiding in the galley because ew, frog).
Anyway, Captain Morgan gets the boat underway in shippety-ship shape and whatnot, with the riggings furling and the sails sailing and it’s all really exciting until Jared realizes that in an entire hour they’ve gone maybe a hundred feet from shore.
“This is totally anticlimactic,” Jared informs Chad, who is a rat, and who agrees.
“Dude, tell me about it. I could swim to Barbados faster than this piece of shit could float.”
“That wasn’t family appropriate,” Jared warns, then sighs, “And for the last time, we aren’t going to Barbados.”
“Dammit,” Chad says, oblivious or unrepentant or both. “Key Largo? Monetgo? Baby, why don’t we go-”
“Down to Kokomo?” Jared cuts him off. “The joke got old, Chad, let it go.”
Chad squints. “I’m a rat. I got limited things to work with, here.” He sidles closer while Jared shows off his exemplary desk swabbing technique. “If you’d just tell me where we’re going…”
“Out to sea, man!” Jared snaps, elbow pressing just a little bit tighter to where the map is pinned under his shirt. “Lay off!”
“You’re the only one who got a good look at that map,” Chad reminds him, and Jared thinks this must be one of those Unwarranted Exposition Things his mother warned him about when becoming a main character. “You’re the one who talked the Captain into commissioning this ship. You’re one of maybe three people who know where we’re headed. In case you’ve forgotten in the two days since brigands busted the old Inn down, Eric “Baby Eater” Bones pressed the map into your hands seconds before he-”
“Chad, look,” Jared says, physically incapable of hearing another word, “You’re fairly ambiguous at the moment; you still have a choice between Amoral Sell-Out Douchebag Who Gets Rightfully Eaten By Sharks, and Plucky Comedic Sidekick Who Might Get A Girl By The End Of The Film If He Plays His Cards Right And She Isn’t Too Instrumental To The Plot. Which is it going to be?”
Chad’s beady eyes study Jared a moment, then his whiskers twitch in something like a nod. “I see your point.”
Which isn’t really an answer, but Jared decides to let it go. Right along with the fact he should point out there seem to be no women in this tale of high adventure. So far.
“Excuse me,” he says instead, passing off the mop, “I believe it’s time for another musical number full of comradeship and brotherhood.”
“No, it isn’t!” Jensen hollers up from the galley.
The sheep are already doing the Macarena, though, so his comment goes largely unnoticed.
~*~
“Jared,” Captain Morgan says immediately after the boat’s first official roll-call, “I’d like to see you in my quarters.”
“Oh, bollocks,” Jared mutters under his breath. Then, louder, in his real accent, “Don’t you think-isn’t it something you should tell your first mate, too, sir?” The Captain stares at Jared long enough that Jared actually has to consider his chances of being able to outrun an amphibian; conclusion: fairly decent, at least until he runs out of boat.
“Very well,” the Captain acquiesces, turning to holler out, “MR. BEAVER!”
Which will never not be funny. Jared can hear snickers rain down from the rigging like…bits of things that usually fall from riggings. (Seagull droppings?) Mr. Beaver-Jim, as Jared has started to call him, so as to avoid smacks upside the head for laughing at a superior officer-waddles over, his big, flat tail thumping agitatedly against the deck.
“What is this about?” The First Mate whistles every time he forces an ‘S’ between his too-big front teeth, and Chad actually quivers from the effort it’s taking not to laugh. He is so lucky he gets to stay on deck, he doesn’t even know.
“Just so you know,” Captain Morgan intones as he closes the door to his quarters behind them, still really rather close on Jared’s heels, “I have serious bad feelings about this crew.”
“…Oh,” Jared says when that appears to be all. “Well that’s. Yeah, definitely something that I have nothing to do with at all.”
Morgan’s eyeball-just the one-widens in a twitch. “I’m telling you, there’s something about them…”
“Could it be that they’re all animals, Sir?” Jim asks in an exceedingly bored tone of voice. “Or creatures of uncertain origin and makeup?”
“Make-up? Were they wearing-? Oh, see, that’s not very sailorly behavior right there.”
“I’ll put a stop to it, Sir,” says Jim, dry as a nautical metaphor isn’t. “Now, if that was all-”
There’s a knock on the door, and then Jensen pokes his head in. It’s a very nice head. Jared lights up like a starfish when he sees it, and not just because it means there’s one more person between being the last guy left with the Captain. “Did anyone order booze?” Jensen asks, and his expression is even vaguely more pleasant than Jared has seen it be before, even if it’s vaguely fake. Happy day!
“Booze is for pussies,” the Captain dismisses with an arch wave of his hand. “So give it to the rigging crew, I guess. I saw a nice tabby up there earlier.”
“That’s the ship’s cat,” Jim corrects mildly.
“No it isn’t,” Morgan says, sounding mildly alarmed. “I have that locked up with all the other kinky whips.”
“That’s a cat o’nine tails, sir.”
“I don’t care how many tails it has. What’s the craftsmanship? Does it leave a nice rosy glow?”
“Oh god,” Jared chokes out under his breath.
“Sorry to bother you, sir,” Jensen cuts in, swaying just a little further into the room as he shuffles around awkwardly. “I’m so glad I came all this way…”
Jared leaps to his feet to follow without thinking, then stops. And stares. And realizes it doesn’t matter that he’s stopped or stared because Jensen is already walking-limping?-away from them without looking back, one hand fisted tight around a bottle and the other, well-
“Oh my god,” Jared gasps, “I didn’t know you only have one leg.”
Jensen turns slowly to face him in an awkward thumping circle, until he can see where Jared is holding the cabin door open so that everyone on the entire ship was able to hear what he just said aloud. “Wow,” Jensen drawls, eyebrows high, face blank, “way to be a complete dick about it.”
“I did-I didn’t mean-” Jared stammers uselessly, feeling seasick for the first time since they left port.
“Yeah, okay,” Jensen says, jaw wide with disbelief on every word. He doesn’t even come back with a scathing rejoinder meant to make the audience think about the emotional impact they have on the differently abled. Like Jared’s not even worth that.
“Awkward,” sings Jim-fuck it, Mr. Beaver.
“Have we sufficiently foreshadowed, do you think?” Captain Morgan asks into the growing silence. The general consensus of the table (Mr. Beaver) seems to be, “Oh, I should think so,” and so they are disbanded, Jared moving swiftly after Jensen’s retreating, hobbling, still very-nicely-arsed form.
(Because objectifying under duress is one of those defining characteristics of a hero, not because he particularly feels like it.)
~*~
“I made you this,” Jared blurts as soon as he’s able, dropping Jensen’s present onto the galley table and then shoving his hands behind his back, head down, in case Jensen wants to beat him with it.
Jensen just sighs and picks up the object with one hand. Jared still can’t believe he’d never seen Jensen out from behind his counter before, and maybe it’s that or maybe it’s because Jensen’s sitting down, but he looks…almost vulnerable. It’s a weird, queasy adjective that sits awkward in Jared’s stomach, and he isn’t quite sure why.
“Jared,” Jensen says, “what the hell is this?”
“It’s a rope doll,” Jared obediently supplies. “It’s a doll. Made out of…rope…”
Jensen’s thumb strokes across the doll’s belly as he looks it over, which reminds Jared that he never gave the doll any clothes, for he shivers slightly.
“One leg is shorter than the other,” Jensen points out, his expression something that Jared recognizes as one most often found on his mother’s face before Jared stopped bringing dead things in with the cat. And, well, before she was killed by falling into an unresolved plothole. Naturally.
“That was an accident,” Jared murmurs miserably. “I made it before I knew about your leg.”
Jensen lets the doll drop unceremoniously upon the table, completely uninterested in meeting Jared’s gaze. “You don’t have to be nice to the cripple,” he says, like it’s a thing he’s supposed to say rather than something he means. “I can tell it freaks you out.”
“It freaks me out because it’s a plot point,” Jared says, lips folding in on each other the instant the words fall out of his mouth. “Oh, shi-ver me timbers,” he mutters around the clench of them, and Jensen turns enough in his seat to stare up at him.
“Excuse me?”
“This guy…” Jared’s rolling his eyes, trying to brush it off as nonchalantly as he knows how. “He gave me a warning…thing…and…said something about a guy with one leg…whatever…”
Alright, so his nonchalance needs work.
Jensen’s still staring. “Do you know,” he demands, “how many men there are in the world with one leg? Like, just sailors, in this day and age, where amputation is the go-to cure all?”
“Do you know how many men with one leg are in this story?” Jared asks, begging Jensen to understand. “I mean, come on, Jensen, that’s some pretty hardcore evidence.”
Jensen pinches the bridge of his nose. “What did the first guy tell you the one-legged man was going to do?”
“Eh…well…brrr…nothing,” Jared shrugs off, smooth as an ocean current. “He just said-” Insert hand wave and tremulous spirit voice. “BEWAAAAAAARE.”
“Oh, well. That’s just.” Jensen’s voice sounds oddly strained. He’s obviously very impressed. “Great. That’s…great.”
“I thought so,” Jared agrees, shuffling awkwardly when Jensen just sighs and puts his head on the table, next to the rope doll’s outstretched arm. Jared sits tentatively, careful not to dislodge any of the dinner fixings Jensen has spread out around him.
“Hey, uh,” he starts, and Jensen raises his head, carefully, like it weighs a hundred pounds. “Can I help with anything? You know, to make up for being an insensitive-” He blushes, reconsidering his word-choice for the sake of a politically correct family audience. “-bummer face?”
Jensen groans, but he sits up rubbing his face, scruff bristling audibly against the rough skin of his palm. “Yeah, ‘bummer face,’ knock yourself out.”
Jared picks up an onion and a knife and gets to cutting, only to remember how violently he used to hate this chore back at the Inn. His eyes puff up with tears, his nose runs, and-and Jensen is laughing at him behind his wrist, even though the onion’s fumes aren’t being gentle with his eyes either.
“Shut up,” Jared mumbles, and promptly sneezes, barely into the crook of his elbow in time. Hygiene is an important skill.
“Oh my god,” Jensen snickers, giggles, even, Jared would have no compunction at this point in time to call it a giggle. “Your face.” Jared grumbles unintelligible (and completely PG-13 appropriate) curse words, to no avail. “It looks like someone stole your favorite teddy bear.”
“Be nice or I’ll take it back,” Jared sniffles, jutting his pink, snotty nose towards the rope doll before turning back to cutting.
Jensen stills a moment, and picks up the figurine again. “Was this yours?” he asks, sounding odd. The onions must be affecting his voice as well.
“I haven’t figured out if you’re a father figure yet or what,” Jared says instead of answering. “You don’t seem old enough.”
“…Thanks, I guess.”
“Don’t worry.” Jared gives him his second best (albeit watery) grin. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” Jensen says, but he doesn’t sound sure. Jared decides he’ll just have to be sure enough for both of them. For the good of the plot.
~*~
“I feel like what we need is a montage up in here,” Jared pants out, as slow as the blood pumping through his veins. The map, penned down on some sort of thick parchment, is sticking to his ribs beneath a shirt he would give anything to take off, as long as anything didn’t involve moving one inch.
“Don’t even speak. Too hot,” Chad grits out from where he’s sprawled on the deck beside them. All of the shaded areas are taken (forcibly) and while Jensen’s galley is dark it’s also fu-unpleasantly stifling.
“Who is this rat?” Jensen has every limb he still owns splayed out as far from his body as he can get it, and if Jared had any strength in him at all he might roll over and count Jensen’s growing number of freckles. Purely for scientific reasons.
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“That’s going on the cutting room floor, mister. He’s my BFF, I think,” Jared drawls out. “We’re like-this.” And he loops his finger with Jensen’s.
“Oh, no nonono, we are not like that.”
“Shut up, Chad,” Jared sighs, completely unconcerned.
Jensen clears his throat, but doesn’t reacquisition his finger. And Jared thinks that’s fine. “Uh. Um, what were you saying about a montage?”
“Never mind,” Jared mumbles. “Think we squeezed in a magical bonding moment instead.”
“Fuck everybody,” Chad grumbles, and someone-maybe Jensen-suggests throwing him overboard to cool down. Jared finds he is not in complete disagreement with this plan, for the sake of the National Film Rating Committee if nothing else.
Maybe Jensen makes a better BFF than Chad.
~*~
Only, well. Jensen starts pulling away after they get the wind back (not as funny as Chad thinks it is, which doesn’t stop him from making so many ‘breaking wind’ jokes even the Captain threatens to chuck him overboard). At first, Jared thinks it’s just that-Chad has a habit of driving people away-but even when he makes a point of coming to see Jensen alone, he barely gets more than the time of day. Jensen says he’s busy, but he won’t let Jared help. And when Jared does manage to wrangle himself some chore in the galley, Jensen won’t make eye contact or answer questions with more than a grunt.
“Did I do something wrong?” Jared asks, finally, uncomfortable ball of something sitting tight in his gut.
“Nope,” Jensen says, too quickly for it to be true.
Jared shifts his weight and tries his best not to feel like a child. “Maybe if you told me, I could-”
“Jared!” Jensen snaps, cutting him off. He runs a hand through his hair, sunlight catching the spikes and turning them gold. Jared’s mesmerized, for one split second. He’s never seen anyone so beautiful in his life.
“Listen,” Jensen starts, low, and Jared’s heart gives a sick jump-start as he tries to pay attention to what Jensen’s saying through a vast derailment of any sort of standard romantic plot. The guy doesn’t get the guy, obviously. It can’t be right. He’s screwed it up somehow, and when he tunes back in Jensen has this look on his face like he’s expecting an answer, and every moment more he has to wait looks like it’s killing him.
“I’m so sorry, could you say that again, I didn’t-” Jared fumbles.
“I asked,” Jensen says, his tone miraculously hollow, “how you felt about the captain.”
“What, you mean, do I like him, as in, like-like? As in-Ew, no.” Jared’s laugh is high and panicked, awful. “Please, he’s not even my species, and even-even if he were, I couldn’t-”
Jensen’s expression shuts down, which is doubly surprising seeing as Jared had considered it void of emotion to begin with. “Right,” Jensen whispers, and turns on his crutch to leave.
“W-Wait!” Jared stammers, rushing out in front of him, something Jensen hates. “I’m sorry, I just. Is that what you meant? I’m really, really confused.”
And he isn’t getting any less confused the longer Jensen’s sea-green eyes dig holes into his hull (he’s getting a hand of the lingo, really), he just. He wants to let Jensen lean on him instead of the crutch, which leaves a bruise deep enough under Jensen’s arm that it won’t ever go away. And that’s something, right? That can be enough without it breaking the thin line between Guy Love and, er, Guy Love. Right?
BROMANCE. That’s the word!
Jensen must see something in his expression that makes him stop, because Jared knows from experience that Jensen can take people out at the knee quicker than they know they’re being dropped. He keeps his face turned from Jared’s, though, keeps his eyes on the wall. “I just need to know,” he says, each word careful and deliberate. “When the time comes, if it’s down to me or him, who would you choose?”
“You, of course!” Jared says, and feels like a huge weight has been lifted from his shoulders. “Is that all? Of course I’d pick you!” All of this for some hypothetical battle to the death? Captain Morgan is a frog, you don’t have to be Mothra to beat a frog. (Whatever Mothra is.)
“Oh,” Jensen says, a little shaky on the exhale. “Okay.”
“Can I?” Jared asks, because he wants to hug him but he doesn’t want to send him toppling over. But Jensen doesn’t get it, blurts out, “I don’t-” so Jared just has to be careful, wrapping his arms tight around Jensen’s shoulders and stepping up flush against his chest. And Jared isn’t sure what’s happening here, doesn’t understand the shiver that runs through him at the feel of Jensen’s free arm sliding tentatively around his waist, but he likes it. It feels like the story is back on track again.
“Alright,” Jensen says, uncertainly hopeful and half-smiling for the first time in what has to be weeks. “Alright, so. You know we’re sailing for buried treasure?”
And everything goes spectacularly downhill from there.
~*~
“Um,” says Jared, “Maybe?”
Managing three syllables feels like a lot right now.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Jensen squeezes his arm with the one not being used to hold himself upright, and Jared wants to die a little. “I know the Captain wouldn’t hold secret meetings with just anyone. I know he took you into his confidence. But Jared, listen, this is important-Do you know where he’s locked up the treasure map?”
Jared feels like he’s going to be sick. Actually, physically, drank-bilge-water-and-started-hallucinating sick. The map is burning right through his skin into his flesh, and when he pulls away it’s so fast Jensen almost falls.
That’s unforgivable. But not quite as bad as what Jensen’s just done.
“You’re planning…a mutiny?” Jared gets out somehow. His voice feels like it’s at the bottom of the sea. And his insides are being stung by a hundred thousand anemones.
Because this-No one writes stories about bad people. No one.
“…Yes?” Jensen pulls the word out like taffy, waiting for it to break. His eyes are wide, gaze slightly askance, eyebrows furrowed-he has no idea how Jared hasn’t come to this conclusion on his own, apparently. Which is just…so not awesome, Jared doesn’t even know how to begin.
“So this,” Jared gets out somehow, even though he feels like he’s shaking apart, “All of this. Pretending to warm up to me, pretending to be my friend-all so you could get your hands on the treasure map?”
“Uh,” Jensen says, but it’s a pretty fucking telling Uh. It’s an Uh that means Where the hell did that come from? and Oh shit but most importantly Yes. It means Yes.
“IT’S MY MAP,” Jared screams, but considering how badly he wants to tear at his hair and stomp his foot he decides, screw it, he’s going to write this off as Fairly Mature. And the feeling of ugly triumph he gets at the expression on Jensen’s face? At least he doesn’t punch him.
“Your map?” Jensen seethes. He’s actually-Jared has never seen him this angry before. Not even when Chad drank a month’s supply of grog and got sick all over the steps leading to the galley. Not even when Captain Morgan tried to cop a feel of Jared’s ass. Jensen’s so furious he can’t even speak for a moment.
“You- Did you bleed for that map? Well? Did you watch your friends get butchered by the captain you trusted with your life, only to be kept around because someone had to pretty up the goddamned ship? Were you left for fucking dead, Jared, when a felled mast crushed your leg and left you trapped for days on end, after your last remaining shipmate stole the map and ran? No, fuck you, that’s not your fucking map, and stop making fucking censor bleeps, we’re not in a fucking kid’s movie.”
Jared hadn’t even realized he’d been doing the bleeps. He wants to cry, and he doesn’t even know who for.
“Right,” Jared forces out just before his throat closes up. He can’t look at Jensen, but everything else is blurry and hurts to look at, besides, so. He’s right back at the Inn when it was burning, smoke clawing at his eyes as his home went up in flames, ransacked by-pirates. Jensen is a pirate. Jared makes himself spell it all out in his head, nerve-pinching words pricking in his fingers as he slips a hand inside his shirt and drags out the map, dropping it at Jensen’s feet with a sick sort of thud.
“Try not to ruin too many more lives when you do it, then,” he says, words tumbling past his numb lips.
And then he climbs up into the crow’s nest, because Jensen can’t manage the rigging with one leg.
Jared just can’t dredge up the energy to be an archetype right now.
~*~
The mutiny goes smoothly, even for a mutiny. All it really takes is locking Captain Morgan in his own cabin with a key someone swiped from Mr. Beaver, who surrenders quite willingly once Jensen sits him down for a chat.
Chad finds Jared up in the nest at the first hint of trouble, probably looking for a great seat well out of the danger zone. He brought popcorn, so it’s a pretty fair guess.
“Soooo,” he drawls, brushing kernel fragments out of his whiskers. “Couldn’t help noticing he’s got the map, yo.”
“Shut up, Chad,” Jared grumbles into his knees. (Jared realizes that he’s acting like an asshole, really, but being a main character is supposed to be fucking character building, so he hadn’t thought he’d needed to worry about it. Just one more thing on the list he’s doing wrong.)
“Just sayin.” Chad shrugs. “He didn’t really need the map to mutiny, did he? Seems kind of weird that he’d wait this long.”
“Shut up, Chad.”
“At least tell me you got a blow job out of the deal. You being one of those homeless, orphaned vagrant types with no hope for survival unless you go into some sort of prostitution or-“
“I’ll find a way,” Jared sighs, lifting his head just enough to rub the heels of his hands over his eyes. “It’s fine, I’ll just. Maybe I’ll enlist. Become a sailor.”
The rat is silent for about five seconds, which just might be a record. “You know there aren’t usually this many musical numbers on normal ships, right?”
Jensen limps across the deck below them, wearing some sort of fancy pirate captain ensemble he procured from…somewhere. The Black Hole of Costume Design. Jared gets so caught up in wondering how Jensen can even see through the feathers laced into the brim of his hat that it takes Jared a moment to notice Jensen has his face turned up to look at him.
Jared’s back hits the mast hard enough to bruise when he yanks himself back out of sight, air coming tight and painful. “I fucking hate climactic emotional betrayal,” he spits, and Chad pats his ankle awkwardly.
“Dude,” the rat says, and then, quieter, “Dude.”
~*~
Chad goes down for dinner, which definitely Was Not Made By Jensen, who has spent most of the day looking broody and driven while standing at the ship’s helm. Actually, dinner might just be grog.
Jared’s never been a big fan of grog, plus he’s not nearly done with sulking, and he plans to stay up in the crow’s nest until Jensen sends someone up to drag him down and throw him in the brig. No matter how many times Jensen catches him watching and gives Jared a painfully awkward little wave.
He’s pretty sure he doesn’t deserve any sort of olive branch, which just makes it worse.
~*~
The entire ship is passed out drunk by two in the morning, a chorus of drunken snores rising up from the galley, and Jared is only a little worried he’ll somehow roll out of the crow’s nest while he sleeps-just worried enough that he can’t pry his fingers free of the mast long enough to think about closing his eyes. He’s swaying and exhausted and emotionally drained, which is his excuse for not noticing that Jensen is climbing the rigging like a moron until he’s halfway up.
“-know how fucking uncomfortable,” Jared hears drifting up from below, which is his first clue. When he sees what Jensen’s doing his stomach peels free of his body and drops with a soggy whump upon the gunnel. Jensen’s crutch is on the deck, abandoned, and he’s hauling himself up by his hands and the strength of his one good leg. “-couldn’t have picked any other spot on the damned ship-”
“What the hell are you doing?” Jared hisses, louder than a hiss has any right to be. He has one foot on the rigging before he knows he’s doing it, before Jensen’s voice hits him like a paddle to the back of the head.
“Don’t-You’ll shake it and I’ll fall,” Jensen grits out, speaking directly to the rope clutched white-knuckled in his grip.
“Then go down,” Jared orders, throat inexplicably tight. “For Christ’s sake, get back on the deck and I’ll come down, Jesus, Jensen.”
“Will you really?” Jensen pants out, something like a bitter grin tinting his words through the strain. “Because I’ll just go right back up if you’re lying. Tomorrow, maybe, but I’ll do it.”
“Get down,” Jared growls again, through his teeth this time. But Jensen goes.
It takes forever, a million aching seconds as Jensen holds himself up by his hands and lowers his body down until he finds a footing. Jared helps as best he can, trying not to let his raw panic shine through and failing pretty damn spectacularly.
It’s the year 2011 when Jensen makes it to the deck, by Jared’s count, and Jared has to take a moment and several deep breaths before he can trust himself to follow without crashing to his own death. He focuses on the rope under his feet and hands, counting rungs, tasting the salt air, so when a steadying hand settles on his calf, he just about jumps out of his skin.
“Easy, easy,” Jensen says over Jared’s startled cursing-and he does curse, fuck it, he’s been training himself to believe it’s okay-and Jensen…Jensen looks bigger, somehow, even after only a day spent watching him move around the ship from above. He looks smaller too, something human and pleading in his eyes as he offers Jared help down from the railing, shifting uneasily on his crutch.
Something moves under Jared’s feet when he hits the deck, like the first rolling steps he took on the ship before he got his sea legs. That’s his excuse for the way he sort of slips and pins Jensen in place, ropes at his back and Jared at his front, pressed so close there isn’t any room for Jensen to fall. The crutch tumbles from under Jensen’s arm and rolls just out of reach under Jensen’s narrow-eyed gaze.
“I guess you wanted to talk to me,” Jared says, surprised at how even his voice sounds.
Jensen’s eyebrows do something complicated and sarcastic. “What gave you that impression?”
“Oh, I dunno,” Jared says, “Must have something to do with the way you almost killed yourself to do it.”
His mouth quirks, and Jared really can’t help but watch it settle into a warmer kind of smile. When it disappears it’s so abrupt Jared’s eyes snap back to Jensen’s like a string just got pulled.
“Look,” Jensen says, staring off at an abstract point over Jared’s shoulder. “I…” His lips press together in an unhappy frown. “I’m sorry about your Inn.”
“What?” It’s so-not what Jared was expecting that he almost pulls back before he remembers Jensen would fall.
“A couple guys who owed me a favor, and…they were just supposed to search the place, not burn it to the ground. And I’m sorry I gave you the impression,” Jensen continues around a cringe, “that I only liked you because there was an advantage to being your-friend. I wouldn’t-”
“Wait,” Jared cuts in, “Is this the denouement? Are we denoue-ing already? We haven’t even reached the island, which would really be considered the cumulative-”
“That’s what I wanted-” Jensen starts talking over them, then cuts off with a huff. “Jared, can you please stop babbling about plot development for two seconds, here?” And the thing is, he doesn’t sound angry; he just calmly palms Jared’s shoulders where he’s holding on until Jared settles, and this. This is good. Jared doesn’t know where it’s going, but it feels nice. It feels really nice.
“I wanted to ask you,” Jensen says, looking smack dab into Jared’s eyes while he does it, “if you’d like to be part of the boarding party tomorrow. To go with me, and, you know, find the treasure.” He’s blushing in the dim light thrown by the moon and the few scattered lamps lit around the ship, and his freckles look like constellations. “If you want.”
“If I…” Jared trails off, feeling dizzy.
“And then maybe-I don’t know if you have places to be,” Jensen stammers, “like, Mr. Beaver, I promised we’d drop him off at a port where he could get a ship back to England where his little girl is waiting, and you could do the same, you know, but I hand-picked the rest of the crew-besides Chad, I think he followed you onboard-and we’re going to sail off and have adventures and…yeah. If you want to come.”
“You’d…really want me around?” Jared asks, voice slipping into octaves of uncertainty that make him wince, honestly.
Jensen sighs and ducks his head, accidentally knocking their heads together. “Ow. Just. Yeah? If you… I’d like that, yes.”
“…But you don’t even really like me,” Jared blurts. “You still make fun of me for thinking I had to have an accent-in a story set in 19th century England, I’m going to remind you again-and you hate that I’m tall and I fail at cutting onions and-”
“Jesus, Jared!” Jensen’s hands come up to catch his face and hold him still, even if it means Jensen wobbles precariously and Jared has to catch him around the waist to make sure he doesn’t fall. And Jensen kind of sighs, close enough Jared can taste it, and closes his eyes. “If I kiss you now, will you just shut up and believe me?”
Jared is nodding before the front of his brain can even process what it heard, but by then? It really doesn’t care, because Jensen’s mouth is against Jared’s. Jared wishes fervently for the Chinese to have surrendered their firework technology in a more timely fashion-and if he could be sure Jensen could stand on his own he might be tempted to leg-pop-but that’s a sort of dim concern. Jensen kisses like he needs Jared to keep from drowning, like a ship slicing through the waves, like…fuck it, Jared can’t think in nautical metaphors when Jensen’s licking into his mouth, nibbling at his lower lip until Jared gasps and shakes and swears and Jared-
Jared wants Jensen more than anything. And this is his goddamned movie.
Jared pulls back just enough to close his hands around Jensen’s wrists, pry them off Jared’s skin (even though it kills him, and if this doesn’t work Jared’s moving them somewhere lateral ASAP and just letting Jensen touch him forever) pushing them back until Jensen grabs the rigging with a surprised jerk, even though Jared is projecting with every cell in his body that he’d never let Jensen fall. His arms are bent on either side of his head, now, steadying, but Jensen still looks like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Er, so to speak.
“Can you hold yourself up like this?” Jared asks, voice a low, wrecked murmur.
A cross frown flits across Jensen’s face, but, “Yeah, of course, how long do you-Oh fuck-”
Jared’s knees sting a little from how hard he hit the deck, but mmmmmyes, and he nuzzles at the bulge in Jensen’s ridiculous velvety pirate captain pants and tries to brace Jensen as best he can. Jensen’s injured leg-Jared won’t call it his ‘stump,’ what an ugly word, it’s still Jensen’s thigh-pushes hesitantly against him and Jared thinks, yes, thinks, duh, thinks, Cor Blimey, and lifts that leg up over his shoulder, catching more of Jensen’s weight as his free hand works at the ties in Jensen’s trousers.
“What-” Jensen sound absolutely debauched, and Jared hasn’t even got with the bauching. It’s fantastic. “I thought-you were all about keeping this PG-13-”
“Wait for it,” Jared murmurs, right against Jensen’s hip as his fingers massage down Jensen’s leg. “Three…two…one…”
~*~ fade to black ~*~
“Move Captain to brig,” Jensen murmurs directly into the bare skin of Jared’s chest where he’s curled up, the two of them tangled together between the ship’s canons for some semblance of privacy. “Need whole room to fuck you.”
“That…barely makes sense,” Jared giggles a little helplessly. “You’re missing entire words.”
“Shut,” Jensen says. And doesn’t finish.
Jared gathers him even closer in his arms and presses his face to the salty sweet smell of Jensen’s neck. “Best plot climax ever,” he whispers, and lets the credits roll.
.
ETA: Oh my god, you guys, there is now a PODFIC by reena_jenkins . *________________* GO LEAVE HER SO MUCH LOVE.