(no subject)
The move to Michigan is much less eventful than the move to Vermont was.
Jensen spends three weeks up in Michigan with a realtor touring large houses on large sites before he gives the all-clear to sell the houses in Vermont. It takes two days for everyone to pack up and there are no tears shed during the drive up into the mountains.
The house used to be an inn, a hundred some odd years ago. The build is colonial and beautiful, whitewashed brick and tall columns lining the fat ring of the porch that hangs the corner of the front and mirrors a balcony on the upper level with room for sunning chairs and porch swings and loveseats with bright yellow cushions so they can sit out at night and look out into the seventy square acre valley Jensen’s brought them.
The kitchen is a little industrial, lacking in the homey warmth but he has plans to gut it and replace the stainless steel with glazed ceramics and soft forest colors, knock out the wall between it and the dining room and open the area up wide so they can cook and eat and exist together all at once.
There are enough rooms but he’ll build up, build more so that they can have a nursery and a game room and a sun room. The back of the house is full of spacious windows with intricate framework that open up to the view of the forest stretching out for miles and miles all around them.
Their closest neighbor is eleven miles down the road and Jensen has been seeing about picking up all of that land too, so he can have the lake and not have to worry about trespassers.
Beyond that house is another forty miles to town, and it’s a cute town to boot. The butcher isn’t Moroccan, the girl who mans that counter at the gas station has no relation to the local preacher, but there’s a decent local life. The school is a good size and the principal had been kind when Jensen had approached her with a list of new enrollments. There’s an auto shop off of Main Street run by a podgy old bastard with pock marks and a sneer that only said, “If the kid can figure out what the hell’s making that noise, he’s hired,” when Mark turned in his application. Closer to the shopping crux that seems to house the community’s heartbeat is a used bookshop where Misha and Rachel share a shift. Danni and Adrianne swap shifts with Gen and Seb at a little shop on a wood alcove of the center called Potpourri and Mike gleefully works the register at a food stand that has free samples.
Forty five minutes down the road in the opposite direction is a small community college and it isn’t everything that Jensen had hoped for, but for what it is, it’s pretty great.
Alona takes classes there, aiming towards a teaching degree and they’ll have to talk about four year colleges when the time comes, but Jensen believes that if anyone could do it, it’s Alona.
Patrick is taking an accounting course, per his own ambition and Jensen’s sincere request that they have someone to keep the books now that the old regime is over.
Jensen takes French.
He’s learning how to drive.
Not voluntarily, to be fair, and most of the time it still scares the absolute hell out of him, even with Jared sitting next to him and shouting, “Jensen, we’re in a field, there’s literally nothing you could possibly hit!” His heart pounds in his ears for hours after each lesson and Jared has to pry his hands away from the wheel when he does cut the engine, but it’s progress.
Jared enrolled in a full course load as soon as they hit the doorstep of the new property, hauling home a stack of books that clean emptied his bank account, but he was beaming.
Jensen loves every single piece of the house and all of the land, but he has to say his favorite part of it all is the attic with the circular window and the unfinished wood floors with the California king mattress on a box-spring seated in the direct center of the slanting roof over head, with all the floor space of the main floor but none of the walls to which Jensen has exerted his Alpha standing and laid claim to as his own. It’s drafty and dark and so wonderful Jensen can hardly breathe whenever he climbs the stairs and rests his forearms against the banister and takes the place in.
One of the first things Jensen had tackled was adding a bathroom in the back corner of the attic, Jeff teaching him how to connect pipes and reroute electricity and drywall until they hauled up a clawfoot bathtub and a brand new toilet. Tiling had been a pain in the ass and wiring was Jensen’s new least favorite thing in the world, but he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t feel smugly proud every time he took a bath.
He built that.
The furniture is mix and match, things from Silvalopus that they’d had in storage, things they picked up along the way, things he had to buy brand new, piecing together a bedroom and an office space complete with a dark finish dresser, a wide oak desk with a strangely ornate velvet chair, and a wardrobe.
For example, the television mounted in the far corner is new and so is every movie stacked next to it and spilling out of the bookcase, but the bookcase itself and the ornate chairs that Jensen likes to curls up in and the rug underneath are old and smell faintly, very faintly of smoke. It will fade out soon enough.
Not that he can ever smell it through the candles, anyway.
Everything is covered in candles.
They glow gently in the dark of the night when Jensen lights them up, smelling sweetly and warming everything they touch.
The light touches Jared’s skin underneath of Jensen’s hands, lighting him up bronze and gold in the darkness and Jensen smiles into Jared’s chest, breathing in deeply
He smells warm like sex and sunshine, the intermingling of himself and Jensen all over his skin melding with the length of the day. Jensen snuggles in closer to Jared’s chest, laying sprawled between Jared’s indecent spread-eagle with his chin gouging into the other boy’s sternum and his hands folded under his own neck, just staring contentedly. The sheet is crumpled around Jensen’s lower back, twisted up under Jared’s knees so that the only real cover Jared has is Jensen’s body spread out over his.
“We’ll have to clear out the trees over there to build the stables,” Jensen mumbles, glancing away from the amused twitch at the corner of Jared’s lips to gaze out through the circular window, off into the far corner of the property, the fresh new growths of oncoming spring illuminated in the cool moonlight. “We’ll keep the rabbits close to the house and keep the porch lights on so the foxes won’t try to get at them.”
“Yeah?” Jared hums, only half paying attention as he drifts closer towards sleep.
“Yeah.” Jensen grins. He tugs his own hand out from being pinned from between their bodies and slides his fingers over Jared’s, squeezing pleasantly. “I have people coming in next week to walk the grounds and give me an estimate about digging a well, but I think for the most part we’re pretty good to do most everything else by ourselves. You and I can start plowing for the gardens tomorrow, if you’re up for it.”
“Mm-hm,” Jared hums and Jensen’s grin breaks into a full on smile. He props himself up on his arms and leans up, kissing the edge of Jared’s chin and then his mouth and Jared finally starts to come around again. “I was paying attention.”
“I know.” Jensen noses at the underside of Jared’s jaw affectionately, bemused.
“You still have to name the house, you know,” Jared reminds and his voice vibrates pleasantly from his neck to Jensen’s lips.
“Illuna,” Jensen whispers into the skin of Jared’s throat. “Her name’s Illuna.”
Fin.