FIC: "Thawing Distance" (8/10)
Thawing Distance
By Simarillion
Fandom: Supernatural RPS
Universe: Alternative Universe
Rating: NC-17
Beta: asm_z
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki, others
Warnings: slash, M/M
Word Count: 2,989 (25,764)
Summary: Tell it like it is. (Of settling and living)
Disclaimer: None of the herein presented happenings and events are true. Everything is 100% fiction and that includes the sexuality of the characters. I don’t claim to be in the know about their relations and private affairs, and I don’t make any money with the creation of this story.
Author’s Note: I changed the age of Jensen and Jared, they are the same age now. The plot wouldn’t really work otherwise.
This is part 6 of the Glaciology! ‘verse. Jensen is a scientist in the field of glaciology and he spends most of his time surrounded by ice, whereas Jared is a Hollywood movie star. Prequel to this story are Invisible Glaciers, Iceberg Anatomy, Avalanches Approaching, Crevasse Rescue and Shelf Ice Meander.
[ Masterpost]
Part Eight
The next morning when Jensen wakes up, he can hear Jared’s voice downstairs talking to the dogs. From the tone of voice it’s a rather serious talk and he can’t help but smile at the thought what the three had been up to that warranted a dressing down by Jared.
Stretching, he yawns wide and then slowly climbs out of bed. It’s much too warm and cozy in bed to get up and face a new day. He can see the morning sun all silvery and pale outside and there are birds sitting right outside the window on the roof rail.
Jensen scratches his belly as he sorts through the underwear drawer, picking a fresh pair of boxer shorts, and then grabs the jeans he had been wearing yesterday. They are wrinkled but clean enough to be put on again.
T-shirt in hand, he pads downstairs barefoot. The closer he gets the better he can understand what Jared is saying to the dogs. He shrugs into the t-shirt and sneaks closer to the kitchen, which seems to be ground zero.
“What did I say when we drove here?” Jared’s voice is quiet but strict, putting Harley and Sadie in their place without raising his voice even the tiniest bit. “I told you, no digging up flowers, no shameless begging, no rolling around in the dirt and then jumping on the couch, and definitely no chewing shoes or briefcases.”
Jensen snorts at the last condition, knowing that most likely Dean had been the perpetrator of the group. Quietly, he takes a peek around the corner and finds Jared brandishing Jensen’s leather messenger bag that displays an impressive collection of bite marks, one corner being actually chewed off.
Seeing the damage, he can’t help himself. Jensen bursts out laughing. The sudden sound has the dogs yipping all excited, and Jared glare at him.
“You do realize that this does nothing to strengthen my position here?” He watches the happy dance the dogs are starting up as Jensen joins them in the kitchen, making all too obvious that this is a situation that has been lost the moment Jensen joined in. “They are never going to learn if you encourage them. They’ll never take me seriously now.”
Taking the ruined bag out of Jared’s hand, Jensen pulls him closer and kisses away the pout that starts forming on his lips. “They are all serious about you.”
“You are as bad as them.” The grumbled comment is followed by a deep kiss that has Jensen’s spine tingling. This is the perfect way to start a day.
Any further plans of kissing or making out are stopped by the twin growls of their stomachs. Jensen blushes slightly at the undignified sound of it, but Jared only grins widely at him.
“I’d say food is in order.” With a last peck on Jensen’s lips, Jared lets go of him and makes for the fridge. His destination does not go unnoticed by the infernal trio. Even before he reaches the fridge, he’s surrounded and assaulted with puppy eyes left, right, and center.
Jensen chuckles and turns to the cupboards, taking out plates and cutlery, preparing the table for breakfast. While Jared’s fighting for every slice of ham, Jensen calmly brews coffee and gets rolls from the freezer to bake them in the oven.
In the end they have a healthy breakfast of coffee and juice, ham and eggs, fresh rolls with butter and toast with butter and jam. Dean, Harley and Sadie are sulking in the living room, upset about the lack of ham being dropped.
“So, what are you going to do for Thanksgiving? It’s only a couple of weeks away.” The question is hard to understand because Jared is busy shoveling down his scrambled eggs while asking. “Any plans yet?”
Buttering a piece of toast and reaching for the glass with the strawberry jam, Jensen wonders why Jared asked. “Well, my family is coming for the holiday and is staying until the weekend. I was thinking that maybe if you’re at home, I could head south once they have returned home?”
“Um, I was thinking, I want to invite my family as well and maybe, you know, we could have the Thanksgiving dinner together. At my house?” This renders Jensen speechless. Never would he have expected this development. True, they have been out ever since Jared’s public declaration, but so far neither their friends nor their family have interacted in any way.
“Are you sure about that?” He can’t help but ask. This isn’t the dreaded meet the parents, this is the even more scary family meets family. Maybe combining the family meeting with the introduction to the parents is a bit too much all at once.
“I want this to be a holiday that we spend together with our families. I was able to charter a plane from Dallas to LA for the time, and with my parents visiting Jeff in Dallas the days before Thanksgiving, they could all fly in together.” This sounds even worse than the big Thanksgiving get-together. Their families traveling together. Who knows what they will do, talk about, plan?
He puts the toast down on his plate, a queasy feeling in his stomach. The idea of meeting Jared’s family is already rather intimidating for him. Never before has this particular scenario taken place. Jensen’s sex life had been existent, but only barely so, and none of his partners had been interested in a real relationship.
When he sits there, a little pale and staring sightlessly at his plate, Jared finally seems to notice that something is up. Somewhere in the back, Jensen hears the sound of a chair being pushed away from the table and soon after two arms wrap themselves around his shoulders.
“Hey, it will be great. Just you wait and see. My parents will love you and your parents will by won over by my family on their flight to LA.” The words are murmured against his ear, the hot breath ghosting softly over the sensitive shell, making him shiver. “There’s nothing you have to worry about.”
But that’s exactly what he does and he can’t help it. Jensen closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I’ve never done this before.”
“What? Thanksgiving with both families?”
“No, met the family.” Somehow he can’t worry about what Jared’s parents must think about him. Jensen is the reason for their son leaving women behind and outing himself in front of the whole nation on TV. Somehow he can’t share Jared’s optimism.
The sigh that Jared blows against his ear is followed by a quick kiss on his cheek. “Wait here.”
With that the arms around his shoulders let go and the warmth that he had been leaning against disappears. Turning around in his seat, he watches Jared disappear up the stairs. Even though he still feels nervous about Jared’s proposal, he can’t help but wonder what item from upstairs is supposed to help him calm down.
His question is soon answered, when Jared reappears talking on his phone. He smiles happily while chattering away on the phone. When he catches Jensen watching him, he smiles wide and open, his eyes smiling with him. The sight of the it takes his breath away. Sometimes his relationship with Jared still seems like a figment of his imagination.
As he comes closer to the kitchen, Jensen can make out Jared’s part of the conversation. “Yeah, I promise. Of course. Well, how about you ask yourself?”
The phone is held out to him and Jensen stares at him, not sure what this is all about.
“It’s for you.” Cautiously Jensen takes the mobile from Jared and holds it to his ear. It’s not like the person on the other end can bite his ear off, but still, as long as he doesn’t know who he’s talking to, he can’t help being wary. “Go on.”
Jared is of no help. He just plops down in his chair and happily goes back to eating breakfast, doing his best to ignore the looks Jensen is giving him. With a last glare at the bowed head, he takes a deep breath and answers the phone.
“Hi, this is Jensen.” He wonders what the other person must think of him, staying quiet for so long, letting them wait.
“Hi Jensen!” The voice is female and mature, all kind and soft. It soothes his nerves almost instantly. “I’m Sherri, Jared’s mom.”
And just like that he’s nervous again. His eyes widen with shock and he stares at Jared who finally has stopped pretending to be ignorant of the conversation and nods encouragingly at him. What is he supposed to say to Jared’s mom? Should he call her Sherri or Mrs. Padalecki? Why does she want to talk to him?
“Um, hi.” He swallows and wonders about what he should contribute to their talk. “It’s nice talking to you.”
The moment the words leave his lips he winces. Could he be any lamer? The first time he gets to talk to Jared’s mother and he sounds like some pre-schooler. It’s all kinds of embarrassing and Jared’s amused snort that he tries to hide behind the glass of OJ, doesn’t help any.
“It’s nice talking to you too, Jensen. I have to say, Jared talks about you all the time, but I was wondering if he was embarrassed of his family for never letting us talk to you.” The comment is accompanied by a bubbly laugh that in it’s cheerfulness is all Jared. “Maybe he thought that you would go running once you got to know us.”
More good-natured laughter and Jensen starts to slowly relax. Jared’s mum is just like him. Funny, friendly and chatty. Not that Jensen would ever say in front of Jared that he’s chatty. He can just imagine the pout the comment would cause.
“Who knows. Jared’s mind works in mysterious ways sometimes.” This has Sherri laugh some more and Jared roll his eyes. “Jared said that you wanted to ask me something?”
“Yes, he told me that he asked about Thanksgiving and that you were not sure if we would want to spend it with you and your family. Well, I can’t speak for your family, but let me assure you that we would be delighted to meet you and your parents and siblings.” Hearing the proposition from Jared’s mom makes it far more logical and reasonable. It means that Jared didn’t just make it up on the go, but talked to his parents about it.
“My family were planning on staying with me in San Francisco, but I’m sure that they’ll be happy to come to LA and have Thanksgiving with all of you.” And now that he thinks about it, it’s the perfect possibility to get them together and make their relationship even more official.
“Perfect. I’m sure that we’ll have a great flight together.” Hopefully all the other Padalecki family members are equally excited about the whole affair. But from his own family he knows that a happy and content Mum is what it takes to make everyone else happy and content. Surely none of her other children or her husband would willingly upset her. “If you give me your mum’s number we could discuss dinner.”
After passing on his family home’s phone number, the call ends relatively fast and then they are back to finishing breakfast. Jensen can feel Jared’s eyes on him, waiting for a reaction. Jensen decides to let him stew some more and picks up the toast from his plate, taking a hearty bite.
When Jared starts to twitch nervously on his chair, he knows that the other is close to exploding. He fights hard the grin that is tugging at the corners of his lips. But the oh so subtle clearing of his throat has Jensen break, laughter bubbling out of him.
“Come on, it’s not fair to make me wait like this.” There’s definitely a whine in Jared’s voice and Jensen laughs harder again. “Jensen.”
“Sorry.” But it’s really hard to stop laughing.
Finally, a couple of minutes later, he has calmed down enough to talk without gasping for air. “I’m going to call my mum and my dad about the change of location in the afternoon and let them know that they should pack their fancy stuff because they’re going to meet a real movie star.”
Jared opts to ignore the sarcastic part of the answer and just grins dopily as soon as he hears the words ‘call mum and dad’ and ‘change of location. It’s times like these were it becomes obvious that for all his fame and fortune, it actually takes very little to make Jared happy.
“Awesome!” And with that he shovels the last of the scrambled eggs into his mouth. His lips are shiny with grease and his cheeks are bulging with the food. He looks like a giant ass chipmunk. “It’ll be great. Lisa and Jack will be there too.”
Jensen shakes his head and continues eating his toast. The taste of the home-made strawberry jam is sweet and fruity. Mary had been smuggling a couple of glasses into his house when bringing back glasses and plates, and other cooking utensils, after the big bar-b-q. According to her, she picked the berries in her garden.
Once breakfast is finished and the dishes are soaking in the sink, they coax the dogs out into the garden, tossing a Frisbee, making them run around, barking happily. Somehow Jensen can’t help but notice the similarity in behavior between the dogs and Jared. Give them something to play and they are all happy. All four of them.
After some time, he sits down on the stairs of the porch and watches Jared toss the disc and then wrestle it away as one of the dogs fetches it. He’s soon joined by one of the cats, Mr Spock for his pointy ears. At first the feline sits next to him, his head moving from side to side as he follows the goofing around in the garden, but when Jensen shifts his position a little, leaning back on his elbows, the tom cat immediately seizes the opportunity and climbs into his lap.
Once positioned correctly, he curls up and starts purring, the sound like the engine of a small diesel train. Jensen strokes the soft fur and scratches behind the ears. The caresses only increase the volume of the purring, and pointy claws are kneaded into his jean clad thigh.
“Enjoying yourself, Spock?” The only reaction his question gets is the closure of his eyes, and the small head leans back present his chin and throat to scratch and stroke. “Lazy bastard.”
He stays like this, cat in his lap and enjoying the sun until Jared jogs over, plopping down onto the stairs next to him. There’s a slight film of sweat on his brow and his hair is completely tousled from running around and wrestling with the dogs.
“Got yourself some company?” Jared reaches over and tickles the tom cat’s belly, having him crack one of his eyes open and watch the new human carefully. For a couple of seconds the feline allows the disrespectful treatment but then he folds up like a jackknife and starts biting and scratching the offending appendage. “Hey!”
The indignation on Jared’s face and the determination and annoyance on the cats has Jensen shake with laughter.
“Do something!” Jared tries to retrieve his hand but the tom cat is already prepared for that and jumps up, following his arch enemy onto Jared’s lap. With an outraged look on his face Jared cradles his abused hand to his chest, eyeing the small animal with distrust. “I’m onto you.”
When the big human doesn’t dislodge him and keeps from touching him all wrong the cat decides that it’s the perfect time to continue his prior occupation. Making two circles in the lap he’s conquered, the tom cat settles down, tail tugged close around his body and closes his eyes.
Jensen encourages Jared to pet the feline, nodding and smiling. Careful and cautious Jared reaches out to the furry head, and when he pets the cat, rubbing behind the soft ears, the cat cracks his eyes open, startling the human into inactivity.
“Dude, you are so pussy-whipped.” Jensen almost slips down from the stair he’s sitting on, laughing so hard he has to hold his sides. His undignified behavior earns him a haughty look from Mr. Spock and sulky pout from Jared.
The latter picks up where he left of with the petting and soon a rumbling purr can be heard again. Soon Jared is grinning like mad; all excited about the new friend he’s made. He knows most of the other cats already, but Mr. Spock is usually running around somewhere. It’s not often that he comes closer like he’s doing right now.
Watching the two of them, Jensen smiles content. He likes a morning like today. Even the excitement of the telephone conversation with Jared’s mom added to the greatness of the day he’s having. He leaves the two new found friends sitting on the stairs, and heads inside. He vaguely remembers dropping his phone last night when welcoming Jared back.
Fortunately the dogs only destroyed the messenger bag and left the mobile alone. Jensen finds the phone exactly where he lost it last night. He picks it up and presses dial. The last number he called is his parent’s landline in Dallas.
After the third ring the other end is picked up. “Ackles?”
“Hi mum.”
“Jensen!” There’s genuine pleasure in her voice as she finds out who’s calling. “Everything alright?”
“Everything’s perfect. Sorry for cutting the call so short last night.” He sits down on the stairs to the upper floor. “There’s been a change of plan for Thanksgiving. How does everyone feel about going to LA?”
continue: Part Nine
By Simarillion
Fandom: Supernatural RPS
Universe: Alternative Universe
Rating: NC-17
Beta: asm_z
Pairing: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki, others
Warnings: slash, M/M
Word Count: 2,989 (25,764)
Summary: Tell it like it is. (Of settling and living)
Disclaimer: None of the herein presented happenings and events are true. Everything is 100% fiction and that includes the sexuality of the characters. I don’t claim to be in the know about their relations and private affairs, and I don’t make any money with the creation of this story.
Author’s Note: I changed the age of Jensen and Jared, they are the same age now. The plot wouldn’t really work otherwise.
This is part 6 of the Glaciology! ‘verse. Jensen is a scientist in the field of glaciology and he spends most of his time surrounded by ice, whereas Jared is a Hollywood movie star. Prequel to this story are Invisible Glaciers, Iceberg Anatomy, Avalanches Approaching, Crevasse Rescue and Shelf Ice Meander.
[ Masterpost]
Part Eight
The next morning when Jensen wakes up, he can hear Jared’s voice downstairs talking to the dogs. From the tone of voice it’s a rather serious talk and he can’t help but smile at the thought what the three had been up to that warranted a dressing down by Jared.
Stretching, he yawns wide and then slowly climbs out of bed. It’s much too warm and cozy in bed to get up and face a new day. He can see the morning sun all silvery and pale outside and there are birds sitting right outside the window on the roof rail.
Jensen scratches his belly as he sorts through the underwear drawer, picking a fresh pair of boxer shorts, and then grabs the jeans he had been wearing yesterday. They are wrinkled but clean enough to be put on again.
T-shirt in hand, he pads downstairs barefoot. The closer he gets the better he can understand what Jared is saying to the dogs. He shrugs into the t-shirt and sneaks closer to the kitchen, which seems to be ground zero.
“What did I say when we drove here?” Jared’s voice is quiet but strict, putting Harley and Sadie in their place without raising his voice even the tiniest bit. “I told you, no digging up flowers, no shameless begging, no rolling around in the dirt and then jumping on the couch, and definitely no chewing shoes or briefcases.”
Jensen snorts at the last condition, knowing that most likely Dean had been the perpetrator of the group. Quietly, he takes a peek around the corner and finds Jared brandishing Jensen’s leather messenger bag that displays an impressive collection of bite marks, one corner being actually chewed off.
Seeing the damage, he can’t help himself. Jensen bursts out laughing. The sudden sound has the dogs yipping all excited, and Jared glare at him.
“You do realize that this does nothing to strengthen my position here?” He watches the happy dance the dogs are starting up as Jensen joins them in the kitchen, making all too obvious that this is a situation that has been lost the moment Jensen joined in. “They are never going to learn if you encourage them. They’ll never take me seriously now.”
Taking the ruined bag out of Jared’s hand, Jensen pulls him closer and kisses away the pout that starts forming on his lips. “They are all serious about you.”
“You are as bad as them.” The grumbled comment is followed by a deep kiss that has Jensen’s spine tingling. This is the perfect way to start a day.
Any further plans of kissing or making out are stopped by the twin growls of their stomachs. Jensen blushes slightly at the undignified sound of it, but Jared only grins widely at him.
“I’d say food is in order.” With a last peck on Jensen’s lips, Jared lets go of him and makes for the fridge. His destination does not go unnoticed by the infernal trio. Even before he reaches the fridge, he’s surrounded and assaulted with puppy eyes left, right, and center.
Jensen chuckles and turns to the cupboards, taking out plates and cutlery, preparing the table for breakfast. While Jared’s fighting for every slice of ham, Jensen calmly brews coffee and gets rolls from the freezer to bake them in the oven.
In the end they have a healthy breakfast of coffee and juice, ham and eggs, fresh rolls with butter and toast with butter and jam. Dean, Harley and Sadie are sulking in the living room, upset about the lack of ham being dropped.
“So, what are you going to do for Thanksgiving? It’s only a couple of weeks away.” The question is hard to understand because Jared is busy shoveling down his scrambled eggs while asking. “Any plans yet?”
Buttering a piece of toast and reaching for the glass with the strawberry jam, Jensen wonders why Jared asked. “Well, my family is coming for the holiday and is staying until the weekend. I was thinking that maybe if you’re at home, I could head south once they have returned home?”
“Um, I was thinking, I want to invite my family as well and maybe, you know, we could have the Thanksgiving dinner together. At my house?” This renders Jensen speechless. Never would he have expected this development. True, they have been out ever since Jared’s public declaration, but so far neither their friends nor their family have interacted in any way.
“Are you sure about that?” He can’t help but ask. This isn’t the dreaded meet the parents, this is the even more scary family meets family. Maybe combining the family meeting with the introduction to the parents is a bit too much all at once.
“I want this to be a holiday that we spend together with our families. I was able to charter a plane from Dallas to LA for the time, and with my parents visiting Jeff in Dallas the days before Thanksgiving, they could all fly in together.” This sounds even worse than the big Thanksgiving get-together. Their families traveling together. Who knows what they will do, talk about, plan?
He puts the toast down on his plate, a queasy feeling in his stomach. The idea of meeting Jared’s family is already rather intimidating for him. Never before has this particular scenario taken place. Jensen’s sex life had been existent, but only barely so, and none of his partners had been interested in a real relationship.
When he sits there, a little pale and staring sightlessly at his plate, Jared finally seems to notice that something is up. Somewhere in the back, Jensen hears the sound of a chair being pushed away from the table and soon after two arms wrap themselves around his shoulders.
“Hey, it will be great. Just you wait and see. My parents will love you and your parents will by won over by my family on their flight to LA.” The words are murmured against his ear, the hot breath ghosting softly over the sensitive shell, making him shiver. “There’s nothing you have to worry about.”
But that’s exactly what he does and he can’t help it. Jensen closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I’ve never done this before.”
“What? Thanksgiving with both families?”
“No, met the family.” Somehow he can’t worry about what Jared’s parents must think about him. Jensen is the reason for their son leaving women behind and outing himself in front of the whole nation on TV. Somehow he can’t share Jared’s optimism.
The sigh that Jared blows against his ear is followed by a quick kiss on his cheek. “Wait here.”
With that the arms around his shoulders let go and the warmth that he had been leaning against disappears. Turning around in his seat, he watches Jared disappear up the stairs. Even though he still feels nervous about Jared’s proposal, he can’t help but wonder what item from upstairs is supposed to help him calm down.
His question is soon answered, when Jared reappears talking on his phone. He smiles happily while chattering away on the phone. When he catches Jensen watching him, he smiles wide and open, his eyes smiling with him. The sight of the it takes his breath away. Sometimes his relationship with Jared still seems like a figment of his imagination.
As he comes closer to the kitchen, Jensen can make out Jared’s part of the conversation. “Yeah, I promise. Of course. Well, how about you ask yourself?”
The phone is held out to him and Jensen stares at him, not sure what this is all about.
“It’s for you.” Cautiously Jensen takes the mobile from Jared and holds it to his ear. It’s not like the person on the other end can bite his ear off, but still, as long as he doesn’t know who he’s talking to, he can’t help being wary. “Go on.”
Jared is of no help. He just plops down in his chair and happily goes back to eating breakfast, doing his best to ignore the looks Jensen is giving him. With a last glare at the bowed head, he takes a deep breath and answers the phone.
“Hi, this is Jensen.” He wonders what the other person must think of him, staying quiet for so long, letting them wait.
“Hi Jensen!” The voice is female and mature, all kind and soft. It soothes his nerves almost instantly. “I’m Sherri, Jared’s mom.”
And just like that he’s nervous again. His eyes widen with shock and he stares at Jared who finally has stopped pretending to be ignorant of the conversation and nods encouragingly at him. What is he supposed to say to Jared’s mom? Should he call her Sherri or Mrs. Padalecki? Why does she want to talk to him?
“Um, hi.” He swallows and wonders about what he should contribute to their talk. “It’s nice talking to you.”
The moment the words leave his lips he winces. Could he be any lamer? The first time he gets to talk to Jared’s mother and he sounds like some pre-schooler. It’s all kinds of embarrassing and Jared’s amused snort that he tries to hide behind the glass of OJ, doesn’t help any.
“It’s nice talking to you too, Jensen. I have to say, Jared talks about you all the time, but I was wondering if he was embarrassed of his family for never letting us talk to you.” The comment is accompanied by a bubbly laugh that in it’s cheerfulness is all Jared. “Maybe he thought that you would go running once you got to know us.”
More good-natured laughter and Jensen starts to slowly relax. Jared’s mum is just like him. Funny, friendly and chatty. Not that Jensen would ever say in front of Jared that he’s chatty. He can just imagine the pout the comment would cause.
“Who knows. Jared’s mind works in mysterious ways sometimes.” This has Sherri laugh some more and Jared roll his eyes. “Jared said that you wanted to ask me something?”
“Yes, he told me that he asked about Thanksgiving and that you were not sure if we would want to spend it with you and your family. Well, I can’t speak for your family, but let me assure you that we would be delighted to meet you and your parents and siblings.” Hearing the proposition from Jared’s mom makes it far more logical and reasonable. It means that Jared didn’t just make it up on the go, but talked to his parents about it.
“My family were planning on staying with me in San Francisco, but I’m sure that they’ll be happy to come to LA and have Thanksgiving with all of you.” And now that he thinks about it, it’s the perfect possibility to get them together and make their relationship even more official.
“Perfect. I’m sure that we’ll have a great flight together.” Hopefully all the other Padalecki family members are equally excited about the whole affair. But from his own family he knows that a happy and content Mum is what it takes to make everyone else happy and content. Surely none of her other children or her husband would willingly upset her. “If you give me your mum’s number we could discuss dinner.”
After passing on his family home’s phone number, the call ends relatively fast and then they are back to finishing breakfast. Jensen can feel Jared’s eyes on him, waiting for a reaction. Jensen decides to let him stew some more and picks up the toast from his plate, taking a hearty bite.
When Jared starts to twitch nervously on his chair, he knows that the other is close to exploding. He fights hard the grin that is tugging at the corners of his lips. But the oh so subtle clearing of his throat has Jensen break, laughter bubbling out of him.
“Come on, it’s not fair to make me wait like this.” There’s definitely a whine in Jared’s voice and Jensen laughs harder again. “Jensen.”
“Sorry.” But it’s really hard to stop laughing.
Finally, a couple of minutes later, he has calmed down enough to talk without gasping for air. “I’m going to call my mum and my dad about the change of location in the afternoon and let them know that they should pack their fancy stuff because they’re going to meet a real movie star.”
Jared opts to ignore the sarcastic part of the answer and just grins dopily as soon as he hears the words ‘call mum and dad’ and ‘change of location. It’s times like these were it becomes obvious that for all his fame and fortune, it actually takes very little to make Jared happy.
“Awesome!” And with that he shovels the last of the scrambled eggs into his mouth. His lips are shiny with grease and his cheeks are bulging with the food. He looks like a giant ass chipmunk. “It’ll be great. Lisa and Jack will be there too.”
Jensen shakes his head and continues eating his toast. The taste of the home-made strawberry jam is sweet and fruity. Mary had been smuggling a couple of glasses into his house when bringing back glasses and plates, and other cooking utensils, after the big bar-b-q. According to her, she picked the berries in her garden.
Once breakfast is finished and the dishes are soaking in the sink, they coax the dogs out into the garden, tossing a Frisbee, making them run around, barking happily. Somehow Jensen can’t help but notice the similarity in behavior between the dogs and Jared. Give them something to play and they are all happy. All four of them.
After some time, he sits down on the stairs of the porch and watches Jared toss the disc and then wrestle it away as one of the dogs fetches it. He’s soon joined by one of the cats, Mr Spock for his pointy ears. At first the feline sits next to him, his head moving from side to side as he follows the goofing around in the garden, but when Jensen shifts his position a little, leaning back on his elbows, the tom cat immediately seizes the opportunity and climbs into his lap.
Once positioned correctly, he curls up and starts purring, the sound like the engine of a small diesel train. Jensen strokes the soft fur and scratches behind the ears. The caresses only increase the volume of the purring, and pointy claws are kneaded into his jean clad thigh.
“Enjoying yourself, Spock?” The only reaction his question gets is the closure of his eyes, and the small head leans back present his chin and throat to scratch and stroke. “Lazy bastard.”
He stays like this, cat in his lap and enjoying the sun until Jared jogs over, plopping down onto the stairs next to him. There’s a slight film of sweat on his brow and his hair is completely tousled from running around and wrestling with the dogs.
“Got yourself some company?” Jared reaches over and tickles the tom cat’s belly, having him crack one of his eyes open and watch the new human carefully. For a couple of seconds the feline allows the disrespectful treatment but then he folds up like a jackknife and starts biting and scratching the offending appendage. “Hey!”
The indignation on Jared’s face and the determination and annoyance on the cats has Jensen shake with laughter.
“Do something!” Jared tries to retrieve his hand but the tom cat is already prepared for that and jumps up, following his arch enemy onto Jared’s lap. With an outraged look on his face Jared cradles his abused hand to his chest, eyeing the small animal with distrust. “I’m onto you.”
When the big human doesn’t dislodge him and keeps from touching him all wrong the cat decides that it’s the perfect time to continue his prior occupation. Making two circles in the lap he’s conquered, the tom cat settles down, tail tugged close around his body and closes his eyes.
Jensen encourages Jared to pet the feline, nodding and smiling. Careful and cautious Jared reaches out to the furry head, and when he pets the cat, rubbing behind the soft ears, the cat cracks his eyes open, startling the human into inactivity.
“Dude, you are so pussy-whipped.” Jensen almost slips down from the stair he’s sitting on, laughing so hard he has to hold his sides. His undignified behavior earns him a haughty look from Mr. Spock and sulky pout from Jared.
The latter picks up where he left of with the petting and soon a rumbling purr can be heard again. Soon Jared is grinning like mad; all excited about the new friend he’s made. He knows most of the other cats already, but Mr. Spock is usually running around somewhere. It’s not often that he comes closer like he’s doing right now.
Watching the two of them, Jensen smiles content. He likes a morning like today. Even the excitement of the telephone conversation with Jared’s mom added to the greatness of the day he’s having. He leaves the two new found friends sitting on the stairs, and heads inside. He vaguely remembers dropping his phone last night when welcoming Jared back.
Fortunately the dogs only destroyed the messenger bag and left the mobile alone. Jensen finds the phone exactly where he lost it last night. He picks it up and presses dial. The last number he called is his parent’s landline in Dallas.
After the third ring the other end is picked up. “Ackles?”
“Hi mum.”
“Jensen!” There’s genuine pleasure in her voice as she finds out who’s calling. “Everything alright?”
“Everything’s perfect. Sorry for cutting the call so short last night.” He sits down on the stairs to the upper floor. “There’s been a change of plan for Thanksgiving. How does everyone feel about going to LA?”
continue: Part Nine