Fic: From Rome, With Love, PG-13, Jensen Ackles, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Danneel Harris 2/2
Title: From Rome, With Love
Fandom: Supernatural RPF
Characters/Pairings: Jensen Ackles, Danneel Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Pre-pairing fic focused on Jensen/Danneel and Jensen/JDM, which at some point will become J/J/D.
Warnings: None.
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 8437
Summary: Jensen can turn into a cat, and he’s found a very special way to use this talent. Him and his best friend Danneel travel the world stealing small expensive pieces of art, living a wild and carefree life. On a job in Rome, Jensen meets Jeff, and things start to change.
Author notes: Forsalty_catfish based on her beautiful drawing for the RBB- found here. I haven’t been to Rome in a few years so sincere apologies for any wrong details! This is meant to be silly light hearted fun, and decidedly unrealistic (if Jensen as a shapeshifter doesn’t convince you of that, the premise of him and Danneel being thieves, and Jeff being an innocent art-evaluator should do!) This is not allied with the actual RBB challenge- I'm not signed up as a pinch hitter or anything, I just wanted to get this picture a story.
Part 1
//
Danneel wasn’t the most hardcore shopper in the world, but on this particular morning she was wandering the streets, dark sunglasses firmly affixed to her face, and ignoring Jensen entirely. As for Jensen the only reason he knew that bags were big this season apparently, was because bags were something Jensen had opinions on. Not their color, or their style, just the general amount of room they had. His main criteria for any bag that Danneel bought was 'can a medium ginger cat fit inside it with relative comfort.' Unsurprisingly the answer most of the time was no, and Danneel's favorite Prada bag was beginning to show signs of extreme wear. Danneel changed it from shoulder to shoulder every so often, in order as she said not to build up one hugely muscled arm. He couldn’t help but appreciate that even slightly pissy at him as she was, she was still wandering town in search for what was essentially a carrier for him. He poked his nose out of the bag and cautiously licked her hand in a vague appeasement. Nobody blinked twice at the attractive red haired woman in the high heels who had chosen to accessorize with a ginger cat on that particular day.
They made it into several shops, but nothing looked comfortable enough. He was not a normal cat, he could make do with cramped spaces without jumping out, but why torture yourself if you didn’t have to? Eventually with a sigh, she sat down at a café table. It was still a bit awkward between them that morning, which was why Jensen had opted for cat-form, rather than human, but when Danneel ordered him some cheese and crackers, and a dish of water, and rubbed between his ears gently, he knew she was silently apologizing for being funny about Jeff, and he purred indistinctly against her hand in return.
After another hour of fruitless searching, they returned to the hotel, where Jensen’s cell showed a missed call from Jeff, and a carefully worded text that made it clear that however good the writer of it was at evaluating art, modern technology was not his forte. Danneel freshening up in the bathroom called into the room, “go to dinner tonight with him if you can. We’ve got supper with Jared and Gen tomorrow, and we can’t skip it since they’re friendly with Signor Alberto Alessadrini.” She sounded the last syllable with evident relish, and popped her head out round the door to elucidate. “You know, the man who has the third best stamp collection in the world? Spent half a million dollars on one at auction, when it was only worth fifty thousand because it completed someone else’s set. Petty yet extravagant, will be interesting to see what his hosting skills are like nowadays.” She finished re-applying her lipgloss and sauntered out. “My first theft if you don’t count taking biscuits from the kitchen,” she said half proudly. “I stole a set of cufflinks from his bedroom.”
“How old were you?” said Jensen lazily, as he tapped out and sent a message that hopefully wasn’t too keen back to Jeff, or rather as unkeen as meeting someone for dinner the same night could be.
“Fifteen,” Danneel replies, and Jensen blinked then because although she didn’t really talk about it, he’d assumed Danneel hadn’t started her law-defying ways until later, perhaps just a little before she’d met him (both of them twenty, at art-school in New York- it was a very long story.) She’d told him about her first proper heist- neither them were exactly amazing artists in their own right, but they were much better than average forgers, and those had been the skills she used, but despite the fact that they knew nearly everything about each other, what had first given her the idea of stealing was off limits.
She didn’t elucidate further on the subject, and Jensen tossed his phone onto the bed and sat up interested now. Danneel on the other hand seemed determined not to talk anymore about it, but dropped down onto the chair next to him, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms round them. “Sorry about being funny about the Jeff thing,” she said, “he seems really nice, but I don’t know. There’s something niggling at me about him. I feel like I’ve seen him before, and it just made me over paranoid. It's just a feeling I got off him.”
Jensen laughed at the idea. “I think I’d remember him,” he said. “I’m pretty good with smells. What are you up to tonight then?”
She shrugged loosely. “A night in I guess. If you come in late use the other room.” They usually got a two bedroom suite for the advantages of privacy, even though most of the time they ended up sharing sleeping space, Danneel taking most of the room on the bed as she slept like a starfish and Jensen in cat form, because really a cat’s sleep was significantly more enjoyable than a humans, and far less plagued by dreams. Jensen’s phone vibrated and he flipped it open to see another text. Jeff was proposing that they meet at Agata e Romeo at eight, and Jensen grinned at the phone. Nice. Not La Pergola fancy, but Jeff clearly knew his food as well as his art, and that again was a huge plus in Jensen’s book.
When Jensen turned up at the restaurant Jeff was already there, as smartly dressed as he’d been the night before, and Jensen felt his face breaking into a smile at the sight. Jeff really was ridiculously attractive he thought, as he held the door for Jeff to enter. The waiter took them to their seats, and the sommelier was right out, obviously this place cared about its wine (or maybe just had them pegged as heavier drinkers.) They were talking quietly over the antipasti- Jensen opted for the glazed pigeon, and Jeff went for the quail and leek tart option, and they were both just enjoying the taste and the company, when Jeff looked at him slightly embarrassed. “I hate to do this Jensen,” he said, with more than a little reluctance. “But I need to ask. Last night I…I think I saw you turn into a cat.”
There was silence between them, the thick heavy sort of silence that was difficult to break, and Jensen stared at Jeff in horror. His first thought was Danneel is going to kill me. Then she’s going to kill me again. This was his worst fear come true, and only the third time in his life that he’d been this careless. The first time it’d been a homeless man who’d seen him, and thought he’d been drinking. The second time it had got him Danneel (and she hadn’t seen him change, just heard him grumbling in a cat voice that he didn’t think anyone else could understand.) He couldn’t hope to be that lucky a third time. His second thought was oh god, stall for time. He forked up another tiny mouthful of his pigeon with insouciance that he really didn’t feel, and tried a laugh. “Wow,” he said, “should I be insulted that you asked for my number when you were that drunk?”
Jeff’s face was slightly flushed around the cheekbones, he looked completely and painfully embarrassed, yet he forged onwards, clearly determined to stick to his story. “Look I know absolutely how crazy this sounds. I also know that if I’m mad, I’ve just ruined any chance of something happening between us, but I’m certain of what I saw. I didn’t believe myself at first, just told myself that I saw the cat run past you, not turn into you. But the more I thought about it, the more I know it was true. It was all reflected in the mirror, the cat ran through the bathroom door and turned into you.”
Jensen tossed a few notes on the table and stood, fumbling blindly for his cell. He didn’t even care about arguing Jeff out of what he’d clearly seen, it was pointless. Most people managed to convince themselves easily that what they’d seen out of the corner of their eye was actually impossible and that it hadn’t happened. The main thing was Jeff couldn’t prove anything, and that Jensen really really needed to phone Danneel and tell her that this was an emergency. Without another word to Jeff, he strode blindly out of the restaurant, nodding to the maître d who presumably saw scenes like this all of the time. With a faintly hysterical laugh pooling in his stomach, he wondered if for an extra speedy getaway he should turn into a cat since it really wasn’t going to make much difference, and squashed the feeling. Being ridiculous wasn’t going to help matters. He managed eventually to dial Danneel’s number, and she only needed to hear his voice to gear up into action.
“Airport,” she said calmly. “I’ll make our excuses to Gen and Jared for tomorrow, and collect what we need from the hotel. You just get a taxi and get here,” she hesitated, then said quietly. “It’s going to be okay Jensen.” She rang off and Jensen spotted a taxi that looked to be unoccupied and dashed towards it. As he slid in, he saw Jeff run up, almost in time, and he slouched down in the seat until he was almost invisible, gasping his destination to the driver who sped off as fast as he could manage.
When he arrived at the airport, he paid and added a hefty tip for the speedy journey which had the driver staring in bewilderment but not unwilling to accept the clearly crazy foreigner’s money. He spotted Danneel easily, one suitcase worth of their belongings between them, and two slung hand-luggage bags, looking around her nervously, and walked over swiftly.
“He saw,” he said. “I can’t believe he saw.” Danneel said nothing, just flung her arms around his neck for a long moment in comfort. At that moment the cell beeped in his hand- he’d forgotten Jeff had his number. Hardly daring to look he flipped it open and read the message. Jensen, we need to talk about this. You can’t just keep running. And I don’t care, I just need to know. Jeff.
He handed it to Danneel who dithered. “It’s your decision Jensen,” she said. “I’m ready to run, and no-one is going to believe him anyway. But if you want to get it sorted that’s your choice.”
Jensen looked around him at the busy people, all with a place to go and something to do, looked at how small his life packed up, and at the more-than-friend who was ready to stay with him whatever he chose. He’d been running for a long time, first from anyone who might know what he was, then from the law. It might be time to face up to something for once. He felt Danneel’s cold hand close on his- she had almost as much to lose as he did, since no-one he’d ever met could talk to cats any more than they could turn into one, and made a decision. “Let’s stay,” he said, and texted back to Jeff. We’ll meet you at the Trevi fountain. Simple, easy to find and public. They might not be able to trust Jeff, but it was better to find out if they could.
The Beginning.