Wedded Blitz: Prologue
Jared Padalecki was one of that rare breed of grown men (emphasis on the men) who had always had a very clear idea of what his wedding day would be like. He’d pictured himself at the altar (looking handsome and debonair in his tux), with his brother and cousins at his side as his groomsmen (just like his daddy and Jeff had done), while he’d be deliriously happy (and probably a little teary-eyed) as he watched his bride (poufy white dress and all) walk down the aisle towards him on her father’s arm.
They’d exchange their vows (which he would’ve agonized over for hours, just so that every word was heartfelt and sweet), they’d kiss, then take a bunch of picture-perfect mementos to hang up in their home; they’d drink champagne and they’d eat cake (which would be amazing and sinfully delicious because this was something else he’d imagined for the longest time).
It would be the best day of his life (until the day his first kid was born) and he’d treasure the memory until his last breath.
He’d always intended to do this only once; get it right the first time and have it last forever. He was always going to marry the love of his life.
So he was a romantic, so sue him.
What he’d never (not in a million years) figured on was meeting Jensen Ackles.
He’d never have believed it if someone had told him five years ago that this here was the guy who’d turn his life upside down and inside out and leave Jared and his dreams fizzling in the dust. He’d never have thought that one person could ever come to mean so much to him. Well, he had, obviously, but he’d always expected that one person to be a girl so, you know, he could make his dreams come true and marry her. Then Jensen had come along and Jared had been bedazzled and then besotted and… yeah.
Well. Moving on.
The whole gay dilemma had been a little unexpected, both for him and for Jensen. But they’d gotten over it. Sort of. They’d worked it out of their systems. Kind of. They’d never talked about it, but it was understood that when it came to the future, they would both be spending it with women. So Jensen had hooked up with Danneel and after Jared’s relationship with Sandy had crashed and burned so spectacularly, he considered himself lucky to find someone as awesome as Genevieve to put up with him.
Then Jensen had to go and propose. To Danneel, and not to Jared, because the latter would be ridiculous and impossible, right? Except that it cut him deep. It had hurt. It had made him stupid enough to propose to Genevieve, much to her surprise, and to the shock of his family (and don’t even ask about the epic frown fest his momma had subjected him to). Only Jensen had been supportive and sweet, congratulating him, giving him a hug (they hadn’t shared one in private in a long while), smiling and looking happy and happy for him.
So... Jared was getting married. He couldn’t help thinking that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, his dreams weren’t really coming true. But while his heart was breaking and his life was spiralling out of control, he took comfort in the fact that Jensen was happy. Jensen wasn’t in unrequited love with Jared. Jensen was, in fact, in very much requited love with Danneel, and Jared was being an ass begrudging him the shiny, happy future his best friend deserved more than anyone else. Besides, Genevieve was a great girl and a good friend and Jared did love her; it’s just that he wasn’t quite in love with her, but he wasn’t one to get caught up in minor details. He could do this.
He could so do this.
It was easy to just let Genevieve and her family organize everything (well, everything but the cake, because if there was ever an area where Jared had earned his stripes, it was in having his cake and eating it, too) and then they all headed off to Idaho to get hitched, but what was that they said about the best laid plans? Something suitably notable, he was sure, but he was still blindsided when everything went awry.
Even now, if anyone had told Jared that his bachelor party would start out with big red balls and end on a road trip with Keanu Reeves, he would have thought they were insane, unless of course, the person doing the talking was Chad Michael Murray, because drunk, sober or high, that was the sort of inane shit that tended to spew from his mouth. That’s exactly what happened though, and even if Jared could have done without some of that drama, the story of how he got married was definitely one to tell his future grandkids.
Just after a lot of heavy editing and taking liberties with the truth to keep things firmly in PG territory.
But he digressed; as stated previously, the adventure began with big red balls.
Jared grinned wide and manic and let out a high-pitched girly squeak - uh, a deep, manly exclamation of delight (oh, he wasn’t kidding anybody, it was very girly, and definitely loud and squealy, like a stuck pig, Jensen would later say) - as Jensen whipped the blindfold from his head and he laid eyes on the four glorious, ginormous, bouncy red balls made famous (or infamous) on the TV show Wipeout.
And did he mention that Jensen was the best person ever, like, in the history of the universe?
Well, it was worth repeating: Jensen Fucking Ackles was the best person in the History of the Universe!
Jared had no idea how his best friend, co-star, (soulmate, his brain whispered, but he ignored it, as usual), and all-round fantastic, amazing guy had managed to swing this with the powers that be on Supernatural, but this was hands-down, the best thing ever.
“There’s a catch,” Jensen said, totally bursting his bubble of euphoric glee.
Jared shot him a pout of epic proportions and Jensen huffed out a laugh. “I cleared it with Sera, but then Eric stepped in, ‘cause of course he watches Wipeout, and he banned us from the Sweeper and the Wipeout Zone,” Jensen told him, pouting a little himself. “We’re only allowed to do the qualifiers: the Sucker Punch Wall, the Topple Towers, the Dreadmill, the Donut Run, the Dirty Balls…” he and Jared sniggered in infantile amusement, “and then, if we make it, we get to go on the Dizzy Dummy with the barrel crossing and the dock maze. With the mud, and the foam - the works, dude! The Wipeout crew have to deck us out in safety gear up to our freakin’ eyeballs, like we’re a bunch of pansy-assed sissies who can’t take a hit, but whatever.”
“Goddamn, Jensen, I don’t give a fuck,” Jared breathed, not wanting to look away from the big red balls (you know, just in case this was a dream and they disappeared on him), but his other option was looking at Jensen, and he would pick that option every single time, because Jensen was… well, Jensen. “We still get the Big Balls, right?”
“I pretty much had to promise Eric my first born, not to mention your first born, and several sexual favors to be named at a later date, but yeah,” Jensen grinned as he patted Jared’s back, his green eyes sparking golden under the hot California sun, “I got you the Big Balls, man.”
And holy shit, if Jared hadn’t known it before, he knew it right then in that moment as he engulfed Jensen in a bone-crushing embrace: he’d probably never love anyone as much as he loved Jensen Ackles.
Too bad he’d had that same epiphany the afternoon of his wedding rehearsal just yesterday.
It was damned inconvenient timing, but as he’d stood there in the small throng of his family, and Genevieve’s family, and Jensen, he was suddenly struck by how little he had actually wanted to be there. Truth be told, all he’d wanted to do was grab Jensen, jump in his car and drive; bolt for the border, get back home to Vancouver, back to the house that he and Jensen used to share, way back before their girls had become more or less permanent fixtures in their lives; back to their golden days.
He might have done it too, that’s how tempted he’d been. He’d stood there, in the aforementioned throng of people, feeling like he was statue-still while the world moved on around him, kept right on spinning, everybody going about their business, oblivious to the turmoil within him. He’d never felt more lost than he’d done in that ski lodge in Sun Valley, Idaho, Genevieve’s hometown.
Yeah, he was a Texas native getting married in a ski lodge, which was really fucking ridiculous, but as everyone and their future mother-in-law had pointed out, weddings were all about the bride, so if the bride wanted to get hitched and then go skiing, then that’s what the groom was going to shut up and do. He supposed a winter wedding was romantic, and yes, the backdrop of the snow-covered mountains was pretty breathtaking, and he maybe couldn’t have come up with a better venue to forever pledge his troth, even if it was to a woman he probably didn’t deserve.
He sometimes also wondered if she couldn’t find a better troth than his to hitch her wagon to, but whatever, he’s never claimed to understand the inner workings of Genevieve’s mind.
So, anyway, lest he digress even further, he might have done it, he might have pulled a Julia Roberts and gone runaway groom, but he hadn’t. Not because he was chicken, not because of the repercussions, and not because of the endless shit Jensen would have undoubtedly subjected him to (since Jensen had always teased him about his supposed similarities to the quintessential Pretty Woman), but really, because of Jensen himself.
And wasn’t that the kicker?
It was because when Jared was standing still in the midst of that maddening crowd, he’d seen Jensen, as he’d always done, because he tended to orient himself in a room by his proximity from Jensen, to Jensen, if Jensen was in that room with him. It was as if his best friend had some sort of invisible tether on him, a hold that Jensen would never admit to, and Jared would never attest to.
And so, there sat Jensen, on one of those cushioned wooden chairs that had been set out for the guests in preparation for the wedding, near the front, to the left of the altar. He’d sat there, in a wide splash of winter sunshine, his sunglasses perched on his freckled nose (not that Jared could see the freckles from where he’d stood, but he knew they were there, omnipresent and alluring), one ankle resting on the other knee, just staring out the big window framing the altar, smiling.
Smiling. In that soft, sweet way he did only when he was truly happy.
It was that smile that snuffed out the last glimmer of hope in Jared’s chest. It was that smile that told him, louder than words ever could, that no matter how cold Jared’s feet got, he would never be able to crash on his couch and wriggle them and warm them under Jensen’s thighs again, because if Jensen could smile like that when Jared was getting married to someone who wasn’t Jensen, then all hope was well and truly lost.
So he went on with the wedding rehearsal, going through the motions with the twin of Jensen’s smile pasted on his face, saying and doing everything exactly as he was expected to and looking happy about it, looking goddamn ecstatic, because he was a much, much better actor than most people gave him credit for.
He could do this, he kept telling himself, like a mantra in his mind. Just gird his loins and get married. All that was left to do was get through the next three days between the rehearsal and the real deal. All he needed to do was screw his courage to the sticking place and man up, because these three days were the last he would spend, as a single man, with Jensen. Well, Jensen, his big brother Jeff, his other best bud Chad, and his bodyguard Clif.
Fortunately for Jared, it had been Jensen who had made all the arrangements for his bachelor party (there had been a vehement veto from everyone against Chad organizing anything, let alone a bachelor party that involved a day stay in Vegas). Chad hadn’t made it to Idaho for the rehearsal, so the plan was for the rest of them to drive down to meet him in California for Jensen’s surprise - the brilliant Big Balls - and then head out en masse to Vegas for an epic night of revelry, before they ditched the rental vehicle and all of them flew back for the wedding.
That was the plan, and so far, it was off to a splendid start.
On his thirteenth try, Jared made it across the big balls without falling off; it had taken Jensen just five tries, the coordinated, well-balanced asshole. On this particular run, they both tumbled into the water together, in one giant splash, Jared already thinking of what he was going to do differently the next time around, when his train of thought was derailed by Jensen. Again. As usual.
Jensen, with his stupid (read: stunning) green eyes and ridiculous (really cute) freckles and preposterous (ooh, pretty) wet eyelashes all spiked together with moisture, the tee and shorts he wore clinging ludicrously (lovingly) to every inch of his dumb (dreamy) body.
God. He was shameless. He was gorgeous. And Jared was so fucking screwed. Not to mention screwed in the head.
And as Jared found himself (and Jensen and Chad and Jeff, but not Clif, the coward) drenched and covered in a layer of foam, with mud stuck in places he really didn’t want to think about, and dizzier than he could ever recall being, even whilst woefully drunk, he realized that he’d never felt this good, this great; heck, he was fantastic! It may have had a little something to do with watching Jensen roar with laughter as Chad stumbled off the Dizzy Dummy and spectacularly belly flopped into the water. Jensen looked so inescapably happy, so thrilled to be there, so good with everything that was going on over this past week leading up to Jared’s wedding, doing everything expected of his status as best friend of the groom.
It sucked then, that Jared was fairly certain that he himself couldn’t get any happier, just watching Jensen be happy, and wasn’t that depressing considering he was supposed to be getting married soon? And to someone who would never live up to every ideal that Jensen represented? Not that anyone could ever measure up to Jensen; the man was the epitome of perfection in Jared’s mind, faults, idiosyncrasies and all. Nothing left to do for it, though, so Jared decided to make the most of these last three days.
He carefully catalogued all those gorgeous Jensen moments, committed them to memory, and filed them away for further perusal, for the future when he would undoubtedly need a pick-me-up or a good wallow in self-pity (and he was pretty sure he would need one in exactly three days time).
Oh, and while he was at it, he wiped out. Over and over and over again, and he had the time of his life doing it.
