Set Right (J2 gen, 2200 words)
Title: Set Right
Fandom: SPN RPF
Pairing: gen
Rating: G
Wordcount: 2202
Warnings: anxiety, maybe?
Summary: 'Jensen should see what’s coming at that stage; but he doesn’t, shrugging it off and reminding himself that Jared’s only a kid. This is just part of the whole older-brother deal: he’s gotta be extra professional to make up for Jared’s immaturity. It’s fine. He’s big enough to overlook a bit of adolescent sulking. So he sucks it up, ignoring the prickly silence and the way Jared stalks off away from him as they head to set.-- Season 1, on set. Jared and Jensen have a fight.
Author's notes: I opened up prompts based on this Tumblr post and ilovejared asked for 'J2 - Reacting to the other one crying about something'. I kind of already wanted to write up this incident for my J2 h/c series so... voila! Thanks as always to winchestersinthedrift for the beta :-)
AO3 link
The thing is, they’ve both been working such long hours. It’s relentless. Up at ass o’clock in the morning, every morning, rolling into the car and off to set for another fifteen hour day. Jensen knows about hard work and punishing schedules. He spent four years on a soap, for God’s sake. But Jared, fresh off a laid-back supporting role on Gilmore Girls, is finding the whole thing too much. His bounce has been diminishing steadily for the past few weeks, his big goofy fratboy smile flashing less frequently, and the junky snacks he gulps down at every opportunity have started to look less like an indulgence and more like a necessity just to keep him functioning. It feels precarious, Jared coasting on a sugar high that inevitably culminates in a grumpy crash mid-afternoon, and Jensen finds himself fretting about it. It’s dumb. He feels like the kid is his actual little brother, or something.
When he spies Jared wolfing down candy ribbons in the make-up trailer, Jensen decides to have a word. “You’re gonna keel over if you only eat that stuff,” he says. “Long days like this? You need to eat something real, Jare.”
Jared looks at him, raises his eyebrows. “Eat your Weeties, Jared,” he says in a sing-song voice.
“I’m only trying to help,” says Jensen, obscurely wounded. Jared deliberately fishes another strip of candy from the tray and lowers it ostentatiously into his open mouth.
Jensen should see what’s coming at that stage; but he doesn’t, shrugging it off and reminding himself that Jared’s only a kid. This is just part of the whole older-brother deal: he’s gotta be extra professional to make up for Jared’s immaturity. It’s fine. He’s big enough to overlook a bit of adolescent sulking. It’s… it’s whatever. Jared will learn, eventually. So he sucks it up, ignoring the prickly silence and the way Jared stalks off away from him as they head to set.
Whatever. They can’t be buddy-buddy all the time.
Taking the high road feels good, to start off with, but as take follows take and they still can’t get whatever it is that Kim is trying to wring out of them, Jensen feels his carefully disciplined temper starting to slip. He doesn’t care if Jared’s snappy with him; he has siblings, real siblings, he knows how it goes. But it's not just that, today. Today it's like Jared is only half-there: forgetting his lines, missing his cues, and when he does manage to get the right words out of his mouth they’re so dead in their delivery that Jensen can't get his own tone right in response.
“Come on, guys,” Kim says, eventually. “If we can get this one down then we’re gonna be almost through. Jensen, do you want to kick off with the line about your Dad? I know you can get this, you’ve done much more with much less, but at the moment it’s coming off flat.”
“There’s no point,” says Jensen, stung. “I can’t do it if Jared’s not giving me anything.” He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. He knows it’s not professional to bitch about co-stars on set. He’s the grown-up, the more experienced actor, he’s supposed to set an example. But there it is. And here they are, now; hard up against the confrontation that’s been brewing for the past several hours.
“Oh,” Jared says, “I’m sorry.” It’s too loud. The rest of the crew, who’ve been busying themselves in prepping for the umpteenth retake of the scene, look around all at once: a fast flash of pale faces in Jensen’s peripheral vision.
“Just because you’re having a bad day, Jensen,” says Jared, “you don’t gotta blame me.”
Jensen really intends to keep quiet but it turns out he’s not quite as chill and laid-back as he’d maybe like to think.
“I’m the one having a bad day?” he says - and Jared flushes dark pink and spreads those gangly arms wide, and before Jensen’s had time to think they’re squaring up to each other, right there on set. Jared looks down at him with aggravating condescension, and Jensen swears he’s gonna clock the kid in the face if he doesn’t give it up right now.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” says Jared, all swagger, and
“Come on, Jared,” Jensen says, lifting his chin in an attempt to make up for Jared's advantage in height. “Everybody knows. You've been losing it for weeks, man. You can’t take the workload, and you’re cracking up. It’s fine but you need to admit it. You’re the one in over your head. Don’t take that out on me.”
Jared opens his mouth, steps back on his heel, and Jensen thinks for a second that Jare’s really gonna take a swing at him - actually starts lifting his hands in self-defence. Instead, Jared’s mouth snaps shut with a sharp huff of breath and he spins round rapidly and half-sprints off the set. Caught unawares, Jensen’s left gaping behind him, all that righteous anger already starting to dissolve into embarrassment about the public spat. He looks sideways to where Kim is watching from behind the camera, an unreadable expression on his face.
For a long moment, nobody moves. Then “Okay,” Kim says slowly, standing up. “Time for a forty-minute break, I think. Everybody grab a coffee, do whatever, we’ll regroup on the hour.” He walks over to Jensen. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” says Jensen. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He’s not, not really; shaken by the unexpected physicality of what happened and hot with the humiliation of having snapped in front of all the crew. “I’m just gonna go cool down in my trailer for a little while.”
“Good idea,” says Kim. He pauses. “Bring Jared back with you when you come, yeah?”
“Hmmph,” says Jensen, and slopes off to the back of the lot.
It takes about twenty minutes of mindless zombie annihilation, courtesy of his Playstation, for Jensen to start feeling better. Man. What a stupid fight. Yeah, sure, Jared’s feeling swamped right now. But pretty clearly, he’s not dealing so well with the whole thing himself. And if he thinks about himself four years ago… well, the work that Jared’s done on the series so far is definitely beyond what he’d have been able to cope with back then. It’s at the edge of what he can cope with now. More to the point, it’s just… what’s the fucking sense in falling out? They’ve got to work together, at least for the rest of the year, hopefully more. And up until now, until the shift of the last few weeks, this has been probably the best job of Jensen’s life.
So. It would have been nice if Jared had come knocking on his door, to say sorry, but one of them has got to be the bigger man. Jensen doesn’t mind doing it. Hopefully Jare has calmed down a little, too, in the half-hour since he walked out.
Shutting off the console, Jensen hauls himself off his couch and across the short stretch of asphalt to Jared’s trailer. He hammers on the door.
“Yo, Jared!” There’s no answer, and Jensen wonders with a flash of sudden aggravation if Jared’s actually not talking to him. Come on. But he catches himself, breathes deeply, and gives the kid the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he just didn’t hear him.
When he tries the door handle, it’s unlocked.
“Jared?” he says again as he climbs the steps into the central room - identical to his own, except for the lingering smell of dog from Jared’s enormous mutts - and there’s a flurry of movement from the couch, a crash. Jensen walks around the edge of it to find Jared sprawled on the floor, legs tangled together.
“Did you just trip over your own feet?” Jensen asks. He’s trying to be light-hearted, hoping that they can just brush over what went on; but then Jared looks up at him and a little shiver of something - shock, or guilt, maybe - runs over Jensen’s skin. Jared’s face is still pink, but not the bright fuchsia flush of anger. Instead, it’s blotchy crimson-white. His eyes are puffy and his nose is red and there are visible shining tracks of tears criss-crossing his cheeks. Kid must have been crying for the whole time he’s been in here; is still crying, blinking desperately as a few final, treacherous drops slide clear.
“Hey,” says Jensen, instantly softening. The remnants of his anger cut loose and float away.
Oblivious to this development, Jared eyes Jensen warily. “You can’t just walk in on me,” he says. There’s an attempt at defiance in his tone, in the jut of his chin, but the wobble in his lower lip and in his voice betrays him.
“I’m sorry,” says Jensen. There. He sits down on the couch, extends his hand to Jared to help pull him up. “I just came to sort this out.”
After a second’s hesitation, Jared reaches out. His big hand grips Jensen’s firmly and he tugs himself upright, slumps back onto the couch right next to Jensen, their elbows almost touching.
“So, I’m sorry about what happened,” Jensen says. “I was outta line.”
Jared looks down at his hands. “It’s okay. Not like it wasn’t true.” He’s picking at a loose edge of skin next to his thumbnail. “I am finding it too much.”
“Hey,” Jensen says. He kind of wants to reach out and pat Jared on the shoulder, but he’s not sure if the gesture would be welcome. “That’s okay. It’s, uh, it's a lot.”
“Yeah…” says Jared, uncertainly. He picks at his nail again, catches the bit of skin between the thumb and forefinger of his other hand and tears it off in a thin strip. Blood wells up from the wound.
They’re still not touching, but Jensen can feel Jared almost vibrating beside him, literally trembling. “It’s okay, man,” he says again, and Jared lifts his head and looks right at him, eyes full of tears.
“It’s not okay,” he says. “What if I can’t do this? I’m miserable, man, I miss… I miss my friends, and my family, and just… I miss having free time. I can’t… I can’t work all the time, I can’t do it. My acting’s gone to shit. I’m not ready for this. I can’t cope.” He swipes hard and angry across his cheek with the heel of his hand. “And now I’m just… I’m picking fights with you, over nothing, when you’re just trying to look out for me. I know you’re doing that. I know. I just… I don’t know, I feel so shitty sometimes it’s just easier if everybody else feels the same about me, y’know?”
“Aw, man.” Jensen doesn't know, not really, but he feels like a real jerk-off. Some big brother he’s been. Bolstered by an indefinite confidence, he reaches out, now, settles his hand on Jared’s knee and squeezes it awkwardly. “You’re not… honestly, Jare, you’re doing good. I mean. Your work is good. I was just… we were both just pissy today. You just haven’t had enough sleep.”
“Yeah?” says Jared, quiet and small.
“Yeah,” Jensen says. “Honest, dude. I’d never… I don’t know. I couldn’t have been doing what you’re doing when I was 22. And it’s not… man, this is a fricking crazy ride. I’ve been, you know, I’ve done my fair share of crying on the phone to Mom.” It’s not exactly true, but he certainly hasn’t been far off. “We should… you know. This is my fault as much as anything. I didn’t see… we need to be able to talk to each other about this shit.”
Jared makes a non-committal noise, but Jensen doesn’t let him get away with it. “I mean it,” he says.
“Okay,” Jared says, finally. “Yeah, that would be nice.” He breathes in, deep and slow so that Jensen can see his ribcage expanding; holds it, and then breathes out in a long, shuddering sigh. He rubs his two hands down over his cheeks, again, and then turns to Jensen with a face that’s still pretty heartbreaking but is a heck of a lot better than the snotty mess that greeted him ten minutes ago. “Okay,” he says. “I’m good to go.”
“Yeah?” says Jensen, and Jared nods. “You gonna tell me if you feel like this again, right?”
Jared’s mouth twists a little and Jensen thinks for a moment that the tears are gonna start again; but Jared stiffens his lip determinedly and manages to rein it in. Poor kid.
“Yeah, okay,” Jared says. “I’ll tell you. And, um, you tell me too. If you’re having a hard time.”
“Sure,” Jensen tells him. “Okay.” He sets his hands on his thighs and pushes himself upright, tugs Jared up beside him, and turns towards his co-star. “Bring it in, brother,” he says.
Jared smiles, a little, then reaches out those long arms and grips them tight around Jensen’s shoulders, pulling him into a warm, strong squeeze of a hug. “Thanks,” he says, into Jensen’s hair.
“Hey,” says Jensen, squished tight against Jared’s shoulder. “It’s okay, man. We’re in this together, y’know?”