Fic: Good Ideas
Title: Good Ideas
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,266
Beta: pippii - thank you!
Summary: Jensen hates sushi but, when he orders some for his best friend, Chris, the delivery guy is hot so he keeps on ordering.
A/N: Written for morgentau . This is the fiftieth fic that I’ve posted on here - can’t quite believe it!
Taking a long pull of his beer, still cold from the fridge, Jensen leaned his head back against the wall. From his spot on the floor he watched as Chris flicked through the channels on the television for a moment before looking away. It would be at least another ten minutes before his friend finally decided which show to watch. For the first Friday night in ages, neither of them had had to be somewhere but, though it had been a while, they had already fallen into the familiar routine. A coin toss to pick whose place to spend the night at, a game of rock, paper, scissors to decide who got to choose the food and the contribution of a six pack by each of them.
He closed his eyes as the sounds from the different shows on the television drifted over him - singing from a reality show, a news channel, a Spanish soap - and this would usually be the part where he grabbed the remote from Chris and handed him the channel guide instead. But Chris was over at the other side of the room and it had been a really long week and he couldn’t be bothered to move before he absolutely had to.
“I can’t believe you actually let me order sushi.”
Opening one eye, he looked back at Chris. “I can’t believe you actually like sushi.”
“My diet doesn’t solely consist of steak, Jensen. You, however, hate sushi.”
He shrugged. “I do. But you won the coin toss, dude. It’s your call.”
“I guess so.” Finally settling on a channel, Chris tossed the remote down onto the seat next to him. “You going to tell me why you’re sitting on the floor?”
“It’s comfortable down here.”
“And?”
Jensen grinned. “And it’s nearer the door.”
“That’s more than a bit lazy.”
“You want me to get your sushi for you when it’s delivered, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then don’t complain about me sitting here.” He rested his head on the wall again and glanced towards the television, rolling his eyes at the show about cars that Chris had left on. “I still don’t get why you ordered sushi. It’s not exactly normal takeout food.”
Chris nodded. “That’s why I like it - it’s different.”
Jensen shook his head and pulled his wallet out from the pocket of his jeans.
“No, Jensen, let me get this - you don’t even like what we’re having.”
“It’s my turn to pay.” He smiled as someone knocked on the door. “So I’m paying. End of.” Groaning, he pushed himself up off the floor and walked across the room to answer.
“Well I’ll pay half, then.”
Pulling open the door, he turned to look at Chris as he spoke. “Aw shucks, honey. Now I feel all special.” Smirking, he spun around to take the food in and took an automatic step back when he saw the delivery guy. The guy was good-looking, the hottest delivery guy that Jensen had seen in a long time.
With a look of amusement on his face, the man handed the food over and nodded towards Chris. “I’m sure he thinks you’re really special.”
Snorting, Chris raised a hand in acknowledgement and then stood up; making his way over to lean on the wall next to Jensen, looking interested in whatever Jensen was going to say next.
Jensen spared a moment to glare at Chris and then smiled at the man. “Yeah, course. How much will that be, sorry?”
“Twenty-five dollars, thanks.”
“Jesus Christ, Chris. How much did you order?”
“Enough.”
Shaking his head, he opened his wallet and pulled a few notes out. “Chris, you got a five?” As if he wasn’t embarrassed enough, he didn’t even have the right amount of money; he was going to kill Chris.
He held out his hand for the money and then passed it over to the man before realising that something was missing. “Fuck, your tip. Okay, I’ll-”
“Don’t worry about it, man. Thanks anyway.” The guy winked - actually winked - at him and then walked away.
Cursing, Jensen closed the door and rested his forehead against the surface, shrugged Chris off when he rested his hand on his shoulder. “Fucking embarrassing, man.”
“Yeah, I know. Can’t take you anywhere - not even your own apartment.”
---
Humming along to the song that was playing on the radio, Jensen grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and pulled it on, checked that he still had money in the pocket. He looked up at the clock and then towards the door. It was Tuesday. He never ordered takeout on a Tuesday. He wasn’t completely sure why he had decided to do that tonight, especially when he was alone and had ordered sushi. Which he didn’t like.
Except that he actually knew exactly why; he was hoping for the cute delivery guy to stop by again. Needing something to do, he pulled the fridge door open and looked inside. The leftovers from the pizza that Steve had brought around the night before were right there and he took them out, pushed the plate into the microwave to heat up. He would need something to eat anyway because he sure as hell wasn’t going to actually eat the sushi.
The microwave beeped and, grinning, he took the plate out and bit into a slice of the pizza and glanced up at the clock again. He jumped when someone knocked on the door and hurried to answer it, didn’t remember that he still had the pizza in his hand until he had swung the door back and come face to face with the cute delivery guy.
The man grinned. “I have your sushi.” He looked at the pizza uncertainly. “Unless they gave me the wrong address.”
“No.” Jensen moved to stop him from leaving and realised that the guy hadn’t actually moved, cursed as the slice of pizza slid off the plate. “I ordered that. Definitely.”
“You can pick that up, you know. I won’t think you’re rude or anything.”
“That’s okay. I’ll just leave it for now.” He grimaced as his own words caught up with him; the guy was going to think he was an idiotic slob.
“Right. Do you want to take the sushi, then?”
“Sure.” He reached out and took the container from the man, avoiding meeting his eyes. “Thanks.” Just managing to stop himself from biting his own - or the guy’s - lip, he handed the money over and closed the door as quickly as he could without appearing rude. He was so screwed.
---
“I just want to let him know that I’m actually normal and not some socially inept idiot.”
“By ordering food that you don’t even like?” Chris folded his arms and tilted his head to the side.
Jensen stopped pacing up and down his kitchen for a moment and looked at Chris. “It’s your fault, anyway.”
“How?”
“Because you’ve ordered from there before so you must have known he was good-looking and you must have known I would act like that around him.”
“Okay, that’s just - man, I’d never even seen him before. And it was you who said stupid things. Not that it matters. The guy probably comes across all sorts of crazies in his job - he won’t remember you.”
“That’s not the point.” He nodded towards the phone. “Make the call.” He pushed himself up onto the kitchen counter and listened as Chris called in his order. It wasn’t like he was usually self-conscious; he just didn’t like to look stupid in front of good-looking guys. And the man had winked at him which had to mean something. And it had only been a few days since he had made a fool out of himself for the second time; that wasn’t enough time for the guy to forget him.
“The food will be here in ten. Happy?” Chris reached into the fridge and pulled out a beer.
“Yes, I am. Then we can call for some pizza because, technically, I won the coin toss.”
“Yeah. But, technically, you chose sushi.”
He took the beer from Chris as he walked past him into the living room. “Details.”
“That’s mine.”
Smirking, he sat down and shook his head. “Actually, I bought it so, technically, it’s mine.”
“Fucker.”
Jensen watched as, still cursing under his breath, Chris stomped back into the kitchen. Taking his beer had been a little petty but he had needed the distraction because, he glanced at the clock, the sushi was being delivered in less than five minutes.
“That was the fucking last beer.” Chris leaned against the doorframe. “Let me have some, yeah?”
“No. It’s mine.”
“It was mine. And I ordered sushi for you.”
He began to reply but stopped talking as soon as there was a knock at the door; there was no way he was going to get caught saying anything stupid this time around. Grinning, he picked the money - which he had set out in plenty of time - up off the table and crossed over to the door. This time, he was going to be cool, he was going to impress the hot sushi guy so much that he was going to wink at him, not once, but twice. Brushing his hand through his hair, he pulled open the door ready to be awesome and frowned.
“Hi. I’m Katie and here’s your sushi.” A blonde woman held out the bag for him, her smile fixed in place.
“You’re not - I mean, right, thanks. I, erm, I-” He jumped as he felt Chris’ hand land on his shoulder, handed him the money and walked back into the apartment still trying to process what had just happened.
“So.” Chris closed the door and dropped the food down onto the floor, the serious expression on his face a testament to just how close he and Jensen were.
“So, that wasn’t him.”
Chris nodded. “Obviously.”
“Okay, it’s not the end of the world. You - you have sushi now and I can order my pizza and yeah, it’s fine.” He grabbed his cell up off the table and began to dial the takeout number, stopped when Chris nudged his arm. “What?”
“This isn’t going to become an obsession, is it?”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, of course it isn’t.”
---
“Yeah?”
“Chris?”
“That’s me. What do you need, man?”
“Do you, erm, want some sushi? I have a load here and I don’t want it.”
“I thought you said-”
“I lied.”
---
Sighing, Jensen pushed the papers that he had been working on away and twisted in his seat to look at Chris who was still working his way through the large amount of sushi that he had been coerced into eating.
“Why hasn’t he come back?”
Chris swallowed his mouthful and shrugged. “I don’t know, Jensen. Maybe he’s gone on holiday or been sacked or maybe he just hasn’t been asked to deliver here. But, seriously, you need to relax.”
“Look, I just don’t want him to think I’m-”
“No, you just want to see him again because he’s hot.”
He shook his head, “its not-”
“It is that. Come on, how long have I known you? You don’t give a damn what other people think about you - you just want to date him.”
He couldn’t really deny that - not when it was true - so he just nodded and decided that he would call Steve next time.
“Why don’t you just ask someone who he is?” Chris rubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand and then stood up to take his plate through into the kitchen.
“Because that would be obvious.”
“About as obvious as you’re already being, you mean?”
“Yeah, but if I’m obvious in two different ways then that’s just stupid.”
“You finished with your work?”
He glanced towards the paperwork that had taken him all afternoon to complete. “Yeah, finally.”
“Good. Come on.”
“Come on where?”
“Out. If I have to sit around and listen to you moping, I need a drink and other people around.”
---
Standing in the corridor outside of Chris’ apartment, Jensen ran his hands through his hair and tried to work out what he was going to say. He had really tried to take Chris’ advice, to try and find out the delivery guy’s name, but the first girl that had brought more sushi to his apartment - Katie, again - had flirted with him and it hadn’t seemed right. The next person that he had spoken to from the sushi place had definitely disliked him, even if Steve had insisted the guy had just been shy, and he hadn’t been about to make his interest in one of the man’s colleagues known. Somehow, though, Jensen didn’t think that Chris was going to believe him. Steeling himself for his friends’ glare, he knocked on the door and tried to look casual as it swung open.
“You made it. Come on in - there are a few people here already.” Grinning, Steve stepped back to let him in. “Chris is in the kitchen right now - the food just arrived.”
“Makes sense. Chris will go wherever the food is. I’ll take this through to him." He held up the beer that he had brought and clapped Steve on the shoulder as he walked past him into the kitchen. After setting the beer down on the counter, he went to stand behind Chris and looked over his shoulder.
“Jensen.”
“What?”
“Do you have to do that?”
“Yes.”
“Go away.”
“No.”
Chris turned to look at him, scowling. “Jensen, I go to all of the effort of getting him here and you come and hide in the kitchen? I mean, seriously, after the last few weeks and everything.”
“Getting who here?” He reached over and picked up a slice of pizza, bit into it and waited for Chris’ answer.
“Jared.”
“And Jared is?”
“Your guy - sushi delivery guy.”
“What?” He threw the pizza down onto the counter. “He’s here?”
“Yes. Seriously? You’ve spent days obsessing about the guy but you just walked right by him and didn’t notice?”
“I was - I thought it was just the guys there. It’s not - don’t blame me.”
Chris smirked. “Well, how about you get out there now?”
“He’s called Jared?”
“Yeah. I met him at the bar last Monday, invited him around.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have spent hours worrying?”
He couldn’t lie to Chris, had never been able to. “Probably.”
“Well that’s why. Look, just have some food and calm down and then go in there and act normal.” Chris handed him a plate.
“Fine.” Leaning back against the counter, he looked down at the plate of nibbles to choose something to eat from it and groaned. “Chris, come on, I fucking hate sushi.”
“Really?”
He span around to see the delivery guy - Jared - standing in the doorway. “I-”
“Because I do too, which is weird, I know, when I deliver it.”
“You do?”
Jared nodded and stepped further into the kitchen. “I do. But it’s a job and it pays well and I get time off when I want it because my Auntie owns the place.”
Chris coughed and handed Jensen a beer. “I’m going to go and be sociable now. Jared, just so you know, Jensen’s gay and he likes you. Jensen, Jared’s gay too and I don’t know whether he likes you but you’re talking to him so you’re halfway there. You two have fun.”
He closed his eyes, cursing, as Chris left the room. That was not at all how he would have liked this to go.
“So, you like me?”
Meeting Jared’s curious gaze, he nodded. “Yeah. I would have told you more subtly than that but yeah, I do.”
“That’s good because I like you, too.”
“You like - you don’t know me.”
“I know you just as well as you know me. I know your name and I know that you get flustered and forget to tip people when you’re embarrassed. You know my name and you know that I deliver sushi even though I hate it. Seems fair to me.”
Biting his lip, Jensen pushed himself up so that he was sitting on the counter and looked at Jared. “I can sometimes be a bit of an idiot.”
“Good. It’d be boring if you were perfect.” Jared grinned and moved to stand in front of him. “So, I deliver sushi and you-?”
“I work in a legal office, for now anyway. It’s not really what I want to do but-”
“It brings in money.”
“Exactly.” He nodded and watched as Jared crossed over to the fridge, still not quite sure how he had gone from ordering sushi to get a glimpse of this guy to having a conversation with him in his best friend’s kitchen.
“I wanted to come back, you know.” Jared turned back to face him.
“What?”
“After that second time - well, after the first time and then I did - but after the second time, too. But then my shifts got changed and you kept calling at the wrong time. Katie - she told me she’d flirted with you to try and find out if you were gay or straight and-”
“Your shifts got changed?”
“Yeah.”
Feeling even better, Jensen slid off the top of the counter so that he was standing directly in front of Jared. “Do you want to go somewhere for lunch tomorrow?”
Jared smiled. “I’d love to.”
And it was as easy as that.
---
Jensen sat on the floor, his back against the door as he watched Chris trying to pick a channel to watch. He picked up his beer from the floor next to him and kicked the coin that they had tossed earlier towards Chris. His friend picked it up and grinned at him before returning his attention to the television.
He glanced at his watch, wondering when the food was going to arrive. He had called the order in over half an hour ago and he was starting to get hungry. Drumming his fingers against his stomach, he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“Jensen, seriously?” Chris tossed the coin at him. “Just be patient.”
“I’m being-” he jumped up as someone knocked, ran his fingers through his hair before pulling the door open. “Hey.”
“Hi.” Jared smiled, mouth open and wide, and leaned in to kiss him.
“You took a while.”
“Yeah, well, I stopped off to get you pizza.” Jared held the box out to him. “You know you don’t need to pretend to like sushi anymore, right?”
He shrugged, “I wanted to see you. And Chris wanted sushi.”
Chris nodded. “And he already ordered some pizza for himself.”
“Good thing my shift’s over then, isn’t it?” Jared stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “I can help you two eat everything.”
“It’s a good think you’re here to rescue me from Chris.”
“I don’t know, man, I’ve kind of got a soft spot for Chris. It’s thanks to him we’re together, remember?”
Chris stood up, “And it’s thanks to me you’re going to spend tonight alone, as well.” He took the sushi from Jared and headed over to the door. “Have fun.”
Jensen watched as Chris left and then pulled Jared in for another kiss before taking the pizza from him. “I guess Chris is okay.”
“I guess we could save the pizza for later.”
“Might be an idea.”
Jared rested his hands on Jensen’s hips and, as he moved closer, Jensen decided that it was a very good idea.