out of the sea, wish I could be, part of your world
Title: Disney'd (2/3)
Author: veterization
Disclaimer: I do not own these people.
Rating: NC-17
Warning: N/A
Genre and/or Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Word Count: ~19,000
Summary: Jared kisses Jensen while watching Tangled. Jensen proceeds to be haunted by Disney.
"Keep your chin up. Someday there will be happiness again." --Robin Hood
Part I.
When Jensen's next dream manifests, all he realizes is that his knees ache.
They ache like he's been walking on them for days without any aid from his feet, using his kneecaps as roller skates and carving stones. His hands are soapy, his fingers are pruned, and his knuckles are scuffed from overuse, and never before has Jensen's body felt so overworked, including fifteen-hour filming days with nothing but a thirty-minute nap in his trailer and wolfing down a snack while his make-up is refreshed.
He blinks the exhaustion from his eyes even though it clings to his eyelids and tugs them down with a force stronger than gravity, his head swimming with the idea of putting down the goddamn sponge.
Sponge?
Jensen blinks away the last vestiges of slumber from his eyes and focuses on the blurry world in front of him coming into focus. He's on knees on a cold hardwood floor beside a grimy bucket filled with sloshing soapy water, and in his hand is a sopping sponge wrinkling his palm. His pants have spots of dirt and his shirt is a hand-me-down that is too tight on Jensen's arms, defined after hours spent mopping kitchen floors.
He thought after years of living with Jared Padalecki, he'd done his fair share of honest labor, but apparently his unconscious mind still feels the need to transport him into a dreamscape where he switches roles with a maid.
Of course, it isn't that simple.
Heated voices, muffled through the door, approach the kitchen, and Jensen sits up and cracks his sore back as the door opens to Tom Welling and Mike Rosenbaum, both wearing hideous tuxedos in dashing shades of orange and green complete with lacy ruffles and frilly coattails, storming into the kitchen in the midst of a frenzied quarrel. Jensen refrains from laughing, but the sound still traitorously creeps from his throat and slips from his mouth in a poorly stifled snicker. Tom and Mike both fix Jensen with ominously grim expressions that after spending a fair deal of time working with these two pranksters on Smallville, Jensen has never witnessed on their faces before. It manages to immediately quiet him, and for a moment, Jensen wonders when Tom and Mike became intimidating, especially while donning crazy facsimiles of suits.
"Aren't you supposed to be working?" Tom says, rather snidely, and Mike joins in on the scowling in Jensen's general direction with a sneer that curls his lip. It doesn't suit his face. Jensen, used to seeing nothing but roaring laughter escape from Mike's mouth, doesn't know whether to cower or chuckle at the sight of such a sincere snarl on Mike Rosenbaum's typically kind face.
"Father said you can't go the ball if you don't finish your chores." Mike feels the need to point out, straightening the ruffle of his vest. It does little to help, and Jensen refrains from pointing his opinion regarding Tom and Mike's matching horrendous outfits out to both men, especially when his brain interrupts his thoughts with a mind-boggling epiphany.
He's not a maid, a butler, or even just the average victimized employer. He's Cinderella, sans the ratty dress and apron, and he's staring at his ugly step-sisters turned goofball step-brothers wearing remarkably stern expressions.
Jensen doesn't remember seeing Cinderella. As far as he is aware, it's one of the older films Disney created, left to myth and a number of horrifying remakes that Jensen all avoids like the plague when he spares a moment at home to flip through the channels on Friday nights and finds Chad Michael Murray attempting to seduce Hilary Duff on the Disney Channel, a scene that amuses Jared to no end and always results in a phone call to Chad mocking him well past midnight.
Once again, Jensen feels the need to laugh, but the situation is significantly too serious to consider breaking with light-hearted chortles, so Jensen gets to his feet, hears his knees crackle, and dumps the sponge back into the murky bucket of wash water.
"Not like he's even going," says Tom, much like an elementary school bully might taunt a girl with glasses, "Look at what he's wearing."
Tom and Mike guffaw like horses. It is surreal. Jensen wants desperately to smack them both over the head. It's one thing to be stuck in female roles as a male counterpart replica, but it's another to be taunted by his friends whom Jensen has very vivid memories of watching sing karaoke from Moulin Rouge atop his kitchenette into an empty tube of toothpaste helpfully found in the trash while thoroughly intoxicated off of hard liquor, possibly expired, found in Jared's cabinets.
"Yeah, Tom, Mike?" Jensen says, drying his hands on his pants, "I'm not your damn maid. This is ridiculous." He considers the idea of tossing the soaking sponge directly at Mike's polka dot bowtie and musters up years worth of maturity to stop himself from giving into such a mad desire. He wonders if he will ever see Tom and Mike again the same after this dream, or more importantly, if he'll ever again dream of anything that wasn't funded by Walt Disney.
That's when he realizes that he hasn't seen Jared yet. Disney and Jared and Jensen generally being an attractive young girl have been the recurring themes for the past few days, yet Jared is mysteriously absent from the musty kitchen Jensen's currently finished polishing the floors of.
Tom and Mike scoff in unison at Jensen's defiance. Their synchronized bitchiness is something Jensen knows he won't be able to last a whole dream through without throwing them both bodily into a lockable closet and swallowing the key, so he simply rolls his eyes and opts for turning wordlessly away.
"Good luck scoring the Prince with that attitude at the ball," Mike says, "Especially in those pants. They're not helping anybody."
Tom whispers conspiratorially into Mike's ear. They snigger like Disney villains, which, Jensen realizes, they are, and greet Jensen with matching grins that Jensen wouldn't trust in a million years a second time after agreeing to swallow raw wasabi the last time he was manipulated by those dangerous Cheshire grins.
"Jensen," Tom says, carefully articulating his words as he tries hard not to let a scheming smile overwhelm his entire face, and Jensen feels like he's back on Smallville three seconds away from getting epically pranked, "How about you come with us to the ball? It would be fun."
"Or funny," Mike whispers, eliciting a snicker from Tom, like Jensen can't hear every word of their poorly hushed teasing.
"I used to like you guys," Jensen says morosely, "I'm definitely not going."
Both men huff and mutter like boys denied candy before dinner and thunder from the kitchen. Jensen stares at the countertops, replicas of the mess often found in college dorms, ranging from empty bags of popcorn to crusty bowls of expired milk and cereal. The Tom and Mike in Jensen's special Cinderella hell being complete slobs puts the cherry on the sundae. Vaguely, he wonders if Tom and Mike have such horrendous eating habits in reality as well, and Jensen makes a mental note to ask when he wakes up.
"No way in hell am I doing all of this work." Jensen says directly to the plates. The plates stare at him like they're challenging him to come and wash them. Jensen snarls.
"Don't be like that, Jensen." A voice out of nowhere speaks up, and Jensen turns around prepared to be met with talking, life-sized mice.
Instead, he sees Danneel, floating in midair. It's one of the eeriest things Jensen's ever seen, even after working on a set where the majority of all actors on set wear make-up that models them to look like corpses freshly dug from their graves. She's wearing what is most likely a hoop skirt held in place by multiple metal rings, a corset that restricts all lung capacity, and shiny blue slippers that hang underneath her as she bobs around the air like a buoy in sea. Her hair is curled in tight ringlets falling over her shoulder and if Jensen walked around her, he's almost positive he'd find a miniature pair of feathery wings by her spine.
"Danneel," Jensen says, afraid to blink and find that Danneel is not the only floating fairy obscuring the details of this dream.
"Jensen, just because Tom and Mike want to take you with them to laugh at your apron doesn't mean going to the ball is a bad idea," she says, like she's talking to a five-year-old, and Jensen tries hard to focus on her face when her entire body is floating as if suspended by strings, "Don't you know who will be there?"
"No," he confesses, "Oh shit, Jared."
"You're an idiot," Danneel says, surprisingly fondly, and bobs closer, "How are you supposed to have Prince Jared fall in love with you if you don't show up?"
"But I don't want Jared to fall in love with me," Jensen says, "Wait. Prince?"
"Yes you do," Danneel says, tweaking his nose with one of her small fingers and conveniently ignoring his puzzlement at Jared's royal status, officially making Jensen the girl once again if Jared's the story's prince, "When are you going to realize it? Honestly, if you didn't have me, you'd never get anything done, Jensen."
"But that kiss," Jensen protests dumbly, "it didn't mean anything. I'm not in love with Jared and Jared's not supposed to be in love with me."
Danneel ignores him, procures a pair of shiny black dancing shoes out of thin air, and dangles them in front of Jensen's face. The insides are scuffed at the sole and some of the leather has wrinkled at the toe, but they're timeless and something about them draws Jensen to them instantly.
"Your father's," Danneel says softly, placing them in his palm, "You'd look great wearing them."
Jensen looks down at the shoes in his palm. They're the cleanest thing in this whole room, sparkling from where Danneel must have polished them before presenting them to Jensen. He slides the pad of his thumb over the gloss at the toe and smiles. When he was eight, his father tried to teach him how to foxtrot so he could impress his lady on his wedding night and pulled out shoes just like these from the musty attic in his childhood Texan home to demonstrate. Danneel awwwws in the background as she watches Jensen examine the shoes and he looks at her once more.
"You want me to go to the ball," Jensen repeats slowly, "Wear these, and then dance with Prince Jared Padalecki so we can fall in love?"
"At least you're not a hopeless case," Danneel tilts her head and smiles, twirling a red curl around her finger as she watches Jensen shuck off his ratty sandals and slip into the dress shoes. They fit perfectly, of course, and look like masterpieces on his feet.
"Even though I don't want to fall in love with Jared," Jensen says, waiting for the light of recognition to flash in Danneel's eyes so she can fully understand the situation and they can reevaluate the story, "You know that, right?"
"No," Danneel says slowly, racking on several more os until Jensen feels sufficiently inferior to Danneel's omniscient wisdom and hard stare, "Haven't you ever seen Cinderella, Ackles? Cinderella isn't supposed to go through silly denial like this."
"Cinderella's not supposed to be a man."
Danneel puts a finger directly over Jensen's lips and shushes him, proceeding to fluff and fix Jensen's hair like she's his mother before prom night, "Thank goodness you have a fairy like me to help you out. Actually, you're the fairy, Jensen. I take it back."
"I hate you." Jensen mumbles, shuffling around the grimy kitchen floor in his glossy shoes.
"I hate you too," Danneel tells him, patting his cheek and floating merrily around him to tuck in his shirt and smooth the wrinkles of his pants. "Now go upstairs and tell Tom and Mike that you're going with them and find yourself a prince."
"Let me guess," Jensen says dryly, attempting to worm away from Danneel's invasive grooming simultaneously, "I have to be home by midnight."
"So you did see Cinderella," she says with a pleased grin, "Yes. Midnight." She leans in, wetly kisses his cheek, and smooths back his hair. "Now go."
Jensen looks down at the expanse of floor underneath him, more than half still unpolished, and shifts his throbbing knees. He has no desire to spend the entire evening in the presence of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum plus their ostentatious outfits that could easily be their own entity, but weighing his options, Jensen also doesn't want to spend an evening cleaning their toilets.
"Fine," Jensen acquiesces, and storms upstairs to find Tom and Mike cooing over the state of each other's hair, "I'll come," he tells them, "But don't expect me to wear a penguin suit matching yours in a shade of yellow. I'm wearing my own clothes."
"Like we'd share our clothes!" Tom screeches, hands curling protectively around his lacy collar. Jensen still has trouble processing that Tom Welling and Mike Rosenbaum are walking around haughtily while donning flashy vests and mismatching bowties. He feels drunk. Mike snaps his fingers in front of him.
"Let's get going!"
The ride to the ball is nothing short of surreal. They bump and sway down pebbly roads situated in a wooden carriage run by lazy horses. This is no modern fairytale, Jensen thinks faintly, and desperately misses cars. He thinks of the plush leather seats and smooth engine he has tucked into the garage at home and is yanked roughly back to reality when the rickety carriage jerks them over a wayward rock protruding in the path. All the while, Mike and Tom say nothing to Jensen, staring as if thoroughly amused at his appearance and anticipating the laughter and ridicule that will follow him once they arrive at the ball. He's put on a clean pair of pants and rolled down the sleeves of his wrinkly button down, but compared to Tom and Mike's elaborate clothing, his own attire is seriously lacking in flamboyant accessories. Used to spending car rides with Tom and Mike where Tom's drunk off of champagne in the backseat while Mike sticks his head out of the sun roof, this stuffy silence is incredibly awkward. Jensen fiercely misses Jared in this dream.
The carriage comes to a wobbly stop and the horses stomp their hooves restlessly as Tom and Mike smooth the creases from their jackets, step from their seats, and jump from the carriage while the hoary wooden wheels groan and creak. Jensen steps from the carriage and follows in Tom and Mike's footsteps as they cross the threshold to the mansion, soft violin music and boisterous laughter seeping through the cracks leading outdoors. Jensen has trouble believing his own brain came up with a setting this elaborate, the bushes intricately trimmed, the pebble walkway clean of muddy footprints, and the house itself reaching astronomical proportions. The paint isn't peeling and the grass is clipped, and when Jensen steps inside, he's met with a scene out of 1800s England.
A long hallway, full of stomping and dancing couples twirling and weaving through each other, shines from the sheen of candlelit chandeliers shaking from the immense sound reverberating through the dance hall alone. A band equipped with violins and cellos inspires the dancers to continue skipping alongside the light-hearted atmosphere of the entire hall, and amidst the blur of the crowd, Jensen catches familiar faces like Sandy, brown locks gently curled on her shoulder, Kripke, conducting the instrumentalists, and Chris and Steve, busy cleaning the underside of their dancing shoes by the wall.
"Prince Jared," Tom's voice breathes out in total awe next to him, and Jensen refocuses his attention to follow Tom's gaze straight onto the most breathtaking person in the room.
Jensen feels a jolt of nearly illegal feelings of wonder and, dare he admit it-lust-course through his muscles at the sight. Of course Jared would be Prince Charming if Jensen is the hard-working Cinderella doomed to a life of unjust slavery to his diabolical step-brothers, and of course he would look unrealistically dashing while doing it. His hair is slicked from his face, a sleek dark brown contrast from his pale face highlighted by a clean-shaven jaw and bright eyes. Royalty has clearly been good to him, and donning his neatly tailored tuxedo and shiny shoes, Jensen can't help but wonder if Jared would manage to knock the wind from Jensen's lungs while he's conscious as well were he to comb his hair and put on a suit that flawlessly fits his freakishly tall body.
Jensen doesn't realize he's been staring like a junior high girl memorizing the length of her crush's eyelashes while stuck in a boring history lesson when he blinks and notices that Jared is staring back at him. It's not a fleeting look, a brief instance of eye contact before continuing to rake a glance over the room, but instead, it's a lingering look that makes Jensen go vaguely weak in the knees. It's a little ridiculous, really, because he's not thirteen anymore, and he shouldn't get turned on from one direct look in his eyes from across the room, but suddenly his legs feel constricted in his pants and his pulse speeds up considerably when Jared locks their eyes and glues their gazes together like warm caramel.
Two seconds later, Jared is approaching him, a rendition of an exquisite waltz starting up under Kripke's conduction, and that's when Jensen realizes that he's at a ball. There's dancing and music and most of all, Jensen's two left feet solidly planted on the dance floor, making him fair game for any lonely dancer looking for a good tango, including Jared, who is not the average shy wallflower looking for a twirl around the dance floor, but the town's best eligible prince, and if Tom's breathless gasps are any indication, the town's best stud as well.
He barely has time to consider whirling around and hightailing back to the horses to hitch a ride back to reality, where no one asks him to waltz or scrub kitchen floors, when Jared takes the last swift step closer to Jensen's proximity and smiles with a set of dazzling teeth that causes Jensen to hear millions of enamored high school girls squeal and sigh far off in his mind.
"Sir," Jared says, extending a hand, and Jensen has to refrain from laughing at such a formal greeting that Jared would rather chuck himself off of a rooftop than refer to Jensen as, "Would you consider having this dance with me?"
Jensen looks at the proffered hand extended toward him and tries to pinpoint why his heartbeat's staccato tattoo against his chest is about to split his ribcage and his mind feels so woozy. He is, truly, a thirteen-year-old girl. Jensen is immensely glad that these dreams are privately locked in his own conscious, forever prisoners to his own mind only. He glances over to where some dancers have stopped to watch as Prince Jared approaches a commonplace civilian. Tom looks murderous. Mike looks mildly ill.
"Uh," Jensen says eloquently, knowing that if he catches Jared's gaze he'll fall prey to Jared's well-honed liquid eyes modeled meticulously after a begging puppy's, "You might lose a few toes." He wishes he could say you wouldn't be so eager to waltz with me if this was real life, but the comment stays unborn on his tongue.
"Please?"
Jensen meets his hopeful gaze. His arsenal of protests crumbles and he grabs his hand. "Just one," he says, and Jared grins like he's presented him with the sun in a box.
"Just one," Jared agrees, and he wastes no time pulling Jensen out into the dance floor, where the crowd has obediently parted to make room like Jared can wordlessly control the whole room. Being a royal prince, living in a gargantuan mansion, and inheriting a king's fortune may entitle one to possessing enough power to effectively do so.
The band's song seems to cater entirely to Jared's movements. Every high-pitched violin note and climatic cello solo appears to be harmonizing with Jared's feet, following his every move and surprisingly graceful turn. For a man who carries himself like an ape and hunks over Jensen like a caveman, hardly capable of controlling his massive limbs and lengthy figure, he dances like a well-trained ballerina who's practiced dance steps since youth. He grabs Jensen's waist in a firm grip and leads him so effortlessly Jensen has to do little but step with him and valiantly attempt to avoid stepping on his polished shoes. When he's not busy glancing repeatedly at the clumsy movements of his own feet, he's watching Jared's face as he observes Jensen. His green eyes are alight in the chandelier's radiance, glimmering with a Disney sparkle.
"I saw you standing there," Jared says, pulling Jensen closer until their chests are brushing and their feet almost have no room left to dance, words blowing over his ear, "and couldn't help myself. You're breathtaking."
"And this is coming from the finest prince in the land," Jensen says, and tries not to burst out laughing. He feels like he's back in eighth grade auditioning for Shakespeare, except this time he's in the play with Jared by his side causing general tomfoolery and somehow, managing to score a role as Jensen's royal love interest. Disney really is insane, Jensen thinks, as Jared twirls him in a quick circle and tucks him back into his side.
"You could sweep the crown from my head any day," Jared says, fingertips brushing over Jensen's forehead and tracing a colony of freckles on his cheek. Jensen tries hard to understand why he's blushing. "What's your name?"
"Jensen," he tells him. He wonders if there are going to be fireworks, or worse, applause, when the dance is complete.
"Well, Jensen, my father has been bothering me about finding a partner all night long and for three hours I couldn't find a single person I wanted to pull out here to dance with me," Jared admits, low and quiet against Jensen's ear, "Until you showed up."
"So you don't say that to all the boys?" Jensen says. He tries desperately to remain humorous and pleasantly sarcastic if only to mask how fast his heart is ba-dumping against his chest like he's a teenager in heat. Something about Jared, regal in clothes and majestic in title, has Jensen unequivocally captivated. He feels incredibly stupid. Danneel told him this would happen. Mentally, Jensen thanks his lucky stars that Jared isn't such a charismatic prince in real life, capable of charming Jensen stupid just by sweeping him in a few breathless circles.
"No," Jared says, so sincere and earnest Jensen tries hard not to melt, and when he leans in and their noses brush, Jensen wishes he could run away to avoid the sickeningly sweet climax of their brushing lips. It's going to be the best kiss of Jensen's life, he intuitively knows this if Jared's soft pink lips are any indicator, and it's terrible that it happens to occur in Jensen's unconscious mind.
No no no, Jensen thinks hopelessly as Jared twirls them in a graceful circle and Jensen's feet almost leave the floor for a few seconds, this isn't even real. This is when I wake up and snap out of this ridiculousness. And then, for good measure, he internally adds, This is ridiculous.
"Can I kiss you?" Jared whispers. Jensen swears he hears a tinge of Texas.
He could shake his head, scream at the whole room, throw his antique shoes at Mike and Tom's heads, abandon cheesy Disney storylines altogether, and then proceed to dispose of Jared's Disney DVD collection in the garbage. He considers it, but it appears his time is up. Jared swoops in, uncaring of Jensen's response or potential rejection, and presses their lips together.
There is a collective gasp that buzzes around the room and escapes from Jensen's lips that Jared promptly swallows. His arms are secured firmly around Jensen's torso, pulling him in close enough to fuse their skin together, and Jensen thanks the heavens for his clothes, because without them his body would have bid goodbye to self-control half an hour ago and proceeded to indulge in his primal urge to grind up against Jared's exposed hips. They're not dancing anymore, just pressed together as if one being as Jared kisses him soundly with no room for muffled protests. Jensen realizes halfway through the kiss when Jared slants their lips together and rubs his tongue at the seam of Jensen's lips that he has none in the first place.
Jensen had almost forgotten about his convenient time limit when suddenly, the intrusive chiming of a noisy grandfather clock opportunely sticks its nose into Jared and Jensen's kiss and Jensen rips back like he's been electrified. He remembers Danneel's face, stern in her instructions and floating in midair, but stern nonetheless, and feels an unexplainable obligation to adhere to the fairytale's rules tug him toward the door and out of Jared's strong grip. He looks crestfallen, as if he's scared Jensen off with his bold kiss and searching tongue, and Jensen feels terrible when he catches his despondent eyes and turns on his heel.
On his way out, Jensen runs straight into the door, lets out a colorful string of curse words, and wakes up with swear words still tingling on his tongue.
O O O O O
In his next dream, Jensen feels nothing but incredible sluggishness coursing through his veins pulling him back into the tempting arms of slumber like he's Juliet Capulet feeling the effects of his roofie, brain waterlogged with visions of pillows, mattresses, and blissful sleep. He's about to start envisioning fluffy sheep dancing through his eyelids when a small hand shakes his shoulders, jerks his ankles, and douses his face with water.
"Careful, Misha," A soothing, soporific voice murmurs by Jensen's ear. It's too close and too loud for his eardrum to handle when he's still waking up, sputtering water onto his shirt as it slides up his nostrils and cools his face. There is the distinct sound of bustling and buzzing, like he's surrounded by a colony of bees, and when he opens his eyes, eight faces-seven unreasonably tiny-swim into view.
"Goodness, Jensen," Misha says from Jensen's left. He's equipped with a water gun, incriminating him as the ruthless culprit who felt the need to squirt Jensen in the face with icy water to pull him from a comforting sleep. He frowns down at him like he's his mother when he came home after curfew on prom night.
"Misha?" Jensen says foggily. The world is still very foggy. Misha clicks his tongue and gets ready to poise his water gun once more, aiming directly at Jensen's nose, when Chris shoves him out of the way with stubby arms and slides into Jensen's line of vision.
"Put the water gun down, Misha, we ain't surfing in here," Chris admonishes. He looks small. Unreasonably so, as if he's shrunken in the dryer. Jensen reaches out to pinch his nose, tiny as a gumdrop. He misses, hand landing on someone's head instead. "He's clearly entirely awake yet. Jared, kiss him again."
There's a murmur of agreement. Small feet shuffle around his bed and suddenly, the one large head in the group comes swooping down and plants a sweet, lingering kiss on his lips. It tastes like sugar cane and oddly enough, apples. Jensen makes a noise. The pair of lips pressed against his own muffle it.
The face pulls back, eyebrows knitted together in concern, and some of the fog swirling in front of Jensen's eyes like wiggly worms diminishes. He sees the Jared's fuzzy face looming over him. He's wearing a belt equipped with a lengthy sword and his feet are encased in sturdy leather boots. He looks like he's stepped out of the costume department of a colorful theatrical production and Jensen giggles. He sounds like he's spent the last forty-eight hours smoking something illegal in the back of a truck when he hears the sound of his hazy, high-pitched giggles.
"It's like he's been drugged."
"He has been drugged, you fool!"
"Jared, kiss him again. You're curing him."
Jared's face swoops down obediently once more. Jensen opens his mouth to say something and is cut off by an invasive tongue sliding over his lower lip that interrupts any questions he may have asked the eight swimmy faces in front of him. Jared pulls back a breath before planting a shorter, softer kiss on Jensen's lips, pulling back, and examining Jensen's face with worry lines embedded in his forehead.
"Jensen?" Jared asks, voice troubled. Steve's face appears next to Jared's brandishing a miniature flashlight most presumably stolen from a doctor's office that he proceeds to flicker in Jensen's line of vision until he whines and writhes away.
"The fuck," Jensen mumbles, shielding his face, and the group of friends crowded around him let out a collective sigh of relief. "Jared?"
"Jensen, we thought we lost you," Jared's voice breathes out, warm hand reaching out to fist his shirt and forehead dropping on his shoulder. Jensen reaches up to pat at the mop of hair burrowed in his collarbone and examines the line of pacified faces crammed around his bed. Misha puts down the water gun on a rickety wooden table, and that's when Jensen realizes he's not at home after having eaten some questionable Asian food that elongated his slumber by a few hours that prompted Jared to freak out and call over every one of Jensen's friends to watch him sleep in suspense and possibly commence the funeral plans, but rather encased in the close, cozy space of a handmade log cabin.
Slowly, as his mind awakens and his vision clears, Jensen takes in the details. Firstly, he notices that Jared is the only person in the room excluding himself who he couldn't stuff into his pocket and carry through airport security. Secondly, he notes that the entire house is approximately one room, complete with the lumpy bed Jensen is occupying, a crackling fire roasting in the corner, and a mahogany hat rack holding seven miniature caps.
"Why are you guys so small?" Jensen demands the fun-sized versions of his friends. Jared lifts his nose from Jensen's neck and shushes his inquiries by pushing a finger atop his moving mouth.
"Shh," Jared shushes, smoothing back Jensen's hair, "Take it easy." He slides his finger from Jensen's lips and replaces it with a kiss, pushing their mouths together and cupping his face. It feels like a welcome home kiss multiplied by ten, like Jensen's been lost at sea or off to war and returned to his humble abode with missing limbs and near death encounters while Jared pulled him into his arms.
"Why do you have a sword?" Jensen mumbles on Jared's lips, but it comes out, efficiently muffled, as vy do fuu hab a ford.
"Getting here was no easy feat," Jared says, pulling back from their kiss and climbing up onto the bed and slinging an arm around Jensen's shoulders, tracing patterns on his forearm and unbuckling his sword from his belt. He hands it to Chris, who all but falls over attempting to catch such a heavy weight thrust upon his arms.
Jensen lets himself be manhandled into Jared's arms if only because he's adequately distracted trying to decipher the situation. He drags his hand down his own cheek and feels rough stubbles, as if he's been in a coma for two weeks.
"Have I been in a coma for two weeks?"
"Just about," Misha informs him, "If bringing Jared would have failed, we would have started digging a grave out back."
Jensen sits up to peer over the chunk removed from the wall replaced by a circular window situated in the midst of the cabin. He catches a glimpse of a quaint, thriving garden full of blooming begonias, thorny bushes of roses lining the crumbling fence, and a flourishing apple tree.
"I ate an apple," Jensen says slowly upon catching sight of the shiny apples swinging from the leafy branches perched near the window, "And then only true love's kiss could save-oh, just wonderful."
Jared tweaks Jensen's nose and smiles. Misha tuts, "A thank you would be nice," and the moment is efficiently ruined.
"Which one of the dwarfs are you, Misha? Grumpy?" Jensen says, who is promptly solaced when Jared chuckles into the hair at the sensitive spot under his ear and pulls him closer.
"Back to your old self," Jared murmurs, dragging his nose up his cheek and discreetly shooing away the murmuring dwarf replicas until they file out into the garden to tend to the spring tulips. "Kiss me, Jensen."
Jensen leans in to fulfill his wish and is suddenly assaulted with Misha, Steve, and Chris all throwing apples from the garden directly at Jensen's face and cackling as one is smacked directly into Jensen's nose.
Jensen wakes up to the bitter reality that his nose suffered the blunt of the tumble from the bed his sleeping body decided to subject him to and that no one is pitching apples or other thick-skinned fruit at his face. He peels himself off the floor, wrangles the sheets from his ankles, and rubs the side of his throbbing nose.
He doesn't know which is worse about his dream-the fact that Jensen leant into Jared's kiss without objection or that Misha felt the need to flush the moment down the toilet with his collection of firm produce.
O O O O O
Jensen hides in room Googling surefire ways to control dreaming on his phone for a few hours after he wakes up until his stomach's need for food overpowers his desire to stay away from his best friend, who-with Jensen's luck-is probably exercising shirtlessly in the kitchen while rivulets of salty sweat gather on his back. Jensen risks the worst and tentatively treads down the stairs ready to raid the pantry and return upstairs when he notices that Jared's lounging over the couch in his pajama pants with a beer in his hand. Fight Club is playing on television, a remote slung in Jared's hand as he idly watches Brad Pitt get into another bloody fist fight. It's a step up from Disney classics and Jensen is immensely relieved at the sight of such innocent manliness.
"I knew you were lazy, Padalecki, but pajama pants after two in the afternoon?"
Jared looks up at Jensen, who's bemusedly examining Jared's limbs monopolizing the couch, and plucks at the waistband of his pants, "Oh. I slept here," he mumbles around the neck of his beer bottle.
"What's wrong with your room?"
"Nothin'," Jared murmurs, voice low like he's already a little tipsy after indulging in a few afternoon beers, "Just felt like sleeping on the couch." He looks up at Jensen. He's wordless for a long, pregnant pause as if he's taking the time to search for proper words. It scares Jensen to watch Jared use a filter on his thoughts. He suddenly feels intensely uncomfortable in his own skin and shifts back and forth on his feet.
"How's the movie?" Jensen says. He feels the uncomfortable urge to keep the conversation alive pull at him. It's incredibly uncomfortable, like he's making small talk with a stuffy principal or unpleasant coworker. He wants Jared to sit up, insult Brad Pitt's hair, order a pizza, and make room for Jensen on the couch like they're still capable of interacting without awkward pauses and painful moments of agonizing eye contact where Jensen addresses the nearest piece of furniture and Jared sifts through his own words. Jared doesn't sit up, nor does he mention Brad Pitt's hairstyle. Jensen's fingers tie themselves into a fist.
"All right," Jared says, "Wanna watch it with me?"
Jared cocks his head to the lone armchair sitting in the corner in invitation. It's been here in this living room for years but the leather is still shiny, free of ass prints, and so pristine it's almost uncomfortable to sit in. For years they've shared the couch, knocking shoulders and knees while pulling popcorn bags from one another's hands. Never before have personal bubbles and appropriate amounts of space separating their bodies been an issue that both of them were consciously aware of. Jared is always touching him. He's touchier than Jensen's own mother. His hand is always clapping on his thigh or their legs are pressed together on sofas, always too close but never too unnerving. Jensen's stomach churns.
"I think I'll pass. I still haven't memorized next week's script," Jensen says, and it's a massive lie. He's spent so much time cooped up in his room like he's hibernating that he's had nothing to entertain himself but the Angry Birds game on his phone and his upcoming lines. He rubs at the back of his neck. Jared sees right through him like he's x-raying his way through his fibs directly to his traitorous thoughts of candor.
"Do we need to talk about it?" He says gently. He's not sitting up or fixing Jensen with a stern stare that would leave no room for argument. He's still laying on the couch like a cat napping in the sun, completely unbothered, and Jared's blasé attitude almost hits a nerve that irks Jensen. He scratches at his stomach, clothing suddenly too itchy, and shrugs in a way that is much too noncommittal considering how much that goddamn kiss has overwhelmed his thoughts while he's both conscious and unconscious.
"No," Jensen grits out, "It was a goddamn kiss. I don't know why the hell you did it but it didn't mean anything. Not to me."
Jared doesn't say a word for the longest minute of Jensen's life he's ever spent in Jared's presence without his best friend rattling off about one inane topic or another.
"Yeah," He says, but he sounds more like he's acquiescing to Jensen's statement than agreeing, "You're right. Let's forget about it." He shifts his attention back to the television as if Jensen's already left the room.
Jensen considers stealing a few cases of beer out of the fridge and driving over to Danneel's just so he can sulk and watch Fight Club without the additional awkwardness. He thinks about all the times he's watched this with Jared, reenacting drunken versions of the major fight scenes with uncoordinated swings of their fists and roaring in laughter at Jared's mockery of all of Brad Pitt's lines by repeating them in Yoda voices. Watching with Danneel commenting on Brad Pitt's chest would be salt in the wound.
He wants to ask we've gotten drunk on this couch hundreds of times, but last time you just had to kiss me, huh? but Jensen summons up his tact and good friend skills and sits down in the uncomfortable armchair.
Even when the movie is almost over and Jensen has propped his feet up onto the coffee table, the leather still feels sticky on his bare skin and the pillows don't cushion his spine. He looks over at his usual spot in the couch, cushions sagging where his ass resides almost every evening, occupied instead with Jared's stretched legs.
Part III.