The Self-Importance of Being Jensen: Part Three

[vicious_trade]

{ Materpost }

Part Three


There is smog covering the Hollywood sign.

Not that he’s bragging, but Jensen is a pretty damn good liar. If he told his mother half the things he’d gotten away with as a teenager, he’s pretty sure he’d send her straight to an early grave. When people have asked him in the past if it’s annoying living with someone he works with sixty hours a week, he’s got the eye roll down to a fine science. “You have no fucking idea,” he tells them gravely. It’s a talent.

He’s just not so great at lying to himself.

“I like it,” Danneel tells him with a dazzling smile, looking up from the pictures she holds carefully in manicured hands. “What’s the neighbourhood like?”

Taking a sip from his water glass, Jensen tears his gaze from the cafe window and glances overtop of the papers in her hands to remind himself. “It’s definitely the nicer part of downtown. Street noise shouldn’t be too bad. Couple blocks from a pretty great mall.” He shrugs, flipping his phone open, then shut. “It’s got a fantastic view of Stanley Park. And the seawall is practically across the street.”

Danneel nods, still flipping through the papers. “What about the club scene? Nearby?” she asks eagerly, her bubbly voice perking up even further at the thought.

Eyebrows knitting together, Jensen looks at the tablecloth, trying to think. “Uhh, I guess so. That’s more of the Granville area, really.” The proximity to nightclubs hadn’t really factored into his decision making process when he’d first started looking for a place.

“But close, right?” She looks about as hopeful as a kid asking their parents for a puppy.

Somewhere inside him, Jensen digs up a tight smile. “Right.” He glances at the home screen of his cell again.

“So have you put in a down payment yet?”

Jensen tears his eyes from the device to find her looking at him, waiting. “Hmm? Oh. No, no I haven’t yet.” He clears his throat, takes another drink of water. “Do you have any smokes with you?” he asks, patting himself down first and coming up empty.

Danneel digs through her Fendi and whips out a pack in record time. “Are you waiting for me to write a cheque? Because I’ll move some money around and we can have it ready to go by the time you get back to Vancouver,” she says willingly, tucking a strand of long auburn hair behind her ear.

Focusing on finding his lighter and sucking in a lungful of pure heaven, Jensen shakes his head. “No, no. Don’t worry about it. I’ll make the first payment, that’s not the problem.” He doesn’t realize his slip up.

Danneel, razor-sharp as she is, does not. “Then what is?” She asks, fixing him with narrowed, probing eyes.

“What?” Jensen plays dumb. Subconsciously, his hand reaches across the table for his phone again, flipping it open.

“The problem?” Danneel reaches across the table and stops him. “Jensen, why are you checking your phone every five seconds? Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

Jensen grins easily. “Yeah,” he says reassuringly. “’Course. I’m just waiting to hear from the agent. She said that a couple of other offers for the place were on the table. I’m just preparing to counter, that’s all.”

She buys it hook, line, and sinker. Her eyebrows raise and she is immediately more concerned than when she thought there’d been something wrong with him. “Is there that much interest? Shit, Jen maybe you should go back with something bigger. We don’t want to lose it,” Danneel laments, practically pushing the phone into his hand now.

“It’ll be fine,” he assures her, but at the opportunity he pushes away from the table and stands. “I am going to go give her a call, though. Make sure no other developments have been made while I’ve been out of town.” He stubs out his cigarette, blowing out his last breath of smoke.

When Danneel nods anxiously, he walks across the restaurant to stand in a quieter corner near the bathrooms. His finger automatically finds the number on his speed dial and holds it down. When Jared’s voicemail message kicks in, he lets himself listen to the familiar voice for an indulgent, wistful moment before flipping the phone shut again with a heavy sigh.

It’s been days and Jared hasn’t called. Hasn’t texted, hasn’t picked up the phone, and hasn’t responded to any of the numerous messages Jensen has left. It’s troubling and confusing and Jensen just wants to go home, even if he’s not too sure where that is at the moment.

When he gets back to the table, Danneel looks at him expectantly.

“Everything is okay,” he lies, but can’t seem to find it in him to smile this time.

The cab driver doesn’t speak very much English.

Jensen is a very patient man. He’ll wait in line at Starbucks for a non-fat latte for fifteen minutes if he has to, even if the asshole in front of him is back for the third time to complain about the plethora of foam on his half-caf-Chai-frappa-whatever. When Kripke first came to him and said hey, mind hanging from these giant meat hooks for six straight hours while screaming yourself hoarse?, Jensen said anything in the name of art.

But right now it’s fuckin’ hot out. The cab obviously doesn’t have working air conditioning, and after being stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for the past hour and twenty-five minutes, Jensen is just trying to navigate the driver to the fastest route home with little to no success.

He’s exhausted. He needs a shower. He wants to make fists with his toes in the carpet and see if John Mclean was just full of shit. But more than anything, he wants to see Jared so bad it hurts.

By the time they’re pulling up in front of the house, peeling himself from the back of the taxi feels like being extracted from the womb. He somehow manages to drag his luggage with him to the front door but drops it carelessly in the entryway once he’s finally made it.

No dogs attack him as he kicks off his shoes. Jared isn’t shouting at him from down the hall. Ominous smells of catastrophically-crafted food are absent from the kitchen. All that greets him is silence, and it scares him more than he expects.

“Jared?” he calls into the silence, walking quickly through the main floor of the house. He forces himself to slow the pounding of his heart as he takes in the familiar mess in the living room; the closet door has been left open, one sweatshirt half-on a hanger. The infamous junk drawer is ajar, recently rifled through with several odds and ends overflowing to the countertop above.

Jared isn’t gone. He didn’t finally get fed up and decide to hell with Jensen and the whole charade, pack up his things and take off to God knows where. He’s just out for his routine morning run with the dogs.

Dry washing his face with his hands, Jensen blows out a shaky breath, wishing he had the energy to laugh at himself. Feeling more uneasy than relieved, he wonders if he’s got time for a cigarette before Jared comes back.

When the sound of keys clattering against the lock shatters the deafening quiet, it’s as if his brain malfunctions. He forgets how to move, how to breath, how to think, and how fucking stupid will he look if Jared walks in here right now and he’s standing like a deer in the headlights, frozen mid-reach for his carry-on like a guilty tableau?

He waits and doesn’t move until his muscles freeze up and force him to straighten his spine. He hears the door swing open, a muted thud, the dogs panting excitedly. He imagines Jared pulling off his sneakers, leaving them haphazardly in the middle of the floor because he knows Jensen isn’t around the give him shit for it.

He waits, and it feels like a long time, but that has to be the anticipation. Then Harley and Sadie come trotting around the corner, their leashes dragging on the ground.

Jensen feels a line appear between his eyebrows. “Jay?” He calls, giving up on his silence, and ignores the dogs as they whine and twist anxiously around his legs. When he gets no response, his concern goes up another notch. His legs remember how to move, and he rounds the corner of the hall to the front door.

“Oh my God.” He nearly trips on the rug as he sprints the rest of the way, dropping to his knees beside Jared’s crumpled form. “Jay? Jared? Babe, talk to me.”

Jared is slumped against the wall, half of his body still partially out the open door. His face is chalk white and covered in a sheen of sweat, deep lines of pain etched around the corners of his mouth. When he drags his eyes open to look at Jensen, they’re sunken and smudged with black circles so dark, they look like bruises.

He squints at Jensen like he doesn’t know which way is up. “Jen?”

Jensen strokes back sweat-dampened hair. “What happened? Are you hurt?” He scans the limp body with his eyes, utterly unaware of what he’s supposed to be looking for, but Jared looks bad, worse than he’s ever seen him, and something is really wrong.

“Tried to take the dogs...” Jared croaks, and his voice is so small and shredded, they both wince. “Didn’t get v-very far.” He’s shaking underneath Jensen’s hands, his teeth are chattering.

Hand resting on his forehead, then under the curls of hair at the nape of his neck, Jensen feels his insides clench at the alarming heat he finds on the younger man’s skin. “You’re burning up,” he says, gripping the scruff of Jared’s sweatshirt when he starts to sag forward a little more.

“It’s f-freezing.” Jared counters and half-swallows, his entire face seizing in pain and then practically starts choking in an attempt to suspend the action.

Jensen cups his jaw and swears he can feel the swelling of Jared’s neck against his palm even as Jared flinches away at the gentle touch. He grabs him under the armpits and heaves with all his might, feeling Jared practically tip over across his back. “Come on,” he grunts, somehow getting them both upright.

Jared’s entire body is twitching faintly, from his face down to his feet. “What...” His expression only holds blank confusion.

Absently, Jensen marvels at his sudden ability to multitask as he jams his shoes back onto his feet, finds Jared’s abandoned keys on the hall floor, and steers them back out the open door. He wonders when the panic will set in. “Gotta go to the hospital, babe,” he hears himself say, and guides a stumbling Jared out to the car.

The drive to the hospital is a blur. Jensen somehow manages to speed like a maniac the entire way, one hand white-knuckled on the steering wheel, the other fixed on Jared’s leg. Jared is utterly unresponsive, head tilted back against the seat and eyes barely slitted open, just breathing and mumbling under his breath every so often. If his words are anywhere near coherent, well, Jensen can’t seem to understand a single word of it.

“I need some help!” Jensen calls to whoever is listening as he drags a nearly unconscious Jared through the automatic doors of the emergency room. Orderlies and nurses appear from his peripheral vision and soon the heavy weight around his shoulders is dislodged and quickly transferred to a gurney. Someone is touching his arm and speaking to him softly, but Jensen doesn’t hear, can barely get his feet to move and follow as Jared is wheeled away from him.

The touch at his arm gets stronger, restraining. “Sir, you’ll have to wait here.”

It takes him a moment to register the words. When the world comes back into focus, there is a short brunette in floral scrubs standing in front of him, blocking his way. “What?” He starts, and is more than prepared to take out this human pylon if need be.

“Hospital staff only beyond this point. I promise, they’ll take good care of your friend.” Living Road Block is saying robotically. “I’ll show you where you can wait. There are several forms you’ll need to fill out.”

All Jensen can think is what the fuck is so great about Canadian health care if they don’t know what a man looks like when he’s about to spontaneously combust? But pylon lady turns out to be stronger than he initially thought, or maybe Jensen is losing control of his limbs, because she somehow manages to get him turned away from the room they took Jared into and safely into a hard, cold, plastic chair.

And that’s when the panic sets in.

Someone a few chairs down is weeping inconsolably.

Jensen is strong. Resilient. He doesn’t crack under pressure, and isn’t one to crumble when life deals out some pretty shitty cards. Least, that’s what he thought. But when it’s much later that day, still sitting in the waiting room willing the doctors to pull their heads out of their asses, Jensen wonders for the first time what he’d do with himself if something happened to Jared - what that world would look like.

Suddenly breaking down and crying doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

The roads of the North Shore are quiet and mostly deserted.

Jensen knows that he’s a good-natured guy. It might be narcissistic of him to say so, but he’s aware that his parents raised him right. He was brought up to say his please and thank you’s, yes sir, no ma’am, always stand when a lady comes to the table, and tip your waitress well, damn it. She’s got bills to pay.

So his conscience is trying to make him feel guilty right now for harassing half of the hospital staff for the past twelve or so hours, but honestly, he’s so fucking tired he can barely keep his eyes on the road much less worry about some utterly useless team of doctors feelings.

He hadn’t wanted to leave, but visiting hours had ended long ago and the night nurses had stopped feeling sorry for him somewhere around ten o’clock and insisted that he go home for a few hours. Threats from a meaty Hispanic security guard named Tito had done the trick.

When he drags his lethargic body through the door, the dogs pretty much attack him. He issues pets and soothing words, apologizing for their late dinners and the fact that their tangled leashes are still attatched to their collars.

“Sorry, guys,” he tells them quietly, tiredly, as he lets them out into the darkness of the backyard, and then back to the kitchen for a belated meal.

Reality comes back when Jensen enters Jared’s bedroom - their bedroom. The bed is rumpled, pillows strewn everywhere. The air in the room is musty and stale, holding the unmistakable smell of sickness. Jensen heaves a sigh and forces himself into the bathroom for a long overdue shower.

So far, the most definitive diagnosis the doctors were giving was a severe bacterial infection. Jensen hadn’t been able to tell them Jared’s other symptoms, or when he’d gotten to this state - he hadn’t been there, didn’t know where this sudden turn had come from or why. Jared had been mostly unconscious since being admitted, and of very little help. Unless you counted reciting the words to various Van Halen songs as useful.

He’d tried and failed not to panic when the doctors mentioned the possibility of swine flu, and shit, didn’t Jensen feel bad enough that he’d joked about it weeks before? But thank God, that had come back negative. Every other scary test had also been blessedly false, but now nothing explains the raging fever, or worse yet, why Jared isn’t responding to the antibiotics they’re giving him. No one is saying anything, but Jensen knows that’s bad.

Despite the bone-weary fatigue in his bones, he lies in bed and can’t for the life of him fall asleep. He stares at the ceiling for the better part of five hours, wondering how long it takes the body to collapse from exhaustion.

He feels impassive, tired beyond the point of feeling human emotions when he drags himself out of bed a little while later. Getting dressed and pouring coffee is automatic and hurried. It becomes obvious that he’s actually lost his mind when he finds himself trying to organize the junk drawer while waiting for visiting hours at the hospital to re-open.

Somewhere between separating paper clips from safety pins into two separate dishes, a blue and white vial catches his eye. Jensen scrubs at his face with the heels of his hands, and looks down again. He reaches into the drawer and pulls the little cylinder out numbly, holding it between two fingers. When he shakes it, it rattles.

Jensen is fucking tired. But he isn’t so out of it that he can’t put two and two together. And he sure as hell is aware enough to understand that the new emotion he’s currently feeling coursing through his veins and throbbing at his temples is pure, unadulterated fury.

He’s going to make sure Jared is okay. Then Jensen is going to kill him.

The wheels of a food cart squeak as they pass down the hallway.

Jensen knows he’s moody. He can go from grumpy and seeking the refuge of a quiet, solitary space one minute to revived and social the next. Most of the time he’s the only one that can pull himself from his darkest, surliest dispositions. But then he met Jared, and somehow the kid has always been the one person who can crack a joke or just give him a simple smile and suddenly Jensen can laugh at himself.

Which is why, after almost two days of swearing to hold a grudge until the day he dies, Jensen feels nothing but an unexpected warmth in his chest when he looks at Jared asleep in his hospital bed, face turned into the morning sunlight coming through the window.

Jared’s fever is finally almost gone, and with it the worrisome flush of his cheeks. While his face is still alarmingly pale, bathed in the golden sunlight he’s stunning, completely peaceful, and Jensen wishes he could keep him like this forever.

And just like Jared, he chooses that moment to finally start moving, brows knitting together as he fights his way to wakefulness. Two blue-hazel eyes squint up at him. “Jen?” His voice is nothing but a gravelly whisper.

Ducking his head to meet the hooded gaze, Jensen studies the hazy eyes. “Are you really seeing me? Or is this another hallucination of Elisabeth Shue, circa Adventures in Babysitting?”

“What?” Jared croaks, looking amusingly confused.

Jensen laughs, amazed that after everything they’ve been through the past couple of days he even knows what humour is anymore. Pouring water from a pitcher on the side table, he directs the straw to Jared’s cracked lips. “Frankly, I’m just relieved you were picturing me as someone hot and not, say Anthony Michael Hall. Or some other member of the Brat Pack.” He pushes the bangs from Jared’s eyes, looking for awareness. “You with me here, babe?”

Jared swallows, still wincing even though he should be flying high on morphine. “That depends. Are we really talking about eighties movies right now?” he asks, blinking wearily.

“I think so, yeah,” Jensen smiles goofily, utterly helpless under the force of those eyes. Those eyes that are seeing him, really seeing him for the first time since before he left for LA.

Jared closes his eyes and sighs. “Then this isn’t just a really fucked up dream.” When he opens them again he blinks at his surroundings and glances questioningly around the room. “Hospital?”

Jensen nods. “Yeah. You’ve been here just over three days now,” he tells him, finding Jared’s hand where it rests on top of his blankets. Gently, he strokes the ridges of his knuckles, carefully avoiding the IV line taped to his skin.

Jared frowns at that, but there’s something funny in his expression, like he isn’t all that surprised. He falls quiet and looks as if the short conversation has left him totally drained. Jensen just sits there silently, perfectly content to watch Jared breathe and fall back asleep. But then, so soft it’s almost a whisper, “what day is it?”

“Saturday.”

Jared pries his eyelids open with what looks like great difficulty. “You get in last night?” he asks, voice tight and expression pensive.

Jensen sighs. “No,” he says. “Couple days ago.”

Jared closes his eyes again, but his forehead remains creased. “Everything is...mixed up,” he mumbles, shifting slightly on the mattress. “How come you...what...”

That’s quite enough of that. “Just relax, babe,” Jensen soothes, rubbing a gentle hand in small circles on Jared’s chest. “Everything will seem clearer later. Just sleep now.” He reaches out with his free arm to pull on the blinds covering the window, blocking out the sun and casting the room in a dusty glow. “Maybe next time when you wake up I’ll be Molly Ringwald.”

Jared lets out a deep breath, tension seeping from his body. “You wouldn’t dare,” he murmurs, a tiny quirk of his lips. Two beats later and his chest is rising and falling evenly.

Jensen sits back in his chair but doesn’t let go of Jared’s hand. With the room thrown into darkness, Jared looks hollow, deflated, ill. And with a familiar surge of frustration, he is reminded of how they got into this situation.

Raking his fingers through his hair, Jensen feels tension return to his body. Jared may be the only one who can draw him out from his crappy moods, but he’s also the one that usually sinks him down there in the first place.

There’s got to be an ass-groove in his chair of epic proportions.

Jensen knows he can be a bit dramatic from time to time. Hell, he’s an actor, for Christ’s sake, and it kind of comes with the territory. But every once and a while he has a tendency to blow things out of proportion. Make mountains out of molehills.

The situation they’re currently in? Definitely already a fucking mountain.

The next time Jared wakes up, he’s a lot more alert, so right of the bat Jensen knows he’s going to have to school his features into something more amicable if this is going to end without one or both of them in traction. At least they’re already in a hospital.

“Well,” He grins when he watches Jared blink recognition back into his eyes. “Who am I this time? George Clooney? Brad Pitt?”

Jared scrubs weakly at his forehead, squinting at Jensen still half-asleep. “The guy I’m gonna dropkick in a moment if he doesn’t wipe that cheerful, smug grin off his stupid face,” he grumbles, then swallows, and his eyes slam shut.

Humour drains from Jensen in a matter of seconds. He moves closer to the bed. “Here,” he says, reaching for the self-administered morphine pump and placing it in Jared’s palm, curling the tense fingers around it. “You push that button to release the painkiller. Not too many times - you’re loaded up on enough crap as it is,” he warns soberly.

Jared nods, but presses on the switch at least twice. “Was I that bad?” he asks painfully, still yet to open his eyes.

Jensen looks up in surprise. He honestly hadn’t expected Jared to ask. “Bad?” He chokes on the word, because it’s almost funny how much of an understatement it is. “Yeah, Jay, you could say that. You came in here completely strung out from dehydration. Your fever was so high the doctors were worried about brain damage. Bad doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

Silently, Jared opens his eyes and just looks at him. “You’re mad.”

Setting his teeth on edge, Jensen tries to picture puppies. Kittens, even. Anything that doesn’t make him want to kill, kill, kill. “Mad?” Jensen repeats, spitting the word out like a bad taste. “No, I’m not mad. What I am is pretty fucking confused.” He stares Jared down, wishing he had something to do with his hands.

“What...” Jared shakes his head.

Feeling around in his pockets, Jensen finds something to suppress his fidgeting with pretty damn fast. “I’m talking about this,” he growls, and produces the cobalt plastic pill bottle in front of his face. The bottle containing the prescription for Penicillin the clinic doctor had given to Jared over two weeks ago. The bottle which is still more than half full.

For a moment, Jared just stares at the object blankly. Then comprehension flickers across the pale face and he sets his jaw, directing his gaze back to Jensen with only a hint of remorse.

If Jared won’t say anything, well, that’s fine. Jensen has had plenty of time over the last several hours to rehearse for this very moment. “One pill four times a day for two weeks. That’s fifty-six pills, Jared. You want to tell me why this prescription should have run out just two days ago and there are still thirty-six in the bottle?” he asks, and shakes them against the plastic for emphasis.

Jared wets his lips, stalling. “I got better right away, and...”

“Bullshit,” Jensen snaps, jumping to his feet when the tension he feels in his joints demands that he pace. “I know you play up the whole airheaded thing. I don’t know how you got it into your head in the first place, but people don’t need you to put on that whole carefree, nothing-can-touch-me front twenty-four seven. You might fool everyone else, Jared, but you don’t fool me.”

Hurt flashes across the younger man’s face. “Hey, that’s not fair,” Jared counters, pulling himself up in bed.

“No,” Jensen retorts, then remembers himself and makes an effort to lower his voice. “It’s not fair that you don’t seem to care about yourself enough to take a couple of lousy pills. Despite what you may want others to think, you’re not stupid, Jay. You stop taking antibiotics that early, and the strep bacteria starts growing again. You came in here with a strain that was resistant to nearly everything they tried to give you. My God, Jared, were you trying to kill yourself?”

Jared, the little asshole, actually has the nerve to roll his eyes at him. “Give me a break, man,” he mutters incredulously, dropping his head to the pillow.

Jensen glares at him. “Give you a break? Jared, you’re in a hospital! This didn’t happen because you threw yourself around too hard on set, or got a little stupid at a bar. You deliberately stopped taking medication that was clearing up a serious infection!”

“Stop yelling at me!” Jared struggles to match his volume, but just the effort leaves him panting, lines of discomfort appearing around his eyes and mouth.

Reeling in his temper, Jensen blows out a breath and rubs a weary hand down the back of his neck. “Sorry,” he says, quieter.

Jared frowns and looks away, gaze running to the ceiling. “It wasn’t deliberate.” He mumbles softly.

A nurse comes in then, passing a curious look between the two of them. She must notice their tension, because she makes quick work of taking Jared’s temperature and blood pressure, recording both on a clipboard. Jensen watches, all too familiar now with the whole process, as she examines his IV’s and writes down her findings before ducking from the room.

When they’re alone again, Jensen can’t quite seem to dig up the same anger he had before.

“It wasn’t deliberate,” Jared repeats, and he’s looking at Jensen now, earnestly. “It’s not like I wanted...I don’t know about you, man, but I’ve been pretty distracted these past few weeks.”

Sighing, Jensen closes the distance to the bed and lowers himself to his usual spot in the chair. “I know,” he tells him, because Jensen has never been more absent in his entire life than he’s felt in the past month. “But Jay, you’ve got to take care of yourself. I mean, Jesus, if I hadn’t have come home when I did...I don’t even want to think about what could have happened.” He reaches out to cover one of Jared’s hands with his.

Jared pulls away. “So, what, you got a phone call?” he sneers, and it’s an unfamiliar and ugly. “Had to cut the reunion a little short?”

Jensen shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t like that.”

“Well, I’m fine, now.” Jared lifts his chin in defiance, and Jensen watches as he rebuilds wall after wall behind his eyes. “You did what you do best. You came and played the hero, set things right again. I officially release you from your duty, Jensen,” he tries to sound strong, indifferent, but with a quivering bottom lip it only succeeds in smashing Jensen’s heart to pieces.

This time when he reaches for Jared’s hand, Jensen is fast enough to catch him when he tries to pull away. “Jesus, would you stop?” he demands quietly. “Did you ever think that maybe I never wanted to be with Danneel in the first place?”

Jared looks affronted. “I was supposed to beg you to stay with me?” He scoffs angrily. “No. For once in your life, Jensen, you should do what makes you happy and not what you think is ‘best’ for everyone else. I wasn’t going to be one more person telling you what to do. And you should know me better than that,” he says, hostility draining from his voice as his gaze drifts down to their hands.

He knows he should look troubled, conflicted, but suddenly Jensen has to fight to keep the smile from his face. “You’re right,” he complies, stroking a thumb across the younger man’s skin. “And by the time I figured that out, I was already a few thousand miles away. Then when I kept calling and you didn’t answer...”

“I was more concerned about keeping myself alive by that point,” Jared interrupts blandly.

“It drove me crazy. I had to talk to you.”

When Jared opens his mouth to speak, Jensen puts a finger to the younger man’s lips, silencing him with his touch and steady gaze. He takes a deep breath. “I wanted to make sure that you know I love you. That I’m in love with you.” He pauses, and watches Jared’s expression falter. “But then I thought, how could he know if I’ve never said it out loud?”

Jared’s eyes start to fill, and Jensen knows he wants to speak, but his fingers are still resting on the heart-shaped lips.

“Babe, I do know you. Maybe better than I know myself. You’re a terrible dancer. You see things strategically, which is why you can play chess like Bobby Fisher and finish a Sudoku puzzle in under five minutes. You make friends faster than anyone I’ve ever known. You love those two dogs as if they were your own children.” He pauses, and moves the fingers covering Jared’s lips to lift his head when he tries to lower his gaze. “And you’re the kindest, most selfless person I’ve ever met. I should’ve known from the start that you wouldn’t have told me to stay even if it was killing you.”

A tear escapes the corner of Jared’s red-rimmed eyes and trails down his cheek before Jensen gently brushes it away.

“I didn’t come back early because I was worried about you, or even because I missed you,” Jensen admits, and tries to smile, even though at this point he can barely feel the muscles in his face. “I got here as soon as I could because when you finally figure out what’s been missing from your life, you want to go find it as soon as possible.” He stops then, and waits, feeling completely out in the open with nowhere to run and hide

Jared is just watching him silently, eyes filled to the brim with emotion and unspoken words.

Swallowing, Jensen shrugs one shoulder. “Granted, you kind of ruined the magical moment I had planned when I found you collapsed in the hallway, all sweaty and gross,” he chuckles nervously, wincing at how audibly his voice shakes. “Wasn’t exactly the movie-quality ending I pictured in my head, but hey, I’ll...”

“You couldn’t just stop there, could you?” Jared croaks, his face dissolving into the most incredible smile Jensen has ever seen.

Jensen lets out a breath of relief. “How could I, when you’re supposed to be the talkative one?” he demands in mock-irritation. “Jeez, a guy pours his heart out here, and all he gets is abuse? Did I forget to mention that you’re a pain in the ass? I could have gone on, but I thought it would be more effective to only list the good things, but...”

“Shut up, Jen,” Jared protests, grabs a hold of his collar and pulls until their lips are touching. Their kiss is gentle and powerful and intense and yet so not enough, but all Jensen can think is finally, I can breathe again.

It feels like an eternity later when they pull apart. Jensen bows his upper body across the bed and lets Jared lean his forehead against the crook of his neck. He stares at the wispy ends of the long, chestnut hair and feels the puffs of warm, deep breaths against his collar bone.

When Jared tells him that he loves him too, Jensen kind of wants to run up and down the hospital corridors and scream it from the rooftops. However, when he suggests it, Jared snorts and tells him not to be such a drama queen.

Killjoy.

It’s a sunny day in the fall, and for Vancouver, that’s a miracle.

Jensen is happy.

The park is just the way he remembered from three months before, but like looking through a stained glass window. The sky now is a dusty grey-blue where it peeks through the crimson of the maple trees over their heads. He tries to separate the sound of Jared’s laugh from the satisfying crunch of leaves under the heels of his boots.

He’s trying to look annoyed, fighting with every fibre of his being to force the corners of his mouth to turn down in the classic Jensen scowl, but it’s not really working. It’s hard to find anything to frown about these days. “It’s not like I kept it a secret, you moron,” he chuckles, trying to disguise it as a scoff.

“There are tennis courts? Jen! We could have brought our rackets.” Jared pouts, looking excitedly off in the distance while Harley and Sadie bark and run up ahead.

Jensen rolls his eyes. “Right, first we’ll have to undergo an archaeological dig through all the shit in the garage, Venus.”

Jared elbows him in the side. “Hey! If anything, I’m Serena. You’re Venus,” he retorts, indignant. “You’re always trying to spoil my fun.” And thus an epic pout-fest begins to take place as the younger man stuffs one of his hands into the pocket of Jensen’s coat.

“There’s puddles and shit in there, Jay. Look, I told you. I came across this place in the summer. We were a little...busy, at the time, if you can remember,” he says pointedly, and Jared’s expression turns thoughtful, a quiet smile playing across his lips as he nods. “I totally forgot it was here.” Jensen looks around, taking in a deep, crisp lungful of fall air.

Beside him Jared is quiet. A pleasant rarity.

Jensen stops walking, looking down at the stowaway hand in his jacket, a comfortable weight against his side. Jared slows and turns to stand in front of him. “That sweater doesn’t come equipped with its own?” Jensen asks rhetorically, nodding at the double pockets in the front of Jared’s fleece hoodie.

With a shrug and a smirk, Jared closes the distance between them. He puts his other hand into the opposite pocket. “Yours are better.” Soon the toes of their shoes are touching, Jared’s body pressed flush against his own.

“Thief,” Jensen growls, bringing their faces closer. Jared’s nose is like an ice cube where it brushes his cheek, and it makes him smile. When he tilts his head Jared sighs and opens his mouth, their lips fitting together like magnets. It’s a slow, lazy kiss that feels like weekend mornings over coffee and hot summer nights on the porch, but Jensen still has to catch his breath when it’s over.

Jared is laughing about something when he gets his bearings back. “What?” Jensen asks softly, watching.

Jared wrinkles his nose. “Your tongue is cold,” he says, easy smile, and yanks on Jensen’s zipper until it’s all the way up to his chin. “Come on, I want hot chocolate. With lots of marshmallows.” He’s already calling to the dogs, herding them back and turning towards home.

Jensen shakes his head fondly. Jared can be wonderfully and exasperatingly spontaneous. He can be stubborn as an ox when the mood strikes. He never makes his side of the bed right. Sometimes he has the most misguided sense of humour, it makes Jensen cringe - and never, ever laugh.

Jared makes Jensen crazy and feel so in love sometimes it physically hurts. It can be overwhelming, and not to mention a little scary to think that there’s more there, buried just beneath the surface, things about Jared that Jensen hasn’t even discovered yet. He takes it in stride, though, because they’ve got the rest of their lives to figure each other out - or at least the inner workings of Jared Padalecki.

Because after all, Jensen isn’t a complicated guy.

End.