To Teach the Human Heart the Knowledge of Itself, 3/5
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Jensen plays town crier because he’s gotta grab his carry-on from his room anyway-minus pretzels-and he stops in to see Jeff while everyone else heads downstairs.
“Sure you don't want to come?” he says from the doorway.
He tosses the canister of Slim Jims onto Jeff’s bed.
Jeff snorts and rolls his eyes. “Think I'll leave that to the younger generation,” he says.
“Feeling your years, old man?” Jensen asks with a grin.
Jeff's actually only ten or eleven years older than Jensen, but making fun of him for being old just comes with the territory.
“Laugh it up,” Jeff says. “One day you'll wake up old like me.” He huffs out something like a chuckle, and his smile's still there, but worn, frayed around the edges.
It’s different, unexpected. Jensen’s seen every shade of Jeff over the years, frustrated, delirious, content, even sick as a dog, a few years back, but this-it’s verging on sad, and Jensen takes a step inside the room, but Jeff clears his throat and says, “You get all your supplies?”
It’s an obvious change of a subject they didn’t quite get to, and Jensen slaps his palm up against the doorframe. “And more,” he says, pastes on the appropriate grin.
Jeff nods. “Save me a banana.”
Jensen says, “You got it,” slaps the doorframe one more time and waves on his way out of the room. “Oh, and cancel my wake up call. You know, since I've got my suitcase now.”
“But it's my favorite part of the day,” Jeff pouts.
Jensen flips him off and heads down the hallway to the sound of Jeff's laughter.
Downstairs, almost everyone's milling around, so Jensen figures it's about time to get started.
“Okay, listen up!” he says, walking over to the table Mike's set up near the makeshift bar. “I was just talking to Jared earlier today about all of these traditions we have here, and I never really thought about it until I was explaining it to him, how so much of what we do here stays the same, year to year, even with new people coming in and out.”
Jensen grabs the big bowl and the bananas from the floor, where Mike stashed them, and he thumps them down onto the table.
“This here's another tradition, one that most of you are gonna recognize.” A tradition that really makes a lot more sense when they have a bigger group of first years, more potential for idiotic behavior, but hey, tradition’s tradition, whether they’ve got five new people or fifteen.
Chad lets out a loud whoop, and a few of the other guys join in. Jensen laughs and says, “Let's get our volunteers up here, that's Jared, Sandy, Jonah, Julie, and Mark, am I right?”
There’s a lot of clapping and a little bit of shoving. Mike says, “Ah, the slaughter of innocents,” takes an elbow to the ribs from Tom for it, but grins like it was entirely worth the pain.
When the five of them step up to the table, Jensen says, “I know you've all had a chance to work with us and to talk with Jeff, but this-this is your real welcome to Actors Coming Together for the Arts.” He turns to the crowd at large. “Time to pony up, people!”
Almost everyone who's returning from last year produces a box or a strip-or in Chad’s case, a random handful-of condoms, and Jensen pulls his own twenty-pack out of his bag and dumps it open over the bowl.
“Here at ACT!” he says, throws his best stern face, grim half smirk, across the table at the first timers, “we take coming together very seriously.”
He can’t hold the sober expression for long, especially not in the face of Jared’s huge laugh, and he lets his smile turn real when Jared catches his eye.
He just shrugs and shakes his head.
Yeah, it’s really stupid and cheesy and silly, but it's another one of those things that he loves because he loves the entire experience.
And it’s not entirely without purpose. It was about five years ago that a girl-Jamie, a first timer-actually got pregnant during ACT! Nothing really came of it, even though Jeff was a little worried for a while there, thought maybe it'd get around and some over-zealous parents would decide that the program wasn't setting a good example for the kids who watch them work, but they've been doing this ever since, just a little safe sex reminder coupled with a shitload of free condoms.
“So,” Jensen says, “I know you're probably looking around, thinking, there's no way I'm gonna have sex with any of these people, but let me tell you-it happens. A whole hell of a lot more than you'd expect, actually. I promise, things start to look different as the week wears on.” He grins. “What looks like Chad today might look like... well, Chad on Friday, but hey, you might just find yourself wanting to fuck him anyway!”
Most of the guys groan at that, and Sophia throws a pillow from the couch.
“Believe it or not guys,” he gestures to the overflowing bowl, “we're gonna run out before the week's over. So this is just a little safe sex refresher course,” he says. “Blindfolds, please.”
Of course, they don't actually have any blindfolds. Tom makes do with random t-shirts and scarves instead, and one tie, while Jensen says, “Our lovely volunteers are going to show us how it's done, folks! First one to get the condom unwrapped and correctly applied to the naked banana, then removed and put in the trash can,” which he thumps with his boot for effect, “because I don't care how dark it is, no one wants to step on your used condom-wins a prize!”
Jensen fishes out some unlubricated condoms from the variety pack he dumped in. Spermicidal lubricant has its place, but that place is not in someone's mouth. He presses a condom into everybody's hand, along with a banana, and says, “Ready... set... go!”
Mike calls it like an old time race announcer, as they peel their bananas and get their condoms open.
The funny thing is, Jensen's never actually had sex at ACT! He's hooked up, sure, had his share of fun, but he’s never taken it very far. He’d like to claim it’s some principled stand, make some eloquent argument about the transient nature of the program and its participants, but really, it’s more like he’s just never connected with anyone here in quite the right way. Well, except Sophie, and Jesus, he’s glad that never happened, because it would have worked out for a month, maybe two, hell, maybe even a year, but when it ended, it would have fallen apart so hard. Would have been a fucking disaster.
So maybe that's why the Sex Ed has become his job, one of the many perks of spring break celibacy.
Or possibly it’s that the thought of Chad or Mike or even Chris getting their hands on this gig is downright terrifying.
The race is in full swing, banana peels mostly discarded onto the table.
Jensen’s watched a lot of condoms applied to a lot of bananas over the years, seen it done a lot of ways, but Jared-Jared just rips into the condom wrapper with his teeth, sucks the latex disc into his mouth and expertly rolls it down onto the banana with just a little bit of pink tongue peeking out against the yellow fruit.
It’s-Jesus. Hard. Is what Jensen would have thought it’d be, doing it like that, just-fucking licking the damn thing down onto the banana.
But it’s not, apparently, because Jared takes the lead.
He struggles getting it off, though-taking it off-and even more when he tries to find the trash, and he eventually comes in third behind Jonah and Julie.
He laughs, though, smiles like he’s having the time of his life and rips his blindfold off, takes a big bite of his banana while everyone else applauds the volunteers.
When things die down, Jensen takes a minute to drive the point home, says, “This is serious, guys.” He holds his hand out to Tom, who puts a picture into it. Jensen holds it up for everyone, especially the first timers, to see. “You'll meet this gorgeous baby girl on Saturday, right Tom?”
“Friday night,” Tom says.
“Now clearly, not all of you are as awesome as Tom and Jamie,” Jensen says. “Most of you shouldn't be allowed within ten feet of a baby, and I'm pretty sure a few of you should just never be allowed to procreate, ever, so do the world a favor and be careful. Have fun, stay safe.”
Jensen hands the picture off to Tommy as the crowd around the table breaks up. “She's getting more gorgeous every year,” he says, clapping Tom on the shoulder.
“Just like her mom,” Tom agrees.
Jensen honestly doesn't remember much about Jamie from her one year at ACT!, but he's met her plenty of times since then. She and Tom really seem to have it together, and if anyone from ACT! was going to end up having a baby after a one week stand over spring break, Jesus. It’s lucky it was Tom.
From the corner, Mike yells, “Bar's open!” and people split up and mingle while Jensen moves the condom table up against the wall.
Jared joins him after a second, holds out a shot that matches his own, clear in color and dangerously Mike-sized.
“Cheers,” he says, and Jensen drinks with him.
It tastes suspiciously like Malibu, and Jensen doesn’t even ask, just slams his empty cup down onto the table.
“So what's with the truckload of bananas?” Jared says.
Jensen shrugs. “We usually need a refresher course halfway through the week. Sometimes two. Plus,” he says, grabbing one and peeling, “I like bananas.”
He bites into the soft flesh, feels Jared's eyes on him and says, “What?” through a mouthful of banana. “You seem pretty cozy with them yourself.”
Jared just shakes his head and laughs, tugs Jensen over to an empty spot on the couch.
It’s so easy, just-talking, laughing his ass off at something he can’t even remember, watching Jared’s dimples flare in return. It’s nearly one a.m. when Jensen realizes that they've been at it for hours. He stands and stretches, feels the buzz from the mystery shots Chad's been delivering all night, and smiles a little when he sees Chad on the other couch, Sophia's legs in his lap.
Sophia flashes a smile, that little knowing grin that tends to mysteriously precede the occurrence of something awesome, and he looks around for the punch line, but the room’s pretty quiet, not much going on-unless Jared stretching his arms up over his head, baring a little corner of skin above his hip counts, but Jensen’s pretty sure it doesn’t.
Sophia keeps smiling, though, and Jensen chalks it up to drunkenness and Chad proximity. It’s not like he’s given it a lot of thought-not like he wants to, but. They do have that whole opposites thing going on. Order and chaos. It could work. Maybe.
Jensen's just about to sit down again, maybe consult with Jared on this Chad and Sophia thing, when Jared topples over into his seat.
“Up and at 'em, lightweight,” he says.
“Fuck you, I can drink all night,” Jared’s cheek is squished into the indent formerly occupied by Jensen’s ass. “I'm just tired, man.”
Jensen picks up a used Dorito and flicks it at Jared's face. It bounces off his nose, and Jensen says, “Be tired in your own seat.”
Jared flicks the Dorito back, and it hits somewhere in the vicinity of Jensen's shoulder.
“That's just weak, man.” Jensen shakes his head in mock pity.
“I'll show you weak,” Jared says, and the effectiveness of the statement is severely handicapped by the fact that it’s barely intelligible, carried on a massive yawn. Jared’s arms are significantly less impaired, though, and he hooks an elbow around Jensen's knee and pulls him down so he lands half on the couch, half on top of Jared.
Before he can protest, Jared throws a handful of popcorn at him, most of which goes down his shirt.
Jensen retaliates with pretzels, and Jared counters with a banana peel that's getting more and more disgusting by the second.
“Okay,” Jensen says, wheezing with laughter and pushing the banana peel away. “Okay, I give.” He slumps back against the couch, still half stretched over Jared's legs.
“Damn straight,” Jared says through another yawn.
It’s contagious; Jensen yawns, too, then just relaxes, stares at the little holes in the dropped ceiling until inconveniently located snack food spurs him to action.
“Jesus, I have popcorn in my clothes,” he says, pulling at his shirt. “And you've got-let me just...” he brushes a chip out of Jared's hair, brushes Jared's hair back out of his eyes in the process.
“Here,” Jared says, tugs at the back of Jensen's shirt where it's trapped between his knees and the couch. Jared's hand brushes Jensen's lower back, lingers there a second and leaves Jensen with matching strips of tingling warmth painted across his spine and cheeks.
He backs out of Jared’s space, theoretically. He’s really not sure whether he actually moves at all.
Jared yawns again-Jesus, so close-and Jensen’s smirk is weak, but it’s there, picking up slack and accusing Jared of being lame when words fail.
“You know, some of us get up at five-thirty,” Jared says.
“Why would anyone do that?” Jensen asks. It’s just so wrong.
“I run,” Jared says. “Not like, competitively, or anything, but I like it. I get in about six miles every morning, forty-five minutes or so. It's a good way to start the day, you should try it.”
Jensen snorts. “Hell no, man. I don't do mornings.”
“You're missing out,” Jared says.
“I'm pretty sure that's okay. You can go ahead and freeze your ass off. I'm fine inside where it's warm.”
After a pause, Jared says, “Contacts?”
It takes Jensen a second to work through the question, and by the time he gets to the end he’s pretty sure it’s time to call it a night because his brain is clearly not prepared to handle the demands of being awake right now.
“Yeah,” he says, another few seconds later, when he remembers to actually answer the question. “Now that I've got my suitcase. Why?”
“No reason,” Jared says. Then, “I like your glasses. Or your contacts. You know, I just.”
Jared’s pause is followed by nothing at all, and Jensen says, “Okay, upstairs.”
Jensen grabs whatever trash is directly in their path along the way, so there's less work left for the stragglers to do.
Jared walks, mostly with his eyes open.
He’s closer to awake when they reach their doors, and he smirks a little, says, “You sure you don't want to come running tomorrow?”
“I told you man, I don't do mornings,” Jensen says, hushed, tucked in a little closer to Jared than he maybe needs to be, but people are sleeping. He’s being courteous.
Jared shrugs, brushes his shoulder against Jensen’s, worn out and sloppy. “So. ’Night,” he says.
Jensen watches the door close behind him, stands in the hallway for a minute. Five-thirty in the morning, Jesus. No. There’s just no fucking way. He’s sure as hell not getting up at the ass crack of dawn to run, anyway, but his shoulder’s still warm where Jared grazed it, and without too much thought, he writes a note for Jeff and slips it under his door, a quick request to reinstate his six-thirty wake-up call.
He sets his own alarm, too, but he knows from experience that it's not nearly enough to get him up at that hour.
When he crawls into bed a few minutes later, stripped down to his boxer briefs, he pulls the covers up over his head and makes a conscious decision not to think about what exactly he’s planning on doing with himself at six-thirty in the morning, when everyone else-everyone except Jared-will still be asleep.
Jensen’s groggy, less than half awake and mostly convinced that the occasional flash of awareness that buzzes through his head is something best ignored.
Like a figment. Or a mirage, or maybe a hallucination.
Like a strangely, insistently rhythmic buzzing hallucination. Or maybe his fucking cell phone, vibrating away on the dresser next to the bed, Jesus.
He grabs at it, flips it open and pulls it up against his ear.
“Dude, wake the fuck up,” it says.
Chris. Chris says.
“Chris?”
Jensen’s sleep instinct is incredibly strong. He burrows under the covers and tries to let it take over.
“Hallelujah, he’s alive,” Chris drawls.
Jensen growls, “Not,” and pulls his pillow down over his head. “What time?”
“You really wanna know? I could Google it for you.”
“No,” Jensen says. “The fuck do you want?”
“Nothin’. Just wanna talk,” Chris says. “So talk.”
“You.”
“Fine.” Chris’s voice gets soft and low. “So hey, you remember that time we were what, twelve, maybe? And we walked through the woods for like, two whole days just to find the body of that dead kid by the railroad tracks?”
“Yeah, I think you’re confusing our childhood with eighties coming of age movies again,” Jensen says.
“Well, shit,” Chris answers. “So that time we got Saturday detention? The mutant in your dad’s basement?”
“Nope.”
“Damn.”
Jensen turns onto his side, but he stays buried under the covers, like high school all over again, hushed voices, pointless conversation, just. Hearing the sound of Chris’s voice when he’s far away.
“So day one,” Chris says.
“Yeah.”
“Did you break down and cry when you took the stage without me? It’s okay, man, you can tell me.”
“Yup,” Jensen says. “Drowned in my own tears. Mind letting my mom know, by the way?”
Chris chuckles. “Don’t even fucking say that, man. She’d murder me.”
“Yeah, but it works out ’cause you can’t live without me.”
“You wish,” Chris says. “So how’s the crew, how’s Jeff? Chad still chasing after Sophie?”
“Jesus, does everyone know?”
“Everyone and their mother,” Chris says. “But that’s our Jenny.” He snorts out a huff of air. “Always missing what’s right in front of his face.”
“Fuck you,” Jensen says, “I do not.”
“I got a scar on my chin says otherwise,” Chris says. “So how’d it go, how’s the kid? Jared.”
“Fucking huge,” Jensen says through a yawn, “and just. Good. Really good.”
“So it’s like that,” Chris says softly. “Huh.”
“It’s like. I don’t know.”
The phone is silent against his ear for a minute, and then Chris says, “Don’t matter what it’s like, Jen. Only matters what it is, and even that’s just between you and him.”
Jensen breathes the recycled air inside his sheets, thinks about the time he broke his wrist and Chris camped out with him in a fort made of blankets for two weeks, until their moms declared war, demanded the living room back, demanded that Chris at least show his face for a dinner or two with his family.
“Hey, you remember the time we accidentally made a real girl with your computer, and she taught us to be cool, only it turned out we were cool all along, we just needed some confidence?” Jensen asks.
“Yeah,” Chris says. “That was awesome.”
With the exception of the cell phone plastered to the side of Jensen’s face, Tuesday starts out the same way as Monday, with Jeff banging on his door until he opens it. It's a miserable way to wake up, and as Jeff smirks at him and takes off back to his own room, Jared comes up the hallway, sweaty and flushed.
“Hey,” he says quietly, ducking into his room.
Jensen says “Hey,” back about a minute later, because he's slow in the mornings, and Jared is-Jesus, just.
And Jensen is still standing in his doorway in his boxer briefs.
He scrubs a hand down over his face, tries to will some blood or oxygen or something into his brain to make it work-poor substitute for caffeine-and in the meantime, he throws on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.
He’s not really up for walking down to the shower together. It’s kind of weird, like-like some kind of strange, half naked towel parade.
Though now that he's got his suitcase, he’s planning on wearing more than a towel, and it stands to reason that Jared probably is, too.
But even so, Jensen heads down to the basement instead. He could just get back into bed, but he knows if he does, he'll fall asleep, and he needs to make sure everything from last night got cleaned up, anyway.
He finds a couple of stray napkins, and the folding chairs and tables are still out, but he leaves them because they'll probably use the room again at some point. All in all, though, it's not bad.
He heads back to his room, strips his shirt off, then puts it back on and grabs everything he needs for the shower.
Despite the head start, Jared's just going into a shower stall when Jensen enters the bathroom.
“Hey,” Jared says again, ducks his head as he hovers on the threshold.
Jensen somehow manages a timely, “Hey,” in return this time, which he counts as a major victory.
They’re a few minutes into a lazy conversation about pretty much nothing at all, breakfast meats and cable news, before he realizes it's happening, that his customary morning grunting and swearing is giving way to honest to god words and phrases, more or less complete thoughts that leave his mouth at entirely appropriate times, and Jesus, it’s easy-so easy he didn’t even realize he was doing it.
He gets kind of caught up in listening to Jared's hushed voice under the thrum of the water when Jared gets going on a story about his dogs, and after a minute, Jensen's mostly tuning the words out and just listening to the tone, the warmth of it.
He stretches his neck back and lets the water run hot over his face for a second, then steps back so it hits his chest and runs down.
His hand runs lazily down his torso, slides over his cock, and he's fully hard before long, the warm water and the low timbre of Jared's voice lulling him into a dreamy state, arousal a soft, insistent buzz behind it.
It's Jeff banging the door open that snaps him out of it.
“Breakfast,” Jeff says.
Jensen drops his hand to the side as quickly as if Jeff had actually walked into his stall, manages to say, “Coffee. And some kinda breakfast sandwich,” without wavering.
Jesus, getting off in the middle of a conversation with the guy in the next shower stall is pretty much the dictionary definition of not okay.
Jared says, “Me too, and apple juice if they have it,” and his voice is bright, none of the quiet warmth Jensen remembers from a minute ago.
Still, Jensen fails to take the opportunity to tease Jared about ordering apple juice like a five year old-Jensen's pretty sure he hasn't requested the stuff in about twenty years-because he's too busy trying to finish up his shower quickly and get going before he zones out again.
When he shuts his water off, Jared's is still going, and Jared says, “Meet you in fifteen?”
“Sure,” Jensen says. He towels off sloppily and slips out of the bathroom with his hair still dripping.
Everything’s a little different this year because of the limited cast and the dedicated crew, so for Jensen and Jared, Tuesday's pretty much the same as Monday.
Normally, they'd be moving on to other things, doing their part in whatever behind the scenes stuff they'd signed up for, but this year, they're mostly just going to be having runthroughs, critiques, and rehearsals.
Jensen misses the variety a little bit, if not the other activities themselves, but he can’t seem to muster up any significant amount of dissatisfaction, not when breakfast comes with Jared smiling a mile wide and Chad wearing an honest to god, old fashioned Kick Me! sign on his back.
Jared buries his face in Jensen’s shoulder when he can’t hold the laughter back anymore, and Jensen slaps him on the back when he practically chokes with it.
The morning runthrough goes well; not perfect, but better than Jensen expected for their first time through without scripts. Their critique comes from the random assortment of people who caught the performance, including a couple of fifth graders who have surprisingly insightful comments.
Jared takes the time to split off into a small group session with some of the class, and Jensen finds himself watching the way Jared really listens to the kids, laughs with them-and finds himself losing track of his own conversation.
“Jensen, what did I just say?” Sophia asks from the front row. She looks ridiculous wearing half a costume, pinned to measurements that clearly aren’t hers, and Jensen grins.
She rolls her eyes, but she looks back at Jared and a smile flickers at the edges of her mouth.
“I asked what you think of the staging. I was watching this morning, and it felt a little. I don’t know, do you feel like you're too far away from Jared when you're up there? Like the distance kind of-implies a disconnect that's not really there?”
“Like we're accidentally inserting subtext,” Jensen says, “I guess I could see that. But the spread's supposed to give the whole thing a presence, you know, because it's just us up there so much?”
Jeff takes a seat next to Sophia and says, “We could pull the curtains in a bit. Trim the edge of the stage, set you closer together. Want to try it this afternoon?”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, looks over at Jared again.
He’s got the kids seated in a semi-circle, and he’s leaning in, saying something Jensen can’t hear from ten rows away. The kids are laughing, though, and then Jared sits up straight and yells, “That’s why we have to project!” with a huge smile plastered across his face.
Jensen feels a similar smile spread across his own face at the sight of Jared and most of the kids collapsing into giggles. Jared’s like a massive five year old sometimes, and it’s just-fucking adorable, Jesus.
Jeff clears his throat, and Jensen turns.
“The blocking.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says. “Definitely. I think we could try that.”
Jensen spends his lunch hour with Jared, silently going over the script. It's a comfortable silence, though, punctuated by chewing and page turning and the occasional drag of pencil on paper.
When Jensen finishes making his notes, his attention drifts over to Jared. For some reason, Jeff thought it was a good idea to pick up two huge lasagnas from a local Italian place, and while it worked in theory, and the food was awesome, Jared's got red streaks and spots everywhere, on his hands, his shirt, his script.
Jensen follows them as they move.
“Think I’ve got time to run back and change, man?” Jared says, and Jensen flushes like he’s been caught staring, even though Jared never even looks up from his page.
The wall clock says twelve fifty-six. “Depends on whether you can make it there and back in four minutes.”
Jared snorts out a laugh, still underlining dialogue. After a second, he shuts his script and tosses it onto the floor along with his pencil. He tugs his shirt over his head and says, “Never let me near sauce, seriously.”
He leans back, stretches, and all of the muscles in his abdomen flex. Jensen names them in his head, can't help it, and then Jared gets to his feet and says, “I'm gonna go see if Sophia's got anything I can use in wardrobe.”
Jensen watches him go, names the muscles in his back as well.
When his phone starts buzzing, he doesn’t even look at the display, just opens it, holds it against his ear while Jared takes the stairs to the stage two at a time.
It’s a call he’s been waiting for, actually, and he says yes and I will and thank you at all the right times, and when he hangs up, he has a job-a career, actually, exactly where he wanted, exactly what he wanted.
Jared’s huge laugh echoes across the auditorium from somewhere backstage, and Jensen sits back and waits for a feeling of fulfillment that never comes.
They rehearse in the dressing room again, same as yesterday. Jeff tosses the keys and says, “Maybe try actually doing some rehearsing today.”
Jensen flips him off over his shoulder, and they head out to the back hallway. The set decorations are starting to go up, and it's all very minimalistic, but Jensen still loves seeing them leaned up against the wall in the back hallway, drying.
Jared's wearing a too-small yellow shirt that says I'm with stupid and has an arrow pointing up toward his face, and the first thing he does when Jensen closes the door of the dressing room behind them is pull it off and throw it onto the counter.
“I think that shirt's trying to kill me, man,” he says, flopping down on the couch.
He looks even bigger with his shirt off, somehow. Which doesn’t really make sense, because clothing adds bulk. That's one of those irrefutable things, it goes on the outside of your body; therefore, it makes you bigger, even if it's just by a tiny bit.
“So you ready to do this?” Jared says. “We should probably stand, try some of the new blocking?”
Jensen nods and says, “Post-Chad?”
None of the characters in the play actually have names, but Chad's last appearance is pretty much right smack in the middle of the thing, so they've started calling the second half post-Chad.
Jared moves in closer to Jensen. They're probably working with a little less than half the space they'll be using on stage, so it's an approximation, but it works. There’s an intimacy there, a close kind of urgency they didn’t have when their words were separated by yards, half the stage, instead of just feet.
It’s gonna be fucking phenomenal when they do it for real.
They take it a little too quickly, just-exhilaration, maybe, and they come up on the end before Jensen’s really ready for it.
And then Jared moves in, and Jesus. Jensen doesn’t know how he could ever be ready for this. The room shrinks to nothing around them, and he can’t focus beyond the heat of all the places they’re almost touching, because in this tiny box of a room, close isn’t an arm’s length or a few inches. They’re barely a millimeter apart, and Jensen can feel his skin prickling against Jared's.
He gets caught up in it for a second, hips and forearms, little pools of heat, his cheek just inches from Jared’s bare shoulder-triceps, pectoralis, deltoid, Christ-and his gaze catches on the soft curl of Jared’s hair against his neck. He wants his hand there, settles for tracing an upward path with his eyes instead, gentle slope of the trapezius to the mastoid process.
He closes the distance without really intending to; the fraction of an inch between them disappears like it was never there, leaves them skin to skin, warmth erupting into heat where their arms are pressed together.
Jensen searches for a line, can’t remember whose turn it is to speak.
When a crash from the hallway interrupts the relative silence-the quiet that Jensen vaguely assumes is still lurking underneath the deafening rasp of his breathing-he feels it like an avalanche, swift slide of arctic air where the heat of Jared’s body used to be.
He doesn’t know who moved, only registers distance; closeness, by implication.
His first instinct is to push forward against Jared’s warmth, but a string of curses from the hallway pulls his body in the opposite direction, turns his head toward the door. Jared rocks forward like he's going to follow, and Jensen says, “Should-we should go, uh. Should we go check on that?”
“We could,” Jared says. There’s a flush across his face, leftover heat from when they were pressed together. He plows a hand through his hair, and Jensen watches it fall, piece by piece, back into his eyes.
Jensen says, “Yeah,” feels like he’s dragging the conversation out, fabricating a reason to say rooted to his spot, watching Jared watch him.
Jared doesn’t move. He nods and says, “Okay,” and doesn’t move, and then he shakes his head, smiles a little and says, “No, yeah. Okay, let’s-yeah.” When he pulls his ridiculous t-shirt back on, it practically creaks as it stretches over his shoulders.
Jensen clears his throat. “I don’t know,” he says, “you might wanna think about bulking up some more if you’re gonna wear that shirt.”
He falls short of the teasing tone he’s aiming for in the same way that Jared’s answering laugh is a little rougher than it really needs to be, but he just pretends the exchange came out completely normal, knocks their shoulders together and opens the door on whatever mess he’s giving up his time with Jared-his rehearsal time-for.
Despite a late start involving Sophia, a broken ladder, and a box of clothing that’s stored too high for anyone but Jared to reach, the rehearsal goes well.
Very well, actually. Jensen’s trying not to be concerned about that, trying to let the rush win out over the nagging worry that every up eventually comes with an equal and opposite down.
It’s mostly working, because the new blocking is amazing onstage, even better than he’d suspected it would be in rehearsal, and he can’t stop smiling.
Sophia officially declares herself a genius, and Jared picks her up and swings her around, then deposits her on the ground next to Chad and turns to Jensen.
“That was-incredible, man,” he says, “I mean. Wow.” He claps Jensen on the shoulder, and then his hand stills, rests there for a slow second.
Jensen's skin burns where Jared's heat bleeds through, and he says, “Hey, we know how to get it done.”
And Jesus, he knew how to get it done with Chris, too, but working with Jared is just-so different. Different than he expected, different than anything he’s ever felt before. And it’s not a matter of confidence or trust, it’s not the novelty of working with someone new. It’s not anything he can name, because words won’t touch this feeling, this low level buzz in his veins that says there’s no such thing as failure as long as Jared’s sharing the stage.
It's a rush, and he prolongs it by standing shoulder to shoulder with Jared while Jeff gives them a few notes to work on. Jared nods, says the right things at the right times, doesn't move away.
When Jeff lets them go, it’s early, and Jared says, “I got too much energy man, I think I'm gonna go out for a run.” He ducks his head and his hair falls into his eyes. “You, uh. Wanna come with?”
He’s tugging at the hem of his t-shirt, looks more jittery than energetic, almost nervous, maybe, and Jensen wants to counter with a warmer, slower activity.
“Nah,” he says, grinning, “I think I'm gonna take pity on Sophia and stay here, let her play dress-up. We could meet up for dinner, though?”
“Cool.” Jared just smiles for a minute, huge dimples cut into his face, and then he says. “Yeah, definitely.”
Jensen watches him go for maybe a moment too long before heading backstage in search of Sophia.
Costuming is always kind of a challenge for them. Sometimes, the college lends the use of its wardrobe, but not often, and this particular school has left them a little costume closet full of basic items, but the main wardrobe room is locked.
It’s not a big deal; they’ve done more with less plenty of times.
Sophia and Jeff are planning a trip to the Salvation Army after dinner, and Jensen's pretty much the only person who hasn't been measured. Sophia insists it’s necessary, even though Jensen insists that the jeans he’s wearing are at least three years old, which proves that his measurements are no different than they were last year or the year before-both of which he knows for a fact she has written down in her notebook.
He admits defeat without much of a fight, though, because Sophia measures everyone, every year, no matter what. Her notebook’s like the inside of the kitchen closet, neatly labeled lines, dated and frozen in time.
He’s never quite understood why it's not enough to just tell her what size he is, but she's got a system, and she's usually pretty good about knowing what works, so he goes with it.
He finds her in the back hallway by the wardrobe closet-which is really more of a walk-in-and she smiles wide and sweet, but Jensen’s not buying it.
“Hey, beautiful,” she says. “Come on, you know the drill.”
Jensen does, and he strips his shirt off, unbuttons his pants so they hang down a few inches.
Sophia’s smile darkens into an approving smirk. “Nice,” she says.
Jensen rolls his eyes, tries in vain to stop the flush creeping across his cheeks. They have pretty much the same conversation every year, and Sophie never gets sick of making him blush.
The measuring tape is cold against his waist, and after Sophia writes down the measurement, she moves it up to his chest and then his shoulders.
“So we haven't had much of a chance to talk,” she says, and she pushes on Jensen's shoulder when he tries to turn around to respond.
“Lots to do, this year,” he says, then he laughs. “It’s all Chris's fault, this stupid play.”
Behind him, Sophia chuckles. “You love it,” she says.
Jensen shrugs. “Sure, now. Every parent loves their own butt-ugly kid. But Jesus, Soph, what was he thinking?”
“Well, I think it's working out great,” she says. She flattens the measuring tape down the length of his spine. “Jared does, too.”
“Yeah,” Jensen agrees.
“Okay, turn around,” she says, and when he does, a flash explodes in his face, and Sophia pulls a photo out of the instant camera she's holding and waves it in the air as it develops. “Something new this year,” she says.
“It'll help you imagine how the clothes'll look on me while you're scouring the hallowed aisles of the Salvation Army?” he says dryly.
“Sure,” Sophia says, and then she winks. “That, and I'm totally gonna bring them home and stash 'em underneath my pillow.”
Jensen laughs at that and glances over at the other Polaroids she has lined up on her little folding table. Alona’s fully clothed, but the guys are all dressed like Jensen, shirtless, pants hanging open.
His eyes settle on the photo of Jared, wide shoulders, slim hips, making a ridiculous kissy face for the camera. It’s not like Jensen hasn’t seen it all before, Jared shirtless in the bathroom or at rehearsal, making silly faces for no reason at all, but still.
He’s having a hard time tearing his eyes away from the picture.
Sophia heaves a big, put-upon sigh. “All right, go on,” she says, fighting a smile. She kisses Jensen on the cheek and shoves his shirt into his hands. “God forbid I keep you two apart for more than a few minutes at a time.”
Jensen wants to protest, wants to play ignorant, say, “Who? What?” but more than that, he wants to meet up with Jared back at the dorm, and he’s ruffling Sophia’s hair and moving in that direction before he really even has time to consider doing anything else.
Dinner goes long, working out the schedule for shifts at the raffle the next day, and after, Jeff shoves his laptop into Jensen's hands and says, “Both files are on the desktop. Have fun!”
It's more than a little bit evil, because Jeff knows that Jensen has absolutely no desire to watch himself-and, okay, possibly shuns all videos that come into his possession and exiles them to his mother’s house-but he’s feeling surprisingly okay about this.
He’s not looking forward to it or anything. Not like Jared is, huge smile and grabby hands, just. Really fucking excited.
Jensen is not really fucking excited. Not about watching the videos. Watching Jared-the way he’s almost bouncing, Jesus-is really kind of entertaining, though. He’s like a kid on Christmas morning, unguarded and dimpled, and Jensen just. Can’t help smiling in return, can’t help thinking that maybe it won’t be that bad.
Jared can watch the performances, and Jensen can just watch Jared. Everybody wins.
“Awesome,” Jared says. “Your room? Chad's doing something in ours, I don't even want to know, but there's a diagram.”
Jensen laughs. “Sure.”
A few minutes later, though, he’s staring at the empty stage on the computer screen, waiting for the play to start.
Turns out there’s not really a great place to put the laptop, and they end up pressed shoulder to shoulder on the bed, slouching back against the wall with the computer set up on the desk chair in front of them.
He couldn’t look at Jared if he tried. Not without twisting his entire body and disturbing whatever delicate balance is allowing them to both fit comfortably on the bed at the same time, so. He’s watching the screen.
“You tired?”
Well. He’s facing in the direction of the screen. “Nah,” he says, opening his eyes. He’s just being an absolute fucking pussy about watching his performance, that’s all. Jesus.
It shouldn’t even be a big deal. Both of the runthroughs that Jeff taped were awesome, and the one Jared clicked on-the second one, because the staging’s more relevant-is the better of the two, so.
So it shouldn’t even be a big deal.
Still, as soon as Jensen sees his entrance on the screen, he leans down over the edge of the bed to grab his carry-on and pulls out his enormous bag of pretzels.
“Pretzel?” he says, holding the bag out in a way that entirely coincidentally blocks the screen from his view.
Jared laughs and grabs a handful.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Jared says. “So, you travel with enough pretzels and condoms to survive a massive global famine and then never have to worry about repopulating the Earth again afterward, but you check the important stuff, like your cell phone charger and your contacts.”
And speaking of contacts-Jensen's been wanting to take them out all night, so he grabs his case out of his pocket and unscrews the covers. “Are you impugning my packing skills?” he asks.
“Dude, don't talk to me while you're touching your eye,” Jared says.
Jensen laughs. “Freak,” he mutters, while he finishes up.
After a minute, after Chad's first mercifully fuzzy entrance, Jared says, “Yes, by the way.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I'm impugning your packing skills. Just so we're clear.”
Jensen elbows Jared in the ribs. “Shut up, I have a system. I always leave my carry on empty so I can pick that stuff up on the way to the airport,”
Jared snorts. “You have a crappy system,” he says. “You gotta learn to prioritize, man.”
“Hey, at least I brought snack food. You brought Chad.”
Jared chuckles, then he throws his head back and laughs, slouches down further against the wall and tips his head against Jensen’s shoulder for a second. His hair falls soft over Jensen’s ear, and Jensen flicks a pretzel at Jared’s nose to cover the hitch in his breath.
Jared just laughs again, bites at it in mid-air and misses by a mile, sticks his tongue out when Jensen laughs at him.
“That’s just weak, man,” Jensen says, shakes his head, tries to ignore the phantom tingle of Jared’s hair against his ear, Jared’s laughter against his neck.
On screen, the play continues, and Jensen’s thankful for his nearsightedness. There’s nothing he can do about the sound, though, and as much as he kind of wants to bury his head under the pillow, he’s actually pleasantly surprised enough that he starts making notes in his head about little changes, things that aren't quite perfect yet.
“There,” Jared says. “Right there, we're still giving each other too much space.”
“You think?” Jensen squints at the laptop.
“Yeah, because watch right here,” Jared answers. Jensen leans forward, and on the screen, they share a pause, a look that doesn't really connect because of the distance between them.
Jensen nods. “You're right, that definitely needs to be pulled in a little.”
He flops back against the wall. It’s more comfortable than it’s got any right to be, painted cinder blocks at their backs and a mattress built for a stick figure underneath, but Jared’s warm at his side and they make it through half the play without moving more than it takes to grab a pretzel.
Post-Chad, Jared turns and says, “Can you even see?”
“Well enough, yeah.”
“Want me to bring the computer closer?” Jared asks.
“Nah,” Jensen says. “We're good.”
Jared's still pressed up against his side, slouched down on the mattress, and Jensen maybe doesn't want him to move, ever.
“So why do you hate watching yourself?” Jared’s voice is soft, a little sleepy.
Jensen chuckles, and it turns into a groan halfway through. “There’s this video of me, on friggin’ YouTube, man, just. Take my advice, never sing at anyone’s wedding.”
“Will do,” Jared says, single-dimpled half smile warming his voice. “Or, y’know. Won’t.”
Jensen rolls his eyes, focuses on the fuzzy Jared monologuing his way across the screen for a minute. He’s pitch perfect, even better than Jensen remembers, and a familiar cloud of anxiety starts funneling in his chest.
“Are you,” he says, stops to clear his throat. Jared shifts, turns, but Jensen doesn’t look at him. “I don’t know, just. Aren’t you even a little bit worried?”
“’Bout what?” Jared says, low and sweet, nearly a whisper.
“Just. Rehearsals going so well. So well, like. Something’s bound to go wrong?”
Jared turns back to the computer, where Jensen’s voice is trembling through the emotional climax of the play. “Nope,” he says. “Not even a little.”
They watch the rest of the performance in silence, and when it's over, Jared's head is leaning on Jensen's shoulder. His breathing is soft and even, and it'd be so easy to move, to wake him up and send him home, but instead, Jensen just gives in, lets his own eyes fall closed, lets his head rest heavy against Jared’s.
In the morning, Jensen wakes up to pounding.
He glares at the door for a minute, but that doesn't make the noise go away, so he drags himself across the room and answers it. Jeff's in the doorway, lip quirked up, and he says, “Rough night?”
“Huh?” is all Jensen can manage, but he looks down and notes that he's still dressed, shoes and all, and he turns back toward the bed, which is messy, but still made from the night before.
Jared's nowhere to be seen.
Jeff says, “It's six, you can still go back to sleep. I just need the computer to type up the schedule for today.”
Jensen unplugs it and hands it over without a word, and then he kicks his shoes off and gets into bed. He can't sleep, though. He tries tossing and turning, tries lying very, very still. Eyes open, eyes closed, blanket pulled up over his head, nothing works.
Instead of drifting off, he just lies there while his thoughts trip over themselves, spin around in sloppy circles that always seem to start and end with Jared. Jared's laugh, his smile, the infuriating way his hair won’t seem to stay out of his eyes.
The way his voice gets low and quiet when he’s tired, the warmth of his body pressed up against Jensen’s side.
He doesn’t have a neat little box to put Jared in, doesn’t have the words to describe how effortlessly they fit together, but whatever it’s called, he’s pretty sure there’s no way he could’ve stopped it from happening.
Jared’s like a force of nature, unforeseen and irrepressible, and Jensen’s never quite felt like this before, never fallen straight into easy give and take without that awkward, undefined stage in between.
It’s so simple between them, though, and he’s just-maybe this is normal for Jared, but for Jensen, it’s not. Really not; hell, Steve is one of his best friends now, but he did his best to avoid the guy for an entire year before Chris barricaded them in a room together and they really hit it off.
And Jared-three days in and he’s constantly looking over his shoulder for Jared, listening across the auditorium for his huge laugh, asking who’s seen him when he’s not around.
He’s not here now, though, and there’s no one to ask.
When Jensen’s thoughts turn fully to Jared’s disappearing act and camp out like they’re planning to stay, he declares sleep a lost cause and heads for the shower. He's in and out before Jared makes an appearance, and after he gets dressed, he sprawls out on Jeff's extra bed.
Jeff looks up from where he’s typing and nods. “I like it. Pathetic sells,” he says, his voice rich with laughter and mock approval.
“What?” Jensen asks, because there’s nothing wrong with his look. He's comfy today, ratty sneakers and warm-ups, Jared's sweatshirt. He's got his glasses on, and his hair is soft and flat against his forehead.
“You look depressed,” Jeff says. “Or maybe homeless.”
Jensen answers with his middle finger and a belated, “Fuck you, I'm tired.” He lies down against the pillow and closes his eyes and listens to Jeff's fingers on the keyboard. The sound lulls him into a half-doze, the kind that skirts the line between awake and asleep, and he pushes down consciousness as far as he can.
When he wakes up, his knees are dipping with the mattress, springs creaking under the weight of a second body.
“Hey,” Jared says softly when he opens his eyes. “It's almost nine, you ready to go?”
“Seriously?” Jensen says, groggy and gravelly. He drags himself up to a sitting position. “Why didn't Jeff wake me up?”
Jared shrugs. “He said you were tired. I told him I'd wait here, get you up when it was time to go.”
“You didn't have to,” Jensen says. He takes his glasses off and rubs a hand over his eyes, and when he slides them back on, Jared’s got a soft grin on his face.
“Thanks for clearing that up,” he says, and he laughs when Jensen flips him off. “No, it's cool, I, uh. I wanted to.”
He takes a little breath and then stands up. “I'm sorry about, y’know. Last night,” he says. His hair falls down into his eyes when he ducks his head, and his cheeks are a little flushed when he brushes it back.
“Sorry you stayed or sorry you left?”
The question hangs in the air, rough with sleep and honesty, and Jensen could probably shake his head and laugh it off, but he doesn’t. He just watches Jared’s hands grip the edge of the mattress, long fingers that clench almost imperceptibly against the sheets.
When he takes in a breath, Jensen’s phone rings.
Jensen flips it open and says, “Yeah?”
“You on your way?” Jeff asks.
Jensen sighs. Leave it to Jeff to figure out how to keep his phone charged at the worst possible time.
“Yeah, we're out the door,” he says, getting up and motioning for Jared to follow.
part four
Jensen plays town crier because he’s gotta grab his carry-on from his room anyway-minus pretzels-and he stops in to see Jeff while everyone else heads downstairs.
“Sure you don't want to come?” he says from the doorway.
He tosses the canister of Slim Jims onto Jeff’s bed.
Jeff snorts and rolls his eyes. “Think I'll leave that to the younger generation,” he says.
“Feeling your years, old man?” Jensen asks with a grin.
Jeff's actually only ten or eleven years older than Jensen, but making fun of him for being old just comes with the territory.
“Laugh it up,” Jeff says. “One day you'll wake up old like me.” He huffs out something like a chuckle, and his smile's still there, but worn, frayed around the edges.
It’s different, unexpected. Jensen’s seen every shade of Jeff over the years, frustrated, delirious, content, even sick as a dog, a few years back, but this-it’s verging on sad, and Jensen takes a step inside the room, but Jeff clears his throat and says, “You get all your supplies?”
It’s an obvious change of a subject they didn’t quite get to, and Jensen slaps his palm up against the doorframe. “And more,” he says, pastes on the appropriate grin.
Jeff nods. “Save me a banana.”
Jensen says, “You got it,” slaps the doorframe one more time and waves on his way out of the room. “Oh, and cancel my wake up call. You know, since I've got my suitcase now.”
“But it's my favorite part of the day,” Jeff pouts.
Jensen flips him off and heads down the hallway to the sound of Jeff's laughter.
Downstairs, almost everyone's milling around, so Jensen figures it's about time to get started.
“Okay, listen up!” he says, walking over to the table Mike's set up near the makeshift bar. “I was just talking to Jared earlier today about all of these traditions we have here, and I never really thought about it until I was explaining it to him, how so much of what we do here stays the same, year to year, even with new people coming in and out.”
Jensen grabs the big bowl and the bananas from the floor, where Mike stashed them, and he thumps them down onto the table.
“This here's another tradition, one that most of you are gonna recognize.” A tradition that really makes a lot more sense when they have a bigger group of first years, more potential for idiotic behavior, but hey, tradition’s tradition, whether they’ve got five new people or fifteen.
Chad lets out a loud whoop, and a few of the other guys join in. Jensen laughs and says, “Let's get our volunteers up here, that's Jared, Sandy, Jonah, Julie, and Mark, am I right?”
There’s a lot of clapping and a little bit of shoving. Mike says, “Ah, the slaughter of innocents,” takes an elbow to the ribs from Tom for it, but grins like it was entirely worth the pain.
When the five of them step up to the table, Jensen says, “I know you've all had a chance to work with us and to talk with Jeff, but this-this is your real welcome to Actors Coming Together for the Arts.” He turns to the crowd at large. “Time to pony up, people!”
Almost everyone who's returning from last year produces a box or a strip-or in Chad’s case, a random handful-of condoms, and Jensen pulls his own twenty-pack out of his bag and dumps it open over the bowl.
“Here at ACT!” he says, throws his best stern face, grim half smirk, across the table at the first timers, “we take coming together very seriously.”
He can’t hold the sober expression for long, especially not in the face of Jared’s huge laugh, and he lets his smile turn real when Jared catches his eye.
He just shrugs and shakes his head.
Yeah, it’s really stupid and cheesy and silly, but it's another one of those things that he loves because he loves the entire experience.
And it’s not entirely without purpose. It was about five years ago that a girl-Jamie, a first timer-actually got pregnant during ACT! Nothing really came of it, even though Jeff was a little worried for a while there, thought maybe it'd get around and some over-zealous parents would decide that the program wasn't setting a good example for the kids who watch them work, but they've been doing this ever since, just a little safe sex reminder coupled with a shitload of free condoms.
“So,” Jensen says, “I know you're probably looking around, thinking, there's no way I'm gonna have sex with any of these people, but let me tell you-it happens. A whole hell of a lot more than you'd expect, actually. I promise, things start to look different as the week wears on.” He grins. “What looks like Chad today might look like... well, Chad on Friday, but hey, you might just find yourself wanting to fuck him anyway!”
Most of the guys groan at that, and Sophia throws a pillow from the couch.
“Believe it or not guys,” he gestures to the overflowing bowl, “we're gonna run out before the week's over. So this is just a little safe sex refresher course,” he says. “Blindfolds, please.”
Of course, they don't actually have any blindfolds. Tom makes do with random t-shirts and scarves instead, and one tie, while Jensen says, “Our lovely volunteers are going to show us how it's done, folks! First one to get the condom unwrapped and correctly applied to the naked banana, then removed and put in the trash can,” which he thumps with his boot for effect, “because I don't care how dark it is, no one wants to step on your used condom-wins a prize!”
Jensen fishes out some unlubricated condoms from the variety pack he dumped in. Spermicidal lubricant has its place, but that place is not in someone's mouth. He presses a condom into everybody's hand, along with a banana, and says, “Ready... set... go!”
Mike calls it like an old time race announcer, as they peel their bananas and get their condoms open.
The funny thing is, Jensen's never actually had sex at ACT! He's hooked up, sure, had his share of fun, but he’s never taken it very far. He’d like to claim it’s some principled stand, make some eloquent argument about the transient nature of the program and its participants, but really, it’s more like he’s just never connected with anyone here in quite the right way. Well, except Sophie, and Jesus, he’s glad that never happened, because it would have worked out for a month, maybe two, hell, maybe even a year, but when it ended, it would have fallen apart so hard. Would have been a fucking disaster.
So maybe that's why the Sex Ed has become his job, one of the many perks of spring break celibacy.
Or possibly it’s that the thought of Chad or Mike or even Chris getting their hands on this gig is downright terrifying.
The race is in full swing, banana peels mostly discarded onto the table.
Jensen’s watched a lot of condoms applied to a lot of bananas over the years, seen it done a lot of ways, but Jared-Jared just rips into the condom wrapper with his teeth, sucks the latex disc into his mouth and expertly rolls it down onto the banana with just a little bit of pink tongue peeking out against the yellow fruit.
It’s-Jesus. Hard. Is what Jensen would have thought it’d be, doing it like that, just-fucking licking the damn thing down onto the banana.
But it’s not, apparently, because Jared takes the lead.
He struggles getting it off, though-taking it off-and even more when he tries to find the trash, and he eventually comes in third behind Jonah and Julie.
He laughs, though, smiles like he’s having the time of his life and rips his blindfold off, takes a big bite of his banana while everyone else applauds the volunteers.
When things die down, Jensen takes a minute to drive the point home, says, “This is serious, guys.” He holds his hand out to Tom, who puts a picture into it. Jensen holds it up for everyone, especially the first timers, to see. “You'll meet this gorgeous baby girl on Saturday, right Tom?”
“Friday night,” Tom says.
“Now clearly, not all of you are as awesome as Tom and Jamie,” Jensen says. “Most of you shouldn't be allowed within ten feet of a baby, and I'm pretty sure a few of you should just never be allowed to procreate, ever, so do the world a favor and be careful. Have fun, stay safe.”
Jensen hands the picture off to Tommy as the crowd around the table breaks up. “She's getting more gorgeous every year,” he says, clapping Tom on the shoulder.
“Just like her mom,” Tom agrees.
Jensen honestly doesn't remember much about Jamie from her one year at ACT!, but he's met her plenty of times since then. She and Tom really seem to have it together, and if anyone from ACT! was going to end up having a baby after a one week stand over spring break, Jesus. It’s lucky it was Tom.
From the corner, Mike yells, “Bar's open!” and people split up and mingle while Jensen moves the condom table up against the wall.
Jared joins him after a second, holds out a shot that matches his own, clear in color and dangerously Mike-sized.
“Cheers,” he says, and Jensen drinks with him.
It tastes suspiciously like Malibu, and Jensen doesn’t even ask, just slams his empty cup down onto the table.
“So what's with the truckload of bananas?” Jared says.
Jensen shrugs. “We usually need a refresher course halfway through the week. Sometimes two. Plus,” he says, grabbing one and peeling, “I like bananas.”
He bites into the soft flesh, feels Jared's eyes on him and says, “What?” through a mouthful of banana. “You seem pretty cozy with them yourself.”
Jared just shakes his head and laughs, tugs Jensen over to an empty spot on the couch.
It’s so easy, just-talking, laughing his ass off at something he can’t even remember, watching Jared’s dimples flare in return. It’s nearly one a.m. when Jensen realizes that they've been at it for hours. He stands and stretches, feels the buzz from the mystery shots Chad's been delivering all night, and smiles a little when he sees Chad on the other couch, Sophia's legs in his lap.
Sophia flashes a smile, that little knowing grin that tends to mysteriously precede the occurrence of something awesome, and he looks around for the punch line, but the room’s pretty quiet, not much going on-unless Jared stretching his arms up over his head, baring a little corner of skin above his hip counts, but Jensen’s pretty sure it doesn’t.
Sophia keeps smiling, though, and Jensen chalks it up to drunkenness and Chad proximity. It’s not like he’s given it a lot of thought-not like he wants to, but. They do have that whole opposites thing going on. Order and chaos. It could work. Maybe.
Jensen's just about to sit down again, maybe consult with Jared on this Chad and Sophia thing, when Jared topples over into his seat.
“Up and at 'em, lightweight,” he says.
“Fuck you, I can drink all night,” Jared’s cheek is squished into the indent formerly occupied by Jensen’s ass. “I'm just tired, man.”
Jensen picks up a used Dorito and flicks it at Jared's face. It bounces off his nose, and Jensen says, “Be tired in your own seat.”
Jared flicks the Dorito back, and it hits somewhere in the vicinity of Jensen's shoulder.
“That's just weak, man.” Jensen shakes his head in mock pity.
“I'll show you weak,” Jared says, and the effectiveness of the statement is severely handicapped by the fact that it’s barely intelligible, carried on a massive yawn. Jared’s arms are significantly less impaired, though, and he hooks an elbow around Jensen's knee and pulls him down so he lands half on the couch, half on top of Jared.
Before he can protest, Jared throws a handful of popcorn at him, most of which goes down his shirt.
Jensen retaliates with pretzels, and Jared counters with a banana peel that's getting more and more disgusting by the second.
“Okay,” Jensen says, wheezing with laughter and pushing the banana peel away. “Okay, I give.” He slumps back against the couch, still half stretched over Jared's legs.
“Damn straight,” Jared says through another yawn.
It’s contagious; Jensen yawns, too, then just relaxes, stares at the little holes in the dropped ceiling until inconveniently located snack food spurs him to action.
“Jesus, I have popcorn in my clothes,” he says, pulling at his shirt. “And you've got-let me just...” he brushes a chip out of Jared's hair, brushes Jared's hair back out of his eyes in the process.
“Here,” Jared says, tugs at the back of Jensen's shirt where it's trapped between his knees and the couch. Jared's hand brushes Jensen's lower back, lingers there a second and leaves Jensen with matching strips of tingling warmth painted across his spine and cheeks.
He backs out of Jared’s space, theoretically. He’s really not sure whether he actually moves at all.
Jared yawns again-Jesus, so close-and Jensen’s smirk is weak, but it’s there, picking up slack and accusing Jared of being lame when words fail.
“You know, some of us get up at five-thirty,” Jared says.
“Why would anyone do that?” Jensen asks. It’s just so wrong.
“I run,” Jared says. “Not like, competitively, or anything, but I like it. I get in about six miles every morning, forty-five minutes or so. It's a good way to start the day, you should try it.”
Jensen snorts. “Hell no, man. I don't do mornings.”
“You're missing out,” Jared says.
“I'm pretty sure that's okay. You can go ahead and freeze your ass off. I'm fine inside where it's warm.”
After a pause, Jared says, “Contacts?”
It takes Jensen a second to work through the question, and by the time he gets to the end he’s pretty sure it’s time to call it a night because his brain is clearly not prepared to handle the demands of being awake right now.
“Yeah,” he says, another few seconds later, when he remembers to actually answer the question. “Now that I've got my suitcase. Why?”
“No reason,” Jared says. Then, “I like your glasses. Or your contacts. You know, I just.”
Jared’s pause is followed by nothing at all, and Jensen says, “Okay, upstairs.”
Jensen grabs whatever trash is directly in their path along the way, so there's less work left for the stragglers to do.
Jared walks, mostly with his eyes open.
He’s closer to awake when they reach their doors, and he smirks a little, says, “You sure you don't want to come running tomorrow?”
“I told you man, I don't do mornings,” Jensen says, hushed, tucked in a little closer to Jared than he maybe needs to be, but people are sleeping. He’s being courteous.
Jared shrugs, brushes his shoulder against Jensen’s, worn out and sloppy. “So. ’Night,” he says.
Jensen watches the door close behind him, stands in the hallway for a minute. Five-thirty in the morning, Jesus. No. There’s just no fucking way. He’s sure as hell not getting up at the ass crack of dawn to run, anyway, but his shoulder’s still warm where Jared grazed it, and without too much thought, he writes a note for Jeff and slips it under his door, a quick request to reinstate his six-thirty wake-up call.
He sets his own alarm, too, but he knows from experience that it's not nearly enough to get him up at that hour.
When he crawls into bed a few minutes later, stripped down to his boxer briefs, he pulls the covers up over his head and makes a conscious decision not to think about what exactly he’s planning on doing with himself at six-thirty in the morning, when everyone else-everyone except Jared-will still be asleep.
Jensen’s groggy, less than half awake and mostly convinced that the occasional flash of awareness that buzzes through his head is something best ignored.
Like a figment. Or a mirage, or maybe a hallucination.
Like a strangely, insistently rhythmic buzzing hallucination. Or maybe his fucking cell phone, vibrating away on the dresser next to the bed, Jesus.
He grabs at it, flips it open and pulls it up against his ear.
“Dude, wake the fuck up,” it says.
Chris. Chris says.
“Chris?”
Jensen’s sleep instinct is incredibly strong. He burrows under the covers and tries to let it take over.
“Hallelujah, he’s alive,” Chris drawls.
Jensen growls, “Not,” and pulls his pillow down over his head. “What time?”
“You really wanna know? I could Google it for you.”
“No,” Jensen says. “The fuck do you want?”
“Nothin’. Just wanna talk,” Chris says. “So talk.”
“You.”
“Fine.” Chris’s voice gets soft and low. “So hey, you remember that time we were what, twelve, maybe? And we walked through the woods for like, two whole days just to find the body of that dead kid by the railroad tracks?”
“Yeah, I think you’re confusing our childhood with eighties coming of age movies again,” Jensen says.
“Well, shit,” Chris answers. “So that time we got Saturday detention? The mutant in your dad’s basement?”
“Nope.”
“Damn.”
Jensen turns onto his side, but he stays buried under the covers, like high school all over again, hushed voices, pointless conversation, just. Hearing the sound of Chris’s voice when he’s far away.
“So day one,” Chris says.
“Yeah.”
“Did you break down and cry when you took the stage without me? It’s okay, man, you can tell me.”
“Yup,” Jensen says. “Drowned in my own tears. Mind letting my mom know, by the way?”
Chris chuckles. “Don’t even fucking say that, man. She’d murder me.”
“Yeah, but it works out ’cause you can’t live without me.”
“You wish,” Chris says. “So how’s the crew, how’s Jeff? Chad still chasing after Sophie?”
“Jesus, does everyone know?”
“Everyone and their mother,” Chris says. “But that’s our Jenny.” He snorts out a huff of air. “Always missing what’s right in front of his face.”
“Fuck you,” Jensen says, “I do not.”
“I got a scar on my chin says otherwise,” Chris says. “So how’d it go, how’s the kid? Jared.”
“Fucking huge,” Jensen says through a yawn, “and just. Good. Really good.”
“So it’s like that,” Chris says softly. “Huh.”
“It’s like. I don’t know.”
The phone is silent against his ear for a minute, and then Chris says, “Don’t matter what it’s like, Jen. Only matters what it is, and even that’s just between you and him.”
Jensen breathes the recycled air inside his sheets, thinks about the time he broke his wrist and Chris camped out with him in a fort made of blankets for two weeks, until their moms declared war, demanded the living room back, demanded that Chris at least show his face for a dinner or two with his family.
“Hey, you remember the time we accidentally made a real girl with your computer, and she taught us to be cool, only it turned out we were cool all along, we just needed some confidence?” Jensen asks.
“Yeah,” Chris says. “That was awesome.”
With the exception of the cell phone plastered to the side of Jensen’s face, Tuesday starts out the same way as Monday, with Jeff banging on his door until he opens it. It's a miserable way to wake up, and as Jeff smirks at him and takes off back to his own room, Jared comes up the hallway, sweaty and flushed.
“Hey,” he says quietly, ducking into his room.
Jensen says “Hey,” back about a minute later, because he's slow in the mornings, and Jared is-Jesus, just.
And Jensen is still standing in his doorway in his boxer briefs.
He scrubs a hand down over his face, tries to will some blood or oxygen or something into his brain to make it work-poor substitute for caffeine-and in the meantime, he throws on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.
He’s not really up for walking down to the shower together. It’s kind of weird, like-like some kind of strange, half naked towel parade.
Though now that he's got his suitcase, he’s planning on wearing more than a towel, and it stands to reason that Jared probably is, too.
But even so, Jensen heads down to the basement instead. He could just get back into bed, but he knows if he does, he'll fall asleep, and he needs to make sure everything from last night got cleaned up, anyway.
He finds a couple of stray napkins, and the folding chairs and tables are still out, but he leaves them because they'll probably use the room again at some point. All in all, though, it's not bad.
He heads back to his room, strips his shirt off, then puts it back on and grabs everything he needs for the shower.
Despite the head start, Jared's just going into a shower stall when Jensen enters the bathroom.
“Hey,” Jared says again, ducks his head as he hovers on the threshold.
Jensen somehow manages a timely, “Hey,” in return this time, which he counts as a major victory.
They’re a few minutes into a lazy conversation about pretty much nothing at all, breakfast meats and cable news, before he realizes it's happening, that his customary morning grunting and swearing is giving way to honest to god words and phrases, more or less complete thoughts that leave his mouth at entirely appropriate times, and Jesus, it’s easy-so easy he didn’t even realize he was doing it.
He gets kind of caught up in listening to Jared's hushed voice under the thrum of the water when Jared gets going on a story about his dogs, and after a minute, Jensen's mostly tuning the words out and just listening to the tone, the warmth of it.
He stretches his neck back and lets the water run hot over his face for a second, then steps back so it hits his chest and runs down.
His hand runs lazily down his torso, slides over his cock, and he's fully hard before long, the warm water and the low timbre of Jared's voice lulling him into a dreamy state, arousal a soft, insistent buzz behind it.
It's Jeff banging the door open that snaps him out of it.
“Breakfast,” Jeff says.
Jensen drops his hand to the side as quickly as if Jeff had actually walked into his stall, manages to say, “Coffee. And some kinda breakfast sandwich,” without wavering.
Jesus, getting off in the middle of a conversation with the guy in the next shower stall is pretty much the dictionary definition of not okay.
Jared says, “Me too, and apple juice if they have it,” and his voice is bright, none of the quiet warmth Jensen remembers from a minute ago.
Still, Jensen fails to take the opportunity to tease Jared about ordering apple juice like a five year old-Jensen's pretty sure he hasn't requested the stuff in about twenty years-because he's too busy trying to finish up his shower quickly and get going before he zones out again.
When he shuts his water off, Jared's is still going, and Jared says, “Meet you in fifteen?”
“Sure,” Jensen says. He towels off sloppily and slips out of the bathroom with his hair still dripping.
Everything’s a little different this year because of the limited cast and the dedicated crew, so for Jensen and Jared, Tuesday's pretty much the same as Monday.
Normally, they'd be moving on to other things, doing their part in whatever behind the scenes stuff they'd signed up for, but this year, they're mostly just going to be having runthroughs, critiques, and rehearsals.
Jensen misses the variety a little bit, if not the other activities themselves, but he can’t seem to muster up any significant amount of dissatisfaction, not when breakfast comes with Jared smiling a mile wide and Chad wearing an honest to god, old fashioned Kick Me! sign on his back.
Jared buries his face in Jensen’s shoulder when he can’t hold the laughter back anymore, and Jensen slaps him on the back when he practically chokes with it.
The morning runthrough goes well; not perfect, but better than Jensen expected for their first time through without scripts. Their critique comes from the random assortment of people who caught the performance, including a couple of fifth graders who have surprisingly insightful comments.
Jared takes the time to split off into a small group session with some of the class, and Jensen finds himself watching the way Jared really listens to the kids, laughs with them-and finds himself losing track of his own conversation.
“Jensen, what did I just say?” Sophia asks from the front row. She looks ridiculous wearing half a costume, pinned to measurements that clearly aren’t hers, and Jensen grins.
She rolls her eyes, but she looks back at Jared and a smile flickers at the edges of her mouth.
“I asked what you think of the staging. I was watching this morning, and it felt a little. I don’t know, do you feel like you're too far away from Jared when you're up there? Like the distance kind of-implies a disconnect that's not really there?”
“Like we're accidentally inserting subtext,” Jensen says, “I guess I could see that. But the spread's supposed to give the whole thing a presence, you know, because it's just us up there so much?”
Jeff takes a seat next to Sophia and says, “We could pull the curtains in a bit. Trim the edge of the stage, set you closer together. Want to try it this afternoon?”
“Yeah,” Jensen says, looks over at Jared again.
He’s got the kids seated in a semi-circle, and he’s leaning in, saying something Jensen can’t hear from ten rows away. The kids are laughing, though, and then Jared sits up straight and yells, “That’s why we have to project!” with a huge smile plastered across his face.
Jensen feels a similar smile spread across his own face at the sight of Jared and most of the kids collapsing into giggles. Jared’s like a massive five year old sometimes, and it’s just-fucking adorable, Jesus.
Jeff clears his throat, and Jensen turns.
“The blocking.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says. “Definitely. I think we could try that.”
Jensen spends his lunch hour with Jared, silently going over the script. It's a comfortable silence, though, punctuated by chewing and page turning and the occasional drag of pencil on paper.
When Jensen finishes making his notes, his attention drifts over to Jared. For some reason, Jeff thought it was a good idea to pick up two huge lasagnas from a local Italian place, and while it worked in theory, and the food was awesome, Jared's got red streaks and spots everywhere, on his hands, his shirt, his script.
Jensen follows them as they move.
“Think I’ve got time to run back and change, man?” Jared says, and Jensen flushes like he’s been caught staring, even though Jared never even looks up from his page.
The wall clock says twelve fifty-six. “Depends on whether you can make it there and back in four minutes.”
Jared snorts out a laugh, still underlining dialogue. After a second, he shuts his script and tosses it onto the floor along with his pencil. He tugs his shirt over his head and says, “Never let me near sauce, seriously.”
He leans back, stretches, and all of the muscles in his abdomen flex. Jensen names them in his head, can't help it, and then Jared gets to his feet and says, “I'm gonna go see if Sophia's got anything I can use in wardrobe.”
Jensen watches him go, names the muscles in his back as well.
When his phone starts buzzing, he doesn’t even look at the display, just opens it, holds it against his ear while Jared takes the stairs to the stage two at a time.
It’s a call he’s been waiting for, actually, and he says yes and I will and thank you at all the right times, and when he hangs up, he has a job-a career, actually, exactly where he wanted, exactly what he wanted.
Jared’s huge laugh echoes across the auditorium from somewhere backstage, and Jensen sits back and waits for a feeling of fulfillment that never comes.
They rehearse in the dressing room again, same as yesterday. Jeff tosses the keys and says, “Maybe try actually doing some rehearsing today.”
Jensen flips him off over his shoulder, and they head out to the back hallway. The set decorations are starting to go up, and it's all very minimalistic, but Jensen still loves seeing them leaned up against the wall in the back hallway, drying.
Jared's wearing a too-small yellow shirt that says I'm with stupid and has an arrow pointing up toward his face, and the first thing he does when Jensen closes the door of the dressing room behind them is pull it off and throw it onto the counter.
“I think that shirt's trying to kill me, man,” he says, flopping down on the couch.
He looks even bigger with his shirt off, somehow. Which doesn’t really make sense, because clothing adds bulk. That's one of those irrefutable things, it goes on the outside of your body; therefore, it makes you bigger, even if it's just by a tiny bit.
“So you ready to do this?” Jared says. “We should probably stand, try some of the new blocking?”
Jensen nods and says, “Post-Chad?”
None of the characters in the play actually have names, but Chad's last appearance is pretty much right smack in the middle of the thing, so they've started calling the second half post-Chad.
Jared moves in closer to Jensen. They're probably working with a little less than half the space they'll be using on stage, so it's an approximation, but it works. There’s an intimacy there, a close kind of urgency they didn’t have when their words were separated by yards, half the stage, instead of just feet.
It’s gonna be fucking phenomenal when they do it for real.
They take it a little too quickly, just-exhilaration, maybe, and they come up on the end before Jensen’s really ready for it.
And then Jared moves in, and Jesus. Jensen doesn’t know how he could ever be ready for this. The room shrinks to nothing around them, and he can’t focus beyond the heat of all the places they’re almost touching, because in this tiny box of a room, close isn’t an arm’s length or a few inches. They’re barely a millimeter apart, and Jensen can feel his skin prickling against Jared's.
He gets caught up in it for a second, hips and forearms, little pools of heat, his cheek just inches from Jared’s bare shoulder-triceps, pectoralis, deltoid, Christ-and his gaze catches on the soft curl of Jared’s hair against his neck. He wants his hand there, settles for tracing an upward path with his eyes instead, gentle slope of the trapezius to the mastoid process.
He closes the distance without really intending to; the fraction of an inch between them disappears like it was never there, leaves them skin to skin, warmth erupting into heat where their arms are pressed together.
Jensen searches for a line, can’t remember whose turn it is to speak.
When a crash from the hallway interrupts the relative silence-the quiet that Jensen vaguely assumes is still lurking underneath the deafening rasp of his breathing-he feels it like an avalanche, swift slide of arctic air where the heat of Jared’s body used to be.
He doesn’t know who moved, only registers distance; closeness, by implication.
His first instinct is to push forward against Jared’s warmth, but a string of curses from the hallway pulls his body in the opposite direction, turns his head toward the door. Jared rocks forward like he's going to follow, and Jensen says, “Should-we should go, uh. Should we go check on that?”
“We could,” Jared says. There’s a flush across his face, leftover heat from when they were pressed together. He plows a hand through his hair, and Jensen watches it fall, piece by piece, back into his eyes.
Jensen says, “Yeah,” feels like he’s dragging the conversation out, fabricating a reason to say rooted to his spot, watching Jared watch him.
Jared doesn’t move. He nods and says, “Okay,” and doesn’t move, and then he shakes his head, smiles a little and says, “No, yeah. Okay, let’s-yeah.” When he pulls his ridiculous t-shirt back on, it practically creaks as it stretches over his shoulders.
Jensen clears his throat. “I don’t know,” he says, “you might wanna think about bulking up some more if you’re gonna wear that shirt.”
He falls short of the teasing tone he’s aiming for in the same way that Jared’s answering laugh is a little rougher than it really needs to be, but he just pretends the exchange came out completely normal, knocks their shoulders together and opens the door on whatever mess he’s giving up his time with Jared-his rehearsal time-for.
Despite a late start involving Sophia, a broken ladder, and a box of clothing that’s stored too high for anyone but Jared to reach, the rehearsal goes well.
Very well, actually. Jensen’s trying not to be concerned about that, trying to let the rush win out over the nagging worry that every up eventually comes with an equal and opposite down.
It’s mostly working, because the new blocking is amazing onstage, even better than he’d suspected it would be in rehearsal, and he can’t stop smiling.
Sophia officially declares herself a genius, and Jared picks her up and swings her around, then deposits her on the ground next to Chad and turns to Jensen.
“That was-incredible, man,” he says, “I mean. Wow.” He claps Jensen on the shoulder, and then his hand stills, rests there for a slow second.
Jensen's skin burns where Jared's heat bleeds through, and he says, “Hey, we know how to get it done.”
And Jesus, he knew how to get it done with Chris, too, but working with Jared is just-so different. Different than he expected, different than anything he’s ever felt before. And it’s not a matter of confidence or trust, it’s not the novelty of working with someone new. It’s not anything he can name, because words won’t touch this feeling, this low level buzz in his veins that says there’s no such thing as failure as long as Jared’s sharing the stage.
It's a rush, and he prolongs it by standing shoulder to shoulder with Jared while Jeff gives them a few notes to work on. Jared nods, says the right things at the right times, doesn't move away.
When Jeff lets them go, it’s early, and Jared says, “I got too much energy man, I think I'm gonna go out for a run.” He ducks his head and his hair falls into his eyes. “You, uh. Wanna come with?”
He’s tugging at the hem of his t-shirt, looks more jittery than energetic, almost nervous, maybe, and Jensen wants to counter with a warmer, slower activity.
“Nah,” he says, grinning, “I think I'm gonna take pity on Sophia and stay here, let her play dress-up. We could meet up for dinner, though?”
“Cool.” Jared just smiles for a minute, huge dimples cut into his face, and then he says. “Yeah, definitely.”
Jensen watches him go for maybe a moment too long before heading backstage in search of Sophia.
Costuming is always kind of a challenge for them. Sometimes, the college lends the use of its wardrobe, but not often, and this particular school has left them a little costume closet full of basic items, but the main wardrobe room is locked.
It’s not a big deal; they’ve done more with less plenty of times.
Sophia and Jeff are planning a trip to the Salvation Army after dinner, and Jensen's pretty much the only person who hasn't been measured. Sophia insists it’s necessary, even though Jensen insists that the jeans he’s wearing are at least three years old, which proves that his measurements are no different than they were last year or the year before-both of which he knows for a fact she has written down in her notebook.
He admits defeat without much of a fight, though, because Sophia measures everyone, every year, no matter what. Her notebook’s like the inside of the kitchen closet, neatly labeled lines, dated and frozen in time.
He’s never quite understood why it's not enough to just tell her what size he is, but she's got a system, and she's usually pretty good about knowing what works, so he goes with it.
He finds her in the back hallway by the wardrobe closet-which is really more of a walk-in-and she smiles wide and sweet, but Jensen’s not buying it.
“Hey, beautiful,” she says. “Come on, you know the drill.”
Jensen does, and he strips his shirt off, unbuttons his pants so they hang down a few inches.
Sophia’s smile darkens into an approving smirk. “Nice,” she says.
Jensen rolls his eyes, tries in vain to stop the flush creeping across his cheeks. They have pretty much the same conversation every year, and Sophie never gets sick of making him blush.
The measuring tape is cold against his waist, and after Sophia writes down the measurement, she moves it up to his chest and then his shoulders.
“So we haven't had much of a chance to talk,” she says, and she pushes on Jensen's shoulder when he tries to turn around to respond.
“Lots to do, this year,” he says, then he laughs. “It’s all Chris's fault, this stupid play.”
Behind him, Sophia chuckles. “You love it,” she says.
Jensen shrugs. “Sure, now. Every parent loves their own butt-ugly kid. But Jesus, Soph, what was he thinking?”
“Well, I think it's working out great,” she says. She flattens the measuring tape down the length of his spine. “Jared does, too.”
“Yeah,” Jensen agrees.
“Okay, turn around,” she says, and when he does, a flash explodes in his face, and Sophia pulls a photo out of the instant camera she's holding and waves it in the air as it develops. “Something new this year,” she says.
“It'll help you imagine how the clothes'll look on me while you're scouring the hallowed aisles of the Salvation Army?” he says dryly.
“Sure,” Sophia says, and then she winks. “That, and I'm totally gonna bring them home and stash 'em underneath my pillow.”
Jensen laughs at that and glances over at the other Polaroids she has lined up on her little folding table. Alona’s fully clothed, but the guys are all dressed like Jensen, shirtless, pants hanging open.
His eyes settle on the photo of Jared, wide shoulders, slim hips, making a ridiculous kissy face for the camera. It’s not like Jensen hasn’t seen it all before, Jared shirtless in the bathroom or at rehearsal, making silly faces for no reason at all, but still.
He’s having a hard time tearing his eyes away from the picture.
Sophia heaves a big, put-upon sigh. “All right, go on,” she says, fighting a smile. She kisses Jensen on the cheek and shoves his shirt into his hands. “God forbid I keep you two apart for more than a few minutes at a time.”
Jensen wants to protest, wants to play ignorant, say, “Who? What?” but more than that, he wants to meet up with Jared back at the dorm, and he’s ruffling Sophia’s hair and moving in that direction before he really even has time to consider doing anything else.
Dinner goes long, working out the schedule for shifts at the raffle the next day, and after, Jeff shoves his laptop into Jensen's hands and says, “Both files are on the desktop. Have fun!”
It's more than a little bit evil, because Jeff knows that Jensen has absolutely no desire to watch himself-and, okay, possibly shuns all videos that come into his possession and exiles them to his mother’s house-but he’s feeling surprisingly okay about this.
He’s not looking forward to it or anything. Not like Jared is, huge smile and grabby hands, just. Really fucking excited.
Jensen is not really fucking excited. Not about watching the videos. Watching Jared-the way he’s almost bouncing, Jesus-is really kind of entertaining, though. He’s like a kid on Christmas morning, unguarded and dimpled, and Jensen just. Can’t help smiling in return, can’t help thinking that maybe it won’t be that bad.
Jared can watch the performances, and Jensen can just watch Jared. Everybody wins.
“Awesome,” Jared says. “Your room? Chad's doing something in ours, I don't even want to know, but there's a diagram.”
Jensen laughs. “Sure.”
A few minutes later, though, he’s staring at the empty stage on the computer screen, waiting for the play to start.
Turns out there’s not really a great place to put the laptop, and they end up pressed shoulder to shoulder on the bed, slouching back against the wall with the computer set up on the desk chair in front of them.
He couldn’t look at Jared if he tried. Not without twisting his entire body and disturbing whatever delicate balance is allowing them to both fit comfortably on the bed at the same time, so. He’s watching the screen.
“You tired?”
Well. He’s facing in the direction of the screen. “Nah,” he says, opening his eyes. He’s just being an absolute fucking pussy about watching his performance, that’s all. Jesus.
It shouldn’t even be a big deal. Both of the runthroughs that Jeff taped were awesome, and the one Jared clicked on-the second one, because the staging’s more relevant-is the better of the two, so.
So it shouldn’t even be a big deal.
Still, as soon as Jensen sees his entrance on the screen, he leans down over the edge of the bed to grab his carry-on and pulls out his enormous bag of pretzels.
“Pretzel?” he says, holding the bag out in a way that entirely coincidentally blocks the screen from his view.
Jared laughs and grabs a handful.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Jared says. “So, you travel with enough pretzels and condoms to survive a massive global famine and then never have to worry about repopulating the Earth again afterward, but you check the important stuff, like your cell phone charger and your contacts.”
And speaking of contacts-Jensen's been wanting to take them out all night, so he grabs his case out of his pocket and unscrews the covers. “Are you impugning my packing skills?” he asks.
“Dude, don't talk to me while you're touching your eye,” Jared says.
Jensen laughs. “Freak,” he mutters, while he finishes up.
After a minute, after Chad's first mercifully fuzzy entrance, Jared says, “Yes, by the way.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I'm impugning your packing skills. Just so we're clear.”
Jensen elbows Jared in the ribs. “Shut up, I have a system. I always leave my carry on empty so I can pick that stuff up on the way to the airport,”
Jared snorts. “You have a crappy system,” he says. “You gotta learn to prioritize, man.”
“Hey, at least I brought snack food. You brought Chad.”
Jared chuckles, then he throws his head back and laughs, slouches down further against the wall and tips his head against Jensen’s shoulder for a second. His hair falls soft over Jensen’s ear, and Jensen flicks a pretzel at Jared’s nose to cover the hitch in his breath.
Jared just laughs again, bites at it in mid-air and misses by a mile, sticks his tongue out when Jensen laughs at him.
“That’s just weak, man,” Jensen says, shakes his head, tries to ignore the phantom tingle of Jared’s hair against his ear, Jared’s laughter against his neck.
On screen, the play continues, and Jensen’s thankful for his nearsightedness. There’s nothing he can do about the sound, though, and as much as he kind of wants to bury his head under the pillow, he’s actually pleasantly surprised enough that he starts making notes in his head about little changes, things that aren't quite perfect yet.
“There,” Jared says. “Right there, we're still giving each other too much space.”
“You think?” Jensen squints at the laptop.
“Yeah, because watch right here,” Jared answers. Jensen leans forward, and on the screen, they share a pause, a look that doesn't really connect because of the distance between them.
Jensen nods. “You're right, that definitely needs to be pulled in a little.”
He flops back against the wall. It’s more comfortable than it’s got any right to be, painted cinder blocks at their backs and a mattress built for a stick figure underneath, but Jared’s warm at his side and they make it through half the play without moving more than it takes to grab a pretzel.
Post-Chad, Jared turns and says, “Can you even see?”
“Well enough, yeah.”
“Want me to bring the computer closer?” Jared asks.
“Nah,” Jensen says. “We're good.”
Jared's still pressed up against his side, slouched down on the mattress, and Jensen maybe doesn't want him to move, ever.
“So why do you hate watching yourself?” Jared’s voice is soft, a little sleepy.
Jensen chuckles, and it turns into a groan halfway through. “There’s this video of me, on friggin’ YouTube, man, just. Take my advice, never sing at anyone’s wedding.”
“Will do,” Jared says, single-dimpled half smile warming his voice. “Or, y’know. Won’t.”
Jensen rolls his eyes, focuses on the fuzzy Jared monologuing his way across the screen for a minute. He’s pitch perfect, even better than Jensen remembers, and a familiar cloud of anxiety starts funneling in his chest.
“Are you,” he says, stops to clear his throat. Jared shifts, turns, but Jensen doesn’t look at him. “I don’t know, just. Aren’t you even a little bit worried?”
“’Bout what?” Jared says, low and sweet, nearly a whisper.
“Just. Rehearsals going so well. So well, like. Something’s bound to go wrong?”
Jared turns back to the computer, where Jensen’s voice is trembling through the emotional climax of the play. “Nope,” he says. “Not even a little.”
They watch the rest of the performance in silence, and when it's over, Jared's head is leaning on Jensen's shoulder. His breathing is soft and even, and it'd be so easy to move, to wake him up and send him home, but instead, Jensen just gives in, lets his own eyes fall closed, lets his head rest heavy against Jared’s.
In the morning, Jensen wakes up to pounding.
He glares at the door for a minute, but that doesn't make the noise go away, so he drags himself across the room and answers it. Jeff's in the doorway, lip quirked up, and he says, “Rough night?”
“Huh?” is all Jensen can manage, but he looks down and notes that he's still dressed, shoes and all, and he turns back toward the bed, which is messy, but still made from the night before.
Jared's nowhere to be seen.
Jeff says, “It's six, you can still go back to sleep. I just need the computer to type up the schedule for today.”
Jensen unplugs it and hands it over without a word, and then he kicks his shoes off and gets into bed. He can't sleep, though. He tries tossing and turning, tries lying very, very still. Eyes open, eyes closed, blanket pulled up over his head, nothing works.
Instead of drifting off, he just lies there while his thoughts trip over themselves, spin around in sloppy circles that always seem to start and end with Jared. Jared's laugh, his smile, the infuriating way his hair won’t seem to stay out of his eyes.
The way his voice gets low and quiet when he’s tired, the warmth of his body pressed up against Jensen’s side.
He doesn’t have a neat little box to put Jared in, doesn’t have the words to describe how effortlessly they fit together, but whatever it’s called, he’s pretty sure there’s no way he could’ve stopped it from happening.
Jared’s like a force of nature, unforeseen and irrepressible, and Jensen’s never quite felt like this before, never fallen straight into easy give and take without that awkward, undefined stage in between.
It’s so simple between them, though, and he’s just-maybe this is normal for Jared, but for Jensen, it’s not. Really not; hell, Steve is one of his best friends now, but he did his best to avoid the guy for an entire year before Chris barricaded them in a room together and they really hit it off.
And Jared-three days in and he’s constantly looking over his shoulder for Jared, listening across the auditorium for his huge laugh, asking who’s seen him when he’s not around.
He’s not here now, though, and there’s no one to ask.
When Jensen’s thoughts turn fully to Jared’s disappearing act and camp out like they’re planning to stay, he declares sleep a lost cause and heads for the shower. He's in and out before Jared makes an appearance, and after he gets dressed, he sprawls out on Jeff's extra bed.
Jeff looks up from where he’s typing and nods. “I like it. Pathetic sells,” he says, his voice rich with laughter and mock approval.
“What?” Jensen asks, because there’s nothing wrong with his look. He's comfy today, ratty sneakers and warm-ups, Jared's sweatshirt. He's got his glasses on, and his hair is soft and flat against his forehead.
“You look depressed,” Jeff says. “Or maybe homeless.”
Jensen answers with his middle finger and a belated, “Fuck you, I'm tired.” He lies down against the pillow and closes his eyes and listens to Jeff's fingers on the keyboard. The sound lulls him into a half-doze, the kind that skirts the line between awake and asleep, and he pushes down consciousness as far as he can.
When he wakes up, his knees are dipping with the mattress, springs creaking under the weight of a second body.
“Hey,” Jared says softly when he opens his eyes. “It's almost nine, you ready to go?”
“Seriously?” Jensen says, groggy and gravelly. He drags himself up to a sitting position. “Why didn't Jeff wake me up?”
Jared shrugs. “He said you were tired. I told him I'd wait here, get you up when it was time to go.”
“You didn't have to,” Jensen says. He takes his glasses off and rubs a hand over his eyes, and when he slides them back on, Jared’s got a soft grin on his face.
“Thanks for clearing that up,” he says, and he laughs when Jensen flips him off. “No, it's cool, I, uh. I wanted to.”
He takes a little breath and then stands up. “I'm sorry about, y’know. Last night,” he says. His hair falls down into his eyes when he ducks his head, and his cheeks are a little flushed when he brushes it back.
“Sorry you stayed or sorry you left?”
The question hangs in the air, rough with sleep and honesty, and Jensen could probably shake his head and laugh it off, but he doesn’t. He just watches Jared’s hands grip the edge of the mattress, long fingers that clench almost imperceptibly against the sheets.
When he takes in a breath, Jensen’s phone rings.
Jensen flips it open and says, “Yeah?”
“You on your way?” Jeff asks.
Jensen sighs. Leave it to Jeff to figure out how to keep his phone charged at the worst possible time.
“Yeah, we're out the door,” he says, getting up and motioning for Jared to follow.
part four