Dirt on Our Uniforms I
September
Jared first sees his new roommate from across the quad - Sandy, who works Tuesday afternoons in the admin office, points him out - and dislikes him immediately. He’s coming out of the science building, wearing a shit-eating grin and holding the door for a sophomore girl with flippy hair. “He looks like a douche,” Jared decides, and Sandy rolls her eyes.
“You’re such an asshole sometimes, Jay,” she tells him. “Just because you wanted that big, sweet room all to yourself…”
“It’s not that,” he says, taking short steps to match her pace on the way to pre-calc. “Guy looks like a trust fund kid. Scion of some old money from Connecticut, born with a silver spoon up his nose. Probably came late ‘cause he just got out of rehab or something.” Jared slings an arm around Sandy’s shoulders. “Besides, you were all set to reap the benefits of my big, sweet room.”
Sandy shrugs him off. “That is so tenth grade, Jay.”
“Who says I meant it like that? What kind of friend are you anyway?”
She grins and leans up to kiss him on the cheek. “The kind who’s never going to date you again.” She sees Adrianne down the hall, and skips off after her, leaving Jared to pout.
Truth is, he had wanted his single, a space all his own after five years of other guys’ sweat socks in the dorms, a decade before that sharing a room with Jeff. And he’s none too pleased to have some guy named Jensen (probably after somebody’s yacht or something equally lame) ruining that for him. But Jared also knows he’ll get over it. He’s no good at holding grudges.
***
Jared doesn’t see his new roommate from closer than fifty yards away until after classes have ended for the day. He opens the door to the room he’d so loved when it was his alone, and finds a guy in a ratty black t-shirt hunched over an iBook at the extra desk. Jared slings his backpack onto his bed, the one to the right of the window, as Jensen stands up and holds out his hand. He has green eyes and freckles across his nose and the longest eyelashes Jared’s ever seen on a guy. “Jensen Ackles.”
Jared appreciates the firmness of his handshake, but he’s still too pretty to be trusted. “Jared Padalecki.”
Jensen squints at him. “You from Texas?” he asks, and Jared can suddenly hear the drawl to his voice.
“San Antonio,” says Jared. “You?”
“Outside Dallas.”
Jared’s heart lifts. Another Texan - even if he is from Dallas - to fend off the legacies and the assholes who think his accent makes him stupid. He sees a montage of all the things he and Jensen might do together: good, manly things that might or might not involve football and barbeque. He thinks maybe he’s zoned out for just a minute at the thought of barbeque because now Jensen’s looking at him like he’s maybe a little dim. “This is awesome, man,” Jared says enthusiastically. “I’m so sick of all this New England bullshit.”
Jensen cocks an eyebrow. “That bad?”
Jared backtracks. He might actually like this guy, and he doesn’t want to make Easton come off like a bad place; he likes it here, and the school’s been damn good to him the past five years. “Nah. Just a little small, sometimes. What kind of school did you come from?”
“I, uh, went to public school. But my parents thought it would look good to do something different for a couple of years, get me set for college.”
Jared nods, racking his brain to remember if he’s ever met someone who went to public high school before. All he can think about is those stories you see on the news about places like New York and Baltimore, where all the schools look like prisons, and watching Saved by the Bell when he was younger. Which was probably not the most realistic vision of high school. He sits down backwards in his desk chair, and props his elbows on the back. “Guess this is a lot different than your old school, huh?”
Jensen smiles, a quick flash of something like nerves before he’s cool again. “Yeah. It’s way smaller, for one. There were eight hundred kids in my class back home.”
Jared gives a low whistle. That’s like the whole population of Easton, including upper school, middle school, and faculty. He tells Jensen as much.
“I know. And I’m not looking forward to wearing all that wool, and spit-shining my shoes, either.”
“They don’t make us… oh.” He realizes Jensen’s joking. “Seriously, it’s not that bad. You must have had rules back at your old school.”
“Yeah, but at least there was no dress code, except, like, don’t wear t-shirts with pot leaves on them. I am very not thrilled about having to wear a tie all year.”
Jared shrugs. “Ties can come in handy.”
Jensen raises an eyebrow at him again, and Jared’s starting to think Jensen should letter in eyebrow-raising because he obviously practices a lot. “So you’re that kind of a guy, huh? Just tell me I won’t be sleeping in the lounge so you can play kinky sex games with your girlfriend.”
“Nah. One, they don’t really like people sleeping in the lounge. I learned that the hard way.” Jensen may think he’s joking, but Jensen’s never roomed with Chad Michael Murray. “Two, no girlfriend. And three, if you’re a really good roommate, I’d probably let you stay and watch.”
Jensen grins and chuckles. “Well, all right then.”
Jared tilts the chair onto two legs, then thumps it back down again. Jensen looks at him like he’s not sure if the conversation’s over. “You, uh, got your stuff in okay?” Jared asks to break the silence.
“Just fine. I didn’t have all that much.”
“So, why are you coming two weeks into term?”
Jensen looks thoughtful. “It’s really ‘cause they just called me off the waiting list, but if it makes you feel better, you can say I came from rehab, or I’m on probation, or some shit.”
Jared is astonished that these are exactly the possibilities he’d come up with. Jensen sees the expression on his face and flicks a smile at him. “I know how this stuff works. I’ve been a good kid all my life. Might be fun to have people think something different.”
Jared considers pointing out to him that just coming from public school in junior year makes him pretty much a fucking unknown species, but he can hear his momma’s voice saying that would be rude. And really, pretending to be a little badass with someone like Jensen, not such a bad idea (and definitely less hazardous than trying it with Chad). “I think I can help you with that,” he says, and right then, as Jensen’s grin blooms out wide, the alliance is born.
***
“He’s cute,” says Sandy thoughtfully, tapping her pen against her lips as she watches Jensen navigate the lunch line.
“What? Like I’m not?” Jared replies, following her gaze as Jensen swerves neatly out of the way of Kristen Bell’s messenger bag as she slings it over her shoulder.
“We’ve known you too long for you to be cute anymore,” says Allie matter-of-factly. Adrianne just smiles sympathetically at him and goes back to watching the back of Sandy’s head.
“What you bitches looking at?” asks Chad, and Jared’s glad he’s no longer the only guy at the table, even if Chad is pretty useless for anything besides a y-chromosome.
“Jared’s new roommate,” Allie tells him, inclining her head towards Jensen. “A fine specimen.”
“Aw, man, they gave you a roommate?” Chad sighs. “That blows.”
Jared just shrugs. “It’s not so bad. He’s a cool guy.” He doesn’t bother to mention the Texan solidarity because Chad would just give him shit about it.
“So, why’d he come late?” Sandy asks, turning back to Jared as Jensen starts to walk towards their table. “Do you know?”
Jared responds with a mysterious smile. He’s a terrible liar, and it’s kind of the best he can do. “I don’t think I should be the one to tell you,” he says, and the girls look back at Jensen in something like awe.
“Hey,” says Jensen, smiling awkwardly beside the table. “Can I sit here?”
Jared pulls out the chair to his left. “Be my guest.” As Jensen settles in with his tray, Jared does the round of introductions. “Jensen, this is Sandy, Allie, Adrianne, and Chad. Guys, this is Jensen.” He leans in to stage-whisper, “Don’t worry if they’re assholes. They probably can’t help it.”
Allie throws a straw wrapper at him, and Sandy says, “Hey!” Chad shrugs and keeps chewing his macaroni, not even denying it. “Chad and I used to be roommates,” Jared explains.
“Huh,” says Jensen, before clamming up completely. Jared wonders if he’s done something wrong, as his friends ramble on about science quizzes and what the hell Tina did to her hair. Occasionally, Sandy tries to draw Jensen into the conversation, but he just smiles and nods, or shakes his head, as the situation demands. It hadn’t occurred to Jared yesterday when they were shooting the shit about life back home, but he thinks Jensen might be kind of shy. He feels a little protective towards the guy.
“What do you have after lunch?” Jared asks Jensen, who looks a little lost as Jared’s friends keep talking.
“Uh, chem,” says Jensen, consulting a folded schedule.
“With Kripke?” Jared asks. Jensen nods. “Oh, man, I had him last year. Dude’s kind of crazy. I think he picked the job just so he could blow shit up.”
“Remember freshman year when he burned off his eyebrows?” Allie chimes in, giggling.
“Couldn’t wait to get in his class after that,” says Chad wistfully. Jared grins in agreement.
“Sounds like fun,” says Jensen uncertainly.
“Blowing shit up can be useful,” Jared tells him, with a maniacal smirk. Jensen chuckles. Chad looks at them like he thinks maybe he’s being left out of something, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Kripke’s actually pretty cool,” Adrianne puts in. “I sometimes help when he does demos for the middle school classes. If you need any help catching up…”
It sounds nothing like a pick-up line, and Jensen looks at her more closely than he’s looked at anyone all lunch period. “Thanks,” he says. “That’s real nice.” Jared is momentarily unfairly jealous. Sandy looks like maybe she’s having the same feeling.
Chad breaks the silence by knocking his chair over as Sophia Bush enters the cafeteria and he runs over like a faithful dog to help her with her tray. “Pathetic,” Sandy mouths to Allie, who rolls her eyes and nods. Chad’s a complete spaz around Sophia, like more so than he is the rest of the time, and it’s been going on like this since the end of last term, her reeling him in and throwing him back like the fish he often smells like. Much as Jared likes the guy, well… sometimes he doesn’t really like the guy.
***
“Is there something, y’know, wrong with Mr. Rosenbaum?” Jensen asks Jared, when they’re back in their room after dinner that night, poring over copies of Lord of the Flies, Jensen taking notes, and Jared vaguely wondering if that’s something he should do too.
Jared flips his book shut. “Depends how you look at it,” he says diplomatically.
“And if you look at it like a sane human being?”
“Then there’s probably something wrong with Mr. Rosenbaum. Rumor is he writes porn to supplement his teaching salary, publishes it under a pseudonym in magazines and shit. And he makes us do ‘stream-of-consciousness’ assignments, which pretty much require you to be stoned in order to write them.”
“And they let him teach here?”
Jared shrugs. “He’s a creative writing teacher. Insane is in the job description. And nobody can prove it about the porn thing since nobody knows what name he writes under. Besides, he’s good for the diversity initiative they keep trying to get going.”
Jensen’s brow furrows. “How so? ‘Cause he’s Jewish?”
Jared shakes his head. “Nah. ‘Cause he’s gay.”
Jensen’s face goes blank, shocked, before he schools it into bemusement instead. “How do you know that?”
“Everybody knows. It’s not like a secret. He lives just off campus with Welling.” Jensen forms a “who?” with his lips, which Jared answers before it even becomes a question. “Teaches in the middle school, assistant soccer coach. Good guy.”
“You play soccer,” Jensen says tentatively, even though he knows it’s true from the hour and a half when Jared disappeared to the field after the end of classes. Jensen’s shy about the weirdest things. “And it doesn’t bug you that he’s gay?”
Jared sighs. “Look, man, you’re gonna get a lot of shit about being from Texas, and I don’t want to make it like that, but seriously, Jensen, it’s different here. People don’t get worked up about shit like that. Or if they do, they don’t say anything. Live and let live, you know.”
Jensen holds up his hands. “I wasn’t, I mean, I don’t think… I’m glad,” he finishes quietly. “I’m glad you’re cool.”
Jared tries to make sense of that one, but Jensen just looks back down at his book.
***
“Okay, so you’ve been here two weeks and we haven’t done anything badass at all,” Jared says, pointing his fork at Jensen, and talking quiet so no one at dinner around them hears. “What happened to not being such a goody-goody, Ackles?” It’s Friday night, and a lot of the kids from closer by have gone home for the night, for laundry, or mom’s home cooking, or to make out with people they don’t see every single damn day.
Jensen shrugs and leans back in his chair. “I bought a leather jacket, didn’t I?” He says, referring to last weekend’s trip to the thrift store in town, when Sandy tried to make Jensen into her own personal mannequin and Jared had to physically restrain her from going near the disco suits. The jacket’s pretty cool though, worn-in brown leather creased around the elbows.
“Yeah, but I’ve seen you in class, dude. You’ve always got the answer when they call on you. Manners even mentioned you to my class yesterday, and that’s saying something.”
Jensen looks startled. “He did?”
“He said we should all stop being such slackers because a public school kid in one of his other classes was going to show us all up. Ain’t that many public school kids here.”
“Shit,” Jensen says softly, cringing.
Jared feels a surge of sympathy and wishes he hadn’t said anything. Jensen obviously doesn’t want that kind of attention, doesn’t feel comfortable standing out, and the last thing Jared wants to do is make his roommate feel bad. “Look, it’s not a big deal, I…”
“Man, why do teachers do that? It’s just gonna make everyone bitch at me for screwing up the curve. Should have known it would be Manners though. Seems like the guy’s got a grudge against the whole world.”
“Nobody grades on a curve anyway,” Jared points out. “Just don’t act so smart in classes, and you’ll be fine. You can still get good grades on the homework, and…”
But Jensen’s shaking his head. “You don’t get it, Jay. That’s the whole reason I came here. Back in Dallas, I was just another face in the crowd, the smart kid in the back of the room, all that shit. I kept my head down. One reason my parents sent me here is so I can make connections, get an in with the right kind of people. Whatever else people think of me, I’ve got to keep that up or I go home.” Jensen makes home sound ominous, although Jared still hasn’t figured out why.
Jared’s never thought of the people here as “the right kind of people,” but then he’s never questioned that he’s going to get an Ivy League education at the end of all this either. Most of the time he forgets that he and Jensen kind of come from different worlds. Jensen’s just a guy who brings out his accent and makes him laugh, except that he’s also a kid who went to public school for ten years, and probably met all kinds of people Jared never even thinks about existing. And he clearly doesn’t want to go back. “You don’t have to be bad for people to like you,” Jared says consolingly. “Hell, I like you, and I know for damn sure you won’t be trying to kill me in my sleep.”
Some of the tension fades from Jensen’s face. He huffs a laugh. “You say that now…”
Jared throws a French fry at his head, and Jensen’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles. “So,” Jared goes on, leaning in close, “if you’re up for something besides homework, we could try and work out a way to make your life a little more interesting without getting you sent home. Like, say, a prank for alumni weekend?” It’s what Jared’s always wanted, a partner in crime, if only Jensen wants in.
Jensen grins. “Sounds like you’ve got an idea.”
“Not yet.” He leans in across the table. “But I’ve got a list of the alumni speakers coming and a shitload of The Awakening I don’t feel like reading.”
“Meet you in the room in ten minutes,” Jensen tells him.
***
“So, what do we know about this guy?” Jensen asks, pacing like he always does on the trail of an idea. Jared thinks it’s kind of hilarious that he would treat this shit as seriously as he treats his homework, but he’s not going to say anything. Jensen’s just like that, he’s learned.
Jared scrolls down the page. “Uh, he runs a publishing company that specializes in business books. They did that one that was so big a couple years back, Always Wear Clean Underwear?”
Jensen shakes his head. “Never heard of it.”
Jared boggles. “Always Wear Clean Underwear: Making Sure An Accidental Setback Doesn’t Keep You From Success? My dad bought copies for practically everyone he knows. It was, like, the biggest thing since Who Moved My Cheese?”
Jensen just shrugs. “My dad’s a fireman, Jay. He doesn’t need business manuals.” He stops in the middle of the room and looks uncomfortable, crossing his arms and ducking his head.
It’s not as though there aren’t other kids at Easton on scholarship, but it doesn’t usually come up anymore. Most of them started in ninth grade, have been doing this for longer than two weeks. Jared thinks Jensen still feels raw around the edges, and it shows, as much as he tries to play cool with everyone else.
“Guess not,” he says with a friendly smile, trying to dispel the tension. Jensen smiles half-heartedly back. “Anyway, so he’s in publishing. The company he owns now is a pretty big deal, and he kind of made it that way. His dad started it, but it practically went bankrupt in the ‘70s, before he took over. It’s pretty amazing how he turned it around.”
“And now they publish books about underwear. Awesome.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s just the title. I can’t imagine my dad would’ve given his golfing buddies a book that was really about underwear.”
“It might send the wrong message.”
“Yeah. I know I don’t want to think about my dad’s golfing buddies in their boxers.”
“We could use that though,” says Jensen thoughtfully.
“What?”
“The underwear thing. Like, do something that’s a play on the title of that book. Spread an email around telling people to wear their underwear on the outside to his talk or something.”
“But his talk’s on alumni weekend. Lots of people’s parents come for that, and…”
“Are your parents coming?”
“Nah. They think all the fuss is lame. They usually come hang out sometime in the spring. Are your parents coming?”
Jensen shakes his head. “Too expensive. And it’s hard for my dad to get away, you know?”
“But I don’t think we could talk anybody into wearing their underwear on the outside with their parents around.”
“Okay. So we do something else. We can buy a ton of cheap underpants and hang them from the trees outside the auditorium.”
Jared laughs. “Like Christmas but with underwear. I like it.” It’s even better seeing Jensen smile at the praise though. “So when could we do it?”
“Well, he’s giving a talk, right? They’re letting us out early and making everyone go. So if everyone’s in the auditorium, then there’s no one outside.”
“Huh,” says Jared.
“What?” asks Jensen nervously.
“Nothing. You just don’t look like a devious son of a bitch.”
Jensen tugs the collar of his shirt. “It’s the tie. It could make anyone look respectable.”
***
“I think I’m going to join the debate team,” Jensen says one afternoon, when Jared’s just come back from running eight zillion laps under Welling’s watchful eye and he really couldn’t care less about anything except dinner. Jensen’s not really much for opening lines.
“Isn’t arguing with me over who left their dirty shorts on the floor enough for you, Jen?” he asks distractedly, slipping on an Oxford over the t-shirt he changed into after his shower. He doesn’t know when Jensen became “Jen” in his mind, but it’s getting comfortable calling him that, even if nobody else does it.
“It gets old after a while. Everybody needs some variety. And Adrianne says she thinks I’d be good.”
“She thinks you’d be good, huh?” Jared repeats, drawing out the “good” obscenely.
Jensen rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why they let you out of middle school.”
“Because I’m a genius.”
“Seriously, though, you think debate is okay? It’s not going to make everybody think I’m a geek or anything?”
Jared punches him in the arm. “You worry too much. Let’s go to dinner before they run out of Salisbury steak.”
Jensen hesitates, like maybe he’s thinking of saying something else, but then he shakes his head and follows Jared out the door.
October
The plan has to run smooth or they’re both in deep shit trouble, but he and Jensen have fucking timed it to the second, and Jared thinks they’ll make it. They synchronize their watches before heading to class, and even though it’s kind of dumb and dorky as hell, it’s fun too. If he’d asked Chad to help him come up with an alumni weekend prank, there would’ve just been cherry bombs in the toilets, and all the incontinent old men in the crowd would be pissed, in more ways than one. This is way more sophisticated.
Jared, his backpack stuffed full of more types of underwear than he even has names for (courtesy of the Wal-Mart in Northbrook), goes into the auditorium first, right on time, and makes sure at least two different teachers see him there before slipping out the door by the stage, and doubling back to hang everything in the trees around the building. His heart’s pounding in his ears the whole time he does it because getting caught with a bag full of lacy panties will be pretty damn hard to explain, but when Jensen meets him in the bathroom of the student center, he knows he’s grinning like a maniac.
“Done?” Jared asks, after checking for feet under all the stall doors.
“Done. It’s fucking beautiful, man.”
And when Jared sees the faces of students, faculty, and visiting parents, looking from the undies in the trees to the spray-painted ‘Is your underwear clean?’ on the walkway, Jared can’t help but agree.
***
By the middle of October, Jared notices that Jensen’s spending a lot of time with Adrianne. Alumni weekend was a rush (they were the front page of the Easton Eagle, even if no one knew it was them), but with his partner-in-crime off “studying chem” and “practicing for the debate team” all the time, it seems unlikely they’ll pull off anything else like that before Christmas. Jared corners Jensen one afternoon (which isn’t hard, seeing as they live together) and says, “So, what’s up with you and Adrianne?”
Jensen looks startled, guilty. “Nothing. What makes you think anything’s up?”
Jared parks his butt on Jensen’s desk, crosses his arms, and waits.
“Seriously, Jay, she’s just been helping me study, helping me get my bearings in debate. It’s not… like that.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, man,” Jared assures him. “Adrianne’s hot.”
Jensen sighs and takes off his glasses. “Look, if I tell you something, do you promise not to freak out?”
Jared sits down in his desk chair, leaning forward. “Do I ever freak out?”
“Look, Jay, it’s hard to do this, but… Adrianne’s… not all that interested in guys.”
“Wait. What? She’s…”
Jensen holds up a hand to shut him up. “And maybe the reason we’ve been spending so much time together is that,” he takes a deep breath, “I’m not all that interested in girls.”
Jared blinks, sits back so hard the chair nearly falls over.
“You’re freaked,” sighs Jensen, rubbing his eyes.
Jared shakes his head. “I’m not. Not. Really.” He huffs out a breath. “It’s kinda unexpected though.”
“I’m pretty sure I can change rooms, if…”
“Jensen, don’t be an idiot. This is your room as much as mine, and I wouldn’t kick you out for something like that.”
“Better than my folks then.”
“Your… your parents kicked you out?” Jared thinks about his own family, tries to imagine anything he could do to make them kick him out, but he comes up empty.
Jensen shakes his head. “No. But they sent me here.”
“I thought you said they wanted to get you ready for college.”
“That’s what they told me, but that’s only part of it. Truth is, they wanted me out of sight. I wasn’t exactly what they expected. No pretty little girl on my arm at homecoming, no dates down at the soda shop. They didn’t like looking at me and knowing there was something wrong with me. I understand where they’re coming from.” He shrugs, but he won’t meet Jared’s eyes.
Jared doesn’t know much about making people feel better, but Jensen looks sad and he hates it, finally gets why Jensen doesn’t want to go home. “It’s not your fault,” he says meekly.
“I know,” replies Jensen. “But that doesn’t exactly make it easier.” He sighs. “Look. Can we talk about something else now? I just don’t want to think about it.”
“Sure thing. You want to talk about how much your hometown blows at football this year?”
“Insult to injury, Jay,” Jensen says, but he’s laughing, and that’s a start.
***
Jared and Sandy dated on and off since seventh grade, and even though the past year has seemed to be part of a more permanent “off” phase, they still hang out a lot, and Jared figures he knows her better than he knows anyone on the planet he isn’t related to (with the possible exception of Chad, who he wishes he knew a little less about). So, when she asks, “Jay, do you know if Jensen’s dating anyone?” Jared’s loyalties are definitely torn.
“Uh,” he says, taking a sudden interest in the orange-leafed tree outside the lounge window.
“You can tell me if he is,” she continues. “I just don’t want to say anything to him if he’s already with somebody.”
“He’s not, but…” Jared searches for the words. He figures “you’re not his type” wouldn’t cut it. “I don’t think he’s looking right now.”
She frowns. “Bad breakup?”
“Maybe. Yeah. I don’t know. All I know is I don’t think he’s looking for a girlfriend right now.”
“Jay, you of all people should know I’m not just any girl.” She strikes a pose, tilting her shoulders and thrusting her chest out.
“Baby, any guy would be lucky to have you.”
Sandy smiles, dimpling prettily. “I thought you were over me, Jared Padalecki.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t see the appeal.” Sandy is beautiful; she’s smart; after the one time she visited San Antonio during the summer after eighth grade, Jared’s pretty sure his momma’s decided she’s the girl he’s going to marry. She asks about Sandy every couple of weeks in her phone calls, and Jared rolls his eyes and tells her Sandy’s as sweet as ever. And it’s always true.
“But you don’t think Jensen would,” she says, looking him squarely in the eye.
Jared bends down beside her chair to kiss her on the cheek. “He’d be crazy not to. I just don’t think he’s going to show it much right now, okay?”
Sandy sighs. “You take good care of your roomie, Jay.”
***
“Sandy’s got a thing for you,” Jared tells Jensen, flopping down on his bed.
Jensen looks up from his psych notes. “You jealous, Jay?” he asks.
It’s not a question that should throw Jared, that should make him feel like there’s some live thing squirming in his belly, but it does, and there’s an awkward pause before he replies, “Me and Sandy are way over, Jen.”
“Uh-huh,” says Jensen skeptically and looks back at his notes. “You know, a good psychologist can tell as much from what you don’t say as what you do.”
“Aw, fuck you.”
Jensen chuckles. “So what’d you say to Sandy about me?”
Jared drags out his physics book. “That you were a big flaming queer who wouldn’t so much as look at her unless she grew a few inches between the legs.”
“Just a few inches, Jay? Don’t sell me short.”
“Size queen,” says Jared.
“Where the hell did you even hear a term like that?”
Jared grins. “I’m a edjucated boy, Jensen. T’ain’t nothing gets by me.” He throws a sock at Jensen’s head.
Jensen catches it, tosses it back. His face turns serious. “Listen, Jay. Thanks for being so cool about this. Seriously. It means a lot.”
Jared just shakes his head. “No problem, man.”
November
Midterms are finally past, and everyone’s coming down off days of too little sleep and too much sugar and caffeine, when Jared finds the photocopy shoved under their door. He’s still looking at it when Jensen pushes through the door behind him.
“What’s that?” Jensen asks, peering over his shoulder.
“It says ‘From Mr. Rosenbaum, with love.’ It looks like it’s from a magazine.” Jared flips through the pages, the ad on the side of one of them showing a bunch of different sized dildos, the next a guy in speedos rubbing his crotch. “A really gay magazine.” Jared goes back to the first page, and starts to read. A buff superhero called GigantoMan is peeling off his skintight uniform.
Jensen’s voice cuts through his amusement. “You can’t smirk like that and not share with the class.”
“I’m not reading this shit out loud. Here.” He sits down on his bed, pats the space beside him. “We’ll read it together.
Jensen leans in and grabs a corner of the photocopy, and Jared can see his eyes skimming the page. For the first couple of paragraphs, they’re laughing together as the gay superhero takes off his superduds and climbs into the shower, every inch of his body described in lurid, ridiculous detail. But after that they get quiet. So that on the third page, when Jensen finally speaks, it makes Jared jump.
“You don’t think he really wrote this, do you?” Jensen asks, breathy and weird. Jared looks over to find his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright. Their shoulders are nearly touching, and Jared suddenly isn’t sure if he wants to move closer or farther away.
“I don’t know,” he replies. “I mean, he might have. It’s…” But he’s not sure he can say what it is. It’s a story about a superhero getting fucked in the ass by his archnemesis, and it should be dumb, but it’s actually kind of hot. And if anyone will understand that, it’s Jensen. Jared reaches down to adjust himself and risks a sideways glance, can tell Jensen’s having the same trouble he is.
“Jay…” Jensen says softly, and Jared meets his eyes, which are burning green, even more of a turn-on than the story. His hand comes to rest on Jared’s thigh, and Jared lets out a shaky breath. “Jay?” Jensen says again, and his voice is dragged down low and heavy with want. Jared nods when he feels Jensen’s hand slide higher, cupping Jared’s dick and rubbing slow, teasing circles.
Jared drops the photocopies and kisses him, shocking Jensen into stillness. And Jared’s about to pull back and pretend it never happened when Jensen whispers, “You don’t have to,” against his lips, and all of sudden, Jared’s pretty sure he does. He cups one hand around Jensen’s cheek, and kisses him again, coaxing Jensen’s mouth open and licking his way inside.
It’s slick and hot and good, almost as good as the hand tugging down his zipper and pulling his dick out of his boxers. Jensen works him with quick, sure strokes, and Jared reaches down to reciprocate.
Jared’s heard Jensen jerking off in the last two months - two guys in a small room, it’s bound to happen - but it’s totally different the first time it’s him making Jen’s breath catch like that, Jared dragging his thumb up under the head of Jensen’s cock and bringing that little whimper out of him.
When Jensen comes first, he licks his own come out from between Jared’s fingers, his tongue curling against Jared’s skin, and that’s so hot it brings Jared off too, his hips bucking into Jensen’s hand. “Fuck,” he says into the side of Jensen’s neck.
“Yeah,” Jensen agrees, and Jared can feel the thrum of Jensen’s pulse under his cheek.
“Never gonna be able to look at Mr. Rosenbaum again.”
“Probably not.” Jensen reaches out for a tissue to wipe his hands, and Jared lifts his head to find Jensen’s shoulders rigid.
“Jen…” he begins, but Jensen shakes his head and smiles fleetingly.
“Don’t worry, Jay. This doesn’t make you gay.” He stands up. “I think I need a shower.”
As the door closes behind him, Jared’s left feeling like he did something really stupid, but he’s not even sure what.
***
The next day, everyone’s talking about the story, passing copies to the day students who didn’t get it slipped under their doors, and staring at Mr. Rosenbaum in the hall. “Who do you think did it?” Allie asks at lunch, skimming through the copy Minka had handed her in study hall. “Handed it out, I mean?”
“I bet it was whoever did that thing with the underwear on alumni weekend,” replies Sophia.
Chad nods slowly, obviously trying to look like he knows something. “Yeah, I bet whoever did that could have pulled this off,” he says with a sly smile. Jared wishes he could kick Chad for trying to take credit for his and Jensen’s genius prank (you can still see the spray paint on the path if you squint), but that would sort of defeat the purpose, and maybe get them both in trouble.
From the way Jensen wolfs down his pizza in one minute flat and mumbles something about going to the library as he heads out, Jared suspects they’ve already got about as much trouble as they can handle.
***
A week later, Jared’s no longer sure whether he’s avoiding Jensen, or Jensen’s avoiding him, both of them staying out until on-dorm, later if they can get away with it, coming back to the room only to sleep. He knows they need to put their heads together and come up with some awesome sabotage for the Winter Formal, but it’s damn hard to get his head anywhere near Jensen’s without thinking about the little noises Jensen made when Jared was jerking him off, about the feel of Jensen’s mouth opening slick and hot under his. He doesn’t want it to be awkward, but between jerking off with his roommate and the cold brush-off afterwards, Jared doesn’t know what to expect anymore. And Jensen’s walking around with this tense, vaguely hurt look about him that makes Jared want to help.
It’s a little weird that this all changes when Jared comes back early from practice to find Jensen jerking off, his uniform slacks twisted around his thighs and his hand wrapped tight around his cock.
“Shit,” Jensen breathes, fumbling for his bedcovers. “Sorry. Sorry.”
But Jared just drops his bag and says, heart pounding in his ears, “You need a hand?”
Jensen looks up, eyes still wide and blurry with arousal, mouth hanging open, and before he even has a chance to reply, Jared’s on his knees next to Jensen’s bed, reaching under the covers and jacking him slow and sweet. “Christ, Jay,” Jensen pants, and his fingers lace with Jared’s, slippery with hand lotion, speeding up the pace. Jared kicks off his shoes and climbs into bed beside Jensen to get a better angle, and there isn’t really enough room for both of them there, and Jared’s nose is pressed against Jensen's, too close to even really look at him, and then Jensen comes with a long, shuddering moan. Jared doesn’t even care that it’s all over his pants, and he leans in to kiss Jensen hard on the mouth before lying back and saying, “So I’m thinking Tabasco sauce in the punch bowl.”
“Huh?” says Jensen, blinking dully at him.
“At the formal,” Jared persists, as if everything hasn’t been awkward for a week, as if his hand isn’t covered in Jensen’s come. “We could put Tabasco in the punch bowl. Just for a start, I mean, that wouldn’t be all we’d do.”
Jensen catches on, shakes his head. “Tabasco’s for pussies. We need to get something really hot. I think they sell, like, pure habañero extract at the market in town. Nobody would even know what hit ‘em.”
“Shit, man, we wanna make them uncomfortable, not kill them. That stuff’s intense.”
Jensen shrugs. “Fine, but no Tabasco. There must be something better.” They’re both silent for a minute, and then Jared feels Jensen’s hand working on his fly as Jensen says, “And maybe if we put it in the cups instead of the punch, they wouldn’t catch on so fast.”
Jared sucks in a breath as Jensen's hand wraps around him, still slick with come and lotion, and tries to concentrate on what Jensen’s saying, but it’s pretty much a lost cause. All his blood’s rushing down to his dick, and Jensen’s smirk says he knows it too. “Sandy’s on the dance committee, right?” So weird for Jensen to mention Sandy while jerking him off, but Jared’s too turned-on to protest. “You can charm your way in early. Or I can” - he cocks his head and grins - “since I hear she likes me so much.” He squeezes Jared's cock, and Jared isn’t even sure he understands English anymore, but Jensen’s voice is a warm vibration against his skin, and he grunts an acknowledgment of Jensen’s words. “And once you’re in, or I’m in, just a couple of drops of habañero extract in the cups - they use real cups, right? This is that kind of place. Should only take a couple of minutes. In and out before they know it.” Jensen speeds up his strokes, working his hand up and down around the shaft of Jared’s cock, flicking his thumb against the head until Jared bites his lip and comes, wet against Jensen’s belly. “We’re still going to need something else though,” Jensen finishes, wiping his hand on his t-shirt.
“You do realize I got nothing of what you just said, right?”
Jensen nuzzles the side of his neck. “I’m willing to repeat it.”
“Jen?” Jared says hesitantly. “Should we talk about this?”
“What? The formal? The punch bowl?” Jensen’s voice goes brisk, almost hard, and his eyes get that same glaze of hurt they’ve had since last week.
“The handjobs,” Jared says.
Jensen turns away, moves as far as he can towards the wall. “It’s probably better if we don’t.”
“Jen, shut up.” Jared puts a hand on his hip and pulls him closer again. “Look, I just…” But he isn’t sure what he “just” and he bites his lip. “I like it. And I like you. I don’t want it to be weird again.”
Jensen looks torn for a minute, uncertain, before he says stoutly, “Well, we’ll just have to keep it from getting weird again, won’t we?”
And Jared kisses him, long and deep, before good judgment gets the better of him.
***
“Are you a virgin?” Jensen asks baldly, one night just before Thanksgiving break. They’ve been jerking off together and maybe kissing more seriously than Jared really wants to think about.
Jared stutters, laughs nervously, and moves to kiss him again. Jensen stops him with a hand on his chest and a wicked grin. “I smell a story there, Jay.”
Jared groans and presses his face into the side of Jensen’s neck. “Come on, man. Don’t be an asshole about this.”
“Nothing asshole about it. I want to know where else your dick’s been. They always told us it was important in health class.”
Jared sighs. “Maybe,” he replies. “Maybe I am.”
Jensen laughs, short and sharp. “How can you not be sure about a thing like that?”
Jared’s blushing, and he knows it, but there’s something friendly about Jensen’s teasing that tells him it’s not a big deal either way. “Sandy and I sort of… once. Only it didn’t really, uh, work.”
“Oh,” says Jensen, looking puzzled, but he just waits for Jared to go on.
“It just, well, she hadn’t ever done it either, and,” he wrinkles his nose, “I’m not exactly small.”
Jensen squeezes his hip. “I’ve noticed.” Jared blushes even redder.
“She said it hurt too much, so we had to stop. And we didn’t really want to try it again after that, you know.”
“I can imagine.”
“So, are you?”
Jared doesn’t expect the way Jensen looks down, away from him. “Yeah.”
“And that’s embarrassing?”
“Kind of.”
Jared decides to be philosophical about it. “We’re sixteen. We’ve got plenty of time for conquest in the future.”
“You’re such a freak, Jay.” Then he puts a hand on Jared’s cheek and starts kissing him again. Nobody would ever know Jensen is a virgin from the way he kisses. Jensen seems to know what he’s doing all the time, with a kind of quiet confidence that Jared is well aware he cannot duplicate. There’s nothing shy about kissing Jensen, nothing unpracticed. Jensen cups his face and bites Jared’s lip, and slides his tongue into Jared’s mouth like there’s no place else Jensen’s tongue could be. Jared knows he’s gonna be hard enough in a minute that his dick’s going to be clamoring for attention again, despite a deft handjob earlier and all the trig he should be studying, and he can’t even make himself worry too much about the English paper that’s due when they get back from break, or… he shuts off the responsible part of his brain.
“I’m not the only freak,” says Jared, pulling back from the kiss and looking at Jensen.
“Was that a homophobic slur? I should report you to the diversity coordinator.”
Jared huffs out a laugh. The diversity coordinator is kind of a joke. She’s this really exuberant retiree with a master’s in social work, who bullied the school into giving her a volunteer position, and letting her do lectures each term on “respecting those who are different” and “eradicating racism in an unjust society” (which Percy finds particularly laughable, being the only black kid in their grade). She means well, Jared knows, but it’s pretty useless telling high school kids not to be assholes to each other. And he doesn’t think anyone’s ever gone to Ms. Gless’s “office hours” in the third floor lounge of the humanities building.
“You know how I feel about them homosexuals,” Jared says in his thickest drawl.
Jensen grins, and there’s something about Jensens’s smile that ties Jared’s stomach in knots every time. He doesn’t know if it’s a gay thing, although he sometimes wonders, but it feels good to make Jensen happy. “I don’t think you mind ‘em so much,” Jensen replies.
“Don’t reckon I do,” Jared tells him, still talking like an old western. He tries to kiss Jensen again, but Jensen pulls away.
“I got a chem test tomorrow, and if I don’t do okay, my grade’s in real trouble.”
“Oh, man, you might get an A-? How will we survive?”
Jensen shoves him lightly and sits up. “I don’t keep up my grades, and my parents’ll haul my ass back to Dallas, and you’ll be back to jerking off by yourself.” Jared thinks it’s a joke, but Jensen’s tone is a little bitter, and his smile isn’t quite so nice this time.
December
Chad is a douche. But he’s a douche who can get a keg, a whole lot of Stoli, and the use of James’s house in town on short notice when he decides what the school needs is an end-of-term party. And besides that, Jared’s known him forever, even longer than he’s known Sandy, so it’s not like they can stop being friends at this point.
It’s in that weird limbo weekend they call reading period, when mostly everyone’s got their final papers in, and all they’ve got left is a couple of tests, so no one’s quite free of the term yet, but everyone’s ready for it to be over. Jared hasn’t seen much of Jensen lately, since Jensen’s been mostly holed up in the library with his laptop, but he figures the party will be good for that.
Their prank at the formal was a roaring success, and Jared’s feeling pretty pleased with himself. And since nobody knows who to blame for the idea, nobody’s even bothering to look at them. Except Sandy, who’s always seemed to know everything about everything anyway. And besides, they could trust her not to rat them out, if it comes to that. Jensen looks skeptical when Jared tells him this, but Jared points out all the embarrassing shit he did in middle school and how she hasn’t said anything about that for years and years.
“Like what?” Jensen asks, big innocent eyes and all, and Jared verges on telling him about the time he spilled a coke all over Kristin Kreuk’s sweater in seventh grade and then offered to lick it off for her. Oh, man, Sandy had gotten hours of laughs out of that one. And when Jared asked nicely, she didn’t even mention him by name when she told the story to new kids.
“Fuck you,” Jared tells Jensen. “I’ve got no way to get dirt on you, so you sure as hell aren’t getting dirt on me.”
“Jeez, Jay, sounds like somebody’s a little paranoid. What do you think I’m gonna do, huh? Make an announcement over the PA during homeroom?”
“Never know with you, Jen. You’re one sneaky bastard.”
“It was the leather jacket that tipped you off, right?” That might have been the last time he saw Jensen smile, really smile, not that little quirk at the corner of his mouth that means he’s too exhausted to even say hi.
But Chad’s party’s going to change that. He’s calling it the “Shhh Party”, which is a stupid name to highlight the fact that he’s having it during the enforced dorm quiet hours when everybody’s supposed to “use common courtesy and keep music and conversation in student rooms and lounges to respectful levels.”
Jared doesn’t know if Chad bribed somebody, or if he’s got some black magic working for him, but it seems like half the school is crowded into James’s living room when he arrives, and James’s parents are nowhere to be seen. Jared’s eyes hook on Jensen immediately, like he’s got a special Jensen-sense.
Jensen’s standing just inside the kitchen door with Jason, who is the handsiest drunk ever, and has a fingertip tapping along to whatever point he’s making on Jensen’s chest. Jared feels absurdly protective, but he makes himself walk at normal speed to the keg, his shoulder brushing Jensen’s as he passes, just enough contact to let Jen know he’s there. He gets himself a beer and turns to find Jensen staring at him, Jason still talking and finger-tapping.
Jensen licks his lips, and Jared’s dick twitches. He knows he shouldn’t keep looking, but it’s hard not to. Jensen’s eyes draw him in and hold him tight, and Jared has to pretend to be very interested in his drink in order to resist pinning Jensen to the wall and kissing him stupid. He starts up a conversation with Shiri from his history class, but he can’t remember afterwards what they talked about. When his eyes find Jensen again, he’s closer, talking to Allie, and looking like he’s enjoying it. She laughs at something he says, throwing her head back, and Jensen winks at him. Jared’s dick tries to convince him that’s as good as an engraved invitation, but he can’t make himself walk towards Jensen because there’s no way he can hide it on his face.
Luckily or not, Chad grabs him by the elbow just as he’s wondering what Jensen’s drinking and what it would taste like on his tongue. There’s beer pong in the garage, so Jared plays until it’s clear he’s too good to get Chad any drunker, and when Chad trades him for Taylor he goes looking for Jensen again.
Only Jensen finds him first, drags him into the downstairs bathroom and kisses him until Jared can’t breathe. “Hi,” Jared pants finally, pulling away.
“Hi,” Jensen replies, and Jared stops him with a hand on his chest before he dives in for another kiss.
“You know, this is what the bedrooms are for. Why else do you think James’s mom signed us out? We’re staying here, unlike the rest of these losers. We’re fucking honored guests, Jen.”
Jensen rubs his thumb across Jared’s cheek. “Fucking honored guests, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Well then, I guess we gotta take this to a bedroom.”
Just as he’s about to come, back arching against James’s guest bed, Jared has the guilty thought that Jensen gives better head than Sandy did. But by the time he falls asleep, in a queen-size bed with Jensen’s hand in his hair and the door locked against Chad’s partygoers, all he can think is that this is definitely more than just helping out his roommate.
Part II
Jared first sees his new roommate from across the quad - Sandy, who works Tuesday afternoons in the admin office, points him out - and dislikes him immediately. He’s coming out of the science building, wearing a shit-eating grin and holding the door for a sophomore girl with flippy hair. “He looks like a douche,” Jared decides, and Sandy rolls her eyes.
“You’re such an asshole sometimes, Jay,” she tells him. “Just because you wanted that big, sweet room all to yourself…”
“It’s not that,” he says, taking short steps to match her pace on the way to pre-calc. “Guy looks like a trust fund kid. Scion of some old money from Connecticut, born with a silver spoon up his nose. Probably came late ‘cause he just got out of rehab or something.” Jared slings an arm around Sandy’s shoulders. “Besides, you were all set to reap the benefits of my big, sweet room.”
Sandy shrugs him off. “That is so tenth grade, Jay.”
“Who says I meant it like that? What kind of friend are you anyway?”
She grins and leans up to kiss him on the cheek. “The kind who’s never going to date you again.” She sees Adrianne down the hall, and skips off after her, leaving Jared to pout.
Truth is, he had wanted his single, a space all his own after five years of other guys’ sweat socks in the dorms, a decade before that sharing a room with Jeff. And he’s none too pleased to have some guy named Jensen (probably after somebody’s yacht or something equally lame) ruining that for him. But Jared also knows he’ll get over it. He’s no good at holding grudges.
***
Jared doesn’t see his new roommate from closer than fifty yards away until after classes have ended for the day. He opens the door to the room he’d so loved when it was his alone, and finds a guy in a ratty black t-shirt hunched over an iBook at the extra desk. Jared slings his backpack onto his bed, the one to the right of the window, as Jensen stands up and holds out his hand. He has green eyes and freckles across his nose and the longest eyelashes Jared’s ever seen on a guy. “Jensen Ackles.”
Jared appreciates the firmness of his handshake, but he’s still too pretty to be trusted. “Jared Padalecki.”
Jensen squints at him. “You from Texas?” he asks, and Jared can suddenly hear the drawl to his voice.
“San Antonio,” says Jared. “You?”
“Outside Dallas.”
Jared’s heart lifts. Another Texan - even if he is from Dallas - to fend off the legacies and the assholes who think his accent makes him stupid. He sees a montage of all the things he and Jensen might do together: good, manly things that might or might not involve football and barbeque. He thinks maybe he’s zoned out for just a minute at the thought of barbeque because now Jensen’s looking at him like he’s maybe a little dim. “This is awesome, man,” Jared says enthusiastically. “I’m so sick of all this New England bullshit.”
Jensen cocks an eyebrow. “That bad?”
Jared backtracks. He might actually like this guy, and he doesn’t want to make Easton come off like a bad place; he likes it here, and the school’s been damn good to him the past five years. “Nah. Just a little small, sometimes. What kind of school did you come from?”
“I, uh, went to public school. But my parents thought it would look good to do something different for a couple of years, get me set for college.”
Jared nods, racking his brain to remember if he’s ever met someone who went to public high school before. All he can think about is those stories you see on the news about places like New York and Baltimore, where all the schools look like prisons, and watching Saved by the Bell when he was younger. Which was probably not the most realistic vision of high school. He sits down backwards in his desk chair, and props his elbows on the back. “Guess this is a lot different than your old school, huh?”
Jensen smiles, a quick flash of something like nerves before he’s cool again. “Yeah. It’s way smaller, for one. There were eight hundred kids in my class back home.”
Jared gives a low whistle. That’s like the whole population of Easton, including upper school, middle school, and faculty. He tells Jensen as much.
“I know. And I’m not looking forward to wearing all that wool, and spit-shining my shoes, either.”
“They don’t make us… oh.” He realizes Jensen’s joking. “Seriously, it’s not that bad. You must have had rules back at your old school.”
“Yeah, but at least there was no dress code, except, like, don’t wear t-shirts with pot leaves on them. I am very not thrilled about having to wear a tie all year.”
Jared shrugs. “Ties can come in handy.”
Jensen raises an eyebrow at him again, and Jared’s starting to think Jensen should letter in eyebrow-raising because he obviously practices a lot. “So you’re that kind of a guy, huh? Just tell me I won’t be sleeping in the lounge so you can play kinky sex games with your girlfriend.”
“Nah. One, they don’t really like people sleeping in the lounge. I learned that the hard way.” Jensen may think he’s joking, but Jensen’s never roomed with Chad Michael Murray. “Two, no girlfriend. And three, if you’re a really good roommate, I’d probably let you stay and watch.”
Jensen grins and chuckles. “Well, all right then.”
Jared tilts the chair onto two legs, then thumps it back down again. Jensen looks at him like he’s not sure if the conversation’s over. “You, uh, got your stuff in okay?” Jared asks to break the silence.
“Just fine. I didn’t have all that much.”
“So, why are you coming two weeks into term?”
Jensen looks thoughtful. “It’s really ‘cause they just called me off the waiting list, but if it makes you feel better, you can say I came from rehab, or I’m on probation, or some shit.”
Jared is astonished that these are exactly the possibilities he’d come up with. Jensen sees the expression on his face and flicks a smile at him. “I know how this stuff works. I’ve been a good kid all my life. Might be fun to have people think something different.”
Jared considers pointing out to him that just coming from public school in junior year makes him pretty much a fucking unknown species, but he can hear his momma’s voice saying that would be rude. And really, pretending to be a little badass with someone like Jensen, not such a bad idea (and definitely less hazardous than trying it with Chad). “I think I can help you with that,” he says, and right then, as Jensen’s grin blooms out wide, the alliance is born.
***
“He’s cute,” says Sandy thoughtfully, tapping her pen against her lips as she watches Jensen navigate the lunch line.
“What? Like I’m not?” Jared replies, following her gaze as Jensen swerves neatly out of the way of Kristen Bell’s messenger bag as she slings it over her shoulder.
“We’ve known you too long for you to be cute anymore,” says Allie matter-of-factly. Adrianne just smiles sympathetically at him and goes back to watching the back of Sandy’s head.
“What you bitches looking at?” asks Chad, and Jared’s glad he’s no longer the only guy at the table, even if Chad is pretty useless for anything besides a y-chromosome.
“Jared’s new roommate,” Allie tells him, inclining her head towards Jensen. “A fine specimen.”
“Aw, man, they gave you a roommate?” Chad sighs. “That blows.”
Jared just shrugs. “It’s not so bad. He’s a cool guy.” He doesn’t bother to mention the Texan solidarity because Chad would just give him shit about it.
“So, why’d he come late?” Sandy asks, turning back to Jared as Jensen starts to walk towards their table. “Do you know?”
Jared responds with a mysterious smile. He’s a terrible liar, and it’s kind of the best he can do. “I don’t think I should be the one to tell you,” he says, and the girls look back at Jensen in something like awe.
“Hey,” says Jensen, smiling awkwardly beside the table. “Can I sit here?”
Jared pulls out the chair to his left. “Be my guest.” As Jensen settles in with his tray, Jared does the round of introductions. “Jensen, this is Sandy, Allie, Adrianne, and Chad. Guys, this is Jensen.” He leans in to stage-whisper, “Don’t worry if they’re assholes. They probably can’t help it.”
Allie throws a straw wrapper at him, and Sandy says, “Hey!” Chad shrugs and keeps chewing his macaroni, not even denying it. “Chad and I used to be roommates,” Jared explains.
“Huh,” says Jensen, before clamming up completely. Jared wonders if he’s done something wrong, as his friends ramble on about science quizzes and what the hell Tina did to her hair. Occasionally, Sandy tries to draw Jensen into the conversation, but he just smiles and nods, or shakes his head, as the situation demands. It hadn’t occurred to Jared yesterday when they were shooting the shit about life back home, but he thinks Jensen might be kind of shy. He feels a little protective towards the guy.
“What do you have after lunch?” Jared asks Jensen, who looks a little lost as Jared’s friends keep talking.
“Uh, chem,” says Jensen, consulting a folded schedule.
“With Kripke?” Jared asks. Jensen nods. “Oh, man, I had him last year. Dude’s kind of crazy. I think he picked the job just so he could blow shit up.”
“Remember freshman year when he burned off his eyebrows?” Allie chimes in, giggling.
“Couldn’t wait to get in his class after that,” says Chad wistfully. Jared grins in agreement.
“Sounds like fun,” says Jensen uncertainly.
“Blowing shit up can be useful,” Jared tells him, with a maniacal smirk. Jensen chuckles. Chad looks at them like he thinks maybe he’s being left out of something, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Kripke’s actually pretty cool,” Adrianne puts in. “I sometimes help when he does demos for the middle school classes. If you need any help catching up…”
It sounds nothing like a pick-up line, and Jensen looks at her more closely than he’s looked at anyone all lunch period. “Thanks,” he says. “That’s real nice.” Jared is momentarily unfairly jealous. Sandy looks like maybe she’s having the same feeling.
Chad breaks the silence by knocking his chair over as Sophia Bush enters the cafeteria and he runs over like a faithful dog to help her with her tray. “Pathetic,” Sandy mouths to Allie, who rolls her eyes and nods. Chad’s a complete spaz around Sophia, like more so than he is the rest of the time, and it’s been going on like this since the end of last term, her reeling him in and throwing him back like the fish he often smells like. Much as Jared likes the guy, well… sometimes he doesn’t really like the guy.
***
“Is there something, y’know, wrong with Mr. Rosenbaum?” Jensen asks Jared, when they’re back in their room after dinner that night, poring over copies of Lord of the Flies, Jensen taking notes, and Jared vaguely wondering if that’s something he should do too.
Jared flips his book shut. “Depends how you look at it,” he says diplomatically.
“And if you look at it like a sane human being?”
“Then there’s probably something wrong with Mr. Rosenbaum. Rumor is he writes porn to supplement his teaching salary, publishes it under a pseudonym in magazines and shit. And he makes us do ‘stream-of-consciousness’ assignments, which pretty much require you to be stoned in order to write them.”
“And they let him teach here?”
Jared shrugs. “He’s a creative writing teacher. Insane is in the job description. And nobody can prove it about the porn thing since nobody knows what name he writes under. Besides, he’s good for the diversity initiative they keep trying to get going.”
Jensen’s brow furrows. “How so? ‘Cause he’s Jewish?”
Jared shakes his head. “Nah. ‘Cause he’s gay.”
Jensen’s face goes blank, shocked, before he schools it into bemusement instead. “How do you know that?”
“Everybody knows. It’s not like a secret. He lives just off campus with Welling.” Jensen forms a “who?” with his lips, which Jared answers before it even becomes a question. “Teaches in the middle school, assistant soccer coach. Good guy.”
“You play soccer,” Jensen says tentatively, even though he knows it’s true from the hour and a half when Jared disappeared to the field after the end of classes. Jensen’s shy about the weirdest things. “And it doesn’t bug you that he’s gay?”
Jared sighs. “Look, man, you’re gonna get a lot of shit about being from Texas, and I don’t want to make it like that, but seriously, Jensen, it’s different here. People don’t get worked up about shit like that. Or if they do, they don’t say anything. Live and let live, you know.”
Jensen holds up his hands. “I wasn’t, I mean, I don’t think… I’m glad,” he finishes quietly. “I’m glad you’re cool.”
Jared tries to make sense of that one, but Jensen just looks back down at his book.
***
“Okay, so you’ve been here two weeks and we haven’t done anything badass at all,” Jared says, pointing his fork at Jensen, and talking quiet so no one at dinner around them hears. “What happened to not being such a goody-goody, Ackles?” It’s Friday night, and a lot of the kids from closer by have gone home for the night, for laundry, or mom’s home cooking, or to make out with people they don’t see every single damn day.
Jensen shrugs and leans back in his chair. “I bought a leather jacket, didn’t I?” He says, referring to last weekend’s trip to the thrift store in town, when Sandy tried to make Jensen into her own personal mannequin and Jared had to physically restrain her from going near the disco suits. The jacket’s pretty cool though, worn-in brown leather creased around the elbows.
“Yeah, but I’ve seen you in class, dude. You’ve always got the answer when they call on you. Manners even mentioned you to my class yesterday, and that’s saying something.”
Jensen looks startled. “He did?”
“He said we should all stop being such slackers because a public school kid in one of his other classes was going to show us all up. Ain’t that many public school kids here.”
“Shit,” Jensen says softly, cringing.
Jared feels a surge of sympathy and wishes he hadn’t said anything. Jensen obviously doesn’t want that kind of attention, doesn’t feel comfortable standing out, and the last thing Jared wants to do is make his roommate feel bad. “Look, it’s not a big deal, I…”
“Man, why do teachers do that? It’s just gonna make everyone bitch at me for screwing up the curve. Should have known it would be Manners though. Seems like the guy’s got a grudge against the whole world.”
“Nobody grades on a curve anyway,” Jared points out. “Just don’t act so smart in classes, and you’ll be fine. You can still get good grades on the homework, and…”
But Jensen’s shaking his head. “You don’t get it, Jay. That’s the whole reason I came here. Back in Dallas, I was just another face in the crowd, the smart kid in the back of the room, all that shit. I kept my head down. One reason my parents sent me here is so I can make connections, get an in with the right kind of people. Whatever else people think of me, I’ve got to keep that up or I go home.” Jensen makes home sound ominous, although Jared still hasn’t figured out why.
Jared’s never thought of the people here as “the right kind of people,” but then he’s never questioned that he’s going to get an Ivy League education at the end of all this either. Most of the time he forgets that he and Jensen kind of come from different worlds. Jensen’s just a guy who brings out his accent and makes him laugh, except that he’s also a kid who went to public school for ten years, and probably met all kinds of people Jared never even thinks about existing. And he clearly doesn’t want to go back. “You don’t have to be bad for people to like you,” Jared says consolingly. “Hell, I like you, and I know for damn sure you won’t be trying to kill me in my sleep.”
Some of the tension fades from Jensen’s face. He huffs a laugh. “You say that now…”
Jared throws a French fry at his head, and Jensen’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles. “So,” Jared goes on, leaning in close, “if you’re up for something besides homework, we could try and work out a way to make your life a little more interesting without getting you sent home. Like, say, a prank for alumni weekend?” It’s what Jared’s always wanted, a partner in crime, if only Jensen wants in.
Jensen grins. “Sounds like you’ve got an idea.”
“Not yet.” He leans in across the table. “But I’ve got a list of the alumni speakers coming and a shitload of The Awakening I don’t feel like reading.”
“Meet you in the room in ten minutes,” Jensen tells him.
***
“So, what do we know about this guy?” Jensen asks, pacing like he always does on the trail of an idea. Jared thinks it’s kind of hilarious that he would treat this shit as seriously as he treats his homework, but he’s not going to say anything. Jensen’s just like that, he’s learned.
Jared scrolls down the page. “Uh, he runs a publishing company that specializes in business books. They did that one that was so big a couple years back, Always Wear Clean Underwear?”
Jensen shakes his head. “Never heard of it.”
Jared boggles. “Always Wear Clean Underwear: Making Sure An Accidental Setback Doesn’t Keep You From Success? My dad bought copies for practically everyone he knows. It was, like, the biggest thing since Who Moved My Cheese?”
Jensen just shrugs. “My dad’s a fireman, Jay. He doesn’t need business manuals.” He stops in the middle of the room and looks uncomfortable, crossing his arms and ducking his head.
It’s not as though there aren’t other kids at Easton on scholarship, but it doesn’t usually come up anymore. Most of them started in ninth grade, have been doing this for longer than two weeks. Jared thinks Jensen still feels raw around the edges, and it shows, as much as he tries to play cool with everyone else.
“Guess not,” he says with a friendly smile, trying to dispel the tension. Jensen smiles half-heartedly back. “Anyway, so he’s in publishing. The company he owns now is a pretty big deal, and he kind of made it that way. His dad started it, but it practically went bankrupt in the ‘70s, before he took over. It’s pretty amazing how he turned it around.”
“And now they publish books about underwear. Awesome.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s just the title. I can’t imagine my dad would’ve given his golfing buddies a book that was really about underwear.”
“It might send the wrong message.”
“Yeah. I know I don’t want to think about my dad’s golfing buddies in their boxers.”
“We could use that though,” says Jensen thoughtfully.
“What?”
“The underwear thing. Like, do something that’s a play on the title of that book. Spread an email around telling people to wear their underwear on the outside to his talk or something.”
“But his talk’s on alumni weekend. Lots of people’s parents come for that, and…”
“Are your parents coming?”
“Nah. They think all the fuss is lame. They usually come hang out sometime in the spring. Are your parents coming?”
Jensen shakes his head. “Too expensive. And it’s hard for my dad to get away, you know?”
“But I don’t think we could talk anybody into wearing their underwear on the outside with their parents around.”
“Okay. So we do something else. We can buy a ton of cheap underpants and hang them from the trees outside the auditorium.”
Jared laughs. “Like Christmas but with underwear. I like it.” It’s even better seeing Jensen smile at the praise though. “So when could we do it?”
“Well, he’s giving a talk, right? They’re letting us out early and making everyone go. So if everyone’s in the auditorium, then there’s no one outside.”
“Huh,” says Jared.
“What?” asks Jensen nervously.
“Nothing. You just don’t look like a devious son of a bitch.”
Jensen tugs the collar of his shirt. “It’s the tie. It could make anyone look respectable.”
***
“I think I’m going to join the debate team,” Jensen says one afternoon, when Jared’s just come back from running eight zillion laps under Welling’s watchful eye and he really couldn’t care less about anything except dinner. Jensen’s not really much for opening lines.
“Isn’t arguing with me over who left their dirty shorts on the floor enough for you, Jen?” he asks distractedly, slipping on an Oxford over the t-shirt he changed into after his shower. He doesn’t know when Jensen became “Jen” in his mind, but it’s getting comfortable calling him that, even if nobody else does it.
“It gets old after a while. Everybody needs some variety. And Adrianne says she thinks I’d be good.”
“She thinks you’d be good, huh?” Jared repeats, drawing out the “good” obscenely.
Jensen rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why they let you out of middle school.”
“Because I’m a genius.”
“Seriously, though, you think debate is okay? It’s not going to make everybody think I’m a geek or anything?”
Jared punches him in the arm. “You worry too much. Let’s go to dinner before they run out of Salisbury steak.”
Jensen hesitates, like maybe he’s thinking of saying something else, but then he shakes his head and follows Jared out the door.
October
The plan has to run smooth or they’re both in deep shit trouble, but he and Jensen have fucking timed it to the second, and Jared thinks they’ll make it. They synchronize their watches before heading to class, and even though it’s kind of dumb and dorky as hell, it’s fun too. If he’d asked Chad to help him come up with an alumni weekend prank, there would’ve just been cherry bombs in the toilets, and all the incontinent old men in the crowd would be pissed, in more ways than one. This is way more sophisticated.
Jared, his backpack stuffed full of more types of underwear than he even has names for (courtesy of the Wal-Mart in Northbrook), goes into the auditorium first, right on time, and makes sure at least two different teachers see him there before slipping out the door by the stage, and doubling back to hang everything in the trees around the building. His heart’s pounding in his ears the whole time he does it because getting caught with a bag full of lacy panties will be pretty damn hard to explain, but when Jensen meets him in the bathroom of the student center, he knows he’s grinning like a maniac.
“Done?” Jared asks, after checking for feet under all the stall doors.
“Done. It’s fucking beautiful, man.”
And when Jared sees the faces of students, faculty, and visiting parents, looking from the undies in the trees to the spray-painted ‘Is your underwear clean?’ on the walkway, Jared can’t help but agree.
***
By the middle of October, Jared notices that Jensen’s spending a lot of time with Adrianne. Alumni weekend was a rush (they were the front page of the Easton Eagle, even if no one knew it was them), but with his partner-in-crime off “studying chem” and “practicing for the debate team” all the time, it seems unlikely they’ll pull off anything else like that before Christmas. Jared corners Jensen one afternoon (which isn’t hard, seeing as they live together) and says, “So, what’s up with you and Adrianne?”
Jensen looks startled, guilty. “Nothing. What makes you think anything’s up?”
Jared parks his butt on Jensen’s desk, crosses his arms, and waits.
“Seriously, Jay, she’s just been helping me study, helping me get my bearings in debate. It’s not… like that.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, man,” Jared assures him. “Adrianne’s hot.”
Jensen sighs and takes off his glasses. “Look, if I tell you something, do you promise not to freak out?”
Jared sits down in his desk chair, leaning forward. “Do I ever freak out?”
“Look, Jay, it’s hard to do this, but… Adrianne’s… not all that interested in guys.”
“Wait. What? She’s…”
Jensen holds up a hand to shut him up. “And maybe the reason we’ve been spending so much time together is that,” he takes a deep breath, “I’m not all that interested in girls.”
Jared blinks, sits back so hard the chair nearly falls over.
“You’re freaked,” sighs Jensen, rubbing his eyes.
Jared shakes his head. “I’m not. Not. Really.” He huffs out a breath. “It’s kinda unexpected though.”
“I’m pretty sure I can change rooms, if…”
“Jensen, don’t be an idiot. This is your room as much as mine, and I wouldn’t kick you out for something like that.”
“Better than my folks then.”
“Your… your parents kicked you out?” Jared thinks about his own family, tries to imagine anything he could do to make them kick him out, but he comes up empty.
Jensen shakes his head. “No. But they sent me here.”
“I thought you said they wanted to get you ready for college.”
“That’s what they told me, but that’s only part of it. Truth is, they wanted me out of sight. I wasn’t exactly what they expected. No pretty little girl on my arm at homecoming, no dates down at the soda shop. They didn’t like looking at me and knowing there was something wrong with me. I understand where they’re coming from.” He shrugs, but he won’t meet Jared’s eyes.
Jared doesn’t know much about making people feel better, but Jensen looks sad and he hates it, finally gets why Jensen doesn’t want to go home. “It’s not your fault,” he says meekly.
“I know,” replies Jensen. “But that doesn’t exactly make it easier.” He sighs. “Look. Can we talk about something else now? I just don’t want to think about it.”
“Sure thing. You want to talk about how much your hometown blows at football this year?”
“Insult to injury, Jay,” Jensen says, but he’s laughing, and that’s a start.
***
Jared and Sandy dated on and off since seventh grade, and even though the past year has seemed to be part of a more permanent “off” phase, they still hang out a lot, and Jared figures he knows her better than he knows anyone on the planet he isn’t related to (with the possible exception of Chad, who he wishes he knew a little less about). So, when she asks, “Jay, do you know if Jensen’s dating anyone?” Jared’s loyalties are definitely torn.
“Uh,” he says, taking a sudden interest in the orange-leafed tree outside the lounge window.
“You can tell me if he is,” she continues. “I just don’t want to say anything to him if he’s already with somebody.”
“He’s not, but…” Jared searches for the words. He figures “you’re not his type” wouldn’t cut it. “I don’t think he’s looking right now.”
She frowns. “Bad breakup?”
“Maybe. Yeah. I don’t know. All I know is I don’t think he’s looking for a girlfriend right now.”
“Jay, you of all people should know I’m not just any girl.” She strikes a pose, tilting her shoulders and thrusting her chest out.
“Baby, any guy would be lucky to have you.”
Sandy smiles, dimpling prettily. “I thought you were over me, Jared Padalecki.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t see the appeal.” Sandy is beautiful; she’s smart; after the one time she visited San Antonio during the summer after eighth grade, Jared’s pretty sure his momma’s decided she’s the girl he’s going to marry. She asks about Sandy every couple of weeks in her phone calls, and Jared rolls his eyes and tells her Sandy’s as sweet as ever. And it’s always true.
“But you don’t think Jensen would,” she says, looking him squarely in the eye.
Jared bends down beside her chair to kiss her on the cheek. “He’d be crazy not to. I just don’t think he’s going to show it much right now, okay?”
Sandy sighs. “You take good care of your roomie, Jay.”
***
“Sandy’s got a thing for you,” Jared tells Jensen, flopping down on his bed.
Jensen looks up from his psych notes. “You jealous, Jay?” he asks.
It’s not a question that should throw Jared, that should make him feel like there’s some live thing squirming in his belly, but it does, and there’s an awkward pause before he replies, “Me and Sandy are way over, Jen.”
“Uh-huh,” says Jensen skeptically and looks back at his notes. “You know, a good psychologist can tell as much from what you don’t say as what you do.”
“Aw, fuck you.”
Jensen chuckles. “So what’d you say to Sandy about me?”
Jared drags out his physics book. “That you were a big flaming queer who wouldn’t so much as look at her unless she grew a few inches between the legs.”
“Just a few inches, Jay? Don’t sell me short.”
“Size queen,” says Jared.
“Where the hell did you even hear a term like that?”
Jared grins. “I’m a edjucated boy, Jensen. T’ain’t nothing gets by me.” He throws a sock at Jensen’s head.
Jensen catches it, tosses it back. His face turns serious. “Listen, Jay. Thanks for being so cool about this. Seriously. It means a lot.”
Jared just shakes his head. “No problem, man.”
November
Midterms are finally past, and everyone’s coming down off days of too little sleep and too much sugar and caffeine, when Jared finds the photocopy shoved under their door. He’s still looking at it when Jensen pushes through the door behind him.
“What’s that?” Jensen asks, peering over his shoulder.
“It says ‘From Mr. Rosenbaum, with love.’ It looks like it’s from a magazine.” Jared flips through the pages, the ad on the side of one of them showing a bunch of different sized dildos, the next a guy in speedos rubbing his crotch. “A really gay magazine.” Jared goes back to the first page, and starts to read. A buff superhero called GigantoMan is peeling off his skintight uniform.
Jensen’s voice cuts through his amusement. “You can’t smirk like that and not share with the class.”
“I’m not reading this shit out loud. Here.” He sits down on his bed, pats the space beside him. “We’ll read it together.
Jensen leans in and grabs a corner of the photocopy, and Jared can see his eyes skimming the page. For the first couple of paragraphs, they’re laughing together as the gay superhero takes off his superduds and climbs into the shower, every inch of his body described in lurid, ridiculous detail. But after that they get quiet. So that on the third page, when Jensen finally speaks, it makes Jared jump.
“You don’t think he really wrote this, do you?” Jensen asks, breathy and weird. Jared looks over to find his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright. Their shoulders are nearly touching, and Jared suddenly isn’t sure if he wants to move closer or farther away.
“I don’t know,” he replies. “I mean, he might have. It’s…” But he’s not sure he can say what it is. It’s a story about a superhero getting fucked in the ass by his archnemesis, and it should be dumb, but it’s actually kind of hot. And if anyone will understand that, it’s Jensen. Jared reaches down to adjust himself and risks a sideways glance, can tell Jensen’s having the same trouble he is.
“Jay…” Jensen says softly, and Jared meets his eyes, which are burning green, even more of a turn-on than the story. His hand comes to rest on Jared’s thigh, and Jared lets out a shaky breath. “Jay?” Jensen says again, and his voice is dragged down low and heavy with want. Jared nods when he feels Jensen’s hand slide higher, cupping Jared’s dick and rubbing slow, teasing circles.
Jared drops the photocopies and kisses him, shocking Jensen into stillness. And Jared’s about to pull back and pretend it never happened when Jensen whispers, “You don’t have to,” against his lips, and all of sudden, Jared’s pretty sure he does. He cups one hand around Jensen’s cheek, and kisses him again, coaxing Jensen’s mouth open and licking his way inside.
It’s slick and hot and good, almost as good as the hand tugging down his zipper and pulling his dick out of his boxers. Jensen works him with quick, sure strokes, and Jared reaches down to reciprocate.
Jared’s heard Jensen jerking off in the last two months - two guys in a small room, it’s bound to happen - but it’s totally different the first time it’s him making Jen’s breath catch like that, Jared dragging his thumb up under the head of Jensen’s cock and bringing that little whimper out of him.
When Jensen comes first, he licks his own come out from between Jared’s fingers, his tongue curling against Jared’s skin, and that’s so hot it brings Jared off too, his hips bucking into Jensen’s hand. “Fuck,” he says into the side of Jensen’s neck.
“Yeah,” Jensen agrees, and Jared can feel the thrum of Jensen’s pulse under his cheek.
“Never gonna be able to look at Mr. Rosenbaum again.”
“Probably not.” Jensen reaches out for a tissue to wipe his hands, and Jared lifts his head to find Jensen’s shoulders rigid.
“Jen…” he begins, but Jensen shakes his head and smiles fleetingly.
“Don’t worry, Jay. This doesn’t make you gay.” He stands up. “I think I need a shower.”
As the door closes behind him, Jared’s left feeling like he did something really stupid, but he’s not even sure what.
***
The next day, everyone’s talking about the story, passing copies to the day students who didn’t get it slipped under their doors, and staring at Mr. Rosenbaum in the hall. “Who do you think did it?” Allie asks at lunch, skimming through the copy Minka had handed her in study hall. “Handed it out, I mean?”
“I bet it was whoever did that thing with the underwear on alumni weekend,” replies Sophia.
Chad nods slowly, obviously trying to look like he knows something. “Yeah, I bet whoever did that could have pulled this off,” he says with a sly smile. Jared wishes he could kick Chad for trying to take credit for his and Jensen’s genius prank (you can still see the spray paint on the path if you squint), but that would sort of defeat the purpose, and maybe get them both in trouble.
From the way Jensen wolfs down his pizza in one minute flat and mumbles something about going to the library as he heads out, Jared suspects they’ve already got about as much trouble as they can handle.
***
A week later, Jared’s no longer sure whether he’s avoiding Jensen, or Jensen’s avoiding him, both of them staying out until on-dorm, later if they can get away with it, coming back to the room only to sleep. He knows they need to put their heads together and come up with some awesome sabotage for the Winter Formal, but it’s damn hard to get his head anywhere near Jensen’s without thinking about the little noises Jensen made when Jared was jerking him off, about the feel of Jensen’s mouth opening slick and hot under his. He doesn’t want it to be awkward, but between jerking off with his roommate and the cold brush-off afterwards, Jared doesn’t know what to expect anymore. And Jensen’s walking around with this tense, vaguely hurt look about him that makes Jared want to help.
It’s a little weird that this all changes when Jared comes back early from practice to find Jensen jerking off, his uniform slacks twisted around his thighs and his hand wrapped tight around his cock.
“Shit,” Jensen breathes, fumbling for his bedcovers. “Sorry. Sorry.”
But Jared just drops his bag and says, heart pounding in his ears, “You need a hand?”
Jensen looks up, eyes still wide and blurry with arousal, mouth hanging open, and before he even has a chance to reply, Jared’s on his knees next to Jensen’s bed, reaching under the covers and jacking him slow and sweet. “Christ, Jay,” Jensen pants, and his fingers lace with Jared’s, slippery with hand lotion, speeding up the pace. Jared kicks off his shoes and climbs into bed beside Jensen to get a better angle, and there isn’t really enough room for both of them there, and Jared’s nose is pressed against Jensen's, too close to even really look at him, and then Jensen comes with a long, shuddering moan. Jared doesn’t even care that it’s all over his pants, and he leans in to kiss Jensen hard on the mouth before lying back and saying, “So I’m thinking Tabasco sauce in the punch bowl.”
“Huh?” says Jensen, blinking dully at him.
“At the formal,” Jared persists, as if everything hasn’t been awkward for a week, as if his hand isn’t covered in Jensen’s come. “We could put Tabasco in the punch bowl. Just for a start, I mean, that wouldn’t be all we’d do.”
Jensen catches on, shakes his head. “Tabasco’s for pussies. We need to get something really hot. I think they sell, like, pure habañero extract at the market in town. Nobody would even know what hit ‘em.”
“Shit, man, we wanna make them uncomfortable, not kill them. That stuff’s intense.”
Jensen shrugs. “Fine, but no Tabasco. There must be something better.” They’re both silent for a minute, and then Jared feels Jensen’s hand working on his fly as Jensen says, “And maybe if we put it in the cups instead of the punch, they wouldn’t catch on so fast.”
Jared sucks in a breath as Jensen's hand wraps around him, still slick with come and lotion, and tries to concentrate on what Jensen’s saying, but it’s pretty much a lost cause. All his blood’s rushing down to his dick, and Jensen’s smirk says he knows it too. “Sandy’s on the dance committee, right?” So weird for Jensen to mention Sandy while jerking him off, but Jared’s too turned-on to protest. “You can charm your way in early. Or I can” - he cocks his head and grins - “since I hear she likes me so much.” He squeezes Jared's cock, and Jared isn’t even sure he understands English anymore, but Jensen’s voice is a warm vibration against his skin, and he grunts an acknowledgment of Jensen’s words. “And once you’re in, or I’m in, just a couple of drops of habañero extract in the cups - they use real cups, right? This is that kind of place. Should only take a couple of minutes. In and out before they know it.” Jensen speeds up his strokes, working his hand up and down around the shaft of Jared’s cock, flicking his thumb against the head until Jared bites his lip and comes, wet against Jensen’s belly. “We’re still going to need something else though,” Jensen finishes, wiping his hand on his t-shirt.
“You do realize I got nothing of what you just said, right?”
Jensen nuzzles the side of his neck. “I’m willing to repeat it.”
“Jen?” Jared says hesitantly. “Should we talk about this?”
“What? The formal? The punch bowl?” Jensen’s voice goes brisk, almost hard, and his eyes get that same glaze of hurt they’ve had since last week.
“The handjobs,” Jared says.
Jensen turns away, moves as far as he can towards the wall. “It’s probably better if we don’t.”
“Jen, shut up.” Jared puts a hand on his hip and pulls him closer again. “Look, I just…” But he isn’t sure what he “just” and he bites his lip. “I like it. And I like you. I don’t want it to be weird again.”
Jensen looks torn for a minute, uncertain, before he says stoutly, “Well, we’ll just have to keep it from getting weird again, won’t we?”
And Jared kisses him, long and deep, before good judgment gets the better of him.
***
“Are you a virgin?” Jensen asks baldly, one night just before Thanksgiving break. They’ve been jerking off together and maybe kissing more seriously than Jared really wants to think about.
Jared stutters, laughs nervously, and moves to kiss him again. Jensen stops him with a hand on his chest and a wicked grin. “I smell a story there, Jay.”
Jared groans and presses his face into the side of Jensen’s neck. “Come on, man. Don’t be an asshole about this.”
“Nothing asshole about it. I want to know where else your dick’s been. They always told us it was important in health class.”
Jared sighs. “Maybe,” he replies. “Maybe I am.”
Jensen laughs, short and sharp. “How can you not be sure about a thing like that?”
Jared’s blushing, and he knows it, but there’s something friendly about Jensen’s teasing that tells him it’s not a big deal either way. “Sandy and I sort of… once. Only it didn’t really, uh, work.”
“Oh,” says Jensen, looking puzzled, but he just waits for Jared to go on.
“It just, well, she hadn’t ever done it either, and,” he wrinkles his nose, “I’m not exactly small.”
Jensen squeezes his hip. “I’ve noticed.” Jared blushes even redder.
“She said it hurt too much, so we had to stop. And we didn’t really want to try it again after that, you know.”
“I can imagine.”
“So, are you?”
Jared doesn’t expect the way Jensen looks down, away from him. “Yeah.”
“And that’s embarrassing?”
“Kind of.”
Jared decides to be philosophical about it. “We’re sixteen. We’ve got plenty of time for conquest in the future.”
“You’re such a freak, Jay.” Then he puts a hand on Jared’s cheek and starts kissing him again. Nobody would ever know Jensen is a virgin from the way he kisses. Jensen seems to know what he’s doing all the time, with a kind of quiet confidence that Jared is well aware he cannot duplicate. There’s nothing shy about kissing Jensen, nothing unpracticed. Jensen cups his face and bites Jared’s lip, and slides his tongue into Jared’s mouth like there’s no place else Jensen’s tongue could be. Jared knows he’s gonna be hard enough in a minute that his dick’s going to be clamoring for attention again, despite a deft handjob earlier and all the trig he should be studying, and he can’t even make himself worry too much about the English paper that’s due when they get back from break, or… he shuts off the responsible part of his brain.
“I’m not the only freak,” says Jared, pulling back from the kiss and looking at Jensen.
“Was that a homophobic slur? I should report you to the diversity coordinator.”
Jared huffs out a laugh. The diversity coordinator is kind of a joke. She’s this really exuberant retiree with a master’s in social work, who bullied the school into giving her a volunteer position, and letting her do lectures each term on “respecting those who are different” and “eradicating racism in an unjust society” (which Percy finds particularly laughable, being the only black kid in their grade). She means well, Jared knows, but it’s pretty useless telling high school kids not to be assholes to each other. And he doesn’t think anyone’s ever gone to Ms. Gless’s “office hours” in the third floor lounge of the humanities building.
“You know how I feel about them homosexuals,” Jared says in his thickest drawl.
Jensen grins, and there’s something about Jensens’s smile that ties Jared’s stomach in knots every time. He doesn’t know if it’s a gay thing, although he sometimes wonders, but it feels good to make Jensen happy. “I don’t think you mind ‘em so much,” Jensen replies.
“Don’t reckon I do,” Jared tells him, still talking like an old western. He tries to kiss Jensen again, but Jensen pulls away.
“I got a chem test tomorrow, and if I don’t do okay, my grade’s in real trouble.”
“Oh, man, you might get an A-? How will we survive?”
Jensen shoves him lightly and sits up. “I don’t keep up my grades, and my parents’ll haul my ass back to Dallas, and you’ll be back to jerking off by yourself.” Jared thinks it’s a joke, but Jensen’s tone is a little bitter, and his smile isn’t quite so nice this time.
December
Chad is a douche. But he’s a douche who can get a keg, a whole lot of Stoli, and the use of James’s house in town on short notice when he decides what the school needs is an end-of-term party. And besides that, Jared’s known him forever, even longer than he’s known Sandy, so it’s not like they can stop being friends at this point.
It’s in that weird limbo weekend they call reading period, when mostly everyone’s got their final papers in, and all they’ve got left is a couple of tests, so no one’s quite free of the term yet, but everyone’s ready for it to be over. Jared hasn’t seen much of Jensen lately, since Jensen’s been mostly holed up in the library with his laptop, but he figures the party will be good for that.
Their prank at the formal was a roaring success, and Jared’s feeling pretty pleased with himself. And since nobody knows who to blame for the idea, nobody’s even bothering to look at them. Except Sandy, who’s always seemed to know everything about everything anyway. And besides, they could trust her not to rat them out, if it comes to that. Jensen looks skeptical when Jared tells him this, but Jared points out all the embarrassing shit he did in middle school and how she hasn’t said anything about that for years and years.
“Like what?” Jensen asks, big innocent eyes and all, and Jared verges on telling him about the time he spilled a coke all over Kristin Kreuk’s sweater in seventh grade and then offered to lick it off for her. Oh, man, Sandy had gotten hours of laughs out of that one. And when Jared asked nicely, she didn’t even mention him by name when she told the story to new kids.
“Fuck you,” Jared tells Jensen. “I’ve got no way to get dirt on you, so you sure as hell aren’t getting dirt on me.”
“Jeez, Jay, sounds like somebody’s a little paranoid. What do you think I’m gonna do, huh? Make an announcement over the PA during homeroom?”
“Never know with you, Jen. You’re one sneaky bastard.”
“It was the leather jacket that tipped you off, right?” That might have been the last time he saw Jensen smile, really smile, not that little quirk at the corner of his mouth that means he’s too exhausted to even say hi.
But Chad’s party’s going to change that. He’s calling it the “Shhh Party”, which is a stupid name to highlight the fact that he’s having it during the enforced dorm quiet hours when everybody’s supposed to “use common courtesy and keep music and conversation in student rooms and lounges to respectful levels.”
Jared doesn’t know if Chad bribed somebody, or if he’s got some black magic working for him, but it seems like half the school is crowded into James’s living room when he arrives, and James’s parents are nowhere to be seen. Jared’s eyes hook on Jensen immediately, like he’s got a special Jensen-sense.
Jensen’s standing just inside the kitchen door with Jason, who is the handsiest drunk ever, and has a fingertip tapping along to whatever point he’s making on Jensen’s chest. Jared feels absurdly protective, but he makes himself walk at normal speed to the keg, his shoulder brushing Jensen’s as he passes, just enough contact to let Jen know he’s there. He gets himself a beer and turns to find Jensen staring at him, Jason still talking and finger-tapping.
Jensen licks his lips, and Jared’s dick twitches. He knows he shouldn’t keep looking, but it’s hard not to. Jensen’s eyes draw him in and hold him tight, and Jared has to pretend to be very interested in his drink in order to resist pinning Jensen to the wall and kissing him stupid. He starts up a conversation with Shiri from his history class, but he can’t remember afterwards what they talked about. When his eyes find Jensen again, he’s closer, talking to Allie, and looking like he’s enjoying it. She laughs at something he says, throwing her head back, and Jensen winks at him. Jared’s dick tries to convince him that’s as good as an engraved invitation, but he can’t make himself walk towards Jensen because there’s no way he can hide it on his face.
Luckily or not, Chad grabs him by the elbow just as he’s wondering what Jensen’s drinking and what it would taste like on his tongue. There’s beer pong in the garage, so Jared plays until it’s clear he’s too good to get Chad any drunker, and when Chad trades him for Taylor he goes looking for Jensen again.
Only Jensen finds him first, drags him into the downstairs bathroom and kisses him until Jared can’t breathe. “Hi,” Jared pants finally, pulling away.
“Hi,” Jensen replies, and Jared stops him with a hand on his chest before he dives in for another kiss.
“You know, this is what the bedrooms are for. Why else do you think James’s mom signed us out? We’re staying here, unlike the rest of these losers. We’re fucking honored guests, Jen.”
Jensen rubs his thumb across Jared’s cheek. “Fucking honored guests, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Well then, I guess we gotta take this to a bedroom.”
Just as he’s about to come, back arching against James’s guest bed, Jared has the guilty thought that Jensen gives better head than Sandy did. But by the time he falls asleep, in a queen-size bed with Jensen’s hand in his hair and the door locked against Chad’s partygoers, all he can think is that this is definitely more than just helping out his roommate.
Part II