Fic: At Home in the World (CW RPF AU, J2, PG)
Title: At Home in the World
Fandom: CW RPF
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG
Summary: Jared's life is changing too fast. He's heading off to college, and his parents are selling the house he's always lived in. One night in the city with charming bartender Jensen gives him some new perspective.
Notes: Written for j2_everafter for the prompt Lady and the Tramp. 5180 words.
There are moving boxes everywhere. Flattened out on the front porch waiting to be filled, piled up in the front hall with locations scrawled in permanent marker on their sides. Jared counts them when he’s passing through, the wall of them like the forts he built from cardboard bricks when he was a kid. All his cardboard bricks went into the recycling last week, along with what looked like half the rest of the contents of their basement. Eighteen years is a long time to live in a house, accumulating stuff because you think you’ll be staying forever.
“Jared, honey, are you ready to take some things over to the apartment?” his mother calls from the kitchen, where’s she’s been sorting out which pots and pans to keep and which can go to Goodwill. More boxes, and Jared’s starting to feel like he can’t breathe with them pressing in around him.
“Not quite yet,” he calls back. “My laundry’s still drying.” The student apartments are nicer than he expected, high-ceilinged rooms in an older building downtown. Plenty of space for the things Jared hasn’t already boxed up to go to his parents’ new house. Although his roommate isn’t there yet, they’ve exchanged facebook messages and he seems okay.
It should be fine. Everything should be fine, and he keeps telling himself that, even though it doesn’t feel fine at all, being uprooted like this after eighteen years in the same place. His mom was an army brat, and she can’t seem to wrap her head around his attachment to this one house, this one town, even though she’s built a life here too. Her coworkers at the high school gave her a little going away party, and Jared ate leftover cake and smiled as she talked excitedly about the new things she was planning: the plot in the new backyard that would be a vegetable garden come spring, the drapes she wanted to make for the big picture window in the new living room. Her fellow teachers gave her seed packets and a gift certificate to a fabric store (“They researched it online! There’s one right up the street from the new house. Wasn’t that thoughtful?”). It’s all exciting for her. And Dad’s already gone, setting up everything for his new practice, living in that big empty house and waiting for Mom to join him.
Jared gathers his laundry from downstairs and goes back to his room, or what will be his room until tomorrow. He folds all his t-shirts slowly and carefully, delaying the inevitable, but finally there’s nothing else he can do. Mom drives him across town with one last load of stuff, and his room seems so empty when they leave, echoing, every smudge and chip of the old yellow paint visible now that the furniture is gone. Mom asks if he wants to stay at the apartment, but Jared can’t face that tonight. There isn’t that much time left that he can spend at home.
Chad’s mowing the lawn next door when Jared gets back. “We’re not going to be neighbors anymore,” he says self-evidently. “Bummer.”
Jared feels a little spark of anger because for Chad it’s just a bummer, not like his whole world turning upside down. But it’s Chad, and even though everything’s changing faster than Jared can process he doesn’t think he could lose Chad even if he tried. “You’ll come visit me, right?”
“Of course I will!” He claps Jared on the shoulder. “You’re my boy, Jay. We gotta stick together. Besides I bet your new place would be perfect for some sick parties. College girls wall to wall. And a couple of dudes for you.”
Jared laughs. “Sounds good,” he says. And it does. But it’s hard to think that far ahead. “I have more stuff to do inside. My aunt’s coming tomorrow to make sure everything’s taken care of in the house, and she’s a little nuts. See you later.”
***
Aunt Sarah shows up at nine the next morning, leaning on the doorbell until Jared just wants to put a pillow over his head and wait for the noise to go away. His mom is leaving today, and Sarah will oversee the loading of everything else from the house onto the moving truck tomorrow. And then that will be that. It will all be over. The new owners will come on the first of next month, and after that this will never be Jared’s house again.
“Good morning!” Aunt Sarah singsongs, hovering over Jared’s makeshift bed on the living room couch. “Come along, lazybones, it’s time for breakfast.”
They go to the diner up the road, and Sarah criticizes Jared’s hair, his shirt, the school he’s starting at next week, pretty much everything about his life. At least the pancakes are good. “This too shall pass,” his mom tells him wryly, on the way back to the car.
Jared forces a laugh. The only good thing about Aunt Sarah being there is that it’s maybe the only thing in the world that could make him feel better about getting the hell out of here.
***
He doesn’t expect the argument they have that night after his mom leaves, over the way Jared tapes boxes, of all things. “You obviously don’t care at all about your family’s possessions. If you want to sabotage this whole process so that all your parents’ things will wind up strewn around the inside of a moving truck, you should really just leave.” She yanks the roll of packing tape out of his hand.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Jared says meekly.
Aunt Sarah rolls her eyes. “You’re an immature child, Jared, with no work ethic and no attention to detail. It’s a good thing your parents are forcing you out of the nest because it’s obvious you lack the motivation to ever flap your wings on your own.”
“Well, how did you want me to tape it?” Jared asks, baffled.
Sarah wraps all the edges of the box in tape, not looking up. “Go home, Jared,” she tells him coldly.
Tears sting behind Jared’s eyes. “This is my home.”
“Not anymore.”
***
He walks for a really long time, walks until he’s lost, throat tight and eyes damp. He keeps swiping at them, determined not to really cry. There are people on the street he’s on now, flowing in and out of restaurants and bars. Jared doesn’t have a fake ID, but he’s six-foot-four and he’s got cash, so he picks a bar at random and heads inside. He hasn’t tried drinking away his problems before, but it seems to work okay for other people.
Inside it’s dim and mostly empty, a few clusters of people at the tables, one old man sitting at the bar. There’s a beautiful girl in a slinky red dress singing on the little stage at the back of the bar. She has a pretty, smoky voice, and the song is an old one, sweet and sad. It fits Jared’s mood.
He takes a seat at the other end of the bar from the old guy and looks at the bartender for the first time. Which may be a mistake because the bartender is kind of disconcertingly attractive. He’s cleaning glasses, but he comes over when Jared sits down, looks him up and down and says, “Coke or ginger ale?”
“What?” replies Jared.
“Coke or ginger ale? Or tonic water? I might even make you a Shirley Temple if you ask really nice. But you’re underage, so I’m sure as hell not going to serve you anything stronger.”
Jared clears his throat and squares his shoulders. “I’m not underage.”
“Uh-huh,” says the bartender. He lingers, looking at Jared, not quite smiling.
“Ginger ale,” sighs Jared. This just isn’t his day.
The bartender brings him a mug and a bowl of pretzels. “This too shall pass,” he says kindly, and this time he does smile, a quick, warm flash. Jared’s stomach twists nervously. It’s really different when a handsome bartender tells him that than when his mom does.
Jared drinks his ginger ale and eats his pretzels. He thinks maybe he should go to his apartment, but since he’s not quite sure where he is, it might be difficult to get there without getting more lost. And it’s nice in the bar, quiet except for the singer in the back and the laughter of the people at the tables. So he stays. As long as he’s here, he doesn’t have to admit to himself that his house isn’t his home anymore. And the bartender keeps topping up his drink. “Free refills?” he asks, because he doesn’t want to spend all his money if he’s not even getting drunk.
The bartender nods. “You look like you could use them.”
***
Jared realizes he’s been in the bar for at least an hour when the singer finishes her set and comes over to sit by him. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind,” she says. “Something besides Jensen’s fine, fine ass.”
“Is that his name?” Jared blurts out before he realizes he’s basically just confessed to looking at the bartender’s ass.
The singer grins. “It is. Jensen Ackles. That’s A-C-K-L-E-S.” She speaks loudly, so that Jensen looks up from the pitcher he’s pouring with his eyebrows raised in a pointed question. “One of the prettiest men in this city, and possibly the world. And he’s single. But you should watch out. He’s kind of a slut, and you look like you’ve got heartbreak enough of your own already.”
Jared shakes his head. “It’s not anything like that.”
“There are a lot of kinds of heartbreak. Not all of them start with stupid boys. I’m Danneel.” She holds out her hand to shake.
Jared introduces himself. But he isn’t quite ready to spill his guts to a stranger yet. And Danneel seems to get that. She talks to him about easier things, what kind of music he likes, who he thinks will make it to the World Series this year. Jared tries to keep his eyes off Jensen, but he keeps wandering into Jared’s peripheral vision, and the temptation is just too hard to resist. Danneel just winks at him when he realizes he’s been caught.
***
Jared doesn’t realize it’s closing time until Jensen starts pointedly putting chairs up on tables. Danneel is gone, and they’re alone in the bar, and Jared feels strangely exposed knowing that. “Do you have someplace to go tonight?” Jensen asks, as Jared slides off his stool, and Jared realizes that Jensen thinks he may be homeless. Which he’s been glumly thinking to himself all day, but he’s not. Not like that.
“Yeah,” Jared says glumly.
“But you don’t really want to go there?” Jensen guesses.
Jared nods.
“You can come with me. I’ve got some places to go. And I don’t mind company.” It doesn’t sound slutty, it just sounds kind.
“Thanks,” Jared says.
***
The street outside has emptied out by the time Jensen checks the lock on the front door, and Jared can almost hear the echo of their footsteps.
“Are you in school?” Jensen asks, as they wait at a crosswalk.
“Almost,” says Jared. “It doesn’t start for a couple of weeks.”
“College?” Jensen clarifies, and Jared’s a little humiliated that Jensen thought he was in high school, even though high school was only two months ago. It feels like it’s been a lot longer.
“Yeah. Moving downtown to go to art school.”
Jensen’s eyebrows go up. He says a lot with his eyebrows. “So, you’re an artist?”
Jared shrugs self-consciously. “Not yet. Maybe in four years.”
They keep walking, Jensen always a step or two ahead, even though Jared’s legs are longer. “So you’re a bartender,” Jared ventures, trying to break the silence.
“That obvious, huh?” Jensen replies with a wink.
“There were some clues.”
“Yeah, I guess there would be.” Jensen turns a corner and Jared follows, glancing at the street sign and realizing he still has no idea where they are.
“Do you like it?”
“Bartending? Sure. You meet a lot of interesting people and never have to get up early. Plus, you get to see the city like this.”
Jared hears rustling in an alley and stops to look. Jensen grabs his arm and yanks him past. “You don’t have to look quite that close. There are plenty of things that go on at this time of night that you don’t want to stick your nose in. You’ve got a lot to learn, kid.”
“Sorry,” says Jared. His heartbeat kicks up, Jensen’s hand still curled around his elbow.
“Let me guess,” Jensen says, squeezing and then letting go, “you’re from the suburbs where the streets are safe for children to play in, and all the stores close at nine o’clock.”
Jared thinks about his house with the big tree out front where he’d lean his bike when he got home from school, never worrying about it. It hurts in his chest. “I don’t live there anymore.”
“Being from somewhere doesn’t mean you still live there.”
“I guess so.”
Jensen looks at him for a long moment. “Is that what’s driven you to drink?”
“I drank ginger ale.”
“Yeah, but you came to my bar to do it, instead of your local Denny’s.”
Jared shrugs. “You know, all my friends think I look older than my age.”
“That’s because all of your friends are teenagers who have no idea what they’re talking about. No offense. You looked like a little lost puppy coming through my door tonight. No bartender with any self-preservation instinct would have served you when you looked like that.”
Jensen turns another corner, onto a narrow one-way street, most of the storefronts locked up tight for the night. Some of the streetlights are burnt out, giving the whole area a shadowy, uneven look. It’s not a street Jared would have thought to come down himself, not a place that looks like it’s got a lot of good to offer in the middle of the night.
“Are you hungry?” Jensen asks.
“I’m usually hungry,” Jared admits. He didn’t have dinner, since Aunt Sarah drove him out of the house before he had a chance, and it’s been a really long time since lunch, even with ginger ale tiding him over.
“Well, you’re in luck. I’m taking you for the best pasta in the city.”
Jared looks around at the metal gratings, the darkened windows behind - pawn shops, off-brand clothing stores, one that seems to be full of wigs on blindly staring mannequin heads. “Isn’t it kind of late for that?”
“Nah,” says Jensen, with another on of those quick, flashy smiles. “This place stays open pretty late. Here we are.”
It’s an alley. Really, seriously an alley. Narrow and dark and Jared’s pretty sure he can see a rat running along one wall. For the first time he starts to worry about the fact that he’s following a total stranger around one of the worst parts of the city in the middle of the night. He’s got a couple of inches on Jensen, but Jensen’s wiry and may know how to fight. At least Jared’s only got twenty bucks on him, but he’d still rather not get mugged so soon after getting kicked out of his house. “I don’t know,” he says, hesitating at the mouth of the alley, hanging back.
“Come on,” says Jensen. “Just trust me here for a minute. I’ll take good care of you.”
A door opens down the alley, and suddenly there’s a flood of sound and light. Jared follows Jensen toward it, curious. And then the smell hits him, tomato and basil and garlic, baking bread and rich, simmering meat. His stomach growls, and Jensen reaches out, beckoning him on.
“This is Tony’s,” he says at the door, which is plain dark wood set into the brick of the alley like it was left there by accident as the city changed around it. There’s a single window beside it, “Tony’s” painted in elegant red cursive. It’s all totally out of place, and Jared can’t help staring as though it might disappear like a mirage in the desert. “Come on,” Jensen repeats.
Inside, it’s bright and warm and the smells of the food are even stronger. There’s a waiter at a back table counting crumpled bills, and he glances up and waves. “Hey, Jensen. You brought somebody we should meet?” He’s young, maybe Jared’s age, with dark curly hair pulled into a short tail at the nape of his neck.
“Mario, this is Jared. Jared, this is Mario. You counting out for the night?”
“Yeah, but the old man’s still back in the kitchen. I’ll tell him you’re here.” Mario pockets his wad of bills and pushes through a swinging door at the back of the dining room, calling, “Yo, Pop! Your favorite honorary son brought a date tonight.”
Jensen rolls his eyes. “Mario’s like that anytime I bring anyone in here.”
Jared nods sympathetically, but there’s a little spark of jealousy in his chest as he thinks about how many other people Jensen may have brought to this place. He’s nobody special. This whole world is new to Jared, but to Jensen it’s just routine. He has to remember that. He doesn’t need his heart broken any more tonight.
He looks around the low-ceilinged room, exposed brick walls with sconces set high up on them. The tables are bare, except for one by the kitchen, which is covered in a crisp white cloth with a red glass candleholder in the center. The whole place is warm and smells delicious.
“Jensen! Long time no see! How is your mama? How is the bar? How is that beautiful singer friend of yours?”
“Good, good, and good. How’s this place getting by, Tony?”
“Good, good, and good! Everything is great. Business booming, kids staying out of trouble. And I hear you are bringing in someone special to meet me tonight, huh?”
“Tony, this is my friend, Jared. Jared, allow me to introduce Tony, the owner of this fine establishment.”
Tony hugs him. He barely comes up to Jared’s chin, but he’s broad and has a good deal of arm strength. “Any friend of Jensen’s is family around here. Have a seat, and I’ll get you something to eat.”
He disappears back through the swinging doors and Jared can hear him barking orders in the kitchen. “No menus, huh?”
“Trust Tony. He’ll come up with something you’ll love. You’re not vegetarian, right?”
“Um, no. Definitely not.”
“Oh, good.”
Jared doesn’t know how to make small talk with the city’s (and possibly the world’s) hottest bartender across the table from him, smiling at him like they might really be friends. He picks at the hem of a coarse white napkin with his fingernail, rearranges his silverware a couple of times for good measure. “How’d you know this place was here?” he asks finally.
“Tony lives in my mom’s neighborhood. He used to be the chef at the Haywood Hotel downtown, but he decided he wanted to have a place of his own. When I was a kid, I ran around with Mario and his older brother Richie all the time. We grew up together. And Tony and his wife looked out for us when my dad was away, bringing us big bowls of sausage and peppers.”
“What’s your dad do?”
“He’s an actor. Well, really, he’s an electrician. But he used to go out with a lot of touring productions, acting with them or helping with equipment, whatever they needed. Sometimes he does commercials and stuff in the city too. That was always great when I was a kid, seeing my dad on TV, y’know.”
“Anything I would have seen?”
“There was one for Gardner’s Candy that everyone really liked, where he’s the delivery driver taking boxes of chocolates all over, and when he gets home his wife’s real mad ‘cause it’s their anniversary. Only then it turns out he’s got a whole big box for her too.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that. Cool!” Jared grins. It’s a little point of connection, his hazy memory of the truck driver in his white cap presenting his wife with a box of chocolates so big she can barely get her arms around it. But it’s something. He wants to keep Jensen talking, keep him telling stories about his neighborhood.
“So anyway, I moved out a couple of years ago, but I try to get out to my folks’ a couple of times a month, make sure they’re doing okay. Tony checks on my mom for me if I don’t have time to come by.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah. So that’s me. Now it’s your turn. Where are you from?”
“You already know. A suburb where the streets are safe, and the stores close at nine o’clock.”
“That doesn’t tell me how it was for you. If you looked at my old neighborhood, you’d see a lot of run-down rowhouses and never know anything about the people who live there.”
“If you looked at my neighborhood, you’d see a lot of well-manicured lawns and slate roofs. It was all built up in the fourties, and all the houses are a little different, but kind of the same, you know. Some of them have been owned by the same families for two or three generations. And people take good care of them. My parents bought their house a couple of years after they got married - my grandparents helped, I guessed. They figured they would live there forever. There was a big loft upstairs that my mom used as a studio. She makes pottery. I could hear her wheel from my room, so I always knew when she was working on something new.
“There was a big picture window in the living room. It took up most of the front wall, and in the afternoon, it would get really warm, and you could just lie on the floor in the sun. My room was really big. It had a big, long closet, and I used to make forts in there, tie ropes to the doorknob and hang blankets from them to make a roof, and I had this big set of cardboard bricks to build the walls, and I would just hide there and draw for hours. It was the perfect place, up until I was about twelve, and then I had a growth spurt.”
“It sounds pretty cool,” says Jensen.
Jared nods, his throat suddenly tight. “Yeah.”
Probably the only reason he doesn’t start crying is because at that moment Tony pushes through the door from the kitchen, carrying a giant bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. Jared lets his mouth fall open. “Wow.”
“Told you Tony would care of you.”
“Tony always takes care of you,” Tony adds, clapping Jared on the shoulder. “Any of Jensen’s friends are always welcome here.”
He sets the bowl on the table, and Jared has to fold his hands together tight in order to say, “Thanks, Tony. This looks wonderful,” instead of just sticking his fork directly into the bowl.
“Oh, you brought me a boy with manners this time, huh? That’s a nice thing. That’s real nice.” He ruffles Jensen’s hair, like he’s a little kid, then does Jared’s hair for good measure. “Now eat up, boys. It’s an insult to the chef to not eat all of it.”
“Guess we better get to it then,” Jensen says. “Thanks, Tony.”
Tony retires to the kitchen with a bow, and they can hear him talking to Mario as the door swings to rest. “Well, dig in,” Jensen says.
Jared scoops some spaghetti onto his plate, and then some more, and then some more. Somehow the pile in the bowl doesn’t seem to get any smaller.
“Make sure you get some meatballs,” Jensen says, pushing one towards Jared with his fork. “They’re awesome. Well, pretty much all of it is awesome.”
Jared doesn’t know how to eat spaghetti neatly, so half of his first bite slithers down the front of his t-shirt. But the other half is so delicious it doesn’t even matter. The pasta is tender and the sauce is rich and warm; Jared can taste herbs in it he doesn’t even know the names for, all blended together perfectly. He cleans his plate in under a minute and goes back for more.
He’s finished his third helping and is ready for a break when Jensen says, “So I’m guessing you’re having a hard time leaving the house you made blanket forts in.”
“My parents are selling it. They’re moving, and I’ve got an apartment for school. So after the truck leaves tomorrow, it won’t even be my house anymore.”
“The Hallmark card says your memories of the place are what you will cherish forever, but I know that doesn’t help.”
“Some other family is going to live there. And they might not understand what a great place it is. They might paint it ugly colors or knock down walls or put on a big addition that makes it look lopsided. They might cut down the maple tree in the front yard. And there’s nothing I can do about it.” Jared shuts his eyes. He’s being a dumb kid, just like Aunt Sarah said, thinking about himself and worrying about stupid things like paint on walls he’ll never see again. Jensen must think he’s such an idiot. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, no. Don’t be,” Jensen says kindly, putting his hand over Jared’s on the table. “A house can be an anchor. It can be important, even if you don’t live there. So if the moving truck isn’t coming until tomorrow, why aren’t you there tonight?”
“My aunt kicked me out. She came to help pack up, and she said I wasn’t doing it right and I should leave.”
“What a bitch,” says Jensen vehemently. Then he grimaces. “Sorry. I shouldn’t insult your family.”
“No,” Jared says. “That’s pretty accurate.”
“So she doesn’t know where you are right now?”
“Nope. I guess she assumes I went to my apartment. Although if my parents call there and can’t find me, they may be pretty upset about that.”
“I bet they will.”
“Come morning, they’ll probably be sending out search parties if I don’t turn up. Just so you know.”
“So I can only keep you until dawn, huh?” Jensen smiles at him, and there’s this flirty implication there, this twist to his mouth that makes Jared’s cheeks heat.
“Yeah,” he replies quietly, “you can keep me until dawn.”
“Then eat up. We’ve got other places to go before then.”
***
When they’ve been walking for fifteen minutes, Jared starts to see landmarks he recognizes, eclectic neighborhoods peeling away from ritzier downtown boulevards. He has a suspicion as to where they’re going even before Jensen shows him the gap in the fence. “I’m not sure,” Jared says, but Jensen’s raised eyebrows goad him on through.
“A lot of the animals are inside for the night, but there are definitely some who like the nightlife.”
“You mean they’re out at a discotheque right now, don’t you?”
“This is their discotheque, Jared,” Jensen replies grandly, spreading his arms under a wrought iron sign that says, “City Zoo.”
A wolf howls somewhere not too far away. Jared nearly jumps out of his skin.
“That’s the opening band,” Jensen laughs. Another wolf starts up, answering. “They need to warm up a little.”
They can’t get into any of the houses, thick padlocks chained to the doors, but all the outdoor paths are open and deserted. They wind past the wolf enclosure, where the only visible wolf is perched on a log, watching them with his ears cocked. It makes Jared a little nervous, sharp dark eyes following him as he walks. The beavers are better, working away on their dam, carrying twigs in between their big teeth. Jared and Jensen stop in front of the beaver enclosure and watch for a while, Jensen standing so close that his shoulder brushes Jared’s as he leans in to point out a second beaver trundling down the hill.
“How did you know about getting in through the fence that way?”
“I make it my business to be able to get into places I want to go. It’s what makes me a great date.”
“Seems like it,” Jared agrees. He wishes he knew what Jensen means, whether any of the things he says are supposed to make Jared’s belly feel warm and tight like they do.
Jensen ducks his head and gives another of those inviting smiles, looking at Jared out of the corner of his eye. Jared tries to tell himself Jensen practices that look on every person who comes into his bar, that it’s nothing to do with him. But Jared wants to lean over and kiss him so badly anyway. “I’ve never had a date like this.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
***
They walk the whole length of the zoo twice, and Jared doesn’t want it to be over when the sky starts to lighten in the east. “Come on,” Jensen says. “There’s one more place we should go.”
There’s a park in the center of the city, a big green open space where Jared’s family used to come for the summer concert series. It looks different at dawn, grey and damp with dew, a cusp of pink above the tree line. Everything looks soft and a little unreal, which fits in with the rest of the night. In the last eight hours, Jared’s found that there’s this entire nighttime world in the city that he never would have guessed existed. Jensen’s taken him to a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant at 3 in the morning, and shown him how to sneak into the zoo, and made him laugh on the worst night of his life, and it’s just… it’s kind of magical.
They sit on a bench, Jensen’s arm slung along the back, his thumb tapping the curve of Jared’s shoulder. Jared doesn’t move, even though he wants so badly to lean in closer. He watches the sun slip up over the horizon, a bright streak across the sky that gets wider and wider. It’s six o’clock in the morning, sunrise tipping Jensen’s hair with gold, when Jensen finally kisses him, and then pulls back to say, “You are eighteen, right?”
Jared nods frantically.
“Oh thank God.” And this time when he starts kissing Jared, he doesn’t stop for a very long time. Their mouths fit together slick and hot, and Jared can feel the curve of Jensen’s smile as he kisses him.
“Hey,” Jensen murmurs, pressing lingering kisses to the corners of Jared’s mouth. “Let’s go. We should get you home.”
“Yeah,” Jared agrees. He doesn’t pull away or open his eyes. “Wherever that is.”
“You know.” Jensen tells him. “I know you know.” He stands up and tugs on Jared’s hand. “Come on. Maybe we can make a blanket fort.”
♥ fin ♥
Fandom: CW RPF
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG
Summary: Jared's life is changing too fast. He's heading off to college, and his parents are selling the house he's always lived in. One night in the city with charming bartender Jensen gives him some new perspective.
Notes: Written for j2_everafter for the prompt Lady and the Tramp. 5180 words.
There are moving boxes everywhere. Flattened out on the front porch waiting to be filled, piled up in the front hall with locations scrawled in permanent marker on their sides. Jared counts them when he’s passing through, the wall of them like the forts he built from cardboard bricks when he was a kid. All his cardboard bricks went into the recycling last week, along with what looked like half the rest of the contents of their basement. Eighteen years is a long time to live in a house, accumulating stuff because you think you’ll be staying forever.
“Jared, honey, are you ready to take some things over to the apartment?” his mother calls from the kitchen, where’s she’s been sorting out which pots and pans to keep and which can go to Goodwill. More boxes, and Jared’s starting to feel like he can’t breathe with them pressing in around him.
“Not quite yet,” he calls back. “My laundry’s still drying.” The student apartments are nicer than he expected, high-ceilinged rooms in an older building downtown. Plenty of space for the things Jared hasn’t already boxed up to go to his parents’ new house. Although his roommate isn’t there yet, they’ve exchanged facebook messages and he seems okay.
It should be fine. Everything should be fine, and he keeps telling himself that, even though it doesn’t feel fine at all, being uprooted like this after eighteen years in the same place. His mom was an army brat, and she can’t seem to wrap her head around his attachment to this one house, this one town, even though she’s built a life here too. Her coworkers at the high school gave her a little going away party, and Jared ate leftover cake and smiled as she talked excitedly about the new things she was planning: the plot in the new backyard that would be a vegetable garden come spring, the drapes she wanted to make for the big picture window in the new living room. Her fellow teachers gave her seed packets and a gift certificate to a fabric store (“They researched it online! There’s one right up the street from the new house. Wasn’t that thoughtful?”). It’s all exciting for her. And Dad’s already gone, setting up everything for his new practice, living in that big empty house and waiting for Mom to join him.
Jared gathers his laundry from downstairs and goes back to his room, or what will be his room until tomorrow. He folds all his t-shirts slowly and carefully, delaying the inevitable, but finally there’s nothing else he can do. Mom drives him across town with one last load of stuff, and his room seems so empty when they leave, echoing, every smudge and chip of the old yellow paint visible now that the furniture is gone. Mom asks if he wants to stay at the apartment, but Jared can’t face that tonight. There isn’t that much time left that he can spend at home.
Chad’s mowing the lawn next door when Jared gets back. “We’re not going to be neighbors anymore,” he says self-evidently. “Bummer.”
Jared feels a little spark of anger because for Chad it’s just a bummer, not like his whole world turning upside down. But it’s Chad, and even though everything’s changing faster than Jared can process he doesn’t think he could lose Chad even if he tried. “You’ll come visit me, right?”
“Of course I will!” He claps Jared on the shoulder. “You’re my boy, Jay. We gotta stick together. Besides I bet your new place would be perfect for some sick parties. College girls wall to wall. And a couple of dudes for you.”
Jared laughs. “Sounds good,” he says. And it does. But it’s hard to think that far ahead. “I have more stuff to do inside. My aunt’s coming tomorrow to make sure everything’s taken care of in the house, and she’s a little nuts. See you later.”
***
Aunt Sarah shows up at nine the next morning, leaning on the doorbell until Jared just wants to put a pillow over his head and wait for the noise to go away. His mom is leaving today, and Sarah will oversee the loading of everything else from the house onto the moving truck tomorrow. And then that will be that. It will all be over. The new owners will come on the first of next month, and after that this will never be Jared’s house again.
“Good morning!” Aunt Sarah singsongs, hovering over Jared’s makeshift bed on the living room couch. “Come along, lazybones, it’s time for breakfast.”
They go to the diner up the road, and Sarah criticizes Jared’s hair, his shirt, the school he’s starting at next week, pretty much everything about his life. At least the pancakes are good. “This too shall pass,” his mom tells him wryly, on the way back to the car.
Jared forces a laugh. The only good thing about Aunt Sarah being there is that it’s maybe the only thing in the world that could make him feel better about getting the hell out of here.
***
He doesn’t expect the argument they have that night after his mom leaves, over the way Jared tapes boxes, of all things. “You obviously don’t care at all about your family’s possessions. If you want to sabotage this whole process so that all your parents’ things will wind up strewn around the inside of a moving truck, you should really just leave.” She yanks the roll of packing tape out of his hand.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Jared says meekly.
Aunt Sarah rolls her eyes. “You’re an immature child, Jared, with no work ethic and no attention to detail. It’s a good thing your parents are forcing you out of the nest because it’s obvious you lack the motivation to ever flap your wings on your own.”
“Well, how did you want me to tape it?” Jared asks, baffled.
Sarah wraps all the edges of the box in tape, not looking up. “Go home, Jared,” she tells him coldly.
Tears sting behind Jared’s eyes. “This is my home.”
“Not anymore.”
***
He walks for a really long time, walks until he’s lost, throat tight and eyes damp. He keeps swiping at them, determined not to really cry. There are people on the street he’s on now, flowing in and out of restaurants and bars. Jared doesn’t have a fake ID, but he’s six-foot-four and he’s got cash, so he picks a bar at random and heads inside. He hasn’t tried drinking away his problems before, but it seems to work okay for other people.
Inside it’s dim and mostly empty, a few clusters of people at the tables, one old man sitting at the bar. There’s a beautiful girl in a slinky red dress singing on the little stage at the back of the bar. She has a pretty, smoky voice, and the song is an old one, sweet and sad. It fits Jared’s mood.
He takes a seat at the other end of the bar from the old guy and looks at the bartender for the first time. Which may be a mistake because the bartender is kind of disconcertingly attractive. He’s cleaning glasses, but he comes over when Jared sits down, looks him up and down and says, “Coke or ginger ale?”
“What?” replies Jared.
“Coke or ginger ale? Or tonic water? I might even make you a Shirley Temple if you ask really nice. But you’re underage, so I’m sure as hell not going to serve you anything stronger.”
Jared clears his throat and squares his shoulders. “I’m not underage.”
“Uh-huh,” says the bartender. He lingers, looking at Jared, not quite smiling.
“Ginger ale,” sighs Jared. This just isn’t his day.
The bartender brings him a mug and a bowl of pretzels. “This too shall pass,” he says kindly, and this time he does smile, a quick, warm flash. Jared’s stomach twists nervously. It’s really different when a handsome bartender tells him that than when his mom does.
Jared drinks his ginger ale and eats his pretzels. He thinks maybe he should go to his apartment, but since he’s not quite sure where he is, it might be difficult to get there without getting more lost. And it’s nice in the bar, quiet except for the singer in the back and the laughter of the people at the tables. So he stays. As long as he’s here, he doesn’t have to admit to himself that his house isn’t his home anymore. And the bartender keeps topping up his drink. “Free refills?” he asks, because he doesn’t want to spend all his money if he’s not even getting drunk.
The bartender nods. “You look like you could use them.”
***
Jared realizes he’s been in the bar for at least an hour when the singer finishes her set and comes over to sit by him. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind,” she says. “Something besides Jensen’s fine, fine ass.”
“Is that his name?” Jared blurts out before he realizes he’s basically just confessed to looking at the bartender’s ass.
The singer grins. “It is. Jensen Ackles. That’s A-C-K-L-E-S.” She speaks loudly, so that Jensen looks up from the pitcher he’s pouring with his eyebrows raised in a pointed question. “One of the prettiest men in this city, and possibly the world. And he’s single. But you should watch out. He’s kind of a slut, and you look like you’ve got heartbreak enough of your own already.”
Jared shakes his head. “It’s not anything like that.”
“There are a lot of kinds of heartbreak. Not all of them start with stupid boys. I’m Danneel.” She holds out her hand to shake.
Jared introduces himself. But he isn’t quite ready to spill his guts to a stranger yet. And Danneel seems to get that. She talks to him about easier things, what kind of music he likes, who he thinks will make it to the World Series this year. Jared tries to keep his eyes off Jensen, but he keeps wandering into Jared’s peripheral vision, and the temptation is just too hard to resist. Danneel just winks at him when he realizes he’s been caught.
***
Jared doesn’t realize it’s closing time until Jensen starts pointedly putting chairs up on tables. Danneel is gone, and they’re alone in the bar, and Jared feels strangely exposed knowing that. “Do you have someplace to go tonight?” Jensen asks, as Jared slides off his stool, and Jared realizes that Jensen thinks he may be homeless. Which he’s been glumly thinking to himself all day, but he’s not. Not like that.
“Yeah,” Jared says glumly.
“But you don’t really want to go there?” Jensen guesses.
Jared nods.
“You can come with me. I’ve got some places to go. And I don’t mind company.” It doesn’t sound slutty, it just sounds kind.
“Thanks,” Jared says.
***
The street outside has emptied out by the time Jensen checks the lock on the front door, and Jared can almost hear the echo of their footsteps.
“Are you in school?” Jensen asks, as they wait at a crosswalk.
“Almost,” says Jared. “It doesn’t start for a couple of weeks.”
“College?” Jensen clarifies, and Jared’s a little humiliated that Jensen thought he was in high school, even though high school was only two months ago. It feels like it’s been a lot longer.
“Yeah. Moving downtown to go to art school.”
Jensen’s eyebrows go up. He says a lot with his eyebrows. “So, you’re an artist?”
Jared shrugs self-consciously. “Not yet. Maybe in four years.”
They keep walking, Jensen always a step or two ahead, even though Jared’s legs are longer. “So you’re a bartender,” Jared ventures, trying to break the silence.
“That obvious, huh?” Jensen replies with a wink.
“There were some clues.”
“Yeah, I guess there would be.” Jensen turns a corner and Jared follows, glancing at the street sign and realizing he still has no idea where they are.
“Do you like it?”
“Bartending? Sure. You meet a lot of interesting people and never have to get up early. Plus, you get to see the city like this.”
Jared hears rustling in an alley and stops to look. Jensen grabs his arm and yanks him past. “You don’t have to look quite that close. There are plenty of things that go on at this time of night that you don’t want to stick your nose in. You’ve got a lot to learn, kid.”
“Sorry,” says Jared. His heartbeat kicks up, Jensen’s hand still curled around his elbow.
“Let me guess,” Jensen says, squeezing and then letting go, “you’re from the suburbs where the streets are safe for children to play in, and all the stores close at nine o’clock.”
Jared thinks about his house with the big tree out front where he’d lean his bike when he got home from school, never worrying about it. It hurts in his chest. “I don’t live there anymore.”
“Being from somewhere doesn’t mean you still live there.”
“I guess so.”
Jensen looks at him for a long moment. “Is that what’s driven you to drink?”
“I drank ginger ale.”
“Yeah, but you came to my bar to do it, instead of your local Denny’s.”
Jared shrugs. “You know, all my friends think I look older than my age.”
“That’s because all of your friends are teenagers who have no idea what they’re talking about. No offense. You looked like a little lost puppy coming through my door tonight. No bartender with any self-preservation instinct would have served you when you looked like that.”
Jensen turns another corner, onto a narrow one-way street, most of the storefronts locked up tight for the night. Some of the streetlights are burnt out, giving the whole area a shadowy, uneven look. It’s not a street Jared would have thought to come down himself, not a place that looks like it’s got a lot of good to offer in the middle of the night.
“Are you hungry?” Jensen asks.
“I’m usually hungry,” Jared admits. He didn’t have dinner, since Aunt Sarah drove him out of the house before he had a chance, and it’s been a really long time since lunch, even with ginger ale tiding him over.
“Well, you’re in luck. I’m taking you for the best pasta in the city.”
Jared looks around at the metal gratings, the darkened windows behind - pawn shops, off-brand clothing stores, one that seems to be full of wigs on blindly staring mannequin heads. “Isn’t it kind of late for that?”
“Nah,” says Jensen, with another on of those quick, flashy smiles. “This place stays open pretty late. Here we are.”
It’s an alley. Really, seriously an alley. Narrow and dark and Jared’s pretty sure he can see a rat running along one wall. For the first time he starts to worry about the fact that he’s following a total stranger around one of the worst parts of the city in the middle of the night. He’s got a couple of inches on Jensen, but Jensen’s wiry and may know how to fight. At least Jared’s only got twenty bucks on him, but he’d still rather not get mugged so soon after getting kicked out of his house. “I don’t know,” he says, hesitating at the mouth of the alley, hanging back.
“Come on,” says Jensen. “Just trust me here for a minute. I’ll take good care of you.”
A door opens down the alley, and suddenly there’s a flood of sound and light. Jared follows Jensen toward it, curious. And then the smell hits him, tomato and basil and garlic, baking bread and rich, simmering meat. His stomach growls, and Jensen reaches out, beckoning him on.
“This is Tony’s,” he says at the door, which is plain dark wood set into the brick of the alley like it was left there by accident as the city changed around it. There’s a single window beside it, “Tony’s” painted in elegant red cursive. It’s all totally out of place, and Jared can’t help staring as though it might disappear like a mirage in the desert. “Come on,” Jensen repeats.
Inside, it’s bright and warm and the smells of the food are even stronger. There’s a waiter at a back table counting crumpled bills, and he glances up and waves. “Hey, Jensen. You brought somebody we should meet?” He’s young, maybe Jared’s age, with dark curly hair pulled into a short tail at the nape of his neck.
“Mario, this is Jared. Jared, this is Mario. You counting out for the night?”
“Yeah, but the old man’s still back in the kitchen. I’ll tell him you’re here.” Mario pockets his wad of bills and pushes through a swinging door at the back of the dining room, calling, “Yo, Pop! Your favorite honorary son brought a date tonight.”
Jensen rolls his eyes. “Mario’s like that anytime I bring anyone in here.”
Jared nods sympathetically, but there’s a little spark of jealousy in his chest as he thinks about how many other people Jensen may have brought to this place. He’s nobody special. This whole world is new to Jared, but to Jensen it’s just routine. He has to remember that. He doesn’t need his heart broken any more tonight.
He looks around the low-ceilinged room, exposed brick walls with sconces set high up on them. The tables are bare, except for one by the kitchen, which is covered in a crisp white cloth with a red glass candleholder in the center. The whole place is warm and smells delicious.
“Jensen! Long time no see! How is your mama? How is the bar? How is that beautiful singer friend of yours?”
“Good, good, and good. How’s this place getting by, Tony?”
“Good, good, and good! Everything is great. Business booming, kids staying out of trouble. And I hear you are bringing in someone special to meet me tonight, huh?”
“Tony, this is my friend, Jared. Jared, allow me to introduce Tony, the owner of this fine establishment.”
Tony hugs him. He barely comes up to Jared’s chin, but he’s broad and has a good deal of arm strength. “Any friend of Jensen’s is family around here. Have a seat, and I’ll get you something to eat.”
He disappears back through the swinging doors and Jared can hear him barking orders in the kitchen. “No menus, huh?”
“Trust Tony. He’ll come up with something you’ll love. You’re not vegetarian, right?”
“Um, no. Definitely not.”
“Oh, good.”
Jared doesn’t know how to make small talk with the city’s (and possibly the world’s) hottest bartender across the table from him, smiling at him like they might really be friends. He picks at the hem of a coarse white napkin with his fingernail, rearranges his silverware a couple of times for good measure. “How’d you know this place was here?” he asks finally.
“Tony lives in my mom’s neighborhood. He used to be the chef at the Haywood Hotel downtown, but he decided he wanted to have a place of his own. When I was a kid, I ran around with Mario and his older brother Richie all the time. We grew up together. And Tony and his wife looked out for us when my dad was away, bringing us big bowls of sausage and peppers.”
“What’s your dad do?”
“He’s an actor. Well, really, he’s an electrician. But he used to go out with a lot of touring productions, acting with them or helping with equipment, whatever they needed. Sometimes he does commercials and stuff in the city too. That was always great when I was a kid, seeing my dad on TV, y’know.”
“Anything I would have seen?”
“There was one for Gardner’s Candy that everyone really liked, where he’s the delivery driver taking boxes of chocolates all over, and when he gets home his wife’s real mad ‘cause it’s their anniversary. Only then it turns out he’s got a whole big box for her too.”
“Oh yeah, I remember that. Cool!” Jared grins. It’s a little point of connection, his hazy memory of the truck driver in his white cap presenting his wife with a box of chocolates so big she can barely get her arms around it. But it’s something. He wants to keep Jensen talking, keep him telling stories about his neighborhood.
“So anyway, I moved out a couple of years ago, but I try to get out to my folks’ a couple of times a month, make sure they’re doing okay. Tony checks on my mom for me if I don’t have time to come by.”
“That’s nice.”
“Yeah. So that’s me. Now it’s your turn. Where are you from?”
“You already know. A suburb where the streets are safe, and the stores close at nine o’clock.”
“That doesn’t tell me how it was for you. If you looked at my old neighborhood, you’d see a lot of run-down rowhouses and never know anything about the people who live there.”
“If you looked at my neighborhood, you’d see a lot of well-manicured lawns and slate roofs. It was all built up in the fourties, and all the houses are a little different, but kind of the same, you know. Some of them have been owned by the same families for two or three generations. And people take good care of them. My parents bought their house a couple of years after they got married - my grandparents helped, I guessed. They figured they would live there forever. There was a big loft upstairs that my mom used as a studio. She makes pottery. I could hear her wheel from my room, so I always knew when she was working on something new.
“There was a big picture window in the living room. It took up most of the front wall, and in the afternoon, it would get really warm, and you could just lie on the floor in the sun. My room was really big. It had a big, long closet, and I used to make forts in there, tie ropes to the doorknob and hang blankets from them to make a roof, and I had this big set of cardboard bricks to build the walls, and I would just hide there and draw for hours. It was the perfect place, up until I was about twelve, and then I had a growth spurt.”
“It sounds pretty cool,” says Jensen.
Jared nods, his throat suddenly tight. “Yeah.”
Probably the only reason he doesn’t start crying is because at that moment Tony pushes through the door from the kitchen, carrying a giant bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. Jared lets his mouth fall open. “Wow.”
“Told you Tony would care of you.”
“Tony always takes care of you,” Tony adds, clapping Jared on the shoulder. “Any of Jensen’s friends are always welcome here.”
He sets the bowl on the table, and Jared has to fold his hands together tight in order to say, “Thanks, Tony. This looks wonderful,” instead of just sticking his fork directly into the bowl.
“Oh, you brought me a boy with manners this time, huh? That’s a nice thing. That’s real nice.” He ruffles Jensen’s hair, like he’s a little kid, then does Jared’s hair for good measure. “Now eat up, boys. It’s an insult to the chef to not eat all of it.”
“Guess we better get to it then,” Jensen says. “Thanks, Tony.”
Tony retires to the kitchen with a bow, and they can hear him talking to Mario as the door swings to rest. “Well, dig in,” Jensen says.
Jared scoops some spaghetti onto his plate, and then some more, and then some more. Somehow the pile in the bowl doesn’t seem to get any smaller.
“Make sure you get some meatballs,” Jensen says, pushing one towards Jared with his fork. “They’re awesome. Well, pretty much all of it is awesome.”
Jared doesn’t know how to eat spaghetti neatly, so half of his first bite slithers down the front of his t-shirt. But the other half is so delicious it doesn’t even matter. The pasta is tender and the sauce is rich and warm; Jared can taste herbs in it he doesn’t even know the names for, all blended together perfectly. He cleans his plate in under a minute and goes back for more.
He’s finished his third helping and is ready for a break when Jensen says, “So I’m guessing you’re having a hard time leaving the house you made blanket forts in.”
“My parents are selling it. They’re moving, and I’ve got an apartment for school. So after the truck leaves tomorrow, it won’t even be my house anymore.”
“The Hallmark card says your memories of the place are what you will cherish forever, but I know that doesn’t help.”
“Some other family is going to live there. And they might not understand what a great place it is. They might paint it ugly colors or knock down walls or put on a big addition that makes it look lopsided. They might cut down the maple tree in the front yard. And there’s nothing I can do about it.” Jared shuts his eyes. He’s being a dumb kid, just like Aunt Sarah said, thinking about himself and worrying about stupid things like paint on walls he’ll never see again. Jensen must think he’s such an idiot. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, no. Don’t be,” Jensen says kindly, putting his hand over Jared’s on the table. “A house can be an anchor. It can be important, even if you don’t live there. So if the moving truck isn’t coming until tomorrow, why aren’t you there tonight?”
“My aunt kicked me out. She came to help pack up, and she said I wasn’t doing it right and I should leave.”
“What a bitch,” says Jensen vehemently. Then he grimaces. “Sorry. I shouldn’t insult your family.”
“No,” Jared says. “That’s pretty accurate.”
“So she doesn’t know where you are right now?”
“Nope. I guess she assumes I went to my apartment. Although if my parents call there and can’t find me, they may be pretty upset about that.”
“I bet they will.”
“Come morning, they’ll probably be sending out search parties if I don’t turn up. Just so you know.”
“So I can only keep you until dawn, huh?” Jensen smiles at him, and there’s this flirty implication there, this twist to his mouth that makes Jared’s cheeks heat.
“Yeah,” he replies quietly, “you can keep me until dawn.”
“Then eat up. We’ve got other places to go before then.”
***
When they’ve been walking for fifteen minutes, Jared starts to see landmarks he recognizes, eclectic neighborhoods peeling away from ritzier downtown boulevards. He has a suspicion as to where they’re going even before Jensen shows him the gap in the fence. “I’m not sure,” Jared says, but Jensen’s raised eyebrows goad him on through.
“A lot of the animals are inside for the night, but there are definitely some who like the nightlife.”
“You mean they’re out at a discotheque right now, don’t you?”
“This is their discotheque, Jared,” Jensen replies grandly, spreading his arms under a wrought iron sign that says, “City Zoo.”
A wolf howls somewhere not too far away. Jared nearly jumps out of his skin.
“That’s the opening band,” Jensen laughs. Another wolf starts up, answering. “They need to warm up a little.”
They can’t get into any of the houses, thick padlocks chained to the doors, but all the outdoor paths are open and deserted. They wind past the wolf enclosure, where the only visible wolf is perched on a log, watching them with his ears cocked. It makes Jared a little nervous, sharp dark eyes following him as he walks. The beavers are better, working away on their dam, carrying twigs in between their big teeth. Jared and Jensen stop in front of the beaver enclosure and watch for a while, Jensen standing so close that his shoulder brushes Jared’s as he leans in to point out a second beaver trundling down the hill.
“How did you know about getting in through the fence that way?”
“I make it my business to be able to get into places I want to go. It’s what makes me a great date.”
“Seems like it,” Jared agrees. He wishes he knew what Jensen means, whether any of the things he says are supposed to make Jared’s belly feel warm and tight like they do.
Jensen ducks his head and gives another of those inviting smiles, looking at Jared out of the corner of his eye. Jared tries to tell himself Jensen practices that look on every person who comes into his bar, that it’s nothing to do with him. But Jared wants to lean over and kiss him so badly anyway. “I’ve never had a date like this.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
***
They walk the whole length of the zoo twice, and Jared doesn’t want it to be over when the sky starts to lighten in the east. “Come on,” Jensen says. “There’s one more place we should go.”
There’s a park in the center of the city, a big green open space where Jared’s family used to come for the summer concert series. It looks different at dawn, grey and damp with dew, a cusp of pink above the tree line. Everything looks soft and a little unreal, which fits in with the rest of the night. In the last eight hours, Jared’s found that there’s this entire nighttime world in the city that he never would have guessed existed. Jensen’s taken him to a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant at 3 in the morning, and shown him how to sneak into the zoo, and made him laugh on the worst night of his life, and it’s just… it’s kind of magical.
They sit on a bench, Jensen’s arm slung along the back, his thumb tapping the curve of Jared’s shoulder. Jared doesn’t move, even though he wants so badly to lean in closer. He watches the sun slip up over the horizon, a bright streak across the sky that gets wider and wider. It’s six o’clock in the morning, sunrise tipping Jensen’s hair with gold, when Jensen finally kisses him, and then pulls back to say, “You are eighteen, right?”
Jared nods frantically.
“Oh thank God.” And this time when he starts kissing Jared, he doesn’t stop for a very long time. Their mouths fit together slick and hot, and Jared can feel the curve of Jensen’s smile as he kisses him.
“Hey,” Jensen murmurs, pressing lingering kisses to the corners of Jared’s mouth. “Let’s go. We should get you home.”
“Yeah,” Jared agrees. He doesn’t pull away or open his eyes. “Wherever that is.”
“You know.” Jensen tells him. “I know you know.” He stands up and tugs on Jared’s hand. “Come on. Maybe we can make a blanket fort.”
♥ fin ♥