New J2 story: Mr. Piggles Makes A Match
Happy early birthday, barkley! This story is absolutely not for you, since I know how much you hate this sort of thing. Especially since you definitely didn't send me the blurb which inspired me, either. (Seriously, how am I supposed to resist the idea that Jensen's most treasured possession was once a pink stuffed pig? I'm only human!!)
Mr. Piggles Makes a Match
J2, PG, 4237 words
Notes: Silliness. Schmoop. Pink stuffed pigs. What more can I say? Gigantic thanks to rejeneration and annalazarus for their fantastic and speedy beta work.
Mr. Piggles Makes a Match
by Destina
In a bizarre kind of way - and really, that's the story of their lives - the whole thing with Jared and Jensen started with laundry.
Jensen was pretty sure that from Jared's point of view, the big benefit of the two of them sharing a house was that Jensen did the laundry every week. Before Jensen moved in, Jared would just head over to Jensen's and dig into Jensen's stash of clean socks and T-shirts whenever he ran low. It was weird, sure, but not any weirder than Jared leaving a pair of purple corduroy slippers under Jensen's couch for 'emergencies', or Jared mixing sliced jalapenos into the mayo jar (for dipping chips into) and marking it 'MINE' so Jensen wouldn't touch it when Jared wasn't there to share. Jensen was pretty much over thinking anything Jared did was weird.
But once the whole housemate thing came up, Jensen bravely took over washing all Jared's stinky clothes. Which meant Jared would wait every Saturday for the fresh laundry to finish in the dryer, and for Jensen to get the basket and take it into the living room. At which point, Jared would bury his face in it and inhale, moaning quietly in a vaguely obscene way that made Jensen turn pink.
"Dude," Jensen said, faint protest at best, because the laundry-sniffing was quite a spectacle. But Jared was hopped up on Downey and Bounce, and he wasn't paying attention.
"Smells like home," he said once, with a completely blissed-out look on his face, and that was all it took for Jensen, because that happiness in Jared's eyes did fluttery things to Jensen's belly.
Even though Jared's laundry was getting washed, a new problem materialized: everything was mixed together, which meant it all ended up on Jensen's floor overspilling the basket in big fluffy piles, waiting for a sorting that neither of them ever got around to doing. And when Jared burst into Jensen's room in the morning mumbling, "I'm'a just get some pants, dude," Jensen usually pulled the comforter over his head and ignored the rummaging. Until Jared would flop down on the bed, tugging on his pants and shaking his wet hair at Jensen and going a mile a minute about his run and the headlines and what was ahead in the day, and Jensen wouldn't have any choice but to roll over and face down Mr. Perky, no matter how sleepy he was.
Sometimes he'd fall asleep again, and he'd wake up to find Jared still talking. Jared never seemed to mind.
On this particular Sunday morning, there was no clean dry laundry, on account of how Jensen had forgotten it in the washing machine while Jared plied him with tequila and pizza and forced him to play like a hundred hands of Up The River while doubling his shots. Jensen was pretty sure his head was larger than the entire bed, and had twice as many dents. Deep, deep dents, where his brain was currently mashed in and painful.
When Jared popped through the door, he stopped short in the darkened room and said, "Rise and shine, honey!"
"Ugh," Jensen answered. He burrowed deeper into the bed and tried to tune out Jared's intensely loud breathing. But then Jared started talking again, and all his millions of words echoed around the room.
"Your mom called. I told her you were passed out in the backyard. She told me to put you in with the compost. Compost, dude! S'all right, 'cause you look like shit anyway. Hey, I need to borrow a shirt." And the next thing Jensen knew (or as much as he could tell with only one eye slitted open, anyway), Jared had pulled the curtains apart and was clawing his way through Jensen's closet in search of something too big for Jensen, even though it was like taking the worst dare anyone could imagine, because Jensen's closet was ten layers deep with crap he hadn't hung up or put away after moving in. Moving was hell. Time was short. Besides, eventually he was going to have a place of his own. Someday. Later.
"How do you ever find anything in here?" Jared asked him, muffled by the soft, smothering weight of old sweats and t-shirts with questionable slogans and ripped jeans that had the knack for showing just a hair too much in the wrong places.
"I don't look?" Jensen sat up in the bed, scratched his stubble, and watched Jared, though only his ass was visible, since piles of Jensen-crap obscured the rest of him. It wasn't a bad view, Jared's ass, though Jensen usually kept that opinion to himself. Some things co-stars just shouldn't think about. Or share.
"You don't-" Jared stopped, then the pile shook upward, like he'd been violently bitten by something. Given how long that pile had been there, Jensen wouldn't have been surprised. But Jared was laughing. Well, not really. Giggling, was more like it. He pulled his head out of the pile, lint and string in his hair. And then he extended his arm, and there, in his huge hand, was one stuffed pink pig, slightly smooshed.
Jensen reacted on instinct; he slithered out of bed (because walking would require coordination) and snatched the pig from Jared's hand. "Excuse me, stop touching Mr. Piggles."
"Mr..." Jared's jaw dropped open, just like a comic-book double-take, and one corner of his lip twitched up like Elvis on crack. "Mr. Piggles?"
"Yes." Jensen pulled Mr. Piggles closer on instinct, because he didn't like that look on Jared; it was one step away from psychotic pig-mauler. "Mr. Piggles."
Jared's lip twitched, his nostrils flared, and he said, "It has a name?"
"Mr. Piggles has been my friend longer than you have." Jensen pointed the pig at him, snout-first. "And he doesn't like people who laugh at him."
"He doesn't," Jared said slowly, as though Jensen had just said the entire sentence backwards and he was translating. And then the other side of his lip curled up, creating a sly smile. "You couldn't just have a stuffed bear or something?"
"I had a bear. It didn't last." Jensen could still remember that bear and its freaky plaid bow tie and its snake-like orange eyes, which Jensen had plucked off immediately. Family legend was, Jensen had eaten the eyes with a maniacal toddler-cackle, a portent of evil to come. "Some people are cat people, some are dog people. Whatever. For me it was Mr. Piggles."
"And he's the only one for you," Jared said. His face twitched. Not just one part of it; his entire face, like he'd just pulled back on a sneeze.
"I'm a monogamous guy," Jensen said, and that did it - the sound that burst out of Jared was like a cross between a wheeze and a belly-laugh, and he fell over on his butt, cracking up.
Jensen put one hand over his left eye, which was currently on the verge of exploding. Right then, Jared loomed up out of nowhere and stole Mr. Piggles from him. "Hey, gimme!" Jensen protested, making a grab for it.
"Hell, no." Jared backed up, still chuckling, and tucked Mr. Piggles in against his body. The little pink pig was dwarfed by Jared's giant arm, but he seemed perfectly happy in the curve of Jared's elbow. The sight of him there reminded Jensen of being a kid, and the hundred times he'd snuggled the pig. He'd probably cried a bucket of tears into its fur after falling off his bike, or fighting with his brother, or drama at school. He wouldn't be surprised if it was still slightly damp, even after all these years. "You don't want him anymore, right? Otherwise, why would he be under that heap of shit in the closet?"
"I just hadn't gotten around to, uh. Putting him somewhere special." Jensen looked around the room desperately. There was the bed, and about forty boxes in various stages of packed, unpacked, and destroyed. No location screamed 'special' to him.
"Whatever. Mr. Piggles and me, we're gonna spend some quality time communing. Getting to know each other." Jared's eyes gleamed. "He's going to tell me everything about you."
Jensen snorted. Mr. Piggles was loyal. No way was he going to spill to Jared. Also, Jensen was clearly still drunk, because he was delusional and thinking his stuffed pig even had loyalties, which, maybe when he was five years old and the pig was his best friend, but now, not so much. "Come on," he began, but Jared was up off the floor - with one of Jensen's T-shirts in his left hand and Mr. Piggles still snuggled securely in his arms.
"Finders keepers," Jared said. "Coffee's on, too. Whenever."
When Jared left the room, Jensen sighed. He knew already from experience there was no way Jared would ever let this go. Poor Mr. Piggles. He had no idea what he was in for. So Jensen staggered toward the shower. After about ten minutes under a hot stream of water, he'd be persuasive again, and he'd go and save the pig from Jared's attentions.
He wasn't prepared, however, to find Mr. Piggles as the centerpiece on the table when he wandered into the kitchen, lured by delicious, mouth-watering smells. "Oh, nice," he muttered, pointing to the platter of bacon upon which Mr. Piggles' paw rested. "How do you think that makes him feel?"
"He's just glad he can't be eaten." Jared grinned and poured Jensen a cup of coffee, which Jensen gratefully accepted. Jared ran a gentle hand through Jensen's wet hair, floofing it up, and spared an extra moment to scrunch it up in the center. "There. Now you match."
Jensen rolled his eyes and glanced over at Mr. Piggles, who had one wayward tuft of pink fuzz remaining on his rotund head.
All during breakfast, Mr. Piggles stared Jensen down accusingly - possibly, because he'd been crushed underneath ten tons of Jensen's miscellaneous crap for the last decade - while Jared ate fried eggs and bacon and smirked at him. And then Jared gulped down the last of his coffee, plucked Mr. Piggles from the table, and stuffed him down into his waistband, with his face and two of his wee feet sticking out. "Gotta get groceries," he said, snatching his keys off the counter. "Want anything special, or should I get the usual?"
"Uh, Jared?" Jensen took a bite of bacon, chewed, and swallowed, then pointed to Jared's waist. "You've got a pig in your pants."
"Not the first time, won't be the last," Jared called, rising predictably to the bait on his way out the door.
Jensen sighed. It was going to be a long week.
**
For the next two days, everywhere Jared went, Mr. Piggles was in tow. Mr. Piggles rode on the dashboard on the way to the studio; he warmed Jared's chair between scenes on set; he peeked out of Jared's pocket when Jared wore his jacket. All the ADs and grips and assistants on set cooed over the pig, and Jensen rolled his eyes and actually blushed with embarrassment when Jared took Mr. Piggles out of his pocket and introduced him to Kim as "Jensen's bestest friend.'
"Seriously, quit it," he told Jared during lunch, while Jared petted Piggles absentmindedly and toggled his BlackBerry with his other hand.
"What?" Jared stopped screwing with his email, but his hand still moved over Piggles gently, stroking what was left of his once-vibrant pink fur. "He's been starved for affection, man. He needs a little TLC." Jared picked Piggles up and pointed accusingly at his belly. "I had to have Serene sew up his tummy today!"
"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Jensen stared at the neat, shiny satin pink stitches across the threadbare belly. He could still remember when he'd ripped Piggles open by accident when he was ten. He'd stapled Piggles up in a fit of guilt, and later he'd taped him shut, but...that was a long time ago.
His guilty look must have been obvious, because Jared nodded smugly. "That's what I thought," he said, and tucked Piggles back into his lap. Jensen rolled his eyes and went back to flipping through his own email, but his gaze kept straying to Piggles, and to Jared petting him in a very soothing way, the bastard.
"He was mine first," Jensen said grumpily, not looking at Jared. "He'll never love you like he does me."
"Maybe not," Jared said softly. "But I'll love him anyway."
Jensen swallowed hard and resisted the urge to snatch Piggles right out of Jared's lap. He wasn't sure who he was more jealous of - the pig, or Jared.
**
On Tuesday right before end of day, Jensen tripped on an unsecured cable, lost his balance, and went crashing into a bank of lights head-first. He had a glimpse of Jared reaching for him right before his head struck something hard and everything went dark.
When he opened his eyes, he was surrounded by shouting people, his head in Jared's lap and Jared's fingers fluttering around his face.
"Jesus Christ, Jensen," Jared gasped, "are you all right?"
Jensen stared at Jared, transfixed by the look of terror on his face. He reached up and touched Jared's shirt, clutched at it a little, and then he got a hold of himself. "Yeah," he said, wincing. "What'd I hit?"
"You broke the pole with your head," Jared said, amusement warring with fear.
"Better it than me," Jensen said. The PAs all laughed nervously, possibly hysterical about the imminent loss of their jobs because none of them had been the one to cushion his fall. Jensen sat up cautiously, Jared's hand on his back.
"Your head's split open," Jared said. "Let the nice paramedic stuff your brains back in so I can take you home."
"Too late for that," Jensen muttered, while the medic fussed over him.
One itchy butterfly bandage and a long, long ride later, Jared was practically shoving Jensen into his bed fully clothed. "Uh, shower? Can I at least-"
"No," Jared said, manhandling him. "Rest. You've got a concussion."
"Duh," Jensen said. He was, in fact, very sleepy, but it wasn't like he was going to get any rest with Jared hovering around and poking at him worriedly to make sure he wasn't in a coma. He took the Tylenol and water Jared handed him and swallowed them, then curled up on his side with a sigh.
"You want anything?"
"A beer."
"Ha."
"Some food, then."
"I'll get subs from Carlo's." Something soft tickled Jensen's cheek; he opened his eyes to see Mr. Piggles nestled beside him on the pillow, gazing into his face worriedly. Jensen had another momentary pang of guilt for all those stitches on his belly.
"Now I know how you feel," he muttered. He pulled the pig down onto his chest and closed his eyes.
Jared woke him half an hour later by waving a sub in his face, then sprawling on the bed beside him and munching his own sandwich. They ate in contented silence, but Jensen's head really was hurting, and chewing made it hurt worse. He was hungry, but eventually the headache won out over delicious salami, and he handed the remains to Jared. Who ate them.
He was mostly asleep by the time Jared threw away the wrappers; Mr. Piggles was warm on his chest, but only that one spot. The rest of him was freezing. "Dude," Jensen said, as Jared switched off the light. "I'm cold. And my head is broken."
"The light pole had it a lot worse," Jared told him. "At least we have a late call, if you need that."
"Nah. I'll be great in the morning." Jensen picked up Mr. Piggles and held him out to Jared. "Hate to say it, but he's not cutting it in the comfort department."
"Don't dis Mr. Piggles," Jared said. He switched off the other light. A second later, the warm weight of Jared settled in all around Jensen, an arm across Jensen's stomach and Jared's breath on the back of Jensen's neck. Jared wedged Mr. Piggles in under Jensen's chin. "Now shut up and go to sleep."
With the musty, familiar smell of his childhood surrounding him, and Jared radiating heat beside him, Jensen drifted off.
**
Cold weather descended hard on Vancouver at the end of the week, bringing the kind of chill custom-designed for nights by the fire. By the time Friday rolled around, Jensen was concussion-free, and he had learned how to ignore Jared cooing to Mr. Piggles during their down time on set. He was pretending not to care that Jared was paying more attention to the pig than he was to Jensen.
It was oddly touching, the way Jared cuddled that damn pig, but Jensen would cut his tongue out before he'd admit it. Especially since he was having intermittent urges to curl up with Mr. Piggles himself, ever since he broke his head. But to snuggle the pig, he'd probably have to wrestle Jared for it.
"Hey," Jared said in the car on the way home. "Let's get some pizza and stay in tonight. Want to?"
Jensen glanced over; the tip of one faded pink ear was poking out from Jared's top jacket pocket. He sighed. "Sure."
They ordered three pizzas and some extra soda to supplement their ample supply of beer and booze, and when it arrived, they chowed down in front of the TV for at least half an hour, swapping ideas about the current arc of the show. Jensen loved hanging out with Jared at home. He wasn't exactly sure when he'd come to think of it as their home, but a tiny part of him was sure it was before he had actually moved in. More and more of it was theirs; their couches, their shelves, their books. Their TV. Once in a while, Jensen would look at Jared and think, I could stay here forever, and know that home had nothing to do with the house at all.
But those were the kinds of thoughts that led to bad things down the road, so Jensen tried to live in the moment, and be happy, and not think about forever at all.
They sat on the floor, backs against the couch, shoulders touching, and flipped channels on the TV, still talking quietly every so often between Jared's exclamations of "Oh, sweet!" and "Dude, suck!" as he passed by various shows. Jensen was warm and full and comfortable, and about ten seconds away from putting his head back on the seat of the couch and crashing.
"Is it cold in here?" Jared asked suddenly. He got up, depriving Jensen of the warm radiance at his side, and poked around in the fireplace for a minute. Jensen closed his eyes and waited; he knew the fire was going once the glow of heat began licking at his face. But his other side was cold, and Jared was taking a long time.
"Get back here," Jensen demanded. "I'm cold again. And bring the remote."
"Jesus, hold your horses." A second later, something soft descended over Jensen. He cracked an eye open and realized it was the comforter from Jared's bed.
"We sleeping out here?" he asked, grinning.
"You're already sleeping out here." Jared flopped down and scooted closer, then yanked the comforter over himself. "I'm just facilitating."
"Cool." Jensen watched the TV through slitted eyes, until he happened to glance left at the coffee table and saw Mr. Piggles sitting between the platter of chips and the pizza box, swaddled in an orange kitchen towel Jared's mother had sent them. He laughed, because the damn pig looked...well, he looked cute as hell, and there wasn't any getting around it.
Jared just grinned some more. "Hey, he wouldn't be cold if you hadn't plucked all his fur."
"Oh, right." Jensen's grin hitched into a yawn, and he slumped a little further down.
"Anyway, Mr. Piggles has been telling me stuff about you."
"Oh, really?" Jensen arched an eyebrow and turned his head to look at Jared. "We haven't exactly been chummy the last 20 years. We pretty much stopped braiding each other's hair when I was five."
"He knows you pretty well," Jared said. "Like, he told me how you used to sing him to sleep."
Jensen frowned. "How'd you know that?" It was true, for certain values of sing and sleep; Jensen would whisper Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and I See The Moon into Mr. Piggles' ear, and in doing so had soothed himself to sleep.
"Mr. Piggles tells all," Jared said, waggling his eyebrows at Jensen.
"Mr. Piggles should keep his big mouth shut," Jensen said. He was pretty sure Jared had been talking to Jensen's mother again, prying all his most embarrassing childhood stories out of her, but whatever. If they wanted to drink tea and gossip about him in the afternoons, it wasn't like he could stop them.
"I filled him in on a few things about you," Jared said. "How you are now, I mean. Since he hasn't seen you much. Just the top three things nobody but me knows about you."
Now that was interesting. Jensen shifted under the comforter, turned slightly toward Jared. "Like what? What do you think you know that's so special?"
Jared shifted, too, until they were facing each other, more or less. He kicked the comforter, making room for his gigantic feet. "I told him how you like to mix peanut butter and brown sugar up for breakfast."
"Okay, I'll give you that one." Jensen smiled. It wasn't exactly a dirty secret, but Jared probably was the only person who had ever seen him mix up the two in a bowl and slather it on toast. "What else?"
"I told him how Pretty in Pink makes you cry."
"Unfair, man." Jensen huffed a little, lifted his right shoulder up so he couldn't see Piggles mocking him. Jared, on the other hand, was looking at Jensen the way he usually looked at the stuffed pig, something soft and fond in his eyes. Jensen lowered his gaze, feeling like a ridiculous girl about it, but Jared was too intense. "What other lies have you told him?"
"Don't front, you know it's true." Jared shifted closer; his warm breath was soft on Jensen's face. "You want to know what the third thing was?"
"Yeah." Jensen didn't look up, and he waited for it. Waited, because he was sure whatever Jared was going to say next was going to change everything.
"I told him...you're the best friend I've ever had. That you'd give the shirt off your back to a stranger on the street. That's how big your heart is." Jared's voice was low, quiet.
Jensen looked up, met Jared's eyes. Licked his lips, and smiled. "That what you really told him?"
Jared leaned closer, smiled, so close the smile curved into Jensen's mouth. "Maybe not," Jared said, and then he kissed Jensen, slow, careful, like maybe Jensen would shy away from him at any second. Jensen leaned in, provoking a sigh from Jared, and deepened the kiss until Jared's arms were around him, and Jensen was half on top of Jared, and they were wrapped up in each other in a Downey-scented tunnel of comforter.
Jensen didn't really need Jared to tell him what the third thing was.
**
In the morning, a shout woke Jensen from the best sleep he'd had in months, and he sat bolt upright in the messy bed - Jared's bed, which was big and comfortable, and where Jensen thought he might be spending a fair amount of time from now on. He barely had time to grin cockily about that before Jared shouted again, closer this time. "Harley! Give that back!"
A moment later, Harley bounded into the room, Mr. Piggles clutched tight in his jaws, with Jared right behind him. "Now," Jared boomed, and Harley dropped Mr. Piggles unceremoniously on the carpet, then scampered away.
"Ewww," Jensen said, as Jared picked up the pig from the floor. "Dog drool."
Jared wiped the pig off on his shirt, then set it up high on the dresser where the dogs wouldn't eat him. "Poor Mr. Piggles. It's my fault. I shouldn't have left him beside the leftover pizza. No wonder they thought he was food."
"Dude, you really do love that pig more than you love me." The words were out before Jensen's sleep-addled brain could catch up, but it was too late by then; a huge, happy smile was spreading over Jared's face. Jared pulled his shirt off, threw it on the floor, and crawled up on the bed. He spread himself out all over Jensen, kissing the last bits of sleep away.
"You don't get it, do you?" Jared murmured. "I love Mr. Piggles because you love him. And guess why he loves me?"
"Don't know," Jensen breathed into Jared's mouth, one hand curled behind Jared's head. "Tell me."
"He loves me because you do," Jared said, and then there was no more talking. Just kissing, soft, slow, and Jared's hands all over Jensen's body, and Jensen smiling into the curve of Jared's shoulder.
From his perch on the dresser, Mr. Piggles watched through drool-smeared eyes and beamed with silent pink approval.
end
Mr. Piggles Makes a Match
J2, PG, 4237 words
Notes: Silliness. Schmoop. Pink stuffed pigs. What more can I say? Gigantic thanks to rejeneration and annalazarus for their fantastic and speedy beta work.
Mr. Piggles Makes a Match
by Destina
In a bizarre kind of way - and really, that's the story of their lives - the whole thing with Jared and Jensen started with laundry.
Jensen was pretty sure that from Jared's point of view, the big benefit of the two of them sharing a house was that Jensen did the laundry every week. Before Jensen moved in, Jared would just head over to Jensen's and dig into Jensen's stash of clean socks and T-shirts whenever he ran low. It was weird, sure, but not any weirder than Jared leaving a pair of purple corduroy slippers under Jensen's couch for 'emergencies', or Jared mixing sliced jalapenos into the mayo jar (for dipping chips into) and marking it 'MINE' so Jensen wouldn't touch it when Jared wasn't there to share. Jensen was pretty much over thinking anything Jared did was weird.
But once the whole housemate thing came up, Jensen bravely took over washing all Jared's stinky clothes. Which meant Jared would wait every Saturday for the fresh laundry to finish in the dryer, and for Jensen to get the basket and take it into the living room. At which point, Jared would bury his face in it and inhale, moaning quietly in a vaguely obscene way that made Jensen turn pink.
"Dude," Jensen said, faint protest at best, because the laundry-sniffing was quite a spectacle. But Jared was hopped up on Downey and Bounce, and he wasn't paying attention.
"Smells like home," he said once, with a completely blissed-out look on his face, and that was all it took for Jensen, because that happiness in Jared's eyes did fluttery things to Jensen's belly.
Even though Jared's laundry was getting washed, a new problem materialized: everything was mixed together, which meant it all ended up on Jensen's floor overspilling the basket in big fluffy piles, waiting for a sorting that neither of them ever got around to doing. And when Jared burst into Jensen's room in the morning mumbling, "I'm'a just get some pants, dude," Jensen usually pulled the comforter over his head and ignored the rummaging. Until Jared would flop down on the bed, tugging on his pants and shaking his wet hair at Jensen and going a mile a minute about his run and the headlines and what was ahead in the day, and Jensen wouldn't have any choice but to roll over and face down Mr. Perky, no matter how sleepy he was.
Sometimes he'd fall asleep again, and he'd wake up to find Jared still talking. Jared never seemed to mind.
On this particular Sunday morning, there was no clean dry laundry, on account of how Jensen had forgotten it in the washing machine while Jared plied him with tequila and pizza and forced him to play like a hundred hands of Up The River while doubling his shots. Jensen was pretty sure his head was larger than the entire bed, and had twice as many dents. Deep, deep dents, where his brain was currently mashed in and painful.
When Jared popped through the door, he stopped short in the darkened room and said, "Rise and shine, honey!"
"Ugh," Jensen answered. He burrowed deeper into the bed and tried to tune out Jared's intensely loud breathing. But then Jared started talking again, and all his millions of words echoed around the room.
"Your mom called. I told her you were passed out in the backyard. She told me to put you in with the compost. Compost, dude! S'all right, 'cause you look like shit anyway. Hey, I need to borrow a shirt." And the next thing Jensen knew (or as much as he could tell with only one eye slitted open, anyway), Jared had pulled the curtains apart and was clawing his way through Jensen's closet in search of something too big for Jensen, even though it was like taking the worst dare anyone could imagine, because Jensen's closet was ten layers deep with crap he hadn't hung up or put away after moving in. Moving was hell. Time was short. Besides, eventually he was going to have a place of his own. Someday. Later.
"How do you ever find anything in here?" Jared asked him, muffled by the soft, smothering weight of old sweats and t-shirts with questionable slogans and ripped jeans that had the knack for showing just a hair too much in the wrong places.
"I don't look?" Jensen sat up in the bed, scratched his stubble, and watched Jared, though only his ass was visible, since piles of Jensen-crap obscured the rest of him. It wasn't a bad view, Jared's ass, though Jensen usually kept that opinion to himself. Some things co-stars just shouldn't think about. Or share.
"You don't-" Jared stopped, then the pile shook upward, like he'd been violently bitten by something. Given how long that pile had been there, Jensen wouldn't have been surprised. But Jared was laughing. Well, not really. Giggling, was more like it. He pulled his head out of the pile, lint and string in his hair. And then he extended his arm, and there, in his huge hand, was one stuffed pink pig, slightly smooshed.
Jensen reacted on instinct; he slithered out of bed (because walking would require coordination) and snatched the pig from Jared's hand. "Excuse me, stop touching Mr. Piggles."
"Mr..." Jared's jaw dropped open, just like a comic-book double-take, and one corner of his lip twitched up like Elvis on crack. "Mr. Piggles?"
"Yes." Jensen pulled Mr. Piggles closer on instinct, because he didn't like that look on Jared; it was one step away from psychotic pig-mauler. "Mr. Piggles."
Jared's lip twitched, his nostrils flared, and he said, "It has a name?"
"Mr. Piggles has been my friend longer than you have." Jensen pointed the pig at him, snout-first. "And he doesn't like people who laugh at him."
"He doesn't," Jared said slowly, as though Jensen had just said the entire sentence backwards and he was translating. And then the other side of his lip curled up, creating a sly smile. "You couldn't just have a stuffed bear or something?"
"I had a bear. It didn't last." Jensen could still remember that bear and its freaky plaid bow tie and its snake-like orange eyes, which Jensen had plucked off immediately. Family legend was, Jensen had eaten the eyes with a maniacal toddler-cackle, a portent of evil to come. "Some people are cat people, some are dog people. Whatever. For me it was Mr. Piggles."
"And he's the only one for you," Jared said. His face twitched. Not just one part of it; his entire face, like he'd just pulled back on a sneeze.
"I'm a monogamous guy," Jensen said, and that did it - the sound that burst out of Jared was like a cross between a wheeze and a belly-laugh, and he fell over on his butt, cracking up.
Jensen put one hand over his left eye, which was currently on the verge of exploding. Right then, Jared loomed up out of nowhere and stole Mr. Piggles from him. "Hey, gimme!" Jensen protested, making a grab for it.
"Hell, no." Jared backed up, still chuckling, and tucked Mr. Piggles in against his body. The little pink pig was dwarfed by Jared's giant arm, but he seemed perfectly happy in the curve of Jared's elbow. The sight of him there reminded Jensen of being a kid, and the hundred times he'd snuggled the pig. He'd probably cried a bucket of tears into its fur after falling off his bike, or fighting with his brother, or drama at school. He wouldn't be surprised if it was still slightly damp, even after all these years. "You don't want him anymore, right? Otherwise, why would he be under that heap of shit in the closet?"
"I just hadn't gotten around to, uh. Putting him somewhere special." Jensen looked around the room desperately. There was the bed, and about forty boxes in various stages of packed, unpacked, and destroyed. No location screamed 'special' to him.
"Whatever. Mr. Piggles and me, we're gonna spend some quality time communing. Getting to know each other." Jared's eyes gleamed. "He's going to tell me everything about you."
Jensen snorted. Mr. Piggles was loyal. No way was he going to spill to Jared. Also, Jensen was clearly still drunk, because he was delusional and thinking his stuffed pig even had loyalties, which, maybe when he was five years old and the pig was his best friend, but now, not so much. "Come on," he began, but Jared was up off the floor - with one of Jensen's T-shirts in his left hand and Mr. Piggles still snuggled securely in his arms.
"Finders keepers," Jared said. "Coffee's on, too. Whenever."
When Jared left the room, Jensen sighed. He knew already from experience there was no way Jared would ever let this go. Poor Mr. Piggles. He had no idea what he was in for. So Jensen staggered toward the shower. After about ten minutes under a hot stream of water, he'd be persuasive again, and he'd go and save the pig from Jared's attentions.
He wasn't prepared, however, to find Mr. Piggles as the centerpiece on the table when he wandered into the kitchen, lured by delicious, mouth-watering smells. "Oh, nice," he muttered, pointing to the platter of bacon upon which Mr. Piggles' paw rested. "How do you think that makes him feel?"
"He's just glad he can't be eaten." Jared grinned and poured Jensen a cup of coffee, which Jensen gratefully accepted. Jared ran a gentle hand through Jensen's wet hair, floofing it up, and spared an extra moment to scrunch it up in the center. "There. Now you match."
Jensen rolled his eyes and glanced over at Mr. Piggles, who had one wayward tuft of pink fuzz remaining on his rotund head.
All during breakfast, Mr. Piggles stared Jensen down accusingly - possibly, because he'd been crushed underneath ten tons of Jensen's miscellaneous crap for the last decade - while Jared ate fried eggs and bacon and smirked at him. And then Jared gulped down the last of his coffee, plucked Mr. Piggles from the table, and stuffed him down into his waistband, with his face and two of his wee feet sticking out. "Gotta get groceries," he said, snatching his keys off the counter. "Want anything special, or should I get the usual?"
"Uh, Jared?" Jensen took a bite of bacon, chewed, and swallowed, then pointed to Jared's waist. "You've got a pig in your pants."
"Not the first time, won't be the last," Jared called, rising predictably to the bait on his way out the door.
Jensen sighed. It was going to be a long week.
**
For the next two days, everywhere Jared went, Mr. Piggles was in tow. Mr. Piggles rode on the dashboard on the way to the studio; he warmed Jared's chair between scenes on set; he peeked out of Jared's pocket when Jared wore his jacket. All the ADs and grips and assistants on set cooed over the pig, and Jensen rolled his eyes and actually blushed with embarrassment when Jared took Mr. Piggles out of his pocket and introduced him to Kim as "Jensen's bestest friend.'
"Seriously, quit it," he told Jared during lunch, while Jared petted Piggles absentmindedly and toggled his BlackBerry with his other hand.
"What?" Jared stopped screwing with his email, but his hand still moved over Piggles gently, stroking what was left of his once-vibrant pink fur. "He's been starved for affection, man. He needs a little TLC." Jared picked Piggles up and pointed accusingly at his belly. "I had to have Serene sew up his tummy today!"
"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Jensen stared at the neat, shiny satin pink stitches across the threadbare belly. He could still remember when he'd ripped Piggles open by accident when he was ten. He'd stapled Piggles up in a fit of guilt, and later he'd taped him shut, but...that was a long time ago.
His guilty look must have been obvious, because Jared nodded smugly. "That's what I thought," he said, and tucked Piggles back into his lap. Jensen rolled his eyes and went back to flipping through his own email, but his gaze kept straying to Piggles, and to Jared petting him in a very soothing way, the bastard.
"He was mine first," Jensen said grumpily, not looking at Jared. "He'll never love you like he does me."
"Maybe not," Jared said softly. "But I'll love him anyway."
Jensen swallowed hard and resisted the urge to snatch Piggles right out of Jared's lap. He wasn't sure who he was more jealous of - the pig, or Jared.
**
On Tuesday right before end of day, Jensen tripped on an unsecured cable, lost his balance, and went crashing into a bank of lights head-first. He had a glimpse of Jared reaching for him right before his head struck something hard and everything went dark.
When he opened his eyes, he was surrounded by shouting people, his head in Jared's lap and Jared's fingers fluttering around his face.
"Jesus Christ, Jensen," Jared gasped, "are you all right?"
Jensen stared at Jared, transfixed by the look of terror on his face. He reached up and touched Jared's shirt, clutched at it a little, and then he got a hold of himself. "Yeah," he said, wincing. "What'd I hit?"
"You broke the pole with your head," Jared said, amusement warring with fear.
"Better it than me," Jensen said. The PAs all laughed nervously, possibly hysterical about the imminent loss of their jobs because none of them had been the one to cushion his fall. Jensen sat up cautiously, Jared's hand on his back.
"Your head's split open," Jared said. "Let the nice paramedic stuff your brains back in so I can take you home."
"Too late for that," Jensen muttered, while the medic fussed over him.
One itchy butterfly bandage and a long, long ride later, Jared was practically shoving Jensen into his bed fully clothed. "Uh, shower? Can I at least-"
"No," Jared said, manhandling him. "Rest. You've got a concussion."
"Duh," Jensen said. He was, in fact, very sleepy, but it wasn't like he was going to get any rest with Jared hovering around and poking at him worriedly to make sure he wasn't in a coma. He took the Tylenol and water Jared handed him and swallowed them, then curled up on his side with a sigh.
"You want anything?"
"A beer."
"Ha."
"Some food, then."
"I'll get subs from Carlo's." Something soft tickled Jensen's cheek; he opened his eyes to see Mr. Piggles nestled beside him on the pillow, gazing into his face worriedly. Jensen had another momentary pang of guilt for all those stitches on his belly.
"Now I know how you feel," he muttered. He pulled the pig down onto his chest and closed his eyes.
Jared woke him half an hour later by waving a sub in his face, then sprawling on the bed beside him and munching his own sandwich. They ate in contented silence, but Jensen's head really was hurting, and chewing made it hurt worse. He was hungry, but eventually the headache won out over delicious salami, and he handed the remains to Jared. Who ate them.
He was mostly asleep by the time Jared threw away the wrappers; Mr. Piggles was warm on his chest, but only that one spot. The rest of him was freezing. "Dude," Jensen said, as Jared switched off the light. "I'm cold. And my head is broken."
"The light pole had it a lot worse," Jared told him. "At least we have a late call, if you need that."
"Nah. I'll be great in the morning." Jensen picked up Mr. Piggles and held him out to Jared. "Hate to say it, but he's not cutting it in the comfort department."
"Don't dis Mr. Piggles," Jared said. He switched off the other light. A second later, the warm weight of Jared settled in all around Jensen, an arm across Jensen's stomach and Jared's breath on the back of Jensen's neck. Jared wedged Mr. Piggles in under Jensen's chin. "Now shut up and go to sleep."
With the musty, familiar smell of his childhood surrounding him, and Jared radiating heat beside him, Jensen drifted off.
**
Cold weather descended hard on Vancouver at the end of the week, bringing the kind of chill custom-designed for nights by the fire. By the time Friday rolled around, Jensen was concussion-free, and he had learned how to ignore Jared cooing to Mr. Piggles during their down time on set. He was pretending not to care that Jared was paying more attention to the pig than he was to Jensen.
It was oddly touching, the way Jared cuddled that damn pig, but Jensen would cut his tongue out before he'd admit it. Especially since he was having intermittent urges to curl up with Mr. Piggles himself, ever since he broke his head. But to snuggle the pig, he'd probably have to wrestle Jared for it.
"Hey," Jared said in the car on the way home. "Let's get some pizza and stay in tonight. Want to?"
Jensen glanced over; the tip of one faded pink ear was poking out from Jared's top jacket pocket. He sighed. "Sure."
They ordered three pizzas and some extra soda to supplement their ample supply of beer and booze, and when it arrived, they chowed down in front of the TV for at least half an hour, swapping ideas about the current arc of the show. Jensen loved hanging out with Jared at home. He wasn't exactly sure when he'd come to think of it as their home, but a tiny part of him was sure it was before he had actually moved in. More and more of it was theirs; their couches, their shelves, their books. Their TV. Once in a while, Jensen would look at Jared and think, I could stay here forever, and know that home had nothing to do with the house at all.
But those were the kinds of thoughts that led to bad things down the road, so Jensen tried to live in the moment, and be happy, and not think about forever at all.
They sat on the floor, backs against the couch, shoulders touching, and flipped channels on the TV, still talking quietly every so often between Jared's exclamations of "Oh, sweet!" and "Dude, suck!" as he passed by various shows. Jensen was warm and full and comfortable, and about ten seconds away from putting his head back on the seat of the couch and crashing.
"Is it cold in here?" Jared asked suddenly. He got up, depriving Jensen of the warm radiance at his side, and poked around in the fireplace for a minute. Jensen closed his eyes and waited; he knew the fire was going once the glow of heat began licking at his face. But his other side was cold, and Jared was taking a long time.
"Get back here," Jensen demanded. "I'm cold again. And bring the remote."
"Jesus, hold your horses." A second later, something soft descended over Jensen. He cracked an eye open and realized it was the comforter from Jared's bed.
"We sleeping out here?" he asked, grinning.
"You're already sleeping out here." Jared flopped down and scooted closer, then yanked the comforter over himself. "I'm just facilitating."
"Cool." Jensen watched the TV through slitted eyes, until he happened to glance left at the coffee table and saw Mr. Piggles sitting between the platter of chips and the pizza box, swaddled in an orange kitchen towel Jared's mother had sent them. He laughed, because the damn pig looked...well, he looked cute as hell, and there wasn't any getting around it.
Jared just grinned some more. "Hey, he wouldn't be cold if you hadn't plucked all his fur."
"Oh, right." Jensen's grin hitched into a yawn, and he slumped a little further down.
"Anyway, Mr. Piggles has been telling me stuff about you."
"Oh, really?" Jensen arched an eyebrow and turned his head to look at Jared. "We haven't exactly been chummy the last 20 years. We pretty much stopped braiding each other's hair when I was five."
"He knows you pretty well," Jared said. "Like, he told me how you used to sing him to sleep."
Jensen frowned. "How'd you know that?" It was true, for certain values of sing and sleep; Jensen would whisper Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and I See The Moon into Mr. Piggles' ear, and in doing so had soothed himself to sleep.
"Mr. Piggles tells all," Jared said, waggling his eyebrows at Jensen.
"Mr. Piggles should keep his big mouth shut," Jensen said. He was pretty sure Jared had been talking to Jensen's mother again, prying all his most embarrassing childhood stories out of her, but whatever. If they wanted to drink tea and gossip about him in the afternoons, it wasn't like he could stop them.
"I filled him in on a few things about you," Jared said. "How you are now, I mean. Since he hasn't seen you much. Just the top three things nobody but me knows about you."
Now that was interesting. Jensen shifted under the comforter, turned slightly toward Jared. "Like what? What do you think you know that's so special?"
Jared shifted, too, until they were facing each other, more or less. He kicked the comforter, making room for his gigantic feet. "I told him how you like to mix peanut butter and brown sugar up for breakfast."
"Okay, I'll give you that one." Jensen smiled. It wasn't exactly a dirty secret, but Jared probably was the only person who had ever seen him mix up the two in a bowl and slather it on toast. "What else?"
"I told him how Pretty in Pink makes you cry."
"Unfair, man." Jensen huffed a little, lifted his right shoulder up so he couldn't see Piggles mocking him. Jared, on the other hand, was looking at Jensen the way he usually looked at the stuffed pig, something soft and fond in his eyes. Jensen lowered his gaze, feeling like a ridiculous girl about it, but Jared was too intense. "What other lies have you told him?"
"Don't front, you know it's true." Jared shifted closer; his warm breath was soft on Jensen's face. "You want to know what the third thing was?"
"Yeah." Jensen didn't look up, and he waited for it. Waited, because he was sure whatever Jared was going to say next was going to change everything.
"I told him...you're the best friend I've ever had. That you'd give the shirt off your back to a stranger on the street. That's how big your heart is." Jared's voice was low, quiet.
Jensen looked up, met Jared's eyes. Licked his lips, and smiled. "That what you really told him?"
Jared leaned closer, smiled, so close the smile curved into Jensen's mouth. "Maybe not," Jared said, and then he kissed Jensen, slow, careful, like maybe Jensen would shy away from him at any second. Jensen leaned in, provoking a sigh from Jared, and deepened the kiss until Jared's arms were around him, and Jensen was half on top of Jared, and they were wrapped up in each other in a Downey-scented tunnel of comforter.
Jensen didn't really need Jared to tell him what the third thing was.
**
In the morning, a shout woke Jensen from the best sleep he'd had in months, and he sat bolt upright in the messy bed - Jared's bed, which was big and comfortable, and where Jensen thought he might be spending a fair amount of time from now on. He barely had time to grin cockily about that before Jared shouted again, closer this time. "Harley! Give that back!"
A moment later, Harley bounded into the room, Mr. Piggles clutched tight in his jaws, with Jared right behind him. "Now," Jared boomed, and Harley dropped Mr. Piggles unceremoniously on the carpet, then scampered away.
"Ewww," Jensen said, as Jared picked up the pig from the floor. "Dog drool."
Jared wiped the pig off on his shirt, then set it up high on the dresser where the dogs wouldn't eat him. "Poor Mr. Piggles. It's my fault. I shouldn't have left him beside the leftover pizza. No wonder they thought he was food."
"Dude, you really do love that pig more than you love me." The words were out before Jensen's sleep-addled brain could catch up, but it was too late by then; a huge, happy smile was spreading over Jared's face. Jared pulled his shirt off, threw it on the floor, and crawled up on the bed. He spread himself out all over Jensen, kissing the last bits of sleep away.
"You don't get it, do you?" Jared murmured. "I love Mr. Piggles because you love him. And guess why he loves me?"
"Don't know," Jensen breathed into Jared's mouth, one hand curled behind Jared's head. "Tell me."
"He loves me because you do," Jared said, and then there was no more talking. Just kissing, soft, slow, and Jared's hands all over Jensen's body, and Jensen smiling into the curve of Jared's shoulder.
From his perch on the dresser, Mr. Piggles watched through drool-smeared eyes and beamed with silent pink approval.
end