FIC: No Map for Our Travels - Part One [Jared/Jensen femslash, NC-17]
Masterpost | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Epilogue | Outtakes | Art
"Jensen Ackles, you are going to go put on a damn pair of clean pants and be back in this room in ten minutes, with a fucking smile on your face, or else - "
"Or else?" Jensen lifted her head and blinked at Danneel, not at all fooled by her roommate's threatening tone. "You'll set me up on the world's worst blind date? Oh wait, that already happened. Twice."
Danneel sighed and dropped onto the couch next to Jensen gingerly, careful to keep her short skirt away from Jensen's bowl of popcorn sitting on the cushion between them. "One, they can't both be the worst date ever, and two, I have apologized for that shit at least ten times since it happened. You can't use that as an excuse to not go out dancing with me anymore."
"I've got work to do," Jensen said. "And I'm a shitty dancer anyway, you'll have a better time without me."
"Is this about Justin?"
Jensen looked up sharply at the mention of her recent ex. "What? No," she replied. "I'm the one who broke up with him, remember?"
"Okay," Danneel replied, as if she didn't quite believe Jensen. "I got that client, did I tell you? The one my boss told me would get me a raise if I managed to land the account? I need to celebrate!"
Jensen wavered. Danneel had been working overtime for the past month to get that account for her firm. She worked for a small advertising business, a Portland company that didn't usually get very high-profile clients because they focused on local, sustainable projects and products. Jensen felt like she should give in, but she just couldn't face the idea of going out.
"I'm sorry," she told Danneel. "We can celebrate tomorrow? Invite Misha over for dinner?"
"I want to see you outside of this apartment every now and then," Danneel said, a pleading tone in her voice that Jensen suspected was only half-faked.
"Some time, but not tonight."
Danneel heaved another sigh and stood up, grabbing her purse and walking to the front door. "Whatever, Jensen. You said that last week."
Jensen watched the door open and then slam shut, and the noise almost made her guilty enough to chase after Danneel, but this had only been the latest in a long series of similar conversations between them, and Jensen knew it wouldn't cause lasting harm to let it go for now. She moved from the living room to the desk in her bedroom, stopping only to change into comfortable pajamas, and got started on the assignment due in three weeks. She had already finished the ones due before then, which weren't many, given that the year had just started, and yeah, maybe Danneel had a point about her anti-social tendencies - but it didn't change the fact that going to a loud nightclub where douchey fraternity guys would be out in full force seemed like hell to Jensen.
She settled down to work, pushing away the thought that there had to be a midway point between total hermit - Jensen's normal state - and Danneel's level of social involvement.
The thing about Jensen Ackles was that she knew herself, and she knew what she wanted out of life in the long run. She just didn't know exactly what she wanted to do in the meantime, in the space between working hard and getting her degree, and becoming a world-class architect. She had vague ideas about what kind of relationship she wanted to have someday, but none of the few guys she'd dated had ever made her think they were it, the kind of person she wanted to spend more than casual time with.
When she met Danneel in college, she'd been quiet and straight-laced, still shy and reserved with most people after four years spent in high school hell being called a dyke and a slut while doing her best to never do anything remotely close to the things people said she'd done. Danneel had been determined to become her friend, and Jensen felt grateful for that, and for Misha and the new friends Danneel had brought into her life during their years as roommates. But Jensen hadn't changed, not fundamentally, and she would almost always rather stay home than go out.
It was her last year, she realized suddenly, in the middle of doing a final read-through of the syllabus for the class she would be TA-ing this quarter. When she finished this year, she would hopefully find a job, and eventually move into her own place, and when that happened, when Danneel was no longer always there for her, would she still want to be alone so much?
Maybe it was time for a change.
Danneel came home early (for her) a few hours later and slipped into Jensen's room. Jensen had dozed off over a new design at her drafting desk, and she raised her head groggily, pushing her glasses up as Danneel said, "oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. Your light's still on."
Jensen tried to shake off her sleepiness, but yawned around her reply anyway. "It's okay. What are you doing home so early?"
Danneel smiled lopsidedly and sat down on Jensen's bed. "I'm sorry for yelling," she said. "I love you just the way you are, little hermit."
"Shut the fuck up," Jensen grumbled, but she joined Danneel on her bed and leaned against her. They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments before Jensen said, "I'm sorry, too. I think I do need to get out more. But not to clubs, those are not an option."
Danneel didn't gloat like Jensen knew she must have been dying to, just smiled and patted Jensen on the head fondly. "We'll make a real human being of you yet, just you wait and see."
Jensen pinched her and Danneel squawked, pinching back, which led to an extremely juvenile tickle fight. "Okay, okay," Danneel laughed, eventually standing up and moving out of range. "I need to get out of this top before it strangles me. But your new life as a social butterfly starts tomorrow, young lady."
Jensen laughed and nodded like it wasn't a big deal, but she stayed awake late into the night thinking. Changing would be difficult, but she could start small, and see what happened. She spent a lot of time saying no when anything unexpected or unplanned happened, and maybe all she had to do was start saying yes now and then.
She fell asleep still deep in thought.
++++
Jay felt nervously in the front pocket of her jeans for the tenth time, making sure she still had her new student ID and her emergency credit card, and almost dropped the stack of books she held under one arm.
"Whoa," Chad's voice came from behind her. "Hold up, Jay, don't cause a disaster."
"Funny," she replied, turning to drop her books into Chad's arms. "Here, take these."
"Fine," Chad huffed, "but only because I know I'll be calling 911 if I let you stagger around with an armful of books."
"Remind me why I let you come with me today? No, wait, remind me why I agreed to be your roommate?" Jay reached the register and motioned for Chad to put the books down so the cashier could scan them, and then handed over her credit card to pay.
Chad waited until she received her purchases in a drawstring bag with the university's logo on it before answering.
"You needed a place to stay, and you didn't want to have to pay a ton of money or get a weird roommate. And I," he continued, "took you in out of the generosity of my heart, to give my old college pal a home."
Jay laughed, nearly losing hold of the bag as they walked out of the bookstore and started heading to the next stop on her list. "Oh my god," she said, once she could speak coherently. "It's the goodness of your heart, except you don't have any. You let me move in because you still think having a lesbian as your wingman gets you more chicks. And I bet you only tagged along today to see if you could hit on co-eds."
"You just wait," Chad replied. "This year, it's gonna be awesome, bro." He gave her a chin-nod and what she suspected was meant to be a companionable leer.
Jay smiled fondly and knocked her hand against the back of Chad's head, listening to him prattle through the rest of her errands, and then back to their apartment. The only thing she had to do now was finalize her work-study job at the undergraduate library, but she had an appointment to do that early the next morning before classes. It wouldn't pay much or offer many hours, but between her savings, grants, loans, the job, and her very cheap rent, Jay thought she'd probably be okay.
Chad had been living by himself in a two-bedroom place because his previous roommate had had to leave town unexpectedly (when Jay asked why, Chad told her she didn't want to know, and she believed him), and when Jay found out she'd be going to grad school in Portland, the timing seemed too perfect to pass up. Genevieve couldn't believe it was healthy or safe to live with Chad no matter what Jay told her, but so far, it hadn't been bad. Granted, it had only been a week, but Chad was keeping his mess mostly in his room, and that was all Jay could ask for in a roommate. He had also offered her the room for less than Jay suspected was half of the total rent, but she didn't see any reason to fight him about that since he made good money managing his family's construction firm. Besides, she could always pay him back with food from her parents' farm, or by cleaning the kitchen - he seemed to hate that particular chore.
Chad was kind of like a small, benign growth, Jay often thought. It was easy to get used to him being around, and he was hilarious, especially in his continued delusion that being gay made Jay a good wingman. It hadn't worked in college, and Jay really didn't see it working here, either. She wasn't going to lie for him, and most girls had the good sense to stay far away, lesbian friend or not. But ever since she'd given Chad her standard "I'm gay" response when he'd hit on her, he'd been convinced they were bros, and Jay did, in a brotherly way, and not where Genevieve could hear her say it, like him. He was a good friend when he wasn't being smarmy at LGBT campus group meetings.
Her new room still looked a little empty without the Xena posters that had defined her college dorm, but she was determined to have a grown-up room now. Her mother thought it meant she'd finally rejected violence as an acceptable part of her media consumption, and Jay hadn't wanted to disclose the fact that she actually just wanted a room she could bring a girl back to without feeling like a huge cliché.
She'd find new art, she'd make new friends - this was a new town, and a chance to change, to make her life become the one she really wanted. She only had to make it happen.
After brushing her teeth and making sure she had all the supplies she'd need for her first day of classes laid out, Jay broke into her emergency sharpie stash and wrote the words carefully around her wrist in red and pink: time for a change.
++++
"Excuse me, is this - "
Jensen looked up from the desk to see a tall girl standing uncertainly in the doorway to the classroom, clutching a bag that seemed to be made of rainbow-patterned duct-tape.
"Freshman lit's one floor down," Jensen said, taking in the shell-shocked first-day haze, and the girl blushed, twisting her hands nervously. She had writing wrapped around her wrist in what looked like marker, but Jensen couldn't read what it said.
"Oh, no - I'm - it's - I'm looking for the seminar on social theories of the built environment?"
Jensen paused and looked more thoroughly, but still couldn't believe the girl was more than nineteen. Her shoulder-length messy brown hair was pulled back from her face with pink barrettes, her jeans were frayed at the ends, hitting the floor over a pair of pink flip-flops, and her blue t-shirt had a logo Jensen didn't recognize. Her purple hoodie had patches on the shoulders, looking worse for the wear, but the overall effect of her outfit made her seem purposefully mismatched in a charming way.
"Then you're in the right place," Jensen replied, trying to sound a little nicer. "You are about half an hour early, but you can come in and get settled if you'd like."
"Oh, thanks," the girl said, shuffling into the room and setting her bag down in the first row. She turned back to Jensen and smiled widely, dimples prominent on her face. "I was so worried I'd never find the right room, and I gave myself lots of extra time, especially since I'm really excited about this class. Wow, you're so young to be a professor!"
Jensen arched an eyebrow and the girl blanched.
"Oh, I'm sorry - I just - I came early so I wouldn't be late and get labeled as that loser who doesn't care about the class and now I'm giving you the verbal version of tripping at a party and dumping my beer all over your new dress, and - " she closed her mouth and her eyes, then continued, "and I'm just going to stop now, and - are you laughing at me?"
"No, no," Jensen lied, not at all convincingly. "Well, yes, but in a really nice way, I promise. I'm Jensen, I'm the TA for this class, not the professor, but thanks for the compliment."
"I'm Jay," the girl said. "Well, Jared, but people usually think it's weird to call a girl Jared, so mostly they just call me Jay and I like it, so it's not insulting or anything."
"Nice to meet you, Jay," Jensen replied, still struggling to stop laughing. "I can't say I've ever met a girl named Jared before, but I can say I don't think it's that weird."
Jay's face lit up and she sat down in the seat next to her bag. "My parents were hippies," she offered, pulling her knees up to her chest and placing her feet on her chair. Her toenails had glittery purple nail polish, and Jensen's own feet felt cold just looking at them. Portland wouldn't have real flip-flop weather for at least another six or seven months. "They say they chose Jared because one of their best friends named Jared was a hero in an anti-war protest or something, but I've never met this so-called best friend, so I'm pretty sure it's because they were both high when they named me. I mean, my mom couldn't smoke weed for nine months, so as soon as I was born, they started celebrating non-stop."
Jensen must have let a little of her alarm show, because Jay immediately tacked on, "oh, they didn't do it where it would affect me - they took turns, and the rest of the collective helped out with the baby-care, too - oh god, this is not making me sound more normal."
Jensen laughed, still kind of shocked, but too charmed to care. She normally didn't take to students (or anyone) so easily, but Jay wasn't showing any of the disinterest or, worse, complete belief in her own knowledge that defined most first-year students in any grad program.
"It must make great party conversation, though," Jensen said. "I mean, Jensen is an old family name, but I'm pretty sure no one with that name has ever done anything as interesting as that."
"Oh, I'm lots of fun at parties," Jay agreed. "But it's usually because I trip and fall and somehow set something on fire." She smiled ruefully. "I was the reason my best friend became a nurse."
Jensen's phone buzzed then, and she looked at the screen. It was Samantha, which probably meant that Jensen was teaching the class on her own today. She smiled apologetically at Jay and answered.
"Hey, Sam, what's up?"
Her advisor's voice sounded winded. "Jen, I'm on my way, but my bike got a flat and I'm walking, so it's going to take a few extra minutes. Can you handle the intros and the syllabus?"
"Sure thing," Jensen replied, checking to make sure she still had the stack of papers that included the course packets and syllabi. "We'll see you when you get here, and don't rush."
"You're my favorite!"
"Yeah, yeah." Jensen smiled and ended the call, looking up to see Jay staring at her. "That was the professor, she's running a little late and wanted to make sure I'd be able to start the class without her," she explained, not sure why Jay was so focused on her.
"Oh," Jay said. "She must really trust you."
Jensen grinned. "Well, Sam - Dr. Ferris - isn't a typical prof. You'll like her, she's the best in the architecture program."
"I'm not really an architecture student," Jay said, dropping her feet down to the floor and shifting nervously. "I'm - I just started in the masters program in sociology, and this is one of the electives we can take, and I wanted to start off with something fun."
"Hmm, I don't know if I believe you," Jensen teased, surprised at herself even as she said the words. Jay's face went red, and Jensen would have felt bad if it hadn't been so adorable. "You can't be more than eighteen, kid."
"I'm twenty-one!" Jay said hotly. "Um, almost. In like a month."
"How'd you get into a grad program so young?" Jensen asked, leaning forward to focus on Jay as other early bird students began to trickle into the classroom.
"I started college early, and I did just graduate last June." She looked down and bit her lip. "I'm not quite sure why I got accepted, I'm not that smart."
"You probably are," Jensen said, meaning it. "It's a tough school to get into."
"Oh," Jay said, blushing again. "Um - "
A loud group of students came in then, keeping Jensen from replying, and by the time it quieted down, Jensen had to concentrate on getting the class started and passing out the course packets. She kept finding her attention drifting back to Jay, all throughout the class, and she was almost disappointed when Jay left the classroom right away, slipping out while Jensen stayed to answer questions with Sam.
Jensen dissected the first day of classes with Danneel and Misha later that night over beer and pizza, and found herself strangely reluctant to talk about meeting Jay. She told herself it was just because they'd make fun of Jay mercilessly, that it wasn't important enough of an event to really need sharing, but she knew that wasn't it. Jay was… hers, somehow, a secret she didn't want to share. She didn't want to think about it more deeply than that.
++++
"So, how'd the first day go?"
Jay flopped down on her bed, holding her phone loosely against her ear. "Um, it was okay. I was really early for my first class, but the TA was nice and let me in and I kind of talked her ear off, but she didn't seem to mind. I'm pretty exhausted, though."
Genevieve giggled, and it made Jay feel better immediately.
"Same old Jared," Genevieve said. "I'm glad grad school hasn't changed you yet."
"My TA was really hot," Jay blurted, then clapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn't meant to tell Genevieve about her embarrassing crush, hoping to put off the inevitable mocking. Her best friend was tiny, but she could bring down linebackers with her sass.
Genevieve didn't surprise her. "Jay! You've already thrown me over for an older woman? I can't believe it!"
"Whatever," Jay said. "You know you'll always regret being straight and thus unable to handle the awesomeness that is me."
It had taken a long time, Jay thought, for them to get to the point where they could joke about her years-long crush on Genevieve. It didn't feel at all awkward anymore, and Jay was thankful, again, for such a perfect best friend. Spilling her hormone-driven feelings for Genevieve during Gen's high school graduation party while they were both drunk should have ended their friendship, but Gen had let her down honestly, if not easily, and then didn't let Jay disappear. She'd shown up at Jay's house every day all summer long, and when Genevieve went to college that fall, Jay was happy again, even if it hadn't turned out the way she'd always dreamed. It probably helped that Gen was two years older and that they didn't go to the same college, allowing Jay to have distance as well as time. Now her crush was just a memory, and they had made so many more memories together since then that it didn't even feel all that important in the scheme of things.
Genevieve sighed, and Jay asked, concerned, "what's wrong?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, it's not really - I didn't want to tell you right away and ruin your first day, but I broke up with Ethan last night. I was just thinking that life really would have been easier if I were gay, which I know is a stupid thing to say, but I'm kinda depressed about the whole thing."
"I'm sorry, Gen, what happened?" Jay shook her flip-flops off and curled more comfortably on her bed to listen. After hearing Genevieve's story, Jay had to admit she'd had a pretty awesome day in comparison.
"Did he really say that about your job?" she asked Genevieve for the fifth time.
"Yes," Genevieve said, with as much righteous indignation as the first time she'd answered. "I'd give anything for him to have to spend a night shift in the emergency room and then tell me that nurses have it easy, but I'm not sure that would even work. It's like his empathy gland is missing - he must have had it removed in med school."
"That's a really gross concept, and I'd appreciate it if you never said the word gland again," Jay told her. "I might have to go to therapy."
"Shut up," Genevieve said fondly. "Distract me from my misery - tell me more about your hot TA."
"Um," Jay stammered. "She's tall, with glasses and green eyes, and fucking freckles, Gen, it's not fair."
"Nice rack?" Genevieve asked.
"Like you even know what a nice rack is," Jay scoffed, but blushed as she thought about Jensen's figure, which had made a serious impression on her, even hidden under the jeans and over-sized sweater Jensen had been wearing. "Um, it's - it's a very nice rack, actually. She's gorgeous, and she wasn't even wearing makeup or very fancy clothes."
"Is it against the rules to ask her out?"
Jay twisted her fingers through her hair. "Yeah, I think so, at least until she's not my TA anymore. And - she's probably not into girls, anyway."
Genevieve hummed sympathetically, then ruined the moment by saying, "but your gaydar's no good, honey. You thought Michael and Tony were just good friends in high school."
"That doesn't count!"
"It totally counts, and I'm making an executive decision - you're going to ask your hot TA out as soon as she's just hot, and not your TA anymore."
"She might be dangerously homophobic!"
"In Portland?" Genevieve heaved an incredulous sigh. "Okay, you'll ask her out as soon as you know she's not a homophobe. What's her name, anyway?"
"Jensen," Jay replied, and was horrified to realize that she'd said it dreamily.
"There you go," Genevieve said. "No one named Jensen is straight, it's against the rules."
"There are no rules, that's the point, and - you're just trying to get me less nervous so I'll do your evil bidding, don't try to deny it!"
Jay could hear Gen smirking. "And it always works, doesn't it?"
"Goodnight, Genevieve," Jay said, ignoring her friend's protests as she hung up.
Jay settled herself, getting all of the papers and course packets she'd received in all of the day's classes organized. Her phone buzzed with a text message ten minutes later, and she laughed as she read it.
jared + jensen, sitting in tree, having lots of hot gay sex!!
She sent a quick text back (i said gnite, go bug yr roommate) and spent the rest of the night trying not to picture exactly what hot gay sex with Jensen would be like.
++++
The beginning of the year always brought with it a crush of extra work for Jensen; in between prepping lesson plans and making endless copies of articles for some of the lazier profs she assisted, she also had to settle into her own classes, and, this year, start looking for a summer internship. All the good local ones had application deadlines just before or after the winter holidays, and Jensen had no intention of missing out. She also had a new problem this year - her promise to be more social. Danneel wasn't giving an inch, and so Jensen found herself going out to dinner or drinks with Danneel and Misha and various other people almost every day.
She was busier than she could ever remember being, but she still found time to wonder why Jay, who had seemed so friendly at first, now got to class barely on time and fled as soon as it was over. She tried not to feel hurt about it - Jay didn't owe her anything, and this was part of being more open, wasn't it? The possibility that she could be rejected wasn't a theoretical issue for Jensen. She knew what it felt like - but this was the first time she'd had that feeling in a while, and it hit her harder than she'd thought it would.
Danneel eventually bullied it out of her, with Misha's help. They were surrounding her on the couch one night, having just finished forcing her to suffer through the latest episode of some godawful reality show. Jensen often wondered why two of the most intelligent people she knew were so fascinated by watching people act like complete assholes on tv.
Misha tucked himself back against his side of the couch and poked Jensen with one bare foot before settling it under his thigh. "Why so grumpy, princess?"
"Don't call me that, fucker," Jensen grumbled. "It's nothing, I just thought I might have made a friend and now she's ignoring me. I sound like a ten year-old, god, just tell me to shut up."
Misha could never ignore the possibility of interpersonal relationship drama, which Jensen didn't remember until it was too late. His eyes opened fully with interest and he sat up.
"Do tell," he said. "I smell a situation that needs my professional opinion."
Jensen rolled her eyes. "It's just a girl in one of my classes, the one I'm TA-ing for Sam? She talked to me for a long time the first day of class, and I thought we actually hit it off pretty well. Now she barely arrives on time and leaves as soon as she can."
"She's an architecture student?" Danneel asked, and Jensen decided it would just be easier to tell them everything she knew about Jay and get it over with. When she'd finished the story, she sighed. "So, what did I do wrong?"
Danneel didn't answer right away and Jensen could tell she was thinking carefully about her reply.
"I think," she said, "that it's probably not about you."
"What?" Jensen said. "She's avoiding me, how is that not about me?"
"She's younger than most of the people in her classes, right?" Misha put in, having seemingly guessed at Danneel's reasoning.
"Yeah, but what does that - "
Danneel cut her off. "She's embarrassed because she thinks she made a fool of herself the last time you talked, and she's really conscious of how much younger she is, and worried that you think she's a juvenile idiot."
"It's not easy being smarter than people your own age," Misha put in. "I don't know, but it seems like if she's skipped grades or whatever she did to be in grad school at twenty, it would make sense if she focused on that to an extensive degree."
Jensen nodded her head slowly. "Man, it's creepy when you start psychoanalyzing people that aren't even in the room," she told Misha, and Danneel laughed.
"What's the point of having a friend who majored in psych if it's not to get free psychoanalysis?" Danneel said.
"I'll have you know that I'm a licensed therapist," Misha said with mock dignity. "And I don't find these aspersions being cast on my profession amusing."
"You find aspersions cast on anyone's profession amusing," Jensen said fondly. She sometimes wondered what kind of good deeds she'd done in a past life to deserve these two friends who took all the bad along with the good she had to offer. Not that she would inflate either of their egos by saying that out loud.
Danneel stood up and went to the kitchen as Misha's phone started playing Vicki's ringtone. He let it play, shimmying his hips to the chorus.
"Does Vicki know you've got Milkshake set as her ringtone?" Jensen asked.
Misha smiled as he answered the phone. "Damn right," he sang along with the song before it cut off, and Jensen groaned.
"That is awful. Get out of my apartment!"
After Misha left and Danneel went to her room to start packing for the business trip she had to leave for in the morning, Jensen stayed on the couch and thought about Jay. It was a good guess that she felt nervous around older students with more life experience, and maybe if Jensen let her have time to relax, they might be able to become friends after all. In any case, it wasn't a good idea to be too friendly with someone whose work she would be grading until after the quarter ended.
Decision made, Jensen headed for an hour of reading and then bed, but she made the mistake of checking her email first, where she had a two-page missive from her sister about life in high school. She wasn't terribly close to her family, but she and her little sister had a special bond, and she always enjoyed hearing about the latest drama to sweep through Richardson. By the time she'd finished reading and replying to the email, she didn't feel like doing the dry reading she needed to finish for class.
Instead, she pulled out a battered copy of her favorite teen fantasy novel. Danneel always teased her for still reading young adult books, but Jensen loved escaping into lives so much wilder than hers, and so her bookshelf was half architecture books and half teen fiction.
She let her mind roam as she read, wondering what things Jay liked to read, before realizing that was a strange thing to wonder about a girl she hardly knew. She concentrated harder on the story in front of her, but in spite of her best intentions, she fell asleep halfway through the book.
++++
Jay had plenty of experience with unrequited crushes interfering with her academic work. She hadn't been worried about that aspect of being in class with Jensen three times a week at all, but it turned out that watching an attractive woman teaching got her unreasonably hot, especially when it was Jensen. It wasn't like trying to push down her feelings for Genevieve, because she didn't have as much of an incentive to not like Jensen.
Jensen was possible in a way Genevieve never had been. At least, she was possible until Jay found out she was straight or already had a boy- or girlfriend, and Jay wanted to put that moment off as long as she could. She held out for the first three weeks of class, rushing into the classroom just a few moments before the start, and leaving as soon as class ended without looking back. She felt bad about it, and worried that Jensen would think she was a bitch for ignoring her after their first conversation, but the alternative was most likely pouring out her reasoning and a ridiculous amount of backstory in a pile of word-vomit that would make Jensen start backing away slowly to go report her to the campus health clinic, and - it was possible that Jay had put too much thought into this.
She sat in the back on Monday of the fourth week of the quarter, and quietly panicked for the entire two-hour class, trying to calm down enough to be able to hear what Dr. Ferris was saying. It was a pointless struggle, but she did manage to stay in her seat once the class ended, slowly putting her notebook in her bag and watching Jensen answer questions from some of the other students. Dr. Ferris left shortly after that, and Jay made her way to the front of the room to catch Jensen's eye.
"Hi," Jensen said as she approached, clearly surprised by the change in her behavior. "Did you have a question?"
"Oh, um, no," Jay said, her voice sounding strange to her own ears. "Just wanted to say hi!"
"Well, hi," Jensen replied.
"Hi!" Jay winced at herself and tried to save the conversation. "Um, actually, I was wondering if I could have a copy of the article you mentioned last week? The one you said anyone could ask you for?"
"Of course," Jensen said, reaching into her messenger bag. She rummaged around a bit and produced a manila folder with a neatly-printed label reading optional class articles.
"I always print some out in case people actually take me up on the offer," she said with a smile as she handed over a stapled article, and Jay almost melted with gratitude at how graciously she seemed to be taking Jay's social ineptitude.
"Thanks," Jay said. "I really think it will help me prove to my advisor that this class should become a regular part of the sociology course and not just a discouraged elective."
"I hadn't thought of it that way," Jensen said. "But I think you're right - it's very relevant to that field. You didn't say before, but what are you planning to do with a degree in sociology?"
Jay fought hard to answer without stammering. "Well, eventually I want to teach? Not college level, but in some kind of primary school, maybe in a non-traditional setting. So, I'm getting the master's in sociology with an emphasis on educational systems, and then hopefully some kind of degree in education."
Jensen gave her an assessing gaze Jay had no idea what to do with, green eyes serious behind her glasses. "That's pretty awesome," Jensen told her slowly. "It's gonna take a long time, I bet."
Jay shrugged. "Yeah, but it's what I really want to do. I had so many great teachers, but even they couldn't really fix the problems with my school district, and I figured if I could get enough education about the larger issues schools are facing, I might be able to make it better for other kids."
Jensen was staring at her again, and Jay flushed. "It's kind of far-fetched, I know - " she started to mumble, but Jensen cut her off with a hand on her shoulder.
"No," Jensen said firmly. "That's amazing. I hope it will work out like you've planned."
"Thanks," Jay said. She had to leave before she started gushing to everyone in a three-mile radius about how Jensen thought she was amazing, or something else equally embarrassing. "Um, I'd better go."
"Oh," Jensen said, eyes flicking to the clock on the wall opposite the door. "Me, too, actually. See you on Wednesday?"
"Yeah, see you," Jay managed as she fled the room, very proud of herself over all. Even Genevieve would have to admit that she'd done a good job starting to build a friendship with Jensen.
When she got home from her shift at the library later that night, Chad had left her some pasta to be heated up along with a note saying she had a huge-ass package waiting for her. Jay ignored the pasta and went right to her room, looking eagerly for her father's block printing on the big, brown-paper-wrapped parcel on her bed. She ripped it open to find her favorite, home-canned pears, six neatly labeled glass jars of them.
Chad found her in the kitchen later when he got home, eating her third bowl of pears with cottage cheese. She shared with him, and he had to admit that her care packages from home were pretty damn awesome.
Jay ended the day extremely content and looking forward to the next. She wrote care packages on her left arm, underneath the inside of her elbow where she would be certain to see it in the morning, and fell asleep happy.
++++
Jensen had no idea what, if anything, had changed, but she was too thankful to question it deeply.
After that first conversation, Jay stopped avoiding her before and after class, and they usually chatted easily about the class readings, or about their other classes. Jensen found herself looking forward to those short talks all morning. It kind of shocked her to realize that she considered Jay a friend, one of the only friends she'd made without Danneel's help. After hearing more about Jay's education thus far, she was even more impressed. Jay had completed her A.A. degree at a local community college in California while still in high school, and then finished her B.A. at Berkeley before heading to Portland for grad school. She was driven and focused, reminding Jensen of herself, but she seemed to be carefree and happy at the same time in a way Jensen envied. She'd never managed to so enthusiastically enjoy life the way Jay did.
Jensen finally asked halfway through the quarter about the random words that always seemed to be scribbled on Jay's arms or hands somewhere.
"What's with the marker?" she said after class, when Jay came to ask her about next week's readings.
"Oh," Jay said, looking down at her right hand, which had a small word in purple written along the top of her index finger. "It's strange, I know - I had this period in high school where I was - not depressed, but just unhappy mostly, and my mom started telling me all these silly stories at random moments. I wrote parts of them down on my hands so that I could look at them when I was at school, and it just kind of stuck. Now I write myself notes to think about during the day."
"Not that strange," Jensen admitted. "I used to write in my books - like, novels that I read? I'd put in my reactions to what the characters did and said, or what I would have done in their situation, and then when I re-read the book months or years later, it was like having a conversation with myself. Like a journal, but more focused."
"Yeah," Jay said, a look of complete understanding on her face. "Exactly. I've never met anyone who got that before."
Jensen smiled, Jay smiled back, and Jensen couldn't really describe what she thought was happening. Time seemed to slow down for a minute, and she didn't want to stop looking at Jay - she was afraid she'd never feel this understood again if she didn't keep the connection open. But that was a ridiculous thought, and she forced herself to blink and turn her head, picking up the papers she'd left on the desk and putting them in her bag.
"Wow, I've got to get going," Jay said, just as Jensen opened her mouth to say the same thing. "I've got a shift at the library."
"See you on Monday," Jensen said, and watched as Jay left. She stayed at the desk in the front of the classroom until the instructor for the next class came in, thinking about Jay and her own reaction to their conversation.
++++
Jay's phone buzzed as soon as she got to the classroom one day near the end of the quarter. She looked down to see that it was Genevieve, and she flicked an apologetic smile Jensen's way as she sat down in her front row seat and answered the phone.
"Hi, Genevieve," she said. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, sorry, I meant to get your voicemail," Genevieve answered. "I was going to sing another annoying love song for you to listen to after class with your hot TA. Why'd you answer and ruin my plan?"
"Uh, I guess I care about you? And you don't normally call me during the day?" Jay sighed and rolled her eyes at Jensen, who seemed to be watching her conversation with Genevieve closely, even though she could only be hearing Jay's half.
"Whatever, call me tonight with some fucking progress, okay?" Genevieve made a smacking kiss noise and hung up. Jay put her phone in her pocket and chuckled quietly. She looked up to see Jensen still looking at her, a strange expression on her face, obvious even behind her glasses.
"Girlfriend?" Jensen asked.
Jay almost said no, afraid of what Jensen's question might mean, but in the end she just went with babbling. "Genevieve's my best friend," she said. "You could say she's how I know I'm a lesbian, but she's not my girlfriend, no. She's straight, and like, not the slightest bit bicurious. I mean, I had a crush on her for forever and if she was gonna try girls, I'd have been first in line."
Jensen seemed to relax for a moment, but then she tensed again. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was pretty much the rudest way to ask someone about their love life that I've ever heard - you didn't have to come out to me if you didn't want to."
"It's okay, I'm out everywhere - I kind of thought you already knew?" Jay wanted to believe the strangeness in Jensen's voice was jealousy and not discomfort with the fact that she was gay, but it seemed too good to be true.
"I suspected," Jensen said, a smile finally coming back to her face. "But it was still rude to pry like that and Danneel would punch me if I didn't say I was sorry, so…"
"Danneel?" Jay asked, fearing the answer and hoping for it at the same time.
"My roommate," Jensen said. "She's bi, and she's my best friend. She'd be appalled that I didn't have better manners. Also, I am technically your TA - and that makes it doubly inappropriate."
"Well, then, apology accepted," Jay said. "But I don't think the TA part really matters, because we're friends, right?"
Jensen looked surprised, but nodded. "Yeah," she said. "We're friends."
Then other students started entering the classroom, followed by Dr. Ferris, and they didn't have the chance to say anything else. Jay thought about it, though, filing away Jensen's words, and she didn't even tell Genevieve about it later on. She got teased and hounded for details that didn't exist, but something about Jensen's look when she heard that Jay wasn't dating Genevieve, the way she seemed scared and relieved at the same time, seemed private. But it had been the perfect place for Jensen to come out as well if she did actually like girls, and she hadn't said anything.
Jay had hope, though, and she wasn't giving that up until she absolutely had to.
Genevieve spent hours on the phone, trying to convince her to ask Jensen out on the last day of class. Jay was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to do that, but she did have a plan to keep Jensen in her life after their shared class ended. It wouldn't be weird for them to hang out once Jensen was no longer her TA, and she knew Jensen was her friend now, if nothing else.
++++
Jensen almost dreaded the last day of the quarter. She wanted to believe she and Jay could be friends outside of class, but she was afraid of the possibility that Jay didn't feel the same way, no matter what she had said earlier. She agonized over non-creepy ways to get Jay's phone number all morning, and by the time she got to Sam's office to deliver the papers she'd graded over the last week, she was a wreck. Sam noticed, closing her office door and offering Jensen tea. When Jensen protested that they didn't have time before class, Sam just shook her head
"Were the papers that bad?" Sam asked, once Jensen was settled in Sam's comfiest visitor chair with a cup of Darjeeling. "These guys were pretty smart, I had high hopes."
Jensen smiled. "No, the papers were fairly good. At least, I think they were; you'll have to change the grades I gave if you disagree."
"I'm sure you did a wonderful job as usual," Sam said, dismissing the possibility. Her eyes narrowed as she studied Jensen thoughtfully. "Stress about your own grades?" she asked.
Jensen reminded herself that she should be grateful she had a mentor who actually cared about her well-being. "It's nothing," she said. "I'm just a little tired, and I'm looking forward to the break."
Sam kept eyeing her, as if she were trying to telepathically force Jensen to share all her troubles. "Okay," Sam said. "But you'll tell me if I can cut you any slack, right?"
"I don't need any slack," Jensen protested, and Sam shook her head.
"Kid, you work harder than half the tenured professors in this place - you deserve slack if anyone does. But I won't bug you anymore."
"Oh," Jensen said. "Thank you - I - that's really nice of you to say. I will let you know if I need a break."
Sam nodded and thankfully dropped the subject.
In the end, though, Jensen didn't have any reason to worry, because Jay waited for her after class as usual, and solved the problem of how they would see each other again all by herself.
"I have a big favor to ask," Jay said, chewing on her bottom lip. Jensen nodded without realizing she was, then quickly added "sure, what is it?"
Jay looked relieved. "So, I just turned twenty-one, and I don't know where anything is here? And I figured I should try out the nightlife now that I can, but my only other option when it comes to a guide is my roommate, and he's kind of the worst possible candidate for this sort of thing."
Jensen smiled, remembering some of the stories Jay had told her about Chad. "Yeah, of course," she said, conveniently forgetting that she didn't know the first thing about Portland's nightlife. "I'd be happy to show you around now that I'm not your TA. Do you want to give me your number? We can figure out a good time."
"Before the holidays?" Jay asked, a hopeful smile on her lips.
Jensen smiled in reply. "Yeah. Are you free this Friday?"
"Well, I'll have to miss my Friday night standing engagement with Chad's big screen tv and whichever sports game he's decided on…" Jay pretended to consider, a hilarious expression on her face that Jensen supposed was meant to be pensive.
"Sounds like a hard decision," Jensen said.
Jay laughed. "Not at all, actually - Friday sounds awesome, thank you!"
They programmed their numbers into each other's phones, and Jay left, leaving Jensen to pack up her things, going over the conversation in her mind. She realized belatedly that she didn't know a thing about cool places to go and dropped her head into her hands. Well, at least she had Danneel to tell her where to take Jay, and even if Danneel gloated when she had to ask for help, she wasn't going to miss out on the chance to get to know Jay as a real friend outside of class.
++++
"Hey, you're going with me to happy hour tomorrow, right?" Danneel yelled over her shoulder as she burst into the apartment and went straight to her room. "I'm supposed to meet Adrianne there, and I think it's a date, but she'll be less intimidated if you're with me."
Jensen smiled to herself. Danneel had been pining after Adrianne for weeks, and now she wanted a third wheel on their first actual date - typical Danneel, she thought.
"I'm pretty sure you'll be mad at me later if I crash your date," Jensen called back from her position on her bed, keeping her eyes on the book she had to finish. "And I've got plans tomorrow." Plans she needed to talk to Danneel about, actually, but she hadn't done so yet, not wanting to open herself up to Danneel's mocking.
"Oooh, plans," Danneel replied, her voice muffled by something. "Gonna get drunk and let your boyfriend get to third base?"
"If you must know," Jensen sighed, "I told that girl, Jay, from my social theories class that I'd show her around the bar scene. She just turned twenty-one and she doesn't know many people here. She texted me today to make sure I was still planning on it, and I don't want to disappoint her, so you have to tell me where we should go because I don’t know anything about the bar scene."
Danneel suddenly appeared in Jensen's line of sight, her mouth hanging open, standing in the doorway to Jensen's room.
"What?" Jensen said, looking up from the book.
"You gave a student, a student that you talk about all the time by the way, your phone number and asked her to hang out with you?"
"She won't be my student anymore starting tomorrow, and I told her it wasn't really ethical for us to be friends until she gets her final grades, but she's not even in the architecture program," Jensen protested. "I don't think anyone would get in trouble for this."
"No, no, no," Danneel said quickly. "I'm so proud of you, Jen! You made a friend, all by yourself!"
"Fuck you, Harris. I'm not that bad."
Danneel raised an eyebrow and settled herself firmly on the foot of Jensen's bed, taking the book balanced on Jensen's lap and putting it on the floor.
"You used to tell me that friendship was just a lie girls told each other to have someone to complain about their boyfriends to - you used to run and hide if I brought home someone to meet you in college."
Jensen frowned, shaking off Danneel's hand on her knee. "It's no fair using my nineteen-year-old self against me," she grumbled.
Danneel smirked. "I can use anything I want against you, babe, and believe me, this is a miracle akin to the loaves and the fishes."
"You're a bad Catholic," Jensen said, and Danneel winked.
"You know it," she said. "Seriously Jen, I'm glad you've made a special friend.
Jensen choked on her own spit. "What? No," she stammered. "It's not like - I mean, she's a lesbian, yeah, but she's not into m - I'm not - she's a girl."
Danneel's eyes narrowed. "Are you still harboring remnants of homophobia? I thought we got rid of that."
Jensen sighed and slumped over, her face smooshed against Danneel's jean-clad calf. "I'm not - I know you're bi, and I know there's nothing wrong with it, but I've never felt this way bef - I've never felt that way."
Danneel's voice softened, and she ran a comforting hand through Jensen's short hair. "I know, honey, but that doesn't mean you don't feel that way now. And I've never wanted to push you about it, but I'm fairly sure the only reason you haven't felt this way before is because you haven't let yourself."
"I haven't - " Jensen stopped, and then thought about that, remembering how tightly she'd had herself locked down as a teenager, keeping herself safe from all the slurs and rumors spread by her classmates. It was possible, she had to acknowledge, that she'd locked down more than she'd thought she had. She let her mind wander to Jay, pictured her long fingers and her eyelashes, the way she laughed with her entire body, the way she didn’t hold anything back. Jensen thought about touching her, seeing if she could make Jay be quiet by kissing her, what it would feel like to -
She sat up abruptly and blushed so hotly she was afraid to see what her face looked like.
"Mmmhmmm," Danneel said smugly. "Now stop thinking dirty thoughts about your underage hottie while I'm in the room. It's not fair, and also, slightly gross. You're like my sister."
"I wasn't - I wouldn't - Danny, come on," Jensen begged. "Tell me this isn't a good idea."
"I'm not gonna lie to you."
"She is only twenty-one," Jensen said, in a last-ditch attempt to make Danneel keep her from pursuing Jay. "I'm twenty-five, I'm almost done with grad school, it's not fair to start something with her now."
Danneel snorted. "That's ridiculous and you know it. You're not some dirty old pervert who's only out for sex, you wouldn't lead someone on like that. You like her, you want to date her, and it sounds like she likes you, too. You should take this chance while you can!"
"I've never dated a girl before," Jensen said, knowing it wouldn't change Danneel's mind.
"It's time you started!" Danneel forced Jensen to look her in the eye. "Be honest with me - how often did you even get off when you and Justin were dating?"
Jensen hadn't thought she could blush any harder, but this topic was gonna do it, no question. "Danneel!"
"No, I want an answer." Danneel put both hands on Jensen's shoulders, not letting her hide from the question.
"Twice," Jensen admitted, so quietly she almost couldn't hear herself. "But both times it was because I did it myself while we were…"
"Jesus H!" Danneel threw her hands up in frustration. "What do you think about when you're masturbating, then? What do you want when it's just you?"
Jensen didn't answer, honestly trying to figure out the truth about that. She didn't really want to discuss it with Danneel, but maybe her friend had a point. Jensen didn't fantasize - she normally thought about orgasms as a bodily function she needed to give herself to be healthy. "Uh," she told Danneel finally. "I don't think about anything in particular. I didn't realize I had to."
"You don't have to, but it usually helps." Danneel shook her head. "I am so sorry I didn't get this nosy earlier. Jensen, your one task before this date is to spend some time with yourself and figure out what you want, what really gets you going."
"If I say okay will you stop talking about it?"
"Deal," Danneel said, grinning at Jensen's discomfort.
"Fine, I promise I will," Jensen said, finally reaching the breaking point of embarrassment.
"Good. But before you start, I need to check something." Danneel stood up and threw open Jensen's closet, then clucked in disgust at its contents. "Well, that settles the question of what you're wearing - since you don't own anything but flannel, you're borrowing something of mine."
And Jensen knew better than to protest anymore after that.
++++
Code fucking red, Jay texted as she shoved Chad away from her dinner. "Get your own," she told Chad, who pouted, but left for the kitchen, probably to scrounge for leftovers in the fridge. Jay stuck her phone in her pocket and retreated to her room with her pasta. The phone buzzed before she even got the door closed behind her.
"Oh my god, are you okay?" Genevieve asked breathlessly when Jay answered.
"I have a date with Jensen," Jay said. "I mean, I don't know if it's actually a date, but we're going to a bar tomorrow night and she said that now that she's not my TA anymore we can hang out and I think she might mean more than just as friends, but I'm not sure, and fuck, Gen, what am I going to wear?"
Genevieve swore loudly, then started laughing. Jay rolled her eyes. Gen was so predictable.
"C'mon," she whined into the phone. "I need help - I need a decent best friend."
"You're just so much fun," Genevieve said between gulps of air as she kept laughing. "It's like my own personal trashy teen melodrama."
"I can just go talk to Chad," Jay said. "I'm sure he'd love to give me advice about my lesbian maybe-a-date."
"Don't pout," Genevieve said, finally calming down. "You should wear something cute, one of those skirts you have but never actually put on."
"It won't look weird? Skirts make me look too tall."
Genevieve let out a quick breath, dismissing the idea. "Tall is not a bad thing - trust me on that, okay?"
"You're not gay, what do you know?" Jay shot back.
"I know more about looking attractive than you do, gay or straight," Genevieve told her bluntly. "Also, you are tall, it's a fact of your life. It's not something you can hide, and if Jensen doesn't like it, then screw her, you'll find someone else to date."
"What did I do to deserve you?" Jay said it with exasperation, but Genevieve knew what she meant.
"You were a goddamn saint in a past life," she said. "Now, it's cold there, right?" At Jay's affirmative she continued. "So you should wear boots, and a skirt, and leave your hair down."
"Okay," Jay said. "Okay, maybe it won't be a disaster."
"Of course it won't," Genevieve said. "Now go lay out your clothes and then do something mindless until you fall asleep."
Jay took her friend's extremely good advice and spent the evening soundly beating Chad at almost every videogame he threw at her. Jay had turned out to be surprisingly good at first-person shooting games for someone raised as a pacifist, and the mindlessness of it kept her worry at bay. It was the perfect way to prepare for her date with Jensen.
++++
After being stuffed into more of Danneel's uncomfortable clothing than she'd thought possible for one person to own in a quest for the perfect first-date outfit, Jensen retreated back to her room and locked the door. The bedside table loomed ominously at her, and she glared at it, not wanting to open the bottom drawer and get out what she needed. Danneel was out there, and she knew what Jensen would be getting up to, and it was just very, very awkward.
Luckily for Jensen, Danneel chose that moment to yell "I'm going to the bar, don't wait up!" as the front door slammed.
She stood still for another few minutes, until the ridiculousness of being afraid of her own damn vibrator compelled her to open the drawer and get it out, settling herself on the bed and trying to relax. She pushed down her underwear and pajama pants, kicking them off, and hitched her tank top over her shoulders, leaving herself naked and feeling self-conscious. She took off her glasses and set them on the bedside table, relaxing further as the world became soft and fuzzy.
Closing her eyes, Jensen set the vibrator aside for the moment and tried to think about a girl, not Jay, just a girl - long, smooth legs and slim hips, the slight curve of small breasts, a wide mouth…
She sighed and gave up - her body clearly wanted to think about Jay and she would just have to feel guilty about it later.
Picturing the last time she'd slept with a guy, she replaced the image of Justin with Jay, sliding a thigh between her legs, kissing her neck, those long fingers playing with her nipples. She used one of her own hands on her breasts, pinching lightly until her nipples felt electric and connected directly to her clit. Just the thought of Jay moving a hand down, slipping between her legs and rubbing softly over the hood of her clit, had Jensen gasping at the surge of lust that swept through her. She kept one hand massaging her breasts in turn and moved the other down, her mind concentrating on Jay - Jay's mouth moving down her neck to her breasts, Jay's fingers, two of them, pushing inside her. She pushed her own finger into her cunt and felt how wet she was, then reached for the abandoned vibrator, turning it on and rubbing it over her vulva, the vibrations travelling through her skin to her clit.
Jensen moved the vibrator lower, pushing it just inside and fucking herself shallowly. She rubbed her clit with her free hand slowly, still lost in the fantasy of Jay touching her. She didn't have to leave it there, either, she realized. Part of what she wanted was to touch Jay, to know exactly what those legs, what Jay's entire body, would feel like, bare and laid out for her to kiss and stroke.
She moved the vibrator to press directly against her clit, her hips thrusting up involuntarily as she pushed two fingers from her other hand inside herself. She was grateful again that Danneel had left, as she couldn't hold back a moan. Her mind couldn't focus on any one image - she moved without logic from imagining pushing her fingers into Jay's cunt to kissing the join of her neck and shoulder to licking her nipples and biting them softly. She fell over the edge into a long, intense orgasm as she pictured Jay's face, flushed with arousal, open mouth and dark eyes. Her thighs closed without her conscious direction, squeezing the vibrator against her body as her hips rolled to make the feeling last. Her fingers slipped out and she managed to bring her hand to her mouth, pretending it was Jay she could smell and taste on her fingers.
When the aftershocks finally faded, Jensen turned off the vibrator and tossed it onto her sheets, breathing wildly. She could clean it tomorrow. "Jesus fuck," she said out loud. She had never come that quickly before.
She got ready for bed in a daze, and when she finally slept, she dreamt of laughter and dimples.
Part Two
"Jensen Ackles, you are going to go put on a damn pair of clean pants and be back in this room in ten minutes, with a fucking smile on your face, or else - "
"Or else?" Jensen lifted her head and blinked at Danneel, not at all fooled by her roommate's threatening tone. "You'll set me up on the world's worst blind date? Oh wait, that already happened. Twice."
Danneel sighed and dropped onto the couch next to Jensen gingerly, careful to keep her short skirt away from Jensen's bowl of popcorn sitting on the cushion between them. "One, they can't both be the worst date ever, and two, I have apologized for that shit at least ten times since it happened. You can't use that as an excuse to not go out dancing with me anymore."
"I've got work to do," Jensen said. "And I'm a shitty dancer anyway, you'll have a better time without me."
"Is this about Justin?"
Jensen looked up sharply at the mention of her recent ex. "What? No," she replied. "I'm the one who broke up with him, remember?"
"Okay," Danneel replied, as if she didn't quite believe Jensen. "I got that client, did I tell you? The one my boss told me would get me a raise if I managed to land the account? I need to celebrate!"
Jensen wavered. Danneel had been working overtime for the past month to get that account for her firm. She worked for a small advertising business, a Portland company that didn't usually get very high-profile clients because they focused on local, sustainable projects and products. Jensen felt like she should give in, but she just couldn't face the idea of going out.
"I'm sorry," she told Danneel. "We can celebrate tomorrow? Invite Misha over for dinner?"
"I want to see you outside of this apartment every now and then," Danneel said, a pleading tone in her voice that Jensen suspected was only half-faked.
"Some time, but not tonight."
Danneel heaved another sigh and stood up, grabbing her purse and walking to the front door. "Whatever, Jensen. You said that last week."
Jensen watched the door open and then slam shut, and the noise almost made her guilty enough to chase after Danneel, but this had only been the latest in a long series of similar conversations between them, and Jensen knew it wouldn't cause lasting harm to let it go for now. She moved from the living room to the desk in her bedroom, stopping only to change into comfortable pajamas, and got started on the assignment due in three weeks. She had already finished the ones due before then, which weren't many, given that the year had just started, and yeah, maybe Danneel had a point about her anti-social tendencies - but it didn't change the fact that going to a loud nightclub where douchey fraternity guys would be out in full force seemed like hell to Jensen.
She settled down to work, pushing away the thought that there had to be a midway point between total hermit - Jensen's normal state - and Danneel's level of social involvement.
The thing about Jensen Ackles was that she knew herself, and she knew what she wanted out of life in the long run. She just didn't know exactly what she wanted to do in the meantime, in the space between working hard and getting her degree, and becoming a world-class architect. She had vague ideas about what kind of relationship she wanted to have someday, but none of the few guys she'd dated had ever made her think they were it, the kind of person she wanted to spend more than casual time with.
When she met Danneel in college, she'd been quiet and straight-laced, still shy and reserved with most people after four years spent in high school hell being called a dyke and a slut while doing her best to never do anything remotely close to the things people said she'd done. Danneel had been determined to become her friend, and Jensen felt grateful for that, and for Misha and the new friends Danneel had brought into her life during their years as roommates. But Jensen hadn't changed, not fundamentally, and she would almost always rather stay home than go out.
It was her last year, she realized suddenly, in the middle of doing a final read-through of the syllabus for the class she would be TA-ing this quarter. When she finished this year, she would hopefully find a job, and eventually move into her own place, and when that happened, when Danneel was no longer always there for her, would she still want to be alone so much?
Maybe it was time for a change.
Danneel came home early (for her) a few hours later and slipped into Jensen's room. Jensen had dozed off over a new design at her drafting desk, and she raised her head groggily, pushing her glasses up as Danneel said, "oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. Your light's still on."
Jensen tried to shake off her sleepiness, but yawned around her reply anyway. "It's okay. What are you doing home so early?"
Danneel smiled lopsidedly and sat down on Jensen's bed. "I'm sorry for yelling," she said. "I love you just the way you are, little hermit."
"Shut the fuck up," Jensen grumbled, but she joined Danneel on her bed and leaned against her. They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments before Jensen said, "I'm sorry, too. I think I do need to get out more. But not to clubs, those are not an option."
Danneel didn't gloat like Jensen knew she must have been dying to, just smiled and patted Jensen on the head fondly. "We'll make a real human being of you yet, just you wait and see."
Jensen pinched her and Danneel squawked, pinching back, which led to an extremely juvenile tickle fight. "Okay, okay," Danneel laughed, eventually standing up and moving out of range. "I need to get out of this top before it strangles me. But your new life as a social butterfly starts tomorrow, young lady."
Jensen laughed and nodded like it wasn't a big deal, but she stayed awake late into the night thinking. Changing would be difficult, but she could start small, and see what happened. She spent a lot of time saying no when anything unexpected or unplanned happened, and maybe all she had to do was start saying yes now and then.
She fell asleep still deep in thought.
++++
Jay felt nervously in the front pocket of her jeans for the tenth time, making sure she still had her new student ID and her emergency credit card, and almost dropped the stack of books she held under one arm.
"Whoa," Chad's voice came from behind her. "Hold up, Jay, don't cause a disaster."
"Funny," she replied, turning to drop her books into Chad's arms. "Here, take these."
"Fine," Chad huffed, "but only because I know I'll be calling 911 if I let you stagger around with an armful of books."
"Remind me why I let you come with me today? No, wait, remind me why I agreed to be your roommate?" Jay reached the register and motioned for Chad to put the books down so the cashier could scan them, and then handed over her credit card to pay.
Chad waited until she received her purchases in a drawstring bag with the university's logo on it before answering.
"You needed a place to stay, and you didn't want to have to pay a ton of money or get a weird roommate. And I," he continued, "took you in out of the generosity of my heart, to give my old college pal a home."
Jay laughed, nearly losing hold of the bag as they walked out of the bookstore and started heading to the next stop on her list. "Oh my god," she said, once she could speak coherently. "It's the goodness of your heart, except you don't have any. You let me move in because you still think having a lesbian as your wingman gets you more chicks. And I bet you only tagged along today to see if you could hit on co-eds."
"You just wait," Chad replied. "This year, it's gonna be awesome, bro." He gave her a chin-nod and what she suspected was meant to be a companionable leer.
Jay smiled fondly and knocked her hand against the back of Chad's head, listening to him prattle through the rest of her errands, and then back to their apartment. The only thing she had to do now was finalize her work-study job at the undergraduate library, but she had an appointment to do that early the next morning before classes. It wouldn't pay much or offer many hours, but between her savings, grants, loans, the job, and her very cheap rent, Jay thought she'd probably be okay.
Chad had been living by himself in a two-bedroom place because his previous roommate had had to leave town unexpectedly (when Jay asked why, Chad told her she didn't want to know, and she believed him), and when Jay found out she'd be going to grad school in Portland, the timing seemed too perfect to pass up. Genevieve couldn't believe it was healthy or safe to live with Chad no matter what Jay told her, but so far, it hadn't been bad. Granted, it had only been a week, but Chad was keeping his mess mostly in his room, and that was all Jay could ask for in a roommate. He had also offered her the room for less than Jay suspected was half of the total rent, but she didn't see any reason to fight him about that since he made good money managing his family's construction firm. Besides, she could always pay him back with food from her parents' farm, or by cleaning the kitchen - he seemed to hate that particular chore.
Chad was kind of like a small, benign growth, Jay often thought. It was easy to get used to him being around, and he was hilarious, especially in his continued delusion that being gay made Jay a good wingman. It hadn't worked in college, and Jay really didn't see it working here, either. She wasn't going to lie for him, and most girls had the good sense to stay far away, lesbian friend or not. But ever since she'd given Chad her standard "I'm gay" response when he'd hit on her, he'd been convinced they were bros, and Jay did, in a brotherly way, and not where Genevieve could hear her say it, like him. He was a good friend when he wasn't being smarmy at LGBT campus group meetings.
Her new room still looked a little empty without the Xena posters that had defined her college dorm, but she was determined to have a grown-up room now. Her mother thought it meant she'd finally rejected violence as an acceptable part of her media consumption, and Jay hadn't wanted to disclose the fact that she actually just wanted a room she could bring a girl back to without feeling like a huge cliché.
She'd find new art, she'd make new friends - this was a new town, and a chance to change, to make her life become the one she really wanted. She only had to make it happen.
After brushing her teeth and making sure she had all the supplies she'd need for her first day of classes laid out, Jay broke into her emergency sharpie stash and wrote the words carefully around her wrist in red and pink: time for a change.
++++
"Excuse me, is this - "
Jensen looked up from the desk to see a tall girl standing uncertainly in the doorway to the classroom, clutching a bag that seemed to be made of rainbow-patterned duct-tape.
"Freshman lit's one floor down," Jensen said, taking in the shell-shocked first-day haze, and the girl blushed, twisting her hands nervously. She had writing wrapped around her wrist in what looked like marker, but Jensen couldn't read what it said.
"Oh, no - I'm - it's - I'm looking for the seminar on social theories of the built environment?"
Jensen paused and looked more thoroughly, but still couldn't believe the girl was more than nineteen. Her shoulder-length messy brown hair was pulled back from her face with pink barrettes, her jeans were frayed at the ends, hitting the floor over a pair of pink flip-flops, and her blue t-shirt had a logo Jensen didn't recognize. Her purple hoodie had patches on the shoulders, looking worse for the wear, but the overall effect of her outfit made her seem purposefully mismatched in a charming way.
"Then you're in the right place," Jensen replied, trying to sound a little nicer. "You are about half an hour early, but you can come in and get settled if you'd like."
"Oh, thanks," the girl said, shuffling into the room and setting her bag down in the first row. She turned back to Jensen and smiled widely, dimples prominent on her face. "I was so worried I'd never find the right room, and I gave myself lots of extra time, especially since I'm really excited about this class. Wow, you're so young to be a professor!"
Jensen arched an eyebrow and the girl blanched.
"Oh, I'm sorry - I just - I came early so I wouldn't be late and get labeled as that loser who doesn't care about the class and now I'm giving you the verbal version of tripping at a party and dumping my beer all over your new dress, and - " she closed her mouth and her eyes, then continued, "and I'm just going to stop now, and - are you laughing at me?"
"No, no," Jensen lied, not at all convincingly. "Well, yes, but in a really nice way, I promise. I'm Jensen, I'm the TA for this class, not the professor, but thanks for the compliment."
"I'm Jay," the girl said. "Well, Jared, but people usually think it's weird to call a girl Jared, so mostly they just call me Jay and I like it, so it's not insulting or anything."
"Nice to meet you, Jay," Jensen replied, still struggling to stop laughing. "I can't say I've ever met a girl named Jared before, but I can say I don't think it's that weird."
Jay's face lit up and she sat down in the seat next to her bag. "My parents were hippies," she offered, pulling her knees up to her chest and placing her feet on her chair. Her toenails had glittery purple nail polish, and Jensen's own feet felt cold just looking at them. Portland wouldn't have real flip-flop weather for at least another six or seven months. "They say they chose Jared because one of their best friends named Jared was a hero in an anti-war protest or something, but I've never met this so-called best friend, so I'm pretty sure it's because they were both high when they named me. I mean, my mom couldn't smoke weed for nine months, so as soon as I was born, they started celebrating non-stop."
Jensen must have let a little of her alarm show, because Jay immediately tacked on, "oh, they didn't do it where it would affect me - they took turns, and the rest of the collective helped out with the baby-care, too - oh god, this is not making me sound more normal."
Jensen laughed, still kind of shocked, but too charmed to care. She normally didn't take to students (or anyone) so easily, but Jay wasn't showing any of the disinterest or, worse, complete belief in her own knowledge that defined most first-year students in any grad program.
"It must make great party conversation, though," Jensen said. "I mean, Jensen is an old family name, but I'm pretty sure no one with that name has ever done anything as interesting as that."
"Oh, I'm lots of fun at parties," Jay agreed. "But it's usually because I trip and fall and somehow set something on fire." She smiled ruefully. "I was the reason my best friend became a nurse."
Jensen's phone buzzed then, and she looked at the screen. It was Samantha, which probably meant that Jensen was teaching the class on her own today. She smiled apologetically at Jay and answered.
"Hey, Sam, what's up?"
Her advisor's voice sounded winded. "Jen, I'm on my way, but my bike got a flat and I'm walking, so it's going to take a few extra minutes. Can you handle the intros and the syllabus?"
"Sure thing," Jensen replied, checking to make sure she still had the stack of papers that included the course packets and syllabi. "We'll see you when you get here, and don't rush."
"You're my favorite!"
"Yeah, yeah." Jensen smiled and ended the call, looking up to see Jay staring at her. "That was the professor, she's running a little late and wanted to make sure I'd be able to start the class without her," she explained, not sure why Jay was so focused on her.
"Oh," Jay said. "She must really trust you."
Jensen grinned. "Well, Sam - Dr. Ferris - isn't a typical prof. You'll like her, she's the best in the architecture program."
"I'm not really an architecture student," Jay said, dropping her feet down to the floor and shifting nervously. "I'm - I just started in the masters program in sociology, and this is one of the electives we can take, and I wanted to start off with something fun."
"Hmm, I don't know if I believe you," Jensen teased, surprised at herself even as she said the words. Jay's face went red, and Jensen would have felt bad if it hadn't been so adorable. "You can't be more than eighteen, kid."
"I'm twenty-one!" Jay said hotly. "Um, almost. In like a month."
"How'd you get into a grad program so young?" Jensen asked, leaning forward to focus on Jay as other early bird students began to trickle into the classroom.
"I started college early, and I did just graduate last June." She looked down and bit her lip. "I'm not quite sure why I got accepted, I'm not that smart."
"You probably are," Jensen said, meaning it. "It's a tough school to get into."
"Oh," Jay said, blushing again. "Um - "
A loud group of students came in then, keeping Jensen from replying, and by the time it quieted down, Jensen had to concentrate on getting the class started and passing out the course packets. She kept finding her attention drifting back to Jay, all throughout the class, and she was almost disappointed when Jay left the classroom right away, slipping out while Jensen stayed to answer questions with Sam.
Jensen dissected the first day of classes with Danneel and Misha later that night over beer and pizza, and found herself strangely reluctant to talk about meeting Jay. She told herself it was just because they'd make fun of Jay mercilessly, that it wasn't important enough of an event to really need sharing, but she knew that wasn't it. Jay was… hers, somehow, a secret she didn't want to share. She didn't want to think about it more deeply than that.
++++
"So, how'd the first day go?"
Jay flopped down on her bed, holding her phone loosely against her ear. "Um, it was okay. I was really early for my first class, but the TA was nice and let me in and I kind of talked her ear off, but she didn't seem to mind. I'm pretty exhausted, though."
Genevieve giggled, and it made Jay feel better immediately.
"Same old Jared," Genevieve said. "I'm glad grad school hasn't changed you yet."
"My TA was really hot," Jay blurted, then clapped a hand over her mouth. She hadn't meant to tell Genevieve about her embarrassing crush, hoping to put off the inevitable mocking. Her best friend was tiny, but she could bring down linebackers with her sass.
Genevieve didn't surprise her. "Jay! You've already thrown me over for an older woman? I can't believe it!"
"Whatever," Jay said. "You know you'll always regret being straight and thus unable to handle the awesomeness that is me."
It had taken a long time, Jay thought, for them to get to the point where they could joke about her years-long crush on Genevieve. It didn't feel at all awkward anymore, and Jay was thankful, again, for such a perfect best friend. Spilling her hormone-driven feelings for Genevieve during Gen's high school graduation party while they were both drunk should have ended their friendship, but Gen had let her down honestly, if not easily, and then didn't let Jay disappear. She'd shown up at Jay's house every day all summer long, and when Genevieve went to college that fall, Jay was happy again, even if it hadn't turned out the way she'd always dreamed. It probably helped that Gen was two years older and that they didn't go to the same college, allowing Jay to have distance as well as time. Now her crush was just a memory, and they had made so many more memories together since then that it didn't even feel all that important in the scheme of things.
Genevieve sighed, and Jay asked, concerned, "what's wrong?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, it's not really - I didn't want to tell you right away and ruin your first day, but I broke up with Ethan last night. I was just thinking that life really would have been easier if I were gay, which I know is a stupid thing to say, but I'm kinda depressed about the whole thing."
"I'm sorry, Gen, what happened?" Jay shook her flip-flops off and curled more comfortably on her bed to listen. After hearing Genevieve's story, Jay had to admit she'd had a pretty awesome day in comparison.
"Did he really say that about your job?" she asked Genevieve for the fifth time.
"Yes," Genevieve said, with as much righteous indignation as the first time she'd answered. "I'd give anything for him to have to spend a night shift in the emergency room and then tell me that nurses have it easy, but I'm not sure that would even work. It's like his empathy gland is missing - he must have had it removed in med school."
"That's a really gross concept, and I'd appreciate it if you never said the word gland again," Jay told her. "I might have to go to therapy."
"Shut up," Genevieve said fondly. "Distract me from my misery - tell me more about your hot TA."
"Um," Jay stammered. "She's tall, with glasses and green eyes, and fucking freckles, Gen, it's not fair."
"Nice rack?" Genevieve asked.
"Like you even know what a nice rack is," Jay scoffed, but blushed as she thought about Jensen's figure, which had made a serious impression on her, even hidden under the jeans and over-sized sweater Jensen had been wearing. "Um, it's - it's a very nice rack, actually. She's gorgeous, and she wasn't even wearing makeup or very fancy clothes."
"Is it against the rules to ask her out?"
Jay twisted her fingers through her hair. "Yeah, I think so, at least until she's not my TA anymore. And - she's probably not into girls, anyway."
Genevieve hummed sympathetically, then ruined the moment by saying, "but your gaydar's no good, honey. You thought Michael and Tony were just good friends in high school."
"That doesn't count!"
"It totally counts, and I'm making an executive decision - you're going to ask your hot TA out as soon as she's just hot, and not your TA anymore."
"She might be dangerously homophobic!"
"In Portland?" Genevieve heaved an incredulous sigh. "Okay, you'll ask her out as soon as you know she's not a homophobe. What's her name, anyway?"
"Jensen," Jay replied, and was horrified to realize that she'd said it dreamily.
"There you go," Genevieve said. "No one named Jensen is straight, it's against the rules."
"There are no rules, that's the point, and - you're just trying to get me less nervous so I'll do your evil bidding, don't try to deny it!"
Jay could hear Gen smirking. "And it always works, doesn't it?"
"Goodnight, Genevieve," Jay said, ignoring her friend's protests as she hung up.
Jay settled herself, getting all of the papers and course packets she'd received in all of the day's classes organized. Her phone buzzed with a text message ten minutes later, and she laughed as she read it.
jared + jensen, sitting in tree, having lots of hot gay sex!!
She sent a quick text back (i said gnite, go bug yr roommate) and spent the rest of the night trying not to picture exactly what hot gay sex with Jensen would be like.
++++
The beginning of the year always brought with it a crush of extra work for Jensen; in between prepping lesson plans and making endless copies of articles for some of the lazier profs she assisted, she also had to settle into her own classes, and, this year, start looking for a summer internship. All the good local ones had application deadlines just before or after the winter holidays, and Jensen had no intention of missing out. She also had a new problem this year - her promise to be more social. Danneel wasn't giving an inch, and so Jensen found herself going out to dinner or drinks with Danneel and Misha and various other people almost every day.
She was busier than she could ever remember being, but she still found time to wonder why Jay, who had seemed so friendly at first, now got to class barely on time and fled as soon as it was over. She tried not to feel hurt about it - Jay didn't owe her anything, and this was part of being more open, wasn't it? The possibility that she could be rejected wasn't a theoretical issue for Jensen. She knew what it felt like - but this was the first time she'd had that feeling in a while, and it hit her harder than she'd thought it would.
Danneel eventually bullied it out of her, with Misha's help. They were surrounding her on the couch one night, having just finished forcing her to suffer through the latest episode of some godawful reality show. Jensen often wondered why two of the most intelligent people she knew were so fascinated by watching people act like complete assholes on tv.
Misha tucked himself back against his side of the couch and poked Jensen with one bare foot before settling it under his thigh. "Why so grumpy, princess?"
"Don't call me that, fucker," Jensen grumbled. "It's nothing, I just thought I might have made a friend and now she's ignoring me. I sound like a ten year-old, god, just tell me to shut up."
Misha could never ignore the possibility of interpersonal relationship drama, which Jensen didn't remember until it was too late. His eyes opened fully with interest and he sat up.
"Do tell," he said. "I smell a situation that needs my professional opinion."
Jensen rolled her eyes. "It's just a girl in one of my classes, the one I'm TA-ing for Sam? She talked to me for a long time the first day of class, and I thought we actually hit it off pretty well. Now she barely arrives on time and leaves as soon as she can."
"She's an architecture student?" Danneel asked, and Jensen decided it would just be easier to tell them everything she knew about Jay and get it over with. When she'd finished the story, she sighed. "So, what did I do wrong?"
Danneel didn't answer right away and Jensen could tell she was thinking carefully about her reply.
"I think," she said, "that it's probably not about you."
"What?" Jensen said. "She's avoiding me, how is that not about me?"
"She's younger than most of the people in her classes, right?" Misha put in, having seemingly guessed at Danneel's reasoning.
"Yeah, but what does that - "
Danneel cut her off. "She's embarrassed because she thinks she made a fool of herself the last time you talked, and she's really conscious of how much younger she is, and worried that you think she's a juvenile idiot."
"It's not easy being smarter than people your own age," Misha put in. "I don't know, but it seems like if she's skipped grades or whatever she did to be in grad school at twenty, it would make sense if she focused on that to an extensive degree."
Jensen nodded her head slowly. "Man, it's creepy when you start psychoanalyzing people that aren't even in the room," she told Misha, and Danneel laughed.
"What's the point of having a friend who majored in psych if it's not to get free psychoanalysis?" Danneel said.
"I'll have you know that I'm a licensed therapist," Misha said with mock dignity. "And I don't find these aspersions being cast on my profession amusing."
"You find aspersions cast on anyone's profession amusing," Jensen said fondly. She sometimes wondered what kind of good deeds she'd done in a past life to deserve these two friends who took all the bad along with the good she had to offer. Not that she would inflate either of their egos by saying that out loud.
Danneel stood up and went to the kitchen as Misha's phone started playing Vicki's ringtone. He let it play, shimmying his hips to the chorus.
"Does Vicki know you've got Milkshake set as her ringtone?" Jensen asked.
Misha smiled as he answered the phone. "Damn right," he sang along with the song before it cut off, and Jensen groaned.
"That is awful. Get out of my apartment!"
After Misha left and Danneel went to her room to start packing for the business trip she had to leave for in the morning, Jensen stayed on the couch and thought about Jay. It was a good guess that she felt nervous around older students with more life experience, and maybe if Jensen let her have time to relax, they might be able to become friends after all. In any case, it wasn't a good idea to be too friendly with someone whose work she would be grading until after the quarter ended.
Decision made, Jensen headed for an hour of reading and then bed, but she made the mistake of checking her email first, where she had a two-page missive from her sister about life in high school. She wasn't terribly close to her family, but she and her little sister had a special bond, and she always enjoyed hearing about the latest drama to sweep through Richardson. By the time she'd finished reading and replying to the email, she didn't feel like doing the dry reading she needed to finish for class.
Instead, she pulled out a battered copy of her favorite teen fantasy novel. Danneel always teased her for still reading young adult books, but Jensen loved escaping into lives so much wilder than hers, and so her bookshelf was half architecture books and half teen fiction.
She let her mind roam as she read, wondering what things Jay liked to read, before realizing that was a strange thing to wonder about a girl she hardly knew. She concentrated harder on the story in front of her, but in spite of her best intentions, she fell asleep halfway through the book.
++++
Jay had plenty of experience with unrequited crushes interfering with her academic work. She hadn't been worried about that aspect of being in class with Jensen three times a week at all, but it turned out that watching an attractive woman teaching got her unreasonably hot, especially when it was Jensen. It wasn't like trying to push down her feelings for Genevieve, because she didn't have as much of an incentive to not like Jensen.
Jensen was possible in a way Genevieve never had been. At least, she was possible until Jay found out she was straight or already had a boy- or girlfriend, and Jay wanted to put that moment off as long as she could. She held out for the first three weeks of class, rushing into the classroom just a few moments before the start, and leaving as soon as class ended without looking back. She felt bad about it, and worried that Jensen would think she was a bitch for ignoring her after their first conversation, but the alternative was most likely pouring out her reasoning and a ridiculous amount of backstory in a pile of word-vomit that would make Jensen start backing away slowly to go report her to the campus health clinic, and - it was possible that Jay had put too much thought into this.
She sat in the back on Monday of the fourth week of the quarter, and quietly panicked for the entire two-hour class, trying to calm down enough to be able to hear what Dr. Ferris was saying. It was a pointless struggle, but she did manage to stay in her seat once the class ended, slowly putting her notebook in her bag and watching Jensen answer questions from some of the other students. Dr. Ferris left shortly after that, and Jay made her way to the front of the room to catch Jensen's eye.
"Hi," Jensen said as she approached, clearly surprised by the change in her behavior. "Did you have a question?"
"Oh, um, no," Jay said, her voice sounding strange to her own ears. "Just wanted to say hi!"
"Well, hi," Jensen replied.
"Hi!" Jay winced at herself and tried to save the conversation. "Um, actually, I was wondering if I could have a copy of the article you mentioned last week? The one you said anyone could ask you for?"
"Of course," Jensen said, reaching into her messenger bag. She rummaged around a bit and produced a manila folder with a neatly-printed label reading optional class articles.
"I always print some out in case people actually take me up on the offer," she said with a smile as she handed over a stapled article, and Jay almost melted with gratitude at how graciously she seemed to be taking Jay's social ineptitude.
"Thanks," Jay said. "I really think it will help me prove to my advisor that this class should become a regular part of the sociology course and not just a discouraged elective."
"I hadn't thought of it that way," Jensen said. "But I think you're right - it's very relevant to that field. You didn't say before, but what are you planning to do with a degree in sociology?"
Jay fought hard to answer without stammering. "Well, eventually I want to teach? Not college level, but in some kind of primary school, maybe in a non-traditional setting. So, I'm getting the master's in sociology with an emphasis on educational systems, and then hopefully some kind of degree in education."
Jensen gave her an assessing gaze Jay had no idea what to do with, green eyes serious behind her glasses. "That's pretty awesome," Jensen told her slowly. "It's gonna take a long time, I bet."
Jay shrugged. "Yeah, but it's what I really want to do. I had so many great teachers, but even they couldn't really fix the problems with my school district, and I figured if I could get enough education about the larger issues schools are facing, I might be able to make it better for other kids."
Jensen was staring at her again, and Jay flushed. "It's kind of far-fetched, I know - " she started to mumble, but Jensen cut her off with a hand on her shoulder.
"No," Jensen said firmly. "That's amazing. I hope it will work out like you've planned."
"Thanks," Jay said. She had to leave before she started gushing to everyone in a three-mile radius about how Jensen thought she was amazing, or something else equally embarrassing. "Um, I'd better go."
"Oh," Jensen said, eyes flicking to the clock on the wall opposite the door. "Me, too, actually. See you on Wednesday?"
"Yeah, see you," Jay managed as she fled the room, very proud of herself over all. Even Genevieve would have to admit that she'd done a good job starting to build a friendship with Jensen.
When she got home from her shift at the library later that night, Chad had left her some pasta to be heated up along with a note saying she had a huge-ass package waiting for her. Jay ignored the pasta and went right to her room, looking eagerly for her father's block printing on the big, brown-paper-wrapped parcel on her bed. She ripped it open to find her favorite, home-canned pears, six neatly labeled glass jars of them.
Chad found her in the kitchen later when he got home, eating her third bowl of pears with cottage cheese. She shared with him, and he had to admit that her care packages from home were pretty damn awesome.
Jay ended the day extremely content and looking forward to the next. She wrote care packages on her left arm, underneath the inside of her elbow where she would be certain to see it in the morning, and fell asleep happy.
++++
Jensen had no idea what, if anything, had changed, but she was too thankful to question it deeply.
After that first conversation, Jay stopped avoiding her before and after class, and they usually chatted easily about the class readings, or about their other classes. Jensen found herself looking forward to those short talks all morning. It kind of shocked her to realize that she considered Jay a friend, one of the only friends she'd made without Danneel's help. After hearing more about Jay's education thus far, she was even more impressed. Jay had completed her A.A. degree at a local community college in California while still in high school, and then finished her B.A. at Berkeley before heading to Portland for grad school. She was driven and focused, reminding Jensen of herself, but she seemed to be carefree and happy at the same time in a way Jensen envied. She'd never managed to so enthusiastically enjoy life the way Jay did.
Jensen finally asked halfway through the quarter about the random words that always seemed to be scribbled on Jay's arms or hands somewhere.
"What's with the marker?" she said after class, when Jay came to ask her about next week's readings.
"Oh," Jay said, looking down at her right hand, which had a small word in purple written along the top of her index finger. "It's strange, I know - I had this period in high school where I was - not depressed, but just unhappy mostly, and my mom started telling me all these silly stories at random moments. I wrote parts of them down on my hands so that I could look at them when I was at school, and it just kind of stuck. Now I write myself notes to think about during the day."
"Not that strange," Jensen admitted. "I used to write in my books - like, novels that I read? I'd put in my reactions to what the characters did and said, or what I would have done in their situation, and then when I re-read the book months or years later, it was like having a conversation with myself. Like a journal, but more focused."
"Yeah," Jay said, a look of complete understanding on her face. "Exactly. I've never met anyone who got that before."
Jensen smiled, Jay smiled back, and Jensen couldn't really describe what she thought was happening. Time seemed to slow down for a minute, and she didn't want to stop looking at Jay - she was afraid she'd never feel this understood again if she didn't keep the connection open. But that was a ridiculous thought, and she forced herself to blink and turn her head, picking up the papers she'd left on the desk and putting them in her bag.
"Wow, I've got to get going," Jay said, just as Jensen opened her mouth to say the same thing. "I've got a shift at the library."
"See you on Monday," Jensen said, and watched as Jay left. She stayed at the desk in the front of the classroom until the instructor for the next class came in, thinking about Jay and her own reaction to their conversation.
++++
Jay's phone buzzed as soon as she got to the classroom one day near the end of the quarter. She looked down to see that it was Genevieve, and she flicked an apologetic smile Jensen's way as she sat down in her front row seat and answered the phone.
"Hi, Genevieve," she said. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, sorry, I meant to get your voicemail," Genevieve answered. "I was going to sing another annoying love song for you to listen to after class with your hot TA. Why'd you answer and ruin my plan?"
"Uh, I guess I care about you? And you don't normally call me during the day?" Jay sighed and rolled her eyes at Jensen, who seemed to be watching her conversation with Genevieve closely, even though she could only be hearing Jay's half.
"Whatever, call me tonight with some fucking progress, okay?" Genevieve made a smacking kiss noise and hung up. Jay put her phone in her pocket and chuckled quietly. She looked up to see Jensen still looking at her, a strange expression on her face, obvious even behind her glasses.
"Girlfriend?" Jensen asked.
Jay almost said no, afraid of what Jensen's question might mean, but in the end she just went with babbling. "Genevieve's my best friend," she said. "You could say she's how I know I'm a lesbian, but she's not my girlfriend, no. She's straight, and like, not the slightest bit bicurious. I mean, I had a crush on her for forever and if she was gonna try girls, I'd have been first in line."
Jensen seemed to relax for a moment, but then she tensed again. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was pretty much the rudest way to ask someone about their love life that I've ever heard - you didn't have to come out to me if you didn't want to."
"It's okay, I'm out everywhere - I kind of thought you already knew?" Jay wanted to believe the strangeness in Jensen's voice was jealousy and not discomfort with the fact that she was gay, but it seemed too good to be true.
"I suspected," Jensen said, a smile finally coming back to her face. "But it was still rude to pry like that and Danneel would punch me if I didn't say I was sorry, so…"
"Danneel?" Jay asked, fearing the answer and hoping for it at the same time.
"My roommate," Jensen said. "She's bi, and she's my best friend. She'd be appalled that I didn't have better manners. Also, I am technically your TA - and that makes it doubly inappropriate."
"Well, then, apology accepted," Jay said. "But I don't think the TA part really matters, because we're friends, right?"
Jensen looked surprised, but nodded. "Yeah," she said. "We're friends."
Then other students started entering the classroom, followed by Dr. Ferris, and they didn't have the chance to say anything else. Jay thought about it, though, filing away Jensen's words, and she didn't even tell Genevieve about it later on. She got teased and hounded for details that didn't exist, but something about Jensen's look when she heard that Jay wasn't dating Genevieve, the way she seemed scared and relieved at the same time, seemed private. But it had been the perfect place for Jensen to come out as well if she did actually like girls, and she hadn't said anything.
Jay had hope, though, and she wasn't giving that up until she absolutely had to.
Genevieve spent hours on the phone, trying to convince her to ask Jensen out on the last day of class. Jay was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to do that, but she did have a plan to keep Jensen in her life after their shared class ended. It wouldn't be weird for them to hang out once Jensen was no longer her TA, and she knew Jensen was her friend now, if nothing else.
++++
Jensen almost dreaded the last day of the quarter. She wanted to believe she and Jay could be friends outside of class, but she was afraid of the possibility that Jay didn't feel the same way, no matter what she had said earlier. She agonized over non-creepy ways to get Jay's phone number all morning, and by the time she got to Sam's office to deliver the papers she'd graded over the last week, she was a wreck. Sam noticed, closing her office door and offering Jensen tea. When Jensen protested that they didn't have time before class, Sam just shook her head
"Were the papers that bad?" Sam asked, once Jensen was settled in Sam's comfiest visitor chair with a cup of Darjeeling. "These guys were pretty smart, I had high hopes."
Jensen smiled. "No, the papers were fairly good. At least, I think they were; you'll have to change the grades I gave if you disagree."
"I'm sure you did a wonderful job as usual," Sam said, dismissing the possibility. Her eyes narrowed as she studied Jensen thoughtfully. "Stress about your own grades?" she asked.
Jensen reminded herself that she should be grateful she had a mentor who actually cared about her well-being. "It's nothing," she said. "I'm just a little tired, and I'm looking forward to the break."
Sam kept eyeing her, as if she were trying to telepathically force Jensen to share all her troubles. "Okay," Sam said. "But you'll tell me if I can cut you any slack, right?"
"I don't need any slack," Jensen protested, and Sam shook her head.
"Kid, you work harder than half the tenured professors in this place - you deserve slack if anyone does. But I won't bug you anymore."
"Oh," Jensen said. "Thank you - I - that's really nice of you to say. I will let you know if I need a break."
Sam nodded and thankfully dropped the subject.
In the end, though, Jensen didn't have any reason to worry, because Jay waited for her after class as usual, and solved the problem of how they would see each other again all by herself.
"I have a big favor to ask," Jay said, chewing on her bottom lip. Jensen nodded without realizing she was, then quickly added "sure, what is it?"
Jay looked relieved. "So, I just turned twenty-one, and I don't know where anything is here? And I figured I should try out the nightlife now that I can, but my only other option when it comes to a guide is my roommate, and he's kind of the worst possible candidate for this sort of thing."
Jensen smiled, remembering some of the stories Jay had told her about Chad. "Yeah, of course," she said, conveniently forgetting that she didn't know the first thing about Portland's nightlife. "I'd be happy to show you around now that I'm not your TA. Do you want to give me your number? We can figure out a good time."
"Before the holidays?" Jay asked, a hopeful smile on her lips.
Jensen smiled in reply. "Yeah. Are you free this Friday?"
"Well, I'll have to miss my Friday night standing engagement with Chad's big screen tv and whichever sports game he's decided on…" Jay pretended to consider, a hilarious expression on her face that Jensen supposed was meant to be pensive.
"Sounds like a hard decision," Jensen said.
Jay laughed. "Not at all, actually - Friday sounds awesome, thank you!"
They programmed their numbers into each other's phones, and Jay left, leaving Jensen to pack up her things, going over the conversation in her mind. She realized belatedly that she didn't know a thing about cool places to go and dropped her head into her hands. Well, at least she had Danneel to tell her where to take Jay, and even if Danneel gloated when she had to ask for help, she wasn't going to miss out on the chance to get to know Jay as a real friend outside of class.
++++
"Hey, you're going with me to happy hour tomorrow, right?" Danneel yelled over her shoulder as she burst into the apartment and went straight to her room. "I'm supposed to meet Adrianne there, and I think it's a date, but she'll be less intimidated if you're with me."
Jensen smiled to herself. Danneel had been pining after Adrianne for weeks, and now she wanted a third wheel on their first actual date - typical Danneel, she thought.
"I'm pretty sure you'll be mad at me later if I crash your date," Jensen called back from her position on her bed, keeping her eyes on the book she had to finish. "And I've got plans tomorrow." Plans she needed to talk to Danneel about, actually, but she hadn't done so yet, not wanting to open herself up to Danneel's mocking.
"Oooh, plans," Danneel replied, her voice muffled by something. "Gonna get drunk and let your boyfriend get to third base?"
"If you must know," Jensen sighed, "I told that girl, Jay, from my social theories class that I'd show her around the bar scene. She just turned twenty-one and she doesn't know many people here. She texted me today to make sure I was still planning on it, and I don't want to disappoint her, so you have to tell me where we should go because I don’t know anything about the bar scene."
Danneel suddenly appeared in Jensen's line of sight, her mouth hanging open, standing in the doorway to Jensen's room.
"What?" Jensen said, looking up from the book.
"You gave a student, a student that you talk about all the time by the way, your phone number and asked her to hang out with you?"
"She won't be my student anymore starting tomorrow, and I told her it wasn't really ethical for us to be friends until she gets her final grades, but she's not even in the architecture program," Jensen protested. "I don't think anyone would get in trouble for this."
"No, no, no," Danneel said quickly. "I'm so proud of you, Jen! You made a friend, all by yourself!"
"Fuck you, Harris. I'm not that bad."
Danneel raised an eyebrow and settled herself firmly on the foot of Jensen's bed, taking the book balanced on Jensen's lap and putting it on the floor.
"You used to tell me that friendship was just a lie girls told each other to have someone to complain about their boyfriends to - you used to run and hide if I brought home someone to meet you in college."
Jensen frowned, shaking off Danneel's hand on her knee. "It's no fair using my nineteen-year-old self against me," she grumbled.
Danneel smirked. "I can use anything I want against you, babe, and believe me, this is a miracle akin to the loaves and the fishes."
"You're a bad Catholic," Jensen said, and Danneel winked.
"You know it," she said. "Seriously Jen, I'm glad you've made a special friend.
Jensen choked on her own spit. "What? No," she stammered. "It's not like - I mean, she's a lesbian, yeah, but she's not into m - I'm not - she's a girl."
Danneel's eyes narrowed. "Are you still harboring remnants of homophobia? I thought we got rid of that."
Jensen sighed and slumped over, her face smooshed against Danneel's jean-clad calf. "I'm not - I know you're bi, and I know there's nothing wrong with it, but I've never felt this way bef - I've never felt that way."
Danneel's voice softened, and she ran a comforting hand through Jensen's short hair. "I know, honey, but that doesn't mean you don't feel that way now. And I've never wanted to push you about it, but I'm fairly sure the only reason you haven't felt this way before is because you haven't let yourself."
"I haven't - " Jensen stopped, and then thought about that, remembering how tightly she'd had herself locked down as a teenager, keeping herself safe from all the slurs and rumors spread by her classmates. It was possible, she had to acknowledge, that she'd locked down more than she'd thought she had. She let her mind wander to Jay, pictured her long fingers and her eyelashes, the way she laughed with her entire body, the way she didn’t hold anything back. Jensen thought about touching her, seeing if she could make Jay be quiet by kissing her, what it would feel like to -
She sat up abruptly and blushed so hotly she was afraid to see what her face looked like.
"Mmmhmmm," Danneel said smugly. "Now stop thinking dirty thoughts about your underage hottie while I'm in the room. It's not fair, and also, slightly gross. You're like my sister."
"I wasn't - I wouldn't - Danny, come on," Jensen begged. "Tell me this isn't a good idea."
"I'm not gonna lie to you."
"She is only twenty-one," Jensen said, in a last-ditch attempt to make Danneel keep her from pursuing Jay. "I'm twenty-five, I'm almost done with grad school, it's not fair to start something with her now."
Danneel snorted. "That's ridiculous and you know it. You're not some dirty old pervert who's only out for sex, you wouldn't lead someone on like that. You like her, you want to date her, and it sounds like she likes you, too. You should take this chance while you can!"
"I've never dated a girl before," Jensen said, knowing it wouldn't change Danneel's mind.
"It's time you started!" Danneel forced Jensen to look her in the eye. "Be honest with me - how often did you even get off when you and Justin were dating?"
Jensen hadn't thought she could blush any harder, but this topic was gonna do it, no question. "Danneel!"
"No, I want an answer." Danneel put both hands on Jensen's shoulders, not letting her hide from the question.
"Twice," Jensen admitted, so quietly she almost couldn't hear herself. "But both times it was because I did it myself while we were…"
"Jesus H!" Danneel threw her hands up in frustration. "What do you think about when you're masturbating, then? What do you want when it's just you?"
Jensen didn't answer, honestly trying to figure out the truth about that. She didn't really want to discuss it with Danneel, but maybe her friend had a point. Jensen didn't fantasize - she normally thought about orgasms as a bodily function she needed to give herself to be healthy. "Uh," she told Danneel finally. "I don't think about anything in particular. I didn't realize I had to."
"You don't have to, but it usually helps." Danneel shook her head. "I am so sorry I didn't get this nosy earlier. Jensen, your one task before this date is to spend some time with yourself and figure out what you want, what really gets you going."
"If I say okay will you stop talking about it?"
"Deal," Danneel said, grinning at Jensen's discomfort.
"Fine, I promise I will," Jensen said, finally reaching the breaking point of embarrassment.
"Good. But before you start, I need to check something." Danneel stood up and threw open Jensen's closet, then clucked in disgust at its contents. "Well, that settles the question of what you're wearing - since you don't own anything but flannel, you're borrowing something of mine."
And Jensen knew better than to protest anymore after that.
++++
Code fucking red, Jay texted as she shoved Chad away from her dinner. "Get your own," she told Chad, who pouted, but left for the kitchen, probably to scrounge for leftovers in the fridge. Jay stuck her phone in her pocket and retreated to her room with her pasta. The phone buzzed before she even got the door closed behind her.
"Oh my god, are you okay?" Genevieve asked breathlessly when Jay answered.
"I have a date with Jensen," Jay said. "I mean, I don't know if it's actually a date, but we're going to a bar tomorrow night and she said that now that she's not my TA anymore we can hang out and I think she might mean more than just as friends, but I'm not sure, and fuck, Gen, what am I going to wear?"
Genevieve swore loudly, then started laughing. Jay rolled her eyes. Gen was so predictable.
"C'mon," she whined into the phone. "I need help - I need a decent best friend."
"You're just so much fun," Genevieve said between gulps of air as she kept laughing. "It's like my own personal trashy teen melodrama."
"I can just go talk to Chad," Jay said. "I'm sure he'd love to give me advice about my lesbian maybe-a-date."
"Don't pout," Genevieve said, finally calming down. "You should wear something cute, one of those skirts you have but never actually put on."
"It won't look weird? Skirts make me look too tall."
Genevieve let out a quick breath, dismissing the idea. "Tall is not a bad thing - trust me on that, okay?"
"You're not gay, what do you know?" Jay shot back.
"I know more about looking attractive than you do, gay or straight," Genevieve told her bluntly. "Also, you are tall, it's a fact of your life. It's not something you can hide, and if Jensen doesn't like it, then screw her, you'll find someone else to date."
"What did I do to deserve you?" Jay said it with exasperation, but Genevieve knew what she meant.
"You were a goddamn saint in a past life," she said. "Now, it's cold there, right?" At Jay's affirmative she continued. "So you should wear boots, and a skirt, and leave your hair down."
"Okay," Jay said. "Okay, maybe it won't be a disaster."
"Of course it won't," Genevieve said. "Now go lay out your clothes and then do something mindless until you fall asleep."
Jay took her friend's extremely good advice and spent the evening soundly beating Chad at almost every videogame he threw at her. Jay had turned out to be surprisingly good at first-person shooting games for someone raised as a pacifist, and the mindlessness of it kept her worry at bay. It was the perfect way to prepare for her date with Jensen.
++++
After being stuffed into more of Danneel's uncomfortable clothing than she'd thought possible for one person to own in a quest for the perfect first-date outfit, Jensen retreated back to her room and locked the door. The bedside table loomed ominously at her, and she glared at it, not wanting to open the bottom drawer and get out what she needed. Danneel was out there, and she knew what Jensen would be getting up to, and it was just very, very awkward.
Luckily for Jensen, Danneel chose that moment to yell "I'm going to the bar, don't wait up!" as the front door slammed.
She stood still for another few minutes, until the ridiculousness of being afraid of her own damn vibrator compelled her to open the drawer and get it out, settling herself on the bed and trying to relax. She pushed down her underwear and pajama pants, kicking them off, and hitched her tank top over her shoulders, leaving herself naked and feeling self-conscious. She took off her glasses and set them on the bedside table, relaxing further as the world became soft and fuzzy.
Closing her eyes, Jensen set the vibrator aside for the moment and tried to think about a girl, not Jay, just a girl - long, smooth legs and slim hips, the slight curve of small breasts, a wide mouth…
She sighed and gave up - her body clearly wanted to think about Jay and she would just have to feel guilty about it later.
Picturing the last time she'd slept with a guy, she replaced the image of Justin with Jay, sliding a thigh between her legs, kissing her neck, those long fingers playing with her nipples. She used one of her own hands on her breasts, pinching lightly until her nipples felt electric and connected directly to her clit. Just the thought of Jay moving a hand down, slipping between her legs and rubbing softly over the hood of her clit, had Jensen gasping at the surge of lust that swept through her. She kept one hand massaging her breasts in turn and moved the other down, her mind concentrating on Jay - Jay's mouth moving down her neck to her breasts, Jay's fingers, two of them, pushing inside her. She pushed her own finger into her cunt and felt how wet she was, then reached for the abandoned vibrator, turning it on and rubbing it over her vulva, the vibrations travelling through her skin to her clit.
Jensen moved the vibrator lower, pushing it just inside and fucking herself shallowly. She rubbed her clit with her free hand slowly, still lost in the fantasy of Jay touching her. She didn't have to leave it there, either, she realized. Part of what she wanted was to touch Jay, to know exactly what those legs, what Jay's entire body, would feel like, bare and laid out for her to kiss and stroke.
She moved the vibrator to press directly against her clit, her hips thrusting up involuntarily as she pushed two fingers from her other hand inside herself. She was grateful again that Danneel had left, as she couldn't hold back a moan. Her mind couldn't focus on any one image - she moved without logic from imagining pushing her fingers into Jay's cunt to kissing the join of her neck and shoulder to licking her nipples and biting them softly. She fell over the edge into a long, intense orgasm as she pictured Jay's face, flushed with arousal, open mouth and dark eyes. Her thighs closed without her conscious direction, squeezing the vibrator against her body as her hips rolled to make the feeling last. Her fingers slipped out and she managed to bring her hand to her mouth, pretending it was Jay she could smell and taste on her fingers.
When the aftershocks finally faded, Jensen turned off the vibrator and tossed it onto her sheets, breathing wildly. She could clean it tomorrow. "Jesus fuck," she said out loud. She had never come that quickly before.
She got ready for bed in a daze, and when she finally slept, she dreamt of laughter and dimples.
Part Two