Fic: The Puzzle (That Is Me). J2. PG-13 1/2
The annual New Year's Eve fic! Well, I posted one last year as well. That makes it a tradition, right?
Title: The Puzzle (That is Me)
Author: felisblanco
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Word count: 19.700 words
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is fiction. Meaning, NOT true. All right? All right.
Warning: This story explores what Jensen might be like if he had Asperger’s syndrom. Just so you know. Other than that… It’s pretty tame. Minimum angst even. Huh. Imagine that.
Author’s note: Ok, I need to make one thing clear: This fic is as AU as it can get while still featuring Jensen and Jared being actors on Supernatural. Apart from the obvious (Jensen having Asperger’s) a whole lot of other things don’t fit with real facts. Like Ostroff handling their contract negotiations (I just needed someone everyone dislikes anyway) and how it’s handled. Or Danneel being Jensen’s “girlfriend” as early as 2005. Or, you know, the guys being gay. Stuff like that. Let’s call it poetic license, okay? Lalala…
Facts about Vancouver taken from Wikipedia and tourist sites that I have now lost the links to. Views on Academy awards in regards to sub-genre shows as well as on the geniality of Joss Whedon blatantly self-indulgent. Title taken from the song Patterns by Simon and Garfunkel. Beta'd by winchesterxgirl and candygramme. Thank you, girls. *hugs*
More notes after the fic.
Summary: As they start filming and working together, Jared realizes Danneel’s prediction was right. He and Jensen do hit it off. Sure Jensen is quirky and sometimes (okay, a lot of times) uncomfortably direct to the point of being rude. But once Jared figures out Jensen isn’t actually mean as much as he’s just a little clueless (and mostly unconcerned) about the rules of social interactions, it stops bothering him.
“Hey, mama. Guess what? I think I got the part! Yeah, really. They liked me; they really did. Yeah, I know. But I’ve got a good feeling about this. What? I don’t know. Some guy. Ackles. Jensen Ackles. Me neither. I’ll Google him when I get home. Mama, you worry too much. I’m sure he’ll be great. Now, put Meg on. I wanna gloat.”
The elevator slides shut, abruptly cutting off the happy laughter. Twenty feet down the hall a man stands nodding his head. His brow is furrowed, his eyes blink rapidly. The fingers on his right hand tap against his thumb. Index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky, ring finger, middle finger, index finger, middle finger…
“Jensen,” a voice says, and he looks up. An elderly woman smiles at him. “They’re ready for you.”
He nods. His fingers keep tapping up until the moment he steps through the door and into character.
-*-*-*-*-
Jared loves the Internet. And not just for porn, whatever Chad says. He just loves that whenever he needs to know something, he can flip open his laptop and get more information than he ever needed with just a few clicks. Which is why it frustrates him no end, when he looks up Jensen Ackles and finds nothing.
Okay, so he gets the basics. Jensen’s full name, (Jensen Ross Ackles) date of birth, (March 1st 1978) what parts he’s played (Days of Our Lives, Dark Angel, Dawson’s Creek, Smallville… a few low budget - and even lower quality - movies.) There are some promo stills and video captures that show Jensen - a tall, fit and, oh, wow, unfairly handsome guy - in various characters. But that’s pretty much it. Jensen Ackles doesn’t give interviews it says on IMDb. He doesn’t attend events. No one seems to know anything about him. There’s a quote from one of his co-stars describing him as ‘very private’. Jared snorts. No kidding. The guy doesn’t seem to exist outside his work. How sad is that?
Well, if the Internet won’t provide then he has to go through other channels. First on the list is Tom Welling. Not like they’re friends, or anything even remotely close to that, but, hey, he’s kept the guy’s number on his phone since Cheaper By the Dozen. In Hollywood contacts are everything.
“Jensen?” Tom repeats and then stays quiet for a long time. Finally he says, “He’s… different.”
“Okay,” Jared says, confused. “Different how?”
Tom sighs. “Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about it.”
Jared blinks. “What?”
“It’s complicated. Just… be nice, okay?”
“When am I not nice?” Jared asks, a little insulted, but Tom doesn’t rise to the bait.
“Be even nicer,” is all he says and hangs up.
Jared sits staring at the phone, bewildered. What the hell does that even mean?
He calls Chad but gets cut off as soon as he mentions Dawson’s Creek. “Nuhuh. We never did an episode together. He didn’t get on until after I’d left.”
“Okay, but you must talk to them sometimes,” Jared argues. “They never mention him?”
“Why would I talk to them?” Chad asks confused. “I hated that show.”
Jared sighs.
Next step is getting the DVDs. He feels a little like a stalker, raiding Best Buy for everything Jensen related, but no one looks at him funny, and he gets home with the second season of Dark Angel and season six of Dawson’s Creek.
Jared’s first thought when Alec (X5-494, whatever) enters the cell in the first episode of the second season of Dark Angel is that the promos didn’t do Jensen Ackles justice. No wonder they had him playing a transgenic, he looks like he was made in a frigging lab.
The plan was to just sit back and enjoy the show, but instead Jared finds himself fast forwarding to Jensen’s scenes, watching him be Alec. The more he watches the deeper his heart sinks. Fuck. Just look at the guy. He’s hot, charming, and he delivers the crappy writing like it’s goddamn Shakespeare. Jared doesn’t normally have self-esteem issues, but he’s starting to feel like he might be getting in over his head. Who’s even going to notice him with that guy in the room?
Watching Dawson’s Creek makes him feel slightly better, but only because not even Jensen’s limited (although admittedly amazing) screen time can hold his interest for more than ten minutes. Way too much drama for his taste. He switches back to Dark Angel and ends up mainlining half a season before stumbling to bed at two in the morning, Alec’s smug smirk mocking him in his dreams.
Despite his mother’s philosophy, things actually don’t look any better in the morning. Jared drags himself to the studio, nervous as hell and feeling so disheartened that he’s sure he’ll be asked to leave within minutes.
The first thing he sees when he steps into the waiting room is the man sitting on the couch: Jensen Ackles, in the flesh. Jared hesitates, his palms going damp. He feels a little overwhelmed facing the man, especially considering the dreams he’d woken up from that morning. Jared fights down the blush that threatens to creep up his neck at the memory and takes a moment just… looking.
Jensen seems tense. His knees are bouncing, one after the other, and he keeps drumming his fingers on his thighs, then flattening his palms to wipe them on his pants. His eyes are fixed on the door to the audition room, so intensely he doesn’t even notice Jared where he stands in the doorway, staring at Jensen’s really ridiculously beautiful profile. Just look at those lips! Man, this is so unfair.
Before he starts feeling too much like an ogling pervert, Jared enters the room, closing the door quietly behind him. “Hey,” he says as he approaches the couch.
Jensen jumps in his seat. He looks up, eyes widening for a second, before his gaze quickly drops, and his cheeks flush pink. “Jared Padalecki,” he says, his tone a little odd. “Sam Winchester.”
Jared smiles. “Yep, that’s me. And you must be my brother, Dean.”
Jensen quickly shakes his head. “No. I’m not Dean. And I’m not your brother. Dean is Sam’s brother. You’re not Sam.”
Jared blinks, not sure how to respond. “I just meant you will be playing my… I mean Sam’s brother. Right? Jensen Ackles?”
Jensen nods. “Yes.” He seems to hesitate then sticks out his hand, smiling awkwardly. “Hello. Nice to meet you.”
Jared takes the hand. It’s smaller than his, but then again most people’s are. The fingers feel strong but still somehow delicate. Unsure. The palm is sweaty, and he can feel Jensen’s heartbeat racing manically under his thumb, where it lands on the inside of Jensen’s wrist. It’s quite the reality check. Jared had expected someone like Jensen to be professionally cool and in control, but if anything he seems more nervous than Jared.
The handshake is brief, and when Jensen withdraws his hand he quickly wipes the palm on his thigh. He’s casually dressed in jeans and a black shirt, in which he still manages to look stiff and uncomfortable. Actually Jensen looks uncomfortable just being there. Oddly enough, that makes Jared feel a whole lot better. Seems the guy is human after all.
Jared sits down on the other end of the couch, trying to be discreet, but he just can’t stop looking at Jensen. Even here, in the rather unflattering light, without any retouch or make-up and basically being a fidgety, nervous wreck, Jensen still looks gorgeous. Jensen must be aware that he’s being watched, but he doesn’t say anything, just sits there rubbing his hands nervously together, and occasionally stealing glances Jared’s way, but mostly keeping his eyes on the door like before.
“So,” Jared starts when the silence starts grating on his own nerves, “Vancouver, huh?”
Jensen nods. “Canada’s third largest city as well as the third largest film-producing center in North-America,” he says. “Population a little under five hundred and eighty thousand, of which more than fifty percent have a native language other than English.”
Jared blinks. “Okay. I was more going for, ‘Vancouver, huh? Wonder what that’s like.’ You know, since we would be living there if they hire us. And the pilot gets picked up. Something like that.”
Jensen frowns. “Why wouldn’t it be? The story is solid, the characters are interesting, and there’s a growing market for supernaturally inclined shows. I would think we’d be sure for at least two seasons.” He tilts his head in thought, eyes flickering to Jared for just a second before darting away. “Unless you suck.”
“Excuse me?” Jared stares at him, incredulous.
“I haven’t seen anything you’ve been in. Are you good?”
Jared doesn’t really know what to say. “They wouldn’t have wanted me here if they didn’t think I could do it,” he finally points out.
Jensen looks thoughtful. “I suppose not. Let’s hope they’re right.”
Jared’s about to open his mouth and say something witty, or snarky, or just anything to not leave him on the sticky end of a rather insulting joke, but just then the door opens on the other side of the room, and they’re being called in.
Jared jumps to his feet, ready and eager. He’s halfway across the room before he realizes he’s on his own. He looks back to find Jensen still sitting on the couch, the fingers of his right hand tapping what looks like a complicated rhythm upon the shell of his knee.
“Jensen? You coming?”
Jensen doesn’t answer, his face locked in deep concentration. Then he suddenly stands up and walks straight by Jared. Right before he enters the room Jensen snaps his fingers, and as he disappears through the doorway Jared hears him say, “So we’re back again,” in a voice that sounds all bright, and cheerful and confident, nothing like the one Jared heard earlier.
Huh. As weird, pre-audition rituals go that one rates among the top ten that Jared’s witnessed. On the other hand it’s about nine places below Chad’s habit of wearing women’s underwear so…
Despite their rough introduction, the read-through goes great. Amazing really. Jensen is just as good as Jared had anticipated, even better. He gives Dean, the character he’s playing, an edge and dimension that Jared would never even have thought of, and it’s all he can do to hang on and not fall behind.
The bigwigs love the guy. Jared actually worries that Eric Kripke might have an aneurysm; that’s how excited he is. He loves Jared’s Sam as well, but it’s not quite in the same class of worshiping he’s got going on with Jensen. Jared would feel jealous if he wasn’t busy silently agreeing with him.
They smile, and laugh, and talk and then they shake hands, and it’s all ‘our agents,’ and ‘your agents,’ and blahblahblah, and before Jared knows it he’s out in the waiting room again with Jensen. The door closes behind them, and Jensen’s smile vanishes, just like that. He stares ahead for a moment, eyes blank, and then walks out and toward the elevator.
“Uh, hey,” Jared says and hurries to side up with him, waiting for the cart to arrive. “That was great. We should go for a drink. Celebrate.”
Jensen glances over, looking a little surprised, like he’s just now noticing he’s not alone. “Why?”
“Because that’s what you do when things go well?” Jared suggests awkwardly.
“You need to work on your timing. It was off.” Jensen shakes his head. “And I don’t drink with people who don’t know me.”
Jared blinks. “Right,” he says, starting to feel a little miffed. Not that he’d expected them to be instant BFFs, but at least he’s trying. “Are you always such a dick?” he asks, before he can help himself.
Jensen gets into the elevator and pushes the button for the ground floor as Jared slips through the already closing doors. “I’m not a dick,” Jensen says, staring at the numbers lighting up, one after the other. “I’m precise.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
Before Jared can think of a good comeback, the elevator door opens and Jensen steps out, looking a little anxious until his eyes settle on a woman hurrying toward them. Red hair, nice body, high heels. Concerned look.
“Hey,” she says as she stops in front of them and takes Jensen’s hands, holding them in her own. He looks down at them then up at her, and it’s like his whole body relaxes. “Hey,” the woman repeats with a smile. “How did it go?”
“It was good,” Jensen says and smiles back. “I was good.”
“Good. Great.” She pulls him in for a hug, which he seems to reluctantly accept, his hands hovering awkwardly at her waist. “I told you.”
“You tell me a lot of things,” Jensen says, sounding a little admonishing.
She laughs, letting him go, and he steps quickly back. Just then she notices Jared standing there, watching them, and her smile changes into something more pensive.
“Oh, hi. Jared, right? Dean’s Sam.”
She offers Jared her hand. “Nice to meet you,” she says although judging by the speculative look in her eyes the verdict is still out on that.
“You too, miss…?”
“Harris. Danneel Harris.”
She doesn’t offer any explanation of who she is, and it feels rude to ask, so Jared just nods, and smiles and shakes her hand. “Jared Padalecki,” he says. “Dean’s Sam, I guess,” he adds awkwardly.
“We should get together,” Danneel suggests with a small smile
He nods. “Yeah, I was just telling Jensen we should go and celebrate-”
“Not now,” she cuts in, not unkindly. “It’s been a long day. We’ll call you. Jensen,” she says, turning his way, “you ready to go?”
There is no response, but she seems unbothered by that, just stands there, watching Jensen with a patient smile. It takes Jared a moment to realize she’s waiting for Jensen to finish some kind of set rhythm that he’s tapping against his thumb, a melody maybe. Jared can’t tell. Whatever it is, it’s over in less than a minute. The fingers go still, Jensen glances over at Danneel and reaches for her hand. She takes it and gives Jared a nod before walking with Jensen to the door.
Jared waits until they’re outside before giving in to his curiosity and following. He watches through the glass window as Jensen gets into the car, nodding his head in response to whatever Danneel is saying. As if she can feel Jared’s eyes on her she suddenly turns her head, looking straight at him. Jared quickly steps back, embarrassed at being caught, but she just smiles and gives him a small wave before walking around the car and slipping in behind the wheel.
It is beyond a doubt the strangest day in Jared’s life.
-*-*-*-*-
“I did good.”
“You already said that.”
Jensen nods. “I did good.”
“I know. You always do, honey.”
“I did good,” he repeats automatically, not really listening to her.
“Jensen,” she says, laughing a little. “Stop it.”
He bangs the heel of his hand into his temple. Organize, organize. Dean in his box, Ackles in his. Close the lids, and that leaves… Jensen. “Sorry. I was preoccupied,” he says. “Dean’s thoughts are very complicated.”
“It’s okay.” Danneel kisses him on the cheek. It’s nice. It’s always nice. She has very soft lips. They remind him of his mother. “So, how did you like Jared?”
“He’s very tall.” Jensen frowns. “Sam is Dean’s little brother.”
“Well, they’re grown up, right? Brothers aren’t always the same height; you know that. You’re taller than Josh.”
“Tall. Big hands. Strong. Very fit.” Jensen shakes his head. “He looks stronger than me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Jensen, no one will care, okay? Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worrying. I’m adapting.” He taps his temple with his index finger, a fast, even pace. “Not fair. Not fair. Pisses me off. Can still kick his ass. He’s gone soft. Not as quick. College boy.” He snorts. “Sammy. He hates that. It’s just Sam now. Sam. Pfft. Whatever. Sammy. Always gonna be my Sammy.”
“That might work.” She takes his hand and pulls it away from his head. “You’re gonna give yourself a headache,” she says with a small lift of her eyebrow. He frowns. His temple feels a little sore. He needs to clip his fingernails. “You still haven’t answered me. How did you like Jared?”
He thinks. Jared. Jared Padalecki. Jared Padalecki made him nervous. Not the way Eric Kripke makes him nervous. Different nervous. Like… When Jared sat down next to him on the couch Jensen really wanted to reach out and touch him. And he doesn’t normally like to touch people he doesn’t know. Jared had just looked so… solid. Like a wall made of bones and muscles. His hand had been warm, strong. Jensen had wanted to slide his fingers in between the buttons of Jared’s shirt to feel if his chest was as warm. It had messed up his thoughts for a while, almost made him forget his script. He’d had to rewind and start over before he could go in and play his part.
“Jensen?”
“He didn’t suck,” Jensen says because he’s not sure how to explain the other thing.
“Okay.” Danneel laughs. “What else?”
He thinks of Jared towering over him. Arm stretched out, palm extended. Long, long fingers. “He’s big.”
“You already said that,” she reminds him.
“Different big. Big hands, big feet. Big dick. I think. Didn’t see it obviously. But statistics show…”
“Jensen!”
He looks up at the sharp tone of her voice. “What?”
“You can’t…” She sighs and shakes her head. She looks a little irritated. Maybe she’s menstruating. “Listen to me. If the pilot gets picked up, you’re going to be working with him very closely for the next eight, nine months. At least. If you sleep with him, it will be awkward.” He frowns at her, and she patiently clarifies, “For him. It will be awkward for him.”
Jensen thinks about that for a moment. He doesn’t really get why it should be awkward, but if Danneel says so, she’s probably right. She knows these things.
“Besides,” she adds, “I read up on him. He has a girlfriend. Which probably means he’s not gay. And even if he’s bi,” she continues, when Jensen opens his mouth to argue, “he’s still taken. You don’t mess around with apparently straight taken guys, okay?”
Jensen sighs. Damn. “Your rules are annoying.”
She smiles. “You’ll survive,” she says. “Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. If you’re gonna take a shower, you better hurry.”
“Never get any big dicks,” he mutters and heads for the bathroom.
It’s true. As much as guys like to brag about their equipment, research shows that the average length of a human penis is only around six inches when fully erect. And while length isn’t everything - girth does play a large part in providing sexual fulfillment - Jensen will readily admit he is what Danneel likes to call a size queen. Danneel says it’s a Texas thing, they always think bigger is better. He tried explaining to her the dynamics of anal sex, what makes the size of the penis important when considering the placement of the prostate gland, not to mention the pleasure of being stretched beyond the limit of the regular bowel movement, but for some reason she just hadn’t been interested.
As the hot water beats down on his neck and shoulders he pictures Jared’s hands, his long fingers. The length of a man’s cock will often coincide with the length of his index finger, measuring from the root of his thumb. Not an accurate science, and it does have its exceptions to the rule, but if the precarious way Jared wore his rather tight jeans is anything to go by, Jensen would say in his case the margin of error might be a little on the positive side.
Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Jared has a girlfriend. Jensen frowns. The first person Jared called after his audition, that time Jensen overheard him in the hall, was his mother. Not his girlfriend. And today, while they were waiting to be called in, he’d kept staring at Jensen. Men don’t usually stare at other men unless they’re either interested or the one they’re staring at is hideous enough to warrant gaping.
Jensen is not hideous. Danneel says he’s pretty. His mother calls him handsome. Jensen prefers the word handsome. He used to be called pretty all the time when he was younger. By girls, yes, but men, too. Pretty. Pretty boy. Dad didn’t like that. That’s why Jensen only has female assistants now.
Girlfriends. He’s supposed to call them girlfriends, he reminds himself. Danneel has lasted the longest. He likes her the best, too. She feels like a friend. She’s good at reading him, and she always seems to know how to handle it when he goes off track. She’s pretty, too. Good body. They make a beautiful couple on pictures. His manager likes that. Dad likes it as well. Mom says she doesn’t care as long as he’s happy. Jensen’s not sure what being happy has to do with it.
There’s a knock on the door. “Jensen, dinner’s ready.”
“I’m coming!” he shouts.
“Too much information!” she yells back and laughs. It takes him a moment to get the joke, and by the time he does it’s more a premature assumption than actual misinterpretation, so he doesn’t bother correcting her.
-*-*-*-*-
“Jared, thank you for coming. Please, have a seat.”
He sits down, a little wary. From what his agent told him on the phone it’s a done deal. All that’s really left is to sign the contract. That’s what he’s here to do, with Jensen he presumed, until they called and asked if he could please come in an hour early, “Just to go over some things.”
“You have probably guessed why we asked you to come in separately,” the woman says with a fake smile. He’s forgotten her name. Ostrich?
Jared shakes his head. “Uhm, no? No, can’t say I have.”
“You met Jensen Ackles at the final audition so this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.” She lays a couple of printed pages in front of him. “These are additional clauses to your contract. If you would please read them over.”
He blinks, confused, and picks up the pages. The more he reads, the wider his eyes get. So this is what Tom was talking about. “I’m sorry, but what is this?”
“It’s a confidentiality clause. I’m sure you are familiar with the idea.”
“Yes, but-”
“Is there a problem?”
He looks at her then back at the words in front of him. His lips thin. “You know, you didn’t have to do this. I would have respected it anyway.”
She smiles tightly. “I appreciate that. This way, however, we can be sure.”
He just shakes his head, annoyed, and signs on the dotted line. While he’s at it he signs the main contract too, and then gets the hell out of there. He’d been looking forward to meeting Jensen again, but right now he’d rather not.
No one has ever accused him of not being trustworthy before. It kinda stings.
-*-*-*-*-
Jensen steps into the office and looks around. He frowns. Something is not right. “Where’s Jared?”
Ostroff smiles at him indulgently. “Mr. Padalecki had to leave early. Now, if you’d please take a seat we can-”
“Jared was supposed to be here,” he cuts her off. “We were going to ask him to have coffee. Danny, we were going to get coffee!”
“Jensen, chill. It’s okay. I’ll call him. Set something up. You have his number, right?”
“No, I don’t…” He stops when he realizes she’s not talking to him. “We were gonna have coffee,” he mutters irritated as Ostroff finds Jared’s phone number for them. “Sign the contract, have coffee, talk to Jared. That’s what you said. That’s the plan. You don’t mess with the plan.”
“You want to read over the contract?” Danneel asks him, ignoring his grumbling.
He scowls and snatches it out of her hands. Of course he wants to read the contract. Only a moron signs an unread contract. He’s many things, but a moron is not one of them.
It’s quick reading; the contract looks similar to other contracts he’s signed in this business. Although…
He looks up. “Six years?”
“Just a formality,” Ostroff dismisses. “Eric Kripke has a five year story line, but the network doesn’t expect the series to go much further than two seasons, if that.”
He huffs. “Well, the network is stupid. Supernatural has the potential of becoming a cult show the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and X-Files. It will most likely accumulate a small but loyal fanbase since your viewer numbers will never be high unless you put a considerate amount of money in promotion. Which, considering your reputation with this genre, is unlikely.” He ignores the irritated look on her face. “Five years would be a logical run for this show but since it will only continue as long as the network deems it profitable let’s hope its fans are enthusiastic and creative in promoting it for you. Otherwise it’s just as likely to be cancelled before it even has a chance of reaching its potentials.”
He grabs the pen and scribbles his name on all the x-marked places then stands up and walks to the door. “Danny. Coffee.”
“Go on, I’ll be out in a minute.”
He nods and turns around, not bothering to say goodbye. “I take it Jared signed his contract already,” he hears Danneel say as he steps out into the hall. There’s no answer that he can hear, but Ostroff must have nodded because Danneel adds, “All of it?”
“Yes,” Ostroff retorts. “He was…”
The door falls shut, cutting off her voice, and Jensen is left standing alone in the hall. His nose twitches in annoyance. He doesn’t like being left out of things that concern him. He’s not a child, for fuck’s sake.
On the other hand he doesn’t want to go back in either. Dawn Ostroff uses way too much perfume. It was hard to breathe in there.
He looks at his watch then back at the door. Hovers indecisively. Checks his watch again. A girl comes hurrying down the hall and he steps closer to the door, feeling in the way even if the hallway is wide enough to fit both of them and then some. She slows down as she passes, lips curling into a smile, and he smiles automatically back, ducking his head to subtly avoid her heated stare. He checks his watch as soon as she’s gone. Reaches out for the doorknob but pulls back. Dammit.
Danneel comes out a few minutes later, small lines of worry around her eyes. “There you are,” she says and takes his hand. “Shall we?”
“You said a minute,” he tells her, irritated. “Not five. A minute. A minute is sixty seconds. Five minutes are three hundred seconds. You were five minutes. A few seconds give or take,” he admits.
“Ostroff is a bitch,” she says, offering no explanation or apology. “I have Jared’s phone number. Want me to call him?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions. Yes,” he sighs when she just looks at him, unruffled. “The plan is to have coffee and talk to Jared. That’s the plan. We have to follow the plan.”
“All right. Hang on.” She pulls her phone out of her purse and scrolls through her contacts. “You want to talk to him or should I?”
“I don’t know him yet,” he points out, and she sighs.
“God, you’re such a douche.”
Jensen frowns. He likes Danneel but sometimes she just doesn’t make any sense.
-*-*-*-*-
When Danneel said they should get together sometime, Jared hadn’t really thought she meant like this. He’s sitting on a bench in the park, nursing a grande latte and watching Danneel try and talk Jensen out of throwing his coffee away, because apparently the lid has a small crack in its side.
“Just take it off, drink from the rim,” she says exasperated.
Jensen looks like she just suggested he’d strip naked and run through the park.
“Take mine,” Jared offers bemused. “I don’t mind.”
“Please don’t indulge his childish whims,” Danneel groans, but she accepts the lid anyway, exchanging it with Jensen’s cracked one. “Happy now?”
Jensen harrumphs, but the crease between his eyebrows eases a little.
“Can we stop worrying about coffee and get to the point?” She gives Jared a strained smile. “This is Jensen. He is absolutely insufferable.”
“Okay.” Jared can’t help smiling when Jensen flips Danneel the finger. “I probably would have figured that out on my own.”
“I’m not insufferable,” Jensen says prickly. “I’m precise.”
“You’re an anal obsessive control freak, Jensen, that’s what you are.”
She’s smiling though so Jared doesn’t think she means it in a particularly bad way. Jensen doesn’t seem insulted either, but it’s a little hard to tell since he’s still busy frowning at his coffee.
“I want to start by apologizing for the confidentiality clause,” Danneel says although she doesn’t look sorry in the least. “It’s nothing personal, just something we have a rule of doing.”
“So they told me,” Jared says, unable to keep the coolness out of his voice. “For the record, I don’t make a habit of running to the tabloids with stuff. That’s not the kind of guy I am.”
“Good to know,” she says, the smile softening a little. “But honestly? Not everyone is that nice. This is Hollywood, Jared. One man’s Asperger’s is another man’s money in the pocket. You can’t be too careful.”
Jared looks at her startled. Oh, so that’s what... Huh. He probably should have realized it was something like that, but for some reason it hadn’t even occurred to him. He just thought…
Actually he’s not sure what he thought. That Jensen was a little unusual. A bit of a jackass actually but he’d figured it was some kind of defense mechanism because the guy seemed painfully shy, having yet to look Jared even once in the eye. And all right, admittedly he’d noticed Jensen had some odd quirks but Jared’s known worse. Hell, Chad alone has enough bad habits to decivilize a small village.
“Yeah,” he says slowly. “I guess. Just… I wouldn’t. Just so you know.”
“Great!” she says cheerfully. “Good to have that settled. So, you looking forward to living in Vancouver?”
He shrugs. “Looking forward to the work, not so much to living there, no. It’s as far from Texas as you can get, you know?”
“No, it’s not. The furthest point away from Texas would be-”
Danneel lays a hand on Jensen’s arm, cutting him off. “He doesn’t mean literally,” she says.
Jensen sighs and keeps on sipping his coffee.
Jared stares at him, still trying to process the whole Asperger’s thing. Not that he actually knows a lot about it, but his mama had a kid like that in her class once that she talked about sometimes. It’s hard trying to fit what she told him about that child with the guy sitting next to him. Not that he expects them to be the same. There are levels, he knows, and of course people are just different no matter what they might or might not have. Still…
“Jensen is a bit of a geography geek,” Danneel explains with a smile, bringing Jared out of his thoughts. “He’ll talk your ear off if you’re not too careful.”
“I’m not a geek,” Jensen protests. “This is our planet. Our home. We should know our own fucking home. Most people could blindly find their way to the nearest Starbucks but they can’t locate their own state on the map.”
“And still, ironically enough, wherever we go you make it your first priority to locate all the nearest coffee places,” she snorts before turning to Jared. “Sorry, go on.”
Jared pulls his eyes reluctantly away from Jensen and back to her. “I just meant it’s different. It’s not even the States, it’s a whole different country. So it feels very far away. I’m gonna miss my folks. And my friends.”
“Your girlfriend?” Danneel asks with a sympathetic look.
Jared offers her a small smile. “Yeah. Her too.”
“He’s lying,” Jensen says, sounding smug. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
Jared stares at him. “Dude! What are you…? I do have a girlfriend. Her name is Sandy. She’s-”
“Not your girlfriend,” Jensen insists. “Girl, yes. Friend, probably. Girlfriend, no.”
“Jensen, stop it!” Danneel hisses.
“Look, man,” Jared says, starting to get annoyed. “You can’t be going around saying stuff like that.”
“They tell you that?” Jensen nods, lips pursed. “Hollywood hates fags.”
Jared flinches. “Shit.” He stands up, shaking his head. “I’m sorry but I’m not gonna sit here and listen to this. It’s-”
“Danneel is my girlfriend,” Jensen says bluntly. “Dad hired her.”
“Jesus!” Danneel groans, cheeks going almost as red as her hair. “Jensen, will you shut up!”
Jared stands still, looking at her flushed face and Jensen’s seeming disinterest with the whole thing. He sits back down.
“Don’t tell Sandy, she might start asking for wages,” he says, trying to keep his voice light, although his stomach is churning.
Danneel stares at him. Then she breathes out and offers him a small smile. “I’m sorry,” she says. “He can be a real ass.”
“I’m not an ass, I’m direct,” Jensen says, impatient. “Also I’m practical. Better to put things straight now than spend the next few years lying to each other. Especially since he sucks at it.”
Jared licks his lips nervously. Jensen is right. Well, about the lying to each other bit, not about Jared sucking at it. He’s been lying to people for years and this is the first time he’s been called on it so he can’t be that bad.
“So you two…” He hesitates. “You’re not really together?”
Danneel shrugs. “We live together, we travel together, I put up with his moody ass, and he eats my horrible cooking. But no sleeping together, no.”
“We do sometimes sleep together,” Jensen objects, giving her a small frown. “You snore.”
“We’re talking about sex, Jensen. And I don’t snore.”
“I have evidence,” Jensen points out. “Of you snoring, not us having sex. On my phone. I recorded you.”
“And I deleted it.” She gives Jared a small smile. “Not that there was anything to delete, of course.”
“Of course,” Jared agrees politely.
He’s still not sure what to make of the pair. There’s clearly affection there; on her part at least, he has no idea how Jensen feels. But Jensen said his dad hired her, so it doesn’t seem like she’s just a friend doing a favor. Not like Sandy.
It’s not like that had been a planned thing either. They’d become good friends while working on a movie together, and people just assumed. So they’d let them. It kinda spun out of control from there. Suddenly he was calling her his girlfriend in interviews, and his mother was asking him to please bring the young lady home for Thanksgiving. There really was no going back after that. Thankfully Sandy doesn’t mind, and he has to admit it does make things easier. Like not having to constantly dodge the popular teen magazine question of what kind of girls he likes.
However, nowhere in Jared’s online research did he see anything about Jensen having a girlfriend. So if it’s one of those full-out Hollywood bearding contracts it’s not exactly high profile. Which rather defeats the purpose of setting up a fake relationship if it’s not to flaunt it. But considering Jensen’s situation maybe it’s a whole different kind of contract they’ve got going.
“He’s right though,” Danneel says, bringing Jared out of his thoughts. “If the pilot does get picked up, you two are going to be spending a lot of time together.” She pauses, looking over at Jensen with a hint of worry. “He’s not used to staying in character for such long hours. We’ll have to figure out how to make it work.”
Jared nods, not really understanding what she’s getting at.
“Jensen has refused to let me hang around on set. Apparently I’m a distraction.” She sighs dramatically. “Personally I think he’s just too fascinated by my fabulous rack to concentrate.”
“You’re barely a C,” Jensen dismisses. “And even if they were bigger it’s not them that distract me. It’s you.” He glances over at Jared before looking away again. “She belongs to the wrong script.”
Jared stares at him, uncomprehending.
“The wrong script,” Jensen repeats impatiently. “The girlfriend script. Dean doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
Oh. Things are slowly starting to click in place.
“Right,” Jared says. “Character clash.”
Danneel nods, smiling a little. “Anyway, since I’m not wanted, I’m grabbing the opportunity to go on a short leave. Trying out for a part in a drama actually.” At Jared’s surprised look she adds, “I do have my own ambitions beyond keeping Mister Grumpypants here happy, you know.”
“I’m not grumpy,” Jensen says, sounding grumpy as hell. “And you already have a job. You’re my girlfriend.”
“Jensen, we already went through this five times. I haven’t had a day off since Christmas. You owe me, and I’m going. That’s it. Stop sulking.” She gives Jared a strained smile. “Anyway, it would help to have someone else around, who knows the deal.”
Jared nods, feeling completely at loss. “To do what?”
She shrugs. “You know, stuff.” She takes Jensen’s hand from where his fingers had been tapping the bench furiously. His fingertips are a little red from the constant pounding. His knee starts jumping instead but she lets it be. “Like that.”
“Oh.” Jared blinks, not sure what to say. “I don’t know...”
“We’re not talking babysitting, Jared,” she says with a small smile. “Don’t let his bratty behavior fool you. Behind that pretty boy face, Jensen is actually a real grown man. Fully capable of taking care of himself.”
“Tell that to my parents,” Jensen mutters. “They think I’m incompetent. Like a fucking toddler.”
“They’re a little overprotective,” Danneel agrees. “We’re working on that. Until then, it’s a good thing you like having me around. Most of the time.”
Jensen smiles a little at that. “I only like you for your cooking,” he says, the smile widening into a grin when she sticks her tongue out at him.
“Look out, or I might just start cooking what I like, instead of your boring menu,” she warns him. “Besides, we both know you love me, because I’m awesome.”
Jensen huffs but he doesn’t deny it.
“So what exactly is it you need me for?” Jared asks bewildered. “Because I should tell you right away, I can’t cook for shit.”
Danneel laughs. “Don’t worry, we’re not looking for a housekeeper. Like I said, it just helps to have someone around who knows what’s what. I mean, Kripke knows. The directors will be told. Some of the others will probably figure it out soon enough. But you’re the one who’ll be there right beside him the whole time.”
“Yeah,” Jared says hesitantly. “Okay.”
“You seem like a good guy, Jared,” she says gently. “And Jensen here isn’t that bad once you get to know him.” She laughs when Jensen again flips her the finger. It seems to be his standard response to her insults.
“Seriously, I’m sure you’ll hit it off. If all else fails you can always talk about Texas. Not now,” she adds quickly when Jensen takes a deep breath. “Wait until Jared actually likes you well enough not to kill you just to shut you up.”
Jensen shrugs. “If he wants to shut me up there are better ways.” He glances down at Jared’s crotch. “That looks big enough.”
Danneel hides her face in her hands. “Oh God,” she groans in mortification. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
Jared was wrong. This is the strangest day of his life.
-*-*-*-*-
The network sets them up in a hotel for the pilot. Separate rooms on separate floors but somehow Jared ends up spending most of his free time at Jensen’s anyway.
At first it’s because, despite what Danneel said, Jared feels oddly responsible and keeps checking up on the guy. Even if it quickly becomes clear that Jensen has everything under control, way better than Jared himself.
Jared wears the same clothes three days in a row, because without his dogs to wake him up in the morning he’s lucky to get up early enough to shower and brush his teeth before the driver picks them up. He does change his underwear, but only because he likes to sleep in them, and for some reason he keeps waking up with the kind of sticky morning boner he hasn’t had to deal with since high school. It’s embarrassing.
Jensen has lists for pretty much everything he does, and he ticks the items off as each day goes by. He gets up at the exact same time every morning and follows the exact same routine. Shower, shave, brush his teeth. Dress in the clothes marked for that day. Coffee, breakfast. Puts on his shoes, his jacket. Goes up one floor and knocks on Jared’s door.
Where Jared will answer, sleep still in his eyes, gnawing on a piece of toast while he looks frantically for his other sock. He’s pretty sure if Jensen’s parents ever met him they’d be on the phone to his mother telling her to hire him a ‘girlfriend’.
As they start filming and working together, Jared realizes Danneel’s prediction was right. He and Jensen do hit it off. Sure Jensen is quirky and sometimes (okay, a lot of times) uncomfortably direct to the point of being rude. But once Jared figures out Jensen isn’t actually mean as much as he’s just a little clueless (and mostly unconcerned) about the rules of social interactions, it stops bothering him.
Honestly, it’s not so different from tolerating Chad. Except that Chad is rude on purpose. Jensen is just… honest. Mostly because for the few hours a day he can just be himself, Jensen seems to have made a personal decision not to feel bothered by social rules he doesn’t really understand and couldn’t care less about.
“I’m off your damn NT clock,” he’d snapped at Danneel the night before she left for North Carolina as she was trying to engage him in hers and Jared’s small talk.
“Neurotypical,” Danneel had explained to a confused Jared. “Meaning us lesser beings.”
“Not lesser,” Jensen had muttered, not very convincingly. “Just… difficult.”
After a while Jensen’s straightforwardness starts feeling oddly refreshing. There is no innuendo, no hidden agenda or mixed messages. There’s just Jensen, saying exactly what he’s thinking.
“You need to eat more fiber. Your flatulence is not as amusing as you seem to think it is.”
“That’s because you don’t have a sense of humor,” Jared points out. “C’mon, fart jokes are always funny.”
Jensen shakes his head. “I do have a sense of humor. And that was not a joke. Jokes don’t smell.”
“I’m giving you the full 4D experience.” Jared sighs when Jensen just purses his lips. “Okay, okay. More fiber.” He pops another onion ring into his mouth, ignoring Jensen’s disapproving scowl. “So what have you been up to? Apart from this, I mean.”
“I have a horror movie coming out in a couple of months,” Jensen tells him. “Straight to DVD. The script sucked.”
Jared can’t help laughing. “So why did you do it?”
Jensen shrugs. “Dad set it up. They got him a role in it playing my character’s father. Which I guess is ironic.” He frowns. “Right?”
Jared nods. “Yeah, that can fit. I did a horror movie, too,” he adds. “With Paris Hilton of all people.”
“Does your character get to kill her character?” Jensen asks, looking intrigued.
Jared shakes his head. “No. I’m actually the first one to die.”
“Your character is the first to die,” Jensen rectifies. For some reason he’s always very particular about making that distinction. Jared imagines it’s because he has to keep so many characters of his own straight and separated from himself in his head. “But her character does die?”
“Oh yeah,” Jared says gleefully. “She gets her head impaled.”
Jensen nods and goes back to eating his sandwich. Well, eating parts of his sandwich. He has this weird ritual where he takes the whole thing apart before eating one layer after another. At the moment he’s crunching lettuce between his teeth.
“You should do comedy,” he says once he’s swallowed.
Jared grins. “Yeah? You think I’m funny?”
Jensen shakes his head. “No. But you seem to think you are, and most people apparently agree with you.”
Jared blinks at him. “Thanks. I think.”
“You’re welcome,” Jensen says and starts cutting up his tomato slices.
-*-*-*-*-
“How did you get into acting anyway?” Jared asks Jensen one night when they’re in his apartment, sharing a bowl of popcorn over Dark Angel reruns that Jared for some reason insisted they’d watch.
Jensen shrugs. There’s butter on his fingers and small crystals of salt cling to his skin. He wants to go wash his hands, but he’s finding it hard to get up and leave. Must be because he’s so comfortable. Jared is warm by his side; it’s making him sleepy. “My parents thought it would help with my social skills. They were right, it did.”
Jared looks at him. “Really? You mean you used to be worse?”
Jensen nods. “Yes, a lot worse. I was very awkward. I didn’t really have any friends. They didn’t understand me, and I didn’t know how to talk to them. I’m a lot better now.”
“Jensen, I didn’t mean…” Jared laughs a little. His cheeks are red. “It was a joke. I think you’re fine.”
“Oh.” It seems an odd joke to make, considering it’s true. “I watched a lot of TV,” Jensen continues. “Tried to imitate what I saw. It didn’t really help. Apparently there’s a lot of bad acting on daytime TV.”
“Says the guy who was on Days Of Our Lives,” Jared says with a smile.
Jensen looks at him, not sure what he’s getting at. “Yes?”
Jared shakes his head. “Nothing. Another bad joke. I’m… I make a lot of those. Sorry.”
“I’ve noticed.” Jensen looks over at the screen. Max is bitching Alec out. Again. He always gets edgy watching that. Jessica Alba never really got him. She wasn’t happy when they re-hired him for the second season. Apparently he was ‘too much work’.
“Dad thought I should learn proper acting. I had training at home and then when I started high school I joined the drama club. I don’t think anyone expected me to be good at it but I was.”
Jared glances at him, smiling that small smile that Jensen is never sure how to interpret. “No kidding. Bet you blew them away.”
Jensen frowns. “Is that another joke?”
“No joke,” Jared says, face turning serious. “In case you didn’t know, I think you’re an amazing actor. I mean,” he waves his hand at the TV, “that there? Look at you!”
Jensen watches himself be the emotional trainwreck that is Alec McDowell. “You like that?”
“You should have gotten a frigging Emmy for that episode, man.”
“The Academy doesn’t recognize genre shows,” Jensen tells him. “In its thirty-seven years of history, Star Trek only got six nominations that didn’t belong to the technical categories, even if experts agree its writing and acting was at times exceptional. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer only received one writing nomination in its seven year run, despite the consensual opinion that Joss Whedon is a genius. The Academy has a preference for mindless emotional drama over actual, thought provoking material. It will never see sci-fi as anything other than technological jerk-off material for immature nerds.”
He stops himself abruptly, embarrassed. “Sorry. I get carried away. You need to tell me to shut up.”
Jared shrugs. “I find it interesting. Go on.”
“I better not. I could talk about this for…” He calculates in his head, “… at least forty-five minutes. Once I really get going I’ll find it a lot harder to stop, and it’s getting late. We should go to bed soon.”
Jared throws him a smile. “Okay. But I really don’t mind. You know a lot of stuff,” he adds as an afterthought.
“I used to have a lot of time to read before I met you.”
Jensen gives Jared a small smile to make sure he knows Jensen doesn’t mind Jared intruding on his reading time. Jared smiles back, so Jensen thinks he probably gets it, even if he does look a little sad.
-*-*-*-*-
“Okay, guys. One more time from the top!”
That will be the tenth take. God save them from perfectionist directors. Jared glances over at Jensen. He’s sweating, his eyes are blinking rapidly, and the corner of his mouth is twitching just a little. “Jensen? You good?”
Jensen gives a curt nod, fingers drumming the wheel of the Impala.
“Aaaaaand action!”
“Okay, here’s where Dad went,” Jared says, channeling Sam’s serious research mood. “It’s called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado.”
Jensen makes a face. “Sounds charming,” he says. His voice is a little more strained than called for. “How far?”
“About six hundred miles.”
“If we sha- If we… Fuck!”
“Cut!”
Jensen hits the wheel with his hand, hard. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Can’t get it right. Can’t get it right. Stupid goddamn son-of-a-BITCH!”
“Jensen, calm down. It’s okay,” Jared says, laying a hand on Jensen’s arm, only to snatch it back when Jensen jerks violently.
“Not Jensen!” Jensen yells. “Stop calling me that! I’m Dean. I’m trying to be Dean, and you’re fucking it up! You’re… I’m supposed to be Dean!” He sucks in his breath. “I forgot my line. I forgot my line, because you keep distracting me!”
Jared reaches over and turns the mic off. “You forgot your line, because we’ve been at it for five hours without a break,” he says calmly. “It’s late, we’re both exhausted. Let me talk to Eric. We can finish this tomorrow.”
“No. No! We’re supposed to do it tonight. That’s the schedule. We have to follow the schedule!” Jensen slams the heels of his hands into his forehead.
“Okay, okay. How about we take a twenty minute break?” Jared suggests. “Just twenty minutes.”
Jensen blinks, his breath heaving. “Twenty minutes. Okay. Okay.”
“Let me talk to…” But Jensen is already out of the car, walking briskly away. “Eric,” Jared finishes lamely and sighs before getting out of the car as well.
Eric Kripke is staring at where Jensen disappeared to, a frantic look in his eyes. “What the hell is he doing? He can’t just… Someone get him back here!”
“Eric!” Jared snaps. “Leave him. He’s taking twenty.”
“What? We’re losing daylight! We can’t just-”
“It’s either twenty minutes now or I’m guessing all day tomorrow,” Jared points out drily.
Eric winces. “Shit. Okay, okay. Please tell me he’s not having a meltdown.”
Jared sighs and rubs a hand over his face. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Shannon shaking her finger at him for messing with the makeup.
“No,” he says. “He’s just tired. And stressed. And hungry.” He cracks a small smile at Eric’s raised eyebrow. “Okay, that’s me, but the rest still fits. Look, you know he can do this. He’s been doing it. He’s not the one fucking up the takes. You guys need to make up your mind beforehand on what angle you want, or this ain’t gonna work.”
“You a director now?” Eric snarks, clearly annoyed.
“No, but you know I’m right,” Jared says patiently. “Jensen is as professional as it gets, but this, it’s too disorganized. He can’t work like this. It’s too stressful.”
“Jesus.” Eric groans. “I knew it was gonna be different, but… I don’t even know what the hell you want me to do.”
“How about you make a list of the different angles you want to try, so he knows what to expect?” Jared suggests. “And, you know, maybe try and cut them down, so there aren’t as many. All it takes is some planning.”
“Yes, because I don’t do enough of that already,” Eric grumbles. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Planning.” He sighs. “He better be worth it.”
Jared gives him a tight smile, even if he feels a sudden urge to punch the guy. “You know he is. Jensen is Dean. He’s gonna be the best goddamn Dean you could have wished for. If you let him.”
He leaves Eric to mull it over and goes to Jensen’s trailer. The lights are off inside, and all is quiet. Jared sits down on the steps and waits, one eye on Sam’s watch. Twenty minutes. He hopes it’s enough.
Exactly twenty minutes later Jensen - No, Dean, Jared reminds himself - steps out of the trailer. He offers Jared a curt nod and together they walk back to the Impala. Jensen’s hands are shaking a little and there’s a somewhat manic look in his eyes but other than that he seems fine.
They finish the scene in one take.
-*-*-*-*-
“Jared.”
Jared snores on. Jensen purses his lips. He reaches out but pulls back at the last moment. Just because Jared gave him a key to his apartment doesn’t mean he’ll be happy about being woken up in the middle of the night.
“He’s being nice, because he’s a nice guy, Jensen,” Danneel had told him on the phone just two days ago. “Don’t abuse it. He doesn’t get paid to put up with you 24/7 like I do.”
“So I pay him,” Jensen had argued. “I have money.”
She’d sighed. “He wants you two to be friends, Jensen. Offering him money would be insulting.”
He doesn’t get that. If paying Danneel means she’s there for him whenever he needs her, (except now, because of that stupid role on some stupid show in North-fucking-Carolina) then why can’t he pay Jared to do the same? It’s not like he’s going to ask Jared to go out in the middle of the night to buy him All-Bran, like he made Danneel do the time they ran out, and he hadn’t been able to sleep knowing it wouldn’t be there for him in the morning. He just wants to spend the night in Jared’s bed. Friends do that, right?
Another lightning bolt flashes across the sky, and Jensen quickly covers his ears and squeezes his eyes shut before the thunder rolls in its wake. The noise still makes his breath stutter. It’s just so fucking loud!
“Jared.” He pokes Jared in the shoulder but he just mumbles in his sleep. “Jared. Jared, wake up. JARED!”
Jared groans and opens one eye. “Wha- Jensen?”
“I need to sleep in your bed.”
“What?” Jared asks bewildered. “Why?”
“Thunderstorm,” Jensen tells him, shivering a little. “Really, really loud.”
Jared yawns. “Oh, okay.” He shuffles over to the side, and Jensen crawls under the covers.
“I can pay you,” he says once he’s settled down on his back, eyes on the ceiling. “For the night service.”
For some reason Jared laughs at that. It sounds a little choked. “Excuse me?”
“Danneel says I can’t bother you whenever I feel like it, because we’re just friends, and you don’t get paid. But I… I needed someone, and she’s not here. I can pay. I have money.”
Another lightning flashes, and Jensen quickly covers his ears again, breath gasping when the thunder breaks the silence, loud enough to rattle the windows.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m right here.” Jared shuffles closer. “Look at me. I’m right here.”
Jensen turns his head, settling his gaze on Jared’s mole, the one that’s just to the side of his nose. “I know you’re here,” he says, his voice a little hoarse, because his throat feels really dry. “That’s why I came.”
Jared smiles. “You can bother me any time you want, okay? And you don’t have to pay me a dime.”
“But we’re just friends,” Jensen says confused.
“Exactly. We’re friends. That’s what friends do; look out for each other. There’s no clocking in and out of that, okay? It’s not a nine to five job.”
Jensen blinks. His breath hitches a little. “Oh.” He licks his lips and then slowly raises his gaze, until he’s staring straight into Jared’s eyes. “Thank you,” he says, Jared’s face blurring slightly as it goes out of focus.
Jared smiles. “You’re welcome,” he says. “Now sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”
Jensen obediently closes his eyes. The next time a thunder cracks across the sky Jared’s big hands are already there, covering Jensen’s ears. It doesn’t even make him flinch.
-*-*-*-*-
“So, it’s been fun,” Jared says, keeping his voice light.
Jensen nods, but he doesn’t seem to be listening. Although to be fair, most times it’s hard to tell. His eyes are fixed on the bulletin board, waiting for his flight to be called.
“If all goes well we should be back in July at the latest. You think you can survive being without my delightful company for that long?” Jared jokes.
“Yes,” Jensen says, not taking his eyes off the board. “My survival is based on many things, but your presence is not one of them.”
Jared’s smile falters a little. “I just meant… Never mind. I’m gonna miss you, that’s all.”
Jensen blinks. “Oh. I’ll miss you, too. You’re a good friend, Jared.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. I hope the show gets picked up. I like working with you. We fit. I never fit with anyone, but I fit with you. You get me.”
Jared grins and takes a sip of his coffee. Just in time to choke on it when Jensen adds, “Next time I sleep in your bed we should have sex. Your cock really is big. I could feel it when you humped me in your sleep.”
Before Jared has time to mentally form an answer that consists of more than awkward garbling, Jensen’s flight is announced ready for boarding and just like that he’s walking away without a backward glance. Jared stares after him, his face flushed and his jeans noticeably tighter.
Well… shit.
Continued here
Title: The Puzzle (That is Me)
Author: felisblanco
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Word count: 19.700 words
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is fiction. Meaning, NOT true. All right? All right.
Warning: This story explores what Jensen might be like if he had Asperger’s syndrom. Just so you know. Other than that… It’s pretty tame. Minimum angst even. Huh. Imagine that.
Author’s note: Ok, I need to make one thing clear: This fic is as AU as it can get while still featuring Jensen and Jared being actors on Supernatural. Apart from the obvious (Jensen having Asperger’s) a whole lot of other things don’t fit with real facts. Like Ostroff handling their contract negotiations (I just needed someone everyone dislikes anyway) and how it’s handled. Or Danneel being Jensen’s “girlfriend” as early as 2005. Or, you know, the guys being gay. Stuff like that. Let’s call it poetic license, okay? Lalala…
Facts about Vancouver taken from Wikipedia and tourist sites that I have now lost the links to. Views on Academy awards in regards to sub-genre shows as well as on the geniality of Joss Whedon blatantly self-indulgent. Title taken from the song Patterns by Simon and Garfunkel. Beta'd by winchesterxgirl and candygramme. Thank you, girls. *hugs*
More notes after the fic.
Summary: As they start filming and working together, Jared realizes Danneel’s prediction was right. He and Jensen do hit it off. Sure Jensen is quirky and sometimes (okay, a lot of times) uncomfortably direct to the point of being rude. But once Jared figures out Jensen isn’t actually mean as much as he’s just a little clueless (and mostly unconcerned) about the rules of social interactions, it stops bothering him.
“Hey, mama. Guess what? I think I got the part! Yeah, really. They liked me; they really did. Yeah, I know. But I’ve got a good feeling about this. What? I don’t know. Some guy. Ackles. Jensen Ackles. Me neither. I’ll Google him when I get home. Mama, you worry too much. I’m sure he’ll be great. Now, put Meg on. I wanna gloat.”
The elevator slides shut, abruptly cutting off the happy laughter. Twenty feet down the hall a man stands nodding his head. His brow is furrowed, his eyes blink rapidly. The fingers on his right hand tap against his thumb. Index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky, ring finger, middle finger, index finger, middle finger…
“Jensen,” a voice says, and he looks up. An elderly woman smiles at him. “They’re ready for you.”
He nods. His fingers keep tapping up until the moment he steps through the door and into character.
-*-*-*-*-
Jared loves the Internet. And not just for porn, whatever Chad says. He just loves that whenever he needs to know something, he can flip open his laptop and get more information than he ever needed with just a few clicks. Which is why it frustrates him no end, when he looks up Jensen Ackles and finds nothing.
Okay, so he gets the basics. Jensen’s full name, (Jensen Ross Ackles) date of birth, (March 1st 1978) what parts he’s played (Days of Our Lives, Dark Angel, Dawson’s Creek, Smallville… a few low budget - and even lower quality - movies.) There are some promo stills and video captures that show Jensen - a tall, fit and, oh, wow, unfairly handsome guy - in various characters. But that’s pretty much it. Jensen Ackles doesn’t give interviews it says on IMDb. He doesn’t attend events. No one seems to know anything about him. There’s a quote from one of his co-stars describing him as ‘very private’. Jared snorts. No kidding. The guy doesn’t seem to exist outside his work. How sad is that?
Well, if the Internet won’t provide then he has to go through other channels. First on the list is Tom Welling. Not like they’re friends, or anything even remotely close to that, but, hey, he’s kept the guy’s number on his phone since Cheaper By the Dozen. In Hollywood contacts are everything.
“Jensen?” Tom repeats and then stays quiet for a long time. Finally he says, “He’s… different.”
“Okay,” Jared says, confused. “Different how?”
Tom sighs. “Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about it.”
Jared blinks. “What?”
“It’s complicated. Just… be nice, okay?”
“When am I not nice?” Jared asks, a little insulted, but Tom doesn’t rise to the bait.
“Be even nicer,” is all he says and hangs up.
Jared sits staring at the phone, bewildered. What the hell does that even mean?
He calls Chad but gets cut off as soon as he mentions Dawson’s Creek. “Nuhuh. We never did an episode together. He didn’t get on until after I’d left.”
“Okay, but you must talk to them sometimes,” Jared argues. “They never mention him?”
“Why would I talk to them?” Chad asks confused. “I hated that show.”
Jared sighs.
Next step is getting the DVDs. He feels a little like a stalker, raiding Best Buy for everything Jensen related, but no one looks at him funny, and he gets home with the second season of Dark Angel and season six of Dawson’s Creek.
Jared’s first thought when Alec (X5-494, whatever) enters the cell in the first episode of the second season of Dark Angel is that the promos didn’t do Jensen Ackles justice. No wonder they had him playing a transgenic, he looks like he was made in a frigging lab.
The plan was to just sit back and enjoy the show, but instead Jared finds himself fast forwarding to Jensen’s scenes, watching him be Alec. The more he watches the deeper his heart sinks. Fuck. Just look at the guy. He’s hot, charming, and he delivers the crappy writing like it’s goddamn Shakespeare. Jared doesn’t normally have self-esteem issues, but he’s starting to feel like he might be getting in over his head. Who’s even going to notice him with that guy in the room?
Watching Dawson’s Creek makes him feel slightly better, but only because not even Jensen’s limited (although admittedly amazing) screen time can hold his interest for more than ten minutes. Way too much drama for his taste. He switches back to Dark Angel and ends up mainlining half a season before stumbling to bed at two in the morning, Alec’s smug smirk mocking him in his dreams.
Despite his mother’s philosophy, things actually don’t look any better in the morning. Jared drags himself to the studio, nervous as hell and feeling so disheartened that he’s sure he’ll be asked to leave within minutes.
The first thing he sees when he steps into the waiting room is the man sitting on the couch: Jensen Ackles, in the flesh. Jared hesitates, his palms going damp. He feels a little overwhelmed facing the man, especially considering the dreams he’d woken up from that morning. Jared fights down the blush that threatens to creep up his neck at the memory and takes a moment just… looking.
Jensen seems tense. His knees are bouncing, one after the other, and he keeps drumming his fingers on his thighs, then flattening his palms to wipe them on his pants. His eyes are fixed on the door to the audition room, so intensely he doesn’t even notice Jared where he stands in the doorway, staring at Jensen’s really ridiculously beautiful profile. Just look at those lips! Man, this is so unfair.
Before he starts feeling too much like an ogling pervert, Jared enters the room, closing the door quietly behind him. “Hey,” he says as he approaches the couch.
Jensen jumps in his seat. He looks up, eyes widening for a second, before his gaze quickly drops, and his cheeks flush pink. “Jared Padalecki,” he says, his tone a little odd. “Sam Winchester.”
Jared smiles. “Yep, that’s me. And you must be my brother, Dean.”
Jensen quickly shakes his head. “No. I’m not Dean. And I’m not your brother. Dean is Sam’s brother. You’re not Sam.”
Jared blinks, not sure how to respond. “I just meant you will be playing my… I mean Sam’s brother. Right? Jensen Ackles?”
Jensen nods. “Yes.” He seems to hesitate then sticks out his hand, smiling awkwardly. “Hello. Nice to meet you.”
Jared takes the hand. It’s smaller than his, but then again most people’s are. The fingers feel strong but still somehow delicate. Unsure. The palm is sweaty, and he can feel Jensen’s heartbeat racing manically under his thumb, where it lands on the inside of Jensen’s wrist. It’s quite the reality check. Jared had expected someone like Jensen to be professionally cool and in control, but if anything he seems more nervous than Jared.
The handshake is brief, and when Jensen withdraws his hand he quickly wipes the palm on his thigh. He’s casually dressed in jeans and a black shirt, in which he still manages to look stiff and uncomfortable. Actually Jensen looks uncomfortable just being there. Oddly enough, that makes Jared feel a whole lot better. Seems the guy is human after all.
Jared sits down on the other end of the couch, trying to be discreet, but he just can’t stop looking at Jensen. Even here, in the rather unflattering light, without any retouch or make-up and basically being a fidgety, nervous wreck, Jensen still looks gorgeous. Jensen must be aware that he’s being watched, but he doesn’t say anything, just sits there rubbing his hands nervously together, and occasionally stealing glances Jared’s way, but mostly keeping his eyes on the door like before.
“So,” Jared starts when the silence starts grating on his own nerves, “Vancouver, huh?”
Jensen nods. “Canada’s third largest city as well as the third largest film-producing center in North-America,” he says. “Population a little under five hundred and eighty thousand, of which more than fifty percent have a native language other than English.”
Jared blinks. “Okay. I was more going for, ‘Vancouver, huh? Wonder what that’s like.’ You know, since we would be living there if they hire us. And the pilot gets picked up. Something like that.”
Jensen frowns. “Why wouldn’t it be? The story is solid, the characters are interesting, and there’s a growing market for supernaturally inclined shows. I would think we’d be sure for at least two seasons.” He tilts his head in thought, eyes flickering to Jared for just a second before darting away. “Unless you suck.”
“Excuse me?” Jared stares at him, incredulous.
“I haven’t seen anything you’ve been in. Are you good?”
Jared doesn’t really know what to say. “They wouldn’t have wanted me here if they didn’t think I could do it,” he finally points out.
Jensen looks thoughtful. “I suppose not. Let’s hope they’re right.”
Jared’s about to open his mouth and say something witty, or snarky, or just anything to not leave him on the sticky end of a rather insulting joke, but just then the door opens on the other side of the room, and they’re being called in.
Jared jumps to his feet, ready and eager. He’s halfway across the room before he realizes he’s on his own. He looks back to find Jensen still sitting on the couch, the fingers of his right hand tapping what looks like a complicated rhythm upon the shell of his knee.
“Jensen? You coming?”
Jensen doesn’t answer, his face locked in deep concentration. Then he suddenly stands up and walks straight by Jared. Right before he enters the room Jensen snaps his fingers, and as he disappears through the doorway Jared hears him say, “So we’re back again,” in a voice that sounds all bright, and cheerful and confident, nothing like the one Jared heard earlier.
Huh. As weird, pre-audition rituals go that one rates among the top ten that Jared’s witnessed. On the other hand it’s about nine places below Chad’s habit of wearing women’s underwear so…
Despite their rough introduction, the read-through goes great. Amazing really. Jensen is just as good as Jared had anticipated, even better. He gives Dean, the character he’s playing, an edge and dimension that Jared would never even have thought of, and it’s all he can do to hang on and not fall behind.
The bigwigs love the guy. Jared actually worries that Eric Kripke might have an aneurysm; that’s how excited he is. He loves Jared’s Sam as well, but it’s not quite in the same class of worshiping he’s got going on with Jensen. Jared would feel jealous if he wasn’t busy silently agreeing with him.
They smile, and laugh, and talk and then they shake hands, and it’s all ‘our agents,’ and ‘your agents,’ and blahblahblah, and before Jared knows it he’s out in the waiting room again with Jensen. The door closes behind them, and Jensen’s smile vanishes, just like that. He stares ahead for a moment, eyes blank, and then walks out and toward the elevator.
“Uh, hey,” Jared says and hurries to side up with him, waiting for the cart to arrive. “That was great. We should go for a drink. Celebrate.”
Jensen glances over, looking a little surprised, like he’s just now noticing he’s not alone. “Why?”
“Because that’s what you do when things go well?” Jared suggests awkwardly.
“You need to work on your timing. It was off.” Jensen shakes his head. “And I don’t drink with people who don’t know me.”
Jared blinks. “Right,” he says, starting to feel a little miffed. Not that he’d expected them to be instant BFFs, but at least he’s trying. “Are you always such a dick?” he asks, before he can help himself.
Jensen gets into the elevator and pushes the button for the ground floor as Jared slips through the already closing doors. “I’m not a dick,” Jensen says, staring at the numbers lighting up, one after the other. “I’m precise.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
Before Jared can think of a good comeback, the elevator door opens and Jensen steps out, looking a little anxious until his eyes settle on a woman hurrying toward them. Red hair, nice body, high heels. Concerned look.
“Hey,” she says as she stops in front of them and takes Jensen’s hands, holding them in her own. He looks down at them then up at her, and it’s like his whole body relaxes. “Hey,” the woman repeats with a smile. “How did it go?”
“It was good,” Jensen says and smiles back. “I was good.”
“Good. Great.” She pulls him in for a hug, which he seems to reluctantly accept, his hands hovering awkwardly at her waist. “I told you.”
“You tell me a lot of things,” Jensen says, sounding a little admonishing.
She laughs, letting him go, and he steps quickly back. Just then she notices Jared standing there, watching them, and her smile changes into something more pensive.
“Oh, hi. Jared, right? Dean’s Sam.”
She offers Jared her hand. “Nice to meet you,” she says although judging by the speculative look in her eyes the verdict is still out on that.
“You too, miss…?”
“Harris. Danneel Harris.”
She doesn’t offer any explanation of who she is, and it feels rude to ask, so Jared just nods, and smiles and shakes her hand. “Jared Padalecki,” he says. “Dean’s Sam, I guess,” he adds awkwardly.
“We should get together,” Danneel suggests with a small smile
He nods. “Yeah, I was just telling Jensen we should go and celebrate-”
“Not now,” she cuts in, not unkindly. “It’s been a long day. We’ll call you. Jensen,” she says, turning his way, “you ready to go?”
There is no response, but she seems unbothered by that, just stands there, watching Jensen with a patient smile. It takes Jared a moment to realize she’s waiting for Jensen to finish some kind of set rhythm that he’s tapping against his thumb, a melody maybe. Jared can’t tell. Whatever it is, it’s over in less than a minute. The fingers go still, Jensen glances over at Danneel and reaches for her hand. She takes it and gives Jared a nod before walking with Jensen to the door.
Jared waits until they’re outside before giving in to his curiosity and following. He watches through the glass window as Jensen gets into the car, nodding his head in response to whatever Danneel is saying. As if she can feel Jared’s eyes on her she suddenly turns her head, looking straight at him. Jared quickly steps back, embarrassed at being caught, but she just smiles and gives him a small wave before walking around the car and slipping in behind the wheel.
It is beyond a doubt the strangest day in Jared’s life.
-*-*-*-*-
“I did good.”
“You already said that.”
Jensen nods. “I did good.”
“I know. You always do, honey.”
“I did good,” he repeats automatically, not really listening to her.
“Jensen,” she says, laughing a little. “Stop it.”
He bangs the heel of his hand into his temple. Organize, organize. Dean in his box, Ackles in his. Close the lids, and that leaves… Jensen. “Sorry. I was preoccupied,” he says. “Dean’s thoughts are very complicated.”
“It’s okay.” Danneel kisses him on the cheek. It’s nice. It’s always nice. She has very soft lips. They remind him of his mother. “So, how did you like Jared?”
“He’s very tall.” Jensen frowns. “Sam is Dean’s little brother.”
“Well, they’re grown up, right? Brothers aren’t always the same height; you know that. You’re taller than Josh.”
“Tall. Big hands. Strong. Very fit.” Jensen shakes his head. “He looks stronger than me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Jensen, no one will care, okay? Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worrying. I’m adapting.” He taps his temple with his index finger, a fast, even pace. “Not fair. Not fair. Pisses me off. Can still kick his ass. He’s gone soft. Not as quick. College boy.” He snorts. “Sammy. He hates that. It’s just Sam now. Sam. Pfft. Whatever. Sammy. Always gonna be my Sammy.”
“That might work.” She takes his hand and pulls it away from his head. “You’re gonna give yourself a headache,” she says with a small lift of her eyebrow. He frowns. His temple feels a little sore. He needs to clip his fingernails. “You still haven’t answered me. How did you like Jared?”
He thinks. Jared. Jared Padalecki. Jared Padalecki made him nervous. Not the way Eric Kripke makes him nervous. Different nervous. Like… When Jared sat down next to him on the couch Jensen really wanted to reach out and touch him. And he doesn’t normally like to touch people he doesn’t know. Jared had just looked so… solid. Like a wall made of bones and muscles. His hand had been warm, strong. Jensen had wanted to slide his fingers in between the buttons of Jared’s shirt to feel if his chest was as warm. It had messed up his thoughts for a while, almost made him forget his script. He’d had to rewind and start over before he could go in and play his part.
“Jensen?”
“He didn’t suck,” Jensen says because he’s not sure how to explain the other thing.
“Okay.” Danneel laughs. “What else?”
He thinks of Jared towering over him. Arm stretched out, palm extended. Long, long fingers. “He’s big.”
“You already said that,” she reminds him.
“Different big. Big hands, big feet. Big dick. I think. Didn’t see it obviously. But statistics show…”
“Jensen!”
He looks up at the sharp tone of her voice. “What?”
“You can’t…” She sighs and shakes her head. She looks a little irritated. Maybe she’s menstruating. “Listen to me. If the pilot gets picked up, you’re going to be working with him very closely for the next eight, nine months. At least. If you sleep with him, it will be awkward.” He frowns at her, and she patiently clarifies, “For him. It will be awkward for him.”
Jensen thinks about that for a moment. He doesn’t really get why it should be awkward, but if Danneel says so, she’s probably right. She knows these things.
“Besides,” she adds, “I read up on him. He has a girlfriend. Which probably means he’s not gay. And even if he’s bi,” she continues, when Jensen opens his mouth to argue, “he’s still taken. You don’t mess around with apparently straight taken guys, okay?”
Jensen sighs. Damn. “Your rules are annoying.”
She smiles. “You’ll survive,” she says. “Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. If you’re gonna take a shower, you better hurry.”
“Never get any big dicks,” he mutters and heads for the bathroom.
It’s true. As much as guys like to brag about their equipment, research shows that the average length of a human penis is only around six inches when fully erect. And while length isn’t everything - girth does play a large part in providing sexual fulfillment - Jensen will readily admit he is what Danneel likes to call a size queen. Danneel says it’s a Texas thing, they always think bigger is better. He tried explaining to her the dynamics of anal sex, what makes the size of the penis important when considering the placement of the prostate gland, not to mention the pleasure of being stretched beyond the limit of the regular bowel movement, but for some reason she just hadn’t been interested.
As the hot water beats down on his neck and shoulders he pictures Jared’s hands, his long fingers. The length of a man’s cock will often coincide with the length of his index finger, measuring from the root of his thumb. Not an accurate science, and it does have its exceptions to the rule, but if the precarious way Jared wore his rather tight jeans is anything to go by, Jensen would say in his case the margin of error might be a little on the positive side.
Girlfriend. Girlfriend. Jared has a girlfriend. Jensen frowns. The first person Jared called after his audition, that time Jensen overheard him in the hall, was his mother. Not his girlfriend. And today, while they were waiting to be called in, he’d kept staring at Jensen. Men don’t usually stare at other men unless they’re either interested or the one they’re staring at is hideous enough to warrant gaping.
Jensen is not hideous. Danneel says he’s pretty. His mother calls him handsome. Jensen prefers the word handsome. He used to be called pretty all the time when he was younger. By girls, yes, but men, too. Pretty. Pretty boy. Dad didn’t like that. That’s why Jensen only has female assistants now.
Girlfriends. He’s supposed to call them girlfriends, he reminds himself. Danneel has lasted the longest. He likes her the best, too. She feels like a friend. She’s good at reading him, and she always seems to know how to handle it when he goes off track. She’s pretty, too. Good body. They make a beautiful couple on pictures. His manager likes that. Dad likes it as well. Mom says she doesn’t care as long as he’s happy. Jensen’s not sure what being happy has to do with it.
There’s a knock on the door. “Jensen, dinner’s ready.”
“I’m coming!” he shouts.
“Too much information!” she yells back and laughs. It takes him a moment to get the joke, and by the time he does it’s more a premature assumption than actual misinterpretation, so he doesn’t bother correcting her.
-*-*-*-*-
“Jared, thank you for coming. Please, have a seat.”
He sits down, a little wary. From what his agent told him on the phone it’s a done deal. All that’s really left is to sign the contract. That’s what he’s here to do, with Jensen he presumed, until they called and asked if he could please come in an hour early, “Just to go over some things.”
“You have probably guessed why we asked you to come in separately,” the woman says with a fake smile. He’s forgotten her name. Ostrich?
Jared shakes his head. “Uhm, no? No, can’t say I have.”
“You met Jensen Ackles at the final audition so this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.” She lays a couple of printed pages in front of him. “These are additional clauses to your contract. If you would please read them over.”
He blinks, confused, and picks up the pages. The more he reads, the wider his eyes get. So this is what Tom was talking about. “I’m sorry, but what is this?”
“It’s a confidentiality clause. I’m sure you are familiar with the idea.”
“Yes, but-”
“Is there a problem?”
He looks at her then back at the words in front of him. His lips thin. “You know, you didn’t have to do this. I would have respected it anyway.”
She smiles tightly. “I appreciate that. This way, however, we can be sure.”
He just shakes his head, annoyed, and signs on the dotted line. While he’s at it he signs the main contract too, and then gets the hell out of there. He’d been looking forward to meeting Jensen again, but right now he’d rather not.
No one has ever accused him of not being trustworthy before. It kinda stings.
-*-*-*-*-
Jensen steps into the office and looks around. He frowns. Something is not right. “Where’s Jared?”
Ostroff smiles at him indulgently. “Mr. Padalecki had to leave early. Now, if you’d please take a seat we can-”
“Jared was supposed to be here,” he cuts her off. “We were going to ask him to have coffee. Danny, we were going to get coffee!”
“Jensen, chill. It’s okay. I’ll call him. Set something up. You have his number, right?”
“No, I don’t…” He stops when he realizes she’s not talking to him. “We were gonna have coffee,” he mutters irritated as Ostroff finds Jared’s phone number for them. “Sign the contract, have coffee, talk to Jared. That’s what you said. That’s the plan. You don’t mess with the plan.”
“You want to read over the contract?” Danneel asks him, ignoring his grumbling.
He scowls and snatches it out of her hands. Of course he wants to read the contract. Only a moron signs an unread contract. He’s many things, but a moron is not one of them.
It’s quick reading; the contract looks similar to other contracts he’s signed in this business. Although…
He looks up. “Six years?”
“Just a formality,” Ostroff dismisses. “Eric Kripke has a five year story line, but the network doesn’t expect the series to go much further than two seasons, if that.”
He huffs. “Well, the network is stupid. Supernatural has the potential of becoming a cult show the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and X-Files. It will most likely accumulate a small but loyal fanbase since your viewer numbers will never be high unless you put a considerate amount of money in promotion. Which, considering your reputation with this genre, is unlikely.” He ignores the irritated look on her face. “Five years would be a logical run for this show but since it will only continue as long as the network deems it profitable let’s hope its fans are enthusiastic and creative in promoting it for you. Otherwise it’s just as likely to be cancelled before it even has a chance of reaching its potentials.”
He grabs the pen and scribbles his name on all the x-marked places then stands up and walks to the door. “Danny. Coffee.”
“Go on, I’ll be out in a minute.”
He nods and turns around, not bothering to say goodbye. “I take it Jared signed his contract already,” he hears Danneel say as he steps out into the hall. There’s no answer that he can hear, but Ostroff must have nodded because Danneel adds, “All of it?”
“Yes,” Ostroff retorts. “He was…”
The door falls shut, cutting off her voice, and Jensen is left standing alone in the hall. His nose twitches in annoyance. He doesn’t like being left out of things that concern him. He’s not a child, for fuck’s sake.
On the other hand he doesn’t want to go back in either. Dawn Ostroff uses way too much perfume. It was hard to breathe in there.
He looks at his watch then back at the door. Hovers indecisively. Checks his watch again. A girl comes hurrying down the hall and he steps closer to the door, feeling in the way even if the hallway is wide enough to fit both of them and then some. She slows down as she passes, lips curling into a smile, and he smiles automatically back, ducking his head to subtly avoid her heated stare. He checks his watch as soon as she’s gone. Reaches out for the doorknob but pulls back. Dammit.
Danneel comes out a few minutes later, small lines of worry around her eyes. “There you are,” she says and takes his hand. “Shall we?”
“You said a minute,” he tells her, irritated. “Not five. A minute. A minute is sixty seconds. Five minutes are three hundred seconds. You were five minutes. A few seconds give or take,” he admits.
“Ostroff is a bitch,” she says, offering no explanation or apology. “I have Jared’s phone number. Want me to call him?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions. Yes,” he sighs when she just looks at him, unruffled. “The plan is to have coffee and talk to Jared. That’s the plan. We have to follow the plan.”
“All right. Hang on.” She pulls her phone out of her purse and scrolls through her contacts. “You want to talk to him or should I?”
“I don’t know him yet,” he points out, and she sighs.
“God, you’re such a douche.”
Jensen frowns. He likes Danneel but sometimes she just doesn’t make any sense.
-*-*-*-*-
When Danneel said they should get together sometime, Jared hadn’t really thought she meant like this. He’s sitting on a bench in the park, nursing a grande latte and watching Danneel try and talk Jensen out of throwing his coffee away, because apparently the lid has a small crack in its side.
“Just take it off, drink from the rim,” she says exasperated.
Jensen looks like she just suggested he’d strip naked and run through the park.
“Take mine,” Jared offers bemused. “I don’t mind.”
“Please don’t indulge his childish whims,” Danneel groans, but she accepts the lid anyway, exchanging it with Jensen’s cracked one. “Happy now?”
Jensen harrumphs, but the crease between his eyebrows eases a little.
“Can we stop worrying about coffee and get to the point?” She gives Jared a strained smile. “This is Jensen. He is absolutely insufferable.”
“Okay.” Jared can’t help smiling when Jensen flips Danneel the finger. “I probably would have figured that out on my own.”
“I’m not insufferable,” Jensen says prickly. “I’m precise.”
“You’re an anal obsessive control freak, Jensen, that’s what you are.”
She’s smiling though so Jared doesn’t think she means it in a particularly bad way. Jensen doesn’t seem insulted either, but it’s a little hard to tell since he’s still busy frowning at his coffee.
“I want to start by apologizing for the confidentiality clause,” Danneel says although she doesn’t look sorry in the least. “It’s nothing personal, just something we have a rule of doing.”
“So they told me,” Jared says, unable to keep the coolness out of his voice. “For the record, I don’t make a habit of running to the tabloids with stuff. That’s not the kind of guy I am.”
“Good to know,” she says, the smile softening a little. “But honestly? Not everyone is that nice. This is Hollywood, Jared. One man’s Asperger’s is another man’s money in the pocket. You can’t be too careful.”
Jared looks at her startled. Oh, so that’s what... Huh. He probably should have realized it was something like that, but for some reason it hadn’t even occurred to him. He just thought…
Actually he’s not sure what he thought. That Jensen was a little unusual. A bit of a jackass actually but he’d figured it was some kind of defense mechanism because the guy seemed painfully shy, having yet to look Jared even once in the eye. And all right, admittedly he’d noticed Jensen had some odd quirks but Jared’s known worse. Hell, Chad alone has enough bad habits to decivilize a small village.
“Yeah,” he says slowly. “I guess. Just… I wouldn’t. Just so you know.”
“Great!” she says cheerfully. “Good to have that settled. So, you looking forward to living in Vancouver?”
He shrugs. “Looking forward to the work, not so much to living there, no. It’s as far from Texas as you can get, you know?”
“No, it’s not. The furthest point away from Texas would be-”
Danneel lays a hand on Jensen’s arm, cutting him off. “He doesn’t mean literally,” she says.
Jensen sighs and keeps on sipping his coffee.
Jared stares at him, still trying to process the whole Asperger’s thing. Not that he actually knows a lot about it, but his mama had a kid like that in her class once that she talked about sometimes. It’s hard trying to fit what she told him about that child with the guy sitting next to him. Not that he expects them to be the same. There are levels, he knows, and of course people are just different no matter what they might or might not have. Still…
“Jensen is a bit of a geography geek,” Danneel explains with a smile, bringing Jared out of his thoughts. “He’ll talk your ear off if you’re not too careful.”
“I’m not a geek,” Jensen protests. “This is our planet. Our home. We should know our own fucking home. Most people could blindly find their way to the nearest Starbucks but they can’t locate their own state on the map.”
“And still, ironically enough, wherever we go you make it your first priority to locate all the nearest coffee places,” she snorts before turning to Jared. “Sorry, go on.”
Jared pulls his eyes reluctantly away from Jensen and back to her. “I just meant it’s different. It’s not even the States, it’s a whole different country. So it feels very far away. I’m gonna miss my folks. And my friends.”
“Your girlfriend?” Danneel asks with a sympathetic look.
Jared offers her a small smile. “Yeah. Her too.”
“He’s lying,” Jensen says, sounding smug. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
Jared stares at him. “Dude! What are you…? I do have a girlfriend. Her name is Sandy. She’s-”
“Not your girlfriend,” Jensen insists. “Girl, yes. Friend, probably. Girlfriend, no.”
“Jensen, stop it!” Danneel hisses.
“Look, man,” Jared says, starting to get annoyed. “You can’t be going around saying stuff like that.”
“They tell you that?” Jensen nods, lips pursed. “Hollywood hates fags.”
Jared flinches. “Shit.” He stands up, shaking his head. “I’m sorry but I’m not gonna sit here and listen to this. It’s-”
“Danneel is my girlfriend,” Jensen says bluntly. “Dad hired her.”
“Jesus!” Danneel groans, cheeks going almost as red as her hair. “Jensen, will you shut up!”
Jared stands still, looking at her flushed face and Jensen’s seeming disinterest with the whole thing. He sits back down.
“Don’t tell Sandy, she might start asking for wages,” he says, trying to keep his voice light, although his stomach is churning.
Danneel stares at him. Then she breathes out and offers him a small smile. “I’m sorry,” she says. “He can be a real ass.”
“I’m not an ass, I’m direct,” Jensen says, impatient. “Also I’m practical. Better to put things straight now than spend the next few years lying to each other. Especially since he sucks at it.”
Jared licks his lips nervously. Jensen is right. Well, about the lying to each other bit, not about Jared sucking at it. He’s been lying to people for years and this is the first time he’s been called on it so he can’t be that bad.
“So you two…” He hesitates. “You’re not really together?”
Danneel shrugs. “We live together, we travel together, I put up with his moody ass, and he eats my horrible cooking. But no sleeping together, no.”
“We do sometimes sleep together,” Jensen objects, giving her a small frown. “You snore.”
“We’re talking about sex, Jensen. And I don’t snore.”
“I have evidence,” Jensen points out. “Of you snoring, not us having sex. On my phone. I recorded you.”
“And I deleted it.” She gives Jared a small smile. “Not that there was anything to delete, of course.”
“Of course,” Jared agrees politely.
He’s still not sure what to make of the pair. There’s clearly affection there; on her part at least, he has no idea how Jensen feels. But Jensen said his dad hired her, so it doesn’t seem like she’s just a friend doing a favor. Not like Sandy.
It’s not like that had been a planned thing either. They’d become good friends while working on a movie together, and people just assumed. So they’d let them. It kinda spun out of control from there. Suddenly he was calling her his girlfriend in interviews, and his mother was asking him to please bring the young lady home for Thanksgiving. There really was no going back after that. Thankfully Sandy doesn’t mind, and he has to admit it does make things easier. Like not having to constantly dodge the popular teen magazine question of what kind of girls he likes.
However, nowhere in Jared’s online research did he see anything about Jensen having a girlfriend. So if it’s one of those full-out Hollywood bearding contracts it’s not exactly high profile. Which rather defeats the purpose of setting up a fake relationship if it’s not to flaunt it. But considering Jensen’s situation maybe it’s a whole different kind of contract they’ve got going.
“He’s right though,” Danneel says, bringing Jared out of his thoughts. “If the pilot does get picked up, you two are going to be spending a lot of time together.” She pauses, looking over at Jensen with a hint of worry. “He’s not used to staying in character for such long hours. We’ll have to figure out how to make it work.”
Jared nods, not really understanding what she’s getting at.
“Jensen has refused to let me hang around on set. Apparently I’m a distraction.” She sighs dramatically. “Personally I think he’s just too fascinated by my fabulous rack to concentrate.”
“You’re barely a C,” Jensen dismisses. “And even if they were bigger it’s not them that distract me. It’s you.” He glances over at Jared before looking away again. “She belongs to the wrong script.”
Jared stares at him, uncomprehending.
“The wrong script,” Jensen repeats impatiently. “The girlfriend script. Dean doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
Oh. Things are slowly starting to click in place.
“Right,” Jared says. “Character clash.”
Danneel nods, smiling a little. “Anyway, since I’m not wanted, I’m grabbing the opportunity to go on a short leave. Trying out for a part in a drama actually.” At Jared’s surprised look she adds, “I do have my own ambitions beyond keeping Mister Grumpypants here happy, you know.”
“I’m not grumpy,” Jensen says, sounding grumpy as hell. “And you already have a job. You’re my girlfriend.”
“Jensen, we already went through this five times. I haven’t had a day off since Christmas. You owe me, and I’m going. That’s it. Stop sulking.” She gives Jared a strained smile. “Anyway, it would help to have someone else around, who knows the deal.”
Jared nods, feeling completely at loss. “To do what?”
She shrugs. “You know, stuff.” She takes Jensen’s hand from where his fingers had been tapping the bench furiously. His fingertips are a little red from the constant pounding. His knee starts jumping instead but she lets it be. “Like that.”
“Oh.” Jared blinks, not sure what to say. “I don’t know...”
“We’re not talking babysitting, Jared,” she says with a small smile. “Don’t let his bratty behavior fool you. Behind that pretty boy face, Jensen is actually a real grown man. Fully capable of taking care of himself.”
“Tell that to my parents,” Jensen mutters. “They think I’m incompetent. Like a fucking toddler.”
“They’re a little overprotective,” Danneel agrees. “We’re working on that. Until then, it’s a good thing you like having me around. Most of the time.”
Jensen smiles a little at that. “I only like you for your cooking,” he says, the smile widening into a grin when she sticks her tongue out at him.
“Look out, or I might just start cooking what I like, instead of your boring menu,” she warns him. “Besides, we both know you love me, because I’m awesome.”
Jensen huffs but he doesn’t deny it.
“So what exactly is it you need me for?” Jared asks bewildered. “Because I should tell you right away, I can’t cook for shit.”
Danneel laughs. “Don’t worry, we’re not looking for a housekeeper. Like I said, it just helps to have someone around who knows what’s what. I mean, Kripke knows. The directors will be told. Some of the others will probably figure it out soon enough. But you’re the one who’ll be there right beside him the whole time.”
“Yeah,” Jared says hesitantly. “Okay.”
“You seem like a good guy, Jared,” she says gently. “And Jensen here isn’t that bad once you get to know him.” She laughs when Jensen again flips her the finger. It seems to be his standard response to her insults.
“Seriously, I’m sure you’ll hit it off. If all else fails you can always talk about Texas. Not now,” she adds quickly when Jensen takes a deep breath. “Wait until Jared actually likes you well enough not to kill you just to shut you up.”
Jensen shrugs. “If he wants to shut me up there are better ways.” He glances down at Jared’s crotch. “That looks big enough.”
Danneel hides her face in her hands. “Oh God,” she groans in mortification. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
Jared was wrong. This is the strangest day of his life.
-*-*-*-*-
The network sets them up in a hotel for the pilot. Separate rooms on separate floors but somehow Jared ends up spending most of his free time at Jensen’s anyway.
At first it’s because, despite what Danneel said, Jared feels oddly responsible and keeps checking up on the guy. Even if it quickly becomes clear that Jensen has everything under control, way better than Jared himself.
Jared wears the same clothes three days in a row, because without his dogs to wake him up in the morning he’s lucky to get up early enough to shower and brush his teeth before the driver picks them up. He does change his underwear, but only because he likes to sleep in them, and for some reason he keeps waking up with the kind of sticky morning boner he hasn’t had to deal with since high school. It’s embarrassing.
Jensen has lists for pretty much everything he does, and he ticks the items off as each day goes by. He gets up at the exact same time every morning and follows the exact same routine. Shower, shave, brush his teeth. Dress in the clothes marked for that day. Coffee, breakfast. Puts on his shoes, his jacket. Goes up one floor and knocks on Jared’s door.
Where Jared will answer, sleep still in his eyes, gnawing on a piece of toast while he looks frantically for his other sock. He’s pretty sure if Jensen’s parents ever met him they’d be on the phone to his mother telling her to hire him a ‘girlfriend’.
As they start filming and working together, Jared realizes Danneel’s prediction was right. He and Jensen do hit it off. Sure Jensen is quirky and sometimes (okay, a lot of times) uncomfortably direct to the point of being rude. But once Jared figures out Jensen isn’t actually mean as much as he’s just a little clueless (and mostly unconcerned) about the rules of social interactions, it stops bothering him.
Honestly, it’s not so different from tolerating Chad. Except that Chad is rude on purpose. Jensen is just… honest. Mostly because for the few hours a day he can just be himself, Jensen seems to have made a personal decision not to feel bothered by social rules he doesn’t really understand and couldn’t care less about.
“I’m off your damn NT clock,” he’d snapped at Danneel the night before she left for North Carolina as she was trying to engage him in hers and Jared’s small talk.
“Neurotypical,” Danneel had explained to a confused Jared. “Meaning us lesser beings.”
“Not lesser,” Jensen had muttered, not very convincingly. “Just… difficult.”
After a while Jensen’s straightforwardness starts feeling oddly refreshing. There is no innuendo, no hidden agenda or mixed messages. There’s just Jensen, saying exactly what he’s thinking.
“You need to eat more fiber. Your flatulence is not as amusing as you seem to think it is.”
“That’s because you don’t have a sense of humor,” Jared points out. “C’mon, fart jokes are always funny.”
Jensen shakes his head. “I do have a sense of humor. And that was not a joke. Jokes don’t smell.”
“I’m giving you the full 4D experience.” Jared sighs when Jensen just purses his lips. “Okay, okay. More fiber.” He pops another onion ring into his mouth, ignoring Jensen’s disapproving scowl. “So what have you been up to? Apart from this, I mean.”
“I have a horror movie coming out in a couple of months,” Jensen tells him. “Straight to DVD. The script sucked.”
Jared can’t help laughing. “So why did you do it?”
Jensen shrugs. “Dad set it up. They got him a role in it playing my character’s father. Which I guess is ironic.” He frowns. “Right?”
Jared nods. “Yeah, that can fit. I did a horror movie, too,” he adds. “With Paris Hilton of all people.”
“Does your character get to kill her character?” Jensen asks, looking intrigued.
Jared shakes his head. “No. I’m actually the first one to die.”
“Your character is the first to die,” Jensen rectifies. For some reason he’s always very particular about making that distinction. Jared imagines it’s because he has to keep so many characters of his own straight and separated from himself in his head. “But her character does die?”
“Oh yeah,” Jared says gleefully. “She gets her head impaled.”
Jensen nods and goes back to eating his sandwich. Well, eating parts of his sandwich. He has this weird ritual where he takes the whole thing apart before eating one layer after another. At the moment he’s crunching lettuce between his teeth.
“You should do comedy,” he says once he’s swallowed.
Jared grins. “Yeah? You think I’m funny?”
Jensen shakes his head. “No. But you seem to think you are, and most people apparently agree with you.”
Jared blinks at him. “Thanks. I think.”
“You’re welcome,” Jensen says and starts cutting up his tomato slices.
-*-*-*-*-
“How did you get into acting anyway?” Jared asks Jensen one night when they’re in his apartment, sharing a bowl of popcorn over Dark Angel reruns that Jared for some reason insisted they’d watch.
Jensen shrugs. There’s butter on his fingers and small crystals of salt cling to his skin. He wants to go wash his hands, but he’s finding it hard to get up and leave. Must be because he’s so comfortable. Jared is warm by his side; it’s making him sleepy. “My parents thought it would help with my social skills. They were right, it did.”
Jared looks at him. “Really? You mean you used to be worse?”
Jensen nods. “Yes, a lot worse. I was very awkward. I didn’t really have any friends. They didn’t understand me, and I didn’t know how to talk to them. I’m a lot better now.”
“Jensen, I didn’t mean…” Jared laughs a little. His cheeks are red. “It was a joke. I think you’re fine.”
“Oh.” It seems an odd joke to make, considering it’s true. “I watched a lot of TV,” Jensen continues. “Tried to imitate what I saw. It didn’t really help. Apparently there’s a lot of bad acting on daytime TV.”
“Says the guy who was on Days Of Our Lives,” Jared says with a smile.
Jensen looks at him, not sure what he’s getting at. “Yes?”
Jared shakes his head. “Nothing. Another bad joke. I’m… I make a lot of those. Sorry.”
“I’ve noticed.” Jensen looks over at the screen. Max is bitching Alec out. Again. He always gets edgy watching that. Jessica Alba never really got him. She wasn’t happy when they re-hired him for the second season. Apparently he was ‘too much work’.
“Dad thought I should learn proper acting. I had training at home and then when I started high school I joined the drama club. I don’t think anyone expected me to be good at it but I was.”
Jared glances at him, smiling that small smile that Jensen is never sure how to interpret. “No kidding. Bet you blew them away.”
Jensen frowns. “Is that another joke?”
“No joke,” Jared says, face turning serious. “In case you didn’t know, I think you’re an amazing actor. I mean,” he waves his hand at the TV, “that there? Look at you!”
Jensen watches himself be the emotional trainwreck that is Alec McDowell. “You like that?”
“You should have gotten a frigging Emmy for that episode, man.”
“The Academy doesn’t recognize genre shows,” Jensen tells him. “In its thirty-seven years of history, Star Trek only got six nominations that didn’t belong to the technical categories, even if experts agree its writing and acting was at times exceptional. And Buffy the Vampire Slayer only received one writing nomination in its seven year run, despite the consensual opinion that Joss Whedon is a genius. The Academy has a preference for mindless emotional drama over actual, thought provoking material. It will never see sci-fi as anything other than technological jerk-off material for immature nerds.”
He stops himself abruptly, embarrassed. “Sorry. I get carried away. You need to tell me to shut up.”
Jared shrugs. “I find it interesting. Go on.”
“I better not. I could talk about this for…” He calculates in his head, “… at least forty-five minutes. Once I really get going I’ll find it a lot harder to stop, and it’s getting late. We should go to bed soon.”
Jared throws him a smile. “Okay. But I really don’t mind. You know a lot of stuff,” he adds as an afterthought.
“I used to have a lot of time to read before I met you.”
Jensen gives Jared a small smile to make sure he knows Jensen doesn’t mind Jared intruding on his reading time. Jared smiles back, so Jensen thinks he probably gets it, even if he does look a little sad.
-*-*-*-*-
“Okay, guys. One more time from the top!”
That will be the tenth take. God save them from perfectionist directors. Jared glances over at Jensen. He’s sweating, his eyes are blinking rapidly, and the corner of his mouth is twitching just a little. “Jensen? You good?”
Jensen gives a curt nod, fingers drumming the wheel of the Impala.
“Aaaaaand action!”
“Okay, here’s where Dad went,” Jared says, channeling Sam’s serious research mood. “It’s called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado.”
Jensen makes a face. “Sounds charming,” he says. His voice is a little more strained than called for. “How far?”
“About six hundred miles.”
“If we sha- If we… Fuck!”
“Cut!”
Jensen hits the wheel with his hand, hard. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Can’t get it right. Can’t get it right. Stupid goddamn son-of-a-BITCH!”
“Jensen, calm down. It’s okay,” Jared says, laying a hand on Jensen’s arm, only to snatch it back when Jensen jerks violently.
“Not Jensen!” Jensen yells. “Stop calling me that! I’m Dean. I’m trying to be Dean, and you’re fucking it up! You’re… I’m supposed to be Dean!” He sucks in his breath. “I forgot my line. I forgot my line, because you keep distracting me!”
Jared reaches over and turns the mic off. “You forgot your line, because we’ve been at it for five hours without a break,” he says calmly. “It’s late, we’re both exhausted. Let me talk to Eric. We can finish this tomorrow.”
“No. No! We’re supposed to do it tonight. That’s the schedule. We have to follow the schedule!” Jensen slams the heels of his hands into his forehead.
“Okay, okay. How about we take a twenty minute break?” Jared suggests. “Just twenty minutes.”
Jensen blinks, his breath heaving. “Twenty minutes. Okay. Okay.”
“Let me talk to…” But Jensen is already out of the car, walking briskly away. “Eric,” Jared finishes lamely and sighs before getting out of the car as well.
Eric Kripke is staring at where Jensen disappeared to, a frantic look in his eyes. “What the hell is he doing? He can’t just… Someone get him back here!”
“Eric!” Jared snaps. “Leave him. He’s taking twenty.”
“What? We’re losing daylight! We can’t just-”
“It’s either twenty minutes now or I’m guessing all day tomorrow,” Jared points out drily.
Eric winces. “Shit. Okay, okay. Please tell me he’s not having a meltdown.”
Jared sighs and rubs a hand over his face. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Shannon shaking her finger at him for messing with the makeup.
“No,” he says. “He’s just tired. And stressed. And hungry.” He cracks a small smile at Eric’s raised eyebrow. “Okay, that’s me, but the rest still fits. Look, you know he can do this. He’s been doing it. He’s not the one fucking up the takes. You guys need to make up your mind beforehand on what angle you want, or this ain’t gonna work.”
“You a director now?” Eric snarks, clearly annoyed.
“No, but you know I’m right,” Jared says patiently. “Jensen is as professional as it gets, but this, it’s too disorganized. He can’t work like this. It’s too stressful.”
“Jesus.” Eric groans. “I knew it was gonna be different, but… I don’t even know what the hell you want me to do.”
“How about you make a list of the different angles you want to try, so he knows what to expect?” Jared suggests. “And, you know, maybe try and cut them down, so there aren’t as many. All it takes is some planning.”
“Yes, because I don’t do enough of that already,” Eric grumbles. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Planning.” He sighs. “He better be worth it.”
Jared gives him a tight smile, even if he feels a sudden urge to punch the guy. “You know he is. Jensen is Dean. He’s gonna be the best goddamn Dean you could have wished for. If you let him.”
He leaves Eric to mull it over and goes to Jensen’s trailer. The lights are off inside, and all is quiet. Jared sits down on the steps and waits, one eye on Sam’s watch. Twenty minutes. He hopes it’s enough.
Exactly twenty minutes later Jensen - No, Dean, Jared reminds himself - steps out of the trailer. He offers Jared a curt nod and together they walk back to the Impala. Jensen’s hands are shaking a little and there’s a somewhat manic look in his eyes but other than that he seems fine.
They finish the scene in one take.
-*-*-*-*-
“Jared.”
Jared snores on. Jensen purses his lips. He reaches out but pulls back at the last moment. Just because Jared gave him a key to his apartment doesn’t mean he’ll be happy about being woken up in the middle of the night.
“He’s being nice, because he’s a nice guy, Jensen,” Danneel had told him on the phone just two days ago. “Don’t abuse it. He doesn’t get paid to put up with you 24/7 like I do.”
“So I pay him,” Jensen had argued. “I have money.”
She’d sighed. “He wants you two to be friends, Jensen. Offering him money would be insulting.”
He doesn’t get that. If paying Danneel means she’s there for him whenever he needs her, (except now, because of that stupid role on some stupid show in North-fucking-Carolina) then why can’t he pay Jared to do the same? It’s not like he’s going to ask Jared to go out in the middle of the night to buy him All-Bran, like he made Danneel do the time they ran out, and he hadn’t been able to sleep knowing it wouldn’t be there for him in the morning. He just wants to spend the night in Jared’s bed. Friends do that, right?
Another lightning bolt flashes across the sky, and Jensen quickly covers his ears and squeezes his eyes shut before the thunder rolls in its wake. The noise still makes his breath stutter. It’s just so fucking loud!
“Jared.” He pokes Jared in the shoulder but he just mumbles in his sleep. “Jared. Jared, wake up. JARED!”
Jared groans and opens one eye. “Wha- Jensen?”
“I need to sleep in your bed.”
“What?” Jared asks bewildered. “Why?”
“Thunderstorm,” Jensen tells him, shivering a little. “Really, really loud.”
Jared yawns. “Oh, okay.” He shuffles over to the side, and Jensen crawls under the covers.
“I can pay you,” he says once he’s settled down on his back, eyes on the ceiling. “For the night service.”
For some reason Jared laughs at that. It sounds a little choked. “Excuse me?”
“Danneel says I can’t bother you whenever I feel like it, because we’re just friends, and you don’t get paid. But I… I needed someone, and she’s not here. I can pay. I have money.”
Another lightning flashes, and Jensen quickly covers his ears again, breath gasping when the thunder breaks the silence, loud enough to rattle the windows.
“Hey, it’s okay. I’m right here.” Jared shuffles closer. “Look at me. I’m right here.”
Jensen turns his head, settling his gaze on Jared’s mole, the one that’s just to the side of his nose. “I know you’re here,” he says, his voice a little hoarse, because his throat feels really dry. “That’s why I came.”
Jared smiles. “You can bother me any time you want, okay? And you don’t have to pay me a dime.”
“But we’re just friends,” Jensen says confused.
“Exactly. We’re friends. That’s what friends do; look out for each other. There’s no clocking in and out of that, okay? It’s not a nine to five job.”
Jensen blinks. His breath hitches a little. “Oh.” He licks his lips and then slowly raises his gaze, until he’s staring straight into Jared’s eyes. “Thank you,” he says, Jared’s face blurring slightly as it goes out of focus.
Jared smiles. “You’re welcome,” he says. “Now sleep. We have a long day tomorrow.”
Jensen obediently closes his eyes. The next time a thunder cracks across the sky Jared’s big hands are already there, covering Jensen’s ears. It doesn’t even make him flinch.
-*-*-*-*-
“So, it’s been fun,” Jared says, keeping his voice light.
Jensen nods, but he doesn’t seem to be listening. Although to be fair, most times it’s hard to tell. His eyes are fixed on the bulletin board, waiting for his flight to be called.
“If all goes well we should be back in July at the latest. You think you can survive being without my delightful company for that long?” Jared jokes.
“Yes,” Jensen says, not taking his eyes off the board. “My survival is based on many things, but your presence is not one of them.”
Jared’s smile falters a little. “I just meant… Never mind. I’m gonna miss you, that’s all.”
Jensen blinks. “Oh. I’ll miss you, too. You’re a good friend, Jared.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. I hope the show gets picked up. I like working with you. We fit. I never fit with anyone, but I fit with you. You get me.”
Jared grins and takes a sip of his coffee. Just in time to choke on it when Jensen adds, “Next time I sleep in your bed we should have sex. Your cock really is big. I could feel it when you humped me in your sleep.”
Before Jared has time to mentally form an answer that consists of more than awkward garbling, Jensen’s flight is announced ready for boarding and just like that he’s walking away without a backward glance. Jared stares after him, his face flushed and his jeans noticeably tighter.
Well… shit.
Continued here