Bulletproof: part two
part one
Sweating is gross. Jared has a tendency towards it personally sometimes and is therefore qualified to say: yes, gross.
The first thing Jared notices about Rob when he walks Jensen into the hotel room is that the guy is sweating profusely. There are large damp patches on the guy's pale yellow, Gucci shirt, under his arms and down his back. When he sees them come in, Rob rises from his chair and crosses towards them. Up close, Jared can see that his skin's shining with it and his dark, shoulder-length hair looks totally wet. Even the hotel's air-conditioning doesn't seem to have done a damn thing for him.
A fair proportion of Jensen's clients are not exactly attractive. Jared figures it might be part of what's got them buying time with Jensen, though he wouldn't exactly know what drives people to resort to long-term deals with prostitutes in the first place. But this is the first client who actually makes Jared kind of sick with sympathy for Jensen. Even reminding himself that this is the gig Jensen's signed up for doesn't make him feel much better.
He can feel Jensen hesitate at his side and for one crazy minute, Jared wonders if this would count as the kind of trouble he's allowed to save Jensen from. He wants to tell Rob he's violating terms of the contract he has with Sam by not having the common decency to take a shower first. And he wants to drag Jensen out of the room and give him a long, serious talking-to about this being a case in point of why exactly he shouldn't be letting sweaty, inconsiderate guys pay to put their hands on him.
Then Jensen moves past him and makes a point of brushing up against Rob as he settles on the end of the bed, leaning backwards, legs stretched out in front and crossed at the ankle. Rob turns his head to follow him and Jared lingers, useless and uncertain. When Rob raises his hand to push his slick hair off his face, the chunky gold watch on his wrist sparks expensively in the last haze of sunshine before dusk. Jensen smiles at Jared, serene and patient, and Rob looks back at Jared, as if surprised to see him still standing there.
"Is there something else?" Rob says bluntly. Rob moves so close Jared can positively smell him.
Jared looks past him, ignores the dark set of Rob's brow and the clench of his jaw, to where Jensen has sprawled out on the pristine white blankets that are folded back stiffly on the bed like sheets of paper.
Somehow managing not to let his lip curl in distaste, Jared turns on his heel and walks out. He takes the stairs rather than the elevator down to the lobby, his footfall virtually silent on the thick, pale gold of the carpeting. It's too early for rush hour, for the tourists and visiting businessmen to be coming back to their suites, but there's an expectant hush in the air, kind of like the quiet that creeps in just before a storm breaks.
Sitting in the lobby, unable to concentrate on his Suduko, and blankly watching the trickling stream of passers-by, Jared gets progressively angrier.
There's a chain of facts that Jared has to keep working through and each time he gets to the end, he's angrier than he was when he started. The chain goes like this:
Rob cannot help being sweaty, just as, on occasion, Jared cannot help getting sweaty. Rob can, however, have a shower but has clearly made the choice not to. He has chosen not to shower before having sex with Jensen. Jared would like to give him the benefit of the doubt but the amount of sweat on Rob's skin makes it impossible for Jared to believe that Rob is unaware of just how sweaty he is.
No. Rob is sweaty, Rob knows it, and Rob has not done anything about it before Jensen comes to him. All of that makes Jared absolutely enraged, but the real kicker is that, by getting on the bed, Jensen has basically said that that is just fine by him.
It is not fine by Jared.
He fidgets irritably in his seat, lips pursing into a thin, furious line.
At the sight of him, the woman behind the reception desk has a quiet word with security and Jared notes the security guard moving closer in order to keep a better eye on him. Which is just as well because Jared is sorely tempted to march back up to the room, remove Jensen from it, and explain to Rob that lack of understanding that it's just simple courtesy to shower before sex when you're that damn sweaty is probably why he's having to buy it instead of getting it for free.
Instead, he sits there and seethes.
Almost two hours later, he's drumming his fingers on his cellphone - wondering whether talking to Chad would force him into a reasonable and sensible state of mind (someone has to be reasonable and sensible in a conversation, after all, and it wouldn't be Chad) or further enrage him - when he sees Jensen striding across the lobby towards him.
"C'mon," Jensen mutters, not looking at him as Jared leaps to his feet. "Time to go."
They walk to the car in silence, Jensen acting furtive and uncomfortable and Jared carried along by rage. Jared finds his hands are shaking as he starts the car. He takes off so fast the engine roars and the tires squeal. His nostrils are flaring he's breathing so hard, lips still pressed together tight and white.
The hotel's only ten minutes behind them when Jensen taps Jared on the arm and says, "Hey, hey, stop here a second!"
Snapping the steering wheel round in abrupt obedience, Jared pulls over and ignores the angry blat of the horn of the car behind them. Jared drums his fingers on the wheel, full of irritated energy, until he realises Jensen is heading into a bar. He lets out a sharp breath, turns off the engine and follows him inside.
He's in time to see Jensen slapping a bill down even as he picks up the glass of whiskey the bartender's set in front of him. The after-work crowd is just starting to drift in, tired clusters of people talking and laughing in low, faded voices. Jared stalks over to Jensen's side and leans in to talk to him.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Jensen shoots him a narrow-eyed look then pushes past him, with his glass, towards the restroom, without so much as a word. Jared is five seconds away from repeating his question more loudly and with more expletives and flailing hands but he follows him in. The restroom is a basic affair, smelling heavily of smoke and cleaning fluid, but it's clean.
"Jensen!" Jared says and his voice rings loud and harsh off the tiled walls. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I've just had sweaty balls in my mouth, Jared. There is not enough mouthwash in the world. So have pity and back the fuck off!"
Jensen drains his glass in one go, tilts his head back, gargles loudly and then empties his mouth into the sink. He stays over the sink, propped up on his forearms for a long second, and Jared listens to the quiet rasp of his breathing. He is still angry but finds it seeping away little by little, even as he struggles to hang on to it.
"Usually I can get him into the shower with me but… not today," Jensen says in not much more than a mumble. Still not straightening up, he looks sideways at Jared. "And why are you so pissed?"
The last of his rage somehow transforms into weariness because Jared really doesn't know how to explain this to Jensen. This is the kind of thing Jensen should just understand. He just shakes his head and rubs at the crease of his brows.
"C'mon," he says finally. "Let's get you home."
:::
"And, this guy? He was practically dripping with sweat!" Jared says, outraged all over again as he relates a heavily edited and anonymised version to Chad over the phone that night.
"But Jensen was being paid, right? I mean, s'not like he went teabagging with some random sweaty dude for kicks, right? 'Cause if so, then that's some sick shit right there and you're totally right to be freaking. But if he's getting paid… dude, it's his job."
Somehow, Chad is contriving to be the reasonable and unimpassioned party in the conversation. Jared is not used to this and does not quite know how to handle it. It's not unusual for Chad and Jared to disagree on what is acceptable behavior and what is not. It's pretty much par for the course in fact. Especially over things like the fact that Chad thinks it's acceptable to enter Jared's email address on the most disgusting porn sites he can find so Jared's inbox fills up with absolutely outrageous spam and Jared doesn't think that's acceptable.
But this is something that really they should be able to agree on. Even Chad should be outraged about this.
"It shouldn't be his job," Jared insists. "It's not right. He shouldn't be sucking the balls of some ugly-ass loser who can't even be fucking bothered to shower off the sweat he's slopping around in before he fucks him!"
There's a pause while Chad takes this in. Then in a slow, careful voice, Chad says, "Jared, whose balls should he be sucking? I mean, just in your totally unbiased opinion."
When Jared doesn't answer immediately, Chad groans audibly and there are muffled noises on the other end that Jared thinks could well be Chad repeatedly smacking his forehead into his phone.
"Man, don't do this," Chad whines, somewhere between plaintive and frustrated. "Don't do this. Don't get all hung up on him. This can only end two ways, my friend: shitty and catastrophically shitty. Look, here's what you gotta do…"
"I don't think I like this plan," says Jared.
"Shut up, bitch, you haven't heard it yet!"
"Yeah but it's your plan, man. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence."
"What you've gotta do," Chad reiterates, loudly and firmly, "is buy Jensen's ass for, like, as long as you can afford, so probably like, fifteen minutes, yeah? And then you bang him like crazy. Seriously, bang him 'til he's too damn slippy to stay on the bed. Just, get it out of your system, yeah?"
Processing this takes a while and Jared stares blankly at the wall, gaze fixed on tracing the weird stain on the paper, and trying to remember when coffee (because that's what it looks like) got sprayed up one of his walls and was he present when it happened?
"I need new friends," Jared says eventually.
"See if Jensen knows where you can buy some," Chad suggests obnoxiously. Which just shows how right Jared is.
:::
The first appointment of the day goes without a hitch. It's with Quentin and Quentin's okay, Jared supposes. Of course, it could be that he's still got a belly full of the pancakes Jensen had had waiting for him when he came around to pick him up. Pancakes put him in a good place for dealing with the world.
On the way to the hotel, they argue good-naturedly over the radio and compromise on the morning news. Jared accompanies Jensen up to the suite, exchanges a few polite words with Quentin, and then retreats back to the lobby for the next hour and a half, keeping himself busy with Sudoku.
Somehow, he manages to get into a conversation with a young mother who's waiting for a taxi. Her kids, two girls under the age of five, entertain themselves by crawling over and under his legs and generally incorporating him into their game. Their mother apologises over and over until Jared finally succeeds in assuring her that he's honestly not too bothered by it.
He's still talking to her when Jensen appears and it takes him a moment to see Jensen standing there watching him, eyebrow raised.
"So when you get too bored of this," Jensen says as they walk out, "you could always find work as a jungle gym in a kindergarten."
"Tempting," Jared agrees.
They have lunch in a café, sitting outside in the sunshine and people-watching. Or rather, Jared has lunch and Jensen tries not to drool too noticeably over his chicken and rice. Jared has noticed that Jensen usually doesn't eat much until after his last appointment of the day. He eats enough to keep his belly from grumbling but Jared's not sure it's sufficient to keep his energy-levels up. Eating's very important, it plays in to all kinds of things, like mood and stamina, and he tries to explain this to Jensen through a mouthful of rice.
Jensen tries not to look too disgusted by the display of masticated food and eventually keeps up his side of the conversation by politely nodding now and then and keeping his gaze averted.
It's Dan in the afternoon. Or it's supposed to be.
Jared parks outside Dan's place, a very white and very square house with more window than wall, and walks with Jensen up to the door. Jared stifles a satisfied burp and tries to look professional. Jensen rolls his eyes at him but doesn't comment.
Normally, when the client opens the door to them, Jared's kind of at a loss as to what to say. Something like Here's the prostitute you ordered just feels tacky. So Jared usually sticks to a smile and a Hi! Today he doesn't get a chance for any of that.
"About fucking time," Dan snarls.
They are not late. Not even a little. Plus, Dan has a glass of whiskey in his hand and a very flushed face so Jared doesn't think he's exactly what you'd call a reliable judge of anything right now. Jensen and Jared exchange looks and Jared's supposed to go back to the car now but instead he pushes past Jensen and follows Dan into the house. He hears Jensen say his name but ignores him.
"Hey, how much have you had to drink?" Jared asks Dan, taking care to keep his voice polite but cool.
Jensen waits wordlessly in the doorway behind him, watching. When Dan turns around to look at Jared, he bumps into the corner of his coffee table and almost trips over, swears fiercely as he rubs at his knee. Jared shakes his head at him.
"No," he says. "I'm sorry but we're gonna have to cancel your appointment. Once you've sobered up, give Sam's office a call to reschedule."
Having made the decision, Jared inclines his head at Jensen, gesturing him out of the door. There's a moment's pause and Jared wonders what he's going to do if Jensen refuses to leave, if he insists on taking the appointment anyway because hell, if he'll suck sweaty balls then there's every chance he'll go along with a hostile, drunk client. Then, thankfully, Jensen gives a single nod and makes for the front door.
"What? What the fuck?" Dan says. He's breathing heavily as he comes after them.
One thing about being so freaking tall is that Jared can pretty much fill up a doorway. The combination of that with Dan being unsteady from the alcohol and Jared can neatly block Dan's attempts to get past him and get at Jensen without really having to try too hard. He just has to play at brick wall, doesn't even have to restrain Dan.
Finally, Dan gives up trying to push by him and looks up into his face, still red and out of breath. He prods a hard finger into Jared's chest.
"I fucking well paid already. I'm owed two fucking hours with him!"
"And you've had too much to drink," says Jared, calm. Sympathetic even. "Listen, you'll thank me once you're sober." Keeping an eye on Dan, Jared says, "We're leaving now, Jensen."
He waits until he hears the front door opening and Jensen's feet on the gravel before he gives Dan a small, rueful smile and follows Jensen out. His heart's thudding heavily in his chest because he's never really had to do something like that before and it's only as he's climbing back behind the wheel and realising that Dan isn’t coming after them, that he registers how completely freaked out he is.
That's the kind of situation that could have turned nasty. Jared just said 'no' to someone rich and influential. He said 'no' to an angry drunk guy who could quite easily have gotten more hostile. His mouth's gone dry and it takes him a second to get himself together enough to turn the key in the ignition.
It was relatively easy to front up to Dan, Jared thinks, because he knew the alternative was handing Jensen over to him. And that just hadn't seemed like an option at the time. Because sweaty is one thing, but aggressively drunk is entirely another.
"You okay?" says Jensen.
Jared turns his face to him and grins shakily.
"Just fine," he says. "Thanks for… well, for not kicking up a fuss and insisting you wanted to take the appointment."
Jensen shrugs and looks away, not quite smiling. "Yeah, well, there's still plenty of time for me to kick up a fuss when we find out how Dan reacts when he sobers up and realises what just happened."
He pulls out his cell and calls someone as Jared pulls out of the drive and takes off. After checking the rear-view mirror every few seconds, it's not until the house is out of sight that Jared can feel his pulse start to get back to normal. His stomach still feels hollow and quivery but he begins to relax and the rush of adrenaline puts a stupid grin on his face.
"Hey, Sam, it's me…" says Jensen when his call's answered. "No, nothing serious. Just thought you ought to know, we had to cancel Dan Williams. He's not a very friendly drunk… Jared took care of it." Jensen shoots Jared a sidelong look at that and Jared ignores the warm glow of pride that goes through him and keeps his eyes on the road. "Hmm, yeah, sure."
There's a flush on Jensen's cheeks when he ends the call and he stubbornly refuses to look at Jared. Sam is the only person Jared knows who can make Jensen awkward. It's yet one more thing Jared likes about her. Still, as far as knowing Jensen goes, the only other people Jared's ever seen him with are his clients and they don't know Jensen at all. Out of nowhere, Jared wonders if he himself counts as someone who knows Jensen. He doesn't think he does and the thought needles at him.
"So, you've got the afternoon off. You wanna maybe-" he starts, trying to sound casual. He glances at Jensen and Jensen raises an eyebrow at him. Bastard can do the perfect single eyebrow lift. Jared's nerve fails him and he abruptly changes the direction of his sentence. "-head home and get some rest?"
Jensen turns his face towards the window.
"Yeah. Great," he says.
:::
"If the guy was that drunk," says Chad, his own voice slurred with alcohol, "then you should'a told him he hadn't paid yet and seen how much you could get him to cough up."
Jared rattles the melting ice cubes in the bottom of his glass. What's left of his whiskey is too diluted to be drinkable. However, looking over at the crush at the bar, he's not sure he could make it through to get himself another. Not without body armor. Chad is slumped over in the booth, shoulders sagging and words coming out a little malformed, but not drunk enough yet for Jared to be able to steal what's left in his glass.
"Yeah," says Jared doubtfully. "Maybe not." He looks again at Chad's whiskey and fixes him with a hopeful expression. "You gonna drink all of that?"
"Hell yeah," says Chad. He curls his fingers protectively about his glass. "Got an audition tomorrow. Don’t wanna sober up. Tryin' not to freak out about it."
"An audition?" says Jared, straightening up in his chair immediately.
"Yeah. Remember those? Those things you're s'posed to be goin' to 'cept you're too busy driving Jensen around?"
Jared chooses to ignore everything aside from the 'yeah'. There's no point in following it up because he's got a pretty clear idea of Chad's opinion of his job and it gives him an uneasy tug in his belly every time they get into it and even though it sucks to be looking for approval from a dick like Chad - for whom there is no such thing as 'too low' - Chad's still his best friend.
Besides, auditions are good news and Chad does kind of have a point. Jared hasn't had an audition since he started working with Jensen and considering this was only supposed to be a short-term gig, Jared's not done much to find anything more permanent.
"Well that's awesome, man! Tell me about it!"
Chad hides in his glass, peering blearily at what's left of the whiskey. It doesn't look like a great sign but an audition's an audition and if Chad's nervous about it then it's got to be kind of good.
"Local bad boy. With a schmoopy interior, of course," he says finally.
"Is there any other kind of bad boy?" Jared agrees. "So is it a one-time gig, a regular, or what?"
"Recurring," says Chad and the way he drawls it out suggests he's heard the descriptor applied to the character way too many times now. Jared understands his pain. Recurring characters are a risk. If you do it well and the big guys like you, then you could score a regular place in the cast. On the other hand, it could end up as a big fat waste of time that doesn't give you any chance for something big while effectively restricting your opportunities to try for anything else.
He claps Chad on the back and says, "C'mon, this could be great. You wanna run lines?"
Chad gives him the finger and drains his glass. Jared interprets this as a 'no, thank you'. So instead he just slaps him on the back again and heads off to the bar, braving the noisy throng in order to get a celebratory round of drinks. It takes a while and he catches his fair share of elbows to the ribs but eventually he's able to actually reach the bar and he props himself up against it and waits to catch the attention of one of the bartenders. They're all looking more than a little harassed so Jared patiently waits his turn.
When he turns back to the table, Chad is picking up Jared's cell from off the table and taking a call. Jared doesn't think too much of this because, hey, they're friends and friends take calls for each other. And then he gets close enough and Chad sees him and just holds the phone out towards him, upper lip curled in faint disgust.
"Hi," says Jared, clamping the phone awkwardly between his shoulder and his ear while setting the drinks down on the table.
"Tell him you're not driving his ass anywhere tonight," Chad hisses, loud enough to be plenty audible over the phone.
"Uh, no," says Jensen on the other end. Jared shoots Chad a pissed off glare and raises a finger at him, warning him not to speak again. "I wasn't calling about… Look, I was just calling to say not to worry about Dan. Sam says he called the office a while ago to apologise. Sent some goddamn flowers, if you can believe it."
"Oh," says Jared. "Right."
"Yeah, uh… just thought you might wanna know."
There's an awkward silence that Jared breaks with an uncertain, "Thanks."
"Yeah. So… I'll let you get back to your evening."
He hangs up and Jared's back in the sharp chatter of the bar and the L.A. heat's abruptly too thick on his skin. His mouth is still hanging open and he can suddenly think of a million things he should have said to Jensen, to make it a friendly conversation, to turn it from a stilted passing on of information about work to something comfortable. It's the first time Jensen's ever called him and Jared was too stunned about it to ensure the experience was one Jensen wouldn't mind repeating. Jensen will probably never ever call him again. He sighs mournfully and snaps round to glare at Chad when he hears him snicker into his whiskey.
"What did you say to him?" he demands.
"Me?" Chad says, all aggrieved innocence. "I didn’t say anything! Dude, don't blame me your ho's a pissy little bitch!"
"Stop fucking calling him a ho!"
It rings through a sudden silence. The people in the tables around them all turn to look and Jared feels his cheeks burn. He sucks in a breath and wets his lips. Chad's staring at him, blinking in shock. Then Chad's lips close to a thin line and Jared instantly feels like a jerk.
"God, man, I'm sorry. I just…" He breaks off and is relieved to see Chad's gaze flicker back to him, still narrow-eyed but not exactly cold. "Look, I've gotta work with him and he's not what you think he is-"
Chad snorts at that but he swaps his glass for the full one that Jared had brought over.
"I didn't say anything to him," Chad says. "I wouldn't screw up your job like that."
"Yeah," says Jared with a smile. "You totally would."
"All right, yeah, I would. But I didn't." Finally, Chad grins at him. "Yet."
:::
After a few uncomfortable attempts at conversation fail, Jared and Jensen drive in awkward silence to the first appointment of the day. It's a new guy for Jared, another one who seems comfortable to have Jensen brought to his own home. This guy has a big fence around his property and as Jared and Jensen sit in the car at the security gates and wait to be let in, Jared glances over at Jensen and breaks the forty-minute long silence.
"What kind of flowers?"
Jensen's gaze flickers to him. It's impossible to meet his gaze with the sunglasses he's wearing but he raises an eyebrow and makes a small, prompting gesture with one of his hands.
"The flowers Dan Williams sent. What kind were they?" Jared clarifies. It's a stupid thing to be having a conversation about and he feels weird about having started it up but he pursues it nonetheless. Anything to put them back on a normal footing.
"Uh… tulips. Pink ones." Jensen watches Jared for a long moment after he's said it, eyebrows still raised expectantly as if waiting to see if this is going to make a difference to Jared. It doesn't.
"'Kay," says Jared. They're buzzed through and Jared drives up the driveway to the neat little mansion that sits cheerfully amid a plot of emerald grass that positively glows in the sunshine. "Do you like tulips?"
Jensen's attention had just been starting to drift then but it snaps back to Jared instantly. He stares at him and Jared just smiles and dimples hopefully. At last, Jensen laughs and shakes his head.
"Don’t much have a preference. Though I must admit to being a roses man at heart."
"Roses. Very romantic," Jared remarks, mock-serious.
"Oh yeah, die-hard romantic, that's me," says Jensen, laughter thick in his voice. "Hadn't you noticed?"
They park and Jared accompanies Jensen to the door. Jensen takes his sunglasses off and hooks them onto his shirt pocket. Without them on, Jared can see the faint smudge of eyeliner Jensen's got on. It's fainter than he normally wears it for some clients, the clients who prefer him to play the twink. But Jared spots it all the same. He thinks green eyes with long dark sweeping lashes don't really require much emphasising but no one's asking his opinion.
"This guy's Frank Murphy," says Jensen. "He's been overseas. He used to be a regular. Pays well but don’t be surprised if he gets a little… uh, grabby."
"Grabby?" says Jared.
The door opens before Jensen can explain exactly what 'grabby' means but it only takes moments for Jared to get a clue. Frank's a big guy with a shaved head (no doubt a pre-emptive strike against baldness) and very pale eyes. He grins at the sight of them and then he reaches out to grip Jensen firmly by the back of his neck, pulling him up tight against his body. Jensen goes with it, smile firmly in place, and Jared lingers in the sunshine, unsure whether to intervene or not.
"Jesus, Jensen," Frank says. More of a growl really and Jared sincerely hopes he's not expected to intervene because this guy is built like a brick shithouse. "Fucking missed you. Gonna have to take you with me next time, baby."
"Yeah, right, 'cause that wouldn't be awkward at all," Jensen says but he's still smiling and is apparently perfectly happy to have Frank's fingers disappearing beneath the tails of his shirt, kneading at the firm muscle of his belly. His hips are canted forward to keep him pressed into Frank, grinding lazily, which gives Jared all too much idea about what it must be like when he's fucking. The mental image is shockingly clear and Jared feels an unsettlingly strong rush of arousal.
When Frank drops his head to nuzzle at Jensen's neck, mouth moving with hot wet noises over the skin, and Jensen angles his head back, eyes sinking shut and one arm curling languidly about Frank's broad back, Jared clears his throat and says, to anyone who might still be listening, "Right, I'll wait in the car."
Both Frank and Jensen turn to look at him and immediately Jared wishes he'd just slipped out of the door while they were otherwise preoccupied because Frank is breathing heavily and has one knee nudged between Jensen's thighs and Jensen is all flushed and pliant and the whole thing is damn awkward.
"Oh yeah," says Frank. "I remember. You're… uh, sorry, forgot the name." His gaze darts to Jensen. "Your driver, right?"
"Jared Padalecki," says Jensen. His voice comes throaty and Jared's knees wobble for the slightest second just at the sound of his name drawled out in Jensen's sex-smoked voice. Which reminds him afresh of just how awkward this is.
Jared almost offers Frank his hand, notes that Frank's hand is busy cupping the high curve of one of Jensen's ass cheeks, which is indecently well displayed by the perfect cut of his jeans, and tries edging for the door instead.
There's a weird moment where Frank's other hand comes up to skim his knuckles over Jensen's cheek, his thumb sweeping down to push between Jensen's lips. Jensen latches on instantly and suckles tight with a soft, obscene moan.
"He's cute, Jen," Frank mutters, still in that low, greedy growl. "Think you'd look real pretty with your mouth full of his cock. Bet he's got one hell of a cock. Don't you wanna suck on it? Does he really have to go back to the car?"
And right up until that moment, Jared could have easily believed that Jensen was as hung up on being touched, groped and generally manhandled by Frank as he appeared. Then it's like a switch being flicked. The slutty demeanour vanishes and is replaced with taut, unyielding blankness.
"Yes," says Jensen. He doesn't even look at Jared, not even for a second. His gaze is fixed on Frank and there's no clearer way for him to say that Jared has ceased to exist as far as he's concerned. "Jared has to go back to the car."
No one says anything for a long moment and Jared wonders if his heartbeat is audible halfway across the country because it sure as hell feels like it should be. Frank goes on looking at Jensen and Jensen doesn't so much as blink as he looks right back at him.
Then Frank flashes Jared a grin and a wink.
"Sorry, kid," he says. Like this was something Jared had asked for.
Jared turns right about and walks back out into the daylight, barely able to see straight and feeling his cheeks burn red-hot. He moves on autopilot back to the car. His body feels clumsy and poorly put together and he can't figure out whether he's humiliated or aroused or both. Sliding into the car, Jared wipes his hands off on his thighs. Then - slowly, furtively, everything dropping into silence beneath the hoarse rasp of his breathing - he palms the shape of his hardening cock through his jeans, his eyes sinking half-shut as he thinks of the mere suggestion of Jensen getting to his knees for him.
"Shit," he whispers, his voice harsh and low. He wonders if Frank will fuck Jensen's mouth before or after he fucks his ass.
He curls his hands into fists. He absolutely will not jerk off. Not in this car in which he drives Jensen around and definitely not thinking about Jensen. It's wrong and disgusting and creepy and Jared is not going to be one of those guys.
Sternly watching his reflection in the rear-view mirror, taking in his flushed face and slightly wild eyes, Jared wills himself to get it together. He fumbles for his cellphone with the vague intention of calling Chad then gives it up as a very bad idea. Chad does not need to hear that Jared popped a boner about being offered a ride with Jensen, certainly not on the day of an audition.
Deep breaths and then Sudoku is really the best course of action. If Jared's hand shakes a little when he picks up his pencil and flips the puzzle book open, he doesn't let his mind linger too long on it.
:::
It's two hours before Jensen climbs back into the car and slams the door so hard the entire frame judders. Jared flashes a weak smile in his general direction, not willing to risk eye-contact just yet, and turns the keys in the ignition. The car purrs and comes alive and Jared drives them off Frank's property and back onto the road.
Only seconds pass before Jared notes just how cold the atmosphere is between them. He flicks Jensen a few sidelong glances to confirm his suspicions and sees him sitting rigid and tight in his seat, expression as blank as it had been back with Frank.
Feeling hopeless and unsettled, Jared licks his lips then keeps his gaze firmly on the road as he speaks.
"So, that was kind of awkward back there-"
"Is that really what you want?" Jensen snarls. Helplessly, Jared's gaze snaps to Jensen's mouth and feels his stomach flutter. He's sickly relieved when Jensen is apparently too furious to notice. "You wanna be part of the party? Wanna take your own clients? Thought you wanted to be an actor, Jared!"
"I do!" says Jared. "I do wanna be an actor… hey, c'mon! Why are you taking all this out on me? I didn't say a goddamn word! Not one word! You wanna get pissed at someone, get pissed at Frank! He was the one running his mouth off, not me!"
Instantly, Jensen turns away, mouth sealing to a thin line. He folds his arms over his chest and seethes. Jared does his best to watch him while keeping as much attention on driving as is necessary. At last, Jensen seems to shrink a little and he just shakes his head.
"I can't get pissed at Frank," says Jensen. "Not when he's paying me a shitload of money to act like I think he's the Second Coming. He pays me to be a whore, not to tell him when he's completely out of line."
The sting's gone from his voice and he sounds nothing so much like tired. Worn out.
"Well don't get pissed at me, man," says Jared, low and gentle, "'cause I'm sure as hell not gonna be sending you roses to apologise."
When he looks at Jensen, Jensen's looking back, smiling ever so slightly. It makes his stomach flutter harder than before and obscurely, for just a second, Jared feels as big a creep as Frank. The atmosphere thaws and though they drive downtown in silence, it's companionable and comfortable. The first rush of the day has passed and the bustle on the streets is the lazy spill of tourists and students, not the sharp-edged line of the business world.
"Hey, Jared?" Jensen fiddles with the button on the cuff of his shirt. His tone is carefully nonchalant. "I'm thinking I might cancel the rest of the day. Wanna get lunch?"
Yes. Jared thinks he'd really like to do that and his tongue feels fat in his mouth as he tries to get the words out in a coherent manner and in an order that makes sense. His breath light in his throat, he adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.
"You sure you can cancel?" he says and hates himself for being reasonable and allowing Jensen chance to think it over.
"Yeah. I mean, Frank was pretty enthusiastic and I don't wanna turn up at a client's looking like…" He gives a spastic shrug and says, "Not everyone goes for sloppy seconds, y'know?" It's sharp and amused and Jared mirrors his grin uncertainly. Giving it a second, he reassesses the way Jensen's holding himself, stiff and unmoving.
"Did he hurt you?" says Jared quietly.
Jensen laughs and rolls his eyes but doesn't meet Jared's gaze, choosing instead to reach for his cellphone.
"You're not really turning down lunch, are you? My treat. Just let me call Sam."
The cuff on Jensen's shirt has slipped and Jared can see the red marks of fingers about his wrist and knows they'll be bruises by this evening. He sighs and looks away.
"Lunch'd be awesome," he says.
:::
They pick a place Jensen hasn't been to before. Jared and Chad eat there all the time because the food's good, the service is friendly and Jared can still make rent for the month after a meal there, which can’t be said for some of the places at which he knows Jensen chooses to eat.
Jensen keeps close and orders the same as Jared. Seems content to simply be sitting in the dazzling, white sunshine of mid-afternoon, drinking soda and listening to Jared chatter. Jared's willing to oblige by providing plenty of chatter. He talks about home and how hard it was to leave, and about coming to L.A., finding a place to stay and the auditions he's been to.
"And I had a really freaking tiny part in a film with Tom, as 'jock bully 1' which wasn't even worth putting on my resume, and then I got to know Mike, because he's working with Tom up in Vancouver," says Jared, cheerfully working his way through the basket of fries set between them. "They're doing Smallville. You seen any of it?"
"Few episodes," says Jensen. He prods at the bottom of his glass with his straw, chasing bubbles. "So, guess it wasn't them you were out with last night then."
There's a pause, Jensen's head cocked on one side, teasing bright in his eyes even if he's still keeping a straight face about it. Jared flushes and grins helplessly. He rubs the back of his neck and stuffs a handful of fries in his mouth to give himself time before answering.
"That was Chad. He's… uh… my best friend. Also? A total douche. You… well, you probably wouldn't get along." Jared brightens and adds, "But you might, because he's really pretty cool, once you get past his tendency to be a bit of a dick. He can't help it. It's just… Chad."
"What did you tell him about this job?" He holds up a hand as Jared frowns slightly. "It's all right. No one said you had to lie, or expected you to. I'm just… just curious. Chad knows you're playing chauffeur to a male prostitute, right?"
"Escort," Jared says tightly.
"You've told him I'm an escort? Huh."
"You are an escort," says Jared. His jaw is clenched but he manages to shove another fistful of fries into his mouth and chews on them fiercely.
Jensen watches him for a second, eyes narrowed in entertained curiosity. He's sitting more comfortably at the table than he was in the car but Jared hadn't missed his faint flinch as he'd sat down. Frank's not the first client to leave Jensen a little fragile, a little marked up, but Jared feels a rush of fury towards him anyway. Every time he thinks he's got a handle on precisely what this job entails - namely: enabling Jensen getting fucked for money and yet remaining in satisfactory condition to do it all over again the next day - something comes up to remind Jared just how jacked this all is.
"No, I'm not. Escorts 'escort' people places and may render additional services, that may include fucking," says Jensen. "I don't escort anyone anywhere past the bedroom."
At Jared's stricken look, Jensen's expression softens from amusement to something almost like affection.
"Jesus, Jared," he mutters, cheeks coloring slightly. "You really don't have to feel sorry for me. Pity those poor schmucks who aren't good-looking enough for anyone to want to pay 'em." He finishes his soda and gives a small, contented belch. "S'nice of you. Just… don't."
:::
"They loved me," says Chad. "Fucking worshipped me."
"Good audition then?" says Jared. He sprawls out longer on his couch and balances the phone on his shoulder as he strains to reach another slice of pizza from the box. It's cold, greasy and gross but reheating it would mean going to the kitchen and Jared's not bothered enough about it to put that kind of effort in to it.
"Nah, it sucked," says Chad. "But the director guy loved me for some other project."
"Yeah? Playing what?"
"Local bad boy with schmoopy interior."
Jared takes a moment to pry a piece of soggy tomato off his slice and dangle it into his mouth. He wipes his fingers on a cushion and tries to think of a tactful way of approaching the subject.
"You don't think maybe you're getting type-cast?" he says finally.
"Getting cast at all is fucking fine by me," Chad says and Jared shrugs and can't really argue with it. "So, how's the ongoing unresolved sexual tension between you and Jensen?"
"Dude!" Jared protests, outraged and horrified all at once. "There is no unresolved sexual tension between me and him. Stop with this bullshit already!"
"That mean you finally got your ass in gear and fucked him? Hope he was decent enough to offer a staff discount. Or at least the sex was worth you not being able to make rent this month."
Briefly, Jared considers smothering himself in the couch cushion. Then he considers smothering Chad with the couch cushion, which is the much better option and something he'll have to bear in mind for when he next sees Chad.
"It is so not like that. Yeah, all right, maybe I have the tiniest little crush on him but he's gorgeous. I'd have to be dead not to. It doesn't mean I'm-"
"Tell me about the guy he saw today," says Chad.
"God, he was a total scumbag!" Jared explodes. "All grabby-hands and rough and… and completely inappropriate and-"
"You've never thought that a single one of Jensen's guys is anything but scum, man," says Chad. "You've never thought a single one of 'em has had any right to be fucking Jensen. And I don't think it's the money thing. Face it, Jared, your crush is a little more serious than you just admiring how goddamn pretty you think he is."
For lack of any adequate protest to that, Jared stuffs the entire slice into his mouth and concentrates on wishing he'd reheated the damn thing because life sucks enough as it is without him having to eat cold pizza.
:::
After waiting almost a year, and pretty much giving up all hope considering she seemed happy in the relationship she was in, Jared suddenly finds the courage to call Sandy up and ask her out on a date.
Well, he finds the courage to dial her number. Asking her out might still take him a while. He listens to the phone ring and paces the length of his kitchen, wishing it were longer or his legs were shorter because he's getting dizzy with all the turning around.
"Hey, Jared," she says when she picks up. She sounds a little breathless.
"Hey… uh, is now a good time? I can call back."
"No, no," she says. "Now's good." She waits and then says, "Uh… how are things with you?"
Even with that - the patience and lack of pushiness in her voice, the tone that says she's merely offering Jared the option of talking if he wants and if he just wants to stand there silently that's fine too - Sandy demonstrates just what an awesome human being she is. So Jared can't quite figure out why he feels like such a creep to be asking her out. Trying to ask her out. He's not thinking too much about where this motivation to be in a relationship has come from.
"I was just at the gym," Sandy says when Jared fails to get any words out. "I'm going to be hurty all over tomorrow. Still, guess it's part of the job, right? A lousy, sucktastic part of the job but part all the same, right?"
"Um-yeah-wanna-go-out-for-a-drink-some-time?" Jared takes a breath and adds, more slowly and hopefully more coherently, "With me, I mean."
"Sure! When did you have in mind? Uh… I've got an audition Friday afternoon but we could go after that?"
"Yeah," says Jared. "Let's do that."
"Okay, excellent. So, about 7pm? At that place we were at last time?"
"Sounds great," says Jared. "Looking forward to it."
Some time after the phone call's ended, Jared is still trying to figure out why he feels like a creep for asking out the girl he likes, and why everyone in the world isn't as wonderfully understanding, helpful and uncomplicated as Sandy.
:::
Jensen's in a weirdly good mood when Jared picks him up, humming some 80's cock-rock as he pauses to check his reflection in a mirror just before they get out of the door. He tugs at a few wisps of hair and Jared's close enough he can smell the expensive styling gel Jensen uses. In the car, Jensen sings along to the radio and Jared has to keep shooting him bemused, fond grins.
After twenty minutes, he says, "So… good day?"
"Not really. We've got 'Call me sir' first, followed up by 'Call me Daddy'. My ass is gonna be spanked red raw by the end of today."
Uncertainly - and totally not loving the fact his brain instantly, helpfully, supplies its own idea about how Jensen's ass would look with big red fingerprints all over it - Jared says, "I'll remember to bring you a cushion to sit on for the drive home." He clears his throat then says, "I was actually talking about the good mood you seem to be in."
"Oh, that." Jensen seems to consider a moment and then he shrugs. "I'm supposed to be talking to you about it anyway. I got a client this weekend. It'll be a couple of days out of town. Sam wants you to come along and…Hell, I don't know what exactly she wants but I said you probably had other stuff to do this weekend and that I was fine handling this by myself." He flicks a glance at Jared, as if expecting Jared to instantly agree that he had plans and that to be the end of the conversation.
"No," says Jared. "I can come."
Jensen's good mood wavers. He rubs his temple and frowns a little. Then he shakes his head.
"No, I know this guy. Trust me, if he weren't able to pay, I'd do him for free. C'mon, man, don't let me ruin your plans."
"Honestly," says Jared, "it's fine. I've got a date on Friday night but I'd probably just be hanging round shooting the shit with the boys the rest of the time."
"It's not necessary."
"It's not a problem." Jared looks at Jensen and sees the pissed off set to his features. The good mood looks to have been effectively killed, and buried too. Jared sighs and smiles at him. "I'll keep out of your way. You probably won't even have to see me if you don't want to. But let me do my job, Jen. Let me be there, just in case."
Jensen lets out a short, irritable breath and turns his face away to stare out the window. The morning is bright and clear, orange-tinted. It's warm and the sun's not even high in the sky yet. Traffic's picking up and they drive in silence for a long moment. With a sinking feeling, Jared starts to suspect that Jensen is actually sulking with him, or whatever that displeased quiet thing he does is called.
Then, without even turning back to look at him, Jensen says, "You've got a date?"
There's a faint note of soft surprise in there and Jared feels heat creep up the back of his neck but manages a breezy shrug and smile.
"Yep."
"Huh."
When nothing more is forthcoming, Jared shoots Jensen a look. Jensen is now looking at him, lips curled in a slight smile and his eyes narrowed in thought. Jared raises an eyebrow at him and Jensen teasingly mirrors the gesture.
"Huh?" Jared says. "What's huh supposed to mean? Good huh? Bad huh?"
"Just… huh."
"There is no just 'huh'," Jared insists, lips pursing in exasperation. "Huh always means something."
"Yeah, it means… huh," Jensen drawls. He shrugs and laughs as Jared's torn between grinning and frowning. "It means… huh, you've actually got a personal life."
"And you're a pain in the ass. Now we've covered the basics, can we move on?"
"Oh come on! So I'm surprised you're not just Jared, the guy in the car, doing his Sudoku and freaking out my clients." At the startled look Jared gives him, Jensen says, "You freak them out! They all think you're gonna bust in at any minute to defend my questionable honor. I try tellin' 'em you're just an overgrown Texas boy, harmless as a puppy, but… who's gonna listen to me when they've got you down as all mean, dark and dangerous?"
"One out of three. I believe the descriptors you're looking for are 'tall, dark and handsome'," Jared says with feigned primness.
"That too," Jensen agrees easily and Jared blinks, unsure if he actually said that and whether it would be making too big a deal of it to make him say it again, slower and louder. "But you gotta remember, these guys I see, they're paranoid about people knowing about me. None of them are that thrilled at the prospect of it getting out that…"
"That they're seeing you," Jared fills in, as Jensen trails off uncertainly. He thinks for a second, then says, "Don't you ever worry about getting caught?"
"You mean by the police? I dunno. Sometimes, I guess. Still, helps knowing the people I know. Just as a for instance, 'Call me Daddy' is a judge. I got a couple of high-ranking cops on the books, few other useful people. I'm not sweating it too much." He gives Jared a razor-edged smirk. "They take me down and I'll give the gossip rags enough material to keep 'em busy 'til the turn of the century."
"That's… uh, well that's insurance, I guess." He pulls a face and adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. "So… do you date?"
"It's been known to happen. Not for a while though," Jensen says. He smiles but it's not a particularly happy one, more a mirthless twitch of his lips. "Tends to get awkward pretty damn fast, y'know?"
Jared can imagine.
:::
At the end of the day, when he presents Jensen with the cushion he picked up in town, Jensen has to stop for a second and just stare at it. Stunned. Then he looks back up at Jared and smiles, slowly and wonderingly. He puts it on the car seat before he slides in. He's silent for a moment, fingering the tasselled fringe of the cushion and then curling his hands into his lap, and Jared tactfully keeps quiet.
Then, in the warm hazy glow of the early evening, Jensen looks at Jared and says, "Thanks, man." He shifts on the cushion and adds, "Guess 'company' ain't so bad."
:::
It's a long time since Jared went on a date, an honest-to-God date. Longer than he'd admit. He hasn't admitted it to Chad but they're so close he suspects he doesn't have to. As far as dressing advice goes, Chad's had been: wear anything that doesn't make you look like a freakishly tall smiley-face hoping to get laid. Which leaves Jared wondering what percentage of his wardrobe that covers.
Eventually, he settles on jeans and a pale pink button-down. He doesn't think it'll send Sandy running in the other direction but he's not exactly sure. She's already at the bar when he arrives and, thankfully, she doesn't run, screaming, in the other direction. She smiles at him from the stool she's perched on, legs swinging backwards and forwards 'cause her feet don't reach the ground, and she waves him over to the table. Jared slides onto the stool and Sandy pushes a bottle of beer over at him.
"Beer all right?" she says. "I didn’t know what else to get you."
"Beer is awesome," says Jared. "Thanks."
He takes a long gulp and then lowers the bottle a little self-consciously when he realises Sandy's watching him. In the jagged flashes of artificial light and shadow in the bar, it's hard to make out whether Sandy's flushing or it's just the smoky evening heat on her skin. She glances away and takes a slow swallow from her own bottle. Jared kind of understands the 'watching-someone-drink' thing then because Sandy's lips are shiny and pink around the glass and her throat ripples as she swallows.
"How was the audition?" Jared blurts out when Sandy sets the bottle back down and shoots him a small, shy smile.
"Oh, yeah! It was… good, I think. I don't wanna jinx it." She shrugs, the lacy strap on her tank top sliding down on her tanned shoulder and she smoothes it back into place. "We'll find out in a couple of days, I guess. How about you? Still chauffeuring?"
"Yeah," says Jared. It feels too close to the subject of Jensen and Jared would like to keep some distance between that and Sandy. Maybe a few thousand miles distance. "So, leaving aside how it actually went, what was the audition for?"
Sandy looks at him for a moment, her expression unreadable and then she blinks and says, "Slasher movie. I think my character dies in the first forty minutes. Decapitated with a pair of garden shears."
"Jeez," says Jared, rocking back on his stool. "No one get a bullet between the eyes anymore?"
"Too quick. Not enough blood." Before Jared can get a response out for that, she says, "So what kind of car do you drive?" At Jared's blank look she clarifies the question with, "For your job? I'm guessing you don't use your own car, right?"
"Why wouldn't I get to use my own car?" says Jared. "You sayin' there's something wrong with my baby? She was the first friend I made out here, y'know!"
Sandy laughs and pats him indulgently on the arm. "But seriously," she says. "You use your own car?"
There doesn't seem to be an easy way to shake her off this. Jared wishes he'd thought up a few details for a perfectly decent chauffeuring job before he'd turned up because Jared could tell Chad about Jensen and Jensen's profession but he's not sure he can tell Sandy. He's pretty sure that finding out a guy is, albeit indirectly, involved in prostitution is a pretty big turn-off.
He takes chugs his beer and then shrugs. "Drive a Porsche Cayenne. Silver one."
Sandy makes an impressed moue with her mouth and leans in. She brushes back a stray lock of dark hair that falls over her face and raises an eyebrow.
"A Porsche. Nice. Must be someone pretty important to be able to afford a Porsche and a driver to go with it."
The question is clear in her tone.
"Not really. Just someone rich. And L.A.'s not exactly short of those guys, right?" Jared finishes his beer and pushes off the stool. "Get you another beer?"
Sandy smiles a little helplessly and catches his sleeve as he starts to pass by her. She draws him close and Jared can smell the light, fruity perfume she's wearing, can feel the warmth of her body. There's concern in her dark eyes.
"Jared, I don't wanna seem pushy but… it just feels weird that you dodge every time I try asking about your job. I mean, there's not a problem, right? You're not… not in any kind of trouble, are you? 'Cause you can tell me. I'll help-"
Jared laughs and wraps an arm around her middle, dropping a kiss on her forehead. It feels right. Easy.
"Everything's just fine," he says. "Seriously."
And that, right then, doesn't feel as much like lying as maybe he expected it to.
part three
Sweating is gross. Jared has a tendency towards it personally sometimes and is therefore qualified to say: yes, gross.
The first thing Jared notices about Rob when he walks Jensen into the hotel room is that the guy is sweating profusely. There are large damp patches on the guy's pale yellow, Gucci shirt, under his arms and down his back. When he sees them come in, Rob rises from his chair and crosses towards them. Up close, Jared can see that his skin's shining with it and his dark, shoulder-length hair looks totally wet. Even the hotel's air-conditioning doesn't seem to have done a damn thing for him.
A fair proportion of Jensen's clients are not exactly attractive. Jared figures it might be part of what's got them buying time with Jensen, though he wouldn't exactly know what drives people to resort to long-term deals with prostitutes in the first place. But this is the first client who actually makes Jared kind of sick with sympathy for Jensen. Even reminding himself that this is the gig Jensen's signed up for doesn't make him feel much better.
He can feel Jensen hesitate at his side and for one crazy minute, Jared wonders if this would count as the kind of trouble he's allowed to save Jensen from. He wants to tell Rob he's violating terms of the contract he has with Sam by not having the common decency to take a shower first. And he wants to drag Jensen out of the room and give him a long, serious talking-to about this being a case in point of why exactly he shouldn't be letting sweaty, inconsiderate guys pay to put their hands on him.
Then Jensen moves past him and makes a point of brushing up against Rob as he settles on the end of the bed, leaning backwards, legs stretched out in front and crossed at the ankle. Rob turns his head to follow him and Jared lingers, useless and uncertain. When Rob raises his hand to push his slick hair off his face, the chunky gold watch on his wrist sparks expensively in the last haze of sunshine before dusk. Jensen smiles at Jared, serene and patient, and Rob looks back at Jared, as if surprised to see him still standing there.
"Is there something else?" Rob says bluntly. Rob moves so close Jared can positively smell him.
Jared looks past him, ignores the dark set of Rob's brow and the clench of his jaw, to where Jensen has sprawled out on the pristine white blankets that are folded back stiffly on the bed like sheets of paper.
Somehow managing not to let his lip curl in distaste, Jared turns on his heel and walks out. He takes the stairs rather than the elevator down to the lobby, his footfall virtually silent on the thick, pale gold of the carpeting. It's too early for rush hour, for the tourists and visiting businessmen to be coming back to their suites, but there's an expectant hush in the air, kind of like the quiet that creeps in just before a storm breaks.
Sitting in the lobby, unable to concentrate on his Suduko, and blankly watching the trickling stream of passers-by, Jared gets progressively angrier.
There's a chain of facts that Jared has to keep working through and each time he gets to the end, he's angrier than he was when he started. The chain goes like this:
Rob cannot help being sweaty, just as, on occasion, Jared cannot help getting sweaty. Rob can, however, have a shower but has clearly made the choice not to. He has chosen not to shower before having sex with Jensen. Jared would like to give him the benefit of the doubt but the amount of sweat on Rob's skin makes it impossible for Jared to believe that Rob is unaware of just how sweaty he is.
No. Rob is sweaty, Rob knows it, and Rob has not done anything about it before Jensen comes to him. All of that makes Jared absolutely enraged, but the real kicker is that, by getting on the bed, Jensen has basically said that that is just fine by him.
It is not fine by Jared.
He fidgets irritably in his seat, lips pursing into a thin, furious line.
At the sight of him, the woman behind the reception desk has a quiet word with security and Jared notes the security guard moving closer in order to keep a better eye on him. Which is just as well because Jared is sorely tempted to march back up to the room, remove Jensen from it, and explain to Rob that lack of understanding that it's just simple courtesy to shower before sex when you're that damn sweaty is probably why he's having to buy it instead of getting it for free.
Instead, he sits there and seethes.
Almost two hours later, he's drumming his fingers on his cellphone - wondering whether talking to Chad would force him into a reasonable and sensible state of mind (someone has to be reasonable and sensible in a conversation, after all, and it wouldn't be Chad) or further enrage him - when he sees Jensen striding across the lobby towards him.
"C'mon," Jensen mutters, not looking at him as Jared leaps to his feet. "Time to go."
They walk to the car in silence, Jensen acting furtive and uncomfortable and Jared carried along by rage. Jared finds his hands are shaking as he starts the car. He takes off so fast the engine roars and the tires squeal. His nostrils are flaring he's breathing so hard, lips still pressed together tight and white.
The hotel's only ten minutes behind them when Jensen taps Jared on the arm and says, "Hey, hey, stop here a second!"
Snapping the steering wheel round in abrupt obedience, Jared pulls over and ignores the angry blat of the horn of the car behind them. Jared drums his fingers on the wheel, full of irritated energy, until he realises Jensen is heading into a bar. He lets out a sharp breath, turns off the engine and follows him inside.
He's in time to see Jensen slapping a bill down even as he picks up the glass of whiskey the bartender's set in front of him. The after-work crowd is just starting to drift in, tired clusters of people talking and laughing in low, faded voices. Jared stalks over to Jensen's side and leans in to talk to him.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Jensen shoots him a narrow-eyed look then pushes past him, with his glass, towards the restroom, without so much as a word. Jared is five seconds away from repeating his question more loudly and with more expletives and flailing hands but he follows him in. The restroom is a basic affair, smelling heavily of smoke and cleaning fluid, but it's clean.
"Jensen!" Jared says and his voice rings loud and harsh off the tiled walls. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I've just had sweaty balls in my mouth, Jared. There is not enough mouthwash in the world. So have pity and back the fuck off!"
Jensen drains his glass in one go, tilts his head back, gargles loudly and then empties his mouth into the sink. He stays over the sink, propped up on his forearms for a long second, and Jared listens to the quiet rasp of his breathing. He is still angry but finds it seeping away little by little, even as he struggles to hang on to it.
"Usually I can get him into the shower with me but… not today," Jensen says in not much more than a mumble. Still not straightening up, he looks sideways at Jared. "And why are you so pissed?"
The last of his rage somehow transforms into weariness because Jared really doesn't know how to explain this to Jensen. This is the kind of thing Jensen should just understand. He just shakes his head and rubs at the crease of his brows.
"C'mon," he says finally. "Let's get you home."
:::
"And, this guy? He was practically dripping with sweat!" Jared says, outraged all over again as he relates a heavily edited and anonymised version to Chad over the phone that night.
"But Jensen was being paid, right? I mean, s'not like he went teabagging with some random sweaty dude for kicks, right? 'Cause if so, then that's some sick shit right there and you're totally right to be freaking. But if he's getting paid… dude, it's his job."
Somehow, Chad is contriving to be the reasonable and unimpassioned party in the conversation. Jared is not used to this and does not quite know how to handle it. It's not unusual for Chad and Jared to disagree on what is acceptable behavior and what is not. It's pretty much par for the course in fact. Especially over things like the fact that Chad thinks it's acceptable to enter Jared's email address on the most disgusting porn sites he can find so Jared's inbox fills up with absolutely outrageous spam and Jared doesn't think that's acceptable.
But this is something that really they should be able to agree on. Even Chad should be outraged about this.
"It shouldn't be his job," Jared insists. "It's not right. He shouldn't be sucking the balls of some ugly-ass loser who can't even be fucking bothered to shower off the sweat he's slopping around in before he fucks him!"
There's a pause while Chad takes this in. Then in a slow, careful voice, Chad says, "Jared, whose balls should he be sucking? I mean, just in your totally unbiased opinion."
When Jared doesn't answer immediately, Chad groans audibly and there are muffled noises on the other end that Jared thinks could well be Chad repeatedly smacking his forehead into his phone.
"Man, don't do this," Chad whines, somewhere between plaintive and frustrated. "Don't do this. Don't get all hung up on him. This can only end two ways, my friend: shitty and catastrophically shitty. Look, here's what you gotta do…"
"I don't think I like this plan," says Jared.
"Shut up, bitch, you haven't heard it yet!"
"Yeah but it's your plan, man. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence."
"What you've gotta do," Chad reiterates, loudly and firmly, "is buy Jensen's ass for, like, as long as you can afford, so probably like, fifteen minutes, yeah? And then you bang him like crazy. Seriously, bang him 'til he's too damn slippy to stay on the bed. Just, get it out of your system, yeah?"
Processing this takes a while and Jared stares blankly at the wall, gaze fixed on tracing the weird stain on the paper, and trying to remember when coffee (because that's what it looks like) got sprayed up one of his walls and was he present when it happened?
"I need new friends," Jared says eventually.
"See if Jensen knows where you can buy some," Chad suggests obnoxiously. Which just shows how right Jared is.
:::
The first appointment of the day goes without a hitch. It's with Quentin and Quentin's okay, Jared supposes. Of course, it could be that he's still got a belly full of the pancakes Jensen had had waiting for him when he came around to pick him up. Pancakes put him in a good place for dealing with the world.
On the way to the hotel, they argue good-naturedly over the radio and compromise on the morning news. Jared accompanies Jensen up to the suite, exchanges a few polite words with Quentin, and then retreats back to the lobby for the next hour and a half, keeping himself busy with Sudoku.
Somehow, he manages to get into a conversation with a young mother who's waiting for a taxi. Her kids, two girls under the age of five, entertain themselves by crawling over and under his legs and generally incorporating him into their game. Their mother apologises over and over until Jared finally succeeds in assuring her that he's honestly not too bothered by it.
He's still talking to her when Jensen appears and it takes him a moment to see Jensen standing there watching him, eyebrow raised.
"So when you get too bored of this," Jensen says as they walk out, "you could always find work as a jungle gym in a kindergarten."
"Tempting," Jared agrees.
They have lunch in a café, sitting outside in the sunshine and people-watching. Or rather, Jared has lunch and Jensen tries not to drool too noticeably over his chicken and rice. Jared has noticed that Jensen usually doesn't eat much until after his last appointment of the day. He eats enough to keep his belly from grumbling but Jared's not sure it's sufficient to keep his energy-levels up. Eating's very important, it plays in to all kinds of things, like mood and stamina, and he tries to explain this to Jensen through a mouthful of rice.
Jensen tries not to look too disgusted by the display of masticated food and eventually keeps up his side of the conversation by politely nodding now and then and keeping his gaze averted.
It's Dan in the afternoon. Or it's supposed to be.
Jared parks outside Dan's place, a very white and very square house with more window than wall, and walks with Jensen up to the door. Jared stifles a satisfied burp and tries to look professional. Jensen rolls his eyes at him but doesn't comment.
Normally, when the client opens the door to them, Jared's kind of at a loss as to what to say. Something like Here's the prostitute you ordered just feels tacky. So Jared usually sticks to a smile and a Hi! Today he doesn't get a chance for any of that.
"About fucking time," Dan snarls.
They are not late. Not even a little. Plus, Dan has a glass of whiskey in his hand and a very flushed face so Jared doesn't think he's exactly what you'd call a reliable judge of anything right now. Jensen and Jared exchange looks and Jared's supposed to go back to the car now but instead he pushes past Jensen and follows Dan into the house. He hears Jensen say his name but ignores him.
"Hey, how much have you had to drink?" Jared asks Dan, taking care to keep his voice polite but cool.
Jensen waits wordlessly in the doorway behind him, watching. When Dan turns around to look at Jared, he bumps into the corner of his coffee table and almost trips over, swears fiercely as he rubs at his knee. Jared shakes his head at him.
"No," he says. "I'm sorry but we're gonna have to cancel your appointment. Once you've sobered up, give Sam's office a call to reschedule."
Having made the decision, Jared inclines his head at Jensen, gesturing him out of the door. There's a moment's pause and Jared wonders what he's going to do if Jensen refuses to leave, if he insists on taking the appointment anyway because hell, if he'll suck sweaty balls then there's every chance he'll go along with a hostile, drunk client. Then, thankfully, Jensen gives a single nod and makes for the front door.
"What? What the fuck?" Dan says. He's breathing heavily as he comes after them.
One thing about being so freaking tall is that Jared can pretty much fill up a doorway. The combination of that with Dan being unsteady from the alcohol and Jared can neatly block Dan's attempts to get past him and get at Jensen without really having to try too hard. He just has to play at brick wall, doesn't even have to restrain Dan.
Finally, Dan gives up trying to push by him and looks up into his face, still red and out of breath. He prods a hard finger into Jared's chest.
"I fucking well paid already. I'm owed two fucking hours with him!"
"And you've had too much to drink," says Jared, calm. Sympathetic even. "Listen, you'll thank me once you're sober." Keeping an eye on Dan, Jared says, "We're leaving now, Jensen."
He waits until he hears the front door opening and Jensen's feet on the gravel before he gives Dan a small, rueful smile and follows Jensen out. His heart's thudding heavily in his chest because he's never really had to do something like that before and it's only as he's climbing back behind the wheel and realising that Dan isn’t coming after them, that he registers how completely freaked out he is.
That's the kind of situation that could have turned nasty. Jared just said 'no' to someone rich and influential. He said 'no' to an angry drunk guy who could quite easily have gotten more hostile. His mouth's gone dry and it takes him a second to get himself together enough to turn the key in the ignition.
It was relatively easy to front up to Dan, Jared thinks, because he knew the alternative was handing Jensen over to him. And that just hadn't seemed like an option at the time. Because sweaty is one thing, but aggressively drunk is entirely another.
"You okay?" says Jensen.
Jared turns his face to him and grins shakily.
"Just fine," he says. "Thanks for… well, for not kicking up a fuss and insisting you wanted to take the appointment."
Jensen shrugs and looks away, not quite smiling. "Yeah, well, there's still plenty of time for me to kick up a fuss when we find out how Dan reacts when he sobers up and realises what just happened."
He pulls out his cell and calls someone as Jared pulls out of the drive and takes off. After checking the rear-view mirror every few seconds, it's not until the house is out of sight that Jared can feel his pulse start to get back to normal. His stomach still feels hollow and quivery but he begins to relax and the rush of adrenaline puts a stupid grin on his face.
"Hey, Sam, it's me…" says Jensen when his call's answered. "No, nothing serious. Just thought you ought to know, we had to cancel Dan Williams. He's not a very friendly drunk… Jared took care of it." Jensen shoots Jared a sidelong look at that and Jared ignores the warm glow of pride that goes through him and keeps his eyes on the road. "Hmm, yeah, sure."
There's a flush on Jensen's cheeks when he ends the call and he stubbornly refuses to look at Jared. Sam is the only person Jared knows who can make Jensen awkward. It's yet one more thing Jared likes about her. Still, as far as knowing Jensen goes, the only other people Jared's ever seen him with are his clients and they don't know Jensen at all. Out of nowhere, Jared wonders if he himself counts as someone who knows Jensen. He doesn't think he does and the thought needles at him.
"So, you've got the afternoon off. You wanna maybe-" he starts, trying to sound casual. He glances at Jensen and Jensen raises an eyebrow at him. Bastard can do the perfect single eyebrow lift. Jared's nerve fails him and he abruptly changes the direction of his sentence. "-head home and get some rest?"
Jensen turns his face towards the window.
"Yeah. Great," he says.
:::
"If the guy was that drunk," says Chad, his own voice slurred with alcohol, "then you should'a told him he hadn't paid yet and seen how much you could get him to cough up."
Jared rattles the melting ice cubes in the bottom of his glass. What's left of his whiskey is too diluted to be drinkable. However, looking over at the crush at the bar, he's not sure he could make it through to get himself another. Not without body armor. Chad is slumped over in the booth, shoulders sagging and words coming out a little malformed, but not drunk enough yet for Jared to be able to steal what's left in his glass.
"Yeah," says Jared doubtfully. "Maybe not." He looks again at Chad's whiskey and fixes him with a hopeful expression. "You gonna drink all of that?"
"Hell yeah," says Chad. He curls his fingers protectively about his glass. "Got an audition tomorrow. Don’t wanna sober up. Tryin' not to freak out about it."
"An audition?" says Jared, straightening up in his chair immediately.
"Yeah. Remember those? Those things you're s'posed to be goin' to 'cept you're too busy driving Jensen around?"
Jared chooses to ignore everything aside from the 'yeah'. There's no point in following it up because he's got a pretty clear idea of Chad's opinion of his job and it gives him an uneasy tug in his belly every time they get into it and even though it sucks to be looking for approval from a dick like Chad - for whom there is no such thing as 'too low' - Chad's still his best friend.
Besides, auditions are good news and Chad does kind of have a point. Jared hasn't had an audition since he started working with Jensen and considering this was only supposed to be a short-term gig, Jared's not done much to find anything more permanent.
"Well that's awesome, man! Tell me about it!"
Chad hides in his glass, peering blearily at what's left of the whiskey. It doesn't look like a great sign but an audition's an audition and if Chad's nervous about it then it's got to be kind of good.
"Local bad boy. With a schmoopy interior, of course," he says finally.
"Is there any other kind of bad boy?" Jared agrees. "So is it a one-time gig, a regular, or what?"
"Recurring," says Chad and the way he drawls it out suggests he's heard the descriptor applied to the character way too many times now. Jared understands his pain. Recurring characters are a risk. If you do it well and the big guys like you, then you could score a regular place in the cast. On the other hand, it could end up as a big fat waste of time that doesn't give you any chance for something big while effectively restricting your opportunities to try for anything else.
He claps Chad on the back and says, "C'mon, this could be great. You wanna run lines?"
Chad gives him the finger and drains his glass. Jared interprets this as a 'no, thank you'. So instead he just slaps him on the back again and heads off to the bar, braving the noisy throng in order to get a celebratory round of drinks. It takes a while and he catches his fair share of elbows to the ribs but eventually he's able to actually reach the bar and he props himself up against it and waits to catch the attention of one of the bartenders. They're all looking more than a little harassed so Jared patiently waits his turn.
When he turns back to the table, Chad is picking up Jared's cell from off the table and taking a call. Jared doesn't think too much of this because, hey, they're friends and friends take calls for each other. And then he gets close enough and Chad sees him and just holds the phone out towards him, upper lip curled in faint disgust.
"Hi," says Jared, clamping the phone awkwardly between his shoulder and his ear while setting the drinks down on the table.
"Tell him you're not driving his ass anywhere tonight," Chad hisses, loud enough to be plenty audible over the phone.
"Uh, no," says Jensen on the other end. Jared shoots Chad a pissed off glare and raises a finger at him, warning him not to speak again. "I wasn't calling about… Look, I was just calling to say not to worry about Dan. Sam says he called the office a while ago to apologise. Sent some goddamn flowers, if you can believe it."
"Oh," says Jared. "Right."
"Yeah, uh… just thought you might wanna know."
There's an awkward silence that Jared breaks with an uncertain, "Thanks."
"Yeah. So… I'll let you get back to your evening."
He hangs up and Jared's back in the sharp chatter of the bar and the L.A. heat's abruptly too thick on his skin. His mouth is still hanging open and he can suddenly think of a million things he should have said to Jensen, to make it a friendly conversation, to turn it from a stilted passing on of information about work to something comfortable. It's the first time Jensen's ever called him and Jared was too stunned about it to ensure the experience was one Jensen wouldn't mind repeating. Jensen will probably never ever call him again. He sighs mournfully and snaps round to glare at Chad when he hears him snicker into his whiskey.
"What did you say to him?" he demands.
"Me?" Chad says, all aggrieved innocence. "I didn’t say anything! Dude, don't blame me your ho's a pissy little bitch!"
"Stop fucking calling him a ho!"
It rings through a sudden silence. The people in the tables around them all turn to look and Jared feels his cheeks burn. He sucks in a breath and wets his lips. Chad's staring at him, blinking in shock. Then Chad's lips close to a thin line and Jared instantly feels like a jerk.
"God, man, I'm sorry. I just…" He breaks off and is relieved to see Chad's gaze flicker back to him, still narrow-eyed but not exactly cold. "Look, I've gotta work with him and he's not what you think he is-"
Chad snorts at that but he swaps his glass for the full one that Jared had brought over.
"I didn't say anything to him," Chad says. "I wouldn't screw up your job like that."
"Yeah," says Jared with a smile. "You totally would."
"All right, yeah, I would. But I didn't." Finally, Chad grins at him. "Yet."
:::
After a few uncomfortable attempts at conversation fail, Jared and Jensen drive in awkward silence to the first appointment of the day. It's a new guy for Jared, another one who seems comfortable to have Jensen brought to his own home. This guy has a big fence around his property and as Jared and Jensen sit in the car at the security gates and wait to be let in, Jared glances over at Jensen and breaks the forty-minute long silence.
"What kind of flowers?"
Jensen's gaze flickers to him. It's impossible to meet his gaze with the sunglasses he's wearing but he raises an eyebrow and makes a small, prompting gesture with one of his hands.
"The flowers Dan Williams sent. What kind were they?" Jared clarifies. It's a stupid thing to be having a conversation about and he feels weird about having started it up but he pursues it nonetheless. Anything to put them back on a normal footing.
"Uh… tulips. Pink ones." Jensen watches Jared for a long moment after he's said it, eyebrows still raised expectantly as if waiting to see if this is going to make a difference to Jared. It doesn't.
"'Kay," says Jared. They're buzzed through and Jared drives up the driveway to the neat little mansion that sits cheerfully amid a plot of emerald grass that positively glows in the sunshine. "Do you like tulips?"
Jensen's attention had just been starting to drift then but it snaps back to Jared instantly. He stares at him and Jared just smiles and dimples hopefully. At last, Jensen laughs and shakes his head.
"Don’t much have a preference. Though I must admit to being a roses man at heart."
"Roses. Very romantic," Jared remarks, mock-serious.
"Oh yeah, die-hard romantic, that's me," says Jensen, laughter thick in his voice. "Hadn't you noticed?"
They park and Jared accompanies Jensen to the door. Jensen takes his sunglasses off and hooks them onto his shirt pocket. Without them on, Jared can see the faint smudge of eyeliner Jensen's got on. It's fainter than he normally wears it for some clients, the clients who prefer him to play the twink. But Jared spots it all the same. He thinks green eyes with long dark sweeping lashes don't really require much emphasising but no one's asking his opinion.
"This guy's Frank Murphy," says Jensen. "He's been overseas. He used to be a regular. Pays well but don’t be surprised if he gets a little… uh, grabby."
"Grabby?" says Jared.
The door opens before Jensen can explain exactly what 'grabby' means but it only takes moments for Jared to get a clue. Frank's a big guy with a shaved head (no doubt a pre-emptive strike against baldness) and very pale eyes. He grins at the sight of them and then he reaches out to grip Jensen firmly by the back of his neck, pulling him up tight against his body. Jensen goes with it, smile firmly in place, and Jared lingers in the sunshine, unsure whether to intervene or not.
"Jesus, Jensen," Frank says. More of a growl really and Jared sincerely hopes he's not expected to intervene because this guy is built like a brick shithouse. "Fucking missed you. Gonna have to take you with me next time, baby."
"Yeah, right, 'cause that wouldn't be awkward at all," Jensen says but he's still smiling and is apparently perfectly happy to have Frank's fingers disappearing beneath the tails of his shirt, kneading at the firm muscle of his belly. His hips are canted forward to keep him pressed into Frank, grinding lazily, which gives Jared all too much idea about what it must be like when he's fucking. The mental image is shockingly clear and Jared feels an unsettlingly strong rush of arousal.
When Frank drops his head to nuzzle at Jensen's neck, mouth moving with hot wet noises over the skin, and Jensen angles his head back, eyes sinking shut and one arm curling languidly about Frank's broad back, Jared clears his throat and says, to anyone who might still be listening, "Right, I'll wait in the car."
Both Frank and Jensen turn to look at him and immediately Jared wishes he'd just slipped out of the door while they were otherwise preoccupied because Frank is breathing heavily and has one knee nudged between Jensen's thighs and Jensen is all flushed and pliant and the whole thing is damn awkward.
"Oh yeah," says Frank. "I remember. You're… uh, sorry, forgot the name." His gaze darts to Jensen. "Your driver, right?"
"Jared Padalecki," says Jensen. His voice comes throaty and Jared's knees wobble for the slightest second just at the sound of his name drawled out in Jensen's sex-smoked voice. Which reminds him afresh of just how awkward this is.
Jared almost offers Frank his hand, notes that Frank's hand is busy cupping the high curve of one of Jensen's ass cheeks, which is indecently well displayed by the perfect cut of his jeans, and tries edging for the door instead.
There's a weird moment where Frank's other hand comes up to skim his knuckles over Jensen's cheek, his thumb sweeping down to push between Jensen's lips. Jensen latches on instantly and suckles tight with a soft, obscene moan.
"He's cute, Jen," Frank mutters, still in that low, greedy growl. "Think you'd look real pretty with your mouth full of his cock. Bet he's got one hell of a cock. Don't you wanna suck on it? Does he really have to go back to the car?"
And right up until that moment, Jared could have easily believed that Jensen was as hung up on being touched, groped and generally manhandled by Frank as he appeared. Then it's like a switch being flicked. The slutty demeanour vanishes and is replaced with taut, unyielding blankness.
"Yes," says Jensen. He doesn't even look at Jared, not even for a second. His gaze is fixed on Frank and there's no clearer way for him to say that Jared has ceased to exist as far as he's concerned. "Jared has to go back to the car."
No one says anything for a long moment and Jared wonders if his heartbeat is audible halfway across the country because it sure as hell feels like it should be. Frank goes on looking at Jensen and Jensen doesn't so much as blink as he looks right back at him.
Then Frank flashes Jared a grin and a wink.
"Sorry, kid," he says. Like this was something Jared had asked for.
Jared turns right about and walks back out into the daylight, barely able to see straight and feeling his cheeks burn red-hot. He moves on autopilot back to the car. His body feels clumsy and poorly put together and he can't figure out whether he's humiliated or aroused or both. Sliding into the car, Jared wipes his hands off on his thighs. Then - slowly, furtively, everything dropping into silence beneath the hoarse rasp of his breathing - he palms the shape of his hardening cock through his jeans, his eyes sinking half-shut as he thinks of the mere suggestion of Jensen getting to his knees for him.
"Shit," he whispers, his voice harsh and low. He wonders if Frank will fuck Jensen's mouth before or after he fucks his ass.
He curls his hands into fists. He absolutely will not jerk off. Not in this car in which he drives Jensen around and definitely not thinking about Jensen. It's wrong and disgusting and creepy and Jared is not going to be one of those guys.
Sternly watching his reflection in the rear-view mirror, taking in his flushed face and slightly wild eyes, Jared wills himself to get it together. He fumbles for his cellphone with the vague intention of calling Chad then gives it up as a very bad idea. Chad does not need to hear that Jared popped a boner about being offered a ride with Jensen, certainly not on the day of an audition.
Deep breaths and then Sudoku is really the best course of action. If Jared's hand shakes a little when he picks up his pencil and flips the puzzle book open, he doesn't let his mind linger too long on it.
:::
It's two hours before Jensen climbs back into the car and slams the door so hard the entire frame judders. Jared flashes a weak smile in his general direction, not willing to risk eye-contact just yet, and turns the keys in the ignition. The car purrs and comes alive and Jared drives them off Frank's property and back onto the road.
Only seconds pass before Jared notes just how cold the atmosphere is between them. He flicks Jensen a few sidelong glances to confirm his suspicions and sees him sitting rigid and tight in his seat, expression as blank as it had been back with Frank.
Feeling hopeless and unsettled, Jared licks his lips then keeps his gaze firmly on the road as he speaks.
"So, that was kind of awkward back there-"
"Is that really what you want?" Jensen snarls. Helplessly, Jared's gaze snaps to Jensen's mouth and feels his stomach flutter. He's sickly relieved when Jensen is apparently too furious to notice. "You wanna be part of the party? Wanna take your own clients? Thought you wanted to be an actor, Jared!"
"I do!" says Jared. "I do wanna be an actor… hey, c'mon! Why are you taking all this out on me? I didn't say a goddamn word! Not one word! You wanna get pissed at someone, get pissed at Frank! He was the one running his mouth off, not me!"
Instantly, Jensen turns away, mouth sealing to a thin line. He folds his arms over his chest and seethes. Jared does his best to watch him while keeping as much attention on driving as is necessary. At last, Jensen seems to shrink a little and he just shakes his head.
"I can't get pissed at Frank," says Jensen. "Not when he's paying me a shitload of money to act like I think he's the Second Coming. He pays me to be a whore, not to tell him when he's completely out of line."
The sting's gone from his voice and he sounds nothing so much like tired. Worn out.
"Well don't get pissed at me, man," says Jared, low and gentle, "'cause I'm sure as hell not gonna be sending you roses to apologise."
When he looks at Jensen, Jensen's looking back, smiling ever so slightly. It makes his stomach flutter harder than before and obscurely, for just a second, Jared feels as big a creep as Frank. The atmosphere thaws and though they drive downtown in silence, it's companionable and comfortable. The first rush of the day has passed and the bustle on the streets is the lazy spill of tourists and students, not the sharp-edged line of the business world.
"Hey, Jared?" Jensen fiddles with the button on the cuff of his shirt. His tone is carefully nonchalant. "I'm thinking I might cancel the rest of the day. Wanna get lunch?"
Yes. Jared thinks he'd really like to do that and his tongue feels fat in his mouth as he tries to get the words out in a coherent manner and in an order that makes sense. His breath light in his throat, he adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.
"You sure you can cancel?" he says and hates himself for being reasonable and allowing Jensen chance to think it over.
"Yeah. I mean, Frank was pretty enthusiastic and I don't wanna turn up at a client's looking like…" He gives a spastic shrug and says, "Not everyone goes for sloppy seconds, y'know?" It's sharp and amused and Jared mirrors his grin uncertainly. Giving it a second, he reassesses the way Jensen's holding himself, stiff and unmoving.
"Did he hurt you?" says Jared quietly.
Jensen laughs and rolls his eyes but doesn't meet Jared's gaze, choosing instead to reach for his cellphone.
"You're not really turning down lunch, are you? My treat. Just let me call Sam."
The cuff on Jensen's shirt has slipped and Jared can see the red marks of fingers about his wrist and knows they'll be bruises by this evening. He sighs and looks away.
"Lunch'd be awesome," he says.
:::
They pick a place Jensen hasn't been to before. Jared and Chad eat there all the time because the food's good, the service is friendly and Jared can still make rent for the month after a meal there, which can’t be said for some of the places at which he knows Jensen chooses to eat.
Jensen keeps close and orders the same as Jared. Seems content to simply be sitting in the dazzling, white sunshine of mid-afternoon, drinking soda and listening to Jared chatter. Jared's willing to oblige by providing plenty of chatter. He talks about home and how hard it was to leave, and about coming to L.A., finding a place to stay and the auditions he's been to.
"And I had a really freaking tiny part in a film with Tom, as 'jock bully 1' which wasn't even worth putting on my resume, and then I got to know Mike, because he's working with Tom up in Vancouver," says Jared, cheerfully working his way through the basket of fries set between them. "They're doing Smallville. You seen any of it?"
"Few episodes," says Jensen. He prods at the bottom of his glass with his straw, chasing bubbles. "So, guess it wasn't them you were out with last night then."
There's a pause, Jensen's head cocked on one side, teasing bright in his eyes even if he's still keeping a straight face about it. Jared flushes and grins helplessly. He rubs the back of his neck and stuffs a handful of fries in his mouth to give himself time before answering.
"That was Chad. He's… uh… my best friend. Also? A total douche. You… well, you probably wouldn't get along." Jared brightens and adds, "But you might, because he's really pretty cool, once you get past his tendency to be a bit of a dick. He can't help it. It's just… Chad."
"What did you tell him about this job?" He holds up a hand as Jared frowns slightly. "It's all right. No one said you had to lie, or expected you to. I'm just… just curious. Chad knows you're playing chauffeur to a male prostitute, right?"
"Escort," Jared says tightly.
"You've told him I'm an escort? Huh."
"You are an escort," says Jared. His jaw is clenched but he manages to shove another fistful of fries into his mouth and chews on them fiercely.
Jensen watches him for a second, eyes narrowed in entertained curiosity. He's sitting more comfortably at the table than he was in the car but Jared hadn't missed his faint flinch as he'd sat down. Frank's not the first client to leave Jensen a little fragile, a little marked up, but Jared feels a rush of fury towards him anyway. Every time he thinks he's got a handle on precisely what this job entails - namely: enabling Jensen getting fucked for money and yet remaining in satisfactory condition to do it all over again the next day - something comes up to remind Jared just how jacked this all is.
"No, I'm not. Escorts 'escort' people places and may render additional services, that may include fucking," says Jensen. "I don't escort anyone anywhere past the bedroom."
At Jared's stricken look, Jensen's expression softens from amusement to something almost like affection.
"Jesus, Jared," he mutters, cheeks coloring slightly. "You really don't have to feel sorry for me. Pity those poor schmucks who aren't good-looking enough for anyone to want to pay 'em." He finishes his soda and gives a small, contented belch. "S'nice of you. Just… don't."
:::
"They loved me," says Chad. "Fucking worshipped me."
"Good audition then?" says Jared. He sprawls out longer on his couch and balances the phone on his shoulder as he strains to reach another slice of pizza from the box. It's cold, greasy and gross but reheating it would mean going to the kitchen and Jared's not bothered enough about it to put that kind of effort in to it.
"Nah, it sucked," says Chad. "But the director guy loved me for some other project."
"Yeah? Playing what?"
"Local bad boy with schmoopy interior."
Jared takes a moment to pry a piece of soggy tomato off his slice and dangle it into his mouth. He wipes his fingers on a cushion and tries to think of a tactful way of approaching the subject.
"You don't think maybe you're getting type-cast?" he says finally.
"Getting cast at all is fucking fine by me," Chad says and Jared shrugs and can't really argue with it. "So, how's the ongoing unresolved sexual tension between you and Jensen?"
"Dude!" Jared protests, outraged and horrified all at once. "There is no unresolved sexual tension between me and him. Stop with this bullshit already!"
"That mean you finally got your ass in gear and fucked him? Hope he was decent enough to offer a staff discount. Or at least the sex was worth you not being able to make rent this month."
Briefly, Jared considers smothering himself in the couch cushion. Then he considers smothering Chad with the couch cushion, which is the much better option and something he'll have to bear in mind for when he next sees Chad.
"It is so not like that. Yeah, all right, maybe I have the tiniest little crush on him but he's gorgeous. I'd have to be dead not to. It doesn't mean I'm-"
"Tell me about the guy he saw today," says Chad.
"God, he was a total scumbag!" Jared explodes. "All grabby-hands and rough and… and completely inappropriate and-"
"You've never thought that a single one of Jensen's guys is anything but scum, man," says Chad. "You've never thought a single one of 'em has had any right to be fucking Jensen. And I don't think it's the money thing. Face it, Jared, your crush is a little more serious than you just admiring how goddamn pretty you think he is."
For lack of any adequate protest to that, Jared stuffs the entire slice into his mouth and concentrates on wishing he'd reheated the damn thing because life sucks enough as it is without him having to eat cold pizza.
:::
After waiting almost a year, and pretty much giving up all hope considering she seemed happy in the relationship she was in, Jared suddenly finds the courage to call Sandy up and ask her out on a date.
Well, he finds the courage to dial her number. Asking her out might still take him a while. He listens to the phone ring and paces the length of his kitchen, wishing it were longer or his legs were shorter because he's getting dizzy with all the turning around.
"Hey, Jared," she says when she picks up. She sounds a little breathless.
"Hey… uh, is now a good time? I can call back."
"No, no," she says. "Now's good." She waits and then says, "Uh… how are things with you?"
Even with that - the patience and lack of pushiness in her voice, the tone that says she's merely offering Jared the option of talking if he wants and if he just wants to stand there silently that's fine too - Sandy demonstrates just what an awesome human being she is. So Jared can't quite figure out why he feels like such a creep to be asking her out. Trying to ask her out. He's not thinking too much about where this motivation to be in a relationship has come from.
"I was just at the gym," Sandy says when Jared fails to get any words out. "I'm going to be hurty all over tomorrow. Still, guess it's part of the job, right? A lousy, sucktastic part of the job but part all the same, right?"
"Um-yeah-wanna-go-out-for-a-drink-some-time?" Jared takes a breath and adds, more slowly and hopefully more coherently, "With me, I mean."
"Sure! When did you have in mind? Uh… I've got an audition Friday afternoon but we could go after that?"
"Yeah," says Jared. "Let's do that."
"Okay, excellent. So, about 7pm? At that place we were at last time?"
"Sounds great," says Jared. "Looking forward to it."
Some time after the phone call's ended, Jared is still trying to figure out why he feels like a creep for asking out the girl he likes, and why everyone in the world isn't as wonderfully understanding, helpful and uncomplicated as Sandy.
:::
Jensen's in a weirdly good mood when Jared picks him up, humming some 80's cock-rock as he pauses to check his reflection in a mirror just before they get out of the door. He tugs at a few wisps of hair and Jared's close enough he can smell the expensive styling gel Jensen uses. In the car, Jensen sings along to the radio and Jared has to keep shooting him bemused, fond grins.
After twenty minutes, he says, "So… good day?"
"Not really. We've got 'Call me sir' first, followed up by 'Call me Daddy'. My ass is gonna be spanked red raw by the end of today."
Uncertainly - and totally not loving the fact his brain instantly, helpfully, supplies its own idea about how Jensen's ass would look with big red fingerprints all over it - Jared says, "I'll remember to bring you a cushion to sit on for the drive home." He clears his throat then says, "I was actually talking about the good mood you seem to be in."
"Oh, that." Jensen seems to consider a moment and then he shrugs. "I'm supposed to be talking to you about it anyway. I got a client this weekend. It'll be a couple of days out of town. Sam wants you to come along and…Hell, I don't know what exactly she wants but I said you probably had other stuff to do this weekend and that I was fine handling this by myself." He flicks a glance at Jared, as if expecting Jared to instantly agree that he had plans and that to be the end of the conversation.
"No," says Jared. "I can come."
Jensen's good mood wavers. He rubs his temple and frowns a little. Then he shakes his head.
"No, I know this guy. Trust me, if he weren't able to pay, I'd do him for free. C'mon, man, don't let me ruin your plans."
"Honestly," says Jared, "it's fine. I've got a date on Friday night but I'd probably just be hanging round shooting the shit with the boys the rest of the time."
"It's not necessary."
"It's not a problem." Jared looks at Jensen and sees the pissed off set to his features. The good mood looks to have been effectively killed, and buried too. Jared sighs and smiles at him. "I'll keep out of your way. You probably won't even have to see me if you don't want to. But let me do my job, Jen. Let me be there, just in case."
Jensen lets out a short, irritable breath and turns his face away to stare out the window. The morning is bright and clear, orange-tinted. It's warm and the sun's not even high in the sky yet. Traffic's picking up and they drive in silence for a long moment. With a sinking feeling, Jared starts to suspect that Jensen is actually sulking with him, or whatever that displeased quiet thing he does is called.
Then, without even turning back to look at him, Jensen says, "You've got a date?"
There's a faint note of soft surprise in there and Jared feels heat creep up the back of his neck but manages a breezy shrug and smile.
"Yep."
"Huh."
When nothing more is forthcoming, Jared shoots Jensen a look. Jensen is now looking at him, lips curled in a slight smile and his eyes narrowed in thought. Jared raises an eyebrow at him and Jensen teasingly mirrors the gesture.
"Huh?" Jared says. "What's huh supposed to mean? Good huh? Bad huh?"
"Just… huh."
"There is no just 'huh'," Jared insists, lips pursing in exasperation. "Huh always means something."
"Yeah, it means… huh," Jensen drawls. He shrugs and laughs as Jared's torn between grinning and frowning. "It means… huh, you've actually got a personal life."
"And you're a pain in the ass. Now we've covered the basics, can we move on?"
"Oh come on! So I'm surprised you're not just Jared, the guy in the car, doing his Sudoku and freaking out my clients." At the startled look Jared gives him, Jensen says, "You freak them out! They all think you're gonna bust in at any minute to defend my questionable honor. I try tellin' 'em you're just an overgrown Texas boy, harmless as a puppy, but… who's gonna listen to me when they've got you down as all mean, dark and dangerous?"
"One out of three. I believe the descriptors you're looking for are 'tall, dark and handsome'," Jared says with feigned primness.
"That too," Jensen agrees easily and Jared blinks, unsure if he actually said that and whether it would be making too big a deal of it to make him say it again, slower and louder. "But you gotta remember, these guys I see, they're paranoid about people knowing about me. None of them are that thrilled at the prospect of it getting out that…"
"That they're seeing you," Jared fills in, as Jensen trails off uncertainly. He thinks for a second, then says, "Don't you ever worry about getting caught?"
"You mean by the police? I dunno. Sometimes, I guess. Still, helps knowing the people I know. Just as a for instance, 'Call me Daddy' is a judge. I got a couple of high-ranking cops on the books, few other useful people. I'm not sweating it too much." He gives Jared a razor-edged smirk. "They take me down and I'll give the gossip rags enough material to keep 'em busy 'til the turn of the century."
"That's… uh, well that's insurance, I guess." He pulls a face and adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. "So… do you date?"
"It's been known to happen. Not for a while though," Jensen says. He smiles but it's not a particularly happy one, more a mirthless twitch of his lips. "Tends to get awkward pretty damn fast, y'know?"
Jared can imagine.
:::
At the end of the day, when he presents Jensen with the cushion he picked up in town, Jensen has to stop for a second and just stare at it. Stunned. Then he looks back up at Jared and smiles, slowly and wonderingly. He puts it on the car seat before he slides in. He's silent for a moment, fingering the tasselled fringe of the cushion and then curling his hands into his lap, and Jared tactfully keeps quiet.
Then, in the warm hazy glow of the early evening, Jensen looks at Jared and says, "Thanks, man." He shifts on the cushion and adds, "Guess 'company' ain't so bad."
:::
It's a long time since Jared went on a date, an honest-to-God date. Longer than he'd admit. He hasn't admitted it to Chad but they're so close he suspects he doesn't have to. As far as dressing advice goes, Chad's had been: wear anything that doesn't make you look like a freakishly tall smiley-face hoping to get laid. Which leaves Jared wondering what percentage of his wardrobe that covers.
Eventually, he settles on jeans and a pale pink button-down. He doesn't think it'll send Sandy running in the other direction but he's not exactly sure. She's already at the bar when he arrives and, thankfully, she doesn't run, screaming, in the other direction. She smiles at him from the stool she's perched on, legs swinging backwards and forwards 'cause her feet don't reach the ground, and she waves him over to the table. Jared slides onto the stool and Sandy pushes a bottle of beer over at him.
"Beer all right?" she says. "I didn’t know what else to get you."
"Beer is awesome," says Jared. "Thanks."
He takes a long gulp and then lowers the bottle a little self-consciously when he realises Sandy's watching him. In the jagged flashes of artificial light and shadow in the bar, it's hard to make out whether Sandy's flushing or it's just the smoky evening heat on her skin. She glances away and takes a slow swallow from her own bottle. Jared kind of understands the 'watching-someone-drink' thing then because Sandy's lips are shiny and pink around the glass and her throat ripples as she swallows.
"How was the audition?" Jared blurts out when Sandy sets the bottle back down and shoots him a small, shy smile.
"Oh, yeah! It was… good, I think. I don't wanna jinx it." She shrugs, the lacy strap on her tank top sliding down on her tanned shoulder and she smoothes it back into place. "We'll find out in a couple of days, I guess. How about you? Still chauffeuring?"
"Yeah," says Jared. It feels too close to the subject of Jensen and Jared would like to keep some distance between that and Sandy. Maybe a few thousand miles distance. "So, leaving aside how it actually went, what was the audition for?"
Sandy looks at him for a moment, her expression unreadable and then she blinks and says, "Slasher movie. I think my character dies in the first forty minutes. Decapitated with a pair of garden shears."
"Jeez," says Jared, rocking back on his stool. "No one get a bullet between the eyes anymore?"
"Too quick. Not enough blood." Before Jared can get a response out for that, she says, "So what kind of car do you drive?" At Jared's blank look she clarifies the question with, "For your job? I'm guessing you don't use your own car, right?"
"Why wouldn't I get to use my own car?" says Jared. "You sayin' there's something wrong with my baby? She was the first friend I made out here, y'know!"
Sandy laughs and pats him indulgently on the arm. "But seriously," she says. "You use your own car?"
There doesn't seem to be an easy way to shake her off this. Jared wishes he'd thought up a few details for a perfectly decent chauffeuring job before he'd turned up because Jared could tell Chad about Jensen and Jensen's profession but he's not sure he can tell Sandy. He's pretty sure that finding out a guy is, albeit indirectly, involved in prostitution is a pretty big turn-off.
He takes chugs his beer and then shrugs. "Drive a Porsche Cayenne. Silver one."
Sandy makes an impressed moue with her mouth and leans in. She brushes back a stray lock of dark hair that falls over her face and raises an eyebrow.
"A Porsche. Nice. Must be someone pretty important to be able to afford a Porsche and a driver to go with it."
The question is clear in her tone.
"Not really. Just someone rich. And L.A.'s not exactly short of those guys, right?" Jared finishes his beer and pushes off the stool. "Get you another beer?"
Sandy smiles a little helplessly and catches his sleeve as he starts to pass by her. She draws him close and Jared can smell the light, fruity perfume she's wearing, can feel the warmth of her body. There's concern in her dark eyes.
"Jared, I don't wanna seem pushy but… it just feels weird that you dodge every time I try asking about your job. I mean, there's not a problem, right? You're not… not in any kind of trouble, are you? 'Cause you can tell me. I'll help-"
Jared laughs and wraps an arm around her middle, dropping a kiss on her forehead. It feels right. Easy.
"Everything's just fine," he says. "Seriously."
And that, right then, doesn't feel as much like lying as maybe he expected it to.
part three