The One Where Jensen is a Bank Teller- J2 AU
Title: The One Where Jensen is a Bank Teller
Author: arglikeapirate
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: R, for language
Length: 2318 words
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Jensen is a bank teller, Jared has a crush, and free lollipops are a perfectly valid reason to date someone.
Notes: Written for the spn_j2_xmas exchange. Also, I know very, very little about how bank telling works and I’ve never actually used a pneumatic tube, so if anything seems off, let me know!
Jared always told Megan that Bill was a skanky son of a bitch, but she somehow never really believed him until she caught Bill sleeping with half the debate club a week after she found out she was pregnant. That was pretty much the last of Bill.
Ever since then, Jared has taken Emma on Thursdays, partly because he likes the opportunity once a week to say ‘I told you so,’ but mostly because he loves his niece. She’s about the funniest five year old he’s ever met, not to mention absolutely adorable although he admittedly might be a little prejudiced.
Emma is in a morning kindergarten class, and she’s usually one of the first kids to come running out of the school, and today isn’t any different.
“Hey, kiddo! How were classes ?” Jared exclaims, grinning broadly as Emma swings into the car and gets in the purple booster seat he bought because he’s just that much of a sucker, even though purple was twice as much as the other styles.
“I got a gold star today, ‘cause could read the clock,” Emma declares, and Jared reaches back to give her a high five. “Also, I want to go to the bank.”
“The bank? What’s so special about the bank?” Jared asks. Personally, he hates the bank. His account total always somehow manages to be so much less than he’d like it to be.
“Me’n Mom went to the bank yesterday, and there was a tubie-thing that took a piece of paper and
sucked it up and then I got a lollipop,” Emma explains, gesturing wildly like Jared might not understand how the pneumatic tubes work.
“Well, I wanted to go to lunch, but I guess we could go to the bank first,” Jared says, “and then can we go get McDonalds?”
Emma claps her hands excitedly. Megan has this whole theory that McDonalds is going to give Emma cancer, so Thursday is always fast food day. And Jeff wonders why he’s not the favorite uncle.
***
Jared doesn’t especially like the bank drive-through tubes, and usually tries to avoid them. They’ve always seemed vaguely ominous, like something from Star Wars or Star Trek, and at any minute could sprout legs and walk away.
Clearly, though, this is not a legitimate excuse for Emma, who has her heart set on the pneumatic tubes.
“They’ll give you a lollipop if we go inside, too!” he tries, but Emma just frowns and threatens to never draw him another picture again, so the tubes it is.
“Can I put the paper in the box?” Emma asks, good humor restored now that Jared is doing what she wants. Jared grins and passes the container back to her, where she fiddles around with it before passing it back.
“Now put it in the tubie!” she commands. Jared does as ordered, glancing up at the teller’s window as he does so, and freezes for a minute, because goddamn if the teller isn’t the hottest man he’s ever seen. Like, ever. In his life.
Emma follows his gaze curiously, and then pokes him in the shoulder. Jared starts.
“That’s the man who gives you your money back,” Emma explains. “But you have to shut the tube door first.”
“Right,” Jared mutters, and watches the teller while Emma watches the container fly through the tube. It comes back with a yellow deposit slip for Jared and a yellow lollipop for Emma, and the teller winks at Jared through the window.
Somehow, he has the feeling ‘going to the bank’ is going to be a regular Thursday activity from here on out.
***
Emma is totally on board with this plan, because apparently pneumatic tubes never get old, and the roll call of withdrawals and deposits on Jared’s monthly credit report gets distressingly long. It gets to the point where he’s withdrawing and depositing the same cash, because, um, hi, grad student, and he doesn’t really have the capital to run around spending flagrantly just because he wants to go to the bank.
And actually, when Jared thinks about it like that, the whole situation sounds a little pathetic. Maybe it’s time to change this pattern a little bit. Like, actually going in and talking to this guy might be a good idea, before the bank calls and asks if someone stole his credit card or something.
***
The next week, Emma doesn’t have school-something about a teacher strike since Tuesday, Jared is a little vague on the details. Megan still works on Thursdays, though, and he still doesn’t have classes, so he comes early to Megan’s tiny apartment to pick up Emma.
“Ask Emma what she did in school yesterday,” Megan says, as soon as he walks in.
“Yeah, hi, I love you too,” Jared says mildly, and then adds, “you know I ask her this every Thursday, right?”
“Yeah, but, today’s response is going to be spectacular,” she explains, “and also, I’m concerned about teenage pregnancy running in the family.”
“What the fuck are you-“ Jared starts, but doesn’t finish because Emma comes running in from whatever she was doing in her bedroom, and Megan hits him when he swears in front of Emma.
“Uncle Jared! Uncle Jared! I made you a picture!” Emma exclaims, holding up a colorful drawing of a horse, or possibly a vacuum cleaner. It could go either way.
Jared grabs the picture and examines it carefully. “Wow, Emma, it’s fantastic!” he exclaims.
“It’s the bank drive-though,” she explains, “see, there’s the bank man.”
Jared laughs, because that was about the last thing he was going to guess. “It’s awesome,” he says anyway. “So I hear you had a good day at school on Monday?”
“I kissed Ben!” she exclaims, and Jared gapes.
“Kissed him! Why are you kissing boys? I thought boys have cooties!”
“Cooties aren’t real, stupid,” she informs him, and Megan glares at him, which is probably justified because he taught her that word. “And anyway, it was fun!”
“You should definitely be worried about teenage pregnancy,” Jared tells Megan, and then scoops Emma up to carry her out to the car. “No kissing boys until you’re at least 18!” he scolds, and she shrieks with laughter as he tickles her side.
***
“Do we get to go to the bank today?” Emma asks longingly, once her chicken nuggets have been devoured and soda drained.
“Has there been a day in the last two and a half months when we haven’t?” Jared says.
“But today is special,” Emma points out. “There wasn’t any school today, so maybe there’s no bank today either.”
“Well,” Jared says, “I was thinking that today, since it is such a special day, we should actually go inside the bank. And talk to the bank teller.”
Emma looks doubtful. “Will he give me a lollipop?”
“If there are no lollipops to be had inside the bank, we can go to the grocery store and buy an entire bag,” Jared says decisively, and Emma grins.
***
There isn’t a lot of competition for parking at the bank at eleven in the morning, so Jared is able to swing his truck over the lines into two spots. He’s glad he double-parked when Emma flings the door open with enthusiasm (he has to remember to put the childlock on!), and manages to nearly hit the car next to them even with the extra space.
“Do you think the window man will be there?” Emma asks.
“I definitely hope so, hun.”
He is. The man’s eyes light up when Jared walks in, and wow, sometimes he forgets over the week how attractive this man is. Like he’s so pretty that Jared’s brain can’t even comprehend how pretty when he’s not around, or something.
“Hey!” he says, as Jared and Emma walk up. “You’re the guy who comes to the tubes every Thursday!”
“You remember me?” Jared says, a little surprised.
The teller flushes. “Not too many people come by every single week. Hey but, uh, I’m Jensen. What can I do for you guys today? Another withdrawal?”
“Uh, yeah,” says Jared, flushing bright red. He’d had this all planned out in his head-Jensen would ask him how he was doing and Jared would ask for his phone number, but now that he’s actually here, in front of the guy? Somehow all his bravado has rushed out the window.
“Uh, yeah,” says Jared hurriedly. “Can I get out a fifty?”
Jensen looks amused. “You know, you can do that at the ATM,” he says.
“Yeah, well, my niece here likes her lollipops,” Jared says like that’s a legitimate excuse. Jensen just grins and whips out two twenties and a ten with a lollipop on top of the stack and passes them over.
Fuck. That is not how Jared pictured that.
Jared is strapping Emma into her car seat when she pokes him in the side.
“Uncle Jared?” she asks.
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Is the bank teller going to be your boyfriend? Cause he’s even nicer than Ben- Ben doesn’t give me lollipops! If he’s your boyfriend he can give me lollipops all the time.”
Possibly Jared needs to not be so obvious that his five your old niece recognizes attraction. “I think it’d be nice if he was,” Jared says cautiously, because he’s never seen the point in lying to Emma.
“I like him better than my boyfriend,” Emma says decisively. “Ben throws paper at me.”
“Well, sometimes boys do that when they like you,” Jared says, “because boys aren’t as smart as girls and don’t know how to say they like you.”
Emma looks scornful. “it’s not that hard, “ she tells Jared, “Just say I wanna be your boyfriend!”
***
“So, Emma tells me you have a boyfriend,’ Megan says, apparently extremely amused when Jared drops her off the next week.
“Yeah, I wish,” Jared says, “because Meggie? You have no fucking idea. I think this guy may be the hottest man I’ve ever met. Like, in my life. Ever. And also, I haven’t gotten laid in a disgustingly long time.”
“Don’t talk to me about getting laid,” Megan says. “You don’t have a five year old. It’s like the best birth control ever.”
“Too bad you didn’t have that when you were eighteen,” Jared teases, and Megan thwaps him.
“Shut up, fart face. So this bank teller, then. Gonna ask him out?”
Jared grimaces. “I don’t know. I think I’m too chicken poop.”
“Why would you want to be chicken poop?” Emma asks, and Jared laughs.
“That’s a very good question, Emma.”
***
The next week, Emma is grinning and bouncing like usual, but refusing to say a word.
“What’s up, Emmie?” Jared asks.
Emma just smiles even wider and mimes zipping her lips shut. Jared sighs. This cannot end well.
“Well,” he says with a sigh, “I guess if you don’t wanna talk to me you don’t have to, but we probably should just go home and take your temperature then. Maybe you’re sick.”
“Nooo!” Emma shrieks immediately, “We have to go to the bank!”
And, wow, that was astoundingly emphatic.
“As long as you talk,” Jared says, mock stern. “I can’t drive around with no one to talk to!”
That’s apparently enough to set Emma off on her normal monologue, but she’s clearly still trying very hard not to say something, because she cuts herself off repeatedly and then gives a little giggle. Jared isn’t really concerned, though, because Emma has only recently discovered secrets and thinks they’re the best ever. What she wants for dinner becomes a secret, or what she has in her backpack.
“Let’s go inside,” she declares, as soon as Jared pulls up into the bank, and flings the door open before he’s properly put the car in park. He has got to remember that childlock.
Emma takes off into the building, and Jared follows at a more sedate pace. Jensen is the only teller on duty, but there’s no one else inside, so Emma already has him engaged in conversation.
“… and then we learned about Austramila, did you know they walk around upside down there?” she’s saying. “Oh, there’s Uncle Jared. Come over here!”
“So, Emma here was telling me about her geography class,” Jensen says, a small smile on his face that kind of makes Jared want to kiss him. “Apparently in France they wear funny hats.”
“There’s a book with pictures,” Jared says ruefully. “Apparently in Alabama, everyone is black.”
“Good to know.” Jensen is still kind of smiling. “So, hey, I think I met your sister the other day.”
Jared isn’t really sure he knows where this is going, but he’s positive it’s not going to be somewhere he likes. “You did?” he says cautiously. “What’d she say?”
“Essentially that you had better things to do with your time than come in here and flirt with me, so I should just ask you out, since you’re too chicken poop to do it yourself.”
“Mommy calls him chicken poop a lot,” Emma contributes. “I don’t get it.”
Jared feels a little like thumping his head on the counter. “Look, I’m sorry, she’s my kid sister but I swear sometimes she thinks-“
“Believe me, I didn’t mind. Did you know I thought Emma was yours? I assumed you were married or something. If I’d known she was your niece that you babysit once I week, I woulda done this a lot sooner.” He winks, and scrawls a number down on a blank deposit script. “Call me if you want to do dinner sometime.”
“Yeah, okay,” Jared says, a little dumbstruck. He looks up from the yellow paper in his hand. “I’ll do that.”
Jensen’s grin is a little blinding, and Jared is almost glad for the interruption of Emma asking for her lollipop, for all that he could probably stand and just smile stupidly all day.
His sister is the best.
Author: arglikeapirate
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: R, for language
Length: 2318 words
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Jensen is a bank teller, Jared has a crush, and free lollipops are a perfectly valid reason to date someone.
Notes: Written for the spn_j2_xmas exchange. Also, I know very, very little about how bank telling works and I’ve never actually used a pneumatic tube, so if anything seems off, let me know!
Jared always told Megan that Bill was a skanky son of a bitch, but she somehow never really believed him until she caught Bill sleeping with half the debate club a week after she found out she was pregnant. That was pretty much the last of Bill.
Ever since then, Jared has taken Emma on Thursdays, partly because he likes the opportunity once a week to say ‘I told you so,’ but mostly because he loves his niece. She’s about the funniest five year old he’s ever met, not to mention absolutely adorable although he admittedly might be a little prejudiced.
Emma is in a morning kindergarten class, and she’s usually one of the first kids to come running out of the school, and today isn’t any different.
“Hey, kiddo! How were classes ?” Jared exclaims, grinning broadly as Emma swings into the car and gets in the purple booster seat he bought because he’s just that much of a sucker, even though purple was twice as much as the other styles.
“I got a gold star today, ‘cause could read the clock,” Emma declares, and Jared reaches back to give her a high five. “Also, I want to go to the bank.”
“The bank? What’s so special about the bank?” Jared asks. Personally, he hates the bank. His account total always somehow manages to be so much less than he’d like it to be.
“Me’n Mom went to the bank yesterday, and there was a tubie-thing that took a piece of paper and
sucked it up and then I got a lollipop,” Emma explains, gesturing wildly like Jared might not understand how the pneumatic tubes work.
“Well, I wanted to go to lunch, but I guess we could go to the bank first,” Jared says, “and then can we go get McDonalds?”
Emma claps her hands excitedly. Megan has this whole theory that McDonalds is going to give Emma cancer, so Thursday is always fast food day. And Jeff wonders why he’s not the favorite uncle.
***
Jared doesn’t especially like the bank drive-through tubes, and usually tries to avoid them. They’ve always seemed vaguely ominous, like something from Star Wars or Star Trek, and at any minute could sprout legs and walk away.
Clearly, though, this is not a legitimate excuse for Emma, who has her heart set on the pneumatic tubes.
“They’ll give you a lollipop if we go inside, too!” he tries, but Emma just frowns and threatens to never draw him another picture again, so the tubes it is.
“Can I put the paper in the box?” Emma asks, good humor restored now that Jared is doing what she wants. Jared grins and passes the container back to her, where she fiddles around with it before passing it back.
“Now put it in the tubie!” she commands. Jared does as ordered, glancing up at the teller’s window as he does so, and freezes for a minute, because goddamn if the teller isn’t the hottest man he’s ever seen. Like, ever. In his life.
Emma follows his gaze curiously, and then pokes him in the shoulder. Jared starts.
“That’s the man who gives you your money back,” Emma explains. “But you have to shut the tube door first.”
“Right,” Jared mutters, and watches the teller while Emma watches the container fly through the tube. It comes back with a yellow deposit slip for Jared and a yellow lollipop for Emma, and the teller winks at Jared through the window.
Somehow, he has the feeling ‘going to the bank’ is going to be a regular Thursday activity from here on out.
***
Emma is totally on board with this plan, because apparently pneumatic tubes never get old, and the roll call of withdrawals and deposits on Jared’s monthly credit report gets distressingly long. It gets to the point where he’s withdrawing and depositing the same cash, because, um, hi, grad student, and he doesn’t really have the capital to run around spending flagrantly just because he wants to go to the bank.
And actually, when Jared thinks about it like that, the whole situation sounds a little pathetic. Maybe it’s time to change this pattern a little bit. Like, actually going in and talking to this guy might be a good idea, before the bank calls and asks if someone stole his credit card or something.
***
The next week, Emma doesn’t have school-something about a teacher strike since Tuesday, Jared is a little vague on the details. Megan still works on Thursdays, though, and he still doesn’t have classes, so he comes early to Megan’s tiny apartment to pick up Emma.
“Ask Emma what she did in school yesterday,” Megan says, as soon as he walks in.
“Yeah, hi, I love you too,” Jared says mildly, and then adds, “you know I ask her this every Thursday, right?”
“Yeah, but, today’s response is going to be spectacular,” she explains, “and also, I’m concerned about teenage pregnancy running in the family.”
“What the fuck are you-“ Jared starts, but doesn’t finish because Emma comes running in from whatever she was doing in her bedroom, and Megan hits him when he swears in front of Emma.
“Uncle Jared! Uncle Jared! I made you a picture!” Emma exclaims, holding up a colorful drawing of a horse, or possibly a vacuum cleaner. It could go either way.
Jared grabs the picture and examines it carefully. “Wow, Emma, it’s fantastic!” he exclaims.
“It’s the bank drive-though,” she explains, “see, there’s the bank man.”
Jared laughs, because that was about the last thing he was going to guess. “It’s awesome,” he says anyway. “So I hear you had a good day at school on Monday?”
“I kissed Ben!” she exclaims, and Jared gapes.
“Kissed him! Why are you kissing boys? I thought boys have cooties!”
“Cooties aren’t real, stupid,” she informs him, and Megan glares at him, which is probably justified because he taught her that word. “And anyway, it was fun!”
“You should definitely be worried about teenage pregnancy,” Jared tells Megan, and then scoops Emma up to carry her out to the car. “No kissing boys until you’re at least 18!” he scolds, and she shrieks with laughter as he tickles her side.
***
“Do we get to go to the bank today?” Emma asks longingly, once her chicken nuggets have been devoured and soda drained.
“Has there been a day in the last two and a half months when we haven’t?” Jared says.
“But today is special,” Emma points out. “There wasn’t any school today, so maybe there’s no bank today either.”
“Well,” Jared says, “I was thinking that today, since it is such a special day, we should actually go inside the bank. And talk to the bank teller.”
Emma looks doubtful. “Will he give me a lollipop?”
“If there are no lollipops to be had inside the bank, we can go to the grocery store and buy an entire bag,” Jared says decisively, and Emma grins.
***
There isn’t a lot of competition for parking at the bank at eleven in the morning, so Jared is able to swing his truck over the lines into two spots. He’s glad he double-parked when Emma flings the door open with enthusiasm (he has to remember to put the childlock on!), and manages to nearly hit the car next to them even with the extra space.
“Do you think the window man will be there?” Emma asks.
“I definitely hope so, hun.”
He is. The man’s eyes light up when Jared walks in, and wow, sometimes he forgets over the week how attractive this man is. Like he’s so pretty that Jared’s brain can’t even comprehend how pretty when he’s not around, or something.
“Hey!” he says, as Jared and Emma walk up. “You’re the guy who comes to the tubes every Thursday!”
“You remember me?” Jared says, a little surprised.
The teller flushes. “Not too many people come by every single week. Hey but, uh, I’m Jensen. What can I do for you guys today? Another withdrawal?”
“Uh, yeah,” says Jared, flushing bright red. He’d had this all planned out in his head-Jensen would ask him how he was doing and Jared would ask for his phone number, but now that he’s actually here, in front of the guy? Somehow all his bravado has rushed out the window.
“Uh, yeah,” says Jared hurriedly. “Can I get out a fifty?”
Jensen looks amused. “You know, you can do that at the ATM,” he says.
“Yeah, well, my niece here likes her lollipops,” Jared says like that’s a legitimate excuse. Jensen just grins and whips out two twenties and a ten with a lollipop on top of the stack and passes them over.
Fuck. That is not how Jared pictured that.
Jared is strapping Emma into her car seat when she pokes him in the side.
“Uncle Jared?” she asks.
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“Is the bank teller going to be your boyfriend? Cause he’s even nicer than Ben- Ben doesn’t give me lollipops! If he’s your boyfriend he can give me lollipops all the time.”
Possibly Jared needs to not be so obvious that his five your old niece recognizes attraction. “I think it’d be nice if he was,” Jared says cautiously, because he’s never seen the point in lying to Emma.
“I like him better than my boyfriend,” Emma says decisively. “Ben throws paper at me.”
“Well, sometimes boys do that when they like you,” Jared says, “because boys aren’t as smart as girls and don’t know how to say they like you.”
Emma looks scornful. “it’s not that hard, “ she tells Jared, “Just say I wanna be your boyfriend!”
***
“So, Emma tells me you have a boyfriend,’ Megan says, apparently extremely amused when Jared drops her off the next week.
“Yeah, I wish,” Jared says, “because Meggie? You have no fucking idea. I think this guy may be the hottest man I’ve ever met. Like, in my life. Ever. And also, I haven’t gotten laid in a disgustingly long time.”
“Don’t talk to me about getting laid,” Megan says. “You don’t have a five year old. It’s like the best birth control ever.”
“Too bad you didn’t have that when you were eighteen,” Jared teases, and Megan thwaps him.
“Shut up, fart face. So this bank teller, then. Gonna ask him out?”
Jared grimaces. “I don’t know. I think I’m too chicken poop.”
“Why would you want to be chicken poop?” Emma asks, and Jared laughs.
“That’s a very good question, Emma.”
***
The next week, Emma is grinning and bouncing like usual, but refusing to say a word.
“What’s up, Emmie?” Jared asks.
Emma just smiles even wider and mimes zipping her lips shut. Jared sighs. This cannot end well.
“Well,” he says with a sigh, “I guess if you don’t wanna talk to me you don’t have to, but we probably should just go home and take your temperature then. Maybe you’re sick.”
“Nooo!” Emma shrieks immediately, “We have to go to the bank!”
And, wow, that was astoundingly emphatic.
“As long as you talk,” Jared says, mock stern. “I can’t drive around with no one to talk to!”
That’s apparently enough to set Emma off on her normal monologue, but she’s clearly still trying very hard not to say something, because she cuts herself off repeatedly and then gives a little giggle. Jared isn’t really concerned, though, because Emma has only recently discovered secrets and thinks they’re the best ever. What she wants for dinner becomes a secret, or what she has in her backpack.
“Let’s go inside,” she declares, as soon as Jared pulls up into the bank, and flings the door open before he’s properly put the car in park. He has got to remember that childlock.
Emma takes off into the building, and Jared follows at a more sedate pace. Jensen is the only teller on duty, but there’s no one else inside, so Emma already has him engaged in conversation.
“… and then we learned about Austramila, did you know they walk around upside down there?” she’s saying. “Oh, there’s Uncle Jared. Come over here!”
“So, Emma here was telling me about her geography class,” Jensen says, a small smile on his face that kind of makes Jared want to kiss him. “Apparently in France they wear funny hats.”
“There’s a book with pictures,” Jared says ruefully. “Apparently in Alabama, everyone is black.”
“Good to know.” Jensen is still kind of smiling. “So, hey, I think I met your sister the other day.”
Jared isn’t really sure he knows where this is going, but he’s positive it’s not going to be somewhere he likes. “You did?” he says cautiously. “What’d she say?”
“Essentially that you had better things to do with your time than come in here and flirt with me, so I should just ask you out, since you’re too chicken poop to do it yourself.”
“Mommy calls him chicken poop a lot,” Emma contributes. “I don’t get it.”
Jared feels a little like thumping his head on the counter. “Look, I’m sorry, she’s my kid sister but I swear sometimes she thinks-“
“Believe me, I didn’t mind. Did you know I thought Emma was yours? I assumed you were married or something. If I’d known she was your niece that you babysit once I week, I woulda done this a lot sooner.” He winks, and scrawls a number down on a blank deposit script. “Call me if you want to do dinner sometime.”
“Yeah, okay,” Jared says, a little dumbstruck. He looks up from the yellow paper in his hand. “I’ll do that.”
Jensen’s grin is a little blinding, and Jared is almost glad for the interruption of Emma asking for her lollipop, for all that he could probably stand and just smile stupidly all day.
His sister is the best.