I Know What a Prince and Lover Ought to Be Part 3- J2 - NC-17
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Jensen returns to Ackles the year he reaches his majority. It's a big deal: a large group from Harris accompanies him, all of the royal family, and a great many of the rest of the Harris court. Ackles hosts them for three weeks. Hunts are held, feasts thrown. Gifts are given by both sides, and it all culminates in a ceremony on Jensen's birthday, as the Harris court presents Ackles as their son, an adult, raised and trained in the ways of royalty. Ackles welcomes their son back with joy and thanks Harris for the raising of him, for his protection as a boy, and his training as a youth. It's all incredibly boring, and Jensen does his best not to sleep through any of it, because it's technically his return ceremony, so he can't.
Jensen doesn't sneak out into the woods between the castle and the Padalecki border. He doesn't ride out through it on his own. He doesn't stop by a stream, much smaller now, at least in comparison to Jensen's memory of it, or the rock pile, or the big oak tree. He doesn't wait or look for Jay at all. It's been too long, and you don't get back those kinds of childhood friendships. Trying to revive them is a waste of energy.
Jensen does buy a small, brightly glazed jar from some merchants passing through court two weeks later. The jar is from Rabadhishan, simple and common. He doesn't need anything large or fancy. He just needs a better place to keep one hundred pebbles than an old bundle made out of a raggedy handkerchief.
Sandy rides out with the hunt; the entire envoy from Cortese is conspicuously absent. Jensen can't decide whether it was a calculated, politically shrewd move or the diplomatic equivalent of a hissy fit, but Jared is visibly upset. Jensen can't tell if it's Sandy's presence, Genevieve's absence, or the simple fact that neither party is making an effort to get along--or even be seen at the same social function--when Jensen knows as well as Jared that they don't really have any reason to be upset with each other. Jensen's seen enough of the other prince to know by now that Jared can be infuriatingly arrogant or exceedingly charming, but he isn't particularly conniving. He could have taken much better advantage of the position Jensen put himself in a few days ago, but it almost seems as though those possibilities never occurred to him.
Jensen urges his horse forward, pulling up next to Jared's. "You ok?" Jensen asks. Jared noticeably comes back to himself, and Jensen repeats his question. He shoots a glance towards Sandy, who, along with Sophia, Princess Heir of Bush and bride to be, is scowling at something Chad's of Murray saying, so that Jared will know what he's asking about.
Jared runs a hand through his hair, pushing floppy hair back from his face. "I--Yeah. I mean, Sandy doesn't want to marry me. It just made a lot of sense politically, strengthen ties along that border, coordinate patrols. Have to worry about it less. There've been poachers sneaking in, we think along the edge between patrols, these past ten, fifteen years, and there'd be more incentive for McCoy to try to prevent it if someone from Padalecki ended up sharing their throne someday." Jared trails off, brow still furrowed. It's more than Jensen's ever gotten out of Jared before; it's more than Jensen would have thought he'd want to ask, but somehow he feels better for knowing it.
"Is it because Princess Genevieve didn't come out for the hunt, then?" Jensen hasn't hunted with her yet, but Mackenzie went out with her once with falcons. She's good at it; her hawk brought down three fat ducks, more than any other individual hawk did that day. Boar hunting isn't the same, but this is mostly a social event, anyway. Her absence is marked, just like Cortese's avoidance of Padalecki in the past few days has been marked. No one at the season will have missed it.
Jared looks away, and Jensen can't catch his eyes again. "She doesn't like hunting in the woods," he says, but Jensen thinks he's lying. So would anyone else Jared fed that line to. "Cortese is mostly plains, you know, and the rest of it is sand and desert like Radishan. Gen doesn't like the way the trees close in on her." That last part might be true, but Jared knows as well as Jensen that that's not the reason no one from Cortese is on this hunt.
The bay dogs pick up the scent quickly, and the chase begins. The dogs flush out a big old boar that's scarred along its back and missing one eye, suggesting it has survived at least one hunt before. It's mean, and cautious, feinting at the hunters on horseback and any dogs that get too close, but never truly charging, just keeping its attackers back. The bay dogs keep the boar from escaping back into the underbrush, while the catch dogs circle closer with every feinting charge the boar makes.
The boar feints another charge, then swerves and turns suddenly, swiping its tusks at one of the catch dogs, the one with the slightly lighter coat. The dog jumps out of the way, just barely, and the boar turns again to pursue it. The move throws the boar off balance, not enough to bring it down, but enough to make it stumble, and then one of the other catch dogs is on it, teeth closing at the base of the old boar's ear, keeping it from turning its head to gore it.
Chad, second heir to Murray and daring bridegroom to be, takes the honors and brings the hunt to an end. Huntsmen move in to pull the dogs back, and they dress the boar for transport back to the castle. It is an auspicious end of the hunt for the expectant bridegroom to make the kill, and the hunting party returns in high spirits. Feasting will last well into the night, and dancing will continue past dawn.
Genevieve is in the courtyard waiting for the hunters when they return. It's chaos, dogs and people and horses milling around, being rounded up and taken away to kennels and stables in the case of the animals, servants coming and going, lords and ladies clustering to congratulate Chad on his trophy or leaving in groups. No one's paying attention to them. Genevieve nods, slightly, almost imperceptibly, at Jared. Jared catches Jensen's eyes, and it's time.
Jensen hands his reins off to a groom and makes his way towards Jared, still ahorse. Jensen gets there a few moments after Jared dismounts, caught between the horse and the courtyard wall, and presses him back, crowding into his space. The way Jared backs up is instinctual, till he hits the wall, reins still in his hand. The horse crowds them closer, but Jensen doesn't mind. He has to get closer for this anyway. It's the perfect spot: not quite open, not quite hidden, and all they need is the kiss and then for Genevieve to call them out, and his pledge will be fulfilled.
It doesn't go like that. Not quite. Jared's back hits the wall, and he starts to tilt his head down, help Jensen reach his mouth. Jared's not moving fast enough, though, so Jensen reaches up, grabs his face, and pulls him down. The kiss is hard, fast, bright. Jared's mouth is open, just the slightest bit--Jensen thinks he took him by surprise--but Jensen takes that as an invitation and pushes inside to lick at the roof of Jared's mouth, taste the back of his teeth. Jared doesn't let him get away with that, refuses to stand there passively, sucking on Jensen's tongue before pushing them both back into Jensen's mouth and stealing all of Jensen's air.
Jensen doesn't even realize they've moved closer together, pressed chest to chest and hips touching, until Genevieve storms up and pushes them apart. She's tiny and can't really get enough leverage to actually move them away from each other, but the shock of the world crashing back is enough to get Jensen to step back. He runs right into Jared's horse, face pulled around as Jared has wrapped an arm around Jensen's back. Genevieve steps into the space Jensen left, but facing Jensen as much as she's facing Jared. She slaps them both, hard, across the face, bright heat flaring across Jensen's cheek, and storms away. Jared's got a red mark blossoming into being under his tan where Genevieve hit him; she wasn't holding anything back. Jared shoots Jensen a look, but he can't read it, isn't sure if he's supposed to be able to or if it's just part of the scheme, so he just stands there as Jared goes after her.
It's not until after Jared's gone, the horse taken away but the heat still flaring in his cheek, that Jensen realizes he's hard.
Jared is seated two places down from Jensen, but across the table instead of on the same side. He's just barely too far away to really talk to, but Jensen has trouble paying attention to the conversations going on on either side of him. He vaguely thinks he's nodding in the right places, and he doesn't ask anyone to repeat themselves too many times, but he keeps swimming back into the conversation at odd places, and his attention keeps skipping back to Jared two places down, across the table, and the way his throat works as he swallows.
It's distracting, and it shouldn't be, because whatever Jared is, he's also a Padalecki. That used to be plenty to keep Jensen from noticing--or at least acknowledging--the fact that Jared is extremely well put together--tall and dark, with clear hazel eyes that reveal a lot more than they probably should--and it should be enough to keep Jensen from wondering what his cock tastes like. It isn't really working. Jensen keeps flashing back to the kiss in the courtyard. He eats mechanically, whatever is on the plate in front of him, finishing when he runs out of food or a servant comes to take it away, and tries to focus on the kid seated next to him and the words that are coming out of his mouth.
It gets easier once the dancing starts, the long tables broken up and pushed to the sides. Jared isn't hovering just on the periphery of Jensen's space and in the center of Jensen's attention. Too many people moving around help distract Jensen; he doesn't have to see the lithe movements of Jared's body, or acknowledge the way he can't look away from the long line of Jared's neck. Jensen asks Jessica to dance, and she's apparently forgiven him enough for butting his nose into her business, because she accepts.
"So, does this mean I'm forgiven?" Jensen asks her.
She squeezes his arm and breaks off for the spin, and she doesn't answer until they're back together again. "I heard about the thing with Cortese and Padalecki this afternoon." At least she doesn't ask, 'Are you insane?' or 'What were you thinking?!'
Jensen winces. "It's not what it sounds like," he starts, but she cuts him off with a little shrug of her shoulders that's not part of the dance.
"Hey, look, some of us know how to mind our own business," she says, and Jensen winces again. Totally not forgiven. "But mostly, I figure you're going to get the business tonight from your parents, and could maybe do with a little less yelling beforehand." His parents. Fuck, his parents are going to kill him. Jensen misses a step and isn't ready when he's supposed to catch Jessica's hand as she spins back towards him. He doesn't miss entirely, but the hold's terrible and not strong enough to stop her momentum. He catches her, clumsily, backing up hastily to manage it, and bumps into the couple behind them.
It's Danneel, dancing with a young prince Jensen doesn't know personally but has seen before in Harris. Danneel sighs, dramatic and exasperated. "I know Harris taught you better than to throw your dance partners around like that, Ackles," she says. "I can't let you dance with other people like this. You're going to give Harris a bad name."
She turns to smile at Jessica. "Thank you for the favor the other night at dinner. Please allow me to return it: this is Cash, Prince of Warren. He can actually dance." Danneel lets them exchange greetings and then insists that they dance together, so that she doesn't have to worry about anyone else's health and safety with Jensen. Jensen immediately feels better. It's good to be reminded that he's got someone in his corner.
"You've got that look in your eyes again," Danneel tells him after she cuts in.
Jensen looks at her in surprise. "What look?" He pretends he hasn't been stealing a glance at where his parents are sitting, smiling and laughing with other older royalty off the dance floor, wondering what they'll say when they're alone. Pretends he hasn't been watching Jared across the room dancing with Princess Sandy. She looks tiny against him. Pretends he doesn't spare any thought to wonder what he looked like with Jared against him, earlier.
"The 'I've got awful taste in men' look," she says.
"I do not have awful taste in men," Jensen protests. "That was just the one time, but you, you never let me live it down. I was young and inexperienced! I had no reason to know any better!" He forgets all about the trouble with Padalecki and his parents in his vehemence.
"You're just lucky you still have me around to keep you on track." They're dancing, so Jensen can't flip her off, but he thinks about it.
"Jensen, come up to our rooms, please. We need to speak with you," his mother says as soon as it's late enough that leaving won't cause comment. Jensen nods in understanding and waits until she's turned away before taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. He needs a moment to pull his story together. At least it's just him, his sister and brother still down at the party and unlikely to retire early. They know there's going to be trouble as well as he does, and they're doing him a favor by staying out of it.
It actually goes worse than Jensen thought it would. His parents accept his excuse, let him explain how he was trying to break up the marriage negotiations between Padalecki and Cortese. They nod along gravely when he points out that it worked, that Cortese is rumored to be packing up, with plans to leave the next day. They don't care, because it was reckless and risky, and, wildly successful or not, he isn't supposed to take them by surprise with his political moves.
“Jensen, look. We know you were trying to do a good thing. But you know we’re going back to Ackles the day after tomorrow to make sure everything’s ok at home, and you and your siblings are staying here to represent our family until we come back for the wedding. Your father and I need to know that you’re not going to be pulling crazy stunts like that while we’re gone,” his mother tells him.
Jensen can't argue with that. He knows what it looked like from their perspective, and he can't explain that he was trying to--to--he doesn't even know, to make friends with the younger Padalecki prince, that he was trying to prove Ackles' worth.
“You’re not normally like that, Jensen,” his father adds. “You’ve been working the circuit for at least four years now. I know you’re capable of thinking things through before acting and making sure that the things you do and say are really what is best for Ackles in the long run.”
“Ackles needs to have a unified stance,” they go on. Provoking Padalecki, enemy or not, is not really beneficial when it means the possibility of renewed hostilities along their border. It puts their kingdom in a bad position. No, of course Jensen doesn’t want that.
They’re talking to him like a child. It grates, but Jensen can’t deny the stupidity of making blind promises to enemy sons-and he definitely can’t tell his parents what the whole thing was really about-so Jensen keeps his mouth shut and lets them chastise him. When they're done, he promises he won't do anything like that again. It's a promise Jensen thinks he can keep; the situation's too insane for him to get into more than once.
He thinks about going back to his rooms after his parents dismiss him. Thinks about it, and how he'd pace round and round in circles because being closed in right then would make him feel trapped. There's still the party going on downstairs, but Jensen doesn't think he can face all those people. They might not know anything, but he's mentally exhausted and not prepared to do all the political and social dancing he'd need to do if he went back. Instead, he wanders around the back of the castle and finds a quiet spot overlooking the sea.
The sky is clear, sea mists won't be rolling in until well after midnight only to burn away with the morning light. Jensen settles himself against the stone parapet and tries to forget his parents' faces, the feel of Jared's mouth under his, everything but the moon on the water and the cool of the stone beneath his hands.
"Want to come up to my rooms?" Jared says, appearing out of the dark to prop his elbows up on the stone railing next to Jensen. He looks out over the water, too, instead of at Jensen.
Jensen gives him a look. "Does anyone have to know? I don't think I can take another lecture this week."
Jared grimaces. "Yeah, know the feeling. And hey, as long as no one sees you, you're safe; I won't be telling anyone." When Jensen doesn't say anything, Jared prompts him again, sounding almost hopeful. "We could get some food sent up."
"Dude, we just had like, ten courses. How can you possibly eat anything else?"
"Family pressure makes me hungry!" Jared says defensively, but he's almost laughing, and Jensen kind of needs that, needs someone who doesn't think he's a totally reckless idiot, someone who knows he did a nice thing, who's grateful for it.
"Yeah, sure. Lead the way." Jensen finally turns to look at Jared. He catches Jared's smiling as he looks out to sea.
Jared does order a second dinner: cold leftovers from the feast that night. Up comes a platter of meat, sliced off various dishes. Some leftover dessert, sweet candied fruit, lemons and mangos dried and drizzled with honey. A flask of wine, also leftover, but mostly full. They get trencher bread, but that's ok, because they also get some of the lightest, crispiest, flakiest pastries Jensen's ever had, and they definitely didn't have those at dinner.
Jared grins, a little embarrassed. "I might get a little snack around now most nights?" he offers, "The cooks kind of like me, because I never send any of the food back with complaints, and because I do send down compliments when things are extra good, so sometimes they send up extra treats like this."
He fishes a couple of chalices out of a cupboard and fills them up. Jensen's not really hungry. He has a pastry, because they're amazing and fresh, but mostly only nibbles a little at everything else. Jared wasn't kidding about needing a meal after getting chewed out, apparently, because he tucks in with gusto, and Jensen tries not to get too distracted watching him eat. It's just eating. People eat all the time. But Jensen catches his eyes following the motion of Jared's tongue as he swipes it over his lips, and he remembers what they felt like. How they were hard under his, perfect, and how he wants to feel that again, feel Jared pressed up against him. That kiss was supposed to be about proving his honor, a way to get Jared and Genevieve out of their negotiations, and that was it. The kiss was a one time thing, staged for the benefit of their audience. He doesn't get another.
Jensen tells Jared about fostering in Harris to have something to talk about, something neutral that doesn't have anything to do with the day's events, and he tries to convince himself that he doesn't want to touch.
In exchange, Jared tells him about Rabhadishan, pulls him in with stories about his mother's side of the family and helping to repaint roofs after the spring sandstorms. It reminds Jensen, just for a moment, of a little kid, younger than him, but still pretty awesome, who told him about the brightly colored roofs in the city and who always wanted to see a sandstorm. It doesn't do anything to get Jared out of his head.
Jensen goes back to his own rooms well after the sea mists have rolled in to smother the castle. He dreams about putting his mouth on Jared's skin and the way the sweat on his collarbones must taste. In the morning, he tries to push it all out of his head.
The suite of rooms Jensen has been given for his use in the castle at Koren by the Sea contains a small private bath--a luxury unheard of in his home kingdom of Ackles. The bathing room is fed from a series of cisterns on the palace roof; in Ackles, it gets too cold in the winter to maintain, freezing and thawing and refreezing bursting the wooden cisterns. There's a boiler somewhere in between the cistern and Jensen's bathing room, so the water that pours from the spout is actually hot. That alone makes the room a luxury.
But the best part about the bathing room is the window. It fills most of the wall, starting at about the level of the top of the tub and going all the way up to the ceiling. Outside there's a little back courtyard, paved carefully flat so it can be used as an outdoor training area; it doesn't look used often, but it's kept in good repair. A wall runs along the outside of the courtyard, hemming it in on three sides; the fourth is a wall of the castle itself, where Jensen's rooms are. The thing that really makes the window, though, is that above the little courtyard wall facing his room, the view opens out onto the ocean, dazzling sunshine on a glassy sea.
It's the perfect room to waste an hour in, no disturbances, no intrigue, no Jared, whom Jensen is having more than enough trouble getting out of his head lately. Just the open sky, the never-ending sea, and dazzling glass. The water is hot and the view is amazing, and Jensen is just going to sit there for a while while the water's still warm.
Jensen doesn't think about Jared, and he ignores his cock. He focuses on the view out the window: the sky, the ocean, the little stretch of courtyard cradled by the very outer edge of the castle's walls.
The water's almost too hot when Jensen gets in, but he pushes down into it anyway, hissing slightly. He'll adjust. And he does, sinking back against the edge of the stone tub gingerly. Everything just relaxes all at once, even the parts like the back of his neck that he didn't even realize were tense to begin with. Jensen takes a deep, careful breath, then lets it out again. He doesn't think about Jared. Not about his floppy hair, or his earnest eyes, or about how freaking big he is, broad shoulders, strong arms, huge freaking hands that probably match--
And then, because Jensen just can't escape, Jared walks into the courtyard carrying one of the sharp, curved blades from Rabhadishan. It's a one-handed weapon, with a prominent guard at the wrist. But Jensen pays no attention to the weapon. Jared runs through a warm-up exercise with the blade, some patterned routine, movements measured and precise. It's beautiful, and Jensen shifts so he can see better. Someone so big shouldn't be so fast, so graceful. The courtyard is all stone and no shadows; Jared's shirt soaks through quickly. He strips it off not long after that but keeps working, powerful lines of his back and shoulders clearly defined. None of it helps with Jensen's hard-on, just shows him more clearly what he wants and what he can't have.
Jensen's hand slithers down his stomach as he watches Jared move. He shouldn't, he can't, but he will, and then he'll go back to trying to get the memory of the way Jared's tongue tasted out of his head. His grip's too tight, and the water's suddenly too hot for comfort, but Jensen can see the sweat running down the side of Jared's neck, and he doesn't want anything as much as he wants to lick it off. He doesn't want anything as much he wants to sink his teeth into the skin there and hear the noise Jared makes when he does.
Jensen's hand tightens, pulls, and his hips jerk up with it. In the courtyard, Jared's arms come up above his head, posed, and he does a quarter turn and holds it. God, his chest. Jensen remembers what it feels like, pressed up against him, hard, strong. He wants to know what it would feel like skin to skin, wants to feel Jared's speeding heartbeat, the way the skin would catch against his, stick, slide. He bets it would burn him up. Jensen twists his hand around the head, slides slick to the base to trace up the veins with blunt fingernails. Tries to imagine Jared's calloused hands on him instead. Jensen's head tips back, eyes squeezed tight as he fucks into his hand faster, water splashing messily up the sides of the tub. He can't keep himself quiet, so he sinks his teeth into the back of his wrist, tells himself it's Jared's teeth on his arm, but the taste isn't right. He comes anyway.
Jared's still outside practicing when Jensen finally pries his eyes open, he doesn't know how much later, his back to Jensen's room, muscles sliding under skin. Jensen's still wrung out, but the buzz in the back of his head is back, the one that seems to run to the rhythm of Jared's sword routines. He'll need to draw another bath.
Jensen is so fucked.
Jensen avoids Jared the next few days. He doesn't offer his services for any of the morning hunts, not even the one Danneel tries to talk him into because he's been bugging her about it for a couple of weeks and now she's going, and he's not. Jensen doesn't want to risk a repeat of that first hunt, just the two of them.
Jensen twirls Danneel gracefully on the dance floor. It's mostly Danneel's doing, particularly the graceful part, but dancing with Jensen isn't too bad because she can count on him not to step on her. Jensen maintains that he would have to pick his feet up in order to step on hers.
"You'd be surprised," Danneel mutters darkly as they close to do a turn together, arms raised and touching lightly from elbow to fingertips. They step apart again, and Jensen turns once to the outside, and then once back to the inside, before closing again to pass under one of Danneel's raised arms. He does a series of four turns around her and finishes once he's facing her again. Danneel copies his movements and takes his hands again once she's returned to her original position. Jensen tracks Prince Jared performing similar movements across the room, but he looks away when Jared notices the attention and tries to catch his eyes.
"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment for me, or a disparagement of everyone else," Jensen finally jokes.
"You're passable, I guess," Danneel tells him, grinning. "Take it however you want to."
They break off as the dance ends, finishing in a révérence. An estampie starts up, and Danneel goes off in search of another partner. Jensen's heading off the dance floor, making way for more energetic dancers, when he sees Mackenzie across the room, facing a group of boys about her age. A frown's settled over her face, and she's looking steadily angrier the longer the boys are in front of her. She says something Jensen is too far away to hear, and one of the boys in the group shakes his head. Another, whose stance is all arrogance, seems to say something, and Jensen can just make out Mackenzie's hands balling into fists.
He has to get over there now, because he knows Mackenzie, and she's about to wail on them. She had the same self-defense tutor as their older brother, and Mackenzie pulls no punches. If someone doesn't stop her, whatever it was the boys were saying, however deserved the thumping, his baby sister could hurt someone, which, under a truce banner, would be catastrophic. Jensen's too far away, though, fighting through the crowd to the edge of the dance floor and cutting through the middle of the dancers, who squawk and hurriedly move to avoid him. Jensen doesn't pay them any attention, just obstacles for him on his way; he's got his eyes trained on Mackenzie's face as two points of color settle high on her cheeks, anger in every line of her body. Fear rises in his throat. He's not going to make it.
And then Jared steps up behind Mackenzie, asks a low question. Jensen's caught up in a tangle of people by a refreshment table, still pushing his way through, and he can't hear what's being said, but whatever the boys say in reply isn't the right answer. Jared looms at the four boys cornering Mackenzie, scowl firmly in place, and he says something else. Jensen's just close enough to catch the tail end, something about sticking around bothering nice young ladies not being a very good idea, and the group of boys break up and slink away into the greater crowd of guests in the hall.
Jared turns to Mackenzie, asks, "Are you ok?"
She's still angry, worked up over what the boys were saying, and snaps, "I had that handled, ok? I can take care of myself! I don't need your help," before spinning off into the crowd herself just as Jensen ducks around a last knot of casual chatters blocking his way. Now Jared's the only one left standing in the space of the no-longer imminent storm, and Jensen slows his approach slightly, wavering. Jared sees him before he can make up his mind and maybe slip away back into the crowd, and Jensen shakes himself mentally. At the very least, he owes Jared thanks for stepping in to help his sister.
"Hey. Thanks, man. I saw Mack's face, but I was all the way across the room, and I just couldn't get there in time to stop whatever it was they were doing that she wasn't ok with, or calm her down or anything."
"Don't worry about it. I saw her face, too. She wasn't happy. Given a few more minutes, she might have hauled off and punched someone. Which, Truce."
"Yeah," Jensen laughs. "Girl knows how to stick up for herself. But won't it cause problems for you? At least one of those guys was from Phillips; you have treaties with Phillips."
Jared shrugs. "It's fine."
"No, seriously, why would you stick up for her when she's an Ackles, and you have formal ties with them? That's--If it's not idiotic, I'm not sure what is," Jensen presses. Crossing houses your own line has ties with can be political suicide. If the prince from Phillips decides to make an issue of it, Jared may have serious problems in the future.
Jared shrugs again, smiling wryly. "Ironically enough, I'd say they don't come from good enough families. And for the record, they were being jackasses."
They ford the river at a place where it spreads out, shallowing and slowing enough that they can cross without asking their horses to swim it or risking getting their bows wet in the water. The footing on the other bank isn't very good, the ground shaley and the dirt having a tendency to crumble into the river when weight is put on it. They aren't hunting today, just riding for a morning's occupation. There aren't any major events planned for the day, no preparations either Jensen or Jared need to make, and Jensen is well past the point of denying (at least to himself) that he enjoys the other prince's company, scourge of a Padalecki or not.
One huntsman accompanies Jensen and Jared on this excursion, more a guide than anything else. Jensen trained in denser brush than this: forests full of creeping vines that obscure one's vision, then open suddenly into hazardous covered swamps. He could find his own way if he had to. Jensen doesn't see any reason to do his own path-finding when a whole wing of the servants' quarters is filled with skilled men and women of the hunt who know the woodlands west of the castle as well as a nurse knows her nursery.
The huntsman crosses the river first, blazing a trail up the opposite bank, showing them where the footing is best. Jensen and Jared strike out across the water behind him. Jensen's horse picks its way carefully up the low bank onto firmer ground, and then Jared's horse hauls itself up behind him. Jared's just made the top of the bank when a flock of geese decides it's in danger and breaks cover, flashing out from the bushes by the bank and over the water, spooking all three horses. All three shy and dance as their riders work to reassure them, the huntsman speaking to his horse in calm, low tones even as he shortens the reins to restrict the horse's movement. Jared's horse backs up hurriedly to avoid the perceived threat in the sudden appearance of a lot of fast-moving animals near its feet and stops just shy of the edge of the embankment.
And then the edge of the bank collapses under the combined weight of Jared and his horse, sending both tumbling the short distance into the water. Jared comes out of the saddle as they hit the water, and the horse rolls back to its feet quickly. Jared resurfaces a moment later, somewhat less gracefully, but he manages to catch the horse's tangled reins before it can decide to bolt. Both horse and rider are entirely soaked, the horse standing in water that comes up to its belly and Jared standing in the water at its head. The horse almost looks embarrassed as they drip forlornly into the river, but the big gelding lets Jared lead it back up the bank they've just fallen down--despite its recent memories of 'danger' there--and check it for injury.
Jensen and the huntsman dismount to help; all of Jared's horse's tack is soaked, of course, but the horse seems unharmed despite its tumble. Jared also managed to avoid injury, but hunting apparel dries exceptionally poorly whilst being worn in the field. There's not much wringing out one can do of a leather jerkin, and while Jared could get most of the water out of the fine cotton shirt he's wearing underneath, wet wool and leather would be unpleasant to struggle back into once he's done. Jared's equipment has suffered from its dunking as well, so the small party decides to just turn back. There's no reason to continue an enjoyable ride once it, by unfortunate circumstance, ceases to be enjoyable--particularly when dry clothes await not far away.
Jared sees his horse into the capable hands of the grooms back at the castle for care and stabling, Jensen helping by holding Jared's sodden saddlebags.
"My rooms are closer," Jensen offers, and the smile Jared flashes is so big and bright it reminds Jensen of Jay and how his smiles seemed to make the sun shine. In his rooms, Jensen directs Jared to the dressing area, partitioned off by an elaborately carved screen, and tosses him a cloth to dry off with before going to find something that would fit the bigger man. Nothing does, of course, and he ends up wearing one of Jensen's shirts that's too tight around the shoulders and a fur-lined robe Jensen finds in the back of one of the castle-provided wardrobes, because all of Jensen's pants are four inches too short and won't lace up properly.
It's not ideal, but it will serve for a while, and Jensen rings for a servant to fetch Jared a proper pair of pants and supper on a platter for the both of them. Jared eats more than Jensen's ever seen anyone do in a sitting, and he asks Jensen about the few knickknacks important enough to pack for travel.
"This is from Rabhadishan," Jared says, after they're finished eating, tracing a finger along the edge of the jar Jensen keeps Jay's magic pebbles in.
"Yeah," Jensen says.
"I thought you said you'd never been down there," Jared says.
Jensen shakes his head even though Jared's not looking at him. "No, I got that in Ackles, brought north by some merchants."
Jared smiles when he turns his head to look back at Jensen over his shoulder. "These are all over the place down there. All different sizes. Nothing special." His grin widens. "Up here, you hardly ever see them. It's kind of nice, like a little piece of home, you know?" He's been turning the jar around and around in his big hands as he talks, watching the colors blur into kind of a smooth picture, something Jensen has never thought to try. It's a little hypnotic. And then Jared's finger hits the clasp on the lid, and it pops open, and pebbles go spinning everywhere.
"Shit!" Jared says, putting the jar back down on the dresser it had been resting on before Jared picked it up. The last few pebbles still in the jar clatter out as the jar hits the tabletop, and Jared's down on the ground to pick up all the pebbles that fell out. Jensen scrambles to help, counting under his breath as he picks them up, so it takes a couple of beats before Jensen realizes that Jared's stopped moving. He's just crouched on the ground with a handful of white pebbles.
"Jensen?" he says, and there's a strange note in his voice, enough to make Jensen look up at his face to see what's wrong. He's looking down at the pebbles in his hand, and Jensen doesn't even know where to start with the look on his face. It's like impossibility. It's a weird mix of hope and fear. The look in his eyes when he lifts his eyes is worse, or better, Jensen can't decide. More intense, essence distilled and still incomprehensible. Jensen wants to look away, can't ever look away. Dimly, he thinks, I want to kiss you and can't remember why that's a bad idea.
"Jensen," Jared says again, barely above a whisper.
Jensen licks his lips, and his voice is raspy when he answers. "Yeah?"
"No, Jensen," Jared says, louder, and that catches Jensen's attention, pulling it out of the look in Jared's eyes. "Jensen, I--it's me." Jared is nearly babbling, words tumbling over each other in his haste to get them out, "It's me. I can't believe you still have these, It's me, Jensen. It's Jay. I'm Jay, and--and you're Jensen, you're that--, I can't believe--"
"Fuck you, of course I kept them." And Jensen does kiss him, only half of the rest of Jared's words really registering, because he's busy sucking on Jared's tongue like he's trying to memorize the taste for later, like part of him refuses to believe that he'll ever get a chance to do this again. Jared's hands are on his face, though, holding him still and steady, turning him for a better angle, and he kisses back like he's drowning. That's ridiculous; Jensen is the one who's drowning.
Jensen goes straight for Jared's pants, because tugging his shirt off would mean they'd have to break apart, and curses himself for sending that servant to bring Jared a pair, because he wants Jared's cock in his hand right now, and everything would have been easier if Jared were still wearing a loose robe. Jared pushes Jensen's hands away, starts struggling upright to try to help. He gets as far as his knees, yanking on the laces, and then Jensen's pushing him up and backwards, tumbling him onto his back on the bed. Jared just sprawls out, breathing hard. His eyes are blown wide, and he's looking at Jensen like he's the only thing in the room that makes any sense.
Jensen makes a sound in the back of his throat that can really only be called a whimper, but he doesn't care, because Jared's got the laces undone now, and he's wriggling out of his pants. Jensen surges up on the bed, needing to touch, needing to feel.
"Off," Jared pants, tapping Jensen's shoulder as he joins him, before going for the bottom of Jensen's shirt and pulling it up. Jensen's busy hiking Jared's shirt up off his stomach, trying to get as much skin as he can, and their arms get caught in a tangle in the middle. Jared laughs, and Jensen bites him, just under his jaw, and the laugh turns into a grunt that goes straight to Jensen's cock.
"Right, off," Jensen agrees, and this time they get their shirts off without a hitch. Jensen crawls out of his pants and straight into Jared's lap, grinding his cock into the hard lines of Jared's stomach. Jensen sinks his teeth carefully into the flesh of Jared's shoulder, just like he's wanted to, then licks away the hurt.
"Fuck, Jensen," Jared gasps, and then one of Jared's giant hands is wrapping around their dicks, pulling too rough, too fast, but so good. Jensen groans and ruts up against him, so good, but no, wait--
"Come on, Jared," Jensen's voice sounds wrecked to his own ears, and the sound of it makes Jared's hand tense, tighten, for a moment, sending shivers down Jensen's spine. "Want you to fuck me," Jensen says. Jared groans.
Jared pulls him up as he slides down, and then licks him open. Jensen wraps his hands around the headboard, knuckles white, and tries to keep still. Tries not to fuck himself down on Jared's tongue. It hurts when Jared pushes in, spit not slick enough, but Jensen doesn't care, because Jared's pushing inside, and that's all he wants, Jared in him, fucking into him, breathless babble dirty in his ear. Jared's slow at first, tells Jensen he's tight, so tight, and sets up a rhythm, rocking harder once he's all the way in. It's not hard enough, not fast enough for Jensen, who rocks back, trying to take him deeper. Jared holds his hips and keeps the pace steady, and it's making Jensen insane. He wants to push Jared until he loses control. Until he feels as hot and frantic as the buzz under Jensen's skin.
Nothing works until Jensen bites Jared again, on the shoulder, hips stuttering as teeth sink into his skin, and when he starts up again, he's quicker, harder, all the things that Jensen wanted. Fucking into him, out of control. Jensen's making noises, coming apart; he doesn't even care. It's hot, perfect, Jensen's hands slipping on Jared's shoulders, Jared's hands holding tight to Jensen's hips. Jared's gasping, desperate, and he catches Jensen's mouth as he comes, hot, inside of Jensen, and that's too much. Jensen barely gets a hand on his cock before he's gone, vision whiting out around the edges, and he collapses, Jared still inside.
They don't move at all for a while, tangled together and worn out, and that's kind of perfect, too. Jensen, for one, never wants to move again.
"Fuck," Jared says, happy and out of breath.
"If you lost any of those pebbles, your wish won't come true, and it'll serve you right," Jensen says, face smooshed against Jared's chest. It feels as nice as Jensen thought it would. Nicer.
"I knew another Jensen once," Jared retorts, spread out over most of the bed, so Jensen has to shove sideways to get any covers. Jared moves grudgingly, but he moves. Jensen thinks that's the important part, ridiculously big, ridiculously sexy thing that Jared is. "But he was nicer."
"Fuck you," Jensen says, but it's got no bite in it. He still feels good, satisfaction curling up his spine and along his shoulders, relaxation like a weight pulling him down. He shifts a little on the bed, feels it, where Jared has been, the stretch of sex, and there's a spark of lust again, low in his belly, banked for later. But mostly Jensen just feels good, happy.
"Mmm," Jared hums, content, and kind of half-pats, half-rubs a hand along Jensen's arm as he falls asleep.
Jensen wakes up slow and warm, like the light filtering in through his eyelids. When he finally opens his eyes, Jared's already awake. Looking at him, gaze fuzzy with sleep and fondness. Early morning sunlight is streaking in through the window, edging Jared's brown hair with gold.
"Morning," Jared says, and his voice is rough, creaky, still waking up. He's beautiful.
For one breathless second, Jensen thinks he'd like to see this again, see it always floats through his mind, absent and detached. And then everything about what that would entail falls into place, like air rushing to fill his lungs, a whirlwind of history and family and certainty and betrayal, and Jensen thinks, Fuck. Fuck, because--
Jared. Jay. Jay is Jared, second prince of Padalecki. Fuck. Jay, long-lost childhood friend, is--was--always has been--a member of the house of Padalecki. Padalecki, Ackles' enemies for generation upon generation. Fuck. Fuck. Jensen slept with him, Jay, Jared, fuck, Padalecki, fuck. What was Jensen thinking? Worse, what's he going to do?
Jared.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck.
Jared shifts, reaches out a hand towards his face, gentle. Jensen jerks back, jerks away hard. Fuck. He falls out of bed, taking most of the blankets with him, but he almost doesn't notice the impact. He only notices the blankets insofar as they're tangled up around him, trapping him. Fuck, what have they done? Jensen takes a deep breath once he's managed to extract himself from the bedding and scramble upright. Years of training kick in. Another deep breath, in and out, follows. He needs to calm down.
"I think, I think you should probably go," Jensen says. His voice sounds distant in his ears, like someone else is saying it for him, but it comes out smoothly. He's impressed with how steady it sounds. "With our families, this was a bad idea."
Jensen watches Jared's face close up, shut down and ruthlessly squishes the way his stomach churns with unhappiness at the thought that he's done that, that he may be hurting Jared. You can't afford to pity your enemies. You can hardly afford to pity your allies. "Yeah, you're right," Jared says. His voice is also steady, hard edge to it and no resignation. Jensen also crushes the way his heart sinks, just a little, to hear that tone of voice directed at him again.
Jensen helps Jared find his pants--the dry ones he peeled from Jared's hips only a few hours ago. Jared dresses quickly. His clothes from the day before, the ones that got soaked in the river, are mostly dry. Dry enough, anyway, and he folds the damp, extra set of britches under his arm.
"This could be dangerous for both of us," Jensen says, standing with Jared by his still-closed door. "No one will hear about this from me."
Jared nods once, and his polite smile is neither large nor charming. "Nor from me."
Jensen opens the door to the hallway, and then Jared's gone. Jensen holds his breath until Jared turns the corner. No one's seen Jared leaving. Relief. Jensen focuses on the relief he's supposed to feel at a political crisis averted. Relief. That's what he feels, all that he feels. Really.
Part 2
Part 4
Jensen returns to Ackles the year he reaches his majority. It's a big deal: a large group from Harris accompanies him, all of the royal family, and a great many of the rest of the Harris court. Ackles hosts them for three weeks. Hunts are held, feasts thrown. Gifts are given by both sides, and it all culminates in a ceremony on Jensen's birthday, as the Harris court presents Ackles as their son, an adult, raised and trained in the ways of royalty. Ackles welcomes their son back with joy and thanks Harris for the raising of him, for his protection as a boy, and his training as a youth. It's all incredibly boring, and Jensen does his best not to sleep through any of it, because it's technically his return ceremony, so he can't.
Jensen doesn't sneak out into the woods between the castle and the Padalecki border. He doesn't ride out through it on his own. He doesn't stop by a stream, much smaller now, at least in comparison to Jensen's memory of it, or the rock pile, or the big oak tree. He doesn't wait or look for Jay at all. It's been too long, and you don't get back those kinds of childhood friendships. Trying to revive them is a waste of energy.
Jensen does buy a small, brightly glazed jar from some merchants passing through court two weeks later. The jar is from Rabadhishan, simple and common. He doesn't need anything large or fancy. He just needs a better place to keep one hundred pebbles than an old bundle made out of a raggedy handkerchief.
Sandy rides out with the hunt; the entire envoy from Cortese is conspicuously absent. Jensen can't decide whether it was a calculated, politically shrewd move or the diplomatic equivalent of a hissy fit, but Jared is visibly upset. Jensen can't tell if it's Sandy's presence, Genevieve's absence, or the simple fact that neither party is making an effort to get along--or even be seen at the same social function--when Jensen knows as well as Jared that they don't really have any reason to be upset with each other. Jensen's seen enough of the other prince to know by now that Jared can be infuriatingly arrogant or exceedingly charming, but he isn't particularly conniving. He could have taken much better advantage of the position Jensen put himself in a few days ago, but it almost seems as though those possibilities never occurred to him.
Jensen urges his horse forward, pulling up next to Jared's. "You ok?" Jensen asks. Jared noticeably comes back to himself, and Jensen repeats his question. He shoots a glance towards Sandy, who, along with Sophia, Princess Heir of Bush and bride to be, is scowling at something Chad's of Murray saying, so that Jared will know what he's asking about.
Jared runs a hand through his hair, pushing floppy hair back from his face. "I--Yeah. I mean, Sandy doesn't want to marry me. It just made a lot of sense politically, strengthen ties along that border, coordinate patrols. Have to worry about it less. There've been poachers sneaking in, we think along the edge between patrols, these past ten, fifteen years, and there'd be more incentive for McCoy to try to prevent it if someone from Padalecki ended up sharing their throne someday." Jared trails off, brow still furrowed. It's more than Jensen's ever gotten out of Jared before; it's more than Jensen would have thought he'd want to ask, but somehow he feels better for knowing it.
"Is it because Princess Genevieve didn't come out for the hunt, then?" Jensen hasn't hunted with her yet, but Mackenzie went out with her once with falcons. She's good at it; her hawk brought down three fat ducks, more than any other individual hawk did that day. Boar hunting isn't the same, but this is mostly a social event, anyway. Her absence is marked, just like Cortese's avoidance of Padalecki in the past few days has been marked. No one at the season will have missed it.
Jared looks away, and Jensen can't catch his eyes again. "She doesn't like hunting in the woods," he says, but Jensen thinks he's lying. So would anyone else Jared fed that line to. "Cortese is mostly plains, you know, and the rest of it is sand and desert like Radishan. Gen doesn't like the way the trees close in on her." That last part might be true, but Jared knows as well as Jensen that that's not the reason no one from Cortese is on this hunt.
The bay dogs pick up the scent quickly, and the chase begins. The dogs flush out a big old boar that's scarred along its back and missing one eye, suggesting it has survived at least one hunt before. It's mean, and cautious, feinting at the hunters on horseback and any dogs that get too close, but never truly charging, just keeping its attackers back. The bay dogs keep the boar from escaping back into the underbrush, while the catch dogs circle closer with every feinting charge the boar makes.
The boar feints another charge, then swerves and turns suddenly, swiping its tusks at one of the catch dogs, the one with the slightly lighter coat. The dog jumps out of the way, just barely, and the boar turns again to pursue it. The move throws the boar off balance, not enough to bring it down, but enough to make it stumble, and then one of the other catch dogs is on it, teeth closing at the base of the old boar's ear, keeping it from turning its head to gore it.
Chad, second heir to Murray and daring bridegroom to be, takes the honors and brings the hunt to an end. Huntsmen move in to pull the dogs back, and they dress the boar for transport back to the castle. It is an auspicious end of the hunt for the expectant bridegroom to make the kill, and the hunting party returns in high spirits. Feasting will last well into the night, and dancing will continue past dawn.
Genevieve is in the courtyard waiting for the hunters when they return. It's chaos, dogs and people and horses milling around, being rounded up and taken away to kennels and stables in the case of the animals, servants coming and going, lords and ladies clustering to congratulate Chad on his trophy or leaving in groups. No one's paying attention to them. Genevieve nods, slightly, almost imperceptibly, at Jared. Jared catches Jensen's eyes, and it's time.
Jensen hands his reins off to a groom and makes his way towards Jared, still ahorse. Jensen gets there a few moments after Jared dismounts, caught between the horse and the courtyard wall, and presses him back, crowding into his space. The way Jared backs up is instinctual, till he hits the wall, reins still in his hand. The horse crowds them closer, but Jensen doesn't mind. He has to get closer for this anyway. It's the perfect spot: not quite open, not quite hidden, and all they need is the kiss and then for Genevieve to call them out, and his pledge will be fulfilled.
It doesn't go like that. Not quite. Jared's back hits the wall, and he starts to tilt his head down, help Jensen reach his mouth. Jared's not moving fast enough, though, so Jensen reaches up, grabs his face, and pulls him down. The kiss is hard, fast, bright. Jared's mouth is open, just the slightest bit--Jensen thinks he took him by surprise--but Jensen takes that as an invitation and pushes inside to lick at the roof of Jared's mouth, taste the back of his teeth. Jared doesn't let him get away with that, refuses to stand there passively, sucking on Jensen's tongue before pushing them both back into Jensen's mouth and stealing all of Jensen's air.
Jensen doesn't even realize they've moved closer together, pressed chest to chest and hips touching, until Genevieve storms up and pushes them apart. She's tiny and can't really get enough leverage to actually move them away from each other, but the shock of the world crashing back is enough to get Jensen to step back. He runs right into Jared's horse, face pulled around as Jared has wrapped an arm around Jensen's back. Genevieve steps into the space Jensen left, but facing Jensen as much as she's facing Jared. She slaps them both, hard, across the face, bright heat flaring across Jensen's cheek, and storms away. Jared's got a red mark blossoming into being under his tan where Genevieve hit him; she wasn't holding anything back. Jared shoots Jensen a look, but he can't read it, isn't sure if he's supposed to be able to or if it's just part of the scheme, so he just stands there as Jared goes after her.
It's not until after Jared's gone, the horse taken away but the heat still flaring in his cheek, that Jensen realizes he's hard.
Jared is seated two places down from Jensen, but across the table instead of on the same side. He's just barely too far away to really talk to, but Jensen has trouble paying attention to the conversations going on on either side of him. He vaguely thinks he's nodding in the right places, and he doesn't ask anyone to repeat themselves too many times, but he keeps swimming back into the conversation at odd places, and his attention keeps skipping back to Jared two places down, across the table, and the way his throat works as he swallows.
It's distracting, and it shouldn't be, because whatever Jared is, he's also a Padalecki. That used to be plenty to keep Jensen from noticing--or at least acknowledging--the fact that Jared is extremely well put together--tall and dark, with clear hazel eyes that reveal a lot more than they probably should--and it should be enough to keep Jensen from wondering what his cock tastes like. It isn't really working. Jensen keeps flashing back to the kiss in the courtyard. He eats mechanically, whatever is on the plate in front of him, finishing when he runs out of food or a servant comes to take it away, and tries to focus on the kid seated next to him and the words that are coming out of his mouth.
It gets easier once the dancing starts, the long tables broken up and pushed to the sides. Jared isn't hovering just on the periphery of Jensen's space and in the center of Jensen's attention. Too many people moving around help distract Jensen; he doesn't have to see the lithe movements of Jared's body, or acknowledge the way he can't look away from the long line of Jared's neck. Jensen asks Jessica to dance, and she's apparently forgiven him enough for butting his nose into her business, because she accepts.
"So, does this mean I'm forgiven?" Jensen asks her.
She squeezes his arm and breaks off for the spin, and she doesn't answer until they're back together again. "I heard about the thing with Cortese and Padalecki this afternoon." At least she doesn't ask, 'Are you insane?' or 'What were you thinking?!'
Jensen winces. "It's not what it sounds like," he starts, but she cuts him off with a little shrug of her shoulders that's not part of the dance.
"Hey, look, some of us know how to mind our own business," she says, and Jensen winces again. Totally not forgiven. "But mostly, I figure you're going to get the business tonight from your parents, and could maybe do with a little less yelling beforehand." His parents. Fuck, his parents are going to kill him. Jensen misses a step and isn't ready when he's supposed to catch Jessica's hand as she spins back towards him. He doesn't miss entirely, but the hold's terrible and not strong enough to stop her momentum. He catches her, clumsily, backing up hastily to manage it, and bumps into the couple behind them.
It's Danneel, dancing with a young prince Jensen doesn't know personally but has seen before in Harris. Danneel sighs, dramatic and exasperated. "I know Harris taught you better than to throw your dance partners around like that, Ackles," she says. "I can't let you dance with other people like this. You're going to give Harris a bad name."
She turns to smile at Jessica. "Thank you for the favor the other night at dinner. Please allow me to return it: this is Cash, Prince of Warren. He can actually dance." Danneel lets them exchange greetings and then insists that they dance together, so that she doesn't have to worry about anyone else's health and safety with Jensen. Jensen immediately feels better. It's good to be reminded that he's got someone in his corner.
"You've got that look in your eyes again," Danneel tells him after she cuts in.
Jensen looks at her in surprise. "What look?" He pretends he hasn't been stealing a glance at where his parents are sitting, smiling and laughing with other older royalty off the dance floor, wondering what they'll say when they're alone. Pretends he hasn't been watching Jared across the room dancing with Princess Sandy. She looks tiny against him. Pretends he doesn't spare any thought to wonder what he looked like with Jared against him, earlier.
"The 'I've got awful taste in men' look," she says.
"I do not have awful taste in men," Jensen protests. "That was just the one time, but you, you never let me live it down. I was young and inexperienced! I had no reason to know any better!" He forgets all about the trouble with Padalecki and his parents in his vehemence.
"You're just lucky you still have me around to keep you on track." They're dancing, so Jensen can't flip her off, but he thinks about it.
"Jensen, come up to our rooms, please. We need to speak with you," his mother says as soon as it's late enough that leaving won't cause comment. Jensen nods in understanding and waits until she's turned away before taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. He needs a moment to pull his story together. At least it's just him, his sister and brother still down at the party and unlikely to retire early. They know there's going to be trouble as well as he does, and they're doing him a favor by staying out of it.
It actually goes worse than Jensen thought it would. His parents accept his excuse, let him explain how he was trying to break up the marriage negotiations between Padalecki and Cortese. They nod along gravely when he points out that it worked, that Cortese is rumored to be packing up, with plans to leave the next day. They don't care, because it was reckless and risky, and, wildly successful or not, he isn't supposed to take them by surprise with his political moves.
“Jensen, look. We know you were trying to do a good thing. But you know we’re going back to Ackles the day after tomorrow to make sure everything’s ok at home, and you and your siblings are staying here to represent our family until we come back for the wedding. Your father and I need to know that you’re not going to be pulling crazy stunts like that while we’re gone,” his mother tells him.
Jensen can't argue with that. He knows what it looked like from their perspective, and he can't explain that he was trying to--to--he doesn't even know, to make friends with the younger Padalecki prince, that he was trying to prove Ackles' worth.
“You’re not normally like that, Jensen,” his father adds. “You’ve been working the circuit for at least four years now. I know you’re capable of thinking things through before acting and making sure that the things you do and say are really what is best for Ackles in the long run.”
“Ackles needs to have a unified stance,” they go on. Provoking Padalecki, enemy or not, is not really beneficial when it means the possibility of renewed hostilities along their border. It puts their kingdom in a bad position. No, of course Jensen doesn’t want that.
They’re talking to him like a child. It grates, but Jensen can’t deny the stupidity of making blind promises to enemy sons-and he definitely can’t tell his parents what the whole thing was really about-so Jensen keeps his mouth shut and lets them chastise him. When they're done, he promises he won't do anything like that again. It's a promise Jensen thinks he can keep; the situation's too insane for him to get into more than once.
He thinks about going back to his rooms after his parents dismiss him. Thinks about it, and how he'd pace round and round in circles because being closed in right then would make him feel trapped. There's still the party going on downstairs, but Jensen doesn't think he can face all those people. They might not know anything, but he's mentally exhausted and not prepared to do all the political and social dancing he'd need to do if he went back. Instead, he wanders around the back of the castle and finds a quiet spot overlooking the sea.
The sky is clear, sea mists won't be rolling in until well after midnight only to burn away with the morning light. Jensen settles himself against the stone parapet and tries to forget his parents' faces, the feel of Jared's mouth under his, everything but the moon on the water and the cool of the stone beneath his hands.
"Want to come up to my rooms?" Jared says, appearing out of the dark to prop his elbows up on the stone railing next to Jensen. He looks out over the water, too, instead of at Jensen.
Jensen gives him a look. "Does anyone have to know? I don't think I can take another lecture this week."
Jared grimaces. "Yeah, know the feeling. And hey, as long as no one sees you, you're safe; I won't be telling anyone." When Jensen doesn't say anything, Jared prompts him again, sounding almost hopeful. "We could get some food sent up."
"Dude, we just had like, ten courses. How can you possibly eat anything else?"
"Family pressure makes me hungry!" Jared says defensively, but he's almost laughing, and Jensen kind of needs that, needs someone who doesn't think he's a totally reckless idiot, someone who knows he did a nice thing, who's grateful for it.
"Yeah, sure. Lead the way." Jensen finally turns to look at Jared. He catches Jared's smiling as he looks out to sea.
Jared does order a second dinner: cold leftovers from the feast that night. Up comes a platter of meat, sliced off various dishes. Some leftover dessert, sweet candied fruit, lemons and mangos dried and drizzled with honey. A flask of wine, also leftover, but mostly full. They get trencher bread, but that's ok, because they also get some of the lightest, crispiest, flakiest pastries Jensen's ever had, and they definitely didn't have those at dinner.
Jared grins, a little embarrassed. "I might get a little snack around now most nights?" he offers, "The cooks kind of like me, because I never send any of the food back with complaints, and because I do send down compliments when things are extra good, so sometimes they send up extra treats like this."
He fishes a couple of chalices out of a cupboard and fills them up. Jensen's not really hungry. He has a pastry, because they're amazing and fresh, but mostly only nibbles a little at everything else. Jared wasn't kidding about needing a meal after getting chewed out, apparently, because he tucks in with gusto, and Jensen tries not to get too distracted watching him eat. It's just eating. People eat all the time. But Jensen catches his eyes following the motion of Jared's tongue as he swipes it over his lips, and he remembers what they felt like. How they were hard under his, perfect, and how he wants to feel that again, feel Jared pressed up against him. That kiss was supposed to be about proving his honor, a way to get Jared and Genevieve out of their negotiations, and that was it. The kiss was a one time thing, staged for the benefit of their audience. He doesn't get another.
Jensen tells Jared about fostering in Harris to have something to talk about, something neutral that doesn't have anything to do with the day's events, and he tries to convince himself that he doesn't want to touch.
In exchange, Jared tells him about Rabhadishan, pulls him in with stories about his mother's side of the family and helping to repaint roofs after the spring sandstorms. It reminds Jensen, just for a moment, of a little kid, younger than him, but still pretty awesome, who told him about the brightly colored roofs in the city and who always wanted to see a sandstorm. It doesn't do anything to get Jared out of his head.
Jensen goes back to his own rooms well after the sea mists have rolled in to smother the castle. He dreams about putting his mouth on Jared's skin and the way the sweat on his collarbones must taste. In the morning, he tries to push it all out of his head.
The suite of rooms Jensen has been given for his use in the castle at Koren by the Sea contains a small private bath--a luxury unheard of in his home kingdom of Ackles. The bathing room is fed from a series of cisterns on the palace roof; in Ackles, it gets too cold in the winter to maintain, freezing and thawing and refreezing bursting the wooden cisterns. There's a boiler somewhere in between the cistern and Jensen's bathing room, so the water that pours from the spout is actually hot. That alone makes the room a luxury.
But the best part about the bathing room is the window. It fills most of the wall, starting at about the level of the top of the tub and going all the way up to the ceiling. Outside there's a little back courtyard, paved carefully flat so it can be used as an outdoor training area; it doesn't look used often, but it's kept in good repair. A wall runs along the outside of the courtyard, hemming it in on three sides; the fourth is a wall of the castle itself, where Jensen's rooms are. The thing that really makes the window, though, is that above the little courtyard wall facing his room, the view opens out onto the ocean, dazzling sunshine on a glassy sea.
It's the perfect room to waste an hour in, no disturbances, no intrigue, no Jared, whom Jensen is having more than enough trouble getting out of his head lately. Just the open sky, the never-ending sea, and dazzling glass. The water is hot and the view is amazing, and Jensen is just going to sit there for a while while the water's still warm.
Jensen doesn't think about Jared, and he ignores his cock. He focuses on the view out the window: the sky, the ocean, the little stretch of courtyard cradled by the very outer edge of the castle's walls.
The water's almost too hot when Jensen gets in, but he pushes down into it anyway, hissing slightly. He'll adjust. And he does, sinking back against the edge of the stone tub gingerly. Everything just relaxes all at once, even the parts like the back of his neck that he didn't even realize were tense to begin with. Jensen takes a deep, careful breath, then lets it out again. He doesn't think about Jared. Not about his floppy hair, or his earnest eyes, or about how freaking big he is, broad shoulders, strong arms, huge freaking hands that probably match--
And then, because Jensen just can't escape, Jared walks into the courtyard carrying one of the sharp, curved blades from Rabhadishan. It's a one-handed weapon, with a prominent guard at the wrist. But Jensen pays no attention to the weapon. Jared runs through a warm-up exercise with the blade, some patterned routine, movements measured and precise. It's beautiful, and Jensen shifts so he can see better. Someone so big shouldn't be so fast, so graceful. The courtyard is all stone and no shadows; Jared's shirt soaks through quickly. He strips it off not long after that but keeps working, powerful lines of his back and shoulders clearly defined. None of it helps with Jensen's hard-on, just shows him more clearly what he wants and what he can't have.
Jensen's hand slithers down his stomach as he watches Jared move. He shouldn't, he can't, but he will, and then he'll go back to trying to get the memory of the way Jared's tongue tasted out of his head. His grip's too tight, and the water's suddenly too hot for comfort, but Jensen can see the sweat running down the side of Jared's neck, and he doesn't want anything as much as he wants to lick it off. He doesn't want anything as much he wants to sink his teeth into the skin there and hear the noise Jared makes when he does.
Jensen's hand tightens, pulls, and his hips jerk up with it. In the courtyard, Jared's arms come up above his head, posed, and he does a quarter turn and holds it. God, his chest. Jensen remembers what it feels like, pressed up against him, hard, strong. He wants to know what it would feel like skin to skin, wants to feel Jared's speeding heartbeat, the way the skin would catch against his, stick, slide. He bets it would burn him up. Jensen twists his hand around the head, slides slick to the base to trace up the veins with blunt fingernails. Tries to imagine Jared's calloused hands on him instead. Jensen's head tips back, eyes squeezed tight as he fucks into his hand faster, water splashing messily up the sides of the tub. He can't keep himself quiet, so he sinks his teeth into the back of his wrist, tells himself it's Jared's teeth on his arm, but the taste isn't right. He comes anyway.
Jared's still outside practicing when Jensen finally pries his eyes open, he doesn't know how much later, his back to Jensen's room, muscles sliding under skin. Jensen's still wrung out, but the buzz in the back of his head is back, the one that seems to run to the rhythm of Jared's sword routines. He'll need to draw another bath.
Jensen is so fucked.
Jensen avoids Jared the next few days. He doesn't offer his services for any of the morning hunts, not even the one Danneel tries to talk him into because he's been bugging her about it for a couple of weeks and now she's going, and he's not. Jensen doesn't want to risk a repeat of that first hunt, just the two of them.
Jensen twirls Danneel gracefully on the dance floor. It's mostly Danneel's doing, particularly the graceful part, but dancing with Jensen isn't too bad because she can count on him not to step on her. Jensen maintains that he would have to pick his feet up in order to step on hers.
"You'd be surprised," Danneel mutters darkly as they close to do a turn together, arms raised and touching lightly from elbow to fingertips. They step apart again, and Jensen turns once to the outside, and then once back to the inside, before closing again to pass under one of Danneel's raised arms. He does a series of four turns around her and finishes once he's facing her again. Danneel copies his movements and takes his hands again once she's returned to her original position. Jensen tracks Prince Jared performing similar movements across the room, but he looks away when Jared notices the attention and tries to catch his eyes.
"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment for me, or a disparagement of everyone else," Jensen finally jokes.
"You're passable, I guess," Danneel tells him, grinning. "Take it however you want to."
They break off as the dance ends, finishing in a révérence. An estampie starts up, and Danneel goes off in search of another partner. Jensen's heading off the dance floor, making way for more energetic dancers, when he sees Mackenzie across the room, facing a group of boys about her age. A frown's settled over her face, and she's looking steadily angrier the longer the boys are in front of her. She says something Jensen is too far away to hear, and one of the boys in the group shakes his head. Another, whose stance is all arrogance, seems to say something, and Jensen can just make out Mackenzie's hands balling into fists.
He has to get over there now, because he knows Mackenzie, and she's about to wail on them. She had the same self-defense tutor as their older brother, and Mackenzie pulls no punches. If someone doesn't stop her, whatever it was the boys were saying, however deserved the thumping, his baby sister could hurt someone, which, under a truce banner, would be catastrophic. Jensen's too far away, though, fighting through the crowd to the edge of the dance floor and cutting through the middle of the dancers, who squawk and hurriedly move to avoid him. Jensen doesn't pay them any attention, just obstacles for him on his way; he's got his eyes trained on Mackenzie's face as two points of color settle high on her cheeks, anger in every line of her body. Fear rises in his throat. He's not going to make it.
And then Jared steps up behind Mackenzie, asks a low question. Jensen's caught up in a tangle of people by a refreshment table, still pushing his way through, and he can't hear what's being said, but whatever the boys say in reply isn't the right answer. Jared looms at the four boys cornering Mackenzie, scowl firmly in place, and he says something else. Jensen's just close enough to catch the tail end, something about sticking around bothering nice young ladies not being a very good idea, and the group of boys break up and slink away into the greater crowd of guests in the hall.
Jared turns to Mackenzie, asks, "Are you ok?"
She's still angry, worked up over what the boys were saying, and snaps, "I had that handled, ok? I can take care of myself! I don't need your help," before spinning off into the crowd herself just as Jensen ducks around a last knot of casual chatters blocking his way. Now Jared's the only one left standing in the space of the no-longer imminent storm, and Jensen slows his approach slightly, wavering. Jared sees him before he can make up his mind and maybe slip away back into the crowd, and Jensen shakes himself mentally. At the very least, he owes Jared thanks for stepping in to help his sister.
"Hey. Thanks, man. I saw Mack's face, but I was all the way across the room, and I just couldn't get there in time to stop whatever it was they were doing that she wasn't ok with, or calm her down or anything."
"Don't worry about it. I saw her face, too. She wasn't happy. Given a few more minutes, she might have hauled off and punched someone. Which, Truce."
"Yeah," Jensen laughs. "Girl knows how to stick up for herself. But won't it cause problems for you? At least one of those guys was from Phillips; you have treaties with Phillips."
Jared shrugs. "It's fine."
"No, seriously, why would you stick up for her when she's an Ackles, and you have formal ties with them? That's--If it's not idiotic, I'm not sure what is," Jensen presses. Crossing houses your own line has ties with can be political suicide. If the prince from Phillips decides to make an issue of it, Jared may have serious problems in the future.
Jared shrugs again, smiling wryly. "Ironically enough, I'd say they don't come from good enough families. And for the record, they were being jackasses."
They ford the river at a place where it spreads out, shallowing and slowing enough that they can cross without asking their horses to swim it or risking getting their bows wet in the water. The footing on the other bank isn't very good, the ground shaley and the dirt having a tendency to crumble into the river when weight is put on it. They aren't hunting today, just riding for a morning's occupation. There aren't any major events planned for the day, no preparations either Jensen or Jared need to make, and Jensen is well past the point of denying (at least to himself) that he enjoys the other prince's company, scourge of a Padalecki or not.
One huntsman accompanies Jensen and Jared on this excursion, more a guide than anything else. Jensen trained in denser brush than this: forests full of creeping vines that obscure one's vision, then open suddenly into hazardous covered swamps. He could find his own way if he had to. Jensen doesn't see any reason to do his own path-finding when a whole wing of the servants' quarters is filled with skilled men and women of the hunt who know the woodlands west of the castle as well as a nurse knows her nursery.
The huntsman crosses the river first, blazing a trail up the opposite bank, showing them where the footing is best. Jensen and Jared strike out across the water behind him. Jensen's horse picks its way carefully up the low bank onto firmer ground, and then Jared's horse hauls itself up behind him. Jared's just made the top of the bank when a flock of geese decides it's in danger and breaks cover, flashing out from the bushes by the bank and over the water, spooking all three horses. All three shy and dance as their riders work to reassure them, the huntsman speaking to his horse in calm, low tones even as he shortens the reins to restrict the horse's movement. Jared's horse backs up hurriedly to avoid the perceived threat in the sudden appearance of a lot of fast-moving animals near its feet and stops just shy of the edge of the embankment.
And then the edge of the bank collapses under the combined weight of Jared and his horse, sending both tumbling the short distance into the water. Jared comes out of the saddle as they hit the water, and the horse rolls back to its feet quickly. Jared resurfaces a moment later, somewhat less gracefully, but he manages to catch the horse's tangled reins before it can decide to bolt. Both horse and rider are entirely soaked, the horse standing in water that comes up to its belly and Jared standing in the water at its head. The horse almost looks embarrassed as they drip forlornly into the river, but the big gelding lets Jared lead it back up the bank they've just fallen down--despite its recent memories of 'danger' there--and check it for injury.
Jensen and the huntsman dismount to help; all of Jared's horse's tack is soaked, of course, but the horse seems unharmed despite its tumble. Jared also managed to avoid injury, but hunting apparel dries exceptionally poorly whilst being worn in the field. There's not much wringing out one can do of a leather jerkin, and while Jared could get most of the water out of the fine cotton shirt he's wearing underneath, wet wool and leather would be unpleasant to struggle back into once he's done. Jared's equipment has suffered from its dunking as well, so the small party decides to just turn back. There's no reason to continue an enjoyable ride once it, by unfortunate circumstance, ceases to be enjoyable--particularly when dry clothes await not far away.
Jared sees his horse into the capable hands of the grooms back at the castle for care and stabling, Jensen helping by holding Jared's sodden saddlebags.
"My rooms are closer," Jensen offers, and the smile Jared flashes is so big and bright it reminds Jensen of Jay and how his smiles seemed to make the sun shine. In his rooms, Jensen directs Jared to the dressing area, partitioned off by an elaborately carved screen, and tosses him a cloth to dry off with before going to find something that would fit the bigger man. Nothing does, of course, and he ends up wearing one of Jensen's shirts that's too tight around the shoulders and a fur-lined robe Jensen finds in the back of one of the castle-provided wardrobes, because all of Jensen's pants are four inches too short and won't lace up properly.
It's not ideal, but it will serve for a while, and Jensen rings for a servant to fetch Jared a proper pair of pants and supper on a platter for the both of them. Jared eats more than Jensen's ever seen anyone do in a sitting, and he asks Jensen about the few knickknacks important enough to pack for travel.
"This is from Rabhadishan," Jared says, after they're finished eating, tracing a finger along the edge of the jar Jensen keeps Jay's magic pebbles in.
"Yeah," Jensen says.
"I thought you said you'd never been down there," Jared says.
Jensen shakes his head even though Jared's not looking at him. "No, I got that in Ackles, brought north by some merchants."
Jared smiles when he turns his head to look back at Jensen over his shoulder. "These are all over the place down there. All different sizes. Nothing special." His grin widens. "Up here, you hardly ever see them. It's kind of nice, like a little piece of home, you know?" He's been turning the jar around and around in his big hands as he talks, watching the colors blur into kind of a smooth picture, something Jensen has never thought to try. It's a little hypnotic. And then Jared's finger hits the clasp on the lid, and it pops open, and pebbles go spinning everywhere.
"Shit!" Jared says, putting the jar back down on the dresser it had been resting on before Jared picked it up. The last few pebbles still in the jar clatter out as the jar hits the tabletop, and Jared's down on the ground to pick up all the pebbles that fell out. Jensen scrambles to help, counting under his breath as he picks them up, so it takes a couple of beats before Jensen realizes that Jared's stopped moving. He's just crouched on the ground with a handful of white pebbles.
"Jensen?" he says, and there's a strange note in his voice, enough to make Jensen look up at his face to see what's wrong. He's looking down at the pebbles in his hand, and Jensen doesn't even know where to start with the look on his face. It's like impossibility. It's a weird mix of hope and fear. The look in his eyes when he lifts his eyes is worse, or better, Jensen can't decide. More intense, essence distilled and still incomprehensible. Jensen wants to look away, can't ever look away. Dimly, he thinks, I want to kiss you and can't remember why that's a bad idea.
"Jensen," Jared says again, barely above a whisper.
Jensen licks his lips, and his voice is raspy when he answers. "Yeah?"
"No, Jensen," Jared says, louder, and that catches Jensen's attention, pulling it out of the look in Jared's eyes. "Jensen, I--it's me." Jared is nearly babbling, words tumbling over each other in his haste to get them out, "It's me. I can't believe you still have these, It's me, Jensen. It's Jay. I'm Jay, and--and you're Jensen, you're that--, I can't believe--"
"Fuck you, of course I kept them." And Jensen does kiss him, only half of the rest of Jared's words really registering, because he's busy sucking on Jared's tongue like he's trying to memorize the taste for later, like part of him refuses to believe that he'll ever get a chance to do this again. Jared's hands are on his face, though, holding him still and steady, turning him for a better angle, and he kisses back like he's drowning. That's ridiculous; Jensen is the one who's drowning.
Jensen goes straight for Jared's pants, because tugging his shirt off would mean they'd have to break apart, and curses himself for sending that servant to bring Jared a pair, because he wants Jared's cock in his hand right now, and everything would have been easier if Jared were still wearing a loose robe. Jared pushes Jensen's hands away, starts struggling upright to try to help. He gets as far as his knees, yanking on the laces, and then Jensen's pushing him up and backwards, tumbling him onto his back on the bed. Jared just sprawls out, breathing hard. His eyes are blown wide, and he's looking at Jensen like he's the only thing in the room that makes any sense.
Jensen makes a sound in the back of his throat that can really only be called a whimper, but he doesn't care, because Jared's got the laces undone now, and he's wriggling out of his pants. Jensen surges up on the bed, needing to touch, needing to feel.
"Off," Jared pants, tapping Jensen's shoulder as he joins him, before going for the bottom of Jensen's shirt and pulling it up. Jensen's busy hiking Jared's shirt up off his stomach, trying to get as much skin as he can, and their arms get caught in a tangle in the middle. Jared laughs, and Jensen bites him, just under his jaw, and the laugh turns into a grunt that goes straight to Jensen's cock.
"Right, off," Jensen agrees, and this time they get their shirts off without a hitch. Jensen crawls out of his pants and straight into Jared's lap, grinding his cock into the hard lines of Jared's stomach. Jensen sinks his teeth carefully into the flesh of Jared's shoulder, just like he's wanted to, then licks away the hurt.
"Fuck, Jensen," Jared gasps, and then one of Jared's giant hands is wrapping around their dicks, pulling too rough, too fast, but so good. Jensen groans and ruts up against him, so good, but no, wait--
"Come on, Jared," Jensen's voice sounds wrecked to his own ears, and the sound of it makes Jared's hand tense, tighten, for a moment, sending shivers down Jensen's spine. "Want you to fuck me," Jensen says. Jared groans.
Jared pulls him up as he slides down, and then licks him open. Jensen wraps his hands around the headboard, knuckles white, and tries to keep still. Tries not to fuck himself down on Jared's tongue. It hurts when Jared pushes in, spit not slick enough, but Jensen doesn't care, because Jared's pushing inside, and that's all he wants, Jared in him, fucking into him, breathless babble dirty in his ear. Jared's slow at first, tells Jensen he's tight, so tight, and sets up a rhythm, rocking harder once he's all the way in. It's not hard enough, not fast enough for Jensen, who rocks back, trying to take him deeper. Jared holds his hips and keeps the pace steady, and it's making Jensen insane. He wants to push Jared until he loses control. Until he feels as hot and frantic as the buzz under Jensen's skin.
Nothing works until Jensen bites Jared again, on the shoulder, hips stuttering as teeth sink into his skin, and when he starts up again, he's quicker, harder, all the things that Jensen wanted. Fucking into him, out of control. Jensen's making noises, coming apart; he doesn't even care. It's hot, perfect, Jensen's hands slipping on Jared's shoulders, Jared's hands holding tight to Jensen's hips. Jared's gasping, desperate, and he catches Jensen's mouth as he comes, hot, inside of Jensen, and that's too much. Jensen barely gets a hand on his cock before he's gone, vision whiting out around the edges, and he collapses, Jared still inside.
They don't move at all for a while, tangled together and worn out, and that's kind of perfect, too. Jensen, for one, never wants to move again.
"Fuck," Jared says, happy and out of breath.
"If you lost any of those pebbles, your wish won't come true, and it'll serve you right," Jensen says, face smooshed against Jared's chest. It feels as nice as Jensen thought it would. Nicer.
"I knew another Jensen once," Jared retorts, spread out over most of the bed, so Jensen has to shove sideways to get any covers. Jared moves grudgingly, but he moves. Jensen thinks that's the important part, ridiculously big, ridiculously sexy thing that Jared is. "But he was nicer."
"Fuck you," Jensen says, but it's got no bite in it. He still feels good, satisfaction curling up his spine and along his shoulders, relaxation like a weight pulling him down. He shifts a little on the bed, feels it, where Jared has been, the stretch of sex, and there's a spark of lust again, low in his belly, banked for later. But mostly Jensen just feels good, happy.
"Mmm," Jared hums, content, and kind of half-pats, half-rubs a hand along Jensen's arm as he falls asleep.
Jensen wakes up slow and warm, like the light filtering in through his eyelids. When he finally opens his eyes, Jared's already awake. Looking at him, gaze fuzzy with sleep and fondness. Early morning sunlight is streaking in through the window, edging Jared's brown hair with gold.
"Morning," Jared says, and his voice is rough, creaky, still waking up. He's beautiful.
For one breathless second, Jensen thinks he'd like to see this again, see it always floats through his mind, absent and detached. And then everything about what that would entail falls into place, like air rushing to fill his lungs, a whirlwind of history and family and certainty and betrayal, and Jensen thinks, Fuck. Fuck, because--
Jared. Jay. Jay is Jared, second prince of Padalecki. Fuck. Jay, long-lost childhood friend, is--was--always has been--a member of the house of Padalecki. Padalecki, Ackles' enemies for generation upon generation. Fuck. Fuck. Jensen slept with him, Jay, Jared, fuck, Padalecki, fuck. What was Jensen thinking? Worse, what's he going to do?
Jared.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuck.
Jared shifts, reaches out a hand towards his face, gentle. Jensen jerks back, jerks away hard. Fuck. He falls out of bed, taking most of the blankets with him, but he almost doesn't notice the impact. He only notices the blankets insofar as they're tangled up around him, trapping him. Fuck, what have they done? Jensen takes a deep breath once he's managed to extract himself from the bedding and scramble upright. Years of training kick in. Another deep breath, in and out, follows. He needs to calm down.
"I think, I think you should probably go," Jensen says. His voice sounds distant in his ears, like someone else is saying it for him, but it comes out smoothly. He's impressed with how steady it sounds. "With our families, this was a bad idea."
Jensen watches Jared's face close up, shut down and ruthlessly squishes the way his stomach churns with unhappiness at the thought that he's done that, that he may be hurting Jared. You can't afford to pity your enemies. You can hardly afford to pity your allies. "Yeah, you're right," Jared says. His voice is also steady, hard edge to it and no resignation. Jensen also crushes the way his heart sinks, just a little, to hear that tone of voice directed at him again.
Jensen helps Jared find his pants--the dry ones he peeled from Jared's hips only a few hours ago. Jared dresses quickly. His clothes from the day before, the ones that got soaked in the river, are mostly dry. Dry enough, anyway, and he folds the damp, extra set of britches under his arm.
"This could be dangerous for both of us," Jensen says, standing with Jared by his still-closed door. "No one will hear about this from me."
Jared nods once, and his polite smile is neither large nor charming. "Nor from me."
Jensen opens the door to the hallway, and then Jared's gone. Jensen holds his breath until Jared turns the corner. No one's seen Jared leaving. Relief. Jensen focuses on the relief he's supposed to feel at a political crisis averted. Relief. That's what he feels, all that he feels. Really.
Part 2
Part 4