Fic: With Paper And String
Title: With Paper And String
Details: J2, PG-13 (I know, lame).
Word Count: 7872
Summary: Jensen's mixtape still has two songs on it. His birdhouse died in the planning stage. The hair on his knuckles is growing back all weird and bristly. He hasn't been having the best month.
Notes: As always, thanks to arabella-hope for her help and her title. This is for shiplessheathen for spn_j2_xmas, following the very easygoing prompt of, "Jared/Jensen - Roommate!Fic, lots of subtle Jensen pining and angst with a happy ending." Hope you like it!
With Paper And String
One foot in the car, and Jared's already breaking the rules.
“Dude, I am so psyched. I picked Kim again, who did you pick?”
Jensen takes his time fastening his seatbelt, stalling and quietly thanking God that Jared opened his giant mouth when he did, before Jensen had a chance to make a mess of things by claiming to have picked Kim's name out of the hat. From the second he unfolded his slip of paper and read Jared's name, his mind has been scrambling for a convincing lie, and now he's got to start from scratch.
“They call it Secret Santa for a reason.”
“Yeah, so I can get the thrill that only breaking your spirit affords me, Ackles. Now, come on, share nicely with the class.”
“Every year, you make way too big a deal about this.”
“I make a perfectly proportional deal,” Jared says. “And it's not fair. I already told you mine. You're at an advantage.”
“What part of 'secret' don't you understand?”
“Yeah, secret from them,” Jared says, leaning as close as his seatbelt will let him and clumsily throwing an arm across Jensen's shoulders. “But we're bros. Those rules don't apply to us.”
“Er. Pretty sure they do. Actually, I'm pretty sure a couple of them were created because of us.”
Jared grins then, and claps him on the back. Hard.
“Damn right, they were.”
Jensen rolls his eyes.
“Toby. I got Toby.”
Jared nods, eyes bright.
“Excellent. Excellent. We're going to kick Christmas in the balls this year, Jensen.”
Jensen smiles tightly. He's not sure he wants to find out what that means.
**
As it turns out, it means dragging Jensen away from Mario Kart on his precious Sunday off and forcing him instead to freeze his fingers off in a blizzard.
“It's not a blizzard,” Jared calls down from his perch halfway up to the roof. “There's barely any snow, you giant pussy.”
Jensen's bare fingers tighten on the icy aluminium, and he considers the comedic versus medical consequences that shaking the ladder might produce. He probably shouldn't. But he really wants to. Good thing Jared makes it to the roof at that moment, removing the temptation.
“It's blizzard conditions,” Jensen grumbles. “So what if there's not actually a blizzard? It's minus five degrees Celsius.”
Jared leans over the edge, hair drooping around his face, and Jensen shudders, mentally preparing himself for the sight of his best friend splattered on the driveway. Out of sight in the fenced-off backyard, the dogs start going crazy, barking and whining, like they know Jared's doing something stupid.
“Watch it - Jesus, the edge - Jared!”
Jared ignores his warnings and just smirks down at him.
“Metric system nerd,” he says, and then disappears from view. Jensen can hear him walking around up there, boots crunching on the (admittedly thin) snow.
“Celsius just makes more sense,” he says, tightly.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jared says. He sounds far away.
Jensen shivers, flipping his fur-lined hood onto his head before tucking his hands into his armpits. He listens to Jared stomping around, unwinding half-frozen bundles of Christmas lights.
“I'm going back inside,” Jensen yells.
“No, you're not,” Jared yells back.
Jensen sighs, and it steams up his glasses. He thinks about Jared's skull busted open on the front walk, and stays put.
“I hate you.”
“Of course you do,” Jared answers distractedly.
Jensen cups his hands and blows into them, to very little effect.
**
It would be hard enough to figure out what to buy for Jared. The guy's epic lack of self-discipline means there isn't much out there that Jared wants but hasn't already procured for himself. But that's beside the point.
No one really remembers whose idea it was to restrict the exchange to handmade gifts. This complicates things quite a bit for guys like Jensen who couldn't glue two rocks together. For guys like Jared (who never, ever seems to run out of ideas despite picking Kim out of the hat for the third year running) it's an imagination herb garden filled with tasty possibilities.
Last year, Jared's gift to Kim was a pair of tin can stilts. He made them in his garage the night before the exchange, using two tomato cans and an old skipping rope he found. They were such a hit that they're still hanging behind the door in Kim's trailer.
Last year, Jensen made Shannon a mixtape. The year before, he made Alona a mixtape.
**
Jensen finds a pair of the world's tiniest canary yellow briefs in the back of the dryer. It would be hilarious, if it wasn't so damned disturbing. All right, it's hilarious anyway. He spends the whole thirty second hike to Jared's room thinking up the perfect joke. Banana hammock would be too easy, he thinks. Something about go-go dancing? Banana cream pie? Jared being one of Charlie's Angels?
It turns out that thirty seconds isn't nearly enough time to fully conceive of a tiny yellow shorts joke, so when he shoves Jared's door open, brandishing the briefs above his head, the words that come out of his mouth are a near total surprise.
“Yo, Greg Louganis called. He wants his shorts back.”
Decent. Not brilliant, but random enough to be sort of funny, he thinks. An extra couple of minutes of thought might have produced a better result, but Jensen couldn't possibly have waited that long. See: tiny yellow shorts.
Jared doesn't laugh. Instead, he sort of yelps and quickly pulls the blanket up over himself. He's flushed and sweaty, and normally there wouldn't be anything unusual about that (Jared gets sweaty brushing his teeth in the morning) but he's also avoiding eye contact with Jensen and looking just the slightest bit mortified. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what Jensen just walked in on.
“Oh, God,” Jensen says, clapping a hand (still holding suspicious yellow underwear) over his eyes and backing out of the room. He miscalculates and collides with the doorframe, teeth snapping together painfully. “Owmf.”
“It's not- uh. Shit,” Jared says. Jensen can hear him squirming around in bed, the blankets rustling. “You okay?”
“Bith my thung.”
He presses his lips together, swallowing a sudden rush of blood, and gropes blindly for the doorway.
“Show me,” Jared says, and then somehow he's right there, breath warm on Jensen's nose.
Jensen opens his eyes. Jared's wearing jeans and an old Calgary Flames t-shirt. Not naked. He's not sure why that comes as such a shock, but he's definitely glad for the lack of nudity.
Jared's thumb goes to Jensen's chin and he says, “Show me,” again.
Jensen opens his mouth, sticks out his tongue. Jared frowns, leans in at an angle to get a good look at the gash.
“Gross,” he says.
“Groth?” Jensen lisps back.
“I dunno, I think you might need stitches.”
The amused look on Jared's face is pissing him off, so Jensen checks out his tongue in Jared's mirror. There is a significant gash, a fresh bead of blood forming on it. It's about an eighth of an inch long. Okay, so no stitches, then. He catches sight of Jared's face in the mirror, still flushed, a little breathless.
“I...” he says, trying not to look at either Jared or his unmade bed. He still has the pair of yellow briefs in his hand, so he thrusts them at Jared and says, “I think these are yours.”
Then he gets the hell out of there.
**
At work, people keep spilling their Secret Santa plans. There's talk of Toby or another of the special effects makeup guys making a bong in the shape of a convincingly severed foot.
Apparently, the water goes in the heel, you puff on the big toe, and smoke wafts up from the bloody stump. Brilliant.
Jensen's concept for Jared's mixtape includes two songs so far: the Gilmore Girls theme song, and Crank Dat Soulja Boy. Every time he tries to add to the track list, he either defaults to a Michael Bublé song, or somehow gets the chorus of Blister In The Sun by the Violent Femmes stuck in his head and then he gets flustered and has to go get a drink of water to settle his nerves.
Turns out Jensen's sister was right. He really needs to - how did she put it? - oh yes: learn how to fucking knock.
**
Jensen most certainly did not call Chad for help. Actually, he didn't call Chad at all.
Jensen's never told anyone, but every once in a while (he's betting it has something to do with the lunar cycle) Chad will phone him and keep him on the line for a ridiculously long time, considering they don't have all that much to say to each other. It's been going on for years, and Jensen still isn't sure if it's some sort of extended joke Chad's playing on him, or if the guy just really is that lonely.
This time, Jensen ran out of light conversation topics about twenty minutes into the call, and, faced with what sounded like a needy silence, confessed his predicament. Chad's response is pretty predictable.
“Just buy him something and rip the label off.”
“Yeah, right,” Jensen scoffs. “Like what?”
“I dunno, something. What's he need?”
“Nothing. He needs nothing. He just bought a second iPod because it was yellow.”
“Oh, hey, I know! You should get him a nice wallet. He still uses that retarded velcro thing with Marvin the Martian on it.”
“Right,” Jensen says. “And it'll be totally believable that I made it, considering my extensive background in leather work.”
“What?” Chad says, defensive. “It was just an idea.”
“It was barely even that.”
“You know what? Fine. Don't accept my help. My best friend, who you stole, by the way, is going to have a shitty Christmas, but that's fine.”
Jensen tightens his jaw and clumsily changes the subject to Miley Cyrus's bra size.
**
As it turns out, it is possible to make a wallet out of duct tape. There are instructions on the internet and everything. Apparently, if you plan it out just right, you can even use different coloured tape to make an attractive pattern on the finished product.
Jensen never knew he had such hairy knuckles. He's very aware of it now, though - or rather, of how hairy his knuckles used to be, before they encountered some rogue strips of duct tape.
It isn't until he actually has to cut his own fingers free, using his mouth to work part of the scissors, that he gives up, though.
Jensen is stubborn, but he isn't insane.
**
He wakes up with a Post-It stuck to his cheek. He peels it off, shuddering at the gluey sensation, and reads the words WE'RE OUT OF TP, ASSWIPE penned in Jared's careful block letters. Jensen can't help laughing, even though Jared is probably pretty pissed at him. Jensen vaguely remembers saying he'd stop by the store a couple of days ago. Whoops.
Jared's nowhere to be found when Jensen leaves the house, and by the time he gets back with the requested item, as well as a couple of bags of chips and a Bingo scratch ticket (because Jared is secretly a seventy-five year-old woman) Jared's too busy recording a reggae version of the Legend of Zelda theme on Wii Music to bawl him out.
Jensen walks on eggshells all day anyway.
**
Jared misplaces his digital camera and spends an entire Saturday tearing the house apart looking for it. Jensen helps, lifting cushions and peering into coffee mugs. He's in the garage holding one of Jared's beat-up tennis shoes upside-down and shaking it when Jared walks in.
“Very funny.”
“Hey, I never know with you.”
Jared thinks about that for a second, then shrugs and investigates a second pair of kicked-off sneakers.
Morning of the next day finds them in line outside Best Buy, cloud-covered sky still clinging to darkness. Jensen doesn't understand why a new camera couldn't wait a few hours. It's not like it's an emergency, or anything.
“It's totally an emergency. What if Sadie does something cute? Like put on my sunglasses? What then, Jensen?”
Jensen glares at him, stomping his feet. The light snow covering the ground mutes the sound, and takes away all of his authority.
“Tell me I'm not out here getting frostbite so that you can put sunglasses on your dog. Again.”
Jared grins.
“All right. You're not getting frostbite.”
“Fine. Hypothermia, then.”
Jared shakes his head, laughing. “You're such a baby!”
“Minus ten degrees Celsius, Jay. Ten below zero! You know what happens at zero?”
“What?” Jared says. He's biting his lip, looking pleased and a little red-cheeked and God, Jensen really has to stop thinking about what Jared sometimes does alone in his bedroom.
“Uh,” Jensen says. He breathes out, a cloud of steamy breath wafting up into the air. “Water freezes.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I? Am mostly water.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I'm really rather attached to most of my cells, so... I'm gonna go wait in the car.”
Jared grabs his arm before he has a chance to go anywhere.
“Oh, no, you don't. I need you to run interference when they open the doors!”
“Pretty sure I have to be alive to do that,” Jensen grumbles.
“Nah,” Jared says. “I'll just roll your frozen corpse at oncoming traffic. It'll be handy!”
“You do that,” Jensen says, making sure that Jared sees his chattering teeth, “And I will make sure to shatter into a million shards of ice, and stab you.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Jared says, and then, without any sort of cue, he sort of wraps himself around Jensen. Which isn't new, not really, but try telling Jensen's body that. It's reacting like it hasn't been touched in years.
“What are you...” Jensen says, but drifts off when Jared's hands start moving against his upper arms, mittens rubbing vigorously against his jacket, making a kind of whooshing sound.
Maybe Jared means it as a joke, but it feels nice. Warming and relaxing. Jared leans in close, mouth slightly ajar, and just breathes on him, the way you blow into cupped hands to get the feeling back into them. It makes Jensen shiver, and Jared rubs him faster to compensate. Jensen's surprised there aren't sparks flying off his jacket. Not that he wants Jared to stop, or anything. God, no.
“Better?” Jared says, and blows on him again.
“Yeah. Actually,” Jensen says. His voice sounds distant and weird.
When the doors open, neither of them is prepared.
The entire crowd flocks to the Wii section.
Jared buys a camera. It's uneventful.
**
“Mom, I'm not -”
“Do you or do you not have domestic responsibilities, Jensen?”
His mom is making it sound like he's in trouble. Which he totally isn't.
“I do, but it isn't like that. I can't just -”
“All I know is those gift certificates were the best Mother's Day gift you ever gave me. Better than the honeybee necklace, and you know how I love the honeybee necklace.”
“I'm not nine years old anymore, mom,” Jensen says, although his voice betrays him, comes out all high-pitched and whiny. He takes a second to regroup. “I can't give Jared a handmade gift certificate that says I'll take out the garbage. That's not how it works anymore. I'm an adult now. I just take out the garbage. It's kind of a paperless transaction.”
“Mhmm,” his mom says, in a tone that implies she'll believe it when she sees it.
“I think maybe he'd like a birdhouse,” Jensen says weakly. “For the yard.”
He pictures Jared getting excited about birds out behind the house. Keeping binoculars by the back window, researching what kinds of seed attracts the flashiest species. It's kind of an adorable mental image, and when his mom tut-tuts, Jensen realizes he's sort of drifted off and is smiling stupidly into the phone.
“Oh, honey,” his mom says. “You know how I feel about you working with tools after the last time.”
And Jensen totally means to tell her he's no longer afraid of hammers and saws. He really does. He opens his mouth to say so, and what comes out is a rueful, “Yes'm.”
“Just think about the gift certificates,” his mom says. “Jared's a nice boy. I think he'd be delighted.”
“Mhmm,” Jensen says.
**
One morning not too long after that conversation, he's sitting across the kitchen table from Jared while Jared picks the raisins out of a bowl of Oatmeal Crisp with Raisins and lays them on a soggy paper towel. It's disgusting, and, with Jensen barely awake after only one cup of coffee, a little cruel.
It isn't until Jared actually pours himself more cereal and starts the process over again that it hits Jensen. The reason he can't figure out what to give Jared. The reason everything's seemed so difficult lately.
He's in love. With Jared, of all people. Stupid Jared, and his disgusting pile of wet raisins.
Goddammit.
**
It's the day before their last day on set, and suddenly, all the Secret Santa gossip has gone quiet.
Jensen's mixtape still has two songs on it. His birdhouse died in the planning stage. The hair on his knuckles is growing back all weird and bristly. He hasn't been having the best month.
And now, after Jensen has gone and sprouted feelings for his moose of a co-worker/best friend/roommate/landlord, Jared has to complicate things even further by disappearing.
Oh, he's around, just not by Jensen's side where he normally would be, and Jensen can't help wondering if he managed to scare him off somehow. Maybe he let something slip. You know, something along the lines of “Kiss me,” or “I love you,” or “Please use me as a yoga mat.” It could happen. He can't always control what comes out of his mouth in the morning, especially before his first cup of coffee goes in.
Anyway, it would explain why Jared has been hiding in his trailer all day. Earlier, used to just letting himself in, Jensen turned the knob and promptly collided with the locked door. Now his nose is kind of bruised and swollen, much to the makeup department's dismay, and when he takes Jared aside during shooting to find out what's going on, Jared just says he's tired and thinks he might be coming down with something.
Which only serves to confirm that Jared is probably the worst liar Jensen has ever known. Seriously. He fucking twitches. It makes Jensen want to cry for Jared's future acting career. It also makes him want to grab the guy and kiss him until he gets the hiccups. He's really focusing on the first thing, though.
It gets worse as the day goes on. Jared is distant and distracted, running off to his trailer at every opportunity. When they wrap after a 16-hour day, Clif and Jensen spend the better part of half an hour idling in the parking lot waiting for him to show his face. When he finally makes it out to the car, his breathless apologies make Jensen despair for his career all over again.
They ride home in awkward silence. In Jensen's head, there's a countdown clock ticking away at a dreadful pace. He only has six hours and twenty minutes to come up with a present for Jared before they have to leave for work again. And he'd like to reserve some of that time for sleeping, if at all possible.
Not that it really matters, the way Jared's been acting. Jensen should save himself the trouble and just hand over the two song mixtape, because it's not like Jared's going to open up some perfect handmade gift from Jensen and start crying or throw himself into Jensen's arms or anything. Not that Jensen wants that. It's a really creepy idea, come to think of it. But the point is, Jared seems to have sensed Jensen's little crush on him and gone into permanent “back away slowly” mode, and Jensen's pretty sure there's nothing he can do or make that'll fix this weirdness between them.
Oh, he's sure they'll get back to normal. He can't imagine either of them letting their friendship die over this shit. It's just going to take some time. Time and level-headedness, those are the two things Jensen needs most right now.
When he gets home, he goes right to his room and pulls up the playlist of Jared's mixtape on his computer (well, really a mix CD, but Jensen feels that the word “tape” is really essential to the concept, linguistically speaking). He stares at it for a while and then surprises himself by hitting the delete button.
All right. Back to square one, then.
**
By mid-morning the next day, Jensen's wishing he'd made the mixtape after all. He could have just piled on a random bunch of songs about dogs. That would have required very little effort, and yet he's sure Jared would have eaten something like that right up. It's far too late for second thoughts now, though.
When they break for lunch, he detours to his trailer to grab the gift and gain a little composure. There are butterflies in his stomach, and he feels utterly ridiculous. He makes his way to the catering tent, which is crammed with people and brightly coloured parcels, and takes his usual seat, looking up to find Jared grinning at him and clutching a large, flat box that looks like it was wrapped by a colourblind mongoose.
The exchange has grown from a modest arrangement between friends during its first year to a monstrous and complex affair. Beth, the P. A. whose job it was to keep track of the number of participants this year, stands precariously on a folding chair and waves her arms until she has everyone's attention.
“All right, guys, I know you're all dying to do this so we can start drinking,” she yells, then giggles along with most of her sleep-deprived audience. “But I just wanted to say that it's an honour to have been put in charge of such a serious and secretive gift exchange.” The giggles grow to full-blown laughter, and Jensen sees guilty expressions on a good number of faces. “Yeah, yeah, you guys know what you did. I have never seen so much gossip and misinformation in one place, and that includes my brief stint in an all-girls private school. I don't know whether I should be proud or ashamed. But I'm gonna go with proud, k? 'Cause I love you guys! And everybody better have an awesome holiday, okay? And... well, I guess that's it. Present time!”
There's a sudden surge of noise and movement as the crowd rearranges itself, people milling around looking for their designated recipients. Jensen expects Jared to go off looking for Kim, but he stays seated and just flashes an especially cheesy smile Jensen's way. Then he hands over the brightly decorated box he's been holding onto.
“Merry Christmas, man.”
“What?”
“I know you think I'm a shitty liar,” Jared says, a bit bitterly. “I'm not.”
“You sort of are,” Jensen says, turning the present over and feeling the weight of whatever's inside shift with the movement. “Most of the time, anyway.”
“Whatever, dude. I got you good. There's no way you saw this coming.”
Jared's crowing with delight. This explains so much, Jensen thinks, and hands over his own small gift. He watches the look on Jared's face shift from gloating to confused.
“Merry Christmas.”
“No way.”
“'Fraid so.”
Jared gives the box an appraising look, and shakes it slightly, listening for movement, although it seems pretty pointless in such a loud environment.
“You wanna go first?” Jensen says, failing to disguise the dread in his voice. The hectic activity made him forget his insecurity about his gift for a few minutes, but now it's back in full force.
“No, you go,” Jared says. He sets the small box down on the lunch table and leans forward, chin in hand. His face is so open and eager that it makes Jensen suspicious.
“You didn't make me stilts, did you?” he says, unsticking the tape from one end of the box and carefully tearing the paper along one of the edges.
He knows it's not stilts, of course. It's not nearly big or heavy enough, not to mention that Jared would never resort to using the same idea twice. He's sure it's going to be something else just as brilliantly hilarious, though, and the thought makes him hate Jared a little.
They've managed to attract a small audience: a couple of girls from the sound department, whispering in high-pitched voices about the impossible odds of Jared and Jensen picking each other from a hat, and Kim, who turned out to be the rightful recipient of the severed foot bong. No doubt they're expecting something crazy, coming from the master of the evil Secret Santa gift. From the look on Jared's face, Jensen half expects something to leap out and bite him. He's so convinced that Jared's gift will have a mocking tone that when he opens the box and finds a mess of fuzzy brown wool, clumsily knitted into some kind of lumpy shape, he doesn't quite know what to make of it.
“It's... wool,” he says dully. “You made me... wool.”
To his credit, Jared doesn't look insulted at all.
“Well, I didn't sheer it off a sheep or anything...” He chuckles, reconsidering. “Actually, I couldn't have. It's alpaca.”
“Alpaca?” Jensen says, still trying to wrap his mind around the unexpected brown fuzziness.
“It's like a little llama from the Andes.”
Jensen knew that, sort of. He pulls the lumpy knitted thing out of the box and watches it unfold into a lumpy knitted thing with sleeves.
“You... you made me a llama sweater?”
“You're always whining about being cold, so I thought...” Jared says, and fills in the rest with a shrug.
The alpaca wool is soft. Like, really, really soft. Jensen has to fight the temptation to bury his entire face in it, which would be a bad idea considering he's still covered in quite a bit of makeup and there are now about a dozen people watching his every move. He settles for expressing further disbelief.
“You knit me a sweater.”
“Yep,” Jared says, and grins, looking oddly bashful. “It took me a while to get the hang of it, sorry. The bottom is kinda rough.”
“This is... Who the hell taught you to knit?” Jensen says, running his fingers gently along the uneven stitches near the sweater's bottom edge.
Jared shrugs. “Internet.”
“No shit.”
It suddenly occurs to Jensen that he hasn't said a single nice thing about the present. He's been too busy trying not to die of shock, he supposes. But Jared doesn't seem to mind. He's watching, smiling, a pleased dimple appearing and disappearing at the corner of his mouth as his expression shifts, relaxes.
“This is great, Jared,” Jensen says. It sounds empty to his ears, insufficient, even though he means it. “I mean, it's really amazing. I can't even...”
Jesus, it's like he was raised in a barn. His mom would be so disappointed.
“Merry Christmas, Jensen,” Jared says.
“Thank you,” Jensen finally manages, and then makes sure to close his mouth to keep in any and all further stammering.
He clumsily fits the sweater back into the box and sets it aside, one hand still hovering near it, fingertips brushing the soft fuzz.
Jared seems pleasantly surprised to remember he still has his own gift to open. He slips his thumb between two layers of paper and slits the edge with a single flick of his wrist. When he pulls out what's inside, he emits a sort of strangled gurgle. He looks at Jensen, lips twitching, but it isn't until someone leans over the table to peer at the stack of home-made coupons that Jared starts laughing. Big cackles, the kind that sound like they could cause serious muscle cramps.
“I know, its lame,” Jensen says, sighing patiently.
“Psh, more like awesome,” Jared says. He picks up the stack and starts flipping through it. The laws of randomness have set This coupon entitles the bearer to one (1) free homecooked meal of his choosing, courtesy of Jensen Ackles on top of the pile, but there's some in there for cleaning the bathroom, a couple for sorting the recycling, some for dishes and laundry. One that involves the terrifying prospect of cleaning the eaves. Whatever eaves are. Jensen has not yet had the opportunity to find out.
“Oh, I'm gonna ride you so hard with these,” Jared mutters, almost to himself, barely glancing away from Jensen's scribbled promises.
Jensen feels himself blushing, stifles an irrational surge of anger at Jared for producing effortless innuendo and leaving Jensen even more frustrated than necessary.
Jared stops short when he reaches the end of the stack, looks up at Jensen with narrowed, questioning eyes.
“Some of these are blank,” he says.
“I ran out of ideas,” Jensen says. So he didn't fill out every coupon. Hey, for something cobbled together at three in the morning, it's getting a much better reception than he imagined it would.
“Hm.” Jared splits the stack in half, ferreting the blanks into some inner pocket of his jacket. “Gotta put those somewhere extra safe,” he says, entirely missing the fact that his Christmas gift is incomplete. Jensen's pretty sure that should be a disappointment.
“Right.”
“And when we get home,” Jared says, flipping through the remaining coupons, fanning them out like a deck of floppy cards. “You are totally-” He pauses, plucks a card from the middle of the stack, reads it and grins. “Scrubbing the toilet. While I watch.”
“Sounds kinky,” one of the sound department girls says.
“And then,” Jared says, looking through the rest of his gift, eyes peeled for a specific item. He finds it and yanks it out, waving it threateningly in Jensen's direction. “I might just make you do it again. You know. 'Cause I can.”
“Knock yourself out,” Jensen says weakly, exhausted at the mere thought and definitely resenting his mother. He is really glad he's managed to make Jared happy, though.
Looking around, Jensen notices a definite tendency for friendship bracelets, macrame and mixtapes among the cast and crew. A prominence of red paper cups means the party's officially started, even if Jensen and Jared still have another two and a half pages to get through before they're off the hook.
It's a real testament to their sense of professionalism that they manage, under the circumstances. Circumstances, in this case, meaning several cups of the traditional Christmas punch, which Jensen is fairly convinced, after three years of blind taste tests, consists of nothing but undiluted coconut rum and red food colouring.
Jared hits every mark, nails every line, then totters off to the car and, as soon as it's in motion, turns an awful greenish shade and pukes into the cupholder attached to his door.
**
Jared doesn't actually make Jensen clean the bathroom when they get home. Instead, he waits until the next day, when, under the effects of a blistering hangover, Jensen gets to deal with the fallout of Jared's drunken aim issues as well. Awesome.
“You know,” Jensen says, voice striking a delicate balance between soft enough to keep his head from exploding and loud enough for Jared to hear him out in the hall, “A lot of people say it's the thought behind a gift that counts.”
“Uh-huh,” Jared says, too loud. “Those are the same people who say winning isn't everything and that they're not laughing at you, they're laughing with you. Both bullshit, by the way.”
Jensen can hear Jared popping something into his mouth and tilting back on the kitchen chair he dragged over, and his stomach lurches at the mere mental image. It's always like this - Jared drinks himself catatonic and wakes up the next morning fresh as a daisy. Jensen, on the other hand, tends to work up a slow, steady buzz, which deteriorates just as slowly into a state of excruciating pain.
And there is a pee stain on the wall. The wall, for fuck's sake, and not even at a likely height.
“You think you might consider potty training one of these days?” Jensen mutters.
“Ha. Ha,” Jared says. “And I'm not laughing with you.”
Acid burns Jensen's throat. He goes back to scrubbing.
**
Jensen spends about twenty minutes washing his hands after the bathroom ordeal. Then he gulps down a full litre of water and crawls back into bed, fully expecting Jared to burst in and cruelly request his services at any moment. He doesn't, though. Jensen wakes up after a few hours, muscles tensed with cold, and spends a long time staring at the box with the sweater in it.
There's something awkward about it. Like he doesn't want to make a big deal about how much work Jared must have put into this thing. And even just wearing it seems like, well, sort of a big deal. But he's damn cold, and that finally gets the better of him, so he pulls it on, static crackling through his hair. The wooly brown sleeves bunch around his wrists; one of them is several inches longer than the other. The collar is just a crudely shaped hole, but it's a good height, and. It's warm. Jensen likes it. He's embarrassed at how much he likes it.
He goes back to bed and dozes well into the afternoon.
**
When he wakes up for good around 4:30, Jared's fully engrossed in a Deadliest Catch marathon, munching on corn chips like he's got a personal vendetta against them, Harley staring at his hand as it moves from the bag to his mouth and back again. Jensen wanders into the living room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and Jared smiles a little crookedly when he sees the sweater, but Jensen chooses not to react. It almost works, too. He only blushes a little.
“Hey,” Jared says, eyes already glued back to the TV. “It snowed.”
“Oh,” Jensen says, flopping down next to him on the couch.
“So. You should probably get going,” Jared says, and he hands over another familiar-looking slip of paper.
Shovelling out the driveway. The one coupon Jensen made especially because it's Vancouver, and he can't even remember the last time they got more than half an inch of snow. Joke's on him, though, when he looks out the front window and finds a good four or five inches already on the ground, a few flakes still fluttering down.
Jared chomps on another handful of corn chips, ignoring Jensen's groan of discontent, so Jensen steps into his boots and yanks on his coat and gloves. He thinks maybe he sees Jared smirk a little, but there's also some idiot getting clawed by a snow crab on TV, so he can't really tell.
Shovelling is a very peculiar kind of misery. It's repetitive and exhausting and boring as all hell, and his scarf gets wet and cold, starts to chafe his chin. But there are a half-dozen people on the block going through the same hell, which is something. He and the guy across the street kind of start a bit of a dialogue, which means that the guy gets to the end of his driveway at the same time as Jensen, looks up and says, “Sucks, eh?” and Jensen says, “Totally.” And then later, when they're both just finishing up, and the plow goes by and creates a two-foot ice barrier across the foot of Jensen's driveway, the guy sort of laughs at him.
“Well, that just fucking figures,” Jensen says, but he's kind of laughing too.
The guy, Dave, comes over to help him get rid of it, and when the plow comes back going the other way, they take care of Dave's side together.
It's while he's across the street huffing and puffing and joking around with Dave that he looks up and spies Jared standing at the front window, dogs fidgeting on either side of him.
**
Jensen's boots leave a perfect, round puddle on the floor before he moves them to the mat. He steps deftly over it, shrugging off his coat and tossing it over a chair.
In the living room, the TV is still blaring Deadliest Catch, casting an eerie blue light on the empty couch. He figures Jared's probably in the bathroom, and takes the opportunity to nab the prime spot in the left-hand corner and prop his feet up on the coffee table.
He's just digging into the corn chips left on the table when Jared reappears, pausing in the hallway to heave a big shaky sigh. If that has anything to do with what he was doing in the bathroom, Jensen doesn't want to know.
“So I probably shouldn't go in there for at least an hour, huh?” Jensen says.
“Huh?” Jared says, dropping down beside him and tugging a little at his sweater. “Hey, how's this thing working out?”
Jensen shrugs, feels his cheeks get warm.
“S'nice. You know.”
“You didn't laugh at me,” Jared says. “I totally thought you'd laugh.”
Jensen fusses with his too-long sleeve and looks at Jared. He's got kind of a stuttering, tentative look about him. It's very weird.
“I can laugh if you want me to. Dude, even my mom never knit me a sweater.”
“No, it's cool,” Jared says. “Don't laugh.”
He's looking down at his hands, smiling or wincing, Jensen can't tell. There's a long awkward moment, and then Jared lets out another steadying sigh and hands Jensen a folded over piece of paper.
“What's this?” Jensen says, stupidly.
Jared just watches him, watches his hands, so he unfolds the slip and finds one of his leftover blank coupons, familiar letters reading This coupon entitles the bearer to ______________________, courtesy of Jensen Ackles. Above the blank line, Jared has penned in “one (1) kiss”.
He looks up. Jared's eyes are on his now, dark and slanted. And okay, so Jensen realized earlier today that the masturbation incident, as he's come to refer to it in his own head, may actually have been more of a hiding-the-knitting incident (and wouldn't that be a fantastic euphemism?), but he can't help but return to that terrified, excited, guilty moment when he thought he saw... well, what he thought he saw. He gets that same tightness in his chest, that same twinge of arousal that he's been trying to smother for the past few weeks.
And now... what? Jared wants a kiss. Which means Jared's been thinking about this. And Jared doesn't have the excuse of a misunderstanding, so it's possible he's been thinking about it for a while.
It's only when Jared starts looking a little sad that Jensen realizes exactly how long he's been sitting there holding his voucher, frozen in thought. It's just a little hard to process, that's all. What does it mean, exactly? Is Jared indulging him? Fucking with him?
Jared's gaze drops back to his lap, and for some reason, that's when Jensen leans in, fingers going to Jared's jaw to tilt his face back up. He's not entirely coordinated, though, and his lips get there early; he ends up kissing the skin next to Jared's nose, feels the soft bump of Jared's mole against his mouth.
They both break away, then, chuckling, noses and foreheads nearly touching. Jensen's breathing deepens; he tries again, connects with Jared's lips, feels them slick and warm, yielding to his own. The instructions seemed to imply that Jensen should be doing the kissing, and Jared's definitely going along with that, responding to Jensen without overtaking him. At the slightest prod of Jensen's tongue, he lets out a soft grunt and opens his pliant mouth. Jensen licks softly inside.
It's kind of amazing. He figures it's got to be killing Jared not to take over. It's Jared, bossy, loud, the size of an independent island nation. But when Jensen backs off, all Jared does is make a little noise of complaint. Jesus, his eyes even stay closed for a while after, like he's trying to commit the kiss to memory or something. It's maybe one of the the girliest things Jared has ever done. And Jared knitted him a sweater, so. That's saying something.
When Jared opens his eyes, he breaks out into a huge grin.
“I give it a 7.5.”
Jensen scowls, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand.
“That was worth at least a nine. You're totally being the German judge.”
“I had to leave you some room for improvement!” Jared says. He's gesturing a bit wildly, the way he always does whenever they attempt to improvise anything on the show. “Anyway, that's racist - you're a racist.”
“Your mom's a racist,” Jensen answers automatically.
Jared just chuckles and lets that remark go, which would be awkward enough on its own. When you add their recent bout of kissing, it's downright paralyzing.
“Jensen, I...” Jared trails off. He looks back towards his bedroom, unsure, and it definitely doesn't seem like a sexual proposal. Rather, it looks like Jared yearning for a pen to write out what he wants to say.
“If you hand me another damn coupon, I swear...” Jensen says.
It works. Jared laughs, albeit uncomfortably.
“Are we doing this?” he says. “For real? Because, I kinda need to regulate the signals my brain is sending to my body.” He squirms uncomfortably. “You know, one way or another.”
Leave it to Jared to pull out his inner egghead at a time like this. Jensen could use a little regulation himself, he's thinking. Especially now that his dick is showing a deepening interest in the conversation.
“You want to?” Jensen says.
Jared shrugs, but then he says, “Well, yeah,” like it should be obvious. It probably is. Jensen's never been very good at this.
“Seriously?” Jensen says, and wants to kick himself. Doubt is never sexy.
“Dude,” Jared says. The word somehow says it all: 'of course', and 'moron', and 'quit asking me', and 'you have no fucking idea'.
“Because I've been... I mean... Not that I...”
That's when Jared launches himself at Jensen, knocking him back on the couch, kissing him deep and hard, and ending his stammering. Jensen is eternally grateful. Listening to himself stutter like that was making him want to punch himself in the face. He takes a brief moment to marvel at how lucky he is that it seems to have made Jared want to kiss him instead.
Jared's tongue is in his mouth, and his hands are roving around under Jensen's shirt, and Jensen's warm enough now to shuck both his sweater and shirt, but that seems a bit forward for barely five minutes into their new... relationship, whatever this is, so he keeps them on and just gets sweaty instead. Meanwhile, Jared's body is pressing him into the couch cushions, thighs moving against Jensen's, hips grinding just right against the seam of his jeans, producing such a sudden jolt of sensation that Jensen yelps, then has to pretend to clear his throat to preserve his dignity.
Somewhere close-by, Sadie barks in response, and a few seconds later, Jared nearly rolls off the couch, swatting clumsily at where she's started to lick the side of his face. Jensen's stomach cramps, he's laughing so hard. This isn't exactly how he pictured this happening. It's better.
Jared sacrifices a sock to distract Sadie, who immediately curls up in the corner and begins chewing it into pulp. Jared stares after her a few seconds before turning back to Jensen.
“So,” he says, leaning close. “How do you want to do this? You want to open all your presents right away?” He shifts his weight, presses warm against Jensen's body while his mouth nips at the line of Jensen's jaw. “Or you want to wait til Christmas to see what's in your stocking? Pace yourself, like a good little boy?”
For a second, Jensen's really fucking turned on, like so turned on he can see the future, and in it he's scrubbing come stains out of his jeans. But then his mind actually processes what Jared said, and seriously, he's got to stop laughing like this or he's going to pull something.
“That's your sex voice?” he says. “That's what you want to talk dirty about? Whether I've been a good boy?”
“Uh,” Jared says, wincing. “I dunno.”
“Because you sound like Santa,” Jensen says. “Or a serial killer.” He rubs Jared's shoulder, like he's trying to break the news softly. “Or a serial killer dressed as Santa. Who lures kids into his van with candy canes.”
“Well, now you're just reaching,” Jared says, and eases himself off Jensen, sitting stiffly on the couch. His cheeks are flushed pink. Jensen doesn't regret it. Much.
“So, uh...” Jensen says. He doesn't gesture towards his crotch, because, seriously, he has more class than that.
“Yeah, ok,” Jared says. “We're waiting.”
“We are?”
Hoisting himself gingerly to a seated position, Jensen tries not to look too disappointed. For a second, Jared's expression is alarmingly blank, and then he gives Jensen this fond, slightly naughty smile.
“We are. Because apparently someone needs to learn how to pace himself.”
Jensen lets out a relieved breath. And then immediately takes offence. “Hey!”
He's never hated Jared more than he does watching him hurry out of the room, cackling.
“Walk the dogs before you go to bed, alright?” he yells over his shoulder. “I'll submit the paperwork in the morning.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Jensen says.
He turns on the TV and jerks off to A Charlie Brown Christmas, and only feels a little guilty.
Details: J2, PG-13 (I know, lame).
Word Count: 7872
Summary: Jensen's mixtape still has two songs on it. His birdhouse died in the planning stage. The hair on his knuckles is growing back all weird and bristly. He hasn't been having the best month.
Notes: As always, thanks to arabella-hope for her help and her title. This is for shiplessheathen for spn_j2_xmas, following the very easygoing prompt of, "Jared/Jensen - Roommate!Fic, lots of subtle Jensen pining and angst with a happy ending." Hope you like it!
With Paper And String
One foot in the car, and Jared's already breaking the rules.
“Dude, I am so psyched. I picked Kim again, who did you pick?”
Jensen takes his time fastening his seatbelt, stalling and quietly thanking God that Jared opened his giant mouth when he did, before Jensen had a chance to make a mess of things by claiming to have picked Kim's name out of the hat. From the second he unfolded his slip of paper and read Jared's name, his mind has been scrambling for a convincing lie, and now he's got to start from scratch.
“They call it Secret Santa for a reason.”
“Yeah, so I can get the thrill that only breaking your spirit affords me, Ackles. Now, come on, share nicely with the class.”
“Every year, you make way too big a deal about this.”
“I make a perfectly proportional deal,” Jared says. “And it's not fair. I already told you mine. You're at an advantage.”
“What part of 'secret' don't you understand?”
“Yeah, secret from them,” Jared says, leaning as close as his seatbelt will let him and clumsily throwing an arm across Jensen's shoulders. “But we're bros. Those rules don't apply to us.”
“Er. Pretty sure they do. Actually, I'm pretty sure a couple of them were created because of us.”
Jared grins then, and claps him on the back. Hard.
“Damn right, they were.”
Jensen rolls his eyes.
“Toby. I got Toby.”
Jared nods, eyes bright.
“Excellent. Excellent. We're going to kick Christmas in the balls this year, Jensen.”
Jensen smiles tightly. He's not sure he wants to find out what that means.
**
As it turns out, it means dragging Jensen away from Mario Kart on his precious Sunday off and forcing him instead to freeze his fingers off in a blizzard.
“It's not a blizzard,” Jared calls down from his perch halfway up to the roof. “There's barely any snow, you giant pussy.”
Jensen's bare fingers tighten on the icy aluminium, and he considers the comedic versus medical consequences that shaking the ladder might produce. He probably shouldn't. But he really wants to. Good thing Jared makes it to the roof at that moment, removing the temptation.
“It's blizzard conditions,” Jensen grumbles. “So what if there's not actually a blizzard? It's minus five degrees Celsius.”
Jared leans over the edge, hair drooping around his face, and Jensen shudders, mentally preparing himself for the sight of his best friend splattered on the driveway. Out of sight in the fenced-off backyard, the dogs start going crazy, barking and whining, like they know Jared's doing something stupid.
“Watch it - Jesus, the edge - Jared!”
Jared ignores his warnings and just smirks down at him.
“Metric system nerd,” he says, and then disappears from view. Jensen can hear him walking around up there, boots crunching on the (admittedly thin) snow.
“Celsius just makes more sense,” he says, tightly.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jared says. He sounds far away.
Jensen shivers, flipping his fur-lined hood onto his head before tucking his hands into his armpits. He listens to Jared stomping around, unwinding half-frozen bundles of Christmas lights.
“I'm going back inside,” Jensen yells.
“No, you're not,” Jared yells back.
Jensen sighs, and it steams up his glasses. He thinks about Jared's skull busted open on the front walk, and stays put.
“I hate you.”
“Of course you do,” Jared answers distractedly.
Jensen cups his hands and blows into them, to very little effect.
**
It would be hard enough to figure out what to buy for Jared. The guy's epic lack of self-discipline means there isn't much out there that Jared wants but hasn't already procured for himself. But that's beside the point.
No one really remembers whose idea it was to restrict the exchange to handmade gifts. This complicates things quite a bit for guys like Jensen who couldn't glue two rocks together. For guys like Jared (who never, ever seems to run out of ideas despite picking Kim out of the hat for the third year running) it's an imagination herb garden filled with tasty possibilities.
Last year, Jared's gift to Kim was a pair of tin can stilts. He made them in his garage the night before the exchange, using two tomato cans and an old skipping rope he found. They were such a hit that they're still hanging behind the door in Kim's trailer.
Last year, Jensen made Shannon a mixtape. The year before, he made Alona a mixtape.
**
Jensen finds a pair of the world's tiniest canary yellow briefs in the back of the dryer. It would be hilarious, if it wasn't so damned disturbing. All right, it's hilarious anyway. He spends the whole thirty second hike to Jared's room thinking up the perfect joke. Banana hammock would be too easy, he thinks. Something about go-go dancing? Banana cream pie? Jared being one of Charlie's Angels?
It turns out that thirty seconds isn't nearly enough time to fully conceive of a tiny yellow shorts joke, so when he shoves Jared's door open, brandishing the briefs above his head, the words that come out of his mouth are a near total surprise.
“Yo, Greg Louganis called. He wants his shorts back.”
Decent. Not brilliant, but random enough to be sort of funny, he thinks. An extra couple of minutes of thought might have produced a better result, but Jensen couldn't possibly have waited that long. See: tiny yellow shorts.
Jared doesn't laugh. Instead, he sort of yelps and quickly pulls the blanket up over himself. He's flushed and sweaty, and normally there wouldn't be anything unusual about that (Jared gets sweaty brushing his teeth in the morning) but he's also avoiding eye contact with Jensen and looking just the slightest bit mortified. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what Jensen just walked in on.
“Oh, God,” Jensen says, clapping a hand (still holding suspicious yellow underwear) over his eyes and backing out of the room. He miscalculates and collides with the doorframe, teeth snapping together painfully. “Owmf.”
“It's not- uh. Shit,” Jared says. Jensen can hear him squirming around in bed, the blankets rustling. “You okay?”
“Bith my thung.”
He presses his lips together, swallowing a sudden rush of blood, and gropes blindly for the doorway.
“Show me,” Jared says, and then somehow he's right there, breath warm on Jensen's nose.
Jensen opens his eyes. Jared's wearing jeans and an old Calgary Flames t-shirt. Not naked. He's not sure why that comes as such a shock, but he's definitely glad for the lack of nudity.
Jared's thumb goes to Jensen's chin and he says, “Show me,” again.
Jensen opens his mouth, sticks out his tongue. Jared frowns, leans in at an angle to get a good look at the gash.
“Gross,” he says.
“Groth?” Jensen lisps back.
“I dunno, I think you might need stitches.”
The amused look on Jared's face is pissing him off, so Jensen checks out his tongue in Jared's mirror. There is a significant gash, a fresh bead of blood forming on it. It's about an eighth of an inch long. Okay, so no stitches, then. He catches sight of Jared's face in the mirror, still flushed, a little breathless.
“I...” he says, trying not to look at either Jared or his unmade bed. He still has the pair of yellow briefs in his hand, so he thrusts them at Jared and says, “I think these are yours.”
Then he gets the hell out of there.
**
At work, people keep spilling their Secret Santa plans. There's talk of Toby or another of the special effects makeup guys making a bong in the shape of a convincingly severed foot.
Apparently, the water goes in the heel, you puff on the big toe, and smoke wafts up from the bloody stump. Brilliant.
Jensen's concept for Jared's mixtape includes two songs so far: the Gilmore Girls theme song, and Crank Dat Soulja Boy. Every time he tries to add to the track list, he either defaults to a Michael Bublé song, or somehow gets the chorus of Blister In The Sun by the Violent Femmes stuck in his head and then he gets flustered and has to go get a drink of water to settle his nerves.
Turns out Jensen's sister was right. He really needs to - how did she put it? - oh yes: learn how to fucking knock.
**
Jensen most certainly did not call Chad for help. Actually, he didn't call Chad at all.
Jensen's never told anyone, but every once in a while (he's betting it has something to do with the lunar cycle) Chad will phone him and keep him on the line for a ridiculously long time, considering they don't have all that much to say to each other. It's been going on for years, and Jensen still isn't sure if it's some sort of extended joke Chad's playing on him, or if the guy just really is that lonely.
This time, Jensen ran out of light conversation topics about twenty minutes into the call, and, faced with what sounded like a needy silence, confessed his predicament. Chad's response is pretty predictable.
“Just buy him something and rip the label off.”
“Yeah, right,” Jensen scoffs. “Like what?”
“I dunno, something. What's he need?”
“Nothing. He needs nothing. He just bought a second iPod because it was yellow.”
“Oh, hey, I know! You should get him a nice wallet. He still uses that retarded velcro thing with Marvin the Martian on it.”
“Right,” Jensen says. “And it'll be totally believable that I made it, considering my extensive background in leather work.”
“What?” Chad says, defensive. “It was just an idea.”
“It was barely even that.”
“You know what? Fine. Don't accept my help. My best friend, who you stole, by the way, is going to have a shitty Christmas, but that's fine.”
Jensen tightens his jaw and clumsily changes the subject to Miley Cyrus's bra size.
**
As it turns out, it is possible to make a wallet out of duct tape. There are instructions on the internet and everything. Apparently, if you plan it out just right, you can even use different coloured tape to make an attractive pattern on the finished product.
Jensen never knew he had such hairy knuckles. He's very aware of it now, though - or rather, of how hairy his knuckles used to be, before they encountered some rogue strips of duct tape.
It isn't until he actually has to cut his own fingers free, using his mouth to work part of the scissors, that he gives up, though.
Jensen is stubborn, but he isn't insane.
**
He wakes up with a Post-It stuck to his cheek. He peels it off, shuddering at the gluey sensation, and reads the words WE'RE OUT OF TP, ASSWIPE penned in Jared's careful block letters. Jensen can't help laughing, even though Jared is probably pretty pissed at him. Jensen vaguely remembers saying he'd stop by the store a couple of days ago. Whoops.
Jared's nowhere to be found when Jensen leaves the house, and by the time he gets back with the requested item, as well as a couple of bags of chips and a Bingo scratch ticket (because Jared is secretly a seventy-five year-old woman) Jared's too busy recording a reggae version of the Legend of Zelda theme on Wii Music to bawl him out.
Jensen walks on eggshells all day anyway.
**
Jared misplaces his digital camera and spends an entire Saturday tearing the house apart looking for it. Jensen helps, lifting cushions and peering into coffee mugs. He's in the garage holding one of Jared's beat-up tennis shoes upside-down and shaking it when Jared walks in.
“Very funny.”
“Hey, I never know with you.”
Jared thinks about that for a second, then shrugs and investigates a second pair of kicked-off sneakers.
Morning of the next day finds them in line outside Best Buy, cloud-covered sky still clinging to darkness. Jensen doesn't understand why a new camera couldn't wait a few hours. It's not like it's an emergency, or anything.
“It's totally an emergency. What if Sadie does something cute? Like put on my sunglasses? What then, Jensen?”
Jensen glares at him, stomping his feet. The light snow covering the ground mutes the sound, and takes away all of his authority.
“Tell me I'm not out here getting frostbite so that you can put sunglasses on your dog. Again.”
Jared grins.
“All right. You're not getting frostbite.”
“Fine. Hypothermia, then.”
Jared shakes his head, laughing. “You're such a baby!”
“Minus ten degrees Celsius, Jay. Ten below zero! You know what happens at zero?”
“What?” Jared says. He's biting his lip, looking pleased and a little red-cheeked and God, Jensen really has to stop thinking about what Jared sometimes does alone in his bedroom.
“Uh,” Jensen says. He breathes out, a cloud of steamy breath wafting up into the air. “Water freezes.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I? Am mostly water.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I'm really rather attached to most of my cells, so... I'm gonna go wait in the car.”
Jared grabs his arm before he has a chance to go anywhere.
“Oh, no, you don't. I need you to run interference when they open the doors!”
“Pretty sure I have to be alive to do that,” Jensen grumbles.
“Nah,” Jared says. “I'll just roll your frozen corpse at oncoming traffic. It'll be handy!”
“You do that,” Jensen says, making sure that Jared sees his chattering teeth, “And I will make sure to shatter into a million shards of ice, and stab you.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Jared says, and then, without any sort of cue, he sort of wraps himself around Jensen. Which isn't new, not really, but try telling Jensen's body that. It's reacting like it hasn't been touched in years.
“What are you...” Jensen says, but drifts off when Jared's hands start moving against his upper arms, mittens rubbing vigorously against his jacket, making a kind of whooshing sound.
Maybe Jared means it as a joke, but it feels nice. Warming and relaxing. Jared leans in close, mouth slightly ajar, and just breathes on him, the way you blow into cupped hands to get the feeling back into them. It makes Jensen shiver, and Jared rubs him faster to compensate. Jensen's surprised there aren't sparks flying off his jacket. Not that he wants Jared to stop, or anything. God, no.
“Better?” Jared says, and blows on him again.
“Yeah. Actually,” Jensen says. His voice sounds distant and weird.
When the doors open, neither of them is prepared.
The entire crowd flocks to the Wii section.
Jared buys a camera. It's uneventful.
**
“Mom, I'm not -”
“Do you or do you not have domestic responsibilities, Jensen?”
His mom is making it sound like he's in trouble. Which he totally isn't.
“I do, but it isn't like that. I can't just -”
“All I know is those gift certificates were the best Mother's Day gift you ever gave me. Better than the honeybee necklace, and you know how I love the honeybee necklace.”
“I'm not nine years old anymore, mom,” Jensen says, although his voice betrays him, comes out all high-pitched and whiny. He takes a second to regroup. “I can't give Jared a handmade gift certificate that says I'll take out the garbage. That's not how it works anymore. I'm an adult now. I just take out the garbage. It's kind of a paperless transaction.”
“Mhmm,” his mom says, in a tone that implies she'll believe it when she sees it.
“I think maybe he'd like a birdhouse,” Jensen says weakly. “For the yard.”
He pictures Jared getting excited about birds out behind the house. Keeping binoculars by the back window, researching what kinds of seed attracts the flashiest species. It's kind of an adorable mental image, and when his mom tut-tuts, Jensen realizes he's sort of drifted off and is smiling stupidly into the phone.
“Oh, honey,” his mom says. “You know how I feel about you working with tools after the last time.”
And Jensen totally means to tell her he's no longer afraid of hammers and saws. He really does. He opens his mouth to say so, and what comes out is a rueful, “Yes'm.”
“Just think about the gift certificates,” his mom says. “Jared's a nice boy. I think he'd be delighted.”
“Mhmm,” Jensen says.
**
One morning not too long after that conversation, he's sitting across the kitchen table from Jared while Jared picks the raisins out of a bowl of Oatmeal Crisp with Raisins and lays them on a soggy paper towel. It's disgusting, and, with Jensen barely awake after only one cup of coffee, a little cruel.
It isn't until Jared actually pours himself more cereal and starts the process over again that it hits Jensen. The reason he can't figure out what to give Jared. The reason everything's seemed so difficult lately.
He's in love. With Jared, of all people. Stupid Jared, and his disgusting pile of wet raisins.
Goddammit.
**
It's the day before their last day on set, and suddenly, all the Secret Santa gossip has gone quiet.
Jensen's mixtape still has two songs on it. His birdhouse died in the planning stage. The hair on his knuckles is growing back all weird and bristly. He hasn't been having the best month.
And now, after Jensen has gone and sprouted feelings for his moose of a co-worker/best friend/roommate/landlord, Jared has to complicate things even further by disappearing.
Oh, he's around, just not by Jensen's side where he normally would be, and Jensen can't help wondering if he managed to scare him off somehow. Maybe he let something slip. You know, something along the lines of “Kiss me,” or “I love you,” or “Please use me as a yoga mat.” It could happen. He can't always control what comes out of his mouth in the morning, especially before his first cup of coffee goes in.
Anyway, it would explain why Jared has been hiding in his trailer all day. Earlier, used to just letting himself in, Jensen turned the knob and promptly collided with the locked door. Now his nose is kind of bruised and swollen, much to the makeup department's dismay, and when he takes Jared aside during shooting to find out what's going on, Jared just says he's tired and thinks he might be coming down with something.
Which only serves to confirm that Jared is probably the worst liar Jensen has ever known. Seriously. He fucking twitches. It makes Jensen want to cry for Jared's future acting career. It also makes him want to grab the guy and kiss him until he gets the hiccups. He's really focusing on the first thing, though.
It gets worse as the day goes on. Jared is distant and distracted, running off to his trailer at every opportunity. When they wrap after a 16-hour day, Clif and Jensen spend the better part of half an hour idling in the parking lot waiting for him to show his face. When he finally makes it out to the car, his breathless apologies make Jensen despair for his career all over again.
They ride home in awkward silence. In Jensen's head, there's a countdown clock ticking away at a dreadful pace. He only has six hours and twenty minutes to come up with a present for Jared before they have to leave for work again. And he'd like to reserve some of that time for sleeping, if at all possible.
Not that it really matters, the way Jared's been acting. Jensen should save himself the trouble and just hand over the two song mixtape, because it's not like Jared's going to open up some perfect handmade gift from Jensen and start crying or throw himself into Jensen's arms or anything. Not that Jensen wants that. It's a really creepy idea, come to think of it. But the point is, Jared seems to have sensed Jensen's little crush on him and gone into permanent “back away slowly” mode, and Jensen's pretty sure there's nothing he can do or make that'll fix this weirdness between them.
Oh, he's sure they'll get back to normal. He can't imagine either of them letting their friendship die over this shit. It's just going to take some time. Time and level-headedness, those are the two things Jensen needs most right now.
When he gets home, he goes right to his room and pulls up the playlist of Jared's mixtape on his computer (well, really a mix CD, but Jensen feels that the word “tape” is really essential to the concept, linguistically speaking). He stares at it for a while and then surprises himself by hitting the delete button.
All right. Back to square one, then.
**
By mid-morning the next day, Jensen's wishing he'd made the mixtape after all. He could have just piled on a random bunch of songs about dogs. That would have required very little effort, and yet he's sure Jared would have eaten something like that right up. It's far too late for second thoughts now, though.
When they break for lunch, he detours to his trailer to grab the gift and gain a little composure. There are butterflies in his stomach, and he feels utterly ridiculous. He makes his way to the catering tent, which is crammed with people and brightly coloured parcels, and takes his usual seat, looking up to find Jared grinning at him and clutching a large, flat box that looks like it was wrapped by a colourblind mongoose.
The exchange has grown from a modest arrangement between friends during its first year to a monstrous and complex affair. Beth, the P. A. whose job it was to keep track of the number of participants this year, stands precariously on a folding chair and waves her arms until she has everyone's attention.
“All right, guys, I know you're all dying to do this so we can start drinking,” she yells, then giggles along with most of her sleep-deprived audience. “But I just wanted to say that it's an honour to have been put in charge of such a serious and secretive gift exchange.” The giggles grow to full-blown laughter, and Jensen sees guilty expressions on a good number of faces. “Yeah, yeah, you guys know what you did. I have never seen so much gossip and misinformation in one place, and that includes my brief stint in an all-girls private school. I don't know whether I should be proud or ashamed. But I'm gonna go with proud, k? 'Cause I love you guys! And everybody better have an awesome holiday, okay? And... well, I guess that's it. Present time!”
There's a sudden surge of noise and movement as the crowd rearranges itself, people milling around looking for their designated recipients. Jensen expects Jared to go off looking for Kim, but he stays seated and just flashes an especially cheesy smile Jensen's way. Then he hands over the brightly decorated box he's been holding onto.
“Merry Christmas, man.”
“What?”
“I know you think I'm a shitty liar,” Jared says, a bit bitterly. “I'm not.”
“You sort of are,” Jensen says, turning the present over and feeling the weight of whatever's inside shift with the movement. “Most of the time, anyway.”
“Whatever, dude. I got you good. There's no way you saw this coming.”
Jared's crowing with delight. This explains so much, Jensen thinks, and hands over his own small gift. He watches the look on Jared's face shift from gloating to confused.
“Merry Christmas.”
“No way.”
“'Fraid so.”
Jared gives the box an appraising look, and shakes it slightly, listening for movement, although it seems pretty pointless in such a loud environment.
“You wanna go first?” Jensen says, failing to disguise the dread in his voice. The hectic activity made him forget his insecurity about his gift for a few minutes, but now it's back in full force.
“No, you go,” Jared says. He sets the small box down on the lunch table and leans forward, chin in hand. His face is so open and eager that it makes Jensen suspicious.
“You didn't make me stilts, did you?” he says, unsticking the tape from one end of the box and carefully tearing the paper along one of the edges.
He knows it's not stilts, of course. It's not nearly big or heavy enough, not to mention that Jared would never resort to using the same idea twice. He's sure it's going to be something else just as brilliantly hilarious, though, and the thought makes him hate Jared a little.
They've managed to attract a small audience: a couple of girls from the sound department, whispering in high-pitched voices about the impossible odds of Jared and Jensen picking each other from a hat, and Kim, who turned out to be the rightful recipient of the severed foot bong. No doubt they're expecting something crazy, coming from the master of the evil Secret Santa gift. From the look on Jared's face, Jensen half expects something to leap out and bite him. He's so convinced that Jared's gift will have a mocking tone that when he opens the box and finds a mess of fuzzy brown wool, clumsily knitted into some kind of lumpy shape, he doesn't quite know what to make of it.
“It's... wool,” he says dully. “You made me... wool.”
To his credit, Jared doesn't look insulted at all.
“Well, I didn't sheer it off a sheep or anything...” He chuckles, reconsidering. “Actually, I couldn't have. It's alpaca.”
“Alpaca?” Jensen says, still trying to wrap his mind around the unexpected brown fuzziness.
“It's like a little llama from the Andes.”
Jensen knew that, sort of. He pulls the lumpy knitted thing out of the box and watches it unfold into a lumpy knitted thing with sleeves.
“You... you made me a llama sweater?”
“You're always whining about being cold, so I thought...” Jared says, and fills in the rest with a shrug.
The alpaca wool is soft. Like, really, really soft. Jensen has to fight the temptation to bury his entire face in it, which would be a bad idea considering he's still covered in quite a bit of makeup and there are now about a dozen people watching his every move. He settles for expressing further disbelief.
“You knit me a sweater.”
“Yep,” Jared says, and grins, looking oddly bashful. “It took me a while to get the hang of it, sorry. The bottom is kinda rough.”
“This is... Who the hell taught you to knit?” Jensen says, running his fingers gently along the uneven stitches near the sweater's bottom edge.
Jared shrugs. “Internet.”
“No shit.”
It suddenly occurs to Jensen that he hasn't said a single nice thing about the present. He's been too busy trying not to die of shock, he supposes. But Jared doesn't seem to mind. He's watching, smiling, a pleased dimple appearing and disappearing at the corner of his mouth as his expression shifts, relaxes.
“This is great, Jared,” Jensen says. It sounds empty to his ears, insufficient, even though he means it. “I mean, it's really amazing. I can't even...”
Jesus, it's like he was raised in a barn. His mom would be so disappointed.
“Merry Christmas, Jensen,” Jared says.
“Thank you,” Jensen finally manages, and then makes sure to close his mouth to keep in any and all further stammering.
He clumsily fits the sweater back into the box and sets it aside, one hand still hovering near it, fingertips brushing the soft fuzz.
Jared seems pleasantly surprised to remember he still has his own gift to open. He slips his thumb between two layers of paper and slits the edge with a single flick of his wrist. When he pulls out what's inside, he emits a sort of strangled gurgle. He looks at Jensen, lips twitching, but it isn't until someone leans over the table to peer at the stack of home-made coupons that Jared starts laughing. Big cackles, the kind that sound like they could cause serious muscle cramps.
“I know, its lame,” Jensen says, sighing patiently.
“Psh, more like awesome,” Jared says. He picks up the stack and starts flipping through it. The laws of randomness have set This coupon entitles the bearer to one (1) free homecooked meal of his choosing, courtesy of Jensen Ackles on top of the pile, but there's some in there for cleaning the bathroom, a couple for sorting the recycling, some for dishes and laundry. One that involves the terrifying prospect of cleaning the eaves. Whatever eaves are. Jensen has not yet had the opportunity to find out.
“Oh, I'm gonna ride you so hard with these,” Jared mutters, almost to himself, barely glancing away from Jensen's scribbled promises.
Jensen feels himself blushing, stifles an irrational surge of anger at Jared for producing effortless innuendo and leaving Jensen even more frustrated than necessary.
Jared stops short when he reaches the end of the stack, looks up at Jensen with narrowed, questioning eyes.
“Some of these are blank,” he says.
“I ran out of ideas,” Jensen says. So he didn't fill out every coupon. Hey, for something cobbled together at three in the morning, it's getting a much better reception than he imagined it would.
“Hm.” Jared splits the stack in half, ferreting the blanks into some inner pocket of his jacket. “Gotta put those somewhere extra safe,” he says, entirely missing the fact that his Christmas gift is incomplete. Jensen's pretty sure that should be a disappointment.
“Right.”
“And when we get home,” Jared says, flipping through the remaining coupons, fanning them out like a deck of floppy cards. “You are totally-” He pauses, plucks a card from the middle of the stack, reads it and grins. “Scrubbing the toilet. While I watch.”
“Sounds kinky,” one of the sound department girls says.
“And then,” Jared says, looking through the rest of his gift, eyes peeled for a specific item. He finds it and yanks it out, waving it threateningly in Jensen's direction. “I might just make you do it again. You know. 'Cause I can.”
“Knock yourself out,” Jensen says weakly, exhausted at the mere thought and definitely resenting his mother. He is really glad he's managed to make Jared happy, though.
Looking around, Jensen notices a definite tendency for friendship bracelets, macrame and mixtapes among the cast and crew. A prominence of red paper cups means the party's officially started, even if Jensen and Jared still have another two and a half pages to get through before they're off the hook.
It's a real testament to their sense of professionalism that they manage, under the circumstances. Circumstances, in this case, meaning several cups of the traditional Christmas punch, which Jensen is fairly convinced, after three years of blind taste tests, consists of nothing but undiluted coconut rum and red food colouring.
Jared hits every mark, nails every line, then totters off to the car and, as soon as it's in motion, turns an awful greenish shade and pukes into the cupholder attached to his door.
**
Jared doesn't actually make Jensen clean the bathroom when they get home. Instead, he waits until the next day, when, under the effects of a blistering hangover, Jensen gets to deal with the fallout of Jared's drunken aim issues as well. Awesome.
“You know,” Jensen says, voice striking a delicate balance between soft enough to keep his head from exploding and loud enough for Jared to hear him out in the hall, “A lot of people say it's the thought behind a gift that counts.”
“Uh-huh,” Jared says, too loud. “Those are the same people who say winning isn't everything and that they're not laughing at you, they're laughing with you. Both bullshit, by the way.”
Jensen can hear Jared popping something into his mouth and tilting back on the kitchen chair he dragged over, and his stomach lurches at the mere mental image. It's always like this - Jared drinks himself catatonic and wakes up the next morning fresh as a daisy. Jensen, on the other hand, tends to work up a slow, steady buzz, which deteriorates just as slowly into a state of excruciating pain.
And there is a pee stain on the wall. The wall, for fuck's sake, and not even at a likely height.
“You think you might consider potty training one of these days?” Jensen mutters.
“Ha. Ha,” Jared says. “And I'm not laughing with you.”
Acid burns Jensen's throat. He goes back to scrubbing.
**
Jensen spends about twenty minutes washing his hands after the bathroom ordeal. Then he gulps down a full litre of water and crawls back into bed, fully expecting Jared to burst in and cruelly request his services at any moment. He doesn't, though. Jensen wakes up after a few hours, muscles tensed with cold, and spends a long time staring at the box with the sweater in it.
There's something awkward about it. Like he doesn't want to make a big deal about how much work Jared must have put into this thing. And even just wearing it seems like, well, sort of a big deal. But he's damn cold, and that finally gets the better of him, so he pulls it on, static crackling through his hair. The wooly brown sleeves bunch around his wrists; one of them is several inches longer than the other. The collar is just a crudely shaped hole, but it's a good height, and. It's warm. Jensen likes it. He's embarrassed at how much he likes it.
He goes back to bed and dozes well into the afternoon.
**
When he wakes up for good around 4:30, Jared's fully engrossed in a Deadliest Catch marathon, munching on corn chips like he's got a personal vendetta against them, Harley staring at his hand as it moves from the bag to his mouth and back again. Jensen wanders into the living room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and Jared smiles a little crookedly when he sees the sweater, but Jensen chooses not to react. It almost works, too. He only blushes a little.
“Hey,” Jared says, eyes already glued back to the TV. “It snowed.”
“Oh,” Jensen says, flopping down next to him on the couch.
“So. You should probably get going,” Jared says, and he hands over another familiar-looking slip of paper.
Shovelling out the driveway. The one coupon Jensen made especially because it's Vancouver, and he can't even remember the last time they got more than half an inch of snow. Joke's on him, though, when he looks out the front window and finds a good four or five inches already on the ground, a few flakes still fluttering down.
Jared chomps on another handful of corn chips, ignoring Jensen's groan of discontent, so Jensen steps into his boots and yanks on his coat and gloves. He thinks maybe he sees Jared smirk a little, but there's also some idiot getting clawed by a snow crab on TV, so he can't really tell.
Shovelling is a very peculiar kind of misery. It's repetitive and exhausting and boring as all hell, and his scarf gets wet and cold, starts to chafe his chin. But there are a half-dozen people on the block going through the same hell, which is something. He and the guy across the street kind of start a bit of a dialogue, which means that the guy gets to the end of his driveway at the same time as Jensen, looks up and says, “Sucks, eh?” and Jensen says, “Totally.” And then later, when they're both just finishing up, and the plow goes by and creates a two-foot ice barrier across the foot of Jensen's driveway, the guy sort of laughs at him.
“Well, that just fucking figures,” Jensen says, but he's kind of laughing too.
The guy, Dave, comes over to help him get rid of it, and when the plow comes back going the other way, they take care of Dave's side together.
It's while he's across the street huffing and puffing and joking around with Dave that he looks up and spies Jared standing at the front window, dogs fidgeting on either side of him.
**
Jensen's boots leave a perfect, round puddle on the floor before he moves them to the mat. He steps deftly over it, shrugging off his coat and tossing it over a chair.
In the living room, the TV is still blaring Deadliest Catch, casting an eerie blue light on the empty couch. He figures Jared's probably in the bathroom, and takes the opportunity to nab the prime spot in the left-hand corner and prop his feet up on the coffee table.
He's just digging into the corn chips left on the table when Jared reappears, pausing in the hallway to heave a big shaky sigh. If that has anything to do with what he was doing in the bathroom, Jensen doesn't want to know.
“So I probably shouldn't go in there for at least an hour, huh?” Jensen says.
“Huh?” Jared says, dropping down beside him and tugging a little at his sweater. “Hey, how's this thing working out?”
Jensen shrugs, feels his cheeks get warm.
“S'nice. You know.”
“You didn't laugh at me,” Jared says. “I totally thought you'd laugh.”
Jensen fusses with his too-long sleeve and looks at Jared. He's got kind of a stuttering, tentative look about him. It's very weird.
“I can laugh if you want me to. Dude, even my mom never knit me a sweater.”
“No, it's cool,” Jared says. “Don't laugh.”
He's looking down at his hands, smiling or wincing, Jensen can't tell. There's a long awkward moment, and then Jared lets out another steadying sigh and hands Jensen a folded over piece of paper.
“What's this?” Jensen says, stupidly.
Jared just watches him, watches his hands, so he unfolds the slip and finds one of his leftover blank coupons, familiar letters reading This coupon entitles the bearer to ______________________, courtesy of Jensen Ackles. Above the blank line, Jared has penned in “one (1) kiss”.
He looks up. Jared's eyes are on his now, dark and slanted. And okay, so Jensen realized earlier today that the masturbation incident, as he's come to refer to it in his own head, may actually have been more of a hiding-the-knitting incident (and wouldn't that be a fantastic euphemism?), but he can't help but return to that terrified, excited, guilty moment when he thought he saw... well, what he thought he saw. He gets that same tightness in his chest, that same twinge of arousal that he's been trying to smother for the past few weeks.
And now... what? Jared wants a kiss. Which means Jared's been thinking about this. And Jared doesn't have the excuse of a misunderstanding, so it's possible he's been thinking about it for a while.
It's only when Jared starts looking a little sad that Jensen realizes exactly how long he's been sitting there holding his voucher, frozen in thought. It's just a little hard to process, that's all. What does it mean, exactly? Is Jared indulging him? Fucking with him?
Jared's gaze drops back to his lap, and for some reason, that's when Jensen leans in, fingers going to Jared's jaw to tilt his face back up. He's not entirely coordinated, though, and his lips get there early; he ends up kissing the skin next to Jared's nose, feels the soft bump of Jared's mole against his mouth.
They both break away, then, chuckling, noses and foreheads nearly touching. Jensen's breathing deepens; he tries again, connects with Jared's lips, feels them slick and warm, yielding to his own. The instructions seemed to imply that Jensen should be doing the kissing, and Jared's definitely going along with that, responding to Jensen without overtaking him. At the slightest prod of Jensen's tongue, he lets out a soft grunt and opens his pliant mouth. Jensen licks softly inside.
It's kind of amazing. He figures it's got to be killing Jared not to take over. It's Jared, bossy, loud, the size of an independent island nation. But when Jensen backs off, all Jared does is make a little noise of complaint. Jesus, his eyes even stay closed for a while after, like he's trying to commit the kiss to memory or something. It's maybe one of the the girliest things Jared has ever done. And Jared knitted him a sweater, so. That's saying something.
When Jared opens his eyes, he breaks out into a huge grin.
“I give it a 7.5.”
Jensen scowls, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand.
“That was worth at least a nine. You're totally being the German judge.”
“I had to leave you some room for improvement!” Jared says. He's gesturing a bit wildly, the way he always does whenever they attempt to improvise anything on the show. “Anyway, that's racist - you're a racist.”
“Your mom's a racist,” Jensen answers automatically.
Jared just chuckles and lets that remark go, which would be awkward enough on its own. When you add their recent bout of kissing, it's downright paralyzing.
“Jensen, I...” Jared trails off. He looks back towards his bedroom, unsure, and it definitely doesn't seem like a sexual proposal. Rather, it looks like Jared yearning for a pen to write out what he wants to say.
“If you hand me another damn coupon, I swear...” Jensen says.
It works. Jared laughs, albeit uncomfortably.
“Are we doing this?” he says. “For real? Because, I kinda need to regulate the signals my brain is sending to my body.” He squirms uncomfortably. “You know, one way or another.”
Leave it to Jared to pull out his inner egghead at a time like this. Jensen could use a little regulation himself, he's thinking. Especially now that his dick is showing a deepening interest in the conversation.
“You want to?” Jensen says.
Jared shrugs, but then he says, “Well, yeah,” like it should be obvious. It probably is. Jensen's never been very good at this.
“Seriously?” Jensen says, and wants to kick himself. Doubt is never sexy.
“Dude,” Jared says. The word somehow says it all: 'of course', and 'moron', and 'quit asking me', and 'you have no fucking idea'.
“Because I've been... I mean... Not that I...”
That's when Jared launches himself at Jensen, knocking him back on the couch, kissing him deep and hard, and ending his stammering. Jensen is eternally grateful. Listening to himself stutter like that was making him want to punch himself in the face. He takes a brief moment to marvel at how lucky he is that it seems to have made Jared want to kiss him instead.
Jared's tongue is in his mouth, and his hands are roving around under Jensen's shirt, and Jensen's warm enough now to shuck both his sweater and shirt, but that seems a bit forward for barely five minutes into their new... relationship, whatever this is, so he keeps them on and just gets sweaty instead. Meanwhile, Jared's body is pressing him into the couch cushions, thighs moving against Jensen's, hips grinding just right against the seam of his jeans, producing such a sudden jolt of sensation that Jensen yelps, then has to pretend to clear his throat to preserve his dignity.
Somewhere close-by, Sadie barks in response, and a few seconds later, Jared nearly rolls off the couch, swatting clumsily at where she's started to lick the side of his face. Jensen's stomach cramps, he's laughing so hard. This isn't exactly how he pictured this happening. It's better.
Jared sacrifices a sock to distract Sadie, who immediately curls up in the corner and begins chewing it into pulp. Jared stares after her a few seconds before turning back to Jensen.
“So,” he says, leaning close. “How do you want to do this? You want to open all your presents right away?” He shifts his weight, presses warm against Jensen's body while his mouth nips at the line of Jensen's jaw. “Or you want to wait til Christmas to see what's in your stocking? Pace yourself, like a good little boy?”
For a second, Jensen's really fucking turned on, like so turned on he can see the future, and in it he's scrubbing come stains out of his jeans. But then his mind actually processes what Jared said, and seriously, he's got to stop laughing like this or he's going to pull something.
“That's your sex voice?” he says. “That's what you want to talk dirty about? Whether I've been a good boy?”
“Uh,” Jared says, wincing. “I dunno.”
“Because you sound like Santa,” Jensen says. “Or a serial killer.” He rubs Jared's shoulder, like he's trying to break the news softly. “Or a serial killer dressed as Santa. Who lures kids into his van with candy canes.”
“Well, now you're just reaching,” Jared says, and eases himself off Jensen, sitting stiffly on the couch. His cheeks are flushed pink. Jensen doesn't regret it. Much.
“So, uh...” Jensen says. He doesn't gesture towards his crotch, because, seriously, he has more class than that.
“Yeah, ok,” Jared says. “We're waiting.”
“We are?”
Hoisting himself gingerly to a seated position, Jensen tries not to look too disappointed. For a second, Jared's expression is alarmingly blank, and then he gives Jensen this fond, slightly naughty smile.
“We are. Because apparently someone needs to learn how to pace himself.”
Jensen lets out a relieved breath. And then immediately takes offence. “Hey!”
He's never hated Jared more than he does watching him hurry out of the room, cackling.
“Walk the dogs before you go to bed, alright?” he yells over his shoulder. “I'll submit the paperwork in the morning.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Jensen says.
He turns on the TV and jerks off to A Charlie Brown Christmas, and only feels a little guilty.