[fic] I Secretly Love Throwing Oranges at Our Priest
Title: I Secretly Love Throwing Oranges at Our Priest
Fandom: Supernatural RPS, Jared/Jensen
Length: ~7,730
Rating: PG-13, mostly for references
Summary: The timeless tale of how Prince Jensen fell in love with Secret Agent Padalecki, and they lived happily ever after, in space. Or, how Jared's life got awesome. [AU, Crack]
A/N: For stttmsbwa Took forever. Ten kinds of ridiculous. Title not related at all, but a quote from movie The Fall. Hope you like, or at the very least somewhat understand it? XD <3
It was a gorgeous, blue sky-filled day, the cargo ship Vancouver had just made it out of the Doldrums and was looking forward to many days of smooth sailing, and Jared was in a generally good mood when the lookout spotted a windjammer approaching on the horizon. The day remained gorgeous and blue sky-filled as the lookout cried out Pirates!, but Jared’s good mood didn’t.
In fact, his good mood was pretty much completely ruined by the time the pirate ship, helped by the traitorous winds, caught up with Vancouver and overtook them completely. And by the time the deck was swarming with pirates and Jared realized he was actually going to have to deal with them, face to face, without the benefit of his pistol, which he’d left in the cabin he shared with two other crewmembers, he could barely remember what a good mood felt like. Stupid pirates, ruining everything.
Jared glanced around the deck to see what how his fellow crew were handling the situation. Captain Kripke had fled into his cabin and presumably barricaded the door. Mike was haggling with the pirates who were trying to divest him of valuables. Misha was entertaining them. Chad had jumped ship. Chris was attempting to fight them, and everybody else was just submitting to being robbed. Chris didn’t seem to be having much luck with his resistance, but Jared figured that, if he lived long enough to tell this tale to others, he’d rather be one of the ones who tried, however stupidly, to fight, rather than, you know. Jump into the frigid water and then yell at the pirates to haul him back out again.
(Chad was kind of stupid.)
Of course, no pirate was actually directly threatening him yet, so Jared had to be proactive. He drew his sword and started forward, towards the pirate who, although he currently had his back to Jared, seemed to be the mood-ruiner-that is, pirate-in charge. Jared crept up behind him silently, hoping all the other pirates were distracted with laughing at Chad. It seemed like a pretty good bet.
Jared didn’t know quite what happened, but in the next second his sword was skidding away across the deck and a gun was being pressed unsettlingly against his mouth.
And that was how Jared found himself staring down the barrel of a gun held threateningly to his face by a really deadly, really hot pirate.
Jared stopped dead, going a little cross-eyed as he examined the gun whose cold metal lips were pressing eerily to his. Then he stared some more at the pirate attached to the gun. He was finding it hard to breathe for more than one reason. Which was pretty stupid, because he was about to die, he really shouldn’t have been focusing on the pretty green eyes and pouty, full lips of the guy who was about to kill him. A pirate, for God’s sake.
Jared raised his hands in surrender and thought fast; this really, really wasn’t how he had been planning on his resistance going.
“Uh,” he said. Okay, he tried to think fast. It was a little hard to concentrate when pirates (although sadly not the one holding a gun to his face) were running their hands all over him, searching for valuables. He bit back a curse as one of them got a bit too close for comfort whilst rummaging around in his pocket. The attractive pirate in front of him, of course, was just smirking at Jared’s discomfort.
That was when Jared had his idea. His really-not-so-smart-but-hopefully-smart-enough-to-avoid-getting-himself-killed idea. He dropped hastily to his knees. The pirate, clearly surprised, immediately pulled the trigger of his pistol, but the shot went cleanly above Jared’s head. Jared tried not to let that affect him too much. It did anyway. He drew in a shaky breath. He tried not to let his new position in relation to said pirate affect him too much either. That was pretty much hopeless.
“Um,” he said eloquently. “Please, uh, allow me to join your ranks, Captain.” Oh god, why did that sound so dirty in his mind? This was serious business.
“What?” the pirate said, lowering his gun and now sounding faintly amused. “Are you saying you want to join up?”
“Yes.” Jared bit his lip and nodded quickly. So maybe this wasn’t the best plan-but it accomplished three things: one, he’d get his stuff back; two: his head likely wouldn’t be blown off; and three: he’d have a little excitement in his life. This might actually turn out to be an adventure (if it didn’t turn out to be an absolute nightmare, which was kind of more likely).
And okay, four: he’d be near the crazy pirate with the startlingly green eyes who had nearly shot his head off a few seconds ago. Jared might just be the tiniest bit insane.
“Right then,” the pirate said, lowering his gun. “I’d give you a talk here about the pirate life not being easy, and how my men’ll kill you if you’re not true to your word, and how you better be able to handle stealing and thieving and other things not done by civilized people, and how you’re to follow my commands at all times and all that-but instead I think you can just sink or swim.” He smirked. He was really very pretty. Despite himself, Jared grinned. “You get a trial run, until the next ship we come to-if I don’t like what I see, we leave you on it. Come on, Sailor Boy.” The pirate turned and walked away.
Jared was determined to stick with him. He was going to be the best pirate ever.
The-more-likely-than-not-a-pirate-whose-name-was-apparently-Jensen’s ship was kind of a mess. It was a piece of junk, honestly. And it’s not like Jared saw a lot of state-of-the-art ships on Corelyyk, and he still thought it was bad. So it was really no wonder the thing had broken down. But at least it seemed to have a pretty simple operating system.
“I can definitely fix this,” Jared said when he finished examining the rear flux capacitor. Jensen raised an eyebrow.
“You sure, Farm Boy?” he asked, still sounding rather wary. Jared was used to that. Most people were a little surprised when they first met him, shocked that a young farmhand who had never been off the planet in his life could be such a master mechanic. But Jared had had a lot of practice. Corelyyk was so far isolated on the Outer Rim that any ship that broke down within a twelve-lightyear radius had no choice but to come here for repairs, despite it being ninety-percent farmland. Jared had learned his trade out of necessity, just to be able to get wreckages of spaceships out of his parents’ crops.
So it wasn’t anything new for Jared not to be immediately trusted with people’s ships. The ships always seemed to trust him, though. His parents liked to say he could get right into a ship’s inner thrust tube matrix reloader within seconds of meeting it.
Jared’s parents exaggerated, but Jared still appreciated the compliment.
“I’m sure,” Jared replied smoothly, ignoring Jensen’s skepticism. “But you have to hold up your end of the deal.”
He said it confidently, with all the assurance of someone who knew it was a good deal, knew they were the best mechanic within a ten-hour radius, but inside, he was holding his breath. Jared had been wanting to make this deal for a long time, had wanted to bargain with every single space smuggler or rogue army pilot or pleasure cruiser that stopped by; a deal to get off this stupid planet he’d been stuck on for his entire life, but he’d never had the guts to do it.
But he knew it was now or never. A guy this hot was never going to drop out of the solar system again. This kind of thing happened once in a lifetime, like seeing the seven moons of Calzador, or watching Chad totally destroy his brand new 3600 Spiral Skyrunner X by crashing into a force field.
“Just to the nearest planet,” Jensen clarified. “I’ll just drop you off there.”
“Unless you want to keep me around,” Jared said brazenly. “Like a trial run.” Jensen flushed. Jared tried not to grin.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Jensen said, sounding uncomfortable. He seemed to notice he was still holding the blaster he’d threatened Jared with earlier, before Jared had said he could help fix his ship, and looked a little awkwardly at it.
Jared definitely did not watch as he replaced it in his holster, and his eyes certainly didn’t linger on Jensen’s belt after he had already not watched him put it away.
The point is that Jared didn’t do anything inappropriate.
“I still have to fix the ship,” he reminded Jensen once he’d torn his eyes away from where they definitely hadn’t been fixed. Jensen scratched the back of his head. It was adorable. Jared tended to develop huge crushes on people he’d only known for fifteen minutes. He was pretty sure this was a new record.
That was okay.
Jared felt kind of awesome as he fixed the ship. He was good at this, and he kind of thought he looked pretty good all sweaty and dirty. Better than when he had to get dressed up, anyway. He thought about asking Jensen what he’d been doing before he crashed, but decided against it. If Jensen really was a pirate, that could be awkward. Anyway, he seemed reluctant enough just to interact with Jared this much, getting personal probably wouldn’t be the best idea. For now.
“All done,” he said after a few minutes, clambering out from under Jensen’s ship and taking the towel his cyborg C3-XL handed to him to wipe his face.
“Already?”
Jared shrugged nonchalantly and tried to sound cool. “Yeah. I also tuned up your toggle boosters; they were a little loose.” He was totally cool. Jensen would fall in lust with him in no time.
“Wow,” Jensen said, running his hand over the side of his decidedly dingy ship. “Thanks.” He offered up a quick, genuine smile. Jared’s heart melted even more.
He was so screwed.
As Jared sat beside Jensen a bit later and watched the frontier he’d known all his life get farther and farther away, he practically grinned with delight. This was going to be awesome.
(It never really occurred to him that he maybe shouldn’t just go off to another planet with a potential outlaw, even if said potential outlaw was really hot.
So maybe Jared was kind of stupid too.)
It was still clear that Jensen didn’t necessarily want him around, seemed to find the whole thing rather awkward, but he was also relaxing into Jared’s company. They’d been traveling together for two days, now, and Jared was really good at making people feel comfortable around him easily, even cowboys who very clearly gave off that “I’m a lone wolf and I like it that way” vibe. Basically most of them. So Jensen was plainly slowly getting used to having someone else along on this particular run-from-the-law. Okay, gallop-somewhat-leisurely-across-the-plains-while-the-law-pursued-them-half-heartedly. The law around here sort of sucked. Jared was pretty sure that at this point, the two of them didn’t really need to stick together to for Jensen to survive, but he didn’t tell Jensen this. He was sort of hoping that Jensen would adapt to his company enough to not split up with him at the next town they came to, as they had originally agreed. After nearly three days of this, Jared wasn’t sticking around just for the guy’s alleged hotness.
See, once Jensen relaxed, he was actually friendly, for an outlaw. He laughed, he talked, he joked. They talked about Texas (which they missed), and their horses (who seemed to agree with Jared that the need for speed was not very dire), and stupid stories about barmaids they had known and poker games they had cheated at. Dumb things like that. It was awesome. Jared loved it all. Despite their rocky start, despite that gun that Jensen had held up to his head, they got along so easily it was almost scary. It was like Jared had known him long before he’d offered his help to Jensen in evading the law. Now the trick was to get to know him, if you knew what Jared meant.
(Jared meant sex.)
That night, Jared stared up at the stars. He wondered what it would be like to go to one of those stars.
Probably really cold.
Jared shivered. It was cold enough here on earth. He decided to tell Jensen this. That way they’d talk and bond and Jensen would fall in love with him.
It was the perfect plan.
“It’s cold,” he communicated.
“You were the one who put out the fire,” came Jensen’s sleepy answer. Jared smiled into the darkness just at the sound of his voice.
“So we wouldn’t be seen. Or incinerated in our sleep,” he said logically.
“Then don’t complain, cowboy.” Jensen sounded almost affectionate, in a gruff kind of way. Jared was definitely this close to Getting Some.
Silence. Jared decided it was time to go deep. In a philosophical sense.
“What’re you running from?”
More silence.
“I mean, why are you runnin’ from the law? I never asked when I agreed to help you. Don’t I deserve to know, Cowboy?” He tried to sound teasing. Deepness + humor = sex, he was pretty sure.
“I started robbing banks with the Masked Bandit a while back…” Jensen finally began.
Jared choked back a gasp.
“The Masked Bandit? The most famous black-masked bank robber to ever rob a bank while wearing a black mask?” Okay, that sounded kind of stupid, but that was totally what the Masked Bandit was. Ask anyone.
“Yeah. Known him since I was a kid-I got all wrapped up in his schemes, I guess. Always did.”
Jared was having a hard time processing. Jensen knew the Masked Bandit. Jensen robbed banks with the Masked Bandit. Jensen knew the Masked Bandit since they were kids. The most famous black-mask wearing bank robber ever to rob a bank while wearing a black mask.
Seriously.
“The law caught up to us eventually-at least the sheriff did-and the Masked Bandit just-disappeared. Took off and didn’t even try to make sure the rest of us escaped okay. They caught everyone else-and I was near to being caught, which is when you came in.” Jensen gave a short, harsh laugh. “Some friend. The Masked Bandit, I mean. Not, uh…you.”
“So now?” Jared said, his voice stuck in his throat for no particular reason.
He could practically hear Jensen shrug. “I dunno. I’m not much good at robbing banks without him. Figure I’ll make it to a town where they don’t know me and figure it out from there. Unless you want to be my new partner-in-crime.” He said that last bit jokingly, but Jared’s heart leapt at the thought. Not necessarily at the robbing-banks part (although he would be perfectly willing to do that if it proved profitable and Jensen wanted him to), but at the part where Jensen was suggesting, however jokingly, that Jared stick around for a while. As in, after they arrived in town the next day. He just hoped he could get Jensen around to thinking about that sort of thing in a non-joking manner.
Jared was silent for a while, thinking of this and processing the truth about Jensen’s shady(ish) past. Jensen broke the silence, somewhat tentatively, but like he was trying to make a joke of it:
“You got anything goin’ on under that ten-gallon there, cowboy?”
Jared smiled in the darkness.
“Not even wearing it right now,” he laughed. Jensen hmphed.
“What, your intelligence or your hat?”
“That was weak and you know it.” The mood had lightened, and really, it seemed like it had barely ever darkened. So maybe Jensen wasn’t in love with Jared yet, but goddamn it, he was closer. So there.
“Night, Jared.”
“Night,” Jared said.
The next morning, the third of their partnership, it was business as usual, and neither of them mentioned the conversation they had had the previous night. There was too much to think about, what with today being the day they had to infiltrate the White House and all. It was finally their mission time, finally Jared’s chance to prove himself, prove that he was worth keeping around.
Not that he wouldn’t stick around even if Jensen didn’t suggest it. He’d kind of already been planning on staying ever since their first actual conversation. It would just be easier for all parties involved if they were both, you know, on board with Jared living happily ever after with Jensen. Their wedding would just be awkward otherwise.
But anyway, now was not the time for thinking about anything relating to Jensen in any way that wasn’t strictly business-related. They had a presidential mansion to infiltrate. Jared was focused.
Okay, that was kind of a lie. Not about the infiltrating the White House, part, that is, but about the not-thinking-about-Jensen-or-the-somewhat-meaningful-conversation-they-had-had-last-night part. Jared definitely thought about it. He thought about it when he and Jensen were suiting up, and he thought about it when they were leaving the hotel, and he thought about it when they were taking out snipers and rappelling down the West Wall.
He took a quick break from thinking about it once they were inside, because if he didn’t, he’d be dead, and then he’d never be able to think about Jensen again.
And that would just be a tragedy.
So he was actually paying attention to their mission for the first time in days as they ninja-rolled through hallways and used mirrors to peer around corners and took out the occasional Secret Service agent with quick, quiet jujitsu.
Jared took out one patrol guy using just the fake yellow daises out of some vase that used to belong to Thomas Jefferson. Then he shoved him in an air vent (the patrol guy, not Thomas Jefferson).
Jensen was looking at him. He looked impressed.
Jared grinned.
Then Jensen grabbed him by the collar and shoved him into a supply closet, throwing himself in after and closing the door behind them in less than a full second. It was completely dark in the tiny space, and for a wild second the mission completely flew out of Jared’s head again and he thought for sure Jensen couldn’t stand Jared’s competency and was so overcome with desire he had to have him right there and shoved him into a closet to ravish him.
Jared was okay with that.
But as it turned out, a tour group was coming into the hallway where they’d just been standing. Jensen had gotten them out of the way in the nick of time-and Jared hadn’t even noticed, which may have been because he was too busy thinking about, well, other things. He hoped Jensen was still in awe of his competency. The tour guide in the hallway outside paused to talk about the (now empty) Thomas Jefferson-vase.
Jared looked at Jensen, his eyes adjusting quickly to the dark, and tried to gauge if he was upset at Jared’s general lack of perception. But Jensen grinned when he saw Jared looking, so Jared figured it was okay.
The grin he got probably shouldn’t have made him feel so giddy. Infiltrating the White House was serious business.
But God help him if any even thoughts of focus he might have had didn’t all fly right back out the nonexistent window when they were pressed together in that closet, counting down the seconds as they waited for the tour group to move on. And all the thinking about last night came right back.
He now knew how Jensen had become a spy. He also knew that he himself had been totally unsure about being a spy ever since the CIA had contacted him three months ago and asked if he wanted to enter basic training, and now? He was totally sure.
Being a spy was awesome. He got to do cool things and impress the lethally hot spy he’d been partnered with and spend a lot of time in general with said lethally hot spy. Which was honestly the only reason he’d taken the mission in the first place, which was pretty much the best decision he’d ever made. And now he was thinking about kissing Jensen, which, if he did it, might have been the worst decision he’d ever make.
Jared knew it was a totally inappropriate time for making out. Especially as they were only really just becoming friends, their relationship still at that beginning stage-it would be stupid to risk it all now. Not to mention the mission. Which he kept forgetting about.
It was just hard to concentrate with Jensen’s mouth so close. Jared closed his eyes and swallowed and tried to think of what they were about to do. That technique would probably have worked better if the life of a government agent weren’t so inherently sexy. That, and if he couldn’t feel Jensen pressed up against him, all solidness and warmth and even, nearly silent breathing.
He really hoped Jensen thought it was Jared’s gun that was jabbing him in the side.
“All clear,” Jensen whispered, throwing Jared out of his lust-filled haze. Jensen moved to the door. Jared grabbed his arm instinctively.
“Uh,” he said. “Do we have to leave yet?” Well, that sounded stupid.
Jensen rolled his eyes. “C’mon, hotshot,” he whispered. Jared felt a thrill run up his spine at the nickname, like it had every time Jensen had said it since he was first holding a gun to Jared’s head. That and Stealth Boy, which he was pretty sure was supposed to be sarcastic. He loved it anyway.
They slipped out of the closet and back down the hall again, and this time, every one of Jared's senses was on high alert. They stayed flattened against walls as they made their way to the Oval Office, pausing every once and a while to wait for some watchful person or another to pass. Jared, determined not to be caught by surprise again, saw the man approach Jensen from behind before Jensen did.
"Jen!" he whisper-yelled, just in time for Jensen to spin around and punch the guy unconscious in one hit-and then aim a kick between Jared's legs and take out the man who was apparently standing behind him at the knees. Jared recovered from the surprise in time to deliver the final blow.
So apparently Jared's fine-tuned senses were only applying to Jensen's wellbeing at the moment.
"Thanks," they said simultaneously, and grinned. Jared stood there, just smiling at Jensen as the two unconscious bodies lay at their feet.
"Let's go," Jensen said, reminding Jared of exactly where they were, and the two of them proceeded into the Oval Office.
The rest of the mission went smoothly: they took the microchip, replaced it with a lookalike-that-was-secretly-both-a-mic-and-a-camera, and rappelled back out of the building with ease, not troubled by the snipers they'd taken out on their way into the presidential mansion. Jared figured people would start noticing the large quantities of unconscious bodies in a few moments, and sure enough, mere seconds after he'd thought this, the wail of a hundred different alarms and sirens echoed through the city. The White Lair had been breached-but its breachers (breachees?) were already far, far away.
In a bar. Toasting their awesomeness.
Jared raised his glass in celebration. “We did it,” he declared triumphantly. Mission, complete. Jared and Jensen, still together. Definite success in Jared’s book.
They toasted somewhat clumsily and drank. Jared wiped his mouth with a sleeve.
“Man,” he said, rehashing, because the best part of victory was talking about how awesome you were afterwards, “I thought I’d blown it for a minute there when my cape got caught in that wind tunnel.”
“Thank god we shut down the time portal and stole the chip so Dr. Klutzenstein can’t go back in time and destroy humanity,” Jensen said; his appreciation of the victory was more low-key than Jared’s but still evident. He was also more focused on the big picture, rather than Jared’s key moments of awesome. Which was a little offensive, really. Jared decided to let it slide.
“All in all, another successful day on the job,” Jared said casually, leaning back in his chair, as though he were a veteran superhero who’d done this a million times before and not someone just starting out. “And no appreciation.” He gave a long-suffering sigh as he glanced around at all the other patrons of the bar, obliviously getting drunk or chatting up hot bartenders. Blind to the fact that there were heroes in their very midst.
“They’re appreciating Airstrike and SonicSound.” Jensen nodded to the TV, where footage of them flying away from the White Lair as it exploded was playing on endless repeat. Instead of looking at the TV, Jared looked at Jensen. He looked awesome in glasses. His secret identity was really just as hot as his caped-and-masked-crusader identity.
“We make good partners,” said Jensen then, and that just made Jared really, really happy. He was happy that they’d accomplished their joint venture but Jensen hadn’t left yet, he was happy that he’d at least managed to become friends with Jensen, and he was definitely happy that Jensen thought they made a good team. It was kind of the perfect time for a pick-up line, but Jared refrained. Because Jensen was his friend, and because it would be just a really stupid thing to do, and Jensen deserved better than that, and…well, because Jared wanted more than that. He didn’t really want a one-night stand or anything.
He kind of wanted forever.
But again, that was an easier plan to carry out if Jensen was a willing participant.
Jared cast a sideways glance at his companion. He thought maybe he could gauge Jensen’s reactions to him, figure out just how much willing participation he could easily count on.
He managed to gauge that Jensen had perfect teeth.
This wasn’t helping.
Jensen seemed to notice him looking. His eyebrows drew together. “You okay, hotshot?” he asked. Jared blinked rapidly.
“Perfect,” he said, and to cover up his somewhat creepy social blunder raised his glass. “To being more awesome superheroes than the Masked Bandit,” he said. Jensen hesitated, then grinned widely and drank deeply. Jared laughed a little into his beer.
They drank more, talked more. Lots more. And sometime long after midnight-the hours having slipped past unnoticed-they made their way down the sidewalk, ambling along in no particular hurry, talking even more, both a little tipsy but neither drunk. Jared wasn’t exactly sure where they were walking to. Maybe Jensen’s apartment? He’d never spent any time with him when they weren’t on duty fighting evil before. Jensen looked awesome in tights and a cape, but, Jared noticed (only slightly tipsily), he looked even better in jeans. Seriously.
Jared hung back a little to appreciate this fact. Jensen looked over his shoulder at him.
“What, Flyboy?” he said, sounding somewhat self-conscious. “Hurry up, I can’t be waiting for your sorry ass all the time.”
“Like you ever are anyway,” Jared grinned, coming up behind him and slinging an arm around his shoulder. “You can’t even fly.”
“I’m too awesome for flying,” was Jensen’s irreverent reply.
Jared thought about asking where they were going, but that might make Jensen think about the fact that they no longer needed to be going anywhere together, and then he might not get to go wherever it was they were going. So he kept his mouth shut and leaned into Jensen more as they walked, pretending to be a bit more inebriated than was entirely accurate.
Jensen’s apartment was much too large and expensive for his secret identity’s low-rung newspaper job to possibly support, but it spoke just fine for the government’s generous superhero subsidies. Jared’s original plan, when he became sure that they were indeed heading to Jensen’s apartment, had involved lots of sex, or at the very least some very obvious propositioning and/or making out (which could always be blamed on the alcohol in the morning if necessary), but he might have been just a bit more inebriated than he’d thought, or at the very least just exhausted from their day of fighting crime, for they’d only been there for about five minutes when Jared passed out on Jensen’s couch and slept like a rock.
In the morning, Jensen got them both coffee and smiled at him and called him hotshot and flyboy some more, and at this point Jared was perfectly willing to completely forgo his given name and his superhero name and replace them both with Jensen’s nicknames for him, and possibly also Jensen’s surname, and also make it so that only Jensen was allowed to talk to him, ever again. This might be a difficult plan to put into practice, but Jared was confident he could handle it.
It couldn’t be any harder than, say, it had been dealing with his once-sidekick, the Chadinator.
Jared washed up and drank coffee and they didn’t talk a lot, which was weird for Jared, to not be talking all the time, but the silence was comfortable and happy, so it was okay. The time was just creeping towards noon and Jared was thinking that they might actually at some point have to discuss what they were doing with the rest of their day (and possibly, well, the rest of their lives), when he looked out the giant floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the entire eastern-facing wall of Jensen’s swanky penthouse and nearly spit out his coffee.
A giant, War of the Worlds-esque robot was attacking the city. The thing was taller than most of the city’s skyscrapers, and was currently climbing over Macy’s and flailing its long metallic limbs into buildings and bringing down power lines. While making quite a racket.
When Jared looked over at Jensen, he saw him already changed into suit and cape, pulling his mask on and looking ready and determined. Jensen pressed a button on the wall Jared hadn’t seen before: a tall bookcase rolled aside, revealing a phonebooth hidden inside Jensen’s wall, for Jared to change in. Jared nodded in thanks and leapt in.
Moments later he leapt back out, now definitely not Jared, Flyboy or Hotshot, but Airstrike the Avenger.
“C’mon,” he uttered. “We have a city to save.”
They leapt down the fire escape and out onto the city streets, where they met the monster yanking its leg out of the First Security Bank and shaking it over Greensback Park. Jared ran a quick diagnostic of the thing’s strengths and weaknesses in his mind. Non-metallic underbelly, probably a sensitive spot. Giant eye-like thing, might be the controls? Apparent laser eyes, six long metal limb-tentacles capable of smashing entire buildings to the ground, easy maneuverability, slow on corners.
In short: not easy, but doable.
Jared flew up into the air immediately, while Jensen was zooming around the thing’s tentacle-legs below, presumably inflicting some sort of damage, getting it to laser its own legs off, or something. Jared swung a tight arc in the air to approach the robot from behind. Unfortunately, what Jared hadn’t seen was the thing’s other eye, on the side of its head(-like thing) that Jared had assumed was the back. (He really hadn’t had good luck with that sort of thing lately.) The giant robot swatted him out of the sky before Jared even had the chance to duck or swerve. He landed flat on the pavement below, seeing stars.
“Jared!” Jensen yelled from somewhere nearby. Jared sat up, blinking rapidly.
The robot shot a fireball out of a laser eye. Jared ducked, swearing, as it went shooting over his head. The ground behind him caught on fire.
Stupid dragon.
“Sir Jared!” Prince Jensen panted, there in an instant, kneeling at his side. Which definitely meant he was worried or something, because that was the first time Jensen had called him Sir Jared and not Peasant Boy or Sir Hotshot since they’d started this quest, even after it had stopped being mocking and started being affectionate.
“Sir Peasant,” Jared said, attempting to correct the prince with the nickname he’d pretended to be so annoyed with the first time and getting a little mixed up (the dizziness was still fading). He hoped Jensen would recognize that for the reassurance he meant it as. But Jensen didn’t have time to press the issue anyway, because his back was to the dragon as he knelt at Jared’s side, and the dragon was coming back for seconds.
This was not okay.
Jared heaved himself to his feet, only a little dizzy now, and leapt in front of Jensen before the dragon could snatch him up, brandishing his sword. No way was that giant scary scaly thing ever going to be allowed to eat Jensen. The dragon responded to this great show of loyalty and courage by extending its massive purple wings and taking flight. Great. An airstrike. Stupid dragon.
Beating the air around Jared’s head with its enormous wings, the dragon roared angrily from above as Jensen scrambled to his feet as well. The dragon had armor-melting hot breath, which was really really not good, because Jared was wearing armor, and the last thing he wanted was for it to get all melted and welded shut and then it would burn his skin and he’d be stuck in it forever. That would definitely be not good. But he had to risk it, because the dragon wanted to eat Jensen, and that was even worse.
It was pretty much proven that the dragon didn’t want to eat Jared, just Jensen, when it swooped down and completely bypassed the guy with the sword for the guy who was picking his own up from the ground. Jared lunged and plunged his blade into the dragon’s neck before it could get its teeth anywhere close to Jensen. The sword didn’t actually do that much damage against the dragon’s rock-hard scales, but it bought Jensen enough time to decide against picking up his sword and reach for his bow and arrows instead, which, Jared had to admit, were probably a better idea to use on a dragon. As evidenced by what had just happened.
Jensen began to volley arrows at the beast from behind Jared: some bit into the dragon’s soft purple underbelly, causing it to scream (in a dragon-like way) in agony.
“Aim for its heart!” Jared yelled to Jensen, trying himself to get at a good angle to aim with his sword. Seeing as how he’d clearly, by this point, established that stealthy sneaking up was not one of his strong points. It was probably safer just to go for the direct attack.
He heard Jensen start to make a retort behind him, but the dragon lowered its head and expelled more fire from its mouth: Jared raised his shield to try and protect them both, but despite this, Jensen’s tunic caught on fire. He yelled and dropped his longbow.
“Put it out!” Jared roared needlessly-if Jensen hadn’t been on fire and all, Jared was pretty sure he’d be rolling his eyes at him. When Jensen dropped to the ground and rolled around to beat the flames out, Jared ran to the other side of the dragon to distract it from eating Jensen while he was all warm and vulnerable and crispy. He thrust at the dragon with his sword again, which proved to be just as useful as before, but the important thing was that the dragon still turned on him, away from Jensen.
Of course, as it turned, its tail whipped around and knocked Jensen unconscious.
Well, that hadn’t worked as planned.
This dragon was going down.
Jared didn’t really know what the dragon’s deal was. He was pretty sure that dragons were supposed to typically kidnap princesses, not eat princes. He was also pretty sure that, as a knight, he was supposed to be fighting and killing the dragon to retrieve a princess, not to defend a prince.
But part of going on a quest with the prince of the land was helping to keep said prince safe, and as it turned out, beyond it just being his job, he realized that he really, really did not want Jensen dead. Not that he didn’t already know that-but this was like, he wanted Jensen alive more than he wanted himself alive. That kind of thing.
Because Jensen was funny and hot and kind of a prick, and even though he’d been amused at Jared and skeptical of his abilities and accused him of not having much going on beneath his helmet, he’d also given Jared an opportunity to escape the kingdom he’d always lived in, and he’d brought adventure and excitement into his life, and Jared thought they worked really, really well together. In fact, he was kind of in love with him. And he didn’t want to lose this. He’d come this far, after all.
Plus, he hadn’t even had sex with the guy yet.
Jared had to defeat this thing. After all, he’d already defeated that sea monster at the White Caves the previous day, the thing they’d originally set out on this quest to destroy, how hard could this be?
Except that currently Jensen was definitely unconscious, so it was rather difficult for him to uphold his half of the teamwork.
Still, inspired with renewed vigor, Jared charged into the fight. The dragon flew up again, then back down, breathed some more fire; Jared dodged, rolling on the ground until he was to the side of the dragon, as opposed to directly in front of it. Seeing an opportunity, he grabbed onto its slippery, hard scales and climbed up and aboard the murderous, fire-breathing monster. So it was a totally stupid opportunity to do something even more stupid, but it was still an opportunity, and besides, he’d never claimed to be anything but stupid, really. After all, he’d volunteered to come on this quest with Jensen, right after the latter had nearly cut his head off.
So far, this stupid decision wasn’t going much better, as Jared held on for dear life and tried to figure out what to do. The thing roared and spread its wings, intending to fly into the sky again-probably to turn over in midair a thousand feet up, causing no little amount of pain and probably lots of death to Jared-but before it could, without thinking, Jared leaned forward and slashed its wings into ribbons. Another great scream ripped the air. Not really wanting to be bucked off and trampled on any more than he had wanted to fall off and die, Jared gauged the distance to a narrow rock ledge that was about the same height off the ground as the dragon’s back and jumped wildly.
He barely landed, taking a moment to steady himself, a moment which caused him to nearly be unprepared when the dragon turned and lunged at him, its gaping jaw open wide to reveal dozens of dagger-like teeth. As it was, Jared’s first shot, intended for the heart, went straight into the dragon’s mouth, which caused it to rear back in pain and unintentionally present Jared with its soft purple underbelly.
Jared stabbed it in the heart. He twisted the sword around, dug it deeper into the dragon’s flesh, and let go.
The dragon gave one last tremendous roar and, crashing into the ground with the force of a herd of rampaging giants, expired.
Jared wasted no time in running to Jensen’s side, the smell of the now-dead (okay, extra dead) zombies clogging up his nostrils. He never really got used to that stench. He shook Jensen’s shoulder. It suddenly occurred to him that Jensen might not actually just be unconscious. Zombies instantly became the furthest thing from his mind.
“No. Don’t do this to me, man,” he said, his throat choked up, because being totally badass and defeating the zombie legions meant nothing if he didn’t get his prize in the end. If Jensen wasn’t alive. “So not fair. I couldn’t have done this without you. I mean, I know we just met, but it feels like we’ve been fighting bloodthirsty corpses together for years, you know? You’re all I have. Dammit, Jensen, everybody else is a zombie. Do you have any idea how glad I am you’re not? Please don’t die on me.”
Jensen remained unconscious. Maybe Jared wasn’t expressing his feelings well enough. Maybe he should try poetry? Would poetry help?
But before he had time to assemble verse about the adorable look on Jensen’s face when he was spilling zombie guts, or wonder what rhymed with dismember, said adorable gut-spiller gasped to back life in Jared’s arms. Or, okay, back to consciousness.
And Jared realized rather belatedly that he actually hadn’t expressed his feelings all that well. Because he was just rambling on about the bonds of brotherhood, as opposed to, you know, the bonds between two guys who found each other really awesome as well as hot and had lots of awesome sex. And if Jared couldn’t even say it when Jensen was unconscious-maybe-even-hopefully-not-dead, when could he say it? Pretty much never.
“Hey there, hot boy,” Jensen murmured, sounding dazed, totally mixing up his two nicknames for Jared in a way the latter didn’t mind at all. He blinked blearily. “Wha’d I miss?”
“Oh, just me totally kicking those zombies’ asses while you laid there like a pansy,” Jared grinned, still not releasing Jensen from his tight grip. “And then waxing poetic over your beautiful, dead-looking face.”
“Right,” Jensen grunted, and shifted; reluctantly, Jared let his arms fall-he was still kneeling on the ground, but Jensen was now sitting up. And not being cradled by Jared. Unfortunately. “I’m sure that’s exactly how it happened.” Then he looked concerned. “You’re not hurt?”
“Nope,” Jared truthed.
“You sure?” Jared nodded. “Good. Yeah. Damn. Sorry for-passing out on you, there.” Jensen sounded actually regretful for that. Somehow.
“What?” Jared responded, surprised. What a weird thing to apologize for. Jensen obviously thought Jared was upset because he’d abandoned him in the middle of the fight, that Jared didn’t care at all about his wellbeing-and he obviously hadn’t heard Jared’s little speech at all. He felt the need to reassure Jensen of this, at least, that he wasn’t just using him for his zombie-fighting skills. “No! It was fine! Not that you were unconscious, but I didn’t need your h-I mean, I wanted it, but I was okay-” He wasn’t quite sure how to communicate his point. He shut up when Jensen started talking instead.
“What I meant was, I should have been fighting-I don’t want anything to happen to you.” And suddenly Jensen was looking at him really intensely with his really freaking pretty green eyes, and Jared really freaking wanted to kiss him.
It was an interesting development-not Jared wanting to kiss him (he always wanted that), but what Jensen was saying.
“When we were battling zombie-Chad and zombie-Mike back there,” Jensen said, looking like he’d steeled himself for the worst and really could have used a pre-big-moment-deep-breath, “all I could think of was you.”
Jared caught his breath, because this was territory they’d never covered, in all their two weeks of zombie hunting. Which, okay, wasn’t really a requisite amount of time by which they should have had this conversation, but it’s still a long time to not make out when you’re zombie hunting. Jared would know.
But this was the territory he’d kept wanting to venture into, but because of the previously listed reasons, vis a vis not taking advantage, not ruining their friendship, not having it be a one night stand, possiblybeingscared, etc., he never had. Not even in poetry format. Apparently, though, Jensen didn’t need poetry.
“I just knew I didn’t want you to die,” Jensen was saying, “and I didn’t want to die, because I couldn’t stand the thought of dying without ever telling you how I felt. I mean, I know that sounds kind of stupid, and all, but-”
Jared realized that he was finally getting a chance to kiss Jensen and Jensen was still talking. He set about fixing that. Specifically, he grabbed Jensen’s face and brought their lips together before Jensen could possibly know what was happening. Luckily, neither that nor his still-somewhat-dazed-state stopped Jensen from responding.
It turned out that kissing Jensen was exactly as awesome as Jared had always thought it would be, that his pouty lips were just as soft and kissable as they had always seemed, that Jensen was even more responsive and into it than Jared had ever dared to hope, that even cheesier thoughts were going through Jared’s head than he had ever imagined might. They kissed for what definitely didn’t seem like hours because it definitely didn’t feel like long enough, didn’t feel like it could ever be long enough, Jensen’s hand knotting in Jared’s hair, Jared’s hands exploring every inch of Jensen’s face.
But when there was absolutely no way he could breathe-breathing was overrated, but somewhat necessary if he ever wanted to kiss Jensen again, which he definitely, definitely did-Jared pulled back and rested his forehead on Jensen’s.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to be on set in five minutes. And we have to act like brothers, not like we want to jump each other every five seconds.”
Jensen smirked and brushed another kiss on his lips. Jared’s life was awesome. His good mood from seemingly forever ago was totally back. He couldn’t even remember what had caused it to go away in the first place. Pirates? Or something? Whatever. “With Sam and Dean, it’s practically the same thing,” Jensen replied.
Jared laughed and kissed Jensen again, just because he finally could, before twining their fingers together and wandering off to set.
And that was how Jared’s life got awesome.
FIN
A/N: (You’re just lucky I skipped the epilogue where they're mermaids. I mean men. Mermen. Right.)
Fandom: Supernatural RPS, Jared/Jensen
Length: ~7,730
Rating: PG-13, mostly for references
Summary: The timeless tale of how Prince Jensen fell in love with Secret Agent Padalecki, and they lived happily ever after, in space. Or, how Jared's life got awesome. [AU, Crack]
A/N: For stttmsbwa Took forever. Ten kinds of ridiculous. Title not related at all, but a quote from movie The Fall. Hope you like, or at the very least somewhat understand it? XD <3
It was a gorgeous, blue sky-filled day, the cargo ship Vancouver had just made it out of the Doldrums and was looking forward to many days of smooth sailing, and Jared was in a generally good mood when the lookout spotted a windjammer approaching on the horizon. The day remained gorgeous and blue sky-filled as the lookout cried out Pirates!, but Jared’s good mood didn’t.
In fact, his good mood was pretty much completely ruined by the time the pirate ship, helped by the traitorous winds, caught up with Vancouver and overtook them completely. And by the time the deck was swarming with pirates and Jared realized he was actually going to have to deal with them, face to face, without the benefit of his pistol, which he’d left in the cabin he shared with two other crewmembers, he could barely remember what a good mood felt like. Stupid pirates, ruining everything.
Jared glanced around the deck to see what how his fellow crew were handling the situation. Captain Kripke had fled into his cabin and presumably barricaded the door. Mike was haggling with the pirates who were trying to divest him of valuables. Misha was entertaining them. Chad had jumped ship. Chris was attempting to fight them, and everybody else was just submitting to being robbed. Chris didn’t seem to be having much luck with his resistance, but Jared figured that, if he lived long enough to tell this tale to others, he’d rather be one of the ones who tried, however stupidly, to fight, rather than, you know. Jump into the frigid water and then yell at the pirates to haul him back out again.
(Chad was kind of stupid.)
Of course, no pirate was actually directly threatening him yet, so Jared had to be proactive. He drew his sword and started forward, towards the pirate who, although he currently had his back to Jared, seemed to be the mood-ruiner-that is, pirate-in charge. Jared crept up behind him silently, hoping all the other pirates were distracted with laughing at Chad. It seemed like a pretty good bet.
Jared didn’t know quite what happened, but in the next second his sword was skidding away across the deck and a gun was being pressed unsettlingly against his mouth.
And that was how Jared found himself staring down the barrel of a gun held threateningly to his face by a really deadly, really hot pirate.
Jared stopped dead, going a little cross-eyed as he examined the gun whose cold metal lips were pressing eerily to his. Then he stared some more at the pirate attached to the gun. He was finding it hard to breathe for more than one reason. Which was pretty stupid, because he was about to die, he really shouldn’t have been focusing on the pretty green eyes and pouty, full lips of the guy who was about to kill him. A pirate, for God’s sake.
Jared raised his hands in surrender and thought fast; this really, really wasn’t how he had been planning on his resistance going.
“Uh,” he said. Okay, he tried to think fast. It was a little hard to concentrate when pirates (although sadly not the one holding a gun to his face) were running their hands all over him, searching for valuables. He bit back a curse as one of them got a bit too close for comfort whilst rummaging around in his pocket. The attractive pirate in front of him, of course, was just smirking at Jared’s discomfort.
That was when Jared had his idea. His really-not-so-smart-but-hopefully-smart-enough-to-avoid-getting-himself-killed idea. He dropped hastily to his knees. The pirate, clearly surprised, immediately pulled the trigger of his pistol, but the shot went cleanly above Jared’s head. Jared tried not to let that affect him too much. It did anyway. He drew in a shaky breath. He tried not to let his new position in relation to said pirate affect him too much either. That was pretty much hopeless.
“Um,” he said eloquently. “Please, uh, allow me to join your ranks, Captain.” Oh god, why did that sound so dirty in his mind? This was serious business.
“What?” the pirate said, lowering his gun and now sounding faintly amused. “Are you saying you want to join up?”
“Yes.” Jared bit his lip and nodded quickly. So maybe this wasn’t the best plan-but it accomplished three things: one, he’d get his stuff back; two: his head likely wouldn’t be blown off; and three: he’d have a little excitement in his life. This might actually turn out to be an adventure (if it didn’t turn out to be an absolute nightmare, which was kind of more likely).
And okay, four: he’d be near the crazy pirate with the startlingly green eyes who had nearly shot his head off a few seconds ago. Jared might just be the tiniest bit insane.
“Right then,” the pirate said, lowering his gun. “I’d give you a talk here about the pirate life not being easy, and how my men’ll kill you if you’re not true to your word, and how you better be able to handle stealing and thieving and other things not done by civilized people, and how you’re to follow my commands at all times and all that-but instead I think you can just sink or swim.” He smirked. He was really very pretty. Despite himself, Jared grinned. “You get a trial run, until the next ship we come to-if I don’t like what I see, we leave you on it. Come on, Sailor Boy.” The pirate turned and walked away.
Jared was determined to stick with him. He was going to be the best pirate ever.
The-more-likely-than-not-a-pirate-whose-name-was-apparently-Jensen’s ship was kind of a mess. It was a piece of junk, honestly. And it’s not like Jared saw a lot of state-of-the-art ships on Corelyyk, and he still thought it was bad. So it was really no wonder the thing had broken down. But at least it seemed to have a pretty simple operating system.
“I can definitely fix this,” Jared said when he finished examining the rear flux capacitor. Jensen raised an eyebrow.
“You sure, Farm Boy?” he asked, still sounding rather wary. Jared was used to that. Most people were a little surprised when they first met him, shocked that a young farmhand who had never been off the planet in his life could be such a master mechanic. But Jared had had a lot of practice. Corelyyk was so far isolated on the Outer Rim that any ship that broke down within a twelve-lightyear radius had no choice but to come here for repairs, despite it being ninety-percent farmland. Jared had learned his trade out of necessity, just to be able to get wreckages of spaceships out of his parents’ crops.
So it wasn’t anything new for Jared not to be immediately trusted with people’s ships. The ships always seemed to trust him, though. His parents liked to say he could get right into a ship’s inner thrust tube matrix reloader within seconds of meeting it.
Jared’s parents exaggerated, but Jared still appreciated the compliment.
“I’m sure,” Jared replied smoothly, ignoring Jensen’s skepticism. “But you have to hold up your end of the deal.”
He said it confidently, with all the assurance of someone who knew it was a good deal, knew they were the best mechanic within a ten-hour radius, but inside, he was holding his breath. Jared had been wanting to make this deal for a long time, had wanted to bargain with every single space smuggler or rogue army pilot or pleasure cruiser that stopped by; a deal to get off this stupid planet he’d been stuck on for his entire life, but he’d never had the guts to do it.
But he knew it was now or never. A guy this hot was never going to drop out of the solar system again. This kind of thing happened once in a lifetime, like seeing the seven moons of Calzador, or watching Chad totally destroy his brand new 3600 Spiral Skyrunner X by crashing into a force field.
“Just to the nearest planet,” Jensen clarified. “I’ll just drop you off there.”
“Unless you want to keep me around,” Jared said brazenly. “Like a trial run.” Jensen flushed. Jared tried not to grin.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Jensen said, sounding uncomfortable. He seemed to notice he was still holding the blaster he’d threatened Jared with earlier, before Jared had said he could help fix his ship, and looked a little awkwardly at it.
Jared definitely did not watch as he replaced it in his holster, and his eyes certainly didn’t linger on Jensen’s belt after he had already not watched him put it away.
The point is that Jared didn’t do anything inappropriate.
“I still have to fix the ship,” he reminded Jensen once he’d torn his eyes away from where they definitely hadn’t been fixed. Jensen scratched the back of his head. It was adorable. Jared tended to develop huge crushes on people he’d only known for fifteen minutes. He was pretty sure this was a new record.
That was okay.
Jared felt kind of awesome as he fixed the ship. He was good at this, and he kind of thought he looked pretty good all sweaty and dirty. Better than when he had to get dressed up, anyway. He thought about asking Jensen what he’d been doing before he crashed, but decided against it. If Jensen really was a pirate, that could be awkward. Anyway, he seemed reluctant enough just to interact with Jared this much, getting personal probably wouldn’t be the best idea. For now.
“All done,” he said after a few minutes, clambering out from under Jensen’s ship and taking the towel his cyborg C3-XL handed to him to wipe his face.
“Already?”
Jared shrugged nonchalantly and tried to sound cool. “Yeah. I also tuned up your toggle boosters; they were a little loose.” He was totally cool. Jensen would fall in lust with him in no time.
“Wow,” Jensen said, running his hand over the side of his decidedly dingy ship. “Thanks.” He offered up a quick, genuine smile. Jared’s heart melted even more.
He was so screwed.
As Jared sat beside Jensen a bit later and watched the frontier he’d known all his life get farther and farther away, he practically grinned with delight. This was going to be awesome.
(It never really occurred to him that he maybe shouldn’t just go off to another planet with a potential outlaw, even if said potential outlaw was really hot.
So maybe Jared was kind of stupid too.)
It was still clear that Jensen didn’t necessarily want him around, seemed to find the whole thing rather awkward, but he was also relaxing into Jared’s company. They’d been traveling together for two days, now, and Jared was really good at making people feel comfortable around him easily, even cowboys who very clearly gave off that “I’m a lone wolf and I like it that way” vibe. Basically most of them. So Jensen was plainly slowly getting used to having someone else along on this particular run-from-the-law. Okay, gallop-somewhat-leisurely-across-the-plains-while-the-law-pursued-them-half-heartedly. The law around here sort of sucked. Jared was pretty sure that at this point, the two of them didn’t really need to stick together to for Jensen to survive, but he didn’t tell Jensen this. He was sort of hoping that Jensen would adapt to his company enough to not split up with him at the next town they came to, as they had originally agreed. After nearly three days of this, Jared wasn’t sticking around just for the guy’s alleged hotness.
See, once Jensen relaxed, he was actually friendly, for an outlaw. He laughed, he talked, he joked. They talked about Texas (which they missed), and their horses (who seemed to agree with Jared that the need for speed was not very dire), and stupid stories about barmaids they had known and poker games they had cheated at. Dumb things like that. It was awesome. Jared loved it all. Despite their rocky start, despite that gun that Jensen had held up to his head, they got along so easily it was almost scary. It was like Jared had known him long before he’d offered his help to Jensen in evading the law. Now the trick was to get to know him, if you knew what Jared meant.
(Jared meant sex.)
That night, Jared stared up at the stars. He wondered what it would be like to go to one of those stars.
Probably really cold.
Jared shivered. It was cold enough here on earth. He decided to tell Jensen this. That way they’d talk and bond and Jensen would fall in love with him.
It was the perfect plan.
“It’s cold,” he communicated.
“You were the one who put out the fire,” came Jensen’s sleepy answer. Jared smiled into the darkness just at the sound of his voice.
“So we wouldn’t be seen. Or incinerated in our sleep,” he said logically.
“Then don’t complain, cowboy.” Jensen sounded almost affectionate, in a gruff kind of way. Jared was definitely this close to Getting Some.
Silence. Jared decided it was time to go deep. In a philosophical sense.
“What’re you running from?”
More silence.
“I mean, why are you runnin’ from the law? I never asked when I agreed to help you. Don’t I deserve to know, Cowboy?” He tried to sound teasing. Deepness + humor = sex, he was pretty sure.
“I started robbing banks with the Masked Bandit a while back…” Jensen finally began.
Jared choked back a gasp.
“The Masked Bandit? The most famous black-masked bank robber to ever rob a bank while wearing a black mask?” Okay, that sounded kind of stupid, but that was totally what the Masked Bandit was. Ask anyone.
“Yeah. Known him since I was a kid-I got all wrapped up in his schemes, I guess. Always did.”
Jared was having a hard time processing. Jensen knew the Masked Bandit. Jensen robbed banks with the Masked Bandit. Jensen knew the Masked Bandit since they were kids. The most famous black-mask wearing bank robber ever to rob a bank while wearing a black mask.
Seriously.
“The law caught up to us eventually-at least the sheriff did-and the Masked Bandit just-disappeared. Took off and didn’t even try to make sure the rest of us escaped okay. They caught everyone else-and I was near to being caught, which is when you came in.” Jensen gave a short, harsh laugh. “Some friend. The Masked Bandit, I mean. Not, uh…you.”
“So now?” Jared said, his voice stuck in his throat for no particular reason.
He could practically hear Jensen shrug. “I dunno. I’m not much good at robbing banks without him. Figure I’ll make it to a town where they don’t know me and figure it out from there. Unless you want to be my new partner-in-crime.” He said that last bit jokingly, but Jared’s heart leapt at the thought. Not necessarily at the robbing-banks part (although he would be perfectly willing to do that if it proved profitable and Jensen wanted him to), but at the part where Jensen was suggesting, however jokingly, that Jared stick around for a while. As in, after they arrived in town the next day. He just hoped he could get Jensen around to thinking about that sort of thing in a non-joking manner.
Jared was silent for a while, thinking of this and processing the truth about Jensen’s shady(ish) past. Jensen broke the silence, somewhat tentatively, but like he was trying to make a joke of it:
“You got anything goin’ on under that ten-gallon there, cowboy?”
Jared smiled in the darkness.
“Not even wearing it right now,” he laughed. Jensen hmphed.
“What, your intelligence or your hat?”
“That was weak and you know it.” The mood had lightened, and really, it seemed like it had barely ever darkened. So maybe Jensen wasn’t in love with Jared yet, but goddamn it, he was closer. So there.
“Night, Jared.”
“Night,” Jared said.
The next morning, the third of their partnership, it was business as usual, and neither of them mentioned the conversation they had had the previous night. There was too much to think about, what with today being the day they had to infiltrate the White House and all. It was finally their mission time, finally Jared’s chance to prove himself, prove that he was worth keeping around.
Not that he wouldn’t stick around even if Jensen didn’t suggest it. He’d kind of already been planning on staying ever since their first actual conversation. It would just be easier for all parties involved if they were both, you know, on board with Jared living happily ever after with Jensen. Their wedding would just be awkward otherwise.
But anyway, now was not the time for thinking about anything relating to Jensen in any way that wasn’t strictly business-related. They had a presidential mansion to infiltrate. Jared was focused.
Okay, that was kind of a lie. Not about the infiltrating the White House, part, that is, but about the not-thinking-about-Jensen-or-the-somewhat-meaningful-conversation-they-had-had-last-night part. Jared definitely thought about it. He thought about it when he and Jensen were suiting up, and he thought about it when they were leaving the hotel, and he thought about it when they were taking out snipers and rappelling down the West Wall.
He took a quick break from thinking about it once they were inside, because if he didn’t, he’d be dead, and then he’d never be able to think about Jensen again.
And that would just be a tragedy.
So he was actually paying attention to their mission for the first time in days as they ninja-rolled through hallways and used mirrors to peer around corners and took out the occasional Secret Service agent with quick, quiet jujitsu.
Jared took out one patrol guy using just the fake yellow daises out of some vase that used to belong to Thomas Jefferson. Then he shoved him in an air vent (the patrol guy, not Thomas Jefferson).
Jensen was looking at him. He looked impressed.
Jared grinned.
Then Jensen grabbed him by the collar and shoved him into a supply closet, throwing himself in after and closing the door behind them in less than a full second. It was completely dark in the tiny space, and for a wild second the mission completely flew out of Jared’s head again and he thought for sure Jensen couldn’t stand Jared’s competency and was so overcome with desire he had to have him right there and shoved him into a closet to ravish him.
Jared was okay with that.
But as it turned out, a tour group was coming into the hallway where they’d just been standing. Jensen had gotten them out of the way in the nick of time-and Jared hadn’t even noticed, which may have been because he was too busy thinking about, well, other things. He hoped Jensen was still in awe of his competency. The tour guide in the hallway outside paused to talk about the (now empty) Thomas Jefferson-vase.
Jared looked at Jensen, his eyes adjusting quickly to the dark, and tried to gauge if he was upset at Jared’s general lack of perception. But Jensen grinned when he saw Jared looking, so Jared figured it was okay.
The grin he got probably shouldn’t have made him feel so giddy. Infiltrating the White House was serious business.
But God help him if any even thoughts of focus he might have had didn’t all fly right back out the nonexistent window when they were pressed together in that closet, counting down the seconds as they waited for the tour group to move on. And all the thinking about last night came right back.
He now knew how Jensen had become a spy. He also knew that he himself had been totally unsure about being a spy ever since the CIA had contacted him three months ago and asked if he wanted to enter basic training, and now? He was totally sure.
Being a spy was awesome. He got to do cool things and impress the lethally hot spy he’d been partnered with and spend a lot of time in general with said lethally hot spy. Which was honestly the only reason he’d taken the mission in the first place, which was pretty much the best decision he’d ever made. And now he was thinking about kissing Jensen, which, if he did it, might have been the worst decision he’d ever make.
Jared knew it was a totally inappropriate time for making out. Especially as they were only really just becoming friends, their relationship still at that beginning stage-it would be stupid to risk it all now. Not to mention the mission. Which he kept forgetting about.
It was just hard to concentrate with Jensen’s mouth so close. Jared closed his eyes and swallowed and tried to think of what they were about to do. That technique would probably have worked better if the life of a government agent weren’t so inherently sexy. That, and if he couldn’t feel Jensen pressed up against him, all solidness and warmth and even, nearly silent breathing.
He really hoped Jensen thought it was Jared’s gun that was jabbing him in the side.
“All clear,” Jensen whispered, throwing Jared out of his lust-filled haze. Jensen moved to the door. Jared grabbed his arm instinctively.
“Uh,” he said. “Do we have to leave yet?” Well, that sounded stupid.
Jensen rolled his eyes. “C’mon, hotshot,” he whispered. Jared felt a thrill run up his spine at the nickname, like it had every time Jensen had said it since he was first holding a gun to Jared’s head. That and Stealth Boy, which he was pretty sure was supposed to be sarcastic. He loved it anyway.
They slipped out of the closet and back down the hall again, and this time, every one of Jared's senses was on high alert. They stayed flattened against walls as they made their way to the Oval Office, pausing every once and a while to wait for some watchful person or another to pass. Jared, determined not to be caught by surprise again, saw the man approach Jensen from behind before Jensen did.
"Jen!" he whisper-yelled, just in time for Jensen to spin around and punch the guy unconscious in one hit-and then aim a kick between Jared's legs and take out the man who was apparently standing behind him at the knees. Jared recovered from the surprise in time to deliver the final blow.
So apparently Jared's fine-tuned senses were only applying to Jensen's wellbeing at the moment.
"Thanks," they said simultaneously, and grinned. Jared stood there, just smiling at Jensen as the two unconscious bodies lay at their feet.
"Let's go," Jensen said, reminding Jared of exactly where they were, and the two of them proceeded into the Oval Office.
The rest of the mission went smoothly: they took the microchip, replaced it with a lookalike-that-was-secretly-both-a-mic-and-a-camera, and rappelled back out of the building with ease, not troubled by the snipers they'd taken out on their way into the presidential mansion. Jared figured people would start noticing the large quantities of unconscious bodies in a few moments, and sure enough, mere seconds after he'd thought this, the wail of a hundred different alarms and sirens echoed through the city. The White Lair had been breached-but its breachers (breachees?) were already far, far away.
In a bar. Toasting their awesomeness.
Jared raised his glass in celebration. “We did it,” he declared triumphantly. Mission, complete. Jared and Jensen, still together. Definite success in Jared’s book.
They toasted somewhat clumsily and drank. Jared wiped his mouth with a sleeve.
“Man,” he said, rehashing, because the best part of victory was talking about how awesome you were afterwards, “I thought I’d blown it for a minute there when my cape got caught in that wind tunnel.”
“Thank god we shut down the time portal and stole the chip so Dr. Klutzenstein can’t go back in time and destroy humanity,” Jensen said; his appreciation of the victory was more low-key than Jared’s but still evident. He was also more focused on the big picture, rather than Jared’s key moments of awesome. Which was a little offensive, really. Jared decided to let it slide.
“All in all, another successful day on the job,” Jared said casually, leaning back in his chair, as though he were a veteran superhero who’d done this a million times before and not someone just starting out. “And no appreciation.” He gave a long-suffering sigh as he glanced around at all the other patrons of the bar, obliviously getting drunk or chatting up hot bartenders. Blind to the fact that there were heroes in their very midst.
“They’re appreciating Airstrike and SonicSound.” Jensen nodded to the TV, where footage of them flying away from the White Lair as it exploded was playing on endless repeat. Instead of looking at the TV, Jared looked at Jensen. He looked awesome in glasses. His secret identity was really just as hot as his caped-and-masked-crusader identity.
“We make good partners,” said Jensen then, and that just made Jared really, really happy. He was happy that they’d accomplished their joint venture but Jensen hadn’t left yet, he was happy that he’d at least managed to become friends with Jensen, and he was definitely happy that Jensen thought they made a good team. It was kind of the perfect time for a pick-up line, but Jared refrained. Because Jensen was his friend, and because it would be just a really stupid thing to do, and Jensen deserved better than that, and…well, because Jared wanted more than that. He didn’t really want a one-night stand or anything.
He kind of wanted forever.
But again, that was an easier plan to carry out if Jensen was a willing participant.
Jared cast a sideways glance at his companion. He thought maybe he could gauge Jensen’s reactions to him, figure out just how much willing participation he could easily count on.
He managed to gauge that Jensen had perfect teeth.
This wasn’t helping.
Jensen seemed to notice him looking. His eyebrows drew together. “You okay, hotshot?” he asked. Jared blinked rapidly.
“Perfect,” he said, and to cover up his somewhat creepy social blunder raised his glass. “To being more awesome superheroes than the Masked Bandit,” he said. Jensen hesitated, then grinned widely and drank deeply. Jared laughed a little into his beer.
They drank more, talked more. Lots more. And sometime long after midnight-the hours having slipped past unnoticed-they made their way down the sidewalk, ambling along in no particular hurry, talking even more, both a little tipsy but neither drunk. Jared wasn’t exactly sure where they were walking to. Maybe Jensen’s apartment? He’d never spent any time with him when they weren’t on duty fighting evil before. Jensen looked awesome in tights and a cape, but, Jared noticed (only slightly tipsily), he looked even better in jeans. Seriously.
Jared hung back a little to appreciate this fact. Jensen looked over his shoulder at him.
“What, Flyboy?” he said, sounding somewhat self-conscious. “Hurry up, I can’t be waiting for your sorry ass all the time.”
“Like you ever are anyway,” Jared grinned, coming up behind him and slinging an arm around his shoulder. “You can’t even fly.”
“I’m too awesome for flying,” was Jensen’s irreverent reply.
Jared thought about asking where they were going, but that might make Jensen think about the fact that they no longer needed to be going anywhere together, and then he might not get to go wherever it was they were going. So he kept his mouth shut and leaned into Jensen more as they walked, pretending to be a bit more inebriated than was entirely accurate.
Jensen’s apartment was much too large and expensive for his secret identity’s low-rung newspaper job to possibly support, but it spoke just fine for the government’s generous superhero subsidies. Jared’s original plan, when he became sure that they were indeed heading to Jensen’s apartment, had involved lots of sex, or at the very least some very obvious propositioning and/or making out (which could always be blamed on the alcohol in the morning if necessary), but he might have been just a bit more inebriated than he’d thought, or at the very least just exhausted from their day of fighting crime, for they’d only been there for about five minutes when Jared passed out on Jensen’s couch and slept like a rock.
In the morning, Jensen got them both coffee and smiled at him and called him hotshot and flyboy some more, and at this point Jared was perfectly willing to completely forgo his given name and his superhero name and replace them both with Jensen’s nicknames for him, and possibly also Jensen’s surname, and also make it so that only Jensen was allowed to talk to him, ever again. This might be a difficult plan to put into practice, but Jared was confident he could handle it.
It couldn’t be any harder than, say, it had been dealing with his once-sidekick, the Chadinator.
Jared washed up and drank coffee and they didn’t talk a lot, which was weird for Jared, to not be talking all the time, but the silence was comfortable and happy, so it was okay. The time was just creeping towards noon and Jared was thinking that they might actually at some point have to discuss what they were doing with the rest of their day (and possibly, well, the rest of their lives), when he looked out the giant floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the entire eastern-facing wall of Jensen’s swanky penthouse and nearly spit out his coffee.
A giant, War of the Worlds-esque robot was attacking the city. The thing was taller than most of the city’s skyscrapers, and was currently climbing over Macy’s and flailing its long metallic limbs into buildings and bringing down power lines. While making quite a racket.
When Jared looked over at Jensen, he saw him already changed into suit and cape, pulling his mask on and looking ready and determined. Jensen pressed a button on the wall Jared hadn’t seen before: a tall bookcase rolled aside, revealing a phonebooth hidden inside Jensen’s wall, for Jared to change in. Jared nodded in thanks and leapt in.
Moments later he leapt back out, now definitely not Jared, Flyboy or Hotshot, but Airstrike the Avenger.
“C’mon,” he uttered. “We have a city to save.”
They leapt down the fire escape and out onto the city streets, where they met the monster yanking its leg out of the First Security Bank and shaking it over Greensback Park. Jared ran a quick diagnostic of the thing’s strengths and weaknesses in his mind. Non-metallic underbelly, probably a sensitive spot. Giant eye-like thing, might be the controls? Apparent laser eyes, six long metal limb-tentacles capable of smashing entire buildings to the ground, easy maneuverability, slow on corners.
In short: not easy, but doable.
Jared flew up into the air immediately, while Jensen was zooming around the thing’s tentacle-legs below, presumably inflicting some sort of damage, getting it to laser its own legs off, or something. Jared swung a tight arc in the air to approach the robot from behind. Unfortunately, what Jared hadn’t seen was the thing’s other eye, on the side of its head(-like thing) that Jared had assumed was the back. (He really hadn’t had good luck with that sort of thing lately.) The giant robot swatted him out of the sky before Jared even had the chance to duck or swerve. He landed flat on the pavement below, seeing stars.
“Jared!” Jensen yelled from somewhere nearby. Jared sat up, blinking rapidly.
The robot shot a fireball out of a laser eye. Jared ducked, swearing, as it went shooting over his head. The ground behind him caught on fire.
Stupid dragon.
“Sir Jared!” Prince Jensen panted, there in an instant, kneeling at his side. Which definitely meant he was worried or something, because that was the first time Jensen had called him Sir Jared and not Peasant Boy or Sir Hotshot since they’d started this quest, even after it had stopped being mocking and started being affectionate.
“Sir Peasant,” Jared said, attempting to correct the prince with the nickname he’d pretended to be so annoyed with the first time and getting a little mixed up (the dizziness was still fading). He hoped Jensen would recognize that for the reassurance he meant it as. But Jensen didn’t have time to press the issue anyway, because his back was to the dragon as he knelt at Jared’s side, and the dragon was coming back for seconds.
This was not okay.
Jared heaved himself to his feet, only a little dizzy now, and leapt in front of Jensen before the dragon could snatch him up, brandishing his sword. No way was that giant scary scaly thing ever going to be allowed to eat Jensen. The dragon responded to this great show of loyalty and courage by extending its massive purple wings and taking flight. Great. An airstrike. Stupid dragon.
Beating the air around Jared’s head with its enormous wings, the dragon roared angrily from above as Jensen scrambled to his feet as well. The dragon had armor-melting hot breath, which was really really not good, because Jared was wearing armor, and the last thing he wanted was for it to get all melted and welded shut and then it would burn his skin and he’d be stuck in it forever. That would definitely be not good. But he had to risk it, because the dragon wanted to eat Jensen, and that was even worse.
It was pretty much proven that the dragon didn’t want to eat Jared, just Jensen, when it swooped down and completely bypassed the guy with the sword for the guy who was picking his own up from the ground. Jared lunged and plunged his blade into the dragon’s neck before it could get its teeth anywhere close to Jensen. The sword didn’t actually do that much damage against the dragon’s rock-hard scales, but it bought Jensen enough time to decide against picking up his sword and reach for his bow and arrows instead, which, Jared had to admit, were probably a better idea to use on a dragon. As evidenced by what had just happened.
Jensen began to volley arrows at the beast from behind Jared: some bit into the dragon’s soft purple underbelly, causing it to scream (in a dragon-like way) in agony.
“Aim for its heart!” Jared yelled to Jensen, trying himself to get at a good angle to aim with his sword. Seeing as how he’d clearly, by this point, established that stealthy sneaking up was not one of his strong points. It was probably safer just to go for the direct attack.
He heard Jensen start to make a retort behind him, but the dragon lowered its head and expelled more fire from its mouth: Jared raised his shield to try and protect them both, but despite this, Jensen’s tunic caught on fire. He yelled and dropped his longbow.
“Put it out!” Jared roared needlessly-if Jensen hadn’t been on fire and all, Jared was pretty sure he’d be rolling his eyes at him. When Jensen dropped to the ground and rolled around to beat the flames out, Jared ran to the other side of the dragon to distract it from eating Jensen while he was all warm and vulnerable and crispy. He thrust at the dragon with his sword again, which proved to be just as useful as before, but the important thing was that the dragon still turned on him, away from Jensen.
Of course, as it turned, its tail whipped around and knocked Jensen unconscious.
Well, that hadn’t worked as planned.
This dragon was going down.
Jared didn’t really know what the dragon’s deal was. He was pretty sure that dragons were supposed to typically kidnap princesses, not eat princes. He was also pretty sure that, as a knight, he was supposed to be fighting and killing the dragon to retrieve a princess, not to defend a prince.
But part of going on a quest with the prince of the land was helping to keep said prince safe, and as it turned out, beyond it just being his job, he realized that he really, really did not want Jensen dead. Not that he didn’t already know that-but this was like, he wanted Jensen alive more than he wanted himself alive. That kind of thing.
Because Jensen was funny and hot and kind of a prick, and even though he’d been amused at Jared and skeptical of his abilities and accused him of not having much going on beneath his helmet, he’d also given Jared an opportunity to escape the kingdom he’d always lived in, and he’d brought adventure and excitement into his life, and Jared thought they worked really, really well together. In fact, he was kind of in love with him. And he didn’t want to lose this. He’d come this far, after all.
Plus, he hadn’t even had sex with the guy yet.
Jared had to defeat this thing. After all, he’d already defeated that sea monster at the White Caves the previous day, the thing they’d originally set out on this quest to destroy, how hard could this be?
Except that currently Jensen was definitely unconscious, so it was rather difficult for him to uphold his half of the teamwork.
Still, inspired with renewed vigor, Jared charged into the fight. The dragon flew up again, then back down, breathed some more fire; Jared dodged, rolling on the ground until he was to the side of the dragon, as opposed to directly in front of it. Seeing an opportunity, he grabbed onto its slippery, hard scales and climbed up and aboard the murderous, fire-breathing monster. So it was a totally stupid opportunity to do something even more stupid, but it was still an opportunity, and besides, he’d never claimed to be anything but stupid, really. After all, he’d volunteered to come on this quest with Jensen, right after the latter had nearly cut his head off.
So far, this stupid decision wasn’t going much better, as Jared held on for dear life and tried to figure out what to do. The thing roared and spread its wings, intending to fly into the sky again-probably to turn over in midair a thousand feet up, causing no little amount of pain and probably lots of death to Jared-but before it could, without thinking, Jared leaned forward and slashed its wings into ribbons. Another great scream ripped the air. Not really wanting to be bucked off and trampled on any more than he had wanted to fall off and die, Jared gauged the distance to a narrow rock ledge that was about the same height off the ground as the dragon’s back and jumped wildly.
He barely landed, taking a moment to steady himself, a moment which caused him to nearly be unprepared when the dragon turned and lunged at him, its gaping jaw open wide to reveal dozens of dagger-like teeth. As it was, Jared’s first shot, intended for the heart, went straight into the dragon’s mouth, which caused it to rear back in pain and unintentionally present Jared with its soft purple underbelly.
Jared stabbed it in the heart. He twisted the sword around, dug it deeper into the dragon’s flesh, and let go.
The dragon gave one last tremendous roar and, crashing into the ground with the force of a herd of rampaging giants, expired.
Jared wasted no time in running to Jensen’s side, the smell of the now-dead (okay, extra dead) zombies clogging up his nostrils. He never really got used to that stench. He shook Jensen’s shoulder. It suddenly occurred to him that Jensen might not actually just be unconscious. Zombies instantly became the furthest thing from his mind.
“No. Don’t do this to me, man,” he said, his throat choked up, because being totally badass and defeating the zombie legions meant nothing if he didn’t get his prize in the end. If Jensen wasn’t alive. “So not fair. I couldn’t have done this without you. I mean, I know we just met, but it feels like we’ve been fighting bloodthirsty corpses together for years, you know? You’re all I have. Dammit, Jensen, everybody else is a zombie. Do you have any idea how glad I am you’re not? Please don’t die on me.”
Jensen remained unconscious. Maybe Jared wasn’t expressing his feelings well enough. Maybe he should try poetry? Would poetry help?
But before he had time to assemble verse about the adorable look on Jensen’s face when he was spilling zombie guts, or wonder what rhymed with dismember, said adorable gut-spiller gasped to back life in Jared’s arms. Or, okay, back to consciousness.
And Jared realized rather belatedly that he actually hadn’t expressed his feelings all that well. Because he was just rambling on about the bonds of brotherhood, as opposed to, you know, the bonds between two guys who found each other really awesome as well as hot and had lots of awesome sex. And if Jared couldn’t even say it when Jensen was unconscious-maybe-even-hopefully-not-dead, when could he say it? Pretty much never.
“Hey there, hot boy,” Jensen murmured, sounding dazed, totally mixing up his two nicknames for Jared in a way the latter didn’t mind at all. He blinked blearily. “Wha’d I miss?”
“Oh, just me totally kicking those zombies’ asses while you laid there like a pansy,” Jared grinned, still not releasing Jensen from his tight grip. “And then waxing poetic over your beautiful, dead-looking face.”
“Right,” Jensen grunted, and shifted; reluctantly, Jared let his arms fall-he was still kneeling on the ground, but Jensen was now sitting up. And not being cradled by Jared. Unfortunately. “I’m sure that’s exactly how it happened.” Then he looked concerned. “You’re not hurt?”
“Nope,” Jared truthed.
“You sure?” Jared nodded. “Good. Yeah. Damn. Sorry for-passing out on you, there.” Jensen sounded actually regretful for that. Somehow.
“What?” Jared responded, surprised. What a weird thing to apologize for. Jensen obviously thought Jared was upset because he’d abandoned him in the middle of the fight, that Jared didn’t care at all about his wellbeing-and he obviously hadn’t heard Jared’s little speech at all. He felt the need to reassure Jensen of this, at least, that he wasn’t just using him for his zombie-fighting skills. “No! It was fine! Not that you were unconscious, but I didn’t need your h-I mean, I wanted it, but I was okay-” He wasn’t quite sure how to communicate his point. He shut up when Jensen started talking instead.
“What I meant was, I should have been fighting-I don’t want anything to happen to you.” And suddenly Jensen was looking at him really intensely with his really freaking pretty green eyes, and Jared really freaking wanted to kiss him.
It was an interesting development-not Jared wanting to kiss him (he always wanted that), but what Jensen was saying.
“When we were battling zombie-Chad and zombie-Mike back there,” Jensen said, looking like he’d steeled himself for the worst and really could have used a pre-big-moment-deep-breath, “all I could think of was you.”
Jared caught his breath, because this was territory they’d never covered, in all their two weeks of zombie hunting. Which, okay, wasn’t really a requisite amount of time by which they should have had this conversation, but it’s still a long time to not make out when you’re zombie hunting. Jared would know.
But this was the territory he’d kept wanting to venture into, but because of the previously listed reasons, vis a vis not taking advantage, not ruining their friendship, not having it be a one night stand, possiblybeingscared, etc., he never had. Not even in poetry format. Apparently, though, Jensen didn’t need poetry.
“I just knew I didn’t want you to die,” Jensen was saying, “and I didn’t want to die, because I couldn’t stand the thought of dying without ever telling you how I felt. I mean, I know that sounds kind of stupid, and all, but-”
Jared realized that he was finally getting a chance to kiss Jensen and Jensen was still talking. He set about fixing that. Specifically, he grabbed Jensen’s face and brought their lips together before Jensen could possibly know what was happening. Luckily, neither that nor his still-somewhat-dazed-state stopped Jensen from responding.
It turned out that kissing Jensen was exactly as awesome as Jared had always thought it would be, that his pouty lips were just as soft and kissable as they had always seemed, that Jensen was even more responsive and into it than Jared had ever dared to hope, that even cheesier thoughts were going through Jared’s head than he had ever imagined might. They kissed for what definitely didn’t seem like hours because it definitely didn’t feel like long enough, didn’t feel like it could ever be long enough, Jensen’s hand knotting in Jared’s hair, Jared’s hands exploring every inch of Jensen’s face.
But when there was absolutely no way he could breathe-breathing was overrated, but somewhat necessary if he ever wanted to kiss Jensen again, which he definitely, definitely did-Jared pulled back and rested his forehead on Jensen’s.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to be on set in five minutes. And we have to act like brothers, not like we want to jump each other every five seconds.”
Jensen smirked and brushed another kiss on his lips. Jared’s life was awesome. His good mood from seemingly forever ago was totally back. He couldn’t even remember what had caused it to go away in the first place. Pirates? Or something? Whatever. “With Sam and Dean, it’s practically the same thing,” Jensen replied.
Jared laughed and kissed Jensen again, just because he finally could, before twining their fingers together and wandering off to set.
And that was how Jared’s life got awesome.
FIN
A/N: (You’re just lucky I skipped the epilogue where they're mermaids. I mean men. Mermen. Right.)