fic: Food Porn (4/7) R - J2 AU
ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE | SIX | EPILOGUE
MASTER POST
CHAPTER FOUR
So Jensen has this pet theory that working in the restaurant industry makes people into alcoholics. He got drunk one time last spring and laid it all out for Jared, who watched him with amusement and then turned around and wrote a big blog post expounding on the theory. And of course it’s one of his most popular entries, and of course Jim insists go in the book (you know, assuming Jared ever actually fucking finishes it). But seriously, the idea started out in Jensen’s brain, and he damn sure better get thanked in Jared’s foreword is all he's saying.
The theory comes from a lot of first-hand experience, starting with his own father. He remembers vividly sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when his old man would get home from work, go straight for the liquor cabinet, and not come up for air until he’d had at least four fingers of Southern Comfort down him. After he retired and Jensen’s older brother took over the restaurant, Dad didn’t drink at all.
Jensen grew up in the kitchen of his parents’ little Mom-n-Pop barbeque pit, watching with wide eyes as his otherwise rather mild-mannered father completely demolished people who crossed him, annoyed him, or otherwise broke the backs of his metaphorical camels. He wasn’t at all surprised when he grew up and worked with similar head chefs.
The summer Ross turned two, Jensen did prep at a hotel in New York City, working under a Michelin-rated chef who guzzled Jack from the bottle while standing on line, screamed everything he ever said, and had weird sexual trysts in the walk-in cooler with all sorts of seriously bizarre people. The guy ended up drunk driving his car into the Hudson River, killing himself and the tranny hooker who’d been blowing him at the time.
The owner of the last place he worked before Supernatural opened was able to drink an entire box of wine-they were classy people, the people who worked there-by herself without any outward signs of drunkenness.
Anyway, so generally, Jensen finds himself medicating his ills in a similar fashion. It’s not conscious, but sometimes he’ll have drunken revelations and call his brother crying about his crap life. This usually ends in Josh telling their mother and Jensen getting a tedious phone call from her the next night, during which she tells him quite mildly that if he’s planning on suicide, please make it something tidy like pills so she can have an open-casket funeral to show off how devastatingly good-looking her middle child was.
Around three o’clock Thursday morning, he’s awakened by his cell phone blasting Sandy’s ringtone in his ear.
“Existential crisis at this hour?” he mutters into the phone in lieu of a proper greeting.
“I’m drunk,” Sandy says simply, “so this phone call seems like a fucking great idea. Anyway, I’m thinking that tonight you and me are taking Sophia out to cheer her gloomy pregnant ass up. Her living on my sofa-bed is seriously starting to freak Chace out, and you know how he gets.”
“He is preternaturally pretty. There’s got to be something wrong with his brain,” Jensen agrees. Sandy’s roommate is apparently an articulate political science major in daily life, but every time Jensen’s ever been around him the kid just acts like a gibbering fool.
“Yeah, I’m trying to convince him to let me bring him in to do lab tests on. He just calls me Kevorkian and takes over the bathroom to flatiron his hair some more. Boy’s got a problem.”
“Is there a point to this?” Jensen asks, flopping onto his back and squinting at the ceiling. His throat kind of hurts, which makes him worry he’s snoring again.
“Oh! Right. So I’m sitting here with Chace and a couple of his pretty little alcoholic friends-dude, it’s Wasted Wednesday! Yeah! Represent!-sorry. You know how Leighton is. Anyway, Chace says that we should take her to some club his friend Ed works at over by campus.”
Jensen frowns. Sandy’s roommate is one of those newly-ripened fruits who’s going through his slutbag phase, and Jensen is quite sure he doesn’t want to be anywhere near a club that comes on his recommendation. “Explain to me why I want to spend my Thursday night in a gay club with a psychotic and a pregnant woman?”
“We both know that Sophia only went to her fancy art school because she loves gay men, and that the reason she hasn’t moved on with her life is she has no fags to hag for anymore,” Sandy says very seriously. God, sometimes, Jensen realizes why she and Jared are fucking perfect for each other. The both call him at odd hours with insane, drunken plots. The difference is, of course, that Jared calls him from upstairs. At least Sandy’s in Hyde Park when she calls.
“What?”
Sandy snorts. “Fine, Jensen. I promise to buy you lots of Jagerbombs and maybe I’ll even play your adoring girlfriend to keep the twinks away. Whaddaya say to that?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and glances at the clock. It’s hours ‘til coffee. “I say that the last time you and me went to a gay bar, I was turning thirty, and I got hit on by a guy Ross’s size.”
“And you also took some really hot guy home-which Jared still brings up when he’s mad at the world, by the way. I don’t think he’s ever gonna forgive you for failing to mention the liking dick thing to him.”
“Okay, this right here is a conversation we need to have when we’re both drunk, Sandy.”
“Boundaries: I don’t has them,” she points out. “So, you’re in, right?”
Jensen isn’t about to pass up the chance to consume lots of alcohol (especially if he doesn’t have to pay for it), so he just groans. “What time should I be ready?” Friday’s the Fourth of July, so at least it’ll be a dead day at work the day after this night of debauchery. He doesn’t get why Eric’s not just closing for the holiday all together, but whatever.
“Fantabulous! Jen, you’re a beautiful human being.”
“Yes, thank you. I know. Don’t call me Jen,” he says, smiling a little. She hangs up on him.
At work that afternoon, Sandy ends up inviting Jared and Kristen along as well. Jared is thrilled, and Kristen’s excited to wear some new outfit she bought.
“You should grow a beard again,” Sandy tells him in the car on the way to the club that night.
Sophia turns around in the passenger seat to look back at him. “You know, she’s right,” she says, cocking her head to one side and squinting at him. Jensen considers telling her she looks just like Chad like that but that seems somehow unnecessarily cruel.
“You might actually look like a man that way, “ Sandy adds, grinning at him in the rearview mirror.
“Aw, Sandy, I see you took those prescription-strength bitch pills tonight,” he says, poking her in the arm.
“Hey, buddy, you’re the one who left the house thinking that embarrassingly fugly hat was an acceptable fashion choice,” she replies just as she pulls into the parking lot a little too sharply, which sends unbelted Jensen careening into one of the doors with a thump and a curse. The tires screech. Both girls giggle. Jensen takes off his hat, a perfectly nice herringbone wool Kangol grandpa-style cap, and looks at it. He likes this hat. He has a thing for weird hats. Ask him about his sweater-knit ballcaps.
Kristen and Jared are closing tonight, so they’re meeting them at the club later. Jensen has to admit he likes this whole head chef thing. He gets. He gets out early and he gets to go home to shower before he pretends he has a social life and drinks himself into a stupor. He even wore a nice black button down shirt, which Sophia tells him looks “super hot” on him. He feels like a real adult. He leaves the hat in the car, though, still a little confused as to why the girls seem to hate it.
“I want everyone to have a great time tonight so I can live vicariously and take embarrassing pictures and post them on Facebook,” Sophia says as they head for the line outside. She wraps an arm around the small of Jensen’s back and teeters a little on her very high heels that have got to be killing her. “I want to watch Sandy and Jared be a happy, normal couple, and I want to see you and Kristen have fun-don’t you think I haven’t noticed the epic levels of awkward there, either, mister-and then I’m going to pour all of you into Sandy’s car and play good little pregnant designated driver and drive all your drunk asses back to your place.”
He kisses the top of her head. “Your wish is totally my command,” he tells her while they watch Sandy hug the bouncer and have a long chat. The guy barely spares Jensen and Sophia a look while he’s lifting the velvet rope for the three of them. A little cluster of painted queens at the front of the line titter angrily amongst themselves, but they lapse into stunned, drooling silence when Jensen shoots a serene smile their way. Jensen totally abuses his power sometimes, so sue him.
Inside, the walls of the club are each painted an obnoxious day-glo color, then splattered with black paint. The bar has neon lights running down its length, and the ceiling is mirrored. There aren’t chairs around the edges, but there are waterbeds, which to Jensen just seems incredibly unhygienic.
“So, tell me, Jensen. Will it be tequila… or tequila?” Sandy asks him, dragging him to the bar.
“He’ll have tequila!” Sophia crows, smiling for the first time in weeks, Jensen thinks. He smiles back. “I’ll go get us one of those tall tables over there. Get me something with grenadine and fizz. And some olives.”
“I fucking love olives,” Sandy says, dragging Jensen to the bar. “And beer! And this place!”
It’s not too surprising that Sandy and Jensen are utterly shitfaced by the time Jared and Kristen get there. It’s been an hour, and Jensen’s liver is working over time. Sandy’s kind of a mean drunk, mostly going on and on about how much Chad sucks, but Jensen goes very mellow. He’s lolling back against a wall, a little queasy, trying to tune out the boring story an overweight hag is telling her court of fags at the next table over when he realizes that everyone at his own table has gone very quiet.
He doesn’t see Kristen, but Chad’s right behind Jared, glancing around with a vaguely uncomfortable look and clearly trying not to seem like he’d rather be just about anywhere else. When Chad realizes Sophia’s standing at the table with Jensen and Sandy he goes chalky and stumbles to a stop. A dancing boy in gold lamé pants runs into him and snaps, “Bitch, watch where you going!”
“Man, what the fuck?” he can just hear Chad saying to Jared over the music as they arrive at the table.
Sandy stares at Jared in disbelief. Sophia looks down at her Shirley Temple and stabs viciously at the ice. Jensen coughs.
“Seriously?” Sandy snaps, glowering at Jared.
Just then, Kristen appears at Jensen’s side with a bottle of Amstel in her hand. “What’d I miss-oh, hi, Sophia.” She glances around the table and waves awkwardly at the two waitresses. Neither of them acknowledges her.
“I’m gonna go… get a round, okay?” Chad yells, like he thinks alcohol will make everything better. Sandy and Jared continue to glare at each other. Jensen and Kristen exchange raised eyebrows and they both become very interested in their drinks.
“I told you I was bringing her out. She needed cheering up!” Sandy practically shouts, stabbing a finger into the middle of Jared’s very big chest. Jared puts a placating hand on her arm but she shrugs him off violently. His lips thin and his expression goes dark and ugly. “And what do you do, asshole? You bring Chad!”
“I forgot you were bringing Sophia, Jesus Christ!” Jared yells back.
Sandy slugs him in the arm and stomps her foot. “Are you brain-damaged? Demented? The whole point here, coming out tonight?” She waves both of her arms around and then hits him again for good measure. “Yeah, it was to cheer Sophia up!”
“I’m full of cheer, really,” Sophia says darkly, glancing around nervously at the interested looks they’re getting from the groups around them. The fat girl at the next table finally and mercifully shuts the fuck up, watching them with wide eyes.
Just then, Chad comes back to their table empty handed. “What the fuck?” Jared says, ignoring Sandy and glowering down at Chad just because he can. Jensen hates it when he does that, like his disgusting height is some kind of get out of jail free card.
“Fuck you, too! The line was too long!” Chad whines.
“I bet your mom said that when they were giving out abortions,” Sophia mutters from the other side of the table, glaring at everyone.
“Oh my god, for the last fucking time, you evil cunt,” Chad snarls, rounding on her with blazing eyes. “I. Am. Sorry.” He thumps the table with one of Jensen’s empty shot glasses to punctuate each word.
Jensen decides to extricate himself from the group before drinks and punches are thrown. He heads for the bar. He needs another drink, and he has a feeling he should just get the whole round because everyone who isn’t Sophia is going to need it.
--
“Hey, sugarlips, you just step right over here,” the bartender says, voice a little Southern-tinged, when he approaches. “What’ll it be?”
She’s a tall redhead about his age, easily the most attractive woman in the room. She’s got a kiss of bright pink lipstick on one cheek and really excellent breasts that her white tank top isn’t doing a great job of containing.
“Fuck, I don’t even care,” he tells her, leaning against the bar and rubbing his forehead.
She chuckles. “Well, that there means you need yourself something tame, honeybear. And by tame I mean hard. You follow? I’m thinkin’ vodka. How’m I doing here?” He shrugs, thinking that another couple of shots will probably put him on the floor but not caring.
“Will it obliterate all chance of my remembering this conversation?” he asks hopefully.
She nods. “More than likely."
“Then make it a double. I need a couple of beers and a Shirley Temple, too,” he adds.
“Lemme guess,” the bartender says as she’s pouring vodka into a glass with more flair than Jensen requires at this point. “You’re a waiter?”
He shakes his head and leans forward on his elbows. “Close, though. Sous chef at Supernatural,” he says, like he’s imparting a big secret.
She raises her eyebrows. “You work with Chad Murray, then,” she says.
“Oh, god,” he groans, hiding his face in his hands. “Please, don’t say that name.”
“I think everybody who knows that douchenozzle says that,” she agrees, sliding his drink toward him with a wink. “I’m Danneel, by the way. Looks like we’re gonna be friends for at least the next two minutes.”
He looks at the drink. It’s murky and brownish, but it smells like coffee so he’s so there. “No offense, but a Black Russian? Really?”
“Prefer a Virgin Pussy?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. She shoots ginger ale over some ice and adds enough grenadine to make it match the lip print on her cheek. He gets the feeling she asks this question a lot, and with her clientele it probably gives her endless hours of entertainment. It’s not going to work on him, though.
“Maybe,” he murmurs, shrugging. “I like watermelon.”
“Oh,” she says, looking kind of disappointed, “you’re straight.”
“Mostly, I guess… just not real choosy sometimes,” he says, pulling out his wallet.
Just then, someone big and warm presses himself against Jensen’s back and slaps a humongous hand down on the bar next to his drink. “Fuckin' hell, thought you left me, too, man,” Jared says right in his ear. Danneel gives them an amused look while she pops the caps off a few bottles of beer. Jensen focuses on the fact she seems to know he wants two Budweisers, an Amstel, and that nasty Peroni shit Sandy likes. If he leans against the guy for a second, then so be it. He’s not going to shiver. He’s too drunk for that.
Finally, he bats Jared away. “Drinks,” he says.
“Hate to tell you,” Jared says, leaning down real close to his ear, “but it’s just you and me now.”
Jensen twists around and stares at him blankly. “Um, what?”
Jared snags one of the bottles of Bud and takes a long drink before he answers. Jensen does not watch his throat work, thank you. He doesn’t meet Danneel’s eye, either. He swirls his drink around in its glass instead.
“Everybody left,” Jared reports. He smells happy, like he probably finished off the remains of every drink at their table before he came to find Jensen, but he looks kind of strained, too. “Sandy and Kristen dragged Sophia away, then Chad stormed after them. We’re gonna have to take a cab home.”
Jensen grabs the Amstel and drinks half of it. Then he digs out his wallet and tosses a fifty Danneel’s way and tells her to keep the change. “It’s one of those nights, isn’t it?” he asks her.
She pockets the money and slides a business card his way. “I don’t usually do this, sweetie, but you look like you could benefit from my day job.”
The card is pale blue, and in a pretty script across the top it says Frosting. The lower left corner features a smiling cartoon piece of cake. Under the phone number and address in the lower right corner it says in italics, “designer sugar therapy.”
“Really?” he asks. “You work in a bakery and a gay bar?”
She just grins. “I’m thinking of combining them,” she says conspiratorially, and yeah, Jensen thinks that maybe he’s never met a woman quite as kickass, except for maybe Jess before he knocked her up. He makes a mental note to avoid sleeping with Danneel so that she doesn’t get pregnant and therefore stays awesome. He’s drunk enough by now that such leaps in logic make perfect sense.
She taps the card. “Come in some time, though. I’ll even give you pie half off ‘cause you’re so pretty.”
Jared slings an arm around his shoulders and beams at her. “He’ll see you tomorrow, Dr. Hot Redhead, I promise,” he answers for him. Danneel laughs and Jared looks down at Jensen and gestures for him to pick up the spread of drinks he ordered for other people. “Now come on, duck-lips, let’s go get us very, very drunk.”
--
The next morning, Jensen wakes up feeling like a group of extremely peeved toddlers are banging on pots and pans inside his head and guts. He’s sprawled on his stomach the wrong way across his still-made bed, half-dressed and face pressed into a wet patch of drool ninety degrees from his pillows. He smacks his lips a few times as he comes to, disoriented and a lot unhappy at being alive.
“Fuck me,” he mutters, unsteadily sitting up and yanking off his socks. He hates sleeping in socks, hates how they leave itchy indents around his ankles after they’re gone. He’s dizzy as hell, his contacts are all blurry and stuck to his eyeballs and he feels sore all over, like one of the activities he doesn’t remember from last night involved a lot of getting tossed into walls. He turns his alarm clock off with a vicious smack. It squeaks sadly one more time and makes a dying sound. “The hell’d I do last night?”
He cracks his neck and goes for a shower, hoping it’ll make him feel a little more alive. He knocks the toilet paper into the sink and he brushes his teeth in the shower. He makes the water as hot as he can stand it and stands there with his face tipped up into the spray for several minutes, hoping that maybe he can help his hangover along by steaming the rest of the alcohol out of his system. He knows it’s not going to work, but he’s trying anyway.
Twenty minutes later, he stumbles into the kitchen. He feels a little queasy from spending the last five minutes dry heaving over the toilet, and he’s dying for coffee. He doesn’t really have a concentrated headache, but he takes a handful of little brown drugstore-brand ibuprofen with half a glass of orange juice just in case. It’s almost nine o’clock and he’s got to get to Supernatural for brunch. Jared’s nowhere to be found, so he figures he’s still asleep, lucky bastard who doesn’t have to work ‘til five.
Somebody remembered to set the coffee machine for eight-thirty, so there’s a nice hot pot waiting for him. He drinks two cups and eats most of the last leftover empanada, which is mostly just squishy and spicy at this point, then goes and finishes getting dressed for work. Sadie follows him around and walks him to the door.
“Who’s a good girl?” he says, rubbing behind her ears while he slides his feet into his clogs. “Now go pee on your Daddy’s bed for me, okay? It’s his fault I’m in lots of pain right now, I just know it.”
She barks once and he laughs. “Yeah, I know, girl. I know.”
Jensen and his Altima have a love-hate relationship. It’s an ’03 with a sticky manual transmission and an insatiable appetite for tires (seriously, the thing goes through them like Jared’s dogs go through kibble). It’s a nice shade of medium blue, with halogens and a CD player doesn’t work when it’s too humid out, like today. Jess picked it out, which probably says a lot about it, but Jensen figures it gets him where he needs to go and it gets pretty decent gas mileage. He likes that he doesn’t have to sell off pieces of his soul to fuel his vehicle like other people he could mention.
Jensen spends the half-hour drive to the restaurant squirming in his seat-did he break his tailbone, or what?-and half-listening to Mike and Mike fight about whether the Cubs are going all the way this year on ESPN Radio. Golic’s whining about Soriano’s broken hand hurting their chances of not sucking for a hundred years even, and Greenberg just sounds as hungover as Jensen feels.
Maybe it’s his imagination, but the whole kitchen seems quieter than normal when he walks in. Kristen sort of trips and gives him a funny look as she passes by on her way to grab something from the walk-in, and Ana-Beatriz barely looks up from the huge pile of green peppers she’s coring to nod a hello. Okay, so he figured there would be tension between back of the house and the waitstaff after Jared’s gaffe with bringing Chad to Sophia’s cheering-up party, but hell there’s always tension there. It’s the oldest problem in the restaurant industry.
Victor and Bartólo are prepping baby spinach, radicchio, mizuna, and romaine for the mixed greens, and rapping to each other in Spanish and laughing. Jensen can’t tell if they’re quoting something or freestyling, but it makes a nice backdrop for the day. It sounds like they’re in pain and he is in pain, and mostly he needs another cup of coffee.
Chad’s at the back table rolling up flank steak into bracciole for the special tonight, bobbing his head in time with the Venezuelans’ rapping, when he walks back behind the line. He looks oddly happy.
Jensen stands next to the counter with his hands wrapped around his cup of coffee. “What’s got you so chipper?’
“I got laid last night,” Chad says simply, not looking up from the roll he’s working on.
“Why do I ask questions like-fucking, ow. What the fuck?” He tries to lean back against the counter, except a stabbing pain radiates from his ass.
Chad’s head jerks up and Jensen gets a funny look from him, too. “You find some dude to go have buttsex with after we left, or what?” he asks.
Jensen glances up long enough to glare at him and winces. “That doesn’t even make-oh, fuck you! I think I broke my tailbone,” he says. He vaguely remembers falling out of the cab when they got home and landing half on the curb and half not. It had been uproariously funny at the time.
Chad laughs, which just makes Jensen feel even worse. Seriously, Chad is laughing at him, the same guy who stuffs cocktail peanuts up his nose at bars to get free drinks and who once snorted a line of cornstarch because Jared bet him a pack of Skittles he wouldn’t. “Dude, do you even look in the mirror in the morning?”
Kristen comes around the corner, mouth open and about to say something, but then she gets a good look at Jensen’s face and her expression goes all concerned and motherly. “Jensen, no offense, but you look like that meat. After it’s been beaten with a tenderizer.”
Jensen covers his face with his hands. His eyes feel three sizes too big for his eyesockets and there’s a persistent throb right about his ass that feels like every other broken bone he’s ever had. “I blacked out,” he says. “Last night, after you left. There was lots of alcohol. I hate everything right now.”
“Looks like you had one hell of a good time last night, though,” Chad says. “You fall off your porch, or what?”
“Jensen?” Kristen says, hands waving uselessly in front of her. Not that Jensen notices, of course, because suddenly the floor flies up towards his face and he’s racing for the trashcan next to Kristen. Coffee tastes absolutely horrible on the way back up, by the way.
Kristen pats him soothingly as he pukes up both kidneys, a few gallstones, and his breakfast, talking to Chad like nothing’s wrong and occasionally offering platitudes to Jensen. “So you talked it out, then?”
“Yeah,” Jensen’s vaguely aware of Chad saying. “I think we’re okay. I mean, we fucked, so that means it’s okay, right?” He laughs, then he goes quiet. Jensen just knows he’s watching him dry-heave, the jerk. “Dude, what the hell?”
“Jen here has a delicate constitution,” Kristen says, still rubbing up and down his back. Which kind of hurts, too, now that he’s consciously aware that he is not okay.
He heaves again. “Fuck. You,” he chokes out.
“I’m going to get you a drink of water,” she says softly, brushing a kiss to the top of his head. She pulls away, but he stays clinging to the rim of the can. It’s a new bag, shiny black plastic all orange-spattered now. “Chad, you think you can get him and his best friend Trashcan here to Jeff’s office to sit down?”
“I’m not touching-” Chad starts to say, but he breaks off and swears. “Fine, but only because Sophia’s tits are epic now, with the baby-”
“Chad.”
“Yeah, yeah. Come on, you pathetic excuse for a goat,” Chad says, hauling him up with an arm under both of his. “I can’t believe I have to do this. If you vomit on me, I will stab you with that pretty knife of yours.”
--
Chad calls Sophia to come and drive Jensen to the hospital. “You can’t stop barfing long enough to sit up, and you can’t even really sit because your ass hurts. How you planning on driving?” he points out.
Jensen kind of hates him for sounding like a rational person.
In the car, he slouches on the hip that isn’t bruised, both arms wrapped around a small trashcan he pilfered from Jeff’s office. Sophia, who’s deeply in the throes of morning sickness herself, keeps shooting glares at him.
“This is Chad’s fault,” he says. His voice is all scratchy and acid-etched.
“Yeah?” she asks, turning the radio down a little. He figures she’ll agree with anything that makes Chad the bad guy.
“Yeah. And J-yeah. It’s Chad’s fault for coming last night, to your pity party. ‘Cause then everyone left but… and this happened. And I’m sick. I’m a sick, sick puppy and I don’t. Fuck.”
She puts her right hand on his shoulder and says “Shhhh.”
“I don’t really think my tailbone’s broken,” he insists quietly. “Can you just drive me home?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Oh, you don’t want to spend the next six weeks sitting on an inflatable donut?”
“No,” he says slowly, “I don’t think my coccyx is broken, and I’m being a drama queen, and I think I have the flu-in July!-on top of my hangover, which sucks. And I…think I’m going to shut up now.”
She squeezes his shoulder again and releases, turns the music back up, and he dozes for the rest of the drive with his face mashed up against the rim of the trash can. When she shakes him awake, he’s got a big red line across his cheek.
Jared’s not downstairs when he stumbles in, and he doesn’t hear any signs of life upstairs, but that doesn’t mean the big guy’s not holed up in his office actually working on the book, because there’s another message from Jim on the machine that is a little more forceful than in the past. Sophia fields him into his room and helps him strip down to his undershirt and shorts. She tucks the trashcan just under the bed and ruffles his hair. The dogs sit near the doorway and watch.
“Do you want me to call anyone? And where’s Jared?”
“Prob’ly out buying more kitchen gadgetry he doesn’t need,” Jensen says, not opening his eyes and definitely snuggling down into his covers. He’s still nauseous and about one light breeze from falling into freaking the fuck out, but the bed offers a weird kind of equilibrium.
“Does that include maybe a dumpster? Because, damn, Jensen, but your room is a sty.” He cracks one eye open to glare at her. She’s standing over him with her arms crossed under her breasts, shaking her head and looking around the room. “It smells like dirty socks in here.”
“Just go away, Sophia,” he groans, before grabbing the trashcan and throwing up some more. He’s asleep before she’s gone, but she leaves a glass of water on his bedside table before she goes.
--
It’s not even an hour later when his phone goes off, blasting Jessica’s ringtone and startling him awake.
“No,” he says as soon as he’s got the clamshell open and the microphone somewhere in the vicinity of his face. “Whatever it is, my answer is no.”
Jess laughs, but she sounds worried. “You sound like you’re real excited to be alive. What the hell happened? Are you okay? I just called Supernatural and that scary Sera chick who runs your front of the house said you almost died or something and that I should try your cell. What the fuck, Jensen? They took you to the hospital?”
He pulls himself gingerly into a sitting position and casts an unhappy look around the room. “I think I have the flu,” he says. He briefly considers grabbing the trashcan Sophia left and vomiting with the phone still pressed to his ear, but he’s not really queasy. Just shivery.
“Oh, Jensen,” she says. He can hear her typing.
“Can we reschedule this pity party for later maybe? I just want to curl up under my covers and die.”
“Well, I was calling to see if you wanted to come out to Navy Pier with me and Ross tonight for overpriced hotdogs and watching the fireworks,” she says. Jensen’s ears perk up-he loves fireworks-but then his stomach rolls and he groans. “But I’m guessing the answer’s no if you’re sick. And don’t you pull the ‘No, I’m not sick! I’m totally fine! Please ignore the stuff that’s coming out of both ends without my consent!’ bullshit. I am onto your shit, Jensen Ackles.”
Jensen does not much appreciate the gravelly, overly gruff voice she employs to mock him, but she is kind of right. He’s always been a suck-it-up-and-move-on kind of guy when it comes to being sick, which often ends badly for him. His senior year of high school he ignored a cold until it turned into bronchitis and then pneumonia and landed himself in the hospital for almost two weeks because he didn’t want to miss any play practice, and then he ended up missing all six performances. And let’s not even talk about his twenty-second birthday, okay?
“But-fireworks!” he says, trying and failing to keep the whine out of his voice. Fireworks for some reason seem to turn off all his neuroses and make him into a little kid again. He loves fireworks.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure you can see some from Jared’s house in some direction,” she says sensibly. Bitch. “I mean, this is Chicago. Oh! And before I hang up and go break your son’s heart: call your mother. I’m tired of filling her in on your life because you decline her calls. You’re an asshole.”
“I love how we threaten each other with Ross’s emotional well-being,” Jensen says, snorting. Unfortunately, the snort makes his stomach roll again and this time he has to scramble to grab the trashcan. When he comes back on the line, Jess is making exaggerated gagging sounds herself. “Good-bye, you,” he says forcefully.
“Bye, sickface,” she chirps back. He hangs up and flops face-first into his pillows, phone still in hand.
--
Jensen wakes up a lot later to the sound of someone banging shit around in the kitchen. He sits up and squints blankly into his closet, a little surprised to find that he feels a lot better now that the hangover is totally gone. Well, except for how he’s fucking freezing and he mostly wants a drink and he has to go pick at this Jared-shaped scab apparently. He plants his feet on the floor and rubs his eyes, cursing the fact contacts seemed like a good idea this morning. He drinks the now lukewarm water on the bedside table, then wraps his fleece throw around his shoulders and stumbles out of the room.
From the middle of the living room he can see into the kitchen and it’s not a picture he likes much. There’s a big Williams-Sonoma bag sitting on the island next to Jared’s iPhone and keys, kind of crushed on one side. Jensen peeks inside and finds an electric ice cream maker. There’s a little Cuisinart food processor box on top of the fridge that looks awfully unopened and unfamiliar. Jared is head-and-shoulders inside the cupboard between the dishwasher they never use and the fridge, where they keep their redundant shit like third and fourth saucepans and the other two food processors. He’s wearing a pair of jeans that look fantastic from this angle and Jensen stops and tips his head to the side to enjoy the view for just a second before he catches himself and gives himself a shake.
He groans, eyes landing on the shopping bag again. “Okay, seriously, dude. Enough with the appliances,” he says. His voice comes out all scratchy and squashed sounding, like he hasn’t used it in years and it’s fighting its way out past all the mucus or something.
Jared jumps and bangs his head on the roof of the cabinet before scooting back on his heels and looking around wildly. When he spots Jensen where he’s trying to psych himself up to crawl onto one of the barstools, his expression goes oddly soft. “Okay, crazycakes,” Jared snorts. “Do I say anything when you go all Tom Cruise and cook half of Trader Joe’s and jump on couches and, like, rub soup in somebody’s hair?”
“Okay, point,” Jensen says, shoving the ice cream maker over and resting his elbows on the counter. He grabs the bag and pulls the box out, brain snagging on the appliance and the fact Jared’s been emotional shopping again. Because seriously, what’s Jared got to be stressed over? He’s the most happy-go-lucky fuck Jensen’s ever met in his life, whacked a few times with the charmed-life stick, and just so goddamn awesome he makes the roots of Jensen’s teeth ache a little.
That book must be weighing more heavily on him than Jensen thought. The answering machine’s still blinking with Jim’s latest message. Jensen gives him a sympathetic look.
Jared looks away and flutters his hands. “Okay, look, I have an hour before I have to go in. I was thinking I’d cook you something, since you actually look like something that died two weeks ago and got left out in my parents’ backyard after a cow shat on it.”
“Aw, shucks, J-bird,” Jensen says, slumping over and taking a deep breath.
“Oh, and by the way, we’re totally trying out the ice cream maker tonight. I’mma bring everybody back here with me and we’re gonna make literally gallons of the shit.”
“I’m sick,” Jensen whines. “Dairy makes mucus. It’ll be green. Green mucus.” He gives Jared a baleful look. “I am not okay with that.”
“Yeah? A big, shrimping pussy is what you are,” Jared says calmly. He’s rifling through the fridge, except neither of them has been to the grocery store in a while and it’s not exactly stocked.
“Fuck you. I do not have a foot fetish,” Jensen says.
“There is nothing but condiments in here,” Jared says, turning around and looking vaguely unhappy. The door sucks closed behind him.
Jensen points at the bottom freezer. “There’s still some gnocchi left down there from when Ross was here. Make me comfort food.”
Jared nods and grabs a pot from the rack hanging over the island. While he’s filling it and then salting the water, Jensen grabs one of the magazines on the other end of the island, where their mail goes to die. It’s the new Bon Appétit, and it’s a sad, sad commentary on Jensen’s life that the glorious burger on the cover looks better to him than Marisa Miller squinting on the cover of the Maxim underneath it. But whatever, Bon Appétit is like porn for food people anyway. He flicks through it halfheartedly, dog-earing a couple of articles, while Jared chatters on about what a great time they had last night.
“I’m sorry you’re sick,” he adds. “But anyway, and then Danneel made you a mudslide, since you actually have, like, a vag and you enjoy shit like that and you were all ‘No, you just hafta relax your throat a little, man.’ And then that bear with the hat-you know who I mean-the big dude with the real thick Tennessee accent?-and then he told you how you were just the prettiest fuckin’ guy there, and you just looked over at me like ‘ah! Save me, oh, hairy one from this even hairier one!’ So I did, ‘cause I? I am a good fuckin’ friend.”
Somewhere in the middle of Jared’s story that Jensen isn’t even listening to, Jensen slides off the stool and goes to huddle by the stove where it’s warm. Jared’s rummaging through the fridge again, somewhere behind him.
“So how’s the book going?” Jensen asks. He hears Jared drop something that squishes when it hits the floor but he doesn’t turn around, just keeps his icy fingers close to the burner and hopes the heat will matriculate up his arms and settle in his chest where it’s particularly chilly.
“How your life going?” Jared retorts. He comes up behind Jensen and brushes against his arm to grab some paper towels from the spindle next to the stove, and then he cleans up the mess he made. Jensen doesn’t even bother to flinch, just stares harder at the water in the pot, but he knows better than most people how watched pots just don’t boil.
And that right there is the thing, isn’t it? Because how is Jared’s compulsion to buy small electrics instead of working on his book any different from Jensen freaking out and cooking when his walls get spattered in metaphorical shit? Like now, when Jared’s buying ice cream makers and Jensen’s wondering in the back of his head if they didn’t burn Supernatural to the ground while he was sleeping except he figures they would probably call his cell if it came to that.
He turns around just as Jared’s shooting a three-pointer with a wad of paper towels. It swishes right into the trashcan and he throws his hands in the air in celebration.
“I don’t-I don’t even know what’s going on here, Jared,” he says quietly. “Why am I still living here, I mean.”
Jared drops his arms and looks at him like he’s gone off his meds. “What are you talking about?” he asks.
Jensen feels reddish all over and he can’t quite bring himself to make eye contact. He wants to go take a shower and maybe a five hundred year nap. He wants to go be Rip van Winkle, except he isn’t sure he has the energy to do more than slump against the L-bend in the counter next to the stove.
“You don’t exactly need a roommate, J,” he says. “I’m redundant, and I’m taking up your spare bedroom like I belong here, and I’m taking over the house and probably your life, and the fact is that what I am is this gigantic, disgusting mess all of the time.” He snaps his jaws closed after that and presses the heels of both hands hard against his eyes.
When he looks at Jared again, the guy gives him this look like he’s trying real hard to smile but he just can’t, so he sort of grimaces instead. “Dude, I’ve made peace with your rug. I don’t even care that you stopped maturing at like fifteen, either. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly a real adult here.”
Jensen grimaces back. “This isn’t a joke, Jared,” he mutters. “Not everything in life is a big fucking joke, okay?”
The water on the stove is boiling properly now, so Jensen turns the heat to low and pushes past Jared to grab the Ziploc of gnocchi from the freezer. Jared just stands there, flash-frozen, looking at him so sadly that Jensen kind of wants to cry.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Jensen says. He sighs and busies himself with rearranging the fleece throw around his shoulders so that he doesn’t splash pasta water on it or get the cornstarch the gnocchi’s dusted with all over it. The water splashes anyway, but on him instead. “I just-”
“I know,” Jared says with feeling. Jensen goes still. There’s a hand on his shoulder and a very warm body right behind him, and he just lets Jared turn him around. He looks up but avoids eye contact, while Jared takes the bag of pasta away and sets it on the counter. “Okay, Jen? Fuck. I know. Believe me.”
“Don’t call me J-” Jensen starts to say, but before he can choke out his own name or react or think about how short he suddenly feels or being sick, Jared’s wrapping one huge hand around the back of his neck and tipping his face up.
Jensen stands there for a second and lets it happen, eyes wide, his own fingers all tangled up in fleece, but then his brain kicks in and he’s shoving the blanket away and honest-to-god wrapping his arms around Jared’s neck.
There might even be a goddamn foot pop.
Jensen doesn’t even care that this clearly makes him the girl, because that is definitely Jared’s tongue in his mouth, and those are Jared’s vocal cords making that happy humming sound, and that tongue and that happy sound are conspiring to make Jensen feel pretty damn lightheaded.
Jared pulls him closer, the other hand curling around his hip. Jensen goes happily, squeezing his eyes shut and stretching up against Jared’s chest and sliding his hands everywhere he can reach: down Jared’s back, up under his shirt, cupping his face. The hand that had been on the back of Jensen’s head scrabbles down his spine, and Jared wraps his arm around the small of Jensen’s back to pull him flush against him. The other hand drifts down his side, slotting his fingers between ribs, over hipbones, and then around back, where it slips just under the waistband of Jensen’s boxers and rests heavy and hot over his injured tailbone.
Jared says something against his lips then mouths over his stubbly jaw and down his neck. He scrapes teeth over the pulse point going crazy just under Jensen’s ear, the same spot Kristen marked up-and that is so not a thought Jensen wants to be having right now-and he gasps and flexes his fingers where they’re knotted up in Jared’s hair and shirt.
Jared rasps out something else that sounds a lot like “Oh, fuck,” and licks a strip up his throat, from his clavicles to his Adam’s apple, then blows across the wet stripe.
“God, I,” Jensen stutters out, shivering, then he pulls Jared’s face back up to his. Jared smiles against his lips, nips at the top one then the bottom before licking his way back inside. This time, Jensen hums happily.
He lets Jared manhandle him back against the counter, then up onto it, spreading his knees to let Jared come up between them. Jared makes a soft keening sound as their chests collide again, then a throaty gasp as Jensen hooks one foot behind his ass and slots their cocks right against each other in a slow grind that makes his vision go white around the edges.
It’s possibly the best kiss Jensen has had in years-maybe ever-and it’s happening in the middle of the afternoon while he’s miserable and probably contagious, and it’s with his roommate-his male roommate, who’s been dating one of Jensen’s favorite people for longer than Jensen has even known her. And sure, Jensen’s not uninterested in dick (and by the feel of it, Jared has a very, very nice one), so that’s not a tripping point, but Sandy? Sandy is.
Jensen jerks back and breaks the kiss, looks down at him with wide eyes. He’s still nauseous and congested and achy, but none of that matters because he’s warm now and… well, fuck. He touches two fingers to his lips and Jared cocks his head to the side and looks away.
“Well, fuck,” Jared says, blinking rapidly. There’s a fierce blush spreading up his neck and across his face. “I didn’t. I. Didn’t mean to do that. Christ. I’m fucking this all up.”
Jensen blinks. “Uh.”
Jared stumbles back a few paces and yanks both hands through his hair. It flops back in his eyes and he leaves it there. “I have this rule, okay?” he says, voice all harsh and rough and really, Jensen would kind of love to hook his foot back around him and reel him back in. “I wrote about it on the blog. You just don’t-you don’t shit where you eat, you know? That’s why Chad and Sophia’s relationship sucks, ‘cause they do. And now… us, and this shit is going to-oh fuck. At work. Jesus.”
Jensen stares at him with honestly no fucking idea what the guy is talking about.
Jared bumps his fist against his lips, shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. “I need to go. Yeah. I’m-I’m sorry to just.”
He grabs his keys and phone and flails his hands one last time. Jensen sways a little and has to brace his hands on the edge of the counter to keep from pitching forward and killing himself, but Jared’s already gone.
Jensen hops down from the counter and sighs. He scrubs a hand over his face then turns back to his dinner. The gnocchi are just floating to the top of the water, bobbing around as the water boils. He grabs a colander from the rack over the island and drains the water, then dumps the gnocchi back into the pan and cuts a knob of butter. Normally, he’d brown the butter first, maybe toss in some fresh rosemary, but no. Not now. And as much as he’d like to just go crawl back in his bed with a handful of Xanax and forget that all of this-forget the whole kiss-just happened and leave the kitchen a mess, he’s hungry.
He puts things away while the butter melts. He grates some romano over the pasta and adds a few grinds of black pepper, then pours it in a big bowl shaped like a Goldfish cracker and heads for his room. He leaves the blanket where it fell, a big fleecey puddle in front of the stove.
He sits in bed and eats, watching Paula Deen rhapsodize about real Texas barbeque. That night, he goes outside and watches the fireworks from the front porch, drinking a bottle of Jared’s good ol’ boy beer, and immediately after he crawls in bed and doesn’t sleep for hours.
Part five
MASTER POST
CHAPTER FOUR
So Jensen has this pet theory that working in the restaurant industry makes people into alcoholics. He got drunk one time last spring and laid it all out for Jared, who watched him with amusement and then turned around and wrote a big blog post expounding on the theory. And of course it’s one of his most popular entries, and of course Jim insists go in the book (you know, assuming Jared ever actually fucking finishes it). But seriously, the idea started out in Jensen’s brain, and he damn sure better get thanked in Jared’s foreword is all he's saying.
The theory comes from a lot of first-hand experience, starting with his own father. He remembers vividly sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when his old man would get home from work, go straight for the liquor cabinet, and not come up for air until he’d had at least four fingers of Southern Comfort down him. After he retired and Jensen’s older brother took over the restaurant, Dad didn’t drink at all.
Jensen grew up in the kitchen of his parents’ little Mom-n-Pop barbeque pit, watching with wide eyes as his otherwise rather mild-mannered father completely demolished people who crossed him, annoyed him, or otherwise broke the backs of his metaphorical camels. He wasn’t at all surprised when he grew up and worked with similar head chefs.
The summer Ross turned two, Jensen did prep at a hotel in New York City, working under a Michelin-rated chef who guzzled Jack from the bottle while standing on line, screamed everything he ever said, and had weird sexual trysts in the walk-in cooler with all sorts of seriously bizarre people. The guy ended up drunk driving his car into the Hudson River, killing himself and the tranny hooker who’d been blowing him at the time.
The owner of the last place he worked before Supernatural opened was able to drink an entire box of wine-they were classy people, the people who worked there-by herself without any outward signs of drunkenness.
Anyway, so generally, Jensen finds himself medicating his ills in a similar fashion. It’s not conscious, but sometimes he’ll have drunken revelations and call his brother crying about his crap life. This usually ends in Josh telling their mother and Jensen getting a tedious phone call from her the next night, during which she tells him quite mildly that if he’s planning on suicide, please make it something tidy like pills so she can have an open-casket funeral to show off how devastatingly good-looking her middle child was.
Around three o’clock Thursday morning, he’s awakened by his cell phone blasting Sandy’s ringtone in his ear.
“Existential crisis at this hour?” he mutters into the phone in lieu of a proper greeting.
“I’m drunk,” Sandy says simply, “so this phone call seems like a fucking great idea. Anyway, I’m thinking that tonight you and me are taking Sophia out to cheer her gloomy pregnant ass up. Her living on my sofa-bed is seriously starting to freak Chace out, and you know how he gets.”
“He is preternaturally pretty. There’s got to be something wrong with his brain,” Jensen agrees. Sandy’s roommate is apparently an articulate political science major in daily life, but every time Jensen’s ever been around him the kid just acts like a gibbering fool.
“Yeah, I’m trying to convince him to let me bring him in to do lab tests on. He just calls me Kevorkian and takes over the bathroom to flatiron his hair some more. Boy’s got a problem.”
“Is there a point to this?” Jensen asks, flopping onto his back and squinting at the ceiling. His throat kind of hurts, which makes him worry he’s snoring again.
“Oh! Right. So I’m sitting here with Chace and a couple of his pretty little alcoholic friends-dude, it’s Wasted Wednesday! Yeah! Represent!-sorry. You know how Leighton is. Anyway, Chace says that we should take her to some club his friend Ed works at over by campus.”
Jensen frowns. Sandy’s roommate is one of those newly-ripened fruits who’s going through his slutbag phase, and Jensen is quite sure he doesn’t want to be anywhere near a club that comes on his recommendation. “Explain to me why I want to spend my Thursday night in a gay club with a psychotic and a pregnant woman?”
“We both know that Sophia only went to her fancy art school because she loves gay men, and that the reason she hasn’t moved on with her life is she has no fags to hag for anymore,” Sandy says very seriously. God, sometimes, Jensen realizes why she and Jared are fucking perfect for each other. The both call him at odd hours with insane, drunken plots. The difference is, of course, that Jared calls him from upstairs. At least Sandy’s in Hyde Park when she calls.
“What?”
Sandy snorts. “Fine, Jensen. I promise to buy you lots of Jagerbombs and maybe I’ll even play your adoring girlfriend to keep the twinks away. Whaddaya say to that?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and glances at the clock. It’s hours ‘til coffee. “I say that the last time you and me went to a gay bar, I was turning thirty, and I got hit on by a guy Ross’s size.”
“And you also took some really hot guy home-which Jared still brings up when he’s mad at the world, by the way. I don’t think he’s ever gonna forgive you for failing to mention the liking dick thing to him.”
“Okay, this right here is a conversation we need to have when we’re both drunk, Sandy.”
“Boundaries: I don’t has them,” she points out. “So, you’re in, right?”
Jensen isn’t about to pass up the chance to consume lots of alcohol (especially if he doesn’t have to pay for it), so he just groans. “What time should I be ready?” Friday’s the Fourth of July, so at least it’ll be a dead day at work the day after this night of debauchery. He doesn’t get why Eric’s not just closing for the holiday all together, but whatever.
“Fantabulous! Jen, you’re a beautiful human being.”
“Yes, thank you. I know. Don’t call me Jen,” he says, smiling a little. She hangs up on him.
At work that afternoon, Sandy ends up inviting Jared and Kristen along as well. Jared is thrilled, and Kristen’s excited to wear some new outfit she bought.
“You should grow a beard again,” Sandy tells him in the car on the way to the club that night.
Sophia turns around in the passenger seat to look back at him. “You know, she’s right,” she says, cocking her head to one side and squinting at him. Jensen considers telling her she looks just like Chad like that but that seems somehow unnecessarily cruel.
“You might actually look like a man that way, “ Sandy adds, grinning at him in the rearview mirror.
“Aw, Sandy, I see you took those prescription-strength bitch pills tonight,” he says, poking her in the arm.
“Hey, buddy, you’re the one who left the house thinking that embarrassingly fugly hat was an acceptable fashion choice,” she replies just as she pulls into the parking lot a little too sharply, which sends unbelted Jensen careening into one of the doors with a thump and a curse. The tires screech. Both girls giggle. Jensen takes off his hat, a perfectly nice herringbone wool Kangol grandpa-style cap, and looks at it. He likes this hat. He has a thing for weird hats. Ask him about his sweater-knit ballcaps.
Kristen and Jared are closing tonight, so they’re meeting them at the club later. Jensen has to admit he likes this whole head chef thing. He gets. He gets out early and he gets to go home to shower before he pretends he has a social life and drinks himself into a stupor. He even wore a nice black button down shirt, which Sophia tells him looks “super hot” on him. He feels like a real adult. He leaves the hat in the car, though, still a little confused as to why the girls seem to hate it.
“I want everyone to have a great time tonight so I can live vicariously and take embarrassing pictures and post them on Facebook,” Sophia says as they head for the line outside. She wraps an arm around the small of Jensen’s back and teeters a little on her very high heels that have got to be killing her. “I want to watch Sandy and Jared be a happy, normal couple, and I want to see you and Kristen have fun-don’t you think I haven’t noticed the epic levels of awkward there, either, mister-and then I’m going to pour all of you into Sandy’s car and play good little pregnant designated driver and drive all your drunk asses back to your place.”
He kisses the top of her head. “Your wish is totally my command,” he tells her while they watch Sandy hug the bouncer and have a long chat. The guy barely spares Jensen and Sophia a look while he’s lifting the velvet rope for the three of them. A little cluster of painted queens at the front of the line titter angrily amongst themselves, but they lapse into stunned, drooling silence when Jensen shoots a serene smile their way. Jensen totally abuses his power sometimes, so sue him.
Inside, the walls of the club are each painted an obnoxious day-glo color, then splattered with black paint. The bar has neon lights running down its length, and the ceiling is mirrored. There aren’t chairs around the edges, but there are waterbeds, which to Jensen just seems incredibly unhygienic.
“So, tell me, Jensen. Will it be tequila… or tequila?” Sandy asks him, dragging him to the bar.
“He’ll have tequila!” Sophia crows, smiling for the first time in weeks, Jensen thinks. He smiles back. “I’ll go get us one of those tall tables over there. Get me something with grenadine and fizz. And some olives.”
“I fucking love olives,” Sandy says, dragging Jensen to the bar. “And beer! And this place!”
It’s not too surprising that Sandy and Jensen are utterly shitfaced by the time Jared and Kristen get there. It’s been an hour, and Jensen’s liver is working over time. Sandy’s kind of a mean drunk, mostly going on and on about how much Chad sucks, but Jensen goes very mellow. He’s lolling back against a wall, a little queasy, trying to tune out the boring story an overweight hag is telling her court of fags at the next table over when he realizes that everyone at his own table has gone very quiet.
He doesn’t see Kristen, but Chad’s right behind Jared, glancing around with a vaguely uncomfortable look and clearly trying not to seem like he’d rather be just about anywhere else. When Chad realizes Sophia’s standing at the table with Jensen and Sandy he goes chalky and stumbles to a stop. A dancing boy in gold lamé pants runs into him and snaps, “Bitch, watch where you going!”
“Man, what the fuck?” he can just hear Chad saying to Jared over the music as they arrive at the table.
Sandy stares at Jared in disbelief. Sophia looks down at her Shirley Temple and stabs viciously at the ice. Jensen coughs.
“Seriously?” Sandy snaps, glowering at Jared.
Just then, Kristen appears at Jensen’s side with a bottle of Amstel in her hand. “What’d I miss-oh, hi, Sophia.” She glances around the table and waves awkwardly at the two waitresses. Neither of them acknowledges her.
“I’m gonna go… get a round, okay?” Chad yells, like he thinks alcohol will make everything better. Sandy and Jared continue to glare at each other. Jensen and Kristen exchange raised eyebrows and they both become very interested in their drinks.
“I told you I was bringing her out. She needed cheering up!” Sandy practically shouts, stabbing a finger into the middle of Jared’s very big chest. Jared puts a placating hand on her arm but she shrugs him off violently. His lips thin and his expression goes dark and ugly. “And what do you do, asshole? You bring Chad!”
“I forgot you were bringing Sophia, Jesus Christ!” Jared yells back.
Sandy slugs him in the arm and stomps her foot. “Are you brain-damaged? Demented? The whole point here, coming out tonight?” She waves both of her arms around and then hits him again for good measure. “Yeah, it was to cheer Sophia up!”
“I’m full of cheer, really,” Sophia says darkly, glancing around nervously at the interested looks they’re getting from the groups around them. The fat girl at the next table finally and mercifully shuts the fuck up, watching them with wide eyes.
Just then, Chad comes back to their table empty handed. “What the fuck?” Jared says, ignoring Sandy and glowering down at Chad just because he can. Jensen hates it when he does that, like his disgusting height is some kind of get out of jail free card.
“Fuck you, too! The line was too long!” Chad whines.
“I bet your mom said that when they were giving out abortions,” Sophia mutters from the other side of the table, glaring at everyone.
“Oh my god, for the last fucking time, you evil cunt,” Chad snarls, rounding on her with blazing eyes. “I. Am. Sorry.” He thumps the table with one of Jensen’s empty shot glasses to punctuate each word.
Jensen decides to extricate himself from the group before drinks and punches are thrown. He heads for the bar. He needs another drink, and he has a feeling he should just get the whole round because everyone who isn’t Sophia is going to need it.
--
“Hey, sugarlips, you just step right over here,” the bartender says, voice a little Southern-tinged, when he approaches. “What’ll it be?”
She’s a tall redhead about his age, easily the most attractive woman in the room. She’s got a kiss of bright pink lipstick on one cheek and really excellent breasts that her white tank top isn’t doing a great job of containing.
“Fuck, I don’t even care,” he tells her, leaning against the bar and rubbing his forehead.
She chuckles. “Well, that there means you need yourself something tame, honeybear. And by tame I mean hard. You follow? I’m thinkin’ vodka. How’m I doing here?” He shrugs, thinking that another couple of shots will probably put him on the floor but not caring.
“Will it obliterate all chance of my remembering this conversation?” he asks hopefully.
She nods. “More than likely."
“Then make it a double. I need a couple of beers and a Shirley Temple, too,” he adds.
“Lemme guess,” the bartender says as she’s pouring vodka into a glass with more flair than Jensen requires at this point. “You’re a waiter?”
He shakes his head and leans forward on his elbows. “Close, though. Sous chef at Supernatural,” he says, like he’s imparting a big secret.
She raises her eyebrows. “You work with Chad Murray, then,” she says.
“Oh, god,” he groans, hiding his face in his hands. “Please, don’t say that name.”
“I think everybody who knows that douchenozzle says that,” she agrees, sliding his drink toward him with a wink. “I’m Danneel, by the way. Looks like we’re gonna be friends for at least the next two minutes.”
He looks at the drink. It’s murky and brownish, but it smells like coffee so he’s so there. “No offense, but a Black Russian? Really?”
“Prefer a Virgin Pussy?” she asks, raising her eyebrows. She shoots ginger ale over some ice and adds enough grenadine to make it match the lip print on her cheek. He gets the feeling she asks this question a lot, and with her clientele it probably gives her endless hours of entertainment. It’s not going to work on him, though.
“Maybe,” he murmurs, shrugging. “I like watermelon.”
“Oh,” she says, looking kind of disappointed, “you’re straight.”
“Mostly, I guess… just not real choosy sometimes,” he says, pulling out his wallet.
Just then, someone big and warm presses himself against Jensen’s back and slaps a humongous hand down on the bar next to his drink. “Fuckin' hell, thought you left me, too, man,” Jared says right in his ear. Danneel gives them an amused look while she pops the caps off a few bottles of beer. Jensen focuses on the fact she seems to know he wants two Budweisers, an Amstel, and that nasty Peroni shit Sandy likes. If he leans against the guy for a second, then so be it. He’s not going to shiver. He’s too drunk for that.
Finally, he bats Jared away. “Drinks,” he says.
“Hate to tell you,” Jared says, leaning down real close to his ear, “but it’s just you and me now.”
Jensen twists around and stares at him blankly. “Um, what?”
Jared snags one of the bottles of Bud and takes a long drink before he answers. Jensen does not watch his throat work, thank you. He doesn’t meet Danneel’s eye, either. He swirls his drink around in its glass instead.
“Everybody left,” Jared reports. He smells happy, like he probably finished off the remains of every drink at their table before he came to find Jensen, but he looks kind of strained, too. “Sandy and Kristen dragged Sophia away, then Chad stormed after them. We’re gonna have to take a cab home.”
Jensen grabs the Amstel and drinks half of it. Then he digs out his wallet and tosses a fifty Danneel’s way and tells her to keep the change. “It’s one of those nights, isn’t it?” he asks her.
She pockets the money and slides a business card his way. “I don’t usually do this, sweetie, but you look like you could benefit from my day job.”
The card is pale blue, and in a pretty script across the top it says Frosting. The lower left corner features a smiling cartoon piece of cake. Under the phone number and address in the lower right corner it says in italics, “designer sugar therapy.”
“Really?” he asks. “You work in a bakery and a gay bar?”
She just grins. “I’m thinking of combining them,” she says conspiratorially, and yeah, Jensen thinks that maybe he’s never met a woman quite as kickass, except for maybe Jess before he knocked her up. He makes a mental note to avoid sleeping with Danneel so that she doesn’t get pregnant and therefore stays awesome. He’s drunk enough by now that such leaps in logic make perfect sense.
She taps the card. “Come in some time, though. I’ll even give you pie half off ‘cause you’re so pretty.”
Jared slings an arm around his shoulders and beams at her. “He’ll see you tomorrow, Dr. Hot Redhead, I promise,” he answers for him. Danneel laughs and Jared looks down at Jensen and gestures for him to pick up the spread of drinks he ordered for other people. “Now come on, duck-lips, let’s go get us very, very drunk.”
--
The next morning, Jensen wakes up feeling like a group of extremely peeved toddlers are banging on pots and pans inside his head and guts. He’s sprawled on his stomach the wrong way across his still-made bed, half-dressed and face pressed into a wet patch of drool ninety degrees from his pillows. He smacks his lips a few times as he comes to, disoriented and a lot unhappy at being alive.
“Fuck me,” he mutters, unsteadily sitting up and yanking off his socks. He hates sleeping in socks, hates how they leave itchy indents around his ankles after they’re gone. He’s dizzy as hell, his contacts are all blurry and stuck to his eyeballs and he feels sore all over, like one of the activities he doesn’t remember from last night involved a lot of getting tossed into walls. He turns his alarm clock off with a vicious smack. It squeaks sadly one more time and makes a dying sound. “The hell’d I do last night?”
He cracks his neck and goes for a shower, hoping it’ll make him feel a little more alive. He knocks the toilet paper into the sink and he brushes his teeth in the shower. He makes the water as hot as he can stand it and stands there with his face tipped up into the spray for several minutes, hoping that maybe he can help his hangover along by steaming the rest of the alcohol out of his system. He knows it’s not going to work, but he’s trying anyway.
Twenty minutes later, he stumbles into the kitchen. He feels a little queasy from spending the last five minutes dry heaving over the toilet, and he’s dying for coffee. He doesn’t really have a concentrated headache, but he takes a handful of little brown drugstore-brand ibuprofen with half a glass of orange juice just in case. It’s almost nine o’clock and he’s got to get to Supernatural for brunch. Jared’s nowhere to be found, so he figures he’s still asleep, lucky bastard who doesn’t have to work ‘til five.
Somebody remembered to set the coffee machine for eight-thirty, so there’s a nice hot pot waiting for him. He drinks two cups and eats most of the last leftover empanada, which is mostly just squishy and spicy at this point, then goes and finishes getting dressed for work. Sadie follows him around and walks him to the door.
“Who’s a good girl?” he says, rubbing behind her ears while he slides his feet into his clogs. “Now go pee on your Daddy’s bed for me, okay? It’s his fault I’m in lots of pain right now, I just know it.”
She barks once and he laughs. “Yeah, I know, girl. I know.”
Jensen and his Altima have a love-hate relationship. It’s an ’03 with a sticky manual transmission and an insatiable appetite for tires (seriously, the thing goes through them like Jared’s dogs go through kibble). It’s a nice shade of medium blue, with halogens and a CD player doesn’t work when it’s too humid out, like today. Jess picked it out, which probably says a lot about it, but Jensen figures it gets him where he needs to go and it gets pretty decent gas mileage. He likes that he doesn’t have to sell off pieces of his soul to fuel his vehicle like other people he could mention.
Jensen spends the half-hour drive to the restaurant squirming in his seat-did he break his tailbone, or what?-and half-listening to Mike and Mike fight about whether the Cubs are going all the way this year on ESPN Radio. Golic’s whining about Soriano’s broken hand hurting their chances of not sucking for a hundred years even, and Greenberg just sounds as hungover as Jensen feels.
Maybe it’s his imagination, but the whole kitchen seems quieter than normal when he walks in. Kristen sort of trips and gives him a funny look as she passes by on her way to grab something from the walk-in, and Ana-Beatriz barely looks up from the huge pile of green peppers she’s coring to nod a hello. Okay, so he figured there would be tension between back of the house and the waitstaff after Jared’s gaffe with bringing Chad to Sophia’s cheering-up party, but hell there’s always tension there. It’s the oldest problem in the restaurant industry.
Victor and Bartólo are prepping baby spinach, radicchio, mizuna, and romaine for the mixed greens, and rapping to each other in Spanish and laughing. Jensen can’t tell if they’re quoting something or freestyling, but it makes a nice backdrop for the day. It sounds like they’re in pain and he is in pain, and mostly he needs another cup of coffee.
Chad’s at the back table rolling up flank steak into bracciole for the special tonight, bobbing his head in time with the Venezuelans’ rapping, when he walks back behind the line. He looks oddly happy.
Jensen stands next to the counter with his hands wrapped around his cup of coffee. “What’s got you so chipper?’
“I got laid last night,” Chad says simply, not looking up from the roll he’s working on.
“Why do I ask questions like-fucking, ow. What the fuck?” He tries to lean back against the counter, except a stabbing pain radiates from his ass.
Chad’s head jerks up and Jensen gets a funny look from him, too. “You find some dude to go have buttsex with after we left, or what?” he asks.
Jensen glances up long enough to glare at him and winces. “That doesn’t even make-oh, fuck you! I think I broke my tailbone,” he says. He vaguely remembers falling out of the cab when they got home and landing half on the curb and half not. It had been uproariously funny at the time.
Chad laughs, which just makes Jensen feel even worse. Seriously, Chad is laughing at him, the same guy who stuffs cocktail peanuts up his nose at bars to get free drinks and who once snorted a line of cornstarch because Jared bet him a pack of Skittles he wouldn’t. “Dude, do you even look in the mirror in the morning?”
Kristen comes around the corner, mouth open and about to say something, but then she gets a good look at Jensen’s face and her expression goes all concerned and motherly. “Jensen, no offense, but you look like that meat. After it’s been beaten with a tenderizer.”
Jensen covers his face with his hands. His eyes feel three sizes too big for his eyesockets and there’s a persistent throb right about his ass that feels like every other broken bone he’s ever had. “I blacked out,” he says. “Last night, after you left. There was lots of alcohol. I hate everything right now.”
“Looks like you had one hell of a good time last night, though,” Chad says. “You fall off your porch, or what?”
“Jensen?” Kristen says, hands waving uselessly in front of her. Not that Jensen notices, of course, because suddenly the floor flies up towards his face and he’s racing for the trashcan next to Kristen. Coffee tastes absolutely horrible on the way back up, by the way.
Kristen pats him soothingly as he pukes up both kidneys, a few gallstones, and his breakfast, talking to Chad like nothing’s wrong and occasionally offering platitudes to Jensen. “So you talked it out, then?”
“Yeah,” Jensen’s vaguely aware of Chad saying. “I think we’re okay. I mean, we fucked, so that means it’s okay, right?” He laughs, then he goes quiet. Jensen just knows he’s watching him dry-heave, the jerk. “Dude, what the hell?”
“Jen here has a delicate constitution,” Kristen says, still rubbing up and down his back. Which kind of hurts, too, now that he’s consciously aware that he is not okay.
He heaves again. “Fuck. You,” he chokes out.
“I’m going to get you a drink of water,” she says softly, brushing a kiss to the top of his head. She pulls away, but he stays clinging to the rim of the can. It’s a new bag, shiny black plastic all orange-spattered now. “Chad, you think you can get him and his best friend Trashcan here to Jeff’s office to sit down?”
“I’m not touching-” Chad starts to say, but he breaks off and swears. “Fine, but only because Sophia’s tits are epic now, with the baby-”
“Chad.”
“Yeah, yeah. Come on, you pathetic excuse for a goat,” Chad says, hauling him up with an arm under both of his. “I can’t believe I have to do this. If you vomit on me, I will stab you with that pretty knife of yours.”
--
Chad calls Sophia to come and drive Jensen to the hospital. “You can’t stop barfing long enough to sit up, and you can’t even really sit because your ass hurts. How you planning on driving?” he points out.
Jensen kind of hates him for sounding like a rational person.
In the car, he slouches on the hip that isn’t bruised, both arms wrapped around a small trashcan he pilfered from Jeff’s office. Sophia, who’s deeply in the throes of morning sickness herself, keeps shooting glares at him.
“This is Chad’s fault,” he says. His voice is all scratchy and acid-etched.
“Yeah?” she asks, turning the radio down a little. He figures she’ll agree with anything that makes Chad the bad guy.
“Yeah. And J-yeah. It’s Chad’s fault for coming last night, to your pity party. ‘Cause then everyone left but… and this happened. And I’m sick. I’m a sick, sick puppy and I don’t. Fuck.”
She puts her right hand on his shoulder and says “Shhhh.”
“I don’t really think my tailbone’s broken,” he insists quietly. “Can you just drive me home?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Oh, you don’t want to spend the next six weeks sitting on an inflatable donut?”
“No,” he says slowly, “I don’t think my coccyx is broken, and I’m being a drama queen, and I think I have the flu-in July!-on top of my hangover, which sucks. And I…think I’m going to shut up now.”
She squeezes his shoulder again and releases, turns the music back up, and he dozes for the rest of the drive with his face mashed up against the rim of the trash can. When she shakes him awake, he’s got a big red line across his cheek.
Jared’s not downstairs when he stumbles in, and he doesn’t hear any signs of life upstairs, but that doesn’t mean the big guy’s not holed up in his office actually working on the book, because there’s another message from Jim on the machine that is a little more forceful than in the past. Sophia fields him into his room and helps him strip down to his undershirt and shorts. She tucks the trashcan just under the bed and ruffles his hair. The dogs sit near the doorway and watch.
“Do you want me to call anyone? And where’s Jared?”
“Prob’ly out buying more kitchen gadgetry he doesn’t need,” Jensen says, not opening his eyes and definitely snuggling down into his covers. He’s still nauseous and about one light breeze from falling into freaking the fuck out, but the bed offers a weird kind of equilibrium.
“Does that include maybe a dumpster? Because, damn, Jensen, but your room is a sty.” He cracks one eye open to glare at her. She’s standing over him with her arms crossed under her breasts, shaking her head and looking around the room. “It smells like dirty socks in here.”
“Just go away, Sophia,” he groans, before grabbing the trashcan and throwing up some more. He’s asleep before she’s gone, but she leaves a glass of water on his bedside table before she goes.
--
It’s not even an hour later when his phone goes off, blasting Jessica’s ringtone and startling him awake.
“No,” he says as soon as he’s got the clamshell open and the microphone somewhere in the vicinity of his face. “Whatever it is, my answer is no.”
Jess laughs, but she sounds worried. “You sound like you’re real excited to be alive. What the hell happened? Are you okay? I just called Supernatural and that scary Sera chick who runs your front of the house said you almost died or something and that I should try your cell. What the fuck, Jensen? They took you to the hospital?”
He pulls himself gingerly into a sitting position and casts an unhappy look around the room. “I think I have the flu,” he says. He briefly considers grabbing the trashcan Sophia left and vomiting with the phone still pressed to his ear, but he’s not really queasy. Just shivery.
“Oh, Jensen,” she says. He can hear her typing.
“Can we reschedule this pity party for later maybe? I just want to curl up under my covers and die.”
“Well, I was calling to see if you wanted to come out to Navy Pier with me and Ross tonight for overpriced hotdogs and watching the fireworks,” she says. Jensen’s ears perk up-he loves fireworks-but then his stomach rolls and he groans. “But I’m guessing the answer’s no if you’re sick. And don’t you pull the ‘No, I’m not sick! I’m totally fine! Please ignore the stuff that’s coming out of both ends without my consent!’ bullshit. I am onto your shit, Jensen Ackles.”
Jensen does not much appreciate the gravelly, overly gruff voice she employs to mock him, but she is kind of right. He’s always been a suck-it-up-and-move-on kind of guy when it comes to being sick, which often ends badly for him. His senior year of high school he ignored a cold until it turned into bronchitis and then pneumonia and landed himself in the hospital for almost two weeks because he didn’t want to miss any play practice, and then he ended up missing all six performances. And let’s not even talk about his twenty-second birthday, okay?
“But-fireworks!” he says, trying and failing to keep the whine out of his voice. Fireworks for some reason seem to turn off all his neuroses and make him into a little kid again. He loves fireworks.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure you can see some from Jared’s house in some direction,” she says sensibly. Bitch. “I mean, this is Chicago. Oh! And before I hang up and go break your son’s heart: call your mother. I’m tired of filling her in on your life because you decline her calls. You’re an asshole.”
“I love how we threaten each other with Ross’s emotional well-being,” Jensen says, snorting. Unfortunately, the snort makes his stomach roll again and this time he has to scramble to grab the trashcan. When he comes back on the line, Jess is making exaggerated gagging sounds herself. “Good-bye, you,” he says forcefully.
“Bye, sickface,” she chirps back. He hangs up and flops face-first into his pillows, phone still in hand.
--
Jensen wakes up a lot later to the sound of someone banging shit around in the kitchen. He sits up and squints blankly into his closet, a little surprised to find that he feels a lot better now that the hangover is totally gone. Well, except for how he’s fucking freezing and he mostly wants a drink and he has to go pick at this Jared-shaped scab apparently. He plants his feet on the floor and rubs his eyes, cursing the fact contacts seemed like a good idea this morning. He drinks the now lukewarm water on the bedside table, then wraps his fleece throw around his shoulders and stumbles out of the room.
From the middle of the living room he can see into the kitchen and it’s not a picture he likes much. There’s a big Williams-Sonoma bag sitting on the island next to Jared’s iPhone and keys, kind of crushed on one side. Jensen peeks inside and finds an electric ice cream maker. There’s a little Cuisinart food processor box on top of the fridge that looks awfully unopened and unfamiliar. Jared is head-and-shoulders inside the cupboard between the dishwasher they never use and the fridge, where they keep their redundant shit like third and fourth saucepans and the other two food processors. He’s wearing a pair of jeans that look fantastic from this angle and Jensen stops and tips his head to the side to enjoy the view for just a second before he catches himself and gives himself a shake.
He groans, eyes landing on the shopping bag again. “Okay, seriously, dude. Enough with the appliances,” he says. His voice comes out all scratchy and squashed sounding, like he hasn’t used it in years and it’s fighting its way out past all the mucus or something.
Jared jumps and bangs his head on the roof of the cabinet before scooting back on his heels and looking around wildly. When he spots Jensen where he’s trying to psych himself up to crawl onto one of the barstools, his expression goes oddly soft. “Okay, crazycakes,” Jared snorts. “Do I say anything when you go all Tom Cruise and cook half of Trader Joe’s and jump on couches and, like, rub soup in somebody’s hair?”
“Okay, point,” Jensen says, shoving the ice cream maker over and resting his elbows on the counter. He grabs the bag and pulls the box out, brain snagging on the appliance and the fact Jared’s been emotional shopping again. Because seriously, what’s Jared got to be stressed over? He’s the most happy-go-lucky fuck Jensen’s ever met in his life, whacked a few times with the charmed-life stick, and just so goddamn awesome he makes the roots of Jensen’s teeth ache a little.
That book must be weighing more heavily on him than Jensen thought. The answering machine’s still blinking with Jim’s latest message. Jensen gives him a sympathetic look.
Jared looks away and flutters his hands. “Okay, look, I have an hour before I have to go in. I was thinking I’d cook you something, since you actually look like something that died two weeks ago and got left out in my parents’ backyard after a cow shat on it.”
“Aw, shucks, J-bird,” Jensen says, slumping over and taking a deep breath.
“Oh, and by the way, we’re totally trying out the ice cream maker tonight. I’mma bring everybody back here with me and we’re gonna make literally gallons of the shit.”
“I’m sick,” Jensen whines. “Dairy makes mucus. It’ll be green. Green mucus.” He gives Jared a baleful look. “I am not okay with that.”
“Yeah? A big, shrimping pussy is what you are,” Jared says calmly. He’s rifling through the fridge, except neither of them has been to the grocery store in a while and it’s not exactly stocked.
“Fuck you. I do not have a foot fetish,” Jensen says.
“There is nothing but condiments in here,” Jared says, turning around and looking vaguely unhappy. The door sucks closed behind him.
Jensen points at the bottom freezer. “There’s still some gnocchi left down there from when Ross was here. Make me comfort food.”
Jared nods and grabs a pot from the rack hanging over the island. While he’s filling it and then salting the water, Jensen grabs one of the magazines on the other end of the island, where their mail goes to die. It’s the new Bon Appétit, and it’s a sad, sad commentary on Jensen’s life that the glorious burger on the cover looks better to him than Marisa Miller squinting on the cover of the Maxim underneath it. But whatever, Bon Appétit is like porn for food people anyway. He flicks through it halfheartedly, dog-earing a couple of articles, while Jared chatters on about what a great time they had last night.
“I’m sorry you’re sick,” he adds. “But anyway, and then Danneel made you a mudslide, since you actually have, like, a vag and you enjoy shit like that and you were all ‘No, you just hafta relax your throat a little, man.’ And then that bear with the hat-you know who I mean-the big dude with the real thick Tennessee accent?-and then he told you how you were just the prettiest fuckin’ guy there, and you just looked over at me like ‘ah! Save me, oh, hairy one from this even hairier one!’ So I did, ‘cause I? I am a good fuckin’ friend.”
Somewhere in the middle of Jared’s story that Jensen isn’t even listening to, Jensen slides off the stool and goes to huddle by the stove where it’s warm. Jared’s rummaging through the fridge again, somewhere behind him.
“So how’s the book going?” Jensen asks. He hears Jared drop something that squishes when it hits the floor but he doesn’t turn around, just keeps his icy fingers close to the burner and hopes the heat will matriculate up his arms and settle in his chest where it’s particularly chilly.
“How your life going?” Jared retorts. He comes up behind Jensen and brushes against his arm to grab some paper towels from the spindle next to the stove, and then he cleans up the mess he made. Jensen doesn’t even bother to flinch, just stares harder at the water in the pot, but he knows better than most people how watched pots just don’t boil.
And that right there is the thing, isn’t it? Because how is Jared’s compulsion to buy small electrics instead of working on his book any different from Jensen freaking out and cooking when his walls get spattered in metaphorical shit? Like now, when Jared’s buying ice cream makers and Jensen’s wondering in the back of his head if they didn’t burn Supernatural to the ground while he was sleeping except he figures they would probably call his cell if it came to that.
He turns around just as Jared’s shooting a three-pointer with a wad of paper towels. It swishes right into the trashcan and he throws his hands in the air in celebration.
“I don’t-I don’t even know what’s going on here, Jared,” he says quietly. “Why am I still living here, I mean.”
Jared drops his arms and looks at him like he’s gone off his meds. “What are you talking about?” he asks.
Jensen feels reddish all over and he can’t quite bring himself to make eye contact. He wants to go take a shower and maybe a five hundred year nap. He wants to go be Rip van Winkle, except he isn’t sure he has the energy to do more than slump against the L-bend in the counter next to the stove.
“You don’t exactly need a roommate, J,” he says. “I’m redundant, and I’m taking up your spare bedroom like I belong here, and I’m taking over the house and probably your life, and the fact is that what I am is this gigantic, disgusting mess all of the time.” He snaps his jaws closed after that and presses the heels of both hands hard against his eyes.
When he looks at Jared again, the guy gives him this look like he’s trying real hard to smile but he just can’t, so he sort of grimaces instead. “Dude, I’ve made peace with your rug. I don’t even care that you stopped maturing at like fifteen, either. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly a real adult here.”
Jensen grimaces back. “This isn’t a joke, Jared,” he mutters. “Not everything in life is a big fucking joke, okay?”
The water on the stove is boiling properly now, so Jensen turns the heat to low and pushes past Jared to grab the Ziploc of gnocchi from the freezer. Jared just stands there, flash-frozen, looking at him so sadly that Jensen kind of wants to cry.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Jensen says. He sighs and busies himself with rearranging the fleece throw around his shoulders so that he doesn’t splash pasta water on it or get the cornstarch the gnocchi’s dusted with all over it. The water splashes anyway, but on him instead. “I just-”
“I know,” Jared says with feeling. Jensen goes still. There’s a hand on his shoulder and a very warm body right behind him, and he just lets Jared turn him around. He looks up but avoids eye contact, while Jared takes the bag of pasta away and sets it on the counter. “Okay, Jen? Fuck. I know. Believe me.”
“Don’t call me J-” Jensen starts to say, but before he can choke out his own name or react or think about how short he suddenly feels or being sick, Jared’s wrapping one huge hand around the back of his neck and tipping his face up.
Jensen stands there for a second and lets it happen, eyes wide, his own fingers all tangled up in fleece, but then his brain kicks in and he’s shoving the blanket away and honest-to-god wrapping his arms around Jared’s neck.
There might even be a goddamn foot pop.
Jensen doesn’t even care that this clearly makes him the girl, because that is definitely Jared’s tongue in his mouth, and those are Jared’s vocal cords making that happy humming sound, and that tongue and that happy sound are conspiring to make Jensen feel pretty damn lightheaded.
Jared pulls him closer, the other hand curling around his hip. Jensen goes happily, squeezing his eyes shut and stretching up against Jared’s chest and sliding his hands everywhere he can reach: down Jared’s back, up under his shirt, cupping his face. The hand that had been on the back of Jensen’s head scrabbles down his spine, and Jared wraps his arm around the small of Jensen’s back to pull him flush against him. The other hand drifts down his side, slotting his fingers between ribs, over hipbones, and then around back, where it slips just under the waistband of Jensen’s boxers and rests heavy and hot over his injured tailbone.
Jared says something against his lips then mouths over his stubbly jaw and down his neck. He scrapes teeth over the pulse point going crazy just under Jensen’s ear, the same spot Kristen marked up-and that is so not a thought Jensen wants to be having right now-and he gasps and flexes his fingers where they’re knotted up in Jared’s hair and shirt.
Jared rasps out something else that sounds a lot like “Oh, fuck,” and licks a strip up his throat, from his clavicles to his Adam’s apple, then blows across the wet stripe.
“God, I,” Jensen stutters out, shivering, then he pulls Jared’s face back up to his. Jared smiles against his lips, nips at the top one then the bottom before licking his way back inside. This time, Jensen hums happily.
He lets Jared manhandle him back against the counter, then up onto it, spreading his knees to let Jared come up between them. Jared makes a soft keening sound as their chests collide again, then a throaty gasp as Jensen hooks one foot behind his ass and slots their cocks right against each other in a slow grind that makes his vision go white around the edges.
It’s possibly the best kiss Jensen has had in years-maybe ever-and it’s happening in the middle of the afternoon while he’s miserable and probably contagious, and it’s with his roommate-his male roommate, who’s been dating one of Jensen’s favorite people for longer than Jensen has even known her. And sure, Jensen’s not uninterested in dick (and by the feel of it, Jared has a very, very nice one), so that’s not a tripping point, but Sandy? Sandy is.
Jensen jerks back and breaks the kiss, looks down at him with wide eyes. He’s still nauseous and congested and achy, but none of that matters because he’s warm now and… well, fuck. He touches two fingers to his lips and Jared cocks his head to the side and looks away.
“Well, fuck,” Jared says, blinking rapidly. There’s a fierce blush spreading up his neck and across his face. “I didn’t. I. Didn’t mean to do that. Christ. I’m fucking this all up.”
Jensen blinks. “Uh.”
Jared stumbles back a few paces and yanks both hands through his hair. It flops back in his eyes and he leaves it there. “I have this rule, okay?” he says, voice all harsh and rough and really, Jensen would kind of love to hook his foot back around him and reel him back in. “I wrote about it on the blog. You just don’t-you don’t shit where you eat, you know? That’s why Chad and Sophia’s relationship sucks, ‘cause they do. And now… us, and this shit is going to-oh fuck. At work. Jesus.”
Jensen stares at him with honestly no fucking idea what the guy is talking about.
Jared bumps his fist against his lips, shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. “I need to go. Yeah. I’m-I’m sorry to just.”
He grabs his keys and phone and flails his hands one last time. Jensen sways a little and has to brace his hands on the edge of the counter to keep from pitching forward and killing himself, but Jared’s already gone.
Jensen hops down from the counter and sighs. He scrubs a hand over his face then turns back to his dinner. The gnocchi are just floating to the top of the water, bobbing around as the water boils. He grabs a colander from the rack over the island and drains the water, then dumps the gnocchi back into the pan and cuts a knob of butter. Normally, he’d brown the butter first, maybe toss in some fresh rosemary, but no. Not now. And as much as he’d like to just go crawl back in his bed with a handful of Xanax and forget that all of this-forget the whole kiss-just happened and leave the kitchen a mess, he’s hungry.
He puts things away while the butter melts. He grates some romano over the pasta and adds a few grinds of black pepper, then pours it in a big bowl shaped like a Goldfish cracker and heads for his room. He leaves the blanket where it fell, a big fleecey puddle in front of the stove.
He sits in bed and eats, watching Paula Deen rhapsodize about real Texas barbeque. That night, he goes outside and watches the fireworks from the front porch, drinking a bottle of Jared’s good ol’ boy beer, and immediately after he crawls in bed and doesn’t sleep for hours.
Part five