J2 Fic Post: He's Leaving Home
Title: He's Leaving Home
Author: lizzywinks
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Patience was never Jared's strong suit.
Notes: The recent Asylum rumors about Jensen moving out left me sad enough to attempt to fix it with fic. Warning for schmoopy, vaguely ambiguous boy love.
Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. None of this is real.
Jensen woke up to the surprising sight of Jared staring back at him from six inches away, sharing a pillow and an entirely too small British double bed.
He blinked muzzily, still vaguely disorientated by the relatively new experience of being able to see as soon as he opened his eyes. Not that it would have been a problem before the surgery given how close Jared was. Talking of which...
"Why are you in bed with me?"
Jared teetered on the edge of the mattress, and righted himself by grabbing hold of the covers still wrapped around Jensen's waist and hanging on tight. Secure again, he looked over at Jensen through lowered brows. "Word on the street is you're moving out."
"Word on the street?" Jensen wriggled against his imprisonment in Padalecki-weighted sheets, and gave it up as an impossible task when he failed to dislodge him by even a millimetre. "Who are you?" he asked instead. "Huggy Bear?"
"Just an interested bystander; all the cool kids are talking about it so I thought I'd come straight to the source."
"Cool kids?"
"Okay, Misha."
Jensen shook his head, his brain fuzzy with tiredness. "Misha?"
"Yeah, guy likes his internet - he's like a walking rumor-shitting machine."
"That's a very special image to wake up to. Thanks, man."
Jared huffed out a laugh, coffee scented breath tantalizing Jensen's nose. "Hey, I made it less gross by telling you in person; you had my face to distract you from the mental picture."
"I think you're asking a lot of your face."
Jared leaned forward to rub his scruffy beard against Jensen's forehead. "It's never let me down before."
"First time for everything," Jensen grumbled, and shook his head to dislodge Jared when the scratchy bristles began to tickle. "How'd you even get in here?"
"Danni."
Jensen felt a sudden flash of guilt. His girlfriend was missing and his best friend was currently occupying her place, and he hadn't even noticed. His gaze flickered towards the closed bathroom door, the only place in the room not visible from the bed, and Jared shook his head.
"She was on her way down to the spa. Said to tell you to rest up and she'll meet you for lunch."
Jensen relaxed back against the pillow. The room was quiet and dim thanks to the blackout shades they'd remembered to pull closed the night before. The convention had been crazy and he'd been looking forward to spending most of today catching up on his sleep. Freaking Jared. "What time is it?" he asked through a jaw-cracking yawn.
Jared briefly let go of his anchor to hold his watch up towards Jensen's face. He grinned when Jensen let out a drawn-out groan.
"7.00 a.m.? What the hell, dude? We were in the bar till after 2.00 last night, and we don't check out until tomorrow morning. Couldn't it wait?"
Jared's grin dimmed and his forehead wrinkled in a frown. "Told you, man, got a text from Misha; I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth."
Jensen sighed heavily. "Someone asked if we were still living together and I said we were, but that I might be getting a place of my own for the fifth season. That's all."
Jared didn't appear even slightly mollified by his words. "So you are moving out?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I mean, it'd be somewhere close, obviously, I just thought... maybe it's time."
"Is it too much; work and living together?" Jared asked, his expression intent despite the lightness of his tone. "We can cut back, drop Taco Tuesday. It never seems like such a good idea come Wednesday morning anyway. "
"No, man, no. I just don't want to outstay my welcome. Makes sense I get out before you're sick of having me around."
Jared's tight expression faded, and he tugged on the sheet surrounding Jensen until he slid another inch closer. "Now you're suddenly worried I'll get sick of you? Not when you made me have the floor ripped up in the kitchen-"
"It was like walking on solid ice at 4 o'fucking clock in the morning!"
"-or when you bitched at me for, like, a solid month until we laid the deck out back-"
"Because you said you wanted some outdoor living space, had a small forest's worth of lumber delivered and then left it right outside the kitchen door for weeks! I nearly broke my neck trying to take out the trash!"
"-and now suddenly, for absolutely no reason, you're worried I'm going to get sick of having you around? That ship sailed about an hour after you unpacked and complained about the lack of mints on your pillow."
Jensen let out a tired sigh. "When we first decided to do this, you said it was dumb me getting a place of my own when the show was probably only going to last another year."
Jared stared blankly back. "Yeah, well it was."
"But with the figures we're getting lately, we could actually make it past season five."
"Still not seeing your point."
"When you offered, it was for a few months; now it might be a few years."
"The offer didn't come with a time limit, Jensen."
"It didn't?"
"No."
"So if we go to 11 seasons...?"
"Not a problem. Well, apart from being typecast for life, but as for the living arrangements-" Jared broke off when Jensen suddenly grinned wide.
"Okay, don't beg, man. Being this needy is seriously uncool."
"Douche." Jared aimed a kick at his shin, with a luckily only sock-clad foot. "So does that mean the move's off?"
"I guess, but if you change your mind-"
"I won't," Jared said, certainty in his voice.
Jensen's grin slid from his face when Jared's expression suddenly turned serious.
"I can't believe you told a roomful of fangirls before me. Then I had to hear it from fucking Misha. Were you even going talk to me about it, or was I gonna wake up one morning to find all your stuff gone and a note pinned to Harley's back?"
Jensen shifted uncomfortably on the bed and felt Jared's grip tighten to hold him in place. "Course not, man. It was just something I'd been thinking about and then that girl asked, and it sort of... slipped out."
Jared pulled his thumb free from the sheet to rub a slow circle on Jensen's hip, the skin burning hot and sensitive under his touch, even through two layers of cotton. Jensen was distantly aware that this should feel a hell of a lot weirder than it did. He made a mental note not to ask Danni if it was as odd as he thought, and definitely not to mention it to Misha. No matter how drunk he was.
"I don't know, Jensen," Jared said into the heavy silence that had fallen. "Seems like you've been keeping a lot of secrets lately."
Jensen snorted. "Like anyone could keep a secret around you."
Jared suddenly began levering himself up from the bed, which made an alarming creaking sound, and then flopped back down when he'd dragged his left arm out from where it had been buried underneath the shared pillow. He lifted his newly liberated hand up to hold out three fingers, bare inches away from Jensen's face.
"How many fingers am I holding up?" he demanded.
"Er, three?"
"That's right, three, which you couldn't have answered a month ago."
Jensen frowned. "I'm pretty sure I could. Unless I had some sort of brain injury I forgot about, which, if I did, I suppose I might have."
Jared jabbed his index finger into the spot between Jensen's eyebrows. Jensen flinched, but before he could get it together enough to raise an objection, Jared ran his finger lightly down his nose and then up across his cheekbones and into an almost figure of eight around both eyes.
"Why'd you get 'em done," he murmured, finger slowing but still tracing the ghost image of the lines of his glasses around his eyes.
Jensen felt his breath shudder out on an exhale. "Contacts were a pain, and I looked like a dork in my glasses."
Jared shook his head. "Nah, you didn't. Shoulda told me before you did it, Jen; I liked your glasses."
Jensen grinned, aware it was shaky around the edges. "Yeah?"
Jared nodded. "Yeah." His hair caught on the scratchy hotel pillow and the movement released a citrus tang from the shampoo that he used, the smell somehow more familiar than Danni's fresh, flowery fragrance, and filling Jensen's chest with a burst of warmth.
"Well stick around then," Jensen managed to get out through the tight fullness in his chest. "According to the doctor there's no guarantee that it's permanent, and I'm probably gonna need reading glasses when I hit my 40's either way."
Jared grinned, soft and happy in the darkened room. "I can do that."
Jensen let out a huff of laughter. "Fifteen years just to see my glasses make a reappearance? That's a hell of a commitment." Despite everything, the rhythmic movement of Jared's finger and the lack of sleep over the past few days was getting the better of him, and Jensen felt his eyes drifting closed.
"Maybe, but I think I'm up to the job." He heard Jared murmur.
"Cool," Jensen mumbled, contentment and unexpected relief thrumming through him as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Jared's finger paused for a second before starting back up again. "And you'll still need sunglasses, right?"
Jensen felt a small smile twitch at his lips. "Freak."
"Only around you, man," Jared said quietly. "Only around you."
Jensen smiled again, and let the lure of sleep pull him under.
~End
Author: lizzywinks
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Patience was never Jared's strong suit.
Notes: The recent Asylum rumors about Jensen moving out left me sad enough to attempt to fix it with fic. Warning for schmoopy, vaguely ambiguous boy love.
Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. None of this is real.
Jensen woke up to the surprising sight of Jared staring back at him from six inches away, sharing a pillow and an entirely too small British double bed.
He blinked muzzily, still vaguely disorientated by the relatively new experience of being able to see as soon as he opened his eyes. Not that it would have been a problem before the surgery given how close Jared was. Talking of which...
"Why are you in bed with me?"
Jared teetered on the edge of the mattress, and righted himself by grabbing hold of the covers still wrapped around Jensen's waist and hanging on tight. Secure again, he looked over at Jensen through lowered brows. "Word on the street is you're moving out."
"Word on the street?" Jensen wriggled against his imprisonment in Padalecki-weighted sheets, and gave it up as an impossible task when he failed to dislodge him by even a millimetre. "Who are you?" he asked instead. "Huggy Bear?"
"Just an interested bystander; all the cool kids are talking about it so I thought I'd come straight to the source."
"Cool kids?"
"Okay, Misha."
Jensen shook his head, his brain fuzzy with tiredness. "Misha?"
"Yeah, guy likes his internet - he's like a walking rumor-shitting machine."
"That's a very special image to wake up to. Thanks, man."
Jared huffed out a laugh, coffee scented breath tantalizing Jensen's nose. "Hey, I made it less gross by telling you in person; you had my face to distract you from the mental picture."
"I think you're asking a lot of your face."
Jared leaned forward to rub his scruffy beard against Jensen's forehead. "It's never let me down before."
"First time for everything," Jensen grumbled, and shook his head to dislodge Jared when the scratchy bristles began to tickle. "How'd you even get in here?"
"Danni."
Jensen felt a sudden flash of guilt. His girlfriend was missing and his best friend was currently occupying her place, and he hadn't even noticed. His gaze flickered towards the closed bathroom door, the only place in the room not visible from the bed, and Jared shook his head.
"She was on her way down to the spa. Said to tell you to rest up and she'll meet you for lunch."
Jensen relaxed back against the pillow. The room was quiet and dim thanks to the blackout shades they'd remembered to pull closed the night before. The convention had been crazy and he'd been looking forward to spending most of today catching up on his sleep. Freaking Jared. "What time is it?" he asked through a jaw-cracking yawn.
Jared briefly let go of his anchor to hold his watch up towards Jensen's face. He grinned when Jensen let out a drawn-out groan.
"7.00 a.m.? What the hell, dude? We were in the bar till after 2.00 last night, and we don't check out until tomorrow morning. Couldn't it wait?"
Jared's grin dimmed and his forehead wrinkled in a frown. "Told you, man, got a text from Misha; I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth."
Jensen sighed heavily. "Someone asked if we were still living together and I said we were, but that I might be getting a place of my own for the fifth season. That's all."
Jared didn't appear even slightly mollified by his words. "So you are moving out?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I mean, it'd be somewhere close, obviously, I just thought... maybe it's time."
"Is it too much; work and living together?" Jared asked, his expression intent despite the lightness of his tone. "We can cut back, drop Taco Tuesday. It never seems like such a good idea come Wednesday morning anyway. "
"No, man, no. I just don't want to outstay my welcome. Makes sense I get out before you're sick of having me around."
Jared's tight expression faded, and he tugged on the sheet surrounding Jensen until he slid another inch closer. "Now you're suddenly worried I'll get sick of you? Not when you made me have the floor ripped up in the kitchen-"
"It was like walking on solid ice at 4 o'fucking clock in the morning!"
"-or when you bitched at me for, like, a solid month until we laid the deck out back-"
"Because you said you wanted some outdoor living space, had a small forest's worth of lumber delivered and then left it right outside the kitchen door for weeks! I nearly broke my neck trying to take out the trash!"
"-and now suddenly, for absolutely no reason, you're worried I'm going to get sick of having you around? That ship sailed about an hour after you unpacked and complained about the lack of mints on your pillow."
Jensen let out a tired sigh. "When we first decided to do this, you said it was dumb me getting a place of my own when the show was probably only going to last another year."
Jared stared blankly back. "Yeah, well it was."
"But with the figures we're getting lately, we could actually make it past season five."
"Still not seeing your point."
"When you offered, it was for a few months; now it might be a few years."
"The offer didn't come with a time limit, Jensen."
"It didn't?"
"No."
"So if we go to 11 seasons...?"
"Not a problem. Well, apart from being typecast for life, but as for the living arrangements-" Jared broke off when Jensen suddenly grinned wide.
"Okay, don't beg, man. Being this needy is seriously uncool."
"Douche." Jared aimed a kick at his shin, with a luckily only sock-clad foot. "So does that mean the move's off?"
"I guess, but if you change your mind-"
"I won't," Jared said, certainty in his voice.
Jensen's grin slid from his face when Jared's expression suddenly turned serious.
"I can't believe you told a roomful of fangirls before me. Then I had to hear it from fucking Misha. Were you even going talk to me about it, or was I gonna wake up one morning to find all your stuff gone and a note pinned to Harley's back?"
Jensen shifted uncomfortably on the bed and felt Jared's grip tighten to hold him in place. "Course not, man. It was just something I'd been thinking about and then that girl asked, and it sort of... slipped out."
Jared pulled his thumb free from the sheet to rub a slow circle on Jensen's hip, the skin burning hot and sensitive under his touch, even through two layers of cotton. Jensen was distantly aware that this should feel a hell of a lot weirder than it did. He made a mental note not to ask Danni if it was as odd as he thought, and definitely not to mention it to Misha. No matter how drunk he was.
"I don't know, Jensen," Jared said into the heavy silence that had fallen. "Seems like you've been keeping a lot of secrets lately."
Jensen snorted. "Like anyone could keep a secret around you."
Jared suddenly began levering himself up from the bed, which made an alarming creaking sound, and then flopped back down when he'd dragged his left arm out from where it had been buried underneath the shared pillow. He lifted his newly liberated hand up to hold out three fingers, bare inches away from Jensen's face.
"How many fingers am I holding up?" he demanded.
"Er, three?"
"That's right, three, which you couldn't have answered a month ago."
Jensen frowned. "I'm pretty sure I could. Unless I had some sort of brain injury I forgot about, which, if I did, I suppose I might have."
Jared jabbed his index finger into the spot between Jensen's eyebrows. Jensen flinched, but before he could get it together enough to raise an objection, Jared ran his finger lightly down his nose and then up across his cheekbones and into an almost figure of eight around both eyes.
"Why'd you get 'em done," he murmured, finger slowing but still tracing the ghost image of the lines of his glasses around his eyes.
Jensen felt his breath shudder out on an exhale. "Contacts were a pain, and I looked like a dork in my glasses."
Jared shook his head. "Nah, you didn't. Shoulda told me before you did it, Jen; I liked your glasses."
Jensen grinned, aware it was shaky around the edges. "Yeah?"
Jared nodded. "Yeah." His hair caught on the scratchy hotel pillow and the movement released a citrus tang from the shampoo that he used, the smell somehow more familiar than Danni's fresh, flowery fragrance, and filling Jensen's chest with a burst of warmth.
"Well stick around then," Jensen managed to get out through the tight fullness in his chest. "According to the doctor there's no guarantee that it's permanent, and I'm probably gonna need reading glasses when I hit my 40's either way."
Jared grinned, soft and happy in the darkened room. "I can do that."
Jensen let out a huff of laughter. "Fifteen years just to see my glasses make a reappearance? That's a hell of a commitment." Despite everything, the rhythmic movement of Jared's finger and the lack of sleep over the past few days was getting the better of him, and Jensen felt his eyes drifting closed.
"Maybe, but I think I'm up to the job." He heard Jared murmur.
"Cool," Jensen mumbled, contentment and unexpected relief thrumming through him as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Jared's finger paused for a second before starting back up again. "And you'll still need sunglasses, right?"
Jensen felt a small smile twitch at his lips. "Freak."
"Only around you, man," Jared said quietly. "Only around you."
Jensen smiled again, and let the lure of sleep pull him under.
~End