(no subject)
Title: Live Free or Twihard
Author: poor_choices
Fandom: Supernatural RPS
Pairing: Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Crack, fake anon memes, painfully awesome Edward Cullen RP usernames, Twilight, meta, general mockery of fandom, poor_choices, mentions of fake suicide, inconsistent tone, general stupidity. On the bright side, no Chad Michael Murray, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, or Jonas Brothers.
Word Count: 6000 words.
Summary: Jensen is Romeo, Jared is Juliet, Team Edward are the Montagues, Team Jacob are the Capulets, and Aldis Hodge sincerely hopes he is not Mercutio, because he does not want to get shanked.
Disclaimer: There are so many things in here that are just blatantly false.
For Jensen Ackles, the best day of every year was the day when he finally got to go back to college.
It wasn't that college was all that great; sure, he liked it, had good classes, a few friends, interesting professors, but none of those were what he loved. No, what he loved was the fact that his parents couldn't monitor his internet usage.
Some kids, he understood, worried that their parents would discover they watched porn. Jensen's parents were disappointed if he didn't. Site mistress and master of edwardsminions.com, his mother and father were intensely dedicated Twilight fans who considered him a failure if he didn't read and review at least five erotic Edward/Bella fanfics a day, and flame at least ten Jacob/Bella.
It was, to say the least, frightening.
Jensen didn't hate Twilight, if for no other reason than he would be disowned, and sometimes he could relate to Edward. As vain as it was of him to say it, people were sometimes intimidated by how good-looking he was; he knew this because they told him. And he was pretty pasty and standoffish.
But Bella? Jensen wasn't interested in Bella. In fact, Jensen was pretty sure he wasn't interested in girls at all.
And that was another thing his family could never accept.
"Slash," his father had said once, with the kind of coiled rage that meant he might snap and lash out at any second, "is a blight upon the fandom, Jensen. A blight upon all fandoms. What happened to a good, strong, male friendship? These slash fans, they see a healthy, platonic relationship, and they think it must be sullied by lust."
"Um," Jensen had said, "Dad, I said I was going to a movie with Danneel and Chris."
"I know what you said!" his dad had roared. "Have you seen the Sherlock Holmes fandom, Jensen? Have you?"
Jensen had not, and his father knew it. His father painstakingly checked the browser histories of everyone in the family, and if they tried to erase them, there was hell to pay. Jensen had carefully never set foot near the Sherlock Holmes fandom, much as he wished to.
His father had continued without waiting for a reply. "It is full of nothing but slash! It's like there wasn't even a woman in that movie! No, I will not allow it. Go see Avatar instead."
Jensen had never even tried to explain that he himself was interested in men. His parents were not the best at grasping subtle differences like internet versus reality.
He'd never had a boyfriend either, but it was really no wonder. Jensen was bad enough at befriending people in the real world, let alone getting them into romantic relationships. He'd nearly gotten entangled in a few online relationships--mostly lesbians crushing on his female sockpuppets, Jensen never admits to being a guy on the internet--but he'd dodged those as well.
But this year was his senior year.
This year, everything was going to change.
*
"How are the crazies?" Aldis asked, sticking his head in Jensen's door. Aldis played a lot of World of Warcraft and also had trouble interacting with people; it was the basis of his and Jensen's friendship.
"Do you mean my family or the fandom?" Jensen asked, without turning around. He'd finally finished the epic Jacob/Bella AU based on Pride and Prejudice that his mother was making him flame. It hadn't actually been that bad and after he left a horrifically scathing review, he grabbed one of his sockpuppets his parents didn't know about and got into a fight with himself about how wrong he was. "Either way, fuck my life."
Aldis leaned over his shoulder. "Man, did you just call yourself a cunt waffle?"
"Yeah," said Jensen, sighing. "But I totally deserved it."
Aldis shook his head. "So no change?"
Jensen laughed mirthlessly. "Maybe once the last movie comes out?" he said, without much hope. "But I think as long as the Team Jacob HQ team is around, they won't leave. Just out spite."
Team Jacob HQ was his parents' bitterest rival. There were regular and horrific flame wars between the two, and all three of Jensen's little sister's flounces from the internet had been directly related to the abuse from the other team. The whole thing was so ridiculous it had its own fucking Fandom Wank tag.
"It's sad, but you'd be way more balanced if your parents had gone through a painful divorce or some shit."
"I'm not sure that's true," said Jensen. He shuddered. "Did I tell you they're doing a Twilight-themed vow renewal?"
"Dude, fake sick."
"To get out of that? I'll actually be sick." He groaned. "So how was your summer?"
"Pretty awesome, actually. I got into LJ RP? Which, dude, I know you don't care? But you are a guy in that and you're a chick magnet. You should join our game, the Twilight cast just lost their Edward."
Jensen wrinkled his nose. "I get enough Twilight on my own time."
"Whatever, you could write Edward with your hands tied behind your back. You smash your head on the keyboard and it'd come out all sparkly and sexually frustrated."
Jensen had to admit that was probably true. He sighed. "So, what's the link?"
*
Aldis's game was some sort of ridiculous panfandom steampunk crossover where people got kidnapped from their own universe by zeppelins and dropped into the seedy underbelly of AU London. Their Bella was in a relationship with some guy from one of the Final Fantasies, which Jensen approved of, and he e-mailed them both to assure them that drama was all well and good, but he didn't want to break them up or anything. Apparently the last Edward barely played and then left in a huff when Bella found herself developing feelings for someone else. Jensen vaguely recalled the incident from the anon meme.
He really hoped the old Edward hadn't been someone in his family.
*
Jensen worked one night a week in the campus writing center, which was a lot less tutoring and a lot more reading and/or dicking around on the internet. Tonight he was checking out Cassandra Clare's newest book--his mom loved it and kept e-mailing to ask if he'd read it yet--and idly working on his Edward app when he heard a guy say, "Did you know she plagiarized Harry Potter fanfic?"
Jensen looked up, because that was the kind of thing he didn't expect people to bring up, and saw a tall guy with floppy brown hair and a big dimpled smile.
"Uh," said Jensen. Attractive guys didn't just come up to him and ask about Harry Potter fanfic outside of his fantasies. "She actually plagiarized someone else and used it in Harry Potter fanfic. I think."
The guy laughed and sat down across from him. "Yeah, I read about the whole thing online somewhere, and now whenever I see her name that's all I can think about. It can make for some really awkward conversations." The guy flashed him another grin. "So thanks for not doing that."
Jensen chuckled. "That might be the first time someone's told me I made a conversation non-awkward."
"Well, I was the one who brought fanfic plagiarism into it," the guy said magnanimously. "That one's all on me."
Jensen found himself smiling back. "So, do you need help with a paper?" he asked.
"Yeah, kind of," said the guy. "I think it's pretty good--not to be, like, vain or anything, just it's not a bad paper. But the topic was really broad and I don't think I did that well with transitions?" he said, scratching the back of his neck. "It's kind of a big mess of facts. Like, word vomit in paper form."
Jensen wrinkled his nose. "Sounds like a fun time. I'll see what I can do with it." He cleared his throat. "Oh, yeah, I'm Jensen, by the way."
"Jared," said the guy. He flushed a little. "I think it's not that bad, really. But it's my first college paper, it's a little intimidating."
Oh, good, jailbait. Jensen loved his life. "No, it's fine. I'll just read it over and make some comments first, and then we can talk about it. That'll take me about fifteen minutes--you can go wander around if you want."
Jared tapped the book on the table. "Can I give the Harry Potter plagiarist a try?" he asked.
Jensen laughed again. "Sure. Knock yourself out."
*
me: hey
are you Jacob?
Pavel: Yeah! Oh man, are you our new Edward? I'm pumped! Katie said you sounded awesome.
me: Katie?
Pavel: lol
Yeah, sorry! Bella-mun.
me: oh
um, yeah, I'm the new Edward
I figured I should check in
Pavel: No, that's great! We're totally excited to have you. We can gang up on Cloud, right? >)
me: lol
yeah, the enemy of my enemy...
Pavel: Exactly! Unholy werewolf/vampire alliance. Just like in Eclipse, but way cooler.
me: clearly
so, yeah, anyway, hi
I have to get to class but I'm looking forward to playing with you
Pavel: Me too!
*
Jensen's mom called three days after he got to school.
"Into_the_sun is claiming that Stephanie Meyer sent her the original manuscript for Breaking Dawn, which had Bella choosing Jacob in the end, but her rabid Team Edward editor forced her to change it," she said, without preamble. Jensen couldn't remember the last time anyone in his family started a phone call with "hello."
"That's crazy," Jensen pointed out. "That is clearly a crazy lie."
His mother huffed. "Well, obviously. Jacob/Bella will never happen. It's ridiculous."
"Right, the ridiculous part of that story is that the story some crazy Team Jacob woman says Stephanie Meyer sent her an original manuscript that supports her OTP. Not that, you know, Stephanie Meyer is sending--you know what, never mind," said Jensen, sighing. "What do you want me to do about this exactly?"
"You need to infiltrate their ranks and find out what the manuscript looks like! If it even exists."
"If it exists, it's fanfic," Jensen pointed out. "Into_the_sun probably wrote it to mess with you." She was from Team Jacob HQ, Jensen had no doubt she'd do something specifically to piss off his mom. "Mom, I've got classes, I don't know if I have time--"
"Jensen," she said sharply. "No one else in this family has the skill with sock puppets that you do. You cannot honestly tell me you are willing to stand by and watch those horrible Jacob fans cast doubts upon the sanctity of Edward and Bella's love!"
Jensen could honestly tell her that, or he could point out that the whole Team Jacob/Team Edward thing was resolved because Edward and Bella were married and Jacob had the creepy underage half-vampire romance going, but he'd tried that before and been told to shut up and go to his room to think about what he'd said. Which, no matter how hard he thought about it, still sounded sane and rational.
Jensen sighed. "So you want me to make a sock puppet, gain the trust of the Team Jacob people, and then steal their fake-real manuscript to tell you about it?"
"And then maybe get cancer at the end," she said thoughtfully. "I always like a good tragic death."
"Great," said Jensen. "If I can convince the school I have cancer too, maybe they won't care I failed all my classes because I was spending too much time on the internet."
"I'll write you a note," said his mother absently. "Bye, honey."
*
Next week, Jared was back at the writing center.
"You have another paper already?" Jensen asked.
"One a week," Jared said. "For my intro to lit course. But, hey, no midterm, no final, so I'm not complaining." He looked around Jensen's table. "No Cassie Clare?"
"I finished it," said Jensen. "My mom was seriously hounding me."
Jared laughed. He had a really awesome laugh. "Parents, right?"
Jensen groaned. "Mine are--really, really crazy."
Jared leaned in. "Yeah?"
Jensen shook his head. "Man, I couldn't even begin to tell you. Let's see the paper."
*
*
It had been a long time since Jensen had actually had fun on the internet. Everything was all horrible drama and having flamewars with himself and having to read ten billion horrible ooc fics about characters he barely even likes anymore. The RPing is actually really helping--he's remembering the kinds of things he used to actually enjoy in fandom. He's not going nuts or anything--he hasn't told anyone his real name, and Aldis is sworn to secrecy, but he has admitted to being a guy. And his castmates are awesome; Bella and Cloud love playing up Edward's creepy stalker side, and Jacob is seriously great, tons of hilarious ideas and up for anything.
Of course, as with everything about Jensen's internet life, there's a but.
*
Pavel: Check it out! We're famous on the internet.
http://i29.tinypic.com/xlf02.png
me: ...
...
...
wow
Pavel: We are a sexy time, dude!
me: apparently
Pavel: You okay?
me: yeah, just
you know all those people who make secrets about how they can't admit to liking stuff because their flists would disown them?
Pavek: Yeah...
me: my flist is like that with slash
and kind of everything about jacob
but I kind of ship it too
Pavel: Hey, don't worry! I do too ;) It can be our secret.
*
*
"God, I can't believe we hit the anonmeme," said Jensen, dropping his head to his desk. "At least one of those is my dad."
"Your life is fucked up," said Aldis sagely. "What'd Jared say about it?"
"Why would I tell Jared?" Jensen asked. Yeah, Jared still came once a week to the writing center, and they were Facebook friends now, but he and Jensen didn't chat about his RP shit. Just because Jared knew about Cassandra Clare didn't mean he wanted to hang out with a guy whose online life revolved around fucking Twilight.
"Uh, because he's half the pairing?" said Aldis.
"You mean--Jacob?" Jensen asked, still confused.
"Yeah, his mun's name is Jared. He actually goes here," said Aldis, slanting Jensen a look. "He's a freshman. And he talks about you all the time, and it is killing me to not tell him that you go here too, so you should get on that. I feel like a bad captain."
Jensen often forgot that Aldis and Jacob--Jared?--shared a fandom; Jacob's theoretical primary was Chekov from the Star Trek reboot, and Aldis was Kirk. Aldis had hounded him goodnaturedly for a while about how he was totally stealing Jacob away, and Jensen had felt a kind of warm pride.
"Does he, uh," said Jensen. "Does he know you know me?"
"He knows I got you in the game, and I told him I know you IRL but I didn't tell him you live next door or go to this school."
Jensen tried not to hit his head on something. He'd been kind of crushing on Jacob, because Jacob was hilarious and fun and easy to talk to, but he'd been figuring he was secretly a girl or really old or something. "What's his last name?" asked Jensen.
"Padalecki," said Aldis. "I know you know him cuz you guys are fucking Facebook friends."
"Oh, fuck my life," said Jensen, groaning.
"What, you don't like him?" Jensen managed a half-hearted glare, and Aldis's eyebrows rose. "Oh, you do like him. Oh." Aldis grinned. "Man, you are coming to lunch tomorrow. I am hooking you guys the fuck up."
*
*
"Okay, so," said Jared, sitting down across from Jensen on his usual writing center night with his usual big grin, "the masquerade ball."
Jensen clicked away from fandomsecrets very fast, because even more embarrassing than commenting to agree with an "in love with my RP partner post" was having said RP partner show up and see you, and raised his eyebrows. "We're not even going to pretend to talk about your paper?"
Jared beamed. "Dude, no way! I cannot believe you didn't tell me who you were. Now, in revenge, I am making you plot with me IRL."
"Hey, I didn't know who you were either," Jensen protested weakly. "Aldis told me yesterday."
"Aldis is a way better friend than you," said Jared. "Anyway, Jacob is totally forgetting a little about the whole," he waved his hand, "getting Bella back part of their relationship, and kind of just likes hanging out with Edward. And I don't know if you've been following him and Winry?"
Jensen blinked. "Uh, yeah, kind of," he admitted. He figured that was better than saying he stalked all of Jared's threads kind of obsessively.
"She's been telling him to go for Edward," said Jared. "I mean, in her Winry way. She wanted to know if she could try to set them up at the ball."
Jensen laughed. "What, because we're in costume, we actually won't recognize each other?"
Jared shrugged. "Jacob's getting curious. He'd be willing to try it."
Jensen shook his head. "Yeah, I can--see Edward being willing to pretend," he admitted.
"Great!" said Jared. He looked away, drumming his fingers on the table. "Hey, you should come over to my room for the party, it'll be more fun if we hang out. My roommate's kind of a dick about the whole RP thing, but he's pretty easy to ignore."
Jensen licked his lips and swallowed. "You could come over to mine. No roommate. Aldis lives next door, but he's not allowed to judge us."
Jared gave him another grin, huge and bright, and Jensen had to look away.
"Awesome!" He flushed. "So I maybe haven't actually finished my paper, and I should do that. I just didn't want you thinking I was ditching you know that I know your secret identity."
Jensen smiled back. "Thanks, I'm reassured. Go work on your paper, Jared."
Jared saluted as he got up. "And I'll see you Friday for the masquerade ball." He paused. "Or earlier, if you want. You know. I'd love to grab lunch sometime," he added. "I, um, don't have a lot of RL fandom friends."
Jensen wished that words like "RL" and "fandom" were not kind of a turn-on for him.
Right then, his mother popped up in an IM window, and Jensen frowned. And that right there was the downside to fandom. "Yeah," he managed, giving Jared a smile. "I'll call you."
Jared waved, and Jensen tried not to sigh.
*
Edward's: jensen?
Jensen??
JENSEN!
me: sorry, mom, at work, kind of afk
Edward's: oh ya
well
how r u doing w/ into_the_sun????
me: pretty sure it's a total hoax, she's got nothing.
Edward's: she must have SOEMTHING
me: she has, like, three excerpts, but says that smeyer would be betrayed if she shared the entire thing with the internet
b/c it was shared in confidence
Edward's: that BITCH
go make a cryptic fandom secret about how she stalks taylor lautner
me: k
*
Jensen wanted to make his own fandom secret anyway. It's not a hardship.
*
*
"Man, you are freaking out like my baby sister on her first date," said Aldis. "It's kind of awesome. I'll tell you the same thing I told her--he tries to get past first and you break out the mace."
"Wow," said Jensen, "I am so glad I never tried dating your little sister."
"She doesn't have a dick, so I'm thinking you wouldn't be into her."
"Fuck you," Jensen groaned. "God, my parents are going to slaughter me. And I don't even know what reason they'll pick! He likes Jacob, he likes Jacob/Edward, he's a guy..."
"Are your parents more homophobic or Twilight-obsessive?" asked Aldis.
"Twilight-obsessive," muttered Jensen.
"So lie and say he's Team Edward. Like, hey guys, yeah, I'm dating a dude, but at least he thinks Jacob should DIAF!"
"We're not dating," Jensen pointed out, like he hadn't brought this up.
"Yet," said Aldis. "Seriously, when I told him you were Edward? He was so happy he nearly kissed me."
"I'm going to have to tell him my whole family are crazy Twihards. My sister coruns My Life Is Twilight, jesus."
"Aren't half of those trolls?" asked Aldis.
"Half of those are me trolling," Jensen admitted. "This is why I will never have a boyfriend."
"Well, at least get laid. This whole sexually frustrated thing is way too Edward." Aldis grinned. "And now I am going to my room so I can not bask in the power of your gay love."
Jensen sighed. "Thanks for the pep talk, boss."
Aldis grinned. "If you choose to ignore my sage advice? Suit up. Just because you're both virgins doesn't mean you shouldn't be safe."
Jensen flipped him the bird as he left.
This really wasn't a date. This was actually horrifically sad, because they were going to sit around in Jensen's dorm room, each on their own laptop, roleplaying a fictional date between fictional characters on the internet.
Jensen's life could stand to be a little more Twilight.
*
Jared showed up at six with a pizza and his laptop. "What's your costume?" he asked, as he set himself up on Jensen's bed--Jensen's bed--with his laptop.
"Uh," said Jensen, looking away with a flush. "Dracula."
Jared snorted. "Of course. Take away all my plausible deniability."
Jensen laughed. "Whatever, I'm sure there'll be tons of fake vampires at the masquerade ball," he said, setting his laptop up on his desk.
Jared patted the bed next to him. "Dude, sit over here. You aren't gonna be able to reach the pizza." He grinned. "Trust me, if you aren't here to stake your claim I am totally capable of eating the whole thing myself."
Jensen wasn't really sure his bed would hold both of them--it was a standard college bed and therefore tiny, and Jared was pretty much the opposite of tiny, but he had left some room. And Jensen didn't exactly mind having to get close to Jared.
He was fucked.
"Jacob's just wearing a tux and a mask," said Jared. "Taylor Lautner in formal wear is fucking hot."
Jensen flushed, a little uncomfortable. He and Jared had never actually had the sexuality conversation, but Bella-mun had made more than one reference to his love of the cock. "Yeah," he agreed awkwardly.
"Sorry," said Jared, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm gay, by the way."
"No," said Jensen quickly, "I am too, it's fine." He laughed a little. "Just, you know. Team Edward."
Jared laughed, long and loud. Jensen got a little distracted watching it.
"Whatever, man, your Edward? Is totally Team Jacob."
"Nah," said Jensen, grinning. "He just wants Jacob for himself, he still doesn't want Jacob to be with Bella."
"Jerk," said Jared, knocking his shoulder against Jensen's and then just--staying there.
It wasn't exactly subtle.
The post for the dance was already up, and Jared put up a thread for Chekov and a thread for Hawkeye--Jensen still is struggling with one character, he doesn't know how Jared manages five--and then gave Jensen a bright grin. "So, I'm all yours," he said.
Jensen wasn't great at the flirting thing, but he was pretty sure Jared was doing it.
"My parents don't know I'm gay," said Jensen, in a weird rush.
"Mine don't either," Jared said, apparently unfazed by Jensen's verbal diarrhea. He smiled at Jensen, sympathetic and a little concerned. "Are they homophobic?"
Jensen laughed. "I don't actually know." He rubbed the back of his neck. "God, my family is crazy. I don't even know how to explain them."
"Try me," said Jared.
"They're, um, really rabid Twilight fans, and they think slash, like, destroys fandoms." He looks away. "Before Twilight they were big into--god, I don't even know. Stargate? And then Highlander before that." He laughed, kind of nervously. "I honestly don't know if they realize real gay people exist outside of, like, breaking up their OTPs."
Unexpectedly, Jared started laughing. Like, really hard. Jensen wasn't sure if he should be relieved or insulted.
"Oh god," said Jared. "I bet your mom and my mom have flamewars." Which was about the last thing Jensen expected him to say.
"Um, what's your mom's LJ name?"
"Her main one is into_the_sun but she has like fifteen."
And that was when Jensen started laughing too.
*
Fifteen minutes later, Jacob and Edward were snarking together at the masquerade ball, Winry was plotting to set them up, and Jensen was making out with the son of the co-owners of Team Jacob HQ.
"My mom was really sad when your sockpuppet left fandom," Jared murmured against Jensen's lips, pulling Jensen on top of him.
"Yeah?"
"Mm, yeah. She thought you were so nice and respectful."
"Yeah, well, I was failing bio, so I had to wrap it up," Jensen said.
"She didn't update her fanfic for a whole half a day," Jared said. "That's like mourning for her."
"Thank god I didn't give myself cancer." Jensen slipped his hands under Jared's shirt. "We're probably supposed to be getting Edward and Jacob laid."
Jared laughed. "Hey, you know that secret I sent you about people shipping them?"
"Yeah?"
"I wrote it."
Jensen laughed. "Yeah?"
Jared nuzzled his neck. "And I definitely know I ship the muns harder."
*
*
"My parents are going to murder me," said Jensen.
"This is like Romeo and Juliet, but dorky. And gay. And pathetic," said Aldis. "Especially pathetic."
"At least we made out IRL instead of just making our characters hook up," Jared pointed out. "That would have been more pathetic."
"Your characters hooked up too," Aldis said. "Which was sad. Cute, but sad."
"You're just saying it was cute because you want Winry-mun to cyber with you," said Jensen. "You're disgusting. I'm ashamed of you."
"You're pissed that your boyfriend is Team Jacob and you're taking your rage out on me," said Aldis. "That's okay, I can live with that."
"They won't actually kill you, right?" asked Jared. "There's no way my parents will bother to kill me. They'll probably start trolling my journals and maybe disown me, but I don't think they'll resort to violence."
"Wait, seriously?" asked Aldis. "Like, you're not joking right now. Your parents are gonna disown you for dating Jensen?" he groaned. "Shit, this is Romeo and Juliet, and I am so Mercutio. I am gonna get shanked by a Twihard."
"No one is getting shanked!" said Jared. He glanced at Jensen. "Right?"
"Aldis definitely isn't getting shanked," said Jensen, because he's sure of that.
"We should start trying to introduce our parents to gay sock puppets or something," said Jared. "Just to, you know. Get them started."
Jensen groaned. "This is gonna suck."
Jared leaned over and kissed him, giving him a sunny smile as he pulled away. "But it's totally gonna be worth it."
Jensen was not responsible for the sappy smile he responded with.
"Please," said Aldis, "I am begging you, man. Hook me up with Winry. I am totally a catch. And I have a feeling you guys being all sappy and happy is gonna get real old, real fast."
Jared grinned. "I guess I do kind of owe you. I'll see what I can do."
*
me: hey, did you read His Forever?
Macaroni: ummm i dunno
tell me more
plot? author?
me: diamond_dusted
au before breaking dawn, alternate take on bella becoming a vampire?
Macaroni: OH was that the one with, like, Jacob/Seth??
me: yeah, a little
Macaroni: ew, no way, I don't read slash
me: it was like two lines
like, oh, hey, jacob gave up on bella and he's dating another werewolf now
and alice had seth over to talk about giving head
which was hilarious
Macaroni: ugh, jensen! i don't want to read about werewolf blowjobs
leave me alone :P
me: prude
*
Henrietta: what is this about you reading slash?
me: hi dad, nice to hear from you too
I'm fine, by the way
what is it?
Henrietta: your sister said you were reading SLASH
me: I read a fic with a slash pairing?
it was e/b
there was like two seconds of gay jacob
Henrietta: jensen
we've talked about this
i know slash might seem edgy
and a lot of your friends have probably tried it once or twice
but it's WRONG
me: you know slash fic != pot, right?
Henrietta: don't you sass me jensen
i am your father
me: this convo would be way less weird if you weren't on a female account
Henrietta: what did i just say about sass
*
By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, Jensen was about ready to murder his entire family.
"I wrote an Edward/Jacob fic under a psuedonym and they all came and flamed it. My dad three times."
"I think your dad protests too much," said Jared. "I bet he shipped, like, Duncan/Richie, and now he's ashamed, so he claims to hate all slash. But sometimes, late at night, when everyone else is asleep, he goes to the Wayback Machine and finds his old favorites."
"Wow," said Jensen. "Thanks for that horrifying look into my father's theoretical psychoses."
"Anytime," said Jared, kissing him on the cheek. "Do you still want to come out over Thanksgiving?"
"Yeah," said Jensen. "Best case scenario, I don't have to go home for Christmas."
"I like how your goal is getting disowned for being gay."
Jensen sighed. "Well, you know. Rather than getting killed."
"For liking Jacob," said Jared, a little too smugly for Jensen's tastes.
"Whatever," Jensen muttered, smiling. "He's okay, I guess."
*
His first day back, Jensen's mother had him spend the whole day attacking her new sockpuppet so that the Jacob fans would defend her from his vicious flaming and she could gain their trust.
So, clearly, he didn't really have time to bring up the whole boyfriend thing.
The second day, Mack's boyfriend told her he really wasn't into roleplaying vampires during sex (and Jensen felt kind of smug that his boyfriend was) and the fallout from that kept them pretty busy. Plus, Jensen had to admit, it would be a seriously dickish move if he followed up Mack's breakup with "By the way, I have a boyfriend." Stealing her thunder and rubbing it in.
The third day was Thanksgiving, so it was mostly cooking and eating and being thankful for Robert Pattinson.
"Seriously?" Jared asked, laughing.
"Seriously. What, your family isn't thankful for Taylor Lautner's chiseled abs?"
"We're thankful for Stephanie Meyer and all our friends and blessings from the internet." Jared paused. "I think maybe at Christmas my mom prays for RPattz' hair to gain sentience and finally eat him." Another pause. "Wait, that's me."
"I think he prays for that every night. Put him out of his misery."
Jared laughed. "So, hey," he said. "Happy Thanksgiving."
Jensen smiled. "Happy Thanksgiving."
"I'm telling mine tomorrow," Jared said quietly.
Jensen sighed. "Yeah, me too."
*
"So, I'm gay," Jensen announced at breakfast Friday morning.
Everything kind of stopped for a minute.
"What?" asked his mother. "I don't think I heard that."
"I'm gay," Jensen repeated. "I like guys. I have a boyfriend."
"Jensen," said his father, voice eerily calm, "you know how we feel about slash in this household."
"It's not slash if it's real life, dad," said Jensen. He might get disowned. Or he might get stabbed with a butter knife. "It's, you know, homosexuality."
"You're just confused, sweetie," his mother said softly. "It's everywhere now, that slash fanfiction. Girls see a strong platonic relationship between two men and misinterpret--"
"I'm not talking about fanfic, I'm talking about real life!" said Jensen. "And I am not misinterpreting my relationship with my boyfriend, because I'm pretty sure strong platonic relationships don't involve making out."
"You know we do not put up with slash in this household, young man," said his father.
"Homosexuality," said Jensen, hopelessly. "Or, you know, being gay. Being queer. I don't even care."
"Do you write Edward/Jacob now?" Mackenzie asked. She sounded, dare Jensen hope, a little curious.
"Of course he doesn't," snapped his mother.
"What if I did?" asked Jensen. "Seriously, what would you do if I decided I wanted to write slash, guys? What if I wanted to watch House?"
"HUDDY IS A GOOD AND NOBLE SHIP AND YOU WOULD RESPECT IT," his father thundered.
"Oh Jesus fucking Christ," Jensen muttered, and buried his face in his hands.
*
"He really called Huddy a good and noble ship?" Jared asked, wincing.
"Yup," said Jensen. "And then I grabbed my shit, which I already packed, and came back to campus. My dad sent me like five flames. And a link to the Huddy ship_manifesto."
"My mom told me there were comms that could help me realize how I really felt."
"Is that like--straight camp, but on the internet?"
"God, I don't even know," said Jared, laughing a little. "I didn't even try telling them about the whole Team Edward thing."
"If I didn't think my dad would have killed me, I would have lead with that."
"Yeah, dating an Edward fan is way worse than dating a guy."
"Shut up, he's dreamy," said Jensen, sticking his tongue out. He groaned as he got another LJ comment from his mom, this one about how he was a LAIR. "She's breaking out the capslock."
Jared propped his chin on Jensen's head to read. "And the typos. Awesome. You should link my mom so they can get in a flamewar." He snorted. "This is so much more like Romeo and Juliet than Twilight is."
Jensen tried valiantly not to find it hot that Jared made that reference. "So now all we need to do is commit suicide so they can resolve their differences," he teased.
"Huh," said Jared, after a long moment. "That's not a bad idea."
"Dude," said Jensen.
"I mean, not real suicide," said Jared. "Just, you know. Internet suicide."
*
*
"There is no way that's gonna fool them," Jared snorted.
"jen_cullen?" asked Aldis. "Seriously? Did you have to fight a twelve-year-old girl for that?"
"Aldis, unless you want to watch us making out, leave. And I'm hoping it'll just get them thinking."
Jared made a face. "I really doubt it, man."
Jensen sighed. "Yeah, me too. But we'll lay low for a while, get them off our backs."
Jared pouted. "Dude, you want me to stay off the internet for a while? But all the cool stuff is on there!"
"Trust me, dude," said Jensen, closing the laptop and climbing into Jared's lap. "We have better stuff to do."
Jared sighed dramatically. "I guess I'm open to suggestions."
Jensen smirked, looking him up and down. "How do you feel about LARPing?"
Jared grinned back. "Very, very good."
Author: poor_choices
Fandom: Supernatural RPS
Pairing: Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Crack, fake anon memes, painfully awesome Edward Cullen RP usernames, Twilight, meta, general mockery of fandom, poor_choices, mentions of fake suicide, inconsistent tone, general stupidity. On the bright side, no Chad Michael Murray, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, or Jonas Brothers.
Word Count: 6000 words.
Summary: Jensen is Romeo, Jared is Juliet, Team Edward are the Montagues, Team Jacob are the Capulets, and Aldis Hodge sincerely hopes he is not Mercutio, because he does not want to get shanked.
Disclaimer: There are so many things in here that are just blatantly false.
For Jensen Ackles, the best day of every year was the day when he finally got to go back to college.
It wasn't that college was all that great; sure, he liked it, had good classes, a few friends, interesting professors, but none of those were what he loved. No, what he loved was the fact that his parents couldn't monitor his internet usage.
Some kids, he understood, worried that their parents would discover they watched porn. Jensen's parents were disappointed if he didn't. Site mistress and master of edwardsminions.com, his mother and father were intensely dedicated Twilight fans who considered him a failure if he didn't read and review at least five erotic Edward/Bella fanfics a day, and flame at least ten Jacob/Bella.
It was, to say the least, frightening.
Jensen didn't hate Twilight, if for no other reason than he would be disowned, and sometimes he could relate to Edward. As vain as it was of him to say it, people were sometimes intimidated by how good-looking he was; he knew this because they told him. And he was pretty pasty and standoffish.
But Bella? Jensen wasn't interested in Bella. In fact, Jensen was pretty sure he wasn't interested in girls at all.
And that was another thing his family could never accept.
"Slash," his father had said once, with the kind of coiled rage that meant he might snap and lash out at any second, "is a blight upon the fandom, Jensen. A blight upon all fandoms. What happened to a good, strong, male friendship? These slash fans, they see a healthy, platonic relationship, and they think it must be sullied by lust."
"Um," Jensen had said, "Dad, I said I was going to a movie with Danneel and Chris."
"I know what you said!" his dad had roared. "Have you seen the Sherlock Holmes fandom, Jensen? Have you?"
Jensen had not, and his father knew it. His father painstakingly checked the browser histories of everyone in the family, and if they tried to erase them, there was hell to pay. Jensen had carefully never set foot near the Sherlock Holmes fandom, much as he wished to.
His father had continued without waiting for a reply. "It is full of nothing but slash! It's like there wasn't even a woman in that movie! No, I will not allow it. Go see Avatar instead."
Jensen had never even tried to explain that he himself was interested in men. His parents were not the best at grasping subtle differences like internet versus reality.
He'd never had a boyfriend either, but it was really no wonder. Jensen was bad enough at befriending people in the real world, let alone getting them into romantic relationships. He'd nearly gotten entangled in a few online relationships--mostly lesbians crushing on his female sockpuppets, Jensen never admits to being a guy on the internet--but he'd dodged those as well.
But this year was his senior year.
This year, everything was going to change.
*
"How are the crazies?" Aldis asked, sticking his head in Jensen's door. Aldis played a lot of World of Warcraft and also had trouble interacting with people; it was the basis of his and Jensen's friendship.
"Do you mean my family or the fandom?" Jensen asked, without turning around. He'd finally finished the epic Jacob/Bella AU based on Pride and Prejudice that his mother was making him flame. It hadn't actually been that bad and after he left a horrifically scathing review, he grabbed one of his sockpuppets his parents didn't know about and got into a fight with himself about how wrong he was. "Either way, fuck my life."
Aldis leaned over his shoulder. "Man, did you just call yourself a cunt waffle?"
"Yeah," said Jensen, sighing. "But I totally deserved it."
Aldis shook his head. "So no change?"
Jensen laughed mirthlessly. "Maybe once the last movie comes out?" he said, without much hope. "But I think as long as the Team Jacob HQ team is around, they won't leave. Just out spite."
Team Jacob HQ was his parents' bitterest rival. There were regular and horrific flame wars between the two, and all three of Jensen's little sister's flounces from the internet had been directly related to the abuse from the other team. The whole thing was so ridiculous it had its own fucking Fandom Wank tag.
"It's sad, but you'd be way more balanced if your parents had gone through a painful divorce or some shit."
"I'm not sure that's true," said Jensen. He shuddered. "Did I tell you they're doing a Twilight-themed vow renewal?"
"Dude, fake sick."
"To get out of that? I'll actually be sick." He groaned. "So how was your summer?"
"Pretty awesome, actually. I got into LJ RP? Which, dude, I know you don't care? But you are a guy in that and you're a chick magnet. You should join our game, the Twilight cast just lost their Edward."
Jensen wrinkled his nose. "I get enough Twilight on my own time."
"Whatever, you could write Edward with your hands tied behind your back. You smash your head on the keyboard and it'd come out all sparkly and sexually frustrated."
Jensen had to admit that was probably true. He sighed. "So, what's the link?"
*
Aldis's game was some sort of ridiculous panfandom steampunk crossover where people got kidnapped from their own universe by zeppelins and dropped into the seedy underbelly of AU London. Their Bella was in a relationship with some guy from one of the Final Fantasies, which Jensen approved of, and he e-mailed them both to assure them that drama was all well and good, but he didn't want to break them up or anything. Apparently the last Edward barely played and then left in a huff when Bella found herself developing feelings for someone else. Jensen vaguely recalled the incident from the anon meme.
He really hoped the old Edward hadn't been someone in his family.
*
Jensen worked one night a week in the campus writing center, which was a lot less tutoring and a lot more reading and/or dicking around on the internet. Tonight he was checking out Cassandra Clare's newest book--his mom loved it and kept e-mailing to ask if he'd read it yet--and idly working on his Edward app when he heard a guy say, "Did you know she plagiarized Harry Potter fanfic?"
Jensen looked up, because that was the kind of thing he didn't expect people to bring up, and saw a tall guy with floppy brown hair and a big dimpled smile.
"Uh," said Jensen. Attractive guys didn't just come up to him and ask about Harry Potter fanfic outside of his fantasies. "She actually plagiarized someone else and used it in Harry Potter fanfic. I think."
The guy laughed and sat down across from him. "Yeah, I read about the whole thing online somewhere, and now whenever I see her name that's all I can think about. It can make for some really awkward conversations." The guy flashed him another grin. "So thanks for not doing that."
Jensen chuckled. "That might be the first time someone's told me I made a conversation non-awkward."
"Well, I was the one who brought fanfic plagiarism into it," the guy said magnanimously. "That one's all on me."
Jensen found himself smiling back. "So, do you need help with a paper?" he asked.
"Yeah, kind of," said the guy. "I think it's pretty good--not to be, like, vain or anything, just it's not a bad paper. But the topic was really broad and I don't think I did that well with transitions?" he said, scratching the back of his neck. "It's kind of a big mess of facts. Like, word vomit in paper form."
Jensen wrinkled his nose. "Sounds like a fun time. I'll see what I can do with it." He cleared his throat. "Oh, yeah, I'm Jensen, by the way."
"Jared," said the guy. He flushed a little. "I think it's not that bad, really. But it's my first college paper, it's a little intimidating."
Oh, good, jailbait. Jensen loved his life. "No, it's fine. I'll just read it over and make some comments first, and then we can talk about it. That'll take me about fifteen minutes--you can go wander around if you want."
Jared tapped the book on the table. "Can I give the Harry Potter plagiarist a try?" he asked.
Jensen laughed again. "Sure. Knock yourself out."
*
me: hey
are you Jacob?
Pavel: Yeah! Oh man, are you our new Edward? I'm pumped! Katie said you sounded awesome.
me: Katie?
Pavel: lol
Yeah, sorry! Bella-mun.
me: oh
um, yeah, I'm the new Edward
I figured I should check in
Pavel: No, that's great! We're totally excited to have you. We can gang up on Cloud, right? >)
me: lol
yeah, the enemy of my enemy...
Pavel: Exactly! Unholy werewolf/vampire alliance. Just like in Eclipse, but way cooler.
me: clearly
so, yeah, anyway, hi
I have to get to class but I'm looking forward to playing with you
Pavel: Me too!
*
Jensen's mom called three days after he got to school.
"Into_the_sun is claiming that Stephanie Meyer sent her the original manuscript for Breaking Dawn, which had Bella choosing Jacob in the end, but her rabid Team Edward editor forced her to change it," she said, without preamble. Jensen couldn't remember the last time anyone in his family started a phone call with "hello."
"That's crazy," Jensen pointed out. "That is clearly a crazy lie."
His mother huffed. "Well, obviously. Jacob/Bella will never happen. It's ridiculous."
"Right, the ridiculous part of that story is that the story some crazy Team Jacob woman says Stephanie Meyer sent her an original manuscript that supports her OTP. Not that, you know, Stephanie Meyer is sending--you know what, never mind," said Jensen, sighing. "What do you want me to do about this exactly?"
"You need to infiltrate their ranks and find out what the manuscript looks like! If it even exists."
"If it exists, it's fanfic," Jensen pointed out. "Into_the_sun probably wrote it to mess with you." She was from Team Jacob HQ, Jensen had no doubt she'd do something specifically to piss off his mom. "Mom, I've got classes, I don't know if I have time--"
"Jensen," she said sharply. "No one else in this family has the skill with sock puppets that you do. You cannot honestly tell me you are willing to stand by and watch those horrible Jacob fans cast doubts upon the sanctity of Edward and Bella's love!"
Jensen could honestly tell her that, or he could point out that the whole Team Jacob/Team Edward thing was resolved because Edward and Bella were married and Jacob had the creepy underage half-vampire romance going, but he'd tried that before and been told to shut up and go to his room to think about what he'd said. Which, no matter how hard he thought about it, still sounded sane and rational.
Jensen sighed. "So you want me to make a sock puppet, gain the trust of the Team Jacob people, and then steal their fake-real manuscript to tell you about it?"
"And then maybe get cancer at the end," she said thoughtfully. "I always like a good tragic death."
"Great," said Jensen. "If I can convince the school I have cancer too, maybe they won't care I failed all my classes because I was spending too much time on the internet."
"I'll write you a note," said his mother absently. "Bye, honey."
*
Next week, Jared was back at the writing center.
"You have another paper already?" Jensen asked.
"One a week," Jared said. "For my intro to lit course. But, hey, no midterm, no final, so I'm not complaining." He looked around Jensen's table. "No Cassie Clare?"
"I finished it," said Jensen. "My mom was seriously hounding me."
Jared laughed. He had a really awesome laugh. "Parents, right?"
Jensen groaned. "Mine are--really, really crazy."
Jared leaned in. "Yeah?"
Jensen shook his head. "Man, I couldn't even begin to tell you. Let's see the paper."
*
*
It had been a long time since Jensen had actually had fun on the internet. Everything was all horrible drama and having flamewars with himself and having to read ten billion horrible ooc fics about characters he barely even likes anymore. The RPing is actually really helping--he's remembering the kinds of things he used to actually enjoy in fandom. He's not going nuts or anything--he hasn't told anyone his real name, and Aldis is sworn to secrecy, but he has admitted to being a guy. And his castmates are awesome; Bella and Cloud love playing up Edward's creepy stalker side, and Jacob is seriously great, tons of hilarious ideas and up for anything.
Of course, as with everything about Jensen's internet life, there's a but.
*
Pavel: Check it out! We're famous on the internet.
http://i29.tinypic.com/xlf02.png
me: ...
...
...
wow
Pavel: We are a sexy time, dude!
me: apparently
Pavel: You okay?
me: yeah, just
you know all those people who make secrets about how they can't admit to liking stuff because their flists would disown them?
Pavek: Yeah...
me: my flist is like that with slash
and kind of everything about jacob
but I kind of ship it too
Pavel: Hey, don't worry! I do too ;) It can be our secret.
*
*
"God, I can't believe we hit the anonmeme," said Jensen, dropping his head to his desk. "At least one of those is my dad."
"Your life is fucked up," said Aldis sagely. "What'd Jared say about it?"
"Why would I tell Jared?" Jensen asked. Yeah, Jared still came once a week to the writing center, and they were Facebook friends now, but he and Jensen didn't chat about his RP shit. Just because Jared knew about Cassandra Clare didn't mean he wanted to hang out with a guy whose online life revolved around fucking Twilight.
"Uh, because he's half the pairing?" said Aldis.
"You mean--Jacob?" Jensen asked, still confused.
"Yeah, his mun's name is Jared. He actually goes here," said Aldis, slanting Jensen a look. "He's a freshman. And he talks about you all the time, and it is killing me to not tell him that you go here too, so you should get on that. I feel like a bad captain."
Jensen often forgot that Aldis and Jacob--Jared?--shared a fandom; Jacob's theoretical primary was Chekov from the Star Trek reboot, and Aldis was Kirk. Aldis had hounded him goodnaturedly for a while about how he was totally stealing Jacob away, and Jensen had felt a kind of warm pride.
"Does he, uh," said Jensen. "Does he know you know me?"
"He knows I got you in the game, and I told him I know you IRL but I didn't tell him you live next door or go to this school."
Jensen tried not to hit his head on something. He'd been kind of crushing on Jacob, because Jacob was hilarious and fun and easy to talk to, but he'd been figuring he was secretly a girl or really old or something. "What's his last name?" asked Jensen.
"Padalecki," said Aldis. "I know you know him cuz you guys are fucking Facebook friends."
"Oh, fuck my life," said Jensen, groaning.
"What, you don't like him?" Jensen managed a half-hearted glare, and Aldis's eyebrows rose. "Oh, you do like him. Oh." Aldis grinned. "Man, you are coming to lunch tomorrow. I am hooking you guys the fuck up."
*
*
"Okay, so," said Jared, sitting down across from Jensen on his usual writing center night with his usual big grin, "the masquerade ball."
Jensen clicked away from fandomsecrets very fast, because even more embarrassing than commenting to agree with an "in love with my RP partner post" was having said RP partner show up and see you, and raised his eyebrows. "We're not even going to pretend to talk about your paper?"
Jared beamed. "Dude, no way! I cannot believe you didn't tell me who you were. Now, in revenge, I am making you plot with me IRL."
"Hey, I didn't know who you were either," Jensen protested weakly. "Aldis told me yesterday."
"Aldis is a way better friend than you," said Jared. "Anyway, Jacob is totally forgetting a little about the whole," he waved his hand, "getting Bella back part of their relationship, and kind of just likes hanging out with Edward. And I don't know if you've been following him and Winry?"
Jensen blinked. "Uh, yeah, kind of," he admitted. He figured that was better than saying he stalked all of Jared's threads kind of obsessively.
"She's been telling him to go for Edward," said Jared. "I mean, in her Winry way. She wanted to know if she could try to set them up at the ball."
Jensen laughed. "What, because we're in costume, we actually won't recognize each other?"
Jared shrugged. "Jacob's getting curious. He'd be willing to try it."
Jensen shook his head. "Yeah, I can--see Edward being willing to pretend," he admitted.
"Great!" said Jared. He looked away, drumming his fingers on the table. "Hey, you should come over to my room for the party, it'll be more fun if we hang out. My roommate's kind of a dick about the whole RP thing, but he's pretty easy to ignore."
Jensen licked his lips and swallowed. "You could come over to mine. No roommate. Aldis lives next door, but he's not allowed to judge us."
Jared gave him another grin, huge and bright, and Jensen had to look away.
"Awesome!" He flushed. "So I maybe haven't actually finished my paper, and I should do that. I just didn't want you thinking I was ditching you know that I know your secret identity."
Jensen smiled back. "Thanks, I'm reassured. Go work on your paper, Jared."
Jared saluted as he got up. "And I'll see you Friday for the masquerade ball." He paused. "Or earlier, if you want. You know. I'd love to grab lunch sometime," he added. "I, um, don't have a lot of RL fandom friends."
Jensen wished that words like "RL" and "fandom" were not kind of a turn-on for him.
Right then, his mother popped up in an IM window, and Jensen frowned. And that right there was the downside to fandom. "Yeah," he managed, giving Jared a smile. "I'll call you."
Jared waved, and Jensen tried not to sigh.
*
Edward's: jensen?
Jensen??
JENSEN!
me: sorry, mom, at work, kind of afk
Edward's: oh ya
well
how r u doing w/ into_the_sun????
me: pretty sure it's a total hoax, she's got nothing.
Edward's: she must have SOEMTHING
me: she has, like, three excerpts, but says that smeyer would be betrayed if she shared the entire thing with the internet
b/c it was shared in confidence
Edward's: that BITCH
go make a cryptic fandom secret about how she stalks taylor lautner
me: k
*
Jensen wanted to make his own fandom secret anyway. It's not a hardship.
*
*
"Man, you are freaking out like my baby sister on her first date," said Aldis. "It's kind of awesome. I'll tell you the same thing I told her--he tries to get past first and you break out the mace."
"Wow," said Jensen, "I am so glad I never tried dating your little sister."
"She doesn't have a dick, so I'm thinking you wouldn't be into her."
"Fuck you," Jensen groaned. "God, my parents are going to slaughter me. And I don't even know what reason they'll pick! He likes Jacob, he likes Jacob/Edward, he's a guy..."
"Are your parents more homophobic or Twilight-obsessive?" asked Aldis.
"Twilight-obsessive," muttered Jensen.
"So lie and say he's Team Edward. Like, hey guys, yeah, I'm dating a dude, but at least he thinks Jacob should DIAF!"
"We're not dating," Jensen pointed out, like he hadn't brought this up.
"Yet," said Aldis. "Seriously, when I told him you were Edward? He was so happy he nearly kissed me."
"I'm going to have to tell him my whole family are crazy Twihards. My sister coruns My Life Is Twilight, jesus."
"Aren't half of those trolls?" asked Aldis.
"Half of those are me trolling," Jensen admitted. "This is why I will never have a boyfriend."
"Well, at least get laid. This whole sexually frustrated thing is way too Edward." Aldis grinned. "And now I am going to my room so I can not bask in the power of your gay love."
Jensen sighed. "Thanks for the pep talk, boss."
Aldis grinned. "If you choose to ignore my sage advice? Suit up. Just because you're both virgins doesn't mean you shouldn't be safe."
Jensen flipped him the bird as he left.
This really wasn't a date. This was actually horrifically sad, because they were going to sit around in Jensen's dorm room, each on their own laptop, roleplaying a fictional date between fictional characters on the internet.
Jensen's life could stand to be a little more Twilight.
*
Jared showed up at six with a pizza and his laptop. "What's your costume?" he asked, as he set himself up on Jensen's bed--Jensen's bed--with his laptop.
"Uh," said Jensen, looking away with a flush. "Dracula."
Jared snorted. "Of course. Take away all my plausible deniability."
Jensen laughed. "Whatever, I'm sure there'll be tons of fake vampires at the masquerade ball," he said, setting his laptop up on his desk.
Jared patted the bed next to him. "Dude, sit over here. You aren't gonna be able to reach the pizza." He grinned. "Trust me, if you aren't here to stake your claim I am totally capable of eating the whole thing myself."
Jensen wasn't really sure his bed would hold both of them--it was a standard college bed and therefore tiny, and Jared was pretty much the opposite of tiny, but he had left some room. And Jensen didn't exactly mind having to get close to Jared.
He was fucked.
"Jacob's just wearing a tux and a mask," said Jared. "Taylor Lautner in formal wear is fucking hot."
Jensen flushed, a little uncomfortable. He and Jared had never actually had the sexuality conversation, but Bella-mun had made more than one reference to his love of the cock. "Yeah," he agreed awkwardly.
"Sorry," said Jared, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm gay, by the way."
"No," said Jensen quickly, "I am too, it's fine." He laughed a little. "Just, you know. Team Edward."
Jared laughed, long and loud. Jensen got a little distracted watching it.
"Whatever, man, your Edward? Is totally Team Jacob."
"Nah," said Jensen, grinning. "He just wants Jacob for himself, he still doesn't want Jacob to be with Bella."
"Jerk," said Jared, knocking his shoulder against Jensen's and then just--staying there.
It wasn't exactly subtle.
The post for the dance was already up, and Jared put up a thread for Chekov and a thread for Hawkeye--Jensen still is struggling with one character, he doesn't know how Jared manages five--and then gave Jensen a bright grin. "So, I'm all yours," he said.
Jensen wasn't great at the flirting thing, but he was pretty sure Jared was doing it.
"My parents don't know I'm gay," said Jensen, in a weird rush.
"Mine don't either," Jared said, apparently unfazed by Jensen's verbal diarrhea. He smiled at Jensen, sympathetic and a little concerned. "Are they homophobic?"
Jensen laughed. "I don't actually know." He rubbed the back of his neck. "God, my family is crazy. I don't even know how to explain them."
"Try me," said Jared.
"They're, um, really rabid Twilight fans, and they think slash, like, destroys fandoms." He looks away. "Before Twilight they were big into--god, I don't even know. Stargate? And then Highlander before that." He laughed, kind of nervously. "I honestly don't know if they realize real gay people exist outside of, like, breaking up their OTPs."
Unexpectedly, Jared started laughing. Like, really hard. Jensen wasn't sure if he should be relieved or insulted.
"Oh god," said Jared. "I bet your mom and my mom have flamewars." Which was about the last thing Jensen expected him to say.
"Um, what's your mom's LJ name?"
"Her main one is into_the_sun but she has like fifteen."
And that was when Jensen started laughing too.
*
Fifteen minutes later, Jacob and Edward were snarking together at the masquerade ball, Winry was plotting to set them up, and Jensen was making out with the son of the co-owners of Team Jacob HQ.
"My mom was really sad when your sockpuppet left fandom," Jared murmured against Jensen's lips, pulling Jensen on top of him.
"Yeah?"
"Mm, yeah. She thought you were so nice and respectful."
"Yeah, well, I was failing bio, so I had to wrap it up," Jensen said.
"She didn't update her fanfic for a whole half a day," Jared said. "That's like mourning for her."
"Thank god I didn't give myself cancer." Jensen slipped his hands under Jared's shirt. "We're probably supposed to be getting Edward and Jacob laid."
Jared laughed. "Hey, you know that secret I sent you about people shipping them?"
"Yeah?"
"I wrote it."
Jensen laughed. "Yeah?"
Jared nuzzled his neck. "And I definitely know I ship the muns harder."
*
*
"My parents are going to murder me," said Jensen.
"This is like Romeo and Juliet, but dorky. And gay. And pathetic," said Aldis. "Especially pathetic."
"At least we made out IRL instead of just making our characters hook up," Jared pointed out. "That would have been more pathetic."
"Your characters hooked up too," Aldis said. "Which was sad. Cute, but sad."
"You're just saying it was cute because you want Winry-mun to cyber with you," said Jensen. "You're disgusting. I'm ashamed of you."
"You're pissed that your boyfriend is Team Jacob and you're taking your rage out on me," said Aldis. "That's okay, I can live with that."
"They won't actually kill you, right?" asked Jared. "There's no way my parents will bother to kill me. They'll probably start trolling my journals and maybe disown me, but I don't think they'll resort to violence."
"Wait, seriously?" asked Aldis. "Like, you're not joking right now. Your parents are gonna disown you for dating Jensen?" he groaned. "Shit, this is Romeo and Juliet, and I am so Mercutio. I am gonna get shanked by a Twihard."
"No one is getting shanked!" said Jared. He glanced at Jensen. "Right?"
"Aldis definitely isn't getting shanked," said Jensen, because he's sure of that.
"We should start trying to introduce our parents to gay sock puppets or something," said Jared. "Just to, you know. Get them started."
Jensen groaned. "This is gonna suck."
Jared leaned over and kissed him, giving him a sunny smile as he pulled away. "But it's totally gonna be worth it."
Jensen was not responsible for the sappy smile he responded with.
"Please," said Aldis, "I am begging you, man. Hook me up with Winry. I am totally a catch. And I have a feeling you guys being all sappy and happy is gonna get real old, real fast."
Jared grinned. "I guess I do kind of owe you. I'll see what I can do."
*
me: hey, did you read His Forever?
Macaroni: ummm i dunno
tell me more
plot? author?
me: diamond_dusted
au before breaking dawn, alternate take on bella becoming a vampire?
Macaroni: OH was that the one with, like, Jacob/Seth??
me: yeah, a little
Macaroni: ew, no way, I don't read slash
me: it was like two lines
like, oh, hey, jacob gave up on bella and he's dating another werewolf now
and alice had seth over to talk about giving head
which was hilarious
Macaroni: ugh, jensen! i don't want to read about werewolf blowjobs
leave me alone :P
me: prude
*
Henrietta: what is this about you reading slash?
me: hi dad, nice to hear from you too
I'm fine, by the way
what is it?
Henrietta: your sister said you were reading SLASH
me: I read a fic with a slash pairing?
it was e/b
there was like two seconds of gay jacob
Henrietta: jensen
we've talked about this
i know slash might seem edgy
and a lot of your friends have probably tried it once or twice
but it's WRONG
me: you know slash fic != pot, right?
Henrietta: don't you sass me jensen
i am your father
me: this convo would be way less weird if you weren't on a female account
Henrietta: what did i just say about sass
*
By the time Thanksgiving rolled around, Jensen was about ready to murder his entire family.
"I wrote an Edward/Jacob fic under a psuedonym and they all came and flamed it. My dad three times."
"I think your dad protests too much," said Jared. "I bet he shipped, like, Duncan/Richie, and now he's ashamed, so he claims to hate all slash. But sometimes, late at night, when everyone else is asleep, he goes to the Wayback Machine and finds his old favorites."
"Wow," said Jensen. "Thanks for that horrifying look into my father's theoretical psychoses."
"Anytime," said Jared, kissing him on the cheek. "Do you still want to come out over Thanksgiving?"
"Yeah," said Jensen. "Best case scenario, I don't have to go home for Christmas."
"I like how your goal is getting disowned for being gay."
Jensen sighed. "Well, you know. Rather than getting killed."
"For liking Jacob," said Jared, a little too smugly for Jensen's tastes.
"Whatever," Jensen muttered, smiling. "He's okay, I guess."
*
His first day back, Jensen's mother had him spend the whole day attacking her new sockpuppet so that the Jacob fans would defend her from his vicious flaming and she could gain their trust.
So, clearly, he didn't really have time to bring up the whole boyfriend thing.
The second day, Mack's boyfriend told her he really wasn't into roleplaying vampires during sex (and Jensen felt kind of smug that his boyfriend was) and the fallout from that kept them pretty busy. Plus, Jensen had to admit, it would be a seriously dickish move if he followed up Mack's breakup with "By the way, I have a boyfriend." Stealing her thunder and rubbing it in.
The third day was Thanksgiving, so it was mostly cooking and eating and being thankful for Robert Pattinson.
"Seriously?" Jared asked, laughing.
"Seriously. What, your family isn't thankful for Taylor Lautner's chiseled abs?"
"We're thankful for Stephanie Meyer and all our friends and blessings from the internet." Jared paused. "I think maybe at Christmas my mom prays for RPattz' hair to gain sentience and finally eat him." Another pause. "Wait, that's me."
"I think he prays for that every night. Put him out of his misery."
Jared laughed. "So, hey," he said. "Happy Thanksgiving."
Jensen smiled. "Happy Thanksgiving."
"I'm telling mine tomorrow," Jared said quietly.
Jensen sighed. "Yeah, me too."
*
"So, I'm gay," Jensen announced at breakfast Friday morning.
Everything kind of stopped for a minute.
"What?" asked his mother. "I don't think I heard that."
"I'm gay," Jensen repeated. "I like guys. I have a boyfriend."
"Jensen," said his father, voice eerily calm, "you know how we feel about slash in this household."
"It's not slash if it's real life, dad," said Jensen. He might get disowned. Or he might get stabbed with a butter knife. "It's, you know, homosexuality."
"You're just confused, sweetie," his mother said softly. "It's everywhere now, that slash fanfiction. Girls see a strong platonic relationship between two men and misinterpret--"
"I'm not talking about fanfic, I'm talking about real life!" said Jensen. "And I am not misinterpreting my relationship with my boyfriend, because I'm pretty sure strong platonic relationships don't involve making out."
"You know we do not put up with slash in this household, young man," said his father.
"Homosexuality," said Jensen, hopelessly. "Or, you know, being gay. Being queer. I don't even care."
"Do you write Edward/Jacob now?" Mackenzie asked. She sounded, dare Jensen hope, a little curious.
"Of course he doesn't," snapped his mother.
"What if I did?" asked Jensen. "Seriously, what would you do if I decided I wanted to write slash, guys? What if I wanted to watch House?"
"HUDDY IS A GOOD AND NOBLE SHIP AND YOU WOULD RESPECT IT," his father thundered.
"Oh Jesus fucking Christ," Jensen muttered, and buried his face in his hands.
*
"He really called Huddy a good and noble ship?" Jared asked, wincing.
"Yup," said Jensen. "And then I grabbed my shit, which I already packed, and came back to campus. My dad sent me like five flames. And a link to the Huddy ship_manifesto."
"My mom told me there were comms that could help me realize how I really felt."
"Is that like--straight camp, but on the internet?"
"God, I don't even know," said Jared, laughing a little. "I didn't even try telling them about the whole Team Edward thing."
"If I didn't think my dad would have killed me, I would have lead with that."
"Yeah, dating an Edward fan is way worse than dating a guy."
"Shut up, he's dreamy," said Jensen, sticking his tongue out. He groaned as he got another LJ comment from his mom, this one about how he was a LAIR. "She's breaking out the capslock."
Jared propped his chin on Jensen's head to read. "And the typos. Awesome. You should link my mom so they can get in a flamewar." He snorted. "This is so much more like Romeo and Juliet than Twilight is."
Jensen tried valiantly not to find it hot that Jared made that reference. "So now all we need to do is commit suicide so they can resolve their differences," he teased.
"Huh," said Jared, after a long moment. "That's not a bad idea."
"Dude," said Jensen.
"I mean, not real suicide," said Jared. "Just, you know. Internet suicide."
*
*
"There is no way that's gonna fool them," Jared snorted.
"jen_cullen?" asked Aldis. "Seriously? Did you have to fight a twelve-year-old girl for that?"
"Aldis, unless you want to watch us making out, leave. And I'm hoping it'll just get them thinking."
Jared made a face. "I really doubt it, man."
Jensen sighed. "Yeah, me too. But we'll lay low for a while, get them off our backs."
Jared pouted. "Dude, you want me to stay off the internet for a while? But all the cool stuff is on there!"
"Trust me, dude," said Jensen, closing the laptop and climbing into Jared's lap. "We have better stuff to do."
Jared sighed dramatically. "I guess I'm open to suggestions."
Jensen smirked, looking him up and down. "How do you feel about LARPing?"
Jared grinned back. "Very, very good."