Common Knowledge Ch. 7--Rose-Colored Interviews
Title: Common Knowledge
Author: elucreh
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Summary: Jared, your fangirls. Fangirls, I believe you already know Jared. Better than he knows himself.
Notes: Obviously, they belong to each other. Extended notes following epilogue.
:: 1-The Con-going Fangirl :: 2-Filk :: 3-Fanreports :: 4-The Everyday Fangirl :: 5-Fic :: 6-The Fangirl Online :: 7-Rose-Colored Interviews :: 8-The Fangirl On-Set :: Epilogue: The Kripked Fangirl::
CHAPTER SEVEN: Rose-Colored Interviews
Friday night-well, Saturday morning, really-and Jared is just about ready to throw himself off his teeny tiny porch. He's willing to bet he's more tired than the dead. Even the cold, peaceful dead, who are choosing to snooze away their eternities instead of killing people. Jared is beginning to hate those zombies; they can't seem to fall right in the right light, like, ever-but he's also too keyed up to sleep. The driver just dropped them back at home after a long night of wrestling each other and the MotW, and the adrenaline is still pumping.
He groans and settles on the bed with his laptop. He'll just check his flist and jerk off and crash, and-thank god-he can sleep in tomorrow morning.
He scrolls down so he can read in chronological order, grinning tiredly as he catches glimpses of "squee" and "\o/". Something must have set them off, those adorable whackjobs. Picking up where he left off is an entry from Babyimpala.
New Translation. New Chance To Watch My Head Explode.
This interview is ancient, okay, they gave it to some Italian magazine ages ago and it's only just been coherently translated. (Thank you, Italian fans!) But OH. MY. GOD. Could they be any more married? Just...just LOOK!
Out for a Drink: Winchester Boys with Loosened Tongues
Supernatural stars Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles agreed to let us buy them a drink and answer a few friendly questions.
PRM: We appreciate you taking the time to come out with us.
JP: Well, you got us off work for the night, and you're buying us beer, so I think we'll have to say the pleasure's all ours.
PRM: You work a lot of long hours, I understand. How are you handling that? Do you ever get tired of being around each other so much?
JP: Obviously, it's very important that we be able to not just get along, but support each other. It's hard work, very hard work, physically and mentally and emotionally, and we lean on each other to get through it with our sanity. If I have a bad day or a problem, Jensen's the first person I think of to help me out.
JA: I'd have to agree. Jared and I get each other through a lot of tough scenes, a lot of tough times.
PRM: I know you get asked about being superstitious, having real-world encounters with the supernatural, a lot, so I won't ask. Jared's talked about a habit he has when he goes under a yellow light. Have you picked up each other's habits or ways of thinking?
JA: I catch myself doing Jared's roof-thing sometimes. And it isn't exactly a superstition, but he never used to take his shoes off at the door.
JP: (laughs) I'm much less of a slob than I used to be. Jensen's a better influence than he'll admit.
PRM: Does he keep you from partying too hard?
JA: Oh, we take turns being the designated driver. Half the time we were already planning on crashing at one apartment or the other, anyway-sometimes at two in the morning we're so sorry for the studio's drivers we just tell them to drop us both off at Jared's. That way he has help walking the dogs in the morning and I have someone to make my coffee.
JP: Strictly so he won't complain about coming out to walk my babies, of course. (laughs)
And then the rest is show, what were spoilers a million years ago, blahblahblah, but the important points are totally up there. How they rely on each other more than anybody, and they're rubbing off on each other, and how THEY ARE SO MARRIED AND RAISING THE PUPPIES TOGETHER. Those are the most important bits. Except for the picture!!
Jared's lazily grinning as he clicks on the link, remembering that interview with a certain fondness. With unusual tact, the reporter had restricted herself to her official questions, and his agent told him she didn't even mention him pestering Jensen to sing karaoke or Jensen's giggle fit when Jared spilled his beer. They'd both been high with sleep-deprivation and the alcohol hadn't helped, but she had been great.
Then the picture loads, and his grin fades.
She must have snapped it later in the evening, when they'd stopped paying so much attention to what they were saying or doing. Jensen's grinning widely-it's probably just after the beer spill-and Jared has an elbow on one of Jensen's shoulders and a hand on the other. Jared's smiling down at his costar softly, ruefully affectionate, and Jared's. Heart. Stops.
He remembers that. He remembers reaching out to shake Jensen's shoulder, leaning on him, the warm solidity of his back. He remembers suddenly overflowing with affection for this guy, who he knows and who knows him better than anybody. He remembers a few seconds later, when he bent his head down and rested it against the back of Jensen's neck, grounded and content.
God.
He's in love with Jensen.
Jared has a support system in place for when the world falls apart, and as his brain falls into full-on life-crisis mode, his hand reaches for his cell phone and holds down the number three.
"What's up, man?"
"Jensen, I--" The words dry up in his throat. What's he thinking? He can't go to Jensen with this. "Uh..."
"Jared, you okay?" Jensen sounds worried.
"Um..."
"Jared, say something."
"I, uh-I just-wanted to let you know I won't be able to make it tomorrow."
"Oh, sure. Why?"
"I-well," Jared hesitates, but if he can't talk to Jensen, there's really only one person he can talk to. "I'm gonna...go down and see Sandy. For the weekend, you know."
He can hear Jensen frowning. "Okay...what's wrong, man?"
"Nothing! Nothing at all."
"You sure? You're not going down there to...propose or bash her head in for cheating on you or anything?"
"...Why would you think that?"
"Because you sound like you've got a blender in your throat, maybe?" Jensen's tone has moved from 'mild concern' to 'I can kick your ass,' and Jared winces, because Jensen's at his nastiest when he's being protective.
"No! No, no...I just, I haven't talked to her in a while, you know that, and-I have something I wanna ask her. "
"And this question...doesn't involve any kind of...bended knee?"
Jared squawks. "What? No! You think I'd trust myself to pick out a ring without hauling you into seven different jewelry stores? You think I didn't learn from the disastrous bracelet incident?"
"All right. It's just, you sound...nervous or worried or something."
"I-" Jared can't figure out how to finish that sentence.
"Jay...you know you can talk to me, if you need to, right? I mean, I can be there in seriously about a minute and a half. I have superpowers."
"No!"
The silence draws out, and as it stretches it grows heavy with confusion and hurt. "Awright, man, if that's--"
"Jensen...I just...this is something I gotta talk to her about first, you know? I promise I'll come cry on your shoulder if I need to."
"You big girl." But he sounds mollified.
"Yeah, yeah, you can buy me a pink pony when I get back, okay?"
"I'm thinking unicorn."
"You would." Jared manages to wring out a chuckle.
They can go on in this vein for a while, but clearly Jared isn't doing much of a job of faking it, because Jensen doesn't pursue the point. "Call me when you get there? Or if you need m-anything?"
"'Course, man."
"Okay. I'll see you Monday."
"'Night."
"'Night."
Jared stares at the phone in his hand for a long minute before he calls the airport and books a flight the old-fashioned way, avoiding the glare of his computer.
Is he crazy?
*~*~*
Crazy or not, he's knocking on Sandy's door at eight o'clock the next morning, the little carry-on bag of clothes and shaving kit shaking a little in his other hand. Rachel opens the door, and her forehead immediately creases with concern. "Jared! What are you doing here?"
"Hello to you, too," he says wearily, and lets her wrap an arm around his neck, hugging her lightly.
"You look like shit, Jared, don't give me that. You have no business treating yourself like this, not with your schedule."
He shrugs a little. "Sandy here?"
"Yeah. In her room. She doesn't know you're coming?"
Jared shrugs again. "Needed to see her."
Rachel raises her eyebrows, but she doesn't say anything. "C'mon in."
Sandy's door is half-open, but he knocks anyway, and when she calls "Come in," he hesitates before he ducks inside.
She's doing one of her complicated sports-bra related moves, wrestling it around her beautiful breasts. He'd forgotten she should have class this morning. She untwists the last strap as she turns around, and then she sees him, and her eyebrows go up.
"Jared? What--"
"Hi."
She walks over and wraps an arm around his waist, her haphazard kiss landing somewhere between his chin and his ear. "I wasn't expecting you."
"No."
She looks up at that, scanning his face, reading him the way she's always been able to, and then abruptly turns around.
"Sandy, what--"
But before he can finish his sentence, she's swept her phone up from the nightstand and is waving him silent. He sits on the end of the bed to wait.
"Janice? It's Sandy. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be there today. I've got a family emergency, just came up. Yeah. Yep. Thanks, I will. Sorry about this. Thanks."
"You didn't have to--"
"Don't be stupid, Jared. For one thing I haven't spoken to you in weeks, so I'd cancel on her anyway. For another, have you looked in a mirror?"
"Rachel said I looked like shit," he admits, sheepishly.
"Rachel was being kind. What's going on?"
Jared ducks his head and draws a shaky breath. He can't figure out where to start. He watches her feet come closer, breathes in her powder-scented deodorant and the spiced apple candle warming in a corner of the room. Her fingers run through his hair.
"Jared? Baby, talk to me."
A noise chokes its way out of his throat, and she pulls him to her. "Hey, it's okay. Whatever it is, we can make it better."
"I think--" Jared stutters to a halt, and he has to start again. "I think I might be in love with Jensen."
The hand in his hair freezes, and he doesn't dare look up.
"Okay. We're going to need to talk about this."
But she doesn't sound hurt, or mad, and he lets his head rest against her.
*~*~*
An hour and an increasingly crazy story later, they're curled up in the bed, Jared using Sandy's lap for a pillow. A small silence has fallen.
"...You don't seem-surprised," Jared says finally. He looks up into her face, and she smiles softly down at him.
"I'm not." A beat. "I mean-in a way I am. You've never-I never thought you might like guys. It didn't really enter my head at all." She scrunches her nose at him. "But Jensen...it really is there for just about anyone to see, baby. That-that you're not just close, you're connected. You know?"
"All too well."
"I didn't think it might be...romantic. Might be sexual. But--"
"I'm not...I don't know that it is. Myself. I mean, I never-I haven't really--looked, you know? But I know what it feels like to be in love. I remember-from when I was in love with you."
For the first time, tears well up in her eyes, but she pushes him back down when he tries to get up. He presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist instead.
"There's no need for the eyes, Jared." She sounds mock-reproving.
He flinches. "I wasn't--"
"I know." Her voice softens. "Baby, this is the first time we've spoken in six weeks. Do you realize that? Do you remember when our schedules were exactly what they are now, but we still never went more than two days without really talking? We've been letting this happen...our priority hasn't been our relationship in a really long time. It's just gonna take a little while to heal from it, okay? I don't want you to feel bad about this. It's both of us. We weren't making it work."
Jared blows out a breath. "Yeah. Okay."
"Okay." The corner of her mouth quirks up. "I want you to start figuring this Jensen thing out, Jared. If you haven't been looking, look. See if you can get him to look back. I want-I want you-I want both of you to be happy."
"Yeah, okay."
"Besides...when the two of you get together it's going to be really, really hot." The little half-smile turns into a watery grin.
Jared laughs out loud. "That's the general opinion of the internet."
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Author: elucreh
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Summary: Jared, your fangirls. Fangirls, I believe you already know Jared. Better than he knows himself.
Notes: Obviously, they belong to each other. Extended notes following epilogue.
:: 1-The Con-going Fangirl :: 2-Filk :: 3-Fanreports :: 4-The Everyday Fangirl :: 5-Fic :: 6-The Fangirl Online :: 7-Rose-Colored Interviews :: 8-The Fangirl On-Set :: Epilogue: The Kripked Fangirl::
CHAPTER SEVEN: Rose-Colored Interviews
Friday night-well, Saturday morning, really-and Jared is just about ready to throw himself off his teeny tiny porch. He's willing to bet he's more tired than the dead. Even the cold, peaceful dead, who are choosing to snooze away their eternities instead of killing people. Jared is beginning to hate those zombies; they can't seem to fall right in the right light, like, ever-but he's also too keyed up to sleep. The driver just dropped them back at home after a long night of wrestling each other and the MotW, and the adrenaline is still pumping.
He groans and settles on the bed with his laptop. He'll just check his flist and jerk off and crash, and-thank god-he can sleep in tomorrow morning.
He scrolls down so he can read in chronological order, grinning tiredly as he catches glimpses of "squee" and "\o/". Something must have set them off, those adorable whackjobs. Picking up where he left off is an entry from Babyimpala.
New Translation. New Chance To Watch My Head Explode.
This interview is ancient, okay, they gave it to some Italian magazine ages ago and it's only just been coherently translated. (Thank you, Italian fans!) But OH. MY. GOD. Could they be any more married? Just...just LOOK!
Out for a Drink: Winchester Boys with Loosened Tongues
Supernatural stars Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles agreed to let us buy them a drink and answer a few friendly questions.
PRM: We appreciate you taking the time to come out with us.
JP: Well, you got us off work for the night, and you're buying us beer, so I think we'll have to say the pleasure's all ours.
PRM: You work a lot of long hours, I understand. How are you handling that? Do you ever get tired of being around each other so much?
JP: Obviously, it's very important that we be able to not just get along, but support each other. It's hard work, very hard work, physically and mentally and emotionally, and we lean on each other to get through it with our sanity. If I have a bad day or a problem, Jensen's the first person I think of to help me out.
JA: I'd have to agree. Jared and I get each other through a lot of tough scenes, a lot of tough times.
PRM: I know you get asked about being superstitious, having real-world encounters with the supernatural, a lot, so I won't ask. Jared's talked about a habit he has when he goes under a yellow light. Have you picked up each other's habits or ways of thinking?
JA: I catch myself doing Jared's roof-thing sometimes. And it isn't exactly a superstition, but he never used to take his shoes off at the door.
JP: (laughs) I'm much less of a slob than I used to be. Jensen's a better influence than he'll admit.
PRM: Does he keep you from partying too hard?
JA: Oh, we take turns being the designated driver. Half the time we were already planning on crashing at one apartment or the other, anyway-sometimes at two in the morning we're so sorry for the studio's drivers we just tell them to drop us both off at Jared's. That way he has help walking the dogs in the morning and I have someone to make my coffee.
JP: Strictly so he won't complain about coming out to walk my babies, of course. (laughs)
And then the rest is show, what were spoilers a million years ago, blahblahblah, but the important points are totally up there. How they rely on each other more than anybody, and they're rubbing off on each other, and how THEY ARE SO MARRIED AND RAISING THE PUPPIES TOGETHER. Those are the most important bits. Except for the picture!!
Jared's lazily grinning as he clicks on the link, remembering that interview with a certain fondness. With unusual tact, the reporter had restricted herself to her official questions, and his agent told him she didn't even mention him pestering Jensen to sing karaoke or Jensen's giggle fit when Jared spilled his beer. They'd both been high with sleep-deprivation and the alcohol hadn't helped, but she had been great.
Then the picture loads, and his grin fades.
She must have snapped it later in the evening, when they'd stopped paying so much attention to what they were saying or doing. Jensen's grinning widely-it's probably just after the beer spill-and Jared has an elbow on one of Jensen's shoulders and a hand on the other. Jared's smiling down at his costar softly, ruefully affectionate, and Jared's. Heart. Stops.
He remembers that. He remembers reaching out to shake Jensen's shoulder, leaning on him, the warm solidity of his back. He remembers suddenly overflowing with affection for this guy, who he knows and who knows him better than anybody. He remembers a few seconds later, when he bent his head down and rested it against the back of Jensen's neck, grounded and content.
God.
He's in love with Jensen.
Jared has a support system in place for when the world falls apart, and as his brain falls into full-on life-crisis mode, his hand reaches for his cell phone and holds down the number three.
"What's up, man?"
"Jensen, I--" The words dry up in his throat. What's he thinking? He can't go to Jensen with this. "Uh..."
"Jared, you okay?" Jensen sounds worried.
"Um..."
"Jared, say something."
"I, uh-I just-wanted to let you know I won't be able to make it tomorrow."
"Oh, sure. Why?"
"I-well," Jared hesitates, but if he can't talk to Jensen, there's really only one person he can talk to. "I'm gonna...go down and see Sandy. For the weekend, you know."
He can hear Jensen frowning. "Okay...what's wrong, man?"
"Nothing! Nothing at all."
"You sure? You're not going down there to...propose or bash her head in for cheating on you or anything?"
"...Why would you think that?"
"Because you sound like you've got a blender in your throat, maybe?" Jensen's tone has moved from 'mild concern' to 'I can kick your ass,' and Jared winces, because Jensen's at his nastiest when he's being protective.
"No! No, no...I just, I haven't talked to her in a while, you know that, and-I have something I wanna ask her. "
"And this question...doesn't involve any kind of...bended knee?"
Jared squawks. "What? No! You think I'd trust myself to pick out a ring without hauling you into seven different jewelry stores? You think I didn't learn from the disastrous bracelet incident?"
"All right. It's just, you sound...nervous or worried or something."
"I-" Jared can't figure out how to finish that sentence.
"Jay...you know you can talk to me, if you need to, right? I mean, I can be there in seriously about a minute and a half. I have superpowers."
"No!"
The silence draws out, and as it stretches it grows heavy with confusion and hurt. "Awright, man, if that's--"
"Jensen...I just...this is something I gotta talk to her about first, you know? I promise I'll come cry on your shoulder if I need to."
"You big girl." But he sounds mollified.
"Yeah, yeah, you can buy me a pink pony when I get back, okay?"
"I'm thinking unicorn."
"You would." Jared manages to wring out a chuckle.
They can go on in this vein for a while, but clearly Jared isn't doing much of a job of faking it, because Jensen doesn't pursue the point. "Call me when you get there? Or if you need m-anything?"
"'Course, man."
"Okay. I'll see you Monday."
"'Night."
"'Night."
Jared stares at the phone in his hand for a long minute before he calls the airport and books a flight the old-fashioned way, avoiding the glare of his computer.
Is he crazy?
*~*~*
Crazy or not, he's knocking on Sandy's door at eight o'clock the next morning, the little carry-on bag of clothes and shaving kit shaking a little in his other hand. Rachel opens the door, and her forehead immediately creases with concern. "Jared! What are you doing here?"
"Hello to you, too," he says wearily, and lets her wrap an arm around his neck, hugging her lightly.
"You look like shit, Jared, don't give me that. You have no business treating yourself like this, not with your schedule."
He shrugs a little. "Sandy here?"
"Yeah. In her room. She doesn't know you're coming?"
Jared shrugs again. "Needed to see her."
Rachel raises her eyebrows, but she doesn't say anything. "C'mon in."
Sandy's door is half-open, but he knocks anyway, and when she calls "Come in," he hesitates before he ducks inside.
She's doing one of her complicated sports-bra related moves, wrestling it around her beautiful breasts. He'd forgotten she should have class this morning. She untwists the last strap as she turns around, and then she sees him, and her eyebrows go up.
"Jared? What--"
"Hi."
She walks over and wraps an arm around his waist, her haphazard kiss landing somewhere between his chin and his ear. "I wasn't expecting you."
"No."
She looks up at that, scanning his face, reading him the way she's always been able to, and then abruptly turns around.
"Sandy, what--"
But before he can finish his sentence, she's swept her phone up from the nightstand and is waving him silent. He sits on the end of the bed to wait.
"Janice? It's Sandy. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be there today. I've got a family emergency, just came up. Yeah. Yep. Thanks, I will. Sorry about this. Thanks."
"You didn't have to--"
"Don't be stupid, Jared. For one thing I haven't spoken to you in weeks, so I'd cancel on her anyway. For another, have you looked in a mirror?"
"Rachel said I looked like shit," he admits, sheepishly.
"Rachel was being kind. What's going on?"
Jared ducks his head and draws a shaky breath. He can't figure out where to start. He watches her feet come closer, breathes in her powder-scented deodorant and the spiced apple candle warming in a corner of the room. Her fingers run through his hair.
"Jared? Baby, talk to me."
A noise chokes its way out of his throat, and she pulls him to her. "Hey, it's okay. Whatever it is, we can make it better."
"I think--" Jared stutters to a halt, and he has to start again. "I think I might be in love with Jensen."
The hand in his hair freezes, and he doesn't dare look up.
"Okay. We're going to need to talk about this."
But she doesn't sound hurt, or mad, and he lets his head rest against her.
*~*~*
An hour and an increasingly crazy story later, they're curled up in the bed, Jared using Sandy's lap for a pillow. A small silence has fallen.
"...You don't seem-surprised," Jared says finally. He looks up into her face, and she smiles softly down at him.
"I'm not." A beat. "I mean-in a way I am. You've never-I never thought you might like guys. It didn't really enter my head at all." She scrunches her nose at him. "But Jensen...it really is there for just about anyone to see, baby. That-that you're not just close, you're connected. You know?"
"All too well."
"I didn't think it might be...romantic. Might be sexual. But--"
"I'm not...I don't know that it is. Myself. I mean, I never-I haven't really--looked, you know? But I know what it feels like to be in love. I remember-from when I was in love with you."
For the first time, tears well up in her eyes, but she pushes him back down when he tries to get up. He presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist instead.
"There's no need for the eyes, Jared." She sounds mock-reproving.
He flinches. "I wasn't--"
"I know." Her voice softens. "Baby, this is the first time we've spoken in six weeks. Do you realize that? Do you remember when our schedules were exactly what they are now, but we still never went more than two days without really talking? We've been letting this happen...our priority hasn't been our relationship in a really long time. It's just gonna take a little while to heal from it, okay? I don't want you to feel bad about this. It's both of us. We weren't making it work."
Jared blows out a breath. "Yeah. Okay."
"Okay." The corner of her mouth quirks up. "I want you to start figuring this Jensen thing out, Jared. If you haven't been looking, look. See if you can get him to look back. I want-I want you-I want both of you to be happy."
"Yeah, okay."
"Besides...when the two of you get together it's going to be really, really hot." The little half-smile turns into a watery grin.
Jared laughs out loud. "That's the general opinion of the internet."
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