Fic: Just this Good
Title: Just This Good
Author: Miss Kitty E.
Fandom: SPN RPS
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~13,150
Disclaimer: I did not dream Jared and Jensen into existence, but I would have had they not already been running around being real people.
Author's Notes: The more I sat on "Keep Coming Around" the more I realized that I did not quite earn the ending that I had. I was too eager to set them up for life. You could consider this a sequel, a sixth part, a coda, a long vignette. I just wanted to add to their relationship so that it would be more believable. Two parts, but the break is arbitrary. Should be read as one. Title is inspired by the Travis Tritt song, "A Great Day to Be Alive."
Many thanks to Berrylicious, and wendy for very quickly stepping up to the plate with their beta'ing skills and allowing me to finish this before my move.
As always my great thanks to Kate for reading every single word of this story roughly fifteen minutes after it was written. This story is dedicated to you.
Jensen awakes to the sound of Jared's voice, hushed but persistent enough to scratch lightly at the back of Jensen's skull. He opens his eyes and immediately closes them against the bright sunlight flooding in from the window. He doesn't move, doesn't stretch. Before he consents to full consciousness, he takes a moment to assess the situation. Six days a week Jensen subjects himself to early mornings, ripped from sleep by his clock radio before the sun is even up. On those days he'll lay in bed only for a minute or so, the strains of Bachman Turner Overdrive or something like that preventing him from slipping back into his dreams while he bullies himself into getting up for a jog. Waking up stretched out on his stomach, relaxed and tangled in cool sheets, knowing that Jared is close by and that there is nothing at all he needs to do right now is the exact opposite of that. It's this that he's wishing for when he lies in bed rubbing a hand over his pained expression every day except Sunday.
He opens his eyes, expecting the brightness this time, but still it makes him wince. Words aren't quite processing yet, but actually looking at Jared might give him a clue as to whether or not Jensen should be trying to listen. He squints and sees nothing but an empty bed. He lifts his head, twists his neck back a little awkwardly, so comfortable in this position he'll try anything to preserve the arrangement of limbs, pillows, and sheets. Jared is sitting on the corner of the bed, both feet on the floor, but without Jensen's contacts, he's a blur. His long torso, the slope of his shoulders, and the messy peaks of his hair as hazy as if seen through fogged glass, but Jensen can just make out the black square of a cell phone held to Jared's ear.
"Awesome," Jared says, syllables finally assembling themselves into a word Jensen recognizes. "That's great, thank you so much."
There's an audible click as Jared closes his phone and Jensen relaxes, bedclothes rustling as he lays his head back down. It's not nearly late enough to get up yet. Most Sundays he stays in bed until only his stomach's growling makes it seem worth the effort of leaving it.
"Did I wake you up?" Jared asks, voice as soft and warm as the hand that comes to rest low on Jensen's back.
"Mm," Jensen responds, meaning 'yes, but that's okay, I'm half asleep already' with just a little bit of 'your hand feels good.'
Jared knows the Sunday routine by now. He might go for a run while Jensen sleeps, or he might head back to his parent's place where he's still ostensibly staying, though he'll just be back here again before dinner. Either way, he always lets Jensen sleep as long as he wants.
Except for some reason his hand is sliding up Jensen's back too insistently to be ignored, and he bends his body down to kiss Jensen's shoulder.
"Hey," Jared says, as if his hands and mouth weren't enough to keep Jensen from falling back to sleep completely. "Come on, get up. I have a surprise for you."
Jensen's thinking that surprise better be a blowjob and four more hours of sleep, but Jared's hands are too chaste, smoothing up and down Jensen's sides, tickling him just enough to make him squirm. Jensen secretly likes it when Jared's playful. He might feign a high and mighty attitude about it, but when it's over he always feels breathless and light. It isn't what he wants right now, and he frowns and buries his face into the pillow like he hates it, but he would never actually say stop. He doesn't want one cranky morning to take precedence over every other time he found himself wrestled to the ground, pinned by Jared's hands and his wide, happy smile.
Jared presses his face into the back of Jensen's neck and takes a deep inhale, lips ghosting over the nape. It's all very sweet- and Jensen's not regretting for a minute anything that led to him being awoken, willingly or unwillingly, by all the soft, loving touches Jared Padalecki has in his arsenal -but mornings really aren't the best time to spring things on him. He can feel some crabby response bubbling up as his shoulders tense.
"Jared," he says, rolling over. He pauses long enough to give some thought to how to say 'not right fucking now' in a really nice way, but Jared just kisses him, short and sweet. He looks down at Jensen with 'please' written all over his face, from the wrinkle of his brow down to his slightly open lips.
Jensen looks away, tries to steel his resolve, and looks back again. He sighs. "This surprise, do I have to do anything?"
Jared grins, shaking his head. "I've got it all taken care of. Just find your swim trunks and I'll get everything together, okay?"
"Swimming?" Jensen makes a face. "Jared, I really, really don't like-"
"Nuh-uh," Jared says, hopping up. "Assume the worst and complain all you want, but this-" he grabs Jensen's wrists, "is-" he pulls up firmly, "happening."
Jensen is now sitting up and not happy about it. His whole body is heavy, too heavy to support, and the urge to just flop back against the bed is so strong. He makes a last ditch effort for some pity, moaning, "Jared..." but Jared just kisses him again, and slaps his thigh, the sound and the shock of it forcing Jensen's eyes wide open.
"Brush your teeth and find your fucking swim shorts, whiner."
He stands there waiting as Jensen tries to the find the will and the energy to get up off the bed. When he finally does, Jared disappears into the front room leaving Jensen to try and brush his teeth while frowning at the mirror. He takes his time, flosses, deals with his contacts, shaves his face meticulously, hunts through every drawer for something to swim in, for a t-shirt he dislikes enough to sacrifice to risk ruining with sun and water.
When he comes out into the living room, Jared hands him an apple and a backpack. "Sunglasses?"
Jensen scans the living room, spots them on a bookshelf, and gets them just a moment before Jared opens the door. Looking at how bright the sun is at only nine in the morning, Jensen sighs, whatever little adventure Jared had planned was probably going to leave him red and shiny as a chili pepper. It's not hot yet, but Jensen can feel the promise of it in the air as they walk down to the parking lot.
Jared's parents are letting him use an old Volvo they keep around in case one of their children (Meghan) totals another (third) car. They stop, mercifully, at a drive-thru Starbucks so Jared can grab a muffin and Jensen can get the biggest, strongest cup of coffee they're legally allowed to sell him.
It takes a while for Jensen's brain to get completely going. It's why he runs in the morning, why the barista in his neighborhood knows his name, why Kristen fills the dead air in the office with non-stop chatter until sometime around eleven Jensen starts noticing the pauses she leaves for him to respond. Jared does it too most of the time, but today he's quiet. Jensen tries to think of something to say, but he's got nothing, absolutely nothing.
Thankfully, Jared is prepared. He plugs his iPod into the radio and plays a steady stream of songs with gentle guitars, crooning songwriters, and just enough drum in the background to be upbeat. He steers the car north on 281 and Jensen shakes his head. He predicts a lake party: fajita meat on the grill, cheap beer in the cooler, and ten to fifteen people Jensen doesn't know, cousins, co-workers, old friends of whichever one of Jared's buddies it was that invited them up.
Jensen doesn't hate parties, but he doesn't have the stamina for all day events. Two, three hours in he finds himself wanting to go home, and the longer it goes on, the more the time spent waiting to leave outweighs the time spent enjoying himself. He knows that if he gets good and drunk, he can usually manage to have a good time no matter how long things go on. He'd rather not drink, seeing as he has work tomorrow but he doesn't want to complain, not yet. He and Jared are not even two months into this thing and compromising is still easy, the novelty of being with Jared is still making a myriad of things more than worth it. He can wait a little longer before that other side of him comes out and starts making things harder.
Jensen finishes his coffee and tosses his cup into the backseat. They pass by the exit for the lake, and Jensen wonders if Jared missed it. When he looks over, Jared just smiles at him briefly, dimples coming out, before focusing back on the road as he urges his clunky car around a pick-up pulling a trailer piled high with cut branches. Realizing he's settled in for a long drive, Jensen searches the bags at his feet, digging until his fingers close on a cold, sweating bottle of water. He takes a sip to clean his mouth of bitter coffee and bites into the sweet crisp of his apple.
Jared finally passes the truck, and the road stretches out ahead of them, empty and straight. Jensen hasn't traveled this particular stretch of highway much, preferring the quick, flat drive of I-35 when he needs to get out of town even if the traffic has him cussing the whole way up and all he sees of Texas along the way is mostly shit-towns and billboards. This road cuts into the land some, but mostly it rises and falls with it, and when they crest a hill, Jensen gets a panoramic view of the Texas Hill Country.
Summer has muted most of the colors, dried the grass out to a pale yellow, baked the trees to a dark, dusty green, but the sunlight reflects off the white limestone so bright it hurts his eyes. The half-wild country is not new to him, but it's not familiar, either. This is the landscape of Jared's childhood, not Jensen's. His own nostalgia is centered on long drives out of the metroplex to some man-made lake, or to his grandparents' place in Odessa. He chews his apple, and takes in the scenery passing by with subdued interest, but he doesn't know if he's being shown, or if he's just catching a glimpse of an area Jared knows so well he presses the brakes before the sign for a slower speed limit comes into view.
Jared breaks the silence after a while, saying as he points off to one side, "Down that road a ways, there's a vineyard where my mom buys wine by the case."
Jensen leans forward to look though there's nothing to see but a sign announcing the country road that would take them there. He relaxes back into his seat, and makes a noise to show he heard.
A little later Jared says, "That place, the barbecue's not so great, but the cobbler, holy shit."
Jensen smiles this time, tilts his head in interest. "Yeah?"
"Mm-hmm," Jared says, driving on. "Meghan, and Jeff and I, we could never ask to stop there when we drove out this way, or mom would automatically say no. Just had to wait and see if they turned off."
Not too long after that they turn off 281 and onto 290 and Jensen wanders if Jared didn't just take the long way into Austin to keep him in the dark a little longer. He perks up a bit, thinking maybe a day at Lake Travis before seeing a show at Carlos'n Charlie's. Only a handful of Jared's old college buddies would probably be there, he could handle that. He tosses his apple core out the window and into the grass along the road.
Midway through Dripping Springs, Jared hangs an unexpected left and Jensen has to admit he's got no idea where Jared's headed. They pass old homes and a new elementary school until the road comes to a 'T' at some farm road, and Jared takes another left, no hesitation. The country passing by the window becomes a little grander, a little wilder. It isn't long before Jared turns again, this time off the road and into a park with a tall metal gate and a brown and white sign soberly proclaiming "Hamilton Pool Nature Preserve."
"What is this place?" he asks, looking out the window, but all he can see is some unremarkable trees and a field of dry grass.
"You'll see," Jared promises.
Jensen turns away from the window, "But who were you on the phone with this morning? I thought it was a friend."
Jared shook his head, eyes on the gravel road as he maneuvered up to a gatehouse. "I had to call here, find out if swimming was okay today. Sometimes they close it down 'cause of bacteria levels."
A sturdy looking woman in unflattering green shorts and ponytail steps out onto the porch and Jared rolls down the window.
"Been here before?"
"Oh yeah," Jared says. He gives her some cash and she gives him a permit to tape to his windshield.
"No dogs. No litter. No glass containers," she says anyway, giving Jared a once over, sizing up the amount of trouble he might be with a smile that big.
"No ma'am," he says, earnest and sincere because Jared never met an authority figure he didn't want to please.
She seems satisfied and waves him on through. They park and that cup of coffee and bottle of water finally catch up to Jensen. He leaves Jared to fuss with the car and pisses into the long drop of a compost toilet.
When he comes out Jared's got the car unpacked, shaded, and locked. He smiles at Jensen. "You ready?"
"For what exactly?" It's hot and dry and the katydids are humming threateningly off in the field and Jensen can't see anything that looks like a pool or even a cool place to sit.
Jared breaks into a full-on grin. "You'll see. Come on." He turns and makes for a trailhead.
Jensen picks up his bag, sighs, and follows behind. The trail starts on sharp a decline, Jared working his way down, quick and surefooted while Jensen lags behind, carefully picking his way among the loose stones. They hike down into some depression in the geography, and at the bottom of it they turn right and head over, following the line of a cliff. Every step Jensen finds a little less impressed, and the backpack that seemed so manageable at first now cuts into his shoulders. He thinks he'd like a rest, or maybe to shift his pack, but what he'd really, really like is to be back in bed.
He bites his tongue, figuratively for now, though if the hiking goes on much longer it's going to get literal. He doesn't want to blame Jared but he does anyway. They don't know each other perfectly, but he figures if Jared had been paying any kind of attention he would know by now that most of Jensen's hobbies revolve around being indoors, and that his idea of a good day doesn't really include hiking, swimming, or being around small towns where he has to watch what he says, what he does.
If he squints it's almost like Jared's being selfish, calling this a surprise for Jensen when it's really his treat. As bad as buying him a box of chocolate-covered cherries when Jared knows that the texture of them turns Jensen's stomach, because then Jared gets to eat them all himself. Maybe this is it, he thinks, the proof that it all really is too good to be true. He looks up again, at Jared's hair curling out from under a baseball cap, his loose shoulders, cheerful and at home where Jensen is off balance and put out. Still, he can't quite bring himself to get angry. It's too obvious that Jared genuinely means well, but he just missed the mark on this one.
They walk along a creek that's not even deep enough to get your knees wet, but so far it's the only water Jensen's seen. Jared passes it by, hollow sound of his feet against the little, wooden bridge that crosses over it. Ahead Jensen can hear the sound of water falling, of some kids laughing and he looks up. He can make out some people through the vegetation, the white of their t-shirts, the bright colors of their swim clothes, but he can only see the beach, not the water. They get around the brush, and then like a dream Hamilton Pool finally shows itself.
It might have been a straightforward swimming hole, just a large, near-perfect circle of placid, clean water, apple green in the sunshine, darker in the shadows, nothing special at all. But this plain old pool happens to be in a half-collapsed cave, dramatic and beautiful in the way Jensen usually associates with a paradise island. Jared moves on to claim a spot in the shade on the small white gravel beach curving along the edge of the water. He sits cross-legged on a towel, rooting around for something in his backpack. Jensen turns back to the water, still trying to take in the details.
It's like a house, Jensen muses, with an inside and outside, separate but part of a whole. A high ceiling of stone, adorned on top with grass and trees, curves out over a third of the pool, creating a room of water and rock. Hemming in the water underneath the outcrop are huge stone slabs, all the same shade of gray, and all of them slanted against the walls of the cave as if they were dabbling their feet into the water. A waterfall trickles over the edge of the outcrop and down into the pool like a delicate curtain between one space and the other. Beyond it, the water, the beach and the vegetation around it look like a well-planned, but overgrown garden. Finally satisfied, he goes over to put his own bag down next to Jared's.
"You like it," Jared states, no doubt at all.
"It's-" Jensen looks back at the water and searches for a word. Beautiful. Idyllic. Incredible. The last time Jensen had such a hard time believing something was real it was Jared standing in a doorway, wet and handsome and cradling rescued kittens. "Yeah," he says.
He pulls a towel out of his bag and lays it out. He flops down next to Jared, and gets a crooked smile. Jensen knows that if there weren't people here, families, and college-aged guys, Jared would be kissing him. He ducks his head down shyly, his answering smile is a secret meant only for Jared to see.
"Come on," Jared says, finding what he was looking for inside his bag. "Sunscreen." He takes off his shirt, squirts a handful into his palm and smoothes some of it over his shoulder.
Jensen takes the tube from him, but doesn't do anything more than hold it in his hand while he watches Jared apply. Jared was plenty fit before, but the decision to get back into acting means he's stepped things up recently so his skin is darker, smoother, and pulled more tautly over muscle than when they first met. He feels the itch of perspiration on the back of his neck, down his back, and he blames it on the hike, though it's not like watching Jared run his hands over himself wouldn't be reason enough to break into a sweat.
Jared looks up and cocks his head, confused maybe by Jensen's stillness. It doesn't take him more than a second to put two and two together though and he smirks, looking cockier than he actually is. He takes the sunscreen from Jensen's limp grasp, and breaks the spell by rubbing some onto his shins. Lotion smearing into dark leg hair is not quite as sexy a thing to look at, and Jensen takes advantage of his sudden presence of mind to take off his shirt and start the very methodical process of making sure every inch of him is thoroughly covered.
White cream on his white skin makes him feel even paler. He looks around as he rubs more lotion in, there's a mother as pasty as he is in shorts, a shirt, and a hat, and a guy sporting very tan arms, but a bleached, protruding beer gut. Other than that it's various shades of tan and brown, young girls with the time to sunbathe, Latino men with cinnamon skin. Jensen sighs, it's bad enough in the shade, but in the sunshine he'll glow fish belly white amongst all the tans.
"Do my back," Jared says, scooting forward.
Jensen looks around again, this time to see if anyone is watching them. No one is much interested, all eyes are on the water, so he focuses his own on Jared's back, on rubbing the white until it disappears into the gold. Jared gets up, moving to sit behind him so he can return the favor. His hands are as wonderful as always, warm and strong and delighting a little too much in their task. Jensen jerks, startled when Jared slips his fingertips just under the waistband of his shorts.
He glares back at him, but Jared is unconcerned. "What? I'm being thorough."
Jensen rolls his eyes, "Thorough is making sure I remember to do this again in an hour. I'm going to kill you if I come home a lobster."
Jared holds three fingers up, "Scout's honor. Come on, let's get in the water." He stands and stretches, the line of hair running from his navel down into his shorts gets a little longer and Jensen's eyes instantly drop. He's never been a big fan of swimming, but more and more he's starting to think that with Jared it's going to be a great spectator sport.
Jared walks out into the sun and up to the water. He leaves his flip-flops at the edge and marches in with something like willful determination. Jensen approaches the pool far more gingerly, and first touch of the water to the sole of his foot tells him exactly why Jared went in like he was ripping off a band-aid.
"Jesus, it's cold!" He's stopped at the ankle, but ahead of him Jared is already up to his knees.
Jared turns around, swirling his fingertips in the water as he does. "Come on, you big baby. You get used to it."
Jensen knows that, but can't help but feel that's really not the point. That he has gotten used to cold water before, or that he will get used to it soon pales in comparison with how cold he is right now. Jared sighs and comes toward him a bit too fast for Jensen's liking and he's out of the water before Jared can get within a foot of him.
Jared laughs at him, bent in half, clapping loudly, the whole nine yards. "I don't think I've ever seen you move that fast before. Oh my god."
"You're not dunking me." Jensen tells him, shifting his weight from foot to foot, the gravel on the beach is surprisingly sharp. It was more comfortable in the water, but he's not getting anywhere near it until they've got this clear.
"I wouldn't dunk you," Jared says, too sincere.
"Bull," Jensen says, catching himself a moment before he finishes the epithet. There are children around, he reminds himself. "You go on. I'll come after you."
"I'll hold your hand if you like," and it's just a taunt, but it still makes Jensen blush that Jared said it so loudly.
"Go on," he shoos Jared away and watches him walk in. He sees the moment of hesitation before Jared's hips sink into the water, but once the family jewels are submerged Jared surges forward, slips under the surface, and swims out into the middle with just two strokes of his long arms.
Jensen can see the shape of Jared beneath the water, can tell a second before it happens when he'll re-emerge. He twists around, treading water, looking back at Jensen still on the shore. Jensen is suddenly torn between the con of cold water and the pro of closing the distance between them. He takes a few steps in and feels goosebumps break out, the hair on his forearms and thighs rising straight up off his skin.
He stops and Jared laughs, sounding far off. "Lame," he taunts, drawing out the word.
Jensen takes another step forward, and Jared swims a stroke back, another step, another stroke back. Jared stops when he stops and Jensen takes a second to weigh his options.
He could pointedly ignore the game Jared's trying to play and take his sweet time getting adjusted until finally Jared's boredom gets him to abandon it, but there's no fun in that beyond gloating rights. He could chase after Jared, but there's no way he'd ever catch up with those strong limbs slicing through the water, and neither of these solutions solve the problem of how damn cold he is.
While he's waffling, Jared sinks under the water again, and Jensen's faced with option three, avoid getting pulled under at all costs. There's no outrunning Jared, the water is up to Jensen's thighs and he'll probably trip if he tries it. If he struggles he's liable to end up repeating the mistakes that led to him accidentally mooning a public pool when he was fourteen. His only option is to beat Jared at his own game so Jensen gives up and dives in.
Jared finds him underwater, touching blindly at his shoulders. They're close to the surface, and Jensen kicks his feet, taking them a little further from the shore, keeping them under a little longer. Jared moves with him, twists his body around with weightless grace as his hands slip from Jensen's shoulders to his waist. Jensen empties his lungs of air, but there's no fighting the slow rise up. The moment they break the surface, he paddles his arms back twice through the water, away from Jared.
Jared shakes the hair out of his eyes, and grins. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Jensen's freezing, but it's worse out of the water than in it, the feel of the wind blowing on his wet skin is too much. Now that he's here, he won't get out until absolutely necessary just to avoid getting used to it all over again. "You play dirty."
Jared laughs. "Yeah, well. The ends justify the means, man."
Jensen would like to ask just what exactly the ends are, but his insatiable need for specificity does not usually make for the best conversations. Instead of asking if this just about a good day out in the country or something more, he tilts his hips up to float on his back a while. Jared swims beside him, and his wake laps against Jensen's face, making him wrinkle his nose.
Jared nudges him after a moment, Jensen opens his eyes and rights himself in the water.
"If you're going to do that, do it in the cave. It's amazing."
Jensen can't imagine what exactly would make floating on his back 'amazing' but Jared is the expert here, so he swims towards the cave. Jared doesn't follow, instead he puts his head down and takes off across the pool like he's swimming laps.
Up close the waterfall feels like frigid rain and Jensen rushes through it, eyes tightly shut. Inside, he floats, eyes still closed, listening to the sound of water falling around him. When his ears dip beneath the surface, it sounds like distant rain. He's not so relaxed that he doesn't worry about where he might be drifting though, and it isn't long before he can't help but open his eyes again to check. He's staring up at the rough ceiling of stone, glancing now and again to make sure he's not about to run into some swimmer, when it dawns on him.
The stalactites shift into mountains, the ferns into trees, the moss to grass, and it's like flying high above the ground. It's a little disorienting, feeling as if he's hovering above and below something at the same time. He floats there a long time, contemplating the lush, inverted world above him, marveling at just how perfect an illusion it is, like an extensive diorama of some alien world. Even the mud swallows' nests look like little houses, and the waterfall becomes a surreal, backwards rain. His thoughts wander, pleasant and aimless, until nearly colliding with a couple of kids he had no idea were swimming behind him brings him back to reality.
He turns over, and spies Jared sitting in the water at the edge of the cave near the only rock positioned under the waterfall. Unlike the others, that boulder has grown mossy and smooth from water that's been falling on it for who knows how long. Jared's watching with one eye as children climb up the slippery sides carefully and stand under the falls with shrieks and big grins, cupping their hands to watch how quickly they fill. He swims over, counting his strokes, reminding himself of the steps. Stroke, kick, breathe, steady progress until at last he finds the submerged group of rocks that Jared's perched on.
"Well?" he asks, turning to him with a knowing smile.
"It is amazing," Jensen admits as he finds his own rock to sit on, close to Jared's.
"This was one of my favorite places when I was a kid. Used to be these fish, I don't know what kind, but they were big and black. They swam just where you could see them along the bottom, all in a line, like a caravan or something. If you wanted to get into the deeper water you had to walk over them. They'd just swim away from you, but I hated it so much. I'd spend forever trying to figure out a way around them."
"Wouldn't have figured you as one of those neurotic kind of kids."
"Mm, I guess I wasn't," Jared shrugs. "There's a couple of places around where you can jump into the water, and I'd do that all day. My mom hated it. But the fish, man, they really wigged me out."
Jensen shakes his head, "That's just like a kid. You'll risk breaking your neck easy, but a bunch of harmless fish is too much to handle." He's seen kids that will bury the faces right into a Rottweiler's fur but start crying hysterically if a parakeet lands on them.
"Who says fish are harmless? One of the little ones swam into Meghan's shorts once and she almost drowned trying to get it out."
Jensen laughs and laces his fingers with Jared's under the water, keeping their hands hidden and discreet.
They swim some, float and talk. Jared tells him a little bit about the rocks, things he learned in lower level geography classes. Jensen points out the different birds, the young perch nipping at the water for insects, the painted turtle swimming warily near the edge of the water. More and more people arrive and the beach becomes crowded, barely a place left to stretch out a towel.
Eventually Jensen's stomach is rumbling, his fingers are wrinkled, and when the wind blows across his skin he can't stop the shiver. They make their way out of the water, arms limp, and legs shaking with the loss of buoyancy. Jared collapses down on their blanket and stretches to air dry, long and lean and mouthwatering while Jensen reapplies sunscreen to his own face and shoulders.
He puts his shirt on. The cotton is hot, sticking to the lotion and his wet skin. "We got anything to eat?"
Jared tosses over his bag and inside Jensen finds a bag of grapes, a loaf of crusty bread, and some soft cheese. A French picnic a la the supermarket, plus a packet of Twizzlers and some beef jerky.
Jensen looks at Jared speculatively, "You buttering me up for something?"
Jared rolls his eyes and takes the bread from Jensen, tearing off a sizable chunk of it. He packs it in with his thumb, chews with his mouth too full, and clearly wooing is the last thing on his mind.
Jensen eats with the bottomless appetite one gets only from swimming, popping small handfuls of grapes into his mouth, pulling off bigger and bigger chunks of bread until only the sight of the half empty containers tells him he's probably eaten enough. He sits back on the heels of his hands and thinks of things to say in the silence.
He almost asks, "Did you ever take Sandy here?" but he thinks better of it when he realizes he isn't sure why that would offend him. It doesn't change the fact that he is here now, sharing the bright sunshine, good, simple food, and a gorgeous view with a man who thinks nothing of planning all day surprises, or saving kittens.
Jared sucks the last of a Twizzler into his mouth and, still chewing, starts to put things away.
"We leaving?" Jensen asks, surprised to find he's not excited. He could have sat a little longer, could have watched Jared take another dip and not been bothered.
"Leaving here, yeah, but this was only part one. There's still something better."
"Better?" He stands and helps Jared shake out the blanket, takes it from him and starts folding.
Jared grins, "Trust me."
Better turns out to be a twenty-minute hike away. Uphill. It's later in the day, hotter, and Jensen is back to being really unimpressed. He keeps his head down, eyes on his feet, because while turning an ankle would effectively put an end to the day, he'd still have to make it back up to the car. If nature's splendor is showing itself along the way, Jensen doesn't notice it.
When they finally get there, it's another big reveal. The trees are dense around them as they climb, the low hanging branches block the view, but through a gap Jensen can just see the sun shining, yellow and bright. At the top of the hill, the trees abruptly give way, and Jensen realizes they're at the top of a high bank. Below them runs a jade river, wide and swift, the rippled surface glittering in the afternoon sun. Down one way, great rocks have piled up against each other, pale, barren islands ideal for stretching out on, and down the other the river curves neatly around a bend. It's not as breathtakingly beautiful as the pool, but the river has got something else going for it. It's practically empty. Their only company is a young couple on the tiny beach at the base of the hill, and a mother standing in the water, watching her children play among the rocks.
Getting down the banks is tricky, the loose, pink sand shifts under his feet so that he has to half run down in order to keep from tipping forward. Jared leaves his shoes and shirt behind as he heads in, and Jensen does the same.
"Careful," Jared warns. "The rocks are killer right here."
They are. Though they've been worn smooth by the river, the rocks are large and irregular, and no matter how carefully Jensen steps they still manage to dig and jab into his feet bad enough to make him trip and gasp. He follows behind Jared slowly, wondering how exactly this is supposed to be better until the rocks thin out and there's only soft silt underfoot. Jared walks against the current, straight out into the middle of the river, and Jensen keeps waiting for the big drop but there isn't one. The water is never deeper than his shoulder. He can stand with twenty feet of river on either side of him, his feet firmly planted, and feel the flow of it pushing steadily against his chest.
They walk upriver, around the bend, and find themselves alone. There's a sandbar up ahead, and Jensen insists on walking up to it. Once there he finds a traffic jam of tracks, neat imprints of deer hooves and raccoon claws leading from the banks to the water plowed through with perpendicular lines of the deep ovals from human feet, booted and bare. He looks behind, he and Jared have added to the confusion. He smiles noticing that while his own footprints walk a straight line, Jared's slant, taking a course that leads inevitably closer to Jensen's.
They go back into the water and find a good place to rest for a while in a wide, level rock sitting just beneath the surface. Jared tucks Jensen flush against him, chest to back and Jensen lets him. There are no sounds other than their voices and the water as it flows by. He sifts through his thoughts for a song to hum. A dozen come to mind, too silly, too honest, too cliché. He settles on a Travis Tritt song he and his college friends used to sing along to sometimes back in Lubbock, the one about homemade soup and doin' all right.
The words come softly out, a little muddled in the verses, but stronger in the chorus. If Jared knows the song, he doesn't join in, just listens and drops his head down to kiss Jensen's shoulder, lips resting against the curve of it for a long time.
"Thought you hated country music?" Jared asks, mouthing the words against Jensen's skin.
He shrugs carefully, lifting Jared's chin along with his shoulder. "Ninety-nine percent of the time I do. Every now and again though, one sneaks by."
"Mm, I bet," Jared says, but he's not talking about music, not with the way his hands are searching. One palm is placed squarely on Jensen's navel and the other slides up the inside of his thigh, pushing up the leg of his shorts.
Jensen fidgets, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," Jared says.
"This is nothing?"
"I could do something, if you'd like to know the difference." He starts some pointed groping, but by now his hands are about the same temperature as the water, and Jensen's dick is floating free and weightless in his shorts and it's just not very exciting.
Jared seems to realize that, and once he's made his point about the difference between something and nothing, he leaves his hands loose on Jensen's waist. He's not off the hook though, not with Jared's nuzzling in, nose brushing Jensen's temple, cheek rubbing against his. When Jensen turns his head to look back at him, Jared goes for that kiss that's been hanging unfinished between them since Jensen first realized that today actually was going to be a good day.
He tries to keep it chaste, light pressure, mouth closed, and then ending it with a smile, but Jared's not settling for half-done. His hand comes out of the water, wet fingers turning Jensen's mouth back to his. Jensen tries to shy away a few more times, but Jared's determined, and finally, to save his neck the strain, he turns in Jared's arms.
It's not like he didn't know before meeting Jared that big guys get off on being big. Not too hard to guess that when so many tall guys end up with wives that are five foot nothing. He's had a taste of it himself, knows the thrill that comes from realizing that the height that in puberty cursed you with big feet and clumsiness now means you're strong enough to hold someone up, or hold them down.
He loves Jared's big body, delights in its strength, its long, lean proportions, but he can't think of himself as small, even in comparison. If it gets Jared hot to have Jensen wrap his legs around his waist and sit comfortably in his lap, that's awesome, but he's not going to hunch his shoulders down or go limp against him. Luckily, Jared seems to like it when Jensen surges up, back straight and neck extended, so that instead of tilting his mouth up to Jared's he's coming down on it. He seems to like almost losing the lead, but Jared still gets it back every time. With the help of the water's buoyancy, he shifts Jensen against him like he weighs nothing at all, arranging him more perfectly in his lap.
They both know there's no letting this run past idle, so no matter how deep Jared's kisses get they remain playful, and no matter how much Jensen teases he never issues a real challenge. Jared smells like long grass, fresh water, and sunscreen. His lips are bland, all the salt washed away by the river, but his tongue is cool and clever in Jensen's mouth.
It's not Jared that says stop, not Jared that sighs and decides things are getting out of hand. But it's still Jensen that buries his face into Jared's fragrant neck regretfully, still Jensen that has to remind himself why it would be a bad idea to let Jared's hands do whatever they want. He squeezes his legs and arms, tight and possessive, around Jared one last time before sliding off into the water again.
Jared slips off the rock too, sighing wistfully.
They head back to the beach, hands clasped together beneath the water until just before they round the bend and see a couple of college-aged girls have appeared, warily exploring the rocks in their expensive bikinis.
As they climb the banks, Jared grunts. "Hey, I think you're burning." He presses his thumb to Jensen's shoulder, and the white imprint of it flushes a dangerous pink soon after.
Jensen slathers on sunscreen and doesn't pause to let it dry before pulling his shirt back on. They lean against an old cedar stump waiting for their feet to dry out after Jared reminds him that there's no better way to get a blister than a twenty-minute hike with damp shoes.
On their way back they pass families and small groups of friends heading towards the river. Their loud voices and bustling energy are a harsh jangle compared to Jared and Jensen's easy quiet. He's thankful Jared had the timing down so perfectly, that they had the chance to be alone. No regrets at all follow him up the trail to the car.
By they time they reach the parking lot, Jensen's fit to drop and cursing Jared's long legs. The boy climbs hills faster than is fair and only by virtue of his pack being lighter by two big bottles of water did Jensen avoid having to punk out and beg for a break.
The car's an oven, everything too hot to the touch, but still he collapses into it gratefully, flapping his shirt to help stir a breeze. Jared starts the car and turns the air on but it doesn't finally start blowing cold until they turn back onto the two-lane highway beyond the gate. Jared takes the winding curves at a gleeful, reckless speed and while Jensen's fatigue exaggerates the swing of each wide turn, it also leaves him strangely unconcerned by it.
"Well?" Jared says after a while.
Jensen rolls his head from one shoulder to the other and looks at Jared.
"That was a good time, right?" Jared elaborates. "Worth it?"
In Jensen's entire life there have only been a handful of days this good, he knows that without even having to think. Not much could make it better except for some sex, a nap, and the promise that looking back on today will never, ever be bittersweet. There's no way at all to say that out loud. Jensen doesn't know the right words.
"Yeah, babe," he says instead, smiling and putting his hand on Jared's knee. "Of course."
Jared shifts gears to slow down for a turn and when he's done with that his hand covers Jensen's with a squeeze.
Part Two
Author: Miss Kitty E.
Fandom: SPN RPS
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~13,150
Disclaimer: I did not dream Jared and Jensen into existence, but I would have had they not already been running around being real people.
Author's Notes: The more I sat on "Keep Coming Around" the more I realized that I did not quite earn the ending that I had. I was too eager to set them up for life. You could consider this a sequel, a sixth part, a coda, a long vignette. I just wanted to add to their relationship so that it would be more believable. Two parts, but the break is arbitrary. Should be read as one. Title is inspired by the Travis Tritt song, "A Great Day to Be Alive."
Many thanks to Berrylicious, and wendy for very quickly stepping up to the plate with their beta'ing skills and allowing me to finish this before my move.
As always my great thanks to Kate for reading every single word of this story roughly fifteen minutes after it was written. This story is dedicated to you.
Jensen awakes to the sound of Jared's voice, hushed but persistent enough to scratch lightly at the back of Jensen's skull. He opens his eyes and immediately closes them against the bright sunlight flooding in from the window. He doesn't move, doesn't stretch. Before he consents to full consciousness, he takes a moment to assess the situation. Six days a week Jensen subjects himself to early mornings, ripped from sleep by his clock radio before the sun is even up. On those days he'll lay in bed only for a minute or so, the strains of Bachman Turner Overdrive or something like that preventing him from slipping back into his dreams while he bullies himself into getting up for a jog. Waking up stretched out on his stomach, relaxed and tangled in cool sheets, knowing that Jared is close by and that there is nothing at all he needs to do right now is the exact opposite of that. It's this that he's wishing for when he lies in bed rubbing a hand over his pained expression every day except Sunday.
He opens his eyes, expecting the brightness this time, but still it makes him wince. Words aren't quite processing yet, but actually looking at Jared might give him a clue as to whether or not Jensen should be trying to listen. He squints and sees nothing but an empty bed. He lifts his head, twists his neck back a little awkwardly, so comfortable in this position he'll try anything to preserve the arrangement of limbs, pillows, and sheets. Jared is sitting on the corner of the bed, both feet on the floor, but without Jensen's contacts, he's a blur. His long torso, the slope of his shoulders, and the messy peaks of his hair as hazy as if seen through fogged glass, but Jensen can just make out the black square of a cell phone held to Jared's ear.
"Awesome," Jared says, syllables finally assembling themselves into a word Jensen recognizes. "That's great, thank you so much."
There's an audible click as Jared closes his phone and Jensen relaxes, bedclothes rustling as he lays his head back down. It's not nearly late enough to get up yet. Most Sundays he stays in bed until only his stomach's growling makes it seem worth the effort of leaving it.
"Did I wake you up?" Jared asks, voice as soft and warm as the hand that comes to rest low on Jensen's back.
"Mm," Jensen responds, meaning 'yes, but that's okay, I'm half asleep already' with just a little bit of 'your hand feels good.'
Jared knows the Sunday routine by now. He might go for a run while Jensen sleeps, or he might head back to his parent's place where he's still ostensibly staying, though he'll just be back here again before dinner. Either way, he always lets Jensen sleep as long as he wants.
Except for some reason his hand is sliding up Jensen's back too insistently to be ignored, and he bends his body down to kiss Jensen's shoulder.
"Hey," Jared says, as if his hands and mouth weren't enough to keep Jensen from falling back to sleep completely. "Come on, get up. I have a surprise for you."
Jensen's thinking that surprise better be a blowjob and four more hours of sleep, but Jared's hands are too chaste, smoothing up and down Jensen's sides, tickling him just enough to make him squirm. Jensen secretly likes it when Jared's playful. He might feign a high and mighty attitude about it, but when it's over he always feels breathless and light. It isn't what he wants right now, and he frowns and buries his face into the pillow like he hates it, but he would never actually say stop. He doesn't want one cranky morning to take precedence over every other time he found himself wrestled to the ground, pinned by Jared's hands and his wide, happy smile.
Jared presses his face into the back of Jensen's neck and takes a deep inhale, lips ghosting over the nape. It's all very sweet- and Jensen's not regretting for a minute anything that led to him being awoken, willingly or unwillingly, by all the soft, loving touches Jared Padalecki has in his arsenal -but mornings really aren't the best time to spring things on him. He can feel some crabby response bubbling up as his shoulders tense.
"Jared," he says, rolling over. He pauses long enough to give some thought to how to say 'not right fucking now' in a really nice way, but Jared just kisses him, short and sweet. He looks down at Jensen with 'please' written all over his face, from the wrinkle of his brow down to his slightly open lips.
Jensen looks away, tries to steel his resolve, and looks back again. He sighs. "This surprise, do I have to do anything?"
Jared grins, shaking his head. "I've got it all taken care of. Just find your swim trunks and I'll get everything together, okay?"
"Swimming?" Jensen makes a face. "Jared, I really, really don't like-"
"Nuh-uh," Jared says, hopping up. "Assume the worst and complain all you want, but this-" he grabs Jensen's wrists, "is-" he pulls up firmly, "happening."
Jensen is now sitting up and not happy about it. His whole body is heavy, too heavy to support, and the urge to just flop back against the bed is so strong. He makes a last ditch effort for some pity, moaning, "Jared..." but Jared just kisses him again, and slaps his thigh, the sound and the shock of it forcing Jensen's eyes wide open.
"Brush your teeth and find your fucking swim shorts, whiner."
He stands there waiting as Jensen tries to the find the will and the energy to get up off the bed. When he finally does, Jared disappears into the front room leaving Jensen to try and brush his teeth while frowning at the mirror. He takes his time, flosses, deals with his contacts, shaves his face meticulously, hunts through every drawer for something to swim in, for a t-shirt he dislikes enough to sacrifice to risk ruining with sun and water.
When he comes out into the living room, Jared hands him an apple and a backpack. "Sunglasses?"
Jensen scans the living room, spots them on a bookshelf, and gets them just a moment before Jared opens the door. Looking at how bright the sun is at only nine in the morning, Jensen sighs, whatever little adventure Jared had planned was probably going to leave him red and shiny as a chili pepper. It's not hot yet, but Jensen can feel the promise of it in the air as they walk down to the parking lot.
Jared's parents are letting him use an old Volvo they keep around in case one of their children (Meghan) totals another (third) car. They stop, mercifully, at a drive-thru Starbucks so Jared can grab a muffin and Jensen can get the biggest, strongest cup of coffee they're legally allowed to sell him.
It takes a while for Jensen's brain to get completely going. It's why he runs in the morning, why the barista in his neighborhood knows his name, why Kristen fills the dead air in the office with non-stop chatter until sometime around eleven Jensen starts noticing the pauses she leaves for him to respond. Jared does it too most of the time, but today he's quiet. Jensen tries to think of something to say, but he's got nothing, absolutely nothing.
Thankfully, Jared is prepared. He plugs his iPod into the radio and plays a steady stream of songs with gentle guitars, crooning songwriters, and just enough drum in the background to be upbeat. He steers the car north on 281 and Jensen shakes his head. He predicts a lake party: fajita meat on the grill, cheap beer in the cooler, and ten to fifteen people Jensen doesn't know, cousins, co-workers, old friends of whichever one of Jared's buddies it was that invited them up.
Jensen doesn't hate parties, but he doesn't have the stamina for all day events. Two, three hours in he finds himself wanting to go home, and the longer it goes on, the more the time spent waiting to leave outweighs the time spent enjoying himself. He knows that if he gets good and drunk, he can usually manage to have a good time no matter how long things go on. He'd rather not drink, seeing as he has work tomorrow but he doesn't want to complain, not yet. He and Jared are not even two months into this thing and compromising is still easy, the novelty of being with Jared is still making a myriad of things more than worth it. He can wait a little longer before that other side of him comes out and starts making things harder.
Jensen finishes his coffee and tosses his cup into the backseat. They pass by the exit for the lake, and Jensen wonders if Jared missed it. When he looks over, Jared just smiles at him briefly, dimples coming out, before focusing back on the road as he urges his clunky car around a pick-up pulling a trailer piled high with cut branches. Realizing he's settled in for a long drive, Jensen searches the bags at his feet, digging until his fingers close on a cold, sweating bottle of water. He takes a sip to clean his mouth of bitter coffee and bites into the sweet crisp of his apple.
Jared finally passes the truck, and the road stretches out ahead of them, empty and straight. Jensen hasn't traveled this particular stretch of highway much, preferring the quick, flat drive of I-35 when he needs to get out of town even if the traffic has him cussing the whole way up and all he sees of Texas along the way is mostly shit-towns and billboards. This road cuts into the land some, but mostly it rises and falls with it, and when they crest a hill, Jensen gets a panoramic view of the Texas Hill Country.
Summer has muted most of the colors, dried the grass out to a pale yellow, baked the trees to a dark, dusty green, but the sunlight reflects off the white limestone so bright it hurts his eyes. The half-wild country is not new to him, but it's not familiar, either. This is the landscape of Jared's childhood, not Jensen's. His own nostalgia is centered on long drives out of the metroplex to some man-made lake, or to his grandparents' place in Odessa. He chews his apple, and takes in the scenery passing by with subdued interest, but he doesn't know if he's being shown, or if he's just catching a glimpse of an area Jared knows so well he presses the brakes before the sign for a slower speed limit comes into view.
Jared breaks the silence after a while, saying as he points off to one side, "Down that road a ways, there's a vineyard where my mom buys wine by the case."
Jensen leans forward to look though there's nothing to see but a sign announcing the country road that would take them there. He relaxes back into his seat, and makes a noise to show he heard.
A little later Jared says, "That place, the barbecue's not so great, but the cobbler, holy shit."
Jensen smiles this time, tilts his head in interest. "Yeah?"
"Mm-hmm," Jared says, driving on. "Meghan, and Jeff and I, we could never ask to stop there when we drove out this way, or mom would automatically say no. Just had to wait and see if they turned off."
Not too long after that they turn off 281 and onto 290 and Jensen wanders if Jared didn't just take the long way into Austin to keep him in the dark a little longer. He perks up a bit, thinking maybe a day at Lake Travis before seeing a show at Carlos'n Charlie's. Only a handful of Jared's old college buddies would probably be there, he could handle that. He tosses his apple core out the window and into the grass along the road.
Midway through Dripping Springs, Jared hangs an unexpected left and Jensen has to admit he's got no idea where Jared's headed. They pass old homes and a new elementary school until the road comes to a 'T' at some farm road, and Jared takes another left, no hesitation. The country passing by the window becomes a little grander, a little wilder. It isn't long before Jared turns again, this time off the road and into a park with a tall metal gate and a brown and white sign soberly proclaiming "Hamilton Pool Nature Preserve."
"What is this place?" he asks, looking out the window, but all he can see is some unremarkable trees and a field of dry grass.
"You'll see," Jared promises.
Jensen turns away from the window, "But who were you on the phone with this morning? I thought it was a friend."
Jared shook his head, eyes on the gravel road as he maneuvered up to a gatehouse. "I had to call here, find out if swimming was okay today. Sometimes they close it down 'cause of bacteria levels."
A sturdy looking woman in unflattering green shorts and ponytail steps out onto the porch and Jared rolls down the window.
"Been here before?"
"Oh yeah," Jared says. He gives her some cash and she gives him a permit to tape to his windshield.
"No dogs. No litter. No glass containers," she says anyway, giving Jared a once over, sizing up the amount of trouble he might be with a smile that big.
"No ma'am," he says, earnest and sincere because Jared never met an authority figure he didn't want to please.
She seems satisfied and waves him on through. They park and that cup of coffee and bottle of water finally catch up to Jensen. He leaves Jared to fuss with the car and pisses into the long drop of a compost toilet.
When he comes out Jared's got the car unpacked, shaded, and locked. He smiles at Jensen. "You ready?"
"For what exactly?" It's hot and dry and the katydids are humming threateningly off in the field and Jensen can't see anything that looks like a pool or even a cool place to sit.
Jared breaks into a full-on grin. "You'll see. Come on." He turns and makes for a trailhead.
Jensen picks up his bag, sighs, and follows behind. The trail starts on sharp a decline, Jared working his way down, quick and surefooted while Jensen lags behind, carefully picking his way among the loose stones. They hike down into some depression in the geography, and at the bottom of it they turn right and head over, following the line of a cliff. Every step Jensen finds a little less impressed, and the backpack that seemed so manageable at first now cuts into his shoulders. He thinks he'd like a rest, or maybe to shift his pack, but what he'd really, really like is to be back in bed.
He bites his tongue, figuratively for now, though if the hiking goes on much longer it's going to get literal. He doesn't want to blame Jared but he does anyway. They don't know each other perfectly, but he figures if Jared had been paying any kind of attention he would know by now that most of Jensen's hobbies revolve around being indoors, and that his idea of a good day doesn't really include hiking, swimming, or being around small towns where he has to watch what he says, what he does.
If he squints it's almost like Jared's being selfish, calling this a surprise for Jensen when it's really his treat. As bad as buying him a box of chocolate-covered cherries when Jared knows that the texture of them turns Jensen's stomach, because then Jared gets to eat them all himself. Maybe this is it, he thinks, the proof that it all really is too good to be true. He looks up again, at Jared's hair curling out from under a baseball cap, his loose shoulders, cheerful and at home where Jensen is off balance and put out. Still, he can't quite bring himself to get angry. It's too obvious that Jared genuinely means well, but he just missed the mark on this one.
They walk along a creek that's not even deep enough to get your knees wet, but so far it's the only water Jensen's seen. Jared passes it by, hollow sound of his feet against the little, wooden bridge that crosses over it. Ahead Jensen can hear the sound of water falling, of some kids laughing and he looks up. He can make out some people through the vegetation, the white of their t-shirts, the bright colors of their swim clothes, but he can only see the beach, not the water. They get around the brush, and then like a dream Hamilton Pool finally shows itself.
It might have been a straightforward swimming hole, just a large, near-perfect circle of placid, clean water, apple green in the sunshine, darker in the shadows, nothing special at all. But this plain old pool happens to be in a half-collapsed cave, dramatic and beautiful in the way Jensen usually associates with a paradise island. Jared moves on to claim a spot in the shade on the small white gravel beach curving along the edge of the water. He sits cross-legged on a towel, rooting around for something in his backpack. Jensen turns back to the water, still trying to take in the details.
It's like a house, Jensen muses, with an inside and outside, separate but part of a whole. A high ceiling of stone, adorned on top with grass and trees, curves out over a third of the pool, creating a room of water and rock. Hemming in the water underneath the outcrop are huge stone slabs, all the same shade of gray, and all of them slanted against the walls of the cave as if they were dabbling their feet into the water. A waterfall trickles over the edge of the outcrop and down into the pool like a delicate curtain between one space and the other. Beyond it, the water, the beach and the vegetation around it look like a well-planned, but overgrown garden. Finally satisfied, he goes over to put his own bag down next to Jared's.
"You like it," Jared states, no doubt at all.
"It's-" Jensen looks back at the water and searches for a word. Beautiful. Idyllic. Incredible. The last time Jensen had such a hard time believing something was real it was Jared standing in a doorway, wet and handsome and cradling rescued kittens. "Yeah," he says.
He pulls a towel out of his bag and lays it out. He flops down next to Jared, and gets a crooked smile. Jensen knows that if there weren't people here, families, and college-aged guys, Jared would be kissing him. He ducks his head down shyly, his answering smile is a secret meant only for Jared to see.
"Come on," Jared says, finding what he was looking for inside his bag. "Sunscreen." He takes off his shirt, squirts a handful into his palm and smoothes some of it over his shoulder.
Jensen takes the tube from him, but doesn't do anything more than hold it in his hand while he watches Jared apply. Jared was plenty fit before, but the decision to get back into acting means he's stepped things up recently so his skin is darker, smoother, and pulled more tautly over muscle than when they first met. He feels the itch of perspiration on the back of his neck, down his back, and he blames it on the hike, though it's not like watching Jared run his hands over himself wouldn't be reason enough to break into a sweat.
Jared looks up and cocks his head, confused maybe by Jensen's stillness. It doesn't take him more than a second to put two and two together though and he smirks, looking cockier than he actually is. He takes the sunscreen from Jensen's limp grasp, and breaks the spell by rubbing some onto his shins. Lotion smearing into dark leg hair is not quite as sexy a thing to look at, and Jensen takes advantage of his sudden presence of mind to take off his shirt and start the very methodical process of making sure every inch of him is thoroughly covered.
White cream on his white skin makes him feel even paler. He looks around as he rubs more lotion in, there's a mother as pasty as he is in shorts, a shirt, and a hat, and a guy sporting very tan arms, but a bleached, protruding beer gut. Other than that it's various shades of tan and brown, young girls with the time to sunbathe, Latino men with cinnamon skin. Jensen sighs, it's bad enough in the shade, but in the sunshine he'll glow fish belly white amongst all the tans.
"Do my back," Jared says, scooting forward.
Jensen looks around again, this time to see if anyone is watching them. No one is much interested, all eyes are on the water, so he focuses his own on Jared's back, on rubbing the white until it disappears into the gold. Jared gets up, moving to sit behind him so he can return the favor. His hands are as wonderful as always, warm and strong and delighting a little too much in their task. Jensen jerks, startled when Jared slips his fingertips just under the waistband of his shorts.
He glares back at him, but Jared is unconcerned. "What? I'm being thorough."
Jensen rolls his eyes, "Thorough is making sure I remember to do this again in an hour. I'm going to kill you if I come home a lobster."
Jared holds three fingers up, "Scout's honor. Come on, let's get in the water." He stands and stretches, the line of hair running from his navel down into his shorts gets a little longer and Jensen's eyes instantly drop. He's never been a big fan of swimming, but more and more he's starting to think that with Jared it's going to be a great spectator sport.
Jared walks out into the sun and up to the water. He leaves his flip-flops at the edge and marches in with something like willful determination. Jensen approaches the pool far more gingerly, and first touch of the water to the sole of his foot tells him exactly why Jared went in like he was ripping off a band-aid.
"Jesus, it's cold!" He's stopped at the ankle, but ahead of him Jared is already up to his knees.
Jared turns around, swirling his fingertips in the water as he does. "Come on, you big baby. You get used to it."
Jensen knows that, but can't help but feel that's really not the point. That he has gotten used to cold water before, or that he will get used to it soon pales in comparison with how cold he is right now. Jared sighs and comes toward him a bit too fast for Jensen's liking and he's out of the water before Jared can get within a foot of him.
Jared laughs at him, bent in half, clapping loudly, the whole nine yards. "I don't think I've ever seen you move that fast before. Oh my god."
"You're not dunking me." Jensen tells him, shifting his weight from foot to foot, the gravel on the beach is surprisingly sharp. It was more comfortable in the water, but he's not getting anywhere near it until they've got this clear.
"I wouldn't dunk you," Jared says, too sincere.
"Bull," Jensen says, catching himself a moment before he finishes the epithet. There are children around, he reminds himself. "You go on. I'll come after you."
"I'll hold your hand if you like," and it's just a taunt, but it still makes Jensen blush that Jared said it so loudly.
"Go on," he shoos Jared away and watches him walk in. He sees the moment of hesitation before Jared's hips sink into the water, but once the family jewels are submerged Jared surges forward, slips under the surface, and swims out into the middle with just two strokes of his long arms.
Jensen can see the shape of Jared beneath the water, can tell a second before it happens when he'll re-emerge. He twists around, treading water, looking back at Jensen still on the shore. Jensen is suddenly torn between the con of cold water and the pro of closing the distance between them. He takes a few steps in and feels goosebumps break out, the hair on his forearms and thighs rising straight up off his skin.
He stops and Jared laughs, sounding far off. "Lame," he taunts, drawing out the word.
Jensen takes another step forward, and Jared swims a stroke back, another step, another stroke back. Jared stops when he stops and Jensen takes a second to weigh his options.
He could pointedly ignore the game Jared's trying to play and take his sweet time getting adjusted until finally Jared's boredom gets him to abandon it, but there's no fun in that beyond gloating rights. He could chase after Jared, but there's no way he'd ever catch up with those strong limbs slicing through the water, and neither of these solutions solve the problem of how damn cold he is.
While he's waffling, Jared sinks under the water again, and Jensen's faced with option three, avoid getting pulled under at all costs. There's no outrunning Jared, the water is up to Jensen's thighs and he'll probably trip if he tries it. If he struggles he's liable to end up repeating the mistakes that led to him accidentally mooning a public pool when he was fourteen. His only option is to beat Jared at his own game so Jensen gives up and dives in.
Jared finds him underwater, touching blindly at his shoulders. They're close to the surface, and Jensen kicks his feet, taking them a little further from the shore, keeping them under a little longer. Jared moves with him, twists his body around with weightless grace as his hands slip from Jensen's shoulders to his waist. Jensen empties his lungs of air, but there's no fighting the slow rise up. The moment they break the surface, he paddles his arms back twice through the water, away from Jared.
Jared shakes the hair out of his eyes, and grins. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Jensen's freezing, but it's worse out of the water than in it, the feel of the wind blowing on his wet skin is too much. Now that he's here, he won't get out until absolutely necessary just to avoid getting used to it all over again. "You play dirty."
Jared laughs. "Yeah, well. The ends justify the means, man."
Jensen would like to ask just what exactly the ends are, but his insatiable need for specificity does not usually make for the best conversations. Instead of asking if this just about a good day out in the country or something more, he tilts his hips up to float on his back a while. Jared swims beside him, and his wake laps against Jensen's face, making him wrinkle his nose.
Jared nudges him after a moment, Jensen opens his eyes and rights himself in the water.
"If you're going to do that, do it in the cave. It's amazing."
Jensen can't imagine what exactly would make floating on his back 'amazing' but Jared is the expert here, so he swims towards the cave. Jared doesn't follow, instead he puts his head down and takes off across the pool like he's swimming laps.
Up close the waterfall feels like frigid rain and Jensen rushes through it, eyes tightly shut. Inside, he floats, eyes still closed, listening to the sound of water falling around him. When his ears dip beneath the surface, it sounds like distant rain. He's not so relaxed that he doesn't worry about where he might be drifting though, and it isn't long before he can't help but open his eyes again to check. He's staring up at the rough ceiling of stone, glancing now and again to make sure he's not about to run into some swimmer, when it dawns on him.
The stalactites shift into mountains, the ferns into trees, the moss to grass, and it's like flying high above the ground. It's a little disorienting, feeling as if he's hovering above and below something at the same time. He floats there a long time, contemplating the lush, inverted world above him, marveling at just how perfect an illusion it is, like an extensive diorama of some alien world. Even the mud swallows' nests look like little houses, and the waterfall becomes a surreal, backwards rain. His thoughts wander, pleasant and aimless, until nearly colliding with a couple of kids he had no idea were swimming behind him brings him back to reality.
He turns over, and spies Jared sitting in the water at the edge of the cave near the only rock positioned under the waterfall. Unlike the others, that boulder has grown mossy and smooth from water that's been falling on it for who knows how long. Jared's watching with one eye as children climb up the slippery sides carefully and stand under the falls with shrieks and big grins, cupping their hands to watch how quickly they fill. He swims over, counting his strokes, reminding himself of the steps. Stroke, kick, breathe, steady progress until at last he finds the submerged group of rocks that Jared's perched on.
"Well?" he asks, turning to him with a knowing smile.
"It is amazing," Jensen admits as he finds his own rock to sit on, close to Jared's.
"This was one of my favorite places when I was a kid. Used to be these fish, I don't know what kind, but they were big and black. They swam just where you could see them along the bottom, all in a line, like a caravan or something. If you wanted to get into the deeper water you had to walk over them. They'd just swim away from you, but I hated it so much. I'd spend forever trying to figure out a way around them."
"Wouldn't have figured you as one of those neurotic kind of kids."
"Mm, I guess I wasn't," Jared shrugs. "There's a couple of places around where you can jump into the water, and I'd do that all day. My mom hated it. But the fish, man, they really wigged me out."
Jensen shakes his head, "That's just like a kid. You'll risk breaking your neck easy, but a bunch of harmless fish is too much to handle." He's seen kids that will bury the faces right into a Rottweiler's fur but start crying hysterically if a parakeet lands on them.
"Who says fish are harmless? One of the little ones swam into Meghan's shorts once and she almost drowned trying to get it out."
Jensen laughs and laces his fingers with Jared's under the water, keeping their hands hidden and discreet.
They swim some, float and talk. Jared tells him a little bit about the rocks, things he learned in lower level geography classes. Jensen points out the different birds, the young perch nipping at the water for insects, the painted turtle swimming warily near the edge of the water. More and more people arrive and the beach becomes crowded, barely a place left to stretch out a towel.
Eventually Jensen's stomach is rumbling, his fingers are wrinkled, and when the wind blows across his skin he can't stop the shiver. They make their way out of the water, arms limp, and legs shaking with the loss of buoyancy. Jared collapses down on their blanket and stretches to air dry, long and lean and mouthwatering while Jensen reapplies sunscreen to his own face and shoulders.
He puts his shirt on. The cotton is hot, sticking to the lotion and his wet skin. "We got anything to eat?"
Jared tosses over his bag and inside Jensen finds a bag of grapes, a loaf of crusty bread, and some soft cheese. A French picnic a la the supermarket, plus a packet of Twizzlers and some beef jerky.
Jensen looks at Jared speculatively, "You buttering me up for something?"
Jared rolls his eyes and takes the bread from Jensen, tearing off a sizable chunk of it. He packs it in with his thumb, chews with his mouth too full, and clearly wooing is the last thing on his mind.
Jensen eats with the bottomless appetite one gets only from swimming, popping small handfuls of grapes into his mouth, pulling off bigger and bigger chunks of bread until only the sight of the half empty containers tells him he's probably eaten enough. He sits back on the heels of his hands and thinks of things to say in the silence.
He almost asks, "Did you ever take Sandy here?" but he thinks better of it when he realizes he isn't sure why that would offend him. It doesn't change the fact that he is here now, sharing the bright sunshine, good, simple food, and a gorgeous view with a man who thinks nothing of planning all day surprises, or saving kittens.
Jared sucks the last of a Twizzler into his mouth and, still chewing, starts to put things away.
"We leaving?" Jensen asks, surprised to find he's not excited. He could have sat a little longer, could have watched Jared take another dip and not been bothered.
"Leaving here, yeah, but this was only part one. There's still something better."
"Better?" He stands and helps Jared shake out the blanket, takes it from him and starts folding.
Jared grins, "Trust me."
Better turns out to be a twenty-minute hike away. Uphill. It's later in the day, hotter, and Jensen is back to being really unimpressed. He keeps his head down, eyes on his feet, because while turning an ankle would effectively put an end to the day, he'd still have to make it back up to the car. If nature's splendor is showing itself along the way, Jensen doesn't notice it.
When they finally get there, it's another big reveal. The trees are dense around them as they climb, the low hanging branches block the view, but through a gap Jensen can just see the sun shining, yellow and bright. At the top of the hill, the trees abruptly give way, and Jensen realizes they're at the top of a high bank. Below them runs a jade river, wide and swift, the rippled surface glittering in the afternoon sun. Down one way, great rocks have piled up against each other, pale, barren islands ideal for stretching out on, and down the other the river curves neatly around a bend. It's not as breathtakingly beautiful as the pool, but the river has got something else going for it. It's practically empty. Their only company is a young couple on the tiny beach at the base of the hill, and a mother standing in the water, watching her children play among the rocks.
Getting down the banks is tricky, the loose, pink sand shifts under his feet so that he has to half run down in order to keep from tipping forward. Jared leaves his shoes and shirt behind as he heads in, and Jensen does the same.
"Careful," Jared warns. "The rocks are killer right here."
They are. Though they've been worn smooth by the river, the rocks are large and irregular, and no matter how carefully Jensen steps they still manage to dig and jab into his feet bad enough to make him trip and gasp. He follows behind Jared slowly, wondering how exactly this is supposed to be better until the rocks thin out and there's only soft silt underfoot. Jared walks against the current, straight out into the middle of the river, and Jensen keeps waiting for the big drop but there isn't one. The water is never deeper than his shoulder. He can stand with twenty feet of river on either side of him, his feet firmly planted, and feel the flow of it pushing steadily against his chest.
They walk upriver, around the bend, and find themselves alone. There's a sandbar up ahead, and Jensen insists on walking up to it. Once there he finds a traffic jam of tracks, neat imprints of deer hooves and raccoon claws leading from the banks to the water plowed through with perpendicular lines of the deep ovals from human feet, booted and bare. He looks behind, he and Jared have added to the confusion. He smiles noticing that while his own footprints walk a straight line, Jared's slant, taking a course that leads inevitably closer to Jensen's.
They go back into the water and find a good place to rest for a while in a wide, level rock sitting just beneath the surface. Jared tucks Jensen flush against him, chest to back and Jensen lets him. There are no sounds other than their voices and the water as it flows by. He sifts through his thoughts for a song to hum. A dozen come to mind, too silly, too honest, too cliché. He settles on a Travis Tritt song he and his college friends used to sing along to sometimes back in Lubbock, the one about homemade soup and doin' all right.
The words come softly out, a little muddled in the verses, but stronger in the chorus. If Jared knows the song, he doesn't join in, just listens and drops his head down to kiss Jensen's shoulder, lips resting against the curve of it for a long time.
"Thought you hated country music?" Jared asks, mouthing the words against Jensen's skin.
He shrugs carefully, lifting Jared's chin along with his shoulder. "Ninety-nine percent of the time I do. Every now and again though, one sneaks by."
"Mm, I bet," Jared says, but he's not talking about music, not with the way his hands are searching. One palm is placed squarely on Jensen's navel and the other slides up the inside of his thigh, pushing up the leg of his shorts.
Jensen fidgets, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," Jared says.
"This is nothing?"
"I could do something, if you'd like to know the difference." He starts some pointed groping, but by now his hands are about the same temperature as the water, and Jensen's dick is floating free and weightless in his shorts and it's just not very exciting.
Jared seems to realize that, and once he's made his point about the difference between something and nothing, he leaves his hands loose on Jensen's waist. He's not off the hook though, not with Jared's nuzzling in, nose brushing Jensen's temple, cheek rubbing against his. When Jensen turns his head to look back at him, Jared goes for that kiss that's been hanging unfinished between them since Jensen first realized that today actually was going to be a good day.
He tries to keep it chaste, light pressure, mouth closed, and then ending it with a smile, but Jared's not settling for half-done. His hand comes out of the water, wet fingers turning Jensen's mouth back to his. Jensen tries to shy away a few more times, but Jared's determined, and finally, to save his neck the strain, he turns in Jared's arms.
It's not like he didn't know before meeting Jared that big guys get off on being big. Not too hard to guess that when so many tall guys end up with wives that are five foot nothing. He's had a taste of it himself, knows the thrill that comes from realizing that the height that in puberty cursed you with big feet and clumsiness now means you're strong enough to hold someone up, or hold them down.
He loves Jared's big body, delights in its strength, its long, lean proportions, but he can't think of himself as small, even in comparison. If it gets Jared hot to have Jensen wrap his legs around his waist and sit comfortably in his lap, that's awesome, but he's not going to hunch his shoulders down or go limp against him. Luckily, Jared seems to like it when Jensen surges up, back straight and neck extended, so that instead of tilting his mouth up to Jared's he's coming down on it. He seems to like almost losing the lead, but Jared still gets it back every time. With the help of the water's buoyancy, he shifts Jensen against him like he weighs nothing at all, arranging him more perfectly in his lap.
They both know there's no letting this run past idle, so no matter how deep Jared's kisses get they remain playful, and no matter how much Jensen teases he never issues a real challenge. Jared smells like long grass, fresh water, and sunscreen. His lips are bland, all the salt washed away by the river, but his tongue is cool and clever in Jensen's mouth.
It's not Jared that says stop, not Jared that sighs and decides things are getting out of hand. But it's still Jensen that buries his face into Jared's fragrant neck regretfully, still Jensen that has to remind himself why it would be a bad idea to let Jared's hands do whatever they want. He squeezes his legs and arms, tight and possessive, around Jared one last time before sliding off into the water again.
Jared slips off the rock too, sighing wistfully.
They head back to the beach, hands clasped together beneath the water until just before they round the bend and see a couple of college-aged girls have appeared, warily exploring the rocks in their expensive bikinis.
As they climb the banks, Jared grunts. "Hey, I think you're burning." He presses his thumb to Jensen's shoulder, and the white imprint of it flushes a dangerous pink soon after.
Jensen slathers on sunscreen and doesn't pause to let it dry before pulling his shirt back on. They lean against an old cedar stump waiting for their feet to dry out after Jared reminds him that there's no better way to get a blister than a twenty-minute hike with damp shoes.
On their way back they pass families and small groups of friends heading towards the river. Their loud voices and bustling energy are a harsh jangle compared to Jared and Jensen's easy quiet. He's thankful Jared had the timing down so perfectly, that they had the chance to be alone. No regrets at all follow him up the trail to the car.
By they time they reach the parking lot, Jensen's fit to drop and cursing Jared's long legs. The boy climbs hills faster than is fair and only by virtue of his pack being lighter by two big bottles of water did Jensen avoid having to punk out and beg for a break.
The car's an oven, everything too hot to the touch, but still he collapses into it gratefully, flapping his shirt to help stir a breeze. Jared starts the car and turns the air on but it doesn't finally start blowing cold until they turn back onto the two-lane highway beyond the gate. Jared takes the winding curves at a gleeful, reckless speed and while Jensen's fatigue exaggerates the swing of each wide turn, it also leaves him strangely unconcerned by it.
"Well?" Jared says after a while.
Jensen rolls his head from one shoulder to the other and looks at Jared.
"That was a good time, right?" Jared elaborates. "Worth it?"
In Jensen's entire life there have only been a handful of days this good, he knows that without even having to think. Not much could make it better except for some sex, a nap, and the promise that looking back on today will never, ever be bittersweet. There's no way at all to say that out loud. Jensen doesn't know the right words.
"Yeah, babe," he says instead, smiling and putting his hand on Jared's knee. "Of course."
Jared shifts gears to slow down for a turn and when he's done with that his hand covers Jensen's with a squeeze.
Part Two