Love is a Funny Thing 3/6
Sandy’s cheeks are pink with cold. Jared pushes a lock of her hair behind her ear and kisses her on the mouth. She’s smiling against his lips, and he knows she can’t hold it in, doesn’t want to.
“It’s shiny,” she says, holding her finger up in the air and flashing the ring. She chokes back a sob then, and Jared shushes her, kissing her again and again until her cheeks are warm. He wants to give her what she doesn’t have, a family, somewhere to belong. He’s pretty sure that she knows it, too.
“Are you sure you want to be stuck with me the rest of your life?” he asks, rubbing his nose against hers as she stands on tippy-toes to hang around his neck. The Paris skyline blinks sleepily behind her.
She looks at him then with a strangely fond expression and suddenly Jared is very much aware that this is what she had always expected to happen. That he would always come back, both to her and to the promise of their future. That nothing that has happened to Jared since he moved up to Vancouver matters much in the grand scheme of things
The fact that he might have changed doesn’t seem to mean much on this night, at the top of the Eiffel Tower, three minutes after Sandy says “yes.”
“Yes,” Sandy says again, and Jared kisses her just to stop himself from thinking.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Jared grins, sweeping Danneel up into his arms at intermission of Jensen’s play.
“Oof, put me down, you big lug,” she laughs, pushing him aside to give Sandy a quick kiss on the cheek.
Jared likes Danneel, and has as long as he’s known her, back when she was dating Riley and they met through other mutual friends. She’s smart and funny and good for Jensen, even if they both secretly know that her presence is about as romantic as his own. They don’t really talk about that though, and Sandy is still under the illusion that Danneel and Jensen are the real deal. Jared doesn’t know why he’s felt the need to keep the truth from her, although he tells himself it’s because it’s Jensen’s secret to tell, not his.
“Papa Ackles!” Jared hollers across the bar, as Jensen’s dad starts coming over to join them.
“No one could ever miss that Jared Padalecki has entered the room,” Alan grins, pulling Jared into a bear hug. Jared hasn’t seen the Ackles family since their wildly successful joint Christmas, and he suddenly realizes he’s missed them almost as much as Jensen must.
“Just part of my charm,” Jared drawls, putting on the Texas for added flair, winking at Danneel and Sandy, who just rolls her eyes and laughs. He turns to the guy tending bar and orders a round of beers and some candy.
“You’re going to rot your teeth one of these days, son,” Alan snorts, as Jared starts popping Skittles in his mouth.
“Have you been talking to my mama again? Because that is a dangerous path to take,” Jared insists through a mouthful of colored sugar.
“No, but I have, and she told me to tell Jensen to make sure you’re eating your greens,” Donna Ackles smirks, coming up from the side and yanking Jared all the way down to give him a quick kiss on the forehead.
“Like Jensen can make me do anything I don’t want to do,” Jared fake-pouts, and Danneel snorts from somewhere behind him. He looks at her quickly, and notices Sandy doing the same.
He’s saved from any oddness by the ringing of his cell phone. He looks down and sees the picture that pops up-drunk, passed out Jensen with drool trailing down one side of his mouth-and grins. He mouths “Jensen” to everyone around him and heads off into a moderately private corner to take the call.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Jensen demands the minute Jared answers. His voice is gruff but he sounds pleased, and it makes Jared suddenly warm all over.
“I’m not here for you, man. I just had to get away from all that fucking knitwear they’ve been sticking me in, and Dallas was the first flight out.”
Jensen laughs, the sound free and happy, and Jared knows he made the right choice sneaking down here to visit. “You just happened to wander into this little play I’m doing, huh?”
“Dude, Ritchie Fucking Valens is in this play! You need to reassess your ego, buddy.”
“And I totally watched ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ just for Welling.”
“You had a threesome with Tom and Rosey, didn’t you? You sick fuck!”
“Nah, just Rosey and Glover.”
Jared starts laughing so hard, he almost starts choking. Three nervous looking girls clutching cameras stare at him with big eyes from a few yards away.
“Lies, lies,” Jared stage whispers to them, pointing at the phone. They giggle and clutch each other.
“I think I better let you go before this entire conversation ends up on the internet,” Jared says.
“If Danni emails me gossip about 'Smallville' orgies, I’m blaming you,” Jensen replies. Jared can feel him fucking beaming through the telephone.
“You kick the second half in the ass, you hear me,” Jared says. “Break, like, all your limbs.”
Jensen is silent for a moment, but Jared can picture the way his mouth curls up at the sides, the soft smile that he gets when he’s being serious and quiet. And how Jared has all of Jensen’s smiles catalogued is a question for a different day.
“Kiss my mama for me, okay?” Jensen says finally.
“Too late, already fought a duel with your dad and won your mother’s hand. We’re thinking of a winter wedding.”
Jared hangs up before Jensen can finishing cussing him out, but he’s smiling so hard he thinks one of the girls staring at him is on the verge of fainting.
“I don’t like the backyard,” Jared says, peering out the sliding glass doors. The realtor’s face falls just a bit, and it’s probably because this is the most expensive house they’ve seen yet.
“Harley would destroy those bushes,” Jensen agrees, pointing towards a lovely bunch of rose bushes that his dog would probably eat and then shit out painfully for a week.
“So, on to the next one, gentlemen?” the realtor says, and Jared grins at her brightly to lessen the blow.
“Jensen, you good with that?” Jared asks, looking at him hopefully.
“How else would I rather spend my day off?” Jensen deadpans.
Jared throws an arm around his neck and pulls him close. “I promise I’ll put out afterwards. And feed you steak.”
“Steak, huh? Why didn’t you just say so. Let’s go!”
Jared catches the realtor flushing a bit, but that somehow makes him pull Jensen even closer to him.
On Monday, they’re having lunch with Lauren on set, and talking about the three pitiful house selections they saw the day before.
“So wait, you two are looking for a house together?” she asks, delicate eyebrows raised a bit higher than usual. Her accent makes her sound even more amused than she probably is.
Jensen looks over at him quickly, and then back at Lauren. “No, you know, it’ll be Jared’s house. He has two big dogs and apartment living sucks.”
“And you are helping him pick it out?” She leaves the question sitting in the air, and Jared isn’t sure why it seems uncomfortable. Jared goes to break the weird tension.
“According to Jensen, I have shit taste, so he needs to make sure that I don’t end up living somewhere shady where I’ll get jacked by heroin addicts while running the kids.”
“Exactly,” Jensen joins in quickly, pointing his fork at Jared. “I’m saving all our jobs by making sure Jared doesn’t get killed while exercising.”
“I think it’s adorable, truly,” Lauren smirks, taking a dainty bite of chicken. “I mean, how close you two are.”
Jensen smiles at him then, one of his softer ones this time. “We’re like brothers, right Jared?”
Jared swallows hard, takes a sip of Coke to clear his throat. “Course we are.”
Lauren’s smirk gets bigger, but she doesn’t say anything else and lunch ends soon after.
The night Jared signs the final contract purchasing the house, he and Jensen sit on plastic lawn chairs that they bought at the drug store and drink beer as they watch the dogs careen around the backyard.
“I’m getting the biggest fucking grill I can find and we’re going to invite everyone we know and force them to eat like Texans,” Jared proclaims, gesturing with his beer bottle and spilling half of it on the ground.
Jensen wipes his face where beer has landed on it. “If you keep talking about food, I’m never going to want to go back to my apartment.”
It’s on the tip of Jared’s tongue to just say “stay here then,” but he doesn’t. This is supposed to be his home with Sandy, with their dogs and their life. It feels strange to hold the words inside though.
“I have something for you,” Jared says quickly, figuring this was as good a time as any to give Jensen the present picked up on a whim. He jumps up to grab it, before throwing it onto Jensen’s lap.
“What’s this for?” Jensen asks, surprised, putting his beer down on the ground and holding up the package.
Jared shrugs, suddenly embarrassed. “It’s just a gift, for helping me pick this place out. It’s no big deal, really.”
“Jared,” Jensen breathes as he opens it, taking out the watch tucked inside the case. “No big deal? Man, this is fucking expensive.”
Okay, so it’s a Graham Chronofighter watch, red gold series, and it is a little expensive. But Jared has a matching one and he knows that Jensen loves it, so when he saw it in the store he knew that he had to get it. Because it would make Jensen happy, and Jared wants to make Jensen happy so damn bad. But fuck if he’s going to say all that.
“Hey, I’m a big time TV star, man. Top billing on my own show and everything,” Jared smirks instead, tipping his beer back and taking a long, dramatic swallow.
Jensen looks at him for a long time, fingering the strap of the watch. Jared can almost see when he decides to just go with the teasing. “I’m totally talking to my manager about that, by the way. Just because you played some punk ass emo kid on Gilmore Girls does not make you more famous than me. I mean, I was Eric Brady, that has to count for something.”
“Means you had more shower scenes than me,” Jared points out.
“You watching Youtube videos of me in the shower, Padalecki?”
“Lauren totally googled ‘twink shower scene’ on set last week and I can’t help it if your name popped up.”
Jared smells like beer for the rest of the night after Jensen dumps the rest of his on his head.
“I wish I could have been here to help you pick it out, but it’s perfect,” Sandy grins, swinging her arms around him after he’s finished showing her around the new house. She’s in town to shoot her role as the Crossroads demon he takes out with the Colt, a fact that she seems to find hilarious.
“Jensen helped, actually found this one himself,” Jared points out and Sandy squeezes him one more time before letting go.
“Of course he did,” she says simply, turning around to head into the kitchen.
Jared takes a couple deep breaths before he goes to let the dogs out into the completely perfect, rosebush-less backyard.
“So, have you heard anything about this strike going on? Any word on when it’s going to end?” Jared’s mother asks, scooping sweet potatoes onto a plate to pass down the table. It’s Thanksgiving and his parents have come up to Vancouver to celebrate and see his new house.
Jared shakes his head. The writer’s strike has put them all into limbo, and it’s a weird sensation to be shooting scripts that are set in amber. They’ve become used to Sera or Jeremy or Ben sending notes through the grapevine from Los Angeles, and revising bits and pieces of it as they go along to keep things fresh.
“Nope, everyone is just playing it by ear,” Jared replies, piling his plate high with his mama’s best giblet gravy and homemade cranberry relish.
“Jensen, I’m sorry Donna and Alan couldn’t come up to join us. It was so nice to see them last time,” his mother smiles at Jensen, handing him the plate she just finished preparing for him. Sherri Padalecki is nothing if not a fine hostess.
“I’m sure they’re sorry they missed you too, although the fact that they are on a beach in Aruba right now probably lessened the blow,” Jensen jokes, taking the plate gratefully, and making cooing noises at the food.
“Jensen, try the relish, it’s delicious,” Sandy says sweetly, one of her hands resting lightly on Jared’s thigh underneath the dining room table.
“It looks delicious,” Jensen agrees, smiling quickly at Sandy and then at the Padaleckis. “Thank you all for having me here.”
“Nonsense, we’re all family here,” Gerald says and Jared can see the color high on Jensen’s cheeks. Jared can’t help but smile, pleased that his parents have accepted Jensen so readily.
“Jensen’s a little short to be anywhere near the Padalecki gene pool,” Jared snarks, as Jensen rolls his eyes.
“Just because I’m not part Yeti-“Jensen starts.
“And part sled dog and part Hoover,” Jared finishes, grinning so hard his face hurts.
Sandy squeezes his thigh. “What about me, huh? If Jensen is short than I must be one of the Lullaby League.”
“Don’t worry honey, your kids will have the genes,” Sherri butts in.
“Sherri,” Gerald groans at his wife’s forwardness.
“What, a mother can dream,” Sherri tsks, winking at Sandy, who just beams at her from across the table.
Jared tries to catch Jensen’s eye, to laugh it off and get some eye rolling in return as backup, but Jensen’s suddenly staring rather pointedly down at his mashed potatoes so he quickly gives up.
“Well, well, Jared, this is terribly homoerotic of you,” Richard announces, staring up over the wall in craft services, where at least a dozen copies of Jared and Milo Ventimiglia playing gay tug-of-war stare back at him.
“Ackles!” Jared yells, scaring poor James the PA who is lurking nearby.
Jensen strolls up nonchalantly, taking in the Xeroxes on the wall. “What do you say, Dick? Do you think Jess and Dean should have just dumped Rory and hooked up after all?”
“I don’t know, Jensen. Our boy Jared here does look pretty darn happy tied up in bondage rope to this Milo kid,” Richard replies, arms crossed like he’s contemplating the question.
“You know, I punched the lisp right off of his face after this shoot?” Jared throws in cheerfully.
“Reasserting dominance, big boy. That’ll teach ‘em,” Jensen nods, turning around to stroll off as quickly as he came.
“I’ll show you who’s the big boy,” Jared shouts lamely after him.
“I bet,” Richard smirks, eyebrow cocking, and Jared can’t help but nod a little smugly at that one.
The next day, while filming the scene where Dean dies in the shower, Jensen steps out and almost falls and cracks his head from surprise when he sees the four 8’x10’ copies of Eric Brady shower scene stills taped to the mirror.
Jared laughs so hard that Dr. Pepper comes out of his nose.
“This is a very serious scene!” Jared shouts the next day, when he rolls a dead “Dean” over into his arms and finds two tiny pictures of teenage Jared wearing a puca-shell necklace taped to Jensen’s eyelids.
“Really, Jared, really?” Jensen yells a few hours later, as he pulls a picture of himself wearing a nothing but a cowboy hat out of his mouth, after it had been embedded in a killer taco.
“You look like a teen prostitute,” Kim says bluntly, taking in the motel room set that had mysteriously been papered the next day with pictures of young Jensen leaning against the side of a house and thrusting his ass out.
“I prefer ‘young adult exploring one’s sexuality’,” Jensen insists, chewing on a strawberry Twizzler with one hand cocked on his hip.
“What about that one,” Jared asks, pointing to a black and white picture of Jensen wearing half of a Superman t-shirt. “What does the half-shirt say about your sexual exploration?”
“That one says ‘I’ll blow you for $50, but please don’t mess up my pompadour’,” Kim answers for him, stealing the other half of Jensen’s Twizzler right out of his hand and walking off-set with a wave.
“You know, I think that might actually have been the photographer’s motivation,” Jensen agrees, and grins as Jared’s starts laughing hysterically.
“What are you two assholes gonna do with all this time off?” Katie asks, licking the juice from her hamburger off her fingers. She points at Malik’s onion rings with an eyebrow wiggle, and he pushes the plate towards her.
Jared finds Katie hilarious, even if he does suspect she’s a little too big into the nose candy. Of course, being born into the Partridge family would probably fuck up most people, so.
“Sleep,” Jensen shrugs, finishing off his beer and gesturing towards their waitress for another one.
They’ve just finished shooting the last script they had written before the strike, and it had been a long arduous one. At least they had great guest stars like Katie and Malik shooting with them, so it was a good one to wind down with.
“They killed my ass off, so fuck all y’all,” Malik says cheerfully, clicking his beer bottle against Jared’s.
“I died like, a hundred times. Death is irrelevant,” Jensen points out, and they all nod in agreement.
Jared has to laugh when he thinks about it. “You guys have to admit that it’s kind of cool that we work on a show where we can say that honestly.”
“At least no one sings on this damn show,” Katie scoffs, rolling her eyes and stealing another onion ring.
“Yet. I’ve been bugging Kripke for a musical episode for two seasons. I want Sam to sing emo love songs to his brother,” Jared says, batting his eyelashes at Jensen.
“So more Jared Leto than Jared Padalecki,” Katie grins.
“With less eyeliner though,” Jared laughs.
“Although Jensen would look good in makeup,” Katie points out slyly.
“Because Jensen’s a pretty, pretty princess,” Jared insists, pitching his voice two octaves up and turning around in their booth to grab a snarling Jensen by the cheeks.
“C’mon, pretty princess, gimme a kiss,” Jared coos, as Jensen starts smacking him indiscriminately on the ear.
“You two are so gay, it hurts,” Katie snorts, and Jared can feels Jensen freeze.
Malik glances back and forth between Jared and Jensen with a shrewd look in his eyes that Jared can’t quite read. “C’mon, Katie, just because the man is prettier than you, doesn’t mean nothing.”
“You’re a dick,” Katie beams up at Malik, stealing his last onion ring, but her attention is off of them and Jared breathes a little easier when he feels Jensen relaxing next to him again.
Jared spends a lot of time with Sandy in her house in LA after they get back from Paris. It’s cozy and domestic, the dogs curling up at the end of the bed, having coffee together on the patio every morning, and holding each other every night.
Jensen’s in Australia with Danneel, doing a promotional tour, and they are just waiting out the strike until they can get back to Vancouver and start shooting again.
When Jared had left Vancouver, he had been struck by the thought that there was a chance this was the end of all of it. No one knew how long the strike would go, and how badly it would decimate the television landscape. Suddenly everything was uncertain, and he thinks that is the moment he decided to propose to Sandy. It made sense to put those roots down, to think about his future and the one thing that was comfortable and true. And that was Sandy, lovely, sweet, reliable Sandy, who was always there when Jared needed to have something to return to.
Whenever Jared gets scared.
He feels a little guilty when he gets the call that the strike has ended, because of the overwhelming relief he feels to pack his things and get on that plane taking him up north.
Coming back to Vancouver is even more awesome when they start filming one of Ben’s screwball episodes, complete with actual cussing (Jensen is so happy about that he might cry a little), and the return of AJ and Travis, who are always good for a prank war or two.
Jared feels like he can finally breathe again, as if he had been holding all the air in his lungs until the very moment when he can exhale it at two in the morning on a miserably cold Canadian Fraturday. Phil is directing, and Dustin, the exhausted guest star, is dancing around the set with a party hat on as everyone laughs and groans at the same time because they all wish they were asleep at the same time that they’re thankful they even have jobs again.
Jared drags Jensen out of the car when Clif pulls up at his house at quarter to three in the morning. Jensen’s almost passed out on Jared’s shoulder, so Jared half carries him up to the door and into the guest room.
It’s not weird at all that Jared wants Jensen there with him. After all, Jensen probably doesn’t even have any food in that apartment of his, and Saturday afternoon breakfasts are Jared’s specialty.
Jensen doesn’t even react to the fact that he ended up at Jared’s house late the next morning when he pulls himself out of bed and wanders into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. He’s wearing boxers and one of Jared’s sweatshirts and just one of his socks, his hair sticking up in every direction and pillow creases in his face.
They sit across from each other at bar stools at the little island in the kitchen. Jared passes Jensen a cup of coffee just the way he likes it and smiles as Jensen makes strange moaning noises at the taste of it.
“Bitch, make me pancakes,” Jensen croaks, after he finishes draining the cup.
Jared smiles wider.
Relief. That’s all it is.
Katie mocks them mercilessly during filming of the season finale, mainly over the fact that Jared and Jensen are going to both be shooting horror movies during hiatus.
“Two words for you: 'Black Christmas',” Jared says, tapping her forehead with his index finger.
She attempts to bite it and Jensen snorts from the corner of the set where he is chomping noisily on mini Toblerones.
“Are you sure you’re not playing Jason? I mean, you kind of have that Frankenstein walk going on for you,” Katie keeps on, pushing him back with both hands.
“Thems fightin’ words!” Jared drawls, blocking as she attempts to kick box him in the groin. He makes what he thinks in his head is an awesome Bruce Lee type kung-fu movie sound, as he picks her up and throws her over his shoulder.
“Sexual harassment! Help!” she shrieks, pounding on his back.
Jared feels a mini-Toblerone hit the back of his head and twirls Katie around in circles while ducking the chocolate attack from Jensen.
“I’m suing Warner Brothers!” she keeps on, but she’s laughing, so Jared keeps spinning.
The mood changes drastically the day they shoot Dean’s actual death scene. The day before they were acting stupid while filming promo spots for the CW, Jensen breaking into Jared’s interview to attack him with candy and grope his ass. Katie even got caught teaching poker to the little girl playing Lilith, much to the chagrin of the girl’s mother and the WB lawyer visiting the set.
But today is different, and Jared tries to figure out a way to channel that kind of grief. He asked Jensen how he did it when he was shooting the finale in season two, but Jensen seemed to clam up when Jared tried to push for details. Jared doesn’t know what to make of that, but he understands that everyone’s process for accessing that kind of emotion is a personal thing.
The show got an early renewal, so they know that they’re coming back and the threat of that loss is not over their heads. It should be a good thing, but at this moment Jared wishes he had that kind of uncertainty to pull from to help him play this scene.
He doesn’t end up needing it after all.
Jared holds Jensen in his arms, and it’s enough.
It’s weird driving home that night, but Clif doesn’t even blink when Jensen gets out at Jared’s house one more time. Jared heats up a pizza from the freezer, grabs two beers from the fridge, and joins Jensen on the couch. They don’t talk as they watch a special on sharks that Jared DVR’ed because he knew Jensen would like it.
Jared finds himself doing a lot of things because he knows Jensen will like it, and vice versa. He doesn’t think he’s ever been quite so attentive to his actual brother.
Jared chews the pizza and tries to focus on the sharks.
Austin is an amazing city, and Jared’s thrilled that he gets to film his movie there. Especially when he gets to mock Jensen for shooting in Pittsburgh, of all places.
The filming is brutal, though working on an action show like "Supernatural" has prepared him for the physicality of the role. He’s doing a Jason movie, so it’s not rocket science, but he tries his best to put his best foot forward. Jared’s not stupid, and he knows that this is his shot at the big time, the exposure of a major franchise right there for the taking. His manager Dan keeps telling him that if this movie hits at the box office, it could be the first step towards action hero success.
Jared thinks he wants that, can’t fathom a reason why he wouldn’t want it. But he thinks about it sometimes in the same way that he thinks about marrying Sandy-as something that is good for him and his future. As something that he should want, but isn’t always certain he does.
Jared realizes that he misses Jensen like a phantom limb, even though they talk nearly every day. Jensen will crank call him at all hours, even managing to get his co-star Kerr involved to taunt him about competing box offices. Jared insists that they must not be working very hard if they have time to call and harass him.
Then other times Jared will want to call Jensen. Want to call and tell him about his day, or something funny he read, or about how bone-tired he is. Jared knows he should be calling Sandy about things like that, and most of the time he does, because it’s what’s expected.
But he wants to call Jensen, and Jared doesn’t quite know how to deal with that.
Sandy comes to visit him in Austin and everything is great at first. He manages to get the full weekend off and they explore the city and eat like pigs and go dancing at a jazz club. Well, she dances and he kind of flails while she laughs at him.
The dancing brings things back around that night while they are in bed, cuddled up post-coital.
“Austin’s a great city,” she hums against his neck.
“Yeah, it’s awesome,” Jared agrees, eyes closing lazily.
“I could see us living here, you know. Maybe I could open up my studio, we could buy a house,” Sandy keeps going. “Together.”
“That’s a long way away, San.”
She pulls out of his arm just enough to prop her chin up on his chest. “Well, it’s our future, right? Maybe we should start thinking about it.”
Jared realizes then that he doesn’t want to think about the future anymore. He hasn’t even hit his twenty-sixth birthday yet. He wants a chance to enjoy the present before he has to change into the someone that will make sense in the future.
He’s pretty sure he makes the decision right then and there, but it takes him a couple of days to get up the courage to completely change their entire lives.
“Did I do something wrong?” Sandy asks him stiffly. She’s sitting on his couch trying to process the fact that he’s just told her he doesn’t think he can marry her.
“God, no, Sandy, you are perfect,” Jared says quickly, firmly. Because no matter what else happens, this is about Jared himself, about growing up and staying true to himself, and not just doing what other people expect him to do.
“I thought I was ready, I swear I did, and I wanted to make you happy so badly. But I just don’t think I can be what you need me to be.”
Sandy looks at him for a long time without saying anything. Jared wants to know what she’s thinking, or wants her to yell, or hit him, or just react.
“I would have waited for you, Jared. I did wait for you,” she says finally. She rubs her hand across her mouth, a nervous gesture that he always found endearing.
“I know you did,” Jared replies, and he does know it. Sandy’s always waiting on him, but Jared doesn’t think she should have to anymore.
She looks at him with big, dark eyes, eyes that are strangely dry. He thinks she might have known this was coming, even if neither of them wanted to admit it. “I want to hate you, Jared, but I love you, so I can’t. A part of me will always love you.”
He moves to touch her then, but she holds up her hand to keep him away.
“I’m gonna leave now, Jared,” she says quietly, standing up and smoothing invisible wrinkles out of her pants. “You make sure you listen to Jensen when he tells you to eat your greens.”
Jared has the decency to flinch as she walks out the door.
Jared is strangely relieved when Jensen cancels his appearance at the Dallas convention because he gets stuck filming. He figures he should announce to everyone that the wedding is off, to rip the band-aid off, so to speak, but having Jensen there when he does it feels a little too weighty.
Jensen must have told his parents about it, however, because the Ackles show up in the green room at the convention for moral support. Jensen’s mama smells like gardenias when Jared hugs her, and he convinces himself that the pinpricks behind his eyes are just allergies.
He finishes filming the movie, battered and bruised, and while he knows he should go back to Vancouver and rest up before filming starts, he can’t quite face seeing Jensen yet. Instead, he agrees to fly all the way to Sydney to attend a pop culture exposition.
He doesn’t talk to Jensen at all that week, and he realizes that’s the first time that has happened since they shot the pilot.
Whatever it’s supposed to accomplish, it doesn’t work, and when he touches down in Vancouver, the very first thing he does is call Jensen and invite him over for dinner the minute he gets in.
“I’m sorry about Sandy,” Jensen says, and it’s the first they’ve spoken about it since the original phone call where Jared broke the news.
The night up to that point had been the most comfortable, happy one that Jared’s had in ages. They grilled steaks and corn on the cob, and demolished a case of beer and half a cherry pie with vanilla ice cream.
Jared sees Jensen sitting on the couch, Sadie’s head balanced on his lap. It feels right, them like this, comfortable, together. It doesn’t have to mean anything-they’re buddies, brothers. It doesn’t have to mean anything at all.
“Move in here with me,” Jared blurts out, ignoring Jensen’s condolences.
Jensen goes stiff on the couch next to him, and then slowly starts petting Sadie’s head again, scratching right behind the ears in the way that he knows she likes.
Because Jensen does know all of this. He’s already in Jared’s life in almost every way a person could be without fucking being involved. And, really, fucking only gets a person in trouble anyway, who needs it?
“What?” Jensen asks, his voice low.
Jared looks around at his house, his home, the one that he thought would be filled with Sandy’s laughter and the patter of dogs and children. The house that is too big for him now.
“I’m lonely here, Jensen.”
He doesn’t mean to say it, but he does.
Jensen turns to look at him, processing something in his mind, and Jared wonders if he’s just managed to fuck up the best non-relationship relationship he’s ever had in his life.
“Okay,” Jensen says, and Jared lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.
